DoctorEncore

I remember getting blisters on my palm from playing the stick-rotation type mini games in the original Mario Party. No, that's not a euphemism, but I understand the laughter.

Just started Super Mario 3D World with my son. We only had time for a couple levels but it seems like it should be a lot of fun. I liked 3D Land, but really wished it was playable on the big screen so this definitely scratches that itch.

Looks fantastic! I can only guess how many times that pool table has been used as a videogame sorting/cleaning station.

Welcome! I look forward to seeing everything you have to share!

Personally, I don't put a ton of weight into dividends when I choose where I invest long term, although obviously they can be great. My biggest wins have actually been stocks that don't pay a dividend, like Amazon and Netflix. Regarding crypto, I generally agree. For anyone just looking for short term growth, I actually think Bitcoin Cash is a good option. It spiked at $2800 a couple years ago and is now down to around $700. It seems to be following Bitcoin closely and is steadily rising with a known prior peak. A lot of people seem really excited by Ethereum's potential, although I see that one as a long hold. In the end, I think there will probably be room for a few major cryptos to emerge.

Yes, but the goal with long term investing is not to immediately double your money. The goal is to steadily grow it. A return of 5-8% per year would be considered quite good. In fact, to double your money in 10 years, you need a growth rate of 7.2% per year. So if it takes Bitcoin ten years to double from where it is now, that would still be an excellent investment.

I got a bit sidetracked this week, but finally pulled out my hard drives and hooked them directly up to my 65" 4K OLED today. A picture can only show you so much and my phone camera loves to blow out reds, but I took a couple pics for you. I had almost forgotten, but you'd be amazed at how good some of this stuff looks based on the file sizes. Almost everything falls to less than 10GB and many to less than 5GB. That being said, the compression methods I used work better on some films than others. Movies with a lot of film grain simply do not compress well and often hover in the 15-20GB range. Films with a lot of dark action scenes also struggle (although compression artifacts are usually obvious on the Blu Ray to start with). It's been a while but I think compression time was somewhere around 1.5x the length of the movie. Here is the link for pics. http://imgur.com/a/lrPUmB8 I'll get the compression info for you this weekend. I'm pretty sure I used MakeMKV and Handbrake, both free. EDIT: Here is the basic tutorial I started with. I'm not sure if my settings are saved on my computer but I will look for you at some point. https://www.howtogeek.com/161498/how-to-backup-your-dvd-and-blu-ray-movie-collection/#:~:text=To rip your movie%2C put,hand panel of the app.

Yeah, but I haven't even hooked it up yet. Maybe this weekend will finally be the day! But probably not.

I'm in for the long haul. It's just like the stock market for me now. A dip or crash just means I buy more. And if it all goes to hell, I hold for the next 20-30 years.

IMAX may be a good buy for 1-2 year growth. Apparently they've been doing extremely well in China as their economy has opened up and obviously they should see some recovery in other countries as the year goes on. I think they have mostly upside without the volatility of AMC. The best time to buy would have been April of last year, but hindsight is 20/20. https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2021/02/16/imax-shares-soar-on-chinas-record-new-year-box-office/?sh=3e47f1ef3349

Time to cash out and retire in comfort! Congrats!

Can't wait until we get the landing video next week. Another truly amazing achievement for NASA.

Thankfully you will be able to play it without motion controls. I think in that situation, it could be pretty decent (minus the five hour tutorial I've heard about... ugh).

For unclear reasons, AMC spiked again in pre-market today. I was able to get out at $6.01 on my $5.53 basis for a really nice gain. Super happy about that one. Still holding the bag on Denison Mining though. May have to cut my losses and run on that one.

As a general rule, the rare games will also be the more expensive ones. Of course there are always exceptions, but if you just organize the list from most expensive to least expensive, that should be a good approximation.

Skyward Sword was the coolest part for me. I never played it and it's nice to have so many older LoZ titles available on Switch. As others have mentioned, if they redid the Oracle games and Minish Cap in the same style as Link's Awakening, they would all be day one purchases for me. Honestly, they should just get every classic Nintendo game on Switch in some form and just keep improving the console for the foreseeable future. Go the Xbox/PS route and make this thing a console with an ever expanding library.

I agree with all the advice above. You should be able to get a lot of these from GameStop on sale or in eBay lots. New copies also tend to drop in price pretty quickly since they don't sell nearly as well as standard games. Even with backwards compatibility on PS5, I expect PS4 games to be pretty cheap for the next ten years or so. If you're serious about getting these games for as cheap as possible, buy all the rarest or most expensive ones while they're readily available and then grab the commons as they conveniently appear. Also, get the big box items early as they tend to get clearanced quickly due to their big footprint on shelves and in warehouses (i.e. Farpoint with VR Aim Controller).

Oh man, having a Dreamcast and no N64 as a kid, I had sky high hopes for Sonic Shuffle. I wanted my own version of Mario Party so bad. Unfortunately, it's quite terrible. It's not just the way the matches playout or the poor quality of the minigames, but also the atrocious load times. My memory could be deceiving me, but you may want to give that one a test run prior to letting the wife play so you don't scare her away from games for good.

I think it arose out of the hype for the Atari VCS. I'll probably grab one to throw on the trash heap of forgotten consoles, but I'd be shocked if it finds any success.

I think we're pretty much on the same page. I max out my traditional IRA on the first of the year since I know I will also max my 401k. I then do a backdoor conversion and move the money into my Roth IRA. It's debatable whether it's better for me go with traditional or Roth savings, but I still haven't decided when I'm going to retire so my future tax bracket is up in the air.

I just wanted to chime in and say how fantastic it is to see so many people reaching out and providing compassionate advice. This is a great community. I'm certainly not an expert on anxiety, but I'd like to echo a few things others have said. First of all, daily exercise (both mental and physical) has been shown to elevate mood and improve coping skills, so you should really try to make that a priority. There are literally thousands of free fitness videos on YouTube that require no equipment. Secondly, do not self-medicate with sedatives/alcohol; they absolutely depress your mood and provide no long term benefit. Counseling and anti-anxiety medications are effective, if you can afford them. If you can't, then other outlets mentioned in this thread are certainly worth a try. Good luck! You will absolutely get through this and you have a cheering squad here to back you up.

I'm a huge proponent of Roth investing for anyone who has it available to them. Unfortunately not all employers offer Roth 401ks. That being said, everyone does have access to Roth IRAs and should use them whenever possible. I just think maxing out 401k (Roth or traditional) should supercede IRA investing since so many employers offer matching contributions and other benefits. In South Carolina there is an automatic 4% safe harbor employer contribution AND a 4% employer match, so I max that baby out every year.

I think that's reasonable, especially if you've already got your real retirement money going into ETFs/401k/IRA. In all reality, individual stocks are more likely to drag down your portfolio than lift it up. And, just to be clear, in case any newbie investors are perusing this thread, I only invest in individual stocks/crypto if I'm already contributing the max to my 401k. That's the absolutely most important thing to do to secure a stable retirement.

Finally got my code. As others have said, be persistent. After trying hundreds of times on a desktop and failing, I gave up. Fifteen minutes later I tried a single refresh on my phone and got it. Miraculously, the checkout process was smooth. I grabbed a Cat Mario key chain with my coins to go with my pins. Overall, that's a good Nintendo day!

I was about to say the same thing. I gave up fifteen minutes ago and then just now refreshed and got it. Keep trying.