The Elmdor-Appreciation-Out - Number of practitioners: one.

[Till]

Let's sing carols.

Spoiler warning:

[Verse 1]
It's Christmas at ground zero
There's music in the air
The sleigh bells are ringing, and the carolers are singing
While the air-raid sirens blare

[Verse 2]
It's Christmas at ground zero
The button has been pressed
The radio just let us know
That this is not a test

[Chorus 1]
Everywhere the atom bombs are dropping
It's the end of all humanity
No more time for last-minute shopping
It's time to face your final destiny

[Verse 3]
'Cause it's Christmas at ground zero
There's panic in the crowd
We can dodge debris while we trim the tree
Underneath the mushroom cloud

[Instrumental Interlude]

[Chorus 2]
You might hear some reindeer on your rooftop
Or Jack Frost on your windowsill
But if someone's climbing down your chimney
You better load your gun and shoot to kill

[Verse 4]
Oh, it's Christmas at ground zero
And if the radiation level's okay
I'll go out with you and see all the new
Mutations on New Year's Day

[Verse 5]
It's Christmas at ground zero
Just seconds left to go
I'll duck and cover with my Yuletide lover
Underneath the mistletoe

[Verse 6]
It's Christmas at ground zero
Now the missiles are on their way
What a crazy fluke, we're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday
What a crazy fluke, we're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday

[Ragnar]

That's due to their return policy. Games returned for whatever reason and are still as new are then sold as new, not used. EB have done that forever over here, which is why whenever I buy a "new" game there (haven't for ages now) I ask for a sealed copy from out the back. If they don't have one I say I'm not interested

That may be a source for their opened "new" games, but the main source is their horrible display procedure. When they get new games in, they pull a few of them and tear them open, place the disc in a paper sleeve and put the open case out on the racks for people to touch. They do this for every single game. Bigger games might get a dozen gutted copies. They'll do this with expensive special editions. I've preordered from them before, had them fail to notice they had preorder allocations (they would've only gotten in 1-2 copies), and had them gut my brand new game and put it on the shelf. They didn't even understand the problem when I came in to pickup my game.

Eventually these "new" games nobody wants to buy get sent back to their warehouse to be sold online for Lefty to accidentally buy. Really a shitty business, but it's a choice between them and Amazon usually, so buying games is just different flavors of shit.

[Till]

I met the coolest 9 year old kid a week ago. He moonwalks his way everywhere and spins around with a kick at the end. I asked him if he likes Michael Jackson and his dad said obviously. He draws comics better than Stan Lee produced too, I told him when I was nine Thriller was new and I have since liked Michael Jackson as well as drawing since I was nine. Thriller is my any holiday song, Vincent Price is the best rapper ever.

Edit:// the kid draws original comic strips with original characters better than Marvel in its heyday and he's only 9, just amazing.

[deadlegion]

Really a shitty business

Gay sex

[Till]

Screw national anthems, Rammstein wrote the international one on behalf of this planet about what everyone has to say.

I don't sing my mother tongue, no this is not a love song.

I like Africa Santa Claus and Paris Mickey Mouse.

Edit:// at this rate the US government covers up UFOs because aliens helped fake the moon landing. The Van Allen radiation belt makes manned missions suicidal, Apollo astronauts lacked the shielding to not arrive at the moon dead much less return alive.

[Till]

The weirdest shit just happened, a ball of light outside my window hovered for about four seconds then sped away in a streak. It's a covered patio with a roof that's fenced in and locked outside that window, with a security camera so there was no way to get in undetected and did not set off motion sensor. It's been raining all day but no thunder, ball lightning?

Edit:// checked the camera feed and it was probably ball lightning. Florida is the lightning capital of the world so it's bound to happen here. First time I see it in my life if that was what it was.

[Ragnar]

There are people who have lived their entire lives dreaming of seeing ball lighting, going out of their way and trying and never succeeding. Congratulations~

[Grouch]

I'll keep that in mind in case I ever decide to buy from GS again. I don't see them lasting for much longer though.

not too long ago(maybe last month or in oct) I seen a news headline about them laying off a bunch of people and closing more of their stores. they either need to go back to buying/selling old consoles and games exclusively or just close up shop and be done with it, digital storefronts have all but killed them off anyway.

[deadlegion]

Yeah EB over here haven't sold any older stuff for like 15 years or more I guess. They fill the store with merch that can be found at Zing anyway, pointless as Zing isn't a competitor it's all owned by the same parent.

Fucking idiots, but then the regular customers are idiots too

This report is from 2 years ago:
https://www.smh.com.au/business/comp...04-p56zge.html

For the 2019 calendar year, they reported a profit of $US9.4 million ($12.4 million): modest, but far better than the $US343 million loss recorded in the US.

So 4 years ago the 2 chains here were still managing to make a profit, while in the US there were massive losses.
Also:

Across the first and second quarters of 2020, GameStop’s Australian stores were again the only part of the global business not to report huge COVID-related losses, with sales soaring 30 per cent.

[deadlegion]

They could move to online sales only and not have any physical stores (only warehouses strategically placed).

[Grouch]

They could move to online sales only and not have any physical stores (only warehouses strategically placed).

that's a good point. but then they're competing with ebay and amazon.

[Till]

Robots will work at physical stores and for Amazon in warehouses, working in retail is fated and I exited it.

Edit:// though I would return to pet shop management because I love animals, I've moved on to freelance work.

[Till]

While Russia has hypersonic Satan nukes, the US has slower Santa nukes at the North Pole in numerous cans of submarine Coca-Cola whoopass.

[LeftyGuitar]

Speaking of Gamestop, yeah I haven't seen them sell older game stuff in their shops since at least the early 2000s. Now most of the store is just stuff like Funk pops and other GS merch. There's like one wall for games, I remember when they had all the walls full of games. While I think GS fate is inevitable. I really hope that physical media keeps existing.

[deadlegion]

Was googling some stuff, this page randomly came up (idk why):

https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/th...ate-12-14-2023

Mellowing out water usage: Sims will no longer obsessively excessively autonomously shower when hygiene is not low. Like, you’re clean already, Sim. Stop.