Today I learned an expensive lesson

After Christmas I decided I wanted to take my Wii back to Scotland with me. We can argue about the relative merits of this decision (i.e. the effect it will have on my schoolwork vs. all the weight I'm going to lose playing Just Dance 3), but suffice to say, the die was cast, and that thing was crossing the ocean. There was just one problem: my bag was way overweight and I had to take the Wii out. In retrospect, I should have paid the heavy bag fee or even just paid to check a second bag, but at the time, it was getting down to the wire and I was stressed, so when my dad suggested I give him whatever wouldn't fit and have him mail it to me, I took him up on the offer.

I immediately regretted the decision, not because I just couldn't wait for my Wii but because I knew how pricey international shipping can be, and I felt bad about asking my parents to pay it. But my dad assured me it was ok, and I put it from my mind. My mother figured out how to send it after I was gone, and I eagerly awaited the package's arrival.

Three weeks later, I still have not received the Wii, and I've started to get a little nervous. Last night I asked my mother if she could track the package, and she said she would get back to me. Well, today the mystery was solved.

When I went downstairs to check my mail, I was greeted by a letter from Parcelforce, which we will equate to the UK's UPS. It informed me that my package was being held by Customs until such time as I paid them EIGHTY POUNDS in import taxes. EIGHTY POUNDS! There are not CAPS big enough to express my surprise and outrage. They're running quite a racket over at the UK Border Agency. I'm seriously flabbergasted by this. Had I but known, I certainly would have paid that heavy bag fee.

But they don't warn you about these things, dear reader, so I'm warning you now. NEVER mail a Wii across the Atlantic (or really anything valuable). You're better off buying it its own seat on the plane. Ok, now I'm being hyperbolic, but let this be a lesson to you. The amount of money my parents and I have paid to send this thing could have almost bought me a new Wii. Please, don't make the same mistake I did.

I'm pretty upset, but after I post this, I'm going to let it go and regain my serenity. And tomorrow, when my package finally does arrive, I'm going to devote myself to playing £80 worth of Zelda. So don't expect to see me for about a month.

Some music videos

I am totally digging on these music videos. The first is straight-up incredible, the second is a beautiful cover of an awesome song, and the last just makes me happy. So watch them, share them, and then write to NBC and tell them not to cancel Community. (I couldn't help throwing that in. That show is just too good.)







BONUS VIDEO:
I realize I have already shared all these videos on Facebook, so here's a bonus video for those of you who bothered to check out the post. Cheers!

The Joy of Eating Out

I tend to be a rather frugal individual, but the thing that I fear will one day break the bank is that I eat out. A lot. I love food. I won't apologize for it. I think my future financial goals are mostly to have enough money to eat and drink well whenever I wish. (And to be able to buy $5 DVDs from Blockbuster.) Since I've been in Edinburgh, I've taken to eating out for every lunch because lunches are not included in my dorm meal plan. However, breakfast and dinner are included, so I take most of the those meals in the cafeteria. And it is these meals that have made me truly appreciate eating out.

Eating in the JMCC (which is the name of the building in which our "restaurant" resides) is an exercise in mental, gastrointestinal and gustatory fortitude. What I'm saying is, eating there on a regular basis is like punishment. You have to fight massive crowds of people in horribly disorganized queues just to get a plate of barely palatable food. 

Okay, I'm being a bit unfair. Some of it is actually quite tasty, but those dishes are so few and far between that they're hardly worth mentioning. I know I should expect bad food; it's a cafeteria, after all. But that knowledge doesn't make eating there day in and day out any less depressing. I can't get excited about going there. It's just something that must be done, gotten out of the way so that I don't starve to death every evening. And for someone who truly loves food, this is quite a sad thing to have to accept. 

I could go into further detail about the JMCC, but as I said, this phenomenon of living on a meal plan has made me come to truly relish the times when I get to have dinner somewhere else. At least once a week, I try to dine at an actual restaurant. Sometimes several members of my hall all go out together. We call those occasions Family Dinners. It's very cute. Wednesday night was such an occasion. Not to buzz market or anything, but we got an amazing Groupon deal for a restaurant on the Royal Mile we had never tried called Gordon's Trattoria. It's a family-owned Italian restaurant entering its thirtieth year in business, and it was delightful. Everything was so good that even after a starter and an entree each, we all had to get dessert. How can you say no to tiramisu? How?! You can't. So we didn't. 

The question remains whether GT's was really so great or if our senses of taste have been dulled after months of eating in the JMCC. But regardless, we will be returning to that establishment, and I will continue to savor those moments when I can truly enjoy the things I eat. 

Phoning in the UK

This is a long one, dear readers. I have a lot of missed posts to make up for. So let's go...


A few months ago, I was toying with the idea of writing a post about obtaining a phone in the UK. But at the time, my story was boring. No longer, dear reader. A couple of weeks ago, I experienced some phone drama, which I will share with you now.

To begin, when I first came to Scotland I was sporting a beautiful 7-month-old iPhone 4. From Verizon. If you haven't spotted the problem yet, let me enlighten you. The Verizon iPhone 4, unlike the AT&T iPhone 4 is not a world phone. You can't get a plan for it with an overseas carrier; you can't even use Verizon global roaming. It just doesn't work. Something to do with a CDMA vs. a GSM something or other. So here I was, left with a big, beautiful, high-resolution... iPod. And digital camera. So for £20 I bought this little beauty from Vodafone. Note that although it looks like a Blackberry, it is decidedly not a Blackberry.

I also got a £10/month pay-as-you-go program that afforded me 300 texts/month (along with some other stuff, but that is irrelevant). Not a bad deal, really, for what it is. But this phone can make calls and send texts, and that's about it. And that's all you really need, right? Sure, if you aren't hopelessly addicted to smartphoning. The amount of time I spend on Wikipedia and IMDb per day is, quite frankly, obscene. In fact, I've made a New Year's Resolution: whenever I can't remember something, I wait 30 seconds before looking it up and try to remember it using my brain first. It's been a good exercise.

Anyway, back to the story. So for three months, I'm roughing it with my adorable not-a-Blackberry. Then Christmas rolls around, and word on the street is that my mom is getting a new iPhone when she switches from AT&T to Verizon to be on our family plan. So I mention in passing to my parents that the iPhone 4S on Verizon is a world phone, and if I had one, I would be able to use it in Scotland. So on Christmas morning, I am delighted to receive a promise that when my mom gets her new iPhone 4S, she will give it to me and she will get my (still very new) iPhone 4. Hot dog! Aren't my parents great?

Well, I got my new phone and spent a delightful couple of weeks playing with it in the US. Now fast-forward to my return to Scotland. I've still got my Vodafone phone for the nonce, but I want so badly to be able to use my iPhone as a phone and not as a glorified iPod.

My plan was simple: walk the 1.5 miles from my house to Vodafone, have them unlock it, get a new SIM card, spend the rest of my days in mobile Internet bliss. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong! I get to Vodafone and they tell me they can only unlock Vodafone iPhones. Ok, fair enough. Where can I go to get this one unlocked? Oh, simple. There's a shop just down the road that will do it. Ok great! (You guys following the stream of consciousness all right?)

So I skip down the road to the Phone Box and ask if they can unlock my phone. Turns out, only Verizon can unlock the Verizon iPhone 4S. Sneaky bastards. Not really sure how to get Verizon to do this, I ask my father back in the States to find out for me. (I would do it myself, but calling the States is difficult in my present condition.) Anyway, the next day he gets back to me with an international number to call, and Verizon is very pleasant and agreeable and unlocks my phone. Hooray! End of story? Not hardly.

The next morning, sitting at breakfast, I mention to my friends that I am headed back to Vodafone after class to get a SIM card. My friend Ian suggests that I might find a better deal for one online, but out of general impatience to start smartphoning, I shrug off his suggestion. However, later that day, he texts me that he has done some research to get "us" some money back if I order online. Intrigued, I agree to meet with him.

Turns out, there is a website, of which he is a member, that will give him money for referring me and will give me money just for going through them to buy my SIM card. It also turns out that Three has a much better deal than Vodafone for pay-as-you-go texting and data. For £15/month on Three, I get 300 minutes, 3000 texts, and UNLIMITED DATA. If the all-caps didn't give it away, that last is huge. I use data like a fiend. So to have as much as I want for only £15/month is outrageous.

Well, skipping ahead a bit, the online scheme didn't work. Three wouldn't mail the new SIM to my dorm for some reason, so I'm back to tramping the 1.5 miles to the shop on Princes Street. But that's ok because I'm so so close to getting my SIM. Thus, in the waning daylight of that January day, I make my way to the little shop across the street from the National Gallery. I stride in, joyous, full of life, ask for my SIM, and am told that they are sold out and maybe I should come back Friday but no guarantees.

I am disappointed, but not yet out of hope. Upon hearing that Phones4U, a third-party retailer, may be able to help, I walk to the other end of Princes Street, where I learn that they do not carry micro SIMs. I then go back in the direction I came from, trying to find more phone retailers. I find another Phones4U and a Currys Digital (recommended by the Phones4U store), both of which deny me.

Now, by this time, it is dark and starting to rain and I have walked over 2 miles (from the time I left home), back and forth along this one street. To be quite honest, dear reader, I was losing hope.

But then, out of the darkness, arose my salvation in the form of... the Carphone Warehouse. That's right. I found the thing I needed, the thing that four other stores did not have, at a place that has not changed its name since "carphones" were a thing. Thanks, Carphone Warehouse!

And that was that. These days, I'm living large with my awesome new micro-SIM, looking up actors' filmographies whene'er I wish.

Except sometimes in my bedroom because reception sucks in the dorms.

Best Email of the Day

If you have never bought anything from Abe Books, I recommend it. It's a huge online seller of second-hand books, and it is a great resource if you are a literature student of any kind. Their books are of good quality and are often quite inexpensive. And they sent me a great email today.

Recommendation: Tell Them I Died Robbing

Tell Them I Died Robbing is an awesome new band out of Lakeland, FL, comprised of members Joe Cruz and Kimber Wiggs. Ok, I realize it's not really fair to recommend myself, but hey, isn't that what this whole blog thing is really about? Joe and I wrote this song over Christmas break, and we think it's pretty good, so we'd like for you to listen to it. We hope you think it's good too. All the production and music is the work of Mr. Cruz. He is amazing. A few days ago, this was pretty bare-bones, and he's transformed it into something pretty epic. Give it a listen. Tell us what you think (as long as what you think is positive).

Happy Last Year on Earth!

Well, friends, it's 2012. I feel like this first post of the year should be somehow epic. After all, this could be our last year of existence, if you believe those wacky Mayans. I've had an amazing holiday break at home, which included a trip up to Maryland for New Year's. Not only did I go up to Maryland, but while there, I participated in a 1920s-themed murder mystery. 'Twas delightful! I played a character known as "The Baroness." That is a real mink that belonged to my great-grandmother. Baller!

There was a minor snag in our festivities when we discovered that we didn't bring a proper corkscrew, but we made do.

On New Year's Day, we all partook in a Saratoga Springs New Year's tradition called the Peppermint Pig (TM). You have this little pig made of peppermint and you go around the circle and each person says something that he or she was grateful for in the past year. Then you hit it with a hammer! You can read about this tradition in detail by clicking on the picture below. It was both touching and slightly dangerous, so it was perfect for New Year's.

My sojourn up north also included a brief visit to DC, during which I got to visit the wonderful cupcake store Baked and Wired in Georgetown. Because it was early in the day, I decided to go for the "breakfast cupcake" as I called it: a pancake batter cupcake with maple frosting and, get this, candied bacon! It was really tasty, but way too rich.

That's about all I have to report for now, dear readers, but before I go I want to tell you about my two other side projects, both of which have tabs up at the top of this blog. The first is my creative writing blog, aptly titled Pretentious Writing Blog. Feel free to leave comments on my poetry. I hope you like it, but you're not required to. The other new blog I started is brand new for this year. It's called A Year in Lunch. It is my 366-day photo challenge, for which I will be photographing my lunch every day of 2012. Both of these blogs are longing for followers, so check them out and if you like them (or me), follow them. Thanks! Happy New Year!