Ok so i was signing up for their discount card. I JUST got the app tonight. Never used gas buddy before. It asked me to verify/update my address. It showed me an address that i had 18 years ago…and ive had SO many other addresses since….like why that one and HOW!? My parents never used gas buddy when we lived there either maybe later they did? like 10 years later after they split moved to ca and idaho??. Like kinda freaked out how they had it. My background check and credit history doesn’t even have that address. Anyone have some insight? Should i be concerned? Cuz i am. Just trying to figure out if my concerns are valid? My name is a very generic one too? Its not unique. At all. All i put in to verify myself was my firt and last name birthday and current phone number that i got 2 years ago.

First I want to say, I haven't tested these yet gaming. I know, I know... It's technically a gaming headset. But I figure folks purchasing these are also very interested in using them for music as well as all the other aspects of the device. I will update this after gaming a bit more in the coming days.
Build quality: Solid. Much better than any headset I have ever had my hands on. In fact I'd say it's better than any headphones I've ever had as well. Very impressed. Ear pads are nice and thick but the material isn't as nice as other pleather materials and doesn't seem to breathe much.
Build Quality rating: 9/10
Comfort: Not great. The adjustment strap only has 3 settings and none of them work for me. There is no up/down adjustment on the head piece like most headphones and headsets have. I settled for using the middle setting on one side and the smallest on the other side. The smallest setting is way too tight on my head. the middle setting it feels like the headphones are sitting too low on my head with the tops of my ears touching the pads. Also, the headset is pretty heavy at around 500g. The pads are reasonably comfy and thick but they are made of pleather and get a little toasty. The clamping force depends on the strap setting and it apparent but not horrible. After a few hours this headset is way more comfortable than you'd expect after having read everything I just wrote. So while comfort isn't the best, it's not terrible either.
Comfort rating: 7/10
Features: Good but not the best. No ANC - that's fine, I don't need it. But competitors in this price range do have it. Sidetone works reasonably well and is an interesting addition. The built-in EQ settings are nice to have. The buttons and dials included on the headset are good - the dials have clicks and change in small increments. The buttons are solid. The Windows app is OK - pretty basic. Makes updating firmware super easy, has preset EQ. Would like to see something a bit more robust like SteelSeries Sonar though as I think this headset would benefit a LOT from parametric EQ tunes. Wireless works great and is very good quality.
Features rating: 8/10
Wireless: The wireless connection is solid but the range claim of "up to 3x traditional 2.4Ghz" is perhaps a little exaggerated. It cuts out in the same areas of my home that my 7 year old 2.4Ghz SteelSeries Siberia 800 does but it is still decent. The audio streaming quality is excellent as far as I can tell. no buzz, humm or background noise. The headset connects no problem to the USB dongle on both PS5 and PC. I have not noticed any significant audio lag which is a huge deal for me. Bluetooth to my phone and PC (not using dongle) is excellent as well.
Wireless rating: 9/10
Mic: Amazing for a headset. Noise suppression is good even without the active noise suppression turned on. Tested with a buddy that said I sound WAY better then with my old headset. Also ran a test and listened to myself. This is one the best built-in MIC's on a gaming headset I've ever hear. The mic is also detachable which is nice. Even the on-board mic's sound better than most gaming headsets I've heard.
Mic rating: 9.5/10
Audio: Excellent for a gaming headset. MUCH better than my old SteelSeries Siberia 800. I can tell immediately these are Planar Magnetic and not your run of the mill gaming headset drivers. However, I am comparing them directly to audiophile Planar Magnetic headphones that I have tuned with a parametric equalizer. So in that realm they are not nearly as impressive. For music I daily a pair of Sundara (2020 revision) running through JDS Atom DAC+/Amp+. I'm using Equalizer APO with Oratory1990's Harman curve profile with some minor tweaks. That setup, IMO, is amazingly good with imaging and clarity in every genre from the bass all the way through to the treble. Amazing mid presence without being "warm". It's hard to explain but suffice it to say I can jack up the volume on virtually any kind of music and not get fatigued, but even at lower volumes the detail is still there. The Maxwell is a totally different story. There seems to be quite a V-shape built into the tuning. The mids are suppressed quite a bit. The bass and treble are decent but the highs are quite fatiguing. I am not a true audiophile so it's hard to explain, but when I put on my Sundara I just get so much detail from the whole range whereas with the Maxwell I lose a lot of detail and a little clarity. It's not that the bass is overpowering or muddy which is the case with my Siberia 800, it's just that it gets beat to shit by my Sundara setup. To be fair, the Maxwell may EQ well but I don't see how to do that outside the tools Audeze has included as it's all built into the headset itself. There is no fine tuning the EQ in their app that I can see, only presets. Each preset seems to be a tweak of the default "Audeze" setting rather than a whole different tune. So Bass boost brings out more bass without impacting the rest of the sound while Treble boost does the same.
Compared to my old gaming headset the audio quality is amazing. Compared to my music headphones the audio is just OK. So I think if you're coming from any mainstream "gaming headset" to this you will be impressed. If you're coming from something like the HD58x, especially if you have that thing dialed in, you may not be quite as impressed. Not that the Maxwell isn't putting oujt good sound because it is. I think it's just the way it's tuned. Clearly the drivers are good and capable of very high quality audio reproduction. Not really a fair comparison I'm making but if you are expecting this superb audiophile wireless Planar Magnetic headphone out of the box and already have a high quality setup you may be a little disappointed.
Imaging - good but not greatSoundstage - mehTreble - good but fatiguingMids - lackingBass - good but not greatClarity - good, great in some ways, lacking in others
Also want to note that the wireless audio sounds a bit different than USB. Not sure what it is but I think wireless using the dongle sounds better than direct USB connection.
Audio rating: 7.5/10 compared to my Sundara setup. 9/10 compared to other gaming headsets.
There you have it. My initial impressions. I'm going to go play some games now and see how it is. As a gaming headset alone I think the Maxwell is already a fantastic option even before I play any games with them. I also haven't tested the 3D audio stuff but I am in the camp that simulated surround sound is sort of gimmicky. I always got better directional audio out of stereo mode than with any of the virtual surround stuff. And the Maxwell already has better imaging and soundstage than the vast majority of gaming headsets out there.
Just remember I'm comparing these to actual audiophile headphones that have been tuned for music. EQ may really bring these to life in terms of the audio quality. I'm not a huge fan of the Audeze tune. If I didn't have my Sundara setup I think my perception of the audio here would be skewed much higher but switching between them I am not nearly as impressed. Beats the shit out of my old gaming headset though.

My buddy came by today with a coworker. Spur of the moment after midnight type shit. At the end of the night he tells me guess who I saw? Obviously it was her, my ex fiancé. She told him to send me a picture of them.
My buddy obviously declined. Of course, he still asked me if I want to see….nah, why would I do that to myself? My buddy says they’ve been dating for a month now. Ok. What am I suppose to do? Next topic please. I’ve been with my new girls nearly a year now. So we cheers and discuss something else.
It was 15 years together with you. I was terrible to you…you reacted accordingly. After all was said and done…you left. Ok so that’s life. I don’t need an update on your life girl, you left me. I know you and I will always wish you the best.
Anways, I’m with a someone new. But you already knew that. I still don’t get why you came by that night last July. I still don’t get why you stayed around getting cozy with my family. I still don’t get how you expected me to react when my gf came by after her shift at work. Aren’t you just tired of all the drama? That’s why I had to block you. I never thought I could do it. I didn’t do it cuz I wanted to, I had to for my sanity. You blocked me, and only unblock me so you could toy with me. But I’m not like that and I won’t let you keep doing that.
I’m too old to be playing these games. Just a few days ago We got each other rings…and that night I had a dream and you were in it. You couldn’t stop crying. We talked but all I did was stand there…perhaps our 15 year connection is finally severed. I dunno. All I know is I don’t like dreaming, if it means I got to see you again. That’s not right to the new woman in my life.
You left me, so I’m not surprised this is how my mind works. Obviously it’s harder for the one who gets left behind.
But life is not always about bad news. I am going to make it official in a few weeks. I’m not gonna lie, it doesn’t feel good to know you’re with someone else…but if I am blessed enough to find someone who I hope wants me forever, then who I am to judge when others are just as blessed. He will treat you well I hope.

i am still getting used to typing 30 as my birthday was a little while ago. I'm old!! Pretty sure my parents had 3 kids by this point though I'm not really planning on having kids so it's ok, but I would like a bunch of pets like a dog and some frogs. I like puzzles, playing video games, space, nature, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I watch a variety of streamers, at the time of typing this varkskelethor is playing Pizza Tower so I have that as background noise while I make this post. I've also been watching a lot of anime clips youtube has been recommending me. I've never seen Hunter x Hunter but i petty much watched the whole thing through clips, though I rarely sit down to watch an anime completely through. The last one was Attack on Titan. Isn't it ridiculous how they are spacing out the last season? Yeah man this is for sure the last season :) Trolled idiot, it has 3 parts that are spaced out like a new season each. or is it 4 now? I forget. I enjoy sitting in nature and looking at picturesque views as well as going on long walks. Did I mention I like cooking? I like making stuff like fries, wings, or pretty much anything extra crispy. Have you ever made a quesadilla and let the cheese fall out slightly so it caramelizes? If you haven't i'll still talk to you i guess..
I am looking for someone I can chill with, play games and/or watch stuff together and potentially explore new interests together, or share ones we already have. I admire a sense of humor above all else so if you can make me giggle or pretend to find me funny there is a 95% chance I will find you attractive. I am a shitposter at heart. Physically I am 5'11, around 180 lbs, black hair and brown eyes, and I can't roll Rs. What else? I think that's my whole life. Oh. I have a bonzi buddy sticker on my water bottle.

i am still getting used to typing 30 as my birthday was a little while ago. I'm old!! Pretty sure my parents had 3 kids by this point though I'm not really planning on having kids so it's ok, but I would like a bunch of pets like a dog and some frogs. I like puzzles, playing video games, space, nature, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I watch a variety of streamers, at the time of typing this varkskelethor is playing Pizza Tower so I have that as background noise while I make this post. I've also been watching a lot of anime clips youtube has been recommending me. I've never seen Hunter x Hunter but i petty much watched the whole thing through clips, though I rarely sit down to watch an anime completely through. The last one was Attack on Titan. Isn't it ridiculous how they are spacing out the last season? Yeah man this is for sure the last season :) Trolled idiot, it has 3 parts that are spaced out like a new season each. or is it 4 now? I forget. I enjoy sitting in nature and looking at picturesque views as well as going on long walks. Did I mention I like cooking? I like making stuff like fries, wings, or pretty much anything extra crispy. Have you ever made a quesadilla and let the cheese fall out slightly so it caramelizes? If you haven't i'll still talk to you i guess..
I am looking for someone I can chill with, play games and/or watch stuff together and potentially explore new interests together, or share ones we already have. I admire a sense of humor above all else so if you can make me giggle or pretend to find me funny there is a 95% chance I will find you attractive. I am a shitposter at heart. Physically I am 5'11, around 180 lbs, black hair and brown eyes, and I can't roll Rs. What else? I think that's my whole life. Oh. I have a bonzi buddy sticker on my water bottle.

Like many others i did some digging here and on youtube and I wanted to make a log of my experience - its only day 1 - and its long, but I think people like lots of details to ease the anxiety, and I appreciated the long ones as well because yeah, no one is like yeah cool lets go get surgery it will be fun
AGE : 52 - Reasonable shape, 6'1'' 190 - not a gym guy but active enough - developed Henira appx 4 months ago - Got to the point where I couldn't stand for more than 20-30 minutes at a time.
No Nerve block, but so far about 18 hours past the surgery it has only gotten better - Also I'm still only on Advil and Tylenol - about 4 each every 4 hours.
​
DAY 1 : i hate surgery, not so much the thought of going under, but I HATE the way I feel when I wake up - and yeah it sucked waking up - not from a pain perspective, but from a I'm doped up to hell headache groggy way.
​
Going in no real issues, staff nice, docs came in reviewed, the surgeon put his initial on the side he was working on - yeah that's encouraging, but yeah makes sense. They roll you in, my doc is on the younger side, maybe 40, he seems good, but it was nice to see a senior doc to assist and the anesthesiologist had to be pushing 60, and had great bedside They had me under in like 5 minutes, and then you wake up and your done - no issues there - took them a little longer than expected I'll ask the doc on my followup why -
​
And as expected felt like crap when I woke up - not in pain, just the dizzy weak post anesthesia way
They had an issue with me breathing before I officially woke up, which, well is kind of normal for me, I kind of go into a coma when I sleep, weird I know, but it is what it is- my O2 levels where very low, they seemed concerned, I could hear them talking, but I'm like yah, I'm not ready to situp yet - again normal for me, when I go into a deep sleep I'm aware , but just don't move. Anyway, when i was ready to sit-up, I sat up and they gave me that blow device, no clue of the name, but you blow into it so they can check your lung capacity, 1st few trys like 500, but then I rolled it up to 3000 and they where happy. They do this to kind of get your lungs moving from the anesthesia - and when I was blowing i had my 1st cough, fuck that hurt - but it went away fast
Told the doc I had issues with nausea post surgery, anesthesiologist seemed component and she did a good job, also expressed my concern about c02 levees being pumped in to me as some people indicated that was an issue for them - so I told them my concern, and whatever they did, yeah barely bloated and no nausea when I woke up
About 40 minutes later wife came into the room, she asked why I only had one sock, I told her the nurses where checking my o2 levels because they where low, nurses surprised I knew they did that :) Also heard them complaining about some lady complaining about the tv channel - nurses where surprised for as knocked out as I appeared I was actually alert.
about 30 minutes later I'm in a chair and out the door, nurse was nice brought me at least a half dozen cracker packs which I really needed - again I asked for more - I also asked for a second ice bag - one for the groin and 1 for the stiches
Got home and yeah, pretty much everything is "manageable" Had a little back pain I think from the Co, almost zero pain at the stiches, but yeah SORE AS SHIT in the groin. However one piece of advice I took from my doc and from many others here and on youtbe, WALK AROUND - Every hour I got up and walked around, at 1st you don't want to , but I think it actually helps - and my pain dropped, well pretty quick after walking.
​
Homes treatment Hacks so far - again a mix of advice from reddit, youtube, etc, etc, and my own thoughts
ICE : For this surgery you have stiches in your belly and the groin - don't ice one, ice both areas - get some BIG ice packs - I think my are 18x15'' soft gel ice packs, get 2, 3, 4, and get them in the freezer before you go - Ok now I'm home, ok how the F do I keep these ice packs in place and move around - Ahh, I have some compression underwear - I put those on over the jock they give you, and well I jsut put the ice packs down my compression shorts - I can even walk around with the ice still in place - Btw its not hardcode compression underwear, basically jsut kind of tight 9'' boxer briefs.
FOOD : Everyone says proteins, I agree, having had surgery before its a must - I get Boost - HIGH PROTEIN shakes - they actually taste decent. Load in a case ahead of time.
Later in the day I did some peanut butter and toast, I didn't toast the bread al the way, basically jsut warmed up the toast, and did a thin later of PB - don't do chunky, do smooth - I'm doing a kind of hearty rye bread - any high fiver bread would work
Also Bob Evans Mashed potato - Again had surgery before ( not hernia a tooth that went horribly bad ) where i wasnt allowed any real food, and well BE mashed potato are good and I lived on Ensure , mashed potatoes and apple sauce for like a month
Probiotics : You stomach will be a mess, again previous surgical crap, and I found those little probiotic drinks help with nausea
**COUGH DROPS :**Get some, no get some, they minimize the antesia cough and that is the thing that really hurt's
Liquids, I'm doing a mix of Orange Juice, Water and Prune Juice ( not mixed together, but that's my rotation ) OJ, Water, Prune Juice, repeat - to me prune juice sucks, but yeah just drink it, its not really horrible, it kind of tastes like Raisins but in liquid form - and you need the fiber
Drink ALL the TIME - so far I've peed 3 times reasonable flow -
Your body is injured and needs nutrients, I'm kind of stressing this because when I first got home I jsut wanted to sleep, but then yeah I remembered many pepo here , the docs and nurses al saying walk around, even if it only for 5 minutes
SITTING : I tired the recline, but yeah I noticed I would need WAY TOO MUCH core strength to get out - called my wife and had she push the chair back up for me - So If I sit in a chair, I just sit like its an office chair -
BED : Unlike others, I'm kind of doing better in a bed than a chair, Our bed is a 4 poster, so I can basically slid me legs the edge, then use my arms to kind of get myself up - but i can see if you don't have anything to get leverage on yeah a bed would suck. If I didn't have this type of bed the only way up without pulling on things would be for someone to help you up. So I can see why the sofa makes sense for a lot of people
HAVE SOMEONE WITH YOU : If I didn't have someone with me, I't would be far more difficult. You don't really need someone strong , don't have a significant other, ask a family member , a buddy, anyone the first few hours you need actual help . Frist time I took the stairs it was nice to have someone there just in case, when I kind of got stuck int he chair, it was nice to have someone to help, when I was trying to figure out how to get in and out of bed, it was nice to have someone to help. But then once you figure shit out, you don't need as much help
PAIN : Ok it does hurt, but legit manageable maybe a 2 or 3 out of ten - kind of a dull I yanked my back a little way. EXCEPT when you cough or try to use your core in ANY WAY - then it rolls up to an 7, 8, 9
Now, yes this sucks - but not really - you see you figure out real fast what hurts, and you don't do that again - so far the only annoying thing on pain is a cough -but the pain stops the second you stop coughing - SO just take it easy and dont cough and yeah its kind of just annoying
MEDICATION :So far jsut ibuprofen and Tylenol - Ask your doc for the right mix - so far avoided the Norco, codeine makes me sick - but if it gets bad, I'll take it.
Ok, now I know everyone says day 2 or 3 can be the worst cuz you don't have all the pain meds still in your system - I'll post again end of day 2 to let you know what I find
​
And THANK YOU to all of you have posted here before me - Positive or negative it was of great help for me preparing for this surgery.

A place for members of OkBuddyTheWhale to chat with each other

Great news! Interest rates fell and cash buyer boomers from NOVA have all been ground into soylent you should have no problem snatching up that cute turn key move in ready ranch with a nice yard walking distance to bars and coffee shops for $200k (25k under list full inspection seller covers all repairs) in the Munford school district!
 
.......Ok lmao yeah April Fools let’s just get that shit out of the way now.
 
I’m a real estate agent working all over the entire Richmond area. I’ve been involved in real estate over ten years in one form or another and am in the top 5% of agents in my company nationwide. With my boring whack ass credentials out of the way welcome to my Q2 real estate update where I want to look back on how far we've come in the last three months. We’ll do a quick primer on the current banking crisis that’s been making headlines and what that means for the coming economic collapse (lololol). I also want to walk you through what it’s been like on the ground with some buyers of mine and highlight some events during the course of finding them a home. We’re also going to have some guest commentary by /rva’s resident lender u/gracetw22 with her take on the mortgage side of the business.
 
I’d like to apologize a head of time because I’m going to be jumping into and out of things as I’m writing all of this so the main thread of the post is going to zig zag a bit. Just think of it more like a journey > destination type thing. I’ll try to make this as guided as I can but will probably spend more time fucking with reddit post formatting than drawing up a proper outline so uhhh let's jump in.
 

Days of Whine and Roses

For those joining us for the first time here is the post I made at the start of the year. This covers a lot of basics about where we have come from, answers some FAQs about appraisal gaps/cash buyers/home prices skyrocketing, and is generally just a good starting point for everything I’m going to discuss in this post. Much of this is still valid today and I have been told this is an extremely pro click:
 
RVA Real Estate Outlook 2023 - Behold a Pale Gray House
 
Housing has been in a recession since June/July of last year. The increase in mortgage rates have really put a damper on the market. In some ways that’s a good thing. Things were getting a little too crazy. It sucks for affordability, but homes were flying on and off the market way too fast. Many people couldn’t afford them even because so many people had cash on hand to bid over asking, which is different from an all-cash sale (see my previous post for a more detailed explainer on this), and the list price of a home doesn’t mean shit if it sells for an entirely different and much higher price.
 
The price of the home is what the invisible hand of the market doing jerk off motions says the price is. You can list a trash heap with no central air in Highland Springs for a million but that doesn’t mean you will get it. Conversely you can list some gorgeous updated home in the near west end for a ridiculous amount under recent comps in the last 90 days and pretend like you’re the hero when it falls in line with everything else as it goes under contract. Guess what real estate agents absolutely love doing to artificially boost their credibility?
 
Side note: occasionally in real estate posts someone on here will share a Zillow link to a home pending for like I dunno 350k that looks absolutely magnificent and almost every single time that happens I inevitably look it up, pull comps, and go “yeah this is underpriced by 50-100k.” Ya’ll please stop allowing yourself to be catfished. It’s a deliberate ploy and agents have been shamelessly doing it for the past 2 years. If it looks too good to be true, it more than likely is. Here is an example that caught everyone’s eye listed at 349k closed at 405k: 8016 Burrundie Drive
 

Nobody move there’s blood on the floor

Anywho I mentioned the R word and by that I mean a recession in housing. What you have to remember is that if you’re going to pack your shit up and sell your home you are almost always going to become a buyer unless you’re also being packed up in a coffin or urn on your way out in which case you don’t care where you go. If you’re looking to sell you are looking at what you think you’re going to net for your home as well as what your all-in and monthly payment is going to be on your next home. A lot of sellers are sitting pretty right now flush with equity. The vast majority are holding onto rates of 4.5% or lower. Why give that up unless you absolutely have to? Keep in mind a metric fuck ton of people refinanced in 2020 when rates cratered. Yeah you can bend a buyer over a barrel and get top dollar for your place now, but for many it’s a wash because they’ll have to pay that much more for their next place, go through what they just did to Mr and Mrs Buyer, and end up paying way more for the same thing they just gave up. When rates were low this was easier to stomach, but when they started skimming 7% the value proposition just wasn’t there. This caused a pretty substantial drop in inventory nationally because everyone stayed put. The issue of inventory has been the main driver of why housing sucks the last few years so even though we have less of it there is still upward pressure on pricing just due to the fact that there isn’t enough to go around.
 
Fewer homes being listed means fewer buying opportunities for everyone. The whole system kind of seized up. That being said there are still a lot of renters and first time home buyers trying to break into the market because the rental market fuckin’ suuuuuuucks regardless of what rates are doing. I got a text from someone who I didn’t really expect to hear from until later this year tell me his rent is being jacked up 17% because “reasons” according to his landlord. When people are faced with that kind of increase suddenly purchasing becomes a lot more enticing. You aren’t at the whims of the rental market, you can bank some equity, and you can (mostly) do what you want where you live.
 
If you go back to 2018-2019 which were the last time the world looked ::finger quotes:: “normal” you would see inventory was pretty flat until late Feb and then rose to a peak in the summer. This year has followed the same pattern we’ve had in 2021 and 2022 except we still aren’t seeing the flatline into growth we should be seeing right now. Inventory continues to fall and if that tracks we may not see “peak” inventory until August. There is no hard and fast rule on what the new normal is so this is something I’m going to continue to keep a close eye on city wide and will try to update everyone that’s interested accordingly. For now (In an Extremely Kai Rysdall Voice) let’s do the numbers.
 
Active listings around this time last year hovered around 351k total available units nationwide. It was 438k in March of 2021 and 934k units in 2020. Currently it is at 562k-ish. If your memory is hazy I’ll just point out that March of 2020 was really before COVID hit the US and went gangbusters which is when inventory dropped like a rock and everyone thought housing was going to crash. This week last year we had 93k new listings but substantially higher numbers of immediate sales. Those are homes that go on the market and go under contract within a day or two. We have 68k new listings now with around half as many immediate sales. Again all of this is nationwide so take it with a grain of salt when trying to draw a conclusion using those numbers and comparing them to Richmond. We’re a different market than San Francisco or Denver and what is happening locally here vs there isn’t reflected in this data. Some parts of the country are seeing big increases in inventory and considerably higher vacancy rates on rentals that we don’t have here. I’m just sharing this because it’s interesting from a birds eye perspective.
I think this is a pretty good time to point out the obvious that there is a lot going on in the world feeding into this that isn’t housing specific. It’s as good a time as any to segue into how dumb and bad Silicon Valley bank was at being a bank so let’s fuckin go.
 

Do Re Mi, ABC, SVB baby u and me

Silicon Valley Bank mostly served VCs and the tech sector. That’s been their bread and butter for a while now. Banks typically like to keep portions of their investments tied to relatively safe assets or securities like bonds. If you are watching JP at the fed turn the dial on rates up those bonds you now hold are not worth as much. A good bank will diversify the types of bonds (ie a bond ladder) they hold so that they can let some of them grow to maturity while cash out others but not at SVB. So as the rates went up their bonds became worthless right around the time a lot of VCs and tech companies were feeling the pinch and in need of more cash. SVB said they were going to sell some assets at a loss, people got spooked and there was a run on the bank. Within a short time SVB was toast. Luckily there was a bailout that lots of people are claiming was not a bail out because SVB executives weren’t being saved (there was a bailout) so most depositors will be made whole. Since then Janet Yellen has been going “Wow there certainly a lot of questions about my ‘the banking system is sound and secure’ t shirt I’ve been wearing all week”.
 
There were other banks and institutions that have bit the dust or been on shaky ground like Silvergate with their disproportionate exposure to dogecoine or whatever the fuck crypto nonsense they were up to. Credit Suisse had some shitty fund management issues going back years and some absolutely insane storylines involving the Belgian gang cocaine money laundering, the Saudi’s refusing to back it on reports of mismanagement, etc. The point is this is a crisis in the ability of some banks to do very basic bank things. It’s not the same thing as Lehman Brothers, CDS, AIG, credit availability to the average consumer with a pulse being approved for “sky is the limit” loans without asset verification. This is a case of some banks screwed up how they hold bonds which is one of the most boring things to fuck up in that world. They didn’t get struck by a moving vehicle out of nowhere. They put their car in neutral on a .05 degree decline, laid down 20 feet away, and let it roll over them at a snails pace.
 
Fun fact: the CEO of SVB was actually the CFO of Lehman Brothers in the 2008 GFC so lol man oh man talk about falling up.
 
“But gowhatyourself, what does this have to do with housing in Richmond?” You know I’m glad you asked that question Rhetorical Device thank you. It doesn’t directly, but it has introduced a degree of volatility to the bond market and in turn interest rates that, again, has given sellers pause and some lucky buyers a great opportunity to get in at lower rates as they time the fluctuations. I have more to say on that later on.
Markets do not like volatility. Line must go up and in the absence of “up” it must stay flat or decline in a predictable way so that there is enough breathing room to make money on the way down. The house always comes out ahead but when conditions are uncertain things get dicey. That’s part of why SVB went under. The house (Peter Thiel) coordinated a bank run. The economy, just like real estate, is often governed by “vibes”.
 

You get a good job with more pay and you're okay

“So what are the vibes in Richmond gowhatyourself? Home prices are declining! I saw they dropped precipitously in Sacramento!” Yes no kind of not really. Much like politics real estate is both national and hyper local. Trends in inventory and home prices can be looked at broadly as a measure of what the economy is going through as a whole, but it lacks context. Prices have fallen in areas with a lot of tech exposure which have seen layoffs and slow downs so people aren’t paying the same premiums they once were. Again though, it’s context dependent. We didn’t experience the same price shock as some other metro areas. We didn’t see the absolutely bonkers price increases you saw in Austin or Des Moines for example. We also aren’t seeing the same type of correction either. Our home prices have actually stayed relatively flat or have even gone up in some areas of town since last summer. I’m still regularly seeing homes go for some pretty eye watering prices in the fan and near west end, but not so much in say Moseley. Short Pump still has some wild shit happen from time to time too. I, much like many others, cannot for the life of me figure out why 12 Westham Parkway went for 400k over asking.
 
For reference here is a great article on where the current housing correction is most pronounced broken down by different geographical areas. You can go in and select the Richmond region (unfortunately not down to a really granular level to just RVA). The link below bypasses the paywall. The article with the paywall is linked below that just to show it’s something I didn’t mock up out of the blue.
 
Fortune Housing Market Update
https://fortune.com/2023/03/13/housing-market-update-home-price-correction-told-by-six-charts-and-maps-data-real-estate/
 
Again, context matters. Scarcity matters. Buyer appetite and their motivations matter.
The motivation matters because some buyers aren’t entirely on board with getting the process started, but have their hand forced because landlords think they can squeeze more out of their tenants. I cannot count the number of people I’ve spoken to in the last month that have told me their rent is being raised by some obscene amount with landlords giving the excuse of “Oh yeah my costs are rising”. Buddy your costs to do what refuse to replace air filters or something because you aren’t doing shit in the best of times? Buyers just take a deep breath hold their nose and start making the necessary moves to purchase a home. Landlords don’t care because they can and will raise rent even more if those people bail so it’s a win for them regardless. At least for now until vacancy rates start to rise like they are in other parts of the country where people decided that building more housing was a thoughtful prudent thing to do.
 
I know landlords read these real estate threads and I’m not trying to paint you all with the same brush I’m kind of sure that not all of you are blood sucking sociopaths. AirBnB owners can get fucked though.
 

'Till the tears run down from my eyes, Lord

At this point I’d like to walk you through the process for one of my buyers (With their permission!) that started their journey back in December. I think it took a rather interesting arc that illustrates a lot of trends going on in real estate right now. When we first spoke they gave me their list of wants and needs so I did the usual thing of sending them things to look over and then put them on an automated search that went out daily. I was still checking on the portal every day and tweaking things here and there (“Hmm what if we go back a few years on the build date or look a little more east…” that kind of thing). We were casting an extremely wide net. South of the river from 288 all the way down to around Courthouse Road at 288 out west to about the Richmond Zoo. 500k or less built in the last 25 years. That is an absolutely massive area. They had certain preferences for what they wanted in the home of course. Some natural light, a halfway decent kitchen, and some square footage to spread out in but there was nothing they told me that was so hyper specific that it should have been difficult to find anything. Boy I was wrong.
 
We would go weeks without seeing anything come on the market. I think we only went out maybe once in January because there was just nothing and even then what we toured wasn’t worth the drive for either of us. When something did go live we’d go take a look at it and jointly agree that it just wasn’t even worth offering on. Usually it was because the home had not been kept up with which is something you find more often than you’d think. People buy/build new homes then assume they don’t need to do anything to it so they never change their air filters, clean the gutters, etc. There was one home we saw that was built in 2017 and I swear to god I don’t think they had ever changed the air filters anywhere. The HVAC system sounded it like it had been chain smoking Marlboro reds for the last 5 years and when I popped open the air return dust and dirt had completely caked over causing a near total blockage of air flow. Sometimes we’d go and find out a home had solar panels that had not or would not be paid off at closing. What buyer is going to cover $40k worth of solar panels at closing? The point is they weren’t being picky or anything there just wasn’t anything that really worked.
 
Weeks and months went by with nothing to really put an offer on, but at the same time we also weren’t losing out on anything either. Homes were still going under contract quickly we just didn’t see a reason to bite on any of them. The week SVB went under I started watching the 10 year bond dip and poking around just outside the MLS area they had been looking at because I felt if there was ever a time to stretch the parameters it’s now if rates drop abruptly over the weekend. Bingo. I found something that checked almost all of their boxes. We toured the home. They loved it. I hit up their lender to see where rates were and if he was seeing movement trending down. Between the beginning of the week and when we went under contract their rate had gone down almost a full percentage point. After months of wandering the stars aligned and we were set. No escalation clauses, no waiving inspections or waiving the appraisal. Just a fair purchase price on a cleanly written offer and a 30 day close.
 
The listing agent tried to do the whole “My sellers are out of town and need to review in two days” and I just went “nah lady you used Authentisign for the DPOR form you can present this now thanks.” So she caved and she did. For the record it was almost impossible to bully sellers like this last year. They’d just tell you to pound sand and get in line.
 
Some of what I mentioned above wasn’t really the case a few years ago. There was a lot more competition and even though right now the data was clearly showing there were more homes being listed nationally than there had been in previous years we just weren’t seeing it where we were looking. That whole part of town either locked in their purchase around 3% or they re-financed and planned on staying put. That’s just how the burbs be sometimes.
 
The point of all of this isn’t to say “WoooOOOwww I’m SUCH a good agent” it’s that the market is doing really funky things and ultimately it’s possible to get into something you want if you are patient and strategic. Plan accordingly! If you are thinking of doing something this year get your ducks in a row now so that when opportunities like that present themselves you know what you want and you can act decisively. Talk to Grace and sort out what your financing is going to be. Figure out if you want to break a lease early and if there are any penalties or if you’re free and clear with 60 days notice. Confirm with your soulless middle manager at cap one that you are locked into WFH so you can shop south of 288 without fear of reprisals via shit traffic engineering.
 
One last thing I want to cover before I turn things over to Grace is what happened with new construction following my last post in January. At the time what we were seeing in the industry were home builders struggling to make their numbers because longer lead times vs resale were hampering their ability to keep fidgety buyers watching rates rise under contract. Homes were being cancelled and people were backing out at alarming rates. So here I have to hand it to the builders. They saw where they had leverage and pounced in some pretty creative ways. Many builders have in house financing (NVR Mortgage and Ryan Homes for example) so some of them started doing things like aggressively offering free rate buy downs, or holding steady on pricing and offering deep incentives like hey sign now and you get 15k in free kitchen upgrades (at 2k cost to us). I saw home builders offering free trips to resorts to agents who brought them a buyer who signed on the dotted line. Commission offerings from builders went up. They pulled all the right levers and captured a lot of people who had been sitting on the sidelines through the winter. Some builders found that fairly mild price cuts were all you needed to do to get people through the door again. The builders just have leverage in ways traditional sellers either are unwilling to take advantage of or simply cannot compete with.
 
As promised here are some Deep Thoughts with our lord and savior of rva lending u/gracetw22 :

Just some quick thoughts for where I see mortgages moving:

1. After the most recent federal reserve meeting, Jerome Powell’s comments seemed to indicate that they were slowing down the rate of federal funds increases, and believes that the current amount of credit tightening is more than the current inflation data shows, so the fed intends to wait to see what the current changes cause before continuing on. The fed indicates to expect one additional rate increase this year and expects slightly lower rates next year. This does NOT directly impact your mortgage rate, but it does tend to follow similar patterns to what DOES impact your mortgage rate. Love to hear it.
   
2. Getting MUCH less press but what will be MUCH more impactful to your mortgage rate is the strong stance the federal government is taking in policy as it pertains to mortgages. Remember, the only reason that a 30 year fixed rate mortgage exists is BECAUSE of the secondary market for them and the government entities that manage that. Private loans that are not sold on these markets are historically 2-3% higher. The federal housing finance agency and house finance committees have made a number of decisions lately that signal the government is moving their policy on mortgages away from a risk based model: the riskier the loan, the more expensive, and more toward a social service type model: the less help you need from us, the more expensive. As of right now, someone making less than 80% of the area median income is getting the same rate that someone with an 800 score and 50% down would receive REGARDLESS of credit score, down payment, property type, etc. Someone with a 740 score who makes over that 80% limit is paying a higher rate comparatively than they were 2 months ago. More detail here: https://www.reddit.com/RealEstate/comments/10kc155/new_loan_level_pricing_adjustments_fo Where do I see that going? Higher earners are going to increasingly have the best available rates from banks that are lending their own money or brokers that run with very minimal overhead.
   

 
So that’s a wrap. If you made it this far thank you very much for your time an attention. I hope this was an entertaining and informative read. I’ll answer questions where I can and you all can advocate about how we should line 95 with the crucified bodies of would-be carpetbaggers from NOVA pricing everyone out of the market. You can howl into the nothing about how we need zoning changes and higher density residential construction. Housing bears feel free to doom-say away and everyone who hates real estate agents get in line behind me because you don't hate them more than I do.

For context: In my current position I work as a supply chain analyst at a hospital. It's incredibly unrewarding and frustrating work for pretty low pay. In short, I don't get paid enough to put up with what I'm about to tell you about. Also, I've been at this job for a little over a year now.
Ok so Wednesday afternoon at about 3:30 it's closing time and I'm headed out the door with a buddy of mine who works in receiving when I hear loud (and I mean LOUD) yelling coming from the warehouse. I decided to check it out to make sure it wasn't someone injured or something of the sort as we do have some fall risks on the team.
When I turn the corner I see one of the newer techs (he's been working for us about 4 months) absolutely shredding one of the older seasoned techs. When I say this guy was peppering him I mean he was really going in. I felt bad for the older tech and I also didn't want either of these guys to get in trouble if a manager walked by especially if they were a clinical manager or sup. So I politely yet firmly tell them to cut it out to the tune of "Guys stop. Take it to the back and talk it out." They ignored me and I was happy to leave it at that until the newer tech started getting up in the older tech's face. I legitimately thought we were about to be dealing with an assault at that point because he was on the edge of throwing punches. So I told them again a 2nd time and finally a 3rd time to stop. The older tech walked off and the newer tech started yelling at me telling me to "Pack your happy ass up and go home." I was a little stunned but I told him I knew he was upset but both of them need to calm down and talk to the supervisors tomorrow. The yelling continued but the older tech kept walking away so eventually I felt it was time to leave as well.
As soon as I got back to my car I made sure to call the manager to let him know what happened. I was the only leadership in the office at the time so I felt like I needed to pass it along to someone who could actually do something about the situation.
Anyways, fast forward to today. Both techs got a firm talking to, which is par for the course around there, and I'm out talking to my buddy in receiving about baseball. Out of nowhere angry tech comes around the corner and asks to talk to me. I say sure knowing it's gonna be some sort of awkward conversation. Next thing I know he's lighting me up calling me a snitch (I told him yes, I did call our manager so I'll own that) among other things. It didn't bother me too much until he said two things: 1) "Get a life" and 2) "You're nobody around here."
The entire time I've been here I've been getting accolades for my work and I'm not always happy there but at least it was bearable. But now I just feel absolutely crushed. The way he said it so nonchalantly and while laughing just made me feel like shit. His whole accusation was that I had been telling people about the whole situation, which is empirically untrue because he was citing hearing rumors that I would have literally had no way of knowing the details of given I hadn't been there for any of the followup to the initial incident.
Anyways, the beratement lasted for about 15 minutes and went nowhere other than in circles because he kept wanting me to admit to gossiping. Each time I refused he would try gaslighting me into believing I had (I actually looked up gaslighting tactics and he checked the box on a few of them). After it was over and done with he finally let me out of the corner he had me in and I went back to my work but I was visibly shook.
I'm just sitting here now feeling like shit about myself and I don't know if maybe I really am the one whose fault it was or if he's the one being an asshole? Idk I just haven't felt this low about something in a while.
TL;DR A tech who works for the hospital I work in got verbally abusive and in the face of another tech, so I reported the incident. Skip forward two days and he essentially rinse and repeated the process with me. Now I feel like shit about work and myself.

this is basically the journey of what/why i believe about 9 cat h2h playoff meta
the 10 layers of fantasy nba 9 cat 2 C playoffs manager skill that i think i know about
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level 1: you're playing to "show how much you know about the nba, or how in touch with the sport you are by using your fantasy team as an expression of how much you knew such and such player was going to be good"
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level 2: you realized fantasy is actually a numbers game and even though in year 1 you reached for 4-6 rookies and/ or "gems" and secured your spot in the league as the slickest/ ballsiest predictor of talent, no one else cared and you got shit on by 3-5 other managers whose rosters looked boring to you and you conclude there is some sort of secret magic, which you suppose must be some deeper talent evaluation ability. in combination with your proud natural motive for playing, you've now begun to scout deeper into rookie classes and the player pool for anything resembling a possible future "star" (whatever that is, or however likely of a reality it is, who knows). congratulations. you successfully reached for your "gems" in later rounds than year 1, and your earlier picks were boringer, but still trendy names you saw "experts" talk about, even though you have no idea how good those experts are and literally have no way to check for their accomplishments.regardless, you are the largest popcorn stat farm in your league. you got all the bells and whistles....
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level 3. by year 3, you've realized that it doesn't matter if you know who's "good". you now think you're supposed to have something called a "good team".
i lied. you only got the bells. you won the bells a lot, but you only sometimes won the whistles. what gives? your player's "star" brightness is brighter than boring ole "stocks and field goals magilicuty". that, and 2 of your last 3 picks ended up being sexy..so,.......you maximized your internal scouting department to its fullest..... sadly, it took 7 weeks for those mid-lottery or worse rookies to produce both enough counting stat value in 4 or more categories to be Z-stat'ish, and to not completely tank your efficiencies. you went from being worst/2nd worst of anyone who didnt quit 5 weeks in, to contending for the last 2 playoff spots, to making the playoffs. the world is surely meant to be your oyster at some point.
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level 4: you go from talent evaluation to filling your roster with rosterable players according to your league's rankings. after all, what the league says goes, right? all those level 1 and 2 idiots are stuck sucking their own weiner, but you have the secret sauce that only a select few know about.so, you played in more leagues, confident in your "statistical integrity" discipline. you also dabbled in a dynasty league, because you have to prove you know more about the nba still. but,overall, you are a changed man. you understand the waiver wire. you won't pick up that high usage d bag who gets 3 -5 TO's a game.....except,actually, you will if he scores 20 or more points, because 20 points makes your hick dard,and is significantly higher than 19 points. you don't realize he got 20 points playing against backups in extra garbage time. but, hey, your worst player was only a 5/10 every game anyways. and, hey, he could have been a "star", for all you knew.
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level 5.
last year you ended up finishing in 4/5th in 2 competitive leagues and won a dumpster fire redraft league against mostly burner emails who used that league as a mock draft because they got stung by big bad "bigs only" and "the facker", who drafted facundo campazzo and furkan korkmaz with their first 2 picks, and they just simply couldn't trust mock drafts for the rest of time........so, you lost to managers with greater depth of 1 or 2 players than your roster. you crushed the noobs like the cool kids, inflating the perception of your strength. but you don't care; you're one of the boys. probably no one in your league views you as that sloppy noob with an attitude problem. they have to reckon with you (fantasy bucket list item 2: check!) this time, you are so cleansed from your 20 point garbage addiction that you have developed a perception of data analysis strategy within every draft pick and roster change. you're feeling yourself, but with cause this time. in one league, you found a blocks specialist with some rebounds and fg efficiency. in another league you found someone who got 5 assists, a 3, a steal, and a fg tank. that's like free value in 3 [of 9, idiot] categories. remember that dynasty league? yeah. you're doing pretty good. after all, you are at least a level 3 pokemon, i mean manager. but, really 5 managers in that dynasty only have 6 players in the top 100. every other player was a big name flyer who is either semi-retired or a rookie outside the top 20 who will be good.... in 2 years.
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level 6. ok. you finished top 2 in your dynasty last year. the other guy is manager smurfing on a clean slate email, and was looking for an exploitable league to farm profile rating, and w/l%. his other league was a league that separated off reb from def reb, and also had FG made, and FT made. he drafted a bunch of high reb players who got fouled a lot and stomped the retards who assumed dennis schroeder or buddy hield were as good in their other leagues.... sweet!your competitive leagues got renewed again and you're facing mostly the same solid core managers who were active all year. you secretly worship or hate the managers who beat you last year, and go out of your way to humbly compliment everyone you beat because that psychological element will surely help you in a data analysis game.....you're deep in it now. there's no going back. you got a taste of some good wood (*slurp*). you wonder about why you lost to them. after all, you improved your waiver efficiency. your entire roster is full of players with average or better Z stats in at least 5 categories, but still lost 3-6 in the first round.you notice the manager who beat you in the playoffs won 2 categories in that playoff matchup he regularly lost in the regular season. you checked his roster. no trades. 10 players he drafted were still rostered, but the rest are different from last time. you check the averages of those different players and see their averages are ass. you then check the league add/drop list and see he dropped dillon brooks for raul neto (pfft. more like, "raul net0). brooks was consistently top 120 all year, and he left that ass for a white girl, i mean, boy? you look at his past 14 average rank and he's 130th. ok. not terrible, but brooks was nice for your worst player. hella nice. you think this guy is coo coo for coconuts for making that decision at all. hell, a broken clock is right 2 times a day. you are fascinated to see what his other moves were and see that he also dropped terrance ross for coby white. ok.i can see that. but, wha? he dropped jrich for ross? "i'd just keep jrich the whole time", you say. he also made 3 other moves that made no sense.you look at your worst 3 players and see that they are nicer than his. you made fewer moves because you won those categories all day in the regular season with your roster, but he snuck you in assists and steals because he had 7 more games played than you, even though you had a better per-game team. 3 of the top 4 teams made 2x the moves as everyone else to get their wins. you are faced with your 2nd fantasy existential crisis: do you conform to a newly realized meta, or do you conform your league choices to your current fantasy skills? you're frustrated. you knew jrich and coby white were better than terrance ross and raul neto. surely, it's a league problem if managers can get away with being less "intelligent" than you...but,you do see the other side as well:
if the cool kids are doing it, then maybe volume spam is what chicks dig.
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level 7.
only 4 managers renewed for your competitive league this time, and you end up leaving....over the summer, you were marinating on your dilemma, and you opted to go with leagues that only had 5 moves per week.you made the choice that validated your notion of self worth. you will never get bunholed by volume cheese again, because you will do some semi-streaming yourself. you take a guard focused BPA approach with all of your redraft picks, and just figure out what you need to stream as you go. perfect. nice and simple.you end up drafting more guards than you need because they fill up the stat sheet since they have the ball in their hands,and you have one more center than you need, and a sufficient amount of forwards. you dominate guard stats all year, with a few hickups due to injuries, and to some losses to the other best managers (omg. i'm memorable) who beat you in bigs stats and one of the stats you're mid at. you dominate your dynasty league because its filled with first time emails after everyone quit for having john wall, carmelo, and other trash. they may or may not be commissioner filler. your other 2 leagues have some good managers though. you win the regular season in one of them, and finish as the 3rd seed in the other. you get a bye in round 1, try to load up on the sexiest FA's. you beat the 6th seed in round 1 in the other. he wasn't a bad manager either. he fought back from injury hell. you "humbly" compliment him for his play and pretend you were surprised by the outcome. it was 5-4 until saturday, and you pulled away to win 6-3 by sunday's end. your 1st matchup as the 1 seed goes normal for the first 3 days. you're winning the guard stats safely and are 6-3, due to having more early games than him. all of a sudden, one of your few bigs goes down and is a GTD all week. all of your bigs were carefully sniped bigs who either shot 3's with decent FT, or ones who got assists/steals just slightly below the Z stat clip. you look on the wire and all you see are bigs who cant shoot or pass. they block, board, and shoot 5/7 every game with shitty FTs and low TOs....you check your opponent's h2h standings and see that he was either slightly above or below mid in every category all year. you tanked FG, blocks, and TOs all year and won rebounds against the shitty managers to feel strong. and you are strong.....when healthy. at this point in time, he is winning your tanked categories, and you are dominating in points, assists, and steals. you are also winning 3s only because you have your games played early, and your FT lead is not very large, but is at a higher volume at least....there are a couple players with PF eligibility who shoot 3s and get rebounds, but the only C player who does anything you need is maxi kleber or drew eubanks. neither of them even get consistent minutes. do you hope your guards hold enough stats down to carry you, in case kleber does literally anything? or do you start tanking your ft lead in order to hold onto rebounds, and maybe catch up in blocks by "streaming" them? you pick up kleber, since he plays to your strengths sometimes, and scores 6 points with a 3 and 4 rebounds, while not helping your high volume, low efficient Fg% enough. it's friday and you're still up 6-3, but he has more games left than you. rebounds will almost surely fall to him, and 3's are what you are both obsessed with the most. you add gafford for kleber, but are saving your other streamed roster spots for saturday and sunday, when you have more knowledge. gafford gives you 8 points, 2 blocks and 6 boards. you don't need the points, but you'll take 6 boards on your underkill day players. he had 3 more games than you and is now slightly winning reb, to make it 5-4. gafford shot 2-5 with ft. your opponent is playing the efficient 3 and d wing spam/ 9 cat roto BPA strategy, and everyone shot at least 46/77%. you now relinquish rebounds and hope to hold onto FT since you can afford more bad shooting than him because your volume is already established. you then pick up dwight powell for saturday. he gets like 4-5 rebounds while shooting around 80% fts. you dont need his 11 points. your opponents wings make 7 more 3s than you, taking the lead by 1. it's sunday and you have 2 moves left. you have one drafted center playing, and can use your last 2 moves to tie him in games played. he is streaming, but there are a few wings and guards who shoot 3s to go around. you only have 2 streamable players and the rest are holds. it's all about 3s and ft's today. you always have hella guards, but some are inefficient usage hogs.
you pick up landry shamet for your last UT, and he picks up bey for points and 3s. that was his last move and the only roster spot left to fill is C.you have no good options for 3s or ft's and have safely won points, assists, and steals. you could still come back in 3s and rebounds, and may hold onto a FT lead. the only play seems to be gafford again for rebounds. kleber's minutes were so inconsistent that you went for a high floor play and hoped for a rebounds come back.
landry shamet only plays 16 minutes, gets 1 3, 2 rebounds and 7 points, because some other wing player was randomly given spot minutes. your big is gafford again. you have 2 players left to his 3. you're down 4-5 and are completely dependent on a FT hold. nothing else matters. gafford goes nuts and goes 16 and 11 with 3 blocks on 80% fg, but shoots 5/9 FTs. none of it mattered. your opponent won 5-4. had literally one big who shot or pass been on the wire, you probably would have won. despite dominating the BPA players in the regular season by guard spam, you got bottlenecked by your own strategy because you had almost no bigs but needed them for volume. your crafty manager rivals held onto players more than you during the regular season, but then snuck you with flexibility in their streaming in the playoffs.
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level 8
you know you're the shit. you know about what streaming can do. you know how strength can be a weakness due to position requirements. you theory craft in your head about how else to draft/stream and you immediately go to the opposite extreme: hoarding bigs, spamming guards, and more weekly moves. you hate how specialized bigs are, but maybe your moves will get you the volume you need. anything to avoid being bottlenecked by unreliability. quit the boring dynasty league (it will make you complacent. you're an expert now, so you have to have competition to validate yourself), and are now playing in 2 new keeper leagues.all your redraft rivals draft some predictable BPA strategies with a couple rookies/ gems thown in late. you draft a weird team with 7 bigs. you did not BPA at all. you probably wont dominate the regular season like last year (ego death), but you are now poised with the awareness some of your players will be thrown to the fire. your roster is no longer players, but assets or liabilities. you make the playoffs in both leagues. in your keepers you didn't draft too many guards, as you wanted to have bigs just for in-season convenience. but everyone in your league dabbled on some rookies, so you didnt feel that bad about your guard punt, all things considered. you of course make the playoffs in all leagues, since you knew how to be flexible, and always scrapped, no matter who it was. you deserve it. you are skilled. you always avoid overkills and under kills, and maximize your roster's games played every week. no one can fuck with you except for the secret, quiet geniuses of fantasy nba. you steam roll your redraft leagues, as you just simply have more tools than everyone, and no one else is a level 8 manager. you take some losses, but it was due to massive injury/ games played luck. in your keeper leagues you meet new managers. they all seem pretty solid. there are some managers doing predictable things, and there are some doing some strange things. in one league, one guy did something similar to you last year: drafted a lot of guards and forwards, but he actually reached for more bigs than you did. you sniped ones late. this guy was reaching for some bigs who shot and passed. had no blocks or fg%, and probably would lose rebounds and TO's. he looked semi-stupid and limited. in your other keeper league there was a guy who did what you were doing: drafting a lot of bigs. you think you know what he was doing, and felt threatened by him. first time in a while. he too looked limited, but you assumed he was going to stream like you to suppliment it. you hate his existence deeply. you snipe each other regularly and it's a brutal draft.
as per usual, you finish around the one seed in the regular season, and the guards manager is the 5th seed, and the bigs manager is the 4th seed.
you lost to both managers in season a lot, but you beat everyone else by more than they did. you kinda see your fate coming, but you're riding high knowing you're getting a bye. they both win their matchups 5-4, winning the same 5 categories they controlled all year, while the higher potential teams didnt put their shit together enough. you lose to those managers in the same way everyone else did. you knew to watch them heavily, but you got hopeful when they had their bad weeks and your amazing weeks. you think you know why it happened. you think back to draft night where you thought you had more opportunities to play after the draft than those guys. and you did. you were competitive in 6 categories, and strong in 4. you think, "that's normal. that's what everyone does. i just normally do it better". correct again.
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level 9.
you think about what you could have done different and see that you guys did very similar things. why did their's play out better? is it luck? you REALLY want to think that. you think about what categories they won and see that they controlled certain categories all year, pretty much like you. you then noticed how bad they were in 3-4 categories. REALLY bad. you were only really bad at 2 things. then it hit you: it's not about whether if 6 is more than 5, but whether about 5 is more than 4. their losses did not hold them back more than you despite having more, because playoff winning doesn't reward not losing. you realized you missed the point this whole time. it was never about talent evaluation, having a good team, winning categories, or improving your potential. it was about the easiest way to the minimal win threshold. if chasing a larger goal requires more work/ luck, than that strategy loses its efficiency, and thus effectiveness, relative to whatever strategy reaches the minimal win condition easiest. you've reached the beginning of fantasy nba 9 cat bible. everything else is either just you beating on noobs, exploiting a unique scoring system that requires less thought than a popular format which millions of people have put thought into.
9 is not better than 5 in 9 cat h2h playoff scoring. the correct way to analyze data on players is not to equate their overall potential, but their ability to *hold down* and win categories, which you then scale on a tier list of 0-5. anything under 5 is ineffective. anything past 5 becomes not more potential, but a distraction from the core of winning (strategy efficiency).
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level 10. how to evaluate which categories to play/punt relative to your league settings. and how to plan for someone sniping players who were essential to your punt.if you draft a player who is good at 7 things, but there aren't enough players in your pool who you do 7 things, and have reason to think you can draft where you plan on getting them, you lose ground en route to the minimal win threshold, relative to any manager getting to 5 categories easier than you, even with that top pick. some players are more hyped than others, and have a higher chance of being selected earlier than others. if you require getting big names or "great fantasy players", then you actually have a higher chance of being exploited. players don't matter. players doing 5 similar things matter. you only get +1, 0, or -1 for every h2h category. once you make the playoffs, it's about getting to +1 easier.
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the puzzle a manager needs to understand is this: if one team literally goes 5-4 every week, and there is another manager who goes 9-0 every week except when he plays manager 1, manager 1 is a theoretically unbeatable team with a worse record but *GUARANTEED* of playoff success. if you're the best team at 4 catgories and the 2nd best at 5, while another manager is the worst at 4 categories and best at 5, the 5-4 manager is superior at winning a 9 cat h2h playoff league.
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if you can't percieve how less can be more within roster building, then you will lose to the player who can percieve it, unless injuries kill them.
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it's false data analysis to stray from the minimal winning condition in favor of a higher waste potential, just because it has the words "higher" and "potential". you don't make progress in fantasy nba with 0's and -1's. it's easier to get -1's than +1's; therefore, whatever results in you LEAVING a matchup with a +1 from before, is superior to anything else.
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i wont go into money payment setups or non 9 cat h2h leagues, as those have high volatility and random person incentives that have nothing to do with the game.
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if you want to be a better player who is able to deal with more types of problems and attacks from other player strategies in 9 cat, hold down, don't chase.
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if you want success, just play bad players or make a league of all your emails. you will have *guaranteed* success.
with that said, the answer of what is the best category to play is answered by what you shouldn't punt: the category you can expect to find on the wire at any time, no matter how big your league is. if your league is under 100 players rostered, anything can go. if you play yahoo standard, 156 players are rostered, and the drawpile is smaller, and you have to be the one to play those categories harder and faster than the next guy.
"but what if i can approach more categories from extremely different players?" even if i grant you that, it's not about approaching. it's about creating a +1 more than avoiding -1's, since only a +1 is only generated from wins. it's hard to tie due to the lack of control over denominations, leaving +1 and -1 as the only feasible denominations of outcomes within the matchup. volume wins you 6 of the categories. efficiency only wins you 3. this is why volume is inherently 2x as powerful as efficiency within 9 cat h2h, which means you have less of a chance of creating a +1 if you focus on playing effiency, particularly if you have to face streamed rosters who inflate their volume, while you are stuck in your slavery to categories that can't necessarily be streamed. if 3 of your 5 hold downs aren't volume based, you have less of a chance of winning/ generating a +1 than the person who is tied to more volume hold downs.
if anyone knows how to shit on my data anlysis level, please let me know what level 11 looks like.

M(34) I have been with this woman f(31) since feb 2019 till today.
Yes with women there are always other men.
Many many other men
Found out 3 weeks before she told me she was pregnant that she had been having a 2 year affair our entire relationship at that point. The guy was her best friend that I told her I didn't want her around him as I did not believe they were platonic as they dated before and she would never answer his calls with me present. She even fought me to keep being friends.
During the pregnancy a few weeks later I found out before my birthday she had a 3 some with her trans female into male friend and the male roommate 2 days before my birthday and at my party had a big turtleneck and didn't stay the night with me. Went back again for more relations March 2 2020 and asked the male if he came in her March 12 2020 I found out looking through text messages.
She also was having reactions with her female friend's brother and was paying his phone bill for the entirety of our relationship until about a few months ago.
Looking through her messages with her friend her excuse was because I was previously married for 10 years separated for a year and 3 months before we met and the divorce wasn't finalized that it was ok to cheat. I am not a perfect person but I wasn't pursuing my ex wife at all... and during our relationship her "friendship" caused problems for us but she swore to Jesus that they weren't having sex. (This was way way way before the truth came out)
Because the baby was on the way and I thought/still think he his mine baby boy (1year) I fought my gut and refused to leave... I'm still here but it is a half happiness mennwe have Duties and even if we don't want to do it we see it through like all the men who die at war, the crew of the titanic and the firefighting men and firstbresponders that ran into the twin towers and never made it back we as men see our duty through to the bitter end.
I do not want a bitter end.
There are moments of happiness that last a long time. My problem is I am a thinking man so when certain dates on the calendar hit I think back on what happened on those days. And the wound opens up fresh.
Her family is asking when I will ask for her hand but they get mad when I say she has to ask me for marriage. The fed up part is she would bring her f buddy to her mother's and grandmothers house knowing we had our relationship in full swing. All her friends know about her other guys and I'm here with my pride ran through the mud.
The baby will be 2 in August I would like to see him grow but part of me cannot be with the mother. Not a single day passes since I found out about that stuff that I do not think about the cheating.
If I get a DNA test on my son and he isn't mine I will be devastated and if he is confirmed that he is indeed my son my heart will break in betrayal of my son.
I do not know what to do or how to go on from here.