Another Brrrr Day

Sheesh, what a day I had! First of all, it's so berloody cold that my skin feels like it's freezing and peeling off. The temperatures were in the low minus but with the wind/chill factor it def. felt like -15! This morning, walking about 6 blocks from my bus stop to the office was hard and my feet/hands almost froze off. And then coming into a warm office didn't help because as soon as I sat down at my desk to blow my nose, I got a nose bleed! Ewww!! I haven't had a nose bleed in ages! The last time I had a nose bleed was when I was pregnant with Kay! Yuck, thankfully it didn't last very long only bleed for about 5 minutes!!! Oh I guess that is more than enough details.... too much, eh?

This weather must be really hard on me because I have been feeling really tired and drained, no matter how much sleep I get the night before. I feel even more tired after work, this evening on my way home, I almost fell asleep on my bus.

After work, I was suppose to take the Oak Street bus to the post office because I had a couple of packages waiting for me, actually two notifications arrived on Monday but the weather has been pretty horrible and I did not want to drive in the icy snow. Finally, I made the decision to take the bus because I knew one of the packages was going to be my newest handbag. But it started to snow again and it was very very cold. I decided to catch the bus home and drive to the post office instead. Lucky that I did because one of the packages was quite big! I thought the second package might have been one of those samples that I get from my magazine subscriptions (they are always sending beauty product samples) but it was my Pioneer DVD Recorder. Yeah it is finally here! There would have been no way I could have taken that with me on the bus. I also decided to take Kay with me so we could pick up some groceries at the Safeway, could use the extra hands although she grumbled as she changed from her comfy pjs to some outdoor clothes. At first I wasn't sure if we should drive because the snow was starting to stick on the roads but determination and after a few tries, I got out of my parking spot in the back. We drove quite slowly (about 40 km/h at most) on the roads and the only vehicles that were driving faster than that were the SUVs and 4 x 4s. This is normally at most a 5 minute drive but due to the weather conditions and with much caution, we got there in 15. I was shocked to see that Safeway had not ploughed the parking lot and there was a lot of packed snow which bits of icy patches. I decided to park close to the exit so I wouldn't have to struggle trying to get out of the lot. We probably only stopped in Safeway at most, 20 minutes and when we came back to the car, there was an inch of snow covering the car! As luck would have it, I had a snow scraper in the trunk of the car because last year it snowed and I did not have one which meant I was scraping the snow off my car with my credit cards! Kay and I scraped off the icy snow before heading out of the parking lot. These errands ended up taking us almost an hour! On a good day, it's only about 30 minutes at most! Sheesh.... it was a struggle trying to get home and I only slid (nothing major) once while turning out of the parking lot onto the road. The rest of the drive was pretty smooth and by the time we got home, I was really worn out! I didn't even bother with the DVD recorder even though I was so excited and wanted to set it up! Also, I didn't even bother cooking dinner because Kay and I had made pasta sauce a few days ago and we are still trying to finish it off. But I think this is pretty much the last of the sauce..... Oh if we have any left tomorrow, maybe we'll make homemade pizza! :)

The NCIX drama continues.....

Last week, I sent an email to the person I was dealing with regarding the situation I had with the POWER CABLES, my mistake, not power supply. I did not receive a response from him until yesterday. I forwarded the email to Vince and he came up with a response to this email. But it continues.... see below:

His Response to my First Email

Hi Psycho_Pat. According to our Vancouver office, the power supply for your system should have already been installed into the case. It is possible that they may have given you the box for the Power Supply, as we generally do provide the customer with any boxes, cables, screws, etc – anything that the product would come with, is included even when the system is assembled. However, if the case doesn’t have the power supply inside already, please contact our Vancouver office immediately, and they can arrange to install this for you. As for the drive enclosure, this can be replaced for you – the RMA number for you is XXXXX (return merchandise authorization) – simply take the item back to the retail store, and they should replace this for you free of charge. We don’t generally install or test external devices, like an enclosure, so if the cord was defective, we would not necessarily see it. However, the power supply on the system should have been installed directly, and our Vancouver office should be able to help you with both of these matters.
You can call them at either 123-456-7890 – just be sure to have your invoice and RMA number available if calling, or visiting the store in person.
Feel free to contact me directly if you do need further assistance as well.
Regards,

Vince's Response to His Email

Thanks for getting back to me. However, since I sent you the original email,I have visited the Vancouver store. I would like to provide some feedback on that disappointing experience though. First of all, I may have mislead you in my original mail. I mentioned "power supply" when I should have said "power cable". There were 2 main issues with my order: 1) power cable was missing for my computer 2) The external drive's power cable was DANGEROUSLY defective with small ulcers exposing wire. My friend, who installed it for me, luckily had only minor burns. I have pictures of his hand and the cable.When I visited to Vancouver store to discuss the above, I was met with a busy staff member. I explained issue 1 with him first and that led to an unnecessary discussion about it being an order from Richmond store that was merely followed and did not mention a cable. I did not agree with this because I purchased a complete system and do not care whether it was written up wrong. I was unhappy and then mentioned that was not all and explained issue 2. I presented him the external drive box with cable inside. The rep did not even want to look at the damaged cable. At this point, I was very angry with him and expressed this to him. He continued to ignore the root of the issue. My desire was to let him understand that other external drives may be dangerous to other customers. I also wanted him to understand my frustration with picking up a PC package that did not include a power cable. In the end, he gave me a replacement cable for the drive and a cable for my PC but only after having to get to the point of total frustration.I believe that it is negligent for the company to ship without inspection and also negligent for the rep not to care about a potentially dangerous product shipment.Hope you understand my frustration with my experience with your rep. I have to consider carefully my next course of action so that your company will understand the seriousness of this. Appreciate your attention and regards,

My Sales Rep Response to Vince's Email from above

Hi, Psycho_Pat. I am forwarding All this information to our Vancouver Sales Supervisor (Insert Name HERE). I have also asked him to follow this up with a telephone call for you directly.
We are already investigating these enclosures, but have not yet found or had any other reports of defective cables – we are taking this very seriously, and I have reminded the stores as well. Please do understand that these are sealed units, but our stores and our warehouses are all checking into these units as best we can. I am also surprised that our Vancouver staff was not willing to help you readily, especially with the RMA number that was provided. With the RMA, they should not question the replacement, they should be able to exchange this for you quite easily, as the RMA is an approval for exchange.
Again, if there is anything we can do for you, please let us know, and Person's Name will also be in contact with you by phone for you to provide any extra details that may be necessary.
Regards,

OMG, I do not want to talk to this PERSON from the Vancouver office because I know who he is and he was there when it happened. He also ignored the situation and pretend not to know what was going on.... I'll let Vince deal with this one......

eBay Item SOLD!

Yeah! I sold ONE item on eBay! How exciting! I had posted 5 items on eBay and another item almost sold but someone, local, contacted me regarding this item (I posted the same items on craigslist) and he has decided to come and pick it up. This means I don't have to ship it out and I get my asking price instead of starting the bid at $0.99. I feel bad though as one person had been watching the item and then I removed the auction. The ebayer sent me a message inquiring the relisting of this item, I replied with the fact that I was able to sell it locally and if this person doesn't pull through, I will relist the item on ebay. But with the snow and freezing temperatures, I have not been able to meet this person because he is located in Coquitlam and it is quite a trek from Coquitlam to Vancouver. The ebayer that won the item paid instantly and tomorrow I will be sending it off. The winner looks like he is located in the Lower Mainland. The shipping should not be too expensive.......

Update November 28, 2006 12:15pm ~ OMG, I only made a $2something profit on my auction! Shipping and ebay / paypal fees took up most of my profit! I cannot believe that originally the shipping fees (at the Post Office) were over $7.00CDN!! That is basically my entire balance in paypal. I decided against shipping with the Post Office and went back to the office, changed the packaging (smaller envelope) and shipped online with Canada Post (feature with Paypal). I saved over $2.00 shipping with Canada Post Online and it came with a tracking no. Well, I now know better, next time I need to double up the shipping!

Shopping Day with Mom

What a day! First of all, it's SNOWING! Yes, today is the first day of the season for snow. It's amazing. It's so beautiful, I wish I had a photo of the snow covered city during the day but I did not have my camera during my shopping trip. Tonight it is suppose to get really cold and there may be black ice on the road, I hope the salt trucks come out tonight! Snow to fall until Monday or Tuesday. I bet the mountains are great for skiing / snowboarding.

Today, my mom picked us up in her car to go shopping. She needed to head over to Best Buy and Canadian Tire which is right in our area and asked if we wanted to go with her. I needed to run a few errands and I wasn't going to drive so I decided sure why not, if my mom didn't mind driving us. I didn't want to drive because first I knew it was going to snow and my tires are crap. But also we were planning to shop at HBC downtown and parking downtown is expensive. We headed over to NCIX first because I needed to bitch about the power supply's and to exchange the burnt out one. I must have started to get quite agitated and maybe I started to look like a psycho customer about to make a scene because the sales guy would not look me in the eye, did not address the problems, and tried to get me out of the store ASAP. Basically, he gave me poor customer service and ignored my statements. He had given me three power supply's, an extra one, just so I would leave the store. I was so mad! He's lucky there was a counter in front of me because I could pick up his little geeky @ss and throw him out the window. But he gave me the three, pushed me out of the door so I would not cause a huge scene and although at the moment, there were not a lot of customers, he just wanted me out. I went into the store, in a calm state, tried to explain (calmly) about the defective power supply and how it should have been checked before they sold it but he didn't want to listen to me. Fine. I took the three power supply's and we left. I called Vince to let him know what happened, he's going to write a letter attach the photos and direct it to the management. NCIX is known to have poor customer service but with them supplying OEM parts at the lowest price, how can one expect anything more? After NCIX, we decided to head to Denny's for lunch as it was in the area and while we were having lunch, it started to snow. After lunch, we headed downtown and shopped in the Bay. Mom was looking for rain or snow boots like mine but when we got there, it was super busy with many Xmas shoppers. They did not have my black rainboots in her size but they were stocking 3 new colours! Pink, Green and Yellow. Now if they had Pink earlier, I may have considered it but they were not 50% off, only 30% and 10% if you used your HBC credit card. While mom was looking over their boot selection, Kay and I headed over to Browns to look at the shoes and I found my next pair of Stuart Weitzman shoes! But I decided to put them on hold and go back tomorrow to pick them up. I have a 10% discount and I want to use that on the shoes as I will save $35!! Mom finally tried on a few different pairs and was debating on which two she wanted when Kay found something mom really liked except downtown store did not carry the right size in the right colour. Sales girl found them at Oakridge and Metrotown. Mom wanted to pass on the boots that she was debating on and head over to Oakridge to buy the other ones that Kay picked out. We also needed to find Kay a set of matching gloves/scarf/hat for her school's Blizzard Day, a theme day for the kids. But we couldn't find anything downtown but I ended up buying a Fulton super slim umbrella with a wind resistant frame in a folk floral border. Very cute! After buying the umbrella, we headed to Oakridge to find those boots. Oakridge's HBC was also super busy and when we finally waved down a salesgirl, she tried to look up the boots on the receipt (code numbers/quantities of each HBC) but the downtown's sales girl punched in the wrong code and came up with the boots in brown not black. Mom was a little pissed off as we drove out there to pick up these boots. Now she had to go back to the two she was originally looking at, try them on again, and decide which pair was most suitable. While Kay and I were waiting, we found a pair of tall black boots at a really good price. Such a good price that I decided to buy a pair for Kay, only rule about the boots, DO NOT WEAR THEM when I am wearing them. Agreed. After picking up the boots, we headed over to Zellers and found Kay a matching set of gloves/hat/scarf ($19.99 - thank goodness because the separates were pretty expensive!) Back to Best Buy and Canadian Tire, mom picked up a DVD player that was on sale , I looked over the Sony LCD TVs, and Kay was checking out the game consoles/video games. Next door was Canadian Tire, I ended up buying a ironing board (on sale) because we have a really old one which is stuck to the cupboard and it not moveable. Makes ironing a pain in the @ss. Very tired from shopping and getting slightly hungry, we decided to head over to Hugo's for dinner (yes Hugo's again but that is the only good chinese restaurant nearby). Long shopping day....

Love to watch the snow falling......

Bellinis

I love Bellinis, it's one of my fave. alcoholic drinks. I can have them from any restaurant as long as it's tasty and slushy.

Tonight, I headed out with KD for drinks/appy's. Well, she had dinner but I had already eaten because I had a long day and was not sure if I could make a late night dinner. She's a late eater and I like dinner by 6pm. We headed over to Milestone's for drinks/food. She gets a staff discount because she is on Milestones's payroll although she hasn't done a shift in months but she knows the lingo which gets her the discount at all the Milestone's. We haven't seen each other in a couple of weeks, due to both of us being busy, well mostly me being tired and me NOT wanting to be social. She on the other hand is a social butterfly with lots of dates and late nights. We caught up on life and I found out that her current employer has just laid her off due to the fact that the company was over budget and required to lay off staff. Crap, that sucks! Right before Xmas? What kind of company does that? COLD HEARTED COMPANIES. (I know, I've been there.....) She is one of the earlier hires so she had to be let go. She is working 3 days a week until next week (end of the month) and they are paying her the two week salary plus her 2 week vacation which means her next paycheque will be her last but at least it's a month salary instead of two weeks. I caught up on all the guys she dating (she's dating 4 guys) and one of them being a potential "guy" or "boyfriend". After chatting a bit, I realized I knew this guy!! We went to the same highschool and had a common good friend! How funny is that? What a small world! A couple of hours later, it was getting late and I was getting super tired. Called it an early night and she headed off for drinks with a friend. A good way to end the week. Bellinis are always a great way to end a long work week........

Software

Wow! Gosh I didn't realize software could be so expensive! Well I really needed it and could not wait for the bootleg versions as a friend had promised because I hardly ever see him and his fiance. Everyone is so busy and it's no one's fault but I realize I cannot always depend on others. I decided to bite the bullet and pay the prices. I did get two of them on sale and one of them being 10% off of the difference. Future Shop will give you 10% of the difference if you find a product somewhere else at a better price. I bought MS Office (Teacher/Student Version) at $179.99 (I also have a $30 mail in rebate), Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 (discounted to $118.99 because Best Buy had it for $119.99) and Zonelabs Zonealarm Internet Security Suite (full protection for my new PC) at $69.99. Boy was it crazy busy at Future Shop, people in Vancouver must be starting their Xmas shopping because it was a madhouse. Most of the sales staff at FS are not too bright and the few that I had dealt with tonight were not too sure about their products, discounts and procedures. Esp. the cashiers (probably just hired for the Xmas season with limited training). I had to argue with the cashier about the FS discount, she didn't think the discount applied to software, boy is she WRONG. I printed off a copy of the Best Buy ad which advertised Adobe at 199.99, showed it to her and asked her about the price reduction. She was a little confused about FS's discount and did not think I could get a discount esp. on software. I insisted that she asked someone about this discount but I think she was just trying to rush me out of her line because there was a huge long line up at the cashiers. I finally convinced her to ask someone and when she did, YES I WAS RIGHT. Ugh. I also paid for an empty MS Office box, cashier again looked confused and I told her someone in the software department told me I had to pay for it and ask the cashier (that is her) to call them so they could bring a copy to the front. She sent me back to software stating that it would probably be faster for me to get it myself! Wow, GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE!! I ended up back at software inquiring about a MS Office and another guy had no idea what to do and sent me in another direction. OMG, FS NEEDS to train all of their staff - temp or permanent!!! Assuming with such low prices maybe they forego the training!! I ended up at ANOTHER person and he was surprised that the cashier rang in an empty box. How could she scan an empty box? There is no SKU. OMG, he thought that I might have to return the item and buy it again. Due to the serial no. or something. We went back to the cashier and she told the guy, she had just manually typed in the SKU. But the guy was worried about not having the SKU from the original box so we ended up back at Returns (another 5 minutes later), we reach the counter and the staff at Returns stated it doesn't need to be returned as long as the SKU on the empty box or receipt is the same as the box I had in my hands. As we stepped away from the Returns, another guy said we needed to return and exchange!!! The guy that was helping me didn't know wtf!?! So he asked another guy (who looked like he was in management) and he stated that as long as the sku on the receipt matched the sku on the box, it would be fine. Finally, 30 minutes later, it was all straightened out and I was able to leave the store!! This shopping errand should have only taken me 10 minutes. I knew what I wanted to buy, picked it off the shelf, headed over to the cashier, get discounts / pay for it and get out of the store! Ugh. I hate FS, this is why I prefer to shop online even if I have to pay the shipping fees. I don't have to deal with clueless sales staff.

With A Bang!

Tonight I finally picked up my new PC but not without its problems. First of all, I had already paid for my PC and even though I was just picking up, I still had to wait in the stupid line. It took 20 minutes and I was so worried because I was illegally parked (no parking on Broadway during rush hour). I had to pick it up tonight even though I was going to pick it up on Saturday instead but Vince had cleared his schedule to stop by and help put my new PC / hard drive in enclosure together. After I finally received my unit, Kay and I ran back to the car, terrified that I may have been ticketed but to find no ticket, thank goodness! After we got home, I went over to Hugo's to order take out for dinner (much too tired to prep/cook dinner) because Vince was so nice to come right after a long day of work to help me put together my PC. The least I could do was buy him his dinner. :) While I was waiting for our food, the hockey game was playing on the huge flat screen tv, the Vancouver Canucks were losing to Nashville and very badly. When I finally got back to the apartment, Vince was already there, hanging out with Kay and chit chatting. As I prep'd the take out dinner, Vince started pulling my old PC apart so he could take out my old hard drive and put it in the enclosure. I am too lazy to sort and transfer all my stuff from my old hard drive into the new PC so I decided to buy an enclosure for the hard drive which gave me some extra time in taking my time transferring all my documents/pics into my new hard drive. Vince had no problems removing and installing the hard drive to the enclosure but when he tried to test it out with the power supply cord..... a very terrible thing happened. It exploded in his hands! I KID YOU NOT. He dropped the unit and there was an awful burned rubber/electronic smell in the living room. When I ran over to see what was happening, he told me it just exploded and we were like... WTF? Upon closer inspection, we noticed that the power cord had been tampered with! There were two visible cuts with the live wires showing through. OMG, I was so pissed and upset thinking I might have lost all my info on the hard drive. But Vince didn't think so. Vince was fine, a little pissed and shocked but he did not need to go to the emergency. He was bitching about how unsafe and how could they not check the product before selling it. You would assume it would be safe and you wouldn't have to check it but obviously NOT! Poor Vince. His hand was a little burned but no major damage and his state was reasonably calm. I can't imagine what would have happened if I was the one handling it. I would have freaked out more and screamed like there was no tomorrow plus my impulse to drop it wouldn't have been as quick as Vince. This means that it might have been sitting in my hands longer causing more damage and shock. Luckily there were no papers nearby or flammable items because I'm sure I might have started a fire! ARGH. So very upset. I am never going back to that place again! I am going to go back there in a couple of days to bitch and complain! I could probably sue them although it would take too much time. I did take some photos of the power supply and Vince's hand. What a night!

Well after that fiasco, we decided to put my new PC together but guess what, we noticed they did not give me a power supply cord for my PC. How am I suppose to power this unit without a power supply cord? Magically with my hands or an imaginary cord??? Can you feel the sarcasm?

To the point? My old hard drive and new PC are both working fine although it's been a very long and draining night.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

To our American neighbours!

Gobble Gobble, enjoy your turkey dinners!

Burberry Wool Hat

Ooooh look what finally came to my mailbox! I have been waiting weeks for this item. Apparently, it arrived to Canada on Nov. 6 but did not get cleared in customs until Nov. 18!! Ugh... I hate Canada Customs, money hungry @#$%^&*!

eBay

I am having too much fun on eBay! I have decided to post some items for sale because today, eBay is having a $0.10 listing day sale! We'll see how easy it is to sell on eBay. I really do like craigslist though, it's free and very easy to post / sell your items plus it's local - no shipping fees. But of course, it doesn't get as much traffic as eBay does. Will update.....

Vancity

I just opened up a Vancity account! I have a Vancity Visa and I am tired of going to the teller to pay off my Visa. I decided to open an account because I had a Join our Bank freebie card which I got from the VIFF . When I open a new account with Vancity, I would receive two free tickets to any (?) movie of my choice for the next year's VIFF. I love getting free stuff and free movie tickets to the VIFF, why not? Plus it would make life so much easier to make payments to my Visa online. I am hoping this bank will be better than my RBC account because I have been banking with RBC for 17 years and I am still just a number to them. One day I will change my bank accounts over but I will have to see how comfortable I am with Vancity.

Saturday Fun in the Sun

Ok not quite sun but no rain either! Yeah! One day without rain but of course, the rain starts tonight and will rain Sunday out. And yes, another day with my mom, the great daughter that I am.

There is so much traffic out there, I guess people in Vancouver get excited when there is no rain and decide they should be out and about in the city. Besides having no rain, there is construction on Cambie street and the street is all windy and rearranged, it's so crazy on that street. Before heading to my mom's house, I needed to stop at Oakridge (return a few items at Zellers) and Vancity (put down a payment on my Visa card) and it was a long and slow process. There is no turning on any of the small streets because it has been blocked off due to the cut and cover construction. But the contracter in charge of building this underground tunnel needs to set up the roads with better signs and warnings regarding the changes with the traffic patterns. Because it is being built in 10 block areas, the street is constantly changing and the street's directions are unclear and without warning. Also since the small streets have been blocked off, people are driving through my alley like it's a freaking large street. There is so much traffic in our alleyway. Last week, I almost got hit twice by speeding cars. Ugh. Another thing which I am not too happy about is the 19th street crosswalk, oh wait, THERE IS NONE. There isn't even a paved road. It's dirt, rocks and sporadic paved blots on that block. There are huge orange cones set up to mark off the lanes but it's not very well done. Plus where the heck is the crossing guard for the children crossing to get to school? Because 20th is now blocked, the kids have to walk to 19th and back to 20th to get to their school. I really hope this situation gets improved quickly as my patience is running thin. Oh wait, I need to complain about the noise, I am pretty sure they are not suppose to start construction until 7am but yesterday morning they starting digging in front of my apartment at 6.45am. The sound of concrete being dug up is like nails on a chalkboard or steel utensils on a cermaic plate. *shudder* It's a horrible sound and spine wretching. I can't wait for this to be finished....only 2 years to go..... Interested in seeing what is happening? I've taken some photos as it was clear and the first day without rain. Cambie Street Construction

Alright enough bitching and on with the blogging.....

After Oakridge Centre and Vancity, I headed over to London Drugs (by my mom's place) to return yet another item and when I got in there OMG, it was crazy busy!! People were in a panic and picking up as many bottles of water as they could carry out. It's crazy. So we get a little rain, ok not so little and our tap water turns brown, yes there is a drinking water warning where we should all be boiling our water for at least a minute and yes, there was no coffee all over the lower mainland yesterday and today but seriously, have we all gone mad?? This water warning doesn't affect Kay and I since we have been boiling our water forever. At work, I have been (and always have) drank the water from the water cooler provided by Canadian Springs. I don't know, it was madness in London Drugs and I'm sure madness everywhere that sold bottled water. Lucky for us, our water supply wasn't as brown and clogged up like the tap water downtown but a little dirt never killed anybody! Ok, maybe the bacteria and virus in the brown water but that's what boiling the water does, it kills all the bacteria! Anyways, after LD I headed over to mom's house. We hit the usual places and went over to NCIX to pick up an online order (DVD+RWs at a really great price!). Over to Richmond Centre to check out HBC's beauty counters for my mom's foundation (I found something very pretty) and Sears for a quote on tires (my grandma's tires are balding and it's time to get them replaced). We also headed over to T&T to pick up groceries, ohmygosh, do I ever miss asian veggies, I don't have an asian supermarket near us and we have been eating frozen veggies or carrots and veggies you get at Safeway. I went a little beserk at the veggie section, picked up about 4 different types of asian veggies. After T&T we decided to go out for dinner so we gave my grandma a call (she opted to stay home) to let her know we were on our way to pick her up. Mom decided on going to Mui Garden on Victoria Street because MG serves some of my grandma's fave. dishes. Although grandma thinks MG has changed their cook and the dishes don't taste as good as they once have. I for one am not a big fan of MG so I didn't taste the difference. After dinner and helping my mom with the groceries, I called it a night. I went over to OD's to pick up Kay and we headed home. Gosh, it felt like a long day well actually it was. Now I'm going to finish my movies, well movie. I rented two dvd movies last weekend and I have not watched My Life Without Me.

14 Hours Only - Future Shop Online Sale!

OhMyGosh! I just made my Pioneer DVD Recorder purchase online with a 15% discount at Future Shop! I have been researching this product and debating if I should spend this amount of cash on a DVD recorder. Because I have been frustrated with my broken VCR (recording my TV shows blurry and shaky) and my stupid cheap DVD player (my Pioneer DVD player was stolen from a crazy ex-roommate) that kept freezing in bits while playing a movie. I decided I might as well purchase a DVD recorder since I am replacing my VCR and DVD player. My heart has always been set on purchasing a Pioneer and yes, it is quite a bit of money but I researched this model and there are great reviews on it plus it's a PIONEER. I intended on paying regular price and was going to pick it up this weekend but while I was searching available stock online at my closest FS, I realized, OMG, it's on sale!!! Discounted at 15% off, now that is A SIGN. Last week, FS had the DVD recorder on sale at $399.99 (regular price $449.99) but I did not make my decision quick enough so I missed out. But I decided that I can't wait for the next sale because I am in DESPERATE NEED of recorder. I was debating between the 80GB and the 160GB hard drive but found out that the 80GB was an old model and Pioneer is discontinuing it. I planned on going to the store this weekend to pick up one but since it is discounted at 15% on the web, I decided to order it right away! 15% Discount on all DVD players/recorders for only 14 hours online! The one not so great thing about ordering online is that I need to pay the shipping cost (but not too crazy, only $6.89 for ground shipping) and this sale was not available for pick up. I am sooooo excited!!! I even called VC and mom to tell them about the sale and the purchase! Ooooh I am so excited, can't wait!! My price $379.99 better than last week's sale price! Sweet :)

NCIX

Right afterwork, I went over to NCIX to order our new PC. Kay is really excited and counting down the days until it arrives.... she's been bitching at me to STOP BUYING LV PURSES and to buy us (HER) a long over due new PC system for our entertainment..... no, really for her entertainment. But she is right, our computer is so old (7 years at least) and it's becoming possessed.... strange black outs and not shutting down.... it's time for a new one.....

Weekend in the Rain

For the past two days, I have been running errands with my mom in the pouring rain.

Yesterday, we had to head over to Costco, Zellers and London Drugs. I ended up spending almost $200 at Costco!! That place is very dangerous, too many items in bulk at such a great price, who could pass up such deals?? But today, we ended up back at Costco to return a few items, I of course, returned a bottle of Omega-3 vitamins which totalled $45 back into my wallet. What did I buy at Costco, you ask... well I ended up buying some useful items like conditioner, shampoo, fruit snacks for Kay and pickles too. I also bought some not so useful items like Post It Notes and yes you would disagree because they are useful but I have a huge collection of pretty post it notes! Yes I have added more flowers, arrows and hearts to my large collection. I also purchased a bulk pack of Bic wite out. Why bulk.... because it was a good deal! Oh yes, I also bought 10 packs of nylons because Costco sells Silks pantyhose in bulk at a really good price. I wear nylons all day at work so they need to be comfortable and priced at $3.80 each, how could I not pick up a few (or 10). This is a pretty good price considering thses are sold at the department stores for about $5.00 or more!! Ah yes one more item, I purchased an early birthday gift for our neighbor (her birthday is coming up, right after Christmas!). After spending all my $$, I had dinner with my mom because my grandma was out playing mahjong and mom would be by herself. After running to all the different places, we checked out Auntie Ingrid's new condo by Joyce Skytrain Station. A nice size (1 bedroom/den) with a nice view at a pretty decent level (10 or 11th floor??) at an incredible price ($200k). Her friend had bought the place before the construction even started but decided that he did not want to live there anymore so he sold it to my aunt without making a profit. Now it would be impossible to find a place like hers for $200k or less. After checking out her place, we headed over to Ma's Restaurant on Victoria street for dinner. After dinner, mom / aunt decided they wanted to go to London Drugs to buy a foot spa because it was a pretty decent sale price $24.99 reg $29.99. After wandering around the store and picking a few more items, we headed back to mom's because I needed to download a program for her pc.

Today, I went back over there to help with her returns / exchanges at Costco, to check out prices on DVD+RW at Best Buy/Future Shop and back to Zellers to pick up a plastic storage container for my grandma. After a few hours, we had to call it a day because my brother and Auntie Ingrid were coming by for dinner. Mom still needed to go to The Bay but mom since she had planned on making a really nice dinner that meant there was going to be a lot of prep. Dinner was yummy and as always, dishes to impress. But right after dinner, I wanted to call it an early night so I headed home but before going home, I stopped by Rogers Video to pick up a couple of movies. Kay and C decided they wanted Kay to spend one more night at C's place. I was thinking, I should pick up a couple of movies I would not normally watch when Kay is around. I decided on The Notorious Bettie Page and My Life Without Me. Bettie Page 's story is quite interesting, what kind of person she was and how her life began. The movie was pretty good and I quite enjoyed it. Very artsy and not at all "Hollywood".

And that was pretty much my long weekend. Oh wait, I still have one more day off, how nice is that? I love long weekends......

SOLD!

I just sold off my IKEA large area rug!! Last night, I sold my IKEA end table (we were using it as a coffee table)!! I posted them both on craigslist and I could not believe the emails I received on both items. Actually most of the emails were on the rug, I had quite a few people inquiring about it! Now my living space feels so huge and I def. love the hardwood floors. But I guess one day I will have to put a rug back in as R doesn't like hardwood floors. Hmmm.... maybe I'll put one back if he brings me a really nice one from India just like the last time!

Circle Craft Christmas Market

This evening, I went to the Circle Craft Christmas Market with Val, a friend from work. It was 2 for 1 night (after 5pm) and gosh was it ever busy!!! Or so it seemed...... there was a huge line up at the ticket counter. I have not seen a line up like that since coming to this craft market on a weekend. Every year I try to make it to this market and I have been going for the past few years. There are a lot of great Canadian designers and crafters here from all over Canada. This year was no exception. I noticed there were more jewellery designers and couture clothing designers. Some new designers and many of the same ones were back. I, of course, could not pass up a few items. MoMo Designs was back and this year, credit card and debit sales were available. I saw her last year but she did not have the credit card/debit system set up and was only taking cash. I think Val and I spent about 3 hours at the market. We did wander around a few more times looking for earrings that Val had noticed early on but she was deciding on where she should buy them or not. But by the end, we could not figure out where those earrings were! It was a really fung and great night with lots of goodies which I picked up. Check out Trishaopholic for photos.

Louis Vuitton Display

Louis Vuitton Japan: The Building of Luxury

Oooh this book was delivered tom me by Chapters this afternoon. I started reading this on the bus and it is very interesting. Esp. how Louis Vuitton was established in Japan and it's very intriguing esp. since Japan became the stepping stone for future LV stores around the world. Yep, I cannot put this book down. Yes my addiction has come to an obsession. :)


And I broke my Louis Vuitton Ban but I don't believe I did because this does not count! :)

What a weekend!

Sheesh, what a busy weekend Kay and I had! We pretty much stayed home most of the weekend to clean and reorganize our apartment. I usually see my mom on Saturday except this weekend, I told her I needed to stay home to spend some time at my own apartment. Plus it's too yucky to go out, it's pouring rain outside and I really didn't want to drive around in this weather. My mom agreed and told me it was alright. Kay and I pretty much started organizing my shelf, re-hanging photos, moving some furniture around. I also reorganized my bedroom and now it looks even more spacious! Boy that was quite a workout, moving furniture around. But def. worth it because it looks and feels much more comfortable than before.

I did end up at my mom's house briefly on Saturday because the alarm co. called, apparently the motion detector went off and he could not get a hold of my mom on the house or her cell number. Because I am the emergency contact, I decided I better go check on the house to make sure everything was alright. At first I was a little worried that maybe something happened to them and one of them tripped the alarm on purpose. I told Kay to wait in the car and if she didn't see me in 5 minutes, she better call 911 and report suspicious activity at my mom's place. But I checked the garage and noticed my grandma's car was missing and the house was dark. This meant both my mom and grandma were out of the house so I told Kay it was ok and we both went in together. It seems that nothing out of the ordinary but better safe than sorry. I thought maybe her lovebird tripped the alarm but he was nicely locked up in his cage. I left my mom a note on her kitchen counter (beside her forgotten cell phone) explaining to her what happened and she better call the alarm co. to check out her system.

Since we were already out and about, we decided to check R's mail and head over to Safeway to pick up some groceries. I decided we should have something really yummy like tenderloin steak for dinner because it was on sale plus an additional $2.00 off. Gosh, it was sooooo yummy!!! I love steak esp. tenderloin steak. After coming home and being soaked, we decided to finish organizing my bookcase and veg out on the couch to catch Saturday TV night. Kay loves watching Saturday night live / MAD TV while I finished organizing the bookcase/bedroom. I probably should have taken a before and after shot of my bedroom to show you how spacious it looks now but I forgot. Oh well.

On Sunday, we ended up organizing the living space / dining area, well sort of, not that we got very much done. We just moved stuff around so we could get around the living room. VC stopped by our place for a long over due visit because he was waiting for his g/f to finish studying nearby. Also, I had been bugging him for weeks to come over and ground one of my electrical outlets. Oops, it was already grounded!! Hahaha... he didn't think that was funny, he had to lug his huge toolbox over. The reason for the outlet change is because I am planning on moving my office area into our "art centre" which really is just the small dining area but I'm going to turn it into an office/art centre. Instead of using the large table that is currently in there, I'm switching it with a small round table. Plus I moved all Kay's art supplies into her own room because she has a huge desk in her spacious room. VC was a bit bored (he needs to wander or walk around), we decided to head over to Best Buy but discovered it was closed (closes early on Sunday) so we headed upstairs to Canadian Tire because I need a Roman blind for my bedroom (block the outside lights from those annoying city trucks parked right outside of my bedroom). I found a pretty and very dark blue one and he was going to help me put it up but his girl rang early. We headed back to my place so he could pick up his toolbox and his car. Kay was a little bit upset because he told her (right before his girl called) that they would go for bubble tea. Oh well, another time, it was getting kind of late for bubble tea anyways, too much sugar before bed is NEVER a good idea. That was that.

I did finish putting together my book shelf...... how lovely is it??

And check out my little ode to Louis Vuitton.... :)

Another Delivery!

Wow, what a great day! Even though it's was pretty yucky outside (pouring rain all morning and predicted for the rest of the day) and my plans were for indoors, cleaning and rearranging some of my furniture, I got a surprise delivery from Canada Post. I have been waiting for this package for weeks! My new Beige Reade PM in a Vernis leather is finally here. I love this purse and have been eyeing it for some time. I won this on ebay a few weeks ago (click onto the photos for more details on the auction) and I have been patiently or impatiently waiting for this package. It is in perfect condition, never been used and it is exactly what I was expecting. This purse was made in France in April 2002 and it's in perfect brand new condition. I managed to buy it at an incredible price considering this purse is currently priced at $680 USD. More details on Trishaopholic.....

My Custom Cubed Bookshelf has Arrived!!

Wow, it's finally here and it's beautiful!! I love the stain colour and it turned out more lovely than I imagined it would. I had a few doubts in my head leading up to this day like the colour of the stain, the cubed-ness of the bookshelf with or without legs but it turned out great and just what I wanted. I was a little worried about it being in 2 pieces instead of the 1 but you can't even tell that it's 2 seperate pieces! That's how good it looks. Plus it goes really great with my burgundy asian chest my father gave me. Can't wait to put all my novels/cds/dvds/knick knacks onto the shelf.

Long Work Week - TGIF!

Sheesh... thank goodness this week is OVER. I have had a really long work week... I have been skipping my lunch this past week and on Thursday I stayed until 5.00pm (I'm usually off at 4.30pm) to finish off a spreadsheet that I have been FOREVER working on... This morning, I had to be at the office at 7.00am to set up a group meeting (our entire division) regarding the recent changes that are happening with our global division. It has been pouring rain the last couple of days and this morning wasn't any different. Gosh, it's sure quiet at 6.30am and no one is on the bus this early! I'm thinking maybe I should start coming to work earlier..... noooo, that's just crazy!! After picking up 30 donuts at Tim Horton's (still a crazy line up there even at 6.45am in the morning! We Canadians need our Timmy's to start the day...) and heading to the office to help set up the boardroom. It was pretty much a fight to keep my eyes open! I have not been sleeping well for the last week because of the construction going on my street. Last night I had a hard time sleeping because when I know I have to get up early or I am going to the airport the next day, I always have a hard night to get through. It's being paranoid about not waking up on time or waking up too late. I pretty much only had about 5 hours sleep and I NEED at least 8 hours to get through the day.

On a good note, I left the office early (3.30pm), of course with the permission from my manager, and headed over to Shilo to pay off my balance. Yep my custom cubed bookshelf is ready!! Delivery for Saturday morning (between 7.00am to 10.00am - yet another early morning, that is SO WRONG on a Saturday morning). I am so excited and I cannot believe it's here! Done in 4 weeks but I beat the Xmas rush and I know she is swamping busy right now. A lot of custom orders coming in for the Xmas season. But mine is here! I can't wait to see it, I know it's going to be beautiful!!!

And yet on another happy note, one of my books from Chapters arrived today!! I can't believe how fast these books can get to me. I love ordering books online esp. at those awesome discount prices!

Once I got home, I decided to veg on the couch for a bit (Kay was at her friend's house doing their French homework / hanging out) and watched TV / napped a bit. I decided to order take out because I was still too tired to cook dinner and I needed to clear the space where my new shelf was going to be placed. Still pouring rain when I went to pick up Kay and our dinners. After dinner, I watched a bit of my fave. shows on Friday night (Ghost Whisperer, Las Vegas, and Numb3rs) and cleared out the area where my new shelf is going. Gosh, I have a lot of books and stuff. My living space is now chaotic. It's like a storm blew in and placed boxes/books/cds/dvds/magazines all over my living room. I think this weekend I'll be home clearing out my living space. I need to clean up and get rid of more stuff.....ugh.... well at least the weather is on my side this weekend. Forecast: Showers until Monday. A good excuse not to leave the home.

Another Notice!

Two days in a ROW!! My little black SW's pumps received another notice! A hot blonde chick came off a bus and stopped me to admire my pumps! How funny is that??? She told me my pumps were hot and I almost slipped out "you're hot too!" ~_^ I love it when my little black pumps get noticed! :)