There are pros and cons to all shopping experiences, but even more so for shopping online. You’re taking a huge risk and purchasing a product, service, or deal based solely on photos and descriptions. Sometimes things go great — I have had tons of positive experiences when things go great as well as awry.

I’ve been really impressed by the daily group-buy offers and have even purchased one (and nearly purchased a few others). I love receiving those daily deal emails from StealTheDeal, Groupon, TeamBuy, GoodNews, LivingSocial, and EthicalDeal. Another great experience: Once we ordered an all-region DVD player but it arrived only being able to play Region 2. We emailed the eBay seller who was able to send us instructions to reset the region to 0. Fantastic customer service!

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But since Saturday, one recent experience has been pissing me off. I really need to rant about poor customer service. Frankly, I don’t care if you’re at Comic-Con or on the other side of the world (hello World Wide Web…). I ordered this item a month ago and I just want a damn response regarding a replacement!

Craig’s birthday is this Friday and he’s a fan of the online comic, VG Cats. He’s been laughing over this humourous Zelda-themed shirt sold by SharkRobot for a while. (View the VG cats comic it’s based on OR read a Game FAQ to find out why it’s funny). He hadn’t ordered the shirt due to the cost of shipping to the UK. Good for me though, since shipping to Canada was pretty reasonable. I ordered the shirt a month ago and it arrived last Friday (allow 4-6 weeks for shipping, fine).

But when I opened the package I was highly disappointed. As you can see above, the image is supposed to be large and wrap-around. It is tiny and only on the front.I replied to the “Order Shipped” email with my dissatisfaction and demanded they reprint the tshirt as advertised and reship it to me. I don’t want a refund, I want the product I paid for. I hadn’t heard anything by today (Tuesday) so I sent another message via their website and quoted my Order Confirmation number. As of this post, I still haven’t heard back. Grrrr…

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Online Shopping silver lining: today I came home and Kim Werker had retweeted something from PoppyTalk about an online sewing class. I’ve been really tempted to take some of the clothing workshops and tutorials offered at local shops, but really don’t feel my skills are up to snuff. I realize that the point of a class is to learn, but if my basic skills aren’t honed, I might miss out on what I really want to learn about. What appeals to me about a local class is that with clothing, they can help measure me and teach me how to modify patterns to fit.

However, with this online Home Ec class offered by Leigh-Ann, Courtenay and Rachel, I’ll be able to practise some basic skills for a reasonable price! I ordered as soon as I finished reading the list of project and course description.

Things are getting busy here. I’ve got a lovely snotty cold, and work is very busy gearing up for The Festival. I’ve been reading and knitting and fixing up my place more to keep myself sane, but I’ve been having mini-panic attacks. Well, not panicy so much as feelings of despair. I’m loving my job, and the apartment, and living on my own… but some days/weeks it feels like all I do is go to work 9-5, cook dinner, clean up afterwards, and then I’m too tired to do anything else. I’ve gained several pounds this summer due to pure exhaustion, and I have no muscles to speak of.

I’m sorry to bellyache here, especially after a week of quietness. But it’s my blog right? The summer hasn’t been a total bust. I love the job I’m doing … well the end result at least. It’s the 9-5 that’s bearing down on me. We’ve had lots of fun — my boyfriend and I have done lots of daytrips and some horseback riding too. It’s kind of that feeling that I’ve had no summer, but it’s mostly the terror that this is all the rest of my life will be — work and sleep. *sigh* I need to get out of this rut… starting with the blog!

Things to look forward to on the blog:

• yarn I bought this weekend
• 2 book reviews
• photos from the summer and Henry

After getting stuck in the June Critical Mass traffic coming back from Horseshoe Bay, I’ve started to learn more about the ‘movement’. Critical Mass Vancouver had approximately 3,000 people riding today. They start at the Art Gallery at 6:00pm and ride all around downtown. The Critical Mass mantra: “We’re not blocking traffic; we are traffic!” is meant to raise awareness about sharing the roads. Unfortunately opinions have changed considerably.

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I am slowly coming to realize that I may need to buy a new laptop. I don’t know if this 3-year-old MacBook is worth the investment of getting it fixed. I have a feeling it would cost less to just buy a new MacBook. For a while now I’ve had battery life issues. This usually means that I can’t have it unplugged from the power source for more than 5-10 minutes or it just shuts off. I’ve dealt with it, although it has limited the mobility of my laptop, it’s been okay.

But over the weekend I forgot my laptop and left it at home not plugged in. It obviously had trouble keeping the harddrive alive because booting up yesterday I kept getting a “kernal panic” message which basically says you need to reboot for whatever reason. Booting up just now took about 20 minutes and I had to keep turning it off and on, off and on, until it booted up. Sometimes it would just sit there making the boot up noise a bunch of times, doing nothing.

So I’m looking at a 13-inch MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM (which I was considering updating on this computer anyway). It’s $1,749.00, with free shipping… but we also now have an Apple Store here in Vancouver, so I might go down and play with some of the new computers. Is 3 years too short of a lifespan for a laptop that I use every day, sometimes non-stop for several hours at a time? Have I got my money’s worth when I spent $1,600 on this machine?

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I find a lot of these news articles especially timely in publishing this month because things are so busy at work as I’m becoming immersed in the Industry.

• To kick off, let’s do some personal plugs: the BC Book Prizes will be kicking off the annual province-wide author tour on Monday, April 13th. Eight authors on tour legs throughout Northern BC and the Kootenays & Okanagan. Visit the BC Book Prize website to see full tour schedules, follow the On Tour author blog, and attend free readings. Oh and we’ll be tweeting all about it as they’re on the road!
• Did you know that the BC Book Prizes is part of BC Book and Magazine Week? BCBMW is co-produced by the BC Association of Magazine Publishers (BCAMP) and the Association of Book Publishers of BC (ABPBC) and it is a celebration of all things literary in BC.  The words festival occurs annually and events this year (April 18-25, 2009) include a Literary Tour along Main Street in Vancouver, and Magazine Cabarets in cities all across BC. Visit the BCBMW website/blog for details on events and to keep up-to-date with BCBMW news!
• The Alcuin Society has announced the winners of its 27th annual Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada. Of an astounding 233 entries, the judges selected 32 winning titles. Congratulations to all the Canadian authors, illustrators, designers, and publishers recognized by The Alcuin Society’s Awards for Excellence in Book Design. You can view the full list of winners as a PDF on the Alcuin website. They also now have a Flickr photoset of the judging process and a number of the winning designs.
• April is National Poetry Month: a lot of people across the blogosphere are participating in NaPoMo, but I’d like to highlight this page by the League of Canadian Poets. They have a very informative page on National Poetry Month including links to event listings, historical information, and the Poet Blog.
• Speaking of poetry, Vancouver poet Shannon Stewart, author of Penny Dreadful, has been covered in Weekly World News for her tabloid inspired poems.
• More poetry news: The Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist was revealed on April 7th, 2009. The judges each read 485 books of poetry, including 33 translations, received from 32 countries around the globe. From seven finalists — three Canadian and four International — the prize will be awarded to the two best books of poetry on June 3, 2009. View the list of seven finalists here.
• All the blog world is atwitter today regarding a post at Flavorwire regarding Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. First of all, go and read the article “How to Alienate Bloggers and Boost Book Sales” on Flavorwire, including the scanned letter. I would like to offer some insight from the other side of the fence:
  1. In the publishing industry, embargoed information is extremely important. When we were preparing for the release of the finalist list for the BC Book Prizes in March, we had to send embargoed releases to newspapers and magazines so that they had time to prepare. We specifically requested they didn’t release the information in any way, shape, or form prior to the date. While this may not seem important for book review copies, it could be if the publisher wants to create a sweep of information every where you look on exactly the publish date.
  2. The question of excerpts and quotations in regards to copyright is very touchy. It is difficult to get into (but I may go into it further at a later date), but a lot of people think with the quantity of information widely available on the internet, that copyright does not apply. In the USA, there is a “fair use” clause, and in Canada it is called “fair dealing”. It is always better to check (if possible) before reprinting any quotes without requesting permission. From the sounds of the letter, he is worried about people posting multiple paragraphs as an excerpt and it would probably be safe to just email him and as about one-to-two sentence quotes. As for images, chances are the letter-writer was refering to inside illustrations.
  3. Yes the letter was just downright rude. I’m not going to get into the details, but the person could have approached the letter in a much better way and I am surprised no one proofread his letter before it left the publishing house. Letters should end with a call to action, not a threat.
• Onto nicer topics, oh wait… I’m out of links. Okay time to go read.

Warning: I’m going to rant, but I’m not going to name names or link sites.

I recently joined a local group that has meetups. The focus of these meetups is tea. Our last organizer went AWOL, and so I was very excited when the new Organizer stepped up! I would have myself ages ago except it costs to become an Organizer, it’s free to just be a member. Anyway, I messaged the new organizer expressing an interest in meetups around local tea shops and cafes in Vancouver. I included website links and several location suggestions just incase the Organizer wasn’t from Vancouver proper. I got the most infuriating response back… and when I read it at work, I actually said out loud: “Tea snob!”

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We only have one year until the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. To be honest, I didn’t want them. I’ve heard and seen some terrible things about the Calgary Olympics (winter 1988) and the Montreal Olympics (summer 1976). We already have tons of ads about the 2010 Winter Olympics because a Canadian has never won Gold on Canadian soil.

The reason I didn’t want them is because a.) Calgary apparently went into a huge deficit when they thought it would open them up to the world; b.) Vancouver’s tourism industry is fine; c.) When I visited Montreal I learned about the stadium where the roof was supposed to open and make it an open-air roof, but apparently it didn’t work, it’s a huge disaster, and it leaks; d.) They wanted to tear up the Cambie Heritage Boulevard to build a skytrain.

Now, this isn’t meant to be a hugely pessimisstic post, I’m just explaining my reasons. I was still in high school when Vancouver went in for the Olympic bid… and now with one year to go, I don’t think Vancouver is going to be ready. There is a lot of talk about no money being left to finish things like the Athletes Village and other structures for the games. I remember there was talk about updating the Sea to Sky Highway which goes to Whistler (where most of the mountain events will take place), but I don’t know if that ever happened. And, they still aren’t done the Canada Line — their solution to not destroying the Cambie Heritage Boulevard was to tunnel underneath the road. Pure chaos for the past three years in my neighbourhood.

But there is nothing I can do now. My parents are already talking about going out of town during the Olympics. Renting out the basement (which has a full kitchen) and having my sister and/or myself live upstairs. They want to go to Hawaii or Mexico.

I don’t know what I’m going to do during the Olympics. It will be pure insanity and I work downtown, near the historic part of Vancouver (aka tourist central). I have nothing against tourists… but I’m not a fan of crowds.

The whole “1 year until the 2010 Olympics” celebration is supposed to be positive, but I’m a little nervous. We’re welcoming the world and we’re not even ready. There is nothing I can do about it.

P.S. I just thought I should add that I don’t like the logo. We only have one inukshuk in Vancouver (it’s more of a Yukon/Northwest Territories/Nunavut symbol) and it was a gift to BC from the Yukon. I much more enjoy the Paralympic Games logo.

First off, sorry for the rant. It came from somewhere else, and somehow burped all over American Thanksgiving. Second of all, Happy American Thanksgiving to our continent-neighbours! (Sorry the image looks so angry… it was the only one holding an American flag!)

Now, for my explanation: I am basically tired of how commercial the holiday season has become. I’m sure a lot of people are, and that’s not to say I don’t enjoy finding lovely gifts for my and my boyfriends’ families, or that I don’t love seeing their smiles when they open them. All that I really enjoy.

The part I don’t enjoy is the obsession with spending, shopping, and over-consumption of useless products. Even my mom, who claims to hate Christmas shopping (and all shopping) said today, “I guess I need to start my Christmas shopping. Have you done yours?”

I love spending time with family over the holidays (this will be my 4th Christmas in England), and I love the smiles, the chatter, the lights, the smells… I just don’t see the need for it to be SO focused on the gifts. In short, while they are a nice “perk”, they don’t need to be the whole cake.

I think the whole thing was started by the Booking Through Thursday question. It was abut thanks:

Today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S.

Now, you may have noticed that the global economy isn’t exactly doing well. There’s war. Starvation. All sorts of bad, scary things going on.

So–just for today–how about sharing 7 things that you’re thankful for?

This can be about books, sure–authors you appreciate, books you love, an ode to your public library–but also, how about other things, too? Because in times like these, with bills piling up and disaster seemingly lurking around every corner, it’s more important than ever to stop and take stock of the things we’re grateful for. Family. Friends. Good health (I hope). Coffee and tea. Turkey. Sunshine. Wagging tails. Curling up with a good book.

So, how about it? Spread a little positive thinking and tell the world what there is to be thankful for.

Not exactly what I was expecting for Booking Through Thursday. They didn’t do anything in October for Canadian Thanksgiving. I didn’t like that throw away comment “sure it can be about books” …. and I just get tired about world things sometimes. My blog is a bit of escape from all the world craziness. Maybe I should have just taken it with a grain of salt and done 7 Bookish Things I’m Thankful For….

But anyway, that rant just got me started and it snowballed from there. Sorry again. I hope I explained myself better this time.

Have you noticed that as NaBloPoMo has gone on, my posts have gotten crappier and crappier? Ugh me too. I think I’m running out of steam. Near the start of the month, I posted nearly twice a day, just because I don’t like to make combo posts, I prefer to have one topic per post. I’m weird like that.

But now, I’m doing tons of memes and little bits and bobs. Not that memes aren’t fun… but they aren’t exactly posts with substance.

Today I should be doing Booking Through Thursday. But because it’s American Thanksgiving, the question is about thanks. Well you know what? I’m Canadian (damn proud) and we celebrated Thanksgiving back in October before Halloween (where it should be). Do you know why I’m a fan of October Thanksgiving? Because in November, it’s far too close to Christmas. Ever heard of “Black Friday”? (Who hasn’t?) Yeah, well, that wouldn’t happen if all Thanksgiving dinners were in October because then everyone would use the “after Halloween” marker for Christmas-beginnings.

So there is my rant for today. I think that to avoid the stress of the holidays, everyone should start planning from November 1st. Hello November = hello Holiday season!

Did you know that I leave for England on December 15th? This will be my fourth Christmas spent overseas with my boyfriend and his family. Is it weird that I still get nervous? Is it terrible of me that I just want a quiet Christmas with no family obligations? I want something quiet, heart-warming, and traditional. Home-baked cookies, roaring fire, watching Hogfather on SkyOne… no big family dinners, no present-shopping rush, no gift-giving frazzle….

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.6, and as my WordPress.com friends were complaining about a couple weeks ago — they have removed the “add picture” button. I suppose this makes sense, as with the new Add media bar, the add picture button was a bit redundant… but I still liked it’s ease of use.

I’m mad that they didn’t move the “Categories” up to beside the “Write a Post” window. Ugh I always forget to select my category since they made this change in 2.1!

I’m playing with some new plugins, so you might notice some changes around here. I’ll keep everyone updated

Take a look at the Version 2.6 Intro Video from WordPress:

UPDATES:

• There is now a Contact Me Form on the About page.
• Re-enabled my Creative Commons Copyright (it stopped working for some reason)
• New “subscribe to comments” to get any comments after yours emailed to you!