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Sigh. It finally feels like summer! (Well, it did a couple days ago, anyway.)
Rob and I escaped Vancouver last weekend for the twins’ birthday party on the Island (Vancouver Island, that is) for a glorious sun-soaking, bbq-eating, popcan-shooting, pond-paddling, frog-catching, cake-munching day.
Ahhh….
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better… it did!
BC Ferries is currently having a sale on trips between Vancouver-Victoria, and Vancouver-Nanaimo/Duke Point.
Which means that for what would normally have been $69 (2 adults + a vehicle) for a one-way trip to the island, we paid only $30!!
That’s $60 instead of $138 for a fun-filled weekend, just a ferry trip away.
This promotion (if we can call it that) seems to be a bit confusing. We didn’t even know about it until we visited the website as there’s no advertising around for it. And while the website calls it a 
fare, the BC Ferries employee who took our money at the booth told us it was a ‘Customer Appreciation’ event.
Whatever the case, we love saving moola.
If you’re thinking of getting out of dodge for a few days, the CoastSaver sale fares are available until the end of June.
Just make sure you check the CoastSaver calendar online before you go–you may have to go from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay on the way there but leave from Duke Point to get back to Tsawwassen to get the CoastSaver both ways. That’s what we did. It wasn’t far at all, and well worth it.
Even if I didn’t have an excellent excuse to go back to Victoria soon (which I do… miss you Kym!!), I’d go. You should, too!
It’s no secret I love purses. And shoes. But we’re talking about purses here so don’t let me get off topic.
I don’t exactly know when it happened, but sometime, somewhere, I adopted this idea that a woman’s purse is a visual representation of who she is – or wants to be. I say wants to be because, well, did you know that, for a not-so-small-fee, you can actually “borrow” top-of-the-line, current-season purses??
Oh yes, my dears. Welcome to Bag Borrow or Steal (which, coincidentally, wins my award for most clever business name).
I won’t even get into the moral implications of renting a $1500 bag in order to make other people think… well, all sorts of things, depending on where they come from. Who am I to judge? I admit, I too have been known to drool over totally ridiculously priced arm-candy occasionally.
Not that I would ever rent a bag. I prefer knock-offs procured from shady-looking characters with suitcases of illegal goods on Canal Street in New York. You don’t have to worry about spilling your coffee all over a $30 knock off, which is important for part-time klutzes such as yours truly.
What can I say? It could be worse. I could have a fetish for um… Porsches. Or yachts. Turns out I just like well-structured bags.
Good thing I have a boyfriend (oh, okay… fiance… but I feel like such a retard saying that dumb word) who keeps my ridiculousness in check.
Mostly.
It’s fun to be ridiculous sometimes.
It took her awhile to get here but when she finally did, boy did we ever rip it up.
My bestest g-friend Patti made it to Vancouver last week for a very much anticipated visit. Not only did we cram a year’s worth of gossip, martinis and hearty belly-laughs into four days, but also some pole-dancing, a photo-op with Santa and… duh… shopping.
Let’s not kid ourselves, I know you’re intrigued about the pole dancing so let’s start there.
Last Thursday we were cool enough to be invited (ok fine, it was a Rob-organized event) to a very exclusive Secret
(as in the deodorant) Hot Experiences party. The invite-only event was designed (or so I imagine) to influence brand perception among the hippest gals in the city and spawn word-of-mouth marketing by the influencers. Well, looks like it worked… I’m talking about it, aren’t I? From the moment we were greeted by the doorman we knew we were in for a treat – I mean, he had the guest list memorized. Talk about feeling like an A-lister.
We were ushered into an ultra-cool looking room decorated with flowers and blue lights and oh my, a delicious looking bar; when I was told it was a fitness centre (it was at Studeo 55), it seemed even more impressive. The martinis were plentiful as was the food, though I wasn’t very inspired to indulge in the latter given the scary-looking workout pants they gave us all to change in. Wasn’t the point of the event to have ‘Hot Experiences’?
Who feels hot in almost-white spandex-type cotton pants? Ugh! We tried our best.
That was, thankfully, the only downer of the evening.
We were slit into groups and got to spend time participating in 3 ‘hot’ activities: pole-dancing… just as fun as my first experience with a pole; what they called hip-hop dancing… which was really just sexy dancing, as in, step-step-shampoo-commercial (i.e. touch your hair a lot and pout) with the neighbouring condos for an audience; and dishing with celebrity gossip factory Lainey from laineygossip.com.
All were fun but my favorite part had to be the gossiping. I mean, Tom Cruise and Xenu juice… half an hour just isn’t enough time to dissect all the craziness. Oh right, plus, I’m not so sporty; my armpits still hurt from that freaking pole. Check it out: Patti and I even made it on Lainey’s website.
See? Don’t we look like we’re having fun?
Puh-lease. Put Patti and me in a sewer with rats and two sticks to rub together for entertainment and we’ll have a good time. Add some vodka and pole-dancing, and it’ll show up on the internet somewhere.
If you’re waiting with baited breath for a recap of my PEI adventure,
I’m so sorry. It’s one of those times where you have so much to say, you don’t know where to begin… and so, you just… don’t. It truly was the most fantastic trip; I’d even say it exceeded my expectations, which should tell you a lot if you had any inkling of how high those expectations (simmering in the back of my mind for 17 years) really were.
I was actually going to cop out by posting a link to all my PEI photos on flickr, but then RapLeaf happened. And I got a bit freaked out.
What’s RapLeaf, you say??
RapLeaf is a creepy stalker’s dream come true. It’s basically a website where you go and type in someone’s email address… and, like magic (evil, black magic, that is) you get a page with links to every single place that person has a web presence – blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, flickr photos, you name it.
So, of course, I checked my own email. And even though my flickr account does not have my real name anywhere, it showed up with a link to ALL my photos. Now that scared the pants off me. I thought I was being pretty incognito by not including my name. I also purposely didn’t tag any of my photos so they wouldn’t come up in searches.
So that’s why there will be no more links to my flickr photo showcase – I set them ALL to private. If you try to access old flickr links, you won’t be able to, either. Sorry ’bout that. But all is not lost – you’ll just have to sign up for a free flickr account and then request to be my friend (or just send me an email with your flickr username and I’ll add you). (Mom, Dad… don’t worry, I’ll set this up for you next time I’m home.)
In the same spirit, I revisited my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to ensure that they were set to the highest privacy settings (they were) and made sure my email address within the Rapleaf photo was set to private, but it still creeped me out.
If you are part of the web 2.0 movement and have imprints of yourself all over the web, I urge you to go visit the RapLeaf site and make sure you are managing what other people are able to access. It’s not that I think social networks and the like are all evil… they serve a great purpose in our lives. I just feel that you should be aware of how available you are making yourself to people who aren’t necessarily your friends or family – including creeps, weirdos and marketers drooling over all the juicy data they’re collecting at the expense of your privacy – and make sure you understand the dangers.
Read more about RapLeaf:
ZDnet article with more info on how marketers use data collected by RapLeaf
Post spinning RapLeaf as a reputation management tool in the world of online buying
(I’m sorry, but how the hell do my flickr photos have anything to do with my reputation as a reliable eBay buyer?!?)
I don’t know if you were aware, but Richard Branson is taking over the world. His empire, which began with record labels and recording studios, soon expanded to air travel, mobile phones, hotels, cinemas, investment funds… you name it (200 companies in more than 30 countries). Not to mention he’s one of (I think) the world’s sexiest men. Sigh.
One of his more recent purchases included a few vineyards here and there, or maybe just the rights to them, I’m not sure (aside: if you were shopping for a vineyard, where would you go?? I have a feeling Craigslist doesn’t have a category for that…). And so, in the spirit of discovery (and because I like drinking wine – any wine!) I decided to pick up a bottle of Virgin wine the other day.
After much gazing upon the lovely bottle (and drooling), I only learned one thing. Virgin wine certainly lives up to its chaste name…
I couldn’t for the life of me un-screw (no pun intended) the cap!
Talk about an effective chastity belt for those grapes. Or maybe for the one to tries to drink it? <wink>
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