Podcasts about hi eric

A pandemic survivor accidentally forms a harem.Based on a post by CorruptingPower, in 25 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.Chapter 1Around day eighteen of the quarantine, Andy was starting to lose his damn mind. The governor of California had gotten on the television and announced that everyone who wasn't essential was under house arrest, essentially. Sure, the grocery stores were open, but restaurants were only doing delivery, and every bar in town was closed. The most time he'd spent outdoors in the last week had been walking out to the mailbox cluster for the complex down at the end of the street.Despite the fact that both of them had decent paying jobs “ Eric as a software engineer and Andy as a marketing writer “ neither could afford an entire place to themselves, so Andy paid rent to Eric, who owned the condo (or at least was paying it down).Andy also had a side hustle as a novelist, and was getting frustrated as hell that the quarantine was keeping him in place meant that his newest book was being pushed back. There was a warehouse full of fifty thousand copies of his next novel, and they were all just sitting there."They'll come out eventually," his agent had told him, but the whole thing felt very much like a death sentence to his literary ambitions. Andy even had a box of copies sitting on their kitchen table, along with a movie poster styled promotional in a frame."Did you get the mail today?" Andy asked his roommate."Nah," Eric said. "Didn't see the point.""Fair enough."Wham wham wham."You order food?""Nope. You?"A voice came from outside their front door. "CDC. Open the door, please."Eric moved to the door and peered through the peephole. On the other side, he saw a man in a biohazard suit, covered completely from head to toe. He raised one covered hand and waved. "I'm perfectly safe, as you can see. We're going door to door and testing people for the virus."Eric looked back at his roommate and shrugged. Andy grabbed his two cats, scooping one up in each arm as Eric opened the door. It was like something out of The Andromeda Strain, seeing the man in the yellow hazmat outside, a small box in one hand. "CDC?""Yeah. I'm Dave. Invite me in?"Andy shrugged and Eric laughed. "Sure, c'mon in. We just need to close the door behind you so the cats don't get out.""Sure sure, I get that. I'm here to test if you guys are clear. Is there some place I can set up?""Go ahead and use the kitchen. You want us together or one at a time?""The test only takes fifteen minutes and I can run up to four of them at a time, so come on. I can run you both." He lugged the kit with a world weariness, as if he'd been doing this thirty times a day since the lockdown had started. "Paperwork says you've got two guys living here “ Eric Yang and Andrew Rook. That you two?""That's us.""Nobody else in the condo?""Nope. Nobody else.""Cool," Dave said as he set the kit down on the kitchen table. He glanced up at the movie poster promotional on the wall above the kitchen table. "Oh hey, you guys are fan of the Druid Gunslinger books too? I fucking love those things."Eric laughed a little bit, sitting down in one of the kitchen chairs, rolling up his sleeve. "I mean, you could say that, I guess. He writes'em.""What? No, they're written by some guy named Blake Conrad." He glanced at Eric and grinned. "I don't need blood, man. Here, just rub this swab on the inside of your cheek for a bit."Andy smiled a bit sheepishly, putting the cats down. "Yeah, that's me. It's a pen name.""Why the hell would you want a pen name when you've got an awesome last name like Rook?""I'm friends with Arthur McStevenson. You know, the guy who writes all those thrillers you see on sale in the airports? Anyway, he told me that he wished he'd have taken a pen name before he got started, so people just couldn't look him up and track him down at home."Dave took the cotton swap that Eric handed him and put it into one of the four slots on the little machine he carried with him. "Oh hey, I'm sorry man. I don't want to bother you about it.""Nah, you didn't come tap on my window in the middle of the night or anything. What do I care?" Andy waved his hand before taking a cotton swab from him, rubbing it along the inside of his cheek, and then handed it back to the man in the bio suit."While this is running, I just gotta ask you guys a few other questions. Do you guys each have a twin bed?"Eric rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding me? Ask him about his bed. Just ask him."Andy crossed his arms over his chest, as if this was a discussion they'd had a number of times. "Eric's got a queen sized bed and I've got a California king sized bed. Even though I've got the smaller bedroom. But what can I say? When I got out of college, I bought a big ass bed, so I'd always be comfortable, and never wanted to give it up.""Why do you ask?""They're starting to force people to house additional people in their places, so we can keep the uncontaminated together, at least for a while.""What?" Eric said, his face scowling. "There's no way that's legal.""It's temporary, and we're doing everything we can to make sure people are at least okay with it. At this point, we're just doing what we can to get people through it. But the death toll is starting to stack up. I mean, have you seen the footage coming out of New York City?"Andy nodded. "Trailer trucks stacked full with body bags. It's terrifying.""Besides, it's not all that bad. The virus seems to be targeting men a lot more than women, so guys are scoring with women way out of their league. And the women seem to be a little friskier once they've developed an immunity to the virus. I'm sure you'll see eventually."Andy arched an eyebrow in the man's direction. "That sounds ominous."The man in the biohazard suit waved a hand dismissively in their direction. "Not at all. Just relax and enjoy the ride. That's all I should say about it. So when's the next Druid Gunslinger book coming out? It's really soon, isn't it?"Andy stepped over to the fridge, opening it to take out a can of soda, using the fridge to hide his sigh, although he wasn't entirely successful. "It was supposed to be out in three weeks, but because of the virus, the publisher's pushing it back to the fall. I mean, I understand. I get a lot of additional sales off of in store appearances and whatnot. I get it. And I'm already working on writing the next one. But it's always rough having a book release pushed back.""Man, that sucks. I was really looking forward to reading it during my downtime when they're driving us between locations.""Y'know what, you're a fan, so let me do you a favor. I better not see this show up on eBay or the internet though, otherwise I'm gonna know who it was." Andy moved over to the box on the kitchen and opened the top of it, taking one of the books out. "They call these advance reader copies. They send me a few boxes of them so I can sell them at appearances or give them away to friends and such. I haven't even sent my family copies yet. I think the only other person than my agent and my editor who's read the book is Eric here."Eric nodded. "It's not as good as 'Have Totem, Will Travel' but it's one of the better books in the series, I thought. Way better than 'The Trouble With Werebears,' but then again, that's not hard.""Everyone's a critic," Andy said, grabbing a pen from near the box. "Fair, though. I had to bang that one out in five weeks because the publisher just wanted to cram another one onto store shelves while it was hot. I wasn't satisfied with it either, but it still sold okay. You said your name was Dave, right?""Yeah," Dave answered.Andy opened the front cover of the hardback ARC and wrote in the front of it, "For Dave, Jake thinks you're one of the real heroes. Yours, Blake Conrad." He blew over the ink for a second, making sure it was dry, before closing it up and offering it to Dave. "There you go. Autographed, personalized copy months in advance of when you can get it in stores.""That's awesome, man!" Dave said, genuine enthusiasm in his voice. The machine on the table beeped, a cheerful tri tone medley. "You guys are both 100% virus clear. And let me pay you back for this," he said, patting the book on the table next to him. He flipped a little toggle switch on the machine and then pushed the large green button on the side. A small little printout scrolled out of the machine. He tore it off and then pushed the green button again. "Okay, this one is for you," he said, holding out the receipt to Eric. "And this one is for you, Mr. Conrad," he said with a laugh, holding out the second slip to Andy. "You need to go onto the website today and fill out the questionnaire. I know it's going to seem weird, but just answer the questions honestly and openly, and go through the whole thing. You'll be very glad you did later, okay?""What's it for?""It'll help you be happy with your pair ups when we bring them by in a few days. You know that giant condo complex a mile or two over?""What, the 30 story skyscraper?""Yeah. That's being converted into a triage hospital, so all the tenants are being evicted. Lots of people who are going to be relocated. There's a range of five possible questionnaires that uninfected men can get, and it's at the test giver's discretion. Most people, we just give them level one or two questionnaires.""What did you give us?""Welcome to level 5, fellas. It's mostly reserved for medical professionals and high rollers, but it's my discretion, and this little baby's going to keep me from losing my mind for the next few weeks, so I gotta make sure we're square," he said while patting the book. "This should more than even us out.""It makes that much of a difference?"Dave smiled like a Cheshire cat beneath his biohazard helmet and nodded. "You'll see. Just trust me on this. Go fill it out right away, though! They'll probably have someone here tomorrow or the day after, and you want to be ready." The scientist picked up the book in one hand and his testing kit in the other. "And with that, I'm off! I won't be able to get started on this tonight, but I'll see if I can swing by on one of the drop offs and let you know what I think of it.""Hey, it's always nice to meet a fan," Andy said. He moved to scoop up the two cats into his arms again before he and Eric walked him to the door.Dave shuffled toward the door, as Eric opened it for him. "Remember guys, the questionnaire is completely confidential and no one's going to judge you on any of it, so be completely honest. Got it? Completely. Honest.""With all the hyping you've been doing, I can't wait to see this questionnaire," Andy laughed. "Go on, go! You've got more people to be saving, I'm sure.""Take care, fellas!" Dave said.Eric closed the door on him, then flipped the lock, and then the deadbolt before putting the chain on. He liked to make sure it was secure. "So I suppose we both better go take this thing, huh?" he said to Andy, who was putting down the cats again."Guess so."Eric's desk was in the living room, while Andy's was part of the adjacent dining room. They'd been known to politely yell at one another from their desks. Andy typed in the website on the slip and hit return. A rather bland looking government website popped up. There Andy entered his name, his address, his social security number and address."He wasn't kidding when he said this quiz was unorthodox," Eric called over to him, clearly ahead of him in the process. "These are not the kind of questions I expect a government website to be asking me.""Oh yeah? I can't wait to find out." Andy typed in the personalization code at the bottom of the slip. It was a long series of characters, a mix of numbers and letters, both capital and lower case, with a variety of special characters mixed in “ 25 characters in all. Andy had to enter the series twice because the first time he hadn't realized it was case sensitive and the site had rejected it.The first question immediately surprised him. "Are you attracted to: Women, Men, Both?" It wasn't at all what he expected, but he checked "women" and the site moved onward. There was a small button marked back, in case he made errors, obviously.The next page asked him what ages of women he was attracted to. There were two little slider bars, with the low end going as far down at 18 and the high end going up to 70+. Andy was nearly 40, but the words of Dave rang through his head. "Be honest." Andy shrugged, leaving the low end set to 18 and brought the high end to 35.He was a more than a little caught off guard by the next question. "Would you consider yourself: Monogamous, polyamorous, no preference?" He had to think about it for a long moment, but eventually clicked "no preference." If he was truly honest with himself, if he found himself with a girlfriend who had another girlfriend, he wouldn't have been bothered by it.For the next twenty minutes, Andy continued to work through the website, filling in all the options about what he was and wasn't attracted to. Height, weight, race, hair color, hair length, eye color, nationality, education, physique, the questions went on and on and on. After he went through any given category, he was then given a follow up page to rank all of the things from most attracted to at the top down to least attracted to at the bottom.Towards the back half, he started to understand what Eric had found so surprising. The quiz had a page with a seemingly limitless collections of fetishes and kinks. At the top was the message "Click all that apply." Following that, all of the things Andy had clicked on were in another list he was expected to order.When he had to order all of his turn ons, he became more than a little aware how at odds with each other some of them were. In fact, he had aggressive women and submissive women next to one another in the ordered list. He wondered what the algorithm would make of that.The last page was the same fetish and kinks list presented again with a different message at the top. "Click all those that are hard turn offs for you. Be thorough." It was this page that Andy found himself clicking a lot of buttons.He also had to look up a handful of the terms that did not include clarification. He was sure there were people out there who liked pissing on each other, but he certainly wasn't one of those. He also had to make sure to reject women who were allergic to cats. He wondered if all this information was just going to ensure no one showed up.All in all, the whole thing felt a little like a thing he'd taken in college called the Purity Test, a thousand question party game where people who had been drinking would compare sexual histories.The final page was all the information he'd entered presented in an ordered list, with a message in large friendly red letters at the top. "Review all the information below for accuracy! Once you hit submit, you cannot revise this information!"After a final pass to make sure he hadn't marked anything incorrectly, he hit submit. The screen went blank for a second before a confirmation message popped up. "A copy of this has been mailed to the email address you provided. Thank you for helping us keep California safe!"Andy closed the web browser and rose up from his seat, heading over to talk to his roommate. "Okay, yeah, that was definitely weird.""What did you say to the polyamory question?" Eric asked him."I put no preference.""Really? Man, I couldn't click the monogamous button fast enough. Last thing I want is a girlfriend who's shacking up with another guy."Andy smirked. "What if she was shacking up with another girl?""Ah shit, I didn't even think of that."He shrugged at Eric with a wry smile. "Like it's going to make any fucking difference anyway. I'm sure the whole thing is just an optimistic pipe dream. When was the last time our government brought any real change with a website?""Heh. Guess we'll see.""Yep, suppose so."And that was the last they talked about it for the rest of the day. But it certainly wouldn't be the last time they talked about it.Chapter 2It was a little past noon the next day when there came a knock at the door. "Open up! CDC!" the voice on the other side shouted at them. "Delivery and I don't have time to fuck about so let's go."Andy was in the living room working on his laptop, and glanced over at Eric, who was hip deep in a conference call. "Don't worry, I got it. They probably just forgot some questions yesterday or something." Eric waved his hand as Andy set his laptop aside, carrying on with his conversation with his coworkers.Andy rose from the couch and made his way over to the front door, opening it without thinking to look through the peephole. The cats were both upstairs asleep, so he didn't worry about them. When he opened the door, there were three people outside of it, not the one he'd expected. The person in the middle looked a lot like Dave had, except for the face. The man inside this biohazard suit was a black man in his late forties. He looked a lot less jovial than Dave had.To the left and right of the man in the biohazard suit was a woman covered from head to toe. From the clothing, it was almost impossible to make out any details other than the woman to the left of him was short and the woman to the right was tall. Both of them wore hoodies with the hoods pulled up. They wore ski visors over their eyes and scarves over their noses and mouths. Both wore long sweatpants and had those fuzzy lined boots he'd never thought were fashionable. He couldn't see an inch of skin from either. Each of them had a small roller suitcase with them, the kind of travel bag someone takes for a holiday no longer than a week. They also each had a large bag under their arm, an oversized purse maybe, or a laptop bag. The whole appearance was almost like Berkas by Gucci."You Eric or Andy?" the man in the gear asked him."Andy.""Copy," the man said, tapping at his little pad with a stylus that dangled from it. He let the stylus drop and then opened a pouch on the outside of his suit, upholstering a bottle of Lysol. He sprayed the surface of the tablet for a few seconds then held it out to Andy. "Just use your finger to sign on the line. Any day now. I've got another seven deliveries to make today, and people are on the bus waiting so let's go."Andy lifted a finger up and signed an approximation of his name on the tablet's surface. "So how long is this for? That these people are staying with us?""Which room is Eric's and which room is Andy's?" the shorter of the two women asked."Upstairs and turn right for Eric's room and left for my, uh, Andy's room," he said, as the two women immediately brushed past him and ran upstairs. "How long?""The fuck should I know, pal? I just deliver them." He took the tablet back from Andy and glanced down at it. "Anyway, that's it for this batch. I'll see you again in a few days, maybe a week or so, with the next one.""The next one?" Andy asked, but the man had already turned and started walking back to a school bus that was idling in the street. "What do you mean the next one?" But the man had already moved on, and either didn't hear Andy or didn't care. Andy suspected it was the latter. Behind him, up the stairs, he heard both his and Eric's bedroom doors shut.He closed the door and locked it, then turned the padlock and put the chain back on. Andy looked over his shoulder, then glanced and Eric, who shrugged. He moved upstairs and knocked on his own bedroom door. "Uh, hello?""Five minutes please!" a voice on the other side of the door said to him.Andy sighed, turned around and walked downstairs. His roommate looked over at him, having just wrapped up his conference call. "She wants five minutes."Eric laughed. "We've been kicked out of our own rooms. Great."Andy moved back over to the couch and picked up his laptop, sitting back down and starting to write again. He was curious, though. Insanely curious about what was happening in his own room. Neither of the cats were complaining so he imagined it couldn't be too bad. His roommate had wrapped up his conference call, but had clearly turned on his music, because Andy could hear the tiny noise flare ups, even though Eric was just wearing earbuds. He did love his death metal loud.He spent a while trying to work but trying to focus felt damn near impossible. He popped into his company's Slack channel, to let them know what was going on.“your partner showed up?” his boss typed. “take the rest of the week off. you're going to be busy“They said they're going to be back later with another delivery. What the hell does that mean?” Andy typed into the channel.“oh shit” his boss typed back. “how big is your bed? queen sized?”“King sized.” Andy replied. “California king, actually. Don't know what difference that makes though. The news said one partner per person.”“u have a king bed tho” his boss replied. “did the site ask u the polyamory question?”“Yeah” Andy typed. “I put no preference”“shit” came the reply. “okay take off the rest of the week and let me know when you get another partner and we can do the same again as many times as you get partners”“Wait. What? How many partners can they give me?”“depends on what level the tester gave you”“He said level 5. He was a fan of my novels so I gave him a signed copy of the new one”“Oh, shit” his boss answered. “then u can be assigned up to 4 partners with Cali king bed”“Now you're just fucking with me” Andy sent back with a laugh.“noshit my dude” his boss answered. “ok we play it by ear then but dont check out any new tasks until monday, k?”“Am I still getting paid for the time?”“new partner adaptation time dude its all covered”“Okay then, I guess.”“level 5, L O L, u fucking suck” his boss typed. “u dont deserve that level of woman”“Wait. What do you mean?”“LOL u didn't read how the levels system work fuck u go enjoy winning the lottery”And with that, his boss set Andy's status to Out Of Office.From upstairs he heard both pairs of doors open, although he didn't think either of them opened fully. "I'm going to take a shower if that's okay with Eric," a voice called down."He's in the zone working, so that should be fine," Andy called up."Thank you!" And then Eric's bedroom door closed again."Okay Andy, come on up," a different voice said. "But close the bedroom door behind you, okay?" And then his own bedroom door shut.His work day was done. He found himself a little nervous at the idea of going into his own room, but he realized waiting wasn't going to make it any easier. Time to face the music. He pushed his laptop back into his laptop bag, zipped it up and set it on the coffee table.Andy walked up the stairs and came to his bedroom door. It was odd, staring at this side of his bedroom door. He knocked on the door, and a soft giggle came from the other side. "You don't need to knock, silly. It's your room. Come on in."He wasn't entirely sure what he expected to find behind the door. But he did as he was told to do, opening the door, stepping in and closing the door behind him.Sitting on his bed was a lovely redheaded woman in her mid to late twenties. He suspected the coppery color of her hair was natural as he could see a generous dusting of freckles on her cheeks and arms. She had it done up in a sporty ponytail that hung down to the small of her back. Instead of all the layers he'd seen her in just a few minutes ago, she was dressed now in simply a sports bra, a pair of booty shorts and a pair of thigh high leather boots. She had her hands behind her on the bed to thrust her perky tits up in his direction. She was fit, pale, strikingly beautiful, and had a playful smile on her face."Hallo Andy," she said, an Irish tinge to her voice. "My name's Aisling. It's pronounced Ashling, but spelled A i s l i n g. I'm from Dublin, but after I finished uni, I got a job out here working as a graphic designer. I'm your new partner. I hope I'm to your liking.""Oh!" Andy said, as if the whole situation was just dawning on him. "Oh, I'm "Aisling couldn't contain herself any longer and sat up and rushed him, throwing her arms around, clinging to him firmly. "We can touch," she moaned into his ear. "Touch! It's been so fucking long since I touched anybody. And I'm going to touch the fuck out of you nonstop, you beautiful bastard."He was slightly taken aback at how tightly she was holding him. "I mean, you don't have to ""I don't have to do any fucking thing I don't want to," she whispered into his ear. "But it is taking every bit of willpower I have not to drop to my fucking knees and rip those pants right off you. Because that's what I desperately want to do right now."Andy could feel her nipples pressed firmly against his chest through the sports bra, and her breath was hot against his skin. "Wah, why?""We've been in isolation for months," Aisling said as her hand grabbed onto his ass through his jeans. "They gave us injections to help us build our immune system against the virus, but they said it was going to stoke our libidos a bit. God, wasn't that a fucking understatement." She nibbled on his earlobe for a moment. "They showed me twenty pictures of men with a bit of description beneath each of them on what they wanted and didn't want, and I picked you."His hand moved along the small of her back, trying to keep it from going anywhere inappropriate, but she reached behind herself to grab his arm by the wrist and push his hand down onto her ass, which invoked another moan from her. "Why did you pick me?""You like gingers, which I am obviously. I'll be sure to show you it's natural in just a smidge," she said with a smile. "But you like both submissive and aggressive women, and I can be both. You're open to polyamory. I like both men and women, and I know that polyamorous men with large beds get multiple partners, so that's something to look forward to. I consider myself a switch, so I'm looking forward to having another girl to play with, one I can order around a bit." Andy started to try and pull his hand upward a bit, and she rubbed her hips forward a bit more insistently. "If you're lifting that hand up, it'd better be to slip it under my shorts onto my bare ass.""Is, is that what you want?""For an appetizer," she purred. "But you know what made me want you most of all?"Andy lifted his hand just to the top of her booty shorts, hesitating for just a second before he slid his fingertips beneath the hem of them. He realized he must've been hesitating a bit too long, because she reached back and pushed his hand down firmly until he had a full handful of toned butt in his grasp. "What's that?""Out of that long, long list of sexual turn ons and offs, the thing you put that turned you on the most, was dirty talk," she practically moaned at him. "I fucking love dirty talk. I am an absolutely filthy little slut. No," she giggled, licking her tongue along the shell of his ear, "I'm your filthy little slut now. I am going to beg you to fuck me stupid over and over again. I can't wait to suck on that cock of yours, to make you fuck my face until there are tears rolling down my eyes and I can't breathe. God, that makes my little cunt clench. It's tight, too. I've only fucked two guys before, and each of them only a couple of times. But you are going to fucking plow that gash of mine so much I may have to etch your name into it. You are going to fuck your little whore so much that you fall asleep inside of my cunt more often than not, and wake up to me sucking your cock clean to get you ready for another round." She turned around in his arms, which made his hand slide up to her stomach, her head leaning against his shoulder. "Here," she said, taking his hand on her belly, pushing it down the front of her shorts. "Feel just how sopping wet a bitch you own now, sir. Should be it sir? Master?" She giggled a little, wiggling her eyebrows. "Daddy?"Andy stuttered for a second, as his fingertips pushed through a small strip of hair before reaching the most drenched snatch he'd ever felt. "Fuck, you are soaked,”"Umm," she said with a nod. "So I'll just use all three then.""Not,” Andy sputtered, "not in front of my roommate.""The other guy? Oh, he's going to be more than a little distracted. I talked with Lily a little bit on the way over here “ Lily's the girl waiting for him in his room “ and she's more worked up than I am. And your roommate likes them to be a little dominant with him, so I don't think he'll have time to say anything, but if it makes you feel better, sir, I'll just call you Andy when we're out in the common areas. Or honey or baby. Something innocuous. As long as you're going to hold up your end of our deal.""My end?" Andy said, as he pushed a fingertip inside of Aisling's drenched cunt, feeling her clench down on it as she shivered slightly."You owe me one load of spunk every fucking day," she said, grabbing his other hand to push it up and under her sports bra to cup her tit, feeling how hard her nipple was against his palm. "I don't give a shite where you put it “ on my face, down my throat, across my tits, up my cunt, you can even stuff it up my virgin asshole, something I can't wait to feel the first time “ but you don't fall asleep at night without making sure I got my daily dose of your jizz. Think you can live up to that?""God, I hope so," he said, lifting her bra up to her collarbone, as her hands moved to pull it up and over her head, tossing it aside. "You really want that?"Aisling giggled again, a sound that sent shivers up Andy's spine every time. "I honestly can't wait to get started, Master. I want you to fuck me so bad, I can feel it trickling down my thighs. You've got yourself a needy little slut on your hands. How do you want our first time to be?"Andy's hand slid up from her shorts and brought his fingertips to his lips, licking them clean, seeing her nuzzling her face against his neck, so he offered his pointer finger to her, which she wrapped her lips around and suckled hard on before letting it pop from her mouth. "You were going to prove to me you were ginger, weren't you?""Hmm, I'm sure you can see the freckles all over my tits," she said, crossing her arms at the wrists in front of her to push them together and up towards his eyes. "But you want to be sure you've got an honest slut on your hands, hmm? Boots off or on, you think?""The boots are dead sexy, but let's have them off.""You like them though, yeah?" she asked as she put one foot up on his bed, and started unzipping one of the boots."Oh yes, they're fantastic. A lot of forethought in thinking to bring them.""We were allowed to made a list of things to get packed up for us, so I've got all sorts of little surprises in my wheelie bag, but I'll tell you one, I've got a plaid skirt in there, back from my days at Mercy College. Every man around the world loves a schoolgirl." She pulled her other boot off and set it on the floor next to its companion. Then she unbuttoned the front button of her jean shorts, unzipping them before bending forward over the corner of Andy's bed. She pushed the shorts slowly over the curve of her ass and down her thighs before stepping out of them, leaving her in a tiny silky red thong. "Like the view?""God you're fit. I feel like a bit of fat man in your presence, I'm afraid.""Don't you worry, lad," she purred. "You and I are going to be doing a lot of exercise." She slid on her belly further onto the bed and then rolled onto her back. "I'll fuck you back thin, daddy." Aisling pulled her thighs back to her chest, reached down and drew her thong up along her legs. As soon as she lifted the fabric upward, Andy got his first view of her cunt, and she was glistening. With her ankles to the side of her head, she drew the thong off and tossed it to the side before spreading her legs wide. True to her word, there was a neat shaved triangle of copper curls just above her snatch. "See? Ginge minge. Now what're you gonna do about it?""Aren't you sweet as candy?" Andy slowly crawled onto the bed next to her. He didn't have shoes to kick off “ he'd barely put them on since the lockdown began. "You're down for anything?"Aisling rolled onto her side. "You want the first time to be something particular? How sweet. What did you have in mind?""Something simple. So you can show me what you like. You on top. That okay?" Andy said as he pulled his shirt up and over his head.She giggled a little bit, reaching a fingertip over to brush it along his chest. "Tattoos? You're full of surprises. I wouldn't have pegged you as a man with ink." Andy had a tattoo of a griffon starting on his right pectoral going down to his stomach, done in an elaborate and detailed style. It had been the better part of two days worth of work ten years ago. "I like the look of it, though. And if you want our first time to be me riding you, I say giddyup partner. Any other surprises down here I should be looking forward to?" Her fingertip moved to smooth down over the swell of his cock through his jeans."You can have a looksee for yourself after you do one more thing," Andy said, with a little laugh."Tell me what it is, so I can see the thing that's going to change my life." She was rubbing the palm of her hand firmly against that buldge now, her eyes looking down at her hand before bringing those green eyes up to meet his gaze, a girlish smile on her lips. "Stop teasing and tell me.""I've never shown my cock to girl I haven't kissed before," he said with a wry smile. "I don't intend to stay"Andy didn't even finish getting the sentence before Aisling had crawled all over him, pressing her lips to his. The kiss was intense, more intense than he'd ever remembered before. It came on strong and kept getting stronger, her lips parting after several seconds to let her tongue slip into his mouth and spiral around in a hungry dance. After a few minutes of making out like a couple of teenagers, she pulled back just an inch or so. "God, I hadn't realized how much I missed kissing someone. You're a great kisser." She pressed her lips against his once more and this time didn't wait to push her tongue in. After a few more minutes, she pulled back again. "That what you wanted?"He laughed softly. "You really want to see it, don't you?""See it, touch it, taste it, fuck it. I want to do everything you can think of with that cock, and once we're done with all of that, we can do it all over again." Her fingertips plucked at the button of his jeans, popping them undone. "Can I see it now, daddy?""I'm no porn star, Aisling, so I wouldn't get your hopes up," he said. "But yes, you can see it." He felt her drawing down his zipper and lifted his hips up so she could tug his jeans down and off, but she made a point of grabbing his boxers with them. "See? Not any longer than the average man.""Jaysus," she said quietly, "maybe not any longer, but certainly thicker. A lot thicker. That is a great big fat ol' cock you got there, Master." Her voice was one continuous purr as her slender fingers wrapped around the base of his cock and started to slowly stroke it. "Thicker than any cock I've ever had inside of me. Can I?""Hop aboard." The whole thing felt vaguely dreamlike. He wasn't sure she was real, wasn't sure any of this was real. He half expected to wake up and for everything to disappear at any moment. But that didn't happen."Gladly," she said, as she straddled one leg over his hips. She snaked a hand between them to grab the base of his cock, angling it properly, setting the tip against wet snatch before sinking down onto it with one continuous motion. As soon as her hips touched down against his, his cock bottoming out inside of her cunt, he felt her entire body slump forward atop him in a colossal shiver, her cunt spasming and clenching on his shaft. A tiny moan burbled from her lips, one that bubbled over into a breathy laugh against his neck, desperate and delirious. "Fer fuck sake. I've never cum that hard in my entire fucking life, and you just put the fucking thing inside of me. Nothing more. Just from putting him in.""Do you want to stop?""Are you out of your fucking mind?" she giggled, placing both of her hands on Andy's chest. "I haven't gotten my daily nut yet, daddy. And your girl wants what's coming to her. And by hook or by crook, she will fucking having it." Her arms pressed together to push her tits out even more, as she started to snake her hips backwards only to thrust them forward again. "It's been two years since I got properly fucked last. How long's it been for you?""You'll only laugh at me," Andy said with a slight frown."I promise I won't," she purred. "Has it been longer?""A lot longer.""How long?""Over a decade."She leaned down and kissed him again, this time a bit more softly and tenderly. "Well, you're never going to go a day in your life without fucking ever again, so it'll be alright." She had a magical way of swaying atop of him, shimmying back and forth on his cock. Her body ground down onto him over and over, sweat glistening off her freckled pale skin.His hands latched onto her hips, trying mostly to hold on. His fingertips clenched onto her smooth skin, pressing her down a little more than she'd been trying to push onto his cock, as if he felt like he wanted to contribute something to her effort."C'mon. Make me your girl, claim your whore, daddy," she whimpered, her face looming over his. "I wanna feel it. Gimme that cum. Own me. Own me. Cum in her tight little cunt. Paint it. Take it. Fucking own me, Master. Own. Me."Just outside of his room, he heard Eric's door open and then slam shut again, but it was only a momentary distraction, as Aisling continued to bear down on him, her ass slamming against the top of his thighs.It wasn't long before he could feel that release building up on him, and much sooner than he'd have liked, his body was shuddering in the throes of an orgasm as he started to spew hot cum inside of her tight young twat. As soon as he started to orgasm, however, it was almost like Aisling had been struck by lightning, her whole body violently shaking as a guttural sound was wrenched from her throat, primal and whorish, before her body collapsed on top of him, her body trembling for a long moment before she lay still atop of him.After a few minutes, he slowly moved her to one side of him so he could slip out from under her. She was completely unconscious, and he was almost certain he could her hear whispering nigh imperceptibly the word 'imprinting' over and over again.He didn't want to wake her, so he went and showered, then headed downstairs to grab himself a bit of dinner. The two cats sat at the foot of his bed, peering at the unconscious redhead in his bed, wondering what the hell was going on.The madness had barely even gotten started.Chapter 3When Andy woke up the next morning, he was almost certain he'd been dreaming yesterday. But he felt an odd sensation and lifted his head to look down. There he saw Aisling's coppery ponytail bouncing over his crotch. And he could feel her lips sealed around his cock, as she continued to face fuck herself on his shaft.Andy had never woken up to being blown before, and it certainly was a delightful experience. He tried to pull her head up, to give her a break, but she reached up and pressed his hand away with her own, a delightful little giggle rolling from her lips onto his cock.He thrust his hips towards her face because it seemed like the thing she wanted him to do, and sure enough, she kept pushing her head down again and again. She wasn't letting up until she got what she needed.In the end, resistance was futile.His body tensed up and his back arched as he felt her lips around the base of his cock, the head lodged in her throat as he started to spew cum. When he did, he could feel her body shake and quiver against his thigh.A few minutes later, both of them had regained their composure, and she'd snuggled up alongside him, her face nestled in the crook of his neck as she laughed almost deliriously. "It's actually true. The taste of your cum gives me an orgasm. Each and every time, harder than I'd ever known before I met you," she purred. "You really do fuckin' own me, daddy.""You say that," Andy said, "but eventually you'll get bored of me, and you'll come to resent me, resent being attached to me like this."She rolled over a little bit, pressing one of her arms against his chest as she shook her head, a crooked smile on her lips. "I woke up in the middle of the night and looked around the room while you were asleep. There are bookcases everywhere. My first boyfriend was a footie player who dreamed of going pro when he could barely get up in the morning. My second boyfriend? He was a shitty musician who claimed he was being artful when he couldn't carry a tune. You're surrounded by books. Have you read all of them?"Andy shrugged a little. "Maybe half of them. But I like having books around, knowing that when I'm ready for another, it's right there.""See?" she giggled. "I've never been with anyone so smart before. And I've never been with someone who'll let me be myself and not force me to hide it.""Hide what?""What an absolute slut I am," she said, kissing his neck. "Your absolute slut, if I'm honest." She wasn't trying to wind him up, just more of delighting in learning all the nooks and crannies of his body. "And I don't have to pretend I'm a good Catholic girl who'd never let a boy put his hand up her skirt when I'd rather be bent over getting my tight young gash plowed. You'll have to do that next, have me on my hands and knees, your good little proper bitch."Andy laughed. "You sound rather eager for that."" Umm," she mumbled, nibbling on his ear, "you want me to beg again?""Let me do it later," he said. "We should get up, shower, and we should meet our new roommates.""I talked to Lily a bit on the ride over. I'll tell you about it in the shower."Each of the bedrooms in the condo had an attached bathroom so they didn't even have to get dressed to get up and move to the bathroom. She scooted ahead of him quickly, and he could see the inside of her thighs were damp as she climbed out of the bed and moved into the bathroom.It was the first time he'd had a woman in his bathroom in a decade, and so he was a little embarrassed about the state of it. "Of course you don't have a hair dryer," Aisling giggled, as she ran her fingertips over Andy's shaved head. He'd started developing a bald spot in his mid twenties, so he'd been shaving his head every since then. "Don't worry, I've got one in my suitcase. Speaking of which, you're going to need to give me one drawer in that dresser to myself. That okay?""You're really in this for the long haul, aren't you?" He turned on the water in the shower as he closed the top of the toilet.She leaned in and folded her hands behind his neck, pressing her body up against his. "What did I tell you? You. Own. Me." She kissed him briefly in between each of the last three words. "But that means you belong to me as well. Whenever you go, I go. And I need to take care of you. And you need to take care of me.""I can clear out a drawer for you, no problem, Aisling.""See? It's not that hard to pronounce, is it?""But hey, this is your bathroom now too, so feel free to make it home.""Oo!" she said suddenly and darted back out into the bedroom. Andy could hear her unzipping her little suitcase before she sprinted back in, a giant tricolor beach towel which she set on top of the toilet. It didn't even take him half a second to recognize it was the colors of Ireland's flag. "Little bit of the home country. Now let's get wet. I've never taken a shower with another person before." She lifted her fingers and pressed them against his hair chest, almost shoving him back into the shower.It was rather a long shower, where they got dirty before they got clean again.About forty minutes later, they'd both gotten dried off and dressed and headed downstairs, Aisling bringing her laptop bag with her. Sitting on the couch was a Japanese woman dressed in sweatpants and a baggy t shirt typing away on her laptop while Eric was sitting at his desk on the other side of the room."Andy, meet Lily," Eric said to Andy as he walked down the stairs. "She's my new partner.""S'up," Lily said, not even looking up from her typing."She's kinda in the zone right now. She's a coder with DoorDash.""We talked a bit on the ride over here," Aisling said. "Hi, I'm Aisling. I'm Andy's first partner.""First?" Lily said, stopping typing and looking up and over her shoulder at them as they reached the bottom of the stairs.Andy scowled. "She didn't mean it like that. I wasn't a virgin."Lily snickered a bit. "I know. I'm fucking with you," she said, looking back down to her laptop. "So how was he Ash?""Fucking amazing," Aisling said. "How about yours?""I have a name you know," Eric said."Good but not great," Lily said. "But I'll train him to be the best ever. Best for me, anyway.""Hi Eric," Aisling said, shaking Eric's hand. "Nice to meet you.""I cleared off the dining room table behind Andy's desk to give you a bit of work space, Ash," Eric said. "Lily said you're an artist?""Graphic designer for Alphabet."Andy cocked his head as he and Aisling started to cross the living room, heading towards the dining room. "I didn't know you were a Googler.""I'm a contractor for them, so they don't really consider me a Googler," she sighed. "They might move me from contract to full time at some point, but it's just as likely they're going to just keep giving me new contracts over and over again.""Welcome to life in Silicon Valley," Andy laughed. "Everything's forever, for exactly five minutes."Aisling pulled her laptop out of her bag and set it on the table, noticing the box pushed off to one side. "Blake Conrad, huh?" she said, taking a book out from the box. "My older brother loves these books, but I've never read any of them. Are you a big fan?"From the other room, Eric couldn't help but laugh. "Go on!" he yelled at Andy. "Tell her."Andy rolled his eyes. "Look inside the back flap."Aisling took the hardcover and opened to the back of it, looking at the inside flap where Andy's picture peered back at her. "Wait, are you Blake Conrad?""It's a pen name.""Oh my god! I'm shagging Dermot's favorite pen!" she giggled. "I can't wait to phone him and tell him.""Mmm. I can even autograph a copy of the new one for him and you can mail it out to him, as long as he's not going to be mad that I'm sleeping with his sister."Aisling pulled out a Wacom tablet from her laptop as well as a power cord, plugging it into the wall. "Andy. You're a bloody hero to him. He'll be over the moon.""He's not going to be upset that you're shacking up with a guy you just met? Or that he's going to have, other women?"Aisling kissed him for a long moment, soft and tender. "You're sweet, Andy. But this is the way the world works now. And you're a good man, so Dermot'll be happy that I didn't end up with someone crazy or ugly.""Oh, you don't think I'm ugly?" Andy grinned impishly, as Aisling pushed him back down into his desk chair."Look fella," she teased. "If I thought you were ugly, I'd have said so. Now don't you have work to get to or something?"Andy turned on his computer and the two monitors on his desk sprung to life. "Well, yeah, but theoretically I'm on new partner leave, so I don't really have to be working."She stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, I don't get any such luxury as a contractor, so I need to get some work done today. How does a novelist get partner leave anyway?"He sighed a little. "That's just my side hustle. My day job is as a marketing writer for Netflix."Aisling's face scrunched up in cute confusion. "The books don't pay enough?""Not until they get optioned, which my agent seems to think will happen eventually, but hasn't yet.""I'll have to read them then." Andy tried to mask the look of surprise on his face, but apparently wasn't great at concealing it. "What? I said I hadn't read them, not that I didn't want to read them.""Fair enough!" Andy grabbed his headphones and pulled them onto his head, clicking on iTunes to bring up his music. He wasn't allowed to check out new tasks for his day job, so he figured he might as well get a bit of writing in on his next novel.After a few minutes, Aisling tapped him on the shoulder, so he pulled the headphones off. "What's up?""What're you listening to?""Right now? Post rock band called God Is An Astronaut, but I usually just put my music on shuffle and let it ride.""Can I listen too?"Andy nodded. "Sure, as long as you've got headphones with a long cable and a USB plug.""Certainly do!" she said, holding out the cable.He plugged her in, did a few clicks on his computer, and then they were both listening to his music, just a few feet apart.Andy found it a little hard to focus on his writing, so he decided to take a bit of time to read up on the level system. His boss seemed to know a lot more about it, so he figured it didn't hurt to see what was coming down the pipeline.The virus, it seemed, was hitting the coasts hardest, with N Y C being the biggest disaster area, but the Silicon Valley wasn't far behind. Isolation was the best path, but the bodies were still piling up, so the country was looking to build some stability into people's lives. That meant pairing the single people up. Men were dying at a significantly higher rate than women to the virus, so protecting them had become extremely important. The virus had a mortality rate that was fifty times higher in men than it was in women.Because of that fact alone, it had been determined that virus free men would be ranked on a scale of one to five in terms of their importance to society, and that the higher a man was ranked, the more that person's personal needs would be tended to. So level 1s, which it seemed like was most people, would simply be given the barest amount of effort to find someone to pair with their basic desires. 80% of the men were classified as level ones. Level twos were essential, low risk workers such as construction engineers, clerks, judges and the like. Level three was law enforcement. Level four was figures of high impact. Mark Zuckerberg would've supposedly been a level four if he wasn't already married, one article said. Level five was the front liners in the fight in the virus and those who had made extraordinary contributions to society. They made up a fractional amount of people in the pool, less than half of one percent.A kind of hushed up mythology had been built up around level fives from what Andy could find on the internet. There were stories of emergency doctors who were on the best of days a six in any woman's estimate getting partnered up with women who would never be any less than a ten.Andy scoffed a little bit until he started looking at some of the pictures, and noticed that there were endless pictures of ER doctors and genetics researchers with women way, way, way, way out of their leagues.It was on the fifth collection of photos he spotted a familiar face. There was Dave, the man who'd tested them just a few short days ago, with his arm around a Hispanic knockout who couldn't have been pressed closer to him. And in the group shot with Dave, there were nearly a dozen other similar pairings of schlep and stunner.Once paired, men were being kept in isolation for an indeterminate amount of time. They were allowed to go out for walks, but had to keep fifteen feet away from anyone else. They weren't even permitted to go into stores to go shopping. Andy and Eric had been living on food delivery for weeks now. They'd even had groceries delivered and left on their doorstep. The receipt said the person who delivered them was named Silva, but neither Andy nor Eric had seen them. Andy wondered which of the two women would volunteer to go and get groceries first.During the middle of the day, Eric wanders over to take their orders as he placed a food delivery, but none of them had any chance to talk until dinner, which they also had delivered. Lily got free deliveries working for DoorDash, apparently, so both lunch and dinner had been brought that way."So how did you guys meet?" Lily asked as she was bringing in the bag of food that had been left on their doorstep.Eric laughed. "You want to tell them or should I?"Andy waved his hand, turning his desk chair around so it was up against the dining room table. "You're looking forward to it, so you tell them."Eric grinned as Lily started to take the food “ cheesesteaks it seemed “ and put it out on the table. "He was trying to bang my sister.""I was trying to date your sister," Andy said as Aisling giggled. "There's a difference.""Date her so you could fuck her, let's be clear."Andy rolled his eyes. "That was over a decade ago, so it's probably time to let it go.""She's married and lives in Florida down with her husband and their four kids, so we never really see her much anymore," Eric said."But Eric needed a roommate and I needed a place to live, so I moved into his spare room, and we've been flatmates since then," Andy said. "Aisling's from Dublin, but are you local Lily?""Second generation Bay Area native," Lily said as Eric set a beer in front of her. "My parents live up in Petaluma these days. Are your parents still around here, Eric?""They retired and moved down to Santa Cruz, although they spend half their time out in Florida with their grandkids. I'll introduce you to them over Facetime when they call next.""They going to be happy you hooked up with a Japanese woman?""They'll be happy I'm happy," Eric said. "Beyond that, I don't think they care.""What about you, Andy? You got local family?"Andy shook his head. "I'm from Ohio originally, but I've been out here for longer than I was there. My dad died a few years back, but my mom's still out there, as is my older brother with his wife and their son.""How old's your nephew?" Aisling asked."Conner will be 11 in July. I generally go back every year for Christmas, but this year seems like that's probably out."The Irish girl cocked her head slightly. "How much older is your brother?""Nine years older than me.""No siblings in between?""Nope," Andy said. "You said you have an older brother named Dermot. That your only sibling?"Aisling almost snorted she laughed so suddenly. "Jaysis no. Dermot's the eldest, then me, then my sisters Aoife and Niamh, and the last one is my baby brother Colin, who's about as old as your nephew. What about you, Lily?""Only child, thank fuck," she grumbled. "So, Andy, I understand Aisling's not going to be your only partner. What makes you think you deserve more than one partner, hmm?"Andy raised a hand defensively. "Hey now, I never said I deserve anything.""She's fucking with you, love," Aisling said, poking him with a grin."Spoil sport," Lily said, sticking her tongue out. "I don't really care as long as you're not going to take a pass at me.""You're Eric's partner, Lily. I'm going to respect that.""Good, and I'll make sure he keeps his hands off your girls.""I would never " Eric started to say before Lily raised a finger in his direction and he felt silent."Good boy," Lily said with a smirk. "I'll get him trained yet."Andy had never seen Eric get cowed quite so severely before, but he could swear his flatmate was blushing a little."I'm actually looking forward to seeing who else we get to play with," Aisling said."How many names should I expect to have to learn?" Lily asked."It's a fookin' huge bed, Lil," Aisling giggled. "So I expect a few more.""What I was reading about on the internet says I'm supposed to share my bed with four partners," Andy said, "but that can't possibly be right can it?""Umm. I can't wait," Aisling purred.She didn't have long to wait.To be continued in part 2, by CorruptingPower for Literotica.

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Rutherford and Billups score a trip to a hot sexual planet where instead of shaking hands, they kiss! With tongue! Mariner has to help Ransom fix a Space Elevat-Orbital Lift, and Boimler just made himself prey. Run, Boim Boim, Run! -Brought to you by Section 31- Episode 139 00:30 DOTS on the Hunt 01:20 Barking Tribbles? 02:00 My Toe is NOT PREY! 02:45 Hi, Welcome to the show! 03:10 NO KIDS! 03:20 Welcome to the USS Beutler! 03:45 Our Ship has PRIDE! 04:40 Tribble Pack 06:00 Entering from the Back - The @NerdTrekPodcast Panel from the #56YearMission - Voicing Your Fandom 07:00 Thank You Patreons! - Become One: https://patreon.com/starfleetunderground 07:45 Hi Lana! 07:58 Hi Ed! 08:30 Hi Eric! 09:00 Heather drives better than she cooks! 09:06 Burning Muff 09:20 Hi @SyFySistas 10:30 @rockyrobins gets nervous! 11:18 Listen to the Panel here: https://t.co/3HOhvQK4Bi Or subscribe to our YouTube for the video version! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Qtsy16 12:00 Checking Corrections...Real Good 12:46 News: A Star-Trek obsessed Chinese billionaire spent $97 million to build his office in the shape of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E https://luxurylaunches.com/buildings/star-trek-shaped-office.php 15:30 News: No Big F-ing Deal, Terry wants Jadzia back: https://trekmovie.com/2022/08/29/terry-farrell-wants-to-return-to-star-trek-says-resurrecting-jadzia-is-no-big-f-ing-deal/ 17:20 Romantic? 17:48 News: Watch Star Trek: Lower Decks S3E1 for free! https://trekmovie.com/2022/09/01/watch-star-trek-lower-decks-season-3-premiere-for-free-in-usa/ 18:40 News: Anthony Montgomery gets Harry Kim'ed! https://trekmovie.com/2022/08/26/anthony-montgomery-laments-to-garrett-wang-about-becoming-the-harry-kim-of-star-trek-enterprise/ 19:50 News: Disco does D&D! #DiscoDoesDnD 21:10 ...Wait. You did the re-cap? I did the re-cap! 23:30 The Recap! #StarTrek #LowerDecks S3E2 "Least Dangerous Game" 24:00 Teaser - Martok! 24:53 Lower Decks Gets Into It! 25:06 FOUR! 26:28 Come over, let's play! 27:20 Beginning gets bigger 27:45 Act I - "Natural 20, A Change of Routine, and Bajoran Dirges" 30:00 RUN! 30:30 Yes to Prey 31:12 Where Fun Goes To Die 33:00 Instead of shaking hands, they kiss! WITH TONGUE! 34:35 Put that pipe in 34:56 Number One's Number One 35:40 Captain Vendome of The Inglewood 36:00 Tendi In A Towel 37:37 Sonic Shower and Towels? 37:50 Balls Drilling At His Face 38:00 The Boimler Scream 38:50 Remember Gowron? 39:55 Who the fuck is Lundy? 40:16 Marked, With a Tooth. 42:30 Act II - "Shit Hits The Fan" 43:45 That's Not A Nipple 44:16 How To Fix An Orbital Lift...On YouTube 45:00 It's an Orbital Lift 45:45 Oh, that's all Next Section 45:54 Cetacean Ops - Don't Jump In Here With Them Dirty Shoes! 46:30 Boimler Screams In Surround 47:30 K-Ranch 48:00 Mimosas with K'Ranch! 51:10 K'Ranch? Or Is It Ranch Dressing? 51:30 Three Types of Prey 52:10 Act III - "The Hunted Becomes The Hunter" 52:30 Orbital Lift/Space Elevator! 54:14 Fuuuuuuck! 54:45 Perfect Torso 57:21 But First, Let Me Take A Trophy Selfie! 58:20 Constructive Criticism 58:45 Die By Your Own Hand. 59:30 Klingon Drinking Goblet 1:02:20 Almost Killed By Peaceful Partying People 1:04:00 Black Market Tax Thanks for listening! Get some MERCH - https://starfleet-underground.creator-spring.com Patreon: https://patreon.com/starfleetunderground Email: thecollective@starfleetunderground.com Website: https://starfleetunderground.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/StarfleetUnderG Instagram: https://instagram.com/starfleetunderground Facebook: https://facebook.com/starfleetunderground YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Qtsy16 #StarTrek #Enterprise #LowerDecks #STLV #56YearMission Explicit

NEW PODCAST Hey All! I've started a second show completely devoted to the field of Ontology which is another huge passion of mine. Please check out The Eric Scheien Podcast which is an ontological podcast where I break down distinctions of human consciousness as an access to enhancing performance. Summary I received this email last year about Trupanion and wanted to address some points made. The entire email is here: Hi Eric,   I come in peace as a Chester County native who still very much prefers Wawa over Sheetz, despite living in Pittsburgh. You seemed very open to hearing counterpoints, as per your podcast on TRUP, so I wanted to give you some things to chew on.    You made two points (I'll summarize): 1) It is justifiable to exclude development expenses from IRR and 2) there are "no accounting shenanigans" going on.    I would love, then, to hear your thoughts on the following:   Let's first level set with the IRR methodology: the company allocates fixed expenses between Subscription and Other based on their relative revenue contributions. This includes a pro-rata allocation of G&A expenses.    So let's get into G&A expenses -- what's in there? Typical back office stuff, finance, accounting, etc. But also a couple million bucks of rental income related to subleasing of the company HQ. Per their 2019 10-K: "The change was primarily due to a $3.1 million increase in compensation expenses, a $0.8 million increase in professional service fees, and a $1.5 million increase in depreciation expense mainly due to owning our home office building since August 2018, partially offset by a total of $2.6 million in savings from additional lease income and less rental expense."   The rental income has the effect of reducing reported G&A (i.e. it's netted against expenses). So my first question for you is as follows: if you firmly believe development expenses that aren't related to acquiring new pets are justifiably excluded from IRR calculations, how are you comfortable with several million dollars of sublease income that's clearly not related to acquiring subscription pets benefitting IRR?   Next up is their pet-food VIE. Also from the 10-K: The Company has also entered into a series of agreements to provide ancillary services to the variable interest entity at cost. The Company provided $1.2 million and $1.4 million of these services for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively, which were recorded against its operating expenses.   So TRUP provides back office support to the VIE and reduces its reported opex to account for the compensation for providing the services.    So the next question is the same as the first: Would you bucket this in line with "development expenses" as being rightly excluded from IRR, or are you OK with the company getting the tailwind from the expense reduction?   Now here's where the situation becomes a bit more nefarious. The VIE has received a total of $9.5 million of funding from TRUP, including $7.0MM of preferred capital and $2.5MM from a line of credit. Think for a minute about what's going on here: the company pushed $9.5MM of cash down to another legal entity, and now reduces its reported OpEx for services provided to the VIE, with the payments being made with money TRUP used to finance the VIE. Money coming out of one pocket and right into the other.    Third question: Do you think this is an accounting shenanigan?   Lastly, management knows PAC is getting out of hand and pulled a fast one in the first quarter to make it look like they've got things under control. Aren't you the slightest bit curious how they're going to hold PAC at $280 for the balance of this year in an increasingly competitive environment?   Management casually slipped in the following comment during the earnings call: "We expect stock-based compensation to be around $6-$7 million per quarter for the remainder of the year." Coupled with the $8.4 million of SBC already booked in 1Q'21, TRUP is on track to recognize $28 million of SBC expense in 2021. Putting this figure into perspective, it is 3x higher than last year's $8.9 million of total recognized SBC expense. Last year SBC expense was 1.8% of revenue; this year it will be 4.1%.   What does SBC have to do with PAC and IRR?    Well, for the purposes of calculating PAC (a key input into the IRR calculation), management excludes SBC because it's non-cash. By upping the portion paid in the form of equity, management is artificially reducing the level of PAC incorporated in their IRR calculation. in 1Q'21, fully-loaded PAC (including SBC) was $328/pet, representing 22.4% y/y growth. SBC embedded in Sales and Marketing was $40/pet -- leaps and bounds above historical levels ($20/pet). See the charts at the bottom of the email. Had SBC been more in-line with historical levels ($20/pet), PAC (for the purposes of the company's IRR calculation) would have been ~$310...much closer to the full year figure I was expecting.   This is all a long winded way of saying, if you were to run the company's IRR calc with PAC of $315 or above, there is absolutely no way they would be within the boundaries of their self-imposed 30-40% target range. The only reason they'll print numbers within range this year is a result of their increased use of SBC in compensating their employees.     The table below illustrates Restricted Stock grants (not expense, but grants) since 1Q'19. The grants in the most recent quarter -- $66 million! -- jump off of the page and explain why SBC will be elevated in the quarters to come. But don't just take my word for it. From what I can tell, we both respect Buffett a lot, and here's what he's got to say on the topic: "I have no objection to the granting of options. Companies should use whatever form of compensation best motivates employees -- whether this be cash bonuses, trips to Hawaii, restricted stock grants or stock options. But aside from options, every other item of value given to employees is recorded as an expense."     When it comes to SBC, RSUs are a functional cash equivalent, so there is no legitimate justification to exclude the related expense from any measure of profitability -- GAAP or otherwise.         Perhaps using RSUs makes sense for the time being given the extreme overvaluation of TRUP. Management can handsomely compensate employees and gloss over the dilutive impact on the company's financials. But what happens when shares are back at $30, but territory partners are expecting their compensation to remain flat in nominal terms? Shareholders will either be 1) massively diluted or 2) the company would have to lean more heavily on cash compensation. The latter of the two options is a functional non-starter at the current juncture given the company's persistently negative free cash flow (another topic the bulls don't understand, but I'll let sleeping dogs lie on this one).   Last question: Do you believe SBC is a true expense? If it is, should the company be including it in its IRR calculation?     Management updated guidance, and frankly, I think the financial outlook is worse than I was expecting. "Adjusted Operating Income" -- which is ex. SBC, D&A, and Pet Acquisition -- is forecast at $75MM. PAC -- ex. SBC -- is forecast at $66MM. That leaves us to $9MM. "Development expense" will be $4MM (at the mid), SBC is $28MM, D&A will be $12MM, resulting in a pre-tax net loss of $35MM. This is larger than the company's cumulative net loss for the past six years combined!      I know this is a battleground stock and don't expect everyone to come around. But I also think: 1) there's only one set of correct answers to the questions I've laid out above, 2) none of the afforementioned points are "dumb", and 3) management is using sleight of hand to paint a picture of the company that is out of step with reality.  As someone who puts a lot of value in associating with the right people, I certainly don't appreciate the games / shenanigans that Daryl and team are pulling.      $MM Adjusted Operating Income 75 - PAC (66) - Development expense (4) - SBC (28) - D&A (12) Pre-tax Income (35)   HELP OUT THE PODCAST If you like The Intelligent Investing Podcast, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than 30 seconds to do and makes a huge difference! You can also join the Facebook page!       You can subscribe to the podcast on the following platforms: Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn Spotify Podbean iHeart Radio YouTube GET IN TOUCH WITH ERIC SCHLEIEN Facebook  |  LinkedIn  | Twitter  | YouTube | GSCM | Instagram Email: IntelligentInvesting@gmail.com Disclosure: Eric Schleien and some SMA clients of Eric Schleien through GSCM own shares of TRUP. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence.  

The guys are back for the second consecutive episode. This time they talk music, mostly, and revisit the notion that old Slowhand himself, Eric Clapton, just might not be such a great person. Does singing to ghosts relieve them of trauma experienced in life and how do a few beeps represent a standing ovation? Enjoy! Support us on Patreon   Find us:   Website - Anywhere But Here   Twitter - @abhpod   Facebook - Anywhere But Here   Discord - https://discord.gg/cHQU4zn   Youtube - ABH Podcast

This evening we concluded the Hypothesis II of the Evergetinos. The focus is on the remembrance of death. Our mortality is a very powerful lens through which to view our life, our actions and most importantly our relationship with God. God and His love alone endures and it is to this love alone that we must cling. If we sin and turn away from that love then repentance must be our constant companion. In fact, we are told that even our virtue can lead us into sin without repentance. We can begin to imagine that such a virtue has its origin in our asceticism. Such a view of life will not lead us to love God above all things and so hate sin.  It is not enough simply for us to avoid certain behaviors we must develop an aversion to anything that is not God and that does not lead to Him. In Hypothesis II, the Fathers begin to speak to us about how we should repent. We should grieve in measure with the wrong which we have committed. Otherwise, we will usually fall again into the same net. There is a kind of guile that exist in the human heart when there is an expectation of being able to repent later after having committed a sin a second time. Finally, discussion ensued about how we are to understand sin. We must be very careful in the distinctions that we make and by which we judge our lives and our behavior. It must not be simply in accord with our own reason and intellect but rather in accord with a standard that has been revealed to us that this judgment is made - the cross of Christ and the self-emptying love that we witnessed there. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:24:42 renwitter: Hi Eric's baby! (The wave just killed me) 00:25:48 Eric Williams: His name is Peter Damian. :) 00:31:02 Joseph Muir: Hello, Godson Peter

Eric Brotman, CFP, gives his strategies for turning this financial crisis and recession into a financial win for your family. Resources mentioned in this episode: Free Budget Spreadsheet: https://leads.budgetsmadeeasy.com/budget-sheet Full transcript: Welcome to the money mindset podcast, where you will find the inspiration and motivation. You need to manage your money better. So you can stress less and live the life you want. This is Ashley with budgets made easy and the money mindset podcast. Today, we are talking to Eric Brotman, who is a CFP and the CEO of BFG financial advisors. And he is the host of don't retire, graduate podcasts. So don't retire, graduate.com, check out his podcast is well. And he's going to give us some great advice for families on how to take advantage of certain things during this financial crisis. You know, if you can, if you're still working, he's got some really great tips on lowering your tax burden and some things that you can do to take advantage of certain things happening right now in the financial world. So you can take this crisis and turn it into a financial win. And so he's got some really great ideas on how to do that. Now, before we jump into his episode, be sure to go and check out my free spreadsheet. I put together a spreadsheet after years of people asking me to, and you can get a free one month sheet of that, or you can get the whole year, you get a special offer for the whole year. Once you sign up for the free sheet, go to www.leads.budgetsmadeeasy.com/budget-sheet. So go get your free paycheck budget spreadsheet. So this is the same spreadsheet that I use when we were paying off debt. It's broken down by Paychex. Plus you got a monthly view. Now, keep in mind the free sheet isn't as detailed as the yearly sheet. So if you want the yearly sheet, look for that. Once you sign up for the free sheet as well. Now, here is my interview with Eric. Hi Eric. Thank you so much for being with us today. Hi, Ashley. Thanks for having me. I am. So I'm excited to talk to you today. Um, it's my understanding that you've got some good advice for families in different stages, what to do with their finances right now during this whole crisis. And, um, I really want to talk to you about that today, but can you just kind of introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself? Absolutely. I'm a certified financial planner practitioner started a company, in 2003 in suburban, Maryland actually started my practice in 1994. So I'm dating myself. I realized at this moment we have 20 employees, each of us working from 20 different homes, which is a new experience, but, uh, eight financial advisors, 20 employees, we manage about $450 million for families in 31 and a few foreign countries. And we do financial planning and wealth management for multigenerational families. So in my spare time, I'm a husband and a father and a podcaster and author and a volunteer. Yes, as I was just hearing about your book coming out soon. So I'm excited to hear about that as well. So, um, you know, there's a lot of crazy stuff going on right now and I know people are scared and, you know, we don't know what the economy and everything is going to look like on the other side of this thing. Um, so, you know, what kind of advice would you give to families right now? Like, is there anything that they should be doing differently? Well, I think in each case, it depends upon the family situation somewhat. Um, right now there are a lot of families who are experiencing sudden job loss and for those families, um, the things to do differently are, are really based on almost triaged. You just have to get through this period of time, however long it lasts. And that's easier said than done sometimes. So for, for families, who've had sudden job loss. Uh, the first thing to do is to sort of take, uh, take inventory of resources, figure out what you're going to live on for the next couple of months, in addition to unemployment, uh, and, and really make a plan for getting back to work at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. So, um, there's not as much opportunity quite candidly for folks who are out of work. And that's obviously a sad situation, um, for folks who are still able to work through this. I think we'll look back on this five years from now, not only as being memorable and remarkable on so many social levels, but also as being one of the great opportunities of a generation. Um, you know, we've seen some of this before in the Y2K epidemic, uh, in 99 and 2000, we certainly saw it in the great recession in Oh eight Oh nine and every decade or so there's some new crisis, some new wrinkle that causes economic turmoil and there are always winners and losers in those deals. And usually it's based on behavior, not circumstance. So, yeah, so that said, um, for young families, Ashley, this is an opportunity for young families who are working to continue to dollar cost, average, continue to add to your 401k, continue to add your HSA account, continue to fund your five 29 plans. Um, whatever you're doing, that's growing money, particularly in a way that's going to be tax-free later is a total home run. We have relatively low market value. So you're buying on sale and we have the lowest tax rate in modern history right now. And I assure you that is not going to last. And I don't think it matters. Uh, the outcome of the election in November is less important than the fact that there was just two plus trillion dollar stimulus plan. Somebody's got to pay the bill for. Yeah, exactly. I'm curious your, your thoughts on the stimulus plan. A lot of people have asked me, um, how that will affect, um, inflation. Do you have any kind of insight into that? Inflation is, is generally a factor of either fed policy, monetary policy, or it's a factor of, um, of interest rates around the world and, and the confluence of those. So what I would say is right now, there's no inflation on the horizon. Um, there is a, a blossoming national debt that if we haven't already decided that debt is a crisis, it's a crisis waiting to happen. So that'll be an issue. Um, but in terms of inflation, there's no reason to believe that that's on its way. We haven't seen significant inflation in this country, 30 years, more than that. And so there's an entire generation back two generations who don't really know what inflation looks like. Um, uh, you know, I remember it as a young person basically, and I know that the house I grew up in, we financed with a mortgage at like 16%. Oh, wow. Yeah. With a visa card, that's kind of what that looked like and so of course there were refinances all the way down. We're so used to cheap money. We're not going to know what to do when it gets more expensive. I actually believe that there is no meaningful inflation on the horizon right now. Um, the, uh, congressional budget office just suggested that the inflation rate over the next half decade to decade will be in the 2.2 to 2.4% ballpark. The only organization that has quoted a higher rate of inflation is social security administration because they're backward looking. So I actually think inflation is going to be a nonissue. I think money's going to stay cheap. The real question is, um, whether people are able to take advantage of the buying opportunities in equity markets, um, and whether bond markets are able to recover without too much of a, of a, an oversupply with lots of people trying to sell. Right. And then what happens in real estate because real estate is really, I think, going to take this on the chin, particularly commercial real estate. Um, there's, there's going to be some major changes in that, in that arena. Now, some people have asked me as well, um, you know, with the real estate now, the interest rates and stuff are already so low now with the fed dropping the rate down too. Well, last time I saw zero, um, I haven't been watching the news lately. It was just stressing me out. So, um, I don't believe that it's changed since then, but, um, you know, how will that affect like mortgage rates is my understanding that it won't really affect it because they're already so low. Well, not, not only are they so low, but they've actually come up and not because of what the fed has done, but banks are recognizing that if they lend at those prevailing rates, it will, it'll cripple them for decades. Imagine if, if you had the ability to lend money to somebody on a fixed rate at what is one and a half to two and a half percent for 30 years, if someone was willing to lend me personally, a hundred million dollars at 2%, I would take it because there's no way I wouldn't out earn that. And so banks are going to get collaborative. So mortgage rates have actually come up, even though the fed lowered their, their federal funds rate. And the reason they've come up, isn't because of economics. It's because of business. These banks don't want, they don't want to make loans. Oh, that makes sense though. Yeah. I didn't realize that part of it. That's why I have you here. Well, Wells Fargo has already turned off the spigot for the, for the payroll protection plan that came out as part of the cares act and they won't be alone. That number one, that plan is going to run out of money quickly. And number two banks who are lending at that rate, even with some federal support are going to get clobbered and they don't want to do it. Oh, I didn't realize that part. Yeah. It's great to borrow money at a low rate, long term, but has got to be willing to lend it. Exactly. Yeah. I did guess I didn't realize that it was going through the banks like that whole, and I know I really should, since I have a business, but I don't really have any employees, so I haven't like really dived into it. Um, for that stuff, I didn't realize it was having to like go through a bank. Well, it is. And the commercial banks, the private sector is working with the public sector on this, which generally public private partnerships are the most effective anyway, in my opinion. But if you own a business, actually, you want to be looking into this now, anyway, because there are provisions in there even for sole proprietors and folks with no employees. Yeah. I filled out something on the website the other day, but I was so confused. So I don't think I haven't filled it out. Right. But I don't, I don't think it was the payroll thing. I was, I'm so confused by all the different stuff going on, like the different, or at least it seemed like it was different. Maybe it's all the same thing. The pay, the payroll thing I thought was a different thing. And I don't know, I'm totally confused by all of it. And then I try and read it and I get more confused because it's like, everybody's saying different things. I'm like, I don't know, time. Anytime the federal government comes out with a plan you can expect, there'll be hundreds of pages long and, and completely opaque. And that's exactly what happened. And the implementation hasn't been smooth and, and the back end will be smooth. And, you know, the federal government generally doesn't run anything. Well, no, it's simply too enormous an organization. [inaudible] exactly. You're exactly right. I worked, uh, you know, for a local government and, you know, the same can be said for just about any government, just because of the politics involved. And then, you know, you've got the community to answer to, and you know, you, can't always, you can't make everybody happy. It's, you know, just the whole dynamic of it. And so I can imagine, you know, on the government scale, that's why I am very pleased to be neutral. I'm Switzerland. I truly don't want to take sides because I think both sides are messed up. Yeah. It's just, it's just a mess. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's so confusing too. So now for my listeners that I do have a lot of listeners that are small business owners. So what would you recommend for them at this time? Well, if you were still able to, to be in business, if you still have customers or clients or patients, or, um, and are able to, to use your vendors and suppliers and all and so forth, and you're really impacted by this, um, then you're in the minority because most businesses are experiencing either supply chain issues or employment issues or technology issues or finance issues. Um, it's sort of a perfect storm. Actually. I think there's, there's a, um, there's definitely a sense that for business owners to get out of, what's sort of been thrust upon all of us. We really have to, um, number one, stop spending things that we can avoid spending really sort of clamped down on things that are unnecessary and focus on the things that will create longterm growth, things that might not work for three months or six months, but that will make us better businesses three years from now. And so as an organization, you know, just our company, what we're doing is we're laying the foundation for the next, the next level of growth we're treating, uh, what started a month or two ago as a plateau that we're going to retreat from and then bust through. And that type of optimism is the only way I know how to do things. So that's, that's the way we're focused on it. And for business owners. Now, if you can keep your people employed with, or without the federal assistance program, that in and of itself is amazing. I think there'll be some amazing employee loyalty and great stories out of this, for those who are able to stay employed. I really hope so. And I think that, um, you know, this is going to be temporary and once we get through it that, you know, I hope it's not going to be, you know, as bad as some people may think it's going to be, you know, we had a good economy before this happened. So, um, you know, hopefully we'll bounce back, but you know, there's probably going to be some ripple effects, you know, for a couple months, at least. Um, but I think, you know, overall things are going to be okay. I mean, you have to think positively or, you know, you're just going to be all depressed in your house, eating all your food, like, well, I'm definitely not depressed, but what I will suggest to you though, is that we're not going to bounce back. Like it's like, it's, you know, elastic, this is not, and there is going to be a new sense of normal. I mean, the idea in the way that there is travel pre and post nine 11, there will be business and workforce pre and post COVID, and that's going to create some really amazing opportunities for certain folks. Like, for example, I think you'll see coming out of this, I think you'll see more telework. Yeah. See less boundaries and barriers in terms of hiring. So that you'll be able to work from anywhere. Companies are learning how to do this, and it's actually quite effective and efficient and saving some money. Well, it does. And I think you'll see better work life balance for people, which is something we've talked about, but never actually mastered Americans are lousy at that. We tend to be workaholics, but I do think there'll be some work life balance out of this and some appreciation for what's important. Um, I think there will be, um, as a result of some of this, there'll be less traffic. If there are less people have to commute every day, there'll be less traffic, less traffic means less pollution, less congestion, less expense on things like transportation. There there's some positives that'll come out of this because new behaviors are being created. Absolutely. There's also some challenges. One of which is, um, you know, retail and malls. I mean, retail has been on that on its heels since, uh, nine 11. And it got worse in Oh eight Oh nine and it never fully recovered. And I think this is a bit of a death knell for retail, as we know it. Um, there there's no middle there's no middle ground. You either have to be the cheapest or the best. And so the companies like the Louis Vuitton's of the world are probably going to be fine because they have their, their customers have an appetite for that and don't care, but everything else is going to look like Amazon or Walmart, because most people who are trying to pinch pennies or what have you are going to do that a different way. So retail is going to change. Office space is going to change. I mean, I would be darn nervous if I owned a, a 50, a 50 story office tower in a major urban area, I would be nervous right now that there will be companies saying, you know, we can get by on half this space, cause we're going to have some folks working from home or, you know, we just don't need all this space. So true. There'll be winners and losers out of this, but I really do think there'll be more winners than losers. I agree. I think that we, you know, just like you said, we're all gonna learn from this and there'll be some changes and you know, just like you said, a new normal, um, you know, everything's going to be a little bit different once we get on the other side of it. Yes, I think so. And I have a radical idea for you. Why don't we start making things in this country again? Yeah. Why don't we create jobs in, in manufacturing and in supply chain and be less reliant, not unreliant but less reliant on other nations. Why don't we put our people back to work, doing things that are important to us here at home as well? I just think there's opportunity there for anyone who can get it right. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there will probably be a demand for that as well, with all the supplying issues, supply issues that we've had with, you know, all the, um, personal protective equipment and stuff. So, um, it'll be interesting to see how that changes in the future, um, just to kind of have more control over it. Um, so how can families turn this crisis into an opportunity, like when they're planning for the future? Cause that's, you know, that's what you do, you play it for the future. So what can we like for take me for example, I'm debt free. Um, I've got six months of emergency fund now in my situation, we don't know after this week, if my husband's going to get paid or not, but let's say he does keep getting paid. Um, you know, what would you advise? Like somebody, um, in that type of situation, they don't have any debt already. They have money and savings and they're still working. Um, you two ought to be maximizing your retirement plans. You ought to be making sure that you're taking advantage of every tax shelter that exists. Um, that means particularly since I know you have, uh, a handful of children, more, more than a handful of you guys can't even play man to man defense anymore. No, I know it's total chaos like that. What I would say is keep doing what you've ostensibly been doing. If you're debt free, it means you're already a good saver and not a big spender. Um, if you know, you're self employed, you ought to be funding a self-employed pension, a SEP IRA or something similar to make sure you're taking advantage of the tax codes. Um, you know, if your husband has benefits through his employer, take advantage of an HSA and it like crazy, but don't use it, let it grow for a few decades. Um, if you have five 29 plans or other college funding for your kids, whether it's just the two of you or whether it's with their grandparents, that would be nice if that was happening, keep doing those things. This is a, this is an opportunity to keep doing what you're doing. Um, I do think there's going to be one of the biggest opportunities coming out of this for all families who have resources. And I know not everyone does. And, and, and that's sort of an unfair thing, but for those families with resources, there's never going to be a better year than this year. I don't think to convert IRAs to Roth IRAs or, or, and the reason for that is that the combination of low tax rates, which I think we all know will go up and low market values, which I think we all believe will go up. If not immediately, then certainly over time means what a great year to pay taxes on some money and then let the recovery happen, tax free. Oh, that's a good idea. You know, I hadn't even thought of that. That's a good idea. The second time there's been a really good opportunity for Roth conversions. The first time was back in 2010 and 2011 because coming out of the great recession, the government needed money. And so what they said was, if you convert in 2010, you can actually split the income on your 2010 and 2011 tax return. So it doesn't creep up your bracket and so forth. I did my entire IRA at that time. Yeah. If I can split the taxes and not get crushed I'm in, um, this will be another opportunity like that. However, it's imperative that you have resources that are not in the IRAs to do this, do not pay the taxes from the retirement account. It defeats the entire purpose, right? So, you know, if you have $50,000 in an IRA and you can move it to a Roth IRA, pay taxes on the 50,000 this year, depending on your tax bracket, it might cost you 15 grand. But if it does, and if you have that in your non-qualified assets and mutual funds in cash, even, um, now's the time to consider that while markets are low and taxes are low, um, particularly the younger you are, the better it is. Absolutely. Now, can you kind of explain to somebody that may not know what you're talking about with the, like an IRA and a Roth IRA? Like, what is, what's the difference and why you would want to do that? An IRA, a traditional IRA, or a traditional 401k or four Oh three B are plans where you take a tax deduction typically for your contributions. And that means that you're contributing money on a pretax basis. You're not paying taxes in the year you contribute and they grow tax deferred for as long as you hold the account, there's no 10 99. There's no capital gains. There's no tax bill on the account until you make withdrawals. When you make withdrawals, it is taxed. Every withdrawal from an IRA is tax. Like it's a paycheck, it's ordinary income. So it'll be at whatever rates exist then. So if you're 30 years old and you're contributing to an IRA and you don't start making withdrawals till you're 70, the account will have grown for 40 years, it will have grown to a very big number. And then you'll be paying taxes on it at a future tax rate in 2060. Um, I have no idea what that tax rate is going to be. We don't know from month to month must let much less decade to decade, but it won't be lower than it is now. So you're not only amplifying the amount of the account. You're also amplifying the amount of future taxes. The Roth is where you fund with after tax dollars, you've already paid your taxes. The Roth can grow tax deferred for as long as you hold the account. And when you make withdrawals, they're tax free income tax free. So they don't affect your tax bracket. They don't affect whether you pay taxes on your social security as a retired person, they don't affect your Medicare premiums. When you're older, they don't affect your tax bracket at all. Um, and the beauty of that is that it, no matter what the tax rates are at that time, those assets are not taxable to you. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's a pretty good deal cause you're not getting, it's my understanding that you're not paying tax on, you know, any of it, like, like you said, like nothing, Oh, well that's, that's correct. But here's the, here's the rub for, um, since the demise of the defined benefit plan, you know, everyone used to have a pension years ago, companies were responsible for it. And the 401k was invented not as an employer, uh, I'm sorry, not as an employee benefit, but as an employer benefit. Cause it took the employers off the hook to provide for retirement for their people four Oh one K was not a gift to employees. It was a gift to employers who no longer had to be responsible. Right. That said the premise of the 401k and the IRA is you're going to want to, you're going to want to make deductible contributions. Now we're going to incent you to do it. Cause you're going to want to do that now because your tax brackets higher now than it will be when you're retired. Well, actually that's a plan to fail. Yeah. All things being equal. If we're all planning, like we make more money at 35 than we will at 65, we're doing it wrong. Yeah. That's true. That's I've never heard it said that way, but that's very true. So, you know, if yes, if you're planning to be nearly impoverished, an abject failure, when you're in your sixties and seventies, then that is the plan for you. But in the event, you're thinking, man, I'm really going to grow some significant wealth. You want your tax bracket and retirement to be as high as possible because it means you have money. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So would you recommend somebody, um, you know, their, their, um, employer has a 401k and they have a match. Would you still recommend them meeting up to the match and then moving to a four? Well, a lot of these companies have Roth 401ks. You can actually contribute after tax. What Roth Worland, K and still get the match from your employer into the traditional plan. Oh yeah, that's right. That is gonna, um, at least with my last employer, that was kind of a newer thing that they had added, um, that you could do the Roth, your employer in terms of running that plan. They don't care whether you're in the traditional, the Roth makes no difference. It doesn't cost the employer more or less. Um, they're still making the match the same as, as they ever did. The match is not taxable to you when it happens. So it will be taxable when you retire and that's fine. That's typically 3% of your income. I hope you're putting away more than 3% or 5% or 6% of your income, or you will in fact be impoverished and you will need to have a, you will be in a lower tax bracket, you to, to not be putting away at least 15 cents of every dollar you make is a recipe for disaster. And sometimes higher than that, it depends how early or late you start. Now, I have a dumb question here. How did they know? Like which part is the employer match? Like, is it in a different fund or like, how is that? Is it just tracked in the account? Right? When you, when you look at a statement, the statement will have up to five or six different categories for money. So for example, it might have employee contributions, pretax, employee contributions, Roth, employer match, maybe there's an employer, safe Harbor or a profit share. There's forfeitures in the account because in a 401k, if one of your coworkers leaves the company and isn't fully vested air their money that wasn't vested actually gets shared amongst all the employees pro-rata Oh yeah. Um, so there, I mean, there's, there's going to be lots of different kinds of money in those retirement plans, but they all have access to the same mutual funds or investments. So yeah, it's really just an accounting thing. And if you look at your statement, you'll see a lot of the times it's not all in one line, it's multiple lines for that reason. Yeah. I don't, you know, I don't really look at it since I'm not planning to retire anytime soon. And you know, I have a financial advisor too, that kind of helps me with stuff, but yeah, that's not, I mean, it's like, I hadn't like really looked at it close enough to like, notice that difference, I guess, on the, on the broader account, you know, I think there is like, you know, the employer match and stuff, but I guess I didn't really like think about it. Well, if you have an advisor, ask your advisor, um, to, to provide you with some additional education on those kinds of things, it's important for you to not only understand what you're doing, but why. Yeah. And to be able to do that and to be able to articulate it so that you could say, this is what we're doing, this is our plan, and this is why we're doing it. It's empowering for you to know rather than say, Oh, we're in good hands. We've got a good person. That's very true. That is very true. Now with, um, the Roth IRAs, like, is that something that somebody can set up themselves or should they really get an advisor for that? I think almost anything we do as consumers, as American people, you can do any of it on your own. All right. This is not like a dental procedure. It's not a root canal. Um, there's, there's no reason people can't do it themselves. There are reasons maybe people shouldn't do it themselves. And a lot of that has to do with either the complexity of some of it or the, the, uh, emotion around it. I mean, people tend to make horrible decisions with money emotionally, particularly in times of crisis. There's a pendulum between greed and fear that never stops swinging. And you know, in 1999, when markets were going bonkers money magazine was publishing covers that said your neighbors are getting rich. Why aren't you? Mmm. And then you look at, at, at 2008 and it was, the world is ending and the markets could go to zero and we're all going to be broke. And you know, it's very sensationalized. So I guess my point, my point is that the biggest determinant to financial success in my opinion is behavior. Not, economy's not timing, not strategy. It's not about what funds you pick. It's not about, it's not about anything that's in a textbook. It's about the way you react, particularly under stress. Absolutely. What are some of those behaviors that we can kind of start working on now that'll benefit us in the future. I'm one of them, one of the things you can do to curb, some of the behaviors is to put as much on autopilot as possible. So in the same way that if you have an employer and you're putting money into your 401k with every paycheck, you don't have to think about that every other Friday and decided this is something you want to do. [inaudible] um, if you can automate your savings, your investment, your, uh, maybe your debt repayments, whatever you can automate. So that they're, you don't have to torture yourself based on what the news story does. Yours. You'll always be better off. That is a behavior that, um, that will pay dividends. Another is whatever your ability to save looks like today, make a commitment either to ratchet up that percentage every year or every time you get a raise, however you decided to do it, but make it an automatic thing. So if you're saving 8% of your income, make sure it's going to be nine next year. We're make sure when you get a raise, you at least stay at 8% of the higher number. [inaudible], you know, it's those kinds of things sound little and they sound simple. And frankly, once they're set, you can set it and forget it. If you want to look at your statement or quarter, you don't have to, as long as you know that you own a suitable portfolio for yourself and that you're adding to it, every check, you don't have to study it every, every quarter is not necessary, but those behaviors matter. The other thing is, um, do a full financial physical once a year. This is really simple. It's just like keeping yourself healthy, get a physical exam, have your financial advisor, walk you through a full, comprehensive plan once a year. And then everything else can be tactics and strategies and tweaks. But once a year know where you are and know where you are relative to your goal. And am I closer to her further from the goals that we set and how do we need to adjust to, to reset the trajectory? It's like, it's like planning a trip. You know, you know where you are, you know, where you want to be, but it's not linear. No, this is not your you're not going to get the same rate of return every year for 30 years and have the same inflation rate every, every year for 30 years. And it's not going to be simple like that. There'll be plus years and minus years and years where you get a bonus and years where you maybe are out of work for six months. And so it's important to be flexible, but I think once a year, you should take a full inventory, sort of do that full body scan like you would do in meditation for your finances. Yeah. That's a great idea. Um, I think that's really good advice. Um, do you have any last words of wisdom, any last pieces of advice? Yes. Um, what I would say is in, in, in the current environment, it is not, I think, wise to begin a financial planning Exodus today, because any planning you do right now will be impacted by whether you do it on Tuesday or Thursday this week, because markets are moving too much. So what I would say is if you want to consider engaging a financial advisor, go in with the idea right now that it's a second opinion, it's getting a once-over, it's looking at your portfolio, it's getting to know you, but it's not trying to build some kind of fancy trajectory. Don't pay a lot of money for a financial plan right now. Um, because it will not, I don't believe it will make sense for you. It'll be so different in three months that you almost have to start over and you'll, you'll kick yourself. So my advice is yes, get some advice. I do think there's a benefit. I wouldn't do my own tax returns. I think it's good to have an accountant or a tax preparer. Uh, I'm not using legal zoom or one of the websites to do that. I have a lawyer and I have a financial advisor and M financial advisor to hundreds of families. And I do think there's value in professional advice, particularly where it comes to behavior. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I've got a CPA and a financial advisor. And I mean, obviously I don't know about all the investment stuff like, you know, of course, like you said, you should learn about some of that stuff and at least have a basic understanding of it, but you know, there's nothing wrong with hiring people to help you so that you can make more money and do things, uh, better. Well, th there, there are financial literacy tools out there. Um, there it's not taught in schools, it's, you can graduate with a, with a higher degree in philosophy, sociology, psychology, or, or biology and not have ever taken a course on personal finance cause they just don't exist. Um, but you can find them in the, in the, in the private sector, you can find them through your advisor. You can use various, um, various books or online tools. It just makes sense to educate yourself. It doesn't mean you have to do it yourself, but know what you're talking about, have some idea. Absolutely. Do you have any recommendations for books or, you know, websites of course, uh, your own website as well for learning about these types of things? Well, I, I would say that while there are several, um, the new book that's coming out that I'm publishing this fall, which is called don't retire, graduate is written to be like a college curriculum and it is a financial literacy tool and I'm very excited to have it come out. It matches the podcast that we're doing, and it really is designed to be educational. It's not preachy and it's not a textbook it's written in a very easy language and first person even. So there's that, um, I also put out a, an ebook, um, which is available for free download@wwwdotlowtaxbook.com. And it is on four strategies where you can put money, uh, and never have it taxed again. And of course the Roth is one of those areas, but, um, we've gotten a lot of positive feedback on those. They are ways to learn what some of these strategies are and how to reduce your taxes without reducing your wealth. So those are good. And then just in terms of, of general advice, there are some terrific columnists. I think one of the brightest in the world is Michael Kitces who writes a blog called nerds eye view. Um, and it's brilliant. It's very technical though. So you've gotta be, uh, you have to be interested in, in the, the technical side to really appreciate that. Um, I'm writing more in a, in a way that's, that's easy to understand. Yeah, that's what I need easy to understand. You've got me really excited about this book, so hopefully, um, whenever it gets closer to time to, uh, being ready for purchase, maybe we can talk again and, um, talk to people about, um, about what you're teaching in the book as well. Um, now I do always ask people what their favorite nonfiction book is, you know, besides your book, do you have, do you have a non favorite nonfiction book or, you know, just something to help improve our lives? I think the single greatest book ever written is Atlas shrugged. Um, and if, if you're familiar with Ann Rand, it is, it is a fictional story, but a lot of the book is nonfiction to the sense that it's philosophy, it's philosophy, it's economics, it's brilliant. Um, and it's a fascinating view of sort of how the world works and, and, and things that are happening now. It was written 60 years ago and it looks very much like our world today. So I think it's worth picking up. It is a heavy read. It's a long book. Um, but it's, it's definitely worth reading. All right, I'll have to add that to my list. I have a very long list and no time to read right now. So where can people find you if they want to learn more about you? Um, our company website is B F G F a.com and that's the BFG financial advisors site. I already mentioned low tax book.com and my podcast is that don't retire, graduate.com. So I'm pretty easy to find on social media and all the various sites you do. And, um, I look forward to connecting with some of your listeners. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking your time to speak with us today about all this great advice on what to do right now, when everybody's panicking and, you know, stressed about their finances, definitely their retirement accounts and things like that. So, um, I really appreciate you coming on and, you know, calming some of those fears for us. Well, I hope I helped a few folks and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks, actually for having me. Thanks. Thank you so much to Eric for taking the time to speak with us today. And don't forget to go get your free budget spreadsheet, budget, a paycheck budget spreadsheet@leadstopbudgetsmadeeasy.com slash budget dash sheet, and I will link to it in the show notes. And I will talk to you guys soon. Special Guest: Eric Brotman.

Title by Danielle Mengel After working on his ad for constipation medication, Tiffany has fallen for Eric. However, when they do go on a date, each must make a choice between physical and mental attraction. Song List: "Wanna Be On TV", "Hi Eric, I Really, Really Want to See You", "You Know It When You Hear a Plosive", "Rorororororollerblading", "It Was the Best Time (Prune Juice)", "We're On a Roll" See Impromptunes in Melbourne: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2020/shows/the-completely-improvised-musical Cast: Emmet Nichols, Brenna Glazebrook, Bridie Pamment and David Peak on keys. Teched and edited by Morgan Phillips  

Sesame Street, Jaws Sequels, Psycho Sequels, Ghostbuster's Daughter, The Outer Worlds, Stardew Valley, Friday nights with The Dukes and Knight Rider, Hi Eric.

Call on Bernie Sanders to withdraw his call to overthrow the government of Venezuela. "Let me be very clear. Anyone who does what Maduro does is a vicious tyrant. We need international and regional cooperation for free elections so the Venezuelan people can create their own future." - Bernie Sanders, Democratic Debate Sunday September 12, 2019 Call his office today, Bernie Sanders: (202) 224-5141 also try 202-866 220 0044 which works well especially between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. Pacific time to get to them during working hours, 9-5 in Eastern time zone Eric Mann thanks Voices listeners who called Senator Sanders to repudiate his position on Venezuela. Eric engages his critic who believes that his statement that Senator Sanders is calling for the overthrow of Venezuelan President Maduro is exaggerated and "fraudulent". Keep Calling Senator Sanders and demand he stop his call for the overthrow of the government of Venezuela. I was dismayed to find in my morning email the demand that Bernie Sanders "withdraw his call to overthrow the government of Venezuela." While there is reason to object to Sanders’s answer to moderator Jorge Ramos's question on why he refuses to call Nicholas Maduro a dictator, to conclude that Bernie made such a call to overthrow a government is fraudulent. Sanders in fact supports the opposite position. Rather than backing the U.S. practice of inserting a leader it "likes," he has never once deviated from his belief that it is the right of the people of Venezuela to decide what kind of government they want. People who took umbrage at Sanders’s remarks should call his office to complain. That is what a healthy democracy looks like. Sanders deserves to be called out for his erroneous profile of Venezuela, and many of us did not waste time to do so. On the morning after the debate, several of us contacted members of Sanders's team. We took the trouble to supply them with recent and reliable information, and forwarded articles and the names of informed sources for their further investigation. But loosely applied pejoratives like “vicious tyrant” cannot be criticized more than loosely applied pejoratives like “racist” and “lunatics.” As a point of fact, I have not identified myself as a Sanders supporter. I offer my comments in the strict belief that these important issues should be met with hard facts, not easy mockery. --Patricia Dahl As a Sanders supporter, I applaud your opinion on his position on Venezuela. Sanders is WRONG on this one. Thank you and continue the fight!!!! --Nelson P. --Frank Dorrel addicted to war circulated it Sent from Rachel Bruhnke: sojournerrb@yahoo.com. Dear Eric: I'm with you 100% on demanding Sanders withdraw his call to overthrow the government in Venezuela! Hi Eric! I’m great Sanders supporters but I’m 100% agree with regarding Venezuela as we’ll Syria. I just hope he hires someone with more knowledge about foreign Policy --Jorge M. I have been a Bernie fan since before the last election. I voted for Bernie in the last election primary. I have been an enthusiastic supporter of and donator to his campaign this time around. But the remarks on Maduro and Venzuela in the last democratic debate have made it impossible for me to contribute further. I call on Bernie Sanders to back down his repudiation of Maduro, and his call for foreign intervention in Venezuela - not his exact words, but let's not play dumb here. --Vince M. Listen to Voice from the Frontlines today at 3pm PST on KPFK 90.7fm OR use the button below to Stream the show live on Facebook.

Hi Eric and Jeffrey, I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to let you know that I was talking with Ryan Hecht the other day, and we were both so honored by your FILL ME IN website. In fact, we were so moved, we created a small surprise for you. Well, not very small. It's about 109 minutes long. -- Fill Me In ended its initial run in March 2011. Four years (and many major life changes) later, Ryan and Brian reunited for something akin to a "Where Are They Now?" special, inspired in no small part by two wonderful friends of the show, Eric Peterson and Jeffrey Krasnick, along with their fan site, fillmeinagain.com.

Hosted by Eric McClintock, and Chris Palmer. Listen Here: Download Audio Here Laptop Voicemail from Dave http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/qosmio Specs: Core i7 4GB RAM Mobile GTS 360M $1500!! Which Sim? From Alex Hi all you guys, If i were going to use a flight simulator platform for general aviation flying, would it be logical to use x-plane or FSX? I know x-plane is more realistic in terms of aerodynamics, but the aircraft graphics are pathetic, compared to some pay-ware from FSX (carenado for example) However FSX is much more detailed in graphics, but in FSX, the aerodynamics are unrealistic because you just tell the airplane how fast it goes, how steep it can turn(as far as i know, correct me if i am wrong ;) ) Any ideas? Cheers Alex Screenshot Program for FSX and FS9 on Win7 Eric, On your first video brodcast I asked if you were having trouble with screenshots on your new PC running Windows7. You said you were. Will I found one that works with both FSX and FS9. Its a program called Aeroshot Image Capture. You can download it from FSPilotShop. It's only $18.00. I've attached some screenshots taken in FSX and FS9. The program works great. You can set where to save your pics, and in what format.It uses your printsren key, and does not pause your fightsim. I gives a sound to let you know it captured your shot. Check it out. http://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=153&products_id=1594 Aeroshot Image Capture (AEF-230) = $18.00 From Phil PS, Chris recommends PicNik for online photo editing. Airplane Recommendations Hey Guys, I really like your show. I would like to recommend to aircrafts, both were released on Dec 25, I don't think they were mentioned during your show. Both aircrafts are products of love. First one is the Westland Lysander, I was captivated by its unique looks, and bought it right away. It has really amazing history - RAF used them to drop and pick up agents in France during WWII. It is easy to fly, but hard to land, great aircraft!! http://fsaddon.eu/wpfsaddon/fsaddon-products/lysander-secret-operations/ The second one is Cessna O-1/L-19 - I just got this one today, activation process (Copy protection is not so great), but overall aircraft is very nice. http://www.sibwings.com/birddog.php Thank you, Ilya From the forums: SimCheck A300 Hey don't forget to mention the new Simcheck A300 airplane available from Aerosoft... truly awesome aircraft! From BionicCrab Aircraft Features: http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/us/iboshop.cgi?showd,,11145   TweakFS Recommendation from George Hi guys Happy New Year from the other side of the pond, were it is freezing cold, and I am buried in about 20cms of snow. Some time ago, in a previous email or voicemail, I mentioned a suite of products for both FS10 and FSX from Australia, which can be found at www.tweakfs.com The utilities are mainly about providing you with tools that make it easy for you to tweak your Flight Sim. I have had these utilities for some time now - but like most things, the more you explore the more you find. One that I would like to suggest as a 'hot' pick, is TweakFlight, which is available for both FS10 and FSX for US$24.95.What is even better is that you can download a demo version for 30 days For those simmers that like setting up scenarios or approaches, this allows you to do it all within a few key strokes, and you can continue to tweak it as and when you want. The navigation bar at the top covers 9 screens, all with different parameters that can be set for your flight, which can then be saved and edited at will. The screens cover:- Main - Title, description, date, time, camera views and aircraft position. This is neat, as you can select your position by just double clicking on a zoomable and moveable map, and set your height, heading and speed - just so cool. Autopilot - any of the functions of the autopilot can be preset Engines - for each engine you can set, Throttle, Prop, Mixture, RPM and Cowl and synchronise (or not) the engines Avionics - Set Master Switch, Com Radios, Nav Radios, ADF/Transponder, and DME/Audio Controls - Set spoilers, flaps, gear,brakes,yoke/rudder and trim Systems - choose which systems and lights you want on or off Fuel - quickly and simply set your fuel levels either by centre, left or right tanks or synchronise by % General - gives you the options to display or not, things like EFIS, ATC menu, simulation rate etc etc Briefing - create your own briefing notes - although this looks like you need some knowledge of HTML If you do decide to try it - I hope you get as much enjoyment as I have had Happy New Year to the Community http://secure.simmarket.com/tweakfs-tweakflight-fsx.phtml USB video card + flight sim = terrible, terrible idea   Hi Eric, Just a quick note: I can't speak for flight sim, but for X-Plane, no user should ever attempt to put any kind of X-Plane output onto a USB video card! The performance will be truly dreadful. X-Plan requires a "real" graphics card, meaning: - A graphics card that has a high quality 3-d accelerator on it and - that graphics card has to be in a slot wide enough for x-plane to just blast it with data. PCIe x16 is really a must, PCIe x16 2.0 is even better. USB is waaaay too slow. Yep...the processing has to come from somewhere. :-) It's a very smart idea for low-end computers...where the goal is to bring down price, where the CPU is already over-powered, where casual users probably aren't even using the second CPU. It's similar to what happened with sound cards...there's just no point in shipping sound cards with DSPs any more - that DSP is one more part, $20 more of cost (and that matters now, things are so cheap) when the second core can do sound mixing with 3% of its capacity. Of course, as flight simmers this sucks because it means the mainstream trend in hw (and what "most" new users who get a flight sim will already own) is a machine inappropriate to running FS X or x-plane. If I browse Dell's site, I can't even find the _option_ to put an ATI or NV card in most of the time, and when you do find a video card you find ... ... wait for it ... Radeon 4350 NVideo Geforce GTS 240 (You will find the 4350 at the BOTTOM of the 4xxx list - it is the most stripped down config. Surprisingly the GTS 240 isn't the bottom of the NV barrel, but being two levels down from the "real" part, the 280, it's going to be terrible for flight sim.) So a user who tries to build a "nice" machine before getting into flight sim is going to pay more and still get a machine that tanks. Sigh... cheers Ben   Answer to last week's Question About Object Placing   I was listening to your show last night (great show BTW) and i heard someone was looking for a freeware object placer. Now i use Instant scenery for my scenery design which is great if you want to spend the money before i brought Instant scenery i got this freeware one recommend to me. http://lc0277.nerim.net/wiki/index.php?whisplacer it's called whisplacer, it basically just uses the object libraries you've got in your FSX installation and im sure that there is a nav becon in one of the libaries that he could use. so try it out Cheers, Mitchell Sale OZx Developer   From the forum: Show Suggestions from Flinty72 G'Day FSBreak Crew, Loving the show especially the live broadcasts which I was lucky enough to catch the end of today. So I had an idea recently for the show and wanted to put it out to you guys for consideration. Not that I think the shows needs revamping but consider it a possible enhancement, if you think it is worthy... Anyway it struck me that each of you have specific areas of great knowledge & experience within the show. Now what if each you had a dedicated segment in the show to these areas? These segments could then be included into the show in different ways, either all segments each week, fortnightly or monthly or on a rolling rotation making it a monthly cycle between each indiovidual segment. Here is what I had in mind; "Eric's PC Hardware & Software Roundup" (related to flightsimming and PC performance) "Mark's Multisim Persepective" (X-plane, ORBITER, etc.) &/or "GA Flying Instruction Tutorial" (like the recent flying the traffic pattern video discussion) "Brendan's All Things Tubeliner's" (Products, Flying Tips, VA Operations) "Danton's Community Coverage & Super Slueth Inside Scoops" (Community & Developer Rumblings, VATSIM & Other FS Events) Anyway let me know what you think, maybe other listeners have better ideas as well...? Keep up the great work. Flinty. Recommendations Eric: Asus USB 3.0 and SATA III PCI Express Card, and Android Air Control. Chris: http://www.twitter.com   PS, we have recieved this release for the newest editing of the MyCockpit.org podcast. A great way to get more in depth coverage on cockpit building in podcast form: Mycockpit.org, the worlds largest community for home cockpit builders is proud to announce two new Podcasts, in association with FSBreak.net.    1. "Tips And Discussions" 2nd Edition, with Ian.  In this Edition of "Tips And Discussions", we talk to the famous Ian, well know for his wonderful B737 project. In this edition we talk all about "Inputs"   2. "Builder Of The Month" for February 2010, Shawn Lund.   Shawn is the creator of an unique project, someone who has chosen something different, since he is not exactly a home cockpit builder but I am sure we can draw a lot of inspiration from his approach..   MyCockpit Podcast can be found here:  http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/content.php?8   Mycockpit continues in the future with further Podcast editions of "Tips And Discussions," Feature Interviews" and "Builder Of the Month" interviews 

Hosted by Eric McClintock, Danton Berube, Mark Stewart, and special guests Matt Olieman and Vybhav Srinivasan. Listen Here: Download Here MyCockpit.org We talk with Matt and Vybhav from the website MyCockpit.org, here are some links you might find useful!   MyCockpit.org A340 Project XUIPC $100 Hamburger: North Carolina Nights Click here to download! Click here to share your results in the FSBreak forum! Recommendations Danton: FTX AU 3 Disk Set Eric: BananaBob's Kodiak PhotorealKodiak Textures Super Pack! E-Mail Correction from Ben Hi Eric, Hrm...looking at those Tom's Hardware numbers for MSFS, I can only speculate that: - Core configuration isn't that important for MSFS because MSFS isn't bound by pixel fill rate. Remember, core config is telling you that many hands make light work when it comes to filling in pixels on screen. But what if there are no more pixels to fill? Many hands then make many idle workers. Looking at the Tom's hw numbers, MSFS doesn't go much past 30 fps even when bigger and bigger video cards are thrown in. Other games do see an increase. This implies that MSFS is bound up on CPU speed or some other separate system bottleneck. The implication of a CPU bottleneck is that a nicer video card simply won't help you much _at all_, and that money should be spent on better single core CPU performance. This is, of course, all speculation..I have no idea what goes on inside MSFS. I can tell you for X-Plane that whether we are bound on pixel fill rate (in which case core config of the GPU matters _a lot_) or CPU (in which case throughput of a single CPU core matters) has everything to do with how the user uses the sim. Some features hit one, some hit the other. cheers ben