New Website, New Blog

With our recent redesign of www.paradoxcnc.com, we have now integrated our blogging functionality directly into the site. This means that we will no longer be using the Blogger page for any purpose. If you want to keep up to date on store news (or simply what Rich thinks about Star Trek) visit www.paradoxcnc.com and read the content there. The newest blogs will always show up in the left sidebar on the main page. Hope to see you there.

STUFF & THINGS 12

ZEN AND THE ART OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Well, here we are at last. Zendikar is hitting the shelves, the pre-release is over, and PTQ season is starting up. This is one of Magic’s great months, both here and everywhere else.

So, what’s the deal with Zendikar prices? This question is on everyone’s mind, including mine. I’ve been through this before, being the old-timer that I am. This has all happened before and it will all happen again, so we all say.

Basically, demand has, for once, outstripped demand. It’s Econ 101. Of course, most of us slept through that class or were hungover or just didn’t care, but in the end, that’s the heart of it. Demand is high because of the card quality, most specifically, of course, the ‘enemy fetch’ lands. Players both want them to play with and to speculate on. These 5 cards alone probably account for almost all the hype. That’s not a criticism on the rest of the set, just a compliment to those cards. See, those cards are bigger than Zendikar, bigger than Standard. They are perceived as being part of Magic past. People say ‘they don’t make cards like this anymore’ or ‘I remember when they used to make power cards’. Well, here are five. It’s my chance to get something I don’t think is offered anymore and feel like I’m part of what Magic used to be. Is that true? Yes and no. Magic is dynamic, constantly evolving game with lots of good new sets and cards. But, at least for my taste, I do think the game has been a little dry. Fetch lands + Lotus Cobra looks a lot more fun.

So across the world, as the Zendikar spoiler began to break, players went nuts. Here at Paradox, we’ve had nearly 3-4 times our normal pre-orders. Players who buy 1 box are buying 3. 1 case is 2, and so on. The same is true everywhere. The normally depressed price skyrocketed. Most players are used to paying anywhere from $80-$100 for a box of new cards. What they don’t realize is that full retail on a box is $145. This means that on a daily basis, the supply so outweighs the demand that boxes sell for 35-40% off. But this time, the tables have turned. The print run for Zendikar did expand, but not as much as demand. When stores and distributors can’t replace their supply at the same rate as players demand it, the price increases. Econ 101.

Honestly, it’s just like the gas price situation from a year ago. World demand on gas became so high and supply shrunk. Result: prices go up. So yes, by that example, when game stores raise prices, they, too, are earning ‘windfall profits’. Sorry, guys.

The obvious question is: Why didn’t WotC print more if they knew it would be hot? The answer is that there is no way to actually know what will be hot or not. Sure, you can guess. But in a bad economy, there’s no guarantee that players have the resources to buy even the amount of product they normally do, let alone expand their buying. For all WotC knows, the cool cards they put in might just prop sales up to the level they are used to. And if they print more and guess wrong, guess what? WotC loses big which no company can afford to do right now. That’s it.

What will happen next? Who knows. For now, players are paying more, but at least so far are not more than the actual retail price, just more than what they are used to. Pricing has yet to slow down purchasing.

In a world of unlimited resources, WotC would print unlimited amounts. We don’t live on that plane.

What about fat packs? Well, they are a great deal. Not only do they have 8 boosters, they also have 40 Zendikar full frame land. With most dealers selling that land at upwards of $.50, that’s $20 worth. Hint: If you find fat packs for retail, buy them. You won’t be sad. I know Paradox is starting them off at $39.99 and I predict they will be $50 in no more than two weeks time, if you can find them still.

Bottom line, we finally have what we’ve all been crying for, a hot Magic set with hot cards. We’ve got unprecedented player growth, huge tournament turnout, and great cards that are worth something. It started with M10 and is picking up speed. It won’t last forever. It never does. Let me cite Pokemon as example #1. There’s also Star Wars TCG, Lord of the Rings, and a few other splashes. Unlike most of those games, Magic won’t die and go away. Our best hope is that on the back end of this wave, we don’t lose all these new guys. We’ll inevitably lose some, but it would be great to see a healthy game with numbers above where they were a year ago as sort of residual. What we don’t want to see is the 1990s comic collapse. I don’t know how much fear of that there is. It all depends on how much product hits the market and how many people try to turn it into profit.

NEXT

I’m back on track and have lots more MTG stories. I’d like to blog about past set releases but this one turned into all Zendikar so maybe next time, kids.

STUFF & THINGS 11

By Richard J. Early

THE SPANDEX DILEMMA

So, last night I’m reading my comics and several things occurred to me. Luckily, I have this blog to blather about them.

First, it hit me how much I love comics and why. Look, it’s like this, so listen up for all you who don’t get it. You love TV right? You love movies, right? Well, if you answered yes, then you have no reason to not love comics. That’s yes to either or both. Comics are weekly / monthly / who knows when stories featuring all the things you love in movies and TV. You get action, drama, character, humor, romance, and so on. And you get them every Wednesday. You can buy as many as you want. You can buy stories that take place in one issue or that are part of a bigger plotline. You can buy stories that crossover with other stories or are self contained. You can get alternate stuff, mainstream stuff, licensed stuff, you name it. And again, you can do this any week you want.

I have never understood the disconnect between the number of people I see attending the midnight premier of a movie like Spider-Man or Watchmen or X-Men and the number of comic subscribers at my shop or shops around the country. I go to Century 10 and 8 theatres are sold out for the Spidey premier. That’s probably over 1200 people, right? Well, I sell like 50 copies of the new Amazing Spider-Man issue. I don’t get it. You love Spidey, you went to the movie, you bought the DVD. So here’s your chance to get new Spidey stories every week. I don’t get it.

Anyway, that was one thing that hit me. And one reason I love comics so much. I should clarify that a little. Last night, I had a stack of about 12 comics. So I read Green Lnatern #45 in x amount of time. I bag it up and put it away. Then next on my pile is Buffy #29. And so on. It’s great. I get diverse writing, art, and story. Where else can you do that? Yes, I know, the internet. That’s true, too.

Here’s the real deal: the spandex dilemma. As many of you know, comics, at least in the United States, are defined by spandex. Spandex is a generic catch phrase referring to super heroes as almost every super hero dresses up in spandex or makes a mark for themselves by specifically not dressing up in spandex. But it’s still a great one word definition of American comics. And it’s true that they sell better than anything else. And why shouldn’t they? They are the stuff primarily published by Marvel and DC Comics which means they generally have very high production quality in terms of paper, color, and such. But they also tend to have creators who get paid a lot. That doesn’t mean they are the best, but it probably means they are good. They are getting those bucks for some reason, after all. It’s a genre where Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Joss Whedon, and so many more great writers have taken their turns. Even Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore have ventured all the way into spandex in their own unique ways. But then there are titles like the one I hit last night. Ex Machina #46. It’s by Brian K Vaughan who many of you may not know by name but probably have run into. He’s been a writer on Lost for about two years after making an extensive name for himself in the comics world. Nearly everything he has written in comics is in production or preproduction to be a movie. Runaways, Y: The Last Man, and Ex Machina, his three main books, are all up on movie options. Crazy , huh? So I hit that book last night and it’s just a great issue. But here’s the thing. My GL #45 was good, too. And in both books, I got paid off for being a long time reader. All the lead up to the big GL Blackest Night story is hitting and the Ex Machina series is reaching it’s conclusion in #50. However, at Paradox Green Lantern outsold Ex Machina issue 8 to 1. It’s the spandex dilemma.

It’s pretty much the case in any industry. Transformers 2 makes $200 million dollars opening weekend, but that great indy flick you discovered barely made the rounds at your local theatre. It makes sense. Lots of people want to see big robots fighting. Lots of people want to see Green Lanterns battling massive intergalactic menaces. It’s the same thing.

I have no conclusion here. Other than to say that spandex is not always bad at all. In fact, there is a ton of good spandex. Not every spandex book is crap and not every indy is good. It’s just that spandex tends to dominate the marketplace at the expense of the indy stuff more often than not.

So that’s what I was thinking about last night. How awesome comics are, why they are awesome, and what they are about.

NEXT, PLEASE

Well, if you were sick of Star Trek, you got something new.

STUFF & THINGS 10

By Richard Early

NEW TITLE IDEAS

Instead of a quote of the week, I’m making a request. I need a better title for this blog. Please help.

MORE TREK

Well, if you didn’t like last week’s blog, you won’t like this one. I’m going to review the Trek movies following up my review of the various series.

Before I start, though, I want to mention that I just started watching the 2005 Doctor Who relaunch. I’ve seen the first 3 episodes and I loved them. I know a lot of fans have seen this stuff, but it’s brand new to me. I watched a lot of Who back in the 1980s when it was run locally on Friday nights by our PBS affiliate. The new show brilliantly captures everything I love about Who. The first episode, “Rose”, immediately presents a Doctor that embodies all the great traits of the character. And Rose being chased by department store mannequins can’t be missed. It felt like Grant Morrison and that’s about the best compliment you will ever get from me.

OK, on with the Trek:

THE MOTION PICTURE

Even as a kid, I kind of liked this when a lot of my friends did not. It’s far more science fiction than Star Wars and that’s not what fans wanted. But it’s reintroduction of the original cast couldn’t have been done much differently. The movie captures the spirit of the original series but tries to broaden the character’s horizons. We see Spock on Vulcan and Kirk on Earth. We get conflict with new characters. In some ways, it’s not unlike “The Cage” in that respect, or “Where No One Has Gone Before”. There is a newer version with cleaned up visuals that’s pretty good.

THE WRATH OF KHAN

Look, I’m not going to review this movie. What could I say that hasn’t been said? I just want to address the fact that there are fans out there who don’t consider this the best Trek film. In particular, I’m talking about you First Contact guys. I’ve got news for you. There would be no First Contact without Khan. In fact, there would be no franchise without Khan. Why? Because Nicholas Meyer and company actually did something fresh. Sure, they mined the original series for a villain, but after that they set in motion a new kind of story for Trek. We get character development on an unprecedented level. We get a more serious universe, not quite dark, but very dangerous. And we get a central theme about life and death that again is the sort of story that makes science fiction great. Plus, Spock’s death at the end of this film (spoiler) is fresh at the time the movie is released (1982). Now a story climaxing in character sacrifice seems trite. But Khan and Empire Strikes Back set the stereotype in motion. I could go on for blogs about this movie and maybe I will, but we have to move on.

SEARCH FOR SPOCK

An OK flick. I wish the franchise had not felt the need to immediately bring Spock back. I would have liked to see at least one movie without him. They could have really developed Kirk’s character by taking away one of his pillars, but they went right to the well. I think my big dislike in this movie is protomatter, the plot McGuffin to explain how things went wrong with Genesis. David, Kirk’s son, used an experimental substance called protomatter to make Genesis work. That just doesn’t work for me. It seems implausible since he was not working on Genesis alone and although we know he’s a hot head in the previous film, I just don’t buy his motive or opportunity. I don’t care for the unstable Genesis planet that is created. Sure, Genesis rewrites existing matter into a livable world, but how does it create different climates? Aren’t climates going to be based on the poles, the tides, and the sun? It’s bad science and thus an incredible story. Anyway, a flawed film with good things in it. Love the ending on Vulcan.

THE VOYAGE HOME

One of my favorites. Those of you who hate it usually do so because there aren’t any space battles. But there is ship-to-ship combat between the Klingon Bird of Prey and a 20^th century whaling vessel. Anyway, remember, sci-fi doesn’t mean sci-action. This is a message movie done well. It’s ultimately about the extinction of humped back whales but with the fate of the world on the line. The time travel element is brilliant because the actions in the present are shown to have consequences in the future. A great lesson. Modern earth seems like an alien world from the perspective of Kirk and crew which is a brilliant twist. Customs and cultures that are every day to us are foreign to members of our own race who visit from a different time. This movie reintegrates Spock in the same way I would have thought a movie without him could have served Kirk’s character. Good film. Fun.

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Ugh. Unnecessary. Self-serving. All I really want to point out is how silly the central character development is. See, this movie tries to tell us that our characters, and therefore us, are shaped and defined by one single event in our past. But that’s just not true. Even in Khan, Kirk evolves as a character from where he starts the movie but is not solely defined from that point on by the events of the film. It’s just bad story telling. Shatner was allowed to direct this movie and the franchise paid the price. Sorry, Shatner. I never, ever meant to say anything bad about you.

UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

A movie most like more than I do. We’re back to allegory sci-fi which is great, but it’s too heavy handed here. The movie is about the fall of the Soviet Empire after Chernobyl. It’s very 20^th Century political. I just don’t like that stuff very much. Plus the cross-cultural commentary like “You’ve never heard Shakespeare until you’ve heard it in the original Klingon” or “There is an ancient Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China,” just doesn’t work for me. Also, the Valeris character is a bad Saavik rip off with dubious motivation.

GENERATIONS

Here’s where it all starts going wrong for me. This movie just sucks. And I hate to say it Next Gen fans, but I think this movie starts to reveal the underlying problems with your guys. See unlike TOS, TNG’s characters are just vanilla and obvious. Only Data and Worf have any real potential, but with Worf already mined to death in two TV series and in this movie, Data is ruined irrevocably with the emotion chip. The overall problem is that the characters in TNG are not based on any archetypes that matter. In TOS, McCoy is emotion and Spock is logic and they battle in Kirk’s conscience for superiority. In TNG, you just have a bunch of stereotypes who fight for screen time. A little harsh, but not far off. It’s why the TNG movies aren’t very good for the most part. This is one of the worst. The Kirk stuff is awful. And the time travel stuff is more awful. So, you have a chance to stop the villain and you can control going back in time to do so. Would you A. go to the moment the villain is about to strike or B. go to a point where the villain is helpless. This movie picks A. Did you? Plus, Kirk is reduced from being at all serious to a complete humorous characterization of himself, complete with the last words “It was fun” and lines like “The odds are against us and the situation is dire – sounds like fun”. I really don’t like this movie.

FIRST CONTACT

Here’s my Simpsons reference for the day: I call the movie “Blirst Contact”. Brownie points if you know why. Let’s see, I hate the Borg Queen. A lot. She doesn’t make any sense based on our prior understanding of the Borg and the fact that the Borg have been around for over six years at this point and we’ve never even had a hint of her existence caps it off for me. Previously, Borg ships were sterile. Yet now they convert the Enterprise to being hot and humid. They have the same sense of time travel theory as the previous movie; go to the point where you have the narrowest of windows to complete your mission rather than to the dawn of man when you have no opposition at all. Zefram Cochrane can’t be a serious character, he has to be a comedic buffoon who doesn’t seem smart enough to invent anything let alone warp drive. Plus he’s motivated to create warp drive to sell for profit on a world devastated by nuclear war. Where are his buyers exactly? And on top of that, he doesn’t invent it. Geordi has to come back in time using warp drive in order to invent it for Zefram, creating one of my least favorite things in sci-fi, a closed time travel loop. In fact, this is almost always the example I use for bad time travel. And then there’s the Khan rip off. Khan was motivated by revenge and that was his fatal flaw and here it nearly becomes Picard’s fatal flaw. Picard even quotes Moby Dick just like Khan does. This movie does not work for me and I could write blogs about it just like Khan. Maybe I will.

INSURRECTION

Not much to say. It’s a two hour TV episode for some reason made into a movie. I don’t get it. Mediocre at best. The main aliens are a race of people who claim to be non violent. They will not take up arms to defend themselves. We’re supposed to find this morally impressive. Yet they are more than willing to let the TNG crew take up arms on their behalf. This seems more than a bit hypocritical to me and is a big problem with the movie.

NEMESIS

What can you even say about this thing? It’s bad. The actors and creators have sunk to the very bottom of the derivative tank. Anything that was ever fresh or exciting about TNG is gone, replaced by junior high school nature vs. nurture philosophizing and self-serving action sequences. I think it’s good that this part of the franchise has come to a close. When you have Star Trek dune buggies, you’ve run out of ideas. Oh, plus the Data sacrifice is a total rip off of the Spock sacrifice in Khan. He dies saving the crew but downloads his memories into a new android similar to Spock moving his katra to McCoy to later be reintegrated into a new body. Ugh. It was the only Trek movie I had only seen once until I was dumb enough to rent it again.

NEXT, PLEASE

I’m going to hold my review of the reboot movie from this year because we’ve gone pretty long here and I’ve got lots to say about the new one.

STUFF & THINGS 9

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” (add echo on your own!)

I AM SUCH A SUCKER

For whatever reason, I just can’t say no to Star Trek. Ever. Since the time I was about five years old and saw my first Trek rerun (no, I’m not quite old enough to have seen them first run, thank goodness), all the way to the new movie, I just can’t say no.

It’s not that I like all Trek. I think at least about half of any Trek thing ever is terrible. But does that stop me? No. The point of thsi little commentary is that I recently decided to Netflix my way through Star Trek Enterprise Season 4, the only season of Trek TV I just couldn’t bear to watch. But despite that wise decision, it only took about four years for me to change my mind and buckle. So here I am.

For some reason, I am compelled to give my opinion of everything Trek in this blog. I’ll keep it short, but I’m going to hit everything. Let’s go TV first, movies second and generally in order of air dates. I don’t know why anyone would care what I think about Trek, but let’s do it anyway.

STAR TREK THE ORIGINAL SERIES
Without a doubt, my favorite Trek. Small budgets and poor effects of the era forced the writers to actually develop stories. I’m sure they had no idea what they had created and it was one of those rare occasions where the cast just happens to exceed any expectation. Many episodes were metaphoric, themed to deal with social issues or philosophical conflicts. Something more was at stake than simply the survival of the Enterprise crew. Ideas meant something. And generally Kirk and company did the right thing under the circumstances. Kirk was a maverick, willing to take on any challenge. And while he was fiercely loyal to the Federation, he was willing to bend its rules. I think this cowboy character type really connected with me as I grew up. I am a big believer in good is good and bad is bad. Unlike many fans, I like a more pure hero. I don’t need the hero to never waver or never be tempted; I just don’t want them to be dark or silly. Oh, and Kirk is the best captain ever, sorry Picard guys. Plus I can choose Spock and McCoy vs. Riker and Crusher. Yep, that’s easy, too.

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION

I loved the show when it was on. This series meant an awful lot to me. It came along at a time where there just wasn’t much sci-fi on TV. I remember when it started you could watch Superboy at 5:30 and Next Gen at 6 every Saturday. No matter how bad Next Gen was Superboy made it look awesome. All in all, this is a landmark series. But in retrospect, it is a series that does not hold up much for me. I have come t believe that there are very few ‘great’ episodes and less ‘good’ episodes than you would ever believe. Early in the series, they are committed to Rodenberry’s futuristic utopia and there is absolutely no character conflict. The deepest conflict that ever develops is the Worf stuff, which is basically strong. But I think this hurt the show. Again, I don’t want to see people at each other’s throats, but there have to be conflicts to make things more compelling. On the flip side, I do like the fact that the show is often about a group of smart, heroic characters working to solve problems. That’s when the show works well. The classic Borg cliffhanger “The Best of Both Worlds” is without a doubt one of my favorite TV sci-fi stories. I am quite sure this episode defines the series for most fans, and rightly so. I also really admire episodes like “The Inner Light” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, episodes I could write entire blogs about. So, the point is, it’s a flawed series that is not my favorite of the franchise. Oh, and Kirk still kicks Picard’s ass. Don’t forget.

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE

Now here’s a series I like. Conflict, genuine conflict, story arcs, continuity. Yeah. I was into this show from the start, long before most fans accepted it. I like the fact that the station is part Federation, part Bajoran It gave them so much to work with. Plus, the doorway to the Alpha quadrant always allowed an alien to appear at the station or the crew to go exploring. The show really had the best of all sci-fi elements in it. The Dominion was a great villain, and tying them to Odo created endless conflict for our favorite shape shifter. Sisko evolved from an uncertain Commander to a champion Captain and even had to take on cosmic responsibilities. Sisko’s interaction with the Wormhole aliens was never my favorite element, but I think at times it worked. All in all, a strong series, better than Next Gen but no TOS. Oh, and Kirk is waaaaaay cooler than Sisko and still kicking Picard’s ass.

STAR TREK: VOYAGER

Originally, I hated this series. Most of the reasons are still valid and I wouldn’t really back off on. But for some reason, I have developed a fondness for this show, despite many, many inexcusably bad episodes. Throw out season one and two and seven, and this is a respectable series. I think the thing is that I have developed a fondness for most of the cast. I actually warmed up to Janeway when she becomes more of a mother to Seven of Nine than the Uber-Captain from the beginning of the show. Early on, it was obvious they wanted to shove her in your face to show you how strong a female captain could be. There was just too much of that. Once they settled down, it was better. Plus, I like the fact that she becomes the embodiment of the Federation: the flag bearer for civilization, and the steady, unwavering force that holds everyone together in the face of impossible odds. I love Robert Picardo as the holographic doctor. He’s priceless. He’s Gregory Hose as a hologram. Sweet. Paris sucks, Tuvok sucks more, and Harry Kim is one of my least favorite Trek characters of al time. The guy who played Kim always had this look on his face like he was struggling to remember his lines. He would roll his eye and bite his lip and I can just picture him struggling with all his might to say “Bridge to Janeway” and not “Engineering to Paris”. That, or he looked like he needed to take a big dump. Either way. The early villains in the series were terrible but continuity developed once they introduced the Borg. There’s a great two part story where Seven’s parents are seen in flashback developing technology to deal with the Borg and then in the present, Janeway must use that tech to rescue Seven. The parallel there is fantastic and it reinforces Janeway as mother figure once again. Anyway, a very flawed series, probably not as good as Next Gen. Oh, and Kirk? Wouldn’t bother to bag Janeway, still cooler than Sisko, and still kicking Picard’s ass.

STAR TREK ENTERPRISE

A big pile of crap, for the most part. The only Trek series cancelled after four seasons since TOS got canned in 2.5. Mostly awful cast, especially the guy who played Ensign Mayweather who I am quite sure had never acted before. In fact, I question whether or not he was aware that there was a profession in which people pretended to be other people and that it was called acting. I think it’s obvious that the creators of the show knew that too, as this character was by far the most underdeveloped dude on the series. The thing the show did well was define some interesting roles on a ship that we haven’t seen before. We got a translator because we dumped the technology that translated. Smart. Dynamic. Convention breaking to some degree. We got a weapons dude and an armory. Also pretty smart. The show was at its best when developing famous Trek races that had never been explored much. The Andoreans in particular, but also the Tholians, the Orions, and the Telerites. The show was at its worst when dealing with temporal cold wars and upgrading it’s tech. The whole point of the series was that they were lower tech than anything we had seen before. So I never understood why we quickly introduced phasers and shields, things it would have been interesting to force them to deal without. I never liked the phase pistol weapons, either. Plus, I thought it was silly that the Transporter is established as a new, quasi-dangerous tech in the pilot, but within the episodes it is used just like any other Trek transporter. Oh, and Kirk vs. Archer? I’m laughing. And he still wouldn’t bag Janeway, still cooler than Sisko, and still kicking Picard’s ass.

We’re going too long. Look for part two on the movies some other time. The point is I love Trek so much and it so rarely loves me back.

NEXT, PLEASE

See you all soon. Thanks for your feedback so far. Sorry this one probably bored most of you to death.

STUFF & THINGS 8

By Richard Early

DOWNTOWN FARGO

For the first time, I realized recently how much downtown has changed. I think this realization is not because I haven’t been paying attention, but because it is only recently the change has sunk in.

Thinking back to 1993 when I opened Paradox, our building and our block were very different. I used to get my hair cut by a guy who rented from the Gardner. He had the lower corner spot on 1^st Avenue. I was in getting a chop and discussing my ideas of opening a store. Up until that point, I had traveled around the area taking my private collection to conventions and had found an interest in that. My barber mentioned that there was a spot next to him in the building that rented for, I’m not kidding, $100 a month. It was terrible of course, but I thought it was the greatest thing ever. It was an 11x11 room in the basement with no access. I jumped all over that business.

In the spot we currently have, there was a gal who ran a second hand clothing store. For years after she was gone and we moved in, people kept coming in looking for her. Next to us in the building was an investment company. Across the alley was an antique store. The Lark Theatre was closed and had yet to become the Cinema Grill. Straus clothing was still on Broadway and 1^st avenue. Down the street was Northern School Supply. And my all-time favorite Chinese restaurant Phil Wong’s was thriving.

Not one thing I just listed off is still around. Except me, of course. Paradox has taken over the old investment company. The barber sold his business to a gal who since moved outt and that spot has been empty except for a few years when a second hand dealer was in there. The antique store moved to Broadway and became the Antique Mall and their space has become many things. The basement part is the Red Raven and the upstairs has seen many businesses come and go. Northern School Supply was bought up by NDSU and became the architecture campus. Phil Wong’s shut down and has been numerous different restaurants, finally stabilizing with the Drunken Noodle. And most of you probably never heard of Straus clothing.

And of course, the granddaddy of them all. The Lark theatre became the Cinema Grill became the Church of Water became demolished and is now the newest NDSU downtown building. A 5 story complex, the upper floors student housing, the main floor new businesses as yet to be announced. Talk about change.

Downtown Fargo has gone through many cycles. About 30 years ago now, there was a big renovation project. Just like the 2000s. At that time, however, things eventually lapsed back to nothingness. Primarily a home for banks and such businesses. Lunch time restaurants and of course the Fargo Theatre, Sammy’s Pizza, the Old Broadway and a few other staples. Traffic was intermittent.

When I opened, there was actually a lot of college aged people who lived in downtown. As time went by, this seemed to shift out to the West Acres area and I saw less and less foot traffic. Being destination, I didn’t really sense an effect. But it’s become a stark contrast to today’s downtown.

Then in the early to mid 2000s, this movement to revitalize downtown began in earnest. Moving in NDSU and offering tax breaks through a Renaissance Zone were the two big incentives. Well, it’s worked like crazy. I admit to a great degree of skepticism. I firmly believe that using tax incentives and other devices to drive development is a redirection of productive resources to an unproductive use. It’s simple. If downtown was good for business, it would have shown that on it’s own without the incentives. Does West Acres need revitalization? Does 13^th Avenue? Well, not now, but just wait five years until they all start crying about the business they are losing to downtown. Essentially, what’s happened in downtown Fargo is what’s happened when big cities build sports facilities. The argument is that the investment brings wealth. But the studies show that this is not true. It moves wealth, it shuffles business, but it doesn’t profit. Think about it. If I gave you a million dollars to deck out your house, it would be an awfully nice house. But I’d be out a million dollars I could have decked out my house with.

Anyway, there’s an old economic principle I always liked. It says that you can’t see what doesn’t exist, you can only see what does. So here we are. What exists? A downtown that has an unprecedented amount of people roaming around, living here, and working here. It’s crazy. If you haven’t checked it out, walk up and down Broadway and you’ll see. I just realized I never even mentioned the big Hotel Donaldson project, the Silver Moon restaurant, or the expansion of the Fargo Theatre.

What’s next? Who knows? I do note that so far I haven’t seen any businesses lined up for the main floor of this new building across the street. I actually know that they have approached existing businesses in the area about moving in and have been turned down due to cost. I am primarily curious to see what happens when the political will to develop some other part of town or rebuild the Fargodome or something along those lines means the end of the incentives downtown. It may be that things are set for a long run but eventually the area will begin to degrade. It might be 20 years. It might be 100. I don’t know. But I’m willing to bet it will happen.

What’s stayed the same? Paradox, sort of. I wouldn’t say we’re the same by any stretch. Much like the area around me, my store has gone through revitalization after dry period to revitialization. It’s a cycle. Hey, when we opened, we sold movie cards and Marvel super hero trading cards. When we opened, there was no such thing as Magic: the Gathering. The comic boom of the 1990s was still happening. We had no game room. We sold back issue comics. There was barely a concept of a trade paperback. There was no internet, not like today. There were no cell phones, not like today. I didn’t even have a computer when I opened. Actually, I didn’t even have a cash register, but that’s another story. I taped cool back issues to the wall for display and used a card table for a new comic rack. I didn’t carry board games or Dungeons and Dragons or miniatures or dice or Warhammer or sell pop and candy. Boy, when you read over that list, you really wonder what my plan was back then. You wonder how we got here.

I’ll tell you this. It didn’t happen through tax incentives and grants. I opened with no money and have never really had any. The only real financial investments have come from me, either in the form of working for free or investing my life’s savings – both cash and collectible. It’s happened here because of you guys, because of customers. You kept Paradox alive and have allowed me to grow it. That, in my opinion, is the only true, sustainable way for business to succeed. That’s why I’m dubious about the ultimate long term success of downtown Fargo (and tangentially the national bail outs that have been taking place, but I’m not going to go political in this blog. Ever.)

NEXT, PLEASE

Hey, if you’ve been in Fargo a long time and you’ve seen the changes, feel free to comment.

What’s on tap for me this week? In store, we’re starting to work hard to get ready for all the big stuff happening this fall. We just had a store meeting to plan out our plans. My free time is going to be season four of Enterprise, season two of Mad Men, and I’m really looking forward to next Friday night –the first preseason football game for the Purple!

STUFF & THINGS 7

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I went to use your phone but figured out it was the pop machine.”

VACATION: ALL I EVER WANTED

I know that I have broken the streak. I know some of you will point that out rather mercilessly. But sometimes you just gotta do it. I went on vacation last Thursday and was gone until Monday. I originally intended to post a blog on Monday but that plan never came to fruition. So here we are.

I went to Sioux Falls SD for the weekend. My grandparents live in a retirement home there. My grandmother is a young 93, and my grandfather is 99. His big century mark is coming up in October. He currently holds the undesirable title of oldest living resident.

I went with my two younger brothers. Many of you know them. Alex works here and is distinguishable by the distinct hair. My middle brother Nick is, well, he just is. That’s not a topic for one blog. It would be like a year long series. Anyway, we also met one of our cousins, Adam Mills. Adam and Nick are the same age, 25, and our other cousin, Adam’s sister Katie, is the same age as Alex, 20. They were all very close as kids in part because of their ages. I’m the old guy, 39, with no such matching relative.

4 days is our longest trip to Sioux Falls in at least a decade. Most trips it’s in and out in 2 or a Christmas trip of 3. But we’ve had limited time with everybody so this was a great change of pace. We saw our grandparents every day, which was great. I especially enjoyed my Saturday night where I spent about 3 hours alone with them. They of course want all the dirt on the other brothers. We also saw Adam every day, which was by far the most time we’ve possibly spent with him in forever.

We screwed up one major thing. We tried to go to the zoo on Saturday. Sioux Falls has a great zoo so it’s fun to visit. But the place was packed Saturday. There was not one single parking spot in their fairly large lot. So we gave up and did something else. Well, I found out after getting back to Fargo that there were 3 tiger cubs born there on Saturday. How awesome would that have been? And it explains why the place was packed.

Sioux Falls is pretty much like Fargo only a little larger. The city is laid out kind of poorly with the old part of the city now surrounded by modern expansion. The population is about 150,000, so pretty close to Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo combined. But the best feature is the Falls Park area. Sioux Falls was founded in 1883 on the Sioux River and there was an old mill there that has since burned down. But the whole area has been turned into a wonderful park with observation points overlooking the falls themselves. Recently, they’ve added a five story observation tower that overlooks the whole city. You can see the falls on one side and the old stockyard and Morrell’s on the other. It’s pretty cool.

Well, while we were there Friday afternoon, the air show was just starting up. So the Blue Angels were performing. That was pretty cool. They put on quite a show over the whole down, but buzzed the park quite a bit so we got some pretty close up action. The show must have lasted at least an hour.

OK, this is probably really boring. The point is I got out of the store for 4 days which is a pretty major accomplishment for me. I’m a big routine guy. Too big. I like my own bed and my own stuff and get a lot of anxiety about going on trips. As many of you know and have pointed out, I spend way too much time at the shop. Which is true.

BRETT FAVRE

Now that it’s over, I hope I never utter that name again. Don’t get me wrong, I was driving the bandwagon to get him here. But I think you have to realize that it was never about Brett Favre. It was about how awful our current quarterbacks are. I know plenty of people, 2 in particular, who were threatening to boycott the team for the season if Favre was the quarterback. First of all, I don’t believe them, and secondly, that’s just stupid. I don’t believe for one second that given the option to win football games or lose football games, you would choose to lose them. Give me a break.

It is true that Favre’s stats have declined the last quarter of every season for 3-4 years. I was hoping that AP would help with that problem and envisioned Favre throwing 20-25 passes rather than 35-40.

It would have been one of the great sports stories of all time. Probably the biggest here in Minnesota. Even nationally, though, I don’t think any rival teams have had such a swap occur outside of Clemens to the Yankees. And this of course was what had some fans riled up. If Favre had had the exact same career but played for the Kansas City Chiefs or the Houston Texans, Vikings fans would have been unanimous. I understand the Packer hate, I share it, but the Packers rejected Favre. They traded him to the Jets. They had him for 16 years and only won 1 title. Given all that, had he come to the Vikings and had we won a title, it would have been the ultimate in your face to the Pack. Now, unfortunately, Packers fans can mercilessly mock us because we tried so hard to get him and don’t even have the wins to support it. We’re so screwed.

Last thing on the Vikings. My cousin Adam lives in Mankato and took a ton of pictures from last year’s training camp. His favorite moment was when a Viking defensive back fell down and was lying flat on his back when T-Jack threw the ball to him. That’s right, Jackson through an interception to a guy lying on his back. This is your guy, Brad Childress.

We would have beaten the Eagles in the home playoff game last year if our QB didn’t suck so badly. To the day, I have no idea why Gus wasn’t put in that game. Jackson came in against Detroit late in the season and looked good against the worst team in NFL history. The following week, our whole team walked all over the Falcons who couldn’t have cared less because they had the division sewn up. So people were getting on the T-Jack bandwagon. But here’s the truth. He looked absolutely awful the next week against Atlanta, terrible against New York the last week of the season and only managed to win because the Giants pulled their starters at half time (and we still had a last second 50 yard field goal to win a home game against an opponent who didn’t even want to play), and then capped it off by being utterly terrible against the Eagles.

Jackson is one of the 3-4 worst QBs in my Viking watching history, which started around 1980. There was Steve Dills in 1982. There was Rich Gannon’s rookie year in 1992 or 3, whichever year Dennis Green took over. But Gannon went on to be good, something that Jackson will never do. And then there was that joke Spurgen Wynn, whose name I can’t remember how to spell. But that guy was never going to be a starter and was forced into action due to injury at the end of a bad season anyway.

I could go on forever on Viking football so I better stop. My whole point here is that Favre would have been exhilarating for the fans, the team, and the franchise. I have to wonder right now where Childress will be in a year. I have to wonder whether the team will get a stadium with the terrible ticket sales they will probably now endure. And I have to wonder if that long-standing talk of moving the franchise out of here might not be more real than ever. The Wilfes have spent money on players and tried to bring Favre here as the centerpiece of a veteran team. Their stadium efforts have been rebuffed time and time again from their original development plans north of the Twin Cities to refurbishing the Metrodome. Obviously, the economics in Minnesota are awful for this sort of thing right now, despite the Twins and Gophers getting stadiums. In the end, you cannot understate the potential damage to the franchise that this decision to stay retired by Favre has done.

NEXT

We’re back in action and I’ll keep you up to date.