Friday, February 2, 2007

If I had a hi-fi...


One website that I check almost daily is woot.com. It's basically a website with deals on things that have been discontinued, refurbished, etc. The catch is, they only offer 1 thing per day (i.e. one deal per day, until they're sold out). Today, it's a 5MP digital camera for $89, yesterday it was that ugly pink speaker you see pictured for $4 (plus $5 for shipping, which is a flat rate for all items sold on the website.) The best part about the site is the descriptions of the products, which are often hilarious, and extremely candid. Here's an example from a $30 car alarm that they were offering:

Antisocial Security

OK, any car thieves out there who are actually deterred by a car alarm, raise your hands. Nobody? That’s what we thought.

Alright, now, any private citizens who hear a car alarm and think “uh-oh, larceny in progress, better alert the authorities” instead of “I wonder what the guy who owns that car would look like with the alarm stuffed into his rectum”, raise your hands. Anybody? Anybody at all? No?

And yet, certain people keep manufacturing and selling car alarms, and certain other people keep buying them. Like the death march of the lemmings or the self-flagellation of religious penitents, this irrational phenomenon escapes our understanding. But that doesn’t mean we’re above making a quick buck off it.

So here’s the Boa Transformable Vehicle Security System, guaranteed to make you the least popular resident on your block. Its sensors can tell when somebody fiddles with the ignition, breaks a window, or breathes in its general direction. It’s ideal for driving your pesky neighbors away. And if you’re paying too much in property taxes, well, nothing lowers real estate values like an incessantly wailing piezo siren. Sure, it’s lightweight and easy to use. So is a plastic fork, but that doesn’t mean it’ll keep your car from getting stolen.

It's not somewhere you'd go if you know exactly what you want, if that's your case you're better off with Pricegrabber or Froogle. Woot is a lot more spontaneous, and exciting, though. In the past year or so, I've scored a wireless mouse/keyboard, a dvd player, and a set of speakers for my iPod.

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