WiFi Hunting...

Here I am inside Blenz on Robson and Bute on their open wireless network :) It's the first time I've actually come out in search of an open wireless network with intentions of just sitting down, relaxing and... sipping coffee(?). Ya well, I'm sitting down and relaxing.. but I'm not sipping coffee. I'm actually sipping on a Bolthouse Farms (Since 1915) Strawberry Banana Fruit Smoothie with Apple Juice drink (that's a mouthful).

Earlier today, x-tension caught me on MSN...

x: hey sam.
me: w/sup
x: nothing much. trying to figure out what to do on a sunny b/ windy afternoon
me: fly kites :D
x: i got no kites.
me: blading
x: no blades.
.
.
.
(about an hour later)

me: I just thought of something...
x: ?
me: if we can find somewhere with a WAP then we can go blog :P
me: hehe
x: like a coffee shop?
me: something like that
x: i'm down. LOL

And here we are :) BUT.. I forgot to bring along my Camera :'( I'll just have to steal pictures off x's Photoblog

So our adventure began on the way Downtown. Apparently today is the day where all the crappy drivers in Vancouver come out and hit the road... I had people slamming their brakes in front of me, weaving in and out.. and people who drove as if they were the only ones on the road.

I brought along my power inverter so that we could plug a laptop in while we were riding around in the car. The last thing that I wanted to do was end up walking around aimlessly (carrying our laptops around) and not find a wireless hotspot. My plan was to drive downtown and poll the area for potential WiFi hotspots before parking and getting out. This would require us to drive around looking like UberDorks (passenger) with a laptop in his lap :D Lucky for me, I was driving :p

As I suspected we were able to find an open WiFi network @ Blendz on the corner of Robson and Bute, right off the main drag.


After leaving the car at the underground parking garage in Pacific Center Shopping mall we slowly made our way back to Blenz. It was quite the walk, but it was a nice day and it was nice to see all the different people walking around downtown. It was a beautiful day, and I wish I had remembered to bring my camera... X had his... and he was even tempted to start taking random pictures of VanCity's bums (transients, not backsides) :p

As I was writing this I had a look at X's post on this day :p and funny thing. He mentions something about his Apple Laptop and Widgets... SEE X?! Even PC users can have Widgets! :D

Damn you x you're right :p I have a weather widget set for Singapore weather, but I don't have a clock set for Singapore time ;) Don't need it hehe.

Well, the day was fun, and we're definitely going to do this again hopefully sometime in the near future :) We'll have to plan a day just to do geekstuff ;)

Yea, I read over this post and realized that it's pretty mish mashed as well... sorry :(

WoW - The Internet Is For Pr0n...

On a light note ;) and this is in good taste btw... just some suggestive language.

Malaysia Trip... First Leg...

Finally... for the few people who are reading this... I'm posting about my Malaysia/Singapore trip. Again I have to apologize for the delay :(

Just a !warning! : I've been having trouble gathering my thoughts lately so the following posts are not going to contain much wit and might not even make that much sense... O_o. Bear with me

We arrived in Vancouver International Airport on the morning of March 5th. (I realize that it's been over a month since I arrived back in Vancouver.. so i'm going to do my best to recall everything that transpired, again, my apologies) I decided to take a snap of this sculpture because (since I left everything to last minute) I though this was a prefect representation of how I felt! BTW taking this picture was almost an adventure in-and-of itself... let me explain.

I actually wanted to take a picture of that particular sculpture from the other side (which would make it look like he was dashing to the right)... good thing I didn't. As I was about to snap the shot... I heard someone yelling at me, "Hey you can't take it from that side!" or something along those lines. I looked up and it was security... thank God they didn't tackle me O_o The reason behind everything was (and I realized this afterwards) right behind it was the security checkpoint where everyone comes through before moving on to their respective gates. That being said, no, they do not want people taking pictures of their security checkpoints (metal detector, x-ray machine, security guards) because then people would be able to study them and blah blah blah... anyway, back to the story at hand. (I'm pretty sure I could have gotten away with a pic facing the other way if I had taken it w/o the flash... the guard didn't even check my cam to make sure that I hadn't taken one).

Ah, yes.... now I remember where we were going when I took that picture. We had actually passed that point but came back to go to the Maple Leaf Lounge :) One of the perks that my dad has. I wish I took more pictures of the Lounge.. it was really nice. The only piccy that I have is the one of the network drop that I was at. Very impressive, it felt like I was back at work :) The facilities were really nice, and if I remember correctly it was free to use the internet.


I was hoping to catch a flight on one of these contraptions :DOur journey to Malaysia had 3 legs:

1^st leg: Vancouver - Tokyo
2^nd leg: Tokyo - Singapore
3^rd leg: Singapore - Malaysia

---

1^st leg: Vancouver - Tokyo

This portion of the trip was with Canadian Airlines I believe we were on a DC10. My seat was an aisle seat towards the back of the plane. interesting thing was that since this was a flight to Japan I was surrounded by Japanese people, mostly students... some elderly folks. I was hoping to have a cute Japanese student as an aisle mate :p but no dice, keke. I ended up sitting with some homely looking Japanese girl who spoke almost no english at all. Mind you, I didn't make much of an effort to converse with her... I'm not much of a conversationalist when I'm on planes.

Funny thing is, I've been flying for as long as I can remember (dad used to be a chief stewart on Malaysian Airline Systems) but I still can't stand flying... I guess that's not an accurate statement. It's not so much that I don't like flying, but more the fact that you're stuck in that tin can for x amount of hours and nowhere to go. Everything inside there is so confined as well. I wouldn't say I'm claustrophobic, not by any stretch of the imagination, but unless you're in business/first class you're not going to have much room to yourself, expecially if you've got your carry-on luggage stowed under the seat infront of you. There's no way in hell I'm going to put my laptop in the overhead bin. Plus I have more than just my laptop in the bag. I have my books, etc... anyways back to the topic at hand.

Since this was going to be a long flight we had a couple of meals planned. First, we had a choice of Salmon or Beef. I chose beef... it was damn salty. I remember we had another meal... I can't quite recall what the choices were but I'm pretty sure I chose the Chicken.. I'm also pretty sure that it came on a bed of rice (?) :p or risotto or something :D The chicken was actually not too bad. It was edible as airplane food comes, so I guess that's saying enough of it already ;)
Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it. I was too hungry and forgot :(

Also, anyone who's been on a flight to Asia will know that it's a damn long flight. This leg was over 12 hrs I believe. That being said, I think I recall there being 3 feature films... all of which I slept through. There were a couple of news broadcasts as well as a documentary (I think) :p

On the approach to Japan I was surprised to see that there were Windmill generators along the coast! I'm not sure what area we flew over bud it was a really beautiful sight. The crop fields looked like patchwork, and I could see little vehicles running along the roads. I was half-expecting Godzilla to come out of the water and start battling it out w/ Ultraman :D.

On the approach I also overheard a couple of (younger) Japanese passengers say, "Choh inaka!" Which, if my Japanese serves me correctly, is a slang term meaning "boonies", "countryside" or more appropriately "rural".

The other thing that threw me for a loop was the fact that when we flew over another section (a little farther inland) there were golf-courses as far as the eye could see... seriously... it was whack.


My mom was just as awestruck as I was... I'm sure we counted at least 8... then again, that was over a month ago... and the mind tends to embellish things, right? :p

We finally arrived at Narita airport and after a near-perfect touchdown we taxied to our gate. After we disembarked, those who were transitioning were greeted by Narita airport attendants... I was very impressed with the effeciency of the Japanese system. Apparently there are almost NO incidents (passengers/baggage getting lost, delays, etc...) in the Japanese airports (I could be making that up as well :p) regardless of the fact that Narita is massive compared to Vancouvers piddly airport. I wish I had the frame of mind to snap a shot of the attendants that greeted us *sigh* They even had our names printed out on a large signboard :p

After the attendants confirmed who we were, they also verified that we had our tickets so that we could get our boarding passes at next check-in. We all did... that is, all of us except my dad O_o The Check-in lady in Vancouver tore off the wrong coupon when she issued his boarding pass in Vancouver. My parents had to catch their connecting flight in the next 1/2 hour or it would leave without them. Crappy. This was Narita's chance to shine... and a perfect example of how systematic and effecient they were. The Attendants immediately took out their ticket books and drew up a manual ticket with the proper details. Within 10 minutes, they (mum & dad) were on the way past the security checkpoint making their way to their gate (along with me) in one of the shuttle busses. On the bus... we looked around and saw this...


ya... I'm not sure what to make of that either...

Anyways... more to come ;)

Moving on...

Well... here I am, back from the dead. I know it's been over a month since I last posted (a real post) and now I can explain what was going on. First, yes, I have attempted to post in the past... but the two times that I was about to update the blog 1) blogspot crapped out and I had not saved the post as a draft... and 2) my laptop crapped out before I saved what I had written over the 2 hours. Now on with the show :)

Apart from the above mentioned... here is what has been going on since I have landed back on Canadian soil...

I am happy to say that I am no longer single. As of March 7th Jacq and I are officially a couple :) There isn't much to explain apart from the fact that she's brought an immesurable amount of happiness into my life. Our relationship is great so far, and she and I are working to see what we can do to come together :)...

On another note, before I took off on the trip, I had already been contemplating resigning from my position at the IBM CSC. To be honest, I had not thought too much about it over the trip (being on vacation and all) but when I went back to work again my mind went into overtime, driving me nuts trying to decide whether I was going to stay there or not. Those of you who are observant will realize that I'm speaking in past tense, so yes, I finally decided to resign.


On Friday March 30^th I went into a meeting with my HR rep.. followed up on all the things that we talked about before I left for Malaysia/Singapore, and at the end of the meeting let her know that I was going to tender my resignation on Monday. To my surprise, she was actually expecting it:

"Yea, I could tell from the moment you got back into work. Your attitude had been different all week."
"Really? But I'm always very impartial :)"
"Yeah, but you've been even more impartial this week."

That's not exactly how the conversation went that day, but it's pretty close.

For those of you at IBM who may be reading this, it was not an easy decision... There were even tears shed during the exit inverview, and I have to say JM is a great guy, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. My decision to leave was a result of a culmination of many different things, but mainly to come back and help my father w/ his business. :) Though that is the main reason, I am not ruling out other options... That would be another post in itself ;)

Accept it or not, those are the main reasons I have not posted in such a long time... that and the fact that my laptop mobo/vid card is slowly crapping out :(

On w/ the show...

Yes I'm Still Alive...

For my two readers who are wondering... Yes, I'm still alive and plan to get back into the swing of things :p I'm just taking some time to slowly get things together :) Regular posting will resume shortly ;)

I Never Procrastinate...

I guess this will be the final post before I officially leave the country ;) Unless, of course, I manage to get internet while I'm in the airplane O.O... how cool would that be? Mind you, if they do offer those services on-board, I'm sure I'll have sacrifice a limb or two. That being said, there aren't going to be any accompanying photos until later :(

On with it. Sooo, actually, this is the first post from my personal laptop (Toshiba satellite 5200) because, as you know my HardDrive died awhile back. The reason I bring this up is because...

Since I am going on this trip and my Personal Laptop was dead I HAD to go out and purchase a new HD in order to feed my 7.7 lb a day Laptop addiction. After consulting with ASOO my choice had been made. I wanted a: Momentus 5400 100G 2.5" Seagate 100GB 5400RPM ATA6 2.5" 8MB Cache for notebook. I was now officially on a mission.

I realized now that I probably shouldn't have put it off to the last minute cuz I had other things to do. I was expecting to have the weekend off but was asked to work a full day of OT and seeing as I'm taking 2.5 weeks off (unpaid) how could I turn down the offer? I got off work at 2pm and began my journey... here's a list:

1) Pick up car from dad's work (to run errands).
2) Get haircut. (I was past my bi-weekly limit and was almost at 'afro' stage).
3) Go to ATIC computers and pick up the HD.
4) Pack/install/reimage computer.
5) Try to call up AK for a last BBT run.

** 2 and 3 were kind of a toss-up but meh... actually, nm... 3 had priority but for some reason I didn't feel like I had my priorities straight that day **

*sigh* it's almost boarding time... more to come...

*** Update from Narita AirPort ***

I got a ride to H&R Block on Kingsway and grabbed the car. Then I booked it over to the Hair Dresser's on Rupert & 29^th Ave. There were 2 people in front of me so I was contemplating just leaving and to go pick up the HD. Turns out that it was a good thing that I didn't go, it didn't take long for Andy to cut the first 2 guy's hair :D Maybe he rushed cuz I tip him well? :p dunno.

I managed to get out of there by about 4pm and made it home by 4:10pm. I then proceeded to go to ATIC on Broadway. For some reason traffic this Saturday was retarded busy. wth. I took Boundary to Grandview and decided that Grandview was too narrow and traffic was too dense. I busted a right on Rupert and then took Broadway all the way down. What a waste of time. ATIC didn't have ANY Seagate notebook drives in stock! FEK!

I then proceeded to make my way up to NCIX. On the way there I got a phonecall from pa. "Can you go and pick Jeff (my cousin) up? I need him to sign his income tax papers". WTF... so I had to make a detour and head back home to pick up my cousin. I forgot to mention earlier that I initially went home to pick him up because he said he wanted to come along but subsequently decided to stay home (bastard).

After going home (yet again) we went to NCIX. Ya... they don't carry Seagate drives in stock. they order them. ARGH! You can imagine that I was frustrated by this time.

"So what DO you carry here?"
"Samsung."
"OK fine, let me see what you have."
"Uh..."
"Nevermind, do you have the 80GB HD that comes with the enclosure."
"Yes, it's on special."
"Fine, I'll take it."

$140 later (after taxes) I had my drive and started making my way over to H&R Block again.

"Hey Jeff, can you check the receipt?"
"Uh.. where is it?"
"Shit."

I had to go back to NCIX cuz I forgot to pick up the receipt after I left.

We eventually made it back to H&R Block, signed the papers and then went home. I spent the next hour and a half: swapping out the HDs, using the recovery discs (as I didn't have the time to do a clean install and do all the updates. Then I partitioned the drive, installed Ghost, and reimaged my laptop with the last one that I had. I was all set to go.... except that I had to take over 1.5hrs to xfer all the files that I had backed up on my external drive.



The remainder of the night I spent in-between chatting w/ Jacq, packing and installing the apps that I thought I'd need... so that was my day :p



I ended up passing out fairly early... without finishing my packing first but continued after I woke up this morning. Then I had to taxi my (work) laptop back to the office to lock it up. I'm not allowed to take it out of the country because of the sensitive information that's on it... (tho I know of a few people who have done so :p) psh.

frack.. I want to upload pictures.. but I'm not sure I have enough time :( Ah crap... they're boarding my flight... :@

Ciao for now.. I'll post the pics.. I promise ;)

Putting The Pieces Together...

Got called in to work a full day of overtime today, and I should probably be doing something more constructive.. but ya... enjoy ;)

Passport is finally here!...

Random: Cute... Amazing DDR Kid :)

I can finally go to sleep without worrying whether my passport is going to arrive before the day I was set to depart! I'm seriously wondering why it took so long for it to be delivered (?) it's not like it's a complicated process, and I'm pretty sure they weren't backed up at the time. My parents put in for theirs and received them well within the 3 week period that's stated. Mine, on the other hand, was stuck at the printers for god-knows how many days waiting to be printed... wtf. How do I know this? Well, I called the line to check the status of my passport... the service was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. As expected, I was in the phone queue for a good 25 minutes before I was picked up by an agent. The nice thing about their queue was that it let you know exactly where in the queue you were. In between the hold music a voice would come on the line... "yadda yadda, there are xx people ahead of you". That was a nice change which encouraged me to stay on the line as I could approximate the amount of time I had before my call would be picked up. I had lost my receipt and along with it my tracking number :p so she looked me up by name and verified some information, then she let me know that my passport had been at the printers for sometime and she didn't know why they hadn't printed it out yet. WTH. Anyway, she sent them an email and assured me that I would receive it by Monday.

I remember that sometime the previous week (Wednesday, I believe) I had put in an online request for a status check on my Passport. I didn't get the email from them until Feb27^th(the day that on which I was assured my passport would reach me), nice eh?

And What's up with this?:

Important note: We highly recommend that you use this service only when the normal processing time has been exceeded. Requesting information about the status of your passport or travel document application during the normal processing time could result in a delay.

How the frack does that work? Ask about the status of your passport and they will delay the time it takes for it to arrive? psh... run by a bunch of chimps I tell you.

Here's the timeline:

Feb 03^th, 2006 - go to Passport office and put in application for passport. The clerk advises that I should get the passport by Feb 17.

Feb 17^th, 2006 - Wondering where the frack my passport is... figure I'll wait a week before I say anything.

Feb 20^th, 2006 - Start to get anxious, will I have to postpone my departure?

Feb 22^th, 2006 - Check Passport Canada site and put in an electronic request for a status check.

Feb 23^th, 2006 - Called the 800 number to speak with a representative regarding Passport status. Was assured that I would receive it on Monday (Feb 27^th).

Feb 27^th, 2006 - Received status email (it's been 5 days). I use the tracking number that they gave me and it tells me this: 2006/02/25 15:12 OTTAWA, ON Item accepted at the Post office.

Feb 28^th, 2006 - Passport finally arrives! Now I can rest in peace, right? NO... I'm to excited about the trip!!! :p

Final Tally...

Well It's official over the last 24 hours I had over 1050 Page visits and over 1600 Page Views :p

Here is the final tally for the week:

And here is the final tally for the day:


I have an itching feeling that's telling me that... my 15 minutes of fame is over ;) Keke. To tell you the truth, it was kinda wierd. It felt like there were a whole bunch of strangers walking through my house O.o haha... and the even stranger thing... they all came in and didn't say hi =p 'cept the 3 that left comments... Anyway, it was fun while it lasted! :D

*** UPDATE ***

Here's the official report from Site Meter:

Blardy hell...

Nice, now it looks like my site is down, and I'm hosting my images there... argh :@ First I have a shitty day @ work, now this.

Since I have nothing else better to do I think I'll upload the images to blogger just to guarantee image uptime with blogger uptime... *rawr*

What... The... Fek... ?!...

Ya... so I go online after midnight last night and noticed that my hit count was waaaaay out of whack. My meager 22 hits a day average was already shadowed by the 80+ in the hour following midnight. I wasn't sure what the hell was going on until I decided to go onto KennySia's blog to see if he had updated... lo and behold there was a link to my blog from his... wow..

Really, I didn't make that picture to get traffic. I was bored and decided to PhotoShop for a bit... anyone who uses PhotoShop will vouch that it's a poor quality piece of work =p

Anyway, here's the aftermath (midnight-8:00pm)

And here's the pattern throughout the day:

I guess this is testemony for the next time Kenny opens up advertising space on his blog. I'll probably be worth your money :) Just think... if a someone like me can accidentally get 1000 hits in one day just from 1 link from his blog, just think of how much publicity your add will get ;)

I'm still waiting to post the day's final tally later tonight.

Cheers

UnKenny Resemblance...

Was reading up on KennySia's Blog and came across this post: "Like Mike"

I then got bored and made this, don't ask me why :p

BTW, I didn't have my mouse on me, so I had to use a trackpoint mouse, also too lazy to find a bigger picture of Kenny's head so the resulting enlarged features are of poorer quality.

Original photo from KennySia.com

*** update ***

Wow... it's 12:55am here, and I've already had +85 pageviews.. scary!
Didn't expect that pic to show up on KennySia's blog :p Anyways, I'm glad the effort wasn't for naught ;) Enjoy!

Vancouver NightScape...

Vancouver's NightScape (taken from Stanley Park)
I went on a drive with ASoo the other night and managed to get an OK shot of our CityLine. This picture was taken on the strip with the Marathon Runner statue before the 9 O'Clock Cannon. Unfortunately I didn't think of bringing the tripod along... so the picture is a little blurry. Enjoy!

VOIPStunt... Fair Use :p...

Yet another update on VOIPStunt and their services. Haha :D I appears that I have managed to violate the VOIPStunt Fair Use Policy and as a result some of my calls to Singapore are now being charged :p

I'm pretty sure I fall under the "Fair Use: Excessive Use" category as defined by the VOIPStunt Terms of Service. Here's an excerpt from the terms:

Excessive Use

1. In the case of VoipStunt free calls, there are restrictions on the maximum number of calls and the duration of the calls.

2. In the case of VoipIn numbers, applying for more than one number is excessive use

3. In the case of Fair Use Promotions, what is excessive use will either be advertised by VoipStunt at the time of the relevant promotion or included in this Fair Use Policy prior to the commencement of the relevant promotion.

I'm pretty sure I fall under the category that I've highlighted in yellow. That's still not going to stop me from using this application. The VOIPStunt service contains some of the best rates that are currently available. In my case (after excessively using my fair share) I get charged €0.005 ($0.00680852 CAD) so after talking for an hour the total comes to €0.30 ($0.408562 CAD). No complaints there :) But I'm thinking I should slow down on the usage or they'll just terminate my service (?) O.o

VOIPStunt... Bringing Us Closer Together...

I've always been skeptical when it comes to new technologies and accepting them... you're never sure what you can trust and how well they're going to work or for how long the service is going to be available for.

I guess this time was different for me because my father received an email from one of our family friends who is overseas in Malaysia. Towards the end of the email he mentioned that he's been using VOIPStunt to communicate with someone in Vancouver. hey, look at that... that's the city I live in. He also goes on to mention that the calls that he makes using VOIPStunt are FREE OF CHARGE! wooo haaa!

Click picture for a complete listing of call rates & locations
The list of landlines that you can call for free contains 37 countries. The only 3 that I was interested in were Malaysia/Australia/Singapore (for obvious reasons) Lo-and-behold... this list contains them all!!!

So I go ahead and install it expecting there to be some crappy restriction despite the fact that it says, "100% Free, no call setup!" I then proceed to place a call to Singapore (mobile phone) curious as to whether it would work because it says it's free to all landlines. But then again, all mobile networks have to be land based somewhere... right? To my surprise it worked... and (or I could have just done more research and read the rates :p) it worked well! Jacq said that the line was clearer than when I call from my home landline... wow!

HOWEVER... this service is not without a catch. I placed a few more calls that night and eventually it told me that my trial period was over, I had to go update my account. WTH... I really need to read more before I sign up for things like this :p

To counter misuse of our network we have limited these free calls to a maximum of 1 minute for our trial users. If you want to enjoy UNLIMITED FREE CALLS to these destinations, you have to become a fully registered user by topping up your account. This credit deposit will stay untouched as long as you are calling the free destinations and remains valid for 120 days after your last purchase.

Psh, no biggie :p I'd rather pay the €10 (approx $14 CDN) for 120 days of free Long Distance calling than the 10c per minute from our LD provider! Not to mention the $38 phone call that was billed to my mobile :p

Anyway, ya, it's working great and I get to talk overseas to my heart's content ;) Give it a shot. The only restriction I have now is that when it hits 59m 59s it drops the call. All you have to do then is call them back :D

* * * UPDATE * * *

Re: X's comment: There are VOIP services available in Canada but... funny story... the day after I signed up for VOIPStunt I was in the car on the way to work and I heard a story on the local news station. They were warning about one of the perils of VOIP service. When you're signing up for VOIP services (to replace your landline) you have to make sure that it offers a direct connection to your local Emergency Line. Apparently there was someone in the Lower Mainland who dialed 911 to report a fire... the call was routed/picked-up in Toronto and subsequently (eventually) routed to an Emergency Line in Vancouver. Unfortunately, this particular line was not a monitored line (???) yea, that part didn't make sense to me either, but I guess that was the only number that the TO office had on hand (?). Needless to say, there was substantial fire damage even though the call was eventually routed to the proper authorities. That's my story X... one final thought... why didn't the caller have a mobile phone? or just go to a neighbor's house?

* * * UPDATE * * *

Hmm.. interesting...


I was doing a little research on VOIP services.. and for some reason if you look at VOIPStunt, VOIPBuster and Internetcalls they're all owned by the same person (?) hmmm... In fact VOIPStunt and VOIPBuster are pretty much the same site templates... just different color. The client looks the same but the title... and the difference between those and the Internetcalls client are... the titles in the titlebar, and the icons... oh, and the fact that Internetcall allows call forwarding. What does the future have in store for me?... I wonder O_O

WTH... Speechless... :|

ya... wow... wish I had friends :p then I could try something like that too, heh.


You HAVE to read this... In-N-Out 100x100!

Happy Valentine's Day... Surprise!!!...

Wow... this year I actually decided to order something... ONLINE... for the first time. It also happened to be a Valentine's gift for my Overseas friend :D. So I go online to Google and do a search on 'Singapore flowers'. Me being a typical guy ended up sticking with one of the first 2 hits that I got :p so much for shopping around...

First hit: Prince's

I browsed through the site and was put off at the fact that almost everything was in the 3 digit range. Now, yes I think that if you're going to give a gift then give the best, and spare no expense. But I'm also a minimalist of sorts, simple+beautiful=perfect ;) the fact that I'm going to be flying to M'sia and S'pore and broke when I come back was another good deterrent. They had interesting assortments, some of them nicer than others... but I found most of them to be just average, considering the prices.

Second hit: Flora2000

Flora2000 offered (in my opinion) a nicer, simpler selection. Looking back, it may have just been the pictures that they used for their site that sold me :p The colors are more vibrant and they're all set on a nice white background. The arrangements were more appealing as well. Yeah yeah, I know, I'm not supposed to be thinking about what I would like personally... I'm supposed to be thinking about HER and what I think she would like, right? It's hard :p The other thing that attracted me to this site was the fact that most of the prices that were listed were in the 2 digit mark... which was nice for my pockets :D

I ended up purchasing the assortment that's pictured in my previous post. Simple... Classic Dozen.

A nice feature available on the site is a 24x7 Live Chat feature incase you need assistance in placing your order. I actually had a chance to try it out as I needed assistance was curious to see if it would work ;). The time it took for an operator to pick up the request was no too long taking into consideration it was Valentine's day (in Singapore) already. By the time the chat was initiated less than 10 minutes had passed. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that the person on the other side, a) Couldn't type to save his life or b) Didn't have ANY information on-hand which resulted in longer waits than should be expected for reasonably simple questions. To tell you the truth, I'm certain there's only one person taking requests for the site...

One thing I will mention though is for you people to be observant and find out what currency prices are listed as. Seeing as Prince's prices were listed in SGD I just assumed that the other site was also in SGD. Soooo, needless to say, when I did the conversion I chose SGD to CDN when it should have been USD to CDN. You can imagine my shock when I saw the little blurb in the Q&A section: "All prices are in United States Dollars (USD)" Yeah, great... thanks for making it obvious. For those of you who might not know, the big difference is that one conversion goes _DOWN and one goes ^UP. I guess it's my fault for not realizing that /Singapore was a sub-section of the site. there you have it, you have been warned :p

After all was said and doneI went home excited at the fact that (hopefully) someone would be pleasantly surprised. I even stayed up waaaaaaay past my bedtime chatting on MSN in hopes of being awake when the flowers got delivered. Nope, no such luck :( As it turns out they couldn't make the delivery on time and Jacq didn't have the chance of getting embarassed in the presence of her co-workers :p I was happy when I received her sms at 6:32am :D The flowers were indeed delivered, and in a timely fashion I might add. (There was a disclaimer in red stating that Valentine's Day orders would be delivered between Feb 14th and Feb 16th... too bad they didn't make one as prominent for the pricing as well :p)

Now I'm just waiting for her to send a photo of the Roses in all their true glory (with her in the picture, of course!)

And here it is!!!

It's V-Day Again...

It's that time of the year again, and if you're anything like me... you don't 'like' to do things last minute, but that is always the way things turn out. Restaurants are fully booked, and even if they aren't... it's going to be expensive as hell :p It's all worth it in the end, right?

I heard a good spot on the radio, for those of us who do not have a 'significant' other, have just broken up, divorced or lost their spouse it can be hard on V-day. Hard to watch couples walking past holding hands, cuddling and spending time with each other.

Some of the things that were suggested were to spend time with friends or family, go for a walk with someone. For those who have lost a love one, whether a spouse or someone else, sometimes writing a letter to them will ease the pain. In fact, many people do this annually... makes sense, no?

Fortunately for me, I have not lost any loved ones during this time and if there was ever someone who dumped me during V-day... they've long been forgotten :p

Well, I'm hoping that you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day... Stay healthy, remember, whether you know it or not, there's always someone out there watching you.

Where Was I All Week?...

For my whopping 3 readers who are wondering where I was all week (sorry for the lack of updates)... this is what I was occupied with =p. Yes, that's right, I was dorking out on PaperCraft :p Earlier in the week x sent me a link to this guy and I HAD to make it :D the game was fun, and it was a relatively simple PaperCraft to do.

Unfortunately I ended up with an appetite for something more challenging... so I downloaded and printed the Notre-Dame de Paris, France. *sigh* I'm too easily distracted.

Jacq mentioned that one of her collegues was wondering what kind of paper I'm using. Personally, I'm using your standard 8.5x11 sheets that you can find in your office printer. I'm sure they recommend something a little more rigid, but this seems to do the trick. One thing I will mention though... when I first started doing PaperCraft with AS we used gluestick, in the long run I'd say white glue is better. The Yamaha Motorcycle that I made with the gluestick had bits fall off over time... if you do it right the white glue will give your PaperCraft more support.

Welcome To My City...

Finally! The sun decided to come out and stay awhile! I was so ecstatic that I had to call AK up and see if he wanted to go in-line skating. I'm pretty sure I woke him up even though it was mid-day :p lazy bugger. I found my in-line skates and (literally) brushed the dust off of them. Then we were off. I took over 40 photos during our outing, but I'll post my favorites and a few others :)... hmm, maybe I should start a photoblog...

Here's a picture of Science World close to where we usually start. For those of you who are reading this and are not from Vancouver this was the center point for EXPO 86, when EXPO Came to Vancouver. It looks like it's undergoing a facelift or something.



Here's a picture of the Plaza of Nations (not a very good one)... some of you may recognize this place because there have been multiple films / TV shows shot here. One of my favorites was one of the death scenes from Final Destination (can't remember if it was 1 or 2... the kid that gets crushed by the pane of glass).


This is one of my favorite pictures... I wasn't expecting it to turn out that nice. Actually, I wasn't sure what to expect from the camera at all, the sun was blocked by all the clouds, so I thought maybe all the photos would be under-exposed. I'm thinking about making a large print of this one. If anybody's interested, just leave me a comment and I'll send the original, the dimensions are huge. ;)


Approaching the Round House area... and just past the Round House area...


This is another picture that I want to make a large print of. I've bladed past this spot countless times and have never noticed that the buildings there are symmetrical. This shot turned out nicer than I expected as well :) Again, if you'd like me to send you a copy of the full sized one, just leave me a comment ;)



Above are pictures from English Bay the beach where the famous Polar Bear swim takes place as well as the Symphony of Fire. I was surprised at the amount of people that were out despite the clouds. I supposed they were all tricked by the sun that peeked out earlier... like how AK and I got suckered :( That's a picture of the hotdog stand that we COULDN'T buy a hotdog at because we didn't bring our wallets along!



A few more snaps of English Bay.

I noticed something while we were blading that day... there are a while whackload of random statues/sculptures/monuments strewn about the DownTown area. Monuments that were not there last year... I'm guessing that it has got to be part of some effort to make Vancouver all pretty for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic games... I suppose this might also be a part of that effort as well... :/ Don't really know what to make of it though. It's interesting, that's for sure.

Here's another of the pictures I took. Another favorite. I'm thinking of getting this one blown up as well...

Hmm... I think I should make a photoblog for my posts like this... too many pictures, wow. Too much time :p Well hope you enjoyed the pictures =)