#jeff sells them more mattresses

[troubledbee]

I can sense a mattress being sold. Soon... Soon I will get to cleanse a house from all its impurities, with the blessing of the sacred flames...

Inspiration

[emchant3d]

They say Captain Munson has a gift. That he’s blessed by a god’s touch.

His ship has survived every battle. His crew flourishes with bounty, with health and good fortune. He steers them unerringly through every storm, sailing directly into the gargantuan waves, into the lightning and rain, and comes out the other side pristine while other vessels would have been sunk, snapped and splintered on the ocean floor, crew turned to ghosts to haunt the waters.

They say he made a deal, sold his soul, sold his crew’s souls, will find his reckoning one day at the end of a sword or drowned in the sea he loves so much. They say he’s a devil of his own, that his eyes glow red and black and his teeth are sharp and fanged, nails clawed, that he slaughters innocents and bathes in their blood.

But the truth is much simpler. Captain Munson is no devil, he did not sell any souls, and he certainly isn’t blessed by any god.

Captain Munson fell in love.

He didn’t mean to. When the fishing nets are reeled in that fateful day he expects nothing more than a few meals, a couple pounds to send to the kitchens for Benny to work his magic with. He isn’t even on deck when the catch is brought in.

It’s Gareth’s frantic voice that draws him upwards, his shouting and knocking on his cabin door that has him strapping a sword to his hip before taking the stairs two at a time to see the threat.

He’s expecting a King’s ship. Maybe another pirate. 

He isn’t expecting a mer.

Pale, unconscious, bleeding, sprawled on the deck, plush and soft and gorgeous, tan torso tapering down into a huge, shimmering tail. He’s breathing but it’s shallow, weak, a shell on a necklace moving faintly with each hitch of his chest.

And the crown. A simple circlet, golden and shining, tangled in his chestnut hair, gems glinting from the locks.

Mers are mythical, believed to be stories by some and history by others, but Eddie grew up hearing the tales of them every night from his mother, and the evidence is right in front of them - how can they do anything but believe?

It takes three of them to move him below deck. Eddie grips him under his arms, Gareth supports his hips, and Jeff wrangles his tail. They take him to Eddie’s quarters, the only bed big enough to fit him.

He wakes in stages, delirious from pain, snapping teeth and swinging claws when he has the strength for it and slurring rambling words when he doesn’t, head lolling on the pillow, eyes rolling back. 

His injuries are strange - a band of dark bruising around his pretty throat, his back shredded, bites taken out of the dips of his sides and the meat of his tail. There’s sickness in him, but Joyce is patient. She patches him up, soothes the mer’s fever and stitches the wounds she can, bandages what she can’t, keeps it all clean, keeps it wet because apparently that’s what he needs - salt water, which makes Eddie cringe in sympathy, but only seems to ease the mer’s pain, not make it worse.

It’s a week before those pretty eyes blink open with genuine awareness in them, sharp and wary. Eddie’s taken to sitting at the mer’s side, feels a strange responsibility to him that he doesn’t want to look too closely at, and he glances up from his journal to find the other’s gaze locked on him.

“Where am I?” he croaks out, and Eddie smiles, snapping the journal shut.

“You’re aboard the Hellfire, sweetheart. Captain Eddie Munson, at your service.” He bows in his seat, and it goes over about as well as he thought it would.

There’s a lot of threats and snarling and cursing, but Eddie simply leans back, out of the mer’s reach as he crowds himself into the corner of the mattress, back pressed to the wall and sheets tangled around his tail.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he tries to soothe, and the mer scoffs. Eddie can’t blame him for his caution, but he tells him the honest truth - where he was found, the state of him, how they’ve nursed him back to health.

The mer’s hand hovers over one of the nastier wounds at his side, covered in gauze, dampened with saltwater. When he cuts his eyes back to Eddie there’s a little less animosity in his gaze, and Eddie will take what he can get.

Eventually he pulls a name from that snarling mouth. Stephan. “Prince Stephan,” he begrudgingly admits once Eddie points out the crown that he’d gently worked free of his hair. 

And he’s a mer, but different.

“Siren, is what I believe your kind calls mine,” Stephan says, “half and half. Mer and human.” 

“Human,” Eddie muses, and Stephan confesses, warily, haltingly - he’s the King’s bastard son. Born to King Richard of the land and the Mer Queen of the sea.

“And how did the Prince of the Mer find his way into my net, hm?” Eddie asks, smiling, and Stephan rolls his eyes at him. 

He’s a runaway. King Richard had come looking for his son and with his mother’s blessing Stephan abandoned his title, his home, because the King would find him eventually if he stayed, and whatever dangers he might face in the open sea would be nothing compared to what the King might use his gifts for.

“Gifts?” Eddie asks, and Stephan smiles, his pointed teeth glinting.

It’s a clear day, not a cloud to be seen, no sign of rain or bad weather. And yet as Steve begins to hum softly, a shadow crosses overhead. 

It happens slowly. Stephan’s voice builds, a wordless little melody, something melancholy and soft, and the sky beyond the windows of the cabin darkens. Thunder rolls and in the distance, Eddie can see a crack of lightning.

The ship rocks as waves begin to form, the once-smooth water taking a turn. Eddie can hear the crew above deck begin to shout to one another, confusion building, growing more insistent as Stephan’s song grows, and Eddie’s stomach drops.

The siren’s voice is haunting, terrifying. Eddie’s frozen in place, meeting his eyes even as tears well in his own. He’s transfixed, can’t move, can’t speak, paralyzed with some ancient, instinctual knowing of danger, of death.

Eddie does not scare easy. But this is terror personified. This is the true threat that lives in the sea. Not the waves, not man, this. This creature who smiles at him with sharp teeth and a haunting voice, reaching towards Eddie with a clawed hand, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear in a touch that makes Eddie’s skin crawl and his heart skip and dread sink into his very bones.

He’s staring death in the face, and death is smiling.

Then Stephan quiets, and it’s over as quickly as it had begun. The sky clears in moments. The waters calm. The vessel’s heaving calms, and Eddie’s spine unlocks.

He stares at the being before him, amazed, before a slow, brilliant smile breaks over his face.

“Full of surprises, aren’t you, Prince Stephan?” he asks, and gets a smile in return.

“Call me Steve,” he tells him, and fondness begins to worm its way into Eddie’s chest.

“Then call me Eddie.” He sees Steve’s eyes flutter, and he tilts his head. “You’re tired,” he tells him, and gets a huff in response. “You’re safe here, Steve,” he tells him, and he knows he doesn’t trust him, not fully, not yet, but that’s okay. “Rest. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

Steve watches him warily, but clearly the little display has worn him out. His hand finds that same wound on his side, cradling it carefully, back shifting like it hurts to sit up straight and stretch all that marred skin.

“Lay a hand on me, and I’ll eat you,” Steve warns, and Eddie snorts a laugh. 

“Whatever you say, highness,” and he tugs the sheets back into place over that large tail, and lets the mer get the rest he still clearly needs.

part 2 💕

[fantasticallyfruity4]

Just a thought but I feel like all of Eddie’s relationships (if any considering it’s Hawkins) are basically the song 18 by Anarbor

Like there could definitely be a song fic based on that song

No no no no not you suggesting this song this song gives me fucking PTSD to my ex.

This shit had happened to him a billion times.

Maybe a billion was an exaggeration, Eddie wasn’t going to flatter himself like that, he didn’t get laid a billion times, but this happened a good half a dozen times in the last year.

It happened often enough. The preppy rich kids who wanted a run. See, what Eddie’s friends failed to understand was that he didn’t get much play. Sure, they were members of a cult, but he was the leader, Satan himself. Garrett and Jeff had a regular amount of girlfriends over the years- maybe not the most popular girls in school but they were nice, and smart, and pretty. Eddie never knew that life, And no one was coming anywhere near him unless they wanted something.

And wanted something they always did.

It was always the same with those kids. Because that was always the type. Preppy rich kids with a pristine reputation, looking to have a rebellious phase. They all thought they were so unique but to Eddie they were laughably the same.

They always wanted the same 3 things.

Free weed

To shock the townies

To piss off their parents.

It was all about the shock value, the jarring of it all. Shit, how else did he end up with the preachers daughter bent over a church pew? They wanted to prove they were grown and their own person, they wanted to stick it to the man, they wanted to be edgy for a week. And then a week later they went back to the comfort of their old lives.

It always started the same exact way.

He’d meet them at a party where he was selling, comfortable in the corner of a couch in a smoke filled room. And they’d come up to him and flash their tits and teeth, try to get a discount. And he’d smile and laugh while he insured him there was nothing he could do.

So they’d storm off to their friends in a huff and make them do the deal, but by the end of the night they’d always be pressed to his arm practically purring for him to take them home.

They were all the same, the preppy popular rich kids who wanted out of their reputation.

They got off on it, enjoyed the novelty of him for a while. That’s all it was, a novelty experience. It was never long lasting, they snapped out of their rebellion fast enough. For a couple weeks they liked the novelty of hanging around a trailer that smelt like cigarettes and weed, fucking on a mattress on a floor, the long hair and tattoos, riding in the passenger seat when he did deals. It was a fantasy and a experiment for them.

But it wasn’t real. They never gave a shit about him. They never have a rats ass about getting to know him. They couldn’t care less that he was a fantasy nerd, that he loved his friends more than life itself, that the only goal and dream he’d ever had was to make his uncle proud, and prove that he wasn’t a fuck up like his dad like the whole town said he was.

But they never gave a fuck about any of that. He was just an accessory. He knew it, they did too. So he didn’t feel too bad about indulging in concert tickets, better booze, and new clothes at their expense. They used him, he used them. If he told himself it was a mutual exchange, it couldn’t really hurt him, could it?

So when Steve started hanging around the trailer, Eddie was sure he knew where it was going.

Steve was just like the rest of them. Former Prom king like his dad before him, handsome, charming, he was king Steve, he Lived in that big ole house. Steve liked pot and hated his dad. The perfect storm for using Eddie as a plot device in his life.

But… Steve was dangerous.

Steve brought him soup (home made) when he first got out of the hospital and his core was so weak he couldn’t keep solid food down. And Steve asked him about his day, his books, his new campaign, and he truly listened. Steve would casually offer that they could hang out at his place if Eddie ever wanted, ‘not that he didn’t like Eddie’s he loved Eddie’s place’. And Steve insisted he called him when he got home for the night. Every night. No matter how late. “He worried”.

And… Eddie didn’t like letting Steve pay for shit, not the way he was okay with it with the other assholes. He fought him for who got the check at the diner and who picked up the movie tickets.

And… Steve didn’t take his weed. Not for free. It was weird, honestly. He’d pull out a couple singles from his pocket even if it was just a joint they shared. Eddie would’ve ready to argue and steve would argue “this is literally how you pay the bills I’m not taking your free weed man”.

When Eddie wakes up one morning to see Wayne and Steve on the porch talking over coffee, (Steve had wanted to surprise him, he planned a whole day for them. He was just waiting for Eddie to get up) it becomes glaringly obvious that Steve isn’t like the others.

But Eddie thinks he knew that all along, no mater how scared he was to admit it.

[fuj0]

HELLO my friend DO tell me HOW would YOU yes you how would you break in and rob a bank!!! 👀👀

Ah! Gathering dirt on your friends now aren't ya, you dirty little fiend?? 🤨🤨🤨

But fine! I will sate your curiosity!

My plan is that of a long term variety!

First I shall find out who works at the bank I'm about to rob. I'd befriend at least three low level workers, who over the years will likely give me at least a couple stories regarding their boss and their workplace.

During that time I'd also do three things in my spare time: learn the requirements of working in a bank (and accommodating them to the best of my abilities), using the same befriending tactic with the local police and working out, living the active lifestyle.

(Please note that all of them must be low in the work hierarchy - we will be exploiting capitalism)

With my newly acquired skill set and the information I have learned from my friend I start working at the bank.

I target the richest person that comes. I do my best to befriend (if that fails - seduce) them to the point they casually invite me to hang out on their jacht.

(In this case we will be doing the opposite of the first tactic, that is: targeting the richest. We're tying to find the estimate where they'd be least willing to sell me out because the price will be too low. If that rich friend doesn't meet these requirements - I will hang out at all of their dumb jacht parties and build my social status until I meet Jeff Bezos [theoretical] himself.)

By the time all of this is done I'm probably around 60 but thanks to the workouts I've been doing for the last 50-40 years I'm still fit and capable. It's time for payoff.

I'm open about my plans towards my bank friends. They either shut up because we're besties or help me for a small recompensate.

Thanks to all the info I've gathered I get into the bank safe(or whatever tf they keep money in)

I either get away scot free or (rather likely) get caught by the police. Remember my police friends?

They're underpaid. Im their friend. They let me go.

To avoid further consequences I go to my richest friend and ask him a favor. He either complies instantly or I bribe him with a portion of bank money.

I get away on his jacht. My destination would preferably be of the island type, though that is still unsure. Either way I get there, legally change my name and surname, bleach my hair (more than it already is) and live a humble life with my fat stash hidden away in my mattress unless it is relevant to pull it out. I upgrade slowly so noone suspends anything. I buy a mansion. I die at the age of 80, on a voice chat will all my police and bank friends, laughing ob my 1000$ bed. It was a good life.

Alternatively explosion go woosh bam fshooo we get away ye 💥💥💥😎😎

Hope you've enjoyed

[behlulia]

How You Could Make Firs Incomes With Affiliate Programs

Become an affiliate - change your life

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What’s an Affiliate Program? An affiliate program is a marketing technique initiated by Amazon.com CEO, Jeff Bezos in 1996. The main concept is to build a network of websites, aside from your own, to promote your company. These sites will then post links and banners of your merchant site. When visitors click on your ads, they will be directed to your site, now that’s time for you to do your thing and close the sale. Your website should be convincing enough to hold your potential client's attention and eventually get them to try what you have to offer. Your affiliates will get paid for every referrer that you managed to close a sale with. You can also offer a certain amount for every visitor they direct to your site, also referred to as pay per click. How to promote your affiliate program Have a strong content As with any other website, content is very important to drive traffic to your site. Add in useful content that readers would find beneficial and in turn, would entice them to visit your site more often. In no time, they would definitely buy what you offer. For instance, if you have created an affiliate program selling air mattresses, add articles about its history, design, engineering, and the comfort it brings. These articles will serve as selling tools for your site and be very useful for your readers. Plus, getting useful content and optimizing them for search engines would give you a good standing on page ranks.

Click here to Get a hosting. Choose your affiliates wisely You don’t just scatter your affiliate links all over the Internet to anyone who wants them. The key here is to promote your site to your target market through your affiliate program. You should meticulously choose your affiliates. The visitors of your affiliate site should be interested in what you offer as well, thus clicking on your link. Following the example above, if you are selling air mattresses, get affiliate websites about beds, sleeping disorders, or even gift ideas. Provide attractive banner links Banners are attention grabbers compared to text links. How you represent your website and the product/ services you offer are represented in your banner ads. Keep them eye-catching and enticing enough to get visitors to click them. There are cheap banner ads that can go for as low as $5. Alternatively, you can also try other selling techniques like fly-in ads, moving ads, and pop-ups. Submit your website to affiliate directories If you want more people to join your affiliate program, it is important to submit your website to directories. You will get a better response if you narrow down your positioning on the Internet and post your website on affiliate directories instead of the general directories. This website has a list of affiliate programs categorized accordingly. Website owners will surely drop by the site to check out new affiliate programs that they could put up on their site. Niche directories are very powerful in building your online presence, thus, making your website get more traffic and consequently, sky-rocket your sales.

[chiseler]

THE CHISELER INTERVIEWS ANDY McCARTHY

Chiseler: Please tell our readers when you began digging into obscurantist concerns -- these strange and neglected corners of New York history. Give us a sense of how it all started, and some idea of the scope here. Andy McCarthy: I worked as a New York City tour guide on the red doubledecker buses between 2004 and 2011, and Times Square was one of the highlights of the tour. The tour began and ended in Times Square — New York begins and ends in Times Square.  The history of the world's entertainment district is a big subject — lots to talk about and always more to learn. Plus everyone hates Times Square.  Elmo probably even hates it. So it was even more inspired to find the appreciation for the experience of it as it is now in the present.  Like going to a Starbucks in the East Village and finding yourself talking to the ghost of Joey Ramone, who loves the Tall Blonde.  West 42nd Street in particular was always a synapse-inducing subject — it isn't that it's obscurantist (except maybe for understanding the real estate chronology), but that there are a million ways of approaching it — it's the brightest neighborhood in America after all — the old theaters, the showbiz history, labor action, smut lore, the "cleanup" and failed redevelopments before the final wrecking ball in the 1990s, etc. Anyhow in 2012, film programming friends were putting together a series that revolved around the history of W. 42nd Street — they called it THE DEUCE, after the nickname for the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The idea was to program a movie that once played in one of the theaters on the Deuce, and I would perform an intro monologue/ slideshow about the history of the theater. We did our first screenings in the backroom of Videology on Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, and then evolved to the proper movie chambers of Nitehawk Cinema in 2013, where as of March 2020 we have done about 80 screenings. Don't call me an expert but the pop legacy and damaged psyche yielded by the Glittering Gulch has consumed my research panascope like a large bucket of stale popcorn you can't stop shoving it in with gulps of fountain Coke during a matinee of Wolfen. For the last six years I've worked as a reference librarian at NYPL at Fifth Ave and W. 42nd (not the Deuce).  My division is US History, Local History, and Genealogy - we get all the NYC history questions.  At NYPL the resources available in researching each month's DEUCE spiel far surpass the amount of tips bagged at the height of tourist season by the Naked Cowboy.

Chiseler: When I was 15 or 16 years old, a suburban Jersey kid, I would occasionally take the bus to Port Authority with $20 in my pocket. It was a magical place in the 70s and 80s. Can you tell us something about the porn scene in those days, maybe its larger history, and how it relates to the evolution of your Nighthawk Cinema?

McCarthy: I’m generalizing, but the porn business in Times Square seems a combination of obscenity laws and the real estate market (versus the city and state imposing change).  Obscenity laws had increasingly loosened since the 1960s and by the 1980s so many cases ruled in favor of pornography that the pursuit of smut peddlers evaporated like dots of old money shots on a mattress at the Elk Hotel. Sure Edwin Meese led a commission against porn in Reagan's Morning in America as a coalition of the religious right against the entire ethos of the 1970s, but it doesn't seem to have achieved anything other than beleaguering feminist activists who opposed the rampant exploitation of women in pornography only to find a black hole of political alignment with right wing morality police. Live sex shows and bestiality periodicals were then the product of free speech.  Meanwhile, big business had no interest in occupying or redeveloping the commercial spaces in Times Square.  But landlords held on to the old buildings and theaters — occupied by movie theaters, sex shops, etc. - waiting for a future time when the demand for Times Square real estate upped the value and they might cash in.  The neighborhood became a sex district mostly because these were the only businesses that would pay rent in the area — which most New Yorkers supposedly avoided. And it was the 1970s — the white middle-class had fled, it was a party town, the city was broke, its own redevelopment efforts continually failing on the Deuce, where the racial patron and hangout demographic was majority Black, and drugs and prostitution were viable business. But the theaters on the Deuce mostly didn't play porn.  The Victory (today the "New Victory") played triple-X and the Harem was a 24 hour porn box — but you had more opportunity to see First Blood or What's Up Doc? in the 8 or 9 other theaters on W. 42nd between 7th and 8th Avenue. XXX theaters were elsewhere in Times Square than the Deuce. Whether it was magical depends on one's experience of it at the time.  Times Square has always been a fantasy factory and the DEUCE movie series we do exalts going to the movies, and even when the experience back then was rough, most reminiscences of people seeing movies on 42nd Street is a memory of great impact.  We do not celebrate that it was so bad it was good (the same way we do not program movies that are "so bad they are good" — that crap is for bored minds who are less able to form an independent thought than the digital diode Coca-Cola sign at 47th and Broadway) — but it is a combination of place and experience in a matrix of moviegoing: there are many stories to tell about each theater, and the movies we program may take on new life in the forgetting chambers of Nitehawk Cinema. If porn ended up characterizing the business of Times Square when obscenity laws and real estate allowed it to, then no surprise — such is history…

Chiseler: I’m with you on “so bad it’s good” — a goddamn disease. I spend years of my life hunting down non-canonical titles, not with the tacky idea of establishing an alternative canon, but with the goal of subverting the very notion of canons. In other words, I’m seeking great films that establish their own criterion for greatness, compelling viewers to recognize them on their own ground. To expand your last answer a bit, would you mind dwelling on a few titles you’ve screened and tell our readers why you selected them?

McCarthy: OK — the DEUCE is a group effort. First off we are thankful for Nitehawk Cinema to have hosted the series for so long. I only do the intro monologue / slideshow on the history of a theater, while my co-jockeys — seasoned film programmers Joe Berger, Max Cavanaugh, and Jeff Cashvan — program the screenings, which are always a 35mm print, sprocketed by boothmaster Pro-Jo Joe Muto.  The 35mm signature touch seems to be one of the ongoing draws for the audience, who routinely sell out the 90 seat theater, ahem...  Cashvan puts together a list and Max tracks down a print (if one exists).  The selections hinge on whether the movie once played in a theater on the Deuce, and the availability of a 35mm print — the experience of history in the screening zeroes down to the technology too.  The movies are chosen because they have creative merit and yield enough for the viewer to determine if they are good or bad — or anything in between, which is much more interesting. Also we gotta honor the faith of the ticket-buyers and uphold any rep of the series, and not hash up some dumb time-wasting crap.  Some of the flicks might be obscure, like Night of the Juggler (a gritty 1980 NYC exegesis on the type of race and class tensions too familiar under the U.S. presidency of the hurrahed bastard) or Teen Lust (bizarre sex romp directed by that-guy character actor James Hong) or Combat Shock (Vietnam vet psychodrama shot in Staten Island, including the Nam scenes), and other flicks are not obscure, like A View to a Kill or Tommy or Luna or Runaway Train...  The crowds continually seem to enjoy a genuine going-to-the-movies experience; there is never any of that ironic insecure brainless hipster douchebag laughter that you get at some of these retro screenings that sizzles my nerves like hamburgers and franks on the grill at Grand Luncheonette at 229 W. 42nd Street next to the old Selwyn Theater — both places long gone.  I saw Lost Weekend at BAM one time and was surrounded by people laughing at Ray Milland suffering from delirium tremens. What kind of loser pays $15 to act like that at a movie?  Anyhow - those types don't come to these screenings.  Some people come no matter what is playing, others for nostalgia or a particular love for a movie, others for whatever.  No one is coming to experience the reenactment of a W. 42nd Street theater in 1982, which is not the intention — if it was we would just play grade-Z spaghetti westerns or Porky's sequels and allow smoking in the theater.

Chiseler: I realize that COVID puts a fairly long-term kaibosh on movie theaters. Where, if anywhere, do your hopes lie for continuing your work? Night of the Juggler ranks among my favorite films, by the way.

McCarthy: I am working on a book that corrals all the research I've done for the last 8 years.  As far as reopening movie theaters, I have no clue. That is up to Nitehawk etc. The series is a theatrical communal thing. We haven't all been in touch about carrying things through the quarantine because there is no virtual alternative. As for Juggler it's too bad the movie is super unfindable. But how and where we obtained a one-time-only print will remain as undisclosed as a Gambino wiseguy taking the fifth.

[sapphiresonstrings]

Twenty Five Years’ Purchase: How Money Actually Works

I often see people confused about how money works, so I will explain it.

Jeff Bezos’ net worth is estimated to be $115 billion dollars. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the fictitious love interest of equally-fictitious Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice, has a yearly income of ten thousand pounds. These two things have more in common than you may expect.

Most of Jeff Bezos’ “money” is actually tied up in the estimated value of his stock in Amazon. How that works is this: Corporations provide a certain amount of revenue year-by-year to the people who own them. This money does not exist yet. The estimate comes from the money which will come to exist in the future, as Amazon produces value for its customers. With me so far?

Most of Mr Darcy’s “money” is actually tied up in the estimated value of his estate. How that works is this: Every six months, his tenant farmers pay him rent for the privilege of farming on his land. They grow crops and livestock, sell them, and then take some of that money and give it to Mr Darcy as rent. The rents he collects on all his properties add up to about ten thousand pounds per year.

Conventionally (depending A LOT on time period and circumstance, but still) a property in Regency England gave a yearly return of four per cent of its value per year. We can reverse this to say that a property’s yearly revenue, divided by four, times one hundred, equals its value. Mr Darcy’s estate is worth approximately 10,000/4*100, or 2,500*100, or 250,000 pounds.

Why is a property worth this amount of money? Let’s suppose that I am a dragon with a big pile of silver, and I am looking to invest. I have 250,000 pounds of silver in a big fucking pile. If I buy Mr Darcy’s estate, then I am out all of silver. I have no silver in my big pile. However, every year, I will get ten thousand pounds. Eventually, I will get my money back - in twenty five years to be precise. In addition, I will also get to keep the estate that I bought for 250,000 pounds. You could estimate my net worth at 250,000 pounds + 10,000*x, where x is the number of years since I purchased the estate. Because I gave away my silver to buy land, my fortune is increasing. However, that does not mean I have 250,000 pounds of silver, because I spent that money to buy land. With me so far?

Mr Darcy doesn’t have 250,000 pounds under his mattress. That estimated value comes from crops that have not yet been grown. Over the next twenty-five years, Mr Darcy’s cut of the crops grown on his land will be worth 250,000 pounds. In the future.

Jeff Bezos does not have $115 billion under his mattress. That money does not yet exist.

[sheepsandcattle]

Chapter 9

“Benders!”

Both of their heads whipped around at once, zeroing in on a group of four men across the street, chuckling among themselves as they walked on.

“You what?” Brandon scowled at first, squaring up his shoulders as he jutted out his chin. “You know what they say, mate; it’s fags that can sniff ‘em out best.”

“Gaydar,” Curly had supplied, giggling mostly for show.

They’d heard it all before, been pushed about a few times for being a bit camp, but they were seventeen and drunk on a Tuesday afternoon and had no reason to take life too seriously. Besides, they’d found a long time ago that carelessness is contagious; most people that would take the piss would end up taking a shine to them if given the chance.

That day didn’t seem like one of those times though, because the poor bloke’s mates were cackling, shoving him playfully to keep him sweet, but he’d gone red in the face and looked over the road at them like he was thinking about crossing it. He’d said, pathetically, “fuck off,” but couldn’t think of much more.

“To be fair, mate, you’re a bit of me, you are,” Curly snorted, pointing across the road, back at him.

The stranger, still glaring as his mates chuckled (at least they knew how to have a laugh), looked like he was about ready to fire a comeback their way, but Curly already had Brandon bent over a bollard as he humped him from behind. Brandon did his best to wriggle away, but was too busy laughing too and couldn’t quite straighten himself out.

“Fucking rank,” the bloke scoffed, then added, “you’re sick,” as he stormed up the street in the other direction while Curly and Brandon stood doubled over, snorting and whooping with laughter as the red-faced wanker stomped off.

***

Curly’s never fancied a bloke in his life. That’s how he knows he’s not gay — and, trust, he’s had plenty of opportunities (mostly since he moved from home, actually) to dabble in all that shit, but it just doesn’t… It’s not…

But then he’s never really fancied a bird before, either and he’s had chances there, too. He’s just always felt a bit too immature to be thinking about getting himself a girlfriend so, honestly, he’s not quite sure what it’s meant to feel like to like someone in that way. All he does know is he hasn’t looked at Jordan and wanted to snog his face off or anything, which he knows is a bloody big part of it.

He can’t really say he looks at Jordan and sees him in any kind of way other than wildly bold and just a bit too cool for him. Maybe that’s all it is though; maybe he’s just chuffed because some fella he thought was cool at a party now seems to quite like him and it’s got him all giddy. But then, he supposes, straight guys don’t go on dates with guys because they ‘seem cool.’

“So you are gay?”

“What? No, I aren’t gay. I don’t want to shag the guy, m’just…” Curly huffs, stunted in thought as he forgets where exactly he was going with it in the first place.

“You’re just…” Lola smiles, amused. He doesn’t know what he just is, but she’s waiting patiently — for his conclusion or for him to find the tabs he’s trying to dig from his inside pocket as he speaks.

They only met tonight, at a party he came to with the sole purpose of dealing then fucking off, but ended up staying until now, 3am, to talk to this lass called Lola about a love life he’s never had but might have soon but also might not because he’s not gay and, in fact, might not ever have because he in’t straight either, so where does that leave him?

“Curious.” He shrugs, satisfied for only a moment before he adds, “about him. Curious about ‘im, not about my… Preference. Or whatever— Where the fuck are my drugs.”

“I told you. I’m sure I saw you sell the whole batch,” she insists for the third time in the past ten minutes. “You should keep better track of your stash, Curly.” She still says it like she’s testing it out, even after never having heard his real name. “Listen, I have these pills. You let me try a line for free, so I’ll share.”

And she does. Fuck knows what she shares, but she does, and Curly loses some time but ultimately ends up sat in the living room as he watches some bloke talk obliviously to his mate as a long, black, thousand-legged creature shines beneath the ceiling light as it scurries out of his right ear and down his face and neck, over his shoulder, down his front, exoskeleton creaking as is bends, down his trouser leg, growing longer and wider as is crawls…

“Fuck me,” he mumbles, reaching blindly to his right to grab Lola’s wrist, get her attention and ask, “what the fuck is coming out of that geezers—“

Lola just laughs, powder pink hair falling into her face as she multiples right there beside him. He’s about to comment on that, but then he’s distracted again anyway, back to the giant insect, and his eyes wider than the black hole in the ground that the creature crawls into before it closes back up again, beige carpet growing back over like ivy.

It’s the shortest but most intense hallucination he’s ever had.

***

“What are you on?” Jeff tries to frown but ends up laughing as Curls plops into the passenger seat of his car.

“I d’know mate. I didn’t ask,” Curly grumbles and buries his head between his legs, shutting his eyes because he’s about three wrong moves away from yoshing in on Jeff’s car mat. “I think I saw Beelzebub.”

Jeff scoffs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Buckle up.”

“Can’t.” He groans. “I’ve never in my life… esveranced—” Air gets trapped in his throat. ‘No,’ he thinks, ‘no sick in the car,’ and breathes.

“Esver-what?”

“These girls I met tonight,” Curly wines. “She was about fifty of them.”

“I have no idea what—“

He groans, head shaking in his hands. How is Jeff not understanding how mortifying this situation is? “Then this bloke ‘ad a thing in his ear an’ then the floor went. And I looked like a twat.”

His mate chuckles then and says, “well, yeah.”

“Have y’got milk in? I need coffee and maybe a… What’s them things with—“

“Sorry, pal, I may be your cabby but you’re not my lodger tonight. Couch is taken,” Jeff says as the car turns left and Curly falls sideways against the door. “And we thought J was wasted.”

“J,” he repeats and then slowly raises to sit back in his seat. All the streetlights smudge together. “Jordan, J?” Jeff hums and oh God, he can just see it now; Jeff going home and telling Dean about this, Jordan overhearing, all of them getting a right kick out of it. Jordan will never text him then because he’s a weirdo that gets high, has a gay crisis and sees the devil in strangers’ ears. “Don’t tell ‘im I’ve seen the Devil.”

“You got it, pal,” Jeff says.

"No, serious,” he insists as he flails his right arm before something flies out of his sleeve and onto the floor between his feet

“What the hell was that?”

He looks down, feels about until his hand touches plastic and he retrieves a small baggy. “Are you taking the piss,” he scoffs. He knew he never sold a whole batch.

***

“I’m telling you mate, I’ve never known anything like it.” Curly shakes his head, slouched back on the couch as Oscar presents him with a mug of coffee. “It -cheers- it lasted about thirty seconds; monsters; back holes; seeing doubles; everything, and then it was just… Done. Proper creepy.”

“You’re not cut out to be a drug dealer, Curly,” Jules mocks as he spreads out in the recliner. “You don’t have the self-discipline or tolerance.”

Oscar chuckles as he sits beside him on the couch. “Or the stomach for it, if the steps outside have anything to do with you.”

“Better than yoshing in the kitchen sink,” Curls shoots back, and Oscar can’t argue with that because, yep, that was fucking minging and Curly thanks his lucky stars often that it was Oscar and not him that clogged the sink with—

His phone buzzes as Jules goes on a rant about said sink fiasco, suddenly reliving the fury of that night, and Oscar has to defend himself all over again.

Curls digs his phone from his pocket, just glances at first to see— Fuck sake.

Jordan.

He knew that dickhead wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut and, although his dramatics left with the contents of his stomach last night meaning he’s not so convinced now that Jordan would cut him off over his drug-induced (un)holy experience, he’s positive he’s not going to enjoy reading whatever punchline the guy has about Curly’s antics. He’s heard how brutal Jordan can be.

15:24 - guess i’m texting first - game over

Oh. Oh, okay. Curly can feel himself grinning already, shit, and has to excuse himself to his bedroom because he can feel Oscar frowning over his shoulder and needs a minute to just… Smile like a twat. He perches on the edge of his bed, tries to think of something exciting to say but his mind is blank.

15:25 - youre a good sport

Is that funny or rude? Both? None? Should he have said ‘lol’ or is that not cool anymore? What if—

15:25 - 2 questions

Okay, fast replies. Curly likes that but also kinda needs time to gather his thoughts because apparently Jordan is even cool over text and he needs to work out how to match that and how not to make it obvious that he’s usually the type to use text-talk and excessive smileys.

15:27 - just no maths pls

15:28 - deal. 15:28 - 1. will you be free at 7pm friday?

15:31 - yep thats good for me!

“Curly your coffee,” Oscar calls through the door.

“In a minute,” he shouts back, maybe a little too harshly, but he’s too busy stressing over whether or not exclamation marks are stupid. “Sorry, just. Hang on.”

15:32 - cool 15:32 - 2. will beelzebub be free at 7pm friday? :(

Heat rushes to his face before he ever reads past ‘Beelzebub’ and he physically slams his phone into his mattress as he groans.

“Curls? You good? You sound like a dying—“

“I’m fine,” Curly groans as he lays back on top of the sheets. “I’ll be back out in a second,” he adds and feels for his phone.

15:35 - jeff will die.

[joelvr17]

What’s an Affiliate Program?  

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[marciogarciadeandrade]

We have all heard about Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk and George Soros. These are the names in every household. We all know they worth billions and are among the richest people in the United States.

A recent report published by ProPublica has found another thing that breaks apart them from every other American: They are paying very little in taxes. Using a complex web of flaws in the system, they have been able to do so while remaining inside the brackets of the law. But the main question is, why does the U.S. tax system let that happen?

Being poor is more expensive than being rich  

A large part of these negligible tax rates for the riches is because they maintain their wealth differently than ordinary Joe in America. One thing that every ordinary person in America needs to understand that the riches are smart and their money is not sitting in a bank, and it's definitely not stuffed under their pillow and mattresses. They hold their assets in popular stocks and real estate, which are only taxed when they are sold. Until then, it's "unrealized," not counting as income.

Buffet, as another example, reported an income of $125 million between 2014 to 2018. In spite of that his net worth rose by $24.3 billion. You might have heard before that Jeff Bezos made a salary of around $80,000 as the CEO of Amazon. Well, that's exactly not the same thing as saying that his wealth only grew by $80K per year.

Keep your salary low is another loophole the ultra-rich exploits to keep more of their wealth. However, Bezos reported $6.5 billion to the IRS between 2006 to 2018, yet his net worth grew by $127 billion. Well, we all can do the rest of the math.

Another thing Marcio explains that millionaires have to pay fewer taxes than an ordinary salary getter does also shows how money is either in a void or in a vacuum.  We all need to accept that if you don't have enough of the money in liquid, then its absence creates a kind of nullity that sucks up even more money.

Who is Marcio Gracia de Andrade

Marcio Garcia is a popular icon who helps small and medium businesses get success. He is the successful owner and creator of shelfcorpgiant.com, specializing in selling aged shelf corporations all around Wyoming and other major states of the United States.

[elanorjane]

California Soulmates Chapter 2

Summary: Pop princess Belle wants to write her own music. Single father Gold wants to put his failed music career behind him. When inspiration hits, there's only one problem...the songs they're writing are each other's. "Telepathic soulmates" RCIJ for @beastlycheese

AO3

What was this complete and utter pish?

Rumford Gold sat cross-legged on the wood floor of the living room. Well, in a bedsit technically the whole thing was a living room. But it was the sliver of space he and Bae had cordoned off as shared. The window was open and a minuscule breeze, along with a lot of traffic noise, filtered in. With fifteen years of practice, he blocked out the horn and engine noises easily. The windows were old with wooden frames that had warped over the years and been painted over dozens of times, so having it shut made no difference.

He plucked at the strings of the acoustic guitar in his lap, the chain and cord bracelets wrapped around his right wrist shifting with the movement. He scowled at the illegible scribbles on the paper in front of him. He had some song about a drunken night at a club sung in a girl's voice in his head. It sounded like something out of a 16-year-old girl’s diary. He shook his hair out of his eyes and tried to concentrate on the radio jingle he was supposed to be writing for a local car dealership. He should be focused. He was lucky to get the gig. But lyrics about summer and beaches and sex kept ending up on the page instead. He must have picked it up from somewhere, but he swore he hadn’t heard it before. He didn’t even turn on the radio anymore because there was nothing on it worth listening to. The radio dial in his beat to hell Dodge Charger didn’t even work anymore after he’d mashed it a few too many times out of frustration for the drivel it was playing. Bae was always on about Sirius XM, but he could add that to the list of things Bae wanted and Gold couldn't afford.

Gold turned back to the song scratched in pencil on music sheets scattered around him on the floor. He couldn’t have penned it himself. For starters, it sounded way more pop than anything he’d ever written. More tellingly, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had sex. He doubted that he could aptly describe it anymore. He glanced over the page of lyrics, all of them inappropriate to sell cars. He’d probably inadvertently picked it up from something Bae was listening to. Despite Gold’s extensive schooling, Bae’s tastes still ran tragically pop. He sighed. Too bad this rubbish wasn’t his. The damn thing would probably be a hit. Gold balled the sheet up in his hand, crumbled it into a tight ball, and lobbed it across the room where it bounced off Bae’s bedroom door.

It wasn’t a bedroom door so much as a curtain Bae had rigged up around his bed in the corner. By the light filtering through the one window Gold could see the outline of his son sprawled out on his bed. He could hear the din of Top 50 seeping out of his headphones. Gold’s own bare mattress was pushed against the opposite wall. It was the best they could do to give each other some sense of privacy. Gold studied his son’s form then lamented the now blank page in front of him. A fourteen year old boy should have his own room. He should have grown up with a yard to play in. Gold blamed himself for not giving Bae everything he should have and keeping them in L.A. long after they should have moved back to Scotland. Or any other place besides this godforsaken city.

This was not how it was supposed to be. Gold was the founding member and brainchild behind what was an up and coming English rock band. Formed in London in the early 80’s, they were on their way to hitting it big. They were going to make real, industry shattering, mind blowing music and get rich doing it. Until it had all fallen apart.

Gold had written music his entire life. He’d picked up a slew of instruments along the way. First guitar, then piano. He spend his formative years learning every part to his favorite songs. He loved early Rolling Stones and Small Faces. In his teens he’d started a band, like every young kid in Glasgow was doing in those days. But while his friends had eventually grown out of it and moved on to football and girls as their main pursuits, he never lost his obsessive focus on music.

In his early twenties he’d moved to London and worked on finding other serious musicians and together they formed a band, focusing on heavy-sounding rhythm and blues. That’s how he’d met his ex-wife, Milah. She’d auditioned for keyboardist. They were young and she seemed just as invested in the music as he was and it wasn’t long before they were spending all of their time together. In the intervening years, the band crashed on a series of friends’ couches. Gold spent all day writing music and as many evenings as possible in whatever disreputable bar would let them play, fronting his band, playing guitar and singing lead. They were struggling musicians barely scraping by in the city and they had been the best years of his life, full of love and music.

Then, Killian Jones came in to audition after they’d lost their bassist. Gold remembered the moment vividly. They sat in a dingy basement bar of a restaurant that rented the space out to them for rehearsal during the day. Gold, Milah, and the rest of the band sat in creaky old wood chairs and on sticky tables while Jones, under the dusty overhead light, played a Led Zepplin song. That should have been Gold’s first clue. He was always a bigger fan of The Who. After Jones played his last note, Gold peppered him with questions about his abilities, experience, and musical tastes. The same litmus test he’d give anyone who wanted to join his band.

Milah and the rest of the musicians were immediately sold on Jones and his leather jacket joining the band, but Gold was the lone holdout. Reminding him that they couldn’t play their already scheduled performances if they didn’t have a bassist, Gold agreed to let Jones play on a trial basis only.  

It was after one of these tryout gigs, while they were packing up the gear, when Jones sheepishly admitted to the rest of the band that he was really was a frontman at heart.  

“We don’t need a singer,” Gold immediately responded. He wrote the songs, he performed the songs, it worked. No need to fix what wasn’t broken.  

But Milah wasn’t so dismissive.

“Give the boy a chance, love,” she told him, gesturing at Killian. The boy had a look, Gold guessed, though it seemed to hover somewhere closer to Boy George than Rod Stewart. He found everything about the new guy cloying. Jones’ eyeliner rimmed baby blues peered up at Gold in what he imagined was supposed to be a charming, unassuming grin.    

“You don’t even like being up front anyway,” Milah told Gold. While he’d taken the lead singer position out of necessity, Gold had learned to enjoy it and thought he’d grown into it. But the whole band looked at him expectantly.

“Alright, fine,” he’d caved. The kid could try it out and when he didn’t remember any of the lyrics and bombed, they’d go back to their original lineup.

So at the next gig, Gold stood stage right, playing bass and singing backup. He watched dumbly as his words came out of Killian's mouth and everyone fell over themselves. And the performance after that. And the one after that.

Crowds, for some reason, gravitated towards Jones. Droves of women, who Gold knew weren’t there for the music, began attending and standing up front. Gold wanted the music to speak for itself. But Killian was a born entertainer. He chatted to the girls in the crowd, making them titter. Gold glanced across the stage at Milah, who was laughing and shaking her head at his antics, completely won over. He’d remember that look in her eyes and the way her face lit up for the rest of his life.

“He’s sexy,” Milah had told him in bed one night, when he was still on the fence about Jones officially joining the band and taking over lead.

Gold had asked Milah to marry him the next day. He could see now, in retrospect, that he’d sensed her slipping away from him. He had loved her, he truly had. But marrying her had been his way to try and hold onto her, to keep her from leaving him. Not that it had done any good in the end. I didn’t matter, he would have married her anyway because, unbeknownst to them at the time, she was already pregnant with Bae.

With Killian Jones on the mic, the band started to gain more attention. It was so gradual at first, Gold almost didn’t notice. The rooms they played began to fill a little more. The venues got a little bigger. Until one day, at a party after a show, he looked around and realized he in the same room as Jeff Beck and Ronnie Wood, breathing the same air. All because of their mutual love of making music.  

It was only a matter of time before America began calling. The lure of recording contracts and bigger audiences was too great. The band boarded a plane from London for L.A. Upon arriving, they found a place downtown to squat in and seamlessly fell into the music scene. They spent their days recording demos on borrowed studio time. Gold remembered seeing a proper mixing board for the first time and spending hours pouring over it with a single minded intensity. When Bae was born, he joined their caravan of bohemians, riding along in vans to various gigs. Sometimes even living in a van. But it didn’t matter because Bae was a happy baby and they traveled as a band, a family.

One that wasn’t destined to last.

They signed their first record deal with a major label within six months of arriving in L.A. Moe French, a record producer so famous Gold recognized him on sight, happened to be in the audience when they played one of their best shows. He cornered them when they exited the stage. Riding high on one of their best performances ever, they signed without even reading the contract he thrust at them in his glass fronted office the next day. Within the next week they had studio time of their own and twelve of their best tracks laid down. They got so far as to even have an official photo shoot for the album cover, with Killian in the middle and the rest of them fanned out around him.

It looked like Gold had been wrong. Killian Jones had been their ticket to success in the L.A. music scene.

But he had also been their downfall.

Within a year of landing at LAX, Jones and Milah had fell for the drinking and the drugs and each other. The two ran off together and the rest of the band members, burned out by the polarizing drama, vanished, getting gigs in established bands or as session players.

He should have put himself and an infant Bae on a plane the day their family, and the band, broke up. Instead, his pride got the better of him and Gold, with Bae, had stayed in L.A. He'd stick around to show them all. While Jones had been part of their meteoric rise, he was nothing but a pretty face. Gold wasn’t going to let him ruin everything he had spent decades building.

He was in Moe French’s office the next morning.

“I’ll get another band together,” he’d promised Moe.  

“No, you won’t.” Moe answered confidently. At Gold’s perplexed look, he continued. “We own your songs now, boy.”

A horrible pit formed in Gold’s stomach. “I don’t understand.”

“The contract you signed,” Moe informed him casually. “Those songs now belong to the record label.”

“But I wrote them!” Gold defended. “We already recorded them!”

“In a studio the label paid for,” Moe countered. “You wasted my time and my money. That album will never see the light of day.” He remembered the bloated face of Moe French baring down on him. “Now get out of my office before I sue you for breech on contract,” he growled.  

He’d once ran into Eric Clapton on a regular basis. Now he was in a bedsit in east L.A. His best friend was a 14-year-old who would rather closet himself in his ‘room.’ He wrote jingles and whatever else anyone need him for, just to stay involved in music somehow, using the same Gibson that he used to write the songs that were supposed to make him and his band famous. The piano had been sold long ago to pay for this place.

He looked around the room. He used to live out of a van. In comparison to that, this was nothing. It was all Bae had ever known. Scraps of paper with song lyrics scribbled all over them were tacked all over the apartment walls. After seeing A Beautiful Mind at a friend’s house, Bae had come home and asked Gold if he was schizophrenic.

All Gold had left of his blossoming music career was an unreleased album and a trail of broken dreams. And Bae. He had Bae. If he had to do it all again, knowing the outcome, if it got him his boy, he’d do it.

Gold shook his head. He hadn’t thought of his bitterness about the music industry in a long time. He’d focus on Bae and doing what he could to keep the apartment under them and cereal in the cupboards.

He unconsciously played the first few notes of a song he’d written for Bae when he was little. It was meant to comfort his son when he had nightmares, but in truth it gave Gold just as much solace. Now that he was older, Bae didn’t need it anymore. But obviously Gold still did. He’d give in to his despondency and play it through, just the once. Then, he’d get back to work.

[blazermckinnon]

27 hours in the SNL standby line for dress rehearsal 9/30/17

Scroll down for standby tips, a list of things you might need, and places you may need to visit for standby!

Here is a description of the timing of waiting in standby:

@myloveholtzy and I have been planning for this for weeks and the time had finally come! I was lucky enough to have my Friday class cancelled so I could go back to the city early enough to guarantee a good spot in line. It’s Thursday night and we’re packing our things anxiously, even laying out cardboard that @myloveholtzy had been saving for weeks for this very day to see if it was enough room to sit and lay down. We try to get some sleep. It felt like a second later when the alarm went off and I jolted up in bed, confused but ready to go. 3:00 AM.

We leave her apartment at 3:40 to catch the train to Rockefeller plaza. We get there at 4:20 and there are only 7 people in line. Our chances look pretty good. Most of the standbyers are asleep so we lay down our cardboard, set up a pillow and blankets and try to sleep. This is going to be our home for the next 27 hours.

It’s a funny thing camping outside on the streets. Everyone wakes up about the same time, as if we were at a sleep-away camp. There’s a sense of camaraderie, we’re all braving the cold for the very same purpose.

Slowly, people start arriving and setting up camp in line. By 5:00 AM, there are a total of 12 people in line. The rest of the city starts to wake up, there are more cars whizzing by, more people speeding by with coffee in their hands. 

We fall asleep again and wake up at around 8:00 AM. There are 16 people in line. We watch movies and talk and meet new people in line and answer tourist questions, so many tourist questions. By 11:00 AM, there are almost 30 people.

We eat a lot of McDonalds and answer some more tourist questions. Then we are stricken with a genius idea (that’s what happens when you’re in the same place for so long, your mind is a wonder). We make signs to avoid the common tourist questions. It’s a huge hit! All of a sudden, people congregate around our signs and we get a laugh out of them. It’s a wonderful feeling and they ask more interesting questions besides the usual “What’s this line for?”. We get so many gasps of “Ryan Gosling!” and an SNL intern even stopped to take a picture of our sign! Our signs made it to Twitter too, this is my legacy. 

By 5:30 PM, there are about 40 people in line. The day is starting to wind down. We watch more movies and talk more about anything and everything.

More waiting and talking and movies and napping. We are moved to a different spot as the other line for Nintendo starts to wind down. At around 9, we are moved again to our final spot.

We go visit Rockefeller at around 10:30 PM and saw Beck probably going back to rehearsal! 

It’s sleep time but there’s a shit ton of jack hammering. No, not just jack hammering, full on earth shattering drilling. I wonder how I’m ever going to sleep.

By now, there are almost 100 people in line. I bundle up and try to sleep.

We start waking up at around 5 the next morning. My body is folded into a position I never thought I could achieve just to avoid the cold. At 6, we start packing up our things. We made it. We did it.

Pages come out at around 7 to give us our tickets. Finally.

We victoriously take pictures of our tickets; this little piece of blue card stock was our first place trophy. But it was not over yet. We go home, take long hot showers and collapse into deep sleep.

We run back to Rockefeller plaza and arrive at 6:50 PM where we have to wait in the NBC store. There is a crowd of people packed like sardines. The pages line us up in order of our ticket numbers. We rejoice at the sight of our fellow standbyers. The line legend lady tells us stories of how she’s kicked line cutters out of the line and how different the system used to be. What a legend.

Finally, we are moved to a staircase behind the NBC store. Through the window, we see Richard, an Australian guy and an all around nice person who was 2 spots in front of us in standby. He is on line for the live show. We line up in twos and Line Legend Lady tells us more stories. We laugh off the nervousness and her ambience makes us feel better, she’s done this for 10 years so she’s chill about the whole process.

They move us up the stairs but there is still no guarantee of getting in. We arrive at the elevators and I sneak a Fallon-style picture of the elevator floors. Finally, we’re in line near the lounge but we’re standby, we don’t get to sit in the lounge this time. We get closer to the studio, I can hear 8H commotion, a page collects our tickets and it hits me. We’re in studio 8H. Pages rush us to our balcony seats, I am in the right section, close enough to watch the show with some lights in the way. It is hard to see some skits below us but it’s ok, it was all worth it.

The rest is self explanatory but here are some highlights that weren’t in the live show:

Melissa, Cecily and Kate doing the warm ups. Kate turns to our section twice and waves at us.

Kate holding Melissa’s hands and pulling her along after the warm ups. It was Melissa’s first warm up.

Kate crawling on the ground to pop up as Jeff Sessions in the cold open.

Emma Stone showing up during Ryan’s monologue.

The elephant man sketch was cut, it was kind of weird (kate as an air flight attendee and Leslie saying ‘bitch’ were great, the rest of the sketch was funny but not as funny).

An auto line sketch was cut, it was borderline creepy (beck plays a window shield repair man who removes their window shield repeatedly to hit on Melissa who plays a 17 year old high school soccer player).

Kate as Angela Merkel waiting behind the black screens next to weekend update, watching Colin and Michael supportingly and laughing hard at their jokes.

Ryan shaking as Kate feels his butt, trying to hold in his laughter.

Kyle pretending to play piano in the bar sketch but stopping before the music ends, garnering more laughter than the actual sketch.

Kate pulling the new cast members to the front in the goodnights. Everyone hugging. The goodnights are my favorite part.

Apparently Beyonce and Ryan’s gf were at the show. And now I know Aziz was also there. Wow.

Now for some tips if you want to do standby:

The line is normally on 48th street in front of the Nintendo store. There will be an NBC guard there so you can ask if you’re unsure about whether you’re in the right place or not. Or just look for at least one person in a camping chair with huge bags and probably coffee. (I say “normally” because that day happened to be a huge Nintendo release so there was a long ass line for Nintendo and we were moved multiple times).

NO CUTTING Line Legend Lady makes this very clear seriously talk to her she’s short and has black hair and glasses and is very approachable to talk to. This goes along with NO SAVING SPOTS pretty self explanatory.

The line is self governed. You’re allowed to leave for bathroom breaks or walks as long as you’re not leaving to go sleep in a hotel bed or whatever (aka don’t leave for more than 2 hours just to be safe)

If you suspect people cutting/saving spots, tell the line legend lady and guards. They’re pretty strict about it. This might sound scary but it’s not, honestly just follow the rules and you’ll have a great time

Talk to the people around you! You’re there for HOURS plus these people are (usually) some of the nicest people around. If you happen to spot any of the line legends: Chris or the Line Legend Lady, talk to them! They have so many stories. Chris has done it ~104 episodes consecutively and Line Legend Lady has done it for 10 years. There’s another line legend lady but I didn’t get a chance to really talk to her, she has gray curly hair and smiled at me once so she seems really nice!

SNL STANDBY SURVIVAL CHECKLIST:

Camping chair

Blankets (PLURAL CUZ ITS COLD)

Pillow

Cardboard box (to put your stuff on)

Books

Laptop (for work or movies)

Snacks

Tissues/napkins

Thick socks (your feet WILL get cold at night I guarantee it)

Earbuds

Layers (again, much cold very freezing)

GOVERNMENT ISSUED ID (permit, drivers license, student ID but it must have your DOB)

Water bottle 

Gloves/hat/scarf (especially if you do it later in the season)

Playing cards

Sleeping bag/portable air mattress (like this one)

Sharpies 

PLACES YOU MIGHT NEED:

Discount & Dollar (dollar store that sells camping chairs for $15, check the quality of the chair before buying bc someone’s chair broke idk if he checked, ours were fine cuz we checked)

Food court downstairs of Rockefeller (bathroom)

Stairs next to main lobby (there’s a water fountain in Rockefeller, go down the stairs near the lobby, there’s a glowing green sign that says something like “food court/concourse”)

McDonalds on 47th street (water, food, bathroom upstairs)

Click here for my other SNL experiences. 

[positionpapertopics612]

professional writers

About me

How Professional Writers Beat Writer'S Block

How Professional Writers Beat Writer'S Block Geoff Colvin states in his book, Talent is Overrated, that the most prestigious violin gamers select to practice for 2 or three classes of an hour and a half with breaks in between. Designating a writing shift provides you the opportunity for all three of these items. There’s a distinction between cranking out pages of writing, and cranking out really good pages of writing. From the moment you bought off the bed, you had been imagined to be sitting in entrance of your laptop, until the moment you have been heading back into bed. p.c a lot faster,you need to read my e-book Guerrilla Publishing. Books which might be profitable, always and without exception, arepopular.There is a big variety of readers who take pleasure in a certain kind of guide. However, I’ve since realized that there aren’t that many readers who like mermaid books. So on the one hand, it was easier to be noticed among the competitors, but on the other hand, the pool of readership was much smaller. I additionally realized my e-book isn’t like most mermaid books, it’s extra like a darkish fantasy. For example, after I wrote Shearwater, a younger adult mermaid romance set in Ireland, I focused people who appreciated young adult books, mermaids, and Ireland. When my provide received in entrance of them, it felt tailor made and was more likely to get their curiosity I do that for all my books. We have compiled a listing of the daily word counts of famous authors and what they had to say about writing every day. I wrote a free e-book with all my finest e-book launch and marketing ideas - if your book isn't selling and you're undecided why, it will definitely enhance your sales. There's even a free video collection strolling you through the 3 secrets and techniques, and a haunted castle tour. Daily word counts are one of the first issues college students ask about on our writing course. While we don’t advocate any explicit number, we do suppose it's a good suggestion to have one as a daily objective. If you set a objective of 500 or words and you keep it every day, you're feeling as if you have completed something. I all the time puzzled what was sufficient – what was the minimum. It does not likely matter, as long as you keep on writing … every single day. That’s merely not the easiest way to go round with writing. I try to write one thousand words a day, although the final week or so I haven’t written anything. My aim is to average 1000 words a day by the end of the yr, which implies I’m playing catch-up right now. When I’m writing notes and thoughts (and once I’m lucky, entire scenes or fragments of scenes), my word-fee varies hugely. I’m Jeff Goins, the best-selling writer of five books including The Art of Work and Real Artists Don’t Starve. Enter your e mail under and I’ll send you a free guide. The hardest a part of writing isn’t the sitting down half. It’s not the half the place you open up your laptop computer. It’s where you lastly push out your first few sentences and build momentum that’ll fuel the remainder of your work. Similarly, I now not maintain a notebook by the mattress for writing down concepts at night (unfair on my spouse!). Regardless, I always take Sundays off, not even writing down concepts that seem good. It is nice to have an insight into something like this. Every week, I share new tips on inventive work. Enter your email below and I'll ship you a free book. If you wrote a book however usually are not certain which category you fit in, or say something like “my guide doesn’t actually slot in any genre” you might have an issue. And even when that’s the case, you want to determine the closest match, so you realize what readers you should be appealing to.

[bigyack-com]

Should Google Shrink to Save Itself?

Topic A in New York City: a state law that eliminates broker fees for renters. Tenants are thrilled; landlords and brokers, not so much. Send us your thoughts. (Want this in your inbox each morning? Sign up here.)

Google reportedly weighs divesting a big ad business

As antitrust regulators turn up the heat, the company is reportedly considering a sale or spinoff of its third-party ad tech unit, Keach Hagey and Rob Copeland of the WSJ report, citing unnamed sources.The context:• The Justice Department has increasingly focused on Google’s third-party ad business, which was “built largely on the company’s 2008 acquisition of the ad-technology firm DoubleClick,” Ms. Hagey and Mr. Copeland write.• Google’s ad-tech business consists of software used to buy and sell ads across the web.• Critics say Google unfairly bundles these tools together and uses them to help its own services, like search and YouTube.Some Google executives have discussed informally “whether the company should consider divesting its third-party ad tech business, according to people familiar with the situation,” Ms. Hagey and Mr. Copeland write. (A Google spokeswoman said there were no plans to divest the unit.)Proponents of divesting the business note that the ad tech arm “has steadily declined in importance to Google overall since the DoubleClick purchase, while units like search and YouTube have soared.” That’s because web search traffic is stagnant, while mobile internet use is booming.“For Google, a partial voluntary breakup of its advertising business might be preferable to whatever regulators come up with on their own,” Alex Webb of Bloomberg Opinion writes.

Investors hit snooze on Casper’s I.P.O.

The mattress seller officially priced its I.P.O. at $12 a share, the low end of a sharply cut price range. It’s a sign that public-market investors remain sour on money-losing start-ups with no clear path to profitability.The bed-in-a-box company is valued around $476 million. Just last year, it was valued around $1.1 billion in a private fund-raising round.Investors remain wary of money-burning I.P.O. candidates, having turned up their noses at Uber and WeWork last year. It shows the public markets aren’t willing to subsidize these companies’ growth efforts.It’s not the only bad news for start-ups this week: The Federal Trade Commission moved to block the sale of Harry’s, the upstart razor brand, to the owner of Schick. If unprofitable start-ups can’t sell themselves to bigger rivals, and they suffer badly when they go public, what can they do?

Tesla’s epic rally hits a bump

Market fundamentals didn’t appear to apply to the electric-car maker’s shares this past year. At least they didn’t until yesterday.Tesla’s stock fell 17 percent, in what Tom Maloney of Bloomberg notes was its worst drop in eight years. Shares closed yesterday at $734.70, which is three times more than where they traded in June.Elon Musk lost $5.9 billion on paper in just one day, leaving him with an estimated net worth of $39.3 billion. (He could still earn a huge bonus if he keeps Tesla’s market value above $100 billion over six months: The company is currently valued at $132 billion.)The stock dropped after even hardened Tesla critics conceded defeat. The hedge fund manager Steve Eisman, who famously profited by betting against subprime mortgage lenders before the financial crisis, said he had covered his bet against the company amid its “cultlike” rally.Today’s a new day, however. Shares in Tesla were up 2 percent in premarket trading.

Coronavirus said to spur Chinese concessions on trade

Beijing said today that it would cut tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. imports. Analysts say the coronavirus outbreak was a major factor in the decision.China will halve tariffs on some American products starting Feb. 14. The Finance Ministry said in a statement that the move was meant to “alleviate economic and trade frictions and expand economic and trade cooperation” between China and the U.S.But analysts saw the economic impact of the coronavirus. With Chinese consumers sharply cutting spending, it appeared unlikely that Beijing would be able to hit targets for increasing U.S. imports that were laid out in the recently signed trade agreement with Washington anytime soon.“I see it as a measure to signal to the U.S. that, ‘We’re not going to be able to ramp up imports straight away, but we’re still on board with the deal,’ ” Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, told the FT.Global markets rose this morning, and S&P 500 futures pointed toward a positive open when trading begins.

Trump’s latest cudgel in his immigration fight: Global Entry

The Trump administration’s feud with New York State over protecting immigrants has expanded in a way that could affect many New York business travelers.Residents of New York State are temporarily barred from applying for Global Entry and similar programs that let travelers speed through borders and airport security lines, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Jesse McKinley of the NYT report.The move is tied to the enactment of the Green Light Law, which prohibits agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection from gaining access to New York D.M.V. databases without a court order.It’s the latest stage of the battle between federal officials and New York State over immigration. The Trump administration has already criticized New York City for policies that protect undocumented immigrants.“This is obviously political retaliation by the federal government, and we’re going to review our legal options,” a senior adviser to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said.

Bernie Madoff says he’s dying and wants to leave prison

As part of a request for early release, the mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history told a court yesterday that he had terminal kidney disease, David Yaffe-Bellany of the NYT reports.Doctors have determined that Mr. Madoff has just over a year to live, according to medical records attached to his filing. Under federal guidelines, prisoners who receive that kind of diagnosis can be eligible for early release.He has already served 11 years of his 150-year prison sentence for a variety of crimes, including money laundering, perjury and theft. Victims of his fraud lost an estimated $13 billion.Federal officials denied a previous request, saying that “his release at this time would minimize the severity of his offense.” Bernie Ebbers, the former WorldCom C.E.O., was given early release in December from his 25-year prison sentence after his health deteriorated sharply. He died on Sunday.

The speed read

Deals• Analysts don’t understand why the Intercontinental Exchange would want to buy eBay. (FT)• Spotify agreed to buy The Ringer, the website founded by Bill Simmons, to add more podcasts to its offerings. (NYT)• Nestlé plans to invest $200 million in the drug maker Aimmune Therapeutics, whose peanut allergy treatment recently won F.D.A. approval. (Reuters)• Vanguard became famous for offering index funds. Now it’s getting into private equity. (WSJ)Politics and policy• The United States trade deficit shrank last year — because the economy is cooling, not because factories are reopening. (NYT)• Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg are nearly tied in the latest results from the Iowa Democratic caucuses. (NYT)• Britain plans to ask the public which E.U. rules the country should scrap. (FT)Tech• Jeff Weiner will step down as C.E.O. of LinkedIn on June 1 and become the social network’s executive chairman. He’ll be succeeded by Ryan Roslansky, the company’s product chief. (CNBC)• Facebook’s move to encrypt its messaging platforms has run into opposition from child welfare advocates, who worry that the measure would let predators act with impunity. (NYT)• Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, sued Verizon for patent infringement. (CNBC)• The C.I.A. plans to offer more cloud-computing contracts to Amazon rivals. (Bloomberg)Best of the rest• Some bondholders are said to have reached a deal with of Puerto Rico’s oversight board, possibly paving the way for the U.S. territory to exit bankruptcy protection. (WSJ)• Three big investors in Credit Suisse have sided with the Swiss bank’s C.E.O., Tidjane Thiam, in his fight with the firm’s chairman, Urs Rohner. (FT)• The latest generation of Nike’s super-sneakers will qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. (WSJ)• Kirk Douglas, the Hollywood star, died yesterday. He was 103. (NYT)We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com. Read the full article

[casualinvestor-blog]

2 Things to Know About the Time Value of Money

Ever heard the phrase “a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow”? What is that all about? Why is a dollar today worth than a dollar tomorrow, if it’s the same dollar? It’s due to a concept called the “time value of money”. According to Investopedia, the time value of money is the concept that money available at the present time is worth more than the identical sum in the future due to its potential earning capacity. The time value of money is a crucially important concept that every investor, including all casual investors, should know and understand. It helps dictate the decision making of serious investors everywhere, so it should also help dictate many of your decisions A dollar today is almost always going to be worth more than a dollar tomorrow, or a week from now, or a year from now. Why is that? There are two reasons why that is so.

Reason #1 - Inflation

The first reason that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow is that money loses value over time. The main principle behind this notion is inflation. You probably know what inflation means. But if not, inflation occurs when the value of a currency drops relative to its previous value. An easy way to view inflation in action involves the fast food industry. Are you old enough to remember the McDonald’s Dollar Menu? It was one of the original fast food value menus that are now commonplace at all major fast food chains.

Less than 15 years ago, the McDonald’s Dollar Menu contained several items, including double cheeseburgers and McChicken sandwiches. I was in high school when I first discovered the Dollar Menu. It was a dream come true for a high school student with little cash, an unrefined pallet, and the metabolism of an Olympic swimmer. Well, the days of the Dollar Menu are long gone. It was replaced by the Value Menu, where the items now fall into different pricing categories, because the company could no longer afford to charge only $1 for its items. Inflation was one of the driving forces behind these changes (but not the only one). While the effects of inflation are not normally recognized day to day since they are so small, the effect does start to become significant once you start looking forward or backwards for a few years. The inflation rate has been hovering at around 2% over the past few years. That means a dollar that you had in your wallet in August of 2018 is now only worth $0.98. The inflation rate varies month to month and year to year, but in a healthy economy it usually hovers in the 0-4% range. If inflation was set at 2% each year, a dollar 15 years ago would now be worth $0.74. If inflation were 4% each year, that dollar from 15 years ago would now be worth $0.54. Can’t make any money selling McChicken sandwiches at $0.54 each! When we talk about “worth”, we’re talking about purchasing power. Inflation stems from the natural increase in money supply outstanding in the economy. There are a lot of factors that affect the money supply, and some of them are too complicated to get into here. But just think of it like this – as the population of the US and the world increases, the quantity of money should increase as well, as more people will need access to that cash. The more cash in an economy, the less each bill’s worth becomes. This concept applies to most things, really. If there are five people that need to drive to work in an economy, and there are five cars available, those cars are pretty valuable. If instead there are ten cars available, each separate car becomes less valuable.

And if you have 300 cars for only 5 drivers, then those cars are basically worthless! Inflation isn’t the only reason that money loses its value, though. As we mentioned, inflation usually accounts for anywhere between a 0-4% drop in your money’s value each year. But let’s talk about an even bigger factor, one that can result in your dollar being worth 10% less than it could be.

Reason #2 - Opportunity Cost

Reason #2 is a concept known as opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of doing or buying something is not the money that doing something or buying something costs. Rather, it’s the cost of the thing you’re not doing, or the thing that you’re not buying. Check out our post that dives a little deeper into opportunity costs. It’s a quick read! Opportunity cost plays a pivotal role in the time value of money. If I can make a 10% return in one year investing each dollar, then the value of a dollar today is only $.9052. This is the mindset of serious investors, and it helps explain why these investors are often very successful. They put every dollar to work as often as possible. And it’s how casual investors should operate as well. Stop waiting and start investing for free with M1 Finance Opportunity cost is a main reason why banks charge interest rates even on loans to the wealthiest people in the world. If Jeff Bezos wanted a small personal loan, he’d be charged an interest rate. How in the world would Jeff Bezos not be able to pay back a small personal loan? It’s not that a bank would charge him interest as compensation for the risk of lending money. Rather, the bank is unable to use the cash loaned to invest and earn a return on it when it’s loaned to another person. Casual investors everywhere should understand that leaving large amounts of money in places that don’t earn any return COULD be opportunity costing you a lot of money. You could be losing out on money by keeping your cash under your mattress or in a standard checking account that earns no interest. I bolded the word could in the last paragraph because you may actually lose money by investing it. If the stock market drops, then you’d have been better off keeping it in your bank account. At the very least, you should consider putting your money in a short term certificate of deposit or a savings account. These accounts will guarantee you a return, albeit a small one.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve understood the point here, which is that keeping your money in a non-invested position may be costing you money. The value of your cash could be declining every month, and you could be losing out on returns from various investments. Very successful investors understand the time value of money. But it’s not a concept that only serious investors can take advantage of. You should be aware of the concept and apply it to any investing decision you make. When you’ve made cash from your job or from an investment, ask yourself, what is the cost of not putting this money to work? Learn more about the different ways that you can put that money to work Read the full article