#with the time difference they tend to be more active after I've left the office for the day

[cultivating-wildflowers]

looked down at the livestreams in time to see 747 yawning. he looks so cozyyyyy

[kagansune]

A Reflection on the Pro Palestine Encampment in Pittsburgh

Over the past few days I've been spending a lot of time at the encampment in Pittsburgh PA. And if y'all would humor me I've had a lot of thoughts floating around in my mind and I wanted to write down my experience.

I'm not super involved in political activism in general. I find it exhausting to think about how terrible things are and for my own mental health I tend not to look at the news too much. I had heard that some universities had started encampments. but it wasn't until Friday I learned there was one a bus ride away from where I lived. On Friday I woke to a text from a friend that said "hey there's a rally for Palestine here, you should come if you can they need bodies."

While I am not such a fan of talking the talk super loudly. I am absolutely a fan of doing. So I went and bought snacks and Gatorade and hopped on a bus. When I got there I was surprised to see a snack tent FULL of donations. I saw people who had been there for days and some people who got off the bus when I did.

I didn't anticipate an Encampment, All I heard was rally, but after the rally, and after the march I stayed as long as I could. I heard that the mayor's office sanctioned it till Monday. Then I went home fed my cats and played video games.

Saturday I came back. This time I brought a large bag of painting supplies, a sketchbook and a reading book. I didn't know that there actually activities planned for the day. I came in and there was a group of 15 or so people mending and had sewing in the middle of camp. I sat down next to them and began to paint.

Over the next few hours as I painted. I painted the encampment. people came and went. News crews came and went, each with a camp warning to put on masks if you didn't want to be identified. And different professors came and lead discussions. Some on topics I understood. Some that truly enlightenment me and changed my thinking. There were counter protestors but they were peaceful, and the organizers made sure of it to.

When I finished the painting I gave it to the organizers and they asked if they could auction it off for fundraising. I said yes. I don't know if that's what will happen. I hope it is, but even if it's not, it's in the hands of the people who built what I painted. They deserve it more than anyone.

After the last of the lectures and chants and sing-a longs. I went home. I sat on my couch in silence for what must have been an hour or two. But my mind was not silent, I listened to the music of their chanting, the wind in the trees, the desperation in their voices, it rang in my ears even as I went to sleep.

Sunday (today) When I got to the camp the sun was high in the sky and people were frantically moving tarps to make shade and getting ice and water. I had come with my art supplies again but today I did not use them. Today I helped the camp function. I participated in discussions. I made shade. I asked organizers how I could be of use.

When the rally and the march came the 30 some people who were there when I arrived had turned into over 100. maybe even 300. I'm not sure. The police blocked off the block and stood at the ready. We heard speeches from Palestinians, from Jewish students, from Organizers with no affiliation at all. And the diversity of the crowd... age, race, religion. I have never seen a greater rainbow of humanity in my life.

Part way through the march I went back to camp to drink water. I put myself to work with the other 10 or so people left to guard it. we organized the food and medical tents. we ran water out to the marchers. we got dinner from a donors car and brought it in.

When I left to go home they were still out there, a hundred strong standing and chanting in front of the cathedral of learning. mind you, 2 hours had passed since the rally had begun.

I was home 10 minutes when I heard the riot police had shown up.

I thought to earlier in the day. There had been a seminar on what to do if you get arrested. I was only half paying attention during it. I remember talking to the person next to me. we both planned to leave our phones and water bottle at camp, but even so, we doubted we would get arrested. I wonder if she's okay right now.

I walked to the grocery store, I brought my headphones but I didn't use them. My head was still filled with the noise, the chanting, the crying, the desperation. but also the joy, the love, the hope. I see the university students strong and hardened in their stance. I see the professors and older community members crying with pride and pain, knowing what comes next. A hundred painting I could make fill my head. I listened the music of the wind in the trees as I saw the Cathedral of Learning standing tall in the distance. A beacon of contradiction.

Disclose. Divest. We will not Stop we will not Rest.

Disclose. Divest. We will not Stop we will not Rest.

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.

From the Sea to the River, Palestine will Live Forever.

I hope they're ok.

I hope they will all, be okay,

[obit]

I get colder after taking off the wet suit. My buddy sees me shivering and tosses me a towel and I skip over a few slippery rocks to settle on the open trunk of the car to hide from the wind. I feel my toes and feet tingle then numb. I imagine them gone and the feeling, the lack, rises up my shins and to my knees. I think of hopping off from the trunk and falling to my knees and on my face. Then I'll drag myself out from this beach while bitting the towel in my mouth and I'll drag myself to the street then all the way back home. I'll try to get home before the numbness rises up my hips and chest until I am just a head rolling down the street.

What the fuck was that train of thought?

We stop for food at this tidy little shop that only does breakfast until about noon just four days a week. I think about what a great work schedule that would be. To be done so soon with so much of the day left. I recently moved and started living again with a girlfriend, and she works from home. I've yet to fully settle here in this part of the world so I worry I'll be a bother just hanging around the house waiting for her work to be finished. I don't know too many people here who are a quick driving distance away and I hate doing anything alone anymore. I've turned into a dog. I lay about the home pining for her attention. Can we go out? Are you done with work? Can we get some food? Can you pet me now please? I think about this and I change my mind. It's probably good that my current work schedule overlaps so much of hers.

My office hours are regular and everyone is mostly healthy. My panel of patients are adults and they don't tend to have too many health demands besides the usual hyper- this and that and the metabolic diseases that demand a regular conversation about exercise and diet. I think about the breakfast burrito in my stomach as I come out the shower and do the buttons of my shirt. I rub my stomach imagining the tortilla and the potato breaking down to simpler glucose and pumping about my body. I imagine a little campfire inside each of my cells. I feel my body heat up and I can almost imagine the smell of burning marshmallows. Toasty.

The relationship has been kind of unexpected. I don't think either of us imagined us so together just some time ago. We were totally different humans. She needed more control in her life. Less anxiety. More plans and more successful implementation of plans. She found my inability to plan stressful. She thought my previous job environments insane and too unpredictable and considered my previous relationships with people largely unhealthy and sporadic. And I think I just hit a point in my life where I started to agree with her point of view. I found a more regular job out of the emergency setting. I found a friend more focused on healthy activities conducted at regular times. Decided to plan meals instead of spending gross amounts of my salary eating out all the damn time. They say homecooked is always better, and I disagree, but it's been nice to have more time with her cooking and eating and even cleaning up afterwards.

One thing, I can't sleep on the same side of the bed every night. It does not make sense to me. Some nights I want to sleep on my right while facing her. Sometimes on my left while facing her. Sometimes I want to spread out on my back horizontal across the foot of the bed with my knees dangling over and close to the AC vent. I like pillows placed all over the bed so that I can find the position I need as I venture about it finding the right position.

My god. I might be a dog. I am turning into a dog. I see myself drooling at night and moving about to find a comfortable space and shape next to her body. I find my body hairs shedding on the bed. I am allowed to just go pee went I want, right? Why do I have this great desire to pee outdoors? Does food taste better from her hand?

One of my patients stated that her bowel patterns have become more regular since we last met. Regular. Regularity. The word sticks in my mind and it is adjacent to poop. But poop is good. Poop is necessary. Poop is vital to healthy life. I think about my life. I am regular. I am good poop.

[livesinyesterday]

Mass Dumping my Manhunt (2024) thinky thoughts thus far here...

...cuz they have nowhere else to go lol

Let me start off by saying none of this is intended as hate on the show. Manhunt is the first series I've actively enjoyed in a long time, my friend and I gleefully look forward to our Friday Manhunt watch dates and are very sad to know that will soon end. But, that said, as a Lincoln / Lincoln's Cabinet / Civil War nerd I do have frustrations with the show. My primary frustration is the way the show has chosen to allocate time and attention to certain people and events rather than others. My biggest complaint is the entirety of the Wall Street / Knights of the Golden Circle plot. Certainly the KGC were a real organization, they were a significant concern around the time of Lincoln's re-election, and it is also true that Wall Street speculators made money on post-war economic upheaval. At first I appreciated that the show was acknowledging those elements, you don't tend to see them in Civil War film and tv, but then when the show diverted so much time and attention into this Da Vinci Code style plot with a, quite frankly, ridiculous mustache-twirling villain and tried to shoehorn in a whole codebreaking thing I felt so frustrated. Because you already have good villains with Booth, the conspirators, and Johnson, and the things the show left out to make time for this mostly unfounded historical speculation are so much more interesting. We essentially got nothing with the other conspirators. We didn't even get to see Grant who was another intended assassination victim and who rushed back to DC once he received word of the attack on the president. We miss so many of the interesting moments of Booth and Herold's flight into the South like when they have to navigate the river in the dark of night and nearly drift into a federal gunboat.

They also could have followed Lincoln's funeral train, there are so many moments that would have been beautiful to depict, like when a very young Teddy Roosevelt looked out his New York City window to see the funeral procession go by.

We also could have so much more to establish the history of Stanton and Lincoln's relationship. Lincoln and Stanton did not start off on good footing, in fact Stanton brutally humiliated Lincoln when they were both younger lawyers and when Lincoln brought Stanton in to replace his first Secretary of War, Stanton was still convinced Lincoln was crippled by imbecility. To show some of that would have really made their relationship as two men burdened with the weight of this horrible war all the more poignant in the series. Would have shown the depth of their respect and trust for each other and how that was earned. Also I would have loved to see Stanton and Seward's relationship, I would have loved to see some of that friendship. After Seward was nearly killed in a carriage accident (which is why he's wearing the neck brace that saved his life the night of the assassination), Stanton would go to Seward's bedside, bring him news, hold his hand and wipe his lips for him. An attendant remarked that Stanton's kind care for him brought Seward to tears. All of this Tobias Menzies would have played brilliantly and we'd have more of the nuance of Stanton the man. We did not need a fictional scene in which Stanton challenged a man to shoot him in his office. Also we could have had so many more scenes of Lincoln and Stanton which would have been amazing because that relationship is meant to be the emotional heart of the show and I would have loved to see Linklater get to play more of Lincoln at different points throughout the years of his presidency. Some other smaller frustrations are more in the writing and casting choices. I respect Hamish Linklater's performance as Lincoln. I was unsure at first (also I've been burned by a lot of really bad Lincolns) but I feel like it really gets stronger and stronger each episode and he found his stride. He was the best part of episode 4 in my opinion (ep 5 had no Lincoln, like why would they do that to us?) But I feel like some of the choices of the production hurt his performance a bit. The makeup team does not do a good job making Hamish look like a weary, aged, post-war Lincoln, he looks too young and healthy and the actor they chose to play Robert pretty much looks older than his dad, if not the same age. Those things are not Linklater's fault. I also feel like Stanton's wife got shortchanged. They really didn't give her anything to do other than be the nag, to be the wife who doesn't understand why her husband can't step down when he's essentially navigating one of the most important moment's in the nation's history. I feel like Ellen deserved better. Again, don't misunderstand any of this as hate, it is absolutely not intended as hate. It's just so rare we get a well made piece of Civil War media that I would have loved to see them take on these things. To trust that the actual historical material was interesting enough. When the show is good it is SO good, so I just know they could have portrayed those things so well and I'm sad we won't get to see it. Also P.S. WHERE IS THE BEARD???? I will never understand this choice to not have the beard.

[penisman420-69]

Mark: Hello everybody, my name is Markiplier and welcome to Five Nights at Freddy's, an indie horror game that you guys suggested, in mass, and I saw that Yamimash played it and said it was really really good... So I'm very eager to see what is up. And that is a terrifying animatronic bear! "Family pizzeria looking for security guard to work the nightshift." Oh...12 a.m. The first night. If I didn't wanna stay the first night, why would I stay any more than... five... Why I stay any more than two- hello? Okay...

Phone starts to call

Mark: Hello?... Hello? Oh, I can't move. That is a creepy skull, there's creepy things on the wall. Oh, hello.

Phone Guy: Hello?

Mark: Hi!

Phone Guy: Hello?

Mark: HI!!!

Phone Guy: Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night.

Mark: Ugh...

Phone Guy: Um, I actually worked in that office before you.

Mark: Ah...

Phone Guy: I'm finishing up my last week now, as a matter of fact.

Mark: Hm?

Phone Guy: So, I know it can be a bit overwhelming...

Mark: Uugh! U-hu-hu...

Phone Guy: ...but I'm here to tell you there's nothing to worry about.

Mark: Eh...

Phone Guy: Uh, you'll do fine. So, let's just focus on getting you through your first week.

Mark: Okay, sound goo- O...

Phone Guy: Okay? Uh, let's see, first there's an introductory greeting from the company that I'm supposed to read.

Mark: Uh-huh.

Phone Guy: Uh, it's kind of a legal thing, you know. Um, "Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

Mark: Okay.

Phone Guy: A magical place for kids and grown-ups alike...

Mark: (Scared laughing)

Phone Guy: where fantasy and fun come to life.

Mark: Uughuh!

Phone Guy: Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for damage to property or person. Upon discovering that damage or death has occurred, a missing person report will be filed within 90 days, or as soon property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached, and the carpets have been replaced.

Mark: (Totaly in panic mode)

Phone Guy: Blah blah blah, now that might sound bad, I know...

Mark: Yeah!

Phone Guy: but there's really nothing to worry about. Uh, the animatronic characters here do get a bit quirky at night, but do I blame them? No.

Mark: (Scared laughing)

Phone Guy: If I were forced to sing those same stupid songs for twenty years and I never got a bath? I'd probably be a bit irritable at night too. So, remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children and we need to show them a little respect, right?

Mark: Okay!

Phone Guy: Okay.

Mark: Okay...

Phone Guy: So, just be aware, the characters do tend to wander a bit.

Mark: No way...

Phone Guy: Uh, they're left in some kind of free roaming mode at night.

Mark: (Scared laughing)

Phone Guy: Uh...Something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long.

Mark: Ugh...

Phone Guy: Uh, they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too. But then there was The Bite of '87.

Mark: THE BITE?!

Phone Guy: Yeah.

Mark: What bite!?

Phone Guy: I-It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?

Mark: WHY?!

Phone Guy: Uh, now concerning your safety, the only real risk to you as a night watchman here, if any, is the fact that these characters, uh, if they happen to see you after hours probably won't recognize you as a person.

Mark: Oh, OH!

Phone Guy: They'll p-most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on. Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to... forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear suit.

Mark: Oh, I get it.

Phone Guy: Um, now, that wouldn't be so bad if the suits themselves weren't filled with crossbeams, wires, and animatronic devices...

Mark: Uh-huh.

Phone Guy: ...especially around the facial area.

Mark: Uh-huh.

Phone Guy: So, you could imagine how having your head forcefully pressed inside one of those could cause a bit of discomfort...

Mark: Yeah!

Phone Guy: ...and death. Uh, the only parts of you that would likely see the light of day again would be your eyeballs and teeth when they pop out the front of the mask, heh.

Mark: Ugh! Oh, why... What happend?

Phone Guy: Y-Yeah, they don't tell you these things when you sign up. But hey, first day should be a breeze. I'll chat with you tomorrow. Uh, check those cameras, and remember to close the doors only if absolutely necessary.

Mark: THAT'S NOT GOOD...

Phone Guy: Gotta conserve power. Alright, good night.

Call ends

Mark: GOOD NIGHT?!

Mark: OH NO... OH THAT'S BAD! I understand what I need to do. I need to watch the cams so that they don't come after- ONE'S MISSING!!

Bonnie is in the Backstage

Mark: OH, HI! There you are, pretty bunny thing... Okay... Okay, okay, I get it, I get it, I get it, where'd you go? You're still there? Alright, you stay there. I don't know if it's good that you're staring at me! Oh my god. I thought it was weird that it couldn't move, but this is totally different... than any horror game I've ever played. So what you gotta do in case you not getting it is you gotta watch the cameras to make sure they don't come by- You got a little much power- Is he still there? Hi, you're still there. Wait a minute, what, DID YOU MOVE?! Okay, you didn't move. You don't move neither... You don't moving nothing... If I see you moving... I don't wanna see anything...Oh-oh-oh MY GOD! THIS'S TERRIFYING! Why do I leave doors so open, why isn't there enough power-

Bonnie is in the Dining Area

Mark: Hi, okay, you moved again. Hi. What are you doing there? Might be getting a little close to me...

Camera goes static

Mark: O-oh, oh, no, OH NO, NO, NOOO! No-no-no... Nooo, no, no, close the clo-ose, closing, closing! Eh. YOU'LL NEVER GET ME! Okay, you're over there, alright...It's okay. Why didn't I have enough power for lights? Stay right there you douchebag! You stay right the F there... God, dammit! That was like- this is like the most terrifying game I ever played! They're gonna pop out at me! Oh, god, he's gone. Hi. Okay. You just gonna alternate between the two places, it's totally fine. And your friends, they ain't moving. They're not moving, are they? I see where I am. You're not near me. So, that's good. Just gonna periodically check... How much long do I need- I need last to 6 a.m. Oh god, am I gonna have enough power? If I run out of power thy'll able to get me! Oh god... You stay right there! Why am I still using some power? O-oh god... Seriously, I what... this like... this like... bad! You're still there, okay. This is a first night, they said it should be easy to first night so I only assuming one of them... just gonna wandering around and it is a creepy bunny guy. ♪{Happy fun time at Freddy's, in fun land... having such a wonderful time...}♪ Okay, so, you still there? Okay, you still there... I'm gonna name you... Bunny Blallagy-

Camera goes static

Mark: OH GOD WHERE'D YOU GO?! Oh god, he's here? Hello? Where'd he go? Hi again, okay. You stay right the F there! I don't want to have to deal with you...

Mark closes both doors

Mark: Probably shouldn't do that, I need to conserve power. God dammit I was like have the damn thing in- I think the doors were down. You're still there? Oh-kay... Oh-kay. Oh-kay! (Scared laughing)

Music starts

Mark: I hear that... I HEAR THAT! OH GOD! WHERE'S THE OTHER ONE?! WHERE'S HE?! U-UGH! U-UGH! WHERE IS HE?! Where'd you go? Where'd you go, where'd you go, where are both of them, both of th-

Bonnie is in the West Hall

Mark: H'i, you are really close to me! Oh god, it's not 6 a.m. yet?

Chica is in Restrooms

Mark: Hi. Okay. So I think I just need to keep the left door closed? (Crying) NOT OKAY NOT OKAY! Is he behind that door? No, where'd he go? Where-

Chica is in the East Hall

AH! OH HI HI HI HI HI HI OKAY OKAY, I DON'T HAVE MUCH POWER LEFT. What you gonna do? Is the other one still there? U-uh! HI... Oh, you moved again! Where where where? (Scared laughing) What do I do, what do I do-

Chica is in E. Hall Corner

Mark: OOOH YOU'RE RIGHT SO BEHIND THAT DOOR! OH, WHAT HAPPENS IF I OPEN THE DOOR?! I'm running out of power. Oh, I'm gonna run out of power! Is he there? I don't want- I don't- I do- I don't wanna die... AH, ONE PERCENT POWER?! (nervous grudging sound)

Power out, doors open

Mark: AH! ... Oh NO! OH NO, NO NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! Oh no no no no no...no no...

Freddy flashes in left door

Mark: HIIII! OH, GAWD DAMMIT! HOW'RE YOU DOING?!

6 a.m. chimes

Mark: Oh, did I make it? I make it? Yeah-ha! Oh god not again! Why would I do this stupid job?! Oh-kay... Okay. So I ran out of power, but...

Phone starts to call

Mark: OH HI, HI AGAIN! You got to be some "sage advice" for me? Yep, okay, yep, I know, yep, yep yep yep, what I can do for you? I know! Oh god...

Phone Guy: Uhh, Hello? Hello? Uh, well, if you're hearing this and you made it to day two, uh, congrats!

Mark: (laughs in panic)

Phone Guy: I-I won't talk quite as long this time since Freddy and his friends tend to become more active as the week progresses.

Mark: What?

Phone Guy: Uhh, it might be a good idea to peek at those cameras while I talk just to make sure everyone's in their proper place.

Bonnie is in Dining Area

Mark: No.

Phone Guy: You know... Uh... Interestingly enough, Freddy himself doesn't come off stage very often. I heard he becomes a lot more active in the dark though, so, hey, I guess that's one more reason not to run out of power, right?

Mark: (laughs in panic)

Phone Guy: I-I also want to emphasize the importance of using your door lights. There are blind spots in your camera views, and those blind spots happen to be right outside of your doors. So if-if you can’t find something, or someone, on your cameras...

Bonnie is in the West Hall

Mark: Ugh-h!

Phone Guy: ...be sure to check the door lights. Uh, you might only have a few seconds to react... Uh, not that you would be in any danger, of course. I'm not implying that.

Mark: Of course!

Phone Guy: Also, check on the curtain in Pirate Cove from time to time. The character in there seems unique in that he becomes more active if the cameras remain off for long periods of time. I guess he doesn't like being watched.

Bonnie is in W. Hall Corner

Mark: UGH-GH! UHH!

Phone Guy: I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure you have everything under control! Uh, talk to you soon.

Call ends

Mark: Where's Pirate Cove? Why are you going to leave me with this? Don't leave me like this!Where's, where's Big Yellow?

Chica is in Dining Area

Mark: There's Big Yellow. Is he still there? He's still there? YES YOU SILL THERE! VERY GOOD! VERY GOOD! Oooooh dooon't like th... Is he still there? I'm so going run out- Okay he left, okay. Okay! We're okay! We're going be fine, we're gonna be totally fine. We will be fine, hello. Hello, bubsy, where's the other guy? Where's the other guy? Where's he?! Where's he, where's he, where's he, where's he, where-

Bonnie is in the West Hall

Mark: Oh, there... Okay. He's not-

Freddy looks straight in the camera

Mark: Oh, HIII! HEY, FREDDY, HOW U DOING?! Okay. He will be nearby? You stay there! Where's the other one, where's the other one, where's the other one? There he is. Okay. I am pan- I'M LOSING MY SHIT RIGHT NOW! I'M NOT OKAY WITH THIS!

Camera goes static

Mark: OH GOD NOT AGAIN! NO DO DO DO THAT! No no no. Don't you be- Oh god!

Bonnie is in W. Hall Corner

Mark: AH! HE'S RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR! UH! HI!

Chica is in East Hall

Mark: HI! Okay I'm- I'll keep my eye on you! Oh god, where'd you go? Where'd you go? Kay... GOD, THIS NIGHT IS LASTING FOREVER!

Bonnie pops in West Door

Mark: AH! ISTHATAFAGA! ISEWAMEMEGE! IT'S NOT OKAY! Oh oh oh... Okay, so what be-

Chica is in Dining Area

Mark: Hi... "Let's Eat!" Let's eat what? You still there? Okay, he's gone. Good. Stay gone, forever, and ever and ever and ever, oh, you're coming back! Either that or you're leaving. Oh, I'm not gonna have enough- I'm not h- My butt is going be munched! I'll be shoved into a teddy bear outfit. And they're gonna laugh! Where's he? Where'd you g-

Bonnie pops in West Door

Mark: AH! U-fe-fe-fe... That Bunny wants to get my gibblets, but he can't have em! Not today! Not ever... ♪{Good thing Freddy staying in his house.}♪ Hi mister- Wait, Bunny, you were just outside my door! Kay... Where's the Ducky? Where's mister- is that him- No, no Ducky there...

Chica is in Restrooms with hostile look in camera.

Mark: Hi, (Scared laughing), Hi mister Ducky. (Crying) God, this night is lasting so long... I just wanna go home. I'll never play this game again. I'll be a good boy! God dammit. It's would be terrifying if you controlled the cameras with like an Oculus Rift or something? Oh, my god. Cause you just move your head back and forth... Oh, my god. Hi again. Where's the other one? Where'd you go, where'd you go? Oh, there he is. Okay, so long as you two stay right there, you'll be good! You look very pretty! Uh, where's the Pirate Cove Guy- Oh, here's Pirate Cove, okay. So I just gotta... I just gotta keep an eye on you guys. Gonna be fine! OH, oh I bet using the camera takes power too, I'm down to 34%, I've got 3 hours to go!

Music starts

Mark: No. You're still there. You're still there. You're still there. You're looking at me now.

Foxy is in Pirate Cove

Mark: HI PIRATE COVE MAN!!! RARRR! HU-OHG... Oh, where'd they go, still there, still there? Pirate Cove Man! How u doin'? Oh, man, I love workin' at Didney Worl, it's ma faavorite...

Foxy enters his pre-sprint phase

Mark: HI WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF YOUR CAGE?!! PLEASE, GET BACK IN! I DON'T WANT YOU OUT OF THERE! HE'S COMING FOR ME? Oh, he's coming for me! Oh, why do I have to watch three of them? I'm like ligit freaking out right now. I'm not okay with this. Oh god, they moved. Where'd you move to, oh, you're coming down the hallway, ha? Which one are ya? Not left Pirate Cove yet... You still there... Coming down that hallway... Pirate Cove Man, how're you doing Pirate Cove Man?

Camera goes static

Mark: No! I got 2 hours left! No no no! Nooo! What's that sound?

Bonnie is in W. Hall Corner

Mark: Oh, he's right there. Well, he's not here JUST yet. I don't wanna run out of power. Oh, the sounds, I don't like them.

Foxy sprints to office

Mark: AH, FUCK! NO! OH GOD!

Foxy attacks!

AH-HAH, FUCKING FUCK! I TRIED TO PUSH IT! OH-OH MY GOD! Ah... Oh...

Game Over

Mark: Oh, game over indeed! Oh, are those my eyeballs? Auh... (coughs) Oh hi... Okay. So that's Five Nights at Freddy's, I couldn't even survive two, GOD DAMMIT! HAH! OH, GOD! Oh, I tried to hit the door- I tried so bad... Oh... Okay. Okay, thank you all so much for watching, check out the other scary games that I played, if you want to play it by yourself, you can check it in the description bellow. If you REALLY want me to play it again and try to BEAT it, let me know in the comments below. Thanks again everybody and as always, I will see YOU in the next video. BYE-BYE!

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS WHO IS THIS WHO DID THIS WHO ARE YOU I'M GETTING A RESTRAINING ORDER

[hklnvgl]

Hi! I have a totally random question lol. I've seen a few people compare Pynch to Wolfstar (and Adam and Ronan to Lupin and Sirius as people too). What I don't get it folks saying that Wolfstar was a 'better' (stronger? more interesting? idk) ship than Pynch. I mean..? I don't see it, personally. What am I missing here?

👋 hi! i’m gonna begin this (i’m guessing it’s gonna get long—i’ve actually filled two pages of handwritten notes to try and make sense of my many opinions about this) with a disclaimer: my approach to shipping is very different when it comes to pynch and other fandoms. normally, i’m not actually a very active shipper—when i read fics for other fandoms i normally look for plot and feelings and, because most of the time there’s shipping involved, i usually don’t mind if a ship is there and might actually enjoy it but it’s not something i tend to go out of my way to search for. i just don’t usually ship fictional couples romantically! it’s all the same for me if they’re canon or not (though if they’re canon they will have more canon scenes together so that might help me to eventually ship them? idk i’m just the least romantic person you can find out there 🤣)

so that’s why i haven’t read a lot of wolfstar fics (i think maybe 2 or 3 where the focus was on their relationship? i remember a quite lovely texting au) and even less meta—when i read hp fics i will look for explorations of harry’s abuse, which is what gives me feelings, and in those wolfstar is usually there bc they adopt harry or something like that.

that said, and having therefore canon!wolfstar in mind (perhaps the similarities are stronger in fanon, i just don’t know enough to say!), i really don’t see why people would compare them either (apart from the fact that they’re popular mlm ships?) and i do have to agree with you that pynch is a more interesting ship (for me!)

and, yes, i can see there are a few traits remus and adam might share if you squint, but imo once you start really thinking about it they’re two very different characters! they’re both said to be poor on text, but in adam’s case that comes from the family he was born into and if i remember correctly remus’ dad was middle class (i can’t remember exactly but i think he worked for the ministry?) and remus was poor only because he couldn’t hold a job due to him being a werewolf. idk if people’s comparisons go further and they see cabeswater as a parallel to the werewolf thing? but if that’s the case adam made that choice himself and he embraced it eventually and it’s actually crucial for the resoultion of the series’ plot! remus being a werewolf was great for book 3′s plot twists and for shunning him out of society and little else. personality-wise i guess they’re both smart? i do think remus is more the type to give up after a while but 🤷‍♀️ (oh is it bc if wolfstar were canon it’d be implied that remus is bisexual bc of tonks??)

now when people compare ronan and sirius they only look at the surface which makes me super mad! they say they’re the same just bc they’re brash? and wear leather? and were born in rich families?? but sirius was abused as a child and left his family bc he was the odd one out (which in the lynch family would actually be more accurate to say declan is??) and ronan’s trauma comes from a wildly different place! arguably niall (and aurora? apparently from that little snippet of mister impossible i haven’t read yet) were also abusive to him but definitely not in sirius’ way? (that’s actually closer to adam’s family’s brand of abuse!)

i’ve also seen people say the gangsey’s dynamic is the same as the marauders’! and i’m sorry but i really think that’s not true! for starters we only see the marauders as a whole in flashbacks! and not even then bc lily was not part of the group yet (i guess people compare her to blue bc they’re the only girls??) imo the marauders (or what we see of them) do not inspire healthy friendship feelings! james is the leader and a big asshole and only sees sirius as his equal—he is very happy with peter’s (apparent) worship and i guess they all were super happy to believe remus was the traitor bc they didn’t trust him enough (a werewolf will always be a werewolf) and everyone completely oversaw peter (which i guess is why he did what he did but he’s too plain of a character to have had believable motivations when he turned to voldemort) and he was considered second-class among the group. also that scene with snape in book 5, where we see them all together, is not the gangsey’s dynamic at all??

anyway. back to wolfstar/pynch. the only canon moments in which they give me similar vibes are, for wolfstar, in book 5 when harry firecalls grimauld place from umbridge’s office (i think it was that moment) and we kind of can guess sirius and remus are spending time together at the house and have this caramaderie going (that i guess could be interpreted as shippy) and, for pynch, back in trb when ronan is driving adam to the trailer park for the last time and he says: “man, you don’t have to go back in there” (and i remember thinking in my first read something long the lines of “aw, they are friends after all!).

so. because adam and ronan are part of the main cast of their series they are more flashed out as character (i’ll always think sirius and remus did have potential but everything was too tangled in the plot and, besides, hp is harry’s story!) and i actually do care more about what happens to them as individual characters! but i also ship them! their relationship and their dynamic simply appeals more to my personal tastes! i believe they are perfect for each other and i could read a thousand alternative first meetings and soulmate aus with them as protagonists and i’d never get bored.

as of wolfstar, well, as i said i don’t mind if i go into a fic and they’re a couple in there (they’re cute, sure!), and they’re great friends and obviously care for each other, but we do see too little of them together and how they would counter their respective differences for me to say they’re a perfect couple (they might have been in a different universe and i’m sure there are plenty of fics out there that explore that, which i personally have not read simply bc i lack the motivation to do so).

tl;dr: i like adam and ronan more as separate characters and i just love the dynamic they have in canon, which is why i enjoy reading/writing about them as a ship. imo, wolfstar had potential but hp was not about them and if people say they ship them i nod as i do when a friend tells me irl they’re seeing someone new and i hope they make each other happy.

perhaps someone who’s more deeply in the wolfstar fandom can add a different view to this?

[joyisntyoj]

04: LETTERS TO NOBODY OR MAYBE MAYARI

Seal stamps, stamps with whatever designs, papers and pens, stickers, pictures, dried flowers, heartwarming messages, and a lot more.

When was the last time you wrote something on a literal piece of paper for someone?

Have you ever personally given someone a handwritten letter or sent it from the post office?

Is writing a letter still a thing today, or you just use whatever app you have because what is the point if other ways are more convenient, right?

Maybe, you are more the vocal type of person and, you just say what you feel instead of writing it down?

Perhaps, you are none of the above because what is important is your presence in their lives and, that is more than enough?

Still, how lovely it is to keep something that has sentimental value. It unnecessarily means that you are hoarding something because what's to not treasure from precious memories in a small piece of paper in an envelope?

This story is for those who never get tired of expressing themselves in whatever form they know, but most especially to those who write.

May you never run out of papers, inks, and thoughts to compose. to more unforgotten memories preserved in letters.

^^^

To: Mayari.

How are you? I wish things were getting better, just like what I always pray. These days, sleeping at night suddenly became serene as well as waking up in the morning. Sometimes my days are dull and typical...I believe? But most of the time, it's either I'm feeling blue or extra sad, or was that the same? I kept on blaming the pandemic, but for real, I'm just a mess. Silent battles are truly tough. I wish I had the courage and strength just like yours. Be safe. Stay sane. I'm really trying my best to be legit all right.

With so much love and kindness always and all ways,

Liway.

Liway is the name, exhausted with life. Mayari, someone out there, maybe a supreme being or plausibly not always receives Liway's letters. Sometimes Liway writes 10 messages at once and sometimes none at all. Mayari is the only recipient of such letters that even Liway never knew they were received by the random recipient it thought was just nobody. It all genuinely started on having a recipient written on the "To:" part at the post office. Though seriously, it doesn't even have any home address. It's super weird that it's for Mayari and no address, and were received.

HOW?

^^^

To: Mayari.

The night has come. This time, it feels heavier than usual. Tears are suddenly falling. I noticed that an unwelcome visitor came. The familiar pain is hugging me again, so tight that breathing is getting harder. I hate everything. Yet, I came to realize a lot of things. Afterward, I'm feeling blessed and grateful. Am I getting crazy? Before I went to bed, at the dinner table, I felt uncomfortable with the conversation we had, my family, about myself back then. I really hate it when they keep on bringing up what happened in the past. I already moved on... I think... so can they stop mentioning those moments? Honestly, whenever anything from the past is introduced again and remembered, I tend to feel like it just happened yesterday. Everything is coming back so fresh and new; fun, pain, sweats, and tears. I hate it.

PS. Mayari, can you send me some courage? Preferably in capsules, So I can have it in my intakes and be sure I'll be really having it in my system literally.

With so much love and kindness always and all ways,

Liway.

Continues writing so many letters filled with how living is like. Liway felt tired and exhausted. A few days ago, it was super overwhelmed that crying is unavoidable. Then this morning, Ms. Walmy called for a little chat and checking up because it's never too bad to check up on somebody, most especially when you're a counselor. It's your job, so uh? Anyway, though Liway was out of focus on the call, it was able to be accomodating and warm in return. It reciprocated the thoughtfulness with a sweet smile.

^^^

To: Mayari

Hey! Today I was mad because firsthand, I experienced that thing I usually hear from other people. The "don't-post-something-revealing-on-social-media-but-love-yourself-but-that's-not-appropriate". Well, I don't even know why I'm reacting super outrage towards it. Because knowing that my family is just concerned for me since the internet is frankly scary. I mean, I did nothing wrong, so why? Maybe deciding to be confident on the internet is not necessary for them. But for me, it is! So how should I deal with this? A friend consoled me, and I feel better. Still tho, my mood is already ruined. Oh gosh.

With so much love and kindness always and all ways, 

 Liway.

Welcoming a new week, the usual Liway is busy with the household chores. Some may find it stressful, but this one is pretty different. Scrubbing the floor, washing the dishes, brooming on the side. Later on, folding the clothes, fixing the bed, and a lot more things. It looks like it'll be tiring its body out until the nose bleeds, and passing out is the last resort to rest. How come it's easier to clean an actual mess than the one inside the head and heart?

^^^

To: Mayari.

Beloa visited me today. My childhood and the only friend left I have up to this day from elementary school. If you get what I mean? It's been a long time since we had a chat, especially that things are super complicated these days. She's doing really well, and I couldn't be more proud. I'm still amazed at how we manage to be friends because we both don't like each other to begin with. It's so funny that we even pulled each other's hair in the 4th grade while the class is taking the annual picture for the school year remembrance. What are the odds in this even, right? HAHAHA. Today was warm and bright.

With so much love and kindness always and all ways,

Liway.

Dates suddenly don't vary in these letters. Even the concept of time is somehow gone. What's important is regardless of not having these "important details" like the usual, Liway can keep up and be consistent in sending its letters. Liway never missed a chance to send a letter to the address less recipient, which left the post office staff to ponder with it. But as time goes by, Alle, the clerk, is no more surprised 'coz she's used to everything now. The envelopes unfailingly vanished the moment it was dropped inside the mailing box. Indeed, a magical mailbox.

^^^

To: Mayari.

I never knew how amazing pretending could be. You know that thing where someone usually says I'm okay, but really not? The inner saboteur that was triggered by their trauma is real-real-real. A car is useless when it's not moving if you wanted to travel to faraway places. Does that make sense?

PS. It sucks that our bathroom is the only "semi-safe space".

With so much love and kindness always and all ways,

Liway.

Polar bears are really fascinating. They get to hibernate. Then, after the time being, back on hunting and living their lives. Ligaya was one of Liway's hero. A lot knew Ligaya for being a superhero, although she does not have that fantasy powers. Just like the polar bears, too, Ligaya has been hibernating for quite some time but kept on saying that she was not. Liway saw it all. Maybe a bear's hibernation is different from a human-being, hmm?

^^^

To: Mayari.

IDK what to say, but I just wanted to be consistent at the very least in sending you letters.

PS. The radio was broken, but in my head, it's working. It kept on playing nonstop music. Is this a poetic way of saying I'm overthinking things?

With so much love and kindness always and all ways,

Liway.

^^^

To: Mayari.

A lot happened lately. Somebody lost a precious one, and here I am, having a renaissance moment. It's a crazy ride, but for all it's worth, the pea has grown into a beautiful plant. Hope it made sense coz finally, everything is making sense to me now. Little by little, slowly and surely.

With so much love and kindness always and all ways,

Liway.

^^^

To: Mayari

Hey!! I hope you are doing great!!! These days, everything felt surreal. I get to be active everywhere. It's draining, yet I feel so alive than ever. I had this thought that time is indeed just a concept, hmm? I mean, anytime is the right time to do what you want and whatever it is. Nothing is too late, most especially when it comes to growth. OH, being late in class still counts but FOR REAL RIP TO THE ONLINE CLASS SETUP -_-

PS. May we never run out of time to be the best versions of ourselves. LOVE WHOEVER YOU WANT. fck the situation, but SOON, GO ANYWHERE YOU WANT. SPEND FOR YOURSELF AND FOR YOUR LOVED ONES. FEEL EVERYTHING.

PSS. May we leave this world with fewer regrets and more amazing memories.

With so much love and kindness always and all ways, 

Liway.

Quite a lot of letters were already sent. The post office is getting more and more letters, as well as Mayari. Still, NO REPLY. Maybe some other, Liway will be able to hear Mayari's words.

^^^

To: Mayari.

*here's an envelope just in case you want to write me something*

With so much love annd kindness always and all ways, 

Liway.

'Tis the season to be jolly. LOL Nah. Liway has been out for the past weeks. By out, means on a hibernation mode. A L O T R E A L L Y happened. It's hard to put it into words. I guess Liway will end these letter-sending shenanigans or just lazy and trying to give out some excuses //

^^^

To: Mayari. 

Ever since I was taught how to move around the kitchen, I've been assigned to be Mom's assistant while cooking for the feast every event/occasion we'll be celebrating. It's tiring but super fun. Getting your fingers bleed and while unaware is cool LOL~ 

PS. Why does it feel so good to overthink things while doing the dishes? What's with that scenario.........

With so much love and kindness always and all ways, 

Liway.

Tireless hands, heart, and mind with countless thoughts and feelings, papers, and pens everywhere—WRITING; it surely is one of the best ways to vent. Though letters can’t hug and wipe one's tears, witness waves of laughter, ease the pain, and such, the comfort from every word written is more than enough.

Suddenly time barge in and reminded me that this is enough. THIS IS ENOUGH FOR 2020...

A new chapter has arrived, and maybe it's time to move forward. Maybe this is where it all gonna stop for a while. I mean, writing is somehow tiring, literally. Probably, Mayari might reply with the number of letters sent anytime soon, so maybe waiting is all that needed.

No rush in moving on.

MAY YOU GET THE REPLY YOU LONG FOR SO LONG.

PRIORITIZE YOURSELF AND HAVE COURAGE.

BE KIND ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS.

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Little did nobody know, Liway is writing a letter to her "ideal" self.

The letter-sending-to-nobody thingy of Liway is really mind-boggling, right?

Mayari is Liway. Liway is Mayari.

The things that Liway wanted to say but cannot articulate well were always sent to Mayari. Mayari is the version of Liway it wishes to become in the future. 

The weak Liway longs and hopes to have "that" someone by her side to look up to. That's why she always writes letters and keeps them in the memory box.

The post office thingy was actually her shared room at home: the table at the corner with no lights but so much mess. It's that post office.

It's pandemic, so how can a post office be open and how brave she is to go out, right?

That saying, "be the hero you wanted to have when you were little", is the best explanation of Liway's way of venting and expressing.

Nobody knows when Mayari will come to life because it's no certainty that we can be the ideal self we all wanted to happen. 

For now, Liway is fighting her battles and screaming louder to the universe,

UNTIL WHEN DO I HAVE TO FEEL THIS WAY?

To be continued...

Happy New Year, Mayari. ✨💜

This is like an excerpt from my quarantine shenanigans for 2020 LOL.

[petero1298]

     Some Things I’ve Learned Over The Last 30 Years      July 6, 2017              

Today marks 30 years since a confident young man walked into the back office of Schroder Investment Management in London, to start his first day on the job, the first in his career. Ask me a question back then and I would have answered assuredly and quickly. Today I’d be more likely to say ‘I don’t know’ with just as much confidence.

Now older, wiser, but with just as much hair, I have over the years seen many people come and go. Clients, colleagues, bosses, company mergers, bankruptcies (thankfully not my own), through bull and bear markets, booms, crashes, and have seen my own fortunes fluctuate too before setting out on my own a few years ago.

Thirty years is a long time. The good news is it was all worth it.

The first thing to point out is I don’t have all the answers. That’s not what this post is about. I’m always learning. But I have benefited enormously from people sharing their time and expertise, so if I can help others in the same way, I’m happy to share what I’ve learnt also.

These are 30 observations, guiding principles, or simply things that work for me. Some of you who have followed me for a while will recognize many of them. These aren’t universal truths, they’re my truths, my beliefs, shaped by my experience.

And that’s probably a good place to start.

“The more you believe something to be true, the more you will have accumulated evidence to support it.”

That’s a quote from trading coach Van Tharp, and I’ve applied it to so many areas as a simple way of explaining people’s expression of their beliefs, my own, and the realization of how powerful confirmation bias is. Van believes we don’t trade the markets, we trade our beliefs in the market. A trading system therefore is simply a set of beliefs, and I think he’s right.

Buy high, sell higher.

Buying a stock at x+1 can be a lower risk trade than buying it today at x. Forget buy low, sell high. When something is falling, it’s more likely to keep falling than it is to reverse, and vice versa. It’s called momentum, and along with value, it’s one of the most empirically proven anomalies to academic theory that the Nobel Prize winners wish would go away. Note to self: Look into buying value stocks that show upward momentum.

Trade small to win big.

All traders and investors need trend and time to profit. Even if you don’t consider yourself a trend-follower, no matter what your timeframe, to make money you need something to trend, even if it’s just a couple of ticks higher, you need price movement.

If you are a long-term trader, time is also your friend. Time allows trends to develop, persist, and time in big trends allows you to trade in smaller size. If you are a daytrader, time is your enemy. The clock is ticking, there’s only x minutes left in the session. You need greater frequency of trades, or you have to trade in greater size and take greater risk.

It amazes me that newcomers to trading choose to start with an area that instantly requires them to either trade more frequently, or in greater size through leverage or margin. It should be the other way around. Only after years of experience and having amassed a fortune should someone attempt such a thing, but of course they don’t. A successful trader or investor will continue to do what made them that money in the first place, and it won’t have been daytrading. 99% of daytraders (a conservative estimate) are under-capitalized and would do better to build up their savings instead of daytrading them.

Limit orders limit performance.

I once worked for a PM who always put on limit orders. It was like chasing a bar of soap around the bathtub. Sometimes weeks or months later the order would still be on our desk, but the stock would now be way way higher. You either want to own it or you don’t. Is a penny here or there really the difference between whether you want to own it or not? Because your limit order is potentially making it exactly that.

I’ve held stocks for over a year and looked back at when I bought it. I could have bought it the next day, the next week, open, close, whatever. It wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference. Unless you’re trading Cliff Asness/AQR size, for goodness sake, quit playing games with the HFT pikers. Just buy it and move on.

I have never found a way to consistently make money shorting stocks.

If you’re starting out, put this one in the ‘too difficult’ pile until you have the time, energy, or intellectual curiosity to tackle it. Just know that even amongst CTAs, even though they are long/short many different futures markets, the short side of what they do rarely makes much money overall, it merely helps them perform well during ‘crisis alpha’ periods of non-correlation, and smooths the equity curve longer-term, but the lion’s share of performance comes from the long side. That’s futures. Stocks are even harder.

The best strategy is one you’ll stick with.

Or more correctly, the best strategy is the one that you’ll stick with and meets your objectives. There is no one way of investing that is suitable for everyone. There is only what’s right for you. Lots of things work. Buy and hold works. Value works. Momentum works. There are others too. Start with the evidence-based empirically-proven stuff. Find which one, or which combination works for you, in accordance with your timeframe, objectives, and investment horizon.

Buy and hold giving you 7% is fine, but if you can’t tolerate 50-60% drawdowns or trust yourself to not bail precisely when you should be adding any spare cash you have to it, then it’s not for you. Pick a strategy that delivers an acceptable return that won’t have you reaching for the sick bag when turbulence hits.

When to add.

Whether trading or investing, the simplest way to know how and when you should add to a position is to imagine you don’t already have a position. What would it take to get you in? That way you’ll be doing it for the right reasons, the same as your initial entry rationale, rather than reacting emotionally.

The best movie about trading is “Wall Street”, then “Trading Places”, then something else.

The vast majority of arguments on social media could be avoided if both sides simply declared at the outset what their timeframe is.

You mean we could have diametrically opposed views and yet both make money? Yes, that’s right.

No amount of reading or paper trading will prepare you for how it truly feels in the heat of battle.

There is a great scene in ‘Bridge On The River Kwai’ where Jack Hawkins brings a young soldier in and hands him a knife, asking him if he thinks he could use it in cold blood. The boy doesn’t know. “Well, at least he’s honest.” The fact is, none of us know until we face that enemy whether you can thrust that blade home or pull the trigger on your order.

Don’t blithely tell me your backtest says you would have taken that trade in ’87, or 2008/09. You don’t even know what the market liquidity would have been, whether you could trust the prices you’re seeing, or if you could even see any prices. You’ll know in your walk-forward.

I know, because I’ve been there and done it. Traded like an idiot with my own money in the ’87 crash, and have since safely navigated in various trading roles the LTCM collapse, the Asian crisis, the Dotcom crash, 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis, and most recently for myself and clients through a couple of flash crashes. I consider it an edge, one of the few that can never be taken from me. You can’t buy experience like that.

I can’t predict markets, and neither can you.

No, seriously, you can’t. No. You can’t.

Entries, exits, position size.

Watch any trading software ad and you’ll likely hear lots about getting entry signals. The perception is it’s more important than the others, but it’s not. I think exits are more important. A good exit signal doesn’t just get you out when needed, a really good exit signal keeps you in, staying just below the action and not triggering until the trend is over.

Look back at the entry of a successful position you’ve held for many months. How important was it to enter at that precise time, that day? It’s likely what followed was more important. What allowed you to tolerate the volatility and ride it higher to where it is now, making it the big winner it is. That’s all exits and position size, not entry.

Sure, without an entry there’s no trade, but it’s only the exit signal that determines whether in relation to that entry the trade is a winner or loser. Even more important, the position size will determine by how much. Entries merely determine the frequency of trades, or how many signals you have.

The longer your investment horizon, the higher your equity allocation should be to passive strategies.

Yes, I’m an active manager, but hear me out. If I have a 20-something come to see me as a prospect, I’m going to tell him to just put it in an index fund for 15bps and come back and see me when he’s over 40. Come on, the guy’s got 5 decades ahead of him. Go live your life, save, invest, have an emergency fund, put more cash to work every time the market plunges 25%-30%.

By the time he’s 50 and thinking about retirement however, those 30% plunges on that tidy sum he’s built up won’t look like the opportunities they once were. The percentages will be the same, but the nominal amounts will make it way scarier, seeing his hard-earned go up in smoke.

The closer you are to needing your money, or put another way, the less of an investment horizon you have remaining in which to recover losses, the higher your allocation to active strategies should be. By the time you are nearing retirement, your equity allocation should be 100% active, zero passive.

People tend to think in simple terms that passive = safe, and active = risky. The opposite is true. A truly passive strategy exposes you to 100% of the market’s drawdown. With passive you get what you pay for – zero risk management. Active management is risk management. That’s what you pay for. Risk management.

If you want to own oil, buy oil, don’t buy oil stocks.

If you want to own tech, buy a tech ETF, don’t buy Apple. Having a top-down macro view and then trying to apply it to a micro level is one of the hardest things to do. I did it once, and made a lot of money, but now realize it was mostly dumb luck. I have seen people make brilliant calls that were completely right but they lost money executing it horribly. Buy what it is you got your signal on, not where or how you think it might play out a second or third degree. One is quantitative, the other is a guess.

Hedging a position often increases risk instead of reducing it.

I’ve seen traders take on a position and then immediately look for something to hedge it with. Why? Just reduce your initial position. Or sometimes the exposure becomes too great. How can I hedge it? Why not just reduce it down to a more comfortable level? Size it correctly and it won’t need to be hedged, and you’ll also have more capital available.

I once had a boss on the prop desk who insisted on every position being hedged with the equivalent size in index futures. Absolutely insane. Now I’ve got one position I wanted and a whole load of futures I didn’t. He was a big Buffett fan. Insisted the only true measure of our performance was whether we beat the index or not. Weren’t we here just to make money for the firm? Apparently not. When I bought a utility that went up 5% but the index went up 10% over the same period (and I didn’t hedge) he said it was a bad trade.

I was a bit gung-ho and I let him get to me. When I left the desk I thanked him for making me a better trader. The look on his face! But I was serious, he challenged all my beliefs and as maddening as it was, it made me re-evaluate what it was I believed in and why. You should want to be challenged on everything you believe and be calm and comfortable in explaining it, and in fact, welcome any new information that disproves your existing position, so that you can immediately correct it.

The best book on trading is “Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator.”

It’s an obvious, popular, and cliched choice, but for good reason. Yes, its main protagonist committed suicide, and it’s written in archaic language, but it’s because the stories are from a hundred years ago, and that’s precisely why it appeals. The lessons stand the test of time. The stocks, companies, and players change, but human nature never changes. We’re all human, even millennials.

“If it’s so good, why would they sell it?”

This is one of the most egregious fallacies in the finance periphery. Why would they sell it? Why do you think? Do the math. Let’s take an example of an area where this is most commonly targeted; newsletter writers or subscription services. Imagine for a moment a trader has a $1m portfolio. He makes on average 10% a year, or $100k. That’s his trading income. If he also runs a subscription service that sells for a $1000 a year, he can get an additional $100k a year with 100 subs. That’s very nice passive income.

Now I used $1m in my example. In reality most traders are capitalized at $100k or less. They would only need 10 subscribers to get the same return. If they had 100 subs, it would match their entire portfolio value! The question then becomes not “If it’s so good why would they sell it?” but instead “If it’s so good, why wouldn’t they sell it?”

And it’s also grossly unfair to limit this logic to newsletter/sub services. If hedge fund managers are so good, why do they need clients? We know why. The fees. They can make way more from managing other people’s money than just their own. It’s the exact same principle.

I’ve seen many people get tarred with this brush unfairly, especially in the area of technical research, and yet fundamental research with its dire record gets a pass. I’ve seen it firsthand too. If you give something away for free people think it can’t be worth anything. If you charge for it “If it’s so good, why would you sell it?”

Broker research is mostly redundant.

There are many excellent analysts that no doubt create value for others, but the ratings systems are useless and as analysts they are being assessed incorrectly. Buy/Sell/Hold means nothing. There are so few Sell ratings. They are terrified of not getting corporate business. Broker X upgrades XYZ from Sell to Hold. How do I hold it after you recommended I sell it? Shouldn’t you move to a Buy rating first? Neutral/Outperform/Underperform. Overweight. Yes I am.

The only way it would make sense is if you asked the analyst to rank all his buy ratings. So you cover the tech sector and you have 50 names with a buy rating. That doesn’t help me. How about you rank them 1-50 for me? Now we’re talking. That could be useful. Buy the top one, short the worst, let’s see if he’s any good.

Price targets are also mostly redundant.

Under the guise of assigning their fair value to a company, price targets are simply a way for an analyst to stay in front of clients in a name and reiterate or update their research periodically without necessarily changing their rating. It’s a useful tool for them, but unless you’re also a value investor where a specific value would cause you to act, for the rest of us it’s just another unwelcome noise item that anchors you to a price in the market, and tempts you to act when you should instead just follow whatever your existing plan or strategy is.

If you want to own the strongest stocks, buy the strongest stocks.

Buy something that’s already doing what you want it to. Going up.

The closing price is the most important price.

Let me qualify that. I have likely said before that it’s all that matters but that’s not true. The close is the most significant, simply because so many other investors or traders act off it for end of day signals.

I like to think of the trading day as a jury deciding what a stock is worth that day. The opening statements are heard, and the intraday prices from the high to low reflect the arguments being made throughout the session. The close is the verdict. That’s what stock XYZ is worth today. Record the verdict. Price the mutual funds. Put it in the paper.

I’ve heard people place more emphasis on intraday extremes, but why? The high and low are likely the two lowest volume prints of the entire session, and therefore arguably the two least important. You could argue they provide support/resistance levels, but again by volume I would think the closing price is a better reflection of where most people are gathered or potentially anchored so it has more significance.

And let’s clear something else up. I’ve heard people say amateurs open the market, pros close it. OK, let’s assume for a minute that’s true. Which price would you rather take your trading signal from, and who would you rather trade against? Amateurs or pros? I take my signals from the close and trade at the next day’s open.

For high net worth individuals there is no need for a specific allocation to bonds.

I’m biased. I’ve been an equities guy for 30 years, but seriously, if you don’t need the income/interest, why allocate to bonds or treasuries at all? You can get exposure via a managed futures strategy. If there’s a meaningful sustained trend, up or down, you’ll catch it, and in 30yr, 10, 5, 2, and even German, Japanese too. You could allocate 50% to Managed Futures, 50% to Equities, and allocate that equity portion to passive/active strategies depending on your age, or maybe a combination of value and momentum. 50% Equities, 50% Futures, covering Trend Following, Momentum, and Value. You don’t need bonds.

If you want to perform differently to the index, you have to invest differently to the index.

When I worked as an assistant to a Portfolio Manager at Schroders we had client portfolios that had something like 60 stocks or more in Japan alone, and that might only be 25% of the entire portfolio. I’d see a stock do really well and it barely made a blip of difference to the portfolio. After a while I would understand there are many playing this game of marginal differences in portfolio structure, overweight this, underweight that. The market goes down 20%, your fund is down 19%. Yay, you beat your benchmark and get a bonus. The incentives are all wrong. Relative returns is a game I know I have no interest in playing.

In my days at Kemper/Zurich/Scudder they had more concentrated portfolios where the stock selection mattered more, and then I got to do that to an even greater extreme as a prop trader at Lehman where you may only have two or three positions, whatever it is you want. It’s not even considered a portfolio. I typically held 8-10 and often do the same now. Through a combination of all these factors, reading material like Van Tharp’s position sizing strategies, and Howard Marks’ letters, I’ve become very comfortable with a highly-concentrated portfolio and all the parameters and performance distribution that entails.

Stocks don’t follow economic theory. They follow socionomic theory.

This is why when a stock goes up people will want to buy more of it. And when it goes down people will sell. That’s not how it works with traditional economic laws of supply and demand. When the price of shoes go up, people don’t rush out to buy more. And when they go on sale people don’t run out of the store. In a supermarket consumers act rationally and logically, but there are no consumers or producers of stocks, there are only investors, and investors herd and are emotional and irrational.

Price is sentiment.

There are some variants to this. Price is truth. Only price pays. I think the way I would phrase it is that price accurately reflects prevailing sentiment. Some think it’s supply and demand, I think it’s Socionomics/social mood, but regardless, whether you believe it’s wrong that it’s trading up at $100 when your fair value is $50, it’s irrelevant. If you want to trade it, the price is $100. You may think it’s wrong, but that is the price. In terms of reflecting current sentiment, price is always right.

I’m ready for what’s next.

I have no idea what the market will do tomorrow, what the next payrolls number will be, or when the Fed will next raise rates, and frankly I don’t care. News is noise. All I know is I will follow my plan. It took me 25 years to work that out. You’re welcome.

I am responsible for everything that happens to me.

Everything. Good and bad, but this mostly comes into play for something bad. You won’t find me blaming the Fed, QE, HFT, or any conspiracy nonsense if my portfolio performs badly. The outcome is a result of my decisions. That bad trade was my stock selection, my execution, my choice of broker, all my decisions that led to that outcome. If it’s something I enacted it always comes back to me. If it’s something that happened to me, it’s because I put myself in that situation. If it’s something my child did, it’s something I allowed them to be doing. Everything is a risk. Getting up, going out, crossing the road, but ultimately I am responsible for everything that happens to me.

People really appreciate honesty.

It might sound obvious, but from the reaction I get it suggests there’s not enough of it around. I’ve made a conscious effort to say “I don’t know” when I don’t know. It can be quite empowering. When I’ve talked about positions or trades on social media, I’ve made a point of following up when things haven’t gone so well. It’s one of the hardest things for me to do. But it’s only right. You can’t just sing when you’re winning. The losing periods are when I least feel like writing something, but when I most need to, because it’s also when anyone who’s been paying attention to anything I say will most need to hear it too.

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”

Social media is a tough arena. I slip up sometimes and get sucked into some troll’s orbit, and on the occasions it’s happened, even when I’ve sent someone packing with their tail between their legs, the short-term satisfaction soon gives way to wishing I hadn’t responded.

When I’m driving and I’m getting frustrated with someone in front of me I imagine I know the person. It’s amazing how it changes how you react. In a similar vein, on twitter now I try to talk to people as you would if having a conversation face to face. Be nice. We all have off days. You never know what’s going on in people’s lives. Everyone’s going through something.

When you’re young, you have so much time but never enough money. When you’re old you have money but never enough time.

How you perceive and value time and money will change many times throughout your life, but at the end there’s only one you’ll want more of, would give anything for, but it won’t be available at any price. Cherish it while you can.

Thanks for being a part of my journey. Here’s to the next 30 years.