Bill things

Whew!

How do poor people do it? Or even limited income people?

I had some car issues the other and got them fixed today. Fairly reasonable prices is what I'm hearing but it was still a bill for $415. Ouch.

And my monthly electric bill jumped by 30 fucking dollars a month. It was $48 but now it's $77. And it's because of deregulation to promote competition between companies. Some competition - what's the deal? See which company can get the biggest increase?

At least I got some good news. I got a job. I'll be working at Top Flite starting next Monday. First I start for a couple of months as a temp (because they don't hire people off the street) but then I'll be hired on. The shifts aren't great - 12 hour shifts, but it'll result in solid middle class yearly wage of what should be $35,000+ a year. That'll make affording things a lot easier.

Of course, I gotta hold up my end of the bargin and do my part so that I don't get released or fired. But pretty much every company I have worked for has be at least satisfied with my work or even offered me raises to come back. So I think I'll do decently there.

The comic store drama seems to be at an end. The religous nut signed the non-competitive papers and was removed from the incorporation of the store for it. Here's the funny part, while the company was in debt and the religous guy handled the register on Wednesdays (new comic day) the cash would be weak and the register screwed up. But as things tightened up and he wasn't on Wednesdays, the store did at least okay. To the point of dropping the debt of the store from something like $6000 to $3500 in like 6 weeks. So now it's pretty promising for the store.

Since it's my major hangout, I'm very happy with the results so far.

So this week has been a rollercoaster of a week. The weekend looks promising. There's the model train show on Saturday. This is the 5th largest show in the U.S. and if I remember correctly draws something like 100,000 visitors over the weekend.

And the Royal Rumble is Sunday night.

So despite my bills, I'm going to splurge a little. Nothing over the top, only like $35 to $40 for both weekend events.

The business of things

Got a job interview for Wednesday. I'm not sure whether to be excited or not. It would most likely be making golf balls for Top Flite. From what I know, the main drawback would be 12 hour shifts. I did those for about 10 months straight and they are a totally different life-style. Sometimes good, but sometimes really harsh. So we'll see how things go.

Yesterday (Monday) was fairly disasterous. My nephew needed a 45 minute ride to the bordering state of CT so I ended up helping him. So it turns out we get 5.7 inches of snow the previous night and into the morning of the drive. So for quite a long time I couldn't go any faster than 25 mph without jeopardizing our safety. Driving was quite treacherous and people, including myself, were slipping and sliding quite often. I had to kick him in the butt to make him call and tell them we would be late. Fortunately, we weren't that late and it didn't seem to cause much of an issue. And they thanked him for calling.

I had actually dug out my old Gameboy and played Tetris for the whole appointment so that made things go quick.

On the way back we saw a nasty looking accident. A tractor-trailer was up against the concrete barrier seperating north flowing traffic from south flowing traffic. And in-between the truck and the barrier was a car about the size of a Saturn crushed up against the barrier and facing the wrong way for the flow of traffic. The emergencies vehicles had the passengerside door open because the driver's side looked somewhat crunched underneath the truck. And the car was covered in drapes. I can't help but feel that the driver of the car was probably dead. :(

CT wasn't so bad because they only got rain instead of snow like MA got. But besides the crash I had an indicator light go on. Seems I had no engine coolant. I did some things to try to keep the engine cool and the indicator light went on and off several times. I drove for awhile because we were still 30 minutes from home but my car started acting pretty weird and steaming so I finally pulled over at a McDonald's. So nut job was plowing the snow at 1 pm in the afternoon and then yelling at customers parked in parking lot that were in his way. He was also blasting around at a high rate of speed. Plainly put, the guy was a total asshole and people in the parking lot agreed on this.

So I get a shitty McDonald's lunch to give the engine time to cool and make phone calls looking for help. So of course, my brother and father are both gone and who knows when they'll be back. But I lucked out with with Tony one of the comic store owners. He bought some engine coolant (pre-mixed) and came to my rescue. Phew! It's good to have reliable friends. My radiator must have been bone dry because it sucked up a full gallon of coolant. I took the car to a garage immediately after dropping off my nephew and as of now, my car seems okay. All the same, I set up a appointment to have some things checked out.

So I get over that whole disaster to find that my dad (wants more than needs) $65 for a title tranfer. I know my dad, he gets all anxious and super nervous about getting around despite the fact that one older brother is at home with no job and I have no job and they have no real appointments or anything. So I made sure to get the cahs and drive it right up.

Somewhere along the line I opened up my phone bill. $84 fucking dollars! Seems I somehow missed the 2 prior months of billing - about $25+ each. I think it was most likely my own fault. I have a local carrier and a long distance carrier. I checked my checkbook log and found no bills sent to Verizon. So I have the feeling I probably tossed the bills without opening them under the misrepresentation that I was receiving spam mail from them. So like I said, that's my own fault. It just sucked that all of this stuff happened in one day.

The comic store drama is still unsolved as of this writing. I did volunteer my time to run the place on Sunday because everyone else wanted time off to watch the football games. The store has a TV and the Patriots were eliminated from the play-off's so I saw the games and didn't miss much. The few customers seemed to like the help I gave them as I helped them search for comics and through the 5 million $.50 boxes.

The religous nut sent out a blanket letter to a ton of people - I think around 37 - announcing his resignation. Init he says he didn't want to hash things out in the letter and then proceeded with 3 paragraphs of how and why he quit. Of course, he didn't mention that he was doing totally illegal things as an officer of the store in trying to open a direct competitor and actually steal customers form the current store. And he sort of made it sound like the other guys were all at fault. And yet, he still runs around denying anything that would make him look human or possibly bad even when confronted with clear as day evidence of his actions. The guy's pretty fucked in the head at times.

So I think that's about it for now.

The end.

Dreams and Drama

Had a weird dream this morning. Can't remember all of it or even what it was about. For awhile I was into trying to interpet dreams but I almost always put a negative spin on things so I got sick of doing it.

Anyways, the dream,...

For whatever reason, I was walking on my parents property at night. I think I was in my usual attire of t-shirt and flanel pants that look like pajamma bottoms. I'm walking near the stream where our small horse barn use to be. Something stirs in the bushes and eventually comes out. It's a raccoon. Either I start messing with it or it just starts attacking me, I can't remember at this time. So it bites my left hand index finger and latches on. I'm finally able to get the thing off by flicking my wrist. This raccoon then sails for like 40 yards in kind of an arc and lands somewhere upstream behind where we had built a small homemade dam across the stream. Didn't have any problems after that but I did go to the house and clean the wound for fear of rabies. I think I went to the hospital to.

So,...that's what I remember.

The drama at the comic shop may be drawing to a conclusion. It depends on the religous nut. My friends had a meeting with relgious guy's partner and had a chat of about 2 hours. Seems this fellow might be a pretty decent guy and was approached by the religous nut to open a store. Religous nut said he was unhappy being at the current store and whatnot. And the other guy always wanted a store and said okay.

So my two friends and this third party guy seem to have come to an agreeable conclusion that will pretty much keep things as is - he stays their customer and no new store. My friends had an appointment with their lawyer the next day and they all had a call with this third party fellow. Apparently there wa some minor haggling on things but the end result seems to be what I stated before.

The religous nut. Well, it seems the only guy getting fucked in all this is him. And deservedly so. He's the one that started all this shit and was totally underhanded and blatantly lied to everybody (maybe even his business partner) to their faces - even when directly questioned if he was planning to open his own store.

If he does what my friends want, he will sign a non-competitive agreement. He will not be able to work in or open a store within 30 miles of the current store for two years. They don't care if he sells stuff on Ebay or sets up a table at a comic con.

He is also out as an owner and my two friends will be the co-owners of the current store. The relgious nut will forfeit his keys to the store and will not work there. From now on he can only be a customer - if he even chooses to buy his comics there.

If he doesn't sign this agreement, they'll sue the shit out of him for legal damages to the store. And pretty much everyone involved agrees that religous nut would lose.

So it seems, this guy fucked himself. And good enough for him. And a lot of people are happy about it because he waves his religous beliefs in our faces like he's mister superiority and he turns out to be the lower than most of us. LOL! And I'm a Christian saying this!

Got the basic lettering done on issue 2 of The Necropolis Chronicles. I still need to create a few things, mainly sound effects, in Photoshop and drop them into the pages. The cover is being worked on by a girl in France. I love her photo-manipulations so I have really high hopes for the cover. The blog/poems page is 90% done so the book is quickly closing in on being ready for print which is awesome.

That is all.

Good & Bad Things

Well, the Patriot Super Bowl run is over :(
It was surprising to see the veteran players make so many mistakes - i.e. turn-overs. Brady had a shaky game, the veteran presence of Troy Brown muffing a punt return, the eternally reliable Viniteri missing a field goal. Sigh. But the pass internal call on Samuels was such bullshit. That's the one thing I hate about the NFL - just pass the ball and it seems at least 1/3 of the time you will get a pass interference call. Many are justified but many are not.

The Patriot defense had a pretty good game I thought but the offense and special teams kept screwing up. Very uncharacterist of the New England Patriots.

The comic book store stuff continues to be a big drama. To help out my friends I went in on Friday morning in case an expected visitor was to show up when the underhanded partner was there. The guy never showed up. The underhand partner talked with the original owner and things did get loud/heated for a bit but I actually missed it because they were in the basement.

So! After so legal checking it turns out that the underhanded owner has done many illegal things. Most of which is being on the corporation while trying to open a new store as a direct competitor to the current store. Also turns out that by trying to woo customers to go to his new store is also illegal. And there's all sorts of other stuff like that. So the other two owners have every right to sue the shit out of the underhanded owner.

On Monday there is a meeting for the owners. I don't think any of them are looking forward to it and I'll have to just wait and see what happens.

I may be a ringer when I'm sponsored to play Heroclix. I usually don't play in booster drafts because you have to buy 3 or 4 boxes usually at $7 a box. So I mentioned to a friend that if he wanted to pay for the clix I'd give him anything I won and the clix from the boosters. So I won the whole thing including beating the guy that bought the boxes for me.

So! Today I did the same thing again but for a different player. And I won again. So my Heroclix record when being sponsored is 6 wins and no defeats.

I lost in a winner's take all Texas Tournament tonight at my buddy's place. I had fun and won a big hand or two but took a risk against my gut instinct and I lost in an 'all-in' because of it. But it was fun.

That is all.

friend things

I can't believe what shitty luck my friends are having.

Despite being unemployed, I'm meeting my bills easily and at least have several opportunities to get a job.

But my friends,.... :(

The mothers of two of my friends died this winter. A third's father-in-law had a massive stroke a couple of days before Christmas. And now another's grandmother looks likely to pass on.

Then there are the friends that own the comic. There's a third owner and I am'was friendly with him. not anymore. Today he finally admitted he wanted out of the business to start a new one. This new business would be - hello, a comic shop! And he would be partnered with one of the store's biggest customers as owners. My friends have known that this was likely for a number of weeks. But they played the moral highground of taking the third owner at his word and now it's going to cost them.

Totally behind the backs of my friends (the other two owners) he has gone and filed to open an account with the only comic book distributor. He went to look at places to open a store essentially across the street from the current establishment. He has gone and asked another hobby guy to join him at the store so they can both save rent - an idea I believe that was started by my friends. He also told this fellow that he and the highest paying costumer are the owners of the store - a store that at this time does not exist! He done some other things too that at this time I can't remember all the details.

Then there's all the times the cash register is screwed up after his shift. On occasion, it is one of the other workers that have a problem. But this third - there's almost always a problem with the register. And the belief is, is that this dude is hooking up his personal friends with huge discounts that hurt the store. Nobody has a problem with the discounts except for the amount of the discounts. It's believe that this third owner may be giving his friends a discount of almost 50%. The store itself only gets a 35% discount on buying the books wholesale. So it's very likely that the store is losing money, and maybe lots of it, when this guy is at the register servicing his friends.

So today the guy says he's resigning from the store. He said he mentioned it already in a letter. Apparently, this letter was discovered (not sure when - maybe even today) at the very bottom of a very cluttered drawer. Then, during the discussion the guy wouldn't give a straight answer to save his life. He even at one point suggested my two friends do what he was going to do - become a mail order comic shop from their basement. Hmnnn,...could it be he wants to occupy the exact same location as the current store?

Now they are missing their important contacts list. The one printed on a sheet of paper AND the file of the computer. Meaning someone had to go out of their way to delete said important file.

So here's the kicker. The guy's into religion. It did do a terrific thing and get him sober because he was a drunk. He does go on about Jesus this and Jesus that. Not a big deal. But now that he wants something, he's blatantly lying, being totally under-handed, and the best is the porn. He says part of the reason he's leaving is that the store sells comic book porn. But! It's been figured out that by using cache memory and cookies that this same relgious fellow is looking not just at porn, but porn with teenagers or barely legal. He totally denied this or wouldn't answer the accusation by my friend that they have caught him viewing porn this way.

So all in all, everything's really fucked up for my friends.

And nobody knows what's going to happen to our local hangout.

Tomorrow could be interesting. I'm going into the store for a couple of reasons. One, on occassion they have asked me to run the store. So I will go in to learn how to run the register. Also, the other hobby guy is suppose to show up for more details about moving in. The reglious is scheduled to work so I'll be there to try and keep things straight and narrow. And finally, I'm there to keep the religous guy on they straight and narrow. Who knows what he'll do or try no that he has stated he wants out - or even if he'll show up!

We'll see!

another week of things

My cat can be a real pain in the ass. If I try and sleep late he comes up to me and sticks his face like 1 centimeter away from mine when he wants to be fed. Or he might just walk on me.

So today I grab him when he does this and I should've known better. He hates to be held and immediately started clawing in panic. Got me right under the bottom lip and gashed me so that blood was flowing pretty good. I didn't beat him or nothing because I should've known better.

I'm on a total Belgian waffle kick as of late. Bought Belgian waffle mix and a Belgian waffle maker when I didn't get one for Christmas. They don't really taste all that different from regular waffles so I think it's more of a psychological thing. But I still love 'em all the same.

Gotta love being in fear when applying for a job. I applied for a job today but I may not take even if they offer it to me. It's literally across the street from a lousy area. And the place has no off-street parking. Crazy. But the pay is what I'm looking for. Still, not sure I'm big on the idea of worrying about my car every single day. I'd much rather work at the other place I applied for today. Because of highways it's easier and possibly quicker to get to even though the bad local place is several miles closer. And it's also a company that's been there a while. Not sure about this other place in the bad area.

The dirty shinanegans are still happeing at my local comic shop. One of the three owners asked a mutual friend of all of them to help him look at a place in the same plaza to rent out. Further, he asked this guy (since he has a TON of comics) to put his stuff there and he'd sell it. All of this and he hasn't mentioned a single thing to the other two owners (my friends).

My friends checked out the spot and it's rent is brutual. They were thinking about trumping the third dirty guy and renting it out under him but no chance of that happening now. The rent is almost double what they pay now.

So I'm not sure what my friends are going to do. I don't think they know what they can do legally. It's just unbelievably dirty what this third guy is doing. And if you met this third guy, you'd see he tends to be one of the nicest people around. So it's all really fucked up.

Meh, maybe if they want to screw him over they'll tell his wife how he looks at teenager porn at the comic store and then denies it.

The End

weekend things

Whu-HA!

The New England Patriots are in the play-off's and look tough! Loved their demolishing of the Jacksonville Jagurars - a tough team.

My recent addiction to Call of Duty 2 multi-player on-line is starting to subside. I really enjoy the deathmatch which is kill or be killed. But if you get a server with 17 to 22 players you last literally only like 10 seconds. So it becomes this crazy deal of you die as many times as you kill.

Finished grayscaling p19 of the Necropolis Chronicles issue 2. Only 3 more to go. I really have no excuse NOT to have them finished this next week.

Also trying to finish off the Chronincles of Narnia. I'm halfway through the Silver Chair and then it's just The Boy and his Horse and I'll have read them all.

Starting work on drawing up some nasties for my Minutemen comic book characters. Gotta love Nazi's as bad guys. They've got it all covered - sorcery, technology, ways to be totally evil, maniacal. And you can usually make great costumes for them. They are guys you LOVE to hate. And they are fun to write also.

Got shanked in Heroclix yesterday. I had my shots but blew it. Sometimes, the randomizing factor of dice just don't work in your favor.

That's pretty much it from here.

The End

The New Year

The start of the new year was pretty boring for me. I sat home with my brother and watched a movie and DVDs. I don't drink so it's not much of a holiday for me. Not big on being around a bunch of drunk people when I'm sober either.

Whew! A $278 heating bill for one month. Ouch. And Janurary and Feburary ought to be colder than December so terrific. And the electric bill is going up by one-third because of deregulation. The goofy part is, the deregulation by politicians was suppose to create competition. Well, it's pretty hard to get a better price when companies divide up terrirtories. So my electric company is the only game in town like it or not. To get a different company, I have to move. It's the same with cable. Comcast and Charter have the area divided up. Depending on what town you live in, you have one or the other and cannot get the other.

I'm kinda glad the holiday season is over. I love it but it's so distracting. Now I can get down to getting back on track with the Necropolis Chronicles comic and finish off issue two. Between my friends having work off because of the holidays and the holidays themselves I pretty much got nothing done on the comic. I did finish writting the first issue of a two issue arc. It's all in longhand though.

The house is really starting to be a home now. With Christmas over, many boxes were removed and the area where the Christmas tree was is now filled with home theater stuff. By putting the home theater stuff there walkways were emptied and a 27" TV was removed from the kitchen table. There's still some boxes in pockets of the house but it's so much nicer now.

Saw Harry Potter 4. Wasn't quite as good as I had hoped. For a three hour movie it seemed it. And that usually means I'm not really into the flick. The whole going to the movies experience was more interesting than the movie. LOL! First, school was out. Didn't think about that. Went to a showing at 11:45 am showing. The movie's kinda old - came out 3 or 4 weeks ago.

So! The place was packed! At least 75% full. When you enter the seats go up so you can't see how many people are already in the theater. As I rounded the corner I saw all the people. I said - possibly quite loud - 'holy shit'. Whoops. Then as my brother and I walked up to our seats I tripped on the staircase stumbling forward like a fool. LOL! So we take our seats. A see a lady walking with a guy that had a serious limp. Of course, she chooses our row of seats and comes in our side. She was no problem but I thought the guy was gonna fall all over me. As it was the lady had to steady him as he tried to slip by me. All 160 pounds of me - it's not like I'm some giant balloon at 5'9. Then the guy sits down 1 or 2 seats from me and this sounds comes out like a huge fart. It may have been the seat but it was probably a fart. Two girls maybe of age 13 moved out from behind them after the couple sat down and the guy farted.

The girls were too bad. They candy boxes were kinda loud as what sounded like peanut M&M's slid back and forth as they were poured out and eating. They were whispering here and there but nothing too major. We also had a nose blower behind us in the next row to our left. And it was loud sloppy nose blowing to. Lasted throughout the first third of the movie.

And then we had the retarted guy in the very front row (because of his wheelchair). He wasn't to bad but my brother and I couldn't help but snicker at his cries of excitement during the movie - because it seemed it was usually during a headshot of Harry Potter. So you'd hear this kinda elephant hooting noise in the middle of some shot.

Unfortunately, the local comic shop where I spend a lot of time playing games and hanging out has MAJOR drama going on. And it's kinda dirty shit too. One of the three owners is being very weaselish in trying to get his own account with Diamond and wants to open his own store. It's weaselish because he told Diamond about this before his two partners. In fact, I think one of the two other owners learned of this drama FROM Diamond Dist. So I don't know what's going to happen to my favorite hangout. That really sucks.

The end.