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!

 


If there was ever a lesson for today, it would be this: if you're going to polish off a decent helping of merlot, one bottle of water before bed isn't enough to curb the hammer-like headache awaiting you in the morning. I probably needed at least two bottles of water. As it is, I got to celebrate Christmas Day by waking up and popping some Advil. Fortunately a long, hot shower cleared away the worst of the unpleasantness, leaving me to believe that in the end, I should just celebrate with shots (Sake or otherwise) instead. Those don't tend to wreck me until their numbers reach double digits.

But all in all, it was a very good Christmas. Mel handled most of the kitchen-organization detail while I prepped whatever she pointed at. I'm sure her family would be stunned by this; Mel can cook, and quite well, but she doesn't like to since she views it as more of a chore. Growing up, she rarely ever cooked (probably because she figured if they knew she could, they'd put her on kitchen detail all the time) and it's a bit of a running joke how I'm usually the one in the kitchen. Whenever they say things like that, I always notice this strange, smug little smile on Mel's face. I wonder why...

Christmas swag was good and swaggy...swaggerific...swagtastic? Unfortunately, a few gifts meant for Gary, Mel and myself didn't arrive on time due to a backorder issue. They're enroute now, but sadly I'm not holding out hope for a pre-New Year's arrival.

Still, good times were had. We sat down with my mother for a mid-afternoon dinner (and she lingered for more than a few hours, which was a pleasant surprise considering how fast she's vanished in years past--though this could be due to all the Henson-related Christmas videos we were showing. She doesn't have any of them, like Muppet Christmas Carol or The Christmas Toy, but we always watched them years ago, and they have that nostalgic feel for her.) and enjoyed quiet, drawn-out conversations revolving around nothing epic in particular. When she left later on in the evening, we sat back and watched a bunch of random shows or anime. It was a good way to cap off the day.

Especially considering that yesterday was Boxing Day. As a retail grunt who's worked every Dec.26th for the past six years, I can say I hold a hearty disgust of this day. I mean, hey, if you want to check out those sales, go right ahead and enjoy yourself. But I think that once I manage to procure a job that let's me take the 26th off, I will be going nowhere near a mall or big-box store. I loathe the crowds, I'm morbidly amused by the inevitable mob mentality that ensues in some places, and strangely there's usually very little in these sales that entices or tempts me...with the notable exception of turkey meat from Hickory Farms at half-price.

On the glass-half-full side of things, Boxing Day for our store was disturbingly easy. The crowds yesterday were no different than the crowds we've experienced & contended with for the past three Saturdays before Christmas. In fact, with no boxes and a dwindling supply of stock, two of us working the full shift had an easy time of keeping the store clean, restocking everything and handling customers. It was beautiful, and quite frankly I'm terrified to think of what this means, since some horrific cataclysm will have to restore balance to this whole ordeal.

So if you're asking about me, I'll be wrapped up in the new dress shirts that Mel bought for me: curled into a fetal position and muttering about how the customers will no doubt eat me during today's shift.

Labels: for once Boxing Day pulled its punches, On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a hangover

posted by Phillip at 6:27 AM

 


It's about 1:30am on Christmas Eve...or Christmas Day, depending on how you want to argue it. And I am definitely buzzed, quite possibly tipping the scales over to the side of "drunk." With Gary over for the holidays, we decided it best to celebrate the last of the pre-Christmas shopping rush (and commiserate for the sadly impending post-Christmas shopping rush) with alcohol. Mel dipped into her favourite brand of champagne, while Gary & I divied up a bottle of The Little Penguin brand of merlot.

I'm pretty sure I'm drunk right now, though the buzz is definitely wearing off. I seem to be getting better at typing in a seemingly coherent fashion, at any rate...though my abilities to take the dog out for a walk/pee run from about an hour earlier would definitely have been called into question considering how much I tended to veer randomly whilst walking.

Which reminds me...earlier this evening, when Gary & I were stone-cold sober, we had this great idea: Cream of Breakfast soup. Make of it what you will. We merely questioned whether the "sip through a straw" aspect of it would involve bacon or not.

In other news: congratulations to Caitlin & Mike! Finding engagement rings on dog collars are always much better than finding ticks or fleas on dog collars. ^-^

Labels: I can't believe it's not Cream of Breakfast, romantic engagement of good friends, Twas the blotto before Christmas

posted by Phillip at 10:16 PM

 


For over a decade now, Anime North has remained one of the more prolific highlights of any given year. There are so many memories that are still etched into my precocious psyche even today...so many strange (Gimpy the Wonder Elevator) and wondrous (the Confic readings) and horrifying (the "Free Hugs" crowd) moments. But part of what makes the convention so important to me is because it's a little slice of escape from the rest of the world, because it happens only once a year and thusly must be treasured as much as possible.

When I'm at the Con, I'm surrounded by all these things. When I leave the Con, I only take the memories and the swag with me.

So please...someone tell me why there was a small gaggle of teens giving out "Free Hugs" (complete with handmade signs) in the middle of the frakking mall this past Saturday?! Are they hunting down every Congoer now, stalking them where they work? Are Mel & I just the first to witness this annoying phenomenon, or is this the start of some zombie-free infestation?

To be quite honest, I'd prefer the zombies. At least I can shoot them in the head with impunity.

To the rest of you out there: be warned. They're out there. They're in your malls. And they want to give you free hugs.

Labels: Today free hugs tomorrow the world

posted by Phillip at 6:00 PM

 


Dramallamas have been taken care of, and by taken care of I mean: they've been lovingly embraced like a comrade, walked out to the back and been summarily executed. There are times where I don't necessarily savour my job, but sometimes, just sometimes, I do get a disturbingly satisfied smile on my face. The unexpected fringe benefit of said employee's abrupt termination is that she was barely even scheduled in for the next few weeks, meaning next to nothing in the schedule has to be changed/rearranged to accommodate.

Glorious.

Anyhoo, here's a backlogged bit o' nowhere, which was originally supposed to show up about 2 weeks ago...until the 'llamas came in and tried to take over my store. Enjoy!

***

Commercialmas is in full swing now, and today’s snowfall pretty much christened the winter season. Customers are running rampant in the mall, and none of them are zombies--so there goes any alibi I could have otherwise used to putting the whammy on them with the Customer Appreciation Pancake Maker. “But officer, she was going to eat my brains!” pretty much guarantees self-defense.

Despite the growing crowds and the loud Christmas muzzak playing non-stop in the mall corridors…that’s so loud I can hear it in the back half of our store even with the radio blaring…I find myself unusually cheerful about the season. I’m not sure what it is, either, leaving me utterly boggled if not weirded out by this optimistic outlook. But hey, if the mood is taking me there, why not embrace it?

However, Mel’s insisting that I stop singing my impromptu rendition of “Rudolph, the Medium-Rare Reindeer.” (Although in my defense, she was playing Farmville prior, and the game was telling her that her latest collection of reindeer were ready to be “harvested.” Though in Farmville terms, that apparently means you groom them instead of turning them into venison.)

Maybe it’s because this year we’re doing more decorating than usual. After fighting with a fake, collapsible tree for an hour, we now have a Christmas tree overtaking most of the living room. Despite the fact that I had to rearrange half the furniture to make everything fit, it is quite pretty to see the tree all lit up at night. It’s definitely a step up from the Christmas tree we’ve been using for the last 6 years: a small, decorating tree that’s no larger than our dog (and if you know how big Shady is, that says more than enough about the tree). Now all we need are decorations, but they will arrive this weekend.


In other news: birthdays were recently had, and like last year I declared that I was going to preemptively stage my mid-life crisis early and buy myself a toupee to wear…or else skin a Tribble and use that instead. Mel told me that if I even seriously entertained either notion, our relationship would enter Champagne Room mode (as in: “There is no sex allowed in…”) for the next year.

I graciously decided to spare the Tribble’s life. It went on to gorge itself on everything in our cupboard before attacking some Klingon Cosplayers.

***


We now return you to our regularly scheduled bit o' nowhere.

Labels: birthdays, I love you Mr Dramallama now if you'll just close your eyes an pay no heed to the cocking of this gun

posted by Phillip at 7:17 AM

 

Today I received a piece of curious mail in my Junk folder. Normally I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but this one looked officious. After all, it's not every day I get an Email from FBI DIRECTOR Mr. Robert S.Mueller III.

See? How swanky is that? I now have the FBI Emailing me...though why he has a Gmail account belonging to kelvinwilliams2009 is beyond me. Maybe he has to be undercover when contacting me, because you can't be too careful these days.

Anyhoo, he wishes to inform me that my ATM delivery card is ready to be delivered to me. By the IMP. Yes, that's right: I am so freaking awesome that the Impossible Missions Force is going to deliver me a bank card. They'll probably bypass security and come in through the air ducts hanging from wires. And so long as he hasn't scared away everyone else in the agency, I bet Tom Cruise himself will hand it over.

This is proof that I couldn't be more amazing. Wonder why my Email account just tossed it into the Spam box. I mean, if you can't trust the FBI or IMF who can you trust?

Labels: Ethan Hunt is hiding in my ceiling and watching for spelling errors

posted by Phillip at 6:33 PM

 



Dramallamas are still running loose in my store, but ideally no longer amok.

On the other hand, Mel's boss is an idiot and smells like turnips. The best way I can describe this woman is to ask you: have you ever seen the Jim Henson's Storyteller episode "The True Bride?" In the first act, the heroine has been raised as the servant of a troll, and the troll enjoys being contradictive. He tells her to complete one task (under penalty of pain/beating if she can't complete it on time), and then declare once she's done that she's just plain wrong for having completed the task and beats her anyways. Well, substitute the physical beatings for really confusing if not downright infuriating snark and there's the manager.

Without even needing to use hyperbole, it's safe to say that Mel is about ready to kill someone right now due to recent managerial antics. Which means that I get to sign off and cower in a corner.

But as Annie would sing, "The sun will come out tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar--!" Whereupon she'd get mugged for her dollar. (Hey, it's been hard times for everyone, and Annie is at fault for flat-out advertising she had cash on her.)

Labels: all Mel needs is an alibi and five minutes alone with her troll--er boss

posted by Phillip at 8:30 PM

 



There are absurdly large dramallamas running loose in my store. This must be remedied. Ideally with something double-barreled.

The short non-cryptic version of this is: in a small store with a small employee pool, a few of them seem to be having the equivalent of total mental breakdowns with each other and look poised to potentially kill each other. And I'm rather inclined to let them. I'll gladly accept the extra hours if it just means having this sort of ridiculous high school mentality out of my store. I shouldn't need to deal with this at all, let alone 2 weeks before Christmas.

And yes, there's 2 weeks to go.

You may now officially panic. (Or, if you're a retail grunt too, rejoice! The end is in sight!)

Labels: death to the dramallamas, it's beginning to look a lot like the end of Christmas

posted by Phillip at 4:49 AM

 


It's December 1st, and out here there are small patches of fluffy, white snow.

Then again, if anyone's going to complain to me about how it's terrible we now have snow, I'll just smile and inform them that if they really want a decent slice of perspective they should be in Calgary right about now. In some spots the snow over there is coming in drifts about half as tall as me.

In the meanwhile, all of our careful planning to ensure Mel's work schedule and my work schedule are as mirrored as possible may be all for naught as of today. One of her kiosk's employees is getting the axe, and they're about to be out a full-timer (with full availability, no less) right before Christmas. Hopefully, to use the BSG vernacular, this won't result in as large a clusterfrak as we're fearing.

Labels: Snow and schedules and bears oh my

posted by Phillip at 7:00 AM

 



So far, my ass remains of the unchewed persuasion. But the week's not out yet.

However, it would appear the Queen of Hearts logic isn't limited exclusively to my Head Office, as Mel can sadly attest to. Now, not everyone has seen Mel in what I like to call "Rage Mode." If you haven't seen it before, I heartily recommend you don't push your luck. It's something akin to witnessing the destructive force of Kill Bill's The Bride, a hurricane and pretty much every Chuck Norris meme in existence.

A day or two ago Mel got pretty much slapped in the face with such logic, and spent the rest of the day attempting to not go full Rage Mode...the result of which probably would have torn the universe asunder. It's at times like that I wish I'd gotten her enrolled in kickboxing so she could vent her rage on a punching bag. On the other hand, that would mean her punches to my shoulder every time I enter my patented Baka Mode would be that much more lethal. I don't know about you, but I enjoy my shoulder not being dislocated from its socket.


In other news, apparently I have sex appeal. Yes, yes, I know: it astounds if not downright boggles me too.

As Mel was working yesterday, she chatted with some customers who were perusing the jewelry: an older woman and her early-twenties daughter. Mel happened to mention that her husband (for those of you just tuning in: that would be me, just in case you missed it) worked in the mall. The mother then, with some surprise, verified what I looked like and told Mel that her daughter had been checking me out. According to Mel, when the daughter was informed of this she somewhat embarrasedly said, "Oh. Good to know he's taken, then." Which does make one wonder if I might have been asked out on a date later, had Mel not unexpectedly intervened.

Mel's having way too much fun teasing me about this. But I look on the bright side: for once, the girl crushing on me was older than ten.

Labels: Queen of Hearts logic for the Fail, the unbearable strangeness of being sexy

posted by Phillip at 6:50 AM

 



Last week never happened. Argue its existence all you want, offer all the tangible proof you can, but I shall still deny it occurring. I have Zenned it out of my reality. It has been placed in a box marked "Free To A Good Home" and placed by the side of a road that I cannot see from the apartment window. Ideally someone can claim it as a happy week--dare I even say, a good and cuddly week--and make it their own. But not I. Why, you almost fear to ask, cringing as you anticipate some sort of whiny rant complete with emo oranges?

In a year that hasn't exactly been fantastic, which has itself been following up a prior year that also wasn't the greatest, last week stands out as a singular piece of "fuck me gently with a chainsaw" anger. I am quite certain that last week was designed specifically in mind to enrage me to a point where "fucktwat" once more entered my vocabulary. (And here I'd gone for years without needing to utter it again.)

Last week--and here is where I spit on the ground against it--was supposed to be one of my last hurrahs before the Commercialmas season was thrust upon us. As manager, I get one full weekend off a month, save for August & December. Since those months are so busy our Head Office demands the managerial presence every Saturday. So...this past weekend was to be my last full weekend off for the year. And it was going to be a grand weekend off, filled with plans of relaxation and times spent with friends.

That would be right until, at very near the last minute, one of my employees called out sick with H1N1, taking her out for a week, bare minimum. And she was someone working both the Saturday and Sunday I should have had off. Now I am well aware that she did not set out to get sick, nor was she wanting to spend her time sick...but still the timing couldn't have been any fucking worse unless I was about to leave on a week-long trip.

Worse off, no other store had someone they could spare at such a last-minute notice, and my own remaining store members were: a) unable to work since they hadn't been scheduled in and had already made their own plans (and anyways, I could never force them to work regardless since I'm not evil, and further anyways, I'm pretty sure if I tried to do that it's illegal), and; b) had booked that weekend off well over a month in advance and couldn't take over even if they wanted to.

So as of the end of last week (Spit!), I got to spend my Saturday off working at the store. And to add to the delightfulness of this multiple-uses-of-the-word-'fuck' day, I will probably spend today (Monday) getting my ass chewed off by Head Office for going overtime on my hours. Basically, they only want us to work up to 44 hours a week, since after that we get paid overtime. They make it sound like going overtime is a forbidden act that will result in death, but I'm pretty damned sure that if I have to, they can't stop me due to labour laws and whatnot.

Because this place doesn't pay me enough (and oooooh boy, does it not pay any of their managers enough, hence the reason I'm more than ready to jump this ship the first chance I get), I work the maximum 44 hours a week as much as possible. It's what I had slated myself for last week (Spit!) when I was working under the assumption that I'd have Saturday off and not have to fucking kill that idea. The fact that my employee has H1N1, and it happened at the last possible minute, I know that this should be a health issue thusly exempting me from getting yelled at by my superiors...ironic as that word is currently.

And yet I am certain I'm in for an earful from someone who will refuse to accept Earth logic and me actually taking managerial responsibility for something beyond my control. In the end, I suppose I will have to offer the alternative I could have gone with: taken up 'Plan B: Fuck It' and taken my day off anyways, leaving a single person to work all of Saturday by themselves. A Saturday where we made, at the end of it all, almost four thousand dollars. (That's a busy Saturday, incidentally.)

I could have just waved it aside and let them fend for themselves, happy in knowing I didn't anger the Head Office demigods by going only *two and a half hours* over the standard 44. But dammit, I had to be a responsible person.

The way I see it right now, it really is a case of "screwed either way." I'm damned because I *gasp!* went over my hours by a few. But had I simply not cared, I'd have screwed over my store by having a single person working Saturday, and I know I'd be yelled for that too. I swear I detest the seeming Queen of Hearts logic our Head Office operates by: don't do as I say, do as I say!

Ideally (or unfortunately) I'll make another post in a day or two informing you how much of my ass is left after the inevitable ass-chewing. In the meantime: fuck this all with a rusty, tetanus-carrying pick-axe (with love!). Or better yet, someone dust off my Head Office Appreciation Pancake Maker and hand it over. I feel a need for an alibi coming on....


Today's Soapbox Rant: I don't care how much you scream "Won't somebody think of the children?!" It's your own damned fault your preteen daughter, with her own money on her own time, bought a purse with a Playboy bunny logo on it. We are not responsible for her questionable taste in fashion, or her age-appropriateness for a mere label. There were no naked women on this purse. There was no pornography anywhere on it. As such there was, is and shall forever be no need whatsoever for us to ban, censor or deny any one who wants to shell out the cash to buy it. You can rail against what that label represents, but not to us. That's what public access channels are for. We, on the other hand, don't care. In short: fuck you and your responsible parenting failure.

Labels: the sad but true tale of parenting fail, this is why I hate my job

posted by Phillip at 4:27 AM

 



This blog was meant to be seen on Friday instead of Sunday...and then life got in the way (squiggle little thing that it is).

Anyhoo, it's not often that I recall my dreams. I'm sure I dream often, but damned if I have any recollection of them once I wake up. At best I'm inbued with that nagging sense of having dreamed, but still not having the slightest idea what it may have been about. However, after this dream I think my mind's just deliberately regressing the others in a valiant attempt to preserve my dignity. (Well...whatever of it I still have left. I think there might be a little bit lost somewhere between the couch cushions.) Either that, or my Inner Otaku still has a very firm grip on my proverbial reins.

Yes, Virginia, it was an anime dream. More specifically, a dream based on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This can only mean one thing: if you have no idea what that series is about, all the sad silly anecdotes about this might be lost on you. Feel free to skip on down to the section where I don't have any pants.

To the dream!

Imagine, if you will: a cloudless night, and the full moon shines brightly upon a Japanese inn with a natural hotspring. It's out in the very rural areas, surrounded by trees and mountains. The inn has a large second-floor blacony, almost large enough to be considered a patio. On this balcony, Haruhi & Kyon stare out at the vast expanse of trees Kyon is dressed in the casual robes worn by the inn's customers, while Haruhi looks stunning wearing a summer festival kimono: white with fanciful flower prints on it.

Haruhi is very shy and embarrassed as, in a fit of unbelievable moe, she blurts out to Kyon that she loves him. Instead of offering up one of his usual caustic remarks or commentaries, Kyon tenderly wraps his arms around her and whispers words of affection into her ear. Haruhi blushes and smiles gently as he leads her to his room...

And then my alarm went off, and I was jolted awake. But the dream remained very vivid in my mind. My first thought upon waking up was: "Wow, another anime dream! How wacky is that?"

This thought was quickly followed by: "Wait...Haruhi and Kyon were acting horribly out of character. Oh no! I dreamed of a badly-written Haruhi fanfic!"

And then that thought was quickly followed by: "Wait...they were going to have sex right before I woke up! Oh no! I just dreamed of a badly-written Haruhi lemon fanfic!"

I feel so tainted now.

Oh well, at least this one didn't have the Akiodile. (Imagine, if you will: a monstrous crocodile, easily the size of a Tyrannosaur...but dressed in Akio Ohtori's trademark red shirt...and sporting Akio's trademark light purple, pony-tailed hair. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the mushrooms I had for dinner that night were not typical button mushrooms, as the grocery store insisted.)





In other news, Friday was National Random Act of Kindness Day. Did you perform a random act of kindness? Did you even know you were supposed to? (Me, I'm still holding out for next year to have an official "I Sat Next To You On The Bus Day".)

I wasn't able to get to this little bit of nowhere on Friday, so here is my belated, random act of kindness to all you Interwebs strangers out there: an image of me in my utterly brilliant, no-pants glory.









[Mel-chan's Edit: Hi Hi! Lucky for all of you, I checked out his blog right after he posted it and, since I know his passcode, I decided to perform my random act of kindness too: I removed the picture of him with no pants. You can thank me later.]

Labels: random acts of no pants, The Badly-Written Dreamfics of Haruhi Suzumiya, what the hell is an Akiodile

posted by Phillip at 6:30 AM

 


Mel has just begun a new job, one at a jewelry kiosk in Conestoga Mall. This should make things interesting at least in terms of scheduling; the odds are I'll be adjusting my schedule to fit hers whenever possible so we can travel on the bus together. (Because let's face it; winter driving in the horrid snowstorms is not fun...and neither is the sadly understandable mall policy that all employees have to park in the furthest corners so as to let the customers get the prime spots closer to the doors.)

Interestingly enough, one of her co-workers is an otaku. A newbie, yes, but an otaku never the less. This should make Anime North 2010 a unique situation, since they'll both be asking for the weekend off. Ideally the kiosk will be able to accomodate them and just hand over the hours to other part-timers clamouring for some extra change.

Admittedly this is why I much prefer being the only otaku at my store. Not only do I have the power as manager (Oooh, power trip! Shiney!) to make sure I've got that weekend off, but as the sole otaku I know no one else is going to be vying for it off for the same reasons, thus making me feel guilty for denying a fellow otaku the same once-a-year blitz I get to savour...unless they won't shut up about how Goku can kick the ass of every other anime character in existence.

In that case, they'd be working the whole damn Con weekend. I'm gloriously petty that way.

In other news, I was vastly surprised today when I took Shady out for her morning pee break and discovered a honey bee flitting about. I had honestly thought that with the recent cold snap, any wild bee hives would be preparing for hibernation. (At least, after reading Neil Gaiman's blog entries, I'm under the impression that bees hibernate in the winter. He has two bee hives. I wish I was cool enough to have bees. Not to wear like a beard, of course, but just to say to visitors, "Over there's the garage, and about fifteen meters behind it is the bee farm. We use it to scare away teenagers from trying to open the local Hellmouth.")

Come to think of it, seeing a honey bee unto itself is actually a unique experience for me. Where we live, one typically sees either bumblebees (yays!) or wasps (the opposite of yays!). This is the first time in a long while that I've seen your standard honey bee. It's good to know they're more or less still around--and taking advantage of the strange warm snap too.

This reminds me: our ladybug herd arrived earlier this past week. This is a definitive sign of the impending winter.

For those of you who don't know (or, like me, have forgotten it like so many inconsequential things, like wearing pants), every Fall our apartment complex inexplicably becomes home to a decent-sized herd or ladybugs. The orange Japanese kind, not our usual red ones; sadly, I haven't seen a red ladybug around here in at least 2 years. Those who survive the season will be here all winter, eventually leaving around March. Anyhoo, one morning I took Shady out and noticed a very large, orange-with-spots patch in the top corner of our floor's hallway.

Yep, they'd arrived.

Ever since, wherever you go in the complex, you can see ladybugs skittering about on the walls, the ceiling, the pipes and sometimes even in your own apartment. We've seen three in our place so far. I'm pretty sure Chance has eaten all but one. That's the disadvantage of being a bug in our apartment: we have a cat who will watch you with rapt fascination before hunting and devouring you. On the downside, it means we don't see ladybugs in our apartment; on the plus side, annoying flies have a very short life expectancy when they make it inside. And, years ago when we were in our one-bedroom, and our particularly filthy neighbours had a cockroach infestation that leaked into our home, Chance was the sole reason the cockroaches all but vanished from sight.

Hooray for predatory instincts!

Labels: Gil Grissom would know the answers to these insect questions

posted by Phillip at 6:23 AM

 


The baseball World Series just wrapped up, with the Yankees winning. Now I have no particular thought about this. I'm not a sports fan. My response to the news that the Yankees won was, "The World Series was now?" That should tell the level of interest pro sports in general holds for me. (But hey, if that's your thing, enjoy it!) So as a result, I'm particularly indifferent to the Yankees winning.

Mel, on the other hand, being a die-hard Red Sox fan, feels the need to spit every time I mention the Yankees.

So, if I'm not invested in baseball, why the post? Well, it's mostly anecdotal in nature. Earlier this week, one of the local radio DJs was discussing the hate-on that many people (like Mel) have for the Yankees. This particular DJ said he didn't mind that the Yankees had/bought their talent, but he had issues with the arrogance that the company as a whole tends to flaunt. Which led to the following quote: "If the Yankees were playing a team of Dementors from Harry Potter, I'd be waving the Dementor banner."

...am I the only one who suddenly has this great/evil/deranged idea of an all-Dementor baseball team? There's a fanfic in that, I'm certain.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's sleep to be had.

Labels: Dear lord the Dementor outfielder just kissed Hideo Matsui (and not in a good slashy way)

posted by Phillip at 8:08 PM

 


Dear lord, what can this horrific, monumentous event be? Has the world come to an end? Is life as we know it about to cease? Steady yourselves, it's just an update. I know, I know, something so strange and terrifying should be killed with fire, but I've been meaning to do this for a week now. The urge to sleep has just won out. That and Mel's gotten addicted to that Farmville game, so she's commandeered the laptop most evenings in order to harvest her crops and adopt strange-looking animals.

Why can't you adopt wombats in Farmville? I'd be more interested in playing it if wombats were involved.

In other news, there was a Halloween last night. And for us it was very, very low-key, spent mostly watching movies with friends after work. Pizza was consumed. Mel made cupcakes. Minds were broken by Rocky Horror (and really: what is Halloween without Frank-N-Furter in all his sweet transvestite glory?) in the sense of, and I quote: "That hurt my brain...and I don't even know what the hell I just saw."

Oh, Rocky Horror virgins are so cute that way. (For my first time, I myself managed to hold on until the last act of the movie. Alas, my mind was instantly shattered by the floorshow--ironic since it's my second favourite part of the movie now, over-shadowed by the back-to-back scenes featuring The Timewarp & Sweet Transvestite. Mel's told me that explains so much.) One of these days, I really do want to get up to Toronto on Halloween and witness the full theatrical experience.

...And Mel has just informed me that I can go do that all I want, but I'll be doing it alone, thank you very much. I'd retort with some remark about how she could be my Columbia, but that'll only end in tears and an ass-kicking for me.

We also managed to watch Trick R' Treat, a movie I've been itching to see since I saw the trailers for it...last year. Seriously, I can understand wanting to release a movie and later its DVD around the Halloween season it celebrates, but why did it have a ridiculously limited theatrical release to begin with? I think it showed maybe once or twice during a Toronto film festival last year, and that was it. The rest of us had to wait a year, wondering what sort of executive-laiden pit had swallowed it up. Thankfully, the movie was worth the wait. Much happiness and carnage was beholden (beheld?), and if there is any moral to this movie, it's a two-fold one: first, everyone's an asshole in that small Ohio town, and; second, for the love of God, give the scary-looking Pumpkin-headed kid some candy.

In the end, we called it a night around 4 or 5am (depending on whether you argue Daylight Savings starts at two or whenever you actually go to bed). I haven't done something quite like this in a long time--sporatically at best, and usually with Kevin & Donna since the days of the old Fancrew gatherings--and I must say I am pleased to note that my body still holds up pretty well to this sort of shindig. The ultimate test will still be if I can survive the "breakfast of champions" consisting of a Pepsi and a slice of pizza. If I'm okay after that (and I'd better be considering what today requires me to do...gyaaaaa.) then there's hope for the future!

Maybe I'll get lucky and discover that last night someone mistook our store for a witch and burned it down. That would be a nice surprise.



Today's Engrish: I saw a shirt on a university student that said...and I wish I had a camera for this one..."Flesh Imp." I have no idea what it could mean, apart from possibly advertising that she's a succubus. I wonder how many propositions she's gotten whilst wearing that shirt.

Labels: So come up to the lab and see what's in the tab I see you shiver with antici...pation

posted by Phillip at 8:54 AM

 


It’s been about two weeks since the last bit of nowhere, and roughly a week since our store moved to its newer, swankier location. I’ve spent most of both those times either exhausted at work, exhausted at home or attempting to fight off a particularly nasty cold. (Up until today, the head cold and I were stalemated…and then it migrated down into my throat, following the path of least resistance. Now I sound like I’ve got lungs filled with sawdust whenever I talk. Sure it gets me lots of sympathetic customers, but dammit, there goes my hopes of singing soprano.)

Hm? You’re asking about the move? It was mostly good news on that front. Since the new location was bigger, we spent more time figuring out where to put everything. Moving it was the easy part, especially since I discovered that we could just load up a couple of our display bunks with mounds of random stock and just roll them through the employee access corridors. Then again, I did manage to break one bunk in the process (don’t worry; it was a bunk getting sent back to the warehouse anyways), either proving something about physics or how craptastically-built the bunks are. My money’s on the latter. But not the latte. I’m not a coffee guy.

Our new stockrooms are also amazingly huge, separately and combined. I fear we’re going to need the space, since we’re selling quite a lot of stock and I know Head Office loves flattening their stores with more crap—er, glorious merchandise than they can comfortably hold.

I am also aware that any sort of move like this requires a hiccup or two, and this proved no exception. The first hiccup was more or less a hiccup, and it primarily involved my annoyance at two other store managers brought in to help us move & merchandise the new store. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the help. But when both managers were telling me how to do things based on their store layouts (both of which were vastly different from mine), I get admittedly twitchy. On more than one occasion, what they said and what was physically possible were not two congruous things. Although I did get a kick out of being told my ceiling signage was wrong, only to smile and tell them, “That’s how our District Manager wanted it.” Which trumped and completely negated any protest they could have given me.

Oh, schadenfreude, how I lovesies you!

The other bit of asshat-ery came courtesy of Head Office. This I should have expected: they were so on-the-ball when it came to building the new store, it was only a matter of time before the other proverbial shoe fell. Fortunately, the shit and fan it subsequently hit were not my business or domain, at it were. Apparently our lease on the old temporary location ended at midnight of the last day of our move (a Wednesday). I guess Head Office believed they still had it to the end of the week (a Saturday, and obviously not a Wednesday) despite being told otherwise. As a result, they couldn’t clear out everything they wanted from the old location. They were able to remove anything that wasn’t bolted to the walls or ceiling. For the most part, this was fine. However…the slat walls that were bolted to the walls were all new, and the H/O execs wanted it for other stores.

Oops?

This particular situation gave me one hell of a headache last Friday evening, because of course Murphy’s Law has to be in full effect: our maintenance guy, Tom (horray for Tom, who hates Head Office asshat-ery too!), arrived to dismantle the store…only to discover it was nigh impossible. I hadn’t been informed of anything, and I made the mistake of assuming that since it was Head Office’s business they’d be competent enough to take care of things. Aha haaaaa…dumbasses. So being the closest thing to a liason, I got to spend Friday evening trying to contact the mall and Head Office to smooth something over.

Bear in mind: Friday. Evening.

No luck from Head Office, they’d all buggered out of the offices by then. But through an amazing stroke of luck, we managed to find someone from the mall who was able to at least allow us to remove the unbolted things (bunks, cash counter, shelves) for the next day. It ended decently enough, I suppose, but that’s not how I wanted to spend my last hour of work on a Friday.

And the opening?

Busy. Busybusybusybusybusybusy!!!

The three days of “Grand Opening” for the mall saw hordes of people tromping through to check out the new stores, the new foodcourt and the new wing. We did gangbuster business ourselves, earning what I know will be the first on-budget month we’ve had in exactly a year. (By sheer random happenstance, exactly a year ago we moved to our sketchy temp location, and no one apparently knew we were still in the mall, so people never even bothered to look for us let alone shop with us.) The human traffic is only starting to quiet down now, but we’re still getting more people in than before. Makes me optimistic about the Christmas season…then again, I am still actively looking for another vocation that has a fairer pay-for-the-punishment ratio to it.

Our store traffic was trifling compared to some of the other new faces, like Bath & Body Works, or Pink by Victoria Secret. (Mel squees with delight over the first one, but could care less about the latter. And she’s indifferent about lattes too.) They were barely even standing room only, and even now draw sizeable crowds.

For me the big draws are: the new crepe place just up the corridor from us (mmmm…crepes. Oh, Café Crepe in Toronto, how I miss you!), and the fact that the Coles bookstore is right across the hall from us.

Speaking of, I learned an interesting fact from one of my friends working at Coles. For proper context, Coles moved from an older location in the mall like us, but they were closed for a full week prior to the Grand Opening. Understandable, given the sheer volume and weight of what they had to cart back & forth. However, not everyone was pleased. The assistant manager there told me that when they reopened, they were overwhelmed by a crowd of older women who HAD to have their romance novels. As in: they were ready to kill & eat anyone in their way. Their withdrawal was that terrifying.

There. Now you’re caught up on this blog. Don’t you feel special? Don’t you feel enlightened? Don’t you feel the urge to declare this blog the bestest ever thing since No Pants Day?

What? You don’t?

Well then, we’ll just have to fix that by leaving you all basking in my utter gloriousness with my own special “no pants” state!






Dammit. Stupid Interwebs...


Today’s Lesson: nothing is quite so ominous as a funeral home advertising a “free gift” for filling out a mail-in survey. “Oh look, honey, what a cute little toy headstone! Is that for me…and did I forget your birthday again?”

Labels: glorious no pants fail, one store two store new store screwed-by-Head-Office store

posted by Phillip at 4:24 AM

 


Thanksgiving weekend is upon us, and I for one will be enjoying taking a day off to relax and ideally not do much of anything--aside from eating, of course. But all things in good time. For right now I'm still stuck in "most work on new store" mode. I've been in that mode for the last few days, as we've finally been able to start moving all the backstock (well, what little backstock we had since our backroom was the size of a pithy walk-in closet) and excess stock.

Unlike last year--and funny enough, we'll be moving again almost a year to the exact day from last year-s move--we've had more time and opportunity to prepare ourselves. Head Office hasn't been smashing us with new stock, and the new store is larger so we don't have to downsize our merchandise. Most of the effort is just figuring out how to arrange everything in the new set-up.

Last time around I pushed myself into near-exhaustion and gave myself a rather nasty cold in the process. This time around, time and experience are proving me right. True, I've been nursing a cold for the last few days, but the cold showed up outside of all the stock to-and-fro'ing, and I've been taking Buckley's as a preventative measure. (Tastes like ass, but oh, does it work so well!)

As of now, all that's left is to dismantle the wall displays and move the bunk displays. And we won't be doing that until Tuesday/Wednesday, since we'll still be open for most of those days and we kinda need something to sell. In the meantime, our stockroom and the back half of the current store are very sparse and empty. On the other hand, our new store's stockroom is filled with extra crap and still has ample space to spare.

Here is where the joy leaps in and breaks out into song. Our new back room is in fact 2 back rooms, and each of them are large and have shelves all over the place. Suddenly I don't have to turn sideways just to get around the door. Suddenly I don't hit the back of either stockroom after walking two steps. Suddenly our bathroom isn't hidden behind a mound of repaired luggage waiting to be picked up.

This makes me smile so very much. It also makes me worry, because I'm finding far too much joyousness in having large stockroom(s) again. I'm one step away from proudly declaring a Hawaiian Shirt Day at work.

Which reminds me: a few days ago was National "Walk To School Day," where we were all encouraged to walk not just to school, but to walk anywhere for a half-hour to promote physical fitness and well-being. I don't know how the weather was for anyone else, but over here it poured down rain the entire day. Somehow I can't exactly picture parents letting their kids tromp out in a downpour for a half-hour.

And yet, somehow I can almost see this particular parental remark occurring: "Hooray for physical fitness...now get your ass out there, little Billy, and don't give me any of that 'but I'll get sick with a cold' crap either! This is a national day. I let you get away with all that talking like a pirate, so you're going to march out there and you're going to like it no matter how soaked you are!"

Labels: moving the store, National Get Soaked On The Way To School Day, stockroom surprises

posted by Phillip at 7:44 AM

 

For any of you who listen to the radio, maybe you've heard the ads for Property Guys-dot-com. The one that caught my prying ears especially was the one that went, "Paying agent fees for real estate is about as useful as rubber lips on a woodpecker." Which would be a great comparison...if woodpeckers actually possessed lips. Being birds and all, you know, I was pretty darned sure they had beaks/bills. Say it all with me now: FAIL.

Anyhoo...

There's roughly 2 weeks left before we move into our swanky new store. They've finished construction on it, and I must say the new digs are a vast improvement over the current just-try-to-hide-the-crap temp job. For one thing, our new store is white and shiny. Very white and very shiny. And our stockroom is actually 2 stockrooms. With lots of shelves. I can't even begin to say how joyous I am to have shelves again.

For once our Head Office has actually done something mostly right. Of course...as Newton's Law dictates, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. That opposite reaction came today in a "daily reminder" that showed up on our computer's main screen. And I quote: "Remember: retail is people. Your people. Make them feel special." Now I don't know about you, but that phrasing sounds rather Engrish, vaguely dirty and definitely in need of an editor.

I feel sullied just by reading it. How about you? But let's not dwell on vaguely dirty, sullying things. In other news, would you perhaps like a chandelier shaped like a penis?

http://gizmodo.com/5360742/penis-chandelieryes-penis-chandelier

I know I would. Not only would it make a great conversational piece at parties, but if there was some sad tragedy involving said chandelier, I would be able to make even more great conversation at later parties by saying, "You think this party is wild? You should have been here last month. This giant crystal penis fell from the ceiling and just crushed this poor bastard! Hah ha ha haaaaa...so, anyone want me to put on a Backstreet Boys album?"

But so as to ensure the chandelier leave a bad taste in your interior decorating mouth, I'll cap off this little bit of nowhere with a particular cool (but sadly now "shuffled the mortal coil") Japanese cafe. Jason pointed this out in his LJ, and Mel pointed it to me:

http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/kashiwa-mystery-cafe.html

The idea of buying the next person's order, while you receive your predecessor's order, would make for a fun cafe. I'd definitely have enjoyed the surprise...and ideally had enough cash to make things really interesting for whomever came after me.

Labels: english fail, kashiwa mystery cafe, retail is people (like soylent green), this is me attempting not to make a penis joke in the labels

posted by Phillip at 5:14 PM

 


At the front of the Coles bookstore in our mall, there’s a table filled with older hardcover novels that are on clearance. One of them happens to be a tale based in the Renaissance period, and as far as the dust jacket tells me, it’s one of those “the story behind the inspiration for a famous art masterpiece” books. This one centres around Michelangelo and his “Birth of Venus” painting, notably the woman who becomes his model for the titular goddess.

Now the cover of the book doesn’t have the Venus painting, but it’s got part of one of Michelangelo’s other paintings on it. And it’s that of a nude woman--a tastefully painted nude woman

Hang on…is that a torch-bearing mob I see in the distance? And are they chanting their usual mantra of, “Won’t somebody think of the children? What will happen if they see a nude woman on display like that?”

Well as it so happens, I know exactly what will happen when a child sees that obviously scandalous book cover. I was witness to such a terrible encounter. As I left the store, an 8 year-old boy walking by saw the cover, pointed to it and without a second’s hesitation exclaimed (and I quote), “Saggy boobs! Saggy boobs!”

So please, people: don’t display your Renaissance paintings out for little boys to see. Otherwise you’ll never hear the end about how Renaissance cleavage needs to be perkier. Don’t think of the children. Think of poor bastards like me who nearly choked to death on their laughter when they heard that reaction.

Labels: Saggy boobs are destroying books for children everywhere

posted by Phillip at 7:10 AM

 


You know, there are many things I'm still attempting to Zenfully accept as a way of life, as something I cannot change no matter how much I might try or wish otherwise. I was able to keep my sanity as I saw Halloween costume displays up & running a week before school started. Even now I've been able to keep a sense of understanding about why our store already has 2 bunks of winterwear. (But on the plus side, at least this year one of those two bunks has new things this time! New items! What a wacky notion!)

Alas...my Zen was profoundly, uh, unZenned this weekend. I happened into the Bay store within our mall, and noted how they were changing the set-up in the seasonal section. Gone were the patio tables and BBQs. In their place were open boxes displaying...Christmas trees.

Why, God? Why?!

There's a curious proverb that goes something along the lines of: "Even the Buddha loses patience at some point." Well there's my point right there, and it's decorated in tinsel and candycanes, and is wearing an angel for a hat. I'm starting to think now's a good time to retaliate and dive right back into the Christmas novel "The Stupidest Angel," where the titular angel resurrects Santa Claus and inadvertently unleashes a zombie plague.

But to at least give some semblance of balance, here's a great moment in DC comics where someone's inner otaku is showing.

http://www.wiccananime.com/smcards/sections/spottings/HinoRei.jpg

And if you read the second panel, you'll notice that not only has Superman lampshaded this, but might also be an otaku as well. Now all we need to do is make absolutely sure the martian Manhunter doesn't end up getting inspired by Nabeshin. (Who else has suddenly pictured the big, green hero sporting an afro? Yeah, that's my bad...)

Labels: can't sleep the Christmas trees will eat me, Martian Manhunter x Super Sailor Mars is my new favourite ship

posted by Phillip at 7:53 PM

 


A few years ago, Hit Entertainment started bringing out the Fraggle Rock seasons on DVD box sets, and those boxes were nothing short of glorious, filled with lots of extra bits for the raging Henson fan (such as myself). And then, roughly a year ago, they went and stuck their corporate heads up their corporate asses and decreed that there would be no 4th & final season box. Instead, they released a "complete series" box set, forcing those of us who'd bought seasons 1-3 to either go without the final season, or cough up even more cash to have two sets of the first 3 seasons.

At the time, Hit did promise to make the complete series box one loaded with lots of extras, one that (and I am pretty much quoting the Email they sent back to us when Mel asked about this kerfuffle) "would honour the spirit of Jim Henson and his works."

Spoiler: it didn't. In fact, it failed. Hard.

Needless to say, the backlash from fans was impressive. No one liked the idea of having re-buy seasons 1-3, but the series box had jack-all to offer in terms of the promised extras. More to the point, it was still worth keeping the original season boxes since they had extra things that the complete series didn't include. I think the fanbase ended up being divided down the middle: half didn't buy the complete series out of protest, and the other half bought the series box if only to have the final season. Amazon's feedback on the complete series was particularly scathing: most everyone posting on it stated they were buying the box to support the show, but they despised the way Hit had done this.

I ended up falling more or less with the former crowd. I waited, partially because I despised what had happened and partially because I had no the finances to buy the $120 series box.

Today makes me happy. And here's why:

http://www.amazon.ca/Fraggle-Rock-Complete-Final-Season/dp/B002OHROA6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1253273777&sr=1-2


Some days one can't help but smile. The inner Henson geek in me rejoices.

Hold on...Mel has just informed me there's nothing inner about my Henson geekery. She's also informed me that whenever Henson is involved in the conversation, I can't shut up about it. She's also informed me that yes, she rejoices with me, but my geeking is drowning out her Katamari Damacy.

I'll revel on the couch in the meantime.

Labels: Fraggle Rock and Roll

posted by Phillip at 4:25 AM

 


The Back-To-School season has reached its endgame, and yea, though there were casualties on both sides of the counter, I am relieved to say that I have survived. Not without a newfound dose of general contempt for the consumer mindset, but I think that’s just the cynicism talking. Though this does bring up an interesting question, one that I fear shall never be answered or remedied without the use of large firearms or snarling rottweilers ironically called “Muffin.”

That question remains: if a mall is open for 5 hours, and thusly people have 5 hours to shop however they like, why is it that our store is ridiculously empty for the first 4.5 hours and insanely crazy for the last half hour (plus an extra 5-10 minutes after the mall has officially closed)? Are people physically incapable of doing their essential shopping earlier? Are they terrified that if they don’t get it right now, the world might end and they’ll be mocked by St. Peter at dem Pearly Gates for not having a stylish enough purse or suitcase? Are they compelled by the power of Christ (or alternately, asshattery) to gather in our store at the very end of the day and demand everything under the sun?

Now I’m not a particularly violent man…well, usually, unless zombies are involved, in which case bring on the shotguns and gin!…but I really do fear that one day I will end up on the news for having done some rather unsavory things to a last-minute customer who just “had to buy something” in the literal last minute before I closed the store.

Or maybe not. That’s only if they find the body, and you’d be surprised how much our luggage boxes can hold…not that I’ve hidden in then to scare small children or other store employees, oh no…perish the thought…absolutely…tee hee! >)

So, for those of you who haven’t frantically clicked the “Back” button in sudden fear of being left alone in this blog with me, welcome back!

There could be the usual sad, sad apologies for not having updated this little bit of nowhere over the last month and a half. Excuses could be listed, such as “we had to go grocery shopping after a long shift and got home really late” or “my nose itched.” In the end, the truth is probably the better way to go: I was too tired and really didn’t care. Now I know that sounds bad, not wanting you all to read about all the silly little bits and aggravations I experience, but fact is lately all I’ve had to write about have been the aggravations and fatigue. I’m sure there were a few sill bits here and there. Alas, I’ve forgotten them. Maybe if I can recall a few I’ll add them here. As it is, I had to dust off my laptop when I sat down tonight to write this.

Mind you…there is one funny-in-a-maddening-way anecdote worth commenting on. It involves our Head Office, and the usual rectal-cranial conversion they’ve become rather known for. For this tale to be properly understood, you need to remember just one critical thing: our current store is small, temporary and due to be vacated for our new location in less than a month.

It was for those specific reasons that our District Manager deliberately put a freeze on large shipments to our store. We’d have no room to store these items, and since we’ll be moving shortly, most of that excess would just end up being transferred to other stores via Purolator…so you can imagine the waste of money by shipping things to us, only for them to be shipped elsewhere a few weeks later.

Two weeks ago, right in the prime of our Back-To-School sales, our manifest printed out 20 pages of boxes due in. Since at worst our shipments usually number 4 pages, you can imagine our panic. 130 boxes of waaaaaaay to many backpacks (in styles we weren’t selling too, might I add) were supposed to arrive that day. They never did. Two days passed, and the 130 boxes were still on the manifest.

Well…that’s not entirely accurate. It was 130 plus an extra 50 overstock boxes that wanted to show up the next day too, and then there were also a backlog of boxes due to arrive with regular shipments but never showed. So now there were over 180 boxes expected. And we were going through printing paper like there was no tomorrow. Way to be environmentally friendly, Head Office!

Naturally I checked with our D.M. to see what was up. She informed me that because of our stock freeze, those boxes were being held up at the distribution warehouse, collecting dust. She had even gone so far as to inform a Vice President of the company about this, insisting that the boxes be redistributed to other stores. She added that ideally, in a few days the manifest should be reset to reflect the deletion of those boxes from our list.

A week passed. During the busiest period of the entire season for us…guess what arrived? Oh yes, Murphy’s Law is not only alive and well, but also a complete sadist. The first day saw 60 boxes inexplicably show up. We managed to work through them. The following day, the rest of them appeared.

Needless to say, our poor Purolator driver was not pleased. Neither were we, of course. And all this led to a most amusing conversation I had with my D.M. She ended up calling on the day we got the 130+ boxes in, though for a completely different reason. The conversation went something like this:

D.M.: “How’s it going over there?”

Me: “Oh, I’ve had better days.”

D.M.: “Really? What’s happening?”

Me: “You remember that funny joke you told me last week, about how we weren’t getting those 150+ boxes in?”

D.M.: [unimpressed] “WHAT?”

Me: “Oh yeah, we had about 50 yesterday and the rest are here now. We’re attempting to go through them as we speak. And I’ve also managed to create a blockade in the back half of the store that’s taller than me; it’s the only way we could stack them in a way that didn’t create a fire hazard.”

D.M.: [even more unimpressed] “And I told them not to send you anything…”

Me: “I think someone missed that memo.”


Whereupon that topic ended with my D.M. making cryptic remarks that seemed to promise physical violence on those responsible. At least that’s what I’m guessing since here voice played somewhere between “tired and exasperated” and “D.M. SMASH PUNY HEAD OFFICE DUMBASSES!!!!1onesies!”

This is rather sad too, since by all accounts our Head Office has been really on the ball in getting our new store up & running. I think they’re going to be the first contractors to finish the storefront in the mall expansion section. I had been hoping this was a sign of greater things to come.

Sadly, I was only half right. Greater things, yes, but greater doesn’t automatically mean “more competent” or “more respectable.” Hell, I would have settled for “more cowbell” from them. As it is, most of what they gave us will be going straight out to other stores in maybe a week or two. I think this is why I laugh and cry so much at the management in the Dilbert strips: I know that these people exist, and they fear Earth logic.

Other than all of that, with the store activity ideally quieting down (well, as best as it can with an impending move and new location on the horizon), I may find more time and energy to update the blog. At least I’m really hoping for the chance to do that. This little bit of nowhere deserves better.

On the other hand, that may be more difficult now since Mel’s gotten the both of us addicted to Numb3rs. Plus we’re attempting to nab a bunch of the Ghibli movies before any of them go the way of the Totoro. If you missed one of Mel's blink-and-you'll-never-see-another-one-for-six-months LJ posts, there's been a terrible development with the subtitled Totoro DVDs. Namely they're going extinct. If you can find one, I recommend you cough up the money now because if you want it a year down the road, you may be paying about three times today's price.

(As it is, I've spent the last year kicking myself for ignoring the $30 Project Ako DVD box set at Hairy Tarantula, only to turn around and discover that now Ako's gone extinct too. Dammit...)

Anyhoo, back to Ghibli. I surprised Mel with Nausicaa a few days ago…and after watching it again for the first time in maybe ten years, I’d forgotten how much most of the human cast were assholes. It’s kind of depressing when you’re rooting for the weird, nightmarish-looking bugs. But on the plus side, everyone else being assholes is what makes Nausicaa and her gang stand out as being so damned awesome.


Today’s Lesson: your friend’s 9 week-old puppy thinks everything is a chewtoy. Even your chin.

Labels: cheer up Emo blogger, Curse of the store of the back to school season, this is why someone from Head Office was found neatly folded and stuffed into a luggage box

posted by Phillip at 6:06 PM

 


It's still August, and thusly still the back-to-school season. No doubt you are already bracing yourselves for an incredible (and whiny-sounding) tirade against the season. But fear not! I have decided that instead, courtesy of links provided to me from various friends, I am here to provide you with a handy dandy guide to knowing your cakes.

For example, here is a case of a good Horrible Cake:

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/08/dr-horrible-sunday-sweets.html



And conversely, here is a case of a bad Horrible Cake:

http://anime.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=600048237

Labels: Damn you Sean Gaffney damn you, Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Cake, you'll wish the second cake really was a lie

posted by Phillip at 5:32 PM

 


So here I am this morning, watching Elton John and the Electric Mayhem Band singing "Good-bye Yellow Brick Road," and I'm contemplating the eponymous yesterday Mel & I got to endure. Sure, it seems somewhat tacky to have been without a post for half a month, only to return to whiny bitching (glorious, high-definition whiny bitching!), but rest assured this will only fill half your Emo-esque content for the day. For the other half, I'm sure a simple venture into Fandom Wank will give you enough to last the rest of the week.

Anyhoo, here's to Monday. This truly was a moment where everything conspired against us. First and foremost, our store was having 8 tables going up in the mall corridor. Not a bad thing, certainly, since our store's now quite swanky without it's epic piles of backpacks and lunchbags hiding everywhere. (And I do mean everywhere: half our luggage was pushed out because stacks of this stuff were lurking behind it, ready to messily devour any small child who would dare poke their curious faces into...uh, nevermind. Pay no heed to the suspicious bodycount in our fine establishment!)

So, tables. Eight of them. Out in front of the store. Which naturally meant that I was pretty much out of commission as a customer-interacting employee since I needed to decorate the tables with our pretty man-eating backpacks...er, did I say man-eating? That is utter falsehood! A lie, I tell you! Lie!

(They're soul-eating, not man-eating. These are equal opportunity, carnivorous backpacks.)

Now, this unto itself wasn't a bad thing. We had 4 people on shift over the course of the day, so I knew I could stick at the tables with minimal dusruption to the store. Or so I thought...until, right at the start of the day, Mel took a call from the 4th person on duty, who is now apparently spending the entire week in the hospital under observation.

She never did specify to Mel just why she was going in "under observation," which leads me to believe in one of two possibilities. Either she: a) might have Swine Flu, or b) is actually bagging off her job to spend the week in Cuba for a family wedding. As cruel as it sounds, I'm hoping it's the former; you can't get fired because of a possible Swine Flu infection. Fortuitously, she only had 2 shifts this week, but unfortunately today happened to be one of them. And now our store had two people plus me-on-tables to interact with customers.

Not exactly the greatest in timing, but still doable.

Except...for the simple fact that our District Manager was/is coming in for Tuesday. And that was/is my day off for the week. Which naturally meant that I wouldn't be around the help our or answer any pressing questions she had. And I'm pretty good in placating any concerns she might have about anything. Now, she did know well in advance that I wouldn't be in Tuesday, but she still wanted to come in, mostly because she's got a full rotation of stores to visit this week, and for us it was either visit Tuesday or not until September.

The downside to all this was that I wanted--if not needed--to make sure that not only the tables were done as close to our DM's preferences as I could, but to also make sure the store was up to snuff for her visual standards. (Which of course also meant that the soul-eating backpacks had to be hidden under the tables so they'd do minimal damage.) So there we were on Monday: one person short, with table displays to set up, and a store to make as pretty as possible so the DM wouldn't growl at us.

Now this even was not entirely a bad thing. We knew that we'd be worn out at the end of the day, but we could manage it. Except...everyone showed up at our store today. Everyone. More often than not, our store was filled with 2-3 people or families/groups of people, making any of the aforementioned tasks nearly impossible to do. Every time we turned around, half the things we were cleaning or tweaking ended up being utterly undone.

The tragic part about this is that, were any of these four aspects removed, we'd have managed just fine. DM not coming in on my off-day? Hey, no problem. We could leave things a little messier than usual. No tables? Hah, Yesterday would have been kid's play. Four employees on duty? Piece of cake for everything else! Monday being not swarmed with people? Bring it on.

But no, they all conspired together like some sinister X-File-ish organization. All we need now is some old guy smoking a cigarette as he watches us like a stalker, and we've got a show! (Though knowing my luck, I'd get eaten by the leech-monster before the opening credits rolled, and Mel would be a recurring character.)

By end of the day, we were over-worked, over-tired and ready to just unleash the hordes of soul-eating backpacks on the crowds in retaliation. And then, just to drive home the point of how aggravating it had been, the radio decided to play The Boomtown Rats' "(Tell Me Why) I Don't Like Mondays."

I pretty much turned to Mel at that point and said, "They're playing our song!"

There was a silver lining in yesterday's cloud, mind you, since we met up with a friend and got to see District 9. I have since decided I'm going to greet customers for the rest of the Back To School season in a fully armed power loader. Sure, things might get messy with all the exploding body parts, but after Monday...ooh, it'll be so worth the squeegee.

However, there was an unintended side-effect of all the shaky-cam action, namely the fact that it amplified my already burgeoning back-of-the-eyeball-stabbing headache and made me feel like I was about to puke. I've watched movies like this before without any such nausea, so I'm chalking it all up to the sheer exhaustion from the rest of the day kicking my ass while it was in the theatre chair.

And in a most anti-climactic ending, I pretty much crawled into bed the second we got home an slept for the rest of the night. Given how I feel mostly better today, I'm now quite glad I've got today off to recover from Monday. Sure, things yesterday might have been easier had I been in the store today, since I could still be tweaking things for the DM. But I seriously need to spend all my time doing very little of anything today.

And hey, you never know: maybe the invading, soul-eating backpacks will riot in the mall and cause it to close down early. We can only hope.

Labels: the running gag involving backpacks who will devour your soul but not your pants, why must Garfield be right, workday hell

posted by Phillip at 6:16 AM

 


While I was on the bus ride home, I happened to look out the window and saw in passing a man who had one of the Japanese "I Would Kill For Haruhi Suzumiya" shirts. No doubt some of you are immediately impressed with my sudden ability to read kanji and hiragana. And while I'm not one to dissuade the reverent worship of me by the masses...I still can't read Japanese, but I recognize the shirt design from my forrays onto JList.

And no, I'm not looking for H-dojin there. Mel's compeito addiction has to be filled by special international orders.

So there. (Ha!)

Labels: my blog would kill for Haruhi (but only if she promised to make me look like Hugh Jackman when she reset the world)

posted by Phillip at 4:32 PM

 


…Which is certainly much better than the alternative “fear and loathing with Los Plagos.” Then again, if Los Plagos was involved, I’d at least be able to grab a shotgun and take out any personal aggravations on the nearest person whose head exploded into a writhing mass of axe-like tentacles. It’s the best kind of therapy, really: each zombiesque corpse you leave behind is another step forward to personal recovery…and a lower ammo stockpile, so that arms dealer with the trenchcoat had better show up soon.

There’s been a fair bit of radio silence from this little bit of nowhere. Most of it’s been voluntary. The long and the short of everything is that July has proven to be, with a handful of shiny notable exceptions, a rather bleak and disparaging month; the sort of month I will be cheerfully waving good-bye to once August mercilessly mows it down. And considering how punishing August is for me in terms of the job and the “Oh my God, did all these idiots plan ahead to show up to buy their Back-To-School shit at the same time?!” insanity, it sadly attests to how little love I have for July ‘09.

Wait! You there in the front row with the pants primed for drive-by bukkake! This is not Emo-Blog! If it were anything, it would be the Champagne Room, and there would be no Wangsting in said room. (Sex, on the other hand, is fine, so long as you have a safety word, no goats and the discretion to keep your voice down. Other people are trying to play a game checkers in this room, you know.)

The silver linings in the July-shaped cloud are worth mentioning, of course, even if they are in brief anecdotal form.

First and foremost, congrats to Diana & Mark on their newfound bundle of “What the hell did he do to this diaper?!” joy. Apparently, Mel’s going to videotape me changing diapers once we have kids, mostly just so she can loop the video and laugh and laugh and laugh at my horrified voice.

I also had the chance to sit down with most of my family again, with my Dad visiting my sister to see his grand-daughter for the first time. It’s been 2 years since the three of us were all in a room together. Strangely enough, that previous occasion was my sister’s wedding. But it was a rare chance for all of us to lounge about (amidst feedings and diaper changes) and basically revert back to the way we were when we used to live under a singular roof. I never realized how much I missed it until I was back in KW again. At the very least, Mel & I need to get down to Nova Scotia to see my Dad (and most of the Smith family) before 2010 is out.

…and one time zone away, there’s the sound of Ysa cheering upon reading that last line. And no doubt she’s also plotting how to get me so drunk one night that I’ll wake up the next day wearing (gasp!) pants and find myself in possession of a Dreamwidth account.

Terrifying, I know. I shall have to be on my guard the entire time.

The other unique July experience is one I don’t think I’ll ever experience again, so it’s worth mentioning here: last week, one of the blue budgies escaped from the pet store in the mall. After an entire morning and most of the afternoon flitting about, she decided our store made the ideal roost.

Imagine my surprise when I heard the distinctive chirping out in the hall (the sort that was definitely someone’s ringtone), followed swiftly by a little blur of colour shooting into the store. The budgie perched herself on the topmost row of merchandise we had: a row of duffle bags atop our shelves. Whenever we looked up, all we could see was this little blue, feathery head staring back down at us.

Fortuitously, the security guard happened to be in the hallway at the time, and already knew why there was a budgie in our store. He’d been trying to find the bird during his rounds, but I guess our store was the first one the budgie had settled into. So for the next 15 minutes we were serenaded with the sounds of budgie chirps, and living in abject fear of being pooped on.

(Spoiler: no poop was flung.)

Eventually, the pet store was able to spare an employee to come in and capture the budgie. It took our store ladder, a special bird net and two failed attempts (wherein our Little Miss Budgie took off at the last possible second, flew around the store once or twice, then settled on a different duffle bag) before she left our lives as unexpectedly as she’d arrived.

And that’s just about it for the July highlights. I know there’s still another few days left of the month, so ideally July will behave and leave us pleasantly to our own devices--not to confused with Cool Devices, unless we’re dubbers behaving badly. If things go well, this might close out on a more positive note.

On the other hand, this little bit of nowhere also gives me the chance to utterly break the melancholic mood with…Handerpants!!!


http://www.handerpants.com/


Yes indeed, the Intarwebs knows no boundaries when it comes to WTFery. I can only assume this is our attempt to one-up Japan for its back-in-the-day used panty vending machines.

Labels: Bye Bye Budgie, Fear and Loathing of Los Plagos, The Titular Rise And Fall of Spongebob Handipants, Why must all these tabs end with bukkake

posted by Phillip at 4:35 AM

 


As many of you have already witnessed, courtesy of many an LJ gacking, Char never looked so fabulous:





It's like a bizarre cross of Hello Kitty and a haute couture fashion show exploded all over it. But if you thought that was strange, perhaps this will give you newfound respect for the F-Gundam: MeatWater. Yes indeed, did you ever take a drink from a bottle of water and ask yourself, "Why this is so utterly bland! Why can't my water taste like fried chicken? Or Buffalo Wings? Or haggis?!" Well, through the marvels of technology, your wish can be granted with...

http://www.dinnerinabottle.com/


And while you may laugh, oh yes, do bear in mind this company is dead serious. If I stumble across some before next year's Anime North, I think I'm buying a bottle just so we can witness everyone's expressions as we slug back a shot of cheeseburger-flavoured water.

All of which brings me to a strange little tale that bears with it a strange little query. Last night, Mel & I were making Pad Thai, and recipe we go by called for 4 eggs. The time came for the eggs to be prepped, and I was the designated egg-beater. Dutifully I took out the egg carton, cracked open the first shell...and then stared down at not one, but two distinct egg yolks now sitting in the mixing bowl.

Apparently, I'd found twins.

Which led to the ensuing query (and Today's Question), as I asked my wife, "Um, Mel? Do twin yolks count as one or two eggs?"

Naturally, Mel blinked, leaned over in confusion and, spotting the twin yolks, said, "I have absolutely no idea. But we'll still need at least two more. We'll figure it out after."

So I nodded and cracked open the next egg...and beheld another set of twins. Which led to the ensuing query, "Um, Mel? Technically I have four eggs in the bowl...but does this really count as two or four?"

Naturally Mel blinked again, leaned over if further confusion and said, "Uh, good question. They're a little small, though. Maybe add one more egg, just in case."

So I nodded and cracked open the next egg. Guess how many yolks were in that one? All of this led to the ensuing query as I exclaimed, "Three sets of twins? How fertile were these chickens?!"

In the end, we went with...er, 3 eggs but 6 yolks...for our Pad Thai. But I'm still left wondering if the twin yolks should have constituted as 4 eggs instead of 2. I'm going to have to google this. (On the other hand, if we were just frying up eggs in a pan, I would have just laughed at the added bonuses and considered it my lucky day.)

Labels: Fabulous Gundams ahoy, My lifelong wish for Haggis in a bottle is now fulfilled, two egg yolks are better than one (but they do screw up the recipe)

posted by Phillip at 7:27 AM

 


If you were at an LCBO (the government-owned chain of liquor stores, fyi, for you non-Canucks) yesterday at all, you have my pity. Not because you were probably looking at a bottle of cabernet sauvignon to go with your grilled snapper when you should have been considering the unoaked chardonnay (I googled this to be sure...and now I'm hungry, dammit), or that you were daring to cheapen your gin & tonic with Seagram's Extra Dry instead of using Bombay Sapphire.

For anyone who missed it, yesterday was the official strike deadline for all LCBO workers; as of midnight last night, they were within their right to walk off the job and leave thousands of Canadians without their hard liquor. (Thankfully, the separately-owned and/or run Beer Store chains would still offer their wares, in a worst case scenario.)

Now imagine, if you will: an LCBO store that was only this busy the day before Christmas, when everyone was stocking up on party drinks and dinner wines. From what some reports were, yesterday’s crowds made Christmas Eve Day look like a slow day. This scares me; believe me, I was there at an LCBO on Christmas Eve Day on ’08, picking up some Zinfandel for Mel. Thankfully I had no pressing matters to attend to and actually enjoyed idling about in the crowd as opposed to being one of the poor bastards on the other side of the counter (ah, retail!), so I didn’t care about the 20-minute wait in line. But to put this into perspective, despite having all 5 tills open and the employees pushing through customers in a professional, rapid-fire fashion, every line went straight to the back of the store, with at least two lines curving around most of the back wall too.

So when the news reports were of even grander crowds who were terrified of a country suddenly without their liquor, all I could think of was how thankful I was to be in a luggage store. Hence, my pity for any of you who either had to brave an LCBO for some party-related drinks, or who missed the news about the strike and rambled in on a whim only to discover the hordes having also descended upon the store.

Tell me, how long did your beards grow while you were waiting in line? And did you have to take down any yuppies in order to get at that blocked display of rum?

As an aside to the non-Canucks: don’t worry, the strike has been postponed for now. Canadians still have their beer and their liquor and will not be forced to conquer the rest of the world in order to get some. (Don’t laugh: knowing our liquor is safe & accessible is the only thing keeping us from subjugating the rest of you.)

Though I must confess a morbid curiosity to wondering what would have happened in Toronto, which is already enduring the beginnings of a summer garbage strike. Can you imagine what levels of pandemonium would ensue when a vast majority of Torontonians suddenly had to contend with the rancid smell of sun-cooked garbage, and couldn’t try to erase the stink with alcohol?

My bets are on at least two days of rioting before the government would desperately sign whatever contract was up to get either or both the garbage and LCBO employees back to work. You know, the usual: looting, fires, random acts of violence against parked cars, the dead rising from the grave, dogs and cats living together.


…and I’m pretty sure I haven’t blogged about this before, and it astounds me that I didn’t originally blog about it shortly after the Con. Then again, my little bits of nowhere have been erratic at best when it comes to updates. (Last week’s excuses for not updating revolved around the evidence mice turning all my boxer shorts into paper doll cut-outs. This week is simply: it’s too damned hot to type.)

I’m sure many of you recall the aftermath of Anime North 2007. At the time, the last thing I said to my staff as I left for my 4-day vacation was, “Don’t burn the store down.” And they laughed and reassured me that they would never dream of such a thing.

Spoiler: they lied.

Upon my return from the Con, I learned about an incident involving our store’s microwave and a flaming hamburger that almost set off the fire alarms and/or sprinkler system. Oh, that would have been a grand clusterfuck to return to; my only consolation would have been that I wasn’t anywhere near when it happened, so I’d be absolved of any wrongdoing.

Flash-forward and then briefly rewind (okay, so this bit of nowhere is an analogue VHS tape instead of swanky DVD. You can live without being able to bounce between chapter breaks.) to AN09. As Mel and I left our house to rendezvous with Kevin & Dana the night before the Con, we joked about the flaming hamburger of death.

Mel laughed at the mental image.

I sighed and shook my head and remarked something along the lines of, “Well, they almost managed it once. But surely they wouldn’t try to burn the store down a second time while I was gone?”

Aha haaaaaaa…they tried.

Not surprisingly, once again the microwave was involved. And one again, amazingly no alarms or sprinklers were triggered, a feat I thank mostly because both locations at least had a sink my minions could dunk the fiery remains into and douse with water. But this does bring us to a much-belated Today's Lesson: just because it says “microwaveable” on the front of the box does not necessarily mean your dinner will survive a microwave. Sometimes labels (like your minions) lie. Or when they say “microwaveable” they really mean “that plastic film you’re supposed to keep on your food while you nuke it might suddenly burst into flame, but there’s no guarantees.”

It makes me wonder what will happen when I eventually leave the store for greener pastures (So to speak. Last I checked, I was not the Nanami-cow.), and the microwave stays behind with the store. I give my minions a week before something goes up in flames.

The betting pool would be more interesting, though, were we to bet on what food did cause everything to go flambé. I call dibs on some sort of pasta dish.

Labels: Flaming microwaveable food of death (now with 50% more burninating), the night the booze-fueled laughter (almost) died

posted by Phillip at 7:42 AM

 


As can be expected, new additions to the family result in many, many, maaaaaaaaany pictures taken of the cute little baby. And let's be honest: being deluged with dozens of these photos will inevitably result in polite but awkward boredom from your friends as they find it difficult to share your enthusiasm after the 100th picture of your sleeping (in this case) niece. Ideally, that will not be the case here.

I plan on keeping many, many, maaaaaaaaaaany pictures of my baby niece, but you shall not be subjected to them online. No, that's what the 2 hour long slideshows will be for; the sort of things you can't escape from because I've locked all the doors and barred the windows.

Fiendish plans featuring teh cute aside, here's my new baby niece!





Here is Josselyn. Amazingly, she was born with eyebrows. As anyone who's heard the story about my very first comment upon seeing Gabe for the first time (hint: it went something along the lines of, "Aw, he so adorable...but where are his eyebrows?"), this throws my entire belief system out of whack again. At first I thought all babies had eyebrows. Then I learned that generally they don't. And now I've discovered that a few babies do in fact have eyebrows.

I'll have to sit down for this one, it's hurting my head.





And here's a picture of Josselyn staring up at me. She was unusually attentive whenever I was holding her. We can't figure out if she found my voice very relaxing, or if she was confused since I bore a slight resemblance to mommy but sure as hell didn't sound like her.





And here's a picture of Sammy, their springer spaniel, photo-bombing the moment. Thanks, Sammy.

Labels: photobomb dog is photobombing, Welcoming Josselyn (now with eyebrows)

posted by Phillip at 7:19 AM

 


Around 4am last night, my sister gave birth to a 7lb 8oz baby girl. They've named her Jocelyn (though I have yet to confirm if this particular spelling of the name is indeed the one they're giving to her). Naturally I'm as giddy as anything, and once I get the chance to sit down and see my new baby niece, this little bit of nowhere will probably be inundated with more baby pictures than is necessary.

But hey, you can't say you weren't warned.

So if you're able to, spend a moment with me celebrating the newest addition to the family...and a few more moments to ponder just how I plan to warp her way of thinking before she's in kindergarten.

Oh, and this time around I will probably not need to be informed about her inherent lack of eyebrows at birth, unlike with Gabe. (Not living that one down anytime in this life, I'm sure, but hey! You learn new things every day!)

Labels: hoorays for Jocelyn Kivenan

posted by Phillip at 4:40 AM

 
As indicated in the previous bit of nowhere, I recently acquired a strange and unique DVD at Anime North. The mere title of this little imported production was more than enough to intrigue me--and, by what Jason mentioned, the title itself was also the primary reason Ryan bought a small batch of them to sell at the Con. That title?





You couldn’t get much more what-it-says-on-the-tin than that; obviously there must be a girls swim team involved, as well as zombies. And, if the cover was to be believed, chainsaws too.

I think everyone I encountered at the Con who learned of my morbid fascination with this title, and of my subsequent purchase of it, all said they wanted to hear my review of this DVD, as it just seems too bizarre to defy a generic description. And they were all absolutely right.

To an extent, you will probably never witness anything quite like this movie ever again. And it is entirely possible that, once the end credits roll, you will either be laughing at the silliness or demanding back that wasted hour and a half. (Kind of like watching the Rifftracked version of “Twilight,” which will have you adoring the riffs, but crying over how bad the movie is by itself.)

So where do we begin with a movie like this? Well, let’s start with the title, which is actually a little bit of a misnomer. There is a girls’ swim team involved, and they do attack things. (Their success rate, however, is…well, I have a better chance at the world embracing me without pants, let’s put it that way.) And the “zombies” in question are more viral-infected people as opposed to the undead. As Mel eloquently put it, “Oh, so they’re the Genado from Resident Evil 4.”


And now, the movie in 15 minutes:


[Outside some non-descript high school…]


AKI
*brood brood brood*

SAYAKA
“Hi, you must be new here! I’m on the swim team. Want to join us?”

AKI
“No thanks, I have issues with the water.”

SAYAKA
“You’re strange. Want to be my friend?”

AKI
“That’s great…um, why are you tenderly stroking my hand?”

SAYAKA
“No reason.”


[Cut to a random classroom in the school!]


HELPFUL DOCTOR WHO IS OBVIOUSLY NOT A MAD SCIENTIST
“The Umbrella Corporation is pleased to help vaccinate you against Swine Flu. Warning: side effects may include itchy rashes, slurred speech, impeded motor function, loose morals and an overpowering hunger for human flesh.”

MATH TEACHER
“What about me?”

HELPFUL DOCTOR WHO IS OBVIOUSLY NOT A MAD SCIENTIST
“You’ll inexplicably learn to juggle and eat fire.”

MATH TEACHER
“Cool! Sign me up!”


[30 minutes later….]


ZOMBIE STUDENTS
“Itchy tasty! Itchy tasty!”

RANDOM STUDENT VICTIM #1
“Ow, my jugular!”

RANDOM STUDENT VICTIM #2
“I knew I should have transferred to Furinkan High last semester!”

MATH TEACHER:
“Thanks to science, I can juggle apples and rulers now! Mwah ha ha haaaa!!!”


[Elsewhere….]

AKI
“Holy crap, everyone but the swim club’s turning into zombies!”

SAYAKA
“I like you, Aki.”

AKI
“That’s great and all, but we’re stuck in the cafeteria kitchen right now.”

SAYAKA
“No. I really, really like you.”

AKI
“I like you too, but we have to watch out for the zom…why is your hand down my skirt?”

SAYAKA
“Les Yay?”

AKI
“Shouldn’t we go and rescue the rest of the swim team?”

SAYAKA
“But what about lesbian porn?”

AKI
“Okay, fine. But just this once!”


[Cue the rousing “I didn’t know a side order of bad porn came with this cheese” scene!]


SAYAKA
“So, now that we’re in the post-coital afterglow, tell me a little about yourself.”

AKI
“Well, a few years ago I was kidnapped by a mad scientist and forced to become an elite killing machine who primarily used water as my entry point for assassinations. Oh, and the guy who trained me was a sexual sadist.”

SAYAKA
“Gee, thanks for the mood killer.”

AKI
“Don’t worry, this explanation comes with flashbacks.”


[Cue the flashbacks! See Aki doing a push-up!]


AKI
“I’m a badass killer! Watch me do a push-up!”

DIRECTOR
“Hmm…not enough fetish fuel for the viewers. Let’s put a ball gag in your mouth while you do push-ups.”

AKI
“Dammit!”


[More flashbacks! See Aki pose dramatically on the beach!]


AKI
“I reiterate: look at how incredibly cool and badass I am!”

DIRECTOR
“You’re holding the plastic gun wrong.”

AKI
“Shut up! So I finally earned my assassin badge. And I’m sure my stunt double will make sure I look seriously kick-ass in all my fight scenes.”

DIRECTOR
“Um…about that. We blew the budget hiring that juggling guy. You’re doing all your own fight choreography.”

AKI
“Are you insane?! Did you even see that last flashback scene? I could barely even do a push-up properly, and now you expect me to look like I’ve had more than one lesson in martial arts training?”

DIRECTOR
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s show more porn scenes and hope the audience forgets about that.”

AKI
“Dammit!”


[Yet more flashbacks! Witness her mad scientist/trainer taunt her with bad flute voice-over music!]


MAD SCIENTIST
“See how cool my flute is? It’s causing you to become uncontrollably horny and want to screw me!”

AKI
“Why is there flute music still playing even though you’re talking and holding the flute away from your face?”

MAD SCIENTIST
“Um…science?”

AKI
“Oh. Just checking.”


[Now returning you to your regularly-scheduled cheese….]


SAYAKA
“Wow. That still doesn’t make much sense. Oh by the way, I’m pretty sure we’re twin sisters.”

AKI
“But we look nothing alike.”

SAYAKA
“Try not to think about it or your head will explode. Will this make future sex awkward for us?”

AKI
“Nah, twincest is all the rage in fanfiction anyways. Let’s find the rest of the swim team and hope they didn’t get eaten while we were having our tryst.”


[Meanwhile, at the pool…]


GIRLS’ SWIM TEAM
“So why aren’t we zombies?”

AKI
“It must be the chlorine in the pool that’s neutralizing the virus.”

GIRLS’ SWIM TEAM
“Hooray for chlorine! Wait…is that even possible?”

AKI
“Fools! Never question science. Now, my keen deduction skills tell me that my mad scientist/mentor/rapist has returned to wreak havoc upon the school because I escaped from him.”

SAYAKA
“Makes sense.”

AKI
“I had better go kill him before anything bad happens to the rest of you.”

GIRLS’ SWIM TEAM
“You’re leaving us alone again?!”

SAYAKA
“This sucks! She’s risking her life for us, so I say we completely disregard her sacrifice and go on the attack! We’ll be like those Spartan guys in 300, only in swimsuits!”


[Dramatic music swells as the swim team dons their form-fitting, aerodynamic one-piece battle uniforms! Thrill as a number of jump cuts show them grabbing metal bats and lead pipes while looking utterly badass!]


ATTACK GIRLS SWIM TEAM
“Raaaaar! Watch us kick ass!”


[2 minutes and the first villain they encounter later…]


ATTACK GIRLS SWIM TEAM
“Holy crap, we’re all dead!”

GENADO ENGRISH TEACHER
(inexplicably armed with a katana!)
“Raaaaaar! More Prinnies! I demand you bring me more Prinnies to eat!”

SAYAKA
“Suddenly I’m so glad I was the last person out the door. But this can’t be right. And where the hell did you find a katana in a public school?”

GENADO ENGRISH TEACHER
“Science!”


[Elsewhere, Aki confronts the Mad Scientist in the largest public school boiler room known to Japan.]


AKI
“I could be in my trailer and having a stunt double do this entire scene. Stupid juggling teacher... Oh well, let’s get this over with. I’m going to kill you now.”

MAD SCIENTIST
“I rather doubt that. Behold, my science flute version 2.0. Now you have no choice but to fall under my submission again!”

AKI
“What the? Now your flute sounds like a synthesizer whenever you play it. How the hell is that even possible?!”

MAD SCIENTIST
“I told you, science can do whatever the hell it wants to.”

AKI
“Who wrote this turkey?! I refuse to acknowledge this plot as even remotely coherent.”

MAD SCIENTIST
“Oh, so you refuse to bend to my will? Well, how’s about I inject myself with not one, but two full doses of my not-quite-a-zombie viruses?”

AKI
“Won’t you overdose and die instantly?”

MAD SCIENTIST
“Not before running around uselessly while some really bad special effects make it look like I have a rubber head!”

AKI
“We don’t have time for this. The audience has already realized this film sucks as both a B-movie and a porno. We have to cut to the big finish while I cut your throat open!”

MAD SCIENTIST
(now featuring a trendy new throat gash!)
“I…loveded you…science…”

AKI
“Well, that was disturbingly anticlimactic. Speaking of climaxes, I wonder where Sayaka has gotten to.”

SAYAKA
“Here I am! I love you! Kiss me!”

AKI
“Mmm…kisses. What the? Your kiss just paralysed me!”

SAYAKA
(with medicine bottle!)
“I did it with this!”

MEDICINE BOTTLE
“I’m a plot point!”

SAYAKA
“Aki, you fool! I was never a schoolgirl lesbian or your twin sister; I’m a rival assassin who enjoys being a sex toy, and I was sent here to help kill you!”

AKI
“I am shocked and dismayed by this plot twist. Well, I guess this means we’re not sisters or friends anymore, but there’s no need to be uncivil about this.”

SAYAKA
“Oh, and I faked every orgasm.”

AKI
“You bitch! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you all!”

SAYAKA
“Nothing can stop me now, except for maybe a badly-rendered CG knife!”


[Cue the badly-rendered CG knife killing Sayaka]


SAYAKA
“Dammit!”

AKI
“But who threw the knife?”

MAD SCIENTIST
“I’m wearing VR gloves on my hands to make me look scary!”

AKI
“Not you again! How is this even possible? I watched you die in a badly choreographed sequence.”

MAD SCIENTIST
“No, you saw my twin brother die! But luckily, I’m just as nuts and sadistic as him!”

AKI
“Wait…so which of you is the evil twin?”

MAD SCIENTIST’S POSSIBLY EVIL TWIN
“With all the plot holes already littering the ground, that’s the one question you ask? Oh, hell with it. I have you now!”

AKI
“Oh yeah? You forgot about my…heat-seeking vagina laser!!!”

MAD SCIENTIST’S POSSIBLY EVIL TWIN
“Ha h…what?”


[No word of a lie: a laser fires from Aki’s crotch and frags the evil twin in a spectacular display of special effects failure.]


MAD SCIENTIST’S POSSIBLY EVIL TWIN
“It burns us, Precious! It burns us!”

AKI
“Wow, that was surprisingly effective. Perhaps I should have used this earlier to help save everyone else at this school…nah!”


[In the grand finale, Aki returns to the pool!]


AKI
“It’s over. Finally, the epic cheese--I mean, epic war is over. And I have accepted the fact that I truly love being in the water. I guess I really will sign up for the swim team after all…”

[Aki surveys the roster, noting how everyone else’s name has been changed to read ‘cannon fodder’.]

AKI
“Well, crap. So much for the swim meet. I’ll just have a relaxing swim in the pool. La la la…AW FUCK, MY HEART! I’M HAVING A HEART ATTACK AND DROWNING IN THE POOL! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!”

MEDICINE BOTTLE
(with a label that reads ‘After using, do not perform heavy exercise, such as running or swimming, for at least 8 hours after.’)
“Told you, bitches! Pwned!”



-FIN-


So there you have the dramatic conclusion: Aki, a badass schoolgirl assassin (and apparently part-time lesbian) manages to survive battles against zombie students, jugglers, zombie teachers, another schoolgirl assassin and two mad scientists…only to be killed by not reading the instructions on a prescription bottle.

Labels: attack girls swim team versus the undead ( the review)

posted by Phillip at 8:00 AM