#also got the Jankie sticker and it's giant

[wishiwaskidding]

J-A-N-K-I-E !!!

[spinachdrum]

Day 4 - Myeongdong!

Hi guys welcome back to my channel!

Today was super fun!! It started off kind of rough (I started my period like right away this morning when I woke up, so 🙃) but luckily Nichole came STRAPPED with 800mg ibuprofen tablets. Seriously, I take ibuprofen on my period like candy; I’m sure that’s terrible for my body and I’m sure my liver is a shriveled up raisin but hey, better than having cramps.

Anyway, a lot of places in Myeongdong don’t open until a little later in the morning, like maybe 1pm or so? So we lazed around for most of the morning (which was nice for me because period pains knock me on my ass @__@). But finally we got up and got ready and headed out! 

Seriously, there’s something about the subway in Korea that I just love so, so much. I can’t explain it. I love the stations (hate the stairs, lol), I love that cold breeze that blows down the steps in the winter time, I love the noise, I love that feeling of satisfaction when I figure out the path and don’t get lost. It’s strange and I know a lot of people don’t like the subway but it was honestly one of the things I was so looking forward to coming back to. Excuse my love poem to the Korean subway, LOL.

So first, when you get into Myeongdong station, finding the underground mall is super easy cause it’s like, right in front of your face. LIKE BAM. There’s a lot of clothing stores, some teeny tiny restaurants, some souvenier shops, and of course there’s a few k-pop stores! This is where I usually go to buy things I don’t have, like some older releases, although they have new releases too! This is where I bought Arrival when it came out while I was here in 2017. 

Of course I didn’t take any photos in the mall because my eyes were falling out of my head at all the GOT7 things I could buy that I didn’t have, lol. But I made the smart decision of not buying all of that stuff until we were on our way back so I didn’t have to carry it. 

We came out of exit six, which will put you right near an entrance and right by the giant Nature Republican that is really recognizable since it’s got the greenery on the walls and is on the corner. It’s a good starter point and a rendezvous point of sorts since there’s lots of streets to walk down so it’s a good way to remember where you started. 

Or first stop: ARTBOX. I love ARTBOX. [chipotle is my life vine voice]. I love ARTBOX, ARTBOX is my life.

This ARTBOX in Myeongdong is three stories! THREE! THREE STORIES!!!!!! 

Seriously there is literally everything you could possibly need in this damn ARTBOX. Need school supplies? ARTBOX. Need bathroom decorations? ARTBOX. Need a wireless keyboard? ARTBOX. HOTEL???? TRIVAGO!!! 

Like I could honestly write a love song to ARTBOX. Instead, you can have this photo dump of the inside of the store!! 

The first floor is mostly stationary and beauty stuff! Like seriously there is the BIGGEST sticker collection here!! Stickers as far as the eye can see. I bought like... 5? Packs of stickers? Just because they have sooo many cute ones! They have a lot of really cute stationary sets and birthday cards. 

Even the elevator is cute!! We decided to take the elevator to the top floor and then walk back down through the other floors to see everything! 

I don’t know how good this will look on Tumblr but here’s a panorama shot of the second floor! This was mostly electronics and stuff but still there’s SO much cute stuff to look at!! They had wireless keyboards that were sooo cute and I was really tempted to get one but since I’m lazy I almost never sit at my desktop computer and am always performing some contortionist act on my bed with my laptop, lol.

There are so many little cute places to take pictures in here, too! This was on the third floor. Also, personal sidenote, but I literally LOATHE having my picture taken since I hate how I look... but I don’t have any photos of me from my first trip in Korea and I really wanted to change that this time around. It’s so hard to get over and I am still anxious about posting these kinds of photos of myself where I can’t control the angle but it really does make me happy to see myself in these places and to have this memory of being there, so it’s progress, I think.

Okay, dumb personal thing over. MORE PICTURES OF ARTBOX YAAAAY

PLUSHIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Top floor! Lots of stationary and luggage up here.

The cutest decorations! 

CAPSULE MACHINESSSSS. I got an Adventure Time watch that you can’t change the time on, LOL. It just said 12:00 on it and I haven’t figured out how to change the time yet, but it’s of Tree Trunks and it’s cute so I ain’t even mad.

After we left ARTBOX (and I bought 944e9934985 stickers and a singular $6 pencil (but it’s PENTEL and it’s super fucking nice and no one is even going to breathe on that pencil if they aren’t me) we went to the LINE Friends store!! I had serious tunnel vision for ARTBOX and ended up walking right by it when we first arrived, but we doubled back and went to it. It was nice going during the week and kind of early because there was ZERO line for taking a picture with the giant bear!! 

Stupid cute. Love it. 

This was so cute!! There was a fucking SHITLOAD of BT21 stuff here, the whole top floor was BT21. It honestly made me wish I was into BTS cause they were so cute, lol. They did have some ugly ass shoes though and now I wish I had taken a picture of them because one pair was like....HAIRY.

The whole wall of the stairs was made of this and it was sooo pretty! 

Brown’s room!! I could have pet that bear all day, tbh. So soft.

After we left the LINE Friends store, we just walked around for a little bit! We went to go eat first, and we went to this place called Golden Farm and I had sundubu jjigae and ugh, so good.

We hit a lot of the beauty stores but I didn’t buy much (except at Etude House a little later), since there was honestly just... SO MUCH TO LOOK AT. I want to buy everything I look at but I’m really wary about buying skincare stuff without trying it, because I’m anxious about breaking out :( I found the Soojung line and I really wanted to try it but I am trepidatious about branching out without being able to try first. 

I also didn’t take a ton of pictures on the street or in the beauty stores but mostly because the employees were standing UP my ASS. I’m not mad about it, of course, but it was a little weird at times because I just wanted to look at stuff and they’d be standing at my elbow like 👀. But when we did go to Etude House later, I ended up buying the Peach Farm Play Color Eyes palette, a pretty liquid eyeshadow, a lip tint, and a mascara! 

I didn’t get a picture of this or a video and I’m so mad about it becaues it was so funny. But there was a guy in this really janky dog costume that was advertising for a dog cafe (!!!!!!) and he was being SO WEIRD!! He was doing this really weird thing with his legs and I started laughing so he high fived me and handed me a flier, LOL. And then he walked right behind me for a little bit until it was obvious I was not going to the cafe. Sorry manpup!! 

I wish we had stayed just a tiny bit later since as we were walking back a ton of the street food vendors were starting to pack up. However there was this one cart right outside exit 6 where we came out that had a few things like cheese on a stick, sausage and rice cake, sausage and cheese in bread (so basically a corndog with cheese lol) and even MANDU!!! So we stopped for a snack and omg honestly it was soooo good. There’s nothing like Korean streetfood! 

We went back down into the station and that’s when I bought all the GOT7 things I wanted to buy earlier. RIP my wallet. 

Gazing at my bags in shame. SHAME. That DAISO bag actually has an ass load of snacks in it for part of one of my classes! 

My flat lay of shame.

Coming back was crazy since it was starting to be rush hour. Omg the stations were SO busy it was insane. We only had to transfer one line but one of the trains was sooooo full that we decided to hang back and wait for the next one--this lady leapt in right as the doors were closing and they almost closed on her leg!!! Also, this little tiny old lady in front of me when we were walking up the stairs was trying to pull a wheeled cart up the stairs behind her, so I lifted up the back of it and helped her carry it up the stairs. Her smile when she turned to thank me was soooo sweet. ♥️

The sun going down through the window. The pollution was really bad but it was still oddly pretty..

Our classmate Gaby is actually here, too! She came for Spring Break to visit her boyfriend, but he had to go to his academy tonight so we made plans to hang out and get dinner. Originally we were going to Hongdae but she wasn’t going to be free until later like 8pm and I was so tired (my period is soooo draining, it sucks) so we agreed to hang out at our AIRBNB instead! And honestly, I’m so glad we did. When she got here she suggested we try this place called Pizza School that she loved a lot while she lived here and omg, she was right. It was soooo good! 

So we ate and we sat around and talked and laughed and joked around! It was so nice, I love her and it was such a fun bonding experience to get to know her a little better! I love my friends and I love even more that we got to hang out here together. It was such a nice way to end the day, so relaxing and sooo much fun. ♥️

Until next time, y’all! 

♥️

[spicynbachili1]

Neo Geo Mini outshines the PS1 Classic, could pave the way for a GBA Mini

But it’s not without its missteps

I don’t know what’s going on with the Neo Geo Mini. Shortly after I got my hands on one, SNK announced that an upgraded Holiday version of the hardware would be going up for pre-order in the coming days. That’s not a good sign. I have to guess that the initial SKU failed to sell as well as SNK had expected, leaving them scrambling to rework the units they already produced into a more marketable package. Their apparent lack of confidence in their product leaves me pessimistic about this weird little machine’s future. 

It’s a shame too, because this is by far my favorite plug-and-play mini console to date, at least in terms of its library. I bought the NES and SNES Classics day one, and I love them to “bits”, but there’s no denying that nearly all the games on each system are outdated. That’s the point of the nostalgia-powered novelty collections though, right? To take a trip in your mind back in time? 

If so, then that’s probably why the Neo Geo Mini isn’t selling. These are not the games that many grew up loving. These are the games that most of us could only afford to play for ten minutes a week at the local arcade, before going home and sinking hours into The Legend of Zelda or Sonic the Hedgehog. That said. there are several games on the console that stand up to the best that 2018 has to offer in their respective genres. Garou: Mark of the Wolves looks and plays better than 99% of today’s fighting games. Metal Slug 3 is still the best looking 2D run-and-gun action game I’ve ever played. There are also plenty of quality games on here that I’d never heard of before. For instance, if you told me that Ninja Masters was as all new indie fighter, and not a Neo Geo title from the ’90’s, not only would I have believed you, but I would have been more than happy to pay $15 for it.

That’s why, despite my love of Jumping Flash and Super Puzzle Fighter, the Neo Geo Mini beats out the PS1 Classic for me this holiday season. It’s also why I am more optimistic than ever that Nintendo will skip the N64 when it rolls out its next Classic console, and will instead jump straight to the Game Boy family of systems. I’ve already taken my Neo Geo Mini on the go with me a few times, and I’m sure people would love to do the same with a similarly versatile handheld/home console pre-loaded with games from Nintendo pre-DS portable generation. The Neo Geo Mini has issues, but its definitely worth looking into once Black Friday rolls around. 

The Setup 

The Neo Geo Mini is a better handheld than it is a home console. I have fairly large hands, but I’ve had no problems with the stick and buttons on the console itself. The screen is also bright and clear. The console doesn’t take batteries, and instead runs off of a USB port, similar to most cell phones. I’ve played it running off my car’s cigarette lighter USB adapter, a mobile cell phone battery, and hooked up to my laptop on the train, and as of yet I’ve had no problem with power supplies, or pulling off special moves in KoF 2002 while on the move.

The optional control pads (sold separately) aren’t nearly as nice. The analog stick is loose and the buttons are loud and clicky. They aren’t impossible to get used to, but its strange that they are such a downgrade from the stick built into the console itself.

In some misguided attempt to replicate the arcade experience, all the games are programmed to have a set amount of tokens for both players, You can tone down the difficulty ,or increase the amount of default lives you have for most of the games, but your starting token count never changes.

These are not arcade original roms though. Most have been altered for the home market to let you save then restart from whatever stage you last made it to. You can also open up the emulator’s menu and activate save states. It’s a pretty weird system that is cumbersome and confusing at first, but that’s easy to forget once you acclimate.

The emulator also has some real bare-bones features, like the ability to turn on pixel smoothing and stretching. It’s extremely small-time stuff, and for the most part, will make each game look different or worse, but never better. With the correct aspect ratio and smoothing off, the games look about as good as they do on the Switch or PS4, at least to me. I haven’t had my eyes checked this year, so maybe I’m missing something, but pressed my face up right up to the screen to look for artifacting, and my 41-year-old eyes didn’t detect any. So that’s good news. The bad news is, the only extras here are a couple of stickers. No in-menu history section, no bonuses, nothing but a instruction booklet for the hardware itself. 

The Games

There are 40 games on the Neo Geo Mini. The console costs about $110, so you’re getting each one for less than $3, about $5 less than what they might go for on digital storefronts, assuming they are available anywhere else at all. They fall under the genres of fighters, wrestling games, run and gun, shmups, beat ’em ups, sports games and unnerving Tetris knock offs. There’s actually only one of these here, but it’s worth mentioning for how bad it made me feel. 

The range of quality here is pretty enormous. Some of these games are a sincere waste of time unless you go in strictly to marvel at how much gaming has changed over the past 20 years. Others are games that I sincerely believe are some of the best ever made. I’ll break them up into three categories (Oddballs, Mid-tier and Classics) and do my best to describe them for you. 

The Oddballs 

Blue’s Journey, one of the oldest games in the bunch, is relic from a bygone era, not unlike a cigarette commercial starring The Flintstones. It has a decidedly launch era TurboGrafx-16 feel to it, with overly detailed backgrounds and very small characters. They don’t make them like this anymore for a reason. It’s generally messy, but in a sort of “manic toddler eating a $1 box of sugar cookies” sort of way. 

Robo Army is so bad that it’s funny, but not that funny. The opening cinematic is completely bananas, promising unhinged Sci-Fi violence on whole other level, but when you finally get control of your character, things slow down quickly. It’s a beat ’em up where you play as a cyborg that can randomly turn into a car, as you blow up other cyborgs, giant dogs that turn out to be cyborgs, and angry cars. It’s clunky and sad, but those with a morbid curiosity for what people used to be willing to play for $.25 microtransactions might find it interesting in a scientific sort of way.  

Mutation Nation starts off feeling similarly janky, but after a few minutes, you’ll see that a lot of the animation here is pretty solid. Charge moves lie at the core of the game’s combat system, which is novel for the genre, and the Akira-meets-Cronenberg character designs are surprising, sometimes genuinely disturbing.

Ghost Pilots is a top down WW2 shmup that was probably trying to leech off the popularity of 1942 and 1943. It’s totally fine, but nothing to write home about.

Crossed Swords is another beat ’em up, but this one plays from a Punch-Out!!/Pato Box perspective. It’s more polished looking that Robo Army, and the RPG elements add some depth, but the combat is a total mess. That’s bad news for a game that’s about, uh, combat.

Puzzled is the Tetris-knock off I brought up at the top. It really makes me appreciate all the little quality-of-life improvements that are found in recent Tetris games like Tetris Effect and Puyo Puyo Tetris. All you can do is move, rotate and drop you paces, so even the most basic of advancements like the T-spin is out of the picture. The game has a campaign mode and different stages, based around trying to free pixies who are trapped under some blocks? I don’t know guys, video games just sort of do their own thing sometimes. 

The Mid-Tiers

Magician Lord is one of the first games I ever blew $20 on at an arcade in order to see it to the end. Playing it now is not that great. In many ways it feels like Castlevania with larger characters, but the controls are just as stiff, making it hard to keep your giant hitbox out of the way of enemy attacks. It’s got a cool transformation gimmick though (you can turn into a dragon, a ninja, or even Poseidon for some reason) and one heck of a creepy womb level. 

Kizuna Encounter is a fighting game that probably started of in development as a two-player beat ’em up. Two of the games ten playable characters are beautifully animated, while the rest are serviceable but unimpressive in their appearances. What’s really interesting about the game is it’s tag team system. Unlike in recent tag fighters like Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite, you have to get close to your partner before you can tag them in. They don’t automatically jump in when the character you’re using is out of health either, adding an interesting layer of strategy to the otherwise standard Street Fighter II-style fighter. 

Ninja Masters feels like it was supposed to be the first entry in a series that would work as the Ninja equivalent to Samurai Showdown. They clearly didn’t have a lot of RAM to work with for their ambitions, as the characters are relatively small, but it has some really smartly executed animations. If I were game designer and one of my students wanted to learn how to make realistic, non-pandering breast physics for their game, I’d probably point them to towards Ninja Masters. The whole thing culminating in battle with good old Nobunaga, which is a lot of fun for fans of magical Japanese history games like myself.

Sengoku 3 is another ninja game, a beat ’em up this time, one that’s gotten a lot of praise from retro enthusiasts over the years. I’m not 100% sure why. It’s got good art and a varied cast of characters, but nothing about it really stands out about it. Maybe I’m just unfairly comparing it to the Capcom Dungeon and Dragons games without realizing it. 

Blazing Star (sequel to Pulstar) is a pretty good shmup that works on a upgrade system that extends the length and strength of your charge shot meter. Picking up power ups doesn’t always make your basic shot better, but it does give you the potential to fire off huge payloads of neon energy if you play your cards right. Other than that, a standard sci-fi anime shmup.

Last Resort is more up my alley, with a novel take on R-Type‘s bit system and even greater attention to detail to make the world you destroy feel lived in. The open levels takes place in a city under siege by giant robots, featuring little civilians driving – or even running – away from the carnage in a futile attempt to survive. It’s adorable and sad in a way that few modern shmups bother going for anymore. 

Shock Troopers and its sequel are Ikari Warriors-likes with an added evasive maneuver (a roll or a jump) to get you away from bullets, though it has a fair amount of a cooldown so you can’t spam it. The animation is better in the second one, but some of the backgrounds and characters have a weird pre-rendered look that can be a bit of a turn off, whereas the first one has more consistent art direction overall. Still, both are fun enough if you’re in the mood for some hard boiled co-op arcade action. 

King of Monsters, King of Monsters 2 and 3 Count Bout, are all wrestling games that are a nice alternative for people who want to beat up their friends without having to worry about too much depth getting the the way of the immediate violence. The King of Monsters games are based around Kaiju films, which adds an extra layer of charm if you’re a fan of the classic rubber suit Toho movies of old. 

3 Count Bout plays it more straight faced, but it’s definitely very “videogamey”, as are Foot Ball Frenzy, Super Sidekicks and Top Players Golf, the other three sports games found in this collection. Technical limitations permitted them for going for anything that approaching “realism”, but the sprite-based graphics have a loving, hand crafted feel to them, and the respective designs of each game play like cartoonish approximations of the source material. 

World Heroes 2 Perfect has a special place in my heart, as its has both the most superhuman fake Bruce Lee in the history of gaming and a psychic monk based on Rasputin, Russia’s famous love machine, but I have to admit that it’s not as deep, original, or well crafted as most of the other fighting games here. Still, it’s the best World Heroes game of them all, so if you were ever curious about what the Battleborn equivalent of ’90’s 2D fighters was like, then you’re in luck.  

The Classics

A lot has already been written about the Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, and King of Fighters families of games, so I probably won’t go on and on about them here. Like I said at the top, I think Metal Slug 3 is one of the best looking games ever made. Metal Slug X/2 and the original game in the series come close behind it. Metal Slug 4 and 5 are notably less visually impressive than the games that came before them, with little in the way of new enemies other than bosses. So you can stop after 3 if you want, but if you don’t, go into the next two with lowered expectations. 

There are only three Samurai Shodown games here, and they stand out as some of the most extreme iterations of the franchise. Sam Sho 2 is is essentially the first game but with more characters. Samurai Shodown IV: Amakusa’s Revenge retains the new and improved sprites and Slash/Burt systems from Samurai Shodown III while (you guessed it) adding more characters. Samurai Shodown V Special is essentially an apology for Samurai Shodown V, bringing together characters from every chapter of the series for one last hurrah.

The King of Fighters games are a little more difficult to break down, as they work as a giant crossover of various SNK franchises. Technically, Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury Special (an enhanced version of Fatal Fury 2) work as their prequels. They are both dated compared to the games that followed, but they have significance. Fatal Fury Special is the first game to officially start the shared SNK fighting game universe with it’s hidden battle against Ryo from Art of Fighting. Real Bout Fatal Fury is also on this collection. I almost put it on the oddities list, as its weird, three-plane fighting system is pretty strange. In the end though, I threw it here with the classics because it’s definitely a significant part of the evolution of fighting games. 

From there were have King of Fighters ’95. ’97, ’98, 2000, and 2002. The offer a nice overview of how the franchise evolved during the height of popularity enjoyed by fighting games in the late 90’s into the early 2000’s. From a visual perspective though, they largely pale compared to The Last Blade 2 and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. For my money, they are the two most beautiful SNK fighting games of that era, or any era for that matter.

[These impressions are based on a retail build of the hardware provided by the publisher.]

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      reviewed by Jonathan Holmes

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from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/neo-geo-mini-outshines-the-ps1-classic-could-pave-the-way-for-a-gba-mini/

[theconservativebrief]

Brett Kavanaugh, the subject of last week’s hearings in which Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified that he sexually assaulted her in high school, has not yet been confirmed to the Supreme Court. But at the White House Gift Shop, you can already preorder a commemorative coin with his name on it. It’s got a 24-karat gold finish, celebrates “constitutionalism,” features a cameo from Neil Gorsuch, and can be yours for the price of $175.

To be clear, the coin doesn’t actually exist yet. But neither does the White House Gift Shop — at least physically.

You might have assumed, as I did, that the gift shop was the last thing you did on one of those guided tours of the White House, the place where you buy, like, a mug with a picture of an American flag on it. Turns out, it’s more like a janky online store run by a rather enigmatic CEO with vague ties to the Secret Service where you can spend hundreds of dollars on large coins that commemorate events that haven’t happened yet.

You might recall hearing about it this past summer. When Donald Trump was scheduled to meet with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un in May, the US military released a commemorative “challenge coin” to mark the occasion, despite the fact that occasion in question hadn’t technically happened yet. And it didn’t: Trump canceled the summit abruptly, rendering the coins a rather bizarre artifact of a would-be event. Though the two did meet a month later, in June, the debacle at least led to some decent jokes on Twitter.

All the while, you could — and still can! — buy coins honoring the summit at the White House Gift Shop’s website. It’s seemingly a popular item; in fact, those who call the company to purchase it will be met with an automated message that says, “If you are calling about the Korean summit peace coin, please be advised that we are working to fulfill your order. Due to high demand, shipping has been delayed.”

So where does the money from these very popular coins go? Who designs this sometimes-premature merchandise? Most important, what does the White House Gift Shop have to do with the actual White House? Spoiler: basically nothing!

President Harry Truman ordered the White House store into existence on September 9, 1946. At first it was called the White House Flower Fund, then the White House Police Benefit Fund, and finally the White House Gift Shop, but in all iterations the mission remained essentially the same: The money made from the sales of presidential memorabilia and souvenirs would go to the families of Secret Service members who were injured or killed while on duty.

That’s where its connection to the actual White House ends. Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall embarked on an investigation into the mystery of the gift shop in May; initially he ended up with more questions than answers. (Was the company still tied to the Secret Service? Was it even a legal corporation?) It wasn’t until he received emails from knowledgeable parties that he discovered that yes, there once was a White House Gift Shop at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, but today’s iteration is a private company that has nothing to do with the government, even as it attempts to create the appearance that it does.

Here’s what happened: As recently as a decade ago, the gift shop appears to have been run by an organization called the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division Benefit Fund, but in 2011 it signed a contract with a company called Giannini Strategic Enterprises to run the shop on the fund’s behalf. When the fund liquidated itself in 2013, the gift shop was wholly transferred to Giannini.

It’s run by a man named Anthony Giannini, who did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. He’s currently the CEO of the White House Gift Shop and runs both businesses out of an office in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And no, there’s not an actual store, in the White House or anywhere else, where you can buy the stuff shown online.

According to Giannini’s LinkedIn, he’s a graduate of Harvard and the CEO of Strategic Systems Corporation, a company that develops “supercomputer systems for neural network mapping” as well as “intelligence and defense systems modeling.” He also spends a fair bit of his bio discussing his ancestors, which he says include one of the people who funded the original animated Snow White movie, a gardener at President Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and a Sistine Chapel art restorer.

So how is Giannini allowed to run a company with the very misleading and official-sounding “White House” in the title? Well, at first, he couldn’t. According to Talking Points Memo, when Giannini first applied to trademark the name at the US Patent Trademark Office, his request was rejected “on the pretty straightforward argument that it gave the false impression that it was part of the White House.”

But in a follow-up application, he argued that because the gift shop was founded by President Harry Truman, that it was indeed tied to the White House. And thus, the Trademark Office issued the trademark, which is why you’ll see a lot of very tiny trademark symbols proudly displayed on the company’s website.

The White House Gift Shop’s site looks suspiciously like a government-run page, down to the official-looking logo in the precise shade of Presidential seal blue on the top and the giant “USA.gov” sticker on the bottom.

But investigate even a little bit and it’s clear that no government-owned website would contain quite so much grammatical and aesthetic strangeness. Whether you’re on the homepage, the FAQ section, or the shop, it’s likely that you’ll see up to five different fonts at a time, as well as a lot of randomly capitalized letters. Which is all fine, of course. But it’s hard to believe that anyone from a government organization approved it, and they did not.

The merchandise itself is also largely not “official.” Many of the products, which range from Christmas ornaments to gold-plated models of the White House and Capitol Building are labeled as “designed by Giannini.” Indeed, when I called the gift shop about the Kavanaugh coin, the very kind customer service representative explained that the owner, Giannini, creates the coins along with another designer.

Yet there are indeed “official” items, such as one replica of an ornament that was hung on the actual 1992 White House Christmas tree. There are also campaign souvenirs like MAGA hats, Trump bobbleheads, and a section for Obama merch.

The representative also explained that the Kavanaugh-Gorsuch coin hadn’t yet been designed because they were waiting until Kavanaugh’s actual confirmation, and didn’t know whether his face would be on it due to the surrounding controversy. Relatedly, the White House Gift Shop was also reluctant to put Kim Jong Un’s face on one of the coins because they were worried it might be offensive to the South Korean customers whom they said were its primary buyers. (Jong Un does appear on the summit coins.)

So where, exactly, does the money from these commemorative coins go? The same customer service representative during a previous call to the Gift Shop also told me that while the company is privately owned, that it makes many donations to police, fire, and military first responders. The website, however, is a little more specific, and says that it supports firearm training for law enforcement officers in small departments:

Today, The “only original official” White House Gift Shop, Est., 1946 in White House History continues to actively support Law Enforcement Departments or Agencies by funding special advanced firearms training and by purchasing safe and effective arms for departments often in smaller jurisdictions with limited advanced training budgets. If you are a rural or smaller law enforcement entity. for more information about The White House Gift Shop’s programs for arming your department (typically up to 70 officers) and providing world-class advanced LEO firearms training, on-site

So on one hand, no, your money is not going to the White House if you choose to buy a glass statue of the Washington Monument with a picture of the Washington Monument and the words “Washington Monument” on it. It also probably will never be entirely clear exactly where it is going. Much like the products itself — and the design of the Kavanaugh coin — the White House Gift Shop remains somewhat of a mystery.

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Original Source -> The White House Gift Shop is already pre-selling a Brett Kavanaugh coin

via The Conservative Brief