Thursday tids.

I cut my web-scrolling finger lifting the air conditioner in our bedroom in place.

I'll fight though the pain to write this blog. The sacrifices I make!

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People kept recommending to me the Hugo nominated book, FEED, by Mira Grant.

I knew it was about a zombie plague. What I didn't expect was that was about bloggers and media and politics. Using the zombie plague and the response of the government and the media as a method to explore bigger themes such as civil liberties and truth to power.

The conceit is that bloggers were the first to notice the zombies and report on them and those people who believed the bloggers instead of the mass media (who scoffed and ridiculed the reports) survived.

Because, like you know, I'd totally tell you the minute I saw a zombie.

There goes one now!

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I dreamed last night that I found a cave with 50 fire breathing dragons. They were going to grow exponentially unless we sacrificed a virgin to them.

"And you couldn't find one?" Linda suggested.

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Came home yesterday to garden, but it way too hot.

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We finally hooked up our streaming Netflix and finally got our wifi at home working again, thanks to our friend Aaron.

I've abandoned the cranky old desktop computer (it was even beginning to weeze and rattle) and I am writing this on my Apple laptop. Which will be my new home computer.

My traveling computer is probably going to be a smaller, cheaper PC notebook, which I believe I can get for a couple hundred dollars. All I need or want from the thing is the ability to pick up the internet and to write.... (A PC because I like the Solitaire program.)

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I'm glad COVA is so optimistic about this summer's tourism. I'm kind of pessimistic based on current trends, and based on last year.

I am seeing quite a few people in the door, but they don't seem to want to open their wallets.

Lots of ones and fives in the register, instead of tens and twenties -- which for me is a sign that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It means I've had good foot-traffic but people are buying the smallest things possible.

I wonder sometimes if it's "guilt" money -- though I suspect that I'm the only one who thinks that way (probably because I own a store and know how it feels) -- going into a store and not spending money there always makes me feel slightly guilty. That probably is not the way most people actually think.

Anyway, the finances of the store are all in order, so I'll accept whatever level of sales comes our way.

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I had a blog reader in yesterday, who said that when he talks to other people about my store, they all thought I owned the building.

Seriously?

Do I need to change the title of this blog to: "No really -- this is the best minimum wage job a middle aged guy ever had.?"

Up until about 5 years ago, about the time I started writing this blog, I really, really earned minimum wage. The housing bubble was so crazy that we bought a house with two minimum wage jobs -- documented -- and a small inheritance.

Buying a commercial building is way out of reach, especially downtown.

Wouldn't it be nice.

So are they thinking about me that way because they can't figure out how I survive otherwise?

Heh.