My plans for this weekend were quite simple – sit on the
couch, well more like the leather chair since I do not have a couch yet (long
story) and watch some movies that I would rent, have a glass or two of bubbly
and some nibbles and just unwind from a stressful month.
I would have to rent them because:
1.
Streaming movies from Amazon is blocked for
someone living in Australia
2.
Netflix does not work here unless you go through
an Xbox system PLUS based on my past experience with Netflix they do not have
current releases for online viewing just via mail
So it was going to be a rental.
As I have done since I discovered the Internet I got online
and searched for Video Rental in Perth and was excited to see quite a few
results until I started filtering them out and realized they were all in the
suburbs. The closest one required a bus ride then a ferry ride to get there – a
situation that is just ripe for me paying a fortune in late fees.
So I decided to ask the locals starting with the ones I knew
and no one had any idea! Finally I wandered into a game store and asked the
guys there and they confirmed my suspicions – there are no rental places in the
city proper where I live. They are all in the outer suburbs and vehicular
transportation is required to get there.
I did the math – the average DVD rental is about 2 days,
stores close at 5:00pm Mon-Thurs, I work till around 6:00pm, most busses stop
running by 7:00pm, I worked in a different suburb than the one I lived in and
than the ones the movie rental places where in, this meant that if I rented a
movie on Saturday; I would have to make the return trip on Sunday to return it
OR the earliest day I could return it would be Friday. Again! A perfect
situation for late fees – might as well just buy a movie in that case. But I hardly
buy movies because once I watch it I rarely ever go back to it.
I hate subscription type things for anything other than
magazines but I might cave in and try Quickflix – the Australian Netflix
counterpart/equivalent.
I never used to get my friends who moved from NYC to SF who
complained about not being able to get a pizza at 3am. I mean seriously what
are you doing up and craving pizza at that hour I used to think. But I get it
now – life is made better and happier by conveniences. And when you know the
way things could be or should be and they are not it drives you crazy. At least
in SF if you really wanted pizza at 3am you could trot off to the 24hr Safeway
pick one up and take it home. Perth? Better have that pizza in the fridge
already
This is no “Adjustment Bureau” or “Inception” there are no
doors or spinning tops to get me out of this one - this is simply my new reality
in a city that is not very convenient to live in or as the kids would say “Just
ain’t ready yet”
