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Post by The Captain on Mar 23, 2020 10:04:32 GMT -5
I thought Mecha left over personal life issues, not because of anything here? Oh, I know that. It's just that he was a regular participant in a lot of threads and was an all-around great member, and his presence is definitely missed.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 23, 2020 9:52:28 GMT -5
Shines
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Post by The Captain on Mar 23, 2020 8:50:49 GMT -5
Captain America Marvel Masterworks Vol. 6 collects #137-148. There are several volumes afterwards collecting subsequent issues, but I am not sure how long Romita's run was, it's been years since I looked at those issues. -M Thanks. That info wasn't available on the usual sites. I discovered it on eBay and instock trades, by they want 34 and up for them. I'll wait it out for a cheaper alternative. There is an Epic Collection that starts at issue #139 and goes through #159. They're currently going for about $50 on eBay, but you do get twice as many issues as the Masterworks that @mrp referenced, so it might be worth you looking into.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 23, 2020 8:28:56 GMT -5
Starting to feel a little stressed out about this whole coronavirus thing.
My sister (who is an ob/gyn) informed me yesterday that for the foreseeable future, I would have to be the sole caretaker for our parents, as she is classified "high risk" for exposure to the virus. They aren't terribly high maintenance, at least not at the moment, but this adds a lot to my plate.
On top of that, now I'm worried about my sister. She should be OK, as she's 43 and in great physical health (exercises daily, eats little meat but lots of veggies and legumes and good stuff), but she's my only sibling and the aunt that my daughters are closest to and my wife's best friend, and I think I would be far more devastated if I lost her than if I lost my own mother (my dad is a whole different story).
As well, I'm trying to figure out how to keep my church afloat financially through all of this (not alone, mind you, but as part of the leadership) as well as determining if the swim club we belong to (and which I sit on the board of) is even going to open this summer.
Is it too early for a drink, even if it's just a small one?
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Post by The Captain on Mar 23, 2020 8:17:16 GMT -5
Bubble
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Post by The Captain on Mar 23, 2020 8:15:50 GMT -5
Well that sucks.
First MechaGodzilla bails, and now taxidriver deletes his account too? Hell, at this point, the only regular participant left in the Wrestling thread is codystarbuck, and I don't know or follow wrestling nearly close enough to keep up with him.
If either of you guys are reading this, PLEASE COME BACK!! I'll make you cookies if you do (OK, probably not and you wouldn't want to eat them even if I did, but it seems like a reasonable bribe to just offer).
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Post by The Captain on Mar 23, 2020 7:13:33 GMT -5
Figure
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Post by The Captain on Mar 22, 2020 14:54:35 GMT -5
Man, I go outside this afternoon with the family to take a nice long walk (we did a little over 5 miles on the bike trail near our house) and when I get back, it seems like the whole CCF is falling apart. shaxper - prayers for you and yours that this is nothing more than a seasonal thing and not the current Big Bad. EdoBosnar - prayers for you and yours for safety and health during the aftermath of the earthquake while also having to deal with the current Big Bad. I'm just going to put this out there, but does anyone else need or want prayer? I'm starting to make a list and will be going through it daily. You can either respond here or PM me if you have something you would rather not share with the group, but either way, I'll make sure I add it.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 22, 2020 8:30:46 GMT -5
Infection
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Post by The Captain on Mar 21, 2020 17:33:17 GMT -5
Went to get Chinese take-out from my favorite local place tonight, but they have closed for two weeks as ordered by our governor, even though they could have stayed open and done take-out only orders. Really hoping they don't wind up shutting down for good after all of this, as I get the impression they are steady but rarely busy during normal operations and this would be quite a loss for the community.
Having to make other plans, I drove to our old Chinese take-out place, which is 10 minutes down the road in the next suburb. It is near the apartment my wife and I lived in for the first 3 years of our marriage and was our go-to many a night when we didn't have much money for a fancier dinner out.
Posting from there while I wait, their phone has been ringing non-stop for 15 minutes. Really glad to see they are weathering the storm, and the owner told me they are doing OK through it all.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 21, 2020 11:28:09 GMT -5
What about the Blood Brothers? I only remember them vaguely as villains who acted as henchmen for some higher-up bad guy in Starlin's Captain Marvel, not sure where they first appeared or what their powers were, whether they augmented one another or whatever. The Blood Brothers first appeared in Iron Man #55, which was, of course, the same issue that also introduced both Drax and Thanos. Their powers were of the generic "super-strength and high invulnerability" variety, with the catch being that the individual strength of one Brother was reliant on his (its?) proximity to the other. In a later Iron Man story (#88-89), Tony figures this out and defeats them, with the help of Daredevil, by separating them by 100s of miles, thus weakening them to the point that they are easily beaten individually by the heroes.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 20, 2020 17:45:44 GMT -5
Corporations are soulless, greedy entities that need to be forced to adhere to the most basic minimum standards of decency. As far as I'm concerned, corporations need to end. Being "forced to adhere to the most basic minimumm standards of decency" is no longer enough, especially when those corporations can and do use their wealth to fund politicians sympathetic to their interests. Well, being "incorporated" also allows small business owners to shield their personal assets from being included in any lawsuits against their business, which keeps them and their family from being totally ruined if they were to be found guilty of any kind of malfeasance. You know, like if a kid with severe peanut allergies came into their restaurant and accidentally ingested something that had some peanut dust from the kitchen and then died and his parents sued. They'd likely lose their restaurant and their reputation, but they might get to keep their house and car and the money in their personal bank account from their wife's job as a school teacher that is totally unrelated to the restaurant and the incident in question. But no, totally need to get rid of all corporations. They serve no purpose whatsoever.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 20, 2020 10:35:21 GMT -5
Coming as a shock to no one, Disney has pushed the release date of this back indefinitely to avoid the coronavirus affecting the box office.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 20, 2020 9:54:56 GMT -5
I fully understand that these companies likely aren't taking these actions out of the goodness of their hearts, but I also recognize that they don't have to do anything. If they did nothing, people would complain that they aren't pitching in to alleviate the suffering, and when they do do something, people question their motives and say it's just for PR. They cannot win in the public's eyes, regardless of what they do, and that's both unfair and unfortunate. I agree that they cannot win no matter what they do, Captain, but I do not think that the observation is unfair. In fact, I believe it is quite accurate. Avoiding blame and trying to present their brand in as positive a light as possible is something these companies do all the time, analyzing the situation and calculating how much such goodwill will cost them, and if it is worth it. It is nothing more than an extension of their public relations strategy, which includes things like TV ads, school lunches programs and the sponsoring of cultural and/or sporting events. I hasten to say that I see nothing reprehensible in that attitude, either! A company is not an individual; it is neither good nor evil. It is an entity that exists almost solely to make money (or generate value), and if the PTB acted in any way but one that helped the company fulfill its mission, they would be remiss in their duties. A company is like a shark in the ocean. It plays an important role in the ecosystem, and it would be wrong to blame it for eating other fish, but don’t trust it to act against its own interests if it is hungry. I was shocked recently to learn something (because I am quite naive): have you ever been in a store where, next to the cash register, is some kind of piggy bank where you can drop money for some good cause or other? I learned that while stores do indeed send said money to the appropriate charity... they can write off that amount as a donation when they do their taxes. To placate my outrage, the owner could rightfully say “look, outraged dude named after a cheese... you gave money to a charity, the charity got its money, what do you care if my store gets a little tax credit?” He would be right, too. His enterprise just takes advantage of an existing system, and it would be foolish not to use all the tools offered by the capitalist system when one wants to be a capitalist. I could complain that in effect the store is getting partially funded by the government and so by our own taxes, but the government itself calculated that the incentive thus provided maximizes the welfare of society overall... and so the shop owner is justified in his actions. In the game of thrones, you win or you die! That corporate giants see a crisis as an opportunity to look good, and that they wish to avoid looking greedy when compared to their competitors, is absolutely par for the course as far as I am concerned. (And now if Disney were to kindly offer a six month-long free trial of Disney Plus... ) I guess I just don't understand why people care WHY the corporations are doing what they are doing. If someone walks up to me on the street and hands me $100, then walks away without saying a word, I don't question it. I go to Chipotle, buy myself a barbacoa burrito, then head to the LCS and buy some books, and maybe finish it off with picking up a couple of expensive Magic:The Gathering cards from the gaming shop. There's a McDonalds location, not sure where (franchise store, not corporate) that is offering kids up to the age of 13 a free lunch, no questions asked and no other purchase required, every day Monday through Friday during the coronavirus outbreak; the only caveat is that a "parent or guardian" has to bring them and that the food can only be given through the drive-thru due to the government order to shut restaurant doors. The comments on the article were appalling. "Only a four piece nugget? How cheap!" "McDonalds is crap. Just trying to get kids hooked on their garbage." "They're only doing this to get good PR!" "What about people who don't have cars?" "I'd only take my kids if McDonald's starts paying a living wage to its employees." No one is acknowledging that this store is providing FREE meals, and as a franchisee, the cost to do so is coming directly out of his pocket. The owner said he recognizes that many kids rely on the schools for meals, either free or reduced-cost, during the week and that he is trying to do something to help families that may be in need. He's doing a kind and generous thing at his own expense, and all people can do is tear him and McDonalds apart because it isn't being done how THEY want it to be done or because they have an ax to grind against the company. I also don't understand why many people expect corporations to behave any differently than they themselves do or would if given the same opportunities. Corporations don't pay taxes because the tax code LEGALLY allows them to do so, but rather than blame the politicians on both sides of the aisle who are all getting that sweet, sweet funding for reelections (the only thing 99.44% of politicians in the US actually give a crap about) and who control the tax code, it's the corporations' fault for doing it, even though those same people willfully take every tax break allowed to them to reduce their tax burden, while also doing things like overestimating their charitable giving (yeah, that one bag of used kids' clothes you gave to Goodwill was worth $400) or hiding their cash-paid side hustle. Maybe my perspective is different because I have been employed by "big corporate interests" for the past two decades. I see the huge numbers of people these entities employ and pay good wages to. I see the scientific and technological advances these companies develop internally at their own expense that benefit society. I see the philanthropy that the companies do, whether it be for good PR or caring about their communities or because it's the right thing to do. The knee-jerk reaction that "BIG CORP IS BAD" ignores what these companies do contribute to society in the form of wages (which their employees pay taxes on) and property rentals and car rentals and hotel room stays and meals when traveling and airline tickets and so on (all of which the service providers pay taxes on, and all of which allow those providers to employ people, who in turn buy other goods and services), not even counting the numerous causes and organizations these companies support, from the United Way to cancer research to local food banks to one of my former employers buying, outright and 100% no strings attached, a replacement fire engine for a small rural VFD whose old one finally died and could not be repaired. I'm not sure I want to fly "Mom & Pop Airlines" or get my life-saving medication from "Karen's Medical Research and Knitted Dog Clothes Emporium" or my next automobile from "Bob's Auto Manufacturing and Beef Jerky Smokery". We can't survive on just small businesses, because the world is a big place, and even if we did only have locally-owned outfits, there would still be those among them that weren't entirely operating and behaving to the benefit of the community and society.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 20, 2020 6:44:48 GMT -5
My LCS sent out a great e-mail on Monday explaining the situation they are in financially (they will be OK "for a while" even if they don't sell a single comic book or TPB).
They said that to comply with the "spirit" of the governor's order to shut all "non-essential" businesses, they locked their front door to the public. On Wednesday, they posted an employee by the door and I was able to walk up, ask him to get me everything from my pull list, handed him a $20, and two minutes later, he returned with my books and my change. They were running a "take out" comics business, and from the stream of people both before and after me that I observed, it seemed to be a good decision.
I will probably buy a few trades from them that I would normally get from Amazon with a gift card to pump a little more cash into their operations once this is all over, or I might splurge on the Werewolf by Night #32 that I've been going back and forth on. I've been shopping there for 35 years and known the current owner since he bought it 30 years ago, and it's been a huge part of my life, so I'm happy to give back as I am able.
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