Come hither....

My paper came completely soaked this morning. The only two sections that were readable were the Business and the Perspective sections, so I'll work with that.

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Free Comic Book Day turnout was pretty good, probably 3 times the normal people, and double the sales. Combined with Friday, I'm ahead by the equivalent of a couple of days sales, for the month. I'm not going to get excited about it, though, because in both April and May I had one lousy week that wiped out all the gains made in the rest of the days of the month.

Like I said, I kept FCBD a bit on the downlow this year. I gave away 5 comics per customer, and still had tons left. Trying to figure out what happened last year. We had a huge turnout last year, but we still couldn't have given away all the comics unless my employee was just letting people take as much as they want.

So -- special events are the kind of thing an owner really should run.

Special events are the kind of the thing I really don't want to run.

Selling so few of Dan Parson's comics while he was doing 'free' drawings, for instance, wouldn't have been allowed for the whole day, if I'd actually been there. I probably would've instituted a "buy a comic for a signature" rule.

I just wasn't there. I just didn't believe that people would do that; I thought they understood that they should reward both the signer and the sponsor with a small amount of business. (A comic is 2.99 for goodness sakes!)

It's probably a moot point, since I doubt I'll ever do another signing.

I think everyday business is what I want; carrying product people want to buy.

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The Bulletin had an article about Bend needing diversity in its job market.

Well, I think we can pretty much expect 'leisure' and 'retail' to carry the ball for awhile, and those are both minimum wage industries.

I love how the spin is: property values have dropped, we have lots of empty houses, and we have loads of unemployment, so we should be more attractive.

Well, that's certainly true. We're ugly, and fat, and have some horrible grooming habits, pick our nose and never bath.

But we're available!!!!

O.K. so we're available.

To what?

To high tech business.

I hate to break the news -- every single community in America, big or small, wants high tech business.

High tech is the rich, handsome millionaire.

Hey, honey, I'm available! I'll go on a date any time! I'm easy, too!

Our downsides are lack of transportation, lack of infrastructure.

I'm not convinced that our housing and commercial property prices are anywhere near low enough to persuade anyone to live here.

What do you mean, fat? I've lost 20 pounds!

But....we do have unemployment. Lots and lots of unemployment.

And empty houses.

What a great recruiting tool.

Come on, baby. How about a date?