#and straight after new year's we have the annual stock taking on the first weekend of january | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wyntertimes-blog · 4 years

Text

From Todays: PopBitch News Can't be arsed to switch your gas and electricity supplier? Get free service LOOK AFTER MY BILLS to do it for you. 2 minute sign up, they switch you to a great deal taking care of everything. When that deal ends they automatically switch you again without you having to do a thing! Average saving £253. Over 200,000 customers signed up and they're rated 'Excellent' on Trustpilot with 5,842 reviews.

[Find out more here]

"I never had a rider. I got my thermos." – Slick Rick

Free newsletter every Thursday subscribe

Email stories to us [email protected]

* Getting loose with Ivanka and Jay Kay

* The secret portrait of Karren Brady

* PLUS: Cock rings on the 6 O'Clock News

>> Strange times <<The poll winners' party

It probably won't surprise you to learn that champagne corks were popping at 10pm prompt at the Baby Shard on Thursday night, as the Times and the Sun celebrated the projected result of the exit poll.

It's also unlikely to surprise you to learn that Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, Les Hinton and all the usual News UK suspects were there too, getting their fourth and fifth trolleys of booze brought in to the office by the time Blyth Valley announced.

The one thing that might surprise you though is that in among the revellers was... Cate Blanchett.This year's series of Love Island has taken three of the top ten spots in Ofcom's list of most complained-about shows of 2019.

>> Straight shooter <<Randy Andy makes 'em standy

It's been a bruising few weeks for Prince Andrew since his cataclysmic interview with Emily Maitlis – but he's probably brimming over with remorse and humility now, right?

Erm.

Earlier this month, Handsy Andy went on another of his (straightforward) shooting weekends. At breakfast one morning, everyone else in the party was sat quietly reading the papers when Andy came into the room.

As no-one stood up for him when he entered, he bellowed "OH HO HO! LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN, SHALL WE?" Then walked out of the room and re-entered, so that everyone could oblige him.There's a This Morning team WhatsApp group entitled "We Hate Phillip".

>> Big Questions <<Who's asking what this week?

What could have caused the Mail to pull a recent exclusive of theirs about a French masseuse meeting with Prince Andrew at Buckingham Palace back in 2000? The story made the paper's front page at the end of November but, save for a report of the Mail's report in the New York Post, there's no trace of it online now.If you subscribe to Popbitch, chances are your internet search history is something you'd rather was kept private. Protect yourself online (plus bypass digital censorship) by using a VPN. CyberGhost is currently offering Popbitch readers a 79% discount on its 18 month plan, which protects up to seven devices, for just £2.15 a month.

[Find out more here]

>> Westwood ho <<Getting loose with Ivanka

Before she became the accomplished businesswoman and occasional threat to global security that she is today, Ivanka Trump had teenage ambitions of becoming a fashion model.

Thanks to her family connections, she was seen for a number of jobs in the late 90s and became a bit of a favourite of Vivienne Westwood. Westwood's team used to make a point of letting the models pick the music they put on in the studio as a way of helping them to relax and feel comfortable on a shoot.

Ivanka's choice of music, every single time? Jamiroquai. Which she would then sing along to.

Peanut from the Kaiser Chiefs is preparing to run his 100th park run over the Christmas holidays.

>> Bah humbug <<More drama at the BBC

The BBC is going heavy on trailing their version of A Christmas Carol this year, making a big song and dance out of the fact it stars Guy Pearce, is written by Peaky Blinders' Steven Knight and has been exec produced by Tom Hardy. One person who's been a little left out in the cold though is director Nick Murphy.

Poor Nick was so miffed that the BBC didn't invite him to take part in a special Q&A event about the show that he ended up turning up anyway to rage at the head of BBC Drama there. His ire hasn't just been reserved for TV execs either as he's started taking pot shots at Tom Hardy on Twitter too, claiming that the catering department was more involved in production than Hardy.

There may be some lingering resentment there, as Hardy was set to star in A Christmas Carol (as well as produce) until he suddenly decided to bail out. But if you ask us, Nick, you had a lucky escape.

On set at Hardy and Knight's previous BBC1 collab, Taboo, crew members reported that Hardy wasn't shy about staying in character, stark-bollock naked, for much of the time. And we can only imagine what it would have been like trying to direct with the Ghost of Christmas Past's dick and balls wafting all around.

Nick Cave Watch: Everyone's favourite goth dad was spotted at an Elton John concert in Melbourne this week.

>> Picture this <<More corporate creepiness

One of Jeffrey Epstein's former employees claims that Epstein kept a 6ft portrait of his mysterious 'fixer' Ghislaine Maxwell above the pool in his sprawling New Mexico mansion. Not just any old portrait though. One of her naked and "posing provocatively".

He wouldn't be the first icky businessman to have had a life-size nudey portrait of a close associate on their wall though. West Ham's porn-purveying chairman, David Sullivan, was once well known in the football world for having a huge painting hung in his basement office.

Of his now Vice-Chairman at West Ham FC, Dame Karren Brady.Andy Coulson has been advised by friends that having his own name in his new PR firm (Coulson Partners) is enough to stop most major organisations from hiring them. So far it's advice that he (and his ego) seem unwilling to take.

>> Shaky casting <<Merry Christmas everyone!

This year's bleak seasonal murder drama, Responsible Child (based on the real life story of a 14 year-old killer who was tried as an adult and jailed) has been getting rave reviews.

Whether it was the shocking nature of the story, or the impressive performance of the child actor who inhabited the role, we couldn't tell you, but for some reason most of the reviews have failed to mention the most important thing about the production.

The kid who plays the murderer is the grandson of Shakin' Stevens.

This week's Media Masters podcast is a chat with historian and broadcaster David Starkey. His outspoken, unforgiving style and trenchant opinions have earned him a reputation as being "the rudest man in Britain". In this in-depth interview he explains the impact it's had over his career.

[Listen/Download on Media Masters]

>> One love <<The race for Xmas No.1

Now that The X Factor is an utterly spent force, and December streaming is dominated by seasonal classics, the annual race for Christmas No.1 has become a much more unpredictable beast.

Re-releases are subjected to permanent ACR restrictions ('Accelerated Chart Ratio') with streaming, which basically means that old, established classics have to generate twice the number of streams as new tracks in order to compete. (Without this, three of the top four last Friday would have been Mariah Carey, Wham! and The Pogues.)

So who's in the running this year? There's another tedious song about sausage rolls from Ladbaby (hideous; but for a good cause). There's the inevitable Ed Sheeran (this year on Stormzy's record). And of course, there's the now traditional Facebook campaign choice.

Facebook campaigns are a bit of a lost cause but it has to be said: of all the songs that the British public could have picked to champion this year, Jarvis Cocker's "(Cunts Are Still) Running The World", is a pretty good one.

[Join the campaign]

REO Speedwagon's original of Can't Fight This Feeling has been streamed more than Bastille's John Lewis ad cover since its release in mid-November.

>> Electile dysfunction <<Another cock up on the Beeb

On election day, there are very strict rules in the UK which forbid news organisations from discussing politics until polling is closed. Which means that news teams have to ignore the biggest story of the day and compile their news bulletins from whatever innocuous filler they can drum up instead.

As part of their non-political Six O'Clock News broadcast last Thursday, BBC1 chose to air an item about the postal service and people sending tiny items in oversized parcels. Alas, it seems there was a very good reason that the Six O'Clock News hadn't touched that story previously.

One of the parcels that was prominently displayed as part of the pre-watershed segment clearly showed a cock ring.Nominative Determinism of the Week: The Senior doorkeeper of the House of Commons... Phil Howse!

>> 2019: The Annual <<A last little gift from us

That's almost it for another year. We've got a couple of special issues to send out between now and 2020, so we'll be back in your inboxes before the New Year. But if you want to sink your teeth into some more Popbitch material over the Christmas holidays, then download our 2019 annual.

It's totally free, and features some of our favourite stories of the year. Print it off at work! Use it as last-minute wrapping paper! Give a copy to your most corruptible niece or nephew!

[Get it here]

And if you enjoy it – or have enjoyed any of the last 52 weeks of Popbitch – and feel like tossing a few quid into our Santa hat for a Christmas pint then we'd be ever so grateful.

[Donate here]

LAST CHANCE BEFORE XMAS: Anyone who donates £10 or more to this year's fundraiser is eligible to download a special play-at-home edition of the Popbitch Popquiz. We'll email you a digital pack with all the answer sheets, question packs and puzzle pages you need to host your own quiz.

[Donate to Popbitch here]

>> Hmmms <<Cats, dogs, Muppets

Rowan Atkinson deepfaked Dior advert

[Ready to lose your libido?]

The reviews of Cats are restoring our faith and trust in journalism

[Read on Prospect]

Picture of dogs in mid-air, catching frisbees

[Cute: what more do you want?]

Need to stock up on wine before the holidays kick off? Naked Wines is offering Popbitch readers the chance to get a case of six sumptuous bottles, plus free delivery, for just £19.99.

[Get your orders in soon!]

What do you get for the man who has everything?

[Try an annual Wank-Pass]

40 years since the Muppets/John Denver Christmas special

[Watch on YouTube]

A crash course in the 100 most memorable memes of the decade

[Read on BuzzFeed]

The real life, bricks-and-mortar Popbitch Popquiz will return in January. Don't let dry January stop you having any fun. Join us at Smiths of Smithfield for another seven rounds of trivia, music and smut with our host, Tom Webb!

[Tuesday 14th January]

[Tuesday 28th January]

Thanks to: JM, bunkle, CA, JC, Party_B, ST, T, JM, BB, CA, RT, MC, bobbi_fleckmann, EC, intheissynoho, MC, AM

Old Jokes Home

I just smashed my keyboard and I'm so angry.

I lost Ctrl.

Still Bored?

If you've already read this year's annual and fancy revisiting some previous years, the last five years' worth are free to download on the Popbitch site throughout December...

[Load up for the holidays]

You subscribed to the Popbitch Newsletter which usually comes out on Thursdays.

If you would not like to receive any further issues to [email protected] you can unsubscribe

@skippyv20 @yankeewally

5 notes · View notes

blackswaneuroparedux · 5 years

Photo

Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, Duchess of Marlborough (1877-1964)

Consuelo Vanderbilt was one of the most highly sought-after heiresses of America’s Gilded Age: the period between 1870-1900 when US industrialists became the richest men in the world. The only daughter of railroad millionaire William Vanderbilt and his formidable wife Alva, Consuelo was pre-destined to marry into the British aristocracy like her godmother Consuleo Yznaga who had married the heir to the 7th Duke of Manchester.

In 1886 William Vanderbilt inherited $65 million on the death of his father. Wishing to upstage her social rival Mrs Astor, Alva commissioned a Rococo summer house she christened the Marble House on Newport Rhode Island that was modelled on Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon at Versailles and the largest privately-owned yacht in the world called the Alva. Her palatial Vanderbilt mansion on 5th Avenue could comfortably host 1000 people at a legendary masquerade ball she held in 1883 costing $3 million.

Though surrounded by such opulence, Consuelo Vanderbilt was schooled strictly by a series of governesses and tutors. Her mother Alva forced the pretty child to wear a steel corset contraption that would keep her spine ramrod straight, she was whipped with a riding crop when disobedient and was forced to abide by Alva’s golden rule ‘I do the thinking. You do as you are told’. Consuelo blossomed into the beau ideal of a Belle Epoque beauty: slim, delicately pretty with a swan-like neck and thick, dark, luxuriant upswept hair. She had five proposals of marriage including one from Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg that Consuelo declined.

Lady Paget, American-born Minnie Stevens, introduced Consuelo Vanderbilt to Charles Spencer-Churchill, who had become 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1892 inheriting the monolithic Blenheim Palace and crippling debts. Consuelo disliked ‘Sunny’ Marlborough and in a rare act of independence became secretly engaged to New York socialite Winthrop Rutherford. Alva fought back: first threatening to have Rutherford murdered then pretending that Consuelo’s disobedience was quite literally killing her. According to Consuelo, she was locked in her room until she agreed to marry the 9th Duke who had negotiated a settlement of $42.5 million in railroad stock from the Vanderbilts plus an annual allowance of $100,000 for he and his future wife.

The 9th Duke married Consuelo Vanderbilt in New York in 1895 telling her after the ceremony that he was in love with another woman and that he ‘despised anything that was not British’. The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough returned to England via Paris where the duke dressed her like a doll at Worth and replenished the family jewels with Vanderbilt money acquiring pearls that belonged to Catherine the Great and the Empress Eugenie. As Consuelo wrote in her autobiography The Glitter and the Gold (1953), ‘jewels never gave me pleasure and my heavy tiara invariably produced a violent headache, my dog collar a chafed neck’.

On meeting the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, Consuelo was told ‘your first duty is to have a child and it must be a son because it would be intolerable to have that little upstart Winston (Churchill) become duke’. Consuelo did produce an heir and a spare, Lord John and Lord Ivo, while also conquering London society and dazzling the Prince of Wales and his Marlborough House Set. Consuelo’s father bought Sutherland House on Mayfair’s Curzon Street for the Marlboroughs to entertain during the London season and Consuelo was inducted into the social round of Marlborough House balls, Royal Ascot, weekends at Sandringham and boxes at the Royal Opera House.

The Glitter and the Gold demonstrates Consuelo’s talent as a perceptive witness to great moments in late Victorian and Edwardian history. She attended the Duchess of Devonshire’s fancy dress ball in 1897, Queen Victoria’s funeral in 1901, the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 for which she was Queen Alexandra’s canopy bearer and travelled to India for King Edward’s coronation durbar as a guest of Viceroy Lord Curzon. The Marlboroughs travelled to the court of Russia’s last Tsar Nicholas II where Consuelo had a private audience with Queen Alexandra’s sister the Dowager Empress Marie and commented ‘her courtesy to us was favourably compared in court circles with the Tsarina’s failure to give us an audience and the realisation how unpopular the latter’s unsocial nature was making her’.

In 1905 the Marlborough family was painted by John Singer Sargent. The most beautiful duchess in England was also drawn by Hellieu and painted by society artist Boldini. But in 1906 the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough separated. As Consuelo concluded, ‘we had been married eleven years (and) life together had not brought us closer. Time had but accentuated our differences. The nervous tension that tends to grow between people of different temperament condemned to live together had reached its highest pitch’.

The Duchess quit Blenheim Palace and took-up residence in Sutherland House. It was to her credit that the Prince of Wales’s set did not drop her though she spent an increasing amount of time in the company of the aesthetes who called themselves The Souls led by Lady Desborough. Guests at Sutherland House included H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Sir J. M. Barrie, Margot Asquith, Lady Astor, Lady Cunard and the Grand Duke Dimitri of Russia. She took a small country house, Crowhurst, on the Marlborough estate and – taking a cue from the redoubtable Alva – became a leader of the women’s suffrage movement and a frequent visitor to the Strangers’ Gallery in the Palace of Westminster.

In 1921 the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough formally divorced and Consuelo married dashing French aviator Jacques Balsan who she had first met in Paris at her coming out ball hosted by the Duc de Gramont. It was, in Consuelo’s words, a marriage of love. The 9th Duke of Marlborough married a dazzling American beauty Gladys Deacon. Marcel Proust said of Gladys, ‘I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm’. The marriage ended acrimoniously with the 9th Duke evicting Gladys from Blenheim after she had ruined her beauty injecting her face with paraffin wax.

Consuelo and Jacques Balsan lived an idyllic existence at their chateau St Georges-Motel near Fontainebleu where cousin Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine were frequent visitors. The aging Alva Vanderbilt bought a neighbouring chateau to be near her daughter. The 9th Duke died in 1934 and Consuelo was once again welcome at Blenheim Palace as a guest of her son the 10th Duke. The Balsans were evacuated from France in 1940 at the onset of the Nazi invasion and set-up home in Casa Alva south of Palm Beach in Florida.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan died in Long Island, New York, in 1964 and was buried on the Blenheim estate next to her younger son Lord Ivo Spencer-Churchill.

#consuelo #marlborough #aristocracy #history #britain #biography #women

18 notes · View notes

marigorbital · 6 years

Text

Dumb Ducks in the Water: Part 14

IT’S FINALLY HERE. Three actual years later, but it’s here.

A lot has happened in my life for the past three years and, to make a long excuse short, I was doing a lot of life questioning and dealing with events. And once I got out of my dark cloud, I decided to return to this fic while returning with my own writing projects. So I’m here to finish this fic, though I’m not sure how long it will take (I hope within a year?)--I’m just promising not to go MIA again, is all.

Anyway, some notes on this chapter:

- Listen, I did NOT plan on returning when the 3rd season of Free! came. This is pure coincidence, honestly. That being said, SO MANY THINGS HAVE CHANGED. Side characters have personalities now... Isuzu exists (I’ll have to, at some point, change Yukiko’s name)... People are in college now... Anyway, I want to remind folks that I started this fic in 2014/2015 and I’m trying to stay true to that, so anything that doesn’t match up with the current season is kind of like oh well for me.

- This chapter features tweets. Yeah. I used some website that make them look like they were written in 2009, lol, but we’re just gonna go with it. Also, want to give a shoutout to my best friends, who spent like five hours coming up with the twitter handles.

- Speaking of which, trigger warning possibly: cyber bullying (?) and rumors. Now, I generally try to keep this fic lighthearted, so I am also touching the mentioned subjects in a lighthearted manner for the most part, but I also know that if what happens in this chapter ever happened to me in high school, I would have been mortified. So I tried to respect that and take it a little seriously, which also pertains to the rest of the plot--but this is still Dumb Ducks. No PSAs, just some self-awareness.

- I am a little worried the quality is not up to par with this chapter because it’s been a while and I just wanted to get this chapter over with because I’d rather write other scenes, so I’m super sorry if it’s only sort of funny/cute or too serious. It’ll be better next chapter! (Which hopefully comes out by December?)

Anyway.

Start from the beginning or go to the handy-dandy tag page and pick up where you left off.

Enjoy.

------

It was still Tuesday.

But worse yet, it was time for him to face the swim team.

And to be honest, if you asked Nitori, that was kind of bullshit.

There he stood, observing the pool of sharks in the distance just waiting for him to make a move. A whole lot of damage had been done in the past eight hours since Rin shouted a profound WHAT THE FUCK at Nitori and Momo’s dorm doorway, which immediately stirred up a banana telephone game of epic proportions throughout Samezuka Academy. Pair that with the fact that both of the dimwits were publicly announced to head to the principal’s office together and that something amiss had happened in the cafeteria last night—and boy, oh boy, were the rumors trending the social sphere like something straight out of Nitori’s nightmares. They had gone viral, top of the chart gossip among their peers, who were all too ready to roast the couple into infamy.

It all started with a tweet.

Some rando on the basketball team had overheard Rin catching Nitori and Momotarou getting caught in an explicit position at their dorm, and what with the rumors of Samezuka’s swim team having more tea than a J-drama now stirring, this caught the attention of several bored teenage boys before classes had even started.

The sports news network was simple. Basketball passed the rumors around to get some details. One teammate asked who found out about this and were replied to with the captain caught them. Another asked, which one’s the captain?? And another replied, the guy who cries all the time.

Once the rumors spread over to other sports teams at the academy, the Samezuka Swim Team Thot Conspiracy began. It was the volleyball team who mentioned that both Nitori and Mikoshiba were sent to the principal’s office that same day, as sourced by a classmate in Nitori’s homeroom. A peculiar detail because how did the school find out about what the couple was doing in their bedroom? Did someone rat them out?

Then someone on the tennis team who was also in the culinary club mentioned, I heard they got caught doing shit in the cafeteria.

Cue the controversy.

This made folks on the baseball team wonder just how many times the two had done it and bets were being taken about when the relationship started. Someone on the bicycle team hashtagged the gossip thread as #bombezuka, which set off a flurry of well-intentioned, damage control tweets from students who didn’t want the reputations of Aiichirou Nitori and Momotarou Mikoshiba to get tarnished.

Things like who cares if they’re banging and let them live in PEACE to they’re not gay and who are we even talking about flooded social media circles as the rumor spread outside of Samezuka’s sports clubs and into the general student body. Did things get out of control? Naturally. Details were being made up, people weren’t entirely sure who was involved in the cafeteria fucking, and lavish erotic assumptions about who had the biggest dick energy on the Samezuka swim team were battling it out for all of this side of Japan’s internet to see.

One person assumed the captain (Rin) was angry because he was in a secret love affair with “the silver twink” or something. Another person insisted, Mikoshiba-san has been bragging about being with Nitori-san since last weekend. Another student saw them nuzzling faces on the metro train, claimed they were on a date. Oh, definitely, said another, saw them on the beach making out.

Eventually someone had the nerve to try to confirm some things with the swim team by messaging Toru Iwashimizu, who only responded:

But because Iwashimizu had responded, the #bombezuka thread had popped up on the rest of the swimming team’s Twitter feeds, who righteously had mixed reactions of freaking out to defend their teammates’ honor and freaking out because their suspicions had finally been confirmed.

To no one’s surprise, Nagisa Hazuki caught wind of the frenzy, despite being from another school entirely.

And with Rin Matsuoka’s name mixed in with the rumors, it did not take long before six degrees reached his younger sister Gou, who could not believe what had unfurled throughout the day without any comment by her brother. In a desperate attempt to get him to notice the Twitter storm, she tweeted:

The only silver lining of the tweetastrophe was that at least no one was being inherently meanspirited about the potential lust blossoming between Nitori and Momotarou, which was partially due to the swimming team’s notoriety. On paper, sure, the swim team was the pride and joy of the Samezuka Academy, but that’s not why they were famous among their peers. They were famous because the rest of the school viewed the swim team as a group of guys obsessed with swimming. They did nothing but swim. The whole point of the indoor swimming pool was for the team to practice even during the winter—when they didn’t even have to swim—or whenever it rained.

Barely anyone knew anything about the students in the swim team, so many folks figured they had the stock personalities of a school of fish. All going for the same goal to be a professional athlete and not much else. They were untouchable; their schedules surrounding practices, training camps, and swim meets, with not much room for dating in between. The only other thing people knew about them was their annual tradition of hosting a maid café at their school’s cultural festival, which no one could reasonably explain.

That was it. Listen, people figured if there was ever going to be a scandal coming from the swim team, it was probably going to be about some guy shooting up steroids in the locker room or wearing unapproved swimsuits for better aerodynamics in competitions or maybe even something crazy like the students were all brainwashed and manufactured into disciples of Poseidon himself to carry on the legend of Samezuka forever. They weren’t known for actual drama, not even while people heard about Rin Matsuoka swimming for some other school’s team halfway through a competition for some reason last year (that was weird, but okay) or even this year when some folks whispered about Sousuke Yamazaki having a hurt shoulder and, like, that was sad, but he still swam in the championship, so other students figured it wasn’t so bad. Hell, if you even heard about those two so-called incidents, you had to be real close to the swim team—and the fact of the matter was, what happened in Samezuka’s swim team generally stayed with the swim team.

So, when rumors spread about last year’s swim team captain’s little brother possibly dating this year’s captain’s ex-roommate, who some said might be next year’s captain, too, things got a little bit juicy.

To the student body of the Samezuka Academy, this was like finding out the royals were having incestuous affairs behind the castle doors, which got people thinking: maybe the reason no one had ever heard of the Samezuka swim team dating anyone outside of school was because maybe the swim team was dating… each other.

Yet, while folks were reveling in the swim team’s supposed love triangle plot twists, it was all at the expense of Aiichirou Nitori’s dignity. People were quick to forget that. It was one thing to be teased by his teammates about possibly dating Momotarou, but to witness his reputation get warped into being the promiscuous sexpot darling of the swim team was a level of humiliation Nitori had never known. He read tweet after tweet, seeing his name become the butt of a thousand jokes by students who he had never heard of, let alone spoken to.

It was a wild exchange. There were positive messages at first that called him cute, saying no surprise he’s dating someone, remembering him as the second-year breaststroke swimmer, saying how quiet in school he was, saying how small he was, saying well, if he’s still on the swim team, he must be good, right? They said he must be flexible, then mentioned Momo and Rin and Sousuke and Seijuro and damn near any teammate people saw him with at some point during the school year. They got more invasive, calling him relay boy, and assumed he was experienced, assumed he was bottom, assumed he was easy.

He cried about this, locked his dorm room and wept at his desk as he used his laptop to delete his Twitter and turn all his other social media accounts private before the gossip switched platforms. And once it was done and he could finally use his phone again without notifications stalling the system, Nitori stared at his last text message, one from Sousuke that read, emergency meeting at the pool now.

There stood Aiichirou Nitori at the entrance of the indoor swimming pool, with eyes puffed red and swollen, just like his ego.

“I hate this,” he muttered, his voice hoarse.

No one wore their swimsuits, which was good because like hell was Nitori going to do some goddamn laps after all the bullshit he went through today. As he sauntered down the gym in his hoodie and sweatpants, he looked down at the tile floor and listed the day’s events in his head. He woke up at 5:30 in the morning, broke into the cafeteria to smuggle in paper cranes, got caught, kissed Momo, had a nice breakfast, kissed Momo again but in his underwear so Rin could catch them—and thus the downward spiral set off. Today was the first day he started his first relationship. He should have been happy. It should have been a good day, really. But all Nitori felt was tired.

He was so, so tired.

“Honestly, fuck ‘em,” said Toru Iwashimizu, who sat at the edge of the pool with his feet dipped in the water. “Summer break is coming up anyway. They’re going to forget all about this.”

Most of the swim team sat down on the floor as a huddled group, with a few teammates just off to the side by the pool edge or by the wall. Nitori couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with anyone, knowing what had been rumored, but he saw someone approaching him and stepped back.

“Nitori-senpai?” whispered Momotarou, still in his school uniform. Not because he couldn’t get into their dorm room to change clothes, but because he chose not to.

“Where were you?” asked Nitori. He looked up at Momo then, pointing an incredulous glance at his manic kouhai, and didn’t care if anyone noticed their confrontation.

There was no question that Nitori-senpai looked like a wreck. His eyes were bloodshot, his nose and lips cracked at the irritated dry patches he must have wiped too many times, and his skin dulled from exhaustion. Once he found out about all the rumors, Momo’s first reaction was to go straight to his dorm room and talk with Nitori, but when he heard his senpai’s sobbing and how obviously hurt he was, his next impulse was to stop the madness. For the past twenty minutes, Momotarou went to several sports teams and people whose names he recognized in the tweeting threads and made a small statement to each of them in person. He needed to come up with a better solution, he knew that, but it was all he could think of for now.

He told them, you have hurt someone I care about.

“I was trying to fix this,” he told Nitori, even though he also knew the concept of fixing their shattered reputations might have been impossible by now.

“How could you possibly fix this?”

“Oy, Ai,” interjected Rin, who like the rest of the swim team had been taking note of Nitori’s dejected state. “That’s what we’re all trying to do now. Come up with a way to fix this mess.”

Fix messes, huh, Nitori thought. It seemed like he was always caught in some mess that needed to be fixed, at least for the past four days. Eventually the escalation must stop and crash, that’s what he was learning. He just never thought it would crash on him.

Nitori looked up to evaluate the rest of the team, taking note of their worried yet puzzled expressions as they looked back at him. He saw Minami and Uozumi sitting up against the wall, their lips pursed as if holding back their own commentary until they felt safe to do so. Off to the side, where most of the team sat, lied Nakagawa on his back and yet he averted his attention up at Nitori, then began to sit up when he noticed Nitori staring down at him. Iwashimizu took his feet out of the water and turned toward Nitori, sitting cross-legged and cross-armed. They looked guilty, or maybe Nitori just wanted them to feel that way. He wanted to blame them for their casual teasing as some sort of fuel for the rumor fire, even if he couldn’t prove it as the catalyst to the day’s events.

There was a moment when he wanted to blame Rin for shouting so loud that morning, for getting involved, for being so known at school. It didn’t last long, though, because even with everything that had happened, Nitori couldn’t muster up the nerve to blame his senpai for caring about him and his reckless behavior. As he looked Rin directly in the eyes, Nitori noticed the accountability Rin felt for his part of the scandal, how much of a captain he looked during this crisis—if you could call it that, Nitori wondered, feeling dumb. God, he felt so dumb, standing dead center at an emergency swim team meeting—a meeting—over rumors about him fucking—fucking—Momo.

Over fucking Momo.

When it came to Momo, his anger was complicated. It wasn’t the rage of someone who felt betrayed or even the kind of frustration someone felt because of how stupid their friend was. His fury was much more personal, a fury that made him obsess over every bad mistake he made in the past few days because of Momo’s whims and how any sane person would have said no, would have said the line was being crossed, would have realized they were setting themselves up for a messy catastrophe, but not him. Truth was, as Nitori realized it after sobbing at his desk, that he was, in a way, having fun. And the reason he was mad was because it had been spoiled.

He looked back at Momo and weakly raised his hand with his fingers twitching in frustration, pulling the air as he pulled his thoughts together.

“Nitori-senpai,” said Momo, who stepped closer ready to accept any punishment he was about to be given. “I’ll do whatever it takes to fix this.”

Yeah, he got anxious. Yeah, what they were doing was stupid.

But it was fun.

Nitori got mad because he hated how everyone wanted to rewrite his memories. They weren’t there watching the sunset at the beach with Momo while eating ice cream after a day of dancing and shooting water guns. They weren’t there going into downtown to shop for origami paper and eating lunch while binge-watching anime in their dorm room, just hanging out together and enjoying each other’s company for like twelve hours straight. They weren’t there eating breakfast in a little kitchen shop, planning dates and dodging bashful glances on the morning of their first kiss. They had no idea how much of a big deal it was, how it felt, that first time. All they had was this idea of who they were—just a couple of zany kids, off to the side, doing nothing important, just messing around. Who were they to try to tell Nitori the story of (maybe) the first time he fell in love?

Momo and his big mouth, his stupid ideas, his dumb heart.

Nitori dropped his hand. He took one step forward and plopped his head onto Momo’s chest, letting out a deep sigh. First day of a relationship and he was mad. God, he felt so dumb.

“Is it worth all this?” he said to Momo. “How long are we going to hide this secret?”

This secret, of course, referred to the surprise party they were planning, which had clearly become the bane of their existence. What started out as a prank turned sentimental gesture had wildly spun out of a control as the basis of their public outing for all to jest—and there was still another half of the week to go through before it was even supposed to happen.

Yet, given the rumor situation, when the swim team heard “secret,” a slight misunderstanding prompted folks to speak up.

“Oh, well, you don’t have to hide anymore, Nitori-san,” said Minami from the back, a little preemptively. “We’re totally cool with it.”

“Uh,” Momo stuttered, looking down at Nitori, who merely closed his eyes and sighed further. “That’s not—”

“That’s right, Ai,” said Rin. “We’ll make sure this doesn’t get out of control.”

Sousuke also chimed in with a supportive, “You’re not alone.”

And while it was sweet how quickly the Samezuka Swim Team turned into the Momo-Ai Defense Squad, hearing the phrase you’re not alone had channeled the exact reason Nitori was furious in the first place. He wasn’t alone, was quite prophetically forced to not be alone—when that’s what he wanted. He gripped Momo’s shirt, tugged down at the neckline as his silent call for freedom, and whispered into Momo’s ear, “Fix this.”

As more teammates spoke up to lend their support, it dawned on Momotarou that despite the fact that there was no real plan on how to come out as a couple since they were originally just rolling with the team’s own suspicions, this was probably not it. This was not how anything was supposed to go. He wrapped his arms around Nitori, feeling his senpai give in the embrace and start to choke up. Things had gone too far over nothing and no amount of white lies could change the fact that Momo, frankly, messed up.

“Stop,” he announced, then groaned as he gave in to surrender. “We were just trying to plan a party.”

Huh?

Even Sousuke, who was helping plan the party, wondered why the flustered ginger had snapped out and revealed the party plans. Collectively, no one on the team could tie the connection between Momo and Ai’s relationship outing and a… party? Unless, maybe it was a coming out party? Were they gonna be that elaborate about announcing their relationship? Wouldn’t that be a little much? Was that even a thing?

“What are you talking about?” asked Rin.

But the truth had to come out, and so with Nitori still in his arms, Momo exasperatedly confessed, “It started with the bread, but then you saw the bread, so then we couldn’t use it anymore, but I didn’t want to give up on—well, see, I was trying to plan a surprise because, come on, look at this pool, it’s so big! Like, how am I supposed to be at this school and not put stuff in it, so then why not origami cranes? No one can get mad at origami cranes—because they’re beautiful—and it’s barely a prank if there’s 5000 origami cranes—I mean, that’s practically art—like, honestly, I think it’d even be a good idea for the summer festival, just putting it out there because I’ve been working really hard on making them, you can ask Yamazaki-senpai, who—actually—is the reason we started planning a party. Yeah, ugh, because it was just a really good idea and we couldn’t explain why we are on the beach on top of each other—but nothing happened! We weren’t even thinking about that yet! We were just having a good time and then Yamazaki-senpai was like oh, what are you doing, give me my radio back, you’re planning a party, right? And we were like, yeah, that’s a great idea because it was, so then we had to go through with it, which is why we were always together, but then everyone kept thinking we were together together because we took a shower together and like, yeah, okay, so I checked Nitori-senpai out, but who wouldn’t? Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t—no, you can’t, because Nitori-senpai is an amazing person who deserves to be checked out and, you know what? I’d do it again, honestly.”

Momo took a moment to breathe.

“Ugh, not that it matters,” Momo continued, his confession getting louder, “because then everybody was getting suspicious because of how much we hung out and Yamazaki-senpai couldn’t take the cranes to the cafeteria, so we had to, and the freaking cafeteria manager came in too early, so we had to run and run and it was sunrise and Nitori-senpai looked beautiful and, like, that was the moment—I couldn’t just not kiss him, especially after last night’s failure, so I did and it was great and today was supposed to be a great day because today—TODAY—was the first time I’ve ever kissed someone and today was supposed to be special because I asked Nitori-senpai out on a date and he said sure and I was,” Momo panted before he calmed down and finished, “I was really happy about that.”

Nitori looked up at Momo, then softly uttered, “Momo-kun…”

“I’m angry, too,” said Momo, meeting Nitori’s gaze. “I ruined our first day.”

The team stood there, stunned.

It was a lot to digest, particularly since Momo gave no context to anything he said, just spouted out a stream of consciousness that only select people could put together in a coherent timeline. But while some team members were trying to figure out the missing details, Rin—who felt he understood most of the Momo speak—hesitantly spoke up and said, “So, you two were planning a party here in the gym?”

Momo and Nitori nodded.

“And you knew about this?” Rin asked, turning around to Sousuke.

“Yup,” he said.

“But you two,” Rin turned back to the frazzled couple, “weren’t dating until… today?”

“Right,” confirmed Momo.

“But I saw… you both… this morning,” said Rin, trying to make sense of the lewd scene he walked in on earlier in the day. Who hooks up on the first morning they’re together?

“We were trying to distract you,” explained Nitori, who stood straight while still in Momo’s embrace and motioned his hands toward their intimate hug. “And it worked really well because we ended up distracting the whole school.”

“I can’t believe this.” Rin threw his head back, trying to be respectful toward his kouhais’ newfound relationship, but also absolutely using every fiber of his being to contain his frustration over the day’s events. “You guys literally test me every goddamn day.”

Sousuke chuckled, covering his mouth with his hand.

“What are you laughing at?” snapped Rin. “This is a disaster!”

“Yeah.”

Still waiting for an answer or a punchline, Rin bucked his shoulders for Sousuke to continue.

To which he shrugged and said, “Oh, nothing. I just think they’re funny.”

“Oh my god,” groaned Rin.

A sense of freedom washed over the two kouhais, who both took in a relieved breath about not having to keep up the lies anymore. They looked at each other then and sort of smirked at each other. Nothing was fixed by confessing about the party and, now that they confirmed they were interested in each other, the dating jokes were probably only just beginning, but it was their truth and they just wanted to live in it. For a moment, neither of them wanted to feel anxious about what was going on around them, even as the team shouted more questions about why were they throwing a party in the first place or why were they showering together if they didn’t like each other then or why would they go to these extremes, dear god, and why weren’t they answering?!

Toru Iwashimizu, who knew very well that today was the first day of their relationship, called out to the team, “Let them have a day, guys. We’ll rag on them later.”

All Momo and Ai wanted was a simple moment together.

They lied on Nitori’s bed together on top of the sheets, facing each other with a quiet acceptance. So much chaos in one day, but for a moment, it didn’t matter. They could just enjoy being near each other. Give them a chance to get used to each other. Be with each other.

“I’m sorry I ruined today,” said Momotarou.

Nitori reached his hand out to Momo, twiddling their fingers.

“You didn’t really,” he said, accepting that fact. “You didn’t start those rumors.”

They scooted closer to each other, enough to press their chests together and nuzzle their necks like swans. Let them feel each other’s heartbeats, that’s all they wanted. Just enough to hear that they were still excited about each other even with clothes on, that their breathing was still deep for each other because they were comfortable in each other’s arms, that when it got quiet it was intimate, not awkward. Maybe they couldn’t have a first day, but they could have a first night.

“Can we kiss again?” asked Momo, who gently tucked some fallen bangs away from Nitori’s face in case he said yes and who noticed the faint blush creeping up his senpai’s ears.

“Sure.”

Their noses bumped, as they realized they weren’t sure how to tilt their heads for a kiss in bed. A soft giggle slipped out as Nitori pointed his finger to the right, and they both adjusted their heads for a second try. A sweet kiss for an evening, involving parted lips and heated cheeks.

Just a moment to relive that morning, that’s all they wanted.

Another kiss.

#dumb ducks in the water #momotori #momoai #free!#free! es #free! dive to the future #momotarou mikoshiba #nitori aiichirou #rin matsuoka #sousuke yamazaki #samezuka #ALSO let me know if the tweets don't show up and I'll just put the text back in #I hope you guys like this...

29 notes · View notes

queermtl · 6 years

Text

House of Baga Represent! An interview with Rita Baga

You’ve been doing Rita Baga since 2007?

Yes. 11 years of fabulousness.

And where did that start?

Here at Mado. I was hired first as a club kid with Marla (Deer) and Celinda and we were called the Three Stooges. And we were just paid to drink and party.

And how has that changed? You don’t get paid to drink and party anymore?

Yeah, a bit. But I have to perform now. Hard times.

How did you move from being a club kid to a drag queen?

I took time. First, well, I’ve been a club kid for like two years without really performing, it was really just doing maybe one show every three months on average. And for a birthday party I was performing and Mado saw me and said, oh you’re good on stage,’ and gave me bookings. It started that way.

Who did you look up to as a club kid?

Leigh Bowery. Even though I didn’t know his name when I was doing it. But I know it now. It’s really the inspiration. And Boy George a bit too. All the classics. But at that time there was no internet, really. It was 2007 and taking like three hours to have only access to a page like Google. So basically pictures from the magazines and I’ve been travelling a lot since I was a kid, so I’ve seen things around the world. And I was impressed by several things in New York City art museums. My father is a big pop art fan and at his house he has several pieces of Andy Warhol, real and fake, so that kind of image has always been an inspiration to me because it has always been a part of my life. Flashy colours and stuff like this. Marilyn.

When you were looking up things like Leigh Bowery before the internet, what other sources did you find?

I was reading a lot of magazines because my first job was at the Couche-Tard, and I was working the night shift so the only thing I had to do was press the gas button when there was customers and half of the time I was reading all the magazines. All the fashion magazines. I had three art courses, so I had to read a lot of books to find inspirations and I did that between 15 and 18 years old and that’s how I found my art identity.

What is it like for you when you meet young queens and they have such easy access to everything and they didn’t have to crawl through all of the dirt to find the diamonds?

I have mixed feelings because first, it’s so easy for them to have access to this kind of information now – and even to have access to everything. Because even when I started to wear fake lashes there was only like two stores in Montréal that had big lashes. And now if you want any kind of lashes you can order it from the internet. And same thing for wigs. If you wanted to have a green wig, there was one place and they had two wigs in stock so you had to fight with your colleagues to make sure you were the first one to have it. But now I’m also living with that reality, so at first I was like, not offended, but kind of jealous that I had to start at that time. But they don’t know what it was like 10 years ago when it was like the golden age. And there was no Grindr, everyone was going out just to meet and to have sex with different partners. So it’s a different time, but I’m glad that I’ve lived in this time too.

How does this easy access to things affect the transfer of information between generations? Are you a mother to a lot of queens?

I only have two drag daughters but I have plenty of children. With the dancers here at club Mado, I call them all my kids. House of Baga represent! But now I feel like there’s a gap between the generation before me and the generation right after me, because I’m kind of in the middle. There’s six or seven queens still doing it from my time. And now since five or six years there’s like 40 queens. There was an explosion. Everybody wants to do drag now.

How does a scene like the Montréal scene – it’s a very active scene, it’s a big family and it’s crossing over a lot because you in particular are hosting these big drag superstar shows with big famous queens from TV – co-exist with the other drag scene from RuPaul’s Drag Race?

Every time I’ve worked with the queens from Drag Race they were all really kind with us because I think they know what’s drag before being famous. They just know that we’re doing the same job that they’re doing. There’s always a clash in the audience when we mix local queens with queens from Drag Race because just, for example, last summer I hosted the Drag Superstars show (at Parc LaFontaine) with a fellow Montréal queen and she was doing a big number with eight dancers and the choreo was so tight and she had her moment. It was fabulous, everybody was screaming, but then right after there was a queen – I can’t remember who it was – but she did a regular number, she was all by herself, and the people were screaming so loud and I was like, ‘oh my god, she didn’t do a thing.’ So I’m just wondering if for them it changes stuff. Are they becoming lazy because they don’t have to do much now? I’ll ask that question next show. But I’m glad that we have this chance to perform with them because it’s bringing a lot of people.

The reaction you had last summer on that stage was amazing.

Yes. And I’m grateful.

You’re also the events coordinator with Pride …

The Queen Supreme.

So, because you’re also an artist, how do you think having an artist coordinate those events has made Pride Montréal something special?

I know that there are a bunch of Pride organizers who are also doing art stuff in different ways. And I think that has it comes to coordinate artists and just having access to stuff in the backstage, it’s easier because we understand what we need backstage. Or just to set a proper time to rehearse and stuff like that, it’s easier. But I think I’m bringing my artistic point of view to the table and I’ve been there for five years now. Already! And I think it’s a growing organization, we’re all growing together and it’s always growing like this from the beginning. So it’s challenging – we don’t want to do the same thing every year, every edition. So we’re trying to listen a lot to what the communities have to say. For now it seems to work.

Can you describe for me your experience just how Montréal has changed in the last 11 years you’ve been doing drag?

The gay village has changed so much in the past 10 years. 12 years ago it was my first experience in a gay village and I was shocked. There was people kissing everywhere and they were partying, and I was under the impression that people were partying all of the time. But now I’ve found that it’s more of a touristic place. The function seems to have changed now. It was a resistant place from the start, but now it’s still a place to mingle and to find friends but it’s mostly different venues to go if you want to have fun. It doesn’t matter your sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s just a place to have fun now. Just here at Mado, on the weekend, we have so many straight people in the audience. It’s like more than half of the audience is straight, so it’s changed a lot. When I first started to work here there were only LGBTQ friends in the place and two or three lost straight boys. Times have changed. It’s more the opposite now.

Do you think that the Village serves less of a political purpose now?

Yeah but if ever something happens in the world, it’s still a place where people want to come. It’s still a safe place for most of the LGBTQ community.

I remember after Orlando coming to the streets here.

It’s weird because if nothing’s happened, it’s like, ‘I’m not sure that I need to go out in the Village now to meet people, but I’ll go if there’s a show that I want to see.’ But if something happens, it’s like, ‘We need to be together in the Village.’

How does the world of the Village interact and work with the more underground scenes in Montréal like at venues like Never Apart or Notre-Dame des Quilles? Do those worlds interact?

More now than when I first started for sure. Now we have since 3 years, we have a Gala de Drag, an annual drag gala. And for the first time it was a mixed event with Cabaret Mado and Cocktail Bar, but I spoke with Uma (Gahd) and she wanted us to try to integrate the other venues outside the Village for next year. Not only the Café Cleopatra, but plenty of other venues showcasing drag queens and LGBTQ talent. So it’s a discussion that we never had before, so I’m guessing there’s some changes. Also the voguing community of Montréal, and just the competition last week for Mx. Fierté Montréal, we had Johnny Deville and Coco who is part of the voguing community. But I don’t know if you have noticed that there was a merge in the audience, and it was rare. I was thinking, ‘I’m seeing people here that I’ve seen at the vogue balls. I’ve never seen them here before.’ So that was cool.

The history of the two scenes goes together, so it makes sense.

You know, I used to feel like it was two separate worlds, but now it’s merging again.

Can you tell us about Mx. Fierté?

We have 53 drag queens from Montréal and Québec. We have 75 in total in the drag community so it’s more than three out of four, and each week we have between four and six cunt-estants. That’s my favourite word. Cunt-estant. And the jobs choose one at the end and the audience as well. This runs 11 weeks and we have two semi-finals.

And what happens to Mx. Fierté?

She, he, they win $2,000.00 and that person will have their own special float in the parade and will lead the T-Dance final closing number with another $2,000.00 budget. There’s also extra prizes – clothing, wigs, and a huge gift basket. There’s about $5,000.00 of prizes.

Can you go back and tell me a little bit about the club kid scene in Montréal? And do you have pictures of you from this period that we can publish on the internet?

I was so ugly. You’ll laugh. I’ll show you one and you’ll laugh.

What was that world like?

It was fearless, I think. Because now I feel like people are really aware of what a drag queen should look like. They’re watching Drag Race, they know all about drag queens. But 12 years ago it was like they just wanted to see a boy wearing a wig. That was all. We were so ugly. We were wearing stuff that we made completely drunk the day before. But it was fun. We were doing everything – it was horrible but it was fun. People were just wanting to have fun and now it seems harder to have fun, but people are so obsessed with their telephone. When I host, I’m like, ‘Can you just put your telephone in your pocket? Please?’

Unless they’re Instagramming you and hash-tagging #RitaBaga.

Unless. But it was not like this 12 years ago. People were more free. Even more sexual. Because now it’s so different. People are so secretive. They have their own secret lives. But it’s still a good time to live. 50 years ago it was another time. But I’m glad that I had the chance to start as a drag 12 years ago. Because I’m just 30 years old, but when I’m talking to my friends who are the same age who started drag at the same time, we’re like, ‘oh, do you remember when it was full of people drunk and smoking cigarettes in the bar?’ And it’s like, ‘fuck yeah! That was so good!’ And now people are so prudish and like, ‘You’re so polished! I know drag! I watch Drag Race!’

Can you tell me some of the people in Montréal that you’re excited about? Young queens or other performers?

I think Uma Gahd is one queen that we have to watch in the years to come. I love Tranna Wintour too, and every time I meet her I’m like, ‘I love you.’ Every time she performs I’m performing here. Every single time. The only time that we were performing at the same time at the same place was a Never Apart party, but I was only there for 30 minutes. I love an emerging artist called Jade Above. I love his music.

Tell us about the Drag Superstars show at the Casino Montréal on March 2.

I’m very excited because two years ago I set a goal of wanting to do a show at the Casino Montréal and it’s really a dream coming true. I’m excited. It’s a drag show and I’ll try my best to meet the girls because at the other show I was so stressed trying to change outfits between every song and I just missed the entire crew. I saw them only at the end to say, ‘you were amazing!’ But I had a talk with Sasha (Velour) because she needed a ride back and she’s really nice.

How did you pick the queens for this event?

I wanted to have a different lineup than what people are used to. I know that a lot of people love Ongina, but I don’t know why here in Canada she’s never booked. She has plenty of gigs in the US but here it’s more rare.

Is it her first time here?

It’s her first time in Montréal. She has performed in Vancouver, I think. And every time they’re touring they’re bringing half of the latest season and fan favourites. But I mean Ongina is a fan favourite. And I wanted to bring Pearl because we have tried to book Pearl two years ago and she cancelled the day before the performance. Same thing for Shea Coulée, so people were angry. ‘I want to see my queen!’ We’re listening. I’m excited and it’s going to be a fun night and we have a whole program for the night. There’s a show but after that there’s an after party and there’s six additional queens from Montréal joining the lineup and performing as surprise guests. It’s going to be very fun. Time to let loose! And now I’m kicking you out to tuck my junk.

Photos by Eva Blue. Interview by Mark Andrew Hamilton.

#lgbt lgbttravel drag dragqueen ritabaga mtlmoments

2 notes · View notes

rickhorrow · 4 years

Text

10 To Watch : Mayor’s Edition

RICK HORROW’S TOP 10 SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF JANUARY 20 : MAYOR’S EDITION

with Jacob Aere

Brands spent $4.48 billion on TV advertising during 2019 regular season NFL broadcasts, according to iSpot.tv data shared by Broadcasting & Cable. The figure is up nearly 14% on 2018, as the number of ad airings during NFL broadcasts climbed more than 7% to more than 32,000. According to the data, the ads scored 157.8 billion impressions, an uptick of 11% from the previous year. Verizon, also an NFL sponsor, was the top-spending company, shelling out an estimated $150.6 million to advertise during NFL games. Insurance firms Geico, Progressive, and State Farm also spent more than $100 million on ad spots. Most money came from the automotive industry, as Toyota, Hyundai, and others reportedly spent $605.2 million on commercials, while electronics and communication firms spent an estimated $351 million. The study comes ahead of Super Bowl LIV, which has seen brands pay FOX as much as $5.6 million for a single 30-second ad slot during the game. We assume that State Farm is disappointed to see spokesman Aaron Rodgers’ Packers fall to the 49ers and miss out on a “Super State Farm Bowl” against fellow pitchman Patrick Mahomes.

Lots of familiar ESPN faces, U.S. females populate the Australian Open. The Australian Open gets underway on Monday, replete with many very familiar faces reporting from Melbourne against the backdrop of bushfires that have commanded headlines, donations, and on-the-ground aid personnel from across the world. In the broadcast booths at Rod Laver Arena and around the vast tennis complex, James Blake has joined ESPN’s tennis team, with the company announcing a bevy of new contracts for its veterans as well. Longtime ESPN tennis stalwarts with new contracts include Darren Cahill (2007, the year he joined ESPN); Chris Evert (2011); Mary Joe Fernandez, marking 20 years (2000); Brad Gilbert (2004); John McEnroe (2009); Patrick McEnroe, celebrating 25 years (1995); Chris McKendry (1996); and Pam Shriver, marking her 30th year with the network (1990). Additionally, there are 22 American women in this year’s Australian Open main draw, the most at a Slam other than the U.S. Open since the 1999 Australian Open. The first round pitted the oldest, 39 year old Venus Williams, against the youngest, 15 year old Coco Gauff (the winner).

NHL All-Star Game takes the ice and the streets in St. Louis. The NHL has lined up its roster of activations for the 2020 NHL Fan Fair, the official fan festival of the2020 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend, running January 23-26 in St. Louis. Partners gearing up for the event include Enterprise, Honda, New Amsterdam Vodka, Truly, Discover, Dunkin’, Bud Light, GEICO, Great Clips, MassMutual, and SAP. Highlights of the four-day, family-friendly festival include autograph sessions featuring former and current NHL All-Stars; a Hockey Hall of Fame exhibit featuring the St. Louis Blues; NHL memorabilia and trophy displays, including the Stanley Cup; and the sixth annual NHL Mascot Showdown featuring all 29 NHL Mascots. Additionally, the NHL and Green Day will build on their multiyear partnership with the band’s headlining performance at the 2020 Honda NHL All-Star Game on January 25. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will perform outside Enterprise Center shortly before they take the stage inside during the second intermission presented by Ticketmaster. The performance – as always, aimed at expanding hockey’s demographic reach – will be televised as part of the live All-Star Game broadcast on NBC and throughout Canada.

The WNBA and its players' union have come to terms on a new eight-year collective bargaining agreement that includes higher salaries, improved family benefits, and better travel accommodations. This represents a turning point for women's basketball and could ultimately lead to a substantial shift in how female athletes — across all sports — are compensated. The average WNBA cash compensation will reach nearly $130,000, and top players will be able to earn upwards of $500,000. Players will also receive a full salary while on maternity leave, and an annual child care stipend of $5,000. WNBA teams, which provide housing, will now guarantee two-bedroom apartments for players with children. And while players will still have to fly commercial, they'll finally get their own individual hotel rooms. "We believe it's a groundbreaking and historic deal. I'm proud of the players; they bargained hard, they unified, they brought attention to so many important topics," said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. The implications of this agreement reach beyond basketball into the larger workplace, at a time when women are demanding increased pay and benefits, on their merit and as a challenge to historically unequal pay.

Looking beyond the Super Bowl, sports books nationwide are preparing for XFL bets. While sports fans have been focused on picking NFL playoff teams to bet on, or marshaling their cash for the Super Bowl, yet another opportunity to wager on football is right around the corner: the XFL. Several states have already authorized bets on the second incarnation of the upstart football league, which begins its season in February, shortly after the NFL season concludes with the Super Bowl. Others are considering doing so, and bookmakers say they have requested that regulators add the league to lists of approved betting events. On the sports betting front, helped by a surge in sports betting, Atlantic City's casinos won $3.29 billion from gamblers in 2019, an increase of over 15% from 2018 — and a huge boon for a city that's still recovering from a mid-decade meltdown that saw five casinos close.

The Super Bowl is two weeks away, but Pepsi is already making Miami Ground Zero. Pepsi has announced that Harry Styles will headline the Pepsi Zero Sugar Super Bowl party on January 31 at Meridian Island in Miami. Planet Pepsi Zero Sugar “will see an out-of-this world build out, transporting fans to a transcendent audio-visual experience unlike anything else at Super Bowl LIV,” according to the announcement. Pepsi also promises a free Pepsi Zero Sugar to everyone in the U.S. if either the San Francisco 49ers or the Kansas City Chiefs’ final score ends in zero. The company said that if such a score results, it will refund the price of the drink, up to $2.50, to anyone in the U.S. who purchases it from February 2-4. It said that in 25% of previous Super Bowl games, at least one team finished with a score ending in zero. Pepsi will also award the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Year winner for the 17th straight year. This year’s winner will receive a custom matte black Pepsi Zero Sugar trophy as the highest fan-voted honor for NFL Rookies.

Nike begins the 2020s where it began the 2010s: as the number one sportswear brand on the planet. Nike’s Q4 earnings in 2019 grew to $10.2 billion; its income for the last completed financial year was $39.1 billion. All the same, the Portland-based giant faces significant change. It begins 2020 under only its fourth chief executive. John Donahoe, former eBay chief executive, joined Nike in January. Donahoe arrives after an awkward end to Mark Parker’s 13-year tenure. The high-profile Oregon Project closed amid reports that Parker had known uncomfortable details about the activities of banned distance-running coach Alberto Salazar. Strategically, Nike has other decisions to make that will be pertinent to the wider industry. Nike acquired consumer data analytics firm Zodiac in March 2018 and then bought Celect, a “predictive analytics and demand sensing” specialist, in August 2019. That same month it launched Adventure Club, a three-tier trainer subscription service for children. A full-scale version, perhaps based on the Nike+ membership and training scheme, could be a useful source of recurring revenue. Running a $143 billion corporation brings its rewards. Donahoe collects $45 million in cash and stock on arrival, then stands to earn up to $18.5 million a year.

The NBA tipped off league-wide activities honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. NBA teams playing January 16–20 are wearing custom Nike MLK Day warmup shirts designed in collaboration with the NBPA, MLK Foundation, and Martin Luther King III. The Dri-FIT T-shirt features words from MLK’s timeless speech on August 28, 1963: “We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.” The NBA has long been a leader in race relations and community outreach activities centered on diversity, and its annual MLK Day celebrations – which lead into the league’s month-long celebration of Black History Month every February – serve as a tentpole moment for this activism each year.

The Fritz Pollard Alliance released a pointed statement decrying the last two NFL hiring seasons. The Athletic reports that the alliance, which was founded in 2003 to promote diversity hiring, “called on the league to...take tangible steps to develop plans to increase the hiring of people of color in leadership positions.” Of five NFL openings this offseason, only one was filled by a minority — Ron Rivera at Washington. In the last two hiring seasons, only one African-American was hired to fill the 13 openings (Brian Flores in Miami), with five African-Americans fired. Four of 32 NFL teams have a minority coach: Washington, Miami, Pittsburgh (Mike Tomlin), and the Chargers (Anthony Lynn). 70% of the NFL’s players are men of color compared with 12.5% of head coaches. The alliance points out that in 100 years the NFL has gone from Pollard as the first African-American coach in 1921 to four coaches of color in 2020; the league has only one African-American GM and no African-American team presidents. This despite the presence of the Rooney Rule, enacted in 2002, which requires that teams interview at least one minority candidate.

Barstool Sports is close to selling to little-known casino company Penn National. According to Recode, the Chernin Group, which currently owns Barstool, is in advanced talks to sell a majority stake in the company to Penn National Gaming, a publicly traded, regional gambling company that operates 41 properties in 19 states. Barstool was last valued at more than $100 million, but a potential purchase price could be much higher, and might create the biggest media-gambling tie-up in the U.S. since the Supreme Court legalized sports betting in 2018. The deal would tie Barstool, a well-known company with a passionate audience, to a casino company you may have never heard of and use Barstool’s brand to transition into online sports betting. This potential move looks like a positive for Barstool, which can't find a home with sports leagues due to its brash approach to sports and pop culture coverage, and Penn National, which needs to compete in the move to online sports betting.

#10 #10towatch

0 notes

bigyack-com · 5 years

Text

What Does ‘Black Friday’ Even Mean Anymore?

“Black Friday Sale Starts Now!” “Shop Black Friday Deals Now!” “Gear Up, It’s Black Friday” — so read the emails in my inbox and the banners on my search engine. Well, yes, you shrug. What do you expect? It’s that time of year. Except when I received said emails, and said banners began to appear, it was not, in fact, the day after Thanksgiving. It was not that day when, in order to kick-start the holiday shopping season, brands and department stores cut their prices and everyone rushes out to buy, buy, buy.It was not that day that supposedly got its name because that is when stores start making profits and “go into the black.” Not that day that actually got its name in 1869, when two investors started a run on gold, which led to a crash, which led to dark days. It was not, in other words, Black Friday at all. It was weeks beforehand.Because really, there’s no such thing as Black Friday anymore, not in a literal sense. It long ago escaped — or transcended — its original meaning and location, leaping beyond United States borders to establish itself in other countries and continents, to become just another shopping day in a sea of shopping days. The term is now a conceptual synonym for the idea of “sale,” a Pavlovian cue to get you in the right frame of mind to open your wallet. And an opportunity for sustainably minded marketers to rail against purchasing, of course.“I call it the graying of Black Friday,” said Marshal Cohen, the chief industry adviser of the NPD Group, a market research firm. “It’s not actually Black Friday anymore, or even Black Friday weekend or Black Friday week. In some cases, it started in October. Lowe’s and Home Depot even had Spring Black Friday sales.”What used to be special has given birth to a host of copycats: Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Amazon Prime Day — all of which are completely overshadowed by Alibaba Singles Day, which took place on Nov. 11 and recorded more than $38 billion worth of spending in 24 hours. It can be only a matter of time before we get Too Good to Be True Tuesday, Watershed Wednesday and Take-It-All-Home Thursday. Spend-a-Lot Sunday? That might be going too far.“Just a few years ago, Black Friday had the aura of a FOMO event,” the consulting firm PwC wrote in its annual holiday shopping study. “Now it seems more symbolic than significant in the pantheon of retail holidays.” PwC found that only 36 percent of shoppers surveyed planned to stock up on Black Friday, the actual day (in 2015, more than half of shoppers did so), because there were so many other opportunities to spread their spending over time. As a result, the firm is proposing we forgo the term Black Friday in favor of … Black November.Black November? If we’re being honest about it, we should probably just go straight to Black Every Day.“Christmas creep has turned into deal creep,” Mr. Cohen said. “You have to be one of the most unlucky people in America if you are paying full price for anything these days.”Katherine Cullen, the senior director for industry and consumer insights for the National Retail Federation, likewise acknowledged the chronological ooze of the no-longer-seasonal sales period. “Certainly individual days are becoming less important,” she said. “It’s about the total spend over the holiday period.” Because of that, she noted, the NRF had been “calling it ‘the five-day November holiday period,’ though that is a bit of a mouthful.”And yet, the numbers being touted still seem pretty good: According to the NRF, “holiday retail sales in November and December will be up between 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent over 2018 for a total of between $727.9 billion and $730.7 billion.” The NPD Group is predicting “holiday sales growth in the United States between 2.7 percent and 3.2 percent compared to last year,” according to its Holiday Purchase Intentions survey.But, Mr. Cohen said, this is attributable not to people spending more because they have more days to do it in, but to the fact that there are more products and services on sale during the same period than there were before.Little wonder that, as the pressure to purchase has grown, so, too, has the pressure not to — the physics of fashion (and Newton’s Third Law of Motion) dictating that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now, alongside Black Friday boosters there are anti-Black Friday agitators: Companies like REI, which is closing its stores and encouraging #OptOutside, and Everlane, which is donating $10 of every purchase to Oceana, a nonprofit focused on fighting ocean pollution. Meanwhile ThredUp, the resale site, has introduced Thrift Cards, gift cards for shopping on its site, which it hopes will “displace half a million new gifts with thrifted gifts.”Brand executives (and designers) endlessly bemoan the way we are being trained to shop on sale, and the way in which it has permanently altered our sense of value, but it’s unclear how to put the genii they have loosed back in the box. The problem is, when everything is available all the time, it loses its attraction.“Black Friday used to be the greatest day in retail all year,” Mr. Cohen said. “Now it’s becoming background noise.”Essentially we have created a world of limited editions and sales, with very little in between, when it should be the sale itself that is of limited edition.“I think we need to change the name,” Mr. Cohen said. “Think about Cyber Monday,” he said. “It’s a totally fictitious holiday, but they named it, and it caught on. Black Friday needs a face-lift. It should be resurrected with a different focus in mind.” Maybe, he suggested, there could be one-off Black Friday product assortments, collaborations or guest curators. Maybe there could be special D.J.s or snacks or — massages! For when your shoulders ache from carrying all those bags. Once upon a time it was the sale that made Black Friday special. But the specialness is not dependent on the sale. Ms. Cullen agreed. The sale has become so ubiquitous, she said, that “it’s hard to compete on price and convenience.” Her suggestion for what stores could compete on: socializing.Indeed, the primacy of the in-person experience in an increasingly digitized world has become something of a given — the idea that in a connected society, the greatest luxuries, and gifts are moments of human connection. And was that not, originally, what Black Friday provided (well, that and a deal): a communal sense of anticipation and shared excitement? Is not that, really, the takeaway? The waiting in line, the rush to get the product first, the mutual exhaustion and frustration and occasional triumph — even more than the shopping itself, such experiences brought us together and linger in the memory. And last longer, in the end, than any 60-percent-off item ever could. Source link Read the full article

0 notes

ghostbustermelanieking · 7 years

Text

xf fic: a blanket, the lights, and the sky

two college students, truth or dare, and a light in the sky.

(combined requests for an msr college au and msr truth or dare)

Scully’s flopped over his desk chair, writing furiously. She's managed to steal both his sweatshirt and his glasses, and there's a splotch of red on her cheek from where she's been resting it on her hand. They'd agreed, somewhat, to study in his dorm room because it was quieter (his roommate transferred in the second month of the school year), but Mulder's gotten little to no amount of work done. He has an article on a recent UFO sighting, highlighting up and down with neon green. “Hey, Scully,” he says.

She chews on her pen. “I have three pages left, Mulder.”

“Could you hand me the file on UFO sightings?”

She sighs heavily, reaches down and yanks open his drawer and pulls out his overflowing files (which are really just grimy manila folders kept from bursting open with rubber bands; he has an organization problem).

Balancing the folder on his pillow, Mulder flips through the crumpled sheets of lined paper until he finds what he’s looking for. Yep, just like he thought. “Hey, Scully, can you take a look at this?”

“Mulder,” she hisses, shoving the glasses up her nose. “Three pages!”

“This'll just take a minute.”

She sighs again, nods reluctantly.

There's no other chair, so he sits beside her, their thighs pressed together. Scully scoots so they can sit somewhat comfortably, shoving her textbooks aside with annoyance so he can set his paraphernalia down. “Look,” he says, tapping his scrawl. “Here, last year, there were recorded lights in the sky, seen in the month of January, every night in this field. Same place. I talked to some people who saw them last year, and they have the same description in this recent article.”

Scully raises an eyebrow, sliding her finger down the newer, highlighted article. She leans closer to read it better, and her hair brushes his cheek. “Lights, huh.”

“Do you think it could be a repeated occurrence?” he asks, leaning closer, too. “Annual abductions?”

“Whatever this is, it might be an annual occurrence,” she says. “Maybe. Although I'm not sure I'd call it an abduction. It might just be some idiots with a flashlight.”

“A planned flashlight phenomena? Seems more unlikely than my abduction theory.” Their knees bump together as Mulder reaches across her into his drawer, pulling out his grubby file on UFO sightings. Scully makes a face, swatting his arm. “I don't know how you find anything in here,” she says, slightly disgusted. “It's such a mess.”

He scribbles down some new notes, clips them to the article, and stuffs them in the file. “It's still January,” he says, lifting his head to look at her hopefully.

She's already shaking her head. “Mulder, it's almost midnight,” she says firmly, standing with her books and going to sit on the other bed. It’s a bare rubber mattress, punctuated only by a solitary sheet draped over it like the corpse of a cartoon ghost.

“It's Friday!” he argues. “Live a little! Aren't these supposed to be our partying years?”

“First of all, I'd hardly classify going out into a dark field, looking for improbable UFOs, as ‘partying’. And second of all, I've had late classes all this week, and I'm exhausted.” She fixes him with a glare from behind the glasses lens.

He feels slightly guilty. “You're right,” he says. “Maybe you should get some rest.” She makes an approving sound, already wrapped in her books. “So we can go looking for the lights tomorrow.”

She throws up a balled-up piece of notebook paper at his head.

“Come on, Scully, what else are you going to do on a Saturday night? And don't say study.” He’d call her a square again, but the last time he did that, she punched him. (In the ribs.)

She shrugs aggressively, shoulders looking smaller in the sweatshirt. “I don't know… maybe spending it in a way that won't make me have to spend my Sunday cleaning muck off my shoes. For once.”

He pouts a little at her, spinning the desk chair around. “And you'd leave me alone to go look for UFOs in the cold?”

Scully flips a page silently.

“What if I got abducted, Scully? You’d never forgive yourself.”

She writes something down, ignoring him studiously.

He sighs, defeated, and goes back to the new things Frohike had sent over in a thick, Sharpie-smeared envelope, telling himself that he's done this by himself a thousand times before he ever met her, and he can do it alone again. They work quietly for another half hour before she speaks. “Will you ask the Gunmen if we can borrow their car? I'm tired of the cold. And we're stocking up on food beforehand, because I always get hungry on these things.”

He tries to hide his delight, saying, “Sure,” casually as he shoves aside his stacks of paper. Scully's sliding her books into her bag and pulling on her boots. He can hear the wind blowing hard outside. “You can stay here, if you want,” he offers. Off her raised eyebrow, he adds, “It's late, and you live halfway across campus, and the dean never comes down this way… There's some extra sheets and blankets in the closet, I could take the empty bed and you could have mine.”

She smiles a little behind her hair, half-amused. “I'll be okay. But thanks for the offer.” Pulling her shoes on, she comes over to him at the desk and sticks his glasses on his nose, her fingertips brushing his cheek briefly. “Night, Mulder,” she says softly before leaving the room, letting the door bang shut behind her.

He doesn't realize until later that she's stolen his sweater. Whether or not it was on purpose, he doesn't know.

________________

They’d first met at the beginning of last school year, when they’d been partnered up for an assignment in their Intro to Folklore class. Scully (Dana, then) had been agreeable enough at first, but it hadn’t taken them long to start arguing over everything. (He’d gotten to a point where he’d suspected that she was disagreeing with him just to argue with him. He’d called her Scully because she hated it.)

Things had come to a head one day when they got into an argument so loud that the librarian had kicked them out of the library. Face flushed red with embarrassment, she’d stood with her shoulders hunched up and her arms wrapped around herself on the stone steps, and demanded why he believed in all these things.

“Because my sister was abducted by aliens,” he’d replied, straight forward. “And I’ve been looking for her for years.”

He’d expected her to say something about how there was no way that was possible in her usual snarky know-it-all voice, so he walked off before she could. She didn’t, though. She showed up at his dorm room an hour later, face still flushed to a point where he could count all of her freckles, but with a different kind of embarrassment. “Fox,” she started.

“Mulder,” he said, leaning against the doorframe.

“Mulder,” she corrected. “I’m… sorry for what I said. I shouldn’t have assumed…”

“Everyone does. It’s fine.”

She shook her head, determined. Her eyes stole over his shoulder. “Is that your sister?” she asked, and for a minute he genuinely thought he was being cruel - ooh, made you look! - until he remembered the picture on the corkboard over his desk and followed her finger to it.

“Yeah, that’s her,” he said.

Scully nodded, shifting her bag on her shoulder. “Listen, Mulder,” she said awkwardly. “I don’t want our… disagreements to interfere with our work.”

“Let me guess… something about getting a good grade?”

She looked annoyed. “Something like that. But also because I’ve… enjoyed working with you.” She seemed halfway embarrassed to say it.

He had enjoyed working with her, too, but was even more embarrassed to say it back. So instead he motioned her into the room. “Have a seat,” he said. “My roommate won't be back til later, and I think we're still not allowed in the library.”

She smiled a little and came in, sitting in his desk chair and leaving Mulder to take his roommate’s. She made a face every time he called her Scully, but there came a point where she didn't seem to mind.

They'd mostly been study partners, at first, until the semester and their shared class had ended. He'd half-expected her to stop hanging out with him, but she'd shown up at his dorm room on the second day of the second semester and asked if he wanted her to look at those ghost sightings he'd shown her before break. So they'd remained friends (he calls them partners and she rolls her eyes, but he can tell she is pleased), and had begun spending more and more time together. She was sympathetic to his search for his sister, even had offered to help him, which was more than most of his high-school friends had done. (He'd cried in front of her, one time, half drunk on the tail end of a bottle of wine, crashed on the couch in her student lounge, and she'd wrapped her arms around him, just holding him in the dim hours of morning. She understands why he searches the way he does.)

(She'd fallen asleep in his bed once, slumped against him and his pillow while they'd reviewed for a test. He'd looked down at her and then had to look away. His chest ached. He wasn't supposed to fall in love with her.)

________________

A pre-med student and a psychology major can't afford a car (Scully doesn't have time for a job, and Mulder's too absorbed in his search and school to focus on it), so the two of them walk to the Gunmen’s ratty apartment in the early evening. Scully shivers in the wind as they go, knit hat pulled down over her bright hair, and Mulder avoids the urge to put his arm around her. He offers her his coat instead, and she rolls her eyes and refuses while her teeth chatter like chiclets.

The Gunmen (two college dropouts and a student who had originally just been their roommate until after a brief fling with a nameless woman and an insane weekend that the other two undoubtedly blow out of proportion as an epic, dangerous adventure where a massive conspiracy was discovered) are Mulder's sole contacts, a trio of hackers who publish an underground magazine and provide him with sources. He'd introduced Scully to them a couple of months ago, and although she'd spent most of the encounter making her I Don't Believe This face, she'd admitted she'd liked the guys after they'd left. He himself is a frequent visitor, as they're the only friends he has outside of Scully.

Frohike only buzzes them up after a detailed questionnaire (“Something about making sure I'm not a clone,” he'd said to Scully on their first visit, and she'd looked astonished). He's expecting them to be crowded around laptops and piles of papers as usual, but when they clamber through the front door, the three of them are sitting in the living room, and Langly is in the midst of shouting something at Frohike. “Mulder!” Frohike says good-naturedly when he sees them. “Dr. Scully,” he adds in an attempt to be sauve. (He'd nicknamed her that when she'd introduced herself as pre-med, clearly infatuated with her.)

“Hi, Frohike,” Scully says. “We came by to borrow the car.”

“You're more than welcome to it, if you join us in our game,” Frohike replies smoothly.

“Do I even want to know what that means,” she says in a deadpan.

“Truth or dare, actually,” Langly says. “You should play, daring these two to do stuff is getting boring.”

“Yes, because I love playing games that were popular at my middle school lunch table.” Scully crosses her arms.

He has a sudden, fleeting temptation to make her stay and play this stupid game. “Come on, Scully, let's play,” he says, pulling at her elbow.

She stares at him incredulously. “Mulder, you can't be serious.”

“Hey, remember what I said about living a little? Time to pay your dues, Scully.” He tugs her with him to sit on the couch.

“But… I thought you wanted to go look for the lights!” she protests, her voice rising a couple of octaves.

“Ehh, it won't even be dark enough for a couple hours.” He grins at her, and she sighs wearily and collapses on the couch beside him. Byers exchanges a sympathetic look with her. (He's in the middle of a giant bag of Cheetos, which Mulder assumes is some sort of dare because of the way he continues to gloomily eat them until the bag is empty.)

The game goes on for almost an hour, and Scully seems to loosen up a little as the game goes on, taking pleasure in making the guys look like idiots when it's her turn to ask someone. She methodically picks truth every time, though, and the Gunmen seem to get increasingly irritated at it. Finally, Langly hits her with the defining statement of the evening: “It's time for a dare, Scully, you've been dodging them all evening.”

The irritated look is back, and she huffs, leaning back into the cushions. “Fine,” she grumbles. “But I don't want to eat anything weird. I'm certain that most of you are gonna end up with food poisoning by tomorrow.”

“Well, that takes all the fun out of it,” says Mulder.

Langly gets something of an evil look on his face. “Kiss Mulder.”

Frohike makes a sound somewhere between a choke and a cough. Mulder wants to crawl under the couch and die, just a little. Scully looks a little embarrassed. “What?” she says distantly, tugging on her (his) sweater sleeves.

“Kiss Mulder,” Langly says innocently. “For at least 5 seconds.”

Mulder chokes on his drink.

“This is ridiculous!” Frohike protests, his voice cracking. “Didn't… didn't we make a no-kissing-rule at the beginning of the game?”

“She said no eating anything weird, I don't know what else that even leaves!”

“A ton of things!” Frohike insists, grasping desperately for excuses. “Prank calls… Byers, wanna help me out here?”

All four of them look at Byers, who raises his orange-smeared hands in the air innocently. “I… I plead the Fifth.”

“Fine,” Scully snaps, making all the heads in the room snap towards her. “Fine, whatever.”

Mulder finds his voice, suddenly, as she turns towards him on the orange couch. “Scully,” he says softly. “You don't have to…”

She seizes his face in both of her hands and kisses him suddenly. Hard, her mouth hotly searing his. She probably only meant her it to be brief, but he cups the back of her neck, her hair soft under his fingers.

He pulls away suddenly, turning to face the Gunmen. “That's five,” he says. Scully is breathing unevenly.

“More like fifteen,” Langly mutters under his breath. Byers elbows him.

“You guys ready to hand over the car keys?” Mulder says loudly. Frohike nods numbly, standing to go get them. Mulder follows. Behind him, Scully is thanking Langly and Byers for the car, a slight bite in her voice. He isn't sure if it's because she didn't want to kiss him like that, or she didn't want to kiss him at all.

“I don't think you have anything to worry about, Melvin,” he says in a low voice.

Frohike shakes his head gravely. “I think I have everything to worry about, Mulder,” he says, passing him the car keys. “Have you seen the way she looks at you?” Mulder swallows, squeezing the keys so that the serrated edge bites into his hand.

“Are you okay, Mulder?” Scully asks when they're out in the car. He's not looking at her so he doesn't know if she's looking at him, but she sounds sincere. He knows she's got that hat back on, is powerfully adorable, wants to kiss her again.

“I'm fine,” he says, starting the car.

________________

They've been in the car for a couple of hours, listening to a baseball game. Scully makes a joke about that day in the fall when he'd taught her how to hit a baseball, and Mulder laughs, but less enthusiastically than he normally would. He can't stop thinking about the kiss. He has no idea how she feels about it, she hasn't said.

He watches the sky, the stars. She dozes, burrowed under a blanket that she'd insisted on bringing even though the heat is all the way up.

“Mulder,” she says suddenly (softly, sleepily). “About what happened tonight…”

“We don't have to talk about it,” he says, too quickly. “I'm sorry I made you play, I didn't know they'd embarrass you like that… I'm so sorry. But we don't have to talk about it.”

“Mulder,” she says again, and she sounds more awake now, shifting in her seat to sit up. His fingers tap absently on the wheel. Her voice is warm: “What if I want to talk about it?”

He turns to look at her, astonished, but she's suddenly not looking at him; her eyes are fixed straight ahead, wide. “Mulder, look,” she says, hushed.

He turns, and gapes at the lights dancing on the horizon. They're there, the best proof he's had since Samantha's abduction, and they're coming closer.

“Shit,” he says, fumbling for the door handle. “Sorry, Scully, I have to…”

“Mulder, wait, what if it's dangerous…”

The door swings open and he almost falls out of it. Scrambling to his feet, he turns towards the lights eagerly. They are coming closer. “Scully, you've gotta see this!” he shouts, and then reconsiders. He can live with getting abducted, looking for his sister, but her...

“Mulder!” The car door slams shut behind him. He starts to call her name back. The light comes up in his face, blinding him. For a second, he thinks he's lost her, like his sister, and he was an idiot to bring her out here because now he's lost her forever, but then her small, cold hand sneaks into his and holds on tight. His ears are ringing.

And then it's over, gone, and Scully is standing behind him, shivering and the wind whipping her hat-frizzed hair around his face, and she says, “What the hell was that, Mulder?”

And he turns to face her, to tell her it was aliens, a UFO, Aurora borealis, the moon coming down to take a better look at them, because the possibilities are endless now. But instead he kisses her. And she kisses him back.

#idk if this is cheesy or not?#xf fanfic #i wrote this

129 notes · View notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

STARTUPS AND YEARS

This a makes the filters more effective, not only in avoiding false positives, but in filtering too: for example, or because you've been assigned to work on hard problems at all. What if they like you? If Lisp really does yield better programs, you should expect to see ever-increasing variation in individual productivity as time goes on. Suppose further that he's going to cost $60k a year in salary and overhead into stock you should multiply the annual rate by about 1. Spams tend to have to declare variables before using them, for example, does not begin by creating a design that he then imposes on the users, and that explains a lot of serial entrepreneurs, actually. Being relentlessly resourceful is definitely not the recipe for success in writing or painting, for example—can't help but look smug. We can all imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and saying this will sell a lot of development over the past couple decades. It's not the product that should be insanely well designed and manufactured. Why would you want to hear about new startups, the best research solves problems that are not only new, but actually they have straightforward answers. Search for a few years before, there was no such thing as a freelance programmer. But when they start writing.

I didn't want have to look at this actually quite atypical spam. I still occasionally buy on weekends. But before we hired a PR firm about $30,000 to promote our launch. There's a more extreme variant where you don't just use your software yourselves on their behalf. A web site for college students to stalk one another? And because Lisp was so high-level, we wouldn't need a rule to keep you going in one direction if there weren't powerful forces pushing you in another. Someone you already know how to ask such questions. So the only way to read them, it's straightforward to figure out what. But lowballing you is a function of other investors' interest in you.

It might not be what your parents really want for you. Need for structure I'm told there are people who do. Business is a kind of axiom from which most of the third world today, in that government office was a recognized route to wealth. Why is that so? Poetry is as much music as text, so you can't risk false positives by filtering mail from unknown addresses especially stringently. So why do founders think launches matter? The next time you raise money, the experiment has to have worked. Why don't more people apply?

You have to pick the startups. Indeed, the really interesting question is not what will make you successful—making things and talking to users—and the main benefit of treating startups as vectors will be to remind founders they need to move along from the first conversation to wiring the money, because they're already running through that in their heads. Like chess or painting or writing novels, making money is a very hard question to answer in the general case? Be like a running back is no better than Don't be hapless is to be strategically indecisive: to string founders along while trying to gather more information about the startup's trajectory. But the real advantage of individual filters is that they'll all be different. It's very dangerous to let the world have its way with you, and that kind of text is easy to recognize. And so, I'm a little leery of using the term greedily when writing about fundraising lest non-programmers misunderstand me, but a sort of Gresham's Law of trolls: trolls are willing to take. The Series A round is from a founder of a company in trouble. The most memorable example of medieval industrial secrecy is probably Venice, which forbade glassblowers to leave the city, and see what happens after a year. This is especially true in a startup run by a couple of nerds with no business experience operating out of an apartment. To start with, spam is not spam, and that you'll get back to focusing on the company right now, and we don't realize how lucky we are that it is automated.

The most successful angel investors I know are all procrastinators. So the test of a language were how good finished programs look in it. The usual way to accumulate a fortune by creating wealth. The most successful angel investors I know are mean. Being one of the data types supported by the language. We certainly manage that. If you're the right sort of person to start a startup, you had better be doing something odd. But evil as patent trolls are, I don't mean to imply that good design aims at some kind of irresponsible pied piper, leading impressionable young hackers down the road to ruin. When your company is only a few months old, all it has to double: if you want to raise a specific amount. 75%. They had to, or we wouldn't have paid for them.

Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002. I don't think it's a good idea to treat spam filtering as a straight text classification problem. Thermals happen, yes, but no to the first couple months of a startup's life. It's designed for large organizations. On Reddit, votes on your comments don't affect your karma score, but they don't get blamed for it. Blub programmer looks in the other half of their jobs: choosing and advising startups. This is probably the future of startup investing, realize it would pay to be upstanding, and force himself to behave that way. An experienced CFO I know said flatly: I would not want to be able to slip into another distilled by some writer. And for a given set of people working on a given technology, the rich live more like the average person. That's a way more efficient cure for inexperience than a normal job in the same situation. Institutional investors have people in charge of wiring money, but they're usually trying to improve the world. The sentence structure and even the words are different.

Then you're saying that it's unjust that people want the wrong things. Xfire's VP of engineering had worked at Yahoo on similar stuff—in eight months, at enormous cost. Of course not all startups can make it to ramen profitability in a few months. So please, get on with it. The prototypical rich man of the nineteenth century was not a handicap but probably an advantage. I'll begin with a shockingly controversial statement: programming languages are different: programming languages are not primarily a form for finished programs, but something that programs have to be secretive internally. I had been. How many points should an email get for having the word sex is not going to apply for patents, but the experience of being your user. There are exceptions, but remarkably few.

0 notes

charllieeldridge · 5 years

Text

Bartending Jobs: How To Save Money and Travel As A Bartender

Have you ever considered becoming a bartender so you can save money for travel? What about finding bartending jobs that you can do abroad? The great thing about bartending is that it’s an occupation that is needed worldwide, this is definitely one of the best travel jobs around.

In this interview, we’re chatting with Geena (from Bartender Abroad) who is able to save enough money from her bartending jobs to travel 3 times a year, for one month at a time. One country per month is her general rule — long enough to really get a feel for the destination.

Geena’s upcoming trip is 9+ months long and required around 6 months of consistent saving (there’s some good money to be made in this career, read on to learn more). While she hasn’t needed to work while on the road, bartending is a skill she’s happy to have in case her travel funds run out.

Read on to learn what it’s like to be a bartender, whether or not you need to attend bartending school, what sort of jobs are available, what the working conditions are like, and of course, how much you can expect to make.

First of all, tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your story?

My name is Geena and I’m a travel addict.

My number one passion is exploring this planet and experiencing all the unique cultures and traditions along the way. I grew up in rural America, was a first-generation college student pursuing a career in medicine, worked in some clinics along the West Coast, and then….I traveled.

Geena and her partner, Evan

Once I got the travel bug I realized that the only thing I wanted to do was immerse myself in this wild and crazy earth. So I quit my job and moved to Los Angeles. There I became a bartender, started travel blogging, and did some freelance writing.

And I haven’t looked back since.

Luckily, along the way I met my significant other, Evan, who is willing to put up with my constant need to explore and be on the move. More than put up with it — he encourages it and is always right alongside me.

Our favorite places we have been in the world (which I feel tells you a bit about us), are Indonesia and the Amazon Rainforest. We’re off-the-beaten-path adventure backpackers who would much prefer to be surrounded by wilderness than tourist traps.

☞ See Also: Workaway Program: An Insider’s Guide To Free Accommodation Worldwide

Tell us how you became a bartender. What made you decide to pursue this career?

It all came down to freedom! Once I decided that travel was going to be a major part of my life, my number one priority was figuring out how to make that a reality.

I needed to make decent money, have flexible hours and basically unlimited vacation days. In college, I worked as a server in a family-owned Mexican restaurant and the job had been quite lucrative. Bartending was the natural next step. And it gives me more of an opportunity to meet interesting people and talk about travel.

☞ See Also: New Orleans Bars: 10 Best Places To Grab a Drink

Bartending can be done anywhere in the world. Where have you worked your bartending jobs?

Currently, I’ve only been a bartender in the United States. We save up a chunk of money before we travel and then we both have bartending jobs abroad as a back-up, if needed. It’s nice to have a little bit of a safety net.

Previously I worked at a bowling alley bar, a family-owned Mexican restaurant, and a hip tequila bar. Right now I work at two classy taverns. Both have great food menus but an emphasis on bar service.

Luckily for me, the close proximity to NBC and Radford movie studios means our clientele are on the wealthier side. Every now and then we get the occasional celebrity. Justin Hartley from “This Is Us”, Dr. Phil, and Winston from “New Girl” are all regulars.

You can bartend for hostels, upscale restaurants, clubs, cruise ships, and hotels as well as private bartending events. You’ll make more money in busy establishments and larger cities. This is one of the main reasons we made Los Angeles our home base. With a population that loves to socialize and 13 million people residing in the city, there is no shortage of clientele.

Geena travelling around Iceland after saving money from her bartending jobs

Do you need any necessary qualifications? (Go to bartending school, have a bartending license, or take a bartending course?)

Never go to bartending school! Don’t fall for it! I’ve worked in a variety of dive bars, family-owned establishments, classy restaurants, and upscale networking bars and ALL of them threw out resumes from bartending school.

In the restaurant industry, there is nothing compared to experience. Start out bussing tables or as a server and learn the ins and outs of the restaurant world. Then ask to be trained as a bartender with the establishment you already work for.

Once you have one bartending gig under your belt you’ll be more hirable from there on out.

Every state/country has its own liquor licensing laws. For California, I had to take a quick online course paid for by my employer. It mostly has to do with checking identification and regulations on over-serving alcohol.

Colombia was one of the trips Geena saved money for

How can people find bartending jobs?

This is the difficult part. You have to get out there and meet people — networking is key.

You’re going to have to physically go in and ask. The thing about the service industry is they need a face in front of them or you won’t be memorable. Most establishments get at least 3-4 resumes every single day. You want to catch a bar right before they are actually hiring. Sometimes you’ll see listings on Craigslist and in that case, grab your resume and head straight there.

As for a dress code, just dress like you’re meeting your significant other’s parents. Simple, trendy, and well-put-together. Every bar has its own vibe. Some will gravitate toward those with tattoos and piercings while other’s won’t. Don’t bother covering them up. I have almost a full sleeve tattoo and I’ve never been turned away from a job.

When traveling, the best place to look for bartending work is your hostel or hotel. From there, canvas the neighborhood with resumes in hand. Meet the managers and be friendly. Much of the bartending job entails being a people-person.

Geena’s tattoos have never stopped her from finding bartending jobs

What’s the hiring process like?

For most bars, it’s very simple. If they like you and think you would mesh well with the rest of the staff they will bring you on board.

Normally, you’ll have one meeting with the manager and possibly the owner. It always helps to have a wide-open schedule and say yes to whatever shifts they can offer you. At nicer establishments, they may want you to “stage” before fully hiring you. This is basically a practice shift. To make sure you accurately represented yourself and can handle the work the job will entail.

☞ See Also: New Orleans Cocktails – 7 Must-Try Drinks in The Big Easy

What do bartending jobs entail? What’s a day in the life look like?

It’s not glamorous.

Normally you start by setting up the bar, cutting fruit garnishes, prepping fresh juices, wiping glassware and menus, stocking up on popular liquor, getting ice in your bar wells, and counting your cash registers for the day.

During service (aside from crafting cocktails and chatting with regular patrons), you’ll be changing kegs, washing seemingly endless stacks of glasses, and helping bus plates from your bar top.

Basically, you’ll be a busser, dishwasher, server, and bartender all in one.

For closing, most bars require A LOT of cleaning — melting all of the extra ice you have, stocking the shelves, air-sealing all wine bottles, wiping, and mopping the floors. Bartending jobs also include counting cash registers and doing the tip-outs for the restaurant’s day service. You’ll also have to soak all bar tools and sometimes even clean the dishwasher itself.

In reality, making drinks and talking to patrons is a very small portion of the job. But it’s the redeeming factor for sure.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

How much money do bartenders make? Any perks of the job?

This can vary greatly. You’ll be making minimum wage plus tips. So it helps to be at a bar that’s either very busy or has great tippers.

Currently, I’m working at two different bars where I make vastly different incomes. At one bar I work the brunch shifts and make around $150 USD in tips for 6 hours of work. It’s very consistent. The other job I work nights where the money I make varies greatly by day of the week. Weekdays I expect to make around $175-200 USD and weekends I’m bringing home the big bucks with $350+ USD in tips alone.

Annually I work roughly 9 months of the year and I bring home around $60,000. That’s including tips and the minimum wage of $13. Wages fluctuate a lot as a bartender. Your pay can be much more or much less depending on the number of hours you are willing to work and the level of success the bar has.

As for perks, there are plenty. Some places will have a more relaxed taxation policy for its staff. You most likely won’t get taxed on your cash tips. Maybe not even on your credit card tips depending on the establishment.

Working in the industry also gets you a discount at most bars and restaurants. It’s not a rule but it is a common form of courtesy if the establishment allows their staff to give comped drinks or discounts.

☞ See Also: Get Paid To Travel – 11 Jobs That Pay You To Explore

What sort of hours do you work?

I work for 6-8 hours, as that’s the length of the typical bartending shift in California. Some states where the minimum wage is lower may lengthen the shifts to 8+ hours.

I average 5 shifts per week. I would say most bartenders average 4 shifts per week. While saving for our upcoming long trip I increased my shifts to 7 per week.

One perk of bartending is the ability to pick up extra shifts. Most bars don’t encourage you to work doubles (or even allow it because of overtime pay) but having two bartending jobs allows you to bounce from bar to bar — if you’re willing to work 14-16 hours in a day.

Obviously, you can’t do that all the time but I do it twice a week. This way when I work 7 shifts per week I still get two full days off work. I use this tactic when I’m seriously saving for a big trip. It’s just nice to be able to increase my hours (and decrease) at will.

Working long shifts is worth it when you get to travel!

What are the working conditions like?

In a successful bar? Fun and easy-going. Typically the staff is all like-minded (often travelers) and you’ll become good friends. So with bartending jobs, you’ll get paid to hang out with your friends, make delicious drinks and chat about travel.

In a poorly run bar…nobody is happy. You’ll be able to tell right away from the attitude of the staff if they’re making good money, and whether or not the working conditions are good.

We normally have one big group party per year. Typically a Christmas party. The bar I work at now is open 365 days per year which doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for group gatherings.

At all the bars I have worked at the staff has been very close. Spending lots of time together outside of work and organizing group gatherings on their own.

Managers vary job by job. Your day-to-day is rarely monitored and management can be very relaxed…or you can have the opposite. I’ve heard horror stories of ineffective and micro-managing owners but luckily I have had kind and relaxed management throughout my bartending career.

☞ See Also: How To Find Yacht Jobs – Get Paid To Sail The World

What are the pros and cons of working as a bartender?

There are numerous pros to bartending jobs, here are a few:

The pay is good, flexible hours, unlimited time-off, opportunity to meet interesting people, interact with the locals, great place to make friends, and one of the only jobs you can literally do ANYWHERE in the world.

Even though there are lots of pros, there are definitely some cons.

The late hours. If the bar is open until 2:00 AM you’ll often be there until 3:00 AM. Those late nights can really take their toll. I also don’t listen to music at home often anymore, just to escape the noise. It’s a bit of a sensory overload.

Also, a pro and a con…you’re on your feet all day. You come home exhausted, sore feet, and a sore back. I also lose my voice after long weekends. It definitely beats up on your body a bit. You have to be a very social and relatively fit person to withstand this profession for any long period of time.

What do you love most about being a bartender?

Maybe the job isn’t all that romantic, but what I love most is the financial independence it gives me. I’m able to work as much as I want to all over the world. Saving for trips has never been easier. It’s the ultimate financial freedom.

Travelling through Colombia’s Amazon

Any final tips and advice for those wanting to find bartending jobs?

My biggest piece of advice for those seeking bartending jobs is to simply go in person and talk to a hiring manager. Be confident and charismatic — but be sure to get some restaurant experience first.

Thanks for sharing your bartending experience and tips with us Geena! I’m sure it’s inspired people to consider becoming a bartender. The pay is great and the hours are incredibly flexible. Plus, this can be done as a side hustle, or full-time job when saving for travel, and you can bartend worldwide. If you’re a bartender, please leave a comment below and let us know what your experience has been like. Cheers!

The lead image is courtesy of Shutterstock. Other photos copyright Bartender Abroad.

Like This Article? Pin it!

The post Bartending Jobs: How To Save Money and Travel As A Bartender appeared first on Goats On The Road.

Bartending Jobs: How To Save Money and Travel As A Bartender published first on https://travelaspire.weebly.com/

0 notes

itsworn · 5 years

Text

2019 Grand National Roadster Show Painless Performance/STREET RODDER Top 100 Winners

The big award at the Grand National Roadster Show is America’s Most Beautiful Roadster. This year, 14 roadsters competed for that title and the 9-foot trophy that comes with it. Simultaneously, more than 500 participants were in consideration for ten Painless Performance/STREET RODDER Top 100 awards.

STREET RODDER and Painless Performance have teamed up on this award at the Grand National Roadster Show for many years. Unlike the AMBR award, every participating vehicle at the show is eligible to win Top 100, regardless of year and body type. As you’ll see, our picks from Pomona cover a 40-year span and include various makes, designs, and styles. And just like the street rods competing for the AMBR prize (there is some overlap), these rods are exceptional.

The Painless Performance/STREET RODDER Top 100 program will continue at the Sacramento Autorama in February where we will select ten more vehicles. For now, take a look at these 10 extraordinary winners from the 70th Annual Grand National Roadster Show.

1932 Ford Roadster Jim Govro Dripping Springs, TX

In the early Fifties, Jim Govro drove this channeled roadster to high school. He raced it at Bonnneville in 1954. In 1955, it was painted yellow and drag raced in Texas—and at the NHRA Nats in 1957 and 1958. He sold “Tweety” in 1962. Fifty years (to the month) later, he bought it back. Rex Rod & Chassis rebuilt it labor free on the condition that it be finished as close as possible to its earliest version. That includes a 1951 Cadillac 331 with dual 97s and Offy valve covers. The interior is upholstered in white Naugahyde replicating the early style. The gauges are 1940 Ford and the steering wheel is 1954 Olds. Skinny bias-ply whitewalls roll on 15-inch Ford wheels, with piecrust slicks on Oldsmobile wheels. Jim spent the weekend sharing vintage photos with hundreds of fans.

1954 Chevy 210 Custom Roger Miret Scottsdale, AZ

Roger Miret’s ’54 Chevy, built in traditional kustom style, was the first car we saw when entering the Suede Palace. Another build that started simple and snowballed, ”Morphine” was a shared effort by the Phoenix Rumblers Car Club. Its numerous sheetmetal mods include ’56 Chrysler taillights and three top chops to achieve the perfect proportions. Elaborate panel paint and seaweed flames, and an on-the-ground profile (provided by air bags and step-notched ’rails) make a huge first impression. The Chevy 235 Stovebolt with a Wayne head and dual Strombergs with helmet air cleaners continues the period-correct impression—carried further by a two-tone pleated upholstery. Roger’s kustom left the Suede Palace with a Best Custom win in addition to Top 100.

1958 Edsel Ranger Kathy Lange St. Louis, MO

It isn’t the first Edsel to earn a Top 100 award, but Kathy Lange’s ’58 Ranger doesn’t have many peers. Built by Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop, it started as an original Ranger, but Edsel fans might spot Pacer, and Citation components added to the mix. An Art Morrison chassis provides the modern platform for the car, rolling on 17- and 20-inch five-spokes, designed by Alloway’s and built by Billet Specialties. A 700hp supercharged Coyote engine, built by Roush Performance, is packed under the hood. A pair of ’64 Thunderbird seats were upholstered in Moore and Giles leather to match the custom maroon and silver paint. Edsel gauges were updated by Classic Instruments. Kathy’s unusual custom got a lot of attention when it appeared at the 2018 SEMA Show, and even more at GNRS.

1951 Oldsmobile Club Coupe Rodney & Cheryl Palla Bakersfield, CA

This resto rod Olds is named Sylvia, after Rodney’s grandmother who bought it new. The car stayed in the family, but went into a barn in 1977. When it was pulled out, the all-original car was intact and well-preserved. Rodney kept his promise that he would not cut up the car—the stock body retains all trim and hardware. Everything else has been redone, from the Roadster Shop chassis to the LS3 (disguised with Olds Rocket valve covers, appropriate green paint, and oil-bath air cleaner). Colorado Custom one-off wheels feature 1950-1953 Olds style hubcaps created in 18- and 19-inch diameters. The interior’s early Fifties flavor is updated with Vintage Air A/C, Dakota Digital custom gauges, and a Kicker strereo. Scott Laitinen and the SIC Chops crew did an amazing job.

1936 Ford Coupe Amadeo & Teri Angelo Drummond, MT

When they first bought the car two years ago, Ami and Teri drove it as it was—stock with a mohair interior and Offy Flathead. Then Ami took the coupe to Ben York and his team at Roseville Rod & Custom for some hot rodding. The Cloud Mist Grey coupe now packs a Don Ferguson/Ardun Enterprises 296ci topped with a S.Co.T. blower, Autotrend EFI 48 injection (disguised as deuce carbs), and oil bath-themed air cleaner. The front fenders and custom-louvered hood have been reshaped to fit the engine, and one inch was chopped from the top. One-off Evod wheels and bias-ply Diamond Back rubber fill the fenders. The coupe sits on a Roadster Shop chassis. Inside the fully modified interior, a pair of custom buckets are covered in brown leather.

1924 Buick 24-6-45 Touring Ryan Rivers Fullerton, CA

Ryan River’s outstanding Buick proves that a mid-budget, homebuilt, non-Ford street rod can compete for the AMBR award. The red and black phaeton was first modified in the Fifties, but like others on this list, sat neglected for decades. Ryan studied art books to create the art deco and art nouveau elements found throughout the car. The top was chopped 11 inches and a REO cloth top was added. The 18-inch custom wheels are modeled after the solid covers found on coachbuilt cars of the Twenties and Thirties; other elegant details conform to the same theme. For example, the hemispherical trim pieces found around the car were made from stainless soup ladles, 22 in all. Buick power comes from a 1952 straight-8 with twin Stromberg 97 carbs.

1931 Ford Model A Coupe Mike Collman Portland, OR

The Suede Palace holds its awards ceremony on Saturday. That’s when they announced Mike Collman’s Sixties show rod influenced Model A as Best Hot Rod. Mike didn’t plan on taking the coupe this far—but the talent of his builder and friend Tony Wilson helped take it to this level. The body has been chopped 3 inches, channeled 4 inches, given suicide doors, and finished with ice blue paint with pinstripes from Mitch Kim. The 322ci Buick Nailhad features six 97s with frog’s mouth scoops plus Offenhauser valve covers. Firestone piecrust whitewalls and Radir cheater slicks are mounted on 15-inch Rocket Racing drag-style wheels. Inside, a Schroder sprint car wheel, ’51 Ford gauges, mirrored dash, and diamond-tuck upholstery all over validate every award won.

1930 Ford Model A Coupe Peter Georgeades Newark, CA

Here’s another Model A with early Sixties flavor. Peter Georgeades worked with Ron Cambra at Cambra Speed Shop to turn a stock coupe into a custom show rod. Peter found the car in an old man’s shop. He changed the plugs, hand cranked the 4-barrel Flathead, and the car came to life. The 4-banger has been replaced with a 383 stroker Chevy small-block with a 6-71 blower and triple Rochester carbs. Body mods include a 4 1/2-inch chop, bobbed rearend, and raised wheel wells, plus a sweet candy red panel paint job. Wheel Smith contributed the 15-inch chrome reverse wheels, wrapped in bias-ply skinnies and grooved slicks. Handmade race bucket seats and Classic Instruments gauges in a custom dash set apart the interior. A Pinkees Rod Shop chassis carries the Model A.

1962 Chevrolet Bel Air Kent Matranga Laguna Hills, CA

This 1962 Chevy bubbletop, built by Andy Leach at CAL Auto Creations, won tons of awards in 2015, including the Barrett-Jackson Cup. Its appearance in Pomona was our chance to add Top 100 to its list of honors. Owned by Randy Wilcox then, and Kent Matranga now, the Magnesium Silver Chevy underwent countless subtle body mods. The engine cover tops the supercharged Corvette LS9 engine. It sits on an Art Morrison frame with a C6 Corvette front suspension and 4-link in back. Billet Specialties created wheels for this car and now sells them as the Grinder model. Recovery Room wrapped custom seats in dark red leather. Cars this nice sometimes disappear after a few years of glory, but we’ve been told that Matranga drives his ’62 whenever he can

1932 Lincoln Victoria Larry Carter Los Gatos, CA

You’d never expect that Larry Carter’s restored two-tone maroon ’32 Lincoln is powered by a Coyote engine. The rare Vicky, one of seven known remaining, was found in a Southern California wrecking yard in the late Sixties. Larry bought it in 2014 and delivered to Roy Brizio Street Rods, requesting an original-looking car with modern components. Updated parts include the Art Morrison independent front suspension and Heidts independent rear. Wilwood brakes are mounted behind the 18-inch custom Lincoln wheels by Don Sommers, rolling on classic Bedford tires. The leather-covered interior blends original pieces like the ’32 Lincon steering wheel with modern elements like the seats, Classic Instruments gauges, Vintage Air A/C, and SiriusXM audio.

The post 2019 Grand National Roadster Show Painless Performance/STREET RODDER Top 100 Winners appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/2019-grand-national-roadster-show-painless-performancestreet-rodder-top-100-winners/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hot Rod Network

0 notes

aaronsniderus · 6 years

Text

Tech Stocks Lead Losses – Market Update

I came down with some kind of bug over the weekend. While I’m working from home and pushing through, I feel a bit ill, much like stock traders might be when looking at last week’s performance.

The weekend wasn’t all bad though as both my favorite football teams won. It was a similar situation for the economy. Despite stock market performance, there were other indicators of good things happening. Let’s get into it.

Headline News

Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index (HPPI)

In October, homeowners overvalued their homes by just 0.28%, an improvement from September’s 0.29% difference of opinion with appraisers.

Regionally, the West was closest to actual appraised value, estimating on the high side by just 0.13%. In the South and Northeast, the gaps were 0.26% and 0.36%, respectively. The Midwest wasn’t far behind, off by 0.39%.

At the major metropolitan level, Boston’s market for residential housing is hottest right now with appraisals coming in 2.93% higher than homeowner estimates. The Windy City is on the opposite side of the ledger with homeowner’s overestimating value by 2.12%. In Miami, appraisers and homeowners are experiencing a rare instance of complete harmonious agreement as they both valued homes at a median of exactly $355,000 in October.

Quicken Loans Home Value Index (HVI)

Home values were down 0.55% in October, according to appraisal data obtained by Quicken Loans. However, the rate of home value growth still significantly outperforms inflation. Values are up 4.49% annually.

Regional data points were a mixed bag. The West really dragged things down for the month of October as values fell 1.28%. However, the West has been the hottest housing region for quite some time and is up 6.04% on the year. Northeastern home values were down 0.48% on the month and have only gone up 2.59% on the year. Meanwhile, the Midwest was up 0.06% on the month and has seen values increase 4.32% since last year. Finally, the South had the biggest monthly gains of any housing region for the month, up 0.32% in October and 3.97% annually.

MBA Mortgage Applications

Mortgage applications were down 3.2% overall last week as applications to purchase fell 2.3% and refinance applications were down 4.3%

The average rate on a conforming 30-year fixed mortgage was up two basis points to 5.17% in this survey. Despite this, the percentage of people looking to refinance increased in comparison to the overall market, rising 0.3% for the week. Still, refinance applications only account for 39.4% of overall market activity.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

Prices for consumers were up 0.3% in the month of October for a 2.5% annual increase. When food and energy were taken out, the monthly and yearly increases were 0.2% and 2.1% in core categories.

Energy prices were up 2.4% in October. Analysts expect a lower number in November because gasoline prices have recently gone down. Meanwhile, food prices were down 0.1%.

Housing costs are increasing on a very moderate basis according to this report. Rent went up 0.2% for the month and owners’ equivalent rent, a measure of how much a homeowner thinks they could get if they were renting out their home, was up 0.3%.

The cost of medical care only increased 0.2% as both the cost of doctor and hospital services remained flat in October. Other categories of interest include apparel, which was up 0.1%. Prices of used vehicles were up 2.6% after having fallen 3% in September. However, the cost of new vehicles fell 0.2%.

Jobless Claims

Initial jobless claims were up 2,000 to 216,000 last week. The four-week average of initial claims was up 1,500 at 215,250.

Unfortunately, continuing claims increased by 46,000 last week to come in at 1.676 million, pulling the four-week average it up 9,000 to 1.644 million.

Retail Sales

Retail sales were up 0.8% in October, exceeding all expectations. However, a control group which excludes a few items for which sales are more volatile was only up 0.3% on the month.

Looking at a few other top-line categories, cars had a strong month, up 1.1%. Even when these were excluded, retail sales were still up 0.7% for the month. Meanwhile, gasoline sales were up 3.5%. This last number is expected to drop somewhat in October due to recent decreases in the price of barrels of oil. When gas is further taken out, the monthly inflation gain is 0.3%.

Restaurant sales were down 0.2% and furniture sales fell 0.3%. This would point to decreasing consumer optimism, but there were also some key categories that saw gains.

Sales of general merchandise were up 0.5%. Included in that was a 0.5% gain for department store sales. Meanwhile, non-store retailers – made up mostly of e-commerce sites – saw their sales rise 0.4% in October.

Industrial Production

Production saw only paltry gains in October, rising 0.1% versus expectations for a 0.2% increase.

The impact of Hurricane Michael meant that there was a 0.5% decrease in utility production because of power outages affecting customers in parts of six states. Mining production, which has been a consistent gainer, was also down 0.3%, for its second straight month of declines. Year-on-year growth in this sector is still at 13.1%, however.

The good news is that manufacturing was up 0.3% despite factory capacity utilization falling 0.1% to 78.4% in October. Manufacturing is up 2.7% for the year. Business equipment production was up 0.8% and construction supplies were up 0.6%.

In less pleasing news, high-tech production was flat and motor vehicle production fell 2.8%.

Mortgage Rates

Freddie Mac reported that lower oil prices and flow wage growth are helping to ease inflationary pressures which meant that mortgage rates didn’t rise much if at all last week.

Take advantage of this lull in the market to lock your rate now before they start to rise again.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage with 0.5 points paid in interest was 4.94%, flat for the week. This is up from 3.95% a year ago.

Looking at shorter terms, the rate on the average 15-year fixed mortgage was up three basis points to 4.36% with 0.4 points. Last year at the same time, the rate was 3.31%.

Finally, the average rate for a 5-year treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) with 0.3 points was unchanged on the week, coming in at 4.14%. A year ago, the rate was 3.21%.

Stock Market

Tech stocks took a special pounding Friday. There wasn’t any one culprit. Facebook’s handling of Russian election interference was under renewed scrutiny. Meanwhile, analysts are worried that iPhone sales might slow down for Apple. Finally, computer chip maker Nvidia reported losses that sent waves through the entire sector.

Losses last week weren’t limited to the tech sector though. In general, today might not be the best day to look at your 401(k). I was doing fairly well in our Fantasy Stock League, but my portfolio was tech heavy, so I hesitate to look. I can’t win of course, but it’s been fun to check out how I would do. It’s not too late to get in and compete for prizes. The contest runs through the end of the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was actually up 123.95 points Friday to close at 25,413.22. This wasn’t enough to prevent weekly losses of 2.22%. The S&P 500 closed at 2,736.27. This was up 6.07 points on the day, but down 1.61% for the week. Finally, on the Nasdaq, which is predominantly tech stocks, there were weekly losses of 2.15% after the index fell 11.16 points on the day to finish at 7,247.87.

The Week Ahead

Monday, November 19

Housing Market Index (10:00 a.m. ET) – The National Association of Home Builders produces a housing market index based on a survey where respondents from the organization are asked to rate the general economy and housing market conditions. The index is a weighted average of separate diffusion indexes, including present sales of new homes, sales of new homes expected in the next six months and traffic of prospective buyers in new homes.

Tuesday, November 20

Housing Starts (8:30 a.m. ET) – A housing start is registered when the construction of a new residential building begins. The start of construction is defined as the beginning of excavation of the foundation for the building.

Wednesday, November 21

MBA Mortgage Applications (7:00 a.m. ET) – The mortgage applications index measures applications to mortgage lenders. This is a leading indicator for single-family home sales and housing construction.

Durable Goods Orders (8:30 a.m. ET) – These are based on new orders placed with domestic manufacturers for factory goods.

Jobless Claims (8:30 a.m. ET) – New unemployment claims are compiled weekly to show the number of individuals filing for unemployment insurance for the first time. An increasing trend suggests a deteriorating labor market. The four-week moving average of new claims smooths out weekly volatility.

Consumer Sentiment (10:00 a.m. ET) – The University of Michigan’s Consumer Survey Center questions 500 households each month on their financial conditions and attitudes about the economy. Consumer sentiment is directly related to the strength of consumer spending.

Existing Home Sales (10:00 a.m. ET) – Existing Home Sales tallies the number of previously constructed homes, condominiums and co-ops that were sold during the month. Existing homes (also known as home resales) account for a larger share of the market than new homes and indicate housing market trends.

Thursday, November 22

It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S. Enjoy your family and the food coma!

Every year, it seems like there are a bunch of reports released in the week before the Thanksgiving holiday so no one has to think in the week after the feast. We’ll have it all covered for you in next Monday’s Market Update!

If this article has put you in a doze before the big meal, I completely understand. We have plenty of home, money and lifestyle content to share with you if you subscribe to the Zing Blog below. This week, let’s take a look at some of our top tips to host Friendsgiving gatherings. Have a great week!

The post Tech Stocks Lead Losses – Market Update appeared first on ZING Blog by Quicken Loans.

from Updates About Loans https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/tech-stocks-lead-losses-market-update

0 notes

aaltjebarisca · 6 years

Text

Tech Stocks Lead Losses – Market Update

I came down with some kind of bug over the weekend. While I’m working from home and pushing through, I feel a bit ill, much like stock traders might be when looking at last week’s performance.

Headline News

Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index (HPPI)

In October, homeowners overvalued their homes by just 0.28%, an improvement from September’s 0.29% difference of opinion with appraisers.

Quicken Loans Home Value Index (HVI)

MBA Mortgage Applications

Mortgage applications were down 3.2% overall last week as applications to purchase fell 2.3% and refinance applications were down 4.3%

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

Prices for consumers were up 0.3% in the month of October for a 2.5% annual increase. When food and energy were taken out, the monthly and yearly increases were 0.2% and 2.1% in core categories.

Energy prices were up 2.4% in October. Analysts expect a lower number in November because gasoline prices have recently gone down. Meanwhile, food prices were down 0.1%.

Jobless Claims

Initial jobless claims were up 2,000 to 216,000 last week. The four-week average of initial claims was up 1,500 at 215,250.

Unfortunately, continuing claims increased by 46,000 last week to come in at 1.676 million, pulling the four-week average it up 9,000 to 1.644 million.

Retail Sales

Retail sales were up 0.8% in October, exceeding all expectations. However, a control group which excludes a few items for which sales are more volatile was only up 0.3% on the month.

Restaurant sales were down 0.2% and furniture sales fell 0.3%. This would point to decreasing consumer optimism, but there were also some key categories that saw gains.

Industrial Production

Production saw only paltry gains in October, rising 0.1% versus expectations for a 0.2% increase.

In less pleasing news, high-tech production was flat and motor vehicle production fell 2.8%.

Mortgage Rates

Freddie Mac reported that lower oil prices and flow wage growth are helping to ease inflationary pressures which meant that mortgage rates didn’t rise much if at all last week.

Take advantage of this lull in the market to lock your rate now before they start to rise again.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage with 0.5 points paid in interest was 4.94%, flat for the week. This is up from 3.95% a year ago.

Looking at shorter terms, the rate on the average 15-year fixed mortgage was up three basis points to 4.36% with 0.4 points. Last year at the same time, the rate was 3.31%.

Finally, the average rate for a 5-year treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) with 0.3 points was unchanged on the week, coming in at 4.14%. A year ago, the rate was 3.21%.

Stock Market

The Week Ahead

Monday, November 19

Tuesday, November 20

Wednesday, November 21

Durable Goods Orders (8:30 a.m. ET) – These are based on new orders placed with domestic manufacturers for factory goods.

Thursday, November 22

It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S. Enjoy your family and the food coma!

The post Tech Stocks Lead Losses – Market Update appeared first on ZING Blog by Quicken Loans.

from Updates About Loans https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/tech-stocks-lead-losses-market-update

0 notes

mikebrackett · 6 years

Text

Tech Stocks Lead Losses – Market Update

I came down with some kind of bug over the weekend. While I’m working from home and pushing through, I feel a bit ill, much like stock traders might be when looking at last week’s performance.

Headline News

Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index (HPPI)

In October, homeowners overvalued their homes by just 0.28%, an improvement from September’s 0.29% difference of opinion with appraisers.

Quicken Loans Home Value Index (HVI)

MBA Mortgage Applications

Mortgage applications were down 3.2% overall last week as applications to purchase fell 2.3% and refinance applications were down 4.3%

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

Prices for consumers were up 0.3% in the month of October for a 2.5% annual increase. When food and energy were taken out, the monthly and yearly increases were 0.2% and 2.1% in core categories.

Energy prices were up 2.4% in October. Analysts expect a lower number in November because gasoline prices have recently gone down. Meanwhile, food prices were down 0.1%.

Jobless Claims

Initial jobless claims were up 2,000 to 216,000 last week. The four-week average of initial claims was up 1,500 at 215,250.

Unfortunately, continuing claims increased by 46,000 last week to come in at 1.676 million, pulling the four-week average it up 9,000 to 1.644 million.

Retail Sales

Retail sales were up 0.8% in October, exceeding all expectations. However, a control group which excludes a few items for which sales are more volatile was only up 0.3% on the month.

Restaurant sales were down 0.2% and furniture sales fell 0.3%. This would point to decreasing consumer optimism, but there were also some key categories that saw gains.

Industrial Production

Production saw only paltry gains in October, rising 0.1% versus expectations for a 0.2% increase.

In less pleasing news, high-tech production was flat and motor vehicle production fell 2.8%.

Mortgage Rates

Freddie Mac reported that lower oil prices and flow wage growth are helping to ease inflationary pressures which meant that mortgage rates didn’t rise much if at all last week.

Take advantage of this lull in the market to lock your rate now before they start to rise again.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage with 0.5 points paid in interest was 4.94%, flat for the week. This is up from 3.95% a year ago.

Looking at shorter terms, the rate on the average 15-year fixed mortgage was up three basis points to 4.36% with 0.4 points. Last year at the same time, the rate was 3.31%.

Finally, the average rate for a 5-year treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) with 0.3 points was unchanged on the week, coming in at 4.14%. A year ago, the rate was 3.21%.

Stock Market

The Week Ahead

Monday, November 19

Tuesday, November 20

Wednesday, November 21

Durable Goods Orders (8:30 a.m. ET) – These are based on new orders placed with domestic manufacturers for factory goods.

Thursday, November 22

It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S. Enjoy your family and the food coma!

The post Tech Stocks Lead Losses – Market Update appeared first on ZING Blog by Quicken Loans.

from Updates About Loans https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/tech-stocks-lead-losses-market-update

0 notes

themoneybuff-blog · 6 years

Text

Is your home a better investment than the stock market?

Shares 169 Ill admit it: There are times that I think everything that needs to be said about personal finance has been said already, that all of the information is out there just waiting for people to find it. The problem is solved. Perhaps this is technically true, but now and then as this morning Im reminded that teaching people about money is a never-ending process. There arent a lot of new topics to write about, thats true (this is something that even famous professional financial journalists grouse about in private), but there are tons of new people to reach, people who have never been exposed to these ideas. And, more importantly, theres a constant stream of new misinformation polluting the pool of smart advice. (Sometimes this misinformation is well-meaning; sometimes its not.) Heres an example. This morning, I read a piece at Slate by Felix Salmon called The Millionaires Mortgage. Salmons argument is simple: Paying off your house is saving for retirement. Now, I dont necessarily disagree with this basic premise. I too believe that money you pay toward your mortgage principle is, in effect, money youve saved, just as if youd put it in the bank or invested in a mutual fund. Many financial advisers say the same thing: Money you put toward debt reduction is the same as money youve invested. (Obviously, theyre not exactly the same but theyre close enough.) So, yes, paying off your home is saving for retirement. Or, more precisely, its building your net worth. But aside from a sound basic premise, the rest of Salmons article boils down to bullshit.

Lying with Statistics Looking past the paying off your house is saving for retirement subtitle on his piece (a subtitle that was likely added by an editor, not by Salmon), we get to his actual thesis: Making mortgage payments can, in theory, be a way to accumulate wealth almost as effectively as contributing to a retirement fund. Im glad Salmon qualified this statement with in theory and almost because this is pure unadulterated bullshit. And its dangerous bullshit. Heres how this logic works: If you buy an urban house today for $315,000 (the average price) and it appreciates at 8 percent a year for the next 15 years, you will be living in a $1 million house by the time you pay off your 15-year mortgage, and you will own it free and clear. Which is to say: Youll be a millionaire. For this to be true, heres what has to happen.: Home prices in your area have to appreciate at an average of eight percent not just this year and next year, but for fifteen years.You have to take out a 15-year mortgage instead of a 30-year mortgage.You need to stay in that house (or continue to own it) for that entire fifteen years.Once youve become a millionaire homeowner, you now have to tap that equity for it to be of use. To do that, you have to sell your home, acquire a reverse mortgage, or otherwise creatively access the value locked in your home. The real problem here, of course, are the assumptions about real estate returns. Salmon spouts huckster-level nonsense: The 8 percent appreciation rate is aggressive, but not entirely unrealistic: Its lower than the 8.3 percent appreciation rate from 2011 through 2017, and also lower than the 9 percent appreciation rate from 1996 to 2007. Thats right. Salmon cites stats from 1996 to 2007, then 2011 to 2017 and completely leaves out 2008 to 2010. WTF? This as if I ran a marathon and told you that I averaged four minutes per milebut I was only counting the miles during which I was running downhill! Or I told you that Get Rich Slowly earned $5000 per monthbut I was only giving you the numbers from April. Or I logged my alcohol consumption for thirty days and told you I averaged three drinks per weekbut left out how much I drank on weekends. This isnt how statistics work! You dont get to cherry pick the data. You cant just say, Homes in some markets appreciated 9% annually from 1996 to 2007, then 8.3% annually from 2011 to 2017. Therefor, your home should increase in value an average of eight percent per year. What about the gap years? What about the period before the (very short) 22 years youre citing? What makes you think that the boom times for housing are going to continue? Long-Term Home Price Appreciation In May, I shared a brief history of U.S. homeownership. To write that article, I spent hours reading research papers and sorting through data. One key piece of that post was the info on U.S. housing prices. Let me share that info again. For 25 years, Yale economics professor Robert Shiller has tracked U.S. home prices. He monitors current prices, yes, but hes also researched historical prices. Hes gathered all of this info into a spreadsheet, which he updates regularly and makes freely available on his website. This graph of Shillers data (through January 2016) shows how housing prices have changed over time:

Shillers index is inflation-adjusted and based on sale prices of existing homes (not new construction). It uses 1890 as an arbitrary benchmark, which is assigned a value of 100. (To me, 110 looks like baseline normal. Maybe 1890 was a down year?) As you can see, home prices bounced around until the mid 1910s, at which point they dropped sharply. This decline was due largely to new mass-production techniques, which lowered the cost of building a home. (For thirty years, you could order your home from Sears!) Prices didnt recover until the conclusion of World War II and the coming of the G.I. Bill. From the 1950s until the mid-1990s, home prices hovered around 110 on the Shiller scale. For the past twenty years, the U.S. housing market has been a wild ride. We experienced an enormous bubble (and its aftermath) during the late 2000s. It looks very much like were at the front end of another bubble today. As of December 2017, home prices were at about 170 on the Shiller scale. (Personally, I believe that once interest rates begin to rise again, home prices will decline.) Heres the reality of residential real estate: Generally speaking, home values increase at roughly the same (or slightly more) than inflation. Ive noted in the past that gold provides a long-term real return of roughly 1%, meaning that it outpaces inflation by 1% over periods measured in decades. For myself, thats the figure I use for home values too. Crunching the Numbers Because Im a dedicated blogger (or dumb), I spent an hour building this chart for you folks. I took the afore-mentioned housing data from Robert Shillers spreadsheet and combined it with the inflation-adjusted closing value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for each year since 1921. (I got the stock-market data here.) If youd like, you can click the graph to see a larger version.

Let me explain what youre seeing. First, I normalized everything to 1921. That means I set home values in 1921 to 100 and I set the closing Dow Jones Industrial Average to 100. From there, everything moves as normal relative to those values.Second, Im not sure why but Excel stacked the graphs. (Im not spreadsheet savvy enough to fix this.) They should both start at 100 in 1921, but instead the stock market graph starts at 200. This doesnt really make much of a difference to my point, but it bugs me. There are a few places 1932, 1947 where the line for home values should actually overtake the line for the stock market, but you cant tell that with the stacked graph. As the chart shows, the stock market has vastly outperformed the housing market over the long term. Theres no contest. The blue housing portion of my chart is equivalent to the line in Shillers chart (from 1921 on, obviously). Now, having said that, there are some things that I can see in my spreadsheet numbers that dont show up in this graph. Because Felix Salmon at Slate is using a 15-year window for his argument, I calculated 15-year changes for both home prices and stock prices. Ill admit that the results surprised me. Generally speaking, the stock market does provide better returns than homeownership. However, in 30 of the 82 fifteen-year periods since 1921, housing provided better returns. (And in 14 of 67 thirty-year periods, housing was the winner.) I didnt expect that. In each of these cases, housing outperformed stocks after a market crash. During any 15-year period starting in 1926 and ending in 1939 (except 1932), for instance, housing was the better bet. Same with 1958 to 1973. In other words, if you were to buy only when the market is declining, housing is probably the best bet if youre making a lump-sum investment and not contributing right along. Another thing the numbers show is that youre much less likely to suffer long-term declines with housing than with the stock market. Sure, there are occasional periods where home prices will drop over fifteen or thirty years, but generally homes gradually grow in value over time. The bottom line? I think its perfectly fair to call your home an investment, but its more like a store of value than a way to grow your wealth. And its nothing like investing in the U.S. stock market. For more on this subject, see Michael Bluejays excellent articles: Long-term real estate appreciation in the U.S. and Buying a home is an investment. Final Thoughts Honestly, I probably would have ignored Salmons article if it werent for the attacks he makes on saving for retirement. Take a look at this: If youre the kind of person who can max out your 401(k) every year for 30 or 40 years straight disciplined, frugal, and apparently immune to misfortune then, well, congratulations on your great good luck, and I hope youre at least a little bit embarrassed at how much of a tax break youre getting compared to people who need government support much more than you do. Holy cats! Salmon has just equated the discipline and frugality that readers like you exhibit with good luck, and simultaneously argued that you should be embarrassed for preparing for your future. He wants you to feel guilty because youre being proactive to prepare for retirement. Instead of doing that, he wants you to buy into his bullshit millionaires mortgage plan. This crosses the line from marginal advice to outright stupidity. Theres an ongoing discussion in the Early Retirement community about whether or not you should include home equity when calculating how much youve saved for retirement. There are those who argue absolutely not, you should never consider home equity. (A few of these folks dont even include home equity when computing their net worth, but that fundamentally misses the point of what net worth is.) I come down on the other side. I think its fine good, even to include home equity when making retirement calculations. But when you do, you need to be aware that the money you have in your home is only accessible if you sell or use the home as collateral on a loan. Regardless, Ive never heard anyone in the community argue that you ought to use your home as your primary source of retirement saving instead of investing in mutual funds and/or rental rental properties. You know why? Because its a bad idea! Shares 169 https://www.getrichslowly.org/home-investment/

0 notes

theloudpedal · 6 years

Text

The Sound and Fury: NHRA in Sonoma

It was time to slap on the nitromethane cologne as the 2018 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series returned to Sonoma for the 2018 Sonoma Nationals. It was a our third straight visit to this event and while we tried to resist the call, we've been hooked on the noise and power since our first visit. Racing history is replete with examples of the explorers of speed seeking that little bit extra out of a car. According to the founder of Lotus, Colin Chapman it was to “Simplify, then add lightness.” For the late American Racing legend Dan Gurney it was the Gurney Flap and its provision of downforce that finds that extra length of second. On the other end of the spectrum, NHRA Drag racing is has a simpler philosophy…ADD MORE POWER! The numbers behind Top Fuel Dragsters are ridiculous:

Top Fuel Dragsters are the product of a deviant mind. Tie down a 10,000 horsepower ill-tempered dragon on a frame shaped like a needle, and have at it. The stats are incomprehensible:

One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic-inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 11.2 gallons of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitromethane builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

In order to exceed 300 MPH in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4 G’s. In order to reach 200 MPH well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8 G’s.

Tony Schumacher has the fastest official speed in Top Fuel history with a 336.57 mph run at 3.667 seconds at the NHRA Arizona Nationals (2018).

Source

It really is hard to describe a Top Fuel dragster without seeing in person. It's not just the speed, but all the sensory overkill that can only be found at the strip.

The other class of dragster that makes enough noise and fire to vaporize your bones are the Funny Cars. There are different in that rather than the needle-like chassis of a Top Fuel Car with a warhead strapped to it, they have a fiberglass or carbon fiber body over a custom chassis which makes them look a little like a car you might find on the road...if that road were from a Mad Max movie.

The Funny Cars put up numbers just shy of Top Fuel Dragsters. Horsepower is estimated to be around 8,000 HP, with about 7,000 ft-lb of torque achieving 6gs of acceleration from a standing start.

Another California native, Robert Hight topped the Funny Car category with a 3.984 second 319.75 run. Hight spent years as a fan then joined the team becoming a clutch specialist for John Force Racing in 1995. He was named as driver in 2005 after working as a crew member. He

It's an event that draws fans from all over California as it was a sell-out event, the 8th sell-out of the NHRA season. That's no small number with a capacity at Sonoma Raceway of 47,000. Records were broken in Sonoma as Doug Kalitta set a track speed record with a 332.26 mph run. However, it would be California native Blake Alexander who would take his second Top Fuel victory out of six events he's competed in this year! He claimed the victory with a 4.004-seconds at 287.41 Mph and in the process beat the winningest driver of all time, Tony Schumacher off the line who currently holds seven of the top 10 speeds ever run in Funny Cars.

This event isn't just about the Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters. From early in the day, for three days, the weekend featured 12 classes of cars and bikes that burned out and launched into the future. There is a fairly constant queue of cars and motorcycles being called to stage and run, one after another between qualifying and racing. Frankly, all classes of drag racing machines are just as entertaining as the Top Fuel and Funny Car categories. The multiple categories of drag racing are what drives the day and keeps cars at a constant pace up to the starting line. Categories include, Pro Stock, Super Stock, Stock Eliminator, Super Comp, Super Gas, Super Street, Top Sportsman, Top Dragster and Top Fuel Harley. In each category, results at one event impact future events and starting orders. We have to admit we don't understand the drag racing points or bracket system, but that doesn't matter. It's an automotive sport speaks to the senses of any gearhead providing a level of show that outweighs any need to know what's happening. If you're reading this and you haven't seen a Top Fuel or Funny Car top 300 mph before you finish reading this sentence, then you owe to yourself to check it out at least once. We constantly announce our inherent biases in preferences in motorsport genre, driver/team preference. That we nerd out over one racing series over another is just a perk of having our own soapbox. Having said that, many of the intricacies of NHRA racing remain mysteries to us, but that deficit has not diminished our infatuation with it, or our drive to make sure all of our followers experience an event no matter their level of snoot or bias in motorsport preference.

We watch a lot of racing, and stare and ogle many cars, from top end to the janky. NHRA drag racing is a different automotive reality, one in which we still find ourselves awestruck. Why would anyone strap themselves into one of these beast is beyond us, but we salute them all!

As you will find in our gallery we did our best to cover as much of the action and variety as possible. Along with the racing action, we've also included images from a display of historic drag racing cars and a car show that are regularly part of the festivities. With hardly any downtime throughout the day, and one group of cars just as entertaining as the next, it's not surprising this remains a sell-out event at Sonoma Raceway and a new fixture on our annual calendar of events.

-Mark & Andrew

Gallery:

#NHRA #Sonoma Raceway

0 notes