Andrew (R.S Admin) @ajroach42@retro.social

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Alright, I put inquiries in with everyone I could find who was distributing comics.

If there is a title you want, I'll see what we can do.

So apparently DC just cut ties with Diamond, and Diamond is likely to be entirely revamping their business as a result.

Interesting times.

We were 1950s style spies, basically.

Anyway, I think about that a lot.

Remember when kids programs advertised encryption as a toy?

When I was 10, we had decoder rings, and we sent messages back and forth to one another with covert dead drops and an ever escalating set of cyphers and encryption methods.

We built book safes and false bottom boxes. We hid secrets. We organized against our teachers. We agitated.

I was a child, it was a game.

Was your childhood like this?

I think I could have enough local business to justify it pretty quickly, but I'd feel a lot more confident if I could get a pick list going.

So, are any of you #comicbook fans without a home comics store, that would be willing to keep a pick list with our coffee shop, to have shipped to you?

I'd do free shipping on orders of 5 books or more, and would ship each week or each month at your option.

I'm considering setting up an account with Diamond (the only comic book distributor in the country) so that we can carry a small smattering of comics.

Their minimum order is $425/month, and you have to place a monthly order or they won't do business with you.

That works out to be about $100/week, which isn't Horrible, but it's also not great when you're talking about items that mostly cost $3/each. So I'd need to be moving 141 comic books a month to meet their minimums.

This week, for far too many reasons to enumerate, is kicking my ass.

Today, for the first time in a while, I feel hopeful about the state of the world. I don't know why, but I woke up feeling like things had turned a corner and might actually get better.

It felt today like we are winning.

I hope I'm not wrong.

It's time to talk about some stuff, yeah?

How are you? What's good? What is bringing you joy?

We did 1100 in sales today and literally did not stop cleaning at any point. That shit was exhausting.

Damn. Long fucking day. Haven't seen any news, how have things inevitably gotten worse?

On the other hand, the world is an absolute trashfire.

I spoke with a cop for a few hours yesterday. The conversation started with him saying "The protesters are right but..."

and ended with him saying "No DA in their right mind is going to bring charges against cops on a regular basis. It would break the justice system. Shit, I guess we are the bad guys."

But he didn't quit his job, so I guess he's okay with that.

The shop is open. There's still a world of work to do, but we have a few customers isolating themselves in various corners. We're baking and serving coffee and things are great so far.

Alright, I spent some more time reading about disaster radio and ... I think it might be just barely fast enough to use for some kind of message board or social network style application that stores data temporarily on a cache node to be downloaded later by an end user.

I'm trying to suss out the edges.

For various reasons, I was reading about the city of Philadelphia's unjustifiable bombing of residential housing with intent to murder members of the organization Move.

I knew about this event in the abstract, but I didn't know the details.

I know more details now, they do not make the police look better.

The power asymmetry in this country is stark. The bombing was punitive and terroristic. It served no functional purpose beyond destruction. ACAB

Folks, if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.

Otherwise, I'm going to read this book and think about ways to help my community grow from here.

Luv to get a manual page at 3AM on Sunday that should have gone to another team.

I'm pretty convinced that bad stuff is going to happen WRT the internet in the coming months, and I'm thinking a lot about our plan B's and how we don't have any right now.

I'm also going to read some wodehouse, research disaster radio some more, and setting up some onion sites.