(no subject)

There are a good number of hair salons in and around my town. Among the ones I pass more often are:

1. Sweeny Todd Hair (I kid you not, and it's billed as a "Family Hair Salon.")

2. Flash For Hair (which now shares the building with "Wags To Riches" pet grooming)

3. Hair Flair (whose sign consists of the name and phone number of the place in plain black type with absolutely no adornment... and basically zero flair)

4. Liquid Hair Salon (in case you wanted your hair liquefied? Their website is impressive. Trendy and stylish to an almost scary degree for a salon located on a highway in the suburbs. For all that, they could really use a copy editor.)

Almost makes me glad to be bald.

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In other news, I decided to go ahead with the smile card experiment, redesigned based on synecdochic's suggestions. I think it could be cool. So I got a pack of business card stock, designed the cards (front and back), did a couple of test prints (on the cheap paper provided for the purpose), fixed the margins, put in the real thing, hit print, and... ink ran out. Went to get more ink, and... printer died. Dead. As in "you'll have to replace the motherboard" dead. Just like that, after three years of solid performance. Think the universe is trying to tell me something?

So we're getting a new printer. Same line, new model. Canon, it turns out, has a "loyalty program." If your printer or whatever dies, they'll give you 10-20% off a new one (from a small pool of new and refurbished models) and free overnight shipping. They've also got a good support team, with a call center that's actually based in the US. But... they also recently came out with a new new model in the same line. Some small improvements. Nothing major, as far as I can tell. Which means that stores are trying to get rid of their leftover stock of the previous model. So I got one of those for half off (with free shipping - standard shipping, too, thanks to Amazon's current promotion). Should be here in a couple of days.

(no subject)

Several years back, as a lark, I bought a few shares of Marvel Comics stock. It actually turned out to be a pretty good investment. It's the only stock that went up consistently year to year, even in the last two years. At the end of last year, Marvel was bought out by Disney. I sold half my shares (for more than double what I'd originally paid), got some cash back from the buyout of the other half, and ended up with a few shares of Disney stock. Pretty nice, all around.

Today, I got a notification that the annual Disney stockholders meeting is coming up. So I went to read this year's proxy statement. It all looked pretty normal until I hit the last shareholder proposal. I'm just going to let you read it yourself. If you're interested, here's Disney's response.

In short, the people of PFOX are complaining about a widespread culture of discrimination against people of a certain sexual orientation. A culture which reviles them for the choices they have made and the way that they are, or "simply because they dare to exist." They face intolerance, hostility, and unfair treatment just because of their sexual orientation and beliefs about it, and they want a policy to specifically protect them.

The sexual orientation in question? Ex-Gay. These are people who were gay but went to retraining programs and such, learned better, and have now chosen to live a straight lifestyle. Now the world hates and fears them for not being gay.

... Wow.

I wonder how they feel about the bill in Uganda. You know, the one to criminalize homosexual behavior. Last I heard, the death penalty provision had been taken out, but life imprisonment was still on the table, as was making homosexual conduct by Ugandans in other countries an extraditable offense, not to mention failing to report homosexual conduct by fellow citizens punishable by several years in prison, etc etc. All justified by claims that being gay is "curable," that people can choose to be "ex-gay."

For the record, Disney politely suggests voting against the proposal.