I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

NEPEAN YOKOHAMA KAIDASHI KIKOU (Nepean Shopping Log)

4^th ANNUAL¹ INTERNATIONAL BUY NOTHING DAY "BUY SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF AND PISS OFF A COMMUNIST DAY" SUPER SPECIAL!

Well, "Buy Nothing Day", a day when uppity, Adbusters-reading, "anti-consumerist" left-wing activist wannabes congratulate themselves for the grandiose achievement of... not going shopping for a single day, was an abject failure yet again, with American consumers packing stores from coast to coast to take advantage of the myriad of massive one-day-only discounts offered by retailers on "Black Friday", the day after American Thanksgiving where retailers start making a profit for the year, thanks to people taking advantage of the long holiday weekend (in the United States) to get a start on their Christmas shopping (although a lot of people spend "Black Friday" shopping for themselves, which is fine).

So, as usual, even though it's not technically Black Friday in Canada since Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, I heeded my "Buy Something Nice for Yourself and Piss Off a Communist Day" motto, "Participate by not participating... in not participating", and headed for the mall. My destination this year? I felt like going to Bayshore Shopping Centre, because I haven't been there in a month or so. And what was my designated official "Buy Something Nice for Yourself and Piss Off a Communist Day" purchase going to be? I had a couple of possibilities in mind, but I don't need to type them out as I'll just tell you in this video I recorded (though I'll type my words out anyway in the transcript I'll write after for those of you who can't see embedded YouTube videos or can't understand my mumblings).

(Walking around the second storey of Bayshore Shopping Centre at closing time, heading towards the OC Transpo doors, sipping a Pepsi from KFC.)

Steve Brandon: Hi, this is Steve Brandon coming at you at Bayshore Shopping Centre on "Buy Nothing Day", or, as I like to call it, "Buy Something Nice for Yourself and Piss Off a Communist Day".

(Awkward pause.)

Ahhh... (slight cough)

I wasn't coming here for anything in particular. I checked out... uhh... Ra... uh, the former Canadian Radio Shack, but they call it The Source by Circuit City now, 'cause I... heard that there's a pretty sweet radio-controlled Ferrari Enzo for, like, twenty-five or so bucks, but, man, they didn't have anything Ferrari at Ra- "The Source, Not 'Radio Shack' Anymore".

I also went to Coles bookstore 'cause I... wanted to see if they had Barasui's Strawberry Marshmallow manga in, but, nope, they didn't have that either.

Aaannnnddd.... I went to Zuh... Zellers to see if they had... uhhh... like, any more Ferrari stuff, like from Maisto or something, like the non-radio-controlled kind, but nothing new that I didn't already have.

So what did I buy at... in the end?

(Camera tilts around erratically as Steve Brandon tries to pull something out of a plastic bag.)

(Shows 6teen: Deck the Mall DVD case to camera before turning the camera back towards his head.)



6teen: Deck the Mall collection of Christmas episodes, based... from the popular Canadian series from Nelvana on Teletoon.

So...

(Pans camera towards DVD case and then quickly back towards his head.)

TAKE THAT, COMMUNISTS... Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

This is Steve Brandon² (cuts out.)

Wow! Wasn't that an amazing video? What part of the video are you in awe of the most? My not-at-all stilted and nervous delivery? (What a natural communicator I am! I'm such a great orator that CNN Headline News should have me do a primetime show, right between Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck!) My sexy accent? The fantastic cinematography? (Okay, it's just my big fat head, for the most part, but I honestly do like the way the stores are moving in the background behind my head.)

I also went to HMV, which was the first place I checked for the 6teen DVD. I checked the children's section, and also the anime/animation section, but it wasn't in either. I wonder if the title makes it difficult for it to shelve, as some places put 6teen before even the A's, as the title begins with a number, while others put it under S, for "Sixteen".

And, as you can tell from the cup, I went to KFC for a mini-meal. Rather than my usual Spicy Big Crunch, I went for the smaller Classic chicken sandwich combo. Annoyingly, they didn't have ANY french fries left, and I wasn't really in the mood for one of the alternatives that they presented me, coleslaw, potato salad, nachos, or gravy (what the hell's the point of offering me gravy if you can't provide me with fries), but I did go for the offer of upsizing my Pepsi, since KFC appears to have downsized their medium Pepsi (stock photo), presumably either thanks to the Morgan Spurlock-inspired nanny state nutrion gestapo pressure groups or because Pepsico's Yum! Brands, which controls KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, is just being cheap, so things turned out relatively alright in the end, though it still sucks worse than the time that the Rideau Centre McDonald's was completely out of ketchup.

I've already taken a bunch of photos of Bayshore Shopping Centre on past visits, but I still took a couple this evening, mainly showing Christmas decorations.



A computer at the back of HMV with a display that I thought neat because of the retro, low-resolution, ASCII art version of the HMV logo. Besides loving capitalism, I've always loved corporate logos. I'm like the Anti-Naomi Klein.



A third-storey display with giant Christmas boxes and an elf riding a star. That elf seems to enjoy riding that star a bit too much. As though he feels funny, kind of like when you climb the rope in gym class. Or, maybe, he's imagining that he's mounting that Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Vibrating Broom.



I honestly wanted to get a picture of "Santa Claus" sitting in his "throne", but, since there were still a lot of children waiting in line to sit in his lap, I couldn't exactly be lurking around with my camera. I thought this angle, from above, was the least creepy way I could get a shot of him.



That concludes my annual "Buy Something Nice For Yourself and Piss Off a Communist Day" write-up. I'd include a scan of the receipt of my "official purchase", but I'm having scanner problems that I still need to resolve.

PREVIOUS "BUY SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF AND PISS OFF A COMMUNIST DAY" ENTRIES:

"BUY SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF AND PISS OFF A COMMUNIST DAY" 2003, wherein I went to downtown Montreal and bought the anime film Millennium Actress on DVD at Metro Video.
"BUY SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF AND PISS OFF A COMMUNIST DAY" 2004, wherein I went to the Faubourg de L'Ile shopping centre in Pincourt, and bought a previously-viewed copy of Kill Bill Vol. 2 at Pincourt Blockbuster.
"BUY SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF AND PISS OFF A COMMUNIST DAY" 2005, wherein I went to St. Laurent Shopping Centre and bought a quarter-size bottle of Smirnoff vodka.

¹ Technically, as far as I'm concerned, it's at least the sixth annual International "Buy Something Nice for Yourself and Piss Off a Communist Day", but I didn't get a blog until 2003.

² I actually said "This is Steve Brandon, signing off." and the original file has me saying the full sentence, but YouTube cut off the final second, for some reason.

Oh, apparently I have to write "Buy Something Day" in the text of this article if I want this entry to show up for that term in Google Blogsearch. And, for that matter, I don't think I've written "Ottawa" anywhere in the text of this entry.

Labels: Black Friday, Buy Nothing Day, Buy Something Day, Buy Something Nice for Yourself and Piss off a Communist Day, Ottawa

posted by Steve Brandon @ 5:50 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

IS CHRISTO'S LATEST PIECE OF ARTWORK IN OTTAWA?

What important Ottawa landmark has been covered by orange plastic, and is environmental artist "Christo" in any way involved?


(Jeopardy music.)


Answer:





Nope, this isn't a piece in Christo's "surround it with plastic" oeuvre, it's just a McDonald's restaurant, specifically the franchise on Bank Street in southern Ottawa near South Keys Mall and Hunt Club Road, that has been covered by an orange tarp "tent" for external renovations.

Here's the exact same McDonald's in August, for comparison.




I went to see Happy Feet at the South Keys Mall Cineplex Odeon cinema on Saturday evening and I pretty much completely enjoyed it, although the anti-overfishing message at the end, although it's a valid concern (with the obvious solution being fish farming, which the political activist-type environmentalists don't like either), was much too heavy-handed. I'm on the fence on writing a review of this one, but there are so many other things I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet that I still want to review, so I'll see.

I don't know if it was just all of the trailers at the beginning, because, even if the Happy Feet showtime was 7:30 p.m., I didn't actually leave the cinema until about 9:45 p.m., for a movie that was supposed to be just a hair over 90 minutes long. I was fending for myself that evening for supper, so, as usually is the case, I made a beeline for the closest McDonald's (which would technically be the one in the South Keys Mall Wal-Mart, I know, but the Wal-Mart closes at 10 p.m.) only to find something severely wrong with that McDonald's, like how the Golden Arches weren't lit up and how the restaurant itself seemed to have been replaced by a giant orange circus tent, only without the clowns... well, except for the Ronald statue, obviously... and elephants (dang).

The restaurant seemed closed, but there still seemed to be some activity inside, which was probably mostly the renovation construction workers, but I'm sure that I spotted a couple of blue-uniformed McDonald's employees.



I opted to have a number 6 Spicy Chicken Filet sandwich combo at the nearby Wendy's, at Bank and Hunt Club, instead.



On the way back up Bank to the South Keys OC Transpo stop, I noticed the drive-through and the side door area of the McDonald's were still uncovered, and I saw activity inside, though all of the seats were on the tables, so, even if the restaurant was still in operation during the renovations, it seemed to have been closed by 10 p.m.

Not that there's really any point to this anecdote, I just find the pictures I took a little surreal.





Speaking of outdoor renovations, the landlord is having window guys over here on Tuesday morning to replace both of the street-facing bedroom windows, and that includes my bedroom window, so I'll have to go to bed early (though it just turned 3 a.m. while I'm writing this sentence, so not that early) and get up... just so I can fall asleep again on the downstairs couch (really just a love chair), with Sakura and Tomoyo looking down on me from the Cardcaptor Sakura beachtowel hanging above.



The annoying thing is that, since we obviously can't sequester our two big and noisy dogs in the bedroom area, since that's where the work to be done will be done, they'll be shut up in the laundry room mere metres from where I hope to finish my snoozing. I'm sure I'm going to be a zombie for the rest of the day (and there's something drawn I'm doing specifically for this blog that's taking me a ridiculous amount of time for how simple it is, so I hope to get it up for tomorrow).

Labels: McDonald's, Ottawa, photos

posted by Steve Brandon @ 7:02 AM 0 Comments Links to this post