Computer Swap Meet

On Sunday, my friend Kin and I went to the Computer Swap Meet in Malvern. Usually I wait till it is in Springvale but I had nothing to do so I thought I might as well go. It turned out that I probably should have waited and saved my $3 entry fee.

We had lunch first at the Malvern Subway "restaurant", watching all the expensive cars whiz by in Malvern. The service at this Subway was terrible by the way. The kid behind the counter sure took his time to make the sandwich. But I would do the same too, seeing how there were absolutely no other customers and he has to try and stretch out his work. As an aside, apparently, Subway restaurants now outnumber McDonalds restaurants. The supposed “healthy” aspect of Subway has gained popularity over the greasy burgers at Maccas. I only go to Subway because there’s more choice rather than for the health aspect. The footlong chicken fillet roll I had with Southwest and honey mustard sauce with cheese on the parmesan oregano bread has about 44 grams of fat according to my rough calculations from their nutritional sheet. (I can’t be bothered getting out the calculator and doing the exact maths). Those Subway ads that claim only 6 grams of fat in their rolls are for 6 inch rolls with lean meats and no sauces or cheese. Tell me, who eats their Subway rolls like that?

Well back to the main topic, above is a picture of the swap meet inside the Malvern town hall. Upon paying my entry fee and entering the foyer, I looked at some of the blank media on display. I asked the guy how much the spindle of TDK 50 pack cds was. He said they were $17 and how many would I like. I told him I’ll come back. The biggest mistake to make when purchasing things from the swap meet is to buy from the first or last stall. At the first stall, because the price is already cheaper than from a normal computer stall, you think, ok its already cheap so I’ll buy it. But you haven’t been able to compare prices with other stalls inside yet. At the last stall, after wandering around for about 2 hours, sometimes you go, oh stuff it, I’ll just buy it from here for a couple bucks more rather than pushing all the way back inside to buy it a little bit cheaper.

As it turns out, I bought the cds for only $15 from another vendor inside and also got a free cd marking pen. I also bought a 100 cd storage case. However, my main aim of buying PC speakers were not fulfilled. I managed to see the last pair of speakers I wanted (Logitech x530) being purchased by a guy right in front of me. So with no speakers in hand but some blank cds, I made my way out and home. Now I will have to go to the Springvale swap meet to buy the speakers. I still recouped my entry fee of $3 since the cds were $7 cheaper than from the store I was going to buy from and the cd storage box was $10 cheaper. All in all, not too bad. However I won’t be going back to the Malvern swap meet again. Hardly any stores and hard to get a parking as well.