Musha_Soturi
Member
Did anyone else see Felix Baumgartner on the One Show earlier? I think I'm a little bit in love.
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BritGAF |OT| Mad Stacks Beyond Thunderlord
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PrematureQuiche
Member
So seeing as you were having the conversation earlier.
I can get Halo 4 tomorrow from a store. Are they still banning people for playing it early? Or is it late enough now I can just play? I will wait till Tuesday if they are banning people!
I can get Halo 4 tomorrow from a store. Are they still banning people for playing it early? Or is it late enough now I can just play? I will wait till Tuesday if they are banning people!
Hot Coldman
Banned
Don't risk it. Just play the campaign offline.
Just make sure you're not signed into Xbox Live and you should be set, you lucky man you. Some of us have to wait until, you know, release day.
That doesn't work.
Little Old Man
Member
That's why I want to know really, pure curiosity of the effect of a prostate infection on the hardware it supports.
Shit I need to see Skyfall.
PrematureQuiche
Member
Cheers guys! I posted in the Halo Community OT as well and it seems you are allowed now.
Can not wait. If anyone wants to know the store you can PM me. I got it from another gaffer.
It's an odd feeling, but I'm instantly really liking a lot of the little passages I'm writing. I usually write and delete until I'm sick of editing myself, where I'll lower my standards and try to be happy with something I don't really like, then I grow to like it later on, but I'm really happy with some passages like;
I'm about to hit the 1,000 word barrier for tonight, so I think 1700 words to do my day's target should be manageable
I'm about to hit the 1,000 word barrier for tonight, so I think 1700 words to do my day's target should be manageable
Hot Coldman
Banned
Synchronisation between marketing efforts, anti-piracy measure... that sort of thing. God knows why America went with Tuesdays for their game releases. That's almost as stupid as Nintendo's Sunday releases over there. You're right, Friday or bust.
Exterminieren
Banned
A new Wipe series? At last!
Hope his hybrid structure finds room for a bit of Gameswipe.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Hold up. Comet went into administration?
Exterminieren
Banned
Jesus, no thank you. Our towns and shopping centres are decrepit enough without more retail shops dying.
Town centres after dark come alive with the bar scenes. Who really wants to pay 4000% more on products from the town centre when you could get the same product for cheaper on AMAZON or even TESCO.
Not to mention Town centres no longer have personality. Its all the same generic stores brands in every town centre.
I suck at writing bro. Plus i'm getting my speakers!
Halfords > small local shops.
Nah, you've got a great way of writing your personal experiences. I found out about the toilet-punching escapade yesterday and really enjoyed reading it through. Give me more, Kentpaul.
wtf? JJB Sports is gone too? when did that happen?
On a wonderful, wonderful day
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Well, maybe big monolithic nationwide chains that can't handle their cashflow should think about fucking off yeah.
Big thumbs-up to independent retailers (like me for example) who can manage to do the sums properly and keep going. All in favour of reclaiming the "High Street" for proper shops rather than big combines, and if it means a bit of a crash in commercial rents, then that's probably all to the good for the rest of us.
What about the seasonal drive by stores? Halloween stores, xmas stores, firework stores that only open for a few weeks then fuck the fuck off.
Local town high streets are a fucking mess, At least we have a greggs to numb the pain.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Mostly privately owned here. There's one across the road from me owned by a Dutch consortium that's asking £1m a year in rent. I can't afford that - but then neither can they, they've just gone into administration themselves.
What's your shop?
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Here: http://www.facebook.com/scrumpybeads
Best bead shop for about 100 miles in any direction. Also got wifi.
Wow - do you get a lot of trade? Seems like a very niche sort of shop. Do you do a lot of business online?
My friend's brother has a bead shop in Glastonbury - I can't get my head around how that works as a business but it's awesome as fuck that it does!
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
That's Jim, yeah? He popped around to say hello recently.
Thing is, Glastonbury is just plain weird when it comes to anything crystalline. Jim & Tabatha's shop is expensive as hell by my reckoning (something like 4 to 5 times my prices), but people seem to suck it up - must be all those spare witches/monks/assorted oddballs they have around all the time (you know there is something peculiar going on when you pop into a West Country town for a coffee and find it crammed full of Buddhist monks for example).
But Jim's extremely talented at wirework. Really extremely. He bought a bead from us for 90p, wrapped in it some copper wire and is selling at £95. That's Glastonbury for you!
Oops, here we go again!
Trade is kind of seasonal. We peaked about £7k a month in August. But we got happy customers from all over - Newcastle, Swansea, Plymouth, Nottingham etc. More impressivley, we got repeat customers making special trips to us from Plymouth, Neath, Walsall, Gloucester. No online yet (just got the bank funding through for it two days ago).
It's a very touchy-feely kind of business - we've made it sort of like a sweet shop for grownups, so people like to come here and prefer it to shopping online (for one thing it's a lot easier to match colours up when you see them in real life and nobody calibrates theit monitors properly so everybody is disappointed with eBay).
We're doing OK so far. Winter will be a bit of a struggle but should hit the ground running next Easter.
Zomg it's Friday.
What choo doin' for the weekend, peoples of Britain?
I'm going to the OHs sister's tonight for movies and pizza or similar.
Tomorrow is "write like a maniac day", followed by fireworks night at a buddies - he has a tiny garden, so it should be super super fun.
Then Sunday is "write like a maniac day", followed by dinner out with mum and Suz.
Anybody else going to see fireworks this weekend?
Haha, yes, it IS Jim!
Another GAF connection! Though a slightly less direct one this time, I guess
What choo doin' for the weekend, peoples of Britain?
I'm going to the OHs sister's tonight for movies and pizza or similar.
Tomorrow is "write like a maniac day", followed by fireworks night at a buddies - he has a tiny garden, so it should be super super fun.
Then Sunday is "write like a maniac day", followed by dinner out with mum and Suz.
Anybody else going to see fireworks this weekend?
Haha, yes, it IS Jim!
Another GAF connection! Though a slightly less direct one this time, I guess
I'm just fucking around with ya phisheep
massive respect for running an independant store man. You can't beat customer service in small shops compared to big places like Tesco etc. holy shit!
Skyfall this afternoon around 2/3pm on my own *gasp* Followed by a takeaway of some sort. Maybe fish 'n' chips or pizza. Going on a walk exploring Glasgow city on Saturday and maybe checking out the Kelvingrove museum on Sunday afternoon. Throw in some video games and bass guitaring in between that.
Now that's a pitch!
I'm starting to harbour a dream of opening a shop. No idea why or what I'd sell, it just seems like an enviable lifestyle.
Tell me about it - my post about how I'd run a game store yesterday got me longing for that kind of life
Would be awesome, especially if you got that community spirit running through your loyal customers
Jedeye Sniv
Banned
Dude, what store? PM me if you like, but if you live near me then I'd like to know where I can get early goodies from too
Sadly, I don't think there's really room for independent videogame stores. Even if they can compete with GAME or HMV, they'll never be able to with Tesco or Asda or, worst of all, Play or Amazon.
A friend of the family once said to me, "Sam, find a woman who's willing to let you take pictures of her breasts. Sell those pictures." He ran a pornography store. I think he had the right idea.
A friend of the family once said to me, "Sam, find a woman who's willing to let you take pictures of her breasts. Sell those pictures." He ran a pornography store. I think he had the right idea.
I don't think I've ever actually seen any of his work before - that's pretty freakin' impressive!
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
It's not only a good pitch, it's also true!
It's not nearly as expensive as I thought to set up shop - my accountant gave me all manner of scary tales of setup costs, but we fitted out and got going for about £25k (most of it borrowed), and around £18k of that was in stock. Stock aside, it only cost about £5k to get going. Most people spend too damn much on shopfitting, but the customers really don't care.
Main thing is, do your sums first. Advertising is fucking expensive for example. Take all your overhead costs and then double it for the advertising, but it does work.
EDIT: for the mathematically-minded, or anyone doing the sums in their head, the extra £2k was in lease deposits and in running costs until we started trading (took about 2 months from starting the lease until opening - you could probably do it a LOT faster, maybe two weeks, if more organised).
It would be so depressing if you owned a store and no one came inside one day. I think a PC repair/building shop/Lan gaming CAFE. is what most people in this thread would be good at.
I'm not the only one posting from a rig i build my self.
I'm not the only one posting from a rig i build my self.
Ugh, that would be too much like my current job but without the interesting server and networking stuff!
How's writing coming along?
my goodness, the detail on that pendant! Now I'm thinking £95 isn't enough.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
You get days like that sometimes. Like today for example, when it is pissing down with rain and we've just had a hailstorm.
But one of the absolute best things about having a shop is the cameraderie between the shopkeepers on the street. Guy across the road from us, jewellers, has been here for 86 years (well, him and his family back to the year dot), and he's usefully soothing when we have bad days. Next door to him there's a PC repair/building place that's been around 16 years (and have been fixing my various broken PCs for the last 7). We're the new kids on the block and keep learning from everybody else.
You get to meet a whole bunch of interesting people.
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