Cranium sold out to Hasbro according to yesterdays announcement. For us it means it will be easier to get, but it won't be worth buying because of the poor margin. Time to stock up before the deal is finalized. An industry analyst in the article says to expect more consolidation.
Holiday Sales. We're seeing layoffs from big retail stores already. Watch their earnings reports this month as we get a lesson in gross sales versus profit. They increased their gross sales by 3% over the season, but only through deep discounts. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless it was the only way to get people to shop. One of the lessons about sales is that it trains people to wait for sales and not shop regularly. It's a monster of mainstream retails own creation.
Storm. The storm hit us pretty hard yesterday. The result at the store was just a slow day, while my son's day care was without power for six hours. He thought it was fun and was disappointed when he couldn't take his little flashlight home. The storms are supposed to continue through Tuesday.
My Stuff
My Vacation. Hey, it's news to me! After years of traveling the globe on vacation, it looks like Disneyland. I'll be gone for a week sometime in the second quarter of this year. Now if I can get my son to grow another inch, we can do the cool rides.
Ogres and 40K. I'm still painting, with an ogre gorger and 8 noblars to go for a full army. I'm technically done if I wanted to tweak my army list. I'm also researching playing a Warhammer 40K army when I'm done painting the ogres. The Witch Hunters look cool, with their sexy sisters of battle, but I'm told the army sucks and it's kind of a "chick army," the one predominantly played by women. The sucking part is my sticking point. Space marines are only appealing because of the flexibility, but they don't grab me. An Imperial Guard mechanized army has some nice models and supposedly is pretty effective. The new orks look fun, but are still a little too cartoony for me. Then again how much fun are mechanized trash cans and monster trucks? Step one for me is finding models that grab me and want me to paint them. If I can't get past that, I won't do the work.
Media. I've been devouring the Dreden Files books. Last week I started on book one and tonight I start on book six. I'm really enjoying them. As for movies, Eragon was a snoozer, Rocco and I watched Night at the Museum and found it entertaining, Syrania was riveting but kind of a chopped up mess, a lesser Traffic. We went to the theatre and watched The Bee Movie on New Years Day. After an hour of being mildly entertaining, it somehow devolved into a courtroom drama. I looked down at Rocco and he looked up at me and we knew it was time to go.
Games. My D&D group looks like it has fallen apart, at least for a couple more months. If that's the case, I'm likely to drop my 3.5 campaign until June when I can run my 4th Edition "Lebanon" campaign. Until then, I'll probably be playing miniature games and hopefully some new board games at board game nights.
The bit about sales is so true. I've grown to despise all the little sales that businesses try to use to get you in the door. Just post your price and leave it! I miss Trader Joe's for a few reasons, but not playing the sale game is a big one.
ReplyDeleteI realize that it's a bit different than what you were talking about, but those little tags that say "Sale Price!" and then you look and it's like 10 cents off a 9 dollar item really annoy me.
Ok, grocery shopping rant done for the moment... :-P
Just reserved vol 1 of Dresden Files at library, can't wait.
ReplyDeleteI started an Eldar Samhain army a long time ago, but never finished it.
I don't think it would have been that good, but a whole ton of jet bikes and Vipers would have looked very cool I thought.