A Brief Look at Harnessing the Power of the Crowd to Drive Investment Decisions

Disclaimer: None of this constitutes financial advice. I have no formal training or education in anything related to finance, accounting, investments, etc. Everything in this post is purely for entertainment.
This post is going to be a bit longer than your average Reddit post. I have tried to make it interesting to read, or at the very least entertaining, and I would encourage you to read all of it. But if you just want to skip my pontifications and head straight to the pretty graphs, see the Results section.
Estimated read time: 15 minutes.

Introduction

Some of you may have already seen my u/asx__bot. Also for those that missed it, here is what I have planned to do next with it (this image was entirely auto-generated). The u/asx__bot version evolved from several different things before it came to be in its current form. Although before we go any further, this write-up will not discuss the current ASX Bot. But instead, my experiences in a previous iteration where I tried to use sentiment analysis to build an investment portfolio. I will refer to this version as Bot 1.0 or otherwise just the bot.
I will repeat this once again. This write-up will not focus on the existing u/asx__bot but instead a previous iteration I was working on.
Initially, I decided to embark on this journey because I was inspired by this post here. Despite the applications being completely different, I was intrigued by the idea of using programming to augment investment decision making. Secondly, I was also somewhat inspired by this u/BigJimBeef post about doing proper due diligence and not just listening to what is most popular or what has 🚀🚀🚀 next to it. I was curious to find out what would happen if you just listened to the crowd hype. Lastly, I needed a real-world problem to practice several things I wanted to learn.
If you are getting deja vu reading any of this, it is because I already posted some results from Bot 1.0 in a thread a few weeks ago that got like 20 upvotes. But it did not include a full write-up, it was kinda shit, and I deleted it.

Method

Let me preface this section by saying that Bot 1.0 was very stupid. But I am yet to scratch the surface of what may be possible with it. This was an early prototype, and it was more about seeing if what I wanted to do was technically feasible. The term bot is also quite disingenuous and gives it an air of sophistication that does not exist. In reality, the code looked like the Python version of this or this. But it operated like a fucking Rube Goldberg machine. I overwrote a lot of the code half by choice and half mistakenly. I should have done a better job with my version control, but I really had no plan coming back to this project, so I was being a bit careless. But since a few people were tagging me and wanting to get various tidbits of information I have picked it up again. I have learnt that people really ❤️ data. Which would explain why those Spotify yearly wrap-ups are so popular or why someone who can wrangle data to create reports for executives and such will have a long and successful career.
Bot 1.0 begins by analysing sentiment for all comments over a given period. It uses a very robust library called VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner). This library determines how positive or negative a sentence is. From this data, the bot ranks which stocks more frequently appear in positive sentences and then creates a portfolio based around these. At the end of the given period, the bot then readjusts based on the data it has monitored over the previous period. That is it. As you can see, it is very primitive.
I loaded it up with a modest sum of $100 million, I also set it up to take the top 20 shares of the given period. The period, in this case, was every calendar month.

Results

Here are the results in visualisations:

• Portfolio value over time
  
• Portfolio composition over time
  

You can see when shares get dropped in favour of the latest and greatest. You may even notice top performers getting dropped just because the bot did not consider them to be hyped up enough anymore. So with a starting sum of $100 million, the bot managed to double its money. Take that VDHG and VAS!

Discussion

I was honestly quite surprised. In this case, the crowd was not as stupid as you might believe. Initially, a part of me was expecting (and hoping) the bot would lose 50% to 100%, so I could conclude that listening to investment advice from this subreddit and other online forums (I am looking at you too HotCopper) is ill-fated. And it is in your best interest to just log out, leave it to the pros, and cop that S&P 500 ETF. But no matter how many times I tweaked settings and re-ran it, I never saw the bot finish any lower than a few percentage points and most of the time it was in the green.
It reminds me of something a maths teacher told me, and that was that an individual is usually quite bad at estimating. But if you take the average of several estimates, you may be surprised with how accurate it is. An example of this is the classic competition where one must guess how many lollies there are in a jar. A strategy to win these competitions is to take an average of everyone's guesses. This assumes that most of those guesses are people trying to win. The same is true for this subreddit, this bot only works on the assumption that most people here are trying to make money, even if their portfolio says otherwise. I think that is a fair assumption though and when there is money on the line, people behave differently. The person who hypes XYZ in a thread every day (I may or may not be talking about u/SlaughterRain) would most likely only be bothered to do so because they rationally (or irrationally) believe their shares in XYZ will make them money. Even if XYZ is going nowhere anytime soon. To further tie this back to my original point, much like the lolly jar competitions, if you ask an individual to pick the top stock that they think will moon, it will probably be a dud. But if you could aggregate everyone's picks, the likelihood of making money goes up significantly.
For Bot 1.0, the sentiment analysis seems to work best over four weeks. I tried periods of one to eight weeks. A period of one week was way too volatile, as the bot could not gauge sentiment nearly as well and it would be all over the place. Whereas eight weeks seemed too slow and it was way too late to the party. I will talk more about this in Limitations.
Every time I did run it though, there have been some big gains but hardly many big losses. The biggest losses I have seen over any given interval were usually like 15% to 20%. The biggest gain I saw was a flukey triple bagger over a couple weeks or a month (APT related I think).

Limitations

Failing to Understand Nuance

I did not get time to do as much inspection of comment data as I would like. But I did see the bot producing a considerable amount of false positives and false negatives. A notable one was a sentence like “fuck yeah cunts! XYZ is going to the moon!”, which was associated with negative sentiment. Due to the words “fuck” and “cunt”. As Australians, I feel like either of those words can be positive depending on the context. For example, "fuck yeah cunt" compared to "fuck you cunt.” A free and open-source sentiment analysis library (like VADER) will expectedly fail in some instances at understanding comments made on an Australian investment forum focused on memey micro-cap stocks. There is also the issue of someone saying something like “fuck my life, I should have bought more XYZ.” This will be considered a negative sentence due to the tone. But is this really the case? The user is saying that most likely because the stock is performing well and they regret not getting more when it was cheaper. Because of this, it may be best to categorise comments from here myself. Then train a model on this data to predict the sentiment. Compared to just using a publically available library.

Collective Stupidity

Sometimes the crowd is not always right. When people stop thinking for themselves, the house of cards falls down. If everyone here blindly believes XYZ is next to rocket because HypeBeast69420 said so, then the bot will crumble in on itself. But with Reddit and the Internet usually being a place of anonymousness and openness, it provides the perfect environment for people to speak their minds. Of which those same people may be less likely to do so in real life. Such as at a work meeting or during dinner with the extended family. On the Internet, for every HypeBeast69420, there is at least someone dying to prove them wrong.

Chasing Rainbows and Being Late to the Party

There was no guarantee Bot 1.0 would not liquidate its entire portfolio at a 50% loss to chase the latest and greatest hype. Then slowly lose more and more money as the rockets fall down to Earth. Repeating the process until it has $10 spare and can only trade pennies stocks. The rainbow chasing and volatility became a lot more pronounced when I used either a smaller fund size (three to five stocks) or made more frequent trades, i.e. making decisions off less data. But regardless, since the bot was always basing investment decisions off the previous weeks or months, it was guaranteed to be a little bit late. So at the moment, I have two ideas to combat this.
The first idea is to have the bot leverage the crowd data as well as market data. So the bot might get a list of stocks that are generating interest, it then takes these stocks and uses market metrics to determine if it should buy or sell. For example, the penny miner that has shot up 50% in a week might not be a smart play. Although, when it comes to valuing a stock and deciding when to buy or not, there are many different schools of thought. Such as the Buffet-esque value investor who sifts through financials and actually does proper DD. The brah who makes sure his chakras are aligned before he bases his decision on what his tea leaf reading says. Or the chartist who creates their own take on some sort of modernist art and manages to rival the likes of a Basquiat or a Picasso. So deciding how to value stocks and what metrics to consider would require further thought. Which is not where my expertise lies.
Now, the second idea is in contrast with the previous paragraph. The bot would purely be using the data generated by this sub to form its decisions. All the bot is doing is understanding what it is being told and then buying/selling accordingly. Which means efforts would need to be heavily concentrated in making sure sentiment is analysed correctly. More accurate sentiment analysis and greater comment volume will allow the bot to make decisions more accurately and more frequently. Trades could occur weekly, bi-weekly, or daily as opposed to monthly. The low volume of daily and weekly comment data during periods of 2020 was also an entire limitation in itself. But with the sharp increase in total comments being made, it seems my prayers are being answered.

Unrealistic and Simplified Trading

The buying/selling functionality was not very realistic. Much like a politician's Cayman Islands shell company, this bot was not paying any taxes. Furthermore, it was not paying any sort of brokerage fees. As mentioned above, the bot just liquidates its entire portfolio and then tries to rebalance its portfolio on the same day. Obviously, this is not very realistic. It is not looking at market depth or volume either. It just takes the open price of any given day and buys and sells at that price.
The bot was just buying and selling shares of ASX listed companies. It was not involved in anything like short-selling, derivatives, or using leverage. Nor was it trading instruments like bonds, foreign currencies, cryptocurrencies, or ETFs. These may or may not be limitations depending on how you look at it.
Furthermore, stuff like stock splits/consolidations and long-term trading halts (fucking DOU) really screwed with the bot. I have not implemented a way to handle stock splits or consolidations. So I just ignored companies that have had these during the 2020 period. There are probably a few more gotchas I have not considered either.

The Rollercoaster Year of 2020

Nine months of comment data is not that much in terms of financial markets. I would honestly love to have 10 to 20 years worth of data. Or even data leading up to the covid dip of last year. But this year was such a fluke in many respects too. Some shares lost about 30% of their value over a few weeks. But returned to where they were by the end of the year like nothing happened. On the other hand, others are still yet to recover from 2008, let alone 2020.

Determining Ticker Codes

I saw WOW coming up a lot at the start of the year. Which kind of made sense. Because during peak covid, supermarkets never had any specials but were selling like crazy and could barely keep up with demand. After looking into it a bit further, although there were a few mentions of Woolworths Limited, mainly it was just a lot of comments with people exclaiming “WOW”, a la Owen Wilson. In addition to this, when the sentiment analyser sees WOW, it sees this as the word wow. Which it considers very positive. So if someone is actually just referring to Woolworths Limited, it will skew the data positively regardless of the actual sentiment behind the comment. So I think I just ended up filtering out WOW. This was similar for acronyms like ATH (all-time high), UBI (universal basic income), and TGA (therapeutic goods administration). All of those three-letter acronyms are ticker codes used by ASX listed companies too. If you view the portfolio breakdown, you may even notice some acronyms I have missed.

I Have No Idea What I Am Doing

I started this to practice a bit of Python and AWS. I am a bit of an all-rounder but machine learning and the science behind all of it is far from my area of expertise. If it helps, my knowledge is more so situated in the red circle here. But I spent more time reading about the other parts of the pyramid, then what I had set out to learn in the beginning. This was fun, but it could get quite tedious at times. And it exposed where my skills are lacking. I am also even further away from my area of expertise when it comes to investments and finance. Truth be told, I am a basic bitch retail investor. I make my investment decisions based on macro themes, ensuring a company and its directors are not complete shams, then I hold my rosary beads during each trade. Truth be told, I have put together 10-leg NRL multis with better DD than some of my investments in days gone past.

Slow Runtimes

The library that I was using to retrieve data from Yahoo Finance was incredibly slow, which I ended up having to cache a lot of this information. But retrieving comment history was even slower. To download all 200k comments (this number is probably 250k now) from this sub, it took about two hours. I also cached these comments too. But it put a bottleneck on my development because small changes in my code could render cached data useless. This slow speed was one of the reasons I had thrown in the towel. During Bot 1.0, I spent time looking at ways to speed it up. But I couldn't crack it.

Conclusion

I am at a crossroads with the development of this project. The current u/asx__bot is a simple extract/transform/load process with some sprinkles on top. But there seems to be a demand for some of the features that were present in Bot 1.0, such as sentiment analysis and market data. If this is the case, I will need to really nail down what I need, because some foundational design decisions will have to be made before going forward.
I am becoming more convinced that the crowd can generate quite useful information. The Internet is Gutenberg 2.0. And like the Printing Revolution, less and less knowledge is being hoarded and controlled by the 0.1%. Instead, it is being disseminated amongst the masses. The real challenge for anyone, particularly myself, will be figuring out how to harness this increasingly decentralised knowledge.

I occasionally see people respond to my weekly Upcoming Releases posts with comments like “it's just a buncha' shovelware”, and I don't think people realize the potential in some of the games they're dismissing. And especially with Nintendo stepping back from their regular Nintendo Directs, I think there's likely to be a fair number of Switch players asking themselves, “so now what?”
Because of this, before we jump into the next month, I'm going through the list of upcoming games for that month that we know about, and highlighting the ones that have a strong chance of being worth paying attention to, as well as a brief snippet about the game explaining why it's worth watching.
I will specifically only be highlighting games that have a reasonably strong pedigree, or that are otherwise particularly noteworthy in some way beyond “this looks good, it could be interesting...”. This means that I'll likely be mentioning a lot of ports, as it's easier to know a game will likely be good if it was already good on another platform (I'm including games that scored 75 or higher on Metacritic on other platforms, 80% positive or higher on Steam, and/or 4 or higher rating on Google Play store). I'll also mention games whose developer has a decent track record for producing quality.
Oh, and before getting into the games, I should note that this is just the list we have available right now – there are likely to be new games announced after this list comes out, as well as games on this list that get delayed. Also, I should note that this is not a list of the only games worth getting on the Switch this month – just the ones that I feel can be backed up with more than just “feels” given what we know now. And of course, since these games aren't released yet, I obviously can't know they're good, they just look promising.
As with the last few months' lists, I'm continuing the use of “Buzz Picks” to indicate titles that, while they have no clear established pedigree to indicate they'll be good or bad, they are nevertheless highly anticipated or noteworthy for other reasons.
Anyway, on to the list!
12/1 – Chronos: Before the Ashes (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – Chronos originally released on PC as an Oculus Rift VR First-Person Action-RPG in 2016, where it got a Metacritic score of 77. This release is an overhauled version of the game that looks to improve on the original.
12/1 – Empire of Sin (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – "Buzz Pick” - Coming from John Romero and his wife Brenda, Empire of Sin is a Strategy-RPG with empire management elements. Romero is of course legendary in the industry for being part of the team that created the Doom series, one of the most influential videogames of all time. Having said that, this type of game is out of John Romero's usual wheelhouse, and he's made it a point to highlight that Brenda is this game's lead designer. Still, it seems likely that she could benefit greatly from the veteran game designer's influence, so with any luck this could be a great game and the beginning of Brenda Romero's rise to fame in her own right. We shall see soon enough!
12/2 – Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 75) – When this super-challenging Dungeon Crawler was released on the PlayStation Vita, it got a Metacritic score of 79, and there's no reason to expect the Switch version will fare worse.
12/3 – Fault – Milestone Two Side: Above (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – Once again, the Nintendo Switch is getting yet another Visual Novel game beloved by fans, with this one having a 98% Overwhelmingly positive user review score on Steam from nearly 1800 reviews. This sequel follows the events of Fault – Milestone One and it is highly recommended that you play the first game before playing this one.
12/3 – Immortals: Fenyx Rising (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 76) – "Buzz Pick” - This game, coming from one of UbiSoft's teams responsible for the Assassin's Creed franchise, combines Greek myths with Zelda: Breath of the Wild-style open-world exploration in a way that reviewers who got a sneak peek are already saying is shaping up to be an outstanding game in the genre.
12/3 – Morbid: The Seven Acolytes (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – Developer Still Running's only prior game with a Metacritic score, The Walking Vegetables, did well on Metacritic, scoring 75, and their follow-up is an interesting top-down Action-RPG with a horror aesthetic that should hopefully have a comparable level of quality.
12/3 – Phogs! (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 80) – This game wasn't in my original predictions, but I list it here for the sake of comprehensiveness. Critics praised this game for its inventive gameplay and great soundtrack.
12/3 – Quiplash 2: InterLASHional: The Say Anything Party Game! (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – Including this Party Game here is kinda' cheating, because you can already play it on the Nintendo Switch in the Jackbox Party Pack 3 (seen by many series fans, including myself, as the best Jackbox pack in the series). Still, if you're wanting to save a few bucks by getting only this game, you should find it to be an excellent Party Game in a vein similar to Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity.
12/3 – Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 70) – The prior game in this Music-Rhythm series on the Switch, Taiko No Tatsujin: Drum 'N Fun, got a Metacritic score of 78, and there's no reason to expect this game to fare worse. Just a small word of warning – these games play wayyyyyy better if you can get the drum accessory for them.
12/3 – Wildfire (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 73) – This Action-Platformer got a Metacritic score of 78 when it was released on PC earlier this year, with critics praising its great stealth-based gameplay, creative elemental-based abilities, and solid level design.
12/4 – Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & The Blade of Light (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 63) – "Buzz Pick” - For the first time, Nintendo has localized the very first game from the Fire Emblem series and brought it to Western audiences, in all its NES-era glory. This is probably a game mostly for diehard series fans, and only those willing to go back to a time well before the countless graphical and gameplay enhancements and quality-of-life features we've seen implemented in more recent entries in the series like Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Still, if you're among those fans, this is something huge, a rare case of Nintendo giving Western players something previously unavailable to us (outside of rom-hacks, anyway).
12/4 – John Wick Hex (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 71) – Released first on the PC last year and then the PS4, this game garnered Metacritic scores in the mid-to-high 70s on those platforms, and should hopefully do similarly well on Nintendo Switch. A turn-based tactical strategy game may not be what most gamers' imagines when picturing the slick Keanu Reeves films in videogame form, but John Wick Hex was nevertheless seen as a solid entry in the genre.
12/8 – Doom Eternal (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 80) – After a longer wait than many Switch owners hoped for, Doom Eternal is finally hitting the Nintendo Switch! This fast-paced, high-intensity First-Person Shooter got Metacritic scores in the high-80s when released on other platforms earlier this year, and has been nominated for numerous Game of the Year Awards.
12/8 – Monster Sanctuary (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 76) – This game wasn't in my original predictions, but I list it here for the sake of comprehensiveness. Critics praised this game for its clever combination of monster-collecting mechanics with Metroidvania gameplay.
12/8 – Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 79) – This game's predecessor got a Metacritic score of 81 when it released on the Nintendo Switch, and the sequel looks to build on that game's fun combination of two classic puzzle games with new character-based skills and an improved online mode.
12/10 – PixelJunk Eden 2 (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 80) – The original PixelJunk Eden consistently got scores in the low-80s when released on PS3 and PC roughly a decade ago, and the sequel seeks to expand on that game's unique swinging form of platforming and unique sense of style.
12/15/20 – Among Us (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 82) – This game was shadow dropped, so it wasn't in my original predictions, but I include it here for the sake of comprehensiveness. Of course Among Us is the social multiplayer hit phenomenon of 2020, so its Nintendo Switch release was bound to be well-received if the port was decent (and save for the lack of native voice chat and a few small hitches, it's actually a surprisingly good port).
12/15/20 – Dicey Dungeons (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – This Roguelike deck-building game comes from Terry Cavanaugh of VVVVVV fame, and when it released on PC last year it got a solid Metacritic score of 80, with critics praising its addictive gameplay.
12/15/20 – Grindstone (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 85) – Originally released in 2019, this game is considered by many to be the crown jewel of the Apple Arcade lineup, getting an outstanding Metacritic score of 90, with critics praising this as an outstanding Puzzle game with great mechanics and just overall tons of fun.
12/15/20 – When the Past Was Around (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 79) – This game was shadow dropped, so it wasn't in my original predictions, but I include it here for the sake of comprehensiveness. Critics praised this game for its beautiful art and story.
12/25 – Bit.Trip Beat (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – The celebrated original series of Bit.Trip games are coming to the Switch on 12/25, with Beat having gotten a Metacritic score of 80 in its original release on the Wii over a decade ago, with critics praising its intense, fast-paced pairing of a music-rhythm game with... Pong, of all things.
12/25 – Bit.Trip Core (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – The celebrated original series of Bit.Trip games are coming to the Switch on 12/25, with Core having gotten a Metacritic score of 80 in its original release on the Wii over a decade ago, with critics praising its music-rhythm gameplay.
12/25 – Bit.Trip Flux (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – The celebrated original series of Bit.Trip games are coming to the Switch on 12/25, with Flux having gotten a Metacritic score of 81 in its original release on the Wii nearly a decade ago, with critics praising its music-rhythm gameplay as a great evolution of the series.
12/25 – Bit.Trip Runner (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – The celebrated original series of Bit.Trip games are coming to the Switch on 12/25, with Flux having gotten a Metacritic score of 76 in its original release on the Wii a decade ago, with critics praising its combination of music-rhythm gameplay and auto-runner-style presentation.
12/26 – Door Kickers (Trailer) (No Metacritic Score as of 1/2/21) – Door Kickers got Metacritic scores in the mid-80s when released on PC and mobile devices a half a decade ago, with critics praising its top-down tactical action.
12/29/20 – Wingspan (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 80) – This board game released on PC a few months ago, scoring 85 on Metacritic, with critics praising its fantastic strategic gameplay and beautiful presentation. With any luck the Switch version will be just as good.
.
Bonus: End-Of-Year “Maybe This Will Still Come Out in 2020?” Round-Up
The following are all games that still have a vague release date in 2020, and while the time for them to make that release is quickly running out, it still might happen, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt...
Fall 2020 – Cyber Shadow (Trailer) – "Buzz Pick” - Cyber Shadow is a game being published, but not developed, by Yacht Club, the developer known for the Shovel Knight series of games. Still, it seems like they're pretty involved in its creation, and its classic retro style of Action-Platformer is right in their wheelhouse. And given how spectacularly good Shovel Knight was, it'd be foolish not to pay close attention to this game when it releases. Edit: This game has been delayed to 1/26/21.
Q4 2020 – Metal Revolution (Trailer) – Developer Next Studios has a solid track record, releasing the games Crown Trick, Biped, and Death Coming, all solid games in their own genres. In Metal Revolution, the developer looks to turn their talents to the Fighting game genre, with a focus on using minimal controls while maintaining deep gameplay. Hopefully they'll succeed at creating a solid fighting experience.
Late 2020 – Signs of the Sojourner (Trailer) – This “Narrative Card Game” got a Metacritic score of 77 when it released on PC earlier this year that critics praised for its great story and fun blending of game mechanics and character exploration.
Holiday 2020 – Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game Complete Edition (Trailer) – For a long time, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game has been something of a lost classic – celebrated on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as an outstanding Arcade-style brawler with great animation and a fantastic chiptune soundtrack, only for it to be mercilessly ripped from online storefronts and made unavailable to anyone wanting to see what the fuss was about. A decade later, UbiSoft is finally caving in to fan demands and bringing the game back in a feature-complete release. Don't miss out on it a second time! Edit: This game has been delayed to 1/14/21.
2020 – Littlewood (Trailer) – Littlewood released on PC earlier this year and got overwhelmingly good reviews from players, who gave this game a 95% positive score in Steam user reviews with over 2800 reviews. This game is a retro-style city-builder RPG with hints of Stardew Valley, and the game's conceit is that it takes place after you've already saved the world in a typical RPG adventure and now need to go about the business of rebuilding all the stuff that got wrecked.
2020 – N1RV Ann-A (Trailer) – The follow-up to 2019's celebrated VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action, no doubt fans of that game's unique blend of bartending and cyberpunk graphic adventure will find more to love here.
2020 – Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (Trailer) – This top-down RPG got Metacritic scores ranginmg from the high-70s to high-80s when released on other platforms, and follows the (mostly) successful release of the first Pillars of Eternity on Switch (have we gotten that patch yet?). With any luck, they'll work out the kinks this time around before releasing this critically-acclaimed game on the Switch.
2020 – Samurai Gunn 2 (Trailer) – This Action-Platformer from the creator of Hyperlight Drifter follows its acclaimed predecessor and looks to be a fast-paced action romp.
2020 – Spin Rhythm XD (Trailer) – This Music-Rhythm game released last year on PC, and got some extremely good reaction from players, who gave the game a 96% positive user review score on Steam (with over 1400 reviews), with its fluid analog controls being the centerpiece of its celebrated gameplay.
2020 – The Good Life (Trailer) – Following their celebrated Graphic Adventure game The Missing, developer White Owls dives back into the genre with this game about a big city journalist moving to a rural town to pay off a debt.
2020 – This is Pool / This is Snooker (Trailer) – It may seem strange to see a pair of pool games on a list like this, but not if you know anything about the genre – developer Voofoo only just this month released Pure Pool on the Switch to rave reviews, garnering a nice 83 Metacritic score. It seems like a good bet that the developer will continue to work on perfecting their pool trick shot in any follow-up.
.
Anyway, that's what I could find for December 2020 (and as a result, the remainder of 2020 altogether) on the Switch, but no doubt some of you have specific games you've got your eye on this next month. Please feel free to give a shout out to any game you feel deserves attention! :-)

Hey reddit do you know what is the best gaming laptop under $1000 2021

• Dell G5 15. $930
• Acer Nitro 5. $670
• Lenovo Legion 5/5i. $999
• Dell G3 15. $730
• HP Pavilion Gaming 15. $1,100

More affordable laptops

• Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop (Best Value for Money)
• Lenovo Ideapad L340 15 Gaming Laptop (Thin & Light)
• MSI Bravo A4DDR-009 17 Gaming Laptop
• HP Pavilion 15 Gaming Laptop
• MSI GP73 Leopard.
• MSI GS65 Stealth Thin.
• ASUS ROG Strix Hero.
• MSI GE73 Raider.
• ASUS GL504GV-ES020.
• MSI GS73 Stealth.
• Acer Predator Helios 300.

More Details are Here https://techbylight.com/best-gaming-notebook-reddit/
Our recommendations for the best gaming laptop
If you are really interested in buying a cheap gaming laptop, here are the recommendations of our expert gamers.
Best price-quality gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion Y530
best gaming laptops
See Price
It has been difficult to decide which would be one of the best quality gaming laptops currently on the market. However, we have found it and it is the Lenovo Legion Y530. We are facing a laptop with a good and cheap graphics card.
It incorporates a 15.6-inch Full HD screen with resolution capabilities of 1920 x 1080 pixels .
Although the graphics card (Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with 4 GB GDDR5) is less powerful than that of the gaming computers described above, it will provide enough speed and fluidity to the visual elements of your games.
The Intel Core i5 processor is high-power, has integrated 4 cores, and although it is not the latest generation, it will meet the expectations of any gamer, unless we are in the elite and we are going to make a lot of use of triple A games at the same time as, for example, Startcraft II or Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.
Additionally, the 8GB RAM memory and 1TB of digital storage will proactively help prevent us from running out of space to store all content, data and files from games.
Other important features that might interest gamers are:
External connections: USB Type-C, Mini-DisplayPort, USB 3.0, HDMI, RJ-45, AC adapter, Kensington lock connector
DirectX12 functions
White backlight.
If you are one of those who care a lot about value for money, this Gaming pc will give you a great experience for less than 950 USD in the official Amazon store. Getting cheap gamer laptops is now possible!
Best cheap gaming laptop: ASUS TUF Gaming
best gaming laptops
See Price
We will hardly find a cheap gaming laptop with great features like this one. That is, this Asus TUF is a great option for beginner gamers with its only 2.3 kg of weight and 2.5 centimeters of thickness.
It has a high resolution since its screen incorporates 15.6 inches and is capable of reproducing visualizations of up to 1920 x 1080 pixels , which together with its 4 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050 graphics card will help to offer fluid graphics for your games.
On the other hand, even if we want to run and install large capacity games, its 6-core Intel core i7 processor and 16GB RAM will ensure that there are no problems.
This Asus TUF incorporates two hard drives, one 128 GB SSD and another 1 TB HDD to store all the data, files and content from the games.
Additionally, it has a great cooling system, ADC and Fan Overboost. Thanks to HyperCool technology . On the other hand, you can enjoy a 7.1 surround sound system due to its powerful acoustic system that combined with its red backlight you will not want to stop playing.
Therefore, if we are beginners in the world of computer games, and we have a somewhat tight budget, for less than 800 USD we will be forced to buy this gaming laptop. Possibly the cheapest gaming laptop.
Best gaming laptop for games for less than $1000 : Acer Nitro 5
best gaming laptops under 1000
See Price
The average price of gaming laptops would be close to 1000 USD, we consider that this Acer Nitro 5 has unmatched features at an average market price.
As for its technical data processing characteristics, it has a 6-core i7 processor, highly recommended for the fluidity and loading speed of most games.
Additionally, its RAM and 8GB memory and the two 1TB and 128GB HDD and SDD hard drives respectively will do the rest.
In order to enjoy demanding graphics and high quality resolutions, it integrates an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card , which will help the 15.6-inch screen to reproduce 1920 x 1080 pixel displays .
Definitely, if you want to have 1000 dollars to get a gaming pc, this may be your best option. Since you can also enjoy acoustics ( Dolby Audio Premium ) and excellent cooling system thanks ( Acer CoolBoost ).
Buying guide What are the best cheap gaming laptops?
There are already many users who receive the title of gamers , and recently the gaming industry is growing exorbitantly.
Due to this, there is a great need to choose the gaming laptop that best suits our needs.
Therefore, if you want a laptop to play games, here we have prepared a quick guide made by experts where you can find out about the most important factors when buying a gaming laptop.
cheap laptops
Factors to consider before buying a gaming pc
A good gaming laptop must meet a series of minimum requirements in order to support the requirements of the latest generation video games.
Processor and RAM
Computer games have large amounts of data and graphic requirements. Therefore, if we are going to buy a gaming laptop, it is best to have at least one i5 processor . However, to avoid problems when playing heavy games, it is best to have the latest generation i7 processors with 6 cores.
Like the processor, the integrated RAM is of vital importance, since we are talking about a perfect symbiosis so as not to have problems when playing games. Therefore, it is best to choose gaming laptops with 8 or 16 Gigabytes of RAM.
Graphic card
The graphics card is an essential component for the smooth and correct display of games on your computer. So much so, that they account for 60% of visual success when playing.
Generally, a minimum graphics card must contain 4 GB and it is recommended those of 8GB if we will use super demanding graphics games. However, if you already have a PC and you are short of a graphics card, you can connect an external one.
Take a look at this article for the best graphics cards.
The two most recognized brands are Nvidia and AMD.
cheap gaming laptops
Nvidia has three main ranges GeForce RTX 20 series and GeForce GTX 10 and 16 series. RTX is the most advanced range and the one that we recommend for gaming. On the other hand, we have the AMD brand with innumerable models which you can consult here.
screen
Within the screen we must take into account several important points that will affect our experience when playing and enjoying games, movies or use in general. We highlight the resolution, the technology or type of panel and the refresh rate (Fps):
With resolution we mean the quality of the image on the screen. It is defined by the number of pixels that are both horizontally and vertically on the screen. If we are looking for a good balance in terms of performance / quality, the ideal resolution that we will have to look for in Gaming laptops is FullHD or 1080p.
With a lower value, we will notice a loss of image definition and a higher resolution would affect performance by demanding more information from the graph. Although the new laptops are already including very powerful graphics where 2k resolution would not be a problem, but they start from the disadvantage that they have abusive prices.
The type of panel is very important when choosing the best gaming laptop. Its image quality will depend on the technology of the screen itself. Colors, viewing angles and response speed, among others, are several of the elements that may be affected by the type of panel we choose.
We highlight three types:
Panel TN: It is one of the oldest technologies. They stand out for having great fluidity capable of generating up to 240hz rate (240 images / second). But they have the downside of not having the best image quality, poor viewing angles, and dull colors. They are still perfect for competitive gamers who want the maximum refresh rate in their games and get a certain edge.
IPS panel : They offer us great quality colors, sharpness and viewing angles , but its weak point lies in the low refresh rate and the high response time. They are very good if you are going to play triple A titles since they do not need a high level of FPS to enjoy them.
Panel VA : A few years ago they were the most used by professional users due to their high refresh rate reaching 144hz, very important for the competitive world, but today they are being replaced by TNs although they are still widely used. Ideal if you play competitive titles occasionally and what you are looking for is fluidity of movement in your games.
best IPS laptops
Differences between panels
Refresh rate
Now looking at the refresh rate, we define it as the number of images per second that the screen is capable of displaying. For a better understanding, let's say it's the quality of the movement.
This gives us certain advantages, especially in competitive games.
Currently most gaming laptops have 60hz screens but a large number of models with 144hz are entering the market that despite the price, they are the best option available.
In the photograph on the right we can see the great difference between 60hz and 144hz panels.
60hz or 144hz gaming laptop
Storage
Hard drives are an essential element in a gamer laptop. They are in charge of storing all the information that we save and sending it to other components of the computer for further processing.
To choose the best hard drive for your gaming laptop, we must take into account two fundamental factors:
Storage capacity : It refers to the amount of information that we can save. One of our main purposes when we are going to buy a gaming pc is to be able to save our favorite games without having to skimp on which one to install. Today's video games demand a large amount of memory, the heaviest ones even occupying about 50GB. Therefore, we recommend going at least for a 1TB (1000GB) hard drive so that we can go with memory to spare for all our content.
Data transmission speed : It is the other fundamental element so that the loading of the operating system, programs or video games takes the least time possible. A slow hard drive can greatly affect our gaming experience, even waiting for several minutes.
We distinguish three types of hard drives, each with a specific technology, which will offer us one performance or another. Next, we will explain what are the characteristics of each one:
HDD - Also known as solid state hard drives. Made up of several CDs, they use magnetic systems to store the information on them. They are the cheapest, but also the slowest .
They are a good option for those who want to have a large storage at a good price and do not mind loading times.
SSD: they use microchips to store information, including small processors to manage the information. They reduce charging times by more than half compared to the previous ones and have a lower consumption.
which hard drive is better ssd vs hdd
Although one of its main disadvantages are its high price and its somewhat more limited storage. Ideal for those looking for speed on their pc.
Best brands for gaming laptops. Msi vs Asus
Due to the fact that there are countless brands dedicated to the manufacture of this type of notebook, we wanted to indicate here the ones with the most experience in the sector.
Coincidentally, the two we have selected are of Taiwanese origin, being MSI and Asus. Which are the ones that make the best gaming laptops on the market.
cheap gaming laptops
Best brands for gaming laptops. Msi vs Hp Omen
When we consider buying a computer to play games, it is normal that doubts arise about which brand to buy or which model will best suit us.
One of the best brands in this sector with a higher growth has been the company Hp , which with the line of Omen gaming laptops, has placed itself in the first positions of a very competitive market, reaching the same level as leading brands such as Msi or Asus.
Therefore, to make your task easier, we bring you a small comparison to help you choose whether to buy an msi laptop or an hp Omen.
HP Omen Gaming Laptops are the gaming series of hp laptops and one of the market leaders. They come already prepared to give maximum performance, reliability and mainly intended for long gaming sessions. They all have state- of-the-art graphics cards and an excellent cooling system that will ensure low temperatures.
All these models have at least 8GB of Ram and latest generation processors with the ability to apply Overclock (OC) to slightly increase their performance. Its only disadvantage is its slight cost overrun compared to msi. Although it should be noted that it is a very good investment if we want a laptop that will last us for years.
laptop msi or hp
msi vs hp omen
On the other hand, Msi laptops stand out for being very robust equipment with a wider variety of equipment, offering models of up to 3,000 dollars. It is a brand dedicated to high-performance laptops, which is why they have been in the market longer. They have materials of a lower quality than the Omen but in terms of hardware it is excellent.
If you have a tight budget and want a laptop for everything, this is your brand. It will allow you to compare between a wide variety of models to find the one that best suits your needs. As a negative point, many users have reported excess temperature levels that affect the gaming experience.
What kinds of video games do gamers play?
In the world of gamers, certain terminologies are often used to refer to the different computer games that currently exist on the market.
Additionally, there are numerous computer games, both mythical and legendary such as League of Legends , or new ones that come onto the market such as Starcraft II: Best Chest or Star Wars Battlefront
To differentiate these types of games, the meanings of Triple A and Triple I are used.
Triple A
Refers to video games distributed and produced by a major vendor. The AAA games (known as Triple A ) are risky bets Pore their creators in terms of budget and return.
8 years ago the term AAA + began to be used to describe AAA games with additional income, such as MMOs or the use of software as a service (SaaS).
Triple I
Triple-I (or also known as Triple-i) is used to refer to games with extensive independent funding behind for their design and configuration. They are trying to come up with the budgets for triple AAA games, let's say they are beta projects.
What is the best cheap gaming laptop for you?
Before launching to buy a gaming computer, it is necessary to know what we are going to use it for and in this way we will better adjust the product to our needs so that our purchase is as efficient as possible without spending too much for something that we will not take 100% advantage of.
According to the games : The best purchase for a gaming laptop will be given by the type of game that we use the most. If we are going to prioritize FPS or competitive games where the refresh rate is important, we will have to go for a 144hz or 240hz gaming laptop. The ASUS GL504GV model can come in handy for you.
On the contrary, if we want to play games with a story, in the third person or those with powerful graphics; the best thing is to buy powerful gaming laptops but with a 60hz screen. The Acer Predator Helios would be a perfect fit for these needs
According to budget : You have to take into account that the minimum recommended to buy a cheap gaming laptop would be around 800 to 1000 USD . Below that quantity, the quality will be poor for today's gaming requirement. Even so, there are some models that can be a very good option.
An average budget where we will find the best quality-price gaming laptops would be between 1000 to 1300 USD . We can find very good models with a power to spare for all the activities that we consider. A laptop like this MSI would be a very good option.
From here, we will find the best models on the market for gaming enthusiasts who want to have the best in their hands.
Where to buy the best laptops for gamers at the best price?
This niche of products (gaming laptops) are characterized by having high prices, since their technical characteristics must meet minimum power requirements to be able to support video games with a large amount of data.
Although a Gaming laptop is generally above 1000 USd we can find some models of brands somewhat cheaper.
We can always go to video game stores or department stores to find this type of laptop .
However, if you prefer to buy online, using this method, you can find cheap or second-hand gaming computers. We always recommend the official Amazon store , you will find a wide variety and exceptional customer service.
Frequently asked questions before buying the best cheap gaming laptop.
What should we take into account to choose a good gaming laptop?
There are 5 fundamental aspects that we must look at before buying a good gaming laptop:
- Your graphics card should be the most important element. The most recommended graphics for laptops are Nvidia's RTX series, specifically the 20 series (high-end) and the 16 (mid-range).
- The next component to take into account will be the microprocessor. Our team of experts recommends the Intel I5 for medium-high performance and the i7 for high performance. With the latter, you can make the most of any type of game. Although it should be noted that the AMD Ryzen is postulated as an alternative almost at the same level as the Intel, where the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 are the best options available.
- For RAM it will be optimal to choose between 8-16 GB, although if we dedicate ourselves to video editing we will have to go for 32GB of RAM.
- The storage capacity or hard disk is perhaps the least important although it is still important. At 256GB the laptop is perfectly functional but will run out of space in no time. Ideally, choose 1TB or 512 ssd for fast load times. It is more expensive, but in the long run it will be well worth the investment in a good hard drive.
- The screen will also be of vital importance to be able to see the full power of our computer expressed. A 1080p 144hz screen will be the ideal for a perfect gaming experience.
Cheap gaming laptop for graphic design or video editing?
If gaming laptops stand out in one thing, it is in their raw processing power. Keep in mind that most design and video editing programs consume a large amount of resources that not all computers are capable of handling.
Gaming computers comfortably have all these necessary requirements for an optimal functioning of these programs, being able to handle large projects, extensive renderings or heavy video editions without having to delay long waits or unexpected crashes.
Therefore, if you are also looking for a computer for this type of task, do not hesitate and make it twice as useful.

Original Post got moved for having a referral link, dropping the text of the review sans referral link here. Hope anyone considering mint mobile finds it helpful.
-------------
Most people don’t question a hefty Verizon Wireless bill. The coverage and network quality have been industry bests for years and so the “You Get What You Pay For” mantra kept my family entrenched for 13 years. Verizon recently provided semi-deceptive sales tactics and indifferent customer service prompting an exploration of the options. Not surprisingly cheaper plans abound, so the question is…do other service providers provide ‘good enough’ quality to go along with their too-good-to-be-true price points.
Verizon did eventually make things right, but not until after hours on customer service chats and phone calls getting bounced between numerous Verizon associates. So like a slow rolling boulder loosened from it’s centuries-old resting place, my complacency had given way to a momentum pulling me from the “Can you hear me Now” network.
So where does one start if contemplating a change from the biggest, arguably best and most expensive cellular service? First let’s discuss key industry dynamics.

• The Big Players – Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T who own their towers and networks. They invest in brick and mortar stores and offer discounts on new phones which they can do as their plans are expensive. You may notice Sprint is not in this list which is due to them merging with T-Mobile in the past year.
• The MVNOs – StraightTalk, Cricket, Mint Mobile, and a slew of other services buy time, in advance from the big 3. There are many names for these carriers, most are MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) and they buy data and voice/text time at wholesale rates from the big guys. They save costs by limiting or not having Brick and Mortar expenses and getting discounted rates from the big networks through paying in advance for the bandwidth they will consume. These companies offer what are typically called Prepaid plans.
• MVNO Alternatives – The biggest is Google Fi, they have MVNO elements where they buy time from other providers TMo and US Cellular, but they also have invested heavily in wifi hotspot technology that avoids using data on cell networks wherever possible. Google Fi is not prepaid and you pay a prorated consumption amount for data. If you use little data each month, this is likely the cheapest big name option. But the cost can approach the bigger players if consuming a lot of cellular data. It’s definitely worth a look though if you want to cut costs and they now support most of the major smartphone brands.

Second, each company has their own distinct features. The importance of each differs on one’s personal preferences.

• Wifi Calling – This is critical for me. Living in the middle of a large neighborhood with few towers, our Verizon signal is always weak and so it’s necessary that I can place calls over our high-speed internet. Wifi calling, if you have strong internet, is clear, doesn’t break up and bridges the cell network gap when you regularly get 0 to 2 bars. And anywhere you get Wifi in the world, you can make calls and send texts. If you aren’t using it, this could be the easiest way to improve call quality from home, assuming your service provider offers it (the Big 3 all do, some of the MVNOs do not).
• International Service – Cell savvy travelers will say, “just order a temporary SIM card for international calls and data,” and I’m sure that works, but I hate the idea of dealing with a new number and other difficulties that come with switching a SIM card. So I want to be able to get calls, texts and a limited amount of data when I travel from the same number I use in the States. Some of the cheaper MVNOs don’t offer international options and while I’m not a frequent traveler, we do travel enough to make this feature a necessity.
• Hot Spot – Ability to turn you phone into a Wifi access point, connect PCs and tablets and then use mobile data to provide internet. A common feature on more expensive plans and a necessity for consumers that need to keep their laptop connected while on the go.
• Bonus Perks – If you are trying to get the best value possible, going with the service that provides one year of Disney+ may be a sign you are paying more than you need to, however there are some great perks out there like T-Mobile’s free minutes and data while flying on many major US Air Carriers, which would be a colossal deal for frequent travelers.
• Brick and Mortar Support – If you don’t like messing with Tech, having the option to walk into a store and have an associate fix your problem is a compelling reason to stay with one of the big providers.
• Payment Plans and Contracts – Almost all MVNO’s require pay-in-advance (PrePaid) and some require bulk purchasing 3, 6 and 12 month packages to get their best rates (Mint does). While I don’t see much risk in prepaying for a single month’s service, prepaying for 12 months brings risk as it’s unlikely you can get the money back in most scenarios. Contracts are the big guys way to lock your money into a promise-to-pay plan. Unless receiving a free or deeply discounted phone, I like to avoid contracts on the Big 3.
• Data Sharing Plans – Ability to pay for a set amount of data and share it between 2 or more lines, usually on a family plan. If a service doesn’t have data sharing, you will need more total data across all phone lines than what you’d need in a shared data plan to satisfy a family’s demand. As an example, we were on a 5GB shared data plan and would likely need 2.5-3GB per line if switching to a non-shared plan to ensure we don’t hit our data caps.

Lastly, let’s not forget Cost. After considering features and soliciting friends’ opinions about T-Mobile’s network (which weren’t great by the way), I found a plan that was too inexpensive not to try. Mint Mobile is an MVNO that piggybacks on the T-Mobile network. I’m trying their 3-month trial plan that provides unlimited talk/text and 3GB of 4G/5G data per month for $15/mo. They offer Wifi Calling, options to purchase International Prepaid Credits and had the cheapest plan I found along with many online reviewers calling them a top MVNO.
I don’t want anyone unhappy from something I recommend, so below are pros & cons to review before considering a switch. If you’d like to try it out, you can save $15 off their three month trial, which costs $45 paid in full ($15/mo) for the 3GB data plan before the $15 credit. If you need more data there are other offerings; $60 ($20/mo) for 8GB, $75 for 12GB and $90 ($30/mo) for the Unlimited data plan. I’ve also only been using their network for 3 weeks now, so your results may vary, but since the plans are cheap and you can bring your current phone, there is little financial risk to trying them out as long as you aren’t currently on a contract.
PROS

• Price – Bottom line first…Mint will save my family over $840/yr if we switch all 3 of our lines over. With 3 lines on Verizon and 5GB of shared data we paid well over $115 a month. Mint doesn’t do shared data, but 3 lines with 3GB data each (9GB total) costs $45 per month. Less than 40% of the cost of Verizon.
• Strong City Coverage & Respectable Network – T-Mobile, once the 4th biggest carrier, is now 2nd after merging with Sprint. T-Mobile’s network has been a couple bars stronger inside grocery stores and buildings than what I would get from Verizon in my town. This will vary based on your locale, but in Richmond, the coverage is great. I’m not certain if Mint uses the acquired Sprint towers but you can find the Mint Coverage Map Here. Full disclosure, I found Mint’s rural coverage on the map to be optimistic, see the Cons section below.
• Wifi Calling and Texting is Available – If you have strong internet at your house or in a hotel, you don’t need to rely on cell signals. Turn on wifi calling for clear VOIP-like calls over your cell phone. Not all MVNO providers offer wifi calling.
• Low Risk Trial – if you want the $15 credit you’ll have to add a 3 month plan at discounted rates. I tried the 3GB plan for my line at $45 over 3 months. If I hate it, I can port my number back to one of the big providers and take advantage of ‘New Line’ incentives that I wouldn’t have gotten from Verizon otherwise. With the referral you can pay as little as $30 for 3 months.
• No Risk Trial – if you want to forego the $15 credit you can buy a trial sim card kit off Amazon for $5 or less which will give you a weeks service to test the network for yourself. I tried this initially but I didn’t like that I couldn’t try out the full service (Wifi Calling, logging into a Mint account) and I didn’t like having a temporary phone number no one knew. I upgraded after 4 days.
• International Roaming – No, it’s not free, but it is available. You can buy international roaming credits to use international cell networks. For an infrequent international traveler, this is perfect as I’ll mostly use Wifi calling, but want emergency minutes on hand for the unforeseen.
• Hotspot is included!
• Phone Customer Service – I’ve called 3 times, never waited more than 3 minutes to talk to someone and they are helpful. A phone agent walked me through the number porting process, telling me how to start the port process on Verizon’s website with expert knowledge of Verizon’s website.
• No Data Overage Fees or Hard Caps – If I use more than 3GB of 4G data, no problem, Mint just slows me down from 5G/4G to 3G and then in theory I have unlimited 3G. If I need more cowbell then I can buy another gig of 5G/4G at $10 or 3 gigs at $20.
• Network Data Speed – I haven’t tested Mint’s 5G, but I’m getting full 4G LTE download speeds when I have 3-4 bars. 5G is a jaw-dropping evolution, but I’m doubtful the average user needs it, so I’m foregoing the expense of a 5G phone until the technology becomes ubiquitous. But for those that own phones for 4+ years and are buying soon, it may makes sense to go with a 5G capable device.
• Bring Your Own Phone – most all modern phones work on the network. Androids, Iphones, etc, if you have a phone that is 3yrs or newer, you likely won’t need to buy a new phone and the website will tell you if you have a compatible phone. Setup on my brand new Pixel 4a would have been terribly easy (had I not screwed it up), plop in SIM card, turn on and everything would have worked. Setup for my older Pixel XL (first generation) was trickier…see the Cons list.
• Ryan Reynolds – Mom and Dad love that campy Canadian, so they aren’t giving me grief about cheaping out on my cellular plan, since he owns the company.

CONS

• Initial Setup Complexity – This isn’t a whopper of a con personally as I’m a gadget geek, but this could be a tremendous dissatisfier for many. Upon initial setup with my first generation Google Pixel phone, I had to go deep into phone settings and configure a new ‘APN’. I’ve never done this before and I imagine Verizon would do this automatically. If you don’t set up the APN correctly things like wifi calling or MMS texting (group, image, gif text) will not work or worse yet, the phone won’t get data or calls at all. An internet search showed that there are 4-5 APN configs out there that customers use for different older phones. If any trouble setting up, don’t solve it yourself, call the phone contact center at (213) 372-7777 from a different phone and have them walk you through it. There is good news for owners of new phones as I acquired a Pixel 4a after joining Mint, and the out-of-the box APNs that came on the SIM card worked flawlessly. Unfortunately I was overthinking it, and tried to follow the same setup process from when I configured the first-generation Pixel APNs when I should have let it just work out of the box. I wasted a morning until I finally went to Mint’s chat channel and they guided me on how to get back to the defaults I should have used in the first place. In short, if you aren’t a fan of working with customer service remotely to dial in the functions of your phone and you have an older phone, Mint may not be for you.
• No Brick and Mortar Stores – This is a key way Mint passes savings onto the consumer. If you have a problem you must use their chat agents or their call center and can’t walk into a store for help.
• Prepay in Full – To get the absolute cheapest price after the 3 month intro rate, you’ll have to prepay for 12 months. For me this will be $180+taxes ($15/mo) for a year of 3Gig/month 5G/4G cell service or $240+taxes ($20/mo) if you want the 8GB plan. You can also prepay in full for 6 months or in 3 month increments, but the shorter duration prepays increase the monthly cost $5 and $10 respectively. If my 3 month trial goes off without a hitch I will purchase 12 months in full.
• Deprioritization – Since Mint buys coverage from T-Mobile when T-Mobile cell towers are overloaded, TMo reserves the right to slow data speeds for Mint customers to prioritize their direct customers. I haven’t experienced this yet and if my data slows down infrequently, I don’t see that as a huge deal, but it could be for anyone who’s phone is symbiotically growing into their hand.
• Rural Coverage – on a drive from Richmond to Boonesboro, MD, there were a number of dead zones on the country roads 20 minutes outside of Richmond and before Culpepper. From Culpepper, VA to Boonesboro, MD Mint had great coverage. I was driving these scenic byways while using a trial SIM card, and so maybe it’s possible the trial SIM accessed fewer towers, but I can’t be certain, so for now I’m going to assume the coverage map is optimistic. My wife’s Verizon phone had service in most of the rural areas, and only a few dead zones. Rural coverage is one of Verizon’s key strengths and a reason to keep their service if you live outside the burbs. Interestingly I’ve found several cases where Verizon’s suburb/city signals are weaker within buildings than T-Mobile’s (Mint Mobile).

OTHER SERVICES CONSIDERED

• T-Mobile – now that I’ve tested their network, I’m happy, but they will be more expensive than Mint although cheaper than Verizon. I recently saw a stat that said T-Mobile’s network covers 64% of the US and Verizon 73%, but don’t remember where. Cost difference between Mint Mobile and T-Mobile was too great to choose anything but Mint, but if I was a frequent flyer, their perks with minutes and data in the air would likely pull me into the fold. My daughter is crushed that she won’t get to take advantage of the free upgrade to an Iphone 11 deal on TMo at the time of writing this review.
• Google FI – Now supporting non Google phones and iPhone. Potentially they have the best coverage of all plans as they contract with several major networks. If you aren’t a heavy data user, Google Fi will also be fairly inexpensive. Not as cheap as Mint, but if you want that sweet spot of low cost and great coverage Google Fi may be the best bet if you aren’t data hungry. Fi charges $17 per line (at time of this blog) and a pro-rated $10 per gig of data used, so heavy data consumers would pay a lot on Google Fi. But people that keep data usage to less than 2 gigs a month can expect to pay less than $37/mo per line.
• AT&T – I didn’t look for long. The prices are equivalent to Verizon and their coverage is nationally the worst out of the big 3. I have an AT&T hotspot in our car and can confirm it drops out more frequently than what I’ve experienced on Mint in Virginia. So not paying the same as Verizon to get less.

DATA SAVING TECHNIQUES TO REDUCE YOUR BILL

• Obvious 1: Keep wifi on as often as possible.
• Obvious 2: Don’t stream video or do extensive web surfing on your cell phone if it can wait until you are on wifi, and less face it, it can usually wait.
• Turn on Wifi calling as for some providers this also prompts your phone to send data-using MMS (group) messages over wifi, saving cell data.
• Android phones have a data saver setting, you can turn this on to keep apps from running in the background. But it might also delay notifications from apps that need background data to do their thing.
• In settings there is usually a networks section where you can click on your cell provider, see how much data has been used this month and further drill into finding apps that are using the most data. Configure non-essential apps to not consume data in the background. Be careful not to do this for an app that is required to operate the phone.
• Chrome and many apps have settings to disable videos and audio from playing automatically, turn these auto-play settings off, if you can find them.
• Google Maps has an ability to download over wifi the map for a big section of most states. Downloading your region will enable Maps to use less data.
• YouTube and other video services usually allow you to downgrade video quality to 240p which is plenty good for cell phones and should use over 60% less data than 480p videos if you are hell bent on using a cell phone as a TV off of Wifi.

PARTING THOUGHTS

I’m happy with Mint Mobile’s service after 3 weeks. If you live in a big town or city, it may be a really good fit to save money. I wish I would have called their customer service when I initially had setup issues, rather than trying to figure it out myself. You should bring a phone and Mint Mobile doesn’t offer cell phone discounts but does appear to offer payment plans. If you need a new phone and don’t want to break the bank, you can’t go wrong with the Pixel 4a or Pixel 4a 5G coming out soon. And now that I’ve made the switch I don’t anticipate going back and spending more, but we’ll see if there are gotchas waiting in the wings.

So I dont have the full details and remember everything exact but im going to start off and say I was not the best kid in the world. I'm 22 almost 23 now. If your sensitive to physical, emotional (I think I'm not really sure about that one tbh), and a piece of sexual (I was told this was normal but my whole family is kinda trash so idk about that either sorry)
Ok so before I was born according to my mom she and my dad were chasing the dragon. She has 5 kids now 1 before my dad 3 with my dad and 1 after my dad and im right in the middle. She has a W.P. tattoo on her back left shoulder.
So onto my story now I was born December 7, 1997 in Virginia Beach, VA. I dont have any memories before the age of 5 but around 3 my parents left my older bro, older sis, and younger bro in a hotel room while they took me to my aunts house while my siblings got to go to different peoples houses. The reason they took me is always different my mom said it was her or me, my dad said it was a spur of the moment as they both were wanted by the police, my grand parents told me they were going to trade me for drugs. Idk which is right. But anyway at my aunts house I lived there for about 5ish years and there I had 1 older really close friend that passed and I never got to say goodbye to which I fn hate to this day. My uncle and aunt got divorced and I wouldn't see my uncle again until I was like 12 or 13. I started getting "smacked" basically hit with a belt or wooden spoon I would say pretty normal so far. But one day around age 6ish I was using the bathroom and my cousin walks in and asks if she can in a professional way give me oral pleasure however she said it different obviously as she was about 9 or 10 and I said yes not knowing what that was at the time( the 1 sexual abuse that I didnt know if it was story). There was another time I dont remember my age but my aunt said if I pull down my pants and underwear without being told or forced to I would get 1 smack well she lied and have me about 5 or so which is where my trust issues began. Now I did act like a kid I broke things etc. however if my cousins did anything wrong they could blame it on me and I would get punished for it so I got that "normal" 1 to 2 hits pretty frequently and I wasn't allowed to try and prove my innocents so now I have trouble talking about my feelings or really about most things. Age 8 and im starting to visit my mom and i was navigating full airports by myself (pre 9/11). That's the main stuff from those ages short and sweet sorry I make jokes to try and help myself sometimes.
Now onto ages 8-14 maybe 15 sorry. So I am finally living with my biological mom my dad is a jailbird junkie. Very 1st night my sister showers and comes into our room to get dressed she's butt naked not even a towel and its only a 2 bedroom apartment. So now I've seen her bush which is disturbing to day the least but she's going about it like im not even there. Moving on about 2 weeks or so into my stay I was sitting on the love seat and my sister comes out of our room and for no reason I'm 8 still she wraps her hands around my throat to kill me she's like 15 or 16 trying to kill an 8 year old but my mom comes in the front door 1 minute later and I would be dead and my mom and sister get into a real street fist fight in front of me and the cops are called it wasn't the 1st time or the last yet. Nkw fast forward to my very 1st birthday with my mom. Omg I think it'll be the first day of actual peace maybe ill even get to celebrate it with my whole family nope my mom walks in the front door and my sister and mom almost immediately start fighting again yay right so the cops come yet again for the last major time they've been here at least 15 times since I moved in for reference and my sister gets taken away in handcuffs my mom goes to her and my grandmas room they share with my youngest bro and doesn't come put for the rest of the day so my whole first birthday with my mom was spent alone as a 9 year old. So fast forward again to the day we move and this is where I get worse. We lived around 5 maybe 6 minutes walking distance to Wal-Mart and I start stealing petty items like a kid (pokemon cards, toys, game boy games, etc.) And I was stealing off and on before that but it got worse after we moved. So first day in the new house and my mom grabs my hand and says she bets I can't knock her over so as were both pulling back I did a wwe move and collided my shoulder with her and put her on her a$$ and went outside on the steps and cried right after. Fast forward a few weeks and I meet my 1st "friend" who got me into stealing more expensive items usually football gloves as I was into football at the time which the cheapest pair I stole was around $50 so not to cheap from dicks sporting goods as well as hitting more stores in the walmart strip mall 5 below ds game stop thats it I think. So anyway my sister has stopped fighting my mom and tries me so I was in a corner while she hit me 2 times and I grabbed the fat part of her thigh right where the cheek meets thigh and pinched it so hard I drew blood. My mom defended me but said "you back an animal into a corner and they fight back" what a use of words am I right. So I am very fuzzy with ages so I'm not going to give them but im going to try and remember all the details and outcomes. So everytime I acted out my mom who was about 350 give or take would sit on my stomach and punch me not unlike a street or mma type of fight and I would assume the fetal position until she wore herself out and it happened pretty frequently sometimes one a day other times 2 or 3 times a day also should mention that I was a bed wetter until I was 19 was my last incident and I would sleep in it like how an animal would rub themselves in something g to mask their scent to other predators it was along those same reasons however I showered every day. In this house the worst thing I did was steal money from my grand mom who had breast cancer which I felt shitty right after and before anyone talks about that I want to say that I not only apologized but found out through basic context clues and behavior of my mom that at least one of my grand parents abused my mom probably sexually and ill get into that later but the other one had to know. So around this time my mom starts making really and very sexual "jokes" to my sister basically pinching her ass and a few porn ready types of looking back were probably advances tbh. I mean she did everything except actually have sex with her so yeah. Moving on I was already messed up in my head but around 10 last age I can remember a little bit I got to watch criminal minds with my mom yay mommy time lol but the episode was the one of the old guy and Jane cutting off people's arms legs and head to paint the picture its tv-ma and showed it all down to the last detail. So that only furthers my mental issues. Forgot to mention earlier but before we moved I went to a children's mental hospital called kid's peace for a vacation and literally told my mom it was a vacation. So a while later in the same house I went to kids peace again for anger issues thats it. I had a male best friend who lived next door and one day he just left no goodbye not even a moving truck maybe it was just a really good imaginary friend but ill never know if he's reading this his name is nick and I really appreciate everything he helped me with even if he doesn't know he helped. I was told by my mom that he moved to Texas and his step dad held a loaded double barrel shotgun to his head idk if he shot him or not she never actually told me and idk how she wouldve known but his name was Tracy. Nick got me to do the ouiji board I hope im spelling that right at least 3 times 2 of which were in my house and we never said goodbye. My mom became really close with my uncles ex fiance and she also started hitting me in my head however she didn't sit on me but open or close hand it didn't matter. My sister started dating a guy and we went to his house for dinner one night just me and her and this dude had a pet alligator in PA but he had a pet pit bull and while we were there I was petting the dog behind its ear and for no reason it bit my calf I have the scar for proof and it was bad enough that some leg tissue was hanging out looked like how sperm is depicted btw and as I was crying and about to leave I looked back and her bf at the time was full on punching the dog in its throat and later it got put down and to this day I hate his family for the way they treated that dog I never blamed the dog but now I'm very cautious around dogs but I own 2 lol. My mom when I got home told me to get in the shower which originally was a bath but my grandma said a bath would just circulate the bacteria from the wound and I got out maybe 7 minutes later for an idea of how much I was bleeding the er staff took me in right after they saw me instead of making me wait an hour or so my shoe was soaked and leaving bloody foot prints so they said if I wouldve been 10 minutes later I wouldve bled out. I cracked my head open on some metal stairs in a park in catasaqua pa and got heavy into eminem. I had my first gf in that house and as you can imagine I treated her like shit not abusive but I would hang up on her 3 times and never called her she called me basically doing what those all guys are the same guys do nowadays. Two of my relatives died in that house ages too and I also didn't get to say goodbye then. I started sleeping in school and failed 2 grades nkt because I'm slow or anything just felt like failing. My mom told me my uncle had used my sisters feet to sexually stimulate himself now I was no older than 12 at most and already was hearing that. My sister and mom were preaching how I was going to end up like my dad and that my sister was doing things she hasn't done since they loved with my dad like sleeping in sneakers. There was one night where for whatever reason my sister was sleeping on my bedroom floor and I was curios about the female body so I tried touching different areas but never actually poked in one as she had on jean short shorts and well was fully clothed and im not proud of that and its the one and only time it happened. I'm not justifying that as it is very sick and disturbing but I really didn't know any better like I do now. My dad visited me and took me to Walmart alone and bought me a game boy advanced SP and after he paid for it in front of the worker and all says "damn Robert you used all of my $1s" he had other bills just didn't use them like that was your decision idiot. So my neighbor and I one night we were up about 2 am or so and he asked if I was curious and I didn't know what that meant at the time but to save time we ended up touching eachothers meat if you will and it wasn't long because I truly didn't like it not that im a homophobe or anything I just dont like the way it looks/smells or really anything about it so after that we lay on our backs and basically just finish ourselves off and rate how we liked it and I gave a similar answer to him because I didnt want to hurt his feelings or make him uncomfortable. There was also a kid I hung out with and to make a long story short he also gave me oral pleasure for about 2 minutes as I was no where near hard nor was it even remotely appropriate it was under a bridge basically and he told me if he didn't that homeless people were going to kill us and I was dumb enough to believe him so I told him I didn't like what he was doing and to pull his pants down and as soon as mine were up and his were down I ran I never touched his tiny pee pee he went to high school and told everyone I did but he was making conversations with me like if I kept my attitude but went trans for a day he would date me and so on I was really uncomfortable around him. I only wet the bed once at his house and it also happened to be the only time he slept in the same room as me. Now fast forward to my next apartment and it was in basically the projects if you will and when I was moving in I met another real wonderful man who is Dominican and another who is Puerto Rican and they helped me move inalong with a few others. I had my 2nd and last as for now gf there and I dont know if this was abusive or not but I smacked her but 2 or 3 times and we'd only been dating for like a week maybe less she never said stop or anything so I really am not sure. My mom started smoking weed pretty heavily like you could smell it outside of our door heavy. My brother was 8 and around 250 or so extremely obese and honest rn he's more than likely dead and that breaks my heart in ways I can't even understand I wasn't the best big bro to him but I loved him with all my heart. I had my 2nd hit of weed behind some old houses there. I got into basketball there and played football with my friends. I started stealing just because I was asked for certain items by people and never actually made money off of it which sucks. And I started watching adult videos. I started going to the principal more and more and whenever she gave me oss I said my mom was going to hit me and all she could say was "do you want a cop to go home with you" so naturally I said no as my mom wouldve waited until the cop left and I'd get it worse which in hindsight probably made me look like I just wanted to get out of trouble. I drew a swastika and showed it to a Jewish woman of color because she was annoying me and I dont know if I said anything but my mom tells me I did. But nothing out of the ordinary happened until halfway through 7th grade btw the abuse and me acting up was still going on just nothing that out of the ordinary or memorable and I decided I had enough of my life and took three 9 inch steak knives to school to get caught with them which I did but I needed a story to cover the real intent. So I went to the office 12 times to complain about a bully when in reality the kid was talking about my mom which I did anyway I didn't care but needed a fall guy if you will. So the last day I was sitting in English class and I loved the teacher as he was such a nice and really genuine good teacher and person and I was talking during silent reading (this was day 2 of having the knives btw) and got walked to the principals office by him on purpose because I knew what was coming and I was ready. So we got there and I said goodbye to him when he left and the woman have me iss for the day but when we got there I was asked if I had a pencil I carried all of my books so my backpack was huge at the time and I said no ao she said there's no way and searched my bookbag and found the 3 knives and expelled me now what really set that in motion was that 1 I didn't have a pencil on purpose and 2 the day before I showed 2 kids in particular the knives as I knew they would "snitch" so she already knew I had them at least the one day so I had to force myself to cry so my mom would think it was genuine and I was booked in the local jail data system and knew my mom was going to give me up. The only regret I have is that I met a girl you could say I really loved and still do I still think she's the hottest woman I've ever met that never went away and after my mom gave me up and I was in the system I friended a lot of asses I hated just so I could see if she had a fb profile in hopes of one day getting a chance to show her how much I've grown and try and maybe date her with no such luck until later her name is Sabrina Galloway if she's reading this. So my worst punishment came right after I left the jail booking place (I wasn't in jail just had the mugshot and so on) when we got home my mom beat my like she never had before and told me I was on "mommy jail" basically I was in my 90 degree room on a colder spring/summer day for reference and wasn't allowed to leave except for school then back in. I was fed 1 or 2 peanut butter sandwiches no jelly and got to drink my bathrooms faucet water which had toothpaste stains on it I had an ac in the room but was told if I plugged it in my mom would cut the cord and beat me with it so I didn't risk it. So after 2 or 3 months of this my mom woke me up in the dead of night to take me to NY and didn't understand why I was pissed so that same night she took me to the er and I was committed which I signed myself in and stayed there for maybe 2 or 3 days that was it. Then I got to go to kids peace again and stayed for my usual week and left to a homeless shelter where I met a guy because I had wet my bed and asked for underwear and tbh he was way more understanding than I wouldve ever thought in fact most people were. Then I went from the shelter to a kids peace group home holding facility where I stayed for a month or so and after that I went to NHS or northwestern human services where I finally started to open my mind I met a lot of different people from schizophrenic to gangbangers and I didnt judge a single one of them I was told multiple stories and became really close to a former blood who is going to remain nameless for his safety then from there I went to foster care where I had one hell of an experience so first off my case worker lisa was a fuckin bitch she would constantly talk about how I smelled like piss and berate me for wetting the bed as a teenager and my foster mom who was black not African though so African American is kinda disrespectful towards her and she wanted me to be happy and told me to sign up for any after school activities that would make me happy and so I volunteered at the community center around the corner which had a basketball team that I was just able to be a part of at 16 so naturally I asked her for permission she said yes with a huge smile on her face and then I went to one practice and my foster dad wouldn't take me again but what he and the state didn't know is I walked way further than the school we practiced at and he wouldn't take me out of laziness not anything with the state. So on Christmas my 1st and only year in foster care my mom calls so I was happy you know maybe she changed and it was pretty normal you know until bam right after I told her how I was she goes "merry Christmas your dad fu*ked a dog" and I hung up my foster dad and mom were listening on the other 2 phones state mandated that at least 1 has to listen in just to make sure I guess and my foster mom just stared at me she couldn't believe what she just heard my foster dad took about 3 to 5 minutes to actually say thats so messed up you never tell anyone that doesn't matter their age and btw I looked up both my dads aliases and no beastiality so he didn't do it as far as im concerned but you have to think they've heard everything but no my mom had to one up everyone and I know Lisa heard about it too but even after she was still just an awful human and I hope she gets what she deserves I hated her for everything she did she refused to let me walk to basketball practice and back even though I posed no risk I never ran away and had no school problems either. But anyway eventually my granddad and step grandma were asked if they wanted me and they said sure. They have my younger bro and have been giving him meds he doesn't need so now he's just a ticking time bomb and if my granddad dies first he's going to kill my step grandma but if its the other way he might hold off but unsure. Anyway I was there for a Christmas stay basically seeing if I liked it or not and he started flipping tf out hitting himself in the head and walking behind my step gm who im going to say sgm from now on like he was going to hit her so I had my fist balled up really tight like finger nail indents in my hand tight because I wasn't going to just let that happen but he never did and I went back to foster care 4 days later then I decided I would live with them and moved there. While there I was put on meds I didn't need and luckily for me I met an amazing person but more on that later. The major events was my bro wanted so badly to be a gangbanger even though he was a wussie and a snitch for my grand parents anything I said or did outside of the house was relayed back to them. He hit me with a knife ok my pinky knuckle and dead serous as I was bleeding to "stop over reacting it isn't that bad" now I have a scar because of it and all I did was pour rubbing alcohol on it and a bandaid over it thats it. He also knew where to hit a person to anger them real quick there was a special spot on the back of a person's head that deals with their emotions and once hit instantly makes you really mad. I graduated high-school and had my grades go from fs and 1 d to bs and 1 c because my grand parents thought I couldn't live without my phone then 4 months of not having it they caved and said do you ever want your phone back and I said I take my bets so seriously that ill fail a whole grade if you want to take it that far needless to say they changed their bet quickly. Now their form of abuse is different where they would purposely make me mad and slowly take away my outlets until walking out and slamming the door was all that was left. Basically they could get a check off of me if I was on the right meds and they really made sure I was. Before any of my appointments with my psychiatric dr they would go in for about 10 minutes and the dude wouldn't hear what I had to say so I assume they were giving him a slice of the pie to put my bro and I on the meds. So the only real major even was our "family therapy" session with Jackie who was a good therapist when in a room where all 4 of us and Jackie could barely fit my grandparents and bro started yelling so loud the waiting room could hear and I just sat their blank faced staring at all of them like they were stupid and my gd is threatening to kick me out basically making me homeless and my sgm is saying "what's wrong with you Robert if I was in your position I would be screaming my freaking head off what's happening" and Jackie got my gd to not kick me out but not before I chimed in so calmly you wouldn't believe and I said well if im screaming at all of you with how loud you were 1 Jackie would have a worse headache than she does now 2 it wouldn't help anything and 3 your not the first people to fo this so I can pretty much adapt to any situation. Jackie looked at me like I had just made a revelation and my GPS looked defeted my bro looked at me like I was going to be killed that night. So about 2 years of me living with those monkeys and my neighbor Rita passed and her family came to stay in her house while the will was being addressed and luckily for me the light at the end of the tunnel they were short on space so my current roommate who I consider my family had to stay in our guest bedroom and as he and I talked he realized what was actually happening in that house and asked if I wanted to live with him mind you ive never talked or even seen this guy before so I said yeah why not lol my attitude in three words but anyway I had been working at publix and had a savings of around $3k which is gone now and we both used that money to get on our feet again he is on disability so he has a monthly check which isn't alot but moving on we stayed in 3 different houses 1 was his gms house 2 and 3 were in a whole different county far far away from my GPS house and work wasn't an issues until we were about to move cross country while we were planning I was working at Walmart in avon park I did sfs (online order shipping or pickup) cap 2 (stocking and throwing trucks) and as a janitor I loved working there however in cap 2 they severely over worked us and we never got any help from our supervisors like we should have ntm I was just thrown in no training or anything then in sfs it was great everyone worked and talked and you could take you two 15s and the hour lunch which I usually declined my 15s as I didnt really need them I told my supervisor to use my br breaks as my 15s not that it took me that long to go but I really liked working. But then came the full time janitor position and thats when everything became $hit so I'm white if you didn't know from the context clues and a male too and worked with primarily female hispanic coworkers with a few exceptions as 1 hislanic male and 1 black female so while I worked there the black female was pregnant seeing this I tried really hard to make her job easier but not so she wasn't working like I could get the 10 pound trash bags if she would replace them with a newer one etc. so she talks to me about how she was a stripper and did all of these different drugs and I really didn't care but was listening so she knew she had some type of friend because she was generally looked down at by the others. One of the female coworkers was cheating with a cap 2 hispanic worker while they both were married to different people. The other female hispanic worker and I didnt really have a issue we basically just didn't work together until one day she tried giving me attitude and I shit that down rq because I gave her some right back. Now onto the hispanic male he was the worst person I've ever met just a shitty human in general so he didn't work good like I had to go and clean behind him and I shit you not every manager+supervisor+worker knew idk how he still had a job. But one day we were talking and a female over 18 passes us and naturally we looked at her butt as she was walking I looked for maybe anywhere from 2 to 6 seconds pretty normal I think all things considered but he stared not blinking until she left his sight and I mean bending his head and all just way out of place and so after a minute I brush it off and say have you seen a bakery worker who im not going to name but she's over 18 now I word it like that because I worked with quite a few minors under 18 and the dude is 28 almost 30 and lives in his moms basement and has the real pedophile look like bald head grand pa huge frame glasses and fat and so he responds to my question with "I've seen everybody's" so now I'm really uncomfortable working with him but I push through it. So maybe less than a month later im taking a rare 15 and went over somewhere between 30-45 minutes and when I say rare I took the entire 9 months I worked at that Walmart all of 10 and worked no less than 20 hours a week on pt so really that number should've been in the hundreds ntm I shortened my own lunch break and worked through 1 just to help my coworkers and not screw over the supervisors and he went up to a css which is basically 1/2 a level higher than me like they can write me up but thats it an this is the 1st job I've been written up at and tells the mean hispanic hoe that as soon as she got a little power started letting it go to her head and tells her ive been on a 15 for an hour or longer which isn't true ntm that he told her I took them frequently when you can ask my sfs and ogp superiors and coworkers they'll tell you the exact same thing. So now I'm fuming with this waste of human life and the same hoe is now getting her fellow hispanic people up there to target me which had been going on before that but got worse after and the only real reason I can think of is because I'm white thats it now the major thing that happened that had nothing to do with them as far as I know was I had to bury a dead cat that was pushed with gas missing its eyes and smelled awful in a ditch if anyone shops there and wants to find it dm me and ill let you know the exact location. Now thats the only employer that I've been written up with, pushed out for racial reasons while they never called me a cracker or something like that they spoke in Spanish around me and only Spanish so its not hard to deduce, and I threw up twice and had a bloody nose before I asked to go home on 2 occasions where as the other ones went hom at the mere feel of a belly ache I had a cap 2 worker get injured and was forced into maintenance and 2 or 3 weeks later during carona he got sick with something other than corona idk what but has waited and still might be waiting for just the stores ok he has been passed by everything else to come back and he's the only other white janitor. There was an old white guy that did a little and I mean very little janitor work who had to wait a year after having a stroke I believe and he did more maintenance like fixing and not so much cleaning. Also outside of working there my female friend not gf I was friendzoned by her but anyways her parents are/were getting harassed by the stores "security" who is black and her parents are white now before you say oh he can't be racist or he was just doing his job ive watched people steal and get away with it in fact there was a black guy I watched steal and walk up to the security guard and give him a high five talk for 10ish minutes and then leave and it was noticeable what he stole and the girls parents are 50 minimum and even had this dude outside of his job almost crash into them pull over with them then pull up beside them say something and take off literally trying to push it with them and her parents carry a gun they have licenses for. And as for the emotional abuse idk if this really is or not but while Irving with my mom I said I love you and was told it so much it has no meaning to me anymore but now my life is better thanks to my roommate and now when I talk to girls which doesn't happen often because its been such a long time and everything is sexual harassment now I try to be as honest and idc if it hurts my chances of getting a gf either and upfront so she knows what she's getting into I havent had a gf since the 7th grade and depending on your views of virginity im either a virgin to some or not to others either way sex with most guys my age is all they think about but not me and I also don't really know how I would treat and act around a woman especially one im attracted to so I have tried to get a few but no such luck. Anyways the only other thing I'm going to say is that for those that don't have parents or family that want/love them I know the holidays suck more than anything but your not alone let's get through this hell on earth together.