Friday, August 31, 2007

"People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people."
Charles Kettering

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Bought What?

Today, my husband bought Crap. Deliberately. I was trying to buy Crap... in fact I've been trying to buy Crap, unsuccessfully, for a year. I had my order in first. My card processed, a dollar a Crap, for three Craps plus shipping. You can't buy more than three. In most cases, you can't buy just one either, as there are 50,000 others trying to buy Crap at the same time you are. It's a real crapshoot. Out of 50,000 (or more) wannabe Crap buyers, any number up to 4500 will get Crap, depending on the quantity each person ordered, so as few as 1500 could get Crap if everyone ordered three.

Husband and I were monitoring the Crap site, but we somehow were not paying attention when the actual Crap came up (as opposed to the other crappy items, most of which could conceivably be described as crap, lowercase descriptive). However, he must have seen it right as it appeared, because as soon as he yelled CRAP I was on it and actually got my order in and confirmed in less than 20 seconds. This is, of course, when the crappy Crap servers did their thing; that is, they crapped out. They always crap out during Crap sales. Once the site came back online, half an hour later, I found to my dismay that my confirmed Crap order had disappeared, possibly eaten by flying monkeys. This also happens regularly during Crap sales. This, though, was the first time in many attempts that I *had* a confirmed order... usually I get stuck in processing when the servers crap out and my order never goes through.

This is when my husband calls out, casually, that he's got an order in for three Craps. Somehow he managed to get to the order page, change the amount wanted to three, input his account number, and get it all through processing, payment, confirmation, and verification faster than I did, *and* before the servers crashed. Rather than ponder the absolute impossibility of this task, I chose to be thrilled that, finally, we are getting Crap!

I will post photos of the Craps when they get here. I don't know what they'll be yet- no one does- that's part of the Crap experience. Usually, it's crap. Sometimes it's cool crap, and sometimes (rarely) it's non-crap. Once it was a fifteen-pound anvil; once it was a washer-fluid heater; once it was a Nintendo Wii. Bottom line is: we actively sought out, fought for, and paid money for unknown, random Crap. I can't wait till it gets here! Craptastic!

Monday, August 27, 2007

Today In History

I share the birthday with Mother Teresa, PeeWee Herman and Downtown Julie Brown.

The day started off with a mysterious bag left on the kitchen table... I approached warily, as I do with anything pastel-colored. There were flowers on the bag as well, generally a sign to have weapons at the ready just in case it explodes into a big ball of feminine cutesiness. Pastel + flower motif = high danger level.

After poking and prodding at the bag, and thereby determining that it wasn't going to get any worse, I examined the contents. It seems the Husband, knowing my tendency to recoil at anything pink, had cleverly disguised a gift much to my liking inside the girly crap.

Chrome portholes for the car fenders! W00t! *happy dance* Three for each side, no less. I did mention that the car didn't have enough chrome... not that I was complaining about it, I'm just a chromaholic... and he knew I admire pretty much any car with porthole accents. Thoughtful guy, that one is!

My friends online left me some nice messages, and I'm holding out hope for a cake later this evening (or I'll be in town buying one myself... it's a Cake Day, dangit! I look forward to celebrations that call for cake.) I got a great surprise from another friend, who offered to get me tickets to a particular celebrity appearance and a meeting with said celebrity afterward (!!!), when she learned I'd be in town for the event.

I'm also officially old and fat, as determined by my efforts to purchase a pair of jeans yesterday. The stores were full of tweens and high-school girls whining about not being able to find their sizes ("but the threes are soooo baggy!") and giggling about the granny-panties on the hangers (for the record, they were bikini briefs, for crying out loud... one step away from thongs). There were no pants in the store to fit short women with apple butts and narrow waists. Yes, I know about the Apple Bottoms brand, I'm not THAT old, but I have never been able to make myself pay that kind of money for jeans. In fact, yesterday was the first time I bought new jeans in ages... usually the Salvation Army gets my business, and I don't have to break in new denim. Anyway, when I did find a pair that fit- not great, but they fit- I bought 'em and got the heck out of there, away from the shrill cellphone ringtones and like, Rodney is like, such a hottie, lawl and the microsizes and macroprices and thong underbritches and smells like teen spirit really means adolescent sweat and Clearasil and bubblegum.

Ellen Degeneres had a spiel on her show this morning about how nobody has long attention spans anymore. I forget why she said it was. Maybe she didn't; I was looking at her shoes. But as a tie-in to the earlier post about the iPhone bill, Ellen showed hers off to the audience... 900 pages, to the tune of $4300 for one month. Add an iPhone bill and that's about the total cost of my rent... for an entire YEAR. I think, even if I were rich, that kind of spending would shock me. Sometimes I'm happy to be oblivious to how much it costs to live on the greener side of the fence. Would Ellen be thrilled to get chrome portholes for HER birthday?

Actually... something tells me she would...

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Bohemian Medley

This is hilarious! And the guy's not half bad either...

Saturday, August 18, 2007

I smell... bacon!

perpetualkid.com
Here's a nifty gifty site I ran across recently. I haven't looked at *all* the items yet, but some of them are amusing, like the pack of office stickers that includes "I ♥ Marker Smell!" The site has schlocky stuff- USB-powered heated slippers, marshmallow guns, fake tattoo bandages- but I have to give props to any store with a whole section listed as "Bacon."

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Earth to iPhone: Ouch!

In all fairness, this is not the fault of the iPhone itself, but of the phone service providers attached... see what happens when an AT&T user gets her first iPhone bill.

Count the Rings

Living on the fringes of technology like I do, sometimes I wonder if inanity like this can be real. Apparently, it is, and she isn't the only one to get a bill of this nature.

In other modern-technology news, I got a singing hamster for my birthday. Thanks Mom!