Summertime Blues?

head scratcher

What exactly am I doing here?

     What’s up folks?  Your Nerdy Overlord is back from a dry spell.  Haven’t been anywhere–Just doin my thang and apparently my “thang” hasn’t involved blogging. I didn’t bother to look but I think I go through this every summer…I just kind of lose interest in this little project of mine.  Maybe it’s the Alabama heat (which admittedly hasn’t been that bad this year what with the polar vortex and all), the yardwork, or the kids being around more. Who knows?

     I mentioned to my wife that I might just drop the whole thing completely–cancelled due to lack of interest. And while she predictably suggested that I not, she didn’t seem all that bent out of shape at the prospect.  And here I thought she was wildly interested in my Kickstarter comings and goings.

     But then I remember that this thing can be pretty fun, so I think I’ll keep plugging along.  To get the juices flowing, how about some random musings?

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things…

     Starting off on an admnistrative tip, I’ve disabled the comments feature on here. Cue the crickets.

     There’s two reasons here.  One is that in the 2+ years I’ve been doing this, I’ve gotten like 15 legitimate comments.  Now I greatly appreciate those comments and I always get excited to get one. But I haven’t been able to stir up much conversation.  Which probably says more about me than my readers. Maybe I’m always right and people are all like, “Couldn’t say it better myself.”  For my own part, I’m not much of a commenter on any of the blogs I read or the podcasts to which I regularly listen.  I tend to lurk.

     I’d like to think I have a few fans out there who at least regularly check in but not necessarily chime in.  People besides my wife.

    The main reason for going NO COMMENTS FOR YOU! has been the carpet bombing of spam comments I get on a daily basis.  I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say I get about 50-75 a day, which doesn’t sound bad until I remember that each and every one generates a “ding” on my phone because I have e-mail notification checked. I have to look at the phone and go, “Oh, another spam comment linking to low cost Viagra on my Kneel Before Zod post from 5 months ago.”

     Then I have to manually delete them from the Word Press comment menu.  After thousands of comments about “fake Ray-Bans, bargain Louis Vuitton crap and Hey, your SEO could be better,” I’m done.  I can’t take another Merlot. So comments are over. In the rare event someone needs to contact me…maybe you want to send me a full set of Flames of War miniatures to “review,” hit me on e-mail.

Nickel & Dime Time on eBay

     My eBay seller experience has been up and down. At about 90+ days into the effort, I’ve come to one clear conclusion for me: Go big. With the definition of “big” for me being something where I can make a $100 or greater profit.   Having sold about 25 items so far, 90% of the money we’ve cleared was on only three sales.  The rest of our closed deals were all low dollar value and low profit despite taking the same amount of time to photograph, list, pack, and ship.  If I didn’t have a full-time job–If eBay was my only thing going on, I could sell at a volume and price point where small sales added up. But for me, it’s just way more satisfying and motivating to sell things with a profit of $100+ over $5 or $10 here and there.

     Of course those $100 profit items are harder to find but they’re out there if you look.

I Just Paid How Much For This Comic Book?

     I’ve been mad about comic prices since the early 80’s.  I wrote letters to Marvel & DC when I was like 11 or 12 swearing to never again buy one of their books if they raised the cover price to 50 cents.  Fiddy cents looks pretty good to me about now.

     Long story short, I’m in that mode to reexamine my comic buying/reading habits and take a machete to my pull list.  I finished a book the other day.  It was one of those 48 page one-shot deals–Cardstock cover, shiny paper, square bound.  As far as the story and the art? I think I literally said “Meh” out loud when I put it down.  Then I flipped it over and saw the cover price was $7.99! SAY WHAT?!?!  Now I know I paid probably closer to five bucks for it on DCBS and I almost think it was one of their special deals so it might have been 50% off.  But even at four bucks, the entertainment value I got from the book was still weak.  So yeah, I think the days of falling for the siren song of the solicitation copy is over.  $8 cover price for a comic, even if I’m getting a great discount, is crack smokery.

     Well, that’s about it for now. I’ve got a week long stay-cation coming up so I suspect I’ll soon have something more pithy for my seven loyal readers. Until then…Stay nerdy my friends.

 

Copyright 2014 It Came From The Nerd Cave