Doll Braaaaainnnns . . .

Like most little girls, I had a doll collection. My dad brought dolls from all the places he visited around the world and they sat on shelves collecting dust.

My favorite dolls were my Barbies. I had a veritable army of Barbies - all different kinds, including the Disney princesses. Eventually, I grew out of the Barbie craze (except for this one, which is one of my prize possessions), but the other day I found myself in the toy aisle at Target squealing over a new Barbie. I never intended to even look at the Barbies. We were on our way from the Legos (so Kris could drool over the deluxe Star Wars kits) to the baby toys to check out possible presents for some friends who are expecting.

Occasionally, Target carries the "collector's" Barbies. These are clearly not meant for little girls (evidence: the new "Mad Men" Barbies). Ever since the release of The Birds Barbie, I've been hoping for a Rear Window Grace Kelly Barbie (wouldn't that be perfect?).

The Barbie I was squealing over was a new doll called Frankie Stein. She's part of a new collection called "Monster High", which is basically a hybrid of Bratz dolls and Barbies with a movie monster flair.



I think they're adorable. (There's also a Creature From the Black Lagoon one!) There is one problem, however. Mattel has created a website and short webisodes to promote the dolls and there is a character that doesn't have a doll. Ghoulia Yelps (daughter of the Zombie) got the shaft! And she's the best character! (Other than being a zombie, check out the cherry print camisole and the awesome cat-eye spectacles!) My favorite part about her - she's a genius, but because she's a zombie, she only speaks in moans!



There's been talk of releasing a Ghoulia doll in 2011, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Mind the Gap

It feels like it's been forever since I wrote a real post! With inventory last week and taking the weekend off to relax, I haven't had much time to sit down and write. Never fear, "Geek of the Week" and "It Came From the $5 Bin" will return next week . . . with a vengeance!

I have today off, and it's a good thing because Discovery ID is having a "Deadly Women" marathon. "Deadly Women" is pretty much my favorite show. (The new season starts tonight!) On each episode, three women are featured. Their one commonality is that they are all murderers. The episodes have a theme ("The Disturbed", "Young Blood", "Mothers Who Kill", etc.) and the stories are told through stylized dramatic reenactments. The reenactments are interspersed with interview sound bites from people involved in the case and analysis by experts. The show's main expert is Candice Delong, a former FBI profiler and the basis for Silence of the Lambs character Clarice Starling. (Side note: Delong is my hero. She is a total bad ass and seems like she wouldn't take crap from anybody!)

The show rocks mostly because of Delong, but I also like that they actively try to find actors that look like the real people. The music is appropriately ominous and the vignettes are well done. As a true crime fan, it is refreshing to hear about female killers and cases that are not well-known.



I won't just be watching TV all day, though. We have plans to go for sushi and . . . we are going to the midnight showing of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World!!!! I am SO excited for this movie. (Expect a review sometimes this week!)

In celebration of my return to posting, I leave you with a picture of my new awesomely epic purse from Angry, Young, and Poor:

Ewww . . . Germs!!!!

I'll just come right out and say it: I hate public bathrooms. They're gross, germ-ridden, and (for me) have serious panic-attack potential. There are a few things that make certain public bathrooms bearable.

Here are the Top Five best public bathroom features:

5. Full-length mirror. As a female, I often like to make sure my outfit is still intact and embarrassment-free before I leave. Full-length mirrors allow you to make sure your skirt isn't tucked into your pantyhose (or underwear!), that you don't have toilet paper stuck to your shoe, and that nothing else is askew. I wish more public restrooms invested in these!

4. Stall walls that extend to the floor. I realize that we can't all have our own individual bathrooms when we go out, but am I the only one who thinks bathroom stall sizes are getting shorter and more narrow? I do not need to see the person next to me at all - not their shoes, and especially not their knees, which is where stall wall lengths are heading. I love going into swanky bathrooms with extended stall walls. It makes my whole day.

3. Purse hooks on the wall instead of the back of the door. If you're female, you know what I'm talking about. How often do you stare at your purse hanging out of arm's reach and within grabbing distance of anyone who feels like reaching over the door stall (easier now that they are steadily growing shorter)? Having your purse away from bathroom thieves is one less thing to worry about as you navigate the treacherous terrain of the public restroom.

2. Automatic faucets/soap/paper towel dispensers. The less I have to touch in a bathroom, the better. (This feature would be higher on the list if bathrooms had automatic doors.) Bathrooms that have the automatic trifecta rate very highly in my book. Few have the automatic soap, and most have the hand driers, which don't adequately dry your hands (and blow germs around).

1. Floor flushers. The flush handle is probably the germiest thing in the whole bathroom. It's pre-hand wash, which means it's the first thing that everyone touches after they're finished using the toilet. *shudder* Floor flushers eliminate the worry about germs. They are rare in public bathrooms, but hopefully will become more common, as they are far more sanitary.

I need an outfit like this!!!

And now . . . an "educational" film on the dangers of germs:

Attention Shoppers . . . We Need to Talk

Dear Crazy People Who Shop at My Work,

I don't want you to think that I'm writing this letter to hurt your feelings, because I'm not. (Okay, maybe calling you crazy isn't really reflective of that, but bear with me.) I really just want to help you . . . and you definitely need help. I think our other customers (ie: normal crafters) would agree. You're giving them a bad name. All they want to do is buy their scrapbooking/knitting/art supplies and now they have to worry about being stigmatized as "crazy" because you went shopping in your stained purple sweatpants and freaked out because we didn't have enough doll shorts to clothe all of your Build-A-Bear cats.

I realize that in your fervor to finish your latest project, you stayed up until 3 AM and watched an infomercial that featured the latest crafting technology that you must possess RIGHT NOW. However, describing it as "that thing that does scrapbooking stuff" does not help me identify what you're looking for. I need a name. And please don't start treating me like an idiot because I don't know what you're looking for from your incredibly vauge description. Let's work together on this and I'm sure we can figure it out.

I understand that matching dye lots is an important part of the knitting process. It is perfectly understandable that you would want your dog sweater to be all the same color. However, if we don't have the dye lot you are looking for, all the yelling and hair pulling in the world will not make it magically appear. Take a deep breath and I will call another store.

We all like saving money. Who wants to pay full price if they don't have to? That being said, are you sure you know how a coupon works? Normally, you would present the coupon to the cashier and they would deduct a percentage off of the designated item. The coupon is the key to getting that percentage off. That means you actually have to bring it in for me to apply it to your purchase. Telling me that you left the coupon on your kitchen table does not help you. It would be like me having a coupon for soup, but going to the grocery store without it and expecting to get the $.35 off any way. It's not going to happen. Besides, it's unfair to the people who actually take the time to bring in their coupon.

I don't make the rules. I wish I did. (I would start by making strict regulations about screaming children.) The back of the receipt outlines our return policy. If you fall outside this policy, you get store credit. End of story. I don't care how much money you spend here (It's way too much, by the way. Why are you buying this crap in the first place?) or that you paid full price and you think it's unfair that you're now getting the sale price back. No receipt, no dice.

I don't want us to be enemies. You, essentially, are the reason I have a job. We need to be friends and go on this journey together. I can't take that journey with you if you are a total nutball, though. Take your medicine, put on some decent pants, come in, and we'll talk.

Love,
Tabitha

I Was One Warped Little Kid

My cousin posted about her favorite Saturday morning cartoons, and I was like, "Oh man, I totally loved the "Tales From the Crypt" cartoon." That got me thinking . . . what kind of warped little kid loves "Tales From the Crypt"?

The more I consider my childhood, the more convinced I am that I had (have?) some serious problems. My favorite show (other than "Tales From the Crypt") was "Unsolved Mysteries". I watched the crap out of that show. I also loved ghost stories. I couldn't get enough of them. I wanted to be a member of the Midnight Society more than anything in the world. My favorite authors were, get this, Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe. When I was four, my favorite board game was the "Adam Walsh: Child Awareness Game". I also spent 30 minutes a day for an entire summer reading Stephen King's It outside the bathroom door while my mom was in the shower. As soon as she turned off the water, I would run and put the book away.

The thing that weirds me out the most is that I wasn't actively trying to be dark. I just really liked weird stuff.

I think this picture says it all.



More specifically, Kris thinks this picture says, "We can't stop here; this is bat country!"

Focusing On My Goals . . . Oh Look, It's a "Tales From the Dark Side" Marathon

Every week I say to myself, "This is the week you're going to do everything right. You're going to wake up early enough to eat breakfast; you're going to put on makeup and do your hair. On your day off, you're going to do something productive." The reality is that very few of these things happen. Like most people, I usually end up spending the day in my "Twilight Zone" T-shirt eating microwave hot wings and watching "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman" and old episodes of "New Detectives". Oh wait . . . no one else does that, do they?

A few posts back, I said I wanted to post every day. I really do want to do that, but I can never seem to find the time. The worst part is that I'm not doing important, necessary stuff. I'm doing lame, time-wasting things like playing Plants vs. Zombies or looking up movie trivia on IMDB. (Actually, I don't think those things are lame, but I'm sure other people do.) I am going to try to post every day, but I may not be able to tear myself away from facebook.

A while ago, I posted about The Nook. My loving husband (we just celebrated our 2nd anniversary!) and my dad went in together to get me this awesome device as a birthday/anniversary gift! It is amazing to say the least. It's very easy to use and has some awesome features, including screensavers that appear on the screen, even when the device is off (they use no battery life). Here it is in all it's beautiful glory (Kris even picked out the pink cover!):


Once I've used it a bit more, I may write a whole post about it, but for now, I'll just say that I've been referring to it as "my precious" all weekend.

Before I sign off, I highly reccommend that you check out Pralines and Dick, a relatively new blog that is a shining example of what I hope this blog will someday be. Color me jealous over how funny these girls are! You can't go wrong with a Wayne's World reference and their Netflix Mystery Theater is hilarious. Definitely worth a read.

Bwa ha ha ha ha . . .

Chris Gore (AOTS's film reviewer) posted this on Twitter today and I was rolling on the floor. I always feel sad for people like this.

Can Someone Please Call the Whaambulance?

This is a digression from my regular topics, but here goes: It's official . . . the Phillies fans are whiny babies. I'm not a fan of baseball (I could care less if the Rockies go to the Series), but even I am sick of the Phillies fans moaning about the times of the game not being "convenient" and the temperature making it hard for their guys to play. Guess what? When our teams have to play on the East Coast at 7:00, we're all still at work and that's inconvenient for us too. No one here cries into their beer and threatens to call the commissioner. And if they did, we'd tell them the same thing: Get over it. As for the temperature, not only is Philadelphia cold, it's also humid, which makes the cold ten times worse. At least we're in a dry climate and you don't feel like the wind is going to slice you open with a knife. If you're really a serious fan, you'll suck it up and spend your time rooting for your team instead of threatening to write Major League Baseball letters that will do absolutely jack.

Random Thoughts about Thursday Night Television

I am increasingly entertained by the wide spectrum of reviews in Comcast programming descriptions. The majority are pretty straight forward, but occasionally you'll get an odd one. My personal favorite at the moment? The description for the god-awful Hitcher remake: "Thumbs down on this slapdash remake of the 1986 chiller about a couple who pick up a psychopathic hitchhiker!" Why can't they all be this honest? (Incidentally, be sure to watch the original Hitcher with C. Thomas Howell, though. It's a classic slasher/car chase flick that's worth a viewing.)

I also love the FearNet descriptions on On Demand. Check out this one for The Dentist: "Dr. Feinstein is the coolest dentist ever! His office is all tricked out with different theme rooms. It's really fun! That is, until he catches his wife with the pool boy. And he goes nuts. And starts torturing his patients. But hey, before that, fun guy!" They're not all gems, but a lot of them crack me up.

There are clips for "Bob the Builder" on the On Demand menu and I just realized that Greg Proops is the voice of Bob. This seems vaugely disturbing in a way I can't quite explain. Maybe it has something to do with him also voicing a expletive-laden commentary on the ultra-violent (but also very cool) MadWorld for the Wii. Obviously, celebrities can simultaneously do children's shows and violent video games, but it did make me do a double take.

Well, I'm off to watch Don't Look Now. Expect the next post to be a strongly worded review, mostly because it seems like one of those movies that you either love or hate.