Profile for I'll Steal Your Toast
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | I'll Steal Your Toast |
| Member number | 2210 |
| Title | Agent |
| Postcount | 1084 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
Recent posts
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Saturday, May 28 2005 10:13
Profile
I have better karma than Bush or Kerry ever did and I didn't even do anything at all. :P I wonder if Bush likes video games... Maybe he plays Americas Army at night. I know Colin Powell was a big fan of Harpoon the ship battle game. :o Things are not going to get better in Iraq. The constitution of Iraq is almost the same as when the British took over Iraq in the 1920s. It led to thirty years of rebellion, and an eventual military dictatorship. Hopefully, we will get someone else other than Bush in office who will sit down and put together something that is a little bit more workable. The oil companies are already screaming about the ethanol provisions in the energy bill. There will be 10% ethanol in the next six years. I think Bush will not be able to push through the coal provisions. Coal is the #1 source of mercury pollution in the United States, over 40% of the mercury in the environment comes from coal. There is already screaming about mercury in fish-- which ultimately can be traced back to coal power plants. Also recent studies show that coal power plants are a major source of developmental disabilities in children. This is not refuted. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7218182/ [ Saturday, May 28, 2005 10:23: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Do You Think They'll Ever Take The Avernum Series Online? in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Saturday, May 28 2005 09:50
Profile
It is possible to design a MMORPG with player created maps and player created graphics, but Jeff has said he would not do this. In fact, it would not be that hard to put together something with a variety of races and a point system for leveling. If someone wanted to license the the Avernum engine and pay Jeff for it, it might be another story. I am not sure what Jeff would say about licensing Avernum for a MMORPG. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| PC personalities in Blades of Avernum | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Saturday, May 28 2005 06:28
Profile
Blades of Avernum is a game. Like chess, it is a complex game. Sometimes, it is fun to assign a personality to a chess piece to better understand how to use the piece. Personalizing your avatar helps you understand how better to focus the character to win the scenario. Plus it can be amusing. Setting dumb limitations or styles makes the game more challenging and interesting. For example, one of my characters, will never have an intelligence more than 2 or use spells or alchemy. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Aarh me mateys, time for pirates and ships. in Blades of Avernum | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Saturday, May 28 2005 02:47
Profile
In Avernum, there are a lot of rivers, we do not know where they go. Usually rivers flow into larger bodies of water. I can imagine there might be an inner sea. A vast underground ocean or very large lake. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Runescape in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Friday, May 27 2005 16:52
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I got bored after a while and stopped. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Pick up lines in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Thursday, May 26 2005 12:04
Profile
Wanna do some skribbane? My fyora is bigger than your fyora. Is that a thahd in your pants? I like your lizardy crest it is so orange. Buy you a drink of gremlin red. I have a new spell tome at my place. Your tiger stripes are so silky smooth. I have some free tickets to the arena. Barbarians have such nice thews. ... -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Aarh me mateys, time for pirates and ships. in Blades of Avernum | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Thursday, May 26 2005 08:30
Profile
Thinking about boats-- I was wondering if a mage would make a flying ship or blimp in Avernum. It would be the kind of thing which X from the tower of the magi would do on a whim. I bet Nephilim ships would be very quick, well stocked with fish, float very well, and have high railings so you wouldn't get wet. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Aarh me mateys, time for pirates and ships. in Blades of Avernum | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Thursday, May 26 2005 04:51
Profile
I wonder what a slith or nephilim boat would look like. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Aarh me mateys, time for pirates and ships. in Blades of Avernum | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Wednesday, May 25 2005 14:32
Profile
I think it would be possible to design a town graphic for a ship. You could add a lower level so you would have stowage and the upper deck. I could imagine if it was really large it could have three levels. Basically you would go to the docks and pay a fee to go travelling to a specific location. You would walk to the end of the dock. You would be teleported to the ship. A dialog box would appear describing your journey. Then when you wanted to leave the ship you would take the small boat to various islands. At some of the islands there would be ports where you could buy passage to other "ship" towns with slightly different designs. It is just a thought. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Wednesday, May 25 2005 11:23
Profile
A nail and a hammer works fine on tires and it is quiet too. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Aarh me mateys, time for pirates and ships. in Blades of Avernum | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Wednesday, May 25 2005 08:48
Profile
Hello, I've always wondered about how ships were handled in Avernum. It would be good to see a few more ship graphics other than the little rowboat. I was reading through the Encyclopedia Ermariana about the eradication of nonhumans. One sentence says that Nephilim fled the continent of Pralgrad as sailors. I wonder if there are any Nephilim pirates out there ready to raid the coastlines of the empire. I also found in A Perfect Forest you were transported by ship to the island to explore which is very cool. Michael Slack who wrote Cresent Valley and Promise Island uses a shipping theme. Apparently there are trading ports, lighthouses, and boat docks. In promise island you got to fight pirates which is kind of interesting. There were also some other island, ship type scenarios. The Wreck of the Slug is another example from Blades of Exile. I would like to see a picture of a large ship in Avernum, maybe even a chance to go above and below decks. There certainly are enough islands around Avernum. The biggest being the Isle of Bigail. I am sure somewhere there is a pirate fortress or a couple pirate towns in Avernum. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Quote on charisma. in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Wednesday, May 25 2005 00:37
Profile
Drucker was referring to four leaders in specific-- Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini-- who he considers to have been the most charismatic leaders of the 20th century. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Paradox of Technology and Jobs. in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Tuesday, May 24 2005 15:22
Profile
How amusing. The campaign finance laws in a way are meaningless. The cost to run a political campaign for any statewide level and even some mayorships has become so expensive that you must be rich to finance a campaign or receive massive amounts of money from donors to get into the race for office. The richest people usually have a corporate, legal, or medical background. In fact, if you don't have some kind of very business oriented career you simply cannot amass the amount of money it takes to start the campaign for office. It is not the extra funds from donations that is the problem. It is having the funds at all to enter a race for a politically influential spot that is becoming the problem in the United States. People start off spending massive amounts of their own money for advertising killing political campaigns before they start. Mayor Bloomberg (Bloomberg Financial) in Manhattan is a prime example of this. So is Jon Corzine (ex CEO of Bear Stearns) in New Jersey who has put up $35 million dollars of his money just to enter the race for the senate. The campaign finance does not address how much a person needs to start the race for political office. Races are bought before they start. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Paradox of Technology and Jobs. in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Tuesday, May 24 2005 06:39
Profile
Tedious mental labor can also be automated, answering machines and call forwarding systems have reduced the number of receptionists. Also generic routine functions like filing, sorting, etc. can be computerized reducing the number of secretaries in a corporation. Further, all of the backroom activities can be outsourced that are service or knowledge based. There will be a need for advanced thinking engineers, technicians, etc. However, as more people enter the service professions we will get lean service and efficiencies being applied to people like they are machinery in attempts to reduce the amount of people needed. http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/14/news/economy/lawyer_outsourcing/?cnn=yes [ Tuesday, May 24, 2005 06:43: Message edited by: Duke of Toast ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Quote on charisma. in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Tuesday, May 24 2005 04:09
Profile
Hello all, I find this quote from Peter Drucker to be worth pondering. I've always wondered about his hatred of charismatic leadership styles. "Charisma becomes the undoing of leaders. It makes them inflexible, convinced of their own infallibility, unable to change." -- Peter F. Drucker. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Paradox of Technology and Jobs. in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Monday, May 23 2005 14:15
Profile
No, you stop creating rhetoric about how great our manufacturing and service jobs and start preparing people for the changes in the workplace. It is fun to watch people talk about how wonderful service jobs-- smile it is great Walmart is opening in your town instead of offering something meaningful. After all, when we have robotics and computers figured out we will get an AI secretary, a self-checkout supermarket, and a lot of service jobs will be gone as well... 10- 20 years from now, I can see service shrinking like manufacturing... The wonders of the future. With service gone that leaves knowledge work, technicians, managers, and artists. How do you value a workforce of ideas. Most people don't have the capacity to be idea workers... It would be a strange future. Figuring out how to justify peoples livelihoods will be fascinating. I already see some amazing justifications as is. [ Monday, May 23, 2005 14:28: Message edited by: Duke of Toast ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Paradox of Technology and Jobs. in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Monday, May 23 2005 08:10
Profile
Service jobs pay less than manufacturing jobs. It creates an atmosphere where even highly educated people will pay huge amounts of money to be trained for low paying jobs. A debt economy. Plus service workers are much more expendable than manufacturing workers. Service work is often based on intangibles which aren't valued very much by people. With it becoming a requirement to go to college to work as a telephone operator, we indenture people with heavy debt. There will be less and less of a middle class. [ Monday, May 23, 2005 08:29: Message edited by: Duke of Toast ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Paradox of Technology and Jobs. in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Monday, May 23 2005 05:35
Profile
This is an idea which changes how the world should be looked at. Manufacturing is following the same pattern of employment as farming followed in the early twentieth century. Less and less people are required to work in order to produce more and more products. Technology has finally reached the point where we will continuously require less people to produce more goods. http://economist.com/surveys/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=770861 Suddenly we have a world where more and more people are service or knowledge workers. Yet, even this is being reduced by computer programmers who are designing machinery to reduce service workers. Service work is seen as expendable. Is everyone to be expendable, because almost all jobs will be non-essential. Banking, customer service, and other jobs are pretty flexible as to how many people are needed. Middle management is increasingly seen as an extra layer to be gotten rid of. This leaves technicians, scientists, and top executives as the only necessary element. The rest is expendable. I find this to be a bit disturbing. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Capitalism ho! in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Monday, May 23 2005 00:29
Profile
Investment banks love islands. Go visit the Cayman Islands. Hawaii would be great and convenient for offshore accounts, money laundering, pirate computer programmers, hidden accounts, tax evasion, and various other such things. :P It is more likely that they would ask for Hawaii and we would give them a choice of Puerto Rico, Guam, or the Virgin Islands. Throw in a few atolls and Midway and it might be a good deal. [ Monday, May 23, 2005 00:40: Message edited by: Duke of Toast ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Undead Valley in Blades of Avernum | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Sunday, May 22 2005 14:49
Profile
I finished 9.3. It is playable, but needs a bit more polishing. I think it could use some detail work. There are no longer too many items. The fights are better. The lever tricks work better. Now it needs little detail work. The terrain is much better. It is still a bit odd looking. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Capitalism ho! in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Sunday, May 22 2005 09:30
Profile
Large amounts of money like deficits and trade balances are symbols subject to manipulation. Like money, which is printed from nothing and owned and regulated by governments (it is illegal for a U.S. citizen to burn or destroy any coinage or bills in their possession.) Stocks are very much intangible, they are certificates or symbols of ownership. There is no inherent value in a dollar bill except for what it represents. The key to this is that the money can be altered if it is not used for fraudulent intent. Art is not necessarily used to defraud people. So it is legal to change pennies into pictures of the golden gate bridge or washington monument. A wonderful example of this is J.S.G. Boggs http://www.jsgboggs.com/whois.html Real estate is very much a tangible asset. It is not going to disappear like a company. It may go up or down in value, but once it is owned it can generate value through rents. In some ways it is a safer form of value than cash or stocks. U.S. money used to be backed by gold. The idea was called the Gold Standard http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard.html . Now it is backed by nothing but our good will. It is too expensive to produce and store that amount of gold and silver. [ Sunday, May 22, 2005 13:58: Message edited by: Duke of Toast ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Capitalism ho! in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Sunday, May 22 2005 07:53
Profile
Blue chips don't come with a guarantee at all. I don't buy the line of crap that if you invest in a company then hold it for forty years it will be a wonderful investing experience. Most companies die after 30 years. I don't particularly like stocks, if I had more money, I would put it in real estate. Real estate tends not to disappear. I feel safer following two or three companies every day, than buying blue chips. Another reason I don't like blue chips is that they are more subject to broker and fund manipulation. The more a stock is covered by analysts and held in funds, the more analysts want the stock to reflect their predictions. It looks bad for market makers when their predictions don't match how the stock is acting. This is part of the reason why we have so many Enron's and Worldcom's. The fundamental value of a stock tends to more closely represent the market when only one or two analysts cover a stock. Also there tend to be less shortsellers with less covered stocks. [ Sunday, May 22, 2005 08:24: Message edited by: Duke of Toast ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Awfully Quiet in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Sunday, May 22 2005 07:41
Profile
It is not that quiet. It is the quiet before the stormy storm. There are two contests that are coming up. One for Blades of Avernum and another for Blades of Exile. I think the Blades of Avernum contest has room for ten prizes. With no contestants entered as far as I know, if you get your scenario in, you may win a prize just for entering. So please get your scenarios ready for testing. After looking at scenarios in development there are three that should be coming out this weekend-- Undead Valley, Mad Ambition, and Magi. It looks like there is some fiddling going on. The Blades of Exile contest is going to possibly be the last contest for Blades of Exile. So, it should be interesting. There are numerous people who are fiddling trying to get their scenarios going Supanik, Dahak, and a few others claim to be almost done with scenarios... Please get them out for testing, untested scenarios in contests don't do as well. I think this evening we might see a few things coming out. Also, it is almost summertime-- Geneforge 3 for windows I think is also being betatested. Another thing to consider is that people are all on different time clocks being from all over the world. Posting occurs very early in the morning and in the evening. Not a lot of mid day posting. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| whats your favorite... in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Saturday, May 21 2005 12:45
Profile
The game has scripting calls for having different races in your party. Thus your party will have different reactions based on scripting calls for what races are in your party. You cannot do all the actions in the game, nor can you get all the reactions unless you have a mixed group of critters and humans. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
| Capitalism ho! in General | |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Friday, May 20 2005 18:28
Profile
I invest in the stock market, because it provides extra income. I would rather not, but I do need the money and I really cannot work two jobs right now. It requires vigilance (checking every day), steady nerves, a willingness to cut your losses quickly, and a real hard nosed streak sometimes. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |