Gambling addiction - symptoms, information and support ...

can you get your money back if you have a gambling addiction

can you get your money back if you have a gambling addiction - win

I wrote a long reply on why gambling, and loot boxes in particular, are bad...

So, inside some other post, I was asked why gambling is bad... My reply ended up being really detailed, so I'll promote it to a post of its own (just copy-pasting it here; no new words)... [Note: list of 3 points about loot boxes at the end...]
(I work at a company that sells gambling services... I see how the sausage is made...)
By the way, I love PoE and GGG. Still, loot boxes are bad.
I personally get to see the statistics side of oddsmaking. It's always about suckering you out of your money, because by definition all you are doing is paying more money as the price of getting less money (on average), but you also need to feel like you have a chance at getting the upper hand, even though in the long run you don't.
For example, sometimes, if you're really "good" at betting, you just end up working for the oddsmaker on a bad deal. It's really hard for them sometimes to get the odds perfectly right (although the profit margin still takes care of 99.9% of punters). So, if you're a professional gambler making a regular profit, what's basically happening is that you are investing an enormous amount of time and expertise to try and make tiny profits at the margins, and the bookmaker monitors your activity and learns about the market from you, at what ends up being a lower cost than if they hired experts to give them the same info on a salary. Plus you constantly run high risks! Which is why my company is full of ex-gamblers who were able to make a profit for a while, and intelligent enough to realise that they were still getting a bad deal, and come to the company and offer their services directly. (For another way gambling companies guarantee their own profits by passing on the risk to gamblers, research "balancing the books": yes, a professional gambler could make some profits this way, but if you're possibly making profits by taking on a risk that a large gambling corporation wants to get rid of, do you really think you're getting a good deal, especially considering how much time and expertise you sink into the activity? EDIT: more info)
The only way I know of to make a consistent and considerable profit off gambling is when a pro gambler is allowed to make a profit off other gamblers, in a move that a company makes to increase total amounts played. So, for one person to profit, many others are being seriously scammed, and the company is safely skimming its percentages off the top.
There are many different ways a gambling company presents bad deals to you, hoping that your intuition misfires about one of them and you decide to throw away your money. Examples... There are single bets, of course. But then there are also combinations, and these screw with your intuition--you can convince yourself based on a narrative (e.g. team 1 wins first half, team 2 comes back in second half), where in fact the actual hard cold odds are against you. There is "cash out" where you take a fraction of a likely-seeming win early (but at a loss), which of course simply taxes you for your risk aversion. There are "systems", creating more and more complex bets, until you convince yourself you've set up the perfect deal, and yet the company's profit margin keeps growing the more complex you make it.
Anyway, those are the parts I work on as a software guy. (By the way, this isn't the worst thing in the world, it's not as bad, as, say, the military industry or the military itself, or say religions or banks, because at some level gambling is voluntary. And making gambling illegal is a terrible idea-we should fight it through education, not prohibition. Still, I only work there because I'm currently a completely non-creative software grunt (and currently satisfied with that). If I get to the point of pursuing higher-level jobs, I'll look elsewhere.)
But the most nefarious part of all is the psychological work they pull on you. That's not my area of expertise, so if you want it explained you need to look elsewhere (recommended book: Thinking Fast and Slow--it's not about gambling, it's about psychology). They are constantly doing things to 1) give you false hope and 2) artificially trigger some pleasure response in you.
E.g. most people are naturally risk averse and loss averse, e.g. losing $10 brings more pain than winning $10 brings pleasure. In reality, a gamble is about paying, say, $10 to win an average of, say, $9, so that's a terrible and painful deal. In addition to all the advertising and bright colours and encouraging sounds and making you read success stories and all the other psychological manipulations, they can also straight up befuddle you with numbers. So, losing $10 brings more pain than winning $10 brings pleasure, but what if you pay $10 but you're not really at a risk of losing that much, because on average you win $9 back, so you're only really risking a single $, and yet if you get lucky you won't win a mere $10 but millions? Suddenly that sounds good, right? Risk $1 to win $10000000? Of course not: you're still risking $10 and taking $1 losses on average each time you play, and the high rewards are vanishingly rare and built into that average.
That's it about gambling for money. On loot boxes I'm no expert, but, beyond the basic problems (encouraging addiction, exploiting minors who beg money from parents and don't understand how they're throwing it away, generating gambling "pleasure" while giving you "bits" instead of any real value, etc), I can point out a couple of extra scummy aspects:
  1. They can say "the box costs 30 points but all the possible rewards are worth at least 50, the average reward is worth 70 and the best is worth 400"... really??? Those prices are completely arbitrary... Who says the footprints are "worth" 50 or some random hideout decoration is "worth" 200? Talking about average microtransaction point values in a loot box is completely misleading.
  2. Either you (a) lose on the statistics of getting complete sets or you lose on (b) being psychologically manipulated into buying extra stuff you didn't actually want so much (or (c) you just lose by getting useless stuff). Let's say you decide to pick up a couple of boxes and see what you get before buying more stuff. You might just get useless stuff, of course (case c). But what if you get the body armour or wings? Now you might say "I'll get more boxes to complete the set". But the chances of getting any one part of a set are not anywhere near as bad as your chances of completing a set (like map lab trials, but much worse because loot boxes contain many more items), so you are getting totally fleeced (case a). Alternatively you could go "oh look, I got x in the box, I'll buy matching items y and z from the shop later" so you think you got x cheap and y and z at normal prices. But you are being manipulated into buying y and z. Would you really have bought x and y and z from the shop if there had been no loot box? Only rarely. The rest of the time you are overspending (case b).
  3. Loot box gifts are another scummy behaviour, considering people don't have good intuitions about statistics. Most of us get bad results from the gifted boxes, but some will get lucky. Those of us who are already gambling on loot boxes won't be affected by the outcome of a few extra boxes. Those who wouldn't ever buy them normally, and get bad results, who cares. But those who wouldn't normally buy them but get lucky a few times in a row might decide it's a good deal after all. So, it's manipulating us psychologically in a way that is statistically designed to fail at no cost most times and succeed sometimes, which makes money. (While also giving everybody holiday presents or race prizes, making the company appear generous.)
submitted by sesquipedalias to pathofexile [link] [comments]

The Break Up of Alex & Sofia: A Psychoanalysis

got asked to make this it’s own post, so i did. For reference, keep in mind I’m 28F (so split between them age wise) and was an athlete in undergrad though not in a sport anyone cared about cause who tf cares about track
Friendship break ups are really hard, especially for women in their 20’s.
For women, that time period is usually the first times they’re actually enabled to make our own decisions, including through sexual empowerment. Freedom from your parents. Your female friendships are often therapeutic in this setting, as they’re the first people who really “understand” you. ESPECIALLY if you’re at a school with casual hook up culture, female friendships can especially protect you from being drugged while you navigate the novelty of casual sex under various substance influence.
At least from the outside perspective, this is how it seems: disclaimer this is psychoanalytical af no I don’t think I’m “definitely” right
However, sports psychology is poor. Sports psychology for women even more so.
Female sports don’t command money (in part because we engrain that in our culture)
For a female athlete in college, you’re raised on a pedestal by other collegiate members (“narps”)
Then, you leave college and are pretty much on a level playing field, because that national prestige or ability to remain an athlete and be profitable isnt as realistic or available for women (yet?/it probably shouldn’t be a huge goal to play a game for a living just saying. The other work environments and hours shouldn’t be so shitty that’s the only version of happiness you can imagine but i digress)
Alex happened to leave college and be an athlete’s girlfriend. An athlete within baseball, whose wives’ club mentality is one of the most misogynistic (my brother went back to back to back national championship games in baseball in college. The fan base is incredibly white as it relates to America’s pastime and racism). I’ve posted before about the overlaps in barstools culture with this.
Alex had fuel coming in from needing to be better than her ex. She has fuel in general, as most athletes do, from needing to be better than XYZ. Track is actually helpful in that regard because it’s always racing against yourself, ultimately. Your own PRs. But for soccer, what happens when you no longer have a field to play on? Who are your new opponents? Where is your team?
Sofia and Alex’s friendship came at the cusp of their combined lowest mental points. On a time when they were essentially on their own. They had had to be solo and strong because of their circumstances, mentally and fiscally to an extent (even if they ultimately had parental support or pressure to fall back on). In the process of building CHD, they built each other up, and used their tragedies and lack of caring about other’s mentalities to show it was profitable, smart, and powerful to be a sexually empowered female in a male world.
That’s what so many of us wanted. (Literally the Tyra Banks meme “we were all rooting for you!” Comes to mind) especially for collegiate aged women, sexual empowerment and discussion is NEW and still very culturally based. Women can be sexual but only privately versus men can discuss sexual conquests openly and aren’t thought poorly of if it doesn’t work out with a partner. You don’t assume something is “wrong” with them. You don’t remind them “their clock is ticking”. Hypersexuality is part response to purity culture and likely a response to a heavy atmosphere of sexual trauma and being casual towards it is destigmatizing it inwardly.
But money corrupts.
Power corrupts more so.
Combine both with Alex internalizing that the brand that gave her so much power and happiness and joy to work, during a dark period of her life, as a tangible result of how she was better (than her exes, everyone that’s wronged her, etc) as potentially being taken away from her by sofia (in the deal on the rooftop), versus by Dave (who was very manipulative in his “I keep 100% of the IP and all of your stories and all of YOUR content”) and this is where the break down in how they responded comes in:
Can we blame her? Isnt that a facet of current sporting culture? Do you actually expect someone who has grown up in the wings of the public eye, whose parental role models were in sporting culture, to not embrace that spotlight? Particularly when her ex who caused her pain has that spotlight and is somebody’s version of a sex symbol? Why can’t she want it for herself?
Alex ALSO has mental health issues, and the combination of living and working with someone else struggling with something so heavy and not having a medically appropriate background to know how to help was likely incredibly toxic for their friendship.
I’m sure it made some great content, but it was clear they didn’t embody or encourage healthy behavior.
Their own healing is going to be subjective. It’s not going to coincide. It’s not going to operate on the same scales or in the same direction and they’ll need different things. Such as separation when one person no longer serves you.
My therapist reminded me “just because someone was a good friend to you at one point in your life doesn’t mean they still are”
To her, it’s the same thing. Especially if she had frequent ghost writers. It was never her content to begin with. Which, ultimately, makes her just a sex symbol for a male dominated gaze who may very well be financially compensated adequately (NOW) but is ultimately manipulated for the entertainment of others. If that’s your whole life, and what you’ve always done... who are you?
Like with child stars or actors in general, you feed off energy i imagine. Extroverted people are almost more vulnerable to social coercion than others. To me, this enables them to be more susceptible to thriving off external validation and avoid the reality of who they are and that they don’t like themselves internally/struggle with who they are as a person (or just don’t know who they are without XYZ existing. If you’ve always been in sports, especially one single sport, your identity is tied to that. You don’t have the time or energy to question who you are. It takes years after graduating or being removed from that atmosphere to do so.) Alex now has money, time, and comes from rich white privilege. She likely will never have people who tell her it’s okay to struggle, because it seems like her family and general friend group is the “everything is fine. Here’s some money. Look! You can travel. You turned out okay”
I’m sure she’ll have a time period later in life where she has this recognition.
However, the CHD brand was built around the symbolism of a female friendship.
Of female empowerment in a patriarchal world.
The sexual empowerment worked because, at the end of the day, you had this community of people who understood you were just trying to figure out yourself and willing to laugh with you at your negativity. Not laughing at you. A community of people who were able to embrace, applaud, and financially reward you for sexual prowess when you’ve been told to dim it your entire life “to be taken seriously”. A community who LIKED the self deprecation because it was RELATABLE because we likely ALL have or know someone with sexual trauma related to drinking/college culture and dating is hard and flaunted like you’re always supposed to be in a relationship, especially if you’re attractive 🙄
Abiding to the influencer brand of how CHD has gone since “the break up” and how Alex has people like Tana—who exploit their childhood abuse, not so they can learn how to be healthier and live happier lifestyles or draw attention to substance abuse, but so they can continue to party in LA with idiotic “celebs” whose only contribution to the community positively is through money. Who go riot malls for YouTube material. Who are stuck in their own cycles of abuse and unhealthy behavior but vlog about the glamour and think “talking about it” is the same thing as “healing” because they won’t go to actual therapy even though they can afford it now. Who don’t realize they’re desensitizing themselves to the trauma by letting random men they barely know choke them out versus addressing how fucked up it was that they were raped as a child, or that their parents couldn’t protect them, or that they needed validation or father figures and only got it from their peers and just wanted an escape from reality and now need one ALL THE TIME. Who dont realize those people they think embrace them won’t embrace them when they’re sober and actually healthy, because it reminds them of how they’re not. But it’s scary to recognize that and you internalize it as not being loveable versus being brought up in unhealthy environments and not knowing better.
Maybe with time, Alex will look back and realize the strength of female friendships lies in being there for each other in darkest times because humanity definitely doesn’t have your back.
In the USA, 1 in 5 women are or will be attempted to be raped in their lifetime, over 80% have been sexually harassed.
And yet, prostitution is not legal. Birth control is not freely accessible. Universal healthcare and comprehensive sexual education is not nationally mandated so a lot of people may never realize just how fucked up their circumstances are. Education is often unaffordable and inaccessible for those who most need it. Sexual harassment is so normalized that we voted in a president despite him being a rapist pedophile. And 55% of white women tried to vote him in again. The visual leader of the Barstool brand endorsed him openly.
Sofia wanting to distance herself from a brand and drinking culture, at a company currently breaking into alcohol and gambling exploitation, on the basis that the majority of their fan base may not have done it otherwise, but will because they now have access to it (like with how Juuls target teenagers with flavoring and people who wouldn’t have normally smoked have nicotine addictions now) as well as FINALLY being paid adequately, YET was labeled as “greedy” mainly because Alex stayed instead of trusting Sofia and sticking with her.
We normalize competition in the sense that most people are competing for just the right to live, for acknowledgment that the things they went through matters. It’s why working classes are currently pitted against each other and conservative Republicans think progressive policies are sure to doom the USA because Fox News says so. So instead of making our citizens stronger overall, we keep half of them convinced that healthcare should be debated, an educated population isnt good on a global scale, and that change ISNT possible even though societies are supposed to adapt that’s literally how progress works. We have research that shows us why we should do it and instead capitalism made education so elite that we distrust intelligence or condemn it as “liberal education”.
So do I blame Alex for her inability to recognize that when she thought she was going to lose the brand that made that feasible for her? Maybe not.
Do I think Sofia got fucked mentally, friendship-wise, and culturally and Alex enabled and fed into it? Absolutely.
Even if CHD was always the “Mean Girls” mentality and didn’t ever really offer advice, Alex embodied “Regina George” and Sofia was “Cady Heron” in its time.
Good female friendships are awesome, and hard to come by in a world that makes it so and makes you convinced you have to somehow compete for these men when the bar is on the actual ground for chivalry and women just want men who won’t scream or yell at them, will communicate, and will explore sexually in the bedroom without stigmatizing them or making them feel bad for their bodies.
Shout out to anyone who read my dissertation.
I’ve been in quarantine on a farm working remote contracts for almost a year now. I’ve also watched a lot of LOTR in the past week and barstool and Dave is going a very “Sauron” way and Alex embodies “saruman” vibes to me, for another allusion.
submitted by survivalmodez to CallHerDaddy [link] [comments]

My Homelessness Perspective

I debated making this post for awhile because I normally just comment in replies to other things. But someone came across an old post and thought I should share directly, particularly given the influx of homeless discussion.
I'm a homeless person in the area. I lived on paid campgrounds in the region when the weather was nicer and now when I have the cash, I stay in motels. So I'm not someone on the lawn, chopping up bikes (I actually sold mine for $50 to pay for another room night) I'm a nobody and you've probably stood in line next to me and had no idea I was homeless because I do everything in my power to keep it together. But I cry a lot and the longer this goes on, the more difficult it is to climb out of because literally everything in society is working against you and I don't think many people realize the logistics of how difficult homelessness can be.
I lost my job literally the week after the NBA shut down. For what it's worth, my former boss got a six figure PPP loan (it was on ProPublica which is how I found out) and I haven't heard from them since. Other than when I had to fight some reporting stuff that they messed up. The shitty thing too is, the company made multiple millions of dollars. Still in business. Still operating btw. Anyway...
I was raised in foster care, so I don't have a family to run to when times get tough. All of my IRL friends live in Canada and I was actually in the IEC working visa pool and hoping to go over, get work experience, make connections, and eventually immigrate there permanently. My friends there are like my family, but there's nothing they can do to bring me over because we aren't blood related and they can send me some money but the exchange rate sucks and so do all the exchange fees. They really just don't know how this country just lets people struggle. But the pool suspended draws in March and at the end of last year, they fully closed it out. There hasn't been any announcement on if they'll ever bring it back and jesus christ I feel so fucked.
So, I want to explain how people end up in situations like mine. I was on a short term lease and it didn't get renewed. It was probably for the better anyway because my former roommate was talking about stabbing Jews like Soros to end the pandemic. (I'm Jewish.) Oh and she owns a business in town.
That was early on in the pandemic when I lost my previous place and I thought honestly this would be over by summer, my job would ask me back and it wouldn't be an issue, so I rented airbnbs even though they were pricey. I don't think many people thought this would all go on as long as it did either.
Then I had car issues (tires balded completely, brakes, rotors, and tired rods iirc? I needed a whole lot of shit done.) Then I got really sick too and medical bills were an arm and leg. I was applying to places to live and my credit was going to obviously get dinged with maxing out credit cards and having unpaid medical bills would just obviously make me a shitty candidate to rent to.
But through June I tried applying to places. But those are hard credit pulls and I did...a number of them over 2-3 months to try my damndest. However, I can't get approved for housing because I'm unemployed and have been unemployed for months. I don't make enough from sex work other than to cover some nights nor is that a viable "job" to most people. I don't have a WA cosigner, hell I don't have ANY cosigner that lives in America, so that takes me out of the running of the vast vast majority of places. And not only that, a number of landlords would only take me if I could pay something like $5k or pay the full amount of the lease upfront. One woman almost rented a room to me, but I have now no "recent" landlord for them to reference and call. When I explained to her I was living in a motel, she called me homeless scum looking for a place to do drugs. One of my friends tried to "act" as a former landlord, but they looked up property records and he wanted to arrest me for fraud. I was just desperate for a place to live (and I want to share this story too because a lot of people make VERY VERY VERY bad suggestions to homeless people.)
I don't even drink in this goddamn state full of craft breweries. I don't like NOT having my wits about me. So no, I'm not some tweaker that does drugs. I also cannot fucking stand the smell of marijuana. I'm a lame ass square. But it doesn't matter because every single stereotype is what you are when you are homeless.
You can't rent a room without having CURRENT employment THAT PAYS THE RENT. So a part time, 10 hour a week gig at $15 McD's won't qualify you for housing. I don't know what is so difficult about understanding that but people really seem to struggle with that. You need to make at least 3-4x to qualify for anything, including just a bedroom.
And? You can't rent without RECENT landlord to reference. It's one of the several sneaky requirements they throw in there in order to make it damn near impossible for someone who is homeless to get permanent housing.
Mentally, it's all a constant waking nightmare. I have to try to figure out the best prices on places to stay, I have to make lots of calls, I apply for aid, I have to stay warm, I have to try to sleep, I have to try to promote my sex work, I have to try to think if there's any future for me. It's exhausting.
"Now you're wondering why not go to the shelter?"
I did one night and I had to fight off assault. I know another girl who was raped and she attempted suicide and had to be committed. PLEASE stop thinking this shit doesn't happen in this town just because your homes cost half a million fucking dollars.
Most people may not also understand the restrictions or lack of dignity that occurs at a lot of shelters. Some shelters force you to change into scrubs they provide, so it feels like prison. You can't keep your stuff on you. It's very time restrictive, so if you are working later than the entry time, you're totally fucked. Or if you need to go to work, you can also be fucked for violating the rules. It's also just full of people who are screaming at night from the mental anguish this shit leaves you in. It's literally sleeping among nightmares.
A lot of aid in town and in general, America, is run by churches or "loosely affiliated religious organizations". I have been point blank asked to convert in order to get help. I'm ethnically Jewish and I dunno how they can't quite get that I can't exactly convert into a new ethnicity. The synagogue in this county has been closed and offers zero aid or help. Also LOTS of charities focus strictly on families and there is also one in town for young adults (under 24.) While I understand that's important, there isn't a lot of help for people like me in their mid-30s or who are single.
"Why not apply for affordable housing?"
Well, most people don't even know that the waiting lists are closed for 1 bedrooms. The list is 5-10+ y e a r s long. Many people have probably never visited it, despite constantly suggesting it to me: https://bellinghamhousing.org/home/applicants/open-waitlist/ go ahead and tell me what's open and what's closed. And that's the waiting list- that's not even you getting housing tomorrow.
"You must make a lot sex working!"
90% of OnlyFans accounts make under $50 a month. It's not the money maker you think it is, earning even $100 is hard work. Processors take huge chunks of earnings, then you have transfer fees, and yeah it's a lot to be desired. There's also the mental toll it can take. Also, I'm not a hot young college thing, I have a specific niche and it doesn't really pay.
So just a few other things, especially as it concerns food:
People want to help and I get that. And you're like "goddammit what can I do?"
Just hand people money.
Just give people the dignity that they know how to prioritize their needs.
Research continually bares this out: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/09/americas/direct-giving-homeless-people-vancouver-trnd/index.html
Don't give me coats, I have one. The one you gave me probably won't fit or if I'm allergic to wool, I will have no use for it. (I'm not allergic to wool, but people are!)
Don't give me things I haven't asked for in general. Someone send me a PM saying they have a twin bed I could have. Uh, I have a bed in storage, no thanks. They called me a cunt and told me to kill myself.
Don't hand me lotto tickets. Most scratch offs are loser tickets and then it looks like I'm wasting my money on gambling. You also have no idea who might have be struggling with or recovering from a gambling addiction.
Don't donate your trash and expect me to grateful. You gave me the work of throwing away your garbage and reminding me that's all I am to you and the community.
Don't bitch about homelessness and in the same breath fight Section 8 or assume shit about housing vouchers. If you're a landlord in this town, maybe you ought to accept vouchers and actually try to be a force for good. Or bitch about how minimum wage is too high. It ain't high enough.
Don't send me a PM saying you have a room for me to stay in or will "take me out on a date" to get me food. That's taking advantage of someone. That's also really fucking unsafe. If you do allow homeless and jobless people a place to stay, put that on your facebook or craigslist ad publicly or respond back when someone does explain their situation. (Note: and while I sex work, I'm not an in/outcall worker or an escort. I'm not going to have sex with you or put myself in an incredibly dangerous situation.)
Don't criticize people who are homeless who are trying to tell you what they actually need- you do not know their needs. Please stop assuming you do.
You can encourage groups to just give straight cash grants. If you absolutely are committed to give giftcards, do them for useful places like Target, Walmart, grocery stores, etc. where someone can buy toiletries, clothing, etc. Don't send me a $5 giftcard to like Cabela's. The closest one is a drive away and what can I do with that? I would spend more in gas to get to one. In the same vein, someone offered me a giftcard to like a steakhouse in Seattle. I hope you can understand how those aren't useful.
You can also hold your church, your preferred charity org, etc. ACCOUNTABLE. Actually look what they require of applicants for aid, ask them for how they advertise to the public and what their outreach is, ask how much is going to people, demand transparency.
"Okay, so I want to give to United Way--"
Wait. Stop. PLEASE understand that United Way is a passthrough organization. It's a middle man. They just help fund other charities and they obviously skim off the top as "operating expenses". Likewise, I saw here and on facebook lots of folks donating to Whatcom Community Foundation. They also do not provide any direct aid. It's also a middle man. Listen, I understand they fund a few scholarships and help promote nonprofits and I'm NOT saying it's bad or the worst idea ever, but if we are talking about the most direct, most efficient, and most bang for your buck, just hand your dollars to people struggling.
Hand me $5 and that can go towards my storage unit or cell phone bill or private mailbox or gas or insurance. It can go towards supplements, it can go towards getting a warm cup of soup, or it can go towards another night of a safe warm place to stay. Other sex workers, my friends in Canada, and a couple nice souls on reddit who have helped via paypal/cashapp/venmo? That's been THE reason I've stayed afloat, it's the been THE reason I can stand next to you in line at Target and I don't reek of piss because I was able to actually have a real shower. It has NOT been because of nonprofit organizations.
I think it's really important for people to understand that some bills, some bad luck, and some pandemic fuckery can easily spiral your life into daily struggling and homelessness. It's not easy to move and most of our safety net requires you to have a robust social network. I hope one day I can migrate to Canada, but now I need to resave thousands of dollars to qualify for any visa and to be brutal with you, my chances of achieving that dream and being able to have a real life again are very slim. I'll soon age out of IEC Working Holiday visa and I simply don't have tens of thousands of dollars to pay for graduate school as an alternate way in. It's a hard road ahead for me to get through until I can even get the vaccine.
My hope in sharing this lengthy long diatribe is that it causes you to think and critique the institutions we have. Please think about how you can truly help and what that looks like in action. Not everyone's struggles are the same, especially not everyone's homeless struggles, but thank you for reading mine.
Edit: Thank you again for reading this and really taking it to heart, I really appreciate the kindness and gratitude show. I honestly didn't think anyone would even read this. If anyone else is homeless or struggling or on the verge, I don't take any mind to you sharing your story too and please feel free to just send me a message that this sucks and I'm here to listen to bitching because lordy I get it. xo
submitted by shinygingerprincess to Bellingham [link] [comments]

Feb. 9 Daily HUT Content - What is new?

Hey guys, it’s Coooolin ! How was everyone’s day!? :) Hope you all had a wonderful one! Let me know how it was downn belooww! :)
Here are the new cards for today, Thanks EA! :)

Silver Master Icons

Rob Blake - 91 OVR - LAK / RD - H and S2 , SPE2 ... 89 SPEED , 92 with DIS + SPE
Ted Lindsay - 91 OVR - DET / LW - BAL2 , T2 .. 89 FO with T
Bernie Parent - 91 OVR - PHI / G - 5’10” / 170 lbs - SPA2 , SWA2 ... yuck
— Set needs 9 Icons + Bronze Icon to upgrade to Silver —
——-

Primetimes

NHL

Ryan O’Reilly - 90 OVR - STL / C - LTL1 , T1 ... 97 FOs - Without Thief!!
Seymon Varlamov - 88 OVR - NYI / G - 6’2” / 215 lbs - H and S1 , SPA1
Tom Wilson - 87 OVR - WAS / RW - GLA1 , WM1
Erik Cernak - 87 OVR - TBL / RD - HOW1 , WH1
Fredrik Anderson - 86 OVR - TOR / G - 6’4” / 230 lbs - BAR1 , SWA1
Clayton Keller - 86 OVR - ARI / C - PP1 , MAG1
Anthony Cirelli - 85 OVR - TBL / C - SPE1 , SH1
Matt Martin - 84 OVR - NYI / LW - HOW1 , WH1
Jack Roslovic - 84 OVR - CBJ / C - LTL1 , SPE1
Mike Smith - 84 OVR - EDM / G - 6’4” / 220 lbs - DIS1 , SPA1 .... oh babyy
Tyler Ennis - 81 OVR - EDM / LW - GLA1 , WM1
Alexander Kerfoot - 81 OVR - TOR / C - PP1 , SPE1
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

23H 40M
• Jumbo Elite Pack - 50k C / 1k P
20 items , with at least 11 80+ OVR Players
• Mega Pack - 37.5k C / 750 P
30 items, at least 15 Gold Players, and 4 80+ OVR Players
• Players Pack - 15k C / 300 P
10 items, all Players, at least 5 Gold Players and 1 80+ OVR Player

P.S.

• Rivals Resets Today
• More Bold Cards

Hockey News

• Koivu Retires
• NHL postpones more games

Stock Market News

• Why Pot Stocks are Flyying!
• Stock Dip after Reaching Record Highs!

Other News

• National Pizza Day
• Today in History
——————

What’s to Come?

• SB Season Reset - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• Rivals Rewards - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• HUT Champ Rewards - Wednesday at 6am EST
• SB Rewards !! - Thursday at 5pm EST
• New Event !! - Friday at 5pm EST
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is RYAN O’REILLYY OVR 90 with the syn LIGHTT the LAMPP and THIEFF
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is ERIKK CERNAKK OVR 87 with the syn HOWITZERR and WORKK HORSEE
• Rivals Resets ! Where did you place?
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Day by day may seem like nothing changes, but when you look back a lot has changed.
Take risks. Do what makes you happy. Smile more. Laugh more. Have fun!!
Don’t take life too seriously , and yourself too seriously.. learn to have fun!! Learn to laugh at yourself if you did something dumb, your mistakes, etc.,
Life is way too short to just sit and wait... when you can make a difference and big change in your life today!
—-

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Feb 9
$ 146.11 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $8.57 / 6.23% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

WE’RE AT 1400 SONGS! WOW! How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Speechless” by “Dan + Shay” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
Want to make your dream team, and show others what you’ve been working on, and much more? I will redirect you HERE!.
Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
Want to know how the market is holding up? With a simple TAP! you will be on the newly fresh made website for the HUT market, made by one of the guys on the sub!
.... what do the stats on a card mean? Is my card I want / pulled good? Click here to find out!!
When is my favourite team playing? When do they play!? Here you can click on this link, and tap on your favourite team. From there, tap “Schedule” . You can add this to your homescreen on iPhone by clicking the square with the upwards arrow, scrolling down, and tapping “Add to Home Screen”
——- —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —- —— —-

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!

Colin’s Thoughts

I got accepted to a College for Business - Accounting !! :) Super excited to see where this leads me!
4 other Colleges to respond back! :) Yay!
Also, mighttt have a job at Home Depot! All depends if they phone me back or not, and look at it!! I’m so stoked !
——-
40 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! HAPPY NATIONAL PIZZA DAY!!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)
submitted by coolin68 to NHLHUT [link] [comments]

Old Austin Tales: Forgotten Video Arcades of The 1970s & 80s

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.
There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.
But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.
I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction.
If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student.
But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades.
It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples.
Forgotten Arcade #1
Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe
June 15, 1975
ARCADE ENTHUSIASM
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.
March 3, 1976
ARCADE ROBBED
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.
First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
Forgotten Arcade #2
Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road
May 15, 1984
A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.
I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4
Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St
Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St
August 23, 1983
Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."
Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade.
We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants.
Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7
Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall)
The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf
March 4, 1982
'Quartermania' stalks South Austin
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."
Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Forgotten Arcade #8
Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway
February 25, 1982
Arcades fighting negative image
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.
This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area.
At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh
That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story.
I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:
Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.
The gameplay looked like this.
Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982
Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982
Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984
Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989
Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003
submitted by s810 to Austin [link] [comments]

How to spot a cheating man

EDIT/UPDATE:
I read some of your responses with tears. Thank you to everyone who said something encouraging! I tried to answer some questions and hope I didn't miss any. I am not able to respond very fast; I still feel some emotional hangover just from sharing what I wrote. I initially made this as a one-and-done throwaway, but now I will keep this account active and hopefully share some more in the future, since some of your responses really got me thinking. I am truly grateful that this space exists. I still received some harassment (which I blocked), but I know the mods / automod filter out a lot more, and that level of safety was what encouraged me to speak up. Thank you!!
-----
(TW for self harm and abuse.)
I am a FDS membeposter. I made an alt to tell my story as a former sugar baby. I understand this might not go through because sex work is fundamentally anti-FDS. I am now anti-sex work and I hope this post has value here.
I won't go into childhood details, but I suffered from abuse and poverty from a very young age, so everything about luxury and having a sugar daddy appealed to me. I was also raised very patriarchal, and was told since birth that certain things were only achievable via a man, even if I was deeply ambitious when young. My own family tried to "match" me at age 15 with an adult family friend they felt was wealthy. Thanks to FDS, I now realize I was groomed and it was statutory rape. It was a major breakthrough when I told my therapist for the first time two weeks ago, and what sparked my motivation to write this post.
There was no clear "beginning" to my sw journey. I have always slept around casually. I also have always had rough/kinky sex. I was exposed to porn at a very young age. Eventually I happened into sleeping with richer men. But I became successful as a SB after I unknowingly implemented very strict FDS-like ground rules and demanded more. The irony was, after I started earning more, I got banned from several sex work/sugar baby forums. People thought I was lying about my standards and earnings. Even in the sw community, you had to be a deferential pickme to be accepted. Any high standards must be a lie. I was unknowingly lifting myself out of the sw fog, becoming more outspoken, and I was alienated.
I eventually managed to make a lot of money (bought my family a house). I had strict requirements that men provide verification of their identities (passport / work profile), and ability to provide. At my peak (financial peak and self-delusion peak), I abandoned my own career to do it full time, and even considered outsourcing the admin side of vetting + marketing myself like a product, to maximize earnings.
This was also a time when my self esteem was so chipped that I only knew one avenue of building it up: male validation and monetary reward.
Looking back now, even if money was there, everything else was bad. I traveled all the time. I was burned out. I still experienced FREQUENT sexual assault and rape without recourse, which I treated as "occupational hazard." I suffered emotional damage, extreme guilt and shame, loss of sense of self, loss of friendship, loss of sense of value regarding money and life. I spiraled to a point of being constantly suicidal. I was a shell. I drank a lot.
Finally, the most prominent of all: despite what I was telling everyone in my circle, I never could fully feel pride about my "work." I had a nagging sense that I was meant for something else, something not this, except who knows what though. It was like the part of myself I locked away was knocking from its cage. So I became more and more split psychologically. I dissociated a lot, where I literally floated up to the ceiling and "saw" my body going through the motions, even if it's not sexual and just a dinner at a nice restaurant. I was potentially losing my mind. I often imagined ending my life during a dissociated phase so I wouldn't "feel' it.
Yet, I continued to justify that all that was just normal work stress, because "sex work is work." My feelings must be wrong. I must have internalized slutshaming. This is the danger of that kind of rhetoric. Even if I entered it voluntarily as an adult, seemingly benefitted financially, I gaslighted myself about leaving and delayed it for far too long. My pickme self felt I was not like the others who were traumatized, and I was fine. In reality, I was in danger mentally and physically. I still feel this eerie brush with death when I try to imagine if I had never left.
I still have a very small circle of friends in the lifestyle and I make a point of talking to them about leaving whenever possible. I don't know if some of them will ever leave, though. I have to rebuild my social life as well.
Welp, that got long. I originally wanted to share some cheating red flags here, since many of my sugar daddies were married. I hope these help confirm everything FDS already says in the handbook. So here it is:
That's all I can think of for now. I don't know if a healthy relationship with an age-appropriate man will ever happen for me. I have tried to date normally since my exit, but found that I struggle to vet as strictly as I did when I was a sugar baby. I have stopped dating. I do know I am now a radfem working on spending a life with myself if a man doesn't happen. I genuinely believe men, as a whole, abuse women, and we cannot categorically escape it, and must always watch our own backs. I am working up the courage to become more outspoken against sex work, and hopefully help younger girls out of the trap I fell in myself.
It's been 1 year since I last had a drink, and 1.5 years since I broke up with my last SD. My wish for 2021 is to rebuild my career and friendships. I start to feel low when I think of the last 5 years of a black hole, and how to explain that. I am working up the strength. When I was a young girl, I wanted to be a lawyer. I don't know if I have the gumption to follow through, but I can fantasize. I also have a couple of other fields I have interest in. I only need my self worth to catch up and open my eyes that I can achieve my dreams.
I wish you all a happy 2021.
submitted by taxthrowaway00 to FemaleDatingStrategy [link] [comments]

Unusual Options Activity 101: Whale Watching Tips

This is long, if you’re uninterested skip to the ten tips list or TLDR
A while ago I started mixing unusual options activity into my gamblinginvesting. At first I lost a shitload of money chasing dumbass whales with zero plan, but now I actually have a pretty good feel for it. I still fuck up alot, but more often I do not fuck up. This is to help those of you who want to start chasing whales, or are at a basic level and want to do it better.
I'm using some plays from this week as examples because they are fresh in my mind and I have a couple screenshots.
Tools I use barchart in tandem with Unusual Whales. For barchart, you can honestly get by using their free version, you just can't sort as well. They have a free month trial too. I also pay the 20 bucks for Unusual Whales to confirm what I scan, and they have a good stocks volume standard deviation tool. I have zero affiliation to either, just saying what I use.
There are way more technical ways to do this, but I like to use my eyes to scan sporadically throughout the day like a boomer.
Basic Concept Long story short, you're ideally chasing the options purchases of what are, presumably, deep-pocketed individuals or institutions. UOA identifies certain options contract orders that are higher than the average daily contract order. For example, if the average daily option volume on an GME weekly is 4,000, and an option order enters for 4,000 or higher, it's flagged as unusual activity since it's a multiple of that daily average volume--sometimes it shows as multiple orders if "they" push through a few smaller purchases that produce heavy volume.
MM are sneks who like to move in silence, which they can do with with stock positions via dark pools and the like. However, they can't get away with that with options activity--it all shows. That fact, young autist, is your slingshot against the institutional goliath.
Hunting the Whale So I've got my unusual options activity page open on barchart or wherever for the current day. I adjust the expiration date option so that the options I'm looking at don't expire past a couple weeks out (more on why later), then I'm ready to eye scan.
I typically start by looking for one of two things: 1) large clusters of orders that belong to one ticker or 2) sporadic orders for a ticker that consistently show up over a couple hours, but belong to non-hot, non-meme stonks that do NOT have earnings imminent. To make sure I'm looking at something potentially weird, I choose to exclude options that expire more than a couple weeks out.
1) Clusters of orders—ABNB example The way I scope it is kind of a tiered process. First, I'm looking to see if there are any clusters of orders that catch my eye on a quick scan. Second, I'm looking to see if those clusters of orders contain both calls AND puts, with some OTM activity and spreads preferred. Third, I look to see if the number of seperate call orders outweighs the number of put orders (or vice versa), and additionally I look to see if the volume of the calls drastically outweighs the volume of the puts (or vice versa).
Why? Because it helps you determine if the options order is just a hedge, or if it’s hedging against itself as it’s own position. This is super important so try to follow along-- most UOA is just institutions hedging; Mr. MM has a nice, busy life and fancy yacht and can't just exit his positions back and forth all day like a WSBer. He also has like a billion shares of his stonks, so if he dumps it when he's got paper hands it will siginficantly tank the value and cause a ripple effect. So, instead of hedging by dumping his shit, he hedges by adding OTM options against his position--next level fucking diamond hands. That would be the type of whale order from Mr. MM we don't want to follow. But, if Mr. MM buys 4,000 FB call options in a few blocks, and you see like 1,000 in FB puts go through right alongside it, the odds are that someone is betting big on FB and using the puts as a hedge, since the puts represent a smaller volume in the call/put ratio. Instead of the options being a hedge for a bigger stock position they hold, these types of option clusters indicate that the option order itself is the big, independent play, and it's hedging itself with lower volume order vs the higher volume (4,000 calls to 1,000 puts).
Then I do an easy confirmation. I check the tickers general trend the past week or so in a chart, do a news search on twitter of their ticker for news catalysts and sentiment, and google and YouTube to see if the crayola kids think it's a good nerd play.
Example: Here's the screenshot on some ABNB UOA I noticed and played this week. It went to 200% and change within a couple hours, but I had unfortunate diamond hands and sold for about half that.
ABNB UOA
So, this a softball. First, you can see that ABNB all of a sudden explodes with all these options showing up at 12:52–that's our cluster. Second, the clusters have both calls and puts in that minute timespan, with some put orders showing at the bottom of the cluster. Some of the calls are deep OTM, as far as 200c. Third, the call orders far outweigh the put orders in both amount and volume. Awwwww shit, looks like we got more than a hedge—we’re onto something.
Confirmation time: ABNB had been on a general uptrend, and I typically don't like to chase, but I combed twitter and saw their were rumors of the CEO speaking the following day, and that news had just broken of their DC booking cancellations. I looked back into the morning, and saw a few more unusual blocks, and a few more rolled in just after the cluster pictured above.
Passed the smell test. Options bought, tendies gained.
Sparse Orders: SNAP example
The same principles can apply to orders on tickers that pop up individual orders, not large clusters, which a) haven’t had much attention b) have been on a steep downtrend—this makes the order unusual, and/or c) seem to keep popping up in single orders over a few hours to a day.The same principles as above apply, but if you see these types of orders with very little time left until expiration, you can assume assume it's probably not a hedge. SNAP isn't the best example of the week because there wasn't a put order in this block. But, there was positive TA sentiment when I searched, SNAP had been on an oversold downtrend, and I don't have screenshots left of the better ones I saw and went after. Plus, importantly, IT WAS TOWARDS THE END OF THE DAY (this is huge, EOD is prime time for AH news whales)
SNAP UOA
A better example from this week though is SPCE, which had only a few orders sprinkled throughout the day, and one toward the end of the day which was DEEP, DEEP OTM expiring 1/15. *That’s a flag for us—sporadic listing throughout the day, OTM toward the end of the day. * BAM! EOD SPCE OTM calls sprinkle in, ARK invests to kick off AH, SPCE moons.
Sparse Orders Patterns: Connecting the dots on tech rebound with FB and SNAP
Seeing the SNAP orders above sharpened my eyes that day to looking for a pattern with tech on the whole, since big tech had been so royally gaped the past week. I kept seeing FB options like this pop up
https://i.imgur.com/muVGtq2.jpg
Sometimes you can put together sporadic listings and create a working theory based on a sector. Because this and similar FB orders were deep OTM and one day out, I knew there was a risk they could a hedge, but also knew that the tech sector was due for a rebound and saw SNAP posting sporadic OTM as well. So, I bought my options for each of those two another week out and closer to ATM (important, more below), to give the whale some breathing room in case was it was a hedge, even though the technicals agreed with the bounce. The whales were right, and it was an easy little overnight profit.
How I’ve Fucked Up 1: Don’t get tricked by trends
Although we like to believe institutions are ahead of the curve, often they are just trend-riding lemmings who follow what's already way, way up. They buy the top, just like WSB tardies such as yourself specialize in. So, when you see shit like this below, take a minute to think before you get excited:
NIO UOA LIKE THIS WAS NONSTOP
It was the same for all the memes: PLUG, FCEL, MARA, and RIOT all week, dominating the orders. If something is already too popular, just stay away from it. You can ride something up, but when you see massive orders on shit that's already like 400% IV, just...don't.
How I’ve Fucked Up 2: DO give the MM’s some breathing room
Even if you’re confident in a move you see that is a few days out, extend your play a week or two further out minimum, and strike it closer to ATM. If you can't do either of those things because you can't afford the premium just skip that play and check back for something new later; I promise a better opportunity will arise. You can recover from bagholding, but you cannot recover from blowing your account on an incorrect 0DTE.
Breathing room is also important because often whales will have the news but not the exact timing. Two months ago I followed a DDOG whale on a Thursday 1DTE that expired worthless the next day. The following Monday (1 trade day later) DDOG made the announcement that rocketed them like 20%--if I'd given them a week's breathing room, it would've been a 15 bagger. Fucking F.
So, to review: look for order clusters or sporadic ticker orders that a) have a mix of calls and puts with one dominating the other b) unpopular tickers that have deep OTM or close expirations c) always check chatter afterward and fundamentals and d) try to put together a narrative of things that are related that catch your eye (this Monday's EV run or this Friday's tech bounce could be next week's airline dominance or cruiseline craze--connect the dots). Initially look for options expiring soon, as they indicate the most riskiness--and therefore confidence--if the MM is not hedging. Shop with a short term eye, buy with a long term choice.
10 Things That Will Help You Not GUH:
1) Monday and Friday morning/afternoon are the most accurate whale times, according to data from Unusual Whales
2) If you don't have PDT always save some spending power for EOD shopping
3) If you don't have PDT never, ever follow a whale with a weekly. Sometimes the news the whale bets on is a 'sell the news' event, and you won’t recover from a drop especially if there is IV crush involved.
4) Always give the whale breathing room by purchasing an expiration at least a week further out
4b) Always give the whale breathing room by going closer to ATM strikes than theirs
5) Sign up for barchart monthly trial (then continue it) and unusual whales--they're each like 20 bucks and thats way less than you spend on an FD.
6) You don't need to learn TA, but you need to check technicals on the tickers you want to chase--almost every major ticker has youtubers or fintwits giving their daily or weekly TA. This way you know if it's a proper breakout happening if the whale hits, and you're not just guessing at when to take profits. Remember, whales can buy wayyyyyyy OTM and sell for massive profit at any point--they aren’t bagholding a call until it's in the money like you are. You may be 10% up waiting for the next 80% GME day while your whale has sold at their target 5% profits on the play and is chillin.
7) Leave at least 10% of your account spending power free each day. I promise, the one time you go full boat you will see the most obvious whale play at the end of the day. Then you won't be able to do shit about it and you'll hate yourself when it's a 10 bagger overnight. Trust me.
8) Make sure the ticker you're chasing isn't just ER anticipation/bets. Always check earnings dates before buying.
9) Remember whales are people, so they can be stupid, too. Don't baghold a position that is clearly fucked for some news that looks unlikely to come. They are gambling addicts just like you, except they have more money.
10) Always take profits if you ask yourself if it's time to. If it's good enough to screenshot, it's good enough to close the position.
Positions: Dumped a ton of stuff and loading up Tuesday because long weekends scare me, but saw some ineresting 2/5s I held including
WKHSc PLTRc SPYc (1/19, 1/22) LMNDp
And a couple tickers that I couldn’t post lol. also have AAPL and JD leaps
TLDR Use a service to follow whales so you can get ahead of announcements. Look for clusters of options activity that hedge themselves via call/put ratio, and do a legitimate check for TA and catalysts to confirm their moves. Never follow a whale into a weekly, but use weeklies are your best screener.
I might do a pretty consistent DD post (a couple times a week) on what I’m seeing at the end of each day if there is interest, and if it’s not a day I don’t have a ton of real work. If something quick catches my eye I usually throw it up on my twitter @yourboymilt (there’s no notification thing on here mods, just trying to be helpful— not selling anything) I’ll also probably throw some more potential Monday positions on here over the weekend once I decide to do some more research. Later.
submitted by AllDatDalton to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

Mon. Jan. 25 Daily HUT Content - What is new?

Hey guys, it’s Coooolin!! Wow! The first month of 2021 is ALMOST over!!! How’s everyone’s January comin along!? Let me know, doown beloww!
(Pumpin this out, will update with syns in 5-10 min!)
Here’s the new cards for today!!! Thank you , EA!

NHL 2030 - Event Cards

Bowen Byram - 90 OVR - COL / LD - DIS2 ... woah
Quinton Byfield - 90 OVR - SUD / C - SPA2
Filip Zadina - 89 OVR - DET / LW - BAR2
Jamie Drysdale - 89 OVR - EER / RD - SWA2
Michael Rasmussen - 88 OVR - DET / C - H and S2
Owen Tippett - 87 OVR - FLA / RW - SPA2
Gabe Vilardi - 87 OVR - LAK / C - H and S2
Jakub Zboril - 87 OVR - BOS / LD - BAR2
Ty Smith - 86 OVR - NJD / LD - DIS2
Keffer Bellows - 86 OVR - TIM / LW - BAL2
Brandt Clarke - 85 OVR - COL / RD - SWA2
Sebastian Cossa - 82 OVR - OIL / G - 6’4” / 212 lbs - H and S2

Primetimes

NHL

(NO PLD OR LAINE)
Brad Marchand - 89 OVR - BOS / LW - LTL1 , MAG1
Alexander Radulov - 88 OVR - DAL / RW - WM1 , WH1
John Klingberg - 88 OVR - DAL / RD - PP1 , SH1
Joe Pavelski - 87 OVR - DAL / C - GLA1 , T1 .... 88 FOs w Thief on
Paul Stastny - 83 OVR - WPJ / C - PP1 , MAG1
Joel Eriksson EK - 82 OVR - MIN / C - GLA1 , WM1
Conor Garland - 81 OVR - ARI / RW - LTL1 , WH1
Joel Edmundson - 81 OVR - MTL / LD - HOW1 , WM1
Andrew Copp - 81 OVR - WPJ / C - SPE1 , T1 ... 83 FOs with Thief on
Kevin Lankinen - 78 OVR - CHI / C - BAR1 , SPA1
Eric Robinson - 78 OVR - CBJ / LW - BAL1 , GLA1

Other Leagues

Tobias Stephan - 79 OVR - LAU / G - 6’4” / 194 lbs - DIS1 , H and S1
Andres Ambühl - 78 OVR - DAV / RW - BAL1 , HOW1
Jonas Arntzen - 78 OVR - ORL / G - 6’3” / 190 lbs - SPA1 , SWA1
Sandro Zurkirchen - 77 OVR - LUG / G - 5’11” / 172 lbs - BAR1 , H and S1
Ahti Oksanen - 77 OVR - KOL / LW - PP1 , SWA1
Mason Mctavish - 77 OVR - PET / C - DIS1 , SPE1
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

• Jumbo Elite Pack - 50k C / 1k P
20 items, with at least 11 80+ OVR players
• NHL Players Pack - 30k C / 600 P
10 items , all Gold NHL Players with at least 4 80+ OVR players
• Players Pack - 15k C / 300 P
10 items , all Players , at least 5 Gold Players and 1 80+ OVR player

P.S.

• HUT CHAMPS PROCESSING - where did you place?
• More Event Cards!!! - 5pm EST - whos your favourite?!
• Blockbuster Deal ! - PLD for LAINE!
• Where does your team stand?
• Hockey in History
——————

What’s to Come?

• Rivals Resets - Tomorrow at 5pm EST
• SB Season Reset - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• Rivals Rewards - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• HUT Champ Rewards - Wednesday at 6am EST
• SB Rewards !! - Thursday at 5pm EST
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - NHL2030 - is QUUIINTON BYFIELDD OVR 90 with the syn DOUBLEEE SPAARKKK! (SPA2)
Best Defence of the Day - NHL2030 - is BOOWENN BYYYRAAM OVR 90 with the syn DOUBLEEE DISTRIBUTORRRR (DIS2)
////
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is BRAADD MARCHAND OVR 89 with the syn LIIGHT THE LAAMP , and MAGIICIAAN
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is JOOHNN KLINGBERGG OVR 88 with the syn PAASSSING PLAYYMAKERR and SHUUT DOOWN
• MORE NHL 2030 CARDS OUT!!
• HUT CHAMPS PROCESSING
• LAINE FOR PLD ! WOW!
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Think of your life like a bow and arrow. All your stress, personal problems, world problems, etc., will make the arrow fall back... and the more problems, difficulties, etc., pushing this arrow back is really getting to you... right?
Well not for long.
All those problems will be launched, and a gone ‘er.
You will get through your problems you’re having in life. — the further back this arrow goes? The further you will go into greatness.
I believe , and I pray that your problems will launch into something powerful...
Because you?
You deserve it.
Hope all is going well for you.
——

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Jan 25
$ 146.30 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $8.76 / 6.37% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

ANYONE HAVE ANY SONG SUGGESTIONS??How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Joker and the Thief” by “Wolfmother” stuck in my head.... wanna listen to it? It’s on the playlist!
Sidenote - I really want to show my friend his music is worth all the time and effort he puts into it... he hasn’t been getting a ton of listens on his songs... can you please help me out? If you click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!! Please let me know if you like his music, and I’ll direct all the comments to him :) Thank you so much!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
Want to make your dream team, and show others what you’ve been working on, and much more? I will redirect you HERE!.
Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
Want to know how the market is holding up? With a simple TAP! you will be on the newly fresh made website for the HUT market, made by one of the guys on the sub!
.... what do the stats on a card mean? Is my card I want / pulled good? Click here to find out!!
When is my favourite team playing? When do they play!? Here you can click on this link, and tap on your favourite team. From there, tap “Schedule” . You can add this to your homescreen on iPhone by clicking the square with the upwards arrow, scrolling down, and tapping “Add to Home Screen”
——- —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —- —— —-

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!
————— —————— —————

Story Time!

An old Cherokee chief teaching his grandson about life ....
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
One is evil, he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt and ego.
The other is good, he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
The same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person too.”
The grandson then asked his grandfather, “which wolf will win?”
The old chief simply replied “The one you feed.”
What wolf are you feeding? You can let me know down below in the comments if you wish!
——-
25 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! TODAY IS NATIONAL BUBBLE WRAP DAY!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)
submitted by coolin68 to NHLHUT [link] [comments]

Day 70 of SR

Some of you may know me from my previous posts, many of which are among the most upvoted of all time on this subreddit. Just kidding, I’ve never posted here. I’m coming up on day 70 of SR and I figured I would make a post detailing what I’ve discovered.
Introduction
I began whacking off when I was 12. The negative effects were immediate. I went from a popular and liked individual to a member of the untouchable class. Never knew what caused that. Now I do.
At 13, I started working as a blackhat internet marketer. In other words, I was a scammer or con artist. I had immediate success and became “kid rich” in high school. From there, I continued ripping people off until I was 24. (You can read about all of my various scams and schemes in a 255-page book I wrote about my life, and how I changed my life, here. It's free.)
And we're back. Along the way, I became a drug addict. At 14, I discovered weed. At 16, I discovered psychedelics. At 17, I discovered MDMA and other stimulants. My home life sucked (divorced and depressed parents), so I dove straight into the world of drugs.
Overall, from the time I became a teenager, my life revolved around drugs, video games, and scamming people. I also whacked off very generously, considering it to be normal and healthy. I thought it was a waste product. Not an uncommon story.
Accidentally Discovering SR
About a year ago, I hit rock bottom, which you will read about if you decide to read my book. In essence, I was completely broke and living at home, with no friends, and my girlfriend had just dumped me. Coincidentally, I was also whacking off a ton during this time. Go figure.
A string of wild synchronicities led me to read the book Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. Think and Grow Rich was the catalyst that led me to get “kid rich” in high school, so I basically just followed Mr. Hill’s recommendations on how to outwit the devil to the letter… and it worked. I became genuinely happy for the first time in my life. I was crying tears of joy every morning when I woke up.
Frankly, at the time, I was not convinced that lust was a bad thing, because getting attention from women made me feel so good. Still, since the rest of the formula for outwitting the devil was working so well, I decided to completely repress my lust. I even managed to quit drugs under the guise of considering them to be gluttonous.
Life was good. The results were unbelievable. I moved to a new city. After being antisocial my entire life, people were going out of their ways to converse with me. I had tons of friends. Very attractive women were going out of their way to make themselves known to me. I didn’t know what on earth was happening, but my life was better than it had even been before, despite the fact that I was more broke than I had ever been before. Turns out money doesn't equal happiness. Who knew?
After about two months of completely repressing my lust, I decided to have sex. With all of this new attention from women, my lust then spiraled out of control. Repression doesn’t work. Knowledge is the key. Knowledge allows you to want to retain. At the time, I had the belief, but not the knowledge behind the belief, which inevitably led to a lack of faith.
Fast forward a couple months and I was back to where I was before: scamming, doing drugs, etc. Lust truly is the root of all sin. Lose control of your lust and you’re probably going to lose control of the rest of your life to some extent.
Whoops
I once again hit rock bottom in October 2020. I took a big gamble on a big adventure, and it failed. In fact, I came within a minute or two of certain death, and my plans were ruined. Now, I had $300 to my name, no car, no housing situation, and no more possessions than I could fit into a large backpack.
I crashed at a friend’s house and spent two months mostly moping around. At the end of November 2020, I read a random Reddit linking to montalk dot net and had a bout of gnosis.
Here is where things get interesting.
Randomly, I messaged a random Reddit user, and he linked me to The Practice of Brahmacharya. I was sold. I started doing SR, controlling my passion, and being careful to remember that pleasure comes but never stays, the human body is only clay, and everything will pass away. This was the knowledge I needed to WANT to control my lust. Before, after reading Outwitting the Devil, I was doing it almost against my will.
Results
Magnetism. The point of SR, to me, is not to attract women. But there’s no doubt that doing SR will attract women. In fact, it will attract everything and everyone. But the attraction is mostly mental. People subconsciously sense your high vibration and they look at it curiously. You’ll get a lot of love, but also a lot of hate if people are comfortable enough to confront you. Your thoughts begin to influence reality more than ever before.
Invisibility. This is mostly a joke, but I swear it’s real. When you’re vibrating at a very high level, you become invisible to others. Not literally. But I’ll give you an example. I’m walking down this road and the air is completely still. Two women are approaching, gossiping in a negative tone. As they pass, I say hello. They jump, completely startled, and looked at me as if I had just appeared out of nowhere. I was in their field of vision for, like, a minute. They should have noticed me. This has happened a couple times. I’m aware this bullet contradicts the previous one.
Calm. I used to be an explosively angry person. In fact, I used to get violent fantasies. I used to really hate the sheep. I didn’t understand how they couldn’t see through the lies! May as well exploit them. Now, I love the sheep, even though they still chirp at me occasionally, especially with all of this asinine /\/\@$K usage. (I’ve taken a hardline stance and will not put one on for even a second. Since I’m still self-employed as a copywriter, it’s possible to do since my workplace (read: bedroom) doesn’t require it. I’d recommend doing the same if you are sick of the bullshit. We need your help.)
Ability to disconnect emotion from thoughts. Emotions come and go. The error is when you let external influences affect your thoughts. There will be times when you are tense or sad. For example, it’s hard to feel totally good emotionally if you are tired. In the past, I let these emotions go straight into my neural network, which would lead to entire days full of bad emotions, which I masked with drugs. Now, I relax into the emotions, meditate on them, and they pass quickly. I usually learn something in the process. The thought of being able to control my emotions without drugs is awesome.
Ability to heal trauma. If you are not powered by your semen (lol), you’re not as strong and solid as you could be. This makes it nearly impossible to face the trauma of your past, before you woke up. Now that I have healed my trauma, at least to an extent, my life is just wonderful. I’m a complete stranger to my past scammer self, which is fantastic. IMO, the point of life is to realize your trauma, heal it, then link up with the Holy Ghost, Sophia, and help others heal theirs, too. If you’re doing SR but still not loving life, consider reflecting on uncomfortable moments from your past. Don’t repress them, just like you don’t repress your lust.
Loving life, man. If you ignore the ethics of my blackhat marketing, I was always rich in comparison to my peers, and I barely worked. I was also pretty jacked. I happened to be born with a conventionally attractive face and am quite tall. Despite these intrinsic advantages, life always sucked. Now, life always rocks, no matter what is happening. Do I still get down sometimes? Sure. You can’t feel euphoric always. But now I realize that stumbling blocks are part of the equation, and I take them in stride. I get excited for bad moments because I realize I’m about to learn something big which will make my life even better in the long run.
Difficulties / Relapse
I have not yet physically relapsed. But I have definitely let my mental state get out of control before, to the tune of looking at Instagram models, etc. This has happened twice. It SUCKED! Felt crappy for days afterwards.
When I feel it bubbling up nowadays, I take a deep breath straight into my cranium and hold it for a few seconds. It dissipates. I also channel it into my third eye if it’s a lesser urge and I feel like I can actively control it. Learned these two tricks from posters on here.
If I'm out in public, I straight up look away. I never really looked, considering it to be disrespectful. But man, don't feel bad about looking off to the side if there's an attractive woman walking in front of you.
IMO, the mental leads to the physical, and not the other way around. It’s the same as any other addiction. You can’t physically force yourself to stop if you don’t want to stop, because your mind controls your body. So, work on your mind instead of putting all of this effort into repression. Books can provide the knowledge you need to want to stop. Once you want to stop, it’s easy to do so.
Summary
As far as other aspects of my life go, the past two months have been a wild ride, as I’ve healed an absolutely massive amount of trauma in that time. One night, I did the karma meditation on ascensionhelp dot com and ended up screaming at the top of my lungs for two hours, uncontrollably, almost involuntarily. Scamming people for a decade, then realizing all of that karma in a short span of time, will do that to you!
This post has been all over the place, but I just wanted to let everyone know that SR is a very key part to living a good life. Better financial circumstances? SR can help with that. You want peace? SR. Happiness? SR. You want to stop scamming people, even though you’re damn good at it, it’s easy, and there’s no one to stop you? SR. (Side note: I did get sued by Perkins Coie when I was 17 due to one of my early scams, and I was also visited by a 3-letter agency for a particularly illegal scam, but nothing ever came of either of those instances. I’d like to say I talked my way out of them, which I did, but looking back, it was blatant intervention from my Higher Self which allowed me to talk my way out of them in the first place. Thanks, dude!)
SR is not the end-all-be-all to success in your chosen realm, but damn does it ever help. I really like this community because you guys understand the physical, but a lot of you are well-versed in the metaphysical realm too. If you want to do SR to get ahead in the physical world, that’s cool, but understand that the real power of SR is allowing yourself to access the metaphysical and spiritual concepts of this world that are hidden to the masses. Many posters here can give me a run for my money, which I very rarely experience in real life. Peace!
EDIT: Turns out I can't reply to comments on this post since I have no less than 25 karma on here. To u/UniqueUsername203: Fair question. This is an epic trollzor account, minus this post. I've had to branch outside of poker since I'm banned there for 30 days. If I really wanted to scam people again, I know of better avenues than spamming and pretending to be a girl, though I did that in an automated fashion circa 2010. Didn't work that well, only made like $20 - $40 per week and it was weird as fuck (even though I never directly talked to any of my victims).
submitted by ExpertPokerStrategy to Semenretention [link] [comments]

My Christian Upbringing and How I Escaped

Discovering and embracing Satanism is an easier task for some than for others. I just wanted to share a little of my experience for anyone coming from a strict Christian upbringing or even a Christian cult. It's rare that someone is able to escape the clutches of a cult unscathed and then go on to thrive. It's not something that happens overnight and it can involve undoing a lot of ingrained beliefs, going through an identity crisis, losing family or friends, and changing your entire perception of yourself and life. Going through it, I wasn't sure I was going to ever get out. But now, I can really stand back and be amazed at how resilient we can be.
In the 80s, my midwestern parents found themselves in a self-destructive lifestyle, and after attending a church-hosted and horrific dramatization of people being dragged off to hell, they turned to Christianity as the magic cure for their unhappiness in life. When I was born, they were still brand-new born-agains struggling with substance abuse and addiction, but they went all in. And I mean ALL in. They ghosted all their friends, cut ties with every member of my extended family, and made a new family of believers. We were Pentecostal - the 700 club-watching, faith-healing, tongues-speaking, Proctor and Gamble-boycotting variety. If you've ever seen Jesus Camp that was basically my life. I don't remember a lot from those early years, but I've heard stories and have seen family photos to know that I don't want to remember.
As my sister and I got older, they attempted to shelter us from the horrors of the sin-ridden secular world. We were homeschooled with an all-Christian, church-approved curriculum taught by my mother (who had an 8th grade education) while my dad was at work. My textbooks contained and presented as fact the typical hoaxes and flawed analogies that form the basis for Christian science-denial, and I didn’t know any different. We lived in the Bible belt on a small farm, and everyone I knew was at least some form of Christian. There weren't enough non-believers to convert, so we spent most of our time trying to convert the Catholics and Baptists to "real" Christianity. My mom always said Pentecostals came first, Catholics and Baptists came along after and bastardized Christianity. Most of my "classes" were based in homemaking or farm work, and went along nicely with our weekly Wednesday night girl's program, The Missionettes. It was basically girl scouts but focused on Bible memorization and turning us into good Christian wives. We had badges like sewing, knitting, cooking, grooming, ettiquette, abstinence, and first aid. Of course we also had religious badges for communion, prayer, healing, fruits of the spirit, and the armor of god etc. A very well-rounded education.
While my parents went to church and we put on the face like we were living the blessed life, things at home weren't great. The hardest thing growing up was hearing all the adults at church go on and on about how great my parents were and how lucky I was to have such good Christian parents. One day, I remember my dad pulling me aside to tell me there was something wrong with my mom, that I should never make her angry because he wouldn't be able to choose between us. When I was 5, my mom threw a pair of scissors at my dad. They got embedded in his leg and he had to go to the emergency room. When I was around 6, my mom began to threaten my dad in front of us, saying by the time he got home from work, we would be gone. That my sister and I needed to pick who we wanted to live with because by the end of the day, we needed to be packed and ready to leave. My mom was a big fan of belts and the wooden spoon, and she never spared the rod. I have had many objects broken on me. When she would make us bend over, I would try to look back and apologize, to ask what I had done wrong, or what i could do to fix it, but anything other than complete eyes-foward submission was viewed as rebellion and only added to the count. She told me once in a joking manner that when I was in trouble, all I would say was "I want to hold you" to try to get out of punishment. She laughed. When I was 7, my mom told us that Satan told her to kill us with a potato peeler, and that she was going to kill us, my dad, and then herself. But “luckily” god "saved" us! After that, I remember my sister and I used to hide in our closet and pray to god to turn us into farm animals. Horses, dogs, chickens, anything, so we could run away and be free. We didn't even want to be human anymore. By the time I was 12, suicidal ideation set in and never really let go. Satan didn't scare me anymore. My mom did. Hell was real and I was living in it.
When I was 13, my mom found a pencil in a parking lot from a local high school and determined that it was a sign from god that we should be enrolled in public school. I was terrified. These people weren't anything like me, they were all lost sinners and it was my job to be the shining light in the midst of darkness, to teach them the way. However, it turned out, I was the one who did most of the learning. I was exposed to more math and science in high school than I had been in my entire life. I learned about other cultures and history. I actually made some friends and got to see how other people live for the first time in my life. Nothing, absolutely nothing, at that high school even touched the evil I experienced at home. There were days I didn’t want to go home. I never missed a day of school if I could help it.
The things I had believed started to not make sense in my mind anymore. It took several years for me to put all the pieces together, but the final straw was actually reading the Bible entirely from cover to cover for the first time, rather than just the “reading plan” i was given. I learned when the gospels were actually written, who possibly wrote them and why. I started reading about as many different religions as I could and started realizing the similarties of them all. I had a good friend at the time who wasn't afraid to challenge every religious and political position I had, and realized that I didn't even know why I believed what I did, only that I was told to believe it and always had. I began to reexamine everything I believed, no matter how trivial or obvious. It became clear to me that more than anything, I just wanted more out of life than I was given.
Originally, I wasn't going to go to college. We didn't have enough money, no one in my family had ever gone to college, and my parents had just assumed that I'd end up being a pastor's wife who played the piano for church services. But on the advice of an advisor, I applied to and auditioned for a music program, and I got in. I was finally getting out. But not before my mom could have the final word. When my parents found out I had been talking to a boy at school and that I liked him, she called me "the whore" for a month. One day, I had the flu and missed school for a few days. My boyfriend asked if he could bring over a can of soup and the homework I had missed. My parents agreed, and when he came in, he sat on the end of my bed (the door was wide open and I was under a ton of blankets) to ask how I was doing. My mom walked by and screeched at the top of her lungs that he needed to get the fuck out of my room and out of her house. That we weren't allowed to be in the same room without supervision. I had basically learned that sticking up for myself was useless, but I would stick up for him. He hadn't done anything wrong. I got out of bed and got up into her face and called her a psychotic bitch. She demanded that my dad throw me out. I looked at him and he looked at me and I will never forget what he said. "I told you not to make her angry because I can't choose between you. This is her house. You have to leave."
So I left. I slept in my car that night and eventually stayed with my boyfriend's family until my aunt (who my parent's ghosted) heard what happened. She took me in for several months until I could make enough money working a few part-time jobs to afford a small apartment. I completely left the church after that. I did visit a few others and even worked as a choir director at a non-denomination church for a while as a side gig, but it just wasn't the same. The veil had been lifted.
Out of the dozens of families who knew me, who watched me grow up and spent time with my family (some who even knew what was going on at home), none of them attempted to contact me. Out of all of my church friends, I am still in contact with only one, who left around the same time I did. When people say leaving a cult is like commiting social suicide, they aren't exaggerating. I was completely cut off.
If you asked my parents today, they would tell you that around 18, I gave into doubt and fell from grace. That the friends I made outside of church brainwashed me. That going to college was the nail in the coffin of my salvation. They'd tell you that by the time I turned 18, I was lost. But I was never lost. Not really. They’d never tell you that I always got in trouble for constantly questioning things. When I was eight, I wrote on the back of an offering envelope “If god created us, who created god?” and left it on a church pew for one of the elders to find (and subsequently got a beating for it). They’d never tell you that at ten, I got into an argument with the children’s pastor for saying men were superior to women because they were created first. They’d never tell you that as a Missionette, I got caught skipping sewing class to crash the Royal Rangers’ (all boys group) flag football games and outdoor events. And they’d certainly never tell you that I was eventually replaced as the president of a bible study group at school for focusing on the less-read and more appalling stories in the Bible, telling people that the gospels weren’t actually written by eye-witnesses, and encouraging people to actually read and think for themselves.
Discovering Satanism was actually one of the biggest steps in trauma recovery for me. To realize that all of my actions and behaviors were based in natural human needs and emotions that aren't at all sinful. That my learned helplessness was a direct result of my upbringing and I didn't need it anymore. That I had control of my life now. That I'm resilient and capable of going through a fire and coming out on the other end, and that I don't have to forgive anyone for anything. That the only person I can rely on is myself.
Here I am on the other side of it all, through many twists and turns. I'm the first of my family to graduate high school, go to college, or go to graduate school. I'm now a professional scientist working on Alzheimer disease research and a keyboardist in a working band. I'm active in my community both in local politics and through volunteer work. Things are far from perfect. I still struggle with old emotions, behaviors and thought patterns. It’s taken many rituals and even daily effort sometimes, but I've achieved a level of happiness and fulfillment in life I never thought possible.
——————
There is no heaven of glory bright, and no hell where sinners roast. Here and now is our day of torment! Here and now is our day of joy! Here and now is our opportunity! Choose ye this day, this hour, for no redeemer liveth! Say unto thine own heart, "I am my own redeemer." Stop the way of them that would persecute you. Let those who devise thine undoing be hurled back to confusion and infamy. Let them be as chaff before the cyclone and after they have fallen rejoice in thine own salvation. Then all thy bones shall say pridefully, "Who is like unto me? Have I not been too strong for mine adversaries? Have I not delivered MYSELF by mine own brain and body?"
The Book of Satan - Anton Szandor LaVey
submitted by SubjectivelySatan to satanism [link] [comments]

My sister dumped me last night - they never take my side. Fully estranged.

Last night, I (f30) got the text from my little sister (f22) who I was still speaking to which explained that she was done speaking to me. That she was siding with our mom and our other sister (f25).
It really sucks.
My mom grew up under extreme abuse - she was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. She lived in poverty and starved. They moved around a lot so she never got to settle in. So guess what! When it came time to be a parent and raise me, she was wildly unequipped. She psychologically abused and terrorized me growing up. I believe that my mom has BPD based on her behaviors but she has never been diagnosed as such.
I could tell you many things about her. She is a gambling addict who earns 6 figures but will often cry that she doesn't have enough money to pay for gas to drive to work. She is always in a lot of unspecified debt. I have a different dad from my sisters who saved his social security checks when I was growing up into a college fund for me. My mom and he divorced when I was very young. As a teen, when my mom felt too much pressure from her debts, she would scream and cry at me, "I am going to go out and drive my car into the ocean!! You sit on your golden gilded fucking nest egg and you refuse to help your mother!!" ...all because I wouldn't convince my dad to turn over my entire college savings account so she could blow it on her debt (and then immediately accrue new debt as she always does).
That's just one aspect of her personality. Another is constantly stomping on boundaries and then shitting on me when I tell her to stop. "You have a very real problem with BOUNDARIES," she will text me, then tell me that when I tell her no and ask her to stop behaviors that are upsetting, that she gets suicidal ideation. Makes me out to be the bad guy.
My mom always suggested to me that I get a certain kind of ground cover for my back yard. I think the suggestion she made is ugly and have told her no many times and have told her to stop talking about it. But she is the kind of person who - if I hadn't made some extremely hard boundaries - she would have already gone and snuck into my back yard and planted whatever she wanted in there and then gotten angry at me when I wasn't pleased about the "favor" she had done.
Okay? Like, I have tried for my entire 20s to have a relationship with her that preserved my mental health and I found that I could not have it no matter what, so I decided to go NC.
I fucking TRIED!!!! I had her walk me down the aisle at my wedding in 2019 in place of my dad who died, okay? I fucking tried!!!
And then comes my sister Liz yesterday. We have had our own shitty relationship and decided to try to get along because our sister Rachel betrayed both of us last year over relatively simple disagreements and started telling vicious lies about our homes and our partners. Rachel did some extremely bewildering and potentially dangerous lying which could have had police sent to mine and Liz's houses last year.
Rachel lived with me first, betrayed me and moved in with Liz (who took Rachel's side and didn't believe me!). Then - only after Rachel betrayed and lied about Liz to everyone in the same way - Liz came crying to me and apologizing for not listening and taking the wrong side. The lies Rachel told were not trivial I am no fool - I haven't spoken to Rachel since she did that.
But apparently now Liz and Rachel have made up. Liz has taken mom's side. And she sent me a text where she chastised me for not being understanding of everyone's mental health issues and for not having an, "open, honest, and candid" relationship with all of them. Puh-LEASE!!
What about my mental health issues? What about how just because someone has mental health issues doesn't mean you should tolerate abuse from them? What about all my efforts to include and care for everyone?
Also of note in her message, she said she loved our mom and sister twice. But she never said she loves me in these parting words. Not even to say goodbye.
So I feel pretty sad, like a giant stone is inside my chest.
They can all have each other and stew in their intergenerational trauma. I am getting the fuck out.
I really hope this message from my sister means they have all sided against me and cut me out and made me the bad guy - because maybe then they will fuck off and leave me alone!!
It still sucks.
Thanks for listening.
submitted by AssMaster6000 to JUSTNOFAMILY [link] [comments]

Mon. Feb. 8 Daily HUT Content - What is new?

Hey guys, it’s Coooolin! How was your Monday!? It’s a brand new week!! Hope everyone had a great start to it ! What did you do today? Let me know, down below!
Here’s the new content for today, Thanks EA! :)

NHL 94 Flashback

Mark Recchi - 91 OVR - PHI / RW - DIS1 , WM2
Glenn Anderson - 90 OVR - EDM / RW - BAR1 , HOW2
Morgan Rielly - 90 OVR - TOR / RD - BAR1 , LTL2 ... YAY! u/jordanjclarke
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - 89 OVR - EDM / C - DIS1 , MAG2
Ryan Getzlaf - 88 OVR - ANA / C - - H and S1 , T2 ... 91 FOs with T
Shayne Corson - 87 OVR - EDM / LD - BAL1 , SPE2
Craig Ludwig - 87 OVR - DAL / LD - SWA1 , WH2
Kevin Hayes - 87 OVR - PHI / C - SPA1 , MAG2
Tomas Hertl - 87 OVR - SJS / C - SPA1 , LTL2
Sean Hill - 86 OVR - ANA / RW - BAL1 , SH2
Jamie Olesiak - 85 OVR - DAL / LD - SWA1 , GLA2
Johan Garpenlov - 85 OVR - SJS / LW - H and S1 , PP2
—-

Primetimes

NHL

Austin Matthews - 93 OVR - TOR / C - LTL1 , GLA1
Mitchell Marner - 91 OVR - TOR / RW - PP1 , MAG1
Max Pacioretty - 88 OVR - LVK / LW - WM1 , WH1
Thomas Griess - 87 OVR - DET / G - 6’2” / 232 lbs - BAR1 , SPA1
Alex Debrincant - 87 OVR - CHI / RW - HOW1 , SH1
Dougie Hamilton - 87 OVR - CAR / RD - GLA1 , WH1
Mikael Backlund - 85 OVR - CGY / C - SPE1 , MAG1
Barclay Goodrow - 83 OVR - TBL / C - MAG1 , T1 ... 86 FOs with T
Jake Allen - 83 OVR - MTL / G - 6’2” / 190 lbs - DIS1 , SWA1
Maxime Comtois - 82 OVR - ANA / LW - PP1 , WM1
Scott Laughton - 81 OVR - PHI / C - HOW1 , SH1
Bratt Pesce - 80 OVR - CAR / RD - BAL1 , GLA1
Chandler Stephenson - 80 OVR - LVK / C - DIS1 , PP1
Nicolas Hague - 78 OVR - LVK / LD - SPA1 , LTL1
Givani Smith - 78 OVR - DET / RW - SWA1 , MAG1

Other Leagues

Nick Shore - 80 OVR - EVZ / C - BAR1 , HOW1
Enzo Corvi - 79 OVR - DAV / C - H and S1 , SPE1
Valtteri Kemiläinen - 78 OVR - TAM / RD - DIS1 , T1
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

1D 23H
• Jumbo Elite Pack - 50k C / 1k P
20 items , with at least 11 80+ OVR Players
• Mega Pack - 37.5k C / 750 P
30 items, at least 15 Gold Players, and 4 80+ OVR Players
• Players Pack - 15k C / 300 P
10 items, all Players, at least 5 Gold Players and 1 80+ OVR Player

P.S.

• HUT CHAMPS Processing
• Happy Monday!

Hockey News

• Khudubin gets Benched
• Hockey in History

Stock Market News

• All Time Highs
• A chance to make millions

Other News

• COVID 19 whats happening in Canada
• Will you buy Silver Stocks?
——————

What’s to Come?

• Rivals Resets - Tomorrow at 5pm EST
• SB Season Reset - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• Rivals Rewards - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• HUT Champ Rewards - Wednesday at 6am EST
• SB Rewards !! - Thursday at 5pm EST
• More Event Cards!! - Friday at 5pm EST
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - 94 FLASHBACK - is MAARK RECHHI OVR 91 with the syn DISTRIBUTOR and DOUBLE WING MAN
Best Defence of the Day - 94 FLASHBACK - is MOORGAN RIELLY OVR 90 with the syn BARRAGEE and LIGHT THE LAAMP
//
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is AUSTIN MATTHEWSS OVR 93 with the syn LIGHT THE LAMP and GLAADIATOR
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is DOUGIE HAMILTONN OVR 86 with the syn GLADIATORR and WING MAAN
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Okay, lets say you had a bad day. Are you going to let it tower over your mood, spiral thoughts into your brain making it negative... or are you going to get your power back? You are who you choose to be. Just be yourself, and be you: be true, be you, and just be yourself. People will like you for you, and not just a fake persona you choose to be..because people can/will find out sooner or later, and that’ll just be bad.
Do what makes you happy. Be around people that make you happy.. and if someone isnt? Tell them that - or let them be.
You deserve good people in your life.

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Feb 8
$ 142.46 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $4.92 / 3.58% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

WE’RE AT 1400 SONGS! WOWW! How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Glad You Exist” by “Dan + Shay” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
Want to make your dream team, and show others what you’ve been working on, and much more? I will redirect you HERE!.
Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
Want to know how the market is holding up? With a simple TAP! you will be on the newly fresh made website for the HUT market, made by one of the guys on the sub!
.... what do the stats on a card mean? Is my card I want / pulled good? Click here to find out!!
When is my favourite team playing? When do they play!? Here you can click on this link, and tap on your favourite team. From there, tap “Schedule” . You can add this to your homescreen on iPhone by clicking the square with the upwards arrow, scrolling down, and tapping “Add to Home Screen”
——- —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —- —— —-

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!
——-
39 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! HAPPY NATIONAL KITE FLYING DAY!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)
submitted by coolin68 to NHLHUT [link] [comments]

can you get your money back if you have a gambling addiction video

If you suspect you or someone you love has a gambling addiction, talk to your doctor or mental health professional. They can help you find the information and support you need. If you think that you or someone you know may have a gambling addiction, speak to your doctor in the first instance. If needed, your doctor can provide a referral to a psychologist. Resources and support. For more information and support, try these resources: Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858, 24 hours a day; Lifeline on 13 11 14, 24 hours a day Ask for advice about how to relieve financial pressure and solve financial problems caused by your gambling. The financial stress that you have from gambling addiction debts can drive you back to gambling if not addressed. Financial problems are the biggest consequence of gambling, and help is available. You hide your gambling from friends or family members. You may sneak off to gamble without telling anyone, or lie about your gambling activities. You spend money you don’t have on gambling. You may use money intended for important bills like rent, mortgage, car payments, credit card bills, and other expenses for gambling. I would not focus on trying to get your money back either through gambling or by hoping the casinos refund your deposits. Because in all likely hood they wont no matter what. Accept the fact the money has gone it does not belong to you. Gambling is a powerful addiction, so it’s important that you understand what your partner’s dealing with, and actions you can take/ According to the relationship counselling charity Relate, there are several danger signs of a gambling problem to look out for. Some of them seem to match up with what you’ve been witnessing lately. They include: When most people think of money addiction, an image of a gambling addict may come to mind, or someone who loves to flash their new designer outfit or their fancy car du jour. But back to technology. "Online sports betting sites have really changed the landscape for gambling, and that's actually the case for a lot of addictions," Schrank says. Being a compulsive gambler can harm your health and relationships, and leave you in serious debt. If you have a problem with gambling and you'd like to stop, support and treatment is available. Are you a problem gambler? Try this questionnaire: Do you bet more than you can afford to lose? Do you need to gamble with larger amounts of money to ... “Who do you call when you have no idea how you’re going to pay your rent when you get back from vacation?” Get On-Demand Answers to Your Questions Speak to a Verified Expert It was at the airport that he saw a poster for Gamblers Anonymous , which is an organization intended to help gambling addicts learn how to beat their addiction.

can you get your money back if you have a gambling addiction top

[index] [7761] [8651] [2543] [8425] [1002] [956] [6011] [5335] [6874] [5247]

can you get your money back if you have a gambling addiction

Copyright © 2024 max.bkinfo333.site