Jay On The Go

To take advantage of a Black Friday sale on iPad 2 we were going to drive to CT since Massachusetts shops were going to be closed .  Or at least we did not think that it was worth waiting till 1 AM to go shop.  In the meantime, I kept searching online for deals and saw that Best Buy was selling the same iPad not with a $75 Walmart gift certificate but with a straightforward $60 off.  Definitely the right thing to do even with the slightly higher price because for just $15 it is not worth lining up at 10 PM in another state without a guarantee that I will get it and then figuring out how to spend $75 in Walmart.  The big lesson: shop online, avoid the lines, no need to fight for parking spots, and just sit back and smile at all the losers rushing to the shops.

Lorena and I are both addicted to coffee and often wonder what would it take to get European or Japanese or Argentinian style cafes in America, so when WCVB Chronicle featured Render ( 563 Columbus Avenue ), we decided to stop by when we were in the Copley Square area for a laser treatment at the Athena Salon Spa.  It is a cute little place with very attentive and courteous staff (thus, a huge departure from Starbucks where employees really don't care about you and the cafe is almost always dirty and it seems that the company strategy is to employ a business model with an emphasis on take-out rather than encourage a cafe culture).  Lorena tried a cappuccino (it had less foam than she likes) and I had a Colombian pour coffee (not dark enough and not as full bodied as I like).  Overall, a great place to go for a coffee but I need to try other coffees to make sure that I find the coffee I like.

I hate shopping in general and even more so on Black Friday.  I might have shopped maybe once of twice in my life and have not done so since 2005.  I mean who wants to get up early in the cold just to save some money?  Not that I do not like to save money but I think that if you shop smartly there are bargains you can find through other means.  This year, though, Lorena has her eyes on an iPad, but when we started to hear that Walmart and many other stores will open on Thanksgiving Day itself but not in Massachusetts where the law does not allow that, we started to wonder where to go, because Rhode Island is the same as well and we are closer to RI than CT or NH.  Thanks to Google Maps we figured out that the store in Putnam, CT is just 30 miles away for us, and they will have the iPad that she wants at 10 PM.  So that is where we will try to get that and maybe some other products that may be on sale.

Lorena and I have been partial to Oga's in Natick for over ten years whenever we need our Japanese food pick, but driving from the West we had also noticed Aoi.  So even we were surprised that we decided to do lunch there after living in this area for so long.  It is small but decorated more like a real Japanese restaurant in Japan.  The food was also more authentic as you can see from the pictures below of vegetarian udon and tempura udon.  The dishes definitely look beautiful and tasted pretty good as well.  They were not full of fat or strong flavors.  It reminded me of my time living in Japan.  A lot pricier than Oga's but definitely worth going once in a while.

I take my vote seriously and vote even in the primaries.  As emotional as my decision to vote is, my time is precious, and I am not a fan of standing in lines.  Unfortunately the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not have early voting, but you can vote on an absentee ballot.  What I do is to simply drive to the Town Hall and vote on an absentee ballot and hand it over right then and there.  The whole process takes less than five minutes.  I typically do it when I am running an errand around town, so this time I also paid my property bill the same day (saved a stamp), and then brought Lorena for Thai lunch.