"... because black people have the whitest teeth."

(From a Shanghai grocery store.)

This is going to be the best Olympics ever!

The downtown and E Pike Street AT&T stores are sold out, now offering a presale for delivery 10 days from now. Anyone standing in a line where they're still in stock?

Adfreak informs us that Wal-Mart has changed their logo:

The important thing that is lost here is the hyphen, which was represented as a star. This is actually a change in company culture.

When I lived in Colorado Springs, I worked many, many shitty jobs. I worked at a Wendy's for three hours, I was a landscaper, a mall Easter Bunny, a K-Mart shoe salesman and more. But worst of all, I worked to set up a Super Wal-Mart at the very end of my time in the Springs. I was desperate for cash. There were no customers, since the store had yet to open, which was a major plus.

The downside was that we had storewide meetings every single morning. Every single day, the store manager, whose name was Gary Peacock, would blast the song "Takin' Care of Business" on repeat and I and all of my other blue-vested compatriots would assemble around the makeshift stage, clapping in time with the music. At the end of every meeting, where we would hear about the progress of the store—mostly our job was assembling and stocking all the shelves, which, in a Super Wal-Mart, is a hell of a job—we would do the Wal-Mart Cheer. This is apparently the Wal-Mart way; other former Wal-Mart employees have told me that they've done the cheer, as well.

Peacock would shout, "Gimme a W!" and all the adults, dressed in their blue smocks, would hold their hands above their heads to make a giant W with their bodies. Then, he would shout "Gimme an A!" and we'd put our hands together to form an A and so on and so forth. It would end with a cheer, of course, and our morale would be suitably boosted for another day of shelf-stocking.

But the most demoralizing part of the whole thing was the hyphen. When we got to the space between the L and the M, Peacock would shout: "Gimme a squiggly!" and everybody would have to do the twist and lower ourselves to the floor before twisting back upright, while making a "Whooooooooooooop!" noise that got lower as we went down and higher as we stood back up. Never mind that it was a hyphen and not at all squiggly, a fact which drove me insane every single day. The worst part was that some of the employees fucking loved doing the squiggly. It was probably the high point of their days. They would laugh every time.

So what are the Peacocks of the world going to shout now, between the L and the M? Is there still going to be a squiggly? Are they going to acknowledge that it's an asterisk at the end? Or are they going to shout "Give me a Kurt Vonnegut asshole!" instead? And what will happen then, dear Lord, what, exactly, will happen then?

It's not like they taste like poop—or worse, carob—but 3 Musketeers has always been the candy bar you eat when there's nothing else. With their blandly sweet, fluffy inside and cheap milk-chocolate outside, 3 Musketeers are essentially virgin Milky Ways, or neutered Snickers, and are the preferred candy of no one on earth. (Not even those with nut allergies and/or caramel paralysis.)

However, last night I sampled the new 3 Musketeers Dark Chocolate Mint, and it is a candy worth loving. Thinner than the old-school Musketeer nougat log and split into two perfect-sized pieces, 3MDCM is a perfectly harmonious candy. Wrapped around the more slender form, the dark-chocolate enrobing achieves a bit more thickness than its milk-chocolate counterpart, and the dense mint-nougat center is like an Andes mint making love to a York Peppermint Patty. It's perfect.

Also, while we're on the topic of candy, can anyone tell me the difference between the impossible-to-find (perhaps discontinued?) Mars Bar and the ubiquitous Almond Snickers?

And it can be yours for a mere $15.00:

The seller is a company called Tshirts.com, which also stocks a large number of political T-shirts, band shirts, and "humorous" shirts like this one:

Amazon's seller policy prohibits the sale of items that are "illegal, inappropriate or offensive," which "includes any good or service that violates local, state, or federal laws or regulations or that would be generally offensive to others."

I think the "anti-abortion, pro-date-rape" T-shirt almost certainly qualifies--and so do the many customers who reviewed it.

Have you been craving that Mormon Fundamentalist Polygamist look for yourself and/or your pet? Then you simply must check out FLDSDress.com, where all the fashions that marched across our TV screens during the recent FLDS flare-up in Texas are available for sale to any and all.

As Slog tipper Tom wrote, "The Teen Princess Dress is every pedophile's dream!"

Personally, I think the site works best as an adolescent rebellion deterrent: "If you're not home by 11:30, young lady, your entire back-to-school wardrobe comes from here!"

Jezebel informs us that American Apparel has started selling the Hitachi Magic Wand. This is the first time that American Apparel has been linked to masturbation, ever.

(As a side note: I think that this is good news for cities that might not have great sex shops, but Seattleites should continue to buy their Hitachis from Babeland.)

So, what do you exfoliate with? Apricot pits? Sea salt? That's cool.

Oh, me? I exfoliate with volcanic fucking ash.

Thank you, M.A.C. Cosmetics, for providing me with (please read the following in Cookie Monster voice) theee most brutal exfoliating product of all tiiiiime (end Cookie Monster voice). And when I say brutal, I mean that only in the death metal sense of the word. This stuff is surprisingly gentle on the skin, especially when you consider its origins in the fiery molten depths of the Earth. Also, I heard it was made by Orcs.

Northwest Film Forum just happened to be playing a pair of films about Yves Saint Laurent the weekend he died.

If you'd still like to pay tribute to the inventor of the pantsuit, you still have time.

NWFF is playing the biographical documentary Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times again this Friday at 7:15 and 9:15 pm, and Yves Saint Laurent: 5 Avenue Marceau 75116 Paris, a doc about the designer's old-school, labor-intensive atelier in the year before it closed, on Friday at 7 and 9 pm.

I know I have an especially affecting Last Days Hot Tip when the Stranger copy editors hunt me down and berate me for torturing them.

They did just that after reading Friday's item in this week's column.

FRIDAY, MAY 23 Today brings a valuable lesson from Hot Tipper Caroline: "I was browsing for jeans yesterday in the Capitol Hill Value Village. I found a cute pair, but they didn't have a price tag on them, so I thought I'd try them on and if they fit then I'd ask someone for the price. I draped the jeans over my arm and continued going through the racks. While browsing, I smelled the distinct odor of pussy. Then it got stronger and became the distinct odor of pussy and piss. I looked at the jeans draped on my arm and, hating myself, leaned in slightly to see if the offensive odor was coming from them. It was. I hurried to get the jeans off my arm, only to realize they were soaking wet from the crotch through the thigh with still-warm urine. Obviously, someone had wet their goddamn pants, gone into Value Village, put on a different pair of jeans, and hung their piss-soaked jeans back on the rack. It's been almost 24 hours and I still have a grimace on my face. What continues to haunt me is that, in total shock and horror, I put the jeans back on the rack. Ladies, beware."

Caroline: My thanks.
Copy editors: My apologies.

Ad Age reports that "The Resistance"--a self-identified "Christian group" whose web site is sort of a delightfully nutty road map to pretty much every conspiracy theory ever conceived (VeriChip, we're told, is "the Pandora's Box of the mark of the Beast")--is launching a boycott of Starbucks because its new logo features "a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute."

Not to get all fact-y on the Resistance or anything, but actually, that logo's of a mermaid with a split tail, not legs--which, as Annie Wagner points out, is an image from Hans Christian Anderson's original Little Mermaid tale, in which the Little Mermaid drinks a potion and goes through indescribable pain (and loses her voice) in exchange for legs so she can pursue her Prince. In the end, the prince marries another woman (maybe he wasn't into mutes?), and the Little Mermaid flings herself into the ocean. So the moral of the Starbucks logo, if anything, is: Stay chaste, keep those knees together, and wait for your prince to come.

But, yeah. Boobies=Eek!

Sister VixXxen of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The best part about Sister VixXxen's outfit?

"It's all E-Bay, honey," she says.

OK, I'm not just picking a fight with ECB. I'm also linking to Paul Krugman, who for the first time in forever is not making up specious reasons why Hillary's policies are kind of sort of better than Obama's.

One reason why grain prices are skyrocketing, according to Krugman:

First, there’s the march of the meat-eating Chinese — that is, the growing number of people in emerging economies who are, for the first time, rich enough to start eating like Westerners. Since it takes about 700 calories’ worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef, this change in diet increases the overall demand for grains.

Pollan's mantra: Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants. Cut down on meat, and grain prices should respond.

First: A 32-year-old, 400-pound man expires after being detained by store security for trying to steal a hat from Macy's.

Second: A 22-year-old man was stabbed in the neck by a stranger while shopping at Macy's: "The suspect turned around, grabbed him from behind and stabbed him in the neck with a knife. The victim turned around and said to the suspect, 'What are you doing? I don't even know you.' The suspect replied by stabbing the victim in the shoulder three times."

Third: Macy's CEO's salary fell $2 million in 2007.

Fourth: In honor of its new "eco-awareness campaign," Macy's has mailed out a bunch of swag bound for dumpsters across America.

Doom!

They aren't all about edgy art. Underneath it all, Slog is just naturally risqué. But we wear it well. These sure are sexy...

This picture of Sloggi brand undergarments was taken in France by my father, who is cavorting about, uh, photographing women’s panties.

Via Seattlest.

The Wine Outlet celebrates its third anniversary with a pig roast on Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

There will be three pigs this year, one at the SoDo store and two at the larger Interbay store. There will also be cheeses, breads, and of course, cake. There will also be lots of specially priced wines for the event.

The owner, Richard, is the wine columnist for the P-I. I've never been to the Wine Outlet, but this all sounds pretty great.

Following the recent three-hour nationwide closure of all Starbucks stores for employee--pardon, associate--"Espresso Excellence Training," it was speculated that Starbucks might return to hand-pulled espresso (as opposed to automated, push-the-button machines). Nope: It was just a publicity stunt--pardon, remedial education for the baristas--sorry, pardon again, an effort to "elevate the Starbucks Experience.... revisit our standards of quality that are the foundation for the trust that our customers have in our coffee and in all of us.... But...equally important...to celebrate who we are" (from the ominously entitled "Howard Schultz Transformation Agenda Communication #8").

Then, yesterday in the first section of The New York Times, a full-page ad saying that if they mess up your coffee, you are free to let them know and they'll "make it right."

We believe that our baristas can hand-make any espresso beverage perfectly.

This is why we promise that if your drink isn't perfect, every time, let us know and we'll make it right. This isn't a promotion, this isn't "for a limited time only," this isn't "while supplies last." This is every coffee, every day, forever.

Welcome back to basics--pardon, excellence--where it is believed that you can expect un-messed-up coffee but, should your coffee prove to be messed up, you may ask to have it re-made, which will be really fun for everyone involved. Excellent!

... to appreciate the fact that the service was called the Emperor's Club VIP?! How skankily obsequious.

In 2000, nerd news mecca Slashdot reported that eBay was actively complying with Church of Scientology requests to take down auctions of used e-meters. At the time, eBay's explanation went as follows: "...someone who claims to be an owner of Intellectual property can send a notice sworn under penalty of perjury that an item is infringing." Plenty is said in the Slashdot piece about the ridiculousness of that allegation, along with the legal reasons nobody has challenged it--or, more specifically, has enough cash to file suit. Because they blew all their cash on those e-meters in the first place. Vicious cycle, much?

The story has resurged this week because this auction-canceling process has become mighty efficient. As reported by Reality Based Community, it turns out the CoS is now removing e-meter and other Scientology auction listings as a member of eBay's VeRO program. Wuz that mean?

If you’re uninitiated to eBay, you’d probably think that for each of these removals, the Church of Scientology informs eBay of the violation of its rights, eBay considers the merits of their argument, and then only then does eBay yank the listing. But that’s not what happens at all. Instead, eBay effectively deputizes Scientology, which logs into eBay and removes the listings itself.

VeRO was started to help legitimate companies clear out widespread false auctions (fake designer handbags, etc.) without nagging eBay over and over. Thanks to creative legal wording, the CoS is in the legal clear to join the program until someone effectively complains, even though it further blurs the CoS's line between religion and business. The whole thing cracks me up, really--with all of the negative press Scientology has gotten lately, are their leaders really worried about a booming stay-at-home membership surge? Do these new Scientologists join up after taking a particularly brutal personality survey on MySpace? Is an outlet store on the horizon in Burien? Quit with the overreacting, guys. Resold Scientology equipment will never have the same effect as the original material--the good shit. Handed to you by someone who can stand at your side and tell you that you're not good enough yet. Everybody knows an e-meter's worthless without that new-insecurity smell.

Today is one of Value Village's many 50%-off sales, this one because a bunch of American presidents have been born and then died. I was really excited about working at The Stranger for many reasons, and one of those reasons was the proximity to a Value Village.

The whole Value Village shopping experience is magical: Easy listening music, including songs you may not have heard since the late eighties! Six t-shirts and two pairs of pants for 18 bucks*! Crazy old men wandering around wearing Tommy Hilfiger sweats two sizes too big! Women faking orgasms over purple faux-silk tops!

Forget those semi-nude Lindsay Lohan pictures, this is the story of the day. There are still plenty of Christian Youth Group t-shirts to be bought, so get to it.

Continue reading "Millard Fillmore, I Love You" »

Let the alternative energy bubble begin!

Phoenix-based thin film solar-module maker said fourth-quarter earnings brightened to $62.9 million, or 77 cents a share, from $8 million or 11 cents a share in the year-ago period. Profit rose about 50% from the third quarter.
First Solar said revenue climbed to $201 million from $52.7 million in the year-ago period.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast earnings of 53 cents a share and revenue of $180 million, on average.

During the fourth quarter, First Solar said it benefited from the full capacity of its new Frankfurt/Oder plant.

Shares of First Solar rallied 18% to $207.91 on Wednesday.
The stock traded above $270 a share in late December, but fell to the $150 level amid rocky market conditions in recent weeks.