Babylon Station

It seems the squirrels are resorting to desperate tactics and have been forced to hire a black cat to work for them as an assassin. I should have known this would happen.

This morning, as I was cycling to work near to the wooded Evil Squirrel HQ, a black cat started crossing the road in front of me, and then just stopped dead in my path and turned to look at me. This is not normal road crossing behaviour, and was an obvious ploy to make my slam my brakes on or swerve into a nearby car.

Luckily, the four-legged merc had sprung his ambush prematurely, meaning that I had enough time to slow down safely before he stopped playing chicken and finally scampered out of the way. Ha, feline assassin, my nerve is greater than yours!

Dr Frank 4 - Evil Squirrel Conspiracy 1

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We just got a bunch of "Admit Two" passes to an advance screening of the movie "2012" starring John Cusack.

The screening is tonight at 7pm at the Regal Cinema Fenway 13 at the Landmark Center.

Just a quick reminder what we got going on this weekend...

First of all:  Three Sales Over The Next Three Days!

• Frequent Buyer Rewards: $100 gets you $20 From Friday (Nov. 6th) to Sunday (Nov. 8th) every $100 you buy at Pandemonium will get you $20 back in store credit.
  
• All Used Books and Games 30% Off Plus, these sales will also count towards the $100 you need to get the $20 credit!
• Clearance Specials: Many Books, Role Playing Games & Board games will also be discounted 30%, and again any sales will count towards the Frequent Buy Rewards. All Clearance items will have a "30% Off" sticker.

Next, Our Special Events:

Elizabeth Bear will be at Pandemonium Books & Games! Join us for a reading and signing of her new book, By the Mountain Bound (now available at Pandemonium Books & Games). She will be at Pandemonium Books & Games Friday, November 6th from 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Friday Night Magic: Special Edition: Pandemonium will be upping the prize stakes with some really neat Magic: the Gathering prizes for this Friday Night Magic. These special prizes will be given away at random to participants in this week's Friday Night Magic only to players who participate in this week's Friday Night Magic. Additionally, we'll host this Friday Night Magic at the Classic price of $15.00 to further celebrate our Anniversary Sale.

Dungeons & Dragons: Weekend in the Realms: We'll be running Open Role Playing games as part of the Wizards Play network. Registration is up on warhorn.net, here: http://warhorn.net/PandemoniumWITR2009/

Board Game Tournaments & Open Play on Saturday Evening, We'll be holding demos and tournaments with prizes featuring some of our most popular games! Featuring Arkham Horror, Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and many others. Interested in helping to organize, run, or provide games for this event? Please e-mail us at smoagendash(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Monsterpocalypse Tournament: Happening this Sunday at 1:00 at Pandemonium Books & Games.

See you there!

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So how are the really crazed righties reacting to thier "devestating victory over the liberals" by winning 2 out of ten races? Well, let's ask Glen Beck:

"Right. And here's what the ‑‑ forget about the Democrats. Here's what the Republicans should learn. The tea party movement, if you think you're going to run people that are going to be, you know, ACORN wannabes and they're just part of the corruption, part of the system, if you're going to run those people, you can expect a tea party guy to come out, and the tea parties, they'll help you lose every single election. Every single election. Because I for one am not ‑‑ if I believe in the Republican, I'll vote for the Republican. But if you're running somebody who's like part of the system, I'm not interested. I'm not interested. And I think that a lot of Americans are like that. So the Republicans have a choice to make. You can either spend a million dollars trying to destroy a third party accountant, or you could say, wow, this accountant probably would come in within three points of beating the Democrat if we combined our efforts, Republicans and Democrats, spent a fortune, had our candidate then drop out and campaign for the Democrats, we might be able to come in with about a 3‑point margin. You might want to just say, "Maybe we should go with the accountants. Maybe we should go with the regular people." And all you politicians who think you're going to ride the wave of this 9/12 movement, hey, if I can pretend I'm like them, I can get elected. Really? You go ahead and try it. You try to continue the same old stuff, and if you do, you better look out, because not only are 9/12ers and tea partygoers willing to take off their shoes, they're willing to take off their boots, and they'll put it where the sun doesn't shine."

This is far more akin to the Stalin-esque purging of those who did not toe the extreme party line than anything out of the current Whitehouse. If this is what the right wing is coming to, it won't be long before some more pull out their guns.

I have to admit, I'm a bit scared. Anyone who says something like this would never have been given a prominent TV slot on a "news" network, nevermind a syndicated radio show, back in the day.

The rightwing pundits & blogosphere are making a big deal out of the repub victories in the VA and NJ governors' races yesterday. They are crowing of it as a sign that people have lost faith in President Obama and his policies and that this is the beginning of the backlash against the unwanted agenda of the left.

Interesting (especially factoring in the 65-70% of people who want the public option).

Here's why these races were not referenda on Obama's person or policies...

In both states' exit polls, well over 50% or the respondents who voted for the GOP governor choice stated that they approved of Obama and how he was handling the problems facing the country. The governor races were based on local concerns about the state's economy, jobs, and the fact that the democratic candidates were not that great (Deeds was referred to by one self-IDed democrat as a "douche").

Want a referendum on a party? Look to NY-23. The really far right Hoffman and his wingnut supporters drove the actual republican candidate out and forced her to throw her support behind the democrat as the best for the district. Result? The GOP is becoming more radical, more intolerant, and purging their best hopes out. It has been promised that this purge has only started.

And as for supporting the POTUS? The states may have put repubs into state offices, but the national races for congress seats all went to dems. That's a referendum on Obama.

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So yesterday was the off-off-year elections....

The GOP won the NJ governorship. I don't know enough about the players there, so I can't say what that might mean for the state.

They also took the VA governorship, along with the lt. gov and attn general offices. Two things that bode poorly for VA voters there, though. First, one big plan to help the state's finances is to sell off the state-owned liquor stores to private interests, raising possibly as much as $100 million. Thing is, this crew has a history of favoring cronies with these sort of deals. Also, that $100 mil is a one time windfall. After that's gone-no more revenue from liquor sales directly to the state. And those profits are what pay for the schools, amongst other things. How are they going to replace that revenue stream without raising taxes? (Which of course no repub would ever do since cutting taxes (at least to the top 10% or so) is the answer to all evils from not pulling in enough tax money to soggy toast)

Also, the new Gov. of VA is a graduate of Pat Robertson's Liberty University, a fundamentalist nut house of "Christian" approved education. {UPDATE: Sorry, Liberty U is the late Falwell's place. I meant Regent U, still nutty, just a different guy running the nuts] His thesis was about how women should be subservient to men in the home, not work, and how heterosexual married folk should be the only ones to get and state/federal benefits as opposed to "gays, cohabitators, and fornicators". Can't wait to see how that works out.

But the hard-core conservative carpetbagger lost in NY's 23rd district, making the 23's representative a democrat for the first time in over 100 years. Sorry Palin, but your attempt to interfere in another state's internal politics has failed. The loser didn't even live in the district and knew nothing about it or its issues!

The real bad news is that once again, voters overturned an existing right already possesed by a minority. Same-sex marriage was voted out in ME yesterday. Since when do we let the majority vote on a minority's civil rights? Or as someone on KOS said,

"The line of bigoted reasoning goes, "You can't be happy because that would make me uncomfortable." That's really just about as low as humans get."

So true, so true.

Last week, Bekah popped a fever. So she was out of school Thurs and Fri. And I was stuck home all day with her, except for a quick trip to the doctor. Not that that's a problem, but I tend to get a bit stir-crazed. I went to fencing at BVFA just to work on footwork Thurs, just to get out of the house. It looks like I might be getting paid to direct for some local RI/MA highschool tournaments.

Saturday, Alex was ill with a cold, so we all stayed home. Well, Bekah went to an allergist app., and I took Alex to the doctor because we were worried about him and his cough. And then it was all rented movies for the rest of the day.

Sunday, both Jen and Bekah were still sick, so, instead of going to the PdF "E" tournament I was registered for, I took Alex to church so he could process with the little kids' choir for the first time.

Yesterday, both kids went to school. And I got sick with a throat cold. You should hear me try to talk.

I hate colds. Actually, we're pretty sure that Bekah had H1N1, but we can't be sure.

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( Looking for an Exalted game? )

Monday saw a large amount of squirrel conspiracy activity. Firstly, for context check out the area in question on Google Maps - it's the little path from Fairbourne Way to Little St. that goes under a few trees. It is not a road.

So yes, as I was cycling down that little path in a wooded area I was actually amazed (and nearly run over) by a van actually driving *up* it right at me. Using my amazing ninja reflexes, I just managed to avoid it, but the whole thing was incredibly suspicious. I didn't get a proper look at the driver, but I just *know* it was a group of collaborating squirrels (a couple on the steering wheel, and then some on the pedals) from the terrible driving.

Ha, squirrels, you may have learnt to drive our magic steel boxes, but you are still no match for my wits and skill!

Doctor_Frank 2 - Evil Squirrel Conspiracy 1

On Thursday they'd apparently run out of ideas slightly, because they tried repeating the "running under my wheels" tactic to get me to brake. The squirrel in question was a good six feet off the edge of the path as I was cycling down it, but upon seeing me turned and ran *across* the path in front of me, when the standard response of a frightened animal would have been to run away to a nearby tree (of which there were plenty). Fortunately, I was prepared for such shenanigans and didn't brake - the squirrel just missed my front wheel, and I think the ESC learned a valuable lesson that day.

Doctor_Frank 3 - Evil Squirrel Conspiracy 1

We have finally gotten a working system to transfer credits back and forth between the two stores, and we're making a few tweaks to the policy to encourage sales and cover costs. We've already started transitioning and we'll be officially switching on November 1st.

Rewards: Members will get $10.00 back for every $100 spent. This is a change from the $25 for $250. It's still 10% back in credit, but the rewards are more frequent.  Any money members have at Pandemonium will carry into this reward program.

New Exclusions: Food and Beverages are being excluded from the program. Pandemonium is no longer going to be able to pay the bottle deposit for customers on products sold, so $0.05 deposit will be added to Pepsi products that Pandemonium Books & Games carry.

Cross Store Rewards: Your Move Games is now able to track customer spending and will be a part of the rewards program. If you have reward points at one store, we can remotely transfer them over and trigger your rewards card once the transition is complete after November 1st.

Big ticket Items: Any items at Pandemonium Books & Games or Your Move Games that have a ticket of $75.00 or more will be discounted 10% up front. This excludes case discounts on products (i.e. boxes of collectible card games or miniature games).


Reminder of Current Exclusions:

Sales Tax, Event Entry Fees and Deeply Discounted Merchandise do not count toward the membership discount.

Just a quick reminder what's going on this Saturday at Pandemonium.  It's a little crazy, due to two different game companies spontaneously deciding that Hey! it's be cool to have a special gaming event on Halloween, when we had already booked the World of the Worlds play for Halloween night some months ago.  Hmf. 

So here's what is happening:

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Twenty years! 

TWENTY YEARS!?!?      Wow...... 

I always hoped that Pandemonium would prove to be stout enough to last this long, in spite of the rise of the big chains and the internet, but I still find myself astonished that the store has made it this long.  Incredible!

Of course, I owe it all to you, our customers, who have stood by the store through thick and thin, many of you since I first opened Pandemonium's doors on the second floor at 8 JFK St.  in Harvard Sq.  Once a year I hold an Anniversary Sale as my way of thanking you all for your loyalty and support over the years.

This year, we are going to do three sales in one:

Firstly:  all members will get $20 in credit for every $100 they buy over the three days of the sale.  In addition, if you already have sales on your account, those will count towards the $100 milepost!* 

Secondly:  all used books and games will be discounted a straight 30% off!  Moreover, these sales will also count towards the "$100 gets you $20" sale, essentially giving you a smidge less than 50% off all used products!

Thirdly, we will be holding a vast clearance sale. All items marked for clearance will be 30% off, which again will stack with the "$100 gets you $20" sale. We will post a list of all clearance items both here on the Pandemonium LJ and on the store website.

We will also be having other events, which will be detailed in other posts.

Watch the skies!




*In other words, if you have already bought $101 worth of stuff with you account, ANY purchase will give you a $20 credit. As always, event fees do not count towards your totals.

Eizabeth Bear will be coming to Pandemonium to help us kick off our 20th Anniversary Celebrations.  She will be signing her new book, By the Mountain Bound, which is a prequel to her most excellant All the Windwracked Stars. 

Hope to see you all there!

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