September 17, 2004
This next week
Blogging will be light starting...well, now. Frinklin and I are having our long awaited wedding reception tomorrow and we'll be out of town for a few days following. We may even--gasp!--not have access to a computer for several days next week.
Posted by Ensie at 08:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 16, 2004
The Bookstore Conspiracy Continues!
I got a comment from EvilWhiteGuy today regarding my response to people just postive that bookstores are hiding Unfit For Command from them:
Have you seen the Borders' Employee Union chatboards? Here's an excerpt:
"You guys don't actually HAVE to sell the thing!
Just "carelessly" hide the boxes, "accidentally" drop them off pallets, "forget" to stock the ones you have, and then suggest a nice Al Franken or Micheal Moore book as a substitute. Borders wants those recommends, remember?
I don't care if these Neandertals in fancy suits get mad at me, they aren't regular customers anyway. Other than "Left Behind" books, they don't read. Anything you can do to make them feel unwelcome is only fair. They are the people pushing retailers to cut costs, don't forget. And they would censor your speech, your books, your music in a heartbeat, so give them a taste of it!
Don't get mad, get even!"
Originally I defended this quote from the Union website as an emotional response from one person). I still support that idea. Individual people can come up with some really stupid thoughts. All sorts of right-wing blogs have put up this particular "Borders Union Employee" quote as proof of a conspiracy (make sure you check out all her trackbacks). Well, maybe they should have told the complete story. I went back to the Borders Union website today to pull quotes from other employee posts that completely disagree with the idea of hiding books or "forgetting" to put out the stock onhand. Instead of the website, I got this:
Dear visitors from land of blog:
Thank you for your interest in the Borders Union web site. Please be aware that it is not the policy of Borders Books, or of any of the Unions that represent its employees, to "hide" or refuse to sell a book based on political content. Borders management can be expected to take appropriate disciplinary measures if they catch employees interfering with sales.
Some people who post on our bulletin board do not work at Borders. We do not verify employment. According to IP Address records, the person who posted the "let's hide the book" message was also posting under another name, responding to the messages he posted under his first name. Under his second ID, he claimed to be a conservative who was shocked that Borders employees would not tolerate diversity of opinion. This suggests to us that this was a troll who was trying to manufacture controversy. His account(s) have been deleted. He was a new user. Other, long time users told him his ideas were bad. We are temporarily ending user registration to prevent further incidents of trolling. Accounts created on September 15th have been deactivated.
We have temporarily blocked access to a portion of the site in order to protect our webserver from crashing due to high traffic. Please be patient. The site will return in full when traffic levels ebb….
Since Borders, like many corporations, refuses to pay a Living Wage, Borders local customers have the option of speaking to an underpaid manager if they feel an underpaid floor employee is pursuing an agenda different from the sales agenda of the corporation.
Have a nice day.
Hm. Interesting (I’ll leave the Living Wage discussion for another time). I finally found the Google cache of the page via EvilWhiteGuy and was able to pull an important response:
From “Withrow”:
I really, really disagree with this point of view. Booksellers have an ethical obligation IMO to present different points of view and not get in the way of freedom of speech. What you're suggesting is a form of censorship, only worse, because you're not being up front about it.
So—I’ll give the right-wing conspiracy freaks this—there is a "conspiracy" when it comes to Unfit for Command. A couple of booksellers in bookstores might be hiding the book from you. It’s always possible. However, I maintain that there is no widespread conspiracy throughout the country regarding this book, just poor planning on the part of the publisher, or maybe some clever marketing.
Posted by Ensie at 09:19 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
September 15, 2004
James the Old Asshole
I received the following comment from "James the Old Guy" on this post:
I guess the National Guard turned out to be more than a two week vacation in the summer and help on the old colleage fund. Voter [sic] for whoever you want but joining the National Guard and whining about the country deploying you is chickenshit.
Just for clarification; my cousin is far from chickenshit, James. She is obviously going to Iraq. The National Guard paid for her college that got her the degree that she used to get the dream job she won't be accepting. She understands and is appreciative. There is no whining from her about leaving.
Next time, James, read a little more carefully and see that I am your whining chickenshit before calling out my cousin, the National Guardswoman, who could probably kick your ass. I can take it. But I don't take kindly to those who choose to beat up on my family.
Posted by Ensie at 08:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
September 13, 2004
My favorite doormat
Which I also happen to own. I blame Gir for starting this.
Posted by Ensie at 05:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I hate late night phone calls
Frinklin's dad had a heart attack last night. His stepmother called just after 10pm to tell us. I picked up the phone and had to tell Frinklin the details. It appears that it was not a major heart attack--he was at the hospital before it ended. He has two stints in. We're waiting for more details now.
Getting married was a surreal experience. I really felt as though I was not in my body at the time. It happened again at this phone call. I tried to think like my own, very capable, mother. She always knows how to calm people down and get the necessary details.
Please send your prayers to Frinklin's Dad and our family. He's going to miss our wedding reception next Saturday, but we hope to go visit him in Seattle soon.
Posted by Ensie at 10:33 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 12, 2004
Well this is a little disturbing.
You're a werewolf. Werewolves were mutated people
who would transform into wolf-like beings and
lose control of themselves. Often times
when a little child would go out into fields in
Europe, they would encounter a werewolf and be
eaten. They had charatceristics of their human
selves but were also hairy with canine like
teeth and strangely shaped heads when they
transformed. They often had bad tempers and
would lose control of their actions very
easily. They were excellent hunters though.
What Mystical Creature Are You? (Pictures)
brought to you by Quizilla
Found at Practical Penumbra
Posted by Ensie at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 11, 2004
I'd make a lousy soldier's wife
I found out last night that my cousin is being sent to Iraq in two weeks. She's in the National Guard. She will also be turning down a job with a major production studio in LA; she's giving up her dream job to go to Iraq.
I'd say it's pretty much impossible for me to vote for Bush come November.
Posted by Ensie at 09:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 10, 2004
Stealing of comments
This is one of the best comments I've ever seen:
"you should watch scrubs, dude. it's the best TV show ever.
EVER.
better than quantum leap."
found in the comments of Defective Yeti's review of Garden State.
Posted by Ensie at 05:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 08, 2004
Adopt a Celebrity--someone needs to teach those people some morals!
I recently adopted a celebrity, and I encourage you to do so as well. Check out Eden's Adopt a Celeb site, and then check out her excellent blog so anyway...
You even get to pick your own celeb! Once I got over Eden's having chosen Eddie Izzard herself, I found someone I'm quite happy with.
My very own celebrity is now residing toward the lower section of my sidebar.
Posted by Ensie at 08:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Damn you Joey McIntyre!
Oh Joey...all I wanted was to see the New Kids On the Block reunited for one performance. One performance! You couldn't do it? Jordan signed on. Even Jonathan was ready to go (and he was the shy one!).
But no. You even acknowledged that fans all over were wanting it--but you just couldn't.
Then you said something stupid.
"I wouldn't want to do it for one night. I would want to reunite and see what happened from there." Something to the effect that you would want to re-form the NKOTB.
Joey, no one wants that. No one. But thanks to you, Danny wouldn't even speak on camera, and Donnie "wants to focus on his acting career."
Just one night. That's all I wanted. One night, so I could savor the sweetness of my childhood dreams once again. Who can forget the classics "Please Don't Go Girl!" and "You Got It (The Right Stuff)."
And who could forget "Hangin' Tough"? Are you tough enough?
Posted by Ensie at 11:06 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
