As expected given the release of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, today a couple of customers came into the comic shop and noted my apparent resemblance to Ford Prefect, played by Mos Def. This was followed by one of the store employees chuckling in agreement and adding, "Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything." SO. To show that I really don't look all that much like Mos Def, I've provided the handy-dandy comparison pics above. On the left and right, we have Mos Def; in the center, we have yours truly. See? I don't bloody look like Mos Def.

Also, per Becky's post the other day, here's my hat picture. Anyone who recognizes the symbol on my cap gets bonus points. Here's a hint: I want to eat your brains. And finally...

IT'S THE WES COMEDY HOUR MINUTE!!!

THAT'S RIGHT! As an added bonus for those of you with the patience to download a 7.5 MB video file, here's a special treat -- Wes does standup comedy! After taking the above pics using the timer function, I started messing around with the MPEG capture on my digicam tonight and decided to record myself telling a joke. I went through a few takes first, and I'd been drinking to start, so you can imagine I was pretty silly by this point! And for those of you who've never met me in person and have only seen stills, not you get to see me moving around and talking and stuff. Anyway, enjoy!

The Dean of College Life is retiring in another month, so most of the staff is in the auditorium for his farewell reception. Again, I sit alone in the office, holding down the fort while the others delight and eat their fill and whatnot. It's fitting, though -- I'm just a temp here; they're the ones who've worked with him for years and should be the ones to see him off.

For lunch at my desk today, I had a peanut butter and pickle relish with cheese sandwich. Mmm.

I'm fucking exhausted.

I'm in the office alone right now because everyone else is learning about HipHop culture in the auditorium next door. Admittedly, I am the slightest bit interested in checking it out, but I can't leave! I mean, someone has to be here. And apparently that someone is me.

At least it's quiet.

My supervisor is out today, so things are a little bit more relaxed in the office. I actually have time to post! It's not that I have significantly less work to do today -- when I came in there were a number of things for me to do in my inbox -- but that in the absence of her calling me into her office every three seconds to do some other task or xerox some files or deliver some envelopes to some other department I can actually work on things and knock them off fairly quickly. Even doing a simple one-line log entry can take fifteen minutes when someone is hollering for you before you can even finish writing a letter. And I took three trips to deliver some papers to another office today, but had my supervisor been here that would've been at least eight trips. See, rather than waiting for several deliveries to pile up before sending me over -- they all go to the same place -- she'd have me running over there after every one, because it has to be done right away. It really doesn't. They'll get there. Jeez. (more...)

So yesterday I worked my first shift at one of my two new jobs -- in addition to resuming my Mon-Fri position back at the local community college, I took a job clerking on Saturdays at the local comic shop. Interesting experience so far. I've worked two other retail positions in the past -- at the bookstore for the past 10 months or so and at KB Toys in the summer of 2000 -- but those were both major chains and, as such, everything was pretty technologically up to date. If someone paid with a credit card, you swiped it and that was it. At the bookstore, if someone paid with a check, you scanned it through the register and the check was processed electronically, such that we actually gave the now void check back to the customer because it wasn't necessary to keep it.

This comic shop, however, is still pretty much in the dark ages of retail, which means calling the credit card companies and punching in merchant ID numbers and waiting for approval codes and the like. And I'm really kind of surprised that not even the inventory is done via a database -- the computer we had in '88 could've handled that sort of thing -- but it's very much a paper and pen and highlighter kind of place. Weird. (more...)