Sunday, January 22, 2006
Random Weekend Blogging
A variety of topics I've been meaning to write about, stuffed into one not-so-handy post, for your reading convenience.
These are always around, but Malaya's been ranting about the kid who thought up that damn Million Dollar Homepage, and earned over one million dollars in four months. She/we don't begrudge the kid his fortune and clever idea, we're just jealous that we didn't think of it first. We want a simple, non-time consuming idea that will earn us easy riches. Is that too much to ask?
On that topic, I saw this site last night and seriously, this girl should be rich. Shockingly, she seems to be offering the service for free, so far, but damn, someone get that girl's boobs monetized. The site URL isn't that great, but check out the NSFW ReadMyBoobs.com. It's just a simple page run by a cute Asian girl who says she's attending film school in New York, and she'll write any short website slogan on her naked chest and display a photo of it on her page. Cute gimmick, but why the hell isn't she charging for it? This sort of thing becomes an internet phenomena in no time, especially with the caliber of boobs she's willing to display, and it would immediately become a trendy thing to get your own button featuring her boobs. She'd have to archive them and campaign against cheap forgeries and imitation boobs, but how hard would that be? IMHO, if you're going to be naked on the Internet, you might as well make money in the process. And if you're an even-borderline attractive female, it's not hard to do. There must be 10,000 young-looking 23 y/o's now making a good living as a hot next door teen, and most of them don't even get naked! (Though they'll have to start once they can't pass for 18 any longer.)
On that (naked women online)topic, I enjoyed this article on Slate about websites that are basically consumer's guides to whores. Really. A quote: Many men make a lifestyle out of patronizing escorts. They call it "the hobby," not prostitution, and they are "hobbyists," not johns. They consider themselves connoisseurs of fine women, and they are eager to learn from their fellow hobbyists who will provide exactly what they want.
What they want is generally very clear: They want a centerfold model who will hang adoringly on their every word in public, then perform any sex act in any position with professional skill in private. The combination — a romantic dinner date followed by uninhibited sex -- is called the "girlfriend experience," or GFE. Of Angelica, a reviewer wrote, "The term GFE should be based on what she is."
Before review sites came along, hobbyists had no way to protect themselves, said David R. Elms, president of The Erotic Review, which began in 1999 and claims that it gets 350,000 unique visitors a day.
As the article discusses, men are willing to pay top dollar for an hook up with a good "escort," but they want to know what they're going to get. At the same time, since the men have accounts on the online rating sites, and can get feedback from the whores as well, whores who use the service can prescreen their clients. It's all legal in a disclaimer-y sort of way, since of course the money paid is for the time together, dinner, etc. Anything sexual that happens during the course of the evening is just a favor and entirely off the clock. Cops are viewing the sites and trying to run stings to entrap the whores and their clients from time to time, but for the most part the male and female users of the service think it's great.
As the article all but comes out and says, why the hell is this illegal? How can it be legal to give sex away, but not to sell it? What possible purpose does it serve to keep arresting horny men and desperate women, when everyone would benefit greatly by legalizing or at least decriminalizing it, and regulating it medically and making it safer for everyone involved? Ancient, morality-based laws are pretty confusing, when you look at them objectively in the modern world.
Cats stay scared for too long. Jinx got spooked yesterday by a cane. She likes our Kali sticks and sniffs at them and bats at them if we poke her, but Malaya had a cane (for use in Kali) yesterday, and was poking at the cats with it, and they were both freaking out. The straight end didn't bother them, but for some unknown reason, the hooked end had them backpedaling, diving under furniture, flattening their ears, and so on. After a few minutes of that the joke got old, especially when we could never hook one and drag them forward, so Malaya propped the cane up in the hallway and the cats went down to sniff it.
A few minutes later, we heard a slight thud, and Jinx came basically levitating into the living room and went to ground behind the sofa. The cane had apparently fallen over when she was sniffing at it, and for whatever reason Jinx was freaked out by that for like, six hours. She hid in the bedroom, she slunk around the living room, she crouched under the bed and sat motionless, and there was no comforting her.
Dusty hadn't been right at the scene when the cane fell, so he got over it sooner, but from like 6-11:30 last night Jinx was like an alley cat we'd trapped in our house. After I tucked Malaya in and came back out to work, I almost couldn't get Jinx out of the bedroom. She often lies under the bed while I'm in there saying goodnight, and she needs to be removed so I can shut the door. Usually this is no problem, since Jinx will race out if I shake and throw a toy mousie, or open the back patio door, or make any sort of interesting noise. The last resort is to open up a can of cat treats, which always brings both felines charging. It worked on the black one, but the silver one remained hiding in the bedroom, and I actually had to walk to the bedroom door and shake it to get her to come out, and even then she remained wary and ready to bolt back to cover. Only by tossing a couple in front of her and letting her follow them along, Hansel and Gretel style, did I get her out of the bedroom, and it was a near thing at that.
Note that she was not scare of the cane all night; it remained lying in the hallway and she didn't seem to notice it. She was just generally scared, and unable to get over it. I'm left to wonder what evolutionary purpose this serves. The cats have no heightened sense of danger about anything actually dangerous; just vacuums and strange beeping noises and doorbells. And sticks with hooks on the end, apparently.
Does anyone ever actually purchase CDs or DVDs are book stores? I never have, except when trying to burn up gift certs or when desperate for a present I couldn't find elsewhere, but I always hate myself when I do, since the prices are just outrageous. I've blogged in the past about DVD prices and where to buy them affordably, and I don't even include Borders or Barnes & Noble on that list, since it would be like including Wal-Mart on a society wedding registry.
Last night we were in Borders, trying to score some discount 2006 calendars (without success, since we weren't willing to stoop to ones with an Oakland Raiders, Lindsey Lohan, Full Metal Alchemist, or Poodles in Costumes theme) and since the calendars were sold down to almost nothing, they'd plumped the display out with various other close out items or specials. Some of them were DVDs, and even VHS tapes, and my god at the prices. I honestly thought it might be some sort of candid camera type thing, where they wanted to see how people reacted to the extra digits in the prices. Like when every gas station around is $2.29, $2.35 etc for unleaded, and then suddenly a Chevron station on the next corner is $5.89 and hidden cameras film the whiplash drivers get staring and rubbing their eyes at the astonishing price.
Borders had new DVDs for $30.99. Yes, $31 dollars for new and semi-new titles like Mr/Mrs. Smith, Transporter 2, Red Eye, etc. And they are apparently serious about that, like they expect someone will actually pay it. They know there are other stores out there, right? I consider $20 an outrageous price for a DVD, when CostCo has every new one for $18.69 or so, and stores like Target, Fry's, Circuit City, etc, sell them for $15-20. Hell, you can go to overpriced Blockbuster or Hollywood videos, stores that make their profit renting movies, and buy new DVDs for $20-25, or just wait 3 weeks and get them used for $13 each, or 3/$25, like we always do.
Better yet, and this one actually made the laugh aloud and sputter incredulously until Malaya led me away. Borders had the Indiana Jones 3 movie box set for $70! It's not a new release, it was $40 at CostCo when it was new, like 18 months ago, and I've recently seen them at Fry's and Target for $45. And Borders wants $70? Who in the hell pays that? Really, some kid making $1m selling pixels on a website makes perfect sense when you compare it to this. Right now you can order the Indy box set from Amazon.com for $49.96, or humorously, pay six bucks more for the crappy full screen, "pan and scan" version. I guess they figure if you're dumb enough to buy it with the sides of the movie chopped off, you're dumb enough to overpay for it?
The funniest thing I saw in Borders though, was a yoga video for $30. Not a DVD, an actual video tape. I didn't think they still made those, the discount rack in front of every Ross and TJ Maxx has 50 of them for $4 each, and Borders wanted $30 for a VHS tape? You could take actual yoga classes for less than that! And it wasn't one of those package deals with a mat and dumbbells and a pilates ball or anything; it was just one tape. In all fairness, it was marked down to $20, but still, that's like 5x what it's worth on the open market. And yet someone must pay those prices, or they wouldn't keep trying to sell them for that much. I guess.
It puzzles me so since we're in the Bay Area, with hundreds of stores within easy driving distance. I could see if there was just one store in some Hicksville in the middle of nowhere, but there are probably 10 other stores selling those DVDs located within 5 miles of the Borders we were in last night, and probably 9 of them would have the same stuff for cheaper. And the 10th is a Barnes & Noble, the only other retailer that tries to sell DVDs for those prices.
Malaya's explanation is that people want the convenience of the DVDs right where they already are for books, and that serious DVD buyers never go there, since they know better. People who plan ahead get stuff online or look for sales. People making hurried gift buys, or impulse purchases just ignore the high price, or want to use up their Xmas gift certs, or whatever. It still makes my head hurt, though.
On a similar topic, have you ever seen the prices in one of those Harry and David catalogues? We get them in the mail all the time, probably because we actually use them for gift-giving, and I guess there goes my argument, but what in the hell are they charging such high prices for? I can sort of believe it with the fresh fruit, since it's often bought out of season, it's hard to get good produce that time of year, etc. True, it's a lot easier now than in the past, with good pears, apples, pineapples, etc in stores year round, thanks to NAFTA and pesticide-riddled produce from Chile and Venezuela and such, but the Harry and David ones come in pretty boxes and seem very gift-y.
How about their non-fresh stuff, though? Nuts, dates, popcorn, etc. It's just insane what they charge. For example. A pound of cashews... for $25! Peanut butter filled pretzels... just over 1kg for $22!
I doubt you would find it possible to pay more than $10 for a pound of cashews anywhere in America, in an actual store. Even those little two ounce packets they sell in 7/11's and airport gift shoppes wouldn't add up to more than $12 or $14, tops, and you'd have to buy like 10 packets to make a pound of them. I regularly buy 2 pounds of large cashews at CostCo for about $8.50. P/B filled pretzels are maybe $3.50 a pound at any grocery store with bulk food bins. You might go up to $5 at a bougie store. They're about $2.50 at Trader Joes.
And needless to say, none of those stores will charge you $6 or $8 more to mail you your purchase.
It was while perusing and gasping at the latest H&D catalogue that I remembered something I've been meaning to blog about forever. Florida's Natural Orange Juice. I'm sure it's a fine product, as fresh from the grove as you can get and all that, but their commercials never fail to crack us up, since they seem to be filmed in South Africa, circa 1983. There are white people, and white people, and more white people. All of the oblivious house wives in the stores, all of the men picking oranges, and everyone in the background. White, white, white.
Now maybe their market research tells them that black, brown, yellow, etc people do not buy orange juice, (I have no idea, my parents always had it when I was a kid, but then again, we're white.) but it's simply laughable to pretend that a bunch of middle aged white guys, like the one you see on their website, are out there picking oranges in Florida, California, Texas, or any other state where fruit orchards are found. That sort of labor is 99% performed by migrant workers, primarily Mexican, almost entirely Hispanic, and there can't be anyone unaware of that. Except perhaps those white gun nuts who operate under the delusion that America's service economy wouldn't shut down in a week if "illegal" immigration were actually cut off.
Yet there they are, every evening. Apartheid-style commercials for orange juice, where clean, immaculately-groomed, sweat-free, portly white men in pristine work gloves and crisp work shirts hustle around orange orchards, handing refrigerated cartons of orange juice to the grasping, manicured hands of white suburban house wives who get all dressed up to go shopping. I can't find any online to view, but here's an article about them, with a picture of the "co-op members" (white guys who own the farms and count the money while hiring thousands of illegal aliens to harvest their crops). It's not exactly news when a US TV program/commercial presents and unrealistically-white view of their producers/consumers, but these are so perfectly cut and pasted from the 1950s that they always amuse me.
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