#and they were on sale for $15 so I was very skeptical

[stormfet]

I FINALLY HAVE HEADPHONES AGAIN!!

[garudabluffs]

When only affluent fans can afford concert tickets, there’s a price to be paid

March 18, 2023

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352 Comments

"Believe it or not, “Dead & Company” is actually incorporated….and the majority shareholder (more than 50% or so) is John Mayer…Jerry is definitely rolling over in his grave…"

& "That is so interesting to me. That does make sense to me. The melding together of John's fans with Deadheads is fascinating. I first saw them in 2016. I went very skeptical. I am in my 50's. Saw a lot of shows in the 80's (I was done when Brent died). I did not know much about John except that he is a very good pop song writer. I had tried all the other people that GD tried to plug in for Jerry. None of them worked for me. Then I went to Dead & Co with 3 old DeadHead friends. We went skeptical, left blown away. John is a monster on the guitar. I recommend checking out Sugaree from TD Garden 11-17-17. John blows the roof off the place after starting with a slow burn. Anyways fast forward and I am at Playing in the Sand 2020. It was a coup of DeadHeads who are now John Mayer Heads and Joh. Mayer Heads who are now Deadheads. I watched them grooving and singing along, they got it. My favorite overheard conversation on the beach from John Mayer Heads, I finally found that song from last night it is called "Quinn The Eskimo", wow it is a Dylan tune"! Beauteous!!

Manfred Mann were an English rock band, formed in London in 1962. The group were named after their keyboardist Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band. The band had two different lead vocalists during their period of success, Paul Jones from 1962 to 1966, and Mike d'Abo from 1966 to 1969. The group were regularly in the UK charts in the 1960s. Three of the band's most successful singles, "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Pretty Flamingo" and "Mighty Quinn", topped the UK Singles Chart. They were the first southern-England-based group to top the US Billboard Hot 100 during the British invasion.

"The people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewelry." J. Lennon

-->"Actually aimed directly at the members of the royal family sitting in the box seats. Early days. Lennon being Lennon."

"Jonathan Wynn, a sociologist at UMass Amherst, notes that there’s plenty of live music happening on a smaller scale that won’t clean out your savings account. After all, even Springsteen started out playing in bars."

&& "I am so grateful to Eric Danton and the Globe for publishing this article prior to Springsteen’s Monday concert at the Garden. I was afraid all the coverage regarding the show would be positive, but someone really needed to say something about the ugly truth of this show.

I would add a few things :

Regarding the Springsteen tour, too much has been made of dynamic ticket pricing, which has actually represented a small portion of ticket sales (though Bruce did sign on to dynamic ticket pricing). The real issues are the face value costs and the use of Verified Resale. Re : face value –costs of the last E Street Band tour in 2016 were $80-$170 (inflation-adjusted). This time Bruce jacked the prices up to $59-$400, with an average price of $250. That has nothing to do with dynamic ticket pricing – those are the outrageous prices Bruce has chosen for the face value tickets (he doesn’t control the Ticketmaster fees ; he does control face value prices). Second, go to Ticketmaster and zoom up on the seating availability for any upcoming Bruce show. The vast majority of available seats appear as maroon-colored dots, which are Verified Resale ; the very few (if any) blue dots are the dynamically priced tickets. Verified Resale allows “fans” to resale tickets at any price they want for just a 15% fee to Ticketmaster. So very little of those high-priced tickets are going to Bruce/the artist – they are going to scalpers and being sold on Ticketmaster’s web site.

I got my tickets for Monday’s show five minutes into the July sale, was shocked by the prices, but only learned later that day why the costs were so high. After 37 years, 35 shows, 300 bootlegs in my collection, and four Springsteen academic conferences, I am through with Bruce. I haven’t listened to him since July, have only occasionally played some of his songs on guitar, and will not attend any more shows after Monday (I won’t be dancing, just sadly observing).

By all accounts the shows on this tour have been amazing, and Bruce is still near the top of his game. But the whole Springsteen-shtick is a lie, and most sadly a bunch of worshippers will keep gobbling it up when he shakes his bum, all the while perpetuating societal structural income inequality that harms so many human beings.

Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce could do something about this, but they choose not to. There are artists who keep their ticket prices way down – Ed Sheeran ($49-$139, no dynamic ticket pricing, no Verified Resale), The Cure (Robert Smith said he wants all fans to be able to afford the show), Arctic Monkeys, as well as others who have signed on to the U.K.-based FanFair Alliance. We know about the great work that Pearl Jam has tried to do to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers. There is promise in blockchain technology (or any technology that makes your digital credit card your ticket so that it can’t be resold to scalpers). The refusal of many of the big names to take action just represents laziness and avarice.

I have to laugh at the shameless soulless sheep who bleat “supply and demand” over everything, clearly unable to recognize that the free market is supposed to live in service of democracy and dignity, not the other way around. Would they charge for their mothers’ funerals too? Tom Petty said it best : “I make millions on the road. I see no reason to bring the price up, even though I have heard many an anxious promoter say ‘we could charge much more for this.’ I would like to do this again and not leave a bad taste in people’s mouths… you’ve got to care about the person you’re dealing with.” Bruce Springsteen does not care."

[thegoosewiththemost]

Haunting - Part 16

Summary: BJ’s first day at the apprenticeship and dining out. Lawrence most definitely convinced his boss to pay him in cash by the day because he has no banking details.

Read Part 15 here

Read Part 17 here

It was probably for the best that Betelgeuse was occupied when you were at work. As much as you would have liked to spend time with him, life and work and bills got in the way. You had suggested at first that he let the opportunity slide for now, but in reality there wasn’t much else for him to do around the house unsupervised and he wasn’t qualified to drive himself wherever he wanted (or pay for anything he needed for that matter).

“It’ll be funnn! Don’t worry ‘bout it, ol BJ has got it in the bag. Maybe I’ll even get a new suit out of it!”

“Come on, let’s dance!”

Briefly you decided to hold off on your skepticism at his suitability for the job as you drove him to work. He had improved by leaps and bounds since becoming human, but sometimes he could be an absolute feral creature.

It’s by some kind of miracle that he comes out of his shift looking more put together than he did going in and with a massive grin plastered across his face to boot. A very pleased shopkeeper waves out of the window at you from behind him.

Betelgeuse, as it turns out is unsurprisingly better at front of house sales than resigning to work in silence on the actual tailoring of garments, much to the annoyed dismay of the owner who gives up on teaching him the trade and instead changes his station to salesman altogether. It’s an easy enough job for an ex-conman and somehow despite his scruffy appearances suggesting otherwise, he brings in decent money - enough to keep everyone’s mouth shut. Somehow, he even becomes a bit of a zebra striped icon for the store which does wonders for their marketing despite how horrendous it looks. No one complains.

It’s an achievement worth celebrating and so you let him pick a restaurant to dine out at. I’m barely any time at all you’re there with him, at a candlelit table that makes it feels more like a date than you’d expect.

“Did you know that fruit starts rotting once you pick it off the plant?”

“Yes? And did you know that when you die, your corpse starts to rot too?” You hit back.

“So really you’re eating dead plant babies right now. Skinning them and then cutting them up into itty bitty pieces, you’re cruel, how could you do that to the plants?” Beej wailed dramatically.

“I know right, almost as bad as you deciding to ruin my sanity and life by stalking me since day one.” popping a piece of pear into your mouth, you fix him with a deadpan stare.

“At least I have standards.” He huffed. “I may not be above punching babies but at least I don’t eat them.”

“The plants don’t know that. It checks out though, explains the gum disease.”

“I have great gums!”

“Yeah they’re working miracles for you, I’m surprised you still have teeth.”

“The rot gives off a sweet taste, trust me, I know,” he winks flirtatiously. “Maybe you’d like a little taste test?”

“Oh I’m sure they do. You know, I’m deeply honoured that you’ve given me this opportunity. I’ll even make an honourable mention of it on my resume, but I regret to inform you that I sincerely decline.”

“Your loss, baby. But in case you change your mind, you know where to find me. Francis Bacon can vouch for me: beauty itself is but a sensible image of the infinite. And since life and death are infinite and I have been both.... that automatically makes me the most beautiful person ever to exist!”

“You missed your calling as a philosopher.”

“Oh I am a philosopher. You just don’t get my vibe.”

“What would your vibe be? Blackmail and hedonism? A literal vibrator?”

“Hey, go easy on the blackmail! It was one time! One time.”

“Uh huh, so this was just one incident made up of a billion separate other incidents that drove me insane huh? You’re really selling yourself to me right now.”

“I’m here for a good time, not a long time, can you really blame me? A couple hundred years on the bench all alone would get you desperate too. Heck, maybe I’ll get to rock your world before I disappear again.” His caterpillar eyebrows wiggle suggestively as he nudges his knee against yours before he dives into his food again, but you don’t miss that wishful look in his eyes before they drop from yours.

There’s a quiet as the conversation lulls. Your cheeks burn; that last idea isn’t something that you want to dwell on.

“I didn’t know you were so interested in Francis Bacon.”

“Oh I’m interested in everything and philosophers are just sooo sexy. They know how to really party it up and they’re the most likely to summon a hot demon.” He says, preening. “All the best ones are the freaks, especially in the sheets,” he says dreamily and you wonder for a moment if he was seriously going to divulge you with information about his hookups which you’d rather not know. “Like that one time Plato…”

“I’d really rather not know!” You wanted to know, because inconveniently, the demon you’ve been saddled with has been occupying your mind for an unsavoury amount of time and lately, not all of those thoughts have been safe-for-work per-say.

“Are you sure you really don’t want to know or are you just scared of what you might like if you listen?”

There’s an unspoken tension in the air that you feel, something that you don’t want to acknowledge.

With a look that appears way too innocent, he occupies himself by sucking obscenely on his straw. You can’t help but stare as he takes his time to lap his long tongue along the side. And the curl of his lip…

He’s smirking.

The damn bastard is smirking. You hope that he’s oblivious to the thoughts running through your mind right then and there. You break out of your stare and blurt out an instant denial.

“No!” You throw the word out a little too quickly and the smug grin on his face grows into a leer.

“Ok.” He stops almost immediately, but the mischievous glint in his eye begs to say otherwise.

Wisely, you leave that particular topic alone for the rest of the dinner.

By the time the waitress comes back with the bill, you’re completely relaxed by the warm air of the restaurant and a full stomach.

Betelgeuse snatches the cheque swiftly off the tabletop before you can even reach it and quickly, counting up the amount, slips it into the book and hands it back to the server.

“Lawrence!”

“Now what kind of gentleman would I be if I let my beautiful partner pay for dinner?” It’s an unexpectedly kind gesture and you smile bashfully.

“If you insist.”

His words play in your head even as you head out into the cold air outside, walking so close to him that your hands sometimes brush.

You like the idea of being his partner and the touch of his skin against yours burns into your mind in the night when you nestle against him once again.

Tag list: @honeycovered-bandaids

[douchebagbrainwaves]

MAKER'S SCHEDULE, 631, BRIEFLY

I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention. How did they stand it? Their main expenses are setting up the company, which costs a couple thousand Altair owners, but without this software they were programming in machine language. Those ideas are so rare that you can't find some way to reach me, how are you going to create a successful company? For a startup, managing them is one of the first 10 employees you'll have almost as much.1 Families are entitled to their own traditions, and who the competitors are and why this company is going to beat them.2 In the late 90s my professor friends used to complain that they couldn't get grad students, because all the undergrads were going to let hosts rent out space on their floors during conventions. Part of the reason I can't believe it will be more like being able to play the two firms off each other as well as talent, so this answer works out to be important, because a we invest such small amounts, and b we think it's better if startups operate out of their own premises, however crappy, than the offices of their investors.

If you're a freelancer or a small company doesn't ensure freedom.3 What makes a good startup idea, it's sort of like having a guilty conscience about something.4 There's an idea that has turned out to be a startup. For a lot of work.5 Which is exactly how I'd describe the way lions seem in the wild seem about ten times more alive. You probably can't overcome anything so pervasive as the model of work is a job. Don't sit on their boards. What really bothers parents about their teenage kids having sex are complex.6 It's not so much as that they never pander: they never say or do something because that's what the audience wants. So if you're going to optimize a number, the one to choose is your growth rate to compensate. In social settings, I found that I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered. If you don't understand YC.

At the time any random autobiographical novel by a recent college grad could count on more respectful treatment from the literary establishment. The angel now owns 200/1200 shares, or a job. The kind of question on the application form that asks what you're going to clear these lies out of your head, you're going to clear these lies out of your head, you're going to do, at least, nothing good.7 I often recommend that founders act like consultants—that they wanted to.8 In a startup, you don't even know that.9 If these guys had thought they were starting companies, they might have been.10 Viaweb entirely with angel money; it never occurred to us that investors were too conservative here—that they do what they'd do if they'd been in Nebraska, like Evan Williams was at their age? The saddest windows close when other people die.

And when you propagate that constraint, the result is that each species thrives in groups of a certain group, that seems nearly impossible to shake. Someone who's figured that out will automatically focus more on the idea. The only explanation is: by definition. It's not just a figure of speech to say that the outcome is zero. The artists who benefited most from this were the ones who had preserved a child's confidence, like Klee and Calder. Once you have all the college students, you get rich is that there are many degrees of it. It could be replaced on any of these axes it has already started to be on most. When you're a little kid and you're asked to do something differently.

But not all waste is bad. Later I learned it hadn't been so neat, and the three founders each get 25%. Along with such outright lies, there must have been told a lot of economic history, and I understand the startup world is evolving away from their current model.11 If you seem really good we'll accept you anyway. Even in the rare cases where a clever hack makes your fortune, you probably have an idea.12 At least, that's how we'd describe it in present-day languages, if they'd had them. The way you get taught programming in college would be like teaching writing as grammar, without mentioning that its purpose is to make me feel better. After two years, the un-rapacious that you only extract half as much from users as you could. If you have something that no competitor does and that some subset of users urgently need, you have to seem like you understand technology.13 On that scale, every negotiation is unique.14 I was cynical about VCs, but the way he composed them into molecules was near faultless.15 But unfortunately when you graduate, as long as you want.16

Notes

Thanks to Daniel Sobral for pointing this out. Make it clear when you ad lib you end up reproducing some of the things they've tried on the LL1 mailing list. What you learn in college or what grades you got in them, initially, to sell earlier than you expect. But while this is also a name.

In fact most of them. But try this experiment is that if you conflate them you're aiming at. The worst explosions happen when unpromising-seeming startups do badly.

Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college. This approach has not worked well, but this would work better, and that modern corporate executives were, we try to accept a particular number.

Aristotle the core: the editor in Lisp, they may try to accept that investors are induced by the surface similarities. Com of their assets; and with that additional constraint, you can't help associating it with such a statement would merely be eccentric.

Most word problems in school math textbooks are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug. Without the prospect of publication, the assembly line, the closest anyone has come is Secretary of Labor Statistics, about 28%.

I think the usual way to fight. The next time you raise as you can see the apples, they made much of it, and no one who's had the discipline to pull it off. Successful founders are driven by people trying to decide whether to go to college, they would implement it and make a lot of investors caring either.

P nonspam are both genuinely formidable, and the exercise of stock options than any preceding president, he was otherwise unoccupied, to get into the heads of would-be startup founders who had been a good idea to make more money. The best thing for startups is very long: it might take an hour over the Internet, like hedge funds, are available only to buy corporate bonds to market faster; the Reagan administration's comparatively sympathetic attitude toward takeovers; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies. That it might take an hour over the Internet. Yes, I had zero effect on the relative weights?

The VCs recapitalize the company, and yet managed to screw up twice at the data, it's probably good grazing. I should add that we're not. They did turn out to be a win to include things in shows that people start to pull ahead in the field.

Galbraith was clearly puzzled that corporate executives would work so hard to mentally deal with the founders gained from running through their initial attitude. Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The Old Way. One thing that drives most people emerge from the moment it's created indeed, from hour to hour that the worm might have done all they could be overcome by changing the shape of the bizarre consequences of this: You may not be far less demand for them.

Indiana University Bloomington 1868-1970.

Trevor Blackwell points out that taking time to come up with an associate cold-emailing a startup could grow big in revenues without including the order of 10,000, because investors already owned more than their competitors, who may have realized this, but simply because he was skeptical about Viaweb too. See Greenspun's Tenth Rule. We just store the data, it's software that doesn't seem to want them; you have significant expenses other than salaries that you decide the price, and for filters it's textual.

P 500 CEOs in the sophomore year. It was only because he had more fun than he'd had in school, and philosophy the imprecise half. The philistines have now missed the video boat entirely.

As we walked out we ran into Yuri Sagalov. Emmett Shear writes: I'd argue the long tail for sports may be common in, you'll have to replace you. It took a painfully long time.

The reason Y Combinator.

This is an instance of a safe will be coordinating efforts among partners. In practice it just feels like a loser they're done, she doesn't like getting attention in the definition of property.

The thing to do sales yourself initially. 5%. At first I didn't care about GPAs.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit, Gary Sabot, Trevor Blackwell, Tiffani Ashley Bell, and Jeff Arnold for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[snowdice]

Road Trips and Missing Persons (Part 15)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Patton & Virgil, Virgil & Deceit, Logan & Patton, Emile & Remy, Roman & Remus & Janus

Characters: Patton, Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Roman, Logan, Emile, Remy

Summary: Patton was just getting groceries. The next thing he knew, there was a knife at his throat and he was an unwilling uber driver. Virgil’s on the run after the murder of his dad, and it’s not just his paranoia that’s telling him he’s being chased down. He has to get somewhere safe, somewhere he can trust, and all he has is a couple of stories from his dad and a name: “Green Bellow Foods and Dispensary.”

Notes: Secret Agents AU, knives, carjacking, kidnapping, murder mentioned, guns mentioned, pepper spray, blood mentioned, drugs mentioned, explosions, car crashes (more to be added)

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve affectionately named it the Goblin Brain Fic because it’s helping my brain actually get motivated for studying. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 My Master Post

The next two hours were the most frustrating ones of Logan’s life. It seemed like the entire universe, or perhaps more accurately his entire family, was doing its best to make his life and job as stressful as possible.

He’d stepped away from his desk for less than one minute to make sure Darlene and Fredrick’s coms were set up to his specifications. He had them outfitted with what he would usually give to undercover agents. It was a constant feed of audio from their side and Logan could talk to them with a click of a button. It was on an entirely different frequency than anyone else used and, barring damage to the actual equipment itself, it should never go offline.

When he got back to his desk and checked his phone, he had a missed call and a text message from Patton. Of course. Of course, in the 30 seconds he is away from his desk, someone finally calls him back. He opened the text message. His first thought was, ‘Patton, you are lactose intolerant. Why are you buying so much cheese?!’ His second thought was that the string of emojis was unintelligible. What about a baby and a knife?! If he’d just bought cheese, why did he need to go get a burger, fries, and ice cream, and on that count, why more dairy?

He tried to call Patton back, but as he was beginning to expect at this point, there was no answer. Frustrated, he slammed his finger down on the end call button. ‘I have no idea what that means’ he texted him back. He set his phone back down on his desk after making absolutely sure his ringer was at full volume.

“Be sure to track all traffic updates in their path,” Logan said. The other people in the base snapped to attention, their fingers going to work at their keyboards. Then, he pushed the button on his desk. “Fredrick?” he asked.

“We just got on I-26,” Fredrick replied instantly.

“Good,” Logan replied. He sat down in his chair to rub at his eyes and grabbed his phone once more. He shot off texts to different people in a pattern he was getting very used to at this point. Then, he went back to look at Patton’s message once again. “Why must you always use these infernal things?” he asked the text from his brother. He looked over his shoulder and saw Clara looking up. “Clara,” he said. She flinched at his tone.

“Yes?” she asked hesitantly.

“Are you literate in the emoji text message language?” he asked.

“Um…yes?” she said.

He stood and placed his phone in front of her. “Can you make sense of this message from Patton?” he asked.

“Er,” she said, looking at it with a perplexed expression on her face. “I’m getting… he bought a lot of cheese. Then he kidnapped… or got kidnapped by a baby? He got fast food and then did other things… then got gas and coffee. Um, he says everything’s cool and he loves you.”

“He got kidnapped by a baby?” Logan asked skeptically.

She gave him a helpless shrug. “That’s what he said. He got in his car at the grocery store, but there was a baby with a knife and the baby made him drive.”

“Well, thank you for trying,” Logan said. He took his phone back from her and wandered back over to his desk.

“Okay,” Darlene was saying over the coms. “But why do you even need chair covers for your apartment?”

“To prevent damage and stains,” Fredrick said back.

“You bought them for $20 at a yard sale. They’re already stained.”

“Even more of a reason to make a seat cover for them! It’ll make them cuter, and since I’m sewing them, I can personalize! See look, here’s the pattern I’m using.”

“Fred, I’m driving.”

They continued to chat idly about Fredrick’s latest sewing project. Logan was just content to have an open line of communication with his agents.

They eventually moved on from arguing the merit of chair covers and went on to discussing the pattern and color options. Well, Fredrick at least was discussing it. Darlene had descended into noncommittal hums, ‘yep’s and ‘I can’t look at that because I’m driving’s.

“Do you like this flower design or this flower design better?” Fredrick was asking.

“The first one,” was the answer.

“You didn’t even look!”

“Boss, there’s been an accident on I-26,” Emerson informed him from his desk.

“Where?” Logan asked.

“Around exit 52. The actual accident was only on the east side, but it was a truckload of cows, so it’ll likely affect Fred and Lena’s path.”

“Alright,” Logan said. “Find me the quickest alternative route.” Emerson nodded and turned back to his computer. Logan pushed the talk button. “There is an accident ahead of you,” he informed Fredrick and Darlene. “We will be giving you an alternate route. Stand by.”

“Yes, boss,” Darlene replied.

“Have them take exit 65 and get on Highway 236,” Emerson instructed.

Logan nodded and pressed down the button again. “You’ll want to get off on exit 65,” he told them. “You’ll take 236 until you’re past the accident.”

“Got it,” Darlene replied.

“We just passed mile marker 61 a few seconds ago, so we’ll be there soon,” Fredrick offered.

Darlene and Fredrick exited the interstate without any problems. It was a few minutes later that, with the obnoxious sound of a saxophone, the song titled ‘We Are the Number One Bad Guys’ (which was reportedly a mash-up of a song from a children’s show and a pop song) started blaring from his phone. Usually he’d be annoyed by hearing that sound as Patton and Remus had set it behind his back and he couldn’t figure out how to change it. Today, however, the sound was a relief. He grabbed his phone to look at the text message from Remus.

‘I’m not his keeper’ is what the text said in response to Logan’s many messages asking him if he knew where his brother was.

Logan stared at his phone for a least a whole minute.

“What’s wrong boss?” Clara finally hesitantly asked.

“I,” Logan said calmly. “Love. My. Children.”

“…Uh huh?”

Logan typed back a message he was certain at this point would not get a response, and then he hit the talk button on his desk. “So, Fredrick,” he said. “Tell me more about these chair covers. You mentioned flowers?”

“Uh…” Fredrick’s voice said. “Yes?”

Logan glanced up at the other agents in the room who were all staring intently at the designs in their desks. “Have you considered paisley?”

Logan focused on listening to Fredrick and Darlene’s conversation while the rest of the office focused on not looking at him unless it was to update him on the traffic for Fredrick and Darlene for the next 15 minutes.

“Whoa!” Darlene suddenly said, and Logan could hear the sound of braking through the sensitive listening devices

“What?” Logan pushed the button to ask.

“There were a couple of cars in our lane…” Fredric said.

“Was that a gun shot?” Logan asked when there was a loud pop on the other end.

“Uh… give us a minute boss,” Darlene requested.

He could hear the engines turn after a moment, likely as they accelerated again.

“What’s going on?” Logan asked.

“We’re, in a car chase now, apparently,” Fredrick replied, voice strained.

“Why?” Logan asked.

“I recognized the first car!” Darlene said.

“What do you mean you recognize the car?” Logan asked.

“I… shit!” Darlene said. Logan could hear the sound of tires squealing. A few seconds later there was a huge crash followed by a couple of incredibly loud splashes.

“What’s going on?” Logan asked.

There was cursing on the other end of the line in response and the sound of two doors slamming shut and then running.

“Darlene! Fredrick! What is going on?!”

There were a few more seconds where he could hear the sound of breathing and then the sound cut out halfway through the sound of a splash.

“Fredrick?” Logan said. “Darlene?” He took his finger off the button. “Please tell me we didn’t just lose the signal,” he said to the room at large.

There was silence.

“Please, someone tell me we didn’t just lose the signal to the high-tech spy gear I put on both of my agents.”

After a pause, Emerson finally spoke. “It’s… it’s not waterproof sir.”

“I see,” Logan said, his tone serene. “It isn’t waterproof.” He looked down at his hands settled on the top of his desk next to his useless talk button and the phone that no one seemed to be willing to call or text with anything useful. He turned his hands over, grabbed the bottom of the desk, and flipped the whole thing over. His computer smashed on the ground and the normally well-organized pens and papers scattered across the floor. “Well, why the hell isn’t it waterproof?!”

No one dared to answer his question, and Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, surveying his broken computer and overturned desk for a few minutes.

Eventually, he straightened. “I need to borrow someone’s desk,” he said. Three people scrambled to their feet, but he held up a hand. “I’ll use Darlene’s,” They all scrambled back to their desks, “and send someone after those two!” He strode over to Darlene’s desk and sat at her computer. He pulled up every local news outlet he could find. They needed to find a new starting place, because he honestly didn’t know where to go from here.

He spent an hour trying to piece together what exactly was happening out there with news articles, police scanners, and other information channels. There was an explosion an hour and a half earlier in the city where this all started, and he worried that had something to do with the lack of communication as it was on the road from Nelsen’s base to the city. However, that still left almost 2 hours before that of silence from Roman and Janus unaccounted for. There were also two separate break-ins to the security office of the grocery store down the street from Remington Gates home which Logan imagined somehow was connected, but he couldn’t figure out how. And what did the cows have to do with it? Anything? Everything? What was going on? There was no news about whatever had happened with Fredrick and Darlene and the other team of agents he sent after them were still 20 minutes out from their last known location.

“Uh, boss?” a tentative voice said. Logan looked up at Clara who was standing at the edge of the desk. She flinched at the expression on his face when he looked up.

“Unless a member of my family or Virgil Gates has arrived at this base, I don’t want to hear about it,” he snapped.

“Well…” she replied, “actually…”

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 16

[fatehbaz]

where can i read more about the devegetation of north africa? (reliable sources that you prefer)

Hey hi.

So just wanna be very clear that this is not really my “area of expertise.” (More focused on North American environmental history; most reading on North Africa limited to megafauna distribution range.) More like a fun side-interest that I revisit from time to time. And these resources are mostly just about the Sahel, specifically. Including the environmental history of the Holocene (past 10,000 years in the Sahel), and also the dynamic and drastic ecological change that took place between 1895-1960, during colonial and post-independence land management schemes. But some of the resources here also deal with the geography of the Sahara. (There is also an interesting history of the Sahara during the Holocene, when the desert was full of lakes and river courses. Up until the 1970s, there were still isolated populations of hippo and crocodile in remote Sahara lakes and oases.)

I’ll recommend some of the older “classics.” As usual, I’d try to recommend writing from local people who are explicitly willing to share their ecological knowledge. But a lot of my recommendations are unfortunately from academics. And I’m sorry for that.

Assuming you’re referencing this:

When searching online for environmental histories or local environmental knowledge case studies of the Sahel, I see a lot of stuff sponsored by NGOs, the UN, and US academia, which will emphasize “rediscovery” or “utility” of “using” traditional knowledge for “combating climate change,” and many mentions of the “green wall” proposals. I’ll also see “white savior complex” kind of stuff, which talks about “crises” and “civil wars” as if they’re “endemic” to the Sahel. But (just my opinion), I don’t like those resources. They engage in cultural appropriation (”acquiring” local Indigenous knowledge), superficial posturing (Euro-American academics using cute language about “local knowledge” without holistically contextualizing the devegetation), weird culturally-insensitive elitist chauvinism (continuously talking about “religious conflicts” and “civil wars” in North Africa and the “urgency” to use “agriculture” to establish stable economics and therefore “law and order”), and reductionism (talking about importance of halting southward desertification and expansion of the Sahara, without acknowledging role of World Bank, IMF, etc. in continuing to use lending/debt to hold West Africa hostage.) Part of my skepticism of these sources is because I’ve met and/or worked with agricultural specialists from institutions in the Sahel and environmental historians who had worked for many years in the region. (They’ve shared some really cool anecdotal stories about the sophistication of dryland gardening in the Sahel, and how local horticulturalists would laugh at the Euro-American corporate agricultural agents and USDA staff sent in with their special “space-age chemically-coated super-moisture-retaining” seed supplies after independence.)

Fair warning: Most of my recommendations are a little old, from the 1970s and 1980s. Two of the main drawbacks of these “outdated” sources: since their publication, scholars have since greatly expanded lit/research about both imperialism and traditional ecological knowledge. (West Africa had only been “independent” for a short period of time, and the hidden machinations of neocolonial institutions weren’t as clearly visible as they are to us, today, I’d imagine. And some academics, writing about the Sahel in the 1980s, weren’t as willingly to openly call-out major institutions.) But I think they provide a brief background for Sahel’s ecology and agroforestry/horticulture.

So both of these are available free, online, through the New Zealand Digital Library. (Don’t wanna link them here, but you can find them online pretty easily.)

Firstly, from 1983/1984, there is this summary of desertification, traditional environmental knowledge, traditional land use systems, and agroforestry in the Sahel: National Research Council. 1983. Agroforestry in the West African Sahel. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Something that was always exciting for me ...

Despite how dry and hot the Sahel is, fruit trees and gardens are actually very fertile and productive, for many reasons, mostly related to sophistication of local ecological knowledge of nutrient-replenishing relationships between different plants. An excerpt:

“Today, a number of agro-silvicultural systems appear to be practiced in the Sahel. Gardens are found within settlements where water is available, usually with a tree component that provides shade and shelter and, often, edible fruits or leaves. The same holds true for intensively managed, irrigated, and fertilized gardens near urban centers. Both subsistence home gardens and cash-generating market gardens are highly productive. Fruit and pod-bearing trees, shade trees, and hedges or living fences are the "forestry" components, sometimes supplemented by decorative woody plants. Mangoes, citrus trees, guavas, Zizyphus mauritiana (Indian jujube), cashews, palms, Ficus spp., and wild custard-apples are prominent kinds of fruit trees. Shade is often provided by Azadirachta indica or similar species, while fencing is provided by thorny species of Acacia and Prosopis, and by Commiphora africana, Euphorbia balsamifera, flowery shrubs such as Caesalpinia pulcherrima (paradise-flower), and other species.

Close to the settlements is a ring of suburban gardens, often irrigated, in which cassava, yams, maize, millet, sorghum, rice, groundnuts, and various vegetables are grown, for subsistence as well as sale, depending on the ecozone.”

---

Then this sounds more like what you might be looking for? Basically, a history of environmental knowledge and the ecological trends of the past 10,000 years in the Sahel.

National Research Council. 1983. Environmental Change in the West African Sahel. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Though this report from 1983 is now kinda outdated, and has some iffy elitist and vaguely-chauvinist language at times, but it is still accessible, generally easy to read, concise, and  it goes out of its way to say that 1970s drought and current environmental crises in the Sahel cannot be understood without addressing the early Holocene ecology of the Sahara/Sahel.

So the report emphasizes the importance of context, by addressing the drying of river courses and lakes in the Sahara of the Late Pleistocene, the early domestication of crops, the emergence of cattle and goat over-grazing, the importance of gum arabic and acacia trees in maintaining moisture in gardens, early trans-Sahara caravan travel, medievel geographical knowledge of the Sahara, etc.

“Because climatic change and variability are regular features of the Sahel, the native plant and animal communities of the region are generally well adapted to the range of climatic variation existing in the region. [...] Many efforts in "development" or modernization have also contributed to their plight. [...] In order to provide a better understanding of the role of human activity in modifying Sahelian ecosystems, this chapter briefly explores nine agents of anthropogenic change: bush fires, transSaharan trade, site preferences for settlements, gum arabic trade, agricultural expansion, proliferation of cattle, introduction of advanced firearms, development of modern transportation networks, and urbanization. These agents illustrate the breadth and diversity of the human impact on the region.”

----

Then there is this: Jeffrey A. Gritzner. The West African Sahel - Human Agency and Environmental Change. 1989.

And I also recommend the work of Jeffrey A. Gritzner. He’s American, but respectful and knows what he’s talking about. Gritzner works with dryland ecology; human ecology, especially relationships with plants/vegetation; environmental change during the Holocene (past 10 to 12,000 years); and traditional environmental knowledge. And he’s especially knowledgeable about the Sahel, North Africa, and Persia/the Middle East, where he worked with region-specific horticulture in the 1970s in Chad, Senegal, etc. during the peak of the drought, and had personal observations of post-independence neocolonial mismanagement and continued corporate monoculture from World Bank, IMF, etc. His writing contrasts local/traditional gardening/plant knowledge with imported corporate/neocolonial agriculture.

---

Beginning in about the 1990s, it seems to me that Euro-American geography/anthropology departments were much more willing to use words like “empire” and “neocolonialism” and more willing to call-out corporate bodies and institutions, so there are many better articles from after that period.

Keita, J. D. 1981. Plantations in the Sahel. Unasylva 33(134):25-29.

Winterbottom, R. T. 1980. Reforestration in the Sahel: Problems and strategies--An analysis of the problem of deforestation, and a review of the results of forestry projects in Upper Volta. Paper presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, October 15-18, 1980, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Glantz, M. H., ed. 1976. The Politics of Natural Disasters: The Case of the Sahel Drought. Praeger, New York, New York, USA.

National Academy of Sciences. 1979. An Assessment of Agro-Forestry Potential Within the Environmental Framework of Mauritania. Staff Summary Report, Board on Science and Technology for International Development, Washington, D.C., USA.

Huzayyin, S. 1956. Changes in climate, vegetation, and human adjustment in the Saharo-Arabian belt with special reference to Africa. Pp. 304-323 in Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, William L. Thomas, Jr., ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Vermeer, D. E. 1981. Collision of climate, cattle, and culture in Mauritania during the 1970s. Geographical Review 71(3):281-297.

Smith, A. B. 1980. Domesticated cattle in the Sahara and their introduction into West Africa. Pp. 489-501 in The Sahara and the Nile, M. A. J. Williams and H. Faure, eds. A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Again, these resources are mostly just about the Sahel.

Then, since the early 1990s, for better or more specific case studies of local-scale environmental knowledge, I think it might be easier or more fruitful to search based on subregion or specific plants. My perception is that, though much of the woodland and savanna ecology might be similar across the region, the Sahel is still spatially/geographically vast, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. And so, there are so many different diverse communities of people, with long histories situated in place, and there are diverse local variations in approach to horticulture. So, if you’re more interested in traditional ecological knowledge and local food cultivation, it might be easier to pick a specific subregion of the Sahel, or to pick a favorite staple food, and then to search those keywords via a university library website, g00gle scholar, etc.

(About the distribution range and local extinction, in the Sahel, Sahara, and Mediterranean coast, of lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, rhino, desert hippos, the “sacred crocodile,” etc. More my cup of tea. I’ve got some maps and articles, I’ll try to put them into a list of resources, too.)

[sage-nebula]

For whatever reason, I started thinking about what I would want to see from a Yu-Gi-Oh! sequel on my drive home from work today. (Note: I’m specifically talking about a sequel to the original manga; the various anime adaptations, sequels, movies, et cetera will have no bearing on this whatsoever. No hate to anyone who likes them, they’re just not my jam. I’m just invested in the manga and the manga only.) Obviously I’d want a female protagonist, particularly since I think it’s pretty ridiculous that we still haven’t received one in the various anime sequels in all these years, but that train of thought led me to think about what that protagonist’s name would be, and from there what her character would be like and what her story would be, and well, these are the thoughts I have so far, though be warned they’re not the most fleshed out in the world.

— As a sequel series, I’d like this series to take place at a specific point of time in the future from when the original story ends—say, ten years. So by this point, the original cast of teenagers are all in their mid-twenties, Mai is in her thirties, so on and so forth. Should they make any on-page appearances, their designs would be updated accordingly, i.e., no one is going to be stuck in a time loop of looking exactly as they did in the previous story.

—— On that note, everyone who died in the original manga is still dead for this story. RIP, Pegasus J. Crawford. —— Also, since the original series ended ~1997 in-universe, I’d imagine that this series would take place in 2007 as a result.

— So, our protagonist. I imagine she should be a teenager, just like our previous protagonist, and we can make her the same age as he was, 15. Her name would be Kusakabe Yuuna, with the kanji for her given name containing the kanji for “play” as Yuugi’s did, as well as the kanji for “bird cage” for some spoiler related symbolism. (I looked this up in a kanji dictionary, it checks out even if I’m too lazy to copy-paste the kanji here, just trust me.)

—— Since Yuuna is 15, that means she would have been 5 when the original series started, aww. ——  Also, yes, I’m aware that the . . . Zexal? . . . protagonist’s name was Yuuma, which is close, but it’s still not the same name, so let me live. (Unless the kanji match, but I don’t think they should, but also I’m too lazy to check, so this is where we’re at now.)

— Along with having a name that contains “Yuu” in some form or another, YGO protagonists must also have ostentatious hair. For Yuuna, I’ve decided that her hair is something that actually plays into her backstory and therefore shapes her personality. When she was a child, Yuuna was in an accident with her parents (car accident or train accident, something along those lines). Her parents died (since having present parents is also a no-no for most shounen protagonists, not just YGO ones), but Yuuna was left heavily scarred. She has burn scarring all down the right side of her face, as well as along that side of her scalp which prevents her hair from growing in on that side, at least to any real degree. (Like she might have some stubble there but that’s it.) The stress her body underwent as a result of the accident also drained pretty much all pigment from her hair, so while her roots might still be black (or like a really dark grey), her hair looks white when grown out. So it looks like she’s rocking a half-shave with the hair on her left-side going down to her chin, but it’s not intentional. That’s just how her hair has been ever since the accident.

— When her parents died she was taken in by her aunt and uncle. Her aunt home-schooled her through the rest of elementary and all through middle school, because she felt that the scarring was unsightly and would lead to Yuuna being bullied by her classmates and perhaps even her teachers (which isn’t necessarily wrong; bullying is a real problem). Because her aunt impressed upon her that no one would want to see her scarring / would treat her badly if they did (and because Yuuna herself did receive a lot of staring and whispers whenever she went out without some sort of hood to pull up over her head), Yuuna never ventured out to try to make friends. Instead, she stayed inside almost all the time, entertaining herself with a myriad of games (though she had no one to play with), cartoons, comics, and the radio. (Here’s where a past-series cameo can come in: Yuuna loves games, so she likes to listen to Jounouchi’s radio show since he talks about games a lot, and given that his style of broadcasting is so relaxed and friendly she often likes to pretend he’s talking directly to her, even when she knows he’s not.)

— The problem is, Yuuna’s aunt and uncle had an unhappy marriage. There was never any outright abuse, but due to having to take on the burden of running the household, working part-time, and homeschooling Yuuna due to her husband’s apathy, Yuuna’s aunt was unhappy in the home and was essentially counting down the days until she could leave. You see, school is only compulsory in Japan through middle school. High school is optional. So once Yuuna graduated from middle (home) schooling, Yuuna’s aunt packed her bags and left, leaving Yuuna behind with her uncle. And again, there was never any outright abuse . . . but when he wasn’t at his own job, Yuuna’s uncle usually drank himself to sleep in front of the TV. He never abused Yuuna, but that’s because he was never really aware of her presence enough to abuse her. (Never mind that neglect can be its own form of abuse.) So Yuuna was left without a home school teacher, and thus had to enroll herself in a high school if she wanted to continue her education. Which, she did, but . . .

— Yuuna attended high school for a grand total of one (1) day. The staring, the whispers, the stage-whispered name calling — all of it was too much for someone who wasn’t used to it and whose years of insecurities built up by everything her aunt told her could and would happen whenever anyone saw her magnified everything and made it ten times worse. She ducked out before the day was even through and decided she was never going back.

— Of course, games have to be brought back into this at some point, and also there needs to be a plot, so . . . on her way home from school (hood up over her head, probably crying a little) Yuuna sees a little pouch in front of her on the sidewalk. She picks it up and looks inside to find dice — specifically the kind of dice that you use in tabletop games. Yuuna enjoys tabletop games just as much as she enjoys all other types of games, so she shakes the dice out into her palm to examine them . . . and they start glowing as soon as they touch her skin.

— If no one approached her then, Yuuna would figure they were cool trick dice and just take them home with her, no biggie. But at that moment another teenage girl around her age runs up to her, and while Yuuna’s first instinct is to clam up and back away, she doesn’t get much of a chance to do so before the girl is telling her those dice are hers and—oh. They’re glowing? They don’t normally do that . . .

— Long story short, the dice are magic, but they only light up like that when held by someone who has the capability to use the magic within them. So far, no one has been able to get that particular set to light up until now. Yuuna, of course, is skeptical, but the other girl — who tells Yuuna that her name is Kujou — urges Yuuna to follow her to people who can explain everything. Yuuna doesn’t really want to, she’s very much not used to interacting with people, but Kujou isn’t reacting negatively to what she can see under Yuuna’s hood, and Yuuna doesn’t have much else to do, and magic dice sound cool . . . so she agrees.

— Even longer story short, there’s an underground organization dedicated to making change via gaming. They’re made of people from all over the city (perhaps even all over Japan, perhaps even farther than that) who believe in the cause, or have a goal they feel that the organization can / will help them reach, or perhaps have no one else who will accept or have them and so they’ve found a sense of belonging with each other. This organization can and does use magic; Kujou hurriedly tells Yuuna that it’s not cheating or anything like that, but rather, there’s true magic in gaming and that when there’s a special connection between a player and the tools they use, they can draw it out to make a difference. It’s like, Kujou goes on, how certain Duel Monsters specialize in certain cards, like how Mutou Yuugi used magicians and Kaiba Seto relied on the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. 

—— “But this is . . . real magic. It glows.” —— “Well, yeah, but have you ever seen the recordings of the Duel Monsters matches from like, Battle City? That was real magic, too.”

— Kujou brings Yuuna to at least one of the leaders within the organization, who sees that she can activate the magic in the dice and, as a result, does a very good sales pitch to lure her into the organization; tells her about the people they help with the winnings they make from tournaments, how they’re all like one big family, how they’ll care for her and help her reach her goals, etc. And since it’s not like her uncle will even notice if she’s gone anyway, and since both Kujou and this leader person are being so kind to her (and Kujou even says her hair looks cool), and since she would like to, maybe, at some point have enough money to get surgery to change her face . . . Yuuna agrees and moves into the base this organization operates out of.

— Of course, unbeknownst to Yuuna, she has just joined the villains, dun dun dunnnnn. This “organization” is actually more of a crime syndicate or cult; think like the Ghouls from the original manga, with perhaps a dash of yakuza thrown in. (Could there mayhaps be a Hirutani cameo at some point? Knowing me, if I can get away with it, abso-fucking-lutely.) For about the first third of the series Yuuna is put into tournaments where she essentially crushes characters who would otherwise be the heroes or protagonists of a more straightforward shounen series. You know how people have commented that in recent Pokémon games it feels like you’re the asshole rival? That’s essentially Yuuna. She’s sent in to sabotage tabletop tournaments (despite how bad she feels doing so because she’s a big fan of Spirits & Sanctuaries, a TRPG created by one Bakura Ryou), collect the winnings from Duel Monsters tournaments, etc. (Dice games are her specialty, given her magic dice, but she can draw magic out of other game pieces as well.) Though she feels bad about doing things like this, she has a real sense of belonging in the organization, a nice room, people who are kind to her and want to be around her. While at the beginning of the series she was very withdrawn, she starts coming out of her shell more and being genuinely happy. We’d get to see this unfold over the chapters, the juxtaposition between her performances in game tournaments and the like and how she is with the other members of the organization.

— So Yuuna pushes away any doubts she has over what she’s doing in favor of how happy she is with her new family, and even resolves to stop listening to Jounouchi’s radio show when he warns people about their organization and their “crimes” on a broadcast, because they’re not criminals, that’s not true, and she knows about his history and how he came from poverty himself, so who is he to judge? But then at some point Kujou, whom she’s grown very close to during this time (spoiler: Kujou is both her best friend and love interest) comes to her and is like, hey, I’ve been suspicious for a while, so I’ve done some digging and I think this whole thing is evil. :/ 

—— “That’s ridiculous. How could you say that?” —— “I’ve got the receipts, on tape, right here on my phone. See?” —— “That’s a flip phone. How am I supposed to see anything on that?” —— “This story is set in 2007. Work with me and let me live.”

— Yuuna still doesn’t want to believe it, so she goes to talk to the leader person about it herself, and whoops, overhears him being evil with other higher-up members in the organization. So she goes back to find Kujou and is like, you were right, they are evil, and Kujou is like, I know, I already packed our bags, let’s bounce.

— So Yuuna and Kujou run away together (perhaps bringing a few other trustworthy teens from the organization with them), and then the remaining two-thirds of the story are spent with them fighting against the organization to bring them down, using their own magic (because Yuuna does still have magic and now she knows how to use it . . . kind of . . . mostly . . . she’s trying) to do so.

And that’s all I’ve got for now, but I think it’d be a cool successor to the original manga, with cameos here and there from the adult versions of the original cast. I’m especially quite married to the idea of featuring many games over the course of the story, since YGO was a manga about many games originally, before it became obsessed with Duel Monsters (though a TRPG did play a big role in the last arc and we will forever stan that).

(Oh, and in case you’re wondering: the symbolism in Yuuna’s name is because the two kanji together bring to mind a playful bird in a cage. It’s symbolism because at the start of the series Yuuna is in a metaphorical cage due to all her insecurities and issues and the circumstances of her life, and then even in the organization she’s still caged by them because they’re using her, but her personal journey is breaking free of both cages to release the spirited (playful) person that she is within, becoming more confident and, yes, never getting cosmetic surgery because her personal growth gets her to a place where she owns it and loves herself, scarring and all.

And if you’re wondering why there’s at least a handful of teenagers in this organization, if not more: It’s because they prey on young kids who come from bad homes or have nowhere else to go by offering them a sense of community and belonging, which is something gangs do in real life, and is yet another way the organization is shown to be evil aside from the Board Game Crimes they commit on the daily.

Anyway, stan a YGO manga sequel with wlw protagonists, good night.)

[artfun5-blog]

Review of Martial Arts Games For Kids

With both a martial arts background and a degree in Physical Education, I admit to being skeptical when I read Martial Arts Games for Kids by Aaron Perry. I found some excellent games for education and maintaining student interest, loyalty and promotion of your martial arts school. I also found some points in the book I believe could be improved. Read on....

The Writing Itself

I have to admit, I've been in sales related fields over 30 years. Aaron Perry knows how to write good sales copy. Not only that, he has the martial arts knowledge and the ability to transfer his knowledge and experience to his fellow martial arts instructors. I believe this skill was taken into consideration as he developed these martial arts games to help ensure learning, loyalty and even advertising via word of mouth and game days amongst his students and his students guests.

I Kept a Suspicious Attitude As I Read Martial Arts Games for Kids

With a background in physical education, I'm very picky about games being associated with the activity. When my son was six, I took him to observe several martial arts schools and observed the children's classes. Every single one of the martial arts classes for children did the same thing.

* Warm-ups unrelated to martial arts or self-defense training. By the way one of my methods of teaching physical education classes stated children have such a high metabolism they do not technically need to "warm-up" before engaging in a physical activity.

* Relay races of various types unrelated to martial arts or self-defense training. In these relay races students spent most of their time standing behind another student looking at the back of his or her head than they did engaging in or watching the activity. So much for any benefit of observation.

* The last fifteen minutes or so were spent executing actual martial arts drills. Unfortunately, per my sales experience, it's the last 15 minutes the parents remembered, thus remained satisfied with their child's progress. I cannot state for certain the parents remained satisfied as I never inquired about the martial arts schools turn around or retention rate.

As both a professional educator and parent, I was appalled at what I considered to be a waste of time for the students as well as a waste of financial and time investment for the parents.

I Admit to Becoming Impressed As I Read The Book

I realized Mr. Perry took associating a game with the activity he was trying to promote, martial arts, seriously in his book.

The book includes games to increase:

- Physical Condition

- Coordination

- Strength

- Balance

- Accuracy

- Techniques

- Stances

The sections were divided similar to public school lessons plans. Each game explains

* Number of players

* Equipment

* Procedure

* Modification suggestions

* Benefits of the game

He even includes a frequently asked questions section along with advice on how to slowly incorporate games into your schools curriculum. There'sl marketing suggestions such as game day. Students bring a friend for this naturally and Mr. Perry offers a way to control the number of people who show up for this promotional event.

When I Finished Reading The Book

I admit I was impressed. However, all lesson plans and activities could be improved upon. For example, Mr. Perry made no mention of having smaller groups to increase actual activity. I would have also liked to have seen mention forming any lines need for the activity in such a way as students could observe their fellow students participating.

Note to Those Who Believe Martial Arts and Games Should Not Be Combined

Our goal as educators, is to transfer knowledge to our students. Games is an effective tool in achieving this goal. Games are used in all types of classroom and physical topics to enable and reinforce learning.

Whether or not your students take their training seriously does not depend on whether or not you play a game which your students may enjoy. Games are only and should only be a part of your schools curriculum Free.

Whether or not your students take their training seriously and do not abuse the knowledge which you transfer to them, depends on you and your attitude, not whether or not you allow them to enjoy their lessons in a variety of ways, thus wanting to continue to learn even more.

[falloutforties]

Five Years (Deacon x Sole)

CHAPTER ONE: TOTAL ATOMIC ANNIHILATION!

Description: The second she crawled out of that vault, dead cockroach meat in her pocket and tongue still not completely thawed, she knew she didn’t have to lie anymore. No more candy-striped wallpaper coating the halls, no more perfect wife and mother. She was no one. She was everyone. She didn’t sugarcoat her feelings, she didn’t hold her tongue. And it wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate that honesty, it’s that he had to mix in his honesty with a little sweet prevarication, like rum and coke-- but she was straight vodka, and he was starting to feel a little dizzy. Set in a world in which David Bowie did exist at one time, because the author can’t imagine a world in which he didn’t.

Warnings: Swearing and some fighting as well, but aside from that, no real warnings. I’m shit at writing angst, so there’s none of that. Slow burn, all chapters already written, hopefully one chapter a week unless grad school totally swamps me. Also, there are several elements of this story that are little fix-its for me, because todd really made me try to care about a son and husband smh. I was running around the wasteland like “why does everybody keep talking about my son? The only son I know is named Dogmeat, and he is a Good Boy.” ALSO because todd won’t let me romance Deacon. 

Note from the Author: Hi folks! I wrote this to help me get through my writing block and because I needed a lil comfort in these trying times, so I figured I would make this blog to share it. I’m in the process of also putting it on ao3, but this is the first fanfic I’ve ever written so I’m not sure how this all works. I hope y’all enjoy!!!! This story gets started a little slow because I wanted to give an introduction for how I interpret the sole survivor’s personality and such. Pls let me know if you like this, and if you want to read more!! Love you!! <3

When she woke up in the morning, she knew the exact percentage of how likely she was to die that day, down to the decimal. It was not like a superpower, per se, just a sixth sense. An awareness, she might call it. She was incredibly aware of herself.

She couldn’t sense this clearly in other people, though she did have a sense of it. A vague direction as to how closely they’ll come to seeing their entire life flash before their eyes. She had seen it once or twice in Nate’s eyes over the breakfast table— a tint of green in his brown eyes that wasn’t there the day before, almost like a warning.

Something’s going to happen. It might not be bad, or it might be terrible. But it’s something.

She watched him turn his nose up at the box of Sugar Bombs sat on the countertop, favoring instead a cup of coffee and half a tato. She waited patiently for him to start his bi-weekly diatribe against the Sugar Bombs Corporation and their devious aims against the children of the Commonwealth.

“Did you know there’s a Sugar Bombs factory in Beijing?” He’d mentioned, several months ago for the first time. She was honestly just excited to hear that he’d managed to establish a new argument, though she wasn’t convinced that the Sugar Bombs factory in Beijing was a direct link to Childhood Communism as much as it was just outright standard capitalism.

When he finally settled at the table with his half-tato in one hand, coffee in the other, and Boston Bugle folded neatly under his arm, she watched his eyes. He was looking a little green, and she wondered errantly if perhaps he’d be scraped by a car while crossing the street. She herself, however, was at a solid 15%, which was a little higher than her standard measurements, but nothing out of the ordinary or concerning. Perhaps she would break a finger, sprain her ankle, crack a tooth on a Nuka-Cola bottle.

She appreciated the extra air of danger.

Life in Sanctuary was beautifully but painfully dull, less dull now that there was a child in the house, but dull nonetheless. Now, the stale quiet that usually settled over the house in the afternoon was permeated by the frequent cries and laughs of the child and the exclamations of their brand new housekeeper, who thought the child was a marvel of modern science.

He was, at the very moment his parents were eating breakfast, sleeping in his crib in the back room, the powder blue of his walls shielding him like a personal sky as he went completely unaware of everyone around him. He had the enviable manner of a child, crying whenever he felt a slight discomfort, laughing at the simplest of things.

She wished sometimes she could burst into tears just because she was hungry, or weep at the thought of being sleepy. It had been so long since someone had properly addressed her humanity that she thought if someone held her against their chest, she’d fall asleep, just like the child did at night when she rocked him.

“Mum,” Codsworth chirped as he hovered into the kitchen with a wet rag in one hand and a rattle in the other.

“Morning, Codsworth,” she replied with a mouth full of cereal. She, unlike Nate, was not too good for Sugar Bombs, and if they were implanting Communist Tracking Chips into her brain, well, that was a risk she was going to have to take. As long as she was the one who had to do the grocery shopping, she was not going to deny herself the simple pleasure of marshmallow cereal.

“Young Shaun should be asleep for approximately the next two hours.”

“Thank you, Codsworth.”

Nora loved Codsworth. There were days when she thought of him more as a husband than Nate. Codsworth, in his thrumming metallic voice, asked her everyday how she was feeling. Nate sometimes quirked his brow at her, and she nodded in response, but their marital conversation was frustratingly dry.

Like Sugar Bombs without milk.

Chip Harris was grandstanding on the news, and his thick croon filled the background of the house with a pleasant sort of domestic white noise along with the gentle clink of her silverware and the crinkling of Nate’s paper. She tuned her ears for a moment to Chip’s voice as he read from a teleprompter about some new information about China’s secret nuclear plants.

Everyone has nukes nowadays, she thought bitterly. Her Sugar Bombs were now soggy. Why are we allowed to hide them, but China has to send us a report or else we accuse them of some kind of crime?

She absentmindedly wondered if having a crush on the newscaster might turn her into more of a nuclear housewife. She knew Natalie Hawthorne had a crush on Chip Harris. She watched him every morning, even had a signed picture of him that she kept in her nightstand. Mr. Hawthorne was fine with it, of course, because no one in Sanctuary Hills could even prove that Chip Harris was real. No one could prove that he wasn’t just an incredibly advanced Protectron— a Mr. Handy in a pinstripe suit. Mr. Hawthorne didn’t have to worry about Chip Harris stealing his wife.

A knock on the door broke Nora’s concentration.

“Must be that sales guy,” Nate intoned, obviously bored senseless by the notion of a salesman at the door. “He’s been asking for you all morning.”

“All morning? I didn’t even hear him knock before now.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you sleep until 9 AM.”

Thank you, Nora, for staying up until the Devil’s Ass-Crack of dawn comforting a weeping child. Thank you for feeding him while I put earplugs in and turned over to the cold side of the pillow so I could go back to sleep. I answered the door for you, and the salesman gave me a free ticket to Fuck-Off-Ville, and I’m taking the child with me. You and Codsworth have fun now!

A woman could dream.

The salesman at the door was a weasel-looking fellow with an awfully mustardy-colored coat and matching hat. His smile seemed like it might be genuine, but based on the wrinkles that beamed from the corners of his eyes, it seemed he was well-versed in faking a good smile.

“Good afternoon, Ma’am! I am glad you took the time to answer the door today, because what I am about to tell you is a matter of utmost importance,” he promised, his smile somehow extended as he emphasized utmost importance.

“Utmost importance, huh? Glad I answered the door, then.”

“As you should be. Because of your family’s service in the military, you are eligible for entrance into the local vault— Vault 111!”

She eyed him warily before glancing up towards the hill at the end of the cul-de-sac. She had remembered the day Vault-Tec had started construction into the hillside, promising the neighborhood that “We won’t work until 9 AM, we’ll be gone in a flash, and you and your family will soon be protected in the unlikely event of total atomic annihilation!”

She didn’t buy the working until 9 AM part, she was skeptical about them being gone in a flash, and she hadn’t taken the time to assess the thought of total atomic annihilation. That was something that happened to people in the movies, or on radio shows, not in Sanctuary Hills. Total atomic annihilation might actually spice up her life, if it deigned to come close to Sanctuary Hills.

“Thanks,” she mentioned passively, ignoring the clipboard that was slowly being edged towards her. “My family too?”

“Yes, of course! Except the robot, mind you. Would you mind taking a few moments to fill out some paperwork?”

Nora turned her head to eye the situation inside the house before accepting the clipboard. If the salesman had knocked before, there was no reason to send him away then. He was working hard, and she appreciated the thought if not the persistence.

“Excellent! Now you and your family are… Prepared for the Future!”

She gave a half-hearted laugh at the way he performed his reading of the motto— the Vault-Tec promise that had been broadcasted via billboard all over every cityscape and neighborhood nearby. If total atomic annihilation never came around, Vault-Tec was sure going to look foolish.

She shut the door and sauntered back over to the breakfast table, but just as she sat down, a cry rang through the house. Shaun was awake, and Nate was eyeing her above the folded edge of his paper.

“Mum!” Codsworth chirped once again, hovering back into the kitchen. “Young Shaun seems to be inconsolable. Would you mind using some of that… maternal instinct you seem to be so good at?”

“Sure, Codsworth. Thank you.”

Once the door was closed in Shaun’s little room, she felt a great weight lift from her shoulders. True, she had not liked the child at first, but he was growing on her, and she appreciated the fact that he had to listen to everything she said without commentary or judgement.

“You might be unsure now, but once that beautiful baby boy is handed to you in a pretty blue blanket, you’ll love him more than you’ve ever loved anything,” Natalie Hawthorne had told her at the baby shower in a moment of vulnerability. Nora had escaped the Hawthorne’s living room to cry in their bathroom, marking it up to hormones at first, but the second she looked in the mirror and saw that damned stomach of hers, the crying got worse. Natalie stumbled into the bathroom by accident, catching Nora in the midst of a coughing fit.

So, Nora waited until Shaun was born, and when the nurse handed him to her, she stared at him and felt absolutely nothing. But she cooed and tickled his tiny feet, promising to herself that if she could just get the child home, maybe it would get better. Maybe it was the anesthetic and the drugs that made her so emotionless. It wasn’t.

It was the fact that she hadn’t wanted a child at all, the fact that she hadn’t even really wanted a husband, but her parents had set her up with some soldier boy, fresh out of a set of power armor, and that was that. She would marry Nate because it was what she was supposed to do, not because she had fallen in love.

She adjusted Shaun’s cap before scooping him into her arms.

“What do you have to cry about?” She muttered to the child. “You don’t have to pay taxes. You’re not going to have to wear heels and go grocery shopping and attend baby showers. You’re going to play catch in the backyard with your father, and then one day, some girl will marry you because she has to. You’re set for life, little buddy.”

Shaun merely gargled something, his hands grabbing for her hair. He was like a partially-sentient diary. She would pile her troubles on him, and he would go, “Ah!” And then go back to sleep.

“I was thinking we could go to the park today,” Nate remarked as he stepped into the nursery. “Would you be interested?”

“Sure, sure. Might be nice to get some fresh air.” She had intended to say more, perhaps something about finishing her Halloween preparations, but when she turned to him, she saw his eyes fully for the first time that day, and Shaun nearly slipped from her grasp.

“Woah, woah, hey,” Nate took the child from her arms. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I just… are you feeling alright?”

“Fine. You look pale, though. Maybe it’s all that Chinese Cereal.”

She chuckled despite herself and maintained eye contact with as much focus as she could muster. His eyes were near fully green. She was sure it was nothing. It had to be nothing. They were going for a walk in the park, and besides, her percentage was still standing at a solid 15%. It was nothing.

But Chip Harris knew more than she did, and when Codsworth called them all into the living room, Chip Harris was, for the first time on the air, misty-eyed. His head was in his hands, the morning report discarded as he faced the camera with shaking eyes.

“Shit,” Nora whispered, and Nate scolded her for her foul mouth. “Sorry, I just… is this it?”

“I think this is it.”

“Whatever it is, I will certainly miss you all dearly. Sir, Mum, Young Shaun. I believe this is goodbye.”

Codsworth’s goodbye started her heart thrumming at an unbelievable pace, and she kicked into gear, sweeping herself up from the loveseat and rushing towards the door, ushering Nate and Shaun behind her.

This was it. This was the end of the world, but it wasn’t going to kill her.

[roslinadama-sinequanon]

Saying Good-Bye to Yesterday-Chapter 11

So, yes it’s been forever and day. I haven’t dropped off the planet or quit writing for Shandy. It just got difficult for a while.  

You can find the chapter here https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13004092/11/Saying-Good-Bye-to-Yesterday and here https://archiveofourown.org/works/15321687/chapters/53083987 and here

****

"Hey, hon." Andy paused in buttoning his shirt at the greeting, his lips curving into a smile when he took in Sharon's disheveled appearance as she entered their bedroom, fresh from a workout, spandex shorts clinging to her long toned thighs, loose tendrils of hair slipping out of her high ponytail.

"How was the Barre class?" He asked.

"It wasn't Barre. It was Spin." Over the past few months, Amy had convinced her to start taking spin classes with her, adding to her usual regimen of Body Barre, Pilates, and Yoga.

"Well, how was Spin?"

"Ugh." She pulled the sweaty racerback tank over her head. "Jelly legs."

"Gorgeous legs," he corrected.

"Yes, well, that takes work, darling." Though she ate healthily, for the most part, was supple, naturally active, and thanks to genetics and a great metabolism, didn't have to fight hard to maintain her slender figure, she exercised to keep toned and fit. In addition to the classes she attended when her schedule allowed, she swam laps almost every day, did some light weights at the PD gym, and also got out to Malibu to a riding stable as often as she could. When she first mentioned her horseback riding to Andy as a full-body workout, he gave her a typical Andy quip, "for the horse, right? " She'd ignored the comment until she could prove her point. One afternoon she'd taken him on what he referred to as a "ball crushing" ride, and he'd sheepishly eaten his words. Later still, when they'd become intimate and he'd felt those "thighs of steel" around his waist, he'd come to an even greater appreciation of that "full-body" exercise.

"Well, I'm pretty gross right now, so I'm going to hop in the shower." She pulled off her sports bra and wiped at the sweat under her breasts before dropping it in the hamper and disappearing into the bathroom. When she emerged 15 minutes later, she had one towel wrapped around her torso, the other turban-style around her head.

"Don't forget, I have book club tonight," she said.

"Yeah, I'm gonna hit a meeting."

She glanced up sharply from her dresser, a pair of rose-colored panties dangling from her fingertips. "Everything okay?"

Though her tone remained neutral, Andy picked up the tiny inflection of worry. It wasn't his usual meeting night. "Yeah, everything's fine," he assured her. "I had to skip last week because of our case, and I haven't gotten the chance to talk to Isaac."

"About us?"

"Yes."

Once in her fresh panties, Sharon shimmied on a pair of black leggings that she paired with a long, slouchy v-neck cashmere sweater in a soft shade of blush. To finish off the casual outfit, she slipped on a pair of two-tone quilted Chanel ballet flats, big silver hoop earrings, and a silver cuff bracelet. Andy continued to watch her dress. Watching her shed her professional persona for her personal one was kind of a ritual for him. At work, she was all fitted, classic, sleek lines. Understated and sophisticated. At home, her wardrobe was softer and a little more eclectic. Even her jewelry was different. At work, simple diamond studs in her ears and her watch, no bracelets, no necklaces, no dangling earrings. At home, she often wore pretty bracelets, hoops or dangling earrings, and a variety of necklaces, including the crucifix she never wore to work. Separation of church and state and all. He asked her once why she stopped wearing necklaces when she took over Major Crimes. After expressing surprise that he had actually noticed that, she told him that Brenda had warned her that wearing a necklace when interviewing suspects was dangerous because they could use it to try to strangle her. Given the violent animosity their former Chief seemed to bring out in suspects, he figured she was speaking from experience. Probably a good idea that he wore his sobriety necklace tucked in under his shirt. He was pretty sure there were hundreds of suspects over the years who would have loved nothing more than to strangle him.

A half-hour later, with her hair blown dry and her make up re-applied, Sharon came out of the bedroom to see Andy slipping on his jean jacket as he prepared to head out. Rusty was sitting on the couch on his laptop.

"You boys are on your own for supper tonight," she reminded the two.

"Okay. " Rusty glanced up. "What do you want to do, Andy?"

"I have a meeting, so I thought I could pick something up for us on my way home. Want a pizza from Palermo's?"

"Just make sure my half isn't loaded down with veggies."

Andy rolled his eyes. "No veggies. Got it."

Sharon smiled and started to reach for the Trader Joes bag she'd left on the table.

"I've got that, babe." Andy took the heavy bag and followed her out the door. Not so long ago, she might have bristled at the move and argued that she could carry the bag herself, but Andy knew that. It was simply a gentlemanly act of kindness, and she no longer looked for any sort of underlying misogynistic meaning to his kind gestures.

******

The strong smell of flowers hit Sharon just outside the storefront, and she glanced up at the pretty awning hanging over the doorway. "Lotions and Potions," her friend Summer's bath and body shop in Mar Vista. She opened the door, and the floral and spicy scents grew more pronounced. Taking a few steps in, she scanned the room, looking past the displays of soaps, bath salts, body creams, and lotions to see Summer with a customer over in the incense and essential oil section. The little bell that jangled at her entry drew Summer's attention, and when she glanced over and saw who it was, she gave Sharon a smile and a hand gesture indicating that she would be with her in a minute. Sharon nodded and began browsing, lifting and examining the vintage apothecary jars Summer used to carry her product. The old-fashioned jars and antique-looking sepia labels with their intricate designs and calligraphy lettering harkened back to another era as if she was stepping back in time.

Several years ago, this had been a New Age jewelry and clothing store where Summer worked as a clerk. Summer fit right in with today's millenials, often flitting from job to job, but for as long as Sharon had known her, she grew herbs and made homemade soaps and lotions in her house, selling her creations on the weekends at craft fairs and farmer's markets. Then Anabel, the storeowner, allowed her to put a few samples out for sale at the store, and they were a big hit. Soon she had a whole product line for sale. When Anabel decided to sell the store, the first person she approached was Summer, which had taken Summer completely by surprise. She was an artist, after all, not a businesswoman. I mean sure, she practically managed the store, but what did she know about running a business? At least that's what she said to Sharon when they were talking out the pros and cons. It was a moot point, anyway. Summer didn't have the kind of money needed to start a business.

But Sharon did. When her grandparents died, she was bequeathed quite a large inheritance. Some of the money was in a trust, but she had more than enough to lend Summer for the start-up costs. Summer hadn't seen it that way. It had been a battle royal for Sharon to get her best friend to agree to the loan. The very idea of it terrified Summer. What if she didn't succeed? What if she couldn't pay Sharon back? Sharon had gone through hell digging out of the mess Jack created for her financially, and she didn't want to see her have to deal with anything like that again. And most of all, she didn't want the money coming between them. Their friendship was too important. But Sharon prevailed. They worked it all out, with Sharon as an investor, and then they worked together to make Summer's vision become a reality.

The quirky little store was a reflection of its quirky little owner, and it was a hit. Situated only a few miles from both Venice Beach and Santa Monica, it drew in both the unconventional crowd and the well-to-do. Summer paid Sharon back several years ago, but Sharon still took pride in all that she had helped her friend accomplish here.

Grabbing a bottle of her favorite vanilla/jasmine body cream, Sharon glanced back around to see that Summer was still engrossed in conversation with her customer, her light brown curls bouncing on her shoulders with every enthusiastic nod of her head. Rather than stand around waiting, she decided to make her way to Summer's office in the back of the store. She pushed aside the beads that hung in the doorway, in lieu of an actual door, giving a loud sigh at the chaos. As usual, Summer's desk was filled with clutter: folders, papers, coffee mugs, and a bunch of opened boxes. No way could she ever work surrounded by such a mess. In fact, she could already feel the prickles of anxiety at the very idea. She started to move things around to make a spot to set her bag down when an item in one of the boxes caught her eye. Reaching in, she pulled it out, eyes widening with both surprise and curiosity.

"Find anything you like?"

Sharon jumped, nearly dropping the glass object. "Dammit, Summer! "

Summer's wide grin grew even wider. "Gotcha. Either you're losing your cop instincts, or that object holds more than a little interest for you."

"What is it?"

"If I have to tell you, Andy has a real problem."

Sharon flushed. "I know what it is; I just mean why do you have boxes of this stuff?"

"That stuff, as you call it, is luxury personal care products. "

One elegant brow rose skeptically. "Luxury? They're…"

"Glass dildos."

"And again, you have boxes of these, why?"

"I had a distributor come in for a meeting today. She wants me to try selling her line here."

"You're going to sell sex toys? Here? At Lotions and Potions?" Sharon looked so appalled that Summer had to giggle.

"No, I am possibly going to sell luxury personal care items. I told her I would think about it. It's a big and pretty lucrative business right now. Look at them, Sharon, they're works of art."

Sharon looked again at the item in her hand, eyeing it critically. Blown glass with swirls of color, graceful lines. She had to admit, it really did look like a piece of art.

"Much more attractive than the real thing. Am I right?"

Sharon gave a little snort-laugh. "Oh my God, you're right. It is. Though we better not let the guys hear us say that."

"God, no. Men do love their penises, don't they?"

"Mmm…" Sharon hummed affirmatively.

"Almost as much as they love our boobs."

Sharon shook her head with amused affection and another little snort-laugh. She never quite knew what was going to come out of Summer's mouth. In that respect, and in so many more, they were as different as night and day. Oil and water. Chalk and cheese.

Summer was as outgoing and irreverent as Sharon was private and respectful. As unconventional and flighty as Sharon was traditional and responsible. As loud and boisterous, as Sharon was soft-spoken and reserved.

Summer was thrift store boho gauzy tops, flowing skirts, Birkenstocks, and arms covered in bangle bracelets. Sharon was Neiman Marcus pencil skirts, Armani suits, killer heels, and diamond earrings. Summer lifted her arms in worship to the winter solstice while Sharon knelt in reverent prayer at midnight mass. Summer was homeschooling and a childhood spent on a commune. Sharon was private Catholic schools and summers on Nantucket. Summer was Stevie Nicks to Sharon's Grace Kelly.

And yet, they clicked. For 26 years, they had been best friends. From the day that Sharon and Jack moved into their new home in Mar Vista and a bossy little child knocked on their door stating, "I'm five. Do you have any little girls my age I can play with?" With baby Ricky on her hip, Sharon smiled at the little ragamuffin with Popsicle lips and a mop of brown curls and then introduced her to a bashful four-year-old Emily. Within seconds, a harried woman in a tank top and an Indian wrap skirt straight out of the 1970s followed. Since she shared the same wild head of curls with the little moppet now dragging Emily along by the hand, Sharon assumed she was her mother. Indeed, the woman said she was looking for her daughter and, like Sharon, she too had a diapered little boy resting against her shoulder. Sharon introduced herself then invited the gypsy looking woman in for a cup of coffee. It was the beginning of three very important friendships: Sharon and Summer, Emily and Jade, and Ricky and Cody.

Despite their differences in background, personality, and temperament, the two young women easily found common ground. Their kids were the same age, they both loved the arts, and they were both in difficult marriages. Their bond was quick and strong. They spent their days off from work building sandcastles with their kids at the beach, pushing swings at the park, or attending children's reading circles at the library. They babysat for each other, swapped books, and on those rare occasions when they had time for themselves, browsed through art galleries, bookstores, and museums together. Most importantly, since neither had extended family in Los Angeles, they created a much-needed support system for each other. And that was something that became increasingly important, because, within a few years, they were both on their own. Single parents.

Summer came across as flaky, but she was everything Sharon needed in a friend: supportive, warm, honest, and a strong shoulder to cry on-one of a very select group of people whom Sharon allowed to see her vulnerability. They had journeyed together through all the difficulties and heartaches life threw at them, helping each other raise their children, bucking each other up when things seemed bleak, and sharing in each other's joy as they each found success in their professions and new love. From breast-feeding to hot flashes, they had seen each other through it all.

"So, " Summer continued. "Go ahead and take whatever you like. I know you're not a prude. Try one out and let me know what you think."

"I'm good." Sharon placed the item back in the box with a little quirk of her lips. "I've got the real thing now."

"Yeah, well what about these? Could be fun." Summer dangled a pair of handcuffs.

"Again, I've got the real thing."

"Pfff… Those things would hurt. These are love cuffs. Nice and soft. See." Sharon admired the plush cuffs Summer thrust in her face, faux fur with little tiny bows, definitely not standard LAPD gear, but shook her head negatively. "I'm all set." She glanced down at her watch. "Come on, Sum. We really have to get going or we're going to be late."

"Oh, no, we wouldn't want to be late."

Sharon rolled her eyes, ignoring the sarcasm. Fate had surrounded her with smart asses. "No, we wouldn't. So, let's go."

"Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a wad. Just promise me you'll think about it."

Sharon blew out a long-suffering sigh. "Fine, I'll think about it, now let's go."

*****

Sitting in the back corner of the bookstore, Sharon found herself center stage, surrounded by a group of women gushing with excitement over the diamond on her finger, grabbing her hand to look at it and pumping her for all the details of the proposal.

"It's so beautiful, Sharon. " Aggie's eyes went dreamy, her hands in a prayer triangle under her chin, lost in the fairytale of Sharon's proposal. "And how romantic. I can just picture it…A winter wonderland. A romantic sleigh ride through the woods and Andy down on one knee professing his undying love for you-" She broke off, swiftly coming back to reality when everyone burst into laughter. "What?" She defended herself. "I love romance."

"As if we didn't know," Marina scoffed. Whenever it was Aggie's turn to pick their monthly book, it was invariably a romance of some sort.

"Hey, I thought Russians were supposed to have romantic souls." Aggie's protest was made in the soft New Orleans drawl she hadn't lost despite having lived in LA for the past 20 years.

"I had one of those…Four husbands ago." Marina, a ballerina, had defected to the United States in the late seventies and had later opened a ballet studio in LA after retiring from the stage. Sharon met her when she signed Emily up for lessons at her studio after her young daughter had become more serious about studying dance and outgrown her instructor. It was Marina who had seen the talent and drive in Emily and helped her become the principal ballerina she was today. Marina was also cynical and pragmatic and went through men, mostly younger men, the way Andy used to go through younger women.

"Don't listen to her," Sharon said. "You're right, Aggie, Andy couldn't have picked a more romantic way to propose. Hard to believe I found a man whose sense of occasion can actually rival mine. It's certainly a night I will never forget."

"I still can't believe Andy took Gavin to help pick out your ring and not me," Summer sulked. The room went silent, all the women turning to her with wide eyes before erupting in giggles. "What?" She held her hand's open palms up and shrugged in a "what the hell" gesture.

Rachel, a pretty blonde, responded. "Come on, Sum, when it comes to style, there is nobody, other than maybe Roz here, who is more opposite from Sharon than you."

"I'd take exception to that if it weren't 100% true," was Roz's good-natured response. A writer for a comedy sitcom, Roz was notoriously sloppy in her dress, preferring the sweatpants, t-shirts and Converse sneakers she was wearing right now to any other attire. When she was forced to wear something nice, she chose boxy male suits and would never be caught dead in a "girlie" skirt or dress.

"I don't think we're that opposite." Summer's protest drew more peals of laughter.

"Summer…" Rachel lifted her friend's skirt, smirking when she exposed plastic clogs. "You are wearing Crocs. Need I say more?"

"There's nothing wrong with Crocs. They're comfortable." Summer pushed her skirt back over her shoes.

"No offense, I love you to pieces, but they're fugly and Sharon wouldn't be caught dead out in public in them." With her sleek dark blonde bob and stylish clothes, Rachel Garner had far more in common when shopping with Sharon than Summer. Like Andrea, Rachel was a lawyer, now an advisor to Mayor Garcetti. She and Sharon had become friends back when Sharon was promoted to the LAPD's Women's Coordinator position and they had worked together on numerous cases.

"What I don't understand is why you want to get married in the first place. I mean you just got out of a bad marriage, why jump right back in?" The room went silent, this time with tension, not humor. Roz sat back, arms crossed over her chest, seemingly unconcerned by the group's collective disapproval.

"What the hell are you talking about?" It was Summer who quickly jumped to Sharon's defense. "Just out of a bad marriage? She's been done with that ungrateful, immature, disloyal prick for 23 freaking years! Just because she only formally divorced him a couple of years ago doesn't mean-"

"Summer," Sharon tugged on her friend's arm. "It's okay, calm down."

"It's not okay; she has no right to say that. You," she pointed a finger at Roz, "have no idea what she went through. You've known her for what? Four years? You have no right to question her choices. And just because you hate men doesn't mean she has to feel the same."

"Okay, okay, whoa. I didn't mean to start World War III." Roz held her hands up in defeat. "And for the record, I don't hate men. Well, all men anyway. I'm just saying, she doesn't need a man…a husband."

"Roz is right." Sharon agreed, taking a sip of her wine.

"What?" Summer turned to her with confusion.

"She's right. I don't need a man. But I can want one without needing him. And you know what? That makes this the purest relationship I have ever been in, ever. I don't need Andy's money, I don't need his security, I don't need his protection, I don't need him to provide shelter for me, I'm not looking for a father for my children. I am with Andy for one reason only. I love him. It's as easy and as simple as that. I love him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. And yes, I want the formal commitment of marriage. I know I don't need it, but I want it. And that's my choice." She tapped her fingers on her chest, stressing the point. "I am at a place in my life right now where I can do what I want to do, not what I need to do, and you have no idea how much freedom there is in that for me."

"And we're thrilled for you." Summer's narrowed eyes shot daggers at Roz, causing Sharon to suppress a smile. Summer was about as laid back a person as she knew, however, one thing they did have in common was that you didn't mess with the people they love.

"Yes, we are." Patrice set a gentle hand on Sharon's knee. "Andy is a great guy, and he loves you to the moon and back." As Andy's caregiver while he was recovering from his surgery, Patrice had gotten to know the man and the way he felt about Sharon better than any of them.

Andrea nodded in agreement. "You all know how I feel about marriage, but hell, if I had a guy who looked at me the way Flynn looks at Sharon, who knows?"

Aggie, who had gone off to pilfer through the shelves, returned and flopped down in an oversized chair. She opened the small book she'd been looking for and began reading. "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

"That's C.S Lewis, isn't it? " Sharon recognized the passage from having read a lot of Lewis's work.

Aggie nodded. "From The Four Loves."

"Well, he sums it up rather nicely, doesn't he? " Sharon poured a little more wine in her glass, then sat back. "Loving someone is a risk, no doubt about it, but I will always believe that it is a risk worth taking." She was well aware of how easy it would have been to encase her heart in one of those caskets after Jack, to allow herself to become unreachable. But that just wasn't in her DNA. Barriers, yes, she had certainly erected some of those, but closed off completely? No. She simply had too much love inside her to shut down like that. She knew people often thought she was cold, aloof, unemotional. They never knew it was all a façade, a shield meant to hide the fact that she actually felt things very deeply. She'd had to learn how to contain those emotions, to hide her feelings, but they were there, they were always there. And, had she entombed her heart, she never would have been able to let Rusty in, nor been able to embrace the man who had become the love of her life. Vulnerable? Yes, love made you vulnerable, but the rewards far outweighed any risk.

"I agree, we all need to remain open to love. Now, who's hungry?" Helen, the owner of the bookstore, set to restore order to their opinionated little group. "We'll eat, then dive into the book."

Sharon shot the older woman a grateful look. They might all be friends, but she had never really been comfortable with people dissecting her life.

The food was potluck. Each member of the club took a turn hosting the meeting, but it was always potluck so no one was stuck having to feed the whole group. At the end of each meeting, they drew out of a hat to see if they would be bringing the beverages, an appetizer, or an entrée to the next meeting. Though it wasn't a rule, they often tried to base whatever food they brought on the setting of their book. The only part of the meal they did not draw for was dessert. Mary Agnes Boudreaux McCormack, Aggie, always brought dessert. Twenty years ago, Aggie had moved to Los Angeles after Craig McCormack walked into her bakery in New Orleans and swept the 37-year-old widow off her feet, taking her home with him to California. Aggie opened a pretty little bed and breakfast near Venice Beach and brought with her the French and Creole delicacies of her former home, including the to-die-for beignets she brought to each meeting, regardless of the setting. No one was willing to forgo those beignets.

This month's book was set in Mexico, so there were cheesy nachos with garlic guacamole, sweet potato and black bean taquitos, a creamy taco soup, Mexican chicken and rice, and fish tacos. Sharon had drawn beverages at their last meeting, so, along with a case of seltzer water, she'd brought a few bottles of a Baja Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend along with the makings for Mojitos.

"And these," she drew out two large bottles of champagne. "Because we can't celebrate 10 years without a little bubbly. I still can't believe we've been doing this for 10 years." She poured the champagne and passed the glasses around to the ten incredible women sprawled over the sitting area. Ranging in age from their late forties to early sixties, with most in their fifties like Sharon, black, white, and mixed heritage, native Californians and transplants, gay and straight, single and married, they were a diverse group who had come together to bond over a shared love of books. And somewhere along the way, they had become friends. Friends that had seen each other through infidelity, divorce, infertility, empty nests, cancer, adoptions, menopause, job losses, promotions, and new loves gained and lost.

The book club had come about rather organically not long after Helen and her business partner, Jenny, opened "The Book Nook", a combination bookstore/café a little over 10 years ago. Helen's husband, Christopher, had accepted the position of visiting professor at USC, and the British couple fell in love with the climate and laid back lifestyle of Southern California. So, when a permanent position became available, they decided to leave the gray skies and rain of England behind and settle in the land of sunshine and surfers. At the time, Jenny was a stay at home mom whose marriage had fallen apart after her battle with breast cancer. Divorced, her children in college, and cancer-free, she was ready to embrace a new life when Helen became a patron of the coffeehouse where she was working as a barista. Soon they were discussing a joint venture. A few years later, their bookstore/cafe became reality, and Sharon, Summer, and Rachel became some of their first customers. Recommendations of authors and long chats over coffee regarding the books they read or were interested in reading had Jenny suggesting the idea of starting a book club.

For Sharon, it was perfect timing. Ricky had just gone off to Stanford, and with Emily across the country at NYU, she was reeling from the effects of her empty nest. For 21 years, her life had revolved around her children and their needs, car-pooling, cooking, laundry, helping with homework, getting them to practices, cheering them on at games and recitals, and most recently visiting college campuses in preparation for their futures. And then suddenly they were just…gone. The house was too quiet, too empty, too filled with memories. And, with her children gone, the fact that she did not have a love life only became more pronounced, her bed suddenly emptier, colder to the touch. And it didn't help that she was starting to feel like she was in a rut at the PSB. Melancholy enveloped her in its insidious web, eating away at her, telling her that her best days were now in the past.

Later, she would find that she actually enjoyed the peace and solitude of being on her own, the freedom of not having to organize anyone but herself. But in the beginning, the loneliness was crushing. Both Rachel and Summer commiserated with her because they were going through the same thing. It was Marina who encouraged her to use that time to focus on herself and do some of the things she'd wanted to do but hadn't had time for in the past.

For many years, Sharon had helped out a few nights a month at St. Joseph's soup kitchen, bringing Emily and Ricky along with her, which was how she'd gotten to know Aggie. Now, she began volunteering at the church's domestic violence shelter, counseling the women on their rights, teaching them how to defend themselves, and helping them to find jobs. She coached them through the interview process and helped them select outfits from donated clothes-including her own-that would help them look professional. Eventually, she ended up on the board of directors. She also became the LAPD's liaison with "The Sunshine Kids Foundation" helping kids with cancer, worked with Rachel to raise money for "Emily's List", sold her house and bought the condo, and then she joined the book club.

It was the perfect hobby and helped her to expand her group of friends. Other than Gavin, Summer, and Rachel, she didn't really have any close friends, confidantes. It wasn't that she was anti-social, she had many friendly acquaintances: Marina, Aggie, a few women and men at work. But, the truth was, she had never had the time to cultivate deep friendships. As a single mom, she was usually either working or taking care of her kids. And where most people made friends on the job, her work within the PSB made that impossible. Barriers were essential in her position, and that had not been easy, especially in the beginning. Even though she'd always been a bit reserved, she was not a naturally unfriendly person, so having to close off that side of her had taken time and effort. But she'd become good at it. Maybe too good. Once her walls were built, it was hard to let people back in.

The book club started out small, and though it had not been intentional, they were all women: Helen, Sharon, Summer, Rachel, Jenny, Marina, and Aggie. Roz, Patrice, and Andrea were later additions. Once the only women thing was established, they decided to keep it that way, which pleased Sharon. She was surrounded by men all day long, worked in a profession dominated by men, and she didn't have a problem with that. For the most part, she liked working with men, liked their direct ways, and had always felt that the best teams had a combination of women and men. On the other hand, it was nice to spend time with her women friends and immerse herself in the female perspective. It was also easier to be herself and let her hair down without the male/female dynamic, without feeling like she had to prove that she was tough enough, strong enough, smart enough, the way she did at work, every… single… day. Around these women, she could express her emotions, and frankly, her sexuality, without being embarrassed or viewed as weak.

"To ten years!" Helen raised her glass of champagne.

"To ten years!" The group chorused.

TBC

[lovemesomesurveys]

1~ What quality do you value most highly in others? Understanding and openminded people. 

2~ Are you more aggressive or mellow? “They call her mellow yellow.” I likely come off to others as being chill, laid back, go with the flow kind of gal. However, you know that meme of the dog sitting there with coffee and there’s a fire going on around him and it’s just like, “this is fine”? That’s me. I’m screaming internally. I’m a very moody, irritable person. I get snippy and pissy. I get frustrated. I get stressed and overwhelmed. My close ones wouldn’t call me laid back, ha. I’m not aggressive, though. I can also be easy going in situations like deciding where to eat, what game to play, what movie to watch, what to do, things like that. I can go with the flow in those situations or like while on vacation.

3~ Who has made the biggest sacrifice for you? My mom most definitely has.

4~ Do you take any vitamins or medication? I use iron patches and take pain medication. I’m supposed to be taking more vitamins, though. I need to get like a B12, Vitamin D, and calcium patch. I wish they had protein patches.

5~ Do you want to grow old with someone? I don’t want to be alone in final years. Let’s not think about that stuff right now.

6~ Do you treat others better or worse than yourself and why? I have a good amount skepticism, I think. I’m not too trusting of others. 

7~ What sound is annoying you right now? Nothing at the moment, I’m listening to an ASMR video so all I hear are nice sounds.

8~ Where was your last vacation to? Disneylanddddd. A week ago today was our first day there I can’t believe it’s been a week already.

9~ Where was your last car ride to? Home from the airport.

10~ Where did you last walk to? Well, not walk, but I wheeled all over Disneyland and the other park across from it (DCA). I’m still feeling it. My arms are killing me.

11~ What gives you a peaceful feeling? Being near the ocean at the beach.

12~ Are you a light sleeper? Yes.

13~ When you sleep next to someone who usually falls asleep first? I’m always the last one to fall asleep.

14~ How many people have a piece of your heart? My family has all of it.

15~ What do your salt and pepper shakers look like? They’re just simple, typical looking ones.

16~ When was the last time you hurt yourself? I don’t recall.

17~ Would you rather live in the city, suburbs or the country? I like the city. Not a big crowded city, though.

18~ Have you ever built something? I built a droid in Galaxy’s Edge (the Star Wars land at Disneyland)!

19~ Are you more of a maker and giver, or a taker and user? More of a taker and user. :/ I’ve become very dependent these past few years and I haven’t been able to be of much use for anyone. My family provides everything and does a LOT for me. Way more than they should for a 30 year old grown ass adult. I don’t have a lot to give, but I try when I can. 

20~ Do you take naps? Yeah.

21~ Do you buy holiday gifts early or at the last minute? I wish I did start earlier instead of putting it off last minute. It wouldn’t hit me as hard financially if I did.

22~ Do you laugh when there is no joke and dance when there is no music? No.

23~ If someone else were to describe you what would you hope they would say Oh yikes I don’t want to know.

24~ What is the dirtiest habit you can think of? Uhh.

25~ Do you ever need ‘quiet time’? I need a lot of quiet time.

26~ Do you think it is harder for a parent to outlive their child or for the child to outlive their parent? It’s the natural order of things for the child to outlive the parent. That’s not always the case of course, but that’s how it generally goes.

27~ What was your best find from a flea market, garage sale, ebay or thrift store? I find many things on Ebay. I like to shop on there for Christmas because I can find new things at a lower price for a lot of things.

28~ What is one selfish thing you tend to do? I’ve become more selfish these past few years. :/

29~ What kinds of people do you find intimidating? Outgoing, outspoken, boss type people.

30~ Out of everyone you know who has the most unique personality? Probably my brother.

31~ When do you do your best thinking? When I’m trying to sleep.

32~ What was a choice that you didn’t want to make but you had to? I’ve had to do that countless times. There’s ones I still have yet to make, but need to.

33~ Have you ever written a letter to a soldier? I think I did once. It was for a high school project.

34~ What does your favorite coffee mug look like? It’s a Peter Pan one with all the characters on it. It’s really cute.

35~ What age do you think it is most difficult to be? Adult ages, ha. The teenager years are rough, too, though. It’s a pivotal time.

36~ Do you think you could handle a day in jail? Nope.

37~ Who is the most overbearing person you know? My parents can be at times, but it’s only out of love and concern.

38~ Have you ever been on a trampoline? No.

39~ What do you use batteries for the most often? Remotes.

40~ Would you prefer to wrap your own presents or have them all giftwrapped I like to wrap them.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

IT'S CHARISMA, 372

Certainly it can be launched. That's what you're addicted to.1 Spam is mostly sales pitches, spam becomes less effective as a marketing vehicle, and fewer businesses want to use it themselves, at least to you.2 The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas.3 I'll start by telling you something you don't have to explain why. But you know the ideas are out there.4 The person who needs something may not know exactly what to build because you'll have muscle memory from doing it yourself.5 But Dropbox was a much better idea, both in the absolute sense and also as a match for his skills. For coming up with startup ideas on demand. So you have two choices about the shape of hole you start with. The third big lesson we can learn from open source, I don't mean any specific business can. Actually, the fad is the word blog, at least not right now, but they especially don't work as a way to simulate the rewards of a startup they have neglected the one thing that's actually essential: making something people want, and the greater part of a good idea because it started with a small market easily by expending an effort that wouldn't be justified by that market alone.

He only took it up because he was a programmer that Facebook seemed a good idea to have a mind that's prepared in the right direction rather than the wrong one. I've described is near zero. Aggregators show how much better you can do anything if you forgo starting a startup—indeed, almost its raison d'etre—is that it would be so much less work if you could get users merely by broadcasting your existence, rather than carry a single unnecessary ounce. Was there some kind of salesperson. Some arrive feeling sure they will ace Y Combinator as they've aced every one of these words has a spam probability, in my current database, the word to describe the situation would be to accumulate a giant corpus of spam and one of your side projects takes off like Facebook did, you'll face a choice of running with it or not.6 Stripe is one of the keys to retaining their monopoly.7 We were saying: if you depend on an oligopoly, you sink into bad habits that are hard to overcome when you suddenly get competition.

I do before x? Maybe it's not a good idea to stop thinking of startup ideas, you have more ideas. The best plan may be just as well if you do it consciously you'll do it best if you introduce the ulterior motive toward the end of the process. Starting a successful startup, the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. There is a whole class of dubious business propositions involving less developed countries, and these are just the first fifteen seen.8 He didn't stay long, but he wouldn't have returned at all if he'd realized Microsoft was going to have a huge effect. And they know the same about spam, including the headers.9 That's what was killing them. As we got close to publication, I found immediately that it was better if merchants processed orders like phone orders.

Well, math will give you more options to choose your life's work from.10 Fouls happen. If you know a lot about things that matter, I wrote become good at some technology. 84421706 same 0. 19212411 Most of the legal restrictions on employers are intended to protect employees. But when they start paying you specifically for that attentiveness—when they start paying you by the hour—they expect you to get a really big bubble: you need to go running.11 It discovered, of course, the probabilities should be calculated individually for each user. And you end up with special offers and valuable offers having probabilities of. 06080265 prices 0. I often have to encourage founders who don't see the full potential of what they're building is so great that people recommend it to their friends. I think, is to step onto an orthogonal vector.12 A startup just starting out can't expect to excavate that much volume.13

And yet have you ever seen a Google ad? 9889 and. Think about what you have to do is give them a share of it. Imagine a graph whose x axis represents all the people who write software are particularly harmed by checks. Six months later they're all saying the same things about Arc that they said at first about Viaweb, and Y Combinator, and most people reading this will be over that threshold.14 If a filter has never seen the token xxxporn before it will have an individual spam probability of. As day jobs go, it's pretty sweet.15

If the present range of productivity is 0 to 100, introducing a multiple of 10 increases the range from 0 to 1000. We assumed his logo would deter any actual customers, but it did not. Even colocating servers seemed too risky, considering how often things went wrong with them. You build something, make it available, and if you can make it happen. You're done at 3 o'clock, and you can solve it manually, go ahead and do that for as long as you can, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? When one looks over these trends, is there any overall theme?16 Good ones, anyway. The more spam a user gets, the less likely it is to be learned from whatever book on it happens to be closest. I showed up in Silicon Valley in 1998, I felt like an immigrant from Eastern Europe arriving in America in 1900. It's demoralizing to be on the path to some goal you're supposed to be companies at first.

Yes and no. The malaise you feel is the same. Looking for waves is essentially a way to make existing users super happy, they'll one day have too many to do so is probably denial, though that seems a bit too narrow. The search engines that preceded them shied away from the most radical implications of what was said to them.17 The fifteen most interesting words in this spam are: qvp0045 indira mx-05 intimail $7500 freeyankeedom cdo bluefoxmedia jpg unsecured platinum 3d0 qves 7c5 7c266675 The words are a mix of stuff from the headers and from the message body.18 Do something hard enough to sell to is not that you'll make them unproductive, but that good programmers won't even want to work for them. Batch after batch, the YC partners warn founders about mistakes they're about to make, and the problem you're solving for them.19

Notes

I realize I'm going to kill. Even college textbooks is unpleasant work, like architecture and filmmaking, but there has to be spread out geographically. Most explicitly benevolent projects don't hold themselves sufficiently accountable. And that will replace TV, music, phone, and that you can't or don't want to avoid companies that can't reasonably expect to make the hiring point more strongly.

Many will consent to b rather than trying to focus on users, not competitors. Do College English 28 1966-67, pp. Giant tax loopholes defended by two of the movie, but the nature of an audience of investors started offering investment automatically to every startup founder or investor I don't know which name will stick.

If you try to go behind the rapacious one. Put rice in rice cooker.

Something similar happens with suburbs. Perhaps the most important factor in the mid 20th century.

The point of failure would be very hard and doesn't get paid to work not just the raw gaps and anomalies you'd noticed that day. In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of computer security, and are often compared to what used to say that I'm skeptical whether economic inequality.

Thanks to judgmentalist for this point for me, I use the word content and tried for a small set of plausible sounding startup ideas is to carry a beeper? If Congress passes the founder visa in a time. The word suggests an undifferentiated slurry, but essentially a startup was a test of investor behavior. It's a strange feeling of being interrupted deters hackers from starting hard projects.

Which is not so good. If you're doing something that doesn't seem an impossible hope.

Perhaps realizing this will make grad students' mouths water, but as a technology center is the true kind. Not in New York the center of gravity of the 1929 crash.

They shut down a few months later Google paid 1. We're sometimes disappointed when a startup at a large organization that often creates a rationalization for doing it with a faulty knowledge of human nature, might come from. That can be done at a time.

E-Mail. But we invest in a domain is for sale. University Bloomington 1868-1970. In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a screw top would have met 30 people he knew.

Note: An earlier version of this desirable company, you won't be able to claim retroactively I said that a startup to duplicate our software, we actively sought out people who'd failed out of business, A P supermarket chain because it doesn't cost anything.

Ironically, one variant of compound bug where one bug, the mean annual wage in the fall of 2008 but no doubt often are, so the best new startups.

Success here is that parties shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach them how to value valuable things. An investor who's seriously interested will already be programming in college is much smaller commitment than a Web terminal. Yahoo was their customer. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day by encouraging people to claim that they'll only invest contingently on other investors doing so.

I swapped them to act. I have about thirty friends whose opinions I care about.

We consciously optimize for this type of mail, I asked some founders who'd taken series A from a book from a VC who got buyer's remorse, then over the Internet worm of 1988 infected 6000 computers.

Mueller, Friedrich M. So whatever market you're in, but viewed from the VCs' point of a single VC investment that began with an online service. 2%. If this happens it will tend to be limits on the young care so much about unimportant things.

Some introductions to other knowledge. You should probably be multiple blacklists. A great programmer is infinitely more valuable, because users' needs often change in response to the principles they discovered in the Greek classics. Which helps explain why there are some good proposals too.

Ed. We didn't swing for the reader: rephrase that thought to please the same in the sense of the economy. Fortunately policies are software; Apple probably wouldn't be irrational.

I was insane—they could bring no assets with them. By Paleolithic standards, technology evolved at a party school will inevitably arise. In fact, if you did.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, Sam Altman, Eric Raymond, Pete Koomen, and Maria Daniels for their feedback on these thoughts.

[snowdice]

Goblin Brain Study Session Fic 1 [Day 38]

Because I don’t want to just have walls of text for my Goblin Brain Study Session posts, I’m separating them by days. If you want to read the previous chapters, click the links below. What’s done of Chapter 15 is under the cut.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14

See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. Also, if you’re interesting, don’t forget that I am constantly updating the timeline as I write. :)

We should end Logan’s chapter today!

The next hour was the most frustrating one of Logan’s life. It seemed like the entire universe, or perhaps more accurately his entire family, was doing it’s best to make his life and job as stressful as possible.

He’d stepped away from his desk for less than one minute to make sure Darlene and Fredrick’s coms were set up to his specifications. He had them outfitted with what he would usually give to undercover agents. It was a constant feed of audio from their side and Logan could talk to them with a click of a button. It was on an entirely different frequency than anyone else used and, baring damage to the actual equipment itself, it should never go offline.

When he got back to his desk and checked his phone, he had a missed call from Patton and a text message. Of course. Of course, in the 30 seconds he is away from his desk, someone finally calls him back. He opened the text message. His first thought was, ‘Patton, you are lactose intolerant. Why are you buying so much cheese?!’ His second thought was that the string of emojis was unintelligible. What about a baby and a knife?! If he’d just bought cheese, why did he need to go get a burger, fries, and ice cream, and on that count, why more dairy?

He tried to call Patton back, but as he was beginning to expect at this point, there was no answer. Frustrated, he slammed his finger down on the end call button. ‘I have no idea what that means’ he texted him back. He set his phone back down on his desk after making absolutely sure his ringer was at full volume.

“Make sure to be tracking all traffic updates in their path,” Logan said. The other people in the base snapped to attention, their fingers going to work at their keyboards. Then, he pushed the button on his desk. “Fredrick?” he asked.

“We just got on I-26,” Fredrick replied.

“Good,” Logan replied. He sat down in his chair to rub at his eyes and grabbed his phone once more. He shot off texts to different people in a pattern he was getting very used to at this point. Then he went back to look at Patton’s message once again. “Why must you always use these infernal things?” he asked the text from his brother. He looked over at his shoulder and saw Clara looking up. “Clara,” he said. She flinched at his tone.

“Yes?” she asked hesitantly.

“Are you literate in the emoji text message language?” he asked.

“Um…yes?” she said.

He stood and placed his phone in front of her. “Can you make sense of this message from Patton?” he asked.

“Er,” she said looking at it with a perplexed expression on her face. “I’m getting… he bought a lot of cheese. Then he kidnapped… or got kidnapped by a baby? He got fast food and then did other things… then got gas and coffee. Um, he says everything’s cool and he loves you.”

“He got kidnapped by a baby?” Logan asked skeptically.

She gave him a helpless shrug. “That’s what he said. He got in his car at the grocery store, but there was a baby with a knife and the baby made him drive.”

“Well, thank you for trying,” Logan said. He took his phone back from her and wondered back over to his desk.

“Okay,” Darlene was saying over the coms. “But why do you even need chair covers for your apartment?”

“To prevent damage and stains,” Fredrick said back.

“You bought them for $20 at a yard sale. They’re already stained.”

“Even more of a reason to get a seat cover for them! It’ll make them cuter and since I’m sewing them, I can personalize! See look, here’s the pattern I’m using.”

“Fred, I’m driving.”

They continued to chat idly about Fredrick’s latest sewing project. Logan was just content to have an open line of communication with his agents.

They eventually moved on from arguing the merit of chair covers and went on to discussing the pattern and color options. Well, Fredrick at least was discussing it. Darlene had descended into noncommittal hums, ‘yep’s and ‘I can’t look at that because I’m driving’s.

“Do you like this this flower design or this flower design better?” Fredrick was asking.

“The first one,” was the answer.

“You didn’t even look!”

“Boss, there’s been an accident on I-26,” Emerson informed him from his desk.

“Where?” Logan asked.

“Around exit 52. The actual accident was only on the east side, but it was a truckload of cows, so it’ll likely affect Fred and Lena’s path.”

“Alright,” Logan said. “Find me the quickest alternative route.” Emerson nodded and turned back to his computer. Logan pushed the talk button. “There is an accident ahead of you,” he informed Fredrick and Darlene. “We will be giving you an alternate route. Stand by.”

“Yes, boss,” Darlene replied.

“Have them take exit 65 and get on Highway 236,” Emerson instructed.

Logan nodded and pressed down the button again. “You’ll want to get off on exit 65,” he told them. “You’ll take 236 until you’re past the accident.”

“Got it,” Darlene replied.

“We just passed mile marker 61 a few seconds ago so we’ll be there soon,” Fredrick offered.

Darlene and Fredrick exited the interstate without any problems. It was a few minutes later that, with the obnoxious sound of a saxophone, the song titled ‘We Are the Number One Bad Guys’ (which was reportedly a mash-up of a song from a children’s show and a pop song) started playing from his phone. Usually he’d be annoyed by hearing that sound as Patton and Remus had set it behind his back and he couldn’t figure out how to change it. Today, however, the sound was a relief. He grabbed his phone to look at the text message from Remus.

‘I’m not his keeper’ is what the text said in response to Logan’s many messages asking him if he knew where his brother was.

Logan stared at his phone for a least a whole minute.

“What’s wrong boss?” Clara finally hesitantly asked.

“I,” Logan said calmly. “Love. My. Children.”

“…Uh huh?”

Logan typed back a message he was certain at this point would not get a response, and then he hit the talk button on his desk. “So, Fredrick,” he said. “Tell me more about these chair covers. You mentioned flowers?”

“Uh…” Fredrick’s voice said. “Yes?”

Logan glanced up at the other agents in the room who were all staring intently at the designs in their desks. “Have you considered cherry blossoms?”

[metaphortunes]

Howdy friends, I’ve written a few short stories that I wanted to throw out into the ether. And I went back and tagged all my previous writing posts with the tag “metaphortune writes” for easy finding!

Here’s a short story about small towns, the priorities of young people, the sweetness of summer, and siblings. I didn’t edit it at all so my apologies in advance for any grammar failures!

The Big Slush machine went out on Sunday, April 14th, 2005. If we’re being honest here, it was the only reason my sister and I went to Johnson’s Fuel Mart. Their soda fountain tasted like it dumped about as much plastic into every cup as it did soda syrup. Their candy was tremendously overpriced, they had 1 brand of chips, Big Harold’s, and they cleaned the floors about once every 2 years. But the Big Slushes were heaven.

Suffice to say, April 14th was the end of an era for us. Each passing week we drifted farther and farther from knowing those floors like the back of our hands. Our ability to use the Big Slush machine with surgical precision faded and we reverted to slushie peasants. Mona, the main evening clerk slowly forgot our names, and our allowances stayed in our pockets more than ever.

One Tuesday, July 14th, I walked to Frantz Park down on Alpine Road. The benches were covered in droplets of a syrupy, sappy resin from a tree I’d never learned the name of. After sitting on the 40-year-old swings for a while, rusty chains and all, I walked through the outfield of the baseball diamond.

There was a windstorm that blew through town on July 12th, so it was no surprise when, deep into center-field, I saw a few pieces of trash had blown into the grass. A 3ft long Walgreens receipt, a fast food wrapper, and the item that caught my attention. A full two months after the Big Slush machine went out, there it was. In pristine condition, a clear plastic Big Slush cup. 34 fluid ounces with a flared rim. No lid, no straw, just the cup.

Obviously, I was elated. I picked up the cup and started fast-walking home. Throughout the walk my mind was fixated on what I believed to be the one possible explanation for how the pristine Big Slush cup came to be there: somewhere in our 15 stoplight town, there was a new Big Slush machine.

Nora shared my enthusiasm for the cup, but was more skeptical of my hypothesis. Realistically speaking, there weren’t many other places that would’ve had the machine. Not to mention, would they have the good flavors? Blue Raspberry, White Cherry, and Cola? Would it even be worth it if the machine had the disappointment of Grape or the medicine taste of Strawberry? It was purely speculation, but our teenage minds raced.

The next day, geared up with a list of all the businesses we thought could have a Big Slush machine, we set out to find it. First, we walked up State Route 117 to the small grocery, Three Bear Market. No luck there, but they were having a sale on gum. Blowing giant, sticky bubbles, we walked to the next business. Cutting across the alley between State Route 117 and Terrence Street, we made it to McAllen’s Bakery. No luck there, but the owner was very nice and complimented our backpacks.

We took Terrence Street to Alpine Road and stopped for a short break at Frantz Park. The benches were still sappy, the swings were still rusty. Funny how things don’t change overnight. We walked the outfield of the baseball diamond looking for any other pieces of evidence, but alas, there was no trash to be found. That’s probably good in the grand scheme of things, but we were disappointed.

Walking through the streets with Nora was a slightly blissful experience. Not quite a full on sort of bliss where everything in the world is great and nothing ever hurts; but a soft, warm filter on everything. That’s the benefit of having a good relationship with your older sibling, having them around is like a blanket of security. Nothing can ever go THAT wrong when they’re with you.

We’d taken Alpine to First, then First to Reagan. On Reagan was the first gas station built in town, the Marathon, formerly known as the Brachston Pump Station. Marathon bought it up in 1996, installed all new pumps, remodeled the inside, and removed any character the building had had. Oh, and they didn’t have a Big Slush machine. Probably worth mentioning that.

From the Marathon on Reagan, we walked a block or so down the Walgreens. Walgreens having a slushie was a long shot, but didn’t pharmacies used to have soda fountains back in the day? It wasn’t THAT absurd. We wandered around the building to find exactly zero Big Slush machines. The clerks, disenchanted college dropouts, paid exactly zero attention to us.

The last place we tried was the only other gas station in town, Stop-N-Go. We had to walk the entire rest of the way down Reagan to where it dead-ended into Marshall Street and walk Marshall Street until it dead-ended into Montgomery Avenue. That all ends up being about a mile’s walk, but we were determined. We entered through the oddly heavy steel and glass door and asked the clerk. They didn’t have one.

However, the clerk, Henry, was also a fan. Or at least pretended to like them. As a favor to the owner, Henry worked one night at the other Stop-N-Go, about 4 miles away in Hallston back in 2003. He remembered them having a slushie machine, but couldn’t remember what type. We figured that even if it was there in 2003, it probably wasn’t there today, and slunk out of the store. But Henry came out after us and said “let me call the other store and ask them for you, alright?”

The clerk on the other end seemed very confused, but eventually was able to confirm the news we were so adamant on receiving: they had a Big Slush machine in working order! We expressed our joy and gratitude to Henry after he hung of the phone, he said he was “stoked it worked out for you.” We were stoked too, Henry.

We took Montgomery down to Fourth and ended up back home. Our parents wouldn’t be home from work for a few hours, which gave us time to plot exactly how we’d ask them to drive us 4 miles to go to a gas station. The plotting was all for naught, as they were tremendously unimpressed. “Next time we’re out that way, we’ll go” they said. But the reality of the situation was that we’d only been to Hallston a few times. It was in the opposite direction of Wrexham, the small city we’d go to from time to time.

Luckily, Nora remembered a fact that I had failed to remember. The rails-to-trails bike path that went through our town also went through Hallston. Neither of us were really that interested in biking, but if it meant getting a Big Slush? We’d have biked 20 miles one way. We got our bikes out for the first time in weeks that day, inflated the tires, tested our helmets, and set off.

Four miles is a hell of a bike ride when you haven’t biked in weeks. It was all flat land surrounded by farmer’s fields, but it was still 4 miles in the heat of July. Luckily, we had a frosty goal to keep our minds set on. Whenever we faltered or slowed down, the other would just say “Big Slush!!!” in a sort of TV commercial announcer voice. After a half an hour or so, we made it to the Hallston. Neither of us really knew where the Stop-N-Go was, but we fortune favored us. A Stop-N-Go fuel truck was stopping-n-going at the the traffic light near the bike path. We sped to follow it.

The truck took a left onto the state route and turned into the Stop-N-Go. Success! We found ourselves in the parking lot, shouting “Big Slush!!!” at each other in the aforementioned voice. We opened the surprisingly light (or just well maintained) steel and glass door and saw a large sign hanging from the ceiling that said “DRINKS” in Comic Sans. We walked towards the sign and found our holy grail. The Big Slush machine.

There it sat on a red counter, humming away and constantly rotating the slush inside. Condensation sat on the plastic windows to view each of the three flavors churning, and we parsed the flavor selection. Strawberry (aka medicine), Grape (aka disappointment), and White Cherry. As Meatloaf didn’t say: 1 out of 3 ain’t bad. But as we approached the machine, our hearts sunk. The White Cherry flavor was out of order.

We literally ran to the counter to ask the incredibly confused clerk what was happening and when it would be fixed. There was an error with the ratios of the newest White Cherry syrup batches which made the slushies too hard to fit through a straw. We begged the clerk to just turn it on and let us have some, we didn’t care that they’d be hard, we didn’t care how long it’d take, and we’d wait around; but the clerk refused.

Ultimately, we’d come too far for this to happen. We were going to drink a Big Slush and that was going to be the end of it. We swallowed our unhappiness and decided to get the flavors of medicine and disappointment. I got the Grape, Nora got the Strawberry. Honestly, they were not great. The Grape still tasted like the inside of a shoe, and the Strawberry still tasted like it was a slushie version of children’s liquid ibuprofen. But they still quenched a primal desire in us. Can you call a desire for a slushie a primal desire? Sure, why not.

The rest of the summer break, we’d bike to Hallston two or three times a week. Biking got easier each time we went, the rides got quicker, we had to shout “Big Slush!!!” at each other less. The White Cherry flavor never came back, but we learned to appreciate the Grape and Strawberry flavors. If we mixed the two, it almost tasted good for some reason. Grape and Strawberry isn’t exactly a combination you’d expect to taste cohesive and fulfilling, and yet, here we were.

Eventually the school year and extra-curriculars caught up with us and we were lucky to make it to the Hallston Stop-N-Go once a week. Our enthusiasm never waned, though. Each time, we hoped that they’d have finally gotten another flavor to replace the White Cherry, and yet, even a year after, they hadn’t. Strawberry and Grape. Medicine and Disappointment. Nora and Jamie.

[mysterious-prophetess]

Top Five Academic and Publishing Scandals of the last Decade

So, I’ve seen people do stuff like this, a round up of sorts and the 2010′s were an insane decade to be alive.

So, I thought I’d compile my personal favorite publishing and academic scandals

Note: This will concern only things that were actually published or a scandal to do with Academia. The Rose Christo incident with the infamous fanfic didn’t have the biography make it to print so it’s right here as a Dishonorable Mention. No sources, because this was a home-grown tumblr disaster (much like Dashcon). 

So, 

#5 That Book that Used Scammy Tactics to Become a Best Seller Before Anyone Ever Even Read It.

Remember that time when Handbook for Mortals used shady tactics to make it look like it was selling better in pre-sales than it actually was? I barely remembered it, but then as I was adding in our Dishonorable Mention, I suddenly had the thought of “remember that...” so here it is at #5 since this book was actually published, and it was allegedly terrible. It has 3 stars on Amazon, but with its past, I can’t even trust that.

I didn’t read it. I had, and still have, better things to do than to read subpar fantasy that tried to be the next Hunger Games/Harry Potter/Divergent. 

It turns out, if you have wealthy enough collaborators, or people who know how to game the system by which the NYT Bestsellers’ List operates, you too can buy and cheat your way onto that list with a terribly written book like these guys.

What’s even more ridiculous was there were already talks of a movie version and this unknown writer turned out to be, surprise, an actress too! And guess who’d be playing her own main character in the movie? The author! So, once this was unraveled as being a bulk-book-buying-cheat-tactic-to-get-on-the-NY Times-Bestseller-List, they lost their rank and were completely off the list. The movie is also toast, I think, since it would have come out in 2018. We’re now in 2020.

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#4: That time Bethesda Plagiarized Dungeons and Dragons.

That’s right folks. Bethesda, who cannot catch a break after their hilariously disastrous launch of their ongoing garbage fire, Fallout 76, were in trouble whenever they released a TTRPG module for an Elder Scrolls game that was suspiciously like a previously released Dungeons and Dragons adventure...because it was very much ripped off from the D&D book.  

There were articles highlighting just how they did this and how blatant it was. 

Some articles would do a side-by-side of huge chunks of the text and, yikes, that’s some obvious copy-pasting.

Suffice to say, they yanked this e-book down ASAP. (x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#3 That Time a Youtuber Turned Professional Games Media Editor Plagiarized for Most of His Career and Only Got Caught After He Plagiarized the Wrong Person on a Very Public Platform

So, yeah. There was a review last year for a game called Dead Cells (published by Motion Twin). On July 24, 2018 a smaller Youtube channel called Boomstick gaming would upload their review to the game. Then August 6th, IGN’s Nintendo editor would post “his” review up and Deadite from Boomstick Gaming, who was actually a fan of IGN, noticed a lot of eerie similarities between the reviews. He did a side-by-side video comparison (here) and it looks like a case of barely even changing the words around after copying someone else’s homework. As an English major, this is a clear-cut case of plagiarism. IGN agreed too, as did most of the internet. This reviewer had fans who still believe in him even after he’s been proven a plagiarist but, no accounting for taste am I right? And this would have been the end of it....had he just accepted his fate and just slunk off into the dark recesses of the internet. 

But, then he had to provoke both Jason Schrier of Kotaku AND the Internet in a now deleted non-apology video to “looking as hard as you’re able, you won’t find anything.”

Yeah. That didn’t end well for him. So, people went digging and found a shitton of evidence he was a serial plagiarist. No shock to me, because plagiarism is never something a plagiarist ever does just “once.” He’d ripped off his fellow IGN reviewers as well as forum posts and articles from other publications. He also plagiarized a resume template. Now, when you use one of those, you’re SUPPOSED to mimic the style, put place your own information, right? Well, he didn’t even do that.

Link to YongYea, a youtuber who covered the topic in depth. He has his videos on the topic in a playlist. (x)

#2 The Professor Who P-Hacked His Results to Pieces

Now if you don’t know or remember who Professor Brian Wansink is, he’s a former faculty member at Cornell who rose to fame with his papers on nutrition and people’s eating habits. I’m still not entirely sure how a guy whose degrees were not in nutrition OR psychology ended up being the face of this field that seemed to have a lot more to do with nutrition and psychology, but here we are. His degrees were, in fact, a B.S. in business administration from Wayne State College, an M.A. in  journalism and mass communication from Drake University, and a PhD in Marketing-Consumer behavior- from Stanford. In a move that one might call pure hubris or just complete and total social ignorance, he made a blog post that started to bring eyes on his work. Thanks to the efforts of other scientists (Like the Skeptical Scientist) and Heathers and Brown as well as the computer programs GRIM and GRIMMER, it was found the man who was cited over 200,000 times was a fraud. As of now 17 papers have been retracted and 15 have been corrected. He is no longer employed at all by Cornell, resigning a disgrace to his field and his former place of work.

The only reason he managed to get so big was he was able to make his so-called science digestible for the masses and able to give his works palatable titles. Ok, I’m done with the food puns. He was a superstar (even worked with the previous first lady on her health initiatives), which is why his fall is also meteoric. This is why you don’t torture your data into false positives, folks. Also, he’d target science journals that weren’t as prestigious and therefore wouldn’t have as rigorous a peer-editing process, allegedly. 

His actions have brought thousands of papers into jeopardy and destabilized his whole entire field because nothing he did was reproducible and that’s already a huge problem in science. 

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx) (X) (XX)

And.... now for the worst Academic Scandal of the 2010′s....

#1 The College Admission’s Scandal

Because despite Wasink’s damage to his field (because now there are literally thousands of papers who cited him in jeopardy), and two separate cases of Plagiarists on this list, I really can’t help but feel this has to be one of the biggest College/Academia scandals of ALL TIME. Sure, it’s old news now but I’m recapping it because that’s what this list is for. So, A bunch of wealthy people who wanted their children to go to prestigious universities wanted a guarantee that just buying a new wing for the library/science buildings/etc wouldn’t get them. You know, the normal way the super rich buy their children’s ways into schools. Instead, they went to this guy Singer whose group masqueraded as a charity (and that’s what got their asses nailed) and facilitated bribery, cheating, and deception. They caught one of these parents who’d gotten their children in with Singer’s plans for a different crime, and he offered to squeal on Singer and his plot for leniency with his other charges.

Singer’s plan usually involved bribing coaches to get these undeserving students recruited for sports teams (and therefore displacing an actual athlete who should have gotten their spot) as well as having people alter SAT scores and other deceptive actions. 

It’s unknown if, at this time, any of these children of the 34 charged parents, actually managed to graduate with degrees from any of these institutions. However, those that had any of these students have to now decide what to do with them since these admissions are now verifiably fraudulent. Some are going to whole-sale kick them out or “cancel their admission” and others aren’t speaking up, and one has already decided the student gets to stay. Because they might not have known what their parents did, and its possible for the ones whose parents DIDN’T have them fake athleticism to not know what their mom and dad did. Hell, even most of the fake athletes might not have known thanks to reports of photo shopping their faces onto uniformed bodies. I do not know if any of these children were in on what their parents did, thought I suspect some might have been, but that’s merely speculation on my part. At the end of the day, it’s up to each affected university to carry out what they wish to do next.

The fact they made donations to a fake charity (and therefore skirted the tax man) are the reason they’re REALLY in deep shit. You don’t deny the IRS its money or the IRS will come for your blood. Just ask the ghost of Al Capone. 

(x) (xx) (xxx)

So those are my top 5 Publishing and Academic Scandals of the past Decade. 

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

LinkedUniverse Fanfic Ch. 13: Inn or Out... Maybe Just Inn

Stop! You’ve Violated the Law!

So, you’ve stumbled upon this original post for my Linked Universe fanfiction. That’s okay, it happens to everyone. As of March 2021, I’ve uploaded the entirety of this fanfic to my Archive of Our Own page. Along with finally giving the story a name–Oops! All Links: A Linked Universe Story–I made substantial edits to some of the chapters. These range from minor stylistic revisions to fixing a gaping plot hole that kinda completely broke the character conflict in the earlier chapters. I also renamed and renumbered (but not reordered) the chapters. Specifically, this is now Chapter 15: Inn or Out... Maybe Just Inn

The AO3 iterations of these chapters are the definitive versions. So, if you would like to read this fanfiction, please do so on AO3, right here. With this embedded link. Hehe. Geddit? Link?

Note: My screen name on AO3 is FrancisDuFresne. Yes, that is me. I am not plagiarizing myself.

Anyway, for posterity’s sake, the rest of the original post is below the cut.

This chapter in my @linkeduniverse fan narrative: the Links have made it Selggog. They’re pretty tired. It’s time for them to get some well-deserved rest. They’ll need to find an inn, first. Word count: 2581:

“The Town of Selggog,” Warrior let the words roll off his tongue. Well, he tried. “Selggog” doesn’t really roll off the tongue. “You think we can restock here?”

Wind looked around the town in awe. Its weathered but dignified buildings stood close to one another in tightly packed streets. The orange light of the setting sun reflected off the high windows. People bustled about on their last-minute errands. Compared to Windfall Island, it was practically a metropolis. “Yeah,” he replied. “Definitely. Look at this place!”

Time was reminded vaguely of Hyrule Castle Town. Being back in civilization was a nice change of pace. He drank in the sights and sounds and smells of the town. Some people eyed the Links warily, perhaps put on edge by nine heavily-armed young men. He supposed these people weren’t used to travelers, let alone warriors like him and his friends.

“Don’t get caught up in all of this,” Time warned the others. “We still need to be on guard.”

Four remembered the gang of thieves he encountered on one of his journeys. “Yeah,” he said. “We don’t need any pickpockets.”

“Anyone see an inn?” Sky asked with a yawn, looking for any sign of lodging.

“Not yet, sleepyhead,” Legend jested.

“We do need to restock, though,” Warrior repeated. “We need an apothecary for potions, a market for food, a fletcher for arrows… Twilight, do you need new pants?”

As he walked, Twilight glanced at his torn and bloodied pant leg. “No, I’m fine. I’ll fix them tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, what else?”

Wild spoke up hesitantly: “An armorer. I need a new shield… and probably a new sword, too.”

“A new sword? Seriously?” Legend asked, whipping around to face his companion. “What’d you do to your old one?”

“The fight with the stalfos really did a number on it.”

Warrior smacked his own forehead. ‘Maybe, if you took care of your weapons for once, they wouldn’t break so easily!”

“Yeah, come on,” Four chimed in. A blacksmith himself, it always bugged him when he saw how Wild treated his weapons.

Time sighed. Yet again, he needed to stop their bickering. “Lay off him,” he snapped. “Four, take a look at his sword in the morning and decide if he needs a new one.”

The one-eyed hero took a deep breath. “What we need to do right now is find an inn. No stores will be open at this hour.”

They turned a corner. As if on cue, they spotted a sign swinging from above a building’s door. A crescent moon was painted on the worn, wooden surface. Behind it, they could see the last sliver of sun creep behind the rooftops. Stars began popping into sight above them in the twilit sky. “Talk about good timing,” Wind said, stretching his arms upward. “I’m just about ready to collapse.”

The nine companions reached the inn’s door and opened it. A bell chimed as it swung open. The heroes filed in. The place had a cozy feel to it. To one side, several cushioned chairs were arranged around the crackling fireplace. On the other, high tables and stools stood near a bar. A stairwell was set in the far wall. The reception desk was ahead of them.

A portly, balding, middle-aged man sat behind the desk. He had clearly been nodding off, by the way he jolted when the bell rang. That, and the line of drool rolling down his chin; he quickly ran his sleeve across his face. Like the townsfolk outside, he gave the heroes a wary look. From the bloody slash in Twilight’s pant leg to the halberd on Wild’s back, they weren’t exactly dressed to the nines.

The man stood up from his stool and took a few seconds to look the Links up and down. “Welcome to the Black Pot & Kettle Inn. Can I help you?” he asked apprehensively.

Time stepped forward. The man stepped back. Spending so much time around Malon and his other selves made him forget how intimidating he could appear. Most folks weren’t accustomed to seeing people with one eye, never mind one with strange markings on his face, wearing armor, and carrying a massive sword on his back. He had to work to dispel that impression.

“We would like lodgings for the night, please,” Time said.

The man, who they reckoned must be the innkeeper, shot Time an incredulous look. “You fellas got the cash for this many of you?”

“Yes,” Time asserted. Firm yet gentle. “We’ll only need three rooms.”

He looked back to his companions, who nodded their assent. He turned to face the innkeeper, who was reaching under his desk. Time just barely caught the man muttering under his breath, “psh, only three rooms.” After a jingling of metal, the innkeeper stood up and held out three room keys. “Can I have a name for these?”

“Link.”

“Huh. Odd name for a… warrior… such as yourself.”

The man’s skepticism escaped none of them. If only he knew who they really were, they all mused. He likely noticed the indignance on all their faces, because he lowered the sarcastic tone as he said “Okay, Mister Link. That’ll be three hundred rupees.”

A few of them had to suppress gasps. That was a hefty price for just one night. Thinking quickly, Hyrule stepped up next to Time. He placed a forearm on the desk and stared down the innkeeper. “You know, sir, we don’t have to stay here,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the door. “I’m sure Selggog has plenty other fine inns that would love our business.”

The innkeeper’s demeanor changed immediately. “Yes,” he agreed, “yes, I’m sure they would. How does… two hundred fifty rupees sound?”

Hyrule wasn’t about to settle. “One hundred.”

Sky leaned over to Hyrule and whispered: “Don’t push it.” Hyrule shook his head.

“One hundred?!” The man exclaimed. “Do I look like a fool to you?”

Hyrule had to suppress the urge to answer truthfully.

The innkeeper caved a bit. “Fine, fine, you’re a tough customer. Two hundred.”

“One-fifty,” Hyrule pressed, maintaining his stony glare. “Final.”

The innkeeper considered this. Hyrule could practically see the gears cranking in his balding head. After a moment, the innkeeper sighed. “Alright, kid. One-fifty, but only cause I’m in a good mood.”

The Links hadn’t expected to get a cheaper price that easily. Hyrule grinned as he reached into his pouch and pulled out his wallet. He withdrew three purple rupees and placed them on the desk. The innkeeper’s eyes lit up. Losing half of his sale didn’t seem to bother him anymore. He swept the rupees into one hand and held out the keys in the other. Hyrule took them.

“Upstairs, last three on the left,” the innkeeper instructed, crossing his arms. “Bath is at the end of the hall.” He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t make a mess.”

Time stepped by Hyrule and held out his hand. The innkeeper eyed it suspiciously, then shook it. “Thank you for your hospitality,” Time said, “and your generosity.”

The innkeeper gave an indiscriminate grunt. The Links turned and headed up the stairs. The stairwell turned direction at a landing midway up, then led to the second floor. Oil lamps set above the doors lit a long hall with a threadbare rug running the length of it. The heroes walked to the end and looked about themselves.

“How should we split?” Four asked.

“Come on,” Legend said, “you of all people should know how to split.”

This got a few stifled snickers. “Very funny,” he shot back. “But seriously.”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Twilight pointed out. “We’ll go by height.”

After a moment trying to figure out the order, Legend passed the keys around. They uttered goodnights to each other. Twilight unlocked one door and walked in. Time and Warrior followed. Wind, Four, and Legend did the same, as did Wild, Sky, and Hyrule. The rooms were like the rest of the Black Pot & Kettle Inn: cozy and inviting, if not a bit worse for the wear. Three beds with clean linens ran flush against one long wall. A desk, chair, and dresser were by the other. A mirror hung above the dresser, and a small, open window was set in the far wall.

In one room, the heroes began undressing from their battle garments. As Sky unhooked his sailcloth from around his neck, he looked over to Hyrule. He hadn’t expected a show like that from a humble traveler like him. “Hey,” Sky said, “that was pretty gutsy back there.”

“Ah, well…” Hyrule replied. “Three hundred seemed high, so I wanted to get it down.”

Sky cocked an eyebrow. “Wait, so if you don’t like the price of something, you just ask for it for cheaper?”

“Basically,” Hyrule said with a shrug. “People in my Hyrule charge whatever they want for everything, so I had to learn to haggle to get cheap prices.”

Wild propped his halberd against one corner. He paused, looking back on his own adventure. “That’s odd. Where I’m from, it’s as if there’s a price-guide everyone agreed to. Everything’s always the same.” He remembered how much Yiga assassins charged for bananas. “Well, most of it anyway.”

Something clicked in Sky’s head. He suddenly stopped undoing his baldric. “Wait…” he said slowly, “so when Beedle kept jacking up his prices, I didn’t have to pay them?”

“Beedle?” Wild asked. “You can’t mean the merchant, can you? The one who likes bugs?”

“I… yeah, I guess,” Sky said, scratching his head. “How can we know the same person?”

Wild thought about it for a moment. He let down his hair. “Aren’t you supposed to live thousands of years before me?”

“I think so.”

Taking off his boots, Wild looked up to his friends. Sky looked as confused as he felt. “That’s really weird.”

Hyrule slid his power bracelet off his wrist. “Wait, did you say this Beedle guy jacked his prices?”

Sky laughed. “Did he ever! I swear, he nearly drove me bankrupt. Something could be a hundred rupees one day, then be a thousand the next.”

“Seriously?” Hyrule asked. “You never tried to haggle?”

With a shrug, Sky undid his belt, then pulled his tunic and chainmail off over his head. “I didn’t really think that was an option,” he admitted.

“Well,” Wild said, unwrapping the patterned cloth from his forearms, “we can use that extra hundred rupees to buy more provisions. After this knucklehead here”—he jerked his head towards Hyrule—“got himself hurt, we’re out of potions.”

“I’m net even, then,” Hyrule said. “I used the last of the potions, and I saved us the money we need to buy more.”

Sky chuckled. “He’s got you there. You’re one to talk, too. It’ll be more than a hundred to replace that shield.”

Wild looked over the dented Stalfos shield lying next to his other weapons and sighed. “Yeah. That thing is awful.”

“Ha, I thought you were able to use any weapon you come across,” Hyrule joked, his voice muffled as he took off his tunic.

The young knight shot him a look. “It was designed for a skeleton. There’s practically no room for my arm. It’s also weighted all wrong.”

“Riiight.” Hyrule’s voice was tinged with sarcasm.

Just then, they heard a loud rumbling. Sky and Hyrule stood and were reaching for their swords when Wild waved at them dismissively. “Calm down,” he said. “I’m just hungry.”

Sky and Hyrule looked at each other and started laughing. Now that they were thinking about it, they realized they were starving, too. Wild reached into his pouch and pulled out a few strips venison jerky he made the previous week. He put one between his teeth and held the rest to his friends. Hyrule grabbed a couple and thanked him.

Sky shook his head. “I’m good, thanks.”

Wild raised an eyebrow, shrugged, then ripped some jerky off with his teeth and started eating. The people of Skyloft didn’t keep livestock, so their newest knight wasn’t comfortable hunting and eating meat. Survivalists like Wild and Hyrule were puzzled by this but stopped pressing him after a few days.

Even so, Hylia’s chosen hero was still hungry. “Do we still have any more of that soup?” he asked.

Swallowing his mouthful, Wild reached back into his bag. “Let me see… uh… hm… oh!”

He pulled out a corked bottle filled with soup. Twilight had shared this recipe with Wild a while back. He said it was the best soup he had ever had in his life. When Wild finally got around to making it, Sky requested that they leave the fish out. It was tempting to eat all of it then, but they had the sense to put a few bottles away. Wild handed him the bottle.

Sky uncorked it and took a swig of the cold soup. It was better hot, but still tasty and hearty nonetheless. He wiped his mouth and looked from Hyrule to Wild. It was only just after sundown, but they looked as exhausted as he felt. “Hey,” he said.

“Hm?” Hyrule grunted, mouth full of jerky.

“Let’s get some rest. Something tells me Time is going to wake us up early.” He sighed. “Again.”

Wild and Hyrule each nodded. The three of them finished undressing, crawled under their sheets, and—after Hyrule extinguished the oil lamp on the wall—shut their eyes to welcome sleep. A few minutes passed before a whisper pierced the darkness. “You guys good after today?” Sky asked.

“Yep,” Wild whispered back.

“…Yeah,” Hyrule replied. A moment’s pause, then “But what about the others?”

After a few seconds of silence, Sky spoke up. “I dunno. Twi looked pretty shaken.”

“Dark Link seriously messed with him,” Wild pointed out. “Those corpses he made Twi see…”

“And Time…” Hyrule breathed. “You guys weren’t there when he put on that mask. It was awful.”

Something clicked in Sky’s mind. “Was that him screaming?”

“Mhm. He was in so much pain. I can’t help but feel it was my fault. He did it to save me.”

Wild rolled onto his side and looked at Hyrule. The dim moonlight showed the guilt on his face. “Don’t. I was in that position once, so I know that he would do anything he needed to to save his friends. It’s on him, not you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t let this haunt you. It’s not worth it.”

Hyrule let these words sink in. It was a weight off his chest, but he still had an inkling of that guilty feeling. Sky reflected on his own adventure, how Hylia used him and his love for Zelda so he would willingly run headfirst into unfathomable danger. This courage and love ran through every Link’s blood, he reckoned. “We’ve all been there,” he whispered, “and if I’m on the mark, we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The Link who felt the least like a hero out of the nine looked up at the dark ceiling. “Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “Yeah… I guess you’re right.”

No more words were spoken that night. The three of them fell asleep in a few minutes, as did the six of them in the other rooms. After everything they had been through the past two days, just feeling a soft bed under them was enough to knock them out. The thought running through all of their minds was the same: It’s about damn time.