Wednesday: Fuck Best Buy, too.

I spent part of the day today learning that no one ships UPSes to Hawaii.  Amazon doesn't, Dell doesn't, I gave up, but checking now it seems that Newegg does, but it costs $60 in shipping alone.

Since I came in to find my computer off again this morning, it seemed like wasting more time haggling over shipping could be better spent just buying a new UPS locally.  BB had a reasonable replacement in stock, so I went there after work, and after spiraling through their poorly designed store, located the UPS and surge protector section (oddly enough located in the center of the store, and went to checkout with the goal of price-matching it against their webpage.

I don't know why they don't just match the prices automatically, since the only implication is that they knowingly charge more when they think they can, because people are unlikely to do the price matching.  This seems like a corollary to my previous retail management rant.

I also have a complaint about the staffing at BB this evening.  Based on people I encountered spiraling the store, BB is staffed by:

• That big guy at the door who's there to stop you from stealing.
• Customer service has two people.
• Geek Squad has three.
• Generic service has one.
• The Apple section has one.
• There are three roving agents in computer and parts.
• There is no one in the movies/music section.  No employees, no customers.  It is a barren waste.
• Appliances has one guy leaning against large appliances.
• Cell phones have four people who were constantly setting up phones for people.  Do people do that?  Go to BB to get new cell phone service?
• One person running the register.

Looking at this, as I'm standing in line with a 25 pound UPS in my arms, the only conclusions I can make are:

1. Best Buy is not currently in the business of selling things.
2. Except maybe phones.
3. They will attempt to fix the tech things you bring in, but they're fully aware that you probably bought that laptop online.
4. Based on the sampling of people in line with me, most people really just need a USB thumb drive or a slightly odd battery.

Kind of a fall from the time back in undergrad where a trip to BB signaled that new movies and music were soon to arrive, or that a computer would obtain upgrades to make it effectively twice as good.

Anyway, this all started about UPS, so the UPS cartoon:

Now, Drawlloweens.

Yesterday's:

Witch.

I thought about coloring it, but I'm concerned it'd ruin it.  Maybe once Drawlloween is over, and I switch over to Art-Nouvember and my coloring book, I'll try some colored pencils instead of crayons.  I had originally thought about drawing Hermione (who was born ten days before I was), but decided that would be hard to get all the proportions right.  Instead, I went with McGonagal, with this image as the reference.  I wanted to get that green color, but crayons would make it too messy.

For today's:

"Black Cat"

This one I went through two sketch attempts before giving up and going with the stick-figure solution.  The joke was to be a drawing of Black Cat, the Marvel comic character who is sometimes a bad guy, and sometimes dates Spider-Man.  She's got a ridiculous costume, but when I went to get a reference shot, it turns out 99% of her art is a bit more porn-y than I'm willing to badly copy.  There's a cartoon version of her (from the recent, not 1990s S-M cartoon), which is better costumed and proportioned, but I couldn't find a decent reference image. 

Then I thought about her appearance in the Howard the Duck trade I got recently, but the flashback image:

Is going to look bad after I attempt it.

So maybe go with her other appearance in that issue?

But then it would have been confusing, because she's wearing a green coat that almost makes her look like McGonagall.  Also this isn't the silly costume with the white fringe everywhere which was the point.

So scribble scribble crayon black cat.

In other news:

Afternoon cider and doughnuts is the best idea I've ever had.

My pizza place is going to be under new management.  With an "expanded menu."  Can I hope for calzones?  I also hope that the pizza-teers who worked there will still be there.  I like them.

I did get my windshield wipers installed.  The solution was:

1. Wedge a screwdriver into the gap to pry a plastic clip up and out.
2. Jam the old wiper down while holding the clip down.
3. Repeat until the wiper comes off and the stupid clip thing jumps out of your hands onto the floor.
4. Do the same for the other wiper.
5. Call the old wipers "fucking bullshit rain monkeys" in frustration.
6. Get out new wipers.  Ignore all instructions suggesting needing to slide off outside fairing.
7. Open snap clip at the front of the new wiper.
8. Slide J wiper bar into the gap opened by the snap-clip.
9. Snap-clip closed, and remove the wiper condom.
10. Repeat for other wiper.
11. Call new wipers "more fucking bullshit."
12. Get in the car, and realize that the old passenger wiper was a 24 inch, and the new one is a 22 inch.
13. Declare "fuck it" and decide that losing that one inch isn't worth the hassle, although it does make me question wiper manufacturers even more if their online widget isn't consistent.

Finally, linkstorm:

• I'd never heard of Patrick Nagel, but his style has shown up in other places.  Unfortunately NSFW, as seeing a wider range of topics done in the style would be interesting.
• Tax policy.
• Ukraine while Reagan was president. -or- History is hard!
• This is stupid, and I thought people were smarter.  The thing that got me, other than the obvious "Who the fuck bullies over fanart they don't like?" was the "you cheated and copy pasted Rose's hair."  Lindsay Small-Butera at the Small-Butera illustration and animation compound puts out a bunch of super high symmetry character drawings, and I don't know if she just draws one half, copies it over and then finishes with final details or just naturally makes perfectly symmetric characters.  It doesn't matter to me, because the final product is cool looking.
• I was watching NOVA and the phrase "8 million dog mummies" came up.  SO I'm sharing that story.
• These all look tasty.  I'm a bit sad they didn't use the egg gif from Marnie.