Minecraft is the first game my son and I completed together. By completed I mean defeating the ender dragon in survival mode and seeing the credits scroll by. We had been playing for a while, dodging the endermen and waging a sort of primitive trench warfare against the dragon when my son said “Dad, if we just put on pumpkin heads the endermen will ignore us.” We put on our new carved helmets and the rest is history. He was five, and I was so proud as we watched the credits scrolling by, reminding me of the first time I beat Mario Brothers so long ago. Since then my Mom and one of my brothers have also started playing, joined occasionally by my wife.
If you have gone this far with the game, you appreciate the time and effort involved, and you also probably won’t need to read the rest of this post. If you have not, you may well be missing out on the cross generational, cross dimensional, geologically magical adventure that is Minecraft.
Minecraft, since its official release in 2011, has captivated millions of players worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling video games of all time. Its simplistic graphics and seemingly straightforward gameplay might not initially suggest a recipe for addiction, yet it has a magnetic hold on its audience. So, what is it about Minecraft that makes it so addictive? I’ve tried to explain this to friends and family for years but it’s hard to articulate its nature properly, especially to adult gamers who look at minecraft as ‘just a kid’s game’.
Minecraft’s most compelling feature is its sandbox nature, which allows players to build and explore without predefined objectives. This open-ended creativity is a significant draw. Like life, exploring minecraft is quite like an infinite box of chocolates. In Minecraft, players are limited only by their imagination. Want to build a replica of the Eiffel Tower? Go ahead. Feel like constructing an underwater city? No problem. This freedom to create and modify the game world offers endless possibilities and keeps players coming back for more.
I’ve had fellow gamers scoff and tell me that I should just play Ark, as if better graphics makes a better game. Although I do love taming armies of dinosaurs, you can’t really dig in Ark, it is not a true sandbox in my opinion. At some point I may need to make a separate blog post on what constitutes an actual sandbox. Some people think a true sandbox is basically a game development engine, but the game should have some set qualities otherwise very few people will invest the time to learn all the tools. Other people seem to think any game with an open world and questionable or non-existent storyline is a sandbox game. Yet none of the better graphics games seem to come close to the scope and versatility that is Minecraft. I would say that 7 Days to Die is the closest thing I’ve seen to an actual sandbox game with decent graphics. Please feel free to comment with your opinions.
Unlike many other games, Minecraft starts you off with a blank canvas. The absence of a rigid storyline allows players to forge their path, setting and achieving personal goals. This creative freedom is akin to playing with digital Lego blocks but on a much grander scale. The satisfaction derived from seeing a project come to life, block by block, is immensely rewarding and addictive. I should mention that Lego Fortnite is coming along nicely but still has a way to go to compete with Minecraft. ‘A’ for effort Epic!
Minecraft offers vast, procedurally generated worlds filled with diverse biomes, hidden treasures, and mysterious caves. The sense of discovery and adventure is a powerful motivator. Every new world is unique, providing fresh landscapes to explore and secrets to uncover. The game’s procedural generation ensures that no two worlds are the same. This randomness fuels curiosity and encourages players to venture into the unknown. The excitement of what lies beyond the next hill or within a dark cave keeps players engaged and eager to explore further.
The survival mode in Minecraft introduces elements of danger and resource management. Players must gather resources, build shelters, and fend off hostile mobs like zombies and creepers. This survival aspect adds a layer of challenge and urgency that can be thrilling and addictive.Managing resources effectively is critical to survival. Players must mine for materials, hunt for food, and craft tools. The satisfaction of progressing from basic wooden tools to diamond-encrusted armor provides a strong sense of accomplishment and growth.Battling mobs and planning defenses adds a strategic element to the game. The adrenaline rush of surviving a night filled with zombie attacks or successfully navigating a perilous cave system enhances the game’s addictive nature.
Minecraft’s multiplayer mode allows players to join servers, collaborate on massive projects, or compete in mini-games. The social aspect of Minecraft fosters a sense of community and camaraderie.Working with friends or other players on large-scale projects can be incredibly fulfilling. The collaborative effort of building cities, amusement parks, or intricate redstone contraptions strengthens bonds and enhances the gaming experience.Minecraft has a vibrant online community with countless servers catering to different play styles, from creative building servers to competitive PvP (player vs. player) arenas. The ability to join and contribute to these communities adds another layer of engagement and addiction.
Minecraft’s educational potential is another factor contributing to its addictive nature. Many schools and educators use Minecraft as a tool for teaching various subjects, from math and science to history and art.The game encourages problem-solving and critical thinking. Players must figure out how to gather resources, build structures, and survive in a challenging environment. These problem-solving aspects are not only educational but also highly engaging.Minecraft promotes creativity and innovation, essential skills in today’s world. The game’s redstone mechanics, for instance, allow players to create complex machines and circuits, fostering an interest in engineering and technology. My son has a Minecraft world that simulates the periodic table of elements, allowing the combination of protons, neutrons and electrons to create any element, and then further facilitating the building of molecules with those elements.
Mojang, the developers of Minecraft, continually release updates that add new features, biomes, mobs, and mechanics. This constant evolution keeps the game fresh and exciting.The extensive modding community further extends the game’s lifespan. Mods can add new dimensions, gameplay mechanics, and even entirely new games within Minecraft. This endless stream of content ensures that players always have something new to explore and experience.
Despite its challenges, Minecraft can be incredibly relaxing. The simple act of mining, building, and exploring at your own pace can be therapeutic.The game’s repetitive actions, such as mining or farming, can induce a state of mindfulness and focus. Many players find solace in the game’s peaceful moments, where they can escape the stresses of the real world and immerse themselves in their virtual creations. After a stressful day of work it’s hard to beat zoning out with beer in hand just digging for diamonds.
Minecraft fosters a deep sense of personal investment and ownership. The time and effort players put into their creations generate a strong emotional attachment to their worlds and projects.Unlike many other games where progress can be reset or lost, Minecraft worlds can be preserved indefinitely. This sense of permanence adds value to players’ efforts and achievements, making the game more meaningful and addictive. I have a world that I’ve been enhancing over the course of 4 years. I call it my ‘trophy world’ not only because it stays in survival mode so I can earn in-game trophies, but because it is an evolving monument to my own creativity and diligence.
Minecraft’s addictive nature can be attributed to its blend of creativity, exploration, survival challenges, social interaction, educational value, continuous updates, therapeutic qualities, and personal investment. Each of these elements contributes to a deeply engaging and immersive experience that keeps players coming back, time and time again. For me and my family it offers a virtual environment where we can gather and work towards common goals while we catch up and spend quality time together even though we live on opposite sides of the country. Whether you’re a master builder, an intrepid explorer, or a survivalist at heart, Minecraft offers something for everyone, making it one of the most compelling and addictive games ever created.
I have been talking about writing a web serial for a while so I decided to go back and rewrite some background from my old campaign world from my Dungeons & Dragons days.
When the world awoke she called herself Primythera in the language of the unfathomable, a language she had known before birth. In the void she spun in lonely circles for ages untold, feeling the warmth of her mother. The light and heat comforted the fledgling planet spirit, but it saddened her that it was only upon half her body at any one time. As eons passed she began to sense more of the universe around her, distant progenitors similar to her own but infinitely more cold and distant. Her brothers and sisters took form during this time as well, but showed little in the way of affection or even sentience.
Though she slept for long periods, her awareness slowly grew. Contentment, wonder and harmony were consistent companions as other life emerged from her body including smaller offspring which circled her as she did the mother. Their spherical forms gazed upon her with adoration and envy, longing to touch, longing to be her. Other spirits formed and roamed for milenia within her before comprehension stole their innocence. These elementals were made of her molten core and cooler flowing surface. Though they were spawned from within, they were not completely born of her spirit and thus limited in aspect. She called them primordials, and loved them like her other children
The longer she observed the more she discovered layers beyond her normal senses. As she looked beyond her own realm and within these veils, a new understanding of the cosmos infused her being. Other realities and worlds existed outside of her understanding of what was normal. They were other places which required a sort of peeling back of a layer of space and time in order to perceive. Some of these veils were close, overlapping every fabric of herself and all of the celestial bodies she knew of. A veil she called Manether suffused existence and offered a gateway to more distant veils and a place for transient souls. Another veil mirrored the Manether, and she knew it as Somnavel, a parallel and shifting symbiote of the other. One a place of ghostly untamed matter and ethereal spirits, the other a home to unfettered souls, and the dreams of mortal beings.
Eons passed and the planet spirit sent her awareness outward to converse with her family through thoughts and impressions, but she found them all to be either unaware or uncaring. They were focused inward with only the barest of developed personalities. Nonplussed, but sure they would eventually come around, she decided to also focus inward and discovered upon herself a rather unique ability to produce life. Her particular body composition and proximity to the mother’s warmth produced the loom for weaving complex and varied organisms far beyond the scope of her family.
She focussed upon bringing forth such miracles, and within a scant few millennia she had covered her surface with dense green vegetation and millions of more mobile life forms which swam, scampered, slithered or hopped across her surface. These creatures were woven with awareness of one or more of the various Veils and thus often developed fantastic and unpredictable natures. She reveled in her creative outlet, and these original species lived in peace for a hundred millenia. She watched, adapted, molded and sculpted until she had evolved what to her senses, was perfection. It never occurred to her to give her handiwork true sentience until they came.
They emerged from what she thought of as the veil of Veridivel. To her perception it was similar to the inner layer of an onion, tinted green on the surface, but when peeled back it glowed a brilliant emerald color. She had tried to model much of her own foliage from the lush forests of Veridivel, but whatever had designed that realm had more expertise than herself. The beings that emerged and referred to themselves as the fey, were old, varied, and cautious. They walked upon two legs for the most part and possessed great organization and mastery over the veils. Though they seemed to respect her creations, they still hunted and harvested them for consumption and experimentation. All of this, she could tolerate, yet her core trembled when they began to build and breed upon her bounty. Soon their numbers were so great they sought competition and strife with the only other beings who wished the same: themselves. She watched in helplessness as their wrath tore apart her creations and scarred her surface. The fey were not deaf to her distress but they did not care. They considered themselves far older and wiser in their minds than some sentient ball of rock. Her body, as they saw it, was a unique resource of magical wonders and the wounds they inflicted were inconsequential upon a land so vast. They were correct in many ways, but in her innocence she did not understand how much worse the destruction could be. She would soon learn to appreciate the restraint of the fey, however, for all they were tiny and relatively insignificant parasites, they were only the first.
It seemed that within a few short decamillennium, intelligent races of all kinds had flooded her surface and tunneled within her. They came from hundreds of different veils, or they evolved from magic and interbreeding, some even arrived from the vastness upon great flying vessels that could traverse the lifeless void impossibly fast. They built civilizations and annihilated whole cultures building again upon the bones of the forgotten. They fought in a dance of dominance that wove a brutal tapestry upon her features. The factions grew and dissipated so fast she could barely keep track. Their magic and technology grew exponentially potent until she feared they could truly destroy her through misuse of that power. The arrogance of the sentient races knew no bounds, until the dragons emerged.
Intelligent flying lizards had been around in some shape or form since the early days of her creationist experiments, and although some more powerful examples had come from beyond the veils, they kept primarily to themselves. Many amassed great caverns of shiny stones and metals and slept in contentment for centuries. The disinterest of the dragons lasted until the greed of the other races caused those covetous beings to seek out the hoards. It took centuries for dragons as a species to realize they were being hunted, so isolated they were from the world and each other. With understanding came a mobilization of relative alacrity as they organized under a great leader they called the Dark Wing. A being thousands of years old and wrought from Umbravel, the veil of shadow, this elder dragon brought doom to the lesser species. It gloried in the time of its wrath, naming it the age of cleansing. Hundreds of thousands of dragons joined the hunt. The mortal races fled underground or perished altogether. The immortal races hid with powerful magic or fled Primytherea through the veils.
During the next few hundred years the reign of the dragons was absolute, but as is their nature, apathy soon returned to them to lethargy and slumber. The other races, however, were not stagnant. They began to emerge from hiding with strong magic and great industry. A war started anew but this time many of the humanoid races banded together in their efforts. In their desperation and folly they summoned great beings from the Outer Veils, from places Primythera herself could not reach. Great monstrosities that suppressed the mother’s light and were madness for mortals to look upon. These creatures arrived with eldritch knowledge of a time before the gods or even her own mother were born. They were not able to be controlled and when they finished fending off or subjugating the dragons, they turned their diabolical attention to the other species and lastly to each other. Wars erupted on a scale of which the planet spirit had never dreamed. Seas were burned, mountains were reforged, and veils torn asunder. The old things were unstoppable until Primythera for the first time took direct action in the endless wars on the side of the mortals. She reached out to sympathetic ears and offered pieces of her power and knowledge for help subduing the old ones. They were lured to the depths of the ocean or active calderas where her power was strongest and she bound them in elemental chains. Some remained awake and seething, others fell into slumber and still haunt Somnavel, the veil of dreams. Not dead, still able to affect the world in subtle ways. Even with her might unleashed she could not destroy these calamities from distant realms. They abided by no set of rules she understood.
Much of what passed for faith for the races of Primythera was greatly shaken by the power of the old ones. Beings who had called themselves gods from other veils had long sought to influence the world, but for reasons she did not fully understand they had only a limited ability to manifest upon her surface. The beings she had begun to think of as her people, had seen their gods annihilated by the old ones almost as easily as those ancient calamities had defeated the dragons. In their fear and loss many of them turned to the heroes to whom she had shared her own power. This was how the planet spirit discovered how to make gods. Her blessings combined with the regard of her people could push a mortal into ascension. She could enhance a body by providing such boons as strength, resilience, awareness and magic, but the act of prayer could convey immortality. With joy the planet spirit took to her new act of creation, and soon a new pantheon of divinity populated the cosmos and nearby veils.
At first the new deities were aligned with her purpose and sought to fulfill the same goals, affecting the general improvement of life upon her body. This sentiment did not last, however, as the fickle nature of mortals seemed to seduce those she had chosen as well. They became self centered and avaricious, scheming for more power and influence. Their jealousy inevitably led to chaos and strife once again. This was just the beginning of her new woes, however, as she discovered that her siblings and offspring had also uncovered secrets of divinity and raised their own champions. These were new powers, beyond her scope. They fought over trivialities, committing atrocities and devastating populations of her people. The wars which arose spanned the veils and brought other pantheons to her realm. Power was to be found by preying upon weaker gods and so the outsiders came, coveting their share. Others arrived, craving her authority for their own or seeking vengeance upon the new gods for sins committed in other realms.
Cycles of violence raged for millennia, and Primythera grew weary. She withdrew from the awareness of mortals and slumbered to avoid the consistent sadness which plagued her thoughts. Ages passed and her influence waned while the world evolved without her. Without her conscious knowledge beings sharing synergy with her ideals scraped slivers of power from the threads of her spirit that wove throughout all natural things. These disciples were aware of what she was and what she represented. Many of them came together as a spiritual organization and called themselves druids. They devoted themselves to preserving the natural balance of the world for they believed it would please her and call the planet spirit back to awareness once more.
In more recent times, barely more than a thousand years ago, a druid arose who did spark her interest. He was called Neadan and embodied all that she desired in a follower of her particular faith. He actively fought the lords of darkness he encountered and through craft and guile, defeated them one by one. To further his cause he sought out champions with elder souls who resonated with Primythera, whom he called the Mother. Of these there was a hero called Mecre who had been reborn so many times that he remembered each past life with clarity. Fate had woven him into the path of Neadan as an elder darkness sought out the life force of Primythera. A dark god of magic from beyond the outer veils, they called him Agavantor and he came to claim her life for his own progression with only mortals and elder souls to bar his way. Neadan and his companions defeated even this dark adversary. Neadan became Neador in the eyes of his followers and achieved divinity. Mecre aged as a hero and left a land with his name, devoted to his legacy.Though from the limited perspective of mortals, Agavantor and his disciples have been defeated, the truth is that the war rages on. In the dark corners of the veils, an old evil awaits a time that fast approaches.
As part of my quest to find a worthwhile work from home career I have looked into becoming a virtual assistant. I understand this can be a rewarding and flexible career choice, especially if you’re looking for remote work that can vary widely in terms of tasks and industries. Here is a step by step guide to figure out if this kind of business is right for you, and how you can make it work.
A virtual assistant is a remote contractor who provides administrative, technical, or creative assistance to clients from a home office or other remote location. They handle a range of tasks that can include managing emails, scheduling appointments, handling customer inquiries, managing social media accounts, preparing reports, and more. Tasks can range in scope or be very specific depending on the client’s needs and the assistant’s expertise. They serve businesses, entrepreneurs, and professionals, offering flexibility and scalability for various operational needs without the overhead associated with full-time employees.
First identify the things that you’re good at. These can be skills you love and are willing to improve or things that you already have a good deal of experience with. Common skills required for a virtual assistant include organization, communication, time management and proficiency with technology. For the sake of time and career progression, consider focusing on a niche based on your preferred skill set. Examples include administration, social media management, content creation, bookkeeping and customer support. If you stand out within your specialty you will eventually be able to charge more for your services.
Train yourself to fill in the gaps. You may not need a college degree to be successful, but the more knowledge you have pertaining to what your clients are using, the more work you can get. If you don’t already have the knowledge, take classes in business administration, communication and computer science. There are plenty of online workshops tailored specifically for virtual assistants as well, which can teach you the basics or enhance your current skills. Websites like Udemy and LinkedIn Learning also have targeted courses for what you need. Take a look at more personal coaching programs tailored for virtual assistants as well. These small, or one on one classes may be more expensive, but they can get you up to speed quickly for a more productive head start.
Remember that you are running a business. Decide if you want to operate as a sole proprietor, an LLC, or another type of business entity. This will affect your taxes and legal responsibilities. You will need a reliable computer and any necessary software. A private workspace that allows you to work without distractions will contribute to higher productivity and professionalism.
If you don’t already have one, build a portfolio that showcases your skills and previous work. That’s part of what I’m trying to do in writing this blog. Include testimonials if you have them. Develop a professional website and create business profiles on social media platforms to promote your services. Speaking of which, I now have a Facebook Page, take a look! Join online communities and forums where potential clients might frequent. LinkedIn, virtual assistant Facebook groups, and online business forums are great places to start.
Check out job boards such as Upwork, Freelancer, and Indeed for virtual assistant jobs. Seek out specialized VA agencies for more lucrative opportunities if you have the skills. Send tailored pitches to potential clients directly, explaining how you can solve their specific problems. Leverage your existing networks and ask for referrals. Happy clients are often willing to recommend your services.
Use contracts with your clients to clarify expectations, including what the final product should be, how much time you have to do it, and how much you will be paid. Decide how you will bill (hourly, per task, retainer) and use invoicing tools to manage payments. Stay updated with new tools and trends in your field of expertise to keep your skills relevant and marketable.
As your client base grows, consider outsourcing some tasks or hiring other VAs to work under you. Broaden your offerings as you gain more experience or as client needs evolve. If you are willing to be the boss and manage a real business, the earning potential is practically limitless. If you are really excited about certain aspects, try to focus on what you love and delegate everything else to your employees.
I know there is a lot of generalized information here. There is the potential for a separate blog post with almost every sentence, and I may just capitalize on that. If you or someone you know has gone down this path, please leave a comment and share some advice. Becoming a successful virtual assistant involves a mix of the right skills, effective marketing, and quality service delivery. With dedication and ongoing learning, I believe you can establish a sustainable and fulfilling career as a VA.
There is a penalty you should be aware of as you approach the consideration of official marriage. Due to the way the U.S. tax brackets are structured for married couples filing jointly compared to single filers, it may cost your family a significant amount of money each year.. Essentially, the tax brackets for married couples are not exactly double those of single filers, particularly at higher income levels. This discrepancy leads to a situation where a couple pays more in taxes together than they would if they were each taxed as single individuals on the same income.
For example, if two high earners get married and their combined incomes push them into a higher tax bracket when filing jointly, their taxable income can be subject to a higher tax rate than if they were taxed individually. This issue arises because the tax code is designed to provide benefits for married couples with one earner or with significantly disparate incomes, but it doesn’t scale as evenly for two high earners, resulting in a penalty. Additionally, certain tax credits, deductions, and exemptions phase out at higher income levels, and these phase-outs can begin at lower levels of combined income for married couples than they would for each individual if they were single. This can further contribute to the increased tax burden for high-income married couples. Talk to your tax person before you get married, and as always do your own research. I asked my tax guy specifically if there was anything I should be concerned about tax-wise when I got married. He told me no, and the next tear when I ended having to pay out more than I normally would have got back, I nearly lost my mind. Needless to say, that guy is no longer my tax guy.
There are a lot of issues here that should have been fixed decades ago. I’m not going to rail at the ridiculous state of our politics, but I feel like this is just a simple issue of adjusting the numbers. There is a real problem with the way that high income is defined. I feel that you can’t just apply the same metric across all households in the country, the numbers should be tweaked yearly based on the economy and your income relative to cost of living. My wife and I together make less than the median income of the town we live in, but we still pay a large penalty each year for the privilege of being legally married. Compared to the rest of the country we might have higher income, but in Southern California we are barely average. My wife is Catholic and marriage is important to her, but even she has considered the financial benefits of getting a divorce. I don’t really like to think about how much money we have given up for 11 years of marriage but it is likely more than the full cost of my brother’s home in Maine. It will be interesting to see if the institution survives the increased costs of living across the country.
Is this the beginning of the end for marriage? I doubt it, at least not in our lifetimes. Matrimony is too ingrained in our culture and economy to go away easily. There are also many areas of the country where it is still possible to survive on a single income. I do know plenty of couples though, that have been together for years and have agreed not to get married because of the cost. Some couples even have a wedding to convince their families and just never actually file the paperwork. I have even heard that in some states a couple can get divorced at the end of the year and remarry at the beginning of the next year to avoid the tax burden. I don’t think that would work in California since it takes about 7 months to finalize a divorce.
So, if you are in this position how do you avoid some of the tax burden? Many people will not be able to avoid the penalty completely but there are some things you can do to minimize the damage. Ask your tax person if filing separately instead of jointly will help. Make sure you maximize your pre-tax retirement contributions like 401(k)s and IRAs. Consider a Health Savings Account or a Flexible Spending Account to reduce your taxable income. Live in your own house instead of renting, you can reduce your tax burden significantly with all the itemized deductions available from owning a home. If you have rental properties consider getting your real estate license so you can write off more passive income each year. There are more options which a better educated financial planner can help you with, especially if you are a business owner.
Whatever your situation, it is good to know that you can save a lot of money by accounting for taxes. For many people, getting married might actually save you money! If you own your house or multiple homes, and or have a business it is probably worth the expense to get some professional tax advice. I tried doing my own taxes a few years ago and simply could not get the same numbers as my current CPA. I estimate that he saves me on average, 7 times what I pay him, by finding deductions and loopholes I would not have thought of. Good luck and safe bookkeeping. The deep waters of the American tax code is no place for amateurs.
Ever thought about transforming your cluttered garage or hobby into a profitable venture? Selling on eBay might just be the upgrade path and side hustle you’re looking for. I have mentioned it a few times, because it’s the online sales tool that I have the most experience with. Let’s start with a basic overview blog post and perhaps we can go into more detail if there is interest. You should have at least a simple set of goals in mind. For example you might want to clean out all the extra stuff in your garage and make a few bucks or you might want to turn a hobby into a revenue stream with an online store presence.
If you haven’t already, you need to sign up for an eBay account. Go to eBay’s website and look for the registration link. You’ll need to provide some basic information, like your name and email address. If you already have an account that you’ve used for buying, you can also use this for selling. Navigate to your account settings and select the option to set up your account for selling. This involves providing additional information such as your address, phone number, and choosing how you’ll pay your seller fees. You may also need to link a PayPal account or set up another payment method for receiving payments from buyers.
If you are just cleaning out your excess stuff, this is all you really need to do. The listing process is pretty straightforward and you can do everything from your phone. I recommend having a postal scale or something similar, packaging tape, scissors, and boxes that fit the size of the items you are selling. It is nice to have an accurate shipping weight already available while making the listing. In some cases you may want to wait and purchase packaging supplies after the item sells, because not everything will sell. Make sure you package well, if your stuff breaks due to defective packaging, good luck getting anything out of the post office. You will likely need to give the customer a refund and eat the cost.
While anyone can sell on eBay, opening an official eBay Store comes with a monthly fee but offers benefits such as lower final value fees, more free listings per month, and marketing tools. Evaluate the subscription levels to decide which one suits your needs based on the size of your business and the number of listings you plan to post. Pick a store name that is unique and reflects what you’re selling. It’s worth doing a quick search on eBay to ensure the name isn’t already in use or too similar to another. Remember, this name will be part of your store’s URL, so choose wisely. eBay also allows you to customize your store’s appearance. You can add a logo, create a billboard image, and customize the store’s color scheme to align with your brand. Take advantage of these options to make your store stand out and appear professional. Next you will set up your preferred payment methods. eBay now offers “Managed Payments,” where they directly manage transactions. This system supports various payment methods, including credit cards, PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay.
With your store set up, you can start creating listings for the items you want to sell. Make sure to use high-quality photos, write clear and detailed descriptions, set the right price, and choose the shipping options. Good listings are crucial for attracting buyers. If the item is something you really don’t care about, go ahead and use the auction format with a low beginning price. If you are selling something you know is valuable, consider starting with a higher entry price or having a reserve price where the item cannot sell below a certain price. Keep in mind these options do cost extra money, but can result in a much higher final sale price. You can always re-list the item if it doesn’t sell the first time. If you are running a business with set-price items, make sure you do your research by looking at similar items that have sold on eBay or similar online markets.
Once your store is up and running, promote it to attract customers. Use social media, blogs, or a website to drive traffic to your listings. eBay also offers promotional tools like promoted listings, which can help increase visibility. Depending on your niche you can market at industry events in person as well. I started my first store before the social media craze took hold and I used to send business cards and promotional flyers with each packaged item to attract and retain customers. I still think physical media can be a valid option in addition to everything else, especially if you are marketing the older generation. Try to have something your competitors lack so that you stand out. I used to sell game miniatures and I did my best to always have at least one of everything constantly in stock. I was the one stop shop for this particular niche of collectible miniatures. I would even buy an item from a competitor, just so I had the complete set when no one else did.
Regularly update your inventory, fulfill orders promptly, and provide excellent customer service. Respond quickly and professionally to customer inquiries. Remember the customer is always right. It is usually easier and more worthwhile to eat the cost of a mistake rather than negotiate with a displeased customer. Protect your feedback, a poor rating will tank your sales. Many people, including myself, will look for other options if your feedback is not 100 percent.
eBay provides analytics tools to track your store’s performance. Use this data to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and how you can improve. Adjust your strategy accordingly to grow your business. You can quickly rack up costs by listing stuff that does not sell. Also look at the time you list your items. I found the best time to list to be between 5pm and 7pm on the west coast for some reason, even though I had a lot of sales on the east coast too. There also appears to be an algorithm on eBay that promotes your listings more right after you list more items. For example I might go 2 weeks without listing anything, selling less and less every day, then I would list ten items one day and suddenly have 24 hours of high sales volume. While navigating eBay’s fee system can be challenging, the vast audience ready to bid on your items makes it worthwhile. If packaging isn’t your thing, consider exploring drop shipping or print on demand. Starting an eBay store requires effort and dedication, but it can be rewarding. Focus on building a positive reputation through excellent customer service and detailed, accurate listings. Over time, you’ll learn what works best for your store and how to maximize your sales.
I would hate to say that everything I know about money can be boiled down to a blog post, but since I don’t want to be too specific, this format will do for a summary. First of all, why do I get to talk about money? What are my credentials? I am not particularly wealthy for where I live and I do not have any formal education in finance. I suppose you could say that my information is for the average working person. I do not have advice on how to amass vast amounts of wealth, but I do have a lot of experience trying different things and I have a lot of regrets about what I did not do.
My experience is with doing real work with a smattering of real estate investment knowledge. I am in a position where I could retire at 51 years old, relocate somewhere affordable and live fairly comfortably without ever having to work again. That is not what I am likely to do, but it is a possibility. I own 2 rental properties and a home within 5 miles of the ocean in southern California. I did not come from money. I moved out on my own when I was 17 and my Mom made 14k a year supporting a family of 5. My initial victories in life came from having a chip on my shoulder because of my background. I have long been an example of the work harder not smarter road to success. I am still trying to change that.
So my basic advice to a person graduating high school applies to those who do not have a family who can pay for your college, or do not have the opportunities of nepotism for getting a good job. Get a basic full time job that has a 401k and health and dental benefits. You can accomplish this by working at Starbucks, as an example. Put at least 5% of your money into that 401k, your company should match your contribution. Select a plan with aggressive growth, if that is an option, and transfer it to more stable investments when you are much older. Take at least ten percent of your income and put it into something like an index fund that consistently earns over 8% per year. Buy a house as soon as you can. Retire in your 40’s as a multi-millionaire. Ok, maybe it’s not that simple, but we’ll expand on that in a bit.
I have pretty mixed feelings about college. I appreciate the need for ongoing education, but I believe most of the esteemed institutions in this county are money grubbing scams. I believe that education should be more specialized and provided primarily by the employer. I also understand that some people need a structured environment in order to learn. It just seems hard to justify spending huge amounts of money to acquire knowledge that either already is, or should be, free. It drives me crazy that so many companies require that piece of paper that means you will be paying off student loans for years and probably never shake the alcohol and drug dependencies you acquired from long nights studying and partying. It is gratifying to know, however, that more and more people are seeing through the business model that colleges and big companies have set up for their mutual benefit. Sigh, I know it’s more complex than that but this is supposed to be a blog about money so I’ll keep it simple.
I do not have a college degree. I took a lot of college classes, but with the direction my career was going and the expense and time sink involved I decided it was not practical to finish. So I have 120 credits in a variety of subjects that add up to about 30k that I will never get back. Most of the people I know in my age group that do have college degrees make less money than I do. My wife is a geologist with over 10 years of experience and I made 50k more than her last year. That being said, she had a lot more fun in her early life than I did. Like I said, I spent a lot of time on the harder, not smarter approach to life. I would also like to note that if I had taken just half of the money I have spent on alcohol and chasing women over the years, and instead made some basic investments, I could have retired as a multi-millionaire over a decade ago. We all like to have fun when we’re young.
Injecting more hypocrisy, I do not want my son to go down the same path that I did. I do not want him to be in the military, work for the police department, deliver pizza or be an air traffic controller. None of those professions are fulfilling or in any way conducive to a happy stable state of mind. I don’t necessarily want him to have an easy time either. No one should have life completely delivered to them without work. Challenge builds character, however, too much challenge builds cynicism. My wife and I agree that a community college followed by an inexpensive university would be beneficial to his worldly development. If he becomes a millionaire YouTube star in high school, however, I will be just as happy.
Don’t underestimate the power of compounding interest. I’m not going to get into the math, there are plenty of calculators online. The idea is that the interest you earn on your investments also earns interest, this combined with time creates wealth. The key is time, which is why you start young, with your first source of income, no matter what it is. I would recommend also reading up on the great Warren Buffet and how compound interest worked out for him. Let’s say you followed the above advice when you were 18 and did just the basic investments and received appropriate above inflation raises for 25 years. You would probably have close to 2 million in your investment portfolio by age 43. And that is in yesterday’s dollars, imagine how much you will have if you are a kid graduating high school today and start investing. Now imagine that you also bought a house near a major city like San Diego 20 years ago and spent half your income on that. If you continued to contribute half of your increasing income, your home would be paid for and also worth well over a million dollars. Thus, you are a multi-millionaire at 43.
This scenario obviously makes a lot of assumptions. First we assume that you are trying to work your way up in the world and getting decent raises or you are transferring to jobs that will pay you more. Look for raises. If they are not coming, look for other work. Constantly educate yourself and update your resume. Always be looking for new opportunities. If you are having trouble getting by and/or you don’t like your job you should be filling out at least one new application every day. If you know you are a good worker you should be going into each interview with your own list of questions that are along the line of ‘what can you as an employer offer me’. That being said, don’t burn your bridges. If you leave a job, do it in such a way that there is a return path if you need it. Don’t screw over your co-workers or your boss because you think you’ll never see them again. You never know what life will throw at you. If you are not a great worker or don’t have the skills you need, own it. Offer to intern for free or ask what skills you need to get the job and go out and get them. Don’t be afraid to move. In states like Maine work is scarce and good jobs are even harder to find. In California there are not enough people who want to work so we have to import workers from other countries. I once filled out sixty applications in a week in Bangor Maine, and got 2 call backs. Just on a whim, I walked into the first place that I thought would be compatible with my schedule for a second job in California. I needed some extra cash while my wife was taking some time off work with our newborn child. I applied to the Papa John’s down the street from me in San Clemente, and they asked if I could start that evening. My wife tried to be a stay at home Mom for a while. So many people kept calling her with offers to come back to work she eventually gave in for a sweet work from home consulting gig. It’s a different world, however, at least in Maine you can easily get by with a single crappy job. Don’t be afraid to work multiple jobs. You make extra cash, you save money because you don’t have time to spend it and you meet lots of interesting people. It should be a means to an end, however, the goal should always be a single job that can pay all the bills.
What exactly does moving up look like? This question has different answers for different lines of work but the basics are the same. Time and experience are usually the great dividers. If I have been working 5 years at a job and know how to do A through G, I should get paid more than someone brand new who can barely do A and B. If you like your job and really want to move up, I suggest being a yes man (person). I kind of cringe just saying that because of some bad experiences. Just keep in mind that if you say yes to every job and you actually get things done you will create a reputation for yourself that will cause more work to flow your way. You will be taken advantage of and become overwhelmed. The upside is a rapidly expanding resume. When I was a young Marine my dumb ass said yes to everything. It should be noted that an E-5 in the military with 12 different billets gets paid the exact same as an E-5 with zero billets. Promotion in the military and the government in general has very little to do with how productive you are or how well you actually know your job. I’m not going to get into this now, but the point is it is deceptively easy to get roped into working a lot harder than some people for the same pay. What you should be after, however, especially when you are younger, is experience. The Marines provided me with some of the most valuable aspects of experience that can carry over into every business: Leadership and Management. I may address this in a separate blog, because being in charge is a whole other game. My wife and I have been down this road and now we seek to avoid it when possible. If you are charismatic and enjoy working with people, however, nothing gives a boost up that ladder better than having documented experience leading and managing.
Another assumption is that you invested well. There are a lot of resources to help you with this, but start with your 401k and expand from there. I don’t recommend crypto or day trading unless you have a special skill set. If you have extra cash or are into the Stoic lifestyle, invest in some index funds. Find a financial adviser if you want to go beyond that. Don’t take anything on faith, do your own research. If you are under 40 be aggressive. If you are under 30, be really aggressive! Buy a house, in fact buy several if you can. My real estate investments are by far the most successful. They are the rock on which I can confidently plan a valid retirement and build long term wealth that can be passed on to my son.
If you are like many Californians today you are probably reading this thinking, ‘yeah right how the hell do I buy a house in this economy?’ You are right to be frustrated, it’s not an easy proposition. Coming from the military, I was fortunate enough to have a ‘no-money down option’. FHA loans are another option that only require 3% down, but there are a number of hoops to jump through, and extra insurance requirements that make this option less than palatable for some. Other options include seller financing which is tough, but can be feasible especially if a friend or family member is selling and they are willing to do a contract with you. There are a lot of ways seller financing can work but basically the seller gets little or no money up front, unless you work out a partial loan with a bank. All the mortgage payments go directly to the seller. It’s kind of like the seller is doing a reverse mortgage, but you are paying them instead of the bank. They end up getting the value of their home plus interest or whatever you negotiate, it just takes longer. Rent to own is another option, similar to seller financing but you don’t necessarily have to commit right away. It will probably cost you a bit more as well. Keep in mind that the above options are my simplified understanding and may not be more than 25% correct, but knowing those options are out there will prompt you to look for them and research them. Your agent has very little interest in showing you options which create more work for them or will circumvent their commission. There are literally hundreds of books out there that will tell you about the various unconventional ways to finance a house, but it has to work for your income. Agents and financial institutions will totally sell you a house you can’t afford and leave you to figure out the details. I know, it happened to me twice. This is part of the reason why I have worked a lot of second jobs and or rented out extra rooms in my house.
The most common and easiest way to finance, assuming you can’t just pay cash for the whole house, is the conventional way, with a ridiculous down payment. I have never had to save for a full down payment so I can only give you advice from my reading, and stories I’ve heard. When you are first starting out it can seem impossible to save, but where there is a will, there is a way. You can start by renting the crappiest little hovel in town and sharing the rent with five other people. You laugh but I’ve actually done this, my share of the rent in the 4 bedroom house in Old Town, Maine was 132 dollars a month including all utilities. Good times.
Other ways to get the down payment include the famous top ramen diet. Get a pack of multivitamins and buy a year’s worth of noodles for $200. Be an introvert and start a side hustle like Ebay sales. Sell all your old toys. You don’t really need that 20,000 dollar collection of Magic the Gathering cards any more do you? On a more serious note you can get a loan from your family or even a bank. I’ve totally heard of people getting a $60,000 loan from a bank to put as a down payment on a $200,000 house and just paying the 2 loans. Are you handy? Look for a fixer upper no one else wants and get an amazing deal. Remember to negotiate. I’ve heard of the seller actually providing the down payment as a loan so that the buyer could get a conventional loan without the upfront cash. Nurse your credit rating, you have many more options with an 800 credit score vs a 600 credit score.
House-hopping is a valid method of building wealth for us normal people if you have the inclination for it. I sort of did this out of necessity, but I know some folks who did this intentionally to great effect. This is different from flipping houses in that you actually live in them for a while. The idea is you buy a run down house in a desirable area and live in it until you fix it up enough to make it rent-worthy. Try to add value to the property by adding an extra bedroom or bathroom if you can. You then rent it out for 2 years while you live in an apartment and save money. Two years is how much tax return history you need on your rental property in order to have it be considered income for the purposes of your next loan application. If you do not have 2 years of rental income history, it will be much more challenging to get approved for a second mortgage because your lender will assume you have to pay both mortgages thus destroying your debt to income ratio. So after renting for 2 years you use your savings as a down-payment on a second home, live in it until it is fixed, then rent it out while you rent an apartment. If you do this smartly you could acquire another property every three years or so. It seems slow but if you buy in good areas these properties will pay for themselves and provide additional income. The equity you have in your homes will allow you to purchase larger (multi-unit) properties which will accelerate your growth to as much as you can handle. You could go from high school to real estate mogul in 10-20 years!
You can accelerate this strategy in several ways if you are savvy. Buying in the right area is key, and there are separate books written on this subject alone. All of my properties are in San Diego County and Orange County California, and I have been fairly fortunate. If you can get friends or family to invest with you this can help speed things up. Make sure you cover your ass by getting the right contracts in place. Don’t be afraid to start an LLC or something. Get legal advice. A handshake between friends seems great until there’s a couple hundred grand on the table and the disagreements begin. Buying at the right time also helps, but timing the market can be tough. I know people who have been waiting since 2017 to buy a home because they keep thinking ‘the bubble is going to burst any day now’. You can leverage other assets to buy properties more quickly, but don’t dig yourself a hole you can’t get out of. I’ve touched on seller financing as a way to avoid a lot of the restrictions that lending institutions have. If you are a good networker there are other options, but I’m not going to get into them since they are all variations on the same idea: use other people’s money to help you make money. If you are married, the house hopping strategy probably isn’t for you, though I have known couples who were into it. If you want to settle down and have kids, moving every couple years is not very practical.
I talk about real estate a lot because it is what I know the most about and what I am the most comfortable with. There are certainly easier and faster ways to acquire wealth but they are generally more high risk. Please don’t take any of my advice as gospel. I am not a financial advisor or a life coach, I’m just trying to share some wisdom based on my personal experiences. Read books, talk to people who have done what you want to do. Educate yourself, take classes, and acquire skills. Most importantly, get out there and try stuff. Stay low risk if you want, but get as much experience as you can when you’re young so you can make better, more well informed decisions about how to spend your time when you’re older and have less of it.
Remember when you were a kid and you could run around all day with nothing but some friends and the great outdoors and the possibilities seemed limitless? What ever happened to that time? In my youth the internet did not yet exist, we watched very little television and the radio seemed to embody all the mysteries of the universe. I did not grow up with wealth and many common child distractions were out of reach until my teens, when I started to earn some money of my own. Yet I don’t feel like I missed out on much. I may have never seen Disneyland as a child or had a large collection of Star Wars toys, but I had the wilderness and freedom and my imagination.
I sometimes wonder if my own son has the same ability to make a magical world out of nothing except his mind and his environment. He often seems dependent on video games, television and direct parental interaction. He does not generally like to play outdoors and seems to only enjoy his friends in small doses. Though he is often absorbed by the desire for video entertainment and physical toys, I still see his ability to create something from nothing. It seems hard to compare my background to his since my son always has some kind of stimulation available to him. This is where I see that to him, a lack of stimulation just means not having something new. Sometimes this is what he wants, and he will retreat to his room and arrange his stuffed animals, build a blanket fort, or just lay in his bed cuddle his dog and listen to music. Other times he gets this creative drive and hunts down a toy or game he hasn’t played in months and tries something new with it. Another sign of this innate creativity is when he breaks out the Legos, or Minecraft or a sketch pad and just creates new buildings, cities or drawings for hours straight. I think that having the time to just dump hours into random creative expression is one of the key elements of sustaining creativity that we adults tend to miss out on.
It seems that, as we age, the weight of responsibility and the stress of day to day life suppresses our once active imaginations. Perhaps our adult brains see the skill as less practical and so as we stop flexing this muscle, it atrophies in favor of more pragmatic thought processes. Is there anything we can do to slow this process down or reverse it? Do we want to? What would be the cost? I feel that the ability to think outside of the box is useful in almost every scenario. If we want to be more successful, wealthy and healthy, imagination is a skill set we should definitely spend some time cultivating. As a manager, one’s problem solving ability is related to their experience and ability to creatively apply it to new situations. As a real estate investor, one may be denied financing by dozens of banks or go through several realtors who believe that a second or third property cannot be purchased with non-standard or creative financing. Sometimes professionals are so blinded by the standard way of doing things, they are blind to the other less common options. As an athlete who wants to lose weight or eat healthy, one must often come up with creative ways to remain on track and stay disciplined when others are not supportive or temptation is around every corner.
Please do not confuse imagination and creativity with discipline and motivation. Imagination can solve problems by envisioning a solution or be the spark of inspiration for a lucrative idea. Discipline is how you follow through with these ideas and stay with them until completion. Even if you are an artist, maybe inspiration helped you make a painting, but discipline makes a career with income. If you are a writer then you know that creativity is an outline that will never be a book without discipline.
For the purpose of this post lets define imagination as your ability to solve unique problems and generate new ideas. Your brain has gone stagnant from years of the nine to five grind, cooking dinner, doing dishes, laundry, and changing diapers. Now you want some of that child-like desire for something different, something new, something that is uniquely yours. Maybe you want something more interesting for dinner, maybe you want to be more in tune with your kids, or maybe you want to creatively outsource all those household chores. Whatever your goals, I hope you find some value in the following suggestions for improving your imagination.
Reading books, especially fiction, exposes you to new worlds, ideas, and perspectives. It can stimulate your imagination by allowing you to visualize scenarios, characters, and places. I prefer fantasy and science fiction to get my fix. If I get transported somewhere for original ideas I certainly don’t want it to be in the real world. Also as a wanna-be fantasy author I feel that that genre fits my goals the best. I also find value in video games and tabletop role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons for priming that spark. Playing video games with my son is especially enlightening as he still has that random creative perspective I’m looking for that can’t really be re-created any other way.
Carry a journal or use a digital app to jot down your thoughts, observations, and ideas throughout the day. This practice can help you notice interesting details in the world around you and induce creative thinking. This is especially handy for a prospective author or when you are the Dungeon Master for a Dungeons and Dragons group. I once saw a pair of small birds harassing a crow and jotted down this idea for incorporeal fey spirits that would possess animals so they could attack humans encroaching on their land. It’s amazing which images and ideas can trigger random thoughts. I also used to keep a journal by my bed so that I could write down my dreams and draw upon ideas from my subconscious. I seldom remember my dreams anymore and that’s just sad. It’s a sure sign of stress and a rigid lifestyle and a great reason for me to follow my own advice in this post.
Practicing Mindfulness and Meditation can help clear your mind of clutter and stress, making room for more creative thoughts. Mindfulness encourages you to notice details in your environment that you might otherwise overlook. Meditation can quiet the background noise in your mind and open you to a higher state that encourages inspired answers. Eckhart Tolle compared the perfect meditation to being in touch with an infinite intelligence that some believe is a direct connection to the divine. Check out my happiness posts for more information or better yet check out Tolle’s books like the Power of Now. Keep an open mind. I’m not even close to being a religious person, but I can attest to the practical value of effectively managing your inner voices.
Engage with various forms of art, such as painting, music, theater, and dance. Participating in or even just appreciating different forms of artistic expression can inspire new ideas and ways of thinking. Some personal examples for me include the Black Magic Crafts YouTube channel. I was inspired by the creation of tabletop props using styrofoam and cardboard. I never did anything lucrative with it but I had fun building some environments for D&D miniatures and especially loved building some little play areas for Hot Wheels with my kiddo. Music is something I have always enjoyed listening to. Some of my favorite bands for inspirational listening include Led Zeppelin, Metallica and R.E.M. Another surprisingly inspirational activity for me as a fantasy writer was Salsa dancing. I remember when I finally became good enough to improvise moves on the fly and create my own combination instead of just a single choreographed routine. It was like this bell went off in my head and I thought ‘oh this is how sword fighting is sometimes described when two opponents are using variable forms, chaining combinations and countering each other’. I also gained a keen appreciation of footwork and balance while dancing that I never quite obtained with martial arts.
Puzzles, strategy games, and brain teasers can challenge your problem-solving skills and encourage you to think in innovative ways. In addition to a variety of video games, we also play board and card games like Risk, Settlers of Catan, Magic the Gathering and Dominion to name a few. You never really think about how much strategy is involved in something that seems like a roll of the dice until you lose six times in a row to your wife while playing Risk. Other games help one to understand the difficulties of resource management and competition when settling a new area. I got the idea for a ‘mana-flow’ game mechanic for one of my half built role playing games from playing MTG.
Experiencing new places, cultures, and people can broaden your perspective and inspire new ideas. If you can’t travel far, try exploring new areas in your local community. Hiking is my favorite mode of exploration. It helps to clear my mind and I can’t help but imagine myself in a fantasy setting, especially when surrounded by the towering trees and majestic vistas of Sequoia and Yosemite national parks. Exploring Japan opened my eyes to a new world of hidden temples and amazing sculpted gardens woven into the middle of towering skyscrapers in such a way that you feel transported to a new world. The multi-floored train stations with grocery stores underneath and department stores on top give one a unique appreciation for the economy of space.
Sharing ideas and working on projects with people who have different skills and perspectives can spark creativity. Collaboration can lead to the combination of ideas in ways you might not have thought of on your own. No matter how experienced or diligent you are, other people will always be able to surprise you. Everybody brings their own experience to the table and innovation can arrive even amidst the strain of conflict. I remember leading a work group on a couple different occasions where other members brought up ideas that I thought were so stupid and wasteful it blew my mind. I had to stop and check myself, however, because these people were respected professionals, and their brains worked in such a way that to them, these were legitimate issues. I had to assess my own values in those situations. I can’t say that my overall opinions about wasting resources changed, but we compromised, and learning occurred on all fronts.
Improving your imagination is a process that involves curiosity, openness to new experiences, and the willingness to explore and experiment. By incorporating these practices into your life, you can develop a richer, more creative imagination. So travel to new places, meet new people and try different food. Experience what life has to offer and soak it up. Put yourself in the shoes of others and envision their wants and needs and how you can help them achieve their goals. Above all seek out that inner child, and learn from them.
There is a book called “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell that talks about the qualities that distinguish some of the most successful people. One of the statistical properties they tend to have in common is more than 10,000 hours of time devoted to a particular skill set at a relatively young age. This gives them a huge advantage compared to their competitors. When I apply the 10,000 hour concept to myself I only have 2 skills that fall into that category; air traffic control, and driving. Air traffic because that has been my career and I have over 20 years of experience, and driving because I figure 500,000 gets me there, even at an average pace of 40 mph which I will take since most of my miles are highway miles.
I think a lot of people would say that driving does not count because once you get to a certain point you don’t really get better because you don’t push yourself to improve, unless you are a race car driver. In my opinion, however, almost ten years as a pizza delivery driver counts as striving for improvement. There are so many little tricks and techniques you learn when your income depends on the speed of your delivery, I could probably write a book about it. Most of these tricks are ones that everyone eventually picks up on like cutting through the gas station parking lot to avoid a backed up turn signal, using back roads instead of the main drag on a busy day, taking a turn from the outside lane so you can corner quicker or timing a cold red light by looking at the side lights so you can hit the intersection at speed instead of coming to a complete stop. These and many other less than legal techniques just sort of come naturally after driving in the same area for many years.
You may be thinking that my income can’t possibly depend on the speed of delivery. Well, look at it from the customer’s perspective.Very few people care that the store is backed up or a driver called out sick, and they are somehow surprised and disappointed when they order 10 large pizzas on a Saturday night and the manager says it will take 2 hours. Or worse the manager says it will take 40 minutes when it will actually take 2 hours. You personally may be pretty mellow about it, but for most people, when that pizza arrives an hour late and it is cold and congealed, it’s the driver’s fault and they will most likely withhold a tip. I have found that just a little extra speed is conducive to increasing the likelihood of getting the order to the customer before they reach the tipping point of rage and your tip goes from 5 dollars to non-existent. Customers get hangry and take it out on the drivers because that’s who they interact with. Anyway, I could go on but I will just complete this rant by cautioning fellow drivers and mentioning that obeying the traffic rules will statistically lead to a less stressful and longer career.
On to the good stuff. One of the more useful things I picked up from delivery driving is the way of the traffic light. I explained this piece of circular enlightenment to an audience when I interviewed for a 9-1-1 dispatcher job after being asked to explain how I used prioritization in my previous job. They were probably expecting me to talk about air traffic control because they knew that’s where I was coming from in the military. That would have been way too easy. So I explained how when I leave the store with six deliveries I take a good look at the map (yes this was before everyone had a smartphone), and plan out my route using a right circular pattern. Of course the known largest tipping customer is first unless they are too far out of the way(prioritization), and then the rest of the deliveries will be completed by sequential right turns that eventually take me back to the store. There are a lot more variables but you get the gist. The fact is that a left turn can take up to 3 minutes at any given traffic light, 4 left turns could put you 12 minutes behind and that’s assuming you don’t have to wait through several revolutions of that particular light. You gotta love the Southern California summer traffic. Most right turns only take 10-30 seconds. When I explained this to my interviewers, the dispatch manager, fire chief and police chief were slack jawed as if in appreciation of an almost spiritual revalation, or they just thought I was nuts. We can’t all just go code 3 and run the red lights while everyone moves out of the way. I guess they enjoyed my sermon though, because I got the job even though I couldn’t type very fast. So yeah, common sense for most delivery drivers, but not something other people think about. It’s become a habit at this point, I still use it when I’m running errands.
These days most of my driving is on the highway, about seventy miles a day on the I-5 between San Clemente and Carlsbad, California. For those of you that have driven in this area you know that there is an 18 mile stretch through Camp Pendleton that is a virtual American Autobahn. I generally set my cruise at 85 in the morning on the way to work and I routinely get passed like I’m standing still. I’m no stranger to the old triple digit road slalom, but it’s not something I recommend. I know it can be fun and you feel like you’re saving time, but the fact is, it creates unnecessary danger for you and everyone around you. As an older family man I am not nearly as comfortable driving fast anymore, I’m even less comfortable with other morons trying to drive fast around me. I suppose part of me realizes that I’m reaping the karma from formerly being the biggest a-hole on the road.
For the kids out there who are still in a hurry for no reason or just have an untamable competitive driving habit, here are some things to think about. Number one, if you get caught by the cops going fast enough, they can take your license, impound your car and send you to jail. Yup, just for speeding. Number two your tires are probably not meant to hold up at 120+ mph swerving back and forth across the hot pavement. I had a sports car once with tires rated for 140 mph. The tires cost 500 bucks a piece and wore out after 30,000 miles because I drove like an idiot. If you are young and stupid like most normal inexperienced drivers, chances are you can’t afford nice tires. Just envision to yourself what will happen when the tires on your 2008 Altima, that already have 80,000 miles on them, give out on you. Point number three is that when you have a blow out and lose control of your car or some other misfortune causes you to careen into the median or a semi truck at 100+ mph, you are probably going to die, or worse really wish you had. Yes, I would quite rather be dead than be that poor guy in the iconic Metallica music video “One”, thank you very much.
Another ethical chain of thought you might want to consider are the other drivers on the road. How bad would you feel if you were responsible for the death of a minivan full of kids because you just had to get home three minutes and twenty-five seconds sooner? I’m not saying you can’t drive relatively fast and be relatively safe, you just need to read the road so to speak. This goes for slow pokes as well. If you are driving 45 in the middle lane when the average traffic is going 70, you are now the obstacle and creating a danger to those around you. Please pull over to the side of the road and stop your car when you look at directions on your phone. Even better, wait until the next exit and get off and look at your phone in a parking lot. It’s a pain to get back up to highway speed and merge from the break-down lane.
Do you ever think about the psychology of other drivers or what sorts of things are statistically dangerous? I remember being a kid seeing all kinds of propaganda on how to be a safe driver. Remember the red asphalt videos? Do they still have those? After I became an adult those reminders seem to fade into the background. You would still see the occasional TV ad that warned about drinking and driving or the radio would reiterate the dangers of talking on your cell phone. I don’t know about you but I don’t watch TV with ads anymore and I am generally listening to Audible or Amazon Music when I drive, so again no reminders. Well there is the occasional accident on the side of the road that may serve as a wake up call, but how many of us drift into complacency more and more every day? Let me help you out by describing some signs that indicate you may be casually disregarding the significance of your life, the lives of your passengers and the other drivers around you.
Do you change lanes more than once every ten minutes? Lane changes are one of the leading causes of accidents in California. Try to pick a lane and stay there for the majority of your drive, even if it’s the fast lane. If people start passing on your right you might want to think about changing lanes so that you are not the obstruction. Do you ride in peoples’ blind spots? This means just sitting in the four or eight o’clock position of another vehicle where they can’t see you and matching their speed with no intent to pass. This always feels like an aggressive move to me. I feel like that person must know what they are doing and they are messing with me. It makes my hackles rise because I have seen how it plays out. Imagine you are so out of touch with your situational awareness that you are riding in the blind spot of someone who likes to change lanes every two minutes. Now your safety is dependent on that lane changer noticing that you are there. Combine that with how many people seem to slow down when they are changing lanes and the odds against you just pile up. Do you like to tailgate people to let them know they are slow and should move out of your way? Hmm, reflexes like a jedi, you must have. Plus when they brake check you and you rear end that slow poke, you are 100% at fault and up go your insurance rates. If you ride a motorcycle and you do dumb stuff you should understand that you are like 30 times more likely to come out of every bad situation worse than me, so good luck.
That all being said, I do tend to drive more aggressively than most people, though I tend to avoid all the above situations out of courtesy to my fellow drivers. I do not own a motorcycle. For you passive unaware drivers I also have some advice. The fast lane is not for long distance, it is for speed. Just because you have a 200 mile drive does not mean you should stay in the far left lane if you are diving 10 mph slower than everyone else. Forcing everyone to pass on the right is not cool. Also, if you suddenly decide you want to drive 67 mph and pass that car in front of you doing 65, you should look in your rear view mirror first and not cut off the car doing 90. Forcing someone to slam on their bakes just because you can is also not cool. Doing it because you did not even look for them is even worse. There will unfortunately always be those drivers out there that are blissfully unconcerned about the world around them and remain in their unbothered little world oblivious to the anger and discontent they may cause. They sadly do not realize how many mentally unstable people carry firearms in their vehicle and have nothing to lose.
So this post went longer than expected and definitely went away from the typical subjects I cling to. I expect to be doing this more often since it is easy and seems to satisfy some deep seeded need that I have. For that reason I will start a category called the Ravings of Mad Mike to segregate these rants from the more useful subjects. Please take everything I say in these rants with a grain of salt. These are my slightly biased, almost completely unresearched opinions and should not significantly affect how you live your life.
A friend of mine was showing me some cool stuff he was doing with Blender and Unreal Engine and it got me motivated to get into the Blender class I bought on Udemy a while back. I made a bookcase and showed it to some friends. Someone mentioned that I could probably make a bookcase more easily using Unreal Engine. Then I thought to myself, hey, I have made a bookcase on Unreal Engine before and the comment got me wondering if it was really true that Unreal was easier than Blender, at least with respect to bookcases..
So why am I making bookcases? This is mainly because I am a nerd who loves to collect books. I should say that I used to collect books but unfortunately, I have found it financially prudent to sell them off a couple times in my life. The first time was when Ebay first came out and I was fascinated with the auction process. I sold a bunch of books and all my old Transformer toys from the 80s. Then I bought a car, not a great car but a functional one. Why? Because I really wanted a car, and I was 22 and didn’t have one yet. The books and toys had just been sitting around at my parents house for years anyway. The second time I sold all my books involved downsizing after a career change and in preparation for a move. I was able to replace most of my old yard sale furniture with new stuff. The third time was just after moving into a new house. I had a lot of books at this point, the moving team was quite surprised at the extra workout. The new house needed about 60k in renovations, so I sold all my books except for a few special ones that were signed specifically for me by the authors. Did the books pay for all the renovations? Well no, but they covered most of it.
So I really love books, however, it became apparent after having a kid and lots of expected and unexpected house guests over the years that rebuilding the book collection in this particular home would not be practical. For this reason one of the early projects I’d like to work on in Unreal Engine is creating a virtual man-cave where I can have all the cool gee-whiz stuff that I can’t afford and don’t have space for in real life. This shall of course include a virtual library.
The bookcases I have built so far in Blender and Unreal Engine are not anything exciting or fancy. I am at the beginning stages of both and I am basically just joining rectangles together. I had an easier time in Unreal because I did not fill the bookcase with books and it is very easy to drag and drop a wood material onto the bookcase to color it. I still haven’t figured out how to color stuff on Blender, mostly because my class hasn’t gone there yet. However, I didn’t see an easy drag and drop option like UE.
During the process I learned that materials on Unreal Engine do not always drop on at the right size for some reason. With a little research I found out that I could open the material blueprint and add a texture coordinate node and attach it to the uv part of the material texture sample. Then you can adjust the u tiling and v tiling to change the relative size of the texture. This technique may be handy for another project I’m thinking about.
The Blender bookcase was a result of me practicing some of the stuff I had learned in the Udemy class. There was a demo where the instructor used a lot of basic shapes combined with scaling and rotation to create a little scene including a house, some trees and even some blocky cars. I followed along for a little while, but I really wanted to try a bookcase and some books. The bookcase was a simple affair of five rectangles for the main structure and a bunch of duplicated rectangles for the shelves. The books were four rectangles which included the spine, front and back cover and the pages joined together. I used scaling along the various axes to make books of different sizes, joined them and filled the shelves. This took a lot longer than expected as getting the books to all line up correctly and then aligning them on the shelves was tougher than I thought. There is probably an easier way to do it, but I didn’t know how to move the camera so I actually moved the bookshelf around a lot so I could see what I was doing. I also couldn’t figure out how to get the books to just snap to the shelves. What I did get, was a lot of practice with the hotkeys for grabbing and moving along the x,y, and z axis and switching the isometric views with the number pad. I am looking forward to making more bookcases with higher level skills.
My goal is to really leverage what I understand about this software in the next few months. It seems like Blender and UE really are like the peanut butter and jelly of game design. Blender is the cool free software that lets you sculpt, model and animate whatever you want. Then you can take these toys to Unreal Engine’s playground and create game rules and interactions around them.
In this second post on the topic of world building we’ll continue by building upon some of the ideas from the previous post and delving more into the mechanics of the game itself. As I write this, I’m debating if I want to add my own campaign world to this blog. Looking back through my notes and writing I realize that it is pretty disorganized and unbalanced. Maybe I can use my own advice and refine this world into something others might enjoy. I also have a story that is in its initial stages which relates to my campaign world and some of the prominent characters. Looking through the writing it’s obvious that some serious practice is required on my part to get back into the groove. This might be a good opportunity to get into some of that as well and maybe post some of these stories as a web serial. After reading the Wandering Inn I can’t help but be fascinated by the idea of doing nothing but writing a web novel full time in my retirement. For now, let’s jump back into the basics of world building.
Developing factions and organizations is a key strategy for enriching your world with complexity and tension. These entities, each with their own objectives, ideologies, and skills, can significantly enhance the political landscape of any setting. Identify the purpose each faction serves in your world, such as political entities, spiritual bodies, or different guilds—ranging from merchants and thieves to warriors and sorcerers. Consider their ambitions and core essence. Will they assist the players, or will they pose obstacles?
Delve into the backstory for each of your factions. Work their history into the world’s history. Highlight events that shaped the formation of your organization and describe how the repercussions of their past actions affect the players today. Include the past conflicts and political struggles and how it led to their current situation. Who are the notable members of this group? Are they a master crafter, a skilled tactician, or blessed with a silver tongue? Define the hierarchy of the group. How do they gain power or rank? What are the traditions and customs associated with the faction? Can the players become members? If so, how?
A strong faction will usually have influence over a geographical area or at least have a stronghold. Group ties will usually revolve around some sort of resource and compensation. How powerful is your group? How does the resource or area they control affect the economy and the local government? How does their combat power stack up against the local military or police force? There should be powerful stable actions to counter and balance forces that are prone to conquest and chaos. Detail the allies and enemies of the various parties and how they complement or undermine each other. Integrate quests involving the factions into game play and create drama. Players can spend half a game session discussing the ethical ramifications of helping one faction over another. It’s a great bonding experience.
If you are ambitious, have a reputation system that keeps track of the player’s standing in the various organizations. I’ve never really done this with a table top game, but I’ve seen it in a few video games. This reputation can help them gain access to new quest lines, new areas, unique items or even special abilities. If you have an artistic flare, design flags, colors, clothing and architecture that reflects the organization. Create distinction between groups by defining behavior, language differences, codes of honor, and customs.
Now that you are juggling all these factions you need to allow the players to influence them over the course of the story and be ready to accept the inevitable changes that should result. Again remember to keep good documentation for consistency and maintaining balance.
Once you have the basics of your factions outlined, enhance them with a diverse variety of characters. One of the most memorable parts of a gaming session are the interactions between the players and colorful NPCs. The game master should have a solid understanding of the backgrounds, and motivations of the supporting cast. The relationships you build between the supporting characters and players will bring more engagement with the narrative. I like to base my NPCs on people I have met before or an actor on tv, so that I have a picture in my head of what they look like, their mannerisms, clothing, ethnicity and voice. Naturally, I amplify the character, elevating them to a grander scale than what I’m familiar with, to ensure they stand out and entertain. Incorporating numerous details is beneficial, particularly with a vast array of characters, allowing for some similarities while maintaining distinct and unforgettable personas. Assign your NPCs weaknesses and drives, avoiding an excess of clichés. Detail their familial origins, socioeconomic standing, and political beliefs to add depth.
Next, we’ll delve into the mechanics of the game. This section might not resonate with those utilizing pre-existing systems, but for anyone aiming to craft something distinctively their own, there are several considerations to bear in mind. Our desire to infuse our unique touch into the world stems from our creative nature and the joy of gaming collectively. There’s a certain thrill in unleashing our imaginative chaos onto a mundane reality. However, when improvising, it’s important to be wary of potential pitfalls like disrupting the game’s balance or making commitments that are hard to fulfill.
We’ve all been there, in the middle of a cool battle when one of your players comes up with a cool idea with ambiguous rules. You don’t want to slow the flow of the game so you’re like “sure I’ll allow that.” The next thing you know it becomes an exploit that you “allowed before” and the players just bring the ceiling down on the dragon’s head instead of fighting the poor thing. The fact is, we can’t make a rule for everything, but I find that when I am directly involved in creating the mechanics, the numbers and intentions of the rules make more sense and are easier to apply in unique situations.
Developing a set of rules for a tabletop or video game can be a pain, and requires a lot of planning, work and testing. You need a framework to start with that defines what you will allow the players to do. I suggest starting with the basic Hero Quest actions like moving, attacking, and casting spells, then build out from there. Start with an objective for each action and define what the players are trying to achieve. For tabletop games, determine the sequence of actions and what players can accomplish in their turn. For MMOs you need to understand how the real time actions will be structured.
Develop a stat system for attributes that will affect gameplay, for example strength and intelligence. Create a skill system that allows balanced progression and improvement. Define the key resources such as health and mana and how they are used and replenished. Design a combat system with damage calculation, special abilities and defense resolution. Figure out how alternatives to straight combat are resolved when other skills are involved like diplomacy, stealth, and fear. There has to be dice! Decide how the deities of chance affect the gameplay.
The level progression system is the bread and butter of your mechanics. Players need to progress and get stronger in order to defeat tougher foes. Experience can be gained by defeating enemies, completing quests, or overcoming specialized challenges like disarming traps. I have been working on a class-less system for a while and it is rough. Perhaps in the future I will post some of what I have to the blog and ask for some feedback from some more mathematically inclined individuals.
Develop a (virtual) material reward system for overcoming objectives. Yes, I’m talking about that sweet loot. I have many fond memories as a high school nerd flipping to the back of the Dungeon Master’s Guide and rolling on those treasure tables. Gold and magic items, much like experience, should be balanced and earned. Your random number generation mechanism should make it very unlikely to find a plus five vorpal dancing longsword of godly might lying around in a room full of kobolds.
This marks the end of my guide to world-building, at least for the moment. My expertise predominantly resides in crafting stories and plots for tabletop games, with my experience in video game development being somewhat limited. I believe that starting with a well-developed, written world can simplify the process of creating the data structures needed in video game development. As I expand my knowledge, I’ll share more insights. I welcome your comments or suggestions, particularly from those who have experience or know someone who has successfully transitioned their tabletop game into a video game.
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