#one more thing- the order the stickers are placed is also really important. if u r insane and want to think about that.

[sage-nebula]

Game Review — New Pokémon Snap

In 1999, a photography game centered on the world of Pokémon was released. Ever since then, I have hungered for a sequel. And now, 22 years later, my wish was finally granted.

Overall Score: 9/10

While I am still puzzled that they didn’t create and release this game for either 3DS or Wii U, since both had built-in cameras, overall I couldn’t be happier with this and I definitely feel that it was worth the 22-year-long wait. Head under the cut (and onto my blog) for more detailed thoughts on what has honestly been an excellent game.

The Pros:

Everything is GORGEOUS. The environments, the pokémon, literally everything. Even setting aside the glowing effects of the Illumina phenomenon (particularly at night when it really stands out), everything about this game is visually stunning. The colors are bright, but not blinding, and you can see that everything was crafted with care. There aren’t any areas that feel unfinished or unpolished. It is beautiful to look at, which is rather important when you’re making a photography-based game.

Each area changes as you increase your research level, so that even though you will have some run-throughs of the courses that are the same as you experienced before, you’ll also find new paths and see different pokémon as you go through the courses more and more times as well. For instance, when you first play through the Florio Nature Park, the Bidoof are in the process of building their dam. But later, their dam is completed. And this is just one example of how things change; believe me, there are lots of changes as time passes and you go through the courses again and again, making them feel far less repetitive than they did in the original game. (Not to bash the original game, which was on the N64 and thus had a lot less space to hold data, of course. I’m just saying.)

The pokémon behaviors are also so great. You have the Bidoof building their dam, for example, but you also have Alolan Raichu surfing the sand dunes, or Espurr levitating rocks for the fun of it, or Pikipek bringing fruits back to nests on Toucannon’s orders. On less happy notes you also have things like a group of Mareanie chasing down a Corsola, but I mean, it’s a well-established fact that Mareanie eat Corsola, so that’s just nature. The point is that this isn’t a game where the pokémon are just standing around waiting to have their pictures taken. The pokémon feel alive and it’s clear that so much thought went into their behaviors to make it feel as if life is teeming around you as you go through the courses, because it is! It’s excellent.

Although this is a sequel game (and it makes it clear that it’s a sequel game, which I’ll talk about more in a second), it’s also incredibly accessible to those who have never played the original. Even if you never heard of the original before, you can jump right into this one with mostly new characters and a brand new story. And I think that’s great, considering the original game came out 22 years ago and is probably somewhat hard to find now, especially if you don’t have a system with access to a Virtual Console to play it on. (Which wouldn’t be a problem if we had the Virtual Console on the Switch, Nintendo, but that’s a separate discussion.)

That said, it is a sequel game and all of the nods and references to the original game are things that I love. I mean, first off, Todd Snap is back and he had a major glow-up. But even setting that aside, it’s mentioned how the NEO-ONE was based on the old vehicle that Todd used (the ZERO-ONE), how Todd used to take photos for a different professor (Professor Oak), the final Illumina Pokémon’s level is a huge callback to the Mew level in the original Snap, et cetera. Although this game was called New Pokémon Snap likely so that people wouldn’t think they had to play the first game first, it’s pretty clearly Pokémon Snap 2 and I love that.

Along with the courses themselves changing as you progress through the game, there are also day and night versions of almost every course so you get something different on them even before making more progress. Additionally, each course has multiple different routes that you can take if you find them / want to, and Elsewhere Forest in particular has zones that change depending on the season, which offers even more variety and things to discover. Again, it doesn’t feel boring to keep going through the courses because there’s always something new to find.

Everything is streamlined and plays excellently. The menus are cleaned, I haven’t noticed any lag in gameplay no matter how much is going on on-screen . . . everything is smooth, clean, and fresh, and again, adds to how much of a joy to look at this game is, on top of making it a joy to play as well.

The online features are implemented really well. I absolutely love that you can post photos to share with people around the world, but also that the feature isn’t obtrusive and in your face, so if you want to ignore it, you can. But the process itself is seamless, and the fact that you can add filters and stickers to make memes out of the photos is hilarious and a well thought-out feature, particularly since this is the age of social media, so having a Pokéstagram just makes sense.

I enjoy that there are little missions that you can complete that are posited as being posed naturally by the other characters. You’re given clues of what to do, but often you’re not told outright, which can make some of them fun to figure out (and others the shot itself is challenging enough so you don’t need a riddle, haha). While fulfilling the requests can be a bit irritating (more on that in a bit) I like that there’s additional material to do in addition to the main story that unfolds as you go through and gives you plenty of stuff to do even after you’ve completed the main story.

The characters are all pretty great. There’s one character I don’t enjoy very much, but otherwise the characters are good and add charm to the story.

These characters still don’t know anything about photography (the rule of thirds is so basic and no one here knows it), at least they’re not as obvious about it as Professor Oak was, always scolding me for not getting pokémon in the center of the frame. So toning down the obnoxiousness on that was nice, I will give them that.

The environments are so varied and so cool. Like sure, you have your basic jungle, your basic grasslands, your basic volcano . . . but also your underwater, your magic forest, your ancient technicolor ruins. And I mean, I don’t even want to diss the other areas because the volcano area was incredibly vivid, the snowy mountain was beautiful, and so on. Again, I don’t want to gush too much about how beautiful this game is, but it is and the wide variety of places to take pictures makes it all the more incredible.

As I mentioned in the missions bullet, there is plenty of content to do even after the main story is completed, which is a definite plus. Filling your Photodex aside, there are also Course Scores that are enabled once you complete the main story and an additional time of day for an already unlocked area that is unlocked as well. This means that even after you clear the game, you can still have fun trying to get different shots and discovering new things, which is always a bonus in my book.

Motion controls are included, but they are entirely optional. So if you want to undock your Switch (or if you are playing with a Switch Lite) and you want to move your Switch around like an actual camera, you can! But if you have any physical limitations that would make doing that hard for you (or if you just don’t feel like it), you don’t have to and the motion controls are actually turned off by default. I haven’t used them myself because I’m not a fan of motion controls so I can’t tell you how good they are, but I can say it’s a plus that the motion controls are 100% optional, rather than forcibly included like they have been in other Nintendo games.

The Neutrals:

All of the different tools you get are basically the same as the original game, with a few slight (and sometimes silly) changes. For instance, they’re now calling apples “flufffruit” because “fluffruit are actually a lot softer and don’t hurt the pokémon” even though . . . they’re very obviously apples. Like very obviously apples. I get that they don’t want to encourage throwing apples at animals for the sake of picture taking / they don’t want to make a kid feel bad if they accidentally (“accidentally”) knock a pokémon in the head with one, but . . . come on. They’re apples. They’ve also decided to take away the Pokéflute and make it a random music player instead, and Illumina Orbs replaced Pester Balls for both story reasons and for the same reason why we can’t call apples apples anymore. Honestly, all of this is fine, just something to mention, though I will say it took way too damn long to unlock the turbo feature, damn. Pokémon are fast, guys! Give me my turbo sooner!!

Sometimes the “tips” that Professor Mirror gives during the photo evaluations . . . don’t actually fit the situation at all. Like I can��t tell you the number of times he’s told me about getting the whole pokémon in the frame when the pokémon is in the frame, or like “throw a fluffruit to get the pokémon to look right at you!” even though the pokémon is staring into the camera like they’re on The Office. It’s not a huge deal but it makes me think that Professor Mirror might need his vision prescription updated.

I understand that this is also the age of the smartphone, but I do find it disappointing that we’re essentially given a smartphone camera (or at most a point-and-shoot) versus the SLR camera that Todd very obviously had in the original Snap (and even has here). Granted, we didn’t have to adjust for aperture or shutter speed in the original game and I wouldn’t want to do that here either, but it’s about the aesthetic and the fact that having professional nature photographers have actually good cameras is more fitting than handing them a smartphone and saying, “have fun!” Again, I get why it’s a smartphone now, but it still is a little disappointing, even if not an actual detraction from the game.

It is confusing that we have wild Alolan form pokémon when this is not Alola, especially since they didn’t make it equal by adding in Galar form pokémon too. (And on that note, there seems to be a lack of Galar pokémon at that.) I think it would have been cool if they’d designed some Lental form pokémon for this game specifically, although I get that this isn’t a game developed by Game Freak so I understand why that wasn’t done. All the same though, the presence of Alolan form pokémon when this isn’t Alola was still a bit weird.

It’s rather easy to breeze through the main story if you don’t want to take your time revisiting areas to get better pictures / boost the research level. While the main story is longer than the original game / there are more areas than the original game, it’s still pretty short. Ordinarily this would be a con, but since there are so many things to do even after you beat the main story, I’m putting it in the neutrals section instead. 

The Cons:

While the missions are fun, it is frustrating that you have to do them again if you capture a photo of the mission before the mission is formally handed to you. This is especially true if it was a hard to get shot that’s difficult to replicate. I understand they want to put challenge in the game, but it’s a bit frustrating you can’t point to your photodex and have the mission be cleared if you’ve already done it. You also can’t get the pokémon doing the requested thing in a different part of the course (or a different version of the same course, or even just a different course altogether if a pokémon appears in multiple areas), which is fine, except that you can only turn in one photo per pokémon. This can make it particularly frustrating when you technically get a photo of what was asked for (e.g. Wingull doing a loop-de-loop) but it’s not the specific Wingull you were supposed to take a picture of, so it doesn’t count.

I have noticed a few bugs or typos here or there. Like one time the text box said “Rita” even when it was clearly Mirror talking, and there have been other times when the game is like “you can’t submit photos if the pokémon is not in the Illumina State” even though Wishwashi was GLOWING BRIGHT PINK because I had just thrown an Illumina Orb at it. Little things like that are things I think could have been better smoothed out in QA, but ultimately aren’t too much to deal with and don’t happen very often.

The alternate paths are a bit too finicky sometimes. Like I managed to get on the swamp path once and haven’t been able to manage it since. I was on research level 3 in Elsewhere Forest for a good long while before Espeon decided to show up, which blocked me off the second exit and guaranteed winter route, too. Again, I love that there are secrets in this game, but I tried to replicate getting into the swamp area twenty times in a row after I had just done it with no success, so it can be a bit frustrating at times.

There isn’t really a true conclusion to the main story. I won’t give spoilers, but essentially the story revolves around uncovering the secrets of a myth that happened in the Lental region thousands of years ago. You get close . . . but the story ends before you get any real answers. You’re just left to speculate. In a way this makes sense, since it’s not like you’re time traveling, you’re just taking pictures. But it is still a little annoying for anyone who is interested in things like the lore of the Pokéworld and who might like actual answers to the questions set up (such as myself).

Anyway, overall, this game is amazing whether or not you played the original, and I highly recommend it to everyone who likes Pokémon even a little. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another 22 years for the next one. (But if we do, it will probably be worth the wait.)

#pokemon #pokemon snap #new pokemon snap #2021 game reviews #i am still playing it but since I finished the main story I figured I should go ahead and post the review

[patrick-hockstutter]

Modern!Bowers Gang:

Patrick:

Really into cinematography and photography of the unsettling

Never captions his Instagram posts

Goes live on Instagram a lot, even though people really wished he wouldn’t

Makes art out of dead animals or animal bones he finds

Think Banksy, but with roadkill

He’ll take some (somehow) tasteful photos of them, post them, then leave the scene there for some unexpecting bystander to find

Has a nosering (fight me)

Never uses incognito mode

If someone happens to stumble upon his search history, he’s not paying their therapy bill

He likes reading smut more than he likes watching porn

A ps4 guy

Loves spooky games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Until Dawn and Death Stranding

He’s not really into school, but he surprisingly reads a lot when he’s alone in his room

Only about things he likes though

Abnormal psych, criminal psych, and sometimes some zoology (u kno y)

Watches serial killer documentaries like he’s paid to

Listens to grunge, nu metal, and 80s alt

Won’t admit it, but sometimes listens to Joji

He’s not super into emo music, but he’s the only one who will listen to it with Victor (he fckn vibes to Brand New)

Ironically uses a Zune

Has an Android but lowkey wishes he had an iPhone

Doesn’t have a computer, just jailbreaks/hacks the school issued laptop

Has a black line tattooed around some of his fingers, one of his wrists, and the shell of his ear

Has a foot tattoo

Has a fucking Juul

Watches LeafyIsHere on YouTube (tell me I’m wrong)

Spends too much time on Reddit

Wears flannels, skinny jeans, and Vans (a beanie if he’s cold)

Mostly cycles through the same three or four outfits

Wears the same pair of Vans every single day

Victor:

Big into aromatherapy

He uses lavender soaps and has an essential oil diffuser in his room

Uses incognito mode to watch Vampire Diaries

A Nintendo ass b i t c h

He has the gray Switch Lite

He brings his Switch with him everywhere (yes he’s that guy)

But what else are you gonna do when you wanna ignore Patrick?

Watches conspiracy theories about ghosts, cryptids, and aliens

Also big into podcasts (mostly true crime and conspiracy ones)

He listens to them on his headphones while he takes walks or draws

Posts his drawings on Tumblr

Does art streams on Twitch when he gets really bored

Has an eyebrow piercing (but it’s a small stud one, not a ring)

Has little tattoos on his hands

Wears bomber jackets, skinny jeans, joggers, army jackets, converse, and combat boots

The boy has style okay

Had an emo phase but still listens to the music (especially Tiny Moving Parts)

The emo phase was pretty short because Henry made fun of him so much

He just fucking liked MCR and Taking Back Sunday a lot, okay?

And Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens, but he doesn’t readily admit that

Now mostly listens to new wave, synth pop, and lofi hiphop

His favorite bands are Drab Majesty and Choir Boy (look up their new album btw)

Has a black iPhone and a space gray MacBook Pro

Uses Apple Music

Vapes, but only fruity flavors

Watches BoJack Horseman

Doesn’t really eat fast food but never passes up an M&M McFlurry

Paints his (and Patrick’s) nails black

One time Patrick caught him doing a facemask, so Patrick put one on and started chasing him around screaming as a joke

Cue: hmm… this feels kinda good tho

So now Victor and Patrick have secret mini spa days

Drives a Subaru

Belch:

Makes Spotify playlists like he’s paid to

He’s just really good at putting songs together

He tried to get into music theory, but he wasn’t one for actually making his own songs

Really into metal (obvi) but also likes some classic rock and punk stuff

Has records hung up side by side all around his room where the wall meets the ceiling

Still buys CDs

His Instagram feed is full of vintage cars and custom import cars

Fast and Furious is his favorite movie series

His favorite shows are Sons of Anarchy and The Walking Dead

But he also loves early 2000s comedies

Has a mini projector to watch movies on his room wall

Wears band tees, flannels, jean jackets, Carhartt stuff, d a d  h a t s

Really wants a tattoo but always gets nervous

Uses incognito mode to watch porn and buy some of his band tees from Hot Topic

Only one in the gang that uses Facebook (Mama Huggins made him so he could keep in contact with family)

Follows a few meme pages but also some cooking ones so he can send his mom any cool recipes he finds

Victor lowkey makes fun of him for actually using the Facebook page

Invests money in really good headphones and car speakers

Has a black iPhone

It’s always at 20% battery cause it’s always connected to his headphones, Bluetooth speaker, or car stereo

Him and Victor FaceTime when they’re bored

Sometimes they won’t even say much, they just like the over the phone company

Doesn’t smoke, but sometimes hits Vic’s vape

A social vaper if you will

Watches Idubbbz and Filthy Frank on YouTube

His favorite fast food place is Wendy’s

Not really into video games but fucking slays at Guitar Hero

And when Rock Band came out nobody saw him for like two weeks

Has a black Hydroflask with band stickers on it

Henry:

He plays a lot of Xbox

Mostly Halo, COD, Destiny, any first-person shooter really

Baits people on Xbox Live cause he thinks it’s hilarious

He’s also a fucking cyberbully but we all expected that

Has Victor’s old iPhone

Never fucking charges it

He’ll text you back in 3-5 business days (if at all)

And if you try to call him he’ll block your number

Plays iMessage games like cup pong and 8 ball with Belch

The only social media he uses is Snapchat and Tinder to look at girls

In one of his Tinder photos he’s holding a fish (srrynotsrry)

Doesn’t really listen to too much music

He doesn’t dislike music, just usually prefers to do things in silence

His mind is chaotic enough, he doesn’t need background noise

But he will listen to Cigarettes After Sex and TV Girl on a really low volume when he goes to sleep

Uses incognito mode to pick and choose random soft or angsty songs that he likes to put into a bedtime playlist

Otherwise just listens to whatever Belch listens to

Has a tattoo on his wrist

Takes a lot of drives into the countryside/national forests/mountains with Belch

Takes a lot of scenery photos, but never posts them anywhere or shows anyone except Victor

Still smokes cigarettes (he thinks vaping is douchey)

Watches South Park and American Dad

If he’s willing to spend money to go see a movie, he’s going to an IMAX theater

Sometimes he likes 3D, but most of the time it just hurts his eyes after a while

Longboards everywhere

Needs prescription glasses but refuses to wear them

They’re mostly for reading, which he doesn’t do anyway

But he does listen to audiobooks sometimes

Likes Frappuccinos but will kill you before you find out

He orders them through Uber Eats under a fake name so nobody will find out

BONUS: all four!

Victor still has his childhood GameCube that they play Mario Party, Mario Kart, and Melee on

Henry is banned from playing Mario Party after breaking a controller while beating Patrick with it

Patrick only ever picks Waluigi in Mario Kart and everyone is sick of it

When they play Rock Band Patrick is on bass, Henry plays guitar, Belch absolutely slays the drums, and Vicky boy sings his lil heart out

One night a week they order a shit ton of Dominos and make a drinking game out of watching Vine compilations

Victor does everyone’s birth charts

They collectively made a fake Tinder account on Patrick’s phone and catfish guys with it

They all try to one up each other doing vape tricks yikes

They buy bags of chips and candy from Costco and lounge around eating them on weekends

They’re banned from the city metro busses because Belch’s car was in the shop for a week and that week was hell for every bus driver in the city

#it #it 2017 #it movie 2017 #it 2017 headcanons #it headcanons #bowers gang #bowers gang headcanons #modern!bowersgang #modern!bowers gang headcanons #bowers gang blog #patrick hockstetter #patrick hockstetter headcanons #modern!patrick hockstetter #belch huggins #belch huggins headcanons #modern!belch huggins #victor criss #victor criss headcanons #modern!victor criss #henry bowers #henry bowers headcanons #modern!henry bowers

[yowlthinks]

Occult Nannying

This whole new school malarkey was not going well. Well, Warlock mused, it was going about as well as it could be expected to for someone who had been previously home-schooled in a different country and now thrown into ‘an excellent school in a good neighbourhood' in his parents' home country. (Warlock was adamant it was not his home country, and he was going back to London as soon as he would be able to legally do so.) That is to say, it was not outright nasty but there was that lingering feeling of others not liking him, not really counting him as one of the group.

While Warlock was 14 now, he kept contact with his nanny. It was odd, really, and his parents did not quite understand this ongoing letter exchange, but over the years they just came to ignore it. What used to be crayon drawings with a few misspelled words, became letters of varying length on Warlock's part and short note-like replies from Ms Ashtoreth, sometimes with a mysterious addition from Brother Francis (apparently, him and Nanny saw each other sometimes). Brief as she was, she always, always replied. Warlock looked at the latest letter with the bright red stamp and the accompanying blue “by air mail" sticker, at nanny's quick handwriting and opened the envelope. Some time ago he briefly considered switching their communication to e-mail, but there was something special about getting the handwritten notes he could hold on to afterwards.

The note was a reply to one of Warlock's longer letters, where he finally got the guts to describe the new school situation and ask for advice on how to handle it.

"The best way to earn respect is through something others might value or be curious about, which you do well. Think of what you are good at, and show them that.

More importantly, consider if they are even worth worrying about. Might be better off just doing what you are interested in and getting better at it.

Nose up, my wee hellspawn."

Warlock smiled. Nanny rarely called him 'hellspawn' these days, it was reserved for special occasions and somehow always felt like a hug when coming from her.

What was he good at? That was a tough question. Nanny has always said that asking questions is important, especially the trickier ones. The fact that his father disagreed with that view made it all the more credible. He opened his thinking notepad on a new page and started writing down everything that came to mind. He learned this technique from one of his teachers, it was called brainstorming. Warlock knew this was not quite what it meant, but he liked to imagine it was a way to calm a stormy brain, to splash all this storm out of his head and onto the paper, to stop the myriad of thoughts tormenting him from within.

His list included several entries, about some of which he felt more confident then the others:

Chemistry

Maths?

Annoying people

Mythology and superstitions

Asking questions

He considered adding ‘understanding Scottish accent’ to the list, but thought better of it: no need to disclose a super power to the whole wide world, especially the one with such private origins. None of these seemed particularly useful in his current state, but perhaps he would just have to wait or think a bit more about it all.

***

Warlock knew an opportunity when he saw one: as he was hanging on the edge of the group, not quite excluded, but not really included into the conversation either, he heard the discussion veer off towards the questions of the occult.

“Oh, stop being so naive, of course supernatural forces do not exist. It is all just stories and CGI!” – said one of the girls

“I think they do, people wouldn't just make them up!” – opined another, hopping off the desk she was sitting on.

“Well, of course they would and they did. Some of it is true enough though," – Warlock said in a quiet confident tone.

Every head turned in his direction.

“Oh yeah? And how would you know about any of that?”

“I just had good teachers, is all"

“Don't tell me you could summon a demon or something. Or is that part of the standard curriculum in London?"

“Perhaps I could, what, are you keen to try it out? I thought you did not believe in all this ‘supersticious nonsense’” – Warlock knew he probably should not have said that, but the words left his mouth before he could stop himself. He was so done with all the mocking, all the thinly veiled insults, the endless sneers behind his back. Well, there was no way back now.

***

Thaddeus and Harriet Dowling breathed a sigh of relief when their son told them he’ll have a couple of school friends for sleepover. He was finally, finally, integrating, or at least getting closer to becoming ‘a normal American teen' as Thaddeus put it to himself. Truth be told, he was not sure this was entirely possible, but it was a start.

Warlock took a week to prepare everything he needed for the summoning. He was not sure it would work, but he did give it all he could: he went through the books he remembered Nanny mentioning as “the more reliable sort" over the years, ordered tall thick candles, slept on the drawing chalk for five days (he was not sure this was strictly necessary, but he figured it would not hurt).

When his guests arrived, Warlock had everything set ready. He covered the summoning circle with a rug, left out some snacks and quietly hoped that this evening will go in the least destructive way possible. If it worked, a demon would appear in a circle, they would ask for something ridiculous, like balloons or some chocolates, the demon would ask for their souls, they would say no, and that would be it. If it didn't work he would say how this surely proves that people make up a lot of things, but does not disprove anything, and would just offer his guests to watch a movie or something. The second plan also involved not paying attention to all the mockery that would no doubt follow such a failed attempt.

There were four of them: two boys and two girls, Warlock felt them taking his room in, looking for clues about the part of his life they could not see at school.

Yesterday while tidying up his room for the occasion, he remembered Brother Francis’ strange advice in one of the letters. One did not have to share everything with everyone, it was ok to keep some things private, hidden away from prying eyes. “Give them more of what they know already. Not something that would look unnatural or out of place, only hide things that are truly private, but hide those well. Show them to those whose eyes they are meant for.” It almost felt like the lines were not quite addressed to Warlock, but at the end it did turn out useful. He locked away his favourite things, it was a small collection of odd objects which did not quite fit together, and letters – all the letters from Ms Ashtoreth, and an odd postcard from Brother Francis too. He hid the box in his mother's walk-in wardrobe, on the topmost shelf, somewhere no one would ever look. He replaced the objects with other ones: two more encyclopaedias, put a sci-fi book he was reading carelessly on his bedside table: let them see, let them confirm what they already know, they will not look further. He was as ready as he could be.

***

“So, how are you going to do it?” – asked one of the guys the moment Warlock closed the door behind his parents (they were off to some event in town and were not expected till late after midnight).

“I have prepared some things, so we can begin, if you all are ready"

“ Don't we need to wait till midnight or something?”

“Time is relative, it is always midnight somewhere" – Warlock replied mindlessly as he pulled the rug to reveal the pentogram (he remembered asking Nanny this exact question at the age of 5, and remembered the answer very clearly, it was one of the things that he felt really made sense). He put the candles at the allocated spots and lit them up.

Warlock took a deep breath, quietly scolding himself for the sweaty palms and the racing heart. He focused very hard wishing for a demon to appear: “would be really good if it were a friendly one", he told to himself quietly...

The candles flickered and a person appeared in the circle. He was wearing a dusty-green leather coat and something quite green and leathery on his head too. The strange thing was, he looked vaguely familiar.

“YOU-U-U!?” – the person howled at Warlock

“Um, h-hello?”

“IT'S YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT! HOW DARE YOU?!”

And then it clicked, Warlock knew exactly where he had seen this person, where he had smelled him before in fact: it was that unbearably hot day on the blasted trip to the blasted Planes of Megghido or some such that dad organised a couple of years ago. Oh, this was not very good, the guy clearly was not a forgiving type.

“OH THAT IS IT, NOW I'VE GOT YOU AND YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS, NOW...”

“Oi, Hastur! Fancy meeting you here!” – Warlock felt a displacement of air and... and Nanny's voice (he was pretty sure, it was her voice, although the accent seemed a bit off) came from behind him.

“CRRROWLEY.”

“Yeah, long time no see. Honestly, would prefer not to see you for longer, like for about eternity"

“THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, YOU TRAITOR. GET OUT OF MY WAY"

“Sorry, no, this, THIS is very much MY business, and if you try as much as look his way... Well, there is no telling what could happen, is there?”- Warlock felt something feathery shield him form both sides.

The silence lasted a few seconds and then with a whiff of foul smoke the figure in the circle was gone. Warlock stared at the empty spot trying to process it all. Then he slowly, slowly turned around...

Nanny was standing behind him: dressed all in black, her glasses firmly in place, her... his!? flaming red hair in perfect waves.

“Hi Warlock" – Nanny sighed

“Nanny... ms Ashtoreth?!” – Warlock could not believe his eyes: it was Nanny, it really definitely was her, just not quite her

“Yeah, I know, this is not exactly how I was planning to tell you, but whatever. Yes, that's me, I usually go by Crowley these days.”

“But how...? You, you're in London! And also...”

“I have been planning to tell you, some day. Yeah, ok, you were raised by a demon, but there was also an angel involved! Balanced out somehow, didn’t it?

“An angel?! Was... was Brother Francis an angel?!”

“He IS an angel, he was Brother Francis for a little while. His name's Aziraphale, if you must know. Oh and for somebody’s sake, just bloody call me before you decide to summon a demon!” – Nanny pushed a small piece of carton into Warlock's hand.

“I... I’m sorry, I...” – Warlock tailed off not knowing what to say. He wanted to hug his Nanny, to talk, but everything was so strange, surreal, and his classmates were there, and...

“Don't worry about them, I'll scramble their memories before waking them up, they won't remember anything, just that it all worked and was really mysterious”

“Thanks, Nanny... Mr Crowley"

“Nanny will do, Warlock"

“I miss you, Nanny! I read all your letters , all your replies, I do!”

“Me too, my wee Hellspawn, me too.” – and Nanny's arms wound themselves around Warlock.

***

“And then this demon appeared, all in black and he hat those cat eyes! He looked at ME! And then he went away. But he WAS THERE!!” – one of the boys who visited Warlock that fateful evening was obviously retelling what he remembered from the evening to one of his buddies.

“Snake eyes, they are snake eyes.” – Warlock thought. He smiled and said nothing at all.

#good omens #crowley #warlock #warlock dowling

[shunkashuutou]

Fall Semester 2018-19 A lot of catching up to do!

Surprise!

I told you I hadn’t given up on blogging!

Wow, last semester was CRAZY. Like I honestly had never been so busy before; but I survived! And I’ve cut back to just 2 part time jobs this semester, both of which I’m used to now, so it should be a little less hectic than last semester and I’ll have more time to focus on school (and hopefully a little more free time too).

Obviously so much has happened that there’s no way I can catch you up on everything, but here are a few highlights from the last 6 months!

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October Machi Asobi!

Mabs and I went to Machi Asobi in Tokushima last October! (We always go to the Machi Asobi over Golden Week in May, but this was my first time going to the one that’s in October) We debuted our Little Witch Academia cosplays of Lotte and Sucy, and it was a lot of fun! These cosplays were a collaboration; Mabs made the dresses and I made the hats and wands. It was actually the first time we’ve worked together on a cosplay like that, and it was fun!

And we ended up in CosMode magazine! A dream come true!

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YuYuYu Only in Kanonji!

In November we went back to Kagawa Prefecture for the Yuki Yuna Wa Yuusha De Aru only event!

We cosplayed Yuna and Togo of course, but this time we tabled and sold a variety of handmade goods! Mabs and I used to table and sell Touken Ranbu stuff at the OdeRai event in Takamatsu, but I always felt a little intimidated because there was already so much awesome Touken Ranbu stuff there. But with YuYuYu, I felt like the expectations were lower since it’s a pretty small fandom, so I actually had a lot of fun making things and selling them! My keychains didn’t sell very well (I still have a bunch that need homes; I should look into selling them online or something) but my stickers of Gyuuki attempting to eat all of the other fairies sold amazingly well, and I actually ran out before the event was over! (Mabs made a ton of keychains and even a really cute button, but I couldn’t find photos at the moment.)

We each made enough to cover our travel expenses, so that was great!

We stayed in Kanonji that night (at our old apartment, since the teacher who works there now was kind enough to let us stay there. It was really weird to go back to it) and the next day we went hiking up to Takaya Jinja, which is a shrine on the very top of that mountain.

It was a really tough hike; definitely the most intense hiking I’ve ever done, and if it had been any more difficult, I don’t think I would have made it. But the weather was perfect and we got to the top! The view is beautiful up there! It was totally worth it! Another good Kanonji memory with Mabs.

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Kaiyukan Christmas Date!

For an early Christmas present, Mabs surprised me with tickets to the Kaiyukan aquarium!! I’d been wanting to go back ever since we first went a couple years ago, so it was the perfect present for me!

It was such a happy day!

They have not one but TWO whale sharks now!

And they were having a special illumination since it was winter! Kaiyukan looked so pretty with all of the lights and the giant light-up whale shark!

We rode the ferris wheel too of course!

Here’s my photo collage for the day! (They even had a diver dressed as Santa swim around the big tank and wave to everyone since it was around Christmas time)

It was really wonderful, I was so, so happy. ;U;

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Hawaii!

As soon as it was winter break, I went to Hawaii to spend Christmas and New Year’s with my family! (Mabs went back to visit her family too) It was so good to see everyone again, and it was actually the first time I’d ever spent Christmas in Hawaii. (My cousin’s new puppy is really cute!)

A few selfies with flowers

My mom took me to get my nails done as a Christmas present, and I had a lot of fun having my nails be all colorful.

My mom also did a kiwame Ookurikara photoshoot for me at the beach! We got some really cool pictures, and it was great to finally take kiwame Kara-chan out for a proper photoshoot. (Even though I’d made him like a year before, I had only taken him to events)

I finally got some kiwame sunglasses photos!

We saw this super cool art installation with hundreds of light-up flowers that changed colors to match the music that was playing. It was so pretty!

I could have stayed there and watched all night. I love big installations like this.

I’m so glad I got to spend time with the fam, and enjoy the warm Hawaii weather! (I went to the beach a lot too, but of course I don’t have photos from that because I was too busy playing around in the water)

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Matsumoto with Hala and Hana!

In January we went to Matsumoto to visit our friends Hala and Hana! They’re sisters from Australia, and we’ve been internet friends for years now. (thank you Sengoku Basara) Hala was doing an exchange program in Matsumoto and Hana came to visit her, and I’m so glad we finally got to hang out all together!

Also you may remember, but Matsumoto is where Mabs lived for a year right after we graduated from college, so I’d been there to visit several times before. It was great to go back again! Matsumoto Castle is so pretty with its big moat.

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Valentine’s Day!

For Valentine’s Day, Mabs and I got McDonalds and drew hearts with ketchup, since that’s what we did last year too, LOL. We’re going to make it a tradition. So romantic~ ahaha

I wanted to give Mabs one of those rainbow roses I kept seeing around last summer because they’re pretty and also kind of gay, but the only ones I could find in February were fake ones made out of soap and they were expensive, so I made one myself out of some cardstock, lol.

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My birthday!

I had a fun birthday! Of course I wanted to do something different than usual for birthday makeup, but I wasn’t sure what color to go with, so I just used all of them lol.

I liked how it turned out! I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Violet Voss Fruit Sorbet eyeshadow palette that I very spontaneously threw in my shopping basket when I was at Sephora in Hawaii, lol.

After I finished school that day, I went over to Mabs’ place for a birthday dinner. We made ratatouille and then she gave me the cutest cake ever...

A whale shark cheesecake!!

Look at how she decorated it! And the white chocolate fins and tail, and even the little waves on the plate! It was almost too cute to eat, but it was also really delicious cheesecake!

And she got me a whale shark blanket! it’s like a big pocket for your feet, and it’s been so great for keeping my feet warm on chilly winter days! So cute, and a great addition to my growing collection of whale shark stuff!

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Hanging out with Mabs!

Even though it was a super busy semester, Mabs and I hung out for at least a little while almost every weekend.

Because we have less money for adventures these days; we’ve been doing more walking and just exploring the areas we can get to on foot. These photos are from the day that we just happened to stumble upon the shrine to Sanada Yukimura that we went to three years ago! It was closer to her apartment than we thought!

We just have a lot of fun together. <3

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Aaaaaaaaaaa

And despite all of the craziness of last semester (I never want to have 4 part-time jobs at the same time ever again), I still managed to keep my grades up!

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New cosplay!

Over spring break I sewed a dog!

The little paw pads took forever but I’m so happy with how it all turned out!

It was for a new cosplay of course!

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Agi’s visit!

And a few weeks ago, our friend Agi came to visit us for a while, and we did a photoshoot all together! We finally got to check out the cosplay studio here in Osaka, and it’s so awesome! It has a ton of different sets, the tickets are fairly cheap, and it even has a cafe inside so you can order food! (cosplay takes energy so food is important!)

It was so much fun taking photos all together! Mabs and Agi were so perfect as their characters!

And of course, while Agi was here, we took him on the usual Osaka sightseeing tour (Osaka castle, anime shopping in Nipponbashi, Namba/Shinsaibashi, Amemura) plus Fushimi-Inari in Kyoto since Agi loves foxes.

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Nagoya!

And then right after Agi left, I went on a 3-day class trip to Nagoya! We worked together with students from a computer school in Nagoya in small groups (4 people per team, with a mix of students from the different schools) to come up with an idea based on a certain theme and make a website or app in just 3 days. Working with the Nagoya students was a little tough, but it was a good experience. Hanging out with my classmates was by far the best part of the trip though! I have some fun photos, but I would need to ask my classmates’ permission before posting them, so instead here’s a photo of Nagoya’s famous miso katsu. (Just what it sounds like; pork katsu with miso sauce)

One of Nagoya’s special omiyage are these frog manjyuu!

Their faces are so derpy and hilarious. Of course I had to bring some back for Mabs.

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Sakura Season!

And now its cherry blossom season here!

This is my last week of spring break, and I’ve finally had some totally free time! (after spring break started, we had a two-week special course at school, I learned how to pay my taxes in Japan, one of our college friends came to visit, I did an internship at another design company, Agi came to visit, and I went to Nagoya. After all of that I was feeling like I needed a spring break from spring break!) It’s been so good to get back to my hobbies again, and I’ve been going on walks every day and looking at the sakura!

This weekend Mabs and I are going to go on a hanami (flower viewing) date and check out the sakura somewhere here in Osaka. I’m really excited!

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And school starts on Monday! Going to do my best to make it another productive and fun school year!

I definitely want to keep updating this blog more regularly again, even if the posts have to be shorter than they used to be, so stay tuned for more from me, and I hope you all are having a nice spring! 🌸

#life in Japan #japan #cosplay #DMMd #YuYuYu #Little Witch Academia #2018 #2019 #April 2019 #kaiyukan

[pensurfing]

30 Days Feeling Better

~~What up guys, it’s me. Ya GIRLLL.~~

So the entire month of July I’ve been eating nonstop healthy. (Now if you want a percentage, I’m looking more towards 90% healthy eating). So for those who are used to my long posts of nonsense, topics, and babbles, this is another long babble and experiment I’ve done. Yet again. 

July 1st I cut out fast food entirely. (With the only one allowed cheat, which I choose Chickfila because they actually have a wide selection of healthy fast food items. But I needed to still get a grasp on what to order and why.) Now it hasn’t been 30 days Y E T as I type this out, but I’ve already meal planned and trust me. I’m doing to eat it. July was me teaching myself how to shop healthy, eat healthily, and teaching myself what I do and don’t like about “the healthy demons”. How was I before this fast-food cut? 

Before I cut out fast food, let me explain my long long relationship with my eating issues and then when I did decide to eat fast food was the easiest grab. 

We can literally jump back to summer before freshman year. I lost all of my baby fat in a single summer and as well as got my big girl boobies. Not just my fat girl boobies. This gained the actual praise of my mother and her bringing me places. My mother to this day doesn’t give praises. It’s not her. Her phrase is “very good” and that’s the end of that discussion. So young Caitlin related this to If I stay skinny, my mom won’t be ashamed of me. Cue Caitlin from freshman to junior year only eating one thing a day and it would be a snack from the vending machine. “BIG TEXAS CINNAMON ROLL”. Boy did I love those things. I did not eat much. Jumping to senior year, with doing baseball, band, having a part-time job at Stone Mountain Park as a photographer, my body DEMANDED me to eat more. So my metabolism and I both were confused as to how much more was being put into my body. I gained weight quickly and was vilified by many of the adults in my life back then; my mother and her little friends, band director who I saw MORE of at the time back then, teachers, name it. High school boys praised said weight gain because I at least gained it “in the right places”.  What was the easiest grab for a busy senior in high school? Bring in the dancing fast food mascots. 

This continued through college. With assignments, being sent all around the Midtown and Downtown of Atlanta, I was a busy kid. So again, what was an easy grab? Cue now the restaurants that were slowly becoming my silent killers. And add their trusty sidekick, sweet tea. The Southerner’s weakness. And what about after I graduated? It’s only officially been two years after college. 2017, I had the lost of my aunt. Now if you were to ask young Caitlin who her family was, she would just say her aunt, mom, and grandmother. Ya know, the people who cared enough to maintain a relationship with her. This is still true to this day; I have many relatives, but not many family members. If that makes sense. So along with 2017 being the most fulfilling part of my life, it was also the worst. Now cue 2018: The year I tried to ignore it all. The breakup of a best friend, the showing of my PTSD of my abusive relationship, what was my comfort food? The devil that is D U N K I N. 

And there you have it. My exact to the tee map out of why I went from around 145lbs junior year to slightly about 200lbs two years after graduation.

So why is a month so important? Don’t get me wrong, in no way shape form or fashion trying to replace my therapy. The therapist? Different discussion. But one thing that shocked me was the Nancy does have her decent moments. Which is why I guess I still keep rolling around to her: “Our discussions are here to help yes. But giving yourself a fighting chance would be cutting out something that causes your relapses (PTSD).”  In short, I didn’t realize fast food being the tie to a lot of childhood trauma, ex trauma, and why I don’t like myself at 180%. They all tie to that time period. And it is no surprise that there are a number of studies that fast food leads to depression and obesity. She showed me the studies, and I was aware, just didn’t think it would affect me personally. Not the best logic there Cait. 

I guess this month was important because it felt like me saying, fuck my past. I’m going to be better and treat me better; I can’t expect to become a better person if I just keep throwing my past mistakes in my face. (Eating wise and also improving me personally wise.) ((AND TO WHOEVER MADE IT THIS FAR. YOU TOO. Don’t let people try and drown you in your past. It’s understandable, you made mistakes. You didn’t say something charming, made someone upset, whatever. You apologized and tried making amends. Did it work, no? That’s ok. You held yourself accountable. Them being upset is their problem. Not yours and not your issue to try and fix up. If they can’t respect the you RIGHT NOW who is wiser than the prior you, then you better fucking leave.))

So to the reason why I actually made this post: 

From July 1st to August 1st, ya girl did well not eating fast food and making better health choices. I so far started with just buying salads from Publix. The easy to pick up bowls have been my lifesaver. Literally, your salad, dressing, meat and cheese, and fork is just RIGHT THERE. I bought yogurt for breakfast; yogurt pretzels; tiny juice packs, chicken breasts, turkey lunch meat, any cheese BUT KRAFT, and only baked chips. Which means I took out; Burker King, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Zaxby’s, any other heavy fried fast foods, Fried Chickfila items, donuts, pastries in general, brownies, loads of bread, etc. What I allowed: Grilled Chickfila items once a week; cooked veggies, not ice-cold fruits; light meats; no heavy pork, bacon is only “ok”; more seafood; small cookies; and I bought a huge gallon water tug. Put stickers on it, and marked my times of when I need to drink more water. My skin is SO CLEAR.  

Quitting old habits cold turkey makes you quit your new habits cold turkey. No one has ever really explained that well to me before. So, here it is in writing so I won’t forget. I’ve felt much better about my appearance to where I don’t hide at home and when I go to conventions now. I lost weight especially in my face and in my lil muffin. I’m fitting old shirts I hadn’t fit since my sophomore year of college, I have more energy to do more things. It’s a huge difference in my mood, behavior and even my body. I’m loving it. 

I’m not saying go and run and do a challenge, but challenge yourself. Drink soda all the time? Start with no soda that day, then a week, then a month. Give you sour mood at least a fighting chance. I didn’t know my body was trying to kick my ass and tell me to eat better until this month honestly. Last year, you wouldn’t have been able to convince me otherwise. Some of you may get this far and just go “Cait this is stupid, you’re stupid” and that’s fine. Glad I just wasted your time! Really! But for some who need that sign, my guy this is your gentle sign. Ok?

This has been a Caitlin babble where she didn’t have a sour aftertaste after typing this all out. She felt hopeful, helpful, and proud. 

TRD: I started eating healthy this entire month and I’m excited to eat new foods and I feel MUCH better about waking up in the morning; and about myself. It was a hard thing to start, but I did it.  Quitting old habits cold turkey makes you quit your new habits cold turkey. So be kind to yourself.  

#weight log #eating desorders #tw eating problems #personal #tiny win #pensurfing #? #maybe i had an eating disorder and didn't know

[pokedoki]

so about that ddlc oc huh

@ciryes​ @punkpillywiggin​ I’M TAGGING YOU FOR MORAL SUPPORT YOU S CRU BS

OK

HERE WE GO

also look at the stickers ciryes doodled for me??? every poem sticker in this post is thanks to them. like..... god bless

Content Warning! Aiki’s story in the pretend DLC I can’t make involves sexual assault. If you don’t want to read about that, please don’t read under the cut! There will be plenty of information beforehand too because um i love her so

SO HERE’S THE BASICS ABOUT MY GIRL AIKI whom i’ve had since two days after the game came out but am only posting about now because im Nervous (she also has an rp blog that i need to update hh)

(art above commissioned from pingubun on dA! <3)

(additionally, if you want to see a fuckton of art involving her, here is her toyhouse!)

This is Aiki! She’s a high-schooler who’s just transferred to the completely nameless school where DDLC takes place! Being new to the school (and to the area, as she has just moved) she doesn’t have very many friends... but she does love to write and read, so maybe a good idea would be to join the Literature Club!!

Aiki has Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), like me! She’s also very very very gay... like me! The self is a good source of inspiration, okay? Aiki really likes to write, and what she’s most interested in are short stories and stories for games - poems are a little new to her, but she tries! She prefers to use exciting, descriptive, and sometimes affectionate words, although she hasn’t quite settled into a specific style yet...

Liking anything fun and needing a pretty high level of engagement as she does, Aiki’s favorite things (besides girls and the written word, in that order,) are video games, board games, card games... all games??? String games? Stick and a hula hoop? Sports?? She’ll try sports! Sports for fun, not sports for hardcore competition where she’ll inevitably get distracted and mess up and make everyone really upse I mean, um, because it’s more fun to have fun with friends, right? Tag you’re it race you to that lightpost!!

Q - what in god’s name is on her blazer

A - she’s very enthusiastic about glitter and it will not ever come off of her clothes. beware of glitter-covered pounces, snuggles, and all other manner of physical contact. war is hell.

Q - totally important question: does she have casual outfit

A - im so glad you asked that non question. yes she does and its beautiful

(casual wear art above commissioned from hunibi on dA! <3)

The basic gist of the pretend DLC she hails from has the player either able to pursue a friendship with her - or, should the player want to aim their Interclassroom Ballistic Poetry Missiles at Sayori, Yuri, or Natsuki instead, Aiki will try to write poems that one of the girls you’re not romancing would like! All this poetry-based romantic tomfoolery, I swear. Ur such a bad influence, (Player Name).

... well, that’s what’s supposed to have happened, at least. Unfortunately, this is DDLC, and some shit has, as always, got fucked up.

(Below the cut is image-heavy, since my brain is currently biting me in the ass and won’t let me tYPE; name of friend hidden for privacy qwq)

Secondary Content Warning! Aiki’s story in the pretend DLC I can’t make involves sexual assault. If you don’t want to read about that, please don’t read under the cut!  

Other Note Before The Point Of No Return: if u want to know anything else about her like any detail at all whatsoever please god drop me an ask about her i will literally talk about her for hours thank u god bless

Q - monika wouldn’t do that you whore

A - you’re probably right, but also: 1. it makes a good story and 2. idk sometimes being stuck and forced to watch someone you trusted rape a girl in front of u changes ur tune a little?

Q - also where did monika even come from

A - shoved herself and her assets into a hidden folder, decides to try and be the hint function because suicide isn’t optimal and loneliness is a bitch. it’s for story. everything i have ever done is for story

Q - how did sayori not know about this

A - she’s new to club presidency and Makes Some Mistakes in what she should and should not be paying close attention to

Q - you’re a weird melodramatic dick and i hate this

A - yeah that’s fair you don’t have to like the story and i fully expect nobody to tbh;;

thanks for reading my hot garbage! always check bottles of root beer for fatal amounts of undisclosed poisons.

#long post #doki doki literature club #ddlc #doki doki literature club oc #ddlc oc #aiki (ddlc oc) #hhh...mm... #please don't hate me for this i beg you #gUESS WHO STILL FEELS HELL AND NERVOUS ABOUT THIS WHEE #seriously though i'll talk about her for days hmu *sobs*

[coffeecakey]

hello! uhh i saw u @sabo last yr n i was digging through old photos and i saw ur table so hopefully this isnt too out of the blue? (if this question makes u uncomfortable pls just ignore) would you mind sharing how you make your prints and such? im tabling for the first time this september @ sabo and i dont realy know where to start.. ive never had to deal with printers and such before especially not like buttons/stickers/prints without (1/2)

“without investing in a better printer or button press or something? i feel like something is bound to go wrong considering its my first time doing something this big but any advice would b really much appreciated..! sorry about the sudden msg i hope u have a nice day !! :) 2/2”

HI absolutely not a bother at all!! And I’m sorry I’m only just responding to you!! But here is a comprehensive post in re: CONS because AA stuff is hard when you’re just figuring stuff out, and I’m still working on it myself. But I can definitely prevent you from making the same mistakes I did (like getting 11x14 prints for $9 each for my first con OTL)

First off, let’s talk prints.

Prints should always be the main event of your table, especially if it’s your first con. If you showcase your art style on a large scale, it is more likely to attract people to your table. You want to build your stock around the prints you choose to make.

Since saboten is the biggest anime con in AZ, you’re going to want at least a few (I would say at least 6!) 11x17 size designs for print. The less designs you have, the more of each print you should have. I like to have 12-15 print designs for each con, so i buy 8-12 of each depending on popularity. For really popular things, I like to have an upwards of 20. But since this is your first con, I would suggest you start with a smaller stock with about 10-15 of each one, 15 being for your most popular fandom!! A total stock of about 75 prints should be good, and I don’t think you would need more than that.

And while it’s a good idea to choose subjects that you like, it’s also important to choose popular fandoms and subjects. Voltron, Yuri on Ice, and Sailor Moon have been among my best selling subjects over the last year! I know people are also interested in Breath of the Wild, Overwatch, Final Fantasy, and MP100. Do your research in what’s up and coming in the next few months so you know what’ll have traction. It takes practice to understand, but also talk to friends, look on instagram to see what people are planning for cosplay, etc. For example, Voltron will have a lot of hype because of SDCC in July, so people will be excited for season 3, whenever it comes out in the next year. Cater to those people! The point is that you have to balance what you want to sell with what people want to buy. Also, it’s worth noting that generalized/group images sell VERY well because they appeal to more people.

Postcard sized prints are ALWAYS up to you, and feel free to make them individual characters or popular pairings–and how many you have is sort of just up to you. In my opinion, they don’t sell perfectly well. People are more interested in things they can either put on their wall or on their bags, so they aren’t as popular. Between 5-10 of each design should be acceptable. It’s also okay to make a smaller version of one or two of your anticipated larger best sellers (you can usually assume).

Now, where to order them from!

Catprint is absolutely the best place I have ordered prints from, and I prefer it to having them printed at Kinkos. They do absolutely any size, with different paper stocks, finishing options, and coating options. Holy customization, Batman! Plus, it’s cheap (especially if you manipulate a little. Not in a bad way, of course, but in a way that suits your needs). I like to order 11x17s on Matte Lightweight cardstock because they’re only $0.65 each and are sturdy and beautiful! For postcards, I arrange 5x7s/6x4s & 5x5s on an 11x17 file and cut them out with an industrial cutter when i print stickers and buttons at Kinkos, rather than ordering them (because for some reason they severely overcharge on postcard sizes). This is also a good idea if you want an irregular shaped print but want to save!

Also, make sure that you follow the file requirements that Catprint lists on their website–it’ll save you time and money!!

If you like, here is my referral linkfor catprint that will save you (and me!) 10$ when you order.

On to buttons and stickers!!

These are GREAT for first cons, especially because they are cheap for buyers and they can buy all their favorite characters or pairings!

For stickers, it is cheapest and easiest for me to buy unscored, matte label paper on amazon or ebay. And lots of it. I am still hacking through mine, even after using them for my stock, shipping labels, and freebies. I make all my stickers circles because I’m hard enough on my hands as it is and… uniquely shaped stickers sell exactly the same. So I own a 2.5" circle punch and make all my stickers 2.44" so there’s a white boarder. You can always fill them to be exact (and go over to about 2.6" for the design file), but i think they look finished this way, and if you miss the mark a bit, you won’t have any added whites on your design.

Buttons are certainly more complex, and it depends on whether or not you already have a machine. If you have one, don’t buy one unless your current one breaks. If you don’t have one, WAIT until you’re making good figures to buy an American made button maker. Chinese made machines are cheap, but pricey to fix and replace. American Button Machines are FANTASTIC (they’re what I use!) and use all metal fixings so that they’re basically guaranteed to last. But until you are making 2-5k per con, it’s not really worthwhile to buy a nice machine.

BUT! You CAN team up with other AA people local or otherwise (LIKE ME) who are willing to make buttons on their fancy industrial button makers and cutters (if you’re interested in this, I proof files, print them myself on no-bleed paper, and assemble the buttons myself. I also do proofs for $0.50 a button with no minimum and there’s flat shipping fees for under 100 buttons! I can set you up with my pricing for labor and materials if you like). This is very much so your cheapest option for buttons if you don’t already have a machine, as most companies charge more and have higher minimums per design.

My recommended size are 1.25" buttons. They’re not too small and they’re not too large! This is the only size I offer, but if you’re feeling specific I know places like PureButtons have great options and pricing.

You will certainly want to have lots of each sticker design. They sell very well, and people will even buy original designs of stickers if they’re cute enough! Buttons are a little more tricky, and it’s better to have less if you are ordering them, and better to have more options if you make them yourself. I don’t really sell more than 30 buttons at any con since it’s not my main focus. So choose wisely for button designs!

I know I went overboard with this answer, so please feel free to ask me more questions on ordering prints. This is mostly my process, but I hope I was able to help you at least a little bit!!! Let me know if you want help with displays, business cards, packaging, or con commissions. I’m happy to help !! ♥️

#Artist Alley #Artist Alley help #AA help #conventions #exhibitor hall #rune slayer

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LIVE AMAZON FBA YOUTUBE – AMAZON FBA NINJA STUDENT QUESTION & ANSWERS #1

I’m just waiting for questions I’ll give you guys a little bit of an update on I talked to Greg today and it sounds like, we’re going to be doing our webinar Greg Mercer for those of you guys don’t, you don’t know, is the CEO of jungle Scout so he made it founded it, here are going to be doing a live, webinar base, sickly going over you know, really deep, ways to use jungle Scout and do Park racer, search for Amazon, and if you guys don’t know he’s probably, she’s probably the most successful Amazon Seller, of all time, in my opinion, you killing it, he was the first person that I kind of started learning from and so I’m super excited, go over a lot of stuff with 10 asking really detailed questions about the software and things, like that, question 1 from, charles, when you search for a product in a successful seller storefront and track it in, I see something that looks good, then head to the main courses, see competition, how many, is too many, even though it’s selling, how many is too many I assume you mean sellers, i mean when you’re looking for keywords once you find a cool product in the storefront right, you want to look, for products that have a high volume keywords of the first thing I do when I find a cool product like that, is I go to, merchant words or whatever you use to, measure volume, i look for something that has you know over, 30000 to 50000 monthly, searches, and from there I kind of start to look at the competitive landscape right so if it has a high enough volume keyword, then what I’ll do is I’ll put that keyword into the regular Amazon search bar, and then I’ll start to look at that first page right so if you’re seeing a bunch of people that have a thousand 2000 reviews or something like that, It’s probably want to stay away from right but if you, see like 3/4, 5 different people on the front page of that key word, but you found associated with the seller storefront, right, and you’re seeing products on that first page related to that keyword that have no 40 reviews 30 or, anything like that, that’s definitely something that you want to, take a look at, you presently have any products that are oversized how is handling shipment, is it worth it if, if you have the capital in the prophet muscle, yeah definitely I mean oversized products, i mean like a map of the USA is technically a world oversized product depending on, you know, depending on how big it is but it’s about the longest side right so, It doesn’t necessarily have to be like a couch or something like that.

It can be just like a long, small object right, so I definitely have sold oversized products, i think it’s actually a good thing, in some ways right because, it kind of, keeps away a lot of other sellers, oversized aspect really doesn’t have a huge impact like right the fees are a little bit more actually last, thank you for similarly right to Phillips, warehouse but, oversized doesn’t bother me at all, you know you just have to factor that in, in the FBA calculator that will you know calculate those FBA fulfillment, these based on the, size, of the products a sin write your competitors a sin that you’re, ear plugs, calculator, when setting up for Amazon affiliate so you do it off your personal Amazon account the second step, is it asked you, You set up a URL, how to sell the product, i think it would be weird giving URL to my brands, facebook, brad Pitt, if that’s the problem, christopher what do you mean giving the URL to my Brands Facebook, grandpa, or do you mean the AMS brand page, i’m going to move on, just update that and then I’ll answer, i confuse at AMS I got an account but it’s in my business name instead of my brand name I’m not sure how that happened, okay this actually happen to me 2 Jillian, so you can actually have multiple my opened a new one in my brand name also and that’s where I have my brand pages, right because you don’t want to differentiate because, sometimes your LLC or whatever just doesn’t have any, do what your actual brand, so, yeah you can make you can make most, Apple Pages and then you can make Pit by brand pages, within a mess, specifically related to, your brand, trey how would you recommend bundling for a product that comes from, different manufacturers, is a good question I mean, the main the main way I do it is whichever, whichever manufacturer that I have more, you know rapport with that I feel more comfortable talking to, speak better English and that we just kind of get along and understand each other, i use them as my main manufacturer right cuz when you’re shipping from two different, companies into one centralized place, you wanted to be assembled in the more professional manufacturer of the, you trust more, right that you know, is going to represent and give you the quality that you want so I usually ship it to the one I trust more have them assembly, you know how the packaging sent there to have the stickers applied have pretty much everything done there because as you guys know who are in the core, I really don’t like dealing with middleman as far as shipping, so instead of shipping it, to us you know a freight forwarders Warehouse to be assembled in the USA, we can cost, you know thousands of dollars depending on the size of your shipment, i just trained my manufacturers, to assemble it in such a way that it’s basically Amazon ready as far as carton labels palette labels, you know everything is just all set to go the second at Lee’s China and then I ship it basically directly to them, so while we’re waiting for more questions in a suit and groove I’m going to go back and check you, what are your thoughts on viral launch market intelligence, i like it I mean mama jama jungle Scout guy through-and-through but I mean I know the guys who, Run viral launch their smart their smart group.

It’s definitely a, you know a viable option I think jungle Scout has a very, entrenched lead as far as you know, database items, right as far as their web app, and the data they already have been able to collect, no through scraping and things like that but it’s going to take some time for anybody to kind of catch up so like unicorn, and maisel and things like that, you know there viable Alternatives but if you want the truest, data with the most, data points in the most aggregation, you know, things that you’re going to be looking at and be sure about especially, right and left, jungle Scout, like every software is just a nest, the only true source of data is, check message, Intellectual, austin and you two have you heard of unicorns Master yeah I just I just mentioned that, chief yellow see you in the group, simeon from Barbados what up man, roscommon ready to learn the ninja Secrets all right, i know you run your business based on the data but how do you feel about, choosing a product that you know is going to be very popular, because of the nature and does that make sense, chris that yeah I mean yeah that definitely does make sense, i don’t know if you wash my I like my original kind of products, a few months ago I stumbled across fidgets, like before, basically anyone else knew about fidgets, and I, you know I have friends at ATD I’m kind of a fidgeter myself so, it definitely definitely you should be using, you know your own experience and your own, Kind of, not only life experience but you’re you’re, you know what you know you should be using what you know in your product research, absolutely, so you should definitely be using your own experience, huge, huge, you know positive Advantage for, i’m Salome do you know about the new changes regarding barcodes, gcn SKU, yammine gs1, i still personally use Nationwide barcode right there gs1 certified but they are resold, i’m just one right now is like $700 for years I mean like that so it’s a big barrier for new, brittany sellers, and until Amazon is actually restricting new product listing creation based on non gs1, registered upc’s, i’m going to be continuing to use Nationwide barcode, i mean LD it would be an unbelievably awful undertaking from Amazon perspective updating their app., catalog retrospectively, four Non gs1 issue, unbelievable, cuz they’re just millions in mines and peroxide, as you said if your products directly from China., Fear there any cussing, issues power of attorney to my, to my Freight forwarders right so once it comes over to the USA side I just do it my USA, on-base company, right there’s a freight forwarding company that’s based in China and one in the USA they handle everything all you could basically do is get the kids, bond, how hard is it to be profitable, how hot is it, how to find a profitable product, is less than 1 pounds, it’s not hard at all, not at all, i want to go back to Facebook, cuz I want to focus on this, student question, carrie answered that one so Derek, how do I pay FedEx, my imports, i’m not I’m not sure what you mean by that one, i’m so if you could clarify, i’ll move on until you do, any tips on using 1688 for leveraging cost from Alibaba manufacturer, Definitely I mean.

1688, is a great resource oh, i mean if you speak Mandarin I speak Cantonese, you can just order straight aa1688 right and that’s the, easiest possible way, but a lot of people don’t and so I don’t actually order, 1688 very often, but a powerful way, because people are visual right whether they’re from China with her from the US doesn’t matter where they’re from people are visual I like to put everything on the, screen right I’ll show, the cheapest, price, you know anyone in the Chinese currency, on one side of my screen with my product that I’m trying to get off Alibaba, all show in the middle, the Google currency translator saying Know This Much RMB is this much USD, and then on the right side, you know I would show the price on Alibaba and I would say Hey you know if you guys can match, This price in right right in the Chinese currency but I show it straight up in USD, per unit, the cheapest one I can find on 1688 right about the Dollar on 1688 once you translate that currency, it’s $3 on Alibaba, i say hey like I mean this other companies offering it for one, if you can match that I’d much prefer to do business, love you right, 2 then you might settle on 151 before you had that, you know you’re about to pay 3 which is, three times as much and when you know when you analyze that over five hundred or thousand different units or whatever you know you’re ordering, then it really starts to add up right as you can save money at every little step, you know saving money at the suppliers in 1688, saving money when, you know your, Skipping the middleman when your Freight forwarding its, it really starts to add up, and that’s how you increase your profit margins from us, the 20 25 30 Ranch, i’ve been to the 45th, e60 Rangers where you want to be, matt, you have all reorders inspected as well as the first one this is a great question so, this, this is definitely not, you know us steadfast rule everyone should be following, but yes I do, i don’t have experience order ordering from China, you know sales manufacturers QA manufacturers I mean QA managers they change right, you never really know exactly what’s going to happen and just because you have a long relationship with a factory, something could go wrong maybe they were, rushing before, you know a holiday, it’s just not worth it, to not inspect in my opinion, and I built into every one of my purchase orders as the student group knows, We have the closet about re-inspection, needing to be paid for by the supplier right so and we the reason we do that is twofold, developing that expectation up front, really keep the supply on their toes, during the initial manufacturing because they’re like you know, will be really don’t want to feel this moment that we don’t, we don’t want to fail this inspection because we’re gonna have to pay for it if we do, and then we can have to replace those units, doing every purchase order I make I include a clause that basically says if the inspection failed as determined by the by, higher than the supply or the seller is responsible for repaying so yes, is answer your question mat in a long-winded form, i do I’m always inspect even on reorder, joe, you seem to have a lot of good relationship with manufacturers, Other than simply doing business with them how do you personally feel talk license if.

Skype with them, phone calls, i mean, i’m just kind of an annoying person like I always use like winky faces even, when I was working at you know PWC and Facebook like over chat like., even with my co-workers at like you know serious business is I was always like that in, i just got out who I am, so just be yourself right like if some of my manufacturer than I like he’ll send me hearts and say like, i miss you like one of your next order in your like for when am I coming to the USA to visit you I mean, get their people to write their they’re not robots they, they want to have fun they work long hours like everyone else right so, just be yourself, You know be friendly, take the next step if you want to send them a gift, or you know checking with them I saw their doing a scholar life is don’t just, jump straight into business, they can help, so, christopher, it says list all the top-level domains and or mobile apps on what you plan to do, display banners widget, especially, page’s URL in, product, oh I so we actually confirm this in my in my 7-figure Mastermind, we got one of those, what are the managers on the phone, and to send an email confirming, but it’s okay to get affiliate commission selling your own products because I thought the exact same thing Chris I was like is this legal, so I mean if you want to be super safe, message Seller Support and is it okay is it kosher to, uniden affiliate commissions, for selling your own products, Via affiliate, brad you’re so lost about my kitchen, exactly so hot in this room I might move to the kitchen in second, do you practice martial arts, in my spare time but I you know I try to make it exclusively Amazon injury, i’m also how do I make a new Amazon account, what do you mean a new Amex account Julian, i want to move on from that but I’ll answer it when you when you, reply below, let’s say you’re running a low big campaign in your a cost, is high but you’re getting it, impressions in sales, would you lower your bed, so this is a good question Anthony the reason, the reason is a good question is, because, you know despite what a lot of other Amazon mentors are gurus or whatever you want to call it say, really what’s determining, rank, besides you know keyword ranking organic rainbow what’s determining BSR Rank and really going to boost you up, Is traffic right, amazon has a heavy incentivised, a reason from a business perspective to, give people you know more rank, and more share of the profit and revenues, for bringing people outside the Amazon website right, from Facebook from Instagram from wherever, on to the Amazon warehouse on to the Amazon website right so when you bring traffic, and it’s not only external Amazon counts as well but when you bring traffic whether it’s me Novia the low bid and you put your, not getting sales but when your listing gets traffic you build rank it’s as simple as that right, so even if you’re not, you know getting sales from that but it’s not cost me that much right because it’s our lobit campaign that we talked about in the student groups, Then it’s really going to.

Guess you more organic sales even if you’re not seeing it directly from the, chrissy said no stupid questions, you don’t even understand, all right that just sounds like, okay yeah, little brother for all, are we still protected if our LLC name is different from our display name, absolutely I mean if somebody sues you, it’s going to be there going to be coming after you, you know for your personal liabilities the reason you use an LLC is to protect your personal assets right, enter the maximum you can possibly lose in a lawsuit when you are protected, goodbye in El Senor selling through that LLC, is, write the profit, that you earned, through. LLC, i get a lot of products that when I add them in the car that phone that I track 9900 they stayed at the, aspire only allows me to buy, Can I kill the object method if the price is really good in the numbers, kraton camelcamelcamel, find a buy it, yeso Barbara, this is probably my first or second most common question that people ask me, the answer is if there’s no competitors whatsoever that you can I track that’s all if there’s any, right, that’s just that’s just the true source of data as I preach to my dad, but if there’s literally, no one you can I track every single person has Max order quantity, been using the camelcamelcamel sales, ring, google Trends, looking at Merchant words related to the overall you know highest volume keyword is a viable alternative but I always, you say you always always always always want to pattern with with I track right, i think that’s why you want to exactly Charles, what methods, do you use for having a virtual assistant would you happen to have an example template you can share that, Yeah I mean, hiring a, virtual assistant is really important what I like to do first, is give them a task, dislike somewhat, difficult is not just like super brain list, and say hey like I have an example task that I want you to perform you know I’ll pay you I’ll be happy to pay you for your time, and then you know see how they do see how they do a good job give them a deadline, and tell him to message you at a certain time, see how tiny they are, no use a time that is in your own time zone, what hours they work in, things like that right so you want to give them kind of a test, just like you do with any other employee, you don’t look up how Google I hire their employees right so you want to kind of, Not in that same level of rigor but, you know performed, test to just kind of Cedar aptitude Seether timeless, make sure that they’re responsible and things, but that, isn’t there import custom fees I have to pay when my products, so, to be honest Derek I am real a huge fan, outsourcing, everything, regarding shipping I don’t want to do anything, i don’t want to think about it at all, i finally found someone that I really trust and she has V by far the lowest prices that I’ve ever, racine right if you’re going to use FBA forward or, you know, shipley r, florastor, shapiro or whatever one of the ones that’s in the USA, it’s going to be almost two times more expensive, if if not more than two times more expensive, vannie’s International forwarders, The one specifically that I’ve shared with the Sudan group.

Is one of the best that I found, so Anthony thank you for answering I should have just read that first, you’re f****** winter calves thank you, you can also call me cuz I’m at my professor, when you put when do I get a continuous bid, for my Freight forwarder, yes of the continuous or continuous Bond, yeah so they just get it for you is like, like $400 but it goes up and down, sometimes, i’m so my ass, instead of my brand, you said that I can, yes you can do it within your Ms profile you want to make a new account, i’m just if you can’t figure out how to do it to be honest I don’t remember how I did it I think you’re going to send in a chat ticket through there, contact us portal, What is a way to just add a new brand, i think click where it says your LLC name, and then I think there’s a way to like add new brand, charles can you do a real case I need someone to JSM 161 Addison, amazing, tent, party tents, define for Hunter, 2018 share the profit, first full month of prophet, i mean out of work, as far as the profit sharing and the taxes Associated that we would be, nightmarish for sure but, i’ll definitely think about that as far as the case that he goes I think that would be a, cool, a cool thing to do, yeah I’ve never actually thought about that but I definitely will consider that Charles for sure, i’m Cheyenne if you release a product on Amazon and not direct competitors products is that $20 for example, but is not as premium as yours would you match their price you can get to, Use first and then raise the price, or just keep it the same as a competitor so this is a good question, pricing psychology is very interesting if you guys are never read about it you should, the funny thing about that is and this is assuming you have at least a few reviews right, before I do anything, before I start PVC before I do giveaways before I do literally anything, i get 3 review, and people are probably saying how, you know a lot of people are doing friends and family, i’m not going to say I’m doing it but you know most if not all Amazon sellers are doing it, if you do choose to do that which is against the TOs, then just make sure you’re very unrelated to them no shirt addresses names, right you’re not Facebook friends Amazon can 100% track if your Facebook friends, People, and so you know but once I get those bass Reeves, reviews, once I get this base, reviews it’s definitely, it’s definitely interesting to see, that if you truly do have a premium product in your premium images, and it’s obvious right, you can price it, at 20 is your is your competition Hugo 2999, 3497, nino 3997, and it’s you’re going to be surprised that you will get some sales, write the best way to do this in the most, data-driven way is, you know use listing Dojo or split leaf, to actually do a split test, your prices, you know started at 1997 maybe people do want to see Something cheat, or maybe people are noticing the premium aspect of your products and they are comfortable paying you know, double for it because it’s obvious that is a premium product, right, so you mention I tracking at our competitors often is there a fair amount of sellers selling a similar product are you, Heather the handful.

Set alarm reviews, well I mean, when I’m talkin about I tracking, the top competitors I’m not saying my top competitors Matt what I’m saying is, d-top competitors rights, i’m talking about the top five are the top 10 organically ranking on the first page, related to the highest volume keyword that you’re targeting, right, i’m so proud of that you’re planning to begin selling his wanted to Confederate selling around $800, what units a month, after you launch or similar same product, what would be reasonable to say, for sales on yours, 800 Wrightwood, potentially, give yourself, yes I mean there’s only so many buyers, for any specific niche, or product right and so when there’s, 3, equal quality, products, and there 1600 total sales per month, you know instead of 8 8, it’s going to split till like 5:30, 3 each right and that’s assuming that you have enough reviews to even, viable option, for Amazon customers because nobody’s going to buy a product with zero reviews, when there are product choices with morph morph, i’m so caught up on Facebook song I go back to YouTube for a second, hi Kevin, what about him, what up vato, i didn’t realize, hi son it’s your mother from another brother, wear it like a diva, what up, zillow I’m reading the questions in the student group I I recognize your name so go into the brown belts group and you can, questions, just, directly from that Facebook live video, what’s the name of the freight forwarder I use unitop but I’ve also use, iBEW Shapiro I started with fbaforward and they’re absolutely awful never use them, terrible, but you know, flexport is really good to they usually don’t take, Really small Cellars, but once you get to know them they have really excellent customer, mercer was there a little bit more expensive but it can be worth it at times, krista if you accidentally infringe on app and what are the chances of getting sued is a much more, you got to see, cease and desist, it’s incredibly unlikely to be, right you want to be safe and get an LLC so nobody can, can come after your house and, are cars in Europe, bank accounts right, it’s unlikely to, baby suit nobody wants to play for that effort right unless you’re doing something else Lee egregious, or you know, you hurt someone’s baby, or something like that right that’s those situations where you’re going to, i get sued, 99.9% of the time, you’re going to get either a, cease and desist order is going to report you directly to, Do Amazon infringement form and your listings is going to get shut down, if you take a product that is selling like a lot and in, improve on it and make it better, can you patent it how do you protect your, you can it all have you done that, design patent, if you if you really put, pour your heart and soul into something and you make something that’s ahead and so is Above the Rest, specifically, different and, prove, design, portion of a product, right, that is when you want to think about design, design, most sellers aren’t going to do it, you know, don’t get bogged down by that and think you know I have a great invention I have to patent it right away, right get it to the market get some sales see that it’s working, before you kind of worry about all that, Hey Kevin do you need of.

Freight forwarder if you use airfryer, romario you should come into the student group M you should do it, i’m just so I can read them all from the same place, yes I do for sure, used, a freight forwarder for Arabs because I’m lazy to be, i really hate dealing with shipping, am I trust my Freight forwarders you know from time to time all audit get a couple quotes from another, from another person for the exact same specs of number of cartons and pallets just, you know she’s cheaper, and things like that, yeah Kim I know it’s you, would you go with a supplier that, is only has one year behind the Gold Star Sapphire icon on a, soap gold standard is like a big illusion right Kim so, i mean you can pay for that, straight up to Ali Baba it’s like a fee to get you gold standard right, So I like to check in a gold standard, i like that do trade assurance, because if these companies are willing to, pay those fees and they’re willing to you know, go through that hoop, of getting trade assurance, then they’re definitely in it for the long haul they’re not like some, sketchy new Factory that just like trying to scan bunch of, people and things like that that’s how I look that’s how I like to look at it, i check to see if they have a website I check to see how many years, how many years they been in business, and things like that, what is your biggest advice to running a profitable PPC campaign number of keywords budget lift, i mean saying that is a, that’s about a 20-hour answer, i can’t answer that one on here, But you know if you are curious about that message me on Facebook or you know, i specifically made poured my heart and soul into the modules regarding PVC, i’m regarding listing optimization they’re probably the two most complicated, and importance, aspects of Amazon, and you know if you, if you do manage to master those you’re going to be fine, you know as long as you do your due diligence in park research you’re going to be a you know, a successful seller, why can’t we do are, from Sean, i’m so I could you clarify what you mean by that, how long does it take, how long does it take to get a million, i mean you can become a millionaire if you work hard in a year right, but you have to have enough Capital up front, to really get the ball rolling people ask me all the time you know, Can you invest $500 into Amazon FBA and like, you know when are you going to see your return, but yeah you can but you can only buy 200 units and have to wait 3 months and then you’re making, the prophet reinvesting it, images, the less you invest the more the time, that goes into, you know getting old, returns become, it’s exactly proportional right the more you invest upfront correctly doing your due diligence, bigger and bigger and exponentially figure your returns, be right, so why let your money rot in a bank when you, invested into products, paying $1 and getting $2 back, i’m sorry there’s a ton of you two questions now so I’m going to switch back to the Facebook group I wanted to make sure that we enter all the, so Anthony when you Blaster unless a 50-unit giveaway for example why do you choose to Target the phrase in your title rather than, Weather in.

A rather than individual cures, the reason is because, you know when you’re doing a blast in like a manual review group like a Facebook group, you want you need to make sure that whatever phrase you give them to search rather than a URL, is bringing your product up first so if you only use one key word, unless you’re organic number one for that keyword and you’re not going to be Russ you wouldn’t be doing a blast trying to increase cure, you know ranking, then it just doesn’t make sense, right, i mean you have to include enough keywords, in the keyword blast, to make your products appear first, so that that you know, promo Reviewer is going to click on it and buy it, and then you’re going to, you know increase your ranking slightly for each of those words rather than focus on just one, If you’re on the first page, but you want to get the organic position 1, oh you talking about through my private connect, yeah let’s let’s talk about that offline cuz there’s, there’s a lot of people watching right now, so I just did what you told me about the ice shack in the feathers and they all have 999 plus I decided to check the top five competitors and, all, and they all, said I had too many items in my car, yes oh that. Pretty much means that they all have more than 999 quantity, barbara make sure that there actually FBI, the field to get their fbm than Amazon, i can’t tell you how many units are left because they don’t have the units, in their inventory tracking, so if they are all FBA, then that means that they all have a thousand or more units right so if you’re seeing positive numbers and you’re seeing High sales rank, Camelcamelcamel sales chart, for those, then you know, very you know for sure including Google trans including Merchant word like you always do, right you know that they’re at moving some units right cuz if they’re comfortable enough to ship a thousand in at 1, then they know, you know from historical data that they are definitely going to be shipping, aracely Meza, joseph sorry did you say you use unitop Freight forwarder, yeah I use unitop I mean there were there international Florida, i’m going to, keep the exact, you know, zig zag, people that we use and, subsidiary of that company, just within the student group so we can talk about that feel free to p.m. me, let’s say you found a great product in a saturated Niche I eat tons of generic listings, As well as PL ones normally stay away but you found a way to, alex said that you are different model cheaper options prices higher but lower than the name, then a brand name, is it worth pursuing still, i am at Charles I know what you’re talking about and I know, personally, the people who are selling the number 1 2 and 3, three organically ranks, price of that, they have, huge bank accounts they have, huge amount of giveaway, margins right uses, you don’t want to do that, pacific products, to answer your question in a general sense, if you can improve it, and the river, you barriers aren’t you know unbelievably High, then maybe but, there’s just so many options out there of just random, little niches that you can find through all the methods that we’ve all talked about right, And you can find these.

These Diamonds in the Rough they’re doing 10000 Revenue a month, so it’s not going to attract all the different hijackers and different people that want to steal your, i want to steal your message I see you responding, portions of Europe, of your, depalma’s fidgets right, they came out and they’re doing a hundred grand a month but that attracted a thousand different Chinese competitors right and then it sucked, play all of the prophets, but if you go for these, products that are making you know, 7 Grand, 10 grand a month it’s not enough to attract all that competition, but it is enough to be worthwhile, set up the infrastructure and logistic, yeah to be able to just reorder with a click of a button, and have that, constantly you know what, pouring money into your bank account with a simple reorder, right, ya don’t be stubborn to Jillian, I mean that’s important I mean obviously were joking around but it is important to be, objective about the stuff right you don’t want to fall in love with any products that’s how you make mistakes and that’s how you have inventory sitting in, your Warehouse what you don’t want, can you talk more about identifying seasonality of a product, the only way that I, danielle, ted talk about seasonality is Google so Joseph just answered your question, yes you can cross reference you know the camelcamelcamel sales charts, with the Google trans right look at the months of the year and then think about where you’re targeting right if you’re looking at the USA, and you see that you know, july through September this pool product is you know absolutely killing it, but during December January February it’s not, you know it’s pretty easy to cross-reference that with the sales rank of the camelcamelcamel, And I also absolutely love that Joseph and Charles are answering these questions correctly it makes me so happy whenever one, yeah my bad I ended a new brand this morning and it wasn’t showing but I forgot the, confirm my email sound cool now I cool, i’m do you do consultation, no not really, but I do I do want to do these like group conversations like this more often right like maybe once a month, or once every couple weeks or, you know however much, would you recommend launching multiple products simultaneously at lower units over launching 1/2, to which larger, horses considering the ultimate, death of John if you’ve done your product research, highlights, order the absolute minimum possible, right in the hundred and eighty day. That we talked about, before long-term storage fees, you know, exponentiate at the six-month Mark I like to order the lowest amount possible, And then from there, after I’ve actually proven, 100%, that I’m getting themselves that I’m learning that Prophet you know then I like to reorder quickly, all, you know I’ll ship in a hundred or two hundred by are just to maintain that momentum, and then I’ll ship another 500 by sea to make sure that we don’t stock out for you at all or for too long, and that’s how I always like to do it right so I launched into, different products at once with, 300 units each, eight of them, are selling like crazy to aren’t I don’t read order those I quickly reorder the 8th that are, and then I ship that you know the main portion, vSC, tom Slava absolutely, selling UK Market Video is it really that difficult getting set up or is it, it’s not it’s not that bad but I mean the v80 stuff is annoying, And you know the bank account stuff I have a I have a good friend who.

Change his banking information, just never ever change your banking information, without you know getting 20 written confirmation, things from Amazon sellers, support, i’m saying that it’s okay you know you’re going to tell him exactly what you’re going to do you’re going to, you know ask them what kind of information they need to give, before and after and everything so if you’re ever going to change your banking information, especially in the UK, just don’t do it, that’s a plan ahead, only You know open bank account, swear, you know you’re not going to have to change it at all, then go back to YouTube cuz we’re caught up here, i’ve researched myself to death when you think it’s a good time, In the process of, i mean, yes of course I mean, that’s the reason that we have these specific set of criteria right, if you’ve I track something and you know you can see that it’s hot 5 competitors, are the top 5 organic search results related to the keyword that you’re targeting, have him 40 reviews or less each and are selling five a day, and you know each sale after you’ve gotten the cost of goods sold and the shipping cost per unit right, what’s that sound for 20 the Amazon spheres force that brings you to 16, cost of goods sold is 5, that brings you to 11 + shipping cost to, that means that it’s $9 profit per unit right at selling 10 per day based on your eye track, and so you know 10 times 9 is $90 a day, you multiply that by 30 right and then you all the sudden have your profit, thunder that is related to that products, It’s not really a guessing game, when you do your due diligence and you, you look at all the available data, what’s up, rebecca I decided the course and all this is overwhelming, don’t get overwhelmed I mean, i specifically split the course into very, chronological steps right so just go through product just go through product, research, absorbit you know maybe watch it two times the first time just watch it the second time take some notes, and then just, don’t go into action right you don’t have to go in the module 2, 3 4 5 6 7 8 are the bonuses at all, until you absorb the knowledge from product research, and you had a chance to dive in and do some research for yourself, once you find a cool products, you know bring it to me we can talk about it, you won’t get overwhelmed just, dePaul the course I made it super chronological and everything you possibly, Stephen rea, if you have anything, i just lost, siri questions, stephen rea, i’m 15, i rename the title of my listing today, but it’s not showing that sell essential after 15 minutes my original name was too similar to a brand I don’t want to get ding, are you brand register John Liu, dancer answer below and they’ll real real dresses, i’m TTC Royal and 15 likeliness of me making money every since like crazy and I have over 4,000 stayed up to invest, damn your 4000 saved at age 15 CDT, that’s badass, and, yeah I’m in the likeness of you making money is, 100% right if you’re doing your due diligence and you’re using these methodologies that people have proven work, right and your you know, tracking the top competitors, you making sure your profit margin with the FBA calculator you’re looking at the you know, Volumen merchantwords you’re verifying it with the volume in Google Keyword Planner right.

Because the only truvolume SMS for keywords, come from a search engine, everything else is an estimation, based on PSR, right, honestly on my first product I realize it’s the learning process I’ll be happy as long as I’m not losing my, i mean if you’re doing if you’re doing your your due diligence like I’ve said Chris that you’re not going to be losing money, what’s up man I appreciate everything you’re doing, extra man thanks man, elvis Sparky, so nice trumpet, you sound the Canadian Market you have any advice for someone who is, the Canadian Market is basically the USA Market with you know, 1/3 as much volume and start as much sales, or if you know even probably even a lot less than that, i’m just based on population based on buying power based on, You know, acceptance of online selling, and things like that, the USA Market is, just so expensive, i mean, i wouldn’t personally focus a ton of efforts on Canada if I was already selling in the USA cuz, you don’t want to get overwhelmed right it’s tempting to say you know I could be selling in the UK I could be selling in, canada cookie song August, but you got to say laser-focused in this right, very easy to get overwhelmed, is very easy to lose track of you know the activities that are building your business in, scott Kay, scott Kay, do you ever even after all your research, i mean yeah but I have especially when I was starting out I just didn’t know as much I didn’t I wasn’t doing all that, it was necessary, to ensure, that, i wasn’t going to make those, mistakes and there’s always things that are kind of out of your control, Maybe, you know someone gets granted a patent after you’ve already ordered other yet you know you accidentally unfriend on a trademark, you didn’t properly, research your listing get shut down, right so there’s there’s things that are, you know just kind of tough, brakes but, if you’re doing your research up front, there’s really no reason at all that you have any, price of a bus, message to support that should be taken care of you, i’m losing, missoni, coming ahead, sorry once again, how can I get the notices, group Q&A in the future, subscribe, and if not, go ahead and mess me up message you on Facebook we could try to fit, figure it out but I think, just subscribing to the, youTube channel in general should be enough, i’m going to switch back to the student group really quick, Did your head not explode learning all the hits, emily yeah I know it is it’s a lot but, you know if you organize the data and instead of trying to memorize stuff you really try to like understand it, it’s a huge, huge benefit right cuz once you understand it it’s not like you’re trying to remember all these, these little things, you just kind of understand the flow, and the process and it becomes more intuitive rather than, i know what you mean but you have to start somewhere, when everything is available at once definitely overwhelming, yeah I wouldn’t recommend, yeah I wouldn’t recommend going through the entire course all at once, unless you’re already like someone experienced right, i would recommend going to product research, absorbing it taking notes, reviewing those notes over a couple days, and then doing the product research yourself finding a couple products eye-tracking in, Start to notice which ones are successful that your spotting.

Which ones that are, kind of notice, start to notice the differences you know bring those products to me all the students at Isle of reviewing products, from you guys and we can talk about it, i don’t know what y’all are talking about yet, rebecca uwell, tecova you will soon, agreed to take things step by step you’ll be up this, he’s like an effing number with her a thank-you I don’t have to talk about me but, thank you, kevin go someone on the ground in China for sourcing, i’m sorry I just lost, or or do you do all this on yourself if so when should we consider finding a purchasing agent, brad, i’ve never, use a sourcing age, i’ve had multiple offers people have approached me, kind of people right I’ve used some of the more popular ones from the other groups that are based out of America, It all breaks down so just one, specific points, and that is, no one cares as much about your products, as you do, it’s not possible, you have to love, your products if the love all the choices, you’re making you have to love, you know every little step of the way you have to make sure everything, perfect and no sourcing agent is going to do that to you to them, you’re just another custom, right, and so I’ve never used sourcing agents I never will Outsource that specific portion, and that’s just that’s just my personal prep, tell him what are your thoughts on love, on low margin large pack items for example craft, paper bags, slava sorry for reading out loud cuz, you just got, your product idea potentially stolen from like a thousand, People on YouTube watching, low margin, products you know what they’re selling a ton of day, it can be okay right, i have friends who sell garbage bags, xL 150 a day, but they’re only making you know, a dollar or two but when you think about that and your son 10 units a day at $9 is $90 right after selling a hundred, 50 units at a dollar, if more than 90 right you’re making, 60 more, it’s it all comes down to daily or month, the prophet, so just break it down like that, and, you’ll be alright, i do not sign that one I guess, sorry I shouldn’t have read it out loud like that, currently my LLC is being looked over by the state of secretary, obama Secretary of State, do you recommend I wait until I get to, the confirmations, amazon seller account, no definitely make it now shine because, Amazon, i think the influx of all the Chinese hijackers and stuff like that Amazon has been Auto, suspending all new accounts right, and they ask you for a utility bill a business license, and, inventory orders, purchase order reports from your, supplier so do it now, you’re probably most likely I’d say 100% actually going to get your account suspended cuz cuz it’s an automatic process now, so do it now and then you can upgrade from a personal to, professional winter LLC, domino’s Elkin first book, once you’ve proven demand and depth of a niche Houser to you with evaluating the competition, if there was a quite a few in the top 10, say 7 out of 10, the really high today, i personally have never and will never sell a product, that has, i single person with over a thousand words, right I don’t I wouldn’t even sell a product, I wouldn’t even entertain this that had a single seller.

On the first page results with over 500, i would just never do it there’s no there’s no reason so you guys have seen, from live product research that I have, recorded and shared on the student group, how easy it is, what to use the bestseller list strategy, how easy it is to use you know the full extraction, storefront strategies, there’s so many ways, find me super super nice, products that you can enter into, and you don’t develop a commanding lead in, this is no reason, to enter a niche that has, you know 8000, 10 mm, what do you do if you’re offering an evil can you Market in your listing and a customers opted out of emails on Amazon, you can, you can, i’m going to assume that you mean so you can’t send it to them, Let me know something you can do right Amazon sellers, are Amazon virus can have recently figured out that they can opt out and they’re going to do it by the trove, if a byproduct expecting an ebook and a message you about it through your messaging center you know send it to me as an attachment there, but otherwise, can’t really worry about it cuz it’s out of, control, one second guys I’m going to grab some water I’ll be right back, sorry, yes caviar number wizard thank you I really appreciate that, brian haycraft new quickly explain how to Bumble two packs together when having a deal to manufacturers, brian you’re already answered this would basically, whichever one I trust more I have the other ones send it to the one I trust more and have them assemble it, apply to UBC or the fnsku stickers and do all tigers, Things like that, i don’t know what conversion rates are at this point and I’m afraid to ask, joseph conversion rates are pretty simple man I mean, right if you have a thousand impressions, and you have, you know, 2200 sales, then you have a 20%, conversion rate, right and it’s always going to be lower than that it’s going to be, yeah between upper, 1% +, an incredible conversion rate would be like 20% right, boston butt, you know, sometimes it happens all you’re just kidding, all right, i’m what if you’re tracking, i know I’m sweating, it’s really super hot, what have you been talking to different products in a 2-3 days all of them, the stocks are going up, considered, i know this probably means that they’re moving stock around us, this is Mimi I track method can take much longer than 7 to 10 days, i mean yeah it definitely does, You can’t stop the I check message, till, you know you have, right, i thought we always talk about, hi guys were back to the kitchen it’s too hot in there, yes you need more data, any feedback about the new viral launch program Amazon is off, viral launch program Amazon is offering can, could you clarify that, i asked you this, before but with a different, twist all right, my son name is currently my brand name but I want to make it more generic to sell other items, how to make an issue for everyone, self the brand one, day, as other items, what do you need to sell the brand one day, christopher or Chris, why do you have all this evil I mean it’s really nice and I’m sure and everyone here appreciate, it’s very much included but doesn’t it, or maybe really overwhelming to teach all of us, You know 7 people.

Free from the 9 to 5 slavery that, you know Society has made, seem normal but is not normal at all so, it’s not overwhelming I love it, and you know I’m not worried about creating competition for myself this there’s more than enough, you know to go around on Amazon there’s so much opportunity this so much, out there that, i’m not worried about creating competition whatsoever, there’s more than enough to go around for everyone, have you heard of the Amazon recruited professional Merchant program, i’m beyond to be president of snow actually haven’t heard of that but if you want to, share information about it I’d love to check it out if you can, if you want to sell seasonal how do you do product research to know what will cell in each season holiday and how far in advance should price be, In ahead of the season, right so just I mean you have to think about how long it takes, via see how long it takes, via air, and how long the lead time is for manufacture, i mean you can look at, google Trends, and you can see exactly which month is speaking, right you can look at historical charts on camelcamelcamel for sales ranking, you can see which which ones peeking with the highest PSR, right, the once you know the months that is selling the highest, then you basically just count back from there, how many days or months it take to manufacture and how many days or months that it takes, the s*** right so if it takes a month to manufacture, and you know a week, 2, ship by air then you’re going to, go 5 weeks before, the start of the seasonality right sofa seasonality starts in July for summer, Can you go 5 weeks back from that, and you want to make sure that the manufacturing is, starting right so give yourself a little lead time but that’s, that’s the way that I’ve always done in the past, and, look at how many years, selling, during that time to know how many you should order without having like a huge, amount of stock leftover, once that season has end, i’m Chris Chris, what if I ever wanted to sell the brand wouldn’t that be an issue about other Enterprise, no not neces, sara Lee, i mean if you’re selling exclusively on Amazon, then, if you are looking to eventually sell the brand, then maybe you would want to read if you’re ever going to sell the brand you may be truly committing to that product line right, so you’re going to do that then just spend the extra effort to create a new seller account, Keep it mutually exclusive and sell the brand as an Amazon seller account, empire flippers or however you want to do it that way, you know if you’re not overly committed to any specific product nice or you know horizontally related, situation like that, then don’t worry about it, just sell a plethora of different products give your Amazon seller account, when Australia gets Amazon would be a good idea to wait a while before selling their I know it’s out of my range but might be a good question., absalom Absalom not I mean, there’s absolutely no reason to wait Australia is a huge Market you can tell, you know from different, methods and methodologies like Google Translate, evaluating, you know what Australians are liking you can look at trending products on wish you can, sort specific eCommerce sites by region, Is a ton of different ways.

To tell you know what is selling well in Australia and you want to be the first mover right you want to hit those markets first one, you done your due diligence and you know it’s going to be a popular product in Australia, being there first is where you’re going to get, the huge lead, and you know not only sales but also, review of dominance right where people are going to look at that market and say you know this person already has too many reviews maybe we don’t want to enter, and then you become the incumbent and the new sellers are looking at you and saying you know now they have too many reviews I don’t want to come, and that’s when you develop you know a truly cemented long-term, a product that is going, successful for, Regarding a holiday like Christmas would it be reasonable to assume products that were big hits, the last few years will continue to be heads during the holiday, and kind of try to jump on the bandwagon, a few more months, best start building a list, joseph, yeah, i mean, bqq far is just insane, do you like I I was not ready for it I will be ready for it this year you know I sold out of, everything, i had like literally all of my listings, we’re pretty much the zero, i couldn’t order fast enough., fuse, you know buildups of people trying to desperately replenish, into Amazon Fulfillment centers during that time., and so there’s like weeks of processing and it’s just a, it’s just a huge mess I mean that’s actually a funny question that nobody really ever asked me, but you know, how do you prepare for Q4 would be something in, Talk about, you know within this week, but sorry to answer your question, i’m yeah you can you can jump on it and there’s definitely a an annual Trend as to what popular during Chris, so you can you can make a safe assumption, if there was a very popular item and I wouldn’t do this with toys because they’re definitely very, they they change over time but with you no more comment or like GIF related products, you can make a pretty safe assumption that if they did well last year, they’re going to do well again this year, then you just have to evaluate the competitive landscape related to, the key words associated with that item, and kind of go for, roseli same question, also would you recommend the movie starting now with a seasonal product for quick profits and going live, For Xmas is Sarah or go to generic products, i never recommend seasonality cuz there’s just so many products available that aren’t seasonal that you can kill it with all, all year rather than one, pacific season, and it’s a pain to do like the inventory forecasting and, no manufacture lead time shift lead time and do all that so it’s just I just prefer not to do seasonal questions, aracari seasonal products but, yeah if you want if you want that quick turnaround and you want to just get you, your feet wet before you had a dive, full in, and you know now is the perfect time right mid mid June, you can assume, baisi is like a three-month lead time if you want to actually make sure your promise of the highest, then you know you can really be arriving, during kind of like that Q4 and you can give yourself time to set up all the product listing, Like that.

So yeah if you want to, try to make good profits, i wouldn’t say don’t do it but, you know establishing products that aren’t seasonal I would definitely recommend, i hear a lot of questions around sea shipping can you go over a few reason why., dC shipping is used, the previous courses learn, to avoid CA, john definitely don’t, avoid ski shipping by any means, i mean if you have heavy products that are prohibitively expensive to ship by air, sea shipping takes longer but you know that’s how you, that’s how you get your profit margin into the 50 + 64, percent range, okay I’m okay yeah the early reviewer program so this is the program that I think it’s $60, a Nathan correct me if I’m wrong I haven’t lifted a ton into a butt, This is the one that $60 per a sin, and you’re only eligible to apply if you have between 0 and 5 reviews to get you those literally get you those first one, reviews I would definitely think that’d be a good idea right, if you don’t have friends and family in the USA if your International or if you just want to let you know abide by the terms of service, it’s a great way to get those first few reviews that are so difficult, brand new and still learning to even try to enter Q4, yeah definitely I mean, you have a huge Head Start Emily like just you know I don’t know if you have a nine-to-five or not, but if you don’t then you can commit all your time to FBA, i need to be more than ready going to the course and having products in the air or on the sea, Much before you know you’d want to be, ready for, thank you for, because the new brand registry require the trademark for your brand and trademark quality issues, do the category for your products what do you recommend to the sellers who’d like, sell products from all sorts of categories under a single trait, brad Meltzer, so you can actually like, in trademarkia they ask me that same question, and I talked to one of my buddies from that’s going to Stanford or that’s when the last one Stanford and what he did, he said was for trademark law you can actually have them register you, with multiple product categorisation, who doesn’t have to be restricted to just one, yes I deliver the damn mail all these, amazon package, okay cool, how many days do you suggest doing a blast giveaway to get to page one and make a stick some people have said 7:00 and 5, What’s your view good question I mean what I like to do personally is I track my top competitor right organic, if they’re selling 10 per day all giveaway 11 or 12 per day and I’ll do it for three days I’ll compare, what organic position on page wise that I was on, before what I’m on after, for 3 days if I was on 7th and I come up to 3, brighten the maybe I’ll do it for a couple more days maybe I’ll maybe I’ll pop up to 2, right and maybe I’ll do it all the way through the full 7 days, and then maybe I just sneak my way onto one writes a year, your tracking what page you run before kind of how things are, progressing as you are doing a giveaway, and just kind of go from there, i’m going to switch back to YouTube for a second cuz there’s no more info, Facebook.

Oh my gosh, questions on, parkwhiz, can you, can you buy Coors next month or do you stop selling at, june 30th, young yeah you can I’ll keep it open as far as the promotion, i’m definitely going to shut that down, hey I have Capital Toronto local looking to invest with someone in FBA space, alright somebody hit up Armin, how many products should you order to send to Amazon for your first time, ashley, what I like to do for this is to long-term storage, is a super expensive storage cost Amazon starts charging this after the six-month mark, so I like to look, it’s a basement inventory projections on this 180 Day. Write so, if I’m looking an eye tracking and I see, bet you know the top five stars are on averaging you know, five a day then I’ll multiply 5 by 180 and not be the, The max that I would, you know order for my minimum order quantity, right and Center Amazon, mario, thanks, would you recommend a newbie starting now to look into gift options Clinic, q4 just for the, quick profit, i think I already answered this one rosselli, i’m sorry I keep, top to the bottom, when people add new, question, oh my gosh cited, i’m trying to make sure I don’t miss any but, i don’t I don’t think I could ask, spanish mindset viral launch, this product I copied half-finished, another seller I didn’t know is illegal and got removed how do sellers find out someone else is copying it, i mean Amazon has, extremely, you know, powerful algorithmic tools to do this have, nothing right I’ve heard of people with, on active listings that they copied a photo from someone else, Getting their entire account suspended because Amazon has, very sophisticated photo recognition software you notes, to prevent this type of thing, cuz it’s a huge problems of there is no intellectual property in the act, to be very diligent about it to keep you know sellers coming, to their Marketplace, hey Mario what is anti, amazing selling machine, what is your monthly income from Amazon, neo it’s a tired of my 9-5 job, potlot, steven, glasses ASM is like 5 times more, glad I asked him is like five times more expensive than Kevin’s course, did you ever get in trouble for selling a product, no not yet but, knock on wood for that because I’ve heard about it a lot and I try, extremely hard to prevent, you know any, things that could jeopardize my account, sam love this thank you man appreciate that, how long does shipping by sea take to get to us it depends what I mean between 25, And 35 days what it normally is depending on, you know if there’s any, hiccups, how much money have you made so far in Amazon Andrew more than my nine-to-five job, silicon Pete to an almost monopolize seller than a bad idea even though to household product I mean if it’s a name if it’s a name brand, if it’s like brawny or, you know KitchenAid or something like that I wouldn’t, i would look at the sales of the top five, people and it’s like 99% of them are with one seller then that would probably be a red flag that I stay away from, is there enough free info out there to, steven e-commerce business, i understand that a paid course makes the most sense, just want to know your thoughts, yeah I mean I try to be honest I didn’t purchase the course, At all I mean I looked at most of Greg’s stuff.

Which is why it’s so exciting for me to be doing a webinar with Greg next week because he was like the main person that I learned from in, trusted so once you find someone that you can like kind of tell nose of the talking about stick with them, and that’s one of the best ways to learn I mean the biggest advantage of a course is the community right like so are student, group is already very close-knit people are helping, can you tell they’re constantly, a lot of people aren’t the same, place, insouciant, huge help having you know there’s always going to be some little questions that pop up and just have me a community and people that you trusted it be like a what is, to do in this situation, And you know to have someone with a ton of experience in most situations, but you can ask the tough stuff, it’s a huge huge and valuable tool, but yes it is possible to find, oriental out there by herself, it’s just much less organized and it’s a lot it’s a lot more difficult and takes a lot more time, chances of finding a product I can easily make 5K a month from your product, research module, the chances I mean it’s 100% it just depends on, you know how much you’re putting into it, how creative you’re getting you know how deep your diving, and things like that and just you know message me Jose said cuz I’m always happy to take a look at products, as long as, you know, people are giving me the information that I asked for in the common questions. Cuz you don’t mean you have to have a certain set of data, To look at to make an informed decision right cuz the worst thing in the world is not doing your due diligence up front, and then having products just sitting there in the invent in you know in the Amazon FBA Warehouse, not being bought and not generating une Revenue, how much money do you need, start a profitable products, i recommend between 1000 and $6,000 right I thought it was 6, and you can definitely do that for the same, oh boy my brain decide on a not so much information Kevin do you think anyone can do it, revital absolutely you can do it just make sure you start set yourself reasonable goals right, you absolutely can do it, show me people so many of my students already have done it from scratch it is possible make sure, that you just get started at the most important way, Can you use PayPal credit for buying products from manufacturers, payPal PayPal credit is released, specific, in what they allow you to spend that money on, so I don’t know for sure I’ve never actually paid for anything, from a manufacturer on credit I’ve always just you, use cash, but I would be interested in that Fabian or Fabian, can I get a discount on the chorus, then message me maybe we can work something out, i’m going to jump back into the Facebook group, the student group just make sure I answer everything, how many days do you suggest doing okay we already answered, can I tell a dirty limerick, yeah go ahead I might not read it but, we’ll see, i think you do a whole course on beginner stuff, yeah I mean there’s a lot of beginner courses that are out there I wanted to make a course that not only works for beginners, But was also super valuable for you know.

People that have already been selling a while you know kind of like, intermediate people but also had a ton of value for Advance right because, i think of it, i think of it like math right if you could go directly from the beginning learning you know not only all the beginning and end, incremental infrastructure things but the advanced up all at the same time, you just take a lot of the, time out of that, equation and you can start making those you know Advanced expert games, sooners by learning, the advanced strategies, while you also like you know, started letting us be, beginner strategies as well, when doing product research under categories do you just find one of my products doing good for that nice or do you look for many more, More sellers, i mean, i don’t think it’s hugely important if there’s five if there’s five people on page one that have less than 50 reviews and, are selling $10,000 a month, then you you can and you know, you’re looking at the reviews maybe they only have four out of five stars your looking at, the quality of their listings you’re looking for fully optimized bullet points you looking for images, that you know aren’t necessarily the best, and you think yourself you know how can I how can I provide more value, then any of these five people that are ranking on page one and that are generating all these, who sells right and so what’s your thing in yourself then, is I could take better pictures than that I can create better copy, i know so much now from the listing optimization, From the PPC modules to out, you know outside, smart them, as far as listing optimization back-end keywords as far as the PPC campaigns, 2, quickly outrank them and take over that page one presents, what’s the topic was the toughest product launch and how long did, you work on it to get to work or not work, then yeah too many people may be watching right now to go over exactly what product it is but, there’s definitely one that was tough for me, it’s probably took me about, two months to get it to go, to get it to kind of turn around and get to the place I wanted it to be at, but, you know that’s okay usually I like to, do product research, 4, you know 3 to 7 days, and at the end of that. I like to have found, you know 10 products, right eye tracking to 50, I’m narrowing it down to 25 after you know 5 days, and then I’m narrowing It Down based on the competitive landscape based on the keyword volume based on, you know all the different things we talked about so often, panera that 25 down to 10, once I have those 10 you know I get the quotes from suppliers, i get the shipping cost per unit from my Freight forwarder, once I have that for the 10 I plug that into the FBA calculator, from that 10 I see that five of them have much better profit margins and then those are the five that I kick, i do this all in a 7, 214 day., and then I have those products you know on the assembly line, being sent, to America within that 2 week., right and then from that from there, you know but now you are profitable products, what are some of the biggest avoidable mistakes that you see beginners make and how can we be more mindful, That’s a great question Joseph I see people making two specific seller names often in this.

It’s not a huge issue but the number one mistake, if anyone’s watching please listen to, is not, doing enough due diligence right, never ever just, jump into a product, cuz you just have a gut feeling, never ever commit all this money and, time and love, pour into a product to make it successful, you know without doing the proper due diligence, out looking at the data that you need to, to make decisions about these products, to make them profitable in to make them winners that are going to, distantly, you know bring you all this revenue and profit without any additional work right, that’s the point of them, you do the work up front, you build the infrastructure and then you know, Forever basically, you’re probably is just, churning, and generating that money, and you can move on and move your efforts on to a different products right and then your big building is huge catalog, and everything starts till it makes you know that same independent money but once you have 10 products onto a 20 products, you know it starts exponentiate very quickly when you’re making, 5 to 10000 per product, 20 30 40 products right, i’m Yours officially by new sense of God’s house, are drag I appreciate that, jeff Hardy you prefer people, pM you on Facebook, right now I’m in the USA but normally, it changes right I was in South America for 4 months in Asia for 4 months before that so, no I mean I’ll always read my students messages regardless it just if I don’t answer right away it’s probably cuz, i’m sleeping during that time zone, i’m so don’t worry about it, When you say your eyes I can see if you basically mean your eye tracking, 50 keywords of 5 out of each, not yet, kent Kim answer that correctly items on tracking 50 products and they’re not all related right I might find, you know a baby, what did I find the other day on the student video, via canopy the baby canopy right I might find that in the next it would be something in patio, and the next day be something in Office Products right, lifeshare the different product categories that I found have been most profitable and you can find the most products in in the, it’s raining so, i mean Focus your efforts there, i’m kymball IPM at 3 a.m., yeah I know you do, emily yeah I know you do, and I always answer you in the morning, do you always order samples before actually placing an order Brad no I actually don’t, And that’s definitely counterintuitive to what, you know a lot of other people are saying, but you know if it’s an incredibly simple product, a video of them you know moving it around, and messing messing with that Ian HD video and images is sometimes enough, if there’s any complexity at all any Electronics you know any specific design points that are vital, can absolutely do get a sample it’s worth it, can you put her LLC name for a display name to yeah and yeah you can but there’s, there’s no you don’t have to, i’m do you get your supplies a time frame for when product need to be, to complete lead by, i’m going to I’m going to assume that says completed by, yeah absolutely, there’s no question you should include this because you know things drag out I’ve recently had a situation where I had to refund, 15 grand for a.

For a deposit, because they, they’re just dragging out like they do, just kept making excuses right and I had that in my, no purchase order clause, you know this the lead time to manufacture lead times, to take no more than 30 days, at which point afterwards you know, we agreed to refund the deposit fee, since I had that in, the PayPal order notes it was very easy to get my refund and we moved on its on a different, manufacturer, let me go back to YouTube for a second, why you so quiet about your income, scott Kay I recognize you from all the comments man I love you, keep hustling, any Freight for the suggestion I talked about this in the common questions document I share the ones that I use, so you can you know go ahead and check those out in the larger Facebook group, I’m so you’re the wholesale gurus know I do all private label, i’m so ideally if I’m about to, platinum China, sing it every time somebody doesn’t do, it moves me down on me, i’m sorry, if I have my product in major retailers like Wal-Mart Target does that mean as a good chance is patented, not necessarily but I’m just use Google patents if they have there’s a brand name on it you can find it really easily write like Squatty Potty, party is a good example, you can find that, the only, you know option in the Google patents so you can just, google search it on Google is the best organizer of information in the entire world by far, i’m so just, use that to your advantage Google patents azure, your friend is so much easier than using the US government, William what’s your story how’d you get started in what else do you do with a notch, i did everything I mean I tried, monetizing blogs travelogues I try to fill that marketing I made an IOS app, game with some of my buddies, i never wanted to work for anyone, i double majored in accounting computer science, and I started working for an accounting company called PWC, that I spent some time at Facebook, it was great I mean I made some friends I’ve worked way way too many hours and, just decided that I never wanted to work for anyone the rest of my life so I, truly committed to that, and, things worked out okay, i’m so sorry was 6K for your first-time sign Amazon Ashley I did, tDCJ how long does it take to start to see your investment coming back to you, You know between one and three months, also can you go into clickfunnels I saw your ad William yeah I am actually going to make, exclusively clickfunnels section of the course and obviously I’m to be sharing some great free content on YouTube, to channel as well, u-turn, 6 K into 200, still hungry yeah I mean I was at you know once I are shipped in the first, section of that and started to see, how quickly I was reiterating and generating those returns, then you know I poured some more money into that, how do I join flash qualify for Amazon marketing services, you can actually have a tutorial I don’t know if you’re in the, course I have a really specific tutorial how to do it if you’re in the USA just search Amazon marketing Services basically go through vendors, express go through all the steps, does Kevin still work a nine-to-five job, Adam absolutely not I never will again for the rest of my life.

If Merchant words search says 3304, 55000 is that good, yeah it’s good but Merchant words like I said is an estimate right, nothing Is For Real except for Google Keyword Planner only the search engines have true volume, that’s what I’m wondering if you keep saying my nine-to-five job, sorry I don’t know if I said my nine-to-five job maybe, i was getting an example back when I used to work one but I haven’t I haven’t worked, 9 to 5 job for 4 years, if your add, if your eyes are showing up on like page 3 and 4 but you’re listening is organically on page two should, did you turn it off, don’t worry about Auto Nick you can’t really see definitive data as far as a diplomat, add serves for auto campaign, turn on manual targeting right and then you’ll be able to really tell, Where your eyes from a PPC perspective if you were organically onto, and you have some Proven Winners as far as your keywords in just turn on bidplus, for a phrase or exact match, only with the proven winners from your search term report, turn on bed plus and then you’re incredibly more likely to show on page one, the top result for sponsor., i’m really confused I don’t know where to start a live in Canada how can I sell amazon.com in the USA while living in Canada, mark coming to the coming to the larger Facebook group there’s a ton of Canadian sellers, make that comment I have a couple of close friends that sell in the US market from Canada and they’d be happy to help you out, how much money do you usually make, Each year more than I made when I was working at my 9 to 5, does anyone know how old Kevin is Ashley on 27, do I live in Canada now I live in I don’t really live anywhere but I’m in the USA right now, i was in Brazil Colombia Nicaragua Costa Rica, and Argentina with a couple of my best friends for the last 4 months but I just got back, how many units do you know order initially, i already answered this but basically I order enough, after looking at how many are selling from the top competitors or the top organic competitors, right to sell out of that amount within 180 days, when, the, long-term storage kicks, have you ever stolen anything weird, darren yeah definitely I think whenever I see a product and I think to myself wow that isn’t, incredibly random I can’t believe it’s so weird and that’s a that’s a really positive sign for, Really looking forward to getting your course no discount needed when I get back to the USA Island boy thank you I appreciate that, i’m excited to have you too, what no samples are crazy yeah I know I know I don’t recommend that but if you have a super simple products and you know, you can just get it from a video or whatever then, sometimes that works, you and James Bowen I found really very very reliable and, thanks for all the fish, information video together, he’s a good friend of mine he’s absolutely, killing it in the affiliate program, right now I’m sure that he would say the same thing that he’s making more, sinus course in ears actually on Amazon, what up James if you’re out there, i’m really good when you believe in something you believe in the concept is for real that’s really easy to sell as far as Affiliates right, This is how I feel your marketing is.

I would never sell something as an affiliate marketer that I didn’t, personally truly believe in, because it’s just not going to, can you have multiple seller accounts using the same mailing address no send you have everything completely different right you can get a second, approved account from Amazon, i even when you do that I recommend to make everything, completely different, right because you don’t want to get you know the same thing you both your account suspended do do you know, a similar email address r22a similar address, his forever I only caught the tail end of something you said with LLC do we have a register an LLC before selling, so you don’t have to, you can tell if an individual but you don’t want to for FBI could have to pay a per item, MC, what about using AliExpress, excuse me Mario, i’m yeah but that’s what I drop shipping FBA is Mourinho sending the inventory in, ordering it beforehand with an upfront capital investment, does a Seller Central have to be registered to your LLC as a DBA, no, i’m going to go back to the Facebook group really quick, do you give your supplier the time frame yeah we already talked about that, oh my God you’re 27 wow, yes, what is your preferred method of payment for placing orders you normally do TT or trade Assurance Brad for the 30% iPay, via PayPal, with a, credit card as a payment method, i can’t reach that enough, it’s saved me more than once, right cuz if, payPal doesn’t find in your favor for goods and services, dispute if you ever have a problem with your supplier, You have a second step, disputing it with your credit card and it’s save me before trust me it’s worth the extra, s*** you got me all messed up hub, confused track the top 5 stylist, 85 Chevy, yeah I know I am, chris I am, brighten I have to be ivas doing it now but originally I was tracking the top five competitors for 50 different products, for three days right it took let you know, 30 minutes or an hour even in, excel to get all that, got all these numbers but once you have the date and you can make informed decisions, and you know, from there then you’re not going to have any, for sitting in the end the f, warehouse, yes clickfunnels tutorial appreciated, yes please yes I’m looking for yeah of course notes, clickfunnels, is an absolutely, incredible platform it’s not going anywhere it’s, Is very unique right, it’s so powerful to replace websites, the take out a lot of the technical knowledge related websites, etcetera, 27 Oh my God I feel all know you’re not willing to talk, me too because he’s young spirited but I just turned 28, rachelli I’m sure your young Spirit onion spirited as well, james on the airplane headed to Toronto okay cool, kevin any books you can recommend for e-commerce entrepreneur, yeah message me I have a huge catalog of eBooks on business ebooks in my Google Drive I’m happy to share, hey guys when you pull your search term report for automatic PPC campaigns why do they show other sellers a sin, turn column I know I’ve seen this, 4 but I can’t sing, find the answer, that’s actually a great question Chris, i wonder that same thing, the reason is, because people, i will, you know other Amazon sellers and things like that will copy and paste your Asians from your url, Into the search bar to find it and sometimes they’ll buy it to like me or look at the product look at how the packaging is.

That is what I think is the main reason, and the other reason is you know some people just, save like the ace and related to a product, for later and then search it and buy a butt, i mean besides those I can’t really see somebody like naturally organically, please searching an Ace and rather than a product title to find it especially not for the first time, i think it’s mainly used Amazon sellers, viewing other competitors, products, i’m just searching from the a sin in the URL bar, but I actually don’t I don’t I won’t say that I know that one for sure, but that would just be my guest, What is a good rate to charge my VA, depends where they are I mean my VA is in our base out of the Philippines I usually pay them between 2 and, $4 per hour depending on what they’re doing, uSD, is there any benefit to using another seller account for selling outside of the USA, or differentiating brands, uS base, broad, china skills, smart, saint AR-15, another seller, i mean yeah if you plan on selling us, pacific Brown I got to talking about earlier but, i mean you can use the same Seller Central account and have, you know a UK, portion in the actual menu option, and then I met you and then the US portion so, you don’t necessarily have to do this if it just adds complexity then don’t, just just putting where you on, international expansion which is already come, buck’s enough, Can you be more thorough and how you approached photoshopping quotes, manufacturer, yeah definitely Brian, i’ll get like a formal quote, from them right whether it’s a PDF whether it’s an Excel document, whatever, can you be more thorough on how you approach photoshopping clothes from your infection, yes so I’ll download Excel doc as a PDF forever, and I will, basically, if it says you know $3 per unit at 500 units, you know for 1500 total dollars all Photoshop you know that’s three to a two or that 2 to A-1, 1.5 and then I’ll go to a completely unrelated seller and I’ll say, you know, this is what I’m getting from this, specific manufacturer you know I have a very good relationship with you I’d love to, give you my business but they’re offering it at 1.5 you’re offering it at 3, so is there anyway that we can make some sort of arrangement and even if they come down to, To not matching that 1.5 you’re still down a dollar from what that other manufacturer was, potentially offering, what type of hair gel do you use that flow minus prop, thanks, module 3 explain how he does his hair, make sure you check that out, hi guys let’s just do one Wenatchee more question, might take a couple more from YouTube really quick and then I’ll come back, where do you get your photos taken for your product, i use Fiverr originally I would just send one sample to myself and I won’t send one sample to my product, photographer provider address on, fiber Subs, it’s really easy right just send two samples out your your manufacturers are having to do that with, ePacket shipping, and it’s it’s easy to just go ahead and get that done now I use a more custom team of a set of Newsela, But before I was really just.

Using fiber and they do a great job and they have it, incredible prices, and you can just ship it straight from China to, the fibers address and so you never have to actually have it yourself, michelle Yost, good questions I was wondering the same thing any good, message me on Facebook I’ll give you a big, datafile full of all of the best business books I’ve read pretty much all of them, unpopular ones at least, she said it was, sponge in a Delta brand around waist trainer, so I guess I don’t know I miss that I had to scroll down cuz there’s too many question, must be honest to your house, this guy 27, thank you Ashley, i’m not going to read out loud but I appreciate that a lot, what are the steps I need to take to ship my source parts to an Amazon warehouse, Then that’s a that’s a complicated question but, you know I’m happy to address that, in another way my shipping my shipping and supplies module covers that, incredibly in-depth, travel Vlog coming soon Abner, i don’t know if maybe, mostly but for now I’m just going to keep it focused on Amazon helping on my students, jet you know Ativan 95 jobs and get to be like to that point where, now they’re doing whatever they want, how much is the key to life you can’t you can’t be doing honey, someone else, calphalon anyways, if you can get a product that’s already competitive, for cheap would you attend, depends I mean if you can get it for half as much as everyone that’s your guilty, right there, buy something on 1%, how unique fidget spinner on Amazon Dave absolutely not, the phases past I have, Friends and I’ve heard of other people, somebody was telling me that even one of the other teachers of a course that’s kind of popular on YouTube as 10,000, and fidget Spinners is sitting not selling even one per day in his Amazon account right now, how old is a chorus and what is your history and success on Amazon Miguel. Course is about a month old I had some beta testers, that we’re just really insistent, on Facebook, that I kind of helped individually and, use the chorus, for the first time I kind of, bass my chronological steps and some of the things that I was teaching, on their question, just make sure that it covered everything from a beginner intermediate, and then a ton of advanced topics, as well, i just open up my Amazon seller account Alibaba what else do I need, i mean a bank account to pay your manufacturers, Send email to communicate with your Freight forwarder, and a computer to setup your listing, is 1500 good enough, i mean yeah like I said before the amount you initially invest it directly, uncorrelated, to how quickly you can make the returns, well I’m getting a lot, but the small three letter acronyms are messing me up, tT message me on Facebook I’m happy to explain any of that what is the most bought, what is the most bought product, spelled, not sure what you mean by that Taryn, all right cuz I might take one more from YouTube then I’m the answer a few more on Facebook and then I’m going to shut it down for the night we’re at almost 2 hours, it’s been fun, when getting a new product or new supplier is it a bad idea to ship the product to yourself to check the quality and then out to Amazon, No it’s not a bad idea I’m just personally lazy and I.

I don’t, i’m not in the USA, all the time right so when I’m not in the USA I can’t really ship it to my address to check, and then shove it up Amazon for your first product or whatever you know it’s okay to send it to your house first, take a look at all the different quality, you know make sure that everything is kosher before you send it off the Amazon make sure there’s no damage units and things like that, and you know from there, you’re going to be in you’re going to be in a okay shape but I mean that’s that is the point of an inspection right, so if you, want to save money and you don’t understand, send money online inspection, Then you know shoot it out to your own house do the inspection yourself, right if you want a budget at the beginning that’s that’s fine right, but if you’re not on as much of a budget I like to just, you know hiring inspection company sell at a very detailed report of exactly what they’re checking rice products specs, quality, packaging making sure that the labels are ordered and organized correctly right, so that’s that’s everything for YouTube that you got so much for the question I’m going to answer a couple more on Facebook and then I’mma shut down for tonight, can you describe how heavily we can bring our package, i mean you can do whatever you want but, i always just do, glossy either white or black, main, color packaging because it’s what all the packaging manufacturers have, and it’s you know it’s what, Is much it’s so much cheaper to just use a black or white bass, with a split whatever your colored logo is right there okay with adding a single colored logo maybe a piece on the back if you want to, print your fnsku directly on the box but, apart from that making an overly complex box, is going to cost a lot, upfront, and it’s not going to generate you a ton more Revenue, you know selling on Amazon, africa logo, is it better to have a color logo or just black and white, i mean it doesn’t matter you can have whichever one you want if you’re going to like the minimalist look and maybe you have a white, on a black base or you have a black on a white bass, or you know if you’re selling a jungle product and you want to have a look up parrot it’s like fully colored right, It depends on what you’re selling, will manufacturers offer you a digital template for packaging you to edit yourself, i’m some do not but not always am I have those templates for you guys though, i’m just message me and I’ll send them to you guys, i’m your awesome cab thank you for taking the time to answer every single one of my questions yet that’s what I’m here for thank you so much, of course Emily, course yarn, hi guys we will see you soon thank you so much for participating I hope that helps, i’ll post this to the student groups, as well the replay so I’m and yeah I’ll talk to you guys all soon.

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Paul Chittenden (u/paulchittenden) of Bad Ass Work Gear, a brand that makes tough work gear.Some stats:Product: tough work gear.Revenue/mo: $15,000Started: August 2012Location: HoustonFounders: 1Employees: 1Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi, my name is Paul Chittenden, and I am the Founder of Bad Ass Work Gear. Our goal is to make work gear that lasts. Well, at least longer than our competitors. Let’s face it, the people we sell to are hard on their gear!Our flagship product is a very tough, heavy duty duffel bag specifically developed for the oil and gas industry, but also used by the Army, firefighters, hunters, and quite a few more creative uses.The oil and gas industry has its ups and downs. We were riding high when oil prices were up and companies were spending money on their employees. We dropped about 80% of revenue in the last downturn. 2018 and 2019 have been leveling off with more retail orders than corporate orders, averaging about $15,000 per month.imageWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I was born in Houma, Louisiana - a small town about an hour Southwest of New Orleans. I grew up wrestling alligators, fishing and hunting, drinking beer in sugarcane fields, and of course speaking with a funny Cajun accent.“I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to be when I grew up after graduation. However, I did know I wanted to be an entrepreneur. That was clear.”Houma is the hub of offshore oil and gas, the key to the Gulf of Mexico with its ports and access to the coast. Because of this, oilfield service companies and related businesses define this Louisiana community. Both my mom and dad worked in the oilfield.When I was 9, my dad got me a camouflaged bag for my hunting gear. He bought it from a little shop that specialized in heavy duty vinyl bags for offshore oilfield workers. It was tough as nails.Years later, I graduated from college with a degree in Business Management from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Our mascot is a Cayenne Pepper, and we’re called the Ragin’ Cajuns. This is probably not relevant to the story at all, but it is important to note.Now, I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to be when I grew up after graduation. However, I did know I wanted to be an entrepreneur. That was clear. I also knew that whatever I did, I didn’t want to go into the oil and gas industry.About a month after graduation, I took a job with Schlumerger, one of the largest oilfield services companies in the world. I would work offshore on oil platforms and make a ton of money. But wait, didn’t I say that was the one thing I didn’t want to do? Yep. What the hell?Anyway, I figured I could save up all the money I made to start a business. I heard a story about the founder of Raising Cane’s working in Alaska fishing salmon to raise the startup capital for his first restaurant. I could suck it up for a year or two.Working for Schlumberger, they sent me to the same little shop that I got my first hunting bag from to get my first oilfield bag. It wasn’t until I started working offshore that I realized how tough these bags really were.The bag was pretty large, because you have to stuff a ton of stuff in there since you’ll be gone for a week or more at a time: boots, coveralls, underwear, hard hat, etc. I also packed a 12-pack of gloves (one pair per day), jeans for travel days, my own pillow (because I’m a weirdo), snacks, and protein powder.I’d have a driver haul me to the coast. Then I’d take my bag and throw in on the gravel while I grab all my other gear, a tool box, a hand pump, and some other miscellaneous tooling. Then, I grab everything and head to a supply vessel. I’d dump all of my gear on the back deck of the boat for the 6-20 hour ride out to the platform. Sometimes it would storm and the bag would get rained on and splashed from the high seas. Most times, it stayed dry and baked in the heat.Once we’d reach the drilling rig or platform, I’d have to throw all my gear into a personnel basket, and be lifted 150 feet from the vessel into the air up onto the drilling rig or platform deck. It looked something like this:imageThen, once again, I’d take all my gear and throw it out the basket onto the grating of the platform. The pic above is a drilling rig, so at least here the deck is steel plate and not too rough.Long story short, traditional bags didn’t hold up long to this abuse, but these heavy duty vinyl bags did.I was making good money, but the time away from family and friends was taking its toll. I missed holidays, birthday parties, and family gatherings. I took all the money I made and invested it in the stock market, hoping to make my money grow. Instead, I invested just before the stock crash and lost half of it. So much for that stockpile.In 2008, I took a job with GE in their Oil and Gas division in Houston, Texas. Things were good. I was making less money than my offshore salary, but I was in decent shape. I got to travel, and manage some interesting projects. I picked up a book called the 4HWW and decided to bootstrap something since my savings was still all in the stock market.I don’t know why, but the bag thing was my first good idea. There was nothing like it in Houston or in the emerging land based oilfield hot spots.I threw together a quick website with Wordpress. I used Elance (now UpWork) to hire someone to make some product renderings. Once everything was up, orders slowly started rolling in.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Okay, maybe I lied. Orders didn’t really roll in. I didn’t have a way to take payments, so it was really just product inquiries. But, my product was validated.The problem was, I didn’t have a product. I scrambled to find a manufacturer because of course, I had no idea how to sew a button back on a pair of pants, much less sew a frickin’ bag.First, I hit ThomasNet and searched for manufacturers. Then I sent them my own bags (by this time I had several) for prototyping, and I had a few mark-ups of my product renderings for slight changes to the design.imageFinding a good manufacturer was a pain in the ass.Most manufacturers wanted a minimum run of 1000 bags per color, per size, per style. I wanted to offer 3 sizes, 2 styles and at least 4 colors. Impossible.Every company wants the color of their bag to match their uniform. So standardizing color wasn’t going to be possible, and I was at a major roadblock.I had to go custom and made to order. It was the only way.I was willing to invest $500 on this project. I couldn’t buy an industrial sewing machine for that.Eventually, I settled on Craigslist. Houston has a ton of sewing talent so I posted a job on Craiglist. There was a lot of noise, but I also had a few hits from some industrial sewing workers looking for some side work. I worked out a deal to pay per piece, and started testing sewing contractors. It took a while to get the quality and craftsmanship to the desired level, but it worked out quite well. They were sewing from home. After a while, one of my seamstresses got tired of having me stop by the house to pick up orders. She was willing to ship them out for me if I bought her a label maker. Done deal. After that, I did this with the other sewing contractors as well.Now, I don’t have to touch product. I'm a sales, marketing, and customer service.Describe the process of launching the business.I built the website myself using a Wordpress theme. This probably took the longest because I had no idea what I was doing. Though, it was simple enough to learn.I made my first logo in Microsoft Word. Take a look at that bad boy!imageIt took about 8 weeks from my first inquiry to the time that I had manufacturing figured out. I invested $500 in vinyl, industrial webbing, zippers, and sewing materials for my team to start manufacturing.I had a product page up with my mock-up images. Instead of taking the customer to a payment page, it redirected them to a contact form so I could collect their email address. I had a few dozen emails on my waiting list so the next step was to contact them and let them know we were open for business.I got my first bulk order, selling 200 bags to a oil and gas contractor for their employees, in my 2nd month of operation. We have been profitable ever since.The biggest lesson here is to just start.There is a good quote from Richard Branson, “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes - then learn how to do it later.”Get started, be determined, and persistent.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Branding has been our key differentiator. I wanted to think of something really manly, tough, and something that would resonate with blue collar workers. Something Bad Ass.Bad Ass Work Bags stood out to me. Here’s one of our earlier slider images.imageWe later re-branded to Bad Ass Work Gear.Our initial growth was driven by word of mouth. Guys wanted a “Bad Ass Work Bag.”Since I was in the oilfield, I started hearing people talking about these new indestructible bags. There were similar, less Bad Ass bags out there. I’d hear stories from friends and family in the field saying that guys were joking around with people with these “inferior” bags that theirs was Bad Ass!We included Bad Ass Work Gear stickers in all our orders. I had friends sending me photos of our stickers in galleys and drill shacks from remote places such as Alaska and North Dakota.Best of all was when I started seeing my bags in airports where oilfield workers frequent.Eventually, our SEO efforts started taking hold, we started receiving a steady stream of organic traffic. We really dialed in on our initial keyword research, and built some initial links. Unfortunately, the tactics we used back in 2013 won’t work today!All our vinyl duffel bags are made right here in the good ‘ole USA. Unfortunately, that means our margins are pretty slim compared to some of our competitors outsourcing to low cost Asian manufacturers.The low margins made our attempts at paid ads unprofitable. We still haven’t figured this one out.Customer service is critical. People recommend us because we offer “Bad Ass” customer service. I’ve had one truly unhappy customer in seven years that we couldn’t rectify. Other than that, our customer service turns even upset customers into raving fans.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?2018 was our best year yet, and we are currently on track to beat last year’s numbers.In 2015 - 2017, the downturn in oil prices put a serious damper on our growth. Companies stopped buying bags, oilfield gloves, and other extras for their employees and our revenues dropped by 80%. The price of oil is pretty cyclical, and we can expect to see these drops every few years.We saw a big need for diversification in our business, and we began researching other occupations which are in need of tough gear. We didn’t have to do a lot of researching. I mean, the answer was already right in our face. Firefighters were already buying our gear bags even though they weren’t specifically made for that purpose.We spent the better part of 2018 designing a new line of firefighter bags. It’s been a slower process than I had hoped, but we plan to release the first five designs before the end of August.Product photos are finished, and the next step is to simply load them on the website.Our plans are to continue diversifying our product lines and build a stronger company.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?We were definitely blindsided by the downturn in oil and gas.We were having record growth every year until things dropped off. I wish I would have seen the need for diversification sooner so that we could have planned for it. Luckily, our lean structure helped with weathering the downturn as our competitors folded.We learned the importance of brand. Our customers do not flinch at paying more for a high quality, made in the good ‘ole USA, Bad Ass Work Bag - even when competing bags are half the price.Our name speaks for itself. Of course, the quality HAS to live up to the name. I could only imagine if our product was crap, how fast people would be making fun of us everywhere. Our bags are tough, like our customers. We constantly get emails thanking us and some great stories (bags flying out trucks with only a some scuffed vinyl).We utilized product reviews for social proof. When people see all the positive reviews from fellow oilfield workers, it's a no brainer to purchase from us.Our reorder rate is awfully low when compared with other businesses. With such positive reviews and excitement around our product, it took me a while to figure out what was going on.Our product is very niche.Our product lasts a long time.I can run through a bag in a year, but evidently others aren’t as hard on their bags as I am. In fact, I got an email from my very first customer 5 years after his first purchase. It said,“After you read the below messages from way back when, and revel in how quick five years flew by like I did, I want you to know that I am STILL running the same bag and have never had a lick of trouble with it. Impeccable quality, unrivaled toughness, and a true,top-notch, BAD ASS bag.”Our products are lasting too long! I see why the electronics industry invented planned obsolescence.If I started a new ecommerce company today, I would pick a broader niche and choose a consumable product so that I could increase our customer lifetime value.What platform/tools do you use for your business?We use Wordpress with Woocommerce for our shopping cart. We have AppSumo to help capture emails which in turn are added to our Mailchimp ecommerce flows. After a purchase, our email flows end in a review request utilizing Stamped.io.We’re a big fan of Sumo to capture leads and then utilize Mailchimpfor our ecommerce email flows.For SEO, we have a subscription to AHREFs.We’ve hired for various services with UpWork for larger tasks (blog writing,etc.) and Fiver for smaller tasks (image editing, etc.).What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris - This is the book that made me make the jump to start Bad Ass Work Gear. I’ve also designed it to be low workload. I can literally run Bad Ass Work Gear in 4 hours per week, but I typically put in more because it is fun.Ezra Firestone - Simply get on Ezra or SmartMarketer’s email list. You’ll learn a ton about ecommerce and how to scale your online store just from their free material.Ecommerce Influence Podcast - Great content on e-commerce here as well.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?A lot of new entrepreneurs are looking to make a quick buck. I think the most important thing is finding something that interests you. Maybe follow your passion, or find something that interests you enough that it has the potential to turn into your passion.Starting a business is hard work. Often, it is lonely work. You have to be persistent. A lot of people give up, just before their business is about to take the next step. Working around your passion will keep you interested longer and set you up for success.Find a mentor. A mentor isn’t necessarily an old rich guy willing to take you under his wing. Books, podcasts, masterminds, Facebook groups, can all be good mentoring opportunities. Some of my best mentors are people I’ve never had the chance to meet. I’ve just pursued the biggest experts in relevant topics and followed them.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We are always looking for writers with oilfield experience.Where can we go to learn more?badassworkgear.comBadAssWorkGearbadassworkgearLiked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

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[aeroholics]

ECV aka Mobility Scooters at Disney World

You need to read this article. I got the scooter, now what? Credit: WDWMemories.com I've found the scooter to be incredibly helpful in my enjoyment of the Disney experience, but there are some things I've learned as well. The Walt Disney World Guide for Disabled Guests You can pick this up at any guest relations, your hotel front desk, etc, at WDW. It outlines the attractions that are mobility compliant, those you have to transfer, etc. It also goes into transportation more than we did here. You can order one from Disney also, but it's quicker to just go to their website... Guest With Disabilities (Official Disney Information) Be Careful of Others! The scooters, though they are pretty slow, can cause quite a bit of pain for a person's feet if you hit them. It is important to keep in mind that you are driving something and thus need to pay attention to the road as well as the other sights. People will tend to dart in front of you on their own quest without looking, making it imperative to always be ready to stop. Good thing scooters do generally stop instantly, but it does take as much concentration as a car. I realize this is difficult with talking to friends and all the wonders there are, but it's a necessary evil. Get the Chair, ignore the Stare! This paragraph is as much for the general visitors as it is the scooter riders. If you have health problems, don't risk a heart attack or go to Disney World in pain because you are afraid of what people might think. When I first needed a scooter, this bothered me a lot. While using it, I got some stares and heard some rather pointed comments. At that point, it was just the start of my degenerative nerve problems and so I could still walk a fair distance and do some tasks. But even for an athletic person, Disney World is very daunting and I couldn't do that without ending up in some serious pain. However, I could go up and get some food or get out of the scooter to reach for something and that brought a lot of people to think that I was cheating or something. It's hard for them to understand that reaching for something or standing for five minutes is much different than walking five miles. But after a bit, I started to ignore the comments because they didn't have my life. They don't know that I am this way at home as well as at WDW. I'd gladly trade riding a scooter for good legs that could once again walk all of WDW like I used to. You can't really blame them that much really. There is a saying that EPCOT means Every Person Comes Out Tired and I think when you feel like your legs about to fall off from the Animal Kingdom Death March, people in scooters seem to be getting off easy. Again, that would be fine if tiredness was the only issue (and maybe for some it is), but most scooter riders are doing so not to avoid walking, but to be able to enjoy their visit with as little pain from their health issues as possible. Many don't look disabled. It doesn't mean that they aren't. On the other hand, there were a lot more nice people who were always willing to lend a hand or hold a door. I really appreciated their kindness. One lady almost missed the show while trying to help me get the scooter in a tight spot. She didn't though and I was glad for that, but it shows how helpful people can be as well. Charging the Scooter All scooters need to be charged each night so they are ready for the next day. This usually requires them to be brought into the room where they can be plugged in at least once a day. You will also want to do this anyway so it doesn't get rained on or moved by the staff and/or someone else. Getting them into the room can be a bit tight depending on the rooms. The value resorts have smaller rooms than their more expensive counterparts, so sometimes some furniture like a table may have to be moved to accommodate the scooters. If you have your family there, it's not too big a deal, as one can hold the door while you drive in. If you are alone, see the section on Scooters for One below. You can also take them to the luggage handling desk and Disney will be glad to charge and store them. But then you have to walk back to your room, which may be a hike in itself. Important Safety Tips Always shut off the scooter with the key (and pull it out) before getting off of the thing. The Disney ones seem to have a sensor in the seat that doesn't allow them to move if you are off the seat. But the rental ones often do not have this. I got thrown pretty hard off one the first time I used it by assuming they were the same as the Disney ones were and there was no sticker to tell me otherwise. As I said above, you should be aware of your surroundings at all times, like you are driving a car. The reason is that there are a lot of tight spots at Disney that you could potentially get into trouble with if you aren't paying attention. Curbs are a big one. The scooter with you on it has a high center of balance. This means they tip easier than you would think. If you take the scooter off of a curb at an angle that causes two wheels to be up on the curb and two off of it, it's likely to tip over. Always go straight down a curb. I saw an unfortunate gentleman topple by accident at the MK and it fell over with him in it. Fortunately, there was a group of college guys ready to help. They picked him and the Disney rented scooter up. As far as I know, he wasn't hurt, but he could have been. If you are going up a ramp, do not make a u-turn as this could also very easily tip the scooter. You might be able to get away with it if you put your leg out like they do on tight motorcycle turns, but it's better to avoid these situations. Some dangers aren't as apparent. The Land in Epcot is one such spot. The elevator from the second floor to the first floor should be backed into. The reason I say this is so that you can go forward at the bottom. Why? Because on the bottom floor is the Living with the Land boat ride. And the canal for that is right next to the elevator. And if one isn't careful, they could wind up in some serious hurt if they were to back into it by accident since there is no guard rail. Leaving Them Out Of The Room Obviously it would be a pain in the butt to take them into the room if you only plan to stay for five minutes there. I was wary about leaving it outside myself the first time. The guy I rented it from told me that I could leave it out except at night. He said that he'd never had one stolen. Now I'm sure different rental places may have different rules on that, so it's best to check. It's also best to check with the hotel, especially if you are staying at a non-Disney resort. I had quite an argument with the Hyatt in Disney Hotel Plaza because they didn't like that I left it in the hallway while I was only in the room a short time. Even though I assured them I would bring it in during long stays. They finally agreed to that. Avoid Getting Them Wet I have heard that they have battery/electronics trouble when they get wet, so it's best not to get them soaked as it can disable them. So when it starts raining, it's best to head indoors. This is especially true in the torrential downpours that happen almost every summer day that I call Flood and Flickers. Lots of lightning and lots of rain make up these evil storms. The only good part is they only usually last around a half hour or so, so if you pull the scooter into a restaurant or attraction, you'll be good. Besides, riding on something electrical in a thunderstorm is probably not the best idea. Kids and Scooters Some have asked can I ride my children on the scooter with them? Honestly, I've never tried it myself, but I have seen people do it quite a bit there. But from a safety point of view, there are some things to keep in mind. They should never stand while the power scooter is in motion. Most scooters can stop very suddenly with good brakes and this can physically throw a person off the vehicle if they are standing, especially a young child. If you do plan to let your child ride with you, let them sit on your lap and only do so for small children (less than 7 years old). Standing while the scooter is still, as if for a parade, is not a terrible thing for kids, BUT be sure that the key is properly shut off or pulled from the plug (if it's a Disney one) because any sudden lurch can toss the person if they hit the throttle bar by accident. Also, please don't let your kids use your scooter as an alternative to Tomorrowland Speedway. Other guests that are hit by kids driving are not going to be happy campers. https://hubpages.com/travel/wdwdisabled mobility scooter rentals orlando mobility scooter rentals orlando

[dangerouscrusadefire-blog]

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

"North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://howmuchisinsurance.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

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North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

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I am currently in Houston Texas and I wish to receive health insurance. I will be moving back and forth between Texas and Utah. I wish to know if health insurance here in Texas will be valid in Utah. I think this is a pretty uninformed question but that is why I am asking and I am only 18 so I do not have to much experience in this matter. If you know of a website I could look into to be informed then that would be very well.

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We have 2 cars and currently 2 drivers on our insurance (my husband and I) and we were wondering if we add his mother on there will it be cheaper? The thing is his mother does not have a license and does not know how to drive, would it still be cheaper if we add her to our insurance?""

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My friend was involved in a car accident sometime in June 2010. The other vehicles driver didn't notice her red light, ran it and hit my frieds car. His vehicle was in the shop for 2 wks and during this time he had to get rides from others. His total med expenses (ambulance, er, scans, dr visits) adds up to about 9000, car damages 3000. The other insurance company is trying to settle for 11500 BUT they are saying that 8000 of that is to repay HIS insurance company. So he is left with 3500.Is this correct or should he ask for more? Please no rude responses.. thanks :D""

Why is it a requirement to have a car insurance in the UK?

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Me and my 17 year old brother want to buy a 50cc gilera dna 1 for me and 1 for him. I have a full UK drivers licence and revived insurance quotes for around 400 a year......where as my brothers cheapest. Quote was 550 a year. He doesn't have any sort of licence but was hoping to get a scooter license this coming January's. So the question is would he be able to be put on my insurance policies I'm 20?? And what insurance companies will do that? Thanks ;).

Does driving school really decrease your insurance rate?

i heard that if u go to driving school and tell the insurance after getting ur license they'll give u a discount on insurance

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I want to get either a honda civic or toyota corolla (those have best insurance rates supposedly) and I am 16. Great student, no record, no driving problems etc. Could someone give me just a really rough estimate. Thanks!""

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How much would car insurance cost for a 22 yr old male?

Im 22 yr old male, live in Florida and never owned a car. So how much would i cost for me to get car insurance? Im also a college student.""

Can i get insurance to drive any car?

My current insurance gives me third party cover on any vehicle i drive with permission from the owner. Can i get full insurance? (i am thinking of setting up a business which would require me driving other peoples cars) THanks

Where can i find affordable health insurance??

I am turning 23 in feb. and i loose my dependant status because my parents are military so i need to find some health insurance.

Car loan & insurance?

My husband & I applied for a car loan. We are both still under our parents insurance because it is cheaper like that for now. Neither one of us are listed on their insurance as policy holders. We are only listed as covered. If we plan on buying a car with our approved loan, does his dad need to be on the loan as well because the insurance is under him? If so, does that mean that I need to come off the loan and that he needs to reapply for a loan but with his dad? We live in California, I know some states have different laws about insurance. Hope that makes sense & someone can help. Thanks!""

Why is my car insurance ridiculously expensive?

I've been using go compare for a Peugeot 206 1.1 litre petrol, and have been given quotes of about 6-8 thousand pound! I know for young drivers (im seventeen) car insurance is expensive but I was expecting 2-3 grand, am I maybe using a bad site?""

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I have a van and car and just want to find out the cheapest option to drive them both, a friend told me most fully comprehensive insurance policys allow you to drive other vehicles, do anybody know any names?""

First time car insurance?

I passed my driving test on the 6th of December 2011 and got a car yesterday. It is a 1.0 litre peugeot 107 56 plate and I'm 22. Wondering where the cheapest place to go for car insurance would be or the cheapest way to do it? I've heard some people go on their Mum's, but you shouldn't do that as it's illegal to say they are the main driver when you are (not sure how this would be proved). I've looked on price comparison sites but they are all still so expensive and I still feel I can get a better quote. The best one has been from an independent insurer called Ingenie at 1300, so I know I can get cheaper on sites that aren't on price comparison ones, if that makes sense! The thing is there's so many was just wondering if anyone knew the cheapest?? Getting bored of typing my details in over and over :) Thankyou x""

How much would car insurance be monthly for an 18 year old girl?

Who's never gotten a ticket or pulled over. Had my license for seven months now and also has not took drivers ed....an estimate?

Can I turn my health bills from a car wreck into my health insurance?

I'll try to make this as short as possible. I was hit by another car, who fled the scene but I was able to get her license plate, made and model of her car. Her insurance is covering the body damage for my car but I'm having problems with the medical part of all this. In all, I have had two visits with my doctor and he sent me to the hospital for xrays. I have whip lash and nothing else. I live in Kentucky, which is a no-fault injury state (I have no idea what that means). The other driver's insurance company is not going to pay for my injuries since they are less than $1000. Which means I have to turn it in to MY car insurance company and pay my $1000 deductable or pay out of pocket, which will be about $800. Someone I work with mentioned that I can turn the bills into my health insurance company for them to cover it. Is that an option? I'm not at all familiar with any of this b/c this is my first experience having to deal with car insurances. I know it doesn't matter how I feel, but I'm really ticked that someone can hit my car, flee the scene, cause injuries to me, and then I am the one responsible to pay for the medical care. Does anyone have any experience with this? Can I turn this into my health insurance to avoid paying the $800 that I don't have? Thank you.""

My car insurance company raised my bill because my zip code changed.?

But I thought that in California they passed a bill called prop 103 that says that changing zip code should not be a base to raise the bill... I talked to the insurance guy on the phone who said that prop 103 never passed,yet when I'm reading about it in the internet,it says it passed..Am I missing something? Can I file a complaint to the consumers'affairs and the BBB in order for them to drop back my rate to my previous zip code? It's only a few dollars but it ads up at the end of the year..""

How do i get my car about half a mile without insurance?

I need to get a car from my house to my girlfriends, but I have no insurance on it yet. I have considered pushing it and asking someone's to tow it but i am unsure yet... I do not have insurance on the car. Any ideas?""

Do insurance companies insure a boat for its value or insure it for what you paid for it?

Do insurance companies insure a boat for its value or insure it for what you paid for it?

How much would it cost for a 20 year old male to get auto insurance?

I have been driving under my parents insurance on and off when I am on school breaks (because I go to college out of state and I don't drive) for 3 years. I have never had any tickets or collisions or anything bad. Roughly, how much will it cost for me to get insurance, and how to I go about getting insurance?""

Does my credit score affect my car insurance costs?

Someone told me it did... but that just doesn't make sense!

Insurance for young drivers?

Hey, i'm a young male who passed his test recently and the insurance quotes I have been getting have been eye popping. Just over 4,000 my quotes have been. I live in the city and dont have a garage or driveway etc and know that can effect the premium but I want a diesel which is insurance group 3, does that have major effect on the premium? I need a little advice on how to go about this""

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

Car insurance question for young drivers?

Im gonna be 17, insurance for me is gonna be 6,500, my mum doesn't drive so i cant go on hers. Would this work; could i get my mum a provisional licence, get her insured for my car, then could i drive it, its like 5000 cheaper for her to do it, would that be legal, if you know what i mean.""

Does school require health insurance?

I live in California, USA and my brother and I don't have health insurance. We are in middle and high school(public school). What are the disadvantages of not having health insurance?""

Car insurance policy and rates question?

My girlfriend is on my car insurance policy. Recently she got in an accident and now I believe our car insurance rates will be raised. Can I drop her off my car insurance policy and have her transfer her car in my name that way both cars can be insured in my name. If I do this can she still drive her car?

Insurance at sixteen?

How much would it cost for me to insure an irocz at sixteen its a three fifty five speed stock?

How do auto insurance providers calculate your payments?

I just got off the phone with my auto insurance to change my address. They informed me that my rate is going to be $16 more now because I moved to a different zip code. The problem is, I had previously had my insurance changed because it skyrocketed after my previous move. Which is strange because I had moved from the same city before and it went down about $20. I have since moved BACK to the SAME city I was in before and it's going up again?? This makes NO SENSE! I thought it was based off of your location (zip code). But now I just think these insurance companies are making up their own numbers and rules and we're all getting screwed!! Can someone please explain this insanity to me? My zip code is now and was before, 95608. The zip code I just moved from is 95628. Yes, I have moved back and forth 4 times within the same 2 cities if you're confused.""

Cheap car insurance for people under 25?

I'm trying to find the cheapest car insurance since i'm under 25 in new york. I'm looking to pay no more then 400 a month just don't know where to find a good deal. Please advise

How much (average) is health insurance for a family in America?

As I live in England where we have the NHS I was just curious how much health insurance is in America. Obviously I know that it depends on pre existing medical conditions, how old people are ect ect but let just say for average family of four, two parents and two children would health insurance cost. I was just wondering.""

17 Year old insurance on 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1?

Im 16 years of age soon to be 17 and I am looking for a first car that would be of a classic sort. I hate all the usual Saxo's and Corsa's that all the other kids drive. My dad currently owns a Series 1 RS Turbo and were in the middle of restoring it. I looked into insurance as myself as a named driver and got quotes of 11k and that's way too much. Would the price be cheaper if i put myself as a second driver on my dads insurance? Im in desperate need of answers right now. If not then has anyone got any info on a Mk1 or Mk2 golf or even an Mk1 XR2 Fiesta. If all this classic insurance is too hard then has anyone out there got any ideas on what car I could get that has got cheap insurance, Looks good, Performs great and can be modded great. I don't want answers which involve astra's and clios's. More along the lines of newer better material. Thank you :)""

How am i meant to afford car insurance?

OK, Im working at island, earning minimum wage. Im at uni and Ive got to pay out 330 every term to pay my train ticket. Lucky Im staying at home so I dont have any rent. Nor am I going out drink anymore. Im looking to buy a car, to get around, get to work easier etc. How I cant see any way for me to afford this. My parents wont help, saying no one helped them. This is understandable as they are keeping me for free, although i clean the house as rent. Im just wondering if anyone knows anyway I can get insurance cheaper (I have pass plus). I just dont really want to get a loan for a car and insurance.""

Will my insurance get expensive if I don't pay it for a few months?

So I am 19 years old and I been paying insurance for 1 year now. But right now I am not working and I don't need my car as much and i feel that I am just wasting money on insurance. My policy will end in 9 days and I am thinking on ending my insurance and instead I am going to ride the city bus. Right now I am paying 96 dollars per month and the next six months will go down to $94. If I don't pay for insurance for 1 or 3 months will the price go up? How much? Thank you in advance.

Cheapest cars for insurance for a teenage boy?

This is what I know: 4WD and newer cars means higher rates. I know certain cars, particularly Honda Civics and Accords from the 90's were commonly broken into and stolen, and that raised rates. I think I'll be responsible for paying my own insurance and gas. (Unfortunately I do live in a snow climate, but we haven't had real heavy snows in a while) So, it would be VERY helpful to list some non-boring/decent, reliable cars, that would be best/good on insurance costs! Thanks!""

Affordable standard transmission car for teen?

Any suggestions for a cheap manual car for a 17 year old male? I don't mind if it's a 2 or 4-door. Anything that is known for low insurance so my parents could afford it.

""Cheap car insurance in Highland, CA?""

Um i live in highland ca 92346, im 18 male just got my license 1 month ago, jux bought a 96 honda accord, anniversary edition. 4 doors, 150 k, excellent condition, which car insurance is the lowest for a guy my age?""

What kind of insurance coverage should I get for my motorcycle?

I have pretty much decided to get an SV650S as my first bike. Right now I am reasearching insurance coverages but am pretty much clueless. I don't know what coverage to get. This will be my first bike and I have very little experience riding. I have taken an MSF course and live in Los Angeles Area. I guess I am not looking for a particular insurance carrier(although it will help), I am looking for an explanations of the coverages so I know what to get.""

Does any body know what is going on with Obama and the whole health insurance thing?

Okay so I live in California. I am young and can't afford health insurance rite now. Does any one know if Obama is going to follow through with this whole health insurance thing. If so when is it supposed to kick in? And how will it work exactly? Will every body have free health insurance? Some one please explain this becuase I am realy confused.

Best school to prepare for my life and accident/health insurance licensing exam?

I need to start my 52 hour training to get licensed in California for life, accident and health. Which is the best school to prepare me for the exam? There are so many online, however I want one with a high pass rate.""

Child custody in california?

my husband wants me to have full custody of child but is it possible for him to have visitation rights for child in summers? and the non-custodial parent doenst want to pay any child support? is this allowed in california?

What is the average price of car insurance for a Volkswagen gti mark 1?

First time driver soon and my mum promised to buy one for me as a first car

Auto insurance for a job?

I got offered a full time job delivering for dominos. I need to know what to do about my insurace. My boss told me to raise my minimums and thats it but my mom has been yelling at me about special insurance i HAVE to get blah blah. So what do i really have to do? My insurance now on my suv is 120 a month but the quote from progressive is 5700 a year for commercial do i really have to triple my insurance for this...

What is the most popular/best dental insurance in California?

Looking to invest in Dental Insurance, but I want something good, where I'm not paying so much out of pocket""

How much Insurance payments?

How much would the average cost of insurance cost me each month if im a 20 year old first time driver with a 2010, honda 15k dollar used car. I understand if its kinda hard to answer but any answer would be nice thanks""

""How are younger drivers supposed to afford car insurance these days, especially if you're a student...?""

Car insurance is so expensive it's ridiculous, not to mention the price of driving lessons/test and what not. The problem is, I need to be able to drive because of where I live, if I didn't live in a rural area I wouldn't bother about driving so much, but looking at prices to drive these days, it's ridiculous. How do they come up with prices such as 1,000 - 5,000 is beyond me!""

What happens when you pay your car insurance late?

i have to wait til my next paycheck to pay my car insurance but the due date for the bill is march 16 and i dont get paid til the 21st. what happens? i have commerce insurance if that helps.

So I'm looking into buying a Honda Element but I want to know how much insurance n gas n all that would be?

Help please lol and if overall if its worth it

Why are car insurance quotes on comparison sites so high?

I'm almost 17 and I'm hoping to learn to drive and buy a car, I was looking on some comparison sites to see what the insurance might be on some possible cars (ford KA, fiat sciento, nothing too fancy) but the quotes were ridiculously high? I know being 17 will mean expensive insurance but this was really expensive, they said the cheapest was around 6000 for third party. This is really high because I know loads of people who drive at 17 and their insurance ranges from 1800-3000. So, why is it so high and will it actually be this price when I come to pay the insurance?""

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-need-car-insurance-2001-lincoln-town-4-door-harry-franklin/"

[topmixtrends]

FOR YEARS, we have been warned about the addictive and harmful impact of heavy smartphone and internet use, with physicians and brain specialists raising red flags regarding the cognitive price of these technologies. Many of us now recognize that we are addicts, often joking about it in an attempt to lesson the seriousness of this realization. But what had been missing to really drive the fact of digital dependency home was an admission by those who design the technologies that such was their intended goal. This has now changed as a cadre of IT professionals recently broke their silence on the subject, revealing the motivations behind the creation of some of the world’s most popular apps.

Speaking at an event in Philadelphia in November, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, said: “The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’” A week earlier, Ramsay Brown, co-founder of Dopamine Labs, a California startup that uses artificial intelligence and neuroscience research to help companies hook people to their apps, told a CBC News reporter: “We’re really living in this new era that we’re not just designing software anymore, we’re designing minds.” To make a profit, he added, companies “need your eyeballs locked in that app as long as humanly possible. And they’re all in a technological arms race to keep you there the longest.”

These revelations confirm what at least one writer has been telling us: that our attention is increasingly treated as a commodity for profit. In his 2016 book The Attention Merchants, recently released in paperback, Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University, shows us how attention, a crucial human function, became the common currency of propagandists, media executives, and internet moguls. The compulsion to prey on eyeballs, Wu argues, long predates our digital gizmos and virtual realms. The advent of mass marketing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries spawned sophisticated advertising techniques geared to arrest and hold the attention of prospective buyers. Eventually, it occurred to American entrepreneurs that information about newspaper readership could be sold to those seeking access to consumers in order to market products. Throughout the 20th century, merchants learned to harvest and barter our attention using ever newer and more efficient media. Attention became one of the hottest commodities on the planet.

Wu tracks the development and use of these technologies from political posters and radio propaganda, to the goldmine of television advertising, to today’s internet and digital media. Today, it is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and other “disruptive technologies” that are making billions of dollars reselling attention to advertisers. This attention harvest, as Wu demonstrates, is ubiquitous and ever-evolving, always looking to break new ground. We can see it all around us: advertisements on the backs of taxi seats or in the trays of X-ray machines at the airport; stickers on supermarket produce advertising Disney films; sprawling adverts on the sides of trains, buses, and streetcars. Anywhere our gaze might fall, whether by accident or from necessity, represents a potential locus of attention ambush.

According to Wu, the attention merchant’s basic modus operandi is to engage us with “apparently free stuff” and then resell our attention to others. In this regard, smartphones and tablets — and the applications that support them — represent a quantum leap in the industry’s efforts to win and hold our attention. They are the frontline harvesting machines. So efficient has this process become, and so complete the conquest, that we can say that our awareness is now being commercially farmed. Furthermore, there is no harvest “season” for this industry. It is happening all the time and around the clock: in our homes, on the street, in our workplaces, during vacations. It is a symphony of mental entrancement on a global scale.

The social effects cannot be underestimated. As Wu writes:

[U]nder competition, the race will naturally run to the bottom. Attention will almost invariably gravitate to the more garish, lurid, outrageous alternative, whatever stimulus may more likely engage what cognitive scientists call our “automatic” attention as opposed to our “controlled” attention, the kind we direct with intent.

With our unwitting participation, culture devolves into the realm of the crude and stupid. And the story does not end there. Attention capture also has an enormous influence on our politics, being used to marshal peoples and amass power. Wu tells us that, in World War I, the British discovered the power of pervasive propaganda — leaflets, posters, meetings, door-to-door canvassing. George Creel, a journalist who headed President Woodrow Wilson’s public information office during the war, inundated the American people with propaganda. Using more than 75,000 volunteers, he delivered over 775,000 pro-war speeches in movie theaters to an estimated 135 million people, in order to create a popular will to go to war. “In the burgeoning battle for human attention,” Wu writes, “Creel’s approach was the equivalent of carpet-bombing.”

The Nazis took political attention harvesting one step further by adding massive rallies and films to the repertoire. At his war crimes trial, Albert Speer affirmed that “technical devices like the radio and the loudspeaker” had served to deprive “80 million people […] of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.” Today, jihadi groups use every means available to create a will for war, their poetry, videos, and music providing an attractive, full-fledged culture for disaffected youth to become immersed and lost in.

The consequences of this vast gambit for our attention is that we have been drawn into a kind of mental slavery. Masters of profits and propaganda are farming our minds, doing cumulative damage that may go to the very core of our humanity. As a result, our attention is becoming locked into a low level of living and functioning.

¤

Why is attention so important? What is it anyway? And how can we avoid being the willing slaves of the profiteers or political manipulators?

To give and receive attention is a fundamental human need. In the 13th century, King Frederick II of Sicily wanted to find out what language children would naturally grow up to speak if they were never spoken to. He took babies from their mothers at birth and placed them in the care of nurses who were strictly forbidden to either speak to or touch them. The babies, as it turned out, didn’t grow up to speak any language, as they all died of attention deprivation within a fortnight of the start of the experiment. A study involving less extreme methods at the University of British Columbia in 2014 found that the withdrawal of attention — ostracism — is psychologically more harmful than bullying. Negative attention, it seems, is better than no attention at all. By giving and receiving attention, we are meaningfully connected to others and to a larger social whole.

In his 1996 book Learning How to Learn, author and Sufi scholar Idries Shah argued that giving and receiving attention is a cornerstone of human behavior. According to Shah, attention exchange is often the main, underlying motive for any human interaction, regardless of the actors’ overt intention. Yet attention is a brutally limited resource. A healthy attention capacity, involving the ability to block out parts of the world in order to focus, is crucial for learning. We have to be able to properly listen, think about things, and digest and integrate knowledge into a wider context if we are to develop and grow. Attention is the basic currency of this process. Yet we have been giving it away freely to the attention merchants because we do not know that it is precious.

Wu argues that we need a balance between two kinds of attention in order to be healthy: the transitory kind that happens in natural shifts of focus during daily life, and the sustained kind, such as when we are reading a book. But such sustained attention is increasingly ceded to the deliberate and chronic summoning of transitory attention by digital technologists. Instead of a long, uninterrupted read, we are being trained to consume information piecemeal from a medley of screens. This fragmented attention results in fragmented minds, producing people who are unable to focus or think effectively. The outcome is exhaustion through overstimulation of our mind’s neuronal responses, thus weakening our executive faculties and our ability to make coherent and independent decisions.

When our attention is lured, herded, and commandeered in such a way, our full human potential is profoundly subverted. “Our life experience,” William James once said, “will equal what we have paid attention to, whether by choice or default.” We become what we attend to — nothing more, nothing less. A steady and exclusive stream of reality TV, entertainment gossip, social media chatter, and “breaking news” about the latest celebrity scandal or Trump’s most recent tweets — all endlessly cycling into each other — turns us into the bland clickbait of the attention harvesters. Yet, though we justifiably consider the enslavement of bodies a terrible wrong, we willingly surrender our minds for the profit of others. This new, almost hip, kind of slavery is sought, not fought.

Like a balanced diet, a healthy capacity for attention enables us to engage and disengage at will, thus freeing us to dwell and reflect. This continual process of focusing, defocusing, and refocusing keeps us aware of larger contexts. And this is how we learn and grow, in some cases attaining greatness in our endeavors or developing a deeper wisdom and outlook on life. “Over the coming century,” Wu writes, “the most vital human resource in need of conservation and protection is likely to be our own consciousness and mental space.” As technologists and entrepreneurs collaborate to bring us the next generation of attention harvesting devices, such as Google Glass and other “smart” wearables, it is imperative that we create spaces and blocks of time that are beyond their reach.

Periodic “unplugging” — taking “digital Sabbaths” — can help us reclaim real (non-virtual) sanctuaries, where we can again interact directly with one another and make strides toward achieving goals that require serious levels of concentration. In cultivating these habits, we also improve our general culture, our shared sense of what is truly meaningful and important. When our attention is diverted toward the crude and sensational, our cultural life suffers. By contrast, a long walk or a good read can lead not only to a healthier and more fulfilling life but also to a richer society, in all senses of that word.

As we would not throw a precious jewel into the trash, so we should not surrender our priceless and finite capacity for attention to the merchants for resale. Attention is infinitely more valuable than we think; it is a crucial tool in the process of learning that life may have more meaning than the officially propagated one.

¤

John Bell and John Zada are founders and directors of The Conciliators Guild, an initiative dedicated to highlighting the role of underlying human motivations in politics.

The post The Great Attention Heist appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2ClZokr

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

[2centsofsilver]

OMG I AM SO EXCITED AND HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!! I’m sitting in Espresso Royale, my new favorite coffee shop, right on South U, across from the SSW. I just got done eating a super shitty cheese calzone at this hole in the wall pizza joint a few stores down.  Let’s backtrack for a moment. I didn’t end up needing to call the CAPS crisis hotline last night or the national crisis text line for the first time in 4 days. I ended up confiding to my new SSW friend Brendon about my suicidal ideations and needing urgent help. Together we came up with the game plan that I would go to advising this morning and either the picnic after or skip the picnic and go to CAPS. I ended up coming home last night after SEED and crashing from 7:45-11:45 and going back to bed around 3:45am till 10. I got ready and left sorta late and then the bus didn’t come right away. It was held up in traffic once on the bus and then I had to walk from MI Union to Lorch, except I had no idea where Lorch Hall was. My GPS walking directions led me to it and I couldn’t find the entrance. I think it just connects through the School of Ed, but I didn’t know how to get in there. I ended up walking way past it and asking a security guard who once again pointed me toward where my GPS led me. Around 11:04 I decided my social anxiety was too severe to walk in late, so I sat on a bench to try and stop sweating. P.S. Did I mention I got my period yesterday? Fuck. More on that later. Point: I couldn’t hardly move my body forward on campus walking to Lorch and had exhausted myself and had to sit down. After deciding to fucking skip required MSW Advising, I just sat on the bench in the shade a while and decided finally, to walk to CAPS. I decided to take the bus back to the park and ride and back again to the Union because I couldn’t walk the 900 steps to the Union. But when the 62 arrived in front of the Libraries, I couldn’t walk the 10 steps fast enough to get on and missed it. By this time I was basically sleep walking. I finally made it to the Union and went to the 3rd floor. I drank some water and then walked into CAPS: “I need a walk in.” She couldn’t hear me. “I need a walk in. It’s an emergency.” She asked me to repeat myself. “I NEED A WALK IN. IS PATTY HERE?” “Ohhhhhh sorry. I thought you said you needed water. No, I don’t think Patty is the crisis psychologist today, I think it’s Cheryl. You’ll just need to fill out the urgent care questionare on the computer.” Went and did that.  Through life experience, you learn well. You don’t flow with the masses. Aka, when directions say, “Be Breif” and you’re in crisis (or not in crisis), be as thorough as possible. I explained everything in that little box. I knew I didn’t possess the energy to voice it out loud. I then proceeded to flip through an adult coloring book (all filled up) and sorta doze off/stare into space. When you close your eyes in a counseling center waiting room, not afraid to fall asleep, and you have severe social anxiety, that’s how you know you must not be doing well. Stop blaming yourself and telling yourself your problems aren’t real, < , or exaggerated. That’s something your parents would say. Eventually Cheryl came out and called my name. She was calm, sweet, and smiling. I followed her back and sat down in a chair and a big, vast, open, light room with big windows. It was pleasant. She sat down with me and told me she thoroughly read all of Patty’s notes from my last 2 times and was up to date on my history. She said she thoroughly read my description and said she deeply appreciated it. She then apologized for my struggle the last few weeks in finding help. She validated my severe depression, SI, and PMDD. When she apologized for my struggles in finding help, I turned away and cried just a little. I told her I’ve never once struggled in my life finding a therapist. When I told her I’ve been in therapy 11 years, she sympathized. I’d never experienced that before. Not sure how I feel about the sympathy, but I appreciated her deep genuine care. I don't know what my life would have been like without therapy and I love therapy. I do well with therapy, so I never thought to myself, “I wish I didn’t need therapy.” I’d be very scared to be thrown into the world without it. I also cried because I told her I didn’t understand why CAPS couldn’t help me long term when they’re all I’ve found who have helped me so far. The only source of hope I’ve had.  Immediately, she was very committed to finding me immediate, concrete help. Not just help, but ANSWERS. SOLUTIONS. I am so fucking grateful for CAPS. So far both Patty and Cheryl have been the absolute best, most effective psychologists I have ever met. CONCRETE from the start. U of M is no joke. She wanted to know if I have a psychiatrist, what my medication situation is like, and whether I feel they’re no longer effective. I told her about my old psychiatrist in Kzoo, how much I trust her, and am keeping her. But then I moved into how their voicemail system never works when you need med refills, how she’s old-fashioned, how she’s always disappointed when I’m not doing well and happy for me when I am. Cheryl grew very concerned and emphasized emphasized emphasized advice to seek psychiatry via UHS. She also mentioned I ranked my current conditions higher in severity this time than last time. I hadn’t realized. I also told her how I have appointments with Christine and Amy this week and next week. She highly advocated for that. She helped me establish steps and not even a “sense of direction,” but REAL direction. Not only external direction, but internal crisis. Cheryl helped me identify a pattern in my thinking I was aware of, but using different words and analogies than most counselors thus far. I really liked the way she provided information. She said she notices I have a very “Should/Should Not” perspective in my decisions and life view. She said, “Why not both?” She said to insert an “and” in between hard decisions. She said “This and This.” Present Moment AND Direction. Example: “I can get through this moment AND I can act on direction. “I can get through this moment by skipping advising because it’s what I need to do AND I can email my adviser to reschedule our appointment.” “I can ground myself in this crisis AND go to the emergency room.” “I can start and succeed in this program AND struggle.” “I can do well AND not feel well.” “I can skip the picnic AND make friends.” “I can work on old friendships AND meet new people.” “I can be myself AND have a disorder, but I’m not my disorder.” That was the next thing. I’ve heard that phrase before, “I have a disorder, but I’m not my disorder.” I’ve always wholeheartedly believed it. But I started thinking and said, “I’ve always known my depressed self. I’ve been in therapy 11 years. Depression is all I know and what I am.” She said, “Depression doesn’t define you. Your PMDD does not define you. Your anxiety does not define you. They aren’t you.” I thought for a second how much I wish those with a stigmatized uneducated understanding of mental health would learn and understand that.  Dear every person who has ever left me, I have depression, but there’s more to me than that. I have anxiety, but I’m also Katie. I have PMDD, but I do lots of activities that I think we may have in common; I think we could connect on similar world views; blah blah blah, etc. Also to the POS who recently told me she keeps a distance from people who are “amped up” and have anxiety, when I asked her whether there was potential for friendship, fuck you :) Cheryl was really amazing. We talked about my roommate situation and she told me I need to take care of me and don’t need to feel “OBLIGATED” to keep her up to date. I felt so validated and helped, that I no longer felt hollow and scared. I felt tired still, so I asked her to direct me to the Wellness Zone where I sat in a massage chair for over an hour next to a person who came in to take a nap :) What ultimately got me out of the massage chair was realizing how starving I was and a really sweet looking person coming in wanting a chair. I told her I was all done and to enjoy, went to the bathroom, and left the Union and started walking toward the South U restaurants. First I stopped by the SSW to pick up our gift. It was a U of M SSW backpack and some bumper stickers. Cool. Basically I didn’t need to buy the fucking $50 Target backpack. The woman who directed me to the Student Services office to get the gift asked if I was new to A2 and I said yes. She said, “Have you figured out where to buy toilet paper yet?” I wanted to get out of this conversation. “Yes HAHAHA” I said, fake laughing. She said “Because that’s the first step. Toilet paper is important.” I just wanted to say, “My survival is more important and you don’t need toilet paper to survive, but whatever you say, happy administrator. Side Note: I’m sitting in Espresso Royale and that one song by that one band is playing. Ummmm... Guster? Satellite? Something like that. Maybe. But maybe not. It was when that song came out and on the same CD. I just wanted to say that when you’re really scared in a new place and feeling in the dark with depression and stuff, sensory stimulation is so important. So when you hear a song from where you’ve come from, it makes you remember you’re ok and still you. Some things are different, but you’re still you. So on my way out from the Student Services office in the SSW, I sorta lingered for a few in the ground floor lobby. I looked at flyers and stared down the windows into the lower level (library?) I noticed a girl who looked very nice. Do you ever just see people and you can tell almost right away that they could easily have a spot in your life? She looked up from her computer and smiled when I first walked in. I smiled back. On my way out, we looked at each other again and said, “Hi.” I walked out of the SSW and into the hole in the wall shit show pizza shack (South U Pizza). Ordered my disgusting calzone and sat by myself just a few minutes. Noticed the girl walking towards the pizza place and looking at the menu on the window before deciding to come in. She walked in and ordered her slices of pizza and then was on her way to find a place to sit. I was looking at her in hopes of catching her attention. “Hey,” I said. “Weren’t you just in the SSW?” She said yeah and got a big smile and I asked if she wanted to sit with me. She said sure! We started talking and nothing was awkward. That’s another tell tale sign. We jumped right in from introductions to tracks of study to where we’re from to career goals to interests. It flowed really really well and there was a lot of relatability and laughing. We sat there about 2 hours and talked and talked until eventually she said, “Wanna be friends?” I was so happy, I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of elatedness that overcame me. I don’t believe in god and rarely the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason,” but there was definitely something there. Sometimes I really believe my grandma drops gifts for me and hears and listens and watches. I think she can sorta read my mind and knows my curiosities and drops gifts that allow them to come true. The very first thing we both said after exchanging names at the beginning was how we both saw each other and smiled and said hi and had a mutual mental thought, “I should introduce myself or say something,” but neither of us did. And then about 5 minutes later, she popped into that pizza place. We ended up exchanging numbers and adding each other on FB. She said I was the 2nd person she met and added on FB and then it was so weird! The 1st person she met yesterday and added on FB came walking into the pizza place LOL. The last maybe 45 minutes or so of our conversation was talking about past jobs and my SEED course and aversion to ABA. She was unfamiliar with ABA and told me she was actively following everything I was saying and that I should pursue this passion. I was talking about my SEED course: Integrative Health- A Whole Person Approach. She advocated for my ideas to voice my thoughts to my professor, get involved in the IH movement within the SSW, accept her offer as a recruitee, and create my own SSW student organization. She told me I should consider dedicating an aspect of my career to the up and coming power movement toward IH and away from ABA for developmental disabilities. We talked and talked. She seemed powerfully moved and very excited for me. She made me think about things I never had, such as my own power and ability to potentially make this happen and bring new knowledge to the realm of ABA/autism treatment research. We talked a lot about my conflict of not understanding why I’m in the minority given general core values from an outside perspective, whether naïve to the field or not having not done it, those core values not aligning with what ABA is ABOUT and centered around, means something. The adults coming forward. She also told me she recognized me from my post on the Team 97 FB group about the 62 bus that got 78 likes LOL This girl is really cool and I am so grateful to have met her. We plan on getting together another time soon. Her name is Savannah by the way :) We walked out of the pizza place and to the espresso shop where she asked if I’m a hugger. We hugged. She had referenced her fiancé and being LGBTQ a couple times and at the end I said, “Hey I want to ask you. You mentioned knowing a bit about the LGBT/Queer Community here; I’m recently out and need some support. Could we talk about that sometime?” She said, “I’m so happy you mentioned that. Yes of course! I’d be happy to talk with you more about that.” “Thank you. I’m struggling with it.” She seemed really happy, almost proud of me. I can’t wait to hang out with this new friend again soon! :) Time to write my SEED paper now. Hoping to finish before the last 10pm bus. 6:09 PM.