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Post by The Captain on Mar 20, 2020 6:14:24 GMT -5
While all this is bleak, I am reassured by what some private companies are doing. It can be easy to paint capitalism and private industry as a "boogeyman", but here in the UK, we've had private companies doing great things, whether it be small stores doing free food/sanitiser packs for the elderly or BP providing free fuel for emergency vehicles. Big companies like Rolls-Royce are no doubt going to do what they can. Some small gestures help, too, e.g. BT making its sports channels free for existing subscribers. The cynic in me thinks that the big corporate giants are just doing it because it's good PR. 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.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 19, 2020 12:24:12 GMT -5
Magic
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Post by The Captain on Mar 19, 2020 10:35:05 GMT -5
Click
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Post by The Captain on Mar 19, 2020 9:48:56 GMT -5
From the "credit where credit is due" department:
The US Energy Department said today they would buy 30 million barrels of crude oil, focusing their purchases to small and midsize US oil producers, and put this into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Steve Mnuchin plans to recommend additional funding be provided by Congress to buy even more, up to the amount needed to completely fill the SPR.
This is a very smart play right now, as it serves multiple purposes. The government, which has no long-term energy plan (and hasn't under either Democrat or Republican leadership for decades, so this isn't a partisan thing, but rather a lack of fundamentals thing), is taking advantage of the current market to do something for down the road, while at the same time helping some businesses that are struggling right now with cash flow, which should help them avoid layoffs and maintain their operations.
Even a blind squirrel bumps into a nut every once in a while.
There. I said it.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 19:02:53 GMT -5
Captain America #20 This month's issue makes last month's look like Watchmen or V for Vendetta or "insert name of incredible comic book here".
Coates continues his use of the Captain America title to write the Daughters of Liberty story he so desperately wants to tell. This issue has fewer panels with Steve Rogers in it (17, half of which he spends using an image inducer to appear to be an old man) than it does of Peggy Carter (last month's big surprise reveal) or Misty Knight (both well into the 20s), and only one panel of Steve in costume (as part of a flashback).
The only action sequence in the book is a fight scene in a Madripoor bar involving Carter and Knight facing off against Crossbones and some thugs. Steve is reduced to talking, lots and lots of talking, boring philosophical talking about why a bunch of white men would leave their families and move to a small town in Ohio to become farmers.
I know that I'm a masochist for sticking with it month after month, but it's Cap, and that's what I do with Cap books.
This issue sucked, as has almost the entire series to this point. Someday, hopefully soon, Coates will take his pen and move onto to something else, and it will not come a moment too soon.
2/10
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 16:30:49 GMT -5
Mercury
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 13:41:11 GMT -5
Apollo
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 13:40:29 GMT -5
^ C'mon, there has to be some kind of community rule against posting pictures like the third one above, right?
Think of the children and all that jazz!
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 9:45:26 GMT -5
One of my coworkers, an outside salesman, was just telling me this morning that he got the impression yesterday with several vendors and customers, that a lot of people don't want people in their place of business with the virus going around. So business is slow and the outside salesman are kind of hindered from visiting customers and vendors as everyone is being cautious. It's really starting to feel like a post apocalyptic movie for real. My plant put a "no salesmen" policy in place last Friday, while at the same time, I am still getting contacted by sales folks wanting to stop by for a "meet and greet". Not a good time, chief. You might want to try later, like when a potentially deadly disease isn't sweeping the globe. SMH...
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 8:51:05 GMT -5
As a student and former teacher of history, I freely acknowledge the critical role that labor unions played in creating the safer and more-equitable work environment (comparatively speaking) that exists today.
That said, with some of them, they long ago lost their way, and it is actions like the one below that make people question if they still have a place in the world.
Last night, at my plant, one of the shift supervisors (a non-union position) came across an empty hand sanitizer dispenser (one of the wall-hanging variety) and because his skeleton crew of union folks were engaged in other tasks, he replaced the bag in the dispenser, which should be seen as a good thing, what with the coronavirus going around and all.
This morning, the union filed a grievance, saying that "all housekeeping activities" were union responsibilities and that maybe another crew member needed to be added if the shift supervisor did the replacement because the on-shift crew was "too overburdened" with work to be able to get to that task.
The maintenance manager asked that if a roll of toilet paper needed to be added to the dispenser in the bathroom, was he allowed to do it, and he was told "no" by the union rep, not even if he was sitting on the pot and needed to wipe and the roll was right in front of him. If he did it, they'd file a grievance against him.
This is why many of us who have to deal with unions today despise them. Some of them have gone beyond protecting workers from real threats, be they safety or environmental or job security, and now dwell in the realm of being nuisances more interested in harassing management and employers with petty complaints like this.
There. I said it.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 8:31:21 GMT -5
We have a definite winner this week! (And if you think I'm going to attempt puns on Bill Sienkiewicz, forget it!) Winner: EdoBosnar, 6 votes Runner up: Prince Hal, 4 votes Third place: MDG & tartanphantom, 3 votes Fourth: Reptisaurus, 2 votes Fifth: beccabear67, Farrar, The Captain, rberman, hondobrode, Slam_Bradley, badwolf, 1 vote FAKE NEWS!! For the official, counts for all time, never to be forgotten record, I got 2 votes this week, not just 1. Stop trying to sell the public a hoax narrative about my accomplishments. I did a tremendous job with this contest, one that I would easily rate 10 out of 10.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2020 5:15:32 GMT -5
Executive
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Post by The Captain on Mar 17, 2020 20:38:41 GMT -5
Cider
(Woodchuck Cider was the first hard cider I ever tasted, just about 25 years ago. Pennsylvania had a ban on hard cider at the time, so my friends and I would drive to Ohio and load up our car with it to have for gatherings.)
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Post by The Captain on Mar 17, 2020 17:00:48 GMT -5
I see people in my extended social network complaining about some of the restaurant and bar closure mandates. "So much for the land of the free." First of all, are you kidding? How selfish can you be? Second of all, your rights end where mine begin. You have the right to endanger yourself all you want, but when your actions can affect others, it's not just, is it? Three, the hurr durr entitled ignorance makes me think of Randy Marsh from South Park. Sadly, this guy doesn't realize his idiocy is being satirized... Well, when you have the governor of a Midwest state and a US Representative from a West Coast state both treating the whole thing like a joke, going out to eat and then posting about it on social media or talking about it on a certain news station known for playing it loose with the facts, why would others take it seriously? Some Americans are pretty inconsistent when it comes to "rights". A "right" to marry whomever they want regardless of sexual orientation or a "right" for a woman to choose how best to govern her own body? Nope, can't have none of that, but a "right" to go out and exacerbate a public health crisis? Don't tell them what to do with their bodies, damn it, there's 1/2-priced appetizers at Applebee's from 5-7 tonight and they gotta get their boneless wings! I firmly believe that in the minds of some Americans, a fundamental "right" is to be as reckless and stupid and selfish as possible, because the government has no place in governing the safety and health of 330 million people when their own self-interests would be infringed upon.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 17, 2020 16:53:35 GMT -5
I vote for Monthly Issues, for the following caveat:
For ongoing series, it has to be the monthly book. The publishers rely on the monthly sales numbers to know if they should keep producing the book, so if the numbers fall because a bunch of people decide they'd rather wait 8 months for the TPB than pick them up each month, the publishers will take that as a sign of non-interest and cancel a book. As well, this pumps a steady stream of money into the LCS rather than them waiting for long stretches to make sales from me, as they have monthly bills and employees to pay.
The only time I trade-waited an ongoing series was with "Fables". I didn't get into it until around issue #50 or so, having gotten a great deal on the first eight trades from eBay. It made no sense for me to have a partial run in trades, only to switch to floppies for the rest of it, so I continued to pick up the trades when they were released.
That said, I have reached the point where I will wait on the TPB for limited series. The publisher has already made a decision to print a specific number of issues, so there is no harm in my waiting until the series is finished before buying the whole thing at a lower cost than the individual issues. Sadly, however, I can almost invariably find any limited series I want in the $1 bins about a year after they've been published, and I can just pay $4-$6 for the entire thing rather than even buying the TPB for $14.99.
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