#Jennifer being handy means less stuff breaking

[victorluvsalice]

It’s our final day with the McFlys, and lo, they have ended their vacation and returned to Newcrest! . . .where it is pouring out. Again. Sometimes I regret having all my Sims live here. . .

Anyway, there actually isn’t that much to report on their final day -- mostly just them settling back into their home. The kids had some playtime before heading off to school, while Marty and Jennifer caught up on chores and repairs. Apparently that shower’s been broken for, uh, a while. ^^; But now it’s fixed, and has sturdier faucets to boot. Hell, I had Jennifer upgrade the whole bathroom to break less -- and make the dryer lintless to boot! It’s nice having a handy Sim around the house.

Marty, meanwhile, focused on his music for the most part -- writing another jingle, then mixing another track. Gotta keep the fame up, after all! He also did his fair share of the laundry for once. . .aaaand glugged down some more medicine because apparently he and Jennifer were sick AGAIN. What the hell, guys? You better not be starting a pandemic in my Sims game -- I come here to get AWAY from reality!

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 5, Number 9

Tropical Fuck Storm

Just like that, summer’s over and we face a growing pile of late 2019 records. But before that, before we drag ourselves like kids to school into the second half, a moment to appreciate what’s accumulated.  This month’s Dust touches on groovy jazz tuba, punishing hardcore, a bracing industrial reissue, altered percussion and an OG Tuareg guitarist.  Contributors this time around include Isaac Olson, Ian Mathers, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer and Andrew Forell.  

Joseph Allred — O Meadowlark (Feeding Tube) 

O, Meadowlark by Joseph Allred

 Plenty of people get the tag American Primitive Guitarist stuck on their rump these days. It’s not always appropriate and it’s not always welcome, but it adheres to Joseph Allred with the fastness of the truth.  Allred, a Tennessean who currently pursues higher learning at Boston College, understands that whether you use mountain music or raga-derived form as your framework (and he uses a bit of both, alternating between skeletal banjo figures and rushing guitar fantasias), the music has to project something beyond the notes. O Meadowlark not only evokes a cascade of emotions, some explicit and others allowed and bent until they’re beyond name, but he exerts an opposite pull. Like Robbie Basho or Steffen Basho Junghans, he draws the listener through the sound hole and into the tones and overtones that carom about the insides of his guitar.  Climb inside; like a Tardis, it has room for all.

Bill Meyer 

Caterina Barbieri — Ecstatic Computation (Editions Mego)

Ecstatic Computation by Caterina Barbieri

The title of Caterina Barbieri’s third LP suggests a congress of emotional states and cognitive processes; total neural action, you might say. The sound of the thing suggests another, maybe more personal integration. She favors massive, echo-haloed electronic sounds, the sort that would set off all manner of madness in the disco if only she’d subordinate them to a sufficiently clubby beat. But instead she juxtaposes them with wordless female vocals (not her own) and switched-on harpsichord sounds which lock together with a structural logic that probably comes natural to a person who grew up studying classical guitar. And while the sounds promise abandon, the way they lock together requires submission to a Bach-like allegiance to order. Promise delivered.

Bill Meyer

Theon Cross — Fyah (Gearbox Records)

Fyah by Theon Cross

Tuba player Theon Cross was the secret weapon of last year’s excellent Your Queen is a Reptile, by The Sons of Kemet. Fyah is Cross’s debut as a band leader, and  if the melodies occasionally sag, Cross and company generate more than enough energy to keep you, if not intently listening, grooving. Like many in the London jazz scene, Cross has no qualms about pulling in sounds from everywhere, and while not every experiment works (the synths and trap beats on “Panda Village” don’t add much), it keeps Fyah feeling fleet and admirably populist. Cross’s commitment to bring the tuba back to our attention and good graces is admirable, and he’s certainly the right guy for the job, but for better or for worse, he suffers the fate of all lower register players: disappearing when played back at anything less than high volume. As such, the real MVP on Fyah is tenor saxophonist and fellow London hotshot, Nubya Garcia. Fyah is a good record. It gets better the louder you play it.

Isaac Olson

 Drugs of Faith — Decay (Selfmadegod Records)

Drugs of Faith have been making records like Decay, their new EP, for quite a while now. The record is full of crossover hardcore that pushes on the pressure points of crust and sludge. It’s grimy, gritty, sweaty stuff and it’s really good. The focused truculence of a song like “Anonymity” sharpens rather than overwhelms the tune’s tendencies toward melody, and what a frigging breakdown. The whole 7” — all ten minutes of it — is terrifically punishing. Or maybe it’s punishingly terrific. Whatever it is, it goes by quick. But that’s cool, you’ll just flip it and play it again. And like a live hardcore set, music this intense is best enjoyed in small, gut-thumping doses. Toward the end of the excellent track “Nihilists,” singer Richard Johnson (who also plays guitar) growls, “If I go down, I’m taking you all with me.” Sure sounds like he means it.

Jonathan Shaw

Help — Help (Self Released)

Help by Help

One advantage to keeping songs short and lyrics anthemic is that you can throw a whole lot of sludge into the works and still end up with tunes that folks will remember the next day. Portland noise-punk band does this six times on their quite good debut EP, Help. No surprises here, just grimy, coruscating punk that sounds amazing when you’re reading the latest update on our slide into oligarchy/kleptocracy/kakistocracy/planet death/what have you. Best of all is their theme song, which softens up a traditionally macho genre with some very welcome, very 2019 vulnerability (Complete lyrics: “Help!/I fucking need it!/You know I’ve battled but it’s all I can take!”) and the closer, “Class War Now” which is about… well, you know.

Isaac Olson

 HTRK – Nostalgia (Fire Records)

Nostalgia is the self-released 2004 debut EP by Australian experimental trio HTRK (Hate Rock Trio). Nigel Yang (guitar, programming, electronics), Jonnine Standish (voice, percussion, samples) and Sean Stewart (bass, programming, samples) produce seven tracks of heavy, noise intensive electronica with echoes of Throbbing Gristle, Pan Sonic and Suicide. Physically and psychically crushing, the tracks move at a funereal pace with waves of static and feedback crashing against bottom end bass, percussion and drum machines as Standish’s voice intones from a cave, a cross between Lydia Lunch and Alan Vega. Instrumental opener “Hate Rock Trio” begins quietly with the ticking of a clock, a time bomb with crashes of distorted percussion. Thereafter the song titles tell the story of the EP. Run together they form both a record of, and a demand to acknowledge, damage inflicted: “Look What’s Been Done/Look Down the Line/Look At That Girl/Look At Her/You Injured Me/I’m All Broke Up.” The intensity builds with each track as feedback and samples scratch atop thickening layers of black sludge. Re-released by Fire Records, Nostalgia is a bracing experience with a palpable sense of menace.

Andrew Forell

 Max Jaffe — Giant Beat (Ramp Local)

Giant Beat by Max Jaffe

If a curious listener was told Max Jaffe only used one instrument to make Giant Beat, they’d be forgiven for guessing something like a modular synth. Instead, it’s drums, but in a way that makes the question maybe a little bit of a cheat; Jaffe, drummer for JOBS, Elder Ones and others, was also a beta tester for something called Sensory Percussion that allows percussionists to use their instruments to trigger sounds and samples in a way that feels analogous to the chromatic, sometimes abrasive playing Ian Crause and Disco Inferno did with sampling. Of course, with a drum kit and that kind of setup, Jaffe can generate a whole album just by himself in a different way than you might get with, say, a singer and an acoustic guitar. Giant Beat dips its toes into various experimental waters, jazz here, electronics there, noise and musique concrete there, but always with the steady pulse of Jaffe’s one-take percussive playing behind it. The result feels like anything but a product demo; if anything, it feels like a new type of voice articulating itself.  

Ian Mathers  

Ocean Fanfare — First Nature (Barefoot)

First Nature by Ocean Fanfare

Whether you take the words First Nature as a prescription of priorities or a stern reminder of who is best equipped to play the long game in the battle between humankind and its environment, this is a record with a message. But since that message is being relayed via horns, bass, and drums, which play melodies that wind and ascend, one must exercise one’s emotional antennae to decode the vibe. Both trumpeter Tomsz Dabrowski and alto saxophonist Sven Dam Meinild are equally facile with post-bop tunes and extended technique explorations, and the shuttles between these poles gives the music a questing quality. They’re methodically seeking, not giving up hope, and the inventive ways they maintain balance on the fly suggests that they’re conscious of what tools will come in handy if people are going to survive.

Bill Meyer

 Abdallah Ag Oumbadougou — Anou Malane (Sahel Sounds)

Anou Malane by Abdallah Ag Oumbadougou

One of the original Tuareg guitar heroes, Abdallah Oumbadougou recorded these dreaming, droning, melancholic-with-a-swagger tunes in Benin in 1995 with the West African producer Nel Oliver. It was a step up for Oumbadougou, who had previously recorded mostly on boom boxes in encampments during breaks in the Tuareg rebellion, but the songs, even embellished with electronics and studio effects, have a raw, lonely power to them.  “Thingalene” drifts towards funky pop in its syncopated drum machines and squealing synths, but Oumbadougou’s voice carries over time and distance with a bracing authenticity. Other tracks, like “Tenere” splice the echoing snap of gate-reverbed drums to a beat that sways like camel caravans; the guitar work here is particularly fine. On its original release, Anou Malane introduced the world to the Tuareg’s keening, ambling desert blues; now it reminds us that artists like Tinariwen and Terekaft and Mdou Moctar are interpreting and extending — not inventing — a vibrant art form.

Jennifer Kelly

Savage Republic  —Gods  & Guns (Mobilization)

Savage Republic doesn’t pack the band schedule very tightly nowadays. The band, currently a quartet (Thom Fuhrmann, Ethan Port, Alan Waddington, Kerry Dowling), took the whole of the 1990s off and has made just two albums in this century. But when they do make a record, it hits hard. In days gone by they sounded like Rhys Chatham fronting the Ventures on an album of Aegean surfer themes, but now they sound just a bit like Michael Gira fronting Echo & the Bunnymen in some Bladerunner-like hell of a dark hole. “God & Guns,” sung in dire and reverb-swaddled tones by Fuhrmann, articulates understandable dismay at the twin lumps of stinky meat that are being held in front of the vast heard of fascism-embracing Americans. The instrumental on the flip is named “Tranquilo,” but you won’t rest while they’re charging you, driven by chain-gang shouts, oil drum lashes, and epically massive bass. Heavy shit for heavy times.

Bill Meyer

Sleeping Ancient — There Is No Truth But Death (Viridian Flame)

There Is No Truth But Death by Sleeping Ancient

In any number of ways, black metal and the horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft are a good match. The overweening interest in darkness and unnamably horrific, indecipherably complex forms; the highly abstruse mysticism; the tinge of troubling racism and anti-Semitism — it’s sort of uncanny. Sleeping Ancient aren’t the first black metal band to express a deep appreciation for Lovecraft’s weird fictions. Heck, they probably aren’t even the tenth or the fiftieth. But if they’re not breaking any new ground, thematically or musically, at least they’re making good songs. Check out the grand dirge of “Akeru,” or the slow but assured drift, from frigidly delicate melody to batshit intensity, that forms “Taphephobic Hallucinations” (taphephobia, by the way, is crippling fear of the grave—not death so much as the gravesite itself). The songs are typical of Sleeping Ancient’s mannered but powerful playing, which the band sustains across the whole of There Is No Truth But Death. It’s a good record to play as we wait for Cthulu. Judging by current conditions, we won’t have long to wait.

Jonathan Shaw

 Sore Points — Not Alright (Slovenly)

SORE POINTS "Not Alright" EP by Sore Points

If you miss the Marked Men, how ‘bout some hard, fast punk rock from Vancouver? This four-song 7 inch, following a 2018 self-titled on Deranged, snarls and stomps with feverish fury, making the most of its double drummed, guitar stabbed, bass whomped basics. You’d infer a few battered Ramones records in the rec room, but also punks both harder core and more melodic—Black Flag on one end and the Buzzcocks on the other. “Not Alright” rampages at blur speed. The drummer, whoever he is (Sore Points are not big on self-promotion), gets a monster workout here, but really everybody is pushing about as hard as it goes. “Not Coming Back,” is likewise accelerated, but in an anthemic, memorable way. As a non-professional, you’d kill yourself trying to keep up playing these songs, but you can sing along, no problem, after just one or two spins.

Jennifer Kelly

 Tropical Fuck Storm — Braindrops (Joyful Noise)

Braindrops by Tropical Fuck Storm

“Braindrops,” the title track from this second Tropical Fuck Storm album, slinks and rattles and backpedals, its rhythm complicated and syncopated, its stream-of-consciousness lyrics about dreams and waking (“But you gotta get up because time is nagging like a dog humping your leg”) as tangled as the polyrhythmic beat. There’s a slant of ska in the bass, a dissolute hint of post-punk in the cracked vocals and a baroque inclination to stuff things to the gills in the overload of just about everything. Tropical Fuck Storm tilts recognizable forms so far over that they always seem to be careening into chaos. A hip friendly bump of bass and drums is just a landing pad for guitar noises that crash, still burning, to the ground. Even the ballads (“Paradise” both “Marias”) teem with noise and dissonance. Braindrops is never an easy listen. It verges, fairly often, on the unpleasant. But in a world where everything spins down to a grey Spotified entropy, it’s a prickly, fascinating, mess of bright colored wires; go ahead cut one and see if it explodes.

Jennifer Kelly

 Various Artists — Greys (Anachronisme)

Greys by Field Guides

In this day and age, if one even wanted to put together a new “We Are the World,” where would one start? Leverage Models’ return to music last year with the phenomenal Whites was partly so that previously-shelved record could raise money for the Southern Poverty Law Center, and here the band and Anachronisme Records are at it again. Raising money for the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees this time, instead of trying to rope everyone they know into one big aesthetically-dubious singalong, they’ve put together with any number of friends a smorgasbord of 21 tracks all somehow ‘in conversation’ with the music on Whites. There are plenty of intriguing covers, remixes, and other deconstructions, from Field Guides’ glowing, pastoral version of “If I Let You Stay” to the menacing buzz of DOV’s remix of “Dark Pools,” to Concierge Records and The Working Elite’s “transatlantic meditation” on the feeling of the first song on Whites with “Day Two,” as well as two unreleased tracks from Leverage Models. Then there are the contributions that just engage with the emotions and stories of the original album, like Courtship Ritual’s haunting “Uncle Incision” and William Tyler’s gorgeous “She Swims in Hidden Water.” There’s a lot here to absorb, but even if you’re not familiar with the source material it all stands on its own, even as it’s still one of the most intriguing expansions of an album in recent memory. Not to mention hopefully a more effective way to help a good cause.

Ian Mathers

 avery r. young—Tubman (FPE)

tubman. by avery r. young

avery r. young brings the sizzle in this paean to African-American musical traditions from skanky funk to body-moving R&B to soul-on-fire gospel, complete with a full choir. The multi-talented Chicagoan took inspiration from his own book—Neckbone: Visual Verses—from Nina Simone and from the singer Jamila Woods, whose superlative pipes provide the uplift of many of these cuts. “Maasai” slouches so far into a smouldery blacksploitation groove as to be nearly horizontal, all evil wah-wah’d twitch and rumbling bass and slashing lightning bolts of disco strings, while “go'head mary & weep” takes things to the church with a massive harmonized swell. young himself has a fine, fluttery, emotionally nimble tenor, shades of the Reverend Al Green in his supple phrasing, but his songs take flight when they’re sung by a crowd, as on the spiritually stirring “lead in da wattah” and especially, the monster highlight “get to know a nina simone song” which rolls on like a doo-wopping, gospel-quarteting freight train right on to Mississippi. God damn, indeed.  

[home-working]

Powerlunching with Fran López

I technically met Fran through my friend/his wife, Sarah (who, coincidentally, I met through an ex named Fran!). About three years ago, Fran and I were both running late to a graphic novel panel discussion in Brooklyn that Sarah was speaking on, and I recognized him from her Instagram feed/comics, so I said “Hi, are you Fran?!” like an inept Internet stalker. We ended up hanging out all afternoon while she signed books and realised we had a lot in common (web development! pastries! Sarah! jokes!), so we became internet friends.

Fran is now a software engineer at Tumblr (coincidentally he is tasked with fixing the biggest problem I have with it), is a cartoonist himself, and has endured periods of homeworking, like when he didn’t yet have a greencard, or when we slowly tackled a year-long freelance project together (in the middle of which he had a baby). I would also like to state that we originally Powerlunched in December of 2017 and I didn’t get these questions back until I harassed him a few weeks ago, a partial cause of which may have been the baby(?).

What is your full name? Francisco Tomás López. In 2003, RFC 3629 established UTF-8 as a standard Internet protocol element. It's 2019 now and I just signed up for the YMCA, but my name is displayed as "Francisco Tomás López".

Where are you originally from? The lovely neighborhood of Villa del Parque in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

What is your legal work status? "Don't ask, don't tell."

What is your healthcare status? "See something, say something."

What do you do for a living? I'm a software engineer that is able to legally work in the US of A, so my work and healthcare statuses are actually pretty good, at least until the tech bubble bursts. Once that happens I'm pretty much useless, but I'm married to very handy woman, she'll protect me.

What do you do for fun? I do many things. Most notable in the context of this interview: I'm an avid baker. (Meaning: last week I made some muffins for the first time. Even though they turned out great, you refused to eat them. Why wouldn't you have my muffins, Christy?) [Editor’s note: Why did it take you so long to finish this interview, Fran?]

Do you miss working from home full-time? Half of the time I do. I think my relationship with homeworking can be graphed in a continuous sine wave that peaks high when I realize I can work in my underwear and peaks low when I realized I've been in my underwear for a week. After that I try to get out more until I remember the comfort of staying home and the cycle repeats.

What's it like also living with someone who works from home? Are there any interesting anecdotes to share? Hot tips? Sarah's work is much more fun and interesting to watch than mine. When we were both working full time from home it was great for me to take breaks and see what she was doing. I'm sure she LOVED the constant and unrequested interruptions. Soon after that we decided to have a kid together, so maybe that counts as "hot tip"?

You have a new-ish baby! Will you encourage your baby to also work from home? You could have a family business! Yes! We could both interrupt his mom, I'm sure she'll love that even more!

Do you eat regular meals when you work at home? ¡Ja! (That's Spanish for "Ha!").

As the first fellow programmer I've interviewed (if I'm allowed to call myself one), tell me why you got into programming! (This is a question sponsored by STEM.) I found a tutorial on Pascal somewhere on the semi-early internet when I was 12 and had a lot of fun with it. I wrote some dumb stuff like a program that would take a text file and use the buzzer in the motherboard to make a short sound for every character in the file (the pitch being a multiple of it's ASCII code). I spent hours listening to that and drove my family crazy. Fast forward to now and turns out I have an employable skill!

Do you prefer drawing or programming? I guess I prefer whichever is not the one I'm doing the most of, so that's always been me wanting to draw more and code less. Capitalism assigned us the role of eternal consumers and to that end trains us to place desire in what we don't have.

If you could make a living off comics, would you drop programming altogether? No, I actually like programming. And doing comics full-time will probably drive me crazy. Maybe I would dedicate my programming time to do personal projects. I have this cool idea about a little program that takes a text a file and then uses the buzzer in the motherboard to...

Do you often get compared to the guy who played Christopher in The Sopranos? Only by the most discerning of persons.

Your Twitter handle is @FranniferLopez. Do you feel you have a personal connection to Jennifer Lopez? Years ago I found this great photo from 1999 of Fran Drescher and Jennifer Lopez hanging out in a club. I've used it ever since as my profile photo in all the different online systems of any job I had. How people react to me using that photo is my way to make sure if I should keep that job or start looking for something else. So yes, I feel very connected to Jennifer Lopez (and Fran Drescher, of course).

What were you wearing when we last hung out A YEAR AGO when I took the picture of you eating fries with mustard? (No, you're not allowed to look at the photo, which is also a pretty horrible photo, I’m sorry I backlit you.) First let me say that I think the English speaking part of North America is a beautiful place with rich culture that I'm taking in with my full, open heart. That being said, you guys could be using mustard for so much more! As for clothes: If I was lucky, I was wearing my favorite sweater, which has a flowery pattern in bordeaux over a dark, deep blue background. I don't remember anything else. [Editor’s note: incorrect, but you can see that sweater below, in a much better photo, partially because it includes me!]

Wearing that sweater; laptops.

[ginnyzero]

Completely Harmless Ch. 35

Completely Harmless An SSO SilverGlade Re-imagining Story (Or Fix it Fan Salt fic) By Ginny O.

When Lily and her friends wanted to buy horses and were directed to the Silverglade Manor and its myriad of problems, they didn’t expect to start a revolution. They were just a bunch a stable girls. Completely harmless. Right?

A/N: Things are only canon if I say they’re canon. Pre-Saving the Moorland Stables compliant for the most part. Posted in its entirety on my website. Posted in 2000 to 4000 word bits here. Rated T for Swearing Word Count 177,577

Chapter Thirty-Five Rainbow Week Fun...

It was Day 3 of Rainbow Week and everyone was still excited.

A frantic phone call from Derek didn’t dampen that excitement. He’d had a whole bag of letters break open and blow away on the breeze. And it would be a tremendous help to him if when they were out and about if they saw them that they’d deliver them for him.

They promised to keep their eyes open for them.

They decided to do their own area before heading to Cape West. Though Tony had tsked slightly over them having sherbet and a cookie for breakfast. She made them Swedish pancakes and dished up bowls of fresh fruit and fried them duck eggs. They couldn’t go until they ate it all.

They all hugged her. She was just trying to look after them!

Judy laughed at them all, “waiting until day three to do your own events,” she teased as she passed out the rose charms to them.

They teased her good naturedly right back.

The strains of the Silversong Quartet drifted on the morning breeze as they slowly rode through the rose arch path to the Moon Garden. Water poured out of the urn being held by Aideen forming a joyful waterfall to the pond below.

The tunnel had been finished with bas relief carvings of horses, roses, and the phases of the moon under the paddock. (Above them, the Jorvik Warmblood Sports had their own special dressage event to show off how they were perfect eventing horses.)

Ducks quacked at them and nosed in the reeds of the pond looking for food. Some swam in lazy circles around the waterfall or just rested letting the current push them about. The Folly gardens were a riot of roses and ‘wild’ blooms such as Queen Anne’s lace and Alium mixed with tall and low grasses like the white Pampas Grass and the aptly named purple fountain grass.

In the middle of the second terrace, inside the rose strewn bandstand, the Silversong Quartet played light spring sounding music. They paused to listen for a couple of songs, but none of them favored string music really.

“There’s classical string music and then there’s epic string music,” Regina said as soon as they were out of ear shot.

They all raised an eyebrow.

“You know, the stuff in movies and trailers,” Regina waved her hand.

Some of them rolled their eyes.

They made beaded headbands, and bracelets and earrings at the tent. They had the option of making topaz ones or making rainbow themed selections. Linda had helpfully provided a display of different gay pride flags.

They had to be careful not to lose any beads. There were ducks seeking attention down here too and no one wanted them to get sick. They scrambled after beads before they hit the floor and a poor duck mistook them for food!

After doing the showjumping event in the Riding Arena, they headed into Cape West.

Jasper was in charge of the Treasure Hunt as it started in East Glade. He provided them with the map, reminded them there was a race in the Golden Woods, and gave them their first clue.

He had races around his farm of course that they’d never tried, so of course, they did those first before going to the Golden Woods and trying the race there.

They were delayed by Chaun and his crashing rainbow. He was still muttering about Brogan.

“We’re trying!” Lily said.

The jumps in The Golden Woods were piles of birch tree trunks, thick hedges of smaller low growing shrubs they still didn’t know the names of, and piles of rocks with yellow flowers sprouting in the cracks. Things that if you didn’t know there was a race there that one could mistake for being natural to the forest. Though the forest was well kept without much dried grasses. The ground was covered in grass and flowers.

Which was good, because dried grasses would lead to fires.

Between doing the race and the finding the next clue of the Treasure Hunt. They found a letter swirling about in front of a gated area. They chased it around and caught it. Reading it over, they decided that it was meant for Captain Brus at Cape West. And surely, the treasure hunt would take them that way. The gated area was part of the clue.

The Treasure Hunt ended up taking up most the day. They ended up on top of a hill where the path was lined with scarecrows (and were chased back down by witches that had been terrifying.) The tree at the top had a golden apple hanging from it but they hadn’t been able to get close. They met Bob and Rob who refused to give them the next clue until they were given cookies.

Fortunately, they had some on hand.

The Labyrinth was a maze and they had to be very careful to look down to watch the water level. Rob and Bob had put floating barrel buoys to mark the path, but they didn’t always help.

In Cape West itself, there were several clues. One from Mayor Klaus who lamented missing his wife as she was still a witch in the Cauldron.

Lily wondered out loud if they had been chased down the hill by a coven of witches or one witch who was very clever with illusions.

“Does it matter? It was scary!” Melody shivered.

“Yeah, can we not do that again?” Stacey said.

The Flaming Trio was playing pop rock on the hill of the Lighthouse so their music could reach out over all of Cape West.

The club paused to have lunch at the café, and get some of the layered rainbow jello dessert. They ended up making suncatchers (and crystal earrings and bracelets and a couple of them cheekily made more headbands, because why not?) Linda had also provided a handy gay pride flag selection information board here too. The beads were different than the beads they had at their pavilion. These were faceted crystals rather than smooth round beads.

“All the better to catch the light!”

“Rainbow power!”

Captain Brus didn’t like his letter. He crumpled it up and tossed it into the Golden Bay muttering about it the entire time. They rolled their eyes and moved on.

The clues led them to the Cape West stable, where they were able to get their charm for their bracelet from the Stable Master.

The clues led back east across a fjord and up the hill.

“This is the path of the Light Ride,” Linn said. “It’s a trail ride that we do in the fall during Happy Horse Week.”

Tyra nodded. “It’s where Aideen first touched down on Jorvik as she raced across the island to give it life.”

“And the UFO behind our North Paddock?” Lily asked.

“Um,” Pauline said.

“No idea,” Linn shrugged.

“You can’t have it both ways,” Lily waved her hands. “So, either that is where the UFO crashed and they came out first, or Aideen, what jumped out before it hit the ground?”

They giggled.

They ended up in another cave of the smugglers and met Bob and Rob again.

“I’d ask how you got ahead of us, but we dawdled,” Lily said dryly.

They at least didn’t demand cookies again.

Brogan was jumping around the clover field. They caught up to him and before they could do much, he asked them to gather him clover. They did it, only for him to disappear again.

They went over the pass and the trees changed slightly, there were less birch trees, but they were mixed with beeches and quivering Aspen.

“This is still second growth forest for the most part,” Brittany observed.

“So, what is the Hollow Woods?”

“Third growth, with all the oaks,” Brittany said with a nod.

The clues led them up to the Old King’s Road. In the distance, they could see a castle.

“That looks rather frightening, like an insane asylum,” Grace said with a shudder.

“It’s a medieval gothic style castle,” Brittany argued.

“And it looks like an insane asylum,” Grace insisted.

They found a sign.

“Marchenghast Castle,” Lily read. “I’m going to side with Grace and say that doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“I wonder if that’s where our missing Count or Countess lives,” Jennifer mused as she gathered up the reins more in her hands.

“Yep, that’s the home of the Marchenghast family,” Linn nodded. “They’re the most powerful family in these parts outside of the Silverglades and the Winterwells.”

Stacey had her phone out. “Marchen means folk or fairy tale. It’s german. While ghast is either to meditate or frighten, afflict, or torment, from Old English.”

“Let’s just keep agreeing with Grace then,” Lily said.

“Why is the road blocked off though?”

“Probably an Avalanche and no one has been around to fix it. It can happen in the winter. They end up locking the Golden Hills off because of ice spirits that come down from the mountain.” Tyra shifted in her saddle seat. “Not that I’ve ever seen any of these ice spirits.”

They all looked at her.

“They say there’s an ice witch locked up in Dino Valley,” Tyra lowered her voice. “And if she ever breaks loose, she’ll try to bring eternal winter to Jorvik.”

“Like, Jadis, in Narnia,” Regina said.

“And never Christmas,” Brittany said.

“Anyways, the ice spirits were hers and now they don’t have a mistress, and they can’t do anything except in the winter,” Tyra shrugged.

“Or, it could simply be wolves,” Lily said. “I like the idea its wolves. Though wolves are pretty harmless unless they’re sick.”

“Like us.”

“No. We’re completely harmless. Not pretty harmless.”

“But I want to be pretty!”

The club members good naturedly bickered over what adverb or adjective they wanted to be as they went down the trail and around what looked like another mini avalanche.

The end of the treasure hunt was a huge fire, where they received a sun catcher they could hang in their windows in the inn. And by the time they finished it was late afternoon.

“Chaun’s rainbow has crashed in the Forgotten Fields,” Elsa observed.

“Somebody ought to go help him,” Theresa said.

“Yes, somebody,” Elsa retorted.

“It’s on the way to Jarlaheim,” Linn pointed out.

So with a few good natured sighs, they trotted off to the Forgotten Fields to help Chaun round up rainbow gold.

They were further later because the pass led past the Goldspur Farm and Idun Goldspur, the intimidating farm wife of Angus, mistook them for some of the Singing Swans and insisted they needed to help around the farm and pick flowers in the forest before they delivered sugar and chocolate to Catherine at the Stablebucks Café.

Brogan was jumping around Greendale Forest celebrating crashing the rainbow again. He wanted grapes and fortunately, they had grapes on them or else they would have had to run to the Storm Garden to pick some. He disappeared with a cackle and a pop.

And Catherine, who was raving over lasagna she’d had with her girlfriend one Rainbow Week, needed more strawberries and blueberries from the forest and would they be so kind.

So, the sun was setting by the time they were able to run the two special races at Jorvik Stables, get their charm from Stable Master Johanna, and make wrist bands. But that was fine because the best time to listen to a rock group like the Miscreants was after the sun set and they could hold up their cellphones. There were lights, lasers, and fog machines, and all in all it was a hell of a show.

They bought boxes of donuts to take with them for breakfast the next day. There were five different kinds at least, one was even filled with a rainbow colored Bavarian cream.

It was so late though when it was over, they ended up taking the transports back to the Manor. They hung up their sun catchers in the window giggling about placement.

But they were exhausted and more than willing to fall into bed.

FOR THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGES PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE MY WATERMARK AND CONTACT INFORMATION. THANK YOU. I get it. Some of you might get excited and want to see this stuff in the game, especially the clothes, tack, and pets. However, the only way I want to see this in the game is if I get paid for it. If I see it in the game and I’m not paid for it, there will be hell to pay. You think I’m salty. I’d be angry. Personally, I’m not going to send this info to SSO. If you do, leave my contact information there! Don’t give them any excuses to steal.

Now, I’ll know you haven’t read this note if you leave me comments about how ‘salty’ I am about the game and if I hate it so much I should do something else. I am doing something else. It’s called Mystic Riders MMORPG Project. Mystic Riders however is a very baby phase game. You can check out our plans on the game dev blog. (Skills, Factions, Professions, Crafting, Mini-Games, 25+ horse breeds!) If you know anyone who would be interested and has money or contacts about game making, direct them to the blog.