Month: October 2005

He wrote some pretty creepy stuff…

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In Someone is Watching, a movie that Prairie got for me as a silly Halloween present that otherwise doesn’t rate much more than “laughably bad” (it was $1 at the local dollar store), there was this gem of a quote, about a character’s eight year old son:

He has a terrific imagination, he’s going to be the next Ray Bradbury.

Anyone who’s familiar with Ray Bradbury’s works would be able to tell you that that’s probably not really a good sign.

Halloween Weekend

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Erk. Forgot that daylight savings time kicked in (out?) today, and got up an hour early. Meh. Could’ve had that extra hour in bed!

Hit the_vogue last night with Prairie, joined the table with gracesine, newwavegirlie, Aaron, and a couple other people that I didn’t catch the names of. So many wonderful costumes last night — all the schoolgirls in our group looked very cute, anzu looked great as a victorian schoolmarm (until she took off the coat and breasts popped everywhere…still looked very cute, just not quite as schoolmarm-ish)…while I got a laugh out of a guy who showed up dressed as a World Trade Center tower (very very wrong…but funny), Trish was wearing her Strawberry Shortcake outfit — and let me tell you, you have’t seen Strawberry Shortcake until you’ve seen her in red leather 20-eye Docs and a vinyl (satin?) corset that had her millimeters away from popping out of it.

Unfortunately, I’d neglected to bring my camera along for the night, so no pictures of the various costumes this year.

The only downside to the night was a higher than usual jerk quotient (mostly the group that invaded directly behind our table, who were loud, obnoxious, pushy, spilled drinks on newwavegirlie and gracesine, and at one point sent a cloud of horribly noxious cigar smoke across us…ick…before they were told to put it out). Prairie and I decided that we’d had all the fun we could stand around 11:20pm and came home to relax with an episode of X-Files before bed.

OpinionOutpost Apology

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Last June, I got a comment on my site that as far as I could tell was comment spam advertising a site called Opinion Outpost. Not being a fan of that style of advertising, I posted about it. In the following months I’ve gotten a few comments from satisfied Opinion Outpost customers defending the company — but yesterday, I actually got an apology from the person who originally left the comment that started it all.

I was looking your webpage this morning and wanted to apologize for posting our email on your weblog.  When I first posted on your site I was looking for your email address to contact you about our affiliate program and I could not find it so I thought I would make a post not knowing what I was doing was inappropriate in the weblogging community.  I was new with the company when I posted this and learned very early that this kind of practice was wrong and I haven’t done it since.  I know that what I have done has made you very upset with me and Opinion Outpost.  I ask that you hold nothing against Opinion Outpost, I am the one at fault.

As for this email that you said you sent me, I don’t ever remember receiving it.  I receive large amounts of emails every day and I probably looked at it with confusion (not understanding it or not knowing what I did wrong) and discarded it.  I am very sorry for my actions and hope this post will ease the tension and conflict between you, your weblog and me.

I am willing to post this on your weblog if you would like me to.  Just let me know what you would prefer.  Thank you!

Sounds reasonable to me — it’s a pity my original e-mail got lost, but everyone makes mistakes from time to time, and he was kind enough to send the apology along. The apology is certainly accepted, and I’ve gone back and edited out all the names and contact information from the original post and the follow-up comments.

Opinion Outpost still doesn’t look like the kind of thing I’m interested in for my own needs, but with this, I’ll file them back into the “on the level” bin. :)

America’s Next Muppet

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I’m not sure what I got more excited about — the fact that there’s a Muppet-centric weblog that I just discovered, or that the Muppets may be coming back to TV!

People have been buzzing about “America’s Next Muppet” for months now. Disney is still planning to relaunch the Muppets with a prime-time ABC “reality” parody series. […]

A network representative has said that the Muppet project is still in the extremely early stages of development. But ABC has now officially ordered a pilot script and five additional script outlines for “America’s Next Muppet”. This will be shot in the format of a “reality show”, and will use a lot of the same syntax and cinematic grammar that the genre has developed, however like all past Muppet TV shows will be scripted. If ABC is impressed with the pilot episode script and the pilot episode, than the five outlines will start being turned into scripts and episodes. These six episodes are hoped to air in Spring/Summer 2006, and if successful then more episodes could be ordered, and the series continued.

Other fun news from the site: the short-lived “Muppets Tonight” show may be coming to DVD, and Palisades Toys have acquired the rights to create a line of Labrynth collectibles (including multiple Goblin King figurines with various outfits)!

Frappr

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Check out our Frappr!There’s a new Google Maps hack/toy out bouncing across the ‘net now: Frappr, which allows people to put their location in (zip code only, so no stalking possible) and have it displayed as part of a group.

I’ve created a group for Eclecticism readers…feel free to drop by and add yourself to the map. I’d love to get an idea of just how widespread my readers are!

Why Target’s target is red

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Hmmmm…suck-o: Target’s CEO is a massive republican.

Now we know why the target is red.

And, we seem to be getting a clearer picture as to why Target has sided with the far-right Christian wackos, in permitting their pharmacists to turn you away because they think you’re a sinner.

Over the years, Target CEO Robert Ulrich has donated:

  • $71,353 to Republicans
  • $3,660 to Democrats

Hmmm… that’s interesting.

Perhaps my favorite donation is the $5,000 he gave just two months ago to a PAC named “Every Republican is Crucial.”

And here’s some info from the first link in the quoted text above, because I hadn’t heard about this before:

Planned Parenthood has had other communications with Target. Target’s policy is that the customer can go to hell if their pharmacist thinks you’re a sinner. Target will let their pharmacist turn you away so that YOU have to go find another pharmacy, rather than their pharmacist getting another frigging job.

You have to love Target. They’re willing to hire people who don’t wan to do the very job they’re applying for. And their own employee’s bigotry and bias matters more to them than the emergency health needs of their own customers.

Dammit — is it even possible to shop guilt-free anymore? As far as I can tell, the only way to make sure as little of my money as possible goes to causes and organizations that I don’t support is to keep it in a jar in my mattress and never spend any of it.