Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Nerdiest Heist Ever”.
Two unidentified men walked off with a pallet of boxes, as vendors set up for Gen Con in Indianapolis, resulting in the loss of three hundred thousand dollars worth of Magic, the Gathering cards uh or potentially half of that, if they open them or significantly more, if they Get a rare card, it was initially unclear what was stolen, but local retailer and tabletop tournament. Organizer Pastime, comics and games. Pastimes comics and games later confirmed that the stolen items were sealed Magic. The Gathering sets, despite the loss, Pastime, comics and games, hosted their scheduled events throughout the convention, cool that must have been pretty annoying high profile. Sales of rare Magic Cards have elevated the perceived value of trading cards, increasing the risk of theft in May. A burglar broke into a game shop in a suburb of Indiana and shoved fifteen thousand dollars of magic cards into a pizza delivery bag. All right discussion question: why have trading cards become so lucrative? What impact does that have on tabletop gaming? That’S not what I want to talk about all right.
I want to talk about how difficult it is to manage security. Well, at an event like this dude, I can totally get how this happened. I thought about that. I thought about LTX, while reading this the first time and this time, it’s clear that there are some things that we’re gon na have to figure out for the next LTX. If we don’t want people walking off with a pallet of Magic, the Gathering cards – fortunately almost nothing – we have at an event like LTX, has this kind of value density. We would never have an entire palette of laptop, for example, so you would but then I would also never expect a thief to just walk.
They don’t even have they don’t even have hard hats and safety vests on, like that’s rule number, one of not being questioned about anything yeah is having a hard hat and a safety vest on and like a utility belt or something no one’s going to ask you Anything you just pick up a pallet jack and start moving things around these guys. Just roll in with like t-shirts and just freaking carry away a pallet of cards. What did they even put it in? I don’t know freaking wild, that’s nuts, that’s pretty much! All I had to say about that yeah trading cards becoming lucrative.
I have a theory on this. Actually, I think, income inequality and cost of living and everything is so bad and people are seeing stuff like uh crypto, and all these other scenarios be like the only real but like gamble. Literally, everything you have completely broke or super rich is pretty much the only option.
Well, yeah. The erosion of the middle class has been basically happening since it’s hard to say exactly when sorry um and it’s it’s a huge problem. It’S one of those things it’s like.
It’S like when people ask me for my position on unions and like overall Pro Union. Did you see the UPS yeah? It’S awesome. That’S outstanding, yeah actually uh, but I’m also anti-running a company where people feel like they need one. So if that makes me a monster, then I don’t know you I will. I will say from what I’ve heard.
The negotiations that happened between the union and UPS went over very well. Both sides were like cool well, UPS has come out and been all like: butt hurt about it after they’re like this will make us less competitive or whatever, but realistically they were saying that to their shareholders, which is true, uh. You know if they’re paying more for labor, that is, you know, yeah whatever um, but those salaries, looking good man, yeah they’re, looking real good yeah and that’s great that’s gon na that’s gon na push up the value of people because I’m, like that’s the term, unskilled Labor is just such a misnomer, it’s very like douchey like and no driving a vehicle safely and making sure that packages are properly handled and and being highly efficient. We can have the debate another day about whether UPS, you know, gets your package there safely or whatever.
I mean fine, but assuming that you are skilled, that’s I guess my point right is clearly you appreciate it when the job is done with a degree of skill. Don’T you so then? No, as long as somebody with skill is doing it, there isn’t unskilled labor with that said, I mean there’s other areas where the fight is not going so well. I think that the actors and the writers are in deep trouble. I don’t think they have a leg to stand on a stand on in this negotiation and to be clear, I’m not saying that they’re not right, I’m just saying that they don’t have a good negotiating position at the end of the day. That’S that’s what it’s going to come down to to when they’re sitting across the table from corporations that only care about money. I think a lot of people are going to end up mishearing that, even though I don’t think you said it wrong again, he didn’t say that he doesn’t think they’re right.
It’S just it ties into a conversation. We’Ve had on Wan show before about how like movie, profits, have been taken in a lot of Realms and TV. There’S no money in TV anymore and they’re sitting there going. We want.
We want more of the money from TV. It’S like okay, see you later uh hyper commoditized. Is that the right word I would say I don’t know if that’s right, quite the right term I mean just cord cutting yeah has has ripped and the streaming services are way cheaper, like it’s just and then now there’s a ton of competition in the streaming space. It’S like oof, I don’t know studios, are bad faith negotiating we’re, not we’re not agreeing with the studios yeah.
This is this is what I’m saying like I. I was pretty sure people were going to mishear this. We are not agreeing with the studios, we’re just saying that they’re gon na have of the the the the strikers and the situation are going to have a very hard time. We’Re not saying that.
That’S a good we’re, not saying that’s the right thing, we’re just acknowledging that they’re gon na happen. Luke you’re gon na keep reiterating things, but it doesn’t matter how many times you so something or how clearly we state it uh, you know even float plane chat, which is like our peeps line, is seriously. Worker representation is the law for our company, the size of yours in a lot of countries, get off your high horse you’re, not hearing what I’m saying you’re just you are. You are like I’m saying.
Our goal is to run a company where people shouldn’t need it. Yeah, that is a good thing and if you disagree, I’d have no idea. What to tell you, there’s there’s literally no statement here of unions are bad, we’re just saying we want to be so good. We want people to not need one yeah, it’s just black. It’S actually black and white me say thing good, that’s it it’s not it’s not a bad thing. Yeah, there’s, actually nothing. I could do to prevent our staff from unionizing actually for real, like we have way better worker protections than the states for the most part. It does vary a lot from state to state um.
I don’t know so far. Success yeah, it’s a good thing. .