Weekend and day before Mid Autumn Festival
The weekend was relaxing. I saw 3 movies this weekend, "The Classic", "Windstruck" (or 내여자친구를소개합니다 ) and Azumi (あずみ）.
The two Korean movies were very good. I'm somewhat a romantic guy, and they really touched my heart. I don't know why Yun Jeong told me "Windstruck" is like a teenager movie. I don't think so. The experience was perfect watching from Simon's new home theatre. He put a lot of money into quality parts, but the experience is the payback. Azumi is based on a popular manga in Japan. Even Tomoka knows about it, though I'm certain it isn't her style of movie. The girl is cute in it though, so if you like sword weilding females with mean (but cute) looks... download it or buy the fake version.
A little bit of family time on the weekend as well, I slept in so I missed lunch on Saturday but I managed to have lunch with my mother and grandmother Sunday.
I had a few pictures printed Sunday at futureshop (futurephoto). The quality seems only medium so I think maybe I should try a few more places. They have a promotion right now for $0.29 per 4x6. Though the printing experience was pleasant, futureshop provides a couple of old IBM clones for you to zoom and crop pictures on using their software.
Today I continued my calling to chase down my notebook. All parties involved are still waiting on Canada Customs to clear it, so that really is annoying. I filed a complain with the PBB Global Logistics head office though.
Nothing else happened today, I went to buy some moon cakes for tomorrow, I'm experimenting with a brand, because I could not locate the recommended name brands down along china town.
I also purchases 2 of the $2 Blue Jay tickets, but looks like I'll need to cancel them.
Meeting up with Akira for lunch tomorrow, and then Yun Jeong for dinner. The week is moving quickly, I still haven't picked a spot for lunch on Thursday.
Returned 5 am this morning froma fun night down town. After work I met up with Sunny and Doris to go shopping for their grandmother's present. Sunny kept saying cigarettes but I didn't really think that's a good idea for their grandmother's birthday. Though, it seemed difficult to buy something for her, Doris ended up picking out a pair of gloves. After we pointed out to Doris that Danier Leather did not close down, and was infact 2 stores in front of us. We met up with Jesse as well, who helped the Danier staff in their product display. He should have asked for the discount the lady offered.
We had a brisk stroll to Alice Fazooli's! Italian Crabshack where we bumped into Gene and Pam outside. Pretty much everyone arrived before us, so the timing wasn't too bad. The meal was okay, with my recommended Penne being just okay. The sauce wasn't too strong or thick which is good, but the chicken seemed a little dry, even though it was blackened a bit. We had a large birthday party on the 'Asian' side of the room (it seemed separated right down the middle of the restaurant) consisting of people of various ages. I'm sure Kel was enjoying the view.
We separated shortly after that from Jesse. Walking over to Afterlife we were turned away because we were so early, so we headed over to Chapters instead. I conducted a little personality type test on Doris and Karen, which lead to some interesting results. They were both new situtations to me, Karen's being the most unique, though I still managed to leave it at 70% accuracy.
The club was fun, though strange at the beginning with everyone lining the walls. The guys just have too much pride, and it seemed full of punky kids. Later on that evening a fight broke out along the roof where many little asian kids were beating down on a single guy. That guy managed to let himself be beaten into my corner up against me, his blood is still on my shirt. Aside from that, Coral (aka Nicole) was picked up by her co-worker and 'Justin' the young U of T Korean student. Not just Coral though, Amy and Patsy enjoyed the company of 3 young gentlemen.
Overall it was fun, I think Andrea was okay, she felt a little sick from the drinking but Wayne was there of course. Sunny also puked, after the fight, so we accomplished our goal for the night.
I met some new people, got blood on me, and sat in a car with a guy who puked. So overall it was a fun night. I was suppose to go have lunch with my grandmother but for some reason my mother called me about it at 8:05 am? I just woke up now and it is pretty much 10:00 am.
I need to meet Rui to film at around 3 pm but I'm thinking about sleeping a little longer.
Ending this logistics Nightmare
I just got off the phone with another department at PBB Global Logistics. I was forwarded to them through Purolator customer service. Looks like my package was released from customs late yesterday afternoon (Vancouver time). My camera took about another day to make it over to me after it had cleared customs. I wonder if I'll see the notebook today or tomorrow, I don't know what my emotional response will be, this is like the end of a long assignment, or running a marathon.
I ordered the 50 spindel pack of Maxell DVD-Rs last night at Futureshop. The sale was pretty good at -$45 CAD off. I hope Pete can find his Startrek The Next Generation DVDs so I can begin copying.
Tonight is Sunny's birthday party. I think I'm the only one confused about what we're doing for dinner. The problem with not having so much work is that I've alot of free time to think about other things, except I can't really leave the office. I need to step out to HSBC, to see what they have to offer to me if I want to travel abroad.
I'm not quite happy with TD's webbroker system so as soon as I can pull my money I think I will go over to HSBC. I need to look into RRSPs as well which I might do via HSBC or continue with the President's Choice Financial.
This weekend looks busy for me. I've started to talk to my ex again, Yun Jeong. She seems well and suffering through learning English. She can teach me Korean over MSN Messenger, if she can refrainfrom using 'Pabo' every other line. Another good resource if I plan to drop over to Seoul.
I plan to meet up with people soon before I leave. Maybe I'll feel strange in this month coming up. This is kind of sad to me.
My mother is still in town, but she'll be leaving on the 28th. She's just waiting for her Visa. I've printed a stack of information for her about hotels in Shanghai. If anyone has recommendations we're willing to listen. My father will be back from Virginia soon, then maybe flying out to St. Louis shortly afterwards. My mother and my brother have already started to divide my belongings... I'm not even dead yet, I mean I haven't even started preparind to leave yet.
Not a lot of responses to my mass mail message. I guess everyone's busy these days.
For a company who's Mission, Vision and Values state that:
"
…Innovation We take pride in getting the job done on behalf of our customers, regardless of the challenges at hand. We are proactive on their behalf, executing our work with eagerness and a positive attitude. We consistently strive for innovative and creative solutions, looking at new ways of doing things and new opportunities to stand out in the industry."
They are a far cry from proactive. My Toshiba Dynabook CX has been sitting in Purolator/PBB Global Logistic's warehouse for over a week now. I left several messages in the past few days to PBB Global Logistics (my shipping broker according to Purolator) with no success, leaving only voice messages that are never returned. I tried to contact customs directly and was promptly redirected back to my broker.
I don't know how their Vancouver office runs, but it seems less than efficent. Calling up the main switchboard, I managed to listen to the lady talk about apartment hunting for a couple of minutes before she realized she had switched lines by accident. I'm forwarded around a couple of times, eventually leaving a voice mail message with a supervisor who's on vacation until next week.
This is the second time I've had to contact a supervisor before I see action (first time wast with Rogers corporate services for my employee discount). Less than half an hour after I leave that voice mail, "Michael" is calling me back (the original agent who took my credit card number for paying the duty for my shipped item). I asked him why it has been so hard to contact him, and he replies that I only left my name and telephone number. I should have left my shipment tracking number as well. I can't believe he's using this as the excuse for not contacting me back. Apparently he had to forward my case to the supervisor and i was re-assigned a new agent, Christine.
So I'm waiting until the end of today to see what happens. She tells me she will deal with it right away, and for me to check back tomorrow and it should be released.
I'm sick of dealing with these people; ENTJs are not meant to deal with PBB Global Logistics. I can't wait to see the bill they send me.
I'm fighting the cold Tomoka passed onto me. Lets see if I get better before Sunny's Birthday event Friday. Speaking of Birthdays, Yoshiro's birthday is coming up tomorrow. We purchased 'Tupac : Ressurection" the DVD for him and plan to make a custom surprise. I know it will be late, but I'll at least call him to wish him happy birthday.
Missed out on my severance meeting
Today wasn't quite productive at work. Things are slowing down to the point where if I'm in the office or not it doesn't really matter. I ended up coming late to work, missing out on my severence information meeting. I e-mailed HR and then headed out to meet with Peter Kroll; an old co-worker of mine at Intellitactics whom I ran into by accident on the subway recently. We had a pleasant lunch catching up, and I found out that he had the StarTrek TNG DVDs that I've been looking for. Arthur has been downloading them slowly for me. Specifically I was looking for the episode in which the character 'Data' has an offspring. My father had enjoyed that episode very much and I thought it would be nice to find it again.
I met up with Susan later at New College, where she returned some money I asked her to exchange for me. I'm sitting with about 5800 RMB and $770 USD in my pocket. My mother is coming in today to apply for her Visa to China so I'll be handing that over shortly.
I recieved the DVDs I ordered off of yesasia yesterday. 'The Classic' and 'The Way Home'. Both are overseas versions with Cantonese Language streams (so my mother can watch as well). I've been debating with friends over the value of having the originals (sometimes $10 USD extra) and having the legit overseas versions that have the additional languages. The overseas versions resemble the 'fan ban' or pirated versions you often see at Chinese media stores. They are of a higher quality however as typical pirated DVDs can not play on my old Cicero DVD-rom but legit DVDs can (wow, a use for that stupid DVD-rom).
The reports to my mass mailed e-mail have started to come in. When enough feed back has been returned I'll post the results for people to see. I'm heading out soon to drop off Rui's special 'Il Mare' DVDs. I was going to print pictures out at futureshop, but they'll have a sale starting friday so it'll be better if I waited.
Good Game Blue Jays/D-Rays
Went with Tomoka to the Blue Jays game (Blue Jays vs. Tampa Bay) on Sunday. It was actually my first time watching a baseball game inside the SkyDome. Score ended up being 9 to 7 for the Blue Jays. It was interesting to see the ball move, even though I know it is moving quickly, it seemed so slow in the air. Aside from a few good moments, it seemed a little boring IMHO. We were sitting in the shade at first and ended up sneaking over into seats in the sun.
We went over to Scarborough Town Centre afterwards to find a present for Yoshiro and then back to my place. I showed Tomoka "Infernal Affairs" and that lead to the mass e-mail about girls defining guys as handsome vs. sexy. We'll see what the responses are like.
Informative Trip to Niagara
Saturday was our long postponed Niagara trip. This is the first occasion in which I can go test my new camera taking pictures. People seemed quite impressed by my new toy. The picture quality was only so so since I don't spend any time setting up for shots usually. We did do a few night time shots that turned out okay.
We had lunch first at a Vietnamese noodle restaurant in Missisauga. I'm both a slow and fast eater. We learned also that Vietnamese is a very loud language as Coral demonstrated.
The driving didn't seem too bad, and it was neat to see the Navigation in doug's Acura. Doug gave us a very informative tour of one of the Canals.
We headed to shopping right after, thanks to our trusty local (a.k.a. Patsy).
After shopping we headed to Niagara Fallsview, where we met up with the second half our group. After waiting an extended line for the buffet, and hearing about 2 caucasian girls trying to blend in with Chinese to cut the line, was very fun.
Over all it was fun, and a great get together. The buffet was nice. I've taken in enough shrimp to feed a whale.
Prep for a new start
Things are starting to wrap up here. I'll be faced with many challenges coming up. I've made some big decisions for myself as well. I'm hoping to start blogging again soon, if there is an easy way to do this. Blogger has changed the format, I'll also have to think of a system for when I am on the road.
I'm waiting for my new notebook, I recieved my new camera from Japan about 2 days ago. The Pentax S4i is a realy nice camera so far, obviously much better than my old Fuji Finepix 30i.
