Cheap Chinese stuff

On Sunday, we went to Glenfield Mall to buy a few things and have a coffee and chat. Under the escalators from Lvl4 to Lvl3 is a small kiosk selling mugs and some other bits and pieces for a few dollars each. To be honest, I've never actually seen anyone buy anything there in over a year. We buy our coffee at Michelle's (the Korean place) next door. Great coffee.

For reasons, I can't explain, I was fascinated by a fountain with two stylised human figures with a whirling glass ball between them refracting the coloured light of several LEDs behind. I bought the thing for $56, knowing very well it was worth maybe $15 by any rational measure. Maybe I felt sorry for the person on the kiosk, sitting there month after month and not selling anything. Probably not, but that's as close as I can come to anything resembling an explanation.

Having got the article home, the plastic cup came unglued immediately from the rim of the socket holding it where the glass ball was to go. No problem. I grabbed a tube of UHU glue and secured it forever.

The next hurdle was that the power plug isn't one made for New Zealand. It has two narrow, cylindrical "prongs". No problem, today I went to a shop and bought an adaptor that would let me plug it into a the typical twin slant-pinned Kiwi power socket.

I got it up and running and for just under an hour, it was glorious! Then the LEDs failed and it went dark. Now it's just a wet glass ball spitting on a grey thing.

Let me share with you 40 cell phone video seconds of the glory that was my cheap, nasty piece of expensive Chinese shit bought at Glenfield Mall. It's both a metaphor and a parable for our times.

(Accompanied by my unwitting daughter channeling the Beatles via her iPod).