Looping the Hen

Sometimes people just don't get gamers...

Courtesy of AKBar, who kindly put this up on our department white board yesterday after I brought in some D&D Miniatures *G*:

(Moonbat) Hannibal at the Gates

Much of Jon Stokes discussion of the NSA wiretapping controversy is solid reporting. However, it appears he has a bit of the moonbat lefty in him as well.

First, the article he links is far from a convincing case against the administration, let alone 'skewering.' It glosses over many of the substantial issues, not least of which is the fact that while yes, the NSA was tapping Americans, it does not mention that it was tapping American's who are talking to Al Qaeda or their associates.

I also found his random bashing of Power Line interesting because Powerline, if nothing else, is exhaustive in their discussions of the topics they choose to cover. The folks at Powerline are definitely conservative, strongly so, but not nearly as partisan as many attempt to pin on them. I think people dislike them because, like Michelle Malkin, (who also comes in for the occasional ad hominum at Ars), they are very effective at getting their message out. More effective by far than most of their detractors.

Ars is a great site and I read it twice daily. However, the longer I read the more it becomes apparent that some of the staf there run a lot left of me (nothing wrong with that). They are great news collector's; however, for in-depth analysis (even in their core fields), they have nothing on Powerline.

It's Piracy for Thee but not for Me...Pot, meet Kettle

It appears that the storm troopers at the MPAA have been caught making unauthorized copies of a copyrighted film.

Oh, the lovely irony. The LA Times news account seems pretty even-handed (for them anyway).

To be honest, I don't fully understand or pretend to comprehend what the current copying standards are. However, I do know that if the MPAA thought they could manage it they would chop people's hands off and cane them for even thinking they have the right to make so much as a backup copy without paying some sort of outrageous fee. Considering if they have their way, you won't be able to even own electronic equipment capable of copying your own property.

I figure with the MPAA leading by example, I am going to go make a copy or 10 of something. Actually, according to them: "The courts recognize that parties are entitled to make a copy of a work for use as evidence in possible future proceedings," she said. Maybe I will sue them in the future for attempting to deny me Fair Use rights for property I own; according to them I will be then within my rights to duplicate at will. Neat.

Political rant at the Escapist

As I noted in an earlier post, the quality of writing at the Escapist has improved considerably, and the pretentiousness has for the most part decreased. There are exceptions for every rule.

I was doing a little catch-up on some back issues and ran across an article by Dave Thomas titled 'The Coward.' The issue is dated September 20, 2005.

The article, had it not strayed from the realm of its subject matter to vacuous and partisan political attacks on the administration, would have been a solid read. Dave is obviously a good writer; he is funny, has better grammar than most, and looks like he tries to write about off-the-beaten-path subjects. His unnecessary insertion of politics into an article about people I respect, the heroes of the US Military, utterly cancels any value his article could have had.

To be honest, I had to read many pages before I finally hit the red zone, as early on his partisanship was camouflaged. For example:

In the striptease of saloon conversation, I gave him the OK to let it all hang out. He told me how much he loved his country and how proud he was to serve. Then, leaning forward with the menace of a guy that's at least 220 and built like a vending machine said sternly, "But that doesn't mean I support this administration. That doesn't mean that I'm in favor of what they are doing."

Ok, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but I do understand that even folks in the military don't always approve of the administration's actions, even though the majority support them. However, that paragraph to me screams 'fiction'. Flowery rhetoric followed by a minority opinion expressed as if the author were expressing his own sentiments. His next few paragraphs reinforce this notion:

Then his face fell as he explained how much respect he had for the people in combat, the soldiers that were serving in the line of fire.

So I asked the question.
"How do you feel about a guy like me who never did serve?"

Without a beat, he pinned me with a stare said flatly, "Well, to be honest, I kind of resent that."

Without anger and with very few words, he told me what I already knew - I'm a coward. The only thing that makes this weight a little lighter is that I live in a country of cowards. Being a coward in America is like wearing black clothes at a Nine Inch Nails concert - it's not just a fashion statement, it's a uniform

Umm, really? I'd like to speak with this soldier, because he expresses opinions I have never heard in all the conversations I have ever had with folks in the military (Including 2 brothers, myself, my father, grandfather), and all the reading I have done about them, which in the last 3 years has been considerable. In 1000 anecdotes, letters, stories relayed by folks in the military, I have never once seen any member imply that those at home are cowards. Does it mean that in this case, talking to this writer, it didn't happen? No, of course not, he may be speaking to Pablo Paredes or one of the very few like him. But color me skeptical.

Anyhoo, by this point I'm not sure what the article is trying to say. We're all cowards? Okay, let's tell the folks on Flight 93 that. Tell the tens of thousands of folks who showed up to help in New Orleans that. I believe most people have it in them to be heroes, and in Dave's words, to run up the stairs of a burning building while everyone else is running down. What it seems like Dave would have us to believe is that anyone who doesn't join the military must be a coward, in a country of cowards. Sounds nihilistic to me, and is essentially the same as the chickenhawk theory that only those who have served can speak. It is funny that it is George Bush who actually has given our military the chance to be heroes, to rescue people from tyranny, to 'run up the stairs of a burning building.' In fact, a whole country of burning buildings, human-eating woodchippers, mass graves and rapists. Dave continues on in this vein:

Worst of all, like all the Emo kids who think acting deep means that you actually have anything inside your hollow pubescent chest, the modern American coward thinks they've got it all figured out. They don't call it cowardice; they call it the "American Dream." And only Americans seem to mix up that this dream is just the fantasy of becoming rich and famous. The American Dream is the hallucination of ultimate leisure, of fast cars, early tee times and hot wives spread out across lush backyard BBQs from sea to shining sea.

Really? Striving for the American Dream is now the ultimate expression of cowardice? Wow. So let me ask, if that soldier above wanted to live the American Dream described by Dave a few paragraphs down, would that make him a coward too? I don't know about Dave, but my American Dream, and most of my family and friends' American Dreams have, well, nothing to do with being rich or famous. Sure, that's anecdotal at best, but the author of the article provides no support for his assertion either. My American Dream is to have no debt, a wife, kids, some friends, poker every Friday night, and sex three times a week. And to retire with all my loved ones living within 10 miles from me. I don't know of but a handful of people who long to be rich and famous to the extent they call it their American Dream.

The author continues to blather on for a while about how we are all cowards replacing courage with fey patriotism and some other nonsense. It seems to me that there are more words in the article showing disdain toward the average guy (and not so average guy, as we learn that Lance Armstrong isn't a hero either, just " some super freaky human like the Flash or Wolverine,") than it does exploring what I think is supposed to be the point of the article. I thought he said he was doing an article on the military, but maybe I misread that line.

Finally, we do find some meat in the article, and it seems the author does have some talent for reviewing games.

The second most interesting thing about the game is that it's fun. This is interesting because we assume that the government can't do anything right - at least not as well as the private enterprise of the free market. So, people are surprised to find that AA is good enough that you'd actually think about spending a few bucks to buy a copy. Which leads us to the most interesting thing about the America's Army game: It's free. ...

For example, characters in the game say things like "Range walk," which presumably is something real drill instructors yell at real recruits. If you do stupid things like say, shoot your commanding officer, you'll loose rank and even end up in the brig. (Which is probably something more squad-based online games should consider.)

There is some more good stuff in there worth reading, but it doesn't last even a full page, before we get hit by another rhetorical smart-bomb:

Thanks to a war that nobody really wants to be in, but no one seems to have the slightest idea how to get out of, the Army is missing its recruitment goals by hundreds of thousands of enlistees a year. Politics aside, the arsenal of democracy is running out of floor staff. McDonald's has less trouble staffing the fry station than the Army has putting butts in state-of-the-art combat vehicles.

Hmm...does he read the same source documents the rest of us do? The US Army releases its recruiting figures regularly, and they appear in a number of places:

September’s recruitment numbers for the Army components could indicate a stronger fiscal year in 2006 in terms of overall recruitment. Actual recruitment numbers in 2005 fell slightly short of projected enlistments for all three Army components.

• The active-duty Army gained 8,710 new Soldiers into its ranks in September, exceeding that month’s goal of 8,365 by 345. Fiscal year 2005 active-duty Army recruitment goals stood at 92 percent complete, with 73,373 new Soldiers joining the force. The mission goal was to recruit 80,000.
• The Army Reserve accessed 2,208 Soldiers into its ranks during September, exceeding its goal by 190 Soldiers. At the end of fiscal year 2005, the Reserves Army accessed 23,859 Soldiers, 84 percent of its mission goal of 28,485.
• The Army National Guard gained 6,048 Soldiers in September, 98 percent of its monthly goal of 6,148. A total of 50,219 Soldiers joined the Guard’s ranks by the end of the fiscal year, 80 percent of its recruitment goal of 63,002.

The size of the active-duty Army has increased by 13,000 Soldiers since Sept. 11, 2001. The number of active-duty Soldiers is approximately 492,600. The Army Reserve end-of-year strength was roughly 189,000 Soldiers, and the National Guard’s forces numbered about 333,200.

I'm guessing Dave wouldn't want facts getting in the way of a good narrative. The Army isn't even looking for hundreds of thousands enlistees in a year (well, close, at 171k or so). For 2005, reenlistment goals were actually at 108% of goal, a strong indicator of just how much support there is in the military for 'a war that nobody really wants to be in.' Even initial enlistment was off only around 15%, or around 24,000 men, a huge difference from Dave's fantasy. If you count the additional recruitment from reenlistment, it is a total recruiting shortfall of 18,000 or so. I would venture that the additional 6,000 reenlisting soldiers also carry a ton of additional value over raw recruits due to their experience.

We go on to hear Dave drop other hard-left talking points, such as 'Bush was not democratically elected, he's a confused dog owner,' and other asshattery, including a swipe at the Governator.

So I am still wondering, what was the point of the article? Was it to truly provide us a view into the Army's marketing campaign, centerpieced by America's Army? Or was he looking for an editorial soapbox? You can decide for yourselves, but I'll put my vote on the latter.

Okay, that was too long, me and my cowardly dreams are off to watch Smallville!

More fun with the Music Nazis

A few stories I had planned on linking last week, brought to us by our friends at Ars!

The RIAA plays Eddie Haskell. Coldplay gives its fans the finger. And finally, the RIAA by Orwell.

Since it is obvious that the RIAA (and bands like Coldplay) do not want to work with or for the fans, from now on I say 'Long Live the Pirates.' I think I'll try to come up with a logo.

MMOG Customer Service: Good For a Change!

I have to say that although in the beginning CCP (maker of Eve Online) was a little confontational or secretive about issues (as many game-makers are), since after the first 6 months or so, they have consistently and openly dealt with problems far better than any other game company I have dealt with. The following is an email I received from CCP today and an example of what I mean:

Dear Toby Truman

We have reason to believe that some account passwords may have been
compromised. Therefore, to fully ensure protection of your account, we have
changed your password to:

username: **********
password: *******

As this is being sent through unencrypted e-mail, wed like to ask you to
proceed directly to our Account Management site (https://secure.eve-
online.com/login.asp) and change
your password again to an all new password. This is to further minimize
the risk of security breach

We want to emphasize that we do not store credit card information,
the only risk was concerning password usage and subsequent abuse of the
accounts in question.

Remember: CCP will never ask you for your password.

We thank you for your patience in this matter and deeply apologize for the
inconvenience this has caused.
The EVE Support Team

Clean, no BS, just the facts, an apology, and a fix. I like it.

Good Answer

This is the response I received from the vendor in response to the letter in my prior post. I'm pretty happy with it, and it conforms to how I like my vendors to respond to me and my employer if there is a problem: accepting of responsibility, statement of how they are willing to fix the problem, and offer of reasonable recompense. I am pretty sure we'll work out something that is a win for us both!

This is great. First off let me start with we are very sorry that this happened and are willing to make it right. I have a new shipper and yes if we are going to ship it Priority for free then a free priority box should have been used. The one problem I do have is that (and I know you didn't come out and say it) is we would never open the box and re sale it. Your box was pulled off the self and shipped directly to you un tampered. We do want your feedback and are willing to try to make it right, within reason. Our police is that you can return the product for a full refund or replacement that would be shipped in a box. We normally do not pay for the return shipping but this time we would for you or you could just put return to sender on the box and drop it in the mail. My opening statement of this is great refers to your commitment to communicating instead of just leaving -feedback. We want to make this right and would like to keep you coming back. Once again We are sorry. Jeremy Owner

Buyer Beware!

I very rarely consider leaving negative feedback on Ebay, however this is one case where it was a very close thing. To be honest, the tendency for folks to leave negative feedback in return (even though I paid for my item immediately and did everything a buyer should) is the only reason I won't. However, below is the letter I sent to Neverland Comics, where I bought a D&D Miniature Starter Set:

Ma'am/Sir,

I recently decided to try out D&D Minis. Whenever I am thinking about getting into a new hobby, I typically do a bit of research, as I am one of those that goes 'all out'. I purchased on Ebay a case of Giants of Legends and one of Aberrations, as well as Underdark Cases from another website. I also purchased from Neverland Comics an Aberrations Starter Set. I liked the fact that you had a good price with no huge 'shipping markup' like many Ebayers use.

However, when I received my product I was appalled. Dungeons and Dragons Mini's are a 'collectible', and part of a collectible is the packaging of the product. When I received my purchase and saw that the packaging was used as the shipping container, and that the box not only had labels all over it but was also damaged, I was fairly upset. (I tried to imagine reselling it: 'D&D Mini Starter pack; box is damaged with labels over the entire front image, please bid!) Also, with the way that the item was packaged and taped, there was no way I could tell whether the package had been opened prior to it being shipped to me. (I am not implying it was, but I am unable to determine one way or another). I have read stories of unscrupulous folks opening boxes and resealing them and selling only the ones with a cheap rare.

I guess what I find most disturbing is that with the $3.85 Priority Mail Neverland Comics used to ship the item, you can use, for free, one of USPS's Priority Mail boxes. As a large company with thousands of feedback and probably 10's of thousands of transactions, I am not sure why you would not take advantage of free shipping materials from the United States Postal Service. Even if using a container bumped it up to a 2lb package, I would have preferred to cough up the additional $1.05 for shipping than to receive the item as I did.

I am not going to leave negative feedback, as I know that typically leads to retaliatory negative feedback; however, in good conscience, I can't leave positive feedback either. As a company where most of your transactions are larger than mine, I don't know if this letter will do any good. However, I hope in the future you will package other folks' collectibles more professionally than mine, and realize that it is not only the contents of a box that make something 'collectible'. If I hadn't actually planned on opening and playing with the figures and instead wanted to collect the item, I would have been even more upset and most likely returned the item.

For full disclosure, I will be posting this letter on my weblog, www.loopingthehen.com, and will be glad to post, in full, any response you may send back.

Thank you for your time!
Tobias Truman

Just FYI, to make matters worse, I received the Giants of Legend Case prior to this shipment by 2 days, even though I ordered it 4 days after this one.

Financial Plan for 2006

I don't know about anyone else, but my budget never seems to jive with reality! It shows I should have around $1,000 or more spare income per month after all my bills are paid, retirement accounts funded, etc. I even included standard additional expenses such as movies and online games into the numbers. Maybe Christmas did me in this year; I didn't expect to go as all-out as I did. The $60 Jager-bomb nights don't help either I guess. Getting back into running also whacked me with new shoes, 5 or 6 outfits, cold-weather gear, and $25 entry fees.

I think I'll do a Dave Ramsey month and write down absolutely every expense, from gas and hot pockets to individual junk out of the vending machines. My new health plan kicks in this next paycheck also, blech, and I have to take that into account. I've got some sort of wrist/tendon problem that's caused me nothing but grief and expense this year, and I am willing to do darn near anything to fix it, so I moved to the maximum plan where I work.

Anyhoo, I was looking at what is on my wish-list (anything over $200) for 2006, and it's around $11,900, with $6200 in household expenses: an entertainment center, washer/dryer, LCD TV, and new hardwood floor for my dining room and kitchen. The other are a vacation, Xbox, and pistol, among other toys. The total is what I am setting as my goal for home-based revenue. Maybe a bit of a stretch, but I had an initial goal of $2500 for 2005, and did quite a bit better; I'll be looking hard at revenue stream opportunities in gaming collectibles. Anyone with any ideas for making money with under $1,000 capital let me know, and I'll keep y'all updated on what I am doing.

Not sure what month this is...

But it's 65 degrees out and I'm about to go tooling to Walmart with the top down! Need my weekly supply of Hot Pockets and Wheaties.

Magic Man!

Wow, I haven't been very good at Magic in quite a long time. (in comparison to the Online folks) I've won two straight drafts today, 12-1 in games. I had a near 1900 level player berate me for how horrible a drafter a was, in some colorful terms, as I beat him 2-0.

My Limited rating up to 1742, go me! Drafts are free today other than the cost of boosters, which I'm up 2 from when I started the day. I traded in for a live Darksteel set yesterday, I'm hoping to finish out a Champions set today. (probably not, unless I manage to pull a Cranial Extraction)

Whee!

Update: That's more typical.;) Went out in 2nd round the last 2 drafts. Still not bad, but puts me at 8-2 in matches and 16-5 in games for the day. I opened 12 boosters and it was free to play all day; I also won 12 boosters, so I ended up way ahead. The best cards I drafted were Kagemaro and Keiga, the two together are around $10 on Ebay. Not a bad way to waste a day.

Arbitrage, original construct

I know I went off on arbitrage in the dating realm a while back, and although the theory was sound, it was not very practical for me. I've been surprised that after learning what it was (generally speaking), how often I have heard it used. On the news, in print, online; I've just never noticed it before.

So I have been wandering around Ebay the last several days, and it struck me that it is probably possible to use Ebay similar to a stock market. Buy something low, and turn around and figure out how to sell it for more. I have been looking at getting into D&D Miniatures, and the ranges, or spread, on some of Wizards collectibles is large enough that if one could consistently get a specific price selling something, they would know what they needed to buy it at to make a profit.

For example, I bought this item at $175 total, which is at the low end of what it is currently selling for. I think I can reasonably sell this for about $210 30 days from now, +/- a little. After fees and shipping, that's probably a $20-25 profit, for probably 40 minutes worth of work. Not bad, but is it repeatable? There are a number of additional considerations.

Does one have a high enough feedback rating to have people pay premium prices? Can one cover the spread of fees between Ebay and Paypal, which can easily be 5-10% of the selling price? (at least on the small items I normally sell; the % decreases the higher the price of the item) Can one live with the vagaries of the market and the fact that at any time, an item might sell at less than what it was bought for? And for me, most importantly, can one make enough to make it worth the time to do it?

How about those folks who sell sets of cards or miniatures? They actually open all the packages, put together sets, sell the ultra-rares singly. Selling sets has to be profitible (considering the number of people who do it for a living), but I have yet to actually put together the numbers about how much investment one would have to put in to count on having sets. When I was playing Magic, we were talking about 10 or more boxes of boosters to guarantee a set, an investment that could be in the $600-700 range. If I bought miniatures cases, there are 12 rares per case; there are 20-30 rares in a set, so counting the vagaries of sorting, I am guessing 3-4 cases to guarantee a set, somewhere in the $300 range. The nice thing about miniatures sets is even the new ones are selling for $160-$180, so even if I had to purchase a couple of figures to make a 2nd set, I've covered the input cost fairly easily. All the figures left over are the 'profits' and just like in Magic, the good rares will run $5-$10. 4 cases of figures is 384 total figures; 2 sets leaves 250. Even at an average of 50 cents each, that looks like $120 profit per run, more if there are some good chase uncommons.

The question then becomes, how much time is it to sort, sell and ship 2 sets and 250 figures? Say several folks buy a few each, so I am shipping out to 150 people. At 3 minutes each (assuming a good labelling system), I've just invested nearly 8 hours to make $120. I could almost do better delivering pizza. Of course, if my numbers are off low and I average $1.00 per spare figure, it becomes a much more lucrative operation. If I am low due to packaging (though if one ships standard USPS at $3.85 the packaging is free), then one might be working for minimum wage.

The third option and one I am looking at is purchasing a case of 12 boxes of miniatures like I did, then selling them off singly at $20-$25 each. On one side, I get a discount for purchasing in bulk, and then a premium for selling singly.

Saint was always better at trading/selling Magic cards than I was, so maybe he has some input or data that would help see if my numbers are off!

Anyhow, my goal for this year is to make more off of Ebay than I did this year (around $6,000). Its going to be a challenge, as my 'easy money' is going away, so I am going to have to put some research into figuring out how to invent opportunities. Anyone who has any expertise in collectibles could probably do very well in their field never venturing outside Ebay, even with their ridiculous fees.

Update:

Looking at the set checklist for the newest set, there are now 24 rares and 9 ultra-rares in a set; that probably means 5-6 cases, or a $600 investment, and probably a $200-$300 return. Not bad, I may go ahead and try it and see what happens. More later!