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Stature

Story Wednesday March 20, 2019 Q&A

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Meh, the main obstacle to running any small business in a decent location is that rent is probably sky-high unless he owns the storefront. In my area for example, he'd probably have to pay over ten thousand bucks a month just for rent. I know that rents in Moperville, Illinois, are lower than in Silicon Valley, but it would still be the largest single item in his operating costs. The last video rental place in my neighborhood got evicted from its storefront because the owner and his family were living on site (in violation of the least terms) because they could not afford to have a separate house while still paying rent on the storefront.

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3 hours ago, detrius said:

He's laundering money for the mob, isn't he?

<wildspeculation> He states that Susan's a key reason for the store still being viable. Susan lives on the rich side of town in a very large house, we have no idea what her mom does for a living or even what her dad does and if that's enough for alimony to support Susan and her mom. If Susan's mom comes from wealth or has a substantial career, maybe she's got some sort of behind the scenes deal with Tensaided to keep the video store profitable for as long as Susan works there.</wildspeculation>

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Susan and Elliot have over 1000 subscribers to their show on movies.  If all of them are local, unlikely, but possible, that would be a good base for a video rental store.

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We have a fantastic video rental place in my town.  They have almost everything I've looked for, and if they don't have it they'll get it from another branch.  They have all the Doctor Who DVDs and more recent seasons in Blu-ray too, they get all the HBO and Showtime and such series, they have tons of classics.  They charge $1/night, but that only kicks in after one to three weeks, if you return it before then, it's completely free!

They do the same thing for books, but they're only from 10¢ to 25¢ per day after the first three weeks.

 

And despite having this great place as competition, we still have a couple of different video rental places still going strong.

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Just now, CritterKeeper said:

We have a fantastic video rental place in my town.  They have almost everything I've looked for, and if they don't have it they'll get it from another branch.  They have all the Doctor Who DVDs and more recent seasons in Blu-ray too, they get all the HBO and Showtime and such series, they have tons of classics.  They charge $1/night, but that only kicks in after one to three weeks, if you return it before then, it's completely free!

They do the same thing for books, but they're only from 10¢ to 25¢ per day after the first three weeks.

 

And despite having this great place as competition, we still have a couple of different video rental places still going strong.

Wouldn't it be crazy if Tensaided's store is based on the one you're talking about?

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23 hours ago, detrius said:

He's laundering money for the mob, isn't he?

19 hours ago, Scotty said:

If Susan's mom comes from wealth or has a substantial career, maybe she's got some sort of behind the scenes deal with Tensaided to keep the video store profitable for as long as Susan works there.

Hmmm ... the possibility he's laundering money for Susan's mom didn't occurred to me, but it does make sense ... seriously, we know she's rich, but not what's she doing. ... ok, granted, we don't know what they are doing for MOST of characters parents ... damn, are they ALL working either for some secret agency or some crime syndicate?

14 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Is it possible that the local cable service in Moperville is so BAD that video rental is a more attractive option?

I wouldn't consider it unlikely.

 

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On 3/20/2019 at 2:26 AM, Stature said:

And so, the timeline problem progresses.

Yeah, this sort of thing is the main reason I hate comic-book / comic-strip time. Almost inevitably, time will seem to pass at different rates depending on how you measure it. In EGS you have things like the rapid progress of technology (going from cell phones being uncommon to everyone having smart phones in a year's time) and the Video Store seeming anachronistic to those not lucky enough to live in an area that still has them; this is relatively subtle but still annoying when you notice it. In other cases you can have events which supposedly take place within a few years in comic time but are connected to events that in the real world are decades apart (before they got retcon-crazy, Marvel & DC were prone to this). And then there are comic strips where the characters don't age at all yet time is clearly passing (for instance, Calvin experienced nine or ten distinct Christmases while he remained six-years-old) which has always baffled me.

Frankly, I wish more creators would be brave enough to set their stories in specific years rather than trying to tell long-running stories that supposedly are always set at the point in time the readers are reading them.

23 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

We have a fantastic video rental place in my town.  They have almost everything I've looked for, and if they don't have it they'll get it from another branch.  They have all the Doctor Who DVDs and more recent seasons in Blu-ray too, they get all the HBO and Showtime and such series, they have tons of classics.  They charge $1/night, but that only kicks in after one to three weeks, if you return it before then, it's completely free!

They do the same thing for books, but they're only from 10¢ to 25¢ per day after the first three weeks.

Wait... Do you mean a Library?

We have a couple of those in the area too, though their DVD/Blu-Ray collections are fairly small. It never even occurred to me they might be able to get other DVDs on loan, but it stands to reason seeing as they do it for books. I'll have to look into that.

 

Edited by ChronosCat
Felt the need to re-phrase my first point.

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On 3/20/2019 at 2:50 PM, Scotty said:

Wouldn't it be crazy if Tensaided's store is based on the one you're talking about?

I dunno, I think they require you to have a degree to run one of these places.

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Wait... Do you mean a Library?

Bingo!  I almost spelled it out, but at the last minute I thought the books line made it too obvious to need it.

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

We have a couple of those in the area too, though their DVD/Blu-Ray collections are fairly small. It never even occurred to me they might be able to get other DVDs on loan, but it stands to reason seeing as they do it for books. I'll have to look into that.

Yeah, our library is pretty cool.  They just remodeled and added a Makerspace/Fab Lab, with everything from paints and sewing machines to a laser cutter and 3D printer.  Unfortunately, I think they cut back on actual *books* during the remodel, and not all of them made it back to the shelves afterward.  I wish they'd checked who had been checking out the less-read or more-worn titles, and offered us the chance to buy them -- I'd have loved to take home the Black Widowers mysteries!

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35 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Yeah, our library is pretty cool.  They just remodeled and added a Makerspace/Fab Lab, with everything from paints and sewing machines to a laser cutter and 3D printer.

Missoula's in the process of building a new library.

The old one, built when the city had less than a third its present population and the metropolitan area was proportionately even smaller, has a Makerspace crammed - and I do mean crammed - into a room on the lower floor. (The building's on a hill and thus has two ground floors.) There are two or three 3D printers, several computers with 3d modeling software, a rack of assorted electronic kits including a couple different models of Arduino-type computers, a few soldering stations, and shoved into a corner and blocked with tables so you can't get to it is a bandsaw (if I remember correctly - might be a drill press). But it's ok that you can't get to the bandsaw, because the ventilation system is seriously inadequate for a wood shop with tools spraying sawdust everywhere - it was, after all, designed for a library.

Not directly relevant but worth mentioning anyway is that outside the door of this floor, under the protection of the larger upper floor, there's a rack for hanging a bicycle such that most of the workings are about at eye level, with a bunch of bicycle-maintenance tools on cables attached to said rack, and next to it is a vending machine with commonly replaced bicycle parts plus an air hose.

The people who run the Makerspace were heavily involved in the design of about 2/3 of the lower floor of the new library. And the ventilation system. (They don't actually get that much space, but activities in their space will affect adjoining areas & vice versa.)

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42 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

I dunno, I think they require you to have a degree to run one of these places.

7 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Wait... Do you mean a Library?

Bingo!  I almost spelled it out, but at the last minute I thought the books line made it too obvious to need it.

Ok. I guess I completely missed that. although TBH my library isn't THAT good and I have seen a video store with a small section of novels, mainly ones that have movie/TV adaptations.

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... the possibility he's laundering money for Susan's mom didn't occurred to me, but it does make sense ... seriously, we know she's rich, but not what's she doing. ... ok, granted, we don't know what they are doing for MOST of characters parents ... damn, are they ALL working either for some secret agency or some crime syndicate?

Is it too late to revive my theory that the main eight's parents all grew up together? I mean the recent tease about the Dunkels suggests they're in a similar field of work as Edward, and we don't know what Sarah's parents do, or Justin's parents (though maybe instead of Justin's parents, it's his uncle that's acquainted with the other parents.)

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11 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
On 3/20/2019 at 7:26 AM, Stature said:

And so, the timeline problem progresses.

Yeah, this sort of thing is the main reason I hate comic-book / comic-strip time. Almost inevitably, time will seem to pass at different rates depending on how you measure it. In EGS you have things like the rapid progress of technology (going from cell phones being uncommon to everyone having smart phones in a year's time) and the Video Store seeming anachronistic to those not lucky enough to live in an area that still has them; this is relatively subtle but still annoying when you notice it. In other cases you can have events which supposedly take place within a few years in comic time but are connected to events that in the real world are decades apart (before they got retcon-crazy, Marvel & DC were prone to this). And then there are comic strips where the characters don't age at all yet time is clearly passing (for instance, Calvin experienced nine or ten distinct Christmases while he remained six-years-old) which has always baffled me.

Frankly, I wish more creators would be brave enough to set their stories in specific years rather than trying to tell long-running stories that supposedly are always set at the point in time the readers are reading them.

This didn't used to be problem in middle ages, but nowadays stuff gets dated really quickly ... I'm afraid there is no good solution for webcomics.

Deadtree comic books? Hell why not! There is no good reason why Superman couldn't really be alive all that time ; simply make a timeskip regularly and just say that nothing interesting happened for year or two. It's not like all the Superman comics form single story anyway.

... oh, wait, they would probably need to find him another girl as Lois Lane would be now too old ...

However, even when there's no good solution, there is definitely BAD one. Calvin's nine or ten Christmasses, forever toddler Maggie Simpson, Ash Ketchum being 10 for 18 IN-STORY years ... seriously, this makes no sense. Superman may not age, Logan may not age, Alucard the vampire may not age, Peter Pan may not age, but normal people age.

27 minutes ago, Scotty said:
19 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... the possibility he's laundering money for Susan's mom didn't occurred to me, but it does make sense ... seriously, we know she's rich, but not what's she doing. ... ok, granted, we don't know what they are doing for MOST of characters parents ... damn, are they ALL working either for some secret agency or some crime syndicate?

Is it too late to revive my theory that the main eight's parents all grew up together? I mean the recent tease about the Dunkels suggests they're in a similar field of work as Edward, and we don't know what Sarah's parents do, or Justin's parents (though maybe instead of Justin's parents, it's his uncle that's acquainted with the other parents.)

Unfortunately, Mr. Verres reaction to Dunkels parenting suggests they didn't know each other so well. He also doesn't seem to personally known Susan's mother OR father.

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7 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Unfortunately, Mr. Verres reaction to Dunkels parenting suggests they didn't know each other so well. He also doesn't seem to personally known Susan's mother OR father.

For his reaction to the Dunkels' response, it could be Edward seeing a side of them he never saw out in the field. For Susan's parents, that page doesn't really say that he doesn't know them, it's not clear whether the info is from a background check or personal knowledge, the "cheating cheater who cheats" part could be telling.

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8 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Not directly relevant but worth mentioning anyway is that outside the door of this floor, under the protection of the larger upper floor, there's a rack for hanging a bicycle such that most of the workings are about at eye level, with a bunch of bicycle-maintenance tools on cables attached to said rack, and next to it is a vending machine with commonly replaced bicycle parts plus an air hose.

Ooh, a self-serve bicycle repair station! Neat!

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