fuck video only. fuck it hard.

we decided to take advantage of the impending financial apocalypse by buying a new telly to go in our new house that we plan to buy soon. the deals right after xmas were supposed to be insanely good, so we stopped on our way back from canada. it took us half an hour to drive the approximately 200 meters off the freeway and into the video only parking lot.

the telly they had advertised that I wanted was sold out, but they offered me instead a 50" samsung that was very nice, for only a hundred dollars more. we figured what the hell, and bought it. unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in our car, being a Very Large Television. we scheduled delivery for the following day, and all was good.

ten minutes after leaving the parking lot, video only calls to tell me tomorrow's delivery is a no-go, they're booked up. that's fine, we'll reschedule for thursday, a holiday when we know we'll be home from work.

tuesday rolls around, and video only calls to tell me that my telly is gone. they don't have it in stock. something about them sucking a LOT of ass, not having a computer system that keeps track of their inventory. when the jackass sold me the tv on saturday, he thought he had it in stock, because his little printout he received that morning said he did. why it took him THREE DAYS to realise he didn't is beyond me. but if I'd like, I could just take a lesser panasonic model instead? it's the same size, but the contrast isn't as good and it's not as nice looking. all I need to do is come back into the store and change my paperwork and he'll get it taken care of. and did he mention this is a great deal, because he'll match the original price?

so we drive up to lynnwood. it takes AN HOUR to get there in rush hour traffic. only I'd done some research.

the model we bought, a samsung PN50A550, is not "exactly the same" as the panasonic TH50PN80U, as I was assured. in fact, a comparison shop of several other retailers showed the panasonic to cost anywhere from $200 to $500 less than the samsung I wanted. but video only had the panasonic on sale for $1399, down from their list of $1499. the samsung was on sale for $1299, from $1499. if they're both 50" and both $1499, they must be the same telly, right?

after taxes, my cost was $1415. fry's offered the panasonic for $1199, but I was assured I couldn't find it there. when I pointed out I could buy it from newegg for $1349 with free shipping and no tax, he assured me they wouldn't have stock, even tho he had no idea what newegg was.

I took in with me a stack of specifications and reviews, as well as pricing from best buy, buy.com, newegg, amazon and fry's, all showing the price discrepancy. I was fully prepared to take the lesser panasonic telly, once he marked it down a couple hundred bucks for my trouble. times are tough, right? no retailer wants to lose a sale.

well, this asshole did. guy's name is ron something, he took his business card back from me (it had previously been folded and possibly stapled, he can probably only give his cards out to people who actually buy shit). when I told him I didn't think the two sets were comparable, and that the pricing was cheaper elsewhere, he simply snatched my paperwork back from me and started processing the credit. didn't try to convince me to take another set, didn't offer any discounts, nothing. I was ready to drive a hard bargain, and ended up thrown out the door within five minutes instead.

worst part of all this is, we paid for it on mastercard, because they don't take american express. and since we were planning to get a mortgage next week, I paid off the mastercard already, since I wanted our balances to be as close to zero as possible. every little bit helps your credit score when you're pulling a $300k+ loan.

now I'm going to have a $1000 credit on a card I rarely use. it doesn't offer any rewards or points, unlike my amex, so I only use it when places don't take amex. we spend less than $200 a month on that card, it's going to take months to burn through that credit.

all because ron at the lynnwood video only is an asshole.

and I still don't have a nice telly.

obligatory xmas post

we barely made it to canada yesterday. lot of ugly on the roads, especially once we hit burnaby. tried to claim my usual parking spot on the side of the in-laws house, and found my shitty little hyundai couldn't handle eighteen inches of powder on the ground, snow tires be damned. so I parked in the driveway whilst bro-in-law and I carved a little spot out on the corner. damn near had a heart attack doing it too. finally got the car parked, only to find last night some assface decided to park RIGHT behind me, justting out partially into the main road (I was on a side street) and completely blocking me in. as soon as they left, I made sure to back up a bit to prevent that from happening in the future.

there's certainly been a low of snow. and while I love snow, and really have no problems driving in it (see above mention of snow tires mixed with a healthy dose of common sense), I was disappointed to learn my employer changed their snow policy. used to be if you showed up to work and they closed early, you got paid for the whole day. now, if they send you home early, it's unpaid. seeing as Iw as sent home three hours after I got there friday, I didn't bother going in monday or tuesday, and instead had to burn vacation. I instead spent much time bonding with my xbox.

for the xmas loot...

sister bought the babies some cat toys, and the cats love them. felix got a green stick thing with a feathery ball on the end, he goes APESHIT over it. they also got some treat balls that roll around and drop treats. felix monopolises it, but isn't smart enough to figure out where the treats come from. saku just waits til felix gets bored and eats the rest.

mom and dad got me mass effect and saints row 1 for xbox, stuff white people like and dilbert 2.0, and jpod books, and some dvds: forgetting sarah marshall, dark knight, and wristcutters.

mom- and dad-in-law got me guitar hero world tour for xbox and the office season 4 dvd.

bro-in-law got me iron man dvd, a little simpsons robot dude (I got apu) and a really disturbing looking johnny cupcakes t-shirt.

sis-in-law and her boyfriend are due over for dinner... don't know if I'm getting anything token from them. boyfriend gets four bottles of fancy imported beer (german marzen and belgian delerium), I imagine I'll get something similar. beer = good.

it is funny how tame xmas seems the older I get. I went to bed about 11 last night, had no problem whatsoever falling asleep (all the shoveling snow surely wiped me out), and despitemom-in-laws concerns about the basement being too cold, I slept just fine. I woke up around 8am, realised no one else (except mooki) was up yet, and went back to bed for a couple hours. twenty years ago, I never would have been able to sleep, would have been too greedy and excited.

I imagine being near kids changes the tone of things considerably. bro-in-law is the closest thing to a kid in this house, and he's college age.

we'll be holed up here for another couple days. need to try to get out for 'foo on saturday and then head home, hopefully the weather is better then than it was yesterday.

sunday we're supposed to go out househunting again, but I'm not optimistic the weather will cooperate. our current frontrunner has already sold. that's three now that have been swept out from under us, mostly because we haven't been willing to act quickly enough. we're hoping by the middle of january we'll be more comfortable to offer on something we like almost immediately.

so how was everyone else's crimbo?

ich bin der hausjäger.

went looking at more houses today. we didn't get the one we liked in shoreline (that we made an offer on), and our contingency plan is already off the market...

we found two today that were decent. was was very large but not as nice and in a somewhat sketchy neighbourhood... other was much nicer, in a better neighbourhood, but quite a bit smaller.

between these two, we'd have to decide what is more important.... having that nice size rec room in the basement, but sacrifice elsewhere (garage, neighbourhood, etc) or go for something nicer, but without as much space?

again, there's no slam-dunk, home-run, generic-sport-reference decision to be made. both of these houses have positives and negatives. we're leaning towards the smaller, nicer house closer to downtown, but won't make a decision until next month. we want to go look at some more houses, and our agent assures us there will be a surge of new listings after new years.

hopefully we'll make an offer on something we like by the second week of january. it be nice to be moved into something by the end of february.

house not get.

we didn't get the house. miyuki is relieved, I'm more ambivalent... I was fine either way. there were some things we didn't like about it. the kitchen was too small and would be difficult to expand. the yard was big but kinda crappy. miyuki didn't like that the exterior of the house had no personality.

it sounds mostly like rationalising, which is basically is.

we're going to take a break from looking for a couple weeks, try to enjoy the holidays... we'll start looking again after xmas. it'd be nice to find a house we like in the next couple months. we'll see what happens.

meh.

paul thinks I should blog more. paul is a git who keeps moving to third world countries in some feeble attempt to avoid adult responsibility and/or get himself killed. suicidal peter pan syndrome types shouldn't get to tell me what to do.

mooki and I made an offer on a house today. we didn't want to. we saw the house yesterday, I really liked it, but mooki wasn't convinced on it. we wanted to wait a couple weeks, see a few more options, and then come to a rational decision. instead we got a call that there was an offer on the house, it was low, and we could put in a bid as well. we don't know if ours is higher than the other, but it could start a bidding war. exactly what we didn't want.

the house is about twenty minutes outside seattle, in a border suburb called shoreline. it's essentially like burnaby, for the vancouver-centric crowd. the house is very spacious, over 1800 square feet. it has four bedrooms, two baths, a large living room and even larger rec room in the basement. the yard is huge but would need some work. there's no garage. nor is there proper flooring in the house. we'd have to install new hard wood floors before we even moved in.

miyuki would get a remodeled kitchen down the road, we have some more inheritance coming to us and could use a portion of that. we may or may not build a separate garage.

if all goes well, we'll actually be homeowners by new years. the house is a smiking hot deal, listed at $295,000. it sold two years ago for $299,000, had a ton of work put into it and was on the market for $440,000 six months ago, before the bottom fell out of the market. because it is now owned by the bank, the sale itself should go quickly. if we manage to get it closed out in december, we'll save some money too. the current FHA requirements have us pay 3% down. in january the requirements go to 3.5%. that's basically an extra $1500 we'd be forced to put into equity, as opposed to using for improvements or moving expenses.

to be completely honest, we're scared shitless. we signed all the paperwork for the offer today and it was faxed off. we'll know by wednesday afternoon if it was accepted. if accepted, we have five days to back out for any reason without penalty. after five days, it gets more difficult to change our minds, and we will rapidly reach a point of no return, where backing out would cost us the $5000 cheque I wrote in earnest, currently sitting in escrow.

the next couple of weeks will be a whirlwind of insanity. here's hoping it works out for us.