Brick Fight

Anyone with a brain saw that coming. Economists like Krugman were warning of it for years, but it got dismissed as "liberal media bias" or whatever. Even the average dipshit could watch HGTV and wonder why throwing a single piece of track lighting in a kitchen added $25,000 to a house price. When I go to back to my hometown in Jersey, every year more houses look like crap; they need paint, the yard is uncut and full of weeds, the windows are dirty, etc. It's fairly obvious the entire town is renting because anything within an hour of NYC costs ten million dollars because realtors said it was worth that much. A guy whose probably most reliable source of income was property, and most likely inherited a certain amount of his property would understand what was going on and how he could work it. And considering how crooked the system behind the crash was, I don't mind that he made money off of it. There's plenty of other shit to find reprehensible about him.

Yes to both I guess?
 
They did some things I like with the game:
 
-Guns are no longer pinpoint accurate to the sights. They were in BF4 and it was a mess. People could nail you full-auto from hundred meters away with an SMG and it created mass dead zones in the giant maps. It also created a gameplay meta really similar to Call of Duty, but more on that later. Now, semi-autos and SMGs disperse from center the more/faster you fire while LMGs get more accurate the longer you hold down the trigger. It results in being able to use more of the map than before because of more misses.
 
-Every little escaping carbon vapor on your character doesn't mark you on the mini-map. People will only show up on the mini-map if they're manually spotted or spotted by a sniper's flare gun. This was the other thing that turned BF3 and especially BF4 into a CoD-like, where people were staring at their mini-map 90% of the time and shooting around corners because they knew where everyone was. I was wondering why I hated 4 so much and a friend of mine who loves watching BF streamers linked me to some of their videos and they were just sprinting and bunny hopping and it looked CoD as hell and I didn't pick the game back up. Now, you and your team have to use actual effort and eyeballs to spot enemies.
 
-Vehicles are more self-contained. There's no longer a class that has a repair tool that you can just pick. You can spawn on tanks, horses or planes from the spawn menu only (cars just spawn at points around the map and you jump into one after spawning. You can also get into any abandoned tank/plane/horse), and when you do so, you spawn as a "pilot" class that gives you a C96 carbine (assuming more options in full release), a repair tool, and some AT grenades. This results in less people vehicle wasting by using a plane as a personal taxi to go get infantry kills since the Carbine is kind of poopy. The pilot of a vehicle can also fix their vehicle by holding X to repair chunks of about 20 HP at a time. You can only look around at this time, and any damage at all interrupts this and you have to restart the process. Some people don't like it, but I prefer it to the old way of praying that there's an engineer nearby and that he spawned with a repair tool, or risking jumping out of your vehicle to do it yourself and some fucking dillhole jumps into it and runs off.
 
-A few other vehicle things. For one, you have a sort of "ready rack" feature for tanks. For cannons, you can hold about 5-7 rounds before you reach zero and have to start reloading to get another shot (loading to your "rack" takes more time than if you just had a fresh round waiting). Other thing is that it doesn't look like they're doing that stupid thing like in 4 where you could customize each chunk of the vehicle and locking you out of really useful stuff. There's pre-determined loadouts to do different things, now.
 
-Melee is good and useful. The times I've played as a scout (sniper) class, I've been able to help my team in close quarters by using melee or bayonet charges.
 
-Some people hate that the new Conquest scoring system doesn't take kills into account, but I like it. Too many matches were lost because teams I was on that played the objectives lost to campers  (most notably in 3 and 4)
 
-The armored train is neat. In case anyone didn't know there are certain factors that determine that once a round, each team will get a "behemoth," essentially something like a zeppelin or armored train that has lots of little killing stations on it. These vehicles are destructible and usually issued to a team that's not doing well. The train can park at three different cap zones to capture them while dealing out crazy damage, but that still leaves something like 4 other cap zones that the enemy team can still cap without trouble, so it's not an "easy win" button, but more of a "chance to play catch-up" button.
 
Some bad things:
 
-I wlll breathe a sweet sigh of fucking relief when multiplayer gaming is rid of locking essential weapons and items behind progression. Tanks are unbalanced as hell right now because the only long-range personal AT weapon is locked behind a progression system (that is bugged in the beta so it takes forever to get), and the other is a special pickup that's way out in the desert. It's one thing to say "Well that's the skinner box" (it actually isn't), but it's another to have a hamster demand to be given the Skinner Box over any other option at all.
 
-They put a 20 minute timer on all rounds, so there are no comebacks or any idea of how long Conquest rounds will last.
 
-Rush game mode is really dull because it's down to 12 v 12 and they give each side tanks, so you can have both of the entire teams sitting in tanks not doing anything. 
 
-When DICE says "beta" they give you a fucking beta. It's bugged to hell and my early purchase is really hinging on seeing how many of these they fix.
 
-This can be a pro or can, but tanks are really hard to kill, and it's exacerbated by the AT weapon progression thing. It's hard to get an idea of the balance when an essential balancing tool is almost non-existent in the game right now.
 
-The map's kind of boring. It's not bad, but the alpha got this really cool-looking French countryside map and we got a desert map.

Only if he doesn't use lube.

Yes to both I guess?
 
They did some things I like with the game:
 
-Guns are no longer pinpoint accurate to the sights. They were in BF4 and it was a mess. People could nail you full-auto from hundred meters away with an SMG and it created mass dead zones in the giant maps. It also created a gameplay meta really similar to Call of Duty, but more on that later. Now, semi-autos and SMGs disperse from center the more/faster you fire while LMGs get more accurate the longer you hold down the trigger. It results in being able to use more of the map than before because of more misses.
 
-Every little escaping carbon vapor on your character doesn't mark you on the mini-map. People will only show up on the mini-map if they're manually spotted or spotted by a sniper's flare gun. This was the other thing that turned BF3 and especially BF4 into a CoD-like, where people were staring at their mini-map 90% of the time and shooting around corners because they knew where everyone was. I was wondering why I hated 4 so much and a friend of mine who loves watching BF streamers linked me to some of their videos and they were just sprinting and bunny hopping and it looked CoD as hell and I didn't pick the game back up. Now, you and your team have to use actual effort and eyeballs to spot enemies.
 
-Vehicles are more self-contained. There's no longer a class that has a repair tool that you can just pick. You can spawn on tanks, horses or planes from the spawn menu only (cars just spawn at points around the map and you jump into one after spawning. You can also get into any abandoned tank/plane/horse), and when you do so, you spawn as a "pilot" class that gives you a C96 carbine (assuming more options in full release), a repair tool, and some AT grenades. This results in less people vehicle wasting by using a plane as a personal taxi to go get infantry kills since the Carbine is kind of poopy. The pilot of a vehicle can also fix their vehicle by holding X to repair chunks of about 20 HP at a time. You can only look around at this time, and any damage at all interrupts this and you have to restart the process. Some people don't like it, but I prefer it to the old way of praying that there's an engineer nearby and that he spawned with a repair tool, or risking jumping out of your vehicle to do it yourself and some fucking dillhole jumps into it and runs off.
 
-A few other vehicle things. For one, you have a sort of "ready rack" feature for tanks. For cannons, you can hold about 5-7 rounds before you reach zero and have to start reloading to get another shot (loading to your "rack" takes more time than if you just had a fresh round waiting). Other thing is that it doesn't look like they're doing that stupid thing like in 4 where you could customize each chunk of the vehicle and locking you out of really useful stuff. There's pre-determined loadouts to do different things, now.
 
-Melee is good and useful. The times I've played as a scout (sniper) class, I've been able to help my team in close quarters by using melee or bayonet charges.
 
-Some people hate that the new Conquest scoring system doesn't take kills into account, but I like it. Too many matches were lost because teams I was on that played the objectives lost to campers  (most notably in 3 and 4)
 
-The armored train is neat. In case anyone didn't know there are certain factors that determine that once a round, each team will get a "behemoth," essentially something like a zeppelin or armored train that has lots of little killing stations on it. These vehicles are destructible and usually issued to a team that's not doing well. The train can park at three different cap zones to capture them while dealing out crazy damage, but that still leaves something like 4 other cap zones that the enemy team can still cap without trouble, so it's not an "easy win" button, but more of a "chance to play catch-up" button.
 
Some bad things:
 
-I wlll breathe a sweet sigh of fucking relief when multiplayer gaming is rid of locking essential weapons and items behind progression. Tanks are unbalanced as hell right now because the only long-range personal AT weapon is locked behind a progression system (that is bugged in the beta so it takes forever to get), and the other is a special pickup that's way out in the desert. It's one thing to say "Well that's the skinner box" (it actually isn't), but it's another to have a hamster demand to be given the Skinner Box over any other option at all.
 
-They put a 20 minute timer on all rounds, so there are no comebacks or any idea of how long Conquest rounds will last.
 
-Rush game mode is really dull because it's down to 12 v 12 and they give each side tanks, so you can have both of the entire teams sitting in tanks not doing anything. 
 
-When DICE says "beta" they give you a fucking beta. It's bugged to hell and my early purchase is really hinging on seeing how many of these they fix.
 
-This can be a pro or can, but tanks are really hard to kill, and it's exacerbated by the AT weapon progression thing. It's hard to get an idea of the balance when an essential balancing tool is almost non-existent in the game right now.
 
-The map's kind of boring. It's not bad, but the alpha got this really cool-looking French countryside map and we got a desert map.

You guys know Krieg from Borderlands 2?
 
I like to imagine these people are like that, with a sane voice in their head going "Just tell them that you love the 1911 because it looks cool and has an interesting history, and there's just something you enjoy about it despite its faults, and for God's sake, don't yell the word 'poop' at the top of your lungs."

You guys know Krieg from Borderlands 2?
 
I like to imagine these people are like that, with a sane voice in their head going "Just tell them that you love the 1911 because it looks cool and has an interesting history, and there's just something you enjoy about it despite its faults, and for God's sake, don't yell the word 'poop' at the top of your lungs."

"Libertarian" has always been a nebulous ideal. Libertarians largely stand for "liberty, I guess" though what that means is whatever they translate "liberty" to. The basic ideas of libertarianism allow for a lot of extrapolation to the point where "I believe in liberty" can mean "therefore I think we should strictly follow the constitution" or " The Constitution does not grant enough liberties therefore I don't believe large parts of it should be followed and should be changed, added to, or ignored." Two people on either side of the gun debate could claim to be libertarian and if they used personal liberties as reasoning for debate they could be right. Popular Libertarianism these days largely translates to pure contrarianism. A decent-sized portion of Bernie's supporters in reality being pretty far right-wing contrarians or that spat of media figures who went from being conservative, to neo-conservative to now being Libertarian are two prominent examples. 
 
A few examples of what I mean, though there are a lot more that go down to very specific political beliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Prominent_currents
 
General rule of thumb is if you think there's a politician or movement out there that's perfect for you, you're most likely wrong. Bernouts are learning this lesson hard. We weren't trying to keep you from voting for him when we said he couldn't give you all he was promising, folks. We were telling you that it was literally impossible to get everything he promised and we wanted you to come to grips with what you'd get out of his presidency. Figure out what you want and find the movement people that can make that happen and understand what you have to compromise for it.

"Libertarian" has always been a nebulous ideal. Libertarians largely stand for "liberty, I guess" though what that means is whatever they translate "liberty" to. The basic ideas of libertarianism allow for a lot of extrapolation to the point where "I believe in liberty" can mean "therefore I think we should strictly follow the constitution" or " The Constitution does not grant enough liberties therefore I don't believe large parts of it should be followed and should be changed, added to, or ignored." Two people on either side of the gun debate could claim to be libertarian and if they used personal liberties as reasoning for debate they could be right. Popular Libertarianism these days largely translates to pure contrarianism. A decent-sized portion of Bernie's supporters in reality being pretty far right-wing contrarians or that spat of media figures who went from being conservative, to neo-conservative to now being Libertarian are two prominent examples. 
 
A few examples of what I mean, though there are a lot more that go down to very specific political beliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Prominent_currents
 
General rule of thumb is if you think there's a politician or movement out there that's perfect for you, you're most likely wrong. Bernouts are learning this lesson hard. We weren't trying to keep you from voting for him when we said he couldn't give you all he was promising, folks. We were telling you that it was literally impossible to get everything he promised and we wanted you to come to grips with what you'd get out of his presidency. Figure out what you want and find the movement people that can make that happen and understand what you have to compromise for it.

"Libertarian" has always been a nebulous ideal. Libertarians largely stand for "liberty, I guess" though what that means is whatever they translate "liberty" to. The basic ideas of libertarianism allow for a lot of extrapolation to the point where "I believe in liberty" can mean "therefore I think we should strictly follow the constitution" or " The Constitution does not grant enough liberties therefore I don't believe large parts of it should be followed and should be changed, added to, or ignored." Two people on either side of the gun debate could claim to be libertarian and if they used personal liberties as reasoning for debate they could be right. Popular Libertarianism these days largely translates to pure contrarianism. A decent-sized portion of Bernie's supporters in reality being pretty far right-wing contrarians or that spat of media figures who went from being conservative, to neo-conservative to now being Libertarian are two prominent examples. 
 
A few examples of what I mean, though there are a lot more that go down to very specific political beliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Prominent_currents
 
General rule of thumb is if you think there's a politician or movement out there that's perfect for you, you're most likely wrong. Bernouts are learning this lesson hard. We weren't trying to keep you from voting for him when we said he couldn't give you all he was promising, folks. We were telling you that it was literally impossible to get everything he promised and we wanted you to come to grips with what you'd get out of his presidency. Figure out what you want and find the movement people that can make that happen and understand what you have to compromise for it.

"Libertarian" has always been a nebulous ideal. Libertarians largely stand for "liberty, I guess" though what that means is whatever they translate "liberty" to. The basic ideas of libertarianism allow for a lot of extrapolation to the point where "I believe in liberty" can mean "therefore I think we should strictly follow the constitution" or " The Constitution does not grant enough liberties therefore I don't believe large parts of it should be followed and should be changed, added to, or ignored." Two people on either side of the gun debate could claim to be libertarian and if they used personal liberties as reasoning for debate they could be right. Popular Libertarianism these days largely translates to pure contrarianism. A decent-sized portion of Bernie's supporters in reality being pretty far right-wing contrarians or that spat of media figures who went from being conservative, to neo-conservative to now being Libertarian are two prominent examples. 
 
A few examples of what I mean, though there are a lot more that go down to very specific political beliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Prominent_currents
 
General rule of thumb is if you think there's a politician or movement out there that's perfect for you, you're most likely wrong. Bernouts are learning this lesson hard. We weren't trying to keep you from voting for him when we said he couldn't give you all he was promising, folks. We were telling you that it was literally impossible to get everything he promised and we wanted you to come to grips with what you'd get out of his presidency. Figure out what you want and find the movement people that can make that happen and understand what you have to compromise for it.

Shkreli may not be a prime medical source as he seems to think early-onset means early stages. 

Palin was the first big rip for the republicans. There's a difference between being the common man party and the spiteful anti-intellectual party, and the fact that they were pushing no-name dipshits who couldn't get a coherent sentence across as presidential material wasn't working well for the former. This is the party that realistically could have had an absolute run  of presidents like McCain or Luger, but I feel got a little too hungry for short-term gratification.
 
A friend of mine who I met doing Get Out the Vote type stuff in college who now has a pretty high position for a young guy in the GOP sounds like a nervous wreck right now. Going with what I can perceive, I predicted that the Republican establishment would start culling the congressmen and personalities who've hurt the party's image, and he basically said:
 
"That's probably what we'd do if we knew who stood where and if anyone high up had any power left."
 
I play TW: Attila with him, and he kind of went on a roll about how the GOP feels like late-Rome. Fractured, mistrustful of every shadow, too willing/too unwilling to fight in the wrong areas. He talks about basically being locked up in a corner of the office with some boss of his, drinking at daylight and talking about just where things went wrong. There's a lot of regret vis a vis Fox News. Having a doughy manbaby crying about hot dogs with no mustard and Jon Stewart being ready with Hannity vs. Hannity clips scared away a lot of people. The only thing anyone there can agree on is that cutting down on tea party rhetoric and pillow-strangling the Freedom Caucus are highest on the to-do list, and Huelskamp getting kicked out of his spot is probably the first volley.
 
My other two friends in the Dems sound less pessimistic than they used to. Debbie Schulz was a disaster that they'd been complaining about for years. One of the complaints is that they were still in Bush-years mode, pissing and whining about everything but party establishment holding them back from passing home runs like minimum wage increase and financial sector reforms. Apparently Debbie just refused to work with Obama in any capacity and is often blamed as much for the stalemate as the Rebublicans were.

Palin was the first big rip for the republicans. There's a difference between being the common man party and the spiteful anti-intellectual party, and the fact that they were pushing no-name dipshits who couldn't get a coherent sentence across as presidential material wasn't working well for the former. This is the party that realistically could have had an absolute run  of presidents like McCain or Luger, but I feel got a little too hungry for short-term gratification.
 
A friend of mine who I met doing Get Out the Vote type stuff in college who now has a pretty high position for a young guy in the GOP sounds like a nervous wreck right now. Going with what I can perceive, I predicted that the Republican establishment would start culling the congressmen and personalities who've hurt the party's image, and he basically said:
 
"That's probably what we'd do if we knew who stood where and if anyone high up had any power left."
 
I play TW: Attila with him, and he kind of went on a roll about how the GOP feels like late-Rome. Fractured, mistrustful of every shadow, too willing/too unwilling to fight in the wrong areas. He talks about basically being locked up in a corner of the office with some boss of his, drinking at daylight and talking about just where things went wrong. There's a lot of regret vis a vis Fox News. Having a doughy manbaby crying about hot dogs with no mustard and Jon Stewart being ready with Hannity vs. Hannity clips scared away a lot of people. The only thing anyone there can agree on is that cutting down on tea party rhetoric and pillow-strangling the Freedom Caucus are highest on the to-do list, and Huelskamp getting kicked out of his spot is probably the first volley.
 
My other two friends in the Dems sound less pessimistic than they used to. Debbie Schulz was a disaster that they'd been complaining about for years. One of the complaints is that they were still in Bush-years mode, pissing and whining about everything but party establishment holding them back from passing home runs like minimum wage increase and financial sector reforms. Apparently Debbie just refused to work with Obama in any capacity and is often blamed as much for the stalemate as the Rebublicans were.

I talked to an old college friend who worked for the Cruz campaign this year, and it's more far-reaching. The Republican party is in a bad position right now. Groups like the Freedom Caucus have put a lot of the party power in doubt. They made a lot of hardline promises over the years that were really hard to keep, and it's created some serious internal issues they have to work out.
 
I think Ted's in a bit more good graces, as I took his speech as "fuck the presidency, we gotta keep The Senate." I personally find him to be one of the worst of the career politicians, but I have respect that he didn't turn around and say "all is forgiven, vote Trump" after having to wade through the shitshow that was this primary.

Trump's success in the primaries to me has two major contributors:
 
1) The right wing media that exploded during the 2008 election. I'm talking "Terrorist fist bump, Muslim Prayer Curtain, Death Panel," etc. right-wing media. Hate messages don't always stick to the majority, but when those messages to find a willing audience, it's hard to get rid of it. The people that believed every political macro on Facebook and in their e-mail soon became a marginal voting block.
 
2) The Republican party's fracture due to its own monster. The GOP may seem stern and coordinated, but they're in a mess right now. Not dis-owning the previously mentioned nutsos meant that they suddenly started getting Congressmen that wouldn't toe the GOP line. The Freedom Caucus is on a witch hunt for any party power, which means you'll only see moderation out of prominent members when it is only absolutely needed and they'll likely be disowned shortly after (see: Boehner). That and their cult of celebrity that started around the 2008 primary, and the post-election Palin boom means that the message is controlled by some weirdo of the month on a rotating basis.
 
If the party had told everyone but Cruz or maybe Rubio to get out of the primary, Donald would have taken a handful of states if he was lucky (remember, Bernie was losing by "a wide margin" with same numbers Donald won with). As it stands, those 40 and 30-some percents he got are translating nation-wide, and we're going to see some really nasty upsets in what were normally red states.

It's a good way of reaching out, but I cringe at the "modern musket" line ever since a local militia recruiter weirdo cornered me in a gunstore and kept using it.

A little something different. Even people I know who despise gaming videos for whatever reason love Research Indicates' LP of Jurassic Park: Trespasser. I remember one of the guys from Two Best Friends Play saying it was the only good Let's Play he'd seen (including his own videos). Link to the whole series:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6A3SaRr26M&list=PL0058A651EB882B48
 
It has so much of what many LPs don't. He sounds like an adult, he shows of interesting (good and bad) parts, and he tends not to waste your time. It has a nice blend of entertaining and pseudo-educational. And this was in 2008, when every single other LP was full of stuttering weirdos pointing their webcams upside down at their screens while retrying the same Kaizo level for the fortieth time.

To be fair, the modern Republican party would despise Ike.

One of the stranger things on my resume is a consulting gig. Nothing business official, but there was an Italian guy who had just emigrated to the area, and he really enjoyed our food. Soon, he started asking questions about the town and business and it became apparent he wanted to open a restaurant. I tried to tell him what I knew, why places always closed, why some never open up. He then pulled me, an accountant, and another more traditional chef into a room, and being very open about his finances and plans, asked us for input. The other chef gave him tips about opening a legit restaurant and what it would take, while I was more about the small-time. We pretty much came to the conclusion that his best bet was a paper-plate and pizzeria in a small storefront that was not a restaurant prior to his owning it.
 
It was so fucking nice to be listened to for once. Since I'd been involved in openings, I basically advised him and his accountant to figure out what equipment they'd need for what they wanted to make, then set away the majority of funds for code violations. Whatever was left would be used for bare-bones cosmetic renovations and re-invested or put away. The blindspot for code violations is the biggest killer I've seen. If a place has been approved year after year, new owners believe they'll be grandfathered in. That's never the case. Usually, the health inspectors either get buddy-buddy with the previous owners or just don't want to deal with hassle, but they eventually see new owners as a chance to get some changes to unsafe or unsatisfactory conditions.
 
The two big ones are fireproofing and exhaust. I swear there's a lobby to get a new exhaust code law written every year to benefit contractors, because they get ridiculous. I can always understand fireproofing after seeing places go up in flames, but the amount of shit that exhaust runs into like soundproofing and building height ratios is devious. The smartest people I see usually just sell the old equipment and put in their own, because hand-me-downs are not worth the hassle.
 
He eventually took a lot of my advice, and he's got a fantastic little authentic Italian deal. The one thing he was especially grateful for was my advice on slow seasons: Just close. If you're making good money, then there is no point in eventually spending it all again to keep the place running during the awful summer months we have here. Even if there's that one festival in the summer months where you'll clear a shitload of money, all it's gonna do is pay for more slow days. He tried it one time and just scraped by, whereas from now on, he closes up, pays a stipend to employees to have them come back, hires a guy to patrol the place, and goes back to Italy to visit family. People like Bourdain talk about stuff like literal bean-counting for funds or liquor licenses being a necessity, with this big blindspot of wasted money going to utilities and wages when no customers are coming in.

I've done this bit a few times, but I would argue that Doom 3 is more like Doom 1 than any game out there. One thing people forget is that the original Doom game didn't have mouselook, and you could only use tank controls. We also didn't know where all of the secrets and health/ammo pickups were, so lots of people who actually remember their earliest playthroughs agree that it played more like a survival horror game, what with its aesthetic and resource management. While Ultra-Violence is considered the default difficulty these days, the game was damned near impossible above hurt me plenty for a lot of folks. Even on UV, the monster count was relatively low, and it wasn't until Doom 2 that they really started to push the games as "big open areas with shitloads of enemies."
 
It just kind of bugs me that everyone forgets about that. I keep hearing people getting ultra-mad that the game isn't like real Doom in that it doesn't have assloads of monsters or rocket jumping (yes, I've heard this a lot). I've also heard developers saying stuff like "jumping, mobility, and high flying action are what Doom's all about!" so it's kinda weird.
 
 
 
That's fair. I'm not big on base-building strategy games and I played it after DoW 2, so it definitely wasn't my thing.

More views into the minds of these people:
 
http://www.seditionists.com/refugehc.pdf
 
Besides the paranoid "gubbiment psych ops and overloading satellites", one notable section is that she only briefly mentions the moments before Finicum truck left the refuge. Apparently one of the people who was supposed to go with them, David Fry, was nowhere to be seen at the time.
 
The big one people are mocking is how Ammon received a gift and blessing from a "General in 18th century dress who is a great-grandson of a Declaration signer."

One of the stranger things on my resume is a consulting gig. Nothing business official, but there was an Italian guy who had just emigrated to the area, and he really enjoyed our food. Soon, he started asking questions about the town and business and it became apparent he wanted to open a restaurant. I tried to tell him what I knew, why places always closed, why some never open up. He then pulled me, an accountant, and another more traditional chef into a room, and being very open about his finances and plans, asked us for input. The other chef gave him tips about opening a legit restaurant and what it would take, while I was more about the small-time. We pretty much came to the conclusion that his best bet was a paper-plate and pizzeria in a small storefront that was not a restaurant prior to his owning it.
 
It was so fucking nice to be listened to for once. Since I'd been involved in openings, I basically advised him and his accountant to figure out what equipment they'd need for what they wanted to make, then set away the majority of funds for code violations. Whatever was left would be used for bare-bones cosmetic renovations and re-invested or put away. The blindspot for code violations is the biggest killer I've seen. If a place has been approved year after year, new owners believe they'll be grandfathered in. That's never the case. Usually, the health inspectors either get buddy-buddy with the previous owners or just don't want to deal with hassle, but they eventually see new owners as a chance to get some changes to unsafe or unsatisfactory conditions.
 
The two big ones are fireproofing and exhaust. I swear there's a lobby to get a new exhaust code law written every year to benefit contractors, because they get ridiculous. I can always understand fireproofing after seeing places go up in flames, but the amount of shit that exhaust runs into like soundproofing and building height ratios is devious. The smartest people I see usually just sell the old equipment and put in their own, because hand-me-downs are not worth the hassle.
 
He eventually took a lot of my advice, and he's got a fantastic little authentic Italian deal. The one thing he was especially grateful for was my advice on slow seasons: Just close. If you're making good money, then there is no point in eventually spending it all again to keep the place running during the awful summer months we have here. Even if there's that one festival in the summer months where you'll clear a shitload of money, all it's gonna do is pay for more slow days. He tried it one time and just scraped by, whereas from now on, he closes up, pays a stipend to employees to have them come back, hires a guy to patrol the place, and goes back to Italy to visit family. People like Bourdain talk about stuff like literal bean-counting for funds or liquor licenses being a necessity, with this big blindspot of wasted money going to utilities and wages when no customers are coming in.

One of the stranger things on my resume is a consulting gig. Nothing business official, but there was an Italian guy who had just emigrated to the area, and he really enjoyed our food. Soon, he started asking questions about the town and business and it became apparent he wanted to open a restaurant. I tried to tell him what I knew, why places always closed, why some never open up. He then pulled me, an accountant, and another more traditional chef into a room, and being very open about his finances and plans, asked us for input. The other chef gave him tips about opening a legit restaurant and what it would take, while I was more about the small-time. We pretty much came to the conclusion that his best bet was a paper-plate and pizzeria in a small storefront that was not a restaurant prior to his owning it.
 
It was so fucking nice to be listened to for once. Since I'd been involved in openings, I basically advised him and his accountant to figure out what equipment they'd need for what they wanted to make, then set away the majority of funds for code violations. Whatever was left would be used for bare-bones cosmetic renovations and re-invested or put away. The blindspot for code violations is the biggest killer I've seen. If a place has been approved year after year, new owners believe they'll be grandfathered in. That's never the case. Usually, the health inspectors either get buddy-buddy with the previous owners or just don't want to deal with hassle, but they eventually see new owners as a chance to get some changes to unsafe or unsatisfactory conditions.
 
The two big ones are fireproofing and exhaust. I swear there's a lobby to get a new exhaust code law written every year to benefit contractors, because they get ridiculous. I can always understand fireproofing after seeing places go up in flames, but the amount of shit that exhaust runs into like soundproofing and building height ratios is devious. The smartest people I see usually just sell the old equipment and put in their own, because hand-me-downs are not worth the hassle.
 
He eventually took a lot of my advice, and he's got a fantastic little authentic Italian deal. The one thing he was especially grateful for was my advice on slow seasons: Just close. If you're making good money, then there is no point in eventually spending it all again to keep the place running during the awful summer months we have here. Even if there's that one festival in the summer months where you'll clear a shitload of money, all it's gonna do is pay for more slow days. He tried it one time and just scraped by, whereas from now on, he closes up, pays a stipend to employees to have them come back, hires a guy to patrol the place, and goes back to Italy to visit family. People like Bourdain talk about stuff like literal bean-counting for funds or liquor licenses being a necessity, with this big blindspot of wasted money going to utilities and wages when no customers are coming in.

One of the stranger things on my resume is a consulting gig. Nothing business official, but there was an Italian guy who had just emigrated to the area, and he really enjoyed our food. Soon, he started asking questions about the town and business and it became apparent he wanted to open a restaurant. I tried to tell him what I knew, why places always closed, why some never open up. He then pulled me, an accountant, and another more traditional chef into a room, and being very open about his finances and plans, asked us for input. The other chef gave him tips about opening a legit restaurant and what it would take, while I was more about the small-time. We pretty much came to the conclusion that his best bet was a paper-plate and pizzeria in a small storefront that was not a restaurant prior to his owning it.
 
It was so fucking nice to be listened to for once. Since I'd been involved in openings, I basically advised him and his accountant to figure out what equipment they'd need for what they wanted to make, then set away the majority of funds for code violations. Whatever was left would be used for bare-bones cosmetic renovations and re-invested or put away. The blindspot for code violations is the biggest killer I've seen. If a place has been approved year after year, new owners believe they'll be grandfathered in. That's never the case. Usually, the health inspectors either get buddy-buddy with the previous owners or just don't want to deal with hassle, but they eventually see new owners as a chance to get some changes to unsafe or unsatisfactory conditions.
 
The two big ones are fireproofing and exhaust. I swear there's a lobby to get a new exhaust code law written every year to benefit contractors, because they get ridiculous. I can always understand fireproofing after seeing places go up in flames, but the amount of shit that exhaust runs into like soundproofing and building height ratios is devious. The smartest people I see usually just sell the old equipment and put in their own, because hand-me-downs are not worth the hassle.
 
He eventually took a lot of my advice, and he's got a fantastic little authentic Italian deal. The one thing he was especially grateful for was my advice on slow seasons: Just close. If you're making good money, then there is no point in eventually spending it all again to keep the place running during the awful summer months we have here. Even if there's that one festival in the summer months where you'll clear a shitload of money, all it's gonna do is pay for more slow days. He tried it one time and just scraped by, whereas from now on, he closes up, pays a stipend to employees to have them come back, hires a guy to patrol the place, and goes back to Italy to visit family. People like Bourdain talk about stuff like literal bean-counting for funds or liquor licenses being a necessity, with this big blindspot of wasted money going to utilities and wages when no customers are coming in.

Because fuck your optics and self loading bullshit: