The Stars and the Cookie Jar

So, I went online to starbuckscoffeegear.com to order the Pride shirt for 2004, and was quite hyped by it -- as enthused as one can get off a corporate t-shirt. I know, I know, I'm sour grapes with the Company right now, but I have a Pride shirt for every summer I've worked. (2002 was the Rainbow Coffee Stain, 2003 was Starbucks: All Kinds of Family with the rainbow stick people; this year it's a black shirt -- the better to hide the gratuitous Frapp stains you acquire from working the Pride parade -- with a rainbow-swirled iced tea glass and 'Starbucks. Pride. 2004'  in Trebuchet text.)

I want it. (Okay, I also wanted to order the script-and-Siren logo cap in the new color -- Cypress they call it, it's deep blue green -- but I digress.)

So I ordered my size, got all the way to the Shopping Cart, and put in my card info. That's important, because it proceeded to say user authentication failed.

Three times.

Does this mean that I now have upwards of $100 charged to my card because of an evil unfriendly website with a 404 Error on the Customer Service page?  Well, gee, I hope not, because their service hours are 9-5 PT M-F, and I had to call JAVA to get the customer service Actual Telephone Number at all.

Dammit, I want my shirt. I want my rainbowy corporate goodness. And I want my sense of internet shopping security back!

Maybe they have it on EBay...

I think I've just seen one of my Top Three Films Ever. (Sadly, I cannot include all of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, because of the Battle of Ent's Deep editing fiasco that was TTT.)

Girl With A Pearl Earring. The film was better than the book, I kid you not. From the casting to the costuming to Alakina Mann's evil little mug. Griet stood and stared a little too much, maybe, but... oh. So erotic without anybody doing anything, and gut-wrenching sexual tension, and best cinematic example ever of the power of a woman's unbound hair.

Go, rent it!