april 22 is a BAD DAY

i just realized that it's been a year already since we left the cold city of winnipeg. it was my saddest day in canada, one of the lowest times in my life. something i won't forget, something that makes me stronger everytime. as far as i could remember, the temperature then was just 1 or 2 degrees celcius, and it's still snowing!! compare that the almost summer-like 24 degrees we are experiencing today.

nel's mom got denied today for a canadian tourist visa. the ground? they doubt that she ain't gonna come back. what the f*ck? actually, we're planning to extend her stay as long as we could if ever she got approved ;) but hell, we have no plan on making her stay here illegally. we can sponsor her soon anyway. sorry, just wanna vent. she's gonna try to re-apply with more proof that she ain't gonna go illegal, hopefully she'll be approved this time. processing fee is no joke, we spent 150 dollars for them to look at the application for 5 minutes(?) then rejected it, darn reviewers! and yeah, we are that desperate for her to be here this summer!!

i am officially marking april 22 as a BAD DAY for me.

what a deal!

i just had a really awesome deal at Staples Office Depot. this store is reputed for their amazing price match policy. they'd sell you the item on the lowest price it is being sold by their competitors, plus 50% of the difference from their price. In my case, I found that HP Photosmart 7760 is on sale starting today at BestBuy for 99.99. I checked Staples' online price and it's 187.50! I almost bit my tounge in excitement and immediately asked wifey to go check it out and request for a pricematch. She's going there anyway to photocopy some documents. We got lucky, there's only one stock remaining and we got it price-matched with BestBuy's. Minor bad news, the price in store is only 179.99 so we have to use that amount. But hey, it still an amazing deal!

179.99 - 99.99 = 80 (price difference)
to compute for the price-matched value, use competitor's selling price:
99.99 - 40 (50% of price difference) = 59.99!!

now, where can you buy a really nice printer at the price? tell me i'm not lucky!

i'm still alive!!!

ok, i know, i owe you guys big time. i've been slacking on this blog for months now. sorry!

anyways, we had a barbecue picnic last weekend in one of the parks here in edmonton, and i had a great time! not only because of the good company and the food, but because of the opportunity to shoot birds! there's a huge pond in the middle of the park and it's still frozen enough to allow the birds to walk on the thin ice covering most part of it. click here to see the photos.