preraphaelitepunk.com

All right, I’ve had it with TagCloud. It’s a cool idea, but the dratted thing hasn’t updated in about a month, which makes it simply a waste of screen space. Their Web site offers no guidance.

Yes, I know it’s still in beta, and I shouldn’t expect perfection. I don’t think an update even just once a week is too much to ask, even from a beta product.

It’s going. Which is sad, because I was just getting around to customizing the CSS file to get rid of the ugly orange words.

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In other news, the annual office holiday party was Friday. I’ve ducked out of these the last couple of years, but this year I actually checked about the availability of vegan food and, when modifications were made, felt rather obligated to go. The festivities were, as expected, enjoyed by those who like that sort of thing and excoriated by those who feel that Xmas carols are bad enough without being rewritten to reflect office goings-on and sung at a captive audience. Happily, I shared a table with Sarah, Greg, Fred, and Tricia, and we were able to entertain ourselves by snarking about the carols and the door prizes* and the game that no one had bothered to explain to us but appeared to involve the little name tags forcibly stuck to our backs.

Although I mock, there were some aspects of the party that I felt were really good ideas. I thought the cookies made for employees by the VP’s wife were a very sweet (if you’ll excuse the expression) touch. Not vegan, of course, but I wouldn’t expect that, and I appreciated the thought.

On a more materialistic level, they also distributed $50 gift cards and let us have the rest of the afternoon off. (The “Go home, everybody” announcement actually got a louder cheer than the money did.) Extremely thoughtful touches, and ones that I think will make a bigger difference in morale than all the festive office-themed filking in the world.

Good for them.

(Of course, now they’ve set a precedent, and if they choose not to provide gift cards or time off next year, then they’ll mightily annoy a good chunk of the staff. Hmm.)

And, on a final note, I came home Friday to find that my order from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab had arrived!

As always, they sent along some samples with the two full-sized bottles I’d ordered. So far, I’ve only tried Tezcatlipoca (”Deep cocoa laced with patchouli, leather armor, ritual incense, and a touch of Xochiquetzal’s flowers”), which I loved — very warm and long-lasting.

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*Although some of the prizes were not bad, actually. I won a coffeemaker that brews directly into two travel mugs. Technically it’s useless to me because (a) there’s only one of me and (b) I really like my existing coffeemaker, which uses a gold cone filter instead of a basket filter, but it’s actually not a bad present.

I have decided I need a new alarm clock. Well, okay, I technically don’t — the old one is moderately incapacitated, but between my PDA and the alarm function on my mobile phone, my needs in that area are technically covered. Still, it’s annoying having a small appliance that only partially functions.

The clock’s problem is twofold: (1) one of the bars in the digital readout is burned out or was injured in a fall or something, thus making it hard to read (already challenging enough when it’s the middle of the night, your glasses are somewhere else, and your uncorrected vision averages out to around 20/300); and (2) the alarm, which once was joltingly loud and could be heard for miles, is now so faint that the main perceptible sound is a distant “thunk” as some internal switch flips in the attempt to start the beeping. Occasionally, if it’s feeling well rested, the clock sort of whispers something you can almost fool yourself into thinking might be feeble beeping, but it is not sufficient. Useful for weekends, when you don’t really want to get up anyway, but bad for drowsy, dark winter midweek mornings.

As far as I know, there is no occupation that specializes in repairing digital alarm clocks, so I suppose I must get a new one. One that will play music of your choice* would be preferable.

This, however, brings me to the point: if one wishes to, when possible, support local or smaller merchants over megachains, where does one go to purchase small electronics? For books, food, and clothes — my main purchases — I know pretty much where I can go, in person or on the Web. But for this, I’m not sure.

A quick Google for “alarm clock” gave over 8 million hits.

This may take a little time.

Because I’m not entirely ruling out shopping at not-evil chains, just diverting more of my spending toward smaller concerns, I suppose I could just go to Target and pick out a clock. The thing is, I just made this resolution, and I’ll be damned if the first purchase I make now is from a chain.

Maybe I should just get freeware that does the same thing, and use my phone and PDA as backups. Cheaper, and geekier. Or maybe I could fix the old clock myself somehow, which would earn even more geek points. Hmm.

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*CDs or audio files, preferably .ogg because that’s just the way I am. A radio alarm function will not do, because I know from experience how easy it is to accidentally change the channel or volume setting to absolutely nothing and not realize it until you wake up three hours too late.

Today over lunch I nipped over to Return to Eden to pick up a few necessities — miso ramen for emergency lunches at work, a yummy pumpkin spice cookie from the Alternative Baking Company, the ubiquitous pita bread without which I cannot exist, etc. Everything was great, the prices were good, the bagger admired my embarrassingly un-gothy batik grocery bag (which I got in China and thus cannot ever replace or get rid of, no matter how ragged it gets or how much it clashes with the rest of what I wear or do or am) . . . and then I noticed on the way back to work that they’re in the process of building a Publix in the same complex.

Now, maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it’ll bring more traffic into the complex and more shoppers into the store, but I will admit to some serious reservations. Most Publix have natural foods sections that sell tofu, ready mixes, chips, and things like that; are they going to see R2E as competition and try to underprice them and drive them out of business? I’m sure R2E’s business has suffered for the past few years, ever since the Whole Foods opened half a mile up La Vista Road, but they seem to have managed to adapt to that challenge, and even expanded their selection and services. (They even offer home delivery for some items now.) With a run-of-the-mill grocery store right next door, how many people are going to want to go to the little family-owned one that doesn’t sell meat or booze, and only organic dairy products? How many people will even notice R2E is there when the huge chain store moves in?

I’d hate to lose the locally owned stores. I generally shop about three times a week, and usually two of those times, I admit, I go to Whole Foods, and go to one of the three local grocers within easy reach of work and/or home the other time. If I’m going to expect local stores to survive in the face of all the competition from chains, I really should at least reverse those numbers. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with WF — as with Target, it at least seems to be relatively well-behaved for largish corporation* — although they do have a tendency to induce chilling injury in their avocados and really extremely expensive heirloom tomatoes. It’s just that I remember shopping with my parents at Rainbow Grocery and Sevananda, back when it was at its original location and I hadn’t started school yet. I’d hate to lose that.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with chain stores or big companies — I do adore Google, for instance, which is indeed big — but, that being said, I’d hate for every place to look and feel exactly the same as every other place. It’s already bad enough in the Atlanta malls, all of which have pretty much the same stores and carry the same merchandise, so you might as well stay home and order online. I just want something local, something attuned to the immediate community and kind of different from what you find elsewhere, to be preserved.

Thus, a new goal toward which I can strive: no more than one-third of my food purchases should come from chains, and no more than half of my non-food purchases from chains (including Amazon.com and the Borders just down the street from my flat, both of which are admittedly among my many weaknesses, and yes, even Target once the holiday boycott-countering season passes). Being slightly but pathetically addicted to impulse purchases, it may take me a while to reach that goal and get the hang of where I can go to get what I need when I need it, but I think I can do it. Really. Honestly.

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*Though I did get thoroughly annoyed by one cashier the last time I was at WF: he kept thinking I was done with my shopping (simply because I happened to be passing from one aisle to the next and thus passing by the cashiers) and yelling out, “Ma’am! I can take you over here!” Firstly, I was not in fact done with my shopping; secondly, I associate being called “ma’am” with being perceived as a bitch; thirdly, surely it is my choice when to check out — or, indeed, when or whether I wish to be “taken.”

Huh. Kind of an uneven movie, I felt. The book was better — it always is — but, though it had some quite good bits, the film felt rather too much like the people in charge saw the the Lord of the Rings movies (and The Matrix, and a bunch of others) and thought, “Hey, we could do that! Let’s find another classic fantasy and rip off — er, do an homage to those films. Yeah, that’s it. How about Lewis? He’s dead, right? So he can’t sue.”

Well, it wasn’t as bad as that, actually. The battle was, predictably, way overdone and preposterously referential. The soundtrack was honestly a little too obviously manipulative. The professor felt like he’d been jerked out of a Lemony Snickets book. There were bits that just fell flat — usually the humor someone had decided to try to inject in scenes that weren’t meant to be funny at all. And Aslan was just a big lion, nothing special. On the other hand, there were some good points.

(more…)

However much one tries to support small, non-chain businesses, there are times when you just have to go to one of Those stores. You know, a huge semi-discount retailer that sells everything under the sun. Of the available choices, Target[1] is by far the least offensive, for the following reasons.

1. The screaming child quotient is far lower than at, say, Hellmart. I have hardly ever been forced to watch a child throw a tantrum at Target while the parent either ignores the situation or whacks the kid over the head.

2. Target stores are clean. I have never been in a Hellmart that did not have dirt indelibly ground into the floors, or have displays thrown chaotically together in hideous piles.

3. Target carries not only basics but also some extras that are actually kind of cool and/or funky.

4. The one near my office has even started carrying a few vegan goodies (Mrs. Mays nut snacks and Green & Black’s chocolates, among others) recently, which thrills me beyond belief. I have also managed to find Alba Botanicals sunscreen there for approximately half the price Whole Foods was charging.

5. The American Family Association is organizing a boycott of Target because the store does not use the word “Christmas” in their holiday advertising.[2] As you might imagine, this only has the effect of making perverse little me want to shop there even more, the way that the Parents [sic] Television Council Publications’ list of 10 least-family-friendly shows makes me proud that I regularly watch three of the “worst” and none of the “best.”[3]

I fully support the AFA’s right to boycott whomever or whatever they wish; no matter how weird I think they are, they have the right to express themselves and to shop where they wish. However, they do seem to be getting carried away over something that’s pretty insignificant: how does Target’s use or nonuse of the X-word affect the AFA’s rights? How does it hurt them, or their practicing of their own faith(s)? If Target banned customers from wearing religious symbols in their stores or mentioning particular faith-based holidays, I could see getting upset and would probably be indignant on behalf of people with actual formalized religions, but simply using the weasel word “holidays” to include the whole November/December consumptionfest from Thanksgiving to New Year’s just seems like a useful shorthand.

If nothing else, its brevity is welcome; I’ve seen Publix, for instance, hanging signs that try to include every single holiday that falls even remotely in late autumn and early winter, and it gets to be a long list indeed, in danger of falling down from its own weight. (It also inevitably leads to people — well, me — trying to think of a holiday that they’ve omitted and pretending to get worked up about it: “What, no mention of St. Vetruvius’ Candlewick Hopalong Night? How rude! I am mortally offended and will never shop here again!”) Acknowledging the existence of other holidays is not the same as denying some in favor of others.

I suppose I’m looking at it from a CBT standpoint: you cannot control other people’s actions, only your own reactions and interpretations. Or, in other, slightly blunter words, get a life.[4]

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[1] Albeit far from perfect — I’m waiting for Super Discount Gothy Treehugger Vegan Mart, which should stock a large selection of black velvet clothing and really interesting pleather boots.
[2] There is also the issue of banning Salvation Army bellringers from standing outside their doors, apparently to make their “no solicitation” policy apply equally to everyone. Yay for them. (Though, if the SA people would stop the noise pollution and give up their stupid little bells, I’d be less adamant. Do they get issued with earplugs before being sent out on shifts? It seems like you’d have some hearing damage otherwise. Even just passing them makes my eardrums sore.)
[3] I admit to some snarky amusement, too, that the 10th most family-friendly show is listed as “Not available.”
[4] Said with tolerance and acceptance and full support of free speech no matter how loony I personally think it is, but also something of a tired bafflement.

One of the side effects of going to Las Vegas is the lingering hunger for more and fancier goods. Generally, I think I do all right, money-wise and possessions-wise; actually, I have more stuff than I really need, and could do with a clear-out (or at least take the couple of boxes of culled stuff and drop them off at a donation site). However, I defy anyone with even the remotest interest in clothes, or trinkets, or even ice cream, to walk through the Forum Shops and come away fully satisfied with their own goodies.

The Forum Shops is where they keep all the designer stores. The fancy ones, that is; the ones where a shirt costs more than I spend on groceries in a week. I don’t particularly care about the labels, but the clothes do tend to be well-cut and well-fitted, and make me conscious of the fact that my silver spider t-shirt from Target kinda, well, looks shabby. On the other hand, I was also acutely aware that the spider t-shirt was only $5, whereas these places sell t-shirts for way more than any t-shirt should cost, no matter how well-cut.

The place that really made me feel (a) unnecessarily poor and (b) incredulous that people would spend that kind of money on these things was Agent Provocateur (link probably not recommended for work access, though, because employers might look askance at people using their networks to look at fancy-schmancy underwear sites). They had some very pretty things, but the prices were, to my perhaps ignorant mind, rather extreme. I mean, I like pretty things, but not enough to pay $150 for a bra. I’ll make my own damned bra before I pay that kind of money. I felt kind of like a yokel from the sticks, picking up price tags and drawling, “Well, gawwwwleeee!”

Yeah, I’m sure it’s a status thing, but it just seems preposterous. I find it hard to imagine a world in which I would spend $50 for a pair of underpants, no matter how special the occasion or whom I was trying to impress.