web-goddess

The customer is always _____?
I’ve been having fun reading this epic Metafilter thread about some blogger who was denied espresso over ice at his local coffee shop. The coffee shop owner claimed that it’s because espresso over ice goes sour and icky, and anyway most people just turn around and make “ghetto lattes” with it. The blogger felt like he should be able to order whatever he wants, coffee-snobs be damned. The MeFi discussion pretty much covers the whole spectrum. I was particular interested when people started bringing other service professionals into it. Like, should a good bartender serve a customer single-malt scotch and soda? Would a true culinary artist acquiesce to a customer’s demand for risotto with a side of spaghetti? Should a real music fan refuse to sell a treacly Steve Wonder hit? Or – to make it relative to my own experience – should a yarn store employee sell a newbie Feathers yarn to make their first scarf?

Personally, I tried to talk people out of bad decisions. If I felt they were going to be disappointed with their project, I’d tell them why their chosen yarn wasn’t really suitable for their pattern. Then I’d suggest alternatives. But I’d never go so far as to refuse to sell them what they wanted. If they want to kill themselves making a aran jumper out of cotton or a six foot long scarf out of Feathers, so be it. We’d had a “Knitting Nazi” working at the store before, and it’s just not good for business.

Free speech prevails. FANTASTIC.

Wii MotionPlus. Neat! Now bring on the lightsaber games. 🙂

Quoth the Snook: “Heh. The kitteh is runnin.” (Drag the box really slowly.) It’s actually from a children’s book that I’ve got to give to my nephew Isaiah when I finally see him…

Holy crap. I’ve got a big important presentation at work this morning… and it looks like I’ll be flying to LA this weekend to spend two weeks at our American office. (When did I get so fancy-pants? It’s like I’m in Working Girl or something.) Anyway, who do I know in LA? Anybody? Drop me a line if you’re willing to go out to dinner with me or something.

Update: The presentation? ROCKED. Who would’ve guessed that my high school speech team experience would turn out to be my most marketable skill?

We caught a great film on the TiFaux this weekend: Orson Welles’s Macbeth. The Snook walked in during the very first scene and guessed, “Genghis Khan?” No, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that based on some of the wack costumes they wear. The landscape and setting are crazy too. It took me a long time to figure out that the giant rocky mountaintop where everything seemed to take place… was actually Dunsinane, the castle. It was really surreal and atmospheric and weird. There were characters (that crazy medicine man/priest with the long braids?) that I didn’t remember from before. Some characters would drift in and out of Scottish accents. Yet the story was still there, complete with all my favorite speeches*, and it was still powerful. I liked Welles’s touch of having some of the soliloquies be voice-over instead of spoken aloud. The shots of “Birnam Wood” marching through the mist towards the castle were unexpectedly eerie and beautiful. This one is definitely recommended, if you like your Shakespeare on the weird, expressionistic side.

* Snookums was slightly disappointed though that his favorite speech got cut. It’s the scene directly after Duncan’s murder, when the drunken porter goes to answer the door and goes on a long ramble about the effects of alcohol on the male anatomy.

World Youth “Day” is about to begin, and the pilgrims are everywhere. There are currently at least 100 people milling about at the end of our street, waiting to pick up their baseball caps, lanyards, and windbreakers from the Uniform Center. It looks like the crowd outside a Christian rock concert. I have seen more nuns in full nunly dress in the past two days than I did at four years of Catholic university. I saw an actual Franciscan friar walking down the street yesterday. It just… irrationally irritates me. I’m glad they’re all having a good time, but sometimes I just want to get my groceries home without being forced off the footpath by do-gooders playing hymns on a guitar. (That actually just happened.) I feel compelled to somehow redress the cosmic balance of our neighborhood. I’ve already hugged a lesbian, and I’ll be getting my Depo-Provera shot later this week. Hm, maybe I’ll donate some money to a pro-choice organisation. Any other ideas, short of hosting an actual Roman orgy in our living room?

Okay, so I’m looking forward to the vampire smut movie as much as anybody, but I gotta agree with the Fug Girls on this one: Cedric Diggory looks like zombie ass in that picture.

Woohoo! I just had my three-month performance review at work, and I rocked it. I felt like things were going really well, but you know me: I stress. It’s good to get some positive feedback and know that my efforts have been appreciated. There may be some big things in the pipeline too… but I don’t want to jinx anything.