Samuel's Blog

I had to pay $2 for something which is free?

Isn’t this just fantastic, CIT spend a week bombarding television advertising space (and possibly FM radio advertising space, but I wouldn’t know about that) with a message about CIT direct enrolment information being available in the Saturday 21 January edition of the Canberra Times.

This was important to me as I needed this information about times and dates for enrolment, so on Saturday I rearranged my busy morning schedule so that I could go down to the newsagent (which was closed, ended up going to the supermarket) to buy the Saturday Canberra Times. To my horror I discovered that I had to pay $2 for this overabundance of classifieds and commentary on the social goings-ons of groups that don’t interest me (coupled with the occasional news story). Considering that Sydney’s Sunday newspapers cost about the same price here in Canberra as the Saturday Canberra Times, I would consider the Saturday Canberra Times a ripoff.

I wouldn’t have minded paying this fee and rearranging my schedule if this was the only way to get the information, as the CIT seemed to imply in their advertisements. However, today as I look at the CIT website, what do I find but a freely downloadable 1.1 MB PDF version of the miniscule direct enrolment guidebook.

Was it really too hard for the CIT to say “Check this Saturday’s Canberra Times or see our website”? Considering that many students work on weekends, surely this would have made life easier for a vast majority of those who are seeking enrolment in CIT courses.

I do hope the Canberra Times gave CIT a percentage of the sales revenue for this, as the number of papers sold would surely have been above average thanks to CIT’s advertising…who knows, maybe this theoretical payment helped cover the cost of the advertising…or did I just unwittingly donate $2 to Rural Press? If so, can I claim that back on tax? No!…Hmmm, funny that…

Samuel

9 comments January 23rd, 2006 at 02:32pm

Samuel’s Musician Of The Week

This week the award goes to Johnny Horton, and the feature song is “Sink The Bismarck”.

In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun,
The Germans had the biggest ship,
They had the biggest guns.
The Bismarck was the fastest ship,
That ever sailed the seas,
On her deck were guns as big as steers,
And shells as big as trees.
Out of the cold and foggy night,
Came the British ship the Hood.
And ev’ry British seaman he knew and understood,
They had to sink the Bismarck, the terror of the sea.
Stop those guns as big as steers,
And those shells as big as trees.

We’ll find that German battleship,
That’s makin’ such a fuss.
We gotta sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
They hit the decks a-runnin’ boys,
And spin those guns around.
When we find the Bismarck we gotta cut her down.

The Hood found the Bismarck and on that fatal day.
The Bismarck started firin’ fifteen miles away.
We gotta sink the Bismarck was the battle sound.
But when the smoke had cleared away,
The mighty Hood went down.
For six long days and weary nights,
They tried to find her trail.
Churchill told the people put ev’ry ship a-sail,
‘Cause somewhere on that ocean,
I know she’s gotta be.
We gotta sink the Bismarck to the bottom of the sea.

We’ll find that German battleship,
That’s makin’ such a fuss.
We gotta sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
They hit the decks a-runnin’ boys,
And spin those guns around.
When we find the Bismarck we gotta cut her down.

The fog was gone the seventh day,
And they saw the mornin’ sun.
Ten hours away from homeland,
The Bismark made its run.
The Admiral of the British fleet said,
Turn those bows around.
We found that German battleship,
And we’re gonna cut her down.

The British guns were aimed,
And the shells were comin’ fast.
The first shell hit the Bismarck,
They knew she couldn’t last.
That mighty German battleship is just a memory.
Sink the Bismarck was the battle cry,
That shook the seven seas.

We found that German battleship,
Was makin’ such a fuss.
We had to sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
We hit the deck a-runnin’ and,
We spun those guns around.
We found the mighty Bismarck,
And then we cut her down.

We found that German battleship,
Was makin’ such a fuss.
We had to sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
We hit the deck a-runnin’ and,
We spun those guns around.
We found the mighty Bismarck,
And then we cut her down.

Samuel

1 comment January 23rd, 2006 at 12:47am