calling it a day , , , well sort of

[Ruler of The World]

I could write a load of nasty stuff and say good riddance but I am not a fickle person and once upon a time I got on very well with Tray on here. Don't really know what happened but good luck and I hope you find the happiness you yearn for.

Typically, when a serious matter is posted and there is no call for a 1 liner, certain people steer clear of threads. No versatility you see, no ability to actually write, just insult and threaten (pathetically).

I won't tarnish my post further, good luck, have a good Christmas and feel free to waltz back in like Oscar will when something fresh comes out.

[Oscar]

Ive often wondered that Rich!!! Back in our day a fiver would last you all day on the old classics but now??? Would that even get you a board on half the £5'ers out there. Imagine some poor fucker and his mates going in together on a £5 golden game thats just been done?!! Pocket money gone in minutes and still £50 from a board.

I totally agree with what youve said Lee, its shit out there now. I often sit depressed at home thinking why didnt I chose the other route? But we made our choice and we have to live with it. Ive had a free ride for numerous years now but at the end I've got fuck all to show for it, except a beer belly and probably a few years knocked off my life spending all my stuff on nothing but piss and the odd holiday (rent and living costs aside)

I'll defo be going back to work full time sooner or later. I already work part time for my dad so I'm not totally out of the 'working' loop.

Good luck, but I think you'll be back before you know it.

Good wholesome honest post there Paul, I often look back at better times in the past when I thought the gravy train would never end, I was blinded by the easy money and lost touch with the day-to-day workings of the real world.

Still, never mind.

Yes, arcades are thoroughly depressing places now, and it will only get worse.

Picture the scene, if you will.



It's saturday morning, Billy races down the stairs to breakfast, excited as firstly its the weekend so no school, and secondly his parents aren't working and he wants to show them a test paper he got top marks on. But his parents aren't there. Instead are two notes, the first from his Mum to say she's gone in to work today to cover for someone who is ill. Billy is dismayed by this as he knows full well thanks mainly to spiteful jibes at school that she is banging one of his teachers. The second note is.. well, a crisp, fresh-from-the-ATM £20 note. On it is scrawled 'Playing golf- Dad'.

Billy gives a deep sigh. He hasn't spent any proper time with his Father for weeks, because he is too busy working, playing golf and trying to avoid the loveless glare his wife constantly gives him. What really disappoints is the way he thinks money can cure all, and that he didn't at least look in on him and ask how he was. He solemnly picks the £20 note up and trudges back upstairs, gets dressed and heads for his local amusements.

Once there he changes the note into £1 coins, and decides to give the 10p/£5 Vortex a board. After £2 for nothing he elects to speed up the process by putting it on Mega Spin. After a further £6 of keeping his hand on the Start button and only landing on spin 4 times only to see no numbers come in the machine relents and lands a '2', giving him 1 nudge, on a 3.

He glances up the reels to see how many nudges he needs for a win. The answer is at least 6, and suspects that the win in question is blue 7's, which the machine is unlikely to be prepared to give, not least because it is set on 72%.


Billy goes higher than the 3.





2.





He puts another pound in and puts his hand back on start, but exerts more pressure out of frustration. Nothing. In fact most of his credits had been eaten by Mega Spin before the coin had hit the cash box. After 4 more coins he gets a 3 giving him enough nudges for a £1.20 win, on a 3. He presses auto nudge, watches the win drop in and goes higher.


6.


He stares at the machine, shakes his head and presses collect. After burning off the rest of the credits for fuck all he collects the money out but only one coin comes out. He tries but fails to get the attention of an attendant, so gives the machine a little shake. Almost immediately an attendant appears and bans him for this act, without affording him the opportunity to offer an explanation.

He then wanders over to another arcade where there is a £5/10p Deal Or No Deal Perfect Game, complete with damage to the cashbox door where someone had been trying to break into it. He proceeds to put £7 of his remaining £8 in for a board, presses start, rolls a 2 followed by a 6 onto a ?.



Now at this juncture collecting 30p doesn't seem like an attractive proposition, so he presses start.



Game Over.



Total disaster, bellows Noel, as Billy reels away in disgust. He puts his last pound into a £5 rainbow riches digital 3 reeled bag of shit, and his little eyes light up briefly when 3 wells drop in. Relishing the prospect of perhaps getting £5 with REPEAT CHANCE he is then understandably rather dismayed when it lands on Silver giving him 40p. Heaping misery onto misery an IOU message appears on his attempt to collect his winnings.

Billy numbly exits the arcade and heads home. He glances at his watch and sees that less than 15 minutes has passed since he arrived at the first arcade. Once home he quietly hangs himself from the light fixture just inside the front door.


Fin.

[JG]

Oscar that was utterly beautiful. "Total disater bellows Noel" had me COLin' (chuckling out loud). I'm sure there were poignant resonances with real life experience in that tale. Come on now though, these well thought out wholemeal posts are keeping me away the my utterly pointless pursuit of peanuts.

May I also come clean here and admit I am a total cluey. There. I said it.


I'm a total cluey.

That posting was so good I'm not going to mention you know what.


MachineX.


Sorry. I'm only human.

[Oscar]

Indeed there was an element of real life experience in that tale. I did indeed put £7 in a £5 Perfect Game very recently for the aforementioned outcome. I also once put £11 in a £5 I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here for a board, rolled a 12 to the question mark and died. I've sat and watched in horror as a friend put £92 in a £5 sit-down Party Time to get a Party Time which went for £2, restarted and went for another £2. A £5 Double Deal Or No Deal once relieved me of £14 for a board, from which I was grateful to get £2.

No wonder arcades are so quiet. Anyone thinking of buying one, or even visiting one should think again.

[ruthl3ss]

ronnie o sullivan threated to quit 2!!!

[trayhop123]

ahhh ,,,,, mostly nice comments and sentiments ,,,,,,,,,, cheers guys appreciated ,,,,,,,,

i half expected , bitter entries from oscar and mog , but i was wrong to assume ,,,,,shame on me,,,,,, so an extra special thanks to you both



in fact , russ , yours was the only one that left any discomfort , your assumptions of ''skint'' couldn't be further from reality my friend ,,,,,,,,

isn't anyone after 20 plus years allowed to simply feel disillusioned , poisoned , fed up , ,,,,,, and seek change ?

im far far from skint , however an income of sorts will most definitely be required , as lump sum money saved can and will dissolve at an alarming rate without regular top up.




anyhow thanks all.

[Roll_With_It_Russ]

lump sum? why would you entertain doing a NMW job then? you would be far better doing a hobby job, using a little bit of your "lump sum" as seed money.

I'm not out to make discomfort, just it does not add up... yes plenty have ideas of leaving their rat race employment, its shoved down the necks every day on tv, these people who sell up and move to the country to live a lifestyle... or the hoards who move to austraila, only to return back after a while as it all does not live up to expectations.

Simply investing wisely would cover the feable amount of income a NMW job would bring in, if your not a homeowner any savings would quickly erradicate any chance of state subsistance.

Unless you know the answers, please do share

[feeder22]

Oscar that last line. Dark humour at its best.

[trayhop123]

why you ask ,,,,,,,,, because the money is no longer the sole motivation


im olllldddd, ,,,,,, tired , and quite frankly sick of the ''gamble'' ,,,,,,,,,

its ok nipping out for 1 or 2 hours locally , you may make a few quid , you may not , fine

but im now past getting up at 7am , travelling 300 mile round trip ,,,,, for 16-18 hours ,,,,,, maximum effort put in , and in this climate no '' guarantee '' of a good day in return


what doesn't add up ? ,,,,,,,,,,, is it too much of a stretch for you to believe ive simply had enough

im sure most will agree that despite the potential per unit ,,,,,,,,,,, its never felt more like gambling than it does now ,rather than edge based pro playing

and at heart im not a gambler





also my needs arnt as outlandish as others , ,,,,,, a part time job will ease me back into society gradually whilst providing adequate income


as for investing , and making my money work for me ,,,,,,,,, hey im all ears

im first to admit i have no business nouse whatsoever ,,,,,,, so any tips would be gratefully appreciated

[feeder22]

Check your emails. I'm sure there's some Nigerian out there willing to help you invest your dosh.

[Roll_With_It_Russ]

lump sum infers that you have already invested it/used it to pay for somthing

[Oscar]

Working, even NMW, fills a void and at the end of the month it is a wage.

But I work because I need to, because I don't have enough money behind me not to. If I had enough money to make some investments etc there is no way i'd get out of bed at 5.45 am to stand behind a counter for 8 hours, fuck that.

[GaryChandler]

I am assuming Russ that you must have 100's of thousands saved, as the way you go on, you seem to have the answers for everything. It seems pretty clear to me that Lee has just had enough of it all, and i can totally understand why, i am only 22 and i am already bored of playing machines, more hassle than its worth at times.

Good luck anyway Lee, no doubt whatever you choose to do will fill you with more excitement than fruits do!

[Roll_With_It_Russ]

I am assuming Russ that you must have 100's of thousands saved, as the way you go on, you seem to have the answers for everything. It seems pretty clear to me that Lee has just had enough of it all, and i can totally understand why, i am only 22 and i am already bored of playing machines, more hassle than its worth at times.

Good luck anyway Lee, no doubt whatever you choose to do will fill you with more excitement than fruits do!

when your my age hundreds of K is not near enough to sit back and do nothing, since i've a long way till i'd qualify for retirement state support it would need to be millions(simply because it would see a lot of erosion in value over the next 15years without risk). I don't have anything like mega money, however I know I have more than if I had worked week in week out for the last 10 years, thats if I had not made some mircle advancement in my earning potencial.

I do work every year to some extent, I can earn my tax allowance each year. Optimise the tax free savings and investment options, even to the extent I hold one of the shittiest performing tax free cash investments you can have - premium bonds, costs me about £600in lost interest plus the devaluation of the capital a year to hold these.

I had a very stingy attitude to many things, i'll by discounted food, use by one get on frees, walk instead of taxi, drink before I go out so it don't cost more to get pissed, do my own DIY etc etc... later the same day I might be playing fobt games, it really does not make sense... however a gamblers attitude to the value of money is alway squewed.

IFAs are pretty much a waste of time as they will take out their cut and when thats compounded it can work out far more than you make yourself, fee based is an option but rather than pay someone £80-£150 an hour to tell me what to do I just use google.

The biggest mistake anyone my age could of been said to make was not entered the property market highly leveraged at the turn of the century, but whose to say the greed would not of overtaken and could be a bankrupt by now.(panorama had a programme on the state of uk housing on last night, not all to be taken at face value, gave the idea though - we know how out of touch that producer is from the FOBT programme)

If work paid better or was in an situation where the state would top my income up to worthwhile level then I would choose the work option every time.

Back in 2002 I had a job it paid around 7.50 an hour plus a small bonus each week, put in the hours and taking home 350 a week was comfortable, but left nothing to save... 10 years later the same job would be paying less nominally, while everything has doubled in price(that is the day to day expenses) if not greater.

The continous influx of unskilled immegration has ruined life for single unskilled workers in this country... state subsidies have been brought in to keep every other group happy(Notice how many people have moaned out the state welfare funding cuts, even families with 50k earners in the household say they rely on the tax credits or whatever to make ends meet.

5 years ago I took on a part time job thinking it would help pay a few bills and keep me in the system so to speak, 20 hours at 6.50 an hour I think it was, but it was such a tie, could not go away for a few days without booking the time off weeks in advance, it was really more inconvienent than it was worth. Doing more skilled was earning £150 on day rate for temp jobs, upto £12.50 for hourly... 5 years later the same work is getting £10-12 a hour for the best jobs, have seen as low as £7.50/8 where the employers are taking advantage of market condidtions.

There is ofcourse the other type of employment - doing somthing you really enjoy doing, that is it pays well and it does not feel like working for nothing and being taken advantage of. Such job came up for me earlier this year, but I had to decline, why? because after doing some research the cost of living in the area I needed to live was not going to make it viable(rents started at £850 a month).

As simple as it is, if the cost of renting was half what it is now then it would make so many more employment oppourtunities viable options, untill the housing shortage is addressed then most people I know my age will have to take a drop in living standards over the next 10-15 years.

[Scott]

Can't believe what i'm reading Lee, best of luck to you whatever you do mate!