don't squish spiders

Even with the sort of creepy animation, the more I watch this video the more I love it. And the song is catchy.

extreme tat party photos from the last week

Some pics stolen from Roberto's facebook page. The first two are me, trying to take photos of my own back thigh. (Not easy)

Stencil:

 

Scabby in-the-bathroom photo:

 

Other photos:

Ever wonder if tattoos hurt? Well I bet Becca could tell you.

Today Colin did the first session on Ryan's backpiece.

Wanna see? It's a tiger. Going "RAAR". It's gonna be fighting a dragon, which will cover the celtic grateful dead thing at the top.

So. Bad. Ass.

Before you look though, I'm gonna warn you. MAN BUM is evident in the photos. Don't worry, it's cute.

Here's the stencil, sideways 'cause blogger's being a douche.

And after the first half hour or so:

JUST SAY YOU'RE SORRY or STFU

So here's the response sent to my boss from the owners of the restaurant where we had the most unfortunate meal ever. As Sarah is a freakin' internet superstar, she posted about it on her blog and word spread.
Fast.

Sarah also emailed the owners personally to express our dissatisfaction with...pretty much everything.

Word for word this is the response she received today.

The italics are them, the straight up letters are me.

Hello Sarah,

I have had a chance to chat with everyone who worked the evening of your party and thought I should give you a final wrap on the whole unfortunate experience.

Please remember that I am giving you an alternate perspective-one from the staff in hopes of reaching a mutual understanding of what happened and ,of course, for you to understand how truly sorry everyone involved is.

I will go through your issues one by one:

Service was slow.

Some members of your party arrived 15 minutes early for their reservation. It mentions on your site that you were told that we don't hold your table past 6:30 if everyone isn't there. That's not entirely true. I, in fact, took your reservation and I recall stating the following, " our policy on weekend large party reservations , yours was originally for 12, we hold your table for 20 to 30 minutes, at that time if we are needing the table space we will ask if we can break up the space. I joked that one person at a table for 12, 30 minutes later was not arriving for your party-clearly misunderstood and not too funny either.

The manager explained to the gentleman who announced himself for the party the table wasn't quite ready but would be momentarily. They were welcome to wait at the front door or on the patio (where there are seats and would perhaps be more comfortable). Less than 10 minutes later (and still before their reservation time) they were lead to their table, they were informed that their server was just arriving and would be there shortly. Granted, 5 full minutes went by before the server arrived , offered them waters and took their first orders. According to our pos system their first drink orders were in the system at exactly 6:30.

It is my understanding that you, yourself were not there for any of this-is it possible they exaggerated their wait times?

15 minutes for appetizers is not unusual on a busy evening , and I don't want to encourage the idea that fresh cooked foods should come any faster.

It's a mystery as to how it is possible that the johnny cakes were cold and stale. These are made fresh every hour and are held in a warming cabinet. If you arrived late and they sat on the table they may have been room temperature-hardly cold and certainly not stale. Is it possible they weren't perfect-of course. Our complimentary bread is something we normally do quite well but I won't rule out the possibility that this basket was not perfect.

Your friends's beer being stale.

This is unusual to say the least. That bottle of beer was opened at the time of being ordered and delivered promptly. If the product is sold to us flat there is nothing we can do about that until it is noticed. It was returned and a new one as its replacement and clearly not at an additional charge was brought out by the manager as soon as it was communicated to the server.

There were a number of patties sold at your table and one had a quarter of the crust left on the plate. I will assume it was yours that was left on the table.

Again these are made fresh in house and handled quite well. Is it possible that it wasn't heated enough-yes. Stale is difficult for me to see but perhaps...

The fish dish-all the fish and veg were eaten and a small amount of rice was left on the plate. It was the rice that the guest commented on. It is coconut flavour and the batch for the evening was double checked when this comment was made and found to be as it should. Personal preference? We have no problem with that-a discount to this meal was given.

Your salad being old and uninspired.

The greens came in that afternoon-organic and fresh. If you don't like the dressing-fair enough. We can certainly look at revamping the dressing. Again, no problem-a discount was applied to this meal.

The bolt in the salad.

This is clearly the issue of the evening for all involved. It's something that never should have happened and is the first time in almost 8 years here that it has happened.

The line cook responsible has been reprimanded and will now be seriously disciplined. I can only extend my fullest apologies. The Chef feels terrible and wants to somehow make it up to you. I let him know your opinion of the Reef so he isn't holding much hope for that but wants you to know it at the very least.

To be clear-your party wasn't charged for this salad.

The manager, Tamara, came over when alerted to this and offered a round of shots in the meantime to lighten the mood. A gentlemen suggested 2 rounds would make it better. She laughed and said alright-any preferences? Your party was clear in its needs of vegan, etc and she had two rounds of rum based fruity shots. For you to call them weak is unfortunate. We make fruity rum drinks, that's what we do. If you wanted tequila, you could have specified that as we clearly only wanted to make you happier than you were with your experience.

The busser and not the Chef came over to clear your table. He does not normally interact with guest, his duties are simply to clear, reset, etc. I have spoken with him about his curtness and he apologizes. He will no longer be bussing tables for us.

Half of our staff are "crazy tattoo" people so you should have fit right in.

To summarize for you,

We failed on some service points, we failed on some food service but we absolutely tried our best during a very busy evening to make up for our failings.

Your party was comped 2 rounds of shots, the salad was discounted fully, your fish dish and salad plates were given a discount as well.

We are neighbours and both business people-you must understand the negative impact you are having on my business by posting all over the internet your very negative Reef opinion. I appreciate that the internet now allows many forums for voicing our opinions but they should be accurate even though they will always be biased as they are subjective experiences. If there are falsehoods advertised that affect others it becomes slanderous.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss with you in person how we can move forward.

I would ask that you alter your web posting to reflect that you were not charged for the salad, frankly, I'd encourage you to reconsider the tone of your blog but I can only ask. If you want to post this response that is fine too.

We take your opinion seriously and rest assured that staff are being reprimanded and different procedures are being put into place to see to it that this experience (any part of it) never repeats itself.

The manager, Tamara, feels terrible and walked over to see you yesterday. She was told you wouldn't be in until Tuesday so she will pop in to hopefully chat with you then.

I can appreciate that you very simply may have no interest in revisiting our little store but I do encourage you to reconsider.

You know what?

JUST FUCKING SAY YOU'RE SORRY. Even if this whole list of things is one hundred percent accurate (which, as I was there, I made the reservation, I was one of the first to arrive, etc I know it's NOT), they're making it so much worse by getting all defensive.

Ugh, I'm sick of this battle royale already.

I bet you didn't know I was in a hip hop group

Word up.

the last day of the german, plus some whining!

One of the worst things I've found about getting tattooed on the back of your thigh is that for, oh, three days now, sitting down is a pain in the (almost) ass. Walking too. And don't even get me started on using the bathroom. (Hint: it's a real balancing act up in there lately.)

And the clothing sticking was out of control for a while too. If you've ever gotten a fair-sized tattoo, I'd say anything with solid coloring that's palm-sized or larger, you'll be able to relate. For those who haven't, I'll explain.
As your body heals, your giant fresh wound secretes a bunch of plasma (white blood cells). And it's all ... moist ... for a day or two. Also? It's healing and trying to form scabs and new skin. And during this phase, if you, say, wear pants...they'll kind of partially heal into your body.

Okay, not really. I'm being overly dramatic, but they stick to the drying plasma.

And then you have to peel your clothing off of your very sore new tattoo.

Thursday, the day after I was tattooed with something fairly large, I wore a nice breezy skirt for maximum airflow and the minimal touching of my leg that it does. It was awesome until I sat down on the bus. I tried to casually skooch my butt forward on the seat so none of my thigh touched...anything, but being that I have such short legs, it kind of left me so hunkered down in my seat that my neck was bent at a right angle and my back curved in a big C.

So I thought "Hey, just sit kind of normally, and cross the sore leg over the other leg. It's cool."

Yeah, all good until my stop came up half an hour later and I stood up and my skirt was fused into my leg.

Every time something like that happens I panic for a moment. What if my skirt is stuck there forever? What if I pull it off and my tattoo comes off with it? I hope nobody can tell what's going on here, because it's really gross.

I peeled it off (painfully) and limped my way off the bus and to work.

Multiple stick and peels later, I noticed my skirt was feeling kind of stiff.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.


...


My skirt was feeling stiff. From my leg goo getting on it and drying.

I felt like slimer from the Ghostbusters.

Anyway, I actually started writing this post to complain about something completely different, something about going to The Reef for dinner with all the tat bros and our friend Becca finding a mothereffing BOLT in her salad*, but then I sat down and my stupid leg hurt a bunch. So this is what you got instead.


*Yeah, a gigantic olde tyme bolt that looked like it was from the industrial revolution era. Check it out. Later, the chef came by and Cody jokingly told him there was a reciprocating saw in his hot sauce. I laughed for hours. Still laughing in fact.

Needless to say, after the terrible service we got, all the attitude I got in booking the reservation for twelve people, all the attitude when we arrived (because we were fifteen minutes early?), the super slow service, the gross drinks, the flat beer, the 'free shooters' we got after the bolt incident that were really just juice I swear, the lack of apology from anyone except our really nice poor server, and the gratuity still included in the bill and all of us still paying full price, none of us are ever going back there.

That's The Reef, a Jamaican restaurant on Yates street, Victoria B.C.

Other than that though, we had a really interesting day yesterday.

First Roberto was tattooed by Gerry.
Then Gerry was tattooed by Roberto.
Then Sarah was tattooed by Roberto.
Then Becca was tattooed by Roberto.
Then Savannah was tattooed by Cody.
Then Colin was tattooed by Gerry.

Then we went for food and got 'screwed'. Get it?


Then...get this...karaoke.

In the weirdest place ever. Pics to come. I did not sing. Here's a few I stole from Sarah for now. Also, the photo above is stolen from her.


p.s. you don't see those alcohol containers. There's NO BOOZE allowed in there. The sign on the door said no, but the way they gave us a locking room for an hour in the back with no supervision on a Saturday night said yes.

Disgruntled Yeti

I don't know what I did to tick this kitty off but so far today she's barfed on my side of the bed and in my boot by the front door.

Don't you feel like a hero?

During a lull in an otherwise busy day at work, a bunch of us went outside for an 'air smoke', otherwise known as loitering around on the sidewalk outside of the shop.

And a seagull got hit by a car. It didn't die. But it was really hurt.

I didn't see anything really. I saw Gerry's face change mid-laugh as he looked over my shoulder, so I turned to see what happened, and then I covered my eyes and panicked.

"Oh no oh no." I said, cowering like a stupid girl and not looking with all my might. I might as well have gotten the vapors and fainted because my whalebone corset was too tight.

Roberto was on it in a second. I don't know if he's just a calm person or if it's that stereotypical German efficiency, but he was all business. He knew what to do, something about catching it with a jacket or a sheet and putting it somewhere. I felt like running away. Gerry told me to phone the SPCA.

I went inside the shop and found their website and tried to freak out.

"I...don't...what should I...um...?"

Gerry told me to click the contact us button. And phone them.

"Can you call them?" I asked, holding the phone out limply.

He said no. He would catch the bird, I had to phone somebody for help.

So I did. And as the phone rang I was certain the person on the other end of the telephone would laugh at me and say that it's only a stupid seagull.
"Who cares? Let it suffer."
I imagined that we would be stuck taking care of this poor dying bird in the road. Selfish thoughts like "I don't want to watch it die, it will be too sad," and "I don't know what to do."

The woman on the phone was wonderful. She was kind and efficient. She had me call a wildlife-saver-place (not the official title, ha) and they asked us to catch the seagull in a box (just like Roberto said) and drive it down to some building. None of us had a car so they phoned the SPCA for us and a few minutes later a guy called to say he'd be there in ten minutes to collect the bird.

My hands were shaking but I felt like the guy on the other end of the phone was a superman. He was coming to save us! It would be okay!

I went outside to tell everybody that we were saved, we were off the hook! It would be okay! And then I saw that the bird had walked to the sidewalk on the other side of the road. My spirits sank as it hunched down beside a large stone wall and tourists stopped to take pictures of it as it backed slowly away, dragging a broken wing.

Roberto said he would go over there "to watch it" and I went too. A couple young girls were standing nearby discussing the bird, and we told them we called somebody.

"Oh thank goodness, I didn't know what we should do," said one, and they went on their way.

By this time the little guy must have realized it was really hurt and tried to run away from us, from the cars, from its own terror, and it stepped on its broken wing...and started screaming.

You guys, it was the most awful thing...Roberto stayed with it and talked to it in a low voice, but I walked away totally crying. In that moment I felt so useless and terrible for not being able to help. All I could do was stand in the way of this screaming bird so it wouldn't run back onto the road until help came.

The SPCA guy showed up soon, even though it felt like hours, and I went inside because I didn't want to watch the man collect the bird. It felt too much like patting myself on the back somehow. For doing nothing but watching the spectacle...I don't know.

I went into the back of the shop and pretended I was just busy and not hiding. I know that there really was nothing else I could do, and we did more than most people would have, but when later somebody asked me "What's wrong? Don't you feel like a hero?" I only felt ashamed. No. How could I take pride in barely wanting to help, and not being able to really do anything?

I programmed the wildlife number into my cell phone in case I see something like that again, under the name "Animal hit by car"... let's hope I don't have to use it.

It's things I love Thursday!! Part two!

1. Wordplay. This morning this silly silly joke made me LOL:
2. Freaks and Geeks. Have you ever seen this show? It's kind of like Degrassi but much more true to high school in my opinion. I was home alone all last week and decided to rent the entire season of the show because I heard so much about it when it was on TV. In 1999. (I guess it was cancelled after the first season. Too bad.) Two days later I'm on disc 5 of 6. If nothing else, watch it for all the actors who are now rather famous as teenagers.

3. This Kodachrome film test from 1922. It is so beautiful. Those ladies? Fabulous!


4. Along the same lines? Color photographs from Russia taken between 1909 and 1912. The photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii "undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images."
How cool is that? You should really look at these snapshots from 100 years ago. They're amazing. For example:
CLICK HERE FOR MORE, and to see them full sized. DO IT!

5. Charles Bukowski. Crude. Violent. Drunk. Disgusting. Depressing. But you know what? He told the truth, he lived how he wanted, and he never made excuses.
Somebody compiled a list of their top 10 favorite Bukowski Quotes here.

6. Having friends who do tattoos. I love coming to get a 4 hour piece done and feeling so at home at the shop that I can laugh, complain and tell them I have a tummy ache from those tacos we had without feeling the least bit self-conscious. I love that I was walking around with a stencil on my leg and clients were still asking me if they could get a cup of water, and that I didn't feel like a total dork in my cat-hair-covered yoga pants and/or cared what anybody thought. Just comfortable.

P.S. I got a rad tattoo yesterday!

7. MORNING COFFEE. That first sip, when you can literally feel it warming your insides? Heaven. My personal favorite is Kicking Horse coffee. Specifically, "Kick-Ass". The beans are oily and pungent when you grind them up. Perfect!