Grrl Power #345 – KA-POW + KA-BLAM = KA-CHING!
That’s recruit pay Sydney. Wait till you make Corporal.
Most stories are about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, but at this point you guys know I prefer writing about extraordinary people in ordinary situations. I don’t think making Sydney well off will hamper my story telling at all. Besides, as has been said many times in the comments (and I think at least few in the comic itself) that having super powers usually means you can make a seriously good living totally within the law. Why rob a bank when you can make more money by telekinetically unloading freighters in 20 minutes each, or lay transcontinental cable in a fraction of the normal time with your water breathing and super strength combo? That makes getting someone to potentially get shot at with bullets, lasers and lightning is a tougher sell unless you make it worth their while. Of course there are thrill seekers who want the adrenaline of either breaking the law or stopping that type, or they’re sold on nationalism or responsibility or whatever ideology motivates them, still, a healthy paycheck helps keep them around and provides stability to the team composition.
It was challenging to write so many pages of the comic without the topic of pay coming up. I don’t think I’ll say what the exact dollar amount is, but it’s something in the order of “you can have one jet, or ten supers per year” Admittedly that’s a huge range depending on what jet you’re talking about (and whether you include the R&D costs, maintenance staff and infrastructure, etc.) One Heatwave is not worth one jet in terms of crime fighting power, (not that people do a lot of crime fighting in jets, but you get what I mean) Ten Heatwaves… arguably worth one jet, or at least ten Heatwave level supers. One Maxima is worth an entire battle group, so mileage varies, but at least supers don’t require nearly the same support staff. Their insurance is rather a bit higher though.
The prior page ended kind of vaguely, which wasn’t ideal, but that’s because I wanted to save Sydney’s entire reaction for this page. I realize now that I’ve drawn it, her reaction is actually quite similar to Fry’s, if somewhat more terse. (She doesn’t faint, but we’ll get to that.) I thought it was more heavily inspired by Ren and Stimpy where Stimpy gives up $47 million to be back living with Ren, but looking it up on youtube, Ren’s reaction is just to get angry and smack Stimpy around. This is one of those pages that’s been floating around in my head for so long it probably has several influences.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
YUP! Totally appropriate, relevant, and safe for work:
https://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q93/jmftexas/640px-I-came-ghostbuster_zps8359d55f.jpg
Sydney better be careful with that check. It’s about to get slimed.
I wonder if Sydney will sell her shop and become an ARC full time?
Not likely in the least. Also, the first few pages of the comic take place in “present day,” and start in the comic shop. Do remember this page, and the previous pages (for the last few years) take place months ago in a flashback… spanning 2 days.
Looking back, it appears she uses the money to expand the business.
given that one paycheck is more than she made in a year (a bad year by the sounds of her conversation WAAAAAAAAAAAAY back before the BANK wow, that’s a long time back) How much you wanna gamble she’s going to be funding her own store?
Why would she fund her OWN store when she HAS a store already?
i think that’s what Marcus meant… she’s going to be pumping a much-needed infusion of cash into her and Joel’s store, thus allowing for it’s continued operation past the six month window that Joel estimated they’d be able to stay afloat with their (then current) finances.
The creative sales techniques she used earlier.in the day probably covered THAT.
for a month or two, sure… until the novelty with the Press wears off and they’re on to some new story, then what?… but this paycheck… probably the rest of the YEAR… and then she gets another one in just a few weeks (this one was an advance, remember) yeah, she COULD buy out Joel and run the store the way SHE wants, but i don’t think she’s that way… i’ll bet that she’ll probably cut her hours there to a minimum, 1) to allow more Archon time, and 2) it will let her give Joel more hours on the clock to make a better wage than both him and her sharing the same total hours in one week that they used to have to do: he gets a bigger paycheck as a result.
It is entirely possible # of money Sydney is talking about is how much she got into her own personal bank account she use to pay her rent, food, and rest. Joel and business ( = comic store) have their own bank accounts separate from Sydney’s. So income her store makes gets split 3-ways. 4-ways now after Sydney hired another staff member.
ya just looked back its bigger and it looks like its at least 2 stories (stairs in one shot). I also i noticed that the pipboy is smaller. so one wonders how much back we have flashed.
6 months
Or even less. All Sydney says is, “Let’s back up a few months.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
Maybe not so much in the real world, but over here in my head the word few translates to three or four.
Everyone realizes that even if it’s just ‘a few months ago’ …. we’re still only on Day 2. Right?
Pay fof your debts first, Sydney. You will be much happier. And a financial adviser is a good idea. I’m guessing that Archon can make one available as a benefit.
She already has one. Arianna.
Nope. Arrianna is a PR person/lawyer, unless she is wearing multiple hats, which I doubt, as PR is gonna take all of her time.
There’s no doubt she knows a good one though. Probably already has contact, as part of new member introduction
Ok new plan for life:
1.) Get powers
2.) Get federal job
3.) Get tons of money
4.) Acquire females with said currency!
Anyone got advice for step one?
Dump toxic radiospiders on your eyes.
Those spiders may kill you but they will give you the power to hear all radio stations around the world.
Does that include comercials?
Super radio hearing man. With the power to always know what song is on the radio.
His weakness: Boring DJ games
With great power comes great hits from the ’90s.
I could hear this as a radio ad “With Great Power comes HARD *BLEEP*ING ROCK!!! THIS IS WRKN WHERE WE ROCK ON!!!!!!”
Best case scenario: Superpowers!
Worst case scenario: Death.
Either way, I win!
Your post makes me want to pat your head.
Volunteer for all types of scientific or medical tests, Hang out at every nuclear power plant you can easily get too, try holding random animals during thunder storms, I hear sometimes that can work. Final option is to become an astronaut. It hasnt created super powers yet (that we know of) but come on, its only a matter of time before cosmic rays or alien life forms empower someone!
Find seven balls. Multicolored or all orange either way should work.
Good luck getting rich in a federal job, Unless you are in the upper GS range or the very low WG. Anything you can do in federal service you can get paid two or three times as much for on the outside.
Um, that’s really, REALLY not true, generally speaking.
In the military, it’s sort of true, but you can’t do a direct comparison, as the actual military gets to play with toys nobody else (legally) does.
In the bureaucracy, it’s not AT ALL true (again, generally speaking – I’m sure there are individual exceptions). The salary comparisons don’t even hold up, and the benefits package make private sector (especially after Obamacare) look just plain awful.
Not to mention if your single living in the barrackes, the number of bill you “don’t” have to pay or worry about. Housing, food, medical, utilities. You know, thoes things that can quickly eat up 2/3 to 3/4 of a civillian paycheck just in living.
I have one guy who’s origin is that he was bitten by a radioactive genetically engineered rabid bat.
He was the janitor at a research lab that was working on a rabies vaccine for wild bats.
Ha ha ha.
I originally misread “bitten by a radioactive genetically engineered rabid bat”, as “bitten by a radioactive Genetic Engineer”.
I wonder what superpowers you would gain if one of those bit you.
find a magic tome and learn all you can from it.
magic is not quite a supper power, but if you are talented enough you can make it look like one.
just keep your power-set believable.
supper…. no actually, lets keep with it this time! a power of supper! yes, that will work!
Gamma ray exposure, toxic chemicals, poison spider, strange new element ingestion, alien abduction, mad scientist experiment, invent a special machine to enhance your abilities. One little problem with all of those possible way of becoming a super, they kill almost everyone or in some cases everyone but if you survive you might be a super or not.
My abilities are genetic and quite unfortunately what Sydney would rightfully qualify as bad power. I more or less ignore damage. Break an foot/ankle be able to walk on it.Get hit by a car, stumble off the road carrying a tacoed bike frame Get electrocuted,, tell the paramedics, gee “I wonder why” when they tell me my breathing and heart rate is mess up,
I believe the Federal Government self ensures, as in, instead of filing an insurance claim they pay out of pocket.
Yes and no. Most Federal employees have an insurance plan. The government contributes to their premium and they select their plan needs subject to the law. An advantage they have is the number of choices they have. An employee in TX can choose from 11 national plans and about as many local plans, so they have a LOT of employer based options to choose to best meet their needs.
But anyone who is deemed military (as well as certain others) can always get treatment through the military which is basically self-insured. I suspect Archon will fall in this category as well.
There’s also noting stopping Syd from getting her own insurance secondary in case she wants to go outside the military for treatment. Sounds like she can afford it now.
I imagine the issue is less about life/health insurance and more about property insurance. When supers go around blowing up buildings on a semi-regular basis, they probably need a plan for how to defray those costs.
I was referring to property or vehicle insurance, not medical stuff. For medical insurance I suspect that Archon will have to self ensure considering the special needs of their staff.
Sweet, a page long Sydney moment!
For the kind of money she’s drooling over, I’d gladly pimp out my superpowers to a government agency.
This is not actually a 4.3 billion dollar moment. This is, like, 10 or 20 thousand dollars.
Admittedly a lot, and it’ll add up, but I don’t think it’s really the kind of money you adapt your morality for (if any amount is).
You greatly overestimate the amount of money required for me to go against everything I stand for.
Personally, I just stand for getting rich.
The method is flexible
@Arkantos:
Kinda like me. I will never compromise my principles or sacrifice my integrity–unless you pay me. Then I’m just a cheap sell-out mercenary bastard.
At the end of the day ARCHON is a job, and the people there are there for their own reasons. 10 to 1 Heatwave,Achilies,and Amorphus reason originally wasn’t so much patriotism as keeping their buns out of a Super-Slammer for vigilantism. Math’s reasons are fairly obvious, super-hot chicks and the chance to test himself against LITERALLY the BEST combatants in the world.
I dunno, I still say that even if she does make absurd money (which she clearly is) there is still no reason to gouge 40 bucks a meal out of her for a pasta dish. Im going to keep hoping to later on find out they have a super chef or some sort of ultra food they sell thats not available to the general public that is tailor made for feeding supers or has amazing health benefits or whatever.
Well, the restaurants in the Ark Tower are part of the “Public” area, where tourists go for the chance to eat besides supers. And you KNOW they are gouging those tourists for all they’ll fund Archon/the restaurants with. And the supers DO get paid enough that 40 dollars is probably not much. Given average assistant manager pay in america (in grocery stores) is $50k a year, minus some for unsuccessful shop, take that to $35-$40k a year. Now, she got more than that in one week. That’s about $45k every fortnight. $1,170k a year. Now, (given her two jobs ect) Sydney would have lunch at work probably… 140 times a year. That’s 5000 dollars, one tenth of two weeks pay. If she had lunch every day there, that would be $14600, still less than two weeks pay. If she had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for forty dollars per meal, per day, that’s… $43800 STILL (Probably) less than two weeks pay. Now, how many of you can work for two weeks, and afford to eat for a whole year, let alone on food that pricy… That’s a truly ridiculous pay scale… I mean, she’ll probably pay her new hire entirely on her Archon Salary…
As I said before. I don’t care if it’s Donald Trump, $40 for a single person lunch is price gouging, even at a 5 star, nationally recognized restaurant.
Agreed, I realize that money is no longer going to be an issue for sydney, but thats still no excuse to overcharge. I could eat lunch for a 5 day work week on a total budget of 40 dollars. Hell, if I was interested in saving money I could eat lunch for a month for that much. Just buy lunch meat and rolls.There, problem solved.
I would honestly be the lamest rich person ever. You know those win $1000 a day for life lotto games? I picture myself spending a year living at home to save up, buying a modest home and car, and… thats about it. No expensive jewelry, no lamborghini, no fancy parties, just me happily building up a bank account reaching 8 digits while living a life someone making a third as much could handle.
The knowledge that I have a sufficient cushion to never worry about where my rent’s coming from would be more pleasure than any yacht I could buy.
…and I’d upgrade my computer.
That’s the matter of perspective. For someone with that kinda salery, it may not be alot of money. But if you look at it objectively, 40 bucks for luch is simply alot of money.
She may not care anymore, but it’s still alot
We all know the amount was outrageous. That was the point of the comic. The question is whether it makes good business sense for the owner of the restaurant. He is still in business, so there must be enough people willing to pay that amount on a continuing basis. This reflects more on the wisdom of the customer, not the owner. They are free to spend their money where they want. They can go somewhere else, or brown bag it. Harem wouldn’t even have to bring hers. She could just grab something out of the fridge at home anytime she wants. There will always be people with more money than sense. What we have here is a business opportunity for anyone else wanting to start a new restaurant nearby. They could take that same $40 lunch and serve it for half that and still make huge profits on the deal.
If the people at Archon want to throw their money away, that is their business. As the old saying goes ‘A fool and his monkey are soon parted’.
stupid auto-correct *grumble grumble*
I tried to post on this last comic, but the board wouldn’t let me for some reason.
This is a huge problem. Really, really big.
The supers are service men. All service personnel get paid the same. (Yes it varies based on rank, time-in-grade, Cost-of-living adjustment, hazard pay, etc but all 7 uniformed sister services use the same pay scale, even the ones not under the DoD.)
It would probably be cool if ARC supers got large enlistment/retention bonuses, but for their regular pay check to be, what 30-100 times what a normal service member makes? We call that “detrimental to morale.”
Consider explaining Peggy’s paycheck to Peggy’s twin-sister who is in the Marines. Different skills or abilities? Nope. More hazardous duty? Peggy lost her leg in the regular service. So justify that one.
Justify it to every officer and enlisted personnel in the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, USGS, and CDC. Is Max more powerful than the O-2s who control the launch codes? No, actually. Stronger than C-5? Probably not. Can she die more times than any 1st day recruit? Harem can, but Achillies can’t even be hurt.
You don’t serve for the phat lootz, and you don’t want the kind of people who would join if you offered it. Frankly we underpay our military pretty badly, but you cannot bump the pay for one without bumping it for all. I mean you could, by congressional act like the one that established ARCHON, but the entire rest of the military from the Joint Chiefs on down should be protesting about 5 seconds after it gets out, and it got out the second the bill was announced.
I was thinking the same thing. But then they are also being marketed and turned into celebrities. Perhaps the bulk of that money is from Ariana’s efforts and a predictive pay based on expected royalties, guest appearances, and even possible endorsements.
I’d be glad they were getting paid well, personally. If they are financially take. Care of, then it’s slightly harder for the bad guy to approach with ye old suitcase of money and bribe them.
I can see where you’re coming from (Though I think Max is way stronger than C-5s and nukes).
Would be interesting to see an in universe handling of this.
Peggy may not (probably doesn’t) get ‘super’ pay.
Detrimental to morale or not, I am going with “the person who can set forests on fire with her mind while safe inside a force field Maxima cannot break” gets paid more.
Now, there could be legal shenanigans involved, such as her “official” pay is much smaller than her actual check for a variety of reasons (like a huge ‘bonus’ that is doled out over time).
While Peggy may only get the standard rate for her rank and time in service, she probably does get special duty hazard pay any time she deployes with the supers though.
The problem is, while “base pay” is the same for each rank, that doesnt take into account the multitude of extra bits of pay given. As a random example, hazardous duty pay, in some cases foreign duty pay, they cover housing expenses, the list is long. So the government has just created a new branch of the military and it will setup its paychecks the way they want to. While Maxima may be paid at base the same as anyone else of her rank, the bonuses and extras that get tagged on add an extra couple digits to each paycheck. Also, someone mentioned peggy. I would be willing to bet that she gets paid, if not the same amount, then still a ton of money, because she is still a field agent for arcswat. So while she may not be able to blow up the moon by clenching the wrong muscle group, she is still a part of the super team.
Now this I admit I had not fully considered in my objections to absurd pay rates. Hazardous duty pay for just *being* a super I can easily see. Bonuses for all the other stuff they have to do on top of that now that they are officially out in the public eye could add up to a very large check indeed.
You are still thinking in the pre-Super world. Hurt the morale of ordinary service folk? Ok. Who cares? They stopped mattering when Maxima and V were revealed to the world.
No, seriously, what is the function of ordinary service folk once you have Maxima? She can go anywhere on earth in minutes with no deploy cost. She can kill anything, and will never sustain damage.
Anything you’d use the special forces for Maxima can do for a tiny fraction of cost with no possibility of failure.
Moreover, the above is written assuming that special forces remain effective, and just stresses Maxima’s cheaper cost and infallibility. There’s also the obvious point that the targets may have supers of their own, and you get to be the guy who fed Seal Team 6 to some Stalwart-equivalent who tore through them in a half a minute and posted the corpses to his facebook.
When spec ops is subsumed, and conventional war can’t happen due to nukes/Max, why do you have to pay military folk? Sure, someone needs to stand in front of doors and look intimidating, but that needs more of a crossing guard salary, not a soldiers. In all likelihood supers can fix this problem too, whipping up a guardbot doesn’t seem beyond the capacities of the super-tech division.
Peggy’s twin sister is being compensated for military service. Peggy is being payed to be Maxima’s friend. Its a much more important function, and she deserves a lot more money for it.
Your post is true and hits the nail on the head concerning the difference in pay scales.
I can’t find it but a discussion in Order of The Stick eventually led to an article about how the presence of adventurers nullify the need for armies as well as how this shapes certain alignment rules. (Examples: a single wizard who has access to fireball spells is going to be more effective than a division of grunts in armor; poison is evil as it is the great equalizer between PC elites and NPC peasants.)
There is this magical box called a TV. With it you can turn on something called the News.
If you were to watch the news you might be surprised to discover that we kind of actually have super powered guys right now. They can sit in a trailer pretty much anywhere and bring death in pa precise and timely manor to pretty much anyone we don’t like. They are called drone operators. There is really no meaningful difference in peak firepower between them and Max. She does have appreciably more controlled power in that she can enter a room and not kill everyone in it.
We are using them right now, to kill people we don’t like. It’s turning out to be pretty useless. People made the same argument after WWII. In the age of Air Power armies were useless appendages. Turns out to not be the case. You can read up on Korea, Vietnam or any of the dozens of brush wars we have fought since then. Bombs are great for killing obvious targets, or for total warfare. They are pretty useless for most any thing in between. Max can kill a convoy. She cannot police a city. She cannot safeguard every school in Iraq. She cannot be more than one place at a time. She cannot provide care to a tent city. She cannot ship food to an entire starving country.
You really have not the least idea what you are talking about.
Disregarding the sneering (yes, I’m posting on a webcomic and I don’t know what a tv is), your point seems to be that soldiers do things other than kill, they also defend schools, carry food, etc. Obvious retort is that supers obviate those requirements as well.
Harem might be able to take care of providing food to a country in an hour or so. Depending on how fast you think the port is. Jiggawatt can apparently carry stuff in her electric form, perhaps that could solve your porting requirement. If nothing else, Maxima can carry boxes faster than bullets move, which seems like pretty much the end of discussion.
Defending schools/sites…eh. The way military protection of a soft asset works isn’t that the infantry are barracked there, they are stationed nearby, ready to respond. There is a minimal presence literally onsite, but that isn’t enough to stop a determined assault. We rely on safe rooms + reinforcements.
Say the recent embassy attack goes down in this world. Onsite guys have the same initial difficulties they had in the real world, but before minute 10 occurs Maxima is present and the bad guys are in cuffs/the ground. By hour 2 Dabbler is present and all enemy prisoners have given full details on their commanders.
This applies to any job, and its common sense. People not limited by physics are more effective than those who are. The most compelling point you raise is the point that Archon can’t be everywhere.
That’s true to a point, but I don’t think you are giving fair credence to the way that the world will be different with supers. It isn’t just that the non ARC military is obsolete, its that many of their challenges are as well.
The notion of an insurgency rests on lack of information for the occupiers. ARC won’t lack information. Divination magic, mind control, supertech, whatever, they’ll know who the bad guys are, and Maxima can go kill them at leisure.
I don’t think that ARC-Light is as omniscient, nor Maxima as Omnipotent, as you believe them to be.
But aside from that, you also neglect to account for the fact that there are supers in the world that are known to be directly opposed to ARC.
That doesn’t actually negate the points made about the conventional military being obsolete. If anything, it reinforces them by acknowledging that the only way to counter Supers is with other Supers.
I meant that if you don’t have an *overwhelming* advantage in supers, then enemy supers will keep yours occupied and you’re back to needing a conventional army to do everything else.
Fair but that is presuming that a stalemate with Supers drags out. This almost never happens in conventional terms whether you’re talking about air/naval/ground forces due to both numbers and differing levels of technology. Eventually, one side is neutralized in that area, leaving only guerilla forces available. In a situation like that, there may be a few minor supers but nothing that even the dominant side’s weaker Supers wouldn’t be able to handle.
In fact, presuming that Maxima isn’t just trying to project an “I’m so dangerous” aura here for the press here (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989), this situation already came up in Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S. achieved dominance in that area with (theoretically) Maxima alone.
So, yes, the weaker side would have a small window where their supers were able to tie up the stronger side in the same way that the Iraqi Air Force managed to tie up the Coalition’s air power for a short while in the first gulf war. A situation won’t last very long.
“That” situation won’t last very long.
You’re forgetting that, in this comic, the goverment is working on a treaty to BAN the use of supers in wartime.
Also Harem has a teleport limit, presumably Jiggawatt has the same kind of limit. It’s a SMALL limit. She may be able to move faster, but at a few kilos at a time, it’s still cheaper/easier to just move in bulk.
Dabbler isn’t in service, so she’s unavailable for pitty human wars (she’s not a human. She help protect/fight supers, but there’s no way she’s going to help any one nation in actual war)
They are? (This is not me being flippant. I honestly don’t recall that strip.)
If they are, I would imagine that the treaty is something like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty where the haves created a treaty to specifically exclude the have-nots from becoming the haves. I don’t see a government (that already has Maxima in uniform and has already used her in military operations) deciding to keep it’s most potent weapons for domestic purposes…especially if they’re paying them at the rates mentioned above…unless the Government KNEW that they were in a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario. Even then, it would probably be a case of our current military policy where we avoid direct confrontation with other nuclear-armed nations but the non-nuclear-armed nations are fair game.
Yes, during the press conference.
It seems I was a little off. It’s the UN that’s working towards a treaty: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/970 That does make a little more sense than the USA itself trying to ban it
It is probably indeed to prevent some kind of Mutually Assured Destruction. Maxima would be equivilant to a reusable Nuke during wartime
Also, I had forgotten the Arc-Dark reference ( https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/675 )but I imagine that an Arc-Dark team will, at least potentially, be kept to circumvent any treaties made concerning the use of Supers.
The issues you raise, Walter, seem in large part to be why the U.N. is cited as hurrying to draft a ban-treaty on the deployment of Superhuman Assets in war zones. It runs the risk of making war horrifically cheap… on top of the concern that once super butts up against super, the cost to the civilian population rises as compared to traditional war.
Drones are only impressive when you’re flying them over an area that has no anti-air capabilities. As we’ve seen in the Ukraine, when both sides have the capability to knock one out of the sky, their effectiveness goes way down.
Walter pretty much covers everything else that I would say in response to that although I would argue that someone who can hover a mile over the city and can either
a) pop someone through the head just by pointing a finger at them
b) can go from 0 to Mach [unknown], stop on a dime, and manually disembowel any insurgents
probably can patrol a mid-sized city by herself with radio support.
Every School in Iraq? As a number of power limits in this comic are still being explored including teleportation (I mean, we just recently introduced a woman who theoretically can have any power in the world), I’m going to use the original 7 members of the Justice League instead. On the face of it, the idea would seem ludicrous. 7 people to patrol a nation would seem to open way too many vulnerabilities…..until you consider that 3 of those people are the Flash, Superman, and Green Lantern, all three of which have speeds that break the light barrier. An attack on any school in Iraq would have a window of opportunity of maybe a minute before the insurgents were staring down the equivalent of gods. Arc-Light does not have that kind of speed at their disposal but they have greater numbers and teleportation.
Care to a tent city/food to a country: Max doesn’t need aircraft fuel or mechanics to be able to ship busloads of food/water/supplies by air. As we have also seen (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1043), Max is not the only one of Arc-Light who can carry busloads of people or supplies and have the bonus of being effectively invulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. For smaller amounts, there is the aforementioned teleportation.
Since you suggested watching TV to see how U.S. news presents the effectiveness of drones, I would recommend Mark Waid’s Irredeemable to you as a counter-point.
A midsize city. Cool. What about all of the OTHER CITIES?
There are other members in Arc-Light besides Max.
On the one hand, I hear where you’re coming from. Military brat plus two brothers were in the military.
I also suspect that, if word of their pay got out, they would be the target of every interest group who wants to cut military spending. Plus, it does make the motivations of their villains suspect. As was mentioned with the last strip, we’re slowly moving to a situation where there is no plausible reason for someone with superpowers to not join up with the government. There are only so many times you can put into a story that their enemies were brainwashed.
On the other hand, (And I’m going to be “that guy” here) people who write about superheroes are absolutely crap about writing those characters with realistic living expenses/jobs. Sure, money comes up every so often as a special storyline (FF:Wolves at the Door) or something that occasionally gets mentioned in the background but it just isn’t something that people who write about superheroes seem to be able to work into the story. It doesn’t matter how poor Daredevil or Green Arrow are. They can always afford all of their equipment.
In the end, the issue of how to afford normal living expenses was going to be handwaved away. If the handwaving involves “She gets paid a few million a year”, then so be it. Plus, it could become a hook later for morality conflicts such as “Syd, Bank of America is lobbying the people who sign your checks to clear Occupy protesters away from Zuccotti Park” setups.
That would be easy response. “One, we are not stormtroopers who will use our powers against those exercising their legal rights (Max seems the type to disagree quite strongly with using Military assets in this matter.) Also, No Supers involved, NOT OUR JOB!”
By comparing Peggy to a regular serviceman, and then acting like Peggy is paid equivalent to a superhero, you’re comparing apples to oranges, and then complaining about the way the 500 pound gorilla gets paid.
First of all, nobody has claimed that Peggy gets paid anything out of the ordinary, they’ve only talked about the pay for supers. You have zero evidence that Peggy’s paycheck is at all relevant in this conversation, you’re merely jumping to conclusions there.
Second of all, you’re pretending that everyone that works for the government gets the same starting salary. That’s completely bogus. The average pay for an Army private is around $18k a year. The average starting salary for working in an area which requires more specialized and rare talents, like the NSA, is in the $60-$70k/yr range. So it’s simply untrue that all recruits are paid the same.
Third, you’re comparing a task that around 1 out of 10 people could be trained to do, to a task that only around 1 in 1,000,000 could possibly do. If the government paid sups the same way they pay ordinary soldiers, they’d almost NEVER recruit any supers. It would be far more lucrative and way safer to take a job in the private sector if they only paid them $18k/yr for such rare and useful talents.
And, as I pointed out above, the government already does exactly that, where it pays people based on the rarity of their skill set, without it being “detrimental to morale,” as you put it.
You can train plenty of people to fly drones. You can’t train anyone to fly unaided with naught but their own innate abilities. That’s something you either can do or you can’t. So pretending they should be paid the same is utter nonsense.
Furthermore, it would be an insult to someone who could and does do the work of 20 soldiers to pay them the same as one individual soldier. Now, that would be “detrimental to morale” in the extreme, and a good way to make sure you never recruited any super powered individuals.
Thinking about this, Sydney’s BASE pay before adjustment is likely that of any other E-1 in military service. The extra pay would be an add on “incentive” based on an estimate of what her powers equal to in relation to military equipment she could fill in for or replace. At bare minimum, given what’s been observed by ARC, Sydney is at least the equivalent of a heavily armed and armored attack helicopter with a full sensor suite, like an AH-64 Apache.
So while she is getting an additional stipend based on her abilities, her BASE pay would remain the same as anything other private/recruit.
Incidentally, the fly away cost of an AH-64E is $35 million. And Sydney is at least capable of doing everything an Apache attack helicopter can do.
Can I bring up a point here that might or might not be a legal nitpick issue? While I’m sure Sydney is probably exaggerating about the check being more than her entire yearly income, I’m also sure it could easily be more than she has had ‘available’ at any time in her life.
I’m not going to try and guess her pay scale. That isn’t the (potential) problem.
In short: Doesn’t the US military set their pay rates by rank? In theory at least I thought every E-5 noncom of x years service makes the same pay rate. All the active service people know this so there are no hard feeling about serving with someone under fire that makes way more than you do unless they have a higher rank and/or years of service.
Something like that anyhow. The point is that sooner or later how much serving in ARC gets you for pay is going to get out. There will be some hard feelings among the non-super military and also among the civilians in law enforcement/ fire fighters/ etc. After people see the footage of the big fight these arguments will get a bit quieter, but they will still be there.
Thoughts?
Heh. While I was typing this in ans spell checking Andor beat me to it.
My thought? “You want the big bucks? Come play with the big boys. Come on… come on… No? Okay, then. Sit down and shut the hell up.”
Yeah, when one of those “big boys” happens to be someone like Vehemence, that deserves a hefty “hazardous duty” bonus…
Servicemen grumble about pay vs. the cost of equipment all the time…except those times when the big-ticket equipment starts saving their asses. Let’s face it: grumbling/griping/b*!@#ing is a time honored pass time for enlisted men the world over, but being able to call in the ‘Mighty Mo’ for a shore bombardment or the Nimitz for an airstrike when it drops into the pot quell that most effectively…at least until the AAR’s are written up :D
Maxim 4: Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.
Close air support doesn’t get any closer or more effective than Maxima can. So she’s making a cool million a year? If she saved your ass I bet you’d call it money well spent. I know I would. I’d be fine with 5 million a year for Max.
That said, having a team of supers does not obsolete conventional forces. There can be neutralized with a sufficiently threatening diversionary attack. If it was me, I’d go with “shoving a few (or a crapload of) asteroids at America’s major metropolitan areas”, and I’d make sure they were coming from multiple angles and that D.C. was multiply targeted (that’s where ARCHON’s bosses are).
Thinking about it more, I’d expect the biggest objections to Archon’s pay scale to come from the flag (general) officers. Budget matters are way above the junior (company grade) officers pay grade, and the senior (field grade) officers would *drool* at having an asset (in the purely military sense, you pervs!) like Max potentially at their disposal. A great many general officers would resent that money not being in their budget, and would be constantly politicking to have have Archon disbanded or subsumed into their respective services. I expect Archon will have a number of Senator and Representatives sharpening knives for them, too.
Dave hasn’t said, but remember that Arc Swat is also a corporate entity, and the team is earning money that does not come from the U.S. treasury.
Hmm forgot about that, half of their budget could be coming from Ariana’s maneuvers outside the Military aspects.
Could someone please explain me why do employees in the USA have to makes their own taxes, why can’t employer’s accountant division calculate and pay for them instead? Surely they know all this stuff better, and since they’re already figuring out their own corporate taxes, it’s just a small additional fraction of work?
At least that’s how it usually works here, unless you’re self-employed, of course.
Payroll taxes are automatically deducted from paychecks, but people need to fill out their yearly taxes to account for any other sources of income (second jobs, investments, interest) and any deductions to determine whether they covered their full tax bill or overpaid and get a refund.
Again, I don’t know about the US tax laws, but I do know that my local tax laws, for example, require banks when they pay interest on a deposit to withhold the income tax from that interest and transfer it to the tax service. Same applies to joint-stock companies: they pay out dividends with taxes already subtracted, and transfer the withholded taxes to the tax service.
Although yes, a person still has to pretty much apply for tax deductions himself, but that’s not exactly difficult or time-consuming.
Joker, the US tax code has many exemptions, exceptions, and can be a nightmare for anyone with substantial investments to keep track of. Because of this, one legal precedent that has been established is a simple one: the person them self is responsible for their taxes.
While the IRS can order banks to withhold interest based taxes, banks don’t generally want to do this because there are so many exceptions that it can be easy to screw up and make a mistake. If the bank does it, that’s on the bank and hurts their reputation. That is especially important because there are lots of ways to legally reinvest interest income without a tax liability.
So you don’t want to end up with situation where the bank send $10,000 to the IRS for tax purposes that you were going to reinvest in a different format (and possibly a different bank).
Well, I guess that’s the reason why most deposits are not taxed — only the ones with very high (more than discount rate plus 5%) interest rate, and that’s the nominal rate, so the complex interests usually are not affected neither even when the effective interest rate would exceed the limit.
Also, the common theme of my local tax law is “if A receives taxable income from B, B is paying the income tax”, and also B is prohibited to ask A to pay the taxes himself. So, in the way, the “precedent” too, is simple: the payer is responsible for the taxes of the payee. Because, I guess, that the payer is usually a company with at least one accountant?
Whatever.
The problem with that is that US income taxes, at least at the federal level, are graduated – the more you make all told, the higher the percentage you pay, so your employer may not know how much your income tax is. I don’t think there are a whole lot of countries with a flat income tax, so I’m guessing yours are only graduated by source (e.g., if you make €150k at this, and another €20k at that, you get to keep say €100k and €18k respectively), rather than by recipient?
To make taxes even more fun, there are all sorts of legal ways to decrease your taxable income. I’m an hourly supervisor in retail, and I probably pay less in taxes then the people I supervise, because I divert most of my discretionary pay into a 401k plan, and pay for my entertainment from the dividends of the investments I’ve made over the years, which are taxed at a much lower rate. I also don’t allow any withholding of my pay. I’d much rather invest it wisely, then pay my taxes on the 15th of April.
The more you make all told, the higher % you pay on the amount over the dividing line.
Important bit there. Making more money doesn’t generally wind up with you having less to spend (with the exception of on the low end, where making more might disqualify you for assistance benefits that now need to be out of pocket, and that can wind up being worse than when you were making less).
It’s still a higher percentage of the total. It’s just not a sheer cliff.
Also, I should point out that employers do withhold their employees’ taxes – that’s why Sydney asks if this is her “take-home pay.” The problem is that the amount they withhold is nearly always wrong, and the employee is expected to correct it in April – usually, the poor have had too much withheld and the rich too little. Not sure why that is, but it is.
For the poor, the company isn’t taking into account exemptions and tax credits and all of that jazz. For someone making a lot, they quite possibly or likely have multiple sources of income which are not accounted for in withholding …
Or they sock many of their income sources in “tax-haven” countries or use so many loopholes that they pay much less.
most private employers are self employed when they start up the business and they have to follow tax regs and such in the usa and i believe its nearly the same for every other country out there that legit are business dealings are taxed by the goverment
It’s the modern government way: we determine the tax rates, but you are responsible for keeping accurate records, doing the calculations correctly (even if you engaged a professional to do that), keeping to the various deadlines, and paying us. You will have to be your own unpaid tax collector, and we will fine you if you make any mistakes. If we make any mistakes, you will still need to pay any shortfall.
The only way to avoid all of that (in the UK) is to be an employee and have no other income – in that case your employer gets all the fun.
Even a bit of trading on eBay might attract the attention of the taxman.
In the Netherlands it all goes automaticly.
Your pay will go directly to your bank account, set up from the very start (to be fair, I’m pritty sure it’s like that everywhere in the modern world except for USA). Tax is deducted from the pay based on some formula, and at the end of the year the goverment calculates how much taxes you actually had to pay, and you pay/get back the difference.
For example if you make alot of money in 1 month (which means you pay alot of tax), and much less in the next month, it evens out and the total tax is less than what you paid during the first month.
When it’s time to calculate taxes, almost everything is already filled in on the online forms, you check to see if they are correct and send them in
I figured that’s why they dismissed the cost of meals as not being anything impressive, the paycheck is so good that in comparison it isn’t impressive at all. Just pocket change.
if i was her i would just buy out the comic book store too keep it out of debt
Well Google says the f22 raptor is most deployed jet in the air for and if you take the cost, $412 million divide it by 10 then by 12 you get a monthly income of about $3.5 million which is more then I will make in the next 5 years
It may be the most deployed, but the F-16 Fighting Falcon is the most common fighter jet owned by the US (at a cost of about $20 million per unit in 2015 dollars) which is about $166666 a month.
Your point is also valid and this goes back to “large margin” of price but it’s still more then I will make in make in 5 years
Is anyone gonna explain what the small lens-shaped thing is between Sandy’s shoes?
(Preferably without any innuendo on its location?)
Another piece of the gun that happened to land there would be my guess.
PING
LOL. Watch Sidney kill someone with a unloaded and partially disassembled gun.
If only Sydney had Maxima’s kind of speed, her lighthook would be sufficient to prevent such unpleasant accidents.
;)
The Ren & Stimpy sketch you linked to reminds me a lot of the third-reel version of Laurel & Hardy’s Laughing Gravy, where Stan gives up a fortune in order, as Ollie believes, to stay with Ollie. Turns out Stan just wants to stay with the dog.
Had the exact same reaction the first time I got paid in a summer job.
I was 14 and delivering office stuff all over the city…
Nice times.
Ha! How did you not see that coming, Sydney? “Buh, buh, buh…”
I like the boot behind the pad, being useful. Very efficient, Syd.
Thanks, DaveB! Good one.
dave i hate to ask can we see how much she actually got because her face looks like she going to have ADHD episode like i do when i find out that i made more then i estimated and how badly i want to get things before my sensible side kicks in and pays all bills and such believe me all the thoughts she having now is exactly how it is for me and i suffer from a extremely high adhd that my meds barely control it, so i predict a very hyper wordy and running Sydney thinking about buying things that she dont really need
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GHX8dvuFUQ
thats about right :P
Panels 1-3.
I think all of us that have ever had much to do with semi-automatic handguns has had this or something similar happen at least once while trying to get the dagnabbited retaining pin back in place. Still funny when it happens to someone else :D
Is… is she playing World of Guns on her tablet? (admittedly thats how I know how to strip a Five-seveN but still)
The tablet is full of manuals and other stuff for training. Including assembly guides. Remember, Peggy gave her the pistol as a baggie of loose parts.
The check is big, but the duties required are also big. Sydney already got a small taste during the restaurant dust up that first “day”, with one clean crack across the jaw and several other injuries.
If you’re getting paid like your worth 1/10th a fighter jet, you should expect to be used like 1/10th of a fighter jet. Foremost is having no set schedual, expect to be on instant call at anytime there is Super Trouble. Be it other supers or extraordinary disasters. Especially since 10 supers can do things that a single fighter jet could never be built to do, like Search and Rescue. Any this is just talking super-domestic-policing actions.
If I were in the US congress approving these budgets, the first thing I’d throw on as a requirement is getting any supers with relevent powers added to Amber (child kidnap rescue) Alert response teams (which is likely a good chunk of Arc-Light, and possibly a sub-set of Arc-Dark). Super (and even mundane) requiring situations can be super tragic. And given the diversity of Sydney’s powerset, she’s likely going to encounter most of them.
You can see where Sydney is doing the math: More than I make in a year (+ after taxes) X every two weeks (26) = multi-millionaire before I’m 30 (if I live that long). Also, this is what I call double-danger pay. First, she’s getting this kind of money to go into dangerous situations and, second, it is dangerous to give someone like Sydney this kind of money.
The idea that it didn’t come up after the cut scene where she brought up her one condition- new comic release day is off limits, with the reason presumably being brought up- seems pretty contrived. Even with the ADHD, it seems that the amount she would make and thus her ability to easily help out Joel by being able to hire help would have naturally been the immediate response to her condition, even if it was along the lines of “okay, but…” or, more likely, “the kind of things we have to deal with will be more important than the release of comics (many real people’s lives at stake), but you’ll be able to support your partner in other ways because…”
As always, i look forward to every new page, but just my impression on this one point.
Eh, she had a lot of bigger things on her mind at the time. I can sort of understand not thinking of it when compared to “OMGIMASUPERHERONOW!!!!” Especially since she already has a paying job.
People don’t open stories with in niche markets (the comic market is going digital) when making money is teir main reason. She does it because she wants to be involved.
And both answers ignore that the money would have been brought up directly to her condition.
Bear in mind that US income tax rates are progressive rather than flat, meaning that while your employer presumably does know that what they’re paying you should put you in the 15% tax rate range, and therefore will withhold 15% to send to the IRS for you, you may very well have some other source of income that bumps you into 25% range, or nonstandard deductions that bump you down to 10%. Granted, generally you can tell your employer to withhold some greater or lesser amount based on your circumstances, but either way, you’re still personally responsible each year to basically do a reconciliation between what was paid and what you actually should have paid, and either pay the difference or be paid back the difference (some people purposely don’t figure their deductions into withholdings simply because it ‘feels good’ to get a tax refund check as ‘free money’, even though technically it would be better to hold onto that money over the course of the year earning interest on it and having to potentially pay off the IRS… But the last thing you want to do is accidentally spend that money and not have it to pay to the IRS when the time comes)
This… Did not reply to the proper comment. Oops.
this is my favorite page
Yup, she’ll be gone for a while.
She may not even finish getting her gun fully assembled today…
Hmm, it appears Sydney forgot about the retaining pin. Other than that, she appeared to do a somewhat decent job assembling the gun.
Also, if her slide and barrel went flying like that, I predict she’ll be spending a sizable amount of time on her hands and knees with a magnet searching for small pins and springs that went flying off too. It’s quite a common pastime for gunsmiths and armorers.
*Real life Gunsmith training FTW*
There is nothing like the sight when someone gets their first ‘real’ paycheck after getting their first full-time job. They look at all that money and go ‘and I can spend this on ME?’
I love it.
And then they say, “Who the heck is FICA, and who said he could take my money?”
I think author is sooo worked up about super women that he can’t draw normal ones. Seriously? All attempts to made look Sandy like one is too awkward. Or plain rediculous. now she looks even less human than all (super) female personal of ARK. Say it, Dave, you can’t draw ordinary people without Y chromosome!
Mmm? Sandy looks normal to me…
someone please get a bucket of water, Sidney’s brain just started overheating!!!!!
I just like the fact that ARC is carrying the FN 5.7 pistol :) and there’s even the FN owners manual on the table
@Andor
[This is a huge problem]
No it isn’t.
Special pay conditions are a familiar condition in the US military.
Combat pay is a thing, as is pay for time in a warzone; hell, I believe you get paid for deployment outside of the US.
I have heard anecdotal comments from former military personnel for how high it can go; one of my favorite stories was the lady who got paid >500k over three years for continuous deployment in one of the sandboxes.
In a non-combat role, I think.
And this is a situation where all the personnel are special skills, who will be on the equivalent of continuous deployment for however long they are in Archon.
And without secret identities to boot.
So no, I do not believe this would cause any issues even IRL, let alone the fictional universe being constructed here.
YOU BROKE SYDNEY YOU FOOL!
I think Sydney will buy the original batmobile to use in commuting to work each day.
The problem is, which one to buy? https://cdn1.sciencefiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/batmobile.jpg
The other question is who she will get as her personal chauffeur; Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, or Christian Bale?
Cant believe people still think $40 is a lot for lunch. I would guess that they eat a lot more than regular humans so we are really looking at 2 lunches at $20 per head. Scale it up with neurotically carefully controlled diet composition and handpicked ingredients? Wouldn’t get me spending it but I am a cheapass.
Sydney is a short skinny normal human who just dropped 40 bucks on a pasta dish for lunch. Not some super healthy version of it either, peggy even told her to savor it because she will be getting whipped into shape starting tomorrow. 40 bucks is EXPENSIVE in the united states for a single meal. I spoke to a guy from switzerland who didnt see anything wrong with that, but unless you are going to a fancy restaurant and eating one of the big ticket items like prime rib or lobster (or both) 40 bucks is patently absurd for a lunch cost. I can go to wendys with 40 bucks and buy lunch for 4 people with change left over. Hell, if I buy the right ones I might be able to stretch that to 5 combo meals.
Wait, $8-$10 per capita for fast food? Yikes.
I usually buy from grocery stores, and spend half of that for a good meal. Sometimes less than $1 if I stick to bare essentials (bakery bread, potatoes, and cabbage are good).
and there lies the rub… for that fast food, you not only have to pay for the food itself (the Farmers
selling price as seen by the restaurant’s expenses), you have to pay for the packaging it’s in, the rent and utilities of the building, the employees wages that served it to you, made it back in the kitchen, the franchise costs that the owner/manager has to pay to Corporate for the privilege to be called restaurant XYZ, etc… but the stuff you buy in a grocery store, all you’re really paying for is the food itself, and it’s packaging (less than the restaurant I’m sure), the employees that run the grocery store (about the same wages per person, but a significantly lesser number of employees per store), and the building expenses, this is probably higher, but i’m not sure). then when you get it home, you get to pay for the refrigerator to keep it in, the utilities to make the fridge work, and the time and effort to make the meal yourself, versus the convenience of having the fast food place make it for you… so, yes it IS more expensive to eat out than to eat at home, especially considering that you can go and shop around for the best bargains, or use coupons, etc…
However you parse it, YES it IS quite expensive for one person’s meal as compared to her meal costs prior to this… if they went to McD’s… OMFG yes that was price gouging, and they’d have a case for Arianna to pursue… HOWEVER there was exactly ZERO information as to the LOCATION of said meal revealed in this comic, so where are you getting this “pasta” idea from?… remember, that in real life there ARE restaurants out in the world that if you have to ASK about the price of a meal, then you can NOT AFFORD to eat there… and in every price range in between… it all depends on where EXACTLY they HAD this lunch…
Here. Pasta/antipasto.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1787
DOY!… ok, i forgot about that page… oopsy! :D
There is one possibility for the exorbitant expense of the meal that I can think of. The cost of the meal grants full immunity for anything that happens in the restaurant during the meal.
Possibilities include things like Maxima sneezing and blowing the table across the room. Stalwart sitting on a chair and having it collapse. Heatwave waving at a friend and accidentally setting the drapes (or the friend) on fire. Jiggawatt accidentally shorting out the electrical service for the restaurant. And Sydney, well, being Sydney.
And there are things like sudden supervillain attack, alien invasion, meteor strike, or zombie apocalypse; because supers tend to attract that sort of thing.
Cost of the food: $10. Cost of super insurance: $30. Not having to clean up after yourself: priceless.
I don’t care how much money one makes, 40 bucks for a single persons lunch is still crazy expensive.
NOPE nowhere even CLOSE to the “Glamburger”…
The £1,237 ($2,000) GlamBurger:
– Kobe Beef
– Caviar
– Canadian Lobster
– Maple Syrup with Bacon
– Italian White Truffle
– Gold Covered Smoked Duck Egg
– Gold Covered Bun
– Saffron Sauces
and it’s just a frickin HAMBURGER!!
and how about this: from the UK Telegraph: “Opening in Ibiza’s Hard Rock Hotel this summer, Sublimotion restaurant will charge diners £1,235 for a 20-course meal and a unique multisensory experience”
NOW do you think that 40 bucks US is still a “crazy expensive” meal?
Hellz yeah!
And them Brits is just being stoopid! :P
What the hell is a 20 course meal? A single bite of twenty dishes? I have been to buffets smaller than that.
20 course meal? no clue, i’m just pointing out that $40 is NOT “crazy expensive”… that’s all…
no, “I” wouldn’t pay that for a lunch at a fast food joint ( it looks like some place similar to “The Spaghetti Factory” maybe? to me that is still a fast food joint, a nice one don’t get me wrong, but it’s not classy enough to be the next step up the restaurant classiness scale). but if I’m going out “On The Town” on romantic date at a fancy restaurant, getting the Filet Mignon and/or Lobster, a good wine, etc, etc. then that $40 per person is starting to look a LOT more reasonable isn’t it?
Ok, let calculate this out. And I agree with Dave’s assessment that 10 supers are probably worth 1 military jet. Think how much more expensive it is to fuel and arm a jet vs. feeding and housing a super. I am leaving out the cost of the pilot and maintenance engineers on the jet and the fact that human don’t depreciate as fast as hardware.
Lets assume a new fighter jet costs $100 mil. https://www.f35.com/about/fast-facts/cost
We divide it between 10 people and divide that by 26 (every two weeks). We then subtract 55% of the pay for taxes, social security, 457B, health insurance, etc. This means that her first paycheck is about $173,076.
Now here’s the clinchers.
The last Action Comics #1 mint condition comic went for ~$3 million. Might take a while. But the Amazing Fantasy comic with the introduction of Spiderman went only for ~$300,000.
Lunch at $40 is 0.0002% of her paycheck. Compared to say a $10 an hour job (the probable equivalent to a comic book store owner salary if Big Bang Theory holds true) at 80 hours a week with no withholding for anything, that would be equivalent to a $0.18 meal.
I should note, she might get paid about 1/3 that amount as jets are usually paid for over time and 3 years is a common depreciation rate. She might even be paid 1/10 but still, that’s a lot of cash at $17,308 every two weeks.
“…and the fact that human don’t depreciate as fast as hardware.”
I beg to differ. There is no way that anyone could consider me to be “aging gracefully”…
Hah! Welcome to the non-graceful club! :(
From where I’m at, it’s ALL downhill…and stumbling clumsily at increasing speed, because, you know, gravity & downhill.
Oh, I know, all too well. Won’t be long before I can no longer stumble, trip, fall and roll down that damned hill…
“They see me rollin’. I’M hatin’ it.”
:-/