Sweet Dreams

I think I went a little nuts today. >.<

Like I mentioned in my last post, Mom and I hit the post-Christmas sales at Wal-mart and Target as planned. Wal-mart was still having their Sims sale, so I bought the Bon Voyage expansion pack I wanted, along with Pets and the new Mansion and Garden Stuff pack. I wasn't really planning to buy that much, but the sale was ending tomorrow, so I figured I might as well pick them up since the price was right.

That should have been enough, right?

But Target was also having a Sims sale (I guess because Sims 3 is coming out soon). It wasn't quite as good as Wal-mart's - Wal-mart had the packs for $15, while Target was selling them for $20 -- but they had some of the packs that Wal-mart didn't, so guess what? Yep, I bought even more: Teen Style Stuff and H & M Fashion Stuff. *laughs* I spent almost ninety dollars today on Sims!

Clearly, I am insane. -_-; And I haven't even installed one of the packs I got for Christmas yet, since I wanted to get used to University before adding Seasons. I'm thinking I'll install one expansion pack per week; that should be enough time to figure things out. (All the Stuff packs are already installed.)


Name your 5 favorite families, from any fandom.

1. The Kinomoto family from Card Captor Sakura - Sakura, Touya, Fujitaka and Nadeshiko (even if she is deceased)
2. The Weasleys from Harry Potter - Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny
3. The Sohma family from Fruits Basket - Way too many to list. *laughs*
4. The Kotobuki family from Super GALS - Taizo, Kiyoka, Yamato, Ran, and Sayo
5. The Walkers from Brothers and Sisters - Nora, Tommy, Sarah, Kitty, Kevin, and Justin

So, I found out today that my local Wal-mart carries the Fruits Basket manga. They had a whole display devoted to it and Bleach. This is awesome. ^_^ I've seen the occasional shounen manga in the children's section, but never anything I've actually been interested in. Now that I know this, I won't have to worry about ordering new volumes from Right Stuf or waiting for Mom to drive me to Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks. Yay for convenience!

People seriously need to stop popping up behind me in the card aisle at Wal-mart.

The first time it happened was when I was doing my Christmas shopping. My sister's birthday was coming up as well, so after I grabbed Mom's gift from a nearby department, I went to look for a birthday card. While I was browsing, however, Mom decided to get Laura a card as well. Later, she insisted she didn't even notice I was there (which I'm not sure I believe since we were right beside each other), but, nevertheless, I grabbed a random sister birthday card and high-tailed it out of there so she wouldn't see her gift.

Fast-forward to today: My friend Crystle's oldest son's birthday is coming up soon, so I decided to get his present today. After grabbing him a Hot Wheels set from the toy section, I went to the card aisle to get a card and a gift bag. You can probably guess what happened next. Yep, Crystle popped up with the boys. *laughs* Luckily, I don't think that Hunter was really paying attention to me, so his gift should still be a surprise, but, still, what are the odds?

From now on, I think it might be a better idea if I get the card and wrapping first, then pick out the actual presents.

I don't know what it is, but, lately, I keep managing to buy things on sale without actually realizing that they were on sale. ^_^ Last Friday, Mom and I went to Wal-mart to get stuff for Thanksgiving dinner, and I decided to spend the thirty dollars I (finally) got for my birthday to buy the new Celine Dion CD and Josh Groban's Christmas album (both which are fabulous, by the way). They were both originally around $14, but when I got up to the register, I found out the Celine CD was actually on sale for $10. Then, today when we went back to Wal-mart after church, I decided to get a couple of cheap video games for my GBA: Castlevania (NES Classic) and a Pac-man cartridge with four different Pac-man games. Those were priced as being $15, which I already thought was a good deal, but again when they rung up, they were on sale for ten.

Man, I hope this streak lasts when I start buying Christmas presents! *laughs*

Christmas shopping is officially done.

Our first stop was Best Buy, where Mom proceeded to go DVD-crazy. ^_^ Seriously, I think she bought like five or six DVDs, plus a cheap Dean Martin Christmas CD she wanted for one song. I also picked out the Pretear boxset for one of my gifts, which was amazingly cheap. Remember a vent I made at ASMR a couple of months ago talking about how it would be cheaper to go ahead and buy the boxset instead of buying the two more DVDs I need as singles (which go for about $27 each)? Well, the boxset I found at Best Buy ended up cheaper than one single DVD. Twenty-three dollars! Twenty-three dollars for thirteen episodes! How much of a deal is that? Over at B&N's website, the same boxset (or so I assume) is $35, and I thought that was a deal. I wonder why there's so much of a difference in prices...

Speaking of boxsets, Pretear wasn't the only good deal I found at Best Buy, although I only got the one set since Mom only had sixty dollars set aside to spend on my presents. :( The Angelic Layer and Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum Collection boxsets were also way under their listed B&N prices. Over at the B&N website, they go for around $45 and $80 respectively. Their Best Buy prices? About thirty-eight dollars for Angelic Layer and fifty-eight dollars for Evangelion. O.o With those prices, I might go ahead and buy them myself (at least Evangelion; I really like Angelic Layer, but it's not one of my absolute favorites).

Remind me to always check Best Buy first before I order any more anime from B&N.

Our next stop was Deerbrook Mall, namely Barnes & Noble. Mom bought Laura a couple of sweaters and a Hershey's Kiss pillow from J.C. Penney, but I spent most of my time in the manga section of B&N. ^_^ Unfortunately, they only had the second and third volumes of RahXephon in stock, so I didn't get to buy anything for myself. I did, however, pick out the newest volumes of Ayashi no Ceres and Fushigi Yugi, as well of two volumes of Fruits Basket, for Christmas, so I'll be almost caught up on my series. ^_^ I just need to find Vol. 9 of Fruits Basket, but since I've read the scanlations, I'm not in that big of a rush.

After we finished up at the mall, we then went to Wal-mart for groceries and I got presents for Crystle and Hunter. (Family gifts were already taken care of.) I think they're really going to like them. For Crystle, I got her a matching scarf and hat set, along with a pair of really cute frog-covered (she likes frogs ^_^) toe socks that say "Kiss Me," and for Hunter, I bought a Mr. Potato Head and Spud Buds set. Every kid needs a Mr. Potato Head, right? (Funnily enough, I don't think I ever did. Maybe that's why the moment I saw it, I was like, "Okay, Hunter has to have this.") I just hope they get them in time for Christmas. Mom says she probably won't have time to go to the post office to send them until Thursday when she's off. *sigh* This is what I get for waiting too long to pick something out.

Oh, yeah, and Mom bought some more DVDs. ^_^

The sucky thing, though, is that I didn't know that Numb3rs was going to be a new episode tonight, so by the time we finally got home, it was almost over. I only caught the last fifteen minutes. *pouts* I was willing to miss Ghost Whisperer, but if I knew Numb3rs was going to be new and we weren't going to make it home in time, I wouldn't have gone. Oh, well, I guess I'll just have to hope to catch it in reruns.