Monday melange.

Tokyo Pop, a leading manga publisher, is laying people off because Border's owes them money.

Because, you know, No One could have seen That coming....

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Linda's been writing up a storm on her laptop. Or, as we call it, the Laprecaun. Total immersion. I love it.

So I've been a writer's widower lately. I find her writing first thing in the morning, last thing at night. She comes out of her room sometimes absolutely gleeful about the creative process. Other times, she's totally distracted, lost in her fictional dream. "Ready for dinner?" "Whaaaa?" "Dinner?" "Umm......sure.......whaaa?"

It's fun to watch.

I think in the past, her writing has always spurred my writing, but this time I purposely didn't want to do that. Steal her thunder in any way. I want to be supportive.

But, I must admit, watching her I'm starting to get the itch.

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Two of my guys, Matt and Cameron, went to Emerald City Comicon in Seattle last weekend.

Haven't talked to them yet, but I like that they are so involved in comics that they traveled so far on their own initiative. They are both under 20 in age, so maybe there's hope for the future of comics after all.

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It's great that Bend is getting some new computer oriented businesses.

But, and I could be wrong here and I'll be glad to be corrected, they seem to mostly revolve around Telemarketing.

Which to me, to me, is the bottom of the high-tech barrel. I mean, a job is a job, and beggars can't be chosers, but I hate to think we're just adding more spam to the world.

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The weatherman has been consistently, reliably wrong lately.

And since he's been predicting bad weather, that's been a good thing.

I talked Linda out of getting her car washed last week, because the forecast was for snow and rain -- and then it didn't happen. So she washed her car on Saturday.

My car is filthy, too, so I'm getting it washed today, despite the forecast of bad weather later in the week.

This whole "chemical" stuff they are putting on the snow is a pretty recent development, I think. Used to be, you didn't have to worry about the undercarriage of the car because all they put down was lava cinders....

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Weather? Really? I'm reduced to talking about weather?

You know, when I check who's visiting my site, I see a whole lot of comic oriented links.

But everytime I post a comic book entry, I get my lowest readership.

Shouldn't matter, I suppose. That's one of the reasons that I didn't look at that information for a couple of years. I didn't want to be influenced.

Still, it just shows how few people are into comics, that even with the comic dedicated people coming to my blog, it doesn't outweigh the number of locals who are turned off.

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There seems to be this huge disconnect between superhero movies and what I actually do in my store.

I mean, they should be totally connected, right?

I was reading something another comic retailer was saying, and it really brought it home. He was just now getting around to watching Scott Pilgrim and Kick-Ass. Despite this, everyone wants to ask him about his opinion about all the superhero movies coming up.

Really, the movies and the comics are two different distinct things.

The movies affect sales not at all, from what I can see.

I love to go to the movies, and I'll see Green Lantern and Thor and all that, but it will be a movie experience -- and any similarity to comics, past or future, is completely coincidental.