shopping hint and other stuff

I don't know if it's the crappy economy or if I just haven't been shopping online in the right places in the past, but I've noticed a new (to me) phenomenon. If you leave something in your shopping cart, or in the case of art.com this week, save a custom framing you've been playing with, without actually making a purchase, the merchant will then send you an email reminding you that you've done so, and give you a discount code/coupon to entice you to buy. Sweet!

I just bought myself a birthday present: a beautiful framed and matted (huge!) print called "lotus pond" for my dining room wall, all because art.com gave me 20% off on it this morning. Plus free shipping. I was going to upload it for you, but I can't get blogger to accept the image. So just trust me when I tell you it's lovely and the way I framed and matted it is perfect. I wasn't quite prepared to pay the non-discounted price, especially since now I'm gonna buy myself some acupuncture, but the sale price, yup.

In other news, there's this online ad on my AOL mail screen for some kind of Special K protein water drink. I think this whole fortified water thing is getting out of hand, and that's coming from a woman who, as you know, throws plenty of business to the makers of VitaminWater. If I want some protein, I will eat a steak, or possibly some chicken, thankyouverymuch. I do not need to "keep my figure" by ingesting the protein I need to survive in the form of low calorie beverages. Bastards.

And in other (doubly-related) news, there was a link on my mail screen yesterday to an article some moronic online columnist wrote about what middle-aged men really care about in a woman's appearance. One of his contentions was that you all like us to look put-together. Well. That would directly contradict my own experience of a couple days prior when I was specifically told that the fact I was wearing sweatpants from the Tarzhay was no impediment to my attractiveness nor to certain handsome gentlemen wanting to, um, ease my anxiety. Take that, online columnist!

His other contention was that you all don't care if we are thin or fat, just that we are "shapely" and (this is the part I disagree with) that while we can't all be thin, we can all be shapely. Bullshit. A woman's breast-waist-hip ratio is probably even more genetically out of her control than what her weight set-point is. God knows, I spent enough of my life loathing and impotently fighting my bulgy Polish catcher's thighs to prove it. (Now of course I've wised up to the fact that they just make my waist look smaller in comparison, so they're really a good thing. Plus, I could block the plate if I had to.) Anyway, again, moron!

Have a lovely Saturday, people.

xoxo