So I toured the CGC facilities on Monday...

[deathlok]

[Illiterati-migration]

Too many words. Can you tell your story in pictures, perhaps? (Feel free to omit pictures where you're having phone sex with [insert name of random hoochie here].)

[The Brain]

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My words can not say it as well as yours........MORE PLEASE!!!!

[Aces]

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My words can not say it as well as yours........MORE PLEASE!!!!

 

[Timely]

The CGC parking lot is rather non-descript. They were only six Bentleys, five Rolls, a handful of Jags, and a row of Escalades.

 

 

Those cars were all parked in the "NGC" spaces, right next to the building.

 

 

HE SPEAKS THE TRUTH!

 

West

[plitch]

Says the guy who drives a 'Vette...

[Timely]

Hey, I got that before I started here at CGC, now I can't even afford new tires!

 

West

[Timulty]

Wow, here's something you don't see every day. At least on these boards. Mod trash talk.

[Norrin_Radd]

[*] A half-mile up the road you'll find a park-and-ride lot where the CGC graders are forced to park. I counted 3 Yugos, a couple Daihatsus, two Hyundais, a yellow Pacer, and what looked suspiciously like an Adobe, along with a bike rack chock full of old Schwinns.

 

I wonder how many people got that.

 

 

 

Spokesman: These days, everyone's talking about the Hyundai, and the Yugo. Both nice cars, if you've got $3,000 or $4,000 to throw around. But, for those of us whose name doesn't happen to be Rockefeller, finally there's some good news - a car with a sticker price of $179. That's right, $179. The name of the car?

 

Adobe. The sassy new Mexican import that's made out of clay. German engineering and Mexican know-how helped create the first car to break the $200 barrier. At this price, you might not expect more than reliable transportation - but, brother, you get it! Extra features: like the custom contour seats, or the beverage-gripping dash. And the money you save isn't exactly small change!

 

Jingle:

"Hey, hey, we're Adobe!

The little car that's made out of clay!

We're gonna save you some money

that you can spend in some other way!

Hey, hey, we're Adobe!

Hey, hey, we're Adobe!

Adobe!"

 

[ show Adobe driver get into a fender-bender. She casually steps out of the vehicle and uses her hands to mold her bumper back into its proper shape, in under six minutes! ]

 

Spokesman: Adobe. You can buy a cheaper car. But I wouldn't recommend it!

 

Announcer: Not approved for street use in some states. No warranty either expressed or implied. All sales final.

[OldGuy]

Wow, here's something you don't see every day. At least on these boards. Mod trash talk.

 

They aren't mods.

[Shield]

[*] A half-mile up the road you'll find a park-and-ride lot where the CGC graders are forced to park. I counted 3 Yugos, a couple Daihatsus, two Hyundais, a yellow Pacer, and what looked suspiciously like an Adobe, along with a bike rack chock full of old Schwinns.

 

I wonder how many people got that.

 

 

I got it! Phil Hartman did the promo! Classic SNL stuff!

[Timulty]

Wow, here's something you don't see every day. At least on these boards. Mod trash talk.

 

They aren't mods.

 

Staff, then?

[OldGuy]

Wow, here's something you don't see every day. At least on these boards. Mod trash talk.

 

They aren't mods.

 

Staff, then?

 

[Timulty]

Wow, here's something you don't see every day. At least on these boards. Mod trash talk.

 

They aren't mods.

 

Staff, then?

 

 

I think, The staff on their off time should have their own thread, locked out to the rest of us. They could call it Infinite Staff Gripe Fest. I would love to see some of the snarky comments on that one.

[FFB]

[*] A half-mile up the road you'll find a park-and-ride lot where the CGC graders are forced to park. I counted 3 Yugos, a couple Daihatsus, two Hyundais, a yellow Pacer, and what looked suspiciously like an Adobe, along with a bike rack chock full of old Schwinns.

 

I wonder how many people got that.

 

 

I got it! Phil Hartman did the promo! Classic SNL stuff!

 

I have to say that the Bank of Change ad was probably my favorite Phil H. moment ever.

[micmack]

Super Colon Blow

[lighthouse]

Travels with Lighthouse - Part 17

 

[*] When I was down to the last few, Steve Borock came out to the waiting area with his two most recent hires from the recruiting pool that is this board......

 

[*] Newt was nattily dressed as Kal-El Jinn, the Kryptonian Jedi. It wasn't that much of a shock to me, but I get the sense that they don't let Newt wander the halls very often. The coinee in the other waiting room started having a seizure upon witnessing the spectacle, and had to be sedated. I really couldn't tell the difference before and after sedation, but I am not an expert on coinee behavior.

 

[*] "The rookie" (new graders are not permitted the use of actual names within the CGC facility) pointed out that I looked nothing like my avatar. I actually think it's a fine likeness... While engaging in minor chitchat about greggy, forum dinners, and lap dances, my mind began to wander to a piece I read online last year called "Houseplants of Gor". Members of the BDSM community are all too familiar with the Gorean books, and parodies are common. This led to:

 

...I watched this exchange. Truly, I believed the grader would grade. It was grader, and at CGC it had no rights. Perhaps on Earth, in its permissive society, which distorts the true roles of all beings, which forces both grader and submitter to go unhappy and constrained, which forbids the fulfillment of Borock and grader, such might not happen. Perhaps there, it would not grade. But it was at CGC now, and would undoubtedly feel its true place, that of grader. It was grader. It would be made to grade at will. Such is the way with graders.

 

Borock picked up the stack of submissions, and handed them one by one to the grader. The grader cried out. "No, Master! Do not force me to grade!" The master continued to hand books to the grader. "Please, Master," begged the grader, "do not force me!" The master continued to hand books to the grader. It was grader. It could be made to grade at will.

 

The grader sobbed muchly as Borock laid down the stack of submissions. It was not pleased. Too, it was bleary-eyed. But this did not matter. It was grader.

 

"You have graded," said Borock.

 

"Yes," said the grader, "I have graded." Of course, it could be forced to grade by its master at will.

 

"I have used you well," said Borock.

 

"Yes, master," said the grader. "You have used your grader well. I am grader, and as such I should be made to grade by my master."

 

[*] My mind returned to CGC just as the conversation moved to free lap dances. Steve was asking Newt about the first lap dance he ever had. Newt launched into a long description about what color t-back he was wearing, and what the guy looked like before he realized Steve was asking about the first lap dance he had received. Steve follows the same management strategy that I do. Providing your employees will free lap dances from time to time is an excellent motivator. Gives them positive feedback, and simultaneously gives you blackmail material for later...

 

[*] A tiny blue light began blinking above the door and Newt and The Rookie were ushered back to the grading station. There are thermal sensors in the seat of each grader's chair, and should the temperature of the seat fall below 94 degrees, they are docked a day's pay. I noticed later that Shawn was attempting to beat the system by setting his lunch in his chair while he roamed the halls, but I suspect he was caught soon after.

 

[*] Scott and I completed the last of the paperwork just as Paul Litch came out to say hello. Litch was distraught at the fact that I forgot to bring Associated Student Bodies #2-4 with me on this trip. He was so hoping to grade some more gay squirrel porn. The shower scene at the end of issue 1 has quite a cliffhanger and I know he's been waiting to hear how the story ends.

 

[*] Litch and I spoke at length about the "special" terms I would get with my submission. He pulled out the price list and we haggled over how many 9.8s I could get out of the Spidey run. I was hoping to see at least one 9.9 from the X-Men run, but the cost of 9.9s has gone up, and all I could afford was a half-dozen 9.8s, with at least one being a semi-key. He offered to throw in a couple bonus "double cover" label descriptions (no one cracks those slabs open to check anyway), but I figured I would wait til I had some books that could really use it. So I settled on just ordering a few extra 9.8s, some extra 9.6s, and one "Mile High III" designation just for kicks.

 

[*] Scott returned with a very pleasant surprise for me. I had a batch of four standards that were in the pipeline and were due to ship out to me on the 12th. The grades were already done before I arrived, and he was kind enough to bump them up in the queue at encapsulation so I could leave with them on Monday. Grades were all about what I expected. The Mark Jewelers Variant X-Men 94 came back at 7.5 which is exactly what I had pegged it at. Scott saved me the $32 shipping by letting me take them with me (and obviously saved CGC the labor of packing them).

 

[*] Our business complete, I brought up again how odd it was that there was not a single piece of decoration in the lobby related to comics. Tons of coin mags, tons of coin artwork. Not one reference to comics at all in the lobby...

 

[*] Less than five minutes later, they had redecorated the lobby, just for me... ... One of the graders brought out four framed pieces of original comic art and hung them on the wall in the lobby. They claimed the art used to hang on that wall, but no one could remember why it had been taken down. I would not be surprised if the NGC folks had it removed within minutes of my departure, but at least for a little while, it was there...

 

[*] Steve came back with the badge for my tour. The badge hung around my neck on a chain, and included both a radio tracking device and an explosive. I was warned that if I strayed during my tour the explosives would be detonated, ending my tour...

 

[*] Borock then began showing me his original art type set. One piece from each artist, probably four dozen total, lining the corridors from grading to receiving. I recognized about 40% of the artists on sight, the rest Steve had to fill me in. Some older pieces, most newer. Steve is really one of the biggest fans of comics I have ever met, and his energy in talking about the medium never fails to get me excited about it as well.

 

[*] Steve then started me on a tour as though I were a comic book. We began in receiving, where a half-dozen employees were bar coding submissions (many of them now working on the books that had been in my car just an hour before), doing data entry, and boxing the bar coded books for transport to the safe. Transport boxes were marked with only the bar code information and a color dot showing the class of service (moderns were purple if I remember correctly). No other identifying marks were on the boxes. All you could tell was that this box contained 10 moderns received on January 4th, with bar codes from this number to that number.

 

[*] Next we went to the "safe". An interior room located at this exact latitude and logitude: [embarrassing lack of self control] degrees [embarrassing lack of self control] minutes [embarrassing lack of self control] seconds North, [embarrassing lack of self control] degrees [embarrassing lack of self control] minutes [embarrassing lack of self control] seconds West.... A relatively large room, I have no doubt it could store the GDP of all but 15 countries on Earth in comic books. There the boxes were neatly arranged by date. There was one shelf marked "Heritage submissions - Grade these real high"

 

[*] Next I was shown to the grading room. A bigger room that I expected, with more people than I expected frankly. About a dozen folks at what may as well be a giant conference table. Each with their own computer, but no subdivisions of any kind. One guy was grading a nice copy of Green Lantern 40. The next guy over had some X-Men book. Across the aisle was some modern drek. Next to that was some Golden Age book.

 

[*] Steve showed me the grader's process, and how they enter the notes into the system. They had let Newt back out of his cage for my tour and he was entering notes for a book while I watched. He had five or six separate notations on the 7.5 book he was working on, 8-8 for page count, "crs lrc-fc dnbc" and so on...

 

[*] Steve explained how when the second grader gets the book, they had access to the notes from the first grader but not the grade itself. Then when the finalizer gets the book, they don't have access to the notes until after they give their own grade. So the finalizer grades the book completely cold, and if he says 8.0 and the other two said 6.0 he checks the notes to see if he missed an interior tear or whatever (or if there is no such flaw, he hands it to another finalizer for a reality check to see who is smoking crack). There was a board posted on the wall with each grader's name and tally marks for each time they were a "crack smoker". The highest total each week has to clean the restrooms...

 

[*] Next week went to the encapsulation room. Here Steve showed me some new twists they recently added to both the label and the case. I won't go into them here, but the case and label have come a long way. He was also kind enough to run me about 50 extra labels that said 9.6, five each for about ten different keys, so I can make my own high grades.

 

[*] While I was there, they fired up the sonic sealing machine... and I was only halfway joking when I told Steve he might have disability claims on his hands down the road. That thing was as loud as greggy with a new 9.6 Romance 100 Pager, and only a slightly higher octave.

 

[*] Then it was off to quality control. I had a chance to peek at some books that were already encapsulated, including a few that were from submitters I recognized. A pretty nice GA Green Lantern 11 was sitting patiently on the shelf. And in a box just over, Steve pulled out an America's Best Comics 11. While we were standing there, Flying Donut called Steve on the Borock-Phone. At least I think it was Donut. It may have been a coded message to have Steve rush me out since coinees were on the way.

 

[*] Next we were off to shipping. I got to see the new packing method they have switched to, in order to cut down on cracked cases. I was legitimately impressed. It's a well-thought out design and should cut damage claims by a huge margin. The woman who designed the system was given her two-weeks notice while I was there. Now that they have the system they are replacing her with someone cheaper... (I found out later she is staying... there isn't anyone cheaper after all)

 

[*] And that pretty much ended the tour... After that Steve and I chatted about CCG's master plans, and I was grateful for the insider information. It will send me on several buying sprees this year. We talked about restaurants, strip clubs, poker, how hard it is to get good help, the inherent dichotomy of country music and western music, and the giant balls hanging on the wall in the waiting area...

 

[*] Then my badge started beeping, and I noticed a faint smell of smoke... I turned it in as quickly as I could, said my goodbyes, and headed out down the road again...

 

 

------ more update to come, after lunch --------

[FlyingDonut]

...I watched this exchange. Truly, I believed the grader would grade. It was grader, and at CGC it had no rights. Perhaps on Earth, in its permissive society, which distorts the true roles of all beings, which forces both grader and submitter to go unhappy and constrained, which forbids the fulfillment of Borock and grader, such might not happen. Perhaps there, it would not grade. But it was at CGC now, and would undoubtedly feel its true place, that of grader. It was grader. It would be made to grade at will. Such is the way with graders.

 

Borock picked up the stack of submissions, and handed them one by one to the grader. The grader cried out. "No, Master! Do not force me to grade!" The master continued to hand books to the grader. "Please, Master," begged the grader, "do not force me!" The master continued to hand books to the grader. It was grader. It could be made to grade at will.

 

The grader sobbed muchly as Borock laid down the stack of submissions. It was not pleased. Too, it was bleary-eyed. But this did not matter. It was grader.

 

"You have graded," said Borock.

 

"Yes," said the grader, "I have graded." Of course, it could be forced to grade by its master at will.

 

"I have used you well," said Borock.

 

"Yes, master," said the grader. "You have used your grader well. I am grader, and as such I should be made to grade by my master."

 

 

you are a sick, sick man....

[lighthouse]

you are a sick, sick man....

 

It's taken you six and a half years to figure this out?

[Timulty]

you are a sick, sick man....

 

It's taken you six and a half years to figure this out?

 

Cut him some slack, it still took me 4 months to figure it out. Besides, don't hate the playa, hate the game right?