CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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The Nimbus 2000

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

this entry brought to you by the new pornographers, "twin cinema"


I was working in the toy department at Target the Christmas before the first Harry Potter movie came out, and that's when the first merchandising blitz really hit. I remember we had a whole half of an aisle dedicated just the Harry Potter stuff. We got a large shipment of Nimbus 2000s, and we stacked them on top of the shelf because there wasn't enough space in the place that they went. If you don't know anything about Harry Potter, the Nimbus 2000 is a special wizard's broom that allows Harry to fly. The toy version was about two and a half feet long and when you pressed a button, it would vibrate quite madly. This was, I guess, the closest approximation of flying the toy makers could come up with.

Little girls would ask to look at it and moms would come up to me and ask me to take one down. I'd hand it to the little girl, and she'd put it between her legs-- keep in mind that this is a wizard's broom, and this is what you do with wizard's broom, you put them between your legs so you can fly off-- and it wouldn't take long for her to notice the button, which she would press, and then BRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM. The girl would sit there on top of this wildly vibrating broom for a moment, as mom looked on in a mix of horror and embarrasment, and when the girl was done she'd hand it to her mom and with much seriousness on her face, as if something inside was calling out that she needed the toy very badly, only she wasn't sure what it was, and she would say, "I want this." Mom would look at her daughter, the horror having been replaced with a strong effort to fight back laughter, and would give a definitive "No, I don't think so." This happened four or five times. I think they recalled that toy.
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yesterday, last year MARCH OF THE PENGUINS! FABLES! AMBULANCE LTD! COMPLEX MAGAZINE! on last year's POLARITY!

on this day last year a review of eagles of death metal, peace, love, death metal-- and a really good review at that.
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with love from CRS @ 8:15 PM 

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