You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2008.
Having worked in retail for a long ass time while I was going to school, I dread it when people mention Black Friday. Black Friday is this pseudo-holiday that is the day after Thanksgiving where all the people go shopping to get the good deals. Being one of the fastest checkers back in my Sears days, I was required to work that day, having the 4:30am-whenever I pass out shift. Being paid by commission, this was actually kinda cool (next to last Black Friday I worked I sold close to $40k in merchandise). The down side to this was the people I had to deal with. This is proof that waking up too early makes you an asshole, since all the people that shopped that day were complete buttheads. People actually got into arguments with complete strangers over stuff. If you don’t believe me, check out this article about what happened at a Wal-Mart this year, or at Toys R-Us.
This year, Nicholas and I decided to go to the mall on Black Friday. Yes, we’re playing with fire, but we were going prepared (I took my digital camera). Due to my inability to wake up early, we got there around 3pm, but it still counts. The first store we hit was a popular clothing store that has clothes that are extremely undurable, they’re always falling apart. For shits and giggles, let’s call this store “New Army”.
When we get there, it looks like a warzone. Unfolded clothes all over the place as if a hurricane hit the store. As I was commenting on how bad I feel for the workers that have to clean this place, this lady looks at me and tells me “This is a HOT MESS, a complete HOT MESS!!” The best conversations I’ve ever had have been with complete strangers, so I went along with it. I told her I also felt bad for the people that worked there, when she said “Honey, you couldn’t pay me enough to work up in here! They got a HOT MESS up in here” We both laughed and had this bonding moment on the tshirt isle. It was wonderful!
After paying for the shrits we said we weren’t gonna buy, we walk around until we saw this store full of pretentious people where they sell those designer tshirts that just because they have a little tear and someone Bedazzled Bedazzled it, they can overcharge by a shitload. Let’s call this store “Metroland”. They had this techno beat up in there, and all these emos walkin around being emotional. To our left, there was this guy behind two turntables pretending to DJ while we shopped. Utterly pityful cuz he looked like he was 35, wearing clothes that both didn’t fit him and were fugly! We had to walk outta there as soon as possible.
We didn’t realize after this place we walked to a popular chain of home furnishings, let’s call this store ” Ceramics Farm”. To me it looked like a rich person’s Garden Ridge, where you can spend all the money you don’t have on stuff you don’t need. I actually found proof of this while walking in there. Here, you can buy a 
little bag of fake dead leaves you can put on your centerpieces. Can’t you just go outside and gather them up? Not if you’re rich, what will the neighbors think! I went to their website to try and find a picture of packaged dead leaves, but all I could find is this beauty. A branch of a fig tree you can use to decorate your table, and it’s only $20! Come on people, give me a break!!! Have we become this commercial and utterly fake we have to buy fake nature to adorn our tables. Talk about bad feng shuay! Walking out of this store, I felt like my soul had just been sucker punched. Having had this happen to me before, I know how bad that hurts.
My soul needed healing, and the universe provided. As we walk, we come across this new stand that sells gelatto. Thank you God!!! After trying a bunch of flavors, I tell the
incredebly nice girl working behind the counter that I’ll take a double cone of two double berry: this is a scoop of srawberry gelatto on top of a scoop of Barry White gelatto. Barry White gelatto is chocolate and brandy gelatto. Lemme tell you, it was sooooo smooth and wonderful, I couldn’t get enough of it, baby! I got a coupon for a free scoop on my next visit. I’ll be chillin with the “walrus of love”.
We gettin hungry, so we head to the food court. Word of advice, look at the person makin your food before you order from there. We decided to go to a place that makes subs, but is famous for grilling them. After trying to get the atetntion of the guy behind the counter, he waddles over to us and tkaes our order. Lemme tell ya, that was the grosest lookin and worse sub I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was a veggie sub. I dunno how veggies can look bad, but this guy did it. I think it was the Black Friday malaise.
The last stop we went to was that store that helps you make your own teddy bear. We were actually horrified how the process works. First, you pick out the “skin” of your teddy bear out of these bins full of empty husks. Then you take it to the teenager working there sitting next to what looks like a square bingo machine tossing around batting for the teddy bears. If you think about it, the batting is the innards of the bears, and this machine a perculator of teddy bear guts. We saw this kid press the button as the teenager stuffed the teddy bear right in front of the kid. Kinda creepy. You then go and pick out the bear’s clothes from a selection of different wardrobes, most of them looking like something Hanna Montana would wear. The whole experience was very surreal. Children discover the god and Creator of their teddy bears is just this pimply-faced teenager, and the kids are alright with that. All throughout this journey of teddy bear evolution, we ejoyed the Christmas stylings of a kid singing “I want a hippopotomus for Christmas”. Wierd.
So here’s some advice to you holiday shoppers:
- Look at the person making your food at the food court. If they look to tired, your food gonna suck!
- Leave your laptop at home. We actually saw a couple of dudes on their laptops while in the food court. Unless you wanna look like an utter douchebag, then just don’t do it.
- Take a good sense of humor, you gonna need it.
- Take a camera, who knows if you’ll need it. Both for legal purposes and to get a funny pic.
- if you get too tired, go to a store that sells those massaging chair things and get a free massage. We lost like 30 minutes doing this, and it was well worth it.
- Be ready to listen to the worst Christmas songs. I can tune them out, so I don’t have to worry.
- Go in with no expectations, leave with good deals.
I leave you with my favorite Christmas carol I heard while seeing the creation of a teddy bear.
how can you say no
when finally the rain comes
and the day is grey
Lately, I’ve noticed that I’ve been ranting more than raving. I think it’s the hour changed that happened not too long ago. For the people that don’t live in the United States, twice a year the hour changes. In the spring, we move our clocks one hour ahead, and in the fall, one hour behind. That’s supposed to help out farmers do stuff I don’t really know. Anyways, I’m digressing. Here are three more things I totally detest. Every time I come across them, it annoys the living daylights outta me.
Boom-boom cars: I drive a Jeep Wrangler, so on nice days, I like to take the top off and drive around town. It never fails that on those days, the douchiest people pull up next to me in their stupidest looking cars that have these stereo systems. Their stereos are worth more than the car, but the kicker is not only they choose to play thier shitty-ass music as loud as they can, but everyone else within a 20ft radius has to endure listening to some stupid soundin remixed rap song by Kanye West. If I had a normal car, maybe it wouldn’t affect me as much, but since I don’t have any windows and a roof, all I wanna do is run a red light just to get away from these dumbasses. If you have one of these cars, please answer me this: When the bass is so high that you can’t even hear the shitty song and you feel like all your internal organs are vibrating out of their places, how is that enjoyable?
Hipster-doofus bicycle posers (not wearing a helmet): OK, this is you: You ride your bike around town everywhere you go, but you are this pretentious yuppie that thinks its better to be fashionable than safe. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-bikes, in fact I own one. What is wrong is these emos wearing tight-ass dark clothes to show off their anorexic coke addictions and not wear any helmets. If you’re driving in the daytime, these guys can be spotted fairly easily. They’re the doofuses that are causing the extra traffic. But at night, these dipshits feel it necessary to not only traffic the busiest and fastest streets, but not wear any safety gear and pretend they’re indestructable. There’s some streets I try not to drive at night mainly because of these guys. If I hit one of these emos on wheels, I’ll probably get sued and they’ll make me do community service. If you’re one of these guys (or gals, I don’t discriminate, I’ve also seen girls do this), lemme ask you this: Why do you find it necessary to wear such tight jeans? I swear, every emo biker wears tight-ass pants showing off their underwear. Does that make you faster and more emotional?
Segway Tours. Yesterday I want to the mall with my mom, so I was already in a place I don’t like. While there, we saw a security guy on a segway. It’s bad enough this guy is a flashlight rent-a-cop, now he’s gotta ride on one of those idiotic things. Then I saw his face and it all changed. He was not only happy to ride a segway, but almost bragging about it. Then I got to thinkin, that’s what those tourists must feel like when they take those segway tours around town. You gotta know you look like a dumb shit. A whole group of you , and you look like a flock of dumb shitheads. Trust me! Riding around town touring the streets and lookin like a dumb tourist. All you need is a hawaiian shirt, a pair of bermuda shorts, and black socks! Y’all look like trained monkeys following a tourguide. NO, I take it back, a trained monkey looks much, much cuter than your sorry asses! Don’t believe me? Well check this out…
P.S. Back to the emo biker on #2, as you can see, even a trained monkey wears a helmet. On an evolutionary scale, it goes Emo Biker -> chimp -> Homo Sapien. For you creationalist emo bikers, Jesus wears a bike helmet. It says so in the Bible.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m anti-Cancer. I’m sooo anti-Cancer, I capitalize Cancer every time I use the word, cuz it’s a serious thing. What I totally detest is those douchebag people that find it necessary to wear those yellow bracelets that reflect their stance on Cancer of the cojones. Look at me, I bought a $5 piece of trash to tell everyone I’m against Cancer, of which propbably 10% of it will go to Cancer research and charity for good stuff. If you don’t get one of those bracelets, does that mean you’re pro-Cancer? Better question, why don’t you just give the $5 directly to Cancer research? You won’t get anything in return but probably will make a bigger impact. But there’s the rub!!! People need proof they’re good people, and proudly display it so everyone can see they’re anti-Cancer.
Remember those red ribbons that people wore for AIDS awareness? Whatever happened to them? I remember everyone wore them, because they were anti-AIDS. Now instead of ribbons, we have silicone bracelets. And we have a color bracelet for every kind of malady or social injustice, or whatever is bad in the world. While researching this topic, I found it very surprising that the color that represents bad stuff is not the same across the board. So in an effort to make everything clear so you get the right color that suits your activism, here’s a list you can choose your activism from:
Breast Cancer: You’re either a survivor (Kudos!! really do mean it) or know someone that’s been affected by this horrible horrible disease. You wanna show you care so instead of donating money to breast Cancer, you gonna get a pink bracelet. But don’t they already have the yelolow ones that are anti-Cancer? Yes, but you want your own color, since breast Cancer is different from every other Cancer. Isn’t it?
Did you hear about the Tsunami that happened like a long time ago? Or how about that genocide stuff goin on somewhere not here? Well now you can show your support for the Red Cross by wearing red. I feel kinda bad that the Red Cross beat the AIDS people to the punch and took the color red, but at least they still have those little ribbons that nobody wears anymore.
What a better way to support your troops by wearing this stylish bracelet. The U.S.O take donations directly, but you don’t get anything back to show people that you’re anti-war! By the way, other than greedy Republicans and oil tycoons, who is pro-war anyways?
To all my GLBGT brothers and sisters and everything in between, you can also look douchy with this rainbow bracelet that says “Heeeey, I also wanna look as douchy as heteros while on top a gay pride float wearing combat boots, a jock strap and feather boa!” Why not put some of that disposable income to good use and donate to a good social cause? Hmmm, maybe cuz you don’t get a tranny-hot, absolutely fierce rainbow rubber bracelet.
Plant a tree, carpool, ride your bike, recycle, use organic stuff. All this helps the environment, but people wont know you care by just lookin at you. But now with this silicone bracelet, they will instantly know you’re a ‘treehugger”. Who cares if this will just get thrown away and end up in a landfill with the rest of the activism bracelets. Who cares if factories are adding more emmissions into the atmosphere by making these pieces of shit. With this bracelet, all you gonna do is piss off a hippie.
Have you ever met anyone that was against Cancer research, against stopping the war, against the environment, against equal rights to everyone gay and straight? Wait, don’t answer that last one. My point is this, you can make a better contribution to the cause of your choice instead of buying one of these idiotic bracelets. Who cares what you believe in, just believe in something. If you’re gonna spend money on your favorite cause, do it directly, that way you actually make a difference!!
If you choose to look like a complete yuppified dipshit hipster doofus that reeks of douchbaggery, then by all means, wear your charity on your wrist. Two things you must know though:
- If I see you in a public setting sporting one of those pieces of trash, not only will I mock you, call you names including but not ilmited to the adjetives above, point and laugh at you, and even talk a little bit louder than usual so not only you but the people around you know how douchy you look with your wristband.
- Those silicone bracelets are made from the same materials as Crocs. That bracelets will look perfect with those pair of Crocs sittin in your closet!
As we true blue geeks know, there’s a new Star Trek movie coming out in 2009 that tells the story of how the crew of the USS Enterprise got together. I’ve seen it a bunch of times and can’t wait to go see this movie. Usually I put opinions and rants of stuff outta my head and don’t just put news flashes on here, but this was too juicy to not share.
First of all, I’m not gonna give out any spoilers cuz I don’t know much. All I know is from the trailer and stuff I’ve read on the internet. Secondly, all of the actors they picked out actually seem to fit perfectly. Thirdly, J.J. Abrams (he did Buffy) directed this thing, so I hope it has the same kind of dialogue as Buffy and Firefly and Serenity had.
They guy that’s playing Kirk looks like he’s gonna bring some douchebaggery to the scene. Sylar as Spock looks awesome. The guy from Hot Fuzz looks like he’s gonna be hilarious as Scotty. Lt. Uhura looks nice and sexy, I just hope they don’t make her out to be the damsel in distress so Kirk has someone in need to rescue. Zulu and Chekov are somewhere in there, so hopefully they’ll get some air time. Anyways, here it is!
pizza-la (oishi!)
hokkaido potato
just three thousand yen
I’ve been under the weather the last couple of days, so this post was written while under medication and feverish conditions. I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray!
Isabella Rossellini makes anything she’s in so artsy, so no wonder these porno clips are awesome. I think its the way she talk that makes things sound so brainy and high-brow. I took a bunch of biology classes in school so I knew the basics but seeing them so graphically here was very decadent and informative.
Out of all the creatures that I saw having sex, my favorite are the snail and the spider. I couldn’t find a video with all of the insects, but you can watch all the Green Pornos here. You know I only watch cool things on the internet, so trust me it’s worth it. Enjoy!
“…and i became He—”
holy smokes, this floor is cold
goodbye, little toes
I travel for a living, so when I visit my company’s other locations, sometimes I have to make the best of situations, being a visitor and all. Today, I went to this location where they were having management meetings, so there were a lot of visitors. Space was at a premium, and the only location with a computer hookup was in the break-room. For today, my office will be the break-room.
Sitting in the break-room trying to work, I notice the clock on the wall. 11:35am. Lunch time. A pizza man arrives carrying 5 large pizzas for the managers still having their meeting in the conference room. I just ate, so I’m not hungry. All of a sudden, 4 ladies from the offices come in and sit down to eat their lunch. They don’t touch the pizzas because they were ordered for the big wigs still in the meeting.
All of a sudden, the weird receptionist that greeted me this morning comes in. Her name is Marcie (what a lovely name). She looks about 55 or so, a little overweight, short grey hair. She sits down at the table with the pizzas because the other table with the ladies is full. Marcie then opens all the pizza boxes and grabs a slice from each one. She offers everyone in the room a slice as though she had bought them herself. Isn’t she generous? I’m not paying attention to her, I’m focused on work. I don’t notice Marcie until she starts eating. When she eats, Marcie becomes a heavy breather!
Marcie is a nice lady, I guess, but whenever she takes a bite of a slice of pizza, she has to breath through her nose. That’s when you can hear her breath from across the room. I know this because she’s doing it right now. I don’t dare close my eyes because all I can picture is Darth Vader. How can this woman be making all this noise through her nose? Maybe she’s got one of those deviated septums. Or maybe she just loves pizza that much.
Marcie tell everyone how Mt. Dew is bad for you while drinking her diet Pepsi. “You know, you always get packets of parmesan cheese with your pizza…”, Marcie interrupts herself. “You know what they never include? Dried oregano. I like me some oregano on my pizzas.” All anyone can do is nod in agreement. I didn’t even know you could get packets of dried oregano with your delivery pizza. As she sprinkles a shitload of salt on her pizza slices, she notices they also ordered one of those cinnamon bun pizzas for dessert. SCORE!
The women in the other table are deeply involved in conversations ranging from last night’s TV shows, to politics, to what each one brought to lunch today. At the same time, Marcie is breathing while she chews her food. Rythmic inhales. She keeps interrupting the ladies, but the ladies don’t seem to mind. They’re used to it I guess. Marcie has an answer to every question mentioned in the break-room, regardless if they’re directed towards her or not. She seems to be in everyone’s conversation. She has opinions and isn’t afraid to share them. Time for dessert.
The first pizza she ever had was a Chef Boyardee pizza. Same with spaghetti. She’s done eating. Silence. As she leaves the break-room, she smiles at me. I smile back.
Goodbye, Marcie.
→→→→
