Tag: commerce

The new mail order brides are here!

Quotes from some that just arrived in my mailbox:

“The friend on correspondence. Clever, kind, idle time.”

“Difficultly about itself to write, as in me it is combined two persons: serious lady and very lovely girl. ”

“You were lucky once if you haven’t known me.:)”

“I love much to write in the questionnaire it is not meaningful, I AM MARRIED here not such unit therefore it was necessary to play a cunning trick)) and to write that lonely to whom interestingly write necessarily I shall answer)”

“Has finished university of culture and arts, by a trade the manager of tourist sphere; I like to learn for myself a lot of new and interesting; I am fond of a photo. I earn additionally model, I like to leave on a nature, I play in the big tennis, I am engaged in navigation”

“The attractive girl formed, with good sense of humour)) About itself it is hard to write..”

“The man of my dreams has soft adoring eyes,a loving faithful heart, and strong nice thighs. “

Credit Card Chaos update

I did as bigraoul suggested and put the fraud watch on my account with one of the big three credit agencies. Now if someone wants to open a credit account with my info the merchant has to verify it more carefully. For anyone else interested, the info for US people is at http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/con_steps.htm

Special note to douglain: One of the charges I accidentally listed as fraudulent was the Amazon charge for ordering your book. This may lead to literary/financial/bureaucratic yucks later on as I try to rectify this. Watch out for black helicopters; there’s no telling how far They will go investigating these things.

In related news I recently got a credit card from Robinsons-May, one of our local department store chains. The information that came with the card listed two possible interest rates that might apply to it, without specifying which was currently mine. There was also no credit limit listed. Hey, I think I’ll go buy a suit that I may not be allowed to buy, and in doing so take out a loan at an unknown rate! I LIKE SHOPPING!

Non-bodacious Tata

Nice to see the fine tradition of indentured servitude that brought my ancestors here in 1750 is still continuing!

Company sued for allegedly making workers turn over tax refunds

JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO – An Indian employee of an information technology consulting company filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging he and other foreign workers were required to give their employers their tax return checks.

Continue reading “Non-bodacious Tata” →

Wild milk from the mighty sierras

The PETA people, with their usual combination of flair and insanity, are going after milk again, this time with the Milk Gone Wild site.

I immediately thought of another angle. I could sell “wild milk” to yuppie foodie types. I would certify that that no tame farm animal produced this milk. Instead, I and my friends would hike deep into the wilderness in search of lactating mammals which we would overpower and forcibly milk. We would then bring this precious ambrosia back to civilization and charge amounts per ounce in the single malt scotch/perfume range. Or higher, really. I doubt we could get more than a couple of gallons of milk in a very successful trip so we’d need to charge serious cash.

But think about it. Wild Milk!

If we got enough on a trip to make butter or cheese, we could make tiny amounts of that and sell it for even more, because we had declared this batch to be a rare and sought-after Wild Butter Catch.

I’d have to do some research and find out what the best animals would be on the scale of amount of milk produced versus size, danger, and rarity of the creatures where I was hunting. Ideally it would be a critter we could hold down and milk without tranquilizers because no one wants Immobilon in their milk.

Goodbye Rhino Westwood.

rocky

From 1983 to about 1993, the Rhino Records store on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles was my second home. When i was a student I’d walk down there at least once a week and look through the new releases and imports and all the used stuff. The employees became my friends, too. Big John Breckow, who also did a great bebop radio show on KPFK. Scott, who always had a big friendly smile and a good suggestion, and now works at my local Trader Joe’s. Nels Cline. Gladys aka Laura, my college friend and fellow music freak, now the bassist in Third Grade Teacher. Phast Phreddie. It wasn’t a record store, it was quite seriously a family. When I was a rock critic for a while I’d go down there and sell back my promo crap and Big John would make me promise over and over again not to write about jazz, and maybe someone else there would have a correction or a compliment about my writing, so I knew someone gave a shit.

There was a time when I was a 19-year-old music idiot and I’d buy just about anything imported from England, especially all that death rock 4AD/Beggars Banquet crap, or stuff on Demon. And I’d just buy anything new on SST or Twin/Tone or Restless. I spent way too much damn money there and it was all worth it.

rhino signLater on, in the early 90s, I was poor and no longer cool and my life sucked. Bit by bit I had to sell back my CDs and vinyl for cash. I was a mess, and a lot of my friends and even the other people at the church I was attending weren’t being so helpful. But the Rhino people could tell what was up, and they’d look both ways and grossly overpay me for my tradeins. They were solid people.

This is the last weekend for that store. They moved a few years ago and never really recovered. They changed the focus of the place and even the name and flailed and now they’re gone. This weekend is the last ever parking lot sale. If you’re in the area I suggest you go. Details at the Rhino Westwood site.

Chris Morris, my former coworker and one of the few music writers who consistently makes sense, wrote a fitting eulogy to the store in the Reporter.

Thanks to LA Observed for pointing me to this story that I somehow didn’t see.

I probably won’t make it to the last day tomorrow, but that’s probably as it should be. I hate funerals. Never thought I’d cry about a retail store, but there you have it.

45 YEARS OF CHILDREN BLOWING MEAT WHISTLES

They were hand-delivered to youngsters all over the country by Little Oscar, the diminutive chef and OSCAR MAYER goodwill ambassador who appeared with the WIENERMOBILE at events throughout the 50’s and 60’s. The whistles were even occasionally offered in packages of OSCAR MAYER® Hot Dogs.

Throughout the 80’s, the WIENERWHISTLE seemed to have remained out of the spotlight. But then, another “first” occurred: the WIENERWHISTLE was given a whole new look.

Dug up from a 1999 memepool entry and the always helpful archive.org, THE WIENER WHISTLE HISTORY PAGE