retail hell(ish)

Lifetime Real Women

2008-08-27T19:23:00.001-04:00

I'm stuck at my mom's apartment until I move back to NYC.

I'm watching episodes of The Division and Strong Medicine, and I feel like I'm taking estrogen.

I haven't started crying yet. I'm more shaking my head, not believing my life has sunk so low...

guitar hero and rock band

2008-08-26T21:49:00.003-04:00

So, I've been working out pretty much every other day, right? You'd have to go back and look where it was that I started, I think I mentioned it here and, frankly, I'm too lazy.

So, when you know, let me know. But it's got to be at least two months.

And I've seen a difference! And it's awesome, you know. I'm pleased with the results, I'm happy I'm doing something proactive about my health and all.

But, let me tell you about feats of strength.

I have been stuck on Rock Band's hard level... Stevie Ray Vaughn, goddammit... Pride and Joy is one hard song... on 'hard'.

I played it 14 times on Monday. I couldn't get it. I could not.

I get home tonight, after working out, and I see that I didn't save the game, so I have to do Tenacious D's "The Metal" again, which is tough in its own right.

Takes me three tries, but I do it. So, at least I can save it, thank god.

My arm is killing me. My hands hurt. This is just not going to happen.

First time, pffft.

Second time, psssshhhhh.

Third time, let me tell you, my heart was raci...

Wait a second.

Wait, wait, wait.

Wait.

I think like 3 people read this blog. For those of you who don't know what Rock Band and Guitar Hero is... let's see if YouTube can school you... hmmm.

Picture me:

Tee-hee!

Singing! No sunglasses, of course...

OK, ok, sometimes with sunglasses.

With my buddies. Walter on the drums (he rocks) and Pete on guitar (he's awesome). Sometimes we switch. Walter will sing and I'll play bass... I can't play the drums for shit.

So, that's Rock Band.

Let's see if I can find a Guitar Hero clip that doesn't have a 12 year old Asian kid who's an idiot savant and will be in an institution in a couple of years, having gone insane from flashing lights and finger cramping...

Yeah, ok, I found that. And that's 'expert,' which, as you can probably surmise, is one level higher than 'hard' which won't be happening for me any time this side of Christmas, unless I practice ten hours a day, and get cataract surgery, when I need it.

All those discs at the bottom, those correspond with, I guess you'd call them frets, on the guitar you get with the game. And you have to strum a plastic doohicky (not the proper spelling) every time one of those things hits the discs, and hold down the appropriate...

Yeah, it's hard.

So, tonight I finally conquered Pride And Joy. And my arm and my hands both hate me. Which is not good.

So.

That's the news.

J

olympics

2008-08-22T14:15:00.003-04:00

Regardless of people's decisions to ban watching them, or take them seriously, or what-not, there is still a sense of excitement every time a Phelps or a Bolt or a... well, you get the idea.

So, in the spirit, I present to you this fantastic collection of photos (some NSFW) of this years Olympics.

(edit)

AND, an AWESOME panoramic shot... check this thing out. Hold your button down and drag to a direction.

surviving the hurricane

2008-08-20T17:14:00.002-04:00

Well, we had torrential rain, sleet, snow, cows, and...

No, wait, we had 4 minutes of rain. That's about it.

Here's some fun stuff, you know, away from talking about business and gambling and all that goes with it.

Hope all is well.

Amy, thanks for asking about me!

back around again

2008-08-08T11:40:00.004-04:00

First, one of the best videos I've seen this year.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Now, let's recap a couple of weeks of stuff here, so that you can be up to speed on my life and business and all.

We hired a PR firm, Release PR. We've sent out 3 press releases, and sent out a ton of product samples. It's been right exhausting.

Let's see.

Went to Atlantic City with my girl Karen, and played 3-card poker at the behest of Crotchety. Won $300. Made the trip worthwhile.

It was our birthday weekend. My birthday was Sunday, the 3rd. Her's was the 31st of July. We had fun. The trip down was a joke. We spent almost 4 hours on the bus, when it should have been about 2.5 hours. Got to The Taj, went to get our vouchers cashed in (casinos give vouchers for visitors who come by bus), and they wanted Karen to get a card to get her money. What a joke.

Not the nicest thing, but after our trip, I had zero patience. We were there to play a 4pm poker tournament, and were running late.

Got to Harrah's and the line for checking in, ON A SUNDAY, was over 100 people. It took an hour just to get to the check in desk. By that time, the tournament was already under way. That sucked.

From there it was gambling and fun. They upgraded our room at Harrah's, which was nice.

Coming home, the bus basically flew all the way.

I'm at the store, listening to the most horrible music imaginable, bored out of my mind.

Someone please write me a comment so I have something to break the monotony.

John

Tequileria

2008-07-24T16:25:00.002-04:00

I'm in the Tampa airport. It's 4:17 and my flight is delayed 3 hours. For no particular reason, as the NY area does not have rain right now, though they did in the morning.

So, I've started drinking.

The couple next to me, in their 50s at least, were carded. They asked what I was typing earlier, which was a joke of politics entry, and I told them. The wife made a face when I mentioned that McCain screwed up a few times this week and people are thinking he's going senile, or at least too old for President.

Basically she brushed me off, like "why would anyone take seriously him saying that Iraq and Pakistan border each other?"

I'm not sure. But I think most people would like their next President to NOT be a fucking moron.

The woman opposite me is balancing her checkbook.

Ah, the lost and lonely of the Tampa airport.

I'm heading to NY, to celebrate Karen's and my birthday. Her's is the 31st. Mine is August 3rd. We're going down to Atlantic City to try and win next months rent.

Crotchety, I'll do my best to play some slots in your honor.

I wish the flight wasn't so delayed. There's only so much drinking I can do with 3 hours to wait. Then, I'll get on the flight and want to drink more, at extortion prices, or I'll have a stomach ache and throw up on my neighbor.

Or both. You never know these days. One bottom out and I could shoot puke three rows.

What else is going on today? Just work, the usual. Nothing much.

Going to see The Dark Knight tomorrow, on IMAX, at 9:30 AM, and it better be deserted. I don't want a bunch of crying kids spoiling my fun. Our fun.

Then it's cooking dinner. Then it's, oh, she's got this killer gym in the building, so, we'll be working out. And, ahem.

Saturday, not sure what's going to happen, but I'm hoping to get together with my buddies at my friend Pete's restaurant. We shall see.

Nothing much else going on, though and I can only type for so long before I start repeating myself, and that's never fun, unless on purpose.

So, I hope you're all enjoying yourselves. And if I die in the plane crash, Karen gets the L painting. Just, you know, so that it's a matter of record.

The rest of you, sorry, you get nothing but fond memories of my brief blog writing career.

Wish me luck.

couple of things

2008-07-20T14:54:00.002-04:00

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Wrestlers Need A Chair And Fans Deliver - Watch more free videos

Ahhh.

Now.

For those of you interested in watching some amazing movies you might not have heard about (this, of course, depends on how many movies you do watch), I would like to recommend two.

One. MUST be watched in its original language. Half of Min-sik Choi's incredible acting is in his inflection.

Two.

Both are nearly perfect, if not fully. If you want another semi-mainstream movie that I believe is perfect, you know, for reference. American Psycho.

There you have it.

Hope you're well.

J

Holy cow

2008-07-19T10:35:00.003-04:00

Statue of Liberty picture, circa 1883.

So unbelievable.

Cat House

2008-07-18T16:13:00.001-04:00

No, not the brothel.

a crazy story

2008-07-16T11:36:00.001-04:00

It's a long article but it is so worth it.

Ride the Snake

2008-07-11T14:53:00.004-04:00

Is everybody in?

Is. Everybody. In?

2 customers, thus. Friday, 2:45pm.

I'm watching Oliver Stone's ham handed vision of The Doors. Kilmer was, of course, a perfect casting choice. But god, Stone loves to hammer those images into you.

I loved Natural Born Killers. I went with my then girlfriend Trissa, who, afterward, would not talk to me for three hours.

His earlier work is good. I'm not sure what to think of his new film W.

I also have Apocalypse Now. Some more light viewing.

Tired today. No stupid customers to write about, which is a shame, since they've always filled my entertainment quota for the day.

Exhausted, even. Not sure why. I changed my blog roll. Good sites, all.

Bradley, if you're reading, I hope things are going well with the weight loss. I've consistently been working out, but I've only lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks. I guess it's true what they say*.

This weekend will be relaxing and possibly going to see a movie, biking around a bit, trying to beat the heat. Putting into effect the plans for my escape from Florida.

I need comments from people. I need to know how people are doing. Beyond their blogs. At this moment.

* I have no idea what they say.

so many things

2008-07-08T20:26:00.002-04:00

First off, I'm not working the retail store, but once a week. Takes a lot of the steam out of retail hell-ish, but eh, what's in a name.

I'm sure the world of retail has not left me permanently. Which is a shame.

Secondly. Put in my 60 days notice to get the hell out of here. I have mixed feelings. I'm sure you can understand. It's not leaving. It's not the culture shock I'm bound to experience in the great city. It's leaving my family. Blech. Haven't had to do that in seventeen years.

Third. I'm exhausted. We've been busting our asses trying to get a new fall line of soaps ready, on top of the Christmas line. We've sent out over 15 packages to different magazines, newspapers and more. We have another 10 to go, not to mention the second release hits next week. Who knows what that will bring.

Fourth. I've been working out, every other day, for over a month now. And I can see a huge difference. Not so much weight wise, but I can see more mass, more muscle. It's hot. Seriously. I get home, I can't wait to take off my shirt and go all Hulk (tm) in the mirror, you know?

Then I sit down, and half an hour later I'm in so much pain, I just sleep on the couch.

But still. HULK!

Fifth. Looks like Karen and I are driving up to NY. Or maybe Karen is driving. I'll be navigating, which means doing nothing.

Unless I get my driver's license soon, and I don't think that driving the east coast is a good starters lesson.

Sixth. I put in Death Race 2000 to watch, and was really enjoying it, and then the dvd cut out on me, unfortunately. That movie is a lot of fun. And Tak Fujimoto did the photography! Who'd have thought that?

Tak is the genius behind a TON of blockbuster films like Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Signs, older stuff like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, That Thing You Do!, and a lot more.

Many years ago, my dad used to take my sister and I to Lake George, in upstate NY. There were two or three amusement parks up there, and we used to hit them all. I remember one was Magic Forest, there was another one, but the one we always went to, practically every day, was Great Escape.

Before it was purchased by Six Flags, it was this regular, rural park, with rides and games, a saloon and all these fun shows, like magicians and comedians and all.

But the coolest thing they had. Beyond cool. Was the car museum.

And it wasn't just one place. These cars were all over the park.

And they were all the cars from Death Race 2000.

Man. I can still see them, all. Anyway, I did a search and couldn't really find them there any more. Some exec probably said "What the hell are these things, get rid of them."

Which is something execs do.

Hope you're all well. I'll keep you posted on my NY trip back home as things progress.

J

anyone seen Wall•E yet?

2008-07-04T10:38:00.002-04:00

I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the message, I enjoyed the animation, the story, the characters, I really liked it a lot. I haven't been disappointed in a Pixar film yet.

Read this comment about something that happened during the making of the film. It's really very sweet.

The film has been picking up a lot of flack. From people who are upset about it's pro-green message, to fat people who think they are being unfairly portrayed.

I'm 34 years old. I'll be 35 in a month or so. I think that when I finally reached my 'adult' years, I was smack at the beginning of the PC rage.

I wonder when morals and deeper messages about the prospective plight of humans turned into lies we shouldn't tell our children. When did we start coddling our present?

Such a shame. The morals of Wall•E are far reaching. We keep making mistake after mistake. And these people who are upset about the message in this film are happy with the status quo. Those are the people who should be ashamed. Of themselves.

Such a shame.

It's a brilliant movie, and worth seeing in the theaters.

Scoopy McSyrup

2008-07-03T13:19:00.001-04:00

Probably haven't told anyone about this. Check it out:

Scoopy McSyrup.com.

Then check this out, my friends signed me up as a presidential candidate.

Awesome.

one of the best commercials you'll never see

2008-07-02T17:04:00.000-04:00

the website is DOWN

2008-06-30T21:52:00.002-04:00

I laughed so hard at this... I used to do IT work, and while it wasn't this complicated (worked on macs, did local network stuff)... well, this is so brilliant, I can't stand it.

New York, NYC, Manhattan and all points in between

2008-06-28T17:44:00.001-04:00

Check it.

remi

2008-06-26T18:46:00.000-04:00

More here.

Herpex

2008-06-25T15:36:00.001-04:00

ah, Florida, I will never forget you

2008-06-25T13:39:00.002-04:00

Maybe.

Since February 1st, 2008, I have been diagnosed with the following:

Severe depression*

Multiple Personality Disorder*

Bi-polar disorder*

Restless Leg Syndrome*

Agoraphobia*

Fistaphobia*

And a whole bunch more phobias that you've never ever heard of.

Like Phallophobia. Shudder.

It looks like, after having receiving a nice laundry list of problems from numerous specialists, that I will be leaving the prison of Florida.

When is up for debate, but any light at the tunnel is still a light... at the...

We'll see how it goes. I'm not too keen on just leaving my mom and my sister to flounder without help. My main concern is for their stable financial future, and if I'm not on the payroll, that will help them.

Those of you who feel like helping promote the Soapier brand, I will be starting an affiliate program through our shopping cart. We're offering 20% of sales to affiliates, which I think it a great percentage. More soon, it should start July 1st.

Other than that, things are things. I just had some woman come in and tell me she's a massage therapist and that she uses our massage oils for her customers.

"Oh, that's great. We have only had like one or two serious health problems with them, so that's good."

They looked at me... man, it was hysterical. I told them I was kidding. They laughed, we talked a bit. The father gave me some money for some soap, said keep the penny.

I said thanks, it'll go towards our pending lawsuits.

I'm such a funny guy.

* I have not been diagnosed with any of these disorders.

Sigh.

And no, I'm not afraid of erect penises, sheesh. At least, not my own.

Archery, raining and where the hell is Matt?

2008-06-22T22:36:00.002-04:00

First off, a video:

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

So awesome. From Where The Hell Is Matt.com.

Had a nice weekend. Here's a 15 second clip of my recording Karen shooting a composite bow.

Sorry it's a bit poor quality, but we went to a neat archery place in Tarpon Springs, had a blast. I didn't use the composite bow too much because I basically thought it was cheating. So I used a fiberglass bow. The guy who owns the place strung a wood bow together, and it was AWESOME.

My new hobby.

It poured like a crazy person here. For two whole days we've had rain, and that hasn't happened in over 3 months. The pond out front of our complex was drying up, as was one down the block. I was very thankful we had the rain, as were the duckies and turtle I've seen, I'm sure.

So, I had a MAJOR anxiety attack yesterday, right? Freaking out, I'm in the middle of cooking, I can't calm down, I'm eating food, drinking vitamin waters.

Finally it subsides, but I spend the rest of the day thinking I'm going to puke just from all the adrenaline.

Karen goes "I wasn't worried, that's why I didn't get off the couch."

It was pretty funny.

"There's nothing wrong with you. I didn't get off the couch because how severe your condition was."

We laughed about that.

Then I punched her in the face!

She's headed back to NYC. I'm tired. We made brownies. I ate too many.

And now, after all that, we're having a competition to see who can lose the largest percentage of weight between now and when I go up to NYC for our birthdays (her's is July 31st, mine August 3rd). So, I have to purge all the brownies (thank god there's only one left) and continue working out.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

The importance of exercise

2008-06-21T21:19:00.002-04:00

Now, I can go on about how healthy I feel, how less depressed I am, how I've taken exercise and turned it into a hobby rather than a chore.

No.

No, no, no.

What I'm going to tell you is WHY I'm exercising. For some, it will be a surprise. For others, well, I'm sure they'll empathize.

I will not, under any circumstances, die while having sex.

I won't do it.

So, there you go.

I just came back from seeing Get Smart with Karen, who's down from NYC for the weekend, and I have just got to say that every single theater, everywhere, has got its talkers and obnoxious laughers and just all around morons, because tonight I did not enjoy the movie as much as I would have, had I not had an ENTIRE ROW of awful laughers and talkers behind me.

Oh man.

We looked at each other a few times whenever something really obnoxious was guffawed or spit out of their mouths. I'm constantly amazed, as I get over, the people who feel they need to say something at the most obvious times. Not just in the movies, but outside, in the real world as well.

As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Lullaby, these quiet-a-phobics. These noise-a-holics.

Ugh.

Now I'm making brownies. We're having brownies, salt & vinegar kettle chips and wine. It's not cosmopolitan. It's just a delicious combination.

Tomorrow we're going to hit the archery range. Can't wait for that.

Hope you're all having a good weekend.

J - retail hell (ish)

the day I quit

2008-06-19T14:30:00.002-04:00

Ok, so, two years ago I quit my job working as a temp doing little tiny illustrations for text books. I mean, can there be any other job in the world that would have as high a suicide rate? Ok, I'm sure there are some.

I sent out an email to the whole company after receiving an email that was directed to the entire company that said this:

"Where were you on 6,6,6?

Make it a good one."

They were talking about June 6th, 2006, the day the remake of The Omen came out.

So, I decided to take a moment and write a funny story:

"I woke up in darkness. Seriously. I couldn't see anything, and my bed felt like a pile of goo. I was trying to figure out why there was no light, when I realized that my cat had sat on my head.

Truly frightening.

The goo was this new tempra foam mattress pad. You really must get one.

I showered, I ate breakfast. I felt obscenely close to killing all of humanity, while I finished my Special K. Oh, and I was watching an episode of The Simpsons, their IV Halloween Special.

From there, I got onto the subway. Id never brought an ax onto the R line before. Usually, people are down-right miserable, dreading going to work. This morning, they seemed more... animated.

I went to grab the express train which was closing up, ready to pull out of the station. I waved to the conductor, ax in hand. Id never seen a conductor smile and cry, at the same time.

The N train was very similar to the R train, except now the crowd seemed to be shying away from me, as if I smelled REALLY bad. In truth, I think it was the homeless guy that was sitting down in front of me, but when he moved... I had to check under my shoes, just in case, you know?

I got to 34th street without further incident, and took the walk up the stairs slow, whilst sharpening my ax. Ever have a police officer throw his gun at your feet and start crying for him mommy? Its something everyone should experience.

Down 32nd street. Asian people left and right were running from me, as if I were Godzilla.

Round the corner at 32nd and Madison, into the heavy double doors of this building (I swear, I'm breaking them down today) and, at first, I thought that curly haired guy who presides over the 1 x 2 booth by the elevators was going to ask me for ID. Again.

He fainted.

Now, I'm transferred to the 4th floor, among bras and brassieres and panties... It's all been very soothing.

BUT. I'm waiting for Dave Blumenfeld to give me work... And, I have to say, things might get messy.

John
Son of the Devil."

And then I got in trouble. The VP said it was a very inappropriate e-mail, and people were offended. I was then asked to send out a formal apology. So, I originally wrote this:

"In regards to my response to Tyrone's 666 e-mail, my apologies to the following who might have found what I wrote insulting:

Asians
Homeless people
Transit workers
Anyone without a penis
Anyone who once had a penis
Satan worshippers who took the day off and didn't get this e-mail yet
Anyone with large breasts
Anyone with small breasts
Medium breasts
Godzilla
My face sitting cat
My immediate boss, who I'm going to ax in the face, regardless of whether or not I have a job tomorrow

And so on. For those of you with a huge stick up your asses, go fuck yourself. I don't need this crap temp-job as much as you need the incredibly good work I was doing.

John"

But then I just sent a regular apology email... only to get bombarded with emails saying it was the funniest thing they'd read in a while, and all that.

Unreal. The guy who sent the initial letter sent a follow-up two minutes AFTER I sent mine.

When I got the initial letter I was like "WOW, this place is cool! They do this?"

No one likes to have fun any more. In corporate America.

my gay NYC subway story

2008-06-19T14:20:00.001-04:00

You asked for it. I got about two dozen emails asking me for this story.

Actually, I got no emails. I got one comment. From this old guy who yells at cars. And he commented because he's got his own subway story.

So here goes. The dueling banjos of subway stories. And I hate dueling banjos. When my neighbor plays it.

This story, btw, is not for kids. I'll keep the curse words down to a minimum... ok, actually, that's a lie. I can't do that.

Christ, I'm sitting here and saying to myself "Don't post this story. For god sake, man, your MOM reads this."

Mom. Stop reading.

Ok, you know what? Seriously, NOT the place for this post. I'm not trying to build this up, but I'll let you go read it here. Deals with gays, sex and a lot of... information. But it's very funny.

You've been warned.

J

ear candles and thriller

2008-06-19T11:32:00.002-04:00

So I'm sitting here minding my own business when a customer comes in, looks around, looks at me and asks "Do you have any ear candles?"

I look at her, my body concentrating on doing two things. One. Don't yell at her. Two. Keep jaw from dropping.

"No, I don't. You know, you can just make one yourself."

Blank faces.

"With a piece of paper, wrapped in a cone, put it in the ear... you can just look up how to do it."

"Oh. Thank you."

Her friend said "Isn't it amazing what you hear?"

I rolled my eyes and thank god for curbing my appetite for blood.

So, I'm going through the 180 shots we took of product on Tuesday. I have my itunes on, and I'm listening to my collection of 80's music and what comes on?

So, I had to watch the video, you know? I had to. Sorry, no embedding this one.

Then, you know, you have to watch all the others...

And I just saw this for the first time and busted out laughing.

Ah, youtube.

fun stuff

2008-06-18T10:33:00.004-04:00

I figured I would have a nice uplifting post after my Stan Winston tribute.

But I can't think of anything funny to say.

Yesterday, instead of working at the store, I helped art direct the new series of photos we shot for the Soapier website and catalog.

I was exhausted after that.

Ended up playing poker on full tilt poker with Karen last night. We both made it to the final table in a 90 person tournament. That was fun.

But not funny.

Let me tell you about soap on a rope. I'm not sure if I did talk about this, but it's a small store and sooner or later my tales will overlap.

A father, a mother and their son come in to the store. And they have a nice look around.

The son comes upon our soap-on-a-rope. It's neopolitan. Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Very nice.

"What is this?" - son

"Soap on a rope." - father

"That's stupid."

"Well," the father says looking at me. I'm smiling. "see, soap on a rope was made for men in prisons."

The son looks at him. He's young. 10, 11.

"Prisons?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Well, because" clears throat "because men in prison don't want to drop their soap."

"Why?"

I'm laughing. The mom is shaking her head. The father is trying not to laugh.

There was no punchline because I think the kid would have had nightmares for a month, and would have ended sodomizing the family dog when he was older.

Stan Winston

2008-06-16T14:41:00.002-04:00

You might not recognize the name... it's understandable. I'm a movie fan, I watch the credits, I pay attention to who's responsible for the creation of... well, christ, in Stan's case, pretty much everything.

He died yesterday. Don't have much information on how, but it's a dark day for Hollywood.

Here's my tribute to Stan Winston, who provided me with so much entertainment over the years, I cannot even begin to tell you how much he affected my creative side.

And much more.

He was the driving force behind all of the creativity in these films. He designed the creatures. He was the flip side to Jim Henson. He'll be sorely missed.

If you want to learn more about him, here's his studio website.

Goodbye Stan. Thank you for everything.

the joke of politics

2008-06-16T13:22:00.003-04:00

Hi folks.

It's 1:15pm on Monday. Over the weekend I had the bright idea of creating a political blog.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

But I figured I would give it a shot, since 35 hours of every week are spent combing the internet for funny photos of cats, videos of, well christ, anything right? And political articles on the two guys who are bidding to run the country.

Oh, and porn. But seriously, not at the store. That would just be creepy.

Is Victoria's Secret porn? NO. So shut up.

You shut up.

You.

You.

Anyway.

You.

Stop it!

I started The Joke of Politics. Feel free to gander and comment.

John

Here's what politics boils down to.

----------

You are so stupid.

You're stupid.

You are.

Mom said you were adopted. By circus freaks. They fed you hay.

Your face is hay.

Your face is a circus freak show.

We look alike, stupid.

I don't look like a circus freak.

You look like dad.

I look like dad, you look like... stupid!

Mom, he said I look like a circus freak who got fed hay until you adopted me! Tell him I came from your belly and that you screamed for nine hours and you hate dad!

She doesn't hate dad. She hates you because you smell like hay and mud and we can't show your face to the neighbors.

She hates you.

No, she hates you.

She hates you because you don't even know how to eat a bowl of cereal without making a mess.

Hey! I have a deviated septum, it's not my fault.

You have a hairlip too.

You have a hairlip!

No I don't.

You have a hair... eyeball!

You have a... wait, a what?

You have a hairy eyeball!

I can't believe you think I was adopted. You have a deviated septum and a hairlip from working at the circus.

I do not!

Yeah, you used to play around with the elephants until one day they stopped talking to you because you're stupid and they wanted to try and forget you.

WHAT?

Yeah. They even had elephant surgery to take you out of their brains.

They did not!

Yeah, they did. And the woman with the beard, she's your mom.

She is not. Mom!

Don't call for my mom, she's not your mom. Call her Miss.

Mis... MOM!

See? She's not listening because mom only listens to her real children, and that's me.

You're so stupid.

You are!

You.

You.

You.

You.

I'm going to kill you in your sleep.

MOM!

some time wasters

2008-06-13T11:56:00.002-04:00

Hey, so I'm at the shop and I'm bored out of my mind. I'm watching Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It's got one of the greatest action sequences I've ever seen on film.

On most days I'd be content to sit here, watch a movie, listen to the awful music that's piped into this place... like this:

This song is worse than death, and is only beat out by this other song I get to hear about two times a day. I'm gonna give you these as lyrics because to assault your other sense would be criminal.

------

Hey, lumpa sugar, you look kinda sweet
Cuter than a baby walkin’ down the street
When I look into your eyes, I wanna leap
I can’t conceal that you make me feel

Like a tiger, ooh, ooh, ooh, like a tiger
Ooh, ooh, ooh, just to see you smile nearly drives me wild
I wanna growl wow!

I’m feelin’ stronger than a grizzly bear
Soarin’ like an eagle flyin’ through the air
When I get you in my arms, you’d better beware
I go insane ’cause I can’t be tamed

Like a tiger, ooh, ooh, ooh, like a tiger
Ooh, ooh, ooh, just to see you smile nearly drives me wild
I wanna growl wow!

You keep my heart jumpin’ like a kangaroo
Floatin’ like an onion in a bowl of stew
Baby, ev’ry time you come in view
I run like an antelope to get to you

I’m your tiger and you’re my mate
Hurry up, buttercup, and don’t be late
I might get mad if I have to wait
Come right now ’cause I’m on the prowl

Like a tiger, ooh, ooh, ooh, like a tiger
Ooh, ooh, ooh, just to see you smile nearly drives me wild
I wanna growl wow!

You keep my heart jumpin’ like a kangaroo
Floatin’ like an onion in a bowl of stew
Baby, ev’ry time you come in view
I run like an antelope to get to you

I’m your tiger and you’re my mate
Hurry up, buttercup, and don’t be late
I might get mad if I have to wait
Come right now ’cause I’m on the prowl

Like a tiger, ooh, ooh, ooh, like a tiger
Ooh, ooh, ooh, just to see you smile nearly drives me wild
I wanna growl wow

------------

According to the Geneva Convention, this song has been outlawed as a form of torture. Of course, no one listens.

I know, this site is turning into the link equivalent of the boy who cried wolf.

So, one day, many years ago I had taken a nap and paused something on television. I pressed play and a few minutes later there was one of those 'emergency news bands' came on the screen and I thought... what if we'd just gotten nuked. Somewhere close. And I woke up from a nap to find one of those things going past, and it was 30 minutes in the past and I walked outside and got fried up.

That would be a silly way to die. By a nap.

Sigh.

So, here are two fun time wasters for those of you who are stuck at work or stuck at home because a nuclear bomb went off somewhere close to you and you still have internet access, but can't leave the house.

Overheard in New York

Not Always Right

These are fun.

John - retail hell - ish

Soapier's first contest is over

2008-06-12T12:38:00.002-04:00

Well. My first title was going to say "Soapier's first contest was a big F-You to me"... but I decided against it.

I publicized this contest on 16 different contest sites. It was picked up by 1 (only because it was a message board), and I can tell you exactly why. It wasn't the prize. It wasn't the kind of contest. It was because I didn't spend $5 to get the premium listing. These sites offer FREE contest listings, and they didn't do it.

People who did see the contest could have won a $30 gift certificate to Soapier. That's like 6 bars of great soap.

All they had to do was take a picture.

So, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that people are just inherently lazy and don't want to do more than veg out, regardless of whether it's in front of their tv or computer with their boxer shorts hanging open just in case there's a lingerie ad on a site they're visiting that ISN'T porn...

I ran that contest for a solid month. 1 month. I had one person ask me a question about it and three people comment about the cat in my sample photo.

That's it.

Hey, it saved me and my company $90. Next time I'll have to have a contest that says "If you can drool, you can win some soap... although chances are, you don't know what soap is. All you have to do is click this button and you're automatically entered to win something. We're not sure what that 'something' is, but do you really care?"

Forgive my frustration, but it's 95 degrees outside and I HAVE to keep my door open because people can't read our big sign outside that says SOAPIER. They need to smell all the lovely fragrances. So I have to keep the AC at 82, so we don't have a $400 electric bill.

I'm sweating in my own store in the hopes I get two customers today.

Death to Florida. Why can't I have a shop in Alaska, where people are more inquisitive? I mean, christ, they have to be! All those windows are snowed up, for god sake.

Phil Sano, tasers and accountability

2008-06-12T12:21:00.004-04:00

Ok, ok, ok. This has NOTHING to do with the retail store, and pretty much not a single thing humorous.

I'm an avid biker. While living in NYC and here in Florida. It's my favorite thing to do.

Recently on reddit I came across an article.

Subject: Portland cyclist tasered by police for not having headlight. "Without question, I could tell they enjoyed seeing me become so helpless, so weak. It was humiliating."

You have to click on that, right?

Here is the article.

This is a letter I wrote to the Mayor of Portland and to the Chief of Police, Chief Sizer. I thought it important to post this, A) because I wanted to leave a comment on the bikeportland.org website to show some solidarity and B) because it's better to say something than to not.

-------

Chief Sizer,

My name is John Painz, I live in Palm Harbor, Florida and I read about this incident on bikeportland.org

It's difficult to make a rational comment about this topic since A) I don't live in Portland and B) don't know all of the facts (I've heard one side, biased or not, though with increasing police taser stories nationwide, I'd have to go with unbiased)... But I'd like to give my opinion on tasers and their apparent abuse, throughout the country.

Officers are taught not to use their firearms in situations that don't call for it... The consequences are usually dire, and paint a terrible picture of the police.

They've now been given a device that they can use, where the assailants, the majority of the time, won't be permanently damaged, and are immobilized enough for police officers to guarantee their own safety in a possibly dangerous situation.

From a responsible standpoint, it's a powerful tool for police officers.

But what we're seeing more and more are officers who were once impotent in their use of force, now have a tool where they can support their need for control and violence, in any situation they deem fit.

From the picture at the scene on bikeportland.org, there are more than 6 police officers at the scene. For a man who didn't have a light on his bike?

I recognize the importance of bike safety. I'm an avid biker myself. But this group confrontation not only supports the actions of the one or two officers involved, but it empowers other officers nation wide. It strengthens the bonds between fellow officers who might not think twice to use a device that is potentially deadly, for an offense that does not require this kind of response.

Police officers have to be better trained to know when to use such a device. I find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe that officer Erin Smith could not have found a less dangerous way of confronting Phil Sano, especially with that many additional officers around. Especially since two accounts say he did not identify that he was a police officer. Pushing someone off of a bike is dangerous enough, especially for something like a missing light. Then to taser him repeatedly, while officers just watched... It's completely reprehensible.

Trumping up Sano's charges with 'resisting arrest, attempted escape III and disorderly conduct'... Those are basically tell-tale signs of officers who know they went too far, and pad their report to inflate the situation and keep themselves and others in a better light.

I understand the obligation that police officers, their fellow officers and their higher ups are under to protect their own. What they do every day, the dangers that they face, the extraordinary situations they face. It's hard for most people to wrap their head around, fully. But that is a dangerous slope. There are strict limits of what is acceptable, and then there is accountability.

With every incident like this one that gets the poo-poo rhetoric and eyerolls, the jokes at work, police chiefs and other brass are sending a clear message to the citizens of its city (respectively) and to other fellow officers, like I said. That protecting their own is more important than protecting the people.

"If he didn't do what he shouldn't have done, I wouldn't have had to tackle him off his bike, taser him, taser him again, put my knee into his back, cuff him... All for a light on his bike." (these are no one's words, but that roughly defines the series of events)

Put that into perspective.

In this day and age, you cannot expect these stories to NOT have a life of their own, online. You cannot expect there to be repercussions from the public. Because everybody knows somebody with a story. You're helping pile on resentment for people who are trying to protect us, by allowing a whitewash of these events to just pass by, waiting for the next big story.

Do you ever wonder why there is so much resentment towards police? Don't you think that situations like this just perpetuate that resentment?

These officers need accountability training. Tasers are not substitute toys for guns. Had Sano died from his injuries, those officers would be out of a job and up on a huge wrongful death suit. It could have happened. It didn't.

Doesn't mean it's just going to go away. Think twice before hoping cases like this will just be forgotten in a week. People, the people who care, never forget. As I said, everybody knows somebody with a story.

John Painz

hulu

2008-06-11T12:02:00.004-04:00

Not sure if anyone knows about Hulu but they have some great streaming media, including movies and television shows, and now full episodes of The Daily Show and Colbert Report.

So there you have it.

Here's a funny exchange I'm having with someone on reddit.com.

Subject question: Could an American please explain to me what the likelihood of Bush getting impeached is?

thread starter: Is it a realistic possibility or is there not likely to be any action taken with the election coming up so soon?

someone else: I am not American, but as far as I remember, there were two or three another attempts in the past. All failed.

thread starter: This is why I am so confused when reddit goes crazy everytime the word impeach is mentioned. If there's no realistic possibility then why do we even try?

me - I think you misunderestimate the American people. (for the life of me, I cannot understand why I still get a red line under 'misunderestimate' on firefox... like it's spelled incorrectly. pshhh.)

my nemesis - Maybe because the word doesn't exist?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/misunderestimate

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misunderestimate

me - (whispering) do a google search (/whispering)

my nemesis - Just because a word can be found on google doesn't mean it exists.

me - Ok, seriously, are you even remotely joking? "Misunderestimate" is a word our President used during a press conference. This is a thread on impeaching the President. It was a play on words. Why I have to explain this to someone when I told them to google the word is beyond me, but there you go.

my nemesis - The idea that you were using it in this meaning crossed my mind, but the rational part of it refused to believe it. I beg your forgiveness for being rational. And your joke was poor.

me - how about I forgive you for not having a sense of humor. Nice backpeddling, btw.

---------

These people are unreal. I'm not sure how you can go from correctly my spelling to saying "Oh, yeah, I thought it might have been a joke."

It's one of the reasons why nothing will never, ever ever never ever never get solved on the internet. Can't wait to update you on more back and forth backpeddling from my nemesis.

other photoes

2008-06-10T19:50:00.003-04:00

When I'm not trying to save the company with product photography, and not spelling like a certain VP (see how that works... potatoes, potatos... photos, phot... ah, forget it, this is turning into an Oliver Stone film), I like to take other photos, so I thought you might like to check them out.

My flickr link.

Enjoy.

product photography suicide mission

2008-06-10T16:46:00.006-04:00

So, we have two facilities at Soapier/First In Line Soap. Not because we have two names... pshh. That's just silly. One is our retail store, Soapier. The other is our manufacturing facility for our whole... sale.

So, we have two facilities at Soapier/First In Line Soap.

(eyeroll)

On top of being the pseudo web genius everyone takes me for, and a graphic design specialist (this is true), I also take product photography for the company. Not all of it, some of it was outsourced. But the other half, all me.

And I suck at photography. I mean it. If I was there that day when Oswald got shot, you'd have gotten this instead.

A picture for the ages.

Now, I have two killer cameras. One, I've already talked about, from my NY trip. The Canon Powershot SD 1100. It rocks.

The other... it's called the something-something. I have it at home, and I do not have a photographic (HA!) memory.

If you laughed at that little pun, stop reading and leave this place immediately. If your level of scorn and distaste for me has risen, read on. Things can only get better.

I can color correct something until the cows come home. And normally I can get something looking exactly the way I want, from a photo I shot. Or, I can fudge it. Either way, I'll be reasonably happy.

Today I shot some photos with the new camera, and was not happy. I couldn't get a single thing to look right, and I'll tell you. Product photography is something worth paying for.

In our case we have a good 100 different products that need shooting. So be it. I can do the art direction, I just need a photographer with the right equipment to shoot what I want to accomplish.

So, the guy we used, we'll be using him again. Hopefully this week. We'll see how his schedule is.

Here's the thing about product photography. You're not just shooting your product. You're shooting the best representation of said product.

Many years ago, I was working at the Food Emporium, on 3rd Avenue and 31st Street. This woman came in, about 35 or so. Blonde, bubbly, and she had six containers of cool whip. No ice cream, no nothing.

So I asked her what all that cool whip was for. (insert eyebrow waggle)

She said "I'm a product photographer. This week I'm shooting an ad for Colgate."

"Aaaabout the effect of sweets on teeth?"

She smiled. "No. We can't get those perfectly formed swirls from toothpaste tubes. We use cool whip. It helps us get those peaks at the end that they seem to so easily get in commercials."

Imagine my disappointment. 6 tubs of cool whip. 1 Blonde. I was 20.

Sigh.

But that little encounter taught me a lot. About disappointme -

About product photography. Getting the best representation of your product might not mean a full shot with all the packaging and a white background and that's it.

Maybe it's a close-up of the texture of the product. Maybe the photo is tilted, showing only little label.

We bought 7 different kinds of tile today, and they are awesome. I couldn't wait to shoot on these things... and we hit another wall. The other thing that product photography needs is proper lighting.

We didn't have that. We did get some 150 watt bulbs and put some fabric by them to diffuse the light. My friend from Brooklyn, Liam Schatten (an awesome photographer in his own right), who now lives in Atlanta...

Heyyyyy, don't get down on Atlanta, now. It's got to be better than Florida.

He gave me some pointers, but the fact was, every single photo came out with an orange tinge. And we were shooting our Cucumber Melon Sweet Sugar Scrub. It's orange.

Not good.

So, we call in the pro. And hope his lighting system, which is pretty good, can solve this problem. Like most things, if you get the problem solved for the first set of photos, the rest should be a piece of cake.

I'm sitting here and I want to dissect that saying "piece of cake."

Cake isn't easy to make. It's got the powder and the eggs and the oil and the mixing and the glaven!

I have a question for all the scientists out there. More of a request. Can you guys come up with some kind of cream or spray so that hair doesn't grow on corpses any more? Because that's seriously creepy.

Anyway.

I'll post more on product photography as I take them, receive them, learn lessons from it.

See ya.

John - Retail Hell - ish

any of you people use soap?

2008-06-09T21:39:00.001-04:00

If you do, and you want some more, head over to Soapier's Blog.

I saw this really great video on CNN and I figured that I would try and help...

Jeez. Ok, just go read the entry on Soapier.

the two nap weekend

2008-06-09T10:27:00.002-04:00

I know. The title is pretty straight forward. But it's COMPLETELY misleading.

That's right. I didn't take a nap this weekend. I didn't take two naps.

Now, before your head explodes, no. I didn't take three naps this weekend.

I DIDN'T TAKE ANY NAPS THIS WEEKEND.

But good god, I wanted to.

Not having a driver's license sucks. Ok, well, maybe not in this economy. My mom and my sister both drive, both have cars. My sisters husband has a car. Gas has inched up just under $4 a gallon here in Tampa.

Where the hell would I drive to? Driving to the blood bank, I mean, that's stupid. I'd be losing almost half my profits. I'll hitchhike, thank you very much.*

And yes, it's very safe. Jesus, I'm in the hitchhiking capital of the world.**

What did I accomplish this weekend, you ask? A LOT.

A little.

Enough.

Let's see. Saturday was a blur. Oh, but I had a nice pinot noir all to myself. That was yummy.

I went shopping at Walmart, aka The Destruction of Small Businesses in the United States. I hate shopping there, but they make it difficult not to. They have everything that makes middle America... middle America.

When my sister and mom were living in Scranton, Pennsylvania, we went to a Walmart or a reasonable facsimile thereof, and one of the first things they had when you walked in... the two, three times I went there, months apart.

You won't be able to guess. Seriously, guess.

Ok, christ, that doesn't work on the internet.

Deep. Fat. Fryers.

That was the kind of product they were pushing.

I didn't see any of those at the Walmart here. They didn't seem to be pushing any one thing, except depression.

So, I bought t-shirts... some more t-shirts... a button down shirt... new pillows... new sheets... ummm... can't think of anything else. Oh, a big ass thing of...

Ok, this'll stop now.

Got home, cleaned some, finished Firefly and Serenity, all brilliant.

Played some video games. Prepped a new painting that came out like shit, so I'm starting over... and genuinely relaxed.

Sunday was more of the same, except I went to the gym for the first time in god knows when. Felt good about that.

Let's get this back on a humorous track.

Stir Crazy is one of the funniest movies you will ever see.

At the store today and I have a whole bunch of stuff I have to get done. So I'll leave you with this awesome video of my all time favorite band, Oingo Boingo.

The quality isn't great, but the guitars are simply awesome.

Have a good day folks.

* I've never hitchhiked.

** Seriously, don't listen to me.

strength, in two of its numerous forms

2008-06-06T20:44:00.004-04:00

I try to keep this blog light. So you'll excuse me for this bit of heavy handedness.

-----

I cannot remember how in the hell I found this guy's youtube.com page, but I'm glad I did.

His name is Drew and he's got a lot of good things to say.

---------

Here's another thing I found over at blogcatalog.com. In two parts. One. Two.

I continue to be inspired.

By a smaller and smaller portion of the world population.

But, inspired none-the-less by people who are compelled to do what is right.

I choke on the apathy of the majority.

I talk about having little to no patience for people. If you read some older posts you'll see some of my dislike for customers, politicians, criminals and Florida.

It's important for people to know that when I say 'people', I mean most people. I don't like to say 'most people' because the fact is that I'm probably not perturbed with about 20% of the country. The rest I could do without.

Ok, ok. 22%.

Of course, all my readers... in that 22%.

(eyeroll)

OK! It's not 22%. Christ, it's probably 51%.

That's still most, you know!

I'm BLEEPING quirky

2008-06-05T21:28:00.003-04:00

Your Quirk Factor: 74%

You're so quirky, it's hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal.

No doubt about it, there's little about you that's "normal" or "average."

How Quirky Are You?

No wonder my mom thinks I'm adopted (sorry DM, had to repeat that one...)

Now I know everyone from high school is jealous about me.

Hmm. Let me tell you a bit about my high school experience. I had it good.

I always had good friends. I was never picked on. I met some of my life long best friends there. I met my first girlfriend in HS. I think I turned her into a lesbian. It's so funny. How that was like a harbinger.

Let's see.

I dislocated my knee while I was in high school, although not IN high school.

Did I ever tell that story here?

Oh man. Ok, here's a great story. I wrote it on my myspace page, but I think it's worth re-printing, don't you?

Well, too bad! I'm re-printing it anyway.

Every once in a while, one of my two favorite living authors asks his fans to write him letters. He's done it twice thus far. I've sent him letters and got two wonderful letters back. I treasure them.

So, the second time, he asked 'tell me something about you'.

So here's what I wrote to Chuck Palahniuk:

------

When I was a kid, I was in little league. I was a pitcher, and I really hate to say it like this, because I like to think of myself as humble, but I was the best in the league. We won every year, got picked for the all star game... it was awesome.

3 years. Had a lot of fun, friends... my parents were divorced, my dad came to see all the games. It was a lot of fun.

4th year, I get drafted to a different team. I get there, and the coach... I'd like to describe him. Big guy, a guy you'd picture with a cigar. More like a news reporter, one of the slimy crime reporters. 40's style hat, large square glasses, sunken face. I can picture him in my mind even now.

He had the other best pitcher in the league. And he benched me. The entire season. When I did play, and I think there was a rule that every player had to play at least three innings, it was right field, or some shit like that. I remember, clear as day, up for bat and I hit a line drive down the third base line and thought it was foul. Head down, hating everything, the crowd was yelling for me to run because it ended up being fair. That's how much I didn't care.

My old coach went up to my dad and I one day and said something to the affect of "If I had known what was going to happen, I would have put a stop to it."

These things happen, I guess, and it's hard to see the line between the game and the war, you know? I guess it's blurry to these people, I don't know. Probably not blurry to the kids playing.

So, I quit. I think I was thirteen maybe... I'm sure, had I not been picked for that other team, baseball would have been my life. I'm 100% positive.

A couple of years pass. Four, to be precise. I'm in my senior year at high school, I'm deciding that I want to go to art school... I had no idea before my senior year what I wanted to do, and I only ended up applying to one school, SVA in NYC... it hit me hard, wanting to become an artist.

It's Fall of 1990. I'm in Cooperstown, NY, visiting my favorite Uncle and his wife, with my family. Cooperstown, Baseball Hall of Fame... all that. And batting cages.

So, I thought I'd give it a shot, you know? Still loved playing sports. I think it was 10 swings for a dollar or something.

I get up and start swinging. And I'm doing pretty good. A crowd is forming. I can't tell if they're waiting for the machine, or watching me. Maybe both.

I get to swing 9 and I feel something in my right knee. A twinge. Do you know what the definition of 'twinge' is? It means 'to have or feel a sudden, sharp pain.' Well, that's about right... although it really wasn't sharp, it was just sudden and foreign.

Swing 10, the bottom part of my right leg moves to the left, my thigh goes to the right and my knee pops out LOUD. I'm having a hard time even writing this... wow, I'm tensing up! Haha.

I fall on the ground and at first I don't understand what's happened, but there's a lot of pain. And the crowd is laughing. Probably thinking I slipped.

I start screaming. I remember my step-father coming to get me and I'm in a lot of pain, cursing... it was pretty bad.

I get to the hospital and find out I dislocated my knee. I get surgery and find out that it was a birth defect, that there was a muscle that, instead of growing off to the side of the patella, it grew on top of it. Same thing for my left leg, but there's nothing they can do for that leg, until it pops.

This story, this whole situation opened up, clear as day, about two months ago. I was sitting outside, just thinking, people watching, and it popped into my head.

I was going to be a baseball player. I was going to go to college and go pro. It was something I really wanted.

At 13 I had no other interests. Nothing. And I couldn't help but wonder how my life would have worked out had I not been picked for a different team. How I might have made it all the way to college on a baseball scholarship... and then, after time caught up with me, blown my leg out then. How many things would have changed. How I would have had to start all over, from scratch.

This seems more than coincidence. It seems quite planned. I'm a very happy person. I haven't always been, and things have been a bit roller coaster like for many years... but at this point in my life, I'm really enjoying myself.

Isn't that odd?"

------

He wrote this first, in the first paragraph:

"Your baseball/knee story made me a little ill... but it is spooky how life seems to work out for the best."

That is high praise from the man who wrote the short story Guts and had over 100 people faint at his readings!

------

Someone, anyone, remind me to tell you the gruesome true story of something that happened to me on a subway in NY. It's hilarious.

Oh, and the time I had a kidney removed. That was ridiculously funny.

Actually, it was more painful and frightening. But in a really funny way.

Have a good evening, folks.

go help

2008-06-04T22:36:00.002-04:00

Read this. Victorine Surette (if that is her real name) talks about shaving her head for an awesome cause. Her blog is lordiwanttobewhole.blogspot.com.

Then go here and see what you can do.

Worth your time to read and at least show support for Jordan Corkum.

how to overcome boredom

2008-06-04T21:46:00.003-04:00

That's not really a title to this story as much as it's a question.

I was at our retail store for just over 7 hours today. I had two walk ins. That's it.

Not customers. Not lookie-loos. Walk ins.

These people look, sniff, and walk out, and the only thing they accomplish is letting cold air leave my nice and comfy store.

I've moved on to the short lived television series Firefly. It's amazing how some of these studio executives actually never watch the shows they cancel, because it's obvious that if these guys ever gave Firefly a shot, it would have taken off.

I mean, people who make movies, right, the ones who make these films for low budget and then end up making ridiculous amounts of money... these guys are set for life. As long as they don't make stinker after stinker, they will always find backing for a film.

You'd think it was the same for television. Buffy had to be one of the most profitable television shows. It spawned a spin-off, a board game, probably something loosely comparable to civil war re-enactments...

I was lucky, I watched Serenity, the feature film, first. Then I went straight out and bought the Firefly series. This will be my third time watching it. It's brilliant. And I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it was canceled.

But I digress.

It's just one of the ways I overcome boredom.

Recently, I've become a reddit junkie. Though try as I might, I can't get my articles to post on the damn thing. Something about karma and my lack of it.

Got turned on to it by Robert Stevenson, who has a very funny blog, check it out.

There are other sites, but I need more. Here are the sites I visit every day. I mean, hourly.

Joblo.com - not porn. A movie news and rumor site. Love these guys.

HSX - not porn. Boy I might have to say that a lot. HSX is the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Been doing this for years. You join, you get an account and you buy and sell movie stocks, star bonds... it's awesome. You start at $2 million. I just passed the $450 million mark.

Don't look at me like that. If you didn't know I was a geek, you must be new.

Ebay - ok, this site you should check out. It's online auctions, and they have EVERYTHING. Not too many people know about it, so go there now and go often, you'll find crazy stuff like healthy white babies and indentured servants.

Apple Movie Trailers - I love trailers. They get some great ones. Sometimes they're slow, you can find most any trailer earlier than what Apple puts them out... like Yahoo and IGN, but the quality at Apple is superb.

CAF - IT'S NOT PORN for god sake. ComicArtFans.com - this place is amazing. Bill Cox created this site for people who enjoy collecting comic book artwork, and that's me all over.

You can see my gallery here.

There are some NSFW images there, a lot of them I painted, so be prepared. It's not lewd stuff, but I was trained painting nudes at school, and it's classical subject matter. Sometimes not, sometimes it's cartoon stuff, sometimes light erotica stuff. Sorry, but it's a big market.

Huh. I never touched on my schooling here.

Well, I went to School of Visual Arts in NYC. I wanted to be a comic book artist. I learned watercolor painting from the great Irwin Greenberg, a genius. He taught me a lot.

I re-began watercolor painting about two, three years ago, after a long stint of writing screenplays and running a screenwriters website, wordsfromhere.com. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take many classes, but at the Art Students League in NYC, I found that Greenberg was teaching again, so for a few months before I moved from the city, I took his class again. It was fantastic, and I learned a lot.

You can see my class pieces here.

So, the thing is... I can't really hire a model, and so I had to work from online photos.

Here in Florida, I'm sure if I had some crack, or maybe just some peanut butter, I could hire a model to sit for 6 hours, so I could paint him/her. But it's not worth the hassle.

So that's me. Painting is what I want to do for a living. I'll get to it full time once I ~~destroy~~ leave Florida.

I'm tired today. Not too tired, but my body feels sluggish. I'm not getting enough exercise.

Perhaps that's because it's been over 90 degrees the last three days. The thought of doing something to sweat additionally seems counter productive to the laziness gene I inherited from my father.

I've worked hard to live up to the standards that gene requires. Very hard.

Ok, actually, I haven't worked hard at all.

You see how that works?

Hmmm... yeah, nothing else really rocked my world today. Karen, my girl who still lives in NYC, had jury duty today. Poor Karen. She got to see the worst of the worst white collar criminals today. Maybe a flasher, too. She sounded excited earlier, I must get details.

We're trying to wrangle up some tickets to Vegas for our birthdays. I haven't been to Vegas since... god, it's been a while. And I really enjoyed it. I hope those people remember my name. I mean, I was a good tipper, you know, six years ago.

They have to remember me, right? Maybe throw a few free drinks my way while I'm at the tables?

Maybe if I'm a snappy dresser.

I hope you all had a good day that revolved around sex, money, food and going to the bathroom.

In that order.

J

the diner

2008-06-03T20:38:00.002-04:00

this isn't about a diner. It's about a DINER.

Not a customer. A place you go to eat.

So, my mom, my sister and I went to eat at this restaurant across the street from us, for our weekly business meeting.

We've got there a handful of times. The french toast is quite good.

Last Saturday, I went there by myself, to get out of the house and not have cereal for 108 consecutive days. And the french toast was awful. I actually had to send it back, and I hate doing that. So they gave me a waffle and everything was right with the world.

This morning, had same thing... but I asked if they could make sure it's really cooked. Perhaps that was the problem. So the waitress goes in the back and says "Listen, really cook the french toast, cause the guy was here Saturday and said it wasn't good."

I'm like, christ... there's no way this food is not going to contain any of a hundred really nasty, awful things.

So I get the food, and lo-and-behold, really bad french toast. And so I asked the waitress. "Umm, listen, this isn't very good. I'm really sorry. But did you change cooks or something? Maybe the bread?"

"No. Remy's been here 12 years. I've been here 12 years."

"Oh. Well, I was here Saturday and it was the same thing, just not right. I'm really sorry."

"It's no problem, we need to know these things."

So she takes it. And I think it's the end. And it's not.

She turns around and says, in front of about fifteen other patrons. "He says it's no good Remy. Just like Saturday's."

Remy is this 50 year old battle ax of a woman, wearing a hairnet with a broad sword over one shoulder, a missile launcher over the other.

My mouth falls open.

"Was something different?" she says. "Because he said something's wrong with it."

Remy says something. "Oh, the batter?"

She says something else. "Oh, you didn't make the batter?"

My mom goes "Oh my god, your face is so red!" to me.

I'm mortified.

"You didn't make the batter?" my sister practically yells to Remy. I turn and say "Shut up!" to her.

I can't even look over, because I know Remy is taking down my stats just in case I ever show my face in there. The waitress comes by and says "I'll take it off the check. Do you want anything?"

"Just some wheat toast," I say, not able to look at her.

She says "Want some more coffee?"

I groan. I do. I nod.

What a freakin' nightmare.

This is basically what I thought was gonna happen.

Next week, Perkins, where I will be dealing with another animal, all together.

(everyone) Next week, Perkins, where I will be dealing with...

Ah, forget it.

regression

2008-06-01T00:40:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting in a chair. I'm seven years old. I tell my mom that her food tastes like dog crap and she better take me to McDonalds before I start walking around the house naked, with my bits tucked under me, acting like a girl. I tell her I'll start wearing makeup and that I'll tell all of her friends that I'm a big Barbara Streisand fan.

My dad comes into the room, rolls his eyes and gets a bowl of cocoa krispies, fills it with orange juice, puts it in front of me and says 'shut up and eat.'

I lay here and I can't help but think that this would have been a daily occurrence, had I grown up in Florida.

This place... I can feel it changing my soul.

My childhood was actually nothing like that. It was awesome. And my mom is one of the best cooks around. I relish the holidays because she makes these awesome dinners. And I know that meatballs sound like a pretty easy thing to make... hers are to die for.

So, I finished Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The entire series. In one month and two days. Beat that!

Seriously, if you do beat that, I probably don't want to know you, so... don't bother beating that. Just, move on.

Ever have one of those days where you accomplish nothing? Where you take two naps, because you're so bored with what you're doing, or you have no energy? Well that was today. I didn't take two naps, I haven't done that since my mom lived in the other black hole of fun, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

No, today I combined the two naps into one 3 hour sleep fest. Yeah. It rocked pretty hard.

My upstairs neighbor is having sex right now. It's 12:49am.

Check earlier posts about this guy and his...

Jesus, that was quick.

Sigh. The curse of the 40-50 year old man.

Wow, you have to hear this. The Viagra kicked in, I think. This guy must have been a drummer or something when he was younger. He's keeping a very steady beat.

Oh well.

Have a good night, all. A better night than I'm having.

J

the heebie jeebies

2008-05-30T23:54:00.006-04:00

First off, that's one of my all time favorite sayings. I love it.

I was sitting here.

Laying. I was laying here and... GODDAMMIT.

I'm sick and tired of saying "watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer." When in the hell is this series going to end for me? For those of you who are just joining us, well, in my boredom at the store, I have been entertaining myself with the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

All 7 seasons. And, as of this writing, I have 2.5 episodes left. It is 11:50pm on Friday night, and I'll be damned if I am going to sleep without finishing this series.

So I thought I'd take a break and walk you through exactly what gave me the jeebies.

I got an email from Fangoria. I wanted to see about getting my name in a contest, when I saw this article on John Carpenter. You can read part 1 and part 2 here.

digg link here.

And that made me think of my dad. So, yesterday was the 12th anniversary of my dad's death. He died of lung and brain cancer at the ripe age of 50. He was a Vietnam vet and, by far, the coolest guy I've ever met. Seriously. People say they're lucky to have their parents in their lives, and that they're cool, and when I think of my dad, I don't doubt them. I just feel luckier.

I'll put it to you this way. First, I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to my dad more, especially near the end, about life. I know there were things he could have taught me... things he'd experienced and all.

Second. Let me tell you that if there was one guy on the planet who, after death, would come back and haunt the shit out of me, for fun? It would be him. I'm talking full poltergeist haunting, just to mess with me.

In a really funny way. Like, if I had a girl over, he would do the blood on the walls, "Get OUT" thing... what a pisser.

Hmmm... 12 years ago, that would make me 22. Like, would he have told me not to get married (I'm divorced, btw)? What would he have said about being on anxiety meds for 6 years?

I watch movies that come out and think "He would have loved this one?"

I learned a lot from him. I wish I would have learned more. Here's a bit about how he died, and something I found of his.

So, John Carpenter. I can't remember the first Carpenter film my dad took me to see. I think it was They Live, one of my all time favorites.

My dad took me to every single cool movie that came out. I remember, very clearly, when I was young, going to a Chinese restaurant with him and my sister, and then rushing to go see Time Rider. I saw that poster, man... that thing was AWESOME, and we had to go see that movie.

From there, after They Live, it was The Thing, my second all time favorite movie.

To this day, and I'd seen movies with cursing in it before, but when that F bomb happened, I laughed so hard, my dad had to stop the VCR. I think I was 12.

Big Trouble in Little China was HUGE. That movie was a blast.

Slowly but surely my dad groomed me for a life of fantasy, sci-fi, horror, comic books... Piers Anthony, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Lieber... he laid the serious groundwork for everything that I enjoy today.

Which moves me into the Jeebies. Seriously. What a crazy word!

I always check CNN. I hate CNN. But ever since 9/11, I check it, every day, every hour that I'm awake, because they update quite regularly. I don't think they're unbiased. It's quite easy to read between the lines. And I don't bother with morons like Glenn Beck.

So, I go and check, and I see this thing about aliens in Colorado.

Fucking aliens. Not, you know, illegal aliens. Real aliens. With ships and...

Check this out. The video is awful, but it's like Signs, except in Colorado.

Ever seen the movie Arachnophobia? For three days, any little thing that touched my skin, I freaked the fuck out. (it's late, I usually don't curse this much on my blog, cause, well, I'm trying to stay pg-13)

This? I double checked my door (cause aliens can't work door knobs), under my bed, behind the shower curtain, in the closets, and I probed my cats.

No! I mean... pshhh... petted my cats. You know, I love my cats.

Love them to DEATH. (see earlier post)

Anyway.

There's the round-a-bout on the evenings thought process.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting (all of you) on any and all posts.

I'll be around. Reading, writing. Watching more Buffy, and then moving on to... christ, you know I'm gonna have to buy the Angel series.

I feel whipped.

J

PS - my upstairs neighbor, if you can believe this, has that dueling banjos song on.

Now, were I not in the deep south, were I not surrounded by people who drink their alcohol in big jugs with XXX marked on them... were I back home, I would actually have grounds to kill the man.

Kind of like how women can get off of murder charges because it's their time of the month? Well... yeah, see sometimes it works both ways.

Except men don't have PMS. And in this instance, it's banjos.

So yeah. Both ways.

"duh" or "thanks"

2008-05-30T13:46:00.001-04:00

Well, I didn't know NIN had done this... I know Radiohead did, and that album, In Rainbows, is awesome.

NIN has a new album out that you can download for free. The Slip.

Check it out.

Can't wait to give this a listen. I've really been digging their music of late.

look what I found!

2008-05-30T09:23:00.002-04:00

These... hahaha, oh man. These are so funny. I just kind of stumbled upon them. I'm not sure if anyone has seen these before, but I'm sure that it'll catch on like wild fire.

So funny...

Sigh.

Ok, ok. I know the world is sick of Ask a Ninja but this is my favorite video of the series.

It's 9:22 on Friday morning, and I'm out of milk. Looks like I'm walking to the grocery store.

J

I don't hate my mother

2008-05-29T21:54:00.002-04:00

How dare you accuse me of that. You don't even know me!

So, my mom decided that she didn't like the color for our new store. You know, the one we just opened.

You know, the one we just painted.

The one where she chose the colors.

Yeah, that one.

So we took everything we'd just put a couple months ago, we took it all off the walls, primed the back wall (I'll have photos Monday), re-painted it, put up new shelves, moved a 6' x 7' 100lb book case... last night and this morning.

And I'm exhausted. Wiped out. A zombie.

The new color... I don't hate it, but I'm not in love with it. My mom seems to be in love with the new wall, so is forgoing dating for the next six months. She took pictures of the wall and framed them and put them on her night stand and kisses the pictures goodnight.

Ok, ok, she doesn't do that, but my sister and I were about to go mutiny on her ass...

We worked very hard, got most of the work done, and now, tomorrow, I work from home and then have the weekend off. So, I'll be relaxing in a t-shirt and boxers tomorrow (the uniform of the work-from-home crowd) and drinking mimosas and spearing fruit with a foot long tooth-pick and my cats will have a large fan made of big leaves, and they'll be fanning me with it.

So yeah, I'm already looking forward to tomorrow.

Tonight, this evening, I'm getting drunk by myself, which is actually... it seems like a sport down here. I feel like I'm prepping myself for the big drink off.

I'm having a great glass of wine, cheese, crackers, fig spread, olives... it's turning into quite a lovely evening, and I figured I would blog just a bit about it.

Have a good night, talk more tomorrow.

J - Retail Hell - ish (goddamn SEO!)

cool made-up stuff about me

2008-05-27T20:22:00.005-04:00

I asked a group of perfect strangers what they thought was cool about me. Here's what I got:

"Your arms are 1000 Kilometers long." I'm the less scarred version of Freddy Kruger.

"John was the first blogger to ever have an RSS feed picked up by an extra terrestrial." And none of the little bastards leave any comments!

"John plays air guitar like nobody else." PREACH ON!

"It's not widely known but John has a phd in Politics of Caribbean Nations." I'm the guy who got all the chicks down there to start wearing thongs. Bow to me.

Especially girls in thongs. Bow! Bow backwards!

"John is amazingly good at juggling!" CIA Operative, Martha Stuart regular, wife and mother of three amazing children... I do it all.

"John was knockin' off drug dealers when he got that wound (blogcatalog reference)... got shot three times and still standin'" Ain't gonna get cooked by no fools, man, sheeeit.

"John owns the second biggest ball of yarn in the world." This is only half true, since the ball is actually in my apartment and my neighbors. But we share the glory and the voided Guinness World Records check.

"John once took a trip across the country just so he could stop at every rest stop and read all the magical words on the walls of each and every bathroom." 'nuff said.

"John worked in Paris, France as a runway model until 1985 when he was arrested and deported. After that he started his above mentioned cross country bathroom trip." You want to meet some catty bitches? But I got them back. I was the guy who told the press that even French runway models smell. Who's laughing now, bitches?

"John studied the art of belly dance in Egypt. Though he once took the champion title with his patented wiggle-twist-sliiiiddde movement, he was criticized for his lack of panache..." I deserved that trophy goddammit! Dislocated my hip, now I'm 60lbs overweight and if I were to even try belly dancing again, well, it's in Revelations.

"The samurai are John's heroes." Live by the sword, die by... well, it depends. I mean, heart disease, cancer, donuts. Samurai didn't have to deal with donuts, did they.

"When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for John!!" Do I even need to comment here? No.

But I will! This guy, let me tell you something about the boogeyman. He's like 3 feet tall, bad breath, and he's got these little chicken arms... ah, forget it. He still owes me like a hundred bucks... he's going through a tough time now. I mean, three feet tall. Hello. Who's he scaring, except kids... sheesh.

"John probably has the entire "Terminator" series in his movie collection." This isn't so much cool as it is expected. I also have the whole America's Greatest Hero on DVD, too. Keep upping my cool factor. Keep upping it.

"After completing his passage through the Great Divide, John set his saddled tabby cat, Moose, loose to find his way down to the village of dyslexic fisherman in the middle of a waterless oasis as his outreach program." I do a lot of good. A lot. Of. Good.

"After putting on extra hours at his shop, John was driving his 2-seater convertible down a deserted road with a storm fast gaining on him. He came to a bus stop. The bus was late and would not be passing by for some hours. There stood three people – a sick old woman who needed fast medical attention, his best friend who he owed his life, and the woman of his dreams. He had to choose, and fast, who he could take in the car. Being the fast thinker and considerate man that he always is, John gave his very expensive, only-3-in-the-world-car to his friend to take the old lady to the hospital, and chose to brave the storm, tightly holding the woman of his dreams, waiting for the bus. Did the bus ever come? John was seen receiving his Nobel prize for heroism with a hot damsel in his arm."

That never happened. The real story, only the damsel knows. See, we killed the old woman, and my 'friend', my so-called-friend, well, we carved him up and... so the old lady, she went to the hospital with my friend.

I got wet... you know, cause. Of the storm. And.

"When John first made it to the top of Mt Everest, the helicopter he used to get there ran out of fuel. Darn it to the shortcut of using the helicopter to get to the top, he thought... He had to walk down to ask some farmers before returning with some fuel." I think this guy, who wrote this... I think I went to high school with him, and I wouldn't let him cheat off one of the hundreds of A grade test papers I had... I'm not sure.

Use a helicopter... pshhh. Jet packs! I would use a jet pack, man. Get with the program!

"John is the kind of guy that would give his right arm to be ambidextrous." You know, when I first read this, I was like "This guy is COOL." But now I'm re-reading it and I can't figure it out.

But he's still cool!

And finally, this is me in action.

Man, all this to make my blog roll. My site must be kickin'!

J

strange customers

2008-05-27T15:20:00.003-04:00

So, I'm sitting here minding my own business... oh god, the puns, the puns.

And this trio of women come in. They go around and giggle and smell soaps.

"What happens if I bite one of the soaps?" customer 1 asks.

"You buy it," I say. Giggles all around.

So she comes over to the table and grabs this plastic duck filled with bath gel and says to her friends that "Hey, this is what those breast implants feel like, you know, the ones at our desk when we talk to customers."

So I say "Umm, you tele-market breast implants?"

"No. Well yes. But mainly penile implants. You know, to make them bigger. You want the website?" customer 1.

"Not that you need it." Customer 2. "You know, if you have a friend."

"Ah, well, the last time I saw any of my friends naked, we were all 5 and we all needed implants."

Another friend comes in. "What's going on?"

"They're trying to tell me I need a bigger penis." me.

"I try so hard, but I can't take them anywhere."

"It's ok, this'll be a funny story I tell my mom."

This isn't the site (they told me the site, but the part of my brain that tells me everything is fine and dandy down there blocked it out) but I can't stop looking at some of these pictures.

A couple of pictures.

OK, really just specific pictures, jeez.

Today wasn't a bad day at the shop, and it's not over. 3:30, two hours left. Almost made our break even quota for the day.

Last season of Buffy. I can't wait to stop watching this, so I can talk to you guys about actual movies.

And I have to put this here for some SEO - retail hell-(ish) - blech.

Thanks for stopping by. More later, or tomorrow.

3am sucks

2008-05-27T04:07:00.002-04:00

so, I haven't touched on my anxiety problem at all on this thing. well, here's the once over.

quick like.

Started almost ten years ago. was bad, got better, got worse, and now it's a daily constant battle. not on meds, had a problem with some of them. want to try and fight it on my own.

woke up tonight at 3am and I couldn't feel my legs. or, I should say, I could feel my legs. and they felt weird. not like pins and needles weird, but just weird, and it's usually one of two things. a) a low blood sugar attack. b) anxiety masking as a low blood sugar attack.

it's usually almost always b.

so I'm up. wide awake. and I remembered that blogcatalog resident crotchety old man wakes up in the middle of the night, so I thought I would commiserate for a little bit.

Here's to the group of us that don't remember what a good night sleep feels like.

J

10 tips to make your retail work more fun

2008-05-26T12:24:00.004-04:00

So, I was talking with my mom, while she was driving me to work.

I don't own a car, I don't have a drivers license.

So, she's driving me to work, and I'm looking at what she packed me for lunch and there's no goddamn snack-pack!

So, we're there and... what. OH yeah. In the car. Talking.

So I explained to her that, thus far, I've had to sign up for 9 different websites, to get the word out about Retail Hell (ish).

Let's see.

Digg
Blogcatalog.com
mybloglog
stumbleupon
reddit
flickr (though this is just fun)
del.icio.us
bumpzee
feedburner

I mean, seriously? If I was 35, I'd be finished. I wouldn't be able to keep up.

Thank god I'm only 34.

So she asked me about the business blog.

"Well," I said, "I can get us on some directories and all that, but promoting a blog about soap isn't really going to get too much action. I mean, it's a niche blog, very specific. It's not like humor or web expertise or movie reviews or news or political blogs... those are things people look for every day. People don't really go around looking for soap blogs on a daily basis."

Now I found out that isn't true. I don't know how I stumbled upon (not by stumbled upon) this group, but it's simply amazing.

The United Small Soap Business Bloggers Blog Collective or TUSSBBBC for short.

Moving on.

So, she asked me what I can do for THIS site, to get more visitors. I told her that there are people out there who are interested in reading about the qualms of retail workers the world over. That my blog has a kind of niche quality, and if I continue to add funny videos, wavs and posts, that other people will come and read and comment and enjoy.

So then she said "Well, what if you wrote a post to try and show people how to make retail better."

So here are the top ten ways to try and make your retail job better. Not in any order. Although #1 is my favorite so far, as I type this.

#1 - Have a dead pool - I've worked in some crazy places. One place, the guys were so homosexually repressed, a group of them grabbed me and brought me into the basement and tied me to a poll with duct tape (true story). And then they laughed and licked their lips. (not true).

It was shortly after that that I decided to start my own dead pool. And it was so funny because the first guy I had on my list to ~~kill~~ die didn't die first. It was poor planning on my part, #3 got it first.

#2 - Pretend you don't see selective customers - This might be harder than it sounds, but there is a group that does these little things all over the country... I can't remember the name, hold on, let me look it up.

Ah yeah, Improve Everywhere. They do these like things where people go to a store, synchronize their watches and then freeze at 5pm, or whatever. Pretty neat.

So I think the reverse can be done. They do it in retail stores, like home depot... why not have the counter people do something similar.

You're at the counter, someone comes up and puts some products down... make pretend they aren't there. Then take the person behind them as your next customer. Look down at the products customer 1 put down and say "Where the hell did these come from?"

Hours of fun. This has a 9 out of 10 on the 'looking for a new job' scale.

#3 - (my new favorite) Pretend you're a ghost - If you work the floor, and have even the smallest amount of acting ability (like crying on cue)... meander around a bit... look down trodden... and then just let out this big sigh. You have to come across as almost giving up.

Then, when a customer asks you a question, at first act a bit surprised... then look at them. Look around you. Look behind you. Look back at them.

Say "are you talking to me?"

They say yes...

Start with the water works. Cap it off with:

"You can see me??"

Ad-lib as necessary.

This is like a 3 on the 'look for a new job' scale, because you can take this all the way and follow them around (if you have other workers in on this with you, it'll be classic) or you can let them in on the joke.

#4 - Pretend you don't speak English - Only really works if A) you know a second or third language or B) can make up a language on the spot.

Best if you're white and speak in a really heavy thick Spanish accent. Or black and can speak Yiddish.

#5 - Take your break / go to the bathroom - Ok, sounds really simple, but think of the possibilities.

You work at a grocery store, on check-out. Someone's just piled a ton of groceries on your conveyor belt. You ring in half of them... and then say "Oh my god, I have to do #2 so bad!" and take off.

No one can fire you for that... I don't think. There's actually a published case about this...
Brown vs. the state of Rhode Island.

Uh huh. Again.

#6 - Talk about the wrong item - this would work only in an electronics store, or a dvd store, video game store...

"Is Atonement a good movie?"

"It's an awesome movie. It's got car chases and... do you like Mark Whalberg? He's awesome, drives this little mini-car like... it goes like this, up a sewer pipe? He gets to bang Charlize Theron, but... pshhhh, you don't get to see it."

#7 - Become instantly allergic to the products you sell - this can go a whole bunch of different ways. Scratching, sneezing, rubbing your eyes.

You can do this with food, cosmetics... you're there, working at Macy's, and you just started your day. You're one of those perfume chicks that walk around with bottles and spray the air for people to smell and bathe in.

Customers start coming in and you wrinkle your nose... your hand slightly itches. You greet someone and they say "Can I smell?"

You spray... and then close your eyes tight and... well, this will probably get you fired. You didn't want to be a perfume girl anyway, did you.

#8 - Get into a fight with your retail worker buddies - this is always a classic.

My favorite is when your co-worker 'admits' to sleeping with your girlfriend.

You must have an audience for this.

you - "You what?"

friend #1 - "Sorry dude, it just happened like... four or five times."

you - "You slept with Sally?"

friend #1 - "I wanted to tell you..."

friend #2 - "Yeah, we all wanted to tell you. Ran the train on her last week..."

Make sure A) that Sally doesn't exist and B) you're single. Your girl (or guy) finds out about it, they usually won't be too happy.

If your girl/guy is REALLY cool, you can stage a supernatural break up... the possibilities are limitless.

Hey, Dean Yager! (inside joke)

#9 - make subtle jokes of customers - ok, subtle isn't the right word.

Let's say you work at a bakery. And you see one of America's overweight. Chances are, you get some in from time to time, at a bakery.

Hell, I'm slightly overweight, get off my back.

"Oh my god, I could eat all of this!"

"Yeah, I know."

See? Nice and subtle. You don't have to say "No kidding." although that wouldn't be so bad... but "You think? Stop breathing, I feel the pull," or "You can if you want, we just got a defibrillator in," or "This is the third time you've been in this week, I think you are eating all of it."

Those would be... well, you say them if you want to quit or collect unemployment.

#10 - be honest with your customers - this should really be #9a, but I'm getting tired of typing.

This works for people working at clothing stores, electronic stores... pretty much everywhere where customers need the advice and opinion of trained and knowledgeable sales forces.

Anything having to do with taste and the edification of the purchaser.

"What do you think? Too tight? Too hippy?"

"I think you look like a neon sign that says "I'm a single mom and I'll take anything that doesn't openly drool."

Or.

"I'm not sure if this is what I need for my computer."

"Yeah, I figured that. You work at the movie theater as an usher. I've seen you. You take my ticket. You're really good at that. Stick with what you're good at. Here's an ipod. My blind cat has an ipod."

And so on.

---

So, there are some simple things that will probably get you fired, unless you're smart, but will most certainly make a boring day a better one.

I do not endorse these things... you do them, you get fired... not my problem. These are just for fun. I can see some moron try to sue me after doing #1, specifically, or #7.

Christ, to even have to write that in this day and age makes me think bad thoughts.

Blech.

dream homes (part 1)

2008-05-25T15:07:00.002-04:00

Ok, so the other day while ranting about zz-top and my neighbor, I had talked to my girl karen and she was down a bit, so I asked her to draw me her dream home. For fun, to get her mind off things.

So this is what she came up with.

Check that building out! Now if you haven't been to Manhattan, I can tell you pretty much where this apartment building is. It's just off the west side highway. The building is facing east... behind it is the Hudson River. The bike path runs all the way up the west side, it's AWESOME.

Dig it. Top floor, private roof deck.

Holy mother! A duplex. Rockin.

Let's see. Floor one looks killer. Nice balcony's... living room. A breakfast bar. Nice, and stools too, check it.

Karen's got this killer tv, it's huge (and heavy)... a guest room/office...

Second floor looks great too, with a roof deck and a huge shower and a tub and... a bidet? Or a person that lives in the bathroom...?

I'll have to ask her about that.

Well, that's awesome. That would be a great place to live in NYC.

I went a different route. I did the 'I want to live someplace isolated and cool'.

Check it out.

Welcome!

Have an apple. Swing on the swing set. Mr. Sun is always shining and smiling and keeping the weather at 72 degrees, more than 70% of the time!

That's me, playing with my death ray. Please don't step on the grass.

Lots of nice windows, a deck. Awesome.

Me on the swing set... seriously, off the grass, I can get to the death ray in under a minute. I timed it.

Apples, grass. A lake in the back. Driveway. Skylights for when I'm having sex, I can look outside and watch for falling stars or spy planes.

Awww yeah.

#1 - bathroom.
#2 - dining room - sits 6-8
#3 - THE awesome kitchen. New appliances, gas range, island in the middle there. Huge fridge, plenty of counter space.
#4 - two dvd/book shelves.
#5 - couches. Some pull out, some don't.
#6 - tables.
#7 - big screen tv.
A - a book - "men are from mars, women are from venus."
B - Kramer's coffee table book on coffee tables.

Where the action is!

#1 - the king sized bed. Extra springy.

Pshhh, get your mind out of the gutter. I have a bad back.

Ummm... stiffer beds are better for bad backs...

Really?

Uh huh...

Ahem.

#1 - the king sized bed. Extra stiff.

(eyeroll)

Moving on.

#2 - stairs to level 1.
#3 - walk in closet - extra space for shoes.
#4 - the piece de resistance. The bathroom.

First off, huge tub. Has to be huge. I'm 6'4" and I'm tired of having half my body stuck out of the hot water.

Second off... nevermind. Second. The killer shower. Karen was looking for something like this. I have to agree.

Finally... the basement.

Oh yeah, there's a basement.

#1 - pool table. Real sized, not midget bar tables.
#2 - pull out couch
#3 - X-Box 360 Live set up with Rock Band! Drums, two guitars, microphone, big screen tv.
#4 - art supply table
#5 - large canvases
#6 - computer table, comfy chair.

Now, since this is my dream home, and I can do whatever I want, so there, I want to be able to:

play pool with my cats.

See? He's winking!

Where is your dream home, anyway?

music you might dig

2008-05-24T22:14:00.003-04:00

This is Don Freda's myspace page. I was lucky enough to meet Don in July of 2007 and heard his album Music for Headphones.

It's very strange. Not the music. And not Don Freda, either.

You see these people. Your friends know these people. They're there and they live and breathe and lurk. The right people haven't found them yet.

The album is awesome. He's got two tracks that aren't on the myspace page, Mary with Rain and Problem Girl Stories... you will absolutely love them.

Give How Brazen and My Heart a listen. You'll get a sense of his stuff. It's worth a purchase. And Don's a great guy.

J

zz top and torture

2008-05-24T21:47:00.004-04:00

My upstairs neighbor has a really good sense of humor. Or he's a severe asshole.

It is 9:44 and this will be the fourth time I'm listening to Sharp Dressed Man.

Now, either he's trying to make a funny video of himself in clothes he thinks are sharp, or he's doing lines of coke off some girl's ass, over and over.

Or he's going the Morrison route and will drink Jack Daniels to death.

Suffice it to say... I'm feeling slightly put out. This is not the first time he's blasted music before, and it's early. I'm 34, I'm not 70 and trying to sleep.

Last time, it was 3am and he woke me up. Funny story, here, all about it.

After that, they only cursory hello me, maybe a nod. I'm the bad guy, again, in this backwards burg.

So, while I'm stuck here, one of the ways I get by is by watching movies. You've heard and heard and heard... yes, for god sake, I'm watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv series... quick review.

Season 1 - a joke.

Season 2 - better.

Season 3 - awesome.

Season 4 - awesome, bad season finale.

Season 5 - not bad... but some stretching.

Season 6 - quality is getting worse.

Watching the evolution and de-evolution of the series is interesting. After season 4, they had to start giving the characters different things to get upset about, to rectify story arcs. And what they did was blur the rationale of the characters to develop drama.

Never a good thing.

So, this evening, after my sister had already had dinner and my mom didn't want to leave the house, I went across the street to this place across the street, Mixers, a bar with food. Brought my L.A. Confidential book with me, ipod, cell phone, and had chicken wings and a cheeseburger.

Am I gaining weight? Go soak your head.

Anyway.

I come back home, stop off, get some olives, wine, cheese.

And go to Blockbuster.

Now, normally, I'm not a chain consumer kind of guy, but since I'm in podunk, I have no choice. Target, K-Mart, Walmart, Publix... I seem trapped in consumer hell.

Blockbuster has a 3 for $20 deal on previously viewed movies.

I loaded up.

Superbad - saw it already, awesome.
Sweeney Todd - Eh, it's Burton and Depp. Can't be awful.
Planet Terror - saw it already, awesome. new stuff on the dvd.
Rescue Dawn - Christian Bale and Steve Zahn. Vietnam. Base on a true story. So there.
Walk Hard - This has GOT to be funny.
Sunshine - saw this with Karen at the Sunshine Theater in NYC. Awesome.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - could be worse...
Alien Vs Predator: Requiem - I heard ok things about this, and I'm a fan of both, so...
American Gangster - Two great stars, one great director... had to give it a go.

So, there you go.

My girl's feeling a bit down tonight. I feel bad that I'm not there to cheer her up, so I asked her to do something for me. And I'm asking you too, dear reader.

Take a piece of paper, get a pen, crayon, lipstick, whatever.

And draw me your dream home. Two views. Front and birds eye view (without the roof).

Let me see what you got in mind for your cool home, inside and out.

I'm drawing mine, but I can't find a place for my death ray.

J

not how I spend my time

2008-05-24T14:13:00.003-04:00

I took this video with my new camera, of my mom's dog attacking water.

I hate the sound of my own voice.

And that 'WHATHASDFOIQWERH" thing I say... well, I thought my mom was being retarded with the spray nozzle.

I'm a dork. I love it. Can't wait to get those comments where people say "Uh, you should bump up YOUR IQ. It's just a dog, stupid!"

Or worse...

Whatever. Petey's a member of the family. He's fair game.

indiana jones and the death of my childhood

2008-05-23T22:50:00.003-04:00

Ok, ok, so it's not that bad... but have you ever seen the Comedians of Comedy?

Brian Posehn goes on to talk about how George Lucas is... christ, I'm not sure I should mention this here, but it's really funny. Let's just say that after Brian watched The Phantom Menace, he felt like he'd been touched by his uncle.

Not only touched... well, watch the movie, it's awesome. This is a very small part of it, and quite funny.

Anyway.

I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow of this movie. I'm just going to say I was very disappointed.

From what I gathered, there were a number of high profile screenwriters attached to write a draft of the film, for Lucas's and Spielberg's approval.

A number. Frank Darabont, M. Night Shyamalan and Tom Stoppard (Shakespear in Love, Empire of the Sun (another Spielberg film) and Brazil, to name a few) gave in drafts.

When I found that out, I was like "Man, they don't want to screw this up... they're going for the BEST they could find."

Now I'm like... umm... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

David Koepp, who is basically Spielberg's lapdog, and is very hit or miss when it comes to scripts, had, according to IMDB, looked at all the film's previous drafts, and kept what he felt were good ideas. He tried not to make his work a "fan script," avoiding any trivial references to the previous films. He noted that the story would have to acknowledge Ford/Jones's age, and also aimed for the mix of comedy and adventure from the first film, trying to make it less dark than the second film and yet less comic than the third film.

This film has quite a few 'trivial references to the previous films'. Some were funny, some you were just waiting for.

The story came from Lucas, who basically ruined the latest three Star Wars films, and Jeff Nathanson, who has not written anything worthwhile, and certainly nothing original.

That's pretty much all I'm going to say about this. I write screenplays. I run a website for screenwriters. I know what it takes to make a script work, the structure, the character development... I understand the process well enough.

This movie was a joke. And I'll end this by saying I won't be purchasing the dvd, I won't watch this film again... and they would have been better off not filming another installment.

I would watch Temple of Doom before watching this... and that is saying something.

Blech.

It's just an opinion. It's not end-all-be-all. I'm still a nice person, and I expect everyone to still go see it. I expect people to enjoy it. Perhaps you'll go again and again.

It was better than Cats...

(shaking head)

Where did that come from?

My expectations were high. My suspension of disbelief? No comment.

Enjoy it, or not. Be happy or not.

J

a quick break

2008-05-23T14:36:00.002-04:00

Working at our manufacturing facility today. Making sugar scrubs and body butters and putting labels on all the stuff and I had to sit down and say hello to all of you good people.

A quick retail hell(ish) story, though, too.

Yesterday I was at the store for 8 hours, working, watching Buffy, being bored... blah.

Don't judge me on the Buffy thing. If I can get past a few hours with that stuff, so be it.

I'm there and two women come in and they're on vacation and they are video taping coming to the store.

Then they video tape asking me for a sugar scrub hand spa treatment.

Then they ooh and ahh as I give them the hand spa treatment.

Then they say "oh my god, my hands feel so great, smell them! Oh god, I love this."

Then they go around the store and smell soaps and video tape them and say "Oh my god, these are so cute, they smell awesome!"

Then they leave.

Unreal. It's UNREAL.

This video is going to take you out of this post, cause it's funny and I remember first seeing it many years ago, when I went to the movies with my dad and sister.

Hang in there folks.

J

the new credit card company

2008-05-22T11:20:00.006-04:00

So, I'm sitting here Tuesday and I get this phone call from Crescent Processing. Google them... the first thing that comes up is their recruiting page. That's kind of scary.

So I say "Sorry, not interested, we're happy with who we have."

"We're not trying to change your mind, sir."

(eyeroll)

"No kidding."

"No, we just want to come by and give you our presentation, just in case you change your mind about your current credit card processing company."

Yes, I have perfect recall of bullshit. Seriously.

So, I say fine, whatever. The least it'll do is kill some time at the store.

Thursday morning, and this guy... really nice guy, but he looked like he was going to keel right over, he was huge. He sets up a laptop and is shaking and sweating and his face is beet red... and shows me the Crescent Processing Company video.

It's a promo piece for Terry Bradshaw's business promotion platform where semi-large companies pay him thousands of dollars to have their show featured on his program.

I sent an email to Broadcast News Corp, who produces the show, to see if I could get a copy of said video. It's not online. The email got bounced back. I guess things are going well.

So, I'll give you a play by play.

First, Terry is having a hard time reading the cue cards. It's understandable. He's not a boxer, but close.

Then we get these nice cute, fuzzy shots of people's businesses. One is a dry cleaners, one is a small gift shop business, one is a salon.

So, at first I'm like... that's clever. That small shop, with the gifts and ribbons and baskets... hell, that could be my shop!

And they start telling me all of these great things, like the cc readers are free, and that other cc businesses don't plan ahead for the future and that with technology growing and all... well, they just don't care about the little guy. And the little guy wants to compete with the big guy, goddammit!

Here's where it falls apart.

The spokesman for the company, possibly the owner, I couldn't tell I was too blinded by his faux smile and hair and tan... he starts reeling me in and explaining how the company doesn't charge for cc readers, and that other cc businesses don't plan ahead for the future and that with techno...

WHOA... wait just a minute!

Did you see that?

For four minutes, I heard the exact same thing from every single person on the video.

FREE READER. EASY CUSTOMER SERVICE. FREE READER.

Jesus christ.

So we hear little testimonials from the three business owners. And it's almost like they decided to either:

A) hire the worst actors they could find that looked like real people...

or

B) find three local Dallas (they're in Dallas) businesses and write what they were supposed to say

It was a joke. One older woman (the gift shop owner that was supposed to look like my mom, except with a make-up paint sprayed face) looked like she was having trouble reading the cards, and just wanted a bagel with lox.

The funniest part was their representation of the other cc businesses out there.

Set the mood.

Things all of a sudden turn black and white... the woman, crabby looking and with glasses, is talking via a headphone, in a small cubicle, surrounded by volumes and volumes of books that MIGHT pertain to the cc reader in question... she looks harried... she looks inexperienced. She looks like a nightmare!

Cut to the Crescent Processing girl... and she looks hot! And knowledgeable and down to earth... and for god sake, she's in color!

What a joke.

Here's what they're trying to get salesmen and women to do.

So, whatever. We'll see what happens... I have to do research on them. The sales man, "Big Mike" was very nice... but that sales presentation was a joke, and if they're selling a lot based on just that (because it really sells itself) then...

Did you hear the story where 21% of the country believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth?

(headshake)

They must all be customers.

------------

Cool post of the day:

Big Brother is Watching You at thekexperience. Check it out.

J

the thunderbolt

2008-05-21T16:13:00.004-04:00

No, this is not a ridiculously tiny reference to The Godfather. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the book.

No.

So, I'm sitting here with my sister, plotting my mom's ~~death~~ birthday, and we're talking about some stuff about the business and I say:

"You know what it is? We need to have some kind of small victory. Something has to happen, something positive..."

And lo and behold...

Laura Williams Musings gave us a great review of our products!

We have reviews out to a few other bloggers, and I'm hoping that the end result will be the same. This will hopefully get us into the minds of some serious shoppers.

On the retail front, not a single customer to kill. None.

Not even one to poke with a stick. Blech.

Last episode of season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm curious to see who dies.

J

My second trip to NYC... wait.

2008-05-20T11:49:00.007-04:00

Yeah, so I left off with the hot dog. So what? I got my ass handed to me by Karen for not getting her one... she likes hot dogs too. Especially the ones down from her building, which are cooked, not boiled.

But I digress... into something else.

About a year and a half ago, I was working at McGraw Hill, their Sweets division, which is construction publications. I was also working for The Learning Annex. So, one clear October day I walked down to Arcadia Gallery and talked to the owner, Steve, about purchasing a limited edition book that had just come out of Malcolm Liepke's work. I'm a big fan of his, for many years, since college. Walked in, started talking about the book and Steve did something very evil. He walked me to the back of the gallery and showed me a wall of Liepke watercolors.

Ever seen something that popped out at you and just said, in big neon letters BUY ME... even though you didn't have the money, and certainly not that much blood to sell?

I know, I sell a lot of blood, quiet.

Well, this is the one that said BUY ME... but more came over and slapped my face and did the whole devil-on-the-shoulder thing... no angel on the other.

Took me forever, working two jobs, to pay this off, but I love it.

So I walked up to the gallery and talked to Steve and saw the knew Bill Hick's show, which is simply gorgeous. The work is... well, you should click on that gallery link and view his work.

Went back downtown and stepped in this puddle:

Took a photo of the Ghostbusters firehouse:

Took a photo of this wine store I worked at for 4 days last year... read all about that on my myspace page

Then Karen and I went for lunch at Zen Palate. I took this photo of her holding the Bill Hick's book... not sure why she was holding it...

This is just begging for a "Will Work For..." something something photochop. We'll see what I can come up with (read as 'what I can get away with').

I had:

Tofu and vegetables. The tofu was awful, very soft... she had:

The portobello mushroom burger with yam fries! YAM FRIES!

We both felt like we were going to die from bloating and gas build-up, and made a pact not to eat healthy any more.

They had their own little JoBu at the restaurant.

Reminded me completely of this... you see the resemblance, right?

Walked around some more. I caught these four birds trying to summon a bigger demon bird:

And I prayed to the miniature Statue of Liberty... I was gonna try and have Karen take one of those pictures where you hold something up that's in the background, but I was going to try and eat the Statue, decided against it.

Saturday night we went to my all time favorite place to eat, my friend Pete's restaurant, Picolo Angolo.

Yes, don't worry, I'm gonna fix his website for free. From the cab, I took one of those CRAZY night time photos!

I think I'm on to something there...

Here's the shot I took of the restaurant.

I don't know who those people are, but that guy's ass was making me hungry!

No... wait. The smell... of the food! Was.

Making.

Me.

Hungry.

(headshake)

Had this Chicken Fioretina... good lord, it was so amazing:

Went home, woke up, went over to Pete's place and played Rock Band for 6 hours... oh man. So much fun, I couldn't stand it!

Here's the bar I've been hanging out in for about 9 years, Barrow's Pub:

Went back to Karen's. Had dinner... called it an early night (we were both exhausted) and left her place at 6am to catch my 8am flight.

There you go. My first NYC trip back to my home of NYC.

My fingers are a bit tired... more later!

My first trip to NYC!

2008-05-19T12:55:00.005-04:00

OMG OMG OMG.

OMG!

First off, the flight was wonderful. I was sandwiched between hard plastic and a woman who not only wouldn't give me the time of day, but also stank to high heaven with some kind of non-douche douche thingy... that she put everywhere on her body.

To each his own. If I were a woman, and she was young, not old, and felt the need to smell like flowery vinegar all day... I'd see a head doctor.

Got to NY and took the air train to the subway to Karen's apartment where I collapsed from exhaustion three hours later. You don't get to ask.

Woke up and... christ, we... had breakfast! Yeah. Then we took a... boy Friday sure is foggy. I wish I would have brought a camera to remember all the things we did Friday.

I got a hair cut. We had lunch at Cozy Shack on Broadway and Astor Place... saw Iron Man and then had dinner at Le Jardin Bistro... one of my three favorite places to eat in NYC.

Then we went back to her place and tried to watch 3 different movies. Death at a Funeral. The Darjeeling Limited. Bound.

Hell if we couldn't get through a goddamn one of them.

Saturday. I decided to take a bit of time for myself, and familiarize myself with myself.

I mean the city.

So, I went and bought one of these (I've sold six pints of blood between April and May, I deserved it) Canon SD1000 PowerShots.

And I say godDAMN what a camera. Check this out.

Lots of photos coming, be patient.

That's the view outside one window of Karen's apartment.

She can see the Statue of Liberty, too. Pretty neat.

Check out the pseudo Cingular ad happening here. Ridiculous.

Karen's building. It's pretty damn tall... she's on like the 40th floor... it's nuts.

Here are just some random photos, no commentary.

Who knew there were so many buildings in NYC?

This is Chinatown on the weekends. A zoo. Ridiculous to even go there, let alone shop.

Took this shot and almost got run over. Nice. It's such a crappy photo too... imagine that death notice.

"John Painz, survived by his mother and sister, was killed shooting a tourist shot whilst not a tourist... the photo was completely unremarkable and John will be up for a Darwin Award this year. Donations can go to the I'm With Stupid fund."

Left her apartment and the first thing I did...

Look at that relish!

Ok, I have other photos, but they're for later. I'm tired of typing and cutting and pasting. I have Buffy episodes to watch and time to kill.

More later.

J

*edit - check out part 2!

hours away

2008-05-15T15:03:00.003-04:00

Amidst the two earlier posts... I am updating my blog again today, to give you all the latest on... me.

It is Thursday and I'm heading back to NY tonight, to hang out with my girl, friends, eat lovely dinners and play rock bank and guitar hero until my arm falls off.

I'm not a big fan of flying. NSFW (no nudity, but a curse word or two)...

I have had one customer today. The husband of said customer found a comrade in me, and went off and started making fun of pretty much every single thing his wife did.

I couldn't stop laughing. And she must have been used to it because she had completely tuned the man out.

Which was funnier than anything he'd said.

I'm tired. My back hurts. I've used "I'm dying" as an answer for every customer who walks in and ask me how I'm doing. It seems apt.

I picked up James Ellroy's LA Confidential as my book of choice for my crossing the eastern seaboard. I also brought Bound and Pink Floyd's The Wall as my movie choices.

Karen, my girl, suggested porn, but only if I'm sitting next to a mom who has a baby next to her. I said I'd think about it.

I need a new phone.

Anyone know Pro Blogger? He's got some site... but I think the guy stole something from me.

I posted this contest on my sitas;dlkasdfl

Sorry, just sneezed.

I posted this contest on May 11th.

That day I posted a comment on his How do you stay motivated as a blogger topic...

THEN, on May 12th... he starts his own phot contest! Exactly like my soap contest...

I mean, I guess I should be flattered... the guy's doing this for a living and, sure, it's possible I didn't think of a photo contest first...

I mean, I think I did. I checked the two or three other blogs out there and I didn't see anything... but, you never know.

Anyway. I've gotten ZERO photos thus far for my Soapier contest. He's gotten quite a few. I mean, pictures of soap are funnier than pictures of a book... who reads books anyway? Psshhhhhhh.

Blech.

this makes me sick

2008-05-15T14:14:00.001-04:00

This is a video having to do with a 16 year old girl who talks about being raped. It was on CNN.com. Hard to watch.

So she goes through this awful thing and then, on top of it all, has to deal with some of the comments posted on youtube, calling her a slut and that she probably asked for it...

In what fucking world do we live in here? Decency is, what... a thing of the past?

It's really sad.

I have letters in to:

Charlie Crist, Governor of Florida

Jeff Kottkamp, Lt. Governor of Florida

Bill McCollum, Attorney General of Florida

Bill Nelson, Senator

Mel Martinez, Senator

-------

I hope your respective offices are looking into the allegations of Crystal and her youtube video.

It's disgusting in this day and age that people have to turn to public forums to get the help they need. A 16 year old girl should not have to publicize her pain and get it on CNN for her to get proper help.

The case is quite ambiguous, and there are many questions that need answering, but if the allegations of neglect and improper conduct on the part of the Orange County Attorney's Office are true, something has to be done.

Isn't anyone concerned about the legal loopholes that permeate the fabric of this country, that leaves victims behind, with no recourse?

Selective prosecution is a joke, and it's high time that we started looking at what was right, rather than what path is easiest so we can leave the office and get home to watch television.

You are all public figures. I expect you all to get involved and get to the bottom of this case.

John Painz

------

If this was my daughter, I'd be in jail already. The guy would be in a million pieces.

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights

2008-05-15T10:43:00.007-04:00

Have you ever read The Watchmen by Alan Moore?

Ever seen Independence Day?

If you were a New Yorker before 9/11, and lived there after those terrible events, you probably noticed the same thing I did. I cannot speak for the rest of the country, but I'm sure stories would echo familiar.

I remember the days and weeks after being some of the calmest, peaceful days in that city. I'm not talking about the constant fear that people felt. Or the sadness. I'm talking about how whenever people walked down the street, they didn't see the problems they had with someone. They saw fellow New Yorkers.

Neighbors. Would-be friends. Possible victims or saviors.

I remember leaving work and heading downtown to see what I could do to help. Blood lines at hospitals were so long... people weren't allowed south of Houston. I asked a cop what I could do, he said "Go ask a cop if he needs anything." Everyone wanted to help.

Watchmen... ID4. You know what those two stories have in common?

Humanity banding together after a horrific event. And you know what? I bet both of those pieces of fiction predict correctly.

Money, power, fame... all of those things are useless in the wake of living through real tragedy.

Ever seen Starman, the movie by John Carpenter?

"Would you like to know what I find beautiful about your species? You are your best when things are at their worst."

I think most people find it stupid to quote contemporary movies, fiction, etc, when it comes to trying to comment on... well, whatever.

Doesn't mean it's not true, right? Does it really matter where we get our inspiration, motivation or strength?

If you were to create a timeline, from when the world was enormous, to when the world got smaller and smaller... starting... when. The telegraph? 1844. The telephone? 1876. The radio? Let's use Armstrong's FM radio as a template... 1935. And so on.

I think that if you put an overlay on that and look at the increase in world wide destruction... that would be something.

Put a different overlay and look at how humans have been helping humans world wide... I think you'd probably see the same kind of dedication humans have for warfare, as they have for kindness.

But the scales would be different.

One is profitable. One is selfless.

There have always been missionaries. Always dictators... atrocities that weren't made evident until the world shrunk a bit here and there...

Look at where we are now. Where every single bad thing is brought to you on hundreds of news channels, newspapers, and online, every day, assaulting us. It's all still happening. Just now, people get famous for it.

Does anyone really know who the bad guys are anymore? And is anyone willing to do the right thing, not point fingers?

If you look at all of those dates and inventions and wars... we're ruining this planet at a frightening rate. Something that's been here millions of years... we've depleted in... 100? Less?

One of my favorite novels, Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk, has this great line, and it puts things into a weird kind of perspective. Keep in mind he wrote it in 1999.

"Hell, a century ago everybody had horses."

Unreal.

We have our kids coming... some of us have kids already here. And it's been driven into our heads that we have to do that one thing for our kids. That most important thing that we need to start now, or their future will be ruined.

We have to do them the favor of saving up money for their college education.

I think it's time we start creating a new idea that should be put into the heads of moms and dads, couples thinking of starting a family, grandparents...

We need to start doing more than one favor for our children. And future generations.

Humanity isn't going to just right itself. What few fighters there are out there can use the help. It's time to stop coasting as a species, and start protecting the planet and its inhabitants.

Links to start helping:

NRDC

Amnesty International

PETA

National Homeless Coalition

You don't have to just donate. You can sign up and help these organizations be heard.

By the by, I'm a cynical fucker. I look at this essay here and I know I didn't mention the atrocities that are covered up, the governments that kill their own and look the other way. I won't even get into the mess the US has made because, frankly, this is about Human Rights, and there is a much larger world outside the US. And we can all help.

I might be cynical. But I still have a large amount of hope. I keep wondering if that's the realist in me, or the other part that's slightly insane.

John Painz

I can't take it

2008-05-14T14:14:00.005-04:00

It's becoming a daily occurrence. Women come in, they sniff soap fragrances, they make icky faces, and they leave.

Now... I'm at my boiling point people. I really am.

These women came up to our demonstration table and the only thing that lit them up was the chocolate sugar scrub. I mean, we're talking drooling.

Every other one "God, I don't know what it is, but I don't like these fragrances. I'm going to pass."

"Me too."

So then, after getting me up to help them with the demonstration, they start talking to me, asking me what happened to the Peruvian shop that was here before we were.

"Oh, she got deported. They said she was into some white slavery thing. Big deal, in all the newspapers.*"

I thought they were going to have low blood sugar attacks and start eating the scrubs.

On top of all this, on their way out "God, those were really bad smelling, I don't know how they could sell those."

I'm seriously ready to do some more Al Pacino wavs... but I'm gonna spare you.

I'll leave you with this one instead.

It's basically how I feel.

----

* I told them I was kidding, but I really wanted to just stay Mr. Serious. Guess something got the better of me.

holy crap

2008-05-13T14:13:00.003-04:00

NSFW (it's not nudity). Thanks to thesuperficial.com for this... wow.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

is there anybody out there...

2008-05-13T11:37:00.009-04:00

Seriously, is anyone reading this thing? On a daily basis? Leave a comment, make me your friend off blogcatalog.com or mybloglog.

Had an article mention me here. Pretty neat. About the present state of movies and scripts and capitalism.

Let's see. Getting some samples out to some review blog websites. Kind of exciting. If you know of a website that does reviews, so we can get the Soapier word out email me.

I swear if I get one more person that comes to the door, looks in, sniffs, wrinkles their nose and makes some snide remark...

Unreal. You want to look? No problem. You don't want to come in? No problem. Is it possible to shut your mouth for two minutes? Does the rest of the world need the running commentary?

I've tried very hard in my life to listen more than speak. Sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I put my foot in my mouth.

Foot in my... wait a second.

Anyway. What else? Let's give you guys a few really cool sites to go visit, let's do that today, shall we?

First, if I hear Volare one more time...

:) Sorry...

Tales of my aching feet - Nicole, resident waitress blogger, talks about her experience in the food industry. Some funny stuff, and reading it will give you a better perspective on how to treat your servers!

Amy Oops - A great humor blog. She's got a great sense for what's funny... I'm kind of going in circles here, but still, great stuff, check it out. It's funn... ah, you get the point.

Ominous Comma - Another humor blog, this guy has some neat contests and just plain fun.

And, of course, my brother-in-arms from another country, Retail Hell. They want me to contribute... of course I said yes.

Hang in there folks, it's... SHIT. It's Tuesday?

Soapier's first contest

2008-05-11T12:26:00.002-04:00

Check it out.

It's a free contest with 3 winners who receive $30 gift certificates to our Soapier.com website!

Should be a lot of fun. Get those photos posted!

sleeve facing

2008-05-10T22:05:00.003-04:00

Head over to Rob's Megaphone Blog and dig this video. It's awesome!

(I'd embed the video here, but Rob deserves the link, he's got some great posts on that site!)

garage sales for ebay

2008-05-10T14:25:00.002-04:00

Well, my mom wanted to head out today and hang out together, do some shopping at garage sales and see if there was something we could put up on ebay. We came up with a couple of things, which is cool, but goddamn!

It is almost 90 here in Palm Harbor, Florida. It's 65 in NYC.

I hate this place.

After working 6 days in a row at the retail shop (no, I haven't started cutting myself just to feel), I finally got two days off. I'm exhausted, but not in a bad way. Woke up this morning at 7:10am and started screaming in my head to the special special part of my brain that regulates sleep. I screamed:

"IT'S MY DAY OFF!"

I hate that part of my brain, because it's obviously deaf and blind.

Ever hear a song and you're in a crowded space and you can't really hear the lyrics that well but the song has really got a good beat and sounds, well, awesome?

I had this happen and for three weeks now I had "Baby I'm the bomb" in my head. I googled it, I limewired it, I prayed to the tiny gods of misheard lyrics.

Nothing. Well, today, just minutes ago, I said "let's switch those lyrics up a bit."

And viola:

Awesome.

Enjoy your Saturday, folks. Those of you in retail hell, my sincerest condolences. I will be re-joining your ranks soon enough.

John

thinking of hiring a PR person

2008-05-09T21:31:00.003-04:00

Recently, my mom, sister and I sat down and had a meeting about hiring a PR person to help us spread the word of Soapier.

"And I looked and I saw that it was good."

So... what to do, what to do.

It's hard when you're on a tight budget and you're trying to get the word out.

We've received word from two different PR firms. Just got to compare and see what's what, go from there. But since we have no real experience with this kind of thing, we're still in the flailing about mode.

It's probably going to boil down to making a decision, sticking with it and seeing how we can get the best out of the money we're spending.

I'm hoping that I can work this blog and our new blog, Soapier's Blog into some much needed traffic to the site, spread the word, get some affiliates. Working on it.

Between Wednesday and today I had four customers. Seriously, we're going to post a suicide watch camera in the store so my mom knows I'm still alive when she comes to pick me up.

Ohhhhhhhh. That needs some explaining.

I touched on this, but refreshers are always good.

I moved here from NYC, where I had lived since college. Never, not once, needed a car. Karen, my girl, says I should get my license, at least, and I agree... just have to get out there and do it. But it's tough, you know. We all work so hard and my days off are spent detoxing and sleeping and relaxing and other 'ings that calm me down before I have to end up back at the pit of despair.

More later, dear readers. Enjoy your weekend.

displaying product

2008-05-08T16:12:00.014-04:00

I recently wrote an article for our Soapier store blog...

This is my rant and rave blog for dealing with retail. So there.

Check out the article on how to display not only our products properly, but any products, really.

shoes contest

2008-05-08T11:33:00.004-04:00

Well, I figured I'd take a crack at the Scribbit contest, since I'm a writer at heart and I love shoes!

No, wait, I don't love shoes. I love pizza.

Anyway, I was writing on my myspace page, short stories that I took down because, HEY, they're my short stories!

I know, doesn't make sense. But now I figured I would dazzle you with a short story called "Mileage". So here goes.

----------------

My shoes caught fire. Just like that. It wasn't magic, it wasn't spontaneous combustion.

I really want to witness that some day, you know? I mean, I'd feel bad about the person dying and all, but imagine just being at the right place at the right time and all of a sudden this person in front of you goes off like a two hundred pound flare.

I wonder if it would be quick?

Anyway, anyway. Yeah, so they caught on fire. My friend Lee, he was careless with his cigarette on the way home. And I didn't realize how soaked they were, hours later.

They were nice Dr. Martins. I'd had them about four months. They had teeth at the bottom, I worked in them, I walked in them. The leather on the sides wasn't cutting into my feet. First week, they were bloody, you know how shoes do that to you. They were nice and comfortable now.

Well, now they were scabby and frayed and all those other words that can be put with fire damaged.

Lee's a piece of work. He sits around all day and plays video games and surfs porn and, well christ, it's why we keep all the blinds down, you know. Neighbors complained about peaking into our house.

Yeah, you read that right.

But who needs the hassle, you know? You've seen one guy sitting in a chair doing it to internet porn, you've seen all you want to see. Even me.

Sasha. That's my girl. She lives about two states over. She's pregnant. She's 20. She's the love of my life.

I'm 32 by the way. Never had a love in my life. Certainly not one I got pregnant. There've been those girls where you think you love them. Or they think they love you and you're drunk enough to think "Life is quick. I might not be around tomorrow. Why wait."

Drunken philosophy has this way of allaying all of your fears and giving you the courage you'd never have during the day time.

I mean, I only drink at night. Mostly. Those day time courage people have a serious problem, you know.

But this story... well, Sasha broke up with me about three weeks ago and moved home. And, like all women, wouldn't answer my phone calls or my texts. I didn't dare write her an email. I won't sit in that chair. Seriously.

Here's the conversation. Paraphrased.

"I'm pregnant. I can't believe you lost your job. How can you lose your job at a gas station in this day and age? I'm sorry but if you don't have a job, we're not going to be able to be together with a baby on the way and all..."

Throw in a southern twang, raise some of those words to all capitals, some screaming, some crying, some cursing...

I didn't lose my job. I was fired. I worked at a gas station because I wanted out of my old life. You ever sit in front of a computer for eleven hours a day? I mean, that's no life. It's the semblance of a life of our times. It's unhealthy. It's inevitable. There are some of us who'd rather be happy than successful.

Very few of us. Find us in that catagory 'hopeless romantic'. The subcatagory would read 'hardcore'.

So, what the hell was I going to do?

I had money for rent. I had money for food. I had money for tissues.

Give that last one a second.

But I didn't have enough money for gas to get me two states over.

I couldn't remember the last time that Lee had seen sunlight. Lee, who is for all intents and purposes, a home vampire, was my best friend from high school. We still had fun, regardless of his faults. He didn't work because he had a small case of agoraphobia.

Ok, Lee's just lazy.

So I turned to him one day and said "I have to go see Sasha."

"Ok."

"You want to go with me?"

"How you going?"

"Car."

"Car?"

"Car."

"How?"

I was ready to say "Car" again, but I knew what he meant.

"I have a plan."

Silence for a second.

"She has a sister, right?"

We made it about fifty miles before we were running out of gas. I looked around for the perfect place to do what I needed to. Lee was messing around with the radio (only radio, no cd player, no ipod connection, nothing... it seriously felt like the dark ages).

I pulled into an Outback Steakhouse. It was about 5pm. Dinner crowd time. I think about it now, it was almost automatic. The tumblers clicked into place and everything was right with that small part of my world.

I picked an old 1977 Granada. It was red, chrome and the grill reminded me of my father's face. Very strange.

Siphoning gas isn't ethical. I mean, it isn't.

We're not living in Mad Max times here, but at $3.50 a gallon, we might as well be.

And I'm not driving one of the last of the V-8's. I drive a piece of shit.

Lugging around two 5 gallon metal gas canisters, along with a six foot length of clear hose is not too conspicuous. But you have to do what you have to do. I figured that it would be easier to do this at night, but daylight was wasting, and we'd only gone a small bit of our trip.

Plus, is there a better way to get your feet wet than in broad daylight?

Don't lecture me about mixed metaphors.

I got down behind the car, set the cans nice and easy down on the paved parking lot and lifted the lid on the gas tank. I knew I was going to have to stick to older cars. New cars have got a screen in the filler neck to prevent siphoning.

I turned the gas tank cover off and pushed the hose down into the tank, then started sucking. It didn't take long, the guy must have had a full tank, because the gas hit the middle of the hose in about five seconds. I took the hose out of my mouth and stuck it into the first can. It moved at a pretty good pace and was filled up in about two minutes. I moved the hose to the second and filled that too.

All in all, five minutes, in and out.

I pulled the hose out and splashed the remaining gas onto the pavement. I wrapped it around my shoulder, covered the cannisters and walked back to my car, whistling.

Whistling is one of those things that makes everyone seem likable and innocent.

Or, if you're doing it like the caricature of your favorite Looney Tunes character, well... something from ACME will certainly hurt you.

I got back to the car. Lee was on lookout. Sleeping.

I got my funnel and filled my gas tank with ten gallons. That would get me... about halfway there.

I drove all night, trying to determine if I felt badly about what I did. But I settled on no.

There are certain things that people have to do in the times they are living. And while people can say "well, it's not as bad as killing someone, but it is a crime..." to them I say "You're right, I didn't kill anyone. Leave me alone until you're broke and need to be somewhere so your life doesn't spiral into the abyss that's been following you around like a black cloud ever since you left home."

But, you know, not so dramatic.

Butterflies build up as you get closer to your pre-destined, horrific, intense, life altering destination.

They start, well, they start when you leave your house. But they build up with every mile and every repeated song on the radio and every house and tree and patch of grass that reminds you of something you've already witnessed. Monotony builds up dread. Or excitement.

I'd been to her parents house before. I felt, as we made it to the driveway, not unlike a homing pigeon. Dumb, trained to do a single thing. Find my way home.

I hadn't changed. I had no extra clothes on me. I'd coughed up a cup full of gas on the last siphon, all over my shirt. I spilled some all over my shoes and jeans.

I walked up smelling like gas, my hair disheveled, my teeth not brushed. My face was probably a battlefield of dirt and grime and grease.

I knocked on the front door praying to the god of boyfriends everywhere. I wished that her parents weren't there. I wished she wasn't an emotional wreck. I wished she wasn't already crying. I wished...

Ok, I hadn't wished for her breasts to be larger. I swear.

She opened the door and looked at me. She looked around me. Lee was sleeping, his feet sticking out of the passenger side window. I swear, the guy's some kind of saint.

"What are you..." she started to say. She sniffed the air a moment and smiled this ridiculous smile and lunged forward and kissed me.

"You got your job back!"

I was too stunned for words.

She started crying into my shirt. I didn't think that was too safe for the baby so I pushed her away lightly and took my shirt off.

"Baby, we can't do that here..." she said, shyly and demurely.

I winked, balled the shirt up and threw it towards my car. She brought me into the house so I could shower, change into some of her dad's clothes and talk. And other stuff.

The butterflies were gone.

Getting back was a bit easier. I borrowed a canister from her father (he didn't ask why)... got back after we made plans for her to move in. Her folks weren't too happy about it, but were happier than they had been. I called some old contacts and they said they would try and get me some freelance work. I called some gas stations who needed a grease monkey around and found two prospects.

I planned to buy a ton of Lysol to get my computer back.

I scrounged up some money to rent a van from a friend of a friend and persuaded Lee to help me move her stuff.

The guy who rented the van said it got shitty mileage, but should make the trip back and forth no problem.

I said cool and asked him if I could borrow the three gas canisters he had lying around his garage.

--------

Hope you enjoyed it, folks. Keep the faith.

our products

2008-05-07T10:27:00.007-04:00

Well, my new friend iconic at theideabus.blogspot.com left a comment on blogcatalog.com saying:

Ecclectic mix of stuff there on your blog. May be you could tell us what products you have for sale and what its benefits are? I wasn't sure if this was a business blog or personal one.

In any case, keep it up and keep refining ;-)

So, I thought I would take their advice and give you all a first hand tour of our awesome products that we manufacture and sell.

Soap

This is what we do the best. All of our designs are original ones. We use glycerin soap and... well, I can't give away all of our secrets, sheesh! But it's a melt and pour process. Glycerin soap is good for your skin. Most soap you purchase in grocery stores and department stores are detergent. It's one of the main reasons the lather is so great. The problem is, detergent dries your skin. Company's take all of the glycerin that was in the soap originally and put it in lotions and bath gels... just another product you have to buy (from them) to keep your skin healthy.

Our glycerin soap adds moisture to your skin, keeping it healthy and shiny. Let's see... what have we got... (we have over 20 different designs to choose from, this is just a sample!)

My Little Sweet Pea - probably one of our toughest soaps to design, truth be told. But it smells awesome, fruity and floral and fun!

Vanilla Soap - What can I say about this one? If you're a big fan of vanilla, this bar will be great to help your bathroom smelling nice and clean and... edible!

Crisp Cotton - This is a nice delicate fragrance, like clean clothes on the line, drying in the sunlight. Seriously, I write this stuff... it's one of our most popular bars. Not too fragrant, just perfect.

Raspberry Soap (Raspberry Lovers) - All of our soaps are double fragranced. This one... wow. It's one of the dominant fragrances in our retail store, and it's the one most people say "God, I wish I could eat this!" If you love raspberry, you won't regret cleaning with this great bar.

Lily of the Valley - Classic scent, nice design, this is one of those fragrances that will make you get your hands dirty so you can clean them and smell this wonderful flower all day!

Cucumber Melon Soap - Neat design, fun fragrance, this is another favorite. It smells almost fruity, but the cucumber smell cuts it just enough to have it also smell really fresh and clean.

Body Wash

Lush Body Wash - This is one of our best non-soap sellers. Comes in four really great fragrances. Coconut Mango & Papaya (you would not believe how awesome this smells), Bergamot & Coriander (with some orange, too!), Jasmine & Vanilla (yummy), and Chamomile & Lavender (the classic scents). We added pumice and bamboo to the mix, for an exfoliant. Really great.

Goats Milk Body Lotion

Luscious Body Lotion - Goats milk and honey lotion provides much needed vitamins and nutrients to your skin to keep it healthy and vibrant. Comes in matching fragrances of our Lush Body Wash. Great for daily use on your hands, legs, arms, anywhere there is dry skin.

Sugar Scrubs

Sweet Sugar Scrubs - Our best seller. A unique recipe of Hawaiian Sugar, macadamia and almond oil and castile soap. The great thing about this sugar scrub is that it's not oily, so it won't leave a residue around your tub, and you won't have to worry as much about slipping (we don't want that!) It's good for your entire body and face (although not more than once a week on faces, it's still a scrub). Comes in a ton of fragrances:

Beach Breezes, Berry Berry, Coconut, Cucumber Melon, Pink Grapefruit, Kiwi, Oatmeal Milk & Honey, or Raspberry.

-----------------

We have more, but I think you get the picture, right folks? Awesome stuff. And anyone on this blog who wants to order, I'll give you 15% off your purchase. Use BLOG1 as the coupon code at checkout for your discount!

OK, my brain is completely frozen over now after all that writing. But thanks for checking in. I'll be back later with more goofy news on the shop.

John

marketing part 2 (I think there was a part 1)

2008-05-06T13:02:00.002-04:00

So, on top of trying to get the family soap business up and running... let me break this down for you, exactly what we're doing here.

1 - wholesale - First in Line Soap. We sell our products all over the country, and in resorts everywhere.

2 - retail - Soapier.com. This is the brand we're trying to get out there. It's tough. We're thinking of hiring a PR firm. Try to get in some magazines, some television shows, something to get the brand out there. It's such cool stuff!

3 - home party division - Soapier Spa Parties. This is the tough sell. Wholesale and PR will get the brand out, but I don't think people are just going to sign up for a home party division without having heard of the product or, at the very least, USE the product, so they can tote it's quality.

These are not easy things to promote, but they're not that hard either. We just have to be diligent and keep plugging away at markets we've never tried before, or have lost touch with or scratched the surface of.

It's tough, but no one here is giving up.

On top of the PR, we'll be expanding to affiliate networks. And postcard direct mailings and then we're going to make a big foam bar of soap costume and pay someone to walk around in the 100 degree weather (a prerequisite will be that they have their own medical insurance) to hand out flyers. People walking by will be given bottles of water to hose him down and make him all sudsy.

Fun. I think it has potential.

--------

On a lighter note, I'm really enjoying keeping this blog. While I might get a bit off topic, like about music and movies and comedy clips and snakes and squirrels and stuff, I can't talk business all the time. So, with that, my mini-review of Iron Man.

It rocked!

Thanks.

Check out this site, The Four Word Film Review.

I used to write movie reviews for a semi-living and I found out a few things. People hate reviewers. Unless the reviewer is reading his/her own work.

A few months ago I read a blog where the guy reviewed Transformers and basically said that everyone who liked the movie was a moron.

See... it's this kind of movie review that gives actual, unbiased reviewers a bad name. The guy laments for paragraphs on how dumb the movie is, insulting people who enjoyed it, and blah blah.

Two things

One, the movie made money. And got bad reviews and all that. And is spawning a sequel.

Two. Dude, the movie came out last year! Don't you think it's a bit late to berate an audience that spoke up, bought tickets and (see One)?

Blech.

Anyway. This is one of my all time favorite ways to say goodbye or sign off a post. I believe it's from White Jazz by James Ellroy.

See you in church.

what'd you leave behind for me?

2008-05-06T10:57:00.004-04:00

Not sure how long this will last, but I had to post this. I keep listening to this one album that is so haunting. Unreal.

I'm tired today. We had our weekly meeting. See how everything goes in trying to accomplish all of our goals for the week.

Blech.

Writing. Watching Buffy. 3rd season is actually pretty great. Like they hired actual writers.

Other than that... well, no customers yet. I'll keep you posted, friends.

contest is twisting my arm

2008-05-05T20:57:00.004-04:00

Well, not really, but it's one of the rules, so here goes.

datmoney.com is having a contest!

Who is datmoney.com you ask? Click the link, sucka!

(who is this talking?)

(I have no idea)

(Oh, ok)

And check out these other blogs:

DatMoney.com - hey, you already said this one!
Carlocab.com
Garryconn.com
Theuniversitykid.com
Theblogentrepreneur.com
Bloggernoob.com
Blogaboutyourblog.com
Piggybankpie.com
Jonathanvolk.com
Winningtheweb.com
Etienneteo.com
Yimto.com
Adesblog.com
Blogpremiere.com/forum

god, I feel like a whore.

J

squirrels

2008-05-05T19:00:00.003-04:00

So, not only are there snakes all over the place here, and little geckos, but there are a ton of squirrels.

Coming home from work, I'm walking home, and this was exactly the kind of scene I encountered from three different squirrels.

Except the make-up. NSFW.

If you've never seen Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill, you're missing out on the best stand-up I've ever seen.

banks suck

2008-05-05T15:16:00.003-04:00

This is a letter I just sent to BB&T, a bank we had been approached by at our retail store. A woman from one of the branches down here gave us her card and said 'If we can do anything, let us know!'

----------

Hello. My name is John Painz. My family business, Soapier, applied for a line of credit at your Tampa Road, Palm Harbor branch just over a month ago. We were helped by the branch manager who was very nice and kind while in our application phase. We had gone with BB&T after meeting one of the branch's worker, at our retail store. We went with BB&T because we had been treated poorly at Wachovia, and were hoping that a smaller bank would have better customer service.

We were wrong.

After applying, and telling the branch manager about our experience with Wachovia, we asked that they just let us know whether we got our line of credit or not, in a timely fashion, and to not make us wait (or not hear from the bank) if we did not receive the line of credit.

She assured us they would not make us wait, and would be in touch personally. After a week, I left repeated messages for the bank manager, which were not returned by her. When they were returned, they were returned by someone else, giving us the run-a-round. It took over two weeks to finally get an answer, and when we did get the answer that we were not approved of the credit line, we weren't told by the branch manager who helped us, we were told by someone else. Not only that, but we found out the branch manager had known for an entire week we were not getting approved.

She decided that instead of letting us know about our denial of credit, she went on vacation. We had opened up a business account with BB&T. We were also going to open up 3 additional personal checking AND savings accounts with your company. That will not be happening now.

I cannot tell you how, after explaining to the branch manager, how poorly we were treated, in the exact same manner, by Wachovia, how disappointed I am in your bank.

Is it policy to have your managers go out of their way to help customers apply for credit, but then ignore them when we call?

Is it policy to just disregard people who don't make the credit line grade at BB&T?

BB&T had better get their branch managers up to speed on what is responsible and acceptable behavior from prospective clients whose future financial situation will improve. You've lost not only a business account, but a number of personal accounts.

I'm seriously disgusted. - John Painz - Soapier

-------

Hey! Neil Diamond's on the muzak!

I love Neil Diamond.

sacrificing my body to science

2008-05-05T10:14:00.002-04:00

No, I'm not going to be a plasma donor... or some other kind of male fluid donor. Sheesh.

No, I have decided to take 5 days at the shop. 5 days in which I am tortured by the most perverse, depraved, sadistic individuals around.

The retail shopper.

You've seen them before. On nature channels, on those PBS specials.

So, I'll be doing this to allow my mom and sister to concentrate more on making soaps and other products. Blech.

The things we do, huh?

I've been trying to find a funny retail training video, or some funny retail video that someone just made, but I can't, which is a shame. I'll have to make one myself, one of these days.

I have turkey and swiss sandwiches today, with kettle chips that Karen, my girl, turned me on to... they're awesome.

Have a good day, bloggers and readers. Drop me a line!

John Painz

Doesn't this take skin off?

2008-05-04T15:48:00.002-04:00

That was a question I got today about our sugar scrubs.

"Yes, this is our new line of hydrochloric acid. It comes in the following fragrances."

I had one guy come in with his girlfriend... she was really digging the soaps, but couldn't decide. His contribution to the conversation?

"You can buy one if you want to."

Is that sentence just the pinnacle of passive aggressive tendencies? You really have to read it right.

Tone: skeptical, picture shrugging.

"You can buy one... IF you want to." Followed by a sigh that indicates the end of the world.

Unreal.

I saw this, and had to share.

2.15 hours left until I can leave my post. I think tonight I will have to have some wine. To take the edge off. You know.

In marketing news, we signed up for click2sell as an affiliate program. We'll see how it goes.

J

nice start to a day off

2008-05-02T09:56:00.002-04:00

So, I was just throwing out my garbage, cause that's kind of what you do, you know, and I'm walking back, thinking of a really neat scene I can film here in Florida, and... well, I saw one of these outside my front door.

This isn't the actual snake, it moved too fast to get a picture, but it was about 3 feet in length, about an inch and a half thick at it's largest, and raised my heart rate about 100bpm.

I would never.

Ever.

Ever never never ever ever ever.

Have this problem in NYC.

See what happens the rest of my day. Heard Sasquatch moved down here. I have wine, and brie and crackers. Spread the word.

Tarpon Springs - home of ex-escorts

2008-05-01T15:46:00.004-04:00

So, I'm at the shop today, making sugar scrubs and soaps and all kinds of ill shit, and I took a bit of a break today and saw this article on CNN.

I keep hoping they're going to have some tv crews there do a walk through in the home, and the guy who is holding the camera happens to have a fetish for spa products and lingers just a bit too long...

Wishful thinking, I know.

Hopefully a whole bunch of crazy assed tourists from Washington and other senators and congressmen and the like will flock down here to 'get the word' and stop in and buy their wives (who they aren't having sex with) some of our products.

You know, cause, it's obvious they killed her.

It could happen.

and then... depression set in

2008-04-30T13:59:00.002-04:00

First off, I'm a big movie fan. So, when I say things like that title, I expect most of you who were born in the 1970's to know half of what I'm talking about.

Clip is NSFW.

It's been 4 hours, I'm at the half way point, for god sake, and I've had one customer. I've had two people walk in the shop.

What I was really trying to find was a clip of True Lies. Let me set the scene for you.

The nuclear bomb went off. Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis are kissing, after making up. Harrier jets have landed, just in case of the EMP.

Tom Arnold is looking for Arnold. Jamie Lee knows her husband has work to do, so says "Go."

Arnold, just like a school kid goes "Ok, BYE!" and runs to the jets.

Well, my mom dropped me off at the shop this morning, helped me set up and then said "BYE!" just the same.

It's like the store is a leper colony.

Two women are in the store right now, going through the bargain sliced soaps. And they're complaining that they can't smell the soaps, because they are packaged in shrink-wrap.

Why isn't it possible to please everyone in retail?

You treat customers with respect. You say hello when they come into the store. When they leave, you say "Have a good day." And there are people who still think you're not only there to serve them, but do them favors (and not in the vein of customer service. It's like people have taken the idea of 'the customer is always right' and substituted that for manners, where their actions and speech count are unaccountable.)

note - this is not the first or last time I will discuss the manners of customers

It was one of my biggest problems walking into stores in NYC. It seems that the attitudes of the young people in the city have permeated the workforce. Where you once had semi-lazy people who were just tired or bored and didn't really want to be working at a grocery store or a music store, or any kind of retail store... now you get these kids who are either too busy texting someone (or calling them) to help, or they treat you with such disdain that if they help you, you feel like THEY'RE doing a favor for you.

It's such a joke, and I cannot even begin to tell you the difference in customer service outside of NYC. The people here in Florida (specifically Tampa) are friendly and helpful. They're also clean.

Anyway. More Buffy, more writing, more waiting for customers. Gonna turn the AC on, cause it's getting warm.

I'll also write later and let you know how my trip to the bathroom was. With details.

John Painz

counting the minutes. and the cards.

2008-04-29T17:30:00.002-04:00

Two customers today.

One was interested in hosting a home party.

One, from Indiana, was interested in becoming a Soapier Spa Party Consultant.

Then there is this, that I learned today. Vegas, here I come.

Cheat Blackjack Win Money $$ - Funny bloopers are a click away

dead (surely part 1 of... god knows how many)

2008-04-29T14:41:00.002-04:00

We had a meeting this morning, about what's what and what we're trying to accomplish and all that. This is the second of such meetings. Every tuesday morning, for breakfast.

I have been in the shop for four and a half hours. I've eaten two sandwiches, a granola bar, a bag of chips and a small cracker barrel cheese stick.

I have had two people come in the shop. I have had zero paying customers.

I had a pretty damn good day yesterday.

I'm about to slit my wrists.

On top of all this, I had an art deal I was putting through. I am selling a piece I don't want to sell, unless it's for a specific amount of money. Well, I got an offer yesterday that was very, very good. I accepted the offer. Today I get an email from some... god, I wish I could really curse on this blog.

I got an email from the man whose offer I accepted, his 'ASSociate." Telling me that there had been a mistake, and he was using his friend to make offers (shady, already) and he'd meant his friend to make an offer on a different piece, same character, same artist, different owner.

It's a piece of comic book art, btw.

Well, I went to look at the piece, and the offer he'd made me, for the piece he wants, is insulting. It's a cover grade ink drawing with paint, super detailed. So, what a whole joke this thing turned out to be. Now I'm stuck here, having made no money, either at the shop or personally, and I am in such a bad mood, I can't even begin to tell you.

I am so disappointed and mad, I can't even watch this terrible Buffy series. Or write. Or read.

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Now, if you know what that's from, we can be friends.

No cheating.

tibit #1

2008-04-28T15:45:00.005-04:00

"Oh god, smell this one." customer #1

"Christ, smells like grandma." customer #2

"Yeah, I can't believe it. And look, it's called Mix and Mingle. I wouldn't mingle with this on." customer #3

"You've mingled? I'm surprised you were able to leave the house, looking like a tent." me.*

-----------------

"I don't see any." customer #1

"Yeah, no aloe vera lotion." customer #2

"We have some right here." me - showing customers the lotion.

"Oh, great. My daughter burned her skin in the sun today." customer #1

"Ok, well, how old is she, because we have some nice fun fragrances." me

"Thirteen." customer #1

"Ok, well, we have Berries and Cream," me.

Customer smells it, puffs her mouth out like she's going to throw up, and makes a sick noise. I look at her. She looks back.

"That wasn't very nice of me, was it." customer #1

"No, it wasn't. Get out of my store before I make you eat this." me*.

---------

Disclaimer.

* comments were not actually said, but thought. Everything else is pretty much verbatim, and that's just today.

I don't understand how, when people leave their respective homes, how their manners go right out the window. Ever been to a friend's house and there's that one person who decides that it's ok to not only be THE pain in the ass, but think that they're right for doing it?

Who teaches these people manners?

Anyway, I should point out that most customers, even the ones that just walk around and don't say hello back and what-not, they are still on good behavior.

Blech.

muzaked to death

2008-04-28T12:41:00.002-04:00

Where I work, the outdoor mall, there is oldies music on. They call it muzak, but it's actual songs, not just instrumentals.

You remember that commercial... I think it was a diaper commercial in the 80's, where these kids were dancing around to the Gentrys "I Keep On Dancing"?

Well, I've heard that two times today. And I've only been here two and a half hours.

I'm tired today. Yesterday wasn't an awful day, money wise, but slow.

I've had one customer thus far, and it was a trio of old ladies who wanted sugar scrub hand treatments.

Our hand treatments are thus:

We offer our sugar scrubs in a variety of different fragrances. Chocolate & Strawberry, Coconut, Oatmeal Milk & Honey, Beach Breezes, Pink Grapefruit, Kiwi, Chocolate, Cucumber & Melon, Berry, or Raspberry.

They choose what they'd like, we use a pitcher of water and get their hands wet, a large metal basin under them.

Then we spoon in a bit of the sugar scrub into their hands, whichever fragrance they'd like.

Then they rub their hands together and get to feel what the sugar scrub feels like. The whole process takes about a minute. Maybe two, if they really like the feel of the sugar scrub. Then we pour water over their hands and once they're clean, give them a towel to dry off with.

The sugar scrub demonstration is either a great seller, or a free thing for people to just do, who have no intention of purchasing anything.

It happens, you still do it because it's a draw (we have a sign outside our store)... and you never know.

So they bought some, which is cool. But that's it for customers today so far.

Over the weekend, after re-doing our html email, we got two orders, a potential 3rd order, a private label customer on our body lotions and body wash, and a potential LARGE customer for sliced soap, which would be awesome. We'll have to see, and I'll keep you posted.

I am watching the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and I have some notes for those of you who might try to watch this series.

The first season is a joke. A huge joke. It's almost as if the writers decided that suspending the audiences disbelief was more important than accountability and responsibility in the characters and their surroundings.

The first episode. THE FIRST EPISODE. A teenager gets turned into a vampire and dies at the end (I'm not ruining anything here) and no police, no frightened mother, no FBI, nothing. And this happens all season. All season.

It's such a joke, I can't even stand it. Joss Whedon is a great writer and creator. But he should have had more control over that first season, and took the writing into his own hands. Some of it was downright awful.

I have season 2 in my dvd player, and I'm worried. Because A) it would be nice to get through the entire series, praying it gets better and B) because I need something to watch while it's slow.

So, here's to season 2 lighting my fire.

More later.

John Painz

You need coolin'

2008-04-27T10:17:00.003-04:00

Ah, Sunday morning at the shop. On Greek Easter.

Tarpon Springs is one of those communities where police officers dictate traffic for church.

For church.

So here I am, just opened, on the worst day of the week because my mom needed off. Yeah, I'm that good of a son.

And so I have Led Zeppelin playing, and I couldn't be happier. Well, of course I could be happier. You know what I mean.

What are we doing today. Today we're going to look into affiliate programs. Gonna try and get the Soapier brand out there through some other online stores that might want to carry our product.

Lots of different affiliate programs out there, and I have absolutely no idea how to find the right one, so it'll take some research. I'll get back to you all on the ins and outs of the affiliate world.

I also have to take some photos so you can see the first store and this store. What a difference.

Oh, and we're going to go with a 500 piece mailing, to start. To existing customers. It will only run about $300 for printing and postage, and a return of just two orders will get us our money back. That's not even a 1% return. It's a safe bet, when our financial reserves aren't where they should be, and will still (hope hope) generate some orders. We have a mailing list right now of only 111 customers off of aweber.com.

We originally used to send out our newsletter to the 700 some odd customers we had, through my outlook express. We had 50 emails in each group, and the emails were hid. When we got returned email, we deleted it from said group, and did this for quite a while. But it was a lot of work. And there were mistakes. Lots of them.

So, we decided to join aweber, an automated email newsletter company. They charge about $20 a month.

Now, in this day and age of spam, when people go to our website and sign up for our newsletter, they get an email says "Ok, thanks for joining, please click the following link".

Well, we're having trouble with people clicking that link. And what I'm finding is that people don't read. Not only does it say "you'll be getting an email, please click the link to get our newsletter" (that's paraphrasing), but they also GET AN EMAIL... and they're not reading it.

Blech.

So, from those 700 customers, after we sent out an email stating they had to re-sign up... we got 47 customers who signed up. It was such a joke, and so frustrating. I sent out another email. Two more sign ups.

The remaining balance, those are new customers. We have about 26 people who signed up but didn't click their email. So, that's 26 people who think we're ignoring them.

It's hard. You don't want to call them and make them feel stupid. But you don't want to pester them, either. So what I've done is started sending out emails to them from our newsletter email, directly. We usually send out HTML emails, like this.

My friend Al Rotches (who owns his own website and email design company Al Designs) explained I was doing a few things wrong.

First, there was no real call to action. Second, since it's just one big image (meaning, there is no text), most spam filters would pick it up and drop it right into the spam folder.

That was bad news. Now, on aweber they give you a spam indicator, and if you're under 5 (they're sliding scale), chances are you're ok. Well, ours were a 4.

So Al suggested I go to mailchimp.com and download their free email marketing guide, and use one of their free HTML email templates.

So now, Friday, I sent out this. It had a spam rating of 2.3 and will hopefully get a better response than the ones in the past.

More visible links, call to action, real text... we were all happy with it here. We'll have to find a template that has some images on the side, so we can get some product shots in there.

I've been here twenty minutes, I feel like I'm in jail. Two years ago I bought my sister the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series on dvd. 40 discs. Feature that.

It's what I have to look forward to while I'm at the shop. The first season is a joke, but there's some decent writing and it'll suffice.

I love watching tv shows on dvd. My mom and I have a yearly tradition of watching Lost every Christmas when the new season comes out on dvd. I own Arrested Development, Alias, Firefly, Greatest American Hero, Simpsons... been going through them like water.

If some of you are alone on Sundays at your shop, let me know what you're doing about it, keeping the boredom at bay.

John Painz

to advertise or not to advertise

2008-04-23T11:16:00.009-04:00

Consistently, I am amazed at how unoriginal some thoughts are. And some ideas.

Recently I saw a video of Mariah Carey on the Oprah Winfrey show (thanks to the superficial), explaining to people how easy it is to eat healthy.

Now, I'm not sure if you see the problem here.

First off, there isn't a person on this planet that doesn't know eating healthy is good for you.

Second, 1% of the entire population of the world (possibly less) can afford to have someone cook healthy food for us day in and out.

Third, Mariah Carey is here to entertain us. Not teach us things. This whole segment is an insult, in my opinion. Let Mariah come over to my place and cook me some healthy food without burning my apartment down, and then she can let me know all about healthy living.

And she can clean, too, while she's at it. Seriously, my place is a mess.

My point is that what she's talking about, these are not original thoughts. But she's coming across as she's discovered THE SECRET. It's so absurd.

At this stage in our business, Soapier and it's wholesale division First In Line Soap, we have so much we're trying to accomplish, it's very difficult to determine what direction to go in first.

So, we decided on wholesale. It's A) one of the easiest ways to get our brand out there and B) provides more repeat customers with more regularity.

So. We can advertise our wholesale site in a number of different ways. Google ad words is one. And we've been utilizing this great service, and it's gotten us quite a few new accounts, since last year. Quite a few.

I've gotten some phone calls from Yahoo about advertising with them, and I think we're going to give it a shot. I think that if we try it, with a $300 per month budget, we'll have a good barometer on whether it works or not.

I still find it hard to believe that there are people who are loyal only to one search engine, but so be it. You never know where that new customer is going to come from, and over the course of 1 month, for $300, if we get two new customers, that will pay for our advertising for the month, at least.

The second thing we're going to do, which has worked in the past, is direct mail.

The way direct mail really works is repetition. You cannot send out 1 postcard a year and expect your customers to stay in touch with you. Postcard direct mail programs need to be very consistent. This is a monthly process, and for a small company like ours, can be very costly.

First, you need to find a company with good mailing lists. We have a list of just about two thousand previous customers.

Problem with previous customers is A) they either didn't sell our product as well as they thought (a subgroup of that is, they did not properly display our product, I'll get to that later) or B) they are no longer in business or C) they are no longer selling soap.

These things happen, quite often. I did some cold calling a month ago to 30 different old customers, just from last year. I got 1 order. I got three hang ups. One rude guy. And the rest explained that they just don't sell decorative gift soap anymore.

Now, if I were to call up all of our old customers, once a month, I'd go batshit. Seriously. It's not going to happen. Between 3 people, we cannot be a call center, too. It just wouldn't work.

So, finding a reputable list, in the demographic you want to mail to, can be difficult, and a gamble. Keep in mind that most places have a minimum. We've found two with them. 3,000 and 5,000 names.

I think that getting new customers is more important than keeping in touch with old ones. Old ones meaning, those who haven't ordered in three years or more. I'm certainly not talking about customers we already supply. They are the life's blood of the company. You HAVE to stay in touch with them. And while making and keeping personal relationships with them might be out of the question (again, we're only three people), you still have to contact them every once in a while via phone and ask how things are going. This we do.

But in regards to people who've dropped off the face of the Earth...? Well, since we own our own retail store, we know what sells and what doesn't. Things that sell, we're not likely to forget who we purchased the items from. And if these customers, out of touch three years, liked our product and it sold, well, they'd be customers still.

I recognize a certain amount of babysitting is needed, but still. I can't go chasing them and grooming them for a $100 sale every year. It's not worth it.

So. My opinion. A 5,000 piece mailing. Large postcard, with a deal to start. Free shipping on orders of $100 or more. And believe me, $100 an order is almost ZERO presence in a shop. That's 3 loafs. It's nothing. In a future email I will explain the worth of presence in regards to selling a product (another non-original idea).

5,000 postcards, the list, the postage, we're talking about an investment of $2500. Easy.

Now, keeping in mind that the economy is messed up, I'm gonna throw some more figures at you.

1% of that mailing should lead to new customers. That's 50 customers. At a minimum of $100 per order...

See what I mean? This should really be a no brainer. But I don't know about you, but shelling out $2500 during the slow season, and committing to doing this every single month is scary shit.

Does it HAVE to work? Of course not.

Should it work? Yes, it should. If A) the list is good and B) these companies, while feeling the pinch, dig our product.

Advertising this way isn't original. You'll find advice up and down the internet on how to do this right. Doesn't mean they're not right. My comparison to this is that Mariah isn't doing any of the work. So who needs her advice?

So many other questions. But I'll keep you posted on what we do do (eyeroll) and what we don't. Should make for an interesting summer.

You can donate plasma once a week for $50.

Did you know that?

the days are long

2008-04-22T17:29:00.003-04:00

Let me describe the place to you. It's an outdoor mall. Large coverings, boats on the ground interspersed between walking paths and shops. Blue and white motif. A water spitting dolphin that hardly works.

But, the place is kept in pretty decent shape. And it's been around for a while.

We got the place we're at... well, read the previous entry. But it's been good to us thus far and the guy who owns the place isn't bad. Nice guy, good personality.

The mall hours are 10-6 every day, all year. The season... well, that really depends on who you talk to. Could be the season starts in November and goes to end of April. Or January to May. The summer months are dead.

Or they aren't.

I can't really get a solid answer from anyone around here, but the one thing I do know is that we need to make $125 a day to break even. And that's not a lot of money.

Retail is a strange universe. The customer is king. Always. Smiles on the faces of employees. No attitude. So important. These are simple things, but depending on the temperment of your customers, can be sometimes difficult, something trying.

I spend 4 days a week working for my family's business, at the retail shop. I am there alone, with only my trusty laptop and the occasional movie or television show on DVD. And they are the most boring days of my week, bar none.

Truth be told, I don't really have non-boring days. I don't drive (not yet, anyway) and if I did, I wouldn't be able to afford gas. But I do need to get a license. For a number of reasons.

So while I wait my life out in 8 hour increments at the store, my weekends are filled in my apartment, day after day, trapped. It sucks, but for now it's life and I'm trying to make the best of it. The grocery store is in walking distance, as is the local movie theater. Good thing, too.

Let's get back to the store.

I'd like to describe a few things we do here. First, we make, or finalize, most every product we sell. All the soaps are ours. The bath gels and the body lotions, we mix all of those. By hand.

The sugar scrubs, we're provided the base. We now do all the coloring and fragrancing ourselves.

Same with the body butter. We have a facility making our mud masks and a brand new body wash for us.

The shop smells wonderful. So many great fragrances mingled together. Occasionally we get the one or two customers who say the smell is too strong and they can't stand it. And leave.

So be it.

The other day... yesterday in fact. Hell, it's why I didn't write about it yesterday. It's one of those many situations I've had here where I wish that there was a reality tv show crew following me around.

This old woman came in (old meaning late 50's, early 60's), eating ice cream, comes into the shop with her daughter and son in law. And she's looking for something. I hate those customers that look like they're looking for something and don't ask. I'm here to help you. Ask me.

So she says "They don't have it. Wait, they do have it!"

I ask what are you looking for?

She says "Soap with stuff in it. Like palm trees or something." She's lifting a bar of our new Jasmine and Shea Butter soap. I say "Oh, ok, yeah we have lots of different soaps to choose from."

Our soaps come in loafs that we cut into slices for our customers.

So her daughter grabs one of our Pinky Bird slices and she goes "Mom, check this out, isn't this great?"

"Oh my god, that's so ugly."

And that's when I lost my... holy cow. I had to walk out of the store.

It is impossible to not take this personally. I'm not selling Irish Spring. Or Lever 2000. My family makes that soap. And we sell a shitload of it.

Ok, well, kind of a shit load. Not, you know, where we can retire.

But I had to leave the store. I was so ready to say something. And this isn't the first time this has happened. People think that they're at home, smelling samples that some woman is trying to sell out of her briefcase (we do this too, btw) and can try and strike up a personal accord with them, and tell their likes and dislikes in the comfort of their home.

And they can be rude, because it's their home. I know, some people are assholes.

But this, to me, was crossing the line. Don't insult me, my family, my shop, because you don't like something. Keep your opinions to yourself. Or share them when you leave. But don't insult me. Or my product.

I have a great time with customers too. Don't get me wrong. For every customer like this one, I get the other old woman, with two broken wrists, who messes with me and says she'd like a free hand spa treatment.

We advertise free hand spa treatments outside our store.

She comes in with two casts and says "Give me a hand spa treatment!"

It was too funny. She said she was messing with me. I laughed. Her husband laughed.

Of course, they didn't buy anything.

Which brings me to my second point today. Today alone I had a 80% turnaway rate. 10 people came into the store. 2 bought. They were decent sales, above $30, so that's always nice. But... you know, I have no idea if anyone's reading this yet, but I'll have to provide you with some photos so you can see the place. It's nice. We have some more work to do (This week in fact) but it looks nice.

I don't know. Those turnaways are annoying. People who peak their head in. People who walk around and TOUCH EVERYTHING, and SAMPLE EVERYTHING and leave.

I know, it's why the samples are there. And looking never hurts. But all day, every day, and those people who get their free hand spa treatment who go "Oh my god, my hands have never felt this soft before... bye!" and they leave.

WTF? I would never, ever do that. I'd never have someone spend that much time to help me and then leave at the quickest convenience, especially if I liked the product, which they alllllllll do.

Blech.

Time to leave.

Drop me a line, let me know you're out there reading.

J

The beginning part 2

2008-04-21T12:17:00.006-04:00

Ok, it's been 2 hours since my last post and I will now update all of you with the quick history of our new shop.

Put your goddamn time machine hats on again.

February. I moved down here from Brooklyn, my home for a long time. Since college. That's... jesus. That's sixteen years. Throw in a year or two in Jersey, there you go.

So I moved down here with the idea that A) I'd be working as the designer and web guy and all that and B) that I'd be making a salary of $400 a week, take home.

I'd like to put something into perspective for you, so you can see the dramatic change in not only my lifestyle, but also my determination to get not only the store running right, but also get myself back to a lifestyle I enjoy.

When I was last working a full time job, I was making $300 a day. This was as a graphic designer, and that was a medium salary for the amount of work I was doing.

I move down here, and our original shop was not making any money. Tarpon Springs is, what I would call (and others in town would call) a ghost town. The local government officials work extra hard to make promoting shops in town as difficult as possible. They make laws, ban outdoor advertising, tear up roads where shops parking had been (remind me to tell you what happened two christmas's ago, you won't even believe it.)

This all takes place in Tarpon Springs proper. The historical district. That's where our shop was (it's now strictly a manufacturing facility), and if we got a customer a week, it was a lot. In hindsight, we didn't do enough research, and the thought of having a combination store/production facility sharing the rent was too good to pass up. 1200 square feet for $802 a month. Couldn't beat it. At least, we thought so at the time.

Our wholesale business has a few consistent customers and new ones hit the site every day. Google ad words. Holy cow, it's helped our business 100%.

But it wasn't enough to pay all three of our salaries.

One day, some time in January, I believe, a man who owns an outdoor mall in the TOURIST section of Tarpon Springs (think Lake George or Gatlinberg) came to our shop after a friend... god, so convoluted. Let's just say that we were invited to open a shop in this mall, where there were no soap shops.

Now, there are 30 different shops in this mall called The Sponge Exchange. And it gets a lot of traffic.

It's in an area called The Sponge Docks, touristy, very very greek... and there are four soap shops on the main drag. But none that sell what we're selling. Or making. Our soaps are glycerin soaps in fun, funky and cool designs. There's are olive oil soaps. I won't say they're boring but...

Ok, they're boring.

Oh, and the shop is all the way in the back corner. Near the free parking lot.

After going over some numbers, and getting some advice from some of the other shop owners, we found that we would be able to get in for March 1, and at the PEAK of the tourist season. It would mean cash, but it would also mean that we'd all have to work the shop, which would take away from our other responsibilities.

But it would bring us cash.

I haven't worked retail in a long time. Twelve years, at least. I didn't know any better at the time, so retail wasn't awful, I was young and knew I had better things ahead of me.

I can tell you now, sitting here in the shop, that retail is the worst goddamn thing in the world.

But, it's my shop. Mine and my families. And for better or worse, we have to make the best of it because...

In the first month we opened we took in over $5,000. It would take us an entire year to make $5,000 at the other shop. And while $5,000 might not seem like a lot to some other people, people with higher ticket items, things that don't bob and weave on the line of need/gift... it was a huge deal for us, and not only allowed us to support our salaries, but also both rents for both shops.

This isn't even on top of the wholesale orders we'd received over that month. So, suffice it to say, March was a KILLER month for us. Had to be our best yet, and for good reason.

We sell awesome stuff.

It's April. and it's not as busy in the store. Where we were having $350 days, we have $150 days. And what I can only describe as the slow hell of boredom... I'm here 4 days a week, alone, with this laptop.

And I will be bringing you the day by day, blow by blow of said boredom.

What do I hope to get out of this? Good question. A few things.

One is, entertainment. I say some serious gems around here when what my family have dubbed 'looky-loos' come in and leave the store. I have to write them down.

Second is, you never know where your next big idea will come from. Possibly from you, dear reader. With that, you never know who your next customer will be.

Yes, I'm looking at you.

Third, this is a community. Let's share our pain.

Ok, ok, and we'll share the good stuff too. Sheesh.

The beginning

2008-04-21T10:54:00.000-04:00

Put on your time machine thinking caps and transport yourself back almost two months, to March 1, 2008.

I know it's a stretch, but give it a shot. Make sure your antenna is pointed in the right direction. I don't know enough about the curvature of time and space to really get technical, but that's why we have those companies that make cereal toy time machines.

I recently moved down to Florida, in February of 2008, from my home of Brooklyn, NY.

I have no accent. Let's get that out of the way right now.

My mom, my sister and I have been working steadily since 1999 at my mom's soap business, First In Line Soap (link). She's been selling wholesale for a long time and ending a marriage, she moved to Tampa, which is about as far away from Pennsylvania (and still on the East Coast) as she could move.

My sister had moved down here first, to be near friends, and for the warm weather. My mom followed.

It was shortly after, that they opened Soapier (link, a retail store in the tourist attraction that is Tarpon Springs, Florida. Look it up.

Decent space, small town, we had our own parking lot... some pretty good ingredients to not only have a store, but also a production facility to make our products. My sister and I invested money into the company and did our jobs. My sister works production (makes soap) and I do the graphics for brochures, flyers, websites, etc.

Well, in March of 2007, the graphic design market in NY took a sharp turn downward. Possibly just for me, but I doubt it. And I didn't work for close to a year. Not work steadily, anyway. And freelance sucks.

So, the planets, god, a palm reader or two, the aurora borealis and anything else that affects the destinies of us all, they put it pretty clearly in my mind that I was supposed to move down to Florida, to help out with the family business.

And they all owe me apologies.

I'm in Florida, away from my friends, from my girl, from everything I enjoy, since February. And I'm trying to make it work.

So... that's the beginning. In my next journal entry, I will detail all of the things that made us open a second store, go on anti-depressants, watch the country eat itself, and try and stay afloat.

The second entry should be fun.

J