The Pokémon Sanctuary Project

Alola! Welcome to my new writing project!

I've been a Pokémon fan since I picked up Pokémon Red in 1998 just before my 18th birthday. Over the years, I have toyed with the idea of building a comprehensive Pokémon zoo of sorts. It's a huge undertaking that grows with every passing generation of Pokémon game that adds more Pokémon to collect. I've started and failed a few times over the years to create a comprehensive collection of Pokémon to carry forward into future generations.

The closest I came was in a Pokémon Emerald run I did in 2008 (roughly). I'm not sure if those creatures are still on a copy of Emerald, or stored in the Ruby/Sapphire Box on some Gamecube memory stick somewhere. I may try to hunt them down in the future, but for the purposes of this project I'm starting from scratch, and I'm starting where it all began. I'll be playing through the Virtual Console version of Pokémon Red.

I'm going to be documenting this journey in the form of a serial narrative. I hope to upload a short story every week as I progress through Pokémon Red with my created character, Fox, who aspires to be a world renown Pokémon collector and zoologist. In order to make his story more interesting to read, I will also be doing the initial playthrough as a Nuzlocke Challenge that I will detail below. As I handle the writing, my brother will be doing some original art for the series to spice up the adventure. I hope this will make the experience fun and interesting for personal friends and Pokémon fans alike.

The Nuzlocke Challenge

1. Any Pokémon that faints must be released. 
2. Only the first Pokémon encountered in each area can be caught. No second chances. 
3. All Pokémon will have personalized nicknames to make them more endearing. 

These are the basic rules of the challenge and speaking retrospectively they really make the early game quite challenging and intense. I've never had more tense encounters in an RPG in my life. In addition to these rules, I have also decided that (for the sake of the narrative) I will not be using a starter Pokémon. The challenge starts for me when Fox catches his first Pokémon on Route 1 and then trades away the Charmander he used to catch it. I've run from all battles before that point and just rushed to a point where you can catch your Pokémon. So Rattata or Pidgey (no spoilers! don't look at the episode title!) will be the first and only Pokémon on my team leaving Route 1.

Addendum: I will not be catching an HM Slave. All HMs will be taught to actual members of the team unless I hit a roadblock. If the path forward requires an HM that I absolutely cannot teach without catching a new Pokémon, then an HM Slave may be caught. If that occurs, that Pokémon will only exclusively be used for the HMs and never for battle, but I will be trying to avoid this at all cost. Having one of four battle moves taken up by an HM adds to the challenge, but I won't accept it as a loss if I get to an impasse due to HM nonsense and am forced to catch an extra Pokémon.

• Episode 1 - Tabula Rattata
• Episode 2 - Nibbles & Kiwi
• Episode 3 - The Lone Wolf
• Episode 4 - A Trainer's Resolve
• Episode 5 - Monumental Heartbreak
• Episode 6 - Battle for Boulder Badge
• Episode 7 - The Dread Rocket Raticate
• Episode 8 - The Nugget Bridge Rematch
• Episode 9 - Something Oddish in Cerulean
• Episode 10 - Kanto Underground
• Episode 11 - All Aboard the S.S. Anne!
• Episode 12 - A Tremendous Chop to the Team
• Episode 13 - The Team Surges Forward
• Episode 14 - A Wild Side Quest Appears
• Episode 15 - Putting a Pin in Lavender Town
• Episode 16 - Quiet Gardens of Celadon

Storium Theory: A Shadow In The Light

I've written a bit about this before, but today I'd like to discuss one of the most fun things that I've found to do on Storium - ending a challenge with a Strong ending by playing a Weakness card.

Sometimes, you find yourself with a really fascinating opportunity on Storium. You're writing the final move on a challenge, and it is definitely going Strong - there's only one card slot left, for instance, and at least 2 more Strong cards have been played than Weakness cards, so even if you play a Weakness card, it's still going to be 1 up on Strong.

These are amazingly fun writing opportunities, and I encourage you to make the most of them.

Play a Weakness card...and make it just as Weak as you normally would! Your character screws up, or stumbles, or otherwise expresses his Weakness. It's just that in the end, the challenge succeeds despite him.

Don't have his Weakness lead him to victory - instead, have victory happen despite his weakness.

The other characters' efforts succeed. They win the day. He almost screws things up for everybody...but they'd done well enough before that point that it didn't end up mattering.

This is one of your best possible opportunities to make someone else...or everybody else...awesome.

You can take the time to build up how well someone else did. You can show how the situation is set up perfectly to go to the Strong outcome. Then, you take it one step farther - you show how you make a mistake, how you screw things up...but because things were set up so well to begin with, or because someone else is doing what they're doing and doing it so well, things go right anyway.

It isn't luck. It isn't happenstance. It's the efforts of the other characters involved, acting along the lines they've acted in prior to your move, using the Strengths they've put down before. You nearly mess everything up...but they either save the day, or have already put things in such a good state that your screw-up is a drop in the bucket.

Some of my favorite moves on Storium have been the points where I've had the opportunity to write this way: Where I could show just how good the other characters have been in a challenge by having my character seriously screw up...but letting the group win the day anyway. The other players feel great because you gave them recognition and made them look like a million bucks...and you? You get a really, really powerful character moment out of it.

You can hit your character hard from a moment like this - a moment where everyone else looks good, and he looks bad. You can use it to push him to change. You can inspire a difference in attitude. Maybe it's negative - feelings of inferiority or questioning of his skills. But maybe it's positive - a new respect for other characters, or the discovery of a mentor who can help him exceed his current limits.

So when a moment like this comes up in a story, don't just toss out a Weakness card just to get rid of one. Don't look at it that way. Look at it as a great opportunity to really make other people look good, and to really draw comparisons between your character's failings and someone else's strengths. This is an excellent, amazing chance to develop your character and make other people look their best at the same time. Take advantage of it!

Ep 43: Undercoat It Black Is Live!

Ep 43: Undercoat it black

https://soundcloud.com/user-989538417/ep-43-undercoat-it-black

Neil Schuck and Jay talk about gaming the Vietnam War.

Follow Neil on Twitter! @mandmpodcast

Jay's Mission Analysis Article http://henrys-wargaming.co.uk/the-tactical-tutor-part-1/

Empress Miniatures FNG Indo-China Range http://www.empressminiatures.com/userimages/procart60.htm

Charlie Don't Surf - Too Fat Lardies -  https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product-category/charlie-dont-surf/

Charlie Company Rules - Rafm - http://www.rafm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RAF&Product_Code=RAF00015&Category_Code=CCR

Charlie Company Miniatures - Rafm - http://www.rafm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=RAF&Category_Code=CCM

Fireteam Vietnam - Buck Surdu https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Team-Vietnam-John-Surdu/dp/1889584096

Ambush Valley - Ambush Alley Games - http://www.ambushalleygames.net/force-on-force-core-rules-pdf/ambush-valley-pdf-version

FNG - Two Hour Wargames - http://www.wargamedownloads.com/item.php?item=556&Site=BGG

Men of Company B and AK 47 Republic - Peter Pig - http://www.peterpig.co.uk/rules.html

Carport Gaming - Chain of Command DMZ Blog - http://carportgaming.blogspot.com/

Full Moon Jacket - Strangley Games - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/266751851/full-moon-jacket/

Thud Ridge - Tumbling Dice - http://www.tumblingdiceuk.com/shop/thud-ridge-vietnam-war-196572

Check Your Six Jet Age - http://www.i-94enterprises.com/products/check-your-6-stuff/

Baker Company Miniatures  - http://bakercompany.co.uk/18-vietnam

The Assault Group - http://theassaultgroup.co.uk/product-category/up-country/

West Wind Miniatures - https://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=192_67

Eureka Miniatures - http://www.eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath=87_126_189

SHQ Miniatures - https://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=192_67

Britania - Grubby Tanks - https://www.grubbytanks.com/product-category/britannia-miniatures/20mm-vietnam-conflict/

Platoon 20 - East Riding Miniatures - http://shop.eastridingminiatures.co.uk/vietnam-wars-51-c.asp

Elhiem Miniatures - https://www.elhiem.co.uk/ourshop/cat_811852-Vietnam.html

Under Fire Miniatures - http://www.underfireminiatures.com/page14.htm

Esci - http://plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=103 - http://plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=104

Flashpoint Miniatures - http://flashpoint-miniatures.com/

Peter Pig - http://www.peterpig.co.uk/vietnam.html

Old Glory Command Decision - https://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/categories.asp?cat=488

GHQ - http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/modern-micro-armour-vietnam-riverine.html

PicoArmor - https://www.picoarmor.com/product-category/modern-miniatures-3mm/

Fire In the Lake - GMT - https://www.gmtgames.com/p-566-fire-in-the-lake-2nd-printing.aspx

A Distant Plain - GMT - https://www.gmtgames.com/p-656-a-distant-plain-3rd-printing.aspx

Join the conversation at https://theveteranwargamer.blogspot.com, email theveteranwargamer@gmail.com, Twitter @veteranwargamer

Music courtesy bensound.com. Recorded with zencastr.com. Edited with Audacity. Make your town beautiful; get a haircut.

100 Item Challenge (Tradecraft)

I recently read the ebook Smarter Inventory Drives Sales. It was a standard inventory approach with a lot of complex terminology to describe simple things, but one thing stood out. Inventory accuracy reality and perception were vastly different. The article quoted an Auburn University study in which back in 2005, before many retailers had an online presence, most thought their inventory accuracy was far higher than it actually was:

Nearly all retailers truly believed that they were at 95% plus Inventory Accuracy, and why wouldn't they? Online customer visibility was in its infancy and the term omnichannel was barely invented.

Why mention online sales? It's a painful process to sell online only to give back money because a product doesn't exist on the shelf. Stores upped their inventory game tremendously when they began selling online. My store is in that situation a little bit with our Magic singles, Our singles inventory is weak, because we have weak tools and weak processes. The metrics associated with failure are hard. We regularly bribe customers when our inventory is off. Although we're at 99.4% positive feedback, we were told we couldn't sell internationally because the standard is 99.5%. Rather than the soft metrics of back peddling with a brick and mortar customer, when you're out online, it results in bad feedback and less sales in a more direct manner.

For those of us, like me, who don't do significant online sales, we're back in that pre 2005 study territory, thinking we have a high degree of accuracy (95%+) when in reality, the study finds, accuracy is much lower:

Accuracy is somewhere in the 65-75% range. A few still cling to the decade old belief that they have 85% or higher exact match Inventory Accuracy.

This means the value of a retail store should be considered lower by at least a third. If you were to buy a store or put yours up for sale, the assumption of inventory value would immediately start at 65% of whatever you think is there. I think adding even a modest online component may increase the value of the business, if for no other reason than it denotes a higher inventory accuracy of around a third. This assumes this is all understood by a buyer or broker. In any case, if I were buying a business, I would assume 35% of the stores stated inventory is smoke and mirrors.

Rather than claim high accuracy, test this yourself. Do an actual inventory with no excuses. Don't do a regular inventory, do a random check. There are a lot of excuses when you get down to business on why things are wrong. You may have known they were wrong in the back of your mind, like many things in a store that are out of place. It's just a database after all, why sweat accuracy? But remember, you pay taxes based on the accuracy of that data and customer satisfaction is tied to product availability.

Inventory 100 random items. Do a spot inventory. The way I did this was dumping my inventory from my POS to an Excel spreadsheet. In the column next to each item, generate a random number and copy that cell down through your entire inventory. This is the only way to really check, as a standard inventory process is too subjective. Here's an article on how to generate that random number. Now sort your inventory based on the random number column and inventory the first 100 items.

What did I get? Well, how do we measure? If we measure missing items, it's one number. If we measure incorrect entries, it's another. Both were pretty close for me at 85%. I was certainly in the camp claiming 95%+ accuracy before doing this. I already had what I thought was a robust inventory process in place, but I reiterated the need to get this work done to managers and staff and put a monthly 100 random item check reminder on my personal calendar.

This measurement of progress should help improve performance. Doing a regular inventory is clearly not good enough. Give it a try and let us know what you found. There's no shame in admitting you have a problem if you're going to fix it.

(106 MB) Download Hitman 3 Contracts Game Highly Compressed For Pc

Download Hitman 3 Contracts Game Highly Compressed For Pc

Screenshot

System Requirements of Hitman Contracts PC Game

Before you start Hitman Contracts Free Download make sure your PC meets minimum system requirements

• Operating System: Windows XP/ Windows Vista/ Windows 7/ Windows 8 and 8.1
• CPU:Pentium 4 1.6 GHz
• RAM: 256 MB
• Setup Size: 106 MB

Insurance (Tradecraft)

A nuts and bolts post? Sure, why not.

A business requires insurance. At the minimum, you need liability insurance. There are other types of insurance though. I've got liability insurance, workers comp insurance, key man life insurance, and for years we had vehicle insurance on our van. Insurance is one of those things new store owners don't always think about.

My second year in business I went to a seminar where a store owner had someone drive through their front window into their store. Twice. He was the likely guy to give a presentation on business insurance and for many, needing such a thing was an eye opener. When I started I had a home and assets and made sure the store was incorporated and insured and far away from my personal life. For most young people without a pot to relieve themselves, that might not be a consideration. 

So how do you get insurance? Find a human. I'm not sure if you can get business liability insurance online, but if so, it's a bad idea. You want to talk to a human about your particular business needs and exactly what you do and where you do it. For example, my store went from a regular retail environment to an improved, two story monstrosity in need of rebuilding if it burned down. It probably wouldn't be rebuilt there, but they'll pay to rebuild it somewhere.  If I had just gotten regular liability insurance, I would be left with no protection and a ton of outstanding loans for a burnt out shell. 

Other considerations include insuring Magic singles. My policy has a "fine art" clause that includes those. What you don't want are surprises. Insurance companies are all about taking as much money from you as they can and paying out as little as possible. It's better to be up front, find angles to cover everything necessary, and avoid surprises. Look at your lease and see what you're responsible for.  Plate glass insurance is often inexpensive, but if someone breaks all your windows, you could be out thousands of dollars. Over time, revisit your policy and up your limits when you add inventory or fixtures.

Who is that human? I have a customer who jumps from job to job, and one of his latest was insurance agent. He was an agent for about four months before he moved on. Do not use a green agent. Find someone experienced. I had a new agent misclassify my company for my workers comp policy, thinking I didn't need to be covered as an owner, when in fact it was necessary. A company audit revealed the mistake, and rather than admitting their agent error, they charged me $3,500 in back premiums. Insurance companies exist to do two things: take as much money as possible while denying your claims. 

Personal insurance agents tend not to handle commercial insurance, so you probably won't be able to use your Aunt Kathy's agency to handle your commercial needs (my Aunt K does my personal insurance). Attempt to find a well regarded commercial agent who has been doing this for a while and lay all your cards on the table.

Classification is tricky as there is no "game store" category for liability insurance. You might be classified as a toy store, a book store, a hobby store, whatever is close, and the cost between agencies and within each agency could be enormous. As long as you don't get cute, something reasonable should be fine.

Avoid buying a policy based entirely on price. Ask what's not covered in your case. Have a good heart to heart with the agent. These policies are really cheap compared to what could happen. I once transitioned between agencies and in a 30 day overlap period, someone broke into my store, doing a lot of damage and stealing a lot of cash (foolish me).  I talked to my new agent who walked me through my old coverage, which sucked, and my new coverage, which was great. I filed a claim with the better coverage, and yeah, they canceled me exactly a year later, but I saved $900. 

Make sure you have extensive business interruption insurance, which is usually standard. Knowing that my store could burn down and I have months to find a new place while paying employees allows me to sleep at night. When you get bigger, losing all your employees can destroy your business as easily as fire. 

What's a Good Company? I don't know! They're all terrible! I can't even remember who I have now. Let me check: Travelers for liability, State Farm for key man life insurance, and AP Intego for workers compensation insurance (pay as you go). Farmers burned me on that workers comp policy I mentioned, so maybe avoid them. 

Video Store Golden Age With Greg!

In this episode I talk with Greg aka SoulBlazer from the SNES Podcast and the Playstation Power Podcast. He helped establish NES game rentals in the video store that his mother managed in the 80s and 90s. It's a fun interview and I hope that you enjoy it. As always, I thank you for listening.

The photo used as the artwork was found on Roger Ebert's web site without a photographer credit. Please don't sue.