The Demonweasel Speaks

Oh god, work. Who knew being your own boss would be so taxing. People with sense, I’d imagine.

After a full computer upgrade, including a new subscriptions service and inventory tracking system, we took a break to work a booth at a local comic con on my day off. 6am to 8pm. Rock on, day off. But it’s all mostly done now, and all over but the tech support shouting (like, I know I’m supposed to pull 12 Green Lanterns, but who are they for? Computer: I dunno.).

All this pesky work nonsense means that I haven’t been as creative as I’d like to be. The “Shadows of the Past” revisions have been slower than iced over molassess, and to add to that I got a new artist for another comic book project I’m working on. “Untitled Supernatural Cross-Country Road Race Story.” That has been keeping me up nights, watching all the Fast & Furious movies and Cannonball and Gone in 60 Seconds (the original, not that Angelina Jolie shit) to fuel my inner, unfulfilled gearhead. Get it, fuel? Go screw, I’m tired.

Twitter makes blogging hard. I’m like, this is way more than 140 characters. Is that okay? Did I just type Google into Google? I think moving to a shorter system of blogs and away from long blogs would be really helpfull and make me feel less like I have to report on every minuscule of the event of the past however long I’ve neglected this.

But I will say I was interviewed for comicrelated.com about the “Gifted” preview that’s being published this fall. It was kind of surprising, being interviewed at the booth I was working with little to no prep time. Hopefully, I’m coherent. Did I mention I got up at 6am? That’s. Not. Normal. The idea of getting published is still kind of foreign to me, like a weird dream or wish that I may jinx if I think about it. I know it’s not a BREAKTHROUGHHUGEDEAL, but it’s something. Someone said “Yes, you’re good enough,” and that’s nice. Here’s hoping the anthology is a big deal and we all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.

So that’s the gist of it, and why I haven’t written much lately. Kind of wild yet boring, busy but boring. In short, very much like me.

So I’ve decided that in my quest to make the store more awesome (I know it’s probably not possible, but why not keep trying. Right?) I’m going to post funny internet stuff all about. Because we’re cool and funny, and why not have things about that are funny and cool. Right?

Today was a gorgeous day. Lots of folks all around, milling about buying stuff. Town was abuzz, and there where ribs. Ribs are always good. Right? It sure would’ve been nice to have a big fuck-all sign in our empty sign box so all the people out enjoying the nice weather would come in and see us. Oh wait, we do have a sign. It counts if it’s in two pieces in the back room, doesn’t it? Right? I always want to call the back room “the garage,” but that’s because it is a garage with a big garage door and everything. Before the Watchmen midnight show it was beginning to get warm and we ended up opening the garage door and hanging out back there, sort of in the parking lot (so Travis and I could smoke) and sort of inside (so I could drink beer). Spring weather is awesome. Right?

We finally solved the music problem in the store. We have two CD players: one, Tony’s old 51 disc player and a 200 disc player that I spied at a garage sale last fall (while driving past, like a fucking sniper. “Wait, turn the car around. That was a big CD player.”). The 51 disc was filled up from jump street and was very picky, playing maybe half of the CDs and almost always the same song. The 200 disc was great, but the lens was messed up so it skipped. A lot. We kept going back and forth between them because each problem would eventually get unbearable, but then the 51 got a CD jammed into it it so forcefully that the carriage wouldn’t rotate. So we’ve got 200, but the skipping begins to slowly drive you mad. There’s nothing worse than trying to concentrate on talking to a customer when you can hear the Batman theme skipping back on itself every 30 seconds. Right?

When Kenzie got her iPhone, she started using it as her mp3 player, so I got her 4 gb pink one. I don;t know what you’ve heard, but I’m manly enough to have a pink mp3 player. However, I loaded it up with stuff, and we can plug it into the equalizer and presto change-o, “intelligent shuffle” and no skipping. Plus, a complete overhaul of the music we’ve been listening to for almost 2 years.

Best story of the day though? Here it is: We’re used to people coming in and going “Hey, didn’t this used to be a record store?” (which is correct), or “You guys rearranged,” (which is wrong). My favorite is when we tell people that the record store went out of business and they look at me and go “So what do you have now?” Spoiler alert, there’s nothing hidden. It’s all right on the walls, face out and staring at you. You are allowed to look around, even if this isn’t the place you were looking for. Right? So today this couple comes in, and as soon as they step in the door they are very confused. They back out immediately and keep walking down the street before I can say anything. They come back and minute later, and when I greet them they point in the direction of where the store used ot be and went “Did they go out of business next door?” It took me a second and then said, “No, we just moved in here.” They looked around and were like, “Oh yeah, this is the comic store.” Wow. Right?

Haven’t talked about TV in a bit, but real quick. Lost is better than its been since the get-go. Terminator is all over the place but still fun. Battlestar is just amazing and will we me miss it every day when the show is over. 24 is better then it has been. Heroes is a garbage show about stupid people making stupid decisions to further the stupid, repetitive plot. 30 Rock, Office, Ugly Betty are hilarious. L Word is about to be over (die Schecter die!) Big Love packs so much in every episode it’s nuts. Desperate Housewives is decent but the Dave mystery is over and its time for the next thing. Fringe found its premise just in time to go away for a month. Gossip girl makes me ashamed to put it on this list, but they’re called guilty pleasures for a reason. I watch a lot of TV. Right? Plus, they grew Danny Goki in a vat to win American Idol. Just send everyone home now.

Sadly, Make me a Supermodel is back, so Kenzie is watching it and I’ll have to find other things to do while its on because its unbearably vapid, like every other non Kathy Griffin/Top Chef/Project Runway show on Bravo. There was one guy on the first episode who talked about how he was going to try to handle this other guy’s “gay problem.” Protip:If you call it a “gay problem,” then you’re a homophobe. Now that I think about it, I can’t tell if that was a Protip or a Spoiler Alert.

2am again, but that’s because I took a nap for the entire length of the movie Airplane. Kind of a bummer. Right?

This post is dedicated to all the Valley girls. Right!

EDIT: *3AM!?!* EAT A BAG OF DICKS, SPRING FORWARD!

This week I:

-watch the original “Last House on the Left.” It’s a shitty movie, and it should be remade into one that actually makes sense.

-dodged jury duty. It was canceled, thankfully.

-did more training for our new POS system at the store. It’s going to be so awesome, but I’m going to have to relearn how to do everything that we do, which sucks. Plus, way more making sure everything goes into the system according to Hoyle, and less just winging it and talking about it with folks later. This is good and bad. I’m good at winging it, but it’s unreliable and now that we have two employees and are busier there is less time to tell everyone what you’ve winged. This causes problems down the line. However, training was irritating because it’s via the phone and the guy forgot about us on Tuesday and we had to do it on Wednesday. Y’know, New Comic Day/Busy Day of the Week. Balls.

-lost all our inventory data that we’ve had since 2005. This is…not good. Ultimately, a lot of this will be resolved when we scan in all our existing inventory into the system and put it against what we’ve ordered the last 6 months, but that’s when the system gets up and running at the end of the month. Until then, we have to wing it (see earlier winging it statements). Found a back-up though, from November, but that’s not super helpful. At least it’s a template that we can work from.

- discovered that RGIS is prohibitively expensive to hire and have scan in all our barcoded stuff for us. It only took four emails, a visit and three phone calls (not all this week, thank god) to even get the quote, and if it was even hinted that it’d be that much we could’ve saved everyone a lot of time and hassle. This means we’ll be closing down one day to have a good, old fashioned scan-off. THAT’S RIGHT, A MOTHERFUCKING SCAN OFF! 10 hours (probably), of scanning everything we have in the store into the system with only the two scan guns we have (counting the one we haven’t bought yet). Being closed for business while you’re still there working is a great to both spend and loose money at the same time. Plus, time.

-Nursed Kenzie being sick on Monday and Tuesday. It meant I got to fight off sickness yesterday and today. She continues to be baffled and irritated at my inability to get sick. I am a Terminator robot from the future.

- Made four separate appointments over three days to pick up our new big lighted sign in Springfield. Spent a lot of time planning things around these times we were supposed to pick it up (like phone training and new comics) only to be thwarted each time. Finally got it today, but it now won’t be installed until sometime next week. However, discovered the switch in the store that turns the box on and off. This means not paying an electrician to install a new switch. He did, however, have plenty of time to put new ballasts and bulbs in the box. We did get a free big store info poster out of the hassle, because the guy in that print shop is kind of awesome when he’s not being kind of frustrating. I think we’re going to have a good long term collaboration on our hands.

- Watchmen. Watchmen, Watchmen, Watchmen. Went to the big theater in Beavercreek to pass out flyers and store-promote at the midnight show, and then saw it. Then spent all day today talking about it. Tony puts it best. “If you have to make a Watchmen movie, this is the best Watchmen movie we can get.” True, although when someone brought up the idea of a HBO miniseries or a one time filmed, two movie deal (like they’re doing for Harry Potter 7 and did for Kill Bill) I got sad and irritated that they didn’t do it. Ultimately, they cut too much out, and that leaves the mystery of whodunit as the driving force in the movie, and I think that ultimately is not as good a story. But the acting and the casting and effects were great, the opening credits and a couple of scenes that did just for the movie were really good (except for one, that was painfully horrible to watch. Look, I like to watch people fucking, but how the hell do you fuck up filming people fucking? It was laughably awful.) Plus, I don’t think that the things that happen in the new ending would actually work like that. I started rereading the novel because it’s been several years since I’ve done it. Read the first issue and man, if you *just filmed that,* plus the “Under the Hood” stuff, that’s a solidly great hour of TV.

- Increased beer consumption by 200%. Necessary to keep the workers happy.

- Got haircut and increased prettiness by 200% as well. Necessary to keep America happy.

- Downloaded 200% more Fall Out Boy, Lady GaGa and Richard Cheese. Necessary to keep music collection eclectic and stupid.

- Tonight I discovered a loose, chipped tooth way in the back of my mouth (yes, where else would it be, I know). I can’t wait for it to snap off with great pain and irritation. Or do that thing where a sharp piece of hard food jabs into it while I’m eating and shock the shit out of me. Literally.

- Felt bad about all the people (friends, family and long lost acquaintances) I haven’t called, emailed, spoken to, asked about or had sufficient “face time” with.

- Hey, it’s 2am. Awesome.

…no news is good news. Of course, this is news, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad news. I guess what I’m saying is type something, will you? We’re paying you for this.

And don’t stare at me. You’ve got those bug eyes.

Wordpress, I’m sorry about the bug eyes thing. I’ll be in my office.

Oh, I forgot to post store photos and the like, but you can find them at the store’s sort-of website temporary blogspot thing, superflycomics.blogspot.com. Plus you can see the kick-ass flyer I made for our upcoming grand re-opening/guitar hero tournament.

Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal.

So now with the holidays and the move behind us, it’s time for things to get back to normal. Of course, I’m trying to adjust to the new space and do all of the things that you have to do to break in and really polish a new space and I haven’t done that for a while, so that’s not normal. Like every kind of big change, it’s not so much a matter of getting back to normal but having to re-learn things.

Example: Whe comic come out on Wednesday, Tony and I have switched back to me putting them into people’s files while he puts out the rest of the store stock. Now, we have a new second countuer that used to be in a bowling alley and it has the compartments for bowling shoes to go into. Each slot is about a wide as a small comic box, so we broke some to the shelves so the hold-boxes can go in there. Well, it doesn’t feel exactly right yet, so the past couple of new comic days have been a pain as I’ve stumbled about trying to get back my former putting-away speed. I think I’ve gotten it figured out now, but man is it irritating.

Of course, the fact that I’ve been uncreative the past couple of weeks hasn’t helped either. I’ve gotten some of my routine back (being off random weekdays for Christmas and then working a couple of 12-hour days will fuck with your equillibrium), so hopefully Ill be able to break in my new office (yes, I once again have a back office I can retreat too if need be, and a desk where I can do work and have pictures of my family) with some morning writing that was working so well for me before the move.

Time will tell.

I knew yesterday that this was going to fucked up day today but it’s really going on all cylinders. Kenzie got sick last night, throwing up and not sleeping, so I ended up not sleeping much either. The TV has been out since Christmas Eve, and the only time I could get them to come and fix it was this morning between 8 and noon. Also today the semi-truck arrives with our new fixtures between 11 and 3 (he called and said he’d be there just before noon, so about nowish), and then the guy is coming to switch the phone over at the store between noon and 4. It’s 11:37 and no word for the TV guy, which means my whole day is going to get fucked up and fuck up others in the process. Kenzie went to work for about an hour and then came home and is now sleeping and is in no condition to deal with the TV guy or show him up onto the roof where the dish and everything is. ‘Cause I love going on the roof!

Oh, the moving madness has started, let me tell you. And it’s not pretty. It will be when its all said and done, but not now. Right now, to use an expression I heard the other day, I can’t give three fucks about four fucks.