I love this image, from a SKY TV advertisement for Alien v Predator.

Although I’m usually pretty good about dragging myself out of bed on time, today? Not so much. I finally stumbled up at about ten of six, but I was still running late to catch my Metro train.

Yes, I catch a specific Metro train. Every weekday. I couldn’t tell you what time it pulls into Woodley Park station, but I can tell you that if I’m out of bed at 5:40, by the time I’m dressed and out the door, a short walk to the station, an elevator ride down into its depths, and I’m on the platform several minutes ahead of its arrival. I can’t tell you what train number it is, but I can tell you that from the first bench back from the escalator, the car that stops there is occupied by (in addition to assorted other people) three ladies with whom I ride the bus from Grosvenor.

You can imagine my surprise, then, as I thought I was running late, that I got onto the platform just as a train was arriving, and darted into my usual car. And what should I see? My three bus companions.

Much to my shock, I was on time!

And then one of them saw me, turned to the others, and said, “Daaaamn, we’re all late today!”

Relating to this TMI post, this restaurant, Meiwah, is the only Chinese establishment in the District of Columbia whose General Tso’s chicken does not leave me running around looking for a toilet before my ass violently decompresses.

The first bookstore I have a conscious memory of is the University of Maryland College Park’s Book Exchange. I asked my parents about it recently, but they said the only reason we shopped there was because it was so close to our house. I actually had a dream about it yesterday — all I remember is a red railing, and all I want to buy from it as a shirt with a store logo on it (do they sell those? They should!)

The second bookstore I have a conscious memory of is the old B. Dalton’s in, I think, White Flint Mall. It’s gone now, remodeled and replaced. I remember it had spiral stairs in the corners, with stacks of books on the landings, and the second floor was open to the first.

I’d always wanted to work in the bookstore, and when I was moving to DC, I contacted two bloggers familiar with the area for suggestions for independent bookstores, as working for one of the Big Two wasn’t something I really cared to do.

But, to be on the safe side, I went ahead and applied at the Big Two anyway. As fate would have it, it was indeed one of the Big Two which contacted me, and hired me. Politics and Prose sent me a nice e-mail explaining that they only hired full time employees, and I never heard from Olsson’s (now out of business) or Kramerbooks.

And of course, if you’ve read my blog for the last six months, you know that I have frequently written on the rocky financial ground the Bookstore is on. A series of bad business decisions nearly doomed the company, and while things seem sturdy, even with the economy, it wouldn’t take much to knock the Bookstore over.

In any case, I was saddened by the announcement that Vertigo Books is closing. Okay, I’d never heard of them before today’s DC Blog posting. And I never get out to College Park, so I never would have shopped there. Also, it probably wouldn’t have made much financial sense to shop there, since my discount at the Bookstore is 33%.

On the other hand, a closed bookstore is a sad bookstore. Of all the jobs I’ve had, I don’t think any has ever given me as much satisfaction — I mean, for all the stupid customers and other pains-in-the-ass that accompany a retail job — as the Bookstore. Having worked at locally owned stores before, I know how close a staff can become to one another. I’m sure that, for Vertigo’s employees, this is akin to losing their family.

When I think of Stevenson’s Treasure Island, there’s an image in my head: Jim Hawkins, pinned to the mast by a dirk, his face contorted in pain, blasts of fire from the pistols he holds, and Israel Hands, reeling backwards off the rigging, dead. I can only surmise that, when I was a boy, the book my dad read to me had illustrations, and that was one of them.

I would like to say I picked the book up largely on a whim, but that would be a lie. An advanced reader copy of a prequel, Flint and Silver, arrived at the Bookstore a week or two ago, and I read the first few chapters one day last week on break. I think, in the end, what galled me was that the editor, who included a letter, remarked that the author was on a par with Patrick O’Brien.

Let me just say, I’ve read a lot of Patrick O’Brien’s books. John Drake is no Patrick O’Brien. (And, that’s all I have to say about that, except that apparently Flint & Silver has been optioned as a film, so I would think a new version of Treasure Island will probably be in theaters within the next five years).

In any case, there were elements of Treasure Island that I remembered: the marooned sailor, Jim Hawkins stealing his way back onto Hispaniola, the death of Israel Hands, the defense of a stockade, and of course, the one-legged pirate-turned-cook-turned-pirate, Long John Silver himself. I had actually forgotten all about Billy Bones, and the apple barrel, and while Treasure Island is a short read (200 pages), it’s immensely enjoyable. What made it more so was the price: $4.95 – 40% discount + rewards points = FREE!

Fun Fact: Treasure Island is one of few books at the Bookstore that is shelved in two sections: Kids’ Books, and Literature/Fiction. Another is David Simon’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. The mass market is in True Crime, while the QP (with photos!) is in Law & Labor. Figure that one out.

Fun Fact II: I kind of wish I’d picked up the illustrated edition in the Kids’ section, because I think it might’ve had the picture of Israel Hand’s death that I remember.

The Annotated Pratchett File:

In an interview in Comics Buyer’s Guide with Terry and Neil, shortly after the American release of Good Omens, Terry proposed the theory that, when you’re driving through the country late at night, and there’s nothing on the radio, you find yourself stopping in at an all-night gas station and looking through the tape rack; the only thing there remotely tolerable is a Best of Queen, so you buy that. Two weeks later you can’t remember how the thing got there, so you get rid of it, only to go through the same process again. Neil’s theory was that tapes really do turn into Best of Queen albums.

Since I received an iPod, I have become quite the avid Bit Torrenter, downloading the bulk of the music which currently makes up my song inventory. And no bones about it: Queen is, without a doubt, my favorite band in the world, of all time. While my love for the band probably started with Highlander, I think it was only cemented by the “whack a zombie” sequence in Shaun of the Dead.

So I’ve downloaded a lot of Queen music, as I only own two Queen albums (one of them a “best of”, and the other “Don’t Lose Your Head.”) One of the albums I downloaded was a tribute album, with numerous artists covering Queen’s songs. Let me say this real quick: Joss Stones’ cover of “Under Pressure” is sooo far and away better than My Chemical Romance’s.

(And don’t give me the “Under Pressure was a David Bowie song!” No, it wasn’t. Well, not exclusively).

In any case, two of the songs I downloaded purported to be “Bohemian Rhapsody.” One was. The other, clearly, was not, but I didn’t know if it was a Queen-cover mislabeled, or an original song by some obscure artist included in the download by purpose or accident. It was a pretty catch tune, but it took me a while to be curious enough to Google some of the lyrics. Ah-hah, so it was a Queen cover: ’39. Here’s the vid of the original (acoustic):

I don’t know how this song had escaped my notice before, but I love it. It’s fucking great. However, as I’ve listened to it (over-and-over again), I find myself trying to figure out if it’s a song about the Second World War, or about — wait for it — space travel.

I can’t quite imagine Queen writing a song about space travel. On the other hand, they wrote several songs about immortals who run around chopping off each other’s heads in the quest for a mystical prize, so, really, I don’t know why I can’t.

So I Googled. And what did I find? Whole online discussion boards where “’39 is about WWII” groups battled “’39 is about space travel!” groups in incredibly personal flamewars: “It’s about space travel, you douche bag! Your mother is a whore and I raped your grandfather up his anus with a pitchfork! AND HE LOVED IT!” Etcetra.

I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s a song.

However, for the record, I am going to come down on the side of space-travel, and not just because I don’t want to be raped with a pitchfork. A lot of the lyrics can be interpreted to support either argument. However, what puts me firmly in the spaceship camp are these:

For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew.

Which just, to me, seems to be a really beautiful way of describing two adults reconnecting — a year of time for him, a generation for her — and getting caught up with what their kids and their kids’ kids are up to, and her being able to blame all the bad stuff on his absence.

Also, what the fuck is up with Freddie Mercury’s outfit? Wow.

I hope so.

So, this morning, recovering from a very long day Friday that began with me dragging myself out of bed at 5:30 for work, then walking through Adams Morgan at ten walking home from my part-time job, stopping past Bouron to partake in beer with bloggers. I got home at about a quarter of one, and woke up around seven to find my clothes scattered all about my apartment and my iPod still playing.

What better way to spend a morning, then by doing my taxes?

The most modern thing about doing my taxes is that I use my laptop’s calculator function. Otherwise, I clear off my work bench (which I use as a coffee table) and use a pencil in my preparations.

Two things have made me nervous about taxes this year:

The first is that I had a considerable amount of difficulty obtaining a W2 from a previous employer. This was a pizza shop that changed hands in January 2008, and I worked for the new owners for two months before finding a job at a software company in Bethesda. After much pestering and anger, the W2 finally showed up in my mailbox last week.

Second, this is the first year that I have been a resident of any other location than Maryland. I was (I think understandably) nervous about figuring out part-time residency taxes, but thanks to a quick post to Twitter (and Big Money Tony’s quick reply), I was put to rights. Well, I hope: am I actually allowed to claim myself as an exemption? Why can I never figure this out?

In any case, I owe about five big ones to the Feds. Yep, a whopping $4.88. In addition, I’m getting about four-hundred back (combined) from Maryland and the District.

I know there are people rolling their eyes and mumbling something about how I’m lending my money to the government for free, but honestly? I’d rather put myself in a position where I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to dredge up $XXX to pay my tax bills.

As for me — all that’s left is to double-check my taxes, ink them pretty on new forms, photocopy, divide up the W2s appropriately, and mail them off. And then wait for the greenbacks to come rolling in.

For the last few weeks, a friend and I have been trying to arrange an evening together filled with alcohol and Chinese food. This has, in addition to other things, actually involved locating a Chinese restaurant I ate at once, the night after I moved to DC, of which the only reference I had to its geographical location was that the building had pillars. And yet, I located it! However, our packed schedules have thwarted us time, and time again.

We are, finally, hopefully scheduled for Monday night. This involved some foot-work on my part, as I was actually scheduled at the Bookstore, fortunately, I was able to swap nights, leading her to question when, exactly, I found time for laundry or sleep.

Well, tomorrow I’ll be doing laundry at about six am. As for sleep?

Sure, it’s a long day, getting up at 5:30, and getting home at 10pm. Seven hours of sleep might seem like a lot, but when you factor in the commute, an eight-hour day at a desk, and four hours running around a Bookstore with a stack of fiction under one arm and restraining my other arm from assaulting customers, I’m actually usually beat by the time I walk into my apartment at the end of the day.

Hell, I’m pretty tired when I head out of the Office, too.

So I’m going to do what I always do in these situations.

I won’t lie: I’m a Metro napper.

This week marks (approximately) my one-year anniversary with the Bookstore. I started at the same time a major building renovation was beginning, and it’s good to report that the renovations are almost over. They really had little impact on the store itself until January, when, due to the need to replace windows, an interior drywall was erected, which essentially turned our very large store into a very poorly-lit cave (the only natural light came in via a small vestibule tucked at the end of the register queue).

To make floor space for the drywall (it comes into the store about five feet), we had to move a lot of stuff: we lost a whole bank of registers, we lost storage space behind the Information Desk, and we had to move our Computer books downstairs so that we could move our Politics Section to where our Computer books had been, all so that we could move some of our magazines to where our Politics had been.

We got a new vestibule about a week ago — it’s where the old one was, except this time the doors don’t stick (the outer doors also don’t have a lock, and it’s not completely glassed-in, so that construction crews can get between the new-windows and the drywall). But it’s also big, and glass, and the change to the front of the store has been noticeable: WE HAVE LIGHT! We also have customers who keep trying to exit through the temporary vestibule, even though it’s blocked off.

I found our last night that the drywall comes down tonight. I can’t express how much more pleasant the Bookstore is with natural light, and it’s going to be great enjoying these new, clean windows.

It’ll take a little while to get the store sorted properly, though: the construction crew has to lay down new carpet, and do electrical work, and of course, the bulk of the rebuild will be done by employees after-hours: rebuilding the register bank, moving the bookshelves. But I’m very much looking forward to going into work on Friday and basking in the sunlight.

HT: FailBlog.org

This is possibly the most disgusting image I’ve ever seen. At the very least, it’s the most disgusting image I’ve seen in the last few months.

Y’know the thing about Hitler’s speeches, though? He brought his audience members to orgasm.

Unfortunately, while this shirt is displayed at a clearly right-wing gathering, good luck protesting it: the Left removed that option every single time its radical members declared “Bush = Hitler!” Because when your more radical wing is screaming “Bush = Hitler!” it’s sort of hard to get the Right to condemn it’s radical wing for screaming “Obama = Hitler!”

So I’d like everyone to take a moment and read Godwin’s Law.

However you may feel about him, George W. Bush wasn’t evil. He was a lot of things, but evil wasn’t one of them. A lot of times evil and bad get mixed up — the guy who mugged you may be a bad person, but that doesn’t mean he’s evil. Bush’s fault, in my own humble opinion, was that he was a weak man, incapable of decisive leadership, who would have been a mediocre president had the September 11th attacks not occurred, but then was in a situation where stronger willed men were able to manipulate him into a course of action that has been absolutely disastrous for this country.

Bush = Hitler FALSE. Obama = Hitler FALSE. It’s just stupid and ignorant to say otherwise, on either man.

In any case, it’s a disgusting shirt.

*I am not saying that everyone who goes to gun shows is a fringe right-wing radical, only that fringe radicals are probably going to go, too.

HT: Andrew Sullivan.

Advanced Reader Copies — free books sent by publishers so that booksellers can be familiar with the product — are possibly the greatest benefit of working at the Bookstore. I mean, besides my awesome coworkers, and chances to meet minor celebrities like Joe the Plumber.

There are two kinds of ARCs: the first and most common, are oversized “quality paperbacks” with a boring cover and a sales pitch on the back. The texts are usually in pretty lousy shape, missing the occasional punctuation mark. These are usually sent well in advance — for example, my ARC of Christopher Buckley’s “The Supreme Courtship” came last May or June, when the book itself wasn’t published until September.

The second ARC is exactly similar to the actual published book. Essentially, the publisher just sends an extra copy.

What happens to the ARCs is always the same: our inventory guys saunter into the back room, announce, “New reader copies!” and dump them in a pile. Employees shift through them. A lot of them are crap — pulp books designed for the non-discerning reader.

Every now and then, there are gems. I’m particularly thrilled I scored a copy of Buckley’s “Supreme Courtship”, I missed “The Lost City of Z” by five minutes, but was dancing up and down for David Benioff’s “City of Thieves.” I picked up the ARC for James Butcher’s new Dresden file book, which inspired me to actually start reading the series, which bummed me out because the first two are just dreadful (although I think that had as much to do with Butcher’s shoddy prose as the actual plot, however, I did read enough into “Turn Coat” to know that his writing has improved tremendously).

When I moved to DC, a friend gave me some sound advice: “Public transit is all good and well, but you’re going to have to get used to waiting.”

The waiting can be inconvenient, I admit, but I’ll still maintain I’d rather wait for a bus or a train, and have the freedom to read while en route to my destination, than to be stuck behind the wheel of a car navigating downtown traffic while looking for an open parking space.

If I have a point, it’s this: I love the Metro. I love the dirty trains and the weeds growing along the rails at the Woodley Park Station. I’m not such a fan of the urine-soaked bum on the L2 last night, or the occasional train derailment, but what would I face if I drove? Traffic jams? Traffic accidents? If a train derails at Bethesda, I can always walk.

The big “Metro News” this week is that the Washington Examiner published the results of a “secret shopper” assessment of the Metro system. In a sidebar, the Examiner notes that, oh my holy fucking god, people file an average of 100 complaints with the Metro system per day.

100 complaints? Is that all?

Let me tell you something: according to Wikipedia, Metro rail cars have between 64 to 81 seats per car. When you factor in standing room, that means that on an average day, Metro’s total complaints are less than the full capacity of one car on one train. Now, even with six lines, and eighty-something stations, I have no idea how many trains Metro runs total during the working week, but I guarantee you, it’s probably a lot. I mean, heck, if you consider that at rush hour there’s usually a train every three minutes, in each direction, and transit time from Shady Grove to Glenmont is about an hour, that’s forty-trains total on the Red Line. Figure that as an average, that’s 200 trains on the entire system (with a 20-train reduction on shared-track lines), each train being between six and eight cars, which means you’re looking at — conservatively — over twelve hundred individual rail cars, ferrying over 350,000 people, making 700,000 trips per weekday.

100 complaints?

If anything, only 100 complaints is indicative that most people have no problem with Metro. Or, if they do, they consider it a worthy trade off to not have to negotiate traffic and look for a parking space.

What struck me as most serious about the report was the customer service results. Look, any service industry — the Bookstore, a restaurant, a transit system — customer service is the be all and do all. There’s no excuse, whatsoever, for poor customer service, or rudeness. I think we all understand that new employees are going to get a lot of their training “on the floor” (so to speak), but one would hope that Metro would make this a priority.

I also don’t get complaints about buses being off-schedule. Maybe it’s just that I spent far longer than I care to admit schlepping pizzas about. It seems to me bus delays are the most expected things in the world: these aren’t the Knight Bus from Harry Potter that could go warp six and slide through traffic jams as if they didn’t exist. I mean, for fuck’s sake, that bus I was on back in January — are you telling me it was the driver’s fault that a car passenger opened her door as the bus was already passing, requiring the bus to be taken out of service?

No, no, no.

Lastly: I think we all know that Metro is an old system. There are going to be problems with it. It would have been nice if it had been designed with dual-tracks in each direction so that single tracking wouldn’t be a necessity and maintenance would be easier. But, truthfully? I’m far happier with the Metro than I would be without it.

This is the second version of this sign. Care to guess which phrase the first version omitted, and share theories on why it had to be inserted?

I’m rootin’ for the O’s.