Moomba – The Ultimate Rip Off [ASH]

Hello world! And welcome back to another episode of .. whatever this is.

And fellow FirstYear bloggers, you guys are insane (in a good way) – my last entry has already been pushed to “Previous Entries” – oh to dwell in the past.

So its me again, your Pokemon friend, (lyrical miracle. coz’ it rhymes) and I’m trying to keep up with:

a) The efficient updates of each blogger on this site =P (we’re all dying for front page aren’t we guys)
b) With the homework that I suddenly discovered I have. It pays to listen to lectures guys, or at least check the LMS – because I’ve had no clue about this homework until.. today. Thank God I’ve got a day off this Labour Day.

Onwards, to bitch a little about “Australia’s largest free community festival, Moomba Waterfest”. Which apparently “represents a fantastic opportunity for all of us to recognise and celebrate the strength and unity of our community.”

(http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/Whatson/moomba/Pages/Moomba.aspx, City Of Melbourne representative, 2009) 

check it out, I’m citating. Probably incorrectly too. Transition to Commerce lecture here I come.

In a nutshell, I’d like to send out a dire warning to any would-be Moomba-ers (despite the festival ending .. Monday i.e. today), to eat before hand, bring a casual drink, and the mindset that “I will only spend my money on rides”. 

What they don’t tell you on the That’s Melbourne! website is that Moomba, like the Royal Melbourne Show, will rip you off if you try to play any of the games, sure you see people with big toys walking away. But how many people do you see NOT walking off with big toys? 

Take this example. I have a friend who is a little short, and only just made it above the 140cm height requirement for the rides, and is of Malaysian decent (nothing against Malaysians. Just mentioning it because of my Singaporean descent. And the ongoing play feud between Malaysians and Singaporeans. Singapore is better. And don’t bother about the bubblegum argument, it doesn’t have any effect). She paid $10.00 AUD, for 5 huge basketballs, to shoot at a ring no more than a metre away, with a diameter of about 2 metres.

She got all of them in (surprisingly) and won … not one of those huge orange Neopets Scorchio toys (yeah, kinda sad that I knew which Neopet it was.), but, a purple tiger toy no bigger than her hand. 

The “amazing deal” that the guy offered us (after he had stolen our money, and given us this piece of crap toy) was that we could pay ANOTHER 10 bucks, and play again, and IF we won, we could trade it in for a bigger toy!

And there were 3 sizes of toys. So to get the ‘big’ ones, we’d end up playing 30 bucks. And there was no guarantee because the guy would probably smack the balls away.

$30.00 AUD for a soft toy that was probably made in China, and cost maybe 10c to make (due to the horrible lack of minimum wage)? These guys are making like a 3000% profit.

She’s gonna kill me for mentioning her height. Might I also add despite her minute size, she’s incredibly vicious and violent, having my under-eye poked with the force of a bull, forced my already small left eye to close up a little more. 

She was aiming for my chin. Yep coz my chin is close to my eye. Thanks.

Beware of Moomba! The rides are pretty fun though (but I’m not really sure if they’re worth 10 bucks a pop.)

kthxbye
 

ASH!

comments welcome.