The U.S. Navy has successfully tested the first railgun to fire multiple shots
The revolutionary railgun relies on a massive electrical pulse, rather than gunpowder or other chemical propellants, to launch projectiles at distances over 100 nautical miles – and at speeds that exceed Mach 6.
Guy on disability sees Antiques Roadshow highest appraisal episode & realizes he has that same item
Chester Bennington with his family 36 hours before he died…Shared by his wife on twitter
What is Palumboism? – Palumboism and HGH/Roid Gut
Flooded supercar garage in Houston
Neo-Nazi Gets Knocked Out With One Punch In Seattle!
Life is simpler than we allow it to be because to make it complicated is to gives us an excuse for not solving the problem, and the problems are many, but typically black and white.
Clarity is relatively easy is we’re aware of both ourselves, how we think and our worldview, but also of the idea that there are usually two ways to treat things.
This isn’t not seeing things with an open mind because you’re focused on two possible outcomes, but seeing a good and a bad.
There is ALWAYS a good and a bad.
There’s always an opportunity just like there’s always a weak path to take.
You can be life’s bitch, or have it be yours.
You can constantly feel the stress or the pressure of life, or you can CHOOSE to see the opportunity, the avenues for appreciation, the glimmer of hope.
Most don’t see the choice nor do they make the strong one. Instead, they let their emotions and their brains guide them down the self-pity rabbit-hole that’s one big self-fulfilling prophecy in that they feel down or they think they’re hard done by or that the event is anger-worthy, and they do as they think.
The strong choice is always positive, it always sees that challenge, the thing we can fight against, not the curse. The key is trying your best to find this challenge instead of allowing your brain to bring you down.
You can’t afford to be down. You can’t afford to be lazy. You can’t afford to pity yourself or to blame others. You need every waking moment because to not use every waking moment is to waste, and you don’t waste.
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Ronda Rousey’s head coach Edmond Tarverdyan n said he’d be interested in seeing Ronda Rousey take on UFC featherweight champion Cris “Cyborg” Justino:
“That’s the one,” Tarverdyan said of this fight. “I want that fight. When I trained Ronda, I know Ronda could beat Cyborg. I know that. Cyborg is too slow.”
“If she wants to make a comeback and get one fight, I think she will do the best she’s ever done and I think she’ll be victorious,” Tarverdyan added. “Because I know Ronda’s personality, because she’s happy right now and she has a good challenge in front of her that she focuses on. I think whatever she wants to do right now, she can do. It’s in her mind.”
Edmond must be listed on her will because she will be absoultely murdered if she steps into the ring with Cyborg. This guy is fucking delusional.
Browse without a salesman first. Get an idea for what you want. Do you want a small car, an SUV, a truck? Two rows, three rows? Automatic, manual? What special features do you want? Knowing what you want is the first step to finding the car you need. Go to a few dealerships at night or on Sundays. If you want to go during the day simply telling the salesman you don’t need help might not be enough to get rid of them, telling them you have a car in service for an oil change usually works.
Read Reviews. Once you have an idea what you like, looking online for reviews helps you to narrow down the field.
LOOK ONLINE! Almost all dealerships put very good prices on the internet. They know that if you are looking at their website you are probably also looking at the dealership down the road. They must be competitive online to get you in the door.
LOOK ONLINE!!! This will give you a good price point to start figuring out what you can afford. Don’t get sucked into a car you can’t afford by a good salesman. Find the car you want at the price you want and stick to it.
Take a good test drive. When you go on a test drive feel the car, listen to the car, pay attention to the car. That hum that the salesman says you won’t notice over the radio will be getting on your nerves 6 months from now. That rattle and bump, it’s going to be a problem. This is even more important on a used car. Use everything you see, hear, and feel later in your negotiations.
Try to find a car without add-ons. That Jeep with a lift kit, the sports car with an aftermarket spoiler, the truck with the big tires. The dealership adds this things on to add on to the price. This just makes it even harder to figure out exactly how much the car costs the dealer. These accessories are marked up excessively, so either look for a car without them or negotiate the accessories separately. (It will almost always cost you less to get the accessories put on afterward)
Don’t let them nickel and dime you. That $22,000 Truck you saw online, well now it has pinstripes ($300). VIN etched into the glass ($800). Fabric stain protectant ($500). Rust undercoating protectant ($900) and a spray in bed-liner ($1500). Now your 22,000 Truck is $26,000. Just like the accessories these are much less expensive done after you leave the dealership (even if you come back to have them done).
NEW CAR
Look up the Rebates online. Some dealerships will try to hide the rebates that are available and act like they are just taking that money off the car. Knowledge is power, and if you know what the rebates are then you can quickly figure out the exact dealer discount being offered. Also, check if you qualify for a military, student/teacher, or other rebates.
Don’t look at the Invoice. Many salesmen and dealerships flaunt their invoices. This is a tactic to make you think you are getting a good deal. The Invoice might say they paid 22,000 for a car however there are small things that you probably wont see, such as the Hold Back (this is an amount the dealership gets back from the manufacturer once they sell the car)
Don’t Look At The Invoice! Dealerships get bonuses from the manufacturer monthly, quarterly and annually according to sales volume. They know about how much that bonus is going to be and base their prices accordingly.
DON’T LOOK AT THE INVOICE!!! Seriously, The dealership is not going to lose money on the car they are selling. Everything is a numbers game, and they can make the numbers say whatever they want.
USED CAR
The salesman likely knows as much as you do. While the salesman might know a small amount more than you they are likely not experts on the used car you are looking at. Most used cars are purchased at auction. Even on the cars that were trade-ins the salesman has no way of knowing how the car was driven, if it had hidden mechanical issues etc.
Do your homework. Asking for a CarFax is always a good thing. They are not 100% accurate but you can bet that when you try to resell it the dealership is going to look at the car-fax and use it against you in negotiations. CarFax does an alright job but you always still need to…
Inspect the car. How does the outside look? Is the paint chipped or bubbling? Is the plastic fading? Get on your stomach, is the bottom rusting? How about the inside… Is the carpet stained? Any distinct odors? Are the buttons fading, bubbling, cracking, or in any way discolored? Seriously, this is what the dealership is doing to your car. They are looking for any reason to knock down the price they will pay as low as they can. You should be doing the same.
NEGOTIATIONS
Negotiate online. While negotiating over email might not sound the most appealing it will likely get you the best deal. It will also save you the 4+ hour day at the dealership if the salesman can already have all your paperwork ready and the car prepped before you even get there.
Negotiate with multiple dealerships. Negotiating with multiple dealerships at once forces the hand of the dealership. Make sure you are talking about a car with a very close MSRP and have at it. This is done easiest via email and they will likely do whatever it takes to get you into the door (it’s also nice to have written copies of everything the salesman says).
Never negotiate payments. The total price of the car matters the payments don’t. You can make the payments almost anything you want once you agree on a price. (if your salesman tries to use a 4 square ask for a breakdown of the price)
Don’t jump at 0% Rates. Usually you are giving up a pretty substantial rebate to get the 0% rate. If you already have financing set up at a reasonable rate you are usually better off paying the small interest rate and taking the larger rebate.
Always bring your own financing. You don’t have to use it, in fact the dealership might have a better rate for you (Don’t use 0% though). If you already have financing lined up it makes knowing what interest rate you deserve easier. Say the dealership gets you a 2.9% rate, they will likely tell you they got you approved at 4.9% this is called marking up 2 points. (In the state I worked there was a 2 point limit, I believe in other states it may be higher)
Use the dealership financing. If you already have your own financing the dealership will do what they can to get you to finance with them because they get a kickback from the bank. Use this to your advantage. If you were approved at 3.9% from your bank and the dealership only offers to match it, ask them to take another $100 or so off the car if you finance with them. It is worth it to them in the long run.
Don’t Use KBB (or other similar sites). Kelly Blue Book is an interesting website. While some of the information on it is quite good, other things aren’t. As far as pricing a car they are pretty bad. KBB isn’t going to buy your car, and they also aren’t going to sell you a new one. Prices change daily on cars, and even more so fluctuate differently by region and they simply don’t keep up. Your 4WD car might be great in the snow up north, but people in the deep south have no use for it. Just as a convertible wouldn’t be a big seller up north. For this reason their numbers tend to be off. Sometimes by 500 dollars, other times by $5,000 or more. If you have a trade in, look online to see what similar cars (model, class, features, miles, etc.) are selling for and then make sure you…
Go to CarMax. Don’t sell CarMax your car at first, just get a quote. This will be useful at the dealership when you are trying to…
Negotiate on Price. Don’t worry about how much they are giving you for your trade in, negotiate the price of the car, then worry about the trade in. You already know what your car is worth, and if the dealership won’t pay it, CarMax will.
Get your keys back before you begin to negotiate. If you have a trade-in the dealership is likely going to need your keys to appraise your car. Get them back as soon as possible, otherwise you wont be able to…
Walk out the door. Don’t threaten, just do it. If you were close to a deal but they are no longer willing to budge, walk our the door. There is a 90% chance the sales manager will be at your car before you are. The sales manager is the only person who can change the price. Most salesmen don’t even get to see the cost of the cars they are selling.
Additional Warranties. Additional warranties can be a good thing but you should decide if you want them before you walk into the dealership. As is everything else in a dealership they are negotiable. In fact, if you did all your negotiations online, you can likely get the finance manager to negotiate the warranties and other services online as well. If you are still between a couple dealerships at this point negotiating between them can save you big money as this is where the dealership makes a large portion of their money.
Remember:
They do this every day. While many salesmen are very honest people some are not. Even the honest ones know what buttons to push and what documents to show you to get you to buy. They do this every day, you do not.
The Salesman is your ally. Although many people see the salesman as their mortal enemy, the truth is the salesman wants to do whatever it takes to sell you a car. On new cars usually the sales staff makes a flat rate per car. For that reason they would sell you the car at a huge loss if they could, because it doesn’t effect their income one bit.
It feels good most of the time, but it can be quite frustrating. Many people assume I’ve always looked the way I do now, and that as a result I must be a snob, or have some sort of sense of entitlement.
My case is extreme in the sense that I went from literally being invisible to men for the majority of my life, to receiving comments daily from men all over the world telling me I’m beautiful. As an adult film performer I am somewhat in the public eye, so I get a lot of attention for and comments about my appearance.
Freshman in high school
^ Sophomore in high school. Theater geek.
I’ve always been friendly and outgoing and I had great friends growing up. I was a tomboy and never looked very feminine. I was always “the weird one” in my group of friends. I was fortunate to not be so far from the mark in attractiveness that I was bullied for the way I looked. Instead, I was simply completely ignored.
I was fortunate to have friends in high school (mostly from theater) who knew me for the person I was, so I wasn’t tortured over it. But I wasn’t happy either. Nobody was yelling in my face, “You’re ugly!” But I felt unattractive and invisible. Nobody ever asked me on a date. Boys I liked wouldn’t even look twice at me. Nobody told me I was cute. Nobody even told me I had potential to be cute. The psychological effect this had on me was pretty much the equivalent of being told I was unattractive. I was sure everyone was thinking it, but instead of saying it out loud, they just ignored me.
I thought I looked okay. Not terrible, but not good. In other words, I didn’t look in the mirror and hate the way I looked. I was just clueless! I literally had no idea how my appearance could translate to other people. I had no concept of caring for and cultivating my appearance and how that might affect the way others perceived me and the opportunities available to me. I thought, naively, that everyone would always notice my personality first.
After high school I had my first serious dating relationship. With a woman. I’d always had crushes on girls, but never did anything about it. Dating a girl for the first time made me realize I was a lesbian, and shortly after I came out to my family and friends. And… I began to look more like a “stereotypical” lesbian. A borderline androgynous/butch look. This was also when I realized for the first time that I wanted to be in adult films. (At the time my ambition was to do lesbian films specifically. Obviously that changed eventually. We’ll get there.)
This look was fine for me. I attracted a number of women with this look. However, after a few years I began to realize that I was still attracted to men, and I did not know what to do about that. I realized that I had adopted the more androgynous look not because I liked it or felt that it suited me well, but because I had no idea how to be confident in my appearance, so it was easier to act like I didn’t care about the way I looked. I still had very little confidence in my appearance. I didn’t think I deserved to be confident.
For me, my outward appearance has been a gauge of my overall comfort in my own skin. When I felt least confident in myself was when I also looked the least conventionally “attractive.” I’m much more confident now, but that’s not a result of my appearance. My appearance is the result of building my own confidence slowly. I’ve made changes to my appearance in small steps over the course of several years, but I decided to make each change because I felt confident enough to “pull it off,” so to speak. In other words, I didn’t go through some 10-hour miracle makeover and look completely different. In fact, I don’t really look that different from my high school self, I’ve just found a more accurate way to express myself.
After an incredible amount of self-discovery and embracing my sexual flexibility, I am now happily married to a man whom I met and fell in love with before I was “a swan,” (who in many instances saw beauty in me before I could see it myself), still identify as bisexual, and I have built a successful career as a popular adult film performer, despite not fitting the adult industry’s mold of what a typical pron star should look like.
This is me now:
Out of necessity, because I often do my own makeup for photo shoots, I’ve also learned how to do makeup really well. I’m totally comfortable wearing little to no makeup, as in the photo above, but I especially enjoy enhancing my features and playing with different looks, as in the photos below.
I’m constantly fed jokes about how I must have gotten tons of attention in high school for my large chest. Most people assume I’ve always been conventionally attractive, that I’ve coasted through life on a steady train of ego inflation. I feel like telling them about how I had absolutely no confidence when I was younger. I feel like telling them about how confused and hurt I was all through my adolescence, because my unpolished shell obscured what I thought must be a reasonably tasty nut hiding inside. (For the record, if I were an actual nut, I’d be an almond.)
I’m happier now than I ever was before. But not because others look at me now and see a swan — and surely, I’m not everyone’s type! Nobody can be a swan to everyone, and why would you want to be? — But because I know what kind of person I am inside, and I feel like my outward expression of myself, physically and otherwise, finally mirrors what’s inside of me.
Exercise is huge. I briefly touched on what happens to you in the short term but consider also the long term effects of regular exercise. As you maintain a regiment of exercise your body fat percentage drops, your flexibility and strength increase (less chance of injury) your lifespan extends, your immune system is bolstered, you maintain your youth longer, you carry over a sustained vigor to other parts of your life, your resting heart rate goes down, and you have a general feeling of well being. Pretty sweet. Clearly exercising is very important; given both its short and long term benefits.
But do you have to do this every day? That seems strenuous. Try expanding your definition – You don’t give it your 100% every day. Some days may be 10 minutes of simple light stretching, just to keep the habit. Other days may be 2.5 hour monster gym sessions.
I use this habit to help me accomplish two other things very important to me, mediation and getting in nature. Often times my physical exertion is a one hour walk through the park or along the water front. Practicing a walking meditation is a great way to center yourself and help carry the skill over to everyday life. Being in nature has a similar balancing effect on your well being.
But you don’t need me to tell you to work out. The benefits are all clearly documented by scientists and people. There are networks and resources for support and endless sources of inspiration to motivate you.
2. Meditation
This habit is fuking HUGE. You need to meditate. Think about what part of the human experience spirituality addresses – the ego and fear – two concepts that are SO tied up with hitting on girls. I think a lot of people get messed up here because the benefits are very intangible at first. The “S curve” of Mastery that I described above has a very looong period of ‘sucking shiet’. If you’re not experienced then your image of what meditation should be like is wrong. Fighting your expectations will be a constant battle as you learn to meditate. Here are some resources to help you learn. Reddit Article – Very concise introduction to meditation Mindfulness in Plain English – Amazing book that covers the topic clearly and in depth.
Meditation Retreat – 10 day intensive mediation retreat Holosync – Tapes that induce a meditative state (great training wheels) A fortuitous person may discover means of acquiring the audio. (make sure its .flac and not .mp3 format + listen with good headphones) Practice – Hurr durr. Start meditating everyday. The evidence is in by a landslide, both anecdotally and empirically. Meditation will change your life so start today, any reason your not is an excuse.
Once you get the hang of it you will leave your meditation sessions feeling centered, calm, and relaxed. It has an ego-lessening effect and awareness increasing effect that spills over to your everyday life. If you keep up the practice you’ll notice that your focus and attention span increases dramatically, as does your sight and sound sensitivity (think of the most visceral things you do – sex, eating, sports etc.) Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing will literally become thicker.
In the long term, meditation offers a ‘profound transformation of how you experience reality’ It will bring you joy, peace, and happiness. This is real and you need to be doing it.
3. Reading
If you read the right books you will be moved, inspired, and motivated.
Think about what you expose yourself to. There’s a million shietty blogs on the interent written by whoever. But then theres books out there that will change your life. Books that the most gifted human beings on earth have spent years writing. A lifetime of experience, insights, and lessons learned given to you in a nice handheld easily digestible form.
I started this habit at a half hour a day. Recently I’ve started reading about an hour a day and am burning through books. With a constant flow of information in you increase your ability for information to flow out (applying knowledge to your life)
Reading is an easy habit to put off and you need to make it a priority. If you’re not regularly reading then you may start to fall asleep as you pick up a book. Your mind is not conditioned properly and you need to force yourself through that period. Your reading speed and comprehension do pick up over time – just stick to it.
4. Creative Recreation
People are going to approach this one very differently but if there is something you can sit down and do purely for your enjoyment than that’s awesome. Think of a flow state activity that you can put your full expression into. For me it’s playing an instrument. If you’ve ever seen someone play the guitar or piano at an extremely high level in a non performance setting then you’ll know what I’m talking about. The “S” curve of learning an instrument is very, very, very long. But you get out what you put in. Your amusements will leave you feeling rejuvenated and can often break up and lighten the day. As you invest in your hobbies you will get more and more out of them
I generalized this habit as ‘creative recreation’ because I want to emphasize the fact that recreation is not a spectator sport. Vegetating on the couch watching commercials is not recreation.
5. Nutrition
As you build a productive life your ability to stay focused and have energy becomes very important. What you eat has a huge effect on how you feel. If you eat right you can avoid energy crashes, fight off sickness, and generally just feel ‘good’.
I know that I’m definitely not the best person to give nutrition advice but the resources are out there. It should be obvious that what you put in your body is very important. Do yourself a favor and learn how your body works. For me, I don’t eat sugar or processed food. I drink 1.5L of water a day and I make an extra effort to eat more plant based foods. I supplement my diet with fish oil etc. I think what’s most important though is that you proactively decide what you put in your body. Make the time to cook your meals, keep your fridge stocked, and don’t buy convenience food.
6. Reasonable Spending
Like nutrition, this habit is more of a choice you make rather than an active investment of your time. Its pretty straight forward, every day I try to manage my money reasonably.
Apply the concept of reactivity/proactively to your spending and you have an excellent framework for managing your money. Did you plan on making this purchase? If not then don’t do it. The nature of planning a purchase is that it is in line with your goals and budget. The nature of making an impulsive/reactive purchase is quite the opposite, ‘it is right here and will satisfy me right now’ (mostly consumer/convenience items )
7. Brain Buster + Current Events
Part of my morning routine is to check out the economist, my local news site, or the new york times and read two or three articles. Given my background and where I want to go in life it is going to serve me well to be informed and have the ability to notice trends and understand the complexity of global issues.
I also work very hard to develop my critical and lateral thinking. Every day I challenge myself to solve one extremely difficult problem. Actually I only figure them out about 30% of the time. On my computer I have a repository of IQ, Mensa, brain buster type books that would take a lifetime to work through. Some problems I solve in five minutes others take me thirty until I break down and look at the solution.
If you run a business or are any kind of decision making authority (or eventually want to be in that position) then I can’t vouch enough for this habit. You need to be sharp and informed. Period.
8. Social
Every day I make an effort to advance my social skills. Your ability to communicate effectively with human beings has so many implications in your personal and professional life. I’ve gone through experiments with this habit and I think the less your around people the more you need to make it a priority (my lifestyle right now has me around new people ALL the time, but there have been other times in my life when I actively had to make that happen)
I’ve tried a few different things. For a while I really focused on listening to people with the intent to understand, pushing the urge to get my point across aside and giving other people the floor when they were expressing themselves. I’ve done different experiments with eye contact and physicality while communicating as well. Regardless, going out and approaching trumps all when it comes to developing your social skills.
9. Personal Management
This is the easiest of all habits to implement. Just 10 minutes a day and your bachelor pad is looking clean and fresh. Not many long term benefits here except maybe you don’t lose your possessions as often and they have and increased lifespan. In the short term doing your laundry, not letting your dishes pile up, and making your bed can offer you a peace of mind and allow you to work unfestered on other projects.
10. Project 1, 2 or more times a week
For me I set aside a two hour block twice a week to work on a personal project. This could be fleshing out a business feasibility plan, recreating my weightlifting routine, catching up on some reading, creating a budget, doing research, or writing a mega post for rsd
At the beginning of each week I choose what two projects I plan to work on and within the week I find time to fit them in. Use this habit as a way of revitalizing old projects that are collecting dust or to begin something new that you’ve been thinking about but haven’t got around to.
The effects this habit has on your short and long term productivity are huge.
11. Podcast/TED Talk/University Lecture
If you’re a thinking human being with a desire for knowledge then you should be listening to podcasts, watching ted talks and viewing the thousands of lectures professors and researchers have on the internet.
This is a habit I integrated for both its short term and long term benefits. In the short term I find it interesting to learn about new topics. A lot of times it’s on a subject I’m interested in at the time, other times its something completely new. Either way I’m exposing myself to the best and brightest minds of today and expanding my understanding of the world.
If you engaged yourself with this material every day, what would the long term effects be? Besides a vast and varied wealth of knowledge you would begin to draw disciplines together. Your understanding and awareness would grow so large that the value and wisdom you could offer other people would be incredible.
*For a practical tip, throw a queue of talks you’re interested in on your ipod and listen while exercising.
12. Language
Every day I spend thirty minutes learning a new language. This is an ongoing task that I struggled to integrate. You realize almost no immediate benefit and that makes it exceptionally difficult to do every day. The “S” curve of mastery is very, very long (years).
But alas, the benefits in the long term must be exceptionally rewarding. I can only speculate as I currently only speak one language, but from my time studying in Italy I can tell you I would have got a lot more out of the experience had I spoke the language. Coming from a business perspective being bi/multi-lingual would likely be a huge advantage.
For me, I intend to spend a large part of my life travelling. If you expect to live another 50/60 years of life on this earth then imagine the lifetime of opportunities and experiences other languages may open you up to. Don’t cut yourself off.
For some practical advice getting started I recommend the rosetta stone. It’s a visual program that is a great way for getting you started. Listen to talk radio (via internet) and get a language book with exercises to help you practice. Get a women your seeing to join in. It accelerates the process so much if you have someone to practice speaking with.
We are the first generation with ready access to the internet. The resources to help you pick up a language are out there and they are free – use them.
13. Plan the next day
This is so huge.
Note that there is a small learning curve to this as you figure out a system that works for you. Maybe you like to manage your timetable through your phone, or maybe you just pencil out what you do on a list. Whatever the method it must satisfy two requirements: 1) The document must be easily accessible to you throughout the day, and 2) it must specify approximate times when you will complete each task.
It’s pretty simple. When you have some time to think with a clear mind you plan out what you want your next day to look like you do it. The time you know you have to yourself (mornings usually) you can set a more ridgid structure than the times where there are many variables as to what you may be doing.
The plan is your servant, not your master. Never get upset if things don’t go the way you thought – it’s just a guideline to keep you on track. Lost time, interferences, failing to execute out of laziness or apathy, unforeseen events, all of this will happen. Don’t be worried, the element of proactivity you introduce into your life by planning your days out already places you way ahead.
Another thing to keep in mind is that your primary goal is not to be efficient. It is to be effective. Don’t be so worried about having some intense schedule that will burn you out quickly. Allow a good amount of time for transitions and even more for other forms of time you will use organically. If you have in your head a picture of someone ruthlessly triaging priorities, feverishly executing tasks and running around from one item to the next then you should rethink your understanding. As you go through your day you will apply yourself to each activity wholly and with everything you’ve got. You will take things slow and execute with passion, care and effort not with haste or carelessness.
14. Sleep
Your either plugged into the matrix or you’re not. If your plugged in you’re a spectator – you watch tv, you kill time on facebook, you days slip by as you wander through in lower consciousness. If your unplugged you’re a player – You are taking consistent and massive action, you are constantly ingesting new information, you are pushing your boundaries and limitations, you are growing.
So naturally if you’re living your life fully engaged you need a good night’s sleep. The amount of stress you experience by pushing yourself, the information your internalizing, and the focus and stamina you need to keep going can all be facilitated by a good nine hours on the pillow.
Take this shiet seriously – you will notice a difference.
If you’ve ever studied sleep you know that your body goes through approximate 90 minute cycles (from deep sleep to REM sleep), you know the amount of light you are receiving effects your bodies melatonin production, you know that what you eat before bed can affect your sleep, and you also know that sound can disrupt your sleep. You know that sleep plays an integral role in learning and memory. You are also aware that the human body associates certain surroundings or conditions with sleep (think when you walk into a bathroom you feel like you have to pee. The same thing when you are in your bed – you get sleepy. Therefore only use your bed for sleep and sex).
I sleep in total darkness, in a cool room, with a fan for white noise (drown out traffic and creaks in house that would otherwise wake me up). I have comfortable mattress and I wake up to an alarm clock that gets brighter instead of making noise (simulates the sun rising) I don’t set my alarm for the same time every morning, I set my alarm either 7.5 or 9 hours from when I fall asleep (so I don’t wake up in the depth of a sleep cycle – you may have to tinker with the times but you will learn your body). Try some of this and you will be amazed with the effects on your energy levels, retention of information, and how you enter your days in the morning.
15. Professional Development
You’re either working in the industry you want to be in or you’re not. Either way you should spend some of your day developing the skills necessary to succeed in the industry you want to be in.
If you’re stuck in a job you don’t like then this daily ritual is the key to breaking through. You will develop yourself in the area of your interest until you have the credentials, credibility, or opportunity to move permanently. Maybe you’re stuck working as a bank teller, but you want to get into internet marketing. You should begin to spend a part of your day learning the skills you are going to need to be an internet marketer.
Think of it this way, most people are reactive. Most people land a job through connections or convenience and after they have that job they then learn the skills necessary to succeed. You are not that person. You will do the reverse. You will gain the skills through your own force of will and then land ‘the job’. This is the formula to carve a life of your design and live your dreams.
If you’re already in the industry of your dreams then you should never stagnate. Constantly focus on learning new material, keeping up with trends, observing competitors, or expanding your professional reputation. Focusing on this will allow you to offer more value in whatever you do and will facilitate success.
16. Journal + Research
Keep a journal and update it every day.
What is a journal? A journal is a place where you write out your thoughts and then look back at them and ponder. You then write about what you thought of your thoughts and think about that. (meta-meta cognition) Do you see how this can be a valuable tool for personal insight and growth?
This isn’t a high school dairy. It’s a tool you use to track your thoughts, expand on insights, accelerate your growth, and look back on your progress. Shiets happening? Write about it. The very act of consciously creating syntax to your thoughts can help you become more rational and can facilitate problem solving in your life.
There is a second part to your journal writing ritual that you need to engage in. Research. As you make discoveries and insights you should seek out truth and guidance. We have the internet and it is an amazing tool for feedback.
Our parents generation had to live with misinformation their whole lives. Our generation enjoys the luxury to – with incredible ease – access the forefront of human knowledge in the snap of a finger. Use this luxury to fuel your growth.
“Live your life for you not for anyone else. Don’t let the fear of being judged, rejected or disliked stop you from being yourself” ~Sonya Parker
I am a sucker for saying yes.
Sometimes I even find myself thinking “no, no, no, no” and then I blurt out “yes.”
Why is it so difficult to say the word “no”? It’s just a word, right?
After feeling trapped for some time by my excessive urge to be agreeable, it got me thinking.
I asked myself why it was so important for me to please everyone, to the point that I would feel resentful and stressed because of it.
I realized I was afraid of saying no because my biggest fear is rejection. I was afraid that every time I did this, I would disappoint someone, make them angry, hurt their feelings, or appear unkind or rude.
Having people think negatively of me is the ultimate rejection. Whether they say what they think of me, out loud or not, does not matter to me. It is the thought that they look down on me.
And so I realized exactly why I found it so difficult to say no.
I realize this is not just a challenge that I face, but one that many people go through every day. It’s a heavy burden to carry because with the urge to say yes also comes a lack of self-confidence and self-value.
If, like me, you’re having trouble saying no, this may help.
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Why is it hard for people to change thier beliefs? What causes us to grip on to things that have been proven to be false?
Confirmation bias: people have a tendency not only to seek out, but to better remember information that is in line with their beliefs. It feels good being proven right, and so more often than not when debating an issue, we search up evidence that will support our point, rather than actively seeking to disprove ourselves. Even when we come across information that goes against our beliefs, we better remember information that supports our beliefs after the fact. E.g. for someone who doesn’t believe in the human-caused climate change theory, they will much more easily and readily recall the studies and things they found online that disconfirm climate change, than the studies that support. In this regard, to many people your ELI5 alludes to, the things that you would suggest disprove their beliefs must seem few and far between compared to evidence supporting their beliefs.
Naive realism: is an effect whose three tenets state (1) we believe we see the world objectively (2) we expect others to come to the same conclusion so long as they’re rational and exposed to the same information (3) we assume that anyone who does not come to the same conclusion my be either biased, ignorant, or irrational. Basically, we take the huge assumption that the world is objectively how we see it (it’d be pretty hard to live life otherwise, always doubting your own perceptions of everything from temperature, to social etiquette, to valid science.) E.g. it’s alot easier for someone who doesn’t believe in the human-caused climate change theory who already takes in selective media through the websites they visit, and news they watch (as affected by the confirmation bias), to think that people who present a different point of view are ignorant or irrational, than to adopt a new belief.
Rather than taking someone else’s viewpoint as a distinct viewpoint, in discussion settings, individuals with differing beliefs tend to view the other side as attacking their beliefs, while they believe they are objectively presenting their beliefs. Both sides think this, and as a result discussions like this often don’t get anywhere. This also ties in with what’s referred to as the conflict spiral. Since both people feel attacked, in a debate/discussion with differing beliefs, people tend to present their opinion more certainly and more strongly than what they actually believe. E.g. if someone who doesn’t believe in the human-caused climate change theory is feeling attacked and backed into a corner in a debate, it wouldn’t make much sense for them to express the mixed messages and merits of both sides of the issue, even if they believe there is a few good arguments on the other side and even if they’re only like 85% certain of their view. They want to “win” this argument so they portray themselves as being absolutely without doubt, and the climate change believers and having no merit in their argument whatsoever. Both sides engage in this, and rather than conversing to understand each other’s view, they try to convince each other with increasing argument extremity, and get increasingly frustrated when this doesn’t work.
– SirFriendlyFellow
What is Holocaust Denial?
As a starting point, I’m going to define what is the Holocaust and subsequently, what is Holocaust Denial.
Within the relevant scholarly literature, the term Holocaust is defined as the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews and up to half a million Roma, Sinti, and other groups persecuted as “gypsies” by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. It took place at the same time as other atrocities and crimes such as the Nazis targeting other groups on grounds of their perceived “inferiority”, like the disabled and Slavs, and on grounds of their religion, ideology or behavior among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. During their 12-year reign, the conservative estimate of victims of Nazi oppression and murder numbers 11 million people, though newer studies put that number at somewhere between 15 and 20 million people.
Holocaust Denial is the attempt and effort to negate, distort, and/or minimize and trivialize the established facts about the Nazi genocides against Jews, Roma, and others most often with the goal to rehabilitate Nazism as an ideology.
Because of the staggering numbers given above, the fact that the Nazi regime applied the tools at the disposal of the modern state to genocidal ends, their sheer brutality, and a variety of other factors, the ideology of Nazism and the broader historical phenomenon of Fascism in which Nazism is often placed, have become – rightfully so – politically tainted. As and ideology that is at its core racist, anti-Semitic, and genocidal, Nazism and Fascism have become politically discredited throughout most of the world.
Holocaust Deniers primarily seek to remove this taint from the ideology of Nazism by distorting, ignoring, and misrepresenting historical fact and thereby make Nazism and Fascism socially acceptable again. In other words, Holocaust Denial is a form of political agitation in the service of bigotry, racism, and anti-Semitism.
In his book Lying about Hitler Richard Evans summarizes the following points as the most frequently held beliefs of Holocaust Deniers:
(a) The number of Jews killed by the Nazis was far less than 6 million; it amounted to only a few hundred thousand, and was thus similar to, or less than, the number of German civilians killed in Allied bombing raids.
(b) Gas chambers were not used to kill large numbers of Jews at any time.
(c) Neither Hitler nor the Nazi leaderhsip in general had a program of exterminating Europe’s Jews; all they wished to do was to deport them to Eastern Europe.
(d) “The Holocaust” was a myth invented by Allied propaganda during the war and sustained since then by Jews who wished to use it for political and financial support for the state of Israel or for themselves. The supposed evidence for the Nazis’ wartime mass murder of millions of Jews by gassing and other means was fabricated after the war.
[Richard Evans: Lying about Hitler. History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, New York 2001, p. 110]
A short history of Holocaust Denial and its methods in the West
Holocaust denialism has its roots in the Nazis’ own efforts to hide their crimes from the world. Especially the efforts of Sonderkommando 1005 and the destruction of records at the end of the war was intended to hide and deny these crimes and thus portray the regime in a more positive light.
This was , of course, used in Nuremberg and other various post war trials by the defendants, who either pushed a narrative of not having known, not having been involved, or all going back to Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich and others who were dead or otherwise not present at Nuremberg (Eichmann e.g., who was made out by Dieter Wisliceny to be sort of a master mind of the Holocaust). Similarly, several defendants at Nuremberg engage in what has developed to become a classical tactics of deniers, e.g. minimizing the numbers, taking code language out of context with phrases such as resettlement, chalking up deaths to disease etc.
Also, surrounding Nuremberg and the revelations of the Nazi crimes, several different strands of fascist, right-wing extremist, and Nazi political agendas started to deny the Holocaust for a variety for reasons. In Germany, you — of course — have all the former Nazis who in order present a clean image of the regime and to rehabilitate themselves and the Nazi regime started to write books where they claimed the Holocaust to have either not happened or be the result of a Jewish conspiracy. For example, Otto von dem Bach-Zelewski, former head of an Einsatzgruppe, who had freely given information at the Nuremberg trials and thus saved his skin started in the 1950s to once again reverse his stand and put out a wealth of denialist literature. Similarly, a plethora of former Wehrmacht generals and officers engaged in their own form of denial by either denying the crimes of the regime outright or by presenting the Wehrmacht as not involved in such crimes. Especially the latter, the myth of the clean Wehrmacht, was one of the most successful forms of Holocaust denial and was very popular in Germany until the 80s and can still be observed today.
Another political agenda that used Holocaust denialism as its tool right after the war, was a certain strand of proto-fascist and right-wing extremist thinkers who wanted to clean fascism and their ideology from the strain of being associated with Hitler and the Holocaust. Douglas Reed is such an example. Reed, who was a prominent journalist in Great Britain, was against Hitler but not against Nationalsocialism (he favored the Otto Strasser position). In the late 40s, early 50s he started publishing books which claimed Hitler had been a Zionist agent and his policy of killing the Jews was a Jewish plot to justify the creation of Israel and which was done against the wishes of many Nazis. At some point it became increasingly hard for him to find publishers, so he moved to South Africa and became involved in supporting apartheid politics in SA and Rhodesia.
Another — and rather odd — strand of denialism comes from a pacifists. Pacifism had been very popular during the time between the World Wars because of the effects of WWI and after World War Two, a couple of people of the radical pacifist movement saw their positions threatened because the crimes of the Nazis were a major reason why the war against Nazi Germany was portrayed as a moral and necessary war. In the United States, a former mainstream historian and pacifist activist, Harry Elmer Barnes, started publishing literature that claimed the Holocaust was an Allied invention to justify their war against German, which they had started in 1939.
Another example of this is the — still cited by Holocaust deniers to this day — work of Paul Rassinier, who in many a ways is the father of modern Holocaust denial. Rassinier, also a staunch pacifist, was a member of the French resistance, where he — unsuccessfully — tried to get the Resistance to engage the Nazi occupation peacefully rather than with violence. Arrested by the Nazis in 1943 and deported to the Buchenwald and later Dora-Mittelbau Concentration Camps, Rassinier did write several books and pamphlets after the war in which he denied the existence of gas chambers and of mass extermination – ostensibly because he had never experienced it.
Rassinier was an odd fellow, whose work could be engaged in its own journal article. He, for example, did not deny the brutality of the camps but instead of holding the SS responsible, he blamed his fellow prisoners. Something, which could and has been engaged in modern scholarship as the result of the perfidious Nazi camp system.
But aside from the reason of Rassinier denying the Holocaust because he never experienced it, he also started to engage in Holocaust denial because he was an anti-Semite and a lot of his writing is informed by his hatred for Jews and the state of Israel, which he saw as based on a Jewish lie and as a threat to peace. The fact that Rassinier was a survivor, an academically trained historian, and a Holocaust denying anti-Semite makes his works favorites in denialist circles to this day.
Holocaust denialism the way we know it today started in the 1960s/70s with the rise of neo-fascist and neo-extreme rightits political movements and causes. Not directly referencing Nazism and old-school fascism as their sources of inspiration but still viewing themselves in the same historical lineage, a lot of these people saw themselves as the right counter-movement to the New Left of 1968 and so on. From Arthur Butz to David Irving, it was this generation who had not themselves taken part in the war and in the Anglosphere rejected the narratives of their elders as the Second World War being just, which formed the most tropes, arguments and methods used by Holocaust deniers to this day. This ranges from the supposedly “scientific” denialism of Leuchter and Zündel to the more subtle relativism of Irving and Nolte to the outright denial of everything like Faurisson’s.
People say big corporations don’t pay their share in taxes by using tax loopholes. What exactly are these loopholes?
Lets say I own a large company in the US called XYZ Records America which records and sells music albums online.
You buy an album from me online for $10 (+state taxes which come out of your pocket, not mine). Lets assume that on average it costs me $0.50/album to record and produce the album, $0.50/album to maintain the servers and site, and $1/album in royalties to the artist. For each album, I get $10 in revenue, and have $2 of expenses, for $8 of profit.
Corporate income tax is only paid on the profit my company makes, so I pay the tax rate on $8. Lets assume it’s 25%, which means I’ll have to pay $2 in tax. Now my net profit is only $6.
As a corporation, my primary goal is to increase profits. More profits = more money for me, more expansion for the company, more jobs or better pay for my employees, more charitable donations, etc. No matter what my philosophy is, it’s almost always driven by more profits.
$0.50/album goes to recording. Maybe I can negotiate this down, but that means paying my workers less and that wont make them happy.
$0.50/album goes to server management. Maybe I can outsource my servers to Asia for a better rate but at a customer service loss.
$1.00/album to the artist. Maybe I can skim them for more next album, but they could always sign with someone else.
I could also sell the album for more, but then that could hurt sales, and the artist would want more.
$2.00/album is taxed. It’s already the biggest factor in my profits, and if I were to shave costs elsewhere, this would go up.
It’s obvious in this example that the most effective way to increase profits is to pay less tax.
So what do I do? I send my accountants on a quest to find an answer, and they come back to me with the information that Ireland’s corporate tax is only 10% instead of the 25% I pay here. So what do I do? Well I could move the company there, but there’s a lot of assets in the US. I don’t want to relocate the studios, servers, etc. I’ll lose business if I do that.
Instead, lets just found XYZ Records Ireland. I’ll structure my brand so that they’re the “Parent Company” of XYZ Records America. All of the licenses XYZ Records America owns, I’ll “sell” to them for $0.01 each. When I record a new album in the U.S. I can immediately sell the rights to XYZ Ireland for $0.01.
Now I still want to sell the albums in the US to the same customers. So when you go to my online store and buy a record from XYZ America, I’ll sell it to you for $10 just the same. You won’t see a difference.
When I do that though, XYZ America will account for:
$0.50/album towards recording – this covers the operating expenses for producing the album.
$0.50/album towards server management – this keeps the site up and running
$1.00/album royalties to the artist
and lastly $8.00 in licensing fees paid to XYZ Ireland.
My revenue was $10, my total expenses were $10, “damn, the company didn’t make any money”. No profits to report, and 25% tax on $0 is $0 to pay in tax. I end up paying no tax in America.
I still have to report my income in Ireland though. So per album sold in America, XYZ Ireland’s books look like this:
$8.00 revenue from licensing fees (Paid by XYZ America to XYZ Ireland).
$0.05 in operating costs to keep XYZ Ireland operating (I have an office to pay rent in, and a few employees there)
XYZ Records Ireland reports $7.95 of profits per album. The tax on that is 10% of $7.95, so I’ll pay $0.795 = $0.80. Net profit is $7.15 per album.
By opening a parent company in Ireland, I can now earn $1.15 extra per album. I pay $0 to the US government in taxes, and I pay less tax overall.
If I sell 1,000,000 albums every year, that’s $2,000,000 that the US Government no longer receives from me, and it’s $1,150,000 of extra profits for the company.
What’s it like to have a bad mushroom trip?
We were in Vang Vieng a few years back, which is a town in Laos where backpackers go to do drugs. There was this strip of restaurants where if you go in and say the secret phrase which is like, “I want to do drugs,” they will bring you a menu that is all illegal, mind-altering substances. They had cocaine, hashish, and bags of heroin. We decided to do a mushroom pizza, which seemed innocuous compared to what was on offer. My approach was to eat one slice and discover that it didn’t do anything and keep eating slices until reality completely melted away.
I had eaten a lot of the mushroom pizza by the time we realized that this was going on, and I was like, “We gotta get outside.” We moved outside the restaurant. I started losing touch with reality very quickly; I was convinced I was back home on a street in Vancouver. I could not understand why there was a half-man half-chicken statue outside, which does really exist and seems like poor planning at a place that sells hallucinogens. We went back to his hut that we had rented, and I spent the next six hours screaming, nonstop as loud as I could. I got locked in this weird psychological loop where I thought I was dead. I’d become convinced I was a dead body lying in a clearing in the forest and that these crickets I was hearing were surrounding my body. I was in the afterlife, and more than that, I was in hell and hell was an eternal loop where you’re forced to believe you’re alive just so you can go through the hell of realizing you’re dead again.
I was so removed from reality at that point that I no longer knew I had done mushrooms. I had no idea I’d done drugs. It was so intense that there was no discernible difference for me between being awake and being asleep. I was still in the room, the walls were still melting, I was still alive, and dead and in hell. The only thing that made me realize later on that I’d been asleep was when I woke up and got onto my knees and started screaming, the person I was with rolled her eyes and said, “I thought we were through with this.” Eventually, it kind of wore off and I came back to reality. The trip started at around 7 PM, and I woke up at 8 AM, and it was finally over. It had never occurred to me that it would stop. As you can imagine, when you’ve been told you’ve been damned for all eternity, it’s surprising when you wake up, and you’re OK. I was shaken for the rest of the trip and for six months after. I was having panic attacks and waking up in the night and leaving crowded places. It diminished my enthusiasm for mushrooms.
How close are you to completing your medical degree?
Nice, I love the cliches. Used to be one but sadly no plans to complete. Going in a different career direction
How did you get into stripping?
Long story short, I was a waitress at a shitty restaurant. I saw an ad in the paper for a cocktail waitress at a strip club. Went in for the interview, the manager said I was too pretty to waitress and I was going to dance. I told him to go fuck himself. Then I figured I couldn’t judge it if I didn’t try it, so gave it a go! I actually think it’s super fun. I’m outgoing and don’t have any body image issues so it’s great.
What is your stripping name and how’d you choose it?
Vanessa. It’s easy to say, pretty, customers think it’s sexy and I like “V” names.
Can you randomly change your name every night you work? Or once you pick one, that’s it?
Some clubs yes, some no. My club puts you in a computer because we have so many girls (over 7,000 on roster) so you can never change it. So you’d better like it! But at small clubs, you can change it at will.
Is it disadvantageous to change it due to repeat clientele? Or do they not care what you decide to call yourself for the most part?
It is, I always choose a name that is believable, and easy to pronounce over loud music. Cuts down on the “what’s your real name” bullshit, and as your customers get to know “you”, they basically fall in “love” with your character. It can also screw you up if they come to the bouncers or DJ asking for you and you’re using another name than your usual.
What is your go to song?
I like rock music so usually “Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums”. You can do a really sexy dance to that.
How much do you charge?
Lap dance $20, 3 for $100 mini VIP, $250 half hour, $500 full hr.
Shouldn’t it be 3 for 60?
It’s in a different area, the different room is 3 for $100 because it’s semi-private.
What’s the champagne room REALLY like?
Sometimes boring and mostly conversation. Other times I have witnessed/overhead more than just a dance. California strip clubs have gone downhill…literally low key brothels. However, in Nevada it is strictly dancing. “Extras” do occur but not as rampant as California clubs.
What’s the largest tip you’ve ever received?
I once did a 10hr VIP which I ended up getting $10,532 (still remember to the dollar!) for. It was from one guy, back in 2006 pre-economic shit show collapse, but that total came from the price per hour. I would say just tip… maybe $1,500 on top of the asked price.
What happens in a 10 hour VIP?
Ha, in my case, nothing. The dance I offer in VIP is literally EXACTLY THE SAME as on the floor. It’s just for an extended period of time. And I’ll usually try and get you very drunk. This guy was an Asian businessman who didn’t speak much English and was loaded. We danced, we talked (as much as we could communicate), I had a bouncer bring us a deck of cards (no bullshit!). He was nice, I had fun, good guy.
What did you do with the 10 g’s?
I bought my first car. Just a little Hyundai. I don’t need anything fancy, especially not when I was that age!
What is the most money you have seen someone “rain”?
Over $2k. The most I’ve ever had rain on me personally was $500. You want to see some crazy shit? Throw 2gs in ones on a stage. Girls will dive for that shit like seagulls.
How much do you have to tip out the DJ, bartenders, etc. after a shift? What percent of the money you make in a night do you actually take home?
At my current club, the pricing is as follows:
House fee: $50 weekday nights, $60 weekend nights. DJ: 10% of gross, $10 minimum. House mom: $7 minimum Funny money cash out: 10%
We don’t tip bartenders or anything, but any waitress or bartender who sends me to a customer I give them 10% of what I got at the table, whether it’s one dance or one hour! Teamwork. So I’d say at this place I keep about 80%.
What is a “house mom”?
Usually a late 30s to early 50s lady who stay in the dressing room and supplies food, tampons, aspirin, perfume, stuff like that. Sort of like your own mini free Walgreens. They also hold your keys and assess if you are too drunk to drive etc.
How much do you typically make per year?
It’s hard to say I would estimate 50,000-70,000. That is working 2-3 days a week. 5-6 hour shifts.
Do guys ever stand a chance at hooking up with strippers later that night? Any tricks to make it happen?
There are essentially four types of strippers.
The party girls. They don’t give a fuck if they make money, they just want to get fucked up. These girls, high probability, but they are usually very young, very stupid, or both.
The “means to an end” girls. This is myself. Maybe they are in school, or are saving for a business etc. These girls are businesswomen and there is usually less than a 5% chance.
The girls who this is their chosen permanent career. They tend to be a little older, and are generally pretty smart about not mixing business and real life. Again, not much chance.
The girls who do it because they feel they have no other choice. Usually bad self esteem, financial hardships, drug problems etc. High probability of getting one of these.
Of all the types in the SC, #1 and #4 are the most common types. As for tips to get them… buy a dance. Don’t say you “know how the game works” or “don’t have to pay for dances”. Buy the girl a drink and a dance and it goes a lot further. Don’t be creepy.
That’s all I can say about that, as I have never encountered a customer I felt compelled to go home with.
Did you ever get any emotional attachment to one of your customers?
No. Because it isn’t ME who likes them, it’s my character and they don’t really know me. It’s hard to explain. I’m not myself at work, I’m a whole different person.
Have you ever ran across some sketchy ass customers?
Oh yeah. Without sounding like a racist shitbag, it’s always ALWAYS Indian (from India) guys. I once had a guy pay me to pee in a beer bottle for $500. I had the DJ do it. The guy drank it and I LOL’ed at him drinking the DJs pee.
No shocker, this customer was Indian.
How about Arabs and Asians? Any bad experiences with them?
Asians are hit and miss for me. I’m nearly 5’10”, so sometimes I’m too tall for them, even though I’m thin. But the ones I do get, especially Japanese, are very sweet and respectful.
Arabs, I have no problem with them. I had 5 guys from Dubai last week and they were super generous and nice.
Anyone ever get touchy?
When I give a dance, I outline the rules immediately, even before I accept payment. I always say “Ok, you can touch my sides, my legs, and my butt if you’re gentle. No boobs or downstairs. All right?” I get them to agree and get my money up front.
You get one strike. The first time someone breaks the rules I say “I know it’s exciting, but remember you can’t do that!” Second time, I walk out, no questions I asked, and I’m taking the money too. I don’t tolerate abuse.
Do you find it hard to tell men to back off when they start to come on to strong? Would the situation change if they had a large amount of money?
Nope. In this business you have to know your boundaries and stick to them. I do not give a shit if they like me or not, or how much money they have. My rule is, I MAKE THE RULES. I have totally squished a guy’s cheeks and yelled NO in his face. I have hit someone with a shoe. I have slapped someone. I have stopped and looked in their eyes and said deadpan “Now, what made you think that was ok? What’s your logic here?”
I always have the upper hand. You have to. And no, money isn’t worth it to me. My dignity is priceless. Girls who break boundaries for money disgust me.
Is it ok for a guy to get a lap dance if he’s wearing thin sweatpants and no underwear?
Abso-fucking-lutely not. I will not do the dance if I suspect this and if I figure it out during, I stop the dance and no refunds. It’s not sanitary. At all.
Have you ever made a guy ejaculate in his pants just by giving him a lap dance?
I have had a guy do that against my will which resulted in a firm slap in the face.
Are you saying that you don’t rub your butt on dude’s erect junk?
That is not generally part of my dance unless it’s in VIP and even then it’s limited.
What are the weirdest customer that you’ve had?
Ball buster guys, the vomit fetish guy, the one who want physical abuse mainly are weird. But nothing is weird to me any more.
Do girls ever talk about their clients afterwards or make fun of them?
Oh yeah, of course. Dressing room talk is gold.
What is the craziest thing you have seen happen at a club?
Hmm. I’ve seen a dad come in, wrap his jacket around his daughter and carry her out. I’ve seen two girls 69 on a pole at Casa Diablo in Portland (that town is filthy, I could never do it). I didn’t know if I was impressed or horrified. I’ve seen a double ended dildo show at Centerfolds in SF. I thought it was bullshit but saw it IRL and bolted. I’ve seen a girl kick a customer in the face, and sad to say, I’ve seen a guy attempt to rape a dancer.
Centerfolds in SF. Got it.
Be careful, that place is a shithole, girls charge up to $200 FOR ONE DANCE because you can do whatever you want to them for those 3 minutes. Managers won’t do shit about it if you complain either, it’s a total racket!
Hmm… you can whatever as in whatever you want? But 3 mins is kinda short.
Hence why it’s a racket. It’s a great place for dirty girls. You can really make bank in there if you’re a hooker. Sadly, if you are like me, you will not make shit.
Was the girl carried out by her father a customer or a dancer?
Dancer, right off the stage.
You used the words “dirty” and “filthy” to describe a club — what exactly does that mean?
Dirty usually refers to a club with a lot of “extras” aka prostitution services… breast licking, hand jobs, blow jobs and full sex. Some of these clubs even have live sex shows. You can usually tell when a girl is up for these activities by the way she talks to you (also many will rub your dick over your pants while talking) and 90% of the time they wear their hair up… for logistical reasons.
Is there usually fights between strippers?
Not usually but I did see a girl hide in the hallway, wait til another girl walked by, snatched her by her extensions and tossed her on the ground, proceeding to punch her in the face.
I casually stepped over them and went about my business.
Do you have a history of substance abuse?
Nope! I come from an upper middle class family, and am really honestly pretty normal. I drink, and smoke cigarettes, but only do both of those things at work. Why spend money on booze when you can get it at work for free? And drugs just don’t appeal to me. I respect my body.
It’s interesting you say you came from an upper middle class family. Are class distinctions visible among the dancers to you?
IMO, yes. Generally the 4th type tends to be from a situation with little to no opportunity. The 1st type either tends to be rebelling against daddy or again, from a bad situation. 2 and 3rd is mixed.
What’s the process of getting a job at a strip club?
This is how you get a job as a stripper:
Do makeup and hair. Select nice two piece outfit. Call the club ask about audition times. Drive to club, ask for manager. Wait between 5 and 60 minutes for them to appear. Dance on a side stage for around 30 seconds. They then tell you yes or no if you’re cute enough to be hired. They don’t GAF about your personality. No club asks you anything aside from OCCASIONALLY if you’ve danced before.
How long do you intend on staying in this career? Have you given any thought to what you plan to do after?
I’m smart! I save 50% of my money every night, regardless of whether it’s a good night or a bad night. I am (happily) married, so my husband and I are saving up to start a business of our own. I’ll likely do it two more years
How does your husband deal with you being a dancer? Obviously he handles it well?
My husband is a model so we always say we have essentially the same job. When he does a shoot with a female model, they have to act intimate, etc etc. For me, I act like I’m interested I just do it topless. I also do not allow touching of any bikini area (even boobs) so limiting the contact works well. His only request is that I take a shower before bed after work, which I totally understand and have no issue complying with.
Do any of your friends/family know of your profession? How did they take it?
I’m very out, everyone knows. I have a single dad, and he basically told me if I was ok with it, respecting my own boundaries and not keeping myself up at night, he was cool with it. My friends, most were great and the ones who got judge-y got kicked to the curb.
Is it safe to date a (non-crazy) stripper?
Yes. Honestly, I am very happily married, totally normal OTC. I leave work at work, am mentally stable. Most girls I associate with are like me, but I’m very careful whom I make friends with at work.
If she tells you up front what she does, like first date… this is a GOOD sign. If they try and hide it, run.
What’s the best way to go about asking out a stripper?
I would simply say something like “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you, and was wondering if you are opposed to making friends in the club, because if not, I’d love to hang out sometime.”
DON’T say take you out to dinner or anything like that. We hear all night dudes who want to take us to dinner, or save us, or something. Make it very casual, don’t make it seem like you’re asking her on a date. You can set that up once you actually meet up with her.
You have been dancing for 8 years, what have you learned from being a stripper?
How to be spontaneous. How to be adaptable to many situations. Complete and total social fluency. How to be free.
And drugs just don’t appeal to me. I respect my body.
