Competition, Internet Style

A quick study in internet shopping which took all of one Google search and about 5 minutes. I was looking to see if anyone sells "Bug City Candy Tarts" over the internet. I did a quick search to find who sells them in bulk. Particularly the small case of 12 jars. Here are the interesting results for the price of the identical item. I didn't factor in shipping but assumed that shipping was fairly standard.

In decending order.

www.candydirect.com	$25.92
store.candywarehouse.com	$19.80
www.bizrate.com	$19.80
candy-crate.stores.yahoo.net	$18.89
www.candyfavorites.com	$16.93
www.groovycandies.com	$11.95
www.americarx.com	$10.04
www.ferrarapan.com	$9.95

Um... candydirect how do you stay in business?

A great test to check your head on a drawing.

I haven't posted a drawing of the week in a while even though I have been doing them. Here's an example of why. I was drawing this portrait and thought that it was coming out fairly well until I flipped it horizontally and saw how really warped this face was. People start to lose perspective when they stare at something for to long. Just goes to show that flipping a drawing horizontally or in any direction is a good check to see if you're totally gone off the rails.


The flipped image

Airline Crash

Some airline crashes, you never hear about. At least the airplanes aren't running windows ...... are they? (found at Norfolk Airport)

A quarter with a story.

Here's another one of those simple things that mask a larger story. I got this quarter as change today. The quarter was gold plated and about 1/2 of the gold plating has chipped off. OK, so now what is the story? I'm guessing that there are basically two possiblities.

1. Someone was practicing how to gold plate.
2. Someone tried to pass this off as a Sacagawea dollar.

Since the Sacagawea story is more interesting I'm going with that. Pretty lousy plating job but I guess if you're trying to pass off a quarter as as dollar and you have it bundled in a roll of real Sacagewea dollars it might pass un noticed. Really it's a crappy fake. Even if you look at the edge of a dollar and a quarter, you see right away that they're different (quarter = ridges, dollar = smooth). Also it seems like alot of work for $.75 but then again they didn't make just one. What do you say when you're busted for counterfeitting dollars with quarters? "Um, it was a science project and it accidentally got mixed up with the dollar coins."

Truth in advertising from the NYC Housing Authority

Hey, you don't have to rub it in. (Housing Project in Queens NY)

Actually, according to Wikipedia this housing project isn't very bland at all if you like gang violence.

One small milestone to wasting time.

This is a yet another followup to a previous post. I finally made the leader board of Zwok! Woo Hoo! The screenshot is from the moment that I actually became ranked number 300 (the point when you get on the leader board). The song "Velouria" by the Pixies was playing at the time. This would mark the first time that I've ever been on the leader board of any online game. Though this means absolutely nothing it's a one small victory of life. In about an hour some kid 1/3 my age will probably pass me and knock me off the board but until then I am in the ranks of the elite. Time to go to the bathroom, take a victory crap and go to bed. Maybe I can go do something productive tomorrow.

My First Foray Into Acting (Follow Up)

Here's the much anticipated follow up to this blog post that I did last month. I didn't get the job as the director of the Wetness Protection Program, or even get to the primaries where you can vote, but I did make the spash page of the website www.wetnessprotectionprogram.com. Since I really was only hoping to get on the web site (at best), this was a smash success! Considering at least 40 people went to the audition and only 10 people even got their picture on the website, I really beat the odds.

By the way, the button that I'm pointing to didn't say "Vote", it was one of those "Wetness" with a slash through it buttons like the one the woman is wearing. So there is a little photoshopping going on there.

Another aside, one of the people who did make it to the primaries commented on my first post. I think he's "Al Del Bene". Congrats Al, hope you get the job.