All posts by Raymond Tomlin

About Raymond Tomlin

Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology. View all posts by Raymond Tomlin →

Holiday Season Gift Giving | Hacking Amazon to Save Big Bucks

November 18, 2019Diversions, Food & Health, News, Vancouver, VanRamblings, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

Amazon Prime delivery boxes

With the holiday season coming up, gift giving is on the minds of a great many people, gifts for family, friends and colleagues, and gifts for oneself.

Given the uncertain nature of the economy and the scarce dollars available to most folks, a bargain is always appreciated — and make no mistake, with Black Friday coming up on November 29th and Christmas sales at the ready across our land to entice you to spend, there’ll be plenty of bargains to rein in whatever disposable income you’ve set aside for gift acquisition.

Retail online sales, if projections are correct, will top $40 billion Canadian this holiday season, with total world sales expected to exceed $3.5 trillion for 2019 — most of which monies will be spent acquiring products made available on the Amazon website (or app, as the case may be). Latest figures published by Statistics Canada indicate that 3 out of 5 Canadians do most of their non-food shopping on the Amazon.ca website — cuz it’s less expensive than the retail stores as well as reliable, and if you’ve acquired an Amazon Prime membership, goods delivery is free within 12 – 36 hours.

If you’re not in the market for anything in particular — say you’re just looking for gift ideas or killing time during your lunch break — you can get to the Amazon Warehouse Deals landing page by heading to Amazon.ca and search for “Amazon Warehouse” or “Warehouse Deals.” From there you can browse the categorized listings just as you would at any online retailer.

Most people who shop on Amazon, though, know exactly what they’re looking for. If you already have something specific in mind but want to see if there’s a discounted Amazon Warehouse option available, this is where your sleuthing, money-saving skills come into play, saving you up to 50%.

The bottom line: why pay full retail when there’s a perfectly fine — and much cheaper — alternative?

In much the same way that VanRamblings does most of our clothes and shoe shopping at consignment stores (Turnabout is our current favourite, where we save up to 80% on new sweaters and jackets), the Amazon Warehouse has perfectly fine ‘used’ goods at 50% off or better savings.

For instance, we recently acquired a Dash 1.2 L Compact Electric Air Fryer (which we’ll write about later in the month) for $42, when the retail price on Amazon.ca and at Walmart was a much steeper $101.67, plus tax. The Dash Air Fryer arrived in the original box, in pristine condition, in 48 hours.

All we did when arriving on the Amazon web page for the Dash Air Fryer was scour the page, keeping our eyes peeled for words like “New & Used,” “Buy Used,” “New & Used Offers” or just plain “Used” — and with the click of a couple of buttons, our ‘new’ Dash 1.2 Litre Compact Air Fryer was on its way, at a cost saving of pretty darn close to 60 per cent.

Why’s Amazon Warehouse stuff so cheap? Just like other major retailers such as Walmart or Costco, Amazon takes in a lot of customer returns, which it can no longer sell as new-in-box, regardless of why the buyer sent the item back or whether it’s even been opened.

That’s why everything Amazon Warehouse sells is listed as used, even if the product itself has never been touched. Regardless of its condition, used stuff is just worth less — sometimes a lot less. And that, most often, is very good for you.

Amazon has five different grades it assigns to items it resells. Here they are with brief explanations of what Amazon means by them.

Renewed: This is the highest grade an Amazon Warehouse item can receive and is on par with what other companies might call “refurbished.” Renewed items have been closely inspected and tested and determined to look and function like new and come with a 90-day replacement or refund guarantee.

Used, Like New: No noticeable blemishes or marks on the item itself, although the packaging may be damaged, incomplete or missing all together. All accessories are included, and any damage to the package will be described in the listing.

Used, Very Good: Item has been lightly used, with minor visible indications of wear and tear, but otherwise in good working order. Packaging might be damaged, incomplete or the item repackaged. Any missing accessories will be detailed on the listing.

Used, Good: Item shows moderate signs of use, packaging may be damaged or the item repackaged and could be missing accessories, instructions or assembly tools.

Used, Acceptable: Very well worn, but still fully functional. Major cosmetic defects, packaging issues and/or missing parts, accessories, instructions or tools.

How to choose the right grade? If there are multiple listings with different grades available for the product you want to buy, think about what you’re going to use it for. If it were something purely functional and you couldn’t care less about its cosmetic condition, like hair clippers or a cordless drill, our suggestion: go with the cheapest option, period.

Honestly, a low enough price on just about anything can woo most folks into dealing with some scratches or scuffs. Not to mention, Amazon tends to err on the side of caution, marking items as Good or Acceptable that the average person would consider Very Good or Like New. One of the benefits of purchases made through Amazon Warehouse is that

Amazon’s standard 30-day replacement or refund return policy applies, which comes in handy if you wind up with a lemon. Amazon does caution that because these products are considered used they don’t come with the manufacturer’s original warranty — but you can, in fact, register the product online with the manufacturer for the full two year, or better, warranty.

And remember: Amazon Prime members still get free shipping. Subscribing to Amazon Prime won’t get you a bigger discount on Amazon Warehouse Deals, but you’ll get free shipping just as you would for any other Prime-eligible item, which is why it remains a good deal, at $90 Canadian a year to sign up for Amazon Prime (which also gives you access to Amazon Prime TV, for most folks a pretty good deal when you get right down to it, and applicable to all Amazon Warehouse purchases, as well).

As above, most stuff you buy through Amazon Warehouse ships and arrives within the same one- to two-day window you get with new items, although some orders do take longer to fulfill. If that’s the case, the extra handling time is usually indicated on the listing, so you know what to expect.

Of course, Amazon will be participating in this year’s big Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales too, with some deals starting as early as Nov. 22nd, with all current Amazon.ca Black Friday deals available here.

Music Sundays | VanRamblings’ Love of Popular Music Remixes

November 17, 2019Music, Pop Culture, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

There is nothing we love more than to walk along Spanish Banks, ear phones snuggly tight in our aural canal, powering down the beach listening to beat music remixes to energize our appreciation of the great outdoors.
Dating back to the late 1960s, we have written a regular music column, first for the city wide Vancouver student newspaper, then as arts & review editor of Simon Fraser University’s student newspaper, The Peak, and after that in mainstream media, and since the turn of the century online, both on VanRamblings and a raft of other online non-affiliated online publications.
Today, four of our favourite remixes, which we listen and dance to again and again on our slidey living room floor (and elsewhere) …

Cake | Rhianna | Sweater Beat Remix

Cloud Number 9 | Bryan Adams | Chicane Remix | (long my ringtone)

Need U (100%) | Duke Dumont | Skreamix | (80s funk done up right)

That Thing | Golden Boy | Eton Messy Remix | (thank you Lauryn Hill)

Stories of a Life | 1989 – 90 | The Balloon Story

November 16, 2019Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Christmas of 1989, Cathy asked me if she might have the children on Christmas Day, as her mother would be in town and very much wanted to spend Christmas Day with her two grandchildren, Jude and Megan.
Now, just the previous year Cathy and I had come to the bitter end of an arduous and discomfiting 10 year, million dollar separation and divorce journey that had near bankrupted me. Although I had sole custody of the children from 1978 through 1981, because Myrtle (Cathy’s mother) hated having to go through me to see her grandchildren, she financed what turned out to be a brutal seven year campaign to wrest sole custody away from me in favour of Cathy having the children year round, in the court proceedings setting about to deny me access to my two loving children.
In order to pay for the legal fees necessary to put my position forward in the Supreme Court (and to preserve my access to Jude and Megan), I worked three jobs simultaneously, teaching, working as a social worker, as well as a corrections officer, taking an inheritance from my aunt, as well, to fund legal fees from 1981 through 1988 — going so far in the late eighties as to cash in my teacher’s pension to pay off the last of my legal bills — all but living in the Supreme Court throughout the 1980s, until one fine day, Supreme Court Justice Patrick Dohm seized himself of our divorce and custody matter (which meant that all future proceedings would be directed to his court), with Justice Dohm finally deciding in 1988 that “enough was enough”, scolding Cathy, instructing her to “behave”, and then awarding the two of us joint custody, which gave me 183 days of access to the children each year, Wednesday evenings, Friday evenings through Sunday evenings, half of each of the Easter and Christmas holidays, as well as all summers, from the beginning of July through the end of August.

Note of reflection: I will say this, had I to do it all over again, I would not have fought what was for me a half million dollar custody battle with Cathy throughout the 1980s. Some people are meant to be parents — Cathy is not one of those people. Had I not fought with her, gone to court half a dozen or more times each year for seven years, because Cathy is who she is, I likely would have spent just as much time, perhaps even more time, with Jude and Megan throughout the 1980s than I did by fighting with her in court to maintain my access to the children — and would most probably have a better relationship with my children than is the case today.

In 1988, as per the Supreme Court ruling of Justice Dohm, in the first year of the Court mandated agreement I was given the latter half of the Christmas holidays as access, which meant that in 1989, I would have the two children from the last day of school through Boxing Day morning. But as Myrtle was in Vancouver during Christmas 1989, Cathy asked if she might have the children from the end of the school term in December through Boxing Day morning.

“Raymond, you know you want to spend time with the children. School gets out for the holidays on Friday, December 22nd and Boxing Day is only four days later, which would give you very little time with Jude and Megan. If you take them for the second half of the holidays, you would have the children from Boxing Day through the late evening of Sunday, January 7th — which would give you the children for thirteen full days, more than three times the number of days you would get if you just had them through Boxing Day, which I’m sure would make you happy.”

The more time I got to spend with the children the better, I had long thought, so I agreed to take the children from Boxing Day through their return to school on the 8th of January, agreeing to forfeit spending Christmas Day with the children in favour of a longer period with the children over the holiday season, granting Myrtle her Christmas wish.
Now, given the previous seven year history of our rancorous divorce, I should have known something was up, but being the good-hearted, naïve fellow I was then (and remain today), I readily — if stupidly — agreed to Cathy’s plan. And thus the conditions are set for part one of today’s story.

A bit of background as to why I should’ve been wary of Cathy’s intentions:

On my birthday on August 11th 1989, Cathy drove over to my home to drop the kids off, as Jude, Megan and I prepared to spend my birthday afternoon together, after which we would attend at The Cannery Restaurant for my much-looked-forward-to birthday dinner.

Cathy drove up in her late model Jetta, parked illegally across the street, leaving Jude and Megan (who were all dressed up) in the car, approaching me as I stood on the front lawn of my home. Cathy said, in an angry tone, “I want to talk with you.” “Something contentious?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, to which I replied, “Could we put off having that discussion until tomorrow? I’d very much like to speak with you, and I’m sure we could work out to your satisfaction whatever it is that you feel needs doing — it’s my birthday, though, and as you well know from having been married to me, I like to steer clear of any sort of contention on my birthday.”

Before I knew what was happening, Cathy balled up her fist, and moving her arm back and then towards my face hit me squarely on my left cheek, with such force that it knocked me to the ground. With me now lying sprawled out on the ground, Cathy stomped back across the street, got back into her car, and drove off, the children looking at me piteously through the rear window of their mother’s car as she speedily drove off.

Cathy could have her moods, and that is an example of one of them.

Boxing Day 1989: the Beginning of a Three Month Interregnum
As pre-arranged and agreed upon, Cathy dropped the children off to my place in the late morning of Boxing Day 1989. Upon alighting from their mother’s car, both children approached me to say that they wanted to go shopping for clothes, the first stop on our buying spree to be Aritzia at Oakridge where Megan had scoped out exactly what she wanted to acquire, with Jude asking afterwards that we drive downtown to Robson Street to a shop where he wanted to acquire a pair of jeans he’d had his eye on, and were on sale on Boxing Day. The three of us spent that day after Christmas day bopping around town, shopping, walking along crowded streets, stopping off for lunch, driving around Stanley Park and out to Horseshoe Bay — the children loved to be driven across the landscape of our region, soaking in the sights, listening to the radio and spending time together — before heading home for dinner, and a night in together watching a video.
Jude and Megan had chosen Good Morning Vietnam as the video, and after cleaning up the kitchen post dinner, set about to create the warming conditions to watch the Robin Williams movie, the three of us all snuggly & toasty warm in our pj’s and housecoats, sitting on the sofa hot chocolate in hand, and snacking on an array of chocolates and shortbread cookies.

At 11:30pm, the front door buzzer in my apartment sounded, with me thinking, “Who could that be at this time of night?” In fact, it was two Vancouver police officers, who asked to be let in, who told me that one of them would be knocking on my apartment door within the next minute. When the officer arrived at my door, I greeted him, the officer looking into my apartment to see Jude and Megan on the sofa staring out at him, the officer asking, “Are you two alright?” “Yep, we’re fine,” they said. The officer asked me to step out into the hallway of my apartment, which I did.
The officer explained to me that a frantic Cathy was in the foyer of my apartment building, court order in hand, exclaiming that I had not returned the children to her earlier in the day, as per the court order (a court order which she had re-proclaimed for this evening event). Cathy contended, the officer said, that I had not returned the children to her, so she called the police to enforce the court order — which he and his fellow officer were now compelled to do. I set about to explain the circumstance, but the officer was clear that the court order trumped whatever exclamation of events I was presenting to him. The officer asked me to return to my apartment to instruct the children to get dressed, and prepare to return to their mother’s home — which I solemnly and reluctantly set about to do.
Within 15 minutes, Jude and Megan were in the custody of the officer, after which they took the elevator to the main floor, reuniting with their mother.
I had no contact with the children for the next three months. Despite the fact that I was earning good money, I had no desire to spend even more money taking Cathy back into court, before Justice Dohm — who, no matter what he ruled, would at the end of the day, as had been the case in the past, have little effect on Cathy’s arbitrary and injudicious conduct.

Megan was born on March 26th, 1977. March 26th, 1990 would not only mark her 13 birthday, but her entrance into teenage hood. There was no likelihood that I was not going to move the sun, the moon, the stars to become a part of the celebration of the young woman I had raised, despite the fact that we’d had no contact with one another for three months.
So, I did what any good father would do: I arranged to have a large bouquet of birthday helium balloons delivered to the offices of University Hill Secondary, addressed to the young woman, Megan Jessica Tomlin.
That afternoon, I received a telephone call from Megan asking me to pick her up from school, which I did. Megan told me how disconcerting and embarrassing she found my outré birthday gift to be, but that her friends prevailed upon her that afternoon, saying what a wonderful gesture it was, that she couldn’t possibly not see how loving the gift was, and that she must, must, must get in touch with me as soon as was practicable.
For the next nine years, Megan’s and my relationship was steady and as close as it had always been, with no breaks away from one another throughout that entire time period, trusting confidants and friends with one another, lovers of baseball both, father and daughter, advocate and advocatee, Megan in charge (Megan always had to be in charge, then and to this very day), decided and loving, independent, feminist and caring.

2019 Year in Review | The Best Films of 2019, Part 1 | Cinema

November 15, 2019Arts Friday, Cinema, Netflix, Pop Culture, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

In the coming weeks, VanRamblings will publish a list of our top 20 films of 2019, from Teen Spirit (now available on Amazon Prime) back in February through all the films yet to screen in Vancouver — from Clint Eastwood’s new film, Richard Jewell (December 13) to director Jay Roach’s story of the takedown of Fox News’ Roger Ailes, Bombshell (December 20), plus Greta Gerwig’s all-star cast adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Sam Mendes’ epic WW1 blockbuster, 1917, both set to open Christmas Day.
Now, two of VanRamblings’ top 20 films of 2019 that demand to be seen …
Best Propulsive Good Time Hollywood Popcorn Flick of 2019

The first Hollywood film of 2019 that offers movie patrons a guaranteed good time inside a darkened movie theatre, a film for the whole family, the last film made by 20th Century Fox before they sold the company to Disney, a glorious barn burner of a film redolent with heart-in-mouth and tug-at-the-heart emotion, not only one of the greatest racing movies ever made, but an infectious, engrossing true life drama that features some of the finest onscreen performances of the year, Matt Damon as you’ve never seen him before and Christian Bale sympathetic and at top of form, with a supporting cast who will pull you into this audience-pleasing story like mad.
In other words, a must-see film at the multiplex. And it opens today!
Ford v Ferrari is expected to win the weekend box office handily with as much as $31 million at 3,528 venues across the continent (and, likely, another $20+ million in foreign markets over the first weekend, with China and the rest of Asia set to screen Ford v Ferrari in the weeks to come — all of which oughta make the film a solid 2019 Oscar contender). The Disney-Fox film follows an eccentric team of American engineers and designers, led by automotive visionary Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and his British driver, Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who are dispatched by Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) and Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) to build a new vehicle to defeat the dominant Ferrari at the 1966 Le Mans world championship in France.

Ford v Ferrari reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes critics reviews aggregation website

Click on the graphic above to access reviews for Ford v Ferrari on Rotten Tomatoes

The Probable Best Picture Academy Award Winner for 2019

Opening today for two weeks only in exclusive engagement at the Vancouver International Film Festival’s Vancity Theatre on Seymour Street — where advance tickets for the three screenings each day this weekend are already sold old — Martin Scorsese’s gangster opus, the capper of a directorial career that spans fifty years, the film that opened the New York Film Festival to rave reviews, a film that clocks in at 209 minutes that will seem like half that time the film is so enthralling, one of the five films that will garner the most Oscar nominations — a probable Best Picture Academy Award winner come Sunday evening, February 9th — The Irishman is, as Boston Globe critic Ty Burr enthuses, “a masterpiece”, a film Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times says is “the best film of the year and one of the best films of the decade,” and as other critics have written …

… a genuinely new, deeply satisfying, serenely confident film presented with subtlety, wit and resonance, a sumptuous film that tells an epic, extraordinary tale of organized crime’s grip on American life as seen through the eyes of one outwardly ordinary man, a film that is a revelation throughout, intoxicating, history-making cinema, a melancholy eulogy for growing old and losing your humanity, a film to be savoured in every one of its 209 minutes, a knockout story that is surprisingly, surpassingly delicate, told by a master filmmaker with heart and sombre introspection, a film that takes a deep dive into the darkest of souls but manages to remain engaging, lively, funny, full of grace, tender, reflective, mournful, a film of grandeur and bloody memories, a heartbreaking film that presents Joe Pesci as you’ve never seen him before, with superb performances from Al Pacino and Robert De Niro — together for the first time in a Scorsese film — and an absolute must-see at the cinema.”

So, that’s it: two of the best films of 2019, both deserving of your time and scarce dollars, both films (in their own way) epic and unforgettable cinema.