Life Update

Well, it's been a week since I last wrote anything of substance relating to The Story Of Me, so let's do some quick catching up.

As mentioned before, our new best buddy in the whole wide world Inspector Scene did his inspection of the premises a couple weeks ago, and we now have our work cut out for us. After a breathless wait, his list of our evil building violations arrived over the weekend, and to my complete lack of surprise, the front and back doors were listed on there as needing "replacing or repairing" along with a myriad of nitpicky caulking, painting and patching issues.

At first, this was pretty bad news, since the front and back doors were a real worry for me since we had been told by a locksmith back in September that there would be no way to fix them cheaply. Instead, they'd have to be replaced and the door frames possibly repaired as well. Luckily, a bit of moving around of the latch plate -- as far inwards as it could go in it's frankly-quite-large latch hole -- was all it took to get Mr. Front Door to close properly (or at least properly enough to make Inspector Scene happy, I hope). Mr. Back Door awaits similar treatment as well, likely this Sunday, and after that is completed, everything else should be relatively inexpensive busy work. Even better, some of this work will have me walking about the condo with a loaded caulking gun. Oh dear.

Thanksgiving was exactly what I needed it to be -- a nice, relaxing, largely uneventful holiday spent mostly on my butt (the evening of which was spent at my parent's place in Mentor where I played some 'net checkers and watched Finding Nemo and Shrek 2 after dinner with my niece). The turkey was absolutely wonderful, I am happy to report, as were the fixins and Sarah's homemade pineapple-coconut-frosting-explosion cake.

The next day started off the always-hectic and nerve-wracking Christmas selling season at work. With that in mind, I'll now take this opportunity to once again thank Zeus that we no longer have to work in the fucking Great Lakes Mall. Sure, I will admit that there were some fun times during the holiday season there, where it was a total blast working with a big crew of guys and getting a bit punchy in the homestretch from December 21st onwards, but some of those days were just awful - a 12-hour crush of unrelenting, mewling insanity that just sucked the soul and health right out of you.


At the new location, we strip-mall hermits have a different experience this time of the year. Yes, the so-called "Black Friday" was a surprisingly busy day for us considering the price-war idiocy running rampant at the Big Box store level, but what normally follows this one-day spike (evidenced again by our sales in the days since) is a weirdly disorienting two weeks of what feels like an especially boring, below-average month of business. This dullness is exacerbated by the total lack of any new releases of real consequence (unless you closely follow rap music, in which case it'z a weekly bonanza, yo).

Once December 10 comes around, however, you can feel the business starting to ramp up a bit as the days and nights gradually become more busier than you are accustomed to. By the 15th or so, there is no looking back, and the gradual increase suddenly pegs sharply upwards and stays there. But even then, the busiest day of the year (either Saturday the 18th or Thursday the 23rd this year), while hectic and relentless, is nowhere near as shattering as it was in the Mall back in the day. It's a different level of busy here -- one that at least enables me to keep on top of the ordering and receiving without getting overwhelmed.

Lastly, being the first of December, I've started listening to some of the recent Christmas releases and have already come to the conclusion that the Chris Isaak Christmas album is, surprisingly, a bust. I can't pin why I dislike the album on any specific factor musically, but it might have something to do with hearing this guy so upbeat and jolly when I'm so used to him sounding unrelentingly miserable on past classics like Heart Shaped World and Forever Blue. I guess, therefore, I'd have the exact same gut reaction if Trent Reznor ever released a Christmas album...so, uh, Trent? Don't.

Band Aid 20's new take on "Do They Know It's Christmas," on the other hand, looked pretty horrid on paper but so far seems to come off alright in execution, though I admit that the original is still the better version of the two (I'm kindly forgetting that godawful second Band Aid single from 1989, as apparently everyone else did as well). The melody and lyrics of the original are unchanged (sans that ill-advised rap bit in the middle), but the new production by Nigel Godrich is much more organic in feel, with guitars replacing the widescreen tres-Ultravox synths of the original.

Much more on Christmas music (and otherwise) later ... I still have a lot to go through here.

Peace.