Over at a more substantial blog, someone points out that in the US, drugstores of all places are one outlet for Mr McGravitas' comic books.
For me, that's always been one of the eye-opening aspects of travelling. For all the cultural similarities in another country, one's implicit assumptions about the sort of shop where one should buy a given product are sometimes wrong [note to visitors to NZ: "Corner Dairies" are not as lactocentric as the name might suggest]. Hilarity ensues. One has to relearn the scripts.
When I was last in London a few months ago, all the sports bars had signs outside offering "Large Plasmas Inside". So I'd go in and order a large plasma, and suddenly the bar staff would be all "We don't serve your sort here".
The bottle is then riddled, so that the lees settles in the neck of the wine bottle... Manual riddling is still done for Prestige Cuvées in Champagne... mechanised riddling equipment (a gyropalette) is used instead. (Wikipedia)
The drug store is much less popular for superhero stuff these days, although you can still find a very few of those, now some manga in magazine-sized collections, and the ever-present Archie.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up in a city of a half-million or so there was one comic-book shop: they were a late innovation. And of course in small towns there was no such place for spotty daydreaming know-it-alls and supermarkets and drug stores had to do.
For all the cultural similarities in another country, one's implicit assumptions about the sort of shop where one should buy a given product are sometimes wrong
ReplyDeleteHere in the U.S., an adult theater is not the place in which to catch a Bergman retrospective.
Imagine my surprise to discover chemist's shops were not the place to meet all your beaker and flask needs. Also, plasters? Totally not plaster!
ReplyDeleteCaptcha is arser. I can translate well enough to be a little insulted.
Across the (big) street from where I live now there is a walgreens. Huge. I am fascinated by the overwhelming variety of, well, stuff, and things, and a broad range of other items best categorized broadly as merchandise. And it may be more eclectic than usual, due to it's presence in an almost exclusively Taiwanian neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteBut they're begun to get used to me. Sometimes in the afternoon, if there's nothing else to do, I'll stroll across the street and just wander in the aisles, dumbstruck with wonderment (isn't that the commonly accepted affect of wonderment overdose?) by the amazing things I find. A kind of commerce non sequitor.
Last time I was over there I bought a padlock that uses letters (they rigged it so you can't spell 'fuck', but I was able to set it to open on 'titty'), some detangler for my hair and a telescoping thingie you can use to get the pipe from the coffee table without getting off the couch - er - to get cans off the top shelf of the cabinet...
a telescoping thingie you can use to get the pipe from the coffee table without getting off the couch
ReplyDeleteThey have Monkey butlers?? I had given up hope of seeing them on sale again.
For hundreds of miles, billboards for Wall Drug.
ReplyDeletethey rigged it so you can't spell 'fuck', but I was able to set it to open on 'titty'
ReplyDeleteIt is no wonder that America has conquered the Earth.
some detangler for my hair
ReplyDeleteGo ahead, gloat, why don't you.
Mikey is banned.
When I was a kid, we used to go to Thrifty for ice cream because it was cheap. My dad tells me Thrifty used to have a tube tester in its stores where you could try out your radio or TV tube. I have no recollection of this. I always went straight to the ice cream counter, which was very close to the entrance.
ReplyDeleteI went into a place clearly marked "Rest Room", and my sweet repose was interrupted in a most abhorrent fashion.
ReplyDeleteSOMEONE!!????
ReplyDeleteyou wound,sir.
To gin up the number of comments, I will even stoop to "Insulting ZRM by failing to attribute his prior contributions to the field".
ReplyDeleteThen he gets his revenge by negatively reviewing my next submission to a journal.
"Insulting ZRM by failing to attribute his prior contributions to the field".
ReplyDeleteAlso failing to link to them.
THE LINK DEMANDS DEGIBLING!
SM broke the link! How did he do that?
ReplyDeleteAlso if I credited ZRM properly then I would also have to credit the next contributor to that comment thread, and that would be silly.
Here I have added extra doubleplusgoodness to the link.
ReplyDeleteWhat comes after extra tripleplusgoodness?
ReplyDelete~
What comes after extra tripleplusgoodness?
ReplyDelete~
Doh! I saw that my comment was not published, because I didn't put in the merde verification.
ReplyDeleteSo I retyped it and such as, also.
And now there are two.
P.S. I may delete one of them tomorrow, if I'm feeling ambitious.
~
always liked the little booths in francophone africa labled 'depot de pains'
ReplyDeletethe despots were less fun.
Traveling advice:
ReplyDeleteBureau de Change is not a place to change your pants. At least that is what the woman told me.
The Topper Arrives:
ReplyDeleteParental Unit & I tested tubes in a drugstore once. (Mere minutes after the earth had cooled.)
Used to occasionally get my comics at a "Smokeshop." This was before & had nothing to do w/ head shops.
And, when I was at the top of my game (not long after the alleged dino-killer impact) I had an electric train on the coffee table to facilitate passing the dutchie. Yes it ran clock-wise.
Well poop, I was going to point out to BBBB that ladies' rest rooms have "changing tables", but they always look exactly the same, but fish pre-stole my thunder. Tomorrow is my birthday and all I wanted was thunder, dammit.
ReplyDeleteI have never met thunder and I am pretty sure he doesn't wear a stole.
ReplyDeleteVery hard to get the wrapping paper right for thunder. Brown paper, tied up with string just isn't right.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that if you leave an old wooden bucket full of random, miscellaneous punctuation and Unicode outside your door overnight, Thunder will be helplessly attracted and, with the use of a few well-placed motion sensors, can be photographed, detained or killed, depending upon the malevolence of one's intentions...
ReplyDeletecan be photographed, detained or killed
ReplyDeleteOr filled with cream.
Stoled, obviously.
ReplyDeleteSo if one were to wrap bee stings and dog bites in brown-paper packages tied up with string, would that be an awesome fake-out, or the awesomest fake-out?
What??
ReplyDeleteWhat would Filled with Cream do, Subby???
After some experience with the food network, capcha is flaywari
Tomorrow is my birthday and all I wanted was thunder, dammit.
ReplyDeleteDammit. Here I was with the were-dachshund all packed ready to send.
I am pretty sure he doesn't wear a stole.
I had somehow gained the impression that he prefers to drape baby deer over his shoulders.
Or filled with cream.
Eskimo Pies, incidentally, were the worst disappointment EVAH.
Upon checking my Memory Palace, I discovered that the cream-colored ponies had eaten the crisp apple streudels and then crapped all through the corridor, and the kittens with whiskers had totally shredded the warm woolen mittens, so perhaps this wasn't such a good idea.
ReplyDeleteYeah, not only that but those ain't raindrops on the roses, gnome sane?
ReplyDeleteEskimo Pies, incidentally, were the worst disappointment EVAH.
ReplyDeleteAnd for that matter, Maltesers are no longer made with real Maltese. Also. And girl-guide biscuits do not taste like SHUT UP SMUT
Graffiti on a "Baby Changing Table" (in a men's room, thank you!):
ReplyDelete"Change your baby from white to Asian or black."
From teh Wiki Waki Woo:
ReplyDeleteMaltesers were created by Forrest Mars, Sr. in 1936, and originally known as "Energy Balls".
Heh, indeed.
Mars Bars: not as fun since they took over the Illuminati.
ReplyDelete"changing tables"
ReplyDeleteWorst reality TV program evah.
Energy Balls: dropped from sight
ReplyDeleteHappy B-Day, tigris!111!
ReplyDelete~
And when tigris starts HER OWN BLOG we can send the birthday wishes there as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd when tigris starts HER OWN BLOG we can send the birthday wishes there as well.
ReplyDeletePeer pressure!
And one by one, we all fall for it.
All S.McBubba's fault, of course.
~
All S.McBubba's fault, of course.
ReplyDeleteStrangely enough one of my ideas upon renaming myself was to invite people to contribute. What put the kibosh on that was that I didn't bother inviting anyone to contribute.
I'm on facebook and livejournal, neither of which I ever do anything with, I don't need yet another intersackbutt site humiliating me with its endlessly unvarying existence.
ReplyDeleteThanks, thunder! Air smooches!