Category Archives: retail therapy

4 for the price of 1

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in retail therapy, shopping

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4 glassesAnd all’s well that ends well – at last! You may remember when I bought those purple glasses in front last March, which led to a huge dispute with the company when it looked like they couldn’t get the lenses to fit properly and wouldn’t refund my money, saying I could choose another frame instead. Then they found a way of fixing the new glasses and I was happy with that until, after I got them home, I saw that while fitting the lenses they had scraped off some of the purple coating off the metal frame. Fuck. So I brought them back and they told me that, as there were no other frames that I wanted at the moment, that I continue using these ones until I found something else.

Fine. I finally did find another pair that I liked, also purple but plastic, and when I went to exchange the original glasses for the new ones I was told that I could keep them as a sort of peace offering for all the trouble I’d been put through. Fair enough! Especially as this company also gives you a year after purchasing glasses to choose another pair, including lenses, for just 1€. I thought I might find another frame I liked within a year but then one of the arms (legs?) on my fab sunglasses snapped off and, as they were a couple of years old, a replacement couldn’t be ordered. So I decided to turn my new purple plastic glasses into sunglasses since my eyes are so sensitive to light that it’s painful to be outside without protection. Which once again left me with no clear glasses because the original purple ones were back “in hospital” (one of the lenses had cracked – don’t ask).

And so… since I liked the purple plastic ones so much I decided to go for the same frame in a different colour for 1€. Meanwhile the shop found another set of arms (legs?) for my broken sunglasses so that I could have something to wear while waiting for my new ones. And this is how I ended up with four glasses for the price of one, plus 1€. I’ve never had so many glasses at once before, but it does make sense to have a backup pair, especially sunglasses. When mine broke I had to turn down a special boat trip on the river that weekend because I knew my eyes wouldn’t be able to take the glare. How many pairs of glasses do you have?

bed shopping…

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in home, retail therapy, shopping

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It’s been a year and a half since I moved to the new casa az, since the movers fucked up my king-size mattress by bending it in half to stuff it into the van…

And the thing is, that big bed and headboard has never fit comfortably into my present bedroom. It’s too wide and long, so it feels very cramped in there. If I didn’t have sliding closet doors it would be impossible. Anyhow, what with taking out the blankets and duvets to be cleaned this week I just got a sudden hankering for a cosy winter bedroom that wasn’t, you know, quite so cosy. So I think I’ll get this bed. That way I can still use the little shelf thingys that now fit inside the headboard, but they will be on either side of the smaller bed (150 cm). Quite looking forward to this!

swarovski crystals

04 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in retail therapy, sevilla

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It’s been AGES since I splashed out on a totally frivolous treat like this. Without trying to sound morbid, when you don’t know whether the next PET scan is going to be a death sentence or not it doesn’t make sense to buy more possessions (other than stuff for work like computers, or things that enhance day-to-day living like the blu-ray player). I’d always rather spend money on experiences, like travelling or going out here in Sevilla.

But lately I’ve been hankering for something pretty. And so after a nice lunch out today with my friend Markus I strolled over to the opticians to see if they could fix my sunglasses because one of the legs (arms?) snapped off yesterday. And suddenly I was across from the Swarovski store. Well. It usually takes me forever to decide on a new piece of jewellery. But as soon as I saw these crystal earrings – and tried them on – they just seemed so right for me. As well as being completely unnecessary and absolutely useless. Which of course is part of their charm. Plus they are very pretty and sparkly. I  love ’em!

What was your last frivolous purchase?

meet the greyhound

28 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, geekiness, retail therapy, work

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I had a feeling this was going to happen this week. On Monday after uploading more photos into Shadow I had less than 10 GBs of hard disk space left and thought that if FNAC put on one of their “Día de Socios” (members’ day) I would go and get a new laptop, as I would get 10% off. Two days later I got a text message from FNAC telling me about the next one and so on Thursday morning I showed up ready to get the steel-blue 15.6″ Toshiba I’d been looking at. And then I saw The Greyhound. It’s the same one that I mentioned here but as it was now in stock I could actually see what it looked like. And I have to say it looks pretty sleek and the cover is also quite attractive, like silver and grey tiny-square graph paper under glass. I think the salesclerk was a bit surprised when I asked him to confirm the specs for me and then said, “okay, I’ll take it”. The entire transaction took less than five minutes. But of course I’d done all my research previously.

I have to say I’m very pleased with the new beast, though it will still take me awhile to get him all set up (bookmarks are taking forever). It’s quite nice having a big screen (17.3″) again and, with all my photos and programmes installed, I still have 470 GBs of hard drive available. Yay! But it’ll take some time to get used to Windows 7. One very annoying thing about it is that it doesn’t come with Century Gothic installed, which is the font I use on all my websites, including this blog. It’s actually quite disturbing to think that everyone on a Mac or using Windows 7 doesn’t get to see my sites as I’ve set them up – in another font it just doesn’t look right and the spacing also goes wonky. So I immediately got online to download Century Gothic, somehow chose a dodgy site in my haste, and ended up with a malicious browser highjacker called Babylon, which was a bugger to get rid of. Thanks to Sledpress for the additional help with Firefox!

Also thanks to Sled for suggesting this name. I’d been going back and forth between a couple of possible computer names, but as this one is grey and sleek and fast “Greyhound” fits. It also fits because Pat used to foster rescued greyhounds, and was as gadget-crazy as I am, so this is yet another way of keeping her in my thoughts.