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Ever wanted to know which Starship Enterprise would win in a head to head?

Click here: Sci-Fi Battles: Kirk vs Picard at PistolWimp.

I will not be rejected...

Alas, someone who understands my pain.

Click here.

How about a happy post for once?

Damn right! Here it comes.

In between getting bitched at by livid customers, and putting up with flakey employees who seem to catch every bug in Portland and then call in sick, some darn right cool things are happening.

The truth is: I only have one flakester employee whom I've cut down to one day a week hoping she'll get a clue and quit. And I've only had one wicked customer in the last few weeks. The old bag's complaint was lame too:

"I'm sick and tired of renting DVDs from your company, only to get home and have them skip in my player. Some of them are so filthy--it's disgusting. How do you expect to stay in business when no one can watch a DVD without it skipping? That's why I rent from Net-Flix now--their DVDs don't skip! I'm old and I have a bad leg and I walk all the way down here to rent movies. But not any more! I will never come back here again!"

THANK GOD! Can I get that in writing??

Oh, wait a second...wasn't this supposed to be a happy post?

Forgive...

I sent out my first query letter to a literary agent. This is a huge feat for me. You see, I'm a big fat wimp when it comes to rejection. It took me a long time to get up the nerve to write this query, much less send it out. But I feel pretty good about my novel, and I feel surprisingly good about the query. And I absolutely love the agent.

So sometime in the next few weeks I'll either get a rejection letter or, if the literary gods have stowed their tridents, I'll get signed. Oh to dream.

But what's life without dreams?

It's retail, that's what.

The Evil Editor...

The Evil Editor cracks me up. Here's an excerpt from his blog:

The question comes from an aspiring writer.

"A lot of the queries you post seem to follow the same pattern: they start by throwing a question into the room - 'What do you get when two distinguished gentlemen move into a neighbourhood full of unmarried girls?', give some of the plot, and end on another set of questions: 'Will her suitor run from his monstrous mother-in-law? And most of all, will Elizabeth say yes?' - and leave off. Is that an acceptable or desirable format for queries, or would you recommend to sum up the hole of the plot?"

And now the Evil Editor's response:

Point #1: If there are any holes in the plot, don't mention them.

Point #2. Will Elizabeth say Yes? is a rhetorical question. If it's a romance novel, Elizabeth will say Yes. If it's horror, Elizabeth will say No, and will spend the rest of the book being chased by her rejected suitor and his axe. If it's literary fiction, Elizabeth will say Yes, but will die of cancer.

You Decide...

Setting: Your neighborhood video store.

The way it went:

Friendly Video Man: We're sponsoring the Sunshine Children's Foundation at Mercy Hospital. The kids have a movie and video game night every Tuesday. Would you like to donate two candies for two dollars?

Snooty Customer: No! And you should be ashamed of yourself for feeding them candy. They should be eating vegetables and fruit!


The way it should've gone:

Friendly Video Man: We're sponsoring the Sunshine Children's Foundation at Mercy Hospital. The kids have a movie and video game night every Tuesday. Would you like to donate two candies for two dollars?

Snooty Customer: Absolutely! That's a great thing you guys are doing. I wish more companies in our community were so giving. I'm sure God is smiling down upon you. Bless your sweet soul. Can I buy four?


The way it might've gone had it been my last day:

Friendly Video Man: We're sponsoring the Sunshine Children's Foundation at Mercy Hospital. The kids have a movie and video game night every Tuesday. Would you like to donate two candies for two dollars?

Snooty Customer: No! And you should be ashamed of yourself for feeding them candy. They should be eating vegetables and fruit!

Friendly Video Man: Listen here, Asshole! These kids are terminally ill with cancer. They live in a hospital 24-7. THEY'RE DYING! The last thing they want to eat while playing video games is a friggin' carrot! Have some heart you pea-brained bastard. Now buy the damn Twix or I'll shove this stapler up your ignorant ass! ... Would you like a bag for that?

Boycott the Dixie Chicks!

So the annoying trio has proven once again that stupidity has no bounds.

Back in 2003 the lead singer, Maines, became a national disgrace when she announced that she was ashamed to be from the same state as President George Bush. Subsequent calls flooded radio stations nationally with threats of boycotting the controversial group. I, for one, switch radio stations whenever they come on. I'd just as soon shave Robin Williams' back with a nail filer than listen to one note from that pathetic group.

And now the Dixie Chicks have royally ticked off the girls from The View by refusing to appear on the hit show. In a Time magazine interview, the lead singer claimed that she was following in the footsteps of her "political" hero, Bruce Springsteen (another dweeb, in my opinion). Maines asks herself, "What would Bruce Springsteen do?"

"Not that we're of that caliber, but would Bruce Springsteen do The View?" said one of the band members.

Joy Behar, one of the co-hosts of The View, ripped up the Time interview on the air, declaring, "They're...not doing...The View."

"It's one thing to diss the Bush administration, it's treason to diss The View."

Apparently The View helped out the Dixie Chicks in 1998 when they were still budding musicians by having them on the show. Well, in traditional Dixie Chicks style, that's payback for ya. Now I hope this latest stunt crushes the Dixie Chicks for good.

What an interesting day...

I got to work at 7am this morning. I love going in early because I can get so much done when there are no customers around.

Yeah...didn't really work out that way today.

At about 7:30am I realized I needed to go number two. No problem, I thought. I was alone in the store, my opener wasn't due to arrive for another half-hour. Perfect sit down time.

There I was, sitting on the toilet, mid-wipe, when all of a sudden the lights flickered. I looked around the bathroom with a great sense of unease. The lights flickered once more...and then went out for good.

Pitch black. Still wanting to wipe but knowing I wasn't going to know when to stop.

And then the alarm went off.

Wipe, wipe. No wash. Run through a shadowy store to turn off the alarm before the police show up and--well--catch me with my pants around my ankles.

The power was off for almost four hours. People were banging on the door, even though there was a huge sign that informed them that we would be closed until the power came back on. One man pressed his angry face to the window and ordered me to let him in.

Uh...sir...you're a liability. Please step away from the door. You see that bus over there. Yeah...go stand in front of it. Thanks.

Morning coffee...

I wish I had time to blog about this ridiculous topic, but I can at least mention it briefly before I fly off to work.

The Da Vinci Code furor.

This quote on the BBC literally made me spit my coffee on the kitchen floor as I bent over laughing.

In Rome, members of an ultra-Catholic group, Christian Militants, picketed some cinemas, chanting: "Dan Brown remember you will also be judged by Christ".

Get over it, people. It's a work of fiction. Besides, all this talk will only increase the amount of moolah this movie makes. Go watch Bambi, knuckleheads.

P.S. Read the book, loved it! Saw the movie, loved it!

Favorite news title of the week:

"Illegal Immigrants Found Cleaning UK Immigration Ministry"

So the US isn't the only country with immigration problems. But how do we deal with this out-of-control issue? So far these are the popular proposals:

Build a wall on the US/Mexico border? Personally I think building a wall is a terrible idea. It seems so un-American, and it conjures up bad history. Think: Berlin Wall. Why don't we simply plant a huge river on the border and fill it with man-eating piranha? Of course we'd have to put signs up everywhere warning potential border jumpers that they could very well become fish food.

Station soldiers on the border? Uh...no... We're not at war with Mexico. Are we? Why not just increase the amount of border patrollers. Hey, more government jobs! Yippee!

We should also go after the American businesses that are hiring illegal aliens. And, I know, everyone's response to that dilemma is: "But they're doing jobs Americans won't do." Well the reason Americans aren't taking on those jobs is because the pay is ridiculously low, and the reason the pay is ridiculously low is because there are huge amounts of illegals who are willing to work for such low pay. Get rid of the illegals, demand for employees increases, pay increases, more legal Americans with jobs.

We should not reward people who sneak across our border with citizenship. A friend of mine and I once snuck into Disneyland. Unfortunately for us our little escapade was caught on the security camera. When we were unable to produce our entrance ticket the guard did not congratulate us for successfully sneaking into Disneyland. He dragged us past the paying customers and tossed us out. After that we did the right thing, We paid our entrance fee like everyone else.

It was the right and fair thing to do.

Anonymity is mine! Sort of...

Ahhh, now this is better. The anonymous Grant-will-rant. I who live and work somewhere in the northwest of the United States. BROOOHAHAHAHA! Now I can rip on anything and anyone with absolute impunity!

Let the ripping commence:

My downstairs neighbors are complete bastards. I've never met them; never seen them; but I sure have heard them.

What have I heard? Recently, a lot of noisy sex. This woman must've been hanging her head out the window during the act. It was that loud. And I'm not joking when I say that another neighbor in the building next to us yelled out their window for the lovely couple to "shut the hell up!"

I know you're probably getting this awful picture of where I live, but it really is a nice area of town. There are no clothes hanging out of windows; no vagabonds reclining in the stairwell; no gangbangers rolling doobies on the curb. Just plain old folks like me...and boisterous nymphomaniacs (not like me!).

And if you don't despise the nasty couple yet, read the transcript below and I guarantee you'll be wishing you could whack "Mommy" in the face with a steel shovel.

Little boy and girl (four to five years old): Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Come here! Mommy, come here!

Mommy: What the F*** do you want! LEAVE ME ALONE!

Little boy and girl: But Mommy... Mommy, we want to show you something...

Mommy: I'M BUSY! WHAT IS IT!

Little boy and girl: (a little less enthused) Happy early Mother's Day!

Mommy: (doing a horrible job of sounding grateful) Ahhh, how sweet. Thank you... Now let Mommy work...

You can blame Ollie!

A request from Ollie has brought me out of my slumber. Not that I was really in a slumber, more like incredibly busy. In fact, it's totally past my bedtime right now: 10:09 in the p.m. according to my blinking microwave clock. Yeah, that's late.

How have I been spending my free time? I'm doing another edit job on the book I wrote last summer and having a great time with it. Also my family members have been passing a copy of my book around, taking turns dipping into my deranged mind. It's been a lot of fun hearing their feedback, and their enthusiasm has inspired me to start working on the prequel/sequel (still deciding which to write first). A thousand thanks to my encouraging family.

The weirdo whack jobs that shop at my store are taking a toll on my fragile psyche. I should probably join a yoga class so that I can meditate those demons out of my system. Normally I would detail the nutty stories on my blog as a form of therapy, but I don't want to risk any of the nutcakes finding my site and stalking me in cyberspace. Perhaps it's time to go anonymous.

Oh, yes, and tomorrow's my birthday. I will be 35 years young. How is that possible? I don't feel that old. If I could have my way I'd still be building tree forts and collecting frogs. Maybe I should start a meet-up group in Portland for nostalgic 30 somethings who want to revisit their youth. We could play tag in the shopping mall and make fart noises in church. Ahh, the good old days....

P.S. Happy Mother's Day to all you awesome mothers!