Archive for the ‘business’ Category

Five Jodi Whitaker as the Doctor to Big Finish Thoughts Under the Fedora, The Baker Irony, The Clue, The Business Decision, Bait and Switch and the Answer to an Intriguing Question

Posted: July 13, 2024 by datechguy in business, doctor who
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Today I noticed Tom Baker Trending on Twitter and after confirming he was not dead went over to take a look and found this among the tweets there:

It speaks volumes that on the day this is announced Tom Baker is trending on twitter and not her.

I had a horrible feeling this was coming because I had purchased a Bundle for the 60’s anniversary called Once and Future which was a series of stories featuring full stories for all the doctors who do big finish: Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Christopher Eccleston, (the late David Warner who has played an alternative universe doctor for decades) David Tennant and Paul McGann along with smaller parts for actors who are playing the 1st – 3rd doctors & 11 & 12).

The series was all released last year except for one which was held out even though the continuing plot was completed with absolutely no details about the episode or cast released. I had a nasty suspicion that the reason why was Whitaker and they that there were plenty of folks like me who would have given the bundle a miss if they knew that was the case.

I was close they’ve just announced today the final part will feature Jo Martin as the fugitive doctor.

I don’t have a problem with Big Finish doing Jo Martin stories or even Jodie Whitaker Stories, if there is a market that will support those produces there is no reason why Big Finish should not take advantage of that market.

They had already announced one Joe Martin set and recently announced a 2nd which means the pre-orders justified such a move so there is definitely a customer base that wants it. I suspect that drove the decision to sign Whitaker and if they can make a profit with them more power to them that’s how business works.

And if the Jodie Whitaker episodes prove profitable and sell well then Big Finish would be foolish to not take advantage of it. That’s Business

What’s not business however was the decision to play the bait and switch.

The reason why Doctor Who’s TV ratings are tanking worse that in the Colin Baker Sylvester McCoy years is the BBC chased a lot of customers away who had not only been fans but passed that fandom to another generation. Big finish was a refuge for such fans who would enjoy the old series and didn’t want William Hartnell as the first doctor thrown under the bus.

Even with Whitaker and Martin signed it wouldn’t be a problem for us old timers. We would have had the choice not to support these changes. Those who wanted to could buy them and any cross over produces while those of us who didn’t could avoid them. All the customers are served & happy.

By not telling their loyal customers that buying the Once and Future Bundle meant supporting the re-write of Doctor Who’s origin they conned me and I suspect others into buying a product we would have passed on otherwise. The worst part is every single time I go to my account’s download page that will be on top awaiting the download that will never come and reminding me that I’ve been played.

It’s odd how priorities can change. This weekend I’ve been bouncing back and forth between buying the latest 9th doctor bundle (12 hours $120 or so) or just the River Song episodes (3 hours $30). Was going to decide on Sunday but as of today I think we’ll go with none of the above.

Oddly enough I also find that Crossover DeathWorld featuring the the no longer1st, no longer 2nd and no longer 3rd Doctor which came out this month along with the sequel to Susan’s War just doesn’t seem as attractive a purchase to me as it did a day ago.

I think I’ll confine the remainder of the my big finish purchases to the few Tom Baker episodes I still don’t have and when Tom finally goes off into the sunset so will my big finish days.

Penny wise pound foolish.

Whatever my feelings on the bait and switch none of that reflects on the quality of their productions. Big finish has a 25 year record of producing high quality stories with excellent writing and solid post production that has only improved with age and that brings up a very intriguing aspect to Whitaker signing on.

While I religiously avoided the Whitaker era my oldest son watched it and pronounced it the absolute worst era of the show saying that only about three episodes were recognizably Doctor Who. Ironically he thought that the Jo Martin Character was more recognizable as the Doctor than Whitaker was. He blamed the writing which he thought was the most abysmal in the history of the series bar none.

He has told me the stories were so bad that Whitaker didn’t really get a fair shot and has wondered aloud to me if the Whitaker era might have been different with better writing and plots.

The BBC could get away with shit writing and woke scripts because they are state sponsored and even the tanking ratings for Ncuti Gatwa (actually most of them decent stories with a gem or two there) don’t matter because they’re paid for by Disney money.

But Big Finish is not the BBC. They are an actual business that has to attract actual paying customers on the merit of the quality of cast, writing and production values. If they don’t produce a quality product there is no license fee or big corporation to make up the difference. In fact they have to pay the BBC to license Doctor Who so there is an extra base cost right up front.

This has really driven the quality of the writing at big finish which is in my opinion some of the best writing you will fine anywhere. Good writing tends to bring out the best in the cast. In the 16 or so years since I discovered them I can count the number of really bad stories I’d heard on the fingers of one hand with fingers left over.

If the BBC produced episodes with the script and production values of Big Finish during either the Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy years I submit and suggest that the entire history of the series would be have been re-written. To give you an idea Colin Baker is my youngest son’s favorite Doctor based solely on Big Finish audios which he heard as a teen before he ever saw a single one of his TV episodes.

Jodie Whitaker will now be playing The Doctor supported by a set of quality writers producing quality stories for her with the goal of getting paying customers to buy them. I would be a liar if I didn’t say I’m very curious if given that environment she can pull it off. In fact given the quality of Big Finish I’d actually be surprised if she didn’t.

Under the Fedora: Jonah Goldberg and the New Rules, Pride Month Savings on Sports, The annual Business ritual, More Utilitarian Candidates, What Bread of Life Discourses?

Posted: June 3, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Trump, business, catholic, culture, election 2024, elections, politics, Sports, under the fedora
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This weekend Jonah Goldberg noted that a lot of people on the right were comparing Trump to Christ and weren’t taking into account the idea that he cheated on his wife with a porn star.

Well there are two things I’d like to say to that. While Jonah is of course free do disagree on the merits of either verdict the fact is we compare Trump to Christ because Trump we believe both were found guilty unjustly, not of sleeping around but of a completely made up bookkeeping felony, so like Christ he was unjustly found guilty. Nobody (with the possible exception of Laura Loomer) on the right compares Trump to Christ’s divinity.

Second while I do in fact find it plausible that a really rich guy decided to bang a porn star and tried to keep it quiet (frankly I’d hate to have my performance in bed judged by a professional) folks like me who under the old rules thought such things should be disqualifying were massively outvoted on said rules so until the left decides to go back to said rules we aren’t either.

We’re in the middle of a baseball season where the Redsox have a great crop of young players and at the end of a basketball season where the Celtics are in the finals with a solid shot of winning and least we forget the Pats have a new 1st round QB and an old Brady era vet to mentor him. All these things are strong temptations to have me pony up for one of various sports packages from NESN to MLB to NBA etc etc etc…

…and then June roles around and all the professional teams go out of their way to remind me that they are not on my side in the culture wars and suddenly radio and hitting a local bar/restaurant to watch a game rather then giving these guys my money becomes an attractive alternative.

My thanks to various leagues for helping me appreciate the joy of free sports.

Oh and the annual ritual of business shoving gay pride down our throats in the west while making it a point to avoid the same in the middle east continues as always, with BMW actually admitting what we all know that it’s all about the risk and reward of the mob.

Of course in a new years the Ghastly Tom Hagan math will catch up with the west and when it does the west will drop their pride campaigns faster than the Democrats dropped Israel

Speaking of a lack of principles there are quite a few GOP candidates who had been pushing their pro-life credentials in the past who suddenly find themselves willing to compromise on life to gain higher office.

Now there are no shortage of Democrats who run as republicans in red states or republican who run as dems in blue states to get power nor is there a shortage in either party of people whose primary principle is to advance their political power. And the reality is that given the number of honest men & women in politics you likely can’t get a majority without these sorts.

So when there is no other choice by all means elect them but keep such folks away from the true levers of party power because people willing to sell out their principles or their God will have little trouble selling you.

Finally episode one of the Chosen is available free and those who expected to see the aftermath of the feeding of the 5000 and the calming of the waters which closed last season might have been shocked to see they went back to Luke Chapter 1 to the Visitation as their lead.

Granted they decided to knock off John the Baptist in episode one but if there is one thing you could always be sure of in any protestant movie about Christ skips the 6th chapter of John once it reaches verse 26 the beginning of the bread to life discourses. The only exception being word for word adaptions of Gospel.

Given that The Chosen is a TV series rather than a movie there would have been more than enough time to include them but as Catholic as Jonathan Roumie is, he does not have creative control so the bread of life discourses had to go.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good episode and I liked the juxtaposition of the Canticle of Zachariah (the Morning Prayer of the Catholic Church) with the scenes of John’s end and the reaction to it but some things never change, and if you were expecting to see The Chosen break that mold you will be mistaken.

Oh and I’d watch it via the youtube live stream because the loading time of the app seems to be very slow likely due to the sheer number of people trying to watch it there.

USA Today Accidently Conforms the Nellie Bowles Story

Posted: May 26, 2024 by datechguy in business, culture
Tags: , , , , ,

Detective Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

Sherlock Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Detective Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.

Sherlock Holmes: That was the curious incident.

Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of Silverblaze 1896

At Instapundit there is a link to a pair of stories about the Nellie Bowles book about how the New York times decided to ignore reality in their reporting. This part really jumped out at me:

First, it was blunting my reporting. It was saying you can’t report on the most interesting stories of the day, which was really frustrating and crazy-making a little bit because it was like, “What do you mean we’re not supposed to cover the riots? What do you mean we’re not supposed to talk about” … you name it, hot-button issue of the day. And basically there was a media blackout for a while.

I call it now time wandering, which is all of the most interesting issues. You’re allowed to talk about it in the world of all the Substacks, the conservative media covers it, and the liberal media waits about two or three years and then they’re allowed to touch it.

On the same day that Glenn Reynolds posted this I saw a link in Don Surber’s Highlights of the News to this story at USA today:

Cracker Barrel’s stock has taken a beating since the restaurant chain held an investor call in which its new CEO admitted the Southern country restaurant chain isn’t as “relevant” as it once was.

Julie Felss Masino, who became Cracker Barrel’s CEO nine months ago, told investors during the May 16 call that the 54-year-old eatery “was not delivering the financial results that shareholders deserve.”

“Cracker Barrel is a great concept and a great company,” Masino said. “… But to ignite growth, we must revitalize the brand.”

Before Masino and Cracker Barrel’s leadership held the meeting, the company’s stock hovered around $60 per share, but a day after the call, it dropped almost 20%, to about $48 per share, according to NASDAQ.

The stock closed Thursday at $45.75 per share.

Now why would a CEO saying the chain isn’t “relevant” cause the stock to drop 20%?

Well, maybe it’s because it means the CEO is not addressing the reason why the stock had dropped TO $60 a share from the $102 it was at a year ago. To find the answer to that question you have to ignore the USA story and search instead at Ace of Spades HQ:

In June of 2023 Cracker Barrel went woke, deciding that it could bring in new customers and investors by sexualizing the front porch with rainbow-striped rocking chairs. As it turned out, that was not a good marketing strategy, and it had the effect of repulsing existing customers who don’t want country cooking to be sexualized, be it gay, straight, or otherwise.

Image via Ace of Spades HQ

The fallout was immediate, with consumers announcing boycotts and the stock price taking an initial hit. Despite a lack of headlines or buzz since then, the boycott has continued and has been devastating to Cracker Barrel. The restaurant chain permanently ran off a great many loyal customers, and the persistently “unexpected” decline in traffic is taking a serious financial toll on the company.

It was just announced this week that Cracker barrel is slashing its dividend by 81%. Cracker Barrel stock has fallen from $102 per share at the start of “Pride Month” 2023 to $49 per share now, a 52% decline.

Now one might think that this would be an important part of the story of the drop in Cracker Barrel’s share price. Particularly when there were stories as far back as September that this was a “marketing” issue:

In a rare downbeat financial accounting, Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores acknowledged that its marketing and media efforts likely worsened a traffic drop-off during the quarter ended July 28.

We had expected the traffic would improve in June and July with the onset of the summer travel season,” said [CEO] Cochran. “Unfortunately, this didn’t materialize, and our restaurants and retail sales performance came in below our expectations.

Note that a “downbeat financial accounting” was “rare” for Cracker Barrel until they went work, but even in that story they pointed to “marketing” rather then going all in on the gay agenda. Of course Don Surber didn’t shy from the actual cause of the Cracker Barrel crack-up

ITEM 27: A year ago, Bao Ong of the Houston Chronicle reported, “Cracker Barrel faces calls for boycott after announcing support for Pride month.”

Oh those nutty social conservatives.

On Friday, USA Today reported, “Cracker Barrel stock plummets after CEO says chain isn’t as relevant, must revitalize.”

It turns out, the rainbow people don’t like rocking chairs. Maybe Cracker Barrel can become relative by offering Bud Light and holding Drag Queen Sleepovers for children.

Of course the rainbow folks don’t like Cracker Barrell, in fact back in the days when Pintastic NE was in Sturbridge my son and I would go for breakfast at Cracker Barrell at least once during the event we would play a game which I called the “woke offense game” where pretended to be woke leftists and too turns pointed to items on the wall and explained why we were offended by them. The last person who couldn’t find something to be offended by lost. Usually we could not reach that point by the time breakfast was over.

This is all a question of people not knowing who their customer base is. Buck Throckmorton has a solution:

the first thing Cracker Barrel needs to do is apologize for insulting its loyal customers by sexualizing the restaurant and for effectively smearing its loyal customers as being “unwelcoming” people.

If it doesn’t, Cracker Barrel might as well go full woke. Perhaps it could hire Dylan Mulvaney away from Bud Light and have him cross-dress in Daisy Dukes while drinking an old-time pop from a rainbow-colored rocking chair. Alissa Heinersheid has experience using for Mr. Mulvaney for such promotions, and I believe she is available. Or maybe Cracker Barrel could run a Gillette-style ad accusing its legacy customers of being loathsome bigots and sexual predators.

June is only a week away and we will find out if Cracker Barrell’s new CEO is interested in serving the shareholders or serving the agenda. She can

  • Take Buck’s advice, apologize for last year and promise customers their only agenda will be good food served in a country motif. (Plan A)
  • Say nothing but make it a point not to go near the June “pride” agenda and hope the offended customers notice they decided to give it a miss this year (Plan B)
  • Decide to go all in on the rainbow agenda let the gay flag & rockers fly and damn the stock price! (Plan C)

Whatever the choice and result is we can be sure that the MSM in general and USA Today in particular will not report on the actually cause of the initial fall of Cracker Barrel, after all, it might discourage others from falling into line.

Update: CBS did a story on Cracker Barrel and they didn’t find the boycott relevant either.

Unexpectedly of course

“I don’t know if I’m going to vote this year, but if I do vote it will be for Donald Trump.” (Plus 36 years ago today)

Posted: April 9, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, business, economy
Tags: ,

The Biden economy has not been good for the work force at the place I’ve been working at for 6 plus years.

During the Trump years we were booming, three warehouses at full tilt with a huge workforce including temps that we regularly recruited full time employees from. Since the dawn of the Biden years we had, the shrinking then disappearing peak season, followed by the closing of two of our warehouses, we had the laying off and buying out of a bunch of management and salary people, then we had the elimination of our 2nd shift and the buying out of hourly workers.

Yesterday just before lunch hour there was a meeting and we were told that because there is so little work at this time my shift (Sun-Wed 7-5:30) is going to have Wednesday off unpaid, although if we wish to use a vacation day. and the Monday – Friday shift is leaving 2 hours early the rest of the week.

We are told this is only for this week but they can’t promise it won’t happen again.

Now oddly enough I had planned to take the entire week off starting today because of this event of 36 years ago today:

April 9th 1988

and the beginning of PINTASTIC NE 2024 on Thursday (and it amazes me that I’m only now getting to mention it on the blog as it’s only 2 days away!) but as DaWife couldn’t get today off I decided to give it a miss. Now with the prospect of being short 25% of a week’s pay and taxes due I’ll burn the vacation day after all.

As you might guess yesterday’s announcement caused a lot of buzz but as English is the 2nd or 3rd language to Spanish & French at my place I didn’t hear most of it but there is a fellow there who speaks English that I had a chance to talk to a bit. He’s the oldest worker at the place 74 years old, naturalized citizen, used to be a teacher in the Boston schools. A Haitian gentleman who is as socialist as they come and who expresses the opinion that Haiti would be better off with China’s influence than the US in the country.

We were working the same area and expressed dismay at the situation. I commented on this being one of the costs of a stolen election and this black Haitian socialist said this:

“I don’t know if I’m going to vote this year, but if I do vote it will be for Donald Trump.”

If we’ve reached the point we’re the best case scenario for the Democrats in the Biden economy is black socialists from Massachusetts staying home then this election might be really something.

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