Flock, like a flock of birds...or a flock of seagulls?

I've been using Flock for about 2 days now, and I love it. I can blog directly from the browser; with one click of a button, I'm there. I'm at work, bored as usual.

I decided a couple of months ago that I really, really wanted the Vans Slip Ons no matter how played out they are. I've only got one pair of 'low profile' (as in low to the ground, not like no one has them) skate shoes and they're quickly wearing thin. I had been vacillating between the colours for months, initially I wanted the black/hot pink colorway, then I wanted baby pink/brown, then I wanted the brown marc jacobs plaid ones and the list went on and on. I finally got around to ordering them last night at around 3am. I should have been in bed but since I rarely go to school on Fridays it didn't matter. I spent an hour carefully weighing the pros and cons of each colorway and I narrowed it down to two pairs: baby pink/brown and white/purple. Since my 2nd fave online skate store had their usual promotion, buy $90 US worth of stuff get free shipping, I bought a belt and pants too.

I was ready to check out, I hit the send order button, sign in, enter my credit card verification number and hit send again, confirm my address, check, and then I get an error message. No biggie, I think to myself. I'll just reload the page (it wasn't the confirm the order page so my order wasn't sent twice) and everything will be fine. I doesn't work. I'm kind of angry since it's 3:30am at this point and I really want to call customer service but I decide to email them instead and try again in the morning.

I get a response saying that their online service is down (kinda lame for a company that gets most of their revenue from online sales) and that if I just call in my oder, they would be happy to help me. Reasonable right? So everything is going fine until the CSR gives me my total, I ask her if I can use my coupon code for free shipping she tries to apply it and it doesn't work so she puts me on hold to chat with her supervisor. Moments later, she's back and telling me that as an international customer, I'm not eligible for that offer. I scoff and tell her that I've used the offer before (I bought a skateboard deck from them in the summer), she replies that it's not happening, and I end up telling her to cancel the order (as if that's going to personally offend her or something; unless CCS is a profit sharing organization, she really has no vested interest in whether or not she completes sales but whatevs).

The whole cancellation of the order thing was done entirely out of spite, but it was a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. They had the cheapest price for slip ons that I could find. After trolling eBay (nothing in my size in colours that I liked), Amazon (too expensive and only the black/white checks), Active Mailorder (only black/white checks, none in my size), I hit rock bottom: Hot Topic purveyor of all things Emily; emo kids unite! I was all set to swallow my pride, until I realised that their shipping was equivalent the the price of the shoes themselves and that I would still take upwards of 2 weeks.

I'm watching a pair of white/purple checked one on ebay, and if I don't win them that's it for me. I've wasted too much time and energy on this.

I bought Latte her belated Christmas gift today, and it will probably still arrive before TurboJam. It was a tough decision, I really wanted to get her a mini trampoline but Pancake said that it would probably result in a broken arm/furniture. Then I wanted to get DDR but the olny ones that were reasonable priced were for the PS2 and we have a PS1. And then I found it, the perfect gift. You'll have to stay tuned to find out what it is.