Archive for August, 2004
Heliopod Update
Monday, August 30th, 2004
This is just a quick fanboy post to let everyone know that if you haven’t been to secrettechnology you are not using the internet correctly. Jason Nelson has made the most interesting interactive electronic word creations I’ve ever seen, and I actually got to talk with him twice when he visited UMD last year. Go look at his stuff unless you have some freaky aversion to flash which would also lead me to believe you are some sort of communist.
End of an Era…Again
Thursday, August 26th, 2004
Today was my last day at the video store, which will cease to exist on Friday. It was especially boring today because my manager left 4 hours early to get his GRE results. Work all day alone? Why not? The problem was that I really was alone, not even any customers to keep me company. I spun around in my chair (thats right, I took the chair out of the office so I wouldn’t have to stand all day like normal) for most of the day, but I got a parting shot from the fiends of the world when a guy bought 3 dvds and 2 tapes for $67. He might as well though, all that stuff is getting flushed down the toilet in a few days. Then a group of 4 black guys who only spoke French came in and wanted to rent a copy of Winning Eleven 7, but of course they didn’t have a membership. He started to fill out a membership application (despite the fact that it will be useless in 2 days) but he stopped when he realized that I knew where they actually SOLD the game, not just rented it. I gave them directions to EB and my prayers were answered when they didn’t come back before I left for the day/ever. I scored a screener copy of 50 First Dates and The Human Stain today, which are not that exciting but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyone want them? I did finally get that huge poster for Naqoyqatsi that was nonsensically in the porn room, despite the fact that we didn’t carry the movie. Justin came in for my last 5 minutes of work, and also for a great big rant from Big Al. I’m glad someone else got to see that before the place “blew up”. You know, we had a lot of fun at that store’s expense, but its important to remember, independent video stores make the world go ’round. That is, if your world is a porn fueled runaway rollercoaster to the darkest part of the human psyche. 
Boat Tripping
Tuesday, August 24th, 2004
As if to make up for being full of freaky porn and stuff, I found a copy of Alice today on the shelf. It has Darkness/Light/Darkness on the same disc, which is a quality bit of insane claymation. The best part of work today though was when a regular couple came in. The guy shares the account with his brother, so I told him a copy of Boat Trip was overdue, and it really wasn’t worth letting fees rack up on. APPARENTLY he thought this meant it was a porn (its a Cuba Gooding Jr. movie, so its technically worse). He made some joke about how mad he was at his brother for watching a porn without him and his girlfriend went NUTS. I dunno if this is something they argue about a lot or what, but things got fairly heated. In the end they just kind of stormed out, yet another relationship destroyed…by CUBA GOODING JR.!! SNOW DOGS SHOW ME THE MONEY OMG!!
Good Eye
Wednesday, August 18th, 2004
First off, I took a picture of this to prove to everyone (including myself) that the store actually existed at one point, since the changeover is coming on the 27th apparently. Also, its hilarious looking. I was talking around putting movies back, and I kicked a VHS back into the shelf so it wouldn’t get knocked out when someone walked past. Something made me turn back around and see what it was, since people don’t usually mess around in the VHS “mature” section (this is the softcore stuff, its not actually in the porn room aka “The Shire”). It was a copy of Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks. Here and here is the review of Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS care of Something Awful. I assume its more of the shame. The community is really going to hurt when the Potamus goes away.
Facez?
Tuesday, August 17th, 2004
Since today was VERY busy at work I sat on the floor and perused the VHS wall of martial arts and horror movies. On the recommendation of a customer I sought out the Traces of Death tape we have, but the back doesn’t really tell me much. I thought he misspoke, but we have several movies that are just collections of real footage (or maybe “real”? I’m not sure of some of it) of people getting killed. We’ve got:
- Faces of Death
- Facez of Death (no IMDB?)
- The Many Faces of Death
- Traces of Death
- Faces of War
We have several of most of those series as well, I really can’t figure out how Hollywood Video wouldn’t want to put those in their library! How can you pass up that obvious dedication to tapes of people dying? Speaking of that, we had the “official” meeting about being bought out today, and the district manager was talking about how they were getting rid of the adult section. The best part was that he said it was going to INCREASE business, but I looked that the security camera at that exact moment and the porn room was packed with people. I laughed inside.
Funny Porn Title of the Day: Tight But Loose
ADDITION: I almost forgot, but today I scored VHS copies of They Call Me Phat Dragon and Master Of The Flying Guillotine. How about that?
Talkies
Sunday, August 15th, 2004
I don’t know if anyone actually sat through the parade of nations during the obviously highly drug influenced Olympic opening ceremonies, but at the end Björk sang a song off her new album Medúlla called Oceania. She had this crazy dress on that unraveled into this big blue sheet that covered all the athletes and had a big picture of the globe projected on it, so when she was done singing it was all spread out. This would have been really cool if Matt Lauer and Katie Couric could SHUT THEIR FUCKING MOUTHES.
Matt: “I sure hope they measured that dress right, or else she’s gonna fall off!! Dur Dur.”
Katie: *indecipherable squawking noises*
SFX: *2 gun shots*
Shut up guys, seriously. You’re not getting paid by the word here. Oh well, the cd comes out on the 30th anyway, and you can watch the music video for Oceania on Björk’s site in the meanwhile.
End of an Era
Saturday, August 14th, 2004
So when I went to get my check today from the Potamus, I found out Hollywood Video was buying the store, and in 2 weeks it’ll be totally changed over. This means Dan, my manager will quit because he doesn’t like “all the rules” of a big business video chain. I guess he didn’t enjoy his Blockbuster tenure, or at least not as much as working for a small porn riddled video chain. The big question is how things will change, since they said basically they are going to take all the movies in the store and get rid of them, to replace them with the Hollywood Video mandated stuff I suppose. This only effects me slightly, as I was planing on quitting on the 10th, but it looks like I’ll be leaving on the 4th instead. The biggest effect of all this though is that I am 99% sure Hollywood doesn’t carry porn, so thats going to alienate like 50% of the regulars to the store. Also the computer system isn’t going to carry over, so everyone is going to have to re-register, basically voiding the efforts of those few people who racked up like 200 rentals without using their free ones (you get one every 20 rentals). Hope you weren’t saving those for anything in particular! The best part though was someone came to argue about fees with Dan while I was there, and he just took them off without an argument. “Who really cares at this point.” I guess its true, if the computers don’t carry over its not really going to matter.
I’m not really surprised or sad about all this, the rental business is basically going down the tubes since Netflix and the Comcast cable On Demand stuff came along, and this was just a temporary job for me anyway. Blockbuster is trying to do a Netflix type promotion where you pay a flat rate for the month, but not only is it more expensive, there isn’t any of the convenience of having a movie mailed to you, and you still have to deal with retarded cashiers. (like me!) In any case, if you wanted to rent any porn or whatever (I would assume you don’t have an internet connection if you do though, so you’re probably not even reading this right now), hop to it cause Purple Potamus is not long for this world.
Schoooooool
Wednesday, August 11th, 2004
Thank you Karl, this explains so much.
Klassic Krazy
Tuesday, August 10th, 2004
As if to make up for the past few days of peace and quiet, today had a bunch of strangeness at everyone’s favorite Fiend Video. I heard about the branch that is closing on King St. in VA from both the owner of the “chain” of two (now one) stores, and my manager. Apparently the VA store catered to “adult males” which meant they had over 800 porn DVDs (we only have a meager 250). On the subject of selling off the movies, the owner informed us that he would “rather throw them away then sell them for a few cents profit.” Fun! Then, someone called to ask me if a “video-film” they returned was checked in. If that doesn’t mean anything to you I suggest you watch Home Movies on Adult Swim before they take it off the air again.
The main course of crazy today though was a potential coworker. He came in to talk to Dan about when he should start working, etc. BUT, then he stuck around for about an hour, just bumming around the store and making me hate my job even more, which is saying something. He is either slightly retarded or REALLY crazy, I can’t decide which, but he had so many quality quotes I actually started to write notes down. Here you go:
- # of times he mentioned getting a VHS copy of The Rundown AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (none are available at the store now): 34
- # of times he asked me if we had Icon vs Icon: The Rock vs Hulk Hogan (we don’t AND I couldn’t find it on IMDB either): 77
From here it gets more complex. He apparently worked for the Knights of Columbus, and was offered to “take over” the organization. HOWEVER. He told them he was not “ready for the big chair.” This was emphasized by the fact that he repeated “not ready for the big chair” 5 times in a row. This lead into a discussion of politics. When this guy came in my manager was involved in a long political discussion with a customer. My crazyman told me I should NEVER discuss politics at the workplace, and he was PROUD to see I didn’t get involved. I capitalize those words because he puts extreme emphasis on some words, seemingly randomly. Then he told me the important thing was to “go where the money is” (we get minimum wage) and to find out where people’s LOYALTIES lie (not with Fiend Video). When he heard I was going to Japan he said “but…don’t you need a PASSPORT for THAT?” like it was a major feat to have a passport. Then he said he was “concerned to hear” I was going overseas since Japan is such a hotbed of terrorist activity apparently. So when I started to crack up at this point he told me to “seriously watch my BACK” and assured me “being alive is better than being DEAD.” Damn straight man, you really opened my eyes. So in the middle of all this my manager just looks at me and says “I feel like I’m making a mistake here somehow.” Good thinking man, enjoy getting out of this one. The only question we’re left with is where do YOUR loyalties lie??
Hey Hipster
Friday, August 6th, 2004
I thought this was funny and appropriate considering my current job. (To give credit where credit is due, I got this link from Theresa, who apparently stole it from Jonas. What a tangled web we weave.) However, it should be noted that no one at Fiend Video is like this, most of the people who work there have REALLY crazy/bad taste in movies. So they would never put someone down for liking Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! when they like something like Motives. I NEVER saw the twist coming!! What about me you ask? Well I just hate Starbucks.
