Things took a little longer than they were supposed to, and most of the things I went to DuhMoines to accomplish failed to happen at all; but a few things got done--some of which I hadn't actually planned on at all. Maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time after all.
The big news, ironically, didn't occur until I got back here to Denver. My car is fixed. It's no longer exactly what Pontiac thought it would be when they made it, but it's fixed. I think it might still technically be roadlegal, but I'm not sure about that. This is what happens when I find way too many design flaws in a single machine: I make changes to the original concept.
So that's good news. The Formula is back online.
Which, again, has little to do with going to DuhMoines.
Going to DuhMoines accomplished a few things. Just not really the things I went to DuhMoines to accomplish. Still: a few things got worked out pretty well.
Here's a few things we got worked out.
We're setting up a manufacturer/distributor for the shirts. Corey and I are each way too busy with other things to deal with most of the factors of this now. It's far simpler to outsource the operation to someone already set up for it, and just get royalties after a considerable advance. That also serves to get the shirts and things into the retail market through established channels, and--most importantly for us--prevents us from being able to give these things away for free...which we keep doing...which is a fairly efficient way to run quickly out of money.
Similarly, we're looking into people to do the same thing with the books.
There's way too much to deal with where distributing books is concerned to handle the business side while continuing to write more books. Which, of course, I knew in advance; so I finished a lot of them before I ever got into releasing things. Even still, trying to work with the publishing industry--which is about the same as the music industry--takes more time than it's worth. It's far easier to bring in people to handle all that for me.
Speaking of the music industry: now that I'm back in Denver, we'll be getting to the radio show in the next few days. It should start airing at noon DenverTime on Sunday. We ran out of time in DuhMoines, and didn't get anything done there with the show; otherwise, Corey would have been on the first episode. We'll get to that later.
And, speaking of episodes: we're reworking grem.tv now. The original idea for grem.tv was a webcast network. But we weren't really set up to do that at the time. Now, we're about ready for it. I'll have more details on that when we're into production. For the moment, I can mention that Corey is all over this idea, and he has a few good ideas for it too. It should be fun.
Then, of course, there's the townhouse here. This is where I get upset all over again.
I went to DuhMoines, and told these people that I was going to DuhMoines. I told them that I was leaving people here--Hunter and Greenback--to cover things while I was gone. Like letting in the labourers to fix all the stuff which still has never been fixed since I moved in here in June. Here's what Hunter got from them while I was out of town:
'We don't have to fix anything because he's out of town.'
Which, I assume, means that I don't have to pay rent while I'm out of town.
These people are making me very angry now. I moved in here on 28th June. After I'd paid them for July, they told me that a couple of things still had to be replaced, but were on backorder. Like the carpet and bathtub and stuff. It would all be fixed on Monday.
That was eight Mondays ago.
They managed to replace the carpet. They waited until I'd got most of my stuff moved in, so I had to move it all out into the backyard so they could replace the carpet. But that much got done. I'm still waiting on this bathtub thing, as well as the airconditiong--which, incidentally, qualifies as criminal negligence--and the dishwasher and so on. They keep ordering all this stuff, and then they keep installing it into other places because they don't have to fix things if I'm not in town.
Meanwhile, according to the lease, I'm allowed to have up to two cars. Which I'm okay with, since that's about what I have at any given time. One of the cars can be parked right in front of my door; the other, according to the lease, has to be parked out in the middle of the carpark. Because there are exactly enough spots along the curb to allow one car per address.
The mutants next door have seven cars. One of them is crippled, and has a crippled spot next to my spot. The other six cars fight over my spot. Even though it's mine and they simply can't have it.
Beyond that, these creatures are constantly screaming at each other twenty-four hours a day. They're nice enough to try concealling the screams with loud, simplistic music. It doesn't do much good, of course.
So far, I've ignored it. So far.
A few minutes ago, the doorbell rang. Animal Control. The neighbours who keep screaming and stealing my parking spot called the police about the deinosaur I have.
Animal Control worked out quickly that I'm a palaeontologist with a working knowledge of herpetology, and that a Varanus indicus and an Elaphe guttata guttata are really nothing to call the cops about. She recorded what I actually have, said there was no problem with having them, and went away.
Leaving me and the mutant neighbours.
So: there will be changes. The next idiot to park in my spot gets towed. You've got to have a parking permit here anyway, and none of these six auxiliary cars has one--obviously, since you're not allowed to have more than two cars in the first place. The instant I can hear any noise from inside their place while I'm inside mine, the cops can come out and cite them for disturbing the peace.
Oh yeah and: the little plaque reading BLESS THIS MESS in the international waters between their door and mine is either something the management put there, which would upset me anyway, or it's something the mutants put there. Once I confirm that the management didn't put it there, I'm either going to throw it away, or hang my own little sign just underneath it: DAMN THIS SPAM.
So. Maybe this will all get cleared up quickly. Otherwise, I'll have to consider all of this together, claim bedlam, and move out. I don't actually want to do that--mostly because I'm still unpacking boxes here.
Which is starting to scare people a lot. So far, we've unpacked about five million bucks' worth of stuff which anyone with an EBay account would probably like quite a bit. Except that I'm not sure anyone could afford some of this stuff. Unopened Star Wars toys from 1977, matchbooks from Sambo's, and so on. The stuff everyone keeps telling me to throw away because I have too much stuff. The entire 1984 line of TransFormers should be thrown away because I have too much stuff.
I don't think it's that I have too much stuff; I think it's that I'm surrounded by too many idiots.
Anyway: I have to go finish unpacking all this stuff I should just throw away. I need to make room for all the backordered stuff these twits have no apparent intention of ever installing here. Just in case they show up on their own, without requiring me to go over and threaten to sue them again.
More later....
--Gremlin