Homeless Days of Harry Potter

So--I'm waiting in my car for my son to return with his cold drink when this homeless guy walks up to me, leans on my door, and says look, I've got a copy of the new Harry Potter book. I say--that's nice, and return to my comic book.

Do you want to buy it? $5!

Nary a thought passes my mind; I check the book, run through to make sure there's no drool or nastiness, hand him a fiver, and he's thankful and ambles off (at that very moment another tragic figure approaches with an empty gas can, asking for money for gas--to which I give her a buck. OK....OK, maybe she DOESN'T have a car; it's just a ploy...)

Odd thing is, I was off to my warehouse to do some work on my ebay business, and as I have an ancillary Amazon selling account, I list the book and thirty minutes later, it's sold for $17.50. Cool, I'm thinking. Helped the homeless guy, made a sale. Everybody's happy.

Except one guy, a good friend who points out that the book was probably stolen. I'm trafficking with thieves now?

I'm slightly abashed, but then I think--who knows? Who could absolutely know? Sure, there's a much higher chance that this guy did lift the book, or got it from someone who did, but...you know? I try not to have that harsh or suspicious a nature of my fellow man. Or maybe--

And how about all the folks I buy comics collections from? Did they steal the books at some point? I have on many occasions bought comics from various comics retailers, often staffers, and well--for the life of me, with the volume and quantity that they are offering me, one has to wonder--what kind of discount did these guys get? Or was it the five-fingered kind?

I'll never know--and I can't presume the viewpoint of a cop on each transaction that I undergo. Everyone has some larceny in their hearts--I was caught shoplifting when I was a teen. On rare occasions, I've been known to keep the incorrect change given to me by cash clerks when it worked to my advantage...but no, mostly I'm a pretty honest guy. There's enough to worry about in this life--like global warming and the effect it's going to have on my kids when they grow up.

Or how much they'll be paying to buy a house--if ever.

Chris TOKYODAYS

wives, fax machines, and comics

'Do a blog! You have so many interesting things to say!'

'Have you set up your blog yet? It will help sell your comics.'

'Blog now, or forever hold your peace.'

Yes, yes my dear--finally...at my wife's continual insistence, I have created this--my ego-driven (certainly not mine!) all-new blog. Which panhandles the notion-- 'blog'. Sounds kinda disgusting to me. 'Blog' sounds like something that either ends up under your tires, stuck between your teeth, or the unfortunate name given to one's ugly pet.

The primary reason I avoided this little ego-enterprise was, oddly, at first technological. I'd made an attempt to do a blog before...months ago...but there were too many hurdles getting it assigned to my website. More and more these days, ease of use is a byword with me, and if the activity takes up time and hoo-hah, well...next?

Case in point.

I wanted to buy a new fax-machine that would allow me to do broadcast faxes to my customers--so off to the ol' Office Depot where I bought my Brother CX575 whatever. I liked the notion of not sitting down in front of my fax machine and pressing a button or two and setting up 75 faxes to go out one after the other while I could attend to other aspects of my life.

Entering fax numbers and names? Done. Creating a group? Done. Arranging to enter numbers into the group?....Arranging to enter numbers into the group?....

BLEEP!

30 minutes into a phone call with a well-spoken south Asian woman later, neither of us could figure out how to get it to work. A subsequent call to another charming resident in the Indian sub-continent (why they ascribe such names as 'Johnny' or 'Matilda' to obviously Indian-accented phone tech assistants I'll never dope out) got me only slightly further along. They made valiant efforts to get the damned thing to perform in the manner the 'manual' stated the device could achieve that I waas able to channel my disdain where it belonged--to the management that allowed the poor tech writer to get this manual to market.

I promptly returned the item to the Office Depot, got my money back, and ultimately got a measure of satisfaction out of actually faxing the pages I needed to my customers one...by...one...by...one...(my old fax machine purportedly can do broadcast faxes but I'll be damned if I'm going to spend another hour dicking around to get there with Brother) and so I learned a bit about patience and forbearance.

As to Brother from whom I had bought the device, I was irritated to note that the website really didn't allow any place to easily COMPLAIN about my problem. I'm a big believer in customer feedback, and in today's faster-paced lifestyle, who has time to DICK AROUND (thanks Fran) with tech that doesn't do what it's supposed to do? (which raises the question about folks who use Windows regularly...there is a mass dysfunctionality event if there ever was one)...

But I digress.

So--other than driving around Northern California selling pills to health food stores, I'm a comic book dealer. If you'd like to see my listings of vintage comics, current comics, comic lots, magazines, etc. you can click here to see what my part-time life is about.

It's my wife's presumption that posting this blog may drive business there...we'll see. In the meantime, I'm trying to determine if I'm having fun yet.

OK, I like to write--so yeah, I'm having fun. More next time.

Chris

j

PS--my very first blog has already gotten editorial comment; that it should primarily be about comics and comics-related issues. Well, we'll see how well that works out. Isn't it true that blogs will take on lives of their own?