judyonthenet

We finally, FINALLY finished invitations this weekend. A lot of good that Monday off did me; I’m like almost a week behind schedule. It’s okay tho, as I believe we’re still within the traditional timeframe of 6-8 weeks. We sent our first batch Friday to friends and relatives that are either further away or we don’t see as often, and today we sent the last of them. (With the exception of three invitations of people who really need to give us their addresses. *ahem*ERIC*cough*) I’ll go into greater detail about invitations once more people have had a chance to receive them. I’m quite happy with them.

The last batch of invites, including the bundles heading for Taiwan

I’m not off the hook yet tho. I have quite a few of things I still need to work on for the wedding (ceremony music, name cards, accessories, booze), with the most urgent being the working on my wedding webpage. And I’m not going to link it yet since it’s still majorly under construction, but the website is at least functional, with the most important functional function being the RSVP feature. I am so, SO grateful that someone has already developed a Wordpress plugin for RSVPs. It’s called the Google Docs RSVP Guestlist Plugin, and it uses a Google Docs spreadsheet, which I thought was interesting. The plugin could still use more features and allow more customization, but at the moment, it seems quite functional. The fact it uses Google spreadsheets makes it easy to tally the attendance and edit people’s entries. I had to modify it a little bit to fit our needs, so we’ll see up to the wedding if anything breaks. So far tho, it has been a great timesaver. We even got our first RSVP today! (Yay! ONE guest!) I guess the wedding’s officially on now. Scary!

Now that invites are out and we’ve got hits on the wedding website, Kelvin and I checked out Bed, Bath & Beyond today to attempt to fill out the registry. I could do without a registry, but I’ve been told that sometimes traditional American guests are totally lost without one. We ran around with the scan gun and managed to find some items, but it’s still iffy, especially with the stuff Kelvin was putting on there. (1000-thread count sheets… I mean, really?) At least it’s more than 4 items now.

Kelvin with the scan gun at BB&B a couple months ago,
when we only managed to scan two flatware sets

Anyway, with invites done, I should have more time to post again. Apologies for the lack of content the last couple weeks.

New thing I learned today: The higher the thread count for the down comforter, the more dense the fabric is and the less likely down feathers will pop out of the comforter. Also, many down comforters come with warranties that range from 10-years to lifetime.

Too much happening in my life at the moment with work, wedding planning (argh, must figure out invitations ASAP), Watchmen reading (awesome book, btw), etc. Because of current state of the economy, we’ve been keeping an eye on the housing market, so that plus wedding/honeymoon booking… taking a good look at our finances is also giving me headaches.

Yet I still find time and money to buy four shirts at Threadless, where everybody and their mom buys T-shirts. I last bought shirts in December, and I wanted to swear off Threadless for a while. But then the bastards came up with this shirt a few months back:

Police Quest is one of the first games I played as a kid (which, now that I think about it, is kinda bad with the drugs, gambling, murders, etc. in the game), and it got me into adventure games which got me into computer and video games in general. All games I had at the time were pirated (5¼” floppies, ah the memories), and I remember spending so much time at the beginning of Police Quest 1 wondering why the hell my squad car kept getting flat tires, preventing me from leaving the police station and resulting in an instant game-over. Apparently, the physical game manual mentions explicitly you need to check your tires before leaving the station. Tricky Sierra and their tricky copy-protection methods.

Anyway, I really wanted that t-shirt homage to PQ. Threadless is having a $12 shirt sale right now. Not as good as their $10 shirt sales of past years, but their sales this year have been weak sauce so far (at least for the above shirt), so I bit with the $12 one. I also ordered this reprinted shirt which I always thought was cute. (The other sheep shirt I ordered last year ran out of stock after I ordered it, so I never got it :( )

I ordered a couple shirts for Kelvin without his permission. I’m not going to post which styles I got here in case he hates them :P

New thing I learned today: The Seminole tribe of Florida owns the entire Hard Rock Cafe chain (aside from the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe). The Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, FL (I didn’t know FL had a Hollywood) is also a full-fledged casino with slot machines and card games outside of poker.

They’re usually $19.99 and don’t go below retail that often. It was in last Sunday’s ad (saw it on CAG), so this Saturday is the last day to get them. Stock shouldn’t be an issue, but if they run out, Target will issue rainchecks good for 45 days. I didn’t buy anything on Xbox Live before until this week, so I stocked up by getting 4 cards :P

It’s a good time to have points right now, with Xbox Live’s “Summer of Arcade“. As soon as I got the cards, I bought Braid (majorly trippy puzzle game… time travel is always awesome) and Geometry Wars 2 (pretty seizure-inducing colors also = awesome). I’ll probably get Castle Crashers next, next week assuming it lives up to the hype. Considering these downloadable games range in retail from 10 to 15 real life monies, any penny saved helps! I’m not sure what to do with the other 3200 points, but I’m sure I’ll eventually figure it out…

I picked it up from a UPS hub a few days ago, and it looks pretty good! And yes, I got it online.

I visited five bridal salons in my dress search, and even though I found a dress I liked at one of the salons, I ended up buying it online. I know it’s kind of a jerkhole thing to shop for dresses in person for service and not buy from them, but I was too tempted by the significantly cheaper price from buying online. I originally found my dress at Trudy’s Bridal, but Trudy’s has this strict no-price-matching-no-discount policy. So the dress was full retail at Trudy’s, and the only other store near me that carries the brand I was looking for (Rin’s Bridal) couldn’t find the dress model in their records to give me a quote. My brick & mortar choices were limited.

I looked at several online stores recommended on the boards at The Knot and contacted them through email. I found my dress 30-40% cheaper online. I went with the least expensive, which was Lee Phillips Bridal. The owner of the store, Stacey, was very quick, responsive, and friendly with emails. You won’t see many stores listing their prices upfront on a website; you have to email or call them. The bridal gown industry places a lot of restrictions on stores that carry their brands. By limiting the stores that sell their products and forbidding discounts, gown brands maintain a strong control on their gowns prices and perceived value, along with service quality. Some online stores are not authorized retailers that have a direct relationship with these strict brands, and they bypass these restrictions by being a middle man for other stores that are authorized retailers. I guess authorized retailers are willing to risk their relationships with certain brands through increased bulk of sales. Anyway, I think Lee Phillips Bridal operates something like this, as they’re not an authorized retailer of the brand I like. Because they do business this way, they won’t divulge brands they offer and prices on their website until you contact them. It seems kinda sketchy, but nothing illegal, based on what I’ve read online.

Even with Stacey’s great email communication, ordering online is pretty nerve-wracking. You have to do all your measurements yourself and hope you do it correctly and the size charts are accurate, pay for the entire total upfront, hear nothing about your important and expensive purchase for months, and cross your fingers that nothing is wrong with your dress when you get it, as your options are limited with an unauthorized online store. I took my chances based on previous Knottie experiences, and it worked out great. I ordered it March 21st, and I was quoted a delivery time of August 25th, so the dress came an entire month early. The order also came with a complimentary dress bag for storage. Thank goodness too; I don’t know how else I was going to fit that giant mass of lace and tulle into the closet.

I highly recommend Lee Phillips Bridal. The dress I got was authentic and at an awesome price. So far, everything looks good. I can get into the dress no problem. (My waist was the size-limiting factor, and it was borderline for the size I chose. I was little extra worried this month cuz of all the cake I’ve been eating…) It still needs a lot of alterations for height and bust, as expected. We’ll see if I find any issues later on, but it seems unlikely at this point.

I didn’t realize until I went to Cake Expressions that there is this giant shopping complex near Curtner and 87 with a Best Buy, Target, AND Toys’R'Us in the same place. All they need is a Circuit City, and it’d be video game clearance heaven. I haven’t had much luck with clearances lately, so I don’t pay much attention to the numerous clearance threads on Cheap Ass Gamer. Especially the Toys’R'Us one, since the TRU closest to here is craptacular. Today, I had to pick up a package at the UPS hub in that area, so I took the opportunity to go shopping at this giant complex Kelvin wouldn’t let me go to last time. This TRU is kinda weird, in that EVERY game is behind glass. If you want to look at any game, you need to ask an associate. A pain in the ass, but as a result, their game section is not a warzone since nobody touches it. I easily found some stuff I wanted:

Before this purchase, I had the God of War game that came with my PSP (and the SuperBad movie UMD, if that counts), Exit (I saw it on clearance a while back and was intrigued, but it’s meh), and Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel… which isn’t really a game. So I more than doubled my PSP collection. There are a couple sales going on right now aside from general clearancing: 1) Buy 1 PS(2,3,P) game get another half off for this week, and 2) 20% off all clearance games until 8/16. I remember reading about the first one on CAG, totally missed the second dealio during my CAG browsings. If I had remembered, I would have looked more carefully at other platforms. And if you don’t have Zack & Wiki or Resident Evil 4 for the Wii, you might be able to find copies at TRU right now for $8. (They clearanced out last month, so RE4 may be hard to find at this point, Z&W still possible.) Anyways, details of my haul:

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions - $19.99 (recently dropped in price at all retail chains from $39.99)
Patapon - $9.99 (retails $19.99, half off from sale)
Jeanne D’Arc - $7.98 (clearanced to $9.98 + 20% off)
Parappa the Rapper - $3.99 (clearanced to $9.98 + 20% off + half off)
= $45.41

Plus I still had around $14 leftover from the Mario Galaxy gift card. Now I just need to find Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, LocoRoco, and Lumines and I’ll be set for my PSP collection…

We’d been using a cheap-o IKEA bench-like coffee table thingy as a media stand, putting all our electronics on top of it and piling the rest underneath it on the carpet. After getting my PS3, the situation underneath the TV was getting pretty dire. I couldn’t put it on top of the 360 since I’m pretty sure 360 + PS3 = disaster, and there was no room on the media bench since Kelvin refused to move his printer away from his stupid Time Capsule, despite printers having no place underneath a TV. For a couple days, I left my PS3 on top of an AI textbook underneath the media bench, and the ridiculousness underneath our TV was looking like this:

We went furniture shopping on Saturday to find a remedy to this mess. I had been leaning towards this puzzle entertainment center from Crate & Barrel, but the store didn’t have a floor sample to look at, and the bookshelf equivalent felt kinda flimsy. Based on Yelp, I went to Cocoon Furnishings to see if I could find something similar, but didn’t see anything in their catalogs that I wanted to order then and there. Before I left, I had looked up on Yelp sort of on a whim furniture stores near Cocoon, and HomeRev Inc. was listed being down the street. We almost missed it after being distracted by a large “erection” sign but eventually located it. From the outside and inside, it looks like a converted office building.

When you walk inside, you’re greeted by “Appointments only” signs and room full of tables with their catalogs on top. There were two service reps helping customers at the counter. We didn’t have an appointment, so we weren’t sure of what we should, so we sat down and looked at catalogs. But people kept coming in and walking right by us into the doorway that had a “Showroom by appointment only” sign. We got up and did the same; apparently that sign just scares away people? The hallway to the showroom has framed pictures of the store’s primary furniture supplier/manufacturer in Taiwan, some company called Poundex. (We first saw this brand name on a bedroom set on the showroom and couldn’t stop giggling. Oh, we’re so mature.) Really, they have framed pictures of Taiwanese people working in a furniture assembly line. I guess they’re proud of their foreign sweatshop? Bizarre. There were stairs leading to more showroom, which were basically old offices stuffed with office and kiddy bedroom furniture, but we skipped it for the moment.

Passing through the hallway, you finally enter their main showroom/warehouse, which is huge and completely filled with cheap furniture. I mean, their prices are soooooo reasonable, but our perspective might be warped because, being sick of Target and Ikea, we’ve been looking at higher end furniture. Their prices were comparable, but to be frank, the quality was comparable, too. There was some freaking cheap quality stuff. In fact, we saw a loveseat similar to the POS Milano Espresso & Mocha loveseat we got at Target that Kelvin spent forever replacing cuz it sucked so much… for $120 cheaper!!! In fact, the sofa is $40 cheaper than the Target loveseat!

ZOMG Target FTL!

Yes, this place is cheaper than Target in price… and probably in quality. Still, some of the stuff wasn’t too bad. Kelvin wanted to get this recliner, but there’s no way it would fit in my Prius. Moving past all the living room, dining room, and bedroom sets, we made it to the back to where the media centers were. We saw an $80 TV stand in the catalog, but it was pretty crappy and flimsy in person… but right behind it, we found exactly what we were looking for. No cool puzzle functionality, but the TV stand felt pretty sturdy, had decent-sized shelving to hold our consoles, had a shorter-than-average depth to fit in our small living room, wasn’t particularly ugly, and was only $100. After looking at media stands in the $400-$500 range for the past couple weeks, Kelvin and I immediately said, “Let’s get this now.” There were zero salespeople on the floor (maybe that’s what appointments are for), so we went back to the front and ordered it with the guy behind the counter. He told us to drive to the side of the building where the warehouse opening is, and some dude with a fun-looking Nissan forklist came out with our media stand. We took it home, where Kelvin toiled for the day assembling it and setting up our TV area, resulting in this much more presentable entertainment center of crap:

I would have preferred all our next gen stuff on the shelf (this setup looks a little Xbox-centric to me), but Kelvin needed all the video wires in the same area. At the moment, the Xbox and PS2 are purely ornamental. It looks great; I’m stoked! Thanks Kelvin, for sweating away your Saturday setting this up, and thank you HomeRev Inc. for your uber-cheap furniture!

New thing I learned today: Nissan makes forklifts.

So earlier in the year, I had expressed desire to purchase a couple gaming systems this month. This month, the God of War red PSP bundle came out, as did the uber-popular 80GB MGS4 bundle (not to be mistaken with the limited edition MGS4 40GB bundle). I was originally prepared to take the hit for both, but then June rolled around, and I had a change of heart. I’ve been trying to figure out honeymoon stuff (it’s been stressful, more on that in another post), and seeing how much it was going to cost us, I decided I didn’t really need another handheld, nor should I be spending $540 to play one game. I almost fell for the Walmart $100 giftcard deal for all Blu-Ray players, including the MGS4 bundles, but I knew it wasn’t worth trying because of the demand and limited numbers (around 4) per store. Release dates passed, and I patted myself on the back for not blowing ~$760 on video game hardware.

But then the Microsoft Live eBay cashback deal happened. For a period of time, clicking eBay ads through Live search would yield a 35% cashback on just about any Buy-It-Now auction. You could use it 3 times and get up to $250 back each time. The only catch is that you won’t get the cash back until two months later, but whatever. In case you can’t tell, 35% is pretty frickin’ huge, especially on eBay. Scalpers who horded all the Walmart MGS4 PS3 bundles were hawking them on eBay for $600 (probably even cheaper ones were available earlier, as I found out about the eBay deal six hours after it was posted on Slickdeals), which is a $200 profit for the seller if you include the Walmart giftcard they get. (Minus ~$70 of taxes, eBay, and Paypal fees.) I just wanted the Walmart deal or better, and 35% makes the bundle $390, which is about $50 better plus I’m not forced to buy $100 of stuff from Walmart. So yeah, I bought one. I debated spending an extra $60 or so to get the limited edition grey bundle, but I decided I’d rather save the money and get an 80GB. About 10 days later, my new toy showed up in a giant banana box:

The seller is apparently not a good speller.

And why the heck not, I got the red God of War bundle while I was at it. A little under $140 shipped, I picked it up at the local UPS hub on Friday.

So for about $530 (less than the MGS4 bundle alone with CA tax), I got both the MGS4 bundle and God of War PSP bundle. Sweet. I couldn’t think of anything pricey to get for a third purchase, so I didn’t buy anything else. It’s not like I didn’t spend enough money anyway. Plus, I won’t actually have my rebates until August, so really, at the moment I’ve spent about $800. I’m not worried about not getting it… I mean, Live still has eBay cashback active, just a smaller percentage. btw, if you’re going to do a Buy-It-Now auction anytime soon, the Live cashback is back up to 20% after dropping to 10% right after 35% died. That’s still a decent chunk of change, but keep in mind, sellers might have inflated their price accordingly, so I’d make sure to compare prices to regular auctions.

Initial impressions to appear later, hopefully.