Perhaps it's the homoerotic subtext between Frodo and Sam that does it. No, they aren't having sex, but my DVD player thinks it could happen at any moment. I know how it feels. Despite the fact that I've read the trilogy, I'm sort of hoping they'll at least make out in The Two Towers.

I got the DVD tonight by exchanging my old copy of Fellowship. Right after I bought it, I found out the fancy new version was coming out, with all the extended footage and commentary and juicy stuff that makes my pervy DVD player so indispensable. So I never opened it, I just saved it and then went and exchanged it. Take that, New Line Cinema. You're not getting my money twice.

For the record, I fucking hate that, when they release a "special" edition and then a "no, we mean it this time, this is really special" edition right afterwards. I have the less-nifty versions of Memento and Almost Famous because of this crap. It's really an asshole thing to do to the consumer, and I hope it hurts their sales somehow.

Anyway, when I went to exchange it, I told the nice guy behind the counter that I wanted to exchange my version for the fancy version. He pulled out the fancy version and I said, "Yes! That's the one!"

He said, "There's also an even more fancy version..."

"...that costs $60," I finished. "No, this one has just the right amount of fanciness for me." Unless-- and I didn't think to ask-- the $60 version is the one where Frodo and Sam have sex. Now that, I might shell out the cash for.

People are very agitated about the Christmas festivity we have at work. "But it's not even Thanksgiving! Waah, waah." Strangely, I don't hear too many complaints about the decorations, but if I put on a Christmas tape, look out. Everyone gets their panties in a bunch.

I think starting Christmas on the first of November is a little much, but we're almost at Thanksgiving, definitely in the realm of Christmas shopping as far as I'm concerned. And anyway, the store is all festooned, so I've given in.

Maybe I'm just rationalizing because I love Christmas music so much. Yesterday I made my closing crew listen to The Nutcracker Suite. Today we played A Charlie Brown Christmas. And all those Scroogy customers had to sit there and take it. Muahahah.

Speaking of, we've had some really fabulous customers recently.

Clearly, this woman had issues understanding the concept of "different sizes." I got her a medium, but in retrospect, I should have gotten her one of our tiny demitasse cups. I'm sure she would have loved that. But hey, it's cup-sized!

You know, I've come to terms with the fact that people are going to assume I'm sort of slow, but if nothing else, at least believe that I know how to make a cup of coffee. I know that "for here" means "in a mug," I know that "decaf" means that it should have no caffeine in it, and I know that mochas involve chocolate somehow. Throw me a bone here, people.

My friend Ry (who is, as you may remember, a rock star-- in fact, his band had a song on the radio the other night, very exciting) had a bunch of thirteen year old girls come in and fawn over him the other day. "Giggle giggle-- can I have a caramel Frappuccino? Giggle! We're really big fans!" "No we want you to make it! Giggle!" "Can I have extra whipped cream, giggle!?"

Ry's got a hell of an attitude, just soaks it all up and plays along and laughs it off. So he was flirting, and the girls were squealing, and it was hilarious. The rest of us were in the back room laughing our heads off, going, "Ooh, Ry, I love the way you pour that Frappuccino!" "Oh Ry, I'm going to take down my poster of Justin Timberlake and put up your poster instead!"

How embarrassing for him, to have our store invaded by his silly fans. One girl came back in with her boyfriend, and the boyfriend threatened to "kick his ass" in defense of his girlfriend's honor or something. It was priceless.

My favorite story-- Ry has this bracelet with all these sparkly stones in it, and one girl was all, "Oh my GOD, are those RHINESTONES?" Ry said they were, sort of confused by her enthusiasm, and her eyes got all big. "REAL ones?"