Last week, friends from my last job came to visit in time for the Singapore IT show (March 8-11). Our strategy was to go on the first day, since it was a weekday and there would be less people there. Once there, we got all the flyers we can, visit all the booths, and scout for good deals. When we got home, we sorted through the flyers and compared the deals so we can come back on Sunday and go straight to what we wanted to buy.

I just wanted a printer. At first I was contemplating on buying a photoprinter that could print photo quality pictures but in the end I settled for the DCP-115C 3-in-1 (printer, scanner, copier) from Brother for just S$88.00 (it came with a free “trolley” – better known to me as strollers ). Pretty cheap for a 3-in-1. What I liked about it is that it has 4 individual ink cartridges (CMYK) vs other printers in the same price range that have only 1 cartridge for the colored ink. So if you run out of even just 1 color, you’ll have to replace the whole cartridge.

While waiting to meet up with our friends, Jor and I went to check out the Samsung booth. We have been eyeing the Samsung LA40S71B 32″ since we got here. Electronics in Singapore is very cheap compared to Manila. It was selling at Courts for S$1599 and comes with a free HT-Q9 home theatre system. While we were checking out the TV, Jorey salivating on it, me – trying to decide if our budget can still afford us a new TV, an instant promo was just starting. The higher model LA32R71B was now being sold at S$1599! And it also came with a HT-TQ22 home theatre system – a better model than the other one and much better looking too. In addition, they’re giving a 5-year warranty, S$100 worth of Hard Rock GCs (not that I dig Hard Rock – nowadays Hard Rock in Manila is for expats looking escorts – maybe Singapore is different, but whatever that’s still S$100 worth of food!), and Guy Laroche luggage and laptop bag (beats me what it has to do with the TV).

Then everything went slow motion, Jorey was pleading with me to agree to buy it. An angel version of me was telling me that it’s not part if our budget, our TV is still fine, and I shouldn’t give in to a good sales pitch. But the devil version of me was telling me to buy it. Imagine how much fun it would be to play Nintendo Wii with your new 32″ LCD TV. I ended up giving in to temptation. Now I have an extra TV at home that I don’t know what to do with since the landlord doesn’t want to take anymore stuff that we don’t want and yet we can’t dispose of them.

But generally, I’m happy with our loot. We went home and had fun testing out the 5.1 surround sound from the home theatre system.