This is huge! First newly built Las Vegas Casino in 6 years opens with bitcoin ATM on the gaming floor. Targets Chinese and Asian clientele. /r/Bitcoin
You’ve probably seen the meme that says we’re living in the wrong timeline. While this sounds like a joke, there might be some truth to it. There are some researchers who claim what happened on 9/11 was a temporal event that caused our timeline to split in two. Supposedly there is a parallel world where the Twin Towers still exist and the apocalypse is being avoided. This is not to say I think we are living in the wrong timeline, but that is something I will get into in another thread. Just know that there is still hope. Perhaps the darkest timeline is needed for some collective shadow work. However, I do think our timeline has been altered and probably more times than once. While this is not something you can really prove, there are many oddities surrounding 9/11 as well as a synchronistic pattern hidden in pop culture that seems to point to this. In the movie Back to the Future, after the protagonist accidentally activates a time machine and alters the future, the Twin Pines Mall becomes the Lone Pine Mall. Notice how the clock reads 9:11 when flipped upside down. 134 reads like hel when flipped upside too. Are we living in a bardo state like in the movie Jacob's Ladder or the show The Good Place? Was this a reference to the Mandela Effect and the Twin Towers becoming the One World Trade Center? In the second Back to the Future movie, the protagonists accidentally create a new timeline where a wealthy man named Biff takes over their town. Biff lives in a skyscraper casino and turns their town into a chaotic dystopia. According to the screenwriter Bob Gale, Biff was based on Donald Trump. This is not a political statement, I’m just saying it’s odd how things turned out. I wonder if Bob Gale knew Trump would run for president? In the Super Mario Bros. movie, a meteorite impact millions of years ago caused the universe to split into two timelines, the one we live in, and one where dinosaurs evolved into a humanoid race. President Koopa, a reptilian human hybrid, seems to be another caricature of Trump. President Koopa wants to merge his dimension with ours and attempts to rule Manhattan from the Twin Towers, which are portrayed as a gateway between worlds. The Super Mario franchise is strange when you think about shamans eating mushrooms to commune with serpent gods. Looks kind of similar, right? There are many more examples of the WTC acting as a gateway. In an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Twin Towers are used to transmit energy that propels the earth into another dimension. Take note of the sphere between the buildings, this will become relevant later. In the intro of Power Rangers: Time Force, a machine called the Time Shadow is seen standing on the towers. Take note of the moon in the background as well. This will become relevant too. During the final scene of Fringe season 1, the WTC is seen intact in a parallel universe. In the intro of Power Rangers: Time Force, a machine called the Time Shadow is seen standing on the towers. Take note of the moon in the background as well. This will become relevant too. During the final scene of Fringe season 1, the WTC is seen intact in a parallel universe. I miss cartoons. Another interesting example can be found in Star Trek. In the show, space explorers are sent back in time to stop an alien invasion in the 1940s that altered the outcome of WWII and allowed the Nazis to invade the US. Once they kill the alien leader, one of the characters tells the protagonist that the timeline has corrected itself just as an image of the Twin Towers burning passes in the background. From Star Trek: Enterprise The idea of a parallel world where the Nazis won WWII is very prominent in pop culture. But why is this? Is it possible creative people can intuitively sense other realities while absorbed in the act of creating? Philip K. Dick believed that’s what he did when he wrote The Man in the High Castle. He claimed: "I in my stories and novels sometimes write about counterfeit worlds. Semi-real worlds as well as deranged private worlds, inhabited often by just one person…. At no time did I have a theoretical or conscious explanation for my preoccupation with these pluriform pseudo-worlds, but now I think I understand. What I was sensing was the manifold of partially actualized realities lying tangent to what evidently is the most actualized one—the one that the majority of us, by consensus gentium, agree on." Coincidentally, Philip K. Dick was one of the first modern thinkers to predict the Mandela Effect. He once declared: “we are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs.” The Nazis were rumored to be in possession of a time machine known as Die Glocke, or in English, The Bell. They were supposedly taught how to build this device by extraterrestrials and the craft was said to be kept in a facility known as Der Riese, or The Giant. It sounds far fetched, but The Nazi Party was actually formed from The Thule Society, an occult group that dabbled in channeling and other magical practices. They were also known to use the Black Sun symbol, an esoteric representation of a gateway into another dimension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol)) In Twin Peaks, a show about a small town caught in the midst of an interdimensional battle between good and evil, there seems to be a reference to Die Glocke. In season 8 there is a device that looks just like it, and at one point, a character called The Giant appears next to it. A conception of Die Glocke compared to the mysterious bell device in Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks is full of occult symbolism. In one episode a character is given instructions to find a portal that opens 253 yards east of Jack Rabbit’s Palace at 2:53 pm on October 1st. This portal is located in Washington. However, there is another in Las Vegas. Strangely enough, on October 1st, 2017, the Las Vegas shooting occurred in a lot 253 yards away from the Luxor Hotel, a giant black pyramid with the strongest beam of light in the world shooting out of it. Victims were mostly those attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival. There's also black pyramids on the instructions. But it gets stranger. Jason Aldean was one of the headliners. If you look at his tattoos, there’s a Jack card and an Ace card underneath a black sun, which as mentioned earlier, is an occult symbol that represents a portal. This card from the Illuminati game is almost identical. A Jack is worth 10 points. An Ace is worth 1 point. This odd coincidence seems to be a reference to the date 10/1. Keep in mind this date looks like the number 101. This will become relevant too. But was the Route 91 Harvest a literal harvest of souls meant to energize a portal? This one is too much of a coincidence for me. The name Twin Peaks seems to be a reference to the Twin Pillars, a Masonic concept that originated from the Biblical idea of Boaz and Jachin, two pillars that stood on the porch of King Solomon's Temple. The Twin Pillars can be found in ancient architecture all over the world and are sometimes used in Tarot. They are said to represent a doorway into a higher realm. In this Masonic artwork, you can see the Black Sun between them. Jachin, Boaz, and the Black Sun. The Twin Pillars and the gateway in between can be represented by the number 101. In Twin Peaks, the entrance to The Black Lodge, a place that exists in another dimension, is depicted as a rabbit hole between two trees, which resembles a zero between two ones. In George Orwell’s famous novel 1984, Room 101 is a place where people’s worst fears come true. In The Matrix, Neo’s apartment number is 101. Here it’s interesting to note that he escapes the matrix by going in room 303. This year marks 303 years since Freemasonry was founded. Perhaps they will make their getaway come December? Many occult researchers claim the Twin Towers were supposed to represent the Twin Pillars. There even used to be a statue called The Sphere placed in between them, making the buildings resemble the 101 Gateway. The Black Lodge entrance from Twin Peaks and The Sphere centered between the Twin Towers. Is it possible that the WTC‘s design was intended to create an interdimensional doorway using sacred geometry? Some say the Twin Towers even acted as a tuning fork. The buildings were wrapped in aluminum alloy with a resonant hollow interior. If you look at the picture above and to the right, you can kind of see how the sides of the towers even look like one. The Colgate Clock also once faced the WTC from across the water. If you’ve read my previous threads, you’ll probably notice it’s octagonal shape. Many portals in pop culture are portrayed as being 8 sided, like CERN, the largest particle collider in the world. Many conspiracy theorists speculate CERN is actually an interdimensional doorway. Some of the scientists working there have even said this. Why is there so much symbolism? Can it all really be just a coincidence at this point? Did 9/11 really alter our timeline? The Colgate Clock compared to CERN. According to many people, 9/11 is the reason the Statue of Liberty’s torch is closed. However, this isn’t true. Lady Liberty’s torch has been closed for over 100 years. Yet, there are some people who claim to have visited it. But according to official history, this is impossible. In this reality, The Black Tom Explosion was the reason the Lady Liberty’s torch closed. The explosion occurred in 1916 and was one of the first foreign attacks on US soil prior to Pearl Harbor. The explosion was also one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever documented. The explosion was so powerful it caused the outer wall of Jersey City's city hall to crack and the Brooklyn Bridge to shake. Ironically, besides Lady Liberty’s torch, the explosion lodged shrapnel in the clock tower of The Jersey Journal building, stopping the clock at 2:12 am. It also caused windows miles away in Times Square to shatter. Perhaps the matrix was trying to tell us something. Was this a time shattering event? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tom_explosion https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60763-d103887-r126254125-Statue_of_Liberty-New_York_City_New_York.html Some people also claim they remember the Statue of Liberty being on Ellis Island. However, it has always been on Liberty Island. Once again, this is not something I recall learning in school. I’m sure some people do, but if my theory is correct, it’s because only some people in this timeline are from the old one. However, you can still find what appears to be residue left over from the previous reality. Residue from a previous reality? There are references in pop culture that seem to hint at the connection between the Mandela Effect and Lady Liberty as well. In the video game Assassin’s Creed Unity, the protagonist must find an exit portal to get himself out of a simulation. He finds it on the statue’s torch. In the movie Men in Black II, the statue’s torch is actually a giant Neuralyzer, a handheld device that uses a bright white flash to wipe people’s minds. At the end of the movie, the torch is activated and it illuminates the sky, erasing the memory of everyone in New York City. The scenes from Assassin's Creed and Men In Black II In the Netflix series The OA, a show about people who can jump between parallel universes, the Statue of Liberty shows up a lot. It seems to play an important role that was never really explained due to the show’s sudden cancellation. Some fans have pointed out that in one scene, Lady Liberty is holding her torch in the wrong hand. Some say this was just an error while others think it may have a deeper meaning. The Statue of Liberty scene from The OA. In The OA, the protagonist searches for The Rose Window, an object she says acts like a portal to other dimensions. I find this very symbolic considering the Twin Pillar symbolism mentioned earlier. Many older cathedrals have huge rose windows centered between two tall towers. Old cathedrals with 101 Gateway symbolism built into the architecture. If you’ve read my previous threads, you might have already made the connection that the 101 Gateway is another version of the Saturn Stargate. If you’re not familiar with the theory, we live in a simulation controlled by Saturn and the Moon, and The Elite are tying to break out. Our simulated reality is sometimes represented by a cube, and some say The Kaaba is one of these symbolic structures. The Kaaba sits between two pillars underneath a clocktower with a crescent moon on top. Kaaba at Mecca. Ironically, Fritz Koenig, the artist who created The Sphere sculpture between the Twin Towers, said The Kaaba was the inspiration behind his art installation. We can see this symbolism repeated in much of our pop culture as well. In the video game Fortnite, a giant cube destroys a location called Tilted Towers then forms a portal in the sky. At another point in the game, it is revealed that the cube’s true form is a giant demon named the Storm King. His horns are reminiscent of a crescent moon. The second time you fight the Storm King its at a location called Twine Peaks lmao. But are there anymore significant Mandela Effects associated with the WTC? According to some people, Hurricane Erin never happened in their timeline. If you‘re unaware, like I was until recently, there was a massive hurricane headed right for New York on the morning of 9/11. Because of the events that occurred on 9/11, I understand how Hurricane Erin would be easy to forget. Nevertheless, the storm was strange. Hurricane Erin, which was slightly larger than Hurricane Katrina, received almost no media coverage as she charged toward New York City. On the morning of 9/11, just as the planes were about to hit, Hurricane Erin grew to her largest size, but slowed down and remained almost stationary off the East coast. But right after the WTC fell, she made a sharp right turn and headed back out to sea. Hurricane Erin on September 11th, 2001. Hurricane Erin’s name is also interesting. The name Erin originated from Ériu, a goddess typically seen by the sea playing a harp. I find this curious becau HAARP uses extremely powerful radio frequencies to heat up the ionosphere and create clouds of plasma. Not only does this affect the climate, but the electromagnetic waves produced by it could hypothetically mess with our minds, perhaps changing or even erasing our memories. se many conspiracy theorists blame HAARP for both weather manipulation and the Mandela Effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89riu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program In my last thread, I talked about MH370. I believe it’s disappearance, like the events discussed in this thread, was a part of a Saturn Stargate ritual. A sacrifice to the god of time. Would it be beyond the god of the fourth dimension to grant someone access to a wormhole? Perhaps The Elite are not purposely creating Mandela Effects and branching timelines. Perhaps it is just a side effect of trying to beak the matrix. But I digress. At the end of my last thread I said I would talk more about rabbit symbolism and its association with time travel. However, before I talk about that, or the Law of One, I thought I should talk about this first. Thanks for reading. Oh yeah, in case you did read my last thread, check this out. The fact that this article was posted 2 weeks after my MH370 conspiracy post has me kind of spooked lol. https://nypost.com/2020/10/07/washed-up-debris-on-australian-beach-could-belong-to-missing-mh370/
Gotta Collect 'Em All: Hype Decks and Popular Playing Card Series When you're into cardistry, you'll know a thing or two about playing cards. They are, after all, the tools of the trade. And you'll quickly discover that there's a lot of different custom decks out there, many of which are great for card flourishing. A vast amount of cards that have already been produced, and there's steady flow of new cards that are being released on an ongoing basis. Arguably the most popular playing cards beloved by cardists and collectors alike are what some refer to as "hype decks". These are decks that have effectively become a brand of their own by virtue of their sheer popularity. In the last few years alone there are several "brands" that have generated a huge wave of momentum. Almost every new release is quickly sold out, and previous releases don't take long to fetch high prices in the secondary market, as buyers scramble to "collect 'em all". In this article we'll introduce you to some of the more popular series of this sort, which are beloved by both cardists and by playing card collectors. FONTAINES The Fontaine brand is one of the biggest and most recognizable brands in the world of playing cards today, especially in cardistry circles. When you first see a Fontaine deck of cards you might wonder why. After all, what is there to get excited about card backs which have a lower-case "f" put together in a simple and minimalist design, and card faces that are mostly standard? The reason for the success of this brand is the man behind it, Zach Mueller. Zach began making a name for himself with his creative cardistry videos, some of which went viral on youtube. Inspired by the iconic Jerry's Nugget casino deck which appears later on this list, around 2013 Zach whipped up a simple design of his own, printed the deck, and began using it in his cardistry videos. It wasn't even originally conceived as deck that would be published more widely, nor was including it in his cardistry videos originally intended as a marketing gimmick. But the popularity of his videos did have the result of producing a demand for decks like the one Zach was using. When he tried his hand at crowdfunding one, it became an instant success. Zach built on this success with further releases of the same design but in different colours, and later expanded his Fontaine brand to include clothing and other merchandise. Today the Fontaine company has a significant number of releases every year, and they are typically so much in demand that each sells out in minutes. While many of the initial decks didn't evidence much variety aside from recolouring the back design, in recent times we have witnessed some more innovation, such as collaborations with other artists, and a UV black-light edition. https://preview.redd.it/bk51kexhhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7ad5a040ac2cd67d9644f02041f3937ba2e28642 ORBITS The Orbit decks come from magician Chris "Orbit" Brown, with involvement from designer Daniel Schneider. The Orbit series is extremely popular with card flourishers, and it's not surprising why. The circle design on the card backs makes it ideal for cardistry. The first version of the deck was blue, had a print run of only 2500, and only managed to hit its Kickstarter target on the final day when it was put up for crowdfunding in 2015. In contrast, today collectors can't get enough of them! The fourth edition alone had a print run of ten times that amount, and the first few versions of the deck will now cost a pretty penny on the secondary market - if you can find them. Common to most of the decks in the series is of course the signature circle look of the card backs. But there's also the regular presence of light-hearted jokers, mini-astronauts, and even tiny orbitting rockets on the card backs, all of which capture something of the galactic and space theme, and add elements of warm humor. There have been minor tweaks to the design to ensure that each deck is not just a simple recolouring of the previous version. The V7 deck is noteworthy for its retro pink and blue colours, and for including a tribute to the failed mission of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, and has the added bonus of being a very cleverly marked deck. The face cards of the Orbit decks mostly feature a style borrowed from the classic Arrco decks, which gives them a slightly different feel from your typical Bicycle deck, while ensuring that they still have a very familiar, recognizable, and practical look. Some of the decks feature even members of the Orbit crew as the court card characters. It is certainly a successful formula, and these are versatile playing cards that are both novel and familiar enough to make them suit a variety of purposes, from card flourishing to card magic. As with most other entries on this list, the success of the series has generated an increased demand for the first decks in the series, which are not easy to get hold of. https://preview.redd.it/0lakhcmihcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=424b4fba74ee4be5d763fb2439b270df0d319019 JERRY'S NUGGET The history of the Jerry's Nugget decks is a fascinating one, and it even includes a great detective story. The short version is that these striking red and blue decks were first printed in the early 1970s for Jerry's Nugget Casino in Las Vegas. They ended up in storage instead of being used at the casino, and eventually made their way to the gift shop, where they were sold for a dollar or two each. At this point they were discovered by some big name cardists, who began popularizing them via their videos, and spoke highly of their handling qualities, which were the result of printing methods that couldn't be replicated with modern methods. The demand for them grew, but by this time they were sold out. With a limited supply and increased demand, they slowly became a holy grail for collectors, prices typically reaching $500 per deck on the market. Around 2019 Lee Asher became involved with a project to reprint the cards, to make them readily available again, and put them in the hands of a new generations of cardists and collectors. A deal was brokered between Expert Playing Card Company and Jerry's Nugget Casino, and with the help of an incredibly successful Kickstarter project that fetched nearly half a million dollars, a new edition of Jerry's Nugget decks hit the market. The new decks are almost like the original, but consist of a Modern Feel version printed by USPCC and a Vintage Feel version printed by EPCC. The scene was ripe for capitalizing on the popularity of these classic decks, and so the deck was subsequently reprinted in colours like Teal, Coral, Black, Steel Grey, Yellow, Orange, Green, and purple. There are also some limited editions like Pink, and there are even special limited editions with gilding. Many card flourishers love the minimalist look of this series, the famous name and iconic look, and the variety of different colours make them ideal for collectors. https://preview.redd.it/kuxzzlgjhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8356844549aedec90eda4b447063afc00faf88f5 CHERRY CASINO The Jerry's Nugget decks aren't the only decks that capitalize on the public interest in old-time casinos. This is also the concept that lies at the heart of the Cherry Casino decks, which is a series of playing cards produced under the Pure Imagination label. Pure Imagination Projects was founded in 2013 by Derek McKee, and the first Cherry Casino deck was produced around 2015 in a bright aqua colour. The idea was to draw on the image of an old time casino, hence the classic cherry artwork familiar from slot machines, an iconic symbol of gambling. Several versions then followed in successive years, as the Cherry Casino decks slowly grew in popularity One of the drawcards of this series is the bold metallic ink used on the cardbacks for most of these decks, which instantly sets them apart from your average deck. One of my personal favourite colours in this series is the Tahoe Blue, which is inspired by one of the clearest and deepest lakes in the United States, Lake Tahoe. The use of metallic ink on card backs creates a gorgeous and inviting pearlescent blue that is hard to get enough of. The Cherry Casino decks are also very versatile and practical, and the relatively standard card faces makes them ideal for card magic or for playing card games. Yet the striking card backs also makes them very appealing for cardists and collectors. This creates the ideal combination of something striking and something simple, which is the greatest strength of the Cherry Casino series. The vibrant and eye-catching colours, set them apart from the competition, and give them the magnetic quality that collectors look for, while they remain functional and suitable for a variety of uses. The first decks in the series are especially prized by collectors, since they are long out of print, and entered the market long before anybody realized how successful this series would become over time. https://preview.redd.it/uvqcml7khcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ef474b844f7af286d7d3c3bf3fb5a9f67bead9e VIRTUOSO Virtuoso, commonly called The Virts, is a group of Singaporean cardists, originally founded by Huron Low and Kevin Ho. Other team members joined them over time, and they began releasing cardistry videos on their youtube channel. Around 2012 one of their cardistry videos went viral and was eventually featured on the Discovery Channel, which only increased the growing interest in their work, especially their creative card flourishing videos. It was also around this time that The Virts came up with the idea of designing a deck of card that was specifically geared towards cardistry. They used a design that was strongly geometric in flavour, and where even the court cards and number cards were optimized for card flourishing, to enhance the visual aesthetic of cards in motion. Today it's quite common for a deck to be optimized for cardistry, and there's a ready market waiting to buy decks like this. But at the time this was a groundbreaking idea, and even somewhat of a financially risky one. But card flourishers welcomed the very first Virtuoso deck with open arms, and the deck proved to be more successful than ever imagined. Since the release of their first deck, The Virts have continued to release follow-up decks on a somewhat regular basis. Typically each new release is accompanied by a flashy video that showcases the amazing cardistry of The Virts themselves, which is cleverly accentuated by their cardistry-friendly cards. Their signature geometric design is common to all of the decks released so far, and the eye-catching colours and consistently handling qualioty ensure that card flourishers love it. Recent times have seen the rate of their releases slow down, but news in 2020 about their latest deck - which is scheduled to come out in 2021 - generated a new wave of excitement. Loyalty to the Virtuoso brand and decks is evidenced by the fact that many people were ready to pre-order the new deck sight unseen. https://preview.redd.it/48zmr2okhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd5fcc61431a3e2764fd95bb5dba12a79658817d ORGANIC PLAYING CARDS One of the more fun entries in this list are the food-inspired decks created by Organic Playing Cards (OPC). This brand is originally the brainchild of Cameron Toner and Nathan Lex, who started OPC while they were in college, combining Cameron's love for card magic and Nathan's love for cardistry. The company has since evolved, and others have come on board as they grew. Their original goal was simply to produce a fun deck of banana-themed cards, now known as Peelers V1. Since then they've gone on to produce a cornucopia of fruit-inspired novelty decks. The concept of what you can expect from an OPC deck is a simple one. Typically it's a deck that features two pieces of fruit on the card backs, some humorous changes to the court cards that incorporate that fruit, an adjusted colour scheme, and a fun take on the tuck box. For example, the Squeezers V1, V2, and V3 decks are orange, lemon, and grape-fruit themed retrospectively, and the tuck boxes are designed to look like juice boxes, complete with an ingredient list. The Snackers decks are themed on strawberries and blackberries, and come in a resealable package typical of a bag of candies, and even include an artificially added scent that smells like the fruit. The latest additions to this popular series have included an avocado themed deck (Avocardos), and in somewhat of a departure from the usual fruit theme and look, a corn-themed harvest deck (Shuckers). So they are exploring new directions, but they haven't run out of fruit just yet, and I look forward to see what they come up with next. https://preview.redd.it/56o6yqelhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b9aec71b43d043c10980cee343e3bf3e8ffed30 WHAT TO BUY AND HOW MUCH TO PAY? Buying and pricing In the end, you should buy what you like, not what other people tell you to like. But how much do these decks typically cost? Latest releases typically sell at retail price, and don't cost a fortune. Although in some cases, especially with in-demand brands like Fontaines, you have to be right at your computer when a new deck is released, and be among the first set of buyers who are fortunate enough process a purchase in the few minutes before they are sold out. Otherwise you'll have to rely on resellers, some of which can have inflated prices. Older decks for virtually all of these series, however, tend to command much higher prices. This is simply a matter of supply and demand: as the number of collectors grows, more and more people want them, while the supply is limited, because the original decks are long out of print and out of stock at retailers. You'll have to rely on the secondary market to try to source these, and expect to dig deeper in your wallet if you want to get first and second edition decks of many of the above series. Investing and re-selling When collectors see some of these decks selling for over $100 on the secondary market, it can be tempting to think that it's a good idea to buy a stash of decks in the hope that you'll hit a jackpot with a brick of decsk that will be worth a bundle down the line. The reality is that this is hard to predict. When most of these decks were first released, nobody knew that they would become big hits over time. It's only as a series or brand generates momentum and establishes a loyal following, that the prices of the original editions start to rise. For example, I have a Peelers V1 deck, and these are now worth up to US$150 today. At the time I picked it up, it was just a novelty deck from an unknown brand, and I used it as an everyday deck for card games and card magic. Who was to know the success that OPC would later become? Meanwhile I've just been using it casually for card games! Much the same is true for the very first Fontaines deck, which costs a fortune now, but at the time was really just an ordinary deck. The playing card market is fickle and future hits are almost impossible to predict. If you want to earn money, rather than gambling on playing cards, you're better off spending your time working for money at your regular day job. Other popular series Are there other series besides the ones covered above? For sure. Daniel Schneider's series of Black Roses deck also has its passionate collectors, as do the Golden Nugget decks, the Gemini Casino decks, and the NOC decks. The Planets series by Vanda was also popular for some time, but with the release of all the planets this is obviously now complete. There are also people who collect anything produced by a particular brand, such as Anyone Playing Cards. Perhaps even that new release you're thinking of purchasing will become the start of a successful new series or brand - you can never really tell! https://preview.redd.it/ppwyhb5mhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75a4ee69f8af72d0c022c24d50e3581b80066959 HAS THE INDUSTRY JUMPED THE SHARK? More and more, faster and faster In the first few years of the boom in the playing card market that was created by the arrival of crowdfunding around 2009, new releases were typically produced either as a mass market deck, or as a numbered limited edition. That seems to have changed in the last few years, and the number of permutations for a particular deck seems to be more than ever before. First of all we get recoloured versions of the same deck, multiple times over. Then in addition we get a numbered deck, and a gilded deck... and multiple combinations of all of these. It starts to become impossibles for collectors to get a complete collection. In addition, in some cases, a very limited edition of a popular series is produced at a high price tag, like the $75 Cherry Casino House Decks, putting it out of the reach of most collectors, except those with very deep pockets. In other cases, companies are releasing decks in different colours so fast (here's looking at you, Jerry's Nuggets), that collectors can hardly keep up. The inevitable question arises whether some of these developments are unhealthy. How much is too much? All this understandably makes some collectors begin to feel a little jaded, and wonder if some of these series have jumped the shark. Are some creators starting to take the mickey out of collectors, knowing that they will want to "collect 'em all", even if they have to spend ridiculous amounts to do so? Is this capitalism gone mad, and are producers becoming too motivated by trying to make big bucks? If this trend continues, it can start to feel like price-gouging and greed, and creators run the risk of sucking the joy out of collecting, and losing their customers. All this means that producers have to be careful in the decisions they make about what they release, and not simply be motivated by making money. Collect 'em all? But there's a lesson in this too. It doesn't make sense to mindlessly collect every single thing. But if you do think carefully about what you want to collect, it can be a lot of fun to collect series like the ones covered here. By all means collect 'em! But maybe just not all of them. At least, not all the time. https://preview.redd.it/c50y53umhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f00f71fa02141ee251913695a2cc7fba823a260 Author's note: I first published this article at PlayingCardDeckshere.
Ramtidings, dear friends! It is I, your dutiful lord and master, the eternal GM. My sabbatical proved most fruitful, having figured out some depth mechanics for 3 dimensional combat in my pet project, Blood & Thunder, a maritime piracy RPG that has been both a joy and a nerve-wracking nightmare to create. If you want to see what's going on with that, you can swing by patreon.com/BlackFlagPrintingPress to take a look or support my endeavors. But I digress, because I did not come here today to talk about Blood & Thunder, no. I came here with something else in mind, good friends, for while I have been writing my bread and butter, you have gone without your beard and butter, and this is unacceptable! And so, I have trawled the depths of my memory to bring you yet another TAAAAAALE FROM THE TABLETOP, lovingly subtitled A Prologue Into Poverty. Life is not an easy thing. There was a time when life was very difficult for me. I had far less than most, and I went without frequently, my entire life loaded into a backpack of bare necessities. Joys were few and times were hard, but I made the best of it. I traveled the countryside, mostly alone, making friends where I could amongst the other forgotten souls who haunt the streets of the United States. I met a good number of people, many of them listless drifters in their own right, who became fast friends. We would hang out for a time, but like all drifters, we would eventually part ways, called to different places to do different things. I had just come from North Carolina. I had been in Asheville, playing bluegrass to make money with friends who eventually proved dishonest, and so I parted ways with them. While in Asheville, I had met a girl, also on the road like myself, and I developed a massive crush on her. Fortune would have it that our time together was short lived, as she disappeared on a freighter down the train tracks, and I layed curled up in a bush sick as a dog for the next 3 days. You can't get a ride from a freighter with 8 people without getting pulled off by johnny law. Our group had fractured, and myself and one other soul continued on our own, until we parted ways in Atlanta. Now, on my own, clueless and green, I wandered aimlessly, until a friend of mine at the time reached out to me by way of the internet. He had work for me, back in California, if I could just make it there. What's 3000 miles? I've got this. I walked out of Atlanta, hitched a series of rides to Arkansas, and then caught a freighter myself, all the way back to the west coast while UP did the driving. I laid on the back of that train for 3 days until I finally ran out of water and decided to get off. I was in Los Angeles. After a bit of panhandling, I got a bus into the central valley, and my friend came and scooped me up. I worked on my friends farm for a bit, building green houses and stacking money until the time came for me to once again depart. During that time, my crush from North Carolina had found me on Facebook. We got to talking. She told me she had gone back home to Wisconsin and was working in some greasy spoon trying to save up money to afford a bus. She'd been back for awhile now, but wasn't making any headway. Her vices were getting the best of her, and she couldn't seem to get ahead. I told her she needed to knock that shit off and clean up her act. After a long enough time talking, however, things started to get flirty and dirty. I wanted to see her, and it's actually amazing what a guy will do for love. You're how far away? Piece of cake. Hold my beer. With the work season coming to a close, I took my pay and my leave of my old friend, and he dropped me off in Modesto at the Greyhound. On the way out, he loaded me up with gifts for my travels - a new backpack, socks, a sleeping bag, some snacks for the ride... and naturally, he gave me a gift that I always treasure. He gave me a set of RPG dice. I gave my boy a hug, wished him well in his endeavors, and promised I'd be back in the fall to help him with the harvest and gathering firewood. So I went on my merry way. I absolutely despise Greyhounds. Have you ever been on one? It's miserable. There's no room to stretch out unless you sit in the back, right by the toilet. Some asshole is always blaring garbage mumble rap on his phone all day long. It doesn't matter who you are - at the end of the trip you exude the pungent aroma of a neckbeard. This didn't bother me too much - personal hygiene suffers when you have no way to bathe regularly, so I was used to being dirty, and my friends from the road were usually very dirty people in their own right at the time, so I could handle a certain degree of grossness... within limits. I did shower at my friend's farm before I boarded that bus, though, and was feeling rather spiffy - clean body, clean clothes. Life was good and I was on my way to see my woman. I did my best to zone out. I tried to sleep as much as I could and ignore the general atmosphere of the bus, but that was no longer an option after a layover in Las Vegas. We boarded the bus once more after an almost 24 hour delay on our schedules, and finally got moving again. I sat in the back near the toilet, as I was no stranger to this game and wanted that bench seat, and foul smells at the time didn't bother me much... or so I thought. With the bus filling up and the seats reducing to slim pickings, it dawned on me that my coveted back seat bench was going to get shared. Then, I saw him... the Busbeard. I'm usually a pretty nice person, but I did not want my coveted backseat benchseat getting taken up, let alone by this massive lardass that now lumbered towards me. I did everything in my power to seem as big and hostile as I could. This was all in vain, however, as some people cannot read social cues. I stared at him, dripping hostility, mentally repeating sit somewhere else like it was a Zen mantra. However, nobody wanted him to sit by them either, and so, he made his way, closer and closer, as he asked people if seats were taken until he got to me at the back. He shifted to sit into the seat, angling his ass in the general direction of my face. The smell of soggy feces-laden underwear wafted up as he slid his bulk onto the bench. Did I mention that personal hygiene suffers on a greyhound bus ride, especially when you've been riding for days? I've taken my fair share of Greyhounds, and it's unlikely that this new arrival had been riding for awhile. He was eastbound, like the rest of us, and we were in Las Vegas. His point of origin was... not very far east. I had only been on the bus for approximately a day so far, minus the extended layover time of course, so I was getting a ittle sweaty myself, but this guy smelled as if he not only lived on this bus, but was born in the blue poop goop of the latrine. It was a question worthy of debate as to whether this man had actually employed the use of a speed stick in his life. His patchy jowels jiggled at me as he said, hi. I responded with a gruff and monotone hello, and then turned my attentions to the window, watching the bus depot workers loading up suitcases beneath. My fate was sealed. This man was to be my travel companion all the way to Denver. I decided then that maybe it would be best to ignore him. I plugged in my phone, booted up an emulator I had downloaded, and started to play some Pokemon to whittle away the hours. It didn't take long, however, before I could feel his olfactory looming become physical looming as he examined the screen upon which I played from over my shoulder. Busbeard: Pokemon? I fucking love Pokemon! I didn't know you could play it on a phone. How are you doing that? His heavy respirations were like an infusion of green spearmint and halitosis. GM: Emulators. I went back to my game, trying to angle myself away from him in such a way that he couldn't lean over my shoulder and watch me as I trained my team, but I was effectively sandwiched between him and the wall, forced to sit straight as he leaned over and watched me play. I debated then, what I ought to do. Playing Pokemon would make the time fly, but I would be crushed between the window and a sweaty fat man. Not playing Pokemon would save me the physical agony of being squished, but I would be painfully bored for seemingly endless miles, and he may use it as an opportunity to interact further. A decision needed to be made. I shut the emulator off and put away my phone, turning my attention back out the window as the bus pulled out of the Las Vegas terminal and began down the freeway. It was not long after we had pulled out of the station, however, when that wheezing, rasping voice chirped up again. Busbeard: So where are you going? I ignored him, focusing on the casinos towering in the distance of the skyline, pretending as if I hadn't heard the question, or as if it weren't addressed at me. With insistance, he repeated his question at my turned back again, searching for a response within my stony exterior. I mumbled, the Midwest, and he questioningly grunted, and asked me to repeat myself. I guess we're doing this. GM: I'm going to the Midwest. Busbeard: Where in the Midwest? GM: Wisconsin. Busbeard: I've never been to Wisconsin before, but I know they got really good cheese! Hyuk hyuk... Is that why you're going there? Judging by his smell, he must have been an excessively avid connosieur of fine Wisconsinite cheese. However, cheese was the last thing on my mind at the time.I was enamored with my lady love. GM: I'm going to see an old friend. Busbeard: Oh, that's cool... who is it? The odds of this man knowing the person who I was on my way to visit were astronomically low. Your odds of getting struck by lightning, winning the lottery, and becoming president in the same day were probably higher than this cretin knowing the one specific person whom I was going to go visit in some backwater Wisconsin town. Still, I humored him, and in the same flat voice, answered his question, and told him I was on my way to see my sweetheart. This caught Busbeard's attention. For a grown man in his mid 30s, he let out a loud "oooooooo" like a middle schooler would when he finds out his friend has a crush. I contemplated execution methods and the subjective severity of their barbarism as he excitedly asked me where she was from. GM: Wisconsin. Busbeard: Yeah... but, where in Wiconsin? GM: Fuck off, dude. I'm not going to tell you the town where she lives. Busbeard: Heh! I'd be terrified of telling a superior male like me where my girlfriend lives, too. A little kid like you wouldn't stand a chance next to a man like me. Her panties would hit the floor from one whiff of my pheromones. It happens all the time, bro, I swear. I could have any woman on this bus. They just can't resist me. They can sense my manhood, I know it. I shouldn't stir the pot. All common sense tells me that I should just stop myself while I'm ahead, but sometimes... sometimes I just can't help myself. I've always been a pretty reserved and self-contained person for the most part, and I just want to be left alone 90% of the time to do my thing. Apparently, that's a lot to ask, because every now and then, somebody comes and invades my personal space with their protruding belly, bad breath, and self-aggrandizement, and then I find it really hard to resist my inclination to fuck with them. I know, I know, it's wrong of me to do that, but I'm human, damnit, and something good was cooking in the kitchen. What's the harm in dipping a spoon into this self-important concoction of body odor and bravado? GM: Any woman, huh? Tell ya what, Busbeard, I just got paid, and you seem really confident in the power of your, ahhhhh, pheromones, so... how about a wager. I laid out the terms of my devil's bargain. With a wager of 100 dollars, I would pick a lady on the bus at the next break. Busbeard would then have to seduce her. He MUST "present" his pheromones to her, naturally. If he recovered her phone number, or anything in excess thereof, like a kiss or a consensual toilet stall consummation, it would suffice to meet my criteria and loose my grasp from the freshly printed Franklin in my wallet. He agreed enthusiastically to my terms, insisting I was going to loose and he was going to get his dick sucked in a Greyhound portajohn "blumpkin style". We rode along in silence for the next hour or so. The sun was high in the sky when we made our next stop at some gas station in Utah, and everyone filed off the bus to stretch their legs and get their snacks. I wandered around, huffing down my smoke, chatting it up with people and making friends, seeing just who they were, asking them questions - where they were going, who they were going there with. I got to talking with one guy and his girlfriend. The guy, who we will call Sarge, was built like a brick shithouse and was a former infantry man who served 2 tours of duty in the middle east. He was traveling with his wife, a young and pretty little thing who we will call Alexandra. They were on their way back to the east coast to stay with family. Alexandra's mom was getting old and had asked them to move in to help take care of her. They were on their way out there to steward her aging mother's estate. I remarked that that was awfully kind of them, and sincerely wished them the best on taking care of Alexandra's aging mom. I told them a little bit about myself, as well... that I was effectively living on the road, playing life by ear, and on the way to see a loved one of mine for a bit before the wind blew me somewhere else. Eventually, the bus driver gave everyone a 5 minute warning before departure, and we all filed on board. I moved back to my seat and waited for Busbeard to arrive. He came back, cradling piles of gas station sandwiches, bags of chips, and a couple of sodas in his massive paws. He sat down beside me with a loud "oof" and offered me a drink, saying that it's the least he could do before he took my money. I took that beverage. It was both cold and delicious. GM: Well, Busbeard, I've done my rounds, and I've come to a decision. Busbeard: Who is it? She better be hot. I swear to God, if you make me waste my time on some dried up roastie, I'm gonna be so fucking pissed at you dude. GM: Why would I do that dude? Naturally, I only want the best for you. No, she's very pretty. You see that girl over there, in the aisle seat? That's the one. Make your move whenever you're ready. I pointed out Alexandra to him. I already knew this was going to end very poorly. There was no way in Hell that Alexandra would express any interest in this disgusting lardass whatsoever when she had a stable and solid man like Sarge, and Sarge wasn't about to take guff from anyone. Add on to it that Sarge was easily the size of, if not bigger than, the prodigious Busbeard himself. Sarge was also trained to kill and hardened by years of combat in the graveyard of empires. I can fight - I've fought a lot - and I would not want to square up against him under any circumstances. Busbeard was going to get the snot beat out of him and pay me 100 dollars for that privilege. The bus took off and I listened to the disgusting sounds of Busbeard inhaling the equivalent of 5 pounds of gas station food. I was only halfway through my soda, when Busbeard emitted a satisfied belch that rumbled the seats, and the feeding frenzy had ended in an effervesence of curdling bile and preservatives just as fast as it had begun. He then started to pump himself up for the task at hand. He started to sweat with excitement and latent cardiac arrest as he prepared his pheromonal aura about himself, and then with a gruff, alright, let's do this, he stood up from his seat and waddled down the aisle, his greasy belly bumping into everybody who had chosen an aisle seat. He approached Alexandra. They were near the front end of the bus, and so I couldn't hear a word that they were saying. I watched Busbeard as he extended an arm and held on to the overhead luggage rack, exposing the damp miasma of corn-syrup infused armpit sweat to his unsuspecting victim. His pheromones were beginning to work their magic over the unsuspecting Alexandra who would soon be enraptured by its juicy spell. I waited, leaning forward intently, when a loud shout broke the silence. Sarge: BACK THE FUCK UP. Alexandra started to shout, too, yelling "get the fuck away from me!" The driver turned back and yelled for everyone to sit down and shut the hell up or he would pull the bus over. Sarge: Please do! I'm gonna beat this fucking lardass into the pavement! Saying shit like that to my wife? Who the fuck do you think you are? The bus driver repeated his warning, and Busbeard began to shout his protests, insisting upon his innocence. Busbeard: B-but, I was put up to it! It was that guy, in the back seat! He said--- He pointed back at me. I yelled back, I don't fucking know that guy. The bus driver meant his threat, and pulled the bus over. We were on a long and empty stretch on the I-15 somewhere in rural Utah. The last town I had seen was about 20 miles back. It was late spring, and it was getting hot outside that afternoon. The bus driver got out of his seat, walked up to Busbeard, and told him to get the Hell off of his bus. Busbeard kept protesting, when Sarge moved past his wife, and started forcing Busbeard towards the front door. I've heard the threat of getting kicked off maybe a thousand times on a Greyhound, but I had never seen it play out before. Busbeard was thrown off the bus. Sarge did not join him outside and pummel him into the asphalt, regrettably, as I would have loved to have watched it. Busbeard kept pleading with the bus driver as the driver shut the door on him, sealing him out on the shoulder of a lonely stretch of highway. I breathed a sigh of relief, and stretched out my legs. It was another 15 miles before we saw signs of civilization. A part of me felt bad for Busbeard, but the other part of me said, "if I can walk 20 miles in a day with 60 lbs of shit on my back, he can do an unencumbered 15 and be fine." The ride continued on in sweet, reclined silence for me until we reached Denver, werein there was another changeover, and this bus was much, much more desolate. The rest of the Greyhound voyage passed without incident, and I spent my time flirting with my lady love and training some Pokemons. At long last, I finally arrived in Wisconsin. She came to pick me up at the bus station, and when we approached each other, we made out like long lost lovers for a good 5 minutes before we finally caught our breath enough to say hello. I got in her car, and spent maybe a week or so with her, before it was time to take my leave. I couldn't live there forever, and so, as fast as I had drifted into her life, once again, it was time for me to disappear. We said goodbye, and she dropped me off at a lonely interstate overpass on the edge of town. I put my thumb out to catch a ride to Anywhere But Here USA. I planned my next move, and I figured that there were some friends of hers and mine that lived not too far away in the Dakotas, and maybe I would pay them a visit next. I was in the neighborhood, and figured that I might as well say hello. I reached out to them online, and then made my way west again. They were excited for me to come see them. It was only a day into the voyage when I received a message from Janet. It said, "wait for me, I'm catching up." She had packed her backpack again, and was coming after me, hot on my tail. I told her we could meet up at our mutual friend's house. I dialed ahead to our friends, who we shall call Sarah and Queenie. Sarah used to travel together with Janet for many months before she stabilized, and then settled down. Queenie was one of my friends from North Carolina. He was a loveable chucklefuck of a drifter, missing a few teeth, wore a skirt, and spoke in the most haggard voice you could imagine. Still... he insisted on being called Queenie. He had settled down with Sarah after they hooked up, and they were living at Sarah's house. He was on thin ice there, however, and she was threatening to kick him out. I arrived at Sarah's and Queenie's, and spent the next few days waiting for Janet to come up on my heels. During that time, Queenie and I played a lot of Magic (he had just gotten into it), and I remembered the dice that my friend in California had given me that were laying unusued in my backpack. I asked him if he had ever played tabletop RPG's before, to which he answered no. I told him that, maybe next time I see him and I'm in a better spot, we could run a game. Eventually Janet caught up, and we prepared to leave Sarah's for good towards our own new horizons. Queenie, however, had finally broken through the thin ice upon which he skated, and was getting thrown out. On the day of our departure, we asked him if he wanted to join us in our travels so he wouldn't have to go it alone. Thus we began from Sarah's house out into the unknown once again, a cheerful trio, and true to my word, I began to teach not only Queenie, but Janet as well, the joys of tabletop RPGs. As I'm sure you can surmise, dear friends, that this is not the end of our story, but only the beginning of another chapter. Is Busbeard still alive? What does the future hold for Ramtide's love life? How do a gaggle of vagabond drifters play tabetop games without a table? Some of these questions will be answered, my dear friends, in our next installment of TAAAAAALES FROM THE TABLETOP. A shoutout to my lovely patrons, Tatoferret and Sillibits. You guys are wonderful. Thank you for believing in the dream.
I wanted to share with the group some due diligence and speculation I have done around Gamehost (TSX: GH). I want to start by saying that this is not a situation where you urgently need to buy this right now and ride up a wave, there will be no rocket ships on this post and I strongly encourage you to perform your own due diligence and see if you want to buy this stock. This is an extremely low volume stock and if you rush to buy it, the price will go up far past the supply of sellers. I do not intend to pump this but only to get critique. Gamehost is an owner and operator of 3 casinos located in Alberta, 2 hotels in Grande Prairie and a retail store rented to a liquor store near one of the casinos. The 3 casinos are: Boomtown Casino in Fort McMurray, The Great Northern Casino in Grande Prairie and the Deerfoot Inn and Casino in Calgary which they own 91% of currently. As you probably guessed by these locations, the casinos are cyclical and make a lot of money when oil prices are up and go through downturns when prices are low and projects stop. All 3 casinos are not destination type casinos like you would find in Las Vegas where people come from all around to visit, but are very reliant on their local communities. The Boomtown Casino is the only casino in Fort McMurray and the Great Northern Casino is the only proper casino in Grande Prairie with a much smaller limited one in town. The Deerfoot Inn and Casino is 1 of 7 (yes, 7!) casinos in the Calgary area. It primarily focuses on the Southeastern portion of the city and the surrounding suburbs and still serves a market of about 200,000 people in just that area. All 3 casinos are also very focused on live events and have become gathering points for live events and nights out for their communities. Although all 3 casinos have been affected by oil downturns all 3 communities they serve have much higher median income than the country as a whole. The casinos have remained profitable throughout the entirety of the oil downturn and despite a dividend cut in 2016 they have still paid a consistently strong dividend until the COVID-19 pandemic (more on this later). Grande Prairie’s economy is more focused on natural gas extraction which has been consistently profitable. Calgary as a major city does have a diversified economy as well which leaves just Fort McMurray to be the lone straggler in dealing with oil prices. No new casinos have been built in Alberta since 2006, which has left people still coming to the doors of the casinos regardless of the economy. All three cities have seen consistent population growth greater than 10% from 2016 according to Statistics Canada’s estimates which is far greater than the national average. People are still coming to these cities and are still making a fairly high wage compared to the average Canadian. The second thing that has likely come to your mind is why casinos when they have been shut down during the pandemic? As the vaccine is currently being implemented the orders will not last forever. When the casinos have been opened even with reduced services, they have remained profitable and the management has responded by using the pandemic as an opportunity. They have been consistently buying back thousands of shares every day and cancelling them. If you look at their SEDAR profile you can see that they have not missed a single day to cancel at least 2,000 shares per day. Since the company had 24.5 million shares issued, they have bought back about 1-2% of the float so far which has made the stock even harder to buy on the open markets due to the lack of volume. They have also been approved to expand the operations of the Deerfoot Inn and Casino which should be completed by the summer. The insiders have followed by accumulating many shares in their personal accounts over this period of weakness. In the third quarter of 2020 the company posted EPS of 12 cents per share down from 16 cents a year ago. Revenue was down to $4.9 million from $6.7 million. This is with severe restrictions and limitations on the amount of people that can come in the casino and what they can do. All live events were cancelled, table games were restricted and yet the company was still making enough money to buy back significant shares and improve their existing assets. The management has essentially channelled the dividend into making the number of shares decrease in a time of strong price weakness. There is interest in this space since the largest casino operator in the country Great Canadian Gaming was acquired recently for almost double what they were trading for in the spring. Private equity firms have been looking into casinos as a post-recovery play. Unlike companies in airlines or movie theatres, these do not have significant issues staying profitable during intense downturns, they only become less profitable with a sudden surge afterwards. I am speculatively buying this stock on the idea that as COVID-19 restrictions are gradually lifted there will be an awkward window where people will be back almost to normal within Canada and will have a strong urge to go out and do activities that they have been restricted from doing for months. At the same time they will be unable to travel internationally due to different countries having different vaccination schedules, planes still operating at reduced capacity with many airlines being in trouble and governments being reluctant to remove limitations abroad. This will significantly bring business to casinos and other live event focused businesses within Canada. I anticipate that in the 12 months past restrictions being lifted that the business will see a significant bump in EPS. They will reinstate the dividend and the share price will grow significantly. My personal price target is $12 per share but I could see it being anywhere from $10-$15 per share. This is without oil prices budging at all. In the long-term the price will be cyclical based on oil prices unless they start diversifying geographically. It is extremely difficult to get a licence to open a casino, which leaves the company with the only option of acquiring other casinos. This is a possibility down the road but something I will look more into once I see a significant bump in EPS due to increased demand. I do believe that in the current market with the price having barely recovered from the March lows, that the stock is a very good contrarian play in the 12-24 month range. Holding after that could potentially be risky depending on your own views on how the oil industry will play out and if the management has what it takes to diversify. Online gambling is an even longer term threat but since these casinos are focused on live events and have become a staple of the communities that they are in, this is not likely to be a threat for some significant time. Please let me know what you think, feel free to criticize. If you guys like my analysis I could do more on other small or mid cap companies. There have been a few I have kicked myself over missing.
Guess the Company #3 (ticker trivia / due diligence)
Previously on Guess the Company Hi fellow kids, I'm back again today with yet another DD where I reveal the ticker at the end rather than the beginning. Let's see how many clues it takes for you to correctly guess today's company: -This company's Q2 2020 revenues dropped 98% compared to a year ago, and its quarterly EPS plunged from $1.24 in Q2 2019 to a loss of ($1.07) in Q2 2020. -Despite these revenue numbers, shareholders were barely fazed and the stock continued to trade sideways between $40-$50 from June to November 2020 -If you bought $10000 of this stock at its all time low in March 2009, you would be receiving about twice that much in annual dividends up until it was suspended in Q2 2020 due to the pandemic -As part of the terms of a $1.5 billion credit facility, this company is not permitted to pay dividend until Q4 2021 unless it can maintain a $1 billion+ liquidity after paying the dividend. -During the height of the financial crisis in 09, this company was reportedly losing $1000 per *second* -When this company was about to go bankrupt, its owner dug into his own pockets and loaned the company $1 billion -Before his company's stocks took a nosedive in 2008, the owner of this company was briefly the 3rd richest person in the USA behind only Bill Gates and Warren Buffet -Although this company is based in Paradise, NV, the majority of its revenues comes from China. More specifically, Macau, China. -In 2010 this company built a $6.88 billion resort in Singapore, billed the world's "most expensive standalone casino property" -With annual revenues of $14 billion, this company is the largest casino operator in the world by market capitalization Have you made your guess yet? If your guess was LVS , you are correct! Outlook for LVS: There are speculations that LVS might sell its Las Vegas Strip properties to a REIT and then lease them back, a move that would raise about $6 billion and allow it to further focus its efforts in Asia where most of its revenues come from. Although my outlook for LVS is bullish, I expect this stock to trade mostly sideways until later this year or early 2022 when it resumes paying dividends to shareholders. OPTAP: $75
Loop Insights ($MTRX) is on a fast-track to growth as they drive AI automated marketing, venue bubble solutions and contract tracing
What does Loop do? Loop Insights Inc (CVE:MTRX) is an Internet of Things (IoT) technology company that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with marketing automation. Loop is a Vancouver-based advanced technology company also delivers venue tracing and contactless solutions. Loop’s unique IoT device, referred to as the "Fobi" provides real-time insights, analytics, and visibility into buying trends. It also provides real-time data applications that enable retailers to improve on operational efficiencies with automated supply chain and inventory management tools. Loop offers digital adverting, marketing, research, and other related activities for retailers. The company’s location-based marketing intelligence platform provides brands, agencies, and retailers with real-time actionable insights to optimize customer experiences. Loop operates in the telecom, casino gaming, sports and entertainment, hospitality, and retail industries, in Canada, the US, the UK, Latin America, Australia, Japan, and Indonesia. How are they doing: It has been a busy spell for Loop which is seeing rapid growth in terms of its technology stack, customer acquisitions, Tier-1 partnerships, technology deployments, and most importantly, the growth of its sales pipeline. In January, Loop partnered with Empower Clinics Inc. to establish the Re-open Vancouver coalition to obtain an approved end-to-end coronavirus (COVID-19) mitigation solution. The firms plan to present the solution to local and federal authorities to help in the re-opening of Vancouver’s travel industry, including the cruise industry. Loop first partnered with Empower in October 2020 to provide an end-to-end COVID-19 mitigation solution, complete with venue tracing, real-time automated guest exposure notifications, and testing procedures based on published guidelines. Loop will also showcase its venue management platform as it has been selected by bdG Sports to handle the Paiute Las Vegas Championship, golf tournament starting on April 12, 2021. The event is part of the Korn Ferry Tour, which acts as the developmental circuit for the US PGA Tour. Loop will utilize its Wallet Pass technology, which creates a direct communication channel with attendees, allowing the company to send personalized promotions to users’ mobile phones in partnership with tournament partners, including sponsors, brands, merchants, and retailers. As a result, Loop will earn revenue from an event license fee, as well as per-user fees for everyone involved in the event, such as staff, officials, players, fans and media. The company will also earn money from an affiliate marketing deal with Impact Radius signed in November. The company has earned repeat business from bdG Sports. Loop will also provide its venue management platform to the Big West Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships on March 9-13 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. A total of 19 NCAA basketball teams will compete in the Big West Conference Finals for a chance to enter the NCAA 2020-2021 “March Madness” Tournament in Las Vegas. Loop’s selection by bdG Sports for the Big West Conference Championships follows the success of its venue bubble solution at two previous NCAA basketball tournaments — the Gulf Coast Showcase and the Vegas Main Event. With fans expected to be live in attendance, the company said its Wallet pass technology will provide revenue-sharing opportunities. Meanwhile, Loop has integrated cryptocurrency payments like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin into its contactless payments platform. Fobi creates a unique QR code that can be displayed or printed, allowing customers to send payments through a mobile wallet app that supports cryptocurrencies. The platform communicates with the retailer, depositing the sum in either crypto or local FIAT currency. Customers can use a cryptocurrency of their choice. Loop’s international expansion is snowballing. It has inked a pilot agreement with PharmAssist Solutions (Pharmassist) to implement Loop’s analytics platform in multiple independent pharmacy affiliated locations. After completing the pilot, both parties intend to implement Loop’s AI-driven analytics platform across 12,000 pharmacies in the UK. On November 4, 2020, Loop said it completed a similar pilot at 20 stores and was rolling out its AI-driven analytics platform to all 550 retail locations of Your CBD Store. The company's “Insights” pricing model estimated making US$50 per month per till, with an average of four tills per retail location, which would equate to potential monthly recurring revenue of US$2.4 million or US$28.8 million. The company chalked up the Pharmassist pilot deal to the signing of a referral agreement in October last year with retail industry guru Steve Gray’s UK-based SG-retail to bolster Loop's products in the UK and Europe. Loop has also gained traction in the US by signing a slew of deals, and Gray will tap the momentum to roll Loop’s products and services into the €3.55 trillion European market. Loop has recently inked a letter of intent to acquire its technology partner Passcreator, a leading European digital wallet and mobile marketing company with Tier-1 clients such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The acquisition is likely to be completed by February 2021. Loop is now managing the development of Passcreator’s Wallet Pass platform, which can deploy rapidly and at scale in up to 40 languages. The Passcreator mobile wallet pass is built on Android and iOS Wallet pass technology. Meanwhile, Loop has successfully launched its first “Film Bubble” for a major motion picture in partnership agreement with Draganfly Inc. Loop told shareholders in December that it is “extremely confident” about replicating the growth it saw last year with a full pipeline of projects. Key highlights include the firm’s selection to the Amazon Web Services Partner Network, the Telus IoT Marketplace, and a major partnership with NTT DATA, a subsidiary of the world’s fourth-largest telecom company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone. Significantly, Loop received around $4.6 million from the exercise of warrants up to December 10, 2020. The company said it does not foresee the need for financing apart from strategic client partners that may want to invest in Loop’s growth. The company’s board has approved a plan to begin the process of up-listing to major North American stock exchanges. The plan includes an application to up-list to the Toronto Stock Exchange, followed by an application to dual-list on the US technology-laden Nasdaq. In a recent letter to shareholders, CEO Rob Anson said: “Loop had an incredible year in 2020, and more importantly, is positioned with the right partners, products, pipeline, and financial resources to make the same quantum leap in 2021.” CEO Rob Anson also went on to add “As a result of our immutable relevancy, high demand for Loop’s products, pipeline growth, and ability to easily scale into a global marketplace that is in full press digital transformation, we expect a continued accelerated pace that now warrants an up-list and dual list strategy that will attract institutional investors commensurate with our anticipated profile in 2021 and far beyond". Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, never invest more than you can lose. Opinions are my own. Please do your own research!
I love this game so much. I have been paying for this game for 5-7 years and my opinion has never changed. Everything is just so good. I am not going to put a section about side quests because I cover a few side quests in a few sections. I will briefly cover the main parts of the base game. ( maybe I will make a post covering the amazing DLC) SPOILERS AHEAD. I apologize in advance for tangents, grammatical and spelling issues. TLDR at the bottom START/TUTORIAL The way NV starts is a pretty good. It teaches you about the aspects of the game in the small town of Goodsprings. In "Ghost Town Gunfight", the game teaches you about skill checks. To convince Chet to help you pass a barter check, to convince Easy Pete, you pass an explosive check, Trudy requires a speech check, and Doc Mitchell requires a medicine check if you choose to do "Run Goodsprings Run". It also teaches you about the reputation with the two quests I just mentioned. If you help the Powder Gangers, they will like you, at the cost of wiping out Goodsprings, and if you choose to help the town, the Powder Gang hates you, but Goodsprings likes you. MORALITY Morality is not black and white in NV for the most part. For example, in the quest "The White Wash", you are asked to investigate the case of NCR Corporal White, a soldier who went missing. You face a dilemma at the end when you find out that a Follower Of The Apocalypse is taking water from the NCR to give to the people of Westside who really need it. He tells you that he killed White to hide the secret about the water, and he feels bad about it. So you have to choose what you think is the best option, do you (A) tell the NCR that their water is being stolen so they can use it, or (B) do you keep the secret at the cost of some NCR working peoples livelihoods? There is no clear good or clear bad, it's all grey. Of course there are some obviously evil people in NV like the Fiends, especially Cook-Cook. But there is a lot, and I mean a LOT of grey. MINOR FACTIONS The minor factions are really great in NV. You obviously have the Brotherhood of Steel, the tech hoarders themselves. But there are also other small factions, like the Followers of The Apocalypse. They are a group of scientists and doctors whose purpose is to help people (I believe they debuted in the original Fallout. Can't remember if it was the first or second one.) You also have the Great Khans, a group of nomads who are modeled after the Mongolians. They raid, take chems, sell chems, and kill anyone who gets in their way. But as I said earlier, the morality is not black and white. The Khans hate the NCR because of the Bitter Springs Massacre, an incident in which the NCR slaughtered Khan women, elders, and children. There is also the Boomers. The Boomers are a group of former vault dwellers who stay at Nellis Airforce base and shoot at any outsiders. This is because they do not trust them, but you can help them to prove that outsiders are not as bad as they think. The last minor factions I will cover are the Families of the Strip. The Omertas are an old school mafia inspired group that run the Gomorrah casino. They have shady business that ranges from abusing the prostitutes to killing everyone in the Strip for Caesar's Legion. The White Gloves are a society of people who see themselves as above everyone else in class. They run the Ultra Luxe casino. But there are a handful in the society who want to bring back their old tribal tradition of cannibalism. The Chairmen run the Tops casino and they are the "coolest" family. They use old school slang and are the most laid back family. Companions The companions are great. Although I want to cover every single detail about every companion, I will limit myself to brief explanations on my 2 favorite companions (I love the other but do not have the time to cover them) and why I like them. I will cover Arcade Gannon first. I love Arcade so much as a character. He is a Follower of The Apocolypse and he has an interesting origin and great writing. He has an intense hatred for Caesar's Legion. You trigger his personal quest by siding with anyone but the Legion (and maybe House. I have never tried siding with House while Arcade was in my company). He pulls you aside at certain places and, depending on how you reply, makes him like, or dislike you more. When you reach max affinity, he pulls you aside and reveals his story. He was born in the Enclave and he wants you to reunite the remnants that he knows to fight against the Legion at Hoover Dam. You can tell Arcade to stay in Freeside as a doctor to help people in the aftermath of the battle or you can tell him to fight with the remnants. If you tell him to stay in Freeside, he will give you his fathers Enclave tesla armor. If you tell him to fight, he will wear the armor at the battle for the dam. You will be rewarded with power armor training and remnants power armor. This will affect (effect?) his fate in the ending slides. The other companion I will cover is Boone. He is former NCR First Recon sniper who participated in the Bitter Springs Massacre that I mentioned earlier. You meet him in Novac and he asks you to find the person who sold his wife into slavery. You can either find who did it or you can make him kill a random person of your choice. By doing things he like and asking him about his past, Boone will open up about the Massacre and you can take him to Bitter Springs. After killing Many Legion bois, you can tell Boone to let go of the past and he will finally move on, or you can tell him to become vengeful and more aggressive. This will affect(effect?) his fate in the ending slides. MAIN QUEST LINE SUMMARY To keep this very short, the main plot is to decide who should win the second battle for the Hoover Dam. Your choices are the NCR, Caesar's Legion, Mr. House, an independent Vegas with the help of Yes Man. THE NCR The New California Republic is a, well, a republic whose goal is to recreate the government of the old world, like the U.S government. It is a bureaucracy and has the positives and negatives of one. The characters in the NCR are diverse and very well written. Like how Colonel Hsu is a sensible and calm man who can resolve violent situations, as seen in the "Kings Gambit" quest where if you go to Hsu, he offers Freeside extra food and water to stop the violence. But in the same quest, you can tell Colonel Moore about the Freeside situation. Moore is a no nonsense lady who will not hesitate to fight violence with violence, which is what happens if you tell her about the Freeside situation. She sends a squad of soldiers and you to the Kings school to give the King an ultimatum. In conclusion, the NCR is an army that wishes to use the governing methods of old world America. But they also have the flaws of that system, like corruption. CAESAR'S LEGION Caesar's Legion is more than a faux Roman Empire. Caesar is a man who is educated on the old world, on old world government and was even an NCR citizen and Follower of The Apocolypse. Caesar thinks that the best way to lead is through dictator control. He tells you this when you ask him about President Aaron Kimball. He says that democracy slows down progress. He actually has an amount of respect for Kimball. The Legion is made up of 86 tribes that Caesar has conquered. These tribals are stripped of their identity and are indoctrinated into essentially worshipping Caesar as a living deity, as Arcade Gannon said. The legion does not believe in modern medicine. They only use "natural" sources of healing like powder. Which is not great when (plot twist) you find out about Caesar's brain tumor. Lets talk about how women are used in the Legion. Woman are used as slaves and mates for the men. When tribes are conquered, the women are forced into slavery, while the boys and young men are made into Legion soldiers. The Legion see's women as less than men. The men are trained to fear their leaders rather than their enemies, because if they fail, they are killed, like what Caesar attempted to do to Joshua Graham when the Legion lost the First Battle for Hoover Dam. The Legate Lanius, who probably has the best voice in the game, is a figure of fear. He kills anyone that gets in his way and has been a full member of the Legion since he was a child. Caesar says that Lanius has no care for the men of the legion. In conclusion, the Legion is a slaver group that is led by an educated warlord who has interesting philosophies. MR. HOUSE Robert Edwin House is the founder of RobCo, the company responsible for many of creations in Fallout including the Pip Boy. He predicted the Great War and prepared to survive it, through weird means. The platinum Chip was running late for delivery while the Great War started, so House did not get it. House is very interesting. He is very smart, yet makes very risky gambles, like trusting you (a stranger) in not destroying his secret army of robots. He single handedly saved Vegas from the war and built it up again. He wants you to help him fulfill his wishes for the future. He thinks he deserves the Dam because of what he can do for Vegas. His plan is to remove the Legion and lower the influence of the NCR in the Mojave so that he can bring back the glory of pre war Las Vegas. As another redditor said on the fallout subreddit, House seems to be the only one with long term plans for the future, whether they are good or bad is your opinion. In conclusion, Mr. House is an ambitious man with ambitious plans for Vegas and the Mojave. He is very confident in himself and his ability to predict the outcome of situations. YES MAN/ INDEPENDANCE This is going to be the shortest description. Benny had help reprogramming a securitron to help with anything, most notably taking over Vegas. You choose what factions you like and which ones you do not like and you kick both the Legion and the NCR out of the Mojave wasteland to establish independence. FREEDOM AND DETAIL This game is a game where you have complete freedom. You don't like Caesar, go ahead and kill him. There's no quest to do it, but you can still do it. You can kill anyone you want and you can make many decisions that impact the world. If you allow the NCR train to blow up, or if you do it yourself with the Legion, people will talk about it. I made a post showing Legate Lanius's reaction to you confronting him while wearing Legion faction armor. Obsidian has done such an amazing job putting so much detail in this game. Another example of detail is wiping out Camp Forlorn Hope. The NCR will talk about that if you do it then talk to the troopers. There are more examples of this that you will see during your own gameplay. THE WORLD The games world is so good. The world is great, especially from a 2010 game. The locations are great. The unmarked spots like the Sarsaparilla sign where the Lonesome Drifter is are pretty cool. The spot where you find a dead person with remnants power armor is a pleasant surprise if you just find while exploring. I also feel very immersed in the world when I'm just walking around and see a legion patrolling or NCR patrolling. SOURCES https://www.reddit.com/Fallout/comments/3izps8/lets_talk_about_why_mr_house_is_the_best_option/ https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Caesar https://www.reddit.com/falloutnewvegas/comments/klc6ff/in_my_near_57_years_of_playing_this_game_this_is/ A few Oxhorn videos TLDR: I love Fallout: New Vegas.
A Cinematic Guide to The Weeknd: Pt 3. My Dear Melancholy and After Hours
My Dear Melancholy
Gaspar Noe/Cannes Film Festival The My Dear Melancholy era notable for being a time when The Weeknd was in proximity to a lot of serious directors. While he’s had a foot in Hollywood for awhile, 2017 through 2019 he was actively engaging with filmmakers like the Safdies Brothers, Gaspar Noe, and Claire Denis, amongst others. While he had been actively courting the Safdies since Good Time was released, he attended the 2018 Cannes Film Festival where he crossed paths Noe, whose film Climax took home a number awards at Cannes. Noe’s Enter the Void had previously served as an inspiration for Kiss Land, and for MDM (and later After Hours) seem to call back to Noe’s other films, like Irreversible and Love, which are both twisted depictions of heartbreak. On the other hand, Climax is about a French dance troupe who accidentally take LSD, and according to Noe is not a “message” movie. It is an audacious psychedelic technical exercise, with numerous long takes and highly choreographed set pieces. The idea for Noe, who had previously captured the feeling of drugs in previous films, was to do the opposite, and present the objectively reality of drugs, watching people high from a sober perspective. Noe is a rather strong advocate of film, and the opening scene of Climax features VHS boxes of a number of films that have influenced his filmmaking. Two of note are Schizophrenia, otherwise known as Angst, one of Noe’s favorite films which The Weeknd name checked to the Safdies, and Possession, which would go on to be an influence on After Hours (more on this later). He is also said to have sat next to Benicio Del Toro at Cannes, which means he likely caught some of the Un Certain Regard section, where Del Toro served as a jury member. Outside of that section, there were a few other films of interest such as The House That Jack Built from Lars Von Trier (The Weeknd has previously expressed affection for Von Trier’s Antichrist), Mandy from Pastos Costamos, and music video director Romain Gavras’s The World Is Yours, as well as a restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Noe has referred to as the film that got him into filmmaking. https://preview.redd.it/qga7a3l8ct261.png?width=910&format=png&auto=webp&s=371cf20d42ee8783cc23bfe7f2cfa16a0a927a0e Asian Cinema Later in 2018, The Weeknd continued his globetrotting with a tour of Asia. He once claimed in an interview that whenever visiting a foreign country he only watches films from there. I’ve previously written about the influence of Asian cinema on Kiss Land, and there’s not enough work from the MDM era to glean anything cinematically adjacent to this, but now would be a good time to mention that the "Call Out My Name" video was heavily inspired by the work of famed Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. The Asian tour poster seems to be a reference to Ichi the Killer, which leads us to Takashi Miike. Though he is notoriously prolific across a number of genres, his most popular works internationally are genre melding blends of horror, comedy and crime, most notably Audition, Ichi the Killer and Gozu. Another film worth mentioning is Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon’s masterwork about a pop star’s mysterious stalker that The Weeknd posted about on Instagram before. Bloody and haunting, the film was a major influence on Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream. In Interviews he has also mentioned a number of Korean films, such as The Wailing, I Saw the Devil and Oldboy. While Wong Kar Wai was previously mentioned as an influence on Beauty Behind the Madness, also worth mentioning is the work of John Woo, specifically A Better Tomorrow, well known for the shot of smoking a cigar off money, and Infernal Affairs, Andrew Lau’s crime classic which served has the basis for Scorsese’s The Departed. https://preview.redd.it/fx7o9s2bct261.png?width=642&format=png&auto=webp&s=0fec2f841e9d3b09104238d0f89595daa6140faa https://preview.redd.it/n4x7fiy9ct261.png?width=1316&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a9650263272518216fc5f36913e80a10d2b0a8e
After Hours
Martin Scorsese While After Hours more so than any other Weeknd album is bursting at the seams with cinematic references, the influence of Martin Scorsese stands above all. Similar to The Weeknd’s body of work, many Scorsese’s are explorations of violence and masculinity, investigating them from a perspective that depending on who you ask (and how they’re feeling) glamorizes, condemns or just simply presents the reality of characters on the fringes of society. While there are direct references to a number of prominent Scorsese films, what’s interesting is that his influence also reverberates in other films/filmmakers that influence After Hours. Todd Phillips’s Joker is in effect an homage to Scorsese’s loner-centric New York films, and the Safdie Brothers have been putting their own millennial spin on the type of 70s gritty thriller that Scorsese trafficked in (Scorsese was also a producer on Uncut Gems). Specific Scorsese works will be discussed more in depth in the requisite sections, but it is worth mentioning upfront what a prominent role that Scorsese plays in the nucleus of After Hours. https://preview.redd.it/wcds9qpdct261.png?width=1196&format=png&auto=webp&s=246c560c72340782e26ad03b8ff63367999eaadd Urban HorroIsolation With After Hours, The Weeknd departs from the slicker sounds and influences that permeated Starboy and returns to the cinematic grittiness of Beauty Behind the Madness. While urban horror is a theme that permeates throughout The Weeknd as a project overall, there is a thorough line to be drawn here that follows a number of 70s and 80s cinematic and aesthetic references. For one thing, while the initial bandaged nose was a reference to Chinatown (previously, The Weeknd has a Kiss Land demo titled "Roman Polanski"), the full bandaged face that is so prominently featured throughout the After Hours era is a classic cinematic visual trope that was especially prominent throughout 60s and 80s, though it saw a slight re-emergence in the 2010s. The fully bandaged face is often used to remake someone in the image of another, usually against their will (The Skin I Live In, Eyes Without Face), or as a case of mistaken identity and doppelgängers (Good Night Mommy, Scalpel), themes present throughout much of After Hours. The "Too Late" video acknowledges these references, but instead presents the bandages on two Los Angeles models recovering from plastic surgery, in a nod to a famous Steven Meisel’s photoshoot for Vogue Italia. https://preview.redd.it/dtbxjc3ict261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=66a98cc3cba73d502f8586a215a65cc41c5408a1 The “masks” people wear is another horror trope that is featured prominently on After Hours, and this is best seen in the red suit character. One important reference in the film is to Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill, where a serial killer is targeting the patients of a psychiatrist (any more on this film will veer towards spoiler territory). The Weeknd is on the record as saying Jim Carrey’s The Mask as being a large influence on the Red Suit character, it being one of the first film’s he watched in theaters. One of the more complex references would be to Joker. While it sort of an in-joke that the character of the Joker is commonly overanalyzed and misinterpreted, referencing Todd Phillips’s Joker is more nuanced because it is in essence a full on homage to Martin Scorsese’s New York films, most notably Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, which focus on eccentric loners, and can both be seen as cautionary tale of urban isolation, a theme explored perhaps in songs like "Faith." The King of Comedy revolves around a would be obsessive stand up Rupert Pupkin haggling his way to perform on late night TV, with The Weeknd’s talk show appearances being a prominent part of the early After Hours marketing, most notably in the “short film”. This idea of isolated and compressed urbanites recurs throughout After Hours and it’s films. https://preview.redd.it/egap17ttdt261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=1aab204ac0845a7df74ceeff6d1f714274f9ace0 The idea of urban repression is in the subway scene of the After Hours short film. The entire film itself is something of a reference to the subway scene to Possession (another Gaspar Noe favorite), mimicking the (also subway set) scene in which Isabelle Adjani’s Anna convulses on the subway due to a miscarriage, as well as Jacob’s Ladder, a 90s cult classic horror film starring Tim Robbins as a Vietnam vet (like Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle) who is experiencing demonic hallucinations, encountering them in the subway and later at a party he attends, splitting the scene into two. https://preview.redd.it/g53copgmct261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=9d29e368ae695d295b36039e86125ccfd7b4eb88 Las Vegas As always, The Weeknd once again grounds After Hours with a strong sense of place, this time setting the album against a nocturnal odyssey through Las Vegas. One of the most prominent films is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s book. This is directly referenced in the "Heartless" video, which sees The Weeknd and Metro Boomin in the Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro roles as they tumble through a Las Vegas casino. The Weeknd has gone on the record to state that the famous red suit character was influenced by Sammy Davis Jr.’s character in the film Poor Devil. However, similar red suit has also been sported by a number of Vegas characters, most notably Richard Pryor and Robert De Niro’s Sam Rothstein in Martin Scorsese’s Casino. With the red suit, The Weeknd seems to be playing with the idea of a devil-ish other, another side of his personality that emerges in Las Vegas. https://preview.redd.it/gjow6hq2dt261.png?width=1992&format=png&auto=webp&s=10a379bc26df54af88064bf64813d5cdd29775d9 While the city lights are the oft discussed part of part of Las Vegas, it should be noted that similar to Beauty Behind the Madness, the desert that surrounds Las Vegas is just as important to the juxtaposition of its beauty. The "Until I Bleed Out" video ends/"Snowchild" video in the desert, similar to the confrontation between Robert De Niro’s and Joe Pesci’s showdown in the desert in Casino, as well as Joe Pesci's death in Goodfellas. The idea of a hedonistic desert playground also bears semblance to Westworld, both the film and the TV show. The desert seems to represent some sort of freedom to The Weeknd, as the "Snowchild" video portrays the desert as a pensive location for reflection, as well as the "In Your Eyes" video showing the girl prominently dancing with the dismembered head out in the open, in reference to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, another prominent desert film. https://preview.redd.it/98ec10wxct261.png?width=1168&format=png&auto=webp&s=45e29aa361fa41ff74e2a6017e203015bdcbc6c3 New York/The Safdies Despite it’s Las Vegas setting, After Hours also takes a good amount from films set in New York, most notably Martin Scorsese’s 1983 film After Hours. Besides the title, After Hours is similarly about a twisting and turning nighttime odyssey. The film stars Griffin Dunne as Paul, a working class stiff who heads downtown to rendezvous with a woman he met at a diner earlier that night. Of course, things don’t turn out the way they should, chaos ensues, and Paul is set on a dangerous trek back uptown. Like the film, the album After Hours is set off by a woman (though the album takes more stock in romantic endeavors), seems to be set over a single night (or at least a condensed period of time), and involves similar chaos and misadventures (sirens at night at the end of Faith). Tonally, After Hours the film is more comedic perhaps than After Hours the album, however The Weeknd is on the record as having said that "Heartless" and "Blinding Lights" placement on the album is intended to be somewhat comedic, reflecting exaggerated machismo and ecstasy, respectively (to comedic effect). https://preview.redd.it/f3w7yz4pdt261.png?width=1346&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe7e4f003987fd843020a42a5b53f94092984267 Another of the most prominent filmmakers of After Hours are the Safdies, who featured The Weeknd in Uncut Gems. They also served as a link to Oneohtrix Point Never, who scored their last two films and later worked After Hours. I believe there are three major film tropes (not genres) that inspired After Hours, all of which the Safdies’s have engaged with. There is the one-long-night films, in which a character spends one-long-night on the run from whatever chaos and forces may be that they left in their path. This can be seen in the Good Time, as well as After Hours (the movie). Then, there is the descent-into-madness type, where a character slowly loses grip with reality and ends up in over their head (something like Scarface or Breaking Bad, but for our purposes Jacob’s Ladder can be categorized here as well), which the Safdies did with Uncut Gems. Lastly, but maybe most importantly, the Safdies also explored toxic romance (more on this later) in their less seen film Heaven Knows What, about two heroin addicts and the destructiveness their love brings out in each other, an idea that recurs throughout After Hours on songs like "Until I Bleed Out" and "Nothing Compares." A recurring song throughout Heaven Knows What is Isao Tomita’s synth version of Debussy’s "Claire De Lune", which is featured in some episodes of Memento Mori and bears some resemblance to the start of "Alone Again". https://preview.redd.it/em255b5qdt261.png?width=1344&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5226c9496d0ae5c14b6d6c05e16f5ea18678a9a Obsession/Toxic Romance While love and lust and the ups and downs with it have been a formative part of The Weeknd’s ideology and themes, I don’t think it would be remiss to say that After Hours is perhaps his most outwardly romantic album. Despite this, one of the major arcs of the album is toxicity that comes with it, which a number of already mentioned films deal with. While "In Your Eyes" is one of the more romantic and accessible songs on the album, a re-assessment of it Ala Sting’s “Every Breathe You Take” could frame it as lonely obsessing, such as Travis Bickle’s infatuation with Jodie Foster’s teenage prostitute Iris, Joker's fixation on Murray Franklin, Rupert Pupkin’s obsession with Jerry Langford. Casino also deals with toxic romance, another prominent theme in After Hours, best seen in the love triangle that forms between Sam, his partner Nicky and his wife Ginger, played by Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone respectively. https://preview.redd.it/eq1ioijvdt261.png?width=898&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9e4b781ee60762ae767c4dbd92066357ebc24b0 In almost all of the After Hours’s video content, The Weeknd seems to constantly meet his demise at the hands of women. Another interesting reference that may be something of a reach is to Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film about Reynolds Woodcock, a couture dressmaker loosely based on Cristobal Balenciaga and his muse Alma, played by Daniel Day Lewis and Vicky Krieps, respectively. The film delves into their dysfunctional relationship, with Woodcock berating her and Alma poisoning his tea to keep him dependent on her. One of the highpoint of the film is a New Years Eve Party that bears strong resemblance to the "Until I Bleed Out" video. While the balloons may just be a callback to his earlier work, there is something about the color grading/temperature and the production design of the "Until I Bleed Out" video (as well as parts of the "Blinding Lights" video) that made me immediately think of Phantom Thread. A similar relationship is seen in the German horror film Der Fan, which The Weeknd has mentioned in a recent interview. In Der Fan, a young girl Simone spends her days obsessing over popstar R, until she finally encounters him outside his studio. The film is similar to the aforementioned Takashi Miike’s Audition in its exploration of obsession and idealization. In the film, an older man puts up a fake casting call to search for the perfect girlfriend. While Audition explores these themes from an Eastern perspective of societal pressure, Der Fan explores it through a Western lens of pop idolization and idealization. Both films deal with the idea that despite outward appearances, the perfect partner does not exist, and anyone that claims to be (or has the expectations put on them) is not who they seem. https://preview.redd.it/3m661q62et261.png?width=1342&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9377018cb53f67cf7ce95b24392afb471e4aec1 One film he has spoken at length about is Trouble Everyday, Claire Denis’s arthouse vampire movie. The film stars Vincent Gallo as Shane, a scientist who travels to Paris under the guise of his honeymoon to track down core, a woman who he was once obsessed with who has now become a vampire. Core is locked up in a basement but sometimes sneaks out to seduce and consume unwilling victims. This seems to be where some of the bloody face stuff comes from, but I believe it’s influence is a little more conceptual. To me, a good companion film to Trouble Everyday is American Psycho, which seems to also have been a thematic influence on After Hours. Both films concern idealized version of masculinity and femininity, both very sexual and physical, but hostile as well. American Psycho ends with Patrick Bateman confessing to the killing of a prostitute, but no one believe him. Trouble Everyday ends with Shane killing Core, but Shane is unable to arouse himself after that except through violence. Koji Wakamatsu, a former Yakuza turned prominent extreme Japanese filmmaker (and a major influence on Gaspar Noe) is quoted as saying “For me, violence, the body and sex are an integral part of life.” Despite being hollow, idealized impressions of the self, a vampire and as a banker (cold, seductive bloodsuckers = monsters), Patrick Bateman and Core represent the Frankenstein-ian relationship between sexuality and violence, which I believe is the main theme of After Hours. Truly, we hurt the ones we love. https://preview.redd.it/zfllbd83et261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c048ee98d86d7bbb9db67fa8302d34c36214c4f
Postscript
To cap things off, I would just like to illuminate some key takeaways. As a filmmaker myself, this has been an extremely helpful exercise in understanding other artists process and ideas. Steeped in the history of the medium… It’s clear that The Weeknd is not your typical “I’m influenced by cinema” artist but an extremely legit film buff with serious credentials. The Weeknd’s film taste leans towards 70s-00s genre works, mostly horror, drama and thriller, and is well versed in the classics but also has the nose to sniff out deeper cuts and obscurities. The mantra of “good artists borrow, great artists steal” works even better if not many people know where you’re stealing from! What is impressive to me is that he is not just versed in “mainstream” obscurities, but also serious deep cuts. Films like Possession and Phantom of the Paradise may not stick out to the average person on the street but are well known in most film circles. Films like Inland Empire and New Rose Hotel (Der Fan was especially impressive to me, it is one of my favorite films) however are not as well known and it is very impressive to me that he can come across films like that, and really get enough out of it to bring into his own work. …is able to interpolate contemporary/mainstream films… This perhaps is one of the most impressive aspects of his integration of film into The Weeknd’s work. It is very easy for film buffs to get lost within their own obscure taste, living in a world where everyone is an idiot for not knowing who Shinya Tsukamoto. Trilogy and Kiss Land had a lot of contemporary obscurities, like Stalker, David Lynch etc., well known but they still existed as artifacts, not of the time we live in. However, perhaps picking something from his work on Fifty Shades of Grey, of late he has kept his finger on the zeitgeist and anticipated/integrated what the filmmakers of today are doing, such as his work on Black Panther and Game of Thrones, general appreciation of Tarantino, the works of Nicolas Winding Refn in Starboy, and his use of the Joker and Uncut Gems on After Hours, both of which came out just a few months before the album. It feels Jackson-esque, and I believe this is one thing that will help him further in his quest for pop stardom. …while also being fully in tune to the works of modern transgressive auteurs… In addition to keeping up with the mainstream is in touch with, The Weeknd also makes it a point to seek out and learn from the cutting edge filmmakers of today. While the Safdies were always going to blow up, I don’t doubt that a Weeknd co-sign accelerated their rise. Gaspar Noe is one thing, Enter the Void and Irreversible exist as masterpieces of the mainstream obscurities I’ve been mentioning, but he really truly tries to understand the heart of Noe’s work, even going so far back as to understand Noe’s influences (I sincerely hope he is tuned in to the work of Koji Wakamatsu). But most of all, to be a fan of Claire Denis is one thing, but to seek her out and make her an offer that she ACCEPTED is absolutely astounding to me. Just spitballing but it would be like if Michael Jackson shot a music video with Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who I’d bet good money that The Weeknd was put on to by Noe). We can only PRAY that one day we will be blessed with a David Lynch Weeknd video. --------------------------- …and that just about does it. Hope you enjoyed this and thanks for being patient with me. I got quite busy after the first two and had my own projects/work going that kept me occupied. As we’re still technically in the After Hours era, I also wanted to wait until a few more videos and interviews came out to aid me in my research. I also wanted to find enough time to make the Letterboxd for this. I personally don’t love Letterboxd culture, I find the popular culture surrounding the site a bit snobbish and exclusive, but I’ve gotten a number of requests for one and you gotta give the people what they want. Throughout the list are a few films that he hasn’t mentioned but are some of my personal favorites and I believe Weeknd fans will like, I encourage you to accidentally stumble upon things on it. Don't overthink, just pick something and watch! If you’d like to follow me further, you can find me on Instagram here, where I post about film reviews Letterboxd style. I prefer Instagram so that more average people see it instead of an echo chamber of film snobs. I am also a filmmaker myself, I just recently wrapped this short film and am currently in the process of putting together my next project. The main reason I did this however, besides a general appreciation of The Weeknd’s work, was to put more people on to the beautiful art form that is cinema. One thing I learned from Scorsese is that one must be an advocate and truly champion your medium. I hope that this encourages to check out more interesting movies than they wouldn’t normally come across, and I hope this will inspire more people to create more as well, whether it be to write, make films, music, anything. If even one person picks up a pencil, a camera or a keyboard because of these posts, I will be satisfied. Thanks all!
Before I start, I wanted to say that I've lived in many different countries (brick/concrete buildings) & I never experienced so many problems as I have with US homes. The use of cheap plywood and wood chip, poor or no insulation, flimsy siding and roofing that either blows off in high winds or just rots away after a few year, in addition to high prices have made life a living miserable hell for the average American. I've lived in US for the past 20 years, mainly in the west coast. I owned a nice peaceful house in Seattle area back in the 90s, things were not this expensive & I had a great mortgage rate until the collapse of housing market happened in 2008, and my mortgage rate went up from 3.25% to 6%, although I paid my mortgage onetime & didn't do anything wrong. Around the same time, my utilities, and taxes went up drastically. The house was built in the 80s and the constant rain & termite damage & carpenter ants had made the wood rot underneath the house, not to mention the leaky roof & many other issues with plumbing, mainly to do with wood-structured houses. Long story short, my house was peaceful, but because of high taxation, crime, constant rain & cold, & other problems like high utility & mortgage rate, I made a decision to sell the house and move to California. I rented a two bedroom luxury apartment unit in Orange County around 2015 for $2500/months, but everyday there was an issue with the management, constant noise of performance cars revving their engine, garbage trucks, leaf blowers & landscapers, you name it .... After a year, I finally got sick & tired of high rent & high taxation in Cali & moved to Nevada, Las Vegas. The apartment I moved in was ok for a few months until a loud motorcyclist moved next door to me. The guy worked all odd hours and he used to love revving his bike at nights, like 12 am, 3 am, 5 am, multiple times, when he commuted back & forth to work every day ... Calling the police, talking to Management or leaving nice notes on his bike, none of them worked, until I was forced to move out. Everybody said rent a house, apartments are crap. oh how little I knew So I ended up renting a home (paying $2100) to have more privacy & peace of mind. The house was fine for a few years (except the loud neighbors kids screaming & swearing, dogs barking all day & night, neighbors doing landscaping at 8am Sunday morning, etc etc), but I still put up with it, at least I had few hours of quiet at nights & I used white noise machine to drown out some of the noise. Until one day, out of the blue, the house started making weird noises, mainly coming from the ceiling/attic. It started with one loud knock/snap every morning at 8:30 am, and over a week period, the knocks went from one loud one to 20 knocks a day. Within a month, things became so bad that every time the sun would come up or go down, the roof would pop like 200 times. At nights, I would hear a lot of loud banging/popping noises coming from chimney and the attic. I let the landlord know right away (which they didn't believe me at first), I even paid for pest control (we thought it maybe rats or some other animal in the attic), which no trace of any animal was found in the attic. We brought roofers, inspectors, you name it, no one had any clue what was going on. Things got so bad that I couldn't sleep more than couple of hours every night, waking up with a very loud knock or bang, sometimes every 30 min. I lived in that house for 3.5 years, and didn't hear a beep from the structure of the place, so I have no clue how a building that quiet could go suddenly crazy & it was so frustrating that no one had any clue what was going on . Haunted house? I was forced to move out of the lease & find another place. I ended up living in another house (1,900/mo) that had severe zapping issues (the floors were made out of cheap laminate & they wouldn't let you ground), so every time I touch a door knob or kitchen appliances or doors or windows, I would get zapped like crazy. I also would hear loud banging from pipes when I took a shower & once every two weeks I would hear loud banging from the roof/siding of the house. But at least the structural noise of this house wasn't constant, like the other property. But a few months to my lease, I discovered that the house is foreclosed and the owner has no intention to fix anything, so I moved to another single family home in a very nice area & gated community (paying $2,300/mo). Oh boy, renting this new place was probably one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. I moved there around December last year & the first night I slept there I realized that I have made a giant mistake. There were LOUD snaps/pops once every 30 min all over the house, I mean snaps as loud as gut shots that could be heard overheard all over the house, even in the closet or bathroom, day & night. It wouldn't go away. When the heater ran, the snaps & knocks would become so loud, as if wood is splitting in half on top of your head. No amount of white noise or ear plug could block that noise. I work from home & my clients could hear the loud snaps over the phone & often asked me what is that loud noise in the background and if someone is shooting. Because I had moved twice in less than 3 month I ended up putting up with it & staying there for 7 month, I have a background in structural/civil engineering, so I thought I could bring inspectors & could figure out a way to minimize the constant loud popping & snapping noises. I talked to PM & they send people who had no idea what was going on, charging the owner thousands of dollars in roof & pest control. I paid out of pocket myself, bringing contractors to screw the ceiling drywall, in case the nails holding the ceiling boards were moving in & out of 2x4s. We tried re-screwing the ceiling in one room & to my surprise it made the popping noises a lot worse & even more often. By then I knew the property has serious foundation & possibly truss uplift issue. I even got covid during this whole mess around January & not sleeping, constant stress & loud noises made my illness prolong for 4 months Dry coughs, severe diarrhea, shortness if breathe, severe joint & muscle pain & high fever. At that time I was so devastated & all I wanted was to sleep & I couldn't I couldn't even go rent a hotel room for a few days, since around March the Gov had shut everything down, so I was stuck inside a big house that I couldn't sleep in any of the rooms. Eventually when I recovered from covid, I thought I've had enough of homes with severe structural/roof issues & it's time to go back to condo/apartment living. At least, they wouldn't have serious foundation/roof issues, right? I moved to this condo a few months ago & of course it's another wood-structure multi-family home made with flimsy roof & floors. What I didn't know about this building is the fact that there is absolutely NO insulation in between the units, over the floor & walls that I share with other neighbors, NON, whatsoever, so I could hear normal conversation, dogs barking, constant door slamming, banging noises from other units. Also because of covid, some neighbors work from home, sometimes repairing heavy machinery & auto parts! Imagine , only sharing a thin plywood with the unit underneath and the loud obnoxious neighbor next door! Another issue with this condo is the shaky floor, when I walk around my unit or neighbors walk around their own unit, my floor shakes violently & ends up shaking my heavy coach as well as the bed. If I'm sleep & the noise doesn't wake me up right away, the shaking of the floor definitely would. I never thought I could hear this much from units downstairs or on the side, because I had lived in other apartments before, and I had never experienced this level of noise traveling up from downstairs neighbors or the hellish neighbors on the side. My neighbor on the side works night-shift, I hear her coming home, all odd hours (like 1am or 4am, every day- it's Vegas so people work odd hours at the casino), I hear everything, when she is taking a shower, slamming the hell out of her bathroom door, her dogs barking, walking around her unit, I've tried to reason with them & talk to them to at least not slam doors 10 times an hour day & night, but had no luck. Unreasonable people can't be reasoned with. As a matter of fact, I think they are doubling down on their door slamming & banging noises. My neighbor downstairs also has a habit of slamming every door & drawer & leaves the house at 7 am (every morning) & my floor shakes violently every time she goes in & out of her building, which is 5 or 6 times a day I have moved 4 times, in less than a year. I lived in single family homes as well as condos that were uninhabitable, because of poor construction & use of cheap plywood, if these structures were built with concrete/brick, none of these issues would have happened. Trust me, I have lived in many concrete/brick structures before, my first apartment in Seattle was an old building made out of brick & you still may hear loud trucks or bikes, but there is no way you would hear your neighbors talking in normal voice, taking a shower, wiping their ass, or closing their door. This is so depressing that we pay so much in mortgages or rent in America, yet we have to live in such horrible living spaces that are uninhabitable. American houses often have the appearance of having brick walls, however these are just stuck onto the outside of the plywood walls giving a false sense of quality and strength. I understand that using flimsy wood is much cheaper than using stone, brick or concrete, but this is not really evidenced by the prices of houses. Even multi-million dollar new houses in the States are being built from the same cheap plywood, poor insulation, shabby roofing material as cheaper houses. The fact that walls are paper thin and conversations can be heard a room away is nothing strange in American houses. I'm not even gonna mention horrible loud structural problems/noises that no one has any clue how to fix (god help you if something goes wrong inside the attic), rotting walls, water getting into insulation, pest issues, termite damage or leaking roofs. You will be surprised that the average material cost (cost of wood chip) for a cheap flimsy American home is around $5,000, but since we live in a mafia state, by the time the city, the contractors, & the utility companies are all done with you, you will end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some case millions of dollars for a home that's gonna end up having too many problems, in just 10 years or less. Sorry for the long rant, i know this has been a tough year for many with people dying alone of covid, but I'm penniless, sleepless, stressed & exhausted & I can't bare the idea that I have to move again soon , to another wood chip rental, I wonder what kind of a horror is gonna be waiting for me there? costing me thousands of dollars in rent & moving cost. https://preview.redd.it/rc86r7limv261.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b478a0688a4f977178bccabf38ad3e787839b5aa
The story of Carl Icahn and how he built one of the most successful hedge funds in the world
https://youtu.be/KQA0hhgkaJg Carl Icahn Is an american entrepeneur that made it big in the hedge fund field. He is the founder and controlling shareholder in Carl Icahn Enterprises. He’s known for being an activist investor and a corporate raider. He was born in New York City and grew up in Queens in a jewish family. His family didn’t have much. His mother was a teacher and his father a substitute teacher. He went to Far Rockaway High School and then Princeton University. One interesting fact is that his family didn’t have the money to pay for the accomodation. Carl earned the money needed playing poker. He said the first time he played he lost all the money made in that week but he read a book on how to play it and continued to win, also because he didn’t drink while others did. He graduated from Princeton with a Bachelor Degree in philosophy and later attended New York University School of Medicine but he dropped out to join the army reserves. Once he finshed his service started working on Wall Street in 1961 as a stockbroker. In 68 he started Icahn & Co with $150 thousand of his own money and $400 thousand from his uncle. He started by being an options trader an mergers arbitrage. The last strategy means buying companies that are said to be taken over by other companies in order to take the premium price paid to the shareholders. He later started taking controlling positions in companies. He started to become very well known in 1985. In that year Icahn led a corporate takeover in the airline company TWA. He took the company private and sold its assets in order to take the money back and got out the deal with a $400 million profit. In 86 he tried to take over US Steel in a $7 billion deal but it failed. Icahn bought big in videogames producer Take-Two Interactive in 2006 and continued to buy in 2009. He bought a 9.2% stake in biotech company Telik. He also bought big in WCI Communications before it was bought by Lennar Corporation. He also bought big in Motorola. In 2007 he handled a $2.3 billion takeover of Lear Corporation. He also owns ACF Industries, American Railcar Industries and Philip Services. In late 2007 bought a 13% stake in BAE Systems, a sofware company which was bought out by Oracle two months later. He also bought back stock in Icahn Enterprises and increased his position in Biogen. He also had interests in various casinos in Las Vegas but he sold his stakes in 2008. He also had a big position in Yahoo for a while but he later sold it. He had so many other deals, I’ll name the most important ones. Herbalife, which saw the fight between him and Bill Ackman, which I’ll later cover so make sure to subscribe. Bill Ackman shorted Herbalife stock and made a documentary about how, according to him, Herbalife was a pyramid scheme and called the government to come in and shut it down. Icahn bought even more and finnally won the bet because, in the end, the stock continued to rise. Icahn made and investment in mobility app Lyft in 2015, when it wasn’t even listed on the stock market. He even has a 7.13% stake in Xerox. He also owns big stakes in Cheniere Energy, Gannett & Co. He even ammassed a stake in car rental company Hertz. Icahn has also been very active in philantopy and politics. He renewed the Downing Stadium in New York and renamed it the Icahn Stadium. He donated the Carl Icahn Center for Science and Icahn Scholar Program which donates tuition, books and expenses for 10 students each year for Choate Rosemary Hall private college. He even donated a new laboratory to Princeton University called Carl Icahn Laboratory. He also donated to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He even built different buildings to host homeless people in New York City, especially mothers with children.
The fall of Denver is a useful look at who and what are the most likely factors to bring around a successful succession from the SLFR. Support from most strata of society led to the cumulative securing of their current borders along with them having a rather popular regime in the city despite being an enclave within the SLFR. This popularity continued to the point where the WC voluntarily cut off their population in Denver from external trade or leaving the WC. Now the situation in Denver is...middling. Given this case study on landlocked enclaves in the modern era of war and economy, members of our intelligence community are hard at work crafting a strategy that should reign in the secessionist sentiment within Las Vegas until the armed conflict is over. This strategy relies on 3 distinct pillars that should dampen the spirit of Vegas. Those pillars being Reality, Resources, and Experience. Reality: While many in Las Vegas might be more than ready to succeed and either become an independent state or join the WC, this can cause a break in the relationship between the greater population of Vegas and the Business Owners of Vegas. In Denver, common ideological goals and a lacking government spurred on the separation of the United States and the normalcy and security that brought. With many, recently, refinding that normalcy and financial stability it any major change in the status quo won't simply happen overnight as hesitancy runs rampant. This first pillar relies on emphasizing this reality to those looking for a "normal" life going forward. Local News stations (across the country) will be given press passes and badges to observe Denver from the front lines. While no substantial push into the city is planned in the immediate, they'll be more than welcome to access security footage shot from our troops into the streets of Denver highlighting the self-inflicted squalor and freakish lifestyle that comes with such a drastic move. Likewise, boarded-up stores and abandoned buildings should be enough to get the point across to the business elite of Vegas that making such a move (especially with an economy almost entirely based around pleasure and recreation) could potentially ruin them financially and all they have built on the strip. Resources: While Denver's story is one of a popular revolution of the people and business elite hand in hand, that revolution was and is still maintained via private and military rule. While most military forces are deployed, this leaves the private sector to be a potential obstacle in our path going forward. As such, the SLFR will be contacting the more prestigious (and well-armed) of these security contractors and contracting them out as additional security forces in the campaigns of Washington and Oregon. By removing, or limiting, any such access to competent and well equipt security forces we hope to limit the level of violence if such an action was to be taken against the civilian police in the area.. The second biggest, or smallest, resource the population of Las Vegas can bring to bear is ammo. Outright purchasing of ammunition from local manufacturers and distributors to aid in the "war effort" should limit the sustainability of an armed uprising. Though this might be of little consequence as, leading up to the fall of the united states, ammunition shortages in the civilian market have been widespread. While this likely has been alleviated since last year, it unlikely has had time to recover to such an extent to allow a large populace to fully arm themselves for an extended stand. Experience: Experience has taught us that, like with Elon Musk, many of these businessmen are invested in their projects and are willing to work with us if they find the alternative to be detrimental to their assets. As such, recruiting the Las Vegas building elite to feed information back into the SLFR intelligence network might be as easily done as cutting them a check or promising their casino to fall into the category of meeting upcoming "tax breaks". Regardless of the result, many of these people know almost everything that happens in their casinos and can feed lots of delicate information to law enforcement. Overall: While the economy increases it's spiral, allocation of funding might begin running short if this operation is to continue past, say, 5 years. However, our agents and local law enforcement believe in their ability to contain the situation for a modest cost of $1.2 billion yearly recurring. This project is expected to run for the next 4 years, or until the war with WC concludes favorably.
Rachel Schneider ENG 477 Date 1/11/2021 Marsha Blackburn A Writing Portfolio I want to write my own fiction stories one day; I have had a book or two swimming around in my head so I will put the computer to good use and get that typed out one of these days. In this instance I chose my 5 stories and even though one is a marketing inquiry I had fun writing it, so here are my things and some background some of them. Resume: It is a basic one because my photo ones were not particularly good, and this is an honest resume besides the ones I made for class and I did fudge on those. Cover letter: I made up the cover letter though there is a penguin Books but it is always fun to use your imagination! Hike with Drew: I got the concept from a Writer’s Digest and entered it into a contes I never got a response but good practice. Short Story Vegas: Was one I did for another class but in here I changed it and the story was much better the second time. Marketing Flyer: This was fun to do those are stock photos of the dogs and squeaky toys, but I like Pit Bulls and dog toys are fun as well. Scott part 1-This is a story I am working on with another writer, warning its very sexy and some naughty words are in there as well. Writing Samples: I made these three samples up one day because as I have looked for writing work, I have seen people want a sample of your work, so I came up with these. Rachel Schneider 3867 Houghton Ave Riverside CA 92501 📷 951-743-8911 📷 [email protected] 📷 Rachel Schneider 📷 Rachel7Tori-Twitter 📷 📷 Objective To get a career going in the fiction/short story writing industry my imagination can run with any scenario and to write is to live. 📷 Education Bachelor of Arts in English | Grand Canyon University 2017 – 2021 Took 15 different writing courses, creative writing and even two fun marketing classes all to polish up my craft. Carried a 3.0 GPA and did the courses all online as well. No Degree Obtained | Riverside Community College June 1994 – December 1996 Took these college courses but did not finish got 32 Units of Child Development Courses though which is what I was going for 📷 Experience Cafeteria Worker 1 2008 Currently Employed. Cook, Prep, serve food in a middle school setting, also clean, count inventory and do next day prep, cash handling and POS register experience. Bell Ringer | Salvation Army November 2007 – December 2007 Rang bell and collected donations for the salvation Army in front of various stores during the holiday season. 📷 Skills Food handlers Card CPR First Aid certified Grammar Proficiency Spelling Proficiency Can work from home 📷 Activities Have good use of social media and can help update or bring in new followers with my creative writing side. Have a Reddit account as well with 30 stories up on that site. Can speak a little Spanish and Hebrew as well. 951-743-8911 [email protected] 3867 Houghton Ave Riverside CA 92501
Rachel Schneider
Writer
Penguin Books
Dear JENNIFER MCGREGOR,
1/21/2021 Jennifer McGregor Fiction Publisher 4587 Tropicana Rd. Las Vegas NV 89102 I have included my resume for the short story writer for young adult novels. It has been a few years, but I currently work in a middle school, so I do see all the angst and sass that goes with being a young teen. I do hope my writing samples can help me move to the top of the list. I look forward to working with Penguin Books and letting kids know being a teen is hard at first, but it does not last forever. Sincerely, Rachel Schneider Rachel Schneider 3867 Houghton Ave Riverside CA 92501 It had been a long cold winter Drew and I could not get out for a morning hike till today. Being 75 degrees, we did not have to wear many layers. He is an extremely sweet inquisitive boy who always asks a lot of questions. Why does moss grow on the north side of trees” he asks? Its times like this when it would be nice to have my husband here, but he is overseas where the work is. “well, it’s not just the north side it’s on the shadier side because that is where the moisture is.” On we went looking at snails on the ground watching the deer pass by along a ridge. Being quiet as to not startle them. “Mom he whispered it’s a bunny den they are coming out for food, he leaves a few carrot and lettuce scraps from last night’s dinner. I walked down the path and spotted some glorious Blue Jays and a Downey Woodpecker. “Listen Drew the woodpecker is getting the bugs out of the trees.” My sweet Drew was staring at the Bunnies, they are cute and fluffy after all. We followed our path down further after the bunnies went back to the den. The skies were getting cloudy, so I hoped the rain was not going to come back. Though the weather report said there was a chance. My little explorer with his school uniform on was undeterred, I wish I could wear shorts on a 75 day and not be cold, it is always nice to be young. Walking along our path we spot some squirrels running in circles around the tree. “Why do the chase each other like that” Drew asks. “Maybe it’s a game for them like ring around the Rosie.” On we trek to our favorite stream where the deer family are taking their drinks. I tell Drew we cannot skip stones right now we do not want to scare them. We look through the grass for more of his favorite bugs, saw some worms just below the dirt by a tree. Looking up we see a big spider web being made between two branches. The crows were making their calls in the distance. We are finally able to skip our stones in the stream. He gets some great skips going, and we collect some new rocks for our little garden back home. Walking past the stream we climb up the embankment and up along the ridge where we see a Fox off in the distance. He or she walks the opposite direction we are going so it is a relief we can continue to the clearing. Where there are more bugs, rocks, and Bunnies. We pass the Deer family as they run up the hill to were, they mostly frolic or maybe they live up there. We stop for a snack of Apples, Almonds, and some cheese sticks. When we were finished Drew put a couple of slices in his pocket to feed the Bunnies, I am sure. “Mommy we’re getting to the clearing now we can see the Bunnies and the last time Daddy, and I were here I got some neat rocks too.” Drew told ne enthusiastically, I did love his passion for nature, though again my husband is much better at the nature stuff. I am a pastry Chef ask me about desserts and I am your woman, about why moss grows on trees and hello Google. Since Dad is unavailable, I step in and let him explore and see the world outside of the house and off the screen. It is just another half mile and it is on to the clearing. He starts to pull me hand a little harder I know he is excited. We pass under the tree I glance up and see the Fox again. Then we stop and see “Daddy home…… Name: Rachel Schneider Course: ENG 361 Date: 4/14/2020 Instructor: Debbie Graves One Week In Las Vegas The countdown started Friday at 2pm I got the week off from this thing I call a job (just over broke). The car was packed, it was time to hit the road. The traffic was average and climbing the Cajon Pass was not that bad. I stopped in Baker to have my favorite meal at Bob’s Big Boy, the chili spaghetti, no onions. After making my way back on the highway the traffic picked up going out of Baker, through to Primm and Stateline. I had to stop for gas at Whiskey Pete’s, so I also went in and got some snack goodies. My favorite trail mix and some cheese potato chips because vending machines are too expensive. The road was beckoning so off I went, traveling through Jean is always nice, not much to see. A prison, a few remaining casinos, some outbuildings, and a truck stop. There slogan was always fun 40 smiles closer than Vegas. You can get bored so be sure to pack some music you can have your own car concert. “I’ll face it with a grin I’m never giving in, on with the show” (Show Must Go on by Queen) Finally, the Vegas skyline is in sight, the lights are not on yet, but they will be needing to navigate around the strip. I do say a few words the terrible drivers. This vacation was so needed my job is crazy, my kids are older now and do not need mom around anymore. Off they went to grandma’s house and I booked the week at the Delano, it is attached to the Mandalay bay so perfect access to all the fun of the strip, and just enough luxury to not look cheap. Getting the valet to take the car I check into my genuinely nice room I have a great view of the Luxor light (that comes off the top of the hotel) and the Excalibur. Now off to indulge in that genuinely nice bathtub and get some overdue reading done. My bathroom with a view has the Luxor light and that is the brightest light on the Vegas strip it comes right out of the top of the Pyramid shaped hotel. A brightness of 42.3 billion candela, you could read a paper from 10 miles straight up if you wanted to. Once I was well soaked and finished with my chapters it was time to find something to eat besides my snack foods. After cruising the room service options, I settled on some Mexican food of chorizo and eggs with nice corn tortillas. That hit the spot so with the extra energy it was time to get out for a stroll of the property. The indoor pool is nice but small and I want to soak up the sunshine and get some exercise so I shall hit the outdoor pool tomorrow. Back in the lobby I grab those ads for things to do in the city so I can plan out the rest of my trip. There are thousands of things to do in Vegas. Do not be disappointed if you do not get everything done, that is what the next trip is for. I have a beautiful week and I want to have a good time and not have to wait for anybody, I can do what I want. I got those and cruised up through the lobby and toward the casino on my way there I saw a sign for a food and wine festival. With that guy Zac from the travel channel. Thinking hmm I did not know he was interested in food or wine. I went down and found my favorite penny slot game Lucky cat. After 15 minutes I came out putting 20 in and winning 500, so I called it a night and went to the bar to catch a hockey game and grab a fun fruity drink (I like tequila sunrise, (Tequila, grenadine, and cranberry juice). As I am rooting for the Golden Knights (local Vegas hockey team) I looked over to my left and there was Zac from the travel channel, and he likes hockey too this is awesome, and I am trying not to be a fan girl. The game was in intermission and the Knights were winning so it was time for a new fruity drink so this time I turned around to get back to the bar and bumped right into Zac, boy was my face red. After some apologies and an offer to buy my next fruity drink (a Strawberry Daiquiri) it was a yes and I spilled that I was a fan. He told me he does have an interest in food and wine not just chasing ghosts with his crew. We had some great conversation and when the game came back on, we both sat in the booth cheering the golden knights to their victory. Now I am buzzed and standing up was going to be fun, but Zac was a true gentleman and helped me to my feet. He offered to buy me dinner. The Taco Hut was a good place the tortillas were fresh, and the company was so cool. The conversation turned to food, wine, travel, and some stuff about me. The midnight hour rolled around, and Zac had an early morning, so we said goodnight, but he was staying one floor above me, so we agreed to go to the diner in the lobby for breakfast or brunch. At 10am I was enjoying my company and this great stick to your ribs breakfast (scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns and some great watermelon) The food offerings in Vegas are so varied you can get everything from a hot dog and beer for 1.99 at the Orleans, to a 5-star meal at Caesar’s Palace the buffets are great too. Although sometimes you want a nice sit-down dinner. The conversation was effortless the attraction was deep. We made plans to see each other again after the food contest he was judging was over. Saying goodbye was a bit hard but the hand holding was sweet and made me feel like a schoolgirl again. After saying goodbye and I did watch him walk into the convention hall I went back to my room to plan out the rest of my day. I chose a tour of the Mob Museum, they say that Vegas was built with Mob money, but it was a Mormon founded town that later Hollywood discovered. Then many people in Hollywood who were well connected (such as East Coast mobsters) financed Bugsy Segal to build the Flamingo Hotel. As I was putting my shoes on, I got a knock on the room door and as I opened it, I got some flowers (pink roses) and an all-access pass to the food and wine festival courtesy of Zac. Let us just say the Mob Museum can wait for later I got to go to a food and wine festival and spend the rest of the week with Zac. “hi Zac thanks for the flowers it was sweet of you to remember.” He said, “It’s always right to remember a ladies flower preference because that’s the right thing to do.” Smiling the rest of the day I meet other travel channel celebrities and got to taste some great foods and many different wines. The food and wine offerings at the hotels and restaurants are varied, the Las Vegas area have become very international, so the varieties are endless. The week went by in a blur of food, wine, conversation, and some sweet dates. I never thought I would get over the break-up that happened the week before. Getting a private Vegas tour was something completely special. I did get to see the Mob Museum, Mandalay Bay Fine Art Museum, seven magic mountains, Pinball Hall of fame and a private dinner at the food and wine festival. My days in Vegas were down to one. We had reservations at Rivera right here at the Delano the view is amazing, the food is impressive with Italian and French offers. “I have had a wonderful time this week Zac thank you for mending my broken heart.” He looked at me for a minute and said, “it’s been a pleasure to get to know you and I would not mind visiting your hometown, you always have a reason to come back to Las Vegas. The next food and wine festival is around Christmas, this one will include chocolate.” Hitting the 15 early the next morning I have visions of Christmas, a pass to the food and wine festival, also a brand-new relationship to take back home with me. The End When writing a short story, you want to keep it from rambling and have enough details to keep it fresh. When your reader gets into the story you want them to feel like they are there with you, going to the food and wine festival, on that hike through the seven-mountains or touring the mob museum. The details are the thing to see and make sure to watch out for punctuation and common language. An average short story is within 6,00 words or 24 pages. If you wanted too you could go short-short story and that is between 500 and 2,00 words. That comes out to be 6 pages (Minot, Steven Ch. 7 pg. 41), talk about short stories. The story is all your length and style matter as much as how you want it to come into focus. Minot, Steven and Theil Daniel Three genres the writing of literary pose, poems and plays Ninth edition Pearson Publications 2012 Bouncing Dog Toy Emporium August 18,2019📷📷 24755 Holly Grove Way Brookings OR, 97415 Dear Dogs, Rule the World I am Rachel Schneider from the Bouncing Dog Toy Emporium we make extra bouncy dog toys for our furry friends. We investigated different marketing companies and choose you to do our direct to customer marketing. The way the website is set up the customers can get the product’s directly from you is easier than a multi-level marketing plan. The distribution of Bouncy Dog Toy will be a one level channel, we will provide the toys you market, and we sell them. I would like to get some videos of our company dogs Mac and Stella playing with the toys so you can post on the website. A link for the company can also be included so the consumers know where the toys came from, what they are made of and any other facts about Bouncing Dog Toy Emporium. Sincerely, Rachel V Schneider Mac and Stella company dogs and testers 📷 📷 📷📷 📷A sample of our products, our bounciest toys. Scott’s Story Part 1 I am Scott Thorn, and I am going back to WDU for the first time in 15 years, I went here for a year but after I came out as gay there really were no gay dudes. I am all men but yeah lesbians were all around some BI guys but no real gay dudes. I went back to the mainland and attended Preston University I majored in administration and minored in Literature. I did at one point in my life have a girlfriend and wanted to marry her, but I could not quash the gay lifestyle. That part of my life is over and now the old school offered me a counseling job, have not done this in a while. I get to help students toward there after college career. I sit here on this boat and keeping an eye on my 75 Triumph I have some nerves, but it is mostly about seeing this place again, so as the boat pulls up, I get my bike going and make a stop at my new on campus apartment. Its west facing because I like sunsets more than sunrise, so I did not know it needed so much work. I have some handy skills but a little at a time. The kitchen is decent and so is the bathroom. The floors will need some polish and the deck needs to be stained, this is a duplex, so I hope the neighbors are quiet. It is furnished and done nicely so I cannot complain too much, but back on the bike to see the Dean. I get my bike set with the kill switch and walk up the way to the Admin building, I am pretty much the only one dressed. I am wearing my good black jeans and my dress shirt, in my favorite color Maroon. I do remember this place was obsessed with sex so I will stick out wearing clothes, as I enter the building at least more admin people are dressed. Miss Grant the secretary shows me to my new office, its spacious much bigger that my last one at Preston where I shared a cubicle with another person. I have files from past students and current ones, so I started filing them when Dean Kane walks in, booty shorts and a tank top. “Welcome back to WDU Scott, we look forward to seeing you succeed you come very recommended.” I could hardly concentrate because this Dean was hung but I persevered and said, “Thank you sir I look forward to helping young students find there after WDU careers.” After he left, I had to get my rise to settle then I continued filing and looking through some files. Clarissa Love that was a name that got around even all the way to Preston. I think she does the Jax in the bedroom or something like that. I started looking around and thought I need some life in this office so I asked Miss Grant about decorating and she said I could do what I wanted but no painting, so I went to town and checked out a flea market. I found some pictures of the beaches of Canada, some old homes in the area and a few movie posters from Rocky horror Picture Show (it is my favorite). The flea market said they will deliver to the school tomorrow so I told them I will be there at 9am. Now with my day done I get to the store to buy some groceries and realize this place uses sextons and I was down to my last few, so now I will need to exchange but thankfully a bank is nearby so I can get some of my mainland money exchanged. I pull up to my new pad off load my few groceries and notice some other tenant left beer in the fridge, talk about luck. I got the beer went to the deck and watched the sunset over the sky. It was going to be new here, but I needed a fresh start after getting dumped and losing the job because my ex was in upper management, never will I do that again. I will find someone who does not work in the school system. After I ate a roast beef and cheddar sandwich for dinner, watched some cooking shows it was time for bed. As I was brushing my teeth, I heard the neighbors having sex. Oh, goody they are not quiet. hope they do not have super energy either. Tomorrow is my first full day and I have decorating to do, fantastic they stopped, that is the thing with us older people we do not fuck like bunnies anymore. As far as I know the neighbors are lesbians so who knows. Sample 1- If I try my hardest, I could muster up enough courage to ask the prettiest girl in school to prom. I had a suit; bolo tie and I will shine my old boots up. The thing is my courage is not as strong as my best friend Nick, now there is one brave dude who just asked the girl I wanted to go to prom with and of course she said yes. I gather myself close my locker and put on my best smile for them both. Nick and I high five and I hug her, trying to be genuine but it is hard. I head to my Social studies class and sit down next to Megan she looks at me with some concern I tell her what happened, she then asks me to Prom…... Sample 2-Wishing I did not have to be here I sit at the back of the funeral and think about my old high school principal. I grew up in a small town and everyone knew everyone, we only had one school and you went there for kindergarten through senior year. After my graduation I packed up my old car and headed out to what I thought was the real world. Living in a bigger city only helped spur my loneliness so who says you cannot come home again, well Mom for starters because I abandoned my family, I am not welcome at home ever again (so tired of her drama), so I am staying at Principal Mason’s house yes, the same principal that I am at a funeral for I held her hand as she lay there succumbing to cancer…… Sample 3-If you really want to get over a breakup getting back on the horse will help things along. I thought that too seven lousy dates ago so here I am on date number 8 and I am not seeing any birds singing or rainbows in the sky. He steps away to take a call he is a particularly important lawyer after all (I need to fix my picker) after he comes back, he says it go time the jury has come back so off he goes. I finish my drink and head back to my brownstone close by, I pass the new chocolate shop that just opened, and I get inside and see chocolate heaven. Looking around I do not see him at first but there he is my old college lab partner Sam I just saw a rainbow…….
Where it's being built: Downtown Las Vegas. Opening in late 2020, Circa (as in circa 1950) is the first downtown resort to be built from the ground-up since 1980. Though construction has only just started, the casino has already generated a generous amount of buzz among locals and industry insiders. 1962. Ernie's Casino opens in North Las Vegas, and lasts until 2001, when it's destroyed to make way for Wildfire Casino. 1959. The Flamingo Capri , completely unrelated to the more well-known Flamingo, opens and runs until 1979, when it becomes Imperial Palace. They were granted this license on April 1, 1931. Reportedly, they opened with just a few slot machines and one blackjack table. Oddly enough, in addition to becoming the first casino on the Las Vegas Strip, the Red Rooster became the first casino in Las Vegas to lose its gaming license. The 777-room resort and casino in downtown Las Vegas is slated to open in December 2020. The cost of the 1.25-million-square-foot property has not been revealed. At 44 stories, the property would... Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Step Closer to Linking Casino to Las Vegas Convention Center. Posted on: February 10, 2021, 03:42h. Last updated on: February 10, 2021, 04:07h. Harrah’s Las Vegas was not the first Harrah’s hotel and casino in Nevada – founder Bill Harrah started his empire in nearby Reno in 1937/38. The hotel was originally opened in 1973 as the Holiday Casino by former Silver Slipper casino owners, Shelby and Claudine Williams. The Holiday Casino had a riverboat theme. Yet Another Las Vegas Casino History Timeline. There are a lot of timelines out there reflecting the history of casinos in Las Vegas. Here's another. Year Month Day Event; 1906: January : 13: Nevada Hotel opens: 1931 : April : 1: Las Vegas Club opens: April : 1: Boulder Club opens: May : 2: Meadows Club opens: May : 5: Pair-O-Dice Club granted gaming license: September: Meadows Club burns ... Harrah’s Las Vegas was originally called the Holiday Casino when it opened in 1973 until 1992. The Holiday Casino was small, had a riverboat theme, and was built in front of the Holiday Inn Las Vegas Center Strip. Following years of renovations after a change in ownership, Harrah’s Las Vegas reopened with a Mardi Gras and Carnival theme. It is the Caesars Entertainment (formerly Harrah’s Entertainment) flagship property as there are many other Harrah’s hotels around the country. Resorts World Las Vegas is the first venture in Sin City for international resort and casino operator Genting Group. The property across the street from Wynn Las Vegas has been in development off and on since first breaking ground as Echelon Place in 2007. Genting broke ground on the $4.3 billion Resorts World Las Vegas in 2015. In 1941 the El Rancho Vegas resort opened on a section of U.S. 91 just outside the city’s jurisdiction. Other hotel-casinos soon followed, and the section of highway became known as “the Strip.”...
