One Man's Opinion

I am always intrigued by the Libertarian candidates that run for president. In 2016 I voted for Gary Johnson instead of Trump, mostly because I thought Trump as president would be a disaster. 

You may be thinking to yourself yeah he is a disaster. I don’t disagree with you, while I agree with most of his actual policies, I think he is far too divisive. 

Anyhow, i’m not writing this to talk about Trump, the point of this was to introduce you to a presidential candidate you may not know about. If you think voting third party is a waste of a vote, you aren’t wrong, but if you're anything like me you are incredibly tired of the Democrats and Republicans. Just keep in mind that as long as we vote for a candidate just to try and prevent the “other” party from winning third party candidates will never be viable. I think its time for a power shift in this country, possibly to a third party. 

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That crazy B!t@h Carole Baskins finally won, Im curious to see how her investigation goes. Even if I believed she killed her husband I dont think there would be any way to prove it now.

What do yall think?

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I have many thoughts about this, first I would like to say that I want to commend Ben & Jerry’s for doing more than posting a pointless black box on their twitter. I appreciate a company that takes a definitive stand one way or another. Now I dont really have a dog in this fight, I already dont eat ice cream because im lactose intolerant, so... With that being said, I want to go through this and discuss one paragraph at a time. 

Fist paragraph: I too am outraged by the continual mistreatment of all citizens by police. I too support the peaceful protests across the country as a meaningful representation of the rage that not only the black community is feeling but that most of us are feeling due to a senseless murder. George Floyd did not deserve to die regardless of what he may have done, and certainly not in the manner that he did. 

Second paragraph: I agree completely, all 4 officer deserve the charges they received and I was glad to see they upgraded to 2nd degree. I truly feel for his family and friends. 

Third paragraph:  “The murder of George Floyd was the result of inhumane police brutality that is perpetuated by a culture of white supremacy.” I don’t disagree that yes his death was inhumane police brutality and I would classify it as torture. I do not believe we have a culture of white supremacy in this country. Moving on, yes slavery was horrific, most people agree, if they do not agree then they are lost causes but they do not come even close to making up a majority. I apologize if you view this as inflammatory but I do not feel responsible for events from over 400 years ago. I lament every person killed unjustly, especially by an organization and government that I feel has far overstepped their bounds of authority. 

Fourth and Fifth paragraph: Yes, lets bring Floyd and his family justice by punishing the officers involved to the full extent of the law. Yes racism is stupid and short sighted in all directions. It is terrible to hate someone for something so trivial as skin color, but it does exist and violence is no way to eradicate it, it only seeds it deeper. 

Sixth paragraph: Yes, do not use violence against peaceful protesters, that obviously solves nothing, and only serves to further inflame this situation. However, rioting and looting is not protest, it is a crime and should not be tolerated. Yeah, I get it Trump is inflammatory, he should denounce racists and supremacists, but you can’t just label everyone you disagree with a white supremacist or racist. 

Seventh paragraph: While I am not against the idea of H.R 40, I mean, we have spent more money on less important things in the past. It would all depend on the findings of this commission to determine something so complicated as reparations. I ask how one puts monetary value on something so complicated? Who would pay for it? Are we proposing a higher tax on white people to pay for reparations? A higher corporate tax rate to pay for it? Higher taxes in general? As someone who advocates for smaller government in general I want them more out of our lives not more ingrained. As a side note, if you feel so strongly about this issue, I would like to point out that there is nothing stopping you from funding such a commission yourself. There are no laws preventing you from starting a foundation to pay reparations. I am sure there are plenty companies and individuals that would donate to support such a cause. Furthermore why would you want a racist government to be in charge of such a mission, when you can do it yourself?

Eight paragraph: I agree, we need criminal justice reform and more police and government accountability. After all, we the people give them their power to serve us, and at the end of the day they should be accountable to us. 

Ninth paragraph: I will be honest and at the time of writing this am not very familiar with this topic. I will do more research but on its face I agree. I would however like to see less federal oversight and more public oversight. 

Tenth paragraph: I too want to see a better America, I want us to be peaceful and unified. I however will never agree that I personally am overtly privileged just because i’m a different color. Are there some people that I would define as privileged, yes there are. That however is part of nature, nothing will ever be perfectly equal. While I don’t disagree that there are people or companies that did get advantages from slavery and there are people that still have disadvantages, how do we go about figuring that out. I’m not saying we should’t do it, but to what end?

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I was glad to see Dak donate to a cause that I think may actually help. 

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Stop with the cancel culture. Its ridiculous.

As a Cowboy’s fan it pains me to have defend Brees, please stop with the madness. 

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I wanted to wait until after I made my thoughts clear about the George Floyd situation to write this. That article came out yesterday and if you have not read it yet, please do before continuing. 

The first thing I want to say is that I do not condone rioting and looting in any capacity, especially not under the guise of social justice or meaningful change because that course of action will achieve neither. 

I believe that the peaceful protests across the country have been hijacked by the worst among our society, and they are taking advantage of a terrible situation to participate in an adrenaline fueled rage filled nationwide riot. It is a disgrace to George Floyd, his family and his memory. This reprehensible behavior is not how rational adults act during a time of crisis. I want to be clear in the fact that I do support the peaceful protests across the country, but I can not stand by and remain silent while more people are suffering unduly because of these riots. 

To try and defend these riots as a just reaction to a mans murder is to live in denial. If you believe that rioting and looting is any way to react to a situation like this I urge you to reconsider. The riots have been justified by many and in many different ways, I have heard that these are giant corporations with insurance and its not a big deal. I would argue that point, I would urge you to think about the people who live in that community and work at those businesses, they are now out of work. The short sighted rage of these rioters has caused more pain to more people than they are aware of. The thing is, it isn’t just large corporations that are being “punished” it is small community businesses, people who have worked their whole lives to become successful or just to get by. I would also argue that the full effect of these riots will not be felt for many weeks, we do not know if these businesses will reopen, we do not know how badly supply chains have been disrupted. We shall all find out how much more suffering will result from these actions.

If you still are not convinced that rioting and looting is not how you get things done, allow me to make another point. According to FBI statistics there are approximately 100 million gun owners in America. If this violence and civil unrest continues to spread further into residential communities there will be more death than any of us realize. Americans across the country will not stand by and watch their homes or lives be destroyed by a mob of criminals. I warn everyone that this could easily get more out of hand than it already is. I do not want that to happen. I want change within our government and our police departments, I also want to live in a peaceful unified America. Maybe those are pipe dreams, but I felt I had to put my opinion out there. 

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and checking out the blog. If there is a topic you would like me to cover please leave a comment. 

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I wanted to write this piece earlier but also did not want it to be viewed as taking advantage of a terrible situation, so I waited until now. 

I first want to say that the event that took place involving George Floyd is a tragedy and stark reminder for everyone about how short life can be. I believe that in this situation the police involved are 100% guilty of murder to one degree or another. I want these officers to be made an example of for all law enforcement officers, and to remind them that they are being watched and they need to be better.

George Floyd and many others that we do not hear about do not deserve to die or be mistreated in any way regardless of what they have done. The blatant disregard for human life in this case is sickening. Not one person who is not actively involved in a violent crime deserves to die at the hands of police and even in the cases that they are, they do not deserve to die in the manner that Floyd died in. I can not view his death as anything less than torture. His treatment was inhumane and it honestly made me sick. 

I like most do believe that police are a necessary societal institution, they do in fact provide a very valuable service that makes life better for most of us. I also however find myself lamenting the sad state of police departments across the country. I believe now and have for many years that police in general have overstepped their mandate and to a degree the law makers have as well. They have become so concerned with inconsequential issues that they have forgotten they are paid PUBLIC SERVANTS. Police and politicians are paid to serve the public and somewhere along the way they have either forgotten or ignored this fact in the search for more power. Governments and Police Departments across the country need to take this event as a wake up call and start instituting real meaningful change that serves all people in their communities. 

I do not want this to be misconstrued as me just bashing the police. I hope that I have made it clear that in most cases I do support the police. I know that like with any group in the world there are good officer and bad officer. I also know that there are many more good officer than bad officers, we just hear about the bad officers much more often. With that said there is always room for improvement within any organization. 

Where ever you land on this situation or others like it, whether you agree with my statements or not, this is not the time for inflammatory statements or hate filled arguments on social media. 

Thank you for your time, and I appreciate you checking out the blog. 

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The Boys if you don’t know is a new stream-able series on Amazon Prime Video. This show is a new take on a universe full of Super Heroes based on a graphic novel by the same name. (The Boys) 

While this is a universe based around super heroes, its not exactly what you would expect. In this world the “heroes” aren’t only mortal in certain ways, but their characters are written as normal people who have let their power go to their heads. I would say that even though we only have one season to go off of so far and have not met even 1% of the heroes in this world, I would venture to say most of them are just terrible people. 

This series is incredibly dark, gritty and includes what some would call gratuitous nudity. I however feel that the overarching adult themes of this show including the nudity (which I could have done without) is warranted and in my opinion only serves to enhance character development. 

I give this show five stars and would definitely recommend it to anyone, with a few caveats. The first caveat being that as I already stated, be ready for a dark show with quite a bit of nudity and plenty of gore. The second would be that at times depending on your political leanings this show can become tiresome, because the plot and certain aspects of the series does obviously lean left. The final being that this show only has one season currently available and only eight episodes in season one, so its over faster than I appreciated (not a bad thing).

Thanks for stopping by and checking out the blog, if you would like a more in depth analysis of each episode let me know. If you would like me to cover a particular topic send me a message. 

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If you aren’t familiar with who Dave Ramsey is that is okay. Dave Ramsey is a wildly popular personal finance expert who has been gaining popularity in the U.S over the last 30 years. Dave Ramsey is responsible for his #1 best selling book The Total Money Makeover, in this book Dave lays out his plan for personal finance and paying off debt referred to as the snowball method or the 7 baby steps. 

I will provide a short synopsis of Dave’s plan here, but for a better understanding check out his book The Total Money Makeover. Step #1 is to stop all investing, make a budget and to save $1,000 as a small emergency fund, #2 is to attack your debt in order from the smallest amount to the largest including everything except for your mortgage and then rolling over all extra from one to the next as you pay them off, #3 is to save up 3-6 months of expenses as a fully funded emergency fund. After step #3 the last four steps can be done in conjunction with one another. #4 is to start investing 15% of your household income for retirement, #5 is to save what you think you may need for your children’s college fund, #6 is to put every extra penny you have to paying off your mortgage early, and finally #7 is to build wealth with investment and become as generous as possible. 

Now for a few caveats to Dave’s plan. Dave Ramsey detests debt and approaches personal finance from a religious view point. The fact that he does not believe in debt in any way lends into the fact that if you follow his plan to the tee you give up credit cards and never buy anything you don’t have the cash for with the exception of a home. This will effectively tank your credit score to zero which if you plan on using cash or debit for everything you buy in the future is not that big of a deal. The second thing you should know before diving in head first is that Dave’s plan would require you to create a personal budget and cut as many unnecessary thing out of it as possible or go “scorched earth” as Dave calls it. You may even want to get a second or third job in order to get out debt as soon as possible. 

With all of that out of the way, is this plan right for you? I personally think Dave’s plan is genius depending on the type of person you are. If you look at finances from a physiological point of view Dave’s plan removes temptation by canceling your credit cards and lighting a fire in your heart to want to get out of debt as fast as you can. However if you are more analytical you may be thinking to yourself that this plan sounds ridiculous. I find myself somewhere in the middle I see the brilliance of this plan and by all accounts it works, however if you have the discipline to manage your finances to a tee then you may want to consider some alterations to this plan. 

There are two alterations that I decided to make in order to make this plan work for me. I saved a little more for step one than required because it makes me feel more comfortable about not having a large emergency fund. The second is that I decided to keep my credit cards for further emergency assurance but I only use one of them and only to pay monthly recurring bills in order to get the cash back rewards for bills that I have to pay any way. This allows me to save a little more money and as long as I make sure to pay off the balance completely every month I never have to pay interest on my cards. 

The only other alteration I thought about implementing was a method of paying off debt called the avalanche method. Where the snowball method would have you pay every extra cent you have every month towards your smallest debt and then rolling all of that to the next smallest once you pay it off. The avalanche method suggests that you pay off the largest interest rate first and then roll all of that into the next largest interest rate. The avalanche method is based on math and will save you money in the long run, however the snowball method is based on psychology and human behavior making it a good transition for the less controlled among us. 

In summation Dave Ramsey’s plan is brilliant, and if it did not work he would not be as popular as he is. If you just cant bring yourself to follow it, that is okay too. There are other methods out there. I found a balance between a couple of different ways of doing things and that may work for you. The moral of the story is, that you won’t pay off your debt and become financially stable unless you are tired of living life the way you have been for years, you have to be ready to work hard and sacrifice things or as Dave would say “Live like no one else, so that you can live and give like no one else”.

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Driving can be a dangerous business, in this article I will discuss a few reasons why you should have a dash cam in your car. 

How many of us haven’t experienced road rage at one time or another? Whether you were raging at someone else or vise versa, we have all been there. I can recall at least 3 specific incidents off the top of my head where a dash cam would have come in handy. I have since bought a dash cam and I am loving it.

The main reason I believe you need a dash cam is for protection. Whether you are in an accident, getting pulled over or just wish you had a record of a particular incident a dash cam is a great investment. It provides an impartial witness to any situation that cannot lie or misremember the events in question. 

A dash cam provides you with peace of mind, imagine if you will that you are driving along and someone cuts you off for seemingly no reason and then proceeds to brake check you and you rear end them (this happened to me recently). Regardless of if the person was just in a fit of rage or a scammer trying to collect from your insurance company you have a perfect record of the incident and exactly what happened. The dash cam just allows you to be at ease while driving. 

Finally, if you are into this kind of thing dash cam videos can be monetized to make you some extra money. You can set up a YouTube channel and post some very interesting videos and maybe make a little extra cash if you live in an area where there are a lot of bad driver. Alternatively you could sell those videos to other YouTube creators or sites that buy video content to post or lease out. 

Which ever reason you choose, I feel that in today’s society a dash cam is almost a requirement for all drivers. In fact I strongly advocate that car manufactures implement dash cams as a built in feature much like they have back up cams. I think dash cams are a great investment, and even though I hope you never need one, if you ever do, you’ll be glad you had it. 

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This is a really interesting story, I am aware of QAnon but have not really followed them. I would be even more surprised to see a Republican candidate winning in Oregon. I don’t really think she has a chance but it’s still pretty interesting. 

Do you have any thoughts about this story, leave me a comment and let me know. 

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I for one was floored by this comment, maybe it isn’t that big a deal but to me it seems incredibly insulting and insinuates that anyone who would dare disagree with their narrative is just a naive simpleton.

PS: as it turns out, the NAACP has never supported Biden or any candidate according to their press release. So he straight up lied to add insult to injury.

Let me know what you think in the comments. If there is something you would like me to cover leave a message.

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This is a super interesting development, I agree with USA Today’s take on this however. I agree that while it is great news that the virus doesn’t spread easily from surfaces, better safe than sorry. 

Let me know what you think in the comments, message me if there are topics you would like me to cover. 

What are thoughts on the outcome of this case? Do you feel like they got more or less time than they deserved for their fraud? 

Leave a comment and let me know what you think about it. If there is a topic you would like me to cover send me a message. 

There are some things from your childhood that are nostalgic and cause you to long for a simpler time. Then there are things from your childhood that make you nostalgic and that could have made you rich if you had only held onto them. In this list I plan to break down five things worth more than you will believe. 

#5 Black Diamond Disney VHS Tapes: These VHS Tapes may be harder to watch now because how many of us actually have VHS Players anymore, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t make you feel that sweet sweet nostalgia. One of the more notable tapes is The Little Mermaid with a now banned cover art. These tapes are sometimes listed on Ebay for upwards of $500 when in great shape. The less notable tapes are worth considerably less but they are really cool things to collect.

#4 Beanie Babies: Beanie Babies were a huge hit among children and a favorite collector item. Possibly the most notable among these is the Princess Diana Beanie Baby which I found on Ebay for an astonishing price of $30,000. Now that price tag is incredibly overblown as you can find this particular Beanie Baby for around $10 if you look around, but that doesn’t mean its not worth collecting if you enjoy them.

#3 Yugio Cards: Yugioh was a card game that came out a few years after the much more popular Pokemon, but was still a huge success in its own right. Currently a 1st Edition Legend of the Blue Eyes White Dragon booster box (which consists of 36 booster packs) routinely sells for well over $10,000. Unlike the first two on the list this product actually does sell for this much among hard core collectors. To put this into more perspective, The SDK Blue Eyes White Dragon card that came in the Kaiba Starter Deck sells in mint condition for over $2,000 alone, that one card came in a box that sold for $9.99 when they were new. 

#2 Star Wars Action Figures: Star Wars was a ground breaking movie franchise that Disney has “revived” (personal feelings aside). Whether you’re a fan or not the action figures have always been where the money is for Star Wars. If you are lucky enough to still own any retro figures from the 80′s then you may be sitting on a gold mine. The most lucrative figure in this collection would be the 1979 Boba Fett Action Figure, this figure sells for upwards of $15,000 on Ebay if its sealed and in good condition. If you can’t afford this however, Disney has partnered with Hasbro to re release the original retro figures in their Retro Collection so you can still have a slice of history at an affordable price.

#1 Pokemon Cards: I’m sure you could have guessed this was coming, how many of us didn’t collect Pokemon as kids? Pokemon has seen a bit of resurgence with the release of Pokemon Go although i’m not really sure it ever went anywhere, more likely we just forgot about it. Vintage Pokemon cards produced by Wizards of the Coast (who no longer make Pokemon cards) have skyrocketed in price over the past several years. The most expensive Pokemon products you can buy are of course the 1st Edition Base Set Booster Box that sells on Ebay for the astronomical price of $80,000. If that seems insane, most of that value can be attributed to one card. That one card is of course the 1st Edition Base Set Charizard which in gem mint condition sells alone for upwards of $55,000. I don’t know about you but I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and slap myself for not holding onto these little pieces of cardboard. 

I hope this has brought you a feeling of nostalgia and maybe inspired you to not only start collecting but check those old storage boxes, maybe you have a few hidden gems worth more than you thought. 

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I would like to shed some light on the heavily advertised mobile game Raid Shadow Legends. This topic was covered more extensively by a YouTuber whom I have a great of amount of respect for Upper Echelon Gamers. 

To start off I would like to say that I do not generally play mobile games, as a PC gamer I just cannot bring myself to play games on my phone, the experience is terrible and more often then not mobile games are just excuses for large studios to increase profits rather than make a game people enjoy. 

With that being said, there was a time not so long ago where you could not watch a YouTube video without seeing an add for Raid Shadow Legends. Through some incredibly deep investigation by Upper Echelon Gamers and another YouTuber AxialGT it was discovered that the company who produces Raid Shadow Legends is quite literally a company that occupies the casino gaming space (more on this later).

Raid employed the incredibly effective tactic of paying/sponsoring YouTube creators to promote their product by providing them with a very specific script of the promotion they wanted. This was of course publicly denied by the company but the FCC requires this type of disclosure so it is easily provable. 

Plarium Games is the producer of Raid Shadow Legends which is a company that was purchased by Aristocrat Leisure Limited in 2017 for $500 million. Aristocrat Leisure Limited is a casino gambling manufacturer, they make most notably slot machines. A statement given by Aristocrat CEO Trevor Croker in 2017 stated that the purchase of Plarium “Allows Aristocrat to expand our addressable market into logical adjacent segments of the fast growing mobile gaming market”.

I am not sure if you have every played Raid Shadow Legends, but if you have you will know that while it is free to play there is no doubt that it is designed to push the player towards sustained purchases in order to enhance the experience. I don’t have an issue with studios monetizing their products, I do however have an issue with an actual casino games manufacturer jumping into an unregulated mobile gaming market and using physiological gambling tactics to push their often underage users into making purchases that are in fact randomized and have no clear return on investment. 

This issue is a growing problem not only in the mobile gaming space but it is slowly infecting all games with more and more studios adopting these gambling mechanics because they offer much higher returns for the studios. I do not want to see heavy governmental regulation within the gaming space however I believe it to be inevitable and at this point quite possibly needed.

I do not appreciate studios and companies taking advantage of often underage users by using gambling mechanics to increase their profit. This type of predatory monetization needs to stop. This is by no means an issue for just the mobile gaming communities but becoming one for all gamer’s. If we don’t stop this, governments around the world may have to step in and stop it for us, I don’t want over reaching government regulation for fear of it going too far and damaging the gaming community as whole, but it may be necessary in this case. 

I don’t know if everyone follows current events on YouTube as closely as I do, but I wanted to shed some light on one particular event that is currently cascading into what could be the end of YouTube for many creators.

The channels involved are H3H3Productions and DramaAlert hosted by KEEMSTAR, now whether you watch or enjoy these particular channels is irrelevant. I can’t say for sure how this all started but these two creators began arguing about something and H3H3Productions released a montage video of KEEMSTAR basically being a terrible person, and then weaponized his followers to cause KEEMSTAR’s sponsors to drop him (most notably G Fuel).

I am not writing this to defend KEEMSTAR but condemn the actions of H3H3, I think it is an incredibly morally bankrupt move to weaponize your audience against someone you disagree with. It was and is not H3H3′s responsibility to deem what content is allowable on a platform. (that job in this case lies with YouTube itself)

Basically whatever issue caused this argument in the first place is irrelevant, H3H3 released a video spurring his community to spam KEEMSTAR’s sponsors and presumably YouTube itself. This kind of action is not only morally reprehensible but an incredibly slippery slope not only for this situation but for all content creators in the future. 

If H3H3 doesn’t see or even understand that if he can accomplish this with his community it can just as easily be done to him and other creators who inevitably upset someone else online. This will accomplish nothing aside from driving creators away from the platform and fostering an overarching environment of dissidence towards creators you may disagree with.

As for my personal feelings about both of these creators, I think KEEMSTAR is an incredibly annoying child and has done and said some pretty messed up things, I do not believe however that it should up to a mob of YouTube followers to determine who should and should not be sponsored. If you have an issue with a creator’s content, just don’t watch it, it really isn’t a difficult concept to understand. Until today I had no issue with H3H3 and actually enjoyed some of his content but can in no way condone his actions. I think this whole situation is childish and only serves to damage the YouTube community as a whole. 

Rant over, thanks for checking out the blog, leave a comment if there is a subject you would like me to cover.