Las Vegas hotels are closed during the week. Blame the

Ramtidings, dear friends! It is I, your dutiful lord and master, the eternal GM. My sabbatical proved most fruitful, having figured out some depth mechanics for 3 dimensional combat in my pet project, Blood & Thunder, a maritime piracy RPG that has been both a joy and a nerve-wracking nightmare to create. If you want to see what's going on with that, you can swing by patreon.com/BlackFlagPrintingPress to take a look or support my endeavors. But I digress, because I did not come here today to talk about Blood & Thunder, no. I came here with something else in mind, good friends, for while I have been writing my bread and butter, you have gone without your beard and butter, and this is unacceptable! And so, I have trawled the depths of my memory to bring you yet another TAAAAAALE FROM THE TABLETOP, lovingly subtitled A Prologue Into Poverty.
Life is not an easy thing. There was a time when life was very difficult for me. I had far less than most, and I went without frequently, my entire life loaded into a backpack of bare necessities. Joys were few and times were hard, but I made the best of it. I traveled the countryside, mostly alone, making friends where I could amongst the other forgotten souls who haunt the streets of the United States. I met a good number of people, many of them listless drifters in their own right, who became fast friends. We would hang out for a time, but like all drifters, we would eventually part ways, called to different places to do different things. I had just come from North Carolina. I had been in Asheville, playing bluegrass to make money with friends who eventually proved dishonest, and so I parted ways with them. While in Asheville, I had met a girl, also on the road like myself, and I developed a massive crush on her. Fortune would have it that our time together was short lived, as she disappeared on a freighter down the train tracks, and I layed curled up in a bush sick as a dog for the next 3 days.
You can't get a ride from a freighter with 8 people without getting pulled off by johnny law. Our group had fractured, and myself and one other soul continued on our own, until we parted ways in Atlanta. Now, on my own, clueless and green, I wandered aimlessly, until a friend of mine at the time reached out to me by way of the internet. He had work for me, back in California, if I could just make it there. What's 3000 miles? I've got this. I walked out of Atlanta, hitched a series of rides to Arkansas, and then caught a freighter myself, all the way back to the west coast while UP did the driving. I laid on the back of that train for 3 days until I finally ran out of water and decided to get off. I was in Los Angeles. After a bit of panhandling, I got a bus into the central valley, and my friend came and scooped me up. I worked on my friends farm for a bit, building green houses and stacking money until the time came for me to once again depart. During that time, my crush from North Carolina had found me on Facebook. We got to talking.
She told me she had gone back home to Wisconsin and was working in some greasy spoon trying to save up money to afford a bus. She'd been back for awhile now, but wasn't making any headway. Her vices were getting the best of her, and she couldn't seem to get ahead. I told her she needed to knock that shit off and clean up her act. After a long enough time talking, however, things started to get flirty and dirty.
I wanted to see her, and it's actually amazing what a guy will do for love. You're how far away? Piece of cake. Hold my beer. With the work season coming to a close, I took my pay and my leave of my old friend, and he dropped me off in Modesto at the Greyhound. On the way out, he loaded me up with gifts for my travels - a new backpack, socks, a sleeping bag, some snacks for the ride... and naturally, he gave me a gift that I always treasure. He gave me a set of RPG dice. I gave my boy a hug, wished him well in his endeavors, and promised I'd be back in the fall to help him with the harvest and gathering firewood. So I went on my merry way.
I absolutely despise Greyhounds. Have you ever been on one? It's miserable. There's no room to stretch out unless you sit in the back, right by the toilet. Some asshole is always blaring garbage mumble rap on his phone all day long. It doesn't matter who you are - at the end of the trip you exude the pungent aroma of a neckbeard. This didn't bother me too much - personal hygiene suffers when you have no way to bathe regularly, so I was used to being dirty, and my friends from the road were usually very dirty people in their own right at the time, so I could handle a certain degree of grossness... within limits. I did shower at my friend's farm before I boarded that bus, though, and was feeling rather spiffy - clean body, clean clothes. Life was good and I was on my way to see my woman.
I did my best to zone out. I tried to sleep as much as I could and ignore the general atmosphere of the bus, but that was no longer an option after a layover in Las Vegas. We boarded the bus once more after an almost 24 hour delay on our schedules, and finally got moving again. I sat in the back near the toilet, as I was no stranger to this game and wanted that bench seat, and foul smells at the time didn't bother me much... or so I thought. With the bus filling up and the seats reducing to slim pickings, it dawned on me that my coveted back seat bench was going to get shared. Then, I saw him... the Busbeard.
I'm usually a pretty nice person, but I did not want my coveted backseat benchseat getting taken up, let alone by this massive lardass that now lumbered towards me. I did everything in my power to seem as big and hostile as I could. This was all in vain, however, as some people cannot read social cues. I stared at him, dripping hostility, mentally repeating sit somewhere else like it was a Zen mantra. However, nobody wanted him to sit by them either, and so, he made his way, closer and closer, as he asked people if seats were taken until he got to me at the back. He shifted to sit into the seat, angling his ass in the general direction of my face. The smell of soggy feces-laden underwear wafted up as he slid his bulk onto the bench.
Did I mention that personal hygiene suffers on a greyhound bus ride, especially when you've been riding for days? I've taken my fair share of Greyhounds, and it's unlikely that this new arrival had been riding for awhile. He was eastbound, like the rest of us, and we were in Las Vegas. His point of origin was... not very far east. I had only been on the bus for approximately a day so far, minus the extended layover time of course, so I was getting a ittle sweaty myself, but this guy smelled as if he not only lived on this bus, but was born in the blue poop goop of the latrine. It was a question worthy of debate as to whether this man had actually employed the use of a speed stick in his life. His patchy jowels jiggled at me as he said, hi.
I responded with a gruff and monotone hello, and then turned my attentions to the window, watching the bus depot workers loading up suitcases beneath. My fate was sealed. This man was to be my travel companion all the way to Denver. I decided then that maybe it would be best to ignore him. I plugged in my phone, booted up an emulator I had downloaded, and started to play some Pokemon to whittle away the hours. It didn't take long, however, before I could feel his olfactory looming become physical looming as he examined the screen upon which I played from over my shoulder.
Busbeard: Pokemon? I fucking love Pokemon! I didn't know you could play it on a phone. How are you doing that?
His heavy respirations were like an infusion of green spearmint and halitosis.
GM: Emulators.
I went back to my game, trying to angle myself away from him in such a way that he couldn't lean over my shoulder and watch me as I trained my team, but I was effectively sandwiched between him and the wall, forced to sit straight as he leaned over and watched me play. I debated then, what I ought to do. Playing Pokemon would make the time fly, but I would be crushed between the window and a sweaty fat man. Not playing Pokemon would save me the physical agony of being squished, but I would be painfully bored for seemingly endless miles, and he may use it as an opportunity to interact further. A decision needed to be made.
I shut the emulator off and put away my phone, turning my attention back out the window as the bus pulled out of the Las Vegas terminal and began down the freeway. It was not long after we had pulled out of the station, however, when that wheezing, rasping voice chirped up again.
Busbeard: So where are you going?
I ignored him, focusing on the casinos towering in the distance of the skyline, pretending as if I hadn't heard the question, or as if it weren't addressed at me. With insistance, he repeated his question at my turned back again, searching for a response within my stony exterior. I mumbled, the Midwest, and he questioningly grunted, and asked me to repeat myself. I guess we're doing this.
GM: I'm going to the Midwest.
Busbeard: Where in the Midwest?
GM: Wisconsin.
Busbeard: I've never been to Wisconsin before, but I know they got really good cheese! Hyuk hyuk... Is that why you're going there?
Judging by his smell, he must have been an excessively avid connosieur of fine Wisconsinite cheese. However, cheese was the last thing on my mind at the time.I was enamored with my lady love.
GM: I'm going to see an old friend.
Busbeard: Oh, that's cool... who is it?
The odds of this man knowing the person who I was on my way to visit were astronomically low. Your odds of getting struck by lightning, winning the lottery, and becoming president in the same day were probably higher than this cretin knowing the one specific person whom I was going to go visit in some backwater Wisconsin town. Still, I humored him, and in the same flat voice, answered his question, and told him I was on my way to see my sweetheart.
This caught Busbeard's attention. For a grown man in his mid 30s, he let out a loud "oooooooo" like a middle schooler would when he finds out his friend has a crush. I contemplated execution methods and the subjective severity of their barbarism as he excitedly asked me where she was from.
GM: Wisconsin.
Busbeard: Yeah... but, where in Wiconsin?
GM: Fuck off, dude. I'm not going to tell you the town where she lives.
Busbeard: Heh! I'd be terrified of telling a superior male like me where my girlfriend lives, too. A little kid like you wouldn't stand a chance next to a man like me. Her panties would hit the floor from one whiff of my pheromones. It happens all the time, bro, I swear. I could have any woman on this bus. They just can't resist me. They can sense my manhood, I know it.
I shouldn't stir the pot. All common sense tells me that I should just stop myself while I'm ahead, but sometimes... sometimes I just can't help myself. I've always been a pretty reserved and self-contained person for the most part, and I just want to be left alone 90% of the time to do my thing. Apparently, that's a lot to ask, because every now and then, somebody comes and invades my personal space with their protruding belly, bad breath, and self-aggrandizement, and then I find it really hard to resist my inclination to fuck with them. I know, I know, it's wrong of me to do that, but I'm human, damnit, and something good was cooking in the kitchen. What's the harm in dipping a spoon into this self-important concoction of body odor and bravado?
GM: Any woman, huh? Tell ya what, Busbeard, I just got paid, and you seem really confident in the power of your, ahhhhh, pheromones, so... how about a wager.
I laid out the terms of my devil's bargain. With a wager of 100 dollars, I would pick a lady on the bus at the next break. Busbeard would then have to seduce her. He MUST "present" his pheromones to her, naturally. If he recovered her phone number, or anything in excess thereof, like a kiss or a consensual toilet stall consummation, it would suffice to meet my criteria and loose my grasp from the freshly printed Franklin in my wallet. He agreed enthusiastically to my terms, insisting I was going to loose and he was going to get his dick sucked in a Greyhound portajohn "blumpkin style".
We rode along in silence for the next hour or so. The sun was high in the sky when we made our next stop at some gas station in Utah, and everyone filed off the bus to stretch their legs and get their snacks. I wandered around, huffing down my smoke, chatting it up with people and making friends, seeing just who they were, asking them questions - where they were going, who they were going there with. I got to talking with one guy and his girlfriend.
The guy, who we will call Sarge, was built like a brick shithouse and was a former infantry man who served 2 tours of duty in the middle east. He was traveling with his wife, a young and pretty little thing who we will call Alexandra. They were on their way back to the east coast to stay with family. Alexandra's mom was getting old and had asked them to move in to help take care of her. They were on their way out there to steward her aging mother's estate. I remarked that that was awfully kind of them, and sincerely wished them the best on taking care of Alexandra's aging mom. I told them a little bit about myself, as well... that I was effectively living on the road, playing life by ear, and on the way to see a loved one of mine for a bit before the wind blew me somewhere else.
Eventually, the bus driver gave everyone a 5 minute warning before departure, and we all filed on board. I moved back to my seat and waited for Busbeard to arrive. He came back, cradling piles of gas station sandwiches, bags of chips, and a couple of sodas in his massive paws. He sat down beside me with a loud "oof" and offered me a drink, saying that it's the least he could do before he took my money. I took that beverage. It was both cold and delicious.
GM: Well, Busbeard, I've done my rounds, and I've come to a decision.
Busbeard: Who is it? She better be hot. I swear to God, if you make me waste my time on some dried up roastie, I'm gonna be so fucking pissed at you dude.
GM: Why would I do that dude? Naturally, I only want the best for you. No, she's very pretty. You see that girl over there, in the aisle seat? That's the one. Make your move whenever you're ready.
I pointed out Alexandra to him. I already knew this was going to end very poorly. There was no way in Hell that Alexandra would express any interest in this disgusting lardass whatsoever when she had a stable and solid man like Sarge, and Sarge wasn't about to take guff from anyone. Add on to it that Sarge was easily the size of, if not bigger than, the prodigious Busbeard himself. Sarge was also trained to kill and hardened by years of combat in the graveyard of empires. I can fight - I've fought a lot - and I would not want to square up against him under any circumstances. Busbeard was going to get the snot beat out of him and pay me 100 dollars for that privilege.
The bus took off and I listened to the disgusting sounds of Busbeard inhaling the equivalent of 5 pounds of gas station food. I was only halfway through my soda, when Busbeard emitted a satisfied belch that rumbled the seats, and the feeding frenzy had ended in an effervesence of curdling bile and preservatives just as fast as it had begun. He then started to pump himself up for the task at hand. He started to sweat with excitement and latent cardiac arrest as he prepared his pheromonal aura about himself, and then with a gruff, alright, let's do this, he stood up from his seat and waddled down the aisle, his greasy belly bumping into everybody who had chosen an aisle seat.
He approached Alexandra. They were near the front end of the bus, and so I couldn't hear a word that they were saying. I watched Busbeard as he extended an arm and held on to the overhead luggage rack, exposing the damp miasma of corn-syrup infused armpit sweat to his unsuspecting victim. His pheromones were beginning to work their magic over the unsuspecting Alexandra who would soon be enraptured by its juicy spell. I waited, leaning forward intently, when a loud shout broke the silence.
Sarge: BACK THE FUCK UP.
Alexandra started to shout, too, yelling "get the fuck away from me!"
The driver turned back and yelled for everyone to sit down and shut the hell up or he would pull the bus over.
Sarge: Please do! I'm gonna beat this fucking lardass into the pavement! Saying shit like that to my wife? Who the fuck do you think you are?
The bus driver repeated his warning, and Busbeard began to shout his protests, insisting upon his innocence.
Busbeard: B-but, I was put up to it! It was that guy, in the back seat! He said---
He pointed back at me. I yelled back, I don't fucking know that guy.
The bus driver meant his threat, and pulled the bus over. We were on a long and empty stretch on the I-15 somewhere in rural Utah. The last town I had seen was about 20 miles back. It was late spring, and it was getting hot outside that afternoon. The bus driver got out of his seat, walked up to Busbeard, and told him to get the Hell off of his bus. Busbeard kept protesting, when Sarge moved past his wife, and started forcing Busbeard towards the front door.
I've heard the threat of getting kicked off maybe a thousand times on a Greyhound, but I had never seen it play out before. Busbeard was thrown off the bus. Sarge did not join him outside and pummel him into the asphalt, regrettably, as I would have loved to have watched it. Busbeard kept pleading with the bus driver as the driver shut the door on him, sealing him out on the shoulder of a lonely stretch of highway. I breathed a sigh of relief, and stretched out my legs. It was another 15 miles before we saw signs of civilization. A part of me felt bad for Busbeard, but the other part of me said, "if I can walk 20 miles in a day with 60 lbs of shit on my back, he can do an unencumbered 15 and be fine."
The ride continued on in sweet, reclined silence for me until we reached Denver, werein there was another changeover, and this bus was much, much more desolate. The rest of the Greyhound voyage passed without incident, and I spent my time flirting with my lady love and training some Pokemons. At long last, I finally arrived in Wisconsin. She came to pick me up at the bus station, and when we approached each other, we made out like long lost lovers for a good 5 minutes before we finally caught our breath enough to say hello. I got in her car, and spent maybe a week or so with her, before it was time to take my leave. I couldn't live there forever, and so, as fast as I had drifted into her life, once again, it was time for me to disappear. We said goodbye, and she dropped me off at a lonely interstate overpass on the edge of town. I put my thumb out to catch a ride to Anywhere But Here USA.
I planned my next move, and I figured that there were some friends of hers and mine that lived not too far away in the Dakotas, and maybe I would pay them a visit next. I was in the neighborhood, and figured that I might as well say hello. I reached out to them online, and then made my way west again. They were excited for me to come see them. It was only a day into the voyage when I received a message from Janet. It said, "wait for me, I'm catching up." She had packed her backpack again, and was coming after me, hot on my tail. I told her we could meet up at our mutual friend's house.
I dialed ahead to our friends, who we shall call Sarah and Queenie. Sarah used to travel together with Janet for many months before she stabilized, and then settled down. Queenie was one of my friends from North Carolina. He was a loveable chucklefuck of a drifter, missing a few teeth, wore a skirt, and spoke in the most haggard voice you could imagine. Still... he insisted on being called Queenie. He had settled down with Sarah after they hooked up, and they were living at Sarah's house. He was on thin ice there, however, and she was threatening to kick him out.
I arrived at Sarah's and Queenie's, and spent the next few days waiting for Janet to come up on my heels. During that time, Queenie and I played a lot of Magic (he had just gotten into it), and I remembered the dice that my friend in California had given me that were laying unusued in my backpack. I asked him if he had ever played tabletop RPG's before, to which he answered no. I told him that, maybe next time I see him and I'm in a better spot, we could run a game. Eventually Janet caught up, and we prepared to leave Sarah's for good towards our own new horizons. Queenie, however, had finally broken through the thin ice upon which he skated, and was getting thrown out. On the day of our departure, we asked him if he wanted to join us in our travels so he wouldn't have to go it alone.
Thus we began from Sarah's house out into the unknown once again, a cheerful trio, and true to my word, I began to teach not only Queenie, but Janet as well, the joys of tabletop RPGs.
As I'm sure you can surmise, dear friends, that this is not the end of our story, but only the beginning of another chapter. Is Busbeard still alive? What does the future hold for Ramtide's love life? How do a gaggle of vagabond drifters play tabetop games without a table? Some of these questions will be answered, my dear friends, in our next installment of TAAAAAALES FROM THE TABLETOP.
A shoutout to my lovely patrons, Tatoferret and Sillibits. You guys are wonderful. Thank you for believing in the dream.

Before I start, I wanted to say that I've lived in many different countries (brick/concrete buildings) & I never experienced so many problems as I have with US homes. The use of cheap plywood and wood chip, poor or no insulation, flimsy siding and roofing that either blows off in high winds or just rots away after a few year, in addition to high prices have made life a living miserable hell for the average American.
I've lived in US for the past 20 years, mainly in the west coast. I owned a nice peaceful house in Seattle area back in the 90s, things were not this expensive & I had a great mortgage rate until the collapse of housing market happened in 2008, and my mortgage rate went up from 3.25% to 6%, although I paid my mortgage onetime & didn't do anything wrong. Around the same time, my utilities, and taxes went up drastically. The house was built in the 80s and the constant rain & termite damage & carpenter ants had made the wood rot underneath the house, not to mention the leaky roof & many other issues with plumbing, mainly to do with wood-structured houses.
Long story short, my house was peaceful, but because of high taxation, crime, constant rain & cold, & other problems like high utility & mortgage rate, I made a decision to sell the house and move to California.
I rented a two bedroom luxury apartment unit in Orange County around 2015 for $2500/months, but everyday there was an issue with the management, constant noise of performance cars revving their engine, garbage trucks, leaf blowers & landscapers, you name it ....
After a year, I finally got sick & tired of high rent & high taxation in Cali & moved to Nevada, Las Vegas. The apartment I moved in was ok for a few months until a loud motorcyclist moved next door to me. The guy worked all odd hours and he used to love revving his bike at nights, like 12 am, 3 am, 5 am, multiple times, when he commuted back & forth to work every day ... Calling the police, talking to Management or leaving nice notes on his bike, none of them worked, until I was forced to move out.
Everybody said rent a house, apartments are crap. oh how little I knew
So I ended up renting a home (paying $2100) to have more privacy & peace of mind. The house was fine for a few years (except the loud neighbors kids screaming & swearing, dogs barking all day & night, neighbors doing landscaping at 8am Sunday morning, etc etc), but I still put up with it, at least I had few hours of quiet at nights & I used white noise machine to drown out some of the noise. Until one day, out of the blue, the house started making weird noises, mainly coming from the ceiling/attic. It started with one loud knock/snap every morning at 8:30 am, and over a week period, the knocks went from one loud one to 20 knocks a day. Within a month, things became so bad that every time the sun would come up or go down, the roof would pop like 200 times. At nights, I would hear a lot of loud banging/popping noises coming from chimney and the attic. I let the landlord know right away (which they didn't believe me at first), I even paid for pest control (we thought it maybe rats or some other animal in the attic), which no trace of any animal was found in the attic. We brought roofers, inspectors, you name it, no one had any clue what was going on. Things got so bad that I couldn't sleep more than couple of hours every night, waking up with a very loud knock or bang, sometimes every 30 min. I lived in that house for 3.5 years, and didn't hear a beep from the structure of the place, so I have no clue how a building that quiet could go suddenly crazy & it was so frustrating that no one had any clue what was going on . Haunted house?
I was forced to move out of the lease & find another place. I ended up living in another house (1,900/mo) that had severe zapping issues (the floors were made out of cheap laminate & they wouldn't let you ground), so every time I touch a door knob or kitchen appliances or doors or windows, I would get zapped like crazy. I also would hear loud banging from pipes when I took a shower & once every two weeks I would hear loud banging from the roof/siding of the house. But at least the structural noise of this house wasn't constant, like the other property. But a few months to my lease, I discovered that the house is foreclosed and the owner has no intention to fix anything, so I moved to another single family home in a very nice area & gated community (paying $2,300/mo).
Oh boy, renting this new place was probably one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. I moved there around December last year & the first night I slept there I realized that I have made a giant mistake. There were LOUD snaps/pops once every 30 min all over the house, I mean snaps as loud as gut shots that could be heard overheard all over the house, even in the closet or bathroom, day & night. It wouldn't go away. When the heater ran, the snaps & knocks would become so loud, as if wood is splitting in half on top of your head. No amount of white noise or ear plug could block that noise. I work from home & my clients could hear the loud snaps over the phone & often asked me what is that loud noise in the background and if someone is shooting.
Because I had moved twice in less than 3 month I ended up putting up with it & staying there for 7 month, I have a background in structural/civil engineering, so I thought I could bring inspectors & could figure out a way to minimize the constant loud popping & snapping noises. I talked to PM & they send people who had no idea what was going on, charging the owner thousands of dollars in roof & pest control. I paid out of pocket myself, bringing contractors to screw the ceiling drywall, in case the nails holding the ceiling boards were moving in & out of 2x4s. We tried re-screwing the ceiling in one room & to my surprise it made the popping noises a lot worse & even more often. By then I knew the property has serious foundation & possibly truss uplift issue. I even got covid during this whole mess around January & not sleeping, constant stress & loud noises made my illness prolong for 4 months Dry coughs, severe diarrhea, shortness if breathe, severe joint & muscle pain & high fever. At that time I was so devastated & all I wanted was to sleep & I couldn't I couldn't even go rent a hotel room for a few days, since around March the Gov had shut everything down, so I was stuck inside a big house that I couldn't sleep in any of the rooms.
Eventually when I recovered from covid, I thought I've had enough of homes with severe structural/roof issues & it's time to go back to condo/apartment living. At least, they wouldn't have serious foundation/roof issues, right? I moved to this condo a few months ago & of course it's another wood-structure multi-family home made with flimsy roof & floors. What I didn't know about this building is the fact that there is absolutely NO insulation in between the units, over the floor & walls that I share with other neighbors, NON, whatsoever, so I could hear normal conversation, dogs barking, constant door slamming, banging noises from other units. Also because of covid, some neighbors work from home, sometimes repairing heavy machinery & auto parts! Imagine , only sharing a thin plywood with the unit underneath and the loud obnoxious neighbor next door! Another issue with this condo is the shaky floor, when I walk around my unit or neighbors walk around their own unit, my floor shakes violently & ends up shaking my heavy coach as well as the bed. If I'm sleep & the noise doesn't wake me up right away, the shaking of the floor definitely would. I never thought I could hear this much from units downstairs or on the side, because I had lived in other apartments before, and I had never experienced this level of noise traveling up from downstairs neighbors or the hellish neighbors on the side.
My neighbor on the side works night-shift, I hear her coming home, all odd hours (like 1am or 4am, every day- it's Vegas so people work odd hours at the casino), I hear everything, when she is taking a shower, slamming the hell out of her bathroom door, her dogs barking, walking around her unit, I've tried to reason with them & talk to them to at least not slam doors 10 times an hour day & night, but had no luck. Unreasonable people can't be reasoned with. As a matter of fact, I think they are doubling down on their door slamming & banging noises. My neighbor downstairs also has a habit of slamming every door & drawer & leaves the house at 7 am (every morning) & my floor shakes violently every time she goes in & out of her building, which is 5 or 6 times a day
I have moved 4 times, in less than a year. I lived in single family homes as well as condos that were uninhabitable, because of poor construction & use of cheap plywood, if these structures were built with concrete/brick, none of these issues would have happened. Trust me, I have lived in many concrete/brick structures before, my first apartment in Seattle was an old building made out of brick & you still may hear loud trucks or bikes, but there is no way you would hear your neighbors talking in normal voice, taking a shower, wiping their ass, or closing their door.
This is so depressing that we pay so much in mortgages or rent in America, yet we have to live in such horrible living spaces that are uninhabitable. American houses often have the appearance of having brick walls, however these are just stuck onto the outside of the plywood walls giving a false sense of quality and strength. I understand that using flimsy wood is much cheaper than using stone, brick or concrete, but this is not really evidenced by the prices of houses. Even multi-million dollar new houses in the States are being built from the same cheap plywood, poor insulation, shabby roofing material as cheaper houses. The fact that walls are paper thin and conversations can be heard a room away is nothing strange in American houses. I'm not even gonna mention horrible loud structural problems/noises that no one has any clue how to fix (god help you if something goes wrong inside the attic), rotting walls, water getting into insulation, pest issues, termite damage or leaking roofs.
You will be surprised that the average material cost (cost of wood chip) for a cheap flimsy American home is around $5,000, but since we live in a mafia state, by the time the city, the contractors, & the utility companies are all done with you, you will end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some case millions of dollars for a home that's gonna end up having too many problems, in just 10 years or less.
Sorry for the long rant, i know this has been a tough year for many with people dying alone of covid, but I'm penniless, sleepless, stressed & exhausted & I can't bare the idea that I have to move again soon , to another wood chip rental, I wonder what kind of a horror is gonna be waiting for me there? costing me thousands of dollars in rent & moving cost.
> I have a masters degree in civil/construction engineering. I used to do cost analysis for different projects & I know the material cost, for just the framing of a house (the cost of timber & plywood) is around $5,000, I have worked with many reputable construction companies all over the NW. All of them used the same cheap crappy plywood, even for the construction of multi-million dollar homes.
> I have owned & rented many homes/condos, town homes/apartments all over US (mainly in NW), new & old. I understand there are individuals who have ulterior motives & are doubling their already doubled profit by enriching themselves off of consumers. But these of the realities of wood-frame residential buildings: the use of weak beams, cheap plywood, poor insulation, flimsy siding and roofing that either blows off in high winds or just rots away after a few year, termite damage, carpenter ants that chew and push out wood by finding crawl spaces underneath your house & you wouldn't even know until half of the house is gone, high expenses regarding pest control (over the years, I've spent at least 20K regarding pest control - rats, squirrels or ants, that will chew the wood & will find a way to get inside your attic/basement again & again) ... Rotting walls, water getting into insulation, moisture damage & mold, termites, leaking roofs, etc, etc. Houses built of plywood and low quality beams will not last all that long. Using staple guns to hold plywood to beams that ends up shabby. Contractors using the cheapest materials to throw up buildings as soon as they can in order to maximize profits. For some reason this shabby building tradition has become the norm in US. Simply using concrete, brick or stone will prevent all these issues related to wood.
> If the price of these flimsy wood-frame buildings were as cheap as the cost of its materials, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. At least, it's not costing consumers an arm & leg. The argument I've heard over & over is that we can't afford to build homes made of concrete or brick in US, but this is a gross lie. Even multi-million dollar homes are built with the same material as the cheap ones & how come other countries can afford to build homes made of concrete & still make money? There are so many newer technologies like building homes with precast concrete, so cost effective because they are modular homes (many parts can be per-manufactured) & are a LOT MORE cost effective & durable
> Loud popping/snapping noises in wood structured homes are a recent phenomenon, which I believe has occurred as a result of rapid changes in the climate. Super dry or humid & hot summers depending on which side of the country you live in, long cold winters, constant rain, moisture & high winds are taking their toll on wood-frame buildings. Three out of the three recent homes I lived in had severe issues to do with constant loud snapping/popping noises coming from the structure of the house, mainly from ceiling joists as well as walls. Never experienced this issue ever before & here is a video that even new constructions are not immune to this disease
Buyers be aware, there is no way to know that a property has this particular issue until you spend a week sleeping & living at the property. I know homes with this problem that were sold & the problem was concealed & the inspector never found anything wrong, because the issue is hidden from naked eyes, check out truss uplift & the effect of rapid changes in the climate on wood-frame buildings. I believe more & more buildings are gonna end up having this issue in the near future. This issue is NOT related to normal expansion/contraction of the wood, these noises are not normal home noises, they are as loud as gunshots, happen all the time, & no one can even figure out what is going on. The building you buy might not have this issue right away, but there is no guarantee that within a few years, you will not end up with this nightmare.
> I have lived in homes as old as 300 yrs old, in Germany & UK, built from brick/store & I tell you they are as solid as a rock. They are warm & cozy during winter & cool & pleasant during summer. As far as sound insulation goes, concrete, brick & stone have high mass density, and they muffle & dampen sound quite a bit, whereas wood echos the sound by reverberating it & transmitting it all over. In fact, stealth plans are mainly made of wood, in order to reduce reflection/emission of radar, so they CANNOT be detected, where as signals would bounce off other solid materials. Knock on a wall made of wood & see how it feels hollow & void, whereas concrete or brick will dampen the echo quite a lot. If you punch a concrete wall, you will end up breaking your hand, where as you can easily punch a hole in a plywood wall & if you live in a multi-family home, you may end up in your neighbors unit.
Many US houses or buildings will not be around, let's say 500 years from now, as a result of a wasteful consumerism system & a mindset of bulldozing the old & buying something new, even if it's cheaper quality. All great civilizations have left structures for us to admire: Rome, Egypt, Greece, Byzantium, Incas, Aztecs etc. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that American civilization will leave any impressive physical structures behind.

I worked there part-time for a little over two years. During that time I've had to deal with my fair share of bullshit. However, none of it was as bad as what happened on my final shift. For the first year of my job, I had worked the day shift. That changed when my boss asked me if I wanted to try working at night.
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Since I was low on funds and admittedly curious about what it was like, I agreed. For the most part, it was a pain in the ass. I'd have to work off the clock because there wasn't enough time to do everything. The only silver lining is that I got to take home the food that was going to be tossed. Plus I didn't have to deal with customers aside from the occasional one who would show up right before closing.
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I will say it was an environment that could be pretty chill sometimes. When I got into a rhythm of finishing my tasks it could be quite cathartic on occasion. Although, the fact I was only getting paid minimum wage took away from that aspect. Not to mention, that eerie feeling that only comes with night shifts.
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If you've worked a night shift at any fast food place or convenient store you probably know what I mean. Sure, you can get the same feeling from the night shifts of bigger places but fast food night shifts are different. For one, there are fewer people which means being more vulnerable. The other reason is that should you get in danger there aren't as many hiding spots as say a grocery store. Anyway, I'll stop with this long-ass intro and get to what happened on my last shift.
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It was me and an assistant manager who I got along well with. His name was Ray. He was on drive-thru while I worked the backline. I was busy cleaning while he counted money. As I was wiping everything down he called my attention.
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“Alvin, since we’re only like ten minutes from closing, you can go ahead and start breaking everything down. You don’t need to worry about customers. They usually never show up at this…”
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The sound of a bell, indicating a customer in the drive-thru sounded from the speaker. Ray rolled his eyes and threw his head back. Then put on the headset and hit the button so he could talk to the customer.
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“Hello. Welcome to Arby’s. I hope you are having a pleasant evening. How may we help you?”
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We waited for the customer’s response over the speaker. They didn’t say anything. The next thing we knew, we heard a car speeding through the parking lot. It was too dark for us to fully make out their vehicle. Nick turned back to me and shrugged.
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He told me to proceed with breaking down the backline. I was going to when the bell sound was heard again. Ray answered it, repeating the phrase he had previously. The same thing as before happened. Only this time we were able to catch a better glimpse of the vehicle which seemed to be red.
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The third time this happened, Ray was once again professional, albeit with a hint of restrained annoyance in his voice. When it happened for the fourth time said restraint understandably left his voice entirely. He damn near broke the button when he pressed it. Instead of putting the headset on, he helped the microphone part of it to his mouth. Then yelled what he said next into it, loud enough to wake the dead.
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“Hello. Can we help you?”
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When the customer drove off again the couple moments of silence that followed were awkward, to say the least. He stood by the window, taking deep breaths in order to relax.
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“Uh...Should I continue breaking down the line?” I asked.
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Ray glanced at the clock. It showed we only had a few minutes until closing.
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“Take out the trash for now. If any orders come in I’ll handle them but I swear if that asshole shows up again I’m ignoring them.”
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Once all the trash within the building was bagged I put it into the large trash bins and wheeled them out the back door. I made sure to put down the stopper so it wouldn’t close on its own. You’d think after a year on the night shift I’d no longer get that sense of danger that comes from taking out the trash alone. That was not the case. In fact, that feeling was stronger than it had been.
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I’m not psychic or anything like that but I couldn’t shake off this weird sensation in my gut. Maybe it was because of what happened with that customer. In the back of my mind, I might’ve been considering the possibility that they weren’t mentally stable and could potentially harm us. Despite this, I took the trash to the dumpster. The door leading to it let out a loud creak as I pulled it open.
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As I was getting ready to wheel the trash bins back inside I saw the car. It was by itself under a streetlight. I thought if the driver was trying to be inconspicuous they weren’t doing a very good job. There was something off about the driver that I couldn’t quite place my finger on from that distance. When the door opened I realized why I got that feeling.
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My throat went dry as the for lack of a better word, driver came out of the car. What I noticed first about it was its size. It was a wonder this thing could fit in the car because it had to be at least eight feet tall when standing up. The reason I say when standing is due to the fact it preferred crawling.
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It crawled on eight arms. Each of them possessed claws that clicked on the parking lot. Just a glance told me they could literally tear someone to shreds with little effort. Its sickly grey skin stretched over its boney yet somehow massive frame. It focused its sunken in yellow eyes on me, letting out a low moan that sounded akin to a whale noise.
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My eyes briefly shifted to the back entrance before I made a dash for it while pushing one of the trash bins. The way its claws scraped against the parking lot as it was dashing towards me grated on my ears. For its size, it was unusually fast. The reason I pushed the trash bin instead of leaving was so I had something to try and stall it with. When that thing was close enough to me I made use of it.
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I pushed the trash bin towards the creature with so much force it started tipping as it rolled. Caught off guard by this, the monster didn’t have time to move away. The trash bin went over it. I could hear noises conveying frustration as it was trying to get it off. Sprinting towards the exit, I shouted for Ray.
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“Alvin is something…?”
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His voice trailed off and his eyes widened when he noticed it.
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“What in the hell is that?”
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“Close the door. Close the fucking door,” I said, once I had run back inside, having bumped into him in the process.
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The creature had torn through the trash bins. Then after shaking off the pieces stuck to its claws started running towards the back entrance. Ray cursed loudly, undid the stopper with his foot, and slammed the door shut as it was leaping at us. A loud thud echoed from the door as it was slammed into The monster attempted ramming into it repeatedly until it gave up and skittered away.
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“Okay that was unusual,” Ray said.
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From his tone of voice, I could tell he hadn’t fully processed what he had just seen. I hadn’t either, nor did I want to. I would’ve been content to brush this off had a realization not hit me.
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“Oh shit. The lobby,” I said.
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No sooner then I had spoken those words did we hear pounding on one of the windows. Knowing we only had seconds until it was inside, we thought fast and chose a spot to hide. We picked the walk-in fridge. We put the holding oven in front of it to hide it from view. We would have run out the back door and to Ray’s car if it weren’t for the fact it was parked too far away.
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Not only that, to reach it we’d have to pass the door. Had we tried to the creature no doubt would’ve spotted our escape and chased after us. With its speed, catching up to us wouldn’t have been a problem for it so all we could do was hide out in the walk-in fridge. We sat on some boxes, making sure to keep our noise level to a minimum.
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“So what do you think that thing is?” I asked. “An alien? Demon? Escaped government lab experiment?”
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“Fuck if I know. All I know is I want it as far away from us as possible.”
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We could hear it making a mess while searching for us.
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“Goddammit. There goes all the cleaning we did already,” Ray said.
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With how frantically it was searching, we knew it would only be a matter of time before it found us. The only thing we had to defend ourselves with was a knife that could barely cut lettuce. Needless to say, our situation looked pretty bleak. Neither of us wanted to entertain the idea we might get killed. To get my mind off this, I started pondering possible reasons the monster was after us.
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“Maybe it is a demon of some kind after all,” I said.
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“What makes you think that?”
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“Well, I know this goes without saying that this is weird but isn’t it odd that it came to our restaurant specifically? There are plenty of other places on the way here that are still open so why did it choose here?”
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Ray seemed to be considering my words.
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“Maybe it’s because we have the meats,” he said.
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Despite our predicament, we shared a small laugh at that. This seized when an enraged scream reached the walk-in fridge and caused a tense moment of silence to fall over us.
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“So uh, is there anything else that would indicate that this thing is a demon or whatever?” Ray asked after a long while.
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I thought for a moment.
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“Now that you mention it, what happened at the drive-thru might be another sign it was.”
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“How do you figure?”
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“Have you ever heard any rituals?”
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“Yeah, mostly in movies.”
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“And do you know how they have weird steps you have to follow?”
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“What are you getting at?”
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“It got me thinking, what if it driving around the restaurant was a ritual or at least part of one? I know it’s a shot in the dark. I’ve never heard of a ritual that requires someone to drive around a building but it would explain why it did all that earlier. Not mention rituals have a certain phrase or word that’s said like say...Hello/”
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Ray facepalmed when he realized what I was getting.
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“So you’re saying I may have caused...Wait. If it was already multi-legged and shit why did it even bother with the drive-thru. Couldn’t it have just smashed through the window and came in right away?”
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“That is true. Honestly, I’m not sure why it didn’t do that, to begin with. Oh well. The answer to that is something we can worry about if we survive this.”
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“Yeah, I’m feeling super optimistic about our chances. Do you want to try your phone again?”
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“What’s the point? We saw it doesn’t get any service in here. Speaking of which, why don’t you try your phone?”
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“I left it in the lobby.”
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I stopped myself from throwing my head back against the door in frustration.
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“Okay, so much for being able to call,” I said.
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“Maybe not. Why don’t you try walking around? You might get a signal that way.”
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Even though I had my doubts that this would work, I figured trying it was better than sitting around. By some miracle, I was able to get a signal while holding my phone up to the top content left of the door.
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“Holy shit. I got it. Who do you think I should call?”
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“The police might take too long. Wait, I got it. Call my phone.”
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“Why?”
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“The ring tone might distract it long enough for us to escape out the back door.”
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I could hear the monster steadily getting closer to the door. Knowing this and that I could lose the signal at any moment, I went along with Ray’s plan. It roared upon hearing his ringtone. Then from what we could hear, dashed towards his phone.
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“Go,” Ray said after pushing the walk-in fridge’s door open.
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We got so close. We were almost able to escape. Unfortunately, things didn’t exactly turn out how we wanted them to. We managed to hit into Ray’s car and even start driving off before the monster noticed we were leaving. Unbeknownst to us, however, it was smarter than we thought.
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“Holy fucking shit,” I laughed. “I’m surprised we managed to make it out of there.”
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The exit to the store was down a long hill that Ray drove along. After exiting the store he was driving along the road which the store was above. He would have of course turned left had there not been a buffer between the lanes.
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“Yeah, tomorrow I’m quitting. I’ll only go back to get my phone and then I’m never going…”
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The creature landed on Ray’s car, making the windows shatter and the windshield crack. We screamed and Ray jerked the wheel to shake it off. It leaped off his car. Only when it did could we see that we were headed straight for a tree. He crashed into it, causing the airbags to deploy and both of us to pass out.
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“Oh fuck my head,” I groggily said upon waking later.
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My blurry vision came into focus. When it did I saw that I was back in Arby’s. If that wasn’t bad enough my arms were chained to the prep table.
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“Fuck,” I yelled and heard groaning beside me.
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I turned to see Ray was coming to.
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“Alvin, is that you? Where are we?” He shook his head and took a look around. “God damn it. Where’d it even get chains? Our store doesn’t have any.”
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He yanked on his restraints in a futile attempt to free himself.
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“That’s simple,” We heard a metallic and raspy voice say. “I brought them.”
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My breath caught in my throat as the creature came into the kitchen. Its eyes were full of anger and also intense focus. Its breath had a strong copper smell to it.
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“Wait...You can talk?” I hesitantly asked.
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"No, what you’re hearing right now is an auditory hallucination. Yes, I can talk. I must admit you were almost able to escape. Almost.”
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“What do you want?” Ray asked, trying and failing to keep the fear out of his voice.
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The claws of its hand clicked against the floor as it scampered over to him. He shuddered as it caressed his face with one of its claws. I was on edge, knowing it could kill both of us at any moment. My heart nearly stopped when it made a move to stab Ray in the heart only to stop its hand inches from his chest.
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“It’s not what I want. It’s who I want,” It said. “Where is Dennis?”
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“Dennis?” I said in confusion.
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He was our general manager. What this thing wanted with him was beyond me.
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“Why do you want to know that?” Ray inquired.
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“That is not your concern. I know he was supposed to be here now so I will ask again?” Where is he?”
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It hissed out that last question, revealing its scarlet-colored sharp teeth.
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“Didn’t he have an appointment?” I asked Ray.
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“Yeah,” He replied. “That means he’s probably at home right now.”
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The creature let out a sigh of annoyance.
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“Of course he did. I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.”
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It flashed us a smile and went into the lobby. I turned to Ray.
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“Are we still clocked in?” I asked.
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“Uh. I’m not sure.”
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The monster came back into the kitchen, holding Ray’s phone.
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“What are you going to do with that?” He asked.
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“That should be obvious. I want you to call Dennis and tell him to come here.”
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“What makes you think he will?”
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“He’ll have to since the fryer is broken.”
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“But it’s not…”
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In one swift motion, it used its claws to slice into the fryer, severing the wires inside and leaving deep claw marks in it. We were too stunned to say anything.
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“And remember I can easily do that to both of you so I suggest you don’t keep me waiting.”
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“Okay fine,” Ray agreed.
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“Good to hear. Since your phone requires a thumbprint to unlock, I’ll remove your chains. Just remember if you try and escape I’ll shred you to bits and put them in between some onion rolls with bbq sauce.”
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Ray’s hands shook as he dialed Dennis’s number. The monster waited patiently as he did so. Ray’s phone rang for a while, making me worry that Dennis wouldn’t pick up. Thankfully on the eighth ring, he did.
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“Ray, why the hell are you calling me at this hour?” He asked, clearly having been woken from sleep based on how he sounded.
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“Sorry, Dennis, there’s been a bit of an emergency.”
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“Really? What is it?”
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Dennis sounded a little more awake by then.
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“A bear got into the store and wrecked the fryer.”
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“Ray, you do realize I can have you fired for trying to pull such an asinine prank on me, right?”
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“I’m not joking. I can send you a picture of it.”
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When Dennis saw the picture that Ray sent him, he went ballistic.
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“God fucking damn it,” he yelled. “How did a bear even get in the store in the first place?”
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“It came in through the backdoor while Alvin was taking out the trash. It made a pretty big mess in here. Neither of us were hurt, thankfully. Anyway, what do you want to do about it? If we call for repairs it might not be fixed before we open.”
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Dennis sighed.
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“How was a bear, able to do that much damage to it? Is that even possible? It doesn’t matter. I’ll be down in a little while.”
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Ray’s phone beeped, indicating the call had ended.
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“There I called him. Can you let us go now?” He asked.
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“Not yet. There’s something I need to get done before he gets here. You two will help me get it done faster.”
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“Why should we do that?” I asked, raising my voice to which he gave me a “Really?” look and held up one of his claws. “Oh yeah.”
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I can’t really tell you much about what he made us do since I was really tired at that point. Adrenaline only lasts for so long and when it wears off after a shift that technically lasted over ten hours your eyelids feel heavier than a sack of bricks. What I will say is that it involved us writing some runic symbols with multi-colored chalk. These symbols started from the drive-through and stretched around the store to the parking lot’s exit. After this was done, we waited for Dennis in the store.
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“Remember what I’ll do if either of you tries any funny business,” The creature said as we heard Dennis’s car pulling into the parking lot.
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He hid in the kitchen, leaving us to do the talking.
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“Okay. We’re just leading our boss to his death,” I thought. “No pressure. None at all. Oh god. There’s no way I’m sleeping tonight.”
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“God fucking dammit,” Dennis yelled from outside with a toolbox in his hand.
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“Yeah, the bear really did a number on the place,” Ray said, rubbing the back of his neck.
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“Why didn’t you tell me it broke the window?”
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“I said it made a big mess didn’t I?”
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There were a few awkward moments of silence before Dennis replied.
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“Whatever,” he said, walking past us. “I’ll see if I can fix the fryer. If not we’ll have to stay closed tomorrow.”
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The tension was high as he pushed open the door to the kitchen, muttering some curses when he saw the mess in it. I was expecting the monster to pounce on him right away. Instead, he was able to make his way to the fryer with no trouble aside from having to navigate all the clutter. I was confused at this and exchanged a glance with Ray. His expression was similar to mine and he shrugged in response.
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“I think if I can solder these wires back together, it should get the fryer working again in time for us top open. It won’t look pretty, though.”
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It was when Dennis was crouching down to get a better view of the fryer’s insides did it come out of hiding. As it turned out it was hiding in the break room. How it was able to fit in there given its size baffled me. The reason we didn’t know where it had been was due to the boxes we had left on the prep table. It was only when it was standing up could we see its head over the boxes.
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I wanted to yell for Dennis to run. I really did. Then I remembered what the monster said it’d do to us if we tried anything. Plus, the fact despite having worked there for two years, covering shifts, coming in on days off, and staying well past when I was scheduled to clock out, I was still making under eight dollars an hour. With that in mind, I didn’t really view Dennis as life risk worthy.
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“Dennis,” it said.
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He turned around. When he did I almost thought he was going to have a heart attack. He was acting as if he had a scream that wouldn’t come out. On instinct, he began swinging one of his tools in an attempt to defend himself. It grabbed the tool out of hand and crushed it using it with little effort.
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“It’s been a long time since we last met,” It said.
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Its face was only inches from his.
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“You two know each other?” I said, wondering how Dennis could possibly know something so disturbing in appearance.
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He somehow found his voice again.
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“I- I don’t know this thing. Why would I?”
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“Because you made me like this. Do you remember what happened in Vegas?”
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Dennis’s eyes lit up with recognition.
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“No...Freddy?”
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“That’s right.”
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“Does anybody want to fill us in here?” Ray asked.
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It answered, not taking its eyes off Dennis.
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“Back in the 90s he and I worked at the location in Las Vegas. What he proposed was us hitting casinos and betting the money we had saved up. We pooled it together.”
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“Did you guys lose all the money?” I asked it.
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“No. In fact, we won a lot. It all went great until he stole the earnings and left.”
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It pointed a finger at Dennis, poking his chest.
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“Wait,” I said. “Does that mean you were human before?”
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“It does. After telling my wife what happened, she left with the kids. I spent the next ten years in shelters or on the streets. One night when I was sleeping in a park I woke up to him shaking me.”
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“Who?”
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“I’m not sure exactly what he was. All I knew for sure was that he wasn’t human.”
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“How could you tell?”
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“His eyes were like a snake’s. He said one thing to me. That was all it took for me to follow him. He asked if I wanted revenge. Memorizing the ritual that turned me into this wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was tracking Dennis down and waiting for the right moment to perform it.”
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“Look. Freedy, I’m sorry,” Dennis protested.
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He tried, moving towards the door. Freddy grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off the floor.
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“Sorry would have been not running off with the money. Sorry would have been returning the money after realizing the error of your ways. Apologizing over twenty years later only when your life's on the line is a desperate ploy to save yourself from what you deserve. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised to find you working for this company again. I guess your addiction cost you most of the earnings. Isn’t that right?”
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Freddy dropped him to the floor and grabbed him by his legs.
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“Alvin, Ray, help me,” Dennis pleaded
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“I know you need us to,” Ray replied. “Thing is, we like you know, living and Freddy here said he’d kill us if we tried anything.”
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Although my opinion of Dennis was really low at that point, I also didn’t want him to get killed. With that being said, though there wasn’t really anything we could do to help him. I mean maybe we could have used the knives. However, that would be like arming ourselves with a stick while fighting a grizzly bear. We could only watch in terror at what happened next.
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Dennis began protesting that we’d be fired if we didn’t as Freddy was dragging him out the back door. Dennis’s nails scraped against the floor as he tried resisting. He grabbed the door frame and promised us two dollar raises if we helped him. Shortly later after being yanked away from the door, Dennis was put into Freddy’s car. We followed, wondering what exactly was going to happen.
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“Thanks for the help, you two,” Freddy grinned to which we could only nod in response, too frightened by his smile to say anything.
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His gnarled and sharpened teeth unnerved the hell out of me. What unnerved me, even more, was how he fit back into his car. He started to scrunch himself up. The sound of his bones snapping and popping as they rearranged themselves was clearly audible as he did this enough for him to fit into the driver's side of his car. I suspect this is how he was able to hide in the break room without anyone noticing.
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He cranked up his car and proceeded to drive to the exit starting from the drive-through. The runic symbols his car approached lit up with flame right before he drove over them. Each one was a different colored flame. We watched all of this in amazement. All the while we could see Dennis with tears streaming down his face as he banged on the back windshield as he was screaming our help.
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The last we saw of him and Freddy was when the car was driving over the last symbol. Its flame was an angry red. Right as Freddy was driving over it something appeared above his car. I can only describe his thing as kite-like. Its body only vaguely resembled a diamond shape and its head was similarly shaped.
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It regarded us briefly with its bright eyes. Honestly, the thing hurt to look at. It was as if we were seeing a living magic eye picture. I’m thinking it was probably a demon or something. Either way, I hope I’m never on the receiving end to whatever it did to Dennis. Its body stretched, enveloping Freddy’s car and it vanished, causing the runes’ flames to go out simultaneously as a result.
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“Man, I’d hate to be wherever he is now,” Ray said after some moments of awkward silence.
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“Yeah,” I agreed. Not having fully processed what I had seen not even a minute ago. “By the way, does this make us accessories to murder?”
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Ray thought for a moment.
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“Technically I think?”
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It won’t come as a surprise to learn that we quit that night. Naturally, we had to come up with an explanation for Dennis seemingly vanishing off the face of the Earth. Thankfully, our bear explanation served well. Although it was unusual behavior for one, the police couldn’t dismiss the claw marks in the fryer or the ones on the floor which meant we avoided any legal trouble. Nobody could really blame us for wanting to quit right away which saved us the trouble having to clean up everything so that’s another silver lining in addition to not getting charged with anything I guess.
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I talked with Ray sometimes about what happened after we quit. We came to the conclusion that for our safety and sanity the answers as to what happened to Dennis and what that thing was were best left unfound. Sometimes my mind wanders to the kite thing. I say demon. That’s only a guess, though. What I do know is that I will never work at an Arby’s again.
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However, I will still eat there when I can because I think their food is pretty good. Solid fries and tenders.

A slow descent into madness: an exhaustive recap of the tell all leak
Supposedly the leaked video (clocking in at 10+ hours) was the second day filming.
I watched the entire thing. This is a rambling list of the thoughts going through my mind while watching, and a fairly comprehensive timeline / summary of events, or at least the juiciest parts. I believe it becomes fairly obvious when my mental state started to decline - I was well into the 5th hour by then.
Part 1: David
The show begins an hour into the video.
A lot of time was spent on David. Asking David the same questions, hoping he’d get a clue. Instead he doubled down on his delusion.
David started in this endeavor by going on two trips with a friend over 20 years ago. He states he did not like it - 25 guys meeting 400 women in a big bar. He said it was horrible - he called the women aggressive and professional daters. He went on another trip with 10 guys meeting maybe 40 women in different cities. He describes receiving catalogs of women and selecting specific ones to meet on the trip. A friend he met on one of these trips introduced him to a web site in 2007.
Lana does not work for the web site or get paid. According to David, the web sites are US sites, they contract through the agency that vets the “girls”. He insists Lana derives no income from the web site or agency. It’s illegal for him to contact her directly? He pays in order to not be scammed.
He has known Lana for 7 years. She was too young at the start - he won’t “date” anyone under 25. He wasn’t talking to Lana for 2.5 years. He’s “dated” 30 girls in Ukraine when he wasn’t talking to Lana. He’s been to Ukraine 20 times. He’s been engaged twice to women over there (and twice in America.)
David says Lana is very poor. Has very few clothes and possessions. She only has five pairs of shoes and gets a new pair of sneakers every 3 years or so. She doesn’t speak English. He bought her an iPhone to talk directly but she doesn’t like the keyboard because of her long fingernails. She can’t talk directly to him on the computer because the agency owns the laptop and monitors activity.
He’s spent $250,000 to $300,000 on “dating” on these sites. He claims he’s a millionaire so the money is no object.
Friends of David appear, say their piece, then disappear.
Cesar appears. David had talked to Maria years ago. Said she was high maintenance.
Yolanda and Usman join in. Usman has poor connection. Usman leaves.
A wild Tom appears. Tom compliments Yolanda’s weight loss. Says he’s not hitting on her, just complimenting her.
Tom doesn’t watch much of the show. Says David is his “fast forward couple”.
Cesar says he visited Maria. Maria wasn’t happy he showed up. But she met him, they took photos, she asked to see his phone and he realized later she deleted the photos. They spent 10 days together, he got a couple of pecks on the cheek and lips? But no intimacy. Specified no tongue. Maria was “pissed off” that he showed up, refused to meet Cesar if the cameras were there. Wanted him to buy her a $500 pair of shoes and $300 dinner.
Tom asks if he packed the chocolate panties. Cesar said he took the beaded candy ones.
Yolanda said Cesar DMd her and left his phone number. Cesar says Yolanda is beautiful and that he “loves chocolate” with a Pervy laugh. But he says he was just reaching out as friends. Shaun asks Cesar if he DMs Tom. Tom confirms that he did, and that the alumni reach out to each other.
Shaun asks Yolanda if she would date Cesar, she replies with an emphatic no.
David went back to Ukraine and met Lana. They kissed, no other intimacy. He proposed, she accepted (they show clips.) Lana is still on the dating sites. David is still on the dating sites because Lana is. Lana is still on the site because that’s where her only friends are, David basically describes her as a shut in with no friends.
At one point later in the show he drops the bombshell “love has nothing to do with it.”
Ed appears. He’s holding Teddy (against the dog’s will) on his lap. Ed shouts into his mic. He yells repeatedly about David being scammed for the better part of 18 minutes.
David gets excitable. Yells about this being bullshit. Yells at Tom that Darcey was still talking to other guys.
The current status of the relationship? David thinks they’re not together. He hasn’t communicated with Lana in 6 days. But their engagement hasn’t been broken. So they’re engaged but no longer together?
Lana refuses to participate because she’s getting hate mail from guys who have seen the show accusing her of being a scammer.
Stephanie appears.
Stephanie says she thinks it’s disgusting that Lana is being discussed like she’s a commodity. Points out that their relationship is transactional. David and Ed are screaming at each other over her. Stephanie Commends David for not worrying about spending $100,000 while Ed freaked out about spending $2.
A clip of David proposing to Lana with a prop fake ring shows. David says the jeweler advises not buying a real diamond because he didn’t know her ring size. Says she wants to choose her own ring.
Return to Ed and David arguing.
Usman appears.
David is getting heated.
Bottom Line: David’s retiring to move to Ukraine, but started the K1 process.
Shaun wraps the segment with David still arguing at the 3-hour mark. Shaun leaves (possibly to drink heavily - I would be if I was her.) I forgot to note that at some point Tom made a remark to Ed about him not being able to see his toes. It was a joke, but went completely missed by everyone else.
David, Ed, Stephanie and Usman chit chat. Usman sings a bit.
Part 2: Yolanda
We resume at 3:30 with Yolanda.
Yolanda had the flu at the beginning of December. She was in a coma for a month and was on a ventilator for 3 weeks. Her kidneys and liver were failing. Her doctor now believes she had Covid-19.
She did not hear from Williams during that time. She heard from him just a couple of months ago. She didn’t tell him about her coma, he was talking about his aunt dying so it “didn’t come up.”
He didn’t reach out directly, he went through “sweetberry” (?) on Instagram to ask if he could contact her again.
Yolanda’s daughter and a PI the daughter hired join in. PI says the accounts have ties to Nigerian scammers.
Usman joins. He knows nothing about Nigerian scammers, doubts they’re Nigerian.
Usman leaves. Darcey joins. She’s wearing a platinum blonde wig, primping a bit, trying to center herself on the bed she’s sitting on. She’s nodding along to absolutely nothing, shaking her head and smiling periodically like she’s involved in a totally different conversation than we are seeing.
Daughter and PI leave. Shaun asks Darcey what she thinks about Yolanda and Williams. Darcey goes into a spiel about being a target and people on IG preying on her. Starts talking about Jesse and Tom. Says she spent a lot of money on Jesse, says she helped Tom financially and bought him clothes and gifts. Goes into a tangent of non-specific items, won’t provide a direct answer on how much she spent but finally claims she spent $2000 on Tom.
Erika appears.
Shaun tries to get back on the topic of Yolanda and Willams. Shaun asks Erika about her opinion on The Williams mystery IG account and the blackmail.
Darcey uses that opportunity to talk about being targeted by a “network of people” that was calculated by “people in different countries to target certain people around the world.”
“Maybe Nigeria was a part of it, Maybe England was a part of it”. After Tom, Darcey says she met someone who targeted her, says it was a couple she knew and Tom was a part of it, says IP addresses traced to Nottingham and there’s a network of people targeting women around the world.
Darcey claims her second time in Amsterdam she was robbed while shopping after Jesse told her to leave her passport if she was going out shopping. Later says pickpocketed. Implies that the robbery was a setup by Jesse.
Shaun tries to redirect the subject back to Yolanda and Williams.
Lisa appears.
Lisa jumps right in with her expertise about Yahoo Boys, G-Men and grooming people. Darcey drops off and Usman reappears.
Lisa’s gravelly voice takes on a fake Nigerian accent as they yell “baby love” at each other.
Lisa goes on about her social media expertise. Explains the three different cultures of Nigeria. She tells Yolanda to join the Facebook Group SSA: Scamming Scammers Action that Lisa is a big part of.
They convince Yolanda to try to call Williams on speakerphone. No answer.
Lisa is also an expert in African and Nigerian accents FYI.
Erika leaves. David reappears.
Lisa dominates the conversation. Keeps recounting conversations and events of hackings and stuff.
Lisa starts talking about Blood Rituals. Sacrifices. Money rituals. Voodoo dolls. Kidnappings. Killing people to bring luck in scamming people. They believe in black magic and juju. Lisa and Usman keep interrupting each other. Usman has never heard of this. Lisa insists this is real. Go to SSA on Facebook, all the proof is there.
Yolanda, David and Shaun are stunned silent.
Usman is trying to fact check Lisa’s completely far-fetched theories. Lisa purses her beak.
Finally, Shaun redirects.
Yolanda says she’s done. If she hears from Williams again she’s done.
Yolanda is getting DMs all the time offering to FaceTime her. David tells her to go get her Groove back in Jamaica. Yolanda and David both get DMs encouraging them to hook up since they’re both in Vegas.
We are 5 hours 10 minutes in. Let’s see a clip! We see Lana before she met David. She’s at the gym. She’s walking around Kiev in a silver puffer jacket and Nikes. She using her iPhone (with her short nails) to take pictures. She’s shopping for makeup. She’s sipping a latte in a cafe while typing on her laptop. She’s talking to a friend on her iPhone. She talks about America. She knows that you can get married quickly in Las Vegas. She tells her friend she has an exciting day tomorrow “I’m meeting an American.” Her friend asks if he’s wealthy.
Shaun points out the inconsistencies in Lana’s apparent poverty and David’s understanding of her circumstances. David says “that’s not real”.
We spent the next 10 minutes or so with Yolanda, Usman, Lisa and Shaun trying to talk some sense into David. It doesn’t work.
Shaun leaves for a break.
Ash appears. We spend the next while discussing quarantine. Ash hadn’t heard about Yolanda being sick, his eyes get wide when he hears her coma tale.
They’re talking about lockdowns and restrictions and being able to go where you want. David thinks they’re talking about Ash being able to visit the US on his Australian passport.
Lisa’s ex-husband just got out of prison.
David lives in a rental house that’s being sold in a month.
Yolanda asks if people read their tweets.
Lisa has a stalker with 25 accounts. Lisa now has her phone number and address. She’s going to have her arrested and “put charges against her”.
David gets death threats.
Back to Yolanda and the Covid.
David leaves.
Tom returns. He asks how many bottles of lube Lisa and Usman used raw dogging it. She said none - I’m guessing she just peed on him a la Dinyell.
More R-rated banter. Lisa tells Tom to ask about Usman refusing to join the mile high club.
Ash looks stunned into silence. Maybe a bit frightened. He’s retreated to his nothing box.
Usman tries to explain about the 70%, that it’s a B and a compliment. Tom asks why she paid twice the going rate for a goat.
Lots of goat talk. Peeing goat talk. Showering the goat. Walking in sandals through mud and goat shit.
Tom makes a crack about not being the only cast members showering with animals. Ash asks about Ed showering with Rosemarie’s father? Then his feed goes out.
Lisa starts talking about gross food. Tom are goat brain in Albania. Lisa starts everything with “Usman, tell them about the time...” then just talks over him to tell the story herself.
Stephanie appears.
Ed appears.
Usman leaves. Lisa tells them about the armed convoy everywhere they went. Ed wants to know about the goat. More goat tales.
7 hour 10 minute mark.
Part 3: Lisa and Usman
Shaun is back with Lisa and Usman. We lose Usman.
Lisa had surgery.
She hurt her baby toe before going to Nigeria. Ruptured a blood vessel. It swelled up in Africa. Returned to the US with a dead/dying toe. Got infected, went gangrenous, was amputated.
Usman returns.
The next segment is insufferable.
Usman says Lisa calls him a N***** frequently. Lisa screams about opening a can of worms.
Usman asks if American women are all like this.
Lisa and Usman are married but keep blocking each other.
Lisa is Usman’s first serious relationship.
Lisa freaks out about women on Usman’s comments and in his DMs.
Says she’s seen the other girls Usman dated, they’re “3 times my size”.
They fight about Trish Playtas.
Lisa talks over Usman. Yells, curses, threatens.
Enter Giant and Aba (?) after 25 minutes of toxic bullshit.
Lisa talks about getting “gangbanged”. (I think she means ganged up on, but she’s so cringe who can tell.)
Lisa has a screaming match. Hangs up because she was “mistreated and disrespected”.
Enter Lisa’s friend Nikki.
Nikki screams about disrespect for the next forever. Lisa returns.
There’s endless raspy screeching about bitches, clowns, motherfuckers and more disrespect. Fuck you. Fuck outta here.
Shaun loses all control.
Aba and Nikki scream at each other some more.
Shaun gives up. She is writing something just below the screen. I suspect it’s her resignation letter.
Finally Shaun redirects the conversation. She brings up the polygamy.
If Lisa has an egg and can tote it, Usman doesn’t want another wife. If Lisa can’t squat and hatch Usman’s offspring, he will take another wife.
Cue Lisa’s expertise on polygamy.
Clip Roll: the night before the wedding, Lisa storms off and disrespects Usman’s brothers the night before the wedding.
Lisa cackles.
Avery and Ed appear.
Usman and Lisa keep arguing.
Shaun asks Avery’s perception. Avery asks “where is the love?” All she sees is them screaming over each other and assert themselves.
Before Lisa can respond Ed jumps in.
Lisa calls the kettle black and says Avery and Ed aren’t portrayed well.
Ed started to watch the show after he decided to be on it.
Ed compliments Usman for being calm and respectful and not using any foul words.
Lisa Cackles. Ed calls her a bull in a china shop “no disrespect”. Says he thought she was the definition of a narcissist, but says she’s actually the definition of delusional.
Lisa interrupts. Usman starts singing. Lisa and Ed scream over each other. Lisa tells Avery to shut up, says she went on Ed’s live drunk and making an ass of herself. Ed keeps screaming “delusional”. Lisa calls Avery a drunk. Avery tells Usman “not all American women are like that”, Lisa rebounds with “that’s why Ash dumped your ass.” Ed tells Usman there are many more nicer women.
Ed: she treated you like a piece of shit. She treated you like a slave.
Lisa: you are a piece of shit!
Ed: you made America Sick!
Lisa: Ed Fuck You! Fuck You!
Lisa: you abused Rose to go on this show because no fucking other woman would! You fucking used her (x 5). Shut the fuck up.
More screaming over each other.
Usman begs Ed to calm down.
Lisa: you’re going to let this fucking pervert who’s got charges for sexual harassment... you’re going to let this idiot come at me with the fucking charges he’s got? This fucking pervert has been grooming women. The women are coming out of the woodwork saying Ed has molested them, he’s groomed them, and god only knows what the fuck else he did to them.
More screaming.
Ed: the internet is fake!
Lisa: Harry (producer) remove these two right now!
Lisa calls them Thing 1 and Thing 2 and demands Harry remove them.
Ed gets cut.
Lisa continues to scream at Avery about glass houses.
Tom appears.
Usman is yelling now.
Shaun tries to gain control.
Tom: I was nervous delivering that letter to Darcey but coming in to this conversation is wild!
Shaun brings up the polygamy subject again.
Lisa might move to Nigeria for The Other Way.
Shaun disappears.
Avery drops.
Lisa says “Tom, this is all for show. It’s a dog and horse, pony show I call it.”
Tom blows smoke up her ass. His idea of love is apparently jealousy, anger and disrespect. He says it’s obvious they love each other because apparently only people truly in love can be that hateful and vicious and angry to each other.
Shaun is back. Darcey appears. Usman is singing. Darcey is swaying to Soja Boy, slurring, “do it big! Lisa, Be the queen!”
Darcey’s been in the sauce.
Usman tells Lisa to cover her bra.
More second wife talk.
Tom asks a question about what kind of second wife Usman would have. Darcey says something. Shaun asks Lisa a question. Usman freaks out and screams “Tom asked me a question, let me answer the question”. This leads to Lisa screaming at Shaun about disrespecting Usman, screams at the producer “you better tell this hostess to shut her mouth” shut up! Shut up!”
Usman keeps yelling. Shaun trying to calm everyone.
Lisa: Barb! Barb! Barb! Do you hear me? It’s time to cut her now! Barb! Cut her now! Barb! Cut the fucking thing, cut it now! She’s disrespecting Usman! Fucking stop it! Stop it barb! Fuck off!
Darcey looks like a confused bobble head.
Lisa hangs up.
Usman and Darcey talk about Trish Playtas.
Darcey: things are don’t differently in America, I’ve been in the entertainment industry way before Tom, way before Jesse.
Usman starts to explain going live with Trish.
Lisa returns.
Part 4: Wrap Ups and “where does your relationship stand?”
Shaun turns to Darcey and Tom, asks where the future of their relationship is. Lisa and Usman respond loudly, not letting them talk.
Finally, Lisa and Usman are gone.
Tom: friends maybe blah blah blah great mom, good person, wish you the best.
Darcey: my journey, my daughters, my brother who passed blah blah blah don’t want toxic negativity
Ash and Avery return: same question
Ash is worried about his hair being cut off on the screen.
Ash started the journey with the intent to propose. Says he loves her. Breaking up was the hardest thing. Future is going to be looking after his family.
Ash answers the question in a concise, straight forward manner.
Just kidding. He uses a lot of words to absolutely avoid answering anything.
Avery says this is a hard question to ask someone who just separated. She trails off. I think... I don’t... I wanted... honestly...
Erika and Stephanie return: where do you stand?
Not even friends. Can they ever be friends?
Stephanie says best case is friends from afar.
Erika says they’ve been friends and fought many many times. She came in today wanting to speak and wasn’t able to do that, but doesn’t hold any hate. It’s going to be hard to see any of this in a positive light.
Erika didn’t get a change to express that she took a big step coming out to her parents then Stephanie dumped her the next morning.
Stephanie came out to her mom too apparently, but it wasn’t like Erika’s coming out (receptive and kind).
Pick up lines:
Asking what they’ve been doing during the quarantine, will air at the beginning of the show.
(Erika makes earrings!)
Shaun has to rephrase the question to Stephanie to ask specifically about... HER ILLNESS!
Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
Yolanda wrap up: no more online dating. She’s going to meet men at the market or the casino. Old school.
Ed wrap up: who cares.
Ok. I guess we do.
Shaun asks about the shower. I just can’t listen to him anymore. Then she asks about the first night they were intimate. I’m going to barf.
Ed takes full responsibility for “not the things I did, but the way I did them”. Rose is mad at him right now. She wanted to reconcile February 9.
Ed is taking a break from dating (sorry ladies!) but Rose taught him to love again and “she didn’t destroy me like my first marriage did.”
His mom is moving in with him. But she’s a nurse so hasn’t moved in yet. Ed’s mom is a nurse caring for a young child with a tracheostomy.
Ed sucks, but a round of applause for Mother Ed is deserved.
David wrap up:
David is going to retire earlier than planned because of the recession resulting from the quarantine.
Shaun asks about the first kiss.
David says something about bowling. He bowls 4 strikes with Lana.
The girls in Ukraine love bowling but don’t get to do that. So he takes them. He bets kisses for every strike he bowls.
Lana is upset over the publicity from the show. Gets physically ill in front of the camera.
If she won’t come to the US or dumps him, he will live part time in the Ukraine - 3 months at a time - to continue dating women there.
It’s over. Thank God.

Before I start, I wanted to say that I've lived in many different countries (brick/concrete buildings) & I never experienced so many problems as I have with US homes. The use of cheap plywood and wood chip, poor or no insulation, flimsy siding and roofing that either blows off in high winds or just rots away after a few year, in addition to high prices have made life a living miserable hell for the average American.
I've lived in US for the past 20 years, mainly in the west coast. I owned a nice peaceful house in Seattle area back in the 90s, things were not this expensive & I had a great mortgage rate until the collapse of housing market happened in 2008, and my mortgage rate went up from 3.25% to 6%, although I paid my mortgage onetime & didn't do anything wrong. Around the same time, my utilities, and taxes went up drastically. The house was built in the 80s and the constant rain & termite damage & carpenter ants had made the wood rot underneath the house, not to mention the leaky roof & many other issues with plumbing, mainly to do with wood-structured houses.
Long story short, my house was peaceful, but because of high taxation, crime, constant rain & cold, & other problems like high utility & mortgage rate, I made a decision to sell the house and move to California.
I rented a two bedroom luxury apartment unit in Orange County around 2015 for $2500/months, but everyday there was an issue with the management, constant noise of performance cars revving their engine, garbage trucks, leaf blowers & landscapers, you name it ....
After a year, I finally got sick & tired of high rent & high taxation in Cali & moved to Nevada, Las Vegas. The apartment I moved in was ok for a few months until a loud motorcyclist moved next door to me. The guy worked all odd hours and he used to love revving his bike at nights, like 12 am, 3 am, 5 am, multiple times, when he commuted back & forth to work every day ... Calling the police, talking to Management or leaving nice notes on his bike, none of them worked, until I was forced to move out.
Everybody said rent a house, apartments are crap. oh how little I knew
So I ended up renting a home (paying $2100) to have more privacy & peace of mind. The house was fine for a few years (except the loud neighbors kids screaming & swearing, dogs barking all day & night, neighbors doing landscaping at 8am Sunday morning, etc etc), but I still put up with it, at least I had few hours of quiet at nights & I used white noise machine to drown out some of the noise. Until one day, out of the blue, the house started making weird noises, mainly coming from the ceiling/attic. It started with one loud knock/snap every morning at 8:30 am, and over a week period, the knocks went from one loud one to 20 knocks a day. Within a month, things became so bad that every time the sun would come up or go down, the roof would pop like 200 times. At nights, I would hear a lot of loud banging/popping noises coming from chimney and the attic. I let the landlord know right away (which they didn't believe me at first), I even paid for pest control (we thought it maybe rats or some other animal in the attic), which no trace of any animal was found in the attic. We brought roofers, inspectors, you name it, no one had any clue what was going on. Things got so bad that I couldn't sleep more than couple of hours every night, waking up with a very loud knock or bang, sometimes every 30 min. I lived in that house for 3.5 years, and didn't hear a beep from the structure of the place, so I have no clue how a building that quiet could go suddenly crazy & it was so frustrating that no one had any clue what was going on . Haunted house?
I was forced to move out of the lease & find another place. I ended up living in another house (1,900/mo) that had severe zapping issues (the floors were made out of cheap laminate & they wouldn't let you ground), so every time I touch a door knob or kitchen appliances or doors or windows, I would get zapped like crazy. I also would hear loud banging from pipes when I took a shower & once every two weeks I would hear loud banging from the roof/siding of the house. But at least the structural noise of this house wasn't constant, like the other property. But a few months to my lease, I discovered that the house is foreclosed and the owner has no intention to fix anything, so I moved to another single family home in a very nice area & gated community (paying $2,300/mo).
Oh boy, renting this new place was probably one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. I moved there around December last year & the first night I slept there I realized that I have made a giant mistake. There were LOUD snaps/pops once every 30 min all over the house, I mean snaps as loud as gut shots that could be heard overheard all over the house, even in the closet or bathroom, day & night. It wouldn't go away. When the heater ran, the snaps & knocks would become so loud, as if wood is splitting in half on top of your head. No amount of white noise or ear plug could block that noise. I work from home & my clients could hear the loud snaps over the phone & often asked me what is that loud noise in the background and if someone is shooting.
Because I had moved twice in less than 3 month I ended up putting up with it & staying there for 7 month, I have a background in structural/civil engineering, so I thought I could bring inspectors & could figure out a way to minimize the constant loud popping & snapping noises. I talked to PM & they send people who had no idea what was going on, charging the owner thousands of dollars in roof & pest control. I paid out of pocket myself, bringing contractors to screw the ceiling drywall, in case the nails holding the ceiling boards were moving in & out of 2x4s. We tried re-screwing the ceiling in one room & to my surprise it made the popping noises a lot worse & even more often. By then I knew the property has serious foundation & possibly truss uplift issue. I even got covid during this whole mess around January & not sleeping, constant stress & loud noises made my illness prolong for 4 months Dry coughs, severe diarrhea, shortness if breathe, severe joint & muscle pain & high fever. At that time I was so devastated & all I wanted was to sleep & I couldn't I couldn't even go rent a hotel room for a few days, since around March the Gov had shut everything down, so I was stuck inside a big house that I couldn't sleep in any of the rooms.
Eventually when I recovered from covid, I thought I've had enough of homes with severe structural/roof issues & it's time to go back to condo/apartment living. At least, they wouldn't have serious foundation/roof issues, right? I moved to this condo a few months ago & of course it's another wood-structure multi-family home made with flimsy roof & floors. What I didn't know about this building is the fact that there is absolutely NO insulation in between the units, over the floor & walls that I share with other neighbors, NON, whatsoever, so I could hear normal conversation, dogs barking, constant door slamming, banging noises from other units. Also because of covid, some neighbors work from home, sometimes repairing heavy machinery & auto parts! Imagine , only sharing a thin plywood with the unit underneath and the loud obnoxious neighbor next door! Another issue with this condo is the shaky floor, when I walk around my unit or neighbors walk around their own unit, my floor shakes violently & ends up shaking my heavy coach as well as the bed. If I'm sleep & the noise doesn't wake me up right away, the shaking of the floor definitely would. I never thought I could hear this much from units downstairs or on the side, because I had lived in other apartments before, and I had never experienced this level of noise traveling up from downstairs neighbors or the hellish neighbors on the side.
My neighbor on the side works night-shift, I hear her coming home, all odd hours (like 1am or 4am, every day- it's Vegas so people work odd hours at the casino), I hear everything, when she is taking a shower, slamming the hell out of her bathroom door, her dogs barking, walking around her unit, I've tried to reason with them & talk to them to at least not slam doors 10 times an hour day & night, but had no luck. Unreasonable people can't be reasoned with. As a matter of fact, I think they are doubling down on their door slamming & banging noises. My neighbor downstairs also has a habit of slamming every door & drawer & leaves the house at 7 am (every morning) & my floor shakes violently every time she goes in & out of her building, which is 5 or 6 times a day
I have moved 4 times, in less than a year. I lived in single family homes as well as condos that were uninhabitable, because of poor construction & use of cheap plywood, if these structures were built with concrete/brick, none of these issues would have happened. Trust me, I have lived in many concrete/brick structures before, my first apartment in Seattle was an old building made out of brick & you still may hear loud trucks or bikes, but there is no way you would hear your neighbors talking in normal voice, taking a shower, wiping their ass, or closing their door.
This is so depressing that we pay so much in mortgages or rent in America, yet we have to live in such horrible living spaces that are uninhabitable. American houses often have the appearance of having brick walls, however these are just stuck onto the outside of the plywood walls giving a false sense of quality and strength. I understand that using flimsy wood is much cheaper than using stone, brick or concrete, but this is not really evidenced by the prices of houses. Even multi-million dollar new houses in the States are being built from the same cheap plywood, poor insulation, shabby roofing material as cheaper houses. The fact that walls are paper thin and conversations can be heard a room away is nothing strange in American houses. I'm not even gonna mention horrible loud structural problems/noises that no one has any clue how to fix (god help you if something goes wrong inside the attic), rotting walls, water getting into insulation, pest issues, termite damage or leaking roofs.
You will be surprised that the average material cost (cost of wood chip) for a cheap flimsy American home is around $5,000, but since we live in a mafia state, by the time the city, the contractors, & the utility companies are all done with you, you will end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some case millions of dollars for a home that's gonna end up having too many problems, in just 10 years or less.
Sorry for the long rant, i know this has been a tough year for many with people dying alone of covid, but I'm penniless, sleepless, stressed & exhausted & I can't bare the idea that I have to move again soon , to another wood chip rental, I wonder what kind of a horror is gonna be waiting for me there? costing me thousands of dollars in rent & moving cost.
> I have a masters degree in civil/construction engineering. I used to do cost analysis for different projects & I know the material cost, for just the framing of a house (the cost of timber & plywood) is around $5,000, I have worked with many reputable construction companies all over the NW. All of them used the same cheap crappy plywood, even for the construction of multi-million dollar homes.
> I have owned & rented many homes/condos, town homes/apartments all over US (mainly in NW), new & old. I understand there are individuals who have ulterior motives & are doubling their already doubled profit by enriching themselves off of consumers. But these of the realities of wood-frame residential buildings: the use of weak beams, cheap plywood, poor insulation, flimsy siding and roofing that either blows off in high winds or just rots away after a few year, termite damage, carpenter ants that chew and push out wood by finding crawl spaces underneath your house & you wouldn't even know until half of the house is gone, high expenses regarding pest control (over the years, I've spent at least 20K regarding pest control - rats, squirrels or ants, that will chew the wood & will find a way to get inside your attic/basement again & again) ... Rotting walls, water getting into insulation, moisture damage & mold, termites, leaking roofs, etc, etc. Houses built of plywood and low quality beams will not last all that long. Using staple guns to hold plywood to beams that ends up shabby. Contractors using the cheapest materials to throw up buildings as soon as they can in order to maximize profits. For some reason this shabby building tradition has become the norm in US. Simply using concrete, brick or stone will prevent all these issues related to wood.
> If the price of these flimsy wood-frame buildings were as cheap as the cost of its materials, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. At least, it's not costing consumers an arm & leg. The argument I've heard over & over is that we can't afford to build homes made of concrete or brick in US, but this is a gross lie. Even multi-million dollar homes are built with the same material as the cheap ones & how come other countries can afford to build homes made of concrete & still make money? There are so many newer technologies like building homes with precast concrete, so cost effective because they are modular homes (many parts can be per-manufactured) & are a LOT MORE cost effective & durable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZxskJojRLY
> Loud popping/snapping noises in wood structured homes are a recent phenomenon, which I believe has occurred as a result of rapid changes in the climate. Super dry or humid & hot summers depending on which side of the country you live in, long cold winters, constant rain, moisture & high winds are taking their toll on wood-frame buildings. Three out of the three recent homes I lived in had severe issues to do with constant loud snapping/popping noises coming from the structure of the house, mainly from ceiling joists as well as walls. Never experienced this issue ever before & here is a video that even new constructions are not immune to this disease: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c07aIV-ddR0
Buyers be aware, there is no way to know that a property has this particular issue until you spend a week sleeping & living at the property. I know homes with this problem that were sold & the problem was concealed & the inspector never found anything wrong, because the issue is hidden from naked eyes, check out truss uplift & the effect of rapid changes in the climate on wood-frame buildings. I believe more & more buildings are gonna end up having this issue in the near future. This issue is NOT related to normal expansion/contraction of the wood, these noises are not normal home noises, they are as loud as gunshots, happen all the time, & no one can even figure out what is going on. The building you buy might not have this issue right away, but there is no guarantee that within a few years, you will not end up with this nightmare.
> I have lived in homes as old as 300 yrs old, in Germany & UK, built from brick/store & I tell you they are as solid as a rock. They are warm & cozy during winter & cool & pleasant during summer. As far as sound insulation goes, concrete, brick & stone have high mass density, and they muffle & dampen sound quite a bit, whereas wood echos the sound by reverberating it & transmitting it all over. In fact, stealth plans are mainly made of wood, in order to reduce reflection/emission of radar, so they CANNOT be detected, where as signals would bounce off other solid materials. Knock on a wall made of wood & see how it feels hollow & void, whereas concrete or brick will dampen the echo quite a lot. If you punch a concrete wall, you will end up breaking your hand, where as you can easily punch a hole in a plywood wall & if you live in a multi-family home, you may end up in your neighbors unit.
Many US houses or buildings will not be around, let's say 500 years from now, as a result of a wasteful consumerism system & a mindset of bulldozing the old & buying something new, even if it's cheaper quality. All great civilizations have left structures for us to admire: Rome, Egypt, Greece, Byzantium, Incas, Aztecs etc. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that American civilization will leave any impressive physical structures behind.

Vegas is about to shut down again and for some insane reason CZR is pretty much at pre-covid valuations. Not many people are visiting for vacation and conferences are totally dead, so mid-week isn't bringing in any money but they've got huge employee payrolls to pay.
Cases continue to spike in Nevada as well as around the country, only a matter of time before some sort of additional restriction on casinos and this will certainly impact CZR.
From today: https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/new-nevada-sets-new-record-for-hospitalizations-reports-nearly-900-new-covid-19-cases/
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/conronavirus-las-vegas-casinos-new-threat-regionals

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY:

• Observer Rewind - 1987 by SaintRidley
  
• The Complete Wrestling Observer Rewind 1991-2001
  

1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	1-28-2002
2-4-2002	2-11-2002	2-18-2002	2-25-2002

NOTE: I mentioned it in the first post of 2002 but a lot of y'all are aware that a few months ago, SaintRidley picked up the Observer Rewind reins after I stopped and started doing his own recaps from the 1980s. Well, he's been doing great work with it and he just finished posting the year of 1987. I went ahead and added it the Previously" section up there. ↑↑↑ Just wanted to make sure to bring it to everyone's attention.

• It's been awhile since we've had major PPVs going head-to-head with each other, but it happened this week when WWA aired it's 2nd ever PPV live from Las Vegas, going head-to-head with PRIDE. Dave recaps the history of head-to-head PPV battles, specifically the WWF vs. Crockett war in the late-80s. How Vince McMahon created Survivor Series specifically to run it in direct competition with Crockett's first ever PPV, Starrcade 87. The resulting loss of needed revenue was a huge reason why Crockett eventually had to sell the company to Ted Turner and, in retrospect, set into motion everything that led to WCW's eventual death last year. He goes on to recap how Royal Rumble was created and aired on free TV to go head-to-head with Crockett's next PPV attempt, Bunkhouse Stampede. Then Crockett responded by creating the first Clash of the Champions and airing it against Wrestlemania IV. Not sure PRIDE vs. WWA is up there in the same league as that PPV battle. Which, to be fair, Dave admits it's not the same thing.
  
• Anyway, the PRIDE show was among the greatest events of all time, one of the very few times in the history of the Observer that a show got a unanimous 100% thumbs up vote on the reader poll. It aired in Japan live and in the U.S. on a bit of a delay, with the matches edited in a different order. In Japan, the card was headlined by Vanderlei Silva vs. former UWFI wrestler Kiyoshi Tamura, which was an excellent fight that Silva won. In the U.S., the show was built around Ken Shamrock vs. Don Frye in the main event (in Japan, it aired 3rd from last) and the 2 men had an absolute war that should shut up critics who say both are too old. Shamrock lost a split-decision in a fight that Dave thinks should have legitimately been a draw. (This fight is considered to this day one of the all-time wars in MMA history. An utter slobberknocker. Neither fighter was the same again afterward and Frye has said that the damage Shamrock did to his legs in this fight led to him later getting addicted to painkillers). After the fight, Shamrock went over to ringside and hugged his girlfriend Alicia Webb, who you may remember as Ryan Shamrock. The girl that played his sister in WWF.
  

WATCH: Don Frye vs. Ken Shamrock - PRIDE 19: Bad Blood (2002)

• And then there was WWA. A low-budget, amateur-ish event, marred by bad production and no-shows. Not that the crowd would even know, because most of the lineup was never even announced ahead of time anyway. The scheduled main event of Jeff Jarrett vs. Randy Savage didn't happen because Savage held promoter Andrew McManus up for more money at the last minute. Savage originally had agreed to work the show in exchange for a 30% ownership stake in the company, which was agreed upon. But three days before the show, Savage upped the ante, saying he wanted the 30%, plus an extra $50,000 in cash. At that point, they started haggling back and forth to try to strike some kind of deal. Ownership got pulled off the table and then Savage asked for a flat $250,000 fee to work the show. WWA turned that down and came back with a flat $150,000 offer instead. Savage turned that down and at that point, everything broke down. For what it's worth, a lot of the lower card wrestlers on the show worked for $300. Last second attempts to bring in Sting to save the show didn't work either. Road Dogg was also supposed to appear on the show but couldn't because of legal issues. Word is he got arrested 2 days before the show in Florida on a probation violation. As a result, the PPV was headlined by Jeff Jarrett defending the WWA championship against Brian Christopher.
  
• The whole show was simply an embarrassment. The production was completely minor league and the crowd was totally dead for all these long matches with guys nobody cares about. The in-ring work was fine, but the booking often made no sense, with overbooked three-ways and 6-way undercard matches that ended up being more clusterfuck than match. It was also one of those Russo-type things where the commentary team made endless inside-references that only the hardcore internet fans would get. But then again, this show only drew hardcore internet fans anyway, so why not? They also constantly made reference to WWF, which came across as desperate and sad. In particular, Larry Zbyszko was given the chance to cut a meandering promo, challenging Vince McMahon to a fight over some unspecified grievance from 20 years ago and criticized them for having Chris Jericho as their world champion. Dave thinks Zbyszko was actually angling for a job from WWF by trying to start his own angle and says this promo was basically his job application. And he thinks it was pretty pathetic. Backstage, the disorganization was apparent and most even within the company saw what a mess it was and have already given up on the promotion as a lost cause. Dave said this PPV made it clear that nobody will be challenging WWF anytime soon.
  
• Other notes from the WWA Revolution PPV: yes, in case you're wondering, that Japanese man sitting behind the commentary table all night who very briefly (literally blink and miss it) got involved in the Scott SteineDisco Inferno tussle was indeed NJPW star Hiroyoshi Tenzan and yes, they flew him all the way from Japan (and had him bring his ring gear just in case), only to have him do almost nothing and never be acknowledged on camera. Eric Bischoff was backstage, as a guest of Ernest Miller. Bischoff laughed off any questions about going to WWF but said the ol' "never say never" shtick. The crowd was about 2,800, most of them freebies and they were desperately giving away tickets in the casino before the show. During the first match, the building looked practically empty so they quietly began moving everyone closer to ringside to pack the area around the ring to make it look presentable for TV. Opening 6-way match featuring all the hottest indie stars was a sloppy mess, with too people flying everywhere trying to get their shit in and the cameras missing most of it. Bret Hart came out and cut a long, rambling promo before announcing Brian Christopher was replacing Randy Savage in the main event, to zero crowd response. By the 5th match, people in the crowd could be seen leaving, never to return. Jerry Lynn showed up, interrupting an Eddie Guerrero interview, at which point Dave mentions, oh yeah by the way, the WWF released Jerry Lynn 2 days before the PPV. Considering WWF has been talking about reviving the cruiserweight division after Wrestlemania, Dave doesn't know why they'd get rid of a guy who could be one of the best in the division. Anyway, yeah, this show sucked. Here ya go, enjoy.
  

WATCH: WWA: The Revolution PPV - 2002

• WWF's latest investor conference call took place and wasn't particularly newsworthy, but there's some stuff to note. The new agreement with DirecTV is until August of 2003 and is under the exact same terms they were operating under last year, which means WWF gained nothing while losing an estimated $4.4 million in revenue over the last few PPVs. Following the brand split, WWF plans to run 16 PPVs per year, and increasing the price by an extra $5. Linda McMahon said Wrestlemania 18 has sold 58,000 tickets as of the time of the call, for a record gate of $3.96 million, breaking the record set by last year's WM. Dave goes through all the numbers and for the most part, in comparison to previous quarters, almost everything is down. Which is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention because WWF is clearly on the downswing. Linda also said they're currently interviewing new writers and are hoping to double their writing staff, which Dave thinks is a terrible idea (and time has damn sure proven him correct). Finally, Linda was also asked how the purchase of the WCW library has benefited the company, which Dave thinks is an interesting question since revenues have declined since then and the Invasion angle flopped so hard that it killed any brand value the name "WCW" may have had. Linda talked about the value of the tape library but Dave points out that it's been a year and WWF has done practically nothing with that library (of course, in the end, they found ways to monetize that WCW library and it more than paid for itself).
  
• In his first match as an official member of the AJPW roster, Keiji Muto lost the Triple Crown championship to Toshiaki Kawada in a match nearly a year in the making, before a sold out crowd at Budokan Hall. He hasn't seen it yet, but the match was reported to Dave as a near-classic (he ends up giving it 4.5 stars). The other 2 NJPW stars who jumped ship, Kendo Kashin and Satoshi Kojima, also worked their first official AJPW matches. Kaz Hayashi, formerly a member of Jung Dragons in WCW and who worked in WWF's developmental until asking for his release a few weeks ago, also debuted on the show and will be part of Muto's faction.
  

WATCH: Keiji Muto vs. Toshiaki Kawada - AJPW 2-24-2002

• Obituary time for Swede Hanson, who worked primarily in the Carolinas and had a brief run in the WWF as a cult favorite babyface in the early 80s. Sadly, he passed away in a mental hospital because he had advanced Alzheimer's disease which made it impossible for his family to handle him and they had him put away. Jeez, that's rough. He also had a litany of other health problems. Dave gives an in-depth history of his career in the 60s and 70s as a heel in the Carolinas before talking about the WWF run. Vince Sr. brought him in as a monster heel to challenge Bob Backlund, and Dave thinks someone else must have backed out at the last moment or something. By this time (in 1979), Hanson was well past his prime and hadn't been a major star anywhere in years but he was a big dude and so they brought him in to face Backlund and they actually sold out Madison Square Garden with Backlund vs. Hanson in the main event (though Dave says Bruno Sammartino working the undercard sure didn't hurt). The match sucked and almost immediately after, he became a jobber in the WWF, but Vince Jr, on commentary, just loved to call him "Rawboned Swede Hanson" and the "Rawboned" nickname caught on. Vince said it with such gusto that Hanson briefly became a cult favorite jobber from it and the crowd turned him babyface at damn near 50 years old. It led to a brief career resurgence and him having a small role in the Backlund/Billy Graham feud for the title before he finally faded into oblivion.
  
• Mark Henry won the "world's strongest man" competition at the Arnold Classic bodybuilding and fitness event. Henry has been out of WWF for the past 2 months training for this competition and the training paid off, with Henry capturing first place and making a legitimate viable claim to his "strongest man in the world" moniker. During the event, Henry became the first man in 50 years to cleanly press the 366 pound Apollon wheel weight above his head. In another event, he carried an 800 pound block of bolted together railroad ties up a 40-foot ramp faster than the other competitors. For his victory, Henry won a $75,000 Humvee and some other cash prizes. Over the same weekend, he also won another $1,000 in a contest where he was able to lift an inch dumbbell (which weighs 172 pounds) to his shoulder with one arm. There's a bunch of other weightlifting stuff here, but you might be surprised to find out....I dunno shit about any of this. I got winded lifting pizza to my mouth earlier. Mark Henry strong.
  

WATCH: Mark Henry at the Arnold Classic 2002

• Another obit for former wrestler, promoter, and father of 80s valet Baby Doll, Nick Roberts who died of pancreatic cancer. Once again, a bunch of details and stories about someone I've never heard of in wrestling history that Dave somehow knows everything about. I know I've said it before, but these obituary pieces are some of the greatest reasons for subscribing to the Observer.
  
• Masahiro Chono says he wants to take NJPW in a more serious, realistic direction. No sports entertainment gaga nonsense, they want it to be like a real sports product. So much so that, in his own match with Manabu Nakanishi at the last big NJPW show, Chono wouldn't even bounce off the ropes, saying that it's not credible and no one would do that in a real fight. Ah yes, Inoki's gonna love this.
  
• FMW wrestler Kodo Fuyuki has said he plans to try to keep the promotion running after it was announced it was folding last week. FMW still has 8 shows scheduled for this month and Fuyuki said he plans to try to run them himself and keep the company going (no such luck buddy).
  
• Japan Today, an American newspaper that covers Japanese news daily, had a story on Antonio Inoki battling diabetes. It says he was first diagnosed in 1982, which Dave says is right around the time Inoki's in-ring work dropped off considerably when he lost his stamina. The story said for the last 20 years, Inoki has eaten a ridiculously healthy diet and is in better health now at 59 than he was then at 39.
  
• Dave said he got tons of positive feedback on the debut of RF Video's Ring of Honor promotion in Philadelphia. The show was sold out in advance, was well organized, and had several really good matches. They limited a lot of the mistakes that most indie companies fall victim to, such as too many matches, too many run-ins, too much mic work, too many guys trying to do too much stuff, etc. Steve Corino and CZW announcer Eric Gargiulo did commentary. Eddie Guerrero faced Super Crazy in an excellent match and the main event was a three-way featuring Low-Ki, Christopher Daniels, and American Dragon that Dave has heard rave reviews for. And thus, ROH was born.
  

WATCH: Highlights from ROH's debut show in 2002

• Vic Grimes took the most insane bump of all time at an XPW event before 1,500 fans in Los Angeles. Grimes was facing New Jack in a scaffold match said to be at least twice as high up as the fall Mick Foley took off the Hell in a Cell. The ring below had tables stacked 4-high to break his fall, but Grimes ended up missing most of the tables when New Jack overshot him. Perhaps on purpose. Grimes missed all but the corner tables at the edge of the ring before coming down on the corner turnbuckles. After the bump, they tried to rush fans out of the arena since it was almost 1am and gave many the impression Grimes life was in danger. But he was surprisingly okay and was walking around backstage after, although he was definitely banged up. Grimes was really nervous about the bump earlier in the day, as you might expect and Dave says he's pretty damn lucky he didn't miss the ring because he almost certainly would have died if he took that bump straight to the floor. Elsewhere on the show, there was a match where porn star Lizzy Borden (wife of XPW promoter Rob Black) faced another porn star, Veronica Caine, in a match that was supposed to end only when someone was stripped totally naked. But right before it happened, the lights went out and the women were rushed out of the ring and when fans realized they'd been ripped off, they were so pissed the arena feared a riot. (Anyway, here's the bump and yeah....Grimes very easily could have died from this. No mention from Dave on the fact that New Jack also tazed him before this)

WATCH: Air Grimes goes long

• Shane Douglas is expected to take over as XPW booker when his WCW contract with Time Warner expires next month.
  
• Former WCW journeyman wrestler Chip Minton's primary career was bobsledding. He only wrestled in WCW occasionally while doing that, primarily as a jobber on the C-shows. Minton was part of the US bobsledding team in both the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics and was planning to compete this year, but failed to make the team. Soon after that, he failed a steroid test and has been suspended from the sport for 2 years.
  
• Remember a couple weeks ago, it was mentioned that Roddy Piper was in a car accident but he was playing down how serious it was? Turns out....very serious. Piper suffered 4 broken ribs, one of which punctured his liver and nearly killed him. He also suffered severe back injuries and shattered his ankle. Piper was taken to the hospital and was near death but obviously, he managed to pull through and has still been making all his appearances for XWF in recent days. (Yeah I think in Piper's autobiography, he dedicates the book to the guy who saved his life by rushing him to the hospital and even says he was clinically dead for a few moments. Then again, Piper was like a lot of those old time guys and was prone to exaggeration, so who knows).
  
• Eric Bischoff is teaming up with Mark Burnett, the producer of the hit show Survivor, to produce a MMA reality show called Skien. From Dave's understanding, it will basically be a reality show with K-1 kickboxers leading up to a PPV event. (Here's an article about it from Variety at the time, but this ends up going nowhere).
  

WATCH: Variety article on Eric Bischoff's new reality show

• Notes from Raw: only one thing really notable, they filmed a segment at referee Tim White's bar The Friendly Tap. The bar really is owned by White and WWF pretty much always films angles there when they're in town (Providence, RI). This time, the skit featured the APA going into the bar to drink and the bar was filled by a bunch of gay men and drag queens (played by a bunch of wrestlers from indie promotion Chaotic Wrestling) while the APA guys acted all grossed out by it all. Then Billy and Chuck attacked them. Dave thinks this played on all the typical homophobic stereotypes and he seems pretty irritated by it. Anyway, among the wrestlers from Chaotic were Todd Sinclair (better known now as ROH's senior official), Rich Palladino (ring announcer for Beyond now) and John Walters (indie wrestler and former ROH Pure champion).
  
• Next week's Smackdown hasn't aired yet but it was taped and Dave has details. Notably, this is the episode where Austin chases down the NWO and tries to shoot them with a net gun. Dave says this was a mess, with the gun going off but no net being fired from it and they'll have to fix the whole thing in post-production. It went horribly when they filmed it and it aired for the live crowd and it killed the crowd and basically forced them to improvise on the spot (on one of the Something To Wrestle podcasts, Bruce Prichard tells this story and how frustrated they were with this net gun being a piece of shit). This episode also featured Stephanie yelling at Chris Jericho for getting her the wrong hand lotion and Booker T and Edge feuding over a Japanese shampoo commercial. (Rock/Hogan was great, but man, the build for everything else at Wrestlemania 18 suuuuuucked.)
  
• Prototype won the OVW title from Leviathan at the latest OVW tapings. After the match, they did an angle to set up David Flair as the #1 contender for the title. Prototype's only singles loss in OVW came last week, when Flair beat him, so there ya go (this video covers ALL of that. The FlaiCena match, the Leviathan match, the post-match angle, etc).
  

WATCH: Prototype vs. Leviathan for OVW title - 2002

• Wall Street Journal did an article talking about the decline in Smackdown's ratings, saying they were down 28% from last year and down 42% from the year before that. The article blamed it on Smackdown changing networks. Here's the thing though....it hasn't. Raw changed networks in 2000. Smackdown has been on UPN since its debut. Also, UPN has grown overall in ratings while Smackdown has declined. So....no. It's just because the show sucks now.
  
• Charlie Haas, fresh off returning to the ring and winning the HWA title after the death of his brother, tore his ACL this week. He just had surgery and will be out 4-6 months. Rough few months for that dude.
  
• A Washington newspaper did a story on James Dudley, who you may know as....WWF Hall of Famer James Dudley and little else. On-screen, he's never really done much. But Dave says Dudley started working for Vince Sr. back in the 1940s, when Sr. was a boxing promoter, and was essentially his Vince Sr.'s driver and assistant. Dudley did a lot of odd jobs for the company during those early years, working ticket booths and stuff like that, but to most people, he was just kinda known as Vince Sr.'s limo driver. So when he was indicted into the WWF Hall of Fame a few years ago, it was a pretty controversial decision among a lot of people, given that someone like Bruno Sammartino isn't in, by the company's limo driver is. Anyway, before his death, Vince Sr. made Vince Jr. promise to take care of Dudley and keep him on the payroll. So for the last 18 years or so, even though he doesn't work for the company, Vince McMahon has continued to pay him a salary. He also bought him a new car as a gift some years back.
  
• Billy and Chuck's recent tag team title win makes Billy Gunn the most decorated tag team wrestler in WWF history, as he's now held the tag titles 9 times (3 as part of the Smoking Gunns, 5 as part of New Age Outlaws, and now once with he and Chuck). The previous record was Mick Foley, with 8. (to the best of my research, if we're only talking WWF/WWE tag title reigns, that record is now held by Edge).
  
• USA Network CEO Barry Diller took part in a lecture at Syracuse University and talked about losing the WWF to TNN. When asked why it happened, he responded, "Because I'm a dope." He said he didn't fight hard enough to keep the WWF and admitted the loss hurt, but also said it may have been the best thing for them in the long-run because pro wrestling doesn't really fit the direction they're planning to take the network. He said wrestling fans came for wrestling and left immediately after it was over and there was never any cross-over fans who stuck around to watch the next show or anything like that. He said they could never figure out what to connect wrestling to within the rest of their properties.
  
• WWF held a try out camp in Cincinnati and reportedly, nobody was particularly impressive, including AJ Styles. The knock on Styles was that he's average looking and too small. Wrestler Sonny Siaki was said to be the most impressive, but he also rubbed people the wrong way with his attitude so probably not gonna make the cut this time. Matt Morgan, who was on the Tough Enough casting special last season got a tryout and since he has no formal training, he was pretty awful but he's big so Dave seems to think he'll get a chance anyway. The other one they were impressed by was a woman named Erin Bray, who was one of the final 25 picked for the original Tough Enough. But then some other contestants spotted her out on a date with one of the show's judges and they threw a fit, which resulted in Bray not making the final 13. Another wrestler, Travis Tomko, is a guy who has worked some indies and is a former bodyguard for Limp Bizkit ("Tomko, gimme a beat." "No.")
  
• Rock was a presenter at the NAACP Awards and Dave thinks he looked pretty great for a guy who was almost murdered in an ambulance by the NWO a few days earlier. Cheeky Dave is just the best.
  
• Speaking of, Dave throws in a random paragraph to backhandedly shit on Kevin Nash. For years, people in the business joked that Lex Luger made the most money with the least ability or drawing power of anyone ever in wrestling. Dave says it's gotta be Nash. For example, Nash is not wrestling and is only going to be in Hall's corner for the match at Wrestlemania (his knees really are giving him problems), but he has been promised that he's going to get the same type of payoff as if he was the guy in the match working with Austin in the semi-main event. Not to mention all the huge contracts he signed in WCW, or how he got a huge-by-WWF-standards deal here, plus got Vince to cave to almost all his other demands regarding schedule and bringing back Scott Hall, among other things. (I mean, while Dave is being kind of a dick here, I don't think he's really wrong either. When it comes to top draws in the history of the business, Nash isn't anywhere near even the top 10 or 20. And he's never exactly been a great wrestler. But since the 90s, Nash always managed to make sure he gets PAID like he's in that upper echelon. Nash is one of those very few wrestlers who isn't entranced by the fame or the fake accolades. He treats wrestling for what it is: a business. It's the way they pay their mortgages and buy groceries, just like you and me at our jobs. I love it. I laugh my ass off every time I hear "Brock Lesnar signed a huge new contract to only work 6 matches a year." Good for him. I hope he gets even more money for less dates next year. You should always know your worth and never let your employer take you for anything less. Nash has always been one of the guys to do that and he's probably going to die comfortably in a nice house while these other guys from his era are still clinging to fame at 60 years old doing $300 indie shows on crippled knees. Anyway, that's my soapbox). Dave seems to feel the same way and admits, love him or hate him, you gotta give Nash credit for being one of the smartest guys in the biz.
  
• Fear Factor featuring the Hardyz, Lita, Test, Molly Holly, and Jacquelyn aired this week. First they had to climb up a rope ladder hanging from a helicopter over the river and they all made it up except Jeff Hardy who slipped near the top and fell (knowing Jeff, he probably purposely let go so he could take the big fall for fun). Lita also got eliminated for being the slowest one up the ladder. Next they had to chug a gross drink that included bile, rooster testicals, spleen, and some animal brains all blended together. Molly Holly almost vomited after one sip and was out. Jackie and Matt succeeded. Test refused to even try. So then it came down to Matt vs. Jackie and they had to walk across the tops of high poles and move flags around. Matt Hardy ended up winning the whole thing and won $50,000 for charity.
  

WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 1
WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 2
WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 3

• Sunday Night Heat is being converted into one of the B-shows like Metal and Jakked. Awhile back, they started airing Heat from the WWF New York restaurant but the production costs of that were high. So in a cost-cutting move, they're just gonna tape dark matches and throw them on Heat the same way they do those other shows, featuring all the nobodies that can't ever get TV time on the main shows.
  
• As mentioned last week, Scott Hall has been taking a drug called Antabuse, which makes him violently sick when he drinks or even smells alcohol. It caused him to get sick after Raw last week when Austin poured beer all over him in a bit after the cameras were off. Hall has said he is clean and has been clean for awhile, except for the incident a couple weeks ago where he fell off the wagon. Others are skeptical and question if Hall only takes his medication on TV days and needless to say, there's some doubt here.
  
• Everywhere he goes, Brian Christopher has been telling people he's coming back to WWF after Wrestlemania, but contrary to what he's saying, Dave says there are zero plans for that (indeed, it does not happen).
  

FRIDAY: More on WWA's PPV disaster, the landscape for any new promotion attempting to start up, WWF huge show in Japan, WWF loses appeal over "WWF" initials, Bret Hart given offer for Wrestlemania 18, and tons more...