There's limited time, space, money and energy.

There's only so much time and energy.

Comics and graphic novels are half my total business. So I spend hours and days every month looking at the catalogs and order forms, the online sites, trying to make sure I don't miss anything significant. That's my job.

With books and games and toys and such, I've had a more haphazard approach.

I started with my favorites with books, then recommendations, then cult books, then classics.

With games, I made sure I had to basics, Settlers and Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride, etc.

After that, it's been pretty much anything that rises to my attention.

With games, I check out boardgame.geek.com occasionally, though what I really need is to have a time machine to check what that site had six months ago. They're too advanced for what we're doing -- half the stuff in the top ten aren't even in the U.S.A. yet, much less available through my distributors. Still, it keeps me informed.

Sports cards, I've more or less come down to calling my distributor when I feel like it's time, or when I can afford it, or when I see too much empty space, and I ask the rep "What's new?"

With toys, I'm simply checking Diamonds site daily, and checking out the highlighted toys, and if they appeal to me, I'm ordering them.

So, like I said, I've had a less than rigorous method for ordering games, books, toys and cards.

I get order forms for books. I can check bestseller lists. Indeed, I've clipped out the Bulletin's bestseller list every week for a year. But I rarely refer to them. One, because I'm not a newest bestseller kind of store, and I don't much like trying to sell Stephen King's new book for 39.99, when it's selling at Target for less than 10.00. But still, I think I'd like to at least keep up.

I get order forms and catalogs for games, and really, it wouldn't take but a day or two a month to really check them out.

I get lots of promotional material for sports cards, which gets filed in the 'round' file system: (straight to the trash).

Anyway, I always thought that once I had my foundation inventory in place, that I would find the time and energy to really put some thought and planning into my ordering. And I'm starting to see a little blue sky there, now that my new employees have been more or less trained.

But now that it's come to the point, I'm starting to have second thoughts.

While I may have freed up a little time and energy, I still have finite space and money. So until that changes, I'm more or less constrained.

You know what? Waiting for an item to clamor for attention isn't a bad idea.

A vast sea of pop culture material out there. I can dive in and start chasing, or I can wait for something to leap out of above the mass and show it's shiny self and just make me want to grab it.

The store is in a very nice space, where the inventory is so full that I can choose to buy the very best stuff at slightly higher than immediate demand, and then reorder as needed. I can order the low to moderate demand stuff at exactly the immediate demand, or as close as I can get it, and let them sell out. And I can wait and order everything that is offered at an extra discount.

The extra discount to me is not much different than the low to moderate demand product that I pay full price. It is constantly arriving and turning over and keeping the store surprising and different, no only to my customers, to to myself. After all, I order the stuff I like or think will sell, up front. And part of the charm of ordering stuff that's discounted is that it is often stuff I didn't order; so I'm constantly educated outside my bias about what people want and don't want in the real world.

I'm astounded by the level of inventory in the store. More about that later.