Yes, I now own a Snuggie

There are occasional moments in your life when you step back and ask yourself, "What the hell am I doing?" Sometimes it's over a major thing, and other times over something minor. Last night I asked myself this question over a minor thing when I found myself sitting in front of my laptop wearing a Snuggie.

I need to explain why I now own a Snuggie. I really do. At no point did I ever watch the infomercial and exclaim aloud, "A blanket with sleeves? By golly I could sure use that!" No, like every sane person in America, I simply wondered to myself, how does this differ from a robe exactly?

Then a few weekends back, the bars at Mt. Adams held it's second annual Snuggie Bar Crawl. I'd seen photos of the year's previous bar crawl, and thought that any opportunity to run around town dressed like a crazy person in a group was not something to be passed up. A friend of mine who'd received a Snuggie as a gag gift a while back was also down for it.

So, I had to buy a Snuggie. I opted for one with a UC Bearcats print all over it, because I figured if I'm going to look crazy, i might as well sport some school pride while I'm at it.

Unfortunately, for various reasons we ended up not doing the bar crawl, so now I had a sleeved blanket on my hands. My initial reaction was to return it, but it struck me as just being one of those things. You know, something that's all the rage for a few years, then twenty years later your kids look at you and ask, "No really, you need to explain why people would buy a Pet Rock, and did you ever own one?"

I decided that someday I will look at my future children and say, "Yes, I too bought a Snuggie, and someday it will be yours."

Okay, actually I thought it'd just be a fun thing to leave around the house. A conversation piece. If a guest came over and complained it was too cold, before turning up the heat, I could throw them the Snuggie. (This might have actually come in handy the year I threw a Superbowl party and realized that no matter how high I turned the main thermostat up, my basement still needed a space heater.)

Once the decision had been made that I would keep the Snuggie, the next logical thing was to try it on. I stood in front of the mirror and decided that yes, I looked like a crazy person. A crazy person who was a Bearcats fan. After that it made sense to see if there was anything about wearing it that felt more comfortable than say, layering up or wearing a robe. So, I sat in front of my computer wearing the thing, meaning to leave it on for a few minutes only.

Then twenty minutes later, I realized I was still wearing it.

Awkward.

It felt like I had somehow legitimized the existence of a perfectly useless product.

Well, twenty minutes wasn't going to be any worse than a half hour more. I decided to use as advertised: on the couch, remote in hand, a snack by my side.

One thing they fail to mention in the ads is that the Snuggie is not meant for walking around in, unless you're Kareem Abdul Jabbar. The fact that it covers your feet may be convenient when you're on the couch, but if you need to walk about, you have no choice but to hike that thing up and trot about like a geisha wearing a backless hospital gown.

I would love to have seen how intoxicated people bar hopping in Mt. Adams managed while wearing them.

Once on the couch it turned out it was comfortable and practical; more comfortable and practical than I should really admit. Then again, I haven't yet subjected it to a true test. A chilly basement in the spring is nothing compared to one in winter.

I guess I'll have to wait another nine months to find out if a thin layer of synthetic fleece around the arms is that much more convenient than reaching over the top of a blanket.

Thoughts on Best Picture

Seeing how movie-centric my blog has become, I figure I might as well weigh in on this year's entries for Best Picture. So, in my opinion, this year's best picture should be...

Up.

You thought I was going to say Avatar, didn't you. I'll admit, considering how glowing my earlier review was, it seems like it would have been my logical choice. While it was good, I think I was still riding some kind of buzz caused by the 3D IMAX when I wrote that. If it were another year, Avatar probably would have emerged as the clear winner, but this year was such a good year for movies.

Even with the Academy boosting the nominees from five to ten, it still feels like some movies got left out, like The Brothers Bloom or (500) Days of Summer, which is apparently a fictionalized account of why I'm in love with Zooey Deschanel and why she would probably break my heart if I went out with her.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. So why Up and not a record breaking blockbuster like Avatar or a critically acclaimed sleeper hit like The Hurt Locker? Though the special effects of Avatar may have been breakthrough, the premise did feel like old territory. And I'm not saying The Hurt Locker wasn't a fantastic movie either, but the lack of a central storyline did leave my mind disengaged on occasion.

But with Up, that was definitely an original piece of cinema from start to finish. We're talking about a movie about an old man and a little boy dragging a house across South America. I can't even think of what movie you could compare that to.

The film has such a wide range of characters, all of whom are so well developed. Just look at Carl's wife. Her entire life story is told from childhood to death over a five minute montage, and yet she feels as integral a character to the story as everybody else onscreen.

As for the characters that are onscreen for the bulk of the film, you have to give credit to filmmakers that can throw an little boy, an old man, an older villain, a pack of talking dogs and a giant bird together in the same movie and not have it feel like it's geared only towards children.

I'll admit, it's not the greatest animated movie of all time, and some would argue that only a movie that's achieved that status should be the one to be the first cartoon to win best picture. That status probably goes to something like Ratatouille, The Iron Giant or Wall-E, just to name a few recent ones. But best of the year doesn't have to mean best of all time, and I just think it would be nice of the Academy didn't define "Best Picture" as the most intensely dramatic movie with lots of crying and shouting and shooting of guns, but rather as the movie people will still be watching in large numbers a decade down the road.

I should also admit that I haven't seen all of the nominees. I have yet to see The Blind Side, An Education, Precious or Up in the Air. Maybe if I get around to those, one of them will blow me away as being an unmistakably original piece of cinema that should be watched in large numbers ten years down the road.

But for now, my money is on Up.

Ten Random Movies to watch during a Snowpocalypse

So the weatherman says you're not going anywhere for the next few days. Lo and behold, it turned out he was right. Why not take this opportunity to call up a few friends within walking distance and pop in a movie? To help you figure out what to watch, here's a list of ten movies that have nothing to do with each other aside from the fact that they're easy to enjoy (and may or may not have some snow related elements to them).

Odds are you have a few of them in your collection too. If not, hopefully you're within walking distance of a Blockbuster.

10. Die Hard 2

Yeah. The first one is without question the best, but if you're going to be trapped at home in a snowstorm, why not watch a movie about fighting terrorists in a snowstorm? Just try to look past the fact that it involves a terrorist plot that probably involved months of planning, yet seems entirely reliant upon the fact that there is a blizzard on the day they try to pull it off.

9. Ratatouille

Every time I watch this movie I get a strange compulsion to cook a big fancy meal and knock back a bottle of wine. Maybe you're the same way, maybe not. But if you're not going anywhere for the night, it's a good dinner/movie combo. It would have made an even better dinner/movie/wine combo had Costco decided to go through with it's plans to sell Ratatouille inspired wine.

8. The Saint

A good heist movie is always fun, but this one is a personal favorite of mine. Maybe it's because this one strive to be slightly more epic than the usual heist movie. Instead of just being about a thief pulling off a big job, it's a big job that ultimately involves taking on the Russian mafia. The score for this movie is pretty kick-ass too (if you're into electronica). And if anything, this movie should put your little snowstorm in perspective, reminding you that at least you're not in Russia.

7. The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

This is one of those movies I think everybody saw and everybody loved. It's just a great revenge story that builds up slowly but keeps a good momentum going all the way through with all it's little twists and turns. Jim Caviezel as the Count is a guy you genuinely want to root for, and Guy Pearce is genuinely despicable as the villain. And dude... there's sword fighting!

6. The Wonder Boys

There was a running gag when this movie was released that it was the best reviewed movie of the year that nobody was seeing. I suppose it's because it's also a really hard movie to make a trailer for. The film follows an english professor, played by Michael Douglas, over the course of a weekend as his school hosts a writer's festival. All the problems in his life mash together all at once from his novel he can't seem to finish to the affair he's having with his boss's wife. I'd explain more, but that would just take away from a lot of fun of discovering the film's best moments for yourself.

5. Stardust

Yep. More sword fighting. I suppose I could have just as easily put The Princess Bride in this spot, but you've probably seen that movie to death by now, whereas Stardust is still building it's audience. Also, it's got one thing that The Princess Bride doesn't: a fight scene set to "The Can-Can" featuring Robert DeNiro in drag.

4. Gladiator

I don't know about you, but these days I'm usually too busy to watch any movie that pushes over two hours. I suppose that's what weekends are for, but it does sound a bit anti-social to say you're not going to meet up with friends because you want to watch a two and a half our epic. Hopefully when Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe team up again for Robin Hood it will be at least half as good as this.

3. Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Sure, you can write it off as a chick-flick, but there's a reason why people are still making movies based on a book that's almost 200 years old. It's a story romance story which actually convinces you that the main characters are falling in love, as opposed to just being a few well paid Hollywood actors stuck in some gimmicky plot. This version also manages to be a costume drama without being a "stuffy" costume drama.

If you're only familiar with this story through the mash-up novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, maybe you can try watching this back to back with Shaun of the Dead to put you in familiar territory.

2. Superbad

'Nuff Said.

1. Your Favorite Disney Movie

I think we all have some movie that we thought kicked ass when we were kids then when we watched it years down the road realized it was so bad you almost wanted to apologize to your parents for making them take you to see it. (Personally, I'm still trying to figure out what was going through my mind when I dragged my parents to see Super Mario Bros. on the same weekend that Jurassic Park opened.)

However, I'm willing to bet two things:

• That Disney movie you loved when you were young will still be as enjoyable now as it was back then.
• You haven't watched it in years.

For me, it's Aladdin. After this movie came out I wanted my own flying carpet more than anything. (Okay, so I still do). Whatever Disney movie you get nostalgic for, the animation will still look sharp, the voice acting will still sound natural, and you'll probably still find yourself singing along to the songs.

So there's my list. Hopefully it helps. I suppose I should have put this out before this most recent storm hit so you could have ventured out to Blockbuster, or put one of these in your Netflix queue before you got locked in, but I suspect you've got at least one of these movies in your collection already.

This Might Qualify as Irony

As I mentioned earlier, I was at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, an event that was sponsored in part by AT&T. Early in the game they ran an ad on the JumboTron; it was the one where Luke Wilson tries to download a copy of himself on the Verizon network and on AT&T at the same time.

Suddenly, it struck me that now might be a good time to take a photo on my iPhone and upload it onto Facebook. I'd never really bothered doing the mobile upload thing before, but this seemed like as good occasion as any.

I took out my phone, and this is what I saw.

In case the what's going on here isn't immediately clear, let me spell it out for you:

1. I'm at an even't sponsored by AT&T.

2. My phone is exclusive to AT&T's network.

3. I have just seen an ad touting the superiority of AT&T's network over Verizon.

4. I have no service on my phone.

This wasn't a case of too many people trying to use the system at the same time and calls not getting through, which I realize tends to happen at sporting events. I flat out wasn't getting reception.

As the game went on, my phone finally picked up a signal, but still didn't have 3G service, or EDGE coverage for that matter. (EDGE is the high speed data service that AT&T uses where 3G coverage is not available.)

You'd think that an AT&T sponsored event is the one place in America that you'd be guaranteed complete service. Instead, I got the exact opposite.

My advice to AT&T: Instead of wasting your money suing Verizon, or making ads that argue Verizon's ads are only technically correct but are misleading anyways... fix your damn network.

Bearcats on Holiday

You wouldn't have known that Cincinnati was expected to lose the Sugar Bowl if you had been to New Orleans last week. Yes, we were all aware that Florida was favored to win. Even I, with my near-complete ignorance of sports rankings, understood that Florida was playing at a level that UC just wasn't at yet, Brian Kelly or no Brian Kelly.

But secretly, we all were expecting to UC to beat the odds. In fact, we were all hoping for a victory so epic that Disney would have been knocking on doors at UC the next day to buy the movie rights, and had you been there, you'd have thought the same thing too.

Cincinnati definitely represented itself down in New Orleans. So many Cincinnatians showed up that on New Year's Eve, everywhere I went, I ran into old classmates, old co-workers and people I knew just from around Clifton. Throughout New Year's Eve, all along that miracle mile known as Bourbon Street, crowds were spontaneously breaking out into UC chants. Meanwhile, Gators fans seemed to sheepishly roam about trying to find a bar where they weren't severely outnumbered.

If the idea of us winning seemed like a nice thought to entertain on New Year's Eve, we expected it to be a reality on game day. At some of the Sugar Bowl events around town, like the pre-game party at the House of Blues, it looked like a Bearcats-only event. Gators fans were becoming more visible around town, but the comment I heard most often out of them was, "No seriously, where are all of our fans?"

I think even the residents of New Orleans were rooting for us. As a hotel employee put it, "More of you showed up, which means more of you brought money into our city." Hard to argue with that rationale.

As the afternoon rolled on, the Bearcats collected at the Marriott where the team was staying. The lobby was eventually unnavigable and by the time the team was boarding the bus, we had overflowed into the street.

When everybody was seated at the Superdome, it was clear how many more Bearcats than Gators showed up to the game. Our student section was completely saturated. I think we filled up about 3/4 of the top level, while the Gators took up less than half. It really looked like we might win this thing after all, (if this was determined by crowd support).

Then kickoff happened, reality set in and I don't want to talk about it.

After the game, I thought it was going to be a bad night. I thought that either the Bearcat fans would hide out in their hotel rooms too embarrassed to go back out, or everywhere we went, Gators fans would be rubbing their victory in our faces.

Instead, there was a sort of mutual respect among fans of the rival teams. We couldn't argue that they played a better game, but they couldn't deny that we made a better showing to support our team, especially considering how much farther we had to travel to get to the game.

Black Friday Part II

For obvious reasons, the actual morning part was unpleasant. Since doors opened at 5 a.m. we had to get there at least by 4:30 a.m. to set up, and have another quick pep talk. As a cashier, there wasn't much to set up besides making sure that the register was ready to go and that enough bags were on hand. The other departments might have had to do more, and the managers definitely had to get there earlier. At any rate, the 3 a.m. - 4 a.m. zone is around when it's debatable whether you're better off trying to get a short night's sleep in or just staying up all night. I opted for the short sleep.

On the way to the store, I drove past one of our competitors. This gave me a false sense of security since the crowd in front was nothing more than a half hour's amount of work do deal with.

Then I got to my store. Without exaggeration, I can tell you that the line was at least two football fields long. I admit, I mildly felt like some kind of rock star or celebrity as I walked in. There was a notable rise in the customers' excitement level, since they knew that once the grunts arrived, the show would soon start.

I didn't feel tired. It just felt like I wasn't capable of performing any advanced mental functions. I could do my job well enough, just not any advanced mathematical calculations.

The guard stood at the door, watching the clock for the official countdown of when to open the door. When the time came to do so, I can tell he did so with a bit of hesitation. If it's not a customer who gets trampled to death on black friday, it's usually the employee who opens the door.

The door opened and the customers started flowing in. First they just speed walked, maybe so as not to embarrassingly eager. This lasted long enough for them to get past the security desk, then the full-on ran.

From there, it was like watching that scene from Jurassic Park where Dr. Grant and the kids are in the valley watching the flock of gallimimuses run past before suddenly taking a sharp turn and running in their direction. We had about three minutes from when they walked into the door to when they made it to the registers merchandise in hand.

We were well prepared. All lanes were open. The line was properly corralled. Our managers were on hand at all times to deal with everything from problem customers, to computer errors to just plain running low on change. We only needed to turn around, give a motion and the'd be at hand.

We even had employees whose sole duty was to wait in the wings until one of us had to take a bathroom break or something. We'd make the gesture and be swapped out. It was also the one time we were allowed to keep a coat under our register so that we wouldn't stand out as employees if we had to run to the back. They didn't want us having to deal with the dilemma of having to either brush a customer off onto another employee (which was bad) or not making it back to the register promptly (which was also bad).

The onslaught didn't stop for three hours. Three hours of repetitively making the same gestures of swiping and bagging and trying to sell the same extended warranties on the same products. Thankfully, those practically sold themselves. With computers and video game systems, everybody had heard enough horror stories that they almost expected them to fail but bought them anyway, with the warranty. Cameras and TVs were another story, but nobody got bent out of shape on us not selling warranties those.

Things slowed down around 8am, which was enough time for us to take our breaks. The early morning rush crowd had gone home, so we had some downtime until the second wave. The veterans told us that usually around 10-ish we'd get hit by another mass of customers who wanted to take part in the Black Friday frenzy without the part where they camp out in front of a store all night. This was the group that wanted to enjoy the sale, but didn't care for the ridiculously marked down merchandise.

Sure enough, when ten o'clock hit the crowd surged again. Once again, it was a never-ending stream of people coming through, just as strong as the early morning crowd. This rush only lasted for about two hours. It might have gone on a bit longer than that, but at noon my shift ended and I was able to go home and sleep, slightly perplexed by how I managed to do a full day's work before noon.

The sad part is that it still didn't stop me from going back to the store later that day to take in the sales myself...

Black Friday from Employee Perspective

Part I: Training

So Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) is almost upon us again. It's the day that many retailers bet on turning a profit for the year. It is also arguably the most apeshit insane day in retail year upon year.

This is a day where people forgo spending a quiet night in with the family to camp out in front of a store all night in the hopes of obtaining cheap electronics. (I should also point out that it's the one night of the year specifically reserved for spending time with family, regardless of religious affiliation.) This is also a day where people have historically died on numerous occasions, often trampled to death by the horde of ravenous shoppers trying to snag a cheap laptop.

So what's it like to actually to work on a Black Friday? I suppose if you work at a store that doesn't sell expensive electronics, it's just a busier than average day. Back in 2004, I worked at a big box retailer over the holidays, and that is ground zero for shopping mayhem.

The first thing I was told when I started the job was that I would be working the Black Friday shift. This wasn't offered as a question. This was made clear as day. If you work here over the holidays, you're working Black Friday. You are not going to grandma's house if she lives out of town. You are not weaseling out of this later. Unless you could definitively produce plane tickets purchased prior to your employment, you were going to be at the store.

To train us for the big day every saturday in November, we had to come in for meetings at 7 or 8 in the morning. First we'd be shown a video to get us hyped up about Black Friday. By hyped up, I mean try to get you to not loathe the fact you might have to get up at 4 a.m. the day after thanksgiving.

On a subtler level, they remind you that when the company makes a big profit, they can afford to keep giving you paychecks.

Eventually, we started doing simulations during the meetings. One department at a time was supposed to assume their normal roles while the rest of us represented the throng of customers demanding cheap merchandise. Ideally, it was to make sure that everybody knew what the sale items were, how to deal with irate customers forty at a time and so on. The side benefit was that we got to therapeutically act out as our worst customers so that we wouldn't snap at them when the real time came.

We'd pretend to be the guy who'd complain that we didn't have any half priced laptops left even though he got there an hour after we opened our doors. The guy who just grabbed random merchandise and just ran for the register. The one who tries to beat an old lady senseless to wrench a digital camera out of her hands. The one insist we're trying to scam him by not honoring a sale price when in reality he grabbed a completely different item than what was listed in the flyer.

I didn't have to be on the other side of the simulations since I was a cashier. My responsibilities for the day amounted to a bit of a trade off. On the one hand, it would be a never ending onslaught of people. On the other hand, I wouldn't be expected to sell all of the extended warranties, loyalty program memberships, magazine subscriptions that they usually expected to hammer the customer with at a time when they weren't prepared to spend any more money than they already were. At most we'd only have to mention an extended warranty once, per customer, and only if it was for something in the video game console price range or above.

At any rate, it wasn't worth anybody's time for the employees to line up and pretend to be a never-ending slew of fake customers making fake purchases. So, they just reminded us not to mess up.

Of course no amount of training can really get you excited for having to wake up at 4 a.m. on a holiday weekend.

Next: Part II - The actual day