the Strangeness that is my life

[salamanca]

Customers... Lady walks up and makes a point of telling me she is not buying, just looking to see what is new in calendars. (fair enough, nobody needs one in october). She makes a beeline for the Marilyn Monroe calendars (in fact, it's the only thing she looks at), turns them over, sighs and complains that it's all pictures they have used in past years. I'm not sure what she was expecting given that 1) celebrity calendars are notorious for repeat pictures. 2) the fans get cranky if certain iconic photos are left off. 3) Marilyn has been dead SINCE 1962! There are NO pictures of her that have not been long ago developed and sold. Anybody who has a photograph of Marilyn Monroe that has not been released to the public by now is completely insane. (although several jokes were made today about waiting for the opportune moment to release said photo, waiting for the initial wave of popularity to die down, and trying to respect her memory by not dumping them for display "too soon"). This is on the level of the lady that asked for "current photos" of Audrey Hepburn a good decade after her death.

[salamanca]

Since it's still slow, I have time to track dumb stuff. Today, a pair of older teen mall rat girls bought the toothless dragon (from How to Train Your Dragon) build a bear dolls and bought Hipster Glasses for them to wear... Leave it to Build a Bear to sell fake hipster glasses for teddy bears. AND IN "CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY" NEWS: I am currently fielding questions about where to buy the game at a rate of one for every two actual sales I make. Think about that...if I had them to sell right now, I could add 33% to my daily total. (side note, I played it saturday night and won 45 out of 150 rounds...take that as a warning).

[salamanca]

So yesterday I get this guy who wants to warn me about a couple in the mall that he has determined MUST be shoplifters. This was based on their getting out of a car with bags that looked like they had things in them (which obviously means they constructed fake packages to hide stuff in). This guy was running up and down the mall behind them warning every sales clerk that would listen to him about the couple. He also followed them to their car and reported their plate number to the local cops. Now, I did not interacrt with this couple but it very well could be they just were making a RETURN to a store. Meanwhile this "private citizen" as he described himself committed a profiling crime, slander, defamation of character and stalking.

[salamanca]

So I helped the boss' son after work set up HIS calendar kiosk on Lady Grace's side of town (Southpark mall) last night. He got the "other" style of kiosk I had not built before. (and I am done complaining about flimsy grids they send me). This thing looks nice but it's got 4 large, heavy steel rectangles that wrap around the tops of the stand and contain the lighting. Naturally, the home office forgot to supply the proper hardware to connect these things but they instead sent... Wait for it... ZIP TIES!. Well, it turns out 4 zip ties cannot hold a 100 pound frame. We learned that the hard way last night when the professional assembly team tried to make due. Frame ended up in storage after a major near miss on most of us. I left around 1:30 am and then established I live exactly 70 miles away from there. It's a weird mall, 5 anchor stores, 6 concourses and identical service halls with no markings anywhere. At least the help was competant and made a solid effort.

[Black Jack Rackham]

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, JUST ONE GOSH DARN SECOND!
Competent help?
No injuries or fatalities?
THIS is not what I tune in for!!!

[Rebecca Iavelli]

It's got to happen at least once in his lifetime, Mark, or his life would not be so strange.

[salamanca]

Ok, here is a weird one for you. I just spent 2 days at a game con where there was not a single visual, printed or VERBAL reference to Monty Python made. Two entire days and nobody mentioned grails, shrubbery, elderberries or coconut laden swallows.

[salamanca]

I will now describe my day in exactly two words: Juggalo Bronies. That is all.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Wow...

Back to back awesome days!

[salamanca]

Bob Evans Express opened in the food court today. They need to work on the express part. But they are serving a "waffle k-bob". That's right, a big long waffle on a stick. I want to get one and fill the nooks with chicken nuggets from Chik-fil-a.

[salamanca]

One for Mark:. Treated myself to a steak dinner at "Texas Roadhouse" last night. Mundane enough meal but there was a constant clatter of silverware on glasses behind me. And I correctly assumed it was some sort of wedding related event. I was politely ignoring it when the waitress army and choir formed to announce the special guests at their rehearsal dinner. I keep ignoring them when the waitress shouts, "let me introduce the happy couple, MONGREL and LACE". I stop mid-bite thinking I had to have misheard that. I slowly turn in my seat and see the entire back corner of the restaurant is full of Bikers. I thought I wandered onto the set of Sons of Anarchy. I just want to wish Mongrel and his lady a happy congratulations and thank them for not stabbing me on the way out. (i also think the wedding would have been a riot to watch)

[salamanca]

So today was the N E Geek expo. It's a comic con that embraces lots of cosplay and people exhibiting whatever nerdy fandom they follow (while offering nearly zero comics for sale among all the vendors). Tons of comicbook costumes, anime costumes, a couple trekkies nearly zero Timelords (go figure) a viking warband, and lots of black t shirts with witty inside jokes. They did a good job this year at a new venue and nearly doubled attendance. I saw tons of people from the renn faire. Highlight of the day was the chinese auction. One of the items was a Batman: Death of the Family special edition with Joker mask... It was won by a guy cosplaying as the Joker. I also bought myself a ring with rotating bands that allow me to roll 2d10 with the flick of my thumb (that's right, I got me a functional dice ring. Take that Hal Jordan)

[salamanca]

Today I had a customer stop me during my sales pitch because she was convinced I looked exactly like a celebrity. I went with the typical assumption that she was referring to "that guy from clerks". I was way off on that. Apparently, to this lady, I look EXACTLY like Vince Neil. I have to say, I was a little surprised by that one and asked, "wait a minute, you mean the guy from Motley Crue?". And she said, yes. So I decided I was maybe remembering the wrong guy from Motley Crue and let the conversation slide and hoped she meant I looked like a cool rock star and not a strung out drug addicted shell of a former rock star (it has been a long week though). Then I looked up a picture. I guess I can see a resemblance if you ignore the make up, age gap, physical build, hair color, eye shape, chin and nose. (yeah, I got nothing).

[salamanca]

Fifty one days, twelve hours and twenty eight minutes to christmas and the mall is already playing holiday music.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Because F*** You Thanksgiving! That's why!

[salamanca]

So after I posted that, the mall manager walked by and asked why I was NOT wearing my top hat. I looked him square in the eye and said, "it's not the season for that yet". He replied, "But I have the christmas music on". And I gave him this cold stare while replying, "it's NOT the season for that yet.". Yesterday afternoon, we were back to Taylor Swift and Aerosmith on the music. (F U christmas, wait your turn in line! I got pumpkin spice coffee to drink before we break out the mocha merriment flavor. )

[salamanca]

Ok, now that the last post has let you all buy into the myth of my awesomeness, the truth behind the story is that the afternoon maintenance guy walked in, heard what was playing and said, "aw, hell no!" walked back into the office and changed it. My witty retort had nothing to do with it.

[salamanca]

So I saw this product at the store today called "coca-cola life". It's a can of coke made with cane sugar and stevia (with 35% less calories) for those of you wise enough to avoid aspartame but unwilling to accept corn syrup is an acceptable and tasty treat. I thought about buying it but could not bring myself to do so because it was in a very ugly green can. I just cannot drink Coke in a green can, it feels wrong.

[Lady Grace]

From what I understand, it's been a big seller in South America.

[salamanca]

I'm sure it even tastes good. But it looks so wrong in that drab green can. Side note from the mall: today I realized that with all the weird regulars we get hanging around that place, next to none of them are women. The few odd ladies we do have are early morning types. At night, it's just creepy guys.

[Black Jack Rackham]

I'm sure it even tastes good. But it looks so wrong in that drab green can.

Speaking of, does anyone remember when the Incredible Hulk came out? Hershey did this promotion where they made their chocolate syrup green. It tasted fine (the kiddos begged for it) but the whole presentation was, well, icky.

Wife (who is a chocoholic) refused to drink it.

[salamanca]

Yes, the Goblyn Queen of Hot Topic also compared it to the infamous "purple ketchup" they offered a few years back. I get the chocolate refusal, if they colored it, the stuff probably started as white chocolate which is not great chocolate if you are a true fan of the stuff.

[salamanca]

So that unique weather anomaly we call "lake effect snow" decided to kick ohio in the face for it's annual debut. 15 inches of snow, black ice, unfinished road projects and unready drivers combined to bring all eastward travel in the north corner of the state to a total halt. School buses failed to collect kids until after 7pm in places, the freeways were at a total stop main side roads closed due to accidents, police cars slid into each other and the mall stayed open. The boss' wife kept texting me asking about road conditions. I had no idea how to explain "i've been trapped in a giant windowless concrete box for the last 9 hours with no access to media". Since I couldn't drive home, I camped on Lady Bravada's couch (which I may owe XP for). Played "Tahiti" watched some tabletop and had a fun evening.

[Lady Grace]

My back is already crying after I did the first out of many shovelings.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Played "Tahiti" watched some tabletop and had a fun evening.

Well, it IS a magical place...