My eBay sales went rather well! Let’s visit them:

• First Generation iPhone – I shed a few tears, but I eventually let it go to the market. I said goodbye to the vinyl The Scream parody sticker on the back I got in the United Arab Emirates, and the memories of me hunting it down after I had lost it in Bahrain. Even though I’ll miss my first iPhone fondly, I have to admit the $162.00 I got from selling it certainly makes the pain subside.
• Mac Mini - That’s right, I sold Igor; the old PowerPC Mac Mini with OS X 10.3. I won’t really miss that one as he was more trouble than he was worth. $170.00, however, makes him worth it I guess.
• Apple Aluminum Keyboard - I was using it on the Mac mini. I upgraded thinking that it was wireless but didn’t discover the fallacy until I had already opened it. Silly me. Good thing I got $41 for it.
• Motorola Wireless G Router. It was my first router I ever bought, and it worked wonderfully until I lost it in my move to Hawaii. I found it again not too long ago and sold it for $16.50.

Along with some other items I’ve sold for my roommate, I’ve hauled in over $500. I’m not done either! I still have a horde of items to get rid of. Which is a good thing because I could use all the money. I have traveling expenses to take care of. Not only is my sister getting married in September, but I’m going on a trip to San Francisco / Las Vegas at the end of this month.

Fun times!

To give you an update, I have created a website for my book: prq.wheresraldo.com. A link is also located above for those of you too lazy to remember.

Recently I sent off my book to two publishers (seemingly) on opposite ends of the Earth. One went to Tor / Forge (Macmillan), based in New York and the other went to Arena (Allen & Unwin) based in Sydney. Yes, Australia. Tor says to wait for reply in 4-6 months. Arena says next week. So based on those times I got from their submission guidelines, I created countdown timers for my own amusement… Okay, I guess yours too.

Otherwise, most of this info is posted on my PRQ News site.

And now, I’m off to make burritos!

I thought I’d start my day by stating two things:

1. I’m starting the process of submissions to a plethora of publishers. For this, I will be creating a portion of the site devoted to the progress of my book so you may know (those of you truly interested).

2. There was a time in my youth where I was school shopping with my mother in K-mart. Upon reaching the check-out line, there were two men in the line together next to ours. A little bearded man in a motorized wheelchair, and a very large man helping him with the groceries.

Now you may wonder why I take note of this at all. I’ll tell you the only reason I remember any of this is because of the nature of said groceries. The little man was buying what seemed like 300 bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. They were everywhere. He had two carts full of them. I remember the cashier was diligently ringing each bag and trying to bag them too. I imagine you had to ring them up individually because there would be no conceivable way to count how many there were in a timely manner. Further, I suspect that K-mart registers couldn’t handle the calculation: $4.54 X too-many-damn-Reese’s without getting “EPIC FAIL” printed all over the receipt.

Then came the screaming child.

There was another line nearby with an insolent procreation that wouldn’t stop screaming about something incomprehensible. All out tantrum. This is where my mother would describe the dead-fish dance.*

The dead-fish dance is when a kid throws themselves on the floor and starts flopping around like a fish out of water. Arms could be flailing, but sometimes they stay stiff at the sides and they really do look like fish out of water. Then again, it also resembles a spasmodic seizure.

In any case, every parent has been there at some point. They want something, and you tell them they can’t have it. I’d just walk away when it happened. I’d say, “You want to throw a fit? Okay. I’ll be in the car, going home.”

I’m also told if you throw a bigger fit than the child, they’ll be too embarrassed to do it again.

* Excerpt not actually spoken by my mother. Words extrapolated from countless storytelling over the years.

Never mind the fact that dead fish don’t actually move. It would more accurately be the dying fish dance, or the fish-out-of-water dance. But I digress…

The screaming went on long after the Reese’s fanatics left and well into our check-out. It rose to a point where K-mart could have probably started a sale on earplugs, duct-tape, and interrogation equipment. But the most memorable thing was what our cashier did. As he was finalizing the purchase and tearing the receipt for us, he moaned loudly and said, “Somebody get that kid a Reese’s!”

No. I didn’t have a point in telling you all that story. I just felt like sharing.