Last quarter as an undergrad at UCLA... *sniffle* So, we headed to Monterey Park for yum cha (dim sum) and to take Alice cell phone shopping.

We were seated amazingly quickly at Ocean Star in Monterey Park... somehow went almost an entire meal without seeing any shu mai or hai gow (but we did get some!)... bizzare, but service wasn't that bad, and it sure was tasty! They also had crab for $1.90, so we ordered a plate (1 plate per table). YUMMY, especially at $1.90!

Next step was to find Alice a new cell phone, since her last phone is really old and she wanted the Panasonic GD-55, which is a phone smaller than a business card in length and width! It's freakin' crazy. Unfortunately it's only T-mobile and it seems to be a grey market phone, which means if you break it, you're screwed...

Turns out Phonex Comm. Inc. has a store right below Ocean Star... we tortured the two sales reps there for two hours, ended up getting a new phone for Barry's mom, too (the same one, the GD-55)... phone retailed for $359, we paid zero dollars for the phones with one year contracts on T-mobile. We did pay $5 for two v60 headsets and a v60 car charger, though.

Alice's GD-55 was defective too, so Matt at Phonex found another one for us at another store down the street. We put those two guys through so much trouble, we actually felt bad for them! Little did they know how much trouble walked into their store when we arrived, especially Nicole! She's vicious when negotiating... Barry's pretty good since he sold Cingular phones for a summer, I'm reasonably knowledgeable but I don't speak Mandarin (so I'm basically useless)... boy oh boy, what a mess. =)

Got a damned great deal, though!

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