watching.....Sons Of Anarchy (SoA)

I did not know that I could get hooked on watching a drama revolving around greasy haired bikers. I LOVE SONS OF ANARCHY!

I first heard rumblings of this series via some forums that was dissecting Friday Night Lights epi by epi. In one post or another, some forumer would reference SoA. Each one would talk about how realistic the show was in comparison to whatever else is on television right now. This is relevant to FNL because all those who love that lil football show believe it to be a really great portrayal of the realities of small town football. Anyways, SoA was mentioned enough times that my curiosity was piqued and I decided to give it a whirl. The FX channel ads also helped to steer me in the direction of Sam Crow.

And I was hooked from the get-go. At first I loved Jax the most but then Opie slowly crept in and stole my heart. I love rooting for Opie. Perhaps the defection of affection from Jax to Opie has something to do with the Doc. She annoys me and if Jax wants to be with her then I have to like Jax a lil less.

I finished both seasons in 2 weeks (would have been sooner but I do have a job to do) and am dying for September when the third starts up again. I don't know how they are managing the storyline with Queen Bee Mama Jax on the lam. With the Sheriff's help no less. And oh, poor Half-Sack. No more Half-Sack and he was about to get inducted and all. Also, cannot leave out poor baby Abel taken away by the crazy Irish IRA dude. Just one thing I wanna say about the baby cast as Abel. If that is not the most beautiful baby boy I have ever laid my eyes on. Looking at him actually gave me baby pangs. I got over it quick though :)

i'm a bit disgusted with myself

Having an AMEX is starting to become an issue for me. A big spending problem that I need to curb ASAP. This comGateway service is a gateway to retail debt I tell ya. I realized since opening an account with them that I've been spending my nights trawling previously untouchable shopping meccas. As of now, I've got one shipment containing two Amazon.com packages (3 items total) heading for home and another 3-item shipment being processed by Charlotterusse.com.

I mentioned in my blowout shopping post that I was trying out the comGateway service. My first try was purchasing a stainless steel wide-mouth Sigg 1 litre water bottle and a pair of JBuds Noise-Reducing earphones. Once I confirmed their arrival at my pseudo US address and determining the chargeable shipping weight was already going to be substantial, I decided to get myself something else I've been wanting to get but had difficulty finding on eBay - a Wii Fit platform riser. It's this plastic platform that'll raise the height of the Wii balance board to a full 4 inches; the height of an actual step aerobics platform. I've wanted it for a long time and the opportunity presented itself (via comGateway and AMEX) so I erred on the side of WTH, let's just do it and do I did :)

I was even encouraged to try out Amazon's Prime membership for a month. I joined just so I could take advantage of the 2-day free shipping. Once the trial period is over, it's back to free standard shipping for me. My two Amazon pacakges are now on their way via DHL. At a total of 5kg chargeable weight, I ended up paying USD50.62 in shipping cost. More than the total cost of the 3 items I got :P Oh well, the price you pay for wanting things from the States, eh?


Then as I was checking my package status today on the comGateway site, I decided to be curious and check out the promotions tab. There I saw a BOGO for USD15 shoe promo from charlotterusse.com. I said that I'm looking for the perfect wedge heel that''ll go casual and dressy and since my dream of owning a Crocs Rio is undoubtedly crushed to smithereens (I've searched multiple countries for this shoe), I decided to delve into this offer. If there was something to get, good for me and I'm able to get two shoes for cheap, hopefully. I found the perfect wedge heeled cutout bootie that ticks all my criterias and as a bonus got another pair of shoes valued at $32 for 15 bucks. The second pair I got is a studded gladiator wedge in cognac. Kills my desire to own a tan colored shoe though now I've kinda gone over my shoe limit for the year. I mentioned I was allowed just one more shoe, now I've gotten two shoes but I'll rationalize it away by saying it's like I'm getting 2 shoes for the price of one. Which is kinda the truth anyways :) I also got my colleague some earrings since I registered for the charlotterusse.com newsletter and got a 10% site-wide discount. So, on top of the BOGO promo, I also got a 10% discount off of my total. Neat isn't it?



But like I said, I just blew USD1000 plus not a week ago during my all-out birthday week and here I am blowing more money on stuff I don't necessarily need but just want to satisfy some kind of deep rooted desire to be able to buy things from websites that tell me I'm not eligible to buy from them due to my geographical location. Yes, I guess I am one of those people who try to find a way around things if you tell them you can't do something. Did it with Kindle now I'm doing it with the rest of Amazon. For the last time, i'm just going to try to give up on Amazon completely. Not just Kindle, which I've been good at, but the whole of Amazon itself. And online shopping in its entirety. I don't think I can afford all this spending much longer. I do want to save some money this year. Maybe get my savings up by 10K. So, really, please Zlena, let's just do away with the online shopping completely. You can't afford to be THIS frivolous with money. Love you, gal. Muahs!

UPDATE (31/03/2010):
YAY! My order with Charlotterusse.com was cancelled. I knew going into it that there was a huge possibility the order wasn't gonna go thorugh cos I kinda tried a hokey thing by falsely stating my billing address was my US shipping address. Which they were smart enough to figure out and thus the cancellation. I'm glad. After publishing this post yesterday I was starting to feel major buyer's remorse. As in I really should not be spending this much on shipping. The cost of the things themselves is ok, its the shipping that kills it. So, cancelled order = good for my sanity :) Oh, and my DHL package is now in transit in Hong Kong. It should arrive soon-ish to my home. I CAN'T WAIT!

the week i went crazy

Shopping that is. I blew over 1K in one week. It was fun, it was at times impulsive and I loved every single purchase I made!

Oooh, I got my AMEX Platinum and that's great cos that opens up more shopping avenues to me via comGateway. I tested it out and got myself a SIGG water bottle and JBuds Noise Reducing earphones. Am waiting for it to be received at my place in Oregon. It arrived Saturday but no one was around to accept the package I guess since it was returned to Amazon's warehouse. I'm not sure if comGateway works on weekends. That would surely explain why the package failed to be delivered. We'll see the outcome Monday :)

I got myself, and was also given, a bunch of things. Things I gifted myself were Skechers Shape Ups Sleek Fit, Marie Claire nude pumps, a tiered white tank dress, a coral peasant top, a crochet shrug, a double wrap weave belt, a wide twist weave belt, 2 sports bras, a coupla stockings, a 1TB desktop external drive, a retractable laptop cooling pad, a 16GB thumb drive, an external slim DVD writer, a multi-prong adapter, a pair of work pants and a blue tunic from Dorothy Perkins, a cool gold ring from Topshop, 6 metres of beautiful fabric, and a bunch of crystal bracelets.

Prezzies I received were my Bottega Veneta portafoglio (L-O-V-E) from my 5 girlfriends, a spiffy laptop folder cover from my Daddy, a really beautiful silver jewelery box from my other best friend, another gal pal paid for my Books Depository order, a trio of things (beautiful dark green pashmina, gorgeous metal cuff bracelet and a blingy handbag holder from my other best gal pal, a hiking backpack from my colleague for my Indonesia trip this May and I'm sure I'm forgetting something but can't be bothered to recall it.

The point is I got loadsa, loadsa stuff and am truly truly psyched! If I'm not too lazy I'll do a pictorial of the majority of thing I got. Conclusions: My birthday week was AWESOMETASTIC! Love ALL of you guys who made time to spend it with me. MUAHS!

this announcement goes out to Zlena Adam - Please STOP buying stuff online!

Especially books! No more books for some time, please, Zlena. We're going nuts just thinking about the stuff you've bought and it's only the beginning of March. Just because you got a salary increase, it doesn't mean you need to spend as much as (and sometimes more than) you earn. Ok? So let's rein in the spending, especially on Kindle, no more books that aren't FREE. Free books, go right ahead and download 'em but even if it's 99 cents, you are not allowed to get it.

Also, no more looking at books at The Book Depository or makeup at Strawberrynet or whatever junk takes your fancy on eBay. No more, no more, no more. After you see if you've won the Skechers Shape Ups Sleek Fit auction THEN you are banned from buying on eBay till after June. And Strawberrynet as well. We can't imagine whatever else beauty product you would need since you seem to think you're stocking up for the apocalypse. And even if there were an apocalypse, if you're not dead, you'll most likely be stuck underground somewhere with no electricity to read your Kindle books on your Netty OR light to read the paper books either. (You seriously think the other people are going to allow you to waste the precious gas lantern/fire for your reading comfort?) Also, if it were the apocalypse, you'll have more things to worry about than reading books, applying beauty products or junk shopping.

So, we're pleading with you, Zlena Adam, to just please stop with the online buying for the rest of March and April. Enough is enough. No more. And the markets, we don't know how many more tunics you need, you don't need any more tunics. Nor shoes. So lets make the Skechers Shape Ups, the Crocs Rio and the desired nude pumps your last purchases in the shoe department for this year, ok? Not to mention, do we need any more handbags? Hmmm? Do we? DO WE? We are sick and disheartened at your lack of self-control, at you constant submission to the alllure of consumerism so we urge YOU, ZLENA ADAM, to just put a cap on the spending. We can't take it anymore.

This is a PSA sponsored by Common Sense, Rational & Logical Thinking and Guilty Conscience

UPDATE:
I was outbid for the Skechers Shape Ups :(. There's still some time but when I factor in shipping costs, it's basically the same price as getting them from the shop so it looks like I'll be buying 'em retail. At least I don't have to wait for them to arrive :)

a new online hangout detrimental to the purse strings

The Book Depository. It's a fantastic online bookstore based in the United Kingdom. What makes it equal to, if not more fantastic than, my two other favoured online bookstore, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, is the fact that The Book Depository offers FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE.

Yes, that's right. You read it correctly. This particular e-tailer provides free shipping of books to 99 countries. Yup, I counted each and every one of the named countries in the list that can be found in the Help section of the site. (Ok, more like I "copy pasted" the list of countries into an excel sheet and went to the last line to see how many countries were listed. The point is at least I made the effort to find out.)

Aside from the totally awesome fact that postage and handling is a free service, the site does have quite an inventory of interesting books, both mainstream and otherwise. The site is a breeze to navigate, very user friendly and the search function is one of the best I've used. Also, the prices listed are competitive too. I found a book on my Kindle wish list that sold for USD8.26 whereby on Kindle it was going to cost me USD9.99. And the best part is, besides the free delivery that is (no, mentioning the free shipping is not getting old, not anytime soon), is the fact that these are PAPER books. Physical books that I can touch and feel and smell to my hearts content!

I was put onto the trail of this completely awesometastic site by my dear gal pal, C. She's the one currently residing in Oz. The one who went to Carnivale recently. I'd like to give her a shoutout and tell her that, "I am grateful for the new online gem you directed me to and that I love you, you're one of the bestest gal pal a girl can have! MUAHS!". She had actually told me about this site a coupla weeks ago through facebook message but since my self-preservational (is this actually a word?) instincts keep me off of the social networking site for weeks on end, I only got to it this morning. I got hit by one of my "Hmm, let's check out Facebook" moods and went in to find the light. LOL. I'm a drama mama, I know.

Anyways, it did not take long for me to find stuff to buy. In a show of some restraint, I managed to limit my purchase to just three books totaling approximately USD25. Of course, before I made the clicking gesture (y'know, the one that moves the item into the shopping cart), I did multiple compare and contrast on the prices and type of books so that I'd be getting value for my money. And I believe I did! Here's a look at what I got this morning:


I'm sooooooo happy about my new online bookstore but I'm now banning the purchase of further books. Since the start of 2010, I've bought 16 books alone on Amazon Kindle and read 9 of them so I should really finish the rest before I get anymore. I'm glad I have a new place to buy wallet-friendly paper books that won't cost me a fortune in shipping. However you do it, The Book Depository, I don't know but I want to tell you that I appreciate the free delivery very, very, VERY much! I heart The Book Depository!

a letter to my (Ice)man

My dearest Iceman,

How are you? I hope your back is doing fine ahead of the Rally Mexico and that you'll do better than a 30th place finish at Rally Sweden (no judgement here, I know it's a new sport for you, learning curve and all).

Darling Kimster.....I have something I must confess and I pray you keep an open mind about it. Despite my love for you, Kimi Raikkonen, WRC does not seem to have any events in places where I can obtain primo tickets to watch you race. After a month or so, just as you are facing the uncertainties of a new motorsport, I too am still having problems learning the Rally world's rules and regulations. (What are these pacenotes things and why is any note-taking involved?) Therefore, I, reluctantly, I have to add, made the decision to join the rest of my family for the Sepang Formula 1 Grand Prix 2010!

I know, I know, I know, Kimi. It will NEVER be the same without you. Watching you race has been THE highlight of my F1 spectator career. There's no one other driver's skills that will usurp your place as my number one. But I feel I need the comfort of something I know, something I've believed in, invested in, gave me some of the best moments of my life (slight exaggeration here). I am too confused by the new things in Rally to thoroughly enjoy your snowbank escapades and the scenery. I feel, to reaffirm my decision to casually follow F1 from now on, I have to watch the Malaysia GP LIVE from the grandstand seats right in front of the pitwall. I know that I will only feel the painful emptiness of your absence whilst I sit/stand in the bleachers and await a Formula 1 car to pass by my section for the one microsecond before all is silent again.

Sweetheart....please believe that it gives me no great pleasure to attend such an event when it is clear you will not be around but alas, primo tickets are primo tickets and I miss my family so this is the best opportunity to spend time with them in a fun setting (as opposed to how we usually spend it which is just sitting at home doing our own thing!). Plus Schumi is returning to the F1 fray so I am quite curious to see if he still has IT (not Information Technology, just a capital it) or not. I will strongly root AGAINST the Pooping, eh, sorry, Prancing, Horses in your honour and will resolutely support ALL OTHER TEAMS to give the scarlet ones something to be scarlet in the face about (a.k.a a big 'ol ass-whooping!).

I must now end my letter to you as I am running out of ideas. May the Rally gods be with you and you don't trip over a stone or get caught behind a slower car in Mexico.

With much love and adoration,
Zlena

gaia's wrath?

Are we headed for a complete global environmental meltdown? First Haiti then Bali and now Chile. We have freezing winters still ongoing in Great Britain and numerous other parts in Europe. Add to that the constant rainstorms and the killer floods that struck hard in Spain and France. Then the landslide in Bandung, Indonesia. And all this in the first 2 months of 2010.

Is the damage we have caused over the years finally catching up on us? Natural disaster after natural disaster, tragedies in succession are upon us. It's as if Earth is trying to teach us a lesson over and over again so we don't forget. I'm more than just concerned about the state of the environment. It just freaks me out that every time I look at Google News there's a piece about one country or another being hit by a natural disaster. Are we finally being made to pay for our lackadaisical attitude towards the planet we live in? And is it too late to do something about it?

UPDATE (05/03/2010):
Well, Southern Taiwan was hit by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake yesterday. Luckily, no deaths, a few slightly injured people. Thus far. Also, Chile is being rocked by aftershocks and multiple tsunami warnings. Are we going to have to read more news items as this throughout the coming months? Let's be clear that I do not wish/hope for any more of nature's wrath but it does beg the question is 2010 going to be known as the "Year of Natural Disasters"? Is this not freaking anyone else out?

i caved

I couldn't help myself. I did it, I pre-ordered Lauren Conrad's Kindle version of Sweet Little Lies. I just couldn't help myself. The cutesy cover beckoned to me and I'm just such a sucker for cutesy covers. Especially ones with pink heart shaped candy artfully tossed about.

Not only that, I also went a bit crazy and got an additional 5 Kindle books. I know, I know. I'm just about to finish Model Student and haven't even begun Jen Lancaster's Pretty In Plaid which I got in November but these eBooks are addictive and easy and so, so cool.

It's ok though, the 5 books just totaled $10.95, priced between 99 cents to $2.99. See, though I went bonkers on the buying, I made sure I got the cheap books :D I've actually been getting quite a few of the 99 cents books. There was one that I read titled Faking It by Elisa Lorello which surprised me by how involved I got with her writing. I audibly gasped and talked out loud in front of people while I was reading this book. I was left wanting more after the book ended and was pleased to find out that Elisa Lorello had written a sequel to Faking It called Ordinary World. This was one of the books I got. It was similarly priced at $0.99.

I did some inventory and from the beginning of 2010 till 28th February, I have paid for 16 Kindle books totaling up to USD74.52. These are only the books I had to pay for, there were quite a number of free books that I downloaded as well, about 20 or so. I really have to put a lid on my Kindle spending. But till then.....

Ok, now I'm just waiting for Sweet Little Lies to be available for download. As embarassing as this is, I can't wait to find out what happens next in the lives of Jane and Co.

UPDATE (02/03/2010):
Got my book, got my book, got my book! Am excited! LOL! However, will only start this once I'm done with Learn Me Good. That's not far off from the end so it's most likely I'll get started on Sweet Little Lies by tomorrow. I finally finished Model Student which was a little slow in the beginning but ended up being another really good read, giving me more insight into the lives of those heavenly creatures we call models. I wanted something light and amusing to read next so I started Learn Me Good which is about Jack Woodson, a thermal design engineer laid off from his job who then makes a career change teaching third grade Math & Science at a Dallas public school system in the great State of Texas (y'know, where all the cute guys seem to come from). It is based on the author's (John Pearson) own experiences as an engineer turned educator, a completely hilarious first-person account. I've giggled so much while reading this, it's just too funny :D