Meet my Daemon

Cab Prices

I got an sms from Jonathan the other day, he had first dips on the Comfort Cab raising prices thing. Yes it was shocking, and my immediate reaction (to quote from a reader on Mr Brown) was "And if you have voted the people who have increased the prices of everything - you don't have a say, just shutup and pay...".

Cab fees are ridiculous now.

So if you call for a cab from the city, at 8pm on a Friday night, you are going to pay $10.30 even before the cab moves off ($3 City Area surcharge, $2.80 flag down, $3.50 call charge, $1 or 35% of metered fare for Peak Period surcharge).
- from the Mr Brown article

Peak hour transport is a necessity, and this whole price-raising is just pure exploitation of the consumer. People ask why there are no cabs where they are needed, so Comfort (CDG) raises the surcharge in order to entice cabbies to go to town. Does that stop them from indicating "On-Call" even though they are in town? The problem still exists! It's a roundabout way of saying - we just wanna charge you more cos there's nothing you can do about it.

A post entitled "83% Hike in Taxi Fares not Comforting at all" from theonlinecitizen pointed out that the local taxi industry is NOT a competitive market but a cartel, an oligoply, with the main supplier being CDG of course. So we have more cab companies now. Big deal. When CDG raises prices, the others follow suit, encouraged by the Taxi Operators' Association (quoted from said post) who say CDG's move is "fair and timely". They're all just riding the taxi boom, not providing an alternative for choice.

So what now?

Stop taking cabs. We HAVE a say. We don't NEED to pay those fees. And we're not going to get hauled away under ISA for that.
Do it!

Links:
- Mr Brown: Complain about taxi somemore?
- 83% Hike in Taxi Fare not Comforting at all

Zoids Assembly Line Activated!

So now that Shermy has completed her undergraduate obligations as a student, she has much time on her hands. Part of what she does in her day now includes sleeping in till 1030am, playing games (from CoH to Zoids Legacy), and baking. As she foresees a steady income in future months ahead, she has commenced with one of her other passions - Zoids..
Mark brought us to the toy fair at China Square Central on Sunday, and Shermy was lucky to spot one particular stall selling Zoids, and at marked down prices too (apparently he's clearing stock and not planning to bring anymore of those in). She got some bargains from there and has been happily preparing their manufacture. She also bought a Lanstag at just $10 from Robinsons the other day.
Pictures follow:



The completed Lanstag (which incidentally is japgrish for "Lance Stag"):


Watch this space for more updates on completed models!

McFarlane Dragons

I've long been an admirer of dragons - european style ones, not the oriental ones - and when McFarlane toys came up with their first Dragons series, I badly wanted to get my hands on those. Some time back, Sherm and I almost purchased the entire Series 1 set for over $100. At that time I thought it was already expensive, but looking at recent prices (due to the rarity of Series 1), it was definitely worth it then.

This week when we went to the toy bazaar at CSC, we saw another series (albeit a more recent one - Series 6) that we each liked two of, so decided to purchase the set. Later we found we paid $12 more than the retail (since it was still somewhat new and SpawnAsia still had stock at the retail prices) in total.. But prices aside, the detail and artwork just makes it easy to overlook the mispricing. I finally have my dragon collection, and will look forward to when I can display them. =)



Link:
Click here to see a really great-looking review for the Series 1 Dragons