Today’s going to be an interesting day around the Buhner.com offices (ha!). Well, moreso this evening, when the final episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer shows on UPN tonight at 8PM (EST). Buffy is one of those few shows I can manage to get into, partially from it being a good show, and partially because Tara’s a really big fan. It isn’t too often we both can watch something and totally be interested in the show. When it ends tonight (and I’ve intentionally tried to stay away from any Buffy fansite or Buffy related info just to keep any kind of spoiler away), that’s just one more reason I don’t watch too much TV (and I never thought I’d say that.)

Buffy is a well written show, has good characters, and manages to throw a little bit of something for everyone in the shows. They seem to be written for the short attention span, with several things going on at once, comedy mixed with horror mixed with action mixed with drama mixed with romance. Maybe that’s what attracts me to it.

Anyway, if I can be thankful for anything that the final episode will bring (outside of allowing me to live life without hearing Michelle Trachtenberg’s screech weekly), it’s a new article from Entertainment Editor Adam Griffin! Griff’s given us Another One of Those Stinkin’ “Buffy” Recollections, his latest article showing his feelings towards the end of BTVS, and his memories from the show.

Maybe it was the interview.

I’m not sure, but for whatever reason, Tara’s second order from J-List disappeared. All the processes were gone through, and she got her notification that the order was places, and that she’s be receiving a confirmation email within 24 hours. 24 hours passes, and no email. Tara contacts J-List, which tell her that it’s odd that she never received a confirmation email. They tell her to order again.

Herein lies the problem.

J-List keeps a revolving stock of their products. Everything that they keep in inventory is in a “limited quantity”, which is something I’ve found to be a plus and a minus for their site. It’s relatively smart, since they constantly bring in new items without having to have a massive inventory or have to have people scrolling through hundreds of items to see what’s available. It’s not as smart, however, when you run out of a product that people have a demand for, and you don’t know when you can get it back in.

Tara ordered a lot of stuff from J-List this particular time; not enough to even put into memory, so replicating the order would have been tough enough as it stands. Add onto that the fact that a decent percentage of items that Tara did know she ordered aren’t on the site anymore, and are therefore not available. It was bad enough waiting for a package that had to come over from Japan and go though cutoms; add onto that waiting for J-List to determine when (and if) they were going to restock the products we wanted, and you start to get into a serious wait for what you’re looking for. That’s just bad business.

It’s becoming more evident that Peter Payne did study too much Japanese (as he said in his interview) when he went to Japan, and not enough business. Most companies that sell products (especially online) stop selling the product when their stock gets very low, but not zero. This assures that in a worst case senerio things can be replaced (if broken or lost), and more importantly, will keep customers happy, because the product that they ordered will be received. J-List, instead of trying to make a bad situation better, took an “oh well” approach, and never took any action to correct it.

Well, needless to say, Tara’s had it with J-List, and I can’t say I’ll recommend them again. If you want Japanese porn, they seem to be the place to go (since Peter seems to take a great interest in it), but outside of that, it’s a crapshoot. Damn shame, is what it is.

Well, my car is in serious trouble, and it’s gotten to the point where I don’t feel comfortable driving it anywhere (even the Blazer didn’t get to that point). I actually went down to the place that’s handling the transmission repair today (it was supposedly fixed yesterday, but no one told the car that) and told them about the problems that are currently there. The people, who swore up and down that their work would be covered and they’d fix any problem, proceded to tell me that since I’ve “got the new transmission”, I should “take the opportunity to sell it or trade it in now, before it ends up costing any more.” Point taken, guys, but the idea is to make the car dealership think that the vehicle is worth anything, and giving them a car that may lock up mysteriously driving down the road probably isn’t going to get me top dollar. They referred to all the problems the car currently has (some of which I already heard), but the point remains that before the transmission went down the tubes, it ran well. I just want it back to the point where it was before the transmission died. If they can’t give me that, that’s their problem, and has to do with their work, regardless of other problems the car may have. The problems were there before, and the car was “fine”. Now I can’t drive it.

Also (yeah, I update this late), it appears the Lakers lost tonight, and are out of the playoffs. I really don’t like pro basketball anymore (I was never really a big fan), but I do enjoy seeing teams like the Lakers lose, especially since they’re a major team (like an LA or New York) that just begs for bandwagon jumpers. It’s one of those things that made me dislike being a Yankee fan. Once the Yankees started winning, every New Yorker jumped off the Mets bandwagon and suddely became a Yankee fan, despite the fact they couldn’t name four players on the team. If you want my NBA pick though, I guess I pull for San Antonio, for two reasons. One: they have on their roster Craig “Speedy” Claxton, the only first round NBA choice out of my beloved Hofstra University. Speedy gets playing time too. But the main reason is the fact that it’s San Antonio. It just says something about the NBA where their world champion can be from a city that has no other major sports franchise. San Antonio! Home of the NBA World Champions, and AA Minor League Baseball!

Got a present waiting for me on the front step when I got home today. Yes, dear readers, my care package from J-List arrived. I’d link it, but it’s linked twice below, so figure it out. It was a box full of Japanese snacks; stuff that you’d only find in Japan. Tara picked them out for me as a “surprise”, but she couldn’t keep the secret that she bought stuff a secret for long. She did keep what she bought a secret though, until now. A quick rundown:

Every Burger — These are small hamburger-looking cookies, which consist of a sugar cookie-like bun (complete with actual sesame seeds) and a chocolate filling made to look like a hamburger. Very tasty, and in the true Japanese style, “cute food”.

Hi-Chew (Green Apple) — Hi-Chew is a taffy-like candy which comes in several flavors. Tara knows my love of green apple flavor (actually, sour apple), and picked this up. Surprisingly, not only did this have a nice tart flavor (many American Green Apple candies tend to be very sweet), but this did not stick to my teeth in the slightest. As you chewed, you’d think that it would, but absolutely not. Why can’t they do this with American taffy?

Sake Candy — I didn’t like sake the first time I tried it, but this would be one of those things that is truly Japanese, so Tara picked it up anyway. The candy is very similar to the type of ribbon candy that you’d get at Christmastime (the kind that your grandma sticks in a bowl and it all sticks together), and has an unusual flavor that isn’t bad… it’s unusual. It may taste like sake, I really don’t remember. I wouldn’t say it’s delicious, but it’s interesting.

Black Black Gum — This stuff seems to have a following outside of Japan, but it’s still relatively unheard of. Black Black gum has a strong mint flavor (think Altoids) and is loaded with caffine. The gum is black (well, gray), and according to the label, has “hi-technical excellent taste and flavor.” Word.

Pocky (Choco Banana) — There’s about 18 million kinds of Pocky. Pocky is a non-salted pretzel-like thing which is dipped in a coating 3/4 of the way, which gives the Pocky whatever flavor it has. The chocolate banana flavor here is very good, and the part that isn’t dipped allows you to hold it, as to not get the coating on your fingers. Pretty smart. Not overly sweet, which makes it even better.

Pretz (Ebi Shio) — At the Glico factory, they make these saltless pretzel sticks and send them in two different directions. Half go to the Pocky side, where they become something sweet. The other half go to the Pretz side, where they become something salty. To call these “pretzel” snacks (in the case of both the Pocky and Pretz) isn’t overly accurate, at least in the way we think of pretzels. They are more of a breadstick, although the flavor of pretzel is still there. They are very tender, and break easily (as my Pretz didn’t do too well in the plane/boat/train/UPS truck ride over from Japan). “Ebi Shio” literally means “shrimp salt”, which would explain the little shrimp looking at me on the box. I guess when you’re surrounded by water, seafood tends to influence your snack treats. I found these to be really good, as most anything seafood related snack-wise tends to taste like Old Bay Seasoning here, and these actually tasted like a seafood treat. Tara wasn’t crazy about these.

Mill Make (Peach) — Unlike most other products that you can pick up in Japan, this package had absolutely NO English on it, outside of “OK!!” on the front. Apparently, it must be good. What you find inside the package is five smaller packets, which contain a substance that looks closest to peach colored ice cream sprinkles. They smelled very peachy, and are used by kids (and I’m sure a few adults) to flavor their milk. It comes in more flavors, but this was pretty good; not overwhelming, and didn’t make me sick like Strawberry Quik used to. Plus, a lot easy to carry around and less messy.

Watering Kiss Mint Gum (Apple Mint Green) — Watering Kiss Mint reminds me a lot of Trident, although the pieces are a little bit bigger, and last a little longer. It comes in a flip top open box, and has a very interesting flavor; while American gum seems content with just “mint”, the Watering Kiss Mint gum flavors their mint with Apple (in this case), Peach, and Lemon (along with “clear). The flavor allows for a miny flavor (and fresh breath) while not making you taste mint for too long, while mixing it nicely with the fruit flavor. I swear, American companies can’t “borrow” this idea?

Chocolate Gummi Sushi — Leave it to Japan to take something like sushi and make candy out of it (again, something you’d think America would jump on, with their desire to gummi-ize “weird” food.) The gummi sushi is pretty interesting, with the gummi part being the “fish” part of the sushi (such as roe or a piece of shrimp), with the “rice” it sits on being a marshmallow with a bit of chocolate filling on the inside. Nothing overly special about the flavor, but pretty cool.

Pucca (Chocolate) — I list these as “chocolate”, although I haven’t seen any other type. These are goldfish-shaped crackers (actually, pretzels again) which are filled with chocolate. They look like something you could eat way too many of at one setting. Very tasty, and I’m sure full of calories; they’re like Goldfish crackers gone bad (not rotten, but evil).

Overall, very cool stuff, and all very tasty (although the sake candy I’m still trying to get used to.) I’m impressed most, I think, with the packaging that many of these things come in. Most everything I received came in a box, and all the contents were individually wrapped, wither by the piece, or in packs (like the Pocky and Pretz), to retain freshness. All very cool. I highly recommend checking out J-List (again, I shill) just to try out something different. J-List’s snack selection is always changing (depending what they keep in stock, because they don’t have warehouses full of the stuff), so things you find on there one day you might not find the next. As it stands, I can’t find the Mill Make on the site, but I’m sure it’ll be on there in the future.

As for articles, I’ve got two in the works, and an interview! More later, but now, I eat.

Words words words, as Dave Matthews says in “Pay For What You Get”. I spit out quite a few of them in my latest article, talking about my recent trip to a neighboring middle school to take the Suffolk County Police Exam. Yeah, it’s been quite a while since I’ve done an update, but I’m working on a few things at once. The Chinese Buffet article is still being worked on (it may be up Friday night or Saturday, so I can get one more taste of the C-Buff, or it may go later so I can get some photos to go along with the article), so that got pushed to the back burner. I scored an interview with Peter Payne, who runs J-List, mentioned below. That’ll be up soon, as I look for a few more good questions. Finally, what was going to be a simple update turned into Buhner.com Takes The Police Test. Hopefully, my seemingly simple experience makes for an enjoyable read, and I can come up with a few more articles in the near future. Until then, hang in there.

I’m slacking off again (blame it on the ADHD), so I figured I’d throw out a collection of links I regularly hit. I’m sure, if the people who ran these sites linked to me, that’d be great. It’d be even better if they bought me stuff from J-List.

J-List — Since I told you to buy me stuff from there, I’ll start with that. I’m friggin’ obsessed with that page. I have the thing for Japan as it is, and there is too much cool stuff they have over there. Thank you for the Internet. Without, I’d think I was pretty weird. Now, I know there are more like me.

craigslist — The same way that I look at the Internet to realize that I’m not weird because there are more like me, I use craigslist to realize that I’m not weird because there are some really screwed up people in the world. Originally out of San Francisco, there are various regional craigslists that are more localized. If you’re not in a major metropolitan region, you really can’t take advantage of the bartering and other interesting stuff going on, but some of the stuff said and asked for on there (especially check out the “casual encounters” section) are just damned amusing, if you can get past the whole “disturbing” thing.

X-Entertainment.com — Deal with the ads. If you lived through the 80s, you have to take a search through this site. Too many good stories about old stuff that you played with back then, and a whole lot of stuff you forgot about. This site brings back way too many memories for me.

Wrestlecrap — Yep, it’s back. If you’re a wrestling fan, it’s easy to look back and say how much better wrestling used to be. Granted, it was still better in the past, but we were all a lot younger back then, and let things that really sucked kind of go right buy us. Wrestlecrap brings them back and reminds us how bad major pro wrestling can really be. This used to be a lot larger and better site, but bandwidth got to be huge, and the guy who rant the site couldn’t keep up with it. I really think someone’s missing the boat on that site, because it obviously got a ton of traffic, and was really damn entertaining.

That’s it for now. I’m going to the Chinese Buffet tomorrow night, and I’m going to write that article I’ve been promising myself I was going to write about it after… hopefully.

Sporting a nice beard-like substance right now. Tara’s never been fond of the extra beard outside of the goatee (in fact, she’s never liked facial hair, but I’ve gotten her into it, at least on me), but I guess there’s just a part of me that wants to do something that I want to do, instead of having to depend on others to help out along the way.

Car needs a new transmission, which won’t be totally “new”, but is still going to run over a grand. Luckily, my family is footing the bill for this one. Personally, that puts me one more rung down the pride ladder. This really really sucks.

The whole depression thing would be something that I would have tried to fight in the recent past, but I realized it was something I dealt more with before then, and, oddly enough, it made me a better writer. I think if you look at most writers, some of their best work comes as a result of an unfortunation situation. In fact, most writers (at least the traditional “greats”) all had their quirks about them that made them less well adjusted than other folk. Writers through history have been suicidal, alcoholic malcontents who ended up dying insane, penniless, or both. So, I figure a little depression might be good for me. My mind has been having it too good lately, and it’s time to get off my ass and get to writing on a regular basis again, and I don’t just mean the website.

Me and Tara had doctor’s appointments yesterday. Just routine physical/PCP stuff so that if we need to go to a specialist for whatever, we’ll have gone to our “regular” doctor first already. I had blood taken (as did Tara), and we found out today that I’ve got a slightly high cholesterol number (nothing too dramatic), while Tara got some not-so-great news on her end. Nothing life threatening or anything like that, but I’m not going to get into it here, and if you know her, you probably know what I’m talking about anyway.

So, the cholesterol thing is an issue, seeing as how there is a history of heart disease in my family. Again, it’s nothing too bad, it’s just something that’s telling me to get off my ass and make an effort to move, or something similar. Walking is what most doctor-types will tell you to do to start an exercise program, but since I’m not overly a fan of any kind of exercise that I can’t keep score of or mark my accomplishments, I’m just going to have to try to find some other incentive to move my ass. Oh well.

So, Tara’s unhappy about her news, as am I, but with all the shit that’s going on around me, I still think that my life could be a whole hell of a lot worse. In a period of two days, two of my friends lost their fathers; one tragicly, one more predictibly. Having already lost my father some time ago, I know that it can be a real rough thing to go through, especially if it happened suddenly and tragicly. It’s something I don’t have to go through right now, and family is one thing I do have, and that I’m blessed with.

On other notes, Buffy was interesting tonight. There’s finally a real “evil” around again, and a face can be put on it. The religious right should LOVE the fact that the most evil character that the guys have to battle right now goes around dressed in religious garb. As if they didn’t hate the show enough already. Xander losing his eye (I’m assuming) was a pretty lasting image, although it might be because I’ve always identified with Xander a little bit since I started watching the show. It’s odd how certain characters draw you in.

Eh, that’s enough for now.

I haven’t been much in the mood for writing lately, but then again, I haven’t been much in the mood for anything.

They say that it’s always darkest before the dawn, and that good things come to those who wait, but cliches are just words, and words generally don’t make people feel better. As it stands, it’s been about three months since my last job, and a little over a year since my last “real”, full-time job. Anyone who tells you that the economy isn’t that bad needs to die. They know that their economy isn’t that bad. Even when the economy is “good”, there are still thousands upon thousands of poor and unemployed who are willing to do anything so that they can pay their mortgage and feed their children.

I’ve been lucky. I’ve had family to fall back on, even after unemployment ran out. Our relative “bad luck” in regards to not being able to find a house some year and a half ago turned out to be a blessing; if we have to move out of the apartment, that’s not too bad. Bot I couldn’t live with seeing our house taken away from us. New York State stops unemployment after a year, technically less than that. However, they do stop it, regardless of whether you’ve found a job or not. The State doesn’t care if you’ve been trying, or even if you’re “employable”. It doesn’t matter if you’ve sent out five resumes or five hundred.

I met with unemployment once, after I initially applied. They told us when we first applied that everyone gets a call into the office sometime during their unemployemtn period, just so that they can check to see if you’re actually trying to find a job. When I got my one call, it was a few months after I started receiving checks. I went into the office, and gave the woman who was assigned to me a list of the places I had applied to (having gotten no response from any of them). She seemed a bit shocked; apparently the people she sees don’t try as often as I had. Once she saw my resume and the places I had applied to, she did a quick search in her job database. She didn’t even suggest a job. She just smiled and told me that my checks would keep coming.

Wel, now they’ve stopped. There’s no income now, and to top things off, it looks like my transmission in our only car is shot.

Sigh.

You tell me when this “dawn” is coming. I’m going back to sleep.