Today was (finally) a good day.

       After an incredibly trying week, today was a good day. And I damn well deserved it. It started when I woke up, slowly and comfortably in the arms of my lover, with a terrible rain. A rain that washed away the snow and ice I was supposed to shovel today. Many a w00t was said. I came downstairs to the news that my car was fine, with a new battery, and ready to be picked up. Hoorah!        What could be next? A gift of A History of Violence (which I keep wanting to call A Short History of Violence...)? Finding that the Regal on route 1 is playing Fight Club for the forseable future? How about both. But I wasn't in the mood for Fight Club. Not today. Instead Al and I headed into Princeton and found that Tristram Shandy is playing at the cozy little theatre there, where I last went to and saw Pi. The movie was great, and an extended review will come shortly, but before that we did a PREx run. And look what I got. Now, keep in mind I haven't listened to all of these, nor even heard some of the bands, but it is still quite a good haul.

Stay Awake	Satan's Circus
Who Killed....... The Zutons? by The Zutons	The Way to Salvation by King Missle
All This Useless Beauty by Elvis Costello and the Attractions	Business as Usual by Men at Work
Singles Collection by Spandau Ballet	Orson Welles at the Movies

       Stay Awake is the only album I've had a chance to listen to. It's an interesting mix though; it's A bunch of A*M artists "reinterpreting" old Disney songs. Highlights include "Stay Awake" by Suzanne Vega, "Heigh Ho" by Tom Waits and Sun Ra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade". It's all very creepy, all a bit off. In a good way. And the two pieces in the liner notes, one by Hal Willner and the other by Leonard Maltin, are both worth a read. The close of my day? Thomas' Sweets: chocolate malt and chocolate mousse ice cream, followed by a listen to Stay Awake and a more hit or miss album, The Gershiwn Project.

A quick update from the outpost

       This will be a fragmented update as my life doesn't have much of a linear flow at the moment.  The biggest thing is that I will be going to ComicCon.  I got a free 3 day pass from work and I think that qualifies me as hot shit.  Don't worry; you the viewer are yourself justified in your envy.  Of both my ComicCon excursion and my proper use of the semicolon.  Bitches.  I 've been working on my schedule and think I may take the con solo.  My tastes differ from most going (not graphic design or game or anime or manga oriented).  I am taking the panel discussion/comic writer/film screening route.  I am more a connoisseur than a fanboy.  If you ask anyone I like or work with (wink) then you'll know that I have not been this excited over an event since the president was chocking on a pretzel.  Ah, good times those were.  

       Moving backwards in time, I recently had a lovely Valentines day.  Al and I went ahead and celebrated it on the 10th, thereby beating the rush.  It was lovely, though there were some rocky instances dealing with trains.  We went to see The Producers.  It was funny.  Most of you know how I feel about Mel Brooks, but this was still good.  Comparisons to the movie don't apply.  What does is the energy it was assembled with.  The book, music, sets and all that.  Very well done.  In my own personal universe this sets the bar for a standard.  That may sound like a backhanded compliment but it's not.  Kudos, Mel.

       I've started a new book.  Well, not exactly new.  It was published in '98 and I bought it a few months ago.,  But I just found it in an old back-pack.  So it's new to me.  Anyway, I started it tonight and came across this entry:

I tied to copy other children but lacked their tough skin.  I was a glove turned inside-out, softness showing.  I was the visceral place between mouth and bowel, the region of digestion and rumination.  No doubt it is my spleen that refuses to locate the seat of reason in the head.  No doubt it is my natural acidity that fears the milkiness of the heart.        This story is a journey through the thinking gut.

And that is just sexy.  The book is called GUT Symmetries.  It plays on both the physical gut, the emotional seat of intuition and the G.U.T. (Grand Unified Theory).  It's romance, poetic prose and quantum physics.  Just a few pages in and my review is "lick this book". 

       In other book news, Trickster Makes This World is coming along beautifully.  I'm loving it, taking notes and readying myself for a series of short stories that have been turning around on the wheel for quite some time. 

      That's about it for now.  I hope to get some writing done this week.  It's been a while since I've been able to give myself time and put things down.  Maybe a portfolio for a newspaper application...

Virals and memes

Well, I see it's been about a month so I guess it's time to post again. It's been interesting and busy, but I'm not sure how much of the last month I want to hash out again so I'm going to keep this pretty light. Quick note, Kate is completely psychotic. I don't mean crazy like "dem crazy dames" or even Tom Cruise crazy. I mean "I don't know what reality is" crazy. If you read this, I just wanted to tell you. If not, it's still a good warning for everyone else. Virals. I've been telling people about some great sites and virals that I've come across recently. Since some are from friends of friends I thought it'd be nice to consolidate them. Someone posted the "Shining" re-edit preview a while back and that got me thinking to other edits. So I hunted them down like dirty animals and collected them here for you.

The Shining - One of the best, if not the best, I've seen. It's spot on and so tight. Not a wasted cut. And the sound choice is superb.

Titanic - I think this is from the same group. Also a good one, though easier material.

Brokeback to the Future - Oh, it's as bad as it sounds. But better...

Sleepless in Seattle - Cut too fast. It could have been sharper if they used longer bits. Funny, though.

Star WOz - A strange mash of Star Wars and Wizard of Oz. It has it's moments.

Lord of the Rink - A LOTR sports cut up for contest. It's cute, but it didn't win.

West Side Story - Now with zombies.

Psycho: A Love Story - This one isn't quite good but I put it here to be thorough. It takes the easy, heavy-handed way through the whole thing. Nice idea, bad follow through.

The Passion of Benny Hill - Chad told me to watch it. Need I say more? And just for him, this link.

Fast Times at Hero High - Actually, this is a really short film. The trailer is all original and one of the funniest things I've seen in fandom ever. Smooth move, Hamilton.

That's it for movies. The rest of this I got from someone else's blog so I can't take credit for finding them. This will take you to an awesome keyboard. I'm not kidding. It will make you wet, nerd or not. It's just... great aesthetics. This last link is to a Wired article about free and innovative games. Strange Attractors is addicting as anything, so be careful. Snood careful. Facade is sickeningly voyerisitic and enthralling. The fact that you can intterupt and say anything at any time is great. No choose your own adventure, this.

That's about it for web stuff. I'll be back soon, probably with some music reviews. Maybe politics. You know that's how I roll, folks.

And for some strange reason I can't indent on LJ anymore...

It's about time

       I've kept quiet about retail long enough.  I started another blog to get the steam out and then stopped posting as I grew accustomed to how stupid people are on a regular basis.  But today, today was awful.  The people were awful.  After today I deserve to bitch about what happened.  And I will now commence bitching in chronological order.

• "Are you affiliated with Barnes and Nobel?"  Are you huffing glue?  What sort of cave do you live in to think this?  It must be a cave with a build up of carbon monoxide that's killing your brain cells.  B&N...  Christ.
  
• Next up a guy was making a return with a woman's name on the receipt.  That's fine.  Whatever.  So he got a credit for buying other stuff.  Well, one of the CDs he was getting was not on as great a sale as he thought so he dropped a magazine.  He then started bitching about getting a $2 credit on a return card.  If he got the magazine he wouldn't have had the card.  I told him this but he just kept on ranting about the free money he was getting back.  Classy.
  
• "The title is 'Known'"  She proceeded to spell it.  I asked if there was any more to the title.  Like a good customer, she didn't know.  Did she know the author?  I asked and she responded by yelling, "You want to know everything, don't you?!"  Maria came up and handed her The Known World.  It was the right book.  I was then treated to a lecture on how good a sales-woman Maria was and how I asked too many questions.  Next time I simply won't ask anything at all and hand her the nearest book I can find.
  
• I met smelly guy for the first time.  He was lurking behind the drama section when I went to pull out a Bronte novel.  I've smelled him before but never this close.  I realized he was there a mere 5 feet away.  I instantly began developing a headache and my eyes started tearing.  This is not hyperbole, this guy is amazingly rank.  He has sued both a train line and a library for kicking him out based on his smell.  He smells bad as a career.  Later, he wandered over to the newspapers.  The info desk is about 20-30 feet away.  I pulled out the bottle of Axe Body Spray (put at info for this guy in particular) and had to spray.  The store reeked of body spray and smelly guy for an hour but it was better than just his smell.  I went back to drama and sprayed the chairs to try and cover his stench.  Eye-watering stench.  I think he could kill with this smell.  Death itself would gag in his presence.
  
• "Volomay."  Great way to start a conversation.  She wanted a book by Volomay.  When I asked her the title she shouted, yes shouted, "Volomay" a few times, louder each time.  I responded by asking her the title, saying the word "title" loud and slow so she could understand it as I understood Volomay.  And how did she spell Volomay, I asked.  "R-O-L-L-O M-A-Y".  Shout it again, bitch.
  
• Finally, the end of the night approached.  It looked like I was in the clear.  Alex and I were lounging at the register when up comes a couple.  "We're looking for Captain Corelli's Mandolin."  Alex and I paused, about to tell them that these were cash registers and not computers.  The computers were at the info desk.  As we opened our mouths the husband jumped in, very loudly, "Oh, I'm sorry!  Is this the cafe?"

       All this was a close second to the dread I had when I saw I was covering a certain someone's lunch in cafe.  Some people have heard me complain about her before.  Today I ran into Chad and described her as "Amelia Bedilia's younger sister, who has down syndrome".  Honestly!  We keep a journal in the cafe to keep the next shift up to date on what's going one.  I wrote that when making coffee she should also put in the coffee pot stems, the bit that actually pumps the coffee out into a cup.  In response, she wrote that she "has a system, but would gladly switch to mine".  I wrote back that it's not a "system", but how the coffee pots work.  Unbelievable.  I know that it's cool to "damn the man" and buck the system and all, but she's a fucking mess.  There's a system in the cafe not to oppress the baristas, but to make things easier on us.  One example is to do dishes.  Do we do this to piss of the dish washer?  No, we do this so the next person isn't left with 8 hours worth of dishes on their shift, something which this person often does.  Don't randomly move the different kinds of coffee beans to different shelves.  To keep the workers down?  No, so we don't brew regular and give them to people who order decaf.  Instead she moves them around and we've had to dump pot after pot because we don't know what we just brewed.  But at least she whines a lot.  And is slow.  That's got to count for something, right?  Incompetence personified.  I think what really gets to me is that not only is she terrible at everything she does, but she gets an attitude against fixing her mistakes.  I've heard someone stay that she just enjoys being angsty about things, that she likes pissing people off and being "rebellious".  I'd think that was true if I believed she actually put that much thought behind anything she does.  God, she is so vexing.  I bet if she left work would become easy, customers smarter and The Da Vinci Code would come out in paperback.

       Next issue: my shiny new commercial grade amp and box!

A found poem titled "Enchante"

Bath Salt Test Tube
Cocoa Spa Set Blue
Cocoa Spa Set Pink
Fizz Fun Bath Bucket
Fortune Cookie Bath Fizzie
Fortune Cookie Bath Fizzie

Merry Creepy Christmas

       As  a Jew I always had a vague distaste for Christmas.  It was an outsider thing.  It was a commercial thing.  It was a celebration of all that was wrong with separation of church and state.  Now, after a Christmas in retail, I hate it with a burning passion.  Actively hate it.  The Grinch seems like he had a good idea.  Hell, after the way people act on Christmas in stores, the Grinch actually seems friendly and kind.  People suck.  I don't mean that they can.  I mean that they do.  There's screaming and insults and ethnocentric unintended announcements of latent racism.  It's a fun time for all.  And the "reason for the season"?  It's not Jesus.  Man, Christmas comes late in the world of winter holidays.  The solstice came first, as a geological/astronomical occurrence.  Then people came.  Then Yule.  Then Hanukkah (and if I hear one joke about spelling i will end you).  Then Christmas.  The reason?  People get cold in the winter.  Food supplies dwindle.  Though not very economic (and it still isn't) it raised spirits in the coldest, bleakest season.  Suicide, my friends, is the reason for the season.  Not Jesus.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is a Christian.

       You might be able to tell I've gotten a bit of a temper this season.  Indeed I have.  Come to Borders when I close and you'll be able to tell.  From my calling people "Borders Trespassers" to announcing that "In 5 minutes you will find it hard to read, as the lights will be out.  You will also find it difficult to buy your books, as the registers are shut down.  Lastly, you will find the doors locked, making it hard to leave and throwing a damper on the rest of your nights plans".  This is because when the store is closed I tend to get peeved at the group of angsty teenagers who are sitting in history, reading magazines they will not put back in the right spot.  Also, Guns and Ammo does not go in the kid's section.  For a laugh, come by tomorrow night.  Every minute, on the minute, after the store closes I am going to get on the paging system and announce the twist ending of a book or movie.  Laughs will ensue.  The day before Christmas was my crowning glory.  To give you perspective, the police had to close the entrance to make enough room in the parking lot to enable people to leave.  Before that it was about 1 car length every hour or so.  No exaggeration.  Anyway, Alex (the register guy next to me) was having one of those customers who keeps bragging about Barnes and Noble as if they birthed it.  IT has a better location.  They have more people.  Blah blah blah.  I lean over, look cautiously to increase suspense and say loud enough only for Alex and the customer to hear, "Well, it's not a well advertised fact, but Barnes and Noble eats babies."  The customer stares at me.  "What?"  "Yeah.  Every now and then, they eat a baby."  I have never done anything so freeing at work before.  The only thing that even compares to that instance was everyone's reactions when they hear what I did.        Presents went well this year so far.  I made a bunch of DVDs for people.  This includes the Star Wars DVDS (non special edition) as well as Harry Potter with 2 alternative audio tracks.  Yes, I have a DVD with the Wizard People track on it.  It's magnificent.  I'm pretty much done with making my gifts.  I thought the Potter dub mixing would be the hardest, and it did take me about a month of tweaking to get it right, but Jeff's mix is just growing exponentially.  It started as a simple mix but I've since then pulled tracks from about 80 albums to mix.  It may be a 4 disc themed set or even a (dare I say it) cross-reference mood mix.  Who knows.  It will, however, be made of pure concentrated ass-kicking.        On a closing note, pun intended, Quin must be stopped.  She's a wreck.  It is so hard to work when she's on.  Being cafe trained, there's just a fear of when she'll ask for a 10.  A break I will undoubtedly be asked to cover.  The only thing worse than that is, god forbid, taking over after her shift.  I don't know why but she not only doesn't do anything that she should to keep the cafe running, she actively does things to mess it up.  I don't have a list on me, but it goes far beyond the simple "empty" post-its on coffee pitchers and not refilling the espresso beans, or milk, or cream, or ice, or cups, or filters.  She shifts the coffee pots and bean buckets to the wrong places, stuffs the drains with teabags, doesn't do a single dish for entire shifts.  She has to be taught a lesson.  I've yelled at her, even alluded to slavery and beatings.  She thinks it's all a joke.  So, Jeff (not the mix guy, but cafe Jeff) has stepped up to teach her a lesson.  Better than the time she nearly cried when I told her she wasn't allowed breaks anymore, Jeff has left the food counter empty.  Now, to those who may not be familiar with cafe protocol, the food for the next day is to be set up at night, wrapped and put in the counter.  The next day, to shorten set up time, all one has to do is unwrap the food an put it back.  Then you're done.  Well, she had nothing in the cases when Jeff took over.  Well, close to it.  So her lesson is this:

She gets nothing in the case when she opens tomorrow.  I think that sounds fair.  And I mean nothing.  There're 3 apple bars on a tray and that is all.  No sandwiches, cakes, pretzels, brownies, etc.  Not a single item.  There are two downsides to this.  One is that I close tomorrow so I won't be able to see her reaction.  The other is that Jeff may well make her cry before I do and that just won't seem right.