Saturday, June 17, 2006
Chanel the Gathering
Today I visited my friend Shadesong who was visiting her parents in South Florida. Also in attendance were (and for this entry, I'm using their LiveJournal user names) enderfem, felisdemens and we_happy_few.
Now, I thought we were getting together to hang out.
It turns out I ended up smackdab in the middle of a “BPAL greet-n-sniff.”
What is a “BPAL greet-n-sniff?”
Well, BPAL is Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs and they've applied the methods of Magic the Gathering (which is a collectable card card game) to the equivalent of Chanel №5—in other words, a collectable fragrance line.
![[a thousand imps of BPAL right here …]](/2006/06/17/bpal.junkies.jpg "A thousand imps of BPAL right here …")
Yes, the group of people I hung out with tonight are BPAL junkies, sniffing their way through a thousand different scents trying to find the perfect one (or hundred) that will complement their body chemistry. Apparently BPAL has been quite the phenomenon since they started two years ago, driving sales of their perfume line by making limited edition perfumes, selling small sample sizes called imps which drive a thriving secondary market.
Crazy stuff.
The Hellmouth of Davie
During the BPAL the Gathering, Shadesong's husband yendi ordered pizza from a local pizzaria just down the street, the number for which he got from his father-in-law. Since both yendi and I were not all that enamoured with all things BPAL we both decided to head out an pick up the pizza.
We get to the restaurant only to find out our order was not only not ready, but not even at that store! Apparently, yendi's father-in-law gave us the wrong phone number and the store in question was a bit further away.
I checked the map. The other store was about five miles away, so I figured it would be just as easy to pick up the pies from the other store.
Little did I realize just how wrong I was.
The “other store” was at the confluence of State Road 84, I-75, I-595 and the Sawgrass Expressway, a horribly complicated exchange system designed by dropping ink-stained spaghetti on paper where we ended up driving about an extra four miles trying to extricate ourselves from the vortex of overpass hell.
Afterwards, we both agreed that it might have been quicker to order new pies at the closer store.
![[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]](https://www.conman.org/people/spc/about/2023/1023.t.jpg "The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades")