09-21-2017, 09:01 AM | #4001 | ||
我が名は勇者王!
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09-21-2017, 10:07 AM | #4002 |
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Toys 'R' Us has been walking dead for at least the past ten years. My final memories of them doing decently -- not great, just decently -- was during the first three generations of Pokémon. I went there to buy a lot of Pokémon boosters during Fossil, BS2 (didn't buy BS2; just listing the era), Team Rocket, Gym Heroes, and Gym Challenge. I pre-ordered my copy of Pokémon Ruby from there. I guess you could say it was one of my several "Pokémon stops" back in grade school.
By the time Gen 4 came out in America in the spring of 2007, Toys 'R' Us had already become what I've known it to be for the past ten years: Almost no customers inside. 99% of the customers there without children under the age of 10 leave empty-handed. Dirty floors. Crappy junk toys and swimming pool crap first thing when you walk in. Quickly followed by kiosks of overpriced TCG products. Followed then by two aisles of the latest / most popular action figures for boys and girls, all of them again priced at or above MSRP. A video game aisle beyond this, with very few titles per console (maybe 20 to 30 max), many sold out or unstocked, none of them priced competitively. A shelf filled with games for the last generation's consoles and handhelds, but pretty much all of the games are shovelware crap: casino games, Barbie games, Nick Toons games, deer hunting games, crap no one wants. To the side of this, video game consoles selling at or above MSRP. To the side of this, a board game shelf filled with board games, all of them too expensive, most of them crap. To the side of this, an aisle with bicycles. Decent for kids ages 6-14, but nothing here worth buying for older kids or adults. In the back, the babies' toys area ... also, somewhere along there, the place where they put electronic keyboards. Few worth buying. Having not been a kid in years, and having not had kids of my own, I guess I can't really speak too strongly for the state of the toys industry right now. But providing my own semi-blind estimation of Toys 'R' Us's state of affairs, it feels like for years now ... they've either sold Dollar Store crap (either for Dollar Store prices or for hilariously expensive prices) or else they've sold expensive stuff but at or above MSRP. They've had no middle ground products, no "good quality, price range of $10 to $20" products aside from action figures. Either you're buying pool noodles and floaties or else you're paying $39.99 for Pokémon Sun. And the problem there is, people with adult interests and an adult cash flow ... they're not going to drive out of their way to some specialty toy store just to get MSRP'd. They're going to go on Amazon and order the product, and possibly get it for a few bucks cheaper than they would have had they gone somewhere in person. A lot of people say, "Brick and mortar stores won't all die to the likes of Amazon, because people like me have to have things same-hour, never mind same-day, and Amazon just can't fulfill that desire (yet)." But the problem for Toys 'R' Us is, toys are very much so one of those things that, as the adult making the purchase, you don't have to have the product same day. You can afford to wait the two to seven days it'll take Amazon to ship you the toy. You might need a spark plug immediately. You might need motor oil immediately. You might need food immediately. You don't need Settlers of Catan, the PlayStation 4, or an action figure of Kylo Ren immediately. All of those can wait. And because all of those can wait, you can afford to order off of Amazon and get a better deal than you would have by driving to Toys 'R' Us, burning gas, and paying full price for something just to have it the very same day.
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09-21-2017, 10:27 AM | #4003 | |
我が名は勇者王!
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Not necessarily. I didn't go to Toys "R" Us as a child because I wanted to get my stuff and get out (as I do at Wal-Mart). I went there to be Charlie Bucket taking his grand tour of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
The stores themselves are a child's fantasy made real, so there is a niche were Amazon can't compete. Games, cards*, okay that's better done online. But Toys "R" Us is an adventure in and of itself. But these Millennials are wretched human scum, case in point: Quote:
Pretty much fits what I've seen of these parents who treat their kids like they're pets or obligations. Their own social life take precedence over the kids' welfare. It's no secret that I look down on yuppies who put their kids in daycare because they don't want to get jobs where it's actually the kid's welfare first. How much do you care about your children if you're letting another person raise them, huh punks? *Actually not considering the high amounts of fraud these days.
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09-21-2017, 11:34 AM | #4004 |
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09-23-2017, 11:43 PM | #4005 | |
Problematic Fave
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There is a lot of potential for that store to carve itself out as the impulse buy store, but it's too expensive. You can't run in there and find some cute fun practical $5-20 shit to bring home to your kids or to drop off to your nephews. Instead you're looking at the $30-50 price range and beyond. Nobody buys stuff at that price point on impulse! What, you think people are going to ToysRUs like it's Bed Bath and Beyond???? NOBODY FUCKING GOES THERE EITHER. The only reason that store holds its head above water is because it has a good reputation and people go there for a specific reason. You can't even go to ToysRUs for cheap toys.
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09-24-2017, 08:56 AM | #4006 |
我が名は勇者王!
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This doesn't paint a very flattering picture of Brits and Aussies, however. 40 degrees C is pretty hot, but -20 degrees C is only -4 degrees fahrenheit, which is not that cold. Especially if there's no wind chill. The worst it got up here last year was -40 degrees C. You guys would turn into popsicles.
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09-24-2017, 09:22 AM | #4007 |
The Uncultured One
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Who the fuck uses fahrenheit
Also it's Britain, if it ever hit -20C over here then the entire infrastructure of everything would have utterly collapsed, so we would probably be dead because everyone's central heating broke because the pipes all ruptured.
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09-24-2017, 10:10 AM | #4008 | |
我が名は勇者王!
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Britain's best son, that's who.
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I had no exposure to cold temperatures before moving to the North Pole. Genetically, I should be (and am) highly tolerant of high humidity and temperature, but cold was always an open question. -20 degrees C is sort of balmy, especially when there's snow out. You can go out in short sleeve and short pants in such weather. Granted though, this is probably the warmest you can go and still pull that off. -25 is where I would start to bundle up some. Brits would be fine. But not at -40. That one's harsh.
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09-24-2017, 05:20 PM | #4009 |
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I can testify that -20 C really isn't that bad. I mean, it is, but "it could be worse" is how we feel about it. One of the most brutal things I ever had to do was spend over an hour walking home from work in the winter about ten years ago. I was too lazy to call somebody to come pick me up so I just walked instead, which transcends into a whole new level of laziness. Why did I have to walk home? Because my car wouldn't start. Why wouldn't my car start? Because it was the coldest day of the year. If I recall, it was -32 C not counting the wind chill factor, which pushed it to about -45 C.
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09-24-2017, 11:40 PM | #4010 | |
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Quote:
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09-25-2017, 02:55 AM | #4011 |
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Actually on that day I was feeling more like
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09-27-2017, 11:25 PM | #4012 |
我が名は勇者王!
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I'm posting this here because we must all he suffering in the ninth circle but don't know it yet.
Kimi no na wa live action American remake greenlit, produced by J.J. ABRAMS (WARNING THE WHOLE PLOT IS SPOILED IN THAT LINK!) arrrrrgggghh fuck this...
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09-28-2017, 01:43 AM | #4013 | |
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Man, this article goes to shit right from the get-go though. "SCI-FI" ...? No. Kimi no Na wa is in no way a science fiction piece. That would be like calling A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court science fiction. "'Arrival' scribe Eric Heisserer will write the script for the live-action adaptation" ... Or, you know, you could just, leave the original script intact and have white people speaking English in live action. Because that's all this is really about, isn't it? "It's a great story but American audiences won't watch it because JAPENEEZ and CARTOONS." So change what you've gotta change (the ethnicities and the medium), but leave the fucking script alone. You know, the script that's making audiences internationally go 'WOW'. I have a bad feeling about this. This feels like Ghost in the Shell all over again. WHY CAN'T I LIVE IN THE TIMELINE WHERE GUILLERMO DEL TORO AND HBO DIDN'T DROP THEIR PLANS TO DO A LIVE-ACTION MONSTER?
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09-28-2017, 02:11 AM | #4014 |
我が名は勇者王!
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People are criticizing Abrams all over the place for being un-creative and tactless and the response has been...accusations of anti-semitism. Okay. I didn't even know he was a jew, and really celebrities calling nazi at anyone who criticizes them is the low hanging fruits of self defense.
Reminds me of when Ryan Braun criticized the LabCorp-contracted courier who screwed up the chain of custody for his positive urine drug screen. He called him an anti-semetic Cubs fan. You can't get any more slanderous, calling someone a Cubs fan.
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10-16-2017, 09:10 AM | #4015 |
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10-16-2017, 09:31 AM | #4016 | |
我が名は勇者王!
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Cardiacs take note: You can't live with a broken heart.
Reminds me of a quote I saw on the telly just yesterday: (In reference to Harvey Weinstein) Quote:
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10-16-2017, 10:52 PM | #4018 |
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10-16-2017, 11:58 PM | #4019 |
我が名は勇者王!
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I never knew Count von Count sounded like an English Norio Wakamoto. o_o
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10-17-2017, 01:11 AM | #4020 |
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Since I just shared this with my friend and Dopple reminded me of it:
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11-20-2017, 04:08 PM | #4021 |
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d'aww Epic Bidoof. :'3
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12-07-2017, 10:24 AM | #4023 |
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Texas Prisons Ban 10,000 Books. No ‘Charlie Brown Christmas’ for Inmates. But 'Mein Kampf' is allowed.
Person 1: I've heard people argue that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Never heard the one about Mein Kampf being a Christmas classic. Spoiler: show
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12-10-2017, 04:33 AM | #4024 |
我が名は勇者王!
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It's been said Zelda CDI was done by a Russian animation team.
You can see some similarities in this, an ad for an infamous scam called Neuromama. The company had no products or services but used the "neuro" buzzword to get crazy European investors to dump money into it. Enough to pay a Russian clown to make trippy videos.
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12-12-2017, 07:20 PM | #4025 |
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Harry Potter and the Portrait of what Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash
If I had to pick, I think my favorite bit would be what begins with "They cast a spell or two" and ends with "hungrier than he had ever been." But there are simply too many gems to choose from ... I want to quote, like, half the friggin' text. Good God.
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