M ArtsMargie for only $5!!!

[GeneChing]

Margie is a $5 gift! (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/giftsunder51.html)

I'ts a disturbingly unflattering photo of her. Margie is much more attractive in person (plus she looks pretty silly in the headband) She'll probably hate me for bringing attention to it, but hey, the holidaze are coming up and gift certificates are great stocking stuffers. TELL YOUR FRIENDS YOU WANT GIFT CERTIFICATES! For $30, you get our other got qi? girl, Tammy. (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/giftsunder301.html) And for $100, you get me. (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/giftsunder1001.html) Whoa!! That can't be right. Who is laying this stuff out?! :rolleyes:

[SevenStar]

instead of you, can I get three tammy and two margie?

[red5angel]

When does the bidding start?! :p

[norther practitioner]

I'm going to have to clear some room on those credit cards.

[NorthernMantis]

Wow for 30$ I get Tammy all to myself?For how long like one day or something?

[Marshdrifter]

Let's see here...
$4.95...
$4.96...
$4.97...
$4.98...

Nuts! I need to go raid the penny cup at the nearest gas station
for this.

[rubthebuddha]

CHECK YOUR COUCHES, EVERYONE!

:)

[red5angel]

I have 5$ right here, can I get her over night? shipped I mean? sorta....

[Bolt]

All right, now we're talkin' !
I just got paid and I went down to the corner and rolled the guy that's been hanging out down there for the last 2 weeks .... lesseee... that gives me enough for 4 Tammy's and 3 Margie's! Now, where's that order form .........

[MonkeySlap Too]

Any chance the designs on girl's cards are lenticular like those pens you, um, find in the airport?

(Sorry girls, I'm really not a cad, but hey, it's a design thing...)

[rubthebuddha]

i got five on it.



(someone had to say it. sad thing is, it had to be the guy who doesn't smoke who said it.)

[M_ArtsMargie]

only three of me....i am so upset.

Gene**that pic of me is so ugly. I can't believe you put that on there. yucki yucki
thanks Gene:(

[red5angel]

now that Margie is here can we start the bidding?! :D

[Xebsball]

Only luv can truly buy a girls heart :)

;)

[prana]

hey guys, nice to see ya'll.

Cant believe this thread was started by the man himself, Gene :) I have been missing a while :p

Gene, you da man !

[M_ArtsMargie]

if you are starting the bidding at $5.00 , i hope I end up being worth more at the end

[rubthebuddha]

no worries margie. you'll fetch a handsome price ;)


and xebby, you're delusional. only chocolate can win a woman over.

[M_ArtsMargie]

Thanks RTB***are you gonna be the high bidder:p

[SevenStar]

I'll start the bid. 7.50 for Margie, 35.00 for tammy (no offense at all Margie - tammy's starting price was higher. Gene's is 100, but I think I'll leave him for someone else...)

[Souljah]

will you settle for a happy meal?
I'll let you keep the toy!!!

[norther practitioner]

""""""""pulls out wallet"""""""""
100
150
170
190
210
230
240
245
250
255
256
257
258
259
""""""""digs in pocket"""""""""""""""""
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
261.50

OK, I got 100 on each......
wait, is Christies taking Amex nowadays?

[rubthebuddha]

margie,

i don't think my girlfriend would let me bid on another female (much less a male :eek: ), but i'll wholly support you in the charging of substantially greater fees.

[SevenStar]

150 each

[PHILBERT]

I'll take 10 Margie's please.

[African Tiger]

I'll scrape together 500 pennies for some of that!

Now what I really want to know is, is that really Gene in the robes, or is it that actor B.D. Wong with a shaved head? :D

[PHILBERT]

Well, in the newest issue of KF/QG, they show photos of the 10th Anniversary thingy, and in one photo is Gene himself, who looks exactly like the one in that photo of the orange robes. So unless B.D. Wong went to the Gala posing as Gene, its Gene in that photo.

By the way Gene, you said if we bought stuff from the supply shop, you might enlarge our avatars. I bought a subscription.

[Kristoffer]

I wont pay a dime on Margie, Tammy however.... hmmm well I guess I'll throw in 5 $


Gene is the ultimate cyber pimp :D

[Stacey]

I think that I might also also get a certain satisfaction by cumming inside of you.

$7.00

[M_ArtsMargie]

I would take Gene for $500:D

[GeneChing]

Wow, an auction. Cool.

margie: I didn't choose that pic, you have to bust Silent Assassin for that one.

philbert: Thanks for your subscritpion. That does help encourage our decisions. If I could gert half the forum to subscribe, I'd definately do it.

african tiger: B.D.Wong?! ouch.

[M_ArtsMargie]

Gene**See what you started. This one (http://store6.yimg.com/I/martialartsmart_1705_57770450) would have been better to put on that gift cert. That ug picture gives me the creeps:D :p

[red5angel]

Ok, after that link I bid 600$ for Margie..... :D

[norther practitioner]

$650

[red5angel]

******!!! 651$

[norther practitioner]

you gonna make me start counting change again.....****, for this price, I could fly my arse out there, pimp it for a moment, see what happens....lol, usually nothing, haven't always been the "Pimp by blood"



$711.24

[red5angel]

well with a trip to the local blood bank and ahem, that other donation place, I can scrape up about 713$....

[Silent Assassin]

Sorry M_ArtsMargie

that was the only picture of you with bandana.

I'll make sure next time I use a nice pict of you.

Like this one (http://store6.yimg.com/I/martialartsmart_1714_17777961)

:cool:

[Souljah]

OH OK!

let me up the ante


2 happy meals and a chicken burger, but sorry IM KEEPING THE TOYs - ITS HARRY POTTER!!! ID BE MAD TO GIVE IT AWAY!!!!

[PHILBERT]

Yeah Gene, the thing is though how many of the 4,571 members still post here? Alot of the members have 0 posts still and that was from before the forum transfer.

Im also thinking of getting one of the books out of the store, still debating though since I cant sample it.

[GeneChing]

It doesn't really matter how many actually post - there are plenty here who post way more than they should and that more than makes up for them. :p

[PHILBERT]

Hey Gene, ever thought about doing scans of books on the supply store? Kind of like how Amazon.com does, they sample a few pages? There's one book I kind of wanna get, but I don't wanna buy and find out it sucks. Kind of like judging a book by its cover.

[M_ArtsMargie]

Do I hear 715?

[Xebsball]

US$ 1000

i wont be able to eat for a few months

[GeneChing]

That's a good suggestion. We are revamping our sites now so I'll pass it along. The vid clips were pretty successful so we might, altough to be honest, we don't make much money on books so I'm not sure that we'll invest a lot.

[PHILBERT]

Well, perhaps you don't make alot of money because we cant sample the books like we can the videos?

There are some books I like, some I'd love to buy but I don't want to spend $20 on a book then find out it I don't like it.

[norther practitioner]

Thank god for the holidays and a rich uncle...

$1250

[GeneChing]

Actually, we don't make as much books as we do videos because 1. mark up on books is minimal 2. competition from amazon, b&N etc. 3. we make videos, we don't publish books. 4. our energies are more focused on products we manufacture. Personally, I would love to carry more books. My previous company was built on book importing, videos, iron palm and dit da jow. So my heart is in books, but frankly, it's a lot of work for minimal return.

[rubthebuddha]

sounds just like writing them. :(

[GeneChing]

You know it, rtb, you know it.
Writing is a thankless task, unless you're Stephen King....
Publishing is equally thankless, unless you're Hugh Hefner,
And bookselling, well, unless you're Amazon, B&N, Borders or some other megastore, it's a tough way to pay the bills.

But we do what we can.;)

[M_ArtsMargie]

northern practioner***SPREAD THE WEALTH MAN (http://www.martialartsmart.com) ;)

[Xebsball]

Hey, sweet avatar :D

[M_ArtsMargie]

Thanks Xebsball**;) I have to thank Patrick.....Thanks Buddy!:D

[rubthebuddha]

gene,

best part? writing an article in which the quotes you tried so hard to keep true were modified and change the context. the lead you spend a night fretting over was changed to some cheeseball line. the finisher you thought would leave everyone clapping for you in their living rooms at home would up replaced by something more cliché than the prefab intro they just put in. the 24-page novella you gave up was shortened to 12 paragraphs.

and to make matters all the best?

they **** up your name in the byline.

[GeneChing]

You know it's funny. I used to be really attached to my writing, especially quotes, but not so much anymore. I'm not sure why. Perhaps I've been plagarized so many times that I'm happy when they even make the effort to give me any credit. Perhaps becuase I've plagarized so many other writers, I'm not that possessive of things I've done. Perhaps because now that I'm in an editor's seat, I can see the other persepctive now.

Actually I think it's more about the art of it. Great art is indestructable. Take something classic, like the Mona Lisa. That image has gone through so many permutations, but the original still shines through. And while I don't believe my writing approaches a level of art very often, I do beleive that what I craft should still shine through irregardless of the tampering of others. If it doesn't, then it probably wasn't worthy anyway.

[rubthebuddha]

:o

aye. i'm just a stickler for quotes. not my own, particularly, but other people's words. they said a very specific thing, and when that gets changed, it can shame them inappropriately and shame me as well.

when i was a student editor, i had to kick a few students off staff for changing quotes with no regard. warning, warning, and good bye. i simply hate the idea of misappropriation like that, especially when someone is sharing something with you -- they have a right to expect you to print what they say, and when it comes out differently, they have a right to be ****ed. however, the reporter gets blamed, and the editorial side cared little. of course, then there's the dumb****s who get mad because they look like an idiot when you print exactly what they say, even though they knew you were interviewing them for publication. someone was once so mad at me once for printing his words -- he looked like an idiot for what he said -- that i told him "if you're dumb enough to say it to a reporter and expect it to not be printed, you deserve to look like an idiot." :D

but the byline, man, the byline. you gotta at least spell your reporters' names right, especially when the file they gives you has the name spelled right to begin with. :mad:

[GeneChing]

Oh don't get me wrong, rtb, I totally agree with you. Quotes and bylines should be accurate. We do the best we can here. I was thinking more in regards of when I'm quoted, like in interviews. For example, there were some great spins on my press releases for our gala benefit. (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/dvdca107set.html) Also it kills me when they misspell "Ching." Fortunately, since I work full time for
Kungfu Qigong (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/19341.html) I'm not subject to the same kinds of problems as when I was freelance.

Quotes are funny things, especially in my field of reporting. Many of the quotes are translations, which brings on a whole other level for interpretation/misinterpretation. With my last two cover stories, we published the abridged version in the print magazine, but the unabridged on the ezine (see jan/feb 2003 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=292) & nov/dec 2002 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=244) ) I was really sastified with the way these came out since the magazine article had a concise flow while the ezine was more unadulterated and preserved the interview in a more raw yet more original tone. I just finisthed a piece for our next issue where we went to great lengths to publish the Chinese (characters and pinyin) so if people weren't satisfied with our translations, they could always redo it themselves.

And of course, the best stories happen when the recorder is on pause, but I couldn't in good conscience publish that stuff. Also I do edit down the occasional racist or sexist remark - usually stuff from older masters - some are very anti-japanese or opposed to training women, and I generally leave that stuff out since it doesn't promote martial arts in a positive light.