born to play games with other people forced to play them by myself

Since it’s been a day and my muse has shifted back into being interested in this story again (seriously, yesterday it did not want anything to do with WfS, which was annoying, because all I could think about Friday was potential details about the third, fourth, and fifth books. Nothing concrete – I have a plot for the third, and possibly for the fourth, but the fifth is just minor stuff right now), I figure it’s about time I do some sort of reflection on this damn thing. It’s not going to be very long (I think), because I’ve forgotten most of what I wanted to say about this because of course I have.

I had realized that I needed to do with story back when I was redoing ISoF, since this is the only story I’ve ever not won a NaNo with. Even though I didn’t finish the first version of ISoF, I still managed to get my 50,000 words in.  Here, I got something like 17,000 or 26,000, not sure. I had attempted to work on it right after I found out I was pregnant, and I got all depressed because I thought I couldn’t be creative anymore.  But in all honesty, this was actually a good thing, because the story I had was all shades of not going to work very well.  Which is sort of why I struggled with it to begin with.

I’m not sure why I didn’t think to try it sooner, other than my muse was on different stories before this. So when it somehow shifted to WfS to the point where I decided to tweek the first book a little, I instantly knew I had to attempt July camp with it.  And seriously, attempt.  Like, I got it in my head earlier that I should try to go back to how I used to be with writing, popping out book after book, and I wanted to see if I could do it in a NaNo month, since the schedule I had used for November with the girls was still in place.  And it worked!  It really worked!

RIiighht up until Covid decided to shut everything down and I absolutely panicked to the point where I couldn’t write anymore.  It didn’t help that I was plantsing the book, using the basic outline I had but also making it up as I went along.  I, like, lost steam right at the end there, so yeah.  I might have been able to continue with it if I had an idea of what I was doing.

And the same could be said about my April Camp attempt.  Sure, I had my tooth issue that made it impossible to write and then, since I had lost a couple of days, I just couldn’t continue.  Because I had no idea where I wanted to go with it (I have since figured it out potentially, and considering I do really want to get into the new Cosmic Dreamers, I may finish that one soonish). So even though I could have finished it later, I haven’t yet.

I did go into this one nervous as hell that something would happen and I wouldn’t be able to finish again.  Except this time, I did have a full outline, I wasn’t plantsing it, so I might have been able to finish it regardless.  But no. This time it went to @callistochan87.  So…I guess we gotta keep an eye on @anijeltaventry in November. Or if I want to write again.  (I feel bad being grateful that it was her and not me this time, and I feel like I might be able to since it was a crazy easy fix, she wasn’t in immense pain, and it sounds like her vision might not be completely damaged?  I hope).

In any case, its sort of funny how tweeking just a couple of thing from my original idea completely changed what I had planned, but also changed my view on this one.  Like I said, the original idea I had was garbage, and I never fully finished the outline because I couldn’t make it work very well.  I was bound and determined to bring the other Volturnians from the crossover story into this one, and once I determined it was simply not possible, everything fell into place.  I mean, just like the whole thing with Techna.  I want Techna to be a thing, but she doesn’t do much.  She’s really not useful in the story.  So when I did away from her, again, everything just fell into place.  More so than taking out the Volturnians.

And taking out the Volturnians was made possibly simply by creating Alan.  See, one of the reasons why my muse was on WfS in the first place was because I wanted to watch a couple DC films.  Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen are my favorite, since they focus on the Lois/Superman relationship, and obviously I am all about that.  And one of my favorite aspects of the new animate universes is that they always have Hal Jordan and Barry Allen be, like, BFFs IRL before the Justice League is formed.  So I was like, I should do that.  I should create a speedster character, and then have him be BFFs with Specter.

Except originally, Specter was an alien.  That’s actually why he looks so opposite of Greg, with the pale skin, pale hair, and pale eyes.  His species was supposed to be the anti-Volturnians.  Also, the idea behind Spectrum was that they were all blind, and were able to ‘see’ thanks to the bracelets, but they could only ‘see’ basic colors.  So if something was kinda red, they’d see it as straight red, that’s sort of thing.  Oh, and Specter was supposed to be the villain. 

Yep, what was supposed to happen was that he himself was going to arrest Greg for being a Volturnian on Earth.  And then Lane would convince Roselyn to take her to Volturnas to get him back.  And Miles was supposed to end up with Roselyn’s half-brother.  Yep. 

But giving Jordan a human BFF made me decide to make him human as well, and I think it works out so much better!  I mean, I didn’t know anything about Spectrum until I was literally writing about it, but now I had this world-building thing that I can expand on for the next book, so yay!  I was actually going to make it so he was blinded by the accident, but I sort of liked the idea of him being born blind, so the suddenly seeing thing would be more of a shock.  Plus, if he had been blinded, then really, he could just always use his powers and never tell anyone he was blind.  So...yeah.

(Also, I still love their names.  Like, literally, I named Jordan what I did because Green Lantern’s last name could be a first name.  Which is why it’s Jordan Halstrom.  So I had to do the same with Alan.  Alan Barnett instead of Barry Allen.  Also, the name Speedy comes from Green Arrow’s sidekick, which I always thought was a better name for Kid Flash then, you know, Kid Flash.)

Looking at what I had originally planned and how much I ended up like Livianus, I realize that I could have had Miles end up with him instead of Jordan.  I mean, I’m sort of mad at myself for deciding to make the rainbow superhero gay, but I randomly picked him instead of Alan. Which I think makes more sense. Alan is fricking nineteen.  Miles might be only twenty-three, but I think the press would have an absolute field day with that. At least with Jordan, there’s only a three year age gap there. >.<

Let’s see, I’m not sure if there’s really anything else to mention.  I mean, I sort of had fun at the beginning of the book, because it really looks like it’s going in a completely different direction than it took. But the thing is, when I was first planning WfS, I had two storylines I could have one with.  The first one is the one I wrote, where Greg is a superhero and blah blah blah.  The second storyline involved Greg being taken back to Volturnas when he was a teenager, and returning when they invade, and reuniting with Lane then.  And then he and Lane attempting to stop the invasion and stuff.

And I guess after doing WfS, I realized I could still use some of the ideas of the second storyline. Like where Greg is taken back to Volturnas and Lane sneaks on the ship to go back with him, and her becoming one of his concubines.  Sort of. So that’s where the whole plot of WCBH came into play.  But as a result of the first act, I know what I want to do with the third yet-to-be-named book. 

And also a Specter and Speedy prequel, and I’m like, damn, am I going to have time for all these books? Yeesh.  Like, the prequel will be weird because Lane and Greg wouldn’t be in it, Miles will be mentioned, and, oh yeah, it’ll be told from a guy perspective. >.<  But I still want to do it someday!  *cries*

I did like how there was only one day where I had to play catch up, which is actually unusual for me.  I always look at my days off when I’m not feeling writing a chapter and go ‘well, it’s easy to write a twofer or a chapter and a half those days!’, like I give myself an easy out.  BUT thanks to convincing @callistochan87 to review the chapter after she read it, it motivated me to not only put a chapter out, but having it done before she got on so she could have a chance to read it.  Which I severely miss.  I was seriously sad on Friday night knowing that was the last time she was going to do it. Unless she, like, decides not to write in November.  Then I could look forward to that then.  But I doubt it.  ;_;

I think the worst thing that came out of all this was, despite not thinking about it ALL DAY YESTERDAY, my muse decided last night to give me breakthrough with my idea of rewriting WfS where Greg didn’t ghost everyone when he decided to become Ultro.  Like, I love the idea, and I was struggling to make certain parts make sense, but now I really want to do it.  And the even worst bit is the back that my breakthrough makes it really stupidly easy just to go back, rewrite the first couple of chapters, and then just edit the rest of it.  So, like, now I really, really want to do it!  And I might! Because it means I don’t have to rewrite the series and be really annoyed that I can’t have Miles and Jordan together already.  :D

So yeah, that’s where I’m at at the moment.  Fun times with the muse.  Bleh.

Still, I know I’ll look back on this book and be happy with it (except for the fact that I’d have to go back and tweek some things thanks to the rewrite of WfS).  There were some things I struggled with, some ideas that I thought were stupid but had to use to move the plot forward.  But that’s the best thing about first drafts!  I can rework it all later to make more sense.  I’m so happy that I’ve gotten this one under wraps! It only took over three years to do. XD

Thank you so much, @callistochan87, not for taking one for the team, but rather motivating me to write this and keep going with it.  I know you think you didn’t do much, but just the fact that you were reading it helped so, so much, and that’s pretty true for all my stories!  So I’ll always thank you for that.  :D

I probably missed some things I wanted to say.  I always do, it seems.  ^^;

Ep 6 | I’m Trash and We’re Trash - Ari

That was way too scary, however, I feel as if my position in the game has changed. I am a power player. I have Dan and Jacob and Ari and we are going after Timmy and Chloe. Timmy is a good player who is close with Chloe, we need to let that go ASAP. I hope we lose these challenges so we can save TSL. I LOVE YOU TSL <3 

fun fact: i have never won a creative challenge despite being a graphic artist

this is. without a doubt. one of the most INFURIATING tribes i have EVER been on. and i have played with jordan pines so that's saying a lot.

it is [checks notes] 11:40 am on the second day of this music video challenge and let's see, what has everyone done so far? timmy: made an absolutely horrible album cover and then edited it to make it slightly less terrible jacob: sent me a 4 second clip of a shelf of alcohol ali: just said "wait what's the song we are using LOL" chloe: ???????? has run off into the irish countryside presumably never to return

me and dan are the only people who appear to really be trying here. dan made a beautiful immunity necklace & lipsynced atop a giant stuffed llama, and i've a) made the playlist, b) rearranged the playlist, c) written liner notes to explain all our (my) song choices, d) filmed about 10 minutes worth of footage of me being a complete fool, and e) edited together what sparse clips i have from everyone else into something that could perhaps resemble a music video if anyone else is actually inclined to contribute. i don't know what more i could have done here - i literally made a whole storyboard, told them specifically what kinds of clips i wanted, and said almost immediately "hey can you please get me your footage by noon on the day it's due?" and yet here we are, minutes away from noon on the day it's due, and it's looking an absolute disaster.

i'm pressed yeah! i'm annoyed that nobody seems to care about a single challenge in this game! i'm frustrated that i have the worst headache of my life and weird body aches that might be corona while i'm trying to get all of this done and not look like an asshole control freak but also not look like someone whose tribe is completely invisible! WHY DOES NOBODY WANT TO PLAY AND ALSO WIN???

in the words of chloe: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

im like seriously so ashamed of this music video right now, if i had BETTER QUALITY VIDEOS this could be so good but it's trash and i'm trash and we're trash and i want it to be over with

My acid reflux is acting up because of the wait for the challenge results. I hate it.

Goal of this round: get Timmy out.

Listen, I know I always vote Timmy out but he literally gives me NO GAME INFO. Like we know each other irl and he doesn’t talk to me like we do. It’s always one word answers and stuff like that.

I am praying that me telling Ari and Ali that I know Timmy doesn’t come back to bite me. I told them more that it could be used to pull in Jacob. I’m gonna check in with Ari at least and tell them that I’m with them 100% and not to worry about my relationship with Timmy. BUT ALSO THAT COULD MAKE IT WORSE???

I feel like me telling them my convo with Timmy when he said Ali’s name is enough for them to know that I’m with them 100%. As long as Ali remains calm and doesn’t freak out on Timmy we should be good. Ali throwing my name to Timmy is a good counter in my mind to avoid suspicion of us working together and to see if Timmy comes to me with said info.

I feel safer this round than most, the key swing vote is Jacob...

Is it petty and annoying of me to say Dan and Adam had it coming because of them excluding me from the alliance on OG pearl? Maybe. But I'm a petty and annoying person.

I'm so happy New Beeho has won literally every single challenge but it's also soooo boring not going to tribal. Like I love that I'm gonna be safe until the merge but also the fact that nothing is going on makes me wanna be dramatic for the sake of adding some fun back into the game. But that way of thinking is what caused me to go home the first time. My tribe was boring, and I wasn't, so I made a move for fun, and it backfired. This time, if my tribe's boring, then I'm boring too. I might as well be a tumbleweed up in here. 

not to get on too high of a horse right now but i feel like this vote is lining up perfectlyyyy.... i currently am in an alliance w everyone in the tribe, three of whom i trust at least 90 percent, two of whom i bought an idol with. there's six people left.

ali: will NOT vote me dan: could vote me but it'd have to be a pretty elaborate scheme on his part because in his mind i've put in work specifically to save him twice now + we've been commiserating about how godawful these challenges have been and we just get along so well i don't know what would be in it for him jacob: could vote me but i mean we just hung out on call for an hour last night talking about video games and popcorn and he could have easily left that convo if he wasn't into it and also i took all his money to buy a gun so what would be the point of washing all that money down the drain AND putting the gun back where someone else could get it

then there's chloe and timmy whom i have been wanting to take a shot at since the swap actually but i wasn't gonna make any big moves before the time was right. now the time IS right and i've got everyone all set up carefully - the me/dan/ali chat, the me/ali/jacob chat, maybe i'll even make a me/dan/jacob chat today if i get bored - to make it happen. all that really needs to be finished today is to reach a "decision" in the pickles chat with chloe/timmy as to who to vote (i'll have to give a convincing "i don't want to lose ali but i'm willing to if yall want that" speech) and then make sure dan and jacob both know the other one is down to keep ali (last night while on call with jacob i had him telling me what dan was saying and dan telling me what jacob was saying so that was chefs kiss) and then we shouldn't have to worry. there's no way timmy has an idol, and if he did i can whip out my gun i guess. im a little worried that chloe will be mad but she won't rly have any other options and i think i can get her to understand why we didn't want timmy around long term. 

We’re really doing a coin flip on who to vote out tonight and it just landed on Dan. I kinda don’t want this though and tbh would love to find a way to vote Ari because they are good with EVERYONE. But things could change and apparently they just did bc now we did 2 out of 3 bc I spoke and it landed on Ali then which I prefer moreso. I could tell in Ari’s voice they seem discontent but I’m not caring too much tbh. I could just throw a vote on them. But also nobody has an idol so it’s not like anyone could be fun with that unless there is enough money to pool onto an idol but if it’s on Ali then I’m not invested in saving him. 

MMMMMMM dan is so funny ugh king

last round there was the thing of him & adam both telling me the other wanted to buy an idol and now he's like "jacob said he thinks you and ali will be bigger threats at merge and that chloe/timmy would be a wash" when jacob told me he (dan) was saying that exact same thing while we were on call.............. i see u dan disbrow i see u and i'm ctfu! gotta respect it!

Ready for a switch up!! Nothing is happening on my tribe and it stresses me out in an unfun way.

I feel like its a little too early for merge, but just thinking about it:

I love Taylor and I'm hoping to use her old Beeho ties to get into the majority. Our game styles don't perfectly align, judging from the past, but we have strong trust in general. She does give me a bit too much credit for game play and has gotten paranoid about me before. I'm hoping she doesn't get scared of me this game bc at this point I want her to be my ride or die.

Brandi is a sweetheart. She's growing on me and is a great team player. I think I can trust her pretty deep in the game. However, she's already called me out for being a strong player so I also don't want her getting scared and turning against me post merge.

Josh is also a good team player. I'm not threatened by him and he's distracted by another org he's playing so he can be a number or expendable.

Jabari is a great team player and I'd also like to see what Beeho connections I can find with her as well. She's not a great conversationalist via DMs so that's been a little tough to connect.

Emma has been absent due to personal issues in another org. I want to be understanding but sad puppies bother me and I don't need drama. I hope she's doing okay, though. She might be an easy vote for bumming people out, but things have been so busy from the Star Power challenge that from what I know, not a lot of game play has happened this round over here so that kinda works in her favor.

Nic needs to go. I don't trust him one bit. I've  been having such fake conversations with him and i know he has to sense it. He did my tarot card reading a while ago so he has some kind of  higher intuition I guess. We are in an alliance and i told him I felt best with him and Brandi to keep him close but does he buy it? Probably not. He's not a team player and he has enough cash to buy and idol so these things worry me.

Dan kinda worries me long term but if he survives the night I'd be super curious if he was able to make a pitch to save himself or if someone on original Beeho made a move. He seems smart but also seems to with hold information. I'm open to reconnecting with him for sure. Brandi said she wanted to work with me and Dan at the start of the game.

I only know what TSL told me about the original Beeho tribe.

From what she told me she thinks Ari and Ali are a pair. That makes sense why Ali didn't go last round. Chloe and Timmy seem rather chummy as well. I wouldn't be surprised if those 4 paired up.

TSL said she wasn't in an alliance before the swap but thought one more day and she'd likely form one with Ari and Ali.

Unfortunately, I know my game doesn't jive with Ali's and I'm already annoyed that he's still in. And post merge he won't be a challenge threat so it'll be hard to convince people to get him out. Especially if he's in the majority alliance. Even if I get into that alliance I'd have no social capital to campaign against him.  

Well that's about it. Lets see how things go this round!! I'm fully expecting a swap, double tribal, or other twist veryyyyy soon :)

Darlene the Pink Revolver has been purchased. I'm assuming it was someone from the other tribe since it's $750 and there is no way someone on my tribe has that kind of money.....we're poor. It's also extremely quiet right now but I'm hoping that is because the pickles had a call earlier and we are all calm since we decided that Ali would be getting the boot tonight. If that doesn't happen I will be sus (if I stay) but I'm thinking positively because as far as I can tell, nobody has lied to me yet this game so I am feeling okay.

Coin flip time BABYYYYYYY 

So it’s a 4 person alliance with 2 people on the outside of that. Where do we go from here? You guess it! Flip a coin!

None of us had any like preference about who should go, so we use the pancake bot to flip a coin. It landed on Dan. Then Timmy pipes up and says he was wanting Ali, so we say ok 2 out of 3. The next 2 are Ali. Poor dude.

Seems pretty simple and easy. Almost too simple and easy.

Merge is going to be a struggle.

I hope we swap again soon mayb

slowly turning active again

Honestly the feedback of the challenge was amazing, the tribe thinks and idol will be played tonight so that will shock me honestly if it does, but idk what to think anymore tbh.

Power Rankings: ONE - MEGS (NC) Threat: 9 (+1) Trust: 9 (NC) Megs threat level increase this round because I got a little more insight into her plans moving forward. I can tell she’s still disclosing info from me, but I approached her by saying regardless I know our paths won’t perfectly align, but I know were good. She opened up about not wanting to work with Ali. She wants Nic out next and I know its because of his money status. I think megs is forgetting about her threat level again. With Nic gone she’s the only one with a good amount of money - Ari being second with $400. People don’t need to look at her more, but the power is getting to her head a bit. TWO - TAYLOR (+1) Threat: 7 (+1) I bumped myself up to second here because I think I finally have a good enough grasp on this tribe to say I deserve to be placed here. But with Adam going last round, it also has put me in easily the best social spot. The only person I haven’t met in this game is Dan. I’m starting to get a little more money, I have a stronger hold on my position, I have people ahead of me that are perceived bigger threats. THREE - BRANDI (-1) Threat: 6 (NC) Trust: 4 (-1) Alright Brandi lands at number three because of all the people left, she’s been the most consistent. She has a strong enough social game, she’s clearly recognizing people as threats and where her game lies within that. I knocked brandi’s trust down one because I found out she actually is good friends with Amos who played e10 - a game I help host. My rep in the endure community, not to brag, is known. I just landed a 1st place in e8 cast rankings which is public knowledge to anyone viewing. I feel like theres a slight chance Amos could have told brandi to watch out for me. I guess it could go the opposite way where he tells her no work with her, but I think its safe to assume the worst here. FOUR - JABARI (NC) Threat: 5 (NC) Trust: 8 (NC) I think Jabari did exactly what she needed to do this round, after her performance last round, she needed to fade back into the background. She’s present, she’s playing, and she’s intelligent, but she’s not on anyone’s radar. She lands at 4 solely because of the tribe dynamics, but at merge boy she’s easily one of the biggest UTR threats in my eyes. FIVE - JOSH (+2) Threat: 2 (NC) Trust: 3 (NC) Okay, I know youre probably thinking “wow josh just shot up too placements that’s an improvement!” And with that I have to tell you, no, it has nothing to do with josh and everything to do with what 6 and 7 have done to their games. Josh just… isn’t here? But the thing josh is doing right is he isn’t bothering anyone. He does his work, does what hes told, and signs off. A very yes man attitude, which is gaining favour in others eyes. I still think hes a wildcard, I have no idea what hes actually thinking which scares me in particular. SIX - EMMA (NC) Threat: 1 (NC) Trust: 3 (NC) Emma and josh had similar stories, except I think people are more fed up with Emma because she isn’t any help to the tribe. She’s got a lot going on with whatever else she’s doing, she doesn’t chat with people, has sat our of 2 challenges now, it’s just very below mediocre performance. She says she wants to be around more, then leaves me on read. Not much more I can do with that. SEVEN - NIC (-2) Threat: 6 (NC) Trust: 6 (NC) Nic finishes up this rounds power rankings for the sole reason that megs wants his head on a stick. He’s got a lot of money, hes performed well in challenges, and he’s becoming more and more on the radar. We have to remember here these are also POWER rankings, how much power or influence these people have on the tribe. Nic my friends, has none. And with Megs, #1 wanting him out, well hes pretty much a dead fish in the water. He’s brought up multiple times hes nervous about his position, yet fails to elaborate or try to include me in something. Hes done this at least 4 times now, I don’t have any mercy for him at this point.

Regardless of what happens at this ugly ass tribal, like I’m so proud of myself for surviving this long being swap fucked lmao

I really thought I was donezo lmao this game is heating up and it’s almost 10000% necessary for Chloe to go this round. I’m thinking it’s likely we merge at 10 and it’s gonna be so obvious that me Ali and Ari are a group in the sea of new Beeho.

I’m hoping I can play somewhat of an in the middle game with OG Pearl and my New Pearl friends. We’ll see. Going into merge having only missed one tribal council will honestly be a huge resume builder for me.

All that matters is that I’m proud of the game I’m playing. 

Living on Bitcoin Day 5: An In-Store Buy At Last (Spoiler: It’s Pot-Related)

This is the fifth instalment of reporter Colin Harper's "Living on Bitcoin" experience in San Francisco. Find out what happened to him earlier on Day 1 , on Day 2 , on Day 3 and on Day 4.

I woke up in a millionaire’s bed today, something I never thought I’d say because I ain’t gonna make a million bucks, and I always doubted I could’ve finagled my way into the bed of someone who had.

Jeremy’s room is your prototypical festival bro living space: Bob Marley poster in one corner, jam band festival posters for Camp Bisco and Gathering of the Vibes (among other music festivals) tacked above a 50-inch, Toshiba plasma screen, which was leaning against the wall and propped up on the box it came in. A tangled cluster of conference passes (many speaker or VIP) hung from a back wall above the felt loveseat.

Below one of the room’s three windows, there’s a bookcase sectioned off into six cubbies, which include Hunter S. Thompson, Michael Lewis, Truman Capote, and some self-help and econ/business books. Almost poetically, a book called Ego is the Enemy appropriately placed in a cubbie diagonally opposite to the one housing Tucker Max’s Assholes Finish First.

On the third floor, I made the coffee I bought at Whole Foods, warmed one of the croissants and did some work.

Over Slack, my colleague Aaron van Wirdum suggested I try a map called Bitcoin Map on the Google Play store to see if it had any bitcoin-accepting places listed that I could be missing. I pulled it up, browsed some places I had previously tried but knew no longer did. Then, I glanced at Haight-Ashbury on the map one last time and noticed a smoke shop and one-time hookah lounge that accepted bitcoin.

On the off chance, I called them up.

“Do you guys still accept bitcoin?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Seriously?!”

“Yes.”

Exuberant, I let a triumphant expletive slip and thanked the woman, assuring her that I would be by later that day.

It would be a smoke shop that becomes the first place where I can spend some bitcoin, I thought to myself.

With that victory, my spirits were lifted and I began to make preparations for my day. Needing to get more credit for Uber, I tried out Gyft, a gift card purchasing platform that made Hill’s second run at this in 2014 so much easier. Vinny Lingham started it, and the platform accepts other forms of payment than just bitcoin.

I couldn’t use it though. I tried to buy an Uber gift card, but my Samourai wallet wouldn’t accept the BitPay QR as valid (which, given Samourai’s general crypto maximalism, made sense and also seemed to sum up the difficulties of the experiment to that point). I opted for Bitrefill again.

Then I started doing some research on Kraken and Coinbase’s locations in San Francisco. According to Google, they have the same office address, which I found odd.

Putting the address into my Uber app, I decided to make my way to the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District to see if I could pester my way into either or both offices. “Just show up and ask to talk to people,” Hill’s advice echoed in my head.

The addresses I got on Google led me to a mailing address, but then a bit of sleuthing got me addresses (supposedly) of the actual offices for both Kraken and Coinbase. Kraken’s, though, turned out to be a FedEx, which led me to think that my informant was screwing with me or that Kraken had registered that address intentionally so as to not be bothered.

Coinbase’s office was right, so I cut the informant some slack. I secured a receptionist’s number from the security desk in the lobby but didn’t really have time to make an appointment for later. This wasn’t 2013 anymore: I couldn’t just drop in on their three employees in an apartment office anymore. This was 2019 and Coinbase had become a unicorn with more than 500 employees and six offices in three countries.

The rain was light but steady when I was searching for Kraken and Coinbase’s offices, but it would come down progressively harder the longer I walked. I passed a Target on my route in which I could have bought an umbrella (Paxful and Gyft have Target cards), and it highlighted a problem with banking on bitcoin through gift cards. You have to preplan your purchases, or else you have to stop, connect to wifi, and use an exchange that takes bitcoin to buy new cards before you can redeem them.

It seems obvious, but it’s not as seamless as cash, debit or credit. Even so, there aren’t so many hoops to jump through — just enough to make doing so outside in the rain an inconvenience.

My denim jacket was thoroughly soaked, so I stopped inside a Starbucks and ordered a coffee with a Starbucks gift card I bought on Paxful. I ordered a seasonal latte, basic white boy that I am, but I had the barista only pump about a third of the usual flavor shots into it because I don’t like drinking syrup.

While downtown, I visited Quantstamp’s offices, as Christian had set me up with a buddy of his who worked there, Jared let me in and we talked crypto. He mentioned a bubble tea cafe nearby that used to accept crypto, but it proved to be yet another red herring, making me worry that maybe the smoke shop on Haight might not either.

Ubering back to the castle, I sent some additional funds to my Samourai wallet ahead of my trip to the shop. Rachel wanted to come along, partly I think for the fun of it but also because she was fiending for some Juul pods and was banking on my generosity to secure her some.

We reached the smoke shop shortly before close as one employee was busy allocating merch to a back closet. It was what you expected from a smoke shop: pieces, bongs and actual tobacco pipes in various sizes and in a motley of translucent, glass-infused colors. They sell smokes and vaping supplies too, but no Juuls or Juul pods (to Rachel’s great dismay).

Approaching the counter, I try to confirm what I’d been told over the phone.

“Y’all take bitcoin, right?”

“Bitcoin? Yes, I think,” said the middle-aged, Asian woman, hesitantly. “We used to at least. Ask him,” she says, pointing to the man stacking the backroom with inventory.

Her husband, a middle-aged, white guy with glasses, a mariner’s cap and close-shaven beard, who looks like he might read communist theory and know his way around a VPN, dashed my bitcoin-spending hopes with his answer.

“I don’t think so. Honey, do we still have the payment processor?” he asked.

They didn’t. Snapcard, which may have very well been the same defunct-processor that Woot Bear used, was no longer in service, so they stopped taking it some time ago. They had originally decided to start accepting bitcoin in 2013-2014 when it was “cool” to do so, and the husband was kicking himself for not doing it sooner.

“People would want to come in and buy rolling papers and we didn’t want to take it, which was stupid,” he chuckled.

I asked if they still had a Coinbase account to which I could send bitcoin, but the wife said that her son held the account and they didn’t know how to use it. After a few more failed attempts at trying to find a solution, I gave up, thanked them and left the shop.

As I left, I was convinced there was some grand conspiracy to keep me from spending bitcoin, until the woman peeked her head out of the shop to beckon us back.

“I think we figured it out,” she said.

Eager and a bit antsy, I leaned over the counter to observe her Coinbase app while I tried for the items I had picked out (a glass piece that’s totally not for me and white sage for the castle). As it turned out, they weren’t verified with Coinbase, so they could only buy/sell on Coinbase and not send/receive. This annoyed me: Why do one when you can’t do the other?

“It’s ok,” I said, resigned at this point.

But the woman insisted. She was nice enough to let me just scan the QR code for her son’s wallet, and she even gave me a five buck discount on the piece.

Effusive, I thanked them and asked for their names, which they prefered I not publish here. Apparently, San Francisco is not too friendly to tobacco shops.

“The city is trying to annex the smoke shops,” the husband told me. That coupled with the stigma of bitcoin and the illicit drug market’s symbiotic dependence on the dark web (and the fact that the business is basically a head shop) made them wary enough of potentially damaging publicity.

The fact that the transaction almost happened then didn’t, only to almost not happen and then succeed was representative of how the experiment has been panning out so far. The bitcoin PoS was makeshift, but it finally happened, and I was happy enough to finally get the first IRL transaction out of the way, even if it came on day five. It was also directly peer-to-peer — no middleman payment processor involved, which I liked.

Finally, something to write home about.

Returning to the castle, I would spend the rest of the night fraternizing with the residents who were quickly becoming acquaintances and friends. They all had their own goals and projects, and the interactions in my short time with them will be worth a story one day.

There’s Rachel, who’s known Jeremy since 2015; Liz, the Queen of the Castle (obviously); Michael, a laid back relations or community manager who “kinda does crypto but not really;” Orest and Aymard, who work at Ausum Ventures with Jeremy; Teddy and Hans, who are building a blockchain query database for legal documents; Vivian, the VP of the same self-driving car startup, comma.ai, that used to reside in the castle’s basement; and a prodigious, 18-year-old developer-entrepreneur who runs his own AI financial consultation startup and whom Jeremy referred to once as his “protégé.”

“So, are you like the wunderkind developer prodigy of the house?” I asked him.

“Pretty much. But it’s not just that.”

“What, like you’re also the wunderkind entrepreneurial prodigy?”

“Something like that,” he responded with a smile and honest innocence.

He told me he would rather not be identified in the article because the banks and other businesses he works with don’t know that he’s still a kid, he confessed. That he had operated so long without them finding out was astounding to me.

The Prodigy began his company when he was a freshman in high school. No, not college (he never took that road), high school. In the company’s early stages, he decided to go all in on his vision.

“So I pretty much left high school.”

No diploma or degree to speak of, he moved to San Francisco when he was 15. In what would have been his sophomore year, he was focused on driving business growth while his peers were testing for learner’s permits.

An early investor in Ethereum and a sometimes crypto-head, he met Jeremy at a crypto castle party in 2017, and Jeremy would take him under his wing and offer him a home.

Now he works out of the community surrounded by the advice and the tutelage of the castle’s residents, who, while still young entrepreneurs themselves, have plenty of experience and tips to impart to the kid.

I highlighted The Prodigy here because or his age and precociousness but also because the whiz-tech kid who eschews education in favor of just doing makes for a pretty good story. Realistically, I could have profiled some of the other residents and their endeavors as well (for instance, I plan on doing an article on some of the innovative, impactful startups Ausum Ventures has invested in).

But The Prodigy particularly personified the house’s ethos: driven, focused, entrepreneurial and hardworking.

“Do you do drugs or drink?” I asked him.

“No. Never.”

“Good. Don’t,” I advised him.

Truth is, considering the portrait of the millionaire party boy that has been painted of Jeremy in the past, the castle was nothing like that. It wasn’t like the mainstream coverage would imply: no end-to-end daily benders or booze-infused ragers. I don’t think anyone even touched a drink while I was there. Everyone was busy working. As Rachel would tell me, “No one drinks here. They all have shit to do.”

As Kashmir Hill did in her original journey, Colin is accepting BTC tips to help him along the way.

Tip jar: 3CnLhqitCjUN4HPYf6Qa2MmvCpSoBiFfBN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

Living on Bitcoin Day 5: An In-Store Buy At Last (Spoiler: It’s Pot-Related)

This is the fifth instalment of reporter Colin Harper's "Living on Bitcoin" experience in San Francisco. Find out what happened to him earlier on Day 1 , on Day 2 , on Day 3 and on Day 4.

I woke up in a millionaire’s bed today, something I never thought I’d say because I ain’t gonna make a million bucks, and I always doubted I could’ve finagled my way into the bed of someone who had.

Jeremy’s room is your prototypical festival bro living space: Bob Marley poster in one corner, jam band festival posters for Camp Bisco and Gathering of the Vibes (among other music festivals) tacked above a 50-inch, Toshiba plasma screen, which was leaning against the wall and propped up on the box it came in. A tangled cluster of conference passes (many speaker or VIP) hung from a back wall above the felt loveseat.

Below one of the room’s three windows, there’s a bookcase sectioned off into six cubbies, which include Hunter S. Thompson, Michael Lewis, Truman Capote, and some self-help and econ/business books. Almost poetically, a book called Ego is the Enemy appropriately placed in a cubbie diagonally opposite to the one housing Tucker Max’s Assholes Finish First.

On the third floor, I made the coffee I bought at Whole Foods, warmed one of the croissants and did some work.

Over Slack, my colleague Aaron van Wirdum suggested I try a map called Bitcoin Map on the Google Play store to see if it had any bitcoin-accepting places listed that I could be missing. I pulled it up, browsed some places I had previously tried but knew no longer did. Then, I glanced at Haight-Ashbury on the map one last time and noticed a smoke shop and one-time hookah lounge that accepted bitcoin.

On the off chance, I called them up.

“Do you guys still accept bitcoin?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Seriously?!”

“Yes.”

Exuberant, I let a triumphant expletive slip and thanked the woman, assuring her that I would be by later that day.

It would be a smoke shop that becomes the first place where I can spend some bitcoin, I thought to myself.

With that victory, my spirits were lifted and I began to make preparations for my day. Needing to get more credit for Uber, I tried out Gyft, a gift card purchasing platform that made Hill’s second run at this in 2014 so much easier. Vinny Lingham started it, and the platform accepts other forms of payment than just bitcoin.

I couldn’t use it though. I tried to buy an Uber gift card, but my Samourai wallet wouldn’t accept the BitPay QR as valid (which, given Samourai’s general crypto maximalism, made sense and also seemed to sum up the difficulties of the experiment to that point). I opted for Bitrefill again.

Then I started doing some research on Kraken and Coinbase’s locations in San Francisco. According to Google, they have the same office address, which I found odd.

Putting the address into my Uber app, I decided to make my way to the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District to see if I could pester my way into either or both offices. “Just show up and ask to talk to people,” Hill’s advice echoed in my head.

The addresses I got on Google led me to a mailing address, but then a bit of sleuthing got me addresses (supposedly) of the actual offices for both Kraken and Coinbase. Kraken’s, though, turned out to be a FedEx, which led me to think that my informant was screwing with me or that Kraken had registered that address intentionally so as to not be bothered.

Coinbase’s office was right, so I cut the informant some slack. I secured a receptionist’s number from the security desk in the lobby but didn’t really have time to make an appointment for later. This wasn’t 2013 anymore: I couldn’t just drop in on their three employees in an apartment office anymore. This was 2019 and Coinbase had become a unicorn with more than 500 employees and six offices in three countries.

The rain was light but steady when I was searching for Kraken and Coinbase’s offices, but it would come down progressively harder the longer I walked. I passed a Target on my route in which I could have bought an umbrella (Paxful and Gyft have Target cards), and it highlighted a problem with banking on bitcoin through gift cards. You have to preplan your purchases, or else you have to stop, connect to wifi, and use an exchange that takes bitcoin to buy new cards before you can redeem them.

It seems obvious, but it’s not as seamless as cash, debit or credit. Even so, there aren’t so many hoops to jump through — just enough to make doing so outside in the rain an inconvenience.

My denim jacket was thoroughly soaked, so I stopped inside a Starbucks and ordered a coffee with a Starbucks gift card I bought on Paxful. I ordered a seasonal latte, basic white boy that I am, but I had the barista only pump about a third of the usual flavor shots into it because I don’t like drinking syrup.

While downtown, I visited Quantstamp’s offices, as Christian had set me up with a buddy of his who worked there, Jared let me in and we talked crypto. He mentioned a bubble tea cafe nearby that used to accept crypto, but it proved to be yet another red herring, making me worry that maybe the smoke shop on Haight might not either.

Ubering back to the castle, I sent some additional funds to my Samourai wallet ahead of my trip to the shop. Rachel wanted to come along, partly I think for the fun of it but also because she was fiending for some Juul pods and was banking on my generosity to secure her some.

We reached the smoke shop shortly before close as one employee was busy allocating merch to a back closet. It was what you expected from a smoke shop: pieces, bongs and actual tobacco pipes in various sizes and in a motley of translucent, glass-infused colors. They sell smokes and vaping supplies too, but no Juuls or Juul pods (to Rachel’s great dismay).

Approaching the counter, I try to confirm what I’d been told over the phone.

“Y’all take bitcoin, right?”

“Bitcoin? Yes, I think,” said the middle-aged, Asian woman, hesitantly. “We used to at least. Ask him,” she says, pointing to the man stacking the backroom with inventory.

Her husband, a middle-aged, white guy with glasses, a mariner’s cap and close-shaven beard, who looks like he might read communist theory and know his way around a VPN, dashed my bitcoin-spending hopes with his answer.

“I don’t think so. Honey, do we still have the payment processor?” he asked.

They didn’t. Snapcard, which may have very well been the same defunct-processor that Woot Bear used, was no longer in service, so they stopped taking it some time ago. They had originally decided to start accepting bitcoin in 2013-2014 when it was “cool” to do so, and the husband was kicking himself for not doing it sooner.

“People would want to come in and buy rolling papers and we didn’t want to take it, which was stupid,” he chuckled.

I asked if they still had a Coinbase account to which I could send bitcoin, but the wife said that her son held the account and they didn’t know how to use it. After a few more failed attempts at trying to find a solution, I gave up, thanked them and left the shop.

As I left, I was convinced there was some grand conspiracy to keep me from spending bitcoin, until the woman peeked her head out of the shop to beckon us back.

“I think we figured it out,” she said.

Eager and a bit antsy, I leaned over the counter to observe her Coinbase app while I tried for the items I had picked out (a glass piece that’s totally not for me and white sage for the castle). As it turned out, they weren’t verified with Coinbase, so they could only buy/sell on Coinbase and not send/receive. This annoyed me: Why do one when you can’t do the other?

“It’s ok,” I said, resigned at this point.

But the woman insisted. She was nice enough to let me just scan the QR code for her son’s wallet, and she even gave me a five buck discount on the piece.

Effusive, I thanked them and asked for their names, which they prefered I not publish here. Apparently, San Francisco is not too friendly to tobacco shops.

“The city is trying to annex the smoke shops,” the husband told me. That coupled with the stigma of bitcoin and the illicit drug market’s symbiotic dependence on the dark web (and the fact that the business is basically a head shop) made them wary enough of potentially damaging publicity.

The fact that the transaction almost happened then didn’t, only to almost not happen and then succeed was representative of how the experiment has been panning out so far. The bitcoin PoS was makeshift, but it finally happened, and I was happy enough to finally get the first IRL transaction out of the way, even if it came on day five. It was also directly peer-to-peer — no middleman payment processor involved, which I liked.

Finally, something to write home about.

Returning to the castle, I would spend the rest of the night fraternizing with the residents who were quickly becoming acquaintances and friends. They all had their own goals and projects, and the interactions in my short time with them will be worth a story one day.

There’s Rachel, who’s known Jeremy since 2015; Liz, the Queen of the Castle (obviously); Michael, a laid back relations or community manager who “kinda does crypto but not really;” Orest and Aymard, who work at Ausum Ventures with Jeremy; Teddy and Hans, who are building a blockchain query database for legal documents; Vivian, the VP of the same self-driving car startup, comma.ai, that used to reside in the castle’s basement; and a prodigious, 18-year-old developer-entrepreneur who runs his own AI financial consultation startup and whom Jeremy referred to once as his “protégé.”

“So, are you like the wunderkind developer prodigy of the house?” I asked him.

“Pretty much. But it’s not just that.”

“What, like you’re also the wunderkind entrepreneurial prodigy?”

“Something like that,” he responded with a smile and honest innocence.

He told me he would rather not be identified in the article because the banks and other businesses he works with don’t know that he’s still a kid, he confessed. That he had operated so long without them finding out was astounding to me.

The Prodigy began his company when he was a freshman in high school. No, not college (he never took that road), high school. In the company’s early stages, he decided to go all in on his vision.

“So I pretty much left high school.”

No diploma or degree to speak of, he moved to San Francisco when he was 15. In what would have been his sophomore year, he was focused on driving business growth while his peers were testing for learner’s permits.

An early investor in Ethereum and a sometimes crypto-head, he met Jeremy at a crypto castle party in 2017, and Jeremy would take him under his wing and offer him a home.

Now he works out of the community surrounded by the advice and the tutelage of the castle’s residents, who, while still young entrepreneurs themselves, have plenty of experience and tips to impart to the kid.

I highlighted The Prodigy here because or his age and precociousness but also because the whiz-tech kid who eschews education in favor of just doing makes for a pretty good story. Realistically, I could have profiled some of the other residents and their endeavors as well (for instance, I plan on doing an article on some of the innovative, impactful startups Ausum Ventures has invested in).

But The Prodigy particularly personified the house’s ethos: driven, focused, entrepreneurial and hardworking.

“Do you do drugs or drink?” I asked him.

“No. Never.”

“Good. Don’t,” I advised him.

Truth is, considering the portrait of the millionaire party boy that has been painted of Jeremy in the past, the castle was nothing like that. It wasn’t like the mainstream coverage would imply: no end-to-end daily benders or booze-infused ragers. I don’t think anyone even touched a drink while I was there. Everyone was busy working. As Rachel would tell me, “No one drinks here. They all have shit to do.”

As Kashmir Hill did in her original journey, Colin is accepting BTC tips to help him along the way.

Tip jar: 3CnLhqitCjUN4HPYf6Qa2MmvCpSoBiFfBN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from InvestmentOpportunityInCryptocurrencies via Ella Macdermott on Inoreader https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/living-on-bitcoin-day-5-an-in-store-buy-at-last-spoiler-its-pot-related/