The Night

I had an interesting thought earlier today.  How does one start a pawn shop?  I’ve been in tons of them– they’re full of junk somebody presumably sold that is now being sold by the pawn broker.  But how does one get started?  Get a big, empty building and a little capital, and put up a sign that says, "Will buy your junk for a quarter what it’s worth and then sell it for twice what it’s worth?"  How long does it take to build up the sort of cavernous piles of junk most of these establisments seem to have?  Or does one have to start out simply selling their own junk, like a flea market or yard sale, then decide to start letting people pawn stuff?  It is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

I just spent the last hour and a half putting music on an mp3 player my brother bought for the younger of his two sons.  I actually had a good time doing it, but I wish the process of actually putting the music on the player went faster, because I’d have totally hooked him up with some new shit.  But basically I just put everything from another mp3 player that they had on it, plus a couple of extra album’s worth of music. 

Minnie and I watched a movie earlier that I may have previously stated that I wouldn’t watch.  But I did it anyway… Dragonball: Evolution.  Where to begin?  I suppose that if you can somehow take the movie for what it is, with no prior knowledge of the source material, then it’s not so bad… but I couldn’t shake this feeling that it was all happening too fast somehow.  It’s difficult to describe, but since the movie is less than an hour and a half long, they’re basically retelling the entire first season of Dragon Ball and squeezing it into an hour.  Except for the fact that the main villain is Piccolo and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t appear in the series for several seasons.  Here’s an example for any readers who are old enough to have watched He-Man as a kid and then had the dubious pleasure of seeing the film adaptation, Masters of the Universe.  You’re like, "It’s He-Man… sort of… Where’s Orko?  Why are they on Earth?  Why’s He-Man have a cape?  But… At least it’s He-Man… Sort of… I dunno…."  you know, that sort of feeling.  It’s Dragonball… sort of… but where’s Krillin?  Why’s Goku go to a regular high school?  Why doesn’t Master Roshi have a beard?"  You know, that sort of thing.  On top of everything, the effects reminded me of the movie Mortal Kombat.  If there’s one positive to be said, ChiChi (played by some girl named Jamie Chung) is smoking hot.  So there’s that. 

My feelings about my job keep changin like a rollercoaster.  Sometimes I seem to spend a whole day just wishing the place would burn the fuck down, and sometimes a feeling comes over me like, "Oh, you know, this isn’t so bad."  And then usually it only takes one stupid thing to totally ruin those reassuring feelings.  I don’t know… the money’s good, really, and for Minnie I think I can stand it.  Having no income is not conducive to things like getting married and buying a house.  I used to be so laid back… High school is supposed to be stressful, but my "don’t give a fuck" attitude and I coasted through that like it was nothing.  I’m not saying I made awesome grades (though I was like 11th in my class) but I didn’t exactly have a nervous breakdown either.  There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to do the same thing with work.  We’ll see. 

Or maybe Dad will finally win about 27 million dollars in the lottery, or sell one of his coins for a fortune and we just won’t have to worry with it anymore.  Just put a million in the bank and live off the interest.  That’s the kind of life I want.  Just live off the interest.  I like to think that if The Mighty was suddenly very wealthy, that I’d still be cool.  I’d still drive my regular old 1995 Buick, but it’d run like a dream.  I’d buy me a modest home for no more than 50 grand, and pay people to keep it in shape.  And I could drive to Florence, knock on Sow’s door, and say, "Listen, it’s been real, but seriously?  Fuck you."  Then I’d like piss on her lawn and leave.  What’re you gonna do, bitch?  I’m a millionaire.