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!

 


Christmas has come and gone once more, and as is tradition, the day was spent with a great deal of swag, family and food. And relaxing. Lots of relaxing. Well...Gary, Mel & I relaxed. Shady just dragged herself over to a pillow and didn't move very much afterwards; I think she ate as much turkey as any one of us did at dinner.

Which brings us to...Boxing Day! (Which has now been cunningly dragged out into Boxing Week, because one can never have too many hands milking the cash cow.) It seems rather fitting that our shifts at the mall both started and ended with a Silent Hill level fog swallowing up the entire mall and surrounding area.


On the whole, Boxing Day was exactly as I predicted: slow. You see, it's one of the few times I can truly appreciate working at a store like ours (and by default, the kiosk too, since it saw even less traffic than we did). Primed with Christmas candies and loaded with money, people tend to blow all their cash on the following three things.

1) clothes
2) videos and games
c) electronics

As our store sells none of those things, at most we get curious onlookers and ladies who want a purse. (Though maybe next year we'll actually get the bras to go with those mislabeled boxes...) All in all, it was still an enjoyable time despite...um, everything else? With the worst of the season gone and done, all that's left is to coast through the remainder of the week & weekend, and then toast this bitch off in the new year.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have Hannibal Lector to read....

Labels: the rise and fall of Commercialmas (but no spiders from Mars), turkey

posted by Phillip at 9:35 PM

 


There are 2 days left until Christmas. More specifically, there are 2 days left until Christmas is over, and the whole bloody season passes us by for another year. I'm in a cheery mood, more than ready to deck the halls with the heads of customers who felt compelled by the spirit of the season to snark at us for not having the merchandise they wanted (and started looking for with less than a week to go before the "deadline", as it were... Smegheads).

But there's only one shift left for Mel & I to work before enjoying a couple of days off, and that means one critical thing: sleeping in. While I'm not quite as passionate about spending my mornings asleep as Mel is (on a sidenote: never poke Mel early in the morning for no good reason if you value your hand or your face), the last few weeks have seen me running around so much at work that I just crumple onto the couch or bed when I get home.

We'll see how the Sunday shift fares...

In the meanwhile, we get to entertain Gary with our amazing culinary skills. Consider the following near verbatum conversation we had in the grocery store tonight as we stocked up on Christmas dinner & munchie supplies:

Me: "So what is the plan for dinner on Monday?"

Mel: "Well, we could do a beef stew in the crock pot."

Gary: "Beef stew sounds good to me."

Me: "Great! Are we using the pork loin for that?"

[About here, you have to imagine Mel & Gary staring at me in disbelief.]

Mel: "You did hear the part about the stew being 'beef', right?"

Me: [oblivious] "What?"

Mel: "Having only pork in a beef stew kind of defeats the purpose of it being a beef stew!"

Me: "Um...what if it's pork-beef? Genetic splicing and all that. They can make meat taste like other things these days, can't they?"

Gary: "That's called chicken."


...and that, dear readers, is how to hoist oneself up by their own oral pitard. (Which, upon rereading, sounds like some terrible analogy in a lemon fanfic.)

Today's Lesson: on hiatus until I can stop watching Mel play Katamari Damacy out of the corner of my eye.

Labels: Commercialmas nigh, the miracles of modern pork-beef

posted by Phillip at 9:18 PM

 

The last week has been filled with the following: shifts, more shifts, shifts I shouldn't be working but have to since someone called out sick, and Mel contending with 2 term papers and 2 final exams all pretty much due within 2 days of each other.

So as I covered a night shift at the kiosk and let Mel work on the glorious essay that was "issues of American immigration." Whereupon I came to the not-at-all-startling conclusion: the mall is trying to kill us with incessant, whiney Christmas songs. Not the old traditional hymns that hit you with a one-two punch of both nostalgia and almost-hypnotic melodies, but the ridiculous perkiness of Baby It's Cold Outside or I Want Everything or Santa Baby.

(Every other song seems to have "baby" in its title too...why is that?)

To combat this unnerving reality, I spent the entire shift humming all the songs to Rocky Horror Picture Show and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling. Nothing brings the Jackson 5's rendition of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus to an amusingly grinding halt with immortal lines like "his penis got diseases from a Shumach tribe" or "You'll get used to it, a mental mindfuck can be nice."

Next time around, I think I'll start up with The Lumberjack Song and see where it takes me from there....

Otherwise, there are 10 days left until we're done with the whole bloody season! Huzzah! I haven't felt this celebratory since the Christmas season began!


Today's Lesson: cancelled until I finish reading all 20 tankoban of the "Prince of Tennis" manga I scored off our local library.

Labels: Christmas muzak vs dancing demons and sweet transvestites

posted by Phillip at 7:55 AM

 

From the blogger's diary this past Sunday...


i'm at the kiosk right now, covering one of mel's shifts so she in turn can spend her day off with that most joyous of things: researching & writing 2 term papers. (an i'm also having a hell of a time doing this too, which brings us to 'today's lesson': no matter how much the i.t. department insists otherwise, an english keyboard and a french keyboard are not the same thing. i can't capitalize anything without pressing this weird other button that sits where the shift key should be, and will someone tell me how to get the friggin' quotation marks to show up...and i can't even figure out how to get a question mark to show up either.

i hate this keyboard.

anyhoo, as anyone in the toronto and nearby affiliated areas can attest, it snowed. lots. so let's have a brief breakdown of how i got to work today. mel normally drives me/us there, but it's rather pointless for her to drive me out across town and then drive home to work on her papers. it wastes time for her. i was ready to catch a bus down to the mall instead. but as it would fortuitously happen, gary was over helping my mom out with some accounting work. she offered to drive me up to the mall before going over the offices with gary. and all was good.

however...by the time we started out early sunday morning, the roads for the most part had not yet been ploughed, and my mother didn't entirely trust her driving skills to navigate a rather treacherous-even-without-snow route through town. (and after seeing a number of cars along the way trapped, crashed and angled acros the road, i can't say i blame her.) so my mom opted to get me a taxi, for which she'd pay the fare. all was good.

however...all of the taxi serives were backlooged due to weather and church calls. the earliest one could arrive to pick me up 15 minutes before i had to be at the kiosk. (it takes at least 20 to get through town to the mall.) so my mom drove me over the bus station, a mere 2 minutes away, so i could catch a bus to the mall. (and instead of paying the taxi fare, she handed me a bus ticket, so still no paying for me.) the plan was i could catch one of the buses going to the mall, and still arive with about 15 minutes to spare before everything had to open. and all was good.

however...the bus i needed to get into the kiosk on time was pulling out just as i nearly broke my ass running down the stairs after it. the next bus going out to the mall would leave right before the mall opened, making me very distinctively late. all was crumbling before me, and i cursed a great many things, most of all the snow and malls being open on sundays.

however...as I was idling about for the bus, i spotted a taxi cab driving along a sideroad leading towards the terminal. on a whim/hunch/wild-assed hope, i meandered over to the front of the bus depot, and was pleasantly surprised to see the taxi pull into the front. no one was inside. i popped open the door and asked the driver if he was waiting for a pick-up (to whom i would have defaulted to, since i'm not fond of stealing someone's ride when they rightfully called for it first), but huzzah for the driver saying 'nope.' i piled on in, got whipped up to the mall and arrived with just enough time to get everything primed for opening.

the rest of the shift was pleasantly dull and uneventful.

but to summarize: my proposed modes of transportation for today went from car to bus to car to taxi to bus to taxi.

be bedazzled by my reorg skills, people.

Labels: a change of driving plans, snow

posted by Phillip at 9:30 PM

 

Yesterday there was a piece of mail waiting for me, courtesy of one of my credit card companies. Much to my pleasant surprise, upon the front of it were the words "Happy Birthday." Granted, it was a generic preprinted sort of thing, but the fact that a giant corporation would notice/care about some pithy little peon's birthday was almost touching.

With great anticipation, I opened the envelope...

...and beheld an application for a life insurance policy. Well, there goes that "almost touched" feeling, right down the drain and into the sewage treatment plant.


In other news, I'm rather tired of a multitude of things, the least of which is Christmas music. Why, of why must I be told how Rudolph was the most specialest reindeer of all? And no less, in a voice that sounds like a lounge lizard? At least give us classics like "Vincent the Christmas Virus" or "The Night Santa Went Crazy."

Please?

Oh, and it appears our cat has a shoe fetish. And by fetish, I mean "illicit trysts I end up walking in on, only to see Chance entwined in a disturbingly romantic sort of way with Mel's flats." It's reasons like this that I really regret turning on the lights to see why the cat is making odd sounds.

Labels: happy birthday and perchance are you going to die soon, hot cat on shoe action

posted by Phillip at 10:00 PM

 

There has been work. Lots of work. Already I find myself infused with a more than healthy dose of vile loathing for the Commercialmas season. (And for once, the weather is an irrelevant factor.) You could chalk it up to the extended mall hours that force me to linger at the store longer than is really necessary...because, and I'll be brutally honest, if you absolutely need a suitcase at 9:25pm, it had better be because the one you were otherwise going to use for that 1am flight spontaneously combusted.

You could also (wisely) suggest I may be aggravated by the deluge of Christmas music. It started in the mall last week--even earlier in some stores--and after a single 4-hour shift at the kiosk, I was ready to take the duo singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" and bury them in a snowdrift if only to make them shut up.

But...alas...it's Head Office that incurs my ire. Mostly because they felt I needed roughly 20 full sets of luggage delivered to us over the past week. As a result, despite my best efforts, the back half of the store is nigh inaccessible, and it looks like the suitcases are trying to sneak up and attack the cash area.

I'm waiting for my District Manager to show up tomorrow and not be amused. It's fun when that happens, since some idiot at Head Office gets a swift kick in their head-up-the-ass, and something is actually done about it.

But on the other hand, lest this seem entirely like a case of grumblypost, sometimes Head Office does unexpectedly amuse me at times. (Like all those n's in additional.) Consider today, when I received two boxes with a most curious label upon them:


This naturally got me to scratching my head in a curious sort of fashion; when last I'd checked, our store had not yet branched into selling undergarments. Was there in fact a memo I had missed? Had a box from La Senza accidentally made its way into our stock? (Which would have been a feat unto itself, since our shipments are delivered via a company truck.) And why were we only selling 36C's? Surely that's not the only cup size out there, and wouldn't we be descriminating against other bosom sizes by not selling those?

All this pondering turned out to be for naught. Turns out Head Office had cannibalized a box from some other company or whatnot, and used it to transport their own goods to us. All I found inside were briefcases and scarves. But hey, in the end it served as a great bit of blog fodder, so I suppose it wasn't all pointless.

In other news, if you're like me (I know, I know, heaven forbid) and have asked the age-old question, "who would win in a fight: a jellyfish or a salmon?", apparently it's the jellyfish who will be doing the ass-kicking:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071121/sc_afp/nirelandbritainanimalsfish

It does seem disturbingly appropriate, I suppose. Do jellyfish even have asses to speak of, let alone to get handed to them? But at any rate, at least that's one Versus debate settled. Now all that's left is to answer the epic "ninja vs. pirate" and "caveman vs. astronaut" debates.

Today's Lesson: happiness is a surprisingly large Appa plushie in your hands.

Labels: bras instead of brief(cases), jellyfish vs salmon

posted by Phillip at 4:15 PM

 


Our kitchen smells like meat. This is a distinct and welcomed step up from days ago, when it smelled like burnt popcorn. Yes, I burned popcorn. You can add that to the growing list of reasons I probably shouldn't be let near the kitchen or any sort of appliance/power tool. But hey, it makes for interesting conversation. Who else can regale your friends with stories of oven-baking kettles, exploding milkshakes and flashfried microwave popcorn?

In other news, for anyone who has not yet been illuminated by the brilliant Edward Gorey (who gave us The Gashlycrumb Tinies, the most morbid ABC's book you'll never read to your kids), you should start googling right away. Or better yet, seek the nearest bookstore and purchase his books.

For the rest of you, I give you a Gorey fan's brilliant fanart. It was all brought on by an actual article from the Boston Globe:


And so alas, there were no Tribbles for Gorey. So this LJer helps us take a look at what "The Trouble With Tribbles" would look like if Gorey had written it. (You can find her LJ entry here: http://shaenon.livejournal.com/48834.html?style=mine#cutid1)

Labels: Edward Gorey, the popcorn it burns, tribbles

posted by Phillip at 9:34 PM

 
It's not been a good week all around; I'd rather this particular bit of nowhere could just be me griping about the usual ills & ilk that seems to come with Head Office. Things like that are here today to annoy us, but then easily forgotten by tomorrow. I cannot say that is the case right now.

Last Monday saw the passing of one of my best and oldest friends, Hugh Hill. And it's knocked the wind out of my proverbial sails. It's pretty much the reason I've been more reclusive than usual this week.

Hugh was the librarian at EBC, and because of him I met his brother, John, who later on became one of my closest friends and best man at my wedding. I owe the both of them more than I can say--in experiences and humour, in academics and friendship.

Hugh was the kind of guy you wanted to introduce your friends to, because once they met him, you'd go up in their estimates: "Wow, if a guy like Hugh thinks you're decent, I guess you're not as much of a schmuck after all!" He was the kind of person I wanted to become, not in a single white female sort of way, but in the manner he lived his life.

He always had time to listen, to talk and to debate whatever if was you wanted to debate. He held multiple degrees from both Laurier and the U of W, and was more intelligent than I could ever hope to be, and amazingly he never flaunted it. I honestly don't think he ever felt the desire to. He was gentle, kind and always seemed to watch the world with a smile, like he simply understood something we just happened to miss in the moment.

And for anyone who'd think he was a stuffy, antequated librarian, Hugh's sense of humour was dry, witty and razor-sharp. I remember one day where he, John and I were lounging in the library one day, and he & John spontaneously broke out into the opening "migrating swallow" scene from Monty Python & The Holy Grail. And he balanced out his love of rare books, birdwatching and astronomy with playing Resident Evil games. (He'd worked through about three-quarters of RE4.)

A few months ago, John let me know that Hugh had been diagnosed with Amyloidosis. It's rare, it attacks the vital organs and it has no cure. With Hugh, the disease was primarily attacking his heart. Hugh's prognosis was that he'd have anywhere between 2 - 10 years to live, and that was with treatment. Everyone, especially the doctors, were very hopeful and optimistic. Monday was supposed to be his first day of treatment.

Early Monday morning, October 29, 2007, Hugh suffered massive kidney failure and was admitted into the hospital. Two hours later, his heart failed and the world lost one of the coolest librarians it will ever know. I think the suddenness is what still rubs me so raw. By all accounts, Hugh was in decent health and high spirits the day before he died: he was out with friends, attending church and spending it like any other Sunday. A number of his close friends spent the evening in his company...and not twelve hours later, he was gone.

This sort of thing shouldn't happen to someone like Hugh, pure and simple. Hugh's the kind of guy who deserved to see his kids grow up, to see any future grandkids grow up. He wasn't even 50. This is something I don't think I'll ever truly understand, and even if I did, I rather doubt I'd still agree with it in the slightest.

And now...now I'm not sure where that leaves me. I attended the wake and the funeral, and somewhere in between John & I spent the night half-drunk and toasting to good memories amidst blasting the crap out of scary-looking mutants in Bioshock.

The world hasn't crashed to a stop for me. There are still a lot of reasons, a lot of good reasons, to keep moving. But one of its better travellers is no longer there, and I feel lonelier for it, and I think my own walk is going to be a little slower than usual for a while longer.

This isn't a soapbox I'm dragging out to stand atop of and clamour for attention. It's not a rallying cry for an outpouring of condolences. Today's nowhere is as much a marker as I can manage at this moment in time. One day I hope to look back at the date of this entry, and recall more than just the hollow feeling that currently gnaws at my gut.

It's worthwhile to remember the reasons I had to smile around Hugh in the first place, and why I wanted to enjoy his company whenever possible. I'll treasure the sound of his voice, the laughter that would always come about when he & John conspired together, and the way he could imitate John Cleese as the (invincible!) Black Knight. In death, I can at least remember how he lived, and how much my own life was enriched because he was there.

There's an Irish funeral poem that goes:





Good-bye, Hugh.

Labels: Hugh Hill

posted by Phillip at 8:38 PM

 

One week and almost 60 working hours later, I'm sitting here marveling at how this "day off" concept feels. It kind of itches a little. Considering this past week saw the kiosk go in a week early and two same-day funerals amongst the staffers, I'm rather hoping we don't get a repeat of this. Unless it involves an act of God (ie, the kiosk being struck by lightning) or a zombie apocalypse (ie, the kiosk being attacked by zombies).

So far, mind you, the kiosk is doing better than it usually has compared to years past. Sure the frame is bent, the electrical system is suspect (Tom, the miracle repairman, had a few choice and not-child-friendly words to say when he had to practically rewire the kiosk's electrical systems...in the process discovering the guys assembling it all had put in no less than 3 already fried outlets), and the cash drawer needs an extra shove/flying tackle in order for the drawer to actually close. But it's still an improvement.

For now.

After all, it's only been a week.

But other than, all is faring decently enough despite the inherent fatigue. I am enjoying Stephen Hunt's Court of the Air, despite its ability to throw fantasy-historical and -political details at me without any sort of warning or backstory, my tapeworm has been working overtime with at least 2 extra meals needed per day, and The Project has reached the ever-important completion of Phase 1. And Mel is busying herself with geisha cross-stitching and asking me why I feel the need to watch Rocky Horror in the early hours of the morning.

Then again, the reasoning for that is simple: don't dream it, be it. (Or is it: don't dream it, blog it?)


Today's Lesson: the stench of burnt microwave popcorn will linger in your apartment for at least 3 days.

Labels: ie the kiosk being mentioned in the labels, Project rumblings

posted by Phillip at 10:31 AM

 

Today was the first day but-still-a-whole-damn-week-early-thanks-Head-Office of the joy that is the Winter kiosk. Now if the past 2 years have taught us anything (and I do mean a collective "us", as you also get to revel in the life lessons Mel & I experience), it's that a little bit of love goes into the assemblage of every kiosk. This love is horribly overshadowed by the epic amounts of fail crammed into the rest of the kiosk.

Thus far, comparatively the sadomasochism is not quite up to usual standards, and for that I must confess to being incredibly relieved. The "all kiosk no power, phone or banking info" year was about as fun as watching Aeon Flux. Likewise, last year's "introduce troubled employee to Mr. Amazing Sales Associate Appreciate Pancake Maker" fun was inherently not fun. This year, it seems as if they're taking a new approach.

Everything except the electricity works, due mostly to whomever put it together was either drunk, deluded or was kidnapped by aliens midway through assemblage, rectal probed and then beamed back down to complete their work but was hampered by the shock of said probe. Our regular maintenace guy, Tom, will be in Wednesday to fix the mess...and probably swear under his breath at the idiots who half-assedly put it together, and at the heads at Head Office who are too cheap to hire someone competent enough to do it right the first time.

I adore Tom.

But yes, there is a lack of power right now, and an overabundance of fugly winterwear. Most of it left over from last year. I should know. I transferred most of it when the kiosk closed down. And Mel should know too: she watched enough people comment on how fugly those items were.

All of this pales in comparison to the remote possibility that the kiosk may try to kill us this year. Not with fire, as per last year. No, this time around it might be the metal frame that supports the curtain track and lights. It's not a good thing when you stare at a corner support beam only to notice it's really tilting to the left. It's also not a good thing when you walk to the other side of the kiosk, stare at the opposite support beam and notice it's really tilting to the right.

If the idiot(s) putting this thing together actually had a level with them, I'd vote they be beaten to death with it as appropriate punishment. That way it's both cruel and unusual. (Because, if Hostel has taught us anything, it's that most killers go for the power tools or pointy things first.)

The kiosk hasn't been up for a day yet, and while I'm not ready to kill something yet, my body is really sore and very, very tired. 60ish boxes of stock and 12ish boxes of random supplies and shelving unites/braces/etc. does that. Not to mention my day off this week might get kaiboshed due to 2 employees both having a death in the family and leaving for the funeral.

And the season has only started.

I'm really holding out hope that my November & December months ease up, if not for social events and visitings, then at least to give me a day here or there to either clean the apartment or rest. However, there's a part-time gig I'm thinking might work out despite the inevitable schedule from hell...

http://www.durexcondomtester.ca/

(You only wish I was joking about this. The ad was on the radio, which in turn led me to that.)


Today's Lesson: if they built it, they'll bork it up somewhere, somehow...usually almost everywhere.

Labels: I can has condom testing, the inherent untrustworthiness of a slanted kiosk

posted by Phillip at 7:48 PM

 


Apparently, I am psychic.

At least, according to the unenlightened masses at Head Office, I am psychic. Why, do you ask, obviously not having paid any attention to the fine print beneath the caption? Well, the answer is simple. Painfully, aggravatingly simple.

The mall's winterwear kiosk was due to go in on October 29th. That was what Head Office has been telling us for months. (Since July & August, as a matter of fact.) That was also what the mall administration has been telling us that our Head Office has been telling them for months. Which is all fine and dandy by me. I like definitive, clear-cut dates to work with.

Today, in the middle of the afternoon, I receive a phone call. It's from my District Manager, who (by sheer blind luck) had a passing remark made to her by one of the higher-ups that our kiosk was going in this coming Monday. That's Monday, the 23rd--a whole bloody week earlier than anything we'd beentold.

The reaction of my District Manager was pretty much, "Um, WTF?" I shared the same reaction when she conveyed this information to me. A quick jaunt to the mall offices later, and our mutual thoughts were something along the line of: "I just need a plane ticket, a Head Office Appreciation pancake maker and an alibi."

So...yeah. Head Office decided to up the kiosk's arrival by a week, and completely, totally and utterly failed to inform me or my District Manager. Because, apparently, I'm fucking psychic and would naturally just pick up on those wavelengths.

I ended up spending the entire evening ripping apart and redoing schedules for the next 2 weeks, and trying to get in contact with everyone to let them know that it's all gone to hell in a handbasket. What further incites my wrath is that this has shredded anything resembling a social life for Mel & I, since now we've got to slap together enough people (read: us) to cover the store and kiosk's shifts simultaneously.

Visiting Toronto to see Ysa and the gang? Not happening.

Visiting Brantford to see Kevin, Donna & Gabezilla? Not looking good at all.

Having lunch with an old friend, which was planned over two weeks ago? Nope.

My next day off won't be until the week after next, and I think I'm going to be too damned exhausted to want to do anything. Bad enough I've already been having to endure a cold that's been kicking my ass for the past 2 months now...but my butt's already looking misshapen from that, I don't need Head Office grabbing a steel-toed boot and taking a swing or two.

I think what grates me more than anything is the seeming, unblinking way this entire situation is being presented. It boggles me that not a single smeghead at Head Office actually thought to confirm with us as much in advance as possible that we knew the change of dates. Plus I honestly don't think Head Office cares that no one bothered to inform us of these changes, and I'm pretty damned sure they're not going to apologize in the slightest for this. (Our District Manager, though, apologized on their behalf, but she unfortunately gets the same monkeywrench thrown at her too, since she has to rearrange her own schedule to help us out a week earlier than planned. So I'll accept her apology, but Head Office is still on my frag list.) And even worse, I'm betting this sort of thing will probably happen again next year.

So you'll have to excuse the seething anger as well as my absence. But do me a favour: if you happen to receive in the mail from me a bloodied pancake maker, please dispose of it accordingly and tell the police that I was hanging out at your place the entire night.

Today's Lesson: once again, we find that there is nothing I can possess on a social calendar that Head Office cannot take away.

Labels: magical changing kiosks, rectal-cranial inversion 07, this is why I've lost faith in humanity

posted by Phillip at 9:34 PM

 


Ah, Head Office. You make me laugh in a special kind of way--the kind that usually involves my forehead eventually crashing onto our cash counter as my rueful guffaws taper off into a rueful groan.

The company's been in the game now for 20 years. (How it's survived sometimes can only attest to either a glitch in natural selection, or proof that God has a schadenfraude sense of humour.) To celebrate this momentous event, they had a special promotional sale for all of our stores: everything was an extra 20% off.

The brand new, highly professional, ultra-swanky ceiling banners and sign toppers we had advertizing this glorious occasion thusly proclaimed:





So...how many times should you be seeing the letter 'n' in 'additional' again? Yeah: oops. Quite frankly, I'm amazed this made it all the way into our stores without anyone at either the printers or Head Office picking up on this. Hell, I'm chagrined to say the banners were up for a week in our store before I suddenly performed a double-take on that word. (But in my defence, I was expecting someone in the higher echelons to, you know, proofread the things they were sending our way.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some of the new Avatar episodes to geek over, and season 1 of Heroes to become addicted to. (Damn you, Kevin!) But before we go, let me deal grievous injury to the hearts and minds of all you Avatar fans out there reading this. When Mel asked me to find a terrible, horrible, no good very bad fic to read aloud/mock for her (she has peculiar bedtime reading preferences, what can I say?), I stumbled drunkenly along through ff.net and crashed headlong into a so absolutely not safe for work story. The result of which has culminated in more than a mere mockable story. This is epic. This is brilliantly ridiculous.

This! Is! Cock-Bending!!!

No, really, I'm serious.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3719839/1/A_Bender_of_Her_Talents

(On the plus side, this whole thing works great for reading if you narrate it sounding like either Dame Edna, or a really exasperated Basil Fawlty.)

Enjoy...

Labels: cock-bending, head office spellchecking for teh fail

posted by Phillip at 8:38 AM

 


We now return you to your regularly scheduled yet utterly half-assed run blog. Yes, Virginia, there is an Interwebs connection once more. Not that you'll probably notice it, since this is a rather irregularly updated blog, but hey, it's better than hearing about me in the news. (And it would probably be something involving a lack of pants on my part too. Would you expect anything less from me?)

There's been a lot of random things that have happened since the last bit of nowhere, and I've already forgotten half of them. Then again, they're mostly "you had to be there" anecdotal things: Mel having too much fun ordering William Sonoma cookbooks; people asking me if our store sells pantyhose and/or womens' underwear (to which, in case you yourself were confused, the answers are: no, and a profound no) ; and my newfound and "instant addiction" discovery of the manga Hollow Fields, whose ghoulish faculty members are happily reminiscent of the Foulthings in Brom's The Plucker.

Hollow Fields preview:
http://www.gomanga.com/webmanga/index.php?series=hollow&page=1

Brom's work: www.bromart.com/

What can I say? I like my stories creepy.

Aside from that, there's been a whole lot of trivial moments and instances I've all but forgotten. Then again, I am someone who has trouble recalling what he ate for breakfast yesterday, so it's possible I'm just going senile before my time.

But I can regale you with two memorable moments from the store's colourful clientelle. First up is perhaps the only person I've never been able to maintain eye contact with. And this says something, since I've honed the ability to unflinchingly look at a customer while talking with them, regardless of whatever abnormality or disability they might have. This one woman, however, destroyed all of that.

Mostly because she had a moustache whose size and volume rivals Gary's. And despite hers being blonde, there was no way you could hide it as anything else. I must admit I was lost somewhere between staring on in disbelief, or bursting out in incredulous laughter.

Next up, we have an incident that, as I write this down, is giving me the disturbing sense of deja vu. Suddenly I'm wondering if this has happened to me before, and I blogged about it then, and right now I cannot locate the specific entry since it predates the "label" option. But I digress. To the encounter...

There was an older gentleman in an automated wheelchair who came into the store. And if you interacted with him for about 30 seconds, it would become rather obvious his mental faculties were not as up to speed as the rest of us. This unto itself is nothing, as I've pleasantly & politely interacted with others like him. However, the more I interacted with him, the more he began making comments and questions that raised my worry levels accordingly:

Okay - "You're a very nice friend."

Peculiar - "How old are you?"

Worrisome - "Do you work out?"

Creepy - "Could you flex your arm for me?"

Really Creepy - "Now raise it above your head."

Slowly Back Out Of The Room Creepy - "Could you turn to the side and hold that pose?"


There are times where I am willing to go above and beyond the usual levels of customer service for some people. This was decisively not one of them. The most he got was an arm flex, and by then my nervous laughter was attracting the worried looks of other customers on my behalf.

Like I said, this has a disturbingly familiar ring to it. I'll have to hunt the archives and see if I've been asked to pose for him before. In which case, I'm diving behind the cash desk the next time he rolls on in.

Labels: Brom, Hollow Fields, Madame Moustache, muscular posing that left me feeling sullied, Schreodinger's Internet

posted by Phillip at 9:24 PM

 


Our Intarwebs has a slight case of death. But don't worry, it'll be resurrected soon enough. In the meanwhile, we shall leave you with Today's Link, being My Little Cthulhu: http://dreamlandtoyworks.com/my_little_cthulhu.html

Labels: broken internets, cthulhu

posted by Phillip at 10:40 AM

 




Otherwise known as the "yeargh, it's hard to be writing an entire post in mock-pirate, what with all the rum gone" post. Which does bring up the question: why is there a Talk Like A Pirate Day, but not a Talk Like A Ninja Day? Or is it just assumed that we really don't know what a competent ninja talks like, because if we were to cross paths with a ninja, we'd never even know that said ninja was even there?

Labels: ninja vs pirates the movie, talk like a pirate

posted by Phillip at 7:04 PM

 


Sadness: [n] the innate urge I have to break down into tears, as I gaze upon the 3 bunks jammed full of winter slippers, and 2 bunks near-exploding with winterwear such as gloves, mitts, scarves and hats. (And it's not even October yet!)

Anger: [n] the strong feeling of hostility I have towards our Head Office, who sent us 18 rather large boxes of winterwear for our Winter kiosk...a kiosk that's not going to be in our mall until the very end of October. And where the hell am I going to put all of this? Which brings us to...

Ass: [n] the orifice into which I'd like to shove the head of the idiot who sent us all those kiosk boxes without bothering to check if we even had a kiosk in the first place.

Labels: definitions, magical mystery kiosk stock, winterwear

posted by Phillip at 9:24 PM

 




Part 1: Vain And Glorious Back-Story


There is a sudden and unexpected beep on your online radar. This little bit of nowhere has updated. I can assure you this sort of transgression won’t happen again. We’ll try harder to go at least a month between entries.

Just kidding…in theory.

Mind you, it certainly hasn’t been for a lack of wanting to leap onto a computer and tell you all about the fine, fine, fine world of retail in all its last-minute, “they just took the pencil case my kid wanted, and it’s the last one, so I’ll beat them to death with their own severed arm!”, Back To School glory. Unfortunately, no beatings-with-a-severed-arm happened. It certainly would have made for a colourful incident report, to say nothing of the phone call I’d have to make to Head Office:

Me: “Hello, I’d like to order a special carpet cleaning for our store.”

Head Office: “Why do you want to do that?”

Me: “Well, that blood pool’s not going to lather itself out.”

Head Office: “What…did you say blood pool?!”

Me: “Oh relax, it’s not mine. Now it looks like the police will release our store from being a crime scene sometime in the next forty-eight hours, so is it cool if I call the cleaners for then?”

Head Office: “Uh…”

Me: “Oh, that reminds me: does blood wash out of suitcases, or should I just damage to dozen or so out?”

Head Office: “Wh-what?”

Me: “Well, you’d be amazed at the spray radius a severed arm can produce. It splattered across three rows of luggage and a family of four before the arterial spray finally died down.”

Head Office: “What in God’s name happened at your store, and are you clinically insane?!”

Me: “Not yet, but I’m definitely filing for workman’s comp after this. Mental trauma is a valid reason to go on leave, right?”


While this is more than a little hyperbolic, as I have yet to see any sorts of severed limbs involved in a retail store (though Black Fridays at the US Walmarts seem to come very close at times, from what I hear), it’s not all that far from the truth. There were scores of families in on the Labour Day weekend, apparently with nothing better to do than freak out at the last minute and buy all their kids’ school supplies. (And in the process whine about how all the selections everywhere was already cut in half.)

Mel & I spent most of our long weekend working like mad as we cleaned the store, helped customers, cleaned the store again, helped more customers, cleaned the store yet again, “and so it goes” to splice in a little Vonnegut.

The Labour Day Monday was spent mostly reclining with some anime and the company of Gary. And the ensuing Tuesday and Wednesday were no less taxing. Between the first-week rush of people exchanging supplies and me needing to prep the store for my impending 5-day absence, I barely had time to breathe.

To say the least, I spent more time in our apartment plunked down on the sofa or bed and collecting dust. Our kitchen, while clean, was horribly neglected to boot. (And as a sidenote: at this moment in time, the thought of home-cooked meals makes me almost want to cry tears of joy, given how much fast food & takeout we’ve had in the last 2 weeks.)

With the arrival of Wednesday (last week), Mel & I assembled our things, dropped Shady off with my sister, and headed down to Connecticut to attend Mel’s sister’s wedding. Amazingly, despite the splattergore of shit-into-fan left behind by She Who Is Still A BitchQueen, I was still able to leave the store with more than enough coverage during the somewhat busy week. Huzzah!

The rental car--because, despite its trustworthiness, Mel’s current car is old and probably would not haven enjoyed the mileage we’d have put it through on this journey--was packed, and off to the great white Not-As-North-As-Us. The drive down could be best described as dark, tiring and filled with more mistaken turns than we’d have preferred. Hey, it’s been a while since Mel’s done the drive, and the dark doesn’t help, what with all the obscuring of distant signs or any viable landmarks.

As a result, we left Hamilton at 7pm, and arrived at her mom’s house at 3:30am. Tired. Living Room. Sleep. Oh yes, happiness…

…or would have been, had we not been blessed by the presence of what I shall herein (taking my cue from Mike and the bots) refer to as Rando The Amazing, Self-Deflating Air Mattress. Yes indeed, Rando is here to make your life easier: instead of waking up each morning and needing to deflate the air mattress, Rando deflates in the middle of night, so when you wake up the next day, all you have to do is fold him up and set him aside!

That can pretty much be Today’s Lesson: nothing is quite so uncomfortable as an air mattress that leaves your ass on the floor, and the rest of your upper torso perilously close to the same fate. It was even worse whenever Mel moved or got up, since her body mass was keeping my half mostly inflated by pressure displacement. If she sat up, suddenly my entire body sank onto the floor. And vice versa, I’m sure.

We had the pleasure of Rando’s company almost every night, the only reprieve being the one night spent in the hotel of the day of the wedding. Which does in fact bring us to the wedding. We never did get to sleep in, what with the numerous last-minute wedding errands everyone had to run and Rando’s less than relaxing, deflation technique.

There was also the added unusualness of Sammy, the new puppy Mel’s family had recently bought. Sammy is a small, black, furry Schnoodle. (Which sounds a lot like something your order at Octoberfest. “I’ll have two beers and a schnoodle, thanks!”) Not only was he in the throes of being housebroken, and failing beautifully, might I add, but he was also very playful and didn’t like being left alone.

I will state that, despite being a handful as all puppies his age are, Sammy was adorable and fun to be with. Hopefully the pictures I took of him turned out. Sammy spent most of our time there either chewing on something…usually body parts like toes, elbows, feet or hands…or howling pitifully because he had to stay in the kitchen overnight. Not having bladder or bowel control, and thusly ruining a very nice rug (especially one that would be used for wedding photos) tends to result in that sort of thing. Well, Sammy didn’t like it, and let us know. Loudly. Repeatedly.

I’m frankly stunned the pitch in his voice didn’t shatter any windows or glass. It was that shrill. There was also the resident bichon, Sophie, who also didn’t like sleeping away from her owner/Mel’s sister/the bride. However, since bridal dresses were hanging up in most of the bedrooms, no one wanted to risk her getting into them somehow. So off Sophie went into the kitchen too.

Most of our nights were spent with 1-2 hours of either dog crying/bitching loudly. Whenever one died down, the other started up and set the other off too. Thank God for our last night there, Sophie was able to roam wherever she pleased, and while he had to spent the night in his kennel cage, Sammy slept right next to our air mattress. So no barking that night.

…which still didn’t help much, again thanks to Rando and our mornings involving a pre-7am wakeup.



Part 2: Come For The Wedding, Stay For The Open Bar


The wedding. There was one. Which is good, since otherwise Mel & I would really have blown a fair deal of money for no good reason. But hey, I got a suit out of the deal, and Mel got a gold-ish bridesmaid’s dress that…well, while she looked fantastic in it (as did all the other bridesmaids), I couldn’t keep the imagery of a giant, gold-ish mushroom out of my head.

Apologies and sac-beatings will assuredly ensue.

I at least did not end up feeling entirely like a 5th wheel, as I ended up being volunteered for a number of small, menial tasks to help with the wedding. Mel, on the other hand, was running all over the place with her family; the usual primping, hair and what-not’s.

Saturday, the day of the wedding, inevitably struck. I spent most of the morning relaxing as the ladies had their hair and make-up done. Then I was whisked away to the hotel everyone was staying at, where I idled around and chatted with Mel’s mother’s date. (All around a very nice and thoughtful guy.)

I was also put in charge of making absolutely, unequivocally, and under pain of death-then-resurrection-to-be-followed-by-more-death, making sure that the bride’s wedding ring made it the Best Man. Apparently everyone trusted me more than anyone else to make sure the ring wasn’t forgotten or lost.

As a future note, if anyone every requests this of you, back away slowly. It’s a nerve-wracking venture filled with paranoia, stress and probably floggings. I’d only recommend it if you enjoy wearing gimp masks and getting spanked.

The wedding ceremony and reception were being held in the same place. Alas, rain killed any prospects of having the ceremony held outside. Though the staff onhand had prepared for this contingency, and once word came down to host the shindig indoors, they motored pretty damned fast getting everything in.

Interesting note: next door to us, they were holding a Bar Mitzvah. I wanted to check it out, if only to play with the “make your own wax hand sculpture” machine I saw them wheeling in earlier in the afternoon.

The hall was beautifully decorated, and I will post pictures if I ever figure out how to download the stuff off Mel’s digital camera. I had to don my “too constricting for my tastes” suit, complete with an actual tie. Mind you, once the ceremony was over, the jacket came off, the tie was greatly loosened, and the two buttons of my collar were undone.

Subsequently, with my new, shorter haircut, I had no less than 4 remarks about how I looked like Harry Potter. Again. (If only there was to milk this cash cow for me--er, I mean, for good. Yes…good…)

Things got interesting in the reception hall once the bar opened. Many drinks were served. Many hammered guests eventually left. I spent most of my time dancing with Mel and getting a whirlwind tour of my in-laws. Many of whom I now wouldn’t even be able to pick out of a police line-up.

A few interesting (and not all in a good way) things happened over the course of the evening, but since they involve Mel’s family, it’s probably better if I poke her to rant about it on her LJ. (Because if anyone’s blog is dustier than this one…)

Oddly enough, I ended up pretty sober, having had only a few beers and some Rum & Cokes. Why, do you ask? No tequila. Simple as that. Had there been tequila, I’d have probably been pissed not just four sheets, but the whole damned laundry hamper to the wind. And despite insisting for months that she’d drink herself silly, Mel touched even less alcohol than me. Mostly because she was too exhausted to drink. It’s sad when an open bar is neglected due to that, isn’t it?

Oh well, others partied hard for us.

Like Mel’s mother.

A set-up explanation: the last shuttle from the reception hall back to the hotel left at 1am. From there, Mel & I went into our hotel room and crashed. The rest of the wedding party, all located on our floor, partied until the crack of dawn. Or until they passed out. Whichever came first.

Like Mel’s mother.

Apparently, she got more bloody hammered than anyone else, resulting in multiple trips to the toilet (and bathtub) to throw up; drunken flirtations with a guy half her age; locking herself in someone else’s bathroom on a whim, and requiring the pastor to (get this) pick the bathroom lock; and culminating in her wedding dress being rendered a total write-off due to extreme technicolour yawning.

It took her mom 2 full days to recover from the hangover.

And I think one of the guys nearly got arrested right in the hotel for soliciting a prostitute. I’m not entirely sure; the details are sketchy on this one, but the police were definitely called for something other than noise disturbance.

The next morning, I grudgingly rose at about 9am and shambled down to the hotel’s hot tub to soak my tired legs. Mel got up soon after, and it was about then that we discovered our two other roommates had never made it back to our room.

You see, her teenage sister and sister’s friend, both being of the female persuasion, were to crash in our room. Their two male dates for the wedding were to spend their night in their own, separate bedroom. Guess where we found everyone in the morning? (I can’t attest to the state of undress of anyone in there, as Mel was the one to go in as a precaution.)

A couple of balls-out evasive answers to Mel’s grandmother-


Grandmother: “So, are they still sleeping up in your room?”

Me: ^-^;;; “Uh, well they are still sleeping, yes…”


--and all was well. Then came my favourite meal of the day: the all you can eat buffet breakfast. Mel & I paid $10 each for the buffet. I nearly ate enough to cover the cost for both our meals. (What can I say? All that gimpy-dancing the night before made me hungry…)

Eventually we checked out of our rooms, and we drove home…with Mel’s mom barfing three times on the trip back. Eeeep.

Ergo we have Today’s Extra Lesson: a bottle of cheap-as-all-hell Beefeater gin will fuck you up. Which is why you should always stick to Bombay when it comes to gin. Sure, it can still fuck you up, but at least it tastes smoother and not like a cheap bottle of gin.



Part 3: The Pointless But Meandering Finale

The remainder of our trip consisted of doing very little. Between Mel’s mom being as sick/hungover as a dog, and all of us feeling very tired, we enjoyed more lounging around than anything. Mel & I got a little bit of shopping done, and we did have a very cool moment of seeing an eagle standing out on someone’s lawn as she guarded the squirrel she’d just killed.

The trip back featured a lot more than the initial trek down, but I’d rather have rain over darkness. I’m able to stay awake easier with rain than darkness. The worst of the storm hit ups just going into New York state, and then just as we were leaving New York state. Which further bolsters Mel’s ardent belief that New York state is pure evil, and not just because of the Yankees.

Pleasantly, no wrong turns were made this trip around. But Mel is kicking herself for not having picked up the Inu Yasha s.4 boxset down in CT when we saw it; apparently, there’s issues with the manufacturer or distributor up in Canada, and none of the stores here have been able to get it.

Shady was picked up in Hamilton at a decent time of night. Naturally, while we were visiting with my sister, a torrential downpour decided to happen. So in the spirit of “Plan B: screw it!” we spent a few more hours with my sister before finally kicking off.

There’s the old adage of there being no place like home, and for the most part Dorothy was absolutely right. (No, not about thinking that the Wicked Witch of the West was actually a living creature whose body was made entirely of dry ice.) It was good to be back in our own home again, with its familiar rooms and smells and lack of Rando the Self-Deflating Air Mattress.

Mind you…our cat, Chance, must have known we were coming, because he decided to greet us with perhaps the foulest stench in his litter box to date. And to think we cleaned it right before we left too. Yeesh…

But the pets are all just fine, our apartment is great, and while I have to spend a day or two cleaning the place up, my store survived my absence unscathed. And no fires this time! Woohoo!

(Though the construction just outside our end of the mall is making the entire store vibrate on a daily basis. The rough sensation is akin to walking on a giant washing machine on the spin cycle for 8 hours: it’s fun at first, but it wears off the more you feel your pancreas rattling about inside your torso.)

So there you have it: a magnificent, magnanimous update. Now if anyone needs me, I have a Fruba Fanbook to go out and purchase.
posted by Phillip at 7:50 PM

 

Labels: evil has a destiny to suck, Halloween, the irony of boobies

posted by Phillip at 8:01 PM

 

There are, as of this little bit of nowhere, about six days left before school begins. Between then and now, children shall lament; parents will secretly rejoice; and wallets will sob in agony over the price of scholastic supplies (let alone the cost of overhauling one's entire wardrobe, because last year's clothes are, like, so last year!). And somewhere along the way, hundreds of parental units are sitting there thinking, "Gee, only six more days left before they get shipped back off to class and I finally get some peace and...six more...holy crap, I've got six days left to get all their things?!"

This happens more often than you think.

The last week is, in an event that can only be described as "not surprising in the slightest", busy as all hell. Families will swarm our stores over the next less-than-a-week, pillaging and ravaging our merchandise in a desperate bid to get everything their kids want (and sometimes--gasp!--what they actually need) in a single, last minute spree. We will be spending most of our time running around in a mad bid to answer questions, clean stock, process transactions, clean more stock, restock the displays and, dammit, I just cleaned that bunk of lunch boxes and had my back turned for just ten seconds, so which of you ungodly little urchins do I have to skin in thanks for that?!

And I'm rather enjoying it.

Certainly, it's leaving me quite exhausted at the end of any given work shift (and those vastly outnumber the very select few days I have off), and my deader-than-toast shoes are not helping at all. But with the departure of She Who Shall Not Be Named (But Is Still Quite The Royal Bitch), I've discovered something I'd almost forgotten and as a general concept find quite disturbing: that work can, in fact, be almost fun.

Not the running around part, of course. But now that I have the chance to look back, I realize it's been a loooooong time since I went into work begrudging what I was about to do (hey, it's retail, so it's a gimme) but not at all dreading it. I feel a lot more relaxed and enjoy more of my shifts, and more than anything the atmosphere in the store has dropped back to its old, relaxed feel. This is a good thing. This must be continued.

In other news, recent influxes of money due to me had me smiling. An inordinate amount of cash I'd been expecting finally made its way into my account, and for a moment I was fiendishly rich. Then I paid off all my bills (phone, credit card, rent, et all), set aside a large chunk for Shady's impending check-up and vaccinations, set aside another large chunk for future Christmas purchases (and oh, will I need it), and bought a suit for Mel's sister's wedding in September Because, apparently, jeans and a "the flying hamster of doom rains down coconuts on your pitiful city" shirt are not proper wedding attire. (I tried to argue that I was starting a new trend. Then Mel threatened me with a lack of sex. Then I stated that trends are overrated and sometimes the old, tried & trusted ways are better.)

Suddenly I found myself staring down at a somewhat pitiful sum of money, comparatively, but impressive enough to allow me to go out and buy something expensive I usually wouldn't otherwise buy. Did I buy manga and start collecting another series? Did I nab an anime box set? Did I nab any DVD box set?

No, when the time came to make a decision, I went with...interior decorating. One very nice multi-picture frame and a 2-tiered laundry trolley (that's a whole lot friggin' larger than the box made it out to be) later, and I had to sit down. In a month where my shortlist of just-released DVDs was at an all time high, I went with apartment acoutrements. The thought of buying movies, manga or anime barely even registered in my head.

The hell?!

Had I suddenly become one of those dreaded, no-nonsense "adults" when my back was turned? Was I in fact on the verge of ranting about, "when I was your age, we didn't have this high-fangled Internet, we had to sell off our organs to buy a pen and paper in order to send paper airplane messages to our friends across the street, and when that didn't work we had to walk two miles, naked, in the snow, uphill both ways, in order to drop off the gorram paper airplane." Was I about to inexplicably turn anal-retentive and stick my nose up at even the merest thought of staying a child at heart?

Then I looked back at the multi-photo frame I bought, and at the collection of postcards from the Last Exile box set that were nestled within it, and smiled.

On a related note, I also recently found myself looking at the fall selection in various clothing stores, and became sorely tempted to make a few purchases or at least try the items on to see how they looked at me. I'm thinking of combating this disturbing development by buying a pair of boxer shorts with the words "It's sexy time!" written all over them. (Because with my ass involved, anytime is sexy time!)

Now if you'll excuse me, there is laundry to sort...

Today's Lesson - the following combinations do not mix well together in the slightest: a sandwich brimming with tzatziki sauce, chips with onion dip, two cans of Pepsi, and a consumption time of 11:30pm (not an hour before going to bed to boot.)

Labels: back to school, growing older but not upwards, sexy time boxers, sometimes I can go an entire blog without mentioning pants so there

posted by Phillip at 8:55 PM

 


In case you haven’t heard, all hell broke loose at work with regards to the previously mentioned problem worker (who shall from here on in be referred to as the Wicked Bitch of the West) and pretty much everyone else at the store. There’s a lot of back story behind it all, and most of it is long, and even more of it is rather messy. I’m not going to dish it up for a number of reasons: first and foremost, it’s over, done, and said Wicked Bitch has left the store for good, and; second, I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of even letting her get to me.

After all the crap I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of contending with, this is the first time where I’ve felt a disturbing and profound sense of peace. Petty backstabbing and Machiavellian antics have plagued everyone even remotely associated with the store (and thusly me) for months now, and a day or two it all got flushed down the toilet.

This does not surprise me, not in the slightest. It was due to happen, and quite frankly I’m amazed it didn’t occur earlier, since there were a few moments this summer where it looked like everything was about to go all Mount St. Helens. There’s collateral damage, to be sure, with the Wicked Bitch trying to draw whatever proverbial blood she can in her wake. As far as I can tell, it’s only serving to consolidate those of us who wave good-bye to her and further reinforce the reasons we’re not going all teary-eyed at her fiery departure.

Despite the impressive confrontation that occurred, I found myself beyond caring. I still do. I feel nothing, and instead of what maybe should be some gut-wrenching sensation, I’ve spent the last few evenings calmer than I can recall in a long while. It’s hard to tell if all the prior stress I’ve endured has left me too numb to feel anything, or if it’s just built up a resistance, or if I have truly entered a new and perhaps frightening state of “I really just don’t give a flying fuck about her anymore.”

I’m not sure if what I’m left feeling is ill-will towards the Wicked Bitch. I certainly think very little of her in terms of her character. Hell, with her gone I plan to think little of her, period. I don’t plan on brooding and fuming over what she’s pulled--though God knows (and believe me, I do not say that lightly) she certainly deserves a cold, calculated vengeance and unflinching, unforgiving demeanour from everyone she’s wronged. By the same token, I do not plan nor expect to see much of her for the remainder of my life. After this post, she will occupy barely a shred of my thoughts, my reflections or retrospections. She will become little more than a passing anecdote, where all her sad, sad antics shall entertain those I mention it to.

This is where I wash my hands of her. I have given her my final act of charity, and only a small part of me hopes she chokes on it. The rest of me does not care one way or the other. She’s earned worse than my scorn. I find everything she is is now beneath me, and as such, I plan to walk away from her forever.

Cold, yes, my final thoughts on this matter might be, but quite deserved.

All in all, it’s best if I end things here for today. Any attempt to toss on a glib anecdote or remark will probably fall horribly flat, and leave a sour taste in your mouth. But don’t let yourself think I’m trapped in a dark, unfriendly place and won’t be getting out anytime soon. (You there, the one about to tell me it's not so bad I need the emo eye make-up!) Both Mel and I will recover, and life will go on. Things can only improve from here on in, now that din-dong, the Wicked Bitch is dead.

I’m sure the next little bit of nowhere you stumbled upon will return to its sunnier skies and whimsical tangents. Until then, as a sign of solidarity and support for what we’ve had to endure here, I ask you remove your pants after reading this and wave them over your head.

(Just kidding.)

Labels: drama-llama, the untimely but much celebrated death of the Wicked Bitch of the West

posted by Phillip at 5:35 AM

 


The one problem with watching the Muppet Show, season 2: I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to go back and listen to the old Elton John songs. Not only because in his heyday, Elton was (Captain) fantastic, but it's also somewhat nostalgic. My Dad, being the fan that he is of rock& roll, raised me on the songs of Elton John, along with the likes of Kiss, Meatloaf, the Stones, Bowie and Alice Cooper.

That said, I must extend fondest birthday wishes to Kevin. Yea, despite the greyish days and wet lawns, there is a glimmer delight and happiness for a day as monumental as this. For your birthday, I shall bestow upon you perhaps the greatest gift I know: for the remainder of this blog--nay, for the rest of today, I shall keep my pants on.









...the week has seen its ups and downs, and thus far things may have reached a turning point in the form of a two week's notice handed in by the employee who has been giving everyone in the store (and subsequently me) so much grief. With the ball rolling the way it is, I have about twelve days left before there's a collective sigh of relief. (And possible a night spent with parades of insults, toasts over her departure and much liquor.)

The catch is: there's a lot of damage that can be wreaked in those twelve days, and with our store being as inevitably busy as it will become, I may spent a lot more time mopping up the proverbial messes she leaves in her wake. Mind you, that means I'll probably have the opportunity to dismiss with extreme prejudice, and that entitles me to cheerfully sign "Do Not Rehire" on her termination papers.

For now, all we can do is wait and see. I'm not holding out hope that she won't pull a stupid stunt or two, but I've effectively reached a point where I'm beyond caring if she tries to sic anyone on me. The only reason I haven't walked away myself was out of respect for my district manager, and knowing that if I left at the peak of Back to School, I'd be screwing her over in ways unimaginable.

There will be other bits of nowhere between then and now, to be sure. But check back with me in 2 weeks. You might see some streamers hanging from the rafters, and a punch bowl set up in the corner. If that's the case, feel free to raise a glass wherever you are and toast with me.

And while you're at it, raise a glass right now and toast to Kevin. He's earned it. And it's probably a much nicer gift for him than the pants girding my loins. Though mine will garner a greater appreciation over time, especially on those frequent occasions I'm running loose without them on. Come to think of it...there's a Dr. Seuss story about pants running amok, isn't there?

Labels: Elton John and other childhood melodies, Muppets, pants are birthday lurv, the politics of work and its inherent stupidities

posted by Phillip at 1:13 PM

 

Sometimes, no matter how unpleasant the day has been, all you really need is a cold beer, a book (or fic) you really enjoy and Louis Armstrong singing "What A Wonderful World" in the background to make it all go away.

This does certainly beat getting pissed drunk to make it all go away. Mostly because of the inevitable hangover and mysterious half-smoked cigar that both appear the next morning.

Labels: making the bad things go away

posted by Phillip at 9:46 PM

 


In an unprecedented event, today saw Mel working at the store and me staying home. (And even then, I was still up and showered before her. Go figure.) I was already pleasantly buzzed from Saturday evening's shindig in Stratford with Kevin & Dana and Dana's parents, wherein I learned that ground beef made into sausage-like shapes whose names I now completely forget are frighteningly tasty and addictive.

And so while Mel was away, the baka...spent most of the day cleaning and cooking, funny enough. There was a brief blitz cleaning on the front hall and living room, and from thereon in I was joined by my "old friend and zombie shooter-in-arms" John for an afternoon of simple relaxation.

Food ensued.

With the full intent on surprising Mel with a fancy dinner when she came back (because with the way work's been lately, such dinners have been few and far between), John & I set out with a menu and grocery list. By the time Mel returned, we had prepared two different breads--an Irish wheat bread John made from scratch and cooked in the stove, and a generic white bread I cheated & used our swanky breadmaker for.

(Sidenote: I very much heart homemade bread. The smell alone remains in my top food three scents, and reminds me of easy-going summer spent at my aunt & uncle's cottage where every morning began with a fresh, homemade loaf of bread for breakfast.)

The meal itself was a pork tenderloin grilled briefly in a saucepan and then broiled in our crockpot for a few hours. The original plan had been for it to be a Carribean Jerk flavouring...but then we managed to utterly forget to buy the jerk sauce despite going to 2 different places for ingredients. Oops. But we switched to a Mediterranean flavouring, with the pork loins being marinated in a Greek lemon sauce and some rosemary sprigs, and some small white potatoes fried up with olive oil, red onion, garlic and some sort of spice that starts with "f" and tasted a little like licorice.

I think it was fennel seed. I have vague recollections of my Dad serving the fennel vegetable a while back, and the distinct licorice-ish aftertaste. I could be wrong, and for all I know it was cumin.

We had also been hoping to make a chocolate mousse, but all the counterspace had already been used up by the crockpot and the bread machine. That, and I feared plugging the mixer into one of the already-used outlets and blowing a fuse.

Oh well.

I may not be the grandest of chefs, or even the most ambitious of amateur cooks (refer to Gary for the infamous "electric kettle" incident, or to Mel for the "chocolate milkshake in the blender" mishap), but I can't help but sit back with a quiet sense of pride in having helped out with a rather delicious meal.

Don't worry--I'm not going to make countless posts from here on in about what I made for breakfast every day. (I usually can't even remember what I had for breakfast by the end of the same day anyways, so we're all safe.) But today remains one of the best days off I've had that was spent just lounging around the apartment. And even if you've skipped everything just to get to today's lesson, this is a good way for me to bookmark the memory.

But in the wide world of random tangents:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/swearing.htm - an intriguing if not technical look into swearing, best viewed in conjunction with the Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode on profanity.

http://obakemono.com/ - gacked from Jen's LJ originally, I think. The Obakemono project is a samll but still very informative database of common Japanese spirits & beasts found in folklore and mythology. (Great if you need to find something to viciously devour your Mary Sue.)

http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/ - I first discovered this site courtesy of Gaiman's blog. It's in essence a very cool, Internet version of the old "Cabinet of Curiosities": private collections of strange artifacts, a concept which in turn evolved into museums as time went on. The best part about this site is that nothing is a simple "this subject only" post. A single entry will flow from one topic into another, and by the end you'll be still be educated and entertained. Highly recommended reading.


...and I think that's everything. If you need me, I'll be curling up with Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things short story anthology.


Today's Lesson: fennel seed is much cheaper at a Bulk Barn, than if you bought a prefab jar of it at any standard grocery store.

Labels: Cabinet of Wonders, How Swearing Works, I can't believe it's not fennel seed, Obakamono Project, you blog what you eat

posted by Phillip at 8:32 PM

 



In an inevitable yet highly amusing weekend not so long ago, Potterdammerung slammed into the HP fanbase with great pomp and the sound of wank hitting the fan. I somehow managed to dodge any and all spoilers on Deathly Hallows…mostly by avoiding the Interwebs altogether. Which is perhaps just as well, since I got to experience a few days where, as far as I was concerned, random spambots--er, people were not Emailing me to discuss the size of my penis or insist I attend DeVry University.

A week has now passed, and the final book in the Harry Potter septology (is that even a valid word?) sits on the coffee table, its covers closed and its pages read. In a completely avoiding of spoilers sorta way, I really enjoyed the book. It had many unexpected turns and Rowling didn’t pull many punches.

But you didn’t come here for a book report, did you? Thusly I would like to present:





1) The last of Voldemort’s Horcruxes was not the One Ring (though it would be pretty cool to see who would win in a fight: Dementors or Nazgul?)

2) during the last climactic battle, Severus Snape did not suddenly remove his face, revealing that it had actually been IMF agent Tom Cruise the entire time, and would Voldemort like to hear about the Church of Scientology?

3) Snape was not in fact a vampire. Nor was Draco a Cylon. Nor was Harry a naughty tentacle monster. Nor was Ron a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.

4) Guest appearances were not made by any of the following individuals, alas: (Captain) Jack Sparrow, Sephiroth, Mork, Indiana Jones, Marty MyFly, Piglet or Egon Spengler.

5) Rocks did not fall and everyone did not die. (But half the fandom did implode. Joy?)


And in other news…um, in other news…

Let’s not sugarcoat it: work hasn’t exactly been on the “happy fuzzy puppies frolicking in the afternoon sunshine” side of things. There’s no need to go into great details (lest perhaps this be used against me as potential motives if/when some employees mysteriously go missing), but suffice to say I’m saddened, angered and generally baffled by how much junior high drama seems to manifest itself in a store filled with people decidedly not in junior high.

The rather caustic phrase, “Remind me again why I love my job?” seems to be repeated more and more often lately. That and, “Why oh why am I not allowed to arbitrarily use tasers on anyone who vexes me?”

Last week’s entire Chernobylesque situation was not helped by the peculiar ailment that seized upon me Thursday and didn’t loose it’s figurative, perhaps even literal, grip on me until the end of the weekend. I use the word “ailment” because I’m not entirely sure if what happened could be described as either an injury or else a malady (though it’s safely neither vegetable nor mineral).

You see, when I woke up on Friday morning, me entire chest was filled with an incredible amount of unpleasantness. I felt horribly sore all over and was nauseated to the point of making a brief gagging and then following that up with a great deal of bile and stomach acid. I keep telling Le Dieu De Porcelain that I’ve already paid homage to His Whimsicalness this summer, but he won’t hear anything about it.

By now, you’re certainly wondering just what afflicted me (and probably wishing my little bits of nowhere wouldn’t always let you know every little time I must vomit), and the truth is I’m not sure myself. I could eat well enough, and aside from the initial upchuck session that morning, I was fine gastronomically-speaking. My entire chest, the abdomen area especially, was still remarkably sore.

Much to my bewilderment and chagrin, I can only come up with one possible, working explanation: despite being asleep, I spent a greater part of Thursday night flexing my abs. You may laugh at your leisure.






Better now?

Okay. Back to the abs: spending the entire night subconsciously flexing my six-pack so far is the only reasonable (though silly) explanation I can come up with. As the days passed, the soreness subsided, but it definitely wasn’t the stomach, nor was it some sort of bizarre flu.

Granted this does beg the question: why did I feel the inherent need to tone my figure while I slept? Is my subconscious telling me that my definition is failing, and thusly my bringing-sexyback-o-meter is starting to crash? Was I suffering from a nightmare where I was trapped in a gym, and the beefcake trainer felt I had not felt enough pain/gain? Or did I just really have to pee?

Such mysteries may never be solved. Even still, I really don’t want to repeat that again in the near future. Or far future. Or alternate future, for that matter…unless it meant I’d wake up with sore abs, but I’d get my own Gundam for my troubles.

But that’s not to say everything has been absolutely horrible the last while. The Project has gained some surprising momentum, much to my delight (and fear that the over shoe will fall, and it’ll all come grinding to another halt). Mel and I have also been binging on Battlestar Galactica, which for better/worse means there’s another DVD series to add to the “buy” list.

And an impromptu raid on the nearest library branch ended with me securing the first 5 tankobans of Claymore. And as an added bonus, I got to reaffirm my love for both Alice Cooper and Neil Gaiman courtesy of their collaborative graphic novel The Last Temptation. My love of Ray Bradbury was also rekindled, since this is right in the vein of Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Which reminds me: no more going into bookstores. My empty wallet sighs in relief, but my heart cries when I see more intriguing books to add to the “buy” list. (And more to the point, titles not in our library yet.)

All right then, what have we learned so far in this blog? Aside from creepy facts & dysfunctions about my physiology? Hmm…you’re right. We’ve learned absolutely nothing. Oh well, it’s not all that bad. I could have spent this entire blog asking you if you wanted to increase your penis size, or would you like to enrol in DeVry University, or perhaps you’d like to hear more about the Church of Scientology?




Today’s Surprise Discovery: the series pilot for the Stargate SG-1 TV series has full frontal nudity in it. I have to wonder if/how that got past the censor boards when it was picked up for broadcast. (Mel’s still lamenting about how it wasn’t Michael Shanks who was fully frontal, which makes me wonder if, after seeing that the man does have a better six-pack than me, dammit, that’s what set off my subconscious.)

Labels: Harry Potter book 7 ridiculousness, more reasons to quietly continue the job search, nocturnal ab crunching

posted by Phillip at 5:16 AM