"Post No. 557"

Recently won a copy of a 1919 "Bringing Up Father" newspaper collection book. Not in the greatest of shape, but it'll be nice just to have a sample of one of these early pioneers from "the plantinum age" to stick in my collection of comics. I've tried to have at least one example of all the various forerunners of the modern comic magazine, from early comic strips, to such collections as the BUF, to a few pulps, a copy or two of Puck, and even some BLB's. It's interesting to see how all of these various formats contributed to the creation of the 4-Color comic over the years.

And last night was certainly interesting to say the least. Stopped by as usual to see mom after work and she said her sholder was hurting quite a bit. Thought it was from being over exercised by the physical therapist recently. Finally got home and hadn't eaten dinner or cleaned up yet when mom calls back and wants to go the emmergency room. She thinks she may be having a heart attack.

Well...I knew she wasn't having a heart attack. She didn't
have any of the sympthoms of such, but just to have her peace of mind, I took her and had her checked out. As I figured, it was just strained muscles. What had happened was that she'd talked to her granddaughter who said that having such pain could cause such and it got it in her mind that she was. I'm going to have to talk with that girl 'cause my mom's very impresionable about such things. Anyway, the doctor gave her a Darvon and she's feeling better.

Myself, I had a fitful night, sleeping barely off and on until I finally just got up from bed at 5:15 AM this morning and have stayed up. (I have those nights occasionally at my age.)

Getting about time for a yearly cleaning out of my collections, and this time, I think it's going to be a BIG one. Getting rid of tons of modern Marvel Comics for one thing: countless "X" titles and the like that have accumulated from deals, Whitman humor titles, odds and ends and tons of direct sales alternative stuff. I figure I can clean out around 5,000 comics from the boxes, which will give me plenty of extra bags and backing boards needed for the stuff I really want to keep. Gonna have to find either someone to buy these as a "lot" deal, or eventually have that huge yard sale and see what I can move, or eBay the things. Just getting the enthusiasm to do this is the main thing. There's around 60 longboxes worth of stuff to dig through to accomplish this task.

"Things that urk me, Dept.": Honestly, couldn't companies such as these gas/grocery places at least train their employees better? Couldn't they screen them just a "little" bit better before they hire them? They're always so darned concerned that there might be a trace of marijuana in their system, but they seem really disinterested in if there's a symbolance of a brain in their heads. Here locally we have one of those "Minit Marts". I remember well working for this organization for a good four years, and back in that time (the early 1990's) we were put through several days of intense training on the lottery, the registers, safety, food preparation, stocking, bookwork, and company rules. And I must admit that the employees we had at this particular Minit Mart were very efficent and very quick. Those days of such seem long gone as the current crop, outside of the old timers who have worked there for a good 15 years, are just about as dumb as a stick and slower than molasses. What has happened to lessen the quality of said employees is that 1) A lot of people simply just don't want to work. There are some people that would rather bum off the government (and our taxes) than to do a decent day's labor. 2) There are people who are so uneducated that they aren't capable of holding down a job in the public eye, or have a decent attitude for same. 3) Such companies as Minit Mart are now scraping the "bottom of the barrel" to get people to work for them due to the hectic jobs there (due to having way too many handles in the fire going on in one store), so they're starting to hire just about anyone off the street and stick them behind the counter.

Because of this they're starting to lose business when there are competitors of the same nature also in the general area. At this same store, they've also hired some employees that don't know how to prepare the various foods (breakfast, sandwiches, pizz) correctly, and these lost customers are heading towards McDonald's.

And their slogan of "Get It, Got It, Gone", has become "Stand in line 20 minutes, Get the incorrect item, Bare with the ignorant employee". They really need to straighten up that company.

And...getting that outta my system...

I'm closing in on finishing that set of Xombi now. The title has yet to disapoint me. Like Transmetropolitan, I'll miss a nightly reading fix of the title when I've finished it.