Shopping For The Rich And Ridiculous

Looking to spend an inordinate amount of money this Christmas? Want to buy lavish and pointless gifts? Of course you do! And you're going to want to turn to Neiman-Marcus to help you do this! Let's see what we can piss away holiday funds on this year, shall we?

Up first is the ever pretentious Folding Electric Bike. In part, the description reads "From the trunk of your car to under your desk, this electric bike folds up to slip into tight spaces". Why would you want this in your car? Wouldn't this be in place of your car? The thing is $1,995.00, so the price is kind of in place of your car. And I'm taking an issue with how it "folds up to slip into tight spaces". Really? Behold!

Does that look all that compact to you? Me neither. It's certainly not fitting under anyone's desk. Moving right along, do you want "Supremely weird looking cool ice-like, self-powered speakers deliver 55 watts per channel with DSP optimized digital power amplification for (allegedly) amazing sound."? Then these are for you. You weirdo. With a thousand dollars to drop on this ugly crap. Are you Superman? Are they going in your Ice Fortress? No? Then why would you want these?

What about a wet/dry electric shaver? Sounds practical, yes? Of course it does. And Panasonic has one with a "...multi-flexible head that pivots 360°, pop-up trimmer, and a fully automatic self-cleaning and quick-charging system." What's not to love? Well, the $400 price tag for starters. Four hundred dollars?! For a shaver? What the hell does it do that makes it worth $400? Does it actually do the shaving for you? No? Next!

Want to stay dry during the rain? Want to do it with an umbrella with a barely discernible skull at the base of the handle? Want to do all of that AND part with $495? Oh, wait. Too pricey? Yeah, well, then the Alexander McQueen Skull-Handle Umbrella might not be for you. Then again, they describe it as "A menacing skull forms the handle of this Alexander McQueen umbrella— show it off in your umbrella rack." In my umbrella rack?! What now?! Shouldn't that say something about using it to keep precipitation falling from the sky off of you?

What about your pills? Got pills? Always losing them as they roll about? (No, I don't know why they're not in the provided containers. I'm stretching this here as it is.) Need a box to keep them in? A pill box, perhaps? How about one encrusted with a bunch of Austrian crystals in a multicolor parrot motif? Yes? For $695? No? What?

What if it was in the motif of a blue bird? Same price, different avian species depicted! How about then? No? Hell, no? What?

What about for your correspondence needs? Been looking for "...cards are an eye-catching pumpkin hue with a white border (and) are engraved with bordered monogram"? Want to spend over ten dollars per card? Mind you, these aren't gift cards or anything. There isn't even anything written on these cards with the "eye-catching pumpkin hue". NOTHING! And fifty of them will set you back $605! Behold!

Who are you people who are buying those? Seriously, I need to know. How much of a pretentious ass are you? Good Lord. I'm guessing that the people who buy those use them to send out announcements to people to tell them that they have just dropped $3,500 on this little musical Santa. Behold!

If that's too much for you to spend on something that you could probably find a reasonable likeness of for about $25, you can always opt for the $995 donkey. But be warned! I don't think that he's musical. So if you want to spend a thousand dollars on a figurine of a donkey that just sits there and sparkles, this might be the donkey for you.

Or if you prefer, there's also a handcrafted ox which Neiman-Marcus says you can use to "...complete your nativity scene". It will also complete your wallet being emptied, as the ox is $1,200. (By the way, what kind of sparkly nativity scene are they used to seeing over there at Neiman-Marcus? Just how gay was Jesus in their versions?)

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Black Friday Confuses Me

I've discussed this before, but apparently, I'm going to have to discuss it again. Because somewhere along the line, someone isn't quite getting it. I'm not sure if it's just me that doesn't get it or if it's just the throngs of apparent lunatics who don't get it. But it's definitely one of us. I'm speaking of this absolutely insane "tradition" of Black Friday.

First of all, given as how we're sooooo enlightened and politically correct these days, I'm surprised that someone has allegedly (probably loudly) that calling it Black Friday is racist. You'd think that we would have heard that by now, especially considering all of the other ridiculous things that we have to hear about as being racist. But we don't. And for that ONE little thing, I am glad.

For the rest of it? Yeah, not so much. I'm sure you know the drill. The Friday after Thanksgiving is when the Christmas shopping season "officially starts". And on that Friday, most major retailers (and I'm sure the minor ones as well) offer some pretty good deals on some of their items. The key is that the bargain is only for a limited time and that time is usually a couple of hours. Thus, that has morphed into another new "tradition" of people lining up outside of stores DAYS before they open and camping out to get the best deals. That's right. CAMPING. OUT. Oh, let me tell you this: I would kill, we're talking murder, for that sort of time.

Here's what/who I don't get: You folks at the back of the line. What are you doing? What are you hoping for? Seriously. Those things that have great prices on them that you think that you want? Yeah, you realize that there are only like one or two of those at every store and your chances of getting one, being as how you're 275th in line, are completely zero. Not even slim to none. No. Zero. So why are you there? What do you want?

Is it the thrill of the hunt? Everything that you could possibly want at a good enough price to make it worth standing at the end of the line in the middle of the night is going to be gone when you get in there. How much of a saving is worth that to you people? Look, if 56-inch, flat-screen TVs were on sale for $100 each, that would be worth something, I will agree with you on that one. But they're not. And even if they were, there would only be one or two of them and they would be GONE by the time that you folks who are at the end of the line (that has now wrapped around the block) get up there. The deals are good, but they're really not THAT great unless you're planning on spending a boatload of cash. I read an article online this morning (can't remember where, otherwise I'd link to it) about a woman who had been at the tail end of one of those lines for hours. Hours. And what did she finally end up buying when she made it into the store? Well, it certainly wasn't anything that she had hoped to get because they were all out by the time that she shoved her way in. No, she ended up buying a Candyland game for four dollars.

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

What does a game of Candyland cost when it is NOT on sale? Eight dollars? Six? I really don't know (even though I loved that game as a child), but I know that I would be willing to pay full price for Candyland as opposed to standing outside in the frigid cold for hours upon hours to get one for the low, low price of four dollars. Are times THAT tough? They can't be.

But some folks really must want that Candyland game, as evidenced by the ridiculous near stampede that occurred at the Buffalo, NY Target store in (you guessed it) Buffalo, NY. Who are you people who just push your way through even though someone has obviously fallen and is about to be trampled to death? I want you found and tarred and feathered in the town square. Or, better yet, I want you be lying on the ground as a crazed mob bears down upon you and you're moments from death if someone doesn't step up and help you. Granted, you people that kept on going, I would really like it if you were trampled to death, but that's just me. There's video of this madness below so that you can see for yourself. If the video doesn't work, try clicking here.

And one final note: Have you people never heard of the Internet? How great is shopping online? You can be drunk as a skunk, sans pants, still eating leftover turkey and still get what you need/want without leaving the comfort of your home AND without nearly being trampled by a bunch of savages at your local Target store. That's right. The Internet. Check it out. You'll love it.

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Surviving Walmart

I was at the mall today and found myself utterly amused with the folks that were out presumedly doing their Christmas shopping. The fact that it was unseasonably warm only added to my amusement. There was large, overweight girl wearing a much too small spaghetti strapped top and eating a Ding-Dong. There was the grizzled guy sitting in the food court, eating a hot dog with his pink striped Victoria's Secret bag on the table with him. There was the really tall, seemingly really old, white-haired gentleman wearing a braided baby-blue headband (like his alter ego was Jane Fonda and she had escaped from 1983 or something). I don't know what I did to deserve such jocularity, but it was awesome.

Now, I'll admit, I live in a decent area and it was a pretty decent mall that I was wandering about. So even without the people parade, I would have been just as fine as I can possibly be out in public. But there are times when I need to shop other places where it's not so fine. There are other places that one finds the need to shop at on occasion where you really find yourself really thinking twice about. You start wondering, "How important is it that I get that item for two bucks less?" Stuff like that. Naturally, this occurs when you have to make the trip to the evil Walmart.

Contrary to the previous statement, I'm really not anti Walmart. I'm moreso anti Walmart patrons. They're not patrons like me who just want to get a good deal. Oh, I'm sure the good deal is part of it, but I guess I just wish that they'd make better use of the funds that they have available. You know, to buy clothes that fit, to buy clothes that cover their ample bodies in an ample manner, to buy someone to watch their screaming children, to buy someone to speak English for them. It's stuff like that where they could really make great strides in the quality of their existence. So I've managed to utilize two methods to help me make it through any sort of Walmart shopping experience and still emerge relatively sane.

The first method I use is sort of akin to a scavenger hunt. I look for folks whose photos would be appropriate for the website People of Walmart. The website is exactly what it sounds like it is and what I just described. See, because there's a certain type of person that you're going to almost always find at a Walmart. The website aims to bring all of those folks together at last via photos taken by others and sent in for all of humanity to enjoy. Over at People of Walmart you'll find individuals such as this woman (I think it's woman. I'd appreciate a little bit of lee-way with this one):

And this chick (Are her breasts growing out of the sides of her torso? I think they might be!):

You'll find guys like this:

You could even find a chicken roaming about the aisles:

Or a goat in a cage in the back of an El Camino (of course):

I'm telling you! There's a certain "type". That theory is only backed up and evidenced by these two gentlemen, one in Texas and one in Missouri. What are the odds that they both shop at the same large chain store? The odds are good if you mention that the store is Walmart. Behold!

Yeah, that scares me a little bit. But you do see what I'm saying, don't you? There's a certain kind of person who shops at Walmart. NOT everyone who shops there is like that; I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that if you're looking for a bald headed man sporting a mullet, well, you know where to go.

Let's just say you're in the Walmart and you see the typical fare of patron that I have illustrated with the photos above, but you're just too darned scared to take a picture of them. What if they see you? They might attack you, beat you up and feed you to their many, many youngins. (That's never worth any sort of monetary savings, I don't care who you are.) It's in instances like those where you need to bring along and break out your Walmart Bingo Card. Behold!

The object is simple and fairly self explanatory. Simply mark off each box as you see the item in the store. And just like in regular Bingo, five in a row wins! What you win is entirely up to you, as you're in charge of this ordeal. You can even give yourself a little bit of lee-way with some of them, but please try to be rational about things. For instance, in the G column, second space down, the item is "kid riding a bike in the store". If you were in Pennsylvania at the time the photo below was taken, I would allow you to mark off that square. Behold!

A kid on a sled being pulled, not by reindeer, but by something much, much more clueless: the caretaker (I'm going with 'caretaker' just because it gives the slimmest of all slim hopes that the person is not the child's parent and will not be raising that child into young adulthood. Good Lord, we need all the hope we can get with a situation like that!)

I might consider letting you check off "someone giving away kittens" if you were the person who spotted this gem in Florida:

Yep, I'd like a bucket of chicken and a side of Kia Spectra. Um, to go, please.

Here's that rat tail hair cut that was referred to in the first square of the "B" column.

I would be OK with the "rebel flag T-shirt" square being filled in by these two folks, but ONLY because of the coonskin cap. Without that cap, it's a no-go.

Along these same lines, I would also let you mark off that square if you saw this guy with his rebel flag leather cap, but ONLY if he had that dangly, gold, feather earring. No earring? No X.

I'll give you the first square in the "I" column "child without shoes" if you saw this guy in Oklahoma, but ONLY because he doesn't have a shirt either!

I was a bit disappointed that there was a square on there for "person wearing an ankle monitor".

And I'll also allow you to replace "pregnant woman" with "fat enough to be pregnant three times over" if they're sporting the visible tramp stamp as required in the last box of the "G" column.

But if you're going to be substituting, you could really find yourself in quite a quandry. Take this chap for instance. The child isn't crying, as per the last square in the "N" column, but you can hardly call the little guy "attended" as opposed to the required "unattended". So what do you do? It's a head scratcher, all right. Hard to say. Use your best judgment (unlike the guy watching the baby). I'm going to go ahead and give myself the square. It's my blog. Try and stop me.

Here's that "obese person using a scooter" that we needed for the top square in the "O" column.
Those folks could also be used for the "entire family wearing NASCAR apparel", as I think that winter scenery outerwear is close enough in this case. Good Lord, it's entirely too close.

So while it's frighteningly easy to spot these folks at any given Walmart across this fine, fine nation of ours, it's not as easy as one might think to round up that all sought after BINGO! I mean, look at what we've accomplished here. We've found eight of our twenty four squares, but nary a BINGO! Oh, why, why could I not have found a photo of someone buying beer and diapers? Why??

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Do Not Buy

Thanksgiving (or, as some of you refer to it, Thursday) is over and it's time to think about Christmas shopping, right? Oh, Good Lord, now? Yes (apparently), now. But here's a little twist. Instead of talking about everything that everyone is clamoring to buy for Christmas, let's chat about some of the things that I'm hoping you'll avoid buying for Christmas. Now, you're going to have to pay attention because some are cleverly marketed to make you think either a) you really want this item or b) it's really cool and someone else will want this item. Neither of those things are true. Both are blatantly false. Lies. They're also known as lies. And the products below are also known as crap.

Here we have the first item to avoid buying this Christmas. Like Spider-Man? Like the beach? Well now you can have the best of both worlds with a beach going Spider-Man! Behold!

Oh, what the hell is that?! That, of course, is Spider-Man at the beach. See, he has his Spidey arms all exposed to maximize his tan (Watch out for melanoma, Spider-Man! Use sunblock, Spider-Man!), but they have left him with his Spidey gloves minus the fingers. That's a head scratcher even for me to come up with a reason as to why it is. But he also has his Spidey beach ball, his Spidey ball cap AND just in case someone is drowning and Pam Anderson or David Hasselhoff isn't around, he has one of those plastic orange things that we always saw them running with on Baywatch, but never actually saw them used. (NO one knows what the heck they do anyway. Do they work? Do they not? No one has ever tried them to find out!)

That little gem is brought to us by a company called Toy Biz which is apparently the toy division of Marvel Entertainment. It would appear, judging from Beach Spidey there, that in order to be an employee of Toy Biz, you must smoke incredible amount of marijuana each day at work, in or out of your cubicle. (I'm also guessing that they have a very lax policy on wearing pants as well, but that's an entirely different post.)

But wait! Beach Time Spidey not for you?! Prefer something a little more rugged? A little more adventurous? Something sans beach ball, perhaps? Well, the, maybe Safari Spider-Man is for you! Behold!

Good Lord, it keeps getting worse, doesn't it? It would appear that Safari Spidey has inadvertently bumped into some voodoo tribe deep within his jungle adventures and ended up with a shrunken head the size of a thimble! What happened Spider-Man?! What happened to your head?! Safari Spidey comes with a field camera, a safari hat for his teeny, tiny little noggin there, and "safari gear". I don't know what "safari gear" is, I only know that Spider-Man should not be having any of it!

And to round out the Stupid Spidey Trifecta, if you've got him at the beach and you've got him in the jungle, of course the next completely unnatural and absolutely hysterical outfit to have him in would be that of a firefighter! Behold!

OK, after seeing that I'm guessing they just give new hires at Toy Biz a big ol' joint to blaze down the first hour that they're on the job. Firefighter, Spidey? Are you kidding me? Shouldn't he be using his Spidey ability to scale the walls of that inferno and save some folks from a crispy, crispy doom instead of aiming his hose somewhere? The caption should be "Having been at the beach and thus missing all of the excitement on September 11, 2001, Spider-Man shows up on September 12, really jealous and ready for action!"

I have just realized during my search for all of the Spidey idiocy, that there is a whole line of ridiculous Spider-Man action figures. I cannot mock them all in this one post, as that would leave me no time to do justice to other hidden nuggets of glee such as this item:

That would be what is called Lightning Reaction Extreme. That's right. Not just your regular ol' Lightning Reaction! No, this one is extreme. Personally, I think the whole 'game' is a bit extreme. Here's the way it works: Everyone grabs one of those trigger looking things there and gets ready for loads of fun! It would seem that the game starts and music plays. While the music is playing, there is an illuminated red light in the center of the thing. When the music stops and the light turns to green, you're supposed to hit your trigger as fast as you can. Speed is important in this game as if you are not the fastest one and do not hit your trigger first, you receive an electrical shock via your controller! What the hell?!

It says on the box that it is not suitable for persons under the age of 15. See, I had no idea that there was a cut-off for the appropriate age to be shocked by a game that you're playing! What about people with pacemakers?! How suitable is it for them? What about the elderly? Suitable? I think not! I'm thinking that a minimum age to play this thing should be the least of people's concerns. But as I was reeling over this game, I came to realize that there are a whole slew of games out there that will shock you if you do it too slow, too fast or too wrong. There's Shock Ball: The Shocking Hot Potato Game. Don't forget the Shocking Memory Game, which kind of looks like that Simon game from the 80s, but only if Simon were on crack and living in the ghetto. And what party parlor wouldn't be complete without an edition of Shocking Arm Wrestling? That's right. Put on the gloves, lay down the shock pads and have at it! According to the description over there at Amazon, this game "...will make sure your opponent knows he is the loser by giving an electrical shock." Have the rules for arm wrestling become so complicated that we no longer know when it is that we have lost? I was very well aware that when my arm hit the table, I had lost. I didn't need a jolt of electricity to run through by body in order to drive that point home. My arm on the table was sufficient, thanks.

But not all toys are as shocking as the ones above. (Yes, yes, pun intended, but I'm not proud of it.) If, for some reason that I cannot imagine, your child is interested in, but just too darn young to bone and prepare their own fish, here's a fish prep toy for just such an occasion!

I'm told that cooking toys are very popular these days. I'm looking at that fish there and I'm having a hard time believing either a) that that's true, or b) that that's really a toy. And say, what's with the little squid there? Is it so the little ones can be pretending to bone salmon steaks and make calamari at the same time? Seems a bit complex, but what do I know? I'm not the one with the fish prep toy!

If you're afraid that your little one is going to have dreams of success that are just too much for them, perhaps bringing them back down to earth with their very own little cleaning trolley. Behold!

What the what? A cleaning trolley? Trolley? Is that the right word? Or are we just using that because "cart" is offensive to some jackass? I think 'trolley' and I think streetcars, San Francisco, Rice-A-Roni, etc. I don't think 'cleaning lady' when I hear 'trolley'. Aside from that, this toy seems to have everything you'd need to play janitor all the live long day. It has a broom, a mop, a disinfectant squirter, a slop bucket, all the amenities to provide your little one with hours upon hours of enjoyment by simulating backbreaking work that will barely pay minimum wage with no benefits. And judging from the back of the package, I'm guessing that you're not going to find a "Made in U.S.A." label on this item. The back reads, collectively (and I'm not correcting for spelling, punctuation, or capitalization either. What you're reading is verbatim.):

"completely new to come in to market! top!

the best toys for the children and have a good time and keep you so clever!

Let us cleaning!"

I'm thinking maybe not so much "Let us cleaning!" and maybe a little bit more of "Let us counting!" as the front of the box says 11 pieces and the back of the box says 20 pieces. Also, this toy boasts a label that says "Girls Only". I don't know if that's the brand/label of the toy company that makes this disaster or if it intended as some sort of a guide, but if I was the type of person who got offended (and I'm not) that would do it.

And it wouldn't be a Christmas shopping season if I didn't include at least one highly inappropriate item to steer clear of. From the category of "What were they thinking?" I give to you (and consider it a gift that you have to keep) the Rad Repeatin' Tarzan. Behold!

OK, that doesn't look so bad, but you haven't seen him in action yet. Keep in mind, however, that something with the word 'rad' in the title is not going to be good. Clearly, the folks who came up with this name were not thinking things through. Oh, but if it was only just the name that they hadn't thought through enough. The video below should be enough to get across why you'll want to avoid this like the plague this year.

Uh-huh. I see. Well...it seems like Tarzan doesn't need Jane anymore. Either that or it's how Tarzan passes the time since Jane left him (probably for Safari Spidey). Whatever the scenario over there in the jungle, don't buy Rad Repeatin' Tarzan for your youngsters. Or your oldsters. Or any -sters. (And that includes oysters! No reason they should have to put up with that! Good Lord....)

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