Free Shipping!

Hey y'all. We're having a small sale in the shop to clear out some of our inventory. We've got some special listings of our flavor six packs + a pack of CSDs with free shipping. Take a look at Fruit Basket + Charm School Dropouts, Spice Rack + Charm School Dropouts, and Love Triangle + Charm School Dropouts.

Hockey Friday: The Hat Trick

A hat trick in hockey, if you don't know, is when the same player scores three goals in one game. After a player scores his third goal, the fans will toss their hats onto the ice to celebrate.

At some point, most fans ask: Why? How?

Wikipedia says: in 1946, a visiting Chicago Blackhawks player went into a Toronto hat store, but didn't have enough money to buy the hat he wanted. The owner said that if he scored three goals, he'd give him the hat. The player scored four goals and got his hat. Thus, a tradition was born.

I've only ever seen a handful of hat tricks; they're pretty rare. I've certainly never seen anyone throw a fedora onto the ice (though I like the idea). Maybe we'll get one in the Winter Classic? A girl can hope.

Merry Christmas!

We, and our Etsy Store, are on vacation until December 26th. Merry Christmas!

How The Sausage Gets Made

Or in our case, the lollipops. Kate & I are doing some 2010 planning, and this is an honest-to-god exchange we just had:

Kate: <sends me an Excel file summarizing our Product Development Cycle>

Susan: what, no MS Project GANTT charts?

Kate: I thought about faking them in excel. Then I decided that was overkill until we finalized the task list.

I love my business partner… and I decided we needed a “Gigantic Dorks” category to file this post in :-)

Hockey Friday: On (or Off) the Schneid

One of the Sharks announcers has been using "on the schneid" an awful lot lately. The Sharks have lost their last 5 games as of this writing (I wrote this before last night's Sharks-Ducks game). What does it mean to be on the schneid?

To be “on the schneid” means to be on a losing streak, racking up a series of losing, and especially scoreless, games. “Schneid” is actually short for “schneider,” a term originally used in the card game of gin, meaning to prevent an opponent from scoring any points. “Schneider” entered the vocabulary of gin from German (probably via Yiddish), where it means “tailor.” Apparently the original sense was that if you were “schneidered” in gin you were “cut” (as if by a tailor) from contention in the game. “Schneider” first appeared in the literature of card-playing about 1886, but the shortened form “schneid” used in other sports is probably of fairly recent vintage.

From word-detective.com

I certainly hope that the Sharks and their scorers are all off the schneid by the time you're reading this.

Sudz’s Favorite Music of 2009

I almost can’t believe that 2010 is almost here – this year went by so quickly! Especially the fall, once we opened for business it seemed like Kate & I were constantly in motion. Probably because we were! A few of my musical highlights for 2009 included:

Song of the Year

"Summertime Clothes" – Animal Collective, from Merriweather Post Pavillion

Favorite albums of 2009

• Hometowns – The Rural Alberta Advantage
• Fantasies – Metric
• These Four Walls – We Were Promised Jetpacks
• Creaturesque – Throw Me the Statue
• It’s Blitz! – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Message to Garcia – Visqueen
• Glistening Pleasure – Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head (actually a 2008 release)
• Of June – Owl City (actually a 2008 release)

Hometowns was by far and away my favorite (I love RAA! Everyone should own Hometowns. - k8), and seeing the RAA play a tiny show at the Tractor Tavern was one of my live music highlights. They also win my Lyrics of the Year with “Late at night / Sink your heart into mine … Hey tonight / Sync your heartbeat to mine”.

I almost feel sorry for everyone else who released an album this year :-)

What topped your list?