Andy Wood

No, not what you are thinking.  We have a power outage today 6/26/2009.  Yes, I got a little stressed out, but not that we were not prepared for it.

The APC battery backup kicked in and everything thing that I need to ‘keep the business’ running was on. (phone, dsl modem, router and phone)

However; the problem that we ran into was that the UPS, was about 6 years old and the battery only lasted about an hour.  So, I had to zip home and get a newer more up to date one that I have plugged into my gaming rig.

The power is up now and I will soon be getting a more up to date UPS for the shop.  Something that might be able to hold a 2-3 hour charge.

Now – many people got this day off and I for one was one of them.  I pretty much work 7 days a week.  Some may say, “Working at a Comic Book store, isn’t really work".  However; there are those days , but yes I have much less stress from my former occupation.

What does one do for their day off when they work 7 days a week?

Slept in, started on my liquid breakfast (Snapple and diet Mt. Dew) and started to play City of Villains’.

I had made arrangements with my normal COH/COV group to start new toons where we all would create Master Minds and play for like 4-5 hours.  Starting around 8.30a, they all slowly started to show up and soon we have about 7 people with all little minions to boss around.  (it was so awesome!)

After playing a little of City of Villains, it was time to watch some Tivo that was saved up and get in a couple more SG-1 Episodes. (currently on Season 6)

Had an awesome lunch, watched more Tivo and SG-1 and then around 6pm, it was back to COV for a Strike Force.

I have a very relaxing day off eating, playing games and watching great stuff on TV.

I have been buying and selling on eBay seriously for about 7 years now.  I sell a wide range of comic books, magazines, action figures, busts and all of the other fun stuff.

I also buy stuff on eBay too, again the fun stuff.

Each time I buy something, I pay for it right now.  After all, when you go into a grocery store and you have a shopping cart full of goods.  Do you allow them to ring up the stuff and then say, “I will pay for this next week, ok?”   I don’t freakin’ think so!  You PAY FOR IT NOW or you don’t get to eat!

I just love the wide range of excuses that I get from time to time.

I sure wish eBay would change the rules on how they do things.  How about allowing only people that have paypal account with active balance and/or with an active credit card on file to only participate in Buy It Now purchases.  Then if they do not do the “Pay Now” thing within 2hours, the transaction will auto-complete!

I am sure that there are a ton of issues with that idea, but something along these lines would sure help out legitimate business folk like me.

The morale here; pay for your purchases or don’t use eBay Buy It Now items

Attendance was up a whopping 40% from last Free Comic Book Day.  The most popular comic this year for us came from Boom Comics: Cars with a close runner up for Sonic.

I was so darn busy, that I didn’t have time or didn’t think about snapping pictures of Matt Maxwell who is a local writer.  Matt has one published book on the shelf; Strangeways: Murder Moon a Thrice weekly graphic novel on the web Strangeways: The Thirsty and another book on the way.  It was great to have Matt here, he was extremely approachable and knows his stuff.

Ciro’s Pizza had their presence as well.  They donated large pizza’ as part of the Free Comic Book Day celebration.  If you donated a canned good or bought something at the store during the vent, you got a free slice of pizza.

It was a great success and I want to thank all of those repeat customer and pass welcome to the new faces.

Okay.. just a couple of quick pictures.

Batman and Hulk cookies…. yum

Superman logo shield

And a yummy chocolate Superman Shield cake.

Matt Maxwell posted a little something about his new book and also mentioned that he will be at GamersCircle Comics for Free Comic Book day.

Strangeways: Murder Moon -

Seth Collins, a bitter Civil War veteran, is drawn to the small Western town of Silver Branch by a letter from his estranged sister. But as his coach approaches the town, it is attacked by a giant wolf that slaughters the other passengers, leaving only him and the driver, Webster, alive. When they reach the town, they learn that this is not the first time the mysterious wolf has struck. With the town on the verge of a panic or a riot, the sheriff is intent on maintaining peace, regardless of the price…

thanks Matt for the plug

There were 121,798 insider voters in the 2009 contest, of which we got 3rd place!

We can only hope for a higher slot next year.

Today I found out that we were mentioned in Tom Rupp’s column in the telegraph.

Speaking of blogs, I also read a blog from Andy Wood called, “Just Talking Smack.” He is the owner of GamersCircle Comics in Folsom located by Big 5 and Pizza Guys. On Saturday May 2, he is participating in the annual Free Comic Book Day. Anyone who comes in will get a free comic book. They are also collecting canned goods for the Twin Lakes Food Bank, if you remember to bring some.

thanks Tom for the mention!

Before we opened up the shop for the Alara Reborn pre-release, I got the FCBD banners staked into the ground.

One of two banners, (only going to show one, since they are the same)

Another banner and the lump to the right would be ‘me’

Here is the gang that showed up for the pre-release.

We filled up about 10 mins before game time, compared to our conflux prerelease.

Thank you all for making this a huge success.