We're on the road to nowhere....

I've finally got an idea of what I want my monthly rent to be (yes, it took me this long to determine this) and I've found a handful of places that are close to that amount and are in the proper areas of the city. I checked out a couple of them today and found that they were pretty much like everything else I've seen before -- needs work. No problem. I still have a handful of other properties to look at.
I had been going about this the wrong way. Previously I had just been driving around, searching for vacant spaces. That's not the way to do it. I have used the internet for almost ten years. I should have known that the best way to search for the proper retail location was via the internet. But oh no... I did it the way I recall my daddy doing it. For a guy who made his living in technology, my daddy never really had a knack for it. Mechanics, yes. Technology, no. Mechanics as applied to technology -- hell yes. I'm the same way. But that's neither here nor there.

So, anyway, I'm looking at about $1400 to $1600 a month for rent. Not including utilities. I figure this will get me a 1200-1300 square foot place, which isn't the largest spot ever, but it's big enough to get the job done. I am satisfied. I was overshooting my goals trying to get a 2000 sf spot. I recall in the early to mid 90s a store called Lion and Unicorn opened in a freaking HUMONGOUS location -- still the biggest comic book store I've ever seen. They might have stayed there a year. The rent must have been killer.


Mom's gone insane. She's been cleaning the house for a solid week because one of her friends is going to come and visit for an hour and a half next week. After the friend visits, the friend and Mom are taking off to Nashville for the rest of the week for all sorts of Christmas-themed entertainment. Mom's gift to herself. And probably to me... because she'll be away for most of the week. I see lots of movies and fast food in my future.

Speaking of movies...

On my short list of things I must see -- Syriana. I've watched an hour-long preview of it on A&E and it makes me want to read the book it's based on by Robert Baer. I rarely read things like this because I don't know what to read, but this reeks of awesome. The movie will be watched asap.

Munich. 'cause I like it when Spielberg pisses people off.

Will not be seeing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, because I am sick of seeing the propaganda for it on all five Christian television stations. They're humping this fucker harder than The Passion. Also, I have a feeling Disney only made it because it's an excuse to cash in on three hot crazes.... 1) computer generated talking animals; 2) insane battlefield war; 3) the whole Mad Christian movement. I can only get behind one of these things.

and for fuck's sake KING FUCKING KONG, because... it's KING FUCKING KONG. Seriously considering making the midnight screening for this one.

I've recently changed my eating habits. I don't recall exactly when I changed eating differently. I could look back in the journal and that would tell me but I really don't care that much. There are two points I have to make here. The first: While I was out yesterday I was very hungry and I was almost broke and I decided to cheat a little bit and get a couple of double cheeseburgers from McDonalds. They're extremely cheap. Not very good eating, but if you wanna fill yourself up for cheap, they're the way to go. So I got a couple of them and I took the first bite and it tasted wrong. It tasted like someone had poured an entire shaker of salt into my open mouth. Y'see, I have been on a combination low fat/low sodium diet. Everything I eat recently, with the exception of soft drinks, is nearly tasteless. That's okay. I can deal with it. Rather eat grass than die. What I'm saying is, after eating tasteless food, after eating food with no salt, for two weeks (...?...) one bite of a McDonald's cheeseburger just tasted fucking ronk. I couldn't eat the second one, even though I was still hungry.

Second point I wanna make... even though I have made a change in diet, I have lost no weight. Son of a bitch. What the hell is up with that? Am I gonna have to cut out sugar, too?

I'm taking a day off from the job hunt because I'm a lazy fucker. I am continuing to clean my room. Last night my mother recruited me into her yard/basement sale efforts. This was something I had avoided, because I'm kind of against having assholes from this neighborhood invading our basement. Her job for me was to test the old Atari 5200 systems she had found. I tried to do that, but we had no televisions that were old enough to accept their plugs. Shame... it would have been a blast to play some of those games again.

The bad thing about having my particular taste... I downloaded another p2p client and started downloading a shitload of stuff. It's all downloading at a snail's pace. Slower than hell. Taking literally days to download... and it's not because I'm slow, it's because only one person has it and I'm queue'd behind everyone else.... (god damn, but queue is a strange word...) or it's because the people I'm downloading from are slower than fuck. It's something. But... I've had this song in my head since hearing it on Chapelle's Show, and I had to have it. Didn't know the name of the fucking song. Just knew three words in the entire song. But it was enough. So I typed "ass and titties" into the search field, clicked search, and hey, y'know, there were a lotta people that had that song, and it downloaded in less than a minute. Maybe I should stop liking rock and roll. No one likes rock. It is not readily available. Oh, oh, wait. Wait. Here. Good rock and roll is like gold. Rare and precious and worth tracking down.

This is from IMDB...
"Perhaps taking a cue from the American indie film Thank You for Smoking, the Japan Tobacco company is offering free tickets to a screening of Robert Rodriguez's Sin City, on one condition -- that everyone smoke. Today's (Thursday) Mainichi Shimbun observed that Japan Tobacco sells nearly two-thirds of the country's cigarettes. Company spokesman Tsuyoshi Miyashita told the newspaper, "The event is to provide a rare opportunity for smokers to light up freely while watching the movie, so they can enjoy the film without suppressing their urge to smoke. ... I remember seeing filmgoers smoke in theaters, though it's impossible today." "

I do not smoke. I've never seen people smoking in movie theatres. But I am actually okay with this, even though the potential for in-movie annoyance could be amazing. I'm okay with it because once motherfuckers start smokin' in the movies, they start drinkin' in the movies, and when that happens, everyone's a winner. So heck yeah, let this new Japanese trend catch on in the U.S. We steal everything else from the Japanese -- why not smoking in the movies? It can only lead to good things, aside from the obvious bad things. But I'm discounting those in favor of the good things.