Annual Abscondments IV: In Closing

2013 was a busy, busy year for Fernando's more roguish clientele, though the nefarious acts of thievery came in bursts: first late February/early March, then a second wave in July, and finally an end-of-year push in November. It proved Fernando's worst year yet in terms of lost inventory; twenty-one of Fernando's beloved and not-so-beloved movies were torn from his loving embrace and taken into the unexpected custody of a great wide spectrum of ne'er-do-wells.

This is their obituary.

Expendables 2, Wanderlust, The Notebook: A lady comes into the store, one who hadn't been in since the days of the old Keeper. She had some late fees from that elder age, $21. Fernando informed her of this fact and, against all odds, she agreed to pay them off.

So how'd that work out for you, Fernando? You earned $30 only to lose about $60 in inventory. Look on the bright side: if you keep this up there may be room for you on the executive board of a major financial institution. And on the brighter side, you no longer have a copy of The Notebook available to recommend as a dumb-silly romantic chick flick.

I Am Number 4: High school kid comes in and sets up account, rents one movie, never returns it. He came back to the store on one occasion in the company of some of his less-lawbreak-y peers and Fernando shamed him so thoroughly that he actually put down five bucks towards his debt. 

He still owes Fernando $35.

The Greatest Game Ever Played: Because if you're a thirty-something woman setting up an account whose sole purpose, apparently, is to steal something, best make it a mediocre movie about golf that had otherwise never been rented in all the years Fernando worked at and owned the Dominion.

New Year's Eve, War, 24: Redemption: Remember the guy from way, way back who trashed a copy of Ice Age and then visited the store not long after Fernando took over in the misguided hopes that new ownership would erase his debt? Yeah, he, Fernando later learned, at some point hooked up with a gullible young lady who set up an account and, apparently, rented for him by proxy. Three pieces of Fernando's inventory went missing but at least two of those three were uninspiring renters even when they were fresh and new and the third, while a decent, testosterone-laden popcorn flick, was not of any particular importance in the grand scheme of things.

But hey if either of them ever return to the store down the road I can feel justified affixing the "saga" tag to this affair.

Warm Bodies, Cabin in the Woods, 127 Hours: Kind of a twofer with the next entry. See below.

Beautiful Creatures, Real Steel: Okay, so, two guys in their late teens/early twenties come to the store at the same time and both of them set up accounts to rent some movies. One of them is from Happyrock, about thirty miles away; the other is more local and claims an address in Melvinsburg. Fernando checks out the licenses and gets phone numbers from them (one of which is a local land line) and rents to them.

When the movies had been out for three days, Fernando calls them up in turn to request that they bring them back in. The cell phone goes to not-set-up voicemail and Fernando leaves a message. The other one rings and rings and no one picks up. The following day, Fernando tries again. Still voicemail, still no response.

This repeats for a number of additional days until, finally, somebody picks up on the landline, a woman.

Fernando explains the situation to her and asks that she inform the young man that his movies are still out and if he could return them promptly. The woman tells Fernando that he is "out of state for work." Fernando asks that she pass along his request and to check around if, perhaps, the movies were sitting there at home. She agrees to do precisely that.

Buuuuut she never called him back, and Fernando also never did get in contact via cell phone with the guy from Happyrock.

Stand Up Guys, Prometheus: A middle-aged woman comes in to rent a pair of movies and they don't make it back. When he calls her up to find out what is going on, she tells him that she gave them to her son to drop off on his way back to school. Fernando lets her know that her son never did drop them off, and that he would appreciate it if she could double-check with him to make sure they make it back the next time he comes home.

Nope.

Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Muppets: Okay, sometimes people wake up on the stupid side of life. This pair of customers set up an account back in April, after having just moved into the area, and had been absolutely exemplary renters up til then. They were genial, treated Fernando like an actual person, and almost never late; when they were, they killed off their late fees immediately.

Then, one afternoon, they rented the above movies and they didn't make it back over the next three days. Fernando found this peculiar, so he called them up. One of them answered and told him that their car had taken a dump on them and that they were terribly sorry about everything, and that they would bring them back promptly once they found someone to give them a ride down to the Dominion, for they resided well into the boonies. This sounded good to Fernando, so he wished them the best and told them they could hash out everyone once the movies got back in.

Alas, they never did, and all of Fernando's subsequent calls went unanswered. What a pity, what a waste.

Now You See Me, Despicable Me: The girl who'd gotten a sorta-but-not-really divorce from her boyfriend a few years back dropped by and rented these movies, which never came back. She ignored Fernando's requests to return them, and now Fernando's sympathies lie with her jilted ex, wherever he may be.

The most embarrassing part is that she used a full stamp card for a free rental on Despicable Me. Would she have had it if Fernando had been less kind when she initially asked him to divvy up their communal stamps?

The Purge, Disaster Movie: Fernando tries not to judge people based on their last names and familial relations, but sometimes circumstances make it so incredibly hard to do. The young lady who rented this, by all appearances, comes from a family of thieves: her parents rented some things back under the Old Keeper's watch and never returned them. Then her older sister rented some things a few years back and never returned them.

Now, of course, she has rented some things and never returned them.

Fuck it, the next time somebody with that last name stops in, Fernando is going to be King Dick and let his prejudices run their fullest course.

Not a day goes by on which Fernando does not lament the passing of every one of these unfortunate abductees. Yes, even you, The Greatest Game Ever Played, even you. In fact, your loss is felt most keenly of all.

The question remains: What promises does 2014 hold? This Fernando cannot say. Truth be told, he seems to have driven away most of the assholes and recent weeks down at the Dominion have been, well, enjoyable. No entitled women coming to manipulate him into free things. No characters from days gone by stopping by to put into motion their inscrutable goals. No curious and random new faces with wretched spatial judgment.

Just the normal, genial customer base who rents movies, returns them mostly on time, and clears up any small late fees with a humble apology.

In short, the Chronicles seem to have wound down. Like in every closed system, the occurrence of random and interesting things decays as entropy increases and said system approaches a uniform, vacuous state. Rather than continue to draw out the unnecessary by milking a franchise (such as this is) until even its bones have been rendered down and snorted by a dwindling number of consumers (such as it is), as is the case with a certain industry that revolves around the production and distribution of motion pictures, it is time, I feel, to bring this book to a close.

There shall be other happenings, other tales of woe and dread, and even occasional tales of uplifting experience, I'm certain. Entropy is almost inevitably stalled out in the short term by random occurrences. Perhaps a fluctuation in fate will jar a new wave of content appropriate for the Chronicles of Fernando H. Stevens.

But until and unless there is such a time, let me tell you of a man who, in the late summer of 2010, made the lifechanging decision to cast his lot into the realm of weblogging through the collation and recording of happenings of great intrigue and of possible interest to souls other than himself. The wrangling with irate word processing programs, the mostly-kept rigor of deadlines, and the random acts of God which threatened the stability and structural integrity of his Chronicles did not daunt him. 

That man was one Fernando H. Stevens.

He had a blast, and he hopes you did too.

Born a Crinkling Man

One evening Fernando is engrossed in a deep conversation online with Teodor and Iacobo when the chimes on the door jingle. The Keeper swivels his chair about and booms, “Hello,” but there is no response.

Nor did, Fernando came to grasp in short order, he any longer desire one, for his guest was none other than VHS Guy, returned to within the Dominion's boundaries after months in absentia. He cradled a paper bag under one arm and wispy tendrils of booze flowed from his person to lace the store's atmosphere in a stale, malty net.

VHS Guy moved into Fernando's store and pretended to browse the new release rack by picking up and then immediately setting down the case for The Great Gatsby. Then he returned to the foyer and set his bag upon the glass of the counter. “What's the deal with these ones here?” he asked, slurring his words.

“That's my Adopt-a-Movie Box. Those are for sale for four dollars each.”

“Adopt-a-Movie, eh? To keep?”

Fernando presses his lips together. “Yes.”

“Huh.” VHS Guy walks his fingers over the spines of the cases crammed within the cardboard box. “Then how come it says two bucks up here.”

“They become two dollars if you have eight dollars in purchases already made,” Fernando says.

“Why can't I just get them for two dollars right away?”

“Be...cause...that's what they're priced.”

“Oh.” VHS Guy reaches into the plastic hut which houses the blank scraps of paper for Fernando's weekly certificate drawing, but something resembling cognizant memories flicker through his neural web and he, for the first time in all the times he'd visited, does not fill out a slip and place into Fernando's magical red bucket. Instead, he gathers his illicit bagged goods and shambles out, leaving Fernando to his secrets.

This is well. This is how things ought to have been.

Fernando's Final Quest

The last night in the hotel was spent discussing tomorrow's schedule. Only one panel was of any real interest to anyone, and this panel was slated to start in the early afternoon. Normally this would not be a problem, but the hotel check-out was by 10 in the morning and the party would not only have to navigate the dreaded whorls of Chicago traffic on their own both coming and going, but also to find a place to sequester the Millennium Falcon while they attended the convention, then deal with near-rush hour traffic during the escape sequence.

Ain't nobody feel the need to deal with that shit. We all have Wisdom scores. We would depart on the morrow.

The crew skipped the final, doubtless underwhelming, breakfast. They planned to instead stop for delicious foods on the way back north. They could be leisurely in their travels without fretting over the nightfall's looming threat and its horrible, attached curse of kamikaze ungulates.

The departure was swift and sure. Gertrude was allowed out of her box and used to map out the twisting dungeon of tollways and on-ramps, but only in the grandest sense. Her cries of “bear left” were patently ignored, and so she did not succeed in hanging another traffic infraction about the posse's neck.

The return trip north was less invigorating than the trip south had been, overall. Everyone was exhausted from experiencing the busy, populated weekend and most of the journey passed in relative silence. A few small conversations, mainly pertaining to Dungeons and Dragons, occurred, but nothing of cosmic importance.

The group stopped at a Golden Corral to gorge upon unhealthy buffet foods, and it was Fernando's first time being in such an establishment. He tried all the varieties of so-called “hot” wings, but found them lacking, even the one that had a large starburst of “EXTRA SPICY” appended to its buffet sign. The fried jalapeños, on the other hand, left Ronaldo devastated, and so this led Fernando to challenge their prowess as well.

He was not disappointed. These beasts, having forged some fell pact with the capsaicin gods, had been instilled by powers other mere peppers could only hope to attain. The first bite made Fernando guffaw and chortle, but then the witchery worked its sinister magic and yea Fernando did suffer, though he did also spite these hot peppers by consuming them and annexing their disdain for the living, so he might better achieve his own dark goals.

Little more remains to be sad. Bellies full, the journey resumed. Gertrude, it turned out, had been moonlighting as a comedienne, for she spent more time “recalculating” routes after the glorious meal than actually informing Ronaldo what the route ought to be, and this proved incredibly funny. For bringing such joy into the group's lives, she was permitted to remain outside of her box for the remainder of the trip.

Macombo and Natasia were dropped off at their residence, and Fernando reiterated the invitation extended to them for Ronaldo's going-away party. Such things worked out, and now Macombo and Natasia may be considered full members of Fernando's runnin' crew, thereby granted unfettered access to the back room of his Dominion.

Fernando was then deposited. He retrieved his satchel of goodies from the Tahoe's trunk and looked Ronaldo and Teodor in the eyes. “Well, that could have been worse.”

“We should do it again sometime,” Ronaldo said.

“Maybe so. We'll see how things develop. Until later, gentlemen.”

The vehicle pulled away, and when Fernando marched through the door he felt the Dominion drape the etheric mantle of Keeper about his shoulders once more.

Fernando's Fifth Quest

Saturday started with a bang: Macombo and Natasia informed Fernando and Ronaldo straightaway at breakfast that a crazy French lady had spent most of her breakfast time berating the waitstaff over the paucity of choice provided at the meal and the overall low quality of the food and drink which had been provided. Alas, not every breakfast can be the delicious continental European spread. If it were, Fernando would eat far more breakfasts.

As decided the previous evening, in no way would the party endeavor to be timely at the convention. They would late, fashionably so, and hopefully avoid the glut and torrent of people. They watched some of the other convention-goers who shared the hotel clamber into the shuttle from a position of safety and semi-comfort in the lobby. The chairs were Victorian, high-backed and rather narrow, and the gathered crew exchanged ribald tales of past adventures at the Dungeons and Dragons table, for both Macombo and Natasia expressed interest in attending. Furthermore, Fernando would host a going-away jamboree for Ronaldo the following week, as that man would functionally exit from Fernando life for always and ever in short order—this journey was, after all, one last adventurous huzzah before the Fellowship's breaking, and the pair received formal invitations to this gathering. Fernando plied them with promises of ginger ale and of delectable, hand-crafted vittles, and they did swiftly agree to attend.

The gang's ride carried them to their location without trouble and the busiest day of all the days began. Fernando first panel of the day featured a comic book writer who had been in the business for thirty years sharing kernels of wisdom he had gained over his tenure in “the biz” with regards to plotting and storytelling. Mostly, of course, as it applied to the medium of comics and graphic novels, but Fernando took away the notion of fractal plot pacing: that every subsection of a given story arc, novel, D&D campaign, whatever, ought to have a miniaturized dramatic arc to call its own. This is something that Fernando had grasped on a subconscious level but had, to this point, never had overtly explained to him, and it is the single most edifying thing he encountered at the convention, something he shall endeavor to insert into his own literature in order to become a better storyteller.

A long, long stream of guest panels ensued. Fernando sat in the same room as Stan Lee and a loud, annoying guy who served as a combination of interpreter and question-gatekeeper. This gentleman was also the one who'd attempted to rile up the crowds by being a dumbass over the intercom the previous day. What more can be said? It was a Q&A with Stan “The Man” (seriously though why was this little appellation appended to every single instance Fernando encountered the dude's name at the convention?) Lee.

Fernando sat in the same room as Manu Bennett, who is actually a surprisingly small man only of about Fernando's height. His roles in Spartacus and The Hobbit skewed Fernando's understanding of the man's size, but Mr. Bennett explained that onlookers fill in size narratives on their own, so long as you carry yourself like someone who is large and in charge.

Truly, the human mind is an easily manipulated thing.

Fernando and Ronaldo then met up and sat in the back of an overcrowded room of five thousand-ish people who waited for Mr. Norman Reedus. Natasia and Macombo mingled with the pair for a while, but they had VIP tickets and so were granted access to actually decent seats once the panel was to begin. To help pass the time until the Guest of Honor made his grand debut, Jon Berethal entertained the crowd, and it was glorious. In stark contrast to Michael Shannon's halfhearted dipfuckery, Mr. Berethal was a genuine (albeit not classy...he swore like a sailor), genial guy. He wanted to be there and wanted to engage the horde of Walking Dead-ites. He pimped his new show and convinced both Fernando and Ronaldo to give the premiere a look-over.

Norman Reedus then apparated and sprayed silly string all over the table, which of course caused everyone in the crowd go apeshit and all of the ovaries to explode in miniature big bangs. He was forbidden to discuss the show by his contract with AMC, which deflates a significant portion of why many audience members wanted to be there, but he did hold forth at length about Boondock Saints and how they are making a third movie in the series.

Hollywood. Stop.

Once Norman Reedus stepped out of the building, Fernando decided that he would go on a solitary adventure, splitting the party and forcing the Great DM Above to cater to the Keeper's selfish player character whims. He would visit the city of Chicago proper, using public transportation, transforming into a regular city mouse like he had been in the days when he'd resided in Vienna! What would he do? Mysteries, left to the DM's graces! But just that he did, and he did randomly encounter many unique characters in his travels. More amusing characters and situations, daresay, than he did over the full weekend at Comic Con.

First, the fistfight! Fernando stood against one of the stripper poles which he has always favored on public transport, as he believes in keeping the seats open for those who must sit, and standing burns more calories besides. As the train pulled into one of the many stops, a pair of men, one white and one black, hopped off and started stripping down. The other passengers on the train seemed to take this as a bit of street theater, for they immediately readied their cell phones for a kingly performance. It seems the while man had said something offensive and sexually suggestive to a lady in the vicinity of the black man, and the black man had come to the woman's defense, and the white man had taken offense at the defense, and now two shirtless men were punching the everloving fuck out of one another on a subway platform while everyone recorded the fight.

The black guy won the first round of combat and, to his credit, turned and headed for the stairs rather than to continue whaling on his stunned and helpless victim. The white guy, upon stumbling to his feet, escalated the conflict by threatening to retrieve his “twenty-two” and “pay [him] a visit tonight.” The black guy stopped at the top of the stairs, turned, and said in one of those scarily calm voices that his “posse” (perhaps this is a Chicagoan term for adventuring party?) would “teach [him] a lesson if [he] tried that shit.” White Guy's brash response was that he would “fuck all y'all up.”

Quaint. The subway car had pulled out of the station before Cop Dudes could arrive on the scene, so Fernando did not know if, indeed, White Guy carried through on his infantile threat or if it had been all posturing and bluster, like what most assholes are capable of producing.

One of Fernando's fellow passengers, a teenaged African American lad, commented on the situation at Fernando. “Yo, you see that shit happen! Crazy!”

Well, yes, he had. Fernando had been standing right there. “Little bit, yeah.”

“You taking this awful calm.”

Fernando shrugged. “I'm just trying to get from Point A to Point B here.”

TAAL quieted down.

A little bit later, a skeevy, scrawny man clambered onto the subway car scant moments before the doors shut. He addressed the gathered people in breathless, rote cadence, “I'm sorry, this will only take a minute of your time I have been really down on my luck lately and living on subway cars like a dog I'm trying to get some medication but please bear with me--” (Here he hiked up his pants leg and revealed to the world a pus-rimmed, swollen brown sore that blanketed the side of his calf) “--to fight this infection I got and sleeping on subway cars doesn't help at all so please if you could give me some money even the tiniest bit it could go a long way to helping me out please and thank you.”

Then he crouched on the floor in front of the subway car's doorway muttering “I'm sorry I'm so sorry” every fifteen-odd seconds. Most people had the good sense to ignore his solicitous ramblings. A few soft-hearted (soft-headed, more like) souls gave him some dollars. One man even gave him a five. Because encouraging a busker is the way to go through life, right city folk?

At the next stop, Skeevy Stevie slithered out the door, walked down the platform to the adjacent car, and climbed right back on to work another crowd.

Fernando also stumbled across a conservatory in his travels, and it was comforting being surrounded by living things that shared the Keeper's notions of solitude and introspection. None of them tried to consume him, and this is how Fernando knew the DM was fudging his dice rolls.

By the time Fernando returned to the convention center, it was dark. Ronaldo and the rest had gone home, but the dark is just the beginning, for the convention's “after-party” had just begun! Fernando dropped by and had a few, not too heinously expensive, drinks. He, by the grace of Lovecraft, actually received a ginger vodka when he asked the bartender for a ginger vodka.

It was a very loud afterparty. The music could be summed up as generic and forgettable nnn-tss-nnn-tss-nnn-tss electechnotronic. Fernando spent most of his time there nursing his drinks and watching people. He kind of made a friend, in that a young lady named Latisha or Latasha approached him and started telling Fernando about a Superman poster she'd bought from one of the myriad dealers earlier today.

Fernando got bored in short order and contacted Cool Driver Jim for pickup. He took a while to arrive, as he had drop-offs to make at the airport, but the night was warm and mosquitoes nonexistent, and the moths were kept away from Fernando by the abundance of streetlights, so he sat on a curb outside the convention center and waited for nearly an hour. When Cool Driver Jim pulled up, the shuttle was completely empty, so Fernando climbed in and rode shotgun. Cool Driver Jim started telling Fernando about his day, and it was like they shared a series of moments.

The series of moments ended when he swung by the airport and six other people joined the party. Upon reaching the hotel, Fernando exited the van, gave Cool Driver Jim a five dollar tip, shook his hand, and said to him, “You know, I never caught your name, and we've been calling you Jim all weekend.”

“It's Josè.”

“Thanks, Josè. You're a king among men.”

Josè laughed. “I'll see you tomorrow again?”

“Maybe so. I definitely hope so. Have a good night, man.” Fernando entered the hotel and trudged up the stairs to the room he shared with Ronaldo and Teodor, and he did indeed hold to the hope that some year down the road he would share in Cool Driver Jim...no, Josè's company once again.

But, alas, it would not be tomorrow. The adventure drew to its inevitable close.

Fernando's Fourth Quest

Breakfast at the hostel was a bleak affair compared to the wondrous glories of impeccable hash browns and scrambled eggs of days gone by. Fernando found some Raisin Bran and milk and some lukewarm yogurt. The coffee was too bitter to reasonably enjoy without diluting it through three or four cups of liquid creamer, thereby defeating the purpose behind it being coffee, and the orange juice was a watery pale mess.

Maybe Fernando was just cranky. He'd spent around six hours of the previous day around more people than he sees come through the Dominion in probably two months...and most of the people visiting the store are the same people Fernando had seen time and again previously. He missed his cave of introverted shame and safety already, but had no choice but to forge ahead.

The plan for this day was to get there bright and early for the convention's opening. The crew visited the front desk to ensure they reserved a spot on the shuttle for around 11 A.M., as the convention would open its doors at noon. When the shuttle arrived, a little late, the Company was saddened to see the man behind the wheel was not Cool Driver Jim, but a different man who spoke with some variety of Slavic accent.

Slav Driver Andy opted charisma as one of his dump stats. He did not engage his passengers and spent much of the time muttering under his breath in the mother tongue, presumably about the wretched traffic they were forced to navigate. He took an alternate path to the convention center, one which did not use of the freeway system but instead skulked through a labyrinth of traffic lights and pedestrians.

The roads' congestion grew larger as the bus crept closer to the convention center, and about a mile out traffic stopped completely. Cop Dudes in reflective vests stood at the intersection, two on opposite corners and one in the middle of the street. They gestured at the backed-up string of cars with white-gloved hands, letting one vehicle at a time merge or creep forward as soon as an opening appeared ahead.

Slav Driver Andy cursed and pounded his palms on the steering wheel, then addressed the passengers, “This is not good.”

Macombo, brave Macombo, told the man, “You know, you could drop us off here and we could walk the rest of the way. It's not that far.”

Slav Driver Andy pushed a button on his console and bus's folding doors whooshed open. “You are fine with this? Okay.”

Fernando and Co. exchanged a look, then as one clambered out and began their sojourn. Walking a mile is nothing to people who live in the middle of nowhere. Fernando needs to walk nearly that far just to reach the post office from his Dominion's front door. The other people from the hotel who had ridden along proved less courageous and stayed in Slav Driver Andy's company.

Even the foot traffic was monumental. People lugged along full-size, framed posters and improbable costumes and red wagons full of swag. The party pressed onward, moving swiftly around the knots of humanity who walked somewhat less than briskly. Well, Fernando and Ronaldo and Natasia did, at any rate. Teodor and Macombo ambled along like sloths.

Fifteen minutes later, they reached the convention center's front doors. Yellowshirts stood by to funnel people in the appropriate directions. People who needed to procure their tickets or wristbands were shunted in the direction which Fernando & Co. were yesterday. For those who had purchased weekend passes, they were directed to stand in a long long long line, a line which dwarfed the previous day's. For the Thursday line experience had just consisted of those men and women who wanted to enter the convention right at opening time.

This line consisted of all the people who'd swung by on Thursday for weekend passes.

Doctor Wily's hair, there were a lot of them.

The crew was escorted into another cattle chute delineated by duct tape on a cement floor. Fernando and Ronaldo, who were closest to each other, decided to make a game of things by counting the number of Harleys Quinn they spied. They made out three before the snaking crush of humanity blotted out vision of the room's entrance.

So the group waited for about twenty minutes. They had been at the end of the line, with perhaps five, six hundred people ahead of them. After the twenty minutes had elapsed, they stood in the front quarter of a line of thousands. And, remember, this is the line of people who had weekend passes, not the separate, unseen line of people who'd come in for just the day, and also not the line for people who'd shelled out an extra two hundred dollars for a VIP ticket and the promise of early entry.

As noon drew nearer, some jackass had the bright idea to put a dickhead on the building's intercom and drum up excitement. You know the sort, the obnoxious hybrid of a sportscaster and a morning radio jockey who indulges in things like, “Heeeeello Chicago Comic-Con! Are! You excited to be here today?” then tries goading the audience into shouting and cheering when he “can't hear you!”

Motherfucker, it's eighty-five degrees, there's no air circulation, and we're standing in a line surrounded by people with an average body temperature of ninety-six degrees. Everyone is sweaty and grouchy and above all a nerd. Nobody needs that shit, especially not when you're doing it at five after twelve in the afternoon and we just want to get inside the actual convention.

Though some of the 501^st milled around looking awesome as shit, and that made things a little bit better, it was still twenty after noon by the time the portion of line in which the Company dwelled was broken away and guided by yellowshirts not up the escalators as yesterday, but into the downstairs showroom, where autographs and meet-n-greets were to be held in the future.

“Let's never do that again,” Fernando said, and no one disagreed with him.

The party split off again, with Teodor just outright vanishing while Macombo and Natasia headed off to do their own thing. Fernando and Ronaldo wandered the lower level's vendors. They found someone who sold fedoras with built-in sparkly LEDs and considered, however briefly, procuring one for Teodor, who is well-known to favor that style of headgear (Fernando is more partial to the Derby bowler). But twenty-five dollars was too much money to spend on a novelty that would make Teodor look like a buffoon, so the idea was scrapped.

Fernando did take a picture of Ronaldo next to a TARDIS. Ronaldo was overjoyed.

The autograph area was mostly barren. Lou Ferrigno was there, surprisingly, for he had been advertised to attend a panel the previous day on real-life superheroes. That was a great big disappointment, for not only did The Hulk not show up, but the superheroes up on stage did things which did not, in fact, require dressing up and maintaining a secret identity. Secret identities are needed to prevent retributive acts against yourself or your loved ones by allies of the villains you thwart, not because you go to a soup kitchen and volunteer or hand out condoms. Unless, of course, you do such things for pomp and attention, in which case your deeds might be noble but your intents fly in the face of everything which might be considered altruistic.

The whole thing was rather a bit of a farce, and not at all unlike the Stephen Lynch composition “If I Could Be a Superhero.”

Anyhow, Ronaldo tried to sneak a picture of Mr. Ferrigno but one of the yellowshirts waved him down and pointed to a “no pictures within the designated area” sign which was affixed, rather ironically, behind a line of tape delineating said designated area, in which Ronaldo and Fernando undeniably did not stand.

Ronaldo shrugged and took a grainy long-distance picture anyway when the yellowshirt's attention was distracted by some other convention-goer. No way was he going to pay fifteen dollars. Word to the wise: if you market your body and self as a commodity and product, you surrender privacy when in a venue specifically meant to market that product, as long as the photographer isn't being a dickhead and putting you or other people in some sort of harm. If you value your privacy, think ahead and maybe don't become famous.

The rest of the day proved rather humdrum. Ronaldo and Fernando split up as soon as the first Doctor Who panel reared its head, so the Keeper did his own thing. The high point for Fernando was attending a Q&A panel featuring the affable and endearing Wil Wheaton, who actually gave a little talk on exactly the sort of privacy concerns Fernando described above, and who reached roughly the same conclusion as he did: When you're wearing your public/business pants, you give up the right to bitch and a be standoffish dickhead, as long as people are not a jerk about things. Without them, you wouldn't be anybody.

Michael Shannon could do well to learn this lesson. He was to give an hour-long fireside chat. Fernando and Ronaldo both looked forward to it because the man is an impressive actor who brings a lot of gravitas to his roles, and Ronaldo much enjoyed his character in Man of Steel. A pity he's a shithead of a human being who clearly did not want to be there and whose Q&A (such as it was...he answered two or three audience questions before he scampered off) was cut down to about twenty minutes because he can't schedule his life worth half a damn and overlapped other obligations with the time at which he was to attend the convention.

The following Zachary Quinto panel was much better. Mr. Quinto cared and was affable and joked with the moderator and the people asking questions. He even requested that a one girl not cry when it was clear she was a nervous wreck just talking to him from fifty feet away over a microphone. Kudos, Mr. Quinto.

After the convention ended, Cool Driver Jim again arrived to pick up the crew and deliver them swiftly to their destination at the hotel, where discussion over foodstuffs took place. Consensus was reached: Natasia and Macombo were to head to a bar/eatery near the hotel while Fernando, Teodor, and Ronaldo would cross four lanes of street to a Burger King, as the bar/eatery looked a mite skeevy to Ronaldo's eyes.

While at Burger King, Teodor's food was stolen by another man because he did not stand right by the counter to pick it up. Good old thieves. Oh, and everyone was pretty sure they had seen someone pick up a prostitute in the drive-thru. The lady was wearing a slinky reddish dress, had her hair artfully curled and coiled, and milled around on the sidewalk near the burger joint. Once someone pulled into the drive through, she sashayed over and leaned down to solicit him, which seemed to go well enough, though when she climbed into the passenger side of the vehicle her face was dead and without expression.

So congrats to Anonymous John, I guess. Truly you are a master of the seductive arts.

Upon return to the hotel, Macombo and Natasia dropped by the room to have a few beers. Macombo played another game of Munchkin with the crew while Natasia sat nearby, blessing everyone not with a ruthless playstyle, but with honeyed words and sparkling personality. The crew also haggled out their schedule for the next day. The convention would begin at 10 in the morning, and they did not plan to be there for that time. No way would they deal with line bullshit, not on the day which promised to be the biggest of the weekend. This was the day on which all the Walking Dead panels, especially that of Mr. Norman Reedus, would take place, and the crowds would be, as the expression goes, “off the hook.” No, they would schedule their arrival at around 10.30, hopefully after all the torturous herding had come to an end and they could just walk through the doors, flash their wristbands to Shouty Black Lady, and go about their business.

It promised to be a fine day, indeed.

Fernando's Third Quest

 “That...that's a lot of people,” Teodor murmured once the party had taken full stock of what lay before it: a snaking queue of people numbering in the hundreds wrapped around the convention center's exterior, tended by about a dozen yellow-shirted volunteers who maintained order. There was no wiggle room; as soon as Fernando and Company stepped away from the curb, they were hustled to the end of the line. As they walked, they could see through the many pairs of glass double doors that dozens, hundreds more people milled about the interior lobby in even more clusters and rows accompanied by the yellowshirts, with no end in sight to this endless tessellation of humanity.

Thanks to the captive audience so helpfully provided by the yellowshirts, buskers of all sorts wandered up and down the line, unimpeded by the volunteers. They plied their wares upon Fernando and Company: copies of The Onion, pamphlets about militant veganism cloaked in rhetoric implying that any non-vegan tacitly approves of widespread animal cruelty, and fliers advertising random clubs, each with its own upcoming Walking Dead theme night.

Fernando has this to say about the yellowshirts: they did their jobs with Germanic efficiency. The lines moves swiftly and it took perhaps fifteen minutes before the Company and a few random and unimportant henchmen stood at the head of the line, to be pinched off and led through the convention hall's doors by a pair of yellowshirt escorts.

From the outside it seemed as though people were standing around the foyer, a huge and glossy tiled marvel larger than the entire Dominion, willy-nilly, but there proved to be order within this chaos. Truly a microcosm of our own universe, for its slow slide towards final entropy is halted only by chance and only in miniscule portions of quasi-organization which dot vast nothingness. The clusters were reformed into lines by other yellowshirts and the lines were funneled through a set of doors which led to a concrete-floored gymnasium-type area even larger than the entry foyer.

Strips of blue tape had been put down. Humans stood between these strips in a queue which numbered in the thousands, waiting their turn to approach one of about a dozen windows at which entrance to the convention might be gained—this was the line for people who had registered early, rather than the poor saps who decided against doing such a thing. Fernando and Company were shunted to the end of the serpent and stood around for another twenty minutes, surrounded by nerds of all kinds.

Finally, the group reached the head of the line and from there was guided by a yellowshirt to an open ticket window, where they received their bright orange wristbands, which they could under no circumstances remove for the convention's duration. This task completed, they were escorted by a yellowshirt around the sprawling mess of people, back out another set of doors to the entry foyer, and bid to ascend an escalator into the convention proper. There was no other option available, as the tide of people, focused by the yellowshirts, required that Fernando and Company go with the flow, like cattle being herded down a chute which would render them into cuts of meat and offal.

Redundant checkpoints had been set up, one at the bottom of the escalator, one at its top, and one more at the entrance to the showroom floor. A black rent-a-cop woman demanded at the top of her lungs every ten seconds, “Wristbands up!” Her black rent-a-cop man companion stood by in silence, looking almost apologetic.

They entered the showroom floor. The first thing Fernando noticed was that it was big. Bigger than any of the rooms he'd visited earlier. It was jam-packed with vendor stalls, a bazaar of nerdish delight. Men hawked comic buy-sell-trade. Booth babes and their gravity-defying tits flanked stands whose goal was shameless advertising. Dealers in collectibles and antiquities displayed overpriced posters and knick-knacks for weak-willed souls to purchase.

Navigating this labyrinth of booths and stalls required navigating people, a directionless mess of everyone going every way without care or foresight, and the fellowship was quickly divided. Fernando and Ronaldo, and to a lesser degree Teodor, managed to stay fairly near each other as they browsed. Ronaldo spent a good amount of time investigating dealers of knives and swords, but found their wares lacking in craftsmanship. Fernando had his eyes peeled for a seller of roleplaying materials, for he still held out hope of picking up the near-mint first printing of Tomb of Horrors autographed by Mr. Gygax himself for around eight dollars.

A man can dream.

The sales floor proved itself fruitless in the end, for nothing of value was gained. The only available Dungeons & Dragons-related items were those for Fourth Edition or for Pathfinder, neither of which particularly appealed to Fernando. The crew reunited in a cluster of inflatable chairs and bean bags on which young whippersnappers lounged to decide the next courses of action.

Panels, for some. As stated previously, Doctor Who figured quite prominently in the convention's itinerary, and both Macombo and Natasia had plans attend every panel dedicated to the show which they could. Teodor had wandered off on his own, but Teodor is also a big boy. Ronaldo and Fernando would continue wandering this building, mapping it for the party's future benefit.

They found the games room, in a side chamber affixed to Moria itself—vaulted ceilings, chandeliers the size of a minivan, no life. The games room, in stark contrast to that at OddCon, was inhabited by people not playing games, but instead amusing themselves on their smartphones. No Chess Kids or Sirs Dicks-a-Lot here, nosirree. When Fernando peeked in on this sad state of affairs, a young woman at the far end of this room, roughly the size of the front half of the Dominion, beckoned him. “Come in, come in!”

Fernando is not often beckoned by women, and he had mild curiosity as to the games loadout here, so he did as bade. Two metal racks, each about five feet tall, were filled with boxes belonging to various board and card games.

“Hi!” she said, looking away from the laptop computer on the table before her.

“Hello.”

“Looking for a game to play?”

“Maybe. Just browsing, mostly.”

“Well, we have all kinds here. I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for.”

“I'm sure.” Fernando decides at this moment to veer to the side of extroversion. “You wouldn't happen to know of any dealers here who have any old D&D stuff, would you?”

“Old stuff?”

“Yeah, like First or Second Edition, or BECMI.”

“Ummm...not offhand. Let me—wait, there's my boss, we can ask him!”

Fernando turns and sees a middle-aged man shuffle into the games room with a steaming styrofoam cup in one hand. “Ask me what?”

“This man would like to know if you know anywhere here that has older D&D stuff.”

“1E, 2E, BECMI, stuff like that,” Fernando supplies.

“Hmm...well, I have some reprints back at the store.” Recently Wizards of the Coast had reprinted some of the core rulebooks for older editions, in a feeble attempt to show they still cared about people who played outdated editions of the game. The only problem is, of course, that Fernando owns copies (in some cases multiple copies—he has no fewer than 3 1E Monster Manuals and 3 1E Dungeon Masters' Guides kicking around) of these reprints.

“I was looking more for used books and modules.”

“No, sorry. All I've got are the reprints, down at the store, but that's all the way in St. Louis.”

“A little far afield for me, I'm afraid.”

“I figured as much.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Fernando says, then exits the games room.

The convention closed its doors fairly early on this first day, so by seven the party had reunited and waited for Cool Driver Jim to collect them. He was a little bit late, and he apologized. It weren't no thang. They had to squeeze in with some gentlemen who'd driven twelve hours nonstop to the convention from out on the East Coast. One seat was left empty.

The purpose behind this grew clear when Cool Driver Jim diverted to the airport and pulled up to one of the drop-off locations. As he clambered out of the car, Fernando heard a woman shouting quite loudly in Spanish. Cool Driver Jim's responses carried a polite tone, at first, but the Spanish lady's tongue-lashing continued as he loaded her luggage into the place Ronaldo had called his seat earlier that afternoon. He grew frustrated and terminated the conversation with a clipped, “No podía hacer nada.”

Martha, the crabby Spanish lady, sat next to Fernando in the van. It was awkward. Her presence tainted the jovial atmosphere, and so the return to the hotel was in complete silence.

The party split then, for Macombo and Natasia wanted head back to their room and change so as to check out the swimming pool before it closed for the evening, and it would have been uncouth, indeed, for Fernando & Co. to follow them and begin amateur voyeur hour. Instead, they retired to their leased bedchamber and discussed meal possibilities. Rocky Rococo pizza was listed as serving the area, but this was to be a new adventure, not a rehash of old times! Instead, Ronaldo suggested utilizing a pizza dealer in an agreement with the hotel. This was done, and forty minutes later a pair of steaming pies, one “Zesty Italian” and the other “Zesty Supreme,” sat upon one of the beds. They pizzas came with dippin' sauce and a lack of napkins.

It was delicious.

A bit more Munchkin was had between the Original Three and Macombo. Natasia sat out, because obviously she hates the world and everything fun in it. They finally turned in at around 11.30. The day tomorrow would begin brighter and earlier than it had today, so everyone needed rejuvenation before tackling the up-fuckeries to come.

Fernando's Second Quest

The crew headed swiftly forth, leaving the lands of Saladolsa and its Dominion of Movies far behind them. They passed through Zail-Kanzin, which is about the limits of Fernando's usual travels in a southerly direction, and continued onwards to Bobsdaughter, the municipality which Macombo and Natasia called home.

Fernando had never met these two individuals, but Ronaldo staked his life and reputation on the qualities of their characters and so Fernando was predisposed to treat them as members of his posse. Macombo, it turns out, filled a vital hole in the party's composition, for he is quite the extroverted man and would serve well as the party's face during interactions with strange peoples in strange lands. Natasia, meanwhile, gravitated immediately to Fernando's style and tone of speech, for she possessed a similar outlook on life and sense of humor.

The newly met comrades' equipment was stowed in the Tahoe's trunk, next to the large cooler well-stocked with ginger ale and other sodeys, and Ronaldo guided the vehicle back onto the highway. The journey had now officially-officially begun.

Time passed swiftly. The group made a quick pit stop at a gas station at the border to stock up on Gas Station Hot Chocolate and breakfasts. While the sausage and egg biscuits which had been procured were quite acceptable fare, the ones containing Canadian bacon were foul bastardizations of a meal that no one in the vehicle could choke down, for the shitty and waxy cheese overpowered the sandwich. To Fernando, who finds most varieties of cheese—especially mass-produced and oily ones—reprehensible, it was like trying to eat a spoonful of earwax.

During the drive, Macombo extroverted himself into the group by sharing many tales of debauchery and sorrow at his workplace over the previous weeks, stories in which characters such as Dragon Lady, Chicken Wing, Entitlement Mike, and Guinness Guy figured heavily. It is not Fernando's place to share these with the world; Macombo deserves this honor and privilege, for they are tales on par with the finest of Chronicles.

And, speaking of Chronicles, Ronaldo mentioned their existence, and Natasia begged Fernando to provide dramatic readings therefrom. Our hero, whose ego knows no bounds, did precisely this for over two hours, sharing some of the choicest anecdotes he could recall. By the end of his filibuster, Fernando's voice was shot, but they found themselves at the outskirts of Milwaukee, where they stopped at another gas station to stretch the limbs and relieve the bladders.

Now, however, began the twisting navigation of on- and off-ramps and their associate tollbooths which snaked out from the Chicagoite nexus. Gertrude, who had until this point remained silent, spoke up as the group approached the first of the tolls: “Bear left on I-94.”

Ronaldo, dear naïve and trusting Ronaldo, did as Gertrude bade, for Goo-Gol's words of wisdom in no way countermanded her.

This resulted in the van being shunted into the express toll lane, where vehicles with toll stickers may pass through without slowing, rather than turning over coinage to yellow-vested attendants in tiny cubicles. As was written in the books of the heavens, traffic fused into a solid brick around the Tahoe as though it were a foreign body besieged by lymphocytes, rendering it unable to cross the lanes into the coin-tolls on the right, and they whizzed through without paying the required $2.80.

That fucking bitch.

Fortunately, the State of Illinois is not a complete cocknibble, in that it allows a grace period of seven days from the date of infraction to square away unpaid tolls by paying through a website. This thing would be done promptly upon the group's return home, for at the moment they lacked an appropriate top-of-lap computer on which to complete such tasks.

Gertrude was placed into the Box of Shameful Solitude and all the group's attention and love was showered upon Goo-Gol's directions, which did not steer them wrong with regard to tolls, though it did encourage them to take a wrong turn in their quest to reach their place of lodging. Gertrude was reactivated with resignation, and she recalculated the path they must forge. Perhaps to make up for her earlier misdeeds, she did not lead them astray, nor bone them on any more tolls.

Their hotel lay quite near Chicago O'Hare International Airport, in quite the industrial district. Natasia noted that the premiere landmarks in the vicinity were gigantic twin piles of shattered concrete and gravel, respectively, and these mounds were used to orient the party during their later explorations.

They arrived at the hotel just before eleven in the morning. Unfortunately, they could not check into their rooms for another two hours, so time needed to be killed. Ronaldo suggested fanning out from this new base of operations and to acquaint themselves with the vicinity, so this was done. Unfortunately, little was immediately accessible to the party, especially since they journeyed on foot, not wanting to waste gas wrangling with midday Chicago traffic. The sidewalks, in defiance of everything Fernando thought he knew about the world, were in worse shape than those in Saladolsa, and in some places they were absent entirely, so the party had to trudge along narrow trails tramped into the grasses parallel to the four-lane road, sidestepping a wide assortment of litter up to and including orange traffic cones.

They stopped at a nearby Subway, the only easily accessible eatery that was not also a porn shop, for lunch, and they overheard a conversation between the cashier jockey and either a coworker or a manager about money which had gone missing from the till. It sounded to Fernando like it was amateur hour at the Thieves' Guild. Business matters and chastisement therefrom should not be discussed before a group of five strangers. It reeks of callous disregard for simple courtesy among individuals in the same trade.

Were Fernando Master of that particular Sandwich Lair, and had he come upon one of his minions acting in such a manner to another wage slave, he would have shitcanned the unprofessional bastard on the spot.

After the group had left the awkward Subway behind them, they walked around the block. Blocks in Chicago seem much larger than blocks in Saladolsa, or Inuitland. They made a circumlocution around a single-building business park which sprawled over about a square kilometer of land. Fernando walked next to Natasia during this, for the young lady was the only one to keep up with the Keeper's quick pace, and they discussed names, and why Fernando gives others pseudonyms. While they walked, an olive-skinned man in a car appeared around one corner. He slowed up as he passed the group, then rolled down the window, pointed two fingers at the party, and mimed a gunshot.

Random encounters. What in actual fuck.

The group returned to the hotel and still had much time to kill, over an hour. Fortunately, a picnic table outside the front gates to this castle was unoccupied, so Fernando broke out his set of Cthulhu Dice and inaugurated Macombo and Natasia in its eldritch workings. Natasia proved quite the talented and fortuitous thrower of jinkies, and she won by far the greatest number of bouts out of the many that were played as they waited.

Finally, the hour of one in the afternoon dawned. Ronaldo and Macombo could secure their respective rooms! And they did, and it was glorious to behold, for the bedchamber Ronaldo has leased contained a full-size refrigerator in which sodeys could be stashed and kept cool! As an added bonus, the remote was right there on the nightstand, so Fernando did not have to experience nihilism given physical form as he did on his last journey.

To make things even better, the hotel provided free shuttle services to and from the convention center. No wrangling with overpasses and traffic lights and law enforcement, not for this saucy crew of adventurers! But, the convention was not to begin for another two hours, and no one had any desire to stand in lines for that duration, so a quick round of Munchkin was begun. Macombo acquitted himself quite admirably to it, but the game proved not entirely to Natasia's liking, as she politely declined participation in subsequent bouts.

'S alright, Natasia. I still think you're cool.

When the hour struck three, the group gathered what belongings they felt they would need and struck out for the convention center. Here they met for the first time a splendid, competent, genial Hispanic gentleman whom the party named Cool Driver Jim, and he was their link to sanity and safety over those next three chaotic days. They also encountered a group of fellow convention-goers who hailed from the faraway state of Ohio. Fernando struck up conversations with them, though he misremembers their names and he is certain they misremember his.

The shuttle proved overencumbered, as Cool Driver Jim had to drop off a pair of young adults at the airport before bringing a mob of seven sweaty, smelly nerds (and Natasia) to the convention, so Ronaldo was a good guy and hunkered himself into the space behind the back seat, keeping low to avoid the prying eyes of Cop Dudes who might otherwise detain the shuttle. Once the O'Hare dropoff was completed, Ronaldo was able to return to the lands of men from his self-imposed exile, and all was well.

Then, they arrived at the convention center, clambered out of Cool Driver Jim's pimping ride, and had their notions of “standing in line” changed forever on that day.

Fernando's Quest

Long long ago, in the frigid month of February, Ronaldo approached Fernando one evening, and described to him a notion which has wriggled from his subconscious into his working brain. This notion spread like a virus to Fernando, and he found himself infected and enamored of its honeyed promises.

“Rather than go to the convention we attended last year,” Ronaldo whispered into the Keeper's ticklish ear, “Let us up the ante. Let us attend Comic Con.”

“You mean the ginormous one in San Diego?”

“No. Don't be silly. None of us are prepared for that. I mean the one in Chicago, in early August.”

“Appealing, but why would we rather go there than to OddCon as last year?”

“For one, this year's OddCon looks like it will suck. For two, Norman Reedus will be there.”

“As in the actor who portrays fan favorite Daryl on the hit television series The Walking Dead?”

“The selfsame.”

“Well count me the fuck in.”

Invitations were extended to all of Fernando's usual running crew, and most of them could not fit a weekend of debauchery in the Windy City into their schedules. Alfonso and Cortez were both barred from attending, each due to his respective time and money constraints. Damien never spends money if he can avoid it, so his presence was ruled right out. Javier had plans to relocate his residence upon the expiration of his lease, which of course coincided timewise with the convention's scheduled dates. Katriona, who would be clutching a brand-new postgraduate degree in her fist, was abjectly broke and possessed a desire to seek some means of employment rather more prestigious than fry cook.

This left Teodor, who did agree to embark with the pair on this adventure, and the posse grew fifty percent in size on that day.

Ronaldo extended invitations to others at his place of employment, for some of his coworkers were self-described nerdish types and would, perhaps, leap at the opportunity to attend the convention. More practically, the more people which attended, the cheaper the excursion would be for all involved. Hemming and hawing occurred among some of these invited guests, and in the end only one of them committed to attending: Macombo, along with his life-partner Natasia, who shamelessly maintained one of the largest “girl-boners” for Mr. Reedus on this or any other planet.

Fernando was quite overjoyed by the timing of this convention, for it promised to be around the same time as the annual music festival which murdered customer flow, and so he would not lose as much material wealth as normal by choosing to shut down the store over that weekend. Alas, the fates conspired against him, and the dreaded festival was scheduled for the weekend immediately before the sojourn. But, it rained over that weekend, so people who would prefer not to squat in mud and beer vomit passed by the store in large numbers. Mother Nature had provided the Keeper a small boon to balance Fate's injustice.

Let us return to Wednesday night. Ronaldo and Cortez visit the store in the late afternoon. Ronaldo cavorts like a spider monkey the whole time, for he is an ardent Doctor Who aficionado and many panels and players upon this venerable program promised to be in attendance at the convention. Cortez is excited because of the nefarious plot which was to unfold for the running crew this night: the plan was to do burgers, and no one can deny the giddy lure of burgers.

At eight P.M., Fernando locks up the store and stands outside looking at the sign he had posted on the interior glass of his front door ten or so days back: “The Dominion of Movies will be closed August 8^th through the 12^th. Anything rented on the 7^th won't have to be back until Monday the 13^th. If I won't be here to run the store, I don't expect the movies to have to be here either! Be sure to stock up!” This advertising scheme worked, and Fernando earned “sick bank.” A pity Wednesday is a rent-one-get-one-free day, or the profits would have been even larger. As an added bonus, nobody had asked Fernando why he was closing up, so he did not have to provide any snarky answers or inane explanations to these questions.

As Fernando rounds the corner of the store, Ronaldo says to him, “You're on vacation.”

Fernando cannot help but to grin. “Indeed I am. It's a good feeling. It has been too too long.”

The burgers are had, and they are indeed delicious and fill the belly with warm, comforting meats. The crew that evening, which consisted of Teodor and Damien in addition to the aforementioned three, square off at billiards once the food is settled. Fernando's prowess at the game proves quite unexpected, but his skill is a mere shadow of his brother Alfonso's, and that of his father, who claims many first-place pool league trophies in his name.

At four in the morning the next day, Fernando is freshly-showered and has gathered all his supplies. Clothing, telephone, toiletries, a selection of D&D books on the chance that bones should want to be rolled, three sets of Munchkin cards, and Steve Jackson's Cthulhu Dice. These would tide over Fernando and Company in the hotel room, during those times when they were not attending the convention and had a desire to do something other than view hotel television.

They would depart early, hoping to arrive at their reserved lodging place before the metropolis's noonday rush of traffic. The plan was to use Teodor's father's Tahoe as their means of transport rather than a smaller vehicle, to ensure maximal comfort for all five party members. Ronaldo would drive, and Fernando would once again serve as his primary navigator, assisted by maps provided through the sagely Goo-Gol. The dissembling Gertrude Pauline Samson would serve as backup to the backup.

Once there, they would scout their environs and determine the feasibility of assorted means by which they could reach the convention center. Goo-Gol helpfully pointed out that the center lay but a twenty-minute walk from their lodging...as the crow flies. Men do not fly, not unless they are assisted by one or more wizards of at least the fifth level. An alternate means of reaching the center needed consideration, but this was a conclusion that could only be reached once they had gotten the an inkling of the lay of the land.

Men do, however, cruise. The terrible trio of Fernando, Ronaldo, and Teodor are on their way to collect Macombo and Natasia right on schedule, as the sun just barely peeks over the horizon and its rays burn the early morning fog off the twisting black highway which stretches before them.

Today, A Concidence

August 1^st, huh. That only marks five years since I set sail out upon the great ocean of entrepreneurship because it was the best of all options that had been available to me. Five years of sitting in the same chair (No, really. This chair has been in service at the Dominion for at least eight years) and doing the same routine on roughly three hundred-sixty days out of the three-sixty-five of each year.

I feel that I should be more accomplished than I am. Maybe it's because I sit in this chair most every day and don't have customers milling through the store on a nonstop conveyor belt, so there's plenty of time to goof off on the internet, reading Fark or watching Youtube or browsing Wikipedia. When it's slow I fire up The Binding of Isaac or Dungeons of Dredmor or FTL and pass no small amount of time doing that. Christ, I've got over 500 hours in Isaac since I picked up the game. Unfettered access to all the tools of procrastination and absence of a boss to chastise me? A most delicious recipe for distraction!

Oh, I've accomplished a few things, don't get me wrong. There are my attempts at self-improvement, my arbitrarily-chosen self-taught languages and nuggets of popular science, but these are of minimal practical value. My April forays into ScriptFrenzy (RIP, but I'm still dedicating every April to the cause), participation in NaNoWriMo each November. These projects are begun, some wind up finished, but none ever reach a level of quality which I feel is worth sharing with the world.

This weblog, you say, is it not writing which I share with the world? Yes, but it is different in a respect only other writers can really grasp. The various Chronicle entries are, for the most part, declarative and possess their own ontology. Yes, Fernando puts his twist upon the scenarios which are described, but they are all external to him (me?) and, therefore, safe. Even the rare opinion pieces are crafted as a response to some stimulus, an irksome pique or some lame and abrasive counter-commentary on whatever has the world in a tizzy at that moment.

The Chronicles are not artistry. They are not shining examples of the craft of writing (perhaps of the techniques of writing, but that I leave for people other than myself to determine). They are kitsch word-vomit. They have no literary merit. They don't seek to explore any of the deep and penetrating questions and concerns which plague the human psyche. They are only in the broadest sense a window into my own psyche, in that they show I am a person who does not brook inadequacies or failures or hypocrisies.

And yet I maintain them. I have my reasons. They are all selfish reasons.

The Chronicles are a psychological catharsis; they allow me to rant and rave about the abjectly stupid things I encounter, to get them out of my system so they are not a poison building up inside until some harmful, critical level is reached, mercury for the soul (Now there's an unsalable idea for a series of self-help books!). They entertain those people who do visit and read what pithy word-offerings I throw together. They give me an excuse, nay, a deadline which goads me to put words to paper (a schedule which, I will allow myself to admit, I have kept to quite rigorously).

I am the Keeper of the Dominion of Movies. Not many people my age can claim to be their own boss and to own a business, not without having had ample financial assistance or meaningful connections to smooth the path on which entrepreneurship directly lay. To paraphrase the immortal words of Li'l Brudder, I made it on my own. I do not regret my decision. I do not dislike my decision even in the slightest. After all, who else has a boss that permits a day on the job to be barely more onerous than an extended coffee break, who allows the employee's friends to camp the supply room and spend the day playing Dungeons and Dragons or Munchkin, who could care less that the day's take in the till doesn't go directly into the money bag for safekeeping and deposit if it has been independently determined that it would be better-kept in the wallet for use on burgers-and-beer night?

Yet, I still feel I should be more accomplished than I am.

Turtlefoot V: A Dark Race Becomes Magnificant

Fifteen minutes after Fernando dealt with the lady who argued Fernando should pay her and advertise for them, the phone rings again. The caller ID on this one?

Turtlefoot Enterprises!

Fernando rises from his seat with a curious flourish, leaving the empty chair spinning for a few moments as he crosses the room. Who would converse with him today? Kevin, salesman supreme? Sultry-voiced Kuwait? Nepal, the happiest woman on earth?

Giddy with excitement, Fernando picks up the phone. “Hello, Dominion of Movies.”

“Hi, is this Fernando?” The speaker is neither Kuwait nor Nepal, but a third woman. He picks up the barest hint of a Hispanic accent on the way she enunciates her vowels.

“Indeed so.”

“Fernando, my name is Madagascar, and I'm calling from Turtlefoot Enterprises. We have made some small changes here since the last time you spoke with a representative and I'd to go over a few of them with you right now. We have streamlined our systems to make it more appealing to smaller operations such as yours.”

“I'm happy for you. Do you still maintain the requirement that I spend about three thousand dollars on PoS software kept hooked into your system, whereby you can track my cash flow and skim a fraction of every transaction?”

This questions flusters Madagascar. “Many of our customers are quite happy with the simplicity our system provides. There is no hassle on your end, and we can provide assistance in helping you get that set up.”

“Is there still also an operations fee? Because it seems silly to pay you extra money so you can ensure you're taking my money.”

“Turtlefoot Enterprises has no control over how the software provider--”

“So yes. I'm sorry, an agreement between our respective businesses is not in the cards on this day. You're welcome to try again later. Things change.”

A pause. Then Madagascar says, “Oh, well, we'll be in touch. Have a good day.” She sounds relieved, perhaps because Fernando provided an invitation for another of Turtlefoot's sterling salesfolk to contact Fernando down the road.

That's fine. It makes for good stories.

Recap

Astute observers would have noticed that a dread case of schedule slip occurred this past Sunday. This is with good reason: Fernando was in no mood to upload a tale of dread, woe, or merriment, for he had been obligated over the previous days to participate in the wedding ceremony of his homeboy Iacobo. The Dominion's doors shut and, queerly enough, no one asked stupid questions of Fernando's reasons for closing up as they had the last time he took time for a mini-vacation.

The Dominion's back room had been chosen as the location for the bachelor party; debauchery could readily at-hand and the murderous Cellar Spiders, absolutely not to be confused with the benevolent above-ground Guardian Spiders, could handily dispose of any corpses which happened to be created in the course of festivities. Such things would bring Fernando no joy, as prey-juices would invigorate those troglodytic monsters, but good fortune was had: no one and nothing expired over the course of celebrating, which went on for roughly twelve hours. It was a smallish affair, as Fernando understands bachelor parties to go. Fernando and Iacobo were of course in attendance, as were Alfonso, Ronaldo, Cortez, Teodor, Bergeron, and Damien.

Catriona, by dint of possessing a vagina, had been forbidden attendance at this momentous event by her mother; rather, she was to giggle at the simultaneous bachelorette party over curiosities like penis-shaped ice or Cards Against Humanity. While this does sound as though it were a merry time, it lacked the defining feature of Fernando's shindig: impressive amounts of meat. During the party's course, eight or so pounds of animal flesh were consumed in brat and burger and hot dog form by the guests, notwithstanding the assortment of fixin's and appropriate side dishes accompanying this fare. One brat which tumbled into the coals was given over to Catriona as a burnt sacrifice, for she was ever in the guests' hearts, and the bottle of charcoal lighter fluid was emptied on that day. Ronaldo took the bratwurst eating contest prize, with eight consumed sausages. The reward in question? The right and obligation to eat the final remaining bratwurst of the initial three pounds.

One can file this one under “Phyrric victory.”

Once the sun finally set, prompting the moths and June bugs to initiate their rapacious nightlife, the action retreated indoors. Gifts were given to Iacobo, the sodding bastard, in whose name this travesty had been erected: dollar store insects (and a rat), a giant two-pound bag of peppered beef jerky, a single condom (for emergencies, one must understand), one bottle of the most delicious beer in all the world (that of the Schlenkerla), and a swanky hat which could perhaps be worn during the wedding ceremony or the off-the-hook reception, or even some other time if Iacobo felt the need.

At this juncture came the rolling of bones, though in fact little was accomplished upon the tabletop. Fernando, Iacobo, and his guests were quite fine with bullshitting for bullshit's sake over some cracked-open brews, reminiscing over adventures from days long past and portending adventures which were to come.