Grips. Let's talk about 'em.
If you've spent any amount of time on this subreddit, you've likely seen at least one post about a Grip case that has fallen apart. Most of you have seen several. We know this because we've seen every single one. We’d like to see less of them. Ideally, none.
Over the past 18 months, we’ve been on an odyssey to fix the underlying problem. What follows is a chronicle of that journey.
Our objectives in writing this post are three-fold. There will be a tl;dr version at the end of this post, summarizing each of the three:

Offer an in-depth technical explanation as to why Grip cases fall apart.
Outline the improvements we've made to the Grip case to mitigate and eventually solve the issue.
Provide some much-needed context as to how widespread the issue truly is, and what our next steps are for affected Grip SKUs.

Since you're still here, you must be in it for the long haul. Assuming an average reading speed of 250 words per minute, this is going to take you nearly 24 minutes to get through. We'll try to make it the most informative 24 minutes of your life. Let's get started.

PART ONE

Why Do Grips Fall Apart?
Most phone cases are made out of a single material. The material itself varies from case to case, though the most common is Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU). The Grip case, as a point of comparison, is made of two different materials: an elastomer and a polycarbonate.
The word elastomer is a combination of the words elastic and polymer. That's because it describes polymers that have elastic properties - like the one that forms the outer rim of your Grip case. The elastomer that we use is responsible for two critical properties of the Grip case: impact protection and grip.
If you fell off of a rooftop, would you rather land on a hard plastic surface, or a rubber surface? If you value your life at all, you'd choose the rubber - its elastic properties would absorb much more force from the impact. Guess what rubber is? First one to answer "an elastomer" wins a prize!
Next, imagine you’re a pervert, gently running your finger across every surface of a No. 2 Pencil. Which part of the pencil do you think would provide the most resistance to the tracing of your finger? If you guessed "the eraser," congratulations: you possess a basic understanding of coefficients of friction. Erasers are made of rubber. Rubber has a high coefficient of friction because of its elastic properties.
The Grip case's elastomer isn't rubber - it's our own specially-formulated compound. It's still a useful comparison, as all elastomers share similar properties - provided they have the same degree of Shore Hardness.
One person reading this is asking: “Shore Hardness?” The next section is their fault.

A Beginner's Guide to Material Science
The Shore Hardness scale gauges the hardness of various elastomers. It can be measured with a device called a durometer. You probably don't have one.

Low Shore Hardness = softer, more malleable, less dense, more rubber-like.
High Shore Hardness = harder, less malleable, more dense, more plastic-like.

If you fell out of a building and landed on a rubber surface with a high Shore Hardness, injury or death would be much more likely.
If you used an eraser with a high Shore Hardness, you'd find it wouldn't actually do much erasing.
Now, what if you made a phone case out of an elastomer with a high Shore Hardness? It wouldn't offer much grip or impact protection.
The Grip's outer rim is made from an elastomer with a low Shore Hardness. As a result, the material is grippy and impact-resistant, but much more malleable and thus more likely to deform. That's why we bond the elastomer to a polycarbonate skeleton.
Polycarbonates don't require as much explanation as elastomers: they're a category of plastic. On your Grip case, the back plate is made of polycarbonate. The elastomer rim is bonded to the polycarbonate plate on all sides of the Grip, providing structural rigidity to the elastomer, fighting to keep it from deforming. At least, that's the idea. As we've all seen, it hasn't worked out that way.
Bonding two distinct materials together is much more complicated than gluing them together. Instead, we rely on a thermal bonding process. Basically, that means we heat both of our polymers to a degree which would turn you from “rare” to “well done” in moments. This heat melts the polymers, which we then inject at a pressure which would turn you from “solid” to “paste” even faster.
Once injected, these two materials get fused together along the seams. To further reinforce the bonds, we use a series of interlocking "teeth" to provide a greater surface area on which the bonding process can occur. Consider these teeth the mechanical bond, which exists to strengthen the thermal bond.

Pictured: Bonding mechanic between the elastomer and polycarbonate.
With that out of the way: why do Grips fall apart?
The elastomer rim around the edge of the Grip case is naturally inclined to deform and stretch. The bonding mechanisms we described above are designed to keep that from happening, but it often isn’t strong enough. As soon as the bond fails at any point, it's only a matter of time until a total structural failure occurs.

PART TWO

How Are We Stopping Grips From Falling Apart?
Philosophically, there are two approaches to take:

We can investigate why, exactly, the bond between the elastomer and the polycarbonate is failing.
We can tweak and iterate the thermal and mechanical bond - strengthening it to the point where it's statistically improbable that your case will fall apart.

We tried the first approach - it's the road to madness. The number of variables is irrationally large. What's the temperature like where you live? The altitude? The humidity? Do you bring your phone into environments that deviate from the ambient temperature of your location? Does your school or workplace have extremely dry air? Do you bring your phone into a sauna? What sort of soap do you wash your hands with? Do you have oily hands? What sort of food do you cook? Do you smoke? How hard do you press on the buttons? What's your angle of approach when you actuate a button? How big are your hands? How often do you take your phone out of the case? Do you remove it from the top, the bottom, the sides?
We could follow all of these roads, find out exactly which factors are causing the bond to fail, then implement preventative measures to keep it from happening - but that would take a decade. We don't have that long. Much like you, we want this fixed yesterday.
So, from the moment we received our first complaint about a Grip deforming around the buttons, we've been making structural, thermal, and mechanical improvements to the design and production process of the Grip case - some visible, some not. Every new phone release has brought a new iteration on the core Grip design, with each one reducing the failure rate, incrementally. We'll bring the receipts in the next chapter. For now, let's highlight the most noteworthy improvements.

The Most Noteworthy Improvements
The first signs of trouble were the buttons. Months before we'd received our first report of a Grip case de-bonding, we saw the first examples of buttons that had bent out of shape.

Pictured: Button deformation.
Why the buttons? Because you press down on them. The force from button actuation puts strain on the elastomer, causing displacement of the material in the surrounding area. Through a combination of time, repeated button actuations and the above-mentioned force, the case would permanently deform around the buttons. This concept is called the "compression set" of the elastomer - Google it.
The solution to this problem was two-fold:

First, we increased the compression set of the elastomer. Essentially, we made it as dense as we could, without compromising on the elastic properties of the material.
Second, we added relief slits surrounding the buttons - they're plainly visible on any newer Grip case model. These relief slits are an escape route for the force generated by button actuation. They also had the positive effect of making button actuation significantly more satisfying (read: clicky).

Pictured: Relief slits to improve button tactility and durability.
Another early issue, pre-dating the first reports of total de-bonding, was a deformation of the elastomer along the bottom of the case - where the charging port and speakers are.
Since we've covered the basics on how the interlock between the elastomer and the polycarbonate creates a bond, this is how the interlocking teeth along the top edge of the polycarbonate skeleton of the Grip used to look.

Pictured: First-gen interlocking teeth on the top of the Grip.
...and here's the bottom of that very same Grip case.

Pictured: First-gen interlocking teeth on the bottom of the Grip.
Notice anything? Around the charging port, there is absolutely nothing keeping the elastomer in place. No teeth, no structural reinforcements... it's no coincidence that an overwhelming majority of early Grip deformations happened along the bottom.
Since then, we’ve added a reinforced polycarbonate structure around the bottom of the Grip case. You'll see what that looks like in a bit.
So, why didn't the launch portfolio of Grip cases have mechanical interlocks or a polycarbonate support structure along the bottom?
The answer may or may not be complicated, depending on how much you know about plastic injection molding. We'll assume the worst and explain the concept of "undercut" to you with a ridiculous metaphor.

The Ridiculous Metaphor
Imagine you had a tube full of melted cheese. Next, imagine you emptied that entire tube into your mouth. Rather than swallowing the cheese, you decide to let it sit in your mouth and harden. Why are you doing this? We don't know. Let's just say you want a brick of cheese that's perfectly molded to the contours of your mouth - a very normal thing to want.
So, your mouth is completely filled with cheese. It hardens. You reach into your mouth to remove the brick of cheese. As you're removing it, you encounter a problem: your teeth are in the way. This wasn't a problem when you were putting the cheese into your mouth, but that was because the cheese was melted and could flow around your teeth. Now that the cheese has hardened, this is no longer the case.
In the world of plastic injection molding, this is an undercut. Our concern was that, by molding a structurally rigid piece of polycarbonate around the charging port and speaker holes, we'd find ourselves unable to remove the Grip Case from the mold once hardened. Imagine spending $30,000 on industrial tooling only to get a $30 phone case stuck inside of it.
Once we saw Grip cases deforming along the bottom cutouts, we knew we'd need to find a way to remove the cheese from your mouth without breaking your teeth. To make a long story short: we did it. The cheese is out of your mouth, and you get to keep your teeth. Congratulations! Now, keep reading.
On newer models of the Grip case, the result is a polycarbonate bridge extending around the bottom cutouts, adding both structural reinforcement and interlock mechanisms to promote mechanical bond, much like the ones which line the perimeter of the rest of the Grip case.

Pictured: Newest-gen structural reinforcement on the bottom of the Grip.
On the subject of structural reinforcements, this design revision was around the time we flanked the buttons with some fins, working in tandem with the heightened compression set and button relief slits, detailed above, to further guarantee that button actuation would have no impact on the overall durability of the Grip case.

Pictured: Lack of button fins on the first-gen Grip.

Pictured: Button fins on the newest-gen Grip.
As an aside: Unrelated to the de-bonding issues, we've also made a number of smaller improvements to the Grip case with each new iteration. For instance, we chamfered the front lip of the case to make edge-swiping more pleasant and reduce dust accumulation along the rim. Those raised parallelogram shapes along the sides of your Grip case that create its distinctive handfeel? We made those way bigger for a better in-hand experience. In short: product development is a complex and multifaceted process. Each new iteration of the Grip case is better than the one that came before, and that applies to more than just failure rates.
Speaking of failure rates: all of these improvements were in place by the time we launched iPhone 11-series Grip cases. The failure rate for these cases decreased exponentially... but didn't disappear entirely.

The Even More Ridiculous Metaphor
With these improvements, we achieved our desired outcome: the case was no longer deforming around the buttons or the charging port. Instead, the structure of the case began to fail literally anywhere else around the perimeter of the phone.
Think of it this way… you’re a roof carpenter. The greatest roof carpenter of all time. Like the son of God, but if he was a carpenter. Unfortunately, you’ve been paired with the Donald Trump of wall-builders.
You're tasked with building a house. You spend all of your time and energy perfecting your roofcraft. You've designed a roof that's so durable, it may as well have been made of Nokia 3310s. Nothing's getting through that bad boy.
The wall guy? Instead of building that wall he said Mexico would pay for, he's been tweeting about the miraculous medicinal properties of bleach while a plague kills hundreds of thousands of Americans.
The point here is that you can build the greatest roof of all time, but the walls need to be strong enough to match.
To strengthen the Grip case's metaphorical walls, we needed to re-design the inside of the Grip case from scratch. More specifically, the mechanical interlock between the springy elastomer and rigid polycarbonate skeleton. We took every tooth at the bonding point between the two materials and made them as large as we possibly could. Then, we added more teeth.

Pictured: Polycarbonate teeth on the newest-gen Grip.
To jog your memory: this is how the teeth used to look...

Pictured: Polycarbonate teeth on the first-gen Grip.
If time proves that these changes aren’t enough, our engineers still have a number of ideas on how to improve the bond between the elastomer and polycarbonate. Will we ever need to implement those ideas? Again - that’s a question only time can answer. Each change might be the silver bullet that puts this problem to bed for good... but there's only one way to find out: it involves real-world testing and, with each iteration, months of careful observation.

PART THREE

So, Where Are We Now?
Have the improvements we've made to the Grip case been successful? You bet.
For the sake of comparison: we began shipping iPhone 11 series Grips on September 30th, 2019. Within six months of that date, we had received 52 reports of structural failures - a big improvement over the early days, but still not good enough.
Fast forward two months. We began shipping Note 10 Plus Grip cases on November 21st, 2019. In the first six months of availability, we received exactly eight reports of Note 10 Plus Grips falling apart. Again, a major improvement over the iPhone series in the same stretch of time. If we'd launched the first Grip cases with a failure rate that low, we wouldn't be writing this post right now and you’d have nothing to read while pretending to do work.
How about the Galaxy S20 series, which began shipping on February 10th, 2020? They're the most recent and improved set of SKUs we’ve made to date, leveraging everything we've learned and making further improvements over the Note 10 Plus. No reports so far. Same goes for the iPhone SE and OnePlus 8 series - these SKUs share all the improvements we've made to the underlying design of the Grip case thus far.
Does that mean these numbers will hold forever? Who knows. That's the thing: every improvement we make, we need to wait several months to see how effective it's been. No amount of internal testing can replace the real-world data of shipping cases to hundreds of thousands of users across nearly 200 countries.
We could always just throw in the towel, make the entire case out of rigid plastic, and call it a solved issue... but that would be the easy way out. The Grip case and its unique design properties can't reach their full potential unless we make incremental improvements - then wait and see how they pan out in the real world.
All of which is to say: it's far too early to say the newest set of improvements have officially solved the problem. While the failure rate is still zero, we need to keep watching. We've made a ton of progress, but we're not going to rest until we've killed this issue for good - without sacrificing the unique properties that make the Grip case stand out in a sea of derivative hard plastic and TPU phone cases.
That's probably enough to inspire confidence in someone who's on the fence about buying an S20 Ultra Grip, an iPhone SE Grip, or any Grip we release in the future. But what if you're one of the people who bought an older Grip model?

"I'm One Of The People Who Bought An Older Grip Model!"
We won't sugarcoat it. The failure rates for older Grip models is way higher than we deem acceptable. Why has it taken us this long to publicly address the issue, then?
Easy: it's not as widespread as you might think. Some humans reading this might be looking at their iPhone X Grip, purchased in 2019 and still intact, wondering what all the fuss is about. That's an important consideration: most people who have functioning, still-bonded Grip cases aren't posting on /dbrand about how unbroken it is. The people who've had issues around total product failure are in the minority.
We're not using the word "minority" as a get-out-of-jail-free card here. It's still a way larger number than we'd ever be comfortable with. We simply don't want our transparency and candor in writing this to be misinterpreted as an admission that every single Grip case we've made for older devices is going to fall apart. Statistically speaking, this is an issue for a minority of Grip owners.
Our philosophy at first was that, while it was unfortunate and frustrating that Grip cases were falling apart, dramatic PR action wasn't necessary. Instead, we resolved to:

Quietly and diligently work in the background to improve the underlying design of the Grip case.
Ship free replacements to anyone whose Grip case had failed.

To date, we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on shipping fees alone for replacement Grips. As you can imagine, that number gets a lot higher once you add in the cost of actually making the thing. We've been fine with writing these costs off as sort of an R&D expense, since every example of a deformed or de-bonded Grip provides invaluable data on how to improve the product.
Where our strategy backfired was in the narrative that began to take root as Grip cases continued to fall apart. Look at it this way: the failure rate of older Grip case SKUs is anywhere between 1% and 20%, depending on how early we released the SKU. Since the improvements we've already made to the underlying design were rolled out incrementally with each new phone release, that number has been on a steady downward trend.
For the purpose of this thought experiment, we'll go with the earliest, shittiest Grip cases - putting us at a long-term failure rate of 20%.
So, 20% of customers for this device have a Grip case fall apart at some point in the product's lifespan. Every single one of those people writes in to our Customer Experience team about the issue. They all receive a replacement, free of charge.
Since this replacement is identical to the first Grip case they'd received, it also has a 20% failure rate. We're now dealing with percentages of percentages. Stop panicking, we'll do the math for you: that means 4% of these hypothetical Grip owners will have a second Grip case fail on them in the long run.
Four percent is a lot better than twenty… but it's also a lot of people who've been burned twice. These people are going to be extra vocal about how shitty the Grip case is. To be fair, they've got every right.
So, we've got four groups of customers for this SKU:

Group A: Has had two or more Grip cases fail (4%).
Group B: Has had exactly one Grip case fail (16%).
Group C: Bought a Grip which has not failed (80%).
Group D: Has not purchased a Grip case (NA%).

Group A is livid about the repeated issues they've had - rightfully so.
Group B, having been burned before, reads about Group A's experience. They take it to mean their replacement will inevitably fail on them as well, and they'll one day get the dubious honor of joining Group A.
Group C, despite not having had any issues yet, reads the experiences of Groups A and B. Then, a significant portion of this group begins to operate under the assumption that it's only a matter of time before their Grip falls apart as well.
Group D reads all of the above and decides they don't have enough confidence in the Grip case to ever purchase one.
A narrative begins to form that this hypothetical failure rate is close to 100%. Worse yet: people with newer phones, unaware that each new iteration of the Grip case has a dramatically reduced failure rate over the last, start to assume their case also has a 100% failure rate. That's where our original strategy - the one where we quietly improved the product in the background while offering replacements for defective units - backfired on us.
This narrative only exists because we've continued to leverage existing stock with too high a failure rate, which, in hindsight, was like pouring gasoline on a gender reveal forest fire of disappointment and regret. This brings us to our next chapter.

Mass Destruction
At this point, you're probably aware that a number of Grip SKUs for older phones have been listed as "Sold Out" on our website, and haven't been restocked since.
We stopped production on these cases because we knew they'd have all the same issues as the original production runs. See, it's not as simple as pushing a "make the Grip not fall apart" button at the factory - we'd need to redesign the case from scratch, implementing all of the design improvements we've made up to this point, then re-tool our existing machinery to produce this new version. We'll have more to say about re-tooling a bit later - for now, focus on the fact that some Grips have been listed as "Sold Out".
If someone's Grip case falls apart while listed as "Sold Out", we don't have any replacements to send them. Instead, dbrand's Customer Experience team has been issuing refunds wherever possible, and store credit otherwise. Just in case you're wondering what we mean by "where possible": PayPal doesn't allow refunds on transactions that are more than six months old. Store credit, on the other hand, can be offered indefinitely.
What we've come to realize is that we're never going to be able to escape this downward spiral until we rip the band-aid off and stop stocking these old, flawed SKUs.
Today, we're ripping the bandaid off. As you're reading this, we're disposing of all of our old stock. All of the flawed Grip SKUs are now listed as "Sold Out".
Head over to our Grip listing and take a look at what's available. Everything that you can currently buy is up to spec with the improvements we've made over the past year - meeting or exceeding the standard of quality set by the Galaxy S20 series, the iPhone SE, and the OnePlus 8 series. In some cases - take, for instance, the iPhone 11 series - this means we've already re-tooled our production lines to meet that quality benchmark.
If a Grip case is listed on "Backorder", it means we've begun the process of re-tooling the SKU to match the improved quality standard you've spent the last five hours reading about.
However, if a Grip case is now listed as "Sold Out", that means no more reshipments.
If you own a sold out Grip case that hasn't fallen apart yet: that's great! Don't assume that your Grip is doomed to fail just because we devoted 5661 words to explaining why it might fall apart. You've still got better odds than you would at a casino.
As always, if you run into any issues with your case, sold out or not, shoot an email to one of our Robots. They'll still take care of you - it just won't be with a replacement case… for now.

Mass Production
Remember when we said we'd talk more about re-tooling a bit later? That's right now.
So, why are so many Grip models not being fixed? Why haven't we re-tooled these old SKUs with all of the quality improvements made to the case's build quality? It's a little complicated.
Taking the improvements we've made to the most recent suite of Grip models and retroactively applying those changes to older SKUs isn't a simple task - it would require us to throw out our existing production tools and create new ones, from scratch. Suffice it to say that doing so is a wildly expensive endeavor.
To recoup that cost, we'd need to produce more Grips than we're likely to ever sell for aging, irrelevant hardware. Let's use the Pixel 3 as an example.
If we replaced every single de-bonded Pixel 3 Grip, that would account for about 3% of the MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) on a re-tooled Pixel 3 Grip case. Now we're sitting on 97% of that MOQ as overstock. Pixel 3 owners have had their phone for nearly two years now. If they want a phone case, they already have one. They're not looking for new Pixel 3 cases, they're getting ready to buy a new phone. Simply put, it’s no longer a viable market.
Now, say the Pixel 3 was a significantly more popular phone - enough that we'd be shipping out, say, 50% of the MOQ as replacements on day one. Now, that's a lot more tempting to us - we'd still lose boatloads of money, but at least it would go towards some consumer goodwill.
To figure out how much money we'd lose on re-tooling, we gave our bean-counting Robots a giant jar of beans and told them to get to work. They emerged three days later. When asked how many beans were in the jar, they gave us a blank stare. When asked if it was possible to re-tool any of our production lines for old Grip SKUs without losing obscene amounts of money, they said:
"Absolutely not."
Still, we're no strangers to throwing away obscene amounts of money to make the internet happy. Remember Amazon gift cards? Those were the days. The only question that remains is "How much money are we willing to set on fire?"
We can't tell you yet. Why? Because we're currently running a detailed cost-benefit analysis on the subject of re-tooling old production lines, on a SKU-by-SKU basis. That's business talk for "the bean-counting Robots have been given more beans to count."
The objective is to determine the viability of producing new-and-improved Grip stock for older phones: how many units would be tied up in replacements for that model, how many we could reasonably expect to sell to new customers, and how much overstock would be left from the MOQ.
From there, we can determine what the financial impact of re-tooling would be and make the final decision on how much cash we're dumping into the ocean somewhere off the coast of the Seychelles. We'll have our results by early next week.
These re-tooled models, if produced, would feature every improvement we’ve made thus far to the Grip case line, plus a few that have yet to be released. Remember how the S20s, the iPhone SE and the OnePlus 8s haven't had any reported failures yet? Picture that, but for the phone you've got.
If we go ahead with re-tooling production lines for your phone, a few things will happen:

The Grip case for your phone will go from "Sold Out" to "Backorder".
Our Customer Experience Robots will shift their communication strategy from "we no longer support your phone," to "we'll get you a replacement once we've got improved units in stock."

None of these things will happen until we've run the simulations on which phones are getting restocked. Why are we posting this today, then? We could have waited a week and had concrete answers to offer about the future of our out-of-stock Grip cases. Well…

Take Our Survey
This is it: your chance to have some say in how much money we set on fire as a goodwill exercise for this whole R&D clusterfuck.
Those simulations we're running? They'll be great for telling us how much money we're going to lose on each Grip SKU, but it won't tell us anything about how much money our customers want us to lose on each Grip SKU.
To that end, we've prepared a survey for people who have purchased a Grip case. We'll be taking your feedback into consideration during our decision-making process.
We have only one request: don't be a jackass. Answer the questions honestly.
Click here to take the survey.

In Closing...
We're sharing a special moment right now. We're all seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
For us, that light is "we're almost done with a year-long R&D effort to stop the Grip case from falling apart."
For you, the light is "the end of a 5661-word marathon of a Reddit post."
We just want to take a minute to recognize that we couldn't have gotten this far without your collective support. At any point in the past year, we might have pulled the plug on the Grip project entirely if we'd reached a critical mass of negative sentiment from our customers. Instead, we've got an army of devotees who have no problem paying us for the privilege of being our guinea pigs.
Product development isn't a one-and-done process. It's easy to forget, but our skins weren't always to the world-class, record-setting, Michael-Jordan-in-his-prime standard you expect from us today. If you happen to have an iPhone 4 skin lying around, apply it and let us know how it goes. You'll immediately appreciate how many process improvements we've made. We weren’t born as the greatest skin manufacturer in history. We got there through a process of methodical improvement. Each jump in quality was driven by a bottomless well of user feedback, sourced from millions upon millions of customers. That, and the competition was comically inept.
It's the same story for the Grip case. Your continued support has enabled us to make huge strides in developing a product that's on the cusp of blowing everyone else out of the water. We're going to keep working until it gets there.

TL;DR VERSION

Please note that by reading this tl;dr, you’re missing out on several outlandish metaphors, including classics such as:

Plastic injection molding melted cheese into your face hole.
What if Jesus and Donald Trump built a house?
How to turn yourself from “rare to well done” and “solid to paste”.
Pencil Perverts.

WHY DOES THE GRIP FALL APART?

The Grip case is made from two materials: a polycarbonate skeleton and an elastomer frame.
The elastomer frame provides the majority of the case's impact protection and grip, but is prone to deformation.
We prevent deformation by bonding the material to a polycarbonate skeleton (i.e. the rigid back plate on the Grip case).
The bond between the two materials was not as strong as we'd originally anticipated, causing the elastomer to de-bond from the polycarbonate skeleton and the case to sometimes fall apart.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO FIX IT?

Through a series of design revisions, we've made countless improvements to promote a stronger bond between the two materials.
These changes have incrementally reduced the failure rate of Grip cases. Our most recent SKUs are yielding extremely promising results.
Each time we improve the Grip case, we need to play a months-long waiting game to observe the real-world effects.

HOW ABOUT THE GRIPS YOU'VE ALREADY SOLD?

Since we're using you as guinea pigs for the purposes of product development, we've been uncharacteristically generous with our warranty policy.
However, that warranty policy only lasts as long as we have stock. Once we're out of Grips, we're out of replacements.
We've finally reached the point where we need to rip off the bandaid and dispose of all of our Grip stock produced during 2019.
If your Grip for any of these older phones falls apart, you can no longer get a replacement.
You should still write in to our Customer Experience team if it happens to you - we'll work something out.
On the bright side, our Grip SKUs from 2020 onwards have dramatically reduced, if not outright eliminated, the failure rate of previous models. We have no reported cases to date.
It's not economically viable to re-tool production lines to apply our improved industrial designs to any of the Grip cases that are currently marked as "Sold Out".
We're probably going to do it anyways.
We're running the simulations right now to determine which older devices will be re-tooled.
Take our survey to help determine which devices we'll be re-tooling.

This is an update of my MD from last year, which you can find here. All figures are in CAD. (Approx. CAD/USD conversion is 1 CAD = 0.75 USD. So my income is ~$58,240 USD. I've tried to note the change since last time where I could!
Section One: Assets and Debt

Total NW: $81,100
- Up from ~$58,000 last year.
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): $62,230
- Up from $45,466 last year. I've been adding to my RRSP since my first "real" job in highschool - while my early contributions were miniscule, it got me in the habit of saving. My previous employer had a good match, which also helped.
Savings account balance: $11,290
- TFSA up from $9,846 last year. Not a huge improvement - I focused more on my RRSP and Emergency Fund this year.
Emergency Fund Balance: $7,500
- Was $1,103 last year.
Chequing Account Balance:
- Almost everything gets autotransferred on payday to my retirement accounts, sinking funds, or a holding account where my bills are autopaid from. I only keep my "discretionary spending" money in this account.
Debt: None. I pay off my cc as soon as I make a purchase, and check my transactions/pay off any autopay on a weekly basis. I run all my purchases through my cc to get points toward free groceries.
Additional Questions:
- Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?: There was expectation, but not from family - I was the first in my family to go to higher ed. They saved and planned to contribute if I did want to go, but what I did after highschool was up to me. I was top of my class in highschool so there was a lot of expectations from the other adults in my life (teachers, school counselors, etc) that I would really make something of myself. My parents paid my tuition for two years of my undergrad, my grandparents gave me a few thousand dollars as a gift toward my expenses and the remainder I paid for myself with my savings from working part time and through summers.
- Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances? We didn't have any serious conversations about money, but there was a lot of emphasis on saving long term, saving up for things we wanted, and occasionally if I wanted something expensive (like when I wanted my hair done for middle school graduation), a discussion about how mom or dad would have worked X hours to pay for it. I never felt hard done by, but there were definitely a lot of things other kids had or got to do that we didn't. Once I got my first job I didn't get any spending money from my parents anymore.
- What was your first job and why did you get it?: In 8th grade I got a job at my school, cleaning tables during lunch recess (our school didn't have a cafeteria, so kids ate at their desks). The principal offered it to me and my best friend. It paid $50/month. It seems insane now because we were not old enough to work legally. In hindsight I think it was the school finding a way to subsidize the costs of the year-end school trip (a week-long overnight trip out of province) for two families who didn't quite qualify for the school's official aid but wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. All the money went to the trip, and I babysat to get some spending money.
- Did you worry about money growing up?: Not really. There were some lean times but I never felt like I really wanted for anything. By the time I was in highschool things had gotten much more stable.
- Do you worry about money now? Yep. Not about day-to-day spending, but I worry about longer-range money issues like whether I'll be able to own a home, save enough to retire, etc. A lot of my friends are a lot more comfortable and able to buy homes and generally be freer with money, mostly those in dual-income-no-kids situations - and I'm feeling that lag a bit.
- At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?: I haven't received any financial support from family since I was about 20, but if my parents come to visit me they'll usually bring some grocery items from their Costco runs and refuse to accept payment for it. I currently have about 4 months' emergency fund saved, and could last another 6 on my TFSA if I needed to. Working on bumping this up!
- Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?: While I was in undergrad and paying my own tuition my grandparents gave me $2000 as a birthday gift to give me a little breathing room in my budget and so "you can do something other than work and study". They were hoping it would enable me to meet a husband and get my MRS (hahaha). It did not, but it did ease my stress about money.

Section Two: Income

Main Job Monthly Take Home: $3,816 after deductions. I got a 10% raise in July.
- Deductions: Tax $882, EI $86, CPP $137, Retirement plan $210 (matched by employer)
PTO: 18 days + 5 additional during the holidays when our office is shut.
Bonus: I get a bonus each year from the day job as well. This year, $5500 pre-tax.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: ~$900 averaged monthly
- Varies year to year based on student enrolment and whether I get funding for additional content development time.
Salary Story (Averaged hourly earnings into approx annual earnings so it's more "apples to apples" comparison)
- Pre-2010: ~$15-20k per year. Various jobs during highschool and university. Retail, farm and animal shelter work, tutoring, baby/pet/housesitting, factory job in the summers.
- 2010: ~$35k Intern, Retail, Nanny, Temp. I graduated university and started some postgrad certificate courses full time through summer. Had a PT retail job, a FT unpaid internship after summer classes ended, and was a nanny for a relative's kids in exchange for a steep discount on room and board. After my internship ended I picked up a temp receptionist gig that paid well while it lasted - I was able to save up to move out to my own place after Christmas.
- Q1 + Q2 of 2011: ~$22k Freelancer / Assistant. The company I interned for hired me back as a freelancer at $19/hr, and I got a remote job as a "business assistant" (aka whatever they needed) at min wage, but I could set my own hours and work up to 35hrs/week. I crammed in as much as I could because my freelance job wasn't guaranteed.
- Remainder of 2011: ~$36k - Digital Assistant. My day job offered me a FT position and I was so grateful for the stability (my freelance hours had been uneven) that I accepted their first offer not realizing it was less than I was making as a freelancer. I remind myself that at least now I have benefits and some security, and I still have my other job. Two weeks later they tell me if I don't quit my remote "business assistant" job I'll be fired since that company is in the same industry, so I do. Pushover!
- 2013: ~37k - Digital Assistant. Yep, two years, no promotion, small raise. Love working in the arts! /s. After I was forced out of my remote job in 2011 I started babysitting, petsitting, shoveling snow for my older neighbours - anything I could to bring in some extra cash, but I have no idea what I made from that work. Most of it ended up going out the door pretty quick on regular life expenses.
- 2014: $40k - Digital Coordinator. Promotion at last. I struggled a lot with depression throughout the end of 2013 and all of 2014 after some traumatic events, and I'm so shocked and thrilled that something good actually happened. I don't negotiate because I'm a husk of a person. By this point I'm not functional enough to keep up all my side gigs.
- 2016: ~$45k - Digital Coordinator / Instructor: After so much therapy I'm starting to realize my company is trash and my industry is a dead end for me, and I actually have the confidence to do something about it. I dump my shitty boyfriend. I get a part time gig as an instructor. My boss tells me in my performance review I have "no leadership potential" and I go home and immediately start looking for another job.
- 2017: ~$63k - Product Manager / Instructor: After many failed interviews, I finally get a new job offer at $55k - less than a PM typically makes in Toronto, but more than I was making before, and I was so hungry for a new opportunity I just jump on it. My new manager is really invested in my PD, within the first few months they have me speak on their behalf at three conferences and commit to $2,500 of PD spending.
- 2018: ~$76k - Product Manager / Instructor: I get a raise at my day job (modest - about $2500) but it's a crackerjack year for the course I teach - it's a high enrolment year so I have more sections. Less free time, but now that I'm more experienced it's a bit easier and it'd be hard to find another side gig that pays as well for the amount of time I put in.
- 2020: ~78k - Product Manager / Instructor: Sensing a theme? I'm not much of a job hopper, which I know is impacting my salary growth, but I'm a "craves stability" person and I love my job, they are constantly giving me opportunities to learn and grow and investing in my PD. Plus a 10% raise.

Section Three: Expenses

Rent: $1,505 including utilities - just went up from $1,476 in September. I live solo in a one-bedroom in an old walk-up building.
Renters insurance: $29
Retirement contributions: $1,600
Sinking Funds contributions: $205
Emergency Fund contribution: $500, plus occasional random lump sums if I have discretionary funds left over.
Donations: approx $100/mo, sometimes more. I volunteer about 10-15 hrs/month with different organizations throughout the year, though it varies based on their activities. Been helping with a lot of digital admin/tech support/mailing list stuff this year.
Internet: $68
Cellphone: $48
Transit: About $14/month - I'm working from home, and my neighbourhood has everything I need within walking distance. I use transit a handful of times a month these days, so I just plonk some money on my card when I need to.
Therapy: $540 per quarter for BetterHelp, approx $168/month.
- I get $800/year reimbursed under my work benefits.
Subscriptions: $27 - Netflix, Spotify, extra iCloud storage, and a Quip toothbrush.

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Diary:

Day 1 - Thursday ($42)

9am - Slept in! I have today and tomorrow off (using up some PTO) and am glad for the extra rest, but the construction work around my apartment building kicks off at 9:01 on the dot, waking me up. I browse the internet before showering and getting the day started.
11am - I have a massage appointment so I mask up and walk over. It’s a sunny fall morning, so an enjoyable walk. I’ve been in a lot of pain the last while after an unexpected hospital stay and medical procedures so I’m really looking forward to some relief now that I’m cleared to have this massage! ($30 tip for my RMT, insurance covers the actual bill.) I was nervous about COVID safety but this is a small clinic and they’re taking it really seriously (face shields and masks for all!), and it’s nice to have a massage - it’s the first “non-invasive, non-medical” human touch I’ll have since March, since I live by myself and have been strict about distancing. I have to say, it feels incredibly weird to be naked except a mask. Like being naked with a watch on.
12:45pm - I feel so much better! I walk a long route home to enjoy the sunshine and stop at a bakery and pick up some pumpkin, apple, and caramel scones ($12 for three, incl tip), since they have a little doorway table for service. Most cafes in the neighbourhood have restored indoor seating and I feel weird about going inside past unmasked diners. Once I get back home I have a scone, spend a couple of hours answering students’ questions for my teaching job, and wash some dishes in the kitchen. The afternoon sort of disappears into that, plus some random internet browsing/YouTube sewing tutorials.
6pm - Therapy call (prepaid - I use BetterHelp and pay quarterly - I’m due to pay in 2 weeks). I am so grateful to be back in therapy. Isolation has been hard on me, and my medical situation really left me raw. It’s scary to have a totally normal day and end it in an ambulance unexpectedly, and I’m still unpacking my feelings about it.
7pm - I sodastream some water, add lavender syrup, and hop on Zoom for game night with some friends. We play Jackbox games together and snort-laugh the whole way through. This is a new group I was just starting to befriend IRL in the weeks before the pandemic. These weekly game nights have been so great to keep the momentum.
9pm - I dress my last tortilla as a pizza, bake it, and then dump the remainder of a box of arugula on top after it’s out of the oven and eat it over the sink like a crispy pizza taco. After eating I text a bit with a guy I met on reddit (henceforth RG - Reddit Guy - same guy from my last MD.) He sends me a video of his dog doing tricks, and we count down and hit play on the same TV episode. We’ve been doing this little nightly ritual since the start of the pandemic, and it’s a nice way to keep this long-distance whatever-this-is going. Things have stepped up from merely flirty to decidedly romantic in the last year, but with the US/Canadian border closed for the foreseeable future who knows where this is going or if we’ll ever get to meet.
11:30pm - I have a quick warm bath before bedtime and after making a nest from all my pillows, fall asleep to a “sleep story” from the Calm app. Some smooth-voiced man talking about an island in Norway takes me away.

Day 2 - Friday ($69)

8am - I wake up before my alarm, laze around in bed reading newsletters and reddit. I open my work email, file away all the automated messages I get from our software, and close it again. I usually check it once a day on vacation just to clear that shit as a gift to my future self.
9:30am - I shower while listening to a podcast and check my messages while brushing my teeth. A neighbourhood pal asks if I want to have a coffee in the park with her before it gets too cold for these outside meetups. I reply and we arrange a plan to meet up.
10:15am - My friend texts and says she’s going to stop at Starbucks on her way to the park - do I want her to grab me anything? I mobile order a caramel apple spice ($5 - I’m off caffeine - doctor’s orders) and tell her it should be there waiting when she gets there. I bring the two remaining scones from yesterday’s bakery trip for us. We hang out at the park for a few hours on our distanced blankets, chatting until our fingertips are thoroughly chilled. Like a lot of my friends, the pandemic has had her and her partner seeking cheaper, more spacious dwellings out of the city. They’re moving in a few months. This is the fourth such announcement I’ve had this fall, so I’m better at being excited for them and asking questions all about their new digs rather than being openly bummed. But inside I’m a little gutted. It’s hard to watch my people move away!
12:30pm: I took the long route home from the park, then settle in with some mint tea and check on my students. I’m teaching online this semester and the course is “asynchronous” - meaning they move through interactive modules of written+video content at their own pace, so I post and reply frequently on the discussion boards, answer emails, and help them along. I have a chatty group this term - there’s a very active kdrama discussion thread in the “non-course related” board. I love when my online students still work at connecting with their classmates - I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to do fully online school and missing out on that in-person experience.
2pm - I whip up a quick chicken soup with some chicken and veggies from the freezer, some egg noodles and a bouillon cube and eat that before spending the afternoon cleaning up - vacuuming, laundry, and online browsing for some sewing supplies. I spend $64 on some additional fabric and bias tape I keep forgetting to buy to finish some projects. I can’t wait to go to fabric stores in person again someday. While waiting for my stuff to finish in the dryer, I do a short Yoga with Adriene video.
7:30pm - After dinner, a friend calls to complain about her boyfriend and we chat for awhile while I organize my craft supplies into bins I picked up at the dollar store last weekend. He’s been a grade-A dingus since the beginning of the pandemic, and just told her one of his roommates tested positive for COVID - on Monday. He stayed with her Tuesday and Wednesday and “forgot to mention it”. DUDE. C’mon! I tell her if she needs anything dropped off at her place - groceries, drugstore stuff, emergency ice cream or baked goods - just call.
10pm - I make some popcorn and queue up Kim’s Convenience with RG, we chitchat about the day and plans for the weekend. After a few episodes I crawl into bed while he tells me all about a COVID-safe date we could go on if we weren’t separated by a few hundred kilometres. It’s a nice daydream.

Day 3 - Saturday ($0)

~1am - My downstairs neighbours are suddenly blasting music so loud my bedframe is vibrating. At 1am. Shoot me. By 1:45 I’m over it and go downstairs to knock on their door. I bang on their door a few times, no answer. One of the other tenants down the hall comes out, we commiserate over the noise. He bangs on the door too, but the music blasts on. We shrug at eachother and go back to our apartments.
~2am - I’m losing my mind at the noise, which seems to be coming from directly under my bedroom. Assuming they maybe have the bedroom door closed and couldn’t hear the knocking, I go to the living room and grab my set of weights and start dropping them on the bedroom floor over and over again like a maniac hoping to catch their attention. It works though - after a few minutes the music is off. Sweet silence!
8:45am - I wake up, roll over, and doze a bit more before getting up to take my medication and instead of staying up, I crawl back in. I chat with RG a bit and send a check-in text to my friend with the crummy boyfriend.
10:45am - I finally get out of bed (I love laying around. If I’m going to be single with no responsibilities I am going to bask in every moment of it) and I eat leftover roasted cauliflower from last night’s dinner for breakfast. Afterwards I clean the bathroom, put away my laundry from yesterday, and log on to my online class to check in on my students and reply to their posts, and review the material that’s going up next week.
4pm - After the day spent with chores I finish putting together a meal plan for the week and grocery order for delivery tomorrow. I actually love grocery shopping in person, but with the uptick in cases recently I’m less interested in going. Afterwards I check my online class forums again (there’s an assignment due tonight so I want to watch for questions) and then go for a short walk around my neighbourhood. It’s nice to get out a bit and see the leaves changing.
6pm - I make a chickpea and lentil curry in my Instant Pot, adding an assortment of random veggies from my freezer, while RG shoots me a text about starting our “together time” a bit early tonight so we can watch Hamilton together. I agree, and after dinner work on some sewing.
9:30pm - Almost completely finished sewing a shirt - I’ll finish the hem another day and the neckline when the bias tape I ordered shows up. I put everything away and I eat some arrowroot crackers with nutella while watching Hamilton with RG. I’ve already seen it a few times but I love it. Midway through I exchange a few emails with a student who is rapidly approaching the midnight assignment deadline and just can’t get her code working. I can tell right away she’s made a teeny tiny typo that’s had a domino effect on her whole assignment. I point her in the right direction, she fixes it, and ends the night happy.
12am - Curling up in bed. I put on another Calm app story and fall asleep.

Day 4 - Sunday ($127)

7:30am - Trying to reacquaint myself with my alarm after a few days off. I roll over and doze a little until 8, then get up, take my meds, and hop in the shower.
9:45am - One of my American friends calls to chat. She was invited to a wedding and doesn’t want to go because the groom’s family are anti-mask QAnon types and she won’t feel safe there. We brainstorm about what kind of gift is appropriate as an in-absentia “Sorry you married into a family of nutjobs” gift.
10:30am - I wash the dishes from last night, then make a sandwich with hummus and sliced veggies and sit down to eat it while I download my students’ assignments for the week and reply to a few more discussion posts. I’ll get to grading later this afternoon.
1pm - Time vanished into a bunch of little tasks and a wormhole of researching possible holiday gifts for family members.I text with my brother’s girlfriend to get a sense of their whereabouts this week - I’m trying to get a birthday treat delivered to his apartment. She confirms a date and I place the order for some safe-to-eat-raw cookie dough in fun flavours ($37). I’m secretly jealous that this place isn’t local to me because it sounds delicious.
2pm - I sodastream some water, add lime juice, and heat up some leftover curry from last night and settle in to start grading assignments with some music.
4pm - My mom calls to talk about Thanksgiving (next weekend here in Canada). They really want me to come, but with cases rising in the province I don’t know how safe it is and I have a lot of guilt about bringing my city cooties to them in a rural area. They haven’t been that cautious - she talks at length about going to a party the night before. By the end of the call I’m frustrated and undecided. It’s pretty clear if I opt not to go I’ll be the “bad guy”, the daughter who abandoned everyone to move to the city and thinks she’s smarter than everyone else. But I have a lot of anxiety around it.
5:30pm - My grocery delivery arrives ($90, including a tip for the delivery person). I put everything away and eat a few pieces of dried pineapple and mango before getting back to marking.
7:30pm - I cook some salmon and roasted veggies and, while eating, text with a friend about my Thanksgiving dilemma. She’s in a similar boat with her parents, we weigh the pros and cons together but neither of us end up deciding anything.
10pm - I watch an episode of Kim’s Convenience with RG before he goes to bed (he has an early morning tomorrow) and afterwards do a Yoga with Adriene video, poke around on Reddit, and go to bed myself around 11.

Day 5 - Monday ($9)

7:15am - Alarm goes off. I wake up, but mostly scroll Reddit until 8. I desperately miss working from an office with other people and better chairs, but if WFH ever ends I will miss getting to stay in bed as long as humanly possible.
8am - Shower, moisturize and put on some lipstain - that’s the extent of my morning routine these days. I get dressed (I’ve been wearing the same threadbare jeans almost all quarantine. They’re so comfortable, but hideous). I make some tea and oatmeal and move over to my desk.
8:45am - I check my credit card statement online while eating. A return I’ve been waiting on is finally processed (+$41.28) - returns by mail are so slow - I put the parcel in over a month ago. I check my class boards too - no new posts to reply to.
9am - Log into work and post my “hello” message in our staff chat. We have a “Hellos and Goodbyes” room to keep track of people’s comings and goings throughout the day. Our CEO pings me and asks how my time off was. He’s been very attentive since my hospitalization and has been checking in about my workload, how I’m feeling. It’s nice to fee seen.
10am - One on one with my junior PM. We chat on Zoom re: what’s on the docket for our projects this month, and I take her temperature a bit re: work/life balance, how she’s managing our extended work from home and the pandemic. She has a lot of vacation days left and I encourage her to use them even if she’s not planning to go away - mental health and rest is important!
11am - One on one with my manager. She calls via phone since her teenage daughter is doing school on Zoom and their internet is overtaxed. She runs through what I missed last week and updates me on a new project I’ll be taking over from her later this month. I’m currently responsible for ⅗ of our major software projects and this will bring me up to ⅘. (Don’t think I won’t make a big deal about that when it comes time for our next reviews.)
11:45am - Answer a customer support email from someone struggling to use the site. After a bit of back and forth I discover it’s because they’re using a decade-old version of Internet Explorer. I hop on the phone, walk them through upgrading to Edge, and they’re a happy camper. We don’t have customer support at our org - the PMs and Junior PMs manage support for their projects. Some days I hate it, but most of the time it’s satisfying to tackle a small and solvable problem amidst the bigger-picture work.
1pm: Team meeting with my software team. We usually do these in the morning but one of the devs had to take his kid for a COVID test since he’s a bit sniffly - schools here are pretty strict. It’s a short meeting, just getting a sense of how everyone’s moving through the current open projects, and then a show-and-tell of pets, since the aforementioned sniffly kid joined at the end. I do not have any pets and am as delighted by them as the kid.
1:20pm: Lunchtime! I heat up some leftover curry and chat a bit with RG, who’s checking in about my stress level. Since my hospital stay he’s been worried about me pushing too hard and not giving myself time to heal. We talk about our mornings and he tells me he added some new songs he thinks I’ll like to a shared Spotify playlist, so I know what I’ll be listening to this afternoon.
2pm: I spend the afternoon working on spec writing for upcoming development projects while my developers investigate a bug a customer reported over lunch.
5:10pm - I set an alarm on my phone to go off when it’s time to log off for the day. I change into some pants with more structural integrity, mask and jacket up, and go for a walk.
5:45pm: While I’m at the pharmacy picking up my prescription, the pharmacist mentions they have flu shots in, so I get one while I’m there. ($8 for my prescriptions, $1 for the impulse coffee crisp bar, $0 for the peace of mind of being flu-free even if I barely leave my house). While I’m walking home, RG calls from his commute to ask what I’m going to do about Thanksgiving. He thinks I should go - it’s generally safe in my parents’ area (less than 30 active cases in the county), and he gently suggests that the fall is probably going to be pretty hard on me emotionally and it might be a good idea to take the opportunity to go away while it’s relatively safe. I keep thinking it over.
6pm - Cook some chicken and roasted veggies for dinner, and after eating, set up my sewing stuff to finish up that shirt hem and start cutting pattern pieces for another project, a robe, while listening to podcasts.
10pm - I set up my iPad on a stool next to my bathtub and watch Kim’s Convenience with RG on chat while soaking in the warm, bubbly water and drinking some chamomile tea, and eventually dry off and head to bed around 11:30.

Day 6 - Tuesday ($0)

8am - Did I snooze my alarm for an hour? You bet. I just couldn’t stay asleep last night. When I finally wake up, RG has left a little video message for me, which I watch, and then watch again, and then start getting ready for the day. I braided my hair before bed so I have those great post-braid waves today.
8:55am - At my desk, logged in and ready to go with some oatmeal. I drop a note in the staff Hellos and Goodbyes and peek at my class discussion board before picking up where I left off yesterday.
10am - Client call. This client is hoping to do something a little “off label” with our tools. We chat a bit about what they’re hoping to accomplish and what their goals are, and I answer a few data questions for them.
10:30am - Team meeting! We spend some time puzzling through my client’s “off label” ideas, do some digging on another client’s data issue, and then spend a little time watching a funny news blooper one of the devs screenshares and joking around. I don't mind a little fun in our meetings!
11am - Biweekly all-staff meeting. Our CEO gives a little roundup of how things are going big-picture, and then one by one each of my colleagues gives a brief update of what they’re working on. Many pets and children make appearances - as a group the general vibe with interruptions on zooms is “delight”, which I appreciate. Nobody’s trying to “keep up appearances”. It’s all a mess we’re in together.
12:20pm - Lunchtime. Check COVID case counts again for my parents’ area (still undecided) while chatting with a friend about her thanksgiving plans. She and her husband have been isolating at a family cabin since early summer, when their city apartment building started renovating. They’re planning a “so bad it’s good” movie marathon, so while I eat leftover curry we chat about our favourite bad-good movies.
1:25pm- Reacquainting myself with some material for my 2pm meeting. I’m on an HR Committee at work and we’re meeting to check in on our work/life and wellness strategies as we head into another WFH quarter. The transition to remote has gone (mostly) well for our company, but there’s always room to improve!
3pm - After the HR meeting I put together a custom report request for our database team to run for me, and then pull up our team’s roadmap for the fiscal year and make some tweaks. I share developers with other teams and I know a big project has dropped in for them elsewhere, so I adjust. We’re already close to hitting our metrics for the year so I’m happy to let the other teams keep my devs busy for awhile while I prep and spec some larger feature builds for them.
4pm - My friend with the dingus boyfriend texts. Luckily, both she and her boyfriend tested negative, but since he lives with someone who’s sick, they’ll both need to test again in a few days. She talks about wanting to break up with him. I encourage her to take her time thinking about it. I think they should break up - he’s a dope. But she’s the one in the relationship - not my call!
5:15pm - I log off for a bit. I’m feeling a bit drained today. I didn’t sleep well last night and I know my indecision about Thanksgiving is weighing on me. I do a yoga video and lay on the floor crying afterward. It happens, part of that good ol’ depression life. Sometimes you just need a lil cry. I’ve been really emotionally overwhelmed since my hospitalization, and some close friends have really broken my trust recently. I’m working on it with my therapist, but sometimes you’re just fresh outta emotional juice, and while I love my family, we’re not close - time with them would be nice, but it’s not restorative.
7:10pm - Alright alright. Time to rally. I log on to my online portal and reply to my students’ board posts and questions. They seem like they’re doing a good job grasping the material, which makes me happy. I never wanted to be a teacher but it makes me feel so satisfied when I can see their progress. It cheers me up a little.
8:45pm - Time got away from me doing that work. I throw some fish and veggies into the oven and call my parents. I tell them I'm still undecided about Thanksgiving, Mom complains that I'm taking things too seriously, I text her the graph of cases again. She tells me I can make a day-before decision if I want to, that they'll isolate the rest of the week, for real, but she just needs to know by Friday around noon if I want to be picked up. I appreciate the extra time to consider things. Then Mom asks me to place a grocery click-and-collect order for her (she's not good at internet). I say I will, and she proceeds to slowly text me a grocery list one item at a time for the next hour. LOL. Moms.
10:15pm - I drink some sparkling water while watching Kim’s Convenience with RG on chat. After one episode I’m wiped, so I go to wash up. By the time I’m getting into bed, RG has left me a video message - the first half is his dog adorably snoring. The second half is just him telling me everything’s going to be OK and apologizing that he can’t be here to do our own Thanksgiving. Cry again - happier tears this time.

Day 7 - Wednesday ($0)

8:20am - Cutting it close today, wakeup-wise. It took me forever to fall asleep last night so I snooze a lot today, but when I finally get up, RG’s left me another voice memo encouraging me to get up and kick this day’s ass. I’ll try! I have a quick shower, mist my hair to refresh the curl a little, and get dressed.
9am - Log on and say hi to the team, then help the marketing team with some content for our monthly newsletter. Once that’s done, I make a smoothie with frozen mango and dragonfruit, then head back to my desk to load some data into our internal dashboards for our CEO’s reports later this week. Once it’s loaded, he DMs me and we chat a bit about the comparison year over year, possible insights, nerd out about graphs a bit.
10:30am - Team meeting. Alongside the usual updates I’ve added extra time to discuss some upcoming features and the specs I have in progress. I don’t love speccing something without involving them - they feel a lot more ownership when they’ve had a chance to be involved in the process. They get really excited about the new build and ask if I can reassign them to this instead of the other project they’re pinch hitting on now. Nice try!
12:15pm - Lunchtime! Some colleagues and I hop into Netflix Party to watch an episode of Queer Eye together. When we were in the office we used to have occasional TV lunch parties so we’ve been trying to mimic that in our new WFH life. I eat the last of my leftover curry while our Netflix Party chat goes OFF in full home-porn-drool at the reveal of Bobby’s house makeover.
1pm - Back to work, more data audits for our research team.
2pm - Internal meeting with another colleague about a section of her project I’m pitch-hitting on - super productive. She runs a tight meeting and I really admire her. After the meeting I write specs for the rest of the day based on the meeting this morning. I put on some old episodes of Reply All and get stuck in.
5:15pm - Head out for a short walk around the neighbourhood to get some air and outside time, talk a bit with RG while he’s on his commute. Once I’m back home, I do some tidying up.
6pm - Therapy call, I talk a bit about my Thanksgiving dilemma but we move on to other topics too. Feeling a bit better than yesterday, but a little rough around the edges. These are the kinds of days where I tend to feel tempted to order in, and while I scroll UberEats, nothing really looks that good, so I close the app and decide to just cook what I’d planned.
7pm - Make dinner, chicken and roasted veggies again. What can I say, I’ll party down on garlicky roasted broccoli any day of the week. I wash dishes when I’m done eating.
8pm - Pop online to check out my students’ posts for the day and reply to some emails. I briefly scroll through stuff on the IKEA website. I’ve been hoping to get some inserts for my Kallax unit, but the ones I want aren’t in stock, still.
9pm - Shower and wash my hair. I get out a shower scrub from Lush and really go to town, I do the Aztec Secret clay mask too. Why not!
9:45pm - Post up on the couch with some sparkling water, ready for TV time with RG. We watch the last two episodes of Kim’s Convenience and chat a bit before bed about what to watch next - we have a lot of good options, but decide to just see what we’re in the mood for tomorrow.
Weekly Total: $247

Food + Drink: $108
Fun + Entertainment: $0
Home + Health: $38
Clothes + Beauty: $64 on sewing supplies (future clothes + entertainment while I make them?)
Transport: $0
Other: $37 (gift)

Reflections: I keep an MD 365 days a year so I can tell by comparison this is on the lower end of an average range for this year so far - I usually get delivery at least once a week (sometimes twice), but I wasn’t feeling it this week! My average spend has really been ticking down the last couple of months. While the pandemic sucks and the isolation is rough (shoutout to my fellow live-aloners), I’m enjoying not spending as much, and that my spending is really heavily weighted toward things that contribute to my sense of well-being.

Nov 3rd, 2020 Fiscal-Conservative, Social Liberal Ballot walk-through for Washoe County

This post acts as an alternative viewpoint to the extreme-left list here.

Preface - My Bias and Background

I'm not a neutral party - I am decidedly pro Trump. This does not extend to the rest of the Republican Party, however. I'm simply opening with my background so everyone has full disclosure of any potential biases I may have.
I am a former democrat who got disillusioned after Bernie was abused in the 2016 election primaries and decided to #walkaway. I am a furry, LGBTQ, and have lived in Reno for over a year now, having fled the corruption and mismanagement of California for a much free-er state - pretty much the antithesis of a stereotypical "Trump supporter". As a younger voter, I voted Kerry in 04, Obama in 08 and 12, and in 2016 I voted Trump after Bernie was no longer an option - a moot point in California.
I grew up in the Philippines until '91 when Mt. Pinatubo erupted and forced my military family (chair force, woo!) to evacuate Clark AFB. We've lost everything more than once, and I spent years in a trailer park and on the supplemental food programs in elementary school. My parents both worked two jobs - Dad as an Air Force MP (and eventually rose to Lt. Col before retiring and continuing on in civil Service) and security guard, and mother as a maid at the Radisson hotel chain and fast food worker - which allowed us to actually rise out of poverty and own a house, and go to better school programs. Their work ethic is what's taught me the drive and focus that's allowed me to own my own house here in Reno - with my fantastic husband. It hasn't been an easy road, but I very much know what the American dream is about - I've lived it and want nothing more than for others to have the opportunities to do the same.
My recommendations, if any, below are colored through that lens of those experiences. Onto the ballot.

Ballot Summary

This is a quick short summary of how to vote from a Fiscal Conservative perspective. See the long explanations below. I am only going over items that have an actual choice, and am choosing to include all slots on my Ballot (Assembly District 31 and county district 4). For information on all candidates and their statements, links to their websites, etc, please see the official Washoe County voter information page on Candidates.
President: Trump, Donald J & Pence, Michael R. Congress District 2: Amodei, Mark E. State Assembly District 31: Dickman, Jill Or Daly, Skip County Commission District 4: Hartung, Vaughn Supreme Court Seat D: Herndon, Douglas Court of Appeals Dept 3: Bush, Susan District Court Judge Dept 10: Sigurdson, Kathleen A. District Court Judge Dept 11: Shannon, Greg District Court Judge Dept 13: Robb, Bridget
Question 1 - Strip constitutional status of the Board of Regents and allow state legislature to review and change the governing organization of state universities and federal grants:
Yes on Question 1.
Question 2 - Remove constitutional amendment declaring marriage between a man and woman only:
Yes on Question 2.
Question 3 - Require the Board of Pardons to meet more often, and allow the Board of Pardons to issue pardons without the Governor's approval:
Yes on Question 3.
Question 4 - Encodes the voter's bill of rights, a legislative statute since 2002, into a constitutional amendment:
Yes on Question 4.
Question 6 - Amend the constitution to require all electric providers start providing increasing amounts of energy from renewable sources so that 50% are provided by renewable sources by 2030:
No on Question 6.
The below section reviews my reasoning for the above selections.

Candidates

We shall address all people you can vote for in the below sections.

President and Vice President

Biden-Harris - Democrat

Platform
Official slogan: Build Back Better.
Official website

Biden's got 47 years of experience in politics, and has almost nothing to show for it. His slogan is a cheap Chinese knockoff of "Make America Great Again" - much like Biden himself; he's unoriginal, having plagiarized many speeches and policy goals. What he does have to show for it isn't good.
He's directly responsible for the crime bill that's put millions of BIPOC behind bars - rocketing the US to the highest incarceration rates in the world per the Human Rights Watch, with 70-80% of those being African Americans. He proudly called it the Biden Crime Bill in his failed 2008 bid. From 1983 to 2000, prison admissions for African Americans grew 2600% directly due to this bill - and no that's not a typo.
He's got a long history of racist behavior that demonstrates this wasn't an "unintended side effect" either - he opposed desegregation. And that's not new news, either - Biden has openly said the N word on the senate floor - twice, though to be fair he was quoting someone else, the double standard is absurd - anyone else that had done so wouldn't have been given a pass.
He also is on record directly praising Grand Cyclops Robert Byrd, who led a 150 person chapter of the KKK, calling him a close friend and mentor.. Don't forget, though, he's not racist because he noted poor kids are just as smart as white kids. Biden's racist past is so damning that he had no other option but to choose a minority, "diverse" VP. His choice of Kamala Harris was not based on actual political qualifications, merely she was one of the candidates most "diverse" to fit the bill. What an achievement - becoming choice for VP based solely on your race and gender.
Biden's abused his power as Vice President to solicit bribes from both China and Russia through his Son, Hunter Biden - an irrefutable fact that has been admitted to in Ukrainian courts by Burisma, noting that they did not refute the allegations that payments to Hunter were bribes to then-VP Joe Biden. The most the general media has done is not to refute the relationship, but to claim that Hunter's millions in payments from Russian Oligarchs are somehow... unrelated to his Father's position. Totally believable, don't you get paid tens of millions in fields you know nothing about as a 'consultant'? You can review the full senate report and supporting evidence here.
Biden, if elected, has pledged to raise taxes. You can see the entire fact check and history associated with this comment here. Now this is a bit dishonest - because the Trump tax cuts raised taxes on the wealthy - substantially - by capping the amount of money they could deduct from their federal taxes to $10,000 for state and local taxes (e.g. property taxes, income taxes). Joe biden's tax bill went up by millions because of the Trump Tax Cuts - as did his wealthy backers. That's why they want to repeal them. And the middle class who can't afford the tax firms and million dollar homes end up footing the bill for it.
Biden's energy platform is one that would significantly raise costs and kill jobs, exposing the rest of the country to the same energy policy goals as California - which we can all see is working so well in a state that can't even provide power for all their electric vehicles. The gross mismanagement under the name of "green" initiatives rejects the simple basics and facts of energy consumption, failing to provide sufficient supply and then blaming the people when the demand is exceeded. With no mention of any renewable or green energy sources actually capable of satisfying demand (e.g. Nuclear), the result is simply that people revert to dirtier, more destructive means of fulfilling their needs (e.g. the mass use of diesel and gas generators as the state fails to provide basic needs, or importing energy from other states at a premium). There's a reason CA's electricity is over $.80 per kw/hr. Do you want ours to increase from the ~ $0.08 kw/hr? CA's infrastructure resembles that of a third world country, not a shining beacon and example for the world to see on how to do things right.
I don't think I really need to go into the war-mongering of Biden, but I will address one extremely offensive ad I've seen recently around here - the MRAP ad. This is straight up bullshit on so many levels it makes me see red. Biden's involvement in the MRAP boils down to awarding a $45bn contract that was funded from stealing from other military funding (like veteran healthcare) to a manufacturer tied to his campaign, after an anti-Bush blitz in 2007. The original program, valued at $15bn, would have uparmored humvees and aligned with the Military's long term goals for versatile, modular equipment; and had just as effective of results as the MRAP. Now for all of you careful readers, you may recognize the term "MRAP" and realize that this was one of the hallmarks of the militarization of the US police. This is a direct result of the wasted money on the MRAP program Joe Biden championed and created. The vehicles serve no purpose in the Military strategy outside of a true wartime scenario, and thus have been a waste of taxpayer dollars. The Pentagon, in an effort to save face, has repurposed these vehicles to domestic law enforcement to offset the cost. Joe Biden is directly responsible for the militarization of our police force. And he claims he can fix it? Please.
Biden's would likely not serve his term if elected, meaning realistically, you're voting for Kamala Harris - a corrupt cop that knowingly withheld exculpatory evidence from thousands of cases (primarily against BIPOC under Biden's bill), and even attempted to block DNA testing for a man on Death Row. Sources Her only qualifications to begin her career was her affair with Willie Brown, through political kickbacks and corruption - a common theme for this ticket.
The rest of the platform is rehashed, failed policies from the past decades - lots of empty promises but demonstrated failures to achieve the stated outcomes time and time again.
Nobody in their right mind could support this ticket. I guess that's why only the left-minded do. *rimshot*

Blankenship-Mohr - Constitution Party

Platform
Official Slogan - N/A
Official Website

Blankenship is a former CEO of Massey Energy and was convicted of willfully violating mine safety standards, and was sentenced to one year in Prison. He has no experience in politics and very little relevant history to speak to. He was a former Republican, and the party platform is... convoluted and unclear. Near as I can tell, it's very strictly aligned with concepts of states rights, non-intervention, increased bill of rights protections, and minimal government. I agree with the other post that this is generally a spoiler candidate with no actual plan or goals.

Jorgenson-Cohen - Libertarian Party

Platform
Official Slogan - "Let Her Speak", "Break Free From Big Government"
Official Website

Jorgenson won the Libertarian primary in one of the most competitive ones in a while, securing the nomination after four rounds of voting and becoming the first female presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.
Jorgenson advocates for eliminating civil asset forfeiture and qualified immunity, ending the war on drugs and abolishing the scheduled substance program, has promised to pardon all non-violent drug offenders if elected, and urges the demilitarization of the police.
Jorgenson's foreign policy platform is one of non-interventionism, going beyond that to stump for a true free market and eliminate foreign aid, embargos, sanctions, and military intervention, bringing our Military back to the homefront only. She's very much in support of open borders and removing national quotas on immigration.
Jorgenson has aggressively criticized government spending and vowed to slash spending and reduce the need for elevated taxes in that manner, vowing to block additional borrowing and spending, but not actually providing any solid strategies to reducing spending.
Jorgenson's open-borders policy may appeal to some voters, as will her fiscal conservationist mantra; however while strong on principle I find she lacks meaningful concrete plans.

Trump-Pence - Republican Party

Platform - The Republican party chose not to publish an updated Platform this year and is using the same core principles of 2016.
Official Slogan - "Make America Great Again", "Keep America Great", "Promises Made, Promises Kept"
Official Website

Donald Trump secured presidency in 2016 and has since been subjected to non-stop negative press and "mistakes" by major media, big tech, and other sources to vilify and demonize his candidacy and presidency. Even the post I'm responding to falsely and incorrectly claims, repeatedly, that Trump's a White Nationalist, making easily disproven claims that he won't denounce white supremacy/nationalists when he has - dozens of times. It's irrefutable at this point, even FactCheck.org begrudgingly has noted the truth - yet the media loves pulling out an easily disproven statement to distract from Biden's racist past by projecting it on Trump. This is a common pattern, as is found by claims being made and widely published, then quietly retracted in a foot note before a defamation suit gains ground.
Unlike Biden, however, Trump has in 4 years done more than Biden has done in over 47. Trump is running on his accomplishments, and has demonstrated how effective he can be even despite 4 years of non-stop interference from now-known to be fabricated Russian Collusion allegations. It's worth noting that we now, officially and publicily, know that the Russian Collusion story was not only fake, it was a Hillary Clinton Campaign ploy to distract the public from the contents of her leaked e-mails. Once Trump Won, it was then used as a grounds to attempt to impeach or remove him from office (see the Mueller Investigation). The DNI Declassification this week seals the deal on the entire saga.
Trump's accomplishments are many, and he's kept a lot of his campaign promises, resulting in a rapid economic recovery once he took office. Obama's handling of the Bush recession was a disaster, with the ~ 11M jobs created under the Obama-Biden administration being low-wage, part time service jobs, not meaningful manufacturing or full time positions. Trump's policies, on the other paw, have seen record full time employment, with rising wages as businesses were forced to compete for scarce labor on an open market. Without needing a federal minimum wage increase that arbitrarily rammed costs down business throats, we achieved even here in Reno a $15 starting wage for many retail positions, with white and blue collar and other work having even higher salaries.
Trump reversed Biden's disastrous crime bill, orchestrating and signing the First Step Act which eliminated the mandatory prison terms that put millions of BIPOC behind bars for non-violent drug offenses.
Trump's championing of the NAFTA repeal and USMCA trade agreement, closing loopholes that have screwed over US small businesses in favor of international corporations like Walmart that have enriched other countries at the expense of our middle class.
Trump's built the wall, significantly cutting illegal immigration and drug flows into the US. Like it or hate it, he's delivered on that promise - and the cuts into illegal immigration and strict enforcement have directly resulted in rising wages and employment for our inner cities where they competed with Americans for jobs. Immediately after ICE raids, minority Americans found tons of economic opportunity taking over those jobs. And he's not just going after the illegals, but the businesses and owners that hire them. That's not about "race", that's about protecting American interests.
Trump, for the first time in decades decreased the Debt to GDP ratio by more than 1.2% - in 2017, reducing it from 105% to 104% in his first year. The last time that occurred by that amount was 1969, though both Reagan and W. Bush also decreased the ratio, it was by far less.
Trump's tax cuts directly helped the middle class by doubling the standard deduction, increasing child credits, and the unemployment decreases and salary increases wildly outpaced projections. We achieved record employment - and not cheap, unreliable service industry jobs. Real jobs that people can build families and lives on.
Trump legalized Hemp production as part of the 2018 Farm bill, tracking to make more efficient, green products the right way - by letting the market select for and produce better products, not arbitrarily enforcing deadlines and penalties to favor donor companies that can't exist on a fair market.
Trump's investment into our minority communities has delivered on what Biden and Democrats have promised, without result, for decades. Trump's Platinum plan slates a half trillion dollars for investment into Black and minority communities. There's a reason that, in four short years under Trump, we've seen 3 million new jobs and 500,000 black-owned small businesses. The opportunity for the American Dream was made real - because that's what Trump cares about. Every American having the opportunity to be great.
Honestly, I really could keep listing all day but I've spoken enough about Trump. If you're better off now than you were four years ago, vote Trump. Trump's running on his accomplishment. Biden's running on "orange man bad." That's not a platform, that's betting that you've been conditioned to hate everything Trump's done without cause or reason. When ever major corporation and media outlet, and tons of multi-decade established politicians all are telling you what to believe, and you believe it, you're not part of any "resistance" - you're the establishment.
And for all the gnashing of teeth... he's been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace prize - for things he actually did.
Nomination for work to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula Nomination for the Serbia-Kosovo peace deal. Nomination for the Isreal-UAE peace deal. Nomination for the diplomatic efforts of ending wars and encouraging peace throughout the world.
Trump's ending wars. Vote against that, if your conscience allows.

Congress District 2

Ackerman - Democrat

Ackerman regurgitates failed Democrat platform policies, a mere carbon copy of the DNC platform. While she claims to oppose Citizens United, of her reported ~ $345k in funding, the corporate SuperPAC front for the DNC, has contributed $292,720 - nearly 85% of her campaign funding. ActBlue has spent almost 2.5 billion dollars in 2020 to push DNC candidates - more than 22% of the overall spending by all PAC's in the country. So it's quite a stretch to claim she's opposed to Citizens United while collecting funding from the single largest Citizens United-enabled SuperPAC in the country.
Calling for an enforced $15 minimum wage rejects the reality of doing business - as California demonstrates, hemorrhaging 400,000+ jobs, businesses fleeing the state, and record unemployment and resulting crime. You can't just declare an arbitrary number and expect it to magically make problems go away because you ignore economic realities. A $15 wage in low skill positions is absolutely possible, and we can see that here in Reno with companies like Best Buy offering it as a starting wage - but that arises out of competition for labor, forcing companies to cut profit margins to remain competitive for tight labor markets; forcing the arbitrary wage doesn't accomplish that - it sets an impossibly high standard for small businesses and allows larger businesses to simply pass the costs onto the consumer.
This isn't news and isn't unexpected behavior. It's well documented and observed, and representative of government officials that think they can ignore the laws of physics and economics to impose their will, while never having to experience the consequences themselves.
Her separation from reality extends into believing somehow that solar energy is a realistic replacement for current sources (if she was serious on green energy, she'd be talking nuclear); or wanting a second disastrous amnesty program for illegals; which is what caused that "wage gap" for native-born minority Americans - the influx and amnesty of low-skilled migrants directly competes with and crushes wages of Americans in the job market - it's not theory, it's fact.).
I found it amusing to review her "Racial Justice" page, which is a combination of things Trump already did, or that directly criticize her party's past achievements. She supports defunding the police, ending the second amendment by proxy and curtailing the rights of Americans, and supports reparations.
She's explicitly anti-gun, claiming that firearms are for hunting, and wants to create a federal registration program and ban semiautomatic firearms (per her "I agree with groups like Moms Demand Action that more is still needed.")
Notably absent from her platform is the concept of self-responsibility - it's all government give-aways from the taxpayer to buy votes. Extremely socially liberal, to the point of pandering, and no sense of fiscal responsibility at all. Printing money won't solve problems.
Hard pass.

Amodei - Republican

Amodei is a pretty unremarkable rank and file Republican. He is generally fiscally conservative, but has indicated support for increased defense spending (not a point in his favor). He's openly pro-life, lower taxes, and has supported legislation for COVID relief.
Amodei's got some accomplishments, including the Northern Nevada Land Act and Conservation Economic Development Act, which enjoyed bipartisan support.
Amodei does support a compromise on illegal immigration, favoring a plan to naturalize DREAMERS, a position that places him more towards center than his Republican colleagues. He also openly supports tax reductions across the board and is a fiscal hawk.
It's worth noting that Amodei has a nuanced approach to nuclear energy and I feel like he would actually support true green initiatives that can actually work, such as investing in nuclear energy and water capture technologies that could work within the framework of the economy, not try (and fail) to dictate to it.
Overall, while I disagree with Mark on some things (like pro life), his centrist positions on things like DREAMERs and lack of overt evidence of corruption earn him my support - he seems reasonably socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

Hansen - Independent American Party

Hansen's platform and history are light. The other post accurately attributed that she believes "Let people who are vulnerable to coronavirus stay home". This candidate is rather extreme in some of their views, though "Lunatic" may be going a little far for my tastes.
Hansen is anti-illegal immigration, pro second amendment, and aligns closely with the "tea party" type republicans. Too far right for my taste, and overall does not earn my vote. She's essentially a spoiler candidate to try to take the far-right vote away from a moderate like Amodei.

State Assembly District 31

Note that you can find information on the other State Assembly Districts and State Senate District at the Washoe County candidate index.

Daly, Richard "Skip" - Democrat

Skip, like Ackerman, regurgitates the Democrat platform talking points, but has no meaningful action or commitments to show for it. His legislative history is, well, pathetic. He literally hasn't done anything of note - just sponsoring bills to "Express appreciation". Really?
His voting record isn't really noteworthy - the big negative being his support for tax increases on property and businesses - he's voted in favor of three major tax hikes that will severely harm job creation in the state. He did indicate that he isn't going to blindly support them on the second round of revisions, noting

“Depending on which version of the three come forward, I’m hoping there’s some consensus that develops after that,” he said. “If there is, then I think all parties are going to be supporting it. But right now that’s in a state of flux.”

He has indicated he does not support defunding the police.
It is worth noting that he surprisingly broke with party lines on the 2nd amendment, voting against restrictions, which earns him a solid "left leaning centrist" position in my book. I have no reason to vote for him, and only light reason to vote against him based on his tax platform - overall, he seems like a fair candidate and I don't fault anyone that would support him. I might, myself. We'll see.

Dickman, Jill - Republican

Dickman seems like a pretty rank and file Republican, regurgitating much of their platform on her issues page. Dickman's legislative prowess is much more significant, however, as can be seen on the bills she's sponsored (oddly enough broken on billtrack50).
Her voting record and positions are pretty clear, pushing education reforms, tax reductions and blocking tax increases, however she does want more "free market" healthcare that I see as a negative. Her 2nd amendment positions and efforts are significant, as is her opposition to sanctuary cities and support for law enforcement.
Overall, I deem her to be solidly right-wing, and if the election were held today, barely, barely earning my support based on her tax platform. We'll see.

County Commission District 4

Note, for all commission seats, you can view the Candidate perspectives and statements here.

Baker, Marie - Democrat

Platform - None found.
Official Website

Marie Baker is a newcomer to the political scene and does not appear to have any clear positions or record to refer to. Watching the statements, her positions appear to be typical Democrat/Socialist leanings. Quick notes on her "why should voters vote for you" statements:

Anti-special interest
Anti-development in flood plains
How she will address affordable housing and development concerns

I will note that how she presents herself and her positions is very uncertain and lacking confidence, and unfortunately I don't believe she would be able to hold her own in the political arena.

Hartung, Vaughn

Platform - Unclear, none found.
Official Website

Vaughn is running on his record as a county commissioner, and is his final term attempt - he will not be eligible to run again if successful. In particular, he has noted issues regarding homelessness and touting his success on rehabilitation and homeless work programs. He's also taken a lot of steps and been internationally recognized for his work regarding water conservationism and quality.
Overall, he presents as a much more experienced politician and his record doesn't have anything disqualifying to my view. I feel like he would better serve our community with that experience, hence my support for him.

Judicial Selections

Supreme Court Seat D

This is a hotly contested seat light on details. The RGJ did an article on the topic.

Fumo, Ozzie - Nonpartisan

Official Website

Ozzie seems well-intentioned, however he is openly and vehemently anti-2A per his own website, and is very much at risk of being an Activist Judge. He's a democratic politician - not a judge, and seeks to abuse the judiciary to further a political agenda.
Pushing to reduce the rule of law is not a position a judge should take, and that's what his position with Cash Bail is. The diversity quota behavior only serves to further highlight differences instead of recognizing that all Americans should be and are equal in the eyes of the law. By pushing anything short of that, he merely preserves a dying legacy of racism.
Hard pass on activist judges - they cannot be impartial.

Herndon, Douglas - Nonpartisan

Official Website

Herndon is by no means a clean comparison, however he does have significantly more experience as a prosecutor and has significant community involvement. His rulings and history appear to be largely neutral and he received the highest performance score of any district court judge in the Review Journal's 2019 Judging the Judges survey, with an 85% retention rating in said survey and earning their endorsement.
I can't find any disqualifying remarks or positions on him, which is what I would expect of a judge expected to maintain neutrality, hence he gets my vote.

Court of Appeals Dept 3

Bulla, Bonnie

Official Website

Bonnie's history is pretty lackluster, and she's responded to Ballotpedia's candidate Connection survey. She has pushed for adding additional three judge panels as well as citing that she'd like more opinions out of the court.

Bush, Susan

Official Website

Bush's history is likewise lackluster, and also responded to the survey. She makes a point about needing someone with experience representing clients in the family and criminal divisions that I find compelling and thus support her over Bulla.

District Court Dept 10

Sattler, Elliot

Official Website

Sattler published an opinion article at the RGJ making the case for his re-election. I don't know what it is, but it rubs me significantly the wrong way and comes off as sleezy. I really can't justify any rational explanation for it, but I don't what I've seen of his column and website.

Sigurdson, Kathleen

Official Website

Not really much on her one way or another, which is what I like to see in a Judge. Between her and Sattler, I'll go with her.

District Court Dept 11

This race has comments from both candidates via the RGJ.

Dollinger, Paige

Official Website - Note, page appears to have expired with her web host and I reviewed the google cache of it.

Not really any information to be found outside of the Gazette statements. Her embracing of technology is encouraging.

Shannon, Greg

Official Website - None found.

Given the lack of information on the candidates, I based my decision on their statements to the Gazette. I don't find anything disqualifying or negative about Paige, I just find Greg's observations a bit more compelling, particularly his comment noting representation for fathers within the family court.

District Court Dept 13

Bushur, Aaron

Official Website

Nothing of note compelling for or against the candidate.

Robb, Bridget

Official Website - None found.

While researching, I did find that Bridget has been involved in addressing corruption with other judges, a serious point in her favor. Otherwise, I don't see much on her. Between the two, Bridget has more points in her favor and earns my support - I'll always value integrity.

Questions

Honestly, not going to be much in terms of explanation on these.

Question 1

Ballotpedia Review)

I find the arguments in favor more compelling than the arguments opposing it, as the regent's arguments in opposition seem more self-preservationist than anything. I really am not strongly committed on this item - it's a tentative yes vote from me.

Question 2

Ballotpedia Review)

As a LGTBQ individual, I really gotta say... this question's moot. It's a virtue signal - the US Supreme Court constitutional rulings mooted this. A yes vote will clean up the constitution and eliminate that bigoted stain from Nevada's legislative books, though, so get 'er done Reno. There's not even any documented opposition to it (as is only right.)
Hard yes.

Question 3

Ballotpedia Review)

More often reviews of our criminal justice system and pardons, and allowing the committee to do so without having to convince the Governor? I really don't see any downsides here.
Hard yes.

Question 4

Ballotpedia Review)

This is a move to enshrine the voting rights passed in 2002 as an amendment. I see no fuckery afoot and this is a solid addition to our state constitution.
Hard yes.

Question 6

Ballotpedia Review)

Hoo boy. This is gonna be the shitshow of a question. Besides being a virtue signal and ignoring that we're already tracking to, without such concrete demands, have 25% renewable sources, there's tons of evidence of what such policies will result in. We've seen it in CA - $.80 per kw/hr electricity, rolling blackouts, and other failings because there's simply no non-nuclear renewable source that can fill the consumer demand.
Putting this demand into our constitution is absurd, self-destructive virtue signalling that ignores the harsh realities of living in a desert. We don't need a codified concrete mandate that will fuck over market forces and encouragement. It's impossible to create enough "green" energy in 10 years to provide 50% of our power grid's requirements from it, so we'd have to shut down other sources or outsource the needs, raising costs and killing business investments here. We've got multiple data centers coming to Nevada - bringing high tech, skilled, high paying jobs with them, and such a bill would torpedo those plans fast in favor of states with less absurd requirements like Idaho and Texas.
Hard. Fucking. No. If you have any question of what the results of such a policy would be, just look at CA - they can't even keep their lights on. This question is just a poison pill from California and California transplants to make Nevada a blackout-ridden shithole.
If we want renewable energy, we should be pushing for nuclear reactors to satisfy this need, not making impossible mandates to virtue signal.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Given the general liberal echo chamber that is reddit, I'm grateful to the mods for not caving to mob mentality and allowing alternative points of view. I hope people have found this list useful.

Former investment bank FX trader: Risk management part 3/3

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Jul. 15, 2002

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:


1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	1-28-2002
2-4-2002	2-11-2002	2-18-2002	2-25-2002
3-4-2002	3-11-2002	3-18-2002	3-25-2002
4-1-2002	4-8-2002	4-15-2002	4-22-2002
4-29-2002	5-6-2002	5-13-2002	5-20-2002
5-27-2002	6-3-2002	6-10-2002	6-17-2002
6-24-2002	7-1-2002	7-8-2002

In a shocking turn of events, NWA-TNA announced last week that Vince Russo was joining the promotion, less than 3 weeks after he returned to WWE. Russo's return to WWE was announced as joining the company as part of the creative team on 6/20, but after his first creative meeting, he was demoted to consultant and was paid $1,000 a week to sit at home and send in written critiques of the weekly TV shows. Russo didn't have a contract and it's no secret that his return was deeply unpopular in the locker room and even more unpopular in the office among those who still resent him for how he left in 1999. Russo has told friends that he feels like WWE is a mess and it won't change because Vince McMahon won't remove Stephanie McMahon from her position as head writer. Russo recently sold his record store in Atlanta and was planning to move back up north (he never liked living in the south, but moved there when he went to WCW) but he hasn't moved yet. According to TNA sources, Russo will essentially help with production and writing of the shows. TNA is way understaffed when it comes to people with experience producing live shows like this. Russo was introduced to the staff on 7/9 and, much like in WWE, there were a lot of unhappy people who weren't the least bit happy to see him. He's not exactly the most well-liked guy in the business. But he's still good friends with Jeff Jarrett and Russo had already been contributing ideas and storylines for this company before the brief WWE return anyway. At the time, Russo's involvement was being kept secret because of his lawsuit with Hulk Hogan. AOL/Time Warner was representing him (since the incident happened in WCW). They only agreed to represent him as long as he didn't go work for another wrestling promotion. When the WWE offer came along, Russo managed to get AOL/Time Warner to drop that stipulation, which allowed him to go work for WWE. And now, subsequently, TNA. The lawsuit with Hogan is still ongoing and AOL/Time Warner's lawyers are still repping Russo.
Kevin Nash will be out of action for god knows how long after tearing his left quad in a match on Raw. It was Nash's first match back since suffering a bicep tear back in March. After tagging in, he tore his quad on the first move. It's the same injury Triple H suffered that kept him out for over 7 months and there's no way that Nash—who's 10 years older than Triple H—is about to put himself through the same grueling rehab that Triple H did. Triple H moved to Birmingham and lived there 24/7 doing Dr. James Andrews full-time rehab program. Nash has kids and a family and shit, he's probably not moving to Birmingham so he can do rehab 3 times a day. Dave suspects this is gonna take a bit longer for Nash (ended up being around 9 months). The injury occurred in a 10-man tag match that Nash wasn't even scheduled for until he found out the day of the show. Nash's original return to the ring was supposed to be on house shows later that week. The match was planned and designed to get Nash over as a huge monster and build him into one of the top 5 or so major main event stars in the company, because the plan was to do Nash vs. Triple H at Summerslam in one of the top matches (with Rock/Brock and Hogan/Vince penciled in as the other top matches). But as soon as Nash tagged in, he kicked Booker T, but then tripped over him when trying to step over Booker and collapsed, grabbing his thigh and screaming in pain. The match fell apart and nobody knew what to do until Shawn Michaels (not even in the match, just outside the ring) took charge and started telling guys what to do and calling spots. He improvised a superkick on Booker T and told Big Show to chokeslam him to finish it. The next day, Nash underwent surgery from Dr. James Andrews, who has done several previous surgeries on Nash (knee, bicep, elbow, and more). All in all, not a bump gone wrong or anything, just a freak accident.

WATCH: Kevin Nash tears his quad

Bret Hart has written a new column in the Calgary Sun, his first since suffering his recent stroke. Dave copies and pastes the whole column here, but I'll just cliff notes it: Bret is doing as well as can be expected. Made a stupid mistake by bike riding without a helmet because he'd been too lazy to fix the broken chin-strap. Hit a pothole, crashed his bicycle, hit his head, believes he suffered a stroke on impact. Was unable to move the left side of his body. Used his cell phone to call for help. Thanks fans, doctors, nurses, wife, kids, family, friends, etc. for being there for him. Promises he'll recover. Dave says Bret's progress has been slow but steady over the past week. He can take small steps with help but is mostly still confined to a bed and wheelchair and is only just now getting feeling back in his left leg. He's spending his time doing therapy and working on his autobiography which is apparently already 960 pages deep and he's only up to the late-80s so far. Doctors were surprised Bret was able to work on his book since they expected him to have memory issues or problems writing due to the stroke, but he has neither. Dave says Bret has talked about dividing the book up into 3 parts and releasing them that way due to the length (it only ended up being around 600 pages so he must have had a merciless editor).
WWE reached an out-of-court settlement this week with the Parents Television Council which will award WWE $3.5 million and a public apology from the PTC, as well as a promise that they will leave WWE alone. As part of the settlement, PTC agreed to never have any involvement with WWE business in the future, to never urge boycotts of WWE or of WWE sponsors. PTC head L. Brent Bozell had to issue a public apology to the WWE and Vince McMahon and the apology must be posted on the PTC's website home page for 6 months. They also must remove all other content from its website relating to WWE, its advertisers, or the accusations that WWE held any responsibility in the deaths of several children. Also, if WWE decides to make him do so, they can request Bozell meet with WWE advertisers personally to further explain his apology, and he'll be required to do it. Long story short: the PTC got absolutely fucking SPANKED here. The PTC will not be paying the settlement out of pocket, it will be paid by insurance, which is the only thing that is allowing them to even stay in business because without them, that $3.5 million would have killed the organization. The case was expected to go to trial in September and WWE was seeking $55 million in damages. And they likely would have won easily, so the PTC didn't have much of a choice here. They had to settle.
In addition to the above, attorney Jim Lewis (who represented Lionell Tate, one of the kids who was convicted of murdering a young girl) must also publicly apologize for claiming that Tate's actions were inspired by what he saw watching wrestling. Dave recaps the history of the PTC going after WWF at the height of its Attitude Era success, crusading against WWF by targeting their sponsors. At first, the PTC made some valid points about some of the extremely questionable content WWF was producing. Problem is, then they started outright lying and their claims got more and more outlandish, and Bozell turned it into a personal mission to take down Vince McMahon and the WWE, to the point that they crossed over into libel and defamation. They also used fake and misleading statistics when pressuring sponsors. All of this led to WWE taking them to court and mollywhopping dat ass. (I've actually done a lot of research on this WWE/PTC case for some other thing I'm writing and it's a really fun case to read about. WWE's past is pretty indefensible sometimes, but Bozell was out of his mind obsessed with destroying them. He's a hardcore right-wing conservative and his battle with WWE was literally a moral and religious crusade to him. To this day, I bet it eats Bozell alive that he got owned so thoroughly and had to release such a humbling apology. And oh, bet your ass, we're about to read that apology):
Bozell's and PTC's public apology on their website reads the following:

`Media Research Center (MRC), Parents Television Council (PTC), Dr. Delores Tucker, Mark Honig and I have in the past made statements regarding so-called wrestling deaths — children killed by other children alleged to be mimicking “professional wrestling” moves they saw on television.
We made such statements to members of MRC and PTC, the media, advertisers on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) SmackDown! program, retailers that sell WWE-related toys and merchandise, public officials and the public.
MRC and PTC also produced a videotape as part of a fundraising campaign in connection with its “National Campaign to Clean Up TV Now!”, which advanced the notion that the murder of Tiffany Eunick was caused by the influence of professional wrestling on Lionel Tate.
The videotape included interviews with Lionel Tate’s lawyer advancing the notion that the murder of Tiffany Eunick, the victim, was directly caused by the impact that professional wrestling had on Lionel Tate.
We based our statements on media reports and source information. We now believe, based on extensive investigation and facts which have come to light since making those statements that it was wrong for MRC, PTC, their spokespersons and myself to have said anything that could be construed as blaming WWE or any of its programs for the deaths of the children.
Simply put, it was premature to reach that conclusion when we did, and there is now ample evidence to show that conclusion was incorrect. I now believe that professional wrestling played no role in the murder of Tiffany Eunick, which was a part of our “Clean Up TV Now!” campaign and am equally convinced that it was incorrect and wrong to have blamed WWE or any of its programs for the deaths of the other children.
Because of our statements, PTC, MRC and the WWE have been in litigation since November 2000. WWE vigorously advanced its position that neither it, nor “professional wrestling” led to these deaths.
WWE also contended that MRC, PTC, their spokespersons and I had misrepresented the number of advertisers who withdrew support from WWE’s SmackDown! television program after receiving communications from the PTC, some of which regrettably connected the WWE and SmackDown! to the deaths of children.
As such, WWE exercised its right to initiate this litigation, during which facts came to light that prompted me to make this statement.
By this retraction, I want to be clear that WWE was correct in pointing out that various statements made by MRC, PTC and me were inaccurate concerning the identity and number of WWE SmackDown! advertisers who withdrew support from the program. Many of the companies we stated had “withdrawn” or pulled their support had never, in fact, advertised on SmackDown! nor had any plan to advertise on SmackDown!
Again, we regret this error and retract any such misleading statements.
Finally, concerning the statements about child wrestling deaths, it was wrong to have stated or implied that WWE or any of its programs caused these tragic deaths. Specifically concerning the Lionel Tate case, recent developments lead us to believe that others and we were given, and relied upon, false information provided by parties close to the case.
The information that we were given and relied upon may have been designed to make a national example of the Florida murder trial, pinning the blame on WWE.
For example, we were told by a source that Lionel Tate was watching a WWE program when he assaulted Tiffany Eunick. In fact, Lionel Tate was watching the “Flintstones” and a cartoon entitled “Cow and Chicken.” We were also told, by a source, that Lionel Tate killed Tiffany Eunick while executing a wrestling move unique to a WWE character called the “Stone Cold Stunner”.
We have since learned that this was not true, nor was there any evidence that it was true. It is now well documented that after the Tate trial concluded, the presiding Judge said it was “inconceivable” that Tiffany Eunick’s injuries were caused by Lionel Tate mimicking wrestling moves.
Indeed, since the trial ended, Lionel Tate’s new lawyers have filed court papers in which they admit that the “wrestling defense” was, in their words, “bogus.”
Given these facts, WWE was within its rights to be angry at the MRC, PTC, their spokespersons and I for contacting WWE’s advertisers to go beyond complaining about WWE content but passing along accusations which we now know were false. Because I feel a simple retraction is not sufficient, I have personally extended my apology to Vince McMahon and the WWE on behalf of MRC, PTC, Dr. Tucker, Mr. Honig and me.
Through this letter, I now make this apology public and specifically directed to the advertising community that has in the past, is currently or may in the future consider advertising or sponsoring WWE programming.
The PTC can have its concern with the content of WWE’s television programming – though these concerns have been reduced significantly over the past years as a reflection of WWE’s changed standards. But nowhere in that debate, including in the correspondence and statements to the advertising community, should there have been any discussion of “wrestling” deaths.
I regret this happening. It wasn’t fair to WWE.
And I say this emphatically: Please disregard what others and we have said in the past about the Florida “wrestling” death. Neither “wrestling” in general, nor WWE specifically, had anything to do with it. Of that I am certain.’

PRIDE and K-1 announced their plans to put on the biggest event in MMA history, with a joint show in August, with hopes to draw 100,000 people to the Tokyo National Soccer Stadium. The original plan was for the show to take place on Aug. 29th, but they changed it to the 28th to avoid going head-to-head with a major NJPW show at Buddokan Hall which would have drawn many of the same fans they're trying to get. However, this is during monsoon season in Japan and it's an outdoor stadium, so just in case, they've got the stadium on reserve for several days in the event the scheduled date gets rained out. Here's the problem: this stadium only holds 60,000 for soccer games, so even if you add ground seating, realistically, you can only pack probably 80,000 at most. So the claim that they're going to draw 100,000 fans is "just as legitimate as the 93,173 number that WWE uses for its record." Dave notes that the real record for biggest paid attendance for a wrestling show is Summerslam 92 with the Hart/Bulldog match drawing 78,927 confirmed paid. But whatever. The plan for this show is for it to be an 8-9 match card, with every fight being dream matches featuring big name fighters. Rules for each fight will be unique and it will air on prime time TV in Japan. The main event will be Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Mirko Cro Cop, plus Dave breaks down a bunch of other planned or rumored match-ups.
Dave looks at some business numbers and it ain't good news. Just to give one example, WWE's average attendance-per-show was 4,711 during the month of June, which is the lowest month for attendance since Feb. 1997. And most of the tickets for those shows were sold before Austin walked out. So once fans realize that Austin really is gone (at least for now) and not coming back anytime soon, the coming months could look even more dire for ticket sales.
AAA's Triplemania X event took place last week (again) and ended with Octagon unmasking Pentagon in a mask vs. mask match. I only mention this because there have been lots of "Pentagon" characters over the years in AAA and later the indies in Mexico, portrayed by different people. But this match ended up being the last time the Pentagon gimmick would be used in AAA for the next decade.....until AEW star Pentagon Jr. began using the gimmick in 2012.
Keiji Muto is apparently trying to shorten what's left of his career by being a complete madman. Muto is already beyond banged up, with knees that should have retired him years ago. He has no business working a full schedule at this stage in his career, but he's AJPW's biggest star and best draw, so he is continuing to work every show. But now he's taking it a step further. Muto will be working 3 separate matches in one night for AJPW's upcoming Budokan Hall show. He's doing the Mick Foley gimmick, where he will wrestle under a different gimmick for each match. He'll be wrestling as Muto, Great Muta, and Kokushi Muso (the gimmick he uses only when he teams with Hakushi and paints his body in similar fashion). So yeah.
Vader was arrested in his hometown of Boulder, CO earlier this month for allegedly spitting at a police officer, threatening the officers with rocks, resisting arrest, drinking and driving, careless driving, and leaving the scene of an accident. It ended up taking 8 officers and 2 police dogs on the scene before Vader agreed to be arrested peacefully, and they used multiple sets of handcuffs. It started when Vader crashed his van into some bushes, but then backed out, left the scene, and drove home (about a block away). Police came to his home and found Vader severely intoxicated and barely able to stand. At some point, Vader told the police, "I will and can kick all of your asses! Let's fight!" The police brought in the police dogs, but Vader still wouldn't back down and threatened to kill the dogs if they came at him. Then he picked up rocks and threatened to throw them and spit at one of the cops, but missed. The other cops showed up and they eventually calmed him down and arrested him. According to records, Vader has 2 prior DUI arrests in Boulder. This all occurred just days before he was scheduled to leave for Japan for the latest NOAH tour but he still went and is over there working shows now.
Kenta Kobashi finally made his real in-ring return after more than a year out of action (aside from the one comeback match where he re-injured himself for 4 more months). Kobashi has been told in no uncertain terms that one more knee injury and he's done for good. Dave figures that knee injury is inevitable. Kobashi is working opening matches all week, teaming with the rookies and doing hot tag spots for now.
Former IWGP champion Kazuyuki Fujita is scheduled to make his return to NJPW next week after being out of action the past 7 months with a torn Achilles that caused him to vacate the IWGP title. He's going to continue doing shoot fights as well.
Manami Toyota, arguably (is it even arguable) the greatest female wrestler of all time, announced she is leaving All Japan Women and jumping ship to Gaea. Toyota has spent her entire 15 year career working for AJW so this is a surprise and a pretty big blow to AJW.
Jesse Ventura was rushed to the hospital this week with a blood clot in his lung after complaining of chest pains. He's now in stable condition, on blood thinners, and should be okay. Ventura has a history of blood clots and a pulmonary embolism in 1984 took him out of action right before he was about to start a lengthy (and surely lucrative) feud with Hulk Hogan. He eventually returned and wrestled for another year, mostly in tag teams and such, before retiring due to the health issues.
Dave has some anecdotal evidence of how TNA's viewership numbers are going and it ain't pretty. Between week 1 and week 2, there was a full 50% drop in responses to the reader poll Dave put out on the show. That was to be expected. But the drop from Week 2 to Week 3 was another 41% drop from that. So we're only a few weeks in and it appears this company is already hemorrhaging viewers. Internally, TNA is basically flaunting the preliminary numbers they got from the PPV providers that show they're doing big buyrates. Dave feels sorry for them because he's been following the PPV industry since it began and the preliminary numbers from the providers are ALWAYS wrong and ALWAYS substantially higher than what the real number ends up being. Dave basically says TNA is getting excited over fake numbers and if they're basing their future on what they expect to pull in financially, they're going to be VERY disappointed a few months from now when the real numbers are revealed and those PPV checks end up being way less than they're expecting. TNA's weekly production costs are around $200,000, which means they need at least 50,000 buys per week just to break even on the production costs (and that's not counting all the other costs like paying the wrestlers, advertising, etc. that I'm sure they'd like to have some extra money for). So we're only a few weeks in and, yet again, this whole project still does not seem sustainable.
Notes from TNA Weekly PPV: this was by far the weakest of the 3 shows so far. Dave thinks they're trying too hard to copy much of WWE's formula, rather than focusing on what makes them different or what they can do better. They were in Nashville this week, with about 2,000 fans (1,100 paid, the rest freebies). There's a lot of young talent here and they have potential, but so many of them aren't ready for the national stage and it showed. They did almost nothing to promote or build for next week's show, which is a killer when you're depending on people to pay for it every week. Dave thinks it felt like an episode of WCW Thunder. More production mistakes (wrong names on the screen during introductions, etc.). They announced Japanese wrestler Takao Omori and Christopher Daniels will be there next week, but made no effort to educate fans on who those people are or why anyone should care. Monty Brown made his debut and Dave is impressed, since he looks good, was athletic, and has some good mic skills and he thinks TNA did a better job of debuting and protecting him than WWE usually does with new guys. Another angle with NASCAR driver Hermie Sadler and it sucked, leading Dave to joke that Sterling Martin carried their tag team last time. 6 matches into the show and Dave says not a single one of them has even reached the 1-star mark. Thankfully, AJ Styles and David Young saved the show with a 2.25 star classic. Brian Christopher turned heel on Scott Hall, leading Hall to do a stretcher job in what was a pretty good angle but, ya know....it's Jarrett and Brian Christopher.
Various other TNA news and notes: they've been taking out radio ads to promote the shows, with the tagline, "If you're tired of that other wrestling..." Dave is flabbergasted that TNA brought Jackie Fargo in for the debut shows (in Huntsville, where he wasn't really a big name) but didn't use him at all in Nashville this week, since he's the biggest drawing star in the city's history. Vince Russo and Disco Inferno were backstage at the show. TNA's new backstage interviewer Goldylocks was in the Los Angeles airport during the shooting there last week that left 2 people dead and several others injured. She was even interviewed by the local news about it.
More fun political games in WWE. Paul Heyman and Pat Patterson came up with an angle to continue John Cena's momentum following his debut match with Kurt Angle, in which Cena would slap Vince McMahon in the face and then have a match with Jericho in which he would almost win and Jericho would have to cheat to get the pin. You know, make him look strong in defeat kinda thing, same as the Angle match. Well, Triple H apparently went to Vince and convinced him to nix the angle, saying nobody should be laying hands on Vince right now since they're building to Hogan vs. Vince at Summerslam. This turned into a major issue backstage because most of the locker room doesn't like the "NWO group" (basically, Nash, X-Pac, Shawn Michaels, and Triple H, even though he's not part of the group on TV). The usual Kliq stuff. Some of the wrestlers said that everyone can see that Cena has major star potential and they feel like Triple H cutting him off at the knees like this is more about protecting his own spot. They compromised and had Cena slap Jericho instead (Dave says it was a hell of a slap, and on his podcast, Bruce Prichard has told this story. Apparently Jericho insisted that Cena really lay in the slap to make it look good. And so Cena damn near killed him). Patterson in particular was furious that his idea got scrapped and told everyone who would listen about it, feeling the original angle would have gotten people talking about Cena (something they haven't been able to do with any of the other news guys) and felt the compromise angle didn't really have the same effect. Dave notes there's been a lot of resentment towards Nash and Michaels because they're getting some of the biggest pushes in the company right now despite not working full-time like everyone else. And Triple H is going to always be a target of it because of his real-life relationship with Stephanie McMahon. And, of course, X-Pac is basically protected by all his friends and has gotten out of doing multiple jobs in recent weeks when Nash or Michaels complained on his behalf. For what it's worth though, Hulk Hogan is said to be the total opposite, doing exactly what is asked of him and working as hard as he's capable of doing, has had no problem doing jobs or putting anyone over, and is pretty much avoiding all this Kliq drama. So at least one of these guys is redeeming their reputation here a little (just don't turn any hidden cameras on when he's having a conversation).
Chris Jericho has agreed to a new WWE deal, but hasn't yet signed the contract and is actually working without one at the moment. His previous deal expired a week or two ago and he's been hammering out details with WWE ever since. With declining business and no real competition to use as leverage, Jericho's negotiating power was obviously not great. But he is one of the company's key guys and word is Jericho considers the offer "fair, under the circumstances." So probably not as good as he was hoping, but that's what happens when you work for a monopoly.
Notes from Raw: "one of those nights best left forgotten," Dave says, as WWE's 2002 continues to suck. Booker T cut a promo challenging the NWO, but Eddie Guerrero answered the challenge instead, "I guess since they could get him to do a job on TV without complaining," Dave quips. And indeed, Booker won. Chris Benoit was embroiled in the beginnings of an angle with Austin and Flair, but when Austin left, everything got changed, and now Benoit is feuding with Bubba Ray Dudley, which is quite the demotion. Shawn Michaels cut a promo talking about the Kliq days, full of insider references that were lost on most of the crowd and it was so quiet that you could even hear one heckler yell, "Get to the point!" Dave doesn't understand why they're fondly reminiscing about a time that was by far the darkest, lowest period in the last 30 years of the business, but whatever. William Regal lost to Jeff Hardy, leading Dave to wonder whatever happened to the Regal/Molly Holly storyline that has seemingly been dropped with no explanation. And, of course, the Kevin Nash injury to end the show.
Oh yeah....and then there's this. Raw also featured a match with Trish Stratus & Bradshaw vs. Chris Nowinski & Jackie Gayda, which Dave calls "the longest 3:14 in pro wrestling history." Basically every spot that Gayda and Stratus did was completely blown, some so badly that Dave can't even figure out what they were trying to do. Nowinski and Bradshaw brawled into the crowd. "I think they were running out as fast as they could to preserve whatever reputation they have left." Jim Ross on commentary used the dreaded "bowling shoe ugly" phrase which is JR Code for "holy shit this is a bad match." The ending was completely botched but this time, Gayda at least had the sense to realize that they botched the finish so bad that she probably shouldn't eat a pin from it, so she tried to kick out instead. But Trish and the referee didn't get the memo and so the ref counted the 3 anyway, which made the whole thing look even worse. Crowd booed this like crazy and Dave says it was clear to everybody that Gayda has no business on Raw yet, she's still waaaaaaay too green (If you haven't seen it, this match is legendarily bad and is widely known simply as "That Jackie Gayda Match."

WATCH: That Jackie Gayda match

Notes from Smackdown: on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, this was a great show. Lillian Garcia singing "America the Beautiful" was interrupted by Team Canada, who got the most heel heat Dave has seen anywhere in wrestling in a long time. They're trying to redo the 1997 Hart Foundation/Canada angle, except this time, it's Christian, Test, and Lance Storm. Whether it will be successful or not depends on who the babyface is. In 1997, it was Steve Austin. If they pick Rikishi or somebody here in 2002, it's not gonna get over near as big. Batista working tag matches is the best thing for him, because he's looking a lot better lately while being able to hide his weaknesses. The Cena/Jericho angle was good (though probably not as good as the original idea would have been). During the Billy and Chuck segment, Chuck had a line about being tired from walking all day on Sunday. The joke wasn't explained, so if you didn't get it: that recent Sunday was the day of a lot of major national gay pride parades in major cities around the country. And Hogan and Edge won the tag titles in a fun match that the crowd was nuclear hot for.

WATCH: Edge & Hogan win the WWE tag team titles

Chris Benoit didn't do any actual matches in developmental before his return, he was just there training and taking bumps, so the matches he's been doing on TV the last week or two really were his first actual matches since the neck surgery. Benoit is said to be in less pain than he expected to be and is hopeful to get back to his old self.
Dave saw a recent picture of Rey Mysterio and he's worried. Mysterio has bulked up waaaaay too much for his frame. Dave compares him to The Patriot, another masked wrestler who's career was pretty much ended due to repeated muscle tears from being too steroided up. With Mysterio's size, there's zero reason or advantage to him being so muscular and it's only going to increase his risk of getting injured, especially when he starts working that 200-dates-per-year WWE schedule (yeah, this proved to be pretty accurate. Despite the success he had during that time, the next decade or so of Mysterio's career is pretty much injury after injury after injury).
Latest on Goldberg is that he has no plans to do anything in wrestling until later this year, if at all. Dave thinks that's smart, since WWE business looks like it's going to keep plummeting, at which time they'll be even more desperate for him to come in. Dave thinks Goldberg could probably command a pretty large offer to come in around the beginning of 2003 and build to a big Wrestlemania match (close, but not quite what happens).
Various WWE notes: Triple H has been out of action since King of the Ring after getting elbow surgery. He's been back in Birmingham again, doing 24/7 rehab. Stephanie McMahon hasn't been working in the WWE offices for the last few weeks because she's been with him. Stacy Keibler asked for time off because she's burned out and was replaced with Dawn Marie for all her scheduled bra and panties matches on house shows this week.
During the Sunday Night Heat/Raw tapings, someone held up a sign that said "Big Show is not over" when Big Show was out during Heat. Show saw the sign, flipped the guy off, and pointed it out to security. They tried to get the sign but I guess the guy holding it ran away and actually escaped them. Later during the night, when Big Show was out again (this time on Raw), the sign got held up again. Show once again saw it, once again pointed it out to security, and this time, they jumped the rail and caught the guy and took his sign. Imagine being that sensitive.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: Eric Bischoff debuts in WWE, X-Pac suspended, more on Russo in TNA, and more...

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The truth about the dbrand Grip...