Ok, so Saturday night I was looking at prices online for the computer speakers I want to upgrade to, the Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 set. I found them for as low as $200 (list price is $400), but most places wouldn't ship them overseas. The one place that
was willing to ship them overseas was charging almost $400 just for the shipping, bringing the total cost to $600. Not fun.
However, since I have no plans to fly to the USA anytime soon, and since there's no way I'm gonna ask anyone to bring me back a 60kg package, I figured I didn't have all that much of a choice. Before I ordered, though, I checked out the prices for the speakers on some Israeli online computer stores. I found it on one of them for as low as 2,800 NIS ( / ~4.5 = $622 USD, including 17% VAT here). So I figured I'd much rather get them from a local store, so I wouldn't have the problem of having to use a transformer for the electricity, wouldn't have a problem with the warranty, etc.
Alongside the speakers, I also had been looking at one of Creative's new X-Fi line of sound cards. After reading a bunch, I decided on the X-Fi Platinum (3rd place in price/features out of 4), which retails for ~$180. Again, same story, where most stores weren't willing to ship overseas, and the ones that did cost too much. So I found the X-Fi Platinum at an Israeli store for around 1,500 NIS (/ 4.5 = $333 USD, including 17% VAT).
The one thing the Israeli store didn't make very clear was how much cost was added when paying in installments, so in the confusion..... I discovered that my order had gone through.
Over 4,300 NIS (including a whole door-to-door shipping cost of 40 NIS... about $9 USD
). Turns out that dividing the payments into 6 monthly installments bumped up the price to just over 4,500 NIS (%5 increase, fairly reasonable, I guess).
Anyway, so that was my weekend. I semi-accidentally ordered something pretty darn expensive. Cool, but expensive.
Fast forward to Tuesday.... Watching a movie on my PC with my old (ancient, actually) Logitech SoundMan SR70s when suddenly the subwoofer starts to act up... emitting loud clicks whenever it should be booming.
I took the thing apart, put it back together, and nothing. Still clicking instead of booming.
Then I realize... 4-5 years I'd been using those speakers, and they finally give up the ghost the very week I (accidentally!) order a new set of speakers.
Sweet!
