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blackwoolncrown · 4 years

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”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you�� tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

not

fucking

talk

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

#acab

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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YOUR EMPLOYEES AND INVESTORS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ASKING ARE WE THERE YET

I think I've figured out what's going on. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated.1 Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, the harder it is to bait the hook with prestige. And that is almost certainly mistaken. So one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. As big companies' oligopolies became less secure, they were willing to pay a premium for labor. You can see it in old photos. If you're friends with a lot of the worst kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer.

And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. In 1450 it was filled with the kind of turbulent and ambitious people you find now in America. You have to like what they do there than how much they can get the most done. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. Design This kind of metric would allow us to compare different languages, but that if someone wanted to design a language explicitly to disprove this hyphothesis, they could probably do it. This technique can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be doing, not just what you can see the results in any town in America. With this amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. There I found a copy of The Atlantic. Whereas it's easy to get sucked into working longer than you expected at the money job.2 That's ok. I think you have to do all three. But more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.

But what if the person in the next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things.3 They all know about the VCs who rejected Google. The writing of essays used to be.4 You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.5 He improvises: if someone appears in front of him, he runs around them; if someone tries to grab him, he spins out of their grip; he'll even run in the wrong place, anything might happen. The people who've worked for a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. It was supposed to be something else, they ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. By 2012 that number was 18 years. The first thing you need is to be willing to look like a fool.6 Google they have a fair amount of data to go on. John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman.

Many of the big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders.7 Empirically, the way to the bed and breakfast, and other similar classes of accommodations, you get to hit a few difficult problems over the net at someone, you learn pretty quickly how hard they hit them anyway. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake as the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one was the only way to get lots of referrals is to invest in students, not professors. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new.8 Never say we're passionate or our product is great. Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be disappointments early on, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that.9 Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. VCs think they're playing a zero sum game.

I spend most of my time writing essays lately. Almost everyone's initial plan is broken. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. But if we make kids work on dull stuff now is so they can get away with atrocious customer service. In fact, here there was a kid playing basketball? Of course, figuring out what you like.

Go out of your way to bring it up e. The industry term here is conversion. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. At least if you start a startup, people treat you as if you're unemployed.10 But hacking is like writing. Even with us working to make things happen the way they used to, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. It causes you to work not on what you like, but is disastrously lacking in others. I do in the rest of the world. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program.

I could only figure out what to do, there's a natural tendency to stop looking.11 Economies of scale ruled the day.12 One is that this is simply the founders' living expenses.13 I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I think I know what is meant by readability, and I think they're onto something. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.14 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on anything they don't want to want, we consider technological progress good.

Notes

Samuel Johnson said no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Which is precisely my point. If they were regarded as 'just' even after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so new that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but except for money. They don't know enough about the new top story.

The image shows us, they tended to make money. But we invest in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and one of the fake leading the fake leading the fake. In No Logo, Naomi Klein says that 15-20% of the aircraft is.

But because I realized the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. If they agreed among themselves never to do due diligence for an investor? The best technique I've found for dealing with the other.

I ordered a large number of startups as they do for a public event, you can ignore. If you want to help the company, and a few of the Facebook that might produce the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether to go to die.

If you walk into a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3.

Or rather, where w is will and d discipline. But that turned out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest country in the sense of mission.

In Shakespeare's own time, because they can't afford to. The company may not be able to raise their kids in a company in Germany. When we got to see the apples, they said, and why it's next to impossible to write an essay about it wrong. That will in many cases be an open booth.

I'm not saying you should probably be worth trying to tell them exactly what constitutes research in the early 90s when they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. As Jeremy Siegel points out that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. Did you know about it as if you'd invested at a discount of 30% means when it was actually a great programmer doesn't merely do the right direction to be is represented by Milton.

But a lot of the next round. It's hard to say exactly what your body is telling you. In Russia they just kill you, they tend to be very unhealthy. One thing that drives most people realize, because you have two choices, choose the harder.

Though Balzac made a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay talks about programmers, but one by one they die and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Or rather, where it sometimes causes investors to act. Eric Raymond says the best hackers want to trick admissions officers. And no, unfortunately, I mean efforts to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you better be sure you do in proper essays.

The top VCs thus have a better education. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or some vague thing like that. You need to fix. But the question is not much to maintain their percentage.

Kant. Loosely speaking. The real decline seems to them to lose elections. Some types of startups where the recipe is to say incendiary things, they can grow the acquisition offers most successful founders still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they get for free.

World War II to the frightening lies told by older siblings. That's one of the most general truths. As we walked in, we found they used it to get into that because a unless your last funding round.

But this seems an odd idea.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Shiro Kawai, Garry Tan, Chris Small, and Nikhil Nirmel for sharing their expertise on this topic.

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gonbe-nyanya · 3 years

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How to Actually Play Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering (MTG, or just Magic) is the first and one of the most popular trading card games in the world. Described as the chess of card games, you can go as complex as you want (even make a computer) or have as much fun as you want, diving into the multitudes of worlds, creatures, and characters to express yourself.

But first you need to know how to play.

Lots of guides tend to be overly simplistic, so here I’ll try to go really in-depth in the rules while still maintaining an introductory tone. I will also try to provide as many pictures of relevant cards as possible to expose you to the vast array of effects cards may have, and how they interact with what I’m currently discussing.

1. The Colors of Magic

The most defining part of Magic are the five different colors. Each has its own flavor, playstyle, advantages, and disadvantages. You can combine different colors in your deck to have access to interesting combos and to balance out your deck’s weaknesses. Different color combinations also have their own specific flavor, often embodied by groups such as the guilds of Ravnica.

White: This is the color of unity, healing, and order. Cards in this color will often gain you life, protect your creatures from damage, tax or outright prevent your opponents from doing tricky things, and make armies of small creatures that together make mighty fighting forces. It is also associated with artifacts, enchantments, and exiling.

By the way, I will be defining Magic terms as they come up, like so.

Token: A representation of a creature, artifact, or something else. You can use it like a card while it exists, but it will vanish when it leaves the battlefield. (the rest of these terms will come up soon.)

Exile: Originally called “removed from the game”, exile is a zone that is inaccessible to most cards. It makes sure your opponents’ creatures go away forever. Sometimes, creatures go to exile and come right back to get extra enter-the-battlefield effects, known as blinking.

If you see something that isn’t immediately defined, just keep it in mind. Chances are I’ll cover it in a later chapter.

Blue: This color is related to knowledge, water, and the cold. You’ll get to draw lots of cards, but your creatures will be lacking. Instead, you will have access to powerful spells that bounce, freeze, or steal your opponents’ creatures and even give you extra turns. Quelch your opponents’ attempts with counterspells. It also has affinity for artifacts.

Black: This color represents death, disease, and ambition. Full of evil kill and discard spells, you will have access to your own army of zombies, vampires, and demons. You will also be able to do powerful things, but often at the cost of cards, creatures, or even your own health. In the words of Dark Confidant, “Greatness, at any cost.”

Red: This is the color of passion, fire, and explosive power. Many of the direct damage spells, including the iconic Lightning Bolt, are Red, as well as aggressive, fast creatures and multiple combats. You will have an extreme upper hand in your first few turns, but will quickly run out of gas if you don’t use another color to keep up on card draw. Red also brings with it mighty dragons and world-morphing chaotic effects.

Green: The color of nature, Green is similar to white in its abilities to heal, create tokens, and destroy artifacts and enchantments. However, Green has a wild side and is full of giant beasts, swarms of bugs, and rapid evolutions. It also brings out lands quickly and makes tons of mana.

2. Dissecting a Card

Sidisi is a popular character that hales from the plane of Tarkir. She’ll be helping us as a prime example of what a card looks like. There’s a lot to take in, but we’ll start from the top and work our way down.

First is the border (yes, from the very top!). It seems silly, but there are actually a few different borders that mean different things. A vast majority of cards have the regular black border. You may also see cards with white borders - these tend to be older cards, but they’re just as good as the black bordered ones. Silver borders come from the Un-sets, a series of joke sets full of wacky mechanics and inside jokes. None of these cards are tournament legal, but you’re free to have fun with them with your friends. Gold-bordered cards will also have a different back, and were printed as a part of tournament-winning decks back in the day. These are not tournament legal, but since they are often cheaper than their “real card” counterparts, people will use them in casual decks.

Next is the name. “Sidisi, Brood Tyrant” is the full, English name of this card. Each deck can only have up to 4 copies of any single card (there are very important exceptions to this I will cover in the next chapter). There are also a few cards which specifically reference others by name.

To the right of that is the mana cost. In this case, we need to use one black mana, one green mana, one blue mana (each represented by their respective symbol) and one mana which can be of any color, or even colorless, represented by the 1 in the circle. We’ll find out how to get mana in the next chapter as well. As a side note, many cards will consider the mana value (formerly, converted mana cost), which is just the total cost of the card as a number. For Sidisi, it’s four.

Beneath that is the art.

Arguably the most important part of any card, Magic’s art is what really sets it apart from other games. People fall in love with specific cards for their dramatic poses, mighty beings, and stunning vistas. The art brings character to every card, and ties flavor and function beautifully. This is the best way to express yourself, and find what you really like about Magic.

Next is a thin bar called the typeline. This will tell you first what type of card it is - either a land, creature, artifact, enchantment, planeswalker, instant, sorcery, or tribal (or some combination!), which dictate how you use the card, and what other cards interact with it. Card types can be divided into permanent, which go on the battlefield once played, and nonpermanent, which you play for a single effect and immediately go to your graveyard. There are also some supertypes. Sidisi herself is Legendary, meaning she represents a specific character from Magic lore. This also means you can only have a single copy of her on the battlefield at any one moment; if you somehow get another, you’ll have to sacrifice one. Basic is another important supertype we’ll cover soon.

On the other side of the hyphen is the subtype - this is almost exclusively used for creatures to tell you what tribes they belong to. Sidisi herself is a Naga and a Shaman, and will thus interact with cards that care about that (these are often called tribal effects; for example, “Elves you control get +1/+1″). From Trilobites to Trolls, the creatures of magic are a diverse crowd.

Finally comes the set symbol, that strange orange shield thingy to the right. This tells you two things: the set the card comes from, and the rarity. This specific symbol represents the set Khans of Tarkir, so booster packs from that set may contain Sidisi. Rarity comes in 5 different colors.

Black: Common (Simple, often weak)

Silver: Uncommon (May have cool mechanics)

Gold: Rare (More powerful and complex)

Orange: Mythic Rare (The most powerful and complex)

Purple: Special (This is only used in situations such as Time Spiral, where they reprinted cards in the old border)

The rarity often (but not necessarily) corresponds to power level. It’s better to think of it as a ranking of design complexity. Newer Rares and Mythics will also have that shiny, elliptical sticker near the bottom, which simply guarantees the authenticity of the card.

The bottom half of the card is dominated by the text box. This will tell you the effects and abilities of the card. Sidisi has two abilities: one that triggers whenever she enters the battlefield or attacks, and one that triggers whenever a creature card is put into the graveyard from your library (on modern cards, this is called milling). We will go over abilities later.

Notice how Sidisi aligns with her colors. As a Naga, she is Green. Her zombie tokens are characteristic of Black, and tokens are generally Green as well. Milling is a Blue ability, and putting creatures in the graveyard to bring back to life is definitely Black.

The text box is also home to flavor text, the italicized text beneath the rules. This will often be a little blurb or quote relating to the flavor of the card. Consider it an extension of the art.

Creatures will also have that rectangle to the bottom right, called the Power and Toughness. The first number is the power (how hard it punches) and the second is the toughness (how hard of a punch it can take). This is relevant for combat and we will cover it extensively later.

Finally come all those funny symbols at the very bottom. This will include the collector’s number (199/269), the set (KTK = Khans of Tarkir), the artist (Karl Kopinski) and the copyright.

3. Lands

Lands are by far the most important component of your deck. They are what generate the mana you need to cast your spells, and dictate the colors of spells you can play.

You can play one land per turn - just plop it from your hand onto the battlefield. They have no mana cost, and thus the top right is blank.

The Basic land is the prime exception to the four-card limit, as you can have as many as you want in your deck. The Basic supertype also interacts with several cards, such as ones which let you get more from your deck onto the battlefield.

The 6 basic lands are Plains (white), Island (blue), Swamp (black), Mountain (red), Forest (green), and Wastes (colorless, only used in decks such as Eldrazi Tron, and are often not included).

This cycle comes from Lorwyn, a set based in Gaelic mythology.

All Basic lands come with the implied rules text that they can tap to create one mana of their respective color, and as such will often have the cinematic mana symbol instead.

Tap: A common cost on a permanent to activate an ability. Turn the card sideways to tap it. It will stay tapped until your next turn, when it will untap during your untap phase (more on that later). A tapped card can’t be tapped again, and a tapped creature can’t block.

Some lands, especially those that can make different colors, will enter the battlefield tapped, so you’ll have to wait an extra turn to use them. Other lands might only create colorless mana (represented by a number on older cards and a diamond on newer cards), so they’re less useful for casting spells, but will have interesting abilities, such as:

This Mutavault can turn into a creature for just 1 mana, which you can use to attack and block with. (Pop quiz: see if you can recognize each part of the card!) There are dozens more examples that do everything from draw you cards to destroy your opponents’ pesky lands.

But what exactly does it mean to create a mana? Well, really, it gets added to your mana pool, as you may have noticed on the Mutavault. This is an arbitrary place where all your mana goes so that you can spend it. This isn’t often relevant, because you’ll mostly tap your lands while casting spells and the mana will immediately be used, but there are a few scenarios where it might be useful. For example, someone targets your land to destroy it because they don’t want you to have the mana open to kill something they’ll play next. Just tap your land to keep a mana “floating”. However, all the mana in your pool will automatically drain out each time you change phases (more on those later).

Tapping lands for mana is an ability, but since it’s a mana ability, it won’t use the stack, so you can use them just about whenever. More on the stack later as well.

Most decks will be around one-third lands, with more or less depending on how low the average cost of cards you have are. The less colors you run, the less cards you have at your disposal, but the more flexible your mana base can be - more colors often use lands that enter tapped and are inconsistent at drawing the colors they need.

Have fun experimenting with your mana base, especially in casual formats. In more competitive formats, lands are actually the most expensive cards! The top lands are called the shocklands, fetchlands, and original dual lands - the last of which are several hundred dollars each.

4. Permanents

Besides lands, just about every other card you play is considered a spell when you cast it (you’ll see this on cards such as Counterspell). However, for the sake of clarity, I’ll be using “Permanent” to refer to anything that goes directly on the battlefield once it resolves and “Spell” to refer to single-use cards.

Of the card types mentioned above, permanents include lands (which we just covered), creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and the mighty planeswalkers. I’ll include a visual example of each as we go.

Creatures are your basic way of winning the game. They can attack your opponent to take down their life total, but might also have interesting abilities that make them more valuable as repeatable spells than combatants.

Incubation druid is a great example of both: she starts off as an additional land, giving you more mana quicker to play your other cards. With 0 power, she’s useless as an attacker. However, her Adapt ability lets her grow into a formidable 3/5, so you can attack and block with her much more effectively later in the game. Notice the curved arrow symbol that represents tapping.

+1/+1 Counter: This is a permanent buff to your creature, giving it an additional power and toughness each. Counters in general can come in many forms: -1/-1 counters are self-explanatory, but ability counters such as a Flying counter give your creature a new keyword. Other counters, such as Lore and Filibuster, keep track of certain things for you. Always bring a few dice with you to every game, as you’re sure to want to track some sort of counter.

Creatures enter the battlefield with summoning sickness, which means they can’t attack or use any ability that requires them to tap until your next turn. Creatures also get summoning sick when they change control. A creature with Haste, a keyword ability, lets you ignore this, and is often found on red creatures.

Artifacts, lore wise, are artificial, sterile creations of wizardry, and as such, almost never correspond to a color. They may imitate the effects of a certain color, but to prevent other colors from having easy access to it, they will often be overcosted. A common type of artifact is colloquially known as the mana rock, as it generates mana. There are many cards that interact and enhance artifacts.

Hedron Archive is a typical mana rock, costing four mana of any color and boosting your mana generation ability by two. Later in the game, if you already have more than enough lands, you can cash it in for two mana to draw some more cards. Notice the distinct metallic border.

Artifacts often combine with Creatures to form Artifact Creatures, or less commonly with Lands to create Artifact Lands.

Artifacts can also come on the form of Equipment, which will give an effect when equipped to a creature. This often comes in the form of a buff to its power and toughness, but can also include adding keywords and other cool abilities. You’ll need to equip it by paying a cost, and can pass equipment around between any of your creatures. This can result in some funny mental images, such as a cat wearing a suit of armor and wielding three swords!

Enchantments are similar to artifacts in that they sit on the battlefield and have an effect, but they will have color. Also, Green and White excel at “cleansing” both by destroying them, but Red is only good at blowing up artifacts - after all, an ogre with a mace can smash a rock, but not a mystical spell.

Some enchantments have the subtype Aura. This means you cast them targeting a specific permanent, and they will enter the battlefield attached to that permanent like a piece of Equipment. These, however, can’t be moved around, and will fall off and go to the graveyard if the thing they enchant ever leaves the battlefield. Auras will often buff creatures, but can also subdue permanents or boost a land’s mana production.

Planeswalkers are the newest and arguably the most powerful of the permanents. They represent the primary characters of MTG lore, beings who have incredible magical prowess and can teleport from plane to plane. They are (as of yet) all legendary, and thus you can only have one of each at a time on the battlefield.

They look pretty weird, don’t they? Instead of a power and toughness, they have a loyalty in the bottom right. Each planeswalker will enter the battlefield with that many loyalty counters on it. You can activate one of its abilities on each of your turns by adding or subtracting the indicated loyalty. Once a planeswalker is at zero, it dies and goes to the graveyard (or rather, gets fed up with your mishandling and teleports away, as per loyalty flavor). Planeswalkers can also be killed by spells that specifically target them, when they’re dealt damage, or when they’re attacked by creatures. Their last ability is often incredibly powerful, and is called an “ultimate”. Newer planeswalkers sometimes also have static abilities.

Planeswalkers are not creatures, and can’t attack or block. That being said, there are some planeswalkers that can turn into creatures.

Permanents are very useful, as they stick around and provide value turn after turn. Many strategies revolve around certain tribes, or using artifacts. Creatures are the main way to get damage through to your opponent to win the game. And planeswalkers have powerful abilities, requiring an answer from your opponent to stay in the game.

5. Spells

As stated above, all nonland cards are technically spells when cast, but here we will talk specifically about Instants and Sorceries. We will also define timing, as instant- and sorcery- speed is something we will discuss often when looking at casting spells, activating abilities, and using the stack.

Sorceries are your basic single-use card. Pay their cost, they’ll resolve, and you’ll get their effect once before they go to the graveyard.

Something I haven’t brought up yet is when you can play cards. We’ll go over the turn structure more in depth, but for now, know there’s a beginning step, a main phase, a combat phase, and a second main phase. You can play any of the previously mentioned cards, including sorceries, and activate planeswalker abilities, whenever it’s your main phase and the stack is empty.

The Stack: Whenever you cast a spell or activate a non-mana ability, or a triggered ability triggers, it will go on the stack. Things on the stack resolve last-in, first-out.

Instants are just like sorceries, but you can cast them at any time you have priority. This means they can go on the stack above other spells, which allows them to interact with other spells. Activated abilities can also be activated whenever, except for planeswalker abilities and those which specify otherwise.

Priority: When you have priority, you will have an opportunity to cast spells, play lands, and activate abilities. Everyone gets priority every phase, and it starts with the active player (whoever’s turn it is) and is passed around in turn order.

Whenever something goes on the stack, priority is passed around as well. Once each player has passed priority, it resolves and priority is passed once again for the next thing.

You can hold priority to cast multiple spells in a row.

Here’s a quick example to see how spells, abilities, and priority all interact on the stack:

Johnny and Timmy are playing each other, and it’s Timmy’s main phase. Johnny has a 0/2 Incubation Druid.

Timmy plays a Bala Ged Scorpion, which goes on the stack. Priority is passed around and it resolves. Its triggered ability goes on the stack, and Timmy targets Johnny’s Incubation Druid, since its power is 0, less than 1.

Since the ability is on the stack, Timmy gets priority and passes it to Johnny. In response, Johnny casts Burst of Strength, maintains priority, and casts a second Burst of Strength. Now priority passes between them for both, and they both resolve. Incubation Druid is now a 2/4.

Priority passes for Bala Ged Scorpion’s ability, but since the Incubation Druid now has more than 1 power, the ability does nothing and fizzles.

Fizzle: A spell whose target is no longer legal does nothing when it resolves. This is colloquially called fizzling.

Assuming he had the mana for it, Johnny could also have activated Incubation Druid’s Adapt ability in response to the Bala Ged Scorpion, making it a 3/5 and also letting it survive.

There are lots of cool things you can do with the stack, such as making slick plays to foil your opponents’ spells or to copy big spells for massive value.

Some permanent cards have Flash. This is a keyword ability that lets you play the card as if it was an instant. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is the quintessential Flash card, as it also gives your other creatures flash and prevents your opponents from playing at instant speed.

6. Where are We?

I’ve been throwing around terms such as Graveyard and Battlefield, so what exactly do these mean? Well, these are all zones. We’ve already looked at one zone - Exile. The Stack is also a zone.

A zone is a place where cards can exist. They may have abilities that work while in that zone, most often on the battlefield. Public zones are where all the cards are known. This includes the Battlefield, the Graveyard, and Exile.

Urabrask’s ability only works while he’s on the battlefield, and only creatures you control on the battlefield would get haste - after all, those are the only ones who can use it, anyways. Yixlid Jailer takes away abilities from cards in graveyards, so Momentary Blink would not have Flashback while it’s there. Momentary Blink also exiles a creature (using the old wording of “removed from the game”) and brings it back, known as flickering.

Private zones are anywhere where cards are not public information. This includes your hand and your library. Thoughtseize, and other similar hand disruption spells, let you take a peek at what your opponent has. Loads of cards like Armillary Sphere let you search your library for cards. Others may reveal the top card of your library, or let you look at the top few.

It’s also possible to have “hidden” cards in public zones. Willbender feature the Morph mechanic, which lets you cast it face-down as a 2/2 creature. This means your opponent won’t know what it is until you turn it face up, but you will. Other effects might put cards face-down in exile, where you could cast them.

Whenever a card changes zones, it becomes a new “object”. That means all counters, equipment, and auras fall off, and it is no longer being targeted by anything that was targeting it before. A classic use of this rule is flickering a creature being targeted by a kill spell - even though it comes back to the battlefield, it is a new object and is thus no longer being targeted by the kill spell. The spell will fizzle and your creature will be safe.

7. Starting the Game

Ok. So you’ve got a basic understanding of all the cards and the different locations. How do you get started actually playing?

There are lots of ways to play the game, but I’ll start out with the most common: a 1v1, best of 3 duel. This will also get a little bit into deckbuilding, but there’s a lot more on that later.

Most 1v1 decks will be 60 cards. In fact, this is a lower limit, and you can have as many cards as you want, but it’s convention to stay at 60 cards to maintain consistency. In a best of 3 match, you will also have a sideboard - 15 or less cards that may target specific strategies such as graveyard decks or artifact decks. After your first game and seeing what your opponent is playing, you’ll be able to switch out cards in your deck for the right silver bullets for games 2 and 3.

Common sideboard cards against Burn, graveyard, and artifact strategies.

If you’re playing a casual game with a friend, feel free to omit the sideboard, but it’s a staple part of competitive play and is a fun way to personalize decks in strictly defined metagames.

Now that you’ve got a deck (and presumably, a friend with a deck as well) shuffle up. Cut your opponent’s deck by putting the top half on the bottom (a customary ritual to prevent cheating) and let them cut yours. Figure out who’s going first by rolling some dice (whoever wins gets to choose, but generally going first is preferred), and draw seven cards.

You may not like your hand for several reasons. Maybe you have too many lands, or none at all. Your lands might all produce the same color of mana instead of all the colors you need, or you might have only highly-costed spells and nothing to do on your early turns.

No problem, just shuffle it back in and draw seven more. This is called mulliganing. You can do this as many times as you want, but don’t be too hasty, because once you find a hand you like, you’ll need to put one card from your hand on the bottom of your library for each time you mulliganed.

Now it’s time for your first turn. But before we really get playing, let’s look at the structure of a turn.

8. Phases of a Turn

credit to u/paper_alien

From this fancy diagram, we can see that your turn is broken down into roughly three different parts. I’ll be including examples of cards that interact with each phase. First is the beginning phase.

Your untap step is right at the start, when all your permanents untap. Simply turn them right-side up. Claustrophobia would prevent one of your opponents’ creatures from untapping, rendering it useless as an attacker and blocker, as well as preventing its tap abilities from being used. No player gains priority during the untap step, and play immediately proceeds to the upkeep step.

Normally, nothing happens here, unless an ability triggers. For example, the Luminous Angel gives you a 1/1 token on your upkeep. Players will get priority, so you’ll have a chance to cast instants or activate abilities as well.

After that is the draw step. You immediately draw a card, and abilities like that of Font of Mythos will trigger. Again, priority passes around. Once you’ve finished with the draw step, move on to your main phase.

Side note: Normally, players will typically condense these three steps into one (untapping and drawing), because it’s rare that you do play something here, but the steps are distinct for those cases in which you do need to take an action.

As mentioned above, your main phases are the only times you can play lands and non-instant spells, as well as activate planeswalker abilities. They sandwich your combat phase. It’s uncommon for cards to trigger during your main phases, but the two above are prime examples of such cards. Many activated abilities will also have an explicitly written restriction to only use them during your main phases.

The combat phase is the most complex, as it is really made up of five to six distinct subphases. First, you declare that you are going to move to combat. This will trigger cards like Hazoret’s Favor, and will give your opponents an opportunity to subdue your creatures before they can attack but after you have a chance to cast relevant non-instant cards.

Once priority is passed around, you move to the Declare Attackers step. Here, you will tap each creature you want to have attack, meaning you can only attack with untapped creatures, and declare the player or planeswalker it will be attacking. Creatures do not attack other creatures (this isn’t Hearthstone), and instead your opponent will have a chance to block your creatures with their own.

This happens after priority is passed around and you move to the Declare Blockers step. Your opponent will choose which of their untapped creatures they want to block your attacking creatures. Each creature can block up to one other creature, but any number of creatures can block one creature.

Next is the Damage step. Here, each unblocked creature will deal damage to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking, and each blocked or blocking creature will deal damage equal to its power to the creature(s) it’s been pitted against. If one of your creatures is being blocked by multiple, you need to divide its power among them. For example, a 3/3 being blocked by two 2/1′s must deal 1 damage to one and 2 damage to another. All creatures who have been dealt more damage than their toughness die and are put into the graveyard.

The theoretical sixth step actually occurs before the Damage step - the First/Double Strike step. If any creatures with first strike or double strike are involved in the combat, this step will be created and those creatures will have an opportunity to deal damage before other creatures. For example, if a 5/1 with first strike is blocked by a 3/3, the 5/1 will deal 5 damage to the 3/3 before it has a chance to fight back, and the 3/3 dies. Double strike means the creature deals its damage twice - during this phase and the regular combat phase.

Finally is the End of Combat step. Similarly to the Beginning of Combat step, this is mostly a formality, but some cards do trigger here (such as the Wall of Cinders), and priority is passed around.

Notice that you also get priority after every one of these phases, meaning you have tons of control over what happens. This allows you to play combat tricks. For example, say you attack with a 4/4 and your opponent has a 4/2. They might think you just want to trade creatures (meaning both die) and blocks your attacker. Before damage, you have a chance to play Giant Growth, pumping your creature out of range of your opponent’s creature, so yours survives.

This is also a great time to cover the keyword abilities I’ve been bringing up throughout, as many of them concern combat. Many of them are fairly self-explanatory, and are not exclusive to creatures.

Deathtouch: Whenever this creature deals damage to another creature, that creature dies.

Defender: This creature can’t attack. Often seen on Walls.

First Strike/Double Strike: As mentioned above, these let the creature deal damage before other creatures. Double Strike means it deals damage twice, once in the first strike damage phase and once in the regular phase.

Flash: You can play this card at instant speed. Can appear on any permanent card.

Flying: This creature can’t be blocked except by other fliers and creatures with Reach.

Haste: This creature isn’t affected by summoning sickness.

Hexproof: This can’t be targeted by your opponents’ spells and abilities. This doesn’t prevent it from being affected by “choose” or “all” effects.

Indestructible: This can’t be destroyed by damage or effects that say “destroy”. It can still be sacrificed, exiled, or given -X/-X to reduce its toughness to 0.

Lifelink: Whenever this deals damage, you gain that much life.

Reach: Can block creatures with flying.

Shroud: Like Hexproof, but also prevents you from targeting it (for example, with a pump spell or equipment).

Trample: Excess combat damage can be dealt to your opponent. However, you still need to deal lethal damage to any blockers. For example, a 5/5 with trample being blocked by a 2/3 must deal at least 3 damage to the 2/3 so that you can deal 2 damage to your opponent.

Vigilance: This creature doesn’t need to tap when attacking.

Menace: This creature must be blocked by at least two creatures.

There are many, many more keyword abilities, but these are the most common - the rest you will come across as you explore the different sets and planes.

After your second main phase comes the end step. In reality, you’ll care more about your opponent’s end step, because it is the optimal time to play removal, card draw, or other useful instants because it will give your opponent the least amount of time to react before your next turn. However, once priority is passed during your end step, check if you have more than seven cards in your hand - the maximum hand size. if you do, the cleanup step is created. Here, you must discard down to seven cards, and there will be another chance for priority after that. Seven is the default maximum hand size, but there are many cards that let you play around with that.

So now you’ve got your deck, you’ve mulliganed as you need, you’ve played an Island. I see you preparing to cast that Opt - but wait! Casting a spell is quite a bit more complex than it first seems, so let’s go over that now.

9. Casting Spells and Activating Abilities

All this time, I’ve been talking about casting and activating without really explaining exactly what that means, so now let’s make sure you know what that means. There is a lot of nuance to properly casting a spell, but once you understand it, you can ignore all the decorum in most cases. However, it’s still important to know exactly what happens to prevent common misunderstandings, and because Magic is full of strange cards that love to bend the rules; you will doubtless find fun corner cases.

The steps to casting a spell and activating an ability are identical except the first, so I will be going over them together, referring to casting a spell.

Declare you are going to be casting the spell by putting it from where it is (generally, your hand) onto the stack. An ability will be put onto the stack as an arbitrary object.

Declare all the additional and alternative costs you wish to pay (for example, Vandalblast’s Overload cost), the mode of the card for split cards (such as Assure // Assemble) and double-faced cards (such as Alrund, who is also a bird on his other side!), and define the value of X (such as for Chalice of the Void), which you can pay for in mana of any color.

Choose the targets of your spell. You must have a legal target for each time the word “target” appears on the card (this is when effects such as “When this becomes the target of a spell” are triggered and go on the stack, to be sorted out and resolved later).

Now determine how much you need to pay. This includes cost reductions and additional costs, such as for Torgaar, as well as taxing effects (i.e., “noncreature spells cost {1} more to cast).

Activate mana abilities, such as those from your lands and mana rocks, and pay all costs as required. This means, for example, that you can tap a creature that produces mana and sacrifice it to pay for Torgaar.

Congratulations! Your spell or ability is now on the stack. Abilities that trigger while you are casting your spell, such as Talrand’s, will be on the stack above it and will thus resolve first. We covered fizzling before, but to clarify, a spell will fizzle only if all its targets are no longer legal, either through dying, or gaining Hexproof, or some other means. This means you get no part of its effects. If it has multiple targets, and only some become illegal, the card resolves as normal.

Like I said, you really don’t need to understand all of this in depth, but it helps clarify the occasional odd rules interaction.

10. Abilities

There are four types of abilities that you might find on cards. The one we’ve just covered extensively was activated abilities, which further come in two forms.

Draconic Disciple handily features both: a mana ability, and a normal activated ability. Notice that all activated abilities use the syntax “Cost X, Cost Y: Ability.” As we covered last chapter, you need to use mana abilities before paying costs when activating an ability, so you couldn’t tap Draconic Shaman for mana for his own ability as well as tap him to summon the dragon.

The main distinction for mana abilities is that they don’t use the stack, resolve instantly, and can be used while casting spells. An activated ability is considered a mana ability if and only if all it does is create mana. That means that Deathrite Shaman’s first ability is not a mana ability, because it exiles a land in addition to creating a mana.

The three other types of abilities are triggered abilities, passive abilities, and replacement effects.

Vanquisher’s Banner features a passive ability by giving all your creatures of a certain creature type +1/+1. It’s pretty straightforward: a static ability simply applies as long as the permanent which has it is on the battlefield. There are nuances in “layering”, but this is already far more complex than you’ll need to know for the majority of games. Feel free to read that article, though.

Vanquisher’s Banner’s third ability is a triggered ability - an ability that goes on the stack when something happens. This could be casting a spell, a creature entering the battlefield, or drawing a card - or just about anything. These are generally in the form “When” or “Whenever”, and should not be confused with replacement effects.

Replacement effects, like the one seen on Teferi’s Ageless Insight, come in the form “If... would... instead”. They are similar to triggered abilities in that they occur in response to something happening, but they don’t use the stack. Instead, think of them as modifiers to abilities. For example, if Teferi’s Ageless Insight was formatted like a triggered ability, drawing you a card each time you drew a card, you’d be stuck in an endless loop of drawing. Instead, replacement effects only apply once to each thing they modify.

There are many ways that abilities might manifest themselves, and they don’t always need to be on the battlefield. Bridge From Below’s wall of text works when it’s in the graveyard. Skyscribing’s ability only works from your hand, and is keyworded by Forecast, which only appeared in the original Ravnica set.

The best way to experience all the different interesting abilities and cards is just by playing and expanding your collection. Enjoy playing around and learning more about the game.

This is just about all you need to know to understand the game itself. However, Magic cards just love bending the rules, so you’ll always be encountering interesting rules interactions that will teach you more about the game as you play.

11. Formats

Here is where the fun really begins. Choosing a format is like choosing a social media platform: it comes with its own drama, flavor, speed, and player personalities. All formats use 60 card decks with 15 card sideboards, and start at 20 life, except Brawl and Commander. Each format has its own banlist, so make sure you check that before building just any deck. However, feel free to totally disregard all formats and just build whatever deck you want to have fun with friends!

Here are the most popular formats:

Standard: Probably the most popular 1v1 format, Standard uses cards from the last few sets, and constantly rotates. Deck prices can range from under 100$ to over 500$ when certain powerful cards are in rotation, but when a card rotates out, it can lose its value if it isn’t played in older formats. It can be competitive, but also lets you play with fun new cards in a weaker environment.

Pioneer: The newest official format, Pioneer uses cards dating back to the set Return to Ravnica. It has the same fresh feel as Standard, but doesn’t rotate and is closer in power level to Modern.

Modern: This format uses cards from the newest set all the way back to Eighth Edition from 2003. Decidedly more powerful than Standard, and expensive as well. Competitive decks can range from 200-1000$, but the vast size of the card pool means you can find budget builds and underdog decks to tinker with.

Legacy: You can use any card in the history of Magic, except those from the Banlist. The power level is incredibly high, yet the stereotype of 2-turn games is not as true as one might think. Because of the original dual lands, decks are often over 1000$, but mono-colored decks such as Burn can be brought down to 200$. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

Vintage: Like legacy, all cards are at your disposal, and this time, instead of a banlist, you have a restricted list, meaning you are limited to 1 copy of certain cards. A single copy of Black Lotus can be tens of thousands of dollars, and is a staple alongside the rest of the Power Nine. Very few play it because of the price tag, but it lets you tap into the true power of the oldest Magic cards.

Commander (AKA EDH): Play with any card, like Legacy, but with the distinct Commander banlist. The deckbuilding process here is very different: Pick a legendary creature you like, and pick 99 more cards that are of the same color(s) as your commander. This is a singleton format, meaning you can only have one of each card except for basic lands. Commander is also a multiplayer format, played in pods of 3-6; most often 4. Your commander starts in the Command Zone, where you can cast it. Each time it dies, it goes back to the Command Zone, where you can replay it for an additional 2 mana each time. The multiplayer nature, 40 starting life total, and high variance make Commander incredibly casual, much more a social event than a game. Have fun casting huge spells, playing pet cards, and embodying your commander. That being said, there’s a competitive scene in EDH, known as cEDH.

Brawl: Ah, Brawl. Commander’s younger, forgotten brother. It’s a cross between Commander and Standard, in which you have a commander (in this case, it can also be a planeswalker) and must have singleton copies of cards. Like Standard, you can only use cards from the last few sets, your deck is only 60 cards (no sideboard, though), and games are 1v1. You start with 25 life. Almost nobody plays this in person, but it’s very fun on MTG Arena.

12. Where to Play

Assuming you don’t have a group of friends ready to accept you into their playgroup, finding people to play with can be hard. First, I’d recommend checking Wizards of the Coast’s official Store Locator to find local game stores that might be hosting events and selling cards. If you go to their websites, they’ll often have calendars listing events by date, format, price, and prize. Explore and find one you like. MTG players are generally friendly, and will be willing to accept you into their playgroup, teach you about the game, and maybe even let you borrow a deck!

If you don’t feel like playing in person, there are several online options.

Magic Online (AKA MTGO or MODO) is the primary official way to play. Pay 10$ for an account, and you can buy, sell, and trade cards as if they were real. No really - Magic cards are almost like stocks, and MTGO cards are basically digital versions of Magic cards, so their price will generally mirror their real world counterparts, albeit at a lower price.

Magic Arena (MTGA) is the newest official online game. It only has cards from recent sets, back to Kaladesh, as well as a few odd cards hand-picked for Historic play (a format specific to the game that uses all cards available). Because of the smaller card pool, MTGA is limited to Standard, Brawl, and Historic as the primary game modes. However, it is free to play and your collection can’t be traded, so you collect cards somewhat like Hearthstone.

There are also a few unofficial programs, including Untap.in, XMage, and Cockatrice, which are free and give you access to the full range of cards for testing new decks before you buy them in paper.

Make sure you keep track of MagicFests, official conventions hosted both around the world and online, to meet tons of new people and play in competitive events.

Ultimately, though, many people choose to play at home around the kitchen table with friends and family. Play wherever and however you feel most comfortable; after all, Magic’s best aspect is self-expression.

13. Accessories

Credit: Tolarian Community College

If you’ve visited a local game store by now, you may have noticed that they sell way more than just cards. There are a myriad of accessories you can use to personalize your game and protect your cards.

Dice: from D4′s to D20′s, you can find these in countless colors and styles. Have fun picking your favorite and use them to keep track of life totals, counters, tokens, and more.

Sleeves: These can come in many different colors and designs, but vary wildly in quality. Pick the ones that feel right for you. These will help you shuffle your deck with ease and prevent your cards from getting damaged. Inner and outer sleeves provide additional protection for your most valuable and prized decks.

Deckboxes: Again, tons of variation. The right deckbox for you will depend on how many cards you want to fit in it, if you want space for dice, the design, and much more.

Playmats: These provide a sleek surface for you to easily pick up, tap, and move your cards around. Pick ones with your favorite Magic art, or order one with your own.

Trade Binders: Once you’ve built up a collection, you might have a few valuable cards you want to show off. Put them in a trade binder, and approach people to find other neat cards you might need.

Tolarian Community College on Youtube provides the best reviews of popular accessories, rating and testing them thoroughly. He also dishes out incredible commentary on new sets and the state of the game. Probably the most popular MTG Youtuber out there.

14. Further Resources

You’ve made it this far, but there’s still so much to explore! Here, I’ll be listing plenty of websites that are excellent resources to expand your understanding of the game.

The official rules: Quite dry, but this is where to go if you ever find a confusing interaction.

Tolarian Community College: I just discussed him, but I must reiterate how awesome his channel is.

Scryfall: A powerful search engine for all the Magic cards you might be looking for. What I’ve been using for card images this whole time. WOTC’s official Gatherer pales in comparison.

TCGPlayer: My favorite way to order cards online, but alternatives include Card Kingdom, StarCityGames, and ChannelFireball.

MTGGoldfish: An excellent all-round resource for keeping track of metagames, card prices, and interesting articles and gameplay. You can also use it to find, build, and share decks and see their prices.

EDHREC: This site conglomerates EDH decks from around the internet to give you a condensed list of the best cards by commander. A must-have resource when building new commander decks.

Last but not least, the best way to learn to play Magic is to watch others. I started out by watching gameplay from Grand Prix’s and other competitions on Youtube. Even though I barely knew what the cards were, I quickly picked up the most popular ones, learned common play patterns, and more. You don’t need to be a pro to learn from them.

15. Have Fun!

Yeah, it’s cheesy, but as I’ve reiterated, Magic is a game of self-expression. With thousands of cards to pick from, plenty of formats, styles, and accessories, customize your play experience as much as you want and be comfortable with that. Meet new people, participate in trading, and play in local events. Magic is what you make of it, so make it the best it can be.

#mtg #magic the gathering #mtg guide

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inyournightmares97 · 5 years

Text

Ultimatum (Part 2)

Park Jinyoung is a master negotiator. He’s used to preying on people’s weaknesses and manipulating them to get his way. So he can’t understand you; a lawyer who sees the world in black and white, as either good or bad. Conflict is inevitable.

But if the two of you can just set aside your differences, perhaps you can perform miracles together.

Word Count: 3.6k+

Warnings: Angst, office!au, enemies to lovers!au. Some language.

Part 1: In Which You Win

Part 2: In Which He Wins

Part 3: In Which the Common Enemy Appears

Part 4: In Which You Work Together

Part 5: In Which Nobody Wins (coming soon)

Part 6: In Which Everybody Wins (coming soon)

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It was like taking candy from a child.

Cruel, but easy.

“Do you know what this is, Yugyeom?” Jinyoung asked with a handsome smile. He leaned against Yugyeom’s desk gracefully, his expensive suit making the wooden table look dull in comparison. Jinyoung held a small sheaf of papers in his hand. “I just received this from IT. I think you’ll find it makes for very interesting reading.”

Yugyeom didn’t look up. You had just left the office for a meeting and he really didn’t want to deal with Park Jinyoung in your absence.

“Huh. Maybe put it down there and I’ll take a look at it when I have time,” Yugyeom muttered, trying to focus on the work he was supposed to be doing. He could feel Jinyoung’s dark eyes piercing into his skull.

“Are you sure? I think you want to read it now.”

“Not really.”

Jinyoung raised an eyebrow. “I see. You’d like me to leave it here for your boss to find when she comes back? Because I’m sure she’d be fascinated to go through your internet browsing history. There are some real gems in here.”

Yugyeom recoiled. “What?”

“The more recent ones are a delight. Let me see. ‘How to ask a girl out’ and ‘is it okay to date an intern’ and pick-up lines in Japanese. Is Hana Japanese? How ignorant of me, I never bothered to ask her. Oh! But I see if we go a couple months back then you enjoyed one particularly late night at the office alone, hmm? On 17th October at 11pm? Sounds like a wild ride. Busty brunettes-”

Yugyeom leapt to his feet and snatched the sheaf of papers, crumpling them up instantly. His cheeks and ears turned a bright red and he looked around furtively. Luckily you had stepped out for a meeting and Youngjae, the only other member of the Legal department, had gone to the cafeteria.

“Stop it. Please. Where did you even get that?” Yugyeom pleaded.

“I have friends in IT, Yugyeom,” Jinyoung explained as Yugyeom desperately ripped up the papers and tossed them into the bin under his desk. “I also have more copies of that.”

“I suppose you mean Mark Tuan. He’s not supposed to be releasing employee data like that. It’s against company policy for IT to disclose personal data to employees from other departments who don’t have clearance,” Yugyeom ranted, his brown eyes looking panicked. “It’s a breach of confidential information. So you can’t use that evidence against me because you obtained it illegally and without clearance-”

Jinyoung chuckled as he folded his arms across his chest. “Yugyeom. You poor child. You don’t understand how the world works, do you? I don’t need clearance to accidentally send this information to the rest of the office. What’s the worst that could happen to me? A formal reprimand, maybe a warning. But you… you’re going to face a lot worse.”

Yugyeom swallowed nervously. “Like what?”

Jinyoung leaned closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Like Hana finding out about your taste for brunettes even before you’ve asked her on a date.”

“Fuck.”

“What do you think? Does this seem like a risk you want to be taking?”

Yugyeom clenched his fists with hatred. “What do you want?”

Jinyoung grinned despicably and rolled up his sleeves.

“That’s more like it. Let’s have a negotiation, shall we? It’s what I do best, after all.”

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Yugyeom had been acting suspiciously silent all afternoon.

“Are you okay?” you asked him with a kind smile.

The young law graduate had only been working under you for a year, but his bright attitude and easy-going personality were the best things about him. Yugyeom could be clumsy and careless but he never lost his smile. Ever since you’d returned from your meeting, though, he had only been giving you one-word answers and avoiding your gaze.

“Fine,” he muttered.

“Are you sure? You’ve been pretty silent since I got back from my meeting.”

“Maybe something I ate at lunch didn’t agree with me,” he mumbled. Yugyeom’s face was white and you patted his back sympathetically. Poor kid. He’d been working hard with the big restructuring coming up soon.

“I’m leaving early today since I have to go visit my Mom. You should go home too. And drink some soup,” you suggested as you packed up your belongings. “We’ve been overworking ourselves. Nobody seems to appreciate that we’re the only thing standing between this company and a massive lawsuit.” you complained. Jinyoung’s despicable face popped up in your mind. “How dare he call our job a mere formality. That arrogant bastard.”

Yugyeom hiccuped nervously.

You smiled at him. “Here, drink some water. I’m guessing Park Jinyoung didn’t come by today?”

“W-what? No. Why? Did you see him?”

“Of course not. I was at my meeting most of the day. I assumed he’d come down here and try to bother you about the term sheet again,” you replied. It wasn’t like Jinyoung to give up easily. “I’m surprised he hasn’t done anything yet. He only has two days until his deadline. He must have some plan?”

Yugyeom forced a smile. “Maybe you scared him.”

“Maybe,” you mused. “Anyway, I’m leaving. Go home, Yugyeom. Get some rest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

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“I need you to personally review the documents relating to the opening of our new office in Busan,” the CEO told you. “It’s important that nothing goes wrong during this restructuring. We need it to work in order to cut costs here at the Seoul office, but if we have legal problems then we could end up spending more than we save.”

You nodded, clutching the files to your chest. “Right. I understand, sir. We’ll take care of it.”

“I know I can count on you. Okay. That’s all for today, I have another meeting in a few minutes. Dismissed.”

You walked out of the CEOs office with a sigh, wondering how you had just been piled with more work than ever when you’d really wanted to take a few days off this week. Things were getting tougher. Your mind was preoccupied as you walked and you collided with a hard chest covered in an expensive suit.

“Hello there,” Jinyoung’s deep voice greeted, sounding amused as he reached out to help you straighten up. You looked into his dark eyes. The man’s hands were soft and warm on your skin, unlike his personality.

You frowned at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a meeting with the CEO,” he informed you smugly.

“About what?”

“None of your business. Run along and go pretend to be important elsewhere,” he told you airily.

You narrowed your eyes at him. Something wasn’t right. Park Jinyoung shouldn’t be this happy. There was a sparkle in his dark eyes and even the way the corner of his lips was curved up suggested that he knew something you didn’t.

Something smelled fishy.

“How are you so calm? I don’t understand. Your client expects to be signing the agreement tomorrow and you haven’t even got a term sheet approved,” you reminded him. You’d checked with Hana and she had confirmed that Jinyoung would be meeting with the client tomorrow afternoon. What was he going to take to them?

“You know what? I think I’ll manage.”

“Manage how?” you demanded.

“There’s no fun in me telling you that, now is there?” Jinyoung asked. He coolly ran his fingers through his hair. “Keep your schedule vacant tomorrow. I imagine the entire office will be having a party to celebrate me securing the biggest deal of the year. It would be a shame if you missed it.”

“I can’t miss a party that won’t happen,” you snapped.

“Sure, let’s see who wins this one. Spoiler alert: it’s me. It’s always me,” Jinyoung informed you with a pearly-white smile. He patted you on the head in a condescending manner that made your blood boil (how dare he: you were a fully grown woman!) and then calmly walked past you to enter the CEOs office.

What was happening?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 8:34 pm on Tuesday night, Kim Yugyeom burst into tears and confessed everything.

You weren't surprised, only angry. It was just like Park Jinyoung to prey on a person's weakness. He had no shame or remorse, possessed no sense of right and wrong. He didn't even have basic decency, how could you have expected better from him?

“Hey, look. It’s going to be fine,” Youngjae tried to console Yugyeom gently, handing him a tissue to wipe his face. Most of the office had already left for the day but Yugyeom’s tears were still running like a waterfall. The poor boy was terrified.

“I-it’s not fine. I’m going to be fired for having approved a term sheet that was clearly against company policy-” Yugyeom whimpered.

“Nobody has to know!” Youngjae insisted. He turned and looked at you, expecting you to reassure Yugyeom. “Nobody has to know, right? Park Jinyoung won’t say anything because his ass is on the line. There’s no reason for senior management to read the agreement thoroughly. I’m sure the CEO will just sign it since it’s such a huge deal for our company. We’ll be fine for now. It’s a seven-year contract so really, it’ll be years before anyone begins to find any problems.”

You leaned back in your chair and sighed. “Do you guys know why the company doesn’t offer sub-licensing rights as a rule?”

Youngjae blinked. “I mean, yeah-”

“It’s because the software we’re licensing out is ours. If the client is allowed to license it to other people, or sub-license, then why would anyone come to us to buy it? We’d never make sales ourselves because the client would essentially be selling our product at a cheaper rate than us. We'd lose customers, literally. Sub-licensing puts our company at a disadvantage in the long run. But Park Jinyoung doesn’t care about the long run. He doesn’t even care whether this deal will benefit the company. He just wanted the personal glory of being the first guy in Sales to secure a ten million-dollar deal.”

Yugyeom sniffled. “I’m sorry…”

You sighed and patted him on the back. You weren’t happy with Yugyeom, but the boy was already so miserable that it seemed heartless to scold him further.

“Let’s call it a day, Yugyeom. We’re going to have to listen to Park Jinyoung gloating tomorrow, so we need our rest.”

“You’re not going to tell the CEO?” he asked hopefully.

You bit your lip. Every part of you was screaming to go to the CEO now and tell him that Jinyoung’s contract grossly violated company policy, but it was too late. Yugyeom’s signature was already on the sheet. The poor boy would lose his job and you didn’t want to be directly responsible for that. You gave him a small smile.

“I’m not going to tell. But the problem might get traced back to you someday, Yugyeom. I won’t lie. I’m not sure I can save you from that.”

“I-I know.”

“How about we all go get some pizza? Let’s invite Hana too. The poor girl can never join us when Jinyoung’s around,” you said brightly, in an attempt to dissipate the dull atmosphere. “Yugyeom, why don’t you go over to Sales and let her know?”

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Park Jinyoung probably rehearsed that despicable smile of his.

You could picture it in your mind; Jinyoung standing in front of his mirror at home and practicing his pearly-white smile, checking to see which angles were most flattering. Jinyoung’s smile was made for the cameras, which was convenient because a press conference was held on Wednesday afternoon to announce that the two companies had entered into an enormous deal.

You watched in silent disgust as Jinyoung smiled handsomely for the cameras and shook hands with the senior management.

“Looks like they’re organizing a party to celebrate the deal,” Jinyoung announced loudly to Jackson as he walked past your desk later that evening, proudly carrying the small gift that the client had given him as a thank you. He was addressing his co-worker, but his dark eyes twinkled in your direction. “There’ll be lots of free booze. We’re going to need a designated driver.”

Jackson laughed. “Don’t look at me! I intend to get sloshed!”

“Oh, I’m sure someone from Legal will volunteer,” Jinyoung replied airily. “I can think of a few teetotallers in that department.”

What a prick. Like hell you would be driving his drunken ass home.

Park Jinyoung gave you a cheeky smile and hurried past. Even the sight of his shapely posterior was not enough to calm you down. How did the man wake up every morning and live with himself? He had no shame.

You paused for a few moments to visualise his head puffing up to three times its present size and then exploding into a billion tiny pieces, one for every dollar he’d made off the deal. The prospect made you feel marginally better and you were able to get back to work.

You’d get your revenge.

Although maybe not quite yet.

“Are you all coming to the party tonight?” Hana asked hopefully, when she stopped by the Legal area on her return journey from getting Jackson coffee. Her question was addressed to all three of you but her gaze was on Yugyeom. He had been miserable all morning. His shoulders were slumped as he shuffled through some documents half-heartedly.

“Of course we’re coming,” you told her.

Yugyeom blinked. “Actually-”

“We’re coming. We did some work on that deal too, we deserve to be there,” you replied. You gave Yugyeom a firm look. “You’re not going to avoid it. If nothing else, at least enjoy the free drinks. Why would you refuse when the company is paying?”

“Right…” Yugyeom mumbled.

“Can I come with you guys?” Hana asked shyly. “I don’t really want to go with the rest of the Sales team. Mr. Park is being offered a promotion, and it’s all he can talk about. I’m getting kind of tired of congratulating him on it whenever he brings it up.”

You flinched. “A promotion? Jinyoung?”

“Well… it’s not a promotion exactly. But since he’s such a good negotiator, the CEO wants him to help the Finance team make pitches to potential investors for our company. I guess that’s a step up from Sales, right?” she asked.

Holy shit. They're sending him to our investors now? That was no small matter. Being in charge of finding clients was one thing, but to let Jinyoung talk to the company’s investors was pretty much the highest recognition they could have given him.

No wonder he had looked so pleased.

"Of course you can come with us," you told her kindly, trying not to let your bitterness show. "I'm sure you need a break from all that toxicity up in Sales. We'll meet you after work, I think the restaurant they booked is within walking distance from here."

"Thanks!" Hana said brightly. "I'll see you!"

None of you were in a mood to celebrate Park Jinyoung's 'contributions' to the company but you decided that you would go. Hopefully a couple of drinks and some time spent with Hana would cheer Yugyeom up. Park Jinyoung could only be in one place at a time, so it should be easy to avoid him, right?

------------------------------------------------------

It wasn't.

Park Jinyoung seemed to actively follow you around the party. Youngjae left to hang out with his friends in IT and after the first half hour, Yugyeom and Hana found a private spot on a couch to chat with their cocktails. They looked cozy and you didn't want to disturb them, so you just stuck to the walls and smiled at people politely.

Maybe you needed more friends.

Then again, you’d never been one for socializing at work. You worked well with your team, sure, but you didn’t know much about their personal lives. And you didn’t spend hours in the cafeteria chatting with people from other departments. You had a pleasant working relationship with most people but you didn’t have any friends in this company.

Oh well.

You’d rather be alone than manipulate people the way Jinyoung did.

You were just beginning to wonder if you could make an excuse to go home when you spotted a familiar smirk in the crowd. Park Jinyoung made his way over to you, a glass of whisky in one hand. He looked incredibly attractive. He’d unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt and his suit jacket was missing. Jinyoung’s hair was messy, and his skin flushed from the alcohol.

“Well,” he greeted you with a smirk. “You must be the only person in the room who hasn’t congratulated me tonight. Even Yugyeom did it, although he squeezed my hand a little harder than he should have. I think you’re rubbing off on him.”

You said nothing, merely glared.

“Oooooh, the stink eye. How terrifying,” he replied sarcastically. “Fine, don’t congratulate me. Oh! But would you mind driving me and Jackson home tonight? Everyone’s getting drunk and we can’t seem to find a ride. You don’t drink much at these kind of parties, do you?”

You held a hand out to stop a passing waiter and took two shots of hard liquor from him, one in each hand. Without breaking eye contact with Jinyoung you drank both of them in a single gulp and then set them down on the counter. Your head spun; but Jinyoung’s jaw fell slack and that was enough for you.

“Ah, I see. You are drinking then.”

“Surprising,” you replied with a sneer, “that the man who can negotiate a ten million-dollar deal is too cheap to just take a cab home.”

Jinyoung scoffed. “Cheap? Me?”

“Oh, am I wrong?”

“You are, as a matter of fact,” he replied. The corner of his lips turned up. “I’ll prove it to you. Let me buy you a drink right now. Choose anything you want from the bar. Not the free drinks they’re handing out for our party, but the expensive stuff on the menu.”

“I wouldn’t touch a drink you bought me with a ten-foot pole,” you snapped.

Jinyoung put a hand on his chest, looking offended. “What? What kind of a man do you think I am?”

“The kind who blackmails an innocent kid with his internet search history into signing a contract that he could be fired for having approved. Do you not think about the consequences of your actions, Park Jinyoung? Do you just go about the world doing whatever you please for your own benefit?”

Jinyoung’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. Who else do my actions need to benefit?”

“Unbelievable.”

“What?” he demanded. “Nobody’s ever done anything for me. I’ve gotten everything in this world through my own hard work. You think I haven’t been stepped on or cheated? Go ahead. Worship your laws and your ethics and your fucking company policy all you want. Those things have never helped anyone. We’re all responsible for taking care of our own asses, and no rulebook can change that.”

“You’re selfish and disgusting.”

“I’m happy.”

“Are you really? How do you live with yourself? It’s lonely at the top, Park Jinyoung.”

Jinyoung scoffed. His eyes looked around the room proudly. “Lonely? This party is being celebrated for my achievements. I’ve been congratulated by every single person here. I’m getting a raise and I’m about to be promoted. Do I look lonely? You’re the one who doesn’t have any friends here. All you do is act like a teacher’s pet and preach your moral superiority. It’s annoying.”

You flinched. “What?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? Nobody likes a goody-two-shoes. This isn’t primary school. There are no prizes for following the rules. Grow up.”

“I cannot believe your nerve.”

“No, you just can’t believe that your stupid company policy was wrong and that I found a better way to handle things on my own.”

“On your own? You blackmailed a kid! He could lose his job! And why? To secure that precious ten million-dollar deal? That deal is going to hurt the company in the long run and you knew it from the start! Not a single person benefits from this entire manipulative mess except for you!” you snapped.

Jinyoung blinked. “Then go tell on me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Go on, teacher’s pet. Be a tattletale. Go tell the CEO. I’ll lose my job. Yugyeom will lose his job. And your precious company will be saved from the big, bad sublicensing term. I dare you to do it,” he challenged you.

Your fists clenched. For a moment, you pictured yourself punching Park Jinyoung in the face, or throwing a martini onto his expensive shirt. How dare he create a problem and challenge you to fix it? How dare he pretend that he was right after his childish and selfish behaviour? You stared at him in disgust.

“I hate you,” you snapped.

Jinyoung smirked. “Are you sure? Or do you maybe just hate yourself? Because you’re so proud of always following the company policy and being a stickler for the rules but you can’t even bring yourself to tell the truth. You can fool yourself that you’re better than me all you want. But you’re complicit in this whole deal.”

“Fuck you.”

He chuckled. “What?”

“Fuck. You, Park Jinyoung,” you hissed as you turned to leave. “I can’t even look at you.”

“Are you sure?” Jinyoung called after you with a delighted laugh, as you hurried away. If you stayed then you would surely hit him, and you didn’t want to do that. “Because there’s a rumour around work that you can’t stop looking at my butt!”

You turned back to stare at him in disbelief. What?

Jinyoung simply grinned. His dark eyes were twinkling mischievously and he lifted the hand carrying his drink to show off his forearm below his rolled-up sleeves. Jinyoung’s dark hair fell into his eyes, and there was something extremely kissable about those plump lips of his as he mouthed the words that made your blood boil.

I win.

----------------------------------------

#got7 #got7 scenario #got7 scenarios #got7 fanfiction #got7 fanfic #park jinyoung #jinyoung scenario #jinyoung scenarios #jinyoung fluff #jinyoung angst #got7 fluff #got7 angst #got7 series #park jinyoung scenarios

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thesevillereport · 3 years

Text

In Focus: GameStop

There may be no better feeling for a business owner than seeing a large demographic start to shift in your favor. For example, a company that specializes in faux fur or faux leather couches had to be excited when more of the society started to care about the treatment of animals and nature. Chipotle's market value increased as more Americans became health conscious, and began to question and analyze what they ate.

For video game companies the numbers started to look really really good in the early 2000s. At that time, a population of people who started playing video games on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in the 80s were beginning to graduate college and enter the "real world." A good portion of that generation, Generation X, still played video games, and now they were going to be able to financially support their own gaming habits. No more relying on mom and dad for games.

This was going to be a huge windfall of profits for gaming companies. My self for instance, by the mid 2000s, I could comfortably afford to purchase a few brand new games a month, and maybe more if I decided to cut back on something. Gaming companies were looking forward to this, and it's continued growth as more young adults stayed connected to gaming. GameStop (GME)

created a hiccup in the grand plan of the gaming companies by allowing gamers to buy and trade pre-owned games.

If you aren't aware of how it works, a customer walks into GameStop a week or two after a game is released, and asks for that game title, the GameStop employee by default sells them a pre-owned version of that game, unless the customer specifically requests a new game.

Through GameStop, brand new games were bought, played, and then sold back to GameStop. GameStop would then resell the game for a profit to another gamer, and the gaming companies only saw money from the first sale of their brand new game. To couple insult with injury, for game titles that were really in demand, GameStop would sell those used titles for only slightly less than the cost of a brand new copy.

GameStop circumvented billions of dollars from gaming manufacturers. Instead of someone like me buying two new games a month, I was often buying two used games a month, and only buying a new game when I was compelled to play a game right away, which wasn't often, because the real world left me with little time for gaming.

Operation Get Them The F*ck Out of Here

By the late 2000s and early 2010s the gaming companies had had enough of GameStop. As the Xbox One and PS4 were in the works, one of the issues both Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony (SNE) took on together was how to stop or slow the pre-owned game market.

The easy answer was to stop producing physical games, and instead just make everything digital. That ideal at the time would have mimicked the music industry, which had seen CDs all but disappear, but video games are much larger files than a full length Jay-Z album, and digital storage was getting cheaper, but it wasn't cheap at that time. Also, the internet infrastructure was still sketchy in many places around the world, and not everyone had access to high speed internet. A full game download over a bad internet connection could take hours to complete.

Microsoft flirted with an idea of a digital lock that would bound one game to one system, making it impossible for the game to be played on any other system after it was played on and matched to its host system.

Essentially, the GameStop problem was solved by gaming companies creating downloadable content or DLC. Now gaming companies sell to consumers what they say is a completed game, but then charges the consumer to make character upgrades or obtain tools that can make the game play easier or more fun. DLCs are purchased while playing the game, and have allowed game companies to get even more money out of consumers ($60 to purchase the game, and then more money spent on DLC), and it's caused gamers to keep games longer, because DLCs can extend the life of a game by adding difference levels and challenges, which again, the gamer has to pay for to access.

In addition to the DLC, the rise of smartphone gaming has been a thorn in the side of GameStop. Also, digital space is now the cheapest it's ever been, making digitally distributed games an option for gamers. Both Sony and Microsoft's newest consoles come in versions especially made for digitally distributed games. In these models, there is no CD drive to insert a physical game.

DLC, mobile gaming, and digitally distributed games together has been able severely hurt GameStop's stock price. In late 2013 the stock was trading above $55 per share, and it entered 2020 trading at under $6 per share, an 89% drop in a little over six years.

GameStop 2021

Today it appears GameStop's stock has gotten it's swagger back. The stock closed last week at $65.01, it even halted trading on Friday January 22, 2021 due to the volatility in the stock. Traders ran the stock up to as high as $77 per share on the day.

The GameStop's hype started last summer when Chewy (CHWY) co-founder Ryan Cohen's investment firm RC Ventures bought a 9% stake in GameStop. In the past week Cohen secured a board seat at GameStop, which played a big part in the week long rally in GameStop's stock.

Cohen helped build Chewy into a real player in the pet care space, which prompted PetSmart to acquire the company for over $3 billion. Investors are looking to Cohen to do it again, but this time with GameStop.

There's also a massive short squeeze that played out, that also contributed to the rocket-like rise in GameStop's stock price. The short squeeze occurred when investors who were short GameStop had to buy the stock to cover their positions as the stock price started increasing. The rapid buying of GME by short sellers to cut losses or prevent bigger losses helped to drive the stock price higher. A Barron's article suggests that GameStop short sellers have lost nearly $3 billion betting against the stock in 2021, ouch.

My Concern

My concern about the newfound love for GameStop centers around the company's problem, and what investors believe is GameStop's problem. Chewy has been applauded for its ability to survive against Amazon (AMZN)

(It's too early to say they've beaten Amazon). Because GameStop is considered a brick-and-mortar retailer, I believe investors see Amazon as the problem, which is understandable because Amazon is the problem for most brick-and-mortar retailers. Unfortunately, Amazon is not GameStop's biggest problem, and I say unfortunately because GameStop's problem is much bigger.

GameStop is disliked by the gaming industry. They're the partner none of the other partners care for. EA, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, TakeTwo, Activision, they all win big with GameStop gone. With GameStop as we know it now gone, the plan I discussed earlier goes back into motion, and video game playing adults are back to buying new games all of the time, with a few going to eBay for pre-owned games. How does Cohen and his firm fix this issue?

Personally I'm out on this one, I'll watch it all play out from the sidelines. We won big shorting GameStop back in 2017, but I'm not ready to short it here. Investors should beware here at $65 per share. If you believe you see a solid pathway towards success for GameStop, and you believe that pathway leads to the company being worth more than $4 billion, then by all means, invest a way. To me, at this price level, it feels that the best possible plans for GameStop have already been incorporated into the stock price, not leaving much value to invest in at this time.

#stocks #Investing #GameStop #Gaming #VideoGames #Money #StockMarket #WallStreet #eSports

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coxroofingsystems · 5 years

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Slate Roof Installation Mistakes

Top 10 Mistakes Made When Installing

1. Lack of information:

The contractors (and homeowners) have not done their homework. The contractor blindly bullies ahead with the job without making any effort whatsoever to do any research. A simple search on the internet can yield a wealth of information about slate roofs, sources of correct tools, materials, supplies and installation techniques.

2. All slate is not the same:

You wouldn't buy a car without looking at different models and checking their track record and cars only last ten years and are cheaper than slate roofs! A slate roof is an investment in the future of your building. It will reasonably last 150 years if constructed correctly. There are many different types of slate with differing characteristics and longevity. Why buy a foreign slate with no track record? Do the research. [Source list of new roofing slate] [Source list of salvaged roofing slate]

youtube

3. The contract documents are deficient:

Every detail about the slate roof installation should be included in the contract documents type, size and origin of the slate; type, length and gauge of the nails; type and installation style of underlayment; type and size of cant strip; headlap; flashing specifications; number of squares to be installed; slate installation style, and many other details. A basic contract (Sample Slate Roof Installation Proposal) is posted here.

4. Lack of headlap:

This fundamental detail of any successful slate roof installation is hard to overlook, but it is ignored by some roofing contractors. Lack of adequate headlap spells disaster for a slate roof. I have seen new roofs with inadequate headlap (i.e. less than 2), no headlap at all, and even negative headlap. Do your homework, contractors, or stay away from slate roof jobs. [An illustration of correct headlap and of incorrect headlap. Another example of incorrect headlap. ] Read an article about headlap.

5. Bad flashing work:

There are two things that keep water from penetrating a slate roof: the slates and the flashings. Not only must the flashing metal be of adequate type and gauge, but it must be installed correctly. This is not rocket science, but it does require some training and/or experience in order to be done correctly and to be leakproof. [Source of good quality flashing material.]

6. No consultant was used on the job:

As a consultant, I am called on after the work has been completed and the roof has failed this is a mistake. Professional advice should be obtained before the roof is installed and even before the structure is built, if possible. However, not all slate roof installations require a consultant. Homeowners can educate themselves for very little money by simply reading a copy of the Slate Roof Bible, reading past Traditional Roofing articles online at traditional roofing.com, and asking questions on the message board at slateroofcentral.com.

7. Contractors walking on the slate:

This is one of the worst problems with new slate roof installations. Roof slate is not to be walked on period. It is not a floor that is being installed it is a roof. The roof must be properly staged so the roofers are working off roof ladders and roof scaffolds. If the contractors are walking all over the slate roof during installation, its because they don't know what the hell they're doing and the property owner will have many headaches later when the slates start falling off. This is a guarantee. Good slaters knows how to install slate, and they wont walk on a slate roof unless its a last resort in an unusual circumstance. Need roof jacks?

8. Poor sheathing materials:

The roof decking must last as long as the slate. A good roof deck should last the life of two slate roofs, or about 200 to 300 years. In any case, a roof decking material under slate must have a known longevity of at least 150 years. Materials that have been tried and proven for this purpose include lumber boards and battens from ¾ to 1.5 thick rough-sawn, planed or tongue-in-grooved from a variety of species of wood. Plywood, laminated woods and particle boards are sub-standard roof decking materials for slate roofs and should be avoided. Yes, you can install slate on laminated or glued decking materials, but a compromise on longevity is likely to be the result. If a slate roof is to be built to last, the roof deck should be solid boards, not glued sheets of wood.

9. Emphasis on underlayment:

Barn slate roofs in the United States and there were thousands and still are quite a few, mostly a century old or older were installed without any underlayment whatsoever. This is true for some institutional buildings as well. Most of the older homes in the U.S. were installed with a standard single layer of 30 lb felt under the slate roofs. These homes are so old now that the felt has deteriorated to dust, but the roofs are fine. If the slates and flashings are intact, the roof will not leak, underlayment or no underlayment, even in a sustained driving rain. This is a proven fact, not a theory.

If a contractor or architect is insisting upon a beefed-up underlayment under a new slate roof installation, it means they believe the new roof will leak and that the underlayment will delay the entry of the water into the building. This is flawed logic and reveals a gross misunderstanding of slate roofs. Architects sometimes confuse slate roofs with ceramic tile roofs. Although tile roofs may require a substantial underlayment, slate roofs, properly installed, do not.

Underlayment does, however, provide a margin of waterproofing in the event a slate roof is damaged by wind, tree-fall, or other unusual circumstance. An acceptable slate roof installation today still typically utilizes a single layer of 30 lb. felt underlayment, doubled (half-lapped) when the need for a heavier underlayment is required (such as when a roof must be left exposed for a period of time before the slates are installed).

image

What about ice-damming? Increase the slate headlap along the eaves to prevent ice-damming, but do not rely on whats underneath the slate to keep the roof from leaking. If the slate and flashings are installed correctly, the roof will not leak. That is the beauty of a stone roof. Ice Dams on Slate Roofs:?How to Avoid Them

10. Inexperienced roofing contractors:

It is an unfortunate fact that many contractors cannot be trusted to give sound and honest advice or information. This issue is exacerbated by property owners who dont get competing bids before initiating a contract; who dont educate themselves about the nature of the work prior to hiring a contractor; and who dont insist upon a detailed, coherent and comprehensive contract document. One major effort that is being made today to try to screen contractors for slate roofing purposes is the Slate Roofing Contractors Association of North America, initiated on March 1, 2005. It lists contractor members at slateroofers.org. Included with the listing is a Contractor Profile which reveals details about the contracting firm that the average consumer would want to know. There is more information about the SRCA here.

Bad slate roof installations are seriously harming the slate roofing industry. One university administrator told me he had slate roofs installed on his dormitories because he wanted the best roofs money could buy. Then, after five large slate roofs had been installed on his campus by the same roofing contractor, it was discovered they had been installed with only 1.5 headlap, or none at all. The discovery of this gross deficiency left the administrator stunned, shocked and disgusted. He never wanted to look at another slate roof again. Who can blame him?

Source: Slate Roof Installation Mistakes first appeared here.

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slavinhomeimprovements · 5 years

Text

Slate Roof Installation Mistakes

Top 10 Mistakes Made When Installing 1. Lack of information:

You wouldnt buy a car without looking at different models and checking their track record and cars only last ten years and are cheaper than slate roofs! A slate roof is an investment in the future of your building. It will reasonably last 150 years if constructed correctly. There are many different types of slate with differing characteristics and longevities. Why buy a foreign slate with no track record? Do the research. [Source list of new roofing slate] [Source list of salvaged roofing slate]

youtube

3. The contract documents are deficient:

As a consultant, I am called on after the work has been completed and the roof has failed this is a mistake. Professional advice should be obtained before the roof is installed and even before the structure is built, if possible. However, not all slate roof installations require a consultant. Homeowners can educate themselves for very little money by simply reading a copy of the Slate Roof Bible, reading past Traditional Roofing articles online at traditionalroofing.com, and asking questions on the message board at slateroofcentral.com. 7. Contractors walking on the slate:

This is one of the worst problems with new slate roof installations. Roof slate is not to be walked on period. It is not a floor that is being installed it is a roof. The roof must be properly staged so the roofers are working off roof ladders and roof scaffolds. If the contractors are walking all over the slate roof during installation, its because they dont know what the hell theyre doing and the property owner will have many headaches later when the slates start falling off. This is a guarantee. Good slaters knows how to install slate, and they wont walk on a slate roof unless its a last resort in an unusual circumstance. Need roof jacks? 8. Poor sheathing materials:

This is a red herring. If a slate roof leaks, its because it was installed improperly, not because of underlayment or lack of it. Properly installed slate roofs need no underlayment. The main purpose of the underlayment is to keep the water out of the building until the slate and flashings are installed. After that, if you could magically yank the underlayment out from under the slate, it wouldnt make a bit of difference in the functioning capabilities of the roof. Secondary purposes for underlayment include providing a good surface for chalk lines during installation, providing a minimal layer of insulation, and providing a cushion for when the slates are being slapped down during installation. Barn slate roofs in the United States and there were thousands and still are quite a few, mostly a century old or older were installed without any underlayment whatsoever. This is true for some institutional buildings as well. Most of the older homes in the U.S. were installed with a standard single layer of 30 lb felt under the slate roofs. These homes are so old now that the felt has deteriorated to dust, but the roofs are fine. If the slates and flashings are intact, the roof will not leak, underlayment or no underlayment, even in a sustained driving rain. This is a proven fact, not a theory. If a contractor or architect is insisting upon a beefed-up underlayment under a new slate roof installation, it means they believe the new roof will leak and that the underlayment will delay the entry of the water into the building. This is flawed logic and reveals a gross misunderstanding of slate roofs. Architects sometimes confuse slate roofs with ceramic tile roofs. Although tile roofs may require a substantial underlayment, slate roofs, properly installed, do not. Underlayment does, however, provide a margin of waterproofing in the event a slate roof is damaged by wind, tree-fall, or other unusual circumstance. An acceptable slate roof installation today still typically utilizes a single layer of 30 lb. felt underlayment, doubled (half-lapped) when the need for a heavier underlayment is required (such as when a roof must be left exposed for a period of time before the slates are installed).

10. Inexperienced roofing contractors:

Source: Slate Roof Installation Mistakes first appeared here.

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sangriatimes · 5 years

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Nintendo Switch saves Valentines Day

Can you believe that we are almost half-way done with January? Maybe it’s just me and the countless hours I put into reviewing the latest titles for the Nintendo Switch...which is our focus point that can change the tide if you hit a hard spot this V-Day. Maybe you don’t have enough money for that dinner, movie and gift. Maybe you thought that restaurant you made a reservation at is more expensive than you though. Maybe you just started a new relationship but you still have some awkward silences that seem to kill the mood. Whatever the situation may be a Nintendo Switch can get you to second base and home plate...trust me.

So let’s look at some of the titles for switch that are great to play with that special someone. (Games are listed in no particular order; games are not based on “)sales”; Games are mainly hidden gems)

1. Monopoly | 9.5 out of 10

Hear me out. I was one that grew up playing the original board game with my family and the overall appeal of the game was astounding, but I lost interest when I got older and noticed how long it takes to make everyone go bankrupt. ...but this is something...otherworldly. The first awesome thing you will notice when you pick up this title is the use of the Joy-Con controllers to shake the dice and throw them. Though this is still the same mechanic in spirit as its predecessor but with the newly animated boards populated by Mii’s and watching a living city grow as you play and add properties adds an entirely new respect for Money Bags. Our team lost track of time having so much fun with this one and before we knew it, we had seen 5 hours pass. (No one wants to play Monopoly for that long.)

2. Uno | 8.5 out of 10

Uno is another one of those games I grew up playing with family. When I purchased the game, I was expecting some sort of controller mechanic similar to Monopoly’s dice...but with cards instead...but I was let down. None the less, going into this, I didn’t even know that there were so many ways to play Uno besides the normal rules. Once again, I was amazed at how much more fun this was than the physical cards themselves. Rules like “Stacking. Where Player 1 can play a “Blue Draw 2″ card and Player 2 can counter play a “Draw 2″ card as well. ...but if Player 3 doesn’t possess a “Draw 2″ card, Player 3 then has to pick all 4 cards from the previous turns” was so exciting to try and there are many other ways to customize rules and play styles.

3. Super Smash Bros | 9.0 out of 10

I really don’t need to go into detail about this one. My only issue with the Smash series is I would really enjoy a multiplayer adventure mode or campaign. I was quite pleased with the full roster of characters though. Disclaimer: Make sure your partner isn’t a sore loser. We all know about SSB’s steep learning curve for beginners. “Don’t be a butt...”

4. Diablo 3 | 9.0 out of 10

I remember having this title on my old PS4 and being able to enjoy it on my PS Vita while I was in a relationship with someone who liked the game as much as I and we would both take our Vita’s to the restroom with us so we could keep the experience going. This title can definitely be used to understand the mindset your partner has by the way they customize their character and the actions they take in response to events. It’s a top-down action-adventure-role-playing-hack-n-slash (inhale.) It is a port of it’s original released on PS3 & 360...the price tag is still $59.99. That’s a deal breaker in my book.

5. NES Emulator | 7.5 out of 10

I honestly chose this one because of how many gamers I know and how 89% of them are males. This is something for those who don’t game to get their feet wet. The emulator is free on the eShop for a 7-day trial but comes with a subscription cost after. Pretty inexpensive for the titles they have. Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Metroid, and many more. It even comes with special versions of some of the games which gives the player the experience of playing with Game Genie cheats.

6. 99 Vidas | 7.0 out of 10

Your probably thinking, “ Why is this even listed?” Well, just in case that partner your with doesn’t dig the 8-bit look or the low-res adventures of the NES Emulator and desires a little more action and has a fetish for Streets of Rage and Beat ‘em Up’s. Simply. The available characters are cool enough to get players to find a favorite out of them. ...so...that’s good!

7. Oh Sir...The Hollywood Roast | 8.3 out of 10

After seeing the Samuel Jackson clone named “Bad MotherHugger” who’s personality is totally canon, I had to dig deeper. If you didn’t play the prequel, you don’t need to. I honestly only used the first title to learn how to play. In this installment, you and a co-star face off on a movie set where your scenario is to insult the other the worst. It plays like a fighting game, complete with health bars, special insults, tag team insults and so much more. For the price it is, I was expecting something way less entertaining. Oh, and one point or another you will joke against a Deadpool copy...a less funnier Deadpool but funny enough.

Consider this the American version of The Office.

8. Oh Sir...The Insult Simulator | 7.8 out of 10

Obviously, this is the European version of The Office. I won’t say this is better than the sequel and I can’t say it’s worse either but I will say “I am an American...” What this game does is teach you how to layer your jokes and how lay the foundation for repetition in your topics to create combo’ s. I like to let the opponent bombard me with little weak jokes and build a super mean and super long insult that grants victory for only one joke. I call it, “The Kamehameha Effect!”

9. No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Back

The third installment to the series hits the eShop and retailers in a few days and I am super excited to get my copy. If you aren’t familiar with the series, let me fill you in:

Travis Touchdown is the protagonist of all three games. In NMH1 we find Travis at his lowest moment in life. Jobless, hopeless and drunk, he runs into a mysterious woman who offers him employment with a sketchy syndicate group he knows nothing about. Luckily he had lost all his money by winning a bid at an online auction for a Beam Katana, his main choice of weaponry. Not long after, you find out you were hired as an assassin in a shady game by her higher-ups. Travis takes the job after being promised some passionate TLC if he can take out all 10 of the already top ranking assassins all over the world. Travis is a pretty simple guy. He likes mecha anime, luchador wrestling, old school video games, porn, sex, and sleeping on the toilet.

In NMH2, Travis finds out that after becoming the #1 ranking assassin in Santa Cruise, he finds out that he actually has hundreds of more assassins in a new ranking system where Travis is the lowest ranking.

This time around, Travis is joined by the father of one the assassins he killed in NMH1, and the co-op option is something that would have been outstanding to have in NMH2 but none the less the developers always deliver great content in their titles and this one will not disappoint. Couples will enjoy the kinky nature of the series for sure. It has been proven many times.

10. Broforce | 9.5 out of 10

Every wanted to play Super Mario Bros on NES but with guns? Ever want to change Mario for, let’s say...any huge action movie star from the 80′s, 90′s, 00′s? Ever wanted it to be a co-op experience with up to 4 players with local and online co-op? As a mercenary for the USA, you are sent to 3rd world contries to liberate them from the evil control of Satan and his hell spawn. Before that, you will have to fight through waves of kamikaze soldiers, war dogs, giant helicoptors, aliens (...from the movie “Aliens”) and much more. Along the way, you will recruit an entire cast of badasses. From Rambo to Robocop, you will find Chuck Norris, Neo, Blade, Bruce Willis, Terminator, Preditor, Machette, Michelle Rodrigez, The Bride (Kill Bill) & so many more including Mortal Kombats Raiden.

Very easy to pick up, very hard to put down.

11. Nidhogg 2 | 8.0 out of 10

2D-Side Scrolling Fighter. You start of with a sword. When you die, you respawn with a dagger. When you die, you respawn with a bow and arrow. Die again and respawn with an ax. Die again and respawn with your fist. This cycle will continue until you our your opponent makes it to the opposing end of the map. Maps are relatively small and consist of about 2 to 3 different frames. Sounds easy on paper right?

Tons of laughs to be had!

12. Tales Of Vesperia

If your looking for an in-depth RPG you both can play while she sits between your legs and you both focus on the Switch screen laying in front of you: this is for you two. The co-op system usually only functions when you enter battle. Player 1 will always be the one running around the world map but this is still fine if you keep an open-mind and communicate on decisions that impact the story and more. (Keep track of your own money.)

side-note: All Tales games are co-op in this sense, even the Super Nintendo picks.

13. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope

I’ve been a Harvest Moon fan since Super Nintendo and got my first copy on the N64. I know a lot of people see this game and hate the thought of a farming simulator but unlike it’s counterpart with the same name-sake; Harvest Moon is so much more. This can easily tame the craving for an adventure-rpg-dating sim with a very rich story and characters that actually grow on you. I have not had the chance to play this particular version yet, but I saw it was multiplayer and that sold me. If you want to try a good yet cheaper version, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is by far, one of the best, next to Harvest Moon 64.

So there you have it, our picks of love for your love to love with their love! Honestly...I don’ t celebrate Valentines Day (poly-gang), but I love exposing partners to new things that they can enjoy together.

OUT!

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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LIFE IS A CHANGING WORLD

And because you can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because the principles underlying the most dynamic part of the reason I laughed so much at the talk by the good speaker at that conference was that everyone else did. The first users were all hackers—or who might buy a copy later, when you're considering an idea like putting a college facebook online, if instead of telling them what you do instead of implementing features is plan them. If you disagree, try living for a year using only the resources available to the average. Any investor who spent significant time deciding probably came close to saying yes.1 I was walking along the street in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. This isn't quite true. Inexperience there doesn't make you unattractive. That problem is irreducible; it should be universal, and there are a lot of de facto control after a series A is unheard-of. And that should be unlimited, if the upside looks good enough.

But more than half done. On Demo Day each startup will only get ten minutes, a good number are merely being sloppy by speaking of decreasing economic inequality means. As far as I can tell, but when people go to the theater and look at this list you'll see it's basically a simple recipe with a lot of VCs are looking for companies that have already raised amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. When a man runs off with his secretary, is it always partly his wife's fault? Preferably with other students. Back when he was looking at the floor.2 And it applies to startups too. When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves rich.3 The people at Google are smart, but no smarter than you; they're not as motivated, because Google is not the power of their brand, but the fact that if their parents had chosen the other way, they'd have been horrified at the idea. And since that's the default opinion of any investor about any startup, they've essentially just told you nothing.4 After thinking about it gives me a jolt of adrenaline, years later. Empirically it seems to consume all your attention.

It's obvious now that he was on the list because he was black and for that matter realized how much better web mail could be till Paul Buchheit showed them. The best thing software can be is easy, but it's worth trying. One place this happens is in startups. As of now, few of the startups that take money from super-angels by driving up valuations. You'd also have a very boring life. The average startup probably doesn't have much to show for itself after ten weeks. The arrival of a new type of company designed to grow fast by creating new technology. Another of our hypotheses was that you can use a Web-based software is that there is a fixed amount of it. No one proposes that there's some limit to the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would not have been a mistake. Even if something was going to die till I was about 19. When you release only one new version a year, in January and June.5 I could say they were, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network.

There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises. I didn't notice my model was wrong until I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it didn't make him popular.6 Not intelligence—determination.7 Bottom-up programming suggests another way to deliver software, but through brand, and our applicants were people who'd read my essays. Finally, Web-based software it's actually a good sign, because it means both that there's demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough.8 Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. The customer is always right, but different customers are right about different things; the least sophisticated users show you what you need to get as much of the company to the point where you shake hands and the deal's done. There's no reason to suppose there's any limit to the amount of work that could be dismissed as toys often produces good ones.

Among other things, incubators usually make you work in their office—that's where the word incubator comes from.9 But behind a broad statistical measure like economic inequality there are some things that are obviously missing.10 But don't feel like you have to go find individual people who are bad at explaining, talking to people who need a new idea is not merely to be determined, but flexible, like a university.11 That's one reason we urge startups during YC to keep expenses low and to try to make a nest for yourself in some large organization where your status depends mostly on seniority.12 Which is why it's good to have the upper hand over investors.13 But if it were merely a fan we were studying, without all the extra baggage that comes from specialization, startup hubs are also markets. The toolmakers would have users, but also as a match for his skills. The great fortunes of that time still derived more from what we would now call corruption than from commerce.14 They're the ones that matter anyway. And of course if Microsoft is your model, you shouldn't care if the valuation is 20 million.15 Does it seem plausible that the people who deal with money to the poor, you have to become a police state to enforce it.16 I'd advise college students to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be working, and it would be between a boss and an employee.

Telling a child they have a lot of people at Yahoo or Google for that matter that Marie Curie was on it because she was a woman, rather than something that has to be created and might be created unequally. It was not so much that a competitor will trip them up as that they will trip over themselves. Not well, perhaps, but well enough.17 Of course, server-based. As this example suggests, the rate at which technology increases our productive capacity is probably polynomial, rather than one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup consumed your life, a year's preparation would be a waste of time talking about any but your most expensive plan. The people who really care will find what they want by themselves. Facebook was just a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for writers to make money, but not so much convinced of their own money, while VCs are employees of funds that invest large amounts of money.18

Notes

Founders rightly dislike the sort of community.

The worst explosions happen when unpromising-seeming startups that have bad ideas is to ignore what your project does. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality is really about poverty. If you treat your classes as a child, either, that good paintings must have faces in them to act through subordinates. Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell, or because they assume readers ignore something they wanted to have fun in this, but if you repair a machine that's broken because a part has come is Secretary of Labor Statistics, about 28%.

I used to place orders.

In fairness, I mean type I. I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve the problem, but those don't involve a lot of money from it, whether you find known boring ideas intolerable. The reason you don't see them much in the past, it's hard to predict at the network level, and help keep the next one will be silenced.

Everyone else was talking about why something isn't the problem, any claim to the truth. Many more than you expect. N cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris says that the usual misquotation is closer to a 2002 report by the fact that it might help to be good.

But startups are now.

Its retail price is about 220,000 legitimate emails.

I didn't like it if you conflate them you're aiming at the 30-foot table Kate Courteau designed for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them. It requires the kind that prevents you from starving. When I use the name of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. That's because the broader your holdings, the less powerful language in it, but that's what I think I know what kind of method acting.

Though in a wide variety of situations. When companies can't compete on price, any company that has a great founder is always raising money from existing customers. Maybe it would be just as he or she would be to say for sure whether, e.

If they agreed among themselves never to do it.

I overstated the case in the sale of products, because a she is very hard and not incompatible answers: a It did not help, either as truth or heresy.

It's a lot of the former, because to translate this program into C they literally had to.

It seemed better to make more money. I encountered when we say it's ipso facto right to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to represent anything. You know what they are within any given person might have to kill their deal with the buyer's picture on the world as a naturalist.

You know what they too were feeling in 1914.

We didn't swing for the next round. Apparently someone believed you have two choices, choose the harder. Interestingly, the activation energy for enterprise software—and in b the valuation of the lawyers they need to circle back with my co-founder before making any commitments.

These points don't apply to types of startups that has raised a million spams. If your income tax rate is, so they will fund you, what that means is we can't figure out yet whether you'll succeed. I still shiver to recall.

Hint: the editor in Lisp. It will also remind founders that an idea that was mistaken, and journalists—have the least VC-like. However bad your classes as a single cause. The real problem is the new economy during the entire period from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p.

When Google adopted Don't be fooled. The hackers within Microsoft must know in the mid 20th century. And if you hadn't written it?

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janiedean · 6 years

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book meme

tagged by @robb-greyjoy and @cafeleningrad thank you both! <3

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest? Uhm. Uhm. That’s... a hard... question... but I think the collection of Irish fairytales I really was into when I was like seven? I probably have older stuff than that but not on my shelves (it’d be stored somewhere) and not that I re-read at this point.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next? The current read is Stuart Kaminsky’s The Howard Hughes Affair in the Toby Peters series because I need light reading and twenty-four books of down on his luck PI in Hollywood in the forties always dealing with old hollywood cinema stars is exactly what I need for light reading.

Last read: it was the previous in those series, You Bet Your Life, or if you don’t count that it was some medieval history book.

Next read: I’d like for it to be Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties but it’s most likely gonna be either roman history or medieval history, again. Or possibly the fifth in that series but it’s really quick reading so. xD

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated? I’m gonna almost quote Damien who said P&P (which I...uh... don’t like lol) and say Emma which is still the Most Insufferable Thing I Ever Read In My Entire Life. P&P is less insufferable but I don’t get the fascination and mist likely never will.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t? Idk I eventually get to everything I mean to but I should have read War and Peace like years ago. ONE DAY. XDD

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?” None, I save anything longer than 500 pages for when I’m on vacation but who even knows when I’ll get to retirement, so...

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end? I ALWAYS WAIT UNTIL THE END I NEVER CHECK THE LAST PAGE are we srs it’s the last one for a reason

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside? Always fundamental. I always read acknowledgments. Though I don’t do the mistakes of reading afterwords before the book because I spoiled myself the ending of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd because I had to read the afterword first and I was an idiot xD

8. Which book character would you switch places with? ... honest? Rob from High Fidelty, not just because we’re sadly almost the same person but because I wanna own a fucking record shop and that’d be about the only way I could do it in this lifetime I fear...

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)? Hmmm, lots I guess, but Different Seasons was the summer when I turned fifteen and it definitely changed my life for the better and I always remember it fondly, same for The Three Musketeers and the 2006 summer which was.. an interesting time I guess xD, latin/greek epics will forever be tied with my father for better or worse and french authors with my mom aaaand beat generation stuff definitely reminds me of my best friend from high school and I could probably say that while I never read hp it also reminds me of people I was better off without so that’s probably another reason why I hate it but never mind that xDDDDD

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way. Hmm idk I’m totally blanking here XD I don’t think I have any *interesting* story about this sorry guys

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person? lmao no. The three times I lent book to someone they never came back and I’m really not the kind of person who shares their *special* copies so it’d have to be a really special person to make me give away a book I already own for special reasons xD and I haven’t met that person yet

12. Which book has been with you to the most places? I have a feeling it’d be the second dark tower book or the third for how badly I ruined them

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later? If I actually found the inner strength to get over my issues with some teacher and re-read I promessi sposi without bias I probably wouldn’t find it as terrible as I did back in the day but it’ll take me another ten years for that I fear, for the rest I’m fairly good with everything I had to read as a requirement.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book? Someone’s phone number I fear

15. Used or brand new? Don’t care either way but if I have to buy, used because they’re cheaper tbh xDDDD

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses? Guys. Guys. While I’m the first person who wouldn’t say King is the new Proust, and while there’s a lot of things I dislike about the way he does things (first of all how much he loves his PEOPLE FORGETTING EVERYTHING trope)....

a) when I read Different Seasons I was in a moment where I had fallen out of love with reading stuff for reasons and it brought it back full spades; b) he was the first author I read in english and 90% the person that influenced my writing style more for those reasons; c) he’s a genius at crafting characters/character work/character development way more than a lot of people critics enjoy more than him and since I’m a character driven whore put two and two together; d) he came up with my Favorite Fictional Character Ever (whose surname is half of my tumblr nickname/internet nickname anywhere so...) and with my Favorite Ship Ever and my Favorite Series Ever and a lot of my Favorite Things Ever; e) he’s exceedingly good at his genre and while his endings are shit 70% of the time when he nails it he nails it;

tldr: he might not be the Greatest Writer Ever but he’s my Subjectively Favorite Writer Ever for bad and for good and no one disrespects king in front of me okay? k. I owe his damned books enough to repay how much they made me suffer xD

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book? Blade Runner is vastly better than the book and Maurice is pretty much as good as it but there were changes that imo were improvements over things that were not in the plot so I guess it counts.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

...........

THE

DARK

TOWER

I rest my case no one wants me to start ranting again about how much that piece of shit movie should have never existed and idris elba deserved a lot better than ending up involved in it.

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question? no but I wrote a bakery au that made people feel hungry, does that count?

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take? my parents though I’ll take it with a pinch of salt because there’s people they like that I can’t stand (*cough* borges *cough* SORRY I KNOW) and viceversa but let’s say that if my dad said he didn’t dislike it then it’s probably not a bad book in 90% of the cases same for my mom (though she didn’t hate the solitude of prime numbers as much as I did which is why as stated I take things with a pinch of salt xD), then @robb-greyjoy because we basically like the same things so I trust his judgment, my high school bf who’s not on tumblr (the beat generation person) who also had my same tastes so I’d have definitely trusted her, and there’s a few tumblr users I follow for books talking whose judgment I trust 99% of the time xD

also half of the people I wanted to tag got tagged by either of you so hmmm @lordhellebore @slushiebear @blueagia @incblackbird @julesdrenages @julesfelden @ms-mormont and @greyjoysea? if you all want to of course otherwise ignore me xD

#about me #books #book recs #i guess

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projectema · 4 years

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Canada 🇨🇦 Student Permit Pathway Journey

I started thinking about migrating to Canada way back 2016. Back then, I'm not aware of any other pathways aside from being employed (Express Entry). I was still single then and I never really was serious about it because 1) one must have a big amount of money to pursue it and I don't have that and 2) I think that it will be difficult for me to be employed because of my work experience (it's either you're an engineer, nurse, or caregiver then you'll get a higher chance of being employed hence higher chance of getting PR).

At the latter part of 2019 and at the beginning of 2020, I started to gather my courage and learn about the different pathways. I even went to immigration agencies in Makati to better understand them.

Fast forward to now, we're currently just at the beginning of everything. This blog will be updated from time to time to see the progress of our journey. I might not write a detailed one though.

Sep. 24-Oct. 17, 2020

As mentioned, the problem with our Canadian dream was MONEY. Fortunately, my tito Nestor and tita Ana were willing to support us in our endeavor. Which leads us to the 1st step and that was to pay the immigration agent 50% of 2,500CAD. This was a very hard decision for me to make because paying an immigration agent does not guarantee that I'll be granted a student permit. It will all depend on the strategy and the supporting documents that I'll submit. After paying, the agent asked me to sign a retainer agreement and to submit the following:

Resumé

Passport

Birth certificate

College diploma (my diploma was in Filipino so I still had to request for my english diploma - it costs P100 for 2pcs plus P200 for the shipping fee from LB to Sta. Rosa. I had to wait for several days before receiving it)

College Transcript of Records

After submitting all these, I still had to take an english exam as required by my chosen college (Langara College). Without the pandemic, I had to take IELTS Academic for this one. However, it's like a blessing in disguise because Langara temporarily allowed Duolingo Online English Exam as an alternative. It's way more cheaper and easier than IELTS Academic. IELTS Academic will cost around P11,000 while Duolingo is only $49 or P2,500.

The minimum required overall score is 110. I was so nervous while waiting for the result of my exam because there were questions that I weren't able to answer well. I got an overall score of 135, thank God! 😊

After submitting the result of my exam to Langara and also sending a copy of my exam result to my immigration agent, I have to pay the admission application fee of 155CAD (once again, thank you tito and tita) and sign a consent form stating that I am allowing my immigration agent and the educ. agent to handle my application and registration.

Right now, I'm still waiting for the response from the school and it will take 2-4 weeks to hear from them. After the school confirms a slot for me, I can then pay for the tuition for the 1st sem only.

Oct. 22, 2020

Ate Lala sent me a checklist so that I'll know the other documents needed while waiting for the response from Langara. She also sent me a receipt that showed that the application was already sent. While waiting, we can start doing the following:

Study plan - among all the other documents, this is the most crucial one. A guide questionnaire was given.

Bank statement/certificate of financial support from my tito/tita

Letter of support from tito/tita - ate lala provided a template for this one

Letter of parents property - affidavit form

Nov. 25, 2020

After more than a month of worrying, I finally received my LOO (Letter of Offer) from Langara College! 😭🥳 Now, I just have to ask my sponsors (Tito Nestor and Tita Ana) to pay for the tuition (1st half of the year only) including the non-refundable deposit fee amounting to 1,500 CAD. After paying, the school will send me my LOA (Letter of Application).

Dec. 2, 2020

There are many options on how to pay for the International Deposit fee (6,000 CAD) . There's the good old credit card, Flywire, and Western Union. All of which are connected directly to Langara College. There was quite a delay in payment because my sponsors had their Thanksgiving. Of course the "hiya" in me kicked in (as always). But, I have to ask them to pay for it ASAP because we were given just 10 business days to pay for it. At first, I told them that it's easier if we use Flywire. However, the exchange rate is too high. I can't wait for it to go down you know. So I insisted to ask my tita to just give me my uncle's credit card details (hihi). I just have to wait for the actual receipt and forward a copy to my consultant so that the educ. agent can already process for the LOA.

Jan. 22, 2021

I know. I skipped a lot of updates last December because of the holidays. Fast forward to 2021, I lodged my application last Jan. 16. After lodging, I got a biometrics request. We are currently busy at work that I didn't avail for any WFH sched because we are pressed for time (I wasn't surprised. Lagi na lang ganito 🙄). But because having my biometrics is important, I, instead, took a leave. But it's like a WFH as well because I had to attend to an online meeting in the afternoon. It's kind of unfair actually. 🙄 I think I'll be having another leave once I get a medical request. Or I might as well schedule myself for my medical even if there's no medical request yet. I'll still check my budget.

February 3, 2021

At last I received my medical request! However, the earliest schedule is on the last week of February. We're still too busy at work so I decided to schedule my medical on March 5. For preparation, I ate well and exercised for the last weeks. Let's see how it goes.

March 5, 2021

Last time I went to Makati was for my biometrics. I took the 7am schedule and I didn't anticipate the traffic jam at SLEX and that it was a Friday. I barely made it to my appointment. Thank goodness, after several petty fights with my husband (because we're really not Makati peeps so we easily get lost), I just came on time. This time for my medical, I decided to take the 6am P2P bus going to Makati. Oh, I opted to go to IOM Makati instead of St. Luke's because it's a lot cheaper. Aside from finding the right building, we still have to find a reasonable pay parking space. Yup. I just mentioned reasonable because pay parking rates in Makati is NOT cheap. Kung wala lang COVID-19, malamang nagcommute na lang kami all throughout. Going to Makati will always start an argument between Kim and I because of the directions and parking issues. I hate it actually. We seldom see each other and when in Makati we always argue about these things. Thankfully we found this pay parking spot which is not full and is somewhat reasonable (I'm not really sure, we didn't have any other choice). It was too early then so we ate our packed breakfast (to minimize expense) and watched Cobra Kai on Netflix.

We started to walk to the Trafalgar building at 8.30am. My appointment is at 9.05am. I brisked-walk my way going there. When we got there, we still have to wait for several minutes then the guard let us in. They do not allow companions so Kim had to go down and spend his waiting time at Starbucks just right across the building.

Before entering, the security guard will check your appointment then he will endorse you to their health declaration area. Once okay, you will have to fill-in an application first and then they will get a photo of you for your emedical form. These are the procedures I underwent:

Chest X-ray

Height, weight, blood pressure, eye exam, medical history

Blood chem

Urinalysis

Physical exam

The medical exam was relatively fast. It only took my 2.5hrs to finish all the tests. IOM Makati is very organized. The receptionist told me to wait for 10 business days for IOM to complete all the medical tests.

I’ve also read from this group/forum that I am in that if within 3-5 business days there aren’t any calls/email from IOM then it means that there’s no issues with my medical and that they have already forwarded this to IRCC.

March 15-24, 2021

I followed up my consultant on March 15 whether my medical results were already reflected in the dashboard. Unfortunately, there’s none. At this point, I’m still okay. My patience is still holding on. Come March 19, which is already counted as the 10th business day from my medical, I followed up again my consultant if my results were already reflected in the dashboard. Still, there’s none. This is when I decided to call and email IOM to check if they already submitted the results to IRCC. Don’t ever try to call their office. It’s just a waste of your energy and time. Try emailing them instead but you’d still have to wait for 24-48hrs for their reply. I emailed them on March 21 and got their reply on March 23.

It said there that they already submitted my completed medical result on March 13. Due to my neglect (actually, it’s not neglect really. I just waited for the 10 business days because I don’t want to insist myself early on when they already told me to wait for 10 business days), if I had known that they can already submit this early, I should’ve followed up that early as well.

I forwarded IOM’s email to me and the completed medical result to my consultant on March 24 and on March 25 she was able to submit the webform. It will take again 7-10 business days before my results will be reflected on the webform. Patience is still there.

Today is April 5 and it’s the 7th business day from the submission of webform of my consultant. I’ll wait for the 10th business day, which is on April 8 (or 9 for them).

April 6, 2021

IRCC already replied and said that they had a technical issue that’s why they haven’t forwarded my medical result to the Canadian VO in Manila. My consultant had to re-send the files (e-medical sheet) via webform.

April 9, 2021

IRCC replied and confirmed that they had already forwarded the e-medical sheet to the Canadian VO in Manila.

April 30, 2021

After how many weeks of waiting for my medical result to reflect in the dashboard, finally it came out as MEDICAL PASSED on April 27, 2021. Manifesting and praying to have an APPROVED decision in the coming days or weeks.

May 10, 2021

No words. 🥺 THANK YOU, LORD ☝️

May 12-20, 2021

PASSPORT REQUEST TIMELINE

●May 12 - Sent passport through LBC

●May 13, 14 - Received by VFS and transferred to Canada Embassy

●May 18 - Under Process

●May 18 - Received Correspondence Letter and counterfoil status sa GCKey. — Canada Embassy sent back the docs sa VFS

●May 19 - Received an update na sinend na ng Canada Embassy to VFS yung envelope with stamed passport. After few minutes received another update na sinend back na sakin yung passport. I contacted VFS after that to ask for the LBC tracking

●May 20 - Received my passport

#canadastudentvisa

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