The Joy of Consumerism

I went out and bought a Lovegirl today. You know, I used to pride myself on being the sort of person who would never buy that sort of thing, but the truth is I really wanted one and it was just intellectual snobbery that held me back. I bought her in Big W and the nice young man there popped her into a trolley and I wheelled her out through the shopping centre. When I got to the parking lot I had a bit of a problem. You see, my car is very small and I wasn't able to get my Lovegirl's box into either the boot or the back seat. I was reduced to taking her out of the box in the car park and sitting her in the back seat. It was extremely embarrassing, as I had to park in a handicapped space to do it.

My Lovegirl's main measurement is 51cm, which probably wouldn't be considered much by American standards, but I'm quite happy with it. I think that more than an eyefull is a waste.

I suppose most people wouldn't realise that the electronics brand Aiko literally translates into Lovegirl, but I think it's a lovely name for a television set.

I spent quite an amount of time considering the quality of the image. At first I wasn't terribly impressed. When I looked closely the picture on the screen it seemed to be make up of tiny little squares, unlike objects that weren't on TV such as the salesperson, unless of course her pixels were so small they were beyound the resolution of my eyes. I also stood in front of the display TV and closed my eyes to test if it had any backup systems for transmitting visual images directly into my cortex in case my eyeballs happened to fall out, but it apparently lacked even rudimentary telepathic ability. I finally decided that its image quality would do when I compared it to vastly more expensive TVs and could see no discernable difference.

I paid $168 dollars for her, which seemed reasonable. There was also another 51cm TV for $138 but there was a waiting list for that one so I didn't get it. It is interesting to consider that the median Australian worker earns over $30,000 per year and so could buy a TV for for less than one day's pay. This is quite a change from say thirty years ago when I guess that a similar sized TV with less features might have cost a month's pay.