Online sports betting bill introduced in Georgia General ...

I debated making this post for awhile because I normally just comment in replies to other things. But someone came across an old post and thought I should share directly, particularly given the influx of homeless discussion.
I'm a homeless person in the area. I lived on paid campgrounds in the region when the weather was nicer and now when I have the cash, I stay in motels. So I'm not someone on the lawn, chopping up bikes (I actually sold mine for $50 to pay for another room night) I'm a nobody and you've probably stood in line next to me and had no idea I was homeless because I do everything in my power to keep it together. But I cry a lot and the longer this goes on, the more difficult it is to climb out of because literally everything in society is working against you and I don't think many people realize the logistics of how difficult homelessness can be.
I lost my job literally the week after the NBA shut down. For what it's worth, my former boss got a six figure PPP loan (it was on ProPublica which is how I found out) and I haven't heard from them since. Other than when I had to fight some reporting stuff that they messed up. The shitty thing too is, the company made multiple millions of dollars. Still in business. Still operating btw. Anyway...
I was raised in foster care, so I don't have a family to run to when times get tough. All of my IRL friends live in Canada and I was actually in the IEC working visa pool and hoping to go over, get work experience, make connections, and eventually immigrate there permanently. My friends there are like my family, but there's nothing they can do to bring me over because we aren't blood related and they can send me some money but the exchange rate sucks and so do all the exchange fees. They really just don't know how this country just lets people struggle. But the pool suspended draws in March and at the end of last year, they fully closed it out. There hasn't been any announcement on if they'll ever bring it back and jesus christ I feel so fucked.
So, I want to explain how people end up in situations like mine. I was on a short term lease and it didn't get renewed. It was probably for the better anyway because my former roommate was talking about stabbing Jews like Soros to end the pandemic. (I'm Jewish.) Oh and she owns a business in town.
That was early on in the pandemic when I lost my previous place and I thought honestly this would be over by summer, my job would ask me back and it wouldn't be an issue, so I rented airbnbs even though they were pricey. I don't think many people thought this would all go on as long as it did either.
Then I had car issues (tires balded completely, brakes, rotors, and tired rods iirc? I needed a whole lot of shit done.) Then I got really sick too and medical bills were an arm and leg. I was applying to places to live and my credit was going to obviously get dinged with maxing out credit cards and having unpaid medical bills would just obviously make me a shitty candidate to rent to.
But through June I tried applying to places. But those are hard credit pulls and I did...a number of them over 2-3 months to try my damndest. However, I can't get approved for housing because I'm unemployed and have been unemployed for months. I don't make enough from sex work other than to cover some nights nor is that a viable "job" to most people. I don't have a WA cosigner, hell I don't have ANY cosigner that lives in America, so that takes me out of the running of the vast vast majority of places. And not only that, a number of landlords would only take me if I could pay something like $5k or pay the full amount of the lease upfront. One woman almost rented a room to me, but I have now no "recent" landlord for them to reference and call. When I explained to her I was living in a motel, she called me homeless scum looking for a place to do drugs. One of my friends tried to "act" as a former landlord, but they looked up property records and he wanted to arrest me for fraud. I was just desperate for a place to live (and I want to share this story too because a lot of people make VERY VERY VERY bad suggestions to homeless people.)
I don't even drink in this goddamn state full of craft breweries. I don't like NOT having my wits about me. So no, I'm not some tweaker that does drugs. I also cannot fucking stand the smell of marijuana. I'm a lame ass square. But it doesn't matter because every single stereotype is what you are when you are homeless.
You can't rent a room without having CURRENT employment THAT PAYS THE RENT. So a part time, 10 hour a week gig at $15 McD's won't qualify you for housing. I don't know what is so difficult about understanding that but people really seem to struggle with that. You need to make at least 3-4x to qualify for anything, including just a bedroom.
And? You can't rent without RECENT landlord to reference. It's one of the several sneaky requirements they throw in there in order to make it damn near impossible for someone who is homeless to get permanent housing.
Mentally, it's all a constant waking nightmare. I have to try to figure out the best prices on places to stay, I have to make lots of calls, I apply for aid, I have to stay warm, I have to try to sleep, I have to try to promote my sex work, I have to try to think if there's any future for me. It's exhausting.
"Now you're wondering why not go to the shelter?"
I did one night and I had to fight off assault. I know another girl who was raped and she attempted suicide and had to be committed. PLEASE stop thinking this shit doesn't happen in this town just because your homes cost half a million fucking dollars.
Most people may not also understand the restrictions or lack of dignity that occurs at a lot of shelters. Some shelters force you to change into scrubs they provide, so it feels like prison. You can't keep your stuff on you. It's very time restrictive, so if you are working later than the entry time, you're totally fucked. Or if you need to go to work, you can also be fucked for violating the rules. It's also just full of people who are screaming at night from the mental anguish this shit leaves you in. It's literally sleeping among nightmares.
A lot of aid in town and in general, America, is run by churches or "loosely affiliated religious organizations". I have been point blank asked to convert in order to get help. I'm ethnically Jewish and I dunno how they can't quite get that I can't exactly convert into a new ethnicity. The synagogue in this county has been closed and offers zero aid or help. Also LOTS of charities focus strictly on families and there is also one in town for young adults (under 24.) While I understand that's important, there isn't a lot of help for people like me in their mid-30s or who are single.
"Why not apply for affordable housing?"
Well, most people don't even know that the waiting lists are closed for 1 bedrooms. The list is 5-10+ y e a r s long. Many people have probably never visited it, despite constantly suggesting it to me: https://bellinghamhousing.org/home/applicants/open-waitlist/ go ahead and tell me what's open and what's closed. And that's the waiting list- that's not even you getting housing tomorrow.
"You must make a lot sex working!"
90% of OnlyFans accounts make under $50 a month. It's not the money maker you think it is, earning even $100 is hard work. Processors take huge chunks of earnings, then you have transfer fees, and yeah it's a lot to be desired. There's also the mental toll it can take. Also, I'm not a hot young college thing, I have a specific niche and it doesn't really pay.
So just a few other things, especially as it concerns food:

Not every motel, especially the cheap ones, have rooms with microwaves or fridges. Or they don't work. If you're on a campground, you can't use perishables without ice, a freezer and that has to be constantly maintained.
EBT doesn't cover warm or prepared food or "anything intended to be eaten in the store".
I won't accept food handed to me where I didn't purchase it or it didn't come from a verified place. ESPECIALLY HOMEMADE FOOD. Please, PLEASE reconsider this (I know there is meal train and that might be different, but I'm talking just generally.) I'd actually avoid handing food directly to a homeless person. You have ZERO idea of their allergies or medical conditions. I have NO IDEA if you poisoned it. Now you might laugh, but given the way people who are supposed to be helping have treated me, I really, really can't afford to trust strangers.
Also, I'm wary of the free pantries. Why? Again, because people tamper with food.
YOU may be well-intentioned, but enough people aren't.
I routinely have gotten rotten produce in my food bank box, I can send you fun pics. Point is, most of the stuff is on its last legs or has no legs at all. I have gotten fully molded loaves of bread and I honestly couldn't even eat after seeing it.
PLEASE stop donating your expired goods to the food bank.
PLEASE do not donate UNSEALED things to the food bank. Like your hot chocolate mix in a tin from 2014.
Please donate jams, jellies, honey, and spices because 1) plain beans and rice sucks and 2) surviving on peanut butter sucks and every person struggling right now will tell you some jam would be nice.

People want to help and I get that. And you're like "goddammit what can I do?"
Just hand people money.
Just give people the dignity that they know how to prioritize their needs.
Research continually bares this out: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/09/americas/direct-giving-homeless-people-vancouver-trnd/index.html
Don't give me coats, I have one. The one you gave me probably won't fit or if I'm allergic to wool, I will have no use for it. (I'm not allergic to wool, but people are!)
Don't give me things I haven't asked for in general. Someone send me a PM saying they have a twin bed I could have. Uh, I have a bed in storage, no thanks. They called me a cunt and told me to kill myself.
Don't hand me lotto tickets. Most scratch offs are loser tickets and then it looks like I'm wasting my money on gambling. You also have no idea who might have be struggling with or recovering from a gambling addiction.
Don't donate your trash and expect me to grateful. You gave me the work of throwing away your garbage and reminding me that's all I am to you and the community.
Don't bitch about homelessness and in the same breath fight Section 8 or assume shit about housing vouchers. If you're a landlord in this town, maybe you ought to accept vouchers and actually try to be a force for good. Or bitch about how minimum wage is too high. It ain't high enough.
Don't send me a PM saying you have a room for me to stay in or will "take me out on a date" to get me food. That's taking advantage of someone. That's also really fucking unsafe. If you do allow homeless and jobless people a place to stay, put that on your facebook or craigslist ad publicly or respond back when someone does explain their situation. (Note: and while I sex work, I'm not an in/outcall worker or an escort. I'm not going to have sex with you or put myself in an incredibly dangerous situation.)
Don't criticize people who are homeless who are trying to tell you what they actually need- you do not know their needs. Please stop assuming you do.
You can encourage groups to just give straight cash grants. If you absolutely are committed to give giftcards, do them for useful places like Target, Walmart, grocery stores, etc. where someone can buy toiletries, clothing, etc. Don't send me a $5 giftcard to like Cabela's. The closest one is a drive away and what can I do with that? I would spend more in gas to get to one. In the same vein, someone offered me a giftcard to like a steakhouse in Seattle. I hope you can understand how those aren't useful.
You can also hold your church, your preferred charity org, etc. ACCOUNTABLE. Actually look what they require of applicants for aid, ask them for how they advertise to the public and what their outreach is, ask how much is going to people, demand transparency.
"Okay, so I want to give to United Way--"
Wait. Stop. PLEASE understand that United Way is a passthrough organization. It's a middle man. They just help fund other charities and they obviously skim off the top as "operating expenses". Likewise, I saw here and on facebook lots of folks donating to Whatcom Community Foundation. They also do not provide any direct aid. It's also a middle man. Listen, I understand they fund a few scholarships and help promote nonprofits and I'm NOT saying it's bad or the worst idea ever, but if we are talking about the most direct, most efficient, and most bang for your buck, just hand your dollars to people struggling.
Hand me $5 and that can go towards my storage unit or cell phone bill or private mailbox or gas or insurance. It can go towards supplements, it can go towards getting a warm cup of soup, or it can go towards another night of a safe warm place to stay. Other sex workers, my friends in Canada, and a couple nice souls on reddit who have helped via paypal/cashapp/venmo? That's been THE reason I've stayed afloat, it's the been THE reason I can stand next to you in line at Target and I don't reek of piss because I was able to actually have a real shower. It has NOT been because of nonprofit organizations.
I think it's really important for people to understand that some bills, some bad luck, and some pandemic fuckery can easily spiral your life into daily struggling and homelessness. It's not easy to move and most of our safety net requires you to have a robust social network. I hope one day I can migrate to Canada, but now I need to resave thousands of dollars to qualify for any visa and to be brutal with you, my chances of achieving that dream and being able to have a real life again are very slim. I'll soon age out of IEC Working Holiday visa and I simply don't have tens of thousands of dollars to pay for graduate school as an alternate way in. It's a hard road ahead for me to get through until I can even get the vaccine.
My hope in sharing this lengthy long diatribe is that it causes you to think and critique the institutions we have. Please think about how you can truly help and what that looks like in action. Not everyone's struggles are the same, especially not everyone's homeless struggles, but thank you for reading mine.
Edit: Thank you again for reading this and really taking it to heart, I really appreciate the kindness and gratitude show. I honestly didn't think anyone would even read this. If anyone else is homeless or struggling or on the verge, I don't take any mind to you sharing your story too and please feel free to just send me a message that this sucks and I'm here to listen to bitching because lordy I get it. xo

SPAC Below 11

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

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

My (40F) husband (40M) committed financial infidelity and I’m struggling moving forward.

Long time lurker first time poster, throwaway as my husband knows my main account.
My story is not up for fodder elsewhere.
I’m looking for some outside perspective on a situation that has been ongoing for 4 years now. Aside from this situation my husband was/is an amazing husband and dad. He is hands on, does a lot around the house, he puts us all first and is the type of husband and dad everyone prays for which is why this is so conflicting. 4 years ago my (40F) husband (40M) (together 12 years at that point with 3 kids) quit his job to run a business. I was completely onboard and supportive, said I would work extra if needed to help get the business rolling and gave the go ahead.
Throughout the first year I’d check in and ask if we were making enough for our bills, if I needed to work extra, ask about different things. During that time we planned a trip to the happiest place on earth, went out for lunch at least twice a week and bought a lot of luxuries we never had previously. My husband was in charge of our finances.
There were a few red flags I noticed, the gas company sent an employee out to shut off the gas - I was told it was an oversight and a payment was made right then to stop the disconnection. One of our bank accounts was in the negative and I was told that it was another oversight and money was switched from one account to the other making up for the mistake. I wanted something new for our house I would need to finance and was rejected for my income to debt ratio being too high, was told to pay off the CCs and I would qualify. My husband told me the amount the CCs were, I worked extra and they were paid and still I didn’t qualify. I felt uneasy and again asked if everything was being paid and was assured we were in good financial standing.
Fast forward another year and my husband told me it was time he had to get a job, business was slow, he was bored and so he got a job. I started receiving phone calls of CC debt. The first time it happened, my husband told me it was a scam and showed me the account they claimed I owed a huge amount on- it was at a $0 balance. The next time I just hung up believing it was a scam. The third time I sat my husband down and asked what was going on. I had to beg, plead and cry to get an answer. He told me we had x amount in CC debt, I was shocked. I made a budget to pay off the debt ASAP. As I was working extra to pay it off I asked multiple times if there was more debt or anything else, was promised there wasn’t- I forgave my husband, he said he didn’t want to worry me with finances and to be proud of him and he just didn’t know how to get out of the hole he dug. The CCs were used to pay our regular bills but also to keep up the facade that he was successful. I did scour every single account to be sure he wasn’t gambling or had an addiction I didn’t know about, he was clean there. I also felt guilty that he had shouldered this all on his own and felt that I should take at least some responsibility- I shouldn’t have been so hands off.
I worked extra and the debt was paid off in 2 months (love DOT). I received another call from the original debt collector that started this chain reaction that I still owed x amount- my husband denied it at first, then said he forgot about it and then after begging and pleading for the truth told me it was true and he had actually showed me a bogus account that had $0 balance on it. I told him our marriage was over as I had already said previously that if anything else came up after promising it was only x amount I could not forgive and move forward.
Long story short, as I was working extra to pay the new amounts off, my checks were garnished by the IRS for mistakes made on previous tax returns. It was then I found out that mail was being hidden as well and it could have all been avoided with a payment plan. He also admitted to tampering with our tax returns for extra money. I also found out that it was my name on ALL the credit cards/debts. There were days he spent all day telling me how he was on the phone with debt collectors working things out only to find out a month later that those situations never happened, he was just placating me because he was scared of what I would do. There was one debt that he swore we didn’t owe and he got angry with me for asking him to call the company in front of me. He did so and yelled at the agent and hung up- only to find out he knew we owed the money and was saving face by yelling at an innocent person.
During this time we were in counseling, together and individually. It came out that he is a pleaser and will do anything/say anything not to “get in trouble.” He took psych tests and had evaluations done and continues to do counseling to this day because he wants to be a better man. I took over the finances and we are now debt free and are in great financial standing. I agreed to stay but we live more as roommates on my end. He is upset (but respects my boundaries) that I am not interested in a traditional marriage. I have tried to work through the anger, the bitterness and try to understand how this happened and I do understand why he initially lied and forgive him for that but I can’t get over the repeated lies which spanned over an entire year and only came out because I begged and pleaded and got phone calls and garnishments etc.
I stayed because I do love him as a person, he makes me laugh and we are compatible in every other way and like I said he is an amazing dad and husband other than this nightmare. But I am not romantic with him, I have no interest in that aspect as I feel disrespected and honestly would yell at any other woman about how dumb they are that stayed through something like this. He on the other hand is waiting for the day that I wake up and am his wife again. I don’t foresee this happening, I feel nothing sexual towards him yet I do feel love and smile when I think of him. I’m so conflicted. I don’t want to waste his life staying with me when he could find someone to give him everything he needs, yet at the same time I enjoy his company and all he does for our family and honestly would miss him.
Full disclosure I have NO interest in ever being with anyone else so even if we did separate I’d be single for the rest of my life. We’ve also talked about him leaving and still coming over to see the kids every day and he said he’d still do everything he does now so really there’s no reason to separate if he’ll be here all the time anyway. It would just devastate the kids and take finances away from them.
I don’t know what I’m looking for here, I go back and forth daily. Has anyone been through this and come out the other side intact? The counselor acknowledges my feelings and also acknowledges that my husband loves and adores me and has done everything he can to be a better version of himself and at this point there’s nothing more to be done as he continues to seek guidance and do everything I’ve asked of him.
TL:DR my husband committed financial infidelity and I’ve stayed as a roommate and he wants more. Wondering if I’m being selfish for not wanting more than friendship even though I do love him and he is a wonderful dad.
Edited to make it easier to read

My tips of reaching peace-of-mind eternal NEET status

Nikola Stock Crash | Alibaba Stock Plunges | DKNG & PENN | Stock Market News for Today [12-24]

Nikola saw another stock crash yesterday, while Alibaba’s stock plunges after-hours with increased pressure from the regulators. Some news about DKNG, PENN and other stock market news for today.
~Very Long Post~
Hello everyone and Good Morning! First of all, I wanted to wish to everyone happiness, peace and prosperity this upcoming Christmas, hope you are all doing well, Merry Christmas everyone.
And let’s start with the recap of yesterday as we saw the Dow Jones leading the way, finishing up .38%, with the broad market SP500 also barely finishing in the green for the day up .07% and the Nasdaq Composite finishing in the red .29%.
We also saw the VIX dropping again today by 3.8% despite being even lower but seeing a pop in the last hours of trading with a spike of more than 4% with more uncertainty being created in the Congress after Trump vetoed the defense bill, as he continued to distract the attention from the big number of pardons he keeps giving out, with the latest round bringing the total to almost 50 in the past week.
More than 60% of the companies were gaining yesterday with over 200 new highs, but the volume was relatively low in this shortened trading week, as 8 of the 11 SP sectors were gaining yesterday with Energy and Financials gaining more than 1.6% with Financials gaining a boost as the Treasury yields pushed up and the curve continues to steepen, while the laggards were Real Estate, Technology and Utilities as value plays especially small and mid-caps outperformed yesterday, with the large-cap growth companies finishing the day down by more than half a percent.
You can see this exact thing in this HEAT MAP as the 3 biggest companies in the world, Apple, Amazon & Microsoft, finished the day down more than 0.6%. You can also see that most of the gains were concentrated in the banks and oil & gas industry while the rest of the market was pretty much mixed with companies like Tesla, Google, Facebook having small gains, while others like Zoom, Netflix, Airbnb and many more suffered.
Yesterday we also got the AAII SURVEY that shows how investors were feeling last week. This time we don’t get any good news as this is a contrarian indicator, as people started to move from a bearish sentiment to a more neutral sentiment with more than 4% of investors moving from a bearish view to a neutral view, with only a .1% increase in bullish investors last week, as the stimulus bill seemed to be finally agreed on before Trump making new headlines this week again with the Veto of the NDAA.
Meanwhile we also got tons of economic data yesterday starting with initial and continuing jobless claims as initial claims came in way lower than expected just over 800K, down almost 90K from the previous week and falling to a 3-week low, with the continuing jobless claims also dropping to 5.3M, lower than last week and what was expected from the analysts.
We also saw the durable goods number coming in better than expected with a .9% increase, up for the 7th straight month, while house PRICES rose nationwide by 1.5% in October from the previous month, which continued to push house prices higher by more than 10% since last year, with home SALES falling in November but are still up over 20% year over year as the median sales price of new houses continued to trend up.
Alongside this we saw the final consumer sentiment read slipping in December to 80.7, lower than expected but higher than the 76.9 in November, with the November Personal INCOME coming worse than expected, losing 1.1% from the previous month.
In contrast, today we don’t really get any critical economic data and the stock market closes early.
So, we saw Nikola take another stumble yesterday, after the whole Apple & Tesla disruption as we saw the stocks drop more than 10% again yesterday and is down more than 26% since I made my prediction and just hit my first price target, here is the link to that post.
Nikola shares skid yesterday again after another deal for the company fell, as that meant the termination of the deal with Republic Services to develop an electric garbage truck for them. The deal was expected to have Nikola produce over 2500 trucks for the company. So, I would trim my sell position on Nikola here, while leaving some for my next target, with that target being a drop in the single digits in the future for the company.
In some other stock market news, we saw Alibaba shares plummeting again more than 8% on the Hong Kong exchange and more than 7% in pre-market in the US by now, after more pressure has been put on the company as the Chinese authorities are continuing to pursue anti-monopolistic investigations on the company while also continuing the investigation on Ant Group which is an affiliate of Alibaba as they hold more than 1/3 of the company. I think these investigations are very likely to come out with fines and structural changes on how the company will work with its subsidiaries and affiliates, and that the high flying, record-breaking, Ant Group IPO will likely be postponed for a longer period until they meet regulators requirements as it is expected that Ant Group will be given some guidelines to follow by the regulators. My personal belief is that Alibaba is a great company and it should trade higher than this, but until this whole mess with the authorities clears, anything can happen as you can see in this CHART, as the stock has underperformed since Ant Group canceled the IPO, with my long-term price target for Alibaba being 300$, but I wouldn’t go to heavy on this trade right now.
Enough of Alibaba, meanwhile we also saw XL Fleet jumping huge yesterday after the usual short-seller Citron, indicated that there is still more upside for this company.
And one final piece of news is that Colorado set another record for wagers in November, this is another confirmation of the gambling tailwinds that will skyrocket companies like DraftKings & PENN Gaming higher in the next years.
Let’s hope for a good day in the market as the FUTURES seem to be pointing at a good open, with the Nasdaq Composite leading the way, while the European Union and UK are finally nearing a deal for Brexit, and remember there are only 5 trading sessions left in 2020 with today also being a short-day of trading.
Also, don’t forget this is usually when one of the best 7-day period for gains happens, with an average return of 1.33% and a 77% chance of that happening since 1950. But be careful, not every year is a winner, you can see here some examples, with 1999 being a very bad year as the dot com bubble approached, with another bad year coinciding with the start of the financial crisis. Hopefully this will be the 5th straight year with a positive return in this period.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market!
Have a great day and see you next time!

(23M)Gambling no more and finally getting it together.

Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

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

PT 2 - What do you think Mersh's estimated monthly expenses are?

Unfair Prices of Subscription for Colombia

This is a traslated repost of a discussion on the LATAM forum made in 2019, talking about the unfair prices that we here in Colombia are paying in order to play WoW. Here you are the original post (In Spanish): https://us.forums.blizzard.com/es/wow/t/precios-en-general-de-wow-expansiones-y-suscripciones-en-colombia/7081 Values may vary by 3% to 5%.
"Hi, good morning. I saw a thread about this but it is very old, we can even see the site from which the forums have been moved and blah, blah, blah...
The post is a big long so I warn you right away... every time the GMs take to analyse this would be very thanked and welcomed.
The forum doesn't allow me to add pictures or links, so I had to take out the format. But you can copy the URL onto any browser to see them.
Well, let's get to the point.
I'll have to explain many things to put you into context about the prices that are handled here, which are very high compared to other countries like Argentina, Chile or Mexico.
Before someone appears (like I saw on other thread) saying "We all pay the same everywhere", no buddy :3 we don't pay the same.
Let's start with this: The minimum wage at this moment in Colombia (2019) is of COP$ 828,116 (Pesos) (We all handle here in "thousands" of Pesos). The minimum denomination coin nowadays is of COP$ 50 (Pesos), the highest one is of COP$ 1.000, and then the bills start, from which there are one of COP$ 1.000 but equeals exactly the same as the coin of COP$ 1.000)
These are the values of the bills handled in the country:
COP$ 1.000 COP$ 2.000 COP$ 5.000 COP$ 10.000 COP$ 20.000 COP$ 50.000 and the highest one which is rarely seen COP$100.000
Which means that the current wage are 8 of these
"COP$ 100.000" (Which anyways is rarely given from the ATMs of the country lol)
one of these
"COP$ 20.000"
and one of these
"COP$ 10.000"
And that would be the minimum wage (You can see the bills even in a video of Luisito Comunica (Famous Mexican YouTuber who travels the world) if you are interested: -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEcxexL5sPY
An important fact is that the minimum salary here is equal to between USD$ 250 to USD$ 254 (Dollars).
We have here IVA, which in simple terms are the Taxes, which are included. It is something fixed which at this moment (12/26/2019) is at 19%... which is really high... and there's a rumour saying that the government is thiking of increasing it even more, to 28% (This is because the videogames are taxed the same as the gambling machines or media). 🙄
So, in this order of ideas, I leave you with pictures of the Colombian Store, showing "Time of Play" and the current expansion, which is BfA.
Subscription
https://i.imgur.com/kEgcs8M.png
USD$ 15 (dollars) rounding, for a month are equal to 2 days of work with a minimum wage in Colombia, which are more or less COP$ 50.000. I leave you screenshots of this as well with the currency converter of Google (You can look it up for yourselves as well).
It is worth saying that when we speak of days of work here, they are days of 8 to 12 daily hours (In USA this is pretty normal because the goal is to achieve approximately at least USD$ 100 (dollars) daily, right?, this means that a month of WoW can be paid with 2 or 3 hours of work in the worst of the cases)
https://i.imgur.com/ZndF1OB.png
That would leave COP$ 500 (Pesos), meaning 1 coin of the value I said above. COP$ 500 (USD$ 0.14) of two days of work.
And speaking of purchasing the expansion for example 🤐
https://i.imgur.com/jTtefiY.png
Without including the discount at this moment, it would be USD$ 50 (Dollars). In pesos that equals COP$ 163.837 (Pesos), which are three days and a half of hours of work in this order of ideas. We would be paying here almost four times the cost of other countries like Argentina. I take this one as a example, because that was the one which "impacted" me the most when I saw this article and a friend of mine who is there sent me the current prices.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/es-mx/news/20130364/cambios-en-los-precios-para-world-of-warcraft-en-argentina-chile-y-mexico 17
So, I took the freedom to review the Currencies and I was "stunned" because a month in Argentina costs USD$ 3.52 (Dollars) vs. USD$ 15. The difference is very remarkable. I know there is a "crisis" in Argentina and that was the reason why this modifications were done, but well... Colombia has been in crisis for like 100 years or more, and well, there are many advantages there. For example, education is free in Argentina and we have to pay for it here in Colombia (Depending on the income).
A month doesn't even costs USD$ 5 (dollars). If that was the cost here in Colombia (Or at least a lower one), almost everyone (for not saying everyone), could afford the cost of a subscription (at least people speaking of people who earn a minimum wage.
I'll leave some screenshots showing the current prices:
Subscription:
https://i.imgur.com/bV8neHU.png
210 ARS are equal to USD$3.52 (Dollars). Here the Google Currency Conversion again:
https://i.imgur.com/21IrZIO.png
And taking into account the salary in Argentina:
https://elsalario.com.aSalario/salario-minimo
This page, the current minimum wage (12/26/2019) is of ARS$ 16.875. So ARS$ 210 of ARS$ 16k (1.31%) is not that much and are easier to invest (Compared to... COP$ 49.500 from COP$ 828,116, which is the 5.9%).
Converting ARS$ 210 to COP$, would leave us COP$ 11.602 (PESOS). Seriously, every person can afford this. I'm putting this into simple terms:
https://i.imgur.com/J2y49D3.png
According to the site above, we in Argentina and Colombia work the same hours, which are 48h per week.
With those ARS$ 11.602 (Pesos argentinos) you can use the massive transport system, known as "bus", 5.5 times. With this amount you can buy a gallon and a half of gas. For every person who uses a motored vehicle, it is somehting affordable. Buy trying to equilibrate things, we could pay here at least COP$ 20.000. Compared to COP$ 50,000 it is a whole lot of a saving and people would gladly pay it without remorse and less people would complain.
Now, the current expansion BfA:
https://i.imgur.com/rwqIKON.png
Rounding, it would be ARS$ 800. Well, it is a bit of a high price, but it is more understandable taking into account that it is the expansion (Base version, not deluxe and without discount)
https://i.imgur.com/RJVyyMH.png
Being this the case, there would be 2 days of work, as I mentioned above. You could pay the current expansion and would leave you with a bit of money.
I think this is enough.
All this can be summarized in that in Argentina, people are paying USD$ 3.52 (Dollars) for something that in Colombia (being the same thing) costs USD$ 15. It would be amazing that Blizzard could review the prices based on this or on their own research. Anyways, all this data is real, that's why I left screenshots and URLs. It would be amazing that the prices could be modified as soon as possible.
It is worth mentioning that the conversion to Dollar from Colombian Peso, had never been so high since Bush left the presidency.
Thanks for taking your time to read.
I would like to know the opinion of other users of this country to see what they think of the prices. (...)"
Here I'll list the prices of Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Argentina and the US, you compare. These are the prices updated as of 2021.
Country Minimum Wage (8h / 6 days a week) Subscription % Expansion (base) %
United States USD$ 1,392 (Federal MW) USD$ 14.99 1% USD$ 39.99 2.8%
Colombia USD$ 257.96 / COP$ 908,526 USD$ 14.99 5.8% USD$ 39.99 15.5%
Argentina USD$ 293.04 / ARS$ 25,920 USD$ 3.73 1.2% USD$ 24.87 8.4%
Chile USD$ 452.34 / CLP$ 326.500 USD$ 10.94 2.4% USD$ 27.43 6 %
(Mercadolibre)
Mexico USD$ 1,023.45 / MXN$ 20,404.8 Approx USD$ 12.54 1.2% USD$ 40.13 3.9%
And this message is for you fellow players:
Please let this go up or try to make them realize that this game is really expensive to play down here, it would be of much help if they could update those prices as soon as possible. We've been paying a lot since the Dollar went up and our currency started to devaluate.
They have an advantage on doing this. All the people in private servers would migrate to the official server and would gladly pay, meaning they would get more or the same income.

Nikola Stock Crash | Alibaba Stock Plunges | FCEL, DKNG & PENN | Stock Market News for Today [12-24]

Nikola saw another stock crash yesterday, while Alibaba’s stock plunges after-hours with increased pressure from the regulators. Some news about FCEL, DKNG, PENN and other stock market news for today.
~Very Long Post~
Hello everyone and Good Morning! First of all, I wanted to wish to everyone happiness, peace and prosperity this upcoming Christmas, hope you are all doing well, Merry Christmas everyone.
And let’s start with the recap of yesterday as we saw the Dow Jones leading the way, finishing up .38%, with the broad market SP500 also barely finishing in the green for the day up .07% and the Nasdaq Composite finishing in the red .29%.
We also saw the VIX dropping again today by 3.8% despite being even lower but seeing a pop in the last hours of trading with a spike of more than 4% with more uncertainty being created in the Congress after Trump vetoed the defense bill, as he continued to distract the attention from the big number of pardons he keeps giving out, with the latest round bringing the total to almost 50 in the past week.
More than 60% of the companies were gaining yesterday with over 200 new highs, but the volume was relatively low in this shortened trading week, as 8 of the 11 SP sectors were gaining yesterday with Energy and Financials gaining more than 1.6% with Financials gaining a boost as the Treasury yields pushed up and the curve continues to steepen, while the laggards were Real Estate, Technology and Utilities as value plays especially small and mid-caps outperformed yesterday, with the large-cap growth companies finishing the day down by more than half a percent.
You can see this exact thing in this HEAT MAP as the 3 biggest companies in the world, Apple, Amazon & Microsoft, finished the day down more than 0.6%. You can also see that most of the gains were concentrated in the banks and oil & gas industry while the rest of the market was pretty much mixed with companies like Tesla, Google, Facebook having small gains, while others like Zoom, Netflix, Airbnb and many more suffered.
Yesterday we also got the AAII SURVEY that shows how investors were feeling last week. This time we don’t get any good news as this is a contrarian indicator, as people started to move from a bearish sentiment to a more neutral sentiment with more than 4% of investors moving from a bearish view to a neutral view, with only a .1% increase in bullish investors last week, as the stimulus bill seemed to be finally agreed on before Trump making new headlines this week again with the Veto of the NDAA.
Meanwhile we also got tons of economic data yesterday starting with initial and continuing jobless claims as initial claims came in way lower than expected just over 800K, down almost 90K from the previous week and falling to a 3-week low, with the continuing jobless claims also dropping to 5.3M, lower than last week and what was expected from the analysts.
We also saw the durable goods number coming in better than expected with a .9% increase, up for the 7th straight month, while house PRICES rose nationwide by 1.5% in October from the previous month, which continued to push house prices higher by more than 10% since last year, with home SALES falling in November but are still up over 20% year over year as the median sales price of new houses continued to trend up.
Alongside this we saw the final consumer sentiment read slipping in December to 80.7, lower than expected but higher than the 76.9 in November, with the November Personal INCOME coming worse than expected, losing 1.1% from the previous month.
In contrast, today we don’t really get any critical economic data and the stock market closes early.
So, we saw Nikola take another stumble yesterday, after the whole Apple & Tesla disruption as we saw the stocks drop more than 10% again yesterday and is down more than 26% since I made my prediction and just hit my first price target, here is the link to that post.
Nikola shares skid yesterday again after another deal for the company fell, as that meant the termination of the deal with Republic Services to develop an electric garbage truck for them. The deal was expected to have Nikola produce over 2500 trucks for the company. So, I would trim my sell position on Nikola here, while leaving some for my next target, with that target being a drop in the single digits in the future for the company.
In contrast to Nikola, we saw FuelCell Energy rising for a seventh straight session, this has happened after the Congress has included provisions in the relief bill to extend clean energy tax credits, and seems to be one of favorite plays in the stock market right now.
In some other stock market news, we saw Alibaba shares plummeting again more than 8% on the Hong Kong exchange and more than 7% in pre-market in the US by now, after more pressure has been put on the company as the Chinese authorities are continuing to pursue anti-monopolistic investigations on the company while also continuing the investigation on Ant Group which is an affiliate of Alibaba as they hold more than 1/3 of the company. I think these investigations are very likely to come out with fines and structural changes on how the company will work with its subsidiaries and affiliates, and that the high flying, record-breaking, Ant Group IPO will likely be postponed for a longer period until they meet regulators requirements as it is expected that Ant Group will be given some guidelines to follow by the regulators. My personal belief is that Alibaba is a great company and it should trade higher than this, but until this whole mess with the authorities clears, anything can happen as you can see in this CHART, as the stock has underperformed since Ant Group canceled the IPO, with my long-term price target for Alibaba being 300$, but I wouldn’t go to heavy on this trade right now.
Enough of Alibaba, meanwhile we also saw XL Fleet jumping huge yesterday after the usual short-seller Citron, indicated that there is still more upside for this company.
And one final piece of news is that Colorado set another record for wagers in November, this is another confirmation of the gambling tailwinds that will skyrocket companies like DraftKings & PENN Gaming higher in the next years.
Let’s hope for a good day in the market as the FUTURES seem to be pointing at a good open, with the Nasdaq Composite leading the way, while the European Union and UK are finally nearing a deal for Brexit, and remember there are only 5 trading sessions left in 2020 with today also being a short-day of trading.
Also, don’t forget this is usually when one of the best 7-day period for gains happens, with an average return of 1.33% and a 77% chance of that happening since 1950. But be careful, not every year is a winner, you can see here some examples, with 1999 being a very bad year as the dot com bubble approached, with another bad year coinciding with the start of the financial crisis. Hopefully this will be the 5th straight year with a positive return in this period.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market!
Have a great day and see you next time!

Unfair Prices of Subscription for Colombia

This is a traslated repost of a discussion on the LATAM forum made in 2019, talking about the unfair prices that we here in Colombia are paying in order to play WoW. Here you are the original post (In Spanish): https://us.forums.blizzard.com/es/wow/t/precios-en-general-de-wow-expansiones-y-suscripciones-en-colombia/7081
"Hi, good morning. I saw a thread about this but it is very old, we can even see the site from which the forums have been moved and blah, blah, blah...
The post is a big long so I warn you right away... every time the GMs take to analyse this would be very thanked and welcomed.
The forum doesn't allow me to add pictures or links, so I had to take out the format. But you can copy the URL onto any browser to see them.
Well, let's get to the point.
I'll have to explain many things to put you into context about the prices that are handled here, which are very high compared to other countries like Argentina, Chile or Mexico.
Before someone appears (like I saw on other thread) saying "We all pay the same everywhere", no buddy :3 we don't pay the same.
Let's start with this: The minimum wage at this moment in Colombia (2019) is of COP$ 828,116 (Pesos) (We all handle here in "thousands" of Pesos). The minimum denomination coin nowadays is of COP$ 50 (Pesos), the highest one is of COP$ 1.000, and then the bills start, from which there are one of COP$ 1.000 but equeals exactly the same as the coin of COP$ 1.000)
These are the values of the bills handled in the country:
COP$ 1.000 COP$ 2.000 COP$ 5.000 COP$ 10.000 COP$ 20.000 COP$ 50.000 and the highest one which is rarely seen COP$100.000
Which means that the current wage are 8 of these
"COP$ 100.000" (Which anyways is rarely given from the ATMs of the country lol)
one of these
"COP$ 20.000"
and one of these
"COP$ 10.000"
And that would be the minimum wage (You can see the bills even in a video of Luisito Comunica (Famous Mexican YouTuber who travels the world) if you are interested: -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEcxexL5sPY
An important fact is that the minimum salary here is equal to between USD$ 250 to USD$ 254 (Dollars).
We have here IVA, which in simple terms are the Taxes, which are included. It is something fixed which at this moment (12/26/2019) is at 19%... which is really high... and there's a rumour saying that the government is thiking of increasing it even more, to 28% (This is because the videogames are taxed the same as the gambling machines or media). 🙄
So, in this order of ideas, I leave you with pictures of the Colombian Store, showing "Time of Play" and the current expansion, which is BfA.
Subscription
https://i.imgur.com/kEgcs8M.png
USD$ 15 (dollars) rounding, for a month are equal to 2 days of work with a minimum wage in Colombia, which are more or less COP$ 50.000. I leave you screenshots of this as well with the currency converter of Google (You can look it up for yourselves as well).
It is worth saying that when we speak of days of work here, they are days of 8 to 12 daily hours (In USA this is pretty normal because the goal is to achieve approximately at least USD$ 100 (dollars) daily, right?, this means that a month of WoW can be paid with 2 or 3 hours of work in the worst of the cases)
https://i.imgur.com/ZndF1OB.png
That would leave COP$ 500 (Pesos), meaning 1 coin of the value I said above. COP$ 500 (USD$ 0.14) of two days of work.
And speaking of purchasing the expansion for example 🤐
https://i.imgur.com/jTtefiY.png
Without including the discount at this moment, it would be USD$ 50 (Dollars). In pesos that equals COP$ 163.837 (Pesos), which are three days and a half of hours of work in this order of ideas. We would be paying here almost four times the cost of other countries like Argentina. I take this one as a example, because that was the one which "impacted" me the most when I saw this article and a friend of mine who is there sent me the current prices.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/es-mx/news/20130364/cambios-en-los-precios-para-world-of-warcraft-en-argentina-chile-y-mexico 17
So, I took the freedom to review the Currencies and I was "stunned" because a month in Argentina costs USD$ 3.52 (Dollars) vs. USD$ 15. The difference is very remarkable. I know there is a "crisis" in Argentina and that was the reason why this modifications were done, but well... Colombia has been in crisis for like 100 years or more, and well, there are many advantages there. For example, education is free in Argentina and we have to pay for it here in Colombia (Depending on the income).
A month doesn't even costs USD$ 5 (dollars). If that was the cost here in Colombia (Or at least a lower one), almost everyone (for not saying everyone), could afford the cost of a subscription (at least people speaking of people who earn a minimum wage.
I'll leave some screenshots showing the current prices:
Subscription:
https://i.imgur.com/bV8neHU.png
210 ARS are equal to USD$3.52 (Dollars). Here the Google Currency Conversion again:
https://i.imgur.com/21IrZIO.png
And taking into account the salary in Argentina:
https://elsalario.com.aSalario/salario-minimo
This page, the current minimum wage (12/26/2019) is of ARS$ 16.875. So ARS$ 210 of ARS$ 16k (1.31%) is not that much and are easier to invest (Compared to... COP$ 49.500 from COP$ 828,116, which is the 5.9%).
Converting ARS$ 210 to COP$, would leave us COP$ 11.602 (PESOS). Seriously, every person can afford this. I'm putting this into simple terms:
https://i.imgur.com/J2y49D3.png
According to the site above, we in Argentina and Colombia work the same hours, which are 48h per week.
With those ARS$ 11.602 (Pesos argentinos) you can use the massive transport system, known as "bus", 5.5 times. With this amount you can buy a gallon and a half of gas. For every person who uses a motored vehicle, it is somehting affordable. Buy trying to equilibrate things, we could pay here at least COP$ 20.000. Compared to COP$ 50,000 it is a whole lot of a saving and people would gladly pay it without remorse and less people would complain.
Now, the current expansion BfA:
https://i.imgur.com/rwqIKON.png
Rounding, it would be ARS$ 800. Well, it is a bit of a high price, but it is more understandable taking into account that it is the expansion (Base version, not deluxe and without discount)
https://i.imgur.com/RJVyyMH.png
Being this the case, there would be 2 days of work, as I mentioned above. You could pay the current expansion and would leave you with a bit of money.
I think this is enough.
All this can be summarized in that in Argentina, people are paying USD$ 3.52 (Dollars) for something that in Colombia (being the same thing) costs USD$ 15. It would be amazing that Blizzard could review the prices based on this or on their own research. Anyways, all this data is real, that's why I left screenshots and URLs. It would be amazing that the prices could be modified as soon as possible.
It is worth mentioning that the conversion to Dollar from Colombian Peso, had never been so high since Bush left the presidency.
Thanks for taking your time to read.
I would like to know the opinion of other users of this country to see what they think of the prices. (...)"
Here I'll list the prices of Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Argentina and the US, you compare. These are the prices updated as of 2021.
Country Minimum Wage (8h / 6 days a week) Subscription % Expansion (base) %
United States USD$ 1,392 (Federal MW) USD$ 14.99 1% USD$ 39.99 2.8%
Colombia USD$ 257.96 / COP$ 908,526 USD$ 14.99 5.8% USD$ 39.99 15.5%
Argentina USD$ 293.04 / ARS$ 25,920 USD$ 3.73 1.2% USD$ 24.87 8.4%
Chile USD$ 452.34 / CLP$ 326.500 USD$ 10.94 2.4% USD$ 27.43 6 %
(Mercadolibre)
Mexico USD$ 1,023.45 / MXN$ 20,404.8 Approx USD$ 12.54 1.2% USD$ 40.13 3.9%
And this message is for you fellow players:
Please let this go up or try to make them realize that this game is really expensive to play down here, it would be of much help if they could update those prices as soon as possible. We've been paying a lot since the Dollar went up and our currency started to devaluate.
They have an advantage on doing this. All the people in private servers would migrate to the official server and would gladly pay, meaning they would get more or the same income.

MEGATHREAD & NEWS WRAP-UP --- Nov/18/2020: \\ War in Artsakh (Karabakh) \\ Artsakh's international recognition \\ roadmap for future \\ opposition & pro-govt demonstrations \\ suspects charged over hooliganism \\ Kievyan bridge incident \\ videos \\ humanitarian aid \\ COVID & healthcare \\ more...

Your 12-minute Wednesday report in 2971 words.

November 18 timeline

Nevada's Clarke County (Las Vegas) has officially recognized the Artsakh Republic.
https://twitter.com/ANCA_Wstatus/1328753472565493761
9:37: 1700 Artsakh refugees have returned home so far. The population was around 145,000 before the war. Some 10-20% never left.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035190.html
10:09 PM Pashinyan presented the roadmap: It is time to talk about methods to overcome the current situation. I have already stated that I consider myself the number-one responsible for the situation. I am also responsible for overcoming the situation and establishing stability and security in the country.
1) Negotiations must resume in OSCE format, with the emphasis on Artsakh status and the return of Artsakh residents to their homeland.
2) Secure Artsakh residents' rights to return home. Fully restore daily life. Repair infrastructure.
3) Social aid for families of fallen soldiers.
4) Repairing infrastructure damaged in the Republic of Armenia.
5) Aid for wounded soldiers, obtaining prosthetics, educational training courses for changing professions if necessary.
6) Returning POWs and aid for their families. Clarification of the status of those who are missing, and aid for their families.
7) Rehabilitation system for those who participated in the war, and for the general public, too.
8) The beginning of reforms in the army.
9) Defeating COVID and overcoming its consequences.
10) Restoration of the environment for economic activity.
11) Activation of demographic programs.
12) Reforming electoral laws [opposition and the govt had agreed to lower the passing threshold to allow more opposition parties to enter Parliament, etc.]
13) Introduction of the Institute of Specialized Judges as the first step in establishing an anti-corruption courts. Launching the process to confiscate illegally embezzled property.
14) Conducting regular consultations with representatives of the Armenian political and civil community.
15) Consultations with diasporan institutes and individuals.
The goal is to ensure the democratic stability of Armenia and to create guarantees that nothing threatens the formation of power in Armenia through the free will of the people. For this, I'll make changes to the government team.
We will need 6 months to launch the aforementioned tasks. In June 2021, I will report to you the progress, and based on the public response, we will decide on what to do next.
Full: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035193.html
11:11: US Senator Bob Menendez called on the US government to impose sanctions on Turkey and Azerbaijan for the military aggression, and to end weapon supplies to them.
He called for a $100 million aid to Artsakh refugees.
https://youtu.be/JCh49hna7hA
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035203.html
11:42 COVID stats: +4,109 tested. +1,589 infected (down). +1,726 healed. +28 deaths. 38,082 active (down).
HealthMin Torosyan: the percentage of positive tests and the absolute numbers are declining, but the healthcare system is still under stress.
We still have 375 patients waiting for beds, 25 of whom are in serious condition. We will likely hospitalize them sometime today. A few days ago the waiting list was 800. The trend can change again with the resumption of schools.
Our main issue right now is oxygen supplies. Without it, the medication is ineffective. We'll soon receive more oxygen stations, followed by four large stations in December. We had purchased many oxygen stations during the first wave but today's large numbers, partly a result of the war, were outside of our predications.
We're negotiating over vaccines. There are agreements. They will likely arrive in mid-Spring.
We have no shortage of COVID test kits. New test labs are opening; two in the past week alone.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035206.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035232.html
11:43: earlier this year, a part of a residential apartment complex collapsed in Yerevan. The govt has issued free housing certificates to the affected residents.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035207.html
12:05: several soldiers returned from Artsakh and decided to organize a demonstration in support of PM Pashinyan. PM's office and QP party urged them to stay home and not to gather, citing the Martial Law that currently prohibits large gatherings and demonstrations.
A dozen prominent opposition figures were charged with ignoring the Martial Law and organizing demonstrations earlier. If found guilty, they are facing anywhere between a $415 fine to 2 months of jail.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035208.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035240.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035245.html , https://www.arlis.am/documentView.aspx?docid=69646 , https://news.am/arm/news/614215.html
12:27: Aznavour Foundation and the Armenian Foundation of France have launched a committee to coordinate the aid process from France. Earlier they met President Macron about humanitarian aid and Artsakh's recognition.
Links in the article: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035213.html
12:38: Parliament Speaker QP MP Ararat Mirzoyan was severely beaten by rioters on November 10th. Healthcare Minister says he will soon recover after one more surgery [which was done today].
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035215.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035236.html
12:45: German-Armenian pianist Margarit Hovhannisyan gave a solo performance to collect aid for Armenia Fund (www.HimnaDram.org). She donated $5,000 in proceeds. The German colleagues expressed support for Artsakh and Armenians.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035216.html
12:49: diasporan-Armenian singer Iveta Mukuchyan went to Artsakh's Dadivank church and performed "Sirt im sasani" (Սիրտ իմ սասանի) religious music.
Video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=845836856202879
Mukushyan released a German-language video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=782524012332940
13:50: The US will donate $5 million to Red Cross and other orgs to help those who suffered from the war.
https://factor.am/311291.html
14:02: the identification of soldiers who died in battles continues. 81 more names were published, bringing the total identified to 1586. Around 800 remain unidentified. Several hundred bodies were exchanged recently. The process continues.
MoD Tonoyan: The list of missing soldiers is shrinking; many soldiers end up being discovered alive and well. We drafted a bill to aid the families of soldiers who're missing.
Update: HealthMin Torosyan: we've examined 2425 bodies. 250 of them remain unidentified.
https://youtu.be/zrXQBUJLdK0
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035225.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035249.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035288.html
14:05 Armenia Fund (Himnadram) report: hundreds of thousands have donated. The aid was provided to Artsakh and Armenia from the first day of the war.
Diesel generators, emergency vehicles, medical products, basic consumer products, heating devices, portable gas stoves, mobile fuel stations, beds, etc. were purchased during the war. Simultaneously, 100 tons of aid was coordinated.
Himnadram will help Armenia's budget to pay for social welfare, healthcare, infrastructure repair, etc. The documents are ready. Tens of thousands of Artsakh refugees were aided.
International independent auditors will examine the finances.

During a Parliamentary session, the Deputy PM Mher Grigoryan confirmed that Himnadram has transferred some of the funds for humanitarian work.
In response, former regime's HHK MP Armen Ashotyan, without evidence, claimed the money is being stolen.
[Context: The former regime is mad because they were caught stealing Himnadram's donations in 2018. After the 2018 revolution, the Pashinyan administration busted HHK's Himnadram director with stealing the funds and using them on gambling. The director confessed and returned part of the stolen money. Himnadram then underwent a complete change in administration which raised the trust towards the fund. Now the former regime is sabotaging the diaspora's donation efforts for political gain.]
More: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035224.html , https://news.am/arm/news/614194.html
14:14: there are over 40 suspects charged with mass riots, attempts to forcefully seize power, and overthrowing the constitutional order, after the November 10 attack on the government buildings.
5 are arrested, 5 are told not to leave the country. 70 suspects, some of whom severely beat Parliament Speaker Mirzoyan and vandalized PM's residence, were also identified. They are on the wanted list.
Rioters who physically abused Pashinyan's spokeswoman Mane Gevorgyan, and broke into Azatutyun media outlet's office, are also wanted by police. Some were arrested.
https://youtu.be/1qA8iJ1JXmM?t=197
https://youtu.be/kSQ389vQA8U?t=3
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035226.html
14:18: Opposition LHK has its roadmap: no elections necessary, PM resigns, the ruling QP party appoints new PM, the new PM appoints ministers from various political parties. [similar to what Pashinyan did in 2018 when he appointed opposition Ministers for a brief period].
https://factor.am/311328.html
14:19: Azerbaijan earlier shot a Russian helicopter in Armenia. Two Russian pilots died and one was wounded. Armenia issued them military service medals.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035227.html
14:49: video showing more Russian peacekeepers moving to Artsakh:
https://youtu.be/o7nwWmN59d8
15:18: Italian community of Viareggio has officially recognized the Artsakh Republic.
https://factor.am/311370.html
15:55: Aurora humanitarian organization will help Artsakh residents. IDeA's first aid program will begin today. They're open to humanitarian program suggestions. Link in the article:
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035237.html
16:27: Aghdam is one of the adjacent regions that's being given/returned to Azerbaijan. Seven villages with a combined 2,000 population will be resettled elsewhere.
https://news.am/arm/news/614171.html
16:42: food prices in October YoY rose +0.6%. Consumer price index +1.3%.
https://factor.am/311385.html
16:44: the head of Military Control Service Movses Hakobyan had resigned on November 10th. It was announced today.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035242.html , https://news.am/arm/news/614169.html
17:04: will Germany follow France and ban the Turkish extremist-terrorist "Grey Wolves" organization? German Parliament will hold a discussion tomorrow. Two bills were proposed. One of them appears to be bipartisan.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035248.html
17:05 Healthcare Minister Torosyan: we need to build a new 250-bed center for wounded soldiers and their rehabilitation. We need to maximally use the existing resources; some of them require upgrades. This will cost approximately $5.2 million.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035247.html
17:09: Legatium Prosperity Index 2020 has ranked Armenia 55th in the world. That's a 23-step improvement over 2010. The strongest point was the business & investment atmosphere, with the environment being the weakest point.
Georgia 53, Armenia 55, Azerbaijan 78, Iran 120.
https://news.am/arm/news/614184.html
17:58: My Step charity foundation will double the number of wounded soldiers they help. The center will provide therapy, dental, and other services for 600 former soldiers.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035262.html
14:57: it's SNOWING in Gavar and Jermuk cities, and roads near Sevan and Aparan! Georgian roads are also snowy; the Lars transport hub with Russia is open only for large cargo trucks.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035233.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035253.html
17:38: Pashinyan was in Parliament to discuss various topics and answer questions. The opposition BHK and LHK parties boycotted and left.
Ind. MP: do you support forming a government of national accord, which could be one of the ways to find a solution out of the current situation?
Pashinyan: our task is to create an atmosphere of agreement in the country. No government can stay in power without the permission of the people. At atmosphere of agreement is not always achieved by forming [aforementioned type of govt consisted of various parties]. There is a need for agreement around two points: security and stability, and to guarantee democracy.
Ind. MP: will there be changes in the government?
Pashinyan: we are discussing it. Structural changes aren't being discussed right now.
Full: https://youtu.be/64iJuNWbk_Q
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035259.html , https://news.am/arm/news/614076.html
17:58: another video from November 4th showing battles on the outskirts of Shushi. [still believe it was "given away" without a fight? 🤔]
Hovhannes Avagyan, one of the deputy Artsakh army commanders, was killed during Shushi battles on November 7th. He received the Combat Cross medal posthumously.
https://youtu.be/yrzBbKvXFO4
https://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/287858/
18:18: the 16 opposition parties resumed their demonstrations. They demand the government's and Pashinyan's resignation. The police urged them to respect the Martial Law and not to gather.
They will also hold a demonstration on Saturday and present a document, presumably their own roadmap.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035264.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035280.html
18:21 Police: body of the 27-year-old Garnik Petrosyan was found under Kievyan Bridge on November 13th. A medical examination was carried out and an investigation was launched.
The examination revealed that Petrosyan was among the rioters who broke into the govt building and caused destruction on November 10th. A felony case was launched against him and he was arrested shortly afterward.
On November 13th he was charged with multiple felony counts. The same day, at 8 pm, his 3-day detention period had expired so he was released from the police station. The same day, prosecutors asked the court to arrest him for 2 months before his trial.
Petrosyan was questioned until 9 pm. The tragic incident happened at 10:04 pm. Social media spread rumors that he was allegedly murdered and it wasn't a suicide by jumping from the bridge.
Investigation revealed a witness who was walking nearby and saw how a man grabbed a flag pole and climbed at the center of the bridge at around 10 pm. By the time the witness picked up the phone to call 911 it was too late. Immediately afterward, two other people and the witness looked down the bridge and saw the body laying on the road below the bridge.
The police arrived. The witnesses were questioned. The victim was there alone.
CCTV footages were examined. It showed how the victim went there by himself, climbed on the edge, and jumped.
It was revealed that the victim had attempted suicide in 2010 by overdosing on medications. He was registered at a special center up until 2019, where he was taking special medication. He stopped taking them in January 2019 at his own will.
[Media outlets run by the former regime, and a Telegram channel called Mediaport, had earlier circulated rumors, without evidence, that the rioter was murdered by a ruling party member Hayk Sargsyan. The latter often finds himself the target of rumors]:
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035265.html
18:22: Ara Ayvazyan is the new Foreign Minister. He is a graduate of YSU eastern studies Arabic faculty. Served in the Soviet army. Graduated from Beirut's Haykazyan college. Worked in MFA since 1995. Served as ambassador to several states in 1996-2018.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035266.html
18:56: despite being told to stay home, Pashinyan supporters gathered in front of the govt building, urging him not to resign.
"I came from Martakert outposts. I have participated in war since 1992, and so did my family members. They [former regime] should have purchased weapons instead of private islands and mansions," said one demonstrator. "By hitting the Parliament Speaker Mirzoyan you're hitting me."
PM's aide met the demonstrators and said his resignation isn't being discussed.
Pashinyan went outside to meet them and asked them to go home, "I know that there are tens of thousands of you who are ready to gather in Public Square if necessary. Thank you. I bow to all the volunteers, fallen soldiers, and their families. Go home now. If necessary, I will invite you."
The police began telling the gathered crowd to leave, citing the Martial Law.
Pashinyan goes outside: https://youtu.be/ueXhEKJhcwA
Soldiers: https://youtu.be/vgoGD89vNeA
Soldiers: https://youtu.be/KhXFjOiERY4
Soldiers: https://youtu.be/G00E049LsdY
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035268.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035271.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035279.html
18:56: Russian humanitarian envoy will help Artsakh authorities to travel around and document the damage to civilian infrastructure.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035269.html
19:01: the army published names of soldiers who committed acts of bravery during the war.
Lt. Colonel Ryurik Semyonov blew up 2 Kamaz trucks full of ammo, 2 anti-tank equipment, 3 tanks, 8 cars, 1 TR artillery unit.
Lt. Colonel Arthur Qaramyan destroyed 3 and captured another 3 tanks. He helped to save 600 soldiers from encirclement.
Private Suren Gabrielyan shot 6 armored vehicles and 2 tanks.
Lieutenant Tigran Petrosyan shot 6 tanks.
More: https://factor.am/311564.html
19:04: a soldier uploaded a video from trenches saying the army wasn't properly prepared and that the trenches have been in poor shape for 30 years. "Not deep enough to defend against explosions."
He says this Martakert position was defended during the war despite the poor condtions.
https://youtu.be/aWPzBZwk2j4
20:54: the opposition ended today's demonstration and promised to return at 2 pm on Saturday. They called for PM's resignation again. HHK Shawarmazanov said, "we won't engage in active politics if he resigns".
Opposition Arthur Vanetsyan announced plans to participate in elections if they take place now.
https://youtu.be/ZAuGcDRJ3uk
https://news.am/arm/news/614243.html , https://news.am/arm/news/614239.html , https://factor.am/311610.html
21:05: the City Council of Paris has a resolution that urges the Paris mayor to ask the French MFA to officially recognize the independence of the Artsakh Republic.
It takes into account a recent push by 15 French mayors to recognize Artsakh, Azeri-Turkish aggression and the use of hired jihadists, war crimes against Armenian civilians, destruction of 80% of infrastructure objects in Stepanakert (including schools and clinics).
Full: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035284.html
21:11: Azerbaijan's opposition National Front criticized the govt for placing Russian peacekeepers on the borders with Artsakh. They held a demonstration and chanted "Putin, leave. Turkey, come."
https://factor.am/311609.html
21:57 photos: these boys defended the borders:
https://hetq.am/hy/article/124436
Here are the tankists: https://hetq.am/hy/article/124452
22:02: the government of Armenia and Artsakh formed a joint committee to coordinate humanitarian work. 1) Social issues 2) Education 3) Healthcare 4) Business environment 5) Infrastructure repair.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035291.html
22:50: Nations League Soccer Spoiler Alert! The Armenian team defeated Northern Macedonia 1-0, after winning the match against Georgia a few days ago.
For the first time ever, the team, led by Spanish expert Joaquin Caparros, is the leader in its group.
What does this victory mean?
This tournament has four tiered Leagues: A, B, C, D. League A contains the "best" countries who compete for the champion's cup. The teams in lower leagues compete to climb up to higher leagues, with the ultimate goal of making into League A and winning the cup.
Armenia has just advanced from League C to League B.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1035292.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%9321_UEFA_Nations_League
23:40: A1+ outlet wants to restore its TV broadcasting rights. They were suspended by the Kocharyan regime. They insisted it was politically motivated for their opposition views. The media outlet was targeted for covering the March 1st, 2008 events.
Several outlets are currently competing for public airway licenses. The winners will be known in January. The TV regulator said those with the best programming will receive the license.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/201204
23:47: The French Senate will discuss the need to recognize the Artsakh Republic. Presidents of the five largest parties supported the idea to hold a discussion.
http://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/11/18/Ֆրանսիայի-Սենատը-որոշում-է-կայացրել-քվերակության-ներկայացնել-«ԼՂՀ-ճանաչման-անհրաժեշտության-մասին»-բանաձևի-նախագիծը/408863

You can help Artsakh & Armenia

www.1000plus.am (soldiers' medical help)
www.HimnaDram.org (for Artsakh & Armenia)
www.ArmeniaFund.org (U.S. tax-deductible)

Prior events:
Nov 17, Nov 16, Nov 15, Nov 14, Nov 13, Nov 12, Nov 11, Nov 10, Nov 9, Nov 8, Nov 7, Nov 6, Nov 5, Nov 4, Nov 3, Nov 2, Nov 1, Oct 31, Oct 30, Oct 29, Oct 28, Oct 27, Oct 26, Oct 25, Oct 24, Oct 23, Oct 22, Oct 21, Oct 20, Oct 19, Oct 18, Oct 17, Oct 16, Oct 15, Oct 14, Oct 13, Oct 12, Oct 11 , Oct 10, Oct 9 , Oct 8, Oct 7,Oct 6, Oct 5, Oct 4, Oct 3, Oct 2, Oct 1, Sep 30, Sep 29, Sep 28, Sep 27

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The House Tourism and Economic Development Committee voted 26-0 Tuesday to pass legislation sponsored by its chairman, state Rep. Ron Stephens. The bill would authorize the Georgia Lottery to manage an online sports wagering system, and sports betting companies would pay a 14% tax on their income. eorgia House Tourism... The casino legislation is the second legalized gambling proposal to hit the General Assembly during the early days of the 2021 legislative session. Stephens introduced a bill earlier this month ... GA. ATLANTA. Georgia House Committee Clears Sports Betting Bill. GPB News (Georgia Public Broadcasting) 5d. Follow. Legislation legalizing online sports betting in Georgia passed a committee in the state House of Representatives Tuesday. The House Economic Development & Tourism Committee voted 20-6 in favor of moving forward a bill that enjoys the backing of a coalition of Atlanta’s four pro ... In the UK where it is legal, more people from 12 to 16 have done sports gambling than have smoke, drank alcohol or used illegal drugs put together." Rep. Stephens said the bill includes safeguards ... Georgians could be able to legally bet on the Atlanta Braves, Falcons, Hawks and United in just a few months. Lawmakers filed a bill Thursday that would allow online sports gambling in the state. A Savannah Republican lawmaker is again pushing legislation that would ask Georgia voters if they believe casino gambling should be allowed in the sta The bill addresses the need for problem gambling services in the state but might not go far enough. ... Leagues get a piece of GA sports betting too. The major US sports leagues have had their lobbyists busy in all states to get a piece of the sports betting pie. Based on this bill ,it looks like Georgia is no different. HB 86 would require sportsbooks to use official league data to settle in ... Under a bill sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens, a longtime proponent of legalized gambling, at least six sports betting operators would be licensed by the Georgia Lottery Corp., paying application fees of $50,000 and annual licensing fees of $900,000. The operators would pay a tax of 16% of their adjusted gross revenues. The money would go toward education, including the popular HOPE Scholarships ... If the bill survives as it’s written, which only rarely happens, the Georgia Lottery Corp. would oversee the sports gambling market and be able to approve at least six sports gambling licenses ... House Bill 86 would authorize the Georgia Lottery to manage an online sports wagering system. Sports betting companies would pay a 16% tax on their income, with all the revenue going to the HOPE scholarship. The legislation is backed by a coalition of four professional Atlanta sports franchises.

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The odds of sports gambling in Georgia just got a little better. Song: The GamblerArtist: Kenny RogersAlbum: The GamblerReleased: November 15, 1978Written by Don Schlitz About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features I found this helpful trick to make money.. Just my opinions on GA. Please SUBSCRIBE if you liked the video. Thanks for watching BIGGEST RIO DREAMS JACKPOT in YouTube history!!!! While playing Rio Dreams at Wynn Las Vegas we hit a 4 jewel bonus game and a few re-triggers after...#SlotM... A state House committee approved legislation that would legalize sports betting in Georgia. Here's what that means. Hello everybody and welcome to my channel. I'm a low roller and when I'm winning then I tend to bet higher. My investment to the casino is $120 - $160 and I try to make the best of it. I like to ... It's an incredible song, here performed live and even better for that.Simon Cowell please take note. Proper talent can sing and play live and doesn't need Au...

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MEGATHREAD & NEWS WRAP-UP --- Nov/18/2020: \\ War in Artsakh (Karabakh) \\ Artsakh's international recognition \\ roadmap for future \\ opposition & pro-govt demonstrations \\ suspects charged over hooliganism \\ Kievyan bridge incident \\ videos \\ humanitarian aid \\ COVID & healthcare \\ more...

November 18 timeline

You can help Artsakh & Armenia

ga gambling bill video

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Why I Dislike Gamblers Anonymous (GA) - Gambling Addiction ...