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 CW and I 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!

CW’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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.