Posts by Mindchild

13

Show me the money...Economics 101 for ex-dubs

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

in light of reading about the discouraging circumstances that many ex-jw's find themselves in because of not having taken advantage of educational opportunities or other employment related training in the past, i was wondering if there was an interest in discussing practical ways for people to increase their bottom line and get out of the poverty or near poverty zone.. i would think that there might not only be some useful tips and hints from some of the more successful ex-dubs but we could exchange in some downright capitalistic networking and make useful connections that might either land you a good job or better your lot in life by say getting things at a discount.. personally, after leaving the borg, i have had a fairly successful business career which included a variety of accomplishments that ranged from opening up america's first discount college textbook store to being an international privacy consultant and most recently a research scientist.. i've helped people establish credit when they had zero or worse than zero credit ratings, taught classes on entrepreneurship at college, and i've seen and networked with a wide variety of people that made amazing amounts of money by finding something they were good at and that was off the beaten path (you seldom get rich doing something everyone else is doing.).

anyway, just wanted to see if there was an interest in discussing anything like this.. kind regards,.

skipper

Mindchild

Bboy,

You are right on about credit card debts. Most people don't realize how easy it is to be suckered into using these things and ending up paying enormous interest rates.

I suggest using credit cards for only dire emergencies UNLESS you use them to make money. I have personally made a bundle by using credit cards to make money but you need to be careful and know what you are doing. Perhaps a more practical way of using credit cards is to enjoy using them only to get the frequent flyer miles, which are now also useable for car rentals, hotels, and vacation packages. I would typically charge everything to my AMEX (American Express) and get 1 free flyer mile for each $1 I spent. As I typically would spend over $5,000 a month, these would add up and as a result, I got free transportation for my vacations. Now that I'm not about to get on jets again because of security issues, this application doesn't appeal to me. Besides that, I like my privacy and AMEX and the rest of the credit card industry would sell my private info and as a result I would get tons of junk mail. If you want privacy, I suggest you dump all your USA credit cards and go with an offshore VISA debit card. This way, nobody knows your finacial business.

Skipper

13

Show me the money...Economics 101 for ex-dubs

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

in light of reading about the discouraging circumstances that many ex-jw's find themselves in because of not having taken advantage of educational opportunities or other employment related training in the past, i was wondering if there was an interest in discussing practical ways for people to increase their bottom line and get out of the poverty or near poverty zone.. i would think that there might not only be some useful tips and hints from some of the more successful ex-dubs but we could exchange in some downright capitalistic networking and make useful connections that might either land you a good job or better your lot in life by say getting things at a discount.. personally, after leaving the borg, i have had a fairly successful business career which included a variety of accomplishments that ranged from opening up america's first discount college textbook store to being an international privacy consultant and most recently a research scientist.. i've helped people establish credit when they had zero or worse than zero credit ratings, taught classes on entrepreneurship at college, and i've seen and networked with a wide variety of people that made amazing amounts of money by finding something they were good at and that was off the beaten path (you seldom get rich doing something everyone else is doing.).

anyway, just wanted to see if there was an interest in discussing anything like this.. kind regards,.

skipper

Mindchild

Naeblis,

The last time I checked, there were roughly over 10,000 people who are professional contestants in the USA alone and who make this a full time occupation. I've met two of them in person. One fellow I met in Tucson, Arizona made a living out of contests on the radio stations. I had a security business at that time and for advertising reasons I gave away a complete home alarm system through a radio station. All you had to do was be the 10th caller and figure out which song it was (from an obscure classic rock tune). Well, this guy won it the second day it played on the air. When I went over to his house, he had three cars for sale in the front yard, a boat, 5 bicycles, a motorcycle, a few TV sets, and much more he was selling. He won all of them through radio station contests. When he invited me into his house, he showed me his command center that had ten different radios tuned to different radio stations, ten different phones (all programed with station phone numbers) and a computer he could consult to get title and artist from a huge database. He simply sold the stuff he won to make a decent living. He was somewhat depressed that year because he only made about $76,000! Not too bad for a down year.

The other person I met didn't know squat about music but had a similar approach for entering local contests by filling out entry forms. Instead of filling out just one entry form, she would take the entry form to a printer, and after she wrote in her name, address, etc. would get about 50,000 printed up, and then stuff the boxes full. It was completely legal, and her house was full of stuff she sold from contests she won.

Just goes to show you that innovative thinking can pay off. Don't know if this would suit someone lazy though as both of these people worked long hours to make their money.

So, think twice about the next time you go into Booger King and fill out the entry form.

Skipper

13

Show me the money...Economics 101 for ex-dubs

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

in light of reading about the discouraging circumstances that many ex-jw's find themselves in because of not having taken advantage of educational opportunities or other employment related training in the past, i was wondering if there was an interest in discussing practical ways for people to increase their bottom line and get out of the poverty or near poverty zone.. i would think that there might not only be some useful tips and hints from some of the more successful ex-dubs but we could exchange in some downright capitalistic networking and make useful connections that might either land you a good job or better your lot in life by say getting things at a discount.. personally, after leaving the borg, i have had a fairly successful business career which included a variety of accomplishments that ranged from opening up america's first discount college textbook store to being an international privacy consultant and most recently a research scientist.. i've helped people establish credit when they had zero or worse than zero credit ratings, taught classes on entrepreneurship at college, and i've seen and networked with a wide variety of people that made amazing amounts of money by finding something they were good at and that was off the beaten path (you seldom get rich doing something everyone else is doing.).

anyway, just wanted to see if there was an interest in discussing anything like this.. kind regards,.

skipper

Mindchild

Hi Naeblis,

Do you want the news sugar coated or straight?

You can expect to win someday, but technically the odds are that you will have spent about twice as much as you will ever get back. Here are a few interesting links about gambling that might interest you:

This is the Ten Commandments of Gambling:
http://www.thewizardofodds.com/game/tencom.html

This is a webpage about the lottery and strategies:
http://www.thewizardofodds.com/game/problottery.html

If you are looking for a realistic way to make money gambling, about the only smart way would be to do it by setting up an offshore gambling casino but you would need big bucks for that.

A more intelligent way that really works for making money by winning things is to become a professional contestant. I'm not talking about the people who end up on Jeporady or some other game show, but the people who keep a low profile and typically make about $100K plus a year by entering contests and doing this for a living. I've meet people in person who do this and it is neither illegal nor a fraud, it is simply understanding the mathematics and thinking outside the box.

In the meantime, only play the lotto for fun:-)

Skipper

13

Show me the money...Economics 101 for ex-dubs

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

in light of reading about the discouraging circumstances that many ex-jw's find themselves in because of not having taken advantage of educational opportunities or other employment related training in the past, i was wondering if there was an interest in discussing practical ways for people to increase their bottom line and get out of the poverty or near poverty zone.. i would think that there might not only be some useful tips and hints from some of the more successful ex-dubs but we could exchange in some downright capitalistic networking and make useful connections that might either land you a good job or better your lot in life by say getting things at a discount.. personally, after leaving the borg, i have had a fairly successful business career which included a variety of accomplishments that ranged from opening up america's first discount college textbook store to being an international privacy consultant and most recently a research scientist.. i've helped people establish credit when they had zero or worse than zero credit ratings, taught classes on entrepreneurship at college, and i've seen and networked with a wide variety of people that made amazing amounts of money by finding something they were good at and that was off the beaten path (you seldom get rich doing something everyone else is doing.).

anyway, just wanted to see if there was an interest in discussing anything like this.. kind regards,.

skipper

Mindchild

In light of reading about the discouraging circumstances that many ex-JW's find themselves in because of not having taken advantage of educational opportunities or other employment related training in the past, I was wondering if there was an interest in discussing practical ways for people to increase their bottom line and get out of the poverty or near poverty zone.

I would think that there might not only be some useful tips and hints from some of the more successful ex-dubs but we could exchange in some downright capitalistic networking and make useful connections that might either land you a good job or better your lot in life by say getting things at a discount.

Personally, after leaving the Borg, I have had a fairly successful business career which included a variety of accomplishments that ranged from opening up America's first discount college textbook store to being an international privacy consultant and most recently a research scientist.

I've helped people establish credit when they had zero or worse than zero credit ratings, taught classes on entrepreneurship at college, and I've seen and networked with a wide variety of people that made amazing amounts of money by finding something they were good at and that was off the beaten path (you seldom get rich doing something everyone else is doing.)

Anyway, just wanted to see if there was an interest in discussing anything like this.

Kind Regards,

Skipper

33

Stupid things that happened as a Witness...

by ballistic in

jw
friends

anyone got any stupid questions they were asked or things that happened as a witness?.

when i was at school, a kid asked me "if you don't celebrate birthdays, how do you know how old you are?".

*

Mindchild

bboyneko:

One of those demons looks somewhat like the D.O. but on closer inspection the demons all look like they are having lots of fun, more than I can say for the average dub.

Skipper

3

Share your best JW jokes

by rcranor in

jw
friends

i just made these up.

they probably suck, but who cares, it's a start.

let's see how creative we can get..... how do you get a sister to put out on the first date?.

Mindchild

Here is my contribution: http://skipstarbuck.homestead.com/

21

Reasons for Leaving JWs/Fatal Flaw

by patio34 in

jw
friends

i ran across this in "river out of eden" by richard dawkins (pgs 131-132) yesterday and it accurately sums up why i left jws 9 months ago and, essentially, belief in a creator:.

re dna survivial: 'when the utility function-that which is being maximized--is dna survival, this is not a recipe for happiness.

so long as dna is passed on, it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process.

Mindchild

Pat,

Once upon a time men used to think that angels were responsible for making a flower open and close each day. We used to think that birds sang their songs to please humans but we know this is nonsense now. For a lot of people, it is hard to accept that we are very anthropomorphic and shape the information our senses process into a highly filtered conceptual reality. Collectively, people don’t prefer to look at life, the world, and the universe as it really is but rather as we want to see it.

Our brains were well adapted by evolutionary and environmental influences thousands of years ago. They served us well then to become a highly adaptable species that flourished in many different geographical areas. This flexibility of the human mind to model reality in a variety of ways has lead though to much of the problems that we see in the world today. People get so caught up in their comprehensive world views that they don’t realize how easily we can be manipulated and deceived and assign moral and emotional values to events and memes that have little resemblance to another person with a different way of looking at the world.

A good way to tell if our reality construction is flawed is to push our hypothesis and theories to the limits and see if they come up wanting. Looking at all the suffering in the animal kingdom, etc. is a fine way of doing that but you can take the same test and apply it to the universe at large and you find out that the JW view of a nice ordered and created universe is pure nonsense and that the universe is a very dangerous and chaotic place to be. It’s just a matter of time before some horrific disaster happens on a global or cosmic scale and entire galaxies get wiped out.

Sounds to me like God went to sleep at the wheel.

Skipper

15

A new car designed for Jehovah's Witnesses

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

a concept car that is designed for and will be marketed exclusively to jehovahs witnesses will be unveiled through a series of international religious assemblies in the summer of 2002.. the car, developed secretly in conjunction with the toyota motor corp and the watchtower bible and tract society in new york, is designed to optimize publisher performance in the churchs evangelical membership drive and to leave a good public impression about jehovahs witnesses.

biometric sensors built into the car's steering mechanism also monitor a driver's pulse and galvanic skin response - sweat level - for signs of agitation, and play smoothing religious songs when the driver is upset.

if the church member fails to spend at least 3 hours on the weekend in the assigned local area to engage in evangelical activity, the car's computer will issue an alert from a display on the dashboard or send a wireless message to the local headquarters.

Mindchild

Personally, if I were on the design team I would be pushing for these ten improvements:

1. Smell neutralizer to block lethal doses of feminine hygiene products and obsessive amounts of perfume on some female publishers.
2. Built in dog detector and ultrasonic repellant.
3. Emergency donut supply
4. Rear seat ejection system to push out dubs who won’t take their turn at the door.
5. Secret onboard Internet system to use while everyone else is out going door to door.
6. Microminiaturized voice playback systems that you would wear under your clothing to give your canned door-to-door sermon, and just lip synch to it.
7. Built in paint ball gun to mark houses in which either apostates or demonized smurfs live
8. Automatic magazine and publication launcher that would shoot self-adhesive publications at doors where people were snotty or where there were mean dogs.
9. One of those up-the-skirt cams for use anytime a hot dub babe was riding in the back seat.
10. Pop-up emergency pottie to use in case you drink too much coffee at McDonald’s

I was just thinking though, the best innovation of all would be a automatic device that would drop small blue smurf’s from the ceiling, causing the car to be immediately evacuated so the driver could have a good and well deserved nap.

Skipper

33

Stupid things that happened as a Witness...

by ballistic in

jw
friends

anyone got any stupid questions they were asked or things that happened as a witness?.

when i was at school, a kid asked me "if you don't celebrate birthdays, how do you know how old you are?".

*

Mindchild

Our congregation was taking on the role of "host" for organizing a local district assembly. As a pioneer, I got the chance to take a district oveerseer with me out on a Bible study. My study was with two Hispanic boys, only one of which could speak English fairly well and he would in turn translate for his younger brother.

The D.O. was late meeting with me and I didn't get a chance to tell him anything about the study as we walked up to their door at the scheduled time. I offered prayer, and in the background the Hispanic householder was softly translating it to his brother.

Immediately after the prayer, the District Oveerseer jumped up and yelled that there were demons in the house and told me to flee for my life. He ran screaming out the door, even left his bookbag in the house.

I looked at the two boys (teenagers) and they looked at me and all he said, was something like "weird hombre." I excused myself and took the bookbags and went out to where my car was. The D.O. wasn't there. I found out later he shit himself he was so scared and had to run to a local service station where he called one of the elders to immediately come and get him.

The stupid thing was, none of the elders believed what I said, that there was nothing weird going on. They told me that I was simply not spiritually advanced enough to realize that demons were there. They also forbid me to return to the house and marked it off on our territory card.

The only good things that came from the whole incident is that it put another coffin nail in my belief structure and I probably saved those two boys from getting mind fucked by joining the Witnesses.

Skipper

26

Bumper stickers

by target in

jw
friends

saw this one the other day.

"jesus loves you!

everyone else thinks you're and asshole"

Mindchild

My favorite is:

"Sometimes I wake up grumpy. Other days I just let him sleep in."