Friday, May 21, 2010

Tidbits and more bits.

A guy brought in a copy of a book of poems about mushrooms his son had edited. I started reading some of them aloud.

Amazing how much sexual imagery they can come up with using fungi.

Disgustin', I tell ya.

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Was looking at the covers of my Star Wars Insider and Star Trek Magazines.

Just how many promo shots did they take back then, anyway? Did they know they were going to be a undying franchise? Do all movies get that many promo photo's?

Or have they just been photoshopping actual film footage?

Milk it, baby.

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Had a young family in, and they asked, "Who wrote Robin Hood?"

Ummmm.....Like King Arthur, the answer is -- no one and everyone.

I suppose if I had the Howard Pyle version of Robin Hood, I'd turn them on to that.

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St. Charles turns a profit?

Great. If you don't mind 13% increase in charges and 100 employees affected by cut hours. More expensive and less service. (I lost two long term customers to those cuts....)

But, hey, they turned a profit.

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Mt. Bachelor had 10% more skier visits; though reading the article, it seems due to a longer season and a more consistent snow level.

But, hey, they had an increase.

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I wasn't involved in the stock market during the crash of '08. But this 10% correction that has just occurred has given me a taste of what it must have felt like. Hard to imagine watching your life savings drop by half...

That must have been agonizing.

At the same time, like the falling housing prices, it doesn't feel altogether real. The day to day keeps coming along day to day.

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I realize the trials and tribulations of daily retail probably don't interest most of you, but it's what I do, right?

So after long thought and wishy washy back and forth and then more ruminations and more thought and changing my mind again and then-- as the July ordering period rapidly approaches and wanting a clean slate by paying off all my credit lines -- I arrived at a budget that I thought I could live with. Generous enough to do the job and keep me interested, but lean enough to turn a profit if I was disciplined.

Whew. Glad to finally fix on it.

Woke up the next morning, and DC has the biggest SALE! of the year.

Got to work, and had just about the slowest 3 days in a row in a long while.

Actually, those two events were probably synchronicity.

I'm pretending the SALE! doesn't exist. (Why is it shouting at me?) I'm going yet another week without reorders, which will be the fourth week, I believe. 4 weeks is about as long as I can go without going crazy reordering, and, thus, slow business is a good thing!

Or something like that.

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I've been winnowing down my anime and manga selection for a couple of years now. Very patient about it. Over the last month or so, I've started selling the manga 3/10.00 and the anime for 10.00 each, which means I'm taking a loss on them. But at least I'll be able to write them down on my inventory.

Sometime this summer, I'm going to transition two bookshelves from manga to genre paperbacks, probably science fiction and fantasy.

I've been winnowing down non-sports and older sports cards for over a decade now. Stuff I thought would never sale has slowly trickled out the door. Again, I'm hoping by the end of the year to be able to consolidate into one display case.

I was moving toys around, and found about four of them that had the discolored yellow look from being ancient -- four, out of probably thousands. I'm hoping to clear away a couple of shelves worth of toys over the next year, and turn them over to new books.

Altogether, I'm hoping to be able to add about 5 more bookcases for new books by the end of the year. To go along with the twenty I already have.

Everything sells eventually, if you're patient and take the long view.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Talking about Tidbits, .. ten people at Apples iPhone factory in China have committed suicide recently, because of tough working conditions. Something about over-time and output goals.

I'm moving along. My CPA of 40 years shoved our game plan from sell all in 2012, to sell all now. No problem, I'm tired of waiting to get the fuck out of here for good.

For a long time my CPA had told me that this one was coming back. Now he concludes as me that our 2012 will be just like 1932 depression. The layoffs coming down the line are going to be really bad in late 2010/2011. Proposition now is to sell everything you can, before all liquidity is gone. Bend Gone. Sort of sad that my business adviser has come around to my thinking, could be a harbinger of contrarian-ism. But the fact is the future is not bright for employment in the USA.

It's been a really good time here with you folks, what a hard 4+ years. Pretty soon I'll be doing a bewert, and retiring in SLC.

HBM, when your fucking with your iPhone think about all those dead chinese, ... when they think of Bend they always think of suicide.

PopGoesBend said...

But... I thought this was the best time to by a 800 foot crap shack near Drake Park with 30% down and a 4% loan at BofA? Oh, that was 2007 and 2008 you were giving us that advice, back when our advice was "Buster, sell everything you have now and get back in come 2012 at less than half price." Let us know how much you lose/make on that last place you bought when it finally sells.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but I might add YOU MISSED my fucking CAVEAT.

That you be 25 years old and buy these 50% off crap-shacks, but now it looks like 80% off you buy them on 15 yr fixed. Have them paid by your 40, and retire.

So you missed the essence of my argument. I'm almost 70 years old, emotionally I can no longer manage rentals. My love bewert now calls me in SLC.

I have decided to give up Judaism, and I'm now actively here in Bend persuing the Mormon Church. I figure in a few months I'll be able to load my UHAUL and make the final trip to Utah. Not to worry we all got 2 years of food on hand.

Anonymous said...

"Buster, sell everything you have now and get back in come 2012 at less than half price." Let us know how much you lose/make on that last place you bought when it finally sells.


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POP I love, I mean LOVE you like HOMER&BENDBB loved in the old days. Butt even HBM'S CORNHOLE couldn't get me to ever return to Bend. I don't even want to be buried here.

Back in the day of 2006 I really thought looking forward I could emotionally survive the CALIFORNICATION of BEND. But then along come 2010 and our city-hall is ran by cali-fornicators. I have survived this little town since the 1960's. NOW I'm BEND-GONE.

Of a list of where to RETIRE, Bend would be on the bottom of my fucking list. I figure for me it will be APR-SEP in SLC, and OCT-MAR in Malaysia. Me & Bewert have built a summer home down in KingGeorge in the redrock of southern Utah. When bewerts doing his alley cat thing, I head off to Moab and ride my dirt-bikes.

Like I told you POP I didn't have to sell cuz I paid on average of $25k, back in the day, so even on an exit of $250k, I'm still doing 10X, ... I'm not a greedy man. Just glad to get the fuck out of here.

Things change people change. Most of my friends who are sitting in these Bend $1M+ mega-mansions are now quite jealous of me on my little homes around drake. Those 5k+ sqft BEND-STD(tm) shit don't have a hope in hell to sell. Now is 1932, anybody sitting in a home over 1500 sqft is going to just BURN their money in the coming years feeding the bitch.

I figure when this country goes to hell in the next few years, UTAH will become a Country-State, and we're all stocked with food and armed to the teeth. Enough said.

I want to spend my winter OCT-MAR in the tropics aka HBM. Hawaii doesn't suit me, cuz 20 year old girls have no interest in geezers, but SE-ASIA women actually prefer older men. Paradise.