Guild of San Marcos Forum

OK, the calendar booth set up went waaaaay too easy. Got done in record time and no malfunctions.

But we got a new item in... A cartoon where's Waldo clone titled, "Finding Jesus". Yep, you gotta search the drawings to find the son of God at the biker wedding, the fighter plane musem and other weird gatherings.

I intend to hide it and make my staff look for it to encourage then to straighten up the shelves. Tell them they gotta " find Jesus" if they want to stay employed. And yes, I hire people that will get that is a joke and not harassment.

The greatest castles ever built have been made put of cardboard, wooden blocks or sand.

Remember that. Imagination is the greatest power in the world.

If you need a calendar, the corporate website is undercutting me by about 34%.

Calendars.com. free shipping code is FS5409... Feel free to use it if you want anything.

In related news, some screwball just requested a "Kate Bush" calendar... I don't think she ever had enough fanbase for that.

OK, kooky mall regular story.

We have a regular mall wanderer who is in his late 40's and special needs. Very nice guy but he is a loud talker and tends to fixate on subjects.

Today he was adamant about pointing out that Saturday is Halloween and the day Michael Myers goes on his murder spree. He is aware that it's fictional in concept (but is not aware of the definition of fiction as I learned today).

But then he starts going off on how stores are sold out of the movie before a loud aside on Haddonfield, Illinois being the town the movie takes place in. Next thing you know he is rambling on about wanting to visit.

I try to point out it's not a real place..
As is his nature, he needs some sort of confirmation. The guy has a knack for forcing me into dragging out the cell phone to look up weird shit to escape these conversations.

Haddonfield=fictional. But there is a weird catch...

IT HAS A FACEBOOK PAGE! It's built like a town's page would be celebrating their famous son. Now I kinda want to build a city website with vague warnings from the city council to lock your doors, mind your teens and enact restrictions on the sale of chainsaws.

Not to mention listing property sales on Elm Street in the Crystal Lake development.

Well, creepy Randy stopped by with a movie review. Now, he's a little backward in that "Deliverance/struck by lightning" sort of way.

Now keep in mind, I've known this guy for a long time and am well aware his favorite movies all contain the words "fast and furious" in the title. He also thinks the Ernest movies are some of the funniest things ever made so I approach a film review from him with a sceptical frame of mind.

So when he tells me this particular movie is the worst thing he has ever seen and that it screwed up major parts of the original material I know it's gotta be pretty lousy. When he says he was alone in the theater, I know it must have really sucked.

Still not sure why a 43 year old man goes to see Jem and the Holograms but that's Randy for you.

The boss actually removed the sale stickers on the items that needed returned to regular price last night...

He never bothers with that. I shall be spending the rest of the day confused.

Its a trick. he clearly must have put them on the wrong items to begin with.

I put them on for the week long sale. Still shocked he knew what they meant.

Bonus: kid walked by today in 80's style denim jacket, bandana, etc. Looked exactly like Edgar Frog from The Lost Boys and obviously had no ideabecause he came out of Spencers in a hat that ruined it.

So what do Led Zeppelin, The Who, Prince, The Pretenders, The Kinks, and Guns and Roses have in common?

They all were on the mall muzak system today with the Stones and Van Halen.

And not the light ballad stuff. The Immigrant Song, Won't get fooled again, Paradise City, Tattooed love boys, let's go crazy, etc. The place was rocking.

It's sounding like the world's greatest "pre-pology" for the Santa muzak that arrives Saturday.

Now if we can just get them to sneak in Prince's "Darling Nikki" to the playlist...

I have been in 4 public buildings today (the mall, toys R us, and 2 restaurants). The song "your love" by the Outfield has been playing in each of them on independent sound systems. Not exactly an epic classic pop song.

Hot topic now has a walking dead election T-shirt endorsing Grimes and Dixon in 2016.

Now I find this a terrible idea because the odds are very against them surviving 4 years in office.

In related news, the Monday following election day continues to be the slowest shopping day of the year.

High school kid just walked by with his posse. 2 are normal one is wearing a rainbow squid hat. The ringleader is dressed as Hunter S. Thompson. And he looks more like the man than Johnny Depp did.

Then again, the kid in the squid hat may be a hallucination.

So what perfumes or candle scents have you been whiffing in the mall to cause such an hallucination? Just want to know so I can make sure I avoid them in my shopping mall.

Those are at the other end. But Mr. Thompson may have consumed enough for everyone.

It is around 2:50 pm Friday. I am sitting in a restaurant waiting for my first actual meal since yesterday. It is also about 22 and a half hours since I arrived at work for "black Friday" which now lasts two days.

Do not get me wrong, I had some downtime from 2-4:30 am to nap in the car.
But sales were lousy Thursday so maybe some folks will realize how bad this plan is.

But I am off until 7 am tomorrow and new t shirts from Hot Topic so I don't care.

For weird, first sale was a jenga drinking game sold to a pair of ladies who decided to go home and drink instead of stay and shop. Go them.

Should have known sales would be off by first transaction. Two ladies bought a drinking game to take home and use instead of staying to shop.

Elmer's puzzle glue does not use glue to seal their packaging. They just fold them shut

New low for the staff...

First off, they managed to receive into inventory not one but two boxes that do not exist. No idea how that happened. Nor how to fix it, nor what was supposed to be in them.

Then, last night's closer turned off the wrong power strip to shut down the lights. My on the ball team failed to notice their lights were not on until 5 pm AND then needed me to figure out how to fix it because neither of them could think to check the power strip button.

Today I taught a man at least 15 years older than me what a jigsaw puzzle is.

That's right, he did not know the name for such a thing. At first, I thought he may have had aphasia as he was describing a picture made of little parts that you put together on a table.

But them he asked if there was a name for such a thing and was surprised to see that there were many, many options.

I swear, if one of you is sending these folks....

1- got a young man mall walking for exercise... Good for him but he is wearing the exact same clothes for the second day in a row, and sweating profusely. EXCEPT he changed backpacks today. Same nasty shirt, fresh pack. Who does that? I get swapping bags, do it myself but if I change packs, I am certainly changing shirts too.

2- build a bear now has the minions posed front and center in the window and Kevin and Stuart look like they are a very happy couple. Yeah, it don't look right.

Mall walker event this morning.

Mall brought in a DJ playing music more recent than I enjoy to entertain the seniors. Also massage chairs, a very healthy breakfast of doughnuts and pastry, blood pressure checks, etc

They also set up tables all around the mall as exercise stations where they expected the mall walkers to stop and do an activity.

Poor Dougie from maintenance spent about 3 hours setting those up yesterday. The health team abandoned them after 20 minutes this morning when they figured out senior citizen mall walkers are NOT going to stop walking to do jumping jacks or chair stretches. The only person getting any workout from this whole fiasco is Dougie. (Who will be spending 3 more hours putting those tables away today)

Nothing amusing for a long while. let's see if I can find a story...

Working in the shop over at the course today with dad. getting to be lunch time and we are pretty much done with what we are doing for the morning when the old man decides to get up to leave... then a new song comes on the radio and he sits back down because he likes it.

He has never, ever sat back down just to hear a song. so I'm pretty surprised. He has no idea who sings it but he likes it.

It was U2. Would have been a cool moment but my brother decided to howl along to it in a way that made my tone deaf ears hurt.

Two bits today

1- local sports talk radio show was discussing a "mock draft" for the NFL. (So Mark understands, this is some radio hosts speculating which team will pick which new player). Except this draft was not selecting college kids. The radio crew was drafting DC comics characters for football teams.

Yes, Batman went number one because the Cleveland team has the second pick ( and took hometown legend Superman). No idea what Seattle is thinking taking the Joker, not a team player at all.

2- Dining out tonight and Ray Parker Jr. Pops up on the playlist. (Yep, Ghostbusters). First line gets played, "Who you gonna call?". And behind me at the exact right moment I hear the voice of a small boy shout at the top of his lungs, " GHOSTBUSTAHS!".

That was not the weird part. What was weird was the restaurant staff humming and whistling that song for the next 20 minutes as they cleaned their stations and cleared tables. After seeing that, I think this reboot shall do very well.

salamanca wrote:No idea what Seattle is thinking taking the Joker, not a team player at all.

I'd have thought they'd go for Cyborg, I hear he's a good utility man...

(YAY Mark just made a sports/nerd joke)

He went higher in the draft. The Patriots took Lex Luthor.

Plus Cyborg plays quarterback due to that rifle of an arm he has.