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Barnes & Noble Game Nights
So... Here's a pleasant surprise that I didn't see coming. Barnes & Noble is going to try to appeal to the neighborhood comic shop crowd by hosting game nights on Thursdays, and they'll even offer promotional merch for those who attend. They'll be hosting the following:
-King of Tokyo (Freebie: 11 Power cards)
-Sheriff of Nottingham (Freebie: 6 Contraband cards)
-Splendor (Freebie: Play-mat)
-Codenames (No freebie)
-Lanterns: The Harvest Festival (Freebie: Four promo tiles)
Edit: Here's a list of participating stores.
-King of Tokyo (Freebie: 11 Power cards)
-Sheriff of Nottingham (Freebie: 6 Contraband cards)
-Splendor (Freebie: Play-mat)
-Codenames (No freebie)
-Lanterns: The Harvest Festival (Freebie: Four promo tiles)
Edit: Here's a list of participating stores.
Post edited by Daikun on
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BARNES & NOBLE 2275
131 COLONIE CENTER SUITE 355
ALBANY NY 12205
We do already have gaming nights at two local stores, but Thursday is not one of those days. Maybe I'll pop in and throw support at it.
For the past 2-3 years, they've given stores the leeway to host their own game nights, and some do. If you search B&N's site, it's like a miniature version of Meetup. There are store-run and community-run events all over the place. I peeked in the other day and there was everything from casual board game groups to full-fledged Pathfinder campaigns running.
Now there is an initiative from up on corporate high to host some game nights. It's only about 10% of their stores, but the freebies may help pull in enough of the gamer crowd to get a baseline attendance. The worst case is having 1-2 people show up and not even getting a game off. Getting a mousepad-quality Splendor playmat is actually a solid piece of swag (I can't imagine they have many to give away?)
The internet leaves people longing for one thing: dependable physical meetup space. B&N as they are configured has an extremely limited ability to serve in that role. I don't fault them for trying, though.
I mean I understand the draw both for the album art and the unique sound but I look forward to the VHS and 8-track tape coming back :-p
Fuck you if you think they somehow magically sound better than a FLAC straight from the studio master, though.
Also, despite being scratchable, vinyls hold up pretty well. Vinyl and 8-track get all magnetically fucked up to the point where no amount of tracking adjustment can save them.
Also, when you turn on a VHS movie after watching HDTV there's absolutely no question which is superior. When it comes to audio-only, it's much easier to deceive others and yourself. Vinyls sound the way VHS looks, but stupid people don't believe it no matter how much math you teach them.
edit: Good god all the citations I can find all back me up, but are really shoddy sources.
Tapes degrade even if you do nothing to them.
Plus, if you're big enough you can still release the album and have singles released leading up to and after its release to keep it in the public consciousness.
On the topic of vinyl, I also find it weird personally, while also understanding why. I wound up buying one vinyl record last year: the Super Hexagon soundtrack. It was on hexagon-shaped vinyl! I had to! I was almost tempted to get the limited edition Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack vinyl release last week, but I talked myself out of it b/c it would literally just be a thing that sat on the shelf and never got touched. At least the Super Hexagon one is something I'd display on a shelf, not hide away.
Whenever a medium could potentially hold more of a type of artform it has always been adopted. There were double albums to get around this convenience or sitting on songs to add it to your next album where the song might not fit so it becomes a B side or a song that becomes hard to get but is good.
I may be in the minority but all the CD shops near me have shut down, they take up a few racks in a department store or an electronics store and that's about it. I blame all the orchestral music.
I agree with @ninjarabbi on the whole album listening approach but I would only listen to whole albums occasionally on CD but it has become really quite common since I started using streaming music. Sometimes I just sit back with my headphones on thinking I'll listen to 1 or 2 songs on my headphones while I'm browsing some other stuff or doing chores and what not but I end up listening to the whole thing.
Sure the singles flood is the best "make money" approach. However if you want to release a number of songs linked with a specific musical style, theme, lyrical links to represent an idea, an album makes some sense from the creative point.
The intermediate point is being adopted where a few singles are released as they are written and performed then added to a more cohesive album a few months later, which could either be for the creator's choice or the label wanting to stick to producing something that can be placed on a collection that can be sold as an album. CDs, DVDs, Blu Rays are all the same but I would guess there are the same or more discs which are scratched than the less robust vinyl. There is a case for a robust medium (i.e. not physical so there is a limit on how many ways you can break it).
If the upstream source was recorded in lower fidelity, and then upsampled to CD-rate, you wouldn't get the full range. But that's true of vinyl too.
Here's a ton of stuff on frequency, sampling, and digital audio if you're into that kind of thing. Monty really is a great talker.
24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed
A Digital Media Primer for Geeks
Digital Show & Tell