Buy Nothing Day

I have something to confess. Today is Buy Nothing Day and I'm not ashamed to admit that I went shopping - market shopping with my Mom. And we had fun.

We bought lots of great (and delicious) things!

Do not call/mail!

I don't know about you, but I get A LOT! of phone calls from telemarketers. They're calling to offer me products and services of all kinds, to notify me that I've been selected for a free trip/gift, to take 5 minutes (usually closer to 20) of my time for a survey.

And since I moved home to Nova Scotia it's become much much worse! I've had calls at all times of the day - at 8am on a Saturday, as late as 10pm on a weekday, and of course the bulk of them come between 5pm-8pm on weeknights. It's ridiculous!

So I've done something about it! I put myself on the Canadian Marketing Association's do not call/do not mail list. Ironically I had to provide my contact information to do so, but hopefully this will greatly reduce the volume of calls I receive. If you want to do the same, go here.

I've also been told that you can contact credit bureaus to ask them to take you off their lists. My first attempt to do this didn't work because the contact numbers I was given were American, and it's actually the Canadian Credit Bureaus I needed to contact. I'm assuming this would stop credit card companies from trying to get me to sign up for their cards.

Now if only I can find out a way to stop receiving "customer satisfaction" calls from service providers!

And if you're interested, here are the rules for telemarketing. Take note of the times allowed for telemarking calls.

If you have any do not call/do not mail strategies, let me know.

FOLLOW-UP

I've decided to keep track of the telemarketers that call, and report back on the process to remove your name from their list. Feel free to add any tips
Note: this is where it would be useful if you could create unique pages within blogger to use to post on-going notes, but as far as I can tell, you can't.

November 22, 2007, 7:45pm: MBNA Canada Bank called
Here's the process I followed to get my name of their list and find out more information:

• The telemarketer from the Indian Call Centre told me that if I wanted to remove my name from their list, I had to call 1-888-876-6262. He told me that once I was on the list it would take approximately 60 days to be removed from all other marketing campaigns. (Meaning I can expect more calls for another 60 days).
  
• I insisted on speaking with the manager, however I was first forwarded to the floor supervisor who told me the same thing, the forwarded to the manager who told me the same thing again. The manager then took my name (the first initial of my first name, and my last name which is all they had) and my phone number and removed it from their auto-dialer. "Thanks so much for your time. You have a great day Ma'am" he said, and then hung up.
  
• So then I called the 1-888 number. It's really deceiving because the automated voice asks you for your account number, which obviously you won't have if you don't have a card. After you enter 1 for English, you have to wait through dead air, the automated voice will prompt you again for for your acct #, wait, and then you'll be put through to canned musak until one of the call centre people picks up. It was only a couple of minutes of waiting.
  
• The Call Centre person was able to remove me from the list altogether, but before he did so he needed my full first and last name and my phone number. Apparently I'd be removed from their list for 3 years, and again it would take 60 days for my phone number to be removed from all marketing campaigns.
  
• Again, I asked to speak to the manager. I wanted to know what these other "marketing campaigns" were. The manager told me that they do not sell personal information, but purchased my information from another source. The "marketing campaigns" refer to any campaigns that company that sold my information had running. So here's the question fo the day - who was selling my info? Stay tuned! The manager will be mailing me a full disclosure of the sources that provided MBNA Canada Bank with my information. I should receive this report in the mail in 10 business days. If not I have the full name (J.O.) and direct phone number (613-907-####) so I can follow up.
• So who's selling my info? The manager listed off a few possibilities: clubs (The Legion), magazine subscriptions (I have none), to name a couple. Here's my prediction : AirMiles. I'll let you know if I'm right.
  

For interest sake, here is MBNA Canada Bank's privacy policy, and here is a letter from the Privacy Commissioner in response to a complaint filed against MBNA.

Monday's errands

On Monday I made a trip to the Valley to visit with friends and family. I left early enough to allow time for two errands : a stop at Applewicks and drop of some bottles for recycling.

Applewicks
This store is difficult for me to get to, simply because it's only open Monday-Friday 9-4:30. I used to go occasionally when I lived in the valley, but haven't been back since. So, on Monday, I took advantage of the opportunity and went in. I really like the purpose of this business - " to provide meaningful work opportunities for people with disabilities". And I especially like their products and service!
I bought several items which were very carefully wrapped in tissue by one of the workers, and put in a hand-coloured bag.
The candles are wonderful and the pumpkin pie candle smells delicious and, in my opinion, was a steal at $3 ea.
But I found this particular table runner particularly irresistable. Again, another steal at only $8, and the colours were really pretty. My only criticism is that it's a bit smaller than I would've liked, but I was told that I could put in an order for a custom-made runner.

The next errand was to drop of my recyling at the Valley Recyling Enviro-Depot in Greenwich. This isn't particularly note-worthy except that I noticed, while waiting for my recyclables to be sorted and counted, a sign for the Horton Poor House cemetery. One of the sorters told me that it's just a nice hike back behind the recycling building, so now I'm itching to hunt it out.

Another weekend, another storm

Halifax got it's first snow of the season yesterday. It started around 2pm with flurries, and by 6 pm the snow was coming down fairly heavy and blowing. We even had a short thunder & lightning show. I'm not sure exactly how much snow fell, but it was enough to cover my car and make the parking lot slushy.

It was a perfect night to stay in and knit. And so I did. I've been working on knitting squares for a baby blanket for someone in my family. The idea being that I would knit a bunch of squares, stitch them together and crochet the edges for a finished look. If I don't have enough yarn with the 6 balls of blue and pink Bernat denim, I'll pick up a ball of white and knit one large square for the centre which I could also embroider if there was time. All this without a pattern (because I hate following instructions). I've since realised the folly of my ways. This blanket is far more time-consuming and labour-intensive than it needed to be. I could've just knit a baby blanket on circular needles in a stockinette stitch and been done with it by now. Ah well. Live and learn. I'm about halfway done my squares so there's no point in turning back now.

It's also worthy to mention that this is post #100. Who would've thought I'd be so dedicated to keep this blog going for longer than a year.

"We value your opinion"

I just filled out the most ridiculous survey! A Gallup survey for HomeOutfitters.
I was asked to rate the following questions by how much I agree/disagree:

• I feel proud to be a Home Outfitters customer. Proud?? Of what?
  
• Home Outfitters is the perfect store for people like me. Perfect for what?
  
• I can’t imagine a world without Home Outfitters. Isn't that a bit extreme? I've only just started shopping at Home Outfitters, so my answer is strongly disagree! I can imagine a world without H.O. because for the last 28.5 years I've lived in that world. And lived happily.
  
• Associates throughout the store made me feel like someone important. Do I NEED Associates to make me feel important? I'm pretty sure not!
  
• The merchandise displays showed me how to put an entire stylish package together. Why? Because I can't have my own style? I need the store to tell me what's stylish?
  
• The cashier made me feel like a guest. Well, they didn't serve me tea and cookies, if that's what you mean?
  
• My purchase was handled by the sales associate in a caring manner as if it were their own purchase. So you mean they should really care about the tea infuser I bought?

These are very strange questions in my opinion!

Riders on the storm

Post-tropical storm Noel has come and gone, and none of us here in my little corner of the world seem any the worse for wear. Millie and I hunkered down last night for a quiet evening in (taking a pass on a family birthday party) to listen to the storm.



In the video you'll see the start of the storm - heavy rain, the blowing bushes and trees, and the wind blowing the water on the pavement (it's being blown up the slope of the parking lot). It was quite spectacular. And that was only the very start at around 5pm. The worst of the storm hit around midnight, but I was sound asleep and missed it all.

About 3am, the wind took out the power. According to CBC about 150,000 households in NS were without power; 60,000 of those in Metro Halifax. So I made the best of a dark and stormy morning with lots of candles, my solar powered radio, and a good book.


I'm half-way through Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck, and quite enjoying it! It was a struggle reading this morning - all cozy under the quilt in candle-light. I kept falling asleep! Read 1 page, sleep for 20 mins, wake up to feed the cat, read 20 pages, doze for awhile. What a great way to spend a morning!

And while I was relaxing, Millie was keeping watch and guarding our apartment from any rogue leaves blowing by the patio door. This kept her occupied for hours, and was quite funny to watch.

Now it's back to normal. The storm has cleared, and the sun was out this afternoon. Our power came on at 4:30. I'm glad to have hot water again.

Ethiopia Restaurant

Hooray! There's an Ethiopian Restaurant in Halifax...and it serves delicious food! This was a welcome treat. I haven't had Ethiopian food since I left Toronto and I quite missed it.
Two colleagues and I sampled several dishes (Sorry! No pictures this time) and I can report back that they were basically the same dishes I used to have back in Toronto.

We started with appetizers: pastries called, very similar to samosas. Mine was lentil-filled and delicious, served with a spicy green chili sauce. For our meal we ordered a vegetarian platter (for 2) of 3 dishes: a chickpea curry, a vegetable and cabbage stew called Atakilt, and Shuro Wat made with spicy split green peas. For a meat dish we ordered Doro Tibs, a chicken stirfry-like dish. All served on (and with) injera bread. As always there was far too much food. I always over-order.

And the atmosphere was decent too. Not quite as cozy as Ethiopia House, but nicely decorated with the colours of the Ethiopian flag, wall art, and Ethiopian music playing in the background. It was good to see that we weren't the only ones there. In fact, they were quite busy. At least a couple take-out orders, several tables full of people. And when we were leaving several people who looked like they may have been Ethiopian came in and sat down. That's always a good sign.

The verdict: Highly recommended. Will definitely take visitors, family and friends, there for a meal!

Ethiopia Restaurant
Open: Mon. to Fri. 5pm - 9pm
Menu: No menu available online, by fax or by email, but take-out menus available in restaurant.
Contact: 902-444-3030
Address: 6239 Quinpool Rd., not far from Monastery Ln., Halifax (see map below)

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