31 March, 2008

If you need to use a fork, YOU SHOULD HAVE WENT TO LEANN CHIN!

So Saturday was my brother-in-law’s birthday, and for dinner he requested that we go to the Tanpopo Noodle Shop in St. Paul. Sometimes up for new things, and being one who usually enjoys asian food as a general rule, I was up for it.

So when we walked in, it struck me immediately that every place setting only had chopsticks. Every patron was using chopsticks. I’m guessing Tanpopo owns no forks – which means, you guessed it, CHOPSTICK CRASH COURSE!

So I wrote a little haiku:

Just chopsticks, not forks.
Tanpopo beef udon bowl.
And I did not starve.

10 March, 2008

Bookseller Stories #89

OK, so over the years of being a bookseller, I always thought the single dumbest question I was going to be asked would be, "Where is the NON-fiction section?". (One must remember that a good 65-70% or more of the Book Barn is non-fiction of some type or another...)

However, on Saturday I believe I have, if not in fact a replacement, than a contender:

"So, do you carry Harry Potter books?"

What my actual response was:

"Ah, sure - they are all over in the children's book section along the wall."

What my response should have been:

[*HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER*]

"OK, lets review. You are in the single biggest bookstore in the five-state area. The book series for which you are inquiring is only the single biggest bookselling phenomenon since, oh I don't know, THE BIBLE, with the final and most recent volume having been published only 7 months ago. Ya think that maybe, just maybe, we might have a Harry Potter book or two?!?!

[*DEEP BREATH*]

"They are all over in the children's book section along the wall."

04 March, 2008

To Flag Pin the Lapel or not to Flag Pin the Lapel...

That is the question - and apparently according to this article on salon.com, Flag pins are for losers -- literally.

It essentially boils down to this:
"For these past six years and more, men with those bright little flags apparently riveted to their lapels have fed the voters a daily diet of fear, secrecy, lies and a cruel war with neither point nor end.

No sensible politician would want to march under this tiny, metallic banner. Just look at all the fallen stars who did."