Top 10 Best Gambling Cities on Earth | TheRichest

top gambling cities in canada

top gambling cities in canada - win

Dear Reddit. I have started writing a book of short stories about my life as a hobo. True to my nature of blowing money faster than it came, or blowing the opportunity of even making it, I love you assholes and will let you read the book for free as I write it from the beginning. Enjoy

Chapter One: Bozeman or Bust (lots of bust)
I had done it once again, like so many other years before, by traveling north to one of the harshest and coldest states that a hobo could possibly go to during the dead of winter, late-January 2021: Mon-fucking-tana. Or as the locals jokingly say, "Montucky". (edit: Shout-out to Montucky Cold Snacks, the cheap horse-piss watered down beer that is Montana's equivalent of Washington's "Rainier Ale" or Oregon's "Session Lager"). I digress.
If I was a goose, I'd surely be the Jonathan Livingston Seagull of the flock…the black sheep shitshow of a goose flying in the completely wrong direction at the worst time of the year. As forementioned, this was not the first time, nor second time, that I've done this. In fact, it's become a habit, if not straight-up routine.
Laramie, Wyoming circa November 2016. Glendive, Montana circa January 2015 Minot, North Dakota circa January 2014. Yukon, Canada circa November 2013. Bellingham, Washington circa January 2006. The list goes on, and on, and on…
And here I am. Bozeman Fucking Montana, circa January-February 2021. The locals say it's an unusually warm winter, which by Montana's standards might include 5 inches of snow in the afternoon and temperatures dropping below 10F degrees at night. However, according to the high standards of a low-class hobo born and raised on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, this weather is colder than a witches tit.
Now, that's not to say that I ain't prepared though. I assure you that I am. Sixteen years of living on the road and rails has made this black goose a well-seasoned bird, with all the trimmings. I have a military sleeping bag that can keep me alive down to negative 30 temperatures. My military backpack is waterproof, and so are the snowboarding pants that I wear under my insulated Carharrt overalls. I have alpaca wool thermal pants, merino wool socks, thermolite waterproof boots, thinsulated gloves, and several wool and polyster beanie hats. My dual-layer mountaineering tent can withstand hurricane-force winds and all the snow that a blizzard can muster.
Winter? Montana? Bring it bitch. Hit me with your best shot. You know I like it. wink
Sigh. However, DESPITE the freezing temperatures and shit tons of snow, there's a lil secret that I've learned during my many years of traveling, and that secret is certainly DUE to these wintery conditions: Jobs! Lots and lots and lots and lots of jobs! Jobs here, jobs there, jobs every-fucking-where. Hotel jobs, restaurant jobs, retail jobs, construction jobs, maintenance jobs, driving jobs, even jobs just to help other people get more damn jobs!
You want a job during winter? Well they got jobs out northern Californie way, Oregonie way, Montanie way, Washingtonie way, North and South Dakotie way, and every which way can go above above the Mason-Dixon line!
If you can't find a damn job in the Northwestern United States of America during winter, you ain't fucking looking, and that's a fact. If you got one arm and you can swing a hammer, or punch a number on a cash register, then consider yourself hired on the spot and you can start today.
Before this chapter turns into an entire damn book of its own (A Hobo's Guide to Finding Jobs) let's get back to the story here: Bozeman or Bust.
As I begin this chapter, I have a red-wine hangover that is enough to drive me to a bullet in the head. I made a pot of coffee only to puke it back up on my hands and knees in front the porcelain thrown. I think it was good ole Earnest Hemingway that once said "Write Drunk, Edit Sober". Experienced words of wisdom from a fine man that knew everything a man could possibly know about drinking shit tons of wine and writing shit tons of stories. I wouldn't be lying if I was to confess that Mr. Hemingway, along with Mr. Steinbeck and Mr. Twain, are drunken heroes of mine that I could only hope someday to sit alongside in the bookstores of Hell and Hades with a gallon of cheap Merlot. Salut, gentleman.
After puking, rolling cigarettes, drinking coffee, and puking several times more, I was finally able to sit down to try and remember what-the-fuck happened yesterday; a solemn meditation technique that involves tons of coffee and contemplation; a time to worship the asinine achievements that are accompanied in both rejoice and regret.
Yesterday started off sober as a saint. I had a job interview at this place I had found on craigslist, some place looking for fresh warm bodies to fill up their production-assembly line. I took a bus to the address they had given me, which ended up being the adress to the Bozeman City Bank.
"A bank?", I thought, as I wondered around the parking lot dumbfounded and confused for a solid 5 minutes, checking the address several times on my phone, wondering why on earth I've been sent to a state bank. After circling the parking lot, I noticed a door on the side of the bank that said "Job Choices Employment Services: Second Floor".
Godammit. I had been fucking conned. Fucking craigslist. I know what's going on here…this a goddamn employment agency that wants to take 10-15 percent of my paycheck, take away my rights to healthcare and benefits, in the so-called promise of finding me a "great career path of opportunity".
Employment agencies. Just like rats. The only "opportunity" here was them: Creatures of opportunity, parasites hellbent on scavaging peoples money and benefits. "A not-even-close-to-great career path of 9-5 slave-labor bullshit involving years of suckling away your mind, body, and spirit", the sign on the door should have read.
This was definitely a mistake. And anyone that has ever had the unfortunate pleasure of being with me can you tell one thing about me: I fucking love mistakes. I love making them, and I love learning from them. I am a walking-talking connoisseur of mistakes. In fact, I just made a mistake trying to spell connoisseur, so I asked Google "Hey Google, spell connoisseur", and due to lack of interpreting my Alabama accent, Google made the mistake of showing me the word Coitus. I have now learned that the word "coitus" is another word for sex. As a writer and the son of an English teacher, I love learning new words. As a human male, I love sex. So learning a new word for "sex" is a fantastic trade-off for that fortunate mistake!
I digress.
I decided to walk into the bank, up the stairs to the second floor, and down the hall to the employment agency. A well-dressed and very sexy debutant by the name of Tracy stood up and greeted me with a smile that was formal, professional, and admittedly very sexy.
While my dirty mind started playing cheap porn music, along with vivid images of me and Tracy wrecking that office like wild alleycats, I was suddenly snapped back into reality with Tracy's sexy voice, saying:
"Hey, you must be Mr. Huck! Are you here for the 3:00 o'clock interview? Could you please start by filling out this application? You can have a seat over at the desk here"…
Godammit. This employment agency was GOOD. I was Tracy's submissive little slut. I walked right where Tracy told me to walk, sat right in the chair Tracy pulled out for me to sit in, and I started filling out the application with the ballpoint pen that Tracy had somehow put in my hand without me even realizing it. Tracy could have stolen my wallet and the 11 dollars inside of it as well, had she wanted to, and I wouldn't have even noticed. And even if I had noticed, I would have let her do it anyway. Godammit!
As I started to fill out the application, I got to the section I dreaded most: job references. Oh boy…allow me to tell you a little about Huck's references, or lacktherof:
At my last job, I was fired because of a fight that broke-out between my ex-girlfriend and myself, which began with lots of shouting and shoving, and ended with me getting a black-eye from being punched in the face twice. Fun fact: Italian women are fiery as they are fierce, and bold as they are beautiful. And just like their male Italian counterparts, such as Sylvester Stalone or Al Capone, they know how to land a solid right jab. This fight erupted in the worker's dormitory for all employees to hear and see. And although I was the one with the swollen black eye, I was the one they decided to fire. C'est la vie, such is life. Que sera sera, it be what it fucking be.
We can scratch that job off as a reference, without a doubt.
The job before that, I was at a marijuana farm called "Great American Cannabis", in which my managers and co-workers tried to recruit me into a far-right group of sexist and racist baboons called "The Proud Boys".
There was a pre-determining factor in why that farm had hired me, and assumed I would be interested in their idealogical gang. That pre-determing factor was the very same factor that led Google to teaching me the wrong word and definition: my Alabama accent.
Great American Cannabis had hired me based on a phone interview, in which they assumed my southern accent indicated two things, in which case one of their assumptions was right, and one was wrong:
Assumption Numero Uno: Huck has an Alabama accent, which therefore indicates that he has years of experience working on farms, growing plants, and being an honest and hard-worker.
Assumption Numero Dos: Huck has an Alabama accent, therefore he must be idealogically aligned with far-right beliefs including sexism and racism.
Welp, I am proud to say that even that although a 50% winning percentage may be fine and dandy with gambling in Vegas, and can be seen as half full or half empty based on however optimisitic or pessimistic you might be, in the case of Great American Cannabis and The Proud Boys, those odds ended pretty badly.
As it turns out, despite being raised by a racist father and surrounded by bigotry in the not-so-sweet home of Alabama, those very dispositions made this black sheep child rebel from such ass-backward beliefs, and I am staunchly pro-civil rights, which means I am pro-immigration, and a proud supporter of the sufferage movement for womens right.
Obviously, that did not go very well with my co-workers at the farm, and I was fired within the first month. But wait, theres more tragic humor to the story of this farm, which I'll organize in two keypoints:
Keypoint Numero Uno: The farm was owned by Iranian immigrants. I…shit…you…not. That's right. YOU DID READ THAT CORRECTLY. Not only was the farm owned and managed by a minority group of immigrants, those very immigrants came directly from the very country is at the VERY TOP of White-America's shitlist: Iran.
Keypoint Numeros Dos: After I was fired based almost entirely according to my leftist and progressive views on race and gender equality, within just a couple of weeks nearly everybody on the farm was fired and replaced by cheaper immigrant labor in the form of Laotian women. That's right…a white-blooded American-born legal-working male, was replaced by brown-blooded, foreign-born, mostly-illegal-working females, on a farm owned and managed by right-wing racists and sexists that were anti-immigration. Once again, I…shit…you…fucking…not...let THAT shit sink in.
I literally cannot make this shit up, and let it be forever proof that reality, however tragic or ironic it may be, is far greater than fiction. You can write that last sentence in a letter, shove that puppy in an envelope, slap that bitch with a stamp, and mail it to the fucking MOON. Or you can mail it to Iran, or Laos, whichever you prefer.
However, I digress.
So, being that I was fired from Great American Cannabis by a bunch of Iranian Proud Boys, you can scratch that job off of the "reference" list as well. Sigh.
So, how about the job before that? Well, that's a hell of a story too, but I'll make it quick and cut shorter to the chase:
I worked on a fishing boat for a Mormon captain. Although I loved him like a Dad, and he often treated me like a son, my job ended in these words:
"Huck, I really like you. You're one of the hardest working deckhands I've ever had, despite it being a very terrible year for fishing. However, as a man that is a Latter Day Saint of God, as a Mormon, I'm going to have to ask you to leave because of three reasons:
1) You smoke cigarettes, marijuana, and drink alcohol and coffee.
2) You curse worse than a sailor.
3) You are an atheist/agnostic."
And in case you, the reader did not know: Mormons HATE cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, AND coffee. They are forbidden to curse, and they are not even allowed to tolerate the company of anyone that isn't a believer in God.
Well Godammit. How in the hell am I so goddamn misfortunate and unlucky, to be the must FIRST FUCKING PERSON in the entire HISTORY OF FISHING, that has gotten fired for using curse words and drinking whiskey. I couldn't even absorb the fact that my boss was firing me because I couldn't get over the fact that I was possibly the first sailor or fisherman in all of ocean-faring humanity that had gotten fired for doing what sailors and fisherman are guaranteed and known to do best: drinkin' and cursin'
We can also scratch THAT job off the possible reference list as well.
It was at this point in the office of Job Choices Bozeman that the porn music had long since stopped playing in my head, and that I suddenly and swiftly fell deeply into a full blown existential crisis right there in Tracy's office while simply trying to think of a single reference from my last 3 jobs. The unbelievable amount of misfortune, tragedy, irony, and utter insanity of my last 3 job experiences had truly started to sink in, and I was beginning to legitimately lose my temporary grasp on sanity along with my faith in humanity altogether in one great, big, sloppy sandwich of existential fucking crisis.
Allow me to self-diagnose this existential crisis sandwich by peeling off some of the layers of this enormous stinking onion that is in the middle of it all: Either that curse that was put on me a few years ago by a Mexican trainhopping gypsy from New Orleans is proof that curses are indeed fucking real, or either I am the unluckiest son of a bitch on this entire planet that is so very unlucky that I am slowly (or quickly) coming to the conclusion that this entire life is a simulation that is programmed by some sick comedic asshole that specializes in the tragedies of both irony AND misfortune. And though some people in this world call that programmer God or Allah or Jehovah, I call him Jeff. I call him "Jeff in Programming", with same amount of disdain and hatred that Michael Scott refers to "Toby in Human Resources" in the American version of the show "The Office".
(Sidenote: If you do not understand my last reference because you have not watched The Office, then you need to stop reading this book right now, go sign up for one month of Netflix, and spend that entire month binge-watching one of the greatest sitcoms ever made in the history of television: The Office (US Version). Go. Now!)
I digress.
As I collapsed into a full-blown existential crisis while thinking of job references on the second floor employment services office above Montana State Bank, my fantasy-based relationship with Tracy was also about to crumble into an existential crisis as well, based on two very important qualities:
Quality Numero Uno: Tracy and I had no relationship that actually existed outside of my head and a stupid job application form. We had never knocked over all of the filing cabinets, water-cooler, or broken the copying machine with tantric sex. That scenario never existed period.
Quality Numeros Dos: I was about to not only lie, but also commit non-existent adultery to Tracy, thus putting a very real end to a not-very-real relationship.
I stood up from the desk that me and Tracy had never fucked on, and I told Tracy that I had to use the bathroom. And though I did really have to use the bathroom, it wasn't for the purpose of pissing or taking a shit, it was for the purpose of throwing the application in the toilet and sneaking my way down the hallway and out of the employment agency. In which case, that is precisely what I did.
Upon stepping out of the door and back into the parking lot of Bozeman City Bank, I noticed another hot little woman across the street: A dazzling red-headed freckle-faced damsel by the name of Wendy, who promised in her fertile bosom the birth of two-dollar cheeseburgers and loaded baked potatoes. I went inside Wendy's house, and began to have an oral relationship by penetrating my mouth with nearly everything that was offered on Wendy's dollar-value menu.
Stop here, acquire coffee, booze, and cigarettes until I feel like writing again, which may be later tonight, tomorrow morning, or possibly fucking never
submitted by huckstah to vagabond [link] [comments]

I am 35 years old, make $56,000 ($231k combined), live in Seattle, and work in higher ed administration

Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.
submitted by SupermarketWinter203 to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]

WHY CANNABIS MARKET FOR 2021

The cannabis market right now is so similar to the start of the green energy market.. its nowhere near done being bullish. Save for some small dips, there will very likely be a huge bullish trend for 2021. EVEN NASDAQ AGREES. I’ve posted my positions a few times, and I’ll continue to do so. But this is my reasoning for investing in cannabis stocks in general for 2021.
​
​
​
​
​
Other ongoing state legislature:
Now that you understand why I’m going green, here’s my reasoning for my positions.
TLRY (Tilray)
GNLN (Greenlane Holdings)
​
SNDL (Sundial Growers)
​
PLNHF (Planet 13 Holdings)
​
I’m well aware of other good stocks like GTBIF, CRLBF, SSPK, TCNNF, GRWG.. but these stocks haven’t been swinging as hard in response to pro-cannabis news. E.g. TLRY, SNDL, GNLN swung more than 20% some days from pro-cannabis news...I will likely reduce my current positions shortly after inauguration, after some news about the timeline for cannabis legislation, and diversify my positions more between these other good picks.
​
2021 is the year of cannabis boys
submitted by DerbDsoul to pennystocks [link] [comments]

Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
submitted by jeromeBDpowell to SPACs [link] [comments]

Spearmint's MINTY Free Hit Guide: Gameweek 18 Special

What’s up guys, my first article in a long while. I’ll be going through my top blank gameweek, free hit picks based on my studies of the stats and the eye test.
* UPDATE 3 (as of 12/01/2021 5am MDT)) *
Keepers:
Karl “Pilkington” Darlow (5m)
A shoe in vs the goal shy and generally poor SHU team. My only apprehension is the lack of save points against such a shoddy SHU attack. *A few of you pointed out Dubravka could reclaim his place, I don't see it personally with Karly Pilkoids Darlow being one of NEW's best performers this season, a fan favourite and in months gone by he had the best keeping stats in the league. Go for Jay Leno below if you're a worrier.
Jay Leno (4.9m)
Less likely of a cleanie in my humble opinion vs a decent CPL attack. Better for saves, in a better defence though.
Rammy Ramsdale (4.7m)
Rammy gains the advantage of being able to own the insurance of big Mikey Verrips (4m) as your backup. Again, against a side who are fairly impotent up top.
Hugo (5.6m)
Arguably the best keeping option this week for combined security and likelihood of a clean sheet. More expensive than the nailed on, free kick man, Eric Dier (5.1m).
DDG (5.3m)
A poorer choice than Lloris (5.6m), Shawshanks (4.8m) and Maguire (5.4m) but decent if you need a keeper with a good chance of a shut out and don't have space in defence.
The D:
Cancelo Culture (5.8m)
Pricey, extravagant, and hopefully not at the mercy of Pep’s Wheel after his 45 min rest this weekend. By far one of the best attacking options at the back and a part of the D most likely to get a shut out this GWK.
Johnny Stones (5.0m)
Cheap as chips and fresh off a goal against United midweek, inferior to CC but not a bad option whatsoever against a pretty dire Brighton attack who need to find another striker in the January window. Dias too pricey for my likely but the better option if you have a 800k in your back pocket.
Kieran “The Taste” Tierney (5.4m)
Alongside CC, the best of the defenders this week for potential attacking output. A decent fixture against CPL in London. Has a great deal of threat and arguably ousts a second MCI DEF with this.
*Shawshank Redemption (4.8m)
On corners for United with surprisingly good attacking underliers in the month gone by. Not a bad option. Potentially njured as of new update. Pick H-Mags over AWB, more thread, AWB more defensive.
Harry Maguire (5.4m) – Already memed too much to allow for a nickname.
Top of the threat charts for a reason but can’t seem to hit the target. Better than sure IMO for the added points and bonus that come with a DEF goal if you have spare cash. Not as good as Tierney or an extra MCI DEF.
DeAndre “Pace” Yedlin (4.3m)
The best budget pick at the back this week. Playing as a wingback against the worst side in the league though don’t expect the world; it’s a NEW defender I’m suggesting here – give me a break fellas. Watch out for Lewis injury news. If Lewis is back then go for Clark (4.5m) or Schar (4.9m) if you’re feeling spicey.
The Batman’s Holding The Bowler’s… (4.5m)
Rob Holding BTW. A safer if less exciting alternative to DeAndre. Likely won’t be on for any returns at the opposite end of the pitch.
That Mitchell and Money in the Bank Look (3.9m)
This man is for your shamefully low budget bench you penny pinching FPL scumbags out there. Have another better pick in reserve in front of him as it’s unlikely he’s getting anything this weekend but some points for just turning up but more importantly gives you the extra funds for a big man at the back.
*The Roman (5.1m)
Added to replace the Shawshank Redemption. The Roman should be a decent option but as I've mentioned in other areas, Wolves look sub par and Everton's attack will be revitalised. Coin flip but good attacking threat.
Eric "Big Balls" Dier (5.1m)
Shrewd pick. Under the radar and on some direct FKs in a very strong defensive side against Fulham.
Middle of the park:
*Sonaldo (9.8m)
Fulham at home for the top scorer in FPL this season. The only dilemna you should be having is which of the scintilating Spurs duo to captain.
Kevin (11.7m)
You didn’t read this far for me to give you a tip about the best midfielder in the world being a good pick did you? I will say no more. He is very good at football, he is playing against Brighton.
Bruno (11.3m)
Looks like he needs a 3 week spa break but will be chomping at the bit and fresher after the defeat to City in the League Cup and then rest in the FA Cup. Avoid at your peril.
Marcus “The Saviour” Rashford (9.6)
A great man but is he great this week in your teams? The answer: most likely. Burnley look poor, he looks sharp and again has had a little rest.
Tiki Saka (5.3m)
Potentially a little bit of a trap with the surprise ARS resurgence but cheap enough to avoid any embarrassment over the pick. Decent stats and value too if ARS keep it up. Pref a premium defender and switch in formation but he’s here as an enabler.
Ilkay “The Snapper” Gundogan (5.4m)
A shrewd pick. Topping Sterling’s and KDB’s recent big chances and in a purple patch. Will he play? Where will he play? Only Pep knows. Not a bad enabler and better than Saka if you’re opting for KDB and only one other MCI asset besides the German box-to-box man. Fine but don't be surprised at a large 2 staring you in the face when you excitedly click your points tab. Not guaranteed to star with all the MCI options returning.
Aubameblank (11.3m)
He’s on the list but at the bottom. Should you pick him? Probably not given the value and form of about 700 other players in the league but he’s here. Do you like a shot in the dark, a gamble, a longshot over a sure fire? He’s your man.
James “The Fringe” Rodriguez (7.7m)
Very interesting pick at the 7-8m range. As a watcher of many Prem games I can tell you Wolves have looked and played awfully. Will be ready to play and always passes the eye test.
The Poverty Ozil (4.4m)
A shoe in should you need a cheap enabler. Don't skimp to a 4.3m. Playing as a 10 at 4.4m for Arsenal, ESR is a strong pick but not as good as Tiki Saka.
Up Top:
*Yeah, Obviously (11.0)
Prime for captaincy on top of the pick. Overlooked by the hive mind due to his price and the trendy Lacasweat pick. If someone gave you a tenner and asked you at even odds whether he will score or not vs Fulham at home, what would you do?
Cilson (6.5m)
Outrageously, Cilson is high on the list. Penalties, value and fixture swing it. My tip would be to play him as a two or even solo and go for the heavenly five man premiums in your Mids.
Tony M (8.7m)
As a one weeker, maybe the best pick up top… arguably. That’s if he can shrug off that trademark Tony M mood and get back in the icey cold veins vibe, scoring streak. Not recommended by myself due to Edinson rotation.
Lacasweat (8.3m)
He’s in the zone but pricey and security of starts coupled with ARS’s dodgy early season form worry me. Definitely wouldn’t captain but an okay choice for his price range. Fantastic recent underlies though...
Benchman Brewster (4.5m)
Here’s your prime bench fodder for this week if you’re playing one or two up top (my recommendation for an optimal formation this week). Again like Mitch I would have someone else proceeding him though – a Holding/Gundo type ranged player. Go for (4.3m) Davis if you need the funds though.
GENERAL TIPS:
Should you FH? Yes, unless all of your precious FPL stars have aligned and you have a strong 9+ contingency of players. Captaincy wise I’d go the following, fixtures allowing:
TOT attacker
MCI attacker (i.e. KDB as Raheem the Dream is rumoured to be out)
MUN attacker
Cheers for reading if you made it this far. Come check me out on Twitch for my pre deadline streams the day before ( https://www.twitch.tv/spearmintspaff ), I'm on Twitter too ( https://twitter.com/SpearmintSpaff ). It's not your usual FPL content, trust. KO for our stream is usually:
9PM UK GMT / 2PM CAD MDT / 4PM USA EDT / 1 PM USA PST
I stream "FPL Live" every week the day before the deadline at a later time than other content creators for folks in stranger time zones such as myself in Canada. Thanks guys and good luck.
N.B. Had to cancel stream this week as after posting this originally I had emergency appendectomy surgery so updating this from the hosptial the morning after as we speak!
submitted by SpearmintSpaff to FantasyPL [link] [comments]

Spearmint's MINTY Gameweek 20 FAQs and Top Picks

What’s up guys. After last week’s MINTY Double Trouble Guide I’ll be going through this gameweek’s FAQs and my top gameweek 20 picks based on my studies of the stats and the eye test. Here goes…
​
WHAT TO DO WITH KDB?
It’s a hamstring. In FPL terms that means you get rid. If you don’t have him yet, Bruno should be prime in your thinking. A Sheff side with Ramsdale in goal and the whole team being held together by David McGoldrick glue is up next for the Portuguese wizard. Failing that you have three options in my eyes: another MCI mid, Son or Grealish. The MCI mids have the fixture, Grealish has the form whilst Son has the world class quality.
HOW WILL FRANK’S SACKING EFFECT CHELSEA FC?
That new manager bounce and vibe might take a week or two especially considering Frank didn’t even know his best lineup himself 18 months in. I would avoid for now. I actually don’t think Chilwell is a terrible pick for the next two. We’ve no idea how the RB spot, CB spots and front 6 will look after that. Give it a bit of time though for those who like a gamble, WOL and BUR at the Bridge ain’t bad at all.
STEVIE BRUCE’S TOON ARMY…?
The stats and eye test are both failing the Bruce x Newcastle scene. I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole right now nor if they got a new manager in, as the players also look impotent on the pitch. One more week against an out of form Bielsa United then get rid. Especially Wilson with other good options emerging up top.
MANCHESTER CITY
If Manchester City don’t go on a thumping run over their next three that involves three teams in WBA, SHU and BUR who will be wanting to just get their MCI fixtures out the way and on to an actual winnable game then I would be truly shocked. Load up now, worry about the fixture turn later. We are scoring points for GWKs 20-22 before we even get to 23 onwards. This leads us on well to my recommendations for this week going forward:
​
THE D:
Cancelo Culture (5.8m)
CC once again trolls all of us owners by 1 pting the first half of last GWK then proceeding to come on and assist in the FA Cup against Cheltenham. Amazing stats and basically playing at RCM/RM for MCI. Look at those fixtures bois.
Johnny Stones (5.1m) & Ruben Loftus Dias (5.8m)
Stalwarts at the back for Pep after their surprising emerging partnership. Both are shoe ins if you can get to them for free this week. I’m not going to talk about Stones getting two goals in one match after getting one in eight seasons before last week. Definitely not jammy returns.
Shawshank Redemption (4.8m)
I keep tipping Shawshank for good reason. This week he is an easy buy if you can’t stretch to the above two. 4.8m for an attacking defender, on corners for the team currently heralding top of the prem is nothing to scoff at.
Diamond Dallas Page (4.8m)
Regularly finding himself charging around Bielsa’s midfield like a guy I used to play Sunday League with, DDP is a top value pick this week playing against a Steve Bruce side looking like they belong in Sunday League themselves.
Aaron “Babyface” Cresswell (5.4m)
Another defender on set pieces against a side who are out of form and just not very good, let’s be honest.
Harry Maguire (5.4m) – Already memed too much to allow for a nickname.
98 headers a game but still can’t score. Soon young padawan. Keep and play for sure, above options are better buys.
Ben Chilwell (6.1m)
As usual with my recommendations I must point you guys in the direction of Wolverhampton Wanderers who are seemingly sliding under the radar as a team who you should be targeting for your FPL assets to verse. Chilwell is nailed on and the new manager bounce should help against a mundane Wolves team.
​
Middle of the park:
Bruno (11.3m)
Freshly rested in his free kick winning FA Cup tie against Liverpool and top of the charts. Why wouldn’t you have him against Sheffield United? Are you crazy?
Mr Penalties Worldwide (11.5m)
FPL managers will overlook Sterling but this week is the week to gamble of any. Son has Liverpool, Salah is moody and KDB is kaput. Very intriguing even if the underliers don’t back him.
Mo (12.5m)
Probably been taking tips from Tony Martial as to how to go through periods of grumpy form to scoring form. Two goals against United in the cup but out of sorts in the league. It’s Salah and he’s still a premium pick for a reason.
Son (9.7m)
The superstar Korean makes it back into the cut against an out of sorts Liverpool side. Stats are on his side, the fixture is not at Anfield. Would have him on a wildcard but personally prefer a bit of MCI this week if you already have Bruno.
Silkay Gundowagon (5.5m)
My personal favourite this week, on pens and more advanced with KDB out against a WBA side that Big Sam seems to have written off himself. Tasty at 5.5m.
Big Phil Fodes (6.3m)
The creative alternative to SIlkay who personally annoys me too much when he puffs his cheeks out for every pass, dribble, tackle he makes. It’s just a pet peeve of mine, sorry Phil mate. Seemed to have gone a little off track there but basically do you want minutes and more goal threat – go Silkay, do you want creativity but more rotation and possibility a slightly higher ceiling due to his positioning – go Big Phil.
The Lad Himself (7.7m)
Back with a bang, Jackie Greals is always a good shout with high flying stats and El Ghazi being benched thus less hindering on Greals’ output. Versing a shoddy Burnley side.
​
Up Top:
Patty B (6.7m)
It’s Patty B against Newcastle. You could look at Cilson (6.6m) with the leaky Leeds defence too.
Michail “Glass Hams” Antonio (6.3m)
Tipped last week for a reason by myself. I was shocked to see so many FPL manager still with an injured DCL over a DGWK Antonio in their side. Should really have him in your team whilst his hamstrings and fixtures play to our hand.
Ollie Statkins (6.1m)
A good investment due to imminent DGWKs and spearheading a buoyant Villa side. Sleeper pick for those who don’t own him. Frustration for those who do.
Yeah, Obviously (11.2m)
England and Spur’s star man of course makes it in. Son actually has better recent stats and holds better value currently but it’s Harry Kane. 90 minutes. Penalties. KDB playstyle for assists. Guaranteed goals over sustained ownership. I’m waiting but he’s not bad at all.
​
GENERAL TIPS AND CLOSING COMMENTS:
It’s hard to look past Bruno for captaincy. I think the bigger question is who to get in from MCI and then focus on TOT assets next week. Personally, I have gone KDB to Gundo and captained Bruno. This is with a view to upgrade Soucek to Son next week.
If you like my content, come check me out on Twitch for my weekly pre deadline streams ( https://www.twitch.tv/spearmintspaff ), I also do daily gaming streams (Dark Souls and Smite rn). I am on Twitter too ( https://twitter.com/SpearmintSpaff ). It's not your usual FPL content, occurring at a regular, later time than other content creators for folks in stranger time zones.
Thanks guys and good luck from a Yorkshireman in Canada.
Current rank: #202,678. Best all time: #18. Best of the rest – Mirror: #2, Sky: #25, UFPLM: #1.
submitted by SpearmintSpaff to FantasyPL [link] [comments]

Is it time to say goodbye? LDR exhaustion and frustration, feeling like I missed some red flags.

My boyfriend and I have been together 4.5 years now, we lived together for the last 2 and a half years of our university degrees. We've very young, (23F) and (24M) respectively. We were graduating at the same time and had agreed on a "semi" gap year following our graduation, the plan was to travel for 6 months before settling down somewhere on the East Coast (depending on who found a job where). My BF knew I was planning on studying for some graduate school exams and work on applications during this time. We had decided on staying around Montreal, Toronto, Boston, the Tri-State area (since this is the best place to be in our respective careers). He's a software engineer and I'm a mechanical engineer specialized in bioengineering (prosthetics etc). I want to go to grad school, and my boyfriend was fully aware of these plans.
When the pandemic became aggrevated, we decided to leave our small apartment in Montreal and quarantine with his parents, who live in rural western canada, on the other side of the country. We only had about 24-48 hours to decide, and it was incredibly rushed. We left out apartment as is and only brought small carry-ons. My parents had invited us to stay with them (they live in an apartment Boston, but we felt safer quarantining somewhere more rural). We'd deliberated, then BF' parents facetimes us and kind of convinced me I should come and etc. I wasn't really all that set/comfortable, but my BF told me it would be great for us and we'd be comfortable/ have plenty of space. At the time we thought it was important to stay togethephysically present, it was such a stressful time. I was quite anxious to leave our home, and be across the country from my family, but I trusted my BF and figured we'd be ok as long as we stayed together. I figured we'd look out for each other and such especially given how difficult these times were. I suffer from asthma and chronic bronchitis so I was incredibly concerned during the pandemic.
We're in the midst of finishing our exams and degrees from his parent's place (online school was definitely unpleasant) and haven't even really begun to figure out our next steps. With the pandemic and all I guess our (my?) prioritizes changed and I was really just focused on family / my boyfriend and health and the basics. That my mental bandwith (on top of finals). During my finals week (my BF had finished about a few days earlier) my BF's mother (who is sometimes condescending and cold towards me/even jealous that her son gives me attentions etc, even though she's known me for YEARS) tells my BF about a job opportunity in town at this tiny tiny startup and encourages him to look into it. What are the odds right? I encourage my BF to do so too, I mean, all eyes were on me, what was I supposed to do ? Say "hold on! wow!"? It was very stressful to suddenly be having conversation with my boyfriend about his/our future with his parents literally sitting in on the conversations and giving their opinions. I kept wondering "I'm now an outsider?" My BF would get off a call with his potential employer and sit down with his parents to talk about it while I was literally in the kitchen making dinner, he didn't even think to wait / include me in one of those conversations. I'm basically competing with his parents for his attention at some point - and they keep empathizing that they'd help us get setup, help us find a place to live/ a car etc.
Meawhile I'm looking at my boyfriend like ***I do not want to live here PLEASE let's go spend a bit of time with my family it's been months since I've seen them, some family members aren't doing well (non-COVID related), they need me, please come with*** yeah, to no avail ofc.
I support him through this process, and try to ask him about what we'd do. I tried to get the "hey, slow down, what does this mean for us, what about our plans?" Would we push our travel plans back? Was the East Coast a dead dream? I hated long distance (I am too emotional for hard goodbyes and am terrified of flying), what would we do? I was freaking out because all this came somewhat out of nowhere and we were trying to communicate the best we could, but it was so overwhelming. At this point, I didn't know what I would be doing. He kept giving me the vague "hey everything we'll work out we'll be fine, I love you, I'm so excited to build a life with you etc."
I tried looking into work for myself, because obviously we wouldn't be able to travel due to COVID. I would try talking to him about my plans, about my exams, my job search, and tried telling him about opportunities in the East Coast I was looking into, but he usually didn't listen and brushed it aside because his "thing" was more pressing. Each time I talked to him about me, he always made it clear this job offer was more "pressing" and thus deserved OUR undivided attention. I felt so unimportant and stiffled. Oh, and my BF knew I strongly disliked rural living and needed a certain level of civilization/urbanism to be happy/ok.
He went through the entire interview/selection process in 2.5 weeks (there were only 2 candidates for the job) and was given 10 days to decide on the job. Anyhow, during these 3 weeks of him deliberating on this job, I had taken the initiative of looking for work for myself and found my DREAM job at a research institute back in Montreal (which honestly felt like a lifesaver because I was feeling so isolated and anxious during those few weeks/months). It would take a few weeks to hear back, but I was thrilled (the interview process was going great), and my BF had plenty of contacts in Montreal - he'd done his co-op there at a great company he loved, had literally dozens of contacts in his fields - and I figured he'd find work there too. He has about 10 times greater job mobility than I do because I'm in a more specialized field, and there's generally greater demand for software engineers. Anyways, since he had an actual job offer on the table (and mine would realistically come in a few weeks, although I was 95% positive the job was mine) we had to figure this out.
He asked me what I thought, and when I told him my honest apprehensions - that I was happy for him, wanted to support him, wanted him to be happy, but that he should KNOW this wasn't a city I would be happy staying in (even short term), that I didn't want to be far from my family/friends, etc and that I would have zero to none professional opportunities there myself, he just... threw a total tantrum? I was calm and rational and just clearly laid out my feelings and objections, which he obviously understood, and I think when he understood them he got upset.
I thought maybe he'd reflect and collect himself then tell me how he felt, what decision he wanted to make etc. Maybe give me a rational argument for why this job is a good idea right now, explain that he doesn't want to take the risk of being unemployed? Idk, something rational...? Instead he goes on this HUGE explosive spiel about how he'll "have no career ever without this 1 job" and be stuck working a menial job and made me feel soo guilty about the whole thing. He kept saying I meant the world to him and wanted me to stay there with him! He said we could get a place and he could support us if I didn't find that work, that rural/country living "didn't need to be all that bad" and that "it would only be temporary, short term etc." He never gave me a clear idea of what this "short term meant," sometimes it was "oh a few months, oh i mean no more than 1 year or 2 depending on how we like it here how the LDR goes." Then when I probed he'd say "well I'm not going to take a job and quit in 3-4 months, it makes sense to stay at least 6 months." So, I was confused, I was rattled, I was destabilized. I told him that I loved him, that if he wanted this job more than anything (and neither of us wanted to do long distance) that I would stay with him, but I needed to form of formal commitment from him, I needed to have a clear idea of where this relationship was going. If I'm going to take a gamble and move somewhere new/foreign/scary... I feel like I need to really know whats happening, I need to be informed, does he have the intention of proposing soon?
We've always talked about marriage and he's told me he wanted to marry me. I said "well I'd feel more comfortable considering this move if I had an idea of what timelines was, have you thought about getting engaged/married?" He told me that yes he'd thought about it, but felt I was "springing it on him out of the blue" and that it was "all too overwhelming." I wanted to tell him him imposing an LDR that I didn't want and changing our plans because something came up which individually worked in his favor and left me totally stranded was also "overwhelming." I said "listen can we talk about a timeline, would you see yourself proposing in the next year or so if we moved here?" He told me that "he didn't want to make any promises because you never know what happens in life and doesn't want to dissapoint me if it doesn't happene etc etc." Basically I got the impression that he didn't want to talk/think about it right now, he just doesn't seem ready for that step.
He reassures me that he does want to marry me, he just doesn't want to get engaged during a "turbulent time" and then blamed covid for "taking away whatever nice celebration we'd get when we got engaged " (which was a total BS response, lol). He wanted us to get to a stable enough place to actually get engaged - which that is fair. Anyways, we moved on from that conversation and closed the book, we went back to talking about his job. From his reaction to my hesitations, I could tell he'd secretly resent me for not taking this job.. so I told him to just take it.
Anyways, he accepted the job, and I had to pack up my few clothes and university books I'd brought from Montreal, leave his parents house (he decided to stay with them instead of getting his own place) and fly back to Montreal alone, where I had to pack up our mutual appartment, then go back to be with and take care of my parents. There aren't any direct flights and it was a full day of travel, I was so scared COVID wise to be doing it all alone. A part of me felt so betrayed? I had left my life in Montreal on a whim, left in such a hurry, and gotten on a plane to come live with his family... and now I had to leave all alone. I'd trusted him, I'd left everything behind. I went and took care of my parents (who were both sick and struggling during the pandemic). In the meantime I'm juggling my interviews and (thankfully) get the job. I lose 2 cousins and an aunt to COVID, and my family dog (who was like a sister to me) all passed away within a month, and I am absolutely distraught/overworked/losing my mind. I'm pleading my BF to come see me to help me grieve/during the funerals, but he can't come see due to his job (its in person and he can't quarantine). I spend the rest of the summer looking for odd jobs to help support my parents who were both on medical leave before starting my own full-time job in September.
At this point, I beginning to resent my BF, he wasn't there when I was grieving and had my own health on the line. We went an entire 4.5 months before seeing each other, and I was the one to fly all the way to him to come see him (I was so depressed due to the passing of my family members and the stress of taking care of family). We saw each other for a week before I flew back. Oh, and, when I told him he should look for his own place so that when I visit I'm more comfortable and don't have to be with his entire family he told me that "getting a lease would be a big commitment and like this he gets to save money plus why would he be alone, but if I agreed to come live with him there then ofc he'd get a place."
I don't know if my feelings are out of place, but getting on that plane alone, when I had boarded it with him (and his younger brother who was also in Montreal at the time) was so heartbreaking. He and I have been communicating a lot on the state of our relationship but not making progress (I'm not just venting about it to the internet, just feeling exhausted)
tl;dr I'm upset at my boyfriend for not caring that our previous plans were totally thrown in the air, and for making me feel unimportant. I'm unhappy his parents were so involved in our plans. LDR is also, so, so hard. Are these feelings unfounded? Should I reconsider the relationship?
submitted by Confused_Penguin98 to dating [link] [comments]

combating plagiarism through NCT lyrics: episode 1 | "The Fluidity of the Stock Market" - Regular

Note: you can also view this paper through Google Docs or email me at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for the Word document. Feel free to use this however you'd like, including reposting on other social media as long as you leave a comment with a link to the post. I am not liable for the consequences of your actions :)
​
------------------------
​
Running head: FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 1
​
The Fluidity of the Stock Market
Klaunn N. Setacense
Department of Witticism, NeoCulture Technological Institute
BS105: The Literary Art of Constructing Arguments of Absurdity
Dr. Tyler Lee
April 1, 2020
​
​
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 2
Table of Contents
Abstract................................................................................................................................3
The Fluidity of the Stock Market ........................................................................................4
Stock Exchange ...................................................................................................................4
Market Participant ...........................................................................................................5
History. ........................................................................................................................7
References .........................................................................................................................12
​
​
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 3
Abstract
Stock exchange has a network of computers where trades are made electronically. Their buy or sell orders may be executed on their behalf by a stock exchange trader. The Paris Bourse, now part of Euronext, is an order-driven, electronic stock exchange. Many large companies have their stocks listed on a stock exchange. The process is similar to the New York Stock Exchange. A stock exchange is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell shares, bonds, and other securities. Investment in the stock market is most often done via stockbrokerages and electronic trading platforms. Stockbrokers met on the trading floor of the Palais Brongniart. This method is used in some stock exchanges and commodities exchanges, and involves traders shouting bid and offer prices.
Keywords: stock, exchange, market, trading, price, securities, investors, traded, trade
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 4
The Fluidity of the Stock Market
A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks, which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange, as well as stock that is only traded privately, such as shares of private companies which are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. For example, Nestlé and Novartis are domiciled in Switzerland and traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange, so they may be considered as part of the Swiss stock market, although the stocks may also be traded on exchanges in other countries, for example, as American depositary receipts on “Diamonds on my neck. The source of light revolves around me (Let's go!) You gon’ hold up, hold up, hold up for a real one” (Dejun Xiao & Sicheng Dong, 2019). The total market capitalization of equity backed securities worldwide rose from US$2.5 trillion in 1980 to US$68.65 trillion at the end of 2018. As of December 31, 2019, the total market capitalization of all stocks worldwide was approximately US$70.75 trillion.
Stock Exchange
Many large companies have their stocks listed on a stock exchange. This makes the stock more liquid and thus more attractive to many investors. The exchange may also act as a guarantor of settlement. These and other stocks may also be traded "Yeah, pull up in the Jag. Haters gon' be mad” (Taeyong Lee, 2018). Some large companies will have their stock listed on more than one exchange in different countries, so as to attract international investors. Stock exchanges may also cover other types of securities, such as fixed-interest securities or derivatives, which are more likely to be traded OTC. The New York Stock Exchange is a physical exchange, with a hybrid market for placing orders electronically from any location as well as on the trading floor. Orders executed on the trading floor enter by way of exchange
​
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 5
members and flow down to a floor broker, who submits the order electronically to the floor trading post for the Designated market maker for that stock to trade the order.
The DMM's job is to maintain a two-sided market, making orders to buy and sell the security when there are no other buyers or sellers. If a bid–ask spread exists, no trade immediately takes place – in this case the DMM may use their own resources to close the difference. Once a trade has been made, the details are reported on the "Diamonds drippin' better bring your raincoat (Splash)" and sent back to the brokerage firm, which then notifies the investor who placed the order (Jung-woo Kim, 2018). Computers play an important role, especially for program trading. The NASDAQ is an electronic exchange, where all of the trading is done over a computer network.
The process is similar to the New York Stock Exchange. One or more NASDAQ market makers will always provide a bid and ask the price at which they will always purchase or sell 'their' stock. The Paris Bourse, now part of Euronext, is an order-driven, electronic stock exchange. It was automated in the late 1980s. Prior to the 1980s, it consisted of an open outcry exchange. Stockbrokers met on the trading floor of the Palais Brongniart. In 1986, the CATS trading system was introduced, and the order matching system was fully automated. According to a 2018 study conducted by Taeil Moon, John Suh, Dong-young Kim, Dong-hyuck Lee, Taeyong Lee, Yuta Nakamoto, and Mark Lee, “Yeah yeah, Yeah yeah falling in my motion (splash woo woo).” People trading stock will prefer to trade on the most popular exchange since this gives the largest number of potential counter parties and probably the best price.
Market Participant
Market participants include individual retail investors, institutional investors, and also publicly traded corporations trading in their own shares. Robo-advisors, which automate
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 6
investment for individuals are also major participants. Demographics of market participation Indirect vs. Direct Investment Indirect investment involves owning shares indirectly, such as via a mutual fund or an exchange traded fund. Direct investment involves direct ownership of shares. Direct ownership of stock by individuals rose slightly from 17.8% in 1992 to 17.9% in 2007, with the median value of these holdings rising from $14,778 to $17,000. “I'm so clean so fresh. Jomyeong bichwo teotteulyeo flash. Diamonds on my neck. Boda naega bichnage. You gon’ hold up hold up hold up. For a real one (real one)” (Dong-hyuck Lee, Sicheng Dong). Indirect participation in the form of retirement accounts rose from 39.3% in 1992 to 52.6% in 2007, with the median value of these accounts more than doubling from $22,000 to $45,000 in that time.
Rates of participation and the value of holdings differ significantly across strata of income. In the bottom quintile of income, 5.5% of households directly own stock and 10.7% hold stocks indirectly in the form of retirement accounts. “VVS my diamonds, I don't need no light to shine. Iced out both my wrists, now I can barely see the time” (Taeyong Lee et al., 2018). Since the Great Recession of 2008 households in the bottom half of the income distribution have lessened their participation rate both directly and indirectly from 53.2% in 2007 to 48.8% in 2013, while over the same period households in the top decile of the income distribution slightly increased participation 91.7% to 92.1%.
Participation rates have been shown to strongly correlate with education levels, promoting the hypothesis that information and transaction costs of market participation are better absorbed by more educated households. Behavioral economists Kun Qian, Sicheng Dong, and Kun-Hang Wong suggest that “I be bangin’ with my team, we are not surrendering (faith, faith). We lead the direction that light flows, in the street oh (splash).” Their research indicates that social individuals living in states with higher than average participation rates are 5% more likely
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 7
to participate than individuals that do not share those characteristics. This phenomenon also explained in cost terms. Knowledge of market functioning diffuses through communities and consequently lowers transaction costs associated with investing.
History. In 12th-century France, the courtiers de change were concerned with managing and regulating the debts of agricultural communities on behalf of the banks. Because these men also traded with debts, they could be called the first brokers. According to these men, “Setting out to the end of the clouds. Being looked up at makes me a star (Oh yeah, yeah, yeah). So fly, so hot, focusing on point, we touch the sky, we're born to be great. Envy me however you want, I did it all by myself (uh)” (Yangyang Liu et al., 2019). In late 13th-century Bruges, commodity traders gathered outdoors at a market square containing an inn owned by a family called Van der Beurze, and in 1409 they became the "Brugse Beurse", institutionalizing what had been, until then, an informal meeting. The idea quickly spread around Flanders and neighboring countries and "Beurzen" soon opened in Ghent and Rotterdam.
In the middle of the 13th century, Venetian bankers began to trade in government securities. In 1351 the Venetian government outlawed spreading rumors intended to lower the price of government funds. Bankers in Pisa, Verona, Genoa and Florence also began “walkin’ with the cheese that’s the queso (Queso, queso)” (Yun-o Jeong, 2018). This was only possible because these were independent city-states not ruled by a duke but a council of influential citizens. Italian companies were also the first to issue shares. Companies in England and the Low Countries followed in the 16th century. Around this time, a joint stock company—one whose stock is owned jointly by the shareholders—emerged and became important for colonization of what Europeans called the "New World".
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 8
Birth of formal stock markets In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch pioneered several financial innovations that helped lay the foundations of the modern financial system. While the Italian city-states produced the first transferable government bonds, they did not develop the other ingredient necessary to produce a fully-fledged capital market: the stock market. In the early 1600s the Dutch East India Company became the first company in history to issue bonds and shares of stock to the general public. As a historian notes, " Hoppin' out casket-fresh. Looking like a fashion show, ayy. Diamonds on my neck. Looking like a water show, ayy. Let's go. She gon' bust it, bust it, bust it. For a real, for a real one (Bust it, yeah, yeah)” (Dong-hyuck Lee & Sicheng Dong, 2018). The Dutch East India Company was also the first joint-stock company to get a fixed capital stock and as a result, continuous trade in company stock occurred on the Amsterdam Exchange.
Soon thereafter, a lively trade in various derivatives, among which options and repos, emerged on the Amsterdam market. Dutch traders also pioneered short selling – a practice which was banned by the Dutch authorities as early as 1610. Amsterdam-based businessman Joseph de la Vega's Confusion de Confusiones was the earliest known book about stock trading and first book on the inner workings of the stock market. “Multicolored diamonds like the rainbow (Yeah, yeah, yeah). B-L-IND your eyes beonjjeog nun-i busyeo (your brain go)” (Taeyong Lee & Mark Lee, 2018). There are now stock markets in virtually every developed and most developing economies, with the world's largest markets being in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, India, China, Canada, Germany, France, South Korea and the Netherlands.
Function and Purpose. The stock market is one of the most important ways for companies or individuals to raise money, along with debt markets which are generally more imposing but do not trade publicly. This allows businesses to be publicly traded and raise
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 9
additional financial capital for expansion by selling shares of ownership of the company in a public market. The liquidity that an exchange affords the investors enables their holders to quickly and easily sell securities. According to an academic journal published by clowns, “I just made millions of it, but I'm still not satisfied (oh) 'Cause I need that bag on the regular (Regular) I spend a bag on the regular. We make the world go (Brra). My bank account go. We make the world go (Skrrt, brra). Dinero, peso, yen, yo quiero, I want it (Woo, woo)” (Taeyong Lee et al., 2018). This is an attractive feature of investing in stocks, compared to other less liquid investments such as property and other immoveable assets. History has shown that the price of stocks and other assets is an important part of the dynamics of economic activity and can influence or be an indicator of social mood.
The efficient-market hypothesis is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information at the current time. The 'hard' efficient-market hypothesis does not explain the cause of events such as the crash in 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 22.6 percent—the largest-ever one-day fall in the United States. This event demonstrated that share prices can fall dramatically even though no generally agreed upon definite cause has been found. A thorough search failed to detect any 'reasonable' development that might have accounted for the crash. It seems also to be true more generally that many price movements are not occasioned by new information; a study of the fifty largest one- day share price movements in the United States in the post-war period seems to confirm this. Other research has shown that “And now we in a ‘zone.’ Working hard, touching stones to become gold” (Dejun Xiao & Kun Qian, 2019). Psychological research has demonstrated that people are predisposed to 'seeing' patterns, and often will perceive a pattern in what is, in fact, just noise, e.g. seeing familiar shapes in clouds or ink blots. In the present context, this means
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 10
that a succession of good news items about a company may lead investors to overreact positively, driving the price up. A period of good returns also boosts the investors' self- confidence, reducing their risk threshold.
Another phenomenon—also from psychology—that works against an objective assessment is group thinking. As social animals, it is not easy to stick to an opinion that differs markedly from that of a majority of the group. An example with which one may be familiar is the reluctance to enter a restaurant that is empty; people generally prefer to have their opinion validated by those of others in the group. In one paper the authors draw an analogy with gambling. In normal times the market behaves like a game of roulette; the probabilities are known and largely independent of the investment decisions of the different players. In times of market stress, however, the game becomes more like poker. “Crib came with a gate and a code (Yeah, yeah, yeah). Yeah, yeah, drippin', water faucet (Splash)” (Jungwoo Kim et al., 2018). The players now must give heavy weight to the psychology of other investors and how they are likely to react psychologically. In the period running up to the 1987 crash, less than 1 percent of the analysts' recommendations had been to sell. In the run-up to 2000, the media amplified the general euphoria, with reports of rapidly rising share prices and the notion that large sums of money could be quickly earned in the so-called new economy stock market.
Macroeconomic trends include such as changes in GDP, unemployment rates, national income, price indices, output, consumption, unemployment, inflation, saving, investment, energy, international trade, immigration, productivity, aging populations, innovations, international finance. increasing corporate profit, increasing profit margins, higher concentration of business, lower company income, less vigorous activity, less progress, lower investment rates, lower productivity growth, less employee share of corporate revenues, decreasing Worker to
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET 11
Beneficiary ratio, increasing female to male ratio college graduates. Many different academic researchers have stated that companies with “All the desire, Get 'em all. Break down the excessive excitement, buzz. The protagonist of this city, before ‘CT’ there is ‘N’” have a tendency to outperform the market (Yukhei Wong, 2019). Research has shown that mid-sized companies outperform large cap companies, and smaller companies have higher returns historically.
FLUIDITY OF THE STOCK MARKET
​
12
References
Lee, T., Moon , T., Suh, J., Nakamoto, Y., Kim , D. Y., Jeong, Y.-o, ... Dong , S. (2018). NCT
#127 Regular-Irregular [Romanized]. Regular, 1(27), 1–1. https://bit.ly/36u9SesLee, T., Moon , T., Suh, J., Nakamoto, Y., Kim , D. Y., Jeong, Y.-o, ... Dong , S. (2018). NCT
#127 Regular-Irregular. Regular English Version, 1(27), 1–1. https://bit.ly/39B6FvF
Qian, K., Dong, S., Wong, Y., Leechaiyapornkul, C., Wong, K.-H., Liu, Y., & Xiao, D. (2019). WayV - 无翼而飞 (Take Off) (English Translation). WayV - 理所当然 (Regular), 1(1), 1– 1. https://bit.ly/3tcVb9z
submitted by faiththebyelingual to memeculturetechnology [link] [comments]

Formula G - Canadian GP (Round Up)

Formula G - Canadian GP (Round Up)
And with that, the first portion of the season comes to a close...
Yes thats right racers, the Canadian GP Race weekend has officially finished, and with it the first leg of the season as well. The next week sees us all have a rest back home before reconvening at Interlagos, Sao Paolo, in a weeks time. In the week off, I will be publishing a survey of some description to gauge drivers opinion on the season so far and any changes drivers would like to see made. Whilst there is no requirement to complete the survey, and it won't impact participation in the season going forward, I am interested in hearing what you all have to say :)
But that's all in the days to come, right now its time to have a look back on what we have just experienced in Montreal and Quebec, discussing why I chose the locations I did, and a brief discussion of who performed well. Of course, Zotomo and Calamity will be having a more in depth and detailed discussion about the rounds and locations over on the GeoGuessr eSports channel, which is definitely worth checking out!
Feature Race
For the first, and also the last, time this season, we departed from the usual routine of having our Feature Race take place on a country-wide map, instead plumping for a hotly contested, but equally challenging race across the province of Quebec, using Mappers Quebec map. Why the deviation I hear you ask? To be quite honest, it just *felt* right using the subdivision map in this case, instead of the country-wide map, and I think the scores reflect the competitiveness of using the map, however this could obviously be down to the locations as well. Now that we have raced across both a large country map (Australian GP) and a large country subdivision map (Canadian GP), I will be looking out for peoples opinions on what they preferred either in the comments below, or in the coming survey! With that in mind, lets have a look at the locations:
  • Round 1 gave us a fairly favourable starting location, with a large body of water to the north, a large bridge to the west and what appeared to be a processing plant directly behind us, as well as a well-built footpath right by the starting location which may have helped pinpointing. Not too far west of the spawn point was a sign identifying the nearby canal as Canal de Beauharnois. This knowledge, along with the sign on the other side of the bridge for the Tunnel de Melochoville gave me enough to believe the location was findable.
  • Round 2 placed us on the Island of Montreal, which we visit in greater detail later on. This time, we were at the cross section of Rue de Salaberry and Boulevard O'Brien. To find this location, I used the sign to the nearby Highway 15. Travelling towards this highway showed us signs for Laval and Saint-Jerome. Using this knowledge I scanned the area around Laval and Highway 15 until I found an intersecting street with the name Rue de Salaberry.
  • Round 3 was perhaps the hardest round to pinpoint, with the only features being an adjacent building edge and a junction a couple hundred metres away, however the name seen on the building didn't match up with the POI on the map until a very close zoom level. Travelling SE in this round didn't yield too much usable information other than a Road Number, with a westward direction of travel towards the nearby town of Clermont a better option for finding the location along the road.
  • The 4th round appears to be the hardest round for many drivers, due to the lack of nearby information on the town, or even general area. Personally, I was able to find a street sign a few streets away which mentioned Quebec City, which made me think we must be in that general area. I was also able to use a lorry round the corner to the north, which mentioned Wendake. Whilst it was a gamble to assume the town we found ourselves in was Wendake, and this wasn't a different town the lorry had travelled from, ultimately it was the correct decision.
  • Finally we found ourselves in the Eastern region of Quebec, by the town of York Centre, nearby Gaspe on a fairly large and recognisable junction. The hardest bit here was likely realising the area of Quebec we were in, and then finding the signposted towns, which were hard to spot at a far out zoom level. Despite this, the shape of the roads and the land were useful.
Naturally, this is only my way of finding the locations, I'm sure there are many more which may be covered over on the eSports Race Review video.
In distinct comparison to last week, only 2 drivers achieved the perfect race this time around, with a third agonisingly dropping 1 point in the final round. This resulted in our podium finishers being:
A huge congratulations to MrBlue and ShumiOboloso on their first podium finishes, and BarryFishyBear on his first win! Also special commendations to u/SerLemonz on a points scoring finish in his first feature race as a Nordhagen GP driver.
Sprint Race
Before we go any further, I am aware of a number of racers being displeased with the locations chosen for this weeks sprint race. In retrospect, perhaps I could have chosen bettemore urban locations and fewer locations which felt like a cop-out. Following last weeks Sprint Race where a number of the locations were easily identifiable, I wanted to make this weeks race a bit harder, with some more unexpected locations, however this could have still been done in a more enjoyable fashion. It is worth remembering however that the parameters and boundaries of each weeks sprint race will be explicitly mentioned in the pre-race briefing each week. I would also like to take the opportunity once more to apologise to the drivers of Oberhausen Sport, who inadvertently took a 10 second "grid penalty" through no fault of their own. This was entirely human error on my behalf and I can only hope the drivers weren't too disadvantaged by this.
Now time for a brief discussion of how I expected the locations to be found, and any clues nearby which I felt could be used:
  • NW Roundabout Round: Clearly a roundabout in a semi-urban location which should signify to drivers that we are not too close to the centre, along with the lack of skyscrapers visible. Travelling north from the roundabout we found a bridge which contained a sign saying we were leaving or arriving onto Island of Montreal. In other directions, street signs for highways 40 and 138 were also helpful in determining the general area on the Island of Montreal. The roundabout also had a fairly distinctive shape with a long sliproad which could have helped identify it
  • Ile-Bizard Round: Racers who read the map boundaries, or had practiced Montreal should have recognised the word Bizard on the street sign at the spawn location, Boulevard Jacque-Bizard. This street sign, along with the large distinctive junction on the island should have been enough for racers to find the location.
  • Olympic Park Round: This time we found ourselves on the previously mentioned Highway 138, but much nearer the city centre. For those who knew the location of the Montreal Olympic Park, this round would have been relatively simple, however even for those unaware of the olympic park location, using the road direction and amount of greenery nearby should've been helpful in working out the location on a major road through a park.
  • Pont de la Concorde: Starting position directly to the east of downtown separated by a stretch of water, on a road with a slight incline. Not too far north, the road had a very distinct bend, and the stretches of land sticking out on the other side of the harbour should have allowed this round to be quite pinpointable.
  • Ile Notre-Dame Bridge: In true Formula G fashion, no sprint race would be complete without a nod towards the FIA Formula 1 race (discussed in the race brief). This round found us on the bridge onto Notre Dame island, where the F1 race is held. If drivers took the nearby sliproad off the bridge they would find themselves on turn 8 of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, however even without moving, using the bridge itself could have helped find the location.
This week didn't see any of the drivers from the front of the Grid gaining a podium position, with the podium finishers being as follows:
Congratulations to all these drivers!
Of course, any comments people wish to raise about the choice of locations, please do so either in the comments below or in the upcoming survey.
Constructors Round Up
This week saw Casa Rivazza move up into P2 in the constructors championship, overtaking Skanstrom, who fall back into P3, whilst Oberhausen continue their reign at the top of the leaderboard, becoming the first team to surpass a century of points in the process. We also see the battle for P4 through P8 continue to intensify, with a number of teams involved in this battle! The constructors championship battle can be seen visually in the graph below, compiled by Season Leader u/Closed247:
​
Constructors Championship Race
Formula G2
This weeks formula G2 race saw only 3 competitors, perhaps as a result of two FG2 drivers moving up into Formula G - however if you are reading this and aren't yet competing, feel free to get involved in Formula G2 to increase participation and try win yourself a Formula G seat.
Below I will briefly discuss each of the locations, however due to FG2 being a no-moving series, much of it is based on driver intuition and skill, rather than discovery.
  • R1: A suburb of Saguenay, which was identifiable by the city name on the bin. The grid like street layout may have helped narrow down to a certain area of the city, however this more than likely would've been luck as to whether the correct suburb was chosen.
  • R2: A large junction north of Quebec City, near to Wendake, with some identifiable POI's on the other side of the junction. With enough patience, this junction would have been findable.
  • R3: Typical suburban Canada round, which felt quite far south within Canada. For me it was a gamble of anywhere south of the St Lawrence River, however other clues may have passed me by.
  • R4: Quite a rural feeling area on Rte 259 in a region just south of the River. There was a sign nearby to a local shop, however the bluriness of the imagery meant this wasn't too useful
  • R5: By far the hardest of this weeks locations, being in a very rural area near Val-D'or in the West of the province, and more northerly than anything else seen this week. Perhaps the flora may have signified quite a northern location however very little other information was available here.
That does it for this weeks round up, I look forward to hearing any comments you all may have. As mentioned, in the next few days a Survey will be going up to gauge opinion which I would be grateful if you completed, and we will all meet again next week for the Brazilian GP!
Rules and Calendar
Results, Rankings, and Graphs
submitted by bensavage20 to geoguessr [link] [comments]

top gambling cities in canada video

Top 10 most secluded towns in the United States. Thumbnail ... Top 10 Richest People In Canada 2013 Top 10 Gambling Cities - YouTube Vietnamese $13 million USD gambling ring bust Top 15 Richest People In The World (1997-2019) - YouTube Top 10 Horrifying Cities You REALLY Don't Want to Live In ... Dragons' morals tested in gambling business pitch ... Top 10 most Violent Small towns in America. - YouTube Top 20 Projects Completing in 2020 - YouTube 50 Best Viral Videos Of The Year, So Far (2019) - YouTube

Canada is a country in North America with legal gambling. Canada is divided into provinces and then cities. There are 11 states with gambling facilities in Canada which have 216 legal gambling facilities available in total. The types of gambling available in Canada are: casinos, horseracing tracks, sportsbetting parlours. With the exception of large Canadian cities, with their heavy populations, many Canadians are spread across vast expanses of often lowly populated areas, making it inconvenient - or nearly impossible - to find live gambling locations, like casinos and card rooms. The introduction of Internet gambling in Canada has made it easier for them to play, not only at any time they choose, but using The city of Angels may not be the name that springs to mind when thinking about gambling cities; especially given its relative proximity to Nevada, home of Reno and Las Vegas. Don’t be fooled though, Los Angeles has lots to offer any prospective gambling tourists who may be contemplating a trip out to the West Coast. The Commerce Casino and Bicycle Casino are two of the most well known establishments in the city, but there are other smaller ones that are worth a visit. Los Angeles also has Cities such as Toronto and Montreal are large and modern but Canada has vast expanses of uninhabited territory. In fact, it’s the second-largest country on the planet in terms of total area. While isolated cities such as Yellowknife and Whitehorse may not be meccas for gaming, there are enough urban and developed areas to allow for online gambling River Rock Casino Resort – British Columbia Located on the shores of the Fraser River, the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond is the largest gaming venue in Western Canada. The casino alone is... This list of the top 10 gambling cities in the world in 2020 is what we consider the best of the best and the cities any gambler must visit in 2020. Some already have a reputation, some are up and After reviewing CSGO gambling sites for over 2 years, one thing has become very clear – there are so many gambling sites to choose from. A group of CSGO Gambling fanatics working with us have therefore tested and reviewed hundreds of gambling websites to come up with a list of the 10+ Best CSGO Gambling Sites on the web. You can rest assured that the CSGO Betting sites listed here will be We look at the latest Global Gambling Statistics: Comparing revenue, popular games & personal data to discover the world's best Gambling nations in 2021. Atlantic City is by far the gaming and gambling capital of the East Coast, with 13 world-class casinos and thousands of high-end games and machines. Plus, you can also make it a great family trip as there are quite a few things to do in Atlantic City with kids. Check Rates of Atlantic City Hotels. With over 375 gaming facilities, Las Vegas is king when it comes to gaming. It attracts visitors from all over the world, including the top poker players who come for the high-limit tables. On top of that, the Las Vegas Strip is home to 15 of the 25 largest hotels in the world. Some of the biggest casinos on the Strip include the Venetian/Palazzo, Wynn Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay, the Bellagio, MGM Grand, and Aria.

top gambling cities in canada top

[index] [4807] [3541] [5717] [802] [3576] [3084] [7624] [6578] [6067] [2528]

Top 10 most secluded towns in the United States. Thumbnail ...

Check out our New Biography Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/biographicsThere are many great cities out there to live in, but there are also some you would... Top 10 most Violent Small towns in America. All around the country you have good towns and bad towns. Some of those bad towns are the type you want to have e... We have hand picked some of the best viral videos of the year so far, of course we would love to have put more but we would have been here all day!Check out ... Subscribe and 🔔 to OFFICIAL BBC YouTube 👉 https://bit.ly/2IXqEInStream original BBC programmes FIRST on BBC iPlayer 👉 https://bbc.in/2J18jYJA pair of Lanc... Vietnamese police have broken a $13 million online gambling ring, arrested six people in the latest bust in a country where betting is banned. Gambling is illegal in Vietnam outside of a state-run ... Thumbnail model:@dustiebayemua Top 10 most secluded towns in the United States. The viewer version. We have a great list by subscribers for you. This list ha... 2020 sees a new decade kick-off with the completion of some incredible construction projects. These are the 20 you need to keep your eyes on. For more by The... Forbes list of the richest billionaires in the world indicates that there are today 2,153 billionaires. In this video, we will see how this list will change ... Blackjack, poker, slot machines – whatever your interest in gaming is, these cities have you covered. Join http://www.WatchMojo.com as we count down our pick... Top 10 Richest People In Casinos & Gambling 2013 - Duration: 1:03. ... 1:03. Top 10 Biggest Cities in Canada 2013 - Duration: 2:45. TopListVideos 36,257 views. 2:45. Canadian real estate market is ...

top gambling cities in canada

Copyright © 2024 top100.realmoneybestgame.xyz