Playing cards?

So we're working on updating our shipping prices in the Etsy store, and in the process we are discovering some interesting things about the morals, politics and idiocracy of  Customs rules.  Here's a little sampler of true, actual Customs regulations:

• You can't ship melatonin to Germany.  Apparently the German government is afraid that it's population might get sleepy and fall into the gears at the factory.  Which makes a real mess and slows down production.
  
• If one of your Albanian relatives asks you send them them the toothbrush they left at your place over the holidays, don't even try to send it.  Albania strictly forbids the shipment of anything that's been used.  Extravagant clothes are also verboten.  So Levis good, Prada, not so much.
  
• You can't ship Uncle Hassien's cremated remains back to the family farm in Algeria if they are in a funeral urn.  Just put him in a cereal box and everything will be fine.
  
• It's illegal to ship bananas to Armenia.
  
• Aussies don't want your used bedding. Ever.
  
• Shipping pink Quinine to Bangladesh will get you in a lot of trouble.  Blue, red, polka dotted or plaid Quinine is apparently OK.
  
• The government of Belgium will be very upset with you if you try to send a used ink cartridge to them.
  
• Do not send a fancy greeting card that sings 'Happy Birthday" to a relative in Bulgaria.
  
• You can't mail margarine to Canada.  Really.

So this has us through the letter C, and the rest of the world promises even more entertaining  regulation.  Stand by for next post.

Oh, and by the way, don't try to send the 6 of Spades to Germany.  Gunplay could ensue. 

Hi Ho again - 

Here's the first Yellow Bug Blog post of 2013 and the fulfillment of at least one New Years Resolution.  This is sure to be an action-packed, year, filled with chills, spill, and assorted nonsense as we continue to press the pedal on the Yellow Bug empire.



Hopefully the scene above will not be representative of our blogging efforts in 2013.

So I'm writing this during the BCS "Might Be The Championship Game But Nobody Really Knows For Certain" game between Notre Dame and Alabama.  Catholics vs. Cousins, as the t-shirt says.  Big Game Bret has already fired off a couple of 'fires', so the drinking is well underway. See here for an explanation.

We've been working on some new stuff and have actually gone out and bought some sublimation gear.  If you're wondering what 'sublimation' is, it is apparently a $3 word meaning 'get ink real hot so it sticks to stuff'.  We've got a big pile of stuff just waiting to be heated to an uncomfortably high temperature, and we're working through a list of images, sayings and other things we find humorous to melt on to said stuff.  Swing by the shop in a week or so and see what we've managed to create.  You may also be able to score some of our preliminary efforts at fire sale prices.  Pay no attention to the burnt flesh marks.

At present, we're fixated on Valentines Day, the latest in a long-running series of YAHIGI events (Yet Another Holiday Invented by the Greeting-card Industry).  There are a lot of YAHIGIs in our calendar (Grandparents Day, Bosses Day, Secretaries Day, Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day Groundhog Day...) but Valentines Day is the cheesiest of the bunch.  Really - we need a special day to tell the people we love that we love them?  And God Forbid you don't tell them you love them in a way that can't be measured in stems, pounds or straps (use your imagination).

Big Game Bret just announced his 5th high school, and I'm well into the game - at least the drinking one.  Enough for today.

As Dan Rather used to say, "Courage".  

It's National Soup Month!

Really.


How should we celebrate it?  The options are staggering.  Perhaps we should look forward to -

• Troupes of acrobats performing death-defying dives into huge containers of chicken noodle?
• Performing the Cleansing of the Soup ritual before a steaming bowl of lobster bisque?
• Tossing unopened cans of Hungry Man at passing cars?

But the first question we should ask ourselves is, do we really NEED a National Soup Month?  Does it have to be a whole month?  How about a National Soup Fortnight?  Or a Soup Weekend just for states that start with "M"?

Can you also celebrate chili, or does that violate the spirit?

Here's a list of month-long celebrations we should be observing just for January.  Note that some of these celebrations are international - for example, January is also the universally known and loved International Change Your Stars month.  This, of course, being the month when everyone from Sven in the glacier field to Tumbulaki in the Kalahari spend their evenings deciding on whether they should begin following Matt Damon instead of Lady GaGa.

Which leads one to wonder - how does one go about creating a national (or international) something month?  Is there a review board somewhere that has to study the application?  You know, just to keep out the riff-raff and make sure only worthy causes (like the celebration of Okra, Plout and Aprium each June) get official recognition.  What are the qualifications to serve on this Board?  It could be anything from deep contemplative skills to advanced partying techniques.  I'll bet their meetings rock.

As for me, I'm going to continue to positively vibrate in anticipation of National Pull Your Sofa Off The Wall Month (February).  I've got my EZmoves all shined up.

Good Tidings Toxicity Levels

Let there be light...

The neighborhood we live in goes pretty insane when it comes to Christmas lights.  There's no "official" rule that says you have to decorate, but for some reason we go all Clark Grizwald-y when it comes to decorating.


The first couple of years we lived here it was kind of fun.  People come from miles around to drive through the neighborhood to look at lights, and it was cool to wave as they went by.


Then the next couple of years the limos started, followed closely by the little mini-buses full of blue-haired ladies, followed by the full-size transit system bus tours, followed by the (no kidding) horse-drawn carriage tours.  Just getting in and out of the neighborhood after dark can take 20 minutes.


Then came the helicopters.  We had flights of helicopters hovering overhead, night after night.  It sounded like we were in a Vietnamese firefight.  We finally chased those guys off, though I don't really know how.  Maybe it had something to do with the heat-seeking missiles.


Adding insult to injury, my next-door neighbor routinely wins the Children s Choice award (yes, we even have judging and contests!).  Every night this time of year, hundreds of minivans full of little snot-nosed ankle biters wait for hours to pull up in front of his house and ogle.  They generally fall into three categories: they're either (a) asleep, (b) crying, or (c) fighting with a sibling.  Those in Category C often transition into Category B right before our eyes.


And then... this happened.  He's on the same street as me, except that he's on the segment of the street that dead-ends into a cul-de-sac.  So now we have buses, vans, horses, limos, the occasional shot-down helicopter, cars, trucks, trains and other random means of conveyance literally parking for hours, waiting impatiently, and depositing all manners of litter (and in the case of the horses, some high-quality fertilizer) in the street.


So you will pardon us if we get a little overdosed on Christmas cheer.  Mrs. Bug and I occasionally long for the anonymity of Jakar- THE REMAINING PORTIONS OF THIS BLOG POST HAVE BEEN REDACTED BY THE FEDERAL WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM.  MR. & MRS. BUG (NOT THEIR REAL NAMES) HAVE NEVER BEEN TO JAKARTA AND HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT INCIDENT AT THE SOVIET EMBASSY.  PROMISE.

Dilemmas...

Dilemma (n); a German phase meaning "a lemma".

This is how you get a real appreciation
for the phrase "Christmas Rush"

So we got yet another request today from someone wanting to know if we sell wholesale.  The weeks immediately before Christmas are probably not a good time to ask - one of our Christmas ornaments was in Etsy Finds the other day in the No. 1, upper left-hand corner position, and we got crushed by orders.  Crushed as in "run to the office supply store because we drained an ink cartridge printing invoices" crushed.

(On a side note, what the hell is in those cartridges that makes them so expensive? Unicorn sweat?)

Anyway, the fundamental concept of wholesaling is that you'll make it up on volume.  That theory holds if and only if you can make the volume.  If you're running an operation out of an Uzbekistan sweat shop, achieving the necessary volume is a real possibility.  However, if you're running an operation out of a spare bedroom, the volume question becomes much more interesting.  Interesting in the way that an airplane crash is interesting.

This is a lemma. Really.

So for now we think we'll pass.  Talk to us in February when the sales have gone to zilch and we're breaking up furniture for firewood.  We might have a different answer.

Oh, and here's a lemma.

A little decorum, please.

Ewwww...

So we're sitting around watching football with the family - all ages, in-laws, etc. -  and we're subjected to a torrent of ads for men with (ahem) issues.  We wrote this open letter in response to these ads.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Dear Big Pharma,

We would like to start by saying that we appreciate the effort you have expended to improve the lives of humanity. We acknowledge the fantastic contributions you have made to the health of people world-wide. We wish you continued success as you seek to conquer the diseases that endanger us.

But we need to talk. You see, every time we turn around we are seeing "male performance" ads, and frankly, we're sick of them. Setting aside the rather uncomfortable subject, these ads are just plain stupid. Sitting in matching bathtubs while watching the sunset? A NASCAR car flying around a race track? Getting frisky while doing the laundry?

Seriously.

And if the ads weren't bad enough, the accompanying warnings are making us nauseous. We're had it up to here with commercials warning us about blurry vision, dangerous increases in blood pressure, and the need to ask our doctor if we're healthy enough for sex. Like, what's he going to say? "No, Trevor, you better just make do with gardening?"

But the topper, the one that makes us want to run screaming into the street, is the instruction that we should call the aforementioned doctor if our, ahem, condition lasts for more than four hours. Here's a hint, Big Pharma. We ain't callin' no doctor to report that "the moment has been right" for half the night. Aside from the fact we'd die from embarrassment before we'd die from the diagnosis, we're scared to death of what the doctor might actually do to relieve our problem. How the hell do you fix it? Pics of Margaret Thatcher? Ice packs? Chain saws?

So stop it already. What's wrong with advertising a nice skin cream or something? We're tired of squirming in our seats every time we see a bathtub.

Sincerely,

The Entire Frigging Planet

Greetings Jingle Bashers!

If you're here reading this, it's probably because you scanned a QR code you picked up at the Etsy Dallas Jingle Bash (you certainly didn't wind up here because of this blogs' overwhelming popularity). "So", you're asking yourself, "what's up with this?"

Nothing but fun and games, actually. This is the official blog of Yellow Bug Boutique, an Etsy shop, purveyor of fine stuff with a slightly scientific bend since, oh, at least week before last. We occasionally use this blog to muse on things we find interesting, amusing, infuriating or otherwise noteworthy. Herein you'll find samples of our somewhat bent sense of humor, offered up in snibbets sized so that they can be read on your smartphone in an average bathroom break.

You may notice that occasionally sections of this blog are redacted by the Federal Witness Protection Program. You can get some background on why Agents Hotchkiss and Vickers pay so much attention to this blog here. Hi, agents! (HI BACK. KINDLY LEAVE US OUT OF THIS.)

Hope you had a good time at the Jingle Bash. This is a somewhat risky statement since, at the time of this writing, the Jingle Bash has not technically occurred. Hopefully there won't be a zombie attack or mass spontaneous human combustion at the event. If there is, kindly disregard the previous statement.

Assuming that the Jingle Bash was a success, as you read this Mrs. Bug and I are probably soaking our feet and trying to recover from the event. We're not used to spending that much time on our feet, unlike when we were on our mission together in Jakar- (REDACTED AGAIN. YOU GUYS ARE REALLY BEING A PAIN IN OUR PATOOTIE(S). DO YOU *WANT* TO BE HUNTED DOWN BY THE KG-)

PORTIONS OF THE PREVIOUS REDACTMENT HAVE BEEN REDACTED BY ME, SENIOR AGENT MAXIM OF THE FEDERAL WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM, WHO HAS TO KEEP TOO MUCH OF AN EYE ON A COUPLE OF GOOFBALL AGENTS WHO ALMOST GAVE AWAY A STATE SECRET. KNUCKLEHEADS.