MVP Gift Voucher

Microsoft gives us MVPs with a $150 voucher that we could use to buy anything we want at the Microsoft Company Store. Unfortunately I have a feeling that they only provide a subset of the items available at the store to us. I could hardly find anything to buy and finally settled on a Optical Desktop (which I love) and some really useless stuff like caps, flasks and an umbrella. I would have loved to have purchased an XBox if it was available.

But what I'm really pissed off with is the Sri Lankan customs officials and UPS. I had to shell out $35 as duty and other taxes for the $150 worth of items that I ordered. I was speaking with the UPS guy and he said the government had added an additional 3% tax after the tsunami for all imports. I wouldn't mind if they did anything remotely useful with this money but it would ultimately end up in some politicians pocket.

The fact is that the only thing of value in the pack I got from Microsoft was the optical desktop which cost $50 and I had to pay $35 as duty. WTF. Had I known this earlier I would have simply tossed away the voucher and not ordered anything at all. Not that any of this is Microsoft's fault though.