flat panel TV's have arrived at Ta Ta

Uruguayan retailer Ta Ta is having another successful year making their stores hard to figure out. Have I walked into a.... Bakery? Hardware store? Supermarket?

You just never know what you're going to see. I did not want to do a restaurant tonight, I'm tired of them. It's fairly cheap to just get ham and bread... I walked into Ta Ta on 18 de Julio.

As I was walking out, basket laden with "Ser" (drinkable yogurt), some bananas, 200 gm of sliced ham, diet coke and a loaf of bread - I saw a 15" flat panel TV for "only" $8800 UY Pesos ($USD 440). Ta Ta carries the odd appliance here and there but generally not good quality stuff. These flat panels definitely looked to be poor quality. The controls did not fit well with the device and they've pretty well been mauled from the public looking them over. For sure that store is not going to have another un-mauled one in a box in the back, it just isn't so... of course the price is so high firstly due to taxes and secondly due to the technological mishmosh of broadcast standards its got to support for being sold in this part of the world.

Waiting to checkout there was another multinational sight: a group of Filipino crew from the port. They had a vast quantity of basic stuff they were taking on board. They had a positively INCREDIBLE amount of sugar with them: I bet it was for making some kind of hooch. Watching them pay was interesting - he handed the cashier 3 US $100 bills and she immediately gave him one back. He clearly didn't quite know the value of the money. Then she had the head cashier duly examine the "benjamins" and the guy got his change in Uruguayan pesos. She must have handed him some mind-boggling amount like 980 or something because it was a fat wad of cash he clearly would much rather have seen in dollars or euros.