POSTS FROM December 2002

I love the holiday shopping season — right around the Sunday before Christmas — when normal Survivor-watching, Kenny G-listening folk undergo a metamorphosis and become KGB-caliber shopping mercenaries, tearing into retail stores and turning them into a broken heap of mannequin parts and those annoying anti-theft tags that always go off when nobody is actually stealing anything. I love it that Americans can forget their P.C. ways and sense of entitlement and go at it in a free-for-all over the last batch of whatever that has just been marked "50% off" by the clerk who has worked for 36 hours straight, and wishes that he could carry a Taser onto the floor and stun one of those ignorant shoppers that won't stop asking, “Do you have any more in the back?”

Of course, if this were the Gap down on Market Street, the clerk probably wouldn't have made it to the floor because that place was trashed last week — if people had started looting the store, it wouldn't have looked any worse. There were clothes everywhere (I think someone lost their baby in one of those piles), clothes hangers overflowing from behind the counter, and lots of store clerks wearing those N'Sync headsets yelling and signaling to each other like they were stock traders down on Wall Street. You'd have never suspected that this was the Worst Retail Season, Ever.

There always that one lady though — the silver-haired, brooch-wearing, people-shoving, clerk-berating, perfume-drenched, misanthropic witch that makes Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets seem as friendly as Al Roker in an umbrella store. Her one mission in life seems to emerge from the depths of Mordor every season and re-enact Scrooge, as Scrooge himself, at the cashier's table because she is unsatisfied with the ambiance lighting in the fitting rooms. You have to watch out for those people. I wouldn't be surprised if they did carry Tasers.

We finally threw a party with the nice kids downstairs a couple weeks ago. Props go to: Blake for the awesome music that was inexplicably able to transition into Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 without sounding dumb, Cristina for the requisite hats, Lori for her deft handling of the police, and Cristen for not letting me go to bed without first drinking a gigantic cup of water. Photos

A few weeks ago, I dragged my roommates to "The Simpsons: From Early Years to Maturity", a presentation at the Cartoon Art Museum by David Silverman, the director of the show (credit to the Cornell Alumni Networking mailing list for bringing this event to my attention.) He concentrated on his personal beginnings as an animator, and how he pretty much fell into working for The Simpsons, and brought along a cache of videos to show (some of which are on the DVD). The highlights included an in-depth look at the animation of the scene where Homer dances around in a dreamland of chocolate, the uncensored version of the Itchy and Scratchy clip where Itchy nails Scratchy's feet to the mall escalator (Scratchy bends over and chews his own legs off in the original cut), and an outtake of the episode where Homer buys a gun and Marge takes the kids to live in a Motel — when they're checking out of the motel, Marge looks at the bill and says, "Hrm, I don't remember ordering a blowjob!"

I wasn't sure what to expect when I made my reservations. When I called, the person warned me that it was a small space and that there would be "lots of other people around", which led me to believe that there would be freaks crawling out of the woodwork to see the presentation. It wasn't too bad, as the only unusual characters were the two guys in front of me (who cleary had poor giddiness control) that high-fived each other a few times when certain clips were shown. All in all, a good presentation. Photos

Is that an 802.11 dual mode access point router in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Sure sex sells all sorts of things, but this Buy.com model is far too excited about these WiFi access points, don't you think?

A while back, I discovered someone who plagarized my review of the Che-ez! Sypz camera, and put an end to all referrals from their site. Well, they found out that I found out and wrote me, apologizing for the theft and claiming that they didn't have time to write one, etc., etc. It continued on, and said that they needed more reviews done in english, and asked if I would be willing to review the upcoming units, with each camera as compensation. Traditionally, reviewers aren't supposed to keep the review units because it reduces their credibility, but it's not like I care so I committed to a couple reviews (In any case, I didn't give a very positive review anyway). Check out the first review: the Che-ez! Moni-Me.

So, after going through all that trouble to get from NYC to Connecticut, I decided I'd had enough and spent the second half of my vacation back in NYC. Don't get me wrong: Connecticut is a wicked awesome state (that's right, I said WICKED) — certainly better than someplace like Massachusetts, albeit its unique Martha Stewart meets Captain Ahab-esque setting. It's just that there's nothing to do outside of activites that involve crocheting, singing about Jesus, or throwing your money away on an Indian reservation. And I'm not talking about that part of Connecticut with names like “Stamford”, or “Bridgeport” — those are just sham towns that should just hurry up and secede to Long Island.

Anyway, there was much zaniness to be had in the city, and I was quickly reminded that New York is better than San Francisco in every way: better subway, better women, better smell (those street carts make all the difference), better drivers, and better bars that still have people in them at 4 in the morning. At one point, we coined the term, “misappropriation of ass”, to describe a social condition of gross inequality — you may use it as you see fit. Photos

Spending a week back home on the east coast was exactly what I needed