THE DEEP AND PROFOUND THOUGHTS OF CITIZEN STUART, MANCHESTER BASED LIBERTARIAN, TARGET SHOOTER AND SPACE ENTHUSIAST. EVERYTHING I SAY ON THIS BLOG IS MY OPINION, AND NOT NECESSARILY THAT OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY.
Last week, my washer dryer announced its retirement by spilling a load of water on my feet when I opened the door after it was supposed to have finished drying the shirt I was going to wear for a job interview the following morning. I phoned a repairman up to look at the machine, and when he eventually came, he said the main circuit board had gone. This was trouble, because it wasn't a standard part, but one you had to get from the manufacturer. He said he might possibly have an old one in stock, and he'd let me know - otherwise it was likely to cost something like £100 to repair the machine, in which case it could well make better sense to buy a new one. That was basically the last I heard of him for a few days (when I phoned him, I kept getting his voicemail). In the meantime, I decided to have a look at prices for washer dryers. This Thursday just gone, I spent a couple of hours wandering round all the places in the area that sell washer dryers, and the news wasn't encouraging - the cheapest ones were getting towards £300, and I'm not at a point in my life where I can throw that kind of money around. But then I visited a place in Droylsden called Cut Price Appliances (they also advertise around the area under the name Hotpoint form some reason). I talked to the manager there, and asked him what the cheapest washer dryer they had in was. He said the cheapest one was £270. He could probably tell from the look on my face that it was a bit too rich for my blood, so he went into his office for a few minutes, did some research on the internet and came back to me with a revised offer - £207, which meant a saving of £63! That's for a new machine, with a one year manufacturer's warranty, delivery and installation, plus taking away the old machine, all in with the price. Brilliant! I told him I didn't have the money in my account yet, and could he hold the offer open till the next day, when the pay from the job I was doing last week should be in my account? No problem.
The next day, I checked my bank account and worked out my finances. I could cover it, although it would still be painful. Round about mid-day, I phoned up and confirmed my order. The guy came to deliver the machine about 3.30pm, the same day. He was in and out in about a quarter of an hour, very efficient. I don't think I could have got better customer service. I now have a working washer dryer and I saved £63!
This is why the free enterprise system works best - businessmen know that they have competition, so the Invisible Hand guides them to provide decent service for their customers. Can you imagine if all washer dryers were provided by some monolithic nationalised industry? You'd probably have to wait months for an overpriced, sub-standard product - and there'd be no room for haggling. Long live capitalism!
I promised myself (and everyone else) a while back that I would buy a gun a year until the pistol ban is lifted. My target this year is to buy one of these:
Specifically a .44 Pietta Remington 1858 New Model Army muzzle-loading revolver with target sights - £166 from Henry Krank's.
Tiny problem - no bread. Not only am in debt up to my eyeballs, but I've been in and out of work like a yo-yo lately. Although I think I'm fairly sound on the theoretical side of capitalism, I'm not much good at its practise. So I can't just go out and buy a Remington 58, I need to save up. I started by putting any copper (1p and 2p pieces) I get in change in a couple of empty coffee jars. That's not a bad way to start, it's a fairly painless way of saving, but it's slow. I've probably saved up about a fiver that way, so I need to earn a bit of extra money to put aside. I started out by trying a couple of online survey sites - they look promising, but they can be a bit erratic - I earned about £3 or £4 on Lightspeed in my first week, but nothing since then, and it's been a couple of weeks.
Then I found out about a financial advice site called moneymagpie.com, which has some interesting ideas - one of which was to earn money by registering and posting at a social networking site called MyLot . This looked a bit more interesting than taking endless surveys, so I had a look at it. It seems fairly straightforward, you get paid for responding to discussions and starting new ones. Only on the order of an American cent per post or something like that (payable through PayPal), but it's not bad for doing something I enjoy doing anyway (sounding off on the internet and arguing with people). I know I won't get rich, but apparently a lot of people find it feasible to earn $10 or more a month - if I can just do that, it'll go a long way towards paying for my next gun. It seems that the way to maximise profits on MyLot is to post good quality responses to discussions, and also start discussions that other people will find interesting enough to reply to. Another way to make money is through referrals - so if someone registers through a referral link that you've provided, you get a percentage (I think it's 25%) of anything they earn on MyLot. So a small pile of breadcrumbs becomes a slightly larger pile of breadcrumbs, which you can then save up for something nice (or in my case, noisy). I've only been on MyLot for about a week, my activity's been erratic, and therefore so have my earnings, but it's a bit of extra money for hardly any effort.
Charlton Heston, actor and freedom advocate, died prematurely yesterday at the age of 84.
As well as starring in a crate load of great movies, including Planet of the Apes, El Cid, Soylent Green and Ben Hur, Mr Heston was politically active for most of his career, being a supporter of the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, President of the Screen Actors' Guild and later President of the National Rifle Association. Some people are deluded enough to think these positions were contradictory, but to me they show a consistent pattern of supporting the individual against the Establishment.
Mr Heston withdrew from political activity a few years ago, when he was diagnosed as having symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's Disease. It's unknown at this time whether his death was connected with this, as his family have not released any details.
Whatever it was that got him in the end, I hope his passing was easy. Charlton Heston entertained millions in his career, appearing in some first rate movies. He also knew how to make an exit, and I thought it would be appropriate to finish this post with the end of El Cid - possibly his best on-screen "exit" ever:
Sad news on TV this morning. Arthur C Clarke, science writer (both fiction and fact), futurist, idealist, founder member of the British Interplanetary Society and originator of the idea of placing communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit (in a paper published in 1945) has died aged 90, of respiratory failure following a long period of decline.
Like a lot of people with an interest in space travel and science fiction, I grew up with Clarke as a regular part of my literary diet - I think I was about 9 or 10 when my brother took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey at the cinema. I was halfway through the book at the time, and didn't understand the film's ending till I finished the novel. Clarke's writings were always marked by a great optimism about human potential and our future in the universe. It's a pity he never made it into space himself, but he lived to see the beginnings of the Space Age and he died knowing that the best is yet to come.
I think it's appropriate to end this entry with a video recorded by the man himself on the occasion of his 90th birthday late last year - a kind of "farewell address".
It's long overdue, but I've finally updated my links. A couple of addresses for existing links needed updating, and I've also added a few new ones, mostly libertarian or at least liberalish blogs. I suggest you have a look at some of them, they're all good, and some of them write even better than me!
Happy New Year to both my readers. May all friends of freedom enjoy good health and prosperity (but watch out for the recession that's coming) and may all enemies of freedom catch nasty skin diseases.
My personal resolutions:
1) Earn more money in 2008 than I did in 2007 (not difficult).
2) Increase the regular readership of this blog to half a dozen.
3) Get a bit more exercise - maybe take up martial arts again.
4) Buy a new gun, probably a Remington New Model Army (to replace the unreliable piece of junk I used to have).
5) Have a nice holiday, preferably in a country where I can do a bit of pistol shooting.
6) Replace my current car with something less decrepit.
7) In support of Resolutions 4, 5 & 6, put a special effort into Resolution 1.
Well there's a few different things I could have blogged about over the holiday - If 20Six hadn't crashed on Christmas morning, just as I was about to launch into a good old anti-Christmas rant. I don't know what the problem is, but they've only just come back on line. This is a company that really knows how to lose customers. One more incident of this magnitude and I'll probably find a new host - it only takes a few minutes to set up a Blogger account, the internet being the last bastion of the free market. Are you reading this, 20Six?
Apologies to both my readers, but at least I'm back now, and normal service will be resumed shortly.
