Welcome back! As a refresher, we had just gotten to the hardest part of the story, when we were very close to never existing. Investors had pulled out, and our attempts to fund raise, as ill-conceived as they may have been, failed miserably with notable exceptions. Of course, here we are, standing strong, and this episode will tell you why.
Basically, we decided to sell everything we own until we could afford to open. When I say 'we', though, I am mostly referring to Eddie. As I mentioned a few episodes ago, Amy and I lost the only thing we really owned when we lost our condo in Rogers Park, so I literally had nothing more to offer than a nice drum set (which still hasn't sold, BTW). Everything that I was going to sell would actually be our product for the store, mainly my decent Magic collection, so it made no sense to sell them before opening.
Eddie, on the other hand, was a smart man, and started working instead of going to college. He had a lot of expensive stuff, and we used to fund the store. The biggest thing to go was his prized Camaro, which for all intents and purposes transformed into a game store. He sold a few other things as well, though he refused to sell any of his Warhammer 40k armies. I always find it hilarious that his pet project, a kickass Camaro, was fair game, but his little army of plastic space zombies was completely off limits.
The Camaro bought us a new carpet, and paid for Eddie to take a trip to Gen Con. Come to think of it, I am running out of stuff to say about selling, so let's join Eddie on his trip to Gen Con for a while. Without our business license being finalized, I was unable to go to Gen Con personally. Eddie got the trade badge due to his store down in TN, and I made sure to tell him he was a douche bag for being there without me.
We had money set aside for Magic / sleeves / boxes etc, and then a stack of money for Eddie to spend at Gen Con. To my ultimate rage, Ed way overspent, and we were very short on money for Magic boosters. Still, we got a lot of cool board games, like Zombies, or the ultra bad ass Story Wars. I know Story Wars is now just becoming available through the distributors, but I can safely say that we we're one of the first to buy into it. In fact, we bought 20 copies! This game is awesome because there are no dice or card rules to judge who wins the game... the game is won by telling the best story! It's funny, because we weren't even really playing it right, and it wasn't until our GLC regulars picked up the game that we realized how the game was supposed to be played.
We also got some weird dice rings, and Eddie admitted that he may have screwed the pooch on them. I was not impressed at first, but they were actually some of the first things that started selling. They are basically a sturdy ring with a groove in it, and another ring of numbers on the inside that would spin, and come up with a die roll. I personally wear one all the time, and I play with it to no end. Nervous fidgeting is awesome with a ring that spins.
One last Gen Con story, and I'll wrap up this episode. So, series faithfuls may recall that we intend to introduce a non-threatening feminine aspect to our store. We want to make a place that is comfortable for female gamers, and tolerable to the girlfriends of our male shoppers. With this in mind, Eddie attended a seminar dedicated to bringing in female gamers. We were intrigued by the idea that someone else was catching on to catering to the fairer sex, but it turned out that the suggestions were things like "use bright colors" and "get easy games, because women are stupid". Actually, missing this hilarious bull crap was the worst part of not going down to Gen Con.
Join me next week, when we actually GET THE STORE OPEN!!!!!
Thanks for reading!
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