I’m really enjoying this Chinese novel. It’s been machine translated to "Losing Money to Be a Tycoon." (The author name has been translated to "Inebriation-seeking Blue Shirt.")

It’s 1717 chapters long, with some author notes here and there. And it’s a "guy wakes up 10 years ago with a system" story. Only instead of a magic finger, he’s given $50,000 with a promise of more if he follows certain steps.

He has money to use to make money. THEN the system tells him that he can convert the unused portions and the used portions for money. Which immediately attracts his attention.

So he starts reading the rules and things are flipped from what he thinks they should be. He finds out that used portions of the money will be bought back at a ratio of 1:1 while extra money will be bought back by the system at a ratio of 100:1.

He thinks he can spend $50,000 and get $50,000 back.

The only thing is: He can’t spend the money selfishly on himself. Which was one of his first impulses.

The money can only be spent on different money-making ventures. And in the course of making money, there are employees and other venues where money should be spent.

He is forced to be a humanitarian.

And by forced, I mean he doesn’t want to lose the chance to make money and change his life.

Because the system gives him a bunch of money and a time limit. It keeps track of its own money and his money. And after the session is over, it gives him a cut and takes the rest. Then it resets with a different amount of money and a different time limit.

All he wants is to see his balance grow. And the best way to do that is to start a venture and fail.

How hard is it to open a business and lose a bunch of money?

Apparently: very hard.


SPOILER ALERT!

He is aware of his own ineptitude with money.

  • I don’t know if he has gained valuable skills at this point. He could truly understand finances on a deep and powerful level. I don’t know. And neither does he. He doesn’t want to risk it.
  • He wants to lose money so he does everything he thinks will cause a business to fail. Yet he keeps making money.

Maybe he’s in one of his own games.

  • He has a fondness for screwing with his characters.
  • (Breaking the Fourth Wall:) It would be an ending that the author has been leading up to.
  • Some of the games and movies and their inevitable endings could be seen as foreshadowing.

Maybe he’s in a coma.

  • He could be in a futuristic pod, his brain exercised by a virtual reality machine.
  • He died(?) and woke up 10 years in the past of his own life. Which allows him to make different choices and leapfrog out of poverty.

~Harper Kingsley

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I decorated a couple of birdhouses THEN I looked up what the best colors are for attracting nesting birds and… whoops.

So I redecorated some birdhouses and I’m going to try to figure out how and where to install them.

From my Internet research, nesting birds want houses that are painted in hues of gray, brown, green, blue, and purple. While birds love reds, yellows, oranges, pinks, and other bright colors, when they’re trying to hide their nests and their young, they want a camouflaged birdhouse. (So if you’ve set up houses and haven’t gotten any birds, it could be due to location or paint colors.)

My birdhouses may not be the prettiest, but hopefully some birds are going to find their seasonal homes.

They’re a couple of Plaid brand unpainted wooden birdhouses. I used high-gloss acrylic paint that is supposed to be non-toxic and non-harmful. I decorated the outsides and left the interiors as plain wood. With any luck some birds will be having some babies inside them.


Watched the original "The Crazies" movie from George A. Romero. There’s a lot more going on than in the modern version, though some of the colors…

The blood is bright orange-red and a lot of the people look like they’re wearing fluorescent lipstick. And there’s scenes of fighting where there was obviously no contact. But still. A classic movie, in that it holds up.

If those events happened in modern times, people would be sharing everything online. Or freaking out that the Internet got shutdown.

Paranoia. Ignorance. Bad military operations. And a mutated encephalitis that scrambles your brains.

There’s a lot more information provided then in the 2000s version.

And, it’s like, they’re under quarantine, yet they’re going to break out with a girl they KNOW is infected and already showing symptoms? And her dad isn’t too stable either?

When the military guys were talking about scrambling nuclear weapons, it made a lot of sense. Especially since there’s no way for the military to set up a parameter around the whole area… it’s too widely spaced and there’s too many points where people can run through.

Plus how the sickness was spread makes more sense than in the 2000s version. The plane crashed in the hills and some of the canisters ended up in the river and the water sunk into the underground reservoir that provided the town’s water.

In the 2000s version there was a plane that crashed into the lake and nobody knew it was there. As though the military wouldn’t have been tracking their plane full of dangerous chemicals.

In the Romero version, the plane crashed and the military showed up that day. It’s just that for 6 days the military didn’t do a whole lot because the guy in town was told by the higher ups that it was a plane full of deactivated vaccine. People might get fevers or flu-like symptoms but it would be no big deal, when actually it was germ warfare run amok.

There was a lot going on in the movie, but it was pretty good. You just have to go in realizing that it was made in the 1970s.


Did anyone else not realize that one of the main stars of "Another Gay Movie" was Michael Carbonaro?


Anyways, I’ve got a trial Fandor subscription until the 15th, so I’m going to be watching a mix of horror and arthouse movies until it expires.

~Harper Kingsley

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https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

I’ve got a slurry of thoughts:

I have to wonder why all the so-called Christians are so focused on destroying the planet? "I’m a Christian dentist and I shoot lions. They’re like God’s pet cats. It makes him respond like my neighbor when I use heavy poisons around her beloved pets. Lolzzzzzz."

They like to say "This planet was made for us. God made everything beautiful and then put us in the world. He made all this for us!"

So like, they believe that God created a perfect model planet populated by all His beloved creations… and then He plopped a few humans in like someone playing Barbie dolls and eventually graduating to the Sims? And humans are basically acting like that one shithead Sim that causes someone to rage-restart the game?

He’s done a hard reset before.

And yet they’re running around causing all kinds of species to go extinct? And they’re not scared He’ll show up one day and be like "Whatever happened to the family of that one mammoth I was very fond of?"

I’m honestly very into the idea of national parks. "Public" land that is also under close protection. Actively preserved natural environments.

They keep wandering into parks and starting fires that burn down trees and areas that we desperately need for the survival of life on Earth. Like, standing at the base of THE OLDEST LIVING TREE and smoking crack and starting a fire and not telling anyone.

They believe in an all-powerful God that created a perfect world. Like, the ONLY environment that humans can survive in. And all the plants and trees were put in place to maintain that perfect balance.

And then they love to go on hunting safaris where they get to kill animals and travel to places where nobody goes and light campfires and crush the grass and really stomp around. And they hire sleazy people to lead them on their animal slaughter tour, and some of those people should not be given money.

Like, dudes that should be allowed to make enough money to survive. Because they’re the sort of people that shouldn’t be given a lot of money because they’ll harm others, but they’re also the sort that should never not have enough money.

Some people are survivors.

It means that when a situation happens they make quick assessments and sometimes even quicker actions. And their first instinct is to prioritize the people around them. Their loved once at the top of the list.

When the world is good, they focus on giving a good impression to the public. And when the world is bad, they’ll do anything to protect the things that matter to them.

And, it’s like, they created a society that cannot sustain itself without active intervention.

People okay giving ridiculous amounts of money to the military and national law officers. And never ask what they’re going to do with all that money. And then it’s a surprise to find out they use it for bribes and payoffs.

Why does this guy think he can MURDER someone as part of his job and he won’t be punished for it? And it’s like, "Why won’t they actually insure this profession rather than draining the accounts of local communities?" Why is the city, the state, the country paying off families for damages to their loved ones? Isn’t that big budget intended to cover all the sequalae of them doing their jobs?

Having to take 2-minute showers and ride bicycles on patrol might get the brothers-in-uniform to throw Erek the Strangler out of the group and off the paycheck list. Once they can’t afford fuel for their big expensive vehicles, they might start side-eyeing the guy desperate to murder a hobo.

It’s like, people say stuff all the time. Most of it’s facetious. Most of it’s momentary anger and can be ignored. But maybe the guy that literally hate-follows the group of people he wishes would all die starts doing it for real and not just online, and he carries a gun and has in-built protections from lawful prosecution… maybe that guy should not be a police officer.

"But he’s changed! I know he used to be an active member of a hate group that physically acts out their delusions of violence… but he’s different. He deserves a second chance!"

My dude: Your second chance is the fact that people are letting you live a semi-normal life.

There was something in you that let you be recruited into a hate group where you verbally abused people and tattooed your entire body with recognizable slogans of hate.

I believe in second chances. I may not like a person, but I believe they should have the option to live a better life if they’re honestly making changes in themself. I don’t ever want to deal with that person or talk to them if they’ve done something that got me riled up, but they should be able to have a second chance if they’ve really changed and are making reparations.

But there are some things that close some of the open doors around you. Certain opportunities are no longer an option. That’s the way of life: You start out surrounded by open doors and they get whittled down as you keep moving forward until finally there’s only two doors left: life and death.

When you join a hate group, there are doors that slam themselves shut and should remain shut. Because maybe you don’t need to be a school teacher or a nurse or a social worker or a cop. And if you’re really looking to make a second chance at life, you have to accept that there are some careers and life choices that are closed to you.

Because there was something in you that led you into joining a hate group.

Obviously there were some mistakes in the foundation of your character. Things that you have to actively consider and correct. And there’s no room in there to offer proper help to other people.

Because there’s always going to be those biases. The things that make you hesitate or make the wrong choice.

There are some people that really should not be around vulnerable people. They don’t handle stress well or they have questionable views that people don’t want to associate with.

_ – _ – _

Anyway:

  • Beavers are amazing. I watched that document a while back about beavers and they literally preserve water and prevent floods.
  • Grapes are DEADLY poison for dogs. In ANY form (fresh, peeled, raisin, jelly, wine) they can kill a dog by causing acute renal failure. // It’s like, if your dog eats a grape you have to give them peroxide and ask a vet if you need to give them activated charcoal. Because if it starts, the only hope for the dog is intravenous fluid and hoping they don’t die.
  • Pineapple cores are edible and some sources say they contain cancer-fighting nutrients. Plus they provide fiber. // They also say pineapple peels can be eaten. Which means if you don’t peel your pineapple as good as you want to, it won’t kill people. So in the End Times, when you find that single pineapple: You can cut the top off to grow new pineapples while eating all the rest of the pineapple.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

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https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

I should be sleeping but I can’t sleep.

I hope I seem like friendly background noise. Like “I don’t get good sleep unless I hear her puttering around”-ambient sound.

I want the freedom to be alone which has me fantasizing and has me craving solitude. (But I’d probably feel lonely if I ended up completely alone. Between family and roommates, I’ve never lived alone in my life.)

It feels like those guys that are so sure they’ll love the post-apocalypse.

You always know what it’s going to be like before you ever experience it. It’s the way humans are built. We build walls in our brains, locked-in ways of thinking. And our brains build scenarios that we can’t help believing.