Tag Archives: shopping

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go2costco

wholesale club whore

Sunday…. was it Sunday? More evidence we’re getting too damn old to party like we used to. My internal clock got me up at my usual 6am, just three hours after getting to bed after the evening out at The Saints and Sinners Ball.

I wandered around the house some, bumped into furniture and finally went back to sleep around 8am and was out until noon.

I awoke to find two equally groggy and out of sync bears curled up on the sofa and love-seat knitting and making incoherent conversation.

We left for what was supposed to be quick errands and wound up being out most of the afternoon:

• Pick up radial saw table saw thing from Sears… Kevin’s delayed Christmas gift from his dad.. I couldn’t tell you what exactly it is except it says “Craftsman” and has a Laser on it – which he’s giddy about.

• HomoDepot for second color for master bedroom – the one I originally picked doesn’t work.. (grumble).

• Yarn Store

We realized that we needed groceries but we’re in that part of the AP cycle where I need to keep things on plastic… But where do we go? – Grocery stores, at least around us, don’t take Amex.

Perfect excuse to go open the membership at Costco like we’ve been talking about for the past month.

I think I’ve babbled before about the wonders of Seattle-Based Costco… It’s like Sams but… 1) not owned and run by an evil company, 2) has a lot better stuff, 3) recognizes same-sex partners, 4) take (only) American Express, 5) is exceptionally clean and is nicely organized / designed and 6) has a food court where you can buy a huge hot dog and soda for $1.50.

If there was such thing as an “elitist wholesale club” – then Costco would be it. pixeljim

A business membership only cost $45 bucks and we were signed up and strolling past, (and drooling on), the vaginormous plasma screens under three-grand before we knew it.

A squeak over a hundred bucks got us 5 pounds of lunchmeat and cheese, bread, chiabatta buns, a gallon of listerine, two cases of carbonated bevs, a zillion zip-lock bags, a case of soup, minty shampoo, a trash bag full of potstickers and a tub of natural peanut butter.

The rest of the evening was spent eating sandwiches, goofing with the computer and being fascinated with the little imprint of my face on the back of my newly aquired membership card.

They have a little machine that prints directly onto the plastic…

Not the best reproduction quality in the world – but this sort of technology intrigues me.

If I had a blog I’d probably change my user icon to this new little cryptic graphic.

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saints… and sinners

and over there we’ll put the burning effigy

Got to the office and Kevin exploded with energy and within two hours our storage area in the basement was cleared out and everything that’s to move with us was brought upstairs…

After a few phone calls, and a good spell jamming out to innocu-rock on hold with Sprint – we arranged for our land-line to be transfered and added as a second cell phone.

Out to Radio Shack to pick up an extra cell phone – most likely the ugliest one I’ve ever seen, but it was cheep and fills the need now. (Kevin promises we can fullfill my toy-lust once we stabilize after the move, catch up on bills and the phone I really want gets released in a blue-tooth friendly version (so it will work with iSync).

Lunch at Hard Rock and picked up babybear and headed down to meet xenohomo at… ironically, the building we’re moving the studio to…. Unknown to us, while we were spinning the deal to get the corner in our friend’s loft, Neel was negotiating with the building’s owners to have this year’s Saints and Sinner’s ball on one of their vacant floors.

Mardi Gras is a big deal in St. Louis – we’re second to New Orleans.
Every year The AIDS Foundation of St. Louis has a fundraising ball which coincides with the season. This year, Neel is the chairman for the event.

He asked if we’d help him out with decorations for the ball…. Leery of the previous years of being pro-bono’d to death by the bears – but genuinely wanting to help our friend out, we agreed to pitch in and lend a hand.

We walked through the space and Neel and Kevin talked about decorations, Chad listened quietly – and I took photos and had phony-sweet exchanges and glaring contests with the building’s rep, who… coincidentally also works for an ex-client. The last conversation I had with the woman was rather nasty and heated, probably because she thought I was being unreasonable because I was refusing to do projects until they paid their invoices which had aged beyond 9 months. We finally got paid – but we haven’t worked with them since… I miss the account, but then again – I don’t miss working and not getting paid.

She was shocked to see me there… She’s new to town and is probably still learning just how “small town” and incestuous St. Louis is.
It can make you… and break you…

We parted company and I gave her a wink, and a smug grin and told here “You’ll be seeing more of me”…

I can be a phony bitch when it’s called for.

I can be a blog-denying smart ass too.

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mostly NOT about the phone

Hal, please play my messages

Assignments really seem to have started picking up at work. It looks like I’m spoken for through the rest of the year which eases my nerves.

When we got home it was one of those “Mexican Standoff” moments regarding dinner. Nobody particularly felt like cooking, nor could we agree on a theme. Then Chad reminded that they just built a Fire Mountain just outside of our subdivision on the main drag.

Fire Mountain is a whack at an upscale reformat of Ryan’s Steakhouse. It’s a spanky new timber and stone structure (sorta ski lodge looking). Inside there’s probably over a hundred yards of buffet with damn near every imaginable food you can think of.

It’s not high-cuisine… but it’s definitely competent, especially if you stick to the home-cooking Americana stuff like chicken and dumplings, salisbury steak, fried okra and stewed tomatoes. Nonetheless – for such a wide variety at $10 a head, it’s a great solution for those nights we can’t agree on what to have.

We got there uncharacteristically early… (we normally don’t get around to eating dinner until around 8pm). The place was packed….

“Packed” not really being the issue at hand here.. “Packed with What” – is what I found troublesome.

Here’s the part of the recollection where I start sounding like a classist prick – but I really don’t mean to. (and actually partially neurotic that I am sounding that way).

The demographic inside was a slice of middle America – the real ugly kind that define the US-Stereotypes held by Europeans and that fuel mockumentary film makers.

I paused half way between my mashed potatoes and gravy course to look around and I nearly lost my appetite.

Obscenely obese couples with their equally obscenely obese children. Ticky-tackey american flag sweatshirts and big church-of-God hairdos.

Most of them were terribly rude – almost in a trance-like feeding frenzy. I took note on my next return trip to the buffet and counted how many times I would side step a fast moving heifer on her way to the German Chocolate Cake and say “Oh.. pardon me… and excuse me”. Not once was my politeness returned… Generally eye contact would be avoided or I would be shot glances which said “Get the fuck outa my way”.

I didn’t finish my last plate of food.. I got way too observant at this point and started looking around… looking closer… Noticing eating habits / manners (or lack there of). I caught myself saying “Wow.. This IS middle America.”

Piggy.. Selfish… Unmannered.. and Self Righteous.

I started struggling with feeling “bad” for eating there…

Fucking ridiculous… My love of stewed tomatoes shouldn’t be thwarted by a genre of folks I don’t care for. Nor does my love of said stewed tomatoes and decision to go to a certain restaurant imply anything about my character…

(Shrug) – We left and I opted to meditate about that later and try to figure it out.

Chad and Kevin are jonesing for new video game content so we detoured our trip home stopped by Best Buy…. Mario Kart isn’t out yet.. (piss!!)…

Our phone at the house is on it’s last legs so I strolled through the telephone isle…

I was quite content to pick up a $60 cheepy cordless answering machine combo… something practical which would do the job… nothing else.

Damn those people at Uniden for hiring a sensitive industrial designer! DAMN THEM.. I’ve never seen a phone before that looked “designed” (with the exception of the stratospherically priced Bang and Olufsen phone).

Pretty black and silver. Shiny in all the right places.. Cool little function icons and nice type.

I didn’t pout for it – but I did stop and get that glazed donut look in my eyes which usually means I’m intrigued… It should be noted that I fully intended to keep with the less expensive purchase and play martyr – but it was Kevin and Chad that pushed me to get the one I really liked.

I don’t really think I’m a high end gadget freak… I “am” however a sucker for design. You could probably sell me a cow-pie as long as it was in a nicely designed package.

Hell – I could probably be sold on the idea of blogging if I could give it a pretty package.

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somosas as currency

the apple store or a kubrick set?

Friend Danny came by today to snatch me out of the office, take me to his salon and cut the hairs on my head. I design Danny’s business cards once a year, and in exchange – I abandon the clippers for the colder months and get actual “haircuts”.

Danny’s one of those friends I feel like I don’t spend enough time with. He’s a rugged, handsome man with manners of royalty and a mouth like tinkerbell. Regardless, it’s hard sometimes to picture him as a buxom red head shimmying down a runway with pumps on. Danny was the reigning Miss Gay Missouri, (A Drag Title), throughout the late 80’s. Up until recently, he has organized the pageant and countless other fundraising events. More impressive than being one of the city’s “drag elders”, Danny was the founder of the now muliti-milion dollar NFP: St. Louis Effort for AIDS.

You’d never get the sense from Danny that he’s the city’s biggest drag-elder, nor the creator of one of the first AIDS related organizations to in the US. What you do get a sense of is that this is a man who’s dedicated a better part of his life to charity. His eye’s have the scars, as so many men in his nearly whiped out age bracket, of loosing a lot of loved ones. It’s a reminder that there was a time when the Virus wasn’t treatable. When I was contemplating Duran Duran imports – he was watching everyone close to him die.

Danny asked me to play personal shopper today for him. He needs a new computer. So, working on that toaster oven, I took him to The Apple Store.

We lucked out and got a sales attendant with a personality.

While the sales guy was doing his schtick I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him from somewhere – until… It finally hit me.

“Are you from St. Louis?” I asked.. “And how long have you worked in retail?”

“Yes” he said rolling his eyes, “I’ve been in retail wayyyyyy toooo, . . . wait a second. . . JIM?!?!”

I had worked with the the guy 16 years ago when I took one of my first jobs at the mall in a mens clothing store called “His Place.” It was one of those terrible 80’s hip-clothing stores like Chess King or Oaktree.

heads unlimited business cards

“Oh my god, I didn’t recognize you… Wow you look so different, you’re so old.”
He caught himself saying that and started stumbling to correct himself, “I mean, you’re older, or… uuhhh.. I uhhhh”….

“We’ll take the 14″ ibook please”. I interrupted not really phased by the inadvertent insult.

I figured: Sure – I’ve done some hard living and I’m no where near as well preserved as this guy was (he looked nearly the same). But you know what? Here it is 16 years later and I still don’t have to put on a name badge when I go to work, so I’ve got nothing to be bent out of shape about.

My compensation for assisting came in the form of a tray full of Indian food from the mall’s food court.

If Danny only knew I’d paint his house for a couple of samosas.

If I could spend more time with ALL of my friends.

If I could have the presence of mind to blog.