Juggling Disney

We went to the mall yesterday.
That is usually enough for an entire blog entry, and this did not disappoint.

There are 2 guitar stores there, so there's something for me. And when I say something for me, I mean a place to look at backwards (right handed) guitars and note the extreme non-presence of lefties. I know that it's not economically feasible to carry a ton of lefties, but there are virtually none in most stores. And the ones that are present are starter junk.

The salespersons are sympathetic to my plight, but can't do anything. Some even note they get significant calls for lefties, but have little inventory. It's like ordering a few lefties causes physical pain for Manglement. One can go into Guitar Center and note an absolute ton of guitars there; few if any lefties. It's like the Cheese Shop sketch.

"Yes, we have a lot of guitars."
But I can't find a lefty."
"We have a ton of guitars. This is the best shop in the state."
How do you reckon this?
"We have a ton of guitars. It's a very clean shop."
Well, it's certainly clean of lefties.

Hey, I want to check out some necks on Fenders. Do you have the backwards versions?  Yes, one. A cheap one.  I see.

"But the warehouse might have one. You'll have to pay for it in full before we can order it, but you have a 45 day return option."

Ummm.. do you think I'm really that stupid? Would you buy a guitar you can't play beforehand?


Hey, Fender put out a 70s Strat. Lemme see - I know they're made left handed.
This is NOT a 70s Strat. I have a number of them and this guitar in no way resembles them. The alleged 70s Strat has a 2000s neck. What's wrong with Fender? Do they get better drugs than we do? Why do all the 50s reproductions have 2000s necks? HELLO... IS ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION AT FENDER?

So there was no surprise there.

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We located a Disney store. It's virtually unheard of in our neighborhood, so in we went. Disney decided a while back to stop selling shirts and accessories for adults and concentrate on kids. This ignores a huge market - adults love Disney. Mrs. lefty adores Eeyore. She has Eeyore mugs, Eeyore socks, Eeyore clothes, and even Eeyore underwear. Being a resourceful type, I even looked for bras. There are no Eeyore bras.

The employees at Disney are among the most friendly in retail. I strongly suspect they go through 'training' at the Mouse House. The training involves blinky lights and things that go around a lot... "Pay attention to the spinning wheel. You are getting very sleepy. You LOVE Disney. You REALLY love Disney. In fact, you ARE Disney. You eat, sleep, and drink Disney. Your entire life is in service to The Mouse. You will be nothing but friendly and encourage the customers to buy more overpriced stuff at all times. When you wake up, you will have no memory of our little chat.... 1... 2... 3... and now you're awake."

We were approached by no fewer than six helpful, cheerful Mouse Workers. They were so happy that my subconscious was trying to drag my body out of the store. Upon checking out, the lovely checkout lady asked if we minded carrying the stuffed Eeyore we bought.

Huh?
I helpfully suggested an actual bag. You know bags - you get them in every store in the civilized world (and New Jersey).

"Yes, we've gone green and no longer have bags," she said smugly... like she was in California and was doing something great for the planet.

Huh?
"But you can buy this cloth one for 99 cents."
Huh? (she must have thought I was 'slow')

The Smug was heavy in the store.

Anybody who has ever been in customer service (or awake while working) knows you don't take something away and not provide an alternative. An alternative that the customer isn't required to pay extra for. This is stupid, even by Disney standards. I could almost see the blinky lights and the spinning round wheel (it doesn't work on ADHD people, who can't pay attention to spinning wheels and blinky lights long enough to have any effect).

So if I understand correctly, customers are supposed to walk around the mall with huge stuffed Disney figures or ten little stuffed animals, dropping them all over the place. The other stores laugh and say 'they just came from Disney'. Maybe it's just cheap advertising for Disney. Instead of a DISNEY plastic bag, people see all the DISNEY stuff you just bought. On the floor.

Mrs. lefty loves the hell out of large bags with handles, so she said buy one. It's not the 99 cents - it's the principle (my standing on principle is a recurring theme - one that causes me no end of inconvenience. I'm a pro at shooting myself in the foot - I can hit my foot from across the mall). Naturally the bag has a humongous Disney outline on it, so there's no doubt in anyone's mind where you bought it from. And that you paid for the ($&#ing bag.

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"Are you finding everything ok?"

How many times have you heard this? We were asked this no fewer than 4 times at Victoria's Secret.  By the way, Victoria's Secret is how they get people to pay so much for so little. Like swimsuits, there is an inverse relationship: the less material in the garment, the more it costs.

NO, we're NOT finding everything ok. In fact, we're not finding ANYTHING.
We're wandering from table to table, looking at Stuff. We are playing the 'Let's find something in the store under $75' game.  We noticed Pink (brand) sweatpants for $60. I asked if we covered over the Pink, would the price tag magically lower itself to $9.99?

In a previous store, I noticed a young teenager wearing the absolute tightest shorts I've ever seen. Wife says everybody's wearing them. I'm flummoxed.. so tight that they look like they're sprayed on... to paraphrase Ren and Stimpy's Pope (voiced by Frank Zappa, RIP), "Cling tightly to my buttocks. Both of them?"

I am not my parents. These shorts look quite fine, but not on a teenager. If they weren't black, I'd swear she wasn't wearing anything. Again, this is just fine on legal age women who can wear them well, but I'd get arrested for looking at them on young girls.

Victoria's in an interesting phenomenon. Basically it teaches young girls it's ok to wear lingerie. And $50 thongs. I'm no prude and people can wear whatever they like, but this is interesting.

In happier news, TUBE TOPS ARE BACK!  They're my favorite. I always tried to get Tube Top Tuesdays instituted at work. I was all kinds of excited until Mrs lefty popped up to pop my bubble, reminding me the only people who will be wearing them are the people who shouldn't be wearing them. She's right, and not only because I have to agree. We also noticed that the largest size in anything in the store is Extra Small. So not only is Victoria's for underage girls to spend more money they don't make; it's for very skinny, petite girls. Normally this would be like Disneyland for me (girls without bags to carry them in?), but again, they're underage. I don't want to be Jethro Tull's old man sitting on the park bench, eyeing little girls with bad intent. But let me say something positive about the store: Mrs lefty says their bras are very good and long-lasting. So there's $99 well spent.

As if thongs weren't enough, you can now buy them flat, without lines.
Because no self-respecting woman would want anyone to know their thong has lines (when they bend over and the thong has ridden up their back). Again, the wrong people are wearing them.

"I wear thongs because it makes me sexy to the guys."
Maybe, maybe not. You'd be better served losing 100 of your 300 pounds, though... most men are incapable of mounting a Volkswagen, Hon.

And now I'm going to be called fat-phobic. Even though they're facts.
Actually, if I can get a campaign going to smear me, I'll get way more hits!

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Since I was with a woman, we stopped at the Lotion and Candle store.  The only men in the store were the ones dragged in by their spouses and the overtly gay employees. Candle stores, makeup stores, and shoe stores. I have no idea why, but it's an observation. The men dragged in by their spouses all had that faraway look, as if they were really not there; perhaps preferring to be on a rack, being tortured by Dick Cheney.

Candle stores are a license to print money. Throw some scented wax in a glass jar and you can charge $37.50 for it (on sale, naturally). If you buy 3 pumpkin spice lotions, you get 2 free (for only $24.99 each). I was incensed (get it?) because they had no rock or dirt scent. This only warmed me up for the biggest piece of genius since P.T. Barnum: the 3 wick candle. This thing is marketing and profit genius the likes of nothing ever seen before.. stay with me... Put three wicks in your normal candle. The candle now burns 3 times faster, and you can charge more money for it! Disney is jealous.

While there, a non-blinky lighted happy salesperson asked if we were looking forward to fall. WHAT? We just got used to spring/summer (we only have 2 seasons where I live - spring/summer and fall/winter). There are decent temperatures among the disgusting hot and humid ones, and it only rains 3 days a week instead of 5. No, we're not looking forward to fall. Plus the @&$(*ing leaves to rake.


So yeah, whenever I walk through a mall, I'm mentally writing this blog.

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No single topic blog rant would be complete without a rant on country music. 

There is a band called Big & Rich on tv. They are referred to as country music. Boy, country music has changed since I started avoiding it. The lead singer is black. I know many black lead singers, but this is the first time I've seen a black country lead singer (yes, I know they exist - I just don't watch country music). The drummer has a huge, metallic drum kit and a huge mohawk. There are always at least 4 guitar players in country music, but you can never hear more than one at a time. And since there are 4 guitars, there's also a lone banjo, in the back, in the corner, where all banjos belong. Fortunately the sound man 'forgot' to mic the banjo, so no one is subjected to it. Someone in the audience complained to the sound man they couldn't hear the banjo. The sound man smiled and said 'You're welcome.'

The singers alternate. The white one looks like a country version of Kid Rock, only less trashy. The joke's on the audience, as it's not possible to be more trashy than Kid Rock.

The lead guitarist must've been freshly recruited from a rock or metal act. This guy had all the riffs down to be in a pretty good rock band. I was impressed. This must be why people hate country music. I hear a lot of moaning about how new country music sucks (how does one differentiate it from the traditional country music suckage?). They want to hear ole Hank Williams and plastic-haired Conway Twitty. I swear if that hair hit the floor, it would bounce and injure at least 3 pairs of feet. So the traditionalists are against uptempo and rock-influenced country. Ironically, this stuff sells big time and there are more country fans than ever. Like Katy Perry and any form of rock and roll.

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No single topic blog rant with a country music rant attached would be complete without another random rant. 

There is wonderful news in the medical field: surgeons have pioneered an operation that gives paralyzed people some function in their hands. It's a minor miracle and I am really happy for these folks.

That's the good news.

The bad news is what I saw about it on the news: they told everyone the good news, then they showed the operation, complete with the arm opened and the blood vessels and guts and Victoria's thongs and country music visible for all to see. I was nauseated. My breakfast told me to stop eating it.

Ridgecrest, California just suffered a 7.1 earthquake.

Quick to action, the governor just signed legislation making earthquakes illegal.

A Florida man pretending to be police pulls over a real policeman. It didn't go well.

SJW Stuff

from Twitter:
Air-conditioning is unhealthy, bad, miserable, and sexist. I can’t explain how may times I’ve gotten sick over the summer b/c of overzealous AC in offices. #BanAC

Batteries Leak. Don't Ask How I Know.

As a result of Something or Other, perhaps the humidity, my touchpad and mouse got weird on me. Not pleasant weird.. difficult weird. A lot of people despise touchpads because they're black, which is unconscionable. Another reason would be it's very difficult to maneuver the cursor with any degree of precision. Making a window smaller (grabbing and moving) can cause frustration so bad, people have been known to go out on workman's compensation after trying for a few hours.

As a result of Something or Other, it has become really easy to grab and move the outside border. Ridiculously easy. In fact, I can only grab the border - when I try to grab the move the window by grabbing near the title, it's difficult.

Completely unrelated: I haven't been able to get to the eye doctor, so I have to make the text on my cell phone larger. Completely unrelated.

• Confirmed: The Guardian story on the Faceyspaces' massive data breach has been removed as 'spam'.
• Any Minute Now: Faceyspaces will announce this was a minor error in their system and they regret it (getting caught).
• In a Faceyspaces followup call, the platform revealed that if your account was impacted, a hacker could have accessed any account you log into using Faceyspaces.
• Once again, Faceyspaces regrets the error (getting caught) and values your information and stores it all safely, at Grandma's house, in the basement, by the old wheelbarrow. Oops.

There's an app coming out for a style social network.
You know this is a disaster in the making.
Never mind the young, attractive people in the commercial start out completely naked, with their Naughty Bits blurred. As far as I know, not a single person has blurred Naughty Bits in real life (although I wonder if Japanese men really have pixelated penises).

The idea of this app is that you can look exactly like someone that influences you (probably named Kardashian). So the attractive naked people point their phones at random folks walking down the street and POOF - they get their exact 'look', meaning exactly what they're wearing.

Most people over 12 have passed this stage.
Unless, of course, you have huge amounts of disposable cash, don't have to work, and you're afraid people will shoot (or shun) you if you're not up to (or in front of) current in fashion.

Their motto is "Staying stylish has never been so easy."
It should be, more accurately, "Staying stupid has never been so easy."
Or "Nobody ever made waves being cute and vapid."

Pardon me while I lose my lunch (plus dinner from the past week).

• You know somebody's got a problem when.....
• you buy your friend a pad that says "Honey Do List" as a joke. She laughs and asks where she can get more. 
• She will make some lucky man's life perfectly miserable.

So, what's happening in the local concert scene, lefty?
Glad you asked....

Wild Card Country

The Ultimate Tribute Experience with tribute performances of Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, & a surprise wild card guest!

Unsatisfied, I called the venue. As I hoped, there will be a team of mental health support professionals and a few puppies, to help with any trauma or suicidal ideation produced by prolonged exposure to country music. Especially country music done in tribute format.

If this sort of thing is allowed to go unchecked, it's only a matter of time til we're invited to see Biggie and Tupac tribute 'bands'.


As we're already on the topic, you're probably asking yourself what the ticket agencies recommend for us this week. You're in luck - it just arrived!  The list, personalized just for me, includes such instrumental classic rock as New Kids on the Block, the Clintons, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Englebert Humperdinck, and everybody's favorite reason to welcome the apocalypse:  Dancing with the Stars Live!

• No, really, the Clintons are touring. Although one would hope it's some sort of country group, it's the actual Bill and Hillary.
• Tempted as I am to make a snide comment, I won't.
• This is a very libertarian tour, if you think about it. They stole and spent your money for years; now you have the choice of whether you'd like to voluntarily give it to them.

What good would any post be without news of Faceyspaces?
Currently, the Evil Empire is testing a location feature on Instagram, that will allow them to build up a user’s location history from data collected on a user’s phone. Asked for comment, Faceyspaces' users yawned and rolled over.

I wonder if this is different from the Faceyspaces app, which sucks up every piece of data on your phone, to which you gave it permission.

• People who dress their pets for Halloween: remember, they know where you sleep.

I'm listening to an old Art Bell rerun and trying to figure out who he's interviewing. The man's a psychic, and they're discussing death. The fellow says death is pre-programmed, and you can check out at one of five times. I'm just listening in case something makes sense. Turns out that was a mistake... the gentleman being interviewed was Sylvia Browne. Sorry, Sylvia. If the dead have an Earth Feed, this may be my last post.

• Google admits abandonment of free speech for safety and civility. But relax - Google would never censor anything.

What happens when you're a humongous British airport, which allows employees to use any old USB stick for work, including personal ones, and doesn't require passwords or encryption? When I say 'allows,' I mean 'has no enforceable policy on the use of.'  The stick winds up on the ground in some suburb. Because it isn't encrypted, there are 1,000 files, ready for the taking, with information on security systems and procedures.

OMG - Terrorism!

Heathrow Airport is still reeling from the 120,000 pound fine ($1.95 American).
That's like having a small insect dropped on your auxiliary runway!

The only person with a any quantity of common sense is the guy who found the USB stick. Never, EVER, plug a found USB stick into your computer. NEVER. You have no idea what's on it. It might even have been put there for this purpose, perhaps at work. This smart gentleman went to his public library and plugged it into THEIR computer. This way if there was a virus, it would only infect the entire public library system. This was brilliant because the entire system is about to close anyone, as no one can read those book things anyway... that's why we have an internet. Books don't even scroll for you.

• OOF. An article about the short-term dystopian future, where no one owns a car and all transportation is done via autonomous electric cars.
• Yeah.
• Americans have had a Car Culture since at least the 1950s. We're fiercely independent. Some of us have cars that are actually set up to produce Maximum Noise via the tailpipes. Some via the stereo system, which their car was built around.
• Much as driving isn't my favorite sport, I'd drive for hours before sitting in an autonomous vehicle, sync'd with all the other autonomous vehicles, in a huge information network rivaling Faceyspaces'. One in which the governing software still has a few 'minor bugs.'
• I don't think anyone has a problem with the concept of substituting a clean engine for the internal combustion engine's output, but what's involved in building the engines and, more importantly, powering them? Batteries are not clean technology. I'm certainly no expert: do the math.

The great thing about weather apps is that you can now bring home the gross inaccuracy of forecasts you only saw on tv.

Everyone has their favorite tv show... some (ashamedly) like reality tv. Some (mental patients) watch Kardashians. I hear people watch sports! What's my poison? British police shows and any show with security people in airports. What do you mean that's not normal? My wife watches shows with panels of yentas, babbling on about absolutely nothing and getting paid a LOT of money. And game shows from the 70s, where all the contestants are obviously currently dead.

One particularly funny show takes place at JFK Airport, where tons of foreigners enter the country. Main characters include some guy who looks and sounds like Joe Pesci, making it very difficult to take him seriously. When he questions people, they always tell him he was great in the Lethal Weapon movies. Then there's Rosie Perez. I'm kidding - she's an absolutely stereotypical New York Puerto Rican lady who sounds like Rosie Perez. When she speaks, the foreigners keep asking her to repeat the automatic weapon-like phrases she comes out with. There's a very serious supervisor who looks like Mr T, minus ten pounds of jewelry and a colorful mohawk. If/when this gentleman laughs, you're not likely to recognize it.

When a plane arrives from a country with medium black folks, they get all serious and inconspicuously line up, like a human fence, to informally question everybody getting off the plane. As if they'd miss anything, there's a cute dog, sniffing everyone and their bags for drugs. The agents speak (New York) English, and trot out a few words in a foreign language, comprised of line up, and thank you for lining up. You haven't experienced travel until you've heard New York guards speak a foreign language with a New York accent. Gracias and sil vous plate are test phrases. If the passenger breaks out into spasms of laughter, they're strip searched, in front of the rest of the passengers, as a warning.

One qualifying question they ask is how much money you're coming in with. The rule is that no matter how much you bring, you must declare it. Why? Passengers are not sure, but they're told they can bring in as much as they like, but they must declare it. It's true, they can bring in however much they like, but if they bring in more than $10,000, they'll be detained and anal probed like the aliens do, because they're obviously carrying drugs or laundering money. Why anyone wants to put money in the washer is not self-evident. This is absolutely in step with the "Know Your Neighbor" Act, mandating that any deposit you make to your bank over $5,000 must be reported. I don't know how much my neighbor deposits and don't care.

If you're suspected of carrying drugs, via your bags being x-rayed or having a South Philly accent, you get patted down. This is not as fun as it sounds, as the person doing the patting is the same gender as you. If they find nothing, as they always do, it's time for an x-ray. If this provides no evidence, they're obviously going to go to the hospital with the police until they pass the drugs they swallowed. Why don't they just send everyone to the hospital? Because they don't want to be invasive. If they get no information, they bring in the rest of the tough sounding New York Airport Police (who recently graduated from Movie Theater Police). They stand around shaking their heads, while one questions the passenger, saying things like, "Look.. I know you're carrying and you know you're carrying. Now is the time for honesty. If you're honest, we can help you." After a few hours of this, some innocent people tell them they have drugs, just to get out of the room with these official protectors. Occasionally there are drug smugglers. These are the people with a huge package between their legs (please don't), who refuse to let the police take a look. They also don't know where they're going when they leave the airport, and are carrying $25 for a 3 week stay. They're staying with their brother, but don't know his phone number. The only thing I don't understand about this show is why everyone from every country is wearing a shirt with an American brand emblazoned on it. The other thing I don't understand is why the couriers cause suspicion when they're walking around with powder on their nostrils.

PRO TIP: keep your FUCK THE POLICE shirt in your bag, not on your chest.

If your bags turn up any 'abnormalities' through the x-ray, they're gently probed, which means some guy with a pneumatic road hammer gently opens it and rips off fabric, looking for powder or oregano, which they call cannabis (because nobody can pronounce pot).

For my money, the most entertaining are the folks on the US/Canada border. Everybody knows Canadians are nice, and this includes the serious guys with the guns. Canada is really serious about border safety, but mostly that if you enter the country, you don't intend to stay there, you don't intend to work, and you don't intend to be sick and become a load on their healthcare system. If only America...

There is a long list of things you can't bring into Canada. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to see this list, and it tends to surprise and shock the people coming into the country. You can't bring guns in, even if you're moving to Alaska and the only route is through Canada. You can't bring brass knuckles (but you can bring rubber knuckles - seriously). If you do, the handcuffs go on and you're escorted to a private cell. If they search your car and find bullets, you're strip searched for automatic weapons. Because you're obviously carrying an AK47 up your butt.

They examine a lot of cars, from top to bottom, but they're very nice about it. They smile while they gently probe the car (plunge a screwdriver through your upholstery) and remove all your seats because the drug dog saw your car pull into a parking spot. The signage on US highways must be very interesting, as people frequently wind up hitting the Canadian border instead of the Taco Bell border. Unfortunately this happens a lot. Unfortunately they become subject to a complete search, which always turns up the pot they 'forgot about' in the console, eh? It's just as bad if you're Canadian, coming back from vacation. They question you as if you had an I DIG DRUGS t-shirt on. In fact, they won't let their own citizens cross from Canada to the US if they violate any of the unknowable rules. The US, on the other hand, welcomes any malcontents, lowlifes, drunks, and terrorists, with open arms. Remember the guy with the chainsaws? He got past Canada's Best and was caught driving around with a pair of chainsaws, one bloody. To their credit, chainsaws are not illegal in Canada or the US (even with blood stains and the driver wearing a hockey mask).

Like most borders, your past is very important. If you went to jail for drunk and disorderly 30 years ago, you might not be of sufficient character to enter Canada. Because Moose Head has less alcohol in it, I guess.

You might be surprised that I really don't watch much tv.