It's here boys and girls! The Cayo Perico DLC has been released!

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"Unlike previous Heists, there is no specific style when it comes to approaching Cayo Perico.

Once you’ve gathered the necessary gear, you can choose to complete as much (or as little) set-up and planning as you want – though be warned that these decisions will, in turn, affect the way the action unfolds. If you want to call in an airstrike or use a cutting torch to burn through steel beams, for example, you would be well advised to put the time in beforehand.
Once all the groundwork is laid down, you can nail down your final details before approaching Cayo Perico. These choices include how you infiltrate and escape the island, your weapons loadouts, air support, and even the operation’s time of day. As a result, no two approaches are alike on subsequent playthroughs. And repeat visits will allow you to heist valuable artifacts and other valuables as they become available.
There is also a load of extra opportunities you can use to play to your advantage, such as breaking into storage lockups to raid hidden stashes of cash and contraband to bolster your bottom-line and fatten up your take. These chances and the tools necessary to complete them will rarely be found in the same place twice – some are only accessible when playing with multiple players, so joining up with friends is very much encouraged."
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This Megathread will serve as the place to discuss all things related to the DLC. We will be updating this as more information is released, so keep checking back.
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The Heist works very similarly to the Casino Heist. You have to hack cameras and scope out locations.
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Important Links: (Added once they become available)

Cayo Perico Heist DLC Wiki Guide

Cayo Perico Simple Question and FAQ Post

Official Trailer
Newswire Article
Patch Notes
Availability/Size:
Playstation - LIVE - 6.8GB
Xbox - LIVE - 6.6GB
PC - Live - 9.3GB
Other Links:
DLC release Crew Event info
Weekly Update Thread
Simple Question Thread
Still Slippin' Radio Channel Guide
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Misc Info:
Kosatka(sub) is $2.2 million to start, up to $9.8 million with everything, and IS DRIVEABLE!
Two new vehicles available with the Kosatka:
Sparrow (Small Helicopter) Can be equipped with machine guns or missiles.
Kraken Avisa (Small Sub)
Island is not available in Free Mode
No New vehicles on SSA or LM at release. These vehicles will be dripfed to us over the coming weeks and months.
6 new vehicles available on release day, the Submarine and 5 more with trade prices unlocked by completing the Heist. Link to new vehicle pics and prices.
Winky (Jeep) $825,000 - $1,100,000
Kurtz 31 Patrol Boat(Gunboat) $2,216,250 - $2,955,000
RO-86 (Bomber) $3,262,500 - $4,250,000
Annihilator Stealth (Helicopter) $2,902,500 - $3,870,000
Toreador (CaSub) $3,660,000
Longfin (Boat) $2,125,000
New weapons:
Perico Pistol
Military Rifle - $397,500
Combat Shotgun - $295,000

The Free Vehicle from the Heist Challenge will be Available this Friday and will be the Dinka Veto Classic go-kart. You MUST claim the vehicle between the 18th and 20th of December or it will no longer be free.

Twitch Prime Members get the Sonar Add On for Free (or a rebate in 72 hours if it doesn't show as free)
Rockstar Cloud Save Issue Solved
Cayo Perico Heist DLC Wiki Guide
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Note: Off topic posts will be removed.

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

The promise of Grand Theft Auto: Online is an intoxicating one. GTAV’s world remains one of, if not the most remarkable in gaming history, and the idea that you and a group of friends can team up and wreak havoc upon that world seems too good to be true.
To some extent, it is too good to be true. GTAO suffers from a myriad of technical issues and limitations, including ridiculous loading times, crashes, game-breaking glitches, and terrible anti-cheat. It’s like a complicated, unwieldy machine with hundreds of unseen components. If it fails, your only two options are to start from scratch, or give up.
But when it all comes together, when you finally find your friends after five minutes of loading screens and ten minutes of yelling at each other on Discord to “go here”, the experience is unparalleled. The first few hours we spent roaming the world were violent co-op magic, like a depraved, extravagant Scorcese montage with a body count that would turn eyes at the ICJ. We did missions, did drugs, blew things up, got haircuts, bought clothes, bought cars, stole cars, shot police, shot pedestrians, and of course, shot each other. Being homebound due to Covid, our at-first daily, then weekly GTA sessions kept us connected, the first time a game had done so since our short-lived Minecraft phase in March of last year.
But yesterday, as we failed the same section of the Diamond Casino Heist for about the twentieth time, one of my friends broke the silence. “Is anyone having fun?”
Several months ago, I posted a rant on this subreddit about the singleplayer, bemoaning its weak story, poor gunplay, unnoticeable progression, and surprisingly empty open-world. I stand by what I wrote, perhaps even more so now that I see how much more compelling GTAV could have been if it had included online’s heists, vehicles, and properties as DLC.
That said, online is not without fault. While there’s a massive catalogue of things to buy, the grinding necessary to purchase these things is awful, making even Cookie Clicker feel productive. GamesRadar says the Heists, which themselves require expensive properties and a substantial initial investment to initiate, net you about 400k an hour, which isn’t all that much considering how much vehicles and properties cost.
We realized early on that the disparity between GTAO’s prices and its payouts was a manufactured pain point, the remedy being the game’s overpriced Shark Cards. Rather than dig out our wallets, we abided by GTA’s longstanding moral tradition and hacked ourselves enough money to buy every car, every property, and every weapon in the game. But even without the grind to worry about, GTAO had no qualms with wasting our time. The loading screens are the most obvious example of this, but these are, I believe, unavoidable given the scope of what you’re loading into. Where it’s less forgivable is in the tedious minutiae and the absence of systems that should be present.
The more we played, the more frustrated I became. Why can I only fast travel to my properties as a CEO? Why can’t I claim all destroyed vehicles at once? Why can’t I skip these stupidly long cutscenes? Why do I have to wait to spawn in a vehicle? In a way, it makes the same mistake as its singleplayer counterpart. Though it has incredible setpieces that you won’t find in any other game, the vast majority of your time is spent preparing for them.
I don’t believe games should have infinite longevity, so I don’t fault GTAO for losing its sheen after eighty-some hours. Overall, I had a good time. Tearing through hordes of cops in a pink Insurgent. The terrific Pacific Standard Heist. Getting picked up by my friend in a disgusting anime car that he claimed wasn’t his. Being repeatedly stalked and kidnapped over the course of several weeks by a hacker named “JOE BIDEN” who’d drive me around the map at light speed and drop boats on my head as I’d try to flee. And above all, having the opportunity to hang out with my friends during a pandemic. These are all experiences I’ll remember.
The hours I spent in loading screens, driving from one side of the map to the other for the hundredth time, and listening to Lester talk about skinny dipping? I’ll remember those too, though nowhere near as fondly.

Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard's own SON is helping police investigate his alleged sex crimes By Guy Adams Investigates For The Daily Mail
15 Jan 2021
Link to article
'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.'
Kai Bickle's world came tumbling down one night in May 2019, when he attended a dinner party at a lavishly decorated mansion overlooking the golden sands of Venice Beach in Los Angeles.
The host was his father, Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion tycoon famed for the hedonistic lifestyle he pursued at a global portfolio of high-end properties, including vast residences in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, as well as New York, and, most notoriously, a Mayan-themed 'private luxury resort' in the Bahamas.
Modelling himself on Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, the flamboyant Nygard, now 79, kept a revolving harem of girlfriends. Those caught up (often completely unwittingly) in this web had included actresses Susan Anton and Jennifer O'Neill, stripper-turned-reality star Anna Nicole Smith, and a former Wheel Of Fortune card turner by the name of Vanna White.
His Caribbean parties, meanwhile, tended to attract a better class of A-lister. Past visitors to the island property had ranged from Jane Seymour and Bo Derek to Robert De Niro, , Michael Jackson and Joan Collins, not to mention and , who were photographed there in the early 2000s on an innocuous family holiday.
The 2019 bash, during one of Peter's occasional business trips to LA, was to be a more down-to-earth affair. Roughly 20 guests, including Kai, 38, and his younger brother Jessar (one of roughly ten offspring Nygard has fathered via more than seven women) had been invited for food and drinks, followed by a late-night poker game.
That was the plan, at least. But Kai never made it to the card- table. Instead, he fled the lavish premises in a state of distress, shortly after dinner, believing that he had just witnessed his father attempting to sexually assault an eight-year-old girl.
Details of this ugly development are (it should be stressed) strongly disputed, and we shall examine them later. But the incident would kick-start an extraordinary chain of events that culminated just before Christmas, with the arrest of Peter Nygard on nine charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Currently behind bars, with his $900 million (£660 million) business empire in tatters and the FBI poring over his computer hard-drives, the fallen tycoon has now been accused of rape or sexual assault by at least 57 women. Several of Nygard's accusers were children when the alleged crimes took place, and many claim they were drugged.
At least 57 women have accused him.
He will appear in court in Canada next week, seeking bail as he fights extradition to the USA.
It is, perhaps, the most high-profile and shocking sex case since handcuffs were slapped on Jeffrey Epstein. And in a remarkable twist, it turns out that a leading figure in the increasingly public campaign to prosecute Mr Nygard is his aforementioned son, Kai.
Upcoming documentary: ‘Unseamly’ Canadian Designer Peter Nygård True Crime Documentary
Behind the scenes, I can reveal that Kai has spent the past 18 months secretly helping both the U.S. and Canadian authorities investigate his own father's alleged crimes. Keeping his role hidden from Nygard and his associates for several months, he has worked tirelessly to assist victims, and their legal teams.
On the personal front, he has changed his name (taking up his mother's surname to become Kai Zen Bickle) and used his influence over various Nygard companies to block efforts to move his assets offshore, fearing that would allow him to flee. 'We have been engaged in a brutal battle against my father and his enablers,' is how Kai summed things up when we spoke this week.
'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.'
Perhaps most remarkably of all, Kai recently helped two of his younger siblings, one of whom remains a minor, to sue Peter Nygard over claims he 'engineered' the rape of his own sons. In an extraordinary lawsuit filed in August, the boys claimed that their leathery, multi-millionaire father instructed one of his long-standing girlfriends (who was also a sex worker) to 'make a man' out of them.
The first of these alleged attacks (which, again, are vehemently denied by Nygard) took place in the Bahamas 2004, when the son was 15 and the woman was in her mid-20s. The second occurred in Winnipeg in 2018, when the younger child was 14 and the woman was in her 40s. Court papers filed by the boys stated that the unnamed girlfriend was instructed to seduce Nygard's son by showering in his bathroom so that he 'could see her naked'. Then she raped him.
Afterwards, she allegedly told the boy he 'wasn't bad' for a 'baby.' The next morning, Nygard's girlfriend brought him breakfast in bed, kissing him on the lips and announcing: 'Mommy's got you.' Kai says he first became aware of this appalling incident last spring, and was 'sickened' to hear his brothers' claims.
He would often yell and scream at his staff.
'We all spoke and decided the best course of action was to file a lawsuit publicly in the hope that other survivors would feel safe to come forward and also file criminally against Nygard,' he says. 'We were originally going to have me in the suit as my young brother's guardian, but in the end decided not to because it would reveal to Nygard that I was working against him . . . At the time I was [secretly] doing everything I could to improve the odds that he would get arrested.'
To appreciate the extraordinary journey taken by Kai, we must wind the clock back to the mid-1980s, when his father was one of Canada's most talked-about self-made millionaires.
The son of penniless immigrants from Finland, Peter Nygard had launched his empire in the late 1960s, with an $8,000 (£6,000) investment in a struggling fashion firm. By the time he was 30, the company had become one of North America's most successful suppliers of leisure and sportswear, while his flamboyant eccentricities, which included keeping parrots in his office and filling the lobby of Nygard HQ with bronze busts of himself, turned him into an object of public fascination.
In 1987, the party-loving entrepreneur purchased a 4.5-acre patch of the island of New Providence in the Bahamas and set about turning it into a 'dream home' where he could indulge his champagne lifestyle. Over the ensuing years, he built 150,000 sq ft of Mayan-themed buildings, stretching over a dozen 'cabana-style' residences. The buildings at Nygard Cay eventually included a casino, a disco hut (with cameras beneath the dance floor, reportedly to shoot images of revellers from below), and the world's largest sauna, a 6,000 sq ft lodge made from 2ft-thick Canadian pine logs.
In the grounds were fake volcanoes that belched dry ice, a flock of peacocks, stone cobras which hissed steam at sunset, 60 ft towers festooned with hundreds of flaming torches (lit nightly by staff) and giant statues of nude women, purportedly modelled on some of Nygard's favourite girlfriends.
At weekends, he would host lavish parties, which appeared on various TV documentaries, including Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous.
The place became a magnet for freeloading celebrities and, while Kai believes they generally had the most fleeting and brief relationship with Nygard, photos of their visits were then plastered across company literature and websites.
Prince Andrew, to cite one example, was recorded for posterity wandering with the long-haired fashion magnate on the beach, wearing blue shorts and boat shoes.
Born in the 1980s, Kai spent the first three years of his life in the Bahamas until his mother, Patricia, left Nygard, with whom she'd had three children but never married.
They moved first to California and then to the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. Over subsequent years, he had almost no regular contact with the fashion tycoon aside from occasional visits during school holidays, where he met various half-siblings.
'He would have one family weekend per year at his lake cottage, and a few days set aside for Christmas,' says Kai of the somewhat unorthodox arrangement. 'During those times, the days were filled with activities like horseback riding or mini golf.
'He could be a very charismatic person when he wanted to be and the family weekends were very light and brief.'
In the very limited time he spent with his father during childhood, Kai saw nothing that gave him reason to suspect that Peter Nygard was guilty of criminality, though he did have a highly volatile personality.
'He would yell and scream at his staff often, and that always was upsetting to everyone around it, but he would describe his yelling as 'passion' because of his 'high standards',' Kai says.
Nygard's children were further told that he 'lived a consensual, non-monogamous lifestyle,' Kai says. 'He made speeches at dinner to family when we were together to talk about how he hoped everyone got a wonderful partner and wished that he could find that special someone, but that it wasn't the life for him.
'He also had girlfriends that were persistently with him, always two or three, and often they were around for years. He wasn't embarrassed about it. He flaunted it on TV, it was part of his brand, something he showed the whole world. He was proud of it.'
Be that as it may, rumours of predatory behaviour by Nygard —and worse — had occasionally reared their ugly head, only to be quickly suppressed: a relatively easy task before the internet.
In 1980, for example, he was charged with the rape of an 18-year-old, but the charge was dropped when the complainant refused to testify. In 1996, three female employees meanwhile filed sexual harassment complaints in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
It looked like his hand was on her thigh, rubbing.
One, a 39-year-old communications manager, said that, when called into Nygard's office, she would 'find him in a state of undress . . . with his hands down the front of his pants, fondling himself.' He settled by giving the women $18,500 (£13,600) and denied any wrongdoing.
Then, in 2010, a Canadian TV network put out a Panorama-style documentary about Nygard, focusing on alleged sex abuse and harassment of former employees.
It quoted a former stewardess on his private plane who alleged that on one journey — during which Nygard was accompanied by a troupe of topless women — he lost his temper with staff, shouting: 'You are nothing! You are garbage! I am God!'
The programme also alleged that Nygard had engaged in 'inappropriate sexual contact' with a young woman who had been brought to his home in 2003 from the Dominican Republic. Nygard denied that either incident had happened, and sued to stop the documentary being broadcast.
Fast forward to May 2019, however, and those ugly incidents were largely forgotten. Kai, who was by then in his late 30s, had worked for his father's companies for just over two years after leaving college, but quit to pursue a career in activism and health science.
Nygard's trip to Los Angeles afforded them a rare opportunity to catch up, so he attended the aforementioned dinner party in Venice Beach.
As the night wore on, he recalls becoming uncomfortable about his father's behaviour towards an eight-year-old girl, who was attending with her mother, one of Nygard's old girlfriends.
'He's got her sitting right next to him at dinner, which is usually his girlfriend chair. And he's a creature of routine. So I'm already thinking this is weird.
'He's trying to act like the Papa. It was just weird . . . I'm noticing things. I'm noticing that he's telling her little secrets at dinner. Putting his hand close to her ear and going all hush-hush.' At the end of dinner, most of the other 20-odd guests got up to adjourn to the card table. However, Kai adds: 'I'm still watching him. Her chair gets pushed back. He brings her round to him.
'She was on his right side. He brings her to his left side, with his arm around her waist, and I see his elbow change and start moving as if — it looked to me, I couldn't see, but it looked like his hand was on her upper thigh, and rubbing. That's what it looked like to me . . . Everything in my body told me he was doing something terrible.'
'I had a huge adrenaline rush and I immediately told the mother to get her daughter away from him,' he adds. 'I stood up next to him and looked in his eyes. At that moment, for me, it was like all the walls were crashing down around him . . . And I realised that, yeah, he's probably trying to groom that girl.'
Nygard vigorously denied wrongdoing, and even called Kai 'sick' for thinking as much. But Kai was unconvinced.
Then, in February last year, ten women filed a bombshell lawsuit in New York claiming that the fashion magnate had used wealth and status to 'entice underage girls' from 'young, impressionable and often impoverished backgrounds' into his home, where they would be 'plied with alcohol' and (some allege) date-rape drugs, before being taken to Nygard's private quarters, where he would 'assault, rape and sodomise' them. Court papers claimed they were then coerced into joining a globe-trotting harem of sex workers paid thousands of dollars from Nygard's company funds and trafficked around the world on his company's private jet, which reportedly boasts a stripper pole.
One alleged victim, who was just 14 at the time, claimed Nygard raped her and paid her $5,000 (£3,700).
Another said her encounter with Nygard began with him showing her pornography after which he raped her, 'causing her extraordinary trauma and pain', the suit states.
Three of his existing ten accusers were 14 at the time. Three more were 15.
Within days, dozens more alleged victims had come forward. By the summer, some 57 survivors were pursuing legal action — and the number of alleged victims had reached 100.
Kai again confronted his father, only to be told it was all 'lies' and asked to speak out publicly in his father's support. But days later a friend texted Kai to complain about a recent visit to Nygard's house in Los Angeles.
'He said he'd brought a female friend with him, who had one or two drinks and had started to feel very high. Nygard took her up to his room and aggressively had sex with her, not using a condom.
'When I heard that, I knew he was not only as bad as people said he was, but was a dangerous criminal and had to be stopped.' He duly alerted the authorities about the friend's message. In a podcast called Live To Walk Again, released this week, he revealed that he began helping both the police and the alleged victims' lawyers, who he regards as 'heroes'.
Over the summer, Kai also used official positions held in Nygard firms to block two apparent efforts to move assets overseas, amid concerns that the tycoon might flee to evade justice.
PODCAST EPISODE: Peter Nygard Discusses His Father
'Through the course of ten months I also helped several survivors to file criminally against him, and spent countless hours on the phone with survivors, lawyers and authorities,' he says. Last month Nygard was arrested on U.S. charges at a home in the Royalwood area of Winnipeg. He spent Christmas behind bars and has consistently denied any wrongdoing, saying he 'expects to be vindicated' in court.
Kai has renounced his inheritance and is working on 'making the world a better place' by campaigning to close legal loopholes exploited by sex offenders.
'I'm very happy earning my own money, as I have all my life. We've never had a trust fund or an allowance, and since his money has been made through pain and suffering, I won't accept a potential inheritance,' he says.
His father's cash, he says, should instead go towards compensating victims. 'My focus now is to help the healing process.'

So let’s start off with a little back story. I had a particular career path where I was traveling a lot for work. Covid has completely destroyed that industry so my girlfriend and I ended up staying at her dads house. Now her other sister lives there with her boyfriend. Her dad and I got along very well. I would help him around the yard, we cooked for him everyday, we took care of this man. The sisters boyfriend is not even allowed to be seen by the father. The father hates him with a passion. Some past history that I am not to familiar with. The sister has this insane jealousy that I can have a relationship with her father and her boyfriend cannot. I constantly walk on egg shells in the house. Her sister twists my words and constantly gossips about me to the rest of the family. It is a very toxic environment. There is a total of four sisters and it might get confusing. Try to follow.
My girlfriends older sister lives down the street is the rudest person I have ever met just downright miserable and has nothing nice to say about anyone. My girlfriend and I broke up in the past so they all use this as crutch as to why they didn’t like me in the first place. Yet the sister that lives with us, her boyfriend and her constantly fight and break shit when her dad is gone, we broke up multiple fights. The other sisters husband tried to divorce her twice. Whatever not trying to badmouth I could care less about their relationships and this is the issue. They feel the need to involved themselves in our relationship.
During the summer we went boating her sisters attacked us, yet they can go to a casino no problem. This is just some of the hypocrisy. Tension was already high before her dad got covid. Any family dinner, her sisters would just ignore me. I got so tired of it, but I stayed quiet. Even though I baby sat their kids and I cook for their 84 year old dad everyday. They treated me like dirt. Her younger sister constantly would yell at me. She is bipolar and they just say “well that’s how she is” no it is not okay for someone to scream at you because the internet is not working. Now this is when it got really ugly. Well during thanksgiving her family was coming over. Well we did not want to stay because the last times we had dinner it was incredibly awkward. So we went to have dinner at my families house.
We had two thanksgiving dinners. We went to my families dinner. Apparently my father had covid and he didn’t know. He got my girlfriend and I sick. We had no idea. We had a second thanksgiving dinner on Saturday after thanksgiving. Apparently spread to everyone. Her father 84, was complete fine until day 12, we took him to the ER he spent a lot of time on ventilator and he passed away in last night.
The two sisters told us that we were selfish and that we killed their father. Her older sister told her kids, that I cherished and babysat, that we killed their grandfather. They won’t even look at us now. They all came to the house the following day and completely ignored us wouldn’t even look at us. They constantly remind my girlfriend that she killed her dad. It’s complete ignorance. I had a relationship with this man and this is the thanks I get. Her siste that lives with us boyfriend tried to fight me multiple times. Completely toxic environment. The ironic thing is, if they were just nice from the beginning we would have had thanksgiving dinner with them. All probably could have been avoided but they just couldn’t let it go. I have PTSD from the whole experince. I just don’t understand how her sisters can come to a thanksgiving dinner without a mask and blame us for giving her dad covid. It’s downright ignorant.
Luckily I landed a job 6 hours away and I got a uhual and we are moving today. We will not look back. I feel so sorry for my girlfriend. She really thinks she killed her dad. Her sisters are disgusting people. 2020 was a time when you need family. Instead they pushed us away. I told my girlfriend she needs to block them. She is afraid they will not include her in her dads funeral. The whole thing is disgusting. I have never been so angry in my life. I was so kind to them and they just had to constantly hate us.
Thanks for reading I really just have no one to talk to about this. 2020 was the worst year of my life.

Life with my wife is turning into a living hell. We spend more time fighting than we do spending time with each other. And by fighting I mean her blowing up over minor things like me using the wrong bottle of sunscreen and screaming at the top of her lungs while I try and talk to her before she locks herself in the bedroom and won't say a word to me for about 2 weeks. I've telling myself for ages that I need to get her to go to couples counseling (and ideally individual counseling as well) but when she is in her rage fits she wants nothing to do with the idea and when she comes out of it I would become too cowardly to rock the boat because things are going so well right now I don't want to ruin that, right? and so the cycle would continue. You add that to my fear of being alone and not finding anyone else and I let the cycle go on for far too long.
We have a 1 year old now and she is the one thing that is giving me the strength to finally decide it is time to act. I so badly wanted her to grow up in a loving family but it is coming painfully obvious that her growing up in this would be worse than her growing up with 2 divorced parents. But that brings on another fear. Family court is so skewed against fathers what if I barely get to see her? When my mom and dad got divorced my dad got Wednesdays and every other weekend. That would kill me if that is all I got to see her.
So my first question would be for the guys who faced something similar how did you get that courage to take that leap?
My next thing kinda ties into my last one. Some of you might say that since she is BPD that it would go well for me in court as far a custody goes. But she hasn't been diagnosed with it. So my next question would be if this seems similar to what you guys experienced ( I know it isn't an expert opinion and won't mean anything but it would mean something to me to have that little reinsurance that I am not crazy). I read some of the stories here and it doesn't ring true but her mom was diagnosed and she does exhibit some of the symptoms.

intense fear of abandonment

She seems to go in the opposite direction. Instead of going to great lengths to keep relationships and avoid rejection she constantly pushes everyone away. At this point she has 2 friends and no family (outside of me and our daughter) One friend is an old friend and has been her long time best friend and they frequently fight as well (usually because her friend sides with me when she starts talking about our newest fight). The other friend is new so we will see how long it lasts but from experience there will be some small fight over something stupid and she will push her out of her life for good.

A pattern of unstable intense relationships

Pretty true see above about new friends.

Impulsive and risky behavior,

She rarely gambles (we occasionally go to the casino and spend maybe a $100 each but nothing you would call an addiction or risky), she doesn't have a high sex drive or cheat, she doesn't drink or do drugs, or go on spending spress, she really doesn't do anything reckless. Her only impulsive thing she does is when she is pissed she will spend the weekends driving around picking up things for free or very cheap for the house or our daughter or whatever

Suicidal threats or behavior or self-injury

not at all

Wide mood swings lasting from a few hours to a few days,

Yep as I said before about her angry spells. And things will go back to normal almost instantly and things will be great and she will be happy and yada yada yada.

Ongoing feelings of emptiness

Never that she has described to me

Inappropriate, intense anger, such as frequently losing your temper, being sarcastic or bitter, or having physical fights

yep again see above. Everything but physical fights. Don't think she has ever been in one.
The last thing that I'm not sure where it fits is that she is conviced that I start these fights on purpose so that I can "get the weekend off"
So from you personally opinion does that sound similar to your guys experience or does it sound like I might be drawing conclusions because of her mom? Again I know this isn't an expert opinion it is just a bit of a sanity check for myself.
Sorry for the long post, thank you for everyone that read through it all.

(WARNING: Major salt below. Like freaking Dead Sea levels of salt.)
Like holy shit. For a game that's been out for 7 years you'd think it would be able to function at a playable level or at least have some semblance of balance. I just wanna a good online crime sim with cool vehicles and weapons but everything in this game is ridiculously inflated to the point where you could 'grind' for hours and still only be able to afford a fraction of a car (Even the cars that have been from updates from YEARS ago have not gone down in price, like what the hell? I can't even access any of the cool shit in Story Mode either which is beyond infuriating). 'grinding' is essentially impossible in the conventional sense because you'll spend hours on ridiculously difficult missions fighting waves of bullet sponges for scraps of a chance for money. The constant errors and glitches don't help either. Take the heist prep delivery glitch for the yellow circle for example. Over a year ago my heist supplies just would'nt deliver for the Diamond Casino to the point where I couldn't progress at all. A year later and the same glitch is still present in the Cayo heist where I spend like 12 minutes getting shot at with supplies only to find I can't enter the Kosatka. Like really Rockstar? Over a year and you still haven't fixed this? I can send support tickets but they all lead to the response of 'oh we're aware and working on it!' Well clearly you aren't if its been this long! Don't even get me started on griefing, like who the fuck decided adding in the Specter from Saints Row was a good idea?! I absolutely LOVE getting fucking nuked by a dozen fucking depressors that I can't fight back against.
I really wish there was a strong competitor in the open world video game market to take Rockstar down a notch. Its super ripe for the taking seeing as how low the bar is with the state of online today. FiveM definitely has the right idea but even that is just a derivative of GTA. GTA Online is a game designed for junkies, to keep you glued to a screen spending hours to get overpriced items in hopes you'll just cave and buy microtransactions (which are also fucking overpriced. The Megalodon card is 8 mil and cost $99. 8 mil gets you like 1 property with all upgrades, FFS a yacht is 9 mil. You're telling me a virtual boat is worth 3x the retail price of your game? What kind of brain dead toddlers are buying these things?!)
If you're playing GTA Online in 2021, you've gotta be a fool, a junkie, or a masochist. Like fuck, there's gotta be a better alternative open world game than this shit. It has rekindled my interest in building a gaming rig just to play FiveM.
(I started writing this during a loading screen. I need to get outside more)

I’ve loved poker from the first time I played. I vividly remember going to the casino with my friend and stacking some lady boat over boat and being like holy shit.
7 years later I still play but constantly debate whether I should even be playing. Especially online. I work 50 hours a week in a job I like with upward potential, have a girlfriend, and don’t have the time to spend full days studying/grinding.
I try to play for ‘fun’ but that usually either means busting the 500 bucks or whatever I deposit online pretty quick, or running hot for a while and then all of a sudden getting really into poker again and eventually losing it back. Lol. During the good runs, I neglect other hobbies/competitive interests and then when the run good ends I’m obviously pissed I lost the money back but also pissed I wasted xxxx hours of my life that could’ve been spent on other things.
Just seems kind of pointless to play for me in the current environment. This cycle has gone on for me for like 3 years lol. Maybe I have a mild gambling problem even though the money I’m losing has zero effect on my life, idk. Not even sure what the point of this post is since writing this down makes me realize I should probably just give it up. I’ll click post anyways I guess, maybe there’s others in this sub feeling the same way

1. Season 8-I really didn't like this season,it's actually the only season I didn't like.It's one huge mess.I really disliked Robert California and Nellie(she got better in S9).I didn't like Andy being main character(I like him,but he was never one of my favourite characters).And this was Jim's and Pam's least interesting season.This season was just not good,neither funny.
   
2. Season 9-Altough this seasons is definitely weaker than rest of the show,it's definitely better than Season 8.Last 3 episodes(especially Finale) redeem this season in every way possible.There is not basically anything redeeming about S8.Also there were some good episodes in this season like Work Bus,The Boat,The Whale,Dwight Christmas and Lice.Again,definitely weaker than rest of the show,but undoubtedly better than S8.
   
3. Season 1-I like this season.It introduces all the characters we love and care about.Pilot is not great,but Diversity day and Basketball are classics.Just hated Michael's hair😁
   
4. Season 6-This season is very good,just not that great.I didn't like Sabre and it has one of weaker season finales,but still there are a lot of great episodes.Niagara and Delivery are classic episodes.I also like Gossip,The Lover,Koi Pond,Double Date,Murder,Shareholder Meeting,Happy hour,Secret Santa,Scott's Tots.Again,very good season,with dozen of great episodes,just not top 5.
   
5. Season 7-Michael's beautiful send-off season.This is undoubtedly best season after show's peak(S2-S5).In my opinion,this season has 5 classic episodes:Classy Christmas,Threat Level Midnight,Garage Sale,Michael's Last Dundies and of course,Goodbye Michael.Except these five episodes there are also a few pretty good episodes like Nepotism,Counseling,Andy's play,China,The Search,PDA,Ultimatum.Great season,deserves top 5 spot,despite having a few forgettable episodes.
   
6. Season 5-Amazing season.I enjoyed this season a lot and had a lot of laughs.It also has one of the top 5 funniest episodes-Stress Relief.I enjoyed Michael Scott Paper Company arc and loved Michael and Pam's friendship in these episodes.Amazing season,just tiny less consistent than S2-S4 but definitely belongs to the show's prime.
   
7. Season 2-I didn't like this season that much when I was watching until near the end because it took me a lot to get into this show,but now I realise how great it is.It's almost perfect season.So many great episodes,legendary Dundies,The Injury,Christmas Party,Dwight's Speech,Conflict Resolution,Office Olympics,Casino Night and so on.It's just so good.
   
8. Season 4-This season is close to perfection,shame it wasn't a bit longer.Fun Run,Dunder Mifflin Infinity,Money,The Deposition,Dinner Party and Goodbye Toby,just to name a few.Iconic season.
   

1.Season 3-Most consistently funny season in The Office.A lot of tension,drama and brilliant awkwardness.I think Michael was at his best in this season(Gay Witch Hunt and The Convict come to mind).Perfect season.
Season ranking from 5th to 9th is fixed.First 4 spots are interchangeable because they are all amazing seasons.But I think this is the best ranking of them.
Also I would like to hear your opinions and your rankings in comments.

Best Run in terms of anything
Audrey Hepburn: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charade, The Children's Hour, Paris When It Sizzles, My Fair Lady, Wait Until Dark, The Unforgiven, How to Steal a Million, and Two for the Road.
Natalie Wood: Splendor in the Grass, West Side Story, Gypsy, Love with the Proper Stranger, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, All the Fine Young Cannibals, Cash McCall, Penelope, This Property Is Condemned, Sex and the Single Girl, The Great Race, and Inside Daisy Clover.
Julie Andrews: Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, The Americanization of Emily, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, Torn Curtain, Star!, and Think Twentieth.
Bette Davis: Pocketful of Miracles, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Nanny, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Dead Ringer, The Empty Canvas, The Anniversary, and Where Love Has Gone.
Monica Vitti: L'Avventura, Follie d'estate, La Notte, Three Fables of Love, L'Eclisse, Sex Quartet, I Married You for Fun, The Girl with the Pistol, Kill Me Quick, I'm Cold, On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who..., Help Me, My Love, The Scarlet Lady, Red Desert, Le bambole, Il disco volante, Modesty Blaise, High Infidelity, Nutty, Naughty Chateau, and Sweet and Sour.
Liv Ullmann: Persona, Kort är sommaren, Tonny, Smeltedigelen, En hyggelig fyr, Onkel Vanja, Måken, De kalte ham Skarven, Cocktailselskapet, Hour of the Wolf, An-Magritt, The Passion of Anna, and Shame.
Catherine Deneuve: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Repulsion, Belle de Jour, Les Petits Chats, L'Homme à femmes, Les Portes claquent, Ça c'est la vie, And Satan Calls the Turns, Tales of Paris, Portuguese Vacation, Vice and Virtue, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Who Wants to Sleep?, Le Chant du monde, The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers, La costanza della ragione, Male Companion, Male Hunt, Manon 70, La Chamade, Benjamin, Mayerling, The April Fools, A Matter of Resistance, Mississippi Mermaid, Tout peut arriver, and Les Créatures.
Julie Christie: Darling, Doctor Zhivago, Fahrenheit 451, Petulia, Far from the Madding Crowd, Billy Liar, Crooks Anonymous, The Fast Lady, Young Cassidy, and In Search of Gregory.
Rita Moreno: West Side Story, Popi, This Rebel Breed, The Night of the Following Day, Marlowe, Summer and Smoke, and Cry of Battle.
Judy Garland: Judgment at Nuremberg, I Could Go On Singing, Pepe, A Child Is Waiting, and Gay Purr-ee.
Joan Crawford: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Strait-Jacket, The Caretakers, The Karate Killers, Berserk!, and I Saw What You Did.
Nora Ricci: The Birds, the Bees and the Italians, A Very Private Affair, Giuseppe Verdi, The Shortest Day, La fiera della vanità, The Witches, The Damned, Metti, una sera a cena, and The Libertine.
Pamela Tiffin: Summer and Smoke, One, Two, Three, The Pleasure Seekers, For Those Who Think Young, Come Fly with Me, The Lively Set, and State Fair.
Claudia Cardinale: 8 1/2, The Leopard, Rocco and His Brothers, Girl with a Suitcase, Cartouche, The Pink Panther, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Hell with Heroes, Blindfold, The Professionals, Lost Command, Don't Make Waves, The Day of the Owl, Il bell'Antonio, Austerlitz, The Lovemakers, The Lions Are Loose, Auguste, Careless, La ragazza di Bube, Time of Indifference, Circus World, The Magnificent Cuckold, Sandra, The Conspirators, A Fine Pair, Diary of a Telephone Operator, and The Red Tent.
Anouk Aimée: 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Lola, Justine, A Man and a Woman, The Last Judgment, The Joker, The Shortest Day, White Voices, Justine, The Appointment, Model Shop, La fuga, Sodom and Gomorrah, One Night... A Train, and The Dreamer.
Sandra Milo: 8½, Juliet of the Spirits, La visita, Méfiez-vous, mesdames, Ghosts of Rome, Weekend, Italian Style, Premio Nobel, Trusting Is Good... Shooting Is Better, Beautiful Families, The Strange Night, Classe Tous Risques, Adua and Her Friends, and Vanina Vanini.
Coral Browne: The Killing of Sister George, Dr. Crippen, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, The Legend of Lylah Clare, Tamahine, The Night of the Generals, and Go to Blazes.
Rita Tushingham: Doctor Zhivago, Smashing Time, A Taste of Honey, The Leather Boys, The Knack ...and How to Get It, Girl with Green Eyes, A Place to Go, The Guru, The Trap, The Bed Sitting Room, and Diamonds for Breakfast.
Deborah Kerr: The Innocents, The Sundowners, The Grass Is Greener, The Night of the Iguana, Marriage on the Rocks, The Chalk Garden, The Naked Edge, Casino Royale, The Gypsy Moths, Eye of the Devil, The Arrangement, and Prudence and the Pill.
Ava Gardner: Mayerling, The Night of the Iguana, 55 Days at Peking, Seven Days in May, The Bible: In the Beginning..., and The Angel Wore Red.
Debbie Reynolds: How the West Was Won, Divorce American Style, The Singing Nun, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, The Rat Race, Pepe, The Pleasure of His Company, The Second Time Around, Debbie Reynolds and the Sound of Children, How Sweet It Is!, Mary, Mary, Goodbye Charlie, and My Six Loves.
Hermione Baddeley: Mary Poppins, Marriage on the Rocks, Harlow, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Rag Doll, Midnight Lace, Information Received, Let's Get Married, The Happiest Millionaire, and Do Not Disturb.
Virna Lisi: How to Murder Your Wife, Not with My Wife, You Don't!, The Secret of Santa Vittoria, Un militare e mezzo, Sua Eccellenza si fermò a mangiare, 5 marines per 100 ragazze, Eva, The Shortest Day, Don't Tempt the Devil, Duel of the Titans, Le bambole, The Black Tulip, Coplan Takes Risks, The 25th Hour, A Maiden for a Prince, Assault on a Queen, Made in Italy, Casanova 70, The Possessed, Kiss the Other Sheik, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No,Arabella, The Girl and the General, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, The Christmas Tree, Anyone Can Play, and Better a Widow.
Liza Minnelli: The Odd Couple, The Sterile Cuckoo, and Charlie Bubbles.
Marilyn Monroe: Let's Make Love and The Misfits.
Shirley MacLaine: The Children's Hour, The Apartment, Two for the Seesaw, Irma la Douce, Sweet Charity, Ocean's 11, Can-Can, Gambit, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!, What a Way to Go!, Woman Times Seven, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, My Geisha, All in a Night's Work, and Two Loves.
Suzy Kendall: 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia, To Sir, with Love, The Penthouse, Thunderball, The Liquidator, Circus of Fear, Up Jumped a Swagman, Up the Junction, The Sandwich Man, and Fräulein Doktor.
Angie Dickinson: Ocean's 11, The Sins of Rachel Cade, Captain Newman, M.D., Point Blank, The Killers, Jessica, The Art of Love, I'll Give My Life, The Bramble Bush, A Fever in the Blood, The Chase, The Poppy Is Also a Flower, Cast a Giant Shadow, Some Kind of a Nut, Sam Whiskey, The Last Challenge, Young Billy Young, and Rome Adventure.
Eva Marie Saint: Exodus, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Grand Prix, The Sandpiper, All Fall Down, 36 Hours, and The Stalking Moon.
Anne Bancroft: The Miracle Worker, The Graduate, The Pumpkin Eater, The Slender Thread, and 7 Women.
Patricia Neal: Hud, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Subject Was Roses, In Harm's Way, and Psyche 59.
Sue Lyon: The Night of the Iguana, Lolita, 7 Women, Tony Rome, Arsenic and Old Lace, Four Rode Out, and The Flim-Flam Man.
Ann-Margret: The Pleasure Seekers, State Fair, Bye Bye Birdie, The Cincinnati Kid, Viva Las Vegas, Stagecoach, Rebus, The Prophet, Seven Men and One Brain, The Tiger and the Pussycat, Murderers' Row, The Swinger, Bus Riley's Back in Town, Made in Paris, Once a Thief, Pocketful of Miracles, and Kitten with a Whip.
Flora Robson: 55 Days at Peking, Murder at the Gallop, Cry in the Wind, 7 Women, The Shuttered Room, Eye of the Devil, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Guns at Batasi, and Young Cassidy.
Elizabeth Taylor: The Sandpiper, Scent of Mystery, The V.I.P.s, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, BUtterfield 8, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Boom!, Secret Ceremony, Anne of the Thousand Days, The Comedians, Doctor Faustus, and The Taming of the Shrew.
Lee Remick: Days of Wine and Roses, Wild River, The Detective, Sanctuary, Experiment in Terror, Hard Contract, No Way to Treat a Lady, The Hallelujah Trail, Baby the Rain Must Fall, The Running Man, and The Wheeler Dealers.
Angela Lansbury: The Manchurian Candidate, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, A Breath of Scandal, Blue Hawaii, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, All Fall Down, Dear Heart, In the Cool of the Day, The World of Henry Orient, Harlow, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Mister Buddwing, and The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders.
Janet Leigh: Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate, Harper, Bye Bye Birdie, Pepe, Wives and Lovers, Kid Rodelo, Who Was That Lady?, Hello Down There, American Dream, Three on a Couch, and Grand Slam.
Vera Miles: Psycho, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Follow Me, Boys!, Sergeant Ryker, Mission Batangas, Kona Coast, The Green Berets, Hellfighters, One of Our Spies Is Missing, Gentle Giant, The Spirit Is Willing, Back Street, Five Branded Women, The Lawbreakers, It Takes All Kinds, Those Calloways, and A Tiger Walks.
Maria Grazia Buccella:I Married You for Fun, Giacomo Casanova: Childhood and Adolescence, Sissignore, It's Your Move, Where Are You Going All Naked?, Domani non siamo pià qui, Villa Rides, A Maiden for a Prince, After the Fox, Pleasant Nights, Dead Run, L'armata Brancaleone, The Dirty Game, Man from Cocody, La donna degli altri è sempre più bella, Siamo tutti pomicioni, Canzoni in bikini, Adultery Italian Style, Up and Down, Up and Down, Menage all'italiana, La strada dei giganti, Nerone '71, Il Boom, The Fall of Rome, Il Gaucho, The Night They Killed Rasputin, and Fountain of Trevi.
Bibi Andersson: Persona, The Passion of Anna, Bröllopsdagen, The Girls, Tænk på et tal, Le Viol, Blow Hot, Blow Cold, Pardon, Are You For or Against?,Pan, All These Women, Karneval, The Devil's Eye, The Pleasure Garden, Square of Violence, The Mistress, Ön, Duel at Diablo, My Sister, My Love, and About Love.
Ingrid Thulin: Hour of the Wolf, The Judge, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Sekstet, The Damned, O.K. Yevtushenko, The Rite, Domani non siamo più qui, Adélaïde, Calda e... infedele, Badarna, Games of Desire, Winter Light, Return from the Ashes, The Silence, Night Games, and Agostino.
Jane Fonda: In the Cool of the Day, The Chase, Tall Story, Period of Adjustment, The Chapman Report, Walk on the Wild Side, Barbarella, Hurry Sundown, Barefoot in the Park, Cat Ballou, Sunday in New York, Circle of Love, Joy House, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Spirits of the Dead, The Game Is Over, and Any Wednesday.
Katharine Hepburn: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Madwoman of Chaillot, and The Lion in Winter.
Jeanne Moreau: Jules and Jim, La Notte, Seven Days... Seven Nights, Viva Maria!, Eva, Five Branded Women, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, Chimes at Midnight, A Woman Is a Woman, The Trial, Dialogue with the Carmelites, The Victors, The Fire Within, Bay of Angels, The Train, Banana Peel, The Oldest Profession, Le Corps de Diane, The Bride Wore Black, Great Catherine, The Sailor from Gibraltar, The Immortal Story, Mademoiselle, Diary of a Chambermaid, and Mata Hari, Agent H21.
Faye Dunaway: The Arrangement, Hurry Sundown, The Happening, Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair, A Place for Lovers, and The Extraordinary Seaman.
Geneviève Page: Mayerling, Belle de Jour, El Cid, Grand Prix, Three Rooms in Manhattan, Song Without End, Corsaires et Flibustiers, Le Majordome, Tender Scoundrel, The Day and the Hour, Youngblood Hawke, The Reluctant Spy, Decline and Fall... of a Birdwatcher, and A Talent for Loving.
Brigitte Bardot: A Very Private Affair, Affaire d'une nuit, La Vérité, Testament of Orpheus, Viva Maria!, Une ravissante idiote, Shalako, Les Femmes, Spirits of the Dead, Masculin Féminin, Two Weeks in September, Dear Brigitte, Contempt, Love on a Pillow, Marie Soleil, Please, Not Now!, and Famous Love Affairs.
Jean Seberg: Breathless, Lilith, Paint Your Wagon, Moment to Moment, A Fine Madness, The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers, Diamonds Are Brittle, Backfire, The Girls, The Road to Corinth, Birds in Peru, Pendulum, Line of Demarcation, The Looters, Let No Man Write My Epitaph, Congo vivo, Time Out for Love, In the French Style, Five Day Lover, and Love Play.
Tippi Hedren: The Birds, Marnie, and A Countess from Hong Kong.
Sophia Loren: Two Women, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Marriage Italian Style, Lady L, A Countess from Hong Kong, Judith, Arabesque, More Than a Miracle, Ghosts – Italian Style, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Operation Crossbow, El Cid, Five Miles to Midnight, Boccaccio '70, The Condemned of Altona, Madame, Heller in Pink Tights, It Started in Naples, A Breath of Scandal, The and Millionairess.
Maggie Smith: Go to Blazes, Young Cassidy, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The V.I.P.s, Othello, The Pumpkin Eater, Hot Millions, Oh! What a Lovely War, and The Honey Pot.
Vanessa Redgrave: Oh! What a Lovely War, Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment, Camelot, Isadora, The Charge of the Light Brigade, A Man for All Seasons, Blowup, The Sea Gull, and A Quiet Place in the Country.
Doris Day: Do Not Disturb, Midnight Lace, Send Me No Flowers, Lover Come Back, That Touch of Mink, The Thrill of It All, The Glass Bottom Boat, The Ballad of Josie, With Six You Get Eggroll, Caprice, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Move Over, Darling, and Billy Rose's Jumbo.
Mia Farrow: Secret Ceremony, Guns at Batasi, John and Mary, Rosemary's Baby, and A Dandy in Aspic.
Suzanne Pleshette: The Birds, Rome Adventure, 40 Pounds of Trouble, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, The Power, Target: Harry, Mister Buddwing, Youngblood Hawke, A Distant Trumpet, Fate Is the Hunter, Wall of Noise, The Ugly Dachshund, Blackbeard's Ghost, Nevada Smith, and A Rage to Live.
Shelley Winters: A Patch of Blue, Lolita, Alfie, Harper, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Three Sisters, Let No Man Write My Epitaph, The Chapman Report, The Young Savages, Wives and Lovers, Time of Indifference, A House Is Not a Home, The Balcony, Arthur? Arthur!, Wild in the Streets, Enter Laughing, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, The Mad Room, and The Scalphunters.
Anna Karina: A Woman Is a Woman, Le petit soldat, Bande à part, My Life to Live, Alphaville, Pierrot le Fou, Sweet and Sour, Lamiel, The Oldest Profession, Anna, Made in U.S.A, The Nun, Zärtliche Haie, Justine, Dämonische Leinwand, Before Winter Comes, The Stranger, Laughter in the Dark, Man on Horseback, The Magus, Circle of Love, Cléo from 5 to 7, Sun in Your Eyes, She'll Have to Go, Tonight or Never, All About Loving, Shéhérazade, The Camp Followers, Un mari à prix fixe, and The Thief of Tibidabo.
Anika Ekberg: La Dolce Vita, Le tre eccetera del colonnello, Anonima cocottes, Who Wants to Sleep?, Bianco, rosso, giallo, rosa, The Cobra, Pardon, Are You For or Against?, Crónica de un atraco, Un sudario a la medida, Death Knocks Twice, Malenka, Woman Times Seven, The Glass Sphinx, How I Learned to Love Women, Way...Way Out, The Alphabet Murders, Boccaccio '70, Call Me Bwana, 4 for Texas, The Mongols, Behind Closed Doors, The Dam on the Yellow River, and If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.
Geraldine Page: The Three Sisters, You're a Big Boy Now, Sweet Bird of Youth, Trilogy, The Happiest Millionaire, Dear Heart, Summer and Smoke, Toys in the Attic, What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, and Monday's Child.
Joanne Woodward: A Fine Madness, Rachel, Rachel, Winning, Signpost to Murder, The Fugitive Kind, Paris Blues, From the Terrace, A Big Hand for the Little Lady, The Stripper, and A New Kind of Love.
Mariko Okada: Eros + Massacre, A Story Written on Water, Illusion of Blood, Woman of the Lake, An Autumn Afternoon, The Scent of Incense, Akitsu Springs, and Late Autumn.
Barbra Streisand: Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl.

RR link
Previous chapter (RETRO COSMOS)
​ #2 - THE TWISTED HEIST ​
A star had just gone out in the distance, sending its entire system, planets and moons, into oblivion. So, what was a simple life compared to a sun? Did the human existence that earthlings highly cherished in the past deserve so much fuss?
I would say no, of course, because I’m a cat. Our condition to us felines will never have to pale in front of a shiny astronomical object. Mine specifically, don’t you think?
Oswald Avery was merely a Homo sapiens. A retired buccaneer, fermenting his adulterated wine on the carcass of a drifting supercargo; all under the remodeled features of a former Galactic Trade Company’s pilot. Alas, regardless of the genetic disguise, the FID rarely lied. It hadn’t fooled us and the masks had fallen off. Just like him.
I’m such a poet.
Anyway… Avery had had a long life of crimes and adventures. He was full of energy in his youth. And as in the universe, nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed, this energy was reincarnated in a nice amount in our bank account once the old picaroon flatlined.
“We finally got it! And it was a traditional Martian contract. Payable remotely, on condition that the FID is validated. How about that?”
“God… Lee … you’re talking to yourself and it’s only 8 a.m.,” Ali grunted behind me.
My couch potato of an associate had her head still stuck in the cereal box she was nibbling before falling asleep binge-watching Captain Caveman on ABC.
“To begin with, it’s 8 p.m., Martian Time. And we do have a positive balance in our bank account for the first time in months! Do you know what that means, partner?”
“Shopping, bitches!” she shouted as she hurled herself into the void, gliding to the bathroom in the weightlessness.
With the cardboard box on the top of her head, this sugar bishop was swimming after the remnant cereals that floated on her path like Ms. Pac-Man.
“Hell! Have I just opened Pandora’s box?”
The liner Danaë and its forty-eight post-nuclear Baltimore-XVIII heavy reactors made its annual cruise from Lunapolis to the suburbs of Ceres, in the belt. Its figurehead with the effigy of the Greek princess was a two hundred meters long, green ceramic statue. The size of the ship exceeded some inhabited asteroids’ diameter so it possessed its own substantial gravitational field.
“It’s quite a symbol of the decline of humanity,” I said to Ali, pointing with my chin at this unique work of art.
“Why?” my partner asked without caring whatsoever. “Spill the beans, Plato.”
The Kitty had obtained permission to dock and began its approach. I concluded then:
“Humanity no longer erects great and beautiful things without turning them into a shopping mall.”
The gold and ivory Danaë was one of the most luxurious epicenters of human decadence in the system; comprising hotels, casinos, megastores and amusement parks spread over a dozen centrifugal rings. There was something for everyone’s wallet, ready to be emptied, whether one was welcomed at the port or had joined during the crossing.
And to my great regret, the cape of the Danaë was just passing by us that week.
“I believe we should keep our savings for the maintenance of the Swallow. The dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree. Some parts need to be changed…”
“You’re such a bore with your adult talks,” my partner said as she left the fitting room of a luxury chain overlooking the main deck. “What do you think of that? Sexy as fuck, right?”
Her camisole didn’t hide a single inch square of flesh and I subtly pointed it out to her:
“It’s a bit of a back-alley Sally.”
I took a blow on the nose which, this time, was amply justified.
“There’s nothing chicer than Borderline. You don’t know anything about fashion. It’s crazy!”
She was furious. It was entertaining. But she was right. The human female fads were way over my head and I wasn’t a good adviser. Mostly because I didn’t care. At all.
Fortunately, the upscale shopping mall where we were staying had provided us with a free assistant who was even more servile than a decerebrate canine. As usual, the robot carrier that accompanied us did the job by flattering her with its unbearable honeyed tone:
“I find you charming, Madame. Here we have the latest fashionable lingerie on Mars. It’s an ephemeral collection that appears to have been specially made to mold your discreet curves, which seem to have been sculpted by the seraphim.”
Ali gave me a satisfied look that I pretended to ignore. Then she backtracked into the fitting room to put her black suit and pink jacket back on.
I took the opportunity to climb on the shoulders of this silly robot, servant of our servants and last link in this hierarchy whose origins go back to Ancient Egypt.
“One more move like this and I’ll turn you into a gum dispenser.”
The automaton apologized before my partner’s head emerged from behind the silk curtains which were far too fragrant for my taste.
“I just checked; it’s too expensive anyway. I ain’t buying it,” she announced. “Can you order a taxicab to take us to the hotels’ ring? You’d be a sweetheart.”
Happy to leave this irascible human with her robotic slave, I proceeded to the nearest service terminal. By the time I requested a vehicle, a flying cigarette dispenser could light me a Lucky.
“It’s forbidden to smoke in our store, Monsieur.”
The customer attaché, in his blue silk suit with elephant legs, had appeared out of nowhere. Yet, with such a shiny tie, this punk should have dazzled me from the Kuiper belt.
“Please be kind and get me a Pepper Coke instead of ruining my eyesight…” I grumbled in response.
I was in an awful mood. I definitely hated shopping. And people. Yet the pedestrian avenues of the Danaë had a very exceptional population density. Perms were making a strong comeback, as were neon tattoos and overly open flowered shirts. Under the false UVA/B sun, it was a true dance of flesh, steel and plastic bodies with assumed nudity. Implants and surgery erased the hazards of the genetic lottery for better or worse. It was so superficial. So futile. So human.
“Hello, handsome!” Ali cried out, a large smile across her face. “Lee? You didn’t tell me you knew Christophe Lambert! You know I'm a huge Highlander fan!”
My partner had just joined me, arms loaded with bags massive enough to live in it, start a family and park my chromic Pontiac Firebird. All were filled with C$400 t-shirts and sneakers that she didn’t need and would only put on once.
“No smell. Hologram,” I conclude by throwing my cigarette butt through the smiling ghost.
“Shame!” Ali sighed.
She then looked at her terminal, and continued:
“Do you think I have time to grab a watch module? There are sales in the Japanese aisle! I saw some GD-8 that would go well with my new Game Pocket! This boat is fucking rad!”
Ali could not stop humming Who wants to live forever. I had to rub my temples to avoid a migraine before the arrival of our taxicab five minutes later.
These were miniature limousines with double fake leather benches, facing each other at the back. There was a minibar with expensive multicolored drinks and sugar-soaked snacks, the sapiens’ primary source of calories and high Gs space travel drug. For the sensitive, the smart-fridge provided diet sodas with aspartame, but no one took it. Finally, there were free Gauloise cigarettes next to the ashtray on the armrest. And even Tylenol!
“What a time to be alive!”
Right after leaving the fashion district, a soft voice of a young woman, who appeared to us through the armored porthole separating her from her customers, finally emerged from the cockpit:
“Good evening! I’m Miss Meera. At your service. Hotel de Saint-Malo, correct?”
I nodded. She smiled at us. She was beautiful with her incredibly dark night metal skin that contrasted strongly with her silvery-white hair. She also had charming ivory eyes with absolutely no reflection. They were a mesmerizing void of light.
In fact, it was so rare to deal with a real person, and not an AI, that we engaged rapidly in a lovely and honest discussion with Meera. We were mostly talking about life on the Danaë. As she stated, the rules on board were very strict, even military. All was done to make sure that the customer had the most pleasant time at the expense of everything else. Finally, according to her, her condition wasn’t the most to be pitied in the cosmos. And she was fully satisfied with this precarious semi-nomadic existence.
“And what about you? Are you here on vacation or in transit for work?” she eventually asked. “What do you do for a living?”
Should we have told her that we were executing infamous people so Ali would collect expensive t-shirts and I could fulfill my nicotine addiction?
“Don’t get me wrong but I saw that you had a gun. Are you in the police… or are you pirates?”
It wasn’t the first time someone asked us this question. Although weapons were allowed on most ships and stations, it wasn’t wise to display them unless you were looking for trouble. Unfortunately, hiding such a large caliber under such a tight vest was a Herculean task.
“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone”, simply quoted Ali, her forehead against the window covered with scented stickers.
Meera laughed before continuing:
“Very well, Al Capone. I understand that you’re not the type to let yourself be taken advantage of.”
The taxicab entered the central expressway after the water park then suddenly swerved violently to the left.
“What is going on?” I gasped.
After crushing the safety railing, we fell from one rotating bridge to the other in a frantic cavalcade. Judging by Meera’s swear words, this ride wasn’t part of the show.
Avoiding the stalls of an art market and a group of children coming out of an arcade, the driver finally managed to recover in extremis. It was about time, because within seconds we were passing through the transparent protective wall of the hotels’ deck.
“A thousand apologies! Another one of those mor… clients from the Middle System who doesn’t know how to use a rental car,” she shouted through the window. “Are you guys hurt?”
“No, thanks to you,” I replied, my tail spiked over my head, taped to Ali’s neck now decorated with bloody scratches.
Although my human forehead now had a bump on it the size of a golf ball, it was true that Meera had just saved our lives. This young girl had unsuspected driving talents despite taxicabs’ lack of handling. She didn’t belong here, playing the steward in a yellow circus uniform. This woman should have been a fighter pilot; or a NASCAR driver on Canyon Creek.
“In any case, here you’re almost in front of your hotel,” she replied. “You don’t have to pay anything, and I apologize again for the scare.”
From the outside, the taxicab now looked like a can of nutrigel after going through a crusher. Yet, it still worked. May God Darwin bless Venusian steel.
After thanking her, we wished Meera a good day. But the cockpit window suddenly went down on the passenger side. The smile of the driver had faded. She had tears at the corner of her white eyes.
“Wait!” she asked. “This weapon… do you really know how to use it?”
So, life on the Danaë wasn’t so sweet. As Meera explained to us in a secluded alleyway, a trio of criminals had come to threaten her a few days earlier, after finding she was a bodacious driver. They were preparing a heist in one of the flying city’s fifty casinos. The young woman was now ready to pay the price to settle the case.
“What is your opinion about this whole situation?” I asked Ali, once in our room, a small yet cozy suite whose glass walls overlooked the vacuum of space.
My human had applied a brownish ointment on her hump, which disappeared soon after, leaving only a slight pinkish hematoma.
“Meera said she would provide us with more details tomorrow. However, if she ponies up the cash, I don’t see why we would refuse. We ain’t mercs but these three guys must have a bounty on their heads. Let’s do our job, right?
“Indeed…”
All we had to do was wait for more instructions. Fortunately, it had been months since we had been able to take days off except on miserable gas stations full of drug addicts, implants scavengers and prostitutes.
After another morning of shopping, Ali went to the thalassotherapy center of the neighboring hotel. Her main occupation? Overeating sushi made by 3D nutrigel printing while getting massages.
Alas, I didn’t have the time to bask under the false sun of the lakeside resort and get my belly stroked. As a good captain, I had to go to the maintenance to fix the numerous damages of the Kitty. As always, the bill would be higher than expected.
Everything was orchestrated so that we would never hold a positive balance in this corrupted system. We had to chain contract after contract.
But Meera’s gig didn’t sound right. There was something I didn’t like and I couldn’t catch it yet. All my cat sensors were in the red. Unfortunately, the bounty hunter’s ones only saw the green of the bills.
Don’t judge me.
The young taxicab driver had finally contacted Ali again by holoconference in the early afternoon, shortly before I joined her at the exit of the tanning booths. Or as I called them: human toasters.
“Have you finished roasting like a Thanksgiving turkey?” I asked her as she plunged into the icy water of the adjacent basin, under the lustful gaze of a group of cadets from the Marine Academy.
“Meera will pick us up with a new taxicab in the hotel parking lot,” she whispered once back to me. “Alongside her, we will meet two of the criminals at the burglary location, shortly before midnight.”
“Go on.”
“We take care of these guys and we catch up with the last one: the band leader, in the storage cavities of the hangar reserved for the ship’s logistics. Below the last rotating ring.”
In Eve’s costume, Ali came out of the basin, not without deliberately drenching me. The water had a nasty chemical taste from being filtered day after day.
“Do you have any intelligence on these jokers?” I insisted while lighting a cigarette.
“The Broadway Gang. Three brothers. C$45,000 for the trio. We will also be able to recover at least C$10,000 of Techno-federal tax on their ship depending on its condition. Easy cash with the dollar credits that Meera promises us…”
Now sitting on the ledge, my partner splashed her feet to demonstrate her eagerness to head back swimming.
“Excellent! This will pay for the maintenance and allow us to save some money on our way to the belt.”
“Can I go now?” she asked, sliding back into the water.
“You may,” I had concluded before seeing her leave for her absurd wanderings that would fill her afternoon.
I myself was very busy making eyes at the wealthy guests of the hotel restaurant to glean a few pieces of Peking duck or juicy crabs. They were real farm animals from Mars. Not nutrigel. It was worth abandoning a little dignity aside.
With a full belly, I finally joined Ali in the middle of the evening. Arriving in the corridor of our suite, I crossed the group of cadets noticed near the swimming pool. They seemed tired but blissfully smiling as they just discovered the nirvana. And I knew why…
“Ali? Are you ready?” I said as I walked through the half-open bedroom door.
Her dressing gown had been thrown on the floor. Her gun and badge were resting on the bedside table against a giant bottle of Koala Springs soda and a pyramid of little Yoyo Mints.
To be honest, I expected a bigger mess.
“Gimme five minutes,” she replied while in the shower.
An hour later, we met Meera in the staff parking lot behind the recycling stations. Without further discussion, we joined the expressway in the taxicab. Between two noisy info-ads, the radio played Sweet Transvestite then the rest of the mythical Rocky Horror soundtrack.
“I wonder what Tim Curry’s up to these days,” asked Ali while browsing the intraweb on her implant.
“Being legendary as usual,” I answered.
Afterwards, the casino was in sight. But once on the forecourt illuminated by the gold and silver bulbs, we heard gunshots and screams. My partner and I quickly realized that this was a violent robbery rather than a modest heist.
“What the fuck, Meera?” Ali asked, turning to the porthole that separated us from the cockpit.
There was a hint of irritation in her voice.
Meera remained mute, her hands on the wheel and her gaze forward. In the rear-view mirror the young woman looked panicked.
The right door of the vehicle suddenly opened and two men sat down in front of us. They were wearing theater masks: the first was Melpomene, the sad grimace of tragedy; the second, Thalia, the twisted smile of comedy. Each brigand carried a huge metal block under his arm; drawers that were sure to be full of cash. On the other hand, they held their still smoking ZeG-4 machine guns even more firmly.
When they saw us, they both gasped, in unison:
“What the fuck, Meera?”
One… two. One… two.
Four holes in their faded tuxedo. Four bullets as big as a cat’s eye that silenced them forever, before slowly repainting the bench in red.
“What the fuck was that? You killed them!” Meera shouted this time, as she started the electric engine. “You had tasers at your disposal, you psychos!”
She had finally turned around. Her voice was quivering. She was no longer panicked, but angry.
The tasers must have slipped between the seats because I hadn’t seen them. My partner raised her eyebrows and it made me realize that their use had never been in mind.
“We’re bounty hunters, not 9 to 5 social workers!” continued Ali. “Now, you gotta motor, otherwise the cops will shoot our ass on the spot before we could even meet the third dude!”
Meera put her foot on the pedal and one could almost hear the noise of the thrusters melting the white asphalt.
“I can perceive the sirens, Ali,” I concluded before Meera entered the ring's external road reserved for logistic transport.
We then had the shortest car chase we had taken part in. The Danaë security forces may not have had the best elements in the system, but Meera’s talents didn’t give them a chance. We had crossed half a dozen rotative bridges to the rhythm of Take on Me, zigzagging between expressways and maintenance tunnels to arrive before the song ended at the deserted logistics hangar.
It was similar to a huge supermarket with honeycombed shelves. Each of these garages, dimly illuminated by red LEDs, housed a delivery or transport vessel. There was the most impressive fleet I had ever seen.
In one of the first level’s cells stood, between a set of clamps, a Swift-0 scout, from Peugeot Corp, with wings spread. The Swifts were small and very high-end single-seaters. They could be modified to integrate weapons systems, but their primary characteristics were velocity and evasion.
Leaning on the flank of the mono-turbine, the last of the three criminals, a tall blond man with a “Chevy Chase” prominent chin was looking down on the approaching taxicab.
“Were they planning to escape on that ship? The three of them?” I remarked when the vehicle stopped a few meters from the small vessel.
But Meera ignored me.
“Hand me the money, I’m going out. That was the agreement.”
The porthole opened at its base, allowing us to pass the steel cash drawers. Once the taxicab’s ignition was turned off, only their holographic numbers glowed in the dark.
“It’s all over if his cronies don’t stick their noses out of the car,” Ali replied, finally giving the second drawer away. “He’s going to figure out that it went south. He will kill you!”
Outside, the man was getting impatient. Blinded by the taxicab’s headlights, he came closer before exclaiming:
“Zéphyr, are you there? Where are my brothers? Security is closing all the departure modules. We will be stuck here, for fuck’s sake!”
He now had a gun in his hand. A machine gun identical to those of his companions currently bathed in their blood, nailed to the seats.
“Zéphyr? Wait… I know that name!” I meowed to myself.
The doors and portholes of the taxicab were locked. Ali and I were now stuck in the back with the two flatlined and most wanted criminals on the ship.
“Sorry guys, but I’ll handle the rest.”
Miss Meera, alias Zéphyr, smiled at us through the armored glass just before leaving the cockpit by the driver’s door.
“What a fucking piece of shit… Lee? Do you have a plan? I think the windows are bulletproof. I don’t feel like testing. Especially if it’s bouncing around with us inside, we will be turned into ground beef!”
“Did you forget who I am, my dear?”
I was already crawling under the seat, between a pair of Méduse shoes and half nibbled fried rat wings. It was time to demonstrate all my infiltration skills learned from Ninja Gaiden. Unfortunately, both the crab and the duck slowed me down and my belly remained for a few seconds stuck under the driver’s seat with my head on the brake pedal. How outrageous!
From the porthole, I saw Ali watching what was happening in front of us, near the ship. Our eyes met for a brief moment and I could read on her lips: “diet kibble”.
“Better off dead!” I shouted.
My paw reached the bottom of the dashboard, activating the mechanical opening of doors and windows. And, accidentally, the loudest horn in this dimension.
“My bad!”
My sapiens immediately jumped outside, pointing her gun to Zéphyr. Surprised by the thunderous din, her target pivoted towards us, uncovered, turning her back to the human with the magnificent chin and his ZeG-4 who yelled:
“What in the whole universe is that? Wait! I know her! Did you bring us bounty hunters? You were clearly planning to double-cross us!”
The man shouted and his gun produced a rain of bullets. It first hit the windshield of the taxicab, passing through the conductor compartment where I was. The rounds bent the windscreen, but it held. This wasn’t, however, the case for the hood, protecting the engine and the reservoir full of coolant, which ended up covering the seat and my face.
Fortunately, the sticky alcohol allowed me to escape from this trap and jump out of the vehicle through the window I had previously opened. But, once again, a fire ring enveloped the ZeG-4’s cannon.
“This is how I die…” I meowed, eyes closed.
I was violently tackled and hit the ground. Zéphyr had saved me at the last moment, just before bullets obliterated the front of the taxicab.
Other projectiles ricocheted off the metal money drawers on the floor and got lost in the ceiling, activating the fire sprinklers. This incident triggered a silent light alarm throughout the hangar while the mobster prepared a new salvo.
“Don’t hurt my pilot, you narbo!” roared my partner.
Ali, this time taken as a target, retaliated. She fired a single shot towards the rascal with a formidable precision. No one knew how to handle such a heavy gun as she did. She was my human. She was the best in her field: murder.
And I taught her everything. Almost.
The leader of the robbers tried to reload the magazine of his weapon, unaware that his heart had been punctured a few seconds before. Adrenaline was doing its job. But the blood loss caused by the explosion of the aorta at its base, near the ventricles, gradually stopped him in his gesture. His pressure dropped and the bloodstream no longer reached the brain sufficiently. He was already in a coma when his shoulders touched the ground. He was luckier than the average Joe and died a few seconds later.
“Is everything all right?”
My voice was trembling, still in shock from this disaster. I was wet and frozen.
Zéphyr got up with difficulty. Next to us, one of the metal drawers was opened, revealing a bunch of green bills and a much stranger booty: an eight-inch gold diskette with suspicious Chinese symbols.
Well… I couldn’t read them but Chinese symbols on stuff are always suspect, aren’t they?
But there were more important matters. Because my partner, on the other hand, stayed on the ground. Blood was dripping from her black suit and mixed with the clear firefighting fluid that was falling like an endless rain.
I tried to talk to her again but my voice was lost in a groan.
“Why are you whining, you big baby? It’s just blood.”
With her nose in a puddle, my sapiens smiled at me. Her left hand was compressing her abdomen. The bullet had passed through the external oblique muscle, far from the stomach.
It wasn’t that bad after all but she had scared me. And that deserved a scratch on the wrist that made her scream:
“What the fuck?”
“And the medical expenses? Have you thought about medical expenses? We don’t have insurance!”
“God, Uncle Scrooge! I hate you!”
“We won’t be able to fix the Kitty with your heroic outbursts!” I fulminated to mask my joy of seeing her in one piece.
“I will kill you, Muppet! I almost died! I don’t give a fuck about your rusty trash can which flies like a brick!”
It was true that we hadn’t had a fight for a long time.
“Guys…” intervened Zéphyr.
“What?”
Ali and I had spoken together.
“These three ruffians had planned to steal the diskette drive from me once I got back. I needed a hand, so… thank you… I guess.”
“You’re welcome,” my human answered dryly while sitting.
Although Zéphyr saved me, I didn’t share the same kindness:
“Wait, we’re not letting him go! Do you know who he is?”
Zéphyr. Prince of thieves. And yes, he wasn’t much of a princess either. Just an androgynous cyborg. A breakout king wanted throughout the entire system for his affiliation with the Data Brokers’ Guild. With an incredible bounty of C$800,000, she or he… whatever… was the knight of the brokers’ chessboard.
“I think we’ve had enough for today,” Ali said. “Unless you hope to go after him with these big fat guts of yours.”
“By the 79 moons of Jupiter, you shall pay for this, woman!” I meowed, angry.
My ears were backwards and my hairs were spiky. But soaking wet, it just made Ali and Zéphyr laugh.
Disgrace!
“He’s so cute when he’s furious,” he joked.
Now on his knees, the night-skinned androgynous was blotting Ali’s wound with a torn piece of fabric from his driver’s uniform.
“But more seriously, I need to go. With the bounty, you’ll be able to repair your vessel. As for the hospital fees, I will contact a good friend who will take care of you for free. She’s the ship’s chief medical officer.”
“Thank you,” I simply replied as he helped my partner get back on her feet.
“It’s the least I can do. I wasn’t interested in money. More important information is contained in this,” he said as he was picking up the floppy disk.
This golden diskette must have been worth a lot of cash for Zéphyr to play a taxicab driver to ensure coverage. I had perceived that something was fishy!
Then, halfway to his Swift-0, Zéphyr stopped. I witnessed his hesitation.
“There was nothing personal, you know. We’re all just trying to make our way. The best we can…”
And he ultimately left before adding:
“Maybe we’ll see each other again! You seem like fun.”
Before fleeing away, Zéphyr abandoned one of the boxes near the criminal’s corpse. Thus, he validated the theory of a robbery that had gone wrong. When the security arrived a few minutes later, we were the heroes of the day. And with a little bribe, nobody cared about Zéphyr’s missing ship.
This whole story surely left us a bitter taste. A feeling of defeat and humiliation that the swimming pool under the synthetic sun couldn’t make disappear even a week after.
“He undoubtedly played us as we were rookies, with his little face of a young innocent girl in distress,” I said to Ali right after the end of the daily Brett Maverick.
This old show was dispensed on a couple of giant screens suspended by drones.
Until now, Ali had remained silent on her deckchair; with a brick of sour juice stuck between her breasts and a pair of straws between her teeth. Only inaudible grunts emanated from her mouth since the departure of the sexually unclassifiable mugger.
“I wonder what information this fucking cyber-Tootsie could have been looking for in that casino,” my human mumbled as she squeaked her rainbow flip-flops.
“Admit that it’s not really that question that puts you in such a state…” I answered, now well installed on my motorized buoy that I had gotten as a gift in a diet kibbles package.
“You bet! I will have a nasty tan mark on my stomach with these bandages!” she exploded, spitting out her plastic straws with infinite curls.
My float slipped towards the ledge as a robot came to bring us our next glucose overdose.
Ali finally added:
“I swear that if we run into him again, I’ll smack his fucking angel face.”
Back to business!

Just spent the last hour trying to do the stealthy approach to the new heist. So far, i haven't got through a single door. I'm doing the sub approach, entering directly into the compound, trying to take out the guards silently.
For an hour, i've been taking out guards, carefully, one at a time, but then, i'll just be off on my aim by a millimeter, and that's it, alarm is raised, and game over. Start over.
At this rate, casino hesit would be twice as efficient in terms of time.
Ok, i'll admit, maybe the Famous Grouse wasn't helping with my aim, but i'm not that great a sharpshooter at the best of times.
So, please, Rockstar, when considering any future balacing to this hesit, please remember, not everyone is like these crazy speed runners who can do the heist in 10 minutes and the preps in an hour.
Some of us are gimps. Sometimes drunken gimps. And doing the hiest takes a lot of time and effort.
Thank you for listening, i now return you to the alcoholic beverage of your choice.
Cheers!
EDIT: Finally after dozens of attempts, did it! Not quite a full backpack, but died going for the final quarter of the bag so just skipped it on the next attempt and got out. Still, 1.4 million, i can live with that. Need to get better at it though. Followed advice and only killed guards that i really needed to. Exit was tricky as to get out quietly had to kill two guards standing next to each other (messed that up a few times) but in the end made it to the docks without detection. Only was detected getting into the boat, by which time i didn't mind.
Not sure how people are getting around so easily simply by driving past the guards on exit as i see on many videos (without a disguise). When i tried that i had enemies swarming and had no chance to grab anything.

Sleeping Dogs: Poker Mahjong guide

Hello! I've not seen any advice on how to win at Poker Mahjong in Sleeping Dogs, so here's a guide for anyone who might be struggling with it.
How do I access Poker Mahjong?
You can play Poker Mahjong at either of the two gambling dens located offshore to the north and south of the map. These locations are reachable by boat after completing the main story mission 'Bride to Be'.
What are the rules of the game?
Poker Mahjong in Sleeping Dogs is basically a form of video poker (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_poker), but played with a deck of mahjong tiles. The tiles are all of the same suit and are numbered from 1 to 6.
You play against one computer opponent (the house, or dealer). I'll refer to them as your 'opponent' for consistency.

1. You first choose how much to bet on the round, from 500 Hong Kong dollars up to 5000.
2. Both players are dealt five mahjong tiles. Tiles are numbered from 1 to 6. These tiles are called your 'hand'.
3. Your opponent always plays first. He chooses to discard any number of tiles from his hand and pushes them in front of the tiles he plans to keep - you can see from the table which ones will be discarded.
4. The above happens before you get to do anything. Then it's your first turn. You can choose to discard any of the tiles from your hand.
5. New tiles are drawn from the deck to replace all the tiles that were discarded.
6. There is a second turn of discarding and drawing new tiles.
7. Once those new tiles are added to your hand, both players' hands are evaluated, and the player with the better hand wins the round.

​

• If you win the round, you receive winnings based on the payout table.
• If you lose the round, you lose your original bet.
• If the hand is tied, you neither win money nor lose your original bet.

What are the winning hands?
The table below shows the ranks of each hand from lowest to highest, along with the payout.

HAND	PAYOUT
High card	1:1
Pair	1:1
Two Pair	1:1
Three of a Kind	2:1
Straight	2:1
Full House	3:1
Four of a Kind	4:1
Five of a Kind	5:1

Updated: Payouts are implemented oddly in the game. A payout of 1:1 means that you win an amount equal to your original bet. The best hand, Five of a Kind, pays out 5:1 which means that you can win $25000 on a bet of $5000. You don’t actually get your original bet back, though. So, for hands that give 1:1 payouts, actually you only get back your bet, you don’t earn any money for winning.
How does the game decide who wins each round?
During the evaluation of both players' hands, each component of your hand is compared against the equivalent in the other player's hand, in order of importance.

• For example, if you have a Full House, say 6's full of 2's (6,6,6,2,2) and your opponent has a Full House of 6's full of 3's (6,6,6,3,3), the sets of three are compared, then the pairs. (In this example, the opponent wins with a pair of 3's beating your pair of 2's.)
• If you both have Two Pair, the higher pairs are compared, then the lower pairs.
• If you both have Straight, the higher Straight (2,3,4,5,6) beats the lower Straight (1,2,3,4,5).

Tiles that aren't part of a winning hand aren't compared - for example, if you both have Four of a Kind 6's (6,6,6,6), the fifth tile is ignored, resulting in a tie.
I'll use 'rank' to refer to the payout table and 'strength' to refer to the numbers on the tiles that make up the hand.

• A higher-ranked hand beats a lower-ranked hand.
• If the hands are of the same rank, a higher-strength hand beats a lower-strength hand.
• It's a tie if the hands have the same rank and the specific tiles that make up the winning combination have the same strength.

The comparing of hands by strength (tile value) isn't stated clearly in the game, so it's easy to not notice this and assume that you have to outright beat your opponent's hand in rank. It also means that (if you ignore the fact you always play second) your opponent has the same chance to draw winning hands as you do. This means in the long term, you would expect to win 50% of the rounds, and with the high payouts on good hands, you can expect to win money over time rather than losing it (unlike most casino games based on chance).
Can I win Poker Mahjong consistently?
Yes! Over time, you can beat the computer player consistently. You can make about $100k per (real-world) hour of play, depending on how lucky you get. (It would be more if the controls and animations were faster.)
There's several reasons for this:

1. You can expect to win 50% of the time and lose 50% of the time, on average, before taking into account how well you and your opponent play. The payout structure means your winnings on good hands will tend to exceed your losses.
2. You get to play second, so you can respond to your opponent's final move before the hands are evaluated. This gives you a slight edge in cases where your opponent decided to stick with a 'safe' hand instead of trying to improve his hand.
3. Your opponent tends to overvalue low-strength tiles and undervalue high-strength tiles. These bad decisions can be exploited.
4. Your opponent tends to hold on to Straight or Full House hands as long as your hand can't beat them. This means you can sometimes win by getting a stronger Full House or Four of a Kind just before the end of the round.

Obviously some luck is involved, so sometimes you'll have a run where your opponent keeps getting unbeatable hands, or vice versa.
How much should I bet?
You should always bet the maximum amount ($5000). However, if you come to the table with less than $100,000 and you're unlucky during your session, you might run out of cash before your luck turns around.
(Poker Mahjong isn't the fastest way to earn money in Sleeping Dogs. If you want to make money fast, you can bet up to $100,000 a time on the cockfighting in Kennedy Town docks. You'll win $100,000 (and get your bet back) if you picked the winning bird.)
What's the general strategy?
You get to play after your opponent, so the general approach is to look at what your opponent is discarding, and then translate that information into a strategy for your own hand. Ideally, you want to get a Full House or better. Low Pairs/Two Pairs and Straights are usually not worth keeping. Also, the payouts below Full House are not worth aiming for even if you do beat your opponent with a low hand.
Now let's look at some scenarios in rough order of frequency.
1. Opponent has a low pair (1,1 to 3,3) and is discarding all other tiles.
You should aim to get Three of a Kind, Full House or Four of a Kind.
You can do this by building on a Pair of your own (if you already have one starting out), or, if you have a high tile (5 or 6 - if you have both, just keep the 6), you can discard all other tiles and hope for a 5 or 6 to appear in the draw. It'll depend on whether you already have a Pair that would beat your opponent's Pair. If your Pair is the same strength or weaker, discard it.
2. Opponent has Two Pair or you both have Two Pair.
There is a good chance that your opponent will improve their hand to Three of a Kind or Full House, so you need to aim for the same. If you have Two Pair yourself, the best way to do this is usually to keep your high Pair and discard the other three tiles. Then you can hope to build a strong Three of a Kind or better.
It's tempting to just discard the one tile that isn't part of your Two Pair, but then you lock yourself out of the possibility of Four of a Kind (which you need if your opponent gets a Full House) and you may end up matching your lower pair, giving you a weak Full House. Also, you're actually less likely to get a Three of a Kind with this play, which would be enough to win if your opponent fails to improve their hand.
The maths for the above play is estimated as follows. Assume each tile has an independent probability of being drawn of 1/6, and your Two Pair is 6,6 and 5,5. Then if you discard the single other tile, you need a 5 or 6 to get a Full House. The chance of this happening is 2/6 = 33%. If you keep the high pair and discard the other tiles, you need a 6 in any of the three new tiles to get Three of a Kind (and 2 or more would make your hand very strong). The chance of getting at least one 6 is 1-(5/6 * 5/6 * 5/6) = 42%.
3. You both have nothing, or your opponent has nothing while you have a low or mid-strength Pair.
If you have a high tile, consider discarding everything else and trying to get a good hand using the high tile - especially if your Pair is weak. Otherwise, build on your existing Pair.
4. Opponent has a Straight (1,2,3,4,5 or 2,3,4,5,6).
Straight is a weak hand and is frequently vulnerable to a Full House play. You will usually not see your opponent try to build a Straight from having four of the five tiles. It will usually happen instead at the start of the round, or randomly during the round.
Your opponent will hold on to their Straight as long as you have a weaker hand. Your play should be to build on any existing Pair or better in your hand, to aim for a Full House or Four of a Kind. Discard all tiles that don't help with this.
If you start with a Straight, don't bother keeping it. Discard everything except the high tile. Only keep a Straight if it's the last round and your Opponent has a Pair or worse going into the final draw.
5. Opponent has Three of a Kind or Full House, or better.
Most of the time you'll lose if your opponent has Four- or Five of a Kind.
You need to aim for a stronger Full House than your opponent's, if possible. If you have a 5 or 6 in your hand, keep that and discard the rest.
Or you might have a Full House, but it's weaker than your opponent's. In that case, you should discard the Pair and hope to get a Four of a Kind with your set of three.
Notes
This guide is based on a playthrough of Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition on Xbox One.
Comments and feedback welcome!