Azúcar y Especias

NEWS ITEMS: The book sale is going very well, by which I mean you have bought most of the books that I own for about what I paid for them, so I don’t have to burn them. Putting them in the hands of Fancy Bastards as opposed to destroying them is preferable. The ones I don’t own will be donated by Explosm to a charity that sends comics and books to soldiers. [UPDATE 01/29/15: BOOK 2 IS SOLD OUT!]

I did a fun podcast called Compulsory, which deals with makers and artists and why they’re compelled to do what they do. I got really exited and talked a bunch and only let the host ask 3 questions. Sorry if it sounds rambling, but I have a lot to say when someone asks me about my weird job.

Over the weekend my Patreon passed the $1750 milestone, so my new podcast “Potter & Daughter” will debut in February. You can learn more about it here.

COMMENTERS: Tell us about your best hook ups. Who do you know who knows a guy, who dates a guy, who used to go to school with a girl who’s aunt had box seats you could borrow at the professional something something whatever matches? What about sweet employee discounts from friends and relatives?

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26 Comments

  1. The Girl Scout website has a "Find Cookies Now" link on their page. You just enter your zip code and boom- there are cookies 1.2 miles from me right now. This is dangerous. I heard that there was going to be a way to buy them online this year, but sadly I think you still have to know a girl scout to make it happen.

  2. I used to have an aunt/uncle who sold winter gear, but that hookup ended when they retired. Still, I came out of it with a jacket that's held up for 15 years and awesome rain gear that I've almost never used because I'm in Portland and we're much to macho for that.

  3. My father-in-law knows everybody in the construction business basically in the state, so if crap goes wrong with my house I can get it fixed at cost. Also, a lot of these people have luxury box seats at the local baseball stadium, and he knows we like to go to games, so if they're not being used we often get dibs.

  4. If there's one thing I like even more than Girl Scout Cookies, it's tamales. Since my family is Mexican, we do the whole "make several dozen tamales on Christmas" deal.

    This may sound crazy, but raisins and olives work so well in tamales, especially if the filling is spicy. The raisins add the right amount of sweetness and makes the filling nice and moist, and the olives bring a nice saltiness and an acidity that cuts the richness of the filling.

    Oh, and I have an uncle that used to work as a food broker, so he'd occasionally hook me up with a fuckton of snacks that he had leftover from excess inventory.

    • Raisins are delicious in food, I agree. There is nothing worse then when you get what looks like choc chip muffin but is actually raisins.

    • I could have gone in on some home made Xmas tamales this year and I totally dropped the ball. Way to start the new year off with regrets.

      • I have a bunch of family in Texas, so the next time i'm in the area, maybe I'll make extra for you and hand them over in person.

  5. my daughter is a girl scout. my current sales technique is, "please buy these because do you know how hard it is to NOT eat 4 boxes of cookies in one sitting when you know that if you finish a box there's another case out in the garage?!" I understand that I would make a horrible drug dealer because I would use all my product. if it had peanut butter or chocolate in it.

  6. When I was in 4th grade, there was a kid in my class whose mother was the manager of the local Chuck E. Cheese. We would go in there and she would just give us soda cups full of tokens. Those were beautiful days, the mid-80s.

  7. well shit…this whole story line has made me want to try these magical Girl Scout Cookies. But to they sell online and post internationally…..no. 🙁

  8. my friend works for an international airline company, so yup free flights, last year jamaica, l.a. (i live in europe) and st lucia all in one glorious 2 month block, wonder where i'll go this year….

    • Free flights. Jesus. What a hook up to have. The very first year I started doing conventions, my father in law had over a million frequent flyer miles from his work trips to Brazil, China and Mexico. He let me use them until they ran out and that bought me about a dozen flights. Once I had to start paying, I got really sad. I've never recovered.

  9. I married a mechanic, whatup!

    It's actually weird how effective the barter system is, as long as you have dumb stuff like mortgage or whatever worked out. We've gotten vehicles in trade for mechanicy-type service, as well as other random stuff. And I have a few friends that are massage therapists, and they trade for all kinds of amazing things, like dental work and fresh produce from the farmers market. It may just be our area, but I never realized how much you could get by through barter instead of always having to rely on cold hard cash.

    • I feel like I should update this to mention that I married a mechanic, BUT:
      – My car needs an EGR valve (which we've known about for 3 months);
      – My AC hasn't worked in three years (even though we know how to fix it, and we live on the Gulf Coast in Texas); and
      – About five years ago, my car was flooded, which ruined the jute, though the carpet was salvaged. I'm still driving around with the carpet and all the plastic pieces that make the interior of your car look like not-a-spaceship-cargo-hold in my trunk, and no jute, so no carpet in my car.
      -_-

  10. My hubby works for a local craft brewery, and gets a free case (or more, depending on what's in surplus) with every paycheck. Except neither of us drinks that much. Certainly not a case every two weeks. We've got many many expensive cases "cellaring" right now (works best with big beers, not so much lagers or IPAs) which we often trade to people for goods and services. So there's that.

    • And I thought being a home brewer got you some good bartering! Man, you guys definitely win. (Also, is your hubby's brewery hiring?) 😉

      • Heh, they will be soon, I'm sure. Production has some turnover, because it's effing backbreaking work when it's not all automated.

  11. My godfather used to keep bees, so we'd get one of those big white ten-gallon buckets of honey each year. Fireweed honey (he'd take the bees out in the spring to the clear-cuts left over after logging up on the mountains); it's amazing stuff. Very light and clear. Clover honey tastes really thick and cloying after it.

  12. Does La Micilia have a website?!? My tamale lady moved away and I NEED MY FIX! My sister swears I would buy tamales from a hobo in a trash can if they were homemade by the dozen!

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