Thursday, 16 February 2006
Jacket (With Benefits)
I ordered the Burton Shield Jacket earlier this week. I found a store that had the jacket in true black in small. All was well in snowboard apparel land until this morning when I received an e-mail saying the jacket was apparently not available.
The Burton Mens System Jacket that you ordered on 2/14/06 is not in stock. We have cancelled your order and your credit card has not been charged. We apologize for any inconvenience this may caused you.
Uggggggggh. <south-park>You bastards!</south-park>
Burton has a great sell strategy. Any item you buy from them is basically limited edition. Once all the vendors are sold out of their stock for a given item, that's it. Burton isn't making any more. So, if you see something that you really must have, buy it. Hell, buy two. In the world of eBay that we now live in, there's bound to be someone out there looking for the same item, same color, same size. And hey, maybe you can turn a little profit.
Anyhoooooooooooooooooooooooo.
I exhausted all my Google, Froogle, Yahoo, local store calling mojo trying to find someone who might have the elusive Burton Shield Jacket in true black in small. All for naught. There seems to be a surplus of this jacket in the Acid Green Color. One can only imagine what reason that might be 
Now, while in Whistler, I had seen the Burton iPod Shield Jacket at the Burton store in Whistler Village. This is the exact same jacket as the Burton Shield Jacket with the added benefit of having a "specially designed, EVA molded chest pocket" in which to hook up your iPod. You can then operate the iPod from the "flexible SOFTswitch™ control pad located on the sleeve that’s iPod-compatible." I sort of scoffed at the jacket since I'm pretty particular about what I carry on my person while riding. If it at all gets in the way, it's gone. I figured an iPod would be too bulky. Also, the price tag for the jacket was a bit more than I was expecting.
Now, in my search for the Burton Shield Jacket, I came across a site that was selling the Burton iPod Shield Jacket at a significant discount. I guess Burton told all their merchants, "Time to get rid of that '06 stock. Start your sale engines now!" So, all the '06 jackets are now selling at a nice discount.
The long and short of it is that I placed an order for the Burton iPod Shield Jacket. The price was too good to pass up. And even if I never used the iPod integration, it's still only marginally more expensive than the Burton Shield Jacket with the sale price. Internets willing, the jacket I snubbed will arrive next Monday or Tuesday.
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