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WWAW losing all your money

Torque’sHeadBump

(Voluntarily) torqued boomer
Forum Clout
63,583
This was when I was selling cars and I made a pretty large commission on a pre-owned Jaguar XJ that was absolutely flawless for it's age and just traded in a day before so the price wasn't negotiable because of it's condition. Some guy in Saratoga Springs NY called and inquired about it and bought it on the spot over the phone. I was in Massachusetts so I told him he needed to register the car himself in NY and he understood. So I drive from Boston to Saratoga Springs which was about 4 hours. I get pulled over in the guys car because I forgot to put the dealer plate on and drove 200 miles with no plates. The cop wasn't understanding at all, especially since I was also driving on a suspended license. I had to call the guy who bought the car to come meet me about 10 miles from his mansion because I had gotten pulled over and was in trouble. He came and we finished the deal and I had to wait for my tail car to catch up to me as I got arrested for driving with a suspended license and also a warrant for a non violent crime. I had a tail car that was following me so I needed to also wait for him. He was way behind because he drove super slow and that XJ flew. He was an old guy who's job at dealership was to do jobs like this. So he just said ok and turned around. I had to spend the weekend in an upstate NY jail as I straightened everything out, and overdrafted because of it.

The $1000+ commission ended up costing me over 6k.
 

Imager

Scaffolding Photographer
Forum Clout
59,499
The value went down. I had alot of my money tied up in Facebook and it did great for a while, I thought with Instagram, Occulus and WhatsApp it'd be around forever. Somehow it's gone down 60% in 9 months and everything I see in media is what a faggot Zuckerkike is...I thought he was team Jew
A couple of years ago when Apple stopped letting Facebook track its users, that was a huge blow. FB lost tons of tracking data and haven't recovered since. The opportunity now is to buy advertising from FB at rock bottom rates. Short-term it may raise their revenue, but long term doesn't look good for them, IMO.

Source: I'm just an asshole on the internet with an opinion.
 

wbgreen

May St. Mel bless you
Forum Clout
42,150
A couple of years ago when Apple stopped letting Facebook track its users, that was a huge blow. FB lost tons of tracking data and haven't recovered since. The opportunity now is to buy advertising from FB at rock bottom rates. Short-term it may raise their revenue, but long term doesn't look good for them, IMO.

Source: I'm just an asshole on the internet with an opinion.

The value of advertising has gone down repeatedly in our lifetimes. Any industry that relies on ad revenue goes to pot. First it happened to print media, now it's happening to commercial TV. The dotcom bust of 2000 was in large part because web advertising collapsed.

Facebook was supposed to the golden goose because they had what advertisers crave -- the demographic information on billions of people. Say you own a company that makes vibrating eggs. And you want to advertise specifically to middle aged Berbers in Long island. No newspaper or website cold guarantee you that specific a demo. But Facebook could!

If FB can't make advertising valuable, than the whole advertising and media industry is in big trouble. Hopefully, the Jews will suffer the most.
 

EllenTorquehorn

looking for a vehicle
Forum Clout
20,911
That Meta bullshit they supposedly spent $10B on already is going to go down as the biggest boondoggle in history. Shit looks like a cheesy Wii game and they think people are going to have real business meetings and shit on there with goggles on? Go fuck yourself.
Then get left behind while the rest of us scoot onward into the FUTURE
man-riding-on-segway-picture-id183378739
 

bumbum8

It died on the vine
Forum Clout
4,507
I put money into a couple of PVC companies right before the big freeze here and everyone's pipes burst. Got a little bump.
Other than that, I find it best to invest in stuff that has real world applications and then don't look at it.
 

ShutYourCakeHorn

Gassers/Say "Cookie" Alt
Forum Clout
73,483
Just wanted to thank you guys for being so fucking funny all the time. I'm going to kill myself.
Don't kill yourself dude, don't let the monster inside win, let me tell you a little personal story about my life to make you feel better, I'll keep it brief.

It’s easy for someone watching from the outside to mistake depression for a bad day, or a sour attitude, something that passes like bad weather. Nothing could be further from the reality millions of people face. Depression isn’t an outlook, or a worldview, or even an emotion.

Depression is a monster. But unlike the monsters that torment children, hiding in closets and under beds, this monster is real. You can’t escape it, because it lives inside your soul, waiting. You can’t hide from it. It stalks you, relentlessly, every waking moment of your life, probing the armor you wear against it, searching out chinks and gaps it can exploit. It whispers to you, lies to you, undermines you.

At every moment, this monster is trying to kill you.

I know this monster. Not as well as some, but well enough. I have been its prey. Looking back on my life, I’ve probably tangled with it a half dozen times or so, dating back to grade school growing up as a scrawny, nerdy atheist kid in a small town. Right after high school, it almost got my little brother, but failed.

Life was pretty good after college. I’d moved down to Florida with my best friend, and my girlfriend followed soon after. We married four years later. For nine years, we were a model couple. We seldom fought, started building careers, dug ourselves out of debt, and settled in to start a family. We were the pair that our friends looked up to and wanted to emulate. I’d never felt so happy, loved, and secure in my life.

Then, two weeks after we became pregnant with our first child, she told me we were divorcing. She refused to participate in any counseling, and demanded that I sign the divorce papers or she would have me served. No warning, no signs of trouble, no money problems, no infidelity, nothing.

I pleaded with her, begged for the life we’d built together, and for the life growing in her belly. But if she heard any of it, she didn’t care. She told me that she had never loved me, had never been attracted to me, didn’t respect me, and didn’t trust me. It was a lie, of course. A lie she told to me, but more importantly to herself. A lie she continues to tell herself to this day.

But at the time, I couldn’t recognize it. I was, simply put, destroyed. It was like being unmade, almost murdered. I cried uncontrollably everyday for weeks. I didn’t have a full night’s sleep for seventy days before I lost count. I ate so little that I lost twenty pounds, and if it wasn’t for the rivers of beer I drank to numb the world, I would have lost even more.

This is when my monster came back from its exile and pounced. Somehow, I managed to continue on auto-pilot, paying my bills and working, but at every moment the monster sapped my energy. It left me mentally and physically exhausted, yet unable to sleep and recover. Alcohol and sleep medication was all that kept it at bay for a few hours at a time and let me rest.

My monster consumed my sense of self-esteem and worth, leaving me with nothing to fight back against it. I entered counseling for a time, searching out new weapons, but growing up with a psychologist for a mother, I knew the score and saw through the manipulations designed to help me find my way out again. My monster turned my intelligence and stubbornness against me, convincing me that it was right using my own greatest strengths and defining characteristics to do it, convincing me that it was actually my voice I was hearing, instead of its lies.

At about this time, my beautiful daughter was born, and the monster took her from me. It, along with some less-than-helpful words from my now ex-wife, convinced me that I was so worthless, so broken, that I would be nothing but an anchor on my daughter’s life. That she would be better off if I wasn’t around to screw her up like her pathetic, unlovable father. I signed away my parental rights, not because I wanted to give her up, but because wallowing around in the pit, I believed with all my heart that I was doing what was best for her future. It’s a mistake I’ll never be able to take back, and the only thing I actually regret from that time in my life.

Then, the monster managed to put a gun in my mouth. I was half an inch from surrendering to it and becoming yet another statistic. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’d like to say something inspiring like I saw a picture of my daughter and I didn’t want her to grow up without her real daddy. Or I had a moment of clarity and insight that pulled me back. But those aren’t true. Honestly, I may have just been too tired and unambitious to pull the trigger.

So it’s with some authority and personal experience that I say this next bit: If you’re one of those people who says suicide victims are weak, or cowards, or selfish, do me a favor. Grab the nearest pen, and stab yourself right in the eye, because you don’t have the first mother-fucking clue what you’re talking about.

Suicide victims are exactly that, victims. By the time the monster has eaten away that much of you, you aren’t capable of seeing yourself, the world, or your place in it rationally. I believed right before that moment that I was a cancer that needed to be cut out of humanity, that I was a disease infecting my friends and family, and that the right, proper, and noble thing to do was to excise myself and save them from the symptoms.

That’s what depression does to people. Male, female, beautiful, homely, young, old, famous, obscure, wealthy, poor, none of it matters. The monster will hunt them all. Some of them will fall victim to it and people will stand around saying stupid shit like, “They had so much to live for,” or, “They were rich, what did they have to be sad about?” Seriously, fuck you.

Which brings me to comedy. It’s a poorly kept secret, but comedians aren’t actually funny people. Often times, they are some of the most emotionally scarred people you can imagine. I’ve been doing comedy in the MKE and Madison scene for two years now, and I don’t know a single comic who wasn’t damaged in some way, often severely.

It’s what we do with that pain and emotional disfigurement that sets us apart. I was fall-down drunk the first time I did comedy. I was drunk because I was hurting deep inside myself, way down past where smiles and kind words could reach it. I was able to get up on stage in front of complete and utter strangers and slur my way through some lame jokes I hadn’t prepared not because I was brave, but because I had already lost so much that there wasn’t anything left to be afraid of.

What did I care if these folks didn’t like me or thought I was an idiot? How would that be any different than the way I thought everyone else already felt about me? I told jokes that night more out of anger than anything. I vaguely remember asking the audience if they’d ever been so hung-over they put hair conditioner on their toothbrush. That’s about it.

But, to my amazement, some people laughed. Genuinely laughed. For the first time in almost a year, I felt the world open up a little bit. So the next week, I did it again. And again. Soon, it was a habit, then an obsession. I was watching all the pain and anguish that had tormented me turn from poison into something positive. I was making people laugh, giving them a break from their own struggles to share in the absurdity of our mutual existence and give it the middle finger for an hour or two. Comedy, family, close friends, and the love, understanding, and unconditional support of my girlfriend finally gave me the weapons I needed to subdue the monster. It sleeps once more.

The best comics are born from tragedy. It gives them the perspective, motivation, bravery, and material to rise above the fray. How many comics can you name that are still on their first marriage? How many haven’t had a private, or often very public battle with substance abuse? Hell, Richard Pryor very famously lit himself on fucking fire, nearly becoming Richard Pyre in the process.

Robin Williams was no exception. His comedic brilliance was fueled by his manic depression, battles with drug addiction, and personal tragedies, many of them self-inflicted. These were battles he fought his entire life. Without his personal struggles, the world would have been deprived of his wit, his zaniness, and his heart. We would never have met Mork, or seen Peter Pan all grown up fight against Captain Hook for the love of his children, or watched Mrs. Doubtfire square off against James Bond over Sally Field, (not that I’d fight over Sally Field, but whatever). And me and Tim Korklewski wouldn’t have been literally rolling around in the isles in the Desert Star Theatre in the Dells while we watched Rainbow Randolph shouting at Edward Norton in a rhinoceros costume, “That’s not a rocket. It’s a COCK! Twig and berries! Rumple Foreskin!”

There are people who have had immense impact and influence over my life who died before I had the opportunity to meet them, shake their hand, and thank them for all they meant to me. People like Jim Henson, Gene Roddenberry, Douglas Adams, and Christopher Hitchens. I had to add another one today, and it breaks my heart.

If you know someone who is fighting the monster, do everything you can, everything, to help them defeat it. Never give up on them. If they’re still alive, it’s because they haven’t yet given up on themselves. They need tools, they need weapons, they need allies, even if they can’t put their needs into words or find the strength to ask. Give them what they need.
 
G

guest

Guest
Don't kill yourself dude, don't let the monster inside win, let me tell you a little personal story about my life to make you feel better, I'll keep it brief.

It’s easy for someone watching from the outside to mistake depression for a bad day, or a sour attitude, something that passes like bad weather. Nothing could be further from the reality millions of people face. Depression isn’t an outlook, or a worldview, or even an emotion.

Depression is a monster. But unlike the monsters that torment children, hiding in closets and under beds, this monster is real. You can’t escape it, because it lives inside your soul, waiting. You can’t hide from it. It stalks you, relentlessly, every waking moment of your life, probing the armor you wear against it, searching out chinks and gaps it can exploit. It whispers to you, lies to you, undermines you.

At every moment, this monster is trying to kill you.

I know this monster. Not as well as some, but well enough. I have been its prey. Looking back on my life, I’ve probably tangled with it a half dozen times or so, dating back to grade school growing up as a scrawny, nerdy atheist kid in a small town. Right after high school, it almost got my little brother, but failed.

Life was pretty good after college. I’d moved down to Florida with my best friend, and my girlfriend followed soon after. We married four years later. For nine years, we were a model couple. We seldom fought, started building careers, dug ourselves out of debt, and settled in to start a family. We were the pair that our friends looked up to and wanted to emulate. I’d never felt so happy, loved, and secure in my life.

Then, two weeks after we became pregnant with our first child, she told me we were divorcing. She refused to participate in any counseling, and demanded that I sign the divorce papers or she would have me served. No warning, no signs of trouble, no money problems, no infidelity, nothing.

I pleaded with her, begged for the life we’d built together, and for the life growing in her belly. But if she heard any of it, she didn’t care. She told me that she had never loved me, had never been attracted to me, didn’t respect me, and didn’t trust me. It was a lie, of course. A lie she told to me, but more importantly to herself. A lie she continues to tell herself to this day.

But at the time, I couldn’t recognize it. I was, simply put, destroyed. It was like being unmade, almost murdered. I cried uncontrollably everyday for weeks. I didn’t have a full night’s sleep for seventy days before I lost count. I ate so little that I lost twenty pounds, and if it wasn’t for the rivers of beer I drank to numb the world, I would have lost even more.

This is when my monster came back from its exile and pounced. Somehow, I managed to continue on auto-pilot, paying my bills and working, but at every moment the monster sapped my energy. It left me mentally and physically exhausted, yet unable to sleep and recover. Alcohol and sleep medication was all that kept it at bay for a few hours at a time and let me rest.

My monster consumed my sense of self-esteem and worth, leaving me with nothing to fight back against it. I entered counseling for a time, searching out new weapons, but growing up with a psychologist for a mother, I knew the score and saw through the manipulations designed to help me find my way out again. My monster turned my intelligence and stubbornness against me, convincing me that it was right using my own greatest strengths and defining characteristics to do it, convincing me that it was actually my voice I was hearing, instead of its lies.

At about this time, my beautiful daughter was born, and the monster took her from me. It, along with some less-than-helpful words from my now ex-wife, convinced me that I was so worthless, so broken, that I would be nothing but an anchor on my daughter’s life. That she would be better off if I wasn’t around to screw her up like her pathetic, unlovable father. I signed away my parental rights, not because I wanted to give her up, but because wallowing around in the pit, I believed with all my heart that I was doing what was best for her future. It’s a mistake I’ll never be able to take back, and the only thing I actually regret from that time in my life.

Then, the monster managed to put a gun in my mouth. I was half an inch from surrendering to it and becoming yet another statistic. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’d like to say something inspiring like I saw a picture of my daughter and I didn’t want her to grow up without her real daddy. Or I had a moment of clarity and insight that pulled me back. But those aren’t true. Honestly, I may have just been too tired and unambitious to pull the trigger.

So it’s with some authority and personal experience that I say this next bit: If you’re one of those people who says suicide victims are weak, or cowards, or selfish, do me a favor. Grab the nearest pen, and stab yourself right in the eye, because you don’t have the first mother-fucking clue what you’re talking about.

Suicide victims are exactly that, victims. By the time the monster has eaten away that much of you, you aren’t capable of seeing yourself, the world, or your place in it rationally. I believed right before that moment that I was a cancer that needed to be cut out of humanity, that I was a disease infecting my friends and family, and that the right, proper, and noble thing to do was to excise myself and save them from the symptoms.

That’s what depression does to people. Male, female, beautiful, homely, young, old, famous, obscure, wealthy, poor, none of it matters. The monster will hunt them all. Some of them will fall victim to it and people will stand around saying stupid shit like, “They had so much to live for,” or, “They were rich, what did they have to be sad about?” Seriously, fuck you.

Which brings me to comedy. It’s a poorly kept secret, but comedians aren’t actually funny people. Often times, they are some of the most emotionally scarred people you can imagine. I’ve been doing comedy in the MKE and Madison scene for two years now, and I don’t know a single comic who wasn’t damaged in some way, often severely.

It’s what we do with that pain and emotional disfigurement that sets us apart. I was fall-down drunk the first time I did comedy. I was drunk because I was hurting deep inside myself, way down past where smiles and kind words could reach it. I was able to get up on stage in front of complete and utter strangers and slur my way through some lame jokes I hadn’t prepared not because I was brave, but because I had already lost so much that there wasn’t anything left to be afraid of.

What did I care if these folks didn’t like me or thought I was an idiot? How would that be any different than the way I thought everyone else already felt about me? I told jokes that night more out of anger than anything. I vaguely remember asking the audience if they’d ever been so hung-over they put hair conditioner on their toothbrush. That’s about it.

But, to my amazement, some people laughed. Genuinely laughed. For the first time in almost a year, I felt the world open up a little bit. So the next week, I did it again. And again. Soon, it was a habit, then an obsession. I was watching all the pain and anguish that had tormented me turn from poison into something positive. I was making people laugh, giving them a break from their own struggles to share in the absurdity of our mutual existence and give it the middle finger for an hour or two. Comedy, family, close friends, and the love, understanding, and unconditional support of my girlfriend finally gave me the weapons I needed to subdue the monster. It sleeps once more.

The best comics are born from tragedy. It gives them the perspective, motivation, bravery, and material to rise above the fray. How many comics can you name that are still on their first marriage? How many haven’t had a private, or often very public battle with substance abuse? Hell, Richard Pryor very famously lit himself on fucking fire, nearly becoming Richard Pyre in the process.

Robin Williams was no exception. His comedic brilliance was fueled by his manic depression, battles with drug addiction, and personal tragedies, many of them self-inflicted. These were battles he fought his entire life. Without his personal struggles, the world would have been deprived of his wit, his zaniness, and his heart. We would never have met Mork, or seen Peter Pan all grown up fight against Captain Hook for the love of his children, or watched Mrs. Doubtfire square off against James Bond over Sally Field, (not that I’d fight over Sally Field, but whatever). And me and Tim Korklewski wouldn’t have been literally rolling around in the isles in the Desert Star Theatre in the Dells while we watched Rainbow Randolph shouting at Edward Norton in a rhinoceros costume, “That’s not a rocket. It’s a COCK! Twig and berries! Rumple Foreskin!”

There are people who have had immense impact and influence over my life who died before I had the opportunity to meet them, shake their hand, and thank them for all they meant to me. People like Jim Henson, Gene Roddenberry, Douglas Adams, and Christopher Hitchens. I had to add another one today, and it breaks my heart.

If you know someone who is fighting the monster, do everything you can, everything, to help them defeat it. Never give up on them. If they’re still alive, it’s because they haven’t yet given up on themselves. They need tools, they need weapons, they need allies, even if they can’t put their needs into words or find the strength to ask. Give them what they need.
Dan, this is a reference to Pat's gay blog post where he makes Robin Williams suicide all about himself while he speaks to nobody.
 

Chive Turkey

Erock Army Deserter
Forum Clout
32,379
Other than that, I find it best to invest in stuff that has real world applications and then don't look at it
Basic materials, utilities and foodstuffs, my man. Actual resources for which there'll always be a steady demand. It doesn't hurt that most of those industries are backed up Uncle Sam's bottomless coffers either.
 
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