Be Excellent To Each Other

We all know R Kelly is a pervert but did you know he runs a sex cult?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimderogatis/p ... qq2nD45G6m

By all accounts the 12-Play star is a fucking horrible cunt of a human.

I could happily just stayed in bed this morning. Yaaaaaaaaaawwwwwn....

God, me too. Motivation levels are pretty low this week.

Phone interview yesterday, one in an hour today, 2 recruiters calling me back over other jobs. Not in the mood for work.

Yesterday's went well enough to move to face to face! This mornings has been rearranged.

Mali, if you don't mind me asking.. It does seem like you're always applying for jobs and moving around. How long have you been in your current role?

Good luck by the way!

3 years. I want more money*, CPD, and stuff like that. Not wanting to be sat with my boss and colleague awaiting retirement. I need line management experience to get the jobs i interviewed for in Oct, and won't get it here, so i now am in board of charity with three employees.

*I'm below market rate for someone shifting £60million of goods each year about

#movetolondon

I think "properties I can afford to buy on those wages to maintain current space, etc "exists above a line from Hull to Cardiff.

A 2 bed ex council flat in Shoreditch is £385k!

This mornings lot now want a face to face in Manc.

Hot property, me.

Cultural lunchtimes! I nipped into the New New Bodleian to have a quick look at their new exhibition on Jane Austen. As ever, some great stuff on display so I'm going to have to make a longer visit to take it all in.

They also had some lunar-related stuff out in the main hall to celebrate World Moon Day, which I didn't realise was a thing but was quite cool.

Enjoyed that, thanks. It also reminded me to wander into our friendly and knowledgeable DVD rental place, who are clinging on to life, and throw some money at them. Got a lot of talk about Dr Who, Firefly, Dark Matter and Killjoys (latter two Canadian Sci Fi series, not sure what they're aboot) for my money.

Oh yeah, 20th July is when they landed on the moon. Is today Moon day?

Ah, that explains it!

That was 48 years ago. Wow.

Glad you posted that as it reminded me to go and read the rest of the article.

It certainly can't be easy running an independent game shop these days. In town, we have a Game and an independent store, The Game Pad. The latter is usually pretty empty though - they're not in a great spot, so don't get a lot of footfall. At least they do have a mix of modern and retro stuff though, some gaming memorabilia and a bit of Game Workshop stuff. If they'd tried to compete with Game directly on modern formats, they'd have probably shut down a long time ago. That side, the lack of customers in there doesn't exactly bode well.

Manaflux probably have the right idea - they sell comics, board games, card games etc, but they have little tournaments and a sell snacks and coffee, so it's a social thing too.

Interesting thing, the footfall - I'm certainly not suggesting all is definitely well, but I was intrigued by those shops in the article that have relocated to a cheaper part of town to keep on going. It seems counter-intuitive. Putting that to DVD-man, though, he reckoned they wouldn't have survived at the busier, more chi-chi end of town. More people would have come in, for sure, but he reckons they'd have just commented on how nice it was to see the shop, wandered round, then pushed off. Whereas walking all the way to the other end of the high street, for those who have to, means people might be more likely to spend money.

Not an issue for me, mind, as I live that end of town. I go there deliberately to spend money, and not, generally, just to look. Other than 'geek club', end of every month, when we just get drunk and talk.

I know a guy who runs a bottle shop and bar. When another opened up on tne same street, his sales increased. This is because people now travel to go to both. It's very counterintuitive.

Yeah, I can certainly see both sides of the argument. Having more visitors is one thing, but if they're not going to buy anything, then there's little point. If people know about a specialist shop that might interest them, they'll go a bit out of their way to investigate, but in the case of The Game Pad, I suspect a lot of people don't even know it's there. They have a Facebook page, but no actual website, which doesn't help.

That reminds me - I'd forgotten about a third option for games in town, CEX. I did notice that the shop next door to them was vacant and the thought did cross my mind as to whether a retro shop next to them would actually work. As long as they're stocking slightly different things, the two shops could actually complement each other.

The retro shop that I visit has a Facebook page and from what I can tell, he does 90% of his business through that. It helps that he's on a High Street away from anything similar though and also, judging by the comments on his page, the people that buy the stuff have more money than sense.

I'm not counting myself in that by the way as I don't ever use Facebook to comment on anything.

Facebook seems to be getting more and more popular for buying and selling, but from all the groups I've joined (and then left), everyone seems to massively overvalue their own stuff.

Absolutely. There's no end of people willing to buy whatever he puts up without haggling on the price.

He also does weekly raffles where he'll put up a console or something desirable and offer so many raffle tickets at a couple of quid a pop. It's very clever because it means that he'll sell the item for more than any one individual would pay and it keeps the stock moving. There must have been people having a go every week who haven't won anything yet. The money soon adds up...

Either that or the twunts that respond to the ads completely undervalue both the items and the seller's time.

"Antique bone-china dinner set, 48 piece. Engraved by the Duke of Wellington himself and inlaid in gold filigree with the Regiment's "mound of dead Frenchmen laying on top of a mound of dead Frenchmen" motif. £200."

"Would you take 50p, and deliver to me 200 miles away?"

it's also illegal to run a lottery like that...

We'll yes, I did think that myself but I didn't want to go into the details because the one and only 'raffle' I entered, I won.

You're assuming he's unlicensed

oh Bruce.

http://www.bruceonpolitics.com/2017/07/ ... t-britain/

Huh. There's a "festival of visual sonic arts" in Glasgow every year called Sonica which hosts some wonderfully batshit audio-visual stuff that I'm really looking forward to. They've just announced the full programme for 2017 and one of the items is Dear Esther Live. It's pretty much what it says on the tin, a series of playthroughs of Dear Esther in the Tramway theatre, but the blurb accompanying it implies that the music for each playthrough will be performed live, which is interesting.

That IS interesting. I'd be well up for that if it wasn't miles away.

It's a known business thing. This is why you get "districts" of retail businesses.

Yo, I need a new telly.
Up to 450, ideally around the 40 inch mark. RMD.

a bloke running a games shop via Facebook? I think that was a fair assumption...

You'll get 2 tellies for that. Buy a 55in one!

I re-watched 'Conspiracy Theory' last night and that post could easily have been lifted from the plot.

As an aside, Amazon lists Conspiracy Theory as a 'rom com/thriller'. Ok, there are elements of romance, and certainly some funny bits, but I can't imagine watching Mel Gibson having his eyelids taped open and getting tortured would set the right mood on valentine's day. Or maybe it would.

https://www.richersounds.com/product/tv ... g-43uh603v

Looks a good bet.

https://www.richersounds.com/product/tv ... tx40dx700b

Really pleased with my Panasonic but this one above is 4k too.

Just check on the connections, depends how many devices you'll be having plugged in. Unless you have an HDMI receiver to pass things through. Like me.

In the taxi on the way back to Langdale, the taxi driver was a big scouse guy. Bermuda shorts, shaven head, la coste polo shirt, blue toith ear piece, greek cigarettes and snow white trainers. I liked him from the get go, as a non judgey person I appreciate the local colour. Anyway, we were all chatting about Tom Hanks films and he was trying to remember "The name of the one where Tom Hanks is in law enforcement and there's the autistic kid". Turns out, he meant Mercury Rising, not, as I thought, Toy Story.

£100 though, how long did it take?

About 45 mins (looking at text message and bar receipt)to get us from Wasdale Inn to Sticklebarn pub (where I got out) over Hardknott and Wrynose and then however long to get to Ambleside to drop the others. Paid a bit of a tourist tax, but over the passes in someone else's car always good.

Bit of a tourist tax, (I've paid £25 each way in the lakes to go 500 yards as the crow flies (2 miles by road) as cab on meter from Penrith.) But decision was "walk extra 5 hkurs around scarfell and back over Bow fell or walk one hour, 4 pints a meal and £25 each home.

Oh, we passed the little railway that made MrsA pregnant which was amusing.

The little engine that could, eh?

You should have just stayed in the pub and sent the one with the greatest chance of survival back over the hill to get the car.

Please please please don't ever stop posting

£25 to arrive at Sticklebarn 6 hours earlier better call, mind. The girls in there were beautiful.

Have to get Mali and Kern to the next Tinkers meet.

Yesterday a woman named Julia emailed me and called me Scott.

Today I've emailed her back and called her Julie.

Heh, nice one, Scotty.

Can you just check to make sure you're not in a summer romcom?

Would love to. Perhaps next year?

Perhaps later this year too!