Things that are just bafflingly expensive

But in fairness they were some kind of "designer" frames.

you're in australia right? send me your prescription, I'll get a pair made for you :P

in the US, you can go to places like 39dollarglasses.com

Yeah ppl tell me I should get glasses online or something. Its a thought - but how do you try them on and whatnot, I fuss around forEVER before I can bring myself to settle on a pair to buy :/ And then I went and lost my last (also $500+) pair by getting drunk and falling flat on my face in the dark and rain one night lol don't ask.

Saffron is kind of unbafflingly expensive to me, based on how much you get per some ridiculous amount of flowers.

This thing, on the other hand, is basically a fifty dollar piece of cardboard: http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-Color-Separation-Guide-Scale/dp/B00009R7GB/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1268370571&sr=8-2.

THIS thing, I mean: http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-Color-Separation-Guide-Scale/dp/B00009R7GB/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1268370571&sr=8-2

Soundmen. The kind that "operate" a mixing board.

yeah, it's rough when they're making way more than anyone in the band and doing a shitty job, but it's also a pretty thankless gig. if you do a good job, you usually don't get props, but everyone hates you if the sound is bad. and i would hate to have to show up early, deal with bands, and be the last one to leave. it's like all the worst parts of being in a band without getting to play any music.

Well it should be a thankless gig 'cause it's really so goddamn simple. Just don't mess it up, that's all you have to do. You are not doing anything creative. You are not doing anything that requires pre-planning or special expertise. You don't have to rehearse. Any idiot off the street could be taught how to do a soundman's job in under 30 minutes. Anyway, it's not "thankless" if you're getting guaranteed more money than the band could possibly be getting. The worst part of being in a band is lugging your equipment everywhere, and that's something a soundman never has to worry about. And what does "getting to play music" mean anyway? You don't just get to play music. You play it because you work at it and presumably are good at it. If you want to "get to play music" pick up an instrument and good luck to you...

yes to glasses! if you need reading glasses you can get them for like £3 from any chemist or department store, you can try a whole bunch of different prescriptions out in the shop instead of spending another £20 on an eye test too, but you want distance glasses? you have to get tested and spend £200 for a pair

maybe distance glasses are 60x more complicated than reading glasses, or maybe somebody worked out that us shortsighted mugs who are missing buses and walking into traffic and have to wear glasses to be allowed to drive would pay 60x more than people who just don't want to read large-print books

You can def pay less than £200 (get eye test, fill it online), but yeah world of opticians seems to be all set up so that a default or convenient behaviour (go to shop, buy thing) will end up with you paying that kind of money.

But I get the impression that short-sightedness is more complicated or dangerous (cars, driving and coming at you) than long-sightedness, so it's harder & more important to get right.

the tests and the lenses are the cheap part, it's the frames that are so fucking expensive. and yes, if you can get reading glasses for £3 i'm not clear why other frames are like a minimum of £80.

Well it should be a thankless gig 'cause it's really so goddamn simple. Just don't mess it up, that's all you have to do. You are not doing anything creative. You are not doing anything that requires pre-planning or special expertise. You don't have to rehearse. Any idiot off the street could be taught how to do a soundman's job in under 30 minutes. Anyway, it's not "thankless" if you're getting guaranteed more money than the band could possibly be getting. The worst part of being in a band is lugging your equipment everywhere, and that's something a soundman never has to worry about. And what does "getting to play music" mean anyway? You don't just get to play music. You play it because you work at it and presumably are good at it. If you want to "get to play music" pick up an instrument and good luck to you...

― Josefa, Friday, 12 March 2010 07:23 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is either the stupidest thing I've ever read on ILX or a really bafflingly unsuccessful attempt at a joke post

xp

The online places do seem to be seriously undercutting frame prices (but yes still like 10-20 x reading-glasses-price). I dipped my toe in last time I got a pair, but iirc found they were charging heavily on short-sighted lenses (I've got a fairly rough prescription) & didn't commit.

But frame prices in general are just... yes, baffling. A 'guess the frame price' img thread would surely cause confusion, outrage.

i get mine from a vintage dude that sells beautiful fromes from the 1910s-1980s. they're cheaper than new frames from 2010.

my last pair of glasses were £10 from tesco

that was for frames, lenses and eye test

Yeah I'm like isanely short sighted plus an astigmatism, basically can't function without glasses on, I don't mess around with cheap glasses.

My last hernia operation was at Tesco. £30 flat for the diagnosis, anesthesia, operation - the works

tbf cozen's glasses are awesome, from what I remember of the wdyll thread

nah they're boggin but c'mon £10

Yeah I'm like isanely short sighted plus an astigmatism, basically can't function without glasses on,

Who told you this? An optician? THEY'RE ALL IN ON IT.

yup they peddle that 'not all frames are strong enough to take prescription lenses' line too

Really I am the same, and get a bit nervous if glasses are too cheap. Also like '2 pairs for 1' deals so I have a pair of glasses to help me find my glasses.

uhmm are you guys getting lenses made from diamond? plastic lenses are really light

mine are lead crystal

uhmm are you guys getting lenses made from diamond? plastic lenses are really light

I've only heard a variation on the not-strong-enough line a long while ago when they refused to put new lenses in my old NHS frames because it would somehow destroy them. Usually they just nudge/push/force bad-eye people towards thin or ultra-thin lenses, which aren't so cheap.

glassesdirect.co.uk << these guys are great.

glassesdirect.co.uk

Was going to mention them but have spent a week at work having to look at a a magazine with the founder's face on it & he has a punchable face.

http://www.moneytrendslatest.com/wp-content/JamieMurrayWells.jpg

The soundman thing was kind of a joke, you're right. I started out talking about the very basic kind of sound job that is not that big a deal, but then I slipped into a drunken "character" and the post doesn't make much sense. Not to be taken seriously, sorry.

Reading this now, will report back later.

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster

I just dropped $350 US on new glasses, too - and that's after the discounts from my pretty good vision plan. The one pair would have been at least $600 US otherwise. Buying glasses is like buying a car. You've got the frames, the lenses, the extra charge for having a strong prescription or bi- or tri-focals, then the coatings and the polishings... It's all the little charges that they pile up that makes it so expensive. I did get fancy pants frames, so that added about $100 to the total, but still.

I've purchased glasses on line with great success (zennioptical.com), but I don't know. I really wanted a nice pair and I've got healthcare savings account funds to burn up so I went for it.

Oh and this eye doc even charges an extra $11 for the visual field acuity test, which is really annoying! Why isn't it part of the regular exam??? Glaucoma and attendant vision loss runs in my immediate family, too, so I can't really skip it.

dude what?? Jenny that seems totally exorbitant.. My vintage guy sold me a pair of ca. 1910 wire frames with coated lenses for £90 all in.

Oh I see you got an eye exam too? Did not know about an extra charge for strong prescriptions.. the same vintage guy (that I may be secretly in love with) also sold me some wraparound sunglasses made in Paris in 1975 and actually put wraparound prescription lenses in them, matching the original color of the plastic. It is pretty funky wearing prescription wraparounds, let me tell you. As I left the shop he was like "be careful the first couple of days you wear them" and I turned my head and was like "what?" and tripped over the doorway.

Oh but anyway yeah no extra charge for the wraparound/colored lenses. I just think these things can be done relatively inexpensively, they just aren't most of the time.

vanilla pods used to be this but i can get them in lidl now for 75c- last year it was €3.50 in tesco if i wanted the musky goodness.

i had some old frames and a prescription and still got quoted £150 or so to get shit made? this was a few years ago so maybe i am misremembering the specifics but it was easily enough to put me off.

(i have a weirdly felicitous prescription anyway so it's no biggie really - each eye is long and short sighted enough to balance each other out, if that makes any sense - but this will bode bad for the future i expect)

You know, Tracer, I'm trying to go over all the costs in my head and I think the bulk of that was the frames. I had copays for the exam and materials, and I paid out of pocket for anti-glare and scratch-proof coatings and I let them talk me into polishing the sides of the lenses, but my 'scrip is middle-of-the-road and single lens so there wasn't an extra charge for that. The copays run from $10 to $30. Sales tax accounts for 10% of the total.

Damn. Well, like I said, healthcare savings account funds to the rescue!

i know it's declasse and a crushing personal failure on my part to ask tracer who his frame dealer is but i'm gonna anyway.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) -- $226.05

Re: Sound Guy
Unless the band is really big or are dicks, it really is kinda overpaid. The "specialized equipment" isn't all that complicated and doesn't take so long to figure out and live mixing is pretty easy and fun. I was always kinda taken aback by how well it paid the handful of times that I did it. The only way I can rationalize it is that when things go wrong it's super-stressful, but if you're working at a venue where the mics don't fry from just a bit of spittle and you've got a reasonable amount of time for setup, then it's a breeze.

r|t|c I never tire of telling people about this man! He's a friendly Scottish guy who is terrible at marketing and doesn't wear glasses himself yet spends several months each year researching old warehouses in Italy and shit, trying to find big old cartons of unsold frames from yesteryear.

here's one of his sites - http://www.myspace.com/arckivcamden
here's another - http://www.arckiv.net

he's in the stables at camden market

Oh ty that is cool & I too will look into him. For some reason I thought you were on another continent, otehrwise I also would have asked.

Same here - I really need some new glasses (thread has had me glued to it) and glassesdirect was looking the best option until punchable face.

unfortunately for this fine sounding fellow i'd probably rather go blind than ever venture forth into camden again.

(seriously tho thnx i will check him out!)

Blue jeans. There are work-arounds, fortunately -- you can buy second-hand, or hit smartbargains.com, or things like that. But just walking into the Levi's store cold and paying full retail can make your head feel all swimmy. "Did I really just spend $120 on fucking denim?"

Jesus christ people, sound guys that are cool and good at what they do are the salt of the fucking EARTH as far as i'm concerned.

also, if it's so damn "easy" why are there so few competent ones.

the ones that really know how to do things correctly and know the room make an incredible difference.

also, dudes that know how to manage a 3-4 band bill, keep things running right, ensure that bands get on and off on time....doing the Lord's Work.

^100 percent real talk.

I don't think I've ever spent that much on jeans. Of course I just buy all my jeans at the Gap, there they are $40 to $50 max. Of course they are never going to be as nice as Steve Shasta endorsed jeans.

the contention that "anyone can learn a soundguy's job in 30 minutes" is total nonsense.

M@tt OTM basically

also, maybe this is a US/UK thing but lots of times it doesn't pay well at all.

The solitary pair of jeans that will fit me via smartbargains.com Daaamn, no thanks.

NB I don't pay over $30 for jeans and it shows.