I had my phone stolen about a month ago. It sucked at first for a number of reasons but on the dating side of things... All the girls I would never get the chance to swipe on, the girls who were gonna unmatch me, the conversations I was having on instagram (I blocked it on my laptop at the registry level so I couldn't be tempted to access it), and whatsapp, a date I had planned with someone I couldn't find on facebook ...basically I was thinking 'fuck now I'm not going to meet anyone for a while and any progress I've made with anyone is gonna disappear'.
Then an amazing thing happened.
The FOMO began to steadily decrease as my mindfulness and appreciation for life began to increase.
I could walk around the park and just appreciate nature without having my mind clouded by thoughts about whether someone was ghosting me blah blah and distractions from constant notifications.
I was reading books I'd bought ages ago, I was playing guitar, I was able to focus on whatever I was doing.
Interactions begun to feel more real. I actually wanted to engage with people. When I saw a cute girl I actually felt like striking up a conversation, rather than retreating to the safety of dating apps to do all my dating through a 6 inch screen with pixels resembling me. Fuck that shit, I'm a fairly good looking guy with a nice friendly demeanour...why the hell should I have to filter that through a screen?
That girl I talked to at the gym wasn't immediately followed by 20 similar looking girls with similarly inane conversation about hating pineapple on pizza and the quoting from The office and loving dogs and shit.
It felt strangely natural considering that I've been using social media most my life.
I was almost disappointed when my replacement phone arrived.
Sure enough most girls had unmatched, blocked or ghosted me when I tried to re-initiate the conversations, and I was never able to apologize for unintentionally flaking on a date with the girl.
Sure enough I fell back into the old habit of mindlessly swiping, praying certain girls would match me...basically a fucking gambling addict at the poker machines.
I know I'd be better off deleting the dating apps and limiting social media use to like 20 mins per day.
For now I've at least turned off notifications.
Some food for thought anyway.

Update
Dating apps dehumanise people, whether you admit it or not. It's not that I lack respect for women - when I first started using the apps I would spend a minute considering every profile, I would be polite and never ghost or unmatch anybody without telling them. The longer you use them the more ruthless you get until you end up becoming the person you tried not to be without even realising it. Especially when everybody seems to have no qualms doing it to you. And the amount of times I've been catfished or I will find somebodies social media to see that they're currently still in a relationship was making me paranoid and cynical towards people.
I just deleted Tinder and Bumble. I still have Hinge because that's a notch above the other ones I find - you get message first and generally people who use it are more inclined to actually chatting and investing in you a bit more.
But I will only use it in the evening for 15 mins or so - and if that causes me to be unmatched then so be it. Also since I have swiped through everyone in my area so it only shows me the newly created profiles, which saves more time.
And I'm going to try to cut down on my time online in general, including here on Reddit.
I have ADHD so my dopamine is already out of whack, this feels like a step in the right direction that could seriously improve my life. And I know the pandemic makes it difficult to meet people these days but I think everyone would benefit from doing the same thing.

Summary :
My story about Dota addiction, how to come out of it?, how to check whether you are addicted to dota ? and finally some tips to improve MMR.
My story :
During my university time, I missed my exams due to playing DOTA 1. I stopped dota one fine day and I cleared all my exams. Fast forward 10 years, last year I got in trouble at work for playing DOTA, I used to play for 5-6 hours on weekdays post work and 10-12 hours during weekends. I am a software engineer with good pay and the work might extend to 10-12 hours but with DOTA I want to log off everyday at 7-8 hours so I was unable to meet the deadlines. I also got into trouble with my wife as well (We got into multiple fights but she still stayed and din’t leave me). I was addicted to Dota. I found that DOTA + Alcohol is bad mixture. I had issues on my eyes and back. I felt like my life which is just time is just vanishing out of me. My highest MMR was 3k in 2020 and I used to play support.
Dota Addiction:
I would define addiction as you continue playing multiple games even when you want to stop and you start playing even when you don’t want to start.
My views on Dota :
Dota is likely the best or one of the best known games to mankind with great repetitive plays. It is really an awesome game. I can spend countless hours on it and still learn new things. It seems like I can keep playing it for almost infinite time or till the end of my life(it might be worth it but you will miss out on ever other thing).
Future for me :
I will and want to play dota once again when I retrie or if I can’t do other things in life due to disability. (I have also used DOTA as a tool of coming out of or avoiding depression during a death of a loved one, because I know DOTA will suck me up so that I won’t have time to be sad. ). After quitting Dota for many months, I started watching DOTA pro plays and I think I might just continue doing that.
Who should play dota ?
I know some guys could just play 1-2 games everyday an sign off. I think their brain is wired different so that they could keep it under control. There might be folks who will play 4-5 games on a weekend but still participate well in education/job and personal life. For these folks I think it good to relax or a reasonable use. If you think your education/job and personal life is affected or if you feel that you lose control of yourself in Dota then may be DOTA might not be the best for you.
Info for you guys :
If you are addicted to DOTA like how I was. Remember the only way to overcome it is to quit it completely. I have tried to play Dota again and again on multiple different years after a gap, ended up getting addicted every time and spent weeks/months trying to quit it. If DOTA is very addictive maybe your brain is not suitable for reasonable use of DOTA like my brain. Don’t lose your life on DOTA unless you are a pro player or you got nothing else to do. Dota is ultimately just a game (may be the best game ever) which is supposed to a small part of life for most of us, there are so many other good things in life to enjoy like getting good education, job, wife etc and also good hobbies like ‘A song of ice and fire’, ‘Terra Mystica’, ‘Attack on Titan’ etc. If Dota is eating away your life, then don’t let it.
Steps to overcome DOTA addiction

Stop playing dota, stop starting to play dota.
Uninstall Ask your friend to change the password and not give you.
Stop thinking about DOTA (Very important, more you think the more strong the neural connections in your brain)
Stop watching or reading about DOTA
Focus your mind on something else like reading a novel, work or another simple non addictive game.
If you had been addicted twice then don’t come back after months of quitting.

My advice on improving MMR:
I went from 1k to 3k in a few months. (I quit within few days of becoming 3k.)

Play a role/character which is impactful to the game to increase MMR and don’t play a character which you love. (I love Venomancer and Troll but they don’t give me MMR. But other characters which I love lesser than Troll like KOTL with will o wisp ulti, VS, Ogre and WK helphed me increase MMR from 2k to 3k).
If you can’t do well with a particular character after trying multiple times, no matter how much you love it, stop playing that charater for some time. Ensure that you try on a variety of characters before choosing which 5-10 to spam.
If you are in lower bracket then spam the characters which are good at meta. I used to spam Huskar mid for 1k to 2k. I was huskar mid with 70% win rate and 150 games. (Supports have harder time climbing up from lower MMR, thats why I spammed a core huskar to climb up. The cores in lower bracket are unreliable so you can spam ur way up a bit by playing core then switch to support on a higher bracket)
If you are a support then team up with a good core and play multiple games with him. One good core carry player helped me grow from 2.5k to 3k. Now I am no longer gambling to get a good random core from online. I know that if I do my job well my core is going to do his job well as well. (if you find one good player in your team, invite them again for another match as well)
Remember you only control a few things in a game, there could be a smurf in the opponent team, big noob in your team or unlucky deaths. So it is okay to lose such games. Just focus on how to improve yourself instead of directly trying to win many games.

I don’t really have anybody to speak to right now but I’m absolutely feeling super low, I suffer from depression and anxiety among other things.
At the moment I’m not working, struggling to find a job and pay off a loan I took more than four years ago.
I play video games because they help me not feel so alone, however one game in particular has really put me on a downward spiral.
Fifa 21 ultimate team, a game I play often enough, not necessarily because I like the game but because I find it beyond addictive in many different ways.
Ive had my issues with gambling in the past, but when I put this game on I just don’t know how to turn it off especially when it comes to packs in the game.
I struggle to control my self when i see promo packs and I end up paying money for them, today is a prime example of this.
The team of the year was announced with new players in packs, and I jumped at the chance without hesitation to buy some and open them.
It’s not about the players or who I get in them it’s the feeling I get when I open them up it’s like a trance it’s near impossible to stop.
Today I spend £71.99 on fifa points, I didn’t want to do this but I literally couldn’t help myself it’s like something inside me just made me do it.
Now I’m left with £84.00 to my name that’s all I have.
Ive been unemployed for the better part of a year now with me only working three months in the past 13.
Ive spent more then £400 pound on fifa since I last got a job which was around 4 months ago now.
I don’t know why I do this and I just need some help I don’t want to throw my own hard earned cash to some stupid game when I need this money for myself paying bills like my phone etc.
I feel so stuck and ashamed right now after what I’ve done but I just want to go ahead and do it now - why does the game have to be so damn addictive with the packs - it just brings me back to when I used to play online roulette, horses, etc.
Part of me just wants to hurt myself again for being so stupid but another part of me just wants to spend the last of my money so I can watch the packs open.
I don’t know what I’m looking for here? I don’t know if anybody even cares. I guess it would be nice if there was someone out there to talk to.
Thanks for your time
Ryan
(Update) - Thank you all for responding to this and I really appreciate the help.

Entering the 21st century, we have completely entered the era of pornography. Pornography began to flood in the late 1990s. At that time, it was disc spread. Many people could find pornography at home. Later, the new millennium entered the Internet age. , Pornographic content spread more severely, became more widespread, and it is still free to browse. Later, when we entered the era of smartphones, it was easier to browse pornography than to find stones on the ground. In our country, pornographic content is illegal, while in foreign countries, certain pornographic websites are even legal, which exacerbates the proliferation of pornographic content. However, foreign countries have also realized the great harm of pornography in recent years. They call pornography the new drug. (New types of drugs). There are many rebooting websites and rebooting books abroad, and our country also needs to pay attention to this aspect.
On the surface, cocaine and pornography do not have much in common, but more and more studies have shown that chemical drugs can induce the brain to release exciting chemicals, and watching pornography has the same effect.
Just like drugs, when these exciting chemicals (such as dopamine and oxytocin) are delivered to the brain, they build a new pathway in the brain. This pathway can fundamentally induce porn users to browse pornographic information. When the brain pathways are activated by pornographic information, the brain can release chemicals at the same level as when viewing pornographic information for the first time. This process is similar to the process of drug addiction. Porn is injected into the brain through an eye. drug!
To equate pornography with drugs is the latest scientific research abroad. This understanding is correct. Thinking about the state of looking for pornography, it is really like a drug addict looking for drugs. Studies have shown that watching pornography can cause your brain to release the same pleasure chemicals as cocaine. When drug addicts take more drugs or porn viewers watch more pornography, the neural circuits in their brains will become stronger, making it easier for them to take drugs or watch porn again, whether they want it or not. content. Just as addicts will eventually need more and more drugs to get pleasure, or even just to make themselves feel normal, sex addicts will quickly develop tolerance when they get used to watching the large amounts of dopamine released by pornography. In other words, even if pornography can still make the brain release dopamine, they can't be as cool as usual.
Like drugs, the more stimulus, the more boring afterwards. You must look for heavier flavors and more excitement to achieve the pleasure of tasting the forbidden fruit before. Many people have become psychologically perverted afterwards, and their sexual orientation has also been distorted. Watching pornographic masturbation will bring a series of evil consequences, which will make people fall into a vicious circle. At first, sexual orientation was normal. Later, in order to stimulate dopamine secretion, I would look at abnormalities. As my psychology became more and more abnormal, my sexual orientation began to be distorted, and I would learn to imitate the contents of pornographic films.
It is estimated that there are 2 million heroin users in the United States, and 600 to 800,000 of these people are heavily addicted to heroin. Compared with the above data, 40 million people in the United States watch online pornography every day-this new type of drug. The reason why Internet pornography is a new type of drug is that the brain responds to drugs and sexual arousal in the same parts. Pornography is really a kind of drug. As a 100 billion-dollar neuro-drug industry, pornography is changing people’s concept of sexual behavior more rapidly through the accelerated development of the Internet. Pornographic information is pervasive on the Internet, and it inhibits people’s sexuality. The normal view of orientation leads people to a state of evil, perverted, indecent, and irresponsible beasts.
Imagine that the brain is a forest. Hikers pass by the same place day after day and gradually step out of the way. Browsing pornographic information will also generate neural circuits. As people browse pornographic content again and again, these neural circuits will be continuously strengthened in the "forest" of the brain, and these neural circuits will eventually become paths in the "forest" of the brain. "Thanks to" the Internet, current pornography mixes the most powerful dopamine that the body can release and many other elements-endless novelties, shocks and surprises-all of which will stimulate the release of dopamine in large quantities. And because Internet pornography provides endless content, users can move to new images (postures, costumes, heroines, etc.) every time their pleasure declines to keep dopamine at high levels for a few hours. Professor Jeffrey Satinover of Princeton University described the effects of pornography to the U.S. Senate committee: "It's like a heroin we invented. Users can use it secretly in their homes and inject them directly into the brain through their eyes."
The American Addiction Medicine Association used to believe that addiction is mainly a behavior. Recently, inspired by the new brain science community, the American Addiction Medicine Association redefines "addiction"-a brain disease related to the neural reward system. The powerful influence of Internet pornography on the neural reward system is clearly in line with the new definition of addiction. Dr. Hilton believes that the impact of pornographic images on the natural brain reward system is unique. Unlike the rewards brought about by food or doing other things, the rewards brought by watching pornographic images can lead to "continuous changes related to nerve synapses and plasticity." In other words, Internet pornography not only stimulates the increase of dopamine levels in the brain, and thus produces pleasure. It also literally changes the physical organization inside the brain, so that new neural pathways crave pornographic information to trigger the desired sense of reward.
Pornography is a mixed drug. It triggers two addictive chemicals in the brain by causing excitement (the "hi" feeling caused by dopamine) and creating orgasm (the "relaxing" effect of drugs). This mixing mechanism makes pornography more likely to become addictive and easier to develop tolerance. The tolerance of pornography requires not only larger doses, but also more novelty in content, such as more taboo behaviors.
Although the effects of Internet pornography are similar to the combination of chemical addictions, the effects of Internet pornography exceed those of chemical substances.
For example, the "mirror neurons" in the brain give us the ability to learn: observe a behavior and imitate it. Professor Struthers wrote that because of mirror neurons, “watching pornographic videos creates a neural experience by which the viewer indirectly participates in what he sees.” This unique interactive addiction through The dual stimulation of the brain and the body is realized. In the words of Professor Strathurs, "Pornography involves visual mechanisms (watching movies), motor mechanisms (masturbation), sensory mechanisms (genital stimulation), and the neurological effects of excitement and orgasm (caused by addictive dopamine). Excitement)".
The study of the brain confirms such a serious fact: pornography is a drug release system, which has obvious and powerful effects on the human brain and nervous system. As Dr. Deutch pointed out, "Those who watch porn are unaware of the extent to which pornography reshapes their brains." Indeed, they do not know that pornography is "creating new neural circuits in their brains."
Research on nerves has revealed that Internet pornography has a powerful effect on the brain. Its effect is as powerful as cocaine and heroin, which are addictive substances. In a statement to the U.S. Congress, psychiatrist and former Yale psychiatrist Dr. Jeffery warned the public: With the advent of the information age, the addictive stimulation of Internet pornography has become almost irresistible. We seem to have created an unprecedented substance that is 100 times more powerful than heroin. Internet pornography can be watched privately at home, it is directly "injected" into the brain through both eyes!
In 2014, a research paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association-Psychiatry stated that frequent viewing of pornographic pictures can make the brain slow to respond to sexual stimulation. German scientists point out that this means that the brain needs more dopamine to feel the same degree of "orgasm", which leads to the search for more pornographic images. "Psychology" magazine once published a paper saying that these dopamine surges mean that people who watch pornographic pictures need more tasteful sexual perceptions and experiences to arouse sexual desire. German scientists believe that viewing pornographic pictures may cause brain shrinkage, and the more you look at them, the more severe the brain striatum area associated with rewards and stimulation. This is the first time scientists have discovered that viewing pornographic pictures is directly related to physical injury. In addition, scientists also found that the more time spent watching pornographic pictures, the more different the brain, the more you watch, the deeper the addiction. In 2013, researchers at the University of Cambridge found that when people addicted to pornographic pictures watch pornographic pictures or videos, the "drug addiction" area of the brain glows in a brain scan. When young people who are addicted to Internet pornography browse pornographic pictures, their brains will "glisten like a Christmas tree with colorful lights." In the brains of people addicted to pornographic images, these areas responsible for processing rewards, stimulation, and pleasure are exactly the same as the highly stimulated areas in the brains of drug addicts and alcohol addicts.
Research shows that among all forms of online entertainment (such as gambling, games, surfing the Internet, social networks), pornography has the strongest tendency to become addictive. When pornographic images enter the brain, it will induce the reward center to start stimulating dopamine, which triggers a flood of chemical components, including a protein called DeltaFosB. Usually the role of DeltaFosB is to create new neural pathways to connect with what you are doing (viewing pornography) and pleasure. With the repeated overload of dopamine, viewers become numb to those scenes, and they often find that they cannot feel normal when there is no high release of dopamine. Some people say that they feel nervous or negative until they regain pornography. As they sink deeper and deeper into this abyss of vices, they will become more and more flavorful. Many people who try their best to get rid of this bad habit say that they find it hard to stop.
Like any substance with addictive potential, pornography induces the release of dopamine into the "reward center" part of the brain (also known as the reward channel or system). The reason why pornography is a behavior that aggravates the degree of psychological distortion is because as some pornographic viewers' tolerance increases, the scenes that have excited them become boring. It can be expected that they will often spend longer watching pornography, seeking more heavy-tasting themes, and trying to regain their previous excitement, as a compensation for the boredom caused by old themes. Many watching People find that sharp themes such as violence are permeating their sexual fantasies and habits.
The content of pornography and the way people interact with it have undergone dramatic changes in the past few decades. Internet pornography has the following six characteristics.
(1) Free of charge. People who watch pornography can browse pornography for free on the Internet. In the past, they had to go out to buy discs and books.
(2) Easy to obtain. People can easily access pornographic content through the Internet. Nowadays, most of them have mobile phones, and the Internet is more convenient.
(3) Freshness. In the past, pornographic resources were relatively single, and it was easy to get bored. Internet pornography has many options and can provide continuous freshness.
(4) Large amount of resources. There are huge amounts of pornographic resources on the Internet, and there are dozens of gigabytes or even hundreds of gigabytes in the hard disks of many prostitutes.
(5) Diversified locations. In the past, you could only watch it at home, but now you have a mobile phone and you can watch it everywhere, which increases the possibility of watching pornography.
(6) Easy to carry. Drop it into your mobile phone, mobile hard drive or laptop, and you can take it with you.

I randomly bumped on someone during an online game (which I have stopped playing tyvm). While we were playing he started talking about League of Legends (we weren't even playing a moba), how he was "playing since he was 12 years old", that "it's been 10 years since" and that he's "planning on playing until he dies".
I asked him if he's studying or working he said no to both. Told him that I used to play LoL as well but stopped because the human brain craves for the results of winning so you keep spamming queue until you get a good team, a bad opposite team or a combination of both, in order to get your dopamine fix and feel good about yourself in spite of the fact that it took 9 others to win (5 people bad enough to be beaten and 4 people good enough to help you, oversimplifying for the sake of analysis).
Some people are like that: Unashamedly and unapologetically "hardcore gamers". Others treat them as "like a movie but with a sense of progress and achievement" which obviously no movie would ever make you feel achievement for watching it unless it's so bad you had to try hard to keep your stomach from churning.
My point being, just like this sub is against gaming there are people who are pro gaming. They will play the role of your subconscious like that cricket from Pinocchio, play with the definitions of words "depends on what you define as too much", "depends on your definition of addiction", "anything can be addictive therefore nothing is" and the list of crap goes on.
Unfortunately, just like people who play poker without losing their house and property cannot empathize with the gambling addict and feel like all he's missing is "some discipline", same happens with video games. Don't expect understanding, if anything people will secretly think that you just lack discipline and this is why your subconscious keeps throwing video game related thoughts even when you're trying to study.
And this subreddit has some of them, so take what you read with a grain of salt.

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.

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

Silver Master Icons

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

Primetimes

NHL

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

Packs Available

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

P.S.

• Rivals Resets Today
• More Bold Cards

Hockey News

• Koivu Retires
• NHL postpones more games

Stock Market News

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

Other News

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

What’s to Come?

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

Summary of the day

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

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

Interested in Stocks?

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

I made this for everyone. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it, but its been often!

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

Sites To Bookmark!

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

Colin’s Thoughts

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

Intro
My name is Zach 28 years old, I am a compulsive gambler from the Gold Coast, Australia. I have been gambling for close to 10 years now. My losses would be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands now without a doubt. I live a good life, I live close to the beach, have a fantastic border collie called Switch, and I have my dream job for where I am at in my career at the moment that pays me six figures. I also have a fantastic family, that are somewhat aware of the gambling problem, but definitely have no idea as to how bad it truly is.
But due to gambling, I have basically not a cent to my name, and I have lost a lot of good friends, especially over the last 3-4 months. So a lot of the above has been what has been able to keep me going in life, and not look to drastic measures.
I have been trying to stop gambling for the better part of three years now.
Where it began
Gambling started for me back when I was about 18. I had some mates that I would go down to the pub with and we would have some beers together and then go to the pokies(slot machines) and put maybe $20 through, and it seemed fun and innocent at the time. Little did I know that my addictive personality would take a hold of this and drive my life to where it currently is.
My biggest weakness would be the pokies, especially once I discovered online casinos.
But it was never really an issue through my early 20’s, as I usually only gambled what I could afford to lose and it never affected my day to day life such as paying bills or anti social behaviour. It was just a “casual” gamble at the time.
Where it got bad
It was probably around the age of 24-25 where it got really bad. I was dating a girl at the time, where from the early stages I would manage to weasal money out of her to feed my addiction of the pokies. She would lend me money or give me money not realising what the problem was. I truly took advantage of her in this situation. There were even a couple of nights where we had been drinking with friends, and she passed out to go to sleep and I would take her bank card and go withdraw $1000 or so, just so I could go play the pokies.
She forced me to go to GA at one stage, I went once, but I was no where near ready to give it up. I mean why would I when I could keep syphoning money out of her?
After that relationship ended, things calmed down a little bit. I was still gambling in a bad way, but I wasn’t stealing money to feed the addiction. I did it through my own means. From time to time I would need to borrow money from friends or family to keep my head afloat, but I always paid it back to them.
In the last 2-3 months is where the addiction has got me real bad. I was living a bad living situation with a housemate that basically forced me to keep to myself in my room or the study. This is where I really discovered online pokies.
I put $300 in, over the course of about 3-4 days I managed to get that up to around $80k. I said alright I am gonna withdrawal at least 60k of this, but going to see if I can use the other 20k to see if I can turn it into more.
As online pokies have it, they really draw out the verification process. They do not make it easy to get your money. It goes without saying that within 3 days I managed to take that $80k and turn it into $0. Because I am a compulsive gambler and self control around gambling is not something that I have.
The follow on effect
Having gotten up to $80k, I was convinced that I could easily get up to like $10k or something. This resulted in me using money I didn’t have and borrowing money, and lying to borrow money in order to gamble.
As I sit here now and write this up. I went from having no debt, to now about $5k in debt and having blown around $15-20k over the last 1-2 months.
Going forward
Now I sit here contemplating the road ahead of me. Here is what I have done so far
- Called my bank and banned any form of gambling transactions
- Installed Gameban on my phone and computer
- Told a friend about my gambling and the true extent of it.
- Looking into counselling and GA meetings around me.
It’s a long road ahead, but I have to start somewhere.

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

NHL 94 Flashback

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

Primetimes

NHL

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

Other Leagues

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

Packs Available

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

P.S.

• HUT CHAMPS Processing
• Happy Monday!

Hockey News

• Khudubin gets Benched
• Hockey in History

Stock Market News

• All Time Highs
• A chance to make millions

Other News

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

What’s to Come?

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

Summary of the day

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

Important Notice

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

Interested in Stocks?

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

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

I made this for everyone. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it, but its been often!

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

Sites To Bookmark!

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

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

"Couples on Surviving Trauma and Loss: Five partners whose love has endured seismic changes, from refugees forced apart by war to a couple left with horrific injuries"
The first two stories in the article are legit: a couple in a terrible car accident and a couple separated by the Sudanese civil war. Then things start going to hell and get worse and worse. All of the things that FDS warns against are here: codependency, gaslighting, lying, cheating, excuse-making, blame shifting, martyrdom. Women continue to be conditioned to accept sub-par treatment by these kinds of narratives. The ladies of FDS refuse to help relationships "survive trauma" that is LITERALLY CREATED BY THE MAN IN THE RELATIONSHIP AND HIS SELFISH AND OVERALL TERRIBLE DECISIONS.

‘I was in prison for 2,192 days; she wrote to me almost daily’

Laure, 58, and Jerry, 62, survived his jail sentence for causing death by dangerous driving. They live in Alabama, and now run a support network for the families of prisoners.
Laure Jerry and I met in 1995 and married four months later. I tell him all the time I would marry him again, but faster. We’d both been married twice before and dating was the last thing I was looking for. But he ticked all the boxes.
I had two daughters and he had one. We moved our family from Tennessee to Alabama, to raise them in the country. We were living the dream. But on 17 March 2003, it was shattered when Jerry caused a head-on car collision which killed a young mother. He had been driving drunk.
I felt rage, betrayal. When we met, we were both recovering alcoholics, so I had only known him sober. Now a life had been lost. I didn’t want him dead, but I wanted him to hurt real bad. We lived in a small town, and I grieved for that family. I felt embarrassment. I had to get to the forgiveness part quickly so I could get through each day.
Jerry spent 10 days in the ICU. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison and 19 on probation. I was scared – emotionally, practically, financially, spiritually. I wanted to stay married but didn’t know how. I didn’t know what you do when someone you love is in prison.

His first year home, we argued all the time. I’d put my hand on his shoulder and he’d push it away

I wrote to him almost every night. I could afford one dollar-a-minute phone call a week and petrol for the 100-mile drive to visit every two weeks. I felt a lot of anger in those first years. I remember burying the cat, crying, saying, “This is a dad job.” I tried to experience the girls’ graduations for both of us.
His first year home, we argued all the time. I’d put my hand on his shoulder and he’d push it away; he was still in survival mode.
We’re grandparents now and enjoy our family immensely. We run a support network for prisoner families, called Extended Family. I started it six months into his sentence.
Jerry will still say, “You stayed with me all those years,” but I don’t think of it that way. I’m not going to make him do the dishes for the rest of our lives. We spent six years without each other; we don’t want to spend another minute apart.
Jerry On our first date, I took Laure and her daughters to see Cinderella at the theatre. When I got home, I wrote “She’s the one” on the back of the programme.
We had a good life. I had a small engineering business, work grew busy, and we moved cities. But I was in a mess. I got into narcotics but hid it from my family. The night of the accident, I had stopped at a liquor store. I was in a blackout. Moments later, a young woman was dead and I was airlifted to hospital. I was shocked, remorseful, disheartened.
My wife has a big and kind heart. I tried to protect her from the police investigation and the likelihood of prison. I didn’t want our girls walking around with the stigma of a dad who had killed someone.
In Alabama, incarceration is uncontested grounds for divorce, but there was never a question of Laure leaving me. On an early prison visit, I told her I wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to leave. She looked at me and said, “I’d be more miserable than I am now.” I’ll never forget it.
I was in prison for 2,192 days and she wrote to me almost daily. There were guys that got nothing. I felt blessed and honoured. She would arrive every two weeks and I would put on a smile. But I pitied myself; I felt useless, unable to provide for my family.
When I came home, I was harsher than before. Meanwhile, this woman I loved had blossomed. I had to adjust. There’s a not a day that I don’t pay for my disastrous decision in some way, shape or form. We worked through the mess I made together, and we’re closer because of it.

‘It was a form of gaslighting. He led a double life’

Keith, 59, and Claire, 57, survived his gambling addiction. They live in Sussex.
Keith Claire and I had known each other in the 80s, and reconnected online 20 years later. Claire was living abroad, and I was on my way to broke. She’d make short trips to the UK, and we’d laugh through days out and long lunches. She was intelligent, full of life; a better person than I was.
I first entered a casino at 16. By 18, I’d borrowed, conned and stolen from everyone I knew. I was an addict. Through adulthood, I’d made and lost small fortunes and entire businesses. I’d play Monopoly for real money, or sit in a room of the club I owned, drinking brandy, snorting as much cocaine as I could.
I wasn’t a constant drug user or gambler. When Claire visited, I’d try to keep it together; but then I’d get desperate and make excuses to go to London for “work”. When she moved to the UK with her three kids in 2009, I’d disappear into a room of the home we shared for days, in a heady state of gambling, drugs and porn, too embarrassed to re-emerge. I had intermittent spells in Gambling Anonymous, but I found it hard to ask for help.
Claire paid for the house and put food on the table. I never stole from her, but I’m still surprised she didn’t walk out. By 2014, I’d had a heart attack and was nursing my mother, who had cancer. I would drive her to the hospital every day, off my tits, bring her home, make her food, then shut myself in another room and gamble online.
I couldn’t see myself in the mirror any more. I wanted to die. On 28 June 2014, I logged on to a website for people seeking affairs and used it for porn. That decision would almost end us: when Claire discovered the website in her search history, she sent me a Dear John letter. The next day, she drove me to residential rehab. The only rule I broke there was asking her to spend one night. I had to save the relationship.
I’ve been clean for six years now; Claire is part of the reason why. People talk about languages of love. For me those are quality time, acts of service. Boy, were there acts of kindness and service from Claire. Without her, I could well be dead.
Claire I was 18, and a poor student, when I first met Keith. He seemed glamorous, exciting, funny, intelligent. He was also a known gambler, but when we reconnected years later, that appeared to be in his past. Yet, with hindsight, nothing about the start of our relationship makes sense.
When I visited, he’d urgently have work or disappear into a room for days at a time. I’d spend hours on edge, struggling to trust him, but he would rationalise his behaviour, omitting huge details, claiming he’d simply drunk too much. It was a form of gaslighting. He led a double life.

When Keith decided on residential rehab, I knew that if I didn’t support him, there was no future

The first time I confronted him, I’d found an empty drugs packet, but he lied his way out of it. I became scared to ask, although we both knew he needed help. When his mother was unwell, he had the perfect alibi. He was an addict but he was responsible – and he took exquisite care of her. I was fearful but I had to get on with life.
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When Keith decided on residential rehab, I knew that if I didn’t support him, there was no future. I didn’t want significant time apart, but when an addict is serious about making changes, you have to put your own needs aside.
The most soul-destroying moment came when I found the affairs website. I had been betrayed by gambling and drugs, but my belief in the purity of our love had kept me going. I wrote to him saying it was over. From rehab, Keith proved to me it was only curiosity (there was no activity on his account), and I was open enough to reconciliation to visit him.
Emotionally, we’re more independent now, although we share bank accounts and he supports us financially. I’ve grown, too. I used to tell friends that Keith felt like an addiction to me. I’d waited years for a stable home life together: eventually, he walked the most difficult path in order to truly change.

‘Friends saw us as the perfect couple, but it was a lie’

Maryam, 31, and Amir, 33, survived his affair. They live in California.
Maryam When Amir had an affair, I had a thousand reasons to leave but looked for the one to stay. Our relationship had started as an affair, too. We had been couple-friends in our previous marriages and used to hang out as a group of four. Then, in February 2017, Amir and his wife broke up and he came on a trip with my husband and me. One night, we were up late, talking, while my husband slept. Amir opened up about his marriage and I began to sense he had feelings for me. I had relationship problems, too, and we started an affair. I ended my marriage.
Over the next 18 months, friends came to see us as the perfect couple. They would comment on how loving our relationship was. But I couldn’t forgive myself for how we’d started, and his divorce was a mess. He spent nights with his ex. I broke up with him several times. Things looked great on the surface but we both carried unresolved pain.
By the end of 2019, I became suspicious of his relationship with a co-worker. She was too intimate at the Christmas party and he was jumpy when she called. Then I found a credit card charge to a cafe, clearly for two people.

I loved him deep down but anger overwhelmed me. He asked over and over for a chance to prove he could change

It took me 10 days to get the full details from him. It had been going on for months and they’d slept together six times. I couldn’t breathe; I felt stupid. Everything that had gone before felt like a lie. I left him.
Amir telephoned non-stop and showed up at my parents’. I loved him deep down but anger overwhelmed me. He asked over and over for a chance to prove he could change. Eventually, I agreed to give him three months. We started individual and couples’ therapy and talked through every detail of our relationship. I couldn’t bear to sleep in the same room as him, but I could look at his face again. I agreed to more time.
I see the consistency and changes Amir has made, his commitment. When I discovered his affair, I was ready to give up on our relationship, but we have both grown. No one knows what the future holds and I have my fears. But, right now, I love the way he loves me.
Amir Maryam was the first time in my life I felt real love. But we were both married and I told myself it couldn’t happen.
As time passed, my ex-wife had an affair and my marriage died. Maryam had problems, too, and I made my feelings known. I admired her looks, the way she thinks. This wasn’t a game that I’d started; it was coming from the bottom of my heart.
I was born in the Middle East, in a war zone. As a child, I experienced sexual and physical abuse at the hands of my teacher, but told no one. The human psyche finds soothing mechanisms to alleviate pain. For me, that was sex.
I was in the most loving relationship with Maryam. The sex was amazing. We bought a house, enjoyed travelling. But the foundations were shaky and I unconsciously sought more.
When I got close to a co-worker, it turned into an affair, starting in May 2019 and lasting several months. It was pure sexual desire. This wasn’t someone I wanted to change the course of my life. We were opportunistic and, in those moments, I became blind to the consequences.
When Maryam found out, I tried to lie. I was naive about how much I was going to hurt her. She wanted nothing to do with me. She blocked my calls and texts, and told our family and friends all the details. Everyone who loved me looked at me as a monster. For the first time in my life, I started to wake up.
I made fixing myself and our relationship my only priority. I promised Maryam she would see a change, and started intense therapy, twice a week. I addressed my childhood trauma and sought support for sex addiction. I realised how much I was willing to do for Maryam.
At the beginning, it was simply about keeping Maryam; but it transformed into strengthening our bond. She has made sacrifices for me, been my guide and love. Every day, I’m more appreciative.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jan/30/couples-on-surviving-trauma-and-loss

!! Content warning for blood and gore, sexual content !!
TL;DR: Viral TikTok leads people to think a specific plush is a bondage toy; the price skyrockets and plush collectors find their collections suddenly sexualized.

BACKGROUND CONTEXT:
All given prices are in USD.
Also preemptive disclaimer: I have no intention to kinkshame others in this post. I tried to remain as impartial as I could throughout.
Everyone reading this probably owns, or has owned at some point in their lives, at least one stuffed animal (or plush, as they’re more commonly called now). Some of us never stopped collecting, and continue to collect well into adulthood. There are all sorts of niches that plush collectors fall into—some only collect very realistic animal plush, others only collect custom one of a kind plush or art dolls made by artisans, and some others yet collect everything, etc. This post will focus specifically on those collecting “kawaii” plush—the Japanese word for cute. A majority of these plushies are made in Japan, designed by Japanese people and brands. Some companies in other countries also replicate the kawaii look, but these plush are not quite as popular. Various Facebook groups exist for plush collectors. The demographics of these groups tend to skew heavily female, and the age range for collectors of kawaii plush specifically skews from minor to young adult (30's), although there are also a lot of older parents.
Japanese plush are generally of high quality, and thus command higher prices. In general, expect to pay $25-40 per plush if you're buying stateside, and that's before taking additional shipping costs into account. Even small “mascot” plush (keychain size, about 2-3 inches tall) will go for about $15.
Now, let’s talk about these plush and their country of origin. In Japan, there’s two markets when it comes to kawaii plush. The first is plush specifically manufactured to be sold in stores—think branded Sanrio plush, like Hello Kitty. These plush are of premium quality and generally are easy to obtain for standard releases, even for overseas fans. The second market is plush specifically manufactured for UFO catchers, of which the closest equivalent would be “claw machines” in the west (although everything from the experience to the mechanics to the play style is incredibly inferior in western claw machines). These are known as prize plush, and are NOT sold in stores. The quality of these plush varies from good to excellent. Even the lowest quality prize plush tends to be leagues ahead of what’s found in American claw machines. Those who aren’t good at winning can buy them pre-owned or secondhand from shops and marketplaces catering to this sort of thing. All of this combined makes prize plush trickier for overseas fans to obtain.
Enter Toreba, a global online service that allows you to play Japanese UFO catchers in real time through your phone using the internet! They have hundreds of machines for you to browse through, all of them stocked with the same current prizes that Japanese players have access to. You buy credits using real money and then play to (hopefully) win. Any prizes that you win are shipped to you for free. Hop over to Toreba to take a peek at winning videos to see how it all works. (Off-topic warning: this is obviously a form of gambling, so be careful! Lots of people fall into the trap of spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars with very little to show for it, so I don’t recommend playing if you have an addictive personality.) Toreba essentially cut out the middle man, making it possible for overseas players to win prizes for themselves—or to pay others in their own country for them, instead of importing from Japan directly.
Now, getting closer to the topic at hand: there’s one designer whose plushies are consistently sought after. His name is Mori Chack, and you might even be vaguely familiar with his work if you stepped into a Hot Topic about 15 years ago: he’s responsible for creating the Gloomy Bear, an adorable but very violent pink bear that often ends up attacking his human owner named Pity. Nowadays, his plush are only available as prizes, and their quality of construction tends to be pretty high, with unusually shaped plastic eyes (an oval, instead of a circle), specially molded plastic claws, and embroidered blood spots. They come in dozens and dozens of different variations (someone made a 3 part picture guide on Google Docs here: [1] | [2] | [3]) in pretty limited runs, meaning they generally appreciate steadily in value over time as supply is limited and the same design is almost never replicated. They’re more akin to soft art pieces than plush, as most collectors will display them instead of playing with them.
Mori Chack is also the creator of another highly popular creature in the Gloomy universe: the All Purpose Bunny (also known by collectors as the Chax Rabbit), who also comes in dozens of variations, including collaboration variations featuring a certain famous Miku Hatsune. This cute li’l bun is the main star of today’s post, but first I need to briefly touch upon Mori Chack’s politics, as they are relevant to the subject. He’s an animal rights activist that explores his themes through his work. A common trend is cute animals getting revenge on humans for exploitation and abuse. The Gloomy Bear’s story is that Pity found the bear as a cub and took it back home to raise it. As the Gloomy Bear grew, it could no longer withhold its violent impulses and thus regularly attacks Pity as retaliation for its unnatural upbringing. This is why a lot of the Gloomy Bear plush are regularly splashed with bloodstains. As for the All Purpose Bunny, its story begins with being an experimental rabbit in a test lab. Genetic modification led to its strange properties and unnaturally long ears, and it eventually retaliated against humans for its years of abuse. All Purpose Bunny and Gloomy Bear often team up to attack and kill humans, using their unique skills and abilities to hunt them down in imaginative ways. The point is that they are no longer slaves to humanity (this is important).
Finally, a very small description of DDLG, since these kinksters play a minor role in this drama. DDLG (Daddy Dom/Little Girl) is a form of roleplaying ageplay in which two consenting adults take on the role of a dominant male and a submissive female. The daddy is responsible for taking on the role of the caregiver, and often disciplines his little. Littles tend to mentally and physically regress to an age most comfortable for them—the age range varies from infancy to young teen. The littles tend to act silly, immature, and bratty, and often break rules set by the daddy in order to be punished. The daddy is usually “in control”. Generally, there are agreed upon set times for the play to occur—this is known as “little space”—but some couples might prefer the dynamic to be more prominently reflected in their daily relationship.

THE DRAMA (At last!):
On July 31 2020, a Tiktok video featuring an All Purpose Bunny went unexpectedly viral, with well over a million views. It introduced many people to Mori Chack and his creations (debatable as to whether or not this is a good thing), but most significantly, the creator of the video declared at the end, with quite a lot of emphasis: “This is a bondage plushie.”
That proclamation changed the entire Mori Chack aftermarket literally overnight. There are at least half a dozen active plush collecting groups on Facebook, and every single one was bombarded by newcomers desperately trying to find one of these rabbits. Because the creator of the viral TikTok video did not specify the actual plush name, you had people looking for “that bondage bunny”, “TikTok rabbit”, and other similarly ignorant terms. I regret not taking screenshots of the flood at the time, but here’s a sample (once you've seen one, you've seen them all). At the height of the frenzy, you could scroll quickly for well over thirty seconds and see nothing but posts about the Chax Rabbit, even in groups that are usually very active.
In all fairness to the creator of the video, she clarifies that she meant it as a joke and has made a number of follow-up videos giving a more in-depth look into the lore. Unfortunately, none of these videos took off quite the same way, so many had their impressions formed solely from the viral video. Luckily, although quite a lot of people directed ire towards the video itself, it seems the person behind them wasn’t attacked (on Facebook at least—I don’t have a TikTok account so I can’t see any comments on the video itself).
These new collectors began snatching up rabbits left and right, sending the price of these rabbits skyrocketing. The rainbow one in the Tiktok video (known as the Fantasy Fur variant) was actually not a very popular color prior to the boom. They were going for about $25ish plus shipping. Once that stock rapidly depleted, the price skyrocketed to $80 or more per plush (with some like the Fantasy Furs reaching $100), which was ridiculous for a relatively new release—that price was usually reserved for the older rarer Mori Chack plush. When all of the Fantasy Fur rabbits were gone, people began looking for other variants. Longtime collectors, afraid of having their most sought-after plush being bought up, also began buying in droves to try and secure their plush before others got to it (compilation of images featuring people who purchased their most desired plush while they could, and the despair of those who were forced to miss out). As a result, the price of ALL rabbits began spiraling out of control. This had a spillover effect on Gloomy Bears as well.
As a personal example, I bought this pink argyle variant on June 20 2019 for only $15 including shipping, which was a little cheap for its going rate—others were going for about $25 including shipping. Today (September 13 2020), that same exact rabbit is on eBay for $65 + $15 shipping, or on Mercari for $85 + $5 shipping.
This goes beyond the normal appreciation I mentioned at the beginning of my post. Yes, Mori Chack plush did rise in value over time, but generally not to this degree. This was definitely unprecedented.

FALLOUT (or, The Drama, Part 2):
Whenever new fans begin to flood a community, there will inevitably always be gatekeeping and other minor clashes. Many old fans were frustrated by the sudden sexualization of their collections. Some collectors were parents who shared their plush with their children, which made the sexualization extra icky. There were a few posts involving newcomers making creepy comments on collection posts, like insinuating that the OP “must have a lot of fun with those rabbits”, or “I see those bondage bunnies ;)”. There was one instance where the rabbits actually belonged to the OP’s very young child, for added grossness points. Luckily, these sorts of exchanges tended to get deleted very quickly with the offending users banned, which helped ensure they never overran the groups.
Fans who ascribed to Mori Chack’s philosophy were frustrated by this perversion of the rabbits, because it explicitly paints the All Purpose Bunnies as being slaves of humanity yet again, now for sexual reasons. (Of course, many new fans pointed out that the “All Purpose” in the name naturally means they could be used for sexual reasons as well, which is a valid interpretation but also seems antithetical to Mori Chack's original intentions.) There were a few newcomers who very stubbornly refused to view the plush as anything other than sexual—here’s a screenshot of a conversation that is now deleted. This person was soon banned after continuing to fight with others, and they weren’t the only one being super weirdly stubborn about sexualizing these plush.
And then there was the influx of littles (remember them?) who were tickled by the idea of a functional set piece—not only are these plush cute and integral to the adorable little girl aesthetic, but they were also USABLE in sexual play! (Note: not really (compilation image)). Remember how I mentioned that some practitioners of DDLG tend to make it a lifestyle and not just a kink reserved for the bedroom? Some (not all, of course) of these new littles ended up being incredibly bratty and rude to the sellers in the groups. Many of these sellers are just other collectors as well, by the way, not wholesalers—as a result, the community is very close-knit and it’s easy to get yourself unknowingly blacklisted. If you’re cruel to one seller, they will almost certainly warn the others.
In case you’re wondering how I know these people are littles, it’s because I have seen them bring it up at some point or another.
[Small disclaimer: The Facebook app allows you to view all of your joined groups’ posts within one page, which unfortunately has made it incredibly difficult for me to try and figure out where I saw each and every post. As a result, I apologize for not having more screenshots. Also, some of the posts and comments I reference have been deleted by either the user or the admins/moderators of the groups, and I have no screenshots for those, either.]
Brief summary of some exchanges involving littles that I saw:

One little asked a seller a number of involved questions, including asking for more detailed pictures, height and weight information of the plush, examples of the seller’s packaging, etc—a little annoying, but completely valid questions to ask and well within your rights as a buyer. However, once she was seemingly satisfied, she dropped a, “Let me ask if my daddy will let me buy it!” She later returned with, “Daddy said no :(“, which ended up wasting everyone’s time and also raised concern (will touch on this later). This type of exchange began happening with increasing frequency, where (different) littles would essentially string a seller along before using their daddy’s disapproval as a reason for backing out of the sale.
Another little didn’t seem to enjoy plush at all, which already is a bit of a red flag for someone joining a plush collecting group. She made a post searching for All Purpose Bunnies for sale. A seller commented informing her that they no longer had the rabbits for sale, but they did have several Gloomy Bears for sale. The little asked, “So what does the Gloomy Bear do?” She was informed by the seller that the Gloomy Bear is simply another cute plush, and the little promptly responded, “I don’t want it, then.” It became clear that she was only interested in the All Purpose Bunny for its perceived sexual function, and likely wouldn’t enjoy it at all if it was “just” a plush.

Overview of changes in group dynamics I’ve noticed:

The plush collector groups that I am in tended to be pretty open-minded. No one bashed other people’s collections. Some of these groups are catch-all for all types of plush collectors and some are more focused, but everyone was supportive of others’ collections. It was a very positive and uplifting community. After the TikTok boom, people began being more judgmental. There were a number of posts about how people found the Chax rabbits ugly or overrated, and posts from newcomers judging longtime members for their large collections. A lot of judgment, primarily from newcomers, was introduced and still hasn’t been totally weeded out (although it's much better, now).
These groups are SFW and meant for all ages (so long as you’re old enough to join Facebook, anyway). There are a very large number of minors in these groups. This means no sexual content is allowed—but because of the TikTok video, a large number of littles have joined the groups, leading to concerns that they would attempt to transform the space to cater to them. There is definitely some not so subtle dogwhistling going on, and members openly calling their significant other “daddy” and referring to themselves as “littles” treads a very fine line that each group's admin rules differently on. Members tended to fall into two camps: some thought any and all mention of DDLG was inappropriate for the all-ages groups, while others thought that there was no harm in using the terminology openly. a. Those in the former camp believe that whatever happens in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom, so long as it involves consenting adults. Just like how wearing some of your BDSM gear out in public is distasteful because it pulls unconsenting people (strangers who might notice) into your fetish, some people believe that DDLG language being openly used where anyone including minors could read it was equally distasteful. Those against it believe it openly establishes the sexual proclivities (dom/sub) of DDLG members to strangers who may be uncomfortable unexpectedly learning about the sexual lives of others (and, more importantly, did not consent to gaining this knowledge). There's also the concern that such language can promote a troubling female subservience dynamic to uninformed minors, especially if these minors regularly see female collectors relying on their male partners for “permission” to buy a plush, as well as being coerced by their daddies to sell plush when they "have too many" (an entirely subjective opinion). b. The latter camp is comprised of defenders of those in the DDLG kink, and they often state that no one has the right to question their relationship and that doing so was kinkshaming. They also say that by questioning their usage of “daddy” or “little”, it was exposing minors to the kink when they may not have noticed the verbiage to begin with. They also argue that “daddy” could be used entirely innocently, and that it isn’t the admin’s or mod’s place to verify the intention behind their words. Because this is a tricky subject and no community wants to alienate a large portion of their members, as a result none of these groups explicitly banned DDLG practitioners from using their terminology. Any drama that crops up is usually stifled quickly, and people have more or less come to terms with the fact that just about anyone might be a little. ;)

THE AFTERMATH:
How are things today, about 6 weeks after the TikTok video? It depends. Prices for anything Mori Chack related are still inflated, especially as the supply continues to dwindle. What used to be the old normal is now seen as a good deal. The more abrasive newcomers have been banned, and the kinder more open-minded ones have stuck around (we love them). It’s doubtful that the production numbers for Gloomy Bears or All Purpose Bunnies will be raised any, and the newest set of Gloomy Bears seem to be selling at only slightly inflated prices, so interest is probably dying off. I don’t know what Mori Chack thinks of this whole thing, but people in the hobby are definitely aware of it in Japan, because prices on Japanese secondhand sites have risen as well and many sellers have begun selling on international eBay to take advantage of the hype. There are still littles in the groups that openly identify as such—if anything, there are more now than there were before—but drama specifically involving them basically doesn’t happen anymore.
But, hey! We got memes! In the end, isn't that what everyone on the internet wants??
If there are any loose threads I failed to tie up, feel free to let me know and I’ll answer your questions and edit the post for clarity. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the drama! :)

Hey guys, Coooolin! How was everyone’s Hump Day?! Almost there to the weekend !! Hope everyone had an amazing day!! Let me know down below! :)
Here’s the new content, thanks as always, EA!

Team of the Week

January 27 - February 4

Forwards

LW - C - RW
Line 1
Nikolaj Ehlers - 88 OVR - WPJ / LW - PP¹ , GLA¹
Joe Pavelski - 87 OVR - DAL / C - LTL¹ , T¹
Mark Scheifele - 90 OVR - WPJ / C - LTL¹ , MAG¹
Line 2
Patrick Kane - 89 OVR - CHI / RW - WM¹ , WH¹
Brayden Schenn - 86 OVR - STL / C - HOW¹ , WM¹
Oliver Bjorkstrand - 87 OVR - CBJ / RW - SPE¹ , MAG¹
Line 3
Jack Roslovic - 80 OVR - CBJ / C - DIS¹ , HOW¹
Jordan Kyrou - 79 OVR - STL / C - SWA¹ , PP¹
Jakub Voracek - 86 OVR - PHI / RW - SPE¹ , WH¹
Line 4
Andres Ambuhl - 80 OVR - DAV / RW - SPA¹ , GLA¹
Daniel Fischbuch - 77 OVR - DUS / RW - BAR¹ , LTL¹
Anton Levtchi - 77 OVR - TAM / LW - BAL¹ , MAG¹

Defense

LD - RD
Line 1
Shea Theodore - 89 OVR - LVK / LD - SH¹ , HOW¹
Brent Burns - 91 OVR - SJS / RD - GLA¹ , PP¹
Line 2
Connor Murphy - 84 OVR - CHI / RD - SH¹ , WH¹
Adam Fox - 86 OVR - NYR / RD - WM¹ , SH¹
Line 3
Jonas Junland - 78 OVR - LIN / LD - H and S¹ , SPE¹
Sam Jardine - 77 OVR - SWA / LD - SPA¹ , T¹

Goalies

Anton Khudobin - 87 OVR - DAL / G - 5‘11“ / 195 lbs - SPA¹ , SWA¹
Carter Hutton - 82 OVR - BUF / G - 6’1” / 202 lbs - BAL¹ , BAR¹
__________————_————___

Primetimes

NHL

Roman Josi - 89 OVR - NAS / LD - GLA¹ , WM¹
Charlie Mcavoy - 87 OVR - BOS / RD - PP¹ , SH¹
Justin Schultz - 86 OVR - WAS / RD - HOW¹ , WH¹
Ivan Provorov - 85 OVR - PHI / LD - MAG¹ , GLA¹
Jaden Schwartz - 85 OVR - STL / LW - LTL¹ , SPE¹
Michael Granlund - 85 OVR - NAS / C - WM¹ , WH¹
Brandon Saad - 84 OVR - COL / LW - HOW¹ , PP¹
Anthony Duclair - 84 OVR - FLA / LW - LTL¹ , T¹ .... ANTHOONYY DUUCLAAIIR
Cal Petersen - 84 OVR - LAK / G - 6’1” / 183 lbs - SWA¹ , SPA¹
Andrew Copp - 82 OVR - WPJ / C - SPE¹ , MAG¹
Carl Grundstrom - 78 OVR - LAK / LW - DIS¹ , WH¹

Other Leagues

Sven Andrighetto - 80 OVR - ZSC / RW - BAR¹ , SH¹
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

1 D / 23 H
• Jumbo Premium Players Pack - 45k C / 900 P
20 items , all Gold Players, at least 5 80+ OVR Players
• Mega Pack - 37.5k C / 750 P
30 items, at least 15 Gold Players, and 4 80+ OVR Players
• Jumbo Premium Pack - 15k C / 300 P
20 items, at least 9 Players with at least 4 Gold Players

P.S.

• Squad Battles Resets - Today at 5pm EST - where did you place? .... I didnt play this week, oop
• New Team of the Week - Today at 5pm EST - whos your favourite player on the TOTW?
• RIVALS REWARDS!!! - Today at 5pm EST - where did you place? ... what did you get? .... I got no rewards this week, a good break from HUT!!
• Campbell out with leg injury
• Hockey in History
——————

What’s to Come?

• Squad Battles Rewards - Tomorrow at 5pm EST
• New Season of HUT RUSH - Tomorrow at 5pm EST
• New Event - FRIDAY at 5pm EST - what will it be?
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - TOTW - is MAARRKK SCHEIFELLEEE OVR 90 with the syn LIGGHTT THE LAAMPP and MAGIICIANN
Best Defence of the Day - TOTW - is BRRRENTTT BURNNSS OVR 91 with the syn GLAADIATORR and PASSSINN PLAYMAKERRR
////// /////// ////////
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is JUUSTTINN SCHWARTZZZ OVR 86 with the syn LIIIGHT THE LAAAMPP and SPPEEEEDSTERR
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is ROOOMAAAN JOOOSSSIIII OVR 89 with the syn GLAAADIIATORRR and WIIIINGGG MAAAN
• Squad Battles Resets
• NEW TOTW
• Rivals Rewards!!!
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Fake it til you make it. Have small goals that will all jump into one big goal. Believe in yourself. If no one can understand it, show it to them... paint the picture on what you’re thinking...
People will cluster your thoughts, and goals... all it takes is a leap of faith, and some risk. If you believe you can do it — you can do anything possible. You will be so much happier fulfilling your goals and you’ll have more people chanting for you to do well!
Do the unthinkable. Do what you believe in. Don’t let anyone stop you.
———- ———-

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Jan 27
$ 146.23 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $8.69 / 6.32% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

I made this for everyone. How are you guys likin it?

THIS PLAYLIST GETS UPDATED DAILY!! How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Lotus Inn” by “Why Don’t We” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Story Time!!!

A lion and a mouse.
Once upon a time, there lived a lion and a mouse. One day the lion was sleeping. The mouse started playing on it. The lion woke up... he caught the mouse and was going to kill. The mouse requested for forgiveness. The lion let him go.
After some days the lion was caught in a net. The mouse cut the net with his teeth. The lion was free. He thanked the mouse.
Moral of the story — Do good, Have good.
——-
27 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! TODAY IS NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CAKE DAY!!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)

Hey guys, it’s Coooolin! It’s Throwback Thursday, and 2 more days til the weekend!! How was everyone’s day!? Gooodd ? Baadd? Let me know, dooown beloow !!
Here’s the new cards today, thanks as always EA!

Silver Master Icons

MARTIN ST. LOUIS - 91 OVR - TBL / RW - BAR² , WH²
Billy Smith - 91 OVR - NYI / G - 5’10” / 185 lbs - SWA² , DIS²
*Brendan Shanahan - 91 OVR - DET / LW - H and S² , SH²

Sets

All these guys to upgrade to their 91 OVR cost their specific 86 OVR card , plus 9 Icon Collectables.
9 ICONS TO UPGRADE - short said .
—-

Primetimes

NHL

(Flooded with a team that beat the sens... lets not talk about that game..)
Will Update wanting to pump this out with Silver Master Icons
Elias Petterson - 89 OVR - VAN / C - GLA¹ , PP¹
Matt Duchene - 87 OVR - NAS / C - LTL¹ , MAG¹
Thatcher Demko - 86 OVR - VAN / G - 6’4” / 192 lbs - SPA¹ , BAL¹
JIMMY Howard - 85 OVR - DET / G - 6’1” / 218 lbs - SWA¹ , DIS¹
Nick Cousins - 82 OVR - NAS / C - SPE¹ , WH¹
Jordie Benn - 81 OVR - VAN / LD - SH¹ , PP¹
Jay Beagle - 81 OVR - VAN / C - LTL¹ , GLA¹
Kevin Lankinen - 80 OVR - CHI / G - 6’2” / 185 lbs - BAR¹ , SWA¹
Tyler Motte - 80 OVR - VAN / C - SPA¹ , WM¹
Jarred Tindroi - 77 OVR - NAS / LD - DIS¹ , WH¹

Other Leagues

Zachary L’Heureux - 83 OVR - HAL / C -
Aleksi Klemetti - 77 OVR - KAL / LW -
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

Quantity - 1,736
Double PT PACK - 37.5k C / 750 P
13 items, at least 5 Players with 2 guaranteed Primetime Players.
— From previous day —
23H / 40M
• Jumbo Premium Players Pack - 45k C / 900 P
20 items , all Gold Players, at least 5 80+ OVR Players
• Mega Pack - 37.5k C / 750 P
30 items, at least 15 Gold Players, and 4 80+ OVR Players
• Jumbo Premium Pack - 15k C / 300 P
20 items, at least 9 Players with at least 4 Gold Players

P.S.

• Squad Battles Rewards
• New Season of HUT RUSH — 3M POINTS FOR FREE ICON COLLECT

HOCKEY NEWS TODAY

• Hockey History Today
• Winnipeg Jets back in runnin
Fantasy Hockey Pickups
Who should be on your team?

STOCK MARKET NEWS - WHAT JUST HAPPENED

• Gamestop See-Saw
• Disney Rising from its tumbled down
Corona News
• Corona News Today
• Ontario Reports Fewest Deaths

BELL LETS TALK DAY

• Bell Lets Talk
• Bublé is in on BLTK (Bell Lets Talk Day)
That’s the most important stuff I found today!
——————

What’s to Come?

• New Event Tomorrow - 5pm EST
• Weekend!!
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is ELLLIIAAASS PETEERSSONN OVR 89 with the syn GLAAADDIIATOORR and PASSSINN PLAYYMAKERRR
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is JOORRDIIEE BEENNNNN OVR *81 with the syn SHUUTT DOWNN and PASSSINN PLAYYMAKERRR
• Squad Battles Rewards!!
• New Season of HUT RUSH!
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day. Today is a day where Mental Health is in full action and everyone talks about it. You can help Bell Lets Talk Day gain money for Mental Health by; tweeeting #BellLetsTalk , Snapping friends with the Bell Lets Talk Day filter, sharing / liking / commenting their post on Facebook...and many other ways, as well as the obvious - simply donating.
Mental Health is HUGE especially with everything going on in the world.
Please know you are loved, cared for, and that your someones reason to smile, and wake up. You are a blessing to this world, put here for a reason. You are so strong, capable of anything you put your mind to. I know I am just some stranger on the Internet that does these “Daily Posts” but I am here for anyone in need of just talking about their problems, venting away, or just someone to talk to.
Bell Let’s Talk Day is one of my favourite / least favourite days because I personally love talking about Mental Health.... but I personally believe that it should be a week, or a month.. or just seriously for more people to talk about it on a daily basis.
Let’s end this stigma around Mental Health.
You can make a huge difference to someone’s life. Simply just be nice to one another, smile, and just say “I appreciate you” or some nice positive thing like that.
You recieve what you give away... karma goes a long, long ways.
I hope your 2021 and years to come are full of love, happiness, kindness, laughs, blessings, and success.
You deserve what you give to people. So if you give hate —- I’m sorry, but you’ll recieve that..
Love you all, I’m very appreciated of everyone who likes these posts, and strives me to keep posting. Its so much fun!!
My PM / Chat is open to anyone !! Don’t be afraid . We’re all in this together!!!
——

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Jan 28
$ 143.01 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $5.47 / 3.98% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. YOUR CAPITAL IS AT RISK. Happy Investing.*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

I made this for everyone. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it, but its been often!

TONS OF PEOPLE SEEM TO LOVE THE PLAYLIST!! How are you not listening to it already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Skin” by “Sabrina Carpenter” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Story Time!!!

“Happiness” - By Anonymous Person
Then I stopped to think, if helping a little kitten could make me smile, maybe doing something for people could make me happy.
So the next day I baked some biscuits and took them to a neighbour who was sick in bed.
Every day I try and do something nice for someone. It made me so happy to see them happy.
Today, I don’t know of anybody who sleeps and eats better than I do. I’ve found happiness by giving it to others.
When she heard that, the rich lady cried. She had everything money could buy, but she had lost the things money cannot buy.
The beauty of life does not depend on how happy you are; but on how happy others can be because of you.
Happiness is not a destination, its a journey. Happiness is not tomorrow, it is now. Happiness is not dependancy, it is a decision. Happiness is what you are, not what you have!
P.S. - Hope you have a happy fun filled day
——-
28 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! TODAY IS BELL LETS TALK DAY!!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)

Hi all,
Two weeks ago, The Boys published their video on gacha games. This inspired me to conduct a survey on this subreddit on your thoughts and experiences with gacha games. Thanks to your support, there is a lot of data to sift through and a lot of interesting results so far. Due to IRL deadlines, I wasn't able to examine the data in full capacity, so I will be posting results in two or more sections.
This first section will primarily deal with the surface-level headline data. I will also cover some of the reasonings and inner workings of what went into the survey and results (for those interested in the data scientist portions of things). A subsequent post/posts in the near future will cover topics I wasn't able to get to as well as more technical analysis of the data (regression, model-building, etc.)
These posts will be presented in a semi-formal fashion, i.e., I'll lay out the posts like a research paper but I'll add personal interjections from time to time. (If you want to really get into the meat and potatoes, you can just skip to the "Results and Discussion" section.) With that said, allow me to introduce my initial findings:

Our Trash Taste in Gacha Games: An Informal Community Survey Analysis on the Nature of TrashTaste's Experience Regarding Gacha Games

Abstract
The recent rise of "gacha games" has been bolstered by a number of intersecting trends. These include the mass popularity of anime or anime-like products, the increasing ubiquity of smartphones, and introduction of lootboxing mechanics by game publishers as a means of profiting off "free to play" or "freemium" games in the digital sphere. A recent episode from the anime-centric podcast "Trash Taste" explored their experiences and opinions regarding such games. This post intends to further explore the general sentiment of gacha games through the podcast's official subreddit, TrashTaste, and discuss the results.
Motivation
A little bit about my background. Anime, anime-like products, and manga have been a huge part in my life. I remember watching Detective Conan, Pokemon, and Keroro Gunso and being introduced to Gundam and MapleStory when I was young. Since it seems to be a trend on this subreddit, I'll throw my hat in the ring and show my 3x3:
[If you want further discussion about these and other related series, feel free to comment below or DM me]
From left to right, up to down: Ah! My Goddess, Hayate the Combat Butler , The World God Only Knows, Carnival Phantasm (+ Fate franchise), Pastel, Q.E.D.: Shoumei Shuuryou, Yandere Kanojo, Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter, The Gamer
As I mentioned in my first post about the survey, I am a graduate student working on my masters for data science. I also completed a bachelors in economics. All of this combined made me not only interested in gacha games as an avid consumer, but also as a research subject. The Boys simply were the catalyst for spurring this project.
Data Collection and Survey Construction
Data was collected via Google Forms on the TrashTaste subreddit. The post that contained the survey was released several hours after the video was posted. Survey responses were collected for a period of 1 week from January 22 to January 28 (though there was a massive decrease in the rate of respondents after the fourth day).
The survey was constructed based on my own experiences with gacha games as well as general demographics that would be useful to examine on a macro scale.
Regarding demographics: asking respondents on several aspects of demographics is a tricky subject since not only does it mean divulging a group of variables known as protected classes, these could be markers that could reidentify anonymized people; thus, I stuck to "safer" questions (age and gender). I then asked which otaku material was preferred.
The next set of questions dealt with those who were currently playing gacha games. I asked the number of currently played games, which ones (with an open-ended aspect since I knew I would miss some) and the top 3 games.
For each of the top 3 games, I asked how long they have played, which server, how long the game was around, how consistent did they play, how far they were, their current level of commitment, how much they spent (open-ended), spending title, whether the game had PVP, hype moments (some open-ended), and why they play (some open-ended).
Finally, based on the central theme of The Boys' video, I asked whether games should be regulated and what their policy recommendation would be (open-ended).
Limitations and Oversights
This survey is, obviously, limited by the research environment and my experiences. Academic papers have pondered about the effectiveness regarding survey reliability using subreddits, which may be interesting and impactful from a statistically-minded formal research. In addition, there were a total of 678 respondents which, while certainly plenty in any regular volunteer statistical number crunching, pales in comparison to the 104K members in this subreddit alone; this is going to affect the power analysis of these results. Submitting the survey hours after the video was posted (when the user activity likely peaks) likely limited user exposure. Therefore, this post will be much closer to the next video.
Then there are questions I didn't ask due to oversight on my part - I'm only human.

The biggest oversight, pointed out by u/Mareek, was

Welp I answered that I don't play any gatcha games, but it didn't give me a chance to say why I don't play them or if I played any before.
There should at least be a question for why/why not play them.

I probably would have asked something like:

If you responded "no," why do you not play gacha games?
- Not interested
- Not trying to get addicted
- Trying to stop gambling addiction
- Bad luck/greed sensor
- Used to play, but lost interest

2) As pointed out by u/Paoda and u/gzavwunt, I forgot to add visual novels into the "primary source of otaku source material" question! As a Fate fan, this was a massive oversight I regret (don't worry, I did at least watch the full visual novel playthroughs of Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Hollow Ataraxia).
3) There were a few questions that were open-ended that in hindsight definitely backfired. The biggest ones were the "how long has the game lasted" ( u/ShinyMilo ) and "how much you spent" questions. They are a mess to deal with, even with all the regex expressions I know, so I ultimately had to throw them out. The former in the end was merely a curiosity and the latter was somewhat salvaged by the "spending title" questions, so I'm not too bothered by it, but something I'll keep in mind in the future.
Results and Discussion
Here are the initial results, and I think there's some interesting trends we can look at.
First, let's look at the demographics.

Let's start with age distribution:

Figure 1
There were 678 respondents. There appears to be a considerable right skew (aka a skew towards a younger audience). There are a lot of zoomers among the respondents, though there are a considerable number of millennials as well.
2) Next, take a look at gender distribution:

Figure 2. Male: 87%, Female: 9.3%, Nonbinary: 1%, Prefer not to say: 2.7%
Well, somewhat not surprisingly, of the 678 respondents, an overwhelming 87% identified as males. Connor as "the 93%"? More like the survey as "the 9.3%."
3) For the final aspect of demographics, let's look at the distribution of answers for "What is your preferred consumption of otaku source material?"
Figure 3. (to the nearest tenth of a percent) Anime and Manga Equally: 33.8%, Anime: 32.4%, Manga: 16.7%, Anime, Manga, and Light Novel Equally: 9.7%, Manga and Light Novel Equally: 4.1%, Anime and Light Novel Equally: 2.2%, Light Novel: 1.0%
Of the 678, respondents, 32.4% prefer to watch anime, 16.7% prefer to read manga, and 33.8% prefer to consume anime and manga equally. Light novel readers (either as the preferred choice or read it equally with other mediums) amount to about 17%.
Hot take here: I am one of the 16.7% that prefer to read manga/manhwa (pitchforks in the comments), but only because there are so many series that I like that either have only become adapted recently (Horimiya, HameFura) or haven't been adapted yet (Shuumatsu no Valkyrie).
Next, let's look at gacha by the numbers.

First, let's look at the number of gacha games people play:

Figure 4
Of the 678 respondents, 232 did not currently play and gacha games, 194 did currently play 1 game, 117 did currently play 2 games, and so forth. The most surprising finding was that there are a few people that currently play at least 10 games, with one even playing 17!
2) Next, let's look at the top 20 games that were the favorite, second favorite, third favorite, and overall most popular:

"...Yet in most companies, the so-called “80/20 rule” applies: 80 percent of a data scientist’s valuable time is spent simply finding, cleansing, and organizing data, leaving only 20 percent to actually perform analysis." - IBM

Figure 5
Holy cow, the quote above really hit for this particular question. There were about 75 replacements I had to do to make the game title uniform, with 15 related to Princess Connect alone!
As for the analysis: you read that correctly. There are a whopping 103 total gacha game titles that the 446 respondents play. Genshin Impact comes as the clear frontrunner for the most favorite game, second-most favorite game, third-most favorite game, and overall most popular game. However, the top 5 games in each category are the same: Genshin Impact, Fate/Grand Order, Arknights, Azur Lane, and Fire Emblem Heroes.
Garnt is certainly attracting his Fate peers here, including me.
As a side note, I have to give props to respondents who were honest about their stances. There were a few that put 'H***** Gacha Game,' 'Taimanin,' and 'AGA' (Anti-Gacha Army).
3) Next, let's look at the distribution of how each person categorizes themselves terms of spending:

Figure 6
This is a very interesting finding. For their most favorite game, about half of the respondents were free to play, a third were minnows, about a sixth were dolphins, and the small bit left were whales. As we move towards less favored games, the number of F2Pers increase and the number of whales decrease until there's none left for the third-most favorite game. It's an important lesson for natural resources and gacha game publishers alike: overfishing can lead to less species diversity.
As an aside, I am personally a dolphin for Fate GO. I have no qualms sharing that I spend some cash rolling for (ironically) Gilgamesh and NP5ing Sheba during Gilfest 2018 or even spending some New Year's allowance on Spishtar last month. fite me
4) Next, let's look at what aspects made the gacha game most "hype:"

Figure 7
The top answer was the introduction of new characters, anniversary events, and animation/art. It seems that many go for the "Anni is the Planni" strategy.
5) Next, let's look at the reasons why respondents play or continue to play their gacha game(s) [Note: I aggregated the numbers from favorite/second favorite/third favorite, so some users are double or triple counted, so numbers may look a little inflated. I will work on this for a future post]:

Figure 8. Top 15 answers.
The top answer for why respondents play or continue to play their gacha game was for "the waifus/husbandos" followed by "I enjoy this as a standalone game" and "I love the source material." The 114 of you who chose "Because jokes are the deepest lore," I see you Fate fans.
Probably the most interesting and concerning reasons that were not shown here are the sizable number of people who responded with either learned helplessness of their situation or frustration with the gacha-industry complex. These include "Sunk cost fallacy" (shown on the graph), frustration over rerolling, feeling like it's "a second job," stating that they're "addicted and can't quit," or flat out "dunno, it's kina there."
The Future of Gacha Games
Learning about these trends are good and all, but how do we consolidate these opinions into actionable thoughts? This is where the last half of The Boys' video about what to do comes in. Here's the community's reaction.

First, it was asked "In your opinion, should gacha games be regulated?" 678 respondents responded:

Figure 9
83.8% of respondents said "Yes," 5% said "No,", and 11.2% said they need to do more research to come a conclusion.
2) Finally, I asked respondents an open-ended optional question that "If you could have a serious discussion about gacha games with a gacha game developer or lawmaker, what is the one policy recommendation you would suggest?"
Surprisingly, 473 people responded to the question. In the given timeframe, I could not read through all of the suggestions made; I will make sure to point out the most salient ones in the next post. In lieu of this, I decided to resort to a "quick and dirty trick" in natural language processing: n-grams! Simply put, I first removed common stopwords such as "you," "have", etc., and tokenized each response (i.e. separated each response into a list of word "units"). I then counted the frequency that each set of consecutive words appeared in each response. I counted frequency of the top 20 unigrams (one word), bigrams (2 words) and trigrams (3 words). Here is the result:

Table 1
This is incredible stuff. The top two unigrams are "limit" and "spending," and other frequent unigrams include "gambling," "amount," and "time." Bigrams tell a broader story, with the top bigram being "(spending, limit)." There are other bigrams that expand upon policy recommendations such as "(hard, limit)", "(gambling, addiction)", "(drop, rates)," and "(pity, system)." Finally, looking at trigrams, we get an even fuller picture: the top trigram is "(limit, much, spend)." Other prominent trigrams include "(hard, limit, spending)," "(thing, connor, said)," and "(treat, like, gambling)."
While the suggestions of limiting spending are quite frequent (following the footsteps of Connor), this is a fairly well-researched topic in the realm of behavioral economics. In particular, it looks at the encompassing topic of intertemporal choice. This is a pretty complex and field-specific topic that is too long to discuss in entirety in this post, but I'll boil down the critical points relevant to gacha games. [WARNING: some math ahead]
First, say that you have a set budget that you're going to spend over several periods of time. When we spend money in a time period, get gain joyfulness (called "utility" or simply "U") at that time period.
Second, we typically discount the amount of utility we get in the future. We usually assign this as a set rate called the discount factor ( δ ) . Thus, we get the following equation:

∑ (U_t) * (δ^t-1) = U_1 + δU_2 + δ²U_3 + ... + δ^{T-1 \}) U_T

This simply means the total utility we get over a time period is the sum of all utilities of all periods based on today. All the above is considered in "classical economics" as exponential discounting. This assumes that

people have a constant discount factor and are impatient (δ < 1),
that people treat amounts as "bursts" of consumption," and
that utility is linear in amount.

However, economists that study behavioral economics show that some of these assumptions are flawed through though experiments and empirical results.
One way this has manifested into policy action is the concept of "nudge theory" by Richard Thaler. This suggests that consumer behavior can be influenced by small suggestions and positive reinforcements; the argument is that it reduces market failure and encourages desirable actions. However, this is hotly debated ethically as being paternalistic and may not even work.
Another theory brought about via behavioral economics is the idea of "present-bias preferences" by Ted O'Donoghue and Matthew Rabin. The idea is that when people consider tradeoffs between two future moments, present bias gives more weight to the earlier future moment. In this scenario, we have two types of people: naifs and sophisticates. Sophisticates know that they'll have self-control problems in the future, so they plan ahead while naifs do not see the self-control problems. Depending on if there is a cost or a reward, these two types of people will "cave in" at different times.
In general, the utility function (called β-δ preferences) is as follows:

For all t, U^t (u_t, u_(t+1),...,u_T) = δ^t u_t + β ∑ δ^τ + u_τ |t+1 < τ < T
where 0 < β, δ <= 1
β is the present bias, and β=1 makes equation exponential discounting.

How do these relate to gacha games? Well, the former (nudging) is like the third party (iTunes store, Google Play) directly intervening on your behalf saying that you can only spend so-and-so this month. The latter (present bias) puts the self-imposed limit in your own hands, which a third party adds as a restriction.
Consider these aspects in future discussions regarding regulations surrounding gacha games.
[it's been a year since I've been fully immersed in this stuff, so econ folks please check if the explanations are suitable]
Ending Remarks
I hope these initial results illustrated some fascinating aspects of how our subreddit has viewed gacha games. I know that there are a few questions that I haven't covered here due to lack of time, so look forward the next part of the survey results!
Let me know if there are specific statistical analyses you would like for me to examine in the comments.
If you want to put friend requests for the gacha games I'm playing [Fate GO (JP), OPTC (JP) Dokkan (GBL)], DM me.
In addition, I'm thinking about releasing a clean and anonymized version of the data in csv form not only as a measure of transparency, but also if you want to do your own data manipulation. If you (the community) approve at over 75%, then I will publish it in the next post.

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