Blogger's having some problems at present, so I'm typing this post up in Notepad. I'll paste it over when things are back to normal. Who knows when that'll be. Rah. For the record, the time is presently 11:18 AM.

Anyway, I'm working today at 5 PM, so I've got some time to kill before I have to go in... I'll probably leave between 2:30 and 3 and do a bit of browsing around the area shops before I don the BAM apron and the nametag of the retail slave. Not in the best of moods right now -- I guess this is always the case, but right now it's wearing on me that everyone else around me seems to be doing so much better than I am. And hurrah for them, but it doesn't exactly make me feel that great about where I am at the moment. However, I will say that one of the virtues of a retail position is that it's one of the few positions in which you get exactly what you deserve. It's not a great job and very few people pretend that it is -- customers treat you like crap, the company essentially treats you like crap by giving you nominal wages, and when people find out you work retail they look at you like some crud just crawled out from between the grooves of their shoes and started speaking to them. Okay, so you don't get what you deserve at all. But neither do you get more than you deserve. And I'd like to think that if I had to choose between getting more or less than I deserve -- I mean, choose unselfishly and after putting quite a bit of thought into my decision -- I'd take less. Anyway, enough about that right now. To all those successful people I was talking about earlier (you know who you are), congratulations! I'd drink to your health and continued success and all of that rot, but I'm working later.

Here are a couple o' comics that fit my present mood: "How To Make Friends And Influence Bats" from Penny Arcade and "Eew..." from VG Cats. Enjoy!

To Deb: Yes, Stephen King is really that tall. But then again, I'm only 5'4".

Okay, so to finish the post, let's put up the FIVE UNIQUE QUESTIONS that I came up with for each unique participant in the FIVE QUESTIONS game here at Blog o' Wes. Feel free to answer them in your blogs at your leisure! Or not. With the Friday Five being defunct, you could always substitute these. 🙂

1. What's the strangest or most interesting product (or advertisement) that you've seen during your stay in Japan? What made it so odd? (Originally written for Brent, who's currently living in Japan. But if you've never been to Japan, pick another foreign country you've visited... or if you've never been outside the country in which you live, I'll settle for a strange domestic product.)

2. Pick a quotation from a cartoon supervillain (the deeper/more meaningful the quote, the better) and analyze it. What does it mean, and (if these differ) what does it mean to you? (Originally written for De. But if you're not as well-versed in the quotations of cartoon bad guys, any film/book villain will do.)

3. If you could make your own lollipop -- any flavor, any filling, any size, baseball bat for a stick, you name it -- what would you create? (Originally written for Sam, who likes lollipops an awful lot. Even if you don't, find a way to answer the question. :P)

4. Of all of the fairy tales you heard as a child (or in recent years, for that matter), which is your *least* favorite? Why? (Originally written for Greg... but I see no reason you shouldn't be able to answer it as well.)

5. What's your favorite ballad? Why so? Tell us about it. (Originally written for Mickey, who lost her soul to the devil's music... and the devil's music has a hold on even the best of us, 'cause fiddles and guitars beat harps any day of the week. Answer the bloody question.)

And that's that. Answer away, and lemme know if you do so I can stop by and read your responses.

Oh, and if you're interested in reading a couple of my older fiction pieces, I've uploaded "The Seventh" and "Dragon Lamp". The former's not really fiction or a story; the latter is both (and also has a little to do with the men/women theme that seems to be making the rounds in the blog circuit lately). Yep. I don't think they're anywhere near as good as the stuff I write these days, but then I can't sell a story to save my sanity, so if you ask the fiction editors what I write presently ain't all that great either. Meh.

Ja.