We're taking a trip outside the office to complete the exposition phase of Comic Stripper. Soon the fun will start.
Molly and I went to one of Orange County's big-ass shopping centers to start building our bridal registry yesterday. I can't remember if it was Fashion Island or Southcoast Plaza. It used to be called Crystal Court, if that helps. Anyway, we seem to have unearthed a conspiracy to force young couples to register all over the place: the store that had the glasses we liked didn't have any dishes we could agree on, and the store where we found the perfect dishes had a pathetic selection of glasses. Villainy! We also tried to find one of them coffee makers that grinds your beans for you, but that proved to be a fool's errand.
We made a very depressing stop in Border's on the way out. There were just so many things to be sad about. To begin with, there was a talentless woman singing and playing the keyboard in the Border's cafe, with her toneless wannabe Aimee Mann chalkboard scratches broadcast throughout the store by an unforgiving sound system. Since I didn't have any interest in reading Ann Coulter's latest uninspired (and unsupported) rant against the Left or Hillary's revisionist account of the Clinton Era I decided to read Neuromancer, since it's one of my man John's favorite books and he has yet to steer me wrong. Being bad with names I couldn't remember who wrote it, so I asked a clerk. I had to spell "Neuromancer" five times for her. I thought about saying, "It's like 'necromancer,'" but I was pretty sure that wasn't going to help. I finally found a copy and a different clerk rang me up at $7.53. I handed him a five, three ones, and (gasp!) three pennies, which caused no end of confusion.
The other thing I noticed is that a great many books have a pair of women's legs on the cover. Movie posters tend to use breasts to sell the movies, but I guess breasts are too low-brow for books, so they go for legs. Sometimes they're bare, sometimes fishnetted, sometimes arranged in such a way that you'd be seeing panties if it weren't for some cleverly photoshopped shadows. As a leg man from way back I can't complain about the ubiquity of leg shots in bookstores, but all the same I'd like to see some more creativity from the people who are supposedly making their living by being creative.
But anyway.
Also sad was the fact that there is NOTHING good to read that isn't at least 10 years old. Sigh. If you know any good NEW books (and I mean GOOD, not just "I read it while I'm at the gym or on a plane"), please post here so that I can become a happier Meli.
"the floating world"
"carrie's story"
jason's novel entitled "the black crayon" (which admittedly you have to get from jason and it's single spaced on a lot of computer paper)
those are the best ones i've read lately. =)
...And on the topic of wedding registries, anyone have advice on how to know how much to register for?
i have several friends getting married and they all suggest going with your gut feeling and just register for whatever you think you need anywhere from toasters to luggage. try getting things from different categories and price ranges (as some people wont be able to afford expensive gifts, whereas others will want to go all out)
and you don't have to just pick one store. you can register at two or even three...which gives more variety so your home doesn't end up looking like a macy's catalogue :)
ps. sounds like you were at south coast plaza, which is better than fashion island.
One thing you may want to watch out for when registering really far in advance is alot of times the specific models of toaster, china, or coffee maker will get discontinued before it gets close enough to the big day that people are buying stuff. We had that problem with a few diffrent items. Also, think about registering for individual pot and pans as opposed to one of the boxed sets. The boxed sets are tempting but alot of times come with really useless items.
it is usually a good thing to be registered at a couple different places.... considering choosing a common place (like macy's, crate and barrel, target) is good also, since people tend to check those places when searching for wedding gifts... which is helpful, since it's bad ettiquette to put where you're registered in your invitations. so you definitely want to make sure that your registry choices are spread by word of mouth.
i also think we're going to keep the individual items simple. like we'll get the coffeemaker that wakes you up in the morning, but not the one that wakes you up, tells you the weather, gives you directions to avoid traffic, provides today's hot stck tips, and gives you a reacharound before work.
You should check the store's return policy and make sure you can get rid of the stuff that seemed like a good idea at the time. If you find the right stores you can even exchange the mountain of cookware you get for cold hard cash.
Bed Bath and Beyond has an amazingly lax retrun policy. And all cool kitchen shit you could ever need... Except for perhaps the reacharound toaster...
We'll figure out the reacharound toaster in postproduction, don't you worry.
you might want to also consider waiting for the majority of your registration process until the date gets closer... John and I registered 9 months before our wedding and easily half of all the stuff we chose was discontinued... Greg and Christine had a similar problem and they did it 6 months before.... if you have a lot of people asking already, or wanting to buy engagment gifts, you may want to choose some basic things, but leave dinnerware and such things until later on, on the pretty good chance that when people start purchasing gifts for you the design won't be availble anymore... or you could always just choose new things.... that's fun too.