Submet Industries

1. Day two of being 30 and I’m already exhausted. This is life now. Everything is crumbling. Tell Danica that I always loved her.
2. But of course, it’s not as bad as all of that. Yesterday, we worked at the shop (because of course we did) and then Danica took me for eats at Canteen – one of our favourite places in the city. The food was brilliant as always (any place that can prepare lamb well for a reasonable price is aces in my book) and the company was dazzling so… all in all, a great birthday.
3. As the store enters it’s fourth full month of being open, Danica and I are making another big change – we’re heading back into the city into a brand new apartment. We’re both really excited about this – and will be right back in the Oliver neighbourhood, right close to the store. It’s going to be so nice to do away with the hour long commute that we currently have going. It’s nice living out of the city, but the lack of free time has been taking it’s toll.
4. Had a visit from my mom and sister on Saturday, and they brought with them six boxes of books and comics that I still had left at my mom’s place. We had been meaning to go back and clean them out for a while, so it was nice for them to arrive – though a little strange to get a box of memories delivered to you on your 30th birthday. I’m pretty excited to go through some of them and relive some memories from my youth.
5. The month will be filled with writing. Have a new task app that seems to be pushing me forward in all the right directions, so hoping I can stick with that and keep things moving. With any luck, I’ll nab enough free time to talk about that this week – but I also want to write up roughly 6 retail posts for Comics Beat as well, so there’s that. Hopefully something will get done this week. We’ll see… we’ll see…

So I guess I’m turning 30 in 5 days. Which is a thing. And so like clockwork, here comes the pledge to start blogging more.

I know. This will all end in tears. Or more accurately, inactivity. But look: there are a few things that I still want to do. In my first 30 years, I got myself born, graduated high school, quit college when I realized it would lead to a pile of debt and unhappiness, built my life to the point where I own a comic shop and write for a reputable comic book news and commentary site, and managed to trick the most beautiful woman in the world into marrying me. So uh… that was pretty great. Now all I need to do is to accomplish something with my writing, and that’s gotta start somewhere. So why not from the wad of fear that’s welling up in my chest as I near a weird milestone on the road to my inevitable demise?

Fuck you, death. Shit is about the get real.

Let’s fucking do this.

Hashtag yolo

So I was so happy when we signed the lease for Variant Edition, because I thought our days of waiting were over. Ha ha. Hhahhahhaaahhaaaaaa. A-heh. No. They are not.

As it stands, we’re waiting anywhere from two days to two weeks to hear back about… everything else that needs to slide into place. I’m starting to get restless. Relying on outside forces has never been my strong suit, and I tend to go a bit stir crazy when I have to, so this has not been fun. I keep thinking about what will come out at the end of all of this, and it calms me. But we’re not there yet.

So what now? Well, I’m spending the weekend getting the full Variant Edition site up and selling, because why not. We have the license, we can officially operate. Why not operate! Soon after that, we’ll announce the official launch of the store and our grand opening day. And shortly after that… well, the first little bit will be a different kind of stress, but at least it will be the kind of stress I can deal with. I know the process of selling comics. I just want to do that.

Come onnnnnn.

Turns out, setting up your own business is hard. Luckily, once we have it set up, we already have a working knowledge of the hows and whys of it all. Variant Edition will be coming soon, announcements will be made, and all will rejoice. Or I guess some. I dunno. Do you like comics? I sure do.

Current status: trying to spin all the plates, focusing on the ones that would be ruinous if they fell. Things keep falling over all around, but at least they’re things like “writing stuff”, which can always be done later, in lieu of “maybe we should talk to the bank about hmm and blah“. Those are technical bank terms. Look it up.

Coming up: I already have my next Retailer’s View done and ready to go. It vents out a few frustrations with the process of setting up, but I think it winds up being hopeful.

Otherwise: things are continuing for the store, and we’re on track for a couple of really big announcements soon. Man, I can’t wait until I can just order comics like I used to.

This week, I’m back on the Taasky train.

Taasky is one of the many task organizers that you can get on the iPhones and whatnot, and if I’m being honest, I can’t quite tell you why I like it more than some of the others. It probably comes down to the fact that it does enough of the things that I like to make it worthwhile to use. I’m often spending half of my free-time organizing what I might do with my free time. Plugging that into Taasky means later, when I’ve forgotten about all the things I planned and decide to make another list, they’re all there. More than that, you can categorize them and work on specific tasks. When I was still working at Wizard’s Comics, I would click on the button that would just give me tasks for the store, and anytime I forgot what I was going to do, I’d take a quick look, and get right back to working on the projects I had made for myself.

After I stopped working at the store, I stopped using Taasky because… well, time went all wobbly on me. Suddenly there was a lot of it, and somehow, also, not nearly enough. I started gathering wool to get my own shop started, and built out a weird structure for getting those things done, but… unfortunately, there was a lot of “hurry up and waiting” involved. I let my task accomplishing skills languish as I met with the unfamiliar. Now? Well, clearly I’m back on the wagon, and two features are helping me stick with it. The first, is the fact that you can mess with the settings so that your Taasky button will tell you how many tasks you have to do for the day in one of those red notification circles – so if you’ve forgotten about something, and grab your phone to screw around for a bit, you get a bright reminder of things that need to be accomplished.

Beyond that, there’s a premium setting (that costs a whole 99 cents, I think) that gives you stats on how much you’re accomplishing – how many things you get done in a day, a week or a month, and from what categories. I like it because it taps into that part of our brain that likes accomplishments – like hitting a new level on a game, and pushing to do a bit better. See my productivity (or lack thereof) measured out allows me to set certain goals in my head, which usually involve doing something each day, instead of seeing the line graph drop to zero for whatever reason. Anyway, great app with a great look. Give it a glance if you’re looking to try something like this out.