Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
Dead Nowhere Day

Last night was spent involuntarily purging the contents of my stomach, and lack thereof after the seventh or eighth time. Today has seen me sleeping and slightly feverish in an attempt to get rid of the virus responsible. I've always prided myself on having a fantastic immune system that can fend off the lesser bugs that would take down others. The inherent downside: the bugs that do take me down are large and thoroughly unpleasant.

Today's Lesson: no more bean dip & nachos after 11p.m.


posted by Phillip at 5:56 PM

 
The Opposite Of Product Placement

Recently, products have been arriving at our store that are of a questionable nature. Certainly I’m not one to jump on the Puritan bandwagon we’re seeing in the entertainment world as of late, where almost anything to do with sex has been banished and relegated to late nights, or the HBO/Showcase domain (and the first alarmist to cry out “Won’t someone please think of the children!” will hear me reply, “I don’t want to, since I’ve been reading some rather disturbing articles about Grade 7 kids giving each other blowjobs, and that’s a mental image I can do without thinking of.” And I really wish I was making that up)-

But anyhoo, while I’m no Puritan by any stretch of the imagination, I must confess that I am perplexed as to what sort of crack the fashion designers were on when they created some of the purses we’ve been sent for the spring season. In the forefront of my mind is what has been called either the “cleavage-purse” or “boob bag”. Oddly enough, the females were the ones who coined the “boob bag.”

Why, you ask? Well, were you to place the purse and a set of cleavage next to each other, you’d be forced to agree that yes, the resemblance is uncanny. Picture, if you will, a long rectangular purse with rounded ends. Now colour it flesh-tone pink. Now take one side and give it two side-pockets. Round, healthy B-cup side-pockets. Now put a zipper (unzipped, at that) between these two side-pockets. This zipper serves no function aside from, to go with the not-so-subtle innuendo here, titillating aesthetics. But when you look at the purse, the zipper makes it look as if the top of someone’s shirt or jacket has been partially unzipped, allowing you to get a better look at vinyl bosoms.

By now some of you are no doubt giggling or laughing at this concept, and some of you are probably also frowning. But the glorious WFT-ness of the cleavage-purse has yet to end, for there is the crowning glory: on each of the bosom-looking side-pockets is a zipper with a ring for a pull handle. Yes, if you take a step back from this purse, it looks like it has nipple rings.

I am boggled. Much boggling is being had at my expense.

Granted, for all its silly designs, the cleavage-purse is better to look at than the next entry to the “fashion designers on crack” archives. These purses can only be marketed to young, prepubescent girls. There is no one else I can think of who would be so gullible as to buy something this ridiculously ugly.

Allow me to describe not the shape, not the form, but the colour. When I was first shown this purse and asked what sort of colour I thought it was, my first response was, “vomit-inducing.” This purse is a healthy shade of Pepto-Bismol pink…provided the Pepto-Bismol was given a radioactive, neon tint to it.

There is this inherent fear I hold now, that these radiantly ugly purses may not sell be stuck in our store for months on end. This is eclipsed by an even greater fear: that we might actually sell them. A designer creating something so epically belligerent to even my lack of fashion sense is one thing; people thinking this product is cool and trendy, and forking over money so they can parade it around (much to the nausea of the general public, I imagine) is another thing. The latter terrifies me.

Baby pink is already making a comeback in the world of fashionable colours. Electric puke pink seems to be trying to ride on those coattails. With any luck, it’ll be trodden underfoot, and give me something a little less harsh on the eyes to rant about.

At the very least, there is some optimism shining through amidst these fashion acts of stupidity. For example, I recently found our store’s mascot! Sure, it’s a balloon animal-a blue poodle dog, to be exact-but it’s better than nothing.

Interestingly enough, I procured the balloon poodle on a dare from a co-worker one boring Saturday morning. There was a small display down the mall corridor that day advertising for sort of mutual fund, and to generate some good vibes the ladies there were doing up balloon animals and giving them away to kids. Upon receiving the dare, I strolled over to this booth, struck up a conversation, watched them render an animal out of a balloon, and since I was so sincere and cute, they gave me a poodle.

I’m amazed to see the balloon poodle still surviving. Sure he’s not looking as inflated as he used to, but it’s always a fun reminder that it never hurts to ask (though sometimes it’s the answer you get that turns out to be painful).

Not to mention, in a fit of boredom, I also too aforementioned co-worker’s pink sash and tied it around my forehead with the knot right by my ear, allowing the ends to dangle down over my shoulder and chest. A few cries of “Fabulous!” later, and suddenly I was no longer a mere store employee. I was the Not-So-Ambiguously Gay Ass.Man.!

(For those of you panicking, Ass.Man. is a rather incriminating shortened form of Assistant Manager.)

Ah, the memories. Ah, the joys of finding ways to pass the boredom by. Ah, the sight of customers freezing dead in their tracks upon seeing me, and backpeddle their way out of the store.


Today’s Lesson: no matter how generations they can now spawn, a Tamagotchi will never replace the balloon animal as the much-beloved virtual pet of choice. (Though a pet rock might give the balloon animal a run for its money.)


posted by Phillip at 6:56 AM

 
I Sense A Theme Here (or, "don't you think of anything else?!")

Sadly, it's been much too long since the last little bit of nowhere manifested itself, and in the meantime many a small, irreverent and ultimately irrelevant anecdote has also manifested. Alas, there is not time yet to explain to you all the mysterious wonders of such things as the Boob-bag and what colour could be best described as "vomit-inducing."

However, there is enough time to share with you all one more thing you probably are goin to roll your eyes and quote one part or the other of the opening title to this entry. Recently, as Mel & I went on yet another excursion out to the local Chapters bookstore (which is always an ordeal, since we either come out bookless and crying about it; or with a lot of books and no money and we're crying about that too), we discovered that they had some boardgames on for 50% off.

I can only presume they were Valentine's Day-themed board games, given the nature and thematics. Love, sex and the verbage involving both of those words tends to harken to the whole slapping-women-and-plants-with-goat-hide tradition of Valentine's. As I bought an interesting book for Mel about psychological theories behind love, chemical pheromones and Maslov's Hierarchy of Needs. Mel, on the other hand, bought one of the boardgames: Sex Drive.

Sex Drive sounds like one of those racy siblings to Dirty Minds, where you dissolve into giggles over the innuendo and watching good friends and teammates/opponents boggle over various sexual-oriented things. Sex Drive, however, is like Jeopardy, if Jeopardy had categories all about sex and gameplay was akin to Trivial Pursuit. There is fun to be had, and it is very educational, but I found that more often than not I found myself thinking, "Damn, this game is about sex, and my knowledge is based around perversions thereof! Why can't the two cross paths!"

Or else I'm just sore because Mel cordially handed my ass to me on a silver platter. As she walked away with her 6th "pie" (out of a possible 8), I was stuck on trying to get my first damned question answered right. I couldn't even move elsewhere or anywhere on the board until I had that first right answer. Gyaaaaaa....

All in all, Sex Drive does have its moments, but for the most part you'll be educated instead of entertained. Just look at me and the terrifying truth behind Today's Lesson: after discovering what part of the male anatomy "meatus" refers to, I never ever want to read that in a story, be it fiction, fanfiction or a lemon.



posted by Phillip at 12:04 PM