Month: November 2007

Around 2:30 this morning I woke up to wet snow hitting my bedroom window. It’s official, winter is here.

I hauled out my gloves and winter boots and went out to the car to wipe off the heavy wet snow.

I never really looked outside during my bus ride into the city but it turns out that Ottawa Center never got any snow! Strange! I never even noticed until Krista mentioned it may snow soon and I thought she was joking. Strange how a 20 kilometer distance can make a big difference.

I don’t know why but this year my body has become an ice cube. I have turned into one of those people who complain about the cold. I’m always cold! Argh. I don’t know how it happened. If anyone can invent fire for my feet, I’ll be the first to purchase it.

http://www.nme.com/news/red-hot-chili-peppers/32626

So my favourite show is having a lawsuit thrown at them because the Red Hot Chili Peppers feel that they own the rights to the word/namesake ‘Californication’. They have an album, they have a song, and they have a video with the name.

Come on guys! What the heck? Have you even seen the show? Watch a few episodes and realize that you should have been honoured that such an amazing show shared the same name as one of your albums!

I can’t wait until a show is made from one of my subject titles on this website. I’ll slap with them a lawsuit. That’ll teach them.

Anyhow, I think this is just dumb. Heck, the show may have actually cribbed the title considering it’s heavy musical influence, but you would think that the band would have been cool with it.

I guess not.

I’d hate to see the new series coming out called Back in Black, or Led Zeppellin IV.

My buddy Paul had a housewarming party in Toronto. I found out about it via some friends a week before the event so I already had plans to go to the States but if I had known about it when the original invite went out, I would have went up for the rip-roaring good time.

So I email Paul and kindly mention to him that he should think about a simple email to yours truly instead of depending on Facebook because…heck…I just don’t have a Facebook account!

Here is his reply:

Sorry man. Why don’t you just join the 21st century and get a facebook
account?

🙂

You would have been invited had you been on the fb.

Now, I’ve already given Paul the heads up that I shall be ranting on this very subject right here in Palmer’s World and that he should not take too much offense. I’m just going to try and prove a point. No ill will and no friendships shall be scorned between the two of us. I also know that he’s joking in his communique.

I begin.

WHAT THE HECK?! So I have to sign up an account out in cyberspace to get an invite to a party? Blasphemy! This is quite the setback in social relations in the 21st century. Or is it a step forward? Do people actually not want to hang out with a lot of people and would rather sit in their room and chat to babes online all day long? Maybe that’s the case. Otherwise, I’m sure if I was really wanted to attend this party, I would have got an invite somehow or another.

I’m going to throw out Evite as an example as to how it’s a better system. Evite.com allows you to set up an invitation and send out the invite to anyone with an e-mail address and they can peruse the invite. Point 1 – If someone doesn’t have an email address (which…I couldn’t even fathom who wouldn’t, but it’s a possibility), I would call them up and invite them. Point 2 – There is this function on Evite which shows you if the invitation has been read or not. For my Christmas party, I’ll check out that list to see if there are any people who haven’t opened it and get in touch with them personally to see if they want to come.

It ain’t rocket science here people. Flash back to 1983 and I’m sure people were getting on the phone and saying “Come to my party.” (click).

I’m really not denouncing Paul here because let’s be honest here.

1. He’s in Toronto which in his mind may put me out there as a fringe friend who probably wouldn’t attend.
2. It’s not like he’s my brother or anything and this will start a family feud.

What I am denouncing is the lazy culture that the network of cyberspace has created. I am victim to it as well. I depend on email as a communication device. I depend on Evite as a communication device. These are not perfect systems, and someone can probably denounce Evite as an awful, impersonal invitation system as much as the Facebook invite system. It’s a manner of making things…simpler. It’s much easier to send out an electronic invitation instead of phoning up 30 different people. There goes my Sunday afternoon.

Somewhere along the line, we have lost the true meaning of social relations. It isn’t about the number of friends you have ticked off in your Facebook account. It’s not about the Number of ‘Yes, I shall attend your party’ you see in Evite. It’s about your friends looking for a good time and you are offering that good time.

My favourite line from Paul is “You would have been invited had you been on the fb.”. So does that mean that I wasn’t invited otherwise? Ha! I’m sure this is not what he meant. Paul is not a bad guy. But Facebook has become an exclusive club. “Join Facebook and you can come to our parties.” I feel like I am pressured to do drugs back in high school again and because I never did, I wasn’t in the club.

Time and time again, the same excuse comes out though. People don’t want to take blame for this error. So instead of saying “I am a moron. I can’t believe I didn’t think about inviting you.” they say “Well, isn’t this your fault for not having a Facebook account?”

I’m going to reiterate that I’m really not harping on Paul here. He just provides an excellent example of a few other instances in the past year of parties I’ve missed out on because I wasn’t part of the ‘club’. The same reason comes back all the time. “Well why aren’t you on Facebook?” Read between the lines on that one: It’s your problem. You want to go to the parties, you have to pay the price, and that price is signing up for Facebook.

You know what? Just this one time, I’ll take the blame. Yep, I’m the moron here. If I want to go see anyone badly enough, I should be signing up for Facebook. In fact, I’m part of the slacker culture that the Internet has bred. We’re all caught up in this web of ‘trading off social relations’ for ‘ease of use systems’. I suppose one could create an entire argument on the industrialization of society and how stuff just isn’t made with the same heart anymore as it’s just mass produced. It’s the same concept with the Internet. It’s just easier to use so who cares if a little thought goes out the window?

On that note, I am off to update my Evite for my Christmas party. 😉 I think I’ve just written myself up as a hypocrite in this entry. But I’m going to redouble my efforts to ensure that everyone I’ve invited at least knows about the party. This is something to keep in mind while using these ‘easy-to-use’ systems. You can’t just hit SEND and think your job is done.

6AM. I wake up thinking “Awww yeah, it’s Saturday and I can sleep in!”.
1 second later I realize this is a false statement as we are headed to the States for the shopping trip!

We load up the car, pick up Trish and Krista who have brought baked goods (key note: bring ladies on future road trips) and we were off.

We headed towards Ogdensburg as we heard the Thousand Islands border crossing could be a little insane as it is on an Interstate highway. We waited a whole 5 cars and passed through with no issues. That’s right, they did not confiscate my apple!

After some mixed up directions by Mike in which we bickered like an old married couple (which left Krista and Trish in stitches in the back seat) and some very random selections for songs that Trish compiled, we ended up in Waterloo NY where there were some outlet stores to peruse. Mike and I weren’t expecting much from this place but we were pleasantly surprised.

Before I forget, there were a TON of Ontario license plates on the way down. I also saw Phil in the parking lot commenting on my car and we had a good laugh at the amount of people that were here shopping.

First stop, Krista’s all time favourite store – J.Crew. At that very moment, I knew that the credit card would get warm from use today as there were incredible deals to be had. I mean, everywhere I looked there were signs that said 30% off, 40% off, 50% off!!! I couldn’t really fathom it. So I just loaded up my arms and let the inner spirit take me away. I am not much of a shopper but I now realize that it is due to my frugal nature. But once I see these sales, I can’t really justify not picking up a sweater. I was telling Mom that we were in the Gap and Krista had picked up a pair of pants that I may want and I perused them until she told me they were $15 in which I stopped wasting my time at looking at them, and said “Sold.”

After getting some Arby’s in the packed lunchroom, we went wild and came out on top in terms of deals. Around 3:30 we figured we had seen everything and we had a trunkful of merchandise so we decided to head out to Syracuse. Matt, Karilee and Maria were still shopping in the Outlet shops so we left them there (not that we were hanging out that much anyhow. Everyone was doing their own thing.)

After some mixed up directions to get to the mall, we finally arrived at the Carousel mall (one of the darkest, cavernous malls I’ve ever seen) and hit up Circuit City for some electronics goodness (Mike picked up a camera and I picked up a great Christmas item for a good price!). I must admit that I was very disappointed that I did not see any signs saying 50% off at any point. It made me not want to purchase anything!

We postponed dinner to get our shopping done. I would say that the mission to the States was a success as I am 80% done my Christmas shopping and I managed to save quite a bit of money. Saving money equals more gifts for you people. We were getting very tired of shopping by around 8PM so we headed out to Fresno’s for a lovely dinner. Let me point out that I also love the US for the cheap meals. Seven of us ate for $97 and they were good meals. You can’t get that in Canada.

We then headed out around 11PM and while we were tired, we vowed to keep each other awake while listening to some more random songs by Trish. The killer lineup came from the songs ‘I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred, followed by “Let’s Get it On” by Al Green. Classic combo right there.

We hit the border and after proclaiming we had $1400 to declare, the border agent didn’t bat an eye when telling us that we would have to head inside. After paying the applicable taxes, we headed for home and retired for the night.

Here’s a rundown of some of the deals encountered:

• Mystery Christmas Gift for Someone – In Canada, $130. In the States, $80. Savings = $50
• The McCartney Years 3DVD Set – In Canada, $30. In the States, $19. Savings = $11.
• Sweater from J Crew – At the regular store in the US, $59.50. At the outlet, $29.70. Savings = $29.80
• Jacket from J Crew – At the regular store in the US, $88. At the outlet, $53. Savings = $35.
• Sweater from B. Republic – In Canada, $100. In the States, 25.49. Savings = $74.51!!! Krista confirmed this as she went to B. Republic and saw the sweater yesterday. Let us also point out that some boots that Trish and her purchased at NineWest were $60 as opposed to $180 in Canada.

I created a spreadsheet to analyze all this information to see if I really saved on a lot of things. While I had to arbitrarily enter some values on some items because I haven’t seen the actual price in Canada yet, I would have to say that I saved $268 on the clothing alone and $85 on the Christmas gifts I purchased. If you want that in a percentage, wow. I just figured it out.

In terms of clothing, I saved 106% comparing to purchasing it in Canada.
In terms of the Christmas gifts – 29.2%

Not too shabby.
All in all, I was amazed with the savings at the Outlet mall alone. I have vowed never to purchase clothing in Canada again while this Outlet mall exists! I am already planning a trip in the Spring/Summer.

Some other notes:

• If there were no outlet malls, there were quite a few items that I would not have saved money on, such as CDs, DVDs. This surprised me. In fact, without doing research, I ended up losing $1.25 on one item I purchased (after figuring out all the taxes and whatnot).
• You can still get some good deals but you have to do your research. The mystery Christmas gift listed above was an ideal example as I had to log onto the internet and do some research.
• We definitely didn’t feel any border wait times but at the same time, hitting the border at 1AM probably helped out.

Krista and I got to talking about god-awful Christmas gifts that we’ve received in the past.

I shall bring up these entries in the future for a special 12 Days of Christmas portion of Palmer’s World, but in the meantime, if you would like your Christmas gift story to be showcased during the 12 Days of Christmas, send it my way (not via the comment section people! Then people will see!) and will have a rundown of the worst Christmas gifts received and whoever has the worst one will receive something special from yours truly.

Actually, I think I’m going to expand this thought to our Annual Christmas Party and we will share the worst Christmas gifts stories for all to hear (along with some cider and rye).

Read article from Globe and Mail here concerning how in less than 50 years, we will see the birth of love-bots.

Jude Law, eat your heart out.

Hey, these are pretty neat designs for your iPod!

Click here.

If you’re interested in one, get in touch with me because if you order three, you get the fourth one free!

We are in the midst of planning our trip to the United States this coming Saturday. It will be an exciting road trip to end all road trips. There will be Christmas excitement in the air while we search for amazing deals. Also, some good road trippin’ tunes. Really, it isn’t about the destination, it’s about the great trip we will have. Although Krista just told me that she hates it when we play classic rock during the trip so we’ll have to switch things up. Although she then told me how she has a short attention span and likes to skip through songs after the first chorus or not hear songs by the same artists in a row.

What the heck? We’re definitely not letting her control the radio here or else it will be like the scan feature on your radio!

We are also mapping out the best route. Matt got a tip that the Thousand Islands entry point may take 3 hours to get across so we found another one near Prescott which may help us more. HOPEFULLY. Although I just found out there are toll booths along the way. The bane of my existence.

After nine years of filling up a 40 oz bottle of Absolute Vodka with pennies, it was finally full.

Time to count the change!

Let’s recap some past events involving me counting change. Like when I counted my beer bottle of change in which the beer bottle was the size of a small dog and there was $1000 in it. Awww yeah!

So I know that pennies don’t really amount to much but I had these visions of having at least $50 from it.

In the end, it took me three hours to count out $24. Ah well. It had to be done. I’m glad this will only occur every nine years.