Stuff. Not good. Not bad. Just...stuff.

[Burgundy LaRue]

I went to a buffet that had you directly pay at the register as you left, no check.  It really is a case-by-case situation.

[caley]

All right, which one of you DVDVRers did this?

 

 

 

Several thousand people, some dressed as animal characters, were evacuated from a Hyatt hotel in suburban Rosemont when an “intentional” chlorine gas incident at the hotel, which was hosting the Midwest FurFest convention, sent 19 people to hospitals early Sunday.

 

 

Disrupted was an annual weekendlong convention called Midwest FurFest, which celebrates art, literature and performance based around anthropomorphic animals, draws thousands of people every year, according to the Midwest FurFest website.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-19-hospitalized-thousands-evacuated-in-gas-leak-at-rosemont-hotel-20141207-story.html

[AxB]

On the one hand, I passed Mystery shopper and got a bonus £100 last week. On the other hand, when I was closing up at 10 past eleven tonight, the alarm wouldn't set. And rather than just give me an alarm reset code so I could go home right away, they put me on hold forever, said they'd call me back in ten minutes, put me on hold forever again, and eventually at about midnight they said an engineer was on the way... and he'd be there between 12:30 and 1AM.

 

My shift started at 2PM. I was at work for over 11 hours today. Wasn't busy or anything, but I'd been planning on watching telly for a few hours, instead of sitting around in a closed shop.

[Cristobal]

Hope you get overtime for that.

[AxB]

And then, having got to bed at 4:30 in the morning, I'm woken up four hours later when my neighbour decides that half eight in the morning is a great time to start doing DIY - drilling and hammering, obviously.

[cwoy2j]

I went to a buffet that had you directly pay at the register as you left, no check.  It really is a case-by-case situation.

 

I think a lot of the bigger chain ones like Golden Coral have you pay when you come in. Most of the random Asian buffet places hand you a check at the end or just have you go up to the register (the server will tell the cashier if you got water or soda/beer which would change the price).

[AxB]

Hope you get overtime for that.

 

I will do. Had I known at the outset that it was going to be so long, I might have phoned my boss and let him wait in instead. Only he just became a first-time father 3 weeks ago, and y'know, D.B.A.A. And I didn't know until it was so late, there would have been no point.

[E.J.]

Some all you can eat places will charge you more if you waste their food. Atleast in the ghettos of South L.A. it seems.

[Burgundy LaRue]

 

I went to a buffet that had you directly pay at the register as you left, no check.  It really is a case-by-case situation.

 

I think a lot of the bigger chain ones like Golden Coral have you pay when you come in. Most of the random Asian buffet places hand you a check at the end or just have you go up to the register (the server will tell the cashier if you got water or soda/beer which would change the price).

 

 

Yep, the buffet I'm talking about was an Asian restaurant.  The southern food buffet I went to had you pay as you walk in.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

The following is a stupid vent:

Every time I see anyone say that this has been "a weak year for ______" I want to shake them. Buddy, if you had to hunt to survive, would you give up when the animals moved, or would you follow them? If you are disappointed by how your medium treated you this year, maybe it's because you were expecting the good shit to fall into your lap. The point is the thrill of the hunt, because then when you find something that resonates with you, you fucking found it and that feels great.

In this analogy, TV shows are berries and they're just in the same fucking spots all the time and that's uninteresting but some people just really want berries. Y'all hold down the berry fort, I'm going hunting.

[Cristobal]

So, my boss is having some medical issues, and has been told by his doctor to take it easy. I told him my reports this week would be super-boring so he wouldn't feel compelled to do anything.

Naturally, this is the shit I start to write:

[E.J.]

So I've decided to start a business on the side. Along the lines of stuff that usually sells at farmers markets. I pulled the trigger tonight and bought my first supplies. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I know how tough starting a business is, and especially when my job doesn't pay that great to begin with, but I need to at least try.

[Cristobal]

A friend bought something from China, paid standard shipping $9.99 and got this:

[Joe Lucia]

And I was happy getting something from China in ten days.

[OSJ]

We are moving... A whole six blocks from where we are currently... Seems the folks that own the motel that we lived at for three years also have a property with three houses on it that they want someone that they can trust living there. Rent stays the same for a much bigger place, they've customized the back porch (absolutely huge) to make it as cat friendly as possible. The little guys can roam around and stay behind a fence if they so choose. The place is big enough that we can close our storage unit and actually have the whole book collection displayed. Downside? I hate to move. but this will be the last time. I also hate the idea of re-shelving the whole collection of some 20,000 volumes, but what the hell, I can do it at my speed. Granted, this is the worst time of year to be undertaking such a project, but it is what it is. I like our present place just fine, but there's no guarantee that the landlord doesn't decide to sell, whereas I know George and Mai are all about acquiring and holding properties, so if something happens to me, Mrs. OSJ will be okay and not have to worry about moving. now I'm glad that we never unpacked all the paperbacks from storage. We've got all the hardcovers to the letter "K" done and should finish the job tomorrow. I'll have a variety of nephews on hand to move shelving, so by the weekend we should be down to the bedroom furniture and then be done... So, all told, we save about $75 a month, have a bigger place and (thankfully) this place has double pane windows, so it should be nice and warm during the winter and nice and cool during the summer. This place has huge single-pane windows and it's fucking freezing cold...

[Tabe]

Got a gift card to Barnes and Noble for Christmas. Ordered three used books. Got emails telling me two were unavailable and cancelled. Ordered two more. Got an email saying one was cancelled. Funny, I've ordered probably a hundred used books from Amazon and never once been told the book was unavailable.

[OSJ]

Tabe: That's because Amazon will scour abebooks if need be to fill an order, even at a loss. Assume they lost money on 10% of your orders, they're still way ahead and have conditioned you to shopping with them rather than finding stuff yourself on abebooks.com. Fuck Amazon in the heart.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yea I hate companies that go above and beyond what most companies will do to keep their customers happy.  Fuck those guys.  

[OSJ]

Kevin: I'm a book guy, always have been, what Amazon has done to indy booksellers across the world is horrific. Yeah, maybe I should just acknowledge that superior marketing and loads of dollars is where it's at, but I miss going bookscouting and checking out dozens of small stores in hopes of striking gold. Amazon took that away and I find it unforgiveable. So far, I've bought ONE book from Amazon, (They had the Dr. Fate Archives for like $28 bucks and the thing came out at $75, so in a moment of weakness I caved in.) As it stands, I'll cheerfully spend more just to keep from feeding the monster.

[Cristobal]

They've also pretty effectively Wal-marted a big chunk of the profit out of the publishing industry, which has its faults, but if you like books and can think beyond the amount you personally pay for a book, you'll realize is a terrible harbinger for the future.

[evilwaldo]

Kevin: I'm a book guy, always have been, what Amazon has done to indy booksellers across the world is horrific. Yeah, maybe I should just acknowledge that superior marketing and loads of dollars is where it's at, but I miss going bookscouting and checking out dozens of small stores in hopes of striking gold. Amazon took that away and I find it unforgiveable. So far, I've bought ONE book from Amazon, (They had the Dr. Fate Archives for like $28 bucks and the thing came out at $75, so in a moment of weakness I caved in.) As it stands, I'll cheerfully spend more just to keep from feeding the monster.

 

Small booksellers are making a comeback as Amazon has pushed Barnes & Noble and others out of the space.  The large brick and mortar stores cannot compete with their huge overhead leaving the small stores with small overhead.

 

The Strand in New York is still doing well despite the competition.

 

They've also pretty effectively Wal-marted a big chunk of the profit out of the publishing industry, which has its faults, but if you like books and can think beyond the amount you personally pay for a book, you'll realize is a terrible harbinger for the future.

 

In some ways, self publishing is the way to go and Amazon gives you 70% back if your price is $2.99 or more. 

 

If you were with a traditional publisher you were getting boned unless you were a Stephen King or Danielle Steele type writer. 

 

If you are a writer just entering the space ignore traditional publishing and go the self publishing route.

[Cristobal]

In some ways, self publishing is the way to go and Amazon gives you 70% back if your price is $2.99 or more. 

 

If you were with a traditional publisher you were getting boned unless you were a Stephen King or Danielle Steele type writer.

That's so backward I don't know where to begin.

I suppose we can start with: By cutting into publisher's profits, they can't afford to take risks on new, lesser known writers.

[evilwaldo]

 

In some ways, self publishing is the way to go and Amazon gives you 70% back if your price is $2.99 or more. 

 

If you were with a traditional publisher you were getting boned unless you were a Stephen King or Danielle Steele type writer.

That's so backward I don't know where to begin.

I suppose we can start with: By cutting into publisher's profits, they can't afford to take risks on new, lesser known writers.

 

 

If you were a writer you would understand the economics of the industry and how it is changing but since you like to estalk me around the board attempting to point out errors in my postings I will just put you on ignore.

[Cristobal]

The funny part is, I hadn't taken any notice of this poster until now.

In any event, I wish him the best of luck in his self-publishing "career". If he wants to be successful at it, he'd do well to stop wasting his time watching and posting about wrestling, though, because in addition to needing to be as prolific as any published writer (if not more so,) a self-published author has to be his own publicist, and almost certainly his own agent. Even things he can contract out such as printing (if he bothers to print. Most don't. And if you don't, how exactly do you expect all those independent booksellers to stock your work?) are going to be far more expensive for him due to scale than they would be to a publishing house.

And the market of self-published works is absolutely glutted with garbage from people that only think they can write. How does one stand out? The only way the industry is better for authors now than it was thirty years ago is that the barrier for entry is much lower. If anything, though, the bar you have to clear to make a career of it is even higher.

Now, it's entirely fair to point out that this trend pre-dates Amazon. The consolidation of bookstores into chains, and then fewer and fewer of those, was the first big step into making it harder for new authors to succeed. The second was consolidation of the publishers themselves. But Amazon has done more than just continue this trend. They specifically set out to drastically reduce the profits of sales of e-books (paper and printing is a negligible portion of the cost of print books) in order to increase their own customer base, (as well as to shift the market away from print to their own proprietary system,) in an effort to make themselves as close to a monopoly as they can get away with.

Anyone who wants to argue that a retail monopoly is good for producers is welcome to do so. But, y'know, I don't understand the economics involved...

[OSJ]

Evilwaldo, if you want to throw around remarks like "if you were a writer", then don't be surprised when a real one shows up and takes you to task. Writing is what I do for a living, if you doubt my credibility, it's likely that I've had more books published than you've had pieces of ass. Self-publishing, particularly self-publishing e-books is the resort of the talentless. Have I been "boned" by a publisher? A time or two I've gotten less than I thought I should have, but eventually royalties added up and made the payoff worthwhile.

 

FWIW: If you want to check out what I've done, visit the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and look up "John Pelan". I think my cv will pass muster as a professional who knows what I'm talking about.

 

BTW: If you're going to cite The Strand as a success story,, if might be prudent to disclose WHY they are a success... Pretty damn simple, they own the building that they are in and of course charge themselves far below market value for the space.