Sunday, November 29, 2009

DVDeals 11/29 - 12/5

Terminator Salvation
Finally, another Summer blockbuster will be released this Tuesday. Terminator Salvation is the last one I think. Amazon has the best price for the regular edition DVD at $9.99. They also have the Blu-ray for $15.99. Best Buy has the Blu-ray for $19.99, but it includes a digital copy. It's odd that there are 2 Blu-ray versions... with and without the digital copy. Best Buy also has a special edition Blu-ray for $34.99. They didn't mention anything other than the special endoskeleton box though, so it's probably not worth the price.

Best Buy Deals
- Ghost Rider (Blu-ray) for $14.99
- A Knight's Tale (Blu-ray) for $14.99
- Spiderman for $9.99
- Babylon AD for $9.99
- Wanted for $9.99
- Max Payne for $9.99
- Punisher for $9.99
- Forbidden Kingdom for $9.99
- Death Race for $9.99

Friday, November 27, 2009

Happy Black Friday


I didn't go crazy for Black Friday this year. There didn't seem to be much on the electronics/movie sections. I found some early deals beforehand online. I woke up at 7am... pretty much normal time and just checked out Radio Shack. They're really the only electronics store that stocks what they advertise. I was able to take care of a few Christmas gifts, so that was successful. My Mom just went to Macy's and got a bunch of clothes on sale. Black Friday for us wasn't that eventful, but efficient.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Corner 28 (2nd Floor)

Location: 40-28 Main St., Flushing, NY 11354
Cuisine: Chinese
Phone: (718) 886-6628
Prices: $9/person (w/ dessert)
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 8
Value: 10
Environment: 8

Frequency: Unique

I had the day off so I met up with my parents for lunch and was able to add more to my Flushing restaurant reviews. We've been to Corner 28 before, but only for takeout, which is a completely different experience. This restaurant really split itself into many "departments" as they offer fast food downstairs, a sit-in restaurant upstairs, a sushi bar and bubble tea/smoothies. If they had the space, I'm sure they would offer dim sum on weekends too!


The thing that stood out about the Corner 28 restaurant menu was the prices. $9 per person is extremely cheap for non-fast food that included a smoothie. Without the desserts, it would've been around $6 per person... a takeout level price!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

City Café

Location: 136-13 38th Ave., Flushing, NY, 11354
Cuisine: Chinese
Phone: (718) 661-3380
Prices: $8/person
Credit Cards: None

Food: 7
Service: 7
Value: 9
Environment: 7

Frequency: Unique

Auntie Clarita & Uncle Mariano took us out for dinner on their last full day in New York. Since it was a Thursday night, the dinner crowd was comfortable and I got to try a new place. My parents have been to City Café before for lunch. I've never tried it, but used to come to this location a lot back when Sweet 'n Tart was in business. City Café is a much different style of restaurant, most noticeable with the price range. Sweet 'n Tart had small portions and high prices. This place has OK portions (all of our dishes were a good size except the lobster) with very low prices. This is probably one of the best bang for buck Chinese restaurants in the area. The dinner prices are pretty close to what youd pay for a lunch takeout.



The restaurant was clean and well-maintained, although one might not think that when looking at the outside. The service was above average, but I lowered the score a bit because they didn't change our plates and didn't have an English menu. For more details on the dishes, visit the Picasa album.

Auntie Clarita & Uncle Mariano enjoyed their stay in NY and got pretty good at the subway system as they went out to Manhattan for most of the days. They covered more ground than most of our previous visitors from the Philippines. Like true Ne Yorkers, they walked around a lot too. Hopefully they can join the next group event... another possible cruise in 2010?

Sunday, November 1, 2009

After Halloween

We had unusually great weather for Halloween yesterday... 70 degrees in October! Since it fell on a weekend, I was expecting a big turnout. I went out and got 4 bags of Kit Kats with a manufacturer's coupon. We actually only got 4 groups of kids at my parents' house all day. So I gave away less than 1 bag total! I guess it must just be a NYC thing where parents take their kids more to businesses rather than residential areas for safety reasons. And also, at night it conflicted with Game 3 of the World Series. Everyone was probably tuning into the more important Yankees game.


Today, we had a little get-together at my parents' house. Auntie Clarita and Uncle Mariano are on the 3rd week of their NY vacation. They're both pros with getting around the city now. Cindy, Wil and Wesley also joined us.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Monday, October 26, 2009

Woodbury & Fall Foliage

As you know, I'm not much of a shopper, so I can't spend even half a day at Woodbury Commons just going to stores. So I spent most of yesterday's trip shooting pictures of the fall foliage around the outlets. I walked out to the edges of each parking area and was able to get full nature shots.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Ifore's 2nd Vacation

Ifore was here again for another 2 weeks in 2009, making it a total of 2 months in the US out of the year! There weren't as many activities this time around as you can see in the blog because he was here to train and study the restaurant business. He didn't have a lot of free days. Today was his last day and we packed in a lot. We all got up early so we could make it to Woodbury Commons right when it opened. It was a good plan. The outlet opens at 10am daily and always gets packed on the weekends. We arrived at 9:45 and were able to get a good parking spot. It probably filled up around 11am and any time after that, you just have to wait for a car to leave in order to get in... or park very far away. We all split up to hit our own stores. I met up with Ifore at 12pm for lunch. We went to the same place as last time... Desert Moon for Mexican. Then we had about an hour left. I went off to the more distant stores just to see what was in Sony... nothing on sale at all. They just had regular or jacked up prices. It makes me wonder why they're even there! Definitely just a branding presence.

We headed out at about 2:30pm and got to Flushing at 4pm so Ifore could do some last minute packing and make sure his check-ins weren't overweight. Emily met up with us at 4:30 and we had a nice dinner. There was no rush because his flight was set for 11:15pm. We didn't have to be there until 8pm.

It always feels like a long vacation for me whenever I have out-of-town visitors even though I don't take the full time off that they're here. I actually only used 2 vacation days for it, but it felt refreshing.

Click here for more photos