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02/15/2003 Archived Entry: "Flee, McPhee! It's free!"

As an internet guy in Canada, I do some amount of shopping online...and I'd say at least half of that is done from US stores. It grieves me to say that I am going to have to cut that shopping down though, because the cost of getting my purchases over the border are prohibitive. I just got my Valentine's Day order from Archie McPhee and the duty and taxes on the purchase were nearly half the cost of the stuff. Take into consideration that I was buying things that were not terribly cheap, were in US bucks so the exchange killed me a little, and it was a bit of a shock to see UPS asking for $42.50CA (on top of the ~$46.25US that the products cost me). Quite a price for a magic 8-ball, a calendar, some small tins, some chili pepper party lights and two rubber duckies.

On the other hand, it was a pretty unique set of Valentine's gifts for Jen :) And the free gifts of a smiley-face plastic skeleton, a 'natural feel' sticky runner nose, and a glow-in-the-dark skull fridge magnet...well, you just can't get value like that.

I'm awake at 1:30am as I write this...it's been an exciting week for me, and I haven't slept terribly well. Tonight at 8:00pm I was so toasted I could barely keep my eyes open and sent myself off to bed. I was getting those 'so tired my limbs ache' feelings and I was hurting myself by staying up.

All was bliss, dreaming about being a terrorist profiler whose task was to create a database of geodesic home builders, when the dumbass in parking lot stall 40 decided to let his car alarm stay on and I was forcibly awakened. This is the third (?) time in a week this has happened, and if I wasn't a law-abiding citizen I'd love to break into his car, pop the hood, and disconnect his battery to make it stop. It's not loud enough to call the cops over (historically, they have been exceptionally able to ignore anything that doesn't fall into the narrowly-defined decibal rules), but not quiet enough to ignore to go back to sleep. I do think I will register a complaint with the building manager.

Speaking of geodesic domes...I keep thinking about them. I'm becoming a bit obsessed with the idea that I could have a geodesic dome house (+3 points for unusualness) that I can build (+2 points for me being a sucker for this) for less than an average price (-10 points for being a cheap scottish bugger).

I need to buy a lottery ticket tomorrow...if that happens, I am buying some island land and retiring (I like my job muchly, but it's not worth ignoring a lottery win!).