Pat’s Point of View

It must be tough to be rich; struggling to think of new ways to spend money. That’s why you see stuff like diamond-crusted mobile phones (and if you think that’s blingin’ crazy, how about $45,000 for a mobile phone?).

Last weekend I was looking around at power boards with a built-in surge protector (to combat our evil clothes dryer that causes a massive jolt to run through the entire electrical system of our flat). Your usual department store variety goes for about twenty odd dollars, for 4-5 sockets. But then I decided to take a look at the professionals’ choice at the local home theatre store; $280, truly the Rolls Royce of power boards! For the record it did have not only surge protection but filtration to ‘fix’ your incoming supply.

Another example? A US$1400 RCA cable. Yes that’s one thousand four hundred dollars for a cable. Even walking into your local HiFi store will present you with cables, brands like Monster, for well over $200 Australian. C’mon, for an audio cable? Their customers must be looking for excuses to spend money.

Whilst living in London I ventured into Harrod’s to look at engagement rings—my plan rapidly changed, about as fast as I turned around and walked out. But whilst in the jewellery department I saw a diamond ring for about £375,000. OMG! And since it was on public display for all the riff-raff like me to see, I’m sure it was at the low end of their range.

I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of expensive things for those who need to blow some cash, or are just too stupid to know better. It’s kinda like the mad rush you see happening around this time of year, as people try to write off as much tax as possible, by buying stuff to claim back. We’ve all heard of the friend of a friend who knows a guy who can write receipts labelled “business laptop” instead of “Xbox 360″ :)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Ramblings. If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to leave a comment or follow @patrickkennedy on Twitter.

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About the author

Patrick Kennedy is a user experience strategist and design researcher based in Sydney Australia. He leads research activities that improve the user experience of cross-channel products and services; helping both designers and business decision makers in bringing those products and services to fruition. Read more.