I doubt that’s how presents work

My Dad has this what we call his "Pastry Bible" in German that he has been using every Christmas over the years. Last year, just when Christmas was over, he suddenly said he wanted to get the English version of the same book. He knows it exists because a colleague of his has it.

Being the nice daughter that I am, I did a search for him and voila! I found it. Pity these are 1978 (German) and 1979 (English) books, so I couldn't source a brand new one and had to get second hands. Did a lot of sifting through as some sellers won't ship to Asia, and some listings stated the book had obvious wear-and-tear marks.

Found one that costed around USD$7, but shipping was USD$20. That's why I hate buying books online. Anyway. Placed the order, received it today. Went to Dad to get my money back and he says "ah, your Birthday Present! It's for you!"

WTF!!?!?!?!????????

That's not how presents work LOL! You still need to pay me back, Dad! LOL. It's not even a book I wanted, and won't be using LOL.

Aaaaand when I looked inside the book, the original price was like 5GBP, so it was less than USD$7??? Aren't second hand books supposed to sell cheaper? Or maybe this one is an out-of-print thing? Whatever.

Had a good laugh, had to share this laugh ;-)

Shakespeare

A rather high-level, well respected colleague gifted me this Shakespeare book a couple days ago. He kept saying Norton is good (I have no idea what it means really)

I know I shouldn't look a gifted horse in the mouth (or however the saying goes), and this behemoth of a book does look impressive, but as I was flipping the pages, a piece of paper fell off stating "gift from *someone*, *and a date in 2016*." In a bit of an indignation, I added my own slip of paper in there stating "gift from *bigshot guy*, 26-January-2021". Pppfffffffttttt.

So yeah, cool I got a big brick of a book that I can slam into someone's head, but then it's just a pass-along of a gift that puts a bit of a damper to it. The style and prose would probably go over my head, so I'd better brush up a bit more on my Shakespeare English, not that I'd need to know that in this part of the world.

Friday Five 29-January-2021

Today’s questions from F.riday5.com; separate post from the LJ Friday Five, if it updates.

1. What are you listening to?
For some reason, I am off my podcast phase this week and have been listening to some old tracks I have. Right now as I type this, my playlist is playing this:

2. What are you hearing?
If I switch off the music, I can hear my Dad's snoring far off in his room, pitter-patter of the cats prowling around, and while I don't have a proper wind chime, but the curtain holders have a bit of material on them that makes a bit of sound if the wind is strong and they hit on the wall.

3. What are you turning a deaf ear to?
So, Mom saw an ad on Facebook for a toupee/hair topper thing. My experience of these Facebook ad products is that, these are all China products as well. They charge you an arm and a leg for their products but when the product arrives, you can see on the shipping label the product came from either Zhuhai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen. So, kind of, I could have gotten them from Taobao at a fraction of the price. But Mom was adamant to get that particular hair topper. So okay, I got it for her, it arrived, it looked NOTHING LIKE WHAT she saw (think those Wish products?) and now she wants me to file a complaint and ask for an exchange. I'm turning a deaf ear to that, because I had warned her right from the very beginning already. And now what, the shit that happens after, I have to deal with it too? No.

4. What have you recently overheard?
Pity, I didn't have a chance to overhear anything juicy recently. Usually I can walk around the company staff area and listen to other staff complaining about stuff, because they think I don't understand Chinese LOL. Best time for eavesdropping was lunch break at the canteen. Since now I get paid lunches, I don't eat at the canteen anymore.

5. To whom have you recently lent an ear?
My friend whose sister has that pastry shop just down by my apartment building. My friend helps out with the shop's marketing and stuff, and she was complaining about an "acquaintance/friend" that promised to help her deal with the website. Well, this acquaintance still charged a fee but couldn't really deliver anything. So my friend is now looking for another person/company to handle that.