The Blog According to Buzz

Okay, I’m an online kinda guy. Y’all know that. I’ve written articles on how to get the best bang for your online buck and I’ve been shopping over the internets for years and years and years and years.

But I have to admit sometimes shopping online kinda sucks, as is witnessed by the Future Shop Boxing Day Sale mess.

But that’s just one of the many reasons:

1. YOU DO IT ALONE
This Christmas I missed most of the hustle and craziness in the stores, that’s supposed to be a good thing, but I still missed it. So I went out into the melee a couple more times than I should have, considering I had already bought gifts online, and I ended up going way over budget on presents just so I could visit shops and carry stuff around.

2. WE DONT SHIP TO WHERE YOU ARE
There were soooo many things I wanted to buy for Christmas this year, but living in Canada meant it wasnt going to happen. Saks, Nordtrom, Target. They all had GREAT gift ideas, but not living in the USA meant “No Shipping For You!”

3. WE SHIP TO WHERE YOU ARE, BUT YOU’RE GONNA PAY
Okay, so they will send something from Edmonds, WA to Vancouver, BC. But guess what? It’s gonna cost $20. Seriously? It’s salt and pepper shakers. You’ll send it to Chicago for free, why do I pay $20? Cause I live internationally, that’s why. Oh, and get ready for the duty. I bought a Livestrong cycling jersey this fall. $90 for the jersey, $55 in duties and brokerage fees. Sick.

4. ITS GONNA TAKE A WHILE
Our Christmas tree had more than a few empty spots under it this year. The coolest gifts were ordered at the beginning of the month, but still havent arrived. Books from Amazon. Tshirts from Threadless and others. You’d think 3 weeks was enough to get from Texas to Vancouver, but no. I mean, if we lived in the US, they would overnight it for free, but on top of paying extra for shipping, you have to wait an extra long time. Want to make sure your gift arrives on time? Order it now. For next year.

This all sucks, but there are a couple of easy things to do to solve the problems:

1. Rip down the stupid 49th (for online shopping purposes only). Cmon, make us all one big online economic union.

2. More Canadian retailers need to get on board and have better online shopping sites. (*ahem* Holt Renfrew, Lululemon, Harry Rosen …) The Bay is trying, but the site doesnt have everything the store does. Heck, even Amazon which sells everything on its US site, still only sells books and dvds on its Canadian one.

So things could be better. But they’re not better yet, and that’s why online shopping sucks.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

Guess who visited last night?

Must’ve been because of the care we used to hang our stockings by the chimney. I didnt sleep all night, I am so excited to have sugarplums for breakfast!

Merry Christmas. Spread the word, ya heard?

Want to know why I live where I live?

This is Dundarave yesterday afternoon:

Merry Christmas. Spread the word, ya heard?

WTF is up at FutureShop.ca?

They’re trying things differently by launching their big Boxing Day Sale today. It actually started 45mins ago.

Cool, I would like a $60 iPod Shuffle and a $65 8G SDHC Memory Card please.

But instead of being whisked away to a checkout, I’m stuck in a 404-ish limbo. Check this out:

Huh? What the hell is that? I’m online and waiting in line? Ummm… I’m online so I dont have to freeze my ass for 35hrs like every other boxing day jackass. So I wait. Inline. Online.

This is messed up.

**Update** Been at it for over 30 mins now and just got this message:

Guests are over for our Christmas Eve dinner and I’m sequestered upstairs trying to buy a cheap iPod. That’s not very merry, and frankly neither is this experience.

Don’t think it’s gonna happen.

Nice job, FS. Asshats.

**Update 2** It’s now almost 10:30p, some 5 1/2 hours after the sale started and they’ve only sold 400 of the extra cheap iPod shuffles. Something tells me lots of people got screwed on this, gave up and went to bed. Good news, I got my iPod and SD HC dirt cheap. Now I get to go downstairs and wrap presents.

Still not happy I sweated over 45mins of disconnects and stalling and crap at 5p though.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

This isnt a crazy piece of fan editing. The Star Wars Holiday Special really did air in 1978.

Good God, what was Lucas thinking.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

It may be the final weekend before Christmas, but the stores want to remind you to save some for after Christmas.

Future Shop has a flyer out this weekend advertising their big sale for the 26th, but their website has the in-store handout- with even BIGGER deals. A 2 pack of 2G SD cards for $40? Those would cost you $90 if you bought them today.

They have web only deals too. iPod Shuffle for $60? That’s $30 off - that never happens. A 56″ JVC for $1300? Woah. Portable LG DVD players for $80! (I remember when I bought one of these for a Christmas gift 6 years ago. It cost me $700. Swear.to.God.)

One year, when my Gramma came out to spend Chritmas with us from Montreal, she couldnt get a flight until the 27th. So we waited 3 days to celebrate, until she was in town. Damn good idea. Do all your shopping on the 26th.

Hmmmm … Jen’s Ukranian… I’m thinking next year we wait until January to pass out the presents!

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I’m having issues embedding YouTube videos on my new Wordpress blog.

I think I found a solution, so this is a test with a silly, fun and festive version of the 12 Days of Christmas.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I went out this morning to pick up the final few scraps of gifts for my list.

Most of my gift buys were done online, and that made it a little weird this year. I feel like I’ve missed out on the hustle and the decorations and the craziness of the season.  There’s just something about the activity of a mall or downtown this time of year.  Sure, it can be stressful, but at the same time there’s excitement and electricity in the city.

Do things online and you skip out on that stuff.  There’s still 3 days left, I’ll probably head out in to the mania one more time.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard? 

I wrote a piece in 24hrs Vancouver today about some ways you can use the web for charitable purposes this Christmas.

One of the sites is Give Meaning.  Check out the post on cyberbuzz to learn more.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard? 

Yes, a less than classic album title from Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Starship, but also the phrase I like to drop when I’m up to my eyeballs in a project.

Here I am, on Christmas vacation. Yet last night I was up until past midnight, and this morning I’m up around 6a doing what I always do - sitting on the computer.

I picked a rather odd time of year to redo my web portfolio, but I finally had Wordpress uploaded on my servers, so I just dove into what I’ve been dying to do for 5 months now - monetize the blogs, clean them up and blog my ass off. I want to be John Chow meets Perez Hilton meets Meg Fowler meets Buzz Bishop.

So you have the new look for buzzbishop.com, the addition of a blog, and now a combined cyberbuzz empire which will host all my tv, print and radio columns.

Knee deep in the hoopla? More like up to my neck in css and php.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?