Okay, so, with the release of the latest Swartzwelder novel, the Million Dollar Policeman, I have declared National Bookorderin’ Day in the Nation of PDR. But this year I have a complication: I already bought my books for this year. I did it months ago.

So, in addition to my new Swartzwelder, I’m getting the Black Panther Masterworks, which collects that characters appearances in Jungle Action. I’ve read these some time ago and they were quite excellent. Even saving a bit for a sale price, I’m paying more than I ought to spend these days, but owning this is going to make me happy, so there’s that to consider as well.

On top of this I got the cheapest of the used copies of the Space Quest Companion, which as far as I can tell is a prose retelling of the Space Quest games narrated by Roger Wilco. I would like to read that.

I will not be buying more books this year. This is all the money I can spend.

I feel that maybe it is worth noting that this last month or so I have actually been feeling like Patrick D Ryall, which is something that doesn’t happen often enough. That may sound strange, because whatever I, Patrick D Ryall, feel like should be what it feels like to be Patrick D Ryall, but it is not so. I’m feeling PDR in the adjective form.

I have a pretty clear idea of how the ideal PDR is supposed to go, and to be honest, it doesn’t go that way often enough. But that has been improving. Last month I saw a great number of people of whom I don’t see enough, so that was a plus. A combination of the winter being over and just taking circuitous routes has increased the amount of walking I’ve been doing, and walking is a definite must for PDR. During one of those walks I got the attention of the police, another classic PDR result. My monetary situation seems to have slightly improved, which is a definite plus because all that dwelling on money is very much not a PDR action (For that matter spending a decade in a job I can’t even pretend to care about just so I don’t be homeless is very not PDR, but I haven’t quite worked out what to do about that one, yet). Also, my creative output is up. Things like this make for a very PDR PDR.

I should point out that feeling like myself isn’t necessarily the same thing as feeling happy. In fact, the spectrum of PDRness runs the full gamut of highs and lows and these months has been no exception. There have been various minor things like the whole affair with my wallet and credit cards. (and also losing a book on a bus, which certainly seems like something a PDR would do), and some other things I don’t plan to dwell on here on the site (although, actually, I will add that losing my three day weekends is utter ballsack. And not in the good way), but at least for the moment the state of the Nation of PDR is such that at least the youth in the Nation of PDR aren’t rioting in the streets ashamed at our loss of national identity. Or something.

And finally, for those who saw the title of this post and were disappointed by what it turned out to be, I’ll try to see if I can’t make an a guide to groping PDR someday in the future to make up for it.

So, it is International Women’s Day, the day when we are all encouraged to find a special gal and buy her chocolates and pretty bows for her hair. That’ll shut ’em up, right?

Wait, I’ve just received word that I completely misunderstand what International Women’s Day is about and I am, in fact, a horrible person. Go figure. Well, as I’ve said before I’m a nation with no female population*, so it can’t be that surprising that I don’t know what the people of Internation do. What excuse does the Republican party use?

Anyway, why not throw out a little story with a positive female role model, PDR? Okay PDR:

Sally Titan saw the bank robbers get into their van and start speeding away. “Idiots,” she said to herself. “Now I’m going to be late for my tutoring session with Mrs. O’Malley’s kids because I have to deal with this.” With that, the muscular hero leapt across the street, bounded off the wall of the bank, and propelled herself down the street after the van. Civilians saw her streaking through the air toward the getaway vehicle, but they would never believe their own eyes. Sally kept her existence as secret as she could because she wasn’t in it for the fame. Overtaking the van, she grabbed the roof and used her momentum to slam it downward, stopping it. She had the criminals tied to a telephone pole before the police even made it to the scene. The crooks couldn’t describe what had happened, but they also couldn’t shake the blame for the heist, so they all went to prison. And Sally made it to the tutoring session on time after all.

There. Happy ending and everything. That makes up for what I said about bows, right?

*Some would say that my vigilant separation of PDR and women is my most important contribution to Womankind. You’re welcome everybody.

Over the last couple years I have manufactured something of a tradition here in the Nation of PDR. National Bookorderin’ Day is the one day in the year I waste some money on the ordering of new books from the Internet (I get books from my mother for Christmas as well, but I don’t pay for those, obviously) and the date of National Bookorderin’ Day is entirely decided by when the new John Swartzwelder novel is made available on Amazon. Well, the announcement of that novel has just been made: The Million Dollar Policeman will drop in a matter of months, so I’ve got to start figuring out what books will be coming with it.

Obviously this year has the Nation of PDR in a sort of financial state where maybe we shouldn’t be spending much money on books, but I remain confident that by the time this book rolls out (in the vicinity of April or May) I should have at least enough disposable income to make this one order. I’m diggin’ myself out of the red, so it’s good to have a reward waiting on the other side.

This one is interesting. We’ve got dapper John Matheson standing in a dark void, struggling over how to convince Canada to agree on a flag. That is pretty much the entirety of the thing. His speech in the void. We’re told, in the end, that Canada does eventually agree, but that is just an afterthought. And it is weird, if you think about it too much. Which is exactly what I do.

At first we could suppose that he’s just having a soliloquy in the Flag Committee Room, but it isn’t so. John is talking to someone in that void. It’s possible that he is talking to us, via a breaking of the fourth wall, but he says when the other politicians walk in “I was just talking about you” and I doubt he’d have said that if he was talking to himself. This indicates that either his special awareness of the medium is already common knowledge, or there actually is someone in the void with him. In either case, he then demonstrates another magic ability: Whichever flag he is thinking of forms from the ether just by saying “this” and making a simple gesture of his head for the benefit of the person he was speaking with. What I’m saying is John Matheson was probably a wizard. In real life.

Also, he’s doing an awful lot of walking around in the void. Just saying.

Anyway, to business. I have made a big deal about the ability to quote them being the biggest factor in my liking of a Heritage Moment, but this one kinda goes against the grain. A few lines are pretty good (“But blue is not an official Canadian color*” and “Prime minister AND Mr. Diefenbaker…”), but really they don’t stand alone as well as examples from, say, the Superman minute. Does this work against this one? I’m going to go with “no”. You know why? Because this whole monologue is so strong that if I had the mental capacity, I would commit this whole commercial to memory and quote it in its entirety whenever I felt like it. And that would be sweet.

Apart from quotability, I have to say that looking at all the Alternate Earth Canada Flags is kinda fun. I bet this was one of the cheapest and easiest Heritage Minutes to make, but it does not suffer for it. And looking back at this from my present times, I can add that the “I wonder, I wonder” also reminds me of the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, which is another plus for this Canada History Commercial. I am fully willing to give this one Five out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System cake. It’s simple, magical, and I like it.

*And yes, I’m still gonna spell “color” the way I prefer even though the speaker would have spelled it another way. This is how the Nation of PDR rolls.