Current Ramblings
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Christmas List: Addendum, and Some Other Ramblings
Just a couple things I wanted to stick on there, in categories I left out last time:
CDs; or, where you get to make fun of my lame music, more or less in reverse order of guilty-pleasure-ness:
* Postal Service, "Give Up"
* NOFX, "The War on Errorism"
* Snow Patrol, "Final Straw"
* Green Day, "American Idiot"
* Dashboard Confessional, "A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar"
* Switchfoot, "The Beautiful Letdown"
* Also, I would kinda like the "Shaun of the Dead" soundtrack, having learned that it has an exclusive Ash track on it, but it's only available as an import. However, that might be a really nice thing to look out for on a trip to England... :)
Books, which somehow I don't get enough of working at a bookstore:
* The Bone complete collection, which Mid-Ohio-Con's Jeff Smith love has made me hanker for.
* Dinobot Hunt, the Titan UK Transformers collection that I'm still missing.
* The Dreamwave Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover, which I also need to be all collector-y.
And that's that.
Sometimes, when you look back on the behavior of adults around you when you were a kid, things that seemed strange and nonsensical suddenly make sense. And then sometimes you come to the conclusion, in your newfound adult wisdom, that the adults involved were sick and/or insane. I was thinking back today on my high school and their hat policies. Around 10th grade I wore hats all the time, and though we had to take them off in class some of my friends in other grades said they couldn't imagine me without one. I had a variety, though there were a few favorites, including a beaten up, navy and gray old knit cap with a Transformers puff-sticker decal on it that Billy dug up from his house. By 11th grade, though, our school had decided that hats were a scourge to proper education and that none would be tolerated in the school building during the school day. Now, this was a public school, and one where, like many high schools, problems like smoking, sex, and drug use were prevalent. But apparently the numerous kids smoking in the bathrooms were nothing compared to the disruption and delinquency caused by those of us who dared wear hats between periods. The school administrators bragged about office walls covered in confiscated hats, not to be returned until the end of the school year. Security people who should have been checking out that group of cheerleaders smoking in the girls' bathroom between classes were too busy scanning the crowd for those who dared test their authority, who dared question the seriousness of their threats against their headwear. In retrospect their obsession with hats was absurd, bordering on some kind of sick power-mad hat fetish. It continued through my graduation, and to this day the administrators likely sit in their offices during first period, masturbating over the look on that poor boy's face as his new Linkin Park cap was swiped from his head as he entered the building, to be locked away for 6 long months until the end of the school year.
I had two things happen to me at work today which merit blogging for posterity. I picked up the phone today, greeting the caller with my customary cheerful "Half Price Books, Bethel Road." The fellow on the other end asked, "Is this Bethel Sawmill?" This is a pretty common identifier, as we're at the corner of Bethel and Sawmill roads, so I said, "Yep." And he proceeded to explain to me that he sold chain lubricant, and that he had been advised to call around to some sawmills, since they would need lubricant for the chains that pulled things into their kilns. I blinked to myself for a moment, then explained to the poor man that Bethel/Sawmill was our LOCATION, and that we didn't HAVE kilns. We're a BOOKSTORE. He was pretty nice about it. Though while I'm sure there was a sawmill on Sawmill Rd. at some point, I don't think there's currently a Bethel Sawmill, and I have no idea why, of all the stores at that busy intersection, he got the number for us.
Also, some guy who was selling us stuff asked me out on a date, and he totally wasn't creepy and was possibly even close to my age, which is a major improvement over what I generally deal with there. Hell, if I wasn't otherwise occupied, I would have taken him up on it. He was that not creepy.
posted@2:09 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments