Slot Machines That Pay Real Money - trueyup

This is mostly my reactions and rationalizations to the Brave event and how it's affected me a a player of DMK. I've been playing for nearly a year. I've experienced Onward, Pocahontas, Hercules, two Tower Challenges, the Lock Shock and Barrel Halloween event, Mandalorian, and now Brave.
At first I was okay with not completing things since I just didn't have storyline characters unlocked or leveled up to be of any use. But starting around that second Tower Challenge, the one where they offered Rabbit for a second time in a row, things started feeling off. The Halloween event was brutal. Lock, the premium character, was surprising in that he not only was 500 gems but despite being useful to the point of being necessary for one of the tasks he ended up being not that useful for the rest. Meaning even people who purchased Lock found out they couldn't get Shock unless they got lucky with drops or burned through a ton of elixir buying the needed tokens. Then the Mandalorian came out a few weeks later, and I didn't participate much but I did hear that once again the premium character wasn't as useful as expected. Kuiil needed to be leveled up before he could be properly used, and he had some token conflicts with characters.
And now we are at Brave, where people who had both premium characters and the premium attraction and the parade float and discovered they could not finish the event. They did everything right, and it wasn't enough. The RNG was just too strong - there were too many stages where people got screwed over by RNG or bottle necked by arbitrary cooldown times. Some people even had full Frozen collections to help, and were struggling! I had Fergus, Dingwall, and the Ring of Stones at level 2. Up until the last hour, I had no idea if I would be able to complete the event or if I would come up short.
And I realize it's only going to get harder.
This isn't fun anymore. I've never played a game where I needed to wake myself up repeatedly during the night, to stand a chance at completing it. For days at a time. I've never played a game that made me wonder if I could 'get away' with sneaking my phone into my phone-hating teacher's class because lectures cut into a character's task completion. This is supposed to be a game, not a job.
With Brave, the difficulty is entirely intentional. Gameloft didn't want people completing the event. Gameloft wanted people so frustrated that they caved in and bought a sack of gems. Merida herself was 10USD, and without any tokens her costume was 970 gems. Two 500 gem deals bring her costume to just under 40USD. Let's say you did your best, got all the Glitched Fabric, but still came up short 7 comfy fabrics. That's still 560 gems that Gameloft wants you to spend.
You just busted your ass for the "privilege" of giving Gameloft an additional 24USD of your money. Nice hustle.
And then there's the fact that Gameloft made sure only Frozen characters can get Glitched Fabric. And not just Frozen characters, but you needed Anna and her traveling costume (so 2 legendary chests, minimum) or the Fire Spirit with the Enchanted Forest attraction upgraded to level 1 (another 2 legendary chests).
You could also have it dropped from the Dressing Room if you have it at level 2, but with an 8 hour cooldown most people couldn't collect enough fabric before the event ended and were forced to spend more gems. Some people were lucky enough to have the Dressing Room upgraded all the way to level 5, which requires a total of 475 relic tokens to do. And the odds of getting WIR relic tokens have decreased, now that Gameloft has added Brave relic tokens to the chest pools.
And when an event ends...does it even feel good having those event characters you earned? Thanks to the 75 character limit, you're going to spend the next few weeks leveling them up and then be forced to box them up and send them Home by the time the next event starts. There are so many storyline characters that have so many tasks needed to collect more tokens, but event characters are mostly isolated and very rarely are able to collect tokens for characters not in their collection. So their main purpose becomes slot machine bait: they'll eventually be the next helper collection for a future event (that you'll have to lose sleep, buy all the premiums, and even then burn through more elixir or gems or even real money in order to complete), and anyone who wasn't able to get all the characters can try their luck opening a legendary chest.
I'm not even done with the story. I'm at the brink of my game getting bottle necked because I have over 75 characters which can be out and about doing tasks. But with recent events, they prove it won't matter how far along in the story I am. It won't be enough to complete events.
Now, each new event character feels like it bloats regular chests. All those event character tokens taking up space, all those event relic tokens that you don't need anymore because the relic token system is utterly broken and Gamelot isn't interested in fixing it.
All for what? For shoring up for the next hustle. For making sure you have fewer gems ready for the next event, tempting you to give in and pay cash. And maybe this is because I've only been playing for about a year while others have been playing much longer, but it is discouraging knowing that I'll never be able to complete many collections because it all lies within the slot machine legendary chests. At first I thought Tower Challenges were going to be a chance to make up for it, but I realized Gameloft hardly ever offers Tower Challenges and when they do happen you get...one or two returning characters plus an attraction, common tier. It's been a year and Gameloft has offered a grand total of 5 returning event characters. They have also added 25 event characters.
Free legendary chests are sporadic, sometimes a few will be offered as milestone prizes during events but for the most part we get one, maybe two a month. But not in January though, we get nothing this month. Spending gems is the only way to really complete a collection, but of course you don't want to spend your gems because you need those for the next event, but of course what's the point when the 75 character limit prevents you from really enjoying and showing off your completed collections. DMK operates on FOMO: fear of missing out. If you don't complete a collection during its event, it is extremely difficult to do so after without spending money, and Gameloft ensures that the rate of free offers is outpaced by new events. "If I don't get the comfy, it won't be available again for years. And when they release it again, it will be just as hard to obtain, so I might as well spend money/gems now." That's how they get you. "If I don't get Merida now, she'll be in a Legendary Chest, but she'll only have a base 2% chance to get, so I might as well spend money/gems now." Same thing.
I've come to realize I don't feel like I'm playing a game anymore. I feel more like I'm trying to see how much I can get away with an abuser. This is no longer a fun time waster, but something negatively influencing my life. Between the 75 character limit, the lack of usefulness for premium characters, and the absurd hoops needed to complete an event to screw people over with RNG and tempt them into spending more gems/cash, this isn't a game anymore it's just a chore. I don't see DMK getting better. So, I'm done. Let it go, as a certain Snow Queen would say.
I hope I don't come off as sounding dramatic. I only want to rationalize my decision, and help others understand if they are feeling the same way. I am not demanding that anyone quit or stop spending their own money if they still find enjoyment and satisfaction. I am not angry at anyone, but I will note that the more people spend real money the more it encourages Gameloft to rig things with less and less fairness. If anyone is feeling reluctant to stop playing or reduce playing due to the time and money they have already spent, this is a phenomenon called the sunk cost fallacy. It's harder to walk away from something when you feel you have invested in it. But this is a tapping game, and the only investment is whether you still find it fun and rewarding to play. You're never going to get that money back, there will be no payout at the "end". The only real loss is your money and time if you continue to play a game that is no longer fun.
In case anyone was wondering if I was able to get Merida's comfy costume at the very end, it doesn't matter if I did or not. Because I'm walking away.
I thank everyone here, and hope whatever decisions you make, you base them on your own satisfaction. Stay healthy and happy.
And in case anyone is wondering what else to do for a time waster, I picked up the inexpensive Stardew Valley and have been having a blast with it. Yes, I traded my kingdom for a farm.

Galactic Economics 7: Leapfrogging

RoyalRoad
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I ended up splitting off some of 8 into 9 based on feedback. The story I've thought of will end on 10, and then it's back to the drawing board for me. I'm not sure if I would continue with this universe or come back with another idea, let me know if you have an opinion either way.
I'll start posting these onto a site I found called RoyalRoad in addition to reddit. I won't take donations, but it does seem like it has nice utilities to manage all the stories even if the audience is smaller. Any advice on this welcome too.
And as always, I'm still a new writer trying to improve. Feedback about the story or my writing are all very welcome, and I read every one of them.
Galactic Credits weren't technically a currency yet. They had a lot of GCs in the bank, but as the aliens would say, that's just numbers on a screen. You couldn't pay rent and taxes with GCs, not yet.
As some human traders switched to exclusively buying goods from the market, they paid hard earned Dollars in exchange for virtual GC, and that became the revenue stream. This revenue balanced out almost perfectly with sellers who were instantly cashing out.
For every Dollar that someone paid GC to convert to credits, only about 95 cents would be asked to be paid out by a seller trying to withdraw their GCs for cash.
The transaction fees that GC made on every transaction can be visualized as credits disappearing into an untouched locked account. This was effectively a profit for GC, because it meant less credits that had to be exchanged for $. That 5% margin was a steady Dollar revenue stream that they could safely cash out.
But because all the humans needed to pay bills and taxes, they would withdraw their money almost immediately, which meant that they would always be stuck around that 5% margin. Unlike a regular bank, they couldn't make a lot of investments.
That's when the universe decided to give them a break.
Or rather, their interests had aligned with the self interest of some very rich people who had just started paying attention.
At first, the financial systems on Earth did not care much about GCs. They were used in spaceports all around Earth, and space was very exciting, but it was inaccessible to most people and the actual trade volume was a small percentage of total businesses done on Earth.
The aliens directly made a few people very, very rich, mostly traders and GC. But what were of more interest to financial institutions were the reverse engineered alien technology products that they predicted were coming shortly. At the same time Sarah and her friends were trying to fix a famine, the human economy was booming.
Like GC, banks were in the business of selling gold prospecting equipment, not looking for gold themselves.
Naturally, banks started allowing deposits and withdrawal of GC. This wasn't unusual. Banks have no issues holding onto cryptocurrency and non-USD currencies for customers' savings accounts. That was their business, after all. There were some costs, but it was generally a good business: fat transaction fees led to fat profit margins.
In the case of GC, banks needed to charge their customers a high transaction fee because GC itself charged a high transaction fee. This was bad for business. Not many people kept their credits in other banks because GC itself was a bank and they kept their money in there just fine without having to pay an even higher transaction fee.
They were understandably unhappy about several of their wealthier customers keeping a lot of money in another bank, but not enough to want to choke out GC's business. That would be killing their golden goose that is the booming alien knockoff economy.
So when GC decided to raise liquidity, as they would need to do to continue to bankroll a multi-planetary relief mission indefinitely, the banks saw an opportunity. Or rather, VISA did.
It was an incredibly generous offer: VISA would treat Galactic Credits like Dollars and allow full convertibility on their own network, in exchange for GC waiving their entire transaction fee for bank transfers. Their lawyers didn't want GC to go ahead and print money without limits, so they put a contingency that allowed them to cut off GC whenever they wanted and clauses that allowed for regular auditing.
Sarah and her friends thought about it, but not for very long.
Galactic Credit became no longer the only bank that could deal in credits.
Credits were now freely transferable between banks.
Now, you could pay taxes in credits converted to USD.
Which meant people stopped withdrawing their Dollars from GC immediately, and GC could "borrow" that money to pay for supplies, equipment, and then use some to invest in companies on Earth.
It was like a limited run of fractional reserve banking.
The aid operation to Gak continued.
"Isn't this technically a blatant violation of minimum wage laws?" Asked Sarah over the FTL video comms, the crisp and quick quality of which was a testament of how much human infrastructure had been shipped into Gakrek orbit, "doing some quick maths with the average fuel and maintenance costs here… it looks like we're basically paying the space traders only about $10 for every hour of shipping they do for us."
Kathleen Bryce, GC's head counsel shifted uncomfortably in a conference room chair 50 light years away, though her immediate reply indicated she had indeed thought the problem through, "Not if anyone asks."
She continued, "the short story is nobody has tested the courts to see if aliens working for us in space are subject to California employment and labor regulations, or federal minimum wage laws, or perhaps, even no laws."
"What's the long story?" Jen asked, slightly interested.
"We're pretty sure they're at most contractors, definitely not employees. Cali Prop 22 took care of that. The spaceport is probably considered international territory, or else the traders would be considered 'illegal aliens' every time they landed," Kathleen did a little chuckle at that most unoriginal pun around the GC legal team watercooler, "In which case, the lower federal minimum wage applies. Or maybe it's not even international territory, maybe it's some new thing. Too many edge cases to descri-"
"Ok," Sarah said after a moment, "it'll probably look bad though."
"What will?" Jen countered, rolling her eyes, "that they're being asked to voluntarily work just above cost to help save a billion hungry aliens, a problem that, let's not forget, most people in the galaxy think they helped create in the first place? Give me a break. There's fifty thousand Red Cross workers working for free on Gakrek and you're telling me we-"
"Ok, ok, we'll save this discussion for later, interesting as the implications are," Stearns interrupted, "until the labor board starts sniffing around, we'll let Legal deal with it. The other item I wanted to get to today is what we're going to do for Gak in the medium and long term."
"Right, the immediate crisis is over, but the moment we pull our people out and stop sending food constantly, the Gaks are back to square one in two months," Sarah returned to her presentation, "over the past two weeks, our models keep having to be revised down on the future of Gakrek farming. Their climate system has been dramatically spiraling downwards for decades now. With this disaster: the out of control burning and flooding, the trashed ecosystems, and the Gaks literally selling off their farming tools to squeeze out some more fruits from traders, they added up to one conclusion: traditional subsistence agriculture is no longer viable on Gakrek."
Here she put up a chart on screen. There were two lines. There's a straight horizontal line, marking the average calories that healthy Gaks needed, and then there's a quickly plummeting line denoting the drastic decrease of Gak agricultural productivity over time. They crossed about ten years ago. The meaning was clear.
"It's increasingly obvious that all Gak food will need to be shipped in from offworld sources until we completely overhaul their agricultural economy," Sarah continued.
"What kind of overhaul are we even talking about?" Benny chimed in. He owned a good portion of the company, but rarely came to these executive meetings. Today, he was making an exception for his son Benny Jr, who was on the view screen with the rest of the offworld team on Gakrek.
Stearns replied, "in a word: industrialization."
"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race," wrote Ted Kaczynski, known more famously as his press nickname, the Unabomber. When this was published in the Washington Post in 1995 in response to a threat, a number of people thought he was making a lot of sense.
It made all the headlines, inspired countless hours of political debate, and gave a major boost to anarcho-primitive ideas in the academic sphere.
But as many historians knew, his ideas were not wildly original. Industrialization, like every major economic change, created winners and losers. Sometimes there were more of one, and sometimes the other.
In human society, previously skilled workers, usually guild craftsmen who made up the upper-middle class of late feudal Europe, became the biggest losers of industrialization as their labor was replaced by machines that could do what they did at hundreds if not thousands of times faster. Without skill, without rest, and without emotion. Some of them were so angry, they even went out and smashed the machines, but mechanization continued anyway.
The biggest winners of the Industrial Revolution were the subsistence farmers who made up the vast majority of lower class workers in feudal Europe. They went into cities, to work mind-numbingly boring jobs, doing the same thing day after day, on risky and dangerous assembly lines for excruciatingly long hours. Many got injured. Some died. A few were even children.
And yet mostly, they did so willingly.
That's not because they were all tricked, under some grand illusion that factory work was comfortable, safe, and enriching.
It was because subsistence farming on its worst day was a hecking nightmare.
The Gaks were living it.
"Why can't we just build a tractor factory there then?" Sarah demanded.
In her mind, tractors were synonymous with food. She'd been on a road trip through the American Midwest once, on the way to the Yellowstone. There, she'd seen rows of gigantic tractors plowing fields, endless food from horizon to horizon. To Sarah, the massive scale of the corn fields of America was just how industrialization was done.
"Because tractor factories depend on a thousand different parts. Who's gonna make the tires? Who's gonna make the motors? Who's gonna make the onboard computer?" Stearns explained, "and who's gonna bring them gasoline to keep running? And each of those components have a thousand factories to make them, and each have dependencies on thousands of other factories! It would literally be easier to move Los Angeles onto Gak than it would be to help them mass manufacture tractors."
Sarah made a facepalming gesture, but Stearns cut her off before she launched into despair, "there actually is a much easier solution to this problem."
"On Earth, most economists agree that the most efficient way to send foreign aid to areas that consistently couldn't produce enough food is not to send them food; it's to send them money so they can buy food, or if they have good soil, they can buy some tools to grow their own," said Stearns, leading Sarah to the obvious conclusion.
"But they don't use money here, we can't just send them money!"
"Exactly. So let's talk about that."
Gordorker's family had finally cleaned up his house from the dust storm. The broken roof was re-tiled as best as he could. His children had helped on some of the menial tasks, but that's what children were for.
It was nice to have purpose again.
The humans had said that their mission would be here for months, maybe years, but Gordorker was not so naive to believe that he wouldn't have to work for food again. He was certainly not so stupid to take this to mean he should be lounging around all day.
Winters on Gakrek were not bad in terms of freezing people to death, but the dry winds would not allow crop planting until spring again.
Next time, he would have 21 mouths to feed, not including his, and he'd have to get the fields plowed without poor Grunger. He was lucky he had so many children.
Traders Only
New Thread: Bohor spaceports have just banned bartering!
Body: If your friends want to do any business at Bohor, they better get themselves a GC Terminal fast! The Bohor are banning barter at their main port. You will only be able to conduct trades by credits starting in a few days!
Comment: Whaaaaat? Are you crazy??? Only two of my friends have Terminals. How is everyone else supposed to make a living?!
Comment: Get a Terminal lol
Comment: We told you guys last week this was gonna happen if you assholes keep holding up the line with your obnoxious rare fruit peddling. Newsflash, we don't care about how exotic your stuff is on Bohor. Just unload it. We weigh it, read the price list for food items, do the math, you get your credits, and you're out of there in minutes. You want air filters? We've got air filters for 2,800 GCs, no haggling, no bartering. If you don't like it, someone else will take it. Don't waste our time! -- Bohor Spaceport Management Team
Comment: Hey Bohor, have you considered maybe getting a Terminal yourself so that everyone else don't all need to get one just to get some fuel?
Comment: I'm selling air filters for 3,000 GCs in orbit above Bohor for traders who don't have Terminals.
"Our plan for the leasing model for the Terminals is not going to work," Sarah observed.
"Yup, the famine crisis on Gakrek is forcing our hand," admitted Stearns, "and we'd expected a much slower rollout to bring the aliens on board over the course of years, not weeks. In hindsight, it was obvious how this was different to how humans popularized credit and debit cards in the 1970s. We were replacing cash, which was just slightly inferior to a card, but with the aliens, we're replacing their entire dumpster fire of an economy. We earned a lot of goodwill with our relief effort and the galaxy is buying in."
"So what, we just abandon the original timeline and move to phase two immediately?" Asked Sarah.
"Exactly right. When the iron is hot, you gotta strike it," replied Stearns, "we'll give the merchants already with Terminals an option to opt out of their lease and switch to the new devices, but I doubt most will. Our internal data shows that they've universally been getting their money's worth out of those."
"Are our manufacturers even ready to handle the inevitable barrage of orders?" Asked Jen, eager to move onto the logistics and technology discussion.
They were not.
Version two of the offworld trading terminals were actually a downgrade to the original Terminals. The originals were prototypes, modified out of consumer tablets that cost hundreds of dollars to produce.
The new ones, branded Mini Terminals, were basic card readers with pin pads and a tiny OLED display, attached to a now mass produced FTL antenna you could get at RadioShack for $3.99. There wasn't even a thermal printer for receipts.
The whole device costs no more than $20 to make on a mass production line in Vietnam. GC was going to sell it at cost in credits.
Galactic Credit had prepared supply lines to ramp up production, ready to start rolling them out in a couple years. They've made a test batch of tens of thousands of units sitting in storage, but did not expect to need to start actually selling them for a while.
Carefully made plans were abandoned, schedules were expedited, employees in SE Asia worked overtime, and the company took on extra cost to push the schedule up.
It still wasn't enough.
On day one, all reserve units sold out. Some of the well connected human traders, unburdened with a strong conscience or ethics, bought them by the truckload as they were leaving their warehouses. They sold them at a large markup at the spaceport.
That was not very cash money of them.
GC sent a representative to the spaceport to let traders know that they were out of stock, but more would be made available shortly. Customers should just wait a week for the prices to come down.
The scalpers instantly sold out anyway. The alien traders lucky enough to be on the non-relief landing pads filled their cargo with the Mini Terminals.
Then, those traders sold them at a markup at other ports. And so on.
By the time the Mini Terminals reached average spaceport merchants on the other side of the galaxy, they were being sold for almost half the price of the original tablet Terminals.
By the end of the week, the craze died down. These electronics really were cheap and easy for human factories to make, and many of the production lines just needed time to start the machines. Prices returned to normal, and the average merchant could afford them with a bit of honest work and savings.
The Gakrek Spacelift was slowing down. The turnaround time had been increased to a leisurely 10 minutes, and the Livermore space traffic controller was occasionally allowing non-relief traders to land at open pads, which Zikzik was doing now.
Zikzik needed to refuel, but apparently that was still only allowed for the landing pads that had been designated for relief. He called up the Livermore port manager, pointed to his number one position on the relief pilot leaderboard, but she just shrugged her shoulders and said apologetically, "rules are rules".
Oh well, he could always refuel at Olgix on the way.
As he landed in Olgix, he realized this was the first time he landed at a non human or Gak port for at least a week.
He greeted the Olg who was running a reactor fuel line to his ship with a nod, and asked, "how much fruit to full?"
The Olg took one look at the sign on his booth, and said, "you know we also take credits on Olgix now, right?"
A little surprised, Zikzik took out his card and terminal and allowed the Olg to swipe his. He'd used his Terminal when doing exchanges with other traders, but this was the first time he'd been to a non-Earth port where goods and services could be paid for using his credits.
"That's 295.50 GCs, pleasure doing business with you."
Grob was one of the wealthier Gaks in the world. The famine had affected everyone, but he and his wife did not have to go hungry because the spaceport management made sure to keep feeding the people that kept the mobs at bay.
Everything else stopped working though. He used to pad his income by making sure that the vendors at the spaceport knew exactly who was protecting their livelihoods. Only very rarely did new ones not cooperate.
Grob really wasn't a bad Gak, but he did what everyone else in his position also did. This was just how business was done on Gakrek. You didn't get to survive to become a security guard family if you didn't do that. Another Gak would come along, take your place, and do what you didn't want to do anyway.
When the humans arrived, things changed. They started peddling these credits business, which he'd seen some of the traders used.
Of course, he didn't think much of it. Instead of getting goods, you just get a card, and use the card to trade for food and items? Seems unnecessarily complicated.
He'd heard that they charged a cut just for you to use the card, a concept that he was intimately familiar with and in no hurry to be subjected to. The humans had insisted on giving one to him and setting it up. Which he had to do because they were in charge now, but that was fine by him. Just because he had a card didn't mean he had to use it right?
A few days later, when he was on a patrol route at the spaceport, checking off the vendor stands, one of the luxury item vendors asked him if she could pay her next cycle's fee with her card because she had traded away all her wares.
"You gotta make sure to save wares for me next time," he'd told her, "but I'll take it this time." He ruffled through his backpack to find the card, handed it to her, and she inserted it into her machine, typed in her code, and showed him that it had deposited 18 GC into his account.
Hoping that she didn't stiff him, he went on with his route.
"Let me say this again," Zarko said at the edge of his patience limit, "you can trade these credits for food on Earth. Lots of food, shiploads of food. So much food, everywhere."
"But I don't have a ship," whined the spare parts vendor at the spaceport, "why don't you just bring food with you next time you want my parts?"
"You can exchange credits for food from some of the other traders that come down here too! Some of them have the new Terminals now, look, that guy over there, he takes GC," Zarko was almost shouting while pointing at a fellow Zeepil food merchant who had a I ❤️ GC sign on his booth across the spaceport.
This was frustrating. Every time he came across one of these less traveled planets he had to explain himself to these yokels all over again.
The vendor looked over skeptically and said, "how do I know that you two aren't working some scam together?"
That was it for Zarko. It had been a long day, this guy wasn't making it any shorter, and he had just been accused of being a dishonest trader. It was probably because of his species. Just because he was a Zeepil didn't mean he was a scammer!
He internally cursed the unjustified stereotype of his people and blew up at the racist:
"Listen to me very carefully. You're going to give me the secondary fuel modulator. You're going to walk over to the food merchant over there. Then you're going to swipe this card over here, on his machine. He's going to give you at least a month's worth of food. And if you don't, I'm going to leave a one star review on your spaceport on Traders Only, and nobody is going to come back here to trade anything with you ever again, got it?"
The vendor whined some more under his breath, but eventually relented. The threat had sounded real.
He got plenty of food. Whatever scam these Zeepils were running, they didn't rip him off this time at least. Whatever.
Zarko was fuming as he took off. Didn't these ignorant primitives know that a liquid currency to facilitate free and fair exchange of goods and services was obviously the bedrock upon which a modern economy needed to be built?
When Grob got home from work, he handed his wife the credits card saying, "hey darling, one of the luxury traders gave me her protection share using the card. I trusted her because she normally always pays on time. Did I get scammed?"
His wife was a teacher at a nearby school. Ever the practical one, she asked, "oh, how much did she put on it?"
"It said 18."
She did some math in her head and replied, "yeah that sounds about right," and to his surprise, she pulled out a card and said, "I got one from the humans at the school too, and I used it to buy a new pair of shoes for you!"
He tried them on. They weren't very fitting shoes, but neither were his previous pair so he couldn't complain. They did seem very well made even though the little holes in them seemed to be a design choice.
Pretty soon, he noticed that the other guards at the spaceport started extracting their share of protection fees using cards too. Oh well, if everyone else was taking fees with a card, he supposed it couldn't hurt if he did it too. It somewhat lightened his load on patrols, which he didn't mind at all.
Besides, his blue shoes were really pretty. He was not sure why there was a big check mark on its side though.
"They're doing what?!" Sarah asked, her temper threatening to go off.
"It's a protection racket. A practice as old as time. The security guards have basically been taking a percentage of the vendors' wares, and recently switched onto using cards to take payment. It's been going on forever and it's probably just how they do things there. Using cards is pretty innovative of them, I'll give them that," Jen said, "but it made it pretty easy for us to track down all of them. Should we revert the transactions?"
"No, probably not," Sarah said, calming down and seeing a slight head shake from her head counsel Bryce, "but we need to make it clear to them that they can't be allowed to do that anymore."
Grob wasn't sure how to feel about the cards anymore.
The humans had found the practice of protection fees distasteful, and they'd warned that anyone caught doing it again would face severe consequences. They made their point pretty clear when one of the other guards was made an example of: her card stopped working. She had to get a new one that didn't have any of her credits in it!
On the other hand, the humans also made the spaceport authorities start paying them with credits, which was good because now they were being paid on time and Grob knew he didn't have to worry about not being paid as long as the humans were there.
His wife had been buying them new clothes with credits she was getting paid as a teacher too. One of his human friends had giggled when she saw his shirt, which apparently said "2016 NBA Champions Golden State Warriors". He wasn't sure what was so funny about that, but it was a very comfortable shirt.
Maybe this whole credits thing wasn't as ridiculous as he thought at first.
By the universal inheritance path known as "dibs", Gordorker inherited his neighbors Gyuotin and Gyuovin's farmable land and possessions. They didn't have much.
Trinkets, gadgets, and a bunch of junk. It was mostly items that couldn't be traded for food during the worst periods of the shortage. With his immediate food needs taken care of by the relative abundance of food items the humans have brought, Gordorker thought perhaps he should go buy a stasis box with the trinkets he got from his deceased neighbors.
When he arrived at the offworld market, he saw a high end luxury merchant proudly displaying some fresh new wares from offworld, including a number of stasis boxes. These were apparently new ones made by humans. These were slightly bigger than the ones he'd have before, but he'd brought his neighbors' life possessions, so he thought maybe he'd be able to trade for one of those with some haggling.
Gordorker started laying out his items on the table, but the trader cut him off, hastily saying the weirdest thing he'd ever heard from a trader in his life, "no barter, credits only." The merchant then pointed him towards a human tent.
A human volunteer, his nametag said Marco, asked his name and gave him a shiny card, then told him to memorize 6 numbers. "As the head of your household, you have also been given a small stimulus by the GC corporation," he said.
Then Marco took him to a junk trader stall, where he gave the trader all his items. Marco showed an increasingly confused Gordorker how to insert his card into a small machine slot to "receive payment".
Marco guided him back to the merchant selling stasis boxes. Gordorker was instructed on how to insert his card and enter his pin code, which he mastered with no difficulty.
Marco then took him to a farm tools stall, where Gordorker repeated the same process with a steel plow, a small box of "semi-dwarf wheat seeds", a long garden hose, and a hand pump, all loaded onto a brand new wooden wheelbarrow.
"BAL: 12.50," the small screen had read.
Gordorker was not sure what unnatural ritual he had taken part in, but he was in possession of the most farm tools he had ever been in his life and he had the stasis box he was looking for.
"Alright, that should be enough. Make sure to keep the card safe and remember your 6 digit code. Ask a volunteer if you need to know what the tools do.."
Gordorker put his card in his stasis box. Then, being the prudent Gak he was, he wrote down his pin code and put it in the box as well.
Whatever else it did, he was sure one of his descendants could probably find a use for it in an emergency one day.
In hindsight, there were obvious economic side effects for Earth becoming a mass producer of everything from food to cheap consumer electronics, the reverse engineering of millions of years of alien tech, and ripping down the barriers that the barter based economies of the galaxy had erected.
A young forward thinking economist wrote a whole journal article about it with a typical economic study title: "Development Osmosis: Capital Outflow, Argentina, and Extreme Poverty in Offworld Economies".
Three other economists read the pre-print as part of the peer review, who all sent him an email saying something along the lines of "wow, this gave me a lot to think about. Somebody important should read this!"
Nobody else did, for a while.
It didn't make the news.
The reference to high yield semi-dwarf wheat seeds in the story refers to the research of Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Norman Borlaug. Borlaug noticed that stalks of wheat that are too high yield would bend and then break their stalks, so he solved that problem by breeding these plants with dwarfed plants. Shorter stalk, supports more wheat. His work in improving food security in developing nations is credited with saving the lives of over a billion humans. A real life HFY.
The next chapter's working title is:
Rising Tide
RoyalRoad
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Part 3- $BB DD no Meems – FUCK THE MEMES

Review of Martin Scorsese’s 1995 Casino [A mob movie that has many actors that will go on to be in the Sopranos].

mods please lmk if this violates the rules. i’m posting here because I write about the mob/casino and many relevant themes that are important elements of the Sopranos, in my opinion. I think they’re of the same medium and genre so wanted to post here. Hope that’s alright. Cheers! (11 min read) ————————————————————————
EDIT 2: TL;DR -
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
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Every good filmmaker makes the same movie over and over again—Martin Scorsese is no different
Scorsese's Casino is a phenomenal story of the condoned chaos and "legalized robbery" that happens on a daily basis to gamblers who bett away thousands of dollars and return each day for more “FinDom,” but without any of the sexual sadism. The whole scam only persists because the house always wins: the odds are stacked 3 million to one on the slot machines, but the same shmucks return wide-eyed each day hoping for a different outcome, devoid of any rational re-evaluation required to maintain their grasp on reality, and the liquidity of their bank accounts.
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, recruited by his childhood friend Nick "Nicky" Santorno to help run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by an investment made with the Teamsters’ pension fund. Ace’s job is to keep the bottom line flowing so that the Mafia's skimming operation can continue seamlessly. De Niro's character felt like half-way between Travis from Taxi Driver (of course, nowhere as mentally disturbed) and half of the addictive excess, greed, and eccentric business-mind of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Ace’s attention to detail gives him a rain-man-esque sensibility; his ability to see every scam, trick, hand signal, and maneuver happening on the casino floor make him the perfect manager of the casino, and take his managerial style to authoritarian heights in his pursuit of order and control over what is an inherently unstable and dynamic scheme; betting, hedging outcomes, and walking the line to keep the money flowing and the gamblers coming back. I’m not claiming Ace is autistic, I'm no clinician, but his managerial sensibilities over the daily operations of the casino, from the dealers to the pit bosses, to the shift managers, are to the point of disturbing precision, he has eyes everywhere, and knows how to remove belligerent customers with class and professionalism, but ultimately is short sighted in “reading” the human beings he is in relationship with. Ace is frustratingly naive and gullible in his partnership with Nicky and the threat he poses to him, and in his marriage with Ginger.
Ace has no personal aspirations to extract millions of dollars for himself out of the casino corruption venture. Ace simply wants the casino to operate as efficiently as possible, and he has no qualms about being a pawn of the bosses. While Sam, “the Golden Jew”—as he is called—is the real CEO of the whole enterprise, directing things at Tangiers for the benefit of the bosses “back home.” Ace’s compliance is juxtaposed with Nicky’s outrage upon feeling used: he gripes about how he is in “the trenches” while the bosses sit back and do nothing. Note that none of the activity Nicky engages in outside of the casino—doing the work of “taking Las Vegas over”—is authorized by the bosses. Ultimately Nicky’s inability to exert control over his crew and the street lead to his demise.
In the end, capitalism, and all that happens in the confines of the casino, is nothing but “organized violence.” Sound familiar? The mob has a capitalist structure in its organization and hierarchy: muscle men collect and send money back to the bosses who do not labor tirelessly “in the trenches.” The labor of the collectors is exploited to create the profits of their bosses. The entire business-model of the Mafia is predicated on usury and debtors defaulting on loans for which the repayment is only guaranteed by the threat of violence. But this dynamic is not without its internal contradictions and tensions, as seen in Casino.
In a comedic turn, the skimmers get skimmed! The bosses begin to notice the thinning of the envelopes and lighter and lighter suitcases being brought from the casino to Kansas City, “back home”. The situation continues to spin out of control, but a mid-tier mafioso articulates the careful balance required for the skimming operation to carry on: to keep the skimming operation functioning, the skimmers need to be kept loyal and happy. It’s a price the bosses have to pay to maintain the operation, “leakage” in their terms. Ace’s efficient management and precision in maintaining order within Tangiers is crucial for the money to keep flowing. But Ace’s control over the casino slips more and more as the movie progresses. We see this as the direct result of Nicky’s ascendance as mob kingpin in Vegas, the chaos he creates cannot be contained and disrupts the profits and delicate dynamics that keep the scam running.
Of course I can’t help myself here! We should view Scorsese’s discography, and the many portrayals of capitalist excess not as celebratory fetishization, but a critique of the greed and violence he so masterfully captures on film. See the Wolf of Wall Street for its tale of money as the most dangerous drug of them all, and the alienation—social and political—showcased in Taxi Driver. Scorsese uses the mob as a foil to the casino to attack the supposed monopoly the casino holds on legitimate, legal economic activity that rests on institutionalized theft. When juxtaposed with the logic of organized crime, we begin to see that the two—Ace and Nick—are not so different after all.
The only dividing line between the casino and organized crime is the law. Vegas is a lawless town yes, “the Wild West” as Nicky puts it, but there are laws in Vegas. The corruption of the political establishment and ruling elites is demonstrated when they pressure Ace to re-hire an incompetent employee who he fired for his complicity in a cheating scam or his stupidity in letting the slot machines get rigged; nepotism breeds mediocrity. In the end, Ace’s fall is the result of the rent-seeking behavior that the Vegas ruling class wields to influence the gaming board to not even permit Ace a fair hearing for his gaming license, which would’ve given him the lawful authority to officially run Tangiers. The elites use the political apparatus of the State to resist the new gang in town, the warring faction of mob-affiliated casino capitalists. While the mob’s only weapon to employ is that of violence. The mafia is still subservient to the powers that be within the political and economic establishment of Vegas, and they’re told “this is not your town.”
I’d like to make the most salient claim of this entire review now. Casino is a western film. The frontier of the Wild West is Vegas in this case, where the disorder of the mob wreaks havoc on, an until then, an “untapped market.” The investment scheme that the Teamsters pension fund is exploited for as seed capital, is an attempt to remain in the confines of the law while extracting as much value as possible through illegal and corrupt means for the capitalist class of the mob (and the ultimately dispensable union president). Tangiers exists in the liminal space of condoned economic activity as a legal and otherwise standard casino. While the violence required to maintain the operation, corrupts the legal legitimacy it never fully enjoyed from the beginning. This mirrors the bounty economy of the West and the out-sourcing of the law and the execution of the law, to bounty hunters. There is no real authority out in the frontier, the killer outlaw on the run is not so different from the bounty hunter who enjoys his livelihood by hunting down the killers. Yet, he himself is not the State. The wide-lens frame of Ace and Nicky meeting in the desert felt like a direct homage to the iconic image of the Western standoff. The conflict between Ace and Nick, the enforcer and the mastermind, is an approximation of the conflicts we might see in John Wayne’s films. The casino venture itself could be seen as an analogy of the frontier-venturism of railroad pioneers going to lay track to develop the West into a more industrial region.
I would have believed that this was a documentary about how the mob took over control of the Vegas casinos in the 1970-80s … if it were not for the viewer being expected to believe that Robert De Niro could play a Jew; it's hard to believe a man with that accent and the roles he’s played his entire career could be a “CRAZY JEW FUCK!!” I kid! But alas, De Niro is a class act and the last of the many greats of a bygone era. At times, it felt like Joe Pesci lacked talent as an actor, but his portrayal of the scummy, backstabbing bastard in Nicky was genuinely remarkable, but I might consider his performance the weak point of the movie. It’s weird to see a man that short, be that much of physical menace. There are a number of Sopranos actors in Casino. I’m sure Vincent Chase watched the movie and said to himself, “bet, i’ll cast half of these guys.”The set design and costumes were gorgeous. The styles and fashion of the time were spectacular. Scorsese’s signature gratuitous violence featured prominently, but tastefully. The camera work, tracking shots through the casino and spatial movement was incredible and I thought the cinematography was outstanding, the Western-esque wide lens in the desert was worthy of being a framed still.
The Nicky//Ace dynamic is excellent and the two play off of each other well. The conflict between the two of them escalates gradually, and then Nicky’s betrayal of Ace by cheating with Ginger marks the final break between the two of them. Nicky’s mob faculties represent a brutal, violent theft that is illegal and requires the enforcement of violence by organized crime. Despite the illegal embezzlement and corruption at play with the “skimming” operation at work at the casino, the general business model of the casino stands in contrast to the obscene violence of the loan sharks. Ace operates an intelligent operation of theft through the casino, and his hands-on management approach is instrumental to the success of the casino. Nicky’s chaos pervades the casino, and the life and activities of “the street” begin to bleed into Ace’s ability to maintain order in the casino. “Connected” types begin frequenting the casino, and Ace unknowingly forces one particularly rude gambler to leave the casino, who happens to have mob ties with Nicky. The “organized violence” of the casino cannot stay intact perfectly, because the very thing holding it together is the presence of the mob. Nicky is in Vegas as the enforcer and tasked with protecting Ace but his independent, entrepreneurial (shall we call them?) aspirations lead him to attempt to overtake what he realizes is a frontier for organized crime to brutalize and exploit the characters of “the street” (pimps, players, addicts, dealers, and prostitutes) and the owners of small private businesses.
Nicky is reckless, “when i plant my flag out here you won’t need your [casino/gaming] license” Nicky thinks he, and Ace, can bypass the regulations and bureaucratic legal measures by sheer force of violence alone. But ultimately Nicky is shortsighted and doesn’t have a real attachment to the success of the casino. After all, he isn’t getting profits from it (or much anyway) and isn’t permitted to play a real, active role in its daily functions because of his belligerent, untamed personality. Nicky has no buy-in that would motivate him to follow the rules or to work within the legal parts of the economy, it’s not the game he knows how to play, and win. All that he is loyal to, or deferent too, is the bosses back home; for whom he maintains absolute, uncompromising loyalty to, but still holds intense spite for.
And now to the more compelling element of the narrative. Sam “Ace” Rothstein is positioned as remarkably intelligent, he makes informed decisions that aid in his skill as a gambler, he can read people to determine whether he’s being conned, he has an attention to detail—aided by the casino’s surveillance apparatus which monitors cheating—that is almost unbelievable. Ace knows when he’s being cheated, he knows how to rig the game so that the house always wins, enacting psychological warfare to break down the confidence of would be proficient gamblers, who could threaten Tangiers’ bottom line. But in the end, the greatest gamble Ace makes is his marriage to Ginger. Ginger is the seductive, charismatic, and flirtatious madame who makes her money with tricks and her sexual power. Ginger works as a prostitute, seducing men, and extracting everything she can, almost as a sort of sexual-financial vampirism.
Ginger is the bad bet Ace can’t stop making even when she destroys his life, her own, and puts their daughter Amy in harm’s way. Ginger is the gamble Ace made wrong, but he keeps going back to her every time, trying to rationalize how she might change and be different the next time. Ace is not a victim to Ginger’s antics. Ginger makes it clear who she is: an addict, alcoholic, manic shopaholic who will use all of her powers to extract everything she can from everyone around her. She uses everyone to her advantage and manipulates men with her sexual power in exchange for their money and protection. Ginger had a price for her hand in marriage: $1 million in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry that are left to her and her alone as a sort of emergency fund.
Ace’s numerous attempts to buy Ginger’s love—and the clear fact that no matter how expensive the fur coat and how grand the mansion, none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her—mirrored Jordan Belfort’s relationship with Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both relationships carried the same manic volatility and conflict over child custody was found in both films, with the roles reversed in the respective films. Ginger may be irredeemable and a pathological liar, but Ace can’t claim that she wasn’t clear with him; when he asked her to marry him, Ginger said she didn’t love Ace. Ace replied that love could be “developed” but required a foundation of trust to develop. That trust was never there to begin with. The love was doomed from the start to destroy the two of them; two addicts, two gamblers, lying on a daily basis to one another and themselves about reality to justify their respective existences, the marriage, and Ace’s livelihood. And as Ginger pointed out, “I should have never married him. He’s a gemini, a triple gemini … a snake” Maybe astrology has some truth to it after all.
Now I’m not licensed (but hey neither was Ace, and he ran a casino empire!), but Ginger has the inklings of a borderline personality: her manic depression, narcissism, drug and alcohol abuse, and constant begging for forgiveness all seem indications of a larger psychological disorder at play. In the end, Ginger runs away with all the money Ace left her and finds her people in Los Angeles, the pimps, whores, and addicts she fits in with, in turn exploit and kill her for 3 grand in mint coins by giving her a ‘hot’ dose.
Overall, Casino is an incredible cinematic experience. I highly recommend watching this and seeing it as part of Scorsese's anthology of commentary on our economic system and its human victims. I’d argue that Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman all fit together nicely into a trilogy of the Scorsesean history of finance and corruption from the 70s to the 90s.
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EDIT 2: TL;DR —
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.

Stories from 12 years of Casino Industry

I was asked to make a post about some stories within the Casino grounds so I thought I'd share. I have many so I'll do my best to pick the better ones.
Some back information: I've been a Casino Dealer for 11 years, I've been a supervisor for five years, and I've been a Surveillance Operator for one year. I've worked at three properties, none of which are connected or owned by the same company. I've worked on : Government/Private/Native American owned casinos.

From Hero to Zero.

At my first Casino, I was one of the first group of people who were trained to deal Roulette . After 4 weeks of working 6PM-3AM then doing roulette training from 3AM-8AM (Not paid) , I actually really enjoyed the game and after about six months I became extremely quick at the number game and the pace of the action was steady with very low margin of errors. Young man walks in, cashes in for $500. He buys in for $2 chips and just loads the board. After a few spins and pretty decent hits, he then changes his chips from $2 to 5$ then to $10 and racks his winnings up to $10,000. It was then, five spins in a row, he loaded the board with some pretty gross bets, and every spin I would hit the ONE number with either NO CHIPS on it, or maybe 1 chip , He lost all $10,000 in a matter of minutes. He leaves , and I go on break. After my break I was going back to the same table and wouldn't you know it, the same young man walks in and cashes in another $500. He tells me he just sold his car outside and this is all that he had left. So we do the same deal, buys in for $2 chips, then slowly starts betting $5 chips, $10, $25...and he makes $10,000 AGAIN. Within the next 25 minutes it was straight agony. Every spin, same thing, he would bet $2500 in chips, and win only $250, $400, and after about a half hour he lost it all . Never saw the guy again.
2) Man down
At this property, we are 24 hours for table games. It's currently 5AM , and I'm dealing some $25 Blackjack to this guy. He's probably early thirties , heavy guy. He's sober as can be, but right away I can tell he's been losing. We know how much you've bought in for, how much your down, or up, and I could see he was down $2000+. After about twenty minutes of pure losing, his temper starts to flare.At this point I now have two other guests at my table. Drinking coffee, not saying a word, just losing their money. After losing hand, after hand, this guy looks me straight in the eye, seized up, starts shaking, he can't move. He tries to punch towards me and smashes his stack of chips all over the place and falls backwards to the floor. I call for security, we cannot touch him due to liability . I can't move from my table because, well, liability / casino cash property, all I can do is try to talk to him. As I'm doing so, these other two woman who are sitting at my table just look at me and one says "OK, dealer, cmon lets go " as she taps the table telling me to start dealing and forget about the guy having a stroke on the floor. As security takes him to the ambulance out front, I had to stay behind for a couple minutes and give a statement. I go on break. I come back, and 45 minutes later, he comes right back in with a oxygen tank and keeps gambling for the remainder of the morning.
3) You get a dildo, and YOU get a dildo!
On a late summer Saturday night, we had a large event for these massive muscle guys/strongman competition type thing. After their show, I'm at the roulette table , and five of these boys come over to play. They were absolutely hilarious. They were feeling pretty good, cashed in somewhat large amounts and I could tell this was going to be a fun time. After about a hour of dealing to these guys, it's almost midnight, everybody is pretty hammered , I spin the ball, and all five of these guys take out these god damn (what I can only tell was) two feet purple dildos from inside their pants, and wiping them around in the air. The ladies were just loving it, one of the dildos landed in the roulette wheel and we had to shut the table down to re-calibrate the wheel to make sure nothing had been changed. I just remember that night was so much damn fun, I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I would never forget it.
4) Full Moon
On this day, I was actually training dealers / supervising them on small games like Three Card poker. We opened the table at 10AM, and this older man came and sat down . He played all day. The jackpot was $21,000 and that was pretty high for this table. He played, and played and played. He's one of the players where you know he's wearing a diaper because he's been drinking coffee/pop all day and hasn't moved in eight hours. As the day went on, this man never moved from his chair. Getting closer to midnight, he was aggravated and said "I need to go have a smoke, I'm getting killed in here". He left, and the very next hand, the lady beside him was dealt the jackpot . He didn't say much, but you could just tell he just hated life at that very moment because had he not gotten up, it would of been his hand. The man calmly took his cane , his hat, jacket, coffee, and left. The next morning I found out when he did leave he drove his car straight through his bank and was arrested.
5) Slick Robber
I actually give props to people who can actually pull this off. This story may confuse you so I'll try and explain things as best as possible. A lot of casinos have machines as soon as you walk through the front doors. A man walks up to one of these machines and sticks in HIS $100 bill. He doesn't gamble it, instead he hits the cash out button and gets a $100 TITO ticket where he then takes the ticket to the ATM machine to get his $100. Now remember, his Original $100 is in the slot machine. He then takes the $100 from the ATM and goes back to the same machine, and repeats this process over a hundred times. Essentially he's taking money from the ATM, and loading up the Slot Machine . Now he knows he can't do it too much because if the slot machine gets full of money, the machine will shut down and the slow attendant will have to take all the cash out. So he deposits over $10,000 , then has a small crowbar, he cracks the machine open and makes a run out the front door. To my knowledge he was never caught . But damn, that was pretty smart .
EDIT:
6) Mental Health is a thing.
10PM man walks in to play some high limit BlackJack. This guy knows the game and played well. Dressed nice, drank juice/tea , a little bit of a attitude, cashed in over $10,000. When this man was half way down his buy in, he said something a long the lines of "If I don't win here tonight, I'm going to go set myself on fire." I wasn't sure if he was serious because when people are down, they tend to say a lot of nonsense. I actually left early that night, and from a third party was told he did exactly that in the parking lot. The next day it was clear something terrible had gone wrong in the parking lot .
EDIT:
7) Nothing good happens after midnight
After a busy Saturday night, I was dealing a mix of games, and during this story I was in the middle of Blackjack. I had one young kid (probably 19) sitting in the middle, one older male probably in his later 40's sitting beside him on his right, and I had a really nice couple in their 20's sitting together at the other side. This young kid wasn't playing just sort of watching, and ever time the old man won he would give this young guy some of his winnings. The older man, was a wine drinker, and he had black between all of his teeth, I'll never forget. He's a little drunk but nothing terrible. As the night goes on, the older man goes and uses the washroom, at which point the couple asked the young guy "Oh was that your dad?" and the young guy says "Hah, no I wish!". The couple and I just looked at each other. This old guy, was in complete control over this kid. Absolutely disgusting. The night ends, and I find out the couple called a few of their friends, and they all waited outside by this old mans truck and beat the living hell out of him. 40 years old, sleeping with a 19 year old, completely brain washed . Very weird.
8) That one co-worker where you just wish they would quit.
One of our co-workers, nice guy but had a very big ego and we as employees just sorta left him alone. One day he had enough of the atmosphere and quit. Now usually when you quit, you cannot come back until you paperwork is finalized. How ever, HR was in that day, and he was given the paperwork the very next day. He came in, cashed in $1000, and made $50,000 in about a hour at the Baccarat table. My manager, was extremely annoyed, because now this guy is just mocking the casino and having the time of his life (Thanks for the big tip by the way :) ) and so he decides to call it quits. He wants to ban himself and he wants $50,000 in cash. The casino says Nope, we are going to give you a cheque. Now here's the thing, most business people will take the cheque, how ever you CANT CASH the cheque until the following monday because it's on that day where the funds are available. The casino on the other hand will cash their own check in anytime , because they want you to play. So this guy pretty much said go to hell I want my cash, and he called the police. Police show up, and management promptly gave him the cash.I though it was absolutely hilarious .

9) No good deed goes un punished
I was dealing Three Card Poker, and the jackpot was around $17,000. This old man (a regular) was sitting there all day grinding it out. Super nice guy, always a pleasure to deal to. Well, after hours of playing, he stands up and says "Hey john!, can you come here for a minute?" so his buddy John comes over. He says to John "I need to go take a piss real quick, can you play my card until I get back?" John agrees . John takes the chips and I stop him and explain he can't play his friends chips, he needs to cash in and play his own. And he does. Welp, second hand out and bam, doesn't he win it. The old man comes back and is so happy, he can't believe it. John, took his $17,000, didn't say a word to his "buddy" and walked away. I never felt so much hatred in all my life. Didn't give him a dollar, not a thank you, nothing. The old man sits back down again, the progressive resets to $2500, and he sat there grinding away again.
10) The Top Knot
I had this player , young guy, who was born into a fortune. One of his relatives passed away and left him a pretty big sizable amount of money, so he played poker every single day for the rest of his days. I will add, he IS a good player. I did not enjoy his company just because of the "Know-it-All" attitude, but he was good. We'll call him John. John is 5'10, and well build, with muscle. John also decided today was the day to show off his Top Knot. (google top knot if you're not sure what I mean) So he sits down, and he's absolutely KILLING the table. Every hand, after hand, after hand. And because he's in such a good mood, he's playing any two cards, calling any $500 bet, and he's just dominating. This one guy at the table decided he had enough. He got up, without saying a word and left. A moment later, he comes back in, walks behind John, and takes a pair of scissors , and cuts off his Top Knot. I for one couldn't believe it, dying laughing inside, and it just turned into one big brawl. That was a good day.
11) That one bad seed
One of my best friends who I haven't seen in YEARS ended up being part of the crew. Was kind of nice to catch up. We never really got along as we grew up because he has a very high picture of himself . He wanted that 10/10 woman. A mansion, and a new Corvette. So every month or so we would all go up to the other casino to play. I myself would bring no more than $500, but I couldn't understand how this guy (we'll call him Kyle) was spending THOUSANDS of dollars at the tables. So this wen on for a few months. Well, one day, as we're closing the casino, he and I are in the High Limit room and we're getting ready to close the tables. We are told to take the chips out, count them, put them back, sign this piece of paper and that's it. Well as the supervisor was locking the tray, the piece of paper fell to the floor, so she asked Kyle to grab the piece of paper. As he bends over, a great big $500 chip falls right out of his sock. Kyle was fired immediately , but it all made sense. They offered Kyle a deal where if he replaced all the stolen chips they would not make it public. Not sure how that turned out.
12) If I ever decide to write a book, this will be the last chapter: <3
After working at my first Casino for five years, I met a Indian woman who was visiting from another part of the country. During this time I was explaining a game to her, which honestly I don't think she even cared. She explained she was visiting and sight seeing , and that was that.Well, two years later I ended up moving to the other side of the country and transferred casinos, and low and behold she worked there as a Dealer. We got married , and it's been 5 years.
13) The Tip
One of our tables that we've had for a couple years had a progressive jackpot that had reached $100,000. The dealer at the table was sitting pretty lonely. Nobody really played the game because people knew it was extremely difficult to win the jackpot. My memory is a tad foggy, but you somehow needed to flop the royal flush. This young guy sits down and says to the dealer, we'll call him John. "John, if you pay me that jackpot, I will tip you $10,000" Well John started dealing, and about a half hour into his shift, he F*cking did it. He dealt him the royal. And you know something?This young lad, kept his word, and he made sure there was a audience, and he tipped exactly $10,000. That was a moment right there. That pay cheque was real nice. I think we all got about $500 more than usual. The moment that jackpot was awarded they got rid of the table because the money it was making was not near what the casino wanted. I'm sure there have been bigger tips at other casinos, but that was something special .
14) The Lawsuit
Now this story I'm going to have to beat around the bush a bit due to the nature of what happened. I can't won't answer any questions that you may have on this topic other than what I have to say because it had a lot of publicity . The waitresses at this casino had to wear very thin sexy clothes. Not borderline legal, but it was noticed. One day they called all the waitresses to come in and explained they were changing their outfit to something even more sexier. Now these new dresses were very very borderline legal . The staff said No way. We're not wearing that.So , friday night comes, and the staff work their whole shift, then at the end of their shift were called into a meeting and were all fired. Welp, one of those ladies father was a pretty big time lawyer. Brough the casino to court and won. They won big. Good for them. We had no waitresses for a couple days haha.
Thanks for reading along, I have many more I can add as the day goes on, those were just some off the top of my head. Feel free to ask any questions of the Casino industry. I don't really have many stories about the surveillance department because that's the one area where I can't really say a whole lot due to its privacy and contracts I was and still am under.

26 Capital Corp (ADERU) is a new at-NAV SPAC with world-leading online gambling expertise - worth a bet

EDIT - one week after i posted this, Britain's most successful hedge fund manager Michael Platt has taken a 6.5% stake
tl;dr
At-NAV new SPAC with world-leading expertise in online gambling. Worth a bet on potential to be next DKNG on the hype train

+++++++
Hi all - have had a lot of great tips from this sub. Hopefully this pays some of you back. I have been watching and researching this since 23 December when it first filed S1, awaiting the units to be listed - they are available today trading as ADERU
Positions - 500 units @ 10.42 to start. Will be monitoring and building position below $15, especially if attention starts to build ahead of units and warrants splitting and shares coming available to Robinhood.
(My other SPAC positions are OPEN, IPO-E-F, PSTH, FUSE, PIPP, ACTC, CCIV and DMYD, 100 to 1000 shares each mostly around NAV and numerous warrants and options around these.)
As ever, this is not investment advice and do your own research
+++++++

26 Capital Acquisition Corp or ADER
is a 240m SPAC with usual terms - 10$ units, 1/2 warrants. Seeking a merger in "gaming and gaming technology, branded consumer, lodging and entertainment, and Internet commerce sectors".
I think this is highly worth a play on the online gambling hype if you can get in at near NAV, based entirely on the management which is unbeatable in its knowledge of the gambling industry

CEO Jason Ader
has held director level positions at Las Vegas Sands Corp. ($42bn one of biggest casino groups in world), IGT (£3.72bn multinational gambling firm specialised in software and slot machines) and Playtech (£1.4bn multinational gambling software firm)
Before starting his own fund in 2013 he was regularly ranked Wall Street's top analyst on the gambling and leisure sector
His fund, Spring Owl Capital, is a small activist fund focused on gambling and leisure. They are probably most famous for ousting the CEO of Viacom in 2016 and a crusade against Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer in 2015.
Ader knows the gambling - and online gambling - industry inside out. He drove bWin to a £1.1bn takeover by gambling giant GVC (now Entain) in 2016, and has been driving similar change and demands for improvement at board level at Playtech
The fund mostly manages money for a select group of wealthy families, which could be a positive sign for the SPAC (although I don't know how much skin in the SPAC the fund has, if any)
Here is a video of Ader from November talking about how he's excited about SPACs. He talks about how he has been advising certain States about legalising sports betting and how to maximise value and liquidity by linking up with European companies in the space (Playtech e.g.??).
Ader is extremely bullish on US legalising online casino and more sports betting options, accelerated by need for revenue because of pandemic

Rafi Ashkenazi
One of the most highly respected names in the online gambling world, including COO and CEO positions at major online gambling firms such as Playtech and Stars Group (a world leader in online poker and casino). At Stars he led the $4.7bn takeover of Sky Betting to create the world's largest publicly listed online betting firm in 2018. Most recently he led the £10bn merger between Flutter (biggest gambling company in world by revenue, market cap £26bn), and Stars Group (Ader also involved). Also has connections into the booming Israel tech space which is interesting

Joseph Kaminkow
Special Advisor to the Chief Product Officer at Aristocrat, a leading gambling software provider and games publisher, previously Vice President of Game Design at Zynga Inc. This guy is a former video game / pinball designer who is credited with revolutionising the slots industry after moving into gambling software from video games in 1999. Regarded as a "legend" and "hall of famer" in this niche. At Zynga he designed so-called 'social casino games' which don't involve real-money gambling but are otherwise basically gambling apps (revenue from microtransactions etc). 130 patents on gambling/gaming design inventions

Greg Lyss
This is a very interesting but extremely low profile person. He was Bill Ackman a.k.a SPACman's right hand man at Gotham Capital. Ackman respected him so much that when Ackman set up a personal hedge fund to invest the Ackman family's money, he put Lyss in charge of it. To repeat - Bill Ackman thinks this guy is such a good investor and trustworthy that he put him in charge of investing his family's money. Don't know anything more about him, but I like this association with Ackman, which suggests to me some integrity around management of this SPAC, especially as the gambling world can be very murky.
The other member of the team is the CFO of SpringOwl with 20+ years' hedge fund experience and not notable (although clearly competent)

Thesis / potential targets
Based on the above experience and many public comments by Ader over the past year, I would be very surprised if ADER is not looking to merge with an online gambling technology provider / existing online betting website / social casino app / possibly a supporting technology provider
They are activist inventors, and specifically say in the IPO prospectus that they could look for businesses that can benefit from turnaround or are not being run well. I speculate that their deep knowledge of the European / global online gambling industry means they have a target in mind that they think would benefit from their expertise and US liberalisation of gambling legislation.

1) Ader believes the listing of UK-listed gambling companies in US is immediately big in terms of market cap because of the premium on online gambling stocks in US. He has pitched DraftKings to takeover Playtech and called on Playtech to spin off non-core business. This makes me wonder if he would spin off some element of Playtech to list in US to cash in on gambling hype.
This might be Finalto.com / TradeTech which is an online financial platform owned by Playtech. Playtech has been trying to sell this for 200 - 240m since August so it fits. This company provides liquidity and trading to brokerages and runs markets.com a trading site. I wouldn't be that excited although apparently the business has been booming during COVID and there could be a decent pop just on fintech hype.

2) This could be a 'picks and shovel' type data/B2B betting software play a la DMYD, or something like e.g. Israel based CRM software Optimove which works with some of biggest online gambling cos and has links to Ashkenazi. This would be interesting but probably not a huge pop

3) Possibly - given Ader's links to Sands - an online gambling tie-up with one of the big Vegas casinos who are desperate to get into the online betting space (see MGM's attempt to buy Entain for $8bn last week). Interestingly, Sands' owner Sheldon Adelson, previously a major opponent of online betting, has just died. Ader predicted a few months ago that Sands would be moving in this direction.

“There’s no stopping online gaming,” Ader said [before Adelson's death]. “(Las Vegas Sands’) initiatives to stop online gaming, at this stage, are largely historic. There hasn’t been a lot of spending recently to do that, especially post-pandemic.”
“I think the company will see the value created by DraftKings and FanDuel and Penn (National) Gaming and others. They’re not foolish,” Ader added. source

4) Ader is very confident that Macau will legalise online gambling in next year or two. Sands is big in Macau, the biggest gambling market in the world. A SaaS-type product positioned to capitalise on Asian gambling would be MASSIVE - at present however, China's attitude to gambling and local regulations mean this is unlikely

5) I also wonder if they might try to take legitimate one of the offshore bookmakers with big customer databases and brand recognition but which have been grey-area/illegal under US gaming legislation. For example, Five Dimes recently announced a settlement with the FBI to attempt to transition into newly legalised US markets. This might have the most hype potential

Potential upside
This is entirely a play on management experience and the meme factor / hype around online gambling in the US. I think if they pick a good target - which given their experience and connections seems likely - and get the right publicity and attention from retail investors looking for the next DKNG this could easily 3x and maybe 5-6x if on DKNG-type hype levels.
There is currently little spotlight on this and it is a good time to get in at NAV

Potential Downside

Ader has been vocal that he thinks US online betting is overvalued and in a bubble - why is he starting his own SPAC in the space then? Does he just want to cash in while the hype is at all-time high or does he have a legitimate business goal?
If he just wants to dump a part of Playtech which he does not like onto retail investors, this is a bad deal.
Other targets could be e.g. hotel industry or other leisure sector which would be zero sexiness to retail. Given Ashkenazi and Kaminkow's background this seems unlikely though
Usual SPAC caveats apply about potential difficulty finding a target, locking up your money for unspecified period of time, and the fact I may have completely misread the potential and my above thesis might be totally wrong

Why I chose DOGE...

Wall of text warning... I posted the other day and have had many good discussions about how Doge works in the real world. I thought it would be interesting to talk to other small business owners that are or are considering implementing doge into their small businesses. Seriously though don't base any business decisions on something some dude from the internet said. Only you know whats best and feasible for your own businesses. I am not here to offer financial advise only to show some insight into how it was put into place in my business and my decision making process.

I have been involved in cryptos for about 3 years. I was serving and my manager at the time was pushing me hard about buying some TRX. So I did some research and hit a NANO/XRP/XLM pop and I was off to the races. I lost and gained and mostly lost but I was viewing the market as a slot machine. Bet on X and hope it hits. Bet on Y and hope it hits. Depending on your bets and what hits it can lull you into thinking you are a genius/idiot. I finally realized its not about quick money but is a long term investment and changed my strategy accordingly. After that I saw some modest gains. I also stopped trying to catch falling knives which helped alot. I had to cash out to help get me to where I am but I'm good with the trade off. I say all that to let you know that you need to, at the very least, know how to navigate the crypto marketplace. Just as in every decision you make for your business you need to have a basic knowledge of anything you are integrating into your business. That is the only reason I was able to throw it together so quickly.
Full disclosure I do have a small holding in Doge that has returned a nice profit and I personally would love to see it hit the moon. However I try to set aside those biases when making business related decisions.
I own a small business. I employ 7 people. I make food and as of last week I accept Dogecoin as payment for my goods. I know that Doge is a very controversial topic right now. Depending on who you are talking to it could be the best or worst thing in the world. Those things are fun to talk about but don't provide any help when making choices that have real world ramifications in regards to my income. That is why I wanted to talk about this. As a business owner it is hard to find information about doge that isn't memes or people bashing it. Below is my reasoning and I hope we can have a conversation about the pros and cons of doge in real world applications. I will never be too old to learn and I know many of you have much more knowledge about this topic than I do and I would love to hear it.

The biggest reasoning behind doing this is cost of entry. It literally cost me nothing. (Before you start yelling about capital gains wait till the end and I will address that.) I didn't have to buy any equipment to accept it. I don't have processing fees aside from transfer costs which compared to credit card fees are a non factor. And I have no large companies I have to setup accounts with or sign long term contracts. I was able to throw together a way to accept payment with a basic knowledge of the crypto market. That's it. If I never do a single transaction in doge I will be out zero dollars just to offer it.
Risk. I know it is risky to accept doge as a payment method but being in the food service industry is much riskier than that. For real, anyone that understands the margins in this industry knows its teetering on a cliff at all times. That being said there is inherent risk in everything and every situation needs to be judged on its own merits. In my situation the risk is very minimal. Even if doge drops to pre-pump levels I could at least recoup my food costs. Regardless of the USD price of doge that will not change the USD amount I will receive in doge per transaction. If today a pizza cost 200 doge and tomorrow it cost 500 then at the time of purchase I am receiving the same USD equivalent at the time of purchase. Which I can then take (weekly, daily, or even every transaction) and after a couple clicks I have those funds in a more stable currency like USD or even Tether. I know capital gains and all of the taxes involved could eat into profits. Yes that is true but even in the most aggressive models I imagine I will do sub 1% gross sales in doge in the near future. At this point I'm willing to accept the loss of profit but that may need to be reevaluated in the future.
It is so much more accessible than bitcoin. Coming from someone that deals with a demographic that is very under educated in regards to crypto, bitcoin can be intimidating. It's scary for beginners to jump into something that they will probably never amass one of. When talking about small retail purchases bitcoin is simply too out of scale. If real world implementation is what crypto is going for IN MY OPINION any coin valued over $500 will make most of the general public very hesitant to use in their everyday life. If I accepted Bitcoin a pizza would cost around 0.00047btc. Anyone that is not knowledgeable about crypto looks at that very strangely. We are not accustomed to seeing anything greater than a hundredth of a decimal in regards to currency. The market cap being what it is for doge is a positive in my opinion. Would it be great if it went to $40000 per doge? Absolutely but it's counter productive to smaller retail purchases. It benefits smaller sized establishments for doge to be in levels we work in. Doge is the training wheels that will get people to a point of keeping non-investment funds in a crypto for day to day spending use. Which brings me to my final point.
It makes me smile. I am almost 32. I grew up with the internet as it grew up. I've watched as the internet meta went from one thing to another and eventually became integrated into the everyday lives of people young and old. I struggle with the constant pressures of everyday responsibility and general crap that comes with being an adult. I miss the days of not having to worry about bills and the future. When I had everything setup to accept doge it made me laugh like I was a kid again. It actually made me giggle. Like a uncontrollable giggle. It took me back to the days of calling a restaurant and asking for Semore Butts. It is in essence the most childish thing I can do in my professional life and I love it. Doge, to me, isn't about being over or under valued. It's about the meme. It's about bringing a little joy, not only back into my life, but into my professional life at that.

That is why I did it. It has been a long pandemic for every small business. I have struggled with mental and physical health from the constant worry. The day in day out monotony of will I be able to pay my bills. That is why I believe in doge. It is a way for everyone to collectively laugh together at the pure outrageousness that was 2020. Look around at everything that is happening. We live in a time that has a pandemic killing thousands daily, riots and civil unrest at every turn, and a world that is seemingly on fire everywhere we look. Who's to say I can't accept a meme right next to cash or credit? No offense to all of the technical analysis and DD everyone does but I think we can sometimes get too focused on the hard numbers and forget to include the human element of it. Doge is a way for everyone to connect and has a very easy barrier of entry to overcome. It doesn't have a specific industry or field application behind it. It's about Doing Only Good Everyday.
If you have made it this far I would love to hear your feedback and to have a discussion about crypto and real world application in general.
This is simply me telling you how I implemented Dogecoin into my current business with zero disruption and zero negatives. I'm not betting the house on doge. I'm not altering my business model or strategy. I'm not trying to become a billionaire. I'm just trying to have a little fun in a world that is not very fun right now.

And because I'm really excited about it. I already made my first sale with DOGE. u/NoGuts007 has donated 20 pizzas for my local healthcare workers. I'll be delivering them tomorrow. If nothing else comes from this at least I was able to do some good in this world as the result.

Thoughts on Top WRs and RBs In The Draft... and Potential Offensive Team Build

Background... I have a 4 screen connected setup at my home office. The cool part about that is it allows me to put players highlight videos on each screen so that I can watch them back-to-back-to-back without having any down time. I used this method, because I was truly curious, to see if there were any glaring differences that stood out between the top 3 WRs (Chase, Waddle and Smith) and the top 2 RBs (Harris and Travis Etienne).
Here are my thoughts:
Wide Receivers:

Chase has the best physicality on film. He runs clean routes and has a pretty large catch radius. He is, however, slower than the other 2. He also has just one year of production on film (which scares me)... "I know this already!! What's your point?".. I'm getting there...
Smith is a speedy, lengthy and rangy WR that is not only fast but runs amazing routes (can run all of the route tree). He needs to put on some weight because I am worried about his durability... "We have been saying it for months already!! Get to your point".. Please hold... almost there...
Waddle is the fastest of the 3 (yes...I know... obvious), is a great slot type in the NFL and has very secure hands. He also adds a lot to the ST play as a returner. He is a true punch you in the mouth in the intermediate routes and off of the line of scrimmage. He is, however, coming off a season ending injury and that's something to note.

My Take:

After watching their highlights, one after another, the most glaring thing that stood out to me was Smiths route running. Waddle is Olympian sprinter fast, can catch the rock and is the best in the country at winning at the line of scrimmage; The ultimate RAC player (easy and lazy comp is Hill). Chase is that "all around" type WR who has some RAC ability and wins at the top of the route (think a faster DVP who can stay healthy). Smith on the other hand is a combo of both with the best route running I've seen in years. He is great off of the line of scrimmage and is second only to Chase at the top of the route.
My choice, while trying to anticipate what we will do in the off season, is to take Waddle (with Smith as the second option). It was a very close choice as I LOVE Smith's tape. Assuming that we grab a FA WR (hopefully without making the same mistake as we did with Mike Wallace and paying them a fuck ton of cash), Waddle could slide into the slot and feast on the horizontal passing attack that we currently employ in Chan's Offensive system. Waddle is the type of receiver that we currently do not have on the roster. DVP and Williams (when healthy...sigh) are WRs that do not inspire much off of the line of scrimmage BUT win a fuck ton of 50/50 balls at the top of the route (see WR Chase). They run decent routes and are kind of a the "do-it-all-ok-but-not-great" WRs that you need on a team to help round out a WR room (see Smith; but Smith is a better route runner than either of them). Waddle is the type of player that will punch you in the mouth off of the line of scrimmage and is great on low and intermediate route across the middle (something Tue does well at recognizing and throwing accurately). We currently do not have a WR on the entire roster that can win at the bottom of the route and off of the LOS. Grant sucks so he doesn't count. Waddle will also allow us to finally get rid of Grant (or push him ALL THE WAY DOWN our roster) as he would presumably be our starting return man. This pick (Waddle) becomes even better if we can trade down from 3 and acquire more draft assets, before picking him, given there will be a QB hungry team looking to grab one of the top 3... I'm looking at you Carolina or Denver!

Running Backs:

Etienne is a stud through and through. He has sprinter like speed in the open field and seeks out contact to gain those much needed extra yards. He is shifty our of the backfield and is elusive when running through a hole while a LBer is charging at him. He is not the best receiver out of the backfield but with coaching and a ton of time on the JUGs machine, he could quickly improve (which he did this season; He was really great catching screens).
Harris was admittedly my player crush for our team. I must have done 50 mock drafts this season (for fun) and somehow managed to grab him 98% of the time. He is a bigger back (6'2") than Etienne is (5'10") and is thicker in the legs. He is also a better receiver. He is, however, not in the same speed class as Etienne. It must be noted that he is the best hurdler of anyone that I've seen! lol

My Take:

Player crush aside, having watched both highlight reels back-to-back, Etienne is clearly the better back... and it pains me to say... its not even close. Watching his tape, he is fast and shifty as hell yet makes contact and runs through (and most of the time past) people. He reminds me a lot of Alvin Kamara with a bit more pop upon contact.
My choice is obvious... I'm taking Etienne with the second 1st round pick (#18) and not thinking twice. Our team is in desperate need of RB help and shelling out a 4 year $45-$50 mill contract to Aaron Jones is pissing through money that we can and should spend on upgrading our OL, DL and adding a LBer.

Overview and Final Thoughts:
At the end of the day, if this season showed us anything, it's that we badly need help at both skill positions. ANY of the 5 players discussed would be a welcomed addition to a team that struggled all year at the skill positions. I'm well aware that I'm splitting hairs on their "pros and cons" but that's what happens when you have a bunch of talented players at positions of need.
My choice would be to draft young skill players (Waddle and Etienne; Smith and Harris as a second option), with both picks in round 1, so that they can grow with Tua, are cheap, and help give us some much need production from our skill players. Imagine Tua throwing to/ handing off to a line up of:

Godwin (as our #1/#2; feel free to insert Robinson or Juju or Jones or pick a FA)
Waddle (as our slot)
Parker (as our #2/#1)
Preston (in 5-Wide sets)
Gesicki (#1 TE)
Etienne (#1 RB)
Gaskin & Ahmed ("Change of pace"-ish)

yup... WAY FUCKING BETTER than what we played with this season!!!
I would also try to capitalize on Houston's 3rd overall gift (thanks Billy Boy), by trading down, to set us up with future draft capitol to keep the train rolling and to keep the salaries low. I know that a lot of fans want us to take Sewell (or another QB *FACEPALM*) but I just don't get it. One great OLmen is not better than multiple great/good players at other positions of need (via trad down). Not to mention, we drafted 3 OLmen last draft and they ALL STARTED (with no real offseason or training program). Give the current rookie OLmen a true offseason and real time with our S&C coaches and they will be MUCH better (which is great considering they all started and played pretty damn well).... We should also try and nab some veteran OL help.
As much as I am opposed to it, I think that we will spend on a FA WRer... but like I said above, I hope that we play it financially smart and learn from our "Mike Wallace" mistake when giving out a contract to one of the top FA WRs.
We also should look into getting rid of Chan and getting a new OC. I don't hate what he did with what he had but some fresh ideas would also help move us into the upper echelon of NFL teams.
OK... that's a lot... thoughts?
(Yes.. I am looking at all of you that want us to take a OT and a LBer with our two 1st round picks... I am ready for you to bash me for this! lmao)

Money Diary: I am 25 years old, make $125,000 a year, live in NYC, and work as a Management Consultant

This is a follow-up to a diary that I posted a little under a year ago. Since then, I’ve started a new job and moved into a new apartment! I began this position fairly recently (back in October) and I am still in the process of figuring out my new budget and how much I would like to save on a monthly basis. Link to old diary here!
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: I have ~$17,000 in a 401k from my previous job. I had to rollover money from my old plan to my new one this week, so I’m glad I got that done with! I’m not eligible to contribute to my new job’s plan until 90 days in, which will be in January. After that, I think I will likely contribute 8-10% per paycheck, still deciding!
Equity: Haha, I wish. Unfortunately, no :( it is a goal of mine to buy in the next few years though!
Savings account balance: ~$11,880 in my account as of today - I typically don’t keep much in my savings account, about 3-4 months worth of rent + expenses as an emergency fund. Once the number goes above $10,000 or so, I’ll move money to my investment accounts (this happens every 3-4 months; although this time, I waited a bit longer because I didn’t want to put too much in around election time). I’ll probably transfer a few thousand into my investment accounts at the end of this year.
Checking account balance: ~$3,290 in my account as of today - I only keep my paychecks in here and typically don’t withdraw any money unless I need cash, which is rare. At the end of each month, I’ll transfer any money I have leftover to savings so I can start each month with a clean slate.
Credit card debt: None, I consistently use 1-2 credit cards and everything is always paid off in full at the end of every month. Since I was a teenager, my mom has taught me never to spend more than I can afford and always pay off the statement balance of my credit cards.
Student loan debt: None, and I’m so thankful. Not going to college was not an option in my family and my parents were very determined to put me through college successfully without any debt at the end. I helped out by getting multiple scholarships that covered about 40% of all my expenses but it was still a lot of money. My parents had to work very hard throughout their lives to do this, after coming to America with nothing, but I’m so happy that they did.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve held multiple jobs throughout my life and I’ve always been extremely work-oriented, I get pretty bored and restless when I’m not busy so I made sure to use any extra time I had in high school productively!
2010-2013: I worked as a tutor for little kids a few days after school, taught them math/reading and helped my boss with random admin work. Also had a brief stint at a music store for a few months during the summefall of my junior year just to get some extra money.
2013-2017: Had multiple jobs throughout college, all were pretty chill and paid minimum wage. I had work-study positions in my school’s psychology department planning events and was an office assistant in various dorms on campus helping with packages, mail, administrative work, etc.
2017-2020: I was very lucky to receive a job offer in spring of my senior year as a software consultant. I loved this position and my salary rose ~$11,000 through the 3.5 years I was there, from $64,000-$75,000. I received a 10% performance raise in April 2020, but never actually received it as all salary changes were postponed until Jan 2021 due to COVID-19.
2020-present: Switched jobs last month (Oct 2020) and made the jump to management consulting. I won’t say too much about my job since it’s a small company but I appreciate the change in industry and that I’m gaining more project management skills that can be used in the future. They offered me $125,000 as a starting salary and, after three days of debating whether it was too risky to jump ship during a pandemic, I decided to take it. I have heard that our bonuses are $10,000-$20,000 per year but, since I’m not 100% sure on the amount, I’m not including it. I typically put all of my bonus money into investment/savings accounts and don’t touch it.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $6580.00 after taxes, health insurance, etc. Once I’m eligible for 401k contributions in Jan, this amount will go down significantly.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: No consistent side gig; I sell clothes on Poshmark here and there, but only when I need to.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: $1,500.00 a month for my room in an apartment with three other girls; my room is the smallest and hopefully, I can move into a bigger room in the place once my lease is up!
Retirement Contribution: $500 a month to my Roth IRA, I always contribute the max of $6000 every year, I currently have about $23,000 in here as of now
Savings Contribution: Stated above, move all money leftover at the end of the month to savings.
Investment Contribution: Stated above, all extra money (that isn’t meant for my emergency fund) to my investment accounts. I don’t really see a point in keeping a ton of money in my savings account. I currently have about ~$55,000 in my investment and Roth IRA accounts combined.
Debt Payments: Currently none.
Donations: No monthly set donations, although I do send money to different organizations frequently when I see causes that I would like to support.
ConEd: $17-$25 per month, I Venmo my roommate for this and she pays for us
Wifi/Cable: $45 per month; again, I Venmo my roommate for this and she pays the actual bill
Cellphone: I’m still on my parents’ plan but my company reimburses us about $35 every month, which covers my share of the charges.
Subscriptions:
Netflix: $0 - my parents cover this, they pay for some services and my sister and I pay for others. It all evens out in the end!
Hulu: $12.39 - my parents and sister all have access to this
Spotify: $0 - my sister pays for our family plan
HBOMax: I pay for this, my roommates and I all share a login - the cost is covered in our cable bill
FabFitFun: $200 per year, this is definitely my guilty pleasure - I definitely don’t need it, but it’s so fun to get this box every few months
Gym Membership: None at the moment, since I’m pretty iffy about working out with so many other people around mid-pandemic and it doesn’t look like the situation in NYC is going to improve anytime soon. Thinking about getting an Equinox membership though since there’s one pretty close to me - NYC people without a corporate discount to Equinox, is it worth it?
Section 4: Money Attitudes
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If so, how did you pay for it?: Yes, I think there was always the expectation that I would attend college, my parents both immigrated to the U.S. in their early 20s and told me that they would support me in any kind of career I chose, but that I had to go to college prior to doing so. My mom and dad made sure I was very involved in the process and we used to talk about all my college expenses together as a family. They also had to pay for my sister’s education too so I understand that it was a huge burden but they never complained about it. My parents are also very supportive of me getting my MBA, but I don’t think they would have the means to financially back me for this, since they’re getting close to retirement age and need to build as large of a financial cushion as possible.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have around money? Did your parents educate you on finances?: My parents have become more and more transparent about money as my sister and I have grown older. Both my parents are very frugal and taught me important lessons about debt and financial risk when I was growing up. My mom, since she handles most of the finances, was very truthful about how much we had and what we could/couldn’t afford.
What was your first job and why did you get it?: I got my first real job when I was 15, working as a tutor. I didn’t need the money because my parents supported me with anything I needed, but it was helpful to have some savings when I got to college. My parents didn’t pressure me to get one but I figured that it would also look good on college applications.
Did you worry about money growing up?: My parents didn’t really let me worry about money growing up, but I’ve always been more of a saver, rather than a spender. My parents have definitely told me that we couldn’t afford things at times, but if anything really needed to be bought, they found a way. They are now very truthful, since they’re getting older, about what their financial situation is and how much money they have set aside for retirement.
Do you worry about money now?: Constantly, I don’t know if there will ever be a point at which I won’t worry; you always need money for something. I do think that my parents have prepared me to be practical about money instead of wasting it on silly things.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?: I would say that I became financially responsible for myself once I graduated college, since I started paying my own rent and expenses at that point (minus my cellphone bill). I have a comfortable safety net of savings at the moment, but if I ever really found myself in a bind and couldn’t afford to get by, I would likely turn to my sister for help.
Section Five: Money Diary!
Friday 11/13:
8:00 am - Wake up! It’s finally Friday and I’m so thankful. This week has felt incredibly long for some reason. I have a bit of a later start to my meetings today so I want to get in a workout before. Brush my teeth, change into some work out clothes, and get going on a Sydney Cummings arm/upper body workout video.
8:45 am - Done! I recently discovered her videos from an Instagram influencer I follow; I can actually keep up with them without dying on the floor in pain!
10:00 am - Calls begin and basically do not stop the entire morning. I get a few administrative tasks done here and there but ultimately am not super productive.
1:30 pm - Towards the end of my last call of the day (finally!), I make a quick egg scramble with veggies, lots of hot sauce and some avocado and toast on the side. Pair that with some OJ and get back to work!
4:30 pm - My sister and I text throughout the afternoon about things we want to do while she’s in NYC during Christmastime! I’m so excited to see her; look up times for The Greens in Chelsea but of course, they’re all sold out. Bookmark it on my computer to keep checking for the next few weeks.
6:15 pm - Log off for the week after sending in my timesheet, it’s the weekend!!! I hang out with my roommate before she goes to work and she convinces me to order Thai food for dinner (mainly because I’ve been bringing it up every day). Order Pad Kee Mao from UpThai (best Thai food on the UES) and watch The Parent Trap to distract myself while I wait, classic. - $19.16
7:45 pm - Spend the rest of the night flipping between random movies on TV and talking to Verizon since our Wi-Fi randomly shuts off. I finally fix it and am exhausted by the end of the night.
12:30 am - Fall asleep while watching an episode of The Crown - can’t believe I haven’t watched this show until now, love Queen E!
Daily Total: $19.16
Saturday 11/14:
8:30 am - Wake up and stay in bed for a bit scrolling through texts/TikTok/Instagram. Try not to do this on weekdays but it’s inevitable on weekends.
9:45 am - Make coffee, put clean dishes away, and chill on the couch. Eat a Kind bar and some Cheerios while watching a bit more of The Crown.
12:30 pm - I’ve spent too much time on the couch at this point, oops. Put my workout clothes on and head to the East Side Running Path, it’s such a nice day for a run!
1:45 pm - 4.5 miles done! I head home and pick up some veggies from the fruit stand on my way: tomatoes, green pepper, mini cucumbers, and an avocado. The stuff here is so much cheaper than grocery stores. - $8.00
2:00 pm - Heat up some of the leftover Thai food from last night and spend the afternoon hanging out on the couch with my roommate.
5:30 pm - Going out to dinner with a few friends tonight so I take a shower and put on some makeup. I honestly forget how to put on makeup sometimes because I do it so rarely, anyone else?
7:00 pm - Head down to Little Italy on the subway (using money already on my MetroCard) and meet my friends, S and K, at Aunt Jake’s! This place has the most AMAZING pasta. I get the rigatoni with spicy arrabiatta sauce and we split a bottle of red wine between the three of us. Sit outside in the cold and eat with my huge coat on but it’s better than being inside the restaurant with way too many people. Plus, the wine helps a lot. - $46.30
9:45 pm - We part ways and I subway back up to the UES, the Q makes it so quick. Spend the rest of the night on the couch watching Schitt’s Creek with my roommate.
Daily Total: $54.30
Sunday 11/15:
9:00 am - Wake up and the scrolling happens again, albeit for a shorter time than yesterday. It’s the little wins! I quickly go to the grocery store across the street to grab milk because I can’t have my coffee black, no matter how hard I try. - $2.39
10:30 am - Spend the rest of the morning talking to my mom and then my best friend, L. L and I have been fighting a bit lately so it feels good to get things cleared up. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders once we’re done!
12:30 pm - Heat up the pasta from last night (with some sautéed veggies added in) and watch a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory. I’m the queen of leftovers.
3:30 pm - Scour the internet for a place to buy paper towels and finally end up scoring some at Staples. Looks like COVID Round #2 is coming in hot. Wear your masks, please! - $21.55
5:00 pm - Between freaking out over COVID infection rates and episodes of Schitt’s Creek on in the background, I raid my fridge and realize I’m out of a few things. Wish I had known this before I went to the grocery store this morning, damn. This doesn’t really help in limiting my exposure....
5:45 pm - Run to Staples to pick up my order of paper towels and then head to the grocery store to get romaine, waffles, onions, and olives. Also see some apple cinnamon donuts while I’m in line and can’t resist.... - $16.40
7:00 pm - Veggie sandwich and tomato soup for dinner while watching The Crown. Clean up the kitchen after I eat and FaceTime my parents for a bit. Spend a majority of the call trying to convince them to get a new laundry machine since theirs keeps breaking. Maybe my sister and I will surprise them for Christmas...
10:00 pm - Walk around my apartment to get my steps in for the day and take a quick shower. Watch a bit more of The Crown while ordering a gift for my old boss. She’s the best and I felt so much guilt leaving my last job mainly because I loved working with her. Ship her a gift basket full of wine (obviously), cheese, cookies, crackers, almonds, and other good stuff. Write her a quick thank you note (110 characters is not enough) and send it off! - $91.00
12:30 am - I call my brother-in-law to wish him a happy birthday and fall asleep immediately after; work is going to be rough tomorrow.
Daily Total: $131.34
Monday 11/16:
8:15 am - Snooze multiple times and finally manage to get out of bed. I have a heated mattress pad inside my bed so it’s especially hard to get up on mornings when it’s 35 degrees outside. I stretch, brush my teeth, and change into work clothes (lol leggings and a tank) before dialing into my first call of the day.
10:45 am - Quick break time! I heat up my coffee while I make a waffle with peanut butter and maple syrup on top. Banana on the side. Back to Excel!
12:20 pm - Morning calls are almost at an end so I head to the kitchen to make lunch. Put some quinoa to cook on the stove (ever since I learned how to correctly make quinoa, I’ve become obsessed and put it in everything) and quickly assemble a harvest bowl a la Sweetgreen. Add in spinach, apples, quinoa, sweet potato, broccoli and carrots. Topped with a pesto vinaigrette, it’s probably a weird combination, but I like it and it fills me up.
3:30 pm - I recently started a new job about a month ago and am finally getting around to rolling over my 401k into my new plan. I requested a check from the old company last week and spend some time going through the rollover process. It’s relatively easy, thankfully, and all I need to do now is get HR to sign a form!
4:45 pm - Tortilla chip snack break because I always get hungry around this time.
6:15 pm - Work is finally over and I’m about to start a workout when my roommate complains that she hasn’t done one in a while. I convince her to do a Sydney Cummings boxing workout with me and we’re both dripping with sweat by the end. Our downstairs neighbors probably hate us though since there was a lot of jumping, whoops!
7:20 pm - Heat up the last portion of TJ’s Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup and eat while watching an episode of The Crown. I wonder how much of this stuff is true and Google random things about Prince Philip while I watch.
10:45 pm - After talking with my mom and sister for almost an hour, I run the dishwasher and finally take a shower. It feels so good to get into bed!
12:00 am - Scroll through random TikTok videos and send a few funny ones to my sister. Pass out while watching old episodes of The Big Bang Theory.
Daily Total: $0.00
Tuesday 11/17:
8:20 am - I wake up too late and scramble around quickly to get ready before my 8:30 call begins. Manage to brush my teeth and make coffee, still in PJs though. Luckily, it’s a conference call with our team in Spain so I don’t have to turn my video on and can sip my coffee while listening.
9:10 am - I have some time before my next call at 9:30 so I change into leggings and a tank, throw a sweatshirt on, and fix my bed. I hate late start days but the time I get to spend under my covers almost seems worth it every time.
10:30 am - Same breakfast as yesterday: waffle with peanut butter and maple syrup with a banana on the side. Can you tell I’m a creature of habit?
12:30 pm - I’m STARVING. I quickly make a small plate of nachos because I have calls until 2:00 and can’t eat until after.
2:00 pm - Yes, calls are over! I swear, half of these could be summed up into an email. Make a harvest bowl like yesterday with broccoli, apples, sweet potato, etc. Make a quick honey mustard vinaigrette with my almost empty mustard bottle - I love hacks like these!
4:15 pm - My paycheck dates have changed so I call to ask Chase if they can modify my credit card statement closing date to be right before I get my first paycheck so I can start each month fresh after rent gets paid. Also get the rollover form back from HR and upload my check to my new 401k!
6:00 pm - Go downstairs to the CVS on my block to get a quick flu shot. I’m in and out within 15 minutes, thankfully!
6:45 pm - Hang out with my roommate before she goes to work and spend the rest of the night watching The Bachelorette and talking to my parents. My sister and I are trying to visit our cousin in California for NYE and we’re not sure if it’s going to be okay getting on an airplane in a month. I tell my mom to book the tickets now, since they’re relatively cheap, and we can always cancel and get our miles back since refund policies are lenient at the moment. Walk around my apartment while talking on the phone to get some steps in. At some point, I make a sandwich with broccoli cheddar soup from TJ’s on the side.
10:30 pm - I spend some time just laying on my couch, my back and shoulders completely kill from boxing yesterday.
11:20 pm - Shower, hot cocoa, a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, bed.
Daily Total: $0.00
Wednesday 11/18:
7:30 am - Wake up earlier than I want ta so I can get in line early at CityMD to get a COVID test. Quickly brush my teeth and slip on leggings and sneakers and run across the street. The line is already around the block to the next street...great.
8:30 am - Contemplate leaving as I dial into a Zoom meeting, decide wait it out some more.
9:00 am - Okay...pretty sure I have pneumonia by now. IT’S FREEZING and we’ve only moved by half a block. I did not prepare enough for this. Complain/vent to my mom a little on the phone and decide to cut my losses before I freeze to death. Run back home, immediately change into comfy sweats, and spend over an hour trying to get warm again while in meetings.
12:30 pm - Text with my sister while I’m in a meeting about the testing situation in NYC. She wants me to get tested before I go home for Thanksgiving so we don’t have to worry about our grandparents. I search around for other testing sites in the city while I’m in calls.
1:30 pm - I throw together a bunch of vegetables with some spinach and brown rice I had in the fridge and make a quick salad. Use up the last of the honey mustard vinaigrette as dressing.
4:00 pm - Research face masks while I’m on my last call of the day. I like the ones from Rothy’s (recommended by another money diary) but I hold off on buying them for now until I can decide on a color I like.
6:15 pm - Finish up work after sending out a few emails and turn on a Sydney Cummings workout. My butt and legs are on fire after I finish...I take longer than I should to get up off my yoga mat.
7:15 pm - Heat up the rest of the broccoli cheddar soup from TJ’s - it’s actually much better than I thought it would be!
9:00 pm - Head down to CVS quickly because I have a coupon for a free item and my mom would be disappointed in me if I let it go to waste. I can’t really think of anything I need so I grab a muscle relaxant cream to give to my grandma, she has arthritis so I think it would be helpful.
10:00 pm - I get an email that a dresser I’ve been looking at is back in stock. We remodeled my room at my parent’s house last year and it’s basically empty at the moment, so I think it could be a nice addition to the space. I call my mom to ask if she likes it - luckily the color matches perfectly with the rest of the furniture so I go ahead and make the purchase. Open up a Wayfair credit card to get $40 off; I get approved quicker than I thought! - $383.84
11:15 pm - I take a shower, try on the items I got in my latest Stitch Fix box, and get into bed. Exchange random funny TikToks with my sister and fall asleep while watching an episode of The Crown.
Daily Total: $383.84
Thursday 11/19:
7:30 am - I have a call at 8:30 so I wake up early to check if the urgent care near me has time slots. It already says that no walk-in appointments are available for the next hour so I make a note to check throughout the day. Lay in bed and am in and out of sleep for the next half hour.
8:30 am - I get on my first call of the morning after cleaning up my room and brushing my teeth. I listen to our project lead talk about doing business with Asian countries while making my coffee.
10:30 am - Still on calls, ugh. Take a quick break from the Excel file I’ve been working on in the background to make a multigrain waffle with peanut butter and some maple syrup on top. No banana to add on the side today, unfortunately.
11:45 am - I’ve been talking to a guy I met on Bumble for a few weeks now and we were supposed to meet tonight for the first time. I text him to postpone since we’re both seeing our families in the next few days and it would be too risky to meet tonight for the first time. Luckily, he’s really nice about it and totally understands. This pandemic has definitely pushed back my potential wedding by 2 years, ha.
1:30 pm - I finally have a break from meetings to make lunch! I quickly heat up some parmesan arugula ravioli from TJ’s with a salad on the side to use up all of the random produce I have left. Get back to my desk and work while I eat.
4:30 pm - I read a funny article about the little owl that was found in the Rockefeller Center tree and I text my old coworker about it. They call him Rockefeller and he’s so cute! My coworker says he gives her Baby Yoda vibes. I agree.
6:45 pm - Finally finish up work, it’s almost Friday! I check the urgent care site again and it still says that no appointments are available for the next hour. My roommate and I complain about how it shouldn’t be this difficult to get tested in the city. I walk down to the center anyway and the receptionist tells me that she might be able to fit me in if I come back tomorrow around lunchtime. Semi-success!
7:30 pm - I eat a few soft/hard tacos for dinner while talking to my roommate and watching an episode of The Crown - I just want to get to the Princess Diana-era already!
10:00 pm - I spend the rest of the night cleaning up the kitchen, running the dishwasher, showering, etc. I decide on one item to keep from my Stitch Fix box and check out the app. I think I might cancel my subscription, especially since we’re probably not going anywhere for the next few months. - $59.00
11:30 pm - Get in bed, pull up old episodes of Friends on my iPad, and fall asleep at some point.
Daily Total: $59.00
WEEKLY TOTALS
Food + Drink: $92.25
Fun / Entertainment: $0.00
Home + Health: $21.55
Clothes + Beauty: $59.00
Transport: $0.00
Other: $474.84
GRAND TOTAL: $647.64
REFLECTIONS: Aside from the furniture purchase and gift for my boss, I would say that this is a standard week. I honestly don’t think I spend too much but sometimes my credit card bill is way higher than I thought it would be. I thought it would be fun to do a follow-up, especially with my job/apartment change! Still trying to figure out how to live with this salary since it’s a big change for me, has anyone struggled with this? Would love some advice, I realize that it’s a great problem to have but I still feel uncomfortable since I don’t really know how much is right to spend/save.

Have you seen the Cat People?

2:07 AM EST, January 1st, 2021. Happy fucking New Year from the Stardust Motel.
"They're still here. I know it," Elise spoke with crazed conviction. Her eyes darted about the room, as if she might catch something in her peripheral vision.
Every light in the motel room was on. Even our flashlights, angled underneath the bed and dresser. There wasn't a single shadow in the room. Every nook and cranny was drenched in harsh LEDs.
We'd lived here on our own since the first quarantine began last March. Mom went to stay with her new boyfriend Derek, and I begged her to take us with her.
"Oh honey, I would, you know I would, but Derek only has his motorcycle and it's an hour drive. Plus, there just isn't enough room there. The apartment's far too small for three people, let alone four." She eyed Elise.
"Well have fun. This motel room sure isn't big enough either, but that's life for ya." I smiled my fakest smile, standing in the doorway as my mom sighed and smoke billowed from her mouth. Newports.
"Fuck off Kelsey, you stupid slut, no one likes you here anyway," Elise shouted at Mom from the bed. Still glaring, she clicked the torch lighter under her meth pipe and let it fill with vapor, then inhaled deeply.
Grown-ups have vices, like that, and I don't want to grow up. I've hit other kids' juuls and disposables at school, and I've tried a laundry list of illicit substances for a 15-year-old, but nothing has ever latched onto my mind the way meth has for Elise and cigarettes have for my mom. I guess it's a matter of time.
With a glance to my left, I was torn from my thoughts. "Elise? Elise, what are you doing?"
"Mind your business, Avery."
I scoffed at her. "This is my fucking business. What the fuck are you doing to the door?"
"Just get out of my way or I'll beat your ass. This is important."
After unscrewing the doorknob and setting it gently in the sink, she got to work on the hinges. Soon our bathroom door would be as unhinged as my aunt, and that's saying something. Some wack-ass methhead shit if I've ever seen any. And I've seen more than my fair share.
So I stood back and watched as Elise dragged that door all the way across the carpeted room, and triumphantly leaned it against our singular window, obscuring the entire view. Not that there was ever much to see if you lifted the makeshift blinds of tacked-up sheets and blankets. Just a dreary echochamber of a parking lot.
"That should keep the little fuckers out of here for now … for now," she said, grinning at her delusional creation, before skipping off to the bathtub, no doubt to hit her pipe and blow it through the vent.
I was so done with her shit I wanted to slam a door. Too bad there were no doors left to slam. Except the front door, of course, but slamming that would be heard through the great echochamber of the U-shaped building, and rekindle the parking lot gossip that had died down as the weather grew colder. Our unit was dead center, first floor.
I sat on the bare mattress, shivering and looking at the collage of blankets, towels, clothing, and rags that covered every wall, even the ceiling. "Soundproofing," she called it. I'd been trying to find her stash for months now, just to get the psychosis under control until she could find more, but no dice. It's pretty hard to look for someone's drug stash when you live in one room together and they never sleep or leave.
It had to be in the bathroom. There was nowhere else. And it seemed awfully suspicious how lately, whenever I took longer than a minute in there, she'd come knocking at the door. "Avery, come on, I have to go so, so bad," she'd always say, then wait by the door pacing.
And now the door was gone.
I shuddered, realizing that now I couldn't even call Mom to beg for help without being overheard. Elise really didn't want her sister to come back. But she sure did want her to keep paying our rent. What a hypocrite.
A series of muffled bangs from the bathroom alerted me. The fuck was she doing now?
"Elise?"
No answer. Just more banging. I got up off the mattress and headed around the corner to the bathroom, my sock feet quiet on the filthy shag carpet.
Elise had removed both cabinet doors from our sink and was nailing one over the whole vent panel. Great. Now we'd be trapped in here with the smell of stale meth smoke. "What the fuck are you doing, Elise?" I stood with my arms crossed. I was 15 and she was 25, but most of the time, I felt like I was the grown-up and she was the insufferable teenager.
"You'll thank me later."
"Ronnie's gonna flip his shit when he comes for inspection."
"You'll thank me later, bitch." Elise hopped off her perch on the tub's ceramic rim, marching past me with the other cabinet door, the hammer, and a bag of nails. I followed her cautiously, trying to maintain a safe distance — not that it was really possible in such a cramped little room. There was something very off about her. Her behavior was uncannily different from the usual bouts of methamphetamine-induced psychosis I'd come to know so well, but I couldn't place exactly what was different this time.
She bent down and leaned the cabinet door gently against our tattered plaid armchair (rescued from the dumpster behind a nearby apartment complex). And in a flash, she snapped upright again, staring intently at our front door, perfectly still and silent. I stepped to the side to get a look at her face, and her eyes didn't even flicker in my direction. She was holding her breath, poised stiller than a marble statue, but her eyes betrayed a look of such pure terror that sent a shiver down my spine, and my hands began to tremble.
Her hair was drenched in sweat. She wasn't shaking; her eyes weren't twitching at all. In that moment she didn't look like a tweaker in the slightest, if you could forgive the ratty old t-shirt and the hammer clenched tightly in her left hand. Her eyes were locked on that shabby wooden door, but her focus seemed to stretch beyond, fixed on some unknown horror waiting on the other side.
Just methhead shit, I tried to reassure myself, but the thought fell flat into the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong here. A different kind of wrong.
My mind raced for scraps of plausibility to evade that contagious fear. There hadn't even been a sound. Maybe her plug was dry and gave her bathsalts to get her fix? Or maybe it was PCP? LSD? I'm no pharmacologist, though. I'm fucking 15, "learning" freshman biology over Zoom. And I'm failing that class. It could be anything. Elise would take any upper without a second thought. Anything to put her mind on overdrive. Anything to stave away sleep.
Or it could be nothing. But I didn't want to think about that.
It's easy to sort the unexplainable into the same categories as we sort every mundane event. It's excruciating to leave things incomplete, to accept the ambiguity and hold it gently in your mind, asking for neither a solution to a percieved problem nor an answer to a question you cannot phrase.
Elise fainted on the carpet with a resonant thud. She was barely still for half a second before gasping for breath and hastily attempting to stand, only to collapse to her knees. I ran over and crouched beside her, gently holding her shoulders as she tried to stand once more.
Her gasping turned into words. "Shit shit shit shitshitshitshitshit they're here they know oh shit shit fuck …"
"Can—can I get you some water?"
"Fuck no." She pushed my hands aside and stood up on unsteady legs, clinging to the armchair for balance. I imagined the swirling, woozy vision that I sometimes got if I stood up too fast, magnified by a thousand. She scrunched her eyes shut.
"Water would help. I mean, it would help you get your bearings and stand properly. I fainted once at Braelyn's soccer game, and someone gave me gatorade. It really helped."
She was silent for a moment, either thinking or simply lost in her own mind. Then she clutched the chair harder and nodded. "Water."
As fast as I could, I dashed to the bathroom and filled her a red solo cup. I didn't want to leave her out of my sight, not even with the door absent, but she was in no position to walk.
I slowly guided her to sit in the armchair, rather than cling to its back like a pool floatie, then handed her the cup of water. Sure she might spill it, but if you knew Elise like I do you'd know that trying to help her drink water would earn you a slap in the face, no matter how far gone she was.
After she took a few sips and seemed to become more steady and alert, I popped the question.
"Elise, what the fuck is actually happening right now? This isn't like last time."
"You got that right," she laughed, her voice still tinged with fear. "I can explain. I can. But we HAVE to barricade this place RIGHT NOW. Then I can explain what's out there!" She paused, and her eyes shifted from panic to dread. "But to be honest, I haven't a clue what's going on."
She handed me the hammer and pointed to the nails, now scattered on the floor. "Nail that door right over the window frame. And do it fast, but do it right. No fucking gaps." I obeyed her without question. This explanation she's thought up had better be good.
As I drove each long nail through the door and into the windowframe, Elise got to work on the front door she had been so transfixed by just minutes before. She screwed anything and everything over each edge where the wood met the frame. First the bathroom cabinet door, then our "kitchen" table, then she began to snap each chair at the backrest, desperate for any flat wooden surface. I did not object. There's a level of desperation that leads to behavior which may seem illogical or outright disturbing to a bystander, but it's best to keep your mouth shut because that person you might call crazy either has a damn good reason for their actions or is so far gone they'd try to kill you for interfering.
So I minded my own business and drove each nail into place, stealing the occasional glance to see what furniture she was sacrificing next. The end table. My mom's nice wooden cutting board she refused to ever use. Etcetera.
By the time we finished, my arms ached and one thumb was sore from a slip-up with the hammer. We turned to face each other. I was the first to speak.
"So. What are we dealing with here?"
Elise glanced around the brightly lit room, as if someone might be peeking out from behind our remaining furniture. Then she leaned towards me, her expression solemn, and whispered: "It's the Cat People."
The Cat People. THE MOTHERFUCKING CAT PEOPLE. She'd lost it. Last marble got stuck somewhere in that meth pipe of hers. Absolutely batshit-on-the-windshield CRAZY.
I couldn't suppress my giggle and it earned me a slap across the face that wiped off my smirk like a goddamn etch-a-sketch. "Sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, keep your eyes wide open, and don't you dare piss your pants. I've got the security cam feeds up on my laptop. I'll show you what's out there. Streaming live over IP cams with the manufacturer's default password. The Cat People."
I sat on the bare mattress as she pulled her crappy old laptop out from under the bed. What else could I do? Whether she was completely deranged, completely correct, or both, there wasn't much I could do in a heavily barricaded motel room at 2:30 AM. Especially since my phone had conveniently disappeared while I was nailing the door to the window frame.
She plopped down beside me and opened the laptop up to reveal six perfectly arranged Firefox windows, each streaming grainy footage from a camera outside. Nothing seemed amiss at first, aside from the fact I'd only ever spotted two cameras on the motel's property.
The first camera was perched up on the roof of the second floor, directly above our apartment. Its fisheye lens showcased a warped view of the entire U-shaped complex. Every window was dark. In most places, that wouldn't be out of the ordinary at such a late hour. But the Stardust Motel was never an ordinary place. No one ends up in this kind of place on purpose—all 30 rooms were occupied by folks who were homeless on paper and in their hearts. Through a lifelong string of bad luck, bad decisions, or more likely some combination of the two, fate brings you here. Any time of night, you'd see lights peeking through the blinds of people waiting for something. Whether it was their plug, a prostitute, or a lull of peace to fight the insomnia, the Stardust Motel was never this dark.
The second camera seemed to be fixed onto the neon sign by the street, to monitor who came and went. To prevent criminal activity. Not that Ronnie cared. He didn't make enough to care, at least that was my theory.
The third camera showed the laundry room. It was dead still, flourescent lights on, no windows. Every machine's door was open and empty. There were no laundry bins on the floor waiting to be picked up. The feed was so still it looked like a static image. I remembered other winters, before the pandemic, when my mom and I would sit on top of the machines for hours doing loads of laundry, spending our quarters more for the warmth than the clean clothes. The heat always seemed to work in there, even when our room was ice cold. I wondered where this camera was hidden—wouldn't I have noticed it at some point, in all these years?
The fourth camera was pointed at the dumpsters out back. Each one was overflowing, as if the trucks hadn't come in weeks. Something was rummaging around in one of them. Probably a raccoon.
The fifth camera seemed to be in an unfinished, dirty basement. I had no idea there was a basement. Where was the entrance? I peered into the night vision, trying to see the dark, grainy shapes just too far back to discern. I couldn't see a stairwell, or a back wall. The uninsulated walls seemed to curve around a corner, more like a long, wide tunnel than an ordinary basement.
The sixth camera caught my attention as I thought I saw a flash of movement in the corner. Ronnie's office. I'd never seen the inside before—his blinds were always drawn and blackout curtains hung behind them. The weekly rent was to be deposited by cash or check in an envelope through a slot in his locked mailbox, though ever since the first lockdown he'd been accepting Venmo as well.
I expected his office to be a mess, but not nearly this bad. It was as if someone had broken in— papers were scattered everywhere, some torn or crumpled, the door of his safe hung wide open, and his bulky old computer monitor had been knocked sideways, still displaying the same security feeds as we were watching now. His office chair's fabric was shredded as if by claws.
"What is this?" I whispered to Elise. Something was very, very wrong. There was no sign of those mystical Cat People, but too many small things were wrong here to blame it all on psychosis.
"Just wait," she said. She touched my shoulder and I flinched, but she hugged me anyway. Her clammy, shivering caress offered little comfort. "You gotta be patient."
We watched for minutes that seemed like hours in the silence. I wish I could tell you that we saw nothing in that time, but every minute or so I'd see a flash of movement or light somewhere and tense up. "Just wait," she'd repeat every time. Just wait.
Then something crawled out from under Ronnie's desk, and we both tensed up, Elise's jagged nails digging into my shoulders. I barely registered the pain.
A tabby cat. It walked around the office chair tentatively, its fur poofed and prickled as if in fear. Elise released me for a moment to open that window fullscreen, and clicked unmute. I had no idea these cameras had microphones. The cat leapt up onto the desk, and that's when things got strange. Not that they weren't strange from the beginning, but you know what I mean. That's when the strange got real. Our heartbeats quickened in sync.
The cat picked up the computer mouse in its tiny fingers. Fingers. My brain tried to rationalize this and stumbled. A raccoon? But who's ever heard of a tabby raccoon? The cat-raccoon put the mouse down, and turned around. It sauntered toward us along the corner desk, looking directly into the camera, its fur still on end. Its back paws seemed normal, but the front ones were a different story.
They were hairless and small, with opposable thumbs, but not like a raccoon's. They bore more resemblance to a human baby's hands, but veiny and calloused, with long, jagged nails.
Elise and I were frozen together on that mattress, staring into the screen as the cat rose to its hind legs and seemed to stare at us, barely a foot from the lens, looking straight through the camera into our screen. It should have been impossible. The webcam was covered in electrical tape, and Elise had jammed the internal microphone with silly putty.
The tabby cat was crying. Not the yowls of an injured housecat, but silent tears streaming from its eyes and clinging to its fur. Crying like a person. Crying like a person who has lost everything there is to lose, and more. Then its expression shifted, and its fur relaxed. Slowly, it opened its little mouth, revealing two full rows of yellowed human teeth, and a fat human tongue that shouldn't have fit in a mouth so small. I held my breath, and so did Elise, her fingernails digging deeper into my shoulder.
The cat spoke, in a garbled, cramped tongue, barely recognizable as English.
"I love you."
I screamed and thrashed away from Elise, kicking the laptop across the room. It hit the other wall and the screen went black, but Elise's nails dug deeper into my shoulder, drawing blood. "LET GO OF ME," I screamed, then heard Elise scream. She had scrambled across the room and was staring at me in horror. What the fuck?
I looked down at my shoulder, and saw a veiny, calloused baby's hand clamped into my skin, reaching out of the wall through a gash in the plaster.

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