A Lot About Nothing

While I was searching online for some type of adaptor that can allow me to hook up a coaxial cable to my new laptop, I noticed that the laptop I bought a couple weeks ago was on sale for $999.  I initially thought I had left my reciept for my laptop at home back in Toronto, but this morning I took a look in my wallet and saw it in one of the side pockets!  Happy that I’ll end up saving $150, I headed to the local Kingston Future Shop.

Now I was a bit worried about trying to take advantage of Future Shop’s price guarantee since technically I was on the 15th day of my laptop purchase, but it wasn’t a problem when the associate rang in the transaction.

Here comes the good part:  turns out my HP Pavilion laptop was actually cheaper in-store than it was on the website! It was coming up as $899.  That means I saved $250 off my original purchase price.  Not too bad, for a pretty cool laptop. :)  After seeing the good news on my receipt, I went to some of the surrounding shops and spent more money I didn’t have (I got the laptop on credit ).  I did purchase a really cute LeSportsac bag at Winners and some more supplies for school from Staples.

Oh, and if anyone knows where I can purchase an adaptor for DVI/HDMI to coaxial cable (or if such a thing exists) so that I can record my soap operas on my computer at home while I’m in class, please let me know.

Well, I officially have one more full day before I head off to Kingston for the next month for teacher’s college. My room looks like a tornado hit it with all the clothes strewn around! Packing can be stressful, especially if you keep on thinking that you’re going to forget something.

I got the biggest stress off of my chest on Thursday: I got myself a laptop for school, because God knows I’ll be hopeless without it. I initially wanted to invest in a MacBook Pro. But after careful consideration I thought that all that money the package would cost me was a bit too rich for my blood. The MacBook Pro is currently retailing at $2300 at the Apple Store (after my student discount), and they also have a free iPod ($419 for the Touch I wanted) + free Canon printer (about $100) promotion. Plus, I wanted to jump on the Adobe Creative Suite software promotion ($449 for Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign and Fireworks), get Apple Care ($279 for students) “just in case” and up the RAM in the computer to 4GB. So before all the mail-in-rebates I was looking at close to $4500. Did I really want to max out my credit cards and I haven’t even paid my tuition for school yet? Especially since there are rumours that there’s going to be a huge MacBook Pro update in the fall? No. So I went to Future Shop and bought a PC.

And a sexy PC laptop it is. Not as sleek as the MBP, but boy is this thing shiny! I went with HP, since I’ve had positive experiences with them in the past (all three of my last computers were HPs). I got the Hewlett Packard Pavilion DV9934CA. I wanted to stay away from the 17″ laptops since they were “too big” for all the travelling back and forth I’ll be doing, but this model had the best specs for the best price ($1149).

• 320GB hard drive
• 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor
• 4GB RAM
• 8X DVD+/-R/RW DL with LightScribe
• 17″ screen
• Integrated Webcam
• Integrated WiFi and Bluetooth
• NVIDIA GeForce 8400M graphic video card with 256 dedicated memory
• Lots of inputs including HDMI, SD, S-video, and 4 USBs

Not bad if I do say so myself. This is the first laptop I ever owned. So now I can look cool and head to Starbucks, sit down and publicly write on my laptop like the rest of people! It’s also the first time I’ll be using Windows Vista. At first I was kind of wary because of all the issues I’ve heard of others having with it, but it’s not too bad so far (but all those “are you sure” security authorization questions get kind of annoying after a while). It took about 2 hours so set up and create the Windows Vista recovery discs and a charge lasts about 2.5 hours. The video quality is great though… watching Flash Point on the 17″ screen looked great.

Future Shop was having a printer promotion as well, so I got a new HP printer/scanner/copier for $10 with the purchase of my laptop (anyone want to buy an older 990cxi printer? ) I stood my ground and stayed away from the $300 product service plan (those commission-based associates can be very pushy). Now all I need is to find a case/sleeve that fits it right (I think I’ll be creative and make my own). I just wish it would fit comfortably in the new Enyce bag I bought at Winners a couple days ago!

I live in part of Toronto where there are approximately 20 Starbucks locations within a 5km radius — 7 of which are in a short walking distance of each other. It’s that type of situation where you’ll ask someone to meet you for coffee at the local Starbucks, and after giving them the major intersection they say, “Which one?”

Independently-owned cafes are becoming harder to come by as more and more Starbucks keep popping up in urban areas like dandelions. Don’t get me wrong, I love their Double-Chocolate-Chip Frappuchino® with whipped cream, but I’m not one to shell out $5 everytime I have a craving for it (it contains over 400 calories after all).

The Starbucks boom of recent years has mind boggled me, somewhat. Especially when I know people who purchase $3-5 coffee drinks there every day, even multiple times a day. That’s almost equal to one semester of college tuition! I seriously think that Starbucks might be spiking their drinks with “Starbucks Caffine” to keep customers buying their beverages.

Now to the main question of my post: Why to people go to Starbucks by themselves and just sit there with their laptops and a 1/2 empty cup of coffee? Sometimes they end up paying a lot for wireless service for Internet connection. Why not just sit in the privacy of their own home to work on whatever it is they’re working on? The question makes sense, especially if the people of this “Starbucks-laptop” culture have the nerve to complain about the noise that kids from a family that’s just entered the cafe might be making, or when someone trips over and unplugs the extension chord to their laptop.

It seems that I’m not the only one who has wondered about this trend. A repeat episode of Family Guy had me laughing, because there was so much truth in it:

If I feel the need to go out and people-watch, or hope that some hot guy will notice me typing on my (non-existent) laptop and strike up a conversation… then yes, I would go to Starbucks for that sole purpose. But I rather a nice, cost-efficient Iced Cap and Honey Cruller from Tim Hortons to go.