That's why I haven't dumped the pictures from my camera, or said anything else about the almost-a-week my parents were out here. I'll get back to that at some point, I'm sure.

First, in the interest of extreme procrastination, I decided to go through my feeds. I've been ignoring the gaming blogs, and, in clearing out GamePolitics, I came across an article about...something. A survey that was part of someone's dissertation. I don't know what the dissertation was about, but the survey apparently had something to do with girls and gaming.

I was going to try to find out more about it, but digging around led me to story titles like "Student study says games are too complicated for girls," and decided that laziness was a much better idea than actual research.

You can read...whatever this is...here: Girl gaming on the rise.

Or, here's what I got from it: girls don't game as much as boys. They like uncomplicated, casual-type games with simple controls, silly cartoon violence, and puzzles. Also, the Wii is for girls, because, oh, they love the party games. And side missions! And collecting stuff! And playing a strong yet feminine character who gets the job done.

Seriously, why is this a fucking gender issue at all? Why am I still trapped in a society that puts technology in one part of the room, girls in the other, and erects the great wall of No Girls Allowed in the middle?

Sorry, boys, but fuck your clubhouse rules. And girls? Fuck your rules, too.

I don't know how it averages out, but I spent more than eight hours yesterday playing The Force Unleashed. My copy of The Ultimate Sith Edition showed up, and, honestly, what else was I going to do but immerse myself in the awesome alternate storyline, prancing about in my spiffy new Sith costumes until I finally got to kill off Whineypants Skywalker Jr? And, okay, so that wasn't actually all of the eight hours -- most of it was spent desperately trying to get even partway through the Sith Master difficulty on the original game.

I suppose you could say that I pulled a total 'girl' and 'gave up because it was too hard', but it just stopped being fun three hours into the same six feet of space between save points. When killing Kota became much more enjoyable than actually trying to clear the landing platform, I decided that I should probably stop before I broke something important.

All that was after I clocked a lot of time on that game, because I found it refreshing and lovely, having a game that wasn't based on Legos that I could enjoy. One that had some halfway decent graphics, because I likes me some graphics.

I also like using force lightning on Jawas. They make a funny noise and flop around a lot -- which is actually a lot more entertaining to watch in the Storm Troopers. This is probably not what she meant when she concluded that girls like their violence to have 'a humorous undertone'.

Let me Kanye myself for a second, because I kinda want to talk about graphics. What'd I say before? "I likes me some graphics," I think. This is true, yet...probably not in the sense that most people mean 'graphics'.

See, I'm a bit funny about things like 'graphics', and what I like. I sometimes look at the clouds during the day and think they've been rendered badly, or are a bit too cartoony to be believable. I actually liked the way Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker looked. And, as pathetic as it may be at this point, I thought Silent Hill was pretty damned...pretty, too.

I've played both of those [though I may not've gone all the way to 100% with Wind Waker, because that fucking camera side quest was obnoxious]. Also, Silent Hill 2 through 4, which should tell you my tolerance level for shitty controls.

Oh, hell, where was I?

Maybe a quote from another article about this article will get me back on track....

Vermeulen said boys were more interested in violent games like Call of Duty and Resident Evil, than Super Mario Bros.

That doesn't help at all. Crap. Maybe I should've done an an outline or something.

For me, this whole thing is a little like those descriptions for astrological signs -- if half of it applies, it's amazing. As a Leo, I'm supposed to be a leader and the life of a party. As a girl, I'm supposed to enjoy games that...aren't some of the games I enjoy.

I may only be a sample group of one, but, honestly, a sample group of under a thousand [gamers between the ages of 11 and 65, probably male and female] isn't really broad enough, either. This shit can't really be condensed into simple, news-friendly soundbytes, and it really shouldn't be, either.

Yeah, sure, it's convenient to split 'gamers' into 'male' and 'female' and be all weirdly general, but...fuck, it's lazy, and I'm not surprised that it seems to be summed up with this statement:

‘Girls like to game, but games are not well tuned to their interests.’

Seriously? We're going to go with that? How can that possibly be true, with the incredible range of games out there?

Here's an idea for a 'survey' study. How gender-divided is this whole world of gaming, really? Let's look into whether or not people really do identify games as being 'for girls', or 'for boys', or even just 'for kids'. It might be a little difficult, but let's see how many individuals of a specific gender buying a game that's somehow supposed to be for the opposite gender get asked if they're buying it for someone else.

I don't remember this ever happening to me. I don't know if that's because I usually buy my games online, or if it's because, when I'm in a store, Gremlin's there with me [and usually the one buying]. Whatever it is, I don't think I've ever felt that 'no girls allowed' thing that's apparently only perceived by non-gamers. The guys I've encountered behind the counter in my various game purchases from EB/Gamestop and Gamexplosion don't seem to suffer from the same weirdness as males in other tech-related professions.

And, before you question my counting games as 'tech-related', I'll clarify that I'm using it in a very broad sense. I'm including 'selling electronics'. Guys trying to sell a TV or a DVD player [or hook up the cable] assume that I'd try to jam the coaxial cable into the HDMI port and will willingly be conned into shit I just don't need. The guy at the game store doesn't seem to assume that my uterus makes me try to play Resident Evil 5 with an Atari joystick held the wrong way.

That's not fair. If they were like that, they'd assume I wouldn't know what an Atari controller was.

Maybe we can just...not do this inane gender-based shit? Or, at least, not talk about a summary of part of someone's dissertation as if it's newsworthy? It's bad enough that there are stories about murders over consoles, and shootings done by people who once shared a public transportation system with someone who had a receipt for a game made by Rockstar partially embedded into their clothes from someone not emptying their pockets before using a community washer being related back to 'violent video games'...fuck, what I mean is: there's already a wedge between 'gamers' and 'society' [as if there's really a difference between the two], and there are plenty of gaping chasms between groups of gamers, we don't need another.

...would it help if I said please?

In fact, I might get to all of this later. It's going to take some sorting out.

They arrived on Saturday, by train [which was late, of course]. The rental car company picked them up, but their hotel room wasn't ready, so they ended up at IHop for a bit while waiting for a chance to get some bed-related rest and a shower -- such things probably don't exist on trains unless you're very, very special...and if you're going to pay that much, why not just fly?

Once all that was done, they came over here, met Zombi, and...went off to the store to get a few things. Soda for mom, soda for us [for at the hotel], and a couple of things so Gremlin could cook something pasta-ey at the hotel.

Because the hotel had a full working kitchen. In the room. Seriously. It was neat.

They also had a heated outdoor pool, which I couldn't really take advantage of until I got proper swimwear [which I did, thanks to Dad taking me to Target].

Also purchased that trip: two pairs of cheap sandals, a couple of pool noodles, and a Lego Star Wars tee. And some superglue, for fixing something important.

Slightly before that, mom gave me the little pendant that contains a bit of my grandmother's cremains. There was...some assembly required, and I accidentally snapped off one of the little prongs I was supposed to be bending to hold the little vial in. So: glue.

It worked.

I spent a bit of time in the pool, which ended rather abruptly when Gremlin tried to teach me how to tread water in the 6' section. I didn't so much tread water as discover that someone had placed a black hole in that exact part of the pool. I almost pulled Gremlin in during my brief moment of attempting to breathe pool water.

At that point, it was getting late and chilly, and...we were kinda hungry, so we went off to see if there was anything open. Arby's wasn't, but there was a BurgerKing, and...that's where things went a little wrong, because it was at least an hour before the listed [on a rather large sign] closing time. Because July 3rd is a holiday, so let's close the indoor part early unannounced.

Drivethrough, then. That's fine. I'll have that angus burger with the crunchy onion bits. The A1 one. That'll be great, thanks. And Gremlin will have some stupidly huge thing with, like, twenty meat patties. And probably a milkshake or something stupid. My parents will have...whatever. So, let's go sit on the outside benches, because: fuck you, that's why.

Wait. Where's my burger?

No, seriously, where's my fucking burger?

My mom walks off to the drive-through window to find out what the hell is wrong with this guy. "Oh, no, you didn't order that." was the guy's excuse.

I guess he mistook my "There's no mushrooms on that? Okay, good, I'll have the [burger I apparently didn't order]." as not ordering it.

Of course, we probably would've known that if the stupid bastard had followed protocol and used the little order display screen, and read everything back. But, oh no, he's the manager. He can't be bothered. Because it's a holiday, and he closed early.

Whatever, dude. Stop glaring at us, and all the other people showing up and trying to get into Burger King because you're supposed to be open. Maybe if you weren't such a dick, you wouldn't have been stuck working tonight.

...and that was Saturday. I'll get to the rest later, because I'm seriously fuzzy right now.

First, I tested it on Gremlin's computer. That went well -- only an audio driver issue, but, really, if that's it, then that's not a big deal.

Ha.

I didn't want to go for the standard easy install; I wanted to preserve XP and run a dual-boot system. I had a spare partition, so...why not?

I put in the disc, and boot from it. MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION.

Goddamnit. Reboot. Try again. Same thing. And, because I'm crazy, I try this a few more times before I start trying to pull hardware to see if that's what's causing the problem.

Not the RAM. Good. I need that. Can't test the videocard -- no onboard video. Okay, CPU's a little hot, but I don't know when that thermal compound I ordered will be coming in [which relates to a subject that will probably be a different post altogether], so I can't do shit about that right now. Also, probably not the problem.

What's that leave? Can't pull the DVD drive -- I need that. What about the SATA drives.

Goddamnit. It's the SATA drives.

Why the fuck is it the SATA drives? Internet? No answer? Really? I hate you so much.

And, of course, my external rescue gadgety thing is either flaking the fuck out now that it's started falling apart [just ornamental bits of plastic], or it just doesn't like drives larger than 500gb. So, Newegg, dear friend, help me out here. Gimme...something. Something hot-swappable, external, and dual.

So, here I am, on Windows 7, limited to two IDE drives that are pretty much full. I have no way of really doing anything about that right now. And all of Gremlin's backups are on my 650, so I'm predicting a murder sometime over the weekend.

Other than that, Windows 7 is pleasant to use. It's a lovely combination of Windows XP and Linux [at least, to me it is]. It's easy enough to figure out, and I've been able [after a few threats with the Fixin' Hammer] to pull in a lot of my stuff for Digsby, Firefox, Thunderbird, and all that from my old installation to this new one.

Also, I went against my better judgment and installed the 64 bit version. That was...fun.

Apparently, Logitech are having some website issues, and you have to google search for their setpoint 64, and then find one of their people in their forums posting a link to it. What the fuck, Logitech?

I haven't installed my Wacom yet, although the idea of being able to use the touch thing on one of the newer ones is...somewhat enticing. I kinda wish I had one.

That's kinda it. I still don't know what to do about the SATA thing, and I'm hesitant to do anything that might wipe out the data. I don't even know if sound works yet, because all my MP3s are trapped on useless chunks of metal that Windows 7, for some retarded reason, won't let me have hooked up. But, in spite of that, I'm actually pleased with Windows 7.

In case you're wondering -- I never used Vista. I have a bit of a rule about Windows -- only every OTHER new OS. 98 was okay, ME wasn't. XP was okay, but Vista wasn't, so 7 can stick around for a bit.

Maybe I should go find another way to test out the sound....

Let's start at the beginning....

About a month ago, got everything all set up to go see an oral surgeon. We had a chat over the phone about sedation options, and she had prescriptions sent out. I got the appointment letter in the mail, and stuck it to the white board. I start preparing as best I can, because I'm not entirely sure they'll even complete the process. See, it's through the VA, and Dental's only for 100% people, and they were considering me for a reduction. The DAV were trying to keep me there, but, well, I knew how well that went last time, so I was kinda figuring on everything going wrong.

But, things changed. And then...things changed.

The oral surgeon called me last Friday, telling me that...something had happened. She couldn't do it Thursday, because of...something. And she wouldn't be in the office past 3:30. It was 3:20. And my phone was going out of the service area by...I don't know...shifting dimensions when unobserved for fractions of fractions of seconds, or something. That's fine, though, because I was getting a new phone, which is a whole 'nother story.

Saturday, and the oral surgeon calls me back. By some lucky coincidence my phone works and I answer it, even though the number is unfamiliar and strangely Californian. She wants to know if I can do it on Monday. Monday.

We try to figure out if we can. Eventually, we get it all worked out. We can do it Monday, we'll just have to ride the bus there, which will be a lot like hell, because that makes Sunday Extra Special Mogwai day....

Y'know, no eating after midnight. No water. All that sheer hell.

Also? I hadn't finished my food list. A minor complaint, sure, but still depressing.

In case you're curious, it was a list of foods I wanted to eat one last time, since I didn't know when I was going to be able to eat again. It consisted of such simple pleasures as good pizza, broccoli beef, crab rangoon, eggrolls, spicy surimi, a sub from Subway with chips in it. A short list, but...I kinda missed out on the chinese. I did, however, get chicken tenders, and, because 'what the hell', some corn on the cob. I'd been avoiding that for years because I'd been worried about whether or not I could do it without making myself look like a toothless hick.

Too late for that now.

So, yeah. I get as much of that crammed into Saturday and Sunday as I can. I get a case of chocolate Boost and a big pack of pudding cups, get the comfiest [and most easily shed] clothes I can find, and I'm all ready for Monday.

Here's what I remember of Monday:

• Waking up at 4:30 because Gremlin was sick of waiting.

• Sitting at McDonalds because it was too early for the bus, wishing I could eat something.
• Getting on the bus.
• Getting on the LightRail, and sitting in the stepwell because it was so crowded.
• Getting to the VA Hospital around a half hour early, and checking in, expecting them to not have my appointment listed because it was made on Saturday.
• Meeting the oral surgeon, who turns out to not be twelve feet tall and made entirely of dental drills and rusty wire.
• Signing the 'This could kill you' release form.
• Learning that I probably shouldn't have worn a camisole under my shirt for comfort because it made the heart monitoring sticky pads slightly more annoying to place.
• Getting the IV.
• The really awesome computer-box thingie where they apparently keep the good drugs.
• They strapped my arms to the chair, and called them 'gentle reminders,' because, apparently, people like to try and help.
• The phrase, "This isn't what'll put you out. It'll just make you itch."
• Holy crap, she meant it. Who, exactly, came up with this drug, and why did they just decide to punish me? Seriously. Whatever it was, it felt like a billion tiny stars achieved fusion in my crotch, and brought STDs with them.

And then, nothing. I remember some awful grindey-filey noises, and some brief pain, and someone saying, "We're almost done," but...nothing until they stuffed my face with gauze and helped me into a wheelchair. Fortunately, the firey crotch of doom went away while I was out.

...then, car and home. I didn't bleed all over the car, which is probably a good thing because it wasn't ours. I did bleed all over the front step, and possibly on my super-comfy-flannel.

More fuzziness, until the new phones arrived. I managed to activate the phone in my drugged up haze, which says something about Verizon's activation process. It's a Motorola Droid, and, so far, I don't hate it. I can even post here from it [I think].

By Tuesday, I was sick of chocolate. So, we went out. I had egg drop soup, and teeny, tiny bites of mongolian beef. And it was the most wonderfully wonderful thing I'd ever tasted.

...and, on Wednesday, I learned why you don't go out for strolls the day after oral surgery. Also, I learned that the VA still thought I was going to be coming in on Thursday to have all my teeth extracted.

I also learned that I'm a very lucky person, or something. Gremlin surprised me with the giant plush Ebola from the Giant Microbes store. It's seriously adorable, and I think I'm glad things didn't go as planned. I might've bled all over it, otherwise.

I still don't know what the next step is, or when it's going to happen. Right now, I'm not sure I care, but that could be a combination of tiredness and vicodin talking.

If that last line doesn't explain this post, nothing will.

No, really. Let's be honest about it. In way too many cases, it's a place for the writer to play on the sympathies of the readers and beg for cash and goods.

Let's see if I can manage. I probably can't, since I kinda suck at all of that crap.

In a week [I think], I get to visit an oral surgeon. I don't know about the oral surgeon, but it's certainly not social for me. It's 'no food or drink for x hours, appointment at, like, 7am or so, and being put at least partially under because needles in mouth = BAD', which...okay, so maybe that's about as social as I get, too.

Thanks to a combination of factors, all of which sound like bullshit justifications, my teeth are...no longer much good. Personally, I'm just going to say that I forgot to make the payments on them for the last ten years or so. I'm looking at the oral surgeon like some sort of crafty repo man who gets you into his chair, dopes you up, and steals your teeth while you're out of it.

Then, I get to wait to talk to another dentist about the rest of the treatment plan, which...hasn't been made yet. So...whatever that'll be, I guess it'll be a surprise. Gosh, I love surprises.

I figure that I'll find a way to stock up on the least repulsive drinkable-thing-with-nutritional-value possible [I hope Boost hasn't changed much since I'd swipe sips from my sister's], and pudding. Because, pudding.

I'll probably be sick of the concept of chocolate before the second day, but whatever.

I figure, I can't spend all my time asleep, and, while I'm sure drugged-up ramblings in chat may entertain you for a little bit, I don't know how much of that I'll be doing.

What I do know is that I have a Kindle, which gave me the idea for this post.

See, I figure I can probably read. And, if I were to be the recipient of some amazon.com gift cards, I might even be able to buy some books. And they can totally be sent to me at hunter@gremlin.net.

Even if I'm not quite as blah as I suspect I might be, I'll probably still buy books. Because I foresee long hours spent in waiting rooms, trying to ignore the fact that the waiting room is attached to the dentist.

See? I suck at this.

On a brighter note, I'm giving out all sorts of information for the people who obsessively loathe me. That should keep my life...fairly boring.

I should probably...explain, or something. And that might require a bit of pre-explaining.

A couple of days ago, I got a letter from the DAV -- a service organisation that provides free representation for people filing claims with the VA. Because it's really rather awful dealing with them on your own [which I did the first two times]. I think it might've been yesterday that I got the big envelope from the VA confirming the DAV letter. 100%, Permanent and Total. Proposed reduction set aside, previous reduction not proper.

This morning, I got the deposit in my bank account that really confirmed things. Sorta...back-pay for what they took away last year, since they found it to be in error.

Why am I not happy? I have no fucking clue.

I think it's a little like surfacing after a dive. I think I need to come up slowly.

Most of you probably know that I was in the Army, and most of you know that I'm no longer serving. You probably don't know that my service was cut short due to some Relatively Bad Shit, and a bit of intervention.

I don't really want to talk about my time in the service, except to say that Basic Training was quite enjoyable. It left me with a feeling of accomplishment. An "I Survived" feeling that I'll probably never recapture. And that things didn't go to hell until AIT, due to a great deal of paperwork confusion, and my being rather ill the first time I was set to ship out -- possibly too ill to actually consent to the changes I consented to. But that's Of The Past. It cannot be changed. I don't bother dwelling on it; neither should anybody else.

My military career came to an end when, while on leave, I found out that my previously clean room had been completely trashed, and that I was in a great deal of trouble over the state of it. This wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back -- this was the flaw in the shielding that caused the shuttle to burn up on reentry.

See, prior to this, I'd learned a rather important lesson. In the military, if you're female, you don't just have to watch out for the males -- you also have to watch out for the other females. The males tend to treat you as if you're there for...well, you know. The females? They're on the lookout for someone who can fill the lowest position in their pecking order.

This may be true of all jobs, but...it seemed especially harsh in this particular location. I was the omega.

That may sound overly-dramatic. You're probably thinking, 'Oh, it was just hazing. You took it personally. Grow up.' But...it wasn't. I wasn't the only new girl in that particular workplace.

I've put in a good decade of actively 'forgetting', but I can't exactly...unlearn it all. There might be a hole [or, more likely, a rather nice containment unit of some sort] where the memories are, but they still have some impact.

I'm not going to tell you any stories -- not now. Maybe, someday, when I'm a little more comfortable with it. I don't really care if you believe me. There are finally some doctors who believe me; doctors that, more importantly, I've come to trust. The handfull of people who knew me before know what I'm like now, and know the impact on my everyday life. My parents saw the difference.

And, yes, I'm now naturally inclined to suspect that anyone reading this will automatically assume I'm lying or faking it. I never saw combat. I was never anywhere but stateside. It only took fourteen months. How the hell can it be real? How dare I place myself among those who are coming back with their bits blown off?

I don't know.

I may continue this later; I may not.

I think I followed the formula correctly. (Questionable artistic&writing skills + obscure jokes)Questionable Sanity = well, this:

I should probably mention that the webcomic formula is parsed through Unified Failed Theory, positing strange detractors.

It was a gift, in the sense that it was purchased with an amazon.com gift card sent to me that mentioned that I should use it to get a Kindle, and maybe some books.

It arrived the same day my new computer parts arrived, and I was denied my usual joy of tormenting people with unboxing photos. I was also denied the joy of actually learning how to use it for myself. Gremlin took off with it to do something while I was trying to get the tower running again. Then, of course, he expected me to stop doing that and go fix whatever was wrong with his, because the Kindle wouldn't connect properly.

This is why I should be allowed to play with my toys first. It took me a few days -- after I finally got some time with it -- to figure out that something wasn't quite right. Seriously, there's no good reason for a port to be that loose and downright fiddly on something so new. I can accept that sort of touchiness on my iPod, because it's getting a bit old, and I've plugged in all sorts of non-apple-made things. But, really? C'mon. Newness, here. Shiny newness. And, is that a scratch? Goddamnit, it is.

So, I email Amazon.com. Also, I email screenguardz.com, because I want to know what they mean by 'adhesive'. Neither of them got back to me.

I give up on screenguardsz.com, because...what the hell, who cares? Amazon's the more important one right now. I email them again, selecting the 'broken kindle WTFOMG' option instead of the 'questions about the kindle' option. And I get a fairly rapid response telling me to go back to the site and get them to call me.

So, there I was, it's just barely 5am on a Friday. There's no way this can have a good outcome, right?

Except, amazingly, it did. Possibly because I got very lucky, and ended up on the phone with Tara D. [at least, I assume that's who she was; that's what the email I got after said].

Tara, it turns out, is proof that people who are capable of functioning in the earlier parts of the day [without needing to go to bed before noon] have a place in the world. That place? Customer service. She put up with my rambling, half-coherent explanation [filled with words I probably made up at the time, because, honestly, I was tired, and it's so hard to explain exactly what the hell was going on]. There were no requests for rebooting or cache clearing. There was just, "I'm sorry. It sounds like it's broken. What we're going to do is overnight another one to you, and you can send that one back. I'm going to email you a shipping label with instructions, okay?"

There's the part where it needs to be back in thirty days, and that they need a valid card on file, but, you know what? I totally understand that. There's been no charge. And the Kindle showed up before noon on Saturday. I packed the other one away according to their instructions, and it's sitting here waiting to be taken off to a UPS drop-off location.

This may be the single most painless online exchange I've ever done.

And the new one? Doesn't have that pesky connect-drop-connect-drop problem. So, yeah, definitely something not right there.

Did I mention anything about protecting it? I can't remember. I had to shut down my computer and get my 600gb drive back [okay, I think it's supposed to be 640, but it's kinda only 600, let's be honest].

Whatever. I really, really need to find a way to protect this thing. And the options available to me really, really suck. I could probably make my own -- and I've had a few ideas regarding that -- but...god, really? I'm limited to a bunch of crap I don't really want that'll increase the size for over thirty bucks, or a bunch of perpetually out of stock sleeves? Oh, and the incredibly posh [read: useless] $100+ crap that I wouldn't buy if I happened to make more money than Amazon.com has ever made, because....

Ih. New Resident Evil movie trailer flashback. Where was I?

Oh, who cares. I can totally go read stuff!

Which reminds me: Tara was above and beyond helpful -- see, we were also having an unrelated problem with one of the books Gremlin released -- the revision didn't show even after we both deleted and repurchased it. I mentioned it to her, and she said she could put the people who could solve the problem in touch with us and see if they couldn't fix it. Gremlin mentioned that, though, so it's probably pointless mentioning it again. Y'all know where he writes stuff.

I'm going to post this before this gets even more disjointed and rambly.

And, since I was doing it a section at a time, importing and deleting to keep track, I mentioned it in the shop.

...as of...about three weeks ago, I was no longer able to import...which was right around the time I did the stupid thing and asked them if they could look into a way of moving things easier [between premium shops], because I was folding mine into another.

Gremlin mentioned it on the forum, after I reported the problem [twice, the second time with a reference number to the first one and an error report thing from IE8, because I figured they'd get all 'oh, we don't support that']. What I found out, other than the fact that I was right that most suggestions were going to be 'clear your cache', was that everyone else could import.

So, Gremlin tried importing within wasted.

I'm the only person having this problem.

No, let me clarify: mine is the ONLY STORE HAVING THIS PROBLEM.

You can import from wastedsection to wastedsection. But I can't so much as move a subsection of coffeechick to another subsection of coffeechick.

At the risk of coming off as paranoid, I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't have said a fucking thing about closing it down.

So, whatever's going on? It doesn't matter. The store's going. You can't fucking stop it. You're not getting your sixty this year; it's closing down.