During college I hardly ever went to movie theaters, and the one I did go to was the cheap $3 theater that had movies that had been out for a while and has the ticket receipt paper John B is describing. The other theater in town was Cinemark, your standard boring theater chain, so options were limited.

I've moved since then and the town I'm currently in got an Alamo Drafthouse which I've been really loving recently because of the different type of programming (cult movies, quote-alongs, etc.), the strict no talking/texting policy, and the ability to drink a beer in the theater is something I never knew I would enjoy. The food's not terrible either.

......cinema as bar/restaurant is making a comeback with the expansion of the Cinema Drafthouse chain.  It's pretty cool - you get seated at a table, have a nice meal and watch a movie. There's also auditorium seating as well as a bar at the back of the room.

Yep, that's the Alamo. Another franchise that uses the same theater/restaurant model and is working on expansion is Cinebarre, which I believe was founded by a former Alamo Drafthouse CEO.

Super excited about this project, sad I missed out on the limited black editions. I already pledged for a set, but I may just have to add another just because of how great it looks.

Looks like Jackson is designing mid Kickstarter project again. The art is amazing... I wish he would have planned out court cards first before launching. All was OK until I saw the Queen of Spades. Is that liberty OR a store front manikin? Where are the two most distinguishable features of liberty (crown and torch)?

Did you read the update?

"The Queen of Spades portrait is of a tranquil depiction of Lady Liberty found on Series 541 10 dollar Military Payment Certificate."

In all those cases, you'll still talking about a small outfit.  Cons aren't huge money makers (if they were, they wouldn't require volunteers) and their "comic" is free online.  Self-published books are also a tough sell.  These outfits aren't any larger than T11 or E - probably much smaller, and making less cash on it.  For a game company, if no one wants to publish you, your avenues are rather limited - you can sell online, but how will people even know you exist and what do people live on in the interim, before the game hits the market?  It's very cash-intensive.

I use "established" in more of a branding/marketing sense instead of a financial sense, which I realize now was drifting away from the main point, which is my mistake. But the main point I was trying to make was that these are not start-up companies. My economics is fuzzy but doesn't start ups usually refer to new companies/individuals that are relying on investments to make a future product. Since the examples I listed have already been around for several years running their own businesses, they don't really fit that definition.

Now that the semantics are over I would like to elaborate specifically on Penny Arcade. I don't know how much money PAX makes, but it has to be somewhat profitable for it to continue growing as it has been the last few years. I believe Penny Arcade makes most of their revenue off of merchandising and advertising anyway (or at least they used to, not sure how it's different now), and their Kickstarter project allowed them to become self sustaining for at least a year meaning an ad free website so they could focus on more original content. I don't think a small outfit would have given up on any kind of ad revenue.

Comparing indie game companies to card companies is like comparing homeless people to Mitt Romney.

A deck of cards will take a few months to make, often less with the bigger companies. A few hundred thousand dollars are made in profit.

I'm afraid I don't understand this.....card companies are like Mitt Romney? Playing cards really make a few hundred thousand dollars? Your syntax confuses me.

That's really good news! Mine's probably going to be waiting for me in my mailbox on Monday so I still need to wait a bit. I'm excited though! Wonder why the opted for no jokers and decided to do all ad cards. It's not like we don't know who they are. We bought the deck! Off of presale too!

Jokers are usually left out of a deck for flourishing since it adds unnecessary thickness. This is a deck for flourishers made by flourishers after all.

Depending on how much weight she wants to lose and how fast, you could keep it simple by counting calories and pick up on running. MyFitnessPal and RunKeeper are two mobile apps I used heavily when I wanted to shed some pounds last summer.

De'vo vom Schattenreich/Handlordz are releasing a sketch version of their "Magicians Must Die #1" deck at the Denver Comic Con this year.
http://www.denvercomiccon.com/2013/handlordz-llc/
The con takes place 31 May - 2 June 2013 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, and will cover all kinds of interests - gaming, anime, sci-fi, etc - besides just comics.  Tickets are still available as of this posting and they are seeking event volunteers.  Some volunteer positions include free con access!

I'm really not interested in the MMD deck but I'll be at the con anyway so I'll stop by if I can.

Quote from: shutupdangit on February 12, 2013, 09:47:40 PM

You're getting ripped off if you're paying $40 for an HDMI cable.

Just listed a generic price off the top of my head. I've never bought one, I have at least half a dozen lying around from various electronic purchases.

Ah, I see. I had to convince one of my coworkers the other day that cables are pretty darn cheap if you look hard enough so I had that in my mind when I read your post.


Back on topic: modi listed everything I like or is in my queue already. Everyone keeps telling me to watch Firefly but I haven't seen it yet.

Last year on Halloween a buddy and I were standing outside a bar watching all the drunk people when a (fairly attractive) girl dressed up in a black leather fireman's costume walks up to us and asks "Does anyone here need CPR?". Without even thinking about it, I said "I do because my heart just stopped". She paused for a beat and then walked away.

Just to add to the list of resources, there's an older dvd by Magic Makers (yes, that company) called The Art of Card Splitting that I thought was quite informative.

I bet those faces look amazing in a fan!

So they're reprinting Steamboats? I wonder how they'll feel compared to the old ones.

I'm on reddit every day. I typically only comment and hardly ever submit. I don't really have a particular "favorite" subreddit but I do spend a lot of time on my local city-based subreddits (since I know a lot of those members in person) as well as, especially lately, r/nfl....because go Broncos!

I would have watched it, I think, but I watch less TV these days on a schedule.  I record a few shows on the DVR, but otherwise watch whatever's on.

First 2 seasons are on Netflix.

I've seen all the episodes of the show but haven't read the comic yet. Also working my way through the Xbox 360 videogame.

Season 2 overall wasn't very good since nothing really happens, thankfully season 3 really picks up and I can't wait til the show comes back for the second half.