*** Official October Chat Thread: The Purple Goose ***

[Cry Me A River]

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Congratulations to me - I've made Carpal/Tunnel.

The condition that is, rather than the number of posts. Can anyone link me to the post someone made about good mice/wrist supports?

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I started to get this several years ago. Not quite to the point where I had to seek medical attention, but, I had a hard time spreading my fingers flat and couldn't make a real fist. Came on quite suddenly and was pretty scary.

The first thing you really need to do is completely reassess your work environment. In my case, most of my trouble was caused by sitting too far away from my desk. My desk at work was quite narrow and if I sat right close to my desk, my knees would hit the wall. So I was sitting far away from the desk, and having to stretch my arms out when typing. Pulling my desk about 6 inches out from the wall helped an awful lot as I could sit in close and wouldn't have to extend my arms.

I also started doing exercises at my desk, constantly, stuff like this:

http://www.carpaltunnelexercises.net/

In particular, every half hour (at least) I would drop my arms to the sides of my chair and shake my hands and fingers for a minute or so to loosen everything up.

I also started squeezing a stress ball constantly (both hands, obv). Took that thing with me everywhere. You want a stress ball that gives some resistance, not one that's total mush. Use a tennis ball or rubber ball if that's all that's handy.

It took me a couple months for things to return to normal, but I haven't had a problem for at least 5 years.

[D.L.M.]

Polltarding is illegal in all 50states OPs.....
on another note i decided im goin to stay home for the next two months and build a sick bankroll, I will then move up to 2/4 and still stay home in efforts of becoming a millionaire before im 25. I will make prop bets on this for up to but not including $5.00 usd.

[TheProdigy]

I'll prob bet anyone for up to $50 that I'll have a mill by 28.

I'll forget about it and prob act like it never happened if I don't get there, though.

[GrandMelon]

Its kinda weird to think about how much this money can help us college guys down the road.

Any "older" posters care to share how the money us NL200+ guys are making will help us later on(assuming we're not stupid with it)?

[chicken10der]

in an unrelated note, i just spent $2500 on a tv

[TheProdigy]

Invest it.

Compounding interest is an amazing thing.

Edit: On an interesting note we are now finally past taxes and insurance, and are on the markets in Finance class. I'm probably going to go into finance and investing as well, so I can make us all richer

[D.L.M.]

ive spend about 20k i cant account for *POOF =) otherwise id be pwning the [censored] outa nl400 right now as i type this.

[soah]

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Compounding interest is an amazing thing.

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So is inflation.

[LifeTilt]

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Its kinda weird to think about how much this money can help us college guys down the road.

Any "older" posters care to share how the money us NL200+ guys are making will help us later on(assuming we're not stupid with it)?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a tax/estate planning attorney and there are pretty cool things you can do with IRAs that will ensure future success of your money. There are also asset protection strategies that may protect you from judgment creditors. It is important what state you live in because things differ in certain places. I recently did some planning for a high stakes online poker player (self-employed) where we pumped ~$40,000 into a SEP IRA in 2006. Use a financial calculator and see what happens if he just contributes 1/4 of that for the rest of his life. Compounding interest is fun.

[Cry Me A River]

[ QUOTE ]
Its kinda weird to think about how much this money can help us college guys down the road.

Any "older" posters care to share how the money us NL200+ guys are making will help us later on(assuming we're not stupid with it)?

[/ QUOTE ]

If I could have been making $50+ and hour in college, boy could things have been different - I might have actually finished for one [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

My biggest advice would be to go easy on the stuff that depreciates or winds up being worthless (cars, electronics, entertainment, clothing) and try to invest as much as possible and invest fairly conservatively (poker is speculative enough). Avoid debt whenever possible and pay it down as soon as you can (particularly high interest stuff like credit cards). The housing market is pretty [censored] right now, but buying is still usually preferable to renting. And if you can have a house paid off before you're 30, you're way, WAY ahead of the game.

Nothing spectacular or revolutionary there, just remember compound interest is your best friend.