open mouth, and...

...insert foot

Happy 14th Birthday to my little sister, Short Round, who is actually now taller than me, and only round in a curvy, hourglass sort of way.

(And Happy 40th to Amanda Tapping -- I celebrated it last year, so why not mention it this year?)

08.28.05

I said, "I was watching part of Masterminds the other day, when I realized, 'Dude! That's the kid from Angel that played Connor... um, Vincent Kar-somethingorother.' And I watched it a little bit longer and realized, 'Holy Shit! That's Teryl Rothery!"

And she said, "Masterminds... Masterminds... Oh, the movie with Patrick Stewart! You know, I've never seen it."

To which I replied, attempting wit and failing miserably, "Yeah, but Picard's got nothing on MacGyver or O'Neil..."

And she raised an eyebrow and said, "Rick is Rick. But, Patrick is one of my favorite people that I've worked with... he's really great."

I mumbled something about having heard that about him, and then her attention was diverted by the handler telling her it was time to go to the next table.

I'm glad I didn't admit that I'm pretty sure I actually paid money to see Masterminds when it was in theaters.

********************

Peter Williams (Apophis)

Don S. Davis (General Hammond)
Teryl Rothery (Dr. Janet Frasier)
Tony Amendola (Master Bra'tac)

Christopher Judge (Teal'c)
Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson)

age spots forthcoming.

...i'm falling apart

08.14.05

I was lazing about on the couch this afternoon, when I had another startling realization about myself.

Namely...

"Good Lord! I have cellulite on the back of my calves!"

As though it isn't enough that I'm pasty ass white, you can see every hair follicle on my legs as though I was a plucked chicken, and that in the right light you can definitely see the developing spider veins on the back of my left calf, just a little to the left and above the two chicken pox marks, but now if the muscles are all slack, there is a definite cottage-cheesy pucker to the skin back there as well.

Now I guess I'm just waiting for the boobs to finally give in to gravity a little bit more, and the age spots to crop up instead of freckles.

It's not like I'll ever have navel-grazers or anything. I don't have ample enough breastage to accomplish that feat. Maybe if I get really fat and bend uncomfortably at the waist I might be able to do it, but that's the only way, I believe.

But still.

what else now...

...i should just give up

08.12.05

I got to work today, expecting Rico to already be there, because he always seems to be a little early every day he works.

And he wasn't there.

Wednesday, we'd changed his schedule to come in at 10am instead of 12pm, so I thought that maybe he forgot, or thought that started next week, so I didn't really think anything about it, and went about my morning routine.

Around 10:30am, the MM tells me that Rico no-called no-showed for work yesterday. He didn't show up even though he had lots of appointments, and no one could get ahold of him.

I still hoped that he'd show up at 12pm.

After 12pm, I tried calling him, but couldn't track him down. All the numbers he gave me were for friends, and they all seemed to be interested in his whereabouts as well.

Around 1:30pm, Rico called.

He apologized, gave me a long series of excuses and apologies, and then told me that he couldn't work for me anymore because he was very sick, he was surprised he'd lasted as long as he had (a whole 6 weeks), blah blah blah, that he was going to be going away for a while, and that he'd be in to get his stuff in person the next day, and to talk to me more at that time.

Some people are speculating the the "sick" and "going away for a while" mean he's going into rehab, because some people speculate that he's been high at work before.

I personally think he's going to Crazytown, which is a popular place to be, these days.

If you know that you aren't going to be able to stick out a job, don't even bother applying. All it does is cause stress for who the hell ever is hiring you, because when you cut and run at the last minute, it leaves that person holding the bag and cleaning up the mess.

Like maybe having a bunch of appointments to be rescheduled, and forcing the manager to scramble to get coverage since she's already lost 2 employees, in the last two weeks, and you're making it a 3rd, cutting the salon staff in half.

Dude, I'm boned, and I don't even care.

Why should anything I work at be easy? My working life has been one long string of fuck-ups, so why should this be any different? People take advantage of me, shit on me, and drive me crazy no matter where I am, so hey.

Crazytown is starting to sound a little attractive, although a trip there would totally prevent me from buying a handgun in the future, should I be inclined to do so.

Which would effectively prevent me from going concealed-weapon postal someday at wherever I'm working, you know, when they finally do drive me over the edge.

**********

As an aside, I was told today by someone that knows someone that knows someone, that Rico was homeless all of last year, and that part of his unreliability was his being forced to couch surf and live out of a suitcase. Apparently, the reason he'd arrive so early to work and stay so ridiculously late, which he still does, was because he didn't have anywhere else to be.

He told me that he got mugged yesterday and lost everything he had except for his id and the money in his pocket -- they took his manbag, which had his day planner, containing all the numbers he needed for everyone, including all of his regular clients, and whatever else he toted around with him from day to day.

That's why I like the Palm. Even if you lose it, you have all that shit downloaded onto your desktop, so you don't really lose the info. Just the means to carry it around with you in a calculator-sized space.

How sad.

If I wasn't irritated, I might even feel bad for the kid.

allegedly bogus bath & body

...i'm a criminal mastermind

08.07.05

I got this hideously fragranced Victoria's Secret lotion and body scrub as a gift from a client, and I know that she purchased it from the store down the block from where I work, because she told me that was where it was from, and I believe and trust her.

True, I could have just returned it to any VS store, like maybe the one down the block from where I work, and exchange it for something less offensively-odored, but that means I'd have to actually go to a VS store, and then sniff noxious lotions and stuff until I found one I could tolerate.

Which is too much work.

So, I decided to sell it on eBay.

And after all my effort, I made like $1.50 profit, which is still better than a poke in the eye, or having to actually own and use Amber Romance bathcrap.

Today, I read the feedback the buyer left, which was, "fast shipping thanks although it doesn't look authentic."

What the fuck? These are the photos that I posted with the listing, because they're the ones that I took of the product with my little ol' camera.

Looks pretty authentic to me, but then I'm the photographer, so I'm biased. Or sane. I get those two things confused every once in a while.

Okay, so here's my take on the whole issue at hand.

I'm a person selling one VS listing, and a few other random listings of haircare products.

As a potential buyer, I would expect that the shopper would check out all the stuff I was selling, see that it was a bunch of random crap, see the pictures of authentic product, and figure that it was either a purchase I'd made, or gift that I'd received.

I would also expect that the buyer would check out my profile, see that I've had nothing but incredibly positive feedback in the last 6 years I've been on eBay, and go from there.

I wouldn't expect that the buyer would be suspicious that the product was counterfeit, because I'm not selling fifty kajillion other VS products, like some vendors on eBay do.

When I see someone selling 50 Kate Spade handbags, New With Tags, I get suspicious when they're selling them for 1/3 retail price. I expect that they've either been shoplifted from the stores directly, or else fell of the back of a department store delivery truck.

I don't imagine that the seller has some sort of mass production facility for designer impostor bags, with official paperwork and authentic-looking sales tags still attached to them.

I think generalized crime.

For criminy's sake, maybe I'm naive, but I don't really see a huge VS body care knock off market.

You can buy it at the stores all the time for like 3/$20.

I can't imagine selling it online in sets, at $1.50 profit per sale, and actually recouping the cost of the actual knock off production. Especially in multiples of one.

I'd have to locate the appropriate packaging, and then reproduce the labels, before concocting two products that smell exactly the same as the stuff at the stores, as well as having the right consistencies and textures.

I am neither that motivated or clever, and I am definitely not endowed with that sort of mad phat skillz; Recognize what song the carousel's calliope is butchering? Yes, I can do that. But mass produce near-authentic body care items and then sell only one set of them on eBay, presumably having arranged somewhere else to distribute them off of eBay? I don't think so.

Or maybe I just bought one set of knock off products that someone else made, and then make a whopping $1.50 profit for all the effort involved in purchasing, listing, packing and shipping the items off to some unwitting dupe somewhere far from here.

I think we've established that I'm too lazy for that many steps. List, pack and ship? Sure. Go out and buy it first? I don't think so.

And if the buyer felt it wasn't the product as specified, I would expect to hear about it from the person. Or that they'd contact eBay with their suspicions, and eBay would contact me for some sort of resolution.

Whatever.

I left a response saying, "It was purchased at a store. Take up product design with VS, since they made it."

And now, I wonder if VS would be insulted if they knew that someone thought their packaging was bogus looking enough to suspect it wasn't authentic.

Maybe they need a new design team.

But that's totally not my problem.

something so wrong

...i'm still grappling with the idea

08.02.05

Today, in the produce aisle of the grocery store, I came upon a product called Grapple.

*




















"Looks like an apple. Tastes like a grape."

Being an intelligent-minded consumer, I immediately wondered how they'd managed to cross-breed the grape and apple, because they are from extremely different botanical families.

Roses and apples? Maybe. They're both Rosaceae.

THE ROSE FAMILY

"The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose -
But were always a rose."

Robert Frost

I'm familiar with the aprium and the pluot. Also both Rosaceae.

But never a cross between a Vitaceae and a Rosaceae.

And then I read the fine print: apparently, a Grapple is really a Fuji apple imbued with the powers of artificial grape flavoring.

Which just sounds really fucking nasty.

*Photo courtesy of Steve Portigal.
Happy now?