Best Paid Surveys to Earn Money Quickly in 2021 Skint Dad

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Best UK Money Making Apps That Pay – 10 Best Paid Surveys UK (Highest UK Paid Survey Sites)

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Best UK Money Making Apps That Pay – 10 Best Paid Surveys UK (Highest UK Paid Survey Sites)

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Best UK Money Making Apps That Pay – 10 Best Paid Surveys UK (Highest UK Paid Survey Sites)

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Lockdown 3.0 Things to do, plus help and support.

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
  • Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  • Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  • Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  • Disney+
  • Britbox
  • Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts
  • Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  • Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  • GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  • Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  • Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  • Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  • Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
  • Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  • Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  • EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  • PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks
  • Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  • Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  • Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
Education
  • Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  • BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
  • If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  • Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  • Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  • There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  • Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  • Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:
  • Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  • Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  • Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  • Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  • Communal religious worship
  • Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
Support
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Update:
Digital Art
These are Free
  • Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  • Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  • Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
  • LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  • Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
submitted by MrSoapbox to unitedkingdom [link] [comments]

Lockdown, things to do, help & advice.

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
  • Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  • Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  • Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  • Disney+
  • Britbox
  • Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts
  • Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  • Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  • GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  • Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  • Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  • Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  • Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
  • Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  • Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  • EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  • PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks
  • Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  • Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  • Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
Education
  • Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  • BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
  • If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  • Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  • Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  • There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  • Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  • Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:
  • Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  • Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  • Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  • Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  • Communal religious worship
  • Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
Support
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Update:
Digital Art
These are Free
  • Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  • Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  • Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
  • LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  • Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
submitted by MrSoapbox to london [link] [comments]

Matched Betting Extra Place Horse Racing - January 21 Profits - £4,707 on top of Full Time Job

Hi all,
I thought I would share my profits for Matched Betting Extra Place Horse Racing for Jan 21. January 2021 has turned into my best month of Matched Betting since I started way back in Summer 2018. This months profits are roughly £4,707. A life changing figure for many and a great figure seeing this is achievable on top of a full time job. Matched Betting is the only decent side hustle I have actually found, compared to doing hundreds of boring online surveys...yuck! (Unless you are a good business person / have 5 lodgers / lots of family money etc.) To see some of my other Matched Betting profits you visit my site: https://cashontheside.co.uk/
I will be investing some of my profits this month in ETF/Shares and putting into house improvements like a new drive way. In addition with Cheltenham horse festival coming up in March, I will be increasing my bank to cover liabilities.
The bulk of my profits came from Extra Place racing, large underlayed winners and BOG (best offer garuntee). Variance was certainly on my side this month and I must have had at least 10 large winners which won upwards of £1600 pounds per bet. As I underlay my bets I made more profit than If I had fully layed of the bets. About 5% of these profits came from low risk casino. After you have completed all welcome offers...in Matched Betting. Ep's become a gold mine...and I truly recommend them to anyone.
Some more of my bets this month illustrating underlayed bets and ep:
https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/winnings4.jpg
https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/winnings.jpg
https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/another-winner.jpg

Images of one of my bets illustrative of Best offer guarantee: https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/136707133_10159536662702922_8507610622687908137_o-1.jpg?w=544
For those who are starting out on their Match Betting journey in 2021 these sort of figures are achievable to you once you have experience….unfortunately this will not come overnight! I do put a lot of time into it..between 2-5 hours a day, 7 days a week sometimes. For the average person you could earn at least £500 a month.
To learn more about Match Betting please visit my article Boost Your Income with Matched Betting. Alternatively you can start an Odds Monkey free trial where they will teach you step by step and give you the calculators you need: odds monkey trial https://www.oddsmonkey.com/affiliates/affiliate.php?id=64754(affiliate) or www.oddsmonkey.com. (non affiliate)
To those with a little more experience who want to learn about Matched Betting Extra Places you can visit my guide here Extra Place Match Betting tips here or I have copied and pasted it all below.
For those with Matched Betting Experience - my guide and tips to Extra Places:
What is Extra Place Matched Betting?
Extra Places can be a very lucrative technique to learn. Extra Places are available for us to do pretty much every day, increasing the appeal. Extra Place Offers are available to all customers. This means that even if you get gubbed with a bookmaker, in most cases, you can still make money with them by Matched Betting on their Extra Place Offers.
Extra Places are considered an advanced reload offer, as they not risk-free. However once you have gained some experience on more basic horse racing offers, you can start to take advantage of the lucrative profits available. It may sound complicated but as soon as it ‘clicks’, it becomes simple. Essentially we are taking advantage of the bookies and exchanges paying out if the horse you have backed comes a certain ‘place’ in a race e.g. 4th.
Extra Places combined with additional offers such as BOG (Best Offer Guarantee) can mean additional profits. For example, you back a horse at odds of 15 and then the starting odds move up to 23. If that horse wins you win an extra x8 on your bet. You can see some real life scenarios I found of Extra Place combined with BOG below. Depending on the size of the underlay, profits below would range up to £3,000+

What is a ‘place’ in horse racing?

Quite simply a ‘place’ is the position the horse finishes a race in. For example if a horse wins a race it comes 1st, if a horse comes 2nd its 2nd. In some races with a large number of horses some bookies will pay out if a horse finishes the race in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th position. Horse Racing festivals such as Cheltenham or Ascot are particularly well known for this.

What is an ‘Extra Place’ in horse racing?

Now we’ve understood what a place is in horse racing you may have probably already guessed what an ‘extra place’ is going to be! An ‘extra place’ is where the bookies add one (or more) additional places to their standard place classification on a particular race. For example they may offer to ‘pay 7 places on a race’ instead of the standard 3 places. The ‘extra place’ in this instance cover 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th.
What are my Extra Place top tips?
  1. Some of my biggest profits have come from big underlayed winners and BOG. I typically underlay most of my bets by about 20% sometimes more. If you are starting out I would underlay on the place only by about 10% to play it safe until you learn more.
  2. Don’t bet on more places than a bookmaker is offering. E.g. If the bookmaker is offering 4 places don’t bet on more than that.
  3. Whilst your learning, take horses on implied odds of at least 12 or more on a match of 80%+.
  4. Look to keep qualifying losses down. E.g. for £100 profit, £5 ql.
  5. Please note, the best odds are typically found between 10 minutes up and to race time. You have to be quick on your ‘toes’…learn to walk before you run etc. Start out on easy horse racing officers before doing extra places.
  6. You will need a bank of at least £1000+ for your exchanges, ideally more. The more you have the more of the field you can cover. You can do EP with several hundred in your exchange but you won’t be able to make bigger profits.
  7. Be consistent, don’t take risks, don’t chase your losses and learn from matched betting extra place forums.
  8. Keep the Odds Monkey up throughout the day...and check for good matches.
  9. Use Bookies Boosts to increase your odds and matches.
  10. Do not give in to your fear of missing out on offers…Tomorrow is another day.
  11. Have at least a dual monitoscreen setup. It is important to be able to see exchange, books and calcs.
How do I find Extra Places offers?
I use the the Odds Monkey Extra Place Matcher to find the best opportunities for profit. The Matcher is explained in the below video.
https://youtu.be/oOKAdiSJidg
I am also a regular visitor of the active Odds Monkey community forums. You can sign up for an Odds Monkey free trial today here today https://www.oddsmonkey.com/affiliates/affiliate.php?id=64754 www.oddsmonkey.com (non affiliate). Odds Monkey provide you with the all guides, calculators etc. I have been a member for over 2.4 years now.
Feel free to get in touch or ask below if any questions.
submitted by After-Asparagus1815 to beermoneyuk [link] [comments]

Orange (ORA.PA) Due Diligence

Hello! I wanted to share my DD on Orange (ORA.PA). It's the 1st time I make a DD so if you can give me any feedback it would be appreciated.
The PDF of my full DD (19 pages but easy to read) can be downloaded here: link.
Below is a summary of my DD.

Orange Business Overview

In one sentence, Orange is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide, employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. It is the tenth largest mobile network operator in the world and the fourth largest in Europe after Vodafone, Telefónica and VEON. The company seems currently undervalued.
Because Orange is pretty huge, I will only focused on Orange 5G + FTTH, and Orange Cyberdefense.

Orange develops and markets many families of services:
  1. Residential, personal and business communication services: landline, internet (modem, ADSL, optical fiber - FTTH), VoIP, videotelephony, digital television and multimedia content (ex: VoD)
  2. Personal communication services, i.e. cell phones.
  3. Business communication services: Orange Business Services (link). It operates in over 220 countries and territories and employs over 21,000 employees in 166 countries. Over the last few years, 700 million euros were invested in research and development with dedicated 8,000 employees including scientists, engineers, developers, designers, sociologists and marketers. Orange certified partners include Microsoft, Splunk, Cisco, Amazon Web Service, VMWare, Dell, Cisco.
  4. Banking services: Orange Bank. I don’t know much about this one.
  5. Orange Money: mobile money service of Orange S.A., available in most of the group's affiliates in Africa. Its users can deposit money into an account linked to their mobile phone number, and then access a range of services, in particular transferring money domestically and internationally, paying bills and buying airtime top-up.
  6. Domotics: link (french). I don’t know much about this one either.
  7. Orange Cyberdefense: link (UK). Works mainly with the private sector. Acquired SecureData and SecureLink in 2019 (link).

Orange Business Model



The Bull Case


The Bear Case

Multiple controversies in the history of the company (cf. Wikipedia)

Past CEO

Current CEO

Bearish news


Orange financial report

Yearly

2016 2017 2018 2019
Revenue (in billions) €40.71 €40.86 €41.38 €42.24
Earnings (in billions) €2.81 €1.84 €1.95 €3.01

Orange P/E and Price-to-cash-Flow ratio


2016 2017 2018 2019 current
P/E ratio 75.97 23.73 22.64 12.71 8.94
Price-to-Cash-Flow ratio 4.38 3.78 3.96 3.47 2.52

Conclusion

To conclude this DD, I think Orange is undervalued because it’s P/E and P/CF ratio are low compared to this company's earnings, and even lower compared to Free (Iliad). It also has a lot of room to grow with FTTH + 5G and with Orange Cyberdefense: Orange mobile is present in many countries and so is Orange Cyberdefense. Orange does not really have a competitor except on the 5G/FTTH market : the “combo” Bank-Money-Cyberdefense does not exist in Orange’s competitors. I think Orange Cyberdefense will become a big player in the next 5-10 years.
However, I may be more cautious than analysts, because of Orange’s historical controversies, and if Orange Cyberdefense is listed on the stock market, the value or Orange (ORA.PA) will decline even further. It also makes sense to keep Orange Cyberdefense with Orange, since cybersecurity and telecoms are closely linked. I cannot find any announcement regarding Orange Cyberdefense listing on the stock market, and I can hardly find more than just buzzwords about Orange Cyberdefense (which technology does it use? Does it develop some SaaS or just buy startups? How many?). My advice is to wait to know if there is a public announcement about it. If you have any additional information let me know.
Regarding France’s 5G deployment, in the short term I think the lowest-income consumers will prefer going to Free since it’s less expensive and it costs the same as their 3G/4G subscription. Moreover, most people will not notice the low quality of the 5G deployed by Free compared to Orange’s 5G.
Nevertheless, Orange has the potential to challenge Free’s low cost 5G with Sosh: a low-cost mobile company owned by Orange. It may provide low 5G subscription in the future to counter Free’s low cost subscription.
Here is my estimations about Orange (ORA.PA) :

My Position

30/11/2020: $50 at €10.71, down 9.12% (-$4.56).
Yeah I made a DD for $50.
Yeah I will do it again.
Yeah I will make a DD if I’m not sure about a company I invest in.
NB: I said a LOT the words “Orange” and “Cyberdefense” and I’m sorry.
submitted by LutinRose to stocks [link] [comments]

2020 total earnings report £4092.74

Cash: £3530.59 Shop vouchers: £522.40
This report is early as its Christmas and I am pooped time to enjoy what is actually important, and what it's all for
Well, what a year it has been, at the start of the year I really wanted to knuckle down my money earning tactics, and start a journey to supplement my income, in the most efficient profitable way possible.
I have learnt a lot this year and working towards making more money with less time taken, below I have broken down where the money has come from, so you can see the best money earning websites around.
Unfortunately, I managed to delete my spreadsheet that was keeping track of everything so there is a lot of 'others' as I literally can't remember where the vouchers came from, but I can at least tell you the different sites I use.
2021 I shall be a bit more organised,
So starting with the cash (and crypto earnings) from top to bottom
  1. Lifepoints - A massive £520.00 earnt this year (Review/Sign up here)
  2. Populus - £400.00 - (Review/Sign up here)
  3. Fifa coins my little side hustle selling my fifa coins £354.63
  4. QMEE - £285.84 - (Review/Sign up here)
  5. Toluna - £210.00 - (Review/Sign up here)
  6. Attapoll - £201.46 - (Review/Sign up here)
  7. Curious Cat - £195.95 - (Review/Sign up here)
  8. Swagbucks - £170.00 - (Review/Sign up here)
  9. Other studies (these were random studies not linked to any specific market research company £165.38
  10. Panelbase - £141.70 - (Review/Sign up here)
  11. Clickworker - £121.96 - (Review/Sign up here)
  12. Intellizoom £83.95 (started in september) - (Review / sign up here)
  13. Angel fish Market research £80.00 (Review / Sign up here)
  14. 20 cogs £66.03 (Review / Sign up here)
  15. Natwest rewards £65.00
  16. Yougov £50.00 (Review/Sign up here)
  17. Prolific - £42.54 - (Review/Sign up here)
  18. Neevo - £42.46 - (Review/Sign up here)
  19. Ziglu Got free bitcoin for signing up to their crypto wallet sold at £40.00 and withdrew in to bank
  20. Read.cash/Noise.cash £29.42 (review / sign up)
  21. Flavourwiki £29.00
  22. Viewsbank - £28.10 - (Review/Sign up here)
  23. Publish ox £27.51 (review / sign up here)
  24. Zumo £25.00 (review / sign up and enter 'themoneyearner' for 0.02 eth)
  25. Mingle £24.00 (Review / sign up here)
  26. The viewers £23.00
  27. Zap £20.32
  28. Pureprofile £20.00 - (Review/Sign up here)
  29. Inboxpounds £20.00 - (Review / sign up here)
  30. Bigtoken £16.10
  31. Branded surveys £15.72
  32. One pulse - £14.60 - (Review/Sign up here)
  33. Testing time £13.00
  34. Survey friends £10.00
  35. Citizen me £5.99
  36. Pollpass £4.62
  37. serpclix £3.06
  38. Google rewards £2.00
  39. Street Bees £2.00
Vouchers: £522.40
Sorry I cant quite break these all down, I will try and work it out and come back to you all
  1. Newvista £50.00
  2. Valued opinions
  3. I-say
  4. Maximiles
  5. Microsoft rewards
  6. Trp surveys
submitted by TheMoneyEarner to beermoneyuk [link] [comments]

Nuclear power is often the subject of disinformation, spreading of FUD, and dismissed. This post addresses many of these points. Questions are welcome but civility required.

Nuclear power is often the subject of disinformation, spreading of FUD, and dismissed. This post addresses many of these points. Questions are welcome but civility required.
This post is about nuclear power. It is long. If you want to debate, that is welcome but please read this post first. It's likely I will have addressed your concern in it. There will be no tl;dr.
I've seen a fair few posts on here, and other "green" sites doing their best to discredit and undermine the science of nuclear power in lieu of glorified pipe dreams. That the world can go 100% "renewable" (with plenty of caveats tacked on the end of course, half of them unfeasible).
There are 4 main "arguments" against nuclear power. Danger, waste + storage, cost, and fuel availability. This post is to hopefully illustrate why all are red herrings designed to sew FUD and in actual fact keep us tied to a hydrocarbon-based grid.

Danger

This is a three-prong argument. The first usually invokes events such as Chernobyl, Fukushima, TMI, and other lesser incidents; the second invokes radiation safety; and the third mentions terrorism.
Starting with nuclear events, of these three I mentioned---only one is actually at all relevant and that's TMI. But mentioning it in terms of safety is the equivalent of comparing a ford model-T to a modern family saloon. Additionally, it led to the raft of safety measures we now have thus preventing it from ever happening again.
Chernobyl is a total red herring. While it wasn't a good event, it's pretty much the only event in nuclear power history that has led to any "significant" casualties, with the official death toll being 60 and numbers in the region of 6-20k cited from extended exposure. Whilst high for a single event, this makes up the vast majority of all nuclear incidents and in terms of death/TWh produced, still results in nuclear being the safest of all power sources. Plus, the RMBK reactor used on site wasn't designed for producing power, but for plutonium for nuclear bombs. As such, it was made deliberately unsafe so they could pop it open quickly to get the Pu out. It was this deliberate design choice that caused the failure. Obviously, this is not present in power-based reactors. It's also likely that the deaths are overestimated in this event due to the employment of the linear no-threshold model, which has repeatedly been shown to be flawed, and a hormetic model should instead be employed. This even gets ramped up to 11 in some countries that have radiation "spas" where you sit in a radon-filled basement in a bath-robe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24298226/
And Fukushima? Yes it wasn't ideal, but literally nothing has come of it. No increased cancers. No deaths. No change in the background radiation level. Those maps bandied about showing the "flow into the ocean"? Garbage designed to spread FUD. The site fundamentally failed because a tsunami was higher than the seawall and drowned the diesel generators that were below sea-level. If the reactor hadn't shut down, it's likely it wouldn't have failed at all. Fukushima is less anti-nuclear and more anti-diesel generator.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fukushima-emergency/
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx
The clean-up will cost money yes, but see the section later about why that's actually a good thing. Other events such as the Windscale fire were also caused by plutonium production.
Now lets compare those deaths with another singular event: a damn bursting in China. 230k dead. More than 10x all the nuclear incidents ever yet I don't hear many here complaining about hydro-power.
https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-that-china-kept-secret-for-years/91699/
In fact, comparing all the methods of power generation as deaths/terawatt-hour produced, nuclear is safest by about an order of magnitude (in other words, 10x more power can be produced for each person killed by that method of generation). How many people do you want to die to keep your lights on?
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
The second of these prongs is fear of radiation. While I briefly touched on it when discussing Chernobyl, the fear runs much deeper. The main problem here is lack of scientific education, and an overzealous media. The thing about radiation is we are very good at detecting it, even at very low levels, and some units need to use very large numbers, such as atomic decays/second (Bq). Thing is, there are a lot of atoms in a small volume of anything. Avogadro's constant tells us that there are 6.022x1023 atoms in one mole of the substance. And one mole is the atomic number of the element in grams. So 92g of Uranium has 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms (approx). And with the density of U being ~19.1g/cm3, that's 5 cubic centimetres of uranium. Or a double shot in a bar.
This sort of numbering has led to the tongue in cheek unit "banana equivalent dose".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
Yes, that is the radiation dose you will get from eating a banana. In continuation, people will talk about waste being so hazardous, but without really understanding the numbers. So what are those numbers? Well, the granite worktop in your kitchen would be classed as nuclear waste under current legislation, thanks to radon in it.
Terrorism is another danger often cited. And this may even be a valid one, if there had ever been a terrorist attack on any nuclear plant across the world in the history of the human race. They're also designed to withstand a direct impact from a train or a 747, so a 9/11 attack isn't a concern. On a related vein, many conflate nuclear power with nuclear weaponry. These two implementations are about as different as can be, with the only commonality is that they both use a radioactive source. It would be like decrying a coal plant because C4 explodes as both are carbon based. Nuclear weaponry and nuclear power are fundamentally different technologies and cannot be conflated.

Waste/Storage

People don't think of granite worktops or gloves or aprons being "nuclear waste" though, they think of leaking soft steel barrels full of green liquid seeping out into waterways and turning us all into three-armed monstrosities with cancers out the wazoo. Except, none of that is true. Including the fact it's waste at all. So from now on I will call them used fuel rods, as that is what they are, The way fuel rods are disposed of is in a water bath for heat control of any short-lived elements to decay away, and then they are stored in "dry cask storage", or large concrete barrels on the reactor site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
"But these barrels are dangerous right? You will die if you get near them?"
Well, yes. But only because the armed guards on site will shoot you as you run towards them. If you had proper clearance, you could sit and have lunch leaning up against one with negligible radiation dose.
"But these drums are piling up with nowhere to store them, It's a catastrophe".
Well... also no. As you may remember the numbers from the previous section, volumes are small. If you were to take the entire US stockpile of used fuel rods and group them together, you'd have a mass of 70k metric tonnes. Sounds a lot right? But remember the density of uranium, that gives a volume of about 3665 m3. For comparison, single football stadium (I've pulled up Samara Arena in Russia for convenience), it has a volume of 503,480 m3. So the entire volume of used nuclear fuel in the US wouldn't even fill a football stadium, and in fact wouldn't even come close. I'd say we've got room to breathe there.
"But it lives for billions of years right and is super radioactive right?"
Well, again, not quite. Think of anything, the hotter it burns, the shorter it lives. Same with nuclear fuel. The high-activity nuclides in the used fuel rods decay in days-weeks. What's left is inert filler with fresh uranium mixed through. In fact, after it's removed from the reactor, it's still about 95% fresh uranium. Which has a half life of billions of years, but consequently is also low activity. You could hold reactor rods in your hand and be fine. And in fact this is how they are installed into a reactor in the first place. Notice no lead aprons, no serious PPE. Just gloves and goggles.
Fuel Rod Assembly: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy
And yet in the US that's buried underground. Why? Blame President Carter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
In fact, that is the only main problem with storage of used fuel rods. The US gets a disproportionate amount of air-time across the world, and it also cannot reprocess its used fuel. It'd be like a car in which most of the petrol you put in trickled out the exhaust again. You'd either improve the design, or put it through again. And that's the purpose of either recycling the fuel rods, or using what is known as a breeder reactor. And in fact these breeder reactors are grid-proven and it's literally just lack of political will preventing them being rolled out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor
If the US was the recycle all the fuel it had in storage, it wouldn't need to mine any more for the next century or so. Yes, century.

Fuel Availability

"But it'll all run out eventually? In fact, a lot of estimates put it at only ~200 years availability? Why bother when the sun and wind are essentially limitless?"
Again, not quite. This figure comes from single-pass fuel use then storage. As I've just shown, that's incredibly inefficient and frankly a stupid way to handle it. In fact, if you combine breeder reactors, and fuel reprocessing, we have enough fissile fuel to keep our reactors happy for the next few hundred thousand years.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/

Cost

"But it's really expensive to build nuclear plants and takes too long."
It is expensive to build the nuclear plants yes, but the time taken to build them is largely based in legislation which itself is based in flawed science (as I mentioned earlier with the LNT statements). But when investigate it as a levelised cost of energy (LCOE), nuclear is pretty much front of the queue.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
Plus, I'm going to take a little detour out of science here and start talking about economics. Things being expensive for a government is not the same as things being expensive for a person/business. The fundamental difference is that the latter is a user of currency, whilst the former is the issuer of currency. A common way of thinking is the out-dated gold standard, in which currency is finite and tied to gold/tax receipts/stocks/bonds. This, and consequential statements such as "we are generating debt our children must pay" hasn't been true since 1971. The government, being able to issue its own currency can never go bankrupt as it can always pay its debts. This also does not lead to inflation as it used to. If this has you scratching your head in disbelief, that's understandable. I suggest the book "The Deficit Myth" by Prof. Stephanie Kelton. Additionally, she does a really good seminar on it here and is definitely worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1SMjeuyF-Y
So fundamentally, if the government wish to build nuclear, they have both means and motive to do so, with no detriment to the economy (unless you count people in work being a detriment).
A few conspicuous sites are also mentioned in nuclear costs. These are typically Hanford in the US, and Sellafield in the UK. Both of these sites are scheduled to take decades to clean up, and cost hundreds of billions of $/£ to do so. This sounds ominous, but it isn't. Both of these sites were built in the 40s/50s as research sites and plutonium production facilities. Neither of these are actually relevant to modern power production and are simply a legacy from a time we didn't understand nuclear materials. When discussing US decommissioning costs, Hanford makes up 80% of this budget in the US, and Sellafield making up 75% in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/cost-taxpayers-clean-nuclear-waste-jumps-100-billion-year-n963586
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy

Discussion

So why am I so bothered? Why bother making this post at all? I am a scientist and it bothers me to see disinformation and anti-science get spread so freely. There is also an extremely bad-faith argument from a lot of people in this regard, as they do not discuss the waste generated in the production of renewables, nor the full LCOE and instead cherry pick good days and state it as an average. This disingenuity has led to some of the most expensive power in the US for Californians, and Germany needing to fire its coal stations back up as well as import power from nuclear powered France. Furthermore, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) performed an interesting study, in which it collates the opinions of those educated in science versus the general public. It can be seen that when formally trained in science, the approval rating nuclear is much higher. Surely we want our path to saving the planet rooted in science instead of hubris?
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/07/23/an-elaboration-of-aaas-scientists-views/
Also as I showed with the burst-dam, there are statements made about nuclear that are not made about renewables. So if I repeat the process, the waste produced for solar and wind is not discussed often enough. Both wind and solar produce huge volumes of toxic and radioactive waste. But as they are not as similarly constrained as the nuclear industry, this is both unaccounted, and just drained to the environment.
https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/15/the-solar-panel-toxic-waste-problem/
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-minerals/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks
Neither can the panels or blades be recycled so they go to landfill, to leech out toxic elements into the soil and groundwater.
https://stopthesethings.com/2020/10/10/lingering-legacy-millions-of-toxic-solar-panels-that-cant-be-recycled-destined-for-landfills/
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-waste-the-dark-side-of-clean-energy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
And if nuclear fuel availability is mentioned, then so should availability of the minerals required to produce renewables. Many of the minerals used have available supplies of less than a year, and as is in the name, they are rare to begin with.
https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/10/chinas-monopoly-on-rare-earth-elements-and-why-we-should-care/
And to address a few points unique to renewables, the first is that by their method of operation, they harness a diffuse source. As such, they need to be big. Really big. Hundreds to thousands of hectares big. To produce an amount of power that could be generated by a reactor a fraction of the size. Now some people may find vast fields of solar panels or turbines beautiful, but I'd rather see vast woodlands, prairies, swamplands. I'd rather see our land returned to nature to actually capture some of the carbon that's ready to drive our extinction. It would also have the additional benefit that it would actually give back to the environment, and allow the bugs, birds, reptiles, critters, grazers, and hunters to thrive again. They don't thrive under windmills or solar panels.
https://www.strata.org/footprints/
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18270734.14m-trees-cut-scotland-make-way-wind-farms/
https://theconversation.com/wind-farms-built-on-carbon-rich-peat-bogs-lose-their-ability-to-fight-climate-change-143551
"But it's cheap!"
Exactly, and that's why renewables still have a place as is shown by the "energy pyramid" attached. Every rooftop should be lined with solar panels. Domestic windmills should be used to feed back into the grid. The land is already used, so make the most of it. But don't destroy nature to build renewables, as this is often exactly what happens.
The Energy Pyramid [Eric G. Meyer, Generation Atomic]
There are further issues faced by renewables but not faced by nuclear. These are called "capacity factor" and "insertion factor", and neither permit for exponential power demands that we as a race face. The former is a simple one, wind doesn't blow all the time. Sun doesn't shine all the time. There needs to be a backup, that right now is natural gas. Super batteries will not fix this issue, and are actually more likely to render renewables obsolete as our demands will grow with our capacity. The second, insertion factor, relates to how once the "good spots" are taken, we must use less good spots, and as such need larger installations to make up for the shortfall in production. With nuclear, both of these do not apply.
But why nuclear at all? Well, fundamentally, there is just so much uranium, and it is so energy dense, that it is silly to not use it. But when I talk about energy density compared to other fuels, it is hard to envision, so this wonderful presentation gives us more of a clue.
https://youtu.be/tpUtrDvya1w
So what does that energy density look like? Well, in a nuclear fuel assembly (shown earlier), there are hundreds of fuel pellets such as shown below. Each single one of those pellets are 7g of the ceramic uranium oxide, and can power a typical household for ~4 months.
Fuel pellets in a fuel rod [nuclear.duke-energy.com]
So why would you not want to use the cleanest, safest, arguably cheapest power source on earth?

Conclusion

This post hopefully illustrates some of the common and unfortunately pervasive myths around nuclear power. And if for a moment we assume the problems are all real and genuine, we have less than 10 years to fix our planet before it starts trying, and likely succeeding, to kill us. This is not the time to be advocating anti-science or wanting to look like you care whilst doing nothing. If the waste issue was true, that gives us hundreds to thousands of years to find a problem. If the terrorism issue was true, we'd have high employment in the military to keep the sites safe. If the fuel availability issue was true, we could use it until we perfect fusion. But fundamentally, if you are about to be hit by an out-of-control bus, you do not worry about the grazed knee you get by jumping out the way.
Edit 1: S/P
Edit 2: Included the AAAS survey in the "Discussion" section.
Edit 3: Added Hanford and Sellafield to the "Costs" section.
Edit 4: Added additional references to "Discussion" section.
Edit 5: Updated data on Chernobyl death toll.
Edit 6: Added fuel rod assembly image.
submitted by Vaudane to ExtinctionRebellion [link] [comments]

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Oct. 21, 2002

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY:
1-7-2002 1-14-2002 1-21-2002 1-28-2002
2-4-2002 2-11-2002 2-18-2002 2-25-2002
3-4-2002 3-11-2002 3-18-2002 3-25-2002
4-1-2002 4-8-2002 4-15-2002 4-22-2002
4-29-2002 5-6-2002 5-13-2002 5-20-2002
5-27-2002 6-3-2002 6-10-2002 6-17-2002
6-24-2002 7-1-2002 7-8-2002 7-15-2002
7-22-2002 7-29-2002 8-5-2002 8-12-2002
8-26-2002 9-2-2002 9-9-2002 9-16-2002
9-23-2002 9-30-2002 10-07-2002 10-14-2002
  • The top story this week is the staggering loss of WWE's over-30 audience. When wrestling peaked in late-1998, there were almost 6 million viewers over 30 watching Monday nights. That number is now less than 2 million. WCW always had an older audience, and when WCW folded, many of those fans simply went away. WWE's over-30 audience didn't really noticeably increase. Those fans just vanished and probably won't ever return. And over the past year, WWE has seen its over-30 audience continue to plummet, along with teenage viewers who are leaving at an even faster rate because wrestling is no longer viewed as "cool" the way it was just a couple of years ago. Anyway, the whole point of this story is that last year, Dave conducted a survey of readers over 30 who were losing interest in wrestling or who had stopped watching WWE to try to determine why (yeah that's in one of the 2001 Rewinds somewhere, I remember that). So now, a year later, with the over-30 audience continuing to vanish, we're revisiting the study to see how things have changed.
  • Last year, the overwhelming reason given by lapsed fans over 30 for losing interest in WWE was the botched Invasion angle, which ran people off in droves. Dave says it will probably go down as the biggest bungled storyline in the history of modern wrestling (yup). The second biggest reason given was too much of the McMahon kids. Well, a year later, Shane is virtually gone from TV and Stephanie is in a much more reduced babyface role on Smackdown, so that's good. The next biggest reason given was the lack of big WCW stars making the move to WWE. In the year since, Flair, Hogan, Nash, and Hall all made the jump and business kept getting worse. Goldberg still may never happen because he refuses to work the schedule. Other reasons given: lack of competition (well, they tried to make their own competition, but it's been a flop). Lack of emphasis on titles (they've spent the last few months unifying various titles and trying to make them matter again but time will tell). Too much T&A (they dialed it back for awhile, but with the HLA storyline stuff, it appears to be making a comeback). Bad writing (continues to be a problem). Stale product with the same people on top (that one is worse now than it was last year). This goes on and on. Basically just Dave criticizing how much WWE sucks right now and given the collapse of business, he's clearly not the only one who feels that way.
  • NJPW's latest Tokyo Dome show is in the books and ended up being a success for only one reason: Bob Sapp. Coming off a huge K-1 victory over Ernesto Hoost a couple weeks ago, he filmed an angle with Nakanishi immediately afterward. Then, 5 nights later, they did a second angle where Sapp was doing commentary for a boxing event and Nakanishi presented the winner with the belt. Afterwards, as Nakanishi was walking back, Sapp threw a water bottle at him and they had a big pull-apart. Thus the match was made and that was all it took. About 38,000 fans were in the building (announced as 50,000) and most of them were there to see Sapp. While 38,000 is a big crowd, it's still the smallest crowd NJPW has ever drawn in the Tokyo Dome but considering the way business has been, it's still a success. Bob Sapp's involvement in the show itself was kind of a last minute thing. The original match was Nakanishi v. Yoshihiro Takayama, but 3 weeks before the show, Takayama got injured in a NOAH match with Misawa and had to pull out. K-1 promoter Kazuyoshi Ishii (more on him in a moment) saw his chance and offered Sapp (who he has under K-1 contract) and the rest is history. The match was insanely heated and Sapp dominated it before getting a count-out victory. The crowd was okay with it though because it was decisive. Sapp super-stiff dropkicked Nakanishi out of the ring it made Sapp look like a beast. The IWGP title match that followed was anti-climatic and everyone realized in retrospect that Sapp should have main evented. Right now, Bob Sapp is unquestionably the biggest combat sports star in Japan. Kickboxing, MMA, pro wrestling, all of it. He's a mega-star (here's the match. If nothing else, watch Sapp's post-match comments. He's hilarious).
WATCH: Bob Sapp vs. Manabu Nakanishi - NJPW: The Spiral 2002
  • Other notes from the Tokyo Dome show: FOX was there filming Chyna for a feature on her "success" wrestling in Japan. Dave figures it'll be on "Best Damn Sports Show Period" since she and Inoki were on there a few months back promoting her Japanese wrestling. The opening match was a 6-man match only notable because one team had Jushin Liger and Tiger Mask and the other had Rocky Romero....and American Dragon. So there's a fun fact if you ever wanted one: Daniel Bryan has wrestled Jushin Liger in the Tokyo Dome. MMA fighter Tsuyoshi Kosaka advanced to the finals to crown a new NWF champion (it's the belt that was the precursor to the IWGP title, the top belt in NJPW during the 70s. Inoki is bringing it back and making it a "shooters" title). Kosaka is coming off several MMA losses and made another NJPW wrestler submit in just 2 minutes, which once again makes pro wrestling look inferior to MMA, on a pro wrestling show in the Tokyo Dome. It's one of the big reasons NJPW's business is struggling. Anyway, Kosaka will now face Yoshihiro Takayama on Jan. 4th at the Dome. An MMA fighter vs. a NOAH guy to crown a "shooters" champion on a NJPW show. Antonio Inoki in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, a lot of the matches on this show were NJPW wrestlers vs. Inoki's group of shooters. They had a 10-round "European rules" match with Bas Rutten that went 30 minutes and killed the crowd. The fake Great Muta got an "endorsement" by Great Kabuki showing up to try to help get him over. Didn't work. And then there's Masahiro Chono vs. Chyna. They both had big ring entrances. Thankfully, Chono won but it was a competitive match and he sold and bumped for her throughout. Afterwards, Chyna got her heat back by beating up the TV interviewer like she was Minoru Suzuki or something. Afterwards, Chono was asked if he would give her a rematch and responded, "Only if she gets a sex change." And Yuji Nagata retained the IWGP title to close the show (here's the Chyna/Chono match, but most of this show can be found by searching "NJPW The Spiral 2002" on Google and scrolling through videos).
WATCH: Chyna vs. Masahiro Chono - NJPW: The Spiral 2002
  • So Kazuyoshi Ishii....he's the promoter of K-1 but a lot of people are calling him the Japanese Vince McMahon. He's been quietly taking over the entire combat sports world. With the two biggest draws (Bob Sapp and Mirko Cro Cop) under contract, he has a lot of leverage. He runs K-1 and has working relationships with PRIDE, AJPW, and NJPW, all of whom need him (and his stars) more than he needs them. NJPW in particular is realizing that they're kinda boned right now because they want to keep using Sapp, but he's not contracted to them and his star-power overshadows everyone else in the company. AJPW is trying to use Sapp as well. Oh yeah, wanna use Bill Goldberg? Gotta go through Ishii there as well, he's acting as Goldberg's agent for his Japan bookings. He's not a name that the average fan will know, but when it comes to MMA or professional wrestling in Japan right now, when it comes to big money moves, Ishii is the one usually pulling the strings.
  • WWE's quarterly business statement is out and shows the company's first projected losing quarter since 1997. To be fair though, that's misleading. It would have been a $3 million profit this quarter. But does anyone remember a couple years ago when the William Morris talent agency sued WWE for breach of contract? No? Well they did. Anyway, it got settled out of court with WWE agreeing to pay the agency $13 million. Of that amount, $6 million is being paid this quarter, which is why a $3 million profit is now a $3 million loss. The additional $7 million will presumably be paid next quarter. So if you discount that as an anomaly, they're still profitable. But even that's tenuous. Attendance, PPV buyrates, and TV ratings are all down significantly, but Summerslam was a big success and the Australia show they did in August was a much-needed big money show. If not for those 2 events, this quarter might have been iffy even without the lawsuit settlement.
  • Multiple media outlets, stemming from a story in a UK tabloid, are reporting that a deal has been struck for Brock Lesnar to face Lennox Lewis in a shoot wrestler vs. boxer match next year. This story is not true (yet) but it does have a grain of truth in there. WWE has had discussions about the idea and Vince McMahon has had two meetings with Lewis' people. But that's as far as it's gone. Contrary to the news outlets claiming Lewis would be making $7.5 million for the match, the 2 sides actually haven't had any serious money talks yet. Nor has Lewis or Lesnar for that matter even agreed to do it. Lewis vs. Tyson recently drew the biggest buyrate in PPV history, but the reality is, that was all Tyson. Lewis on his own against anyone else has never proven to be any kind of serious draw at that level, especially not so much of one that WWE would shell out $7.5 mil. Dave recaps the history of boxewrestler matches, most famously the Inoki/Ali match in 1976 which was planned to be a worked match until a last minute disagreement over Ali agreeing to do the job led to it turning into a legit shoot that went to a draw. In a shoot between Lesnar and Lewis, it would depend on the rules. If it's a straight boxing match, Lewis would destroy him. If Lesnar could wrestle, he would shoot for the legs, get Lewis down, and eat him alive in seconds. Lewis would always have a puncher's chance, but in any kind of mixed-rules situation, the odds would greatly favor Lesnar.
  • The problem here is, just like the Ali/Inoki match, there would probably be huge disagreements on both sides about what the rules would be. So that begs the question of whether it would actually be a shoot. No one is going to believe a match promoted by Vince McMahon would be legit. We recap the Brawl For All tournament, which was McMahon's first and last attempt at promoting a shoot fight and that was a disaster that he has sworn to never put his wrestlers in that kind of situation again. It's a much bigger risk for Lewis though, since the general public views wrestling as hokey fake shit and boxers as the real tough guys. Getting embarrassed by Lesnar would be devastating to Lewis' persona and would make Lesnar a megastar in wrestling overnight. Dave touches on all the other examples of this stuff, especially in Japan where pro wrestlers vs. legit fighters has been all the rage for a year or two now, with Mirko Cro Cop earning the nickname "Pro Wrestler Hunter." Anyway, this is a no-brainer for WWE if they can make it happen. The thing that catapulted Steve Austin to mainstream stardom was an angle with Mike Tyson. Now imagine how much bigger he'd be if Austin had actually beaten Tyson in a shoot instead of just doing a wrestling angle. Lewis obviously isn't the star that Tyson is, but it's the same concept, against boxing's world champion. Lesnar would be a made man and instantly become one of the biggest mainstream stars WWE ever created. But as of now, despite reports, none of this has made it past early discussions so don't get your hopes up.
  • WWC did a big angle on a Puerto Rican talk show called Club Sunshine that got over big. Carlos and Carly Colon were being interviewed when Konnan and Chicky Starr showed up and attacked them. They even attacked the host, who sold the beating by not returning for the rest of the show and having someone else fill in. It got a lot of publicity as it came on the highest rated segment of the show which was the highest rated show in all of Puerto Rico that night.
  • Speaking of WWC, they're still not doing great, but they're doing better than they were. The Carly Colon vs. Konnan feud is getting over and Chicky Starr recently jumped ship from IWA and that helped. The war between the 2 companies is so out of control that even ring announcers are jumping ship. IWA's announcer left after he was asked to take a paycut (from $200 per week to $150) and now he's WWC's new announcer.
  • Keiji Muto has made his first moves to modernize AJPW. Future Budokan Hall shows will now have big video screens for fans and will also feature some WWE-style backstage angles. In a little bit of a controversial decision, Satoshi Kojima will defend the MLW title he recently won at an upcoming AJPW show. In the past, Giant Baba always made a point of only recognizing championships from major promotions, in order to maintain the prestige of championship matches. So for Kojima to be defending the title of some tiny U.S. indie company that's only ever held 2 shows and hasn't drawn over 1000 fans combined raised some eyebrows. Needless to say, there's probably not a single fan in Japan who has even heard of MLW at this point.
  • Dave has seen the video of the Mitsuhara Misawa/Yoshihiro Takayama match for NOAH's GHC title and says if they're going to wrestle like this, they might as well just shoot instead. This was all elbow strikes, kicks, and knees. The match was incredibly dangerous, with both men hitting each other as hard as they could and Takayama in particular coming out of it with multiple injuries that led to him being hospitalized afterward and he's gonna be out of action for awhile. Dave doesn't seem to be a fan of how stiff this was, but says you gotta see it to believe it. So here ya go. And yeah, even by Japanese wrestling standards, this one is brutal. Takayama's out for 3 months afterward with all sorts of different injuries.
WATCH: Mitsuhara Misawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama - NOAH 2002
  • Dave recaps the latest NJPW TV episodes, which aired prior to the Tokyo Dome show. It featured Chyna cutting a promo on Chono saying she would touch him in places he hasn't been touched in a long time but it won't feel good. Then two horrible matches, one of which features Jushin Liger and still gets negative 1-star and a Nagata match that gets a DUD. Then Chyna came out and gave Chono a lariat that he sold like Stan Hansen. Then she took off her top and attacked him, so Chono was on his back getting his ass beat by a women in a mini-skirt and a bra. She handcuffed Chono to the ropes and she and other heels beat him down. Dave doesn't understand how this company has strayed so far from what made them so successful (I can't find any of this footage. I really wish NJPW would add more old stuff. In comparison to WWE, the library of archived shows on NJPW World isn't great. I wanna go back and watch all this old, bad Inoki-ism era stuff. I would love to be able to go back and just rewatch the entire 90s and 00s in order from show to show, while following along with the Observers. But so much of it doesn't seem to exist anywhere. However, if someone knows where I could acquire any of that stuff by, say, less than reputable means, I'm listening...)
  • Good news is that Superstar Billy Graham doesn't have liver cancer but they did find an infection to go along with all his other liver problems. As a result, he's been moved up the priority list for a liver transplant, which is good because that hopefully means he can get one sooner. But it's bad because, well, getting moved up the list means his situation is more dire than ever. If he doesn't get a transplant soon, he won't last much longer.
  • Almost none of you may remember a story from a couple years ago about DirecTV possibly being bought up by satellite company Echostar. If this merger had gone through, it would have turned DirecTV into the biggest powerhouse in the satellite dish market and given them huge leverage. Both UFC and WWE have had issues with both Echostar and DirecTV over money. If those companies combined, WWE would have been almost powerless in money negotiations. Well good news for WWE: the FCC blocked the merger, so it's not happening.
  • TNA drew its biggest crowd yet to the Nashville Fairgrounds arena. Not to see TNA though. Turns out Chris Rock is filming a movie where he becomes the first black President ("Head of State") and they chose TNA to film a scene where Rock's character gets attacked by some wrestlers at an event. So the crowd mostly came for the chance to be in a movie (here's a clip of a brief promo Chris Rock did on TNA's show, pandering to the crowd. And then the actual scene from "Head of State").
WATCH: Chris Rock cuts promo in TNA
Head of State scene filmed at TNA show
  • Reportedly a lot of tension in TNA between Vince Russo and Jerry Jarrett. In particular, there was a lot of heat over the racial scripts that Russo wrote for recent Ron Killings and Syxx-Pac (who I will be referring to as Syxx from here on out because c'mon) segments. Almost everyone, including Killings and Syxx, were uncomfortable with how it was originally written and insisted on the content being toned down. There was also a part scripted where Syxx basically buried Low-Ki as not being a talented wrestler. If you saw the show, there was another part later where they showed Syxx apologizing to Low-Ki for that comment. Syxx insisted on doing the apology part as well because he (rightfully) didn't think it made sense to be burying a talented young star that TNA can build around like that, especially right before he's challenging for the NWA title. Anyway, those who have been around Russo know that he doesn't take kindly to being second-guessed or told to tone his stuff down and he's not happy because Jarrett has been overruling so much of the stuff he's been writing. Meanwhile, Jeff Jarrett is said to be stuck in the middle.
  • Notes from TNA Weekly PPV: Curt Hennig debuted, replacing Scott Hall on just 2 days notice. Hall was never mentioned on the show, so looking like he may have burned another bridge. Hennig was out of shape and asked to have a few weeks, but they needed him ASAP so he came in bigger and noticeably slower but hey, he's in his mid-40s and wasn't expecting to wrestle anytime soon. A 15 minute Ironman match ended with a botched finish. Syxx won the X-Division title in a crazy ladder match full of dangerous bumps. And that's about it..
[WATCH: Curt Hennig debuts in TNA]https://www.facebook.com/ImpactWrestling/videos/2264510047153999)
  • WWE's latest soap opera direction (Kane murdered Katie Vick, Undertaker cheated on his pregnant wife, Trish's secret past, etc.) is reportedly something Kevin Dunn sold Vince on, believing a focus on storytelling with those kinds of stories will turn things around. Anyway, as of this week, Kane isn't a murderer, but they said they found his semen inside Katie Vick, so he's either a rapist or a necrophiliac, depending on when it was left there. Guess we'll find out next week. Dave half-jokes that WWE is apparently making a storyline based on Jimmy Snuka allegedly murdering his girlfriend in the 80s. Anyway, this angle is stupid beyond words (just wait Dave!) and the Undertaker storyline accusing him of cheating on his pregnant wife isn't much better. But at least it's a plausible story you can tell. Kane murdering and/or raping a dead body is just preposterous. Anyway, if you're curious, Undertaker's alleged "mistress" is being played by Tracy Dali, a B-movie actress and Playboy model.
  • The upcoming No Mercy PPV this weekend has only sold 4,000 tickets at press time, in an arena that holds 18,000. They have since scaled the arena down to only hold 12,500 but they're probably not gonna get anywhere close to that either.
  • Notes from Raw: well, it was in Montreal and even though it's been 5 years, they still made constant Bret Hart references. Actually, Vince McMahon wanted to get Bret to appear on the show but it didn't happen. Ever since Bret's stroke, after Vince reached out to check on him, the two of them have gotten back on speaking terms so they're trying to rebuild the bridge. Turns out the big Trish Stratus secret from her past is Victoria accused her of holding her back when they were fitness models trying to get into wrestling and claimed Trish slept her way to the top. Riveting stuff here. Dave says Jeff Hardy is the "most stale and burned out character" on the roster looks to be about one step away from complete collapse. It's kinda awful that they kept putting him on TV in retrospect. Jeff was looking like late-2013 CM Punk at this point, even Stevie Wonder could see the dude needed time off. Kane cut a big dumb promo about how he didn't murder Katie Vick, it was an accident, after his first match 10 years ago, she and Kane went out to a party and he drove home in the rain and wrecked the car. Let's not even waste time focusing on the fact that this story completely contradicts Kane's entire origin story about being badly burned by the Undertaker as a child and locked away his entire life. Then Triple H accused Kane of driving drunk and killing her and the autopsy showed his semen inside her and accused him of raping her or doing it after she was dead. 3 Minute Warning (Dave still doesn't call them that but I'm tired of saying Island Boyz and WWE hasn't officially given them a name at this point) attacked 64-year-old Pat Patterson and he suffered a legit separated shoulder. This is by no means the first person these dudes have injured. Pretty much everyone involved in one of these 3 Minute Warning segments comes out injured, week after week, and Dave's ready to send them back to OVW. They played Bret Hart's music as part of a commercial for a new WWE music CD. This didn't air on TV but reportedly the live crowd went absolutely batshit when they heard it, believing Bret was coming out. Nope. That led to the crowd booing heavily and they spent the rest of the show with constant Bret Hart chants. Randy Orton is out with a shoulder injury they aired a purposely over the top babyface video designed to make the crowd hate him and it worked. They booed the shit outta Orton. Big Show vs. Booker T falls count anywhere ended up in the women's dressing room, in what was a not-so-subtle jab at Nicole Bass' lawsuit now that they won.
  • Speaking of Nicole Bass and that lawsuit, she's getting dragged through the mud everywhere in the media. Jurors outright said in interviews that they felt she was lying and there were too many discrepancies between her testimony and her deposition. One of the jurors also said he was freaking out with all the wrestlers there and wanted to ask for autographs and managed to get one from Steve Lombardi after the trial. Dave wonders how this guy ever made it onto the jury. Another juror said Bass seemed nice, but her husband seemed greedy and came off even less believable. Former WWF diva Tori testified and said Bass was nowhere near Lombardi on that flight. Howard Stern ripped into Bass on his show also, basically calling her a liar. And if we have any other questions about Bass' honesty, in an interview after the trial with the New York Post, she claimed her body was all natural. She said she only used steroids once, for a few weeks in 1988 under a doctor's supervision, but otherwise, she's built her physique with nothing but hard work.
  • There was another rah-rah, everyone needs to work harder pep rally speech backstage at Smackdown and once again, Triple H spoke and pretty much insinuated that business is down because so many of the guys don't know how to work properly. You probably don't need to guess how this was received by his peers.
  • Chris Jericho was interviewed on some show and his give-a-fuck meter seems to be in the negatives lately. When asked about the Katie Vick angle, he called it the "drizzling craps" and said he's just paid to work matches, not do storylines so he can't help when it sucks. Said he doesn't go on the internet because it's too negative. Said the angle with Triple H and Stephanie's dog in the build up to Wrestlemania wasn't great and said he wouldn't do that kind of storyline again. When asked about Larry Zbyszko (who is suing Jericho and WWE over them calling him "Living Legend"), Jericho said Zbyszko sucked as a wrestler, was shit as an announcer, and he doesn't have any respect for him.
  • Various WWE news & notes: Randy Orton out 3-4 months with shoulder surgery. Bob Holly out at least a year after neck surgery. Bubba Ray Dudley out with a serious concussion from the TLC match. Mysterio's knees are giving him trouble, try to hide your surprise. Little Guido and Spanky (Brian Kendrick) signed deals and will be going straight to Smackdown for the cruiserweight division.
  • Tough Enough season 3, currently in production, has a stalker! Apparently there was a contestant named Lisa who decided she couldn't do it and quit. But she still stayed overnight in the house they're filming in. Anyway, the next morning, she changed her mind. But producers told her, too late, you already quit. You gotta leave. So she went home. Then she flew back and tried to come back again and they said no again. At that point, she began stalking the company, showing up at several WWE shows and even getting backstage at Smackdown. Anyway, depending on how much they've already filmed, she may end up being edited out before the show airs (turns out it was way more than that. Not sure if Dave ever covers it again, but here's the story from Wikipedia):
In the cover story from the October 5, 2002 issue of the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter, it was revealed that contestant "Lisa" was removed from the show after what was referred to as a "psychotic breakdown." After being left at the house while the other contestants went out to dinner, she began throwing herself against the walls of the house, eventually breaking into the hidden MTV control room and working her way onto the roof. After being talked down by producers, she was committed to a hospital facility to receive psychiatric treatment. Her parents flew in from New Mexico to pick her up, but she physically attacked them, claiming she did not know them. She then escaped custody inside LAX, shutting down a wing of the airport until she was located. Again, she was hospitalized, but she was able to check herself out shortly after. She then contacted Tough Enough producers, claiming she was ready to return to the show. Producers informed her she had been removed from the competition due to her actions. The other contestants (and, subsequently, the audience) were initially told that Lisa simply decided wrestling "wasn't the right career for her." Lisa then reemerged in Louisville, Kentucky at the Ohio Valley Wrestling training center, claiming that trainer Al Snow and producer John "Big" Gaburick had sent her for additional training, both in the ring and to learn further about the structure of the developmental territory system. At a series of shows in California in September 2002, she managed to talk her way backstage and was even allowed to assist with the pyrotechnics for the wrestlers' entrances at a TV taping. One source claimed that she had a face-to-face conversation with Vince McMahon, who was apparently unaware of her status with the Tough Enough program. Soon after, her photograph was circulated to security personnel, and she was barred from any backstage areas.
  • At the latest Smackdown tapings, 16-year-old Harry Smith (son of Davey Boy Smith) worked a dark match against his cousin Teddy Hart. Word is a lot of the dressing room came out to watch this match on the monitors and afterwards, Benoit and Dean Malenko took Harry aside and spoke with him after to kinda critique him on what he did right and wrong. Word is Smith and Hart showed up to the arena just on the off chance they could talk the company into letting them work a match and it actually worked. Teddy Hart has flamed out of WWE opportunities twice before because of a perceived bad attitude. Many other Hart family members (the ones that were always on Vince's side) were there at the show also. Stu Hart was brought as well and was said to be thrilled at meeting Lesnar because he's a huge fan. Yeah, I could see Stu loving Lesnar.
  • And finally, someone writes a long letter about how it's bullshit that Shawn Michaels isn't in the Observer Hall of Fame yet and the fact that he's not threatens the credibility of the whole thing. The only reason he isn't inducted is because of his reputation and being disliked by people personally, but that has no bearing on his HOF qualifications and this dude is sick of it. Dave doesn't go that far, but he agrees and says he has voted for Shawn every year he's been eligible. But he also argues that Shawn's reputation for being unprofessional behavior is relevant because it's not "off the field" behavior. Shawn has repeatedly done unprofessional things that directly impacted the product he's a part of and if enough voters feel that's reason enough not to include him, Dave can't really argue it, though he personally disagrees and thinks Shawn should be in (he eventually makes it, fear not).
NEXT WEDNESDAY: Katie Vick corpse fucking, more on LesnaLennox Lewis, WWE No Mercy fallout, Martha Hart releases Owen Hart book, Stephanie McMahon appears on Howard Stern show, and more...
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OBLIGATORY FILLER MATERIAL – Giving thanks edition: Kickin’ around Caracas, Pt. 1

That reminds me of a story.
Yeah.
I know.
I’ve been sort of absent.
Look, it’s not my fault…
No, really. I had this sort of a business thing I had to do.
In fact, it came at the dark end of 0-dark thirty when the bloody cellphone-telephone rang.
“WHAT?!?” I answer in my most congenial ‘thank you for the wake-up call, Chucklehead’ persona.
“Doctor?”, asked Agent Ruin.
“Oh, bugger.” I replied, “What the actual fuck now?”
“You have a ‘Scramble Bag’ prepared, do you not?”
Agency-speak for “There’s a special car waiting for you at your door.”
“Oh…my…giddy…aunt…” I exhale, wishing for a fine Corona (cigar, not virus). “What the frosty hell is it now? Another third-world country despot that needs deposing?”
“Oh, my. No.” Agent Ruin replies. “No. No. No. Nothing like that. Or, well, something a bit like that. OK, something very much like that. Your Venezuelan visa still intact?”
“Oh, farking yay. South America? At 0330 AM in the bleeding morning?” I complain. “I’ve yet to sleep off the last time I’ve caused certain relational problems between a South American Country and the good, ol’ USA.”
“Ah. Yes”, Agent Ruin replies. “A car will be at your door in approximately…”
“RING!”
“Zero seconds.” He laughs.
Then he adds: “Take pictures. Color pictures.”
He snorts.
A line from my favorite John Wayne movie Hellfighters.
This guy really knows how to get into my goodie-locker.
“Bastard.” I reply as I grope around the bedroom for my nightlight and emergency flask; all the while attempting not to wake Esme.
“OK”, I add, “Better tell the fucker to show up with a light, The Times, and a cold drink”.
More agency-speak meaning that you’ve pissed off someone with a Master’s Blaster certificate, a short fuse, and the knowledge of where you live.
“Worry not, Herr Doctor”, Agent Rack interjects, “You’re going to South America. Just think of the cigars you can expense…”
“Alright”, I snort in defiance, “Look, you benchodes. I’m an authenticated, card-carrying, bona-fide, motherfucking Professor of Geology and Petroleum Engineering that you’re trying to sandbag. You think that I’m going to be your gopher whilst I faff about in an unstable country…”
I had to trail off as Agents Rack and Ruin were in hysterics.
At 0330 AM in the morning.
Have they no shame?
Laughing about international laws that I’ve bent beyond repair and those that still weren’t eclipsed by statutes of limitations.
“OK”, I capitulate, “The car’s here. What do you want from South America as a souvenir?”
“Just yourself, intact”, Agent Ruin chuckles, “And a case of Pisco and some of your better cigars.”
“Is that all?” I ask, “Or shall I have them sent by courier?”
“Courier is fine”, Agent Rack laughs, “As he’s your driver and confidante.”
I remind them of the “Ransom of Redneck Chief” and the last time I was in Venezuela.
Well, Columbia. Well…South America.
“Devidos”, Agent Rack laughs, “This time, don’t try and drink the country dry.”
“Right.” I note, “Then why did you bother calling me?”
“Because of your stunningly sunny disposition”, Agent Rack laughs and rings off.
I sigh heavily into the early morning gloom.
Esme stirs in bed as I’m soundlessly stomping around looking for a clean shirt and extra magazines for my Glock.
“Agency call?” Es dreamily asks as she’s mastered that device of speaking when not really 100% awake.
“Yep”, I reply, “Seen my Scot socks. The orange ones?”
“Second drawer - left”, Es vaguely replies, “How long this time?”
“A week or two, six years at the outside”, I reply, “They weren’t terribly specific. “
“Oh. OK”, Es yawns and rolls over, “Feed Khan before you leave. We’ll talk later”.
“OK”, I note. “No problem.”
Actually. That was a problem as Khan has snuck into our bed-chamber and is already snoring in the very place I was just minutes ago.
“Khan!”, I quietly yell. “Let’s go. Let Es sleep.”
Khan shuggers down further into my bedside.
“Khan!”, I scream barely audibly, “Out! Let’s go! Walkies! Mangled baby ducks!...”
Khan looks at me, aims a moon-sized yawn and snuggles even deeper under the covers.
At a loss, and accepting inevitable defeat, I let the massive mooch stay.
‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ and all that.
I still feed the lummox before I leave. Es wants to sleep in for a couple of hours, so at least if he needs to go out, he can find the dog door; and his bowl will be filled with his favorite: ‘Horse tonsils delight’.
I open the front door and wave to the driver in the inevitable plain-Jane battleship-gray Chevy 4-door sedan.
He sees me and flashes the lights to let me know that he’ll wait.
I grab my Scramble Bag, which holds everything I’ll need for these impromptu adventures, as well as a couple of extra flasks I keep in my study, and a couple of spare magazines for my Glock 10mm. I shove a box of cigars into my Scramble Bag, check that I have my ‘Red’ passport, and go into my study and relieve my file cabinet of a few thousand euro, bolivars, and rubles.
I’ve convinced the Agency to front me ready cash from over 45 different countries.
I ain’t got no time for wastin’ standin’ in line at some money-changers flimsy kiosk in Boogerglob, Bosnia, and Hercegovina.
Just in case.
I kiss Es goodbye without waking her and scratch a snoring Khan behind the ears.
He wags his tail compellingly, but doesn’t wake nor does his wags awaken Esme.
I grab my gear, light up a fresh cigar, note that it’s only 0355, and thus, time for a Greenland coffee. I figure it’s a long way to the airport, so may as well be fully conscious when I get there.
Out to the waiting car and it’s my smiling South American driver and assistant, Lucas Esteves Damasceno. He likes my Greenland coffees so I brew-up a brace for the trip far off into the dim light of near-dawn.
“Senor Petra!”, Lucas grins, “I am again so happy to see you. Gracias for the coffee. It’s a long trip this morning.”
“But the airport’s only 35 miles west”, I reply.
“Si, Doctor”, Lucas agrees, “But we are not going to that airport. We need to go to Burpleson Air Force Base. There they have a plane waiting for us to fly you to Helsinki.”
“Helsinki?” I snort, “I’m off to Venezuela via Helsinki? What’s Rack and Ruin up to. Cadging more frequent flyer miles off my account?”
Oh, no senor”, Lucas replies, “We are to fly on MATS (Military Air Transport) to Helsinki. Then Aeroflot to Moscow. Then from Moscow best way to Caracas.”
“Well, damn”, I snort ever more derisively, “That’s certainly taking the long way around. Why all the subterfuge?”
“You know El Presidente, Senor Maduro?” Lucas asks.
“Yeah”, I reply as Lucas peels out of the cul-de-sac and heads generally north and I slurp my morning caffeine-delivery system. “We’re pen-pals and best-buds.”
I slurp another healthy tot of my coffee. The intrigue is beginning to grow.
“Well, senor”, Lucas says as he narrowly misses mowing down an early-morning jogger, “You have a meeting with him in 36 hours. Here are your ‘notes’ for the project.”
I accept the thick manila package and note that it has all sorts of stamps in blood-red ink regarding secrecy and what would happen if you don’t keep your yap shut.
“Great”, I think “More stratagem”.
This is a more-or-less straight-forward covert information-gathering trip.
Evidently, as Venezuela’s economy, oil industry, and stabilization melts down further, I am to undertake a survey of the oilfields and infrastructure around Lake Maracaibo. Evidently, because I know El Presidente (met with him several times previously when he wasn’t El Presidente) and have been to South America, specifically Venezuela and Colombia several times. Plus, I am a bonafide oil and gas expert. So, I’m to gather hard intel on the status, state, and security of the oilfields in, on, under, and around Lake Maracaibo.
Under the guise of doing research for a book.
Not really much of a bunch of guise, because before I’m done, I’ll be writing several book’s-worth of notes, filling in dossiers, and making informed, expert decisions and suggestions.
I look up from my cigar, travel-related plans, and Greenland coffee to admonish Lucas to watch out for loose cows, errant deer, and slow early-morning drivers as we crest a small hillock and become momentarily airborne.
“Si, senor”, Lucas smiles, “But we need to get to the airbase before dawn.”
“Marvelous”, I mutter to no one in particular as Lucas is now playing with the Sirius Radio looking for something other than the news or sports reviews.
One and one-half hours, and a couple of pit stops later, we arrive at the gate of Burpleson Air Force Base. Lucas flashes his security card and I just wave a desultory ‘Yeah, G’Morning’ to the Airman guarding the entrance.
We are allowed ingress, and Lucas heads directly for the far end of Runway 22-Left.
“The fuck, Luc?, I ask, “What the hell, I don’t even get to check-in or go through duty-free?”
“No, senor”, Lucas replies, shaking his head, “I need to get you on the plane and off to Helsinki. I’ll meet you in Caracas in 30 hours or so.”
“You’re not flying with us this time?” I ask.
“No, senor”, Lucas notes, “I have to take care of, how is it you say…logisticas? Yes. Logistics. Then I meet you at airport in Caracas.”
“Fair dinkum, Luc”. I reply, tucking the thick dossier into my travel bag. “I guess I’ve traveled to Russia enough to know how to get around and stay reasonably well out of trouble.”
“However, Doctor,” Lucas was loathing to add, “Agents Rack and Ruin want you to call no one you know in Moscow. Just a trip to Sheremetyevo – Pushkin Airport, then catch a connection to Caracas.”
“OK, Luc”, I acquiesce, “Silent ops. Got it. Plausible deniability. Mum’s the word…”
“That’s right, Herr Doctor”, Lucas grins.
“Your German’s improving greatly”, I smile as we wheel up to the already spooled up and waiting incredibly sparkling Gulfstream C-37 of the United States Air Force Special Air Mission group of the Air Mobility Command.
“See you later, Lucas. Da svidonya.”
Lucas waves and peels out of sight as the plane is being loaded with my tack and gear.
“Nice”, I think as I’m ushered out of the car and into the waiting aircraft.
Again, it’s just me, a couple of Security Agents, crew, and piloting staff. Have to hand it to Rack and Ruin, this was certainly going to be a hell of a lot nicer flight than the Aeroflot ones I have upcoming, I muse.
In less than 10 minutes, we were wheels-up and heading directly east into the low, fiery, and blinding morning sun.
It’s an eight and one half hour trip to Helsinki. In the time since takeoff, I’ve been offered coffee, which I had them make the Greenland version. They also fed me eggs benedict, hash browns as well as some very nice Dronningholm cloudberry jam and clotted cream for the freshly baked scones.
International travel can be so taxing.
Or so I hear.
After an hour or two of intense briefing and fleshing out of the mission parameters, we settled back with drinks. Then a few hands of Texas Hold’em with the security guys while we wended our way east.
After winning about $50 and losing about the same, it came over the intercom that we were on final approach for Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.
Basically, this was to be a touch and go, as they were to land on a distant runway and kick me and my gear off the plane. Then they were going to sprint over to the UK for something I knew better than to ask about.
There was an airport vehicle waiting at the end of the runway and it was explained that the car and driver were at my disposal. However, they were also under orders to get me to departures first and foremost.
Killjoys.
It’s only an hour and a half; two, tops, to Moscow S-P airport.
Still, I can slide through Duty-Free at gate 40 since my flight via Aeroflot is not for three more hours.
Alas, the Covidiocy has impacted here as well. Masks, gloves, sanitizer stations everywhere. I comply but would prefer letting my immune system out for a little walk while I’m in a new country.
However, I mask up with my “I’d rather be blasting” mask and ignore all that folderol; heading directly to duty-free.
I buy up a load of Finnish Salmiakki black licorice because it’s phenomenal.
‘I do love it so’.
Plus, I grab a bottle of duty-free Finlandia vodka (Coals to Newcastle, anyone?), one of Koskenkorva Viina (Finnish vodka-like drink), and, of course, one of Akavit.
New Year’s is coming up.
There’s an on-site bakery, so I decide to purchase a half-dozen Lihapiirakka , which are the Finnish version of a meat pie. I go for the reindeer, fried egg, and pickle-filled ones. They are delicious beyond mere words.
My baggage was checked through to Moscow for me, so I don’t have to worry about customs and all that guff either here or in Russia. Diplomatic passports are such a good deal. I can even get my Glock and ammo in through passport control and customs as long as I fill out the manifests truthfully.
They’re not crazy about people with CCLs (Concealed Carry Licenses), but my little red passport obviates all that. I just claim my luggage is a Diplomatic Pouch or equivalent, and I’m through with a wave and just a sly smile.
Anyways, my flight is called, and I’m quickly hustled through the madding crowds as I’m traveling Aeroflot Preferred.
“Classless society”…my dimpled ass.
Aeroflot Business Class, however, is probably equivalent to any other major carrier’s First Class. One hell of a lot cheaper, though.
I dust off my Russian vocabulary and am greeted by the flight crew as I am one of the first to board.
This is so different from when I flew Aeroflot, and its derivatives, back in the late 80s and early 90s when I was working in the Eastern and Western Siberian oilfields.
The planes back then were somewhat worrisome; looking ancient and decrepit from their day of manufacture, held together presumably by baling wire, gaffer tape, and high hopes. They always had this most unusual aroma. It’s an almost indescribable odor but smells like a combination of sweat, makhorka smoke, vodka, and violent desperation.
It was fun flying back then. Not for the faint of nose, by any means.
Today, the planes look brand new, are spic-and-span, even when it comes to the condition of the heads (i.e., toilets). Plus, they’re not even Ivanovs, Yaks, or Tupolevs. They’re bloody US Pacific Northwest Boeing Triple Sevens.
My, have the times changed.
The service, especially if you try to use your faltering and laughable Russian, is stunning. I asked for a drink, and they brought out the cart. While those in Baggage Class were still trying to get seated and laughed as I described the potion I desired.
“Vodka!” I said, to the delight of all.
“Bысокий стакан! (Tall glass!)”, I noted ensuing.
“лед!”, (Ice!)”, was the next ingredient.
A tall draught of Symskaya vodka was poured into a very tall, and well iced, glass.
“Горький лимон! (Bitter lemon!)” was less well-received.
Real Russians don’t “adulterate” their vodka with mixers.
But the service crew was much relieved when I noted that I wasn’t Russian, just a doofy American fellow traveler.
“Настоящий рокнокер! (A proper ‘Rocknocker’!)”, I smiled.
They looked somewhat confused until I showed them the name on my ticket and how I came to own an eponymous drink.
I was working on drink number two when I heard the Captain’s intercom announce our push-back. We juddered and skud into reverse, ready to taxi the inevitable seeming eight or ten miles on the bumpy concrete tarmac to our runway and eventual takeoff.
But, surprise. We taxied about 2 minutes, turned into the wind, and were wheels up before most carriers have even secured the drinks cart.
The flight was smooth, level, and most of all, enjoyable and more or less uneventful. I spent the best part of the flight chatting with the flight crew, pilot and co-pilot included, and promised to by everyone rounds of drinks at the Irish Pub in Sheremetyevo.
They all said they’d try to be there, and since I had a 6-hour layover, I’d not be traipsing around Duty-Free much, as I already knew what I was going to buy. Then it would be off to the Irish Pub for the customary bowl of Irish Stew and nitrogen-charged pints of Guinness; with Starka vodka chasers.
A very manly repast…
However, before I deplaned, I was handed a ticket for admission to the lounge for officials and delegations in Sheremetyevo. It’s operated by the Presidential Executive Office of the President of the Russian Federation and reserved for swells, stuffed shirts, and other forms of human governmental flotsam and jetsam.
I demurred, as I already had plans. After visiting Duty-Free, I purchased several Russian Hockey jerseys, notably to show my support for Traktor Chelyabinsk and Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
Favorite teams for many, many years.
Immediately after that, I was off to Terminal F, Floor 2. My destination: the Irish Pub.
With this My Corona! business, I’ve never seen the airport so empty. Moscow Intergalactic is always swarming as it’s at the crossroads of so many different paths. But today? You could toss a live grenade the length of the terminal and not wound a soul.
I was uncertain if the Irish Pub would even be open, but, hurrah! they were.
However, it appeared that I was going to have the place all to myself.
I sallied forth, up to Mahogany Ridge, parked myself, checked to see that I had my baggage claims and flight tickets, then pulled out a fine Nicaraguan stogie. I motioned to the barkeep that I’d like a Baltica #9 pint, 100 milliliters of Starka vodka, and a bowl of their famous Irish Stew.
I can get Guinness just about anywhere in the world. But draught Baltica?
The barkeep smiled, wrote down my order, and brought my drinks. He explained that the stew would be a few moments; as he has to go to the kitchen down the terminal to obtain it.
“No worries”, I replied, “However, you might want to refresh my drinks before you leave for the stew and they will probably be emptied rather quickly.”
He does, and I push a few hundred new rubles his way.
“Keep the change”, I say.
Tipping is uncustomary in Russia, but, damn, they’re quick learners.
To be continued…
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17 Best Survey Sites To Make Money Online. Let’s go ahead and get into our list of the 17 best survey sites to make extra money. Below you’ll find a review of each online survey site, how it works, why it makes the list and how much you can make. While you most likely won’t get rich with these sites, they’re a great way for earning some extra cash. 1. Survey Junkie. Registration Bonus ... Top UK Paid Survey Sites. Here are the best survey sites in the UK that actually pay. 1. Survey Savvy. Payout method: Check; Review here; SurveySavvy is one of the oldest and most trusted survey panels run by Luth Research LLC, one of the top market research companies in the world. There are a few reasons why I have SurveySavvy at the top of ... MOBROG is one of the more convenient sites among the best UK survey sites 2021. This is because they have one of the best apps UK for surveys on the go. On average I receive between £3 – £5 money from surveys UK with MOBROG, making them one of the top paying survey sites UK for me. Prolific (previously known as Prolific Academic) is well known as one of the best paying survey sites in the UK – or anywhere! Prolific’s main advantage is that they are very transparent. You’ll always know upfront how much you will make (in cash, not points), and how long it will take. Plus, you never get screened out! The best survey sites are active on Facebook and Instagram, often Twitter, Pinterest, or TikTok too. This signifies that the survey company stands by its brand and wants to engage and interact with you. Look at the kind of content they post and check the timestamps of these posts, too. While some survey companies might be too small to do social media, an active presence with regular posts and updates is a very positive sign. Global Test Market are easily the best paid survey site for residents in the UK to sign up to for free. With this site you can potentially earn £50 a month depending on your demographics as surveys are regular. The website is US based however they pay good rates for people in Britain who sign up for free to this leading online survey website. Earn money with paid surveys online in the UK. Here are 22 legit survey sites free to join that give points, gift cards and cash. Swagbucks, Toluna, OnePoll and more. Swagbucks is one of the best paid survey sites we use and have earned a decent amount from them over the last 12 months. Using Swagbucks earns you “bucks” which you can trade-in for cash, vouchers and prize draw. Tasks aren’t just in the form of surveys, but can also include watching videos, using a search engine, playing games and shopping. This means lots of additional ways to earn easy cash. PrizeRebel – Best Paying Survey Sites. Since its debut in 2007, PrizeRebel has paid more than $19 million to its 9 million members. PrizeRebel is THE second-best survey site, in my opinion. I have had lots of positive experiences with them over the years, made over $2000, and they pay within 24 hours.

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Best Survey Sites in 2020 (Top 3 For Earning Money) - YouTube

Update 2021 list: https://youtu.be/M1YpXF4sEHQSee a list of the 10 best paid survey sites in 2020. All of them are legit and actually pay. Full list: https:/... 10 Best Paid Survey Sites For UK That Actually Pay 2020If you live in the United Kingdom, you are lucky. The UK is one of the countries that gives access to ... £140 in 10 minutes? Well 10 minutes a day anyway XD In this video I share with you 2 sites that I make money on by answering a few questions and clicking a f... #5 Opinion Inn: https://afflat3b1.com/lnk.asp?o=18651&c=918277&a=464272&k=719F3620BE3039183D01AB5B0C26652B&l=19837#4 Surveys2Cash: https://www.mb103.com/ln... What are the best survey sites for earning money? Here are our top 3 picks, last updated June 2020. ... What are the best survey sites for earning money? Here are our top 3 picks, last updated ... DON'T FORGET TO VERIFY YOUR EMAIL FOR EASY POINTS! 📩🔥Swagbucks: https://swagbucks.7eer.net/learnhow ($5 BONUS!)🔥Vindale Research: https://learnhowgroup.co...

best survey money sites uk

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