Obligatory Upgrade Update

Further updates on the store's neverending remodel. Although things are starting to shape up at last. The Planet trademark silver ball (left) hanging quite dangerously over the information table for almost two decades was finally detached and lowered gingerly onto the center table platform, only to have it tilt over and smash into one of the computers. It was fine though (the ball, that is -- the computer has always sucked) and when it was back relatively safe on the ground we all got to gather 'round, touch it (ew, dusty!), pick off all the old rubber bands at the top where we have been shooting them at it over the years, and finally having one of the construction crew drill into it and saw out a small rectangular portal so that we can see inside. Aged jokes of it being a dormant pterodactyl egg ready to hatch at any moment and kill us all faded when we all peered inside and saw vast, hollow emptiness. Several of he girls took pictures of each other inside the ball, peaking out of the portal, before it was rolled away at last, never to be seen again. So what's going up there instead? Probably nothing else. Although I'm still lobbying for the disco ball idea. One about the same size would make that dull and dreary sore look super dy-no-mite, sistah.

And we have light boxes now. Which weren't switched on when I took this picture, but they are on now and will pretty much stay on until the electrician moves the breaker switch down off near the ceiling where he installed it. Some place we could actually reach it would be nice.

Our game section now has a, uh, "Gameworld" sign? Kinda ugly I think, but hey, I just work here. It already appears to be broken, with something jutting out of the red "G" circle that looks like it was supposed to be another yellow zig-zaggy lightning bolt thingamabob. But you know, customers really do often need these kinds of blatant sign posts all over the store. Signs pointing to signs pointing to signs pointing to the very thing that they are looking for, or else you'll get a raging earful about how disorganized our store really is. And to be honest, right now they ain't kiddin'.

Our rank carpet is gone, and replaced with tile, and although I will be the first to admit that my sinuses have greatly improved due to the giant fungus farm being incinerated (sweet merciful heavens, why does it burn so long?) I'll reserve that moment for when the smoke and dust clears and we can finally wipe the filthy cling off of every available surface once again. Some of the exposed CDs are so dusty from the construction work it's difficult to tell what some of them are anymore. Some of the CDs lying around look like dusty old relics from the fall of Pompeii. Which is probably what future giant-brained generations will think when they dig this music store up from the ashes in the year 3521 (with my skeleton still there, clutching an Air Supply CD).

The last area to be tiled, which is where the Dance and Reggae section used to be, and now has two walls built in where we'll be hanging the electronics. As in, the electronics are going to be on my side of he store now, which also means I need to know something about electronics real darn fast or else I'm pretty much up Scheiße Creek. One of the construction crew said that while he was working up against the wall near the white door he distinctly heard the meow of a cat within the walls. Well, that's just marvelous. And would hardly surprise me in the least. Might actually explain that dying rat Miranda found in the music warehouse a few months ago.

The carpet will remain in the newly forming Used Room (formally known as the Classical Room) since it's about a dozen times less jankity, although probably still as old as the building itself (I wouldn't be surprised). Ted Liles finally came down to get his Bach, Beethoven & Bernstein painting, which I am very pleased and relieved about, even though I apparently missed his visit (and he lives in Richmond now -- I had no idea!). And ahhhh.... one of many ubiquitous scissor lifts that roam the aisles and beepbeepbeep forever in your brains when you come home after a long day. Although every time I see them I get to giggling and singing "Scisssssor-liiiiiffffffffft! Scissssssssor-liiiiiiifffffffffffffft!" to myself and then all is right in the world again.

Finally, and most importantly... MOST IMPORTANTLY. They are working on fixing the broken sprinkler directly over my work space, which has been dripping continuously into an old squirt bottle sitting on my desk which I have to empty every other day, and get constantly splashed in the face as I'm having lunch or doing just about anything sitting there, and what grates my cheese is that nobody even thought to do anything about it until our last visit from the Fire Marshall lit that flame under their collective corporate ass. But other than removing the rotted ceiling tile -- well, they didn't even do that. They just knocked it out and left it as a disgusting brown and wet crumble-mountain all over my desk and floor and chair -- they haven't been back to fix the leak, let alone clean up the mess. Ahh, but in the end it's all for the greater good, isn't it. Uh, isn't it?