It's been two weeks now that I've been back from my 2 week China trip. It was a great trip. Despite the first 9 days being a whirl-wind tour of 5 cities, some of which we only stayed in for less than a day. But everything went according to plan. Landed in Beijing but immediately went to Cheungdu to Jiuzhaigou to Xi'an to Shanghai to Hangzhou. Then we decided to rest and spend the last 5 days in Beijing. I can't complain, we took in as much of the sites, culture, food and people as we could. Lots of interesting little experiences and different cultural things. But in the end, the larger cities are not that much different than ours, especially over the last few years where their economic progress to become a very industrialized nation has transformed them into modern cities.

I shall give a few teaser photos in my photo gallery soon.

Toyota has announced another recall, this time to their Sequoia SUV's where 50,000 of them are affected. Ironic isn't it. First it was unintended acceleration, now its deceleration. They should combine the two and maybe they'll have a perfect car.

I commend Toyota for acknowledging the problems before they become too large to handle. At least now they've got it right. Too little too late? We'll see.

Yes, you've heard the other stories about TigerDirect and its shading rebate redemptions. But this time, I had personal experience with their in-store failure. It definitely puts a red mark in my books.

I went to TigerDirect in Markham this afternoon to pick up some Blu Ray media. I was on their website earlier and saw they had spindle packs. When I get there, I asked and all they had was single packs. I knew I needed some CD-R's as well so I picked those up and went to the check out. There were two checkouts, one with 3-4 people and the other with 2 people. Of course, I went to the 2 people line thinking it would be faster. The next person in line in both lines had larger products and the cashier was asking them all sorts of questions including their names, addresses and phone numbers. This is a timely process and I knew this so I was getting impatient. There was a lady standing by the exit doors who monitors the store traffic and checks receipts as people walk out. I was in line for about 1.5 minutes when she must have noticed I was getting impatient and asked me to go to the Customer Service line. So I follow her and when I get there, I'm now at the back of a 3 person line. It took me a few seconds to realize the situation and finally got fed up and left. Passing by the lady as I headed for the exit, she was asking what was wrong and I exclaimed I was put into a longer line now. I didn't bother to explain as she frantically tried to make sense of the situation. I was long out the door as she came outside as well and tried to wave me back in. Sorry, I exited, there's no going back.

Let me put this into perspective so we all learn something from this. a) The initial item I went for wasn't there. Maybe this was my fault and shouldn't expect items on their website to be at the store. b) Their line up system is a mess. They shouldn't be mixing customer checkout that take a long time with ones that take minimal time. A better model would be FutureShop's where long time checkouts are typically handled by the salesperson at a separate location. As well, and I've only learned this yesterday, most people will not wait in line if they are the 5th person. They will wait if there is only 3 people in front of them. In my case, I was moved from 2nd in line to 4th in line. Slightly different situation but since my fuse was already short, I didn't need to be the 5th person.

Ironically, a large section of the store is under construction. Are they planning on changing the checkout area? I hope so, because I'm sure they lose a lot of small sales because people see the lineups and don't bother.

I don't have much to say other than, my life will have some change over the coming months. Mostly because of moving and traveling. Both of which are a long time coming. I haven't traveled far from home. Furthest would be the Caribbean, but I've seen everything in between. This includes all major cities on Canada, most of the US east coast and some of the US mid-west. Ok, I haven't seen the US west coast.

What's my point? I'm due for a trip far, far away. China and South Korea? hmmmm. :)

Wow, I can't believe archive.org has kept a partial backup of my old Geocities website. I thought it was lost in the great abyss.. although I'm sure Yahoo! Geocities has a backup somewhere.

http://web.archive.org/web/20021008212611/www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/3256/

Hmmm.. I feel like the last person in the world to see Avatar (aside from my girlfriend). All of our friends have seen it. The weird thing about it is, no one is talking about it. I've asked friends if they've seen it and they say yes and claim its a great movie. And there are other people in the room who have seen it but no more discussion comes about it. There doesn't seem to be any unexplained scenes or controversial themes. Is the movie so cut and dry - clean - such that, you see it, enjoy it and that's that.. move on to other things? Does it not leave a lasting impression? Why is it not leaving people wanting more? Why does it feel like there's a conspiracy going on. :)

We're going to see it tonight. IMAX of course, that's the only way to enjoy it, everyone says.

My heart goes to the family, friends and people in Haiti where a earthquake has hit the country hard. I'm very happy to see that everyone around the world is chipping in to help them in this dark time. This includes corporations, some very large and others very small. Some are donating large amounts and others are donating smaller. Should I care how much? Should I? Let's compare the big Canadian banks versus others.

CIBC donating CA$100,000
TD donating CA$100,000
RBC donating CA$100,000
National donating up to $250,000

And lets look at other companies:

NY Yankees US$500,000
Target US$500,000
Go Daddy US$500,000
Coca Cola Fund US$1,000,000
Google US$1,000,000
Humana US$100,000 (Insurance company, ok this one makes sense)

Does it seem like the Canadian banks see it as a "bad risk"??

A QR (Quick Response) Code is a two-dimensional bar code created by a Japanese corporation in 1994 to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR Codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging).

QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone's browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL.

Wikipedia link

Above is the QR Code you can scan and add me to BlackBerry Messenger. Try it, I won't bite.. ;)

I recently discovered a service Backupify that can back up some of your essential services online. Services like: Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, Gmail, Flickr, etc.

As I was adding these services to the account, I added Blogger, which was my first blogging service where I had my first blog. In fact, my website stuckless.ca had Blogger as its backend for updating everything from the homepage to pictures to the blog. It's all still there too. So I thought I'd give you a tastes of what I was doing over 7 years ago.

February 28, 2002
Allo allo. This is my first endeaver into the Blog Zone. Yay! I'm so happy I could crack a smile. Right at this very moment I'm typing my first blog, but before that I was chatting with some friends (Mike, CJ, Osh, Jenn, Paul, Anthony) and before that I was watching TV (Who's Line). Next, I'm thinking about going back to the TV. But before that I'm going to finish this blog. Confused yet? I thought so.

The week before this, I went to Majestic Elegance in Punta Cana, DR. It was so far the best all-inclusive resort stays. Mind you, I've only been on 3 now.

The few things I can say that they went above normal service is:

• Entering the room there was a bottle of sparkling wine and a plate full of fresh exotic fruits along with a letter addressed to me welcoming myself and my gf.
  
• Every day around 6:30pm for the first 4 days they would leave a plate of either chocolate covered fruit (strawberry or grapes) or sushi for us.
  
• They came to our room no less than 3 times a day to restock our mini fridge, clean the room, and refresh the towels. We had even messed up the bed mid-day and came back and found it remade.
  
• We told them our flight back home wasn't until 10pm and they gave us late check-in for free.
  

There were many other things we were impressed about the resort, like the food in the a la carte restaurants (specifically the Argentinian restaurant with churasco steak and buffalo wings), the friendly service by all staff, the entertainment, and our room with cushioned sun chairs, pool side view, swim up bar within 50 ft, separate jacuzzi, rainfall shower, LCD TV, DVD player, low-flow toilets, free safe, bath robe, slippers, free bottles of vodka, rum, whiskey, and wine, yes the list goes on but I will spare you the extensive read.

Overall, we were very pleased by the whole experience and would recommend anyone to check out Majestic Elegance.