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snowflakeanimelover · 4 years ago

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Wrong Place(Dabi x Female Reader)

Nightmares are nothing more than a bad dream. So why does it make your heart speed up in terror? Keep you awake in the middle of the night, possibly for days. Why does it make you wake up at a time you wouldn’t want to be awake at?

A dream, is all it was. But why does it look so real? She could see the silhouette of a man in the darkness of her room. Sure, (Y/N) has had nightmares before. But this was more extreme, even on her second day in Japan. She just moved here. What is she supposed to expect?

Definitely not a man sitting in her room. She really didn’t believe it either, though. It’s just a dream.

“Who’s there?” She calls out into the darkness.

After a few minutes of silence, and the silhouette not moving, she sits up straighter to get a better look. The moon light from her window being the only light source.

Before she could move half way up, a low chuckle echoes through the walls.

Definitely not a dream, then.

“W-who’s there?” (Y/N) gasps, grasping her blanket as if it’ll protect her.

“You already asked that.” A man finally speaks.

“Well you didn’t answer it the first time.” Her usually snarky remarks pop out of her mouth. She quickly covers her mouth with her hands, scared of what the man would do to her.

The man just chuckles. She watches as his arm moves to rest his head on. Again, only a silhouette. “Wow. You don’t seem afraid at all.”

“I-I’m sorry! It-it just came out!” She quickly answers.

The man stands up, walking closer to (Y/N). The girl gasps once again, scooting herself backwards to get away from him. Only for her back to hit the headboard of her bed.

“Stay back!” She says with confidence.

He grabs her ankle when he gets close enough, dragging her down closer to him. He was so fast, she didn’t notice her wrists being held above her head, and the mans face so close to hers.

She could see him now. A twenty year old, she’d say. Black spiky hair, with bright blue eyes. His skin looked to be burned. No....it was attached back with staples. So technically, he looked like patch work.

He smirks, grabbing something from his pocket with his free hand, as the other is holding her wrists. A switch was heard, and a cold blade was pressed up against her neck. She squeaks at the cold metal, and at the sharp thing so dangerously close to her skin.

“Now, I have a few words from my boss he’d like to say to you.” He pauses, seeing my confusion. “Seeing as your the one who tricked him and all.” He explains to wrap up her memory. He only sees more confusion in her eyes. “You know, Shigaraki?” He adds.

(Y/N) turns her head in even more confusion. “Who?” She asks. He blinks, shocked about her memory not kicking in for one of the most popular villains in Japan. “And tricked him? I don’t even know this guy. Not to mention I just moved here two days ago.” She says casually.

He stays quiet, contemplating on what to do. “So....your not the lady I’m supposed to kill?” He asks aloud.

“I-I don’t know... I don’t think I’ve gotten onto anybody’s kill list yet...” She whispers.

Dabi thinks back to when he got the job.

“Here.”

“What’s this?” Dabi looks at the piece of paper his leader gave him.

“An address. This lady tricked me a while back. Kill her for me.” Shigaraki demands, walking away.

—————

“402....?” Dabi reads the note as he walks to the apartment complex. It had a room number.

Before he could even put it in his pocket, the wind picks up and takes it out of his hands. Dabi stops, looking back towards the flying piece of paper as it gets further and further away.

“Shit....”

“Damn. I got the wrong place.” He says, letting (Y/N) go and stepping away from her. “What room number is this?”

“Um....401...”

He lets out a long sigh. “Alright. I’m letting you go. Your lucky.” He says, walking out of the room. “Don’t tell anyone about this.” Is the last thing she hears before a door is shut.

(Y/N) sits on her bed, very confused on what just happened. A killer got the wrong place, and wrong target. Let me live...

She goes to fluff her pillow to go back to sleep, only to be stopped by a couple of screams. She looks over at the wall next door. So he was going after my neighbor?

She laughs. “Man, am I lucky...” Sleep overtakes her body, sending her back to the dream world.

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Yeah I know, pretty weird. Just randomly thought of this.🤷🏻‍♀️

#dabi x reader #dabi x y/n #bnha dabi #wrong place #wrong target #confusion #dabi messed up #weird #anime #my hero academia #oneshot #dabi

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oddinary-investor · 4 years ago

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The How: Companies, Research, and Strategy. (Part 1 of 3)

A story of Sea Limited, Invitae, and Fastly

Ask an athlete how they got where they are now, and you’ll get a very generic “hard work and determination” response. This is not a bad thing, because the answer is someone’s life story. Each athlete got where they were in a unique way and each athlete’s way there was not better or worse than others… Many roads lead to the same place.

So, when I get asked about my approach to growth investing (not an expert < 1 year), I typically give a generic response. Usually not to hide any secrets, but because no one truly wants to see what goes into that. They usually just want a, “I look at blank and blank and invest in it until blank or….”, so I provide that and move on.

But if I am wrong, here’s three examples that illustrate my approach….

My new year’s resolution was to truly grab a path to financial freedom. I kicked around many ideas to make this a reality but settles on the stock market. So, I kept my 401(k) on autopilot and completely forgot about it. I wanted to open a brokerage account that could beat that retirement plan and eventually get to $1,000,00.00 before I retire from the military in 10 years. Bold plan, but I worked on mapping everything out… calculators, formulas, investment approaches, books, YouTube, etc. I was so certain this was possible, but I needed to budget heavily and make sure I could stick to my funding goals.

At the beginning of the year, I thought that focusing on dividend paying stocks would be solid. I would just use those quarterly dividends to buy more shares and over time those dividends would be larger and larger and at 4% average dividends per year, you would passively make $40k a year once a million is hit. I certainly could live with that, so I stacked the top performing dividend yielding stocks. It was a fine approach and once I get to that point dividend investing would be great. I learned quickly that dividend investing keeps you rich, while growth investing makes you rich (yes, debatable… blah blah).

The third week of January I sold every stock I had purchased, which was fine because it was essentially a break even and I would expect partial dividends at the end of the quarter. Now I was on the search to find the next Apple, Google, and Amazon, before anyone else.

January 16, 2020 – Fastly (FSLY) - 24.17 a share

In my search of the next big thing, I wanted to focus on the fastest growth stories I could find. I wanted a strictly technology company that was going to change the world. What I found was… Well, a shit ton of those companies. Like really… It was too simple… I thought I was missing something. With limited money though, I also needed a way to really focus on choosing the best of these companies. I needed rules to follow, to multiply my money, the quickest way possible. It was in this moment I knew that I made the right choice and though this wasn’t going to be a get rich quick scheme, it certainly could be a get rich quicker plan.

My January “Matt’s Investing Rules” I created during many lunch hours in our conference room at work:

1. Relatively newer SaaS companies that focused on growth over earnings.

I wanted companies that focused on subscription-based customers. I wanted all money from these companies going into growing the company, instead of sitting on cash. I don’t care if a company is profitable if this is the reason.

2. I wanted a small market cap company.

I like to look at every company as potentially growing ten times. If I can find a great company at $1 Billion market cap, I can assume that getting to $10B would be more likely than investing in Apple and thinking it will get to become 20 Trillion-dollar company. I felt Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft was too easy. They are all amazing and will keep growing and making you money, but I wanted to get the next wave of companies.

3. I simply had to believe in a future with them being important.

This is probably the most important and the reason I developed so many great skills in researching companies. It forced me to watch hours upon hours of videos and presentations of companies (granted 1.5x speed settings) I was interested in. I learned as much as I could about the company and the people in charge of it, for I really liked investing in companies that are founder led. Skin in the game was appealing to me.

With these rules set in place, on January 16th, I found Fastly, Datadog, Zoom, Livongo Health, and Crowdstrike. These have all multiplied many times since then, but I don’t think that’s going to stop anytime soon. With that said, Fastly was the first company that I truly felt connected to… you know, in a weird investing way.

I found these companies, specifically Fastly, by searching for most recent IPOs (Initial Public Offering) and searching for companies that met my three basic rules. Focusing on Fastly alone—

Fastly appeared to me as a gem. A golden ticket, winning lottery number, and a double rainbow all rolled into one stock symbol: FSLY.

I knew little about what the hell they did, besides them being a less than $2 Billion dollar SaaS company, that made the internet run faster. Therefore, rule number three was crucial in developing a bond with each company I invested in. I went to The Motley Fool to read their free articles. Investopedia, Seeking Alpha, and so many other sites. I wanted to know more about this company, but it really seemed like no one really knew what they did. I remember getting exciting and losing sleep, thinking I was some genius and all I wanted was to learn more. I didn’t want to think I was seeing something people were missing to later find out I was the one missing something and lose all my money.

To learn more, I took a very interesting approach. Kidding. I just went their webpage, YouTube account, and Twitter. And out of these three, YouTube was all I needed to validate my belief in this company. Their founder and at the time CEO, Artur Berman was unlike any CEO I’ve ever seen before. Take the time and watch this sub 4-minute video of him years ago talking about how SSDs are important…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7PJ1oeEyGg

He did not come across as someone who wanted to just grow rich from owning a mediocre company. PowerPoint slides littered with swearing and a total lack of professionalism. He certainly didn’t fit the CEO mold either when it came to looks. He reminded me (still does) of Jobs and Woz combined as one person. I was sold already, foolishly, but I wanted more so I searched all videos featuring the company and Artur.

Artur Bergman IPO Day CNBC on Cloud Computing and Competition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M57NtJeDKLU

Why Fastly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0wbl9GlG-E

Obviously, I watched at least 10 more hours of videos from conferences and use cases of their company, but this is just laying out my process--

I could not see how a company that seemed so authentic was so undervalued, though, I had no idea at the time how to value a company. I just knew at the time Snapchat was considered a $13B company and Fastly basically made everything run faster. I felt the use case of Fastly, though underappreciated, was worth far more than the sub $2B market valuation.

I invested in this, along with those other gems found on the 16th of January. Over time, Fastly hardly moved, it was not performing at all. I was expecting quick money and grew frustrated with Fastly. I had seen the likes of Crowdstrike and Zoom grow in share price and for a brief period in time thought I was going to just sell Fastly and put all the money into Zoom at like 75 dollars a share (now obviously above $408 a share now lol). I decided against selling my shares and focused on the long-term goal. What I thought this company could be was still possible. Everything was going according to plan, aside from the price skyrocketing. Fastly taught me patience.-

February 27th, I told a close friend that Fastly would essentially make him rich… then the stock market collapsed.

March happened and for some reason the crash made Fastly’s stock price collapse. I remember one day it was at or close to $8 dollars a share. Clearly, I was not going to sell the shares at this much of a loss. Instead, I doubled downed. This company had enough cash on hand to make it through a year of expenses. They were a SaaS company so most of their customers had already paid for the year in January. I kept thinking, more like reassuring myself, that Fastly should benefit from work at home. The more people had to rely on the internet, the more Fastly profits. So, at $11 a share, or more than a 50% discount, I purchased 50 more shares. Now I just needed to wait…During the year, Artur Bergman stepped aside from being the CEO of Fastly. He remains with the company but stepped down to focus on the technology and growing the best company. He made the CFO the CEO and it worked out as planned.

Fastly hit $116 dollars a share in August, which made it, at that time, my fist 10x stock. It now sits are $82 dollars a share, which I can live with.

The company is still under $10B dollars of market capitalization. I will continue to hold on and wait for the next 10x… oh and I will be consistently buying more shares.

#investing #stocks #money #investinyourself #learn #inspiration #technology #fastly #story #journey

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mcjoelcain · 3 years ago

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Automate Your Finances Using Technology and Psychology

Learning how to automate your finances has the potential to be a money game-changer.

Why? Because on a daily basis, we face too many choices. Using automation to reduce choices sets you up for success with money, without even having to think about it on a daily basis.

Why is automating your finances important?

Think about the 50+ money decisions you have to make today: Should you save more? What should you cut down on? What about investing – real estate or stocks or index funds? Pay off debt? Did you send in that Comcast bill on time? Is it time to rebalance your portfolio?

Faced with an overwhelming number of choices, most people respond in the same way: They do nothing. As Barry Schwartz wrote in The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less,

“…as the number of mutual funds in a 401(k) plan offered to employees goes up, the likelihood that they will choose a fund — any fund — goes down. For every 10 funds added to the array of options, the rate of participation drops 2 percent. And for those who do invest, added fund options increase the chances that employees will invest in ultraconservative money-market funds.”

Why do so many people believe that personal finance is only about willpower? The idea goes like this: “If I just try harder, I’ll start saving more, pay off my debt, stop spending all that money, keep a budget, learn about investing, start investing, rebalance ever year…” Unlikely. In fact, go ask your friends if they’re taking full advantage of their employer’s 401(k) match. The vast majority of people are not – even though it’s literally free money. Their answer? “Yeah…I really should do that…”

It’s not about willpower. More than anything else, the psychology of automation is critical to successfully getting control of your finances.

In one study, researchers found that making 401(k) accounts opt-out instead of opt-in — in other words, making employees automatically participate, although they could stop at any time – raised contribution rates from less than 40% to nearly 100%.

How to automate your finances

Using “The Next $100” Principle, which I’ll show you below, your automated money flow will automatically route money where it needs to go – investments, paying bills, savings, and guilt-free spending.

And you can focus on the things that matter to you, instead of constantly worrying about your personal finances.

Bonus: This week, I’m launching Automate Your Money, a brand new program that walks you through, step-by-step, how to automate your personal finances. Everything you need to know and do is included.

This is the exact system I spent years testing and perfecting and which I’ve taught to hundreds of thousands of people.

Time-sensitive: I’m only letting new students in for three days – sales start on August 18th 2021 and end at 11:59 PST on August 20th 2021. Join today!

Case study: Michelle’s Automation System

To see how this will work, let’s use Michelle as an example:

Michelle gets paid once a month. Her employer deducts 5 percent of her pay automatically and puts it in her 401(k). The rest of Michelle’s paycheck goes to her checking account by direct deposit.

About a day later, her Automatic Money Flow begins transferring money out of her checking account. Her Roth IRA retirement account will pull 5 percent of her salary for itself. Her savings account will pull 5 percent, automatically breaking that money into chunks: 2 percent for a wedding sub-account, 2 percent to a house down-payment sub-account, and 1% for an upcoming vacation. (That takes care of her monthly savings goals.)

Her system also automatically pays her fixed costs like Netflix, cable, and insurance. She’s set it up so that most of her subscriptions and bills are paid by her credit card. Some of her bills can’t be put on credit cards—for example, utilities and loans—so they’re automatically paid out of her checking account. Finally, she’s automatically e-mailed a copy of her credit card bill for a monthly five-minute review. After she’s reviewed it, the bill is also paid from her checking account.

The money that remains in her account is used for guilt-free spending money.

To make sure she doesn’t overspend, she’s focused on two big wins: eating out and spending money on clothes.

She sets alerts in her Mint account if she goes over her spending goals, she keeps a reserve of $500 in her checking account just in case. (The couple of times she went over her spending, she paid herself back using her “unexpected expenses” money from her sub-savings account.) To track spending more easily, she uses her credit card as much as possible to pay for all of her fun stuff. If she uses cash for cabs or coffee, she keeps the receipts and tries to enter them into Mint as often as possible.

In the middle of the month, Michelle’s calendar reminds her to check her Mint account to make sure she’s within her limits for her spending money. If she’s doing fine, she gets on with her life. If she’s over her limit, she decides what she needs to cut back on to stay on track for the month. Luckily, she has fifteen days to get it right, and by politely passing on an invitation to dine out she gets back on track.

By the end of the month, she’s spent less than two hours monitoring her finances, yet she’s invested 10 percent, saved 5 percent (in sub-buckets for her wedding and down payment), paid all of her bills on time, paid off her credit card in full, and spent exactly what she wanted to spend. She had to say “no” only once, and it was no big deal. In fact, none of it was.

This is the exact system I spent years testing and perfecting and which I’ve taught to hundreds of thousands of people.

Time-sensitive: I’m only letting new students in for three days – sales start on August 18th 2021 and end at 11:59 PST on August 20th 2021. Join today!

“The Next $100” Principle Applied: Automating your Finances

Too many people try to save money on 50 things and end up saving 5% on everything — and causing themselves a huge amount of stress that makes them give up entirely. Instead, I prefer focusing on my top two discretionary expenses (for me, eating out and going out), and cutting 25%-33% off over a period of six months. This generates hundreds of dollars of extra cash flow that I re-route to investing and travel.

To show you how automating your accounts works, I’ve prepared a 12-minute video that shows you how to build a personal-finance infrastructure that automates your money so you can spend less than 1 hour per week monitoring your money. Everything will be done automatically – investment, savings, bills paid. Everything.

Ramit’s 12-Minute Guide to Automating Your Finances

youtube

1. Log into all of your accounts

First, you’ll need to log in to each account and link your accounts together so you can set up automatic transfers from one account to another. When you log in to any of your accounts, you’ll usually find an option called something like “Link Accounts,” “Transfer,” or “Set Up Payments.”

These are the links you need to make:

Examples: Your 401(k) should be connected to your checking account via direct deposit (talk to your HR rep about setting this up — it takes 10 minutes to fill out a form). Then log into your Roth IRA, savings account, and credit card, where you can link your checking account to them. Finally, there are some bills that can’t be paid through your checking account, like your rent. For those, use your checking account’s free bill-pay feature so they automatically issue your landlord a check on the precise date it’s due. Now, you never have to manually write a check again.

2. Set up automatic transfers

Now that all your accounts are linked, it’s time to go back into your accounts and automate all transfers and payments. This is really simple: It’s just a matter of working with each individual account’s website to make sure your payment or transfer is set up for the amount you want and on the date you want.

Most people neglect one thing when automating: dates. If you set automatic transfers at weird times, it will inevitably necessitate more work, which will make you resent and eventually ignore your personal-finance infrastructure. For example, if your credit card is due on the 1st of the month, but you don’t get paid until the 15th, how does that work? If you don’t synchronize all your bills, you’ll have to pay things at different times and that will require you to reconcile accounts. Which you won’t do.

The easiest way to avoid this is to get all your bills on the same schedule.

3. Get all of your bills on the same schedule

To accomplish this, get all your bills together, call the companies, and ask them to switch your billing dates. Most of these will take five minutes each to do. There may be a couple of months of odd billing as your accounts adjust, but it will smooth itself out after that. If you’re paid on the 1st of the month, I suggest switching all your bills to arrive on or around that time, too.

Call and say this: “Hi, I’m currently being billed on the 17th of each month, and I’d like to change that to the 1st of the month. Do I need to do anything besides ask right here on the phone?” Of course, depending on your situation, you can request any billing date that will be easy for you.

Now that you’ve got everything coming at the beginning of the month, it’s time to actually go in and set up your transfers. Here’s how to arrange your Automatic Money Flow, assuming you get paid on the 1st of the month.

2nd of the month

Part of your paycheck is automatically sent to your 401(k). The remainder (your “take-home pay”) is direct-deposited into your checking account. Even though you’re paid on the 1st, the money may not show up in your account until the 2nd, so be sure to account for that.

Remember, you’re treating your checking account like your e-mail inbox— first, everything goes there, then it’s filtered away to the appropriate place. Note: The first time you set this up, leave a buffer amount of money—I recommend $500—in your checking account just in case a transfer doesn’t go right. And don’t worry: If something does go wrong, use the negotiation tips above to get any overdraft fees waived.

5th of the month

Automatic transfer to your savings account. Log in to your savings account and set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your savings account on the 5th of every month. Waiting until the 5th of the month gives you some leeway. If, for some reason, your paycheck doesn’t show up on the 1st of the month, you’ll have four days to correct things or cancel that month’s automatic transfer.

Don’t just set up the transfer. Remember to set the amount, too. Use the percentage of your monthly income that you established for savings in your Conscious Spending Plan (from Chapter 4 of my book; typically 5 to 10 percent). But if you can’t afford that much right now, don’t worry—just set up an automatic transfer for $5 to prove to yourself that it works. The amount is important: $5 won’t be missed, but once you see how it’s all working together, it’s much easier to add to that amount.

Automatic transfer to your Roth IRA. To set this up, log in to your investment account and create an automatic transfer from your checking account to your investment account. Refer to your Conscious Spending Plan to calculate the amount of the transfer. It should be approximately 10 percent of your take-home pay, minus the amount you send to your 401(k).

7th of the month

Auto-pay for any monthly bills you have. Log in to any regular payments you have, like cable, utilities, car payments, or student loans, and set up automatic payments to occur on the 7th of each month. I prefer to pay my bills using my credit card, because I earn points, I get automatic consumer protection and little-known benefits, and I can easily track my spending on online sites like Mint, Quicken, or Wesabe.

But if your merchant doesn’t accept credit cards, they should let you pay the bill directly from your checking account, so set up an automatic payment from there if needed.

Automatic transfer to pay off your credit card. Log in to your credit card account and instruct it to draw money from your checking account and pay the credit card bill on the 7th of every month— in full. (Because your bill arrived on the 1st of the month, you’ll never incur late fees using this system.) If you have credit card debt and you can’t pay the bill in full, don’t worry. You can still set up an automatic payment; just make it for the monthly minimum or any other amount of your choice. (Incidentally, paying your bills on time is the one of the top factors in determining and improving your credit score.)

By the way, while you’re logged in to your credit card account, also set up an e-mail notification (this is typically under “Notifications” or “Bills”) to send you a monthly link to your bill, so you can review it before the money is automatically transferred out of your checking account. This is helpful in case your bill unexpectedly exceeds the amount available in your checking account—that way you can adjust the amount you pay that month.

Tweaking Your System: Freelancers, irregular income, and unexpected expenses

That’s the basic Automatic Money Flow schedule, but you may not be paid on a straight once-a-month schedule. That’s not a problem. You can just adjust the above system to match your payment schedule

How to automate your finances if you’re paid twice a month

I suggest replicating the above system on the 1st and the 15th—with half the money each time. This is easy enough, but the one thing to watch with this is paying your bills. If the second payment (on the 15th) will miss the due dates for any of your bills, be sure that you set it so that those bills are paid in full during the payment on the 1st. Another way to work your system is to do half the payments with one paycheck (retirement, fixed costs) and half the payments with the second paycheck (savings, guilt-free spending), but that can get clunky.

How to automate your finances if you have irregular income

Irregular incomes, like those of freelancers, are difficult to plan for. Some months you might earn close to nothing, others you’re flush with cash. This situation calls for some changes to your spending and savings. First—and this is different from the Conscious Spending Plan—you’ll need to figure out how much you need to survive on each month. This is the bare minimum: rent, utilities, food, loan payments—just the basics. Those are your bare-bones monthly necessities.

Now, back to the Conscious Spending Plan. Add a savings goal of three months of bare-bones income before you do any investing. For example, if you need at least $1,500/month to live on, you’ll need to have $4,500 in a savings buffer, which you can use to smooth out months where you don’t generate much income. The buffer should exist as a sub-account in your savings account. To fund it, use money from two places:

1. Forget about investing while you’re setting up the buffer, and instead take any money you would have invested and send it to your savings account. 2. In good months, any extra dollar you make should go into your buffer savings.

Here’s an example of how I set up my sub-savings accounts:

Once you’ve saved up three months of money as a cushion, congratulations! Now go back to a normal Conscious Spending Plan where you send money to investing accounts. Because you’re self-employed, you probably don’t have access to a traditional 401(k), but you should look into a Solo 401(k) and SEP-IRA, which are great alternatives.

Just keep in mind that it’s probably wise to sock away a little more into your savings account in good months to make up for the less profitable ones.

If you have an irregular income, I highly recommend using YouNeedABudget as a planning tool. It uses a forward-looking system that’s very helpful if you don’t know what you’re going to make next month.

Your money is now automatic

Congratulations! Your money management is now on autopilot. Not only are your bills paid automatically and on time, but you’re actually saving and investing money each month. The beauty of this system is that it works without your involvement and it’s flexible enough to add or remove accounts any time. You’re accumulating money by default.

Most importantly, whenever you’re eating out, or you decide to buy a new pair of shoes or fly out to visit your friends or get the “Pro” version of that web app you’ve been eyeing, you won’t feel guilty because you’ll KNOW that your finances are being handled — automatically.

Excerpt from Ramit Sethi’s new book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Used with permission.

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This is the exact system I spent years testing and perfecting and which I’ve taught to hundreds of thousands of people.

Time-sensitive: I’m only letting new students in for three days – sales start on August 18th 2021 and end at 11:59 PST on August 20th 2021. Join today!

Do you know your earning potential?

Take my earning potential quiz and get a custom report based on your unique strengths, and discover how to start making extra money — in as little as an hour.

Start The Quiz

Automate Your Finances Using Technology and Psychology is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Money https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-psychology-of-automation-building-a-bulletproof-personal-finance-system/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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daniellereviews · 8 years ago

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Danielle Watches Fraggle Rock Season 3 - Episode 22 : Sprocket’s Big Adventure

Guess who’s back. Back again. Where the hell is paint. It’s not under P...it’s not under M for Microsoft Paint...it’s under W for WHAT THE FUCK?

Oh, I do know this should be episode 401, but I go in DVD set order, so.....

Anyway. Today’s episode opens with Gobo having a bit of a special effect fail as he tries to dig a postcard out of the trash but we see it’s already attached to his hand. Then he runs into Sprocket.

Gobo tries to be friends with Sprocket and is all “Say my name!”

When Doc comes back up from fixing pipes in the floor we can see that he’s working quite the combover.

Let it go, seriously.

Doc doesn’t quite believe in the furry creatures in the walls, and Gobo’s left, and Doc is rather preoccupied with his repairs. And with his monkey wrench. He says that Sprocket will just have to prove the existence of furry creatures, so when Doc leaves Sprocket “falls” down the hole and starts to dig.

Meanwhile, down in Fraggle Rock...

We got Boober cooking some stew. Apparently they’re going with a “Boober’s cooking is bad” gag again this episode. I’m really not sure why they go that direction. Bad chefs must be hilarious to someone.

Red and Mokey have failed to get radishes since the Gorgs have been chilling in the garden. But they also do not want to eat stew, and Red threatens to throw it out. They scuffle a bit over the pot when Gobo comes and suggests going to pick mush melons.

In another part of The Rock Sprocket has finally dug through and I think he’s actually shrunk a bit.

I mean, Sprocket’s size next to this hole was awful when he was “stuck” in it. But there’s a little “magic” chord going on when he comes out and things get kind of weird. I think The Rock is shrinking him so that he can go on this adventure.

Like, sometimes I think that The Rock is the living organism and that the creatures within it are like symbiotic bacteria or cells or something. Because the next sequence is super weird.

Voices call “this way” as Sprocket goes deeper and deeper into the rock. Sometimes we can see the creatures that are calling.

They sing kind of a song but it’s almost creepy. Sometimes the voices almost seem to come from nowhere.

He finally ends up around some Doozer constructions.

Meanwhile, the Fraggles found one under-ripe mushmelon. Mokey, helpfully, suggests that they could possibly transcend their hunger if they think of something besides food.

Seems legit.

Sprocket continues to call for Gobo but finds the stew. He knocks over the stew and a whole lot of Doozer constructions while Cotterpin and friend look on. She says that next time they’ll be ready for him. Uh oh.

The Fraggles come and Boober is dismayed that his stew is spilled, as Red had finally become desperate enough to eat it. Gobo and Wembley are more interested in all the destroyed Doozer towers. Red points out that Fraggles would have eaten the constructions.

Which makes one wonder WHY they didn’t just eat a bunch of the constructions instead of relying on STEW and unripe melons? Huh? Geez way to be a bunch of drama llamas.

Of course, as soon as they all leave the scene Sprocket comes up looking for Gobo again.

Wembley and Boober have found each other and Boober drags Wembley off far away from The Great Hall - all the way to the Workshop entrance - so that he can cop some feels in peace so that they can be far away from whatever danger had broken everything. Boober claims to be practicing Fear. He also falls in a hole.

The Doozers find Sprocket and know just what to do.

Boober realizes the hole is from Outer Space and that what broke stuff must have been from there, too. He and Wembley flee.

Apparently what the Doozers did was go all Gulliver’s Travels on poor Sprocket. Cotterpin mentions that they work VERY hard on their constructions that he broke. And they don’t want an apology - they want YOU, Sprocket.

Meanwhile, Doc has a plumbing emergency and mentions Monkey Wrench a stilted number of times until the Fraggles think that’s what must be attacking them. That’s some season one BS right there.

Wembley and Boober run off together.

Here’s the switch of the Bait and Switch building up with the Doozers - see they WANT Sprocket to break everything.

They sing about it. There are worse songs.

Me: Where are all the OTHER Fraggles? Like, this is The Great Hall and it’s full of doozers.

Husband: They ate them.

Me: ?

Husband: That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Me: DOOZER STICKS ARE MADE OF PEOPLE!

Well after the song, they let Sprocket go and he promptly breaks tons of stuff. The doozers consider Sprocket a natural resource.

The Fraggles discuss what to do, with Wembley gamely agreeing with everyone’s ideas until they snap at him for it. He insists they need to find the creature before they can really know what idea is best. Meanwhile Boober is getting super sneezy, he’s been sneezing off and on all episode, so he goes off to rest.

On his way home he runs into Sprocket and faints.

Sprocket tries to go under a Doozer bridge carefully, but ends up shattering it. Cotterpin finds him and tries to assure him, again, that it’s fine, they like the destruction. She realizes that Sprocket probably doesn’t belong here, and takes him to “that other place.”

Boober explains to the others that he saw the hairy monster from Outer Space. Gobo decides to use Boober’s allergies to track Sprocket. It’s a little funny when Red says that Boober has to be a hero and Boober retorts that he’d rather just be alive.

Well, as one might have guessed, the “other place” is The Universe. Junior is intrigued by Sprocket but distracted by Pa.

Philo and Gunge are very unamused and Sprocket is awfully afraid of Marjory until she proves able to speak Dog.

The Fraggles track Sprocket to The Universe.

These two are doing their usual stupid stuff that no one cares about.

Until Junior captures Gobo.

There’s a cute joke with Philo and Gunge using a “cheap phrasebook” to translate Sprocket’s speech. Marjory, however, understands just fine and has calmed Sprocket down.

Until he hears Gobo calling for help. Well, Junior doesn’t want to wake Pa, so Gobo and Sprocket make as much noise as possible and Junior trips over a clock which I think ends in a dick joke with the Cuckoo popping up roughly from between Junior’s legs.

Anyway, noise noise noise and then Junior let’s Gobo go and he and Sprocket retreat. And Junior uhm...chokes the chicken.

Well, Gobo talks it over with Sprocket at the entrance to Outer Space. He says that the Trash Heap told him (when????) what Sprocket wanted. Gobo gives Sprocket a bracelet saying that will mean that Doc “has to” believe in Fraggles.

Yeah, that’s stupid, Gobo.

They part ways.

And of course Doc mistakes the bracelet that Gobo never really wears for a washer and the status quo is preserved.

Episode : 6/10

This is a good episode to start a season, which is what it really is. It reintroduces the Fraggles, the Doozers and their society and values, and the Gorgs, and the Trash Heap. Unlike some other episodes that have a lot going on this one feels pretty natural - except for the initial “what are we going to eat there’s only food everywhere” conflict. It’s pretty solid but some poor puppetsmanship drives it down a bit. Gobo’s pre-stuck postcard, Wembley’s poor arm motions, and other bits and pieces aren’t the best work. Also, we don’t get to spend a lot of time with any one group so it feels rushed. Better to be rushed than slow. A good experience, an average Fraggle Rock episode.

Message : 4/10

"It always helps to learn a second language” is a message I can get behind.

Heh. No. It’s not really a messages as much as it’s a “myth arc” episode about the connected nature of everything. The Fraggles work together to find an answer and help Sprocket - who they have come to consider a friend. It’s nice to see them not being as terrified or antagonistic with Junior. Wembley doesn’t exactly stand up for himself, but he doesn’t exactly fold completely either. Subtle changes but there’s some definite progression here, but it doesn’t form a single cohesive point.

Songs: 4/10

The songs aren’t really good this time. “This Way” serves a purpose though it’s an odd purpose. Does The Rock will this to happen? Both are kind of forgettable as songs though, to me.

Random Observations:

This follows “Bells of Fraggle Rock” on the disc and boy is THAT a hard act to follow.

It’s one more episode on the disc after this.

More stuff for Boober X Wembley as they spend a lot of time together this episode even when it might have made sense for Wembley to follow Gobo.

Less of Mokey and Red this episode.

#fraggle rock #danielle watches fraggle rock #muppets #fraggle rock season 3

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yahoo-puck-daddy-blog · 7 years ago

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What We Learned: Can Columbus right the ship?

It won’t take a lot to get this very good, talented-at-every-position team back into the playoffs, but it shouldn’t have taken anything in the first place. (Getty)

The Blue Jackets won on Saturday night, and did so convincingly.

They not only put up six on New Jersey, a team with which they are ostensibly competing for a playoff spot, but they also put up 50 shots on goal. This after games in which they put up 37, 39, and 49.

The difference then was that they lost those three games, as well as 15 more of the previous 24. And if you took OT wins out of the equation, their only regulation wins in that stretch were against the Coyotes on Jan. 25, Stars on Jan. 2, Leafs on Dec. 20, and Islanders on Dec. 12. That is, they’ve now won five games in regulation in their last 26 tries, after starting out 19-10-1 in their first 30.

Which is what makes their season so confounding. Last year was, of course, a bit of a fluke in terms of what kind of regular-season results they pulled, but they got better in the summer and should have probably learned a few lessons from what happened. Whether they did is up for debate, but early in the season, it certainly seemed as though they had things figured out; they were winning a bunch but all the underlying numbers supported a pretty strong setup.

If we want to take that first 30 games as the point at which the season started to turn sour, and run the splits, well, they’re not pretty.

In those opening few months, the Blue Jackets scored almost 56 percent of their goals at 5-on-5 on an expected-goals number of 54 percent, so not too out-of-whack with what they should have done, especially given the talent level (i.e. high-skill players and great goalies often outperform expected-goals numbers and Columbus has both those benefits).

Since Game 31, Columbus has been perfectly good (51ish percent of most underlyings, and almost 52 percent of the goals) but that’s a sharp step down, and it’s gotten worse as time went on:

The red line here indicates what percentage of the goals they should have scored based on the quality of shots they took and gave up. If you really want to drill down into this, it’s a situation where the team has suffered a decline in both shot generation and shooting percentage, even while the save percentage has remained extremely high.

It’s worth noting that a lot of this likely has to do with the spate of injuries Columbus suffered at that time of year, with guys like Cam Atkinson, Alex Wennberg, Brandon Dubinsky, Murray, and Werenski, all missing at least a decent amount of time (Murray is still out, in fact). But the results didn’t straighten themselves out when almost all of those guys got healthy again. It’s fair to say injuries can put you behind the 8-ball, but after this long? Probably not so much.

Of course, anyone who watches Columbus at most points this year isn’t seeing a team that struggles too much at 5-on-5. The special teams are rotten to the core, of course, at least in terms of results. They have the worst power play and fifth-worst kill in the league.

The numbers suggest they “should have” scored about eight more goals on the power play than they have, which may not sound like a lot but Columbus could use another two or three points in the standings here. Call it bad luck, especially given the talent level of the guys on this team, but one wonders if the loss of Sam Gagner is that a big factor here, or if it’s just that the system got figured out after that freak start last year. Either way, doesn’t seem like anything has been done to address it, and a team with this much skill shouldn’t be fifth from the bottom of the league in expected goal generation on the power play.

Meanwhile, the PK has been awful no matter which was you slice it, but unlucky here as well, with opponents scoring more than four additional goals above the expected rate. I have a theory here, though: Check the PK TOI leaderboard for Blue Jackets defenders. No. 1? Yeah, it’s Jack Johnson. Of course it is. No. 2? David Savard for some reason. No. 3? Seth Jones, who wow, he’s actually good. No. 4? Ryan Murray, and he’s played fewer than half of the team’s total games. Then at No. 5 you hit Zach Werenski.

Of course, you can make the argument that if you’re gonna apportion only 23 minutes a night to a guy like Werenski, you want him spending more time at 5-on-5 and on the power play than on the penalty kill, that’s fair and reasonable. He is, however, averaging less than a minute a game killing penalties for the fifth-worst penalty-killing team in the league and he’s really good. Maybe you run him out there to see what happens. It can’t reasonably be worse than the current results (they’re currently 20th in expected goals against per 60 on the kill, and 28th in actual goals against). Even the idea that you would continually give Jack freaking Johnson big PK minutes is absurd on its face.

I’ve long said that play at 5-on-5, which makes up the vast majority of your ice time in any given game, is sort of set-it-and-forget-it in terms of coaching. You’re not going to make too many tweaks to a system during the season unless things are going very wrong for you.

But if the power play or PK isn’t working — and folks, neither is — then you have plenty of room to experiment, because when you’re not getting results, well, you might as well go in a different direction. And to be fair, Columbus is 8 of its last 38 on the power play (21.1 percent) since the new year, so things are getting back on track a little there.

The PK, however, remains horrible, going 18 for 32 (56.3 percent) over the same stretch. And folks, you’ll never guess who the ice time leaders on the kill are since then: Jack Johnson, David Savard, Seth Jones and Zach Werenski (but again, that’s only because Ryan Murray is still out).

Is this a fixable problem for Columbus, which is still mostly playing well but seeing the wheels come off on their playoff push? Tough to say, but in terms of the penalty kill, it seems like John Tortorella has tried nothing and is all out of ideas.

This is a team that is currently outside the playoff picture, having been surpassed by Carolina of late, for what seems to be a perfectly deal-withable reason. It won’t take a lot to get this very good, talented-at-every-position team back into the playoffs, but it shouldn’t have taken anything in the first place.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: The Ducks won two straight after losing three straight after winning three straight, so they’re a little streaky right now and that’s fine as long as they keep winning and the rest of their division remains kinda iffy. This team should be good but I’m not sure I buy their playoff prospects.

Arizona Coyotes: Pretty shocking that a team with very little skill is also not good at special teams. Crazy. Weird.

Boston Bruins: I think I said it last week, but as much as I love Patrice Bergeron and as much as he may be having his best season ever, but he’s not the best player on his own line, so I can’t listen to this “Bergeron for MVP” stuff. It’s all a bit much.

Buffalo Sabres: Jack Eichel is out indefinitely with a high ankle sprain but the good news is the Sabres are now active for a high tank-le chance.

Calgary Flames: For the Flames’ third line to disappear wouldn’t it need to have first appeared? Just asking.

Carolina Hurricanes: They’re in a playoff spot and things are looking real good all of a sudden.

Chicago Blackhawks: Losers of five straight, hmm. No way to have seen this coming.

Colorado Avalanche: I wouldn’t want to be too diligent about keeping track of the team’s record without Nathan MacKinnon. It’s gonna get depressing in a hurry.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Hey, it happens.

Dallas Stars: Radek Faksa is not the reason they’re winning all these games lately. C’mon man.

Detroit Red Wings: One thing that I absolutely love is that a few guys in the Red Wings’ front office are guys who were on the team in the mid-2000s. Worked out great for the Oilers.

Edmonton Oilers: The Oilers are gonna trade Patrick Maroon, which is fine, but he’s also like the No. 6 guy they need to trade.

Florida Panthers: I saw some people making noise about “could this team go on a playoff push?” and it’s like “of course not.“

Los Angeles Kings: Is it good if you make a big push against the best team in the league and at the end of the game they’re like, “Yeah that was pretty embarrassing for us, to do that.”

Minnesota Wild: Devan Dubnyk getting on a heater would be, like, really good for these guys.

Montreal Canadiens: Boy Brendan Gallagher is a big talker after his team gets humiliated again.

Nashville Predators: On Saturday night, crack gonzo journalist Colton Teubert got to the bottom of this question.

New Jersey Devils: Ya don’t say.

New York Islanders: The Calder race is officially over.

New York Rangers: Get ready for plenty of these takes in the near future.

Ottawa Senators: The Senators organization is honestly embarrassing. This column highlighting why is b-l-e-a-k.

Philadelphia Flyers: If Brian Elliott is HYPERLINK “http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/sports/local/flyers/goalie-brian-elliott-injured-in-shootout-victory-over-coyotes/article_1d5c0f38-aef8-5545-a3c2-799e9788f4e1.html”out for any length of time, you can call the playoff push a bust.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Crosby up to 401 goals in fewer than 900 games. Come on, bud. One of the three best, all-time.

San Jose Sharks: Joakim Ryan’s dad is in town. He scores his first and second career goals. But his dad isn’t there because he was too sick to go to the game. What a bummer!

St. Louis Blues: Shoulda started Hutton.

Tampa Bay Lightning: This is the save of the year, maybe the decade.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Keeping JVR is just a smart course of action for this team. But trading him would be too. Not a bad situation for the Buds.

Vancouver Canucks: “I’m not allowed to.”

Vegas Golden Knights: A Vegas goalie is injured? No way.

Washington Capitals: Do you really need five years of Lars Eller?

Winnipeg Jets: It’s rare you see guys say, “please don’t trade for any deadline help,” but here we are.

Play of the Weekend

We have two Elite plays this weekend and I can’t decide between them so you get both. One is top draft prospect Quinn Hughes scoring a gorgeous one for Michigan. The other is Tampa-drafted QMJHLer Otto Sompi scoring a lacrosse goal. Bless these children, for they are both my sons.

What a goal from @umichhockey’s Quinn Hughes!!

Wow. We have no words for this one from Otto Somppi. #HighlightReel #GoMooseGo pic.twitter.com/UvLDvf6Irs

— Halifax Mooseheads (@HFXMooseheads) February 11, 2018

Turned in the No. 3 play on @sportscenter’s #SCTop10! #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/XgcZk17SeI

— Michigan Athletics (@UMichAthletics) February 10, 2018

Gold Star Award

Crosby hit 400 goals on Sunday. I just looked it up and Ovechkin is now nine away from 600. How blessed are we to see these guys play live????

Minus of the Weekend

Wow it’s so crazy that any time there’s an issue of racial abuse directed toward PK Subban, everyone’s like “Oh jeez I had no idea that the racist thing I was saying was racist.” Pretty crazy that this one coincidence keeps happening over and over again.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “DALLAS90” is in great shape.

OTT: Nylander, Liljegren, Kapanen, 1st Round TOR: Karlsson

Signoff

You call hamburgers “steamed hams?”

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

#_revsp:21d636bb-8aa8-4731-9147-93a932d2b27a #_uuid:bc6c0341-9ab3-39da-b74c-fd7058b42f6a #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #_author:Ryan Lambert

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thedeadshotnetwork · 7 years ago

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A Week In Oakland, CA, On A $52,500 Salary Welcome to Money Diaries , where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking millennials how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we're tracking every last dollar. Today: a project manager who makes $52,500 per year. This week, she spends some of her money on a large order of Jack in the Box curly fries. Occupation: Project Manager Industry: Science/Biotech Age: 28 Location: Oakland, CA Salary: $52,500 for working 30 hours per week. I requested a part-time schedule so that I could focus on my side project, Project Tater Tot. Paycheck (2x/month): $1,198 after health insurance, HSA, and Roth are deducted Monthly Expenses Housing: $650. I rent the living room of a one-bedroom apartment. My one roommate uses the room and he pays for all the utilities and bills. I was worried about privacy, but it hasn't been an issue and I lucked out with this place. Loan Payments: None. I'm grateful to have graduated with scholarships, grants, and my parents paying the remainder. All Other Monthly Expenses Cell Phone: $21 Gym Membership: $79 Car Insurance: $45. (I pay $270 every six months.) Health Insurance: $24. I pay partial because I'm not full-time. I don't actually know how they got this number; my company puts $108 into my HSA because I chose the high-deductible plan which is cheaper for them, so they put the extra money into my HSA. HSA: $83, my contribution Roth: $939. The company matches 4% (or $375). I used to do a mix of 401(k) and Roth, but I'll be making more when I go full-time. (I don't know what I'm doing.) Investments: $910. I auto-deposit this into pre-selected Vanguard funds, in two installments. I only started investing a few months ago and previously held all my savings in a savings account. I save a lot because I don't know what my future self will want, but I know I'll need money to make it happen. I plan to use some of it for Project Tater Tot. I have $97,000 in investments, $45,000 in retirement, and $7,000 in savings. Day One 6:30 a.m. — It's been two days since the fires in Sonoma and Napa Counties started. I wake up and check the fire map. Some sections have grown but the largest ones have stalled a little. I'm a little relieved, there are also no new fires near us. I read all the news and check websites for volunteer needs. I know a lot of people who live in Santa Rosa and Napa, and my friends have a messaging group to update each other on our situations. I drove up last night to stay with my boyfriend in Petaluma. I check my work email, but everything is okay for now. 7:30 a.m. — My boyfriend gets back from work and surprises me with breakfast burritos in bed; he is so sweet. He starts work at 7, but came back because a bunch of jobs were canceled (construction) and he wanted to volunteer today. 8:40 a.m. — We get to the volunteer center early; they open at 9. We registered online yesterday, and now fill out a health form and sit around until we get called for an interview. They ask about our health, ability to work 12-hour shifts, and what kind of volunteering we'd like to do. Then we wait for a group training at 11. It's a long time to wait and I wish I'd brought a book! We see a bunch of staff from my boyfriend's climbing gym. All the younger folks in the room are trying to crack jokes and be silly, myself included. It's nice because otherwise we'd be sitting in a room worried about the fires. There is a good mix of people of all ages in the room waiting. 10:30 a.m. — We run out to get a veggie patty sub to split from Subway for lunch later. Everything goes in except pickles and pepperoncini. I love pickled things, but only in isolation. I pay, since he bought our burritos yesterday. $7.93 12 p.m. — I find the group training presentation useful but my boyfriend thinks it's pretty common sense. Oh well; we get laminated name tags at the end and a link to volunteering opportunities at different shelters. We sign up for the next shift at 12:45 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Santa Rosa. 12:50 p.m. — There has been an outpouring of donations and volunteers in the area, so they tell us we might be sitting around a bit. Undeterred, we go off to try to help. We bounce around helping serve food and cleaning chairs, doors, rails, etc., but everywhere is well staffed and we feel a bit useless. We do see the donation section overflowing, and decide to get to work helping to sort clothing into different sections. After wearing masks for a few hours (since we're working outside), I tell my boyfriend that I've gained an intimate understanding of how my breath smells now. He replies that he loves me. (I love him too.) A few people come by to get clothes and we help them out. We listen to their stories, as much or as little as they want to share. Interacting with the folks affected makes it feel so worthwhile. I used to want to be a counselor growing up, and this makes me think I should do more regular volunteering. 6:30 p.m. — We leave a little early; there seem to be plenty of volunteers and we've sorted the majority of the clothing donations, so we don't feel bad. My boyfriend tells me he wants to get chili from Amy's Drive-Thru and animal fries from In-N-Out (they are next door to each other) to combine into the ultimate chili cheese fries. We discuss it, but laziness wins out and he agrees to just get chili cheese fries from Amy's. $4.66 8 p.m. — When we get back to his place, we eat it with all the leftovers we have and watch American Dad . Leftovers include half a burrito, roasted veggies, black bean burger mash, and smoky baba ganoush with crackers. (I cooked the last three and he bought the burrito.) 9 p.m. — My boyfriend's parents tell us we'll be hosting evacuee friends tonight, and we help clean a little. They're bringing cats with them but there's already a refugee kitty in the computer room; the outdoor shed is prepped for the new cats though, so they won't need to be in the same space. I debate going home or staying over tonight. Instead of deciding, we cuddle up for the next few hours, and pass out early, before 10 p.m. Daily Total: $12.59 Day Two 6:05 a.m. — I wake up feeling very tired, and check all the updates again: news, friends, fire map. I also check my work; nothing new. Everything is okay, the Napa fire has grown a lot, but thankfully not in the direction of town. I try to go back to sleep but I can't for the next hour. At some point, I fall asleep. 10 a.m. — Omg, I wake up and it's 10. How did that happen?! I decide not to volunteer today and focus on resting and getting a bunch of work done. Before leaving, I snack on tomatoes that are about to go bad and baba ganoush. Petaluma was sent a warning notice this morning, which wasn't an evacuation zone, but which we took to mean, “Get a bag ready in case a fire starts somewhere near you.” 11 a.m. — It's smoky everywhere, but as I stop for gas in Novato, I can see that the sky to the east is distinctly orange. $41 11:30 a.m. — A quick stop at the 99 Ranch Market (big Asian market) because it's on the way. I decide to grab some yam greens, small head of Napa cabbage, sesame mochi balls, and a big bag of Calbee seaweed chips. I've never tried the last two, but they're on sale and I like snacks when I'm stressed. Also, grab a fresh-baked pork sung and green onion bun ($1.75) from the bakery next to the store. I haven't had pork sung (I call it pork floss) in years and so I'm curious if I still like it. I do. It's nicely salty and savory and just what I want for my drive home. $9.04 12 p.m. — I check on the status of everything once I get home. (I am constantly checking so I'll stop mentioning it.) There's not much I can do right now, so I start working. I'm luckily at a bit of a lull in my main work project and nothing crazy or time sensitive is happening this week. My workplace, based in Petaluma, sent out a notice that they'll be paying full wages for this week while the site is closed because of safety and air quality concerns, which I think is nice. Work feels really weird, like I shouldn't be doing normal activities while the world is literally on fire around me. Email is eerily quiet, and it feels like I'm sending out emails into the void since some of the people I work with are not working right now. Why am I working? Should I be volunteering right now? I feel conflicted. I eat a lot of chips and then sesame mochi balls. I also submit 16 hours of sick time for this week, since I haven't been productive this week. 3 p.m. — I start texting my friends who are in the fire-affected cities to see if they want to come over for dinner this weekend. I've got a few takers, so I'm excited to see them and give them hugs. 6:30 p.m. — I am very tempted to make ramen for dinner. The things is, I love ramen, but my body doesn't. I do want greens, so I stick with the plan and make a soup with the yam greens and Napa cabbage. Something about the hot savory broth and silky green leaves is comforting and fills me up with goodness. I make a huge pot, and eat a huge bowl. 9 p.m. — Damn, I have missed the past two days of my pill; this is unfortunate. I must also report that I finished the bag of chips. Daily Total: $50.04 Day Three 7 a.m. — I'm out and at the gym for climbing with my friend. My friend is very stressed about work, but venting and hard climbs make us both feel great. I also find out some good news about the fires, which have gone from being around 3% contained to 18%-24% contained. It's a relief to hear that there is progress. 9:30 a.m. — When I get home, I start work and eat breakfast: soup and an open-faced sandwich with black bean patty and vegan cheese melted all over it. 12:40 p.m. — I snack on a piece of toast with vegan butter. I'm planning to volunteer for the overnight shift tonight, but haven't decided on Napa or Petaluma. My boyfriend says he's down to help, so Petaluma it is. I read an article about a man and his wife surviving the fire in a pool, only to have his wife die in his arms. I burst into tears; the perks of working remotely. 2:15 p.m. — Lunchtime is the same leftovers. I don't mind. 5 p.m. — I'm done with work but I forgot about the rush hour traffic and need to wait it out a bit before I leave. I bring my sleeping bag just in case. $5 bridge toll on my FasTrak account. $5 7:10 p.m. — When I get to the shelter, most of the volunteer work is with donations. There are so many, it almost seems like too many. We make gigantic piles of diapers sorted by size; there's also work unloading donations from cars; and always work sorting and organizing donations. A supervisor tells me that since the Coast Guard is here, it's better for them to do the overnight shifts instead of volunteers. As it becomes dark, it's heartening to see so many folks hustling late. Some parents have brought their elementary school children, who are kicking butt. 9:15 p.m. — By this time, most of the work is done; I head to my boyfriend's place to crash. Daily Total: $5 Day Four 9:15 a.m. — We sleep in because we're a little too tired to do the breakfast shift, 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. 10:15 a.m. — So many more people volunteer when it's daytime! There is tons to do. It's mostly physical, moving stuff everywhere, but much better than staying in one spot folding clothes. 12:30 p.m. — We grab free food at the shelter that will go bad if people don't eat it: bagels, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, salad, and mashed potatoes. 3:30 p.m. — On the way back to Oakland, I grab groceries for the dinner tonight: two cans chickpeas, yogurt, parsley, cilantro, plums, lemon, limes, corn meal, onions, and wine. It's later than I anticipated when we start cooking; my roommate is also cooking for a party tonight so it's a lively scene. I take a shot of whisky because cooking while buzzed is really fun. The air seems good right now so we open the windows for fresh air. It's the first time we've opened the windows since the fire started. $24.93 6:15 p.m. — Some friends come over, and we have a good time chatting and eating dinner. I was expecting more people to show up but it works out well with a few people. We somehow manage to finish most of the food I made (probably because we all continue to munch at the dinner table as the night goes on). Dinner tonight is roasted spiced cauliflower, falafel with an herby yogurt sauce, and polenta. 9:45 p.m. — Our friends head home and there are hugs all around. We clean up and relax until it's time for bed. Daily Total: $24.93 Day Five 9:15 a.m. — Sleeping in is so nice. I'm not sure why I'm sleeping so much these days. 11:30 a.m. — We're going for a hike in the Redwoods. One of the major perks of living in Oakland is that you're generally only a 10-minute drive away from hiking trails and serious forests. It smells like eucalyptus and redwoods so we hike without respirators. 1 p.m. — Back at the house, I start working on Project Tater Tot and eat a snack of yogurt with lemon curd. 2 p.m. — Time for a plum and reheated polenta. I add more bouillon, salt, and a bit of miso, then pour it into a cake pan so I can chill it for later. 3:30 p.m. — I find a group and conference for women in clean tech and sustainability — the membership costs about $150, and the conference is roughly $100. I don't go to any events, but I feel like I should start looking into professional and grassroots communities. I pass on buying anything for now. 4 p.m. — We take a stroll and grab slices of pizza at Arizmendi (fennel, bell peppers, feta, other deliciousness on top), and then decide to also try a slice at Lanesplitter (pesto, olives, tomatoes) before going to see Bladerunner . Boyfriend buys the tickets ($12) since I bought the pizza. $11 7:45 p.m. — Bladerunner was amazing! It's one of those movies that puts me in a contemplative and mischievous zone after. We walk around a bit in the area before we walk home. I read a little bit of a new book ( A Personal Matter ) and then pack up to go back to my boyfriend's place. I always feel like I carry too many bags for a simple overnight trip. I always bring work stuff, project work stuff, a change of clothes, and homemade food so I won't have to buy anything. Bridge toll again. $5 10:30 p.m. — We're both energized but can't stay out too late because there's work tomorrow, so we decide to go inhale junk food. He gets animal fries from In-N-Out and I get curly fries from Jack in the Box. I honestly don't like the In-N-Out fries very much and I haven't had curly fries in years. Sooo good. $3.23 Daily Total: $19.23 Day Six 9:30 a.m. — Head into the office, which feels very normal even though we've been out for a week. The water cooler talk, as expected, is all about the fire and how we've been affected. On the way to work, I take a longer look at my hair, which I thought was in good shape; in reality, it is dying at the ends. I'm seriously overdue for a haircut so I make an appointment when I get to work. It's been a year and a half, and I cringe about having to explain the state of my hair to my hairdresser later. 10:30 a.m. — I eat the yogurt and granola that I brought from home and a plum an hour later. There's also nut mix around the office. Mmm, cashews. 1:45 p.m. — For lunch, there's a bunch of leftover cheese pizza in the work fridge which I know will get thrown out if people don't partake. Free food! (Even though I do feel a bit of pizza overload coming on.) I get into a good groove after lunch and it's a productive day. I chat with a friend at the company about a new role I would possibly take on in a few months. I'm always conflicted between wanting to pursue my Tater Tot Project and my professional career at this company. For now, I feel lucky that I'm able to do both, but I know that if I don't push for career opportunities at my company, I won't get them (when you tell people you want to work part-time, they know you're half out the door). 5:15 p.m. — Head over to chop off some dead hair! It's $30 and I give $9 tip (exactly how much cash I have left). She's really nice and says my hair damage isn't too bad (phew), and proceeds to give me the quickest haircut I've ever had. I get in and out in under 20 minutes. $39 6:15 p.m. — Oh no, my hair is flaring out because it's about shoulder length, which I hate. When she asked if I want layers, I said, “Uh, sure. Why not?” Wrong choice. Why did I do this to myself? I visit my boyfriend before I head home. He does not understand why I'm grumpy about my hair or why I spend five minutes staring in the mirror. 7:20 p.m. — He offers me chicken curry to go with my polenta, which I happily eat for dinner. We listen to an interesting NPR Fresh Air episode about the importance of sleep. By this point, I'm done being upset about my hair. There's nothing I can do about it since my goal other than grow it out. 8:40 p.m. — My boyfriend convinces me to stay a bit longer instead of leaving, so I start working on Project Tater Tot while he reads and makes weird noises on the foam roller. I get in a good two hours of work, hang out a bit, then make the drive home. I am SO happy to be in my own bed, and look forward to staying put for a few days, having some alone time, and getting some work done. Daily Total: $39 Day Seven 8:45 a.m. — I cannot make myself go to the gym in the morning unless I'm meeting someone. So I sleep in until my first meeting starts. I like my job, there's a lot of odds and ends I take care of today, before I do more technical work. It can be hard for people with a bachelor's degree in science to get more interesting jobs, and I think project management is something to keep in mind if it sounds interesting to you. 10:20 a.m. — I make crispy seasoned bean curd, a fried egg, yam greens and Hong Kong noodles with oyster sauce and sesame oil for breakfast. I drink the rest of my soup too. I eat a plum an hour later. 1:45 p.m. — For lunch, I add different seasonings to my polenta to change it up and eat a polenta bowl with garlic, parmesan, and a boatload of fresh parsley. My fridge is out of vegetables, so I'll have to make a trip later today. My friend left me a small green tea ice cream encased in chocolate waffle. I try it and it's really good. I've never had the chocolate and green tea combination before, I tentatively like it. 3 p.m. — Snack on yogurt with lemon curd. 5 p.m. — I do a 20-minute cardio kickboxing workout at home after work is done. I feel disproportionately proud of myself. 6:30 p.m. — I decide to walk to the closest grocery store because I only need veggies. It's nice to get out of the house and keeps me sane. As it turns out, this store is really expensive; I hone in on the sale stuff and grab three zucchinis, two carrots, and a pint of Straus cookies and cream ice cream, which is my current obsession. For dinner, I make pan-fried tofu slices with a Vietnamese marinade, a bunch of veggies (onions, carrot, zucchini), and use some leftover polenta. I share dinner with my roommate, and he shares the cherry kompot (Russian fruit drink) he made. It's really refreshing. I'm happy I've got enough leftovers for the next three meals. $7.84 9 p.m. — I read a few chapters of my new book and mess around on the internet for a while. I do a little bit of research on training classes that would be helpful for my project and might also be helpful for my job. I wonder if I can convince them to pay for it... 10 p.m. — Ice cream break. I wonder if someone who wanted some of the pint would be able to tell that I seek out the cookie bits. Daily Total: $7.84 Money Diaries are meant to reflect individual women's experiences and do not necessarily reflect Refinery29's point of view. Refinery29 in no way encourages illegal activity or harmful behavior. The first step to getting your financial life in order is tracking what you spend — to try on your own, check out our guide to managing your money every day . For more money diaries, click here . Have a money diary you'd like to share? Right now, in addition to our ongoing diaries, we're looking for potential diarists along the following theme: Holiday Spending : We want to know how diarists are prepping for the holiday season, one of the most expensive times from year. Paying for last-minute travel and accommodations? Gifts for family and friends? Let us know here . 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7m0r0-blog · 7 years ago

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401 1.1 Deconstruction. (Emmanuel Dultheo)

We were previously asked to create a mindmap diagram to evaluate and write down all the components in our brand. Here i’m going to break down and reflect on the different headlines given.

IMAGE & INDENTITY

I want to start by saying that I’ve always had a quite reserved personality which is one of the things people can easily observe when they meet me for the first time. As an artist in the past I could say that it was very difficult over coming what i would call “Post upload anxiety”, which is basically not being confident enough to share your art with other people. This kind of explain why I wrote “Anti-Social Socialite” Which is a big part of my character, I take a big pleasure engaging, collaborating and discuss with people, but I may be perceived by people as anti social given that I act very “non chalantly” at times which may be very confusing or seen as a character flaw as a first impression. I have always been a little bit naive in the sense that I trusted things and words easily, as a kid I always looked at cartoon and anime character as almost a father figure like naruto, luffy, Ash, and Like i would see how they acted and they were similarities like they would be the strongest but they always had a team, they didn’t believe in the traditional ways of thinking, they were always humble and other qualities which all gave me confidence to be myself at all times and later find out that all these qualities also help a lot in real life and plays a big part when chasing success. As for my image I always liked the outliers in most fields like sport, music, tv. I think my image is a influenced by a lot of different cultures, like hip hop, London streets, Martinique’s streets, French, Black French, Skateboarding. A mix of different cultures which means for example back then I was a fan of skateboarding trainers, but I also liked the baggy jeans too or a nike tracksuit and Lacoste trainers. So the way I dress, talk, and act would be influenced by a series of different cultures.

CREATIVE OUTPUT

I put out my first video as Doranbeats on youtube in 2015, the year after 2016 I decided to make a beatstars account to start selling my beats online, It was working and still is but then i wanted to work closely with artist because most of my sales were coming from overseas, at the time I did not have that many contacts so I decided to record on my own beats and this is when I made the transition from producer to artist which means i can be creative in different format, I then named myself Doran, but I then changed it to N.AroD because I didn’t want those two brands to be associated together, but later down the line “N.AroD” was still too similar to the original producing brand so I went with 7M0R0, which is pronounced “Tomorrow” Because it is a powerful word that people use everyday, its easily pronounced if you can’t speak the language, the meaning of the word is very interesting and the spelling kind of make it stand out. It is spelled like that because of the era I grew up in as a teenager, we started seeing more and more brand names especially in music start with numbers or replacing letters with numbers which is kind of a trendy behaviour nowadays but will later be seen as one of the characteristics used to identify this era of the culture, knowing that I was going to develop the brand I wanted this kind of characteristics in the name of the brand so It will always be memorable and associated with this era of hip hop. After my first project I just kept releasing singles via soundcloud, to build a fan base and so people can observe diversity in my music.

INDUSTRY AWARENESS

Growing up I didn’t get much information about the Industry, after a lot of thinking and investigating, I came to the conclusion that no one would “come out of the blue” to sit me down and teach me about the industry, and thats when I did my research and surrounded myself with passionate people that I finally got insight on what is behind the curtain. One thing that also helped me a lot when trying to figure out the industry and how it works was watching top entertainers interview and dissecting them. It is a lot of valuable information such as, how to get paid, how to beat “creative blocks”, beneficial behaviours...etc. There are also a lot of podcasts/tutorials and things that tells you a lot about the industry, I watched those too but not as much as interviews, as some of those videos would be completely outdated advice.

EXPERIENCE

Spending the most part of my childhood living in my grand mother’s house in Martinique, helped me built character and taught me a lot about different human behaviours. It also gave me informations as to how to deal and talk to other women as i was living at the time with 3 or 4 women (mum, grand mother & aunties) and my grand father. Before this time period i was living in French Guiana for about 2 years, I really love it out there because it is a land in south America full of diverse cultures (Taki-Taki, Asian, Creole etc...). One of the reasons why i got along with people or managed to get accepted in certain circles without trying is because from a young age I been exposed to a multitude of different cultures, which helped develop my own personality and confidence from young. One of the most mind opening trip, I have had was back in 2007, when for a month and a half, my mother and me went to Switzerland. This was so shocking to me at 9 to be around kids from all around the globe and in this massive private school with crazy budgets. I was mind blown to know that there was so much things happening outside of my culture and even worse, that certain people weren’t even familiar with my country or my struggles. I think these different experience really helped me once i came to London as a teenager, not knowing the language, the culture and “the streets”, I’m saying that because I found out a lot of people from here accepted me for how weird i was even though they wouldn’t accept other people with the same interests as me sometimes. I didn’t know exactly what i was, or who i was but I understood I had to stand behind everything I was presenting to people from a young age. Whilst all this was happening I also learnt how to appreciate life and the value in it, because of numerous death in my family and around me. Which is one of the principles reflected by my brand, to value life which is different from “getting the most out of life” to me.

PRODUCT

The first piece of music I’ve ever owned was from a French singer/song writer called Pascal Obispo, at the time it was my favourite music ever because of the instruments he was able to play, I also think this where part of my love for pianos come from, because I’d always watch him perform live on tv. Another important album for me was “welcome to jamrock” by Damian Marley, and also I had a lot of positive memories attached to this album. I was already listening to a lot of music from Jamaica (Dancehall, Reggae & Bashment) but what made me gravitate toward Damian was is non chalant energy, his look and how he was using is voice so meticulously in every single track on this project. Growing up I was also obsessed with video games especially games from animes such as naruto, one piece and pokemon, i already explained why i liked this so much earlier. What bred this love for animes, and cartoons all started because of DBZ mangas I used to read, I had tons of mangas in my room all the time. With that said Nintendo and Playstation played a big roll in my life The brand logos were all around the house. My favourite games were, DBZ Budokai, Pokemon Red, green and platinum, GTA san andreas, Dragon quest, One piece and saint seiya. After awhile I started paying more attention to music and developing my taste in music, and it was kind of all over the place. My favourite project of all time is from Wiz Khalifa called “Taylor allderdice” everything about this project just seemed so coherent and holistically made. A group that had a big impact on my understanding of music was Green Dayz, I loved some of their tracks so much because it was never traditional rock, it just sounded amazing to me. And no one in my entourage at the time could understand why i gravitated towards this kind of music. Other project also influenced me later down the line, such as WATTBA, Better dayz Pt.2 (which i never knew about before 2013), Trapsoul, Rolling papers and DS2. Moving onto movies, they aren’t usually that memorable to me. I just have that 1 film that i hold above everything else, because i related to it so much and the writing, I just found amazing, This movie is called “17 years”.

MARKET AWARENESS

I became familiar with Hip Hop culture I’d say way later than my peers, and by becoming familiar I mean get a basic understanding of it. Due to my geographical position on earth, our culture was very much influenced by jamaican culture which as well as American Hip Hop culture, with trends such as graffiti, baggy clothes, nike and jordans. Anyone could come to my Island and pinpoint the different influences from hip hop culture, but growing up in the island not knowing the history of hip hop due to language barriers I always thought it all came from us and found it normal. I was never questioning why I’d wear certain things and brand because I didn’t know where it was coming from at all. With the advancement of technology I started understanding more and finally understood that i was part of the market if I was influenced by it. One thing that I started noticing as well was auto tune, and i first noticed it when Lil wayne first came out with his hit singles such as “a milli”. Jewellery is another thing that I realised was a big part of hip hop artists brand and at the time I just thought that every artist had to have jewellery because it has been pushed on the market for so long. With technology the music industry became more accessible to regular people, which i first observed when I realised that more and more people i knew or seen at some point in my life were later part of this industry, which also means that they were going to be more and more artists.

CLIENT/FAN BASE

I started putting products (Beats) out on YouTube to build a fan base and get my beats heard by potential clients, knowing that YouTube is one of the biggest online platforms. In the first year I managed to get 400+ subs so I carried on, then i was missing sales because i was missing emails, so I joined beatstars to sell my beats online without me having to email files at crazy times. Once I did that I wanted to expand my reach to IG,Facebook and Soundcloud. So that’s exactly what I did, I created multiple account for doranbeats on different platforms and started uploading Doran’s content on them. As for my soundcloud audience 7M0R0 just kept dropping music at least once a month.

CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS

I’ve always had a good relationship with my clients, and never really had any complaints. Dealing with clients, contacts and potential clients I always show respect and always make sure i’m attentive to what they have to say about my services and their demands. This way of carefully dealing with people always helped me meet even more people, because once a good first impression made people would in some cases recommend me to their friends or clients.

CONTEXTUAL UNDERSTANDING

My sound was influenced by a lot of different artist from different cultures. My French rap influence were, Booba, Lafouine, Soprano & Alpha 5.20. I gravitated towards them because the way they produced music was never seen before especially in the french rap culture. Zouk Music is a genre of music from Martinique which also was a big part of my understanding of rhythm and music in general. Jamaican singers were the closest to my own culture so I naturally gravitated towards Bashment, Reggae and Dancehall, with influences from Vybz Kartel, Popcaan and Mr. vegas, with other Caribbean artists such as Kalash and Eugene Mona (both from Martinique). My American hip hop influences come from 50Cent, Wiz Khalifa, Chief Keef, Lil Uzi Vert, Snoop Dogg, Famous Dex, Chris Brown. Not all of these artists influences my sound directly, but some played a big role influencing my brand on other levels such as “Image & Identity”. Other American Artist I felt inspired by was Rihanna, Jason Mraz, Neil diamonds, Al Green and Jamiroquai.

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