SIGN OF THE HARD TIMES

Desperate times, my thrifty friends, when the local second hand haven has to advertise that it is, indeed, still in business and the rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

Soldier on, thrift store warriors.

TAFT ATE HERE

1908 called. They want their president back. What better way for our stoutest president to campaign than via dinner plate?

Poor Taft, never wanted the job of President. You can see it in his eyes. "Please let me be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court instead of crummy old President. Leave me alone with my smelly old law books. Pleeeeease."

But when your best friend is Teddy Roosevelt and wants you to be president, you'll quit your belly aching and suck it up.

Now if only I could find a Theodore Roosevelt for President Plate. Now there's a mug that looks good on your fine china.

DARK DAYS & THE THRIFTY LIFE

So Santa Barbara is on fire...again. The hills in the background are burning. Ash is raining down. There's an emergency helicopter pad set up across the street from the local Salvation Army now.

Standing inside, with the kitchen wares and bric-a-brac rattling as the choppers swooped over made it feel like I was thrifting in 'Nam.

Earlier this week it was a whole different disaster. Here's the notice posted at the St. Vincent De Paul's as I pulled open the door...

Yep, killer pig influenza. Ah, fond memories of thrifting during SARS.

Those paper masks won't save you, people. The bugs get right through... you can tell by the eyes, they get all glassy.

Heck most thrift stores are full of germs and dust. I for one am more scared of toxic cultural artifacts than tiny spores and embers.

Take this winner. This sounds like such a great date film. Some day you can tell your kids that your first film was super aggro, equally moronic (IMDB says: it's about a lost engagemnet ring. Huh?) and had crappy poster art that ripped off Reservoir Dogs.

This looks a smidge better. The tag line is so uber-meaningless as to be sublime.

Why watch terrible action flicks when you can view a dolled-up and glammed-out song-belting, 13 year-old Jodie Foster as a 1930s gun moll... in Chinese?

Bored by movies. There's always dangerous eggs to fear. Hideous eggy monstrosities. "The egg shaped thing" was my nickname in high school.

Why not just put on a good album. One question: if they love Jesus so much why are they shooting nuclear missiles at him? Some sort of atomic tough love?

You can always go play with your (ahem) Morph-O-Droids. Really. Morph-O-Droids? Were you guys even trying? And gee, they bear no resemblance whatsoever to Transformers. Especially the fun part.

Speaking of comic books and the 'Nam... Somehow I missed this crossover...

If Iron Man, Thor, and Cap' can bring the Vietnam War to a peaceful conclusion (by cracking skulls, of course) surely they can do something simple like putting out the flames that are currently ringing my town.

Tonight there are some real heroes doing heroic things out there. If you see a firefighter anywhere, anytime tell 'em enik said thanks.