i am growing really tired of being a businessman (& i'm not talking about the fact that some of my coworkers sound like they're having a party in the middle of the fucking hallways not 20' from my cube, showing no appreciation for the fact that some of us actually do try to work from time to time & that we might be bothered by loud pointless chatter)...

i still have no overseas distribution... out of the three places i contacted, one couldn't be arsed to reply at all, one replied to order a personal copy of the record but said he couldn't actually sell it, & one told me he wanted to sell the record & asked for shipping quotes.... though almost 3 weeks later i haven't received another reply. i even have 25 records boxed up & mostly ready to ship on over. i don't know if he's just slow, if he's forgotten, or if maybe he's decided not to carry the record but didn't bother to tell me so. so if you're in europe & are looking for a copy of the record, you can order one from me if you can put up with the shipping... otherwise, if you're waiting for a shop over there to get some in stock, you might be waiting for a very long time.

on top of that, my t-shirt suppliers must be so busy that they're drowning in cotton-poly blends... at least according to the periodic emails i've been receiving. i officially placed my order on 4/30, expecting to receive my total within 1-2 business days, & then pay it so i wouldn't have to worry until the shirts are ready. but it's not quite working out like that; instead, every couple days i end up emailing one of them to mention that i'm still waiting for my total... on thurs i got an email telling me i would receive my total "tomorrow". it is now monday afternoon, so perhaps "tomorrow" was a bit optimistic. things are now getting so delayed that i'm becoming concerned i won't even have the shirts in time for rr8.

i hate having to nag them by constantly sending emails asking about my order status, but how fucking hard is it to open up calculator, do some simple math, & send me an email with my total? i know they're a diy shop, but they've already told me my art is approved & all that. they're very nice when they do actually email me, but that's not so comforting anymore. i don't like being micro-managed so i resent having to become a micro-manager myself, however these guys just aren't leaving me much choice. i'm trying to stay calm & polite... i've been tempted to call them out on a public forum like IMN to see if that gets their attention... but that wouldn't be nice. even writing this blog entry about how frustrating i am dealing with their silence isn't all that nice (which is why you don't see the name of the business in this entry [although you could find it easily enough by fishing around through the site])... all i want to do is pay them for my order! it's like they don't want my money.

once i sell all this crap, i don't think i'll be too motivated to buy a bunch more merch to sell... i'm not sure it's worth the hassle.