justifying my spendings

made 2 big purchases this week for myself.
i told my parents about upgrading my DSLR, which costs around $600.  they seemed ok with this expense.
however, i didn't tell them about my espresso machine purchase that's $670...
the main conflict they'll have is where this machine will actually be placed.  it's not small, and the microwave already took most of the counter space available.
hopefully when it's all set up (secretly of course), i won't get yelled at too long.
it is paid and done.  先斬後奏! XD

if you really think about it, i really didn't spend that much, considering my EVA ticket was supposed to be $1500.  i only had to pay $300, so there's $1200 saved.
makes sense, no?

Thoughts

Will be getting my EVA ticket in the next couple days.
Just as I thought, the $200 price hike disappeared after the Elite seat promotion.

On a different note...
Bow tie works extremely well on Matt Smith (the 11th Doctor).
Others, not so much.
And in some cases, makes you judge their fashion taste.

More spending on the way

Still waiting for prices to drop on air tickets.
Did find out about AC flights to Taiwan though, that the Toronto to Hong Kong flight is now under Cathay Pacific.  And it's $1400 after tax.
It's attractive, but I still want to fly EVA to experience it direct.

I did place an order for my Simpsons Season 16 DVD set though.
Well, pre-order to be more precise.
Can't wait till it gets here!!

Travel preparations

Just when I finally received my new AMEX card and created reward profiles, and so ready to book my Taiwan flight, EVA decided to do a promotion on Elite flights and raised the prices of Economy flights.
What a rip off.
Guess I won't be booking till after the promotion is finished, which is Dec 2.
I guess it'll work out anyway, since originally I was going to wait till December anyway to see if there's any new promotions out.
Or should I go extravagant and shell out $2000 for Elite class?
Hmm..  let me sleep on it for a few days.

More spendings

Still looking for that one last thing for my Christmas present making.
It's hard to find, I've looked through most of the crafts store and still no luck.
But I'm sure I can find it eventually, hopefully before Christmas. XD

New laptop has gone through much torture from me.
I caught a few trojans the first day it's on my hands, prompting me to buy an anti-virus.
Good thing there is a sale for Scotiabank clients.
The stupid trojans were caught when I was looking for a keygen for my Finale 2007 file, needless to say I couldn't use it because it kept getting deleted by the system from recognizing it as a threat (it was).
So not only I had to buy an anti-virus program, I also have to buy an original Finale 2012.
Thankfully amazon.ca has the academic version and it's on sale.  Guess they knew I need to buy it and took that extra $50 off.  At least that helps with the tax.
Should be getting the program sometime next week.
Networking seems to not work very well on any Windows system.  I had to disable all my firewalls to get the two somewhat communicating.
However, I just couldn't get the optical drive onto the network.
One more thing to buy is an external optical drive so I can install programs.
Sigh... what a waste of money!

Workshop reopening

I think my brain has been secretly communicating to me regarding my basement workshop.
I was just thinking the other day that I've been abandoning my new hobby and it's such a waste after investing so much time and energy on it.
And then tonight I finally looked at some new (well, to me anyway) techniques and researching on adhesive materials.
Then I realized it's Christmas in about 2 months and it's time to start making presents for my peeps.
Love the rekindled love and excited to try some new techniques!
That also means I'll need to get some new materials as well...  sigh...  spend spend spend!

Possible early shipment??

Don't know if it's because of my last post, Lenovo actually changed my estimated ship date from Oct 14 to Oct 11.
But estimated receive date is still Oct 20.
I'm just happy to see any updates on my order status now.
Waiting for the machine to come is just painful.

However, that does give me a window of time to do some homework on which external drive to get.
I'm only getting 128G of SSD space, but that's good enough for any immediate important files like documents and Finale scores.
However, with hard drives that start from 500G for any standard computers, I still need an extra drive for my junk.
Looking into getting a 1T HDD.
Another spending spree accomplished.