Fuzzy mathematics.

I don’t normally do a lot of furniture shopping, but the prospect of moving to an unfurnished space next week has compelled me to do some browsing. After bouncing among a few websites and physical storefronts I was struck by what seems (to me) to be a completely ridiculous industry practice: displaying vastly higher prices that I should “expect to pay” or “compare at.”

For example, one of the things I’m in the market for is a queen bed. According to this listing (chosen at random) on a local retailer’s website, this mattress that they sell for around $700 is apparently worth somewhere closer to $1400! There’s no indication of where I would expect to see this higher price and, in fact, all of my browsing leads me to believe that $700 is the average price for this product. So why the prevarication? Are some customers really credulous enough to look at that and think they’re getting a phenomenal deal?

At least in the case of this retailer, all it did was cause me to almost dismiss them as an option when my cursory glance revealed that they were (it appeared) way over priced.

I also dropped by Circuit City to make use of various Christmas gift cards. In an incredible stroke of luck I managed to pick up a pristine copy of Okami for less than $10 and, equally surprising, a copy of Puzzle Quest for only $20. Both of these are excellent titles that I’m somewhat ashamed to admit I haven’t yet partaken of, but getting such good deals on tough to find games makes me feel just a teensy bit better. There’s still some money left over on my gift cards that I’ll likely use to grab a wireless router for the new apartment – I’m leaning towards the tried-and-true Linksys WRT54GL, but if anyone has any other suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Finally, I couldn’t let this heart-wrenching trailer slide by without comment. I know, mentally, that this is hardly the first time Soul Calibur has included unlikely, non-canonical guest characters but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m witnessing the final gasps of this series.