#because this whole time I KNEW he would 1000% ask you that fairly early on because - hello - it's pragmatic and they may die at any moment

[askfordoodles]

I recognize that pose...

My guess is Rook can opt to get very offended at that question xD

Emm: So, how would you like your body prepared...

Rook: tf is that supposed to mean?!?? *draws weapon*

Emm: nonono, apologies, I meant no offense...!

this image is killing me.

[evarcana]

Courtiers + Christmas

Sorry, dear anon, it took me ages 😓 well at least I did it before xmas, right?

To avoid the whole discourse about why the bunch of demons and one morally corrupted human are celebrating Christmas, I should say that this is based on the MC inviting the courtiers to celebrate together.

Valdemar🎄😈

Not like they usually pay attention to silly human holidays. But if it is you inviting... “how delightful” - of course Valdemar is coming. The problem is that in their millennia of existence being busy with their research they sort of missed out on what Christmas was about. “MC, don’t give me that look, this is all fairly new”, you don’t even want to what is old for them. But it’s Valdemar so they lock themselves in dungeons and put all their inhuman determination into researching Christmas.

Valdemar’s research is ...advanced. After they excitingly start telling you whether you knew that red in decorations symbolises blood, you decide it’s time to intervene, hand Valdemar list of gifts to buy and encourage them to return to their usual work (who would believe you would ever say it).

They turn to the party/dinner dressed as Santa (or whatever equivalent). Are you shocked? Erm yes... But why are other guests loving it ?! Well they did become sort of xmas expert in less than a week so you guess it’s okay. Expects lots of stories on how Christmas celebrations developed over the last centuries.

Charms your grandma or elderly auntie by being the only person capable of listening about their chronical conditions and actually engaging on the topic. Your little niece/neighbour’s kid loves them too - they expertly removed all those bits of turkey leg they don’t like to eat in less than 5 seconds. Everybody loves them. But Valdemar still spends most of the time telling what a fascinating specimen you are.

When it comes to gift exchange part, you are glad that they only added a few medical books, plague masks and antiseptics to the list, could be worse.., but where is yours present? “You, my little silly duckling, are on the naughty list this year” with this Valdemar gently throws you in their sack grabs you and excuses you both from the party. You try to protest but they only say that they played along for long enough and now it’s their turn to play little game with you. Oh well you can leave early one year, it promises to be worth it.

Valerius 🎁🍷

Every year Valerius receives plenty of invitations to winter holidays parties arranged by the nobles but this is the first time he got invitation to something that personal. Tells you that he needs to check his diary and finally reluctantly agrees only because “there was a rather unfortunate cancellation”. But really in his head he is like “Omg does it mean that I am part of the family now? Cancel all plans NOW.”

Then he learns that you plan to have Christmas dinner/party at your place. The consul of Vesuvia to go to that ...shack?? That’s unthinkable: The party will be in his estate, yes he knows that it’s incredibly generous of him to offer and no you cannot refuse.

And this is when things are getting extra. You know that crazy neighbours competitions whose Christmas lights are brighter and decorations are better? That’s Valerius, although he has nobody to compete with really. The massive xmas tree got delivered from who-knows-where and who-knows-how in 2 days, and there is no red, golden or green decoration item left in stock in entire Vesuvia, oh and some the palace’s best cooks suddenly took a sick leave for a week (no it was Valerius promising them triple wages).

You ask Valerius not to get any expensive presents, otherwise you will feel bad, he did indeed agree that it was reasonable suugestion. Everybody gets presents more expensive than life. The guests surpringly find Valerius a very good host, this might have something to do with those gifts which were definitely extra or with the fact that everybody got merry in like 20 min thanks to all the fancy wine. Valerius is gossip central, argues about politics with your annoying uncle and plays board games with children.

Insists that it would be better if you stay overnight and not travel home late. Falls asleep in chair with drink in hand like an old man. Later that chair somehow migrates to the hallway by the guest bedroom, under the strategically placed mistletoe. Wait, where did red silky robes come from? All planned. Let’s hope that the unfortunate relative of yours is not staying in the same guestwing.

Vlastomil 🎅🏻 🪱

It’s lovely of you to invite him but he is a busy worm man and cannot really leave his children alone. Maybe he can just stop by? “No, MC! Don’t get offended!!”

Then he learns that Christmas is usually about family, does it mean that his children can come as well?? Ugh while you are mumbling something about that worms may not be very comfortable at your place, Vlastomil decides that the Christmas party will be held in his garden so the worms everybody can enjoy it.

Prepare to have a ...thematic Christmas. There is white xmas tree decorated with the shimmery worms and candy canes which have worms wrapped around them. Okay, even you are not the biggest fan of worms you have to admit that the ice sculptures of worms are quite impressive. He even has little nativity scene but with the worms.

Everybody receives crystal tree decoration baubles with live worms inside. Everybody is shocked. Vlastomil explains that it’s only stocking fillers and there are more gifts. (Also crystal baublesare only for transportation, the worms need to be free range, how dare you). The actual gifts are... amazing. Somebody got a scarf that they liked but didn’t have enough money to buy on that day, another person got a album of pin up pictures of snake women even if it was supposed to be a secret interest of theirs and you got that sparkly princess teara you cried for your parents to buy at age 5 but they never did (cmon, x years later, you still like it).

Some little child says that Vlastomil is like Santa with how you he magically read people’s wishes (there there, little one, it’s just the power of gossip), but Vlastomil is vibing: wiggler gets elf outfit from somewhere and you get lots of invitations to “come to sit on Santa’s lap”. Yes you can stay there after all the guests leave (and yes you can keep your sparkly teara on).

Volta 🍪🥛

Was secretly dreaming to be invited since at least October. But is still genuinely surprised when you ask her to come. She asks tonnes of questions: who else is coming, are you sure they would like Volta, what are you going to do, will there be food?

Volta wants to help you with all the preparations. Not like she is super useful but she did dig out from the piles of stuff in her estate and bring you lots of old tree decorations and some nice tableware. She basically spends all your time with you in the build up to Christmas: you decorate the house together, make gingerbread houses (well more like you made one house from the 1000s attempt, they all got eaten before they were actually completed) and pack gifts for everybody.

You warned all the guests that there going to be lots of food this year, and no you finally don’t need to worry about what to do with the leftovers and crying “end me, I am sick of having xmas food for 10 days in a row” because they are not going to be any leftovers. But you didn’t expect Volta to turn up with even more food. “Volta does not want anybody to starve on Christmas!”. She surely eats lots but she is also looking after other people lots, passing them plates with food (just imagine her holding it with both of her tiny hands) and topping up their drinks, she wants everybody to enjoy the dinner.

Everybody at the table is talking of how adorable Volta is, and nobody can even hide tears when Volta presents little hand made gifts that she prepared herself. But Volta humming Christmas carols? How does she even know Christmas carols? This is illegal level of cuteness.

Volta wants to stay to help you to clean up when the dinner is over. It’s quite and it’s only two of you. Oh you might still have some sweet things in the cupboard.

Vulgora🔥🌟

At first super excited to be invited but the next second they ask what is Christmas about and what does it involve. You decorate, eat, chat to people and exchange gifts? That sounds awfully boring to Vulgora. Can they at least smash the tree in the end? What do you mean - NO?!?!

Eager to help too. They need to use their energy somewhere. You are not sure whether it’s the type of help you wanted. You asked them to carry the xmas tree from the market? There are 5 trees in front of the house, one of which is like is almost 10’ tall. You asked them to chop some wood for the fire? Well, there is enough to have a bonfire in the towncentre. But on the positive side, your house is lavishly decorated this year, Vulgora likes the red and golden theme.

Lots of battle stories at the dinner, some of which ...lack xmas spirit a bit. All the gifts are...war themed. Then Vulgora gets bored and wants to fight for the right to cut the turkey/ vegan nut roast, whatever you are having. Oh no. But they can smash nuts with their gauntlets - the guests are impressed and suddenly want more battle stories. On the positive side, it’s definitely not boring this year, Vulgora is load and energetic.

But then suddenly Vulgora suggests you all go outside, when you question them, they say it’s a surprise. It’s hard to believe what you see: they prepared fireworks and sparkle fountains !!! You cannot help but smile watching vulgora excitingly running around setting them all off (but hopefully not setting your house on fire).

You watch firework lighting up the sky with Vulgora hugging you from behind and then..they rugby tackle you to the ground?! Well whether there is snow or not, they want to have a fight. Luckily the fireworks are over and the guests can just...leave you two to it.

[writingsoftheunderworld]

AU - yes! Time Travel -no?

C. 2 here ; C. 1 here; AO3 here. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

Bonnie Bennett had begun her day with a slow calming chant of Don’t let him get to you, her thought firmly centred around one Damon Salvatore, a true thorn in her side since he’d first arrived in town not too long ago. She’d woken up slowly, light filtering through her blinds and shrouding the whole room in a husky shade of caramel, the lingering scent of citrus from the candles burnt the night before giving the room an all to homely feeling. She could hear her dad bustling downstairs, most likely getting some coffee for the road. It was fairly early still, but she had free-period the first half of the day and she was skipping the rest - life ending crises a good enough reason even if Mrs Jason still claimed that unless you were actually dead you had to show up for math class. She laid in bed a few more minutes, listening to her dad get dressed and slip out the door. She wondered for not the first time whether it would be better off if she tried to tell him all about this witch vampire mess again, but Grams had wanted him out of it, and he had wanted out of it after her mom left, so for the thousandth time she put it out of her mind. 

She showered, changed and climbed down to get the little mug of coffee her dad always left out for her, dropping more sugar into it than a candy store had on its selves. Elena had once joked that if she didn’t end up making it big she would always work as an oompa-loompa for Willy Wonka for how much sugar she dumped into her coffee each day. Bonnie was still not sure if Elena thought that was just a good joke or if she just hadn’t understood the Chocolate Factory as a child. Caroline just liked to pat her on the shoulder with a wistful look on her face, like she wished she had Bonnie’s devil-may-care attitude about it - which ironically seemed to have not been the case even now as a vampire who ate more than a Quarterback. 

The noise of Jeremy knocking on the door startled her out of her thoughts enough to almost spill the coffee on her shirt. Almost being the key word thankfully, so she dropped the mug into the sink and swung her bag over her head and headed for the garage. They were meant to meet Damon on the edge of the former Salvatore Estate, just off of the main road, by the woods, from where he’d then show her where the former Salem witches had been burned some centuries ago and where the Founders had burned Emily as well. Klaus was a threat hanging over their head constantly at this point. 

On their way Jeremy began telling her about Isobel’s impromptu visit earlier this morning and how poor Aunt Jenna had locked herself in her room following it. Bonnie felt sorry for the woman, she definitely didn’t deserve to be lied to like that, but Bonnie also felt that telling her the whole truth would’ve been equally unfair. The least Alaric could’ve done was say that his wife was missing rather than dead, but that was none of her business at the end of the day. They talked some more as they waited, they’d arrived a bit early after all, and Bonnie realised once again just how different Jeremy now was, and how nice it was to see him so invested in her. She wasn’t sure yet if she actually liked him like that, but she definitely could imagine how sweet and thoughtful he’d be as a boyfriend. And she needed someone frankly. Seeing Elena with her two Salvatore’s bending over backwards to rescue her from any and every inconvenience and now Caroline complaining about having been kissed by both Matt and Tyler made her frustrated. Less so for the fighting over her situation, that sounded exhausting, but rather for the constant work she had to put into herself to even be noticed. Maybe she should move for college, she had a feeling Virginia might be part of the problem here as well, though she did find it hilarious how both Matt and Tyler had initially dated her before either moved on to Elena or Caroline. Then it just made her sad. Was it something about her that pushed them away?

She remembered with sudden clarity asking that to her Grams and the hour long lecture following her words, of how she was a strong woman, how boys wouldn’t be able to handle someone like her until later, how she should still enjoy herself and not be tied down to a boyfriend from middle school onward because then you saw what could happen - exhibit a through z Elena’s many rants about Matt. She’d listened but not believed her Grams. She still wasn’t sure if she believed her Grams but she did know she wanted someone for her own now, hell, she needed someone with all the stress and violence her life had suddenly turned to. And Jeremy was safe, and cute, and had puppy dog eyes for her and vived for her attention. Was part of her thinking she was settling? Maybe. Did she care? Not really. And speaking of not caring, where the hell was Damon at? He was already late by 15 minutes. Don’t let him get to you. Her inner voice chimed again.

“Jere, how about we just head to the Boarding House? Clearly someone is looking to be set on fire.” Jeremy laughed and nodded. He clearly thought Bonnie was joking, but oh boy couldn’t he be more wrong. Bonnie was 1000% setting Damon on fire if he didn’t come up with a good enough excuse. 

_._._._._._._

Rose waited and watched. Jeremy Gilbert was off to the side, looking completely eager and completely in over his head as Bonnie and Damon were arguing about the best course of action following her short introduction into what she knew. And if they thought that was all she could tell them, then obviously they were still underestimating her which frankly was a bit condescending seeing as she was at least 2 years older than the Bonnie currently glaring at Damon. But she’d guessed that would be the reaction she was going to get when she made her choice to be as dramatic as possible. Mom used to say she got it from dad, but seeing the two younger versions of them interacting now she could safely say she got it from both. God knows those eye rolls and ridiculous insults were exaggerated as hell. How did these two people become her slow dancing in the kitchen on a random Thursday evening parents?

“Excuse me?” she tried, weakly, but still she gave it a shot. Jeremy looked over to her then at the still arguing duo then back at her with a look that seemed to say this is just an ordinary Monday for them. “EX-cuse ME!” she tried again, this time much louder but nothing. She sighed. Lost cause.

“If you would’ve let me pick you up like I said initially, you wouldn’t be here wanting to blow my head up now Judgy!”

“If you’d know how to use a phone like a normal person, I wouldn’t have waited needlessly for you for hours Damon!”

“Oh please, it was barely 5 minutes.” he scoffed and Jeremy piped up with a it was fifteen technically that Damon just elected to ignore it seemed. Sometime he did remind Rose of her dad. 

“It doesn’t matter! We’re dealing with Klaus! A 5 seconds text shouldn’t be something I need to tell you to do!” Aaannd sometimes she reminded Rose of her mom. Great, now she had anxiety again. And lord knows her mom won’t just raise her voice to yell at her for ending up here like this Bonnie was doing, no no, her mom would have a level voice that somehow would hurt far more. She needed a distraction. She also needed to figure out what was about to happen around this time. Like she remember her dad mentioning that Alaric had gotten possessed at some point and that he and mom had danced at a school 60s event - which she had to ask who actually came up with that stuff, because while Lizzie definitely loved a nice theme party, she still went with like a hava night, or a rock theme or an Austrian ball or something more generic but more fun, not a decades dance. Digressing though, Rose knew these facts, but she didn’t know anything immediate. She needed more information. More inside information.

“Guys, could you take a break and answer a few questions for me first?” she tried one more time. To no avail. So hard times ask for hard measures or something like that and stubborn younger versions of her parents call for her parents usual solve to stubborn daughter fighting with her friends voice so she did her best to channel her mom’s level tone and her dad’s intimidating presence and for someone not actually related to them she though she did a good job seeing as Bonnie and Damon turned in unison to glare at her before being reminded of where they were and what was going on here. She was actually pretty proud of herself for that feat.

“So as I was trying to say, can you give me run-down of what’s been happening here?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, weren’t you the one who knew everything?” Damon commented snidely and Rose almost high-fived Bonnie when both her and Rose said in unison.

“Oh, you know what sorry means?” Bonnie off to the side.

“Oh, so you agree I was right?” Rose with a grin.

Damon  seemed to take a moment to grit his teeth and bite back his words before shaking his head, giving a smirk and walking right past Rose to pour himself a glass of bourbon and spread out onto the couch in seeming nonchalance. Rose would almost commend his acting here, if he didn’t also irritate her with it. Who knew dad used to be such a child… well, more so than in her universe...time?

“Damon, she didn’t say she knows everything and don’t be a dick. She’s the only one willing to help us here.” Bonnie on the other hand, Rose was beginning to appreciate more and more. Maybe she was more Mom’s pet in the past than Dad’s pet as she was used to.

“Thank you, Bonnie. And no, I don’t know everything I just know a lot, but I still need to have the full picture and all the players to tell which is the best plan of attack here. As I said, you can’t kill Klaus, but you also don’t want him to become a hybrid right? That means we need to take every variable in consideration.” she argued and saw both Bonnie and Damon share a look before seemingly agreeing with her point of view. And boy was the Klaus of her universe going to laugh himself stupid when/if she made it back and told him his lessons in planning schemes - her dad’s turn of phrase not hers of Klaus’ - had been what had helped her most here. Oh irony, you cruel, opportunistic bitch. 

“Bonnie was meant to take on over 100 dead witches’ energy today, it’s why we were waiting for Damon, he knew where they’d died.” came the first important nugget of information from the most - or least? - expected person, Jeremy Gilbert himself. Rose smiled at him in gratitude, glad at least one person was listening. 

“Ok, that’s still going to be useful so maybe you should do that anyway and meanwhile I’ll see what Katherine's hiding?” Rose suggested and she didn’t even need to think before knowing that Damon was going to disagree with her - her dad still made that face whenever she and her friends planned something he thought was too dangerous or risky. Bonnie however seemed more receptive. 

“No way! Do you even know what that bitch is capable of?” as she said, predictable.

“Damon, I think she might be right. You know Katherine is planning something, no way is she helping from the goodness of her heart and she won’t say anything to any of us.” Ah, how she loved her mom’s pragmatism at times - except when she was 14 and wanted a pony, then she much rather preferred her dad’s personal brand of impulsiveness that not only got her the pony she’s wanted since 5 but also made a stable off a little way further from the house.

“And she is still keeping Katherine knocked out.” Jeremy was quickly becoming Rose’s favourite person, no joke. He was full of wonderful insight and 100% helping her barely formed ideas come to fruition. She smiled proudly and nodded to the still unconscious vampire on the floor. She elected to ignore outright looking at the woman for now, too weirded out by the 1 to 1 replica of Elena to feel comfortable with it. Doppelgangers were too much for her. It was like evil clones, her dad had explained when he tried to make her understand how the whole doppelganger thing even worked - something about the universe or some chick named Tessa or another, she hadn’t been paying too close attention by that point. Their lives were very convoluted in her opinion. 

Damon seemed to consider this possibility then, taking another large sip of bourbon and looking directly at Rose as he did so, before slamming the glass onto the end table by the foot of the couch and jumping to his feet. 

“Alright, fine, then Bon-Bon, you me and little Gilbert need to head off. Rosie-Posie, you get the Queen of Hell. Good luck to you, you’re going to need it. The bitch hasn’t told the truth a day in her life.” 

Rose nodded, smiled and waved them off as they all got out and left to do what they’d planned to do. She couldn’t wait for that honestly, it would at least get Bonnie’s magic up closer to the levels Rose knew from her mom. But the Rosie-Posie was going to kill her the longer she stayed here. It was going to make her slip and call Damon dad and it would all implode into itself, because if she was weak to one thing, it was being her dad’s Rosie-Posie and while she was fully aware this wasn’t actually her dad, her heart didn’t care. All was left now was for her mom to brush her hair out of her eyes and she might just snap. She’d missed her parents far before she got herself stranded in a different universe - despite it having been barely a few hours - since she hadn’t been home in at least 2 months. Sure she’d seen them nearly every night, more mom than dad since dad tried to pretend he still was immune to missing his girls, but it wasn’t the same as hearing her dad from a few feet away, well within hug reach or feel her mom’s warm hand through her hair. Fuck, and now she was crying. This day couldn’t be going worse. Her eyes strayed to Katherine and she groaned. Oh, it could definitely get worse. It could get so much worse.

[missjackil]

My 14x11 Opinion

Damaged Goods

I have so many feelings about this episode!! Its been the hardest one to wait for all season because we were teased all week about this mysterious hug!! I am trash for brohugs, I wont even lie. Any episode that includes a brohug gets bonus points from me!! But what was different about this brohug than others? It was a slip in from behind hug that Sam wasnt expecting. Gentle, and cautious, yet full off angst and despiration. 

The scene was set in a way that assured me this episode would be emotional. The library dimly lit while Sam while Sam researches for ways to help Dean. Dean wont even answer the question when Sam asks how hes feeling. Dean just doesnt want to talk about this. He makes it known though that he appreciates the effort Sam has been putting into trying to help, and Sam responds, “of course... always” . He’s not looking for praise or appreciation, its just something he is gonna do. He’s gona help Dean. Thats all. To him its like getting up in the morning and going to the bathroom. It doesnt matter what else is going on in the world, this is what’s gonna happen.now.Deans in trouble. Sam is gonna help.

Dean tells Sam he’s going to go spend time with Mom, Sam is gonna get packed up and go too but Dean wants to go alone. Sam looks hurt. This isnt surprizing. As much as Sam doesnt need to be, as we all know, he still gets insecure with his ploace in Dean’s world and he doesnt like to be left behind for anyone, even Mom. but in the traditional character of Sam Winchester, he isnt going to make a fuss, he’ll swallow it up and let Dean go if he feels he needs it. Dean isnt cold, nor blind to this. He wont tell Sam its a farewell tour, but he needs Sam to know hes loved. So he just comes around behind him and holds Sam’s head to his chest and face, and tells him to take care of himself. As sweet as this was, did Dean really think it wouldnt sound every alarm in Sam’s head? However, this hug will go down in my heart as a classic. One thing I love most about the brohugs, is that J2 deliver a fresh one every time that say their own things. Theyre never cheap, never lacking a message, and always packed with feeling. 

Sam was pretty adorable when he tried to tell mom about the hug.I know he said they dont hug unless its literally the end of the world. but how was he really gonna tell him mom that they hug for many reasons, but this one was very different? Im sure she understands that theyre close, but does she even have a clue at how close and co-dependant they are? I dont think so. Sam gives her fair warning, and shes gonna keep an eye on Dean. 

Meanwhile, Nick is being a dick, and has a run in with Donna. Now I know many of you all dont like Donna and Jody, mainly for the Wayward crap, but I still like THEM, I just hate that story. I really like this new, tougher Donna that came to be last season in Breakdown. The bubbly silly blonde from The Purge and Hibbing 911 got on my nerves and served no purpose but comic releif. I cant stand those characters. Thats why I dont like Garth, and never liked Ghost Facers, because all they did was assure that the episode wouldnt get very serious.But lets move on. 

Mary makes Dean something he loved as a kid, Winchester Surprize. This is the first time we heard of this dish, and I would call “bullshit” on Deans ability to remember something like that from being no older than 4 the last time she made it, had he not mentioned how Dad apparently made it also, but when he and Sam tried, they messed it up and Dad got pissed and tossed it out. Dean laughed about it, but Mom was uncomfortable, and so was I. Im not a John hater as y’all know, so new negative information makes me sad. I guess before John comes back in 2 weeks, Mary will need to know that he changed a lot after she died and wasnt the greatest father to the boys.And to assure us that the reuinion wont be all rainbows and butterflies. There’s gonna be some angst.

Now Im gonna talk about how HOT Dean was while welding. the flipping of the face shield. the sparks flying around his feet, the leather apron.... mmmm Magic Mike moment y’all?? It was a great music montage, something we dont get a lot of. No Time Left For You is a good song, and for any of my readers under 40, that was an 8 track tape Dean was playing.😉 we also see that Michael is still pounding on the door in Deans head. Jensen is really doing a great job of showing us in his expressions and posture that he’s barely holding him in.

Now Sam has looked around the bunker and noticed things missing. Okay... Dean is definitely up to something. Mary waited till Dean was asleep and went to see what he was doing in the shed, she sees he’s built this box with the plan to lock himself in it and be dropped at the bottom of the ocean so Michael cant escape the box once he gets out of Deans head. Mom calls Sam, but he’s already on his way. and during this time Nick kidnaps Mary. 

Now, I think Mary was just being stupid for most of this, she had no reason really not to comply with Nick. Theres a time to be tough and a time to just be practical. A big part of being a hero includes not trying to get yourself killed for no good reason. But hey, its ok because your sons are fucking suoer heros and they’ll come save your ass! So Abraxus gets released and reveals Lucifer had him kill Ncks family. This leaves me with wonder. Will Lucifer come find Nick but Nick say no to him now that he knows Lucifer had his family killed? Leaving Luci without a vessel and heading to mess with Sam again? Possibly even Jack? Hmmmm

So Donna shoots Nick in the leg, he’s arrested. Sam goes to talk to him. I didnt like that Dean bitched at Sam for letting Nick go, though Im glad Sam got to tell him why. though he’s feeling guilty about everything that happened now. Im also pretty sure that Dean was telling Sam when people cant be saved, you just walk away, more for himself than anything. So Dean barked, but he didnt stay angry and thats good. 

Sam confronts Nick and apologizes for not being able to help him which is so very Sam, but, my boy is getting harder around the edges, he’s really 1000% done with the bull shit. He tells Nick he doesnt feel sorry for him, he feels sorry for the people he killed, HE can burn. 

Meanwhle mom confronts Dean and tells him he knows what hes up to... and if he doesnt tell Sam, she will. Im so glad it didnt become some secret between Dean and Mom being kept from Sam. That never ends pretty. 

Now, this scene, is my favorite scene so far of the season. Sam just not holding back at how horrible he thinks it was for Dean to plan to kill himself and not tell him. “Not tell me?? ME??” Do you realize how messed up that is? How unfair??” it took me back to when Dean sold his soul for Sam and Sam figured it out. Sam knows first hand how awful being trapped forever with a crazy archangel. You could see it in Sam’s eyes when he said it, he knew what Dean would be up against for eternity. “Do you know how INSANE this is?”

Dean is set in his choice and tells Sam he couldnt tell him because hes the only person who could talk him out of it💖💖and he loves hm for trying to help. Thats a very big statement in this show. So he gives Sam a choice, either he helps him, or he does it alone. Of curse Sam agrees to help. He cant save Dean if he walks away, and he wont let Dean die alone 💔💔💔💔💔💔😭😭😭😭😭

Thats gonna kill me all week!! Next weeks trailer looks like a real kick in the balls, but, Im fairly sure the brutality will be over early in the episode because Donatello’s issue is the headliner. Its hard to see Dean freak out when his phone dies when hes in the box, but Im thinking maybe he’s testing it and gets a dose of what being trapped feels like, and maybe that changes his mind. So I dont think the whole episode is going to be super heavy, but we’ll have some good brofeels anyway. In conclusion I loved this episode. It could have used more Sam but Sams parts were all great! So on a scale of Bloodlines to Who We Are, this gets a 9. the heavy brolove got it massive points and more Sam COULD have taken it to a 10. See y’all next week :)

[bigbadbarry-toyrobot]

I started writing this post back in July, so a bit out of date now, but though I best post it since I’ve spent nearly 3 months writing it! Ha!

As a result of this blog, something that started as a sort of secret diary to empty my head, I’ve met people in the flesh and online, some that live near and some on the other side of the world, some that are at a similar stage in their journey through parenting a child with additional needs and some that are just starting, I often get asked for advice about school and how it went for Bailey and I’ve been meaning to write this for months, so here it finally is, a bit about our first year at school and the things that worked for us.

The start of school for any parent is scary, even more so when your a parent of a child with additional needs, will they love school? Will they hate it? How will you all cope with this next step? How will other children react to your child? What will the parents think of them? Will he be classed as the naughty boy? Will people gossip about him; us behind our backs? Will he be included, will he make friends, will people tease him and he’ll be oblivious, the questions circled round and round my head for weeks and months, we worried, though we shouldn’t have....my sons school was recently graded outstanding, I myself have been through 3 ofsted inspections the most recent this year, it isn’t easy and I can honestly say that any grade a school gets today is mostly a fair representation of how the school works and what it rightfully deserves. We can all pull an outstanding lesson out the bag with a bit of effort but my sons school was graded outstanding in all area and I have seen first hand how outstanding their SEN provision is, in particular the schools senco has been a dream come true. She has made Baileys transition from nursery fairly smooth, there have been some bumps along the way, some pretty big ones in fact, a broken nose, some tears; mostly mine, I’ve bitten my nails down to nothing with worry and Bailey also did a bit of biting himself, which fingers crossed is now very much in the past.

The school reacted accordingly and have put in place the support that he is entitled to, deserves, and what is essentially needed for him to be in main stream education, where he currently most definitely should be. He has 1:1 support and bunch of clubs and interventions are used to support him and other students across the school that need that bit of extra help. Baileys has had Lego therapy, lunch time games clubs, SALT and a specialist autism teacher come to support staff because as a teacher you pretty much get zero training for teaching kids with ASD; ‘read that PowerPoint slide guys, now go teach’ - that’s a whole other blog post though...I only finally feel confident teaching autistic kids, because of Bailey, because I understand that what works for him won’t work for another kid, like most kids! Any way as a teacher I thought I had a good understanding of what he was entitled to and how to get it, but it’s often different from borough to borough, I can’t recommend enough getting a good understanding of what your child is entitled to, with or without a EHCP. An amazing book for this is a book called ‘How to raise a happy autistic child’ I wish someone had given it to me when he was diagnosed, its full of what you need to know for school, unfortunately I discovered the book after we’d been through it all. However we found our way and it’s not been easy, somthing that did make it a little easier was that we requested termly meetings with Baileys SENCO, the school doesn’t really have to offer that unless they have a EHCP, however these meetings were hugely beneficial, to discuss his progress but also just to immediately act on what our next step would be. We are still in the process of trying to get his EHCP, a task I’ve had to take on myself again...we have secured him a PRA- pupil resource agreement but this doesn’t even slightly cover the cost of his 1:1. There are a tonne of acronyms used in education even more in SEND, it’s extremely useful getting to know what they all mean, it’s stops you feeling so lost and definitely gives you a bit more confidence when talking to professionals because unfortunately some will talk to you like you are an idiot or fob you off, I’ve had the Borough SENCO not only take it upon themselves to make decision that had a negative impact on my sons education but also lie to me about it, so getting a understanding of education lingo is massively beneficial!

Though school has been brilliant it is decisions that we have made as a family that have also greatly impacted on his first successful year at school. We were unsure about immediately telling people he is autistic as it’s just a small part of who he is, we were scared about creating a label for Bailey, we didn’t want him to just become the ‘Autistic boy’ but equally we didn’t want people to label him the ‘naughty boy’ because he actually isn’t, being naughty generally isn’t in his nature, but even now through lack of understanding other children label him as naughty.

When Bailey started school his language delay to the untrained eye wasn’t so obvious, it still isn’t obvious unless you know what your looking for or you spend a great deal of time with him and start to spot the repetition. However language is something that is difficult for him, early in reception he found it difficult to express himself verbally and unfortunately for us and him, he took to biting as a way of keeping unwanted attention at bay...someone tickled him too much and he didn’t know how to make them stop, so he bit them, someone snatched a toy and he bit them, this happened 3 or 4 times, not loads but enough to put him on peoples radars, parents were called and I was worried it was going to start the gossiping, the stay away from that boy, he’s naughty conversations, so we made the decision that we would be open and honest and share that Bailey is Autistic, and frankly it was one of the best decisions we made. Parents mostly have responded well and I know as a result many families are talking about neuro diversity with their children and that’s fantastic.

Last April during Autism awareness week we set up Baileys just giving page, we shared it with his class group and his SENCO who then shared it with the whole school. A bunch of Baileys school friends came and supported him and it was incredible to see his friends and their parents showing their support, it was around this time in the year that the worry started to ebb away for me, I mean it never really goes, but things were starting to click into place for us, for him. He loves school and loves his friends dearly, more than they are probably even aware.

Bailey was sponsored across the school, the school shared his just giving page in the newsletter for about a month, which obviously got people talking about autism and neuro diversity. I worked with the senco and we talked about ways we could help the children gain a better understanding of what it means to be Autistic, they delivered circle time across the school tactfully and Bailey even delivered a little presentation about his walk during a whole school assembly. Bailey still struggles to tell me about his day but occasionally I hear bits through his teacher or from his friends...usually the girls and it always has me close to tears, he is so well loved and he’s done this all by himself by just being him , up until recently no one knew who me or Sam were, as he goes to breakfast and after school club we had limited contact with other parents, but as he’s constantly invited to parties I’ve got to know some parents now. I often get stopped and people say ‘oh are u Baileys mummy?!?...ohh he’s so sweet, Or I love him so much, I think being in the choir has also made him more visible to the parents and other kids of the school, which has also been a good thing, as he now has a bunch of friends across the school. I also think it’s been really good in supporting him with taking part in groups, making friends and has given him more confidence, though he’s always been pretty confident. Baileys reception choir teacher is also lovely and has gone out of her way to make sure he has a role in the choir, even though his participation is alway a bit hit or miss, the fact that he actually sings is incredible as he never did before he started school not even nursery rhymes. Baileys reception year choir dedicated and donated all the money they had raised from their first public performance, (which Bailey picked his nose the whole way through) to his just giving page, this took the total money he raised to over £1000.

The first year has not been completely smooth sailing for us always, and I’m not going to lie it can be tough and hugely over whelming juggling family, work and school, despite that Bailey has loved every minute of school so somethings going right. Being so honest means I’ve been contacted by parents who are about to embark on their scary first year with their child with additional needs and it’s been great to support them as they start their journeys, and I hope that as result of our honesty and the schools support, their children our coming into a school that respects diversity in all its forms.

Finally Bailey may not be able to read or write, but he’s nailed making friends, and that is all I ever wanted for him. I always though it was the academic things that were most important to me, but when we met the autism specialist teacher she asked us what we most wanted for Bailey and I immediately went to say that he can write and read and she looked at me, head slightly tilted with that expression...really? ..... and In that moment I immediately realised I didn’t! I couldn’t care less about those things, as long as he’s happy, I’m happy and having friends is what makes him so very happy, so reception was not about learning to read or write it was about learning to make friends and I’m happy with that. watching him with friend he actually plays with and not along side is amazing! Fuck knows how he’s learnt how to be such a social butterfly... It’s not a skill his learnt from his mum, though he definitely got the showing off from Sam!

[maddie-grove]

Bi-Monthly Reading Round-Up: November/December

Playlist

“When I’m Gone” by Brenda Holloway (Gone Girl)

“I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston (At the Queen’s Summons)

“Doctor My Eyes” by Jackson Browne (The Ask and the Answer)

“I Can Love You Better” by the Dixie Chicks (Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow)

“The Bad Touch” by Bloodhound Gang (Storm)

“Suspicion” by Terry Stafford (Trapped at the Altar)

“Smokey Places” by the Corsairs (The Diamond Slipper)

“You’re My Best Friend” by Queen (Someone to Trust)

“Praying” by Kesha (The Hostage)

“Castle Rock” by Barnaby Bright (Bledding Sorrow)

“The Circle of Life” from The Lion King (Monsters of Men)

“Disturbia” by Rihanna (I’ll Be Gone in the Dark)

“It’s All in the Game” by Tommy Edwards (Doomed Queen Anne)

“Locking Up My Heart” by the Marvelettes (Beware, Princess Elizabeth)

Best of the Bi-Month

The Hostage by Susan Wiggs (2000): In the chaos of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, backwoods trader Tom Silver kidnaps heiress Deborah Sinclair, hoping to make her industrialist father compensate the victims of his greed and negligence. Nothing goes according to plan, however, and these two people who should be enemies become anything but. I absolutely loved this book; the combination of slow-burn romance and action-packed non-romantic plot was perfect, and Deborah’s arc is just beautiful.

Worst of the Bi-Month

Bledding Sorrow by Marilyn Harris (1976): The cash-strapped heir of an ancient Yorkshire estate, his improperly medicated American wife, and a working-class coach driver are forced to reenact a Tudor-era tragedy, because of...reasons, I guess. I wasn’t too disappointed when I realized that this was Gothic horror instead of Gothic romance--I like scary stories, too--but this isn’t so much a novel as a long parade of pointlessly dismaying incidents. The characters are generally powerless to avoid their fates and, what’s more, they don’t have the opportunity or inclination to struggle very hard. Their helplessness might work if there were a compelling explanation for it, but Harris only makes a few vague suggestions (i.e., “Reincarnation?” or “House evil?”). Also, one of the supporting characters is such an egregiously offensive gay stereotype that he would probably make Jack Chick exclaim, “Whoa, tone it down!” The style was decent, though, and I had a few good laughs along the way.

Rest of the Bi-Month

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (2018): In this posthumously published true-crime book, McNamara details a series of burglaries, rapes, and murders that plagued Sacramento and Southern California during the 1970s-1980s, believed by her and many others to be the work of one man, dubbed the Golden State Killer. McNamara does a wonderful job capturing the strange false tranquility of Californian suburbia circa 1980, and she presents the (often convoluted) facts clearly but never salaciously. The good taste and empathy of her style kind of undercuts any passages along the lines of “perhaps researching serial killers is deeply unsavory,” but that was my only issue with the book.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness (2009): In the first sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go, young Todd Hewitt, having left behind the world he knew forever, deals with increasingly morally complex and traumatic situations. Meanwhile, his new friend, [redacted], wrestles with similarly thorny and upsetting issues. This is a worthy sequel to one of my favorite books I read this year. I missed the road narrative of the first installment, but the complicated ethical dilemmas and the ever-switching power dynamics very nearly made up for its loss.

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness (2010): In the final book of Ness’s trilogy, [redacted]. This was the weakest installment, but only because of some fairly minor structural issues, such as some initial narrative choppiness, that I probably wouldn’t have noticed if the first two books hadn’t been so well-structured as well as thematically fascinating. The payoff is pretty fantastic, in any event. Also, Todd’s whole...thing with the Mayor is one of the most gloriously weird, fascinating relationships I’ve seen in a YA novel.

Someone to Trust by Mary Balogh (2018): In Regency England, twenty-six-year-old Lord Hodges decides to do the proper thing and get himself wed; however, his narcissistic mother, not content with the significant emotional damage she’s dealt him over the years, keeps interfering with his search because she’s worried he’ll marry someone who’s not hot enough by her standards. Meanwhile, his thirty-five-year-old BFF, Lady Overfield, has resolved to accept the suit of a staid but pleasant acquaintance...but something just doesn’t feel right. You know what does feel right, though? Waltzing and talking about deep shit with Lord Hodges...and the feeling is mutual!!! This isn’t the most action-packed romance, but it’s super-cute and I was 1000% sold on Lady Overfield’s subtle awesomeness.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012): Unhappily married and resignedly living in his Missouri hometown, Nick Dunne suddenly finds himself as the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance and apparent murder. What the fuck is going on? I spent like five years of my life debating with myself whether to read this book, and I’m glad I did (long after its relevancy had peaked, of course). It’s easily the weakest of Flynn’s three novels--its sense of place isn’t as strong as Sharp Objects or Dark Places, although I understand that’s somewhat intentional, and neither main character works as a representation of an actual person--but it’s a propulsive read and it’s pretty damn funny. 

The Diamond Slipper by Jane Feather (1997): Lady Cordelia Brandenburg travels with her BFF, a teenage Marie Antoinette, so they can get hitched to the Austrian ambassador to France and the Dauphin, respectively. Two problems: Cordelia’s new husband is a fucking monster, and she’s fallen in love with the grieving brother of the husband’s mysteriously dead first wife. This novel probably isn’t to everyone’s taste; it kind of zigzags between a semi-cutesy fairy-tale feel and depictions of horrific abuse, and the effect is somewhat jarring. I enjoyed its use of historical details, though, and I liked the heroine a lot.

Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer (2002): In this historical YA novel, Elizabeth I narrates several incidents in her life from cradle to throne, focusing on all the times that her half-sister Mary came super-close to having her executed. Although I found the structure of the novel somewhat choppy, I really liked the portrayal of Elizabeth’s complicated relationships with her pious, increasingly suspicious half-siblings, plus the plot had plenty of action. 

Doomed Queen Anne by Carolyn Meyer (2001): In another installment of Meyer’s Young Royals series, Anne Boleyn explains her journey from awkward child to unconventional, controversial courtier to VICTIM OF TOTAL RAILROADING. This novel was even choppier than Beware, Princess Elizabeth, mostly because Elizabeth’s story is better-suited to the episodic plot structure, but I have to say I love this portrayal of Anne Boleyn as much as (if not more than) I did at twelve. Her motivations aren’t high-minded or altruistic, but she’s got feelings, damn it, and she has a right to fight against being treated like shit! Also, Meyer gives her a sixth finger on one hand, which was probably not the case historically, but it’s cool that Anne is portrayed sympathetically while also having a body that’s stigmatized by society.

Trapped at the Altar by Jane Feather (2014): In the early 1680s, Catholic Lady Ariadne Daunt and Protestant Sir Ivor Chalfont live in Daunt Valley, a makeshift community of loosely related lawless aristocrats who lost their lands in the English Civil War. Ariadne and Ivor are force to wed by the community “elders,” who hope to send them to the royal court as a religiously flexible power couple. This already-tense situation is made more awkward by the fact that Ariadne is in love with another man, while Ivor is in love with Ariadne. This novel is part of a small subset of romances that would be better as historical fiction. I loved the unique (albeit nightmarish) setting of Daunt Valley, the exciting journey to London, and the well-portrayed court intrigue. I even quite liked Ariadne. However, Ivor was such a shit. Ariadne is upfront with him about her love for another, but, because Ivor “loves” her, he acts like she’s morally obligated to go along with the whole thing. He never really forgives her for not being a virgin on their wedding night, and his reaction when he finds out she’s been using birth control is bloodcurdling. Also, Feather throws away an interesting dynamic where Ariadne has genuine feelings for two complex men in favor of making Ivor’s rival a creepy stalker (but also an embarrassingly ineffectual sissy). 

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George (2008): A  nameless Norwegian girl who can talk to animals agrees to live with an enchanted polar bear for one year in exchange for her family’s deliverance from poverty, secretly hoping to find the answer to her beloved brother’s sadness as well. She finds herself way in over her head, though, with a curse that goes back centuries or longer. I enjoyed this retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” and I thought a lot of the concepts were really clever (hint: this is neither the first girl nor the first polar bear). In execution, though, I didn’t like it as much as Edith Pattou’s retelling, East, which has a stronger sense of place and better-developed minor characters.

Storm by Donna Jo Napoli (2014): Sebah, a sixteen-year-old Canaanite girl, loses her home, her family, and her entire way of life in a sudden deluge that drowns the whole world...almost. After weeks of surviving in trees and on rafts, she manages to stow away on Noah’s Ark, where she rooms with some bonobos and learns way too much about Ham’s marital problems. I thought this was a very creative book with some delightfully weird earthiness, but it becomes somewhat static once Sebah boards the ark and meets a character who kills too much of the tension.

At the Queen’s Summons by Susan Wiggs (2009 update of 1995 original): Pippa, a street performer in Elizabethan England, claims the patronage of Aidan O Donoghue, a minor Irish king, in order to save herself from arrest. Aidan, a goodhearted fellow, goes along with it. This was a pleasant story, but I can remember almost nothing about it. I love Susan Wiggs, but her Tudor Rose trilogy is kind of a snore.

[needsmoresarcasm]

strip that down on the charts

I don’t know if you’ve heard but Liam Payne released this song called “Strip That Down,” and like it’s totally smashing, or maybe it’s definitely a flop. Because, like, it peaked at #441 on Icelandic Hits Bi-Monthly and everyone knows that’s the chart that really matters. But it was also the most played song in the 9 o’clock hour on KISZ 104.7 in Kennebunkport, Maine, which is totally unheard of for a debut single released by an artist with four (... sometimes five?) vowels in their name. Or something. 

AKA a post in which I attempt to break down how Strip That Down has been doing on the (mostly US) charts (and what those charts actually mean) because every time I run across another poorly argued stan war a little piece of my soul dies, and I’m already running dangerously low on soul. 

So, how much success has Strip That Down had? The answer is, of course, it depends. On worldwide streaming services? Fucking excellent. On US digital sales for a One Direction member? Pretty dire. Overall as a debut single? As with any serious question asked to a magic 8-ball, too soon to tell. So, like, let’s just get into some charts.

The Hot 100 | Chart Run: 42 - 65 - 51 - 44 - 34 - 33

Billboard’s Hot 100 is the traditional measure of success for singles in the US, so let’s start there. The Hot 100 ranks songs using a formula that takes into accounts radio play, sales, and streaming, where 1 download = 1000 radio audience impressions = 75 on-demand streams (or 150 radio-like streams). Thus, doing well on the Hot 100 is a holistic measure of success. Two caveats here: a song may do well overall, but its peak on the Hot 100 may not reflect that if it doesn’t do well on everything all at once. So a song like Awolnation’s “Sail” peaked at #17, despite going 5x platinum, because it essentially peaked twice: once on alternative radio, and once on mainstream formats. Second, a song may be a non-factor to the world, but have an artificially high peak because of first-week sales. My guess is no one in the world could hum more than a line of Taylor Swift’s “Today Was A Fairytale,” but that song had the same peak as “I Knew You Were Trouble” thanks to (at-the-time) record-breaking first-week sales. TL;DR: Hot 100, good success barometer, but like, don’t pray at its altar. Or do if that’s your thing. idk, I’m not gonna judge, people pray to way weirder shit.

On to Strip That Down’s run. It’s currently at #34, its peak, after six weeks on the chart. After falling from its initial position of #42, it has been steadily rising for the last month. Of course, without context, these numbers are about as meaningful as tickets to a Lauryn Hill concert. So for some damn context, let’s compare Strip That Down’s run to three songs released essentially at the same time as it: Bad Liar, Crying in the Club, and Swish Swish. 

Swish Swish has been a tragic circus car disasterfest, and so like, Strip That Down has at least hurdled that unfortunately low bar. It’s not quite doing as well as Bad Liar, Selena Gomez’s lead single, but is outpacing Crying in the Club, Camila Cabello’s lead single. Crying in the Club is probably the best comparison here, as a debut lead single from an artist after leaving a popular group. (Admittedly an imperfect comparison, as 1D was bigger than Fifth Harmony, but Camila’s name as a solo act is better known to US radio stations thanks to a host of features.) Of course, there may be even better comparisons. And, let’s be real, that’s what everyone is here for. And as much as I do not want to get into these comparisons, you kinda need to to get any objective sense of Strip That Down. 

Again, the resounding conclusion here is that Strip That Down (goddamnit if this song had a less terrible acronym I would be saving so many characters) is... doing fine. Like, not a whole lot of surprises in any direction. It’s certainly not close to the Hot 100 success of Sign of the Times’s early run. But its run is somewhat different looking from the other 3 debuts. It has seen fairly steady growth almost immediately, whereas the other songs fell for a handful of weeks before climbing again. (The reason for this is pretty clear: sales, but we’ll get to that in a bit.) Strip That Down’s run looks most like Slow Hands, a song that’s like kiinda smashing at the moment. Overall, Strip That Down is doing fine on the Hot 100. If it falls off a cliff tomorrow, it would have had a seriously disappointing chart run. But like, otherwise, don’t lose any sleep over it, but also don’t be one of those people arguing in the comments on a Youtube video about how it’s a smash hit. If you’re arguing in the comments section of Youtube, you’ve already lost. Even if you’re right. Which, you’re not, because you’re arguing in the comments on Youtube.

[Sidebar: Strip That Down has been pretty rockin on the UK Singles Chart, which tracks streams + sales. Its run has been 3-3-4-4-4-6 so far. The UK charts turnover much quicker than US ones, so that kinda longevity is already quite good. Like, it’s sticking around for longer than any of One Direction’s singles did.] 

Sales | Total Sales: 121,653 (US), 253,408 (UK)

Sales are sales are sales are sales. Not a whole lot to explain here. Early sales are driven by fanbases, and then continuing sales are driven by the “general public” - the inexplicable holy grail of stan war arguments. In the US, Strip That Down started with 52K sales, which was pretty underwhelming compared to the rest of the One Direction solo debuts. This Town sold about twice as much initially (121k in two weeks), Sign of the Times sold 3-4x more (200k in two weeks). Just Hold On sold about as much as Strip That Down. Of course, all of this leads us to the incredibly shocking conclusion that Harry has the largest fanbase, then Niall, then Liam and Louis. Now, if that’s news to you, let me catch you up on some other things: Donald Trump is President, Vine is dead, adjustable-rate mortgages are a trap, he could see dead people, Talkies are the next big thing, and there’s an entire continent west of Europe before India. 

Since then, Strip That Down has been steadily growing. It has spent the last two weeks or so in the low twenties on iTunes. increasing at a rate commensurate with its exposure. A quick note here: Strip That Down has never been discounted to $0.69, and discounts actually do have a pretty significant effect on sales - 11 of the current top 20 songs are discounted. So... overall, relatively poor sales so far in the US. If it has a long chart life, its sales could end up being amazing, so the writing is hardly on the wall. If they like it, they will come. (... phrasing?)

And if you feel the need to see success everywhere you look, it’s doing really well sales-wise in the UK. So grip that fact with white knuckles and mention it any time you talk to anyone ever. Here’s a sample conversation: 

PERSON: I can’t believe Sarah Huckabee Sanders unhinged her jaw and consumed Glenn Thrush on live TV!

YOU: STRIP THAT DOWN BY LIAM PAYNE WAS CERTIFIED SILVER IN THE UK FASTER THAN ANY OTHER SOLO DEBUT SINGLE FROM A FORMER BOYBAND MEMBER IN THE LAST TWO YEARS. #KING 🔥🔥🔥💯 💯 🔥🔥 👣🥑

PERSON: Wow! That information really changes my opinion of that song! That really makes me want to buy Liam Payne’s music! Thank you, kind stranger, for letting me know. 

~end scene~

Airplay | Pop: #21, Rhythmic: #17, 31.234M A.I.

Radio play is interesting because it’s something fans have essentially no control over. Because no matter how many times you Twitter request a song to get in on WHYT The Hytz’s Top 7 @ 7, that’s just a drop in the radioplay bucket. Instead, it’s dominated by label support, artist familiarity, and general audience reaction. The most commonly referred to charts (on the interwebs) for radio airplay are Mediabase’s charts. (Billboard draws its numbers from BDS, not Mediabase, but in the grand scheme of things, the similarities in the tracking systems far outweigh the differences.) Mediabase keeps genre-specific charts, and charts songs based on the number of plays (spins) the song gets on those stations. Aside from spins, the other important number for radio is audience impressions (A.I.) which measures how many people heard a song. Because a spin on New York’s pop station Z100 at rush hour is going to reach more people than a spin on WSTW, Wilmington DE’s Hot Adult Contemporary station at 2AM.

The chart people care about for the purposes of stan-warring is the CHR/Pop chart, which is exactly what it says on the tin: the pop chart. And wow, what do you know, here too Strip That Down has been steadily rising since its release (chart run: 36 - 31 - 26 - 24 - 24 - 22). You’d be pretty hard pressed to argue that this is underperforming. You’d also be pretty hard pressed to argue that it’s overperforming. So don’t! No one wants to be hard pressed. Well, actually... Err, where was I? Oh right, here’s a chart.

Again, aside from Swish Swish, which, lol, the general trend for all these songs is pretty similar. Bad Liar/Sign of the Times both grew way faster with some pretty significant radio deals. Everything else kinda chugged along. Strip That Down has been seeing a pretty linear increase in spins, and if it’s going to really climb, that’s going to need to pick up. But radio is super top-heavy, in that the top 10 songs account for a huge percentage of total spins. Maybe the radio gods will deign to grace Strip That Down and it’ll sky rocket. Or maybe not and it’ll stall in the mid-teens and like, that’ll be fairly respectable. 

In terms of overall audience, Strip That Down is the 58th most-heard song on radio, reaching 31.235 million/week. A majority of that is from pop stations, but a sizable chunk is also from CHR/Rhythmic stations, which are more hip-hop/r&b leaning. (And, a small slice is from Hot Adult Contemporary stations, a format that skews closer to pop rock, but generally plays every big pop hit.) Strip That Down has been seeing its biggest audience gains in the last couple days, so who knows. The world is its oyster.

Streaming | Spotify #23 (US), #9 (Worldwide), Youtube #57

Because it’s 2017 and millennials refuse to spend money on anything but avocado toast and actively staying unemployed, streaming exists. And tbh, I don’t really know shit about streaming patterns because the last time I followed music charts closely, Spotify wasn’t really a thing. And like every old person who used to know something, instead of doing the research and educating myself, I’m just gonna speculate wildly and hope no one notices when I pronounce Zendaya like it rhymes with papaya.

From my rigorous research, it looks like streaming turnover is definitely faster than radio turnover. And streaming in the US (at least on Spotify/Apple Music) trends more towards hip hop/rap. It also seems like streaming is basically its own beast, but not totally insulated from label influence. IDK how Spotify’s top hits playlists work, but like, my guess is there’s not no money to be had there.

What really matters is that Strip That Down is kinda killin’ it. It’s been gaining in the top 30 for US Spotify streams, and in the top 10 for worldwide Spotify streams for the last month. It’s definitely had the benefit of being on the most popular playlists, so that probably explains some of it. I don’t know what explains the rest of it. But like, idk, I guess the youths are digging it. Let’s visually illustrate this multiple times to place more emphasis on the streaming factor because such an emphasis would be advantageous to the perception of Strip That Down that most appeases my carnal desires. 

Wow, for once the analysis isn’t “idk we’ll see how it does.” For streaming, Strip That Down has just straight up done well regardless of the context or comparison you’d like to make. It’s already a streaming success for who knows what reason.  

Let’s end on that note. Please use this information for good and not evil. I don’t care if you like Liam or hate him or WHATEVER (that’s a lie, I do care if you hate Liam, because you’re a monster), but have some basic grasp of what the various chart numbers mean, please. Or if you must continue to engage in petty, misinformed arguments with rando strangers on the internet, do it in a place where there is zero chance of me stumbling upon it. (Those places don’t exist on the internet, because I will scrape into the deepest recesses of the web to find people saying nice things about Liam Payne. Because I am so bored.)

But, y’know, if your mental well-being depends on Liam’s songs performing well, then there’s definitely enough here for you to tell yourself that he’s #smashing #kingofpop #yourfavescouldnever #heynowyourearockstargetyourshowongetpaid. 

[coconutseaways]

Aug 25 - 2017 -- The countdown to leave is on

Aug 15 We have a couple days before our next guests check in, a couple from Holland, on the 17th in Horta. We decided to save a couple euros and head to Madalena for 2 days. I was tired and for a little while I didn't really want to go, but the cheap side of me said go, go, go. So we got the boat ready, let off of our mooring and sailed out of Horta in the early evening. We anchored in our spot near the fishing piers in order to avoid some of the swell that was surging into the harbour. We only used one anchor this time but had a good circle of space for swinging. The wind was fairly constant so we didn't move around too much. We had a good sleep and the next morning the ferry horn blowing and the construction guys working had us up around 8. We went ashore, and did some souvenir shopping for the first time. Mike got a few things for his kids and a couple more postcards. I bought a t shirt, but am going to pick up some more stuff to send home. I was hesitant to mail anything, to save on postage. But when Mike mailed a package to South Africa and it only cost €7 - well I figured we could spare a couple bucks. Postage in Canada is so much more expensive, and I just assumed it would be similar here. Definitely not. So I am picking up more postcards and will be hitting the post office in a couple days. Our two dollarama solar lights have died on us...too much salt spray I think. The wires have rusted out and now we do not have an anchor light. Well we do, at the top of the mast of course, but the bulb up there is an old halogen and it sucks power out of the battery like no tomorrow, so we were avoiding using it. And since the rule is "an all around white light" for an anchor light, the garden solar lights are an easy replacement. But now we need to do something else, so we went to the Chinese Store - pretty much a glorified dollar store and Mike picked up a whole bunch of different LED's for us to switch out our old bulbs with. The draw on the battery is ridiculously lower with LED's compared to the old ones. It's just awesome. We put some money on our phone here, which I can't believe how much Canadian cell phone bills are ripping people off. We have spent maybe €30 for the SIM card and all of our data since we got here which is 2.5 months already. We've even had to make 2 international calls and it's still less than one month of my MTS bill. Plus because it's EU, any phone plans work through all the countries of EU with no roaming or long distance or anything like that. Canadian cell phone plans are a joke. We hit the grocery store and unfortunately they were looking seriously low on stock. Probably awaiting a shipment, there was little fruit and veggies to choose from (no cucumbers 🥒 at all!). We picked up some rolls, a chicken and some beer. Haha. Then Mike cooked us a wonderful curry and salsa chicken dish. We had it with rice and it was delicious! We enjoyed a nice evening in Madalena and the next morning headed back to Horta relatively early (around 9 AM). The Horta office boys must be tired of seeing me. We have come and gone so many times. But I'm glad that we are still spending our days sailing. So many boats arrive and then just park...for however long...and then leave on another long voyage. I think I would start to dread sailing if the only time we went out was for a long trip. You don't get to enjoy the sunny days of going out for a few hours and then coming back for the evening. Have a beer and some lunch, swim and snorkel outside of a harbour, and then come back for a good rest. So many boats haven't moved, and there really isn't that much to see in Horta. Anyways that's just my thought. Aug 17 Our next guests checked in around 3 PM and they spent the evening going to the beach and checking out some of the cafes and places in Horta. They came back to the boat for dinner, which we made kebabs!! Ohhh they turned out delicious. Mike marinated a beef shank and we put red and green peppers and onion on the skewers. Then fired up the BBQ. I love that we can grill on the back of the boat! Such a luxury! Plus it's August and the Azores are HOT and HUMID! The mugginess was especially bad today, so we were glad we didn't have to cook down below. At least when we get too hot, we can just fall over the side of the boat and cool down. Our guests were only there for that evening and the next day, so they spent the whole next day on the island. They rented scooters and checked out about half the island, went to a museum and enjoyed dinner. Mike and I had a productive day on the boat while they were gone. I sewed a small patch closed on our genoa. This is the sail that I spent hours, pulling out stitches in the winter to get the old ripped sun covers off. After I had removed the sun covers, we had the sailmaker restitch the leech line, which I had to take apart in order to get the sun cover off. It needed some new thread anyways. But there was one triangle patch that on one side the stitches were off and never got resewn. So when we were sailing with it, we noticed it was cupping air and causing drag. We had taken this sail down and put up the working jib for our trip to Graciosa on Aug 7. But now that we were in for lighter winds, we wanted to put the big genny back up. So I spent the afternoon sewing it up in the cockpit. The sail is thick so it was a little tough to get the needle through each time and by the time I was done, my hands were feeling cramped. Oh well. It's done and it should hold well. It's nice to do work on the boat yourself, instead of shelling out a ton of money to someone else. It's one thing if you can't fix it yourself, or it is clearly a better idea to get an expert to do it (like sewing the entire leech line - the sailmakers definitely got that job). But you get a nice sense of gratification when you see the things you've done on your own boat. We headed over to the wifi area, which I was dreading because I needed to try and call my bank and get them to unlock my account. It got locked because we were trying to make our final payment on our self steering windvane (yes still dealing with this) through an app that does international transfers. Well my bank stopped it before it went through and I was informed that I needed to call and do the whole rigamaroll to get it unlocked. I explained through email that I was in Portugal and calling would cost me a fortune. I asked if there was anyway to make a call over wifi (what's app, Skype, FaceTime...anything) and skype was the answer. What a pain in the ass though. First you call a 1 800 number, then the number you are calling, then they have to accept the charges and then you can talk. Well the first couple times I got no answer. Then I got through and the woman told me I had to call the fraud department directly. I explained the Portugal, phoning situation again and she said I could go through Skype the same way and they would accept the charges. Well...they didn't. And wouldn't. I tried probably about 10 times and they kept declining the call. So I tried calling the international call collect number again, and then they were declining the charges too. After an hour and a half or so, I was so fed up with it all. Mike handed me his cell phone and said just make the call and we will pay for it. So I called the fraud centre, explained quickly that this was costing a lot and the man said he would go as quickly as possible understanding my predicament. Then I got disconnected! I was losing my mind. So then I called again, told a different woman the same story. She powered through the security questions and asked about my tried transaction. I explained what is was and that we ended up using my credit card instead and she said ok, I will unlock your account. The entire call took 4 minutes which was awesome!!!! I thanked her very much for her timely help and finally had access to my account again. Good thing we weren't hurting for cash because it had been locked for almost a week. So the self steering. The unit we were supposed to have in March, waited as long as we could into June to get and still don't have. We have made some progress finally. First Mike and the owner of the business were negotiating the final price for a couple weeks or so. We ordered in advance and every month in advance equalled a 3% discount. But the shipping from Argentina to Canada was much cheaper than the shipping to the Azores so that had to be discussed and negotiated. Then there was talk about VAT and all these other figures. Finally we settled on the final bill and received it as an email attachment. Then we went to pay, but ran into issues due to the amount being over $1000 CAD, and Canadian regulations requiring a current bank statement. Well my bank account had just gotten locked so I couldn't get one. Mike's bank statements are in Gimli haha. Plus all this time we still had guests on and off and limited access to wifi. Finally, we were able to get back to wifi, not needing to worry about having guests, get Mike's sister to send us a picture of his statement, and the app we were using put the payment through and we received confirmation!!! Hallelujah! Now we wait for the actual shipment. I can't believe how long and drawn out this process has been. But we will finally have a self steering unit, that works on wind, no power and can really get into the cruising way of sailing. Back to our guests (Aug 18): They didn't come back to the boat until after 10PM. I was already drifting asleep, but Mike was awake and went and picked them up. We talked for a few minutes and then we called it a night. They were taking the 7AM ferry which meant a 6AM wake up. I heard them start packing their stuff around 5:30 and then at 6 I rowed them ashore. We said goodbyes and they said goodnight because they knew I was going back to sleep. Mike happily stayed sleeping in bed and didn't even notice they had left. I crawled back into bed and whispered to him...no getting up before 8. I think I ended up sleeping until almost 10 which was so lovely. Mike was sweet enough to make minimal noise until then. While I was sleeping, Mike ended up talking to the other Canadian boat anchored right beside us. She is from Montreal and we suspected she solo sailed here since we have only seen her onboard. Sure enough, she did. And, she only started sailing about 5 years ago. She's brave! She just had a sister here visiting and in a week or so she will be headed for Madeira and then the Canaries. We exchanged email addresses to keep in touch and I'm sure we will see her in the Canaries, since we are most likely going to go there now. We talked to customs about me getting an extension and he explained that it would be very easy and should be no problem since I'm Canadian. So now the Canaries are back on and Cape Verde will be a quick stop instead of a month long stay. When we were in Graciosa, we met a young 19 year old solo sailor from Germany and he said he absolutely loved the Canaries. And that La Gomera was absolutely beautiful and we should go there. So that's the plan!! It was another hot and muggy day. I enjoyed a swim to cool off and then spent a good chunk of the day reading and relaxing. Before going ashore, Mike and I decided to have another swim/snorkel since we were both feeling the sticky humidity. We rowed the dinghy over to another mooring, because the water beside our boat had some oil on top from the nearby fishing boats (ugh). We went in and right away I found a good sized purple octopus 🐙 hanging out in his home. I showed Mike where he was and when Mike went down, the octopus decided to make a run for it. He swam away shooting ink 3 times. I can't believe how thick the ink is. It made a thick black cloud that you couldn't see anything through. Then we saw the octopus go back to his home. Poor guy. We were just looking but he thought we were a threat. We left him alone and then headed back for the boat. It being Saturday I went and called mom at a more respectable hour - 10:30 AM for her, 3:30 PM for me. We chatted for 40 minutes and she told me she needed to get some yard work done. One of my old jobs. I miss being able to do those things around the house. I actually enjoyed doing the yard work and looking at the yard and hedge after it was looking all nice and trimmed. I headed to the bakery and the butcher, but the butcher was closed. No meat for tonight, oh well. Then sent a few voice messages to my dad, my sister and to Corey (best friend). If I had more time, I would have stayed to try to make calls to them but we were checking out and leaving for Madalena again. I love the voice messages you can send. It's a little more personal then just a text. I checked out with the office boys, paid our 12 euros and we set sail to Pico. We didn't use the engine at all, which I love doing, sailing out and drifting into Madalena. We had a great sail across, drinking a beer and reading a new Ian Rankin book I picked up from the book exchange in Horta. There are not many English books so when I saw this one, I grabbed it right away. My mom has read a lot of his stuff and really likes him, so I figured it would probably be a decent read. I read it aloud, so Mike and I can both get through the book together. Plus it makes it more of an activity for the both of us. Instead of me just sitting quietly reading. Before I knew it we were almost into harbour. We did our double anchor trick to keep us in the middle of the two piers, since there's a couple more big fishing boats that might need a bit more space to maneuver. Aug 20 It's Sunday so we are taking it easy. Today Mike and I got all of our trips around the Azores written down. When and where and who was onboard. I also added up all of our marina fees that we've paid and so far we are at about €200. Not terrible at all compared to the amount some of the other boats will be paying since they never go anywhere. We can cover that with one good full day of paid sailing so I think we are sitting pretty good. That also includes some showers and all the "free" water we have gotten since we arrived. It's been a good day of relaxing and paperwork so I'm content. Tomorrow we have a Belgian family of 4 checking in for one night. They have two young kids (4 and 6) so we will see how that goes. The youngest kids we've had so far were 10 and 11. So this is quite a bit different. Then we have two more bookings in Horta and we are done. So...3:15 right now on Aug 20, I suggested that I would go to the grocery store a couple hours ago. Mike was on the chart plotter getting distances for all the cities so we can add up all our mileage. He said he would come too. I thought for a second, it's really windy, we are double anchored, but maybe one of us should stay back. I didn't say it though. So we went ashore and I set the pace at a fast walk. I hate leaving the boat at anchor. So we got our groceries, and thank goodness the shipment had just come in because there was all kinds of fruit and veggies (including cucumber 🥒). We got back to the boat and she was just where we left her...all good. While I'm lying in bed and Mike is starting to get supper ready when I feel a knock. I said to Mike, it feels like we just tapped something, even though we didn't. Then we started swinging. Being doubled anchored means we don't swing...we got up on deck and our bow was swinging around. Mike grabbed the bow anchor rope and she came up with nothing on it. Chafed through. Shit. So I fired up the engine and put her in reverse to keep us away from any fishing boats. Mike pulled the other anchor up and we tied up to a concrete wall. There's a lot of surge here, so we don't normally try to tie up. We then went in the dinghy and Mike dived down for our lost anchor. He found it immediately and we hauled her back up. Geez! She chafed out on a rock...right after it turns to rope from chain, so at least we still have most of our line. Thank god we were in the boat when this happened. If we hadn't been....there would be damage for sure. And only to our boat...these big steel fishing boats wouldn't even feel us swinging into them. Anyways. Now we will re anchor and this time dive on it to make sure she isn't rubbing against a sharp rock. Moral of the story...always dive on your anchor to make sure she is set properly and your line is good...oh and more chain! We are definitely putting more chain on. We decided not to anchor near the fishing boats and head over near the swimming area. There's more room to anchor...but also a lot more rocks to go into if the wind swings and the anchor drags. But for tonight we would be fine. It's a nice sandy bottom and the wind isn't supposed to swing until tomorrow morning. Mike swam down to check on it and it was digging in nicely but still dragging a very small amount. While he was looking...he saw a rope down there. He pulled on it and sure enough he found a mooring! Awesome luck! So now we are tied onto a mooring with an anchor out just in case. It might be a little rocky, but we will endure and hopefully won't be moving around anymore. Aug 25 Our Belgian family was awesome. Super friendly, easy going family with two absolutely adorable kids. They loved the boat and even though we had bad weather almost the entire time, everyone still had a really good time. The little girl became my new best friend and it was nice to have kids around again. I miss working with all the kids back in Winnipeg so it was nice to tap into my younger self haha. The little boy, wanted to catch fish so bad, so his dad took him ashore and he caught 4 super tiny fish, like 4-5 cm long. They brought them back to the boat and his dad cleaned them and we cooked them up and the little boy was so happy he could eat the fish he caught. The next morning Mike and the dad went for a snorkel around the boat and Mike was able to find an octopus. He brought it up and put it on the boat for the kids to look at and they were so excited. The octopus made his way back to the water very quickly and the kids were loving it. Then we came back to Horta for the 23rd. Which was my moms birthday - Happy Birthday Mom! We had a Spanish couple spend two nights with us. We enjoyed LOTS of food together, BBQ and cooking away. The next day we sailed to a little anchorage on Faial, we snorkelled for an hour or so and I finally saw my first sting rays! Two or three of them. They are so cool, and when they find a spot they flip their fins and bury themselves under the sand. It was awesome. Then cooked up some big fat hamburgers with bacon 🥓, Canadian style haha. Just missing the cheddar cheese. We had a great lunch and another short swim before sailing back to Horta. We played cards and drank wine and brandy all evening and then this morning, they were off to catch their flight back home. Now we have one more booking, just one night and then we are done for the season here. It's been great! We've met some amazing people and had some awesome experiences. I have posted the Caribbean listing on Airbnb. I think I figured out why it kept disappearing - calendar settings - and now it should be there and easy to find. We are based out of St Maarten - and the title is S/V Athena - Caribbean Dream. We will mainly focus on sailing to Anguilla and St Bart's from St Maarten. *Airbnb has changed their rules and regulations and they now say that the boat must remain anchored/moored during the reservation. So we are still advertising accommodations on Airbnb but would prefer to take sailing charter bookings through Facebook in order to comply. We have paypal as a form of payment and although this change is a bit of a pain, we plan to keep doing what we're doing, just using 2 different platforms now. I'm sure the change is due to charter companies complaining to Airbnb or something like that. So in short, airbnb is for accommodation only - sleeping on an anchored boat and sail charters will go through Facebook/PayPal. Anyways that's it for now! Love and miss all of you. Come stay with us in the Caribbean. It's gonna be a blast I guarantee it!!! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ Coconut Seaways (#coconut_seaways).

[armandj]

CoinGecko’s Bobby Ong on BTC: ‘Something That Will get Measured Will get Manipulated’

  Whether or not pushed by enterprise, manipulation, geopolitical turmoil, or the unfold of a pandemic, the winds of change have swiftly swept throughout each nook of the globe; Bitcoin has been no exception.

Over the previous 12 months, Bitcoin’s picture and presence on the planet has modified: because the cryptocurrency area has continued to mature, there’s extra dependable knowledge than ever earlier than; market manipulation–whereas it hasn’t disappeared–has loosened its grip on crypto; it doesn’t matter what aspect of the argument you have been on, the Bitcoin-as-a-safe-haven narrative has been flipped on its head.

Now that Bitcoin is again over $10,000, the world is on its toes–will BTC handle to remain above the $10,000 mark? Maybe. Nonetheless, the crypto world is simply as sturdy as its weakest hyperlinks.

Traditionally, gathering correct buying and selling knowledge has been a little bit of a ache level throughout the trade. With market manipulation and wash buying and selling rampant within the area, 1000’s of merchants have fallen sufferer to the traps laid by false representations of the reality.

Lately, Finance Magnates spoke to Bobby Ong, co-founder and chief working officer at cryptocurrency knowledge aggregator CoinGecko, about the way forward for Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies, in addition to how his firm is working to seek out and report the reality within the cryptocurrency world.

The next is an excerpt of an interview that was performed on June 2nd, 2020. It has been edited for readability and size. To listen to Finance Magnates’ full dialog with Bobby Ong, go to us on Soundcloud or Youtube.

Finance Magnates · Blockchain Podcast #126 — Bobby Ong, COO of CoinGecko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MZiH0XyRSY

  Bitcoin’s motion over $10,000 is “most likely a mix” of myriad components

“I’ve heard a number of completely different explanation why Bitcoin could have gone up,” Bobby mentioned. “One of many crazier issues that I’ve heard is ‘oh, there’s riots in America, so purchase Bitcoin,’” which appears to counsel that doable political instability within the states might weaken the greenback and lift the worth of BTC.

Nonetheless, “it doesn’t make a lot sense to me,” Bobby mentioned.

However, “some say that [the price] reveals a correlation with the S&P500 inventory value going up…some persons are saying that on a technical indicator degree, Bitcoin had a really excessive month-to-month shut on the finish of Could, which is a bullish sign, and [therefore], Bitcoin goes up.”

“However I feel it’s most likely a mix of all [these factors],” he continued, including that the current halving is also a contributing issue. “There’s most likely nobody actual cause why issues are going up.”

Nonetheless, “[…] personally, I feel that we are going to dip again down–we’ll check one other low. How low it will likely be–I feel there are a couple of assist ranges as much as $4,000-$6,000; I can’t inform precisely.”

“Then, we’ll most likely shake out lots of people one final time, after which we’ll prime ourselves for an actual growth in 2021. That’s my private take, however I’ve been within the area lengthy sufficient to know that it’s very onerous to make predictions. I might say something, however the market has its personal thoughts.”

A part of the rationale for Bitcoin’s rise over the previous 12 months might be the truth that the cryptocurrency area is maturing in numerous alternative ways, together with the truth that market manipulation–whereas it’s nonetheless an issue within the cryptocurrency area–is extra extensively mentioned; it may be argued that there’s far more consciousness of market manipulation (and how one can keep away from falling into the traps that such manipulation can lay) than previously.

”A variety of [crypto] exchanges have a really sturdy incentive to control their knowledge.”

A lot of this has to do with Bitwise Asset Administration’s presentation to the SEC early in 2019: in an try and get the SEC to permit Bitwise to create a Bitcoin ETF, the corporate successfully introduced an exposé of widespread wash buying and selling within the cryptocurrency trade.

Bobby mentioned that earlier than Bitwise Asset Administration made its legendary presentation earlier than the SEC final 12 months on market manipulation, wash buying and selling within the Bitcoin area was type of an open secret.

This Bitwise report is wonderful pic.twitter.com/2TLMpHcsJ4

— Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) Could 26, 2019

“I feel that earlier than they launched the report, lots of people within the trade type of already [knew about it]; it was one thing that we noticed at CoinGecko as nicely.”

For instance, a lot of the exchanges that report the best Bitcoin buying and selling volumes “are a few of these bizarre, small-name exchanges, largely originating from China,” Bobby defined.

Nonetheless, it was clear from the start that these exchanges have been reporting “clearly manipulated knowledge.”

“They’re placing out faux buying and selling knowledge to inflate their quantity, as a result of they need it to seem that they’ve bigger liquidity,” he continued. Finally, “we got here to the conclusion–particularly for non-regulated exchanges–that any metric that may be tracked will likely be manipulated.”

“Buying and selling quantity is tracked as an essential metric in evaluating exchanges, so a whole lot of exchanges have a really sturdy incentive to control their knowledge,” Bobby defined.

”Buying and selling volumes are now not a great way of figuring out an trade’s actual liquidity.”

Nonetheless, “it’s come to the stage the place buying and selling volumes are now not a great way of figuring out an trade’s actual liquidity, actual quantity, actual depth; we determined that we have now to do one thing completely different, and that we have now to make use of different various metrics in figuring out the true volumes of those exchanges.”

Subsequently, Bobby defined that final 12 months, CoinGecko started giving every of the exchanges it lists a “belief rating” primarily based on a blended algorithm that mixes numerous various factors.

BLOCKTV spoke with @coingecko founder @bobbyong about their Q1 2020 report together with #Bitcoin shedding dominance, $BSV the large winner, Learn how to DeFi, Coingecko Earn, & extra.

Watch the complete interview at: https://t.co/l3WTtcmlsw pic.twitter.com/BsdDe4e2dp

— BLOCKTV (@BLOCKTVnews) April 19, 2020

One among these components has to do with inspecting the bid-ask unfold for every of the trade’s buying and selling pairs. “We noticed sure exchanges having a 50% to 80% bid-ask unfold–it’s fairly ridiculous, since you make one bid, you make one purchase order, you make one promote order, and also you just about lose 60% or 80% of your cash, as a result of the unfold is simply enormous.”

“And in between this 50% bid-ask unfold, there have been 100 million {dollars} of trades occurring between the unfold; it was clearly wash buying and selling. I noticed it in entrance of my eyes, and I used to be shocked.”

Attending to the underside of faux buying and selling quantity

CoinGecko’s algorithm additionally examines order guide depth: “we take the mid-price of the commerce, after which we take a two p.c decrease vary and a two p.c higher vary, after which we sum up all the orders inside that two p.c vary and see all what number of orders you’ll be able to promote inside that two p.c vary.”

So, for instance, if there are $50,000 in order-book depth, what we discovered was that some exchanges–regardless that they declare to have $100 million of day by day buying and selling quantity, they solely have $1000 of their [2%-range] order guide, which isn’t good, as a result of if you wish to promote $10,000 of a selected coin, you [would] have a considerable amount of slippage.”

“This actually reveals that there is no such thing as a liquidity on [those] exchanges,” Bobby mentioned.

Net site visitors evaluation can present that “one thing is off”

One other issue that the algorithm takes into consideration is net site visitors evaluation.

When CoinGecko started inspecting net site visitors on exchanges in 2019, “what we noticed was that for those who suppose that an trade that information a excessive quantity of actual buying and selling quantity, they might most definitely have lots of people accessing their web site; for instance, Binance.com, Coinbase.com, Bitfinex.com, and so forth.”

“In fact, this makes the belief that each one exchanges have the identical quantity of retail and API customers, and makes the belief that exchanges have the identical quantity of net versus app customers; however assuming these are equal (which is a really tough approximation, it’s not excellent), what we noticed is that among the exchanges that claimed do to a whole bunch of 1000’s of hundreds of thousands in day by day buying and selling quantity–they didn’t have any net site visitors.”

Any measure that will get measured, will get manipulated.

We now have began noticing exchanges shopping for faux site visitors a couple of months again and now depend on net site visitors high quality too (not simply net site visitors estimate per say). https://t.co/ybXzNkMD14

— Bobby Ong (@bobbyong) Could 15, 2020

As an alternative, “they solely acquired possibly 10,000 or 15,000 month-to-month web page views.”

“This doesn’t make any sense, as a result of for those who declare to have the identical quantity of buying and selling quantity as Binance or Coinbase, then you definately most likely have the identical quantity of site visitors–or on the very least 50% or 70% of their net site visitors.”

Nonetheless, “having a 95% discrepancy in net site visitors? That clearly reveals that one thing is off.”

“Something that will get measured will get manipulated.”

CoinGecko’s algorithm examines these metrics, in addition to others, and produces a rating for every trade: “we give a rating from one to 10 for every of those exchanges, after which for every buying and selling pair, we give a inexperienced, yellow, or crimson site visitors mild to find out [if the volumes are legitimate.]”

Have these “belief scores” been efficient in deterring customers from suspect exchanges? “Appears to be working nicely up to now,” Bobby mentioned. “In the event you go to CoinGecko, you’ll most likely see the checklist of exchanges [topped by] Binance, Coinbase, Bitfinex, Kraken–these are the exchanges that it’s best to anticipate to see.”

Nonetheless, among the small, scheming exchanges are working to sport the system, though many have discovered that they will’t simply flub the numbers anymore: “I’ve been telling them, look: if you wish to get a greater rating on CoinGecko, it’s simple–simply cease faking issues and simply do the best factor and develop [your user base].”

Nonetheless, “something that will get measured will get manipulated,” Bobby repeated.

“These guys simply have a dishonest mindset, they usually need to discover a method to cheat: they attempt to cheat all of those completely different metrics. It’s type of a cat-and-mouse sport.”

For instance, when CoinGecko began monitoring web site site visitors, “we began noticing some exchanges shopping for faux site visitors.”

Consequently, “we needed to begin placing in some metrics to start out taking a look at site visitors high quality, for instance,” as an alternative of web page views alone.

“It will get tougher and tougher, however you need to do what must be performed” Bobby mentioned. “It’s type of like an search engine marketing sport the place everyone seems to be attempting to control their method to rating #1 on Google–it’s the identical factor with all these exchanges. They only need to discover a method to be #1 on aggregator websites.”

Nonetheless, “one factor’s for positive–shoppers are conscious of this problem; they’re extra discerning. I feel it’s tougher for shoppers to take no matter is displayed on websites like CoinGecko at face worth; they are going to do extra analysis and study and discover out if there’s actual buying and selling quantity.”

The next is an excerpt of an interview that was performed on June 2nd, 2020. It has been edited for readability and size. To listen to Finance Magnates’ full dialog with Bobby Ong, go to us on Soundcloud or Youtube.

source https://www.financeary.com/cryptocurrency/coingeckos-bobby-ong-on-btc-something-that-will-get-measured-will-get-manipulated.html

[topicprinter]

Hey, you might remember this post I made over a week ago about making my first sale on www.workshoptactics.com.What is your product?With endless, lengthy and complicated design and team workshop exercises out there, and tonnes of terrible ineffective meetings: Workshop Tactics is a simple, curated set of Agile workshop exercises to help your team get stuff done effectively.What motivated you to start?As a digital designer, I wanted to create a physical product that solved a problem I kept seeing. People who know how effective a good workshop is, don't know which one to run, or when. I wanted to leverage all of my design, website, marketing and research skills and go out and do it for myself.How long have you been working on it for?I've been working on Workshop Tactics since December last year. It started out as a website, which I scrapped. I believed having something physical would reflect the offline nature of a workshop. Writing the content has been the most time consuming aspect.What's your one year and five year plan?In 6 months, I hope to either have created a successful Kickstarter - and sold 1000 copies. In 5 years, I hope to be in the back pocket of every great digital product team in the world.What have been your most memorable positive and negative experiences?The most memorable experience was unboxing the prototypes. I was physically shaking with excitement. This thing that existed on a screen for so long was about to become real! Seeing the delight on people's faces as they looked at them was a great feeling too. The worst experience has been the long slog its taken to get here. Looking at online competition and other great resources and constantly battling the doubtful feeling of "why bother, this has already been done really well". - but it's not been done by me!Advice I would give myself if I was starting out againSeek feedback earlier and more often. Don't be afraid of the telephone. Speak to people! You'll learn more than you could ever dream.The following is a fairly in-depth story of how I got to where I am now, which is now planning my kickstarter campaign, with 70 dedicated customers with a mailing list of only 240.So how do you grow a mailing list from 0?You grow it to 1, then you grow it to 2, then 3.This is clearly garbage advice, but there is some truth to it. So what am I getting at? One of the most important things I learned was from reading Seth Godin’s “This is Marketing”. He talks about finding your smallest viable market. Sell to one person, and grow from there. You need to treat your mailing list in the same way.So how did I sell £1400 of product in a week from a mailing list of 200?1. Do you know what specific problem you are solving?This product solves a very niche problem in a niche sector of the software development industry. Being niche means you can laser focus on a problem. Chances are if you are solving a problem for one person, you are solving it for many. The problem I was trying to solve was there is too many workshop resources out there to choose from, and it’s not clear which you should do or when. So my product curates the best workshops, and tells you why and when to use them. Problem? Too many over complicated workshops. Solution? A curated set of simple workshops.2. How do you find out if people would buy it?The solution is simple. Make it so people can actually buy it. I created a landing page with a mock up of the product (a set of cards). The name and brand were also a part of this test. It needed to feel like it was real. I spent most of my time honing the content to make sure the proposition was as clear as possible. I spent in total £400 on LinkedIn ads. This allowed me to test which marketing message was most effective, as well as what landing page copy was most effective. But how did I know if it was effective or not? I didn’t enable people to buy the product. So what did I do instead?3. How do you know if the idea is “validated?”I got a staggering 20% conversion rate. The thing I measured? Email sign ups with the sole intent of being notified when the product would be available. An email sign up told me two things:There is intent to purchase.They are willing to wait to find out when they can buy it.This gave me confidence I had an idea that would sell. How did I know this really telling me my product idea was validated? Anything above 5% is extremely good. But it’s not an exact science, this data only gives you a steer. There were other things I had yet to learn. How much would people pay for it? Would people actually find the product useful in reality?4. How did you go from 20 to 200 subscribers?During this time I also tweeted to my peer group (500 followers) and LinkedIn connections (900). This grew my list to nearly 100 subscribers! Why didn’t I do this in the first place? Because I wanted to validate my idea with strangers. Based on all this data, I knuckled down and made version one of the product. I knew the time I invest now wouldn’t be wasted. But how would I find out if what I was making was any good?5. Learning is the name of the game, but how do you learn without a product to test?I was already aware of my target audience, as I work with them every day as a consultant. It would take some time before I could get a physical version of the deck out, but I wanted to make sure I was starting off on the right foot. I created a short survey that asked my subscribers and peers what their expectations of the product was. What they were already using, and what their biggest problems are.The responses I got gave me valuable insight into my target customer. Those that filled the survey also expressed interest in trying a free prototype of the product in exchange for more feedback. Creating this early connection with my audience was key. They will later become my advocates, ambassadors and evangelists of the product. Word of mouth is king.6. What has product development got to do with growing an email list?I wanted to make sure I had enough people interested to send something to. With an MVP, it’s entire purpose is to answer high risk assumptions about your product. What’s the biggest assumption I have? That people would actually use it, and find it useful. The other big assumption? That I had an audience for my product. Instagram was a longer test of finding my audience. So there are two tracks of development. Product, and audience.How much did I spend on making the prototype? For the price of learning, it cost £300 to send 30 decks to my subscribers. I skimped on quality, because all I was concerned about was the physicality and the content. I had to create something that functioned to that level.Why didn’t I just send out a PDF? I could’ve done, but the other thing I wanted to learn is if people valued having it as a physical object. That was another assumption I was testing.What happened next? I saw people were tweeting about it, which felt really good. I really started to believe I was on to something. But the nature of the product meant it was hard to get immediate feedback. I had to wait a little while for people to have the opportunity to use it.It would be a few weeks before I started to hear feedback. I had to chase a lot of people. 10 of those 30 I never heard from. However, those that sent me feedback, and those who I spoke to over the phone gave me such ground breaking feedback that I had a clear plan of how to improve the product.Pro-tip: The purpose of an MVP: Minimal effort for maximum learning. If you aren’t learning from an MVP, you’re doing it wrong. Treat your instagram like an MVP.7. How did my email list magically double?When I wasn’t working my job, or working on the product itself, I was working trying to grow my audience. Can I tell you a secret? There is no such thing as magic. It took a lot of work. A friend introduced me to using Instagram for marketing, but I dismissed it. The whole hashtag chasing, selfie taking culture wasn’t for me. But as I dipped my toe into it, I found out where my niche audience was hanging out. Hashtags are kind of a miracle when you find the right ones.I created a tonne of content, experimenting with different hashtags until I found what worked. Making all the content and scheduling it was a life saver, it also gave credibility to the brand I was growing, to be active on social media. I created content that I believed would give value to my audience. Not random arty photos of any old bollocks. Actual tangible advice, step by step exercises, quotes that genuinely tried to change perspectives.Were my posts performing? In the first couple of weeks, no. But as I zoned in on the right hash tags, and learned what content was resonating - I started to find my people. Those people lead to even more wonderful things. Because of Instagram, I was invited onto a podcast about my products niche, which gave me another marketing platform.8. Where are you at now?By now, I had 140 Instagram followers, 100 twitter followers and 240 email subscribers and 30 alpha product users. Whilst the numbers are small, I knew that every single one of these people had some interest in the product. That’s why when I put the beta product for sale, I got 44 sales in a week. I sold 44 of something that didn’t exist yet. Why did I do that? Firstly, I wanted to test the price. It turns out, the price was just about on point. Secondly, I wanted to test if people would ACTUALLY buy the product. And because they did, they funded the second print run of the deck, which meant I could print it at a higher quality, and also spend money on the unboxing experience. The revenue from the pre-orders versus the expense of 44 decks (boxed and shipped!) meant the beta trial cost me £120. That’s pretty good value for learning! I also now have another 44 future advocates of the product (if it does what it promises).9. What’s next?Now I’m working on finalising the product before it’s delivered to my first paying customers. Learning is still the name of the game. I’m still honing how I market the product, who my core user is and what their needs are. The more I learn, the better I can make the product. My goal now is to have an interview with every beta purchaser and listen to them as intently as possible. To learn what their hesitations were, what value they got the most from the product, how they'd improve it, etc. The next move is to the leverage my growing email list, my personal contact list and create a kickstarter to hopefully send my product into the stratosphere of my niche industry. I'm at a crossroads now where Kickstarter seems like an obvious route, but it might not be necessary if I carry on with my current trajectory of building, measuring and learning.Thanks for reading!

[furiousharmonykryptonite-blog1]

Expired car insurance ticket?

"Expired car insurance ticket?

So I got pulled over in may and had expired car insurance of about 10 months. I had presented my expired car insurance document and the cop had my car towed to a nearby car shop, where i got it back a few days later. The cop called another cop to drive me back to my university since my car was towed. I was talking to the cop who drove me back and asked what I can do and he told me to just plead not guilty on my ticket and get new insurance and bring it to the court. I don't understand, how can I plead not guilty? It was his advice and he knew my insurance expired. How can getting new insurance do anything for my cause? Any help appreciated, thanks.

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://howmuchisinsurance.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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How much would it cost to insure a 1967 ford mustang?

im a first time female driver, live in new jersey, am not in college, am 19, and the insurance is joined on to my parents insurance(allstate). im not asking for a exact amount but an estiment would be awesome. i wanna see if ill be able to afford insuring my car.""

When will the U.S. government stop the gender discrimination on Car insurance?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/business/global/02insure.html The court of justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that from December 2012, insurers will be prevented from charging different premiums on the basis of an insured person's gender. When will america pass a similar law. Not everyone is the same. Girl drivers are the worst, how on earth could their insurance be lower than ours when half the time they are in the car they are laughing so hard into their cellphone that they can't see anything but the roof of their cars. Mix a bunch of girls in one car and it gets even worse. And don't try to say it's because of statistics, obviously since there are more male drivers than female drivers there are going to be more crashes and etc.""

How much does Geico car insurance cost?

How much does Geico car insurance cost?

Car Insurance: Which is cheapest in America?

Just purchased brand new vehicle and wanted some feedback on which companies offer inexpensive rates and superior service when needed.

What are average prices for small business insurance?

This is for my high school project. Please answer!

""If you're car is stolen, will your insurance rates increase if you are reimbursed by your insurance?""

If you're car is stolen, will your insurance rates increase if you are reimbursed by your insurance?""

How much is the insurance on a 2010 Mazda?

Im turning 16 soon and im looking for a car. im thinking about a 2010 Mazda 3, 4 door. just looking for how much the insurance will be monthly...rough estimate is good""

Where can I get affordable car insurance?

I am a female driver who has had a full licence for over 20 years, but I do not have any No Claims and I have 9 points on my licence. The points are for no insurance and having a defective tyre, nothing which reflects badly on my driving. Does anyone know of an insurance company that will not use this to increase the cost to an unaffordable amount.""

What is the cheapest car insurance for teens to buy themselves?

I'm 19 years old and shortly will buy my own car. I'm trying to be independent and need to buy my own affordable car insurance for my car. The quotes from name brand insurance co. like geico and progressive are between $800-$1300/mo. That is so crazy and obviously cannot afford that. Does anybody know where I can find reasonable priced insurance (non name brands) that just covers the minimum? My budget is $100 and less. BTW, I live in SouthFlorida.""

""23 year old female been driving for a year and few months and need to start own car insurance, help!?""

I drive an N reg ford fiesta, bit of an old banger! so far since I got my licence in july 2006 I have been on my dad's insurance. Now I need to get my own, so far I have been getting really high quotes are told I am not suitable! any cheap insurers for new young drivers? tried the girl ones like dimond and sheila's wheels and no luck!""

How much does health insurance cost?

I am from the UK and I am doing an assignment on whether medicine can be justified to have a price tag. As I have free public healthcare from the country (NHS), and I do not have private healthcare. I would like a guide as to how much health insurance would cost for a child, man, and woman with no health condtions. Please be specific and add more examples if you can.""

""Car with fault, expensive to repair. can it be and insurance write off job ?""

If i had a car with a fault that was too expensive to repair, is there any way i can claim insurance writs off with insurers.""

How much does it cost to insure a scooter??

I am considering buying a scooter (125cc) to commute to and from work. I am 29 and live in Tottenham, North London. How much approximately would I expect to pay in insurance - I plan to pay about 1000 for a bike.""

What's the cheapest I can get car insurance for at 18?

I really want a car, but I don't know if I should wait it out, until I'm 20 and really need it. Right now, it's not a necessity, but it would help a lot. Should I just wait it out, or is there any way insurance is cheaper for an 18 year old?""

What is your answer to reducing health costs and improving health care in America?

How do we go about this without drastically increasing out health insurance costs? Of course we all need to practice healthier lifestyle habits, but fiscally how do we improve our nation? Should we adobt other nation's practices? if so, whose? How do we improve health care across america and lower the costs to the citizens who utilize that care?""

Monthly payment for Car Insurance?

Hi, I'm 18 and I want to get a car, but I am not sure if I can afford car insurance. I was told I can put my name under a relative's insurance (He is around 50). So I have a question for you guys. How much money do you pay for car insurance a month? I know it varies amongst states and ages, but I want to get an idea of the amount of money I may be paying. I live in New York so I know it will probably be way higher than other states. Please provide your age, state, and car insurance monthly estimate. Thank you! =]""

""What are insurance rates like in Thailand. Car, health and home.?

I have no idea what the charge for insurance and I hope to retire soon. I own houses in Thailand but they are not insured. And help would be appreciated.

Expired car insurance ticket?

So I got pulled over in may and had expired car insurance of about 10 months. I had presented my expired car insurance document and the cop had my car towed to a nearby car shop, where i got it back a few days later. The cop called another cop to drive me back to my university since my car was towed. I was talking to the cop who drove me back and asked what I can do and he told me to just plead not guilty on my ticket and get new insurance and bring it to the court. I don't understand, how can I plead not guilty? It was his advice and he knew my insurance expired. How can getting new insurance do anything for my cause? Any help appreciated, thanks.

Which car would I be paying more insurance for? Audi A4 or Jeep Cherokee?

I'm getting my second car and I'm debating in between Audi A4 Quattro and Jeep Cherokee 4x4(not limited). I know they're totally apart from eachother but I like them for ...show more

Moped/car insurance question!?

hey i have just turned 16 and im thinking of getting a moped but what i want to know is if i had been riding a moped for a year, would i then have cheaper insurance when it came to insurning a car when im 17, seeing as i would of already experianced the road etc or would it make no difference? thanks""

""I am 18 years old and have 6 points on my driving license, will my insurance cost go down after a year?

I currently aren't on any insurance policy!

Why should someone who is say 40 get cheaper car insurance than a 17 year old?

If for instance they passed on the same day, why should a 17 year be categorised as less responsible than a 40 year old in terms of driving ability? Particularly when chances are due to the insurance gaps and most probably the earnings of these two hypothetical people the 40 year old would be able to afford a more powerful car...""

What is an annuity insurance?

What is an annuity insurance?

What is a cheap health insurance for a student fixing to go trough nursing school?

I got accepted into nursing school and need health insurance. I do not believe there are any guidelines as long as you have it. I do not have a lot of money and need some affordable health insurance.

I'm 17 and have car insurance that i have to pay 240 every month. I live in philadelphia is there cheaper ones?

i got a 2000 ford taurus and my mom bought insurance since she doesn't have a car herself we had to get my own insurance plan and now we have to pay 240 every month because of my age..i need to know of any cheaper insurance for myself. plz and thank you.

Best Home/Condo Insurance Companies?

I am looking to obtain insurance for my condo in British Columbia, and was wondering if someone could recommend the best company to with. Currently I am just familiar with BCAA who ...show more""

What does it mean to have full coverage?

It's too late to call a auto company so I am asking it here, I live with my girlfriend and was wonder about getting full coverage on my car, we want to know if I get full coverage would she be able to drive my car legally without putting her on my insurance?""

Insurance and child support?

If my husband provides insurance through his work to his daughter and is also paying child support on her is he going to be responsible for the co-pay everytime she goes to the doctor? His daughter also has a secondary insurance through the state that her mom collects we were just wondering if the secondary insurance would pay or who would be responsible. The mother or him???

How much would car Insurance be for a 16 year old guy?

My parents want me to start picking what car I want to get. I was wondering how much insurance would cost for each of these cars for a 16 year old guy. I am interested in a BMW E36 323is Coupe, BMW E36 325is Coupe, BMW E36 328is Coupe, 1997-2001 Honda Prelude, and a 2000 VW Golf GTi. Please help me because I need to know the cost to insure each of these cars before I pick.""

""I would like to buy a VW bus, but i am a student and i was wondering how much maintenance would cost monthly?""

I am dying to get this car, it is my dream car, or bus, but i don't have very much money. So, i am trying to better understand the circumstances that i am getting myself into before i make this big step. I already know about insurance prices and gas prices, but i am pretty much clueless at maintenance prices, i am really looking for a ballpark figure.""

Car insurance issue(s). Please share your experience and help if you can. Thanks?

My car caught on fire due to some electrical wiring, im fully comp, and have never claimed before. But sneaky as they are, they have told me that they do not cover electrical wiring faults, which has caused the fire. But the AA who towed my car in has catergorised it as fire damage. Surely they must cover the fire damage. I took it to a repair centre near me, and have asked them to have a quick check, and they also say its fire damage and what not, this has been procrastinated for so long by the insurance company, (claims company rather) that i can't remember what the repair centre has stated. Surely, fully comp covers something like this? THEIR engineers have said that there was no further damage to the rest of the car, but can i trust THEIR engineers? A full check up costs a lot, as they would have to take apart the car ( i believe? ) When i rang up the lady at the claims centre, she had no idea what case i was on, she literally said 'give me a moment to read up on your case' for me, thats a bit pathetic. While speaking on the phone with her not only was she rude, almost shouting at me (as i pressed on further ) . She told me she would send the company policy booklet to show that electrical wiring is not covered, and a letter stating the case was closed and in detail what the whole case is about. A week and a half has gone by (she said couple of days) This is the most annoying thing. She was rude, unhelpful, unwilling to help, and just taking the pee with the whole thing. I just find it sketchy that the letter has not been made, and no further actions or anything has happened (i have also opened another case about another incident - no info .. still) . I think they are just hoping i'd give this up as they are so unwilling to pay out. This is the reason I have insurance. Whats the point otherwise? Sorry for the long read. I have no idea what to do now, can i take it to a small claims court or talk to someone in the city council to further my case? Thanks""

Can any body give me the defination of national health insurance?

I want the defination of national health insurance, benefit, coverage and objectives of national health insurance. plz quick.""

""Cheap, effective health insurance?""

I'm a 25 year old, healthy, unmarried female looking for a low co pay health insurance that covers major medical and dental. I need to be able to see my primary physician for annual checkups and hopefully get Invisalign covered under dental as well. I have no pre existing conditions and would prefer a lower deductible... Somewhere up to $5000 in the event a major medical issue arose.""

How much will I get from the insurance for my totaled car?

A person hit my parked car and damaged the body, the wheel well, and the wheel is bent crooked and rubbing on the strut. My problem is the car is old and probably only worth $500. It will be really difficult to find a replacement for $500, it seems i might need to spend $1500 -$2000. Maybe this is close to the repair price, I don't know. What do you think they will offer me? What should I do?""

Will my dads car insurance raise after I get my drivers license?

I probably worded the question wrong but my dad won't take me to drivers training school because he's worried about his car insurance rate (or something like that) going up. I'm 15 and all of my friends have done it a long time ago. I'm the only one that hasn't started it and I even explained to him that once I start driving, I don't have to keep asking him about needing a ride to practice or meetings (because I know that bothers him) but he's still bothered about his insurance rate going up. Is that even true?? Will the car insurance rate or whatever he's talking about go up after I get my permit?? Thanks!""

Best Insurance for Speeding Tickets?

I will be getting married in a month and need to get new car insurance. What insurance companies offer the best rates for people with speeding tickets? I have 2 speeding tickets, and my fiance has 2 accidents on record... any suggestions of the best places to start looking?""

Auto insurance quotes?

If someone comes to your door and asks if you want to do a free auto insurance quote over the phone with a major insurance company. Is that considered selling even if its a free quote? They also needed information from me so they could put the quote together...

True or False: Pickup trucks have lower insurance rates than cars?

I have heard that this is true because they are safer vehicles? Is there actually any truth to this?

A rough montly price for insurance on used car?

ok i tryed all these sites lol to get quotes but they all want my name and address which im not looking for insurance right now coz i still need my licence first. anyways i saw car i used car i like its a blue ford tarus 1998. and im 20 so im obv gonna be new driver later this year. how much do you think insurance cost me for that monthly? i just want rough guess so please dont comment this if ur gonna direct me to website coz ive already tryed serveal times to do that.

Car insurance went DOWN after accident?

I was involved in a one vehicle accident and had a failure to control and hit a guardrail. I called today to get my insurance back and its lower ?? I thought it would go up? Also I ...show more

Where can I find info on LOW COST Medical Insurance In Central NY? (Student Artist Musician Business Owner)?

My wife and I are moving soon from PHX, AZ to the greater Syracuse area. I am moving my multimedia business / record label (websites, print design, videography, DVD production and studio recording) and I need information on which companies can provide my family reasonable cost heath insurance. Right now my wife works fulltime so we use her benefits, but we will be starting a family and would like to keep her at home for a few years. In PHX, health insurance for non-group individuals runs about $300 a month - from what I can see in CNY it can cost closer to $1000! Can some one help me with this? Am I looking at the wrong companies or is it just that mush more expensive? Are any loop holes? In some states Students, Artist, Musicians & Small Business Owners can get highly discounted rates - is this true in CNY? Can anyone help? Thanks in advance!""

Car Accident in Michigan and no insurace?

I was in a car accident in Michigan and did not have car insurance, police did come, i did not recieve any tickets and it was determined that it was not my fault but my car is messed up pretty bad and so is the other car, now i am wondering even though the other driver said it was his fault and said his insurance would pay for it I know does not neccisarily mean that it will, but I did read somewhere that I might be counter sued, or that i may just have to pay his deductable, does anyone have any insight about this and what I should expect or expect nothing at all, yes i know i should not of been driving a vehile without atleast plpd but the car is not mine and not in my name so please no rude comments just asking for advice about the situation. Please and Thank you ;)""

How to get auto insurance quote/ estimate without a car?

I am doing a research, and heard that ur insurance can be based on not just the model but the color of the car. I want to know how to get an estimate based on vehicle, model. So that I can make a diligent choice when purchasing my new car.""

Expired car insurance ticket?

So I got pulled over in may and had expired car insurance of about 10 months. I had presented my expired car insurance document and the cop had my car towed to a nearby car shop, where i got it back a few days later. The cop called another cop to drive me back to my university since my car was towed. I was talking to the cop who drove me back and asked what I can do and he told me to just plead not guilty on my ticket and get new insurance and bring it to the court. I don't understand, how can I plead not guilty? It was his advice and he knew my insurance expired. How can getting new insurance do anything for my cause? Any help appreciated, thanks.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/does-anyone-know-where-i-can-get-cheap-affordable-health-mitchell"

[robertvasquez763]

Bad Buggies and Ballyhoo: Bashing through the Desert in VW-Powered Off-Roaders

–

If Baja California resembles a dog’s hind leg, then Ensenada would lie near the top rear of its thigh, while La Paz finds itself nestled in a crook at the top of its toes. In 1967, a motley crew of dudes set off down the peninsula in search of glory and bragging rights. There wasn’t much in the way of cash involved; the level of danger was high, the chance of mechanical failure, very high. Twenty-seven hours and 38 minutes after leaving Ensenada, Vic Wilson and Ted Mangels crossed the finish line in La Paz in a Meyers Manx, having covered 950 filthy miles in the little Volkswagen-powered buggy.

–

–

Class 11, the choice of strident retronauts and staunch masochists.

–

Then, as now, a variety of vehicles contested the race, which began as the NORRA Mexican 1000 Rally and morphed along the way into the SCORE Baja 1000. Modern off-road racing vehicles have been divided into classes, and the most rudimentary of them all are the Class 11 cars. Stock-bodied air-cooled VW Beetles running a 1600-cc engine that could’ve been just as easily built in the late Sixties as it could be today, Class 11s are slow, violent, a hoot, and an enduring testament to the fundamental toughness of Ferry Porsche’s basic design. They can, at least, utilize the independent rear suspension introduced by Volkswagen at the end of the 1960s. The Class 9 cars make do with the old-school swing axle.

–

More obvious than the swing axle, however, is the 9’s bodywork. There isn’t a whole lot of it, and it shaves about 1000 pounds compared with the weight of a Class 11 machine. There’s a lid over your head that also happens to serve as the door, some flat pieces attached to the tube frame, and well, that’s about it. A near stock Bug suspension is bolted to the front, and a tight little gearbox sits in front of a 1600 built to the same restrictions as a Class 11. In the car I was to drive, there was a total of eight inches of suspension travel out back—four compression, four rebound—and the ride is even more violent than that of a Class 11. On the upside, the light weight means that it has a tendency to skip along the tops of whoops. And out on the 10-mile course laid out for us by Cody Jeffers of Mojave Off-Road Racing Enthusiasts, if there weren’t rocks, there were whoops. Sometimes there were rocky whoops.

–

–

The apple of our dusty eye: the stalwart, archaic, and brutal Class 9 buggy.

–

Class 9s have another interesting tendency: They’ll basically high-side themselves. Motorcyclists know the high side and fear it. On a bike, it happens when the rear wheel starts to slide out from underneath the rider, gets traction, and then the suspension quickly compresses and unloads, throwing the rider from the motorcycle as if he’s been launched by a trebuchet. Wonderfully, a Class 9 buggy is capable of a similar feat. In sketchy sections under too much power, the car gets a disconcerting side-to-side oscillation going. If it gets wild enough, one side of the suspension quickly loads, then unloads itself. Combine this with the light weight of the thing (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 pounds dry), and it’s easy to see how it could potentially end up on its roof.

–

After watching my performance in the Class 11 car, which basically consisted of pushing it as hard as I could and hoping for the best, Cody Jeffers took me aside and kindly and calmly suggested that such tactics wouldn’t work in the 9. As he was doing so, a fellow journalist rolled in, lamenting the yellow little car and finally, in a fit of dusty exasperation, exclaiming, “Just bury me in it.” Another had become disenchanted after stalling it in a wash. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I did, however, reach into the bag on the back of my motorcycle and pull out a pair of Alpinestars SMX-1 summer riding gloves, figuring the thin palms would do a decent job of approximating driving gloves, given the steering kickback the others had complained about.

–

–

The wee shifter is over there on the right.

–

I clambered up on the wheel, onto the fuel cell located between the seat and the engine, and down through the roof. I fiddled with the five-point harness while Cody hooked up my radio and plugged the fresh-air blower system into my helmet. Racing clutch to the floor, I fired up the old flat-four and putzed out of the pits.

–

It felt a little bit like that first live performance with a new band. You’ve practiced, you’ve screwed up, you’ve practiced a bit more, and now you’re on a stage with nothing but wit and skill to guide you. But letting a crowd down is one thing. Hanging upside down from a racing harness while the guy whose buggy you’ve rolled comes to extract you is another.

–

The first stretch of the course saw me bounding down a straight path. The wheel bucked and kicked, but with a little hand pressure to keep it on line, the car tracked true while desert scrub whipped by on either side. A right turn, and I was up into the rocks and whoops. Baseball-sized rocks could be driven over; basketball-sized rocks were to be avoided. My breathing went shallow, and I couldn’t seem to make it any deeper until I aced a section at speed and involuntarily Wooo!ed in delight. After that, the breaths came normally. Apparently, if you need to kick-start your lungs in the desert, impersonating a twentysomething female hepped up on pumpkin spice lattes and Fireball whiskey does the trick.

–

–

The technique for dealing with whoops is as follows: punch the gas up the micro-hillock to lift the front; let off to let the car float down the other side. In practice, the technique has you tapping the throttle almost like a mid-tempo kick drum. I got a little too aggressive, and the car started the side-to-side oscillation Cody had warned me about. I gently backed out of the throttle, let the car calm down, and dug back in. Later, I mentioned to an off-road racer friend that taming the car and getting back into a rhythm made me feel like a hero but that I didn’t know whether that was because I was a newbie. She replied, “No, I totally do.” Knowing that it’s a lasting feeling makes me want more.

–

Our course was marked by black arrows marked on blaze-orange placards, and while I’d been around the track as a passenger and a driver in the Class 11 machine and then suffered through an exhibition lap in a Class 5 Unlimited Bug—a tube-chassis Beetle powered by a hogged-out flat-four capable of more than 80 mph in this terrain—I didn’t have it entirely memorized. I missed a turn, came to a stop in front of a sizable creosote bush, thought that I didn’t want to deal with finding reverse in the tight transmission, then realized, “Hey! I’m in a freakin’ buggy!” and just drove over the poor plant to get back on course.

–

–

When I was 10 years old, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than a Tamiya Fox R/C buggy. So I scrimped and I saved for the better part of a year, bought the car the day after Christmas 1986, spent the rest of my school break building it, and then had to wait eight more months until I had enough money to purchase a radio, battery, and charger. In short, the 1/10-scale buggy was one of the prized possessions of my childhood. Eventually, I put a ’67 GTO body on it, because I am from the Central Valley. At one point, tearing up a hill in the Mojave Desert, I had a thought: “I’m in the Fox! I’m the little plastic dude I painted 31 years ago!”

–

I knew the hill with the jump at the top was coming soon. The smooth face of the serious rise in front of me looked like it. I was about 90 percent sure it was the jump. Perhaps foolishly judging that 90 percent is the better percentage of valor, I committed. Cody’d warned me to get out of the throttle if I left the ground. Hammer down, the small yellow buggy bounded up the hill, crested the rise, and caught sweet, sweet air. Right foot up, stuck the landing, back into the power, and on toward the last bit of the course. Tearing toward the pits, there were a couple of nature-made drainage ditches to be aware of, not easily visible in the desert sun. In the interest of avoiding calamity, I dialed back the pace.

–

Into the pits, engine off. I’d been so occupied out on the course I hadn’t realized just how stupendous the whole experience had been. It was akin to the night Bob Mould invited me onstage to sing “Makes No Sense at All” because he’d blown his voice out. After the song ended, I stepped off the stage and just stood there with my hand over my mouth. A guy smiled and said to his date, “He just realized what he just did.”

–

–

–

Baja Blitzkrieg: Taking the Reins of a BMW X6 Trophy Truck in Mexico

–

The Burrito Cannonball

–

Volkswagen: News, Reviews, Photos, and More

–

–

–

Power- and weight-wise, a Class 9 car isn’t that far off a loaded up Harley-Davidson tourer, yet the experience is like riding a four-wheeled dirt bike. Throttle-induced weight transfer rules the day, steering inputs alone are largely suggestions, getting a buggy around the course requires merging with both the machinery and the landscape. Eyes down the course, foot in the gas, make the thing skitter and dance across the terrain instead of plowing through it. I was geeked; I hadn’t been so utterly thrilled in a vehicle in a very long time. It beat lapping Daytona in a Ferrari 488, or ripping around New Jersey Motorsports Park on a Yamaha YZF-R6. Cody unfastened the roof hatch, and I clambered out gracelessly, fairly well pummeled after 40 miles around the course during the afternoon. Jeffers allowed that most of the people who drive Class 11s are in their teens and early twenties. I’m 41. I asked anyway. “Cody, how much does one of these things cost?”

–

“About six grand.”

–

“Don’t tell me that. I can afford that!”

–

The 2017 Baja 1000 starts in Ensenada on November 14. I won’t be there, but, man, am I ever dreaming dreams of Class 9 glory.

–

–

from remotecar http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/xCQc9vmqd_c/

via WordPress https://robertvasquez123.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/bad-buggies-and-ballyhoo-bashing-through-the-desert-in-vw-powered-off-roaders-2/

[jesusvasser]

Bad Buggies and Ballyhoo: Bashing through the Desert in VW-Powered Off-Roaders

-

If Baja California resembles a dog’s hind leg, then Ensenada would lie near the top rear of its thigh, while La Paz finds itself nestled in a crook at the top of its toes. In 1967, a motley crew of dudes set off down the peninsula in search of glory and bragging rights. There wasn’t much in the way of cash involved; the level of danger was high, the chance of mechanical failure, very high. Twenty-seven hours and 38 minutes after leaving Ensenada, Vic Wilson and Ted Mangels crossed the finish line in La Paz in a Meyers Manx, having covered 950 filthy miles in the little Volkswagen-powered buggy.

-

-

Class 11, the choice of strident retronauts and staunch masochists.

-

Then, as now, a variety of vehicles contested the race, which began as the NORRA Mexican 1000 Rally and morphed along the way into the SCORE Baja 1000. Modern off-road racing vehicles have been divided into classes, and the most rudimentary of them all are the Class 11 cars. Stock-bodied air-cooled VW Beetles running a 1600-cc engine that could’ve been just as easily built in the late Sixties as it could be today, Class 11s are slow, violent, a hoot, and an enduring testament to the fundamental toughness of Ferry Porsche’s basic design. They can, at least, utilize the independent rear suspension introduced by Volkswagen at the end of the 1960s. The Class 9 cars make do with the old-school swing axle.

-

More obvious than the swing axle, however, is the 9’s bodywork. There isn’t a whole lot of it, and it shaves about 1000 pounds compared with the weight of a Class 11 machine. There’s a lid over your head that also happens to serve as the door, some flat pieces attached to the tube frame, and well, that’s about it. A near stock Bug suspension is bolted to the front, and a tight little gearbox sits in front of a 1600 built to the same restrictions as a Class 11. In the car I was to drive, there was a total of eight inches of suspension travel out back—four compression, four rebound—and the ride is even more violent than that of a Class 11. On the upside, the light weight means that it has a tendency to skip along the tops of whoops. And out on the 10-mile course laid out for us by Cody Jeffers of Mojave Off-Road Racing Enthusiasts, if there weren’t rocks, there were whoops. Sometimes there were rocky whoops.

-

-

The apple of our dusty eye: the stalwart, archaic, and brutal Class 9 buggy.

-

Class 9s have another interesting tendency: They’ll basically high-side themselves. Motorcyclists know the high side and fear it. On a bike, it happens when the rear wheel starts to slide out from underneath the rider, gets traction, and then the suspension quickly compresses and unloads, throwing the rider from the motorcycle as if he’s been launched by a trebuchet. Wonderfully, a Class 9 buggy is capable of a similar feat. In sketchy sections under too much power, the car gets a disconcerting side-to-side oscillation going. If it gets wild enough, one side of the suspension quickly loads, then unloads itself. Combine this with the light weight of the thing (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 pounds dry), and it’s easy to see how it could potentially end up on its roof.

-

After watching my performance in the Class 11 car, which basically consisted of pushing it as hard as I could and hoping for the best, Cody Jeffers took me aside and kindly and calmly suggested that such tactics wouldn’t work in the 9. As he was doing so, a fellow journalist rolled in, lamenting the yellow little car and finally, in a fit of dusty exasperation, exclaiming, “Just bury me in it.” Another had become disenchanted after stalling it in a wash. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I did, however, reach into the bag on the back of my motorcycle and pull out a pair of Alpinestars SMX-1 summer riding gloves, figuring the thin palms would do a decent job of approximating driving gloves, given the steering kickback the others had complained about.

-

-

The wee shifter is over there on the right.

-

I clambered up on the wheel, onto the fuel cell located between the seat and the engine, and down through the roof. I fiddled with the five-point harness while Cody hooked up my radio and plugged the fresh-air blower system into my helmet. Racing clutch to the floor, I fired up the old flat-four and putzed out of the pits.

-

It felt a little bit like that first live performance with a new band. You’ve practiced, you’ve screwed up, you’ve practiced a bit more, and now you’re on a stage with nothing but wit and skill to guide you. But letting a crowd down is one thing. Hanging upside down from a racing harness while the guy whose buggy you’ve rolled comes to extract you is another.

-

The first stretch of the course saw me bounding down a straight path. The wheel bucked and kicked, but with a little hand pressure to keep it on line, the car tracked true while desert scrub whipped by on either side. A right turn, and I was up into the rocks and whoops. Baseball-sized rocks could be driven over; basketball-sized rocks were to be avoided. My breathing went shallow, and I couldn’t seem to make it any deeper until I aced a section at speed and involuntarily Wooo!ed in delight. After that, the breaths came normally. Apparently, if you need to kick-start your lungs in the desert, impersonating a twentysomething female hepped up on pumpkin spice lattes and Fireball whiskey does the trick.

-

-

The technique for dealing with whoops is as follows: punch the gas up the micro-hillock to lift the front; let off to let the car float down the other side. In practice, the technique has you tapping the throttle almost like a mid-tempo kick drum. I got a little too aggressive, and the car started the side-to-side oscillation Cody had warned me about. I gently backed out of the throttle, let the car calm down, and dug back in. Later, I mentioned to an off-road racer friend that taming the car and getting back into a rhythm made me feel like a hero but that I didn’t know whether that was because I was a newbie. She replied, “No, I totally do.” Knowing that it’s a lasting feeling makes me want more.

-

Our course was marked by black arrows marked on blaze-orange placards, and while I’d been around the track as a passenger and a driver in the Class 11 machine and then suffered through an exhibition lap in a Class 5 Unlimited Bug—a tube-chassis Beetle powered by a hogged-out flat-four capable of more than 80 mph in this terrain—I didn’t have it entirely memorized. I missed a turn, came to a stop in front of a sizable creosote bush, thought that I didn’t want to deal with finding reverse in the tight transmission, then realized, “Hey! I’m in a freakin’ buggy!” and just drove over the poor plant to get back on course.

-

-

When I was 10 years old, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than a Tamiya Fox R/C buggy. So I scrimped and I saved for the better part of a year, bought the car the day after Christmas 1986, spent the rest of my school break building it, and then had to wait eight more months until I had enough money to purchase a radio, battery, and charger. In short, the 1/10-scale buggy was one of the prized possessions of my childhood. Eventually, I put a ’67 GTO body on it, because I am from the Central Valley. At one point, tearing up a hill in the Mojave Desert, I had a thought: “I’m in the Fox! I’m the little plastic dude I painted 31 years ago!”

-

I knew the hill with the jump at the top was coming soon. The smooth face of the serious rise in front of me looked like it. I was about 90 percent sure it was the jump. Perhaps foolishly judging that 90 percent is the better percentage of valor, I committed. Cody’d warned me to get out of the throttle if I left the ground. Hammer down, the small yellow buggy bounded up the hill, crested the rise, and caught sweet, sweet air. Right foot up, stuck the landing, back into the power, and on toward the last bit of the course. Tearing toward the pits, there were a couple of nature-made drainage ditches to be aware of, not easily visible in the desert sun. In the interest of avoiding calamity, I dialed back the pace.

-

Into the pits, engine off. I’d been so occupied out on the course I hadn’t realized just how stupendous the whole experience had been. It was akin to the night Bob Mould invited me onstage to sing “Makes No Sense at All” because he’d blown his voice out. After the song ended, I stepped off the stage and just stood there with my hand over my mouth. A guy smiled and said to his date, “He just realized what he just did.”

-

-

-

Baja Blitzkrieg: Taking the Reins of a BMW X6 Trophy Truck in Mexico

-

The Burrito Cannonball

-

Volkswagen: News, Reviews, Photos, and More

-

-

-

Power- and weight-wise, a Class 9 car isn’t that far off a loaded up Harley-Davidson tourer, yet the experience is like riding a four-wheeled dirt bike. Throttle-induced weight transfer rules the day, steering inputs alone are largely suggestions, getting a buggy around the course requires merging with both the machinery and the landscape. Eyes down the course, foot in the gas, make the thing skitter and dance across the terrain instead of plowing through it. I was geeked; I hadn’t been so utterly thrilled in a vehicle in a very long time. It beat lapping Daytona in a Ferrari 488, or ripping around New Jersey Motorsports Park on a Yamaha YZF-R6. Cody unfastened the roof hatch, and I clambered out gracelessly, fairly well pummeled after 40 miles around the course during the afternoon. Jeffers allowed that most of the people who drive Class 11s are in their teens and early twenties. I’m 41. I asked anyway. “Cody, how much does one of these things cost?”

-

“About six grand.”

-

“Don’t tell me that. I can afford that!”

-

The 2017 Baja 1000 starts in Ensenada on November 14. I won’t be there, but, man, am I ever dreaming dreams of Class 9 glory.

-

- from Performance Junk WP Feed 4 http://ift.tt/2g5lgq3 via IFTTT

[eddiejpoplar]

Bad Buggies and Ballyhoo: Bashing through the Desert in VW-Powered Off-Roaders

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If Baja California resembles a dog’s hind leg, then Ensenada would lie near the top rear of its thigh, while La Paz finds itself nestled in a crook at the top of its toes. In 1967, a motley crew of dudes set off down the peninsula in search of glory and bragging rights. There wasn’t much in the way of cash involved; the level of danger was high, the chance of mechanical failure, very high. Twenty-seven hours and 38 minutes after leaving Ensenada, Vic Wilson and Ted Mangels crossed the finish line in La Paz in a Meyers Manx, having covered 950 filthy miles in the little Volkswagen-powered buggy.

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Class 11, the choice of strident retronauts and staunch masochists.

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Then, as now, a variety of vehicles contested the race, which began as the NORRA Mexican 1000 Rally and morphed along the way into the SCORE Baja 1000. Modern off-road racing vehicles have been divided into classes, and the most rudimentary of them all are the Class 11 cars. Stock-bodied air-cooled VW Beetles running a 1600-cc engine that could’ve been just as easily built in the late Sixties as it could be today, Class 11s are slow, violent, a hoot, and an enduring testament to the fundamental toughness of Ferry Porsche’s basic design. They can, at least, utilize the independent rear suspension introduced by Volkswagen at the end of the 1960s. The Class 9 cars make do with the old-school swing axle.

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More obvious than the swing axle, however, is the 9’s bodywork. There isn’t a whole lot of it, and it shaves about 1000 pounds compared with the weight of a Class 11 machine. There’s a lid over your head that also happens to serve as the door, some flat pieces attached to the tube frame, and well, that’s about it. A near stock Bug suspension is bolted to the front, and a tight little gearbox sits in front of a 1600 built to the same restrictions as a Class 11. In the car I was to drive, there was a total of eight inches of suspension travel out back—four compression, four rebound—and the ride is even more violent than that of a Class 11. On the upside, the light weight means that it has a tendency to skip along the tops of whoops. And out on the 10-mile course laid out for us by Cody Jeffers of Mojave Off-Road Racing Enthusiasts, if there weren’t rocks, there were whoops. Sometimes there were rocky whoops.

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The apple of our dusty eye: the stalwart, archaic, and brutal Class 9 buggy.

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Class 9s have another interesting tendency: They’ll basically high-side themselves. Motorcyclists know the high side and fear it. On a bike, it happens when the rear wheel starts to slide out from underneath the rider, gets traction, and then the suspension quickly compresses and unloads, throwing the rider from the motorcycle as if he’s been launched by a trebuchet. Wonderfully, a Class 9 buggy is capable of a similar feat. In sketchy sections under too much power, the car gets a disconcerting side-to-side oscillation going. If it gets wild enough, one side of the suspension quickly loads, then unloads itself. Combine this with the light weight of the thing (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 pounds dry), and it’s easy to see how it could potentially end up on its roof.

-

After watching my performance in the Class 11 car, which basically consisted of pushing it as hard as I could and hoping for the best, Cody Jeffers took me aside and kindly and calmly suggested that such tactics wouldn’t work in the 9. As he was doing so, a fellow journalist rolled in, lamenting the yellow little car and finally, in a fit of dusty exasperation, exclaiming, “Just bury me in it.” Another had become disenchanted after stalling it in a wash. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I did, however, reach into the bag on the back of my motorcycle and pull out a pair of Alpinestars SMX-1 summer riding gloves, figuring the thin palms would do a decent job of approximating driving gloves, given the steering kickback the others had complained about.

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-

The wee shifter is over there on the right.

-

I clambered up on the wheel, onto the fuel cell located between the seat and the engine, and down through the roof. I fiddled with the five-point harness while Cody hooked up my radio and plugged the fresh-air blower system into my helmet. Racing clutch to the floor, I fired up the old flat-four and putzed out of the pits.

-

It felt a little bit like that first live performance with a new band. You’ve practiced, you’ve screwed up, you’ve practiced a bit more, and now you’re on a stage with nothing but wit and skill to guide you. But letting a crowd down is one thing. Hanging upside down from a racing harness while the guy whose buggy you’ve rolled comes to extract you is another.

-

The first stretch of the course saw me bounding down a straight path. The wheel bucked and kicked, but with a little hand pressure to keep it on line, the car tracked true while desert scrub whipped by on either side. A right turn, and I was up into the rocks and whoops. Baseball-sized rocks could be driven over; basketball-sized rocks were to be avoided. My breathing went shallow, and I couldn’t seem to make it any deeper until I aced a section at speed and involuntarily Wooo!ed in delight. After that, the breaths came normally. Apparently, if you need to kick-start your lungs in the desert, impersonating a twentysomething female hepped up on pumpkin spice lattes and Fireball whiskey does the trick.

-

-

The technique for dealing with whoops is as follows: punch the gas up the micro-hillock to lift the front; let off to let the car float down the other side. In practice, the technique has you tapping the throttle almost like a mid-tempo kick drum. I got a little too aggressive, and the car started the side-to-side oscillation Cody had warned me about. I gently backed out of the throttle, let the car calm down, and dug back in. Later, I mentioned to an off-road racer friend that taming the car and getting back into a rhythm made me feel like a hero but that I didn’t know whether that was because I was a newbie. She replied, “No, I totally do.” Knowing that it’s a lasting feeling makes me want more.

-

Our course was marked by black arrows marked on blaze-orange placards, and while I’d been around the track as a passenger and a driver in the Class 11 machine and then suffered through an exhibition lap in a Class 5 Unlimited Bug—a tube-chassis Beetle powered by a hogged-out flat-four capable of more than 80 mph in this terrain—I didn’t have it entirely memorized. I missed a turn, came to a stop in front of a sizable creosote bush, thought that I didn’t want to deal with finding reverse in the tight transmission, then realized, “Hey! I’m in a freakin’ buggy!” and just drove over the poor plant to get back on course.

-

-

When I was 10 years old, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than a Tamiya Fox R/C buggy. So I scrimped and I saved for the better part of a year, bought the car the day after Christmas 1986, spent the rest of my school break building it, and then had to wait eight more months until I had enough money to purchase a radio, battery, and charger. In short, the 1/10-scale buggy was one of the prized possessions of my childhood. Eventually, I put a ’67 GTO body on it, because I am from the Central Valley. At one point, tearing up a hill in the Mojave Desert, I had a thought: “I’m in the Fox! I’m the little plastic dude I painted 31 years ago!”

-

I knew the hill with the jump at the top was coming soon. The smooth face of the serious rise in front of me looked like it. I was about 90 percent sure it was the jump. Perhaps foolishly judging that 90 percent is the better percentage of valor, I committed. Cody’d warned me to get out of the throttle if I left the ground. Hammer down, the small yellow buggy bounded up the hill, crested the rise, and caught sweet, sweet air. Right foot up, stuck the landing, back into the power, and on toward the last bit of the course. Tearing toward the pits, there were a couple of nature-made drainage ditches to be aware of, not easily visible in the desert sun. In the interest of avoiding calamity, I dialed back the pace.

-

Into the pits, engine off. I’d been so occupied out on the course I hadn’t realized just how stupendous the whole experience had been. It was akin to the night Bob Mould invited me onstage to sing “Makes No Sense at All” because he’d blown his voice out. After the song ended, I stepped off the stage and just stood there with my hand over my mouth. A guy smiled and said to his date, “He just realized what he just did.”

-

-

-

Baja Blitzkrieg: Taking the Reins of a BMW X6 Trophy Truck in Mexico

-

The Burrito Cannonball

-

Volkswagen: News, Reviews, Photos, and More

-

-

-

Power- and weight-wise, a Class 9 car isn’t that far off a loaded up Harley-Davidson tourer, yet the experience is like riding a four-wheeled dirt bike. Throttle-induced weight transfer rules the day, steering inputs alone are largely suggestions, getting a buggy around the course requires merging with both the machinery and the landscape. Eyes down the course, foot in the gas, make the thing skitter and dance across the terrain instead of plowing through it. I was geeked; I hadn’t been so utterly thrilled in a vehicle in a very long time. It beat lapping Daytona in a Ferrari 488, or ripping around New Jersey Motorsports Park on a Yamaha YZF-R6. Cody unfastened the roof hatch, and I clambered out gracelessly, fairly well pummeled after 40 miles around the course during the afternoon. Jeffers allowed that most of the people who drive Class 11s are in their teens and early twenties. I’m 41. I asked anyway. “Cody, how much does one of these things cost?”

-

“About six grand.”

-

“Don’t tell me that. I can afford that!”

-

The 2017 Baja 1000 starts in Ensenada on November 14. I won’t be there, but, man, am I ever dreaming dreams of Class 9 glory.

-

- from Performance Junk Blogger 6 http://ift.tt/2g5lgq3 via IFTTT