FormCritic wrote:
** expired/removed eBay auction **

I finally won a copy of Thieves Guild 2nd Edition for a reasonable price.
I also got a copy of City of Haven in the deal.
Unfortunately, they're both shrinkwrapped...so I won two really nice posters...possibly knicknacks.

I can always trade you non-shrinked copies of them for the shrink ones, Mark

FormCritic wrote:Unfortunately, they're both shrinkwrapped...so I won two really nice posters...possibly knicknacks.

If you decide to open them, try to get an audio recording of that sweet sound of tearing shrink wrap.
I'm sure a few people here would not mind having copies for...ah...posterity! Yeah that's it!
I'm sure that recording would never be used to torment the shrinkwrap fans (fanatics).  

Aneoth wrote:
Honestly John, did you ever taste New Coke?  
It was NOT nostalgia that brought Old Coke back..............

New Coke was one of the huge marketing blunders of the century.  Malcom Gladwell has an entire chapter about it in his excellent book "The Tipping Point".  Essentially, Coke started doing taste tests of a new formula they had dreamed up, which was sweeter and not quite as tart as regular Coke.  The taste tests got rave reviews, and the company went ahead with moving to the new formula.

Only...they made one mistake. The mixture tasted great in "sips", but since it was so sweet, it tasted awful if you tried to drink an entire can (much less several cans one after another).  Unfortunately no one bothered to do any taste tests with entire cans...and so when the product was released, it blew like a hurricaine.   Aneoth is right it tasted awful, I remember drinking maybe one and then vowing to switch to Dr. Pepper or Mr. Pibb.  Sales went into the toilet. The rest is history!

Mike B.

Aneoth wrote:
Honestly John, did you ever taste New Coke?  
It was NOT nostalgia that brought Old Coke back..............

Yes I did taste New Coke.  It was Pepsi in a red and silver can that said "New Coke" on it.  And the smiley face with the winking eye that I used at the end of my sentence....that means "ha ha, just kidding".

Being a person of close to zero willpower, I've ordered the Traveller rulebook from Mongoose. I'll let you know what it's like. So how many versions of Traveller are there now?

Based on several resources which pretty much all match the Traveller wiki page I would assume 8 or 9 different versions.

1. Classic Traveller
2. MegaTraveller
3. Traveller: The New Era
4. Marc Miller's Traveller (T4)
5. GURPS Traveller
6. D20 Traveller
7. Traveller Hero
8. Traveller 5
9. Mongoose Traveller (that just looks goofy)

It also lists GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars as another version but I just assumed it was another rulebook for the GURPS version and not a stand alone milieu.  And yeah...$39.95 for a 192-page rulebook is highway robbery.  Mongoose will not be getting my money.

Kingofpain89 wrote:It also lists GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars as another version but I just assumed it was another rulebook for the GURPS version and not a stand alone milieu.

Interstellar Wars is a stand-alone book.  All the other GURPS Traveller stuff is 3rd edition GURPS, while Interstellar Wars is set several thousand years earlier and is for 4th edition.

And yeah...$39.95 for a 192-page rulebook is highway robbery.  Mongoose will not be getting my money.

Yeah, sounds about right for Mongoose.  Their prices tend to be on the high side.

Badmike wrote:
New Coke was one of the huge marketing blunders of the century.  Malcom Gladwell has an entire chapter about it in his excellent book "The Tipping Point".  
Mike B.

I have a friend who works for Coke.  He has a conspiracy theory about New Coke.

He thinks that Coca Cola used New Coke as a foil...a distraction so that their customers would not notice the switch from Coke made with sugar to Coke made with high fructose corn syrup.  They would be so glad to have Classic Coke back...and feeling so victorious...that they would not notice the switch.

Since I only drink Diet Coke, the point is moot to me...but I have read that Mexican consumers in the US will spend good money to get bottles of Coke made with sugar shipped up from Mexico.

My own personal theory is that the Y2K scare was invented by a government think tank.......the goal was to give conspiracy theorists and nutcases something to worry about in order to distract them from much worse apocalyptic theories and resulting nutty behavior.  

I actually thought that before the clock ticked down to 2000.

FormCritic wrote:
I have a friend who works for Coke.  He has a conspiracy theory about New Coke.

He thinks that Coca Cola used New Coke as a foil...a distraction so that their customers would not notice the switch from Coke made with sugar to Coke made with high fructose corn syrup.  They would be so glad to have Classic Coke back...and feeling so victorious...that they would not notice the switch.

Since I only drink Diet Coke, the point is moot to me...but I have read that Mexican consumers in the US will spend good money to get bottles of Coke made with sugar shipped up from Mexico.

My own personal theory is that the Y2K scare was invented by a government think tank.......the goal was to give conspiracy theorists and nutcases something to worry about in order to distract them from much worse apocalyptic theories and resulting nutty behavior.  

I actually thought that before the clock ticked down to 2000.

I had this same theory about New Coke, but boy, it cost them a lot of money. I was the nutcase after Classic Coke came back saying, it doesn't taste the same as it used to.

Mexican coke does still have sugar, you can find here in So. Cal. Another good tip is that Coke makes Kosher Coke for Passover and it is also made with Sugar.

FormCritic wrote:I have a friend who works for Coke.  He has a conspiracy theory about New Coke.

He thinks that Coca Cola used New Coke as a foil...a distraction so that their customers would not notice the switch from Coke made with sugar to Coke made with high fructose corn syrup.  They would be so glad to have Classic Coke back...and feeling so victorious...that they would not notice the switch.

It's not a conspiracy theory.  It is truth.  Coke Classic doesnt taste anything like the original Coke.  I know two ex-Coca Cola employees who swear that the whole New Coke/Classic Coke mess was done on purpose to change the formula that traditionally used cane sugar to one that now uses the cheaper corn syrup.  I dont think Coca Cola lost any money during the whole thing either.  Even though a lot of people hated New Coke, there were a whole lot of people that loved it.  When my high school girlfriend's father found out they were discontinuing New Coke and going back to the original, he went and bought two pallets of the stuff and stuck them in his garage.  He was still drinking New Coke well into the 90's.  And when Classic Coke hit the shelves again, the company posted record sales of the stuff.

Of course this is all moot since I rarely drink a soft drink anymore.  All the research linking soft drinks to diabetes, cancer, nervous disorders, etc.  Worse than cigarettes if you ask me.  And diet drinks are worse.  Splenda, Nutra-Sweet, and all the other artificial sweetners are just as bad.

Kingofpain89 wrote:It's not a conspiracy theory.  It is truth.  Coke Classic doesnt taste anything like the original Coke.  I know two ex-Coca Cola employees who swear that the whole New Coke/Classic Coke mess was done on purpose to change the formula that traditionally used cane sugar to one that now uses the cheaper corn syrup.

It's a good conspiracy theory, except it falls apart since Coca Cola had already switched to corn syrup before New Coke was ever released.