Archive for September, 2008
September 30 2008: Economic Crisis In Maternity Wear Retail
Filed under Politics & Uni/Work with 7 Comments
The thing about maternity wear as a retail industry, is that it caters to an incredibly specific niche market. In the event of an economic crisis (e.g. the past few weeks) or rising interest rates (e.g. the past year in Australia), our sales drop dramatically as people start pinching their pennies. When your mortgage repayments increase or when your stock portfolio crashes, you can improvise and make do without maternity clothing but you can’t, for example, do without groceries.
As an example, the maternity wear boutique that I’ve been managing on a part-time basis for the past two and a half years has been averaging about $700AUD to $800AUD a day in sales in recent times (due to a large sale). When the American economy started crashing earlier this month, we saw an immediate effect on sales, with the daily average coming to about $400AUD a day. When the $700AUD billion bailout proposal was introduced, consumer confidence increased, and we started doing as much as $1000AUD a day. With news of the proposal being rejected earlier this morning, we went back down to $400AUD a day.
Fewer sales is a small price to pay for the real lesson of the entire crisis: that no matter how bad you mess things up, you can’t expect the big people to come and bail you out. Independence and accounting for one’s own actions should be taught from birth; unfortunately this obviously wasn’t the case. All parents out there - learn from this experience, and teach your spawn how to stand on their own two feet!
A small maternity wear boutique in Melbourne, Australia, on the other side of the world is affected by the bad decisions of some overpaid and incompetent CEOs in New York. If that isn’t globalisation, I don’t know what is.
September 29 2008: I Can See Russia From My House
Filed under Politics with 12 Comments
Readers, I keep lying to you. I know I keep claiming that I’ll stop posting on the American election and Republican!hate, but well, it never actually is the last post because it’s simply so much fun to discuss. My birthday is November 5th. Americans, give me the best birthday present a girl could hope for, and vote the Democrats back into office.
To continue on the Palin!hate steam train, let’s just post a visual satirical example of how ridiculous her words are:
Find more Palin macros here. Or, Youtube her interview with Katie Couric, and compare that to the SNL take on the interview…which was pretty much word for word, because Palin is so ridiculous that you don’t actually have to twist her words and actions around in order to create a mockery. Just say what she says, and you’re idiotic enough.
Oh, and on a more humourous note, are you curious as to how McCain actually came to pick Palin as his running mate? It clearly wasn’t for her years of experience in holding political office, nor was it for her foreign policy credentials, and I have to admit, I was bemused. Then, Literotica explained it all. Needless to say, the link is not safe for work.
As for McCain’s decision to halt his presidential campaign last week because of the economic crisis…really? The best way to show America that you’re ready to tackle the role of President is to show that you can’t multi-task? That if you were to become head of state, you could only give attention to the war, or to the economy, but that you couldn’t spare any attention for the education, or social security, or any other issue plaguing America? That it’s a case of one thing at a time? Good luck with that tactic.
Let me end with a long, dot-pointed question: If Obama, a black man, had:
- Five children, with one seventeen-year-old pregnant
- Transferred between four different colleges over the course of five years before eventually gaining his bachelor’s degree
- Fired city employees for not agreeing with his policies and for failing to pledge unquestioned loyalty to his administration
- Never travelled outside of the country until 2007
- Spent millions of federal funds on projects that would benefit fewer than a hundred Americans
- Extreme physical limitations due to war wounds
- Not bothered to study in school for subjects he had no interest in (thus coming in at 894 in a class ranking of 899 students)
- Divorced his first wife after a car accident left her physically disfigured
- Adopted an orphan of Anglo-Saxon ethnicity, then had her sit at the feet of his biological children (an age-old show of deference) in a magazine shoot
- Admitted to having an erratic and hot temper which he is prone to lose
would he still be a candidate for the White House? Or are the above conditions simply the benefits of white privilege, whereas any black candidate has to have an impeccable education and political record? You tell me.
September 28 2008: Single Penis Girl
Filed under Friends & Men with 13 Comments
Many of my acquaintances don’t know I’m in a relationship, for the sheer fact that it’s never come up in conversation, and I’m not the type of person to just start gushing “Oh my god, I’m like, in a relationship, lulz”.
For those who know, most reactions have been along the lines of “What, you? In a relationship? Really? What have you been smoking? Does he have a thirteen inch cock?”. In short, total and utter disbelief that someone who has enjoyed as many casual liaisons as myself would ever restrict herself to a single penis. And, uh, the guy attached to the penis. Because I’m not shallow at all.
I think that people in my life prefer me as a footloose and fancy free single gal. The ironic thing of course, is that my life really hasn’t changed at all. Logistically, I can only see the fella once a week, so it’s not like my time is being entirely consumed by him. As previously mentioned, I’m not the type to refer to him all the time. In fact, the only thing that’s changed is the fact that I’m only enjoying a single penis, rather than multiple penii.
Yet, people are beginning take a “omgz she’s half of a couple” approach with me, treating me as though I have no idea what it’s like to be flirty and on the receiving end of male attention. In short, entirely forgetting the Amanda I am, the Amanda I’ve always been. Dammit, I’m not defined by the fact that I’m a single penis girl!