Cheap Goods, Bad Service

I really dislike that in order to get a good deal on something you often have to go through bad service.  My boyfriend informed me that NCIX, a local computer store, had a hard drive on sale for today only.  It was a Seagate Barracuda 640GB 32MB cache hard drive on sale for $79.  I wrote all of that down on a piece of paper and brought with me to the store.  When my turn came to see a salesperson, I gave the guy the piece of paper and he looked it up on the PC, ran my card through then brought out the drive.  Pretty straight forward.

Before I went to the store though, I had this slight feeling that something was going to go wrong.  That maybe, they would give me the wrong item, but that the chances were low since I’d written it down on paper.  But as I was driving away, I decided to check my purchase, and lo and behold, he did sell me the wrong hard drive.  It was a Western Digital 640GB 16MB cache drive for the same price.  This is actually the second time this has happened to me at NCIX.  A few years ago when I bought my PC, they sold me the wrong processor and we had already opened it up and installed it before we realized it was wrong.  They didn’t make too much of a fuss when we went to exchange it, but it’s still a hassle.

I just don’t understand…  I WROTE the item down in full detail in big letters on a white sheet of paper.  How do you mix Seagate and Western Digital!  Seriously.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales No Comments » August 2008

My First Laptop

Finally ordered my laptop today…  And when I say “ordered,” I mean my boyfriend put the specs through to Dell and I just had to call them back to confirm.  I hate talking to salespeople.

Before putting the order through, I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to spend $250 more for the extended warranty (and additional 2 years) which included accidental damages and also data recovery if the laptop were stolen.  But my boyfriend didn’t think it was worth that much money.  My main purpose for the laptop will be for travel, but I might only go somewhere once a year that would warrant bringing it with me.  I also don’t plan on using it as an everyday computer, so it won’t have to go through much wear and tear.

So on the phone, the salesperson asked if I wanted the warranty and I said no.  And then he went on to explain the warranty, which led to probably a 5-minute long conversation about the warranty, and then 30 seconds of me wondering if I should get it or not.  Finally I said no again to it, which was followed by the longest pause ever before the salesperson said anything again.

But at least it’s done now!  Two weeks and I’ll have a Dell XPS M1330.  Woot.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales No Comments » August 2008

Renovations

I decided to start up a blog solely on renovating. I am planning on a project in the new year to my apartment unit and am just starting to talk to contractors… It’s going pretty slowly at the moment. But I guess I am 6 months away from actually starting.

The Newbie’s Renovation

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales No Comments » July 2008

More Office Pwnage

My manager really liked The Dark Knight.  He liked it so much that some were joking around that he was in love with Batman.  Yesterday I printed out a picture of Christian Bale and put it on his cubicle wall while he was gone.  Not too much came of it other than him returning the picture to me (but I managed to convince him that someone else had posted it).  This morning, I got into work and found that some others had blocked his cube in with a wall of Christian Bales!

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales 2 Comments » July 2008

Lack of Updates

Unfortunately for the past month I’ve been pretty swamped at work so I haven’t had much time to do anything creative.  I did remember that I did a small Mario-based painting sometime last year.  Nothing fancy, but definitely geeky!

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales, Artsy Fartsy, Video Games 4 Comments » June 2008

Office Pranks

I’m at my desk and then I heard just a barrage of laughter on the other side of my cube.  So I wandered over to find out what was going on.  My manager had sent his XBox 360 away for repair some weeks ago and it just arrived back.  However, he wasn’t at his desk when it arrived, so they opened up the box and replaced his 360 with an old XBox and taped it all back up so he couldn’t tell it was opened.  He was about to call the Microsoft helpdesk to complain until they broke it to him.  I thought it was a pretty awesome prank.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales 1 Comment » May 2008

His Mom Thinks He’s Cool

Me, the boyfriend, and another couple went to Sweet Revenge, a small dessert cafe, last night after dinner.  When I say small, it’s pretty small.  We had this tiny against-the-wall table for the four of us, right next to another tiny-against-the-wall table which seated a guy and a girl.  Throughout our time there, the guy at that small table was just loud enough to be slightly distracting to our own conversation.  Every now and again something he’d say would stand out and we’d chuckle to ourselves.  I guess it’s pretty rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversation, but when you’re making no effort to keep your conversation to yourself, I say it’s a free-for-all.

What I learned about this fella…

1. He and this girl he was with met on the Internets.
2. He likes to repeatedly say that he’s gotta put himself out there and see what happens.  He’s done the dating scene for a long time.
3. An older woman, through a dating website, was interested in him.  But he wasn’t (since she had a kid that was his age), so he nicely wrote back to her that he was flattered but he’d rather just be friends.  The woman was quite unhappy about it.
4. He’s old enough so he’s allowed to have high standards.
5. He was in the army for a while… But he hates guns and refuses to serve overseas.
6. He was shocked by the Taco Del Mar explosion when his buddy told him to go to the Global website to catch the live feed which wasn’t a live feed of the explosion, but rather a live feed of a reporter on the scene.
7. He has Samurai Jack on disc.
8. His mom thinks he’s cool.
9. He brought up his ex-girlfriend for some reason.  She has the same name as me, and she turned 25 last September.
10. He has verbal diarrhea.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales 2 Comments » May 2008

Vancouver Cries a Little… Plus some Karaoke

After an embarassing 7-1 loss to the Flames, the Canucks have ended their 2007-2008 NHL season.  And again, it could’ve also possibly have been Trevor Linden’s last game as well.  I wish I was at the game just to be in the crowd to cheer for him, but I watched from a bar downtown.  I hope he gets to play again, 7-1 isn’t a way to end an NHL career!  I think this photo and write-up conveys the emotions much better than I can.

Saturday night was spent mostly downtown.  Dinner was at Alpha Global Sushi Bar, a Japanese tapas restaurant in Yaletown.  I will attempt a mini write-up on this place as well as the restaurant Goldfish sometime in the future I hope.  After dinner, the group of us went to The Met in Gastown for karaoke night.  While the place itself looks pretty seedy, the patrons were not.  While we were sitting there waiting for karaoke to start, a woman came and sat at our table just to say hi and introduce herself.  As for the karaoke, we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but it was pretty awesome.  There were a handful of good singers.  One woman sang Bullet With Butterfly Wings and I was totally impressed.

It took us about an hour and a half to gather the courage and pick some songs to sing.  Then another 45 minute wait until it was our turn.  Jenny and I ended up singing Radiohead’s Creep, then Ryan and Jenny sang Men At Work’s Down Under, and finally Jon closed our night with the Marilyn Manson version of Tainted Love.  His performance was quite epic as two random women danced with him throughout the entire song!

What I liked about this place’s karaoke was the song selection…  I’m way more into rock music, though I can appreciate pop songs and old classics.  But the closed-room karaoke places tend to lean more to pop songs, maybe a few really popular rock songs, then Asian songs.  I’d like to return to this place again, hopefully with more courage as well as more people that are willing to sing too.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales No Comments » April 2008

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Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales Enter your password to view comments April 2008

Great Success!

That there is Chris Shiflett, guitarist for the Foo Fighters.  I managed to get his autograph and give him the cross stitch which he seemed impressed by and thanked me for.  If you look closely at the photo above, you can see the frame in his hand!  I wasn’t able to get a proper photo of him though ’cause two other kids immediately asked for his autograph after me.  It was kinda funny ’cause he asked them where his gift was since I gave him something, lol!

I had waited about 5 hours prior to the show for these guys to show up.  Call me crazy, but there were crazier crazies waiting around too.  Their busses pulled in around 3:30pm and I saw Dave go straight into the building.  Taylor came out to sign stuff but he went the other direction from where I was.  That was when I turned around and saw Chris standing off to the side with a smaller group of fans and I darted over.

The show itself was pure awesome.  I wish I had floor seats but they didn’t seem to be available and/or sold out immediately when we bought the tickets.  It was just constant energy, I already wish I was going to another show tonight.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Movies, Music, & TV, Random Life Tales 2 Comments » March 2008

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