Soundtrack: "Catnip Dream" - Shonen Knife



You guys, holy shit. I don't know what they were thinking, but the PR company for Hello Kitty sent
Vice an invite to an event called "Breakfast with Hello Kitty" where you could preview all the new
Sanrio products. I was scared to go (PR people scare me), but then my lovely friend Jen (a non-scary
PR person and a HUGE Hello Kitty fan) convinced me and WOW, was it worth it!!



We got there at 9am (it was a breakfast, remember?).  I was so nervous. I'm such a wuss. I swear
the door guy gave us such a look when we said we were from Vice. I kept looking at everyone's
name tags and it was all ElleGirl and Teen-this and that. I felt like they would kick us out any second,
especially since we couldn't stop pointing at everything and giggling like maniacs.



There were tables and tables of this stuff everywhere...


     
"A Hello Kitty surfboard??? Dude, now I've seen EVERYthing!"         I'm a "fan."           



It's hard to see in this picture, but everything was pink, even the milk and sugar.



This guy got up to welcome us and talk about Hello Kitty's new line of Fender guitars. He also raffled
off a guitar and a few other items. Almost everyone there was female, but there was this one little
Williamsburg hipster-looking guy there, and he won a popcorn popper. They announced that he was
from "Budget Living." I am so glad I didn't win.



Apparently Lisa Loeb is Hello Kitty's spokesperson. She "could not be with us this morning," so they
had a video of her greeting us and telling us how rad Hello Kitty is. She also told us that we only hear
what what we want to, and that she's only hearing negative, no, no, no. And then she, she turned the
radio up! She turned the radio on! And this woman was singing her song, lover's in love and--. (ok, I'll
stop now.)



More celeb endorsements. And yup, that's Slash up there.



Ha ha ha! OMG, this is my new favorite picture of all time!!



Oh the fun we had.



And you know they had fucking awesome goody bags. Check it out.



As soon as we got out of there we ran into this little park and dumped everything out for inspection.
We got so much awesome useless crap--mugs, candles, cellphone holders, wallets, keychains, pens,
stickers, chocolate, perfume, little thingies you hang off your cellphone, and best of all--a sweet Lisa
Loeb greatest hits CD. Not too shabby! Best breakfast with a fictional character I've had in a long time.
Oh yeah, and this was on January 24th--supposedly the "most depressing day of the year." Uh, hardly!
I wonder if they scheduled it like that on purpose, to cheer us up on such an awful day. Thank you,
Sanrio. Thank you to Jesse for passing the invite on to me, and thank you to Jen for her undying courage!


You say... stay.