Juno Beach

I'm all in favor of people paying to get their books ruined, further dropping the supply of high grade copies. 

Totally agree, I think this is the best policy. The pull-list customers should really be the most valued customers for a shop as it's regular, consistent business. For every 1 book that may have potential $10-15 potential profit flipping, there are 100s of drek titles that customers buy for $3.99/$2.99 cover price that couldn't be sold in $0.50 bins at a con. A store needs its pull list customers who are buying the regular titles at cover price to sustain itself. them off (and potentially losing some) to try and get a couple bucks extra profit on the rare title that gets hot is penny-wise pound-foolish. 
 

I took it as him saying, for him, pain is just a program.  Like  he knew it wasnt really real, but a part of the "game", if you will.  If that makes sense.  

You can have it done: 1) Right, 2) Quick, 3) Cheap.... Pick two.
I see which two they picked.
 

While I totally empathize with your situation, I think you may be going about the answer the wrong way given the audience. You're giving them the deep-down, "meaning-of-life" type insight and truth (bolded above) that's appropriate for us who love comics as a medium. I would say something like:
- Look, unfortunately the reality is that the vast majority of even old comic books are "worthless" (monetarily)
- The only books that tend to have (monetary) value are key issues (usually first appearances of characters - yes, there's more to it than this but this is the easiest to explain to a newbie)
- A book's value is tied hugely to its condition - the higher grade books can be multiples of lower-grade / mid-grade books
- If you want a quick and easy gauge, take a look at Ebay sold listings (and show them how to use it), noting that just searching Ebay will bring up tons of books for sale that are at unreasonable prices (I usually will note that any book that's priced fairly typically gets snatched up quickly. If it's still available, it's because it's priced higher than FMV)
Even after all that, they still might not like it, because they only want to believe their books are worth thousands as you say. But hopefully if they're somewhat reasonable / rationale, this can start them down the path of getting out of their fantasy

That was epic. I loved the stunned audience reaction to the end of the movie. 

I could add another reason for not changing over to digital - we get plenty of screen time with other endeavors.  I don't want to spend my whole life in front of a computer, staring at a screen.  I actually think that is a huge reason.

Its dominating by such a large margin that Korea might take legislative action to prevent such domination at the box office. How absurd,
Korea Box Office: ‘Avengers’ Domination May Hasten Legislative Response
http://variety.com/2018/film/asia/korea-box-office-avengers-domination-legal-pushback-1202791599/
Now that is truly the definition of dominating. It accounted for 95% of the total weekend box office. The 2nd highest movie accounted for just 1% of ticket sales, lol.
 
Love this:

I agree that the price tag is ridiculously high, but I disagree that this is anything like the 90s market.  If one person wastes $60,000, the damage is limited to one person.  When thousands of card and comic dealers bet tens of thousands of dollars each on over-produced items they hoped they could price as if they were rare, well, everyone in the market lost.  When everyone loses, it's a crash.  When one person loses, it's a sob story.  Collectibles don't crash until everyone has the same thing and everyone thinks their item is rare.  (Overproduced cards, comics, beanie babies, whatever.)  If something truly is rare, then the market watches... they don't participate.  Spectators are different than speculators.

Can’t this frankenstein monster cheap copy of a book die already 

Yea but, government.
I trust the new guy with one post.

I would yes, to a certain degree.  Is it cool to share a common experience with all kinds of people who also love that thing?  yes.  But is it also SOMETIMES cool to share that experience with someone with whom you have other shared commonalities?  I would also say ... YES.
Now if you're a straight white male, you USUALLY don't have to look far to find someone else with a few shared interests, not necessarily because of prejudice or discrimination or whatever, but simply based on population demographics.  But imagine you're young and gay, and there's some cool gay-themes in comics or gay comic books you want to discuss or specific issues you want to discuss based on your background.  It might be nice for someone to has someone specific to talk to or a specific resource to tap, and for someone to point it out.  Now no one is stopping a straight white dude from going to the discussion of the influence of the Koran on Ms Marvel, but sometimes its nice to have someone arrange a discussion/mixer about a specific minority theme.  Because there aren't always that many people, it can nice to help people find each other.  I don't really see what the harm is.  If your concern is equality, no one is being excluded.  If you have real concerns about how Latinas are portrayed in media and want to have an honest and thoughtful discussion, I'm sure you can be heard.  If your big concern is 'what about if I wanted to have a party with all straight male dudes', I would say to you, "You're gay, not that there's anything wrong with that."
 

For most of my life, every comic show I went to was something very close to being an all white, straight, male mixer, 24/7. Nothing intrinsically wrong with being any of those things (I am actually all of those things!) but it's not like if I wanted to gather with "my group", I'd have a hard time doing it, or would need a protected space to do so. I'd think that those "exclusive" mixers are something more like setting up a safe space for those groups to do their thing. I see no problem with it. If you're wanting a straight white male mixer in the comics world, we're all practically living in one, unless you count "bald w/ beard" and "Hawaiian shirts" and "fedoras" sub-species deserving of their own mixers as well.
 

That's shading to make the shield look shiny.

That's shading to make the shield look shiny.

That's shading to make the shield look shiny.

That's shading to make the shield look shiny.

That's shading to make the shield look shiny.

That's shading to make the shield look shiny.

"I don't blame a car thief for stealing that car.  I blame the owner for not keeping the car in a locked garage!" 
Get the heck outta here with that nonsense. 
And I try not to go all grammar police on people, but sometimes the number of infractions becomes too great to ignore.  I'll put it in spoilers to spare anyone who doesn't care.
I know he won't care, but I feel a little better. 
And the part where he told a bunch of comic book enthusiasts who spend their free time on comic book message boards discussing comic books with other like-minded people not to waste time on scammers within their hobby...just
Read the room.

Yes. 
So you too would rather bad movies to Disney movies?

No prob. It's a great app.

Should be noted as "first appearance of character called Valkyrie wearing outfit associated with future Valkyries". 
 

Think Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey
 
 
 

So, if kids google inappropriate material someone could say 'well they can see much worse-what's the big deal-' yeah that argument is a non starter.