amazon gift certificates expire.

We're not the only ones to have let an Amazon gift certificate slip past its expiration date. There is legislation in some states to make this illegal, but not in ours. Why is Amazon committing such an obviously bad customer service mistake? I agree with the person who wrote in the link, that it is to falsely inflate their profits. Gift certificate expiration is a ripoff, but I've never had a business refuse to extend the date, until now.

Amazon just lost a lot of business from us, though it will take us a while to make up the amount they already stole.

this can't be the first time you've heard this joke.

Last night, on the way into Whale Rider...

Nicholas: Man, I've got to pee like Seabiscuit!

why i almost quit yesterday, and a bunch of things i'd be foolish to say out loud.

I normally have a great job. I roll in around noon and I'm done by five. I'm adored by my coworkers and customers alike. I've been given a raise and more responsibility (though even at the "more" level, my responsibility is minimal).

Yesterday was the day I almost threw in the apron.

First I lugged eight cases of Pepsi around all by my sweaty self, filling the cooler inside and the soda machine outside. Then I was rather publically reprimanded for miscounting candy and giving a customer nearly twice what they'd paid for (penny candy is a pain in my ass and I'd shorted the store NEARLY A DOLLAR...).

Then I had the weirdest ice-cream-scooping "mess-up" ever. A man came into the restaurant around 4:30, just before I started wrapping things up for the day, and after the above incidents. He read the entire ice cream menu out-loud, to himself. Then he ordered, I swear to freaking Christ, a scoop of strawberry ice cream on a cone.

me: Sugar cone, or wafer cone?
him: waffle cone.
me: I'm sorry, we do not have waffle cones. Would you like sugar or wafer?
him: Regular.
me: Pointy or flat-bottomed? (This simplification is required seventeen times a day.)
him: Uh, waffle.
me: Wafer?
him: Yes.

So I fetch one scoop of strawberry ice cream and plop it on a wafer cone, and the man comments, "Wow, that's a big scoop!" And I think, "Great, I probably give too much ice cream away, too," while he pays, licks, and leaves.

A couple of minutes later, a woman with a cane sticks her head in the door and yells,

WHAT KIND OF ICE CREAM DID MY HUSBAND ORDER?

I reply: strawberry. She then yells,

CHOCOLATE!

...then withdraws her evil, wrinkly face and allows the door to slam... a personal pet peeve of mine.

Since I was already having a pretty miserable day, I decided not to chase her limping ass back out into the street and point out to her that I could make another cone for her husband and ask why, given several moments of prime opportunity, her husband hadn't pointed out to me that the PINK ice cream with GIANT CHUNKS OF STRAWBERRIES in it wasn't what he'd really, truly wanted, deep down inside. Because given the day I was having, I would have gladly dumped the first cone in the garbage and made another cone, with an EVEN BIGGER FREAKING SCOOP OF WHATEVER FLAVOR HE WANTED.

"Finally there would be a thingamajig that would bring everyone together, even if it kept them apart spatially."

Ariel's working hard to promote the hooping revolution, and I finally gave in to the allure of her slammin video demonstrations and new hooping website, and sought out Jason's perfect hoop building instructions.

Last night I convinced Marc to come with me to Home Depot, and I bought supplies for at least seven hoops for under 30 bucks. So far I've built one hoop for myself and one for my sister-in-law, who returns tomorrow from a semester in Australia.

Finally, around 10 PM, we went down to the parking lot for a trial run (can't really use my hoop indoors, since it is a bit of a bull at 48" in diameter) and, well, I'm far less coordinated than Ariel. Still, how far can I be from at least a trick or two? We've been at outdoor live music at least once a week for a while now, and I can't wait to take the hoop along next time.

I also can't wait to see the reactions of the stodgy Connecticutians when I drive around with a giant hoop poking out the top of my already, um, attention-gathering (read: LOUD) car.

now that's what i call marketing.

In 45 minutes of MTV viewing, I saw the ad for Now That's What I Call Music Volume 13, four times. I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that it ships with a complimentary Now That's What I Call A Beachball.

Last I checked, we were at Volume 8, so you can imagine how shocked I was that those Real World kids are still as annoying as ever. And suddenly, they speak a little French. Luckily they are still taking turns, "growing as a person," and, "thinking of this as a learning experience."

After fifteen minutes of The Osbournes, when I decided that I might like to get myself coiffed like Kelly, I remembered that there's as yet no vaccine for viral marketing and turned off the TV right quick.

every day's a party.

Because I'm so bad at the "and then we did this," type of story, maybe you'd like to go read Marc's version of last weekend, which mainly involved lots of traipsing about for live music.