essential luxuries

"eat first, die later"

seriously, whats the difference between a plate of chicken rice in orchard road, and a plate of chicken rice in your friendly neighbourhood coffee shop? the answer? the price. it doesnt matter how tasty and succulent the chicken meat is, or how soft the rice is. it can taste like dog poo, but no one's going to bat an eyelid when they hand over some 10-odd bucks for the plate of chicken rice if its in orchard road, and the store looks posh and fancy enough.

i guess i may be the only one alone in this train of thought, but i'd rather pay neighbourhood prices for my food. their cheap, usually tasty, and ultimately fill your stomach, fulfilling its intended purposes. spending inflated prices for the decor, ambience and what-not, to me, is just plain luxury. unless its a special occassion, you wont find me shelling out my money on fancy pansy food outlets.

and whats so special about 小笼包s? they cost 10bucks, and its only 1 mouthful. there's some sauce/soup inside, but that's all there is. its just a fricking small bite sized chicken bun filled with soup inside to me. i dont really get why people would want to spend 10bucks on 9small buns when a fist sized chicken bun costs less then 1buck. guess its the novelty factor and wallet size.

from all the above, one would probably deduce that i'm a stingy guy. yeah, so what. there are luxuries, and there are essentials in life. it just depends on how one would arrange them. to me, luxuries are spending obscene prices on essentials. especially when you're on a limited income, i really dont see why one should go and spend without forethought. or maybe its just everyone's sold on the TV idealogy nowadays, highlighted by Chuck Palahniuk.