#auto to me while I complain about formatting

[rice-n-honey]

Int o Post

(warning from the future: this entire post was written during a concert, and as such, is chaotic beyond belief. there is some actually useful information about tags though.)

Hey! I'm Rice!

And no, its not because I'm asian—

"'I am asian, BUT, that's not the point.'"

Yay! Another quote stolen from auto.

(the funny thing is that you're not asian—)

(I'm not asian!)

("I'm here to do an intro post but mostly to clown on auto." Not like I asked for this...)

(I need to clarify, that the entire time, you were taking to yourself.)

(Shush! ... we should probably quote that)

"Its not mine, but I'm keeping it."

Even the quote is stolen from auto. Just like their intro page.

Pronouns:

well I'm certainly not antinoun.

(they/they)

TagTag Chains:

(+tagging in general)

Tag me. I will have fun. I might not see it tho bc Tumblr hates me, but I'll do my best. Tagging games are fun!

What I post about:

(subject to even MORE rapid change)

Primarily

Danny Phantom (dp)

DP x DC (dpxdc)

Scum Villain's Self Saving System (svsss)

Lego Ninjago (ninjago)

(It was MINE before it was yours auto-)

(*hysterical laughting*)

('laughting.')

(shutup.)

Writing Prompys (writing prompts)

Other things that I love:

Grammar.

(ah yes, up there with spelling)

(don't call me out auto)

Batman (dpxdc is slowly getting me into batman)

Lego Ninjato (auto's fault.)

Danny Phantom (technically, I already put this. But I need somewhere to compile the fandoms auto infected me with.)

Riorrdanverse

She Ra is neat

MXTX's works. All of them.

Also ErHa.

I am so normal about Malevolent

Things I Write About:

Danny Phantom

Scum Villain

There is some other stuff on my Ao3 but this is the current stuff.

(m)Y Tags

(I did not have tags before this. I once again blame auto.)

(not everything is my fault.)

(it is <3)

Rice cooks (rambles, writing, anything written tbh.)

Honey drips (art.) (Auto came up with this one.)

(that like- this is not all my fault!!)

(denial is more than a river in egypt beloved)

(denial is more than a river in... Alberta.🇬🇧🎩)

SGWoWMA (Saying Goodbye [Will-'o-Wisp Me Away] my ongoing dp longfic. I need to write more. And actually publish something.)

Chicago au (writing/art/memes for mine and @secretly-an-automaton 's dp fic)

luh-loyd ninjabuse (writing/art/memes for my lego Ninjago fic, which, as the working title implies, is angsty and lloyd-centric)

danny saves opportunity au (its literally what it says. Danny saves opportunity from mars!)

save for later (I know it's generic but it's what is says on the tin. I need something to be simple in life.)

Requests:

I'm always open yo eruyibng?fraeubg rwqhrstd. U nughy noy alwayd do them, rdprguakkh it I'm bhdy.bbht don't be shy about sdjung. I don't do commissions but so long as abgthing I ctsatr us inku used for personal reasons and with proper credits! In chill euth it.

(did I spell anything correct the first time?)

(... Maybe 'i'??)

Just check auto's. It's the same.

Other places to find me:

Archive of Our Own/Ao3

In your house. In your hose.

(blame auto, as always)

(*incomprehensible squawking* stAp)

Last Updated:

Now.

November 13, 2023

Next Updated:

Upon Armageddon's Dawn.

And that's all I've(?) got for now? Have a lovely day. Do it. 💙.

Question

Everything

(Another day, another quote.)

(And we ball.)

•—<•>—•

(Tumblr is having a stroke🎶)

(No that was just me.)

( ... Rice is having a stroke🎶)

Hi, I’m Auto!

This is an intro post; if you’d prefer, just shuffle my blog for a sample of the madness 💚

Pronouns:

I’m cool with whatever

Tag chains:

(and tagging in general)

Feel free to tag me—I won’t always participate if I don’t have the time but I love to see what my mutuals are up to! Don’t be shy about sending asks or DMs either.

What I post about:

(subject to rapid change)

Mostly

Danny Phantom (#dp)

Lego Ninjago (#Ninjago)

The Magnus Archives (#tma)

Sometimes

Miraculous (#mlb)

DP x DC (#dp x dc)

Malevolent (#malevolent)

Starkid musicals - mostly Hatchetverse (#starkid)

Aromanticism (#aro)

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (#svsss)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - mostly 2012 (#tmnt, #tmnt 2012)

Surrealism

Dungeons & Dragons (#dnd)

Other things I love:

(but are rarely found on my blog)

WOE.BEGONE

Project Hail Mary

Gravity Falls

Alice: Madness Returns

X-Men

Spiderverse

Bendy and the Ink Machine

Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss

Mr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

The Hunger Games

Riordanverse

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Tokyo Ghoul

Minecraft

Things I write about:

Posted

Danny Phantom (16 works)

The Magnus Archives (1 work)

Unposted (as of yet)

Miraculous

X-Men

TMNT 2012

My tags:

Auto speaks (general ramblings)

Auto does art (mostly digital fanart, occasionally other crafts or cosplay)

Auto writes (writing challenges, AO3 links, and fanart based on my writing)

WAYHiL au (art, memes, and writing pertaining to my dp au fic)

Resource (mainly for personal use, contains any posts I want to refer back to)

Note: I try to tag common triggers like gore, needles, SH etc. but my TWs aren’t perfect so follow me with caution. If I post something you think I should tag, feel free to tell me.

Requests:

I’m always open to writing/drawing requests! I might not always do them, especially if I’m busy, but don’t be shy about asking! I don’t do commissions, but so long as anything I create is only used for personal reasons and with proper credit, I’m chill with it.

Other places to find me:

Reddit (u/Aut0mat0nWitch)

Archive of Our Own (Aut0mat0nWitch)

Last updated:

April 13, 2024

And that’s all I’ve got for now! Wishing you all a lovely day 💚

[just-some-trans-nobody]

Pizza time

Yautja x reader

Your yautja boyfriend steals pizza for you cause you said you thinking about getting pizza but didn't want to drive.

Thank you @empressnarria for this story suggestion!

No prounons used, just a bunch of fluff and soft kisses

Warnings: robbery, swearing. Do not steal pizza!

If I missed any let me know and I'll add them

Minors do not interact!

Formated on phone, barely spell checked sorry for any mistakes! It's 3 am at the time of writing this sorry if it makes no sense.

------------------------------------------------------------

The moment you complained about wanting pizza but not wanting to get up and have to talk to people your boyfriend took that as a challenge. He was younger, about mid to early twenty in yautja years so he was head strong and eager to prove himself, ooman laws didn't apply to him so he didn't bother learning what they were. While you were distracted by something he snatched up your phone and ordered pizza be delivered to a building a few blocks away near a park. Your boyfriend made sure to leave a tip, he had seen you do that before so he knew that part, he just didn't know he had to pay money for the pizza, or how to pay for pizza.

Giving you a kissing good bye first he headed out the door with the excuse that he needed to stretch his legs out. He wanted the pizza to be a surprise. Stalking rooftop to rooftop he made his way to the pick up point. Being a little to eager he left way to early and had to wait half an hour on a rooftop. He wanted to get back to his ooman! Seeing the delivery driver show up he quickly swooped down grabbing the pizza boxes before the poor delivery driver could register what just happened.

"Oh fuck that shit I'm not dealing with pizza ghosts!" The delivery driver shouted jumping back into his car racing away.

Walking back in with five pizza boxes your boyfriend was so proud of himself for getting you so many pizzas. You on the other hand were so confused about where he got pizza from. He just said he got pizza for you and that it should be eaten before it got cold. Shrugging the two of you snuggled up on the couch eating pizza while watching some action movie.

Once the two of you had your fill of pizza you laid on his chest and peppered his face in kisses. Your yautja boyfriend was absolutely delighted by all the affection. He hadn't even noticed he had starred purring as he held you close to his chest. Falling asleep on his chest he didn't dare move a muscle not wanting to wake you up.

The next day when checking your bank account you noticed a large amount of money withdrawn from it, five pizzas and a tip worth. Your boyfriend didn't know that your bank account was linked to your pizza account and set for auto pay. He thought he didn't need to pay, you knew he paid from your account and decided to not tell him. It was the thought that counted.

[yupuffin]

I've been considering why I don't use the autoplay and 2x speed functions in Star Rail (despite complaining about how grindy it is) when I definitely took advantage of them in Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, which I finished playing immediately before I started Star Rail...

Actually, let's back up a bit. DQM on its own was an interesting experience, because the previous Dragon Quest Monsters game I played (Joker 2) came out when I was THIRTEEN. I think I mentioned while I was playing it that it made me feel like a kid again for that reason.

And, having played the heck out of the Joker games as a kid, I still remembered how everything worked - but there were still plenty of new mechanics to get used to. Some were pretty minor, like some adjustments to the synthesis method, or the names of half of the moves being different (and usually more boring, sadly - for example, "Poisonous Poke" was changed simply to "Poison Attack").

Some less minor things new to this DQM were the increase of the team size (number of monsters out on the field at one time) from three to four, and the addition of the autoplay and 2x speed functions.

Funnily enough, a similar format to Star Rail!

In the DQM games I've played, your monsters can have a wide range of movesets depending on how you synthesize them. You can give them specific commands every turn, which is useful in some situations, but, since each monster has a specialized role and you'll typically only want them to use a small subset of the moves they know, this gets pretty repetitive pretty fast. Instead, what you typically do is you set the monster to one of a few different "tactics" to tell the algorithm how to strategize - for example, dealing as much damage as possible, focusing on healing or on applying buffs to your teammates, or avoiding using skills entirely. In most cases, this is sufficient to get the monster to do what you want. Sometimes, in boss battles, you'll give specific commands, but using auto-battle instead allows them to select their moves for the turn after taking into the account the randomness factor of what order the monsters act in (there is a speed stat, but it's not an absolute "monster with highest speed stat goes first" rule), which can be a lifesaver if something happens and, for example, your healer ends up acting a little earlier or a little later in the turn than usual. After setting the tactics you want your monsters to follow, you simply press the "fight" button at the beginning of each turn and let them battle it out.

DQM: The Dark Prince further enhances this function and made it even more useful by adding in an "instructions" function by which you can change the relative priority of each of the monster's individual moves in addition to giving them a general strategy to follow. In the vast majority of situations, this basically removes the need to give orders at all, except under really specific circumstances. The auto-battle function, additionally, overrides the need to hit "fight" at the beginning of every single turn, and simply lets the battle progress automatically until you turn it off (which you might need to do on occasion, if, for example, you need to use an item in between turns).

So I did, indeed, play a lot of the game on auto-battle at 2x speed, because, with how many wild monsters you run into and how many buttons you need to press to give specific orders, it gets extremely repetitive and time-consuming otherwise. (Definitely major QOL improvements compared to the previous DQM games.)

Okay, so what's different about Star Rail?

The battle format is indeed pretty similar - turn-based combat with up to four team members at a time, each with a different skillset and hence fulfilling a different role. Yet I haven't once utilized the 2x speed or autobattle functions, even after complaining about the amount of grinding in the game.

For one, a given team member in Star Rail has a predetermined skillset with only a couple of possible actions. In DQM, to give orders in battle, you'd have to scroll through the list of all the moves the monster has learned (which can be basically anything, depending on how you synthesized them) to select the one you want to use that turn. Meanwhile, in Star Rail, you're limited to choosing a basic attack, an elemental skill, or an elemental burst. (Using the Genshin terminology here because it's basically the same format anyway, and I legitimately do not recall the names for things in Star Rail off the top of my head 🤣)

Plus, you don't have to open a separate menu to access these commands - they're just there. Hit the corresponding button, and that's it! That alone means you have a lot fewer keystrokes/buttons to press than you would for the equivalent action in DQM.

Then there's the Tactics and Instructions functions in DQM that basically eliminate the need to issue orders in most situations. Similar functions are, as far as I'm aware, nonexistent in Star Rail (except for one setting I might have seen in the menu concerning elemental burst timing). Having not used it, I'm not entirely sure how the autobattle function in Star Rail calculates what moves to use and when, but, with how wonky my strategy can be sometimes - for example, deciding which enemies to attack in what order, avoiding unnecessary damage to my teammates, or saving my skill or burst for the next turn when that next minion will come onto the field and I know I'll need it more than I do right now - I'd worry that autobattle would make riskier decisions.

And finally... not to be schizoid on main, but if you were in a place where you felt safe with people you cared about and enjoyed spending time with, would you want that time to go by twice as fast?

[mittensmorgul]

The Tumblr Beta Version: an objective analysis

I was tempted to just type “it sucks.” And while that is an objective analysis, it’s not exactly helpful. I’ve sent several requests to @staff and @support to restore my account to the old tumblr dashboard format, and received the same automated reply twice now. I’ll copy/paste it here so everyone is on the same page:

(lol, I had to go back and edit this, because apparently the beta version doesn’t display block quotes on the dash. So I’ve also put the block quotes in italics... hopefully it’ll display properly... note after editing: nope, it doesn’t display italics either... how the heck am I supposed to differentiate quoted text? I’ll start each quoted bit with an asterisk, I guess...)

*Thanks for reaching out about the beta dashboard.

*We're currently testing it out, and your account seems to have been selected to take part in the test. Thanks for your patience while we work on it! At this time there is not a way to opt out of testing. You may see your Tumblr experience return to normal as we continue testing.

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

*In the meantime, check out some of the new features available only in the beta dashboard:

OKAY TUMBLR, IF YOU INSIST, though I would MUCH rather have back all the functionality I personally invested into this website through xkit... you know... making the site ACTUALLY FUNCTIONAL. Let’s see what this beta version has given me instead of functionality:

*Change Palettes: Go to the person icon, then click "Change Palette." You'll find the classic Tumblr blue, dark mode, and a few other color palettes for your dash.

So I tried out all the color palettes. In addition to the ones mentioned here, there’s one that’s trying to look like a green screen terminal that gives me flashbacks to the early 80′s. There’s a reason we stopped using green screen terminals... Another one is “canary yellow.” It’s very yellow. The “classic tumblr” isn’t actually classic tumblr... all the post boxes are dark blue with grey type, not white with black type. And all the other colors are the insanely bright fluorescent of the new Dark Blue standard tumblr scheme. Which means links are practically invisible unless I highlight them. It’s migraine inducing. The one theme with a light colored background is called “Concrete” or “Cement” or something like that and even that only works for about half an hour before the migraine aura really kicks in. I just want my Old Blue via xkit back. You know, what tumblr actually used to look like. I don’t want any of these horrible color palettes. None of them work for me.

*The new "meatballs" menu: This is where you can copy the post link, unfollow the Tumblr who made or reblogged the post, or report a violation to our Community Guidelines.

I could do all of this from the user menus with xkit, too. I don’t regularly report violations or have the urge to block people I have chosen to follow. Why on earth would I want to do any of this? And why would I want these features located directly beside the post link copy feature? 

You know what I do miss? I miss the xkit timestamps feature. I didn’t have to hover dangerously close to the KILL IT WITH FIRE meatballs menu in order to see when a post was made, and in this era of disinformation and misinformation spreading around this site faster than Covid-19, being able to see when a post was ORIGINALLY created is a far more useful feature than an easier way to block people. For reference: I currently have three blogs blocked. Two of them are pornbots. One is a nazi. If I don’t want someone’s content on my dash, I don’t follow them. This “feature” is entirely useless to me.

*A quick note: Pagination is not supported in this beta test, but we're collecting feedback to send to our engineers.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This beta test might actually be tolerable if I wasn’t trapped into endless scrolling. If I could page through my dash, refreshing it every ten posts or so. You know why? Because once I scroll about 30 posts down my dash, tumblr starts overheating my laptop under the load of ALL THOSE POSTS. Things start malfunctioning-- it takes longer and longer to load new posts the farther I scroll. And the keyboard navigation (both page down and hitting J to advance to the next post, and even just using the down arrow to scroll as I read a long post) freeze and stop functioning. One of my laptop fans has actually begun to malfunction.

You know why this wasn’t a problem on the old version? If the data load got to heavy, I could open a post in a new tab, click view on dash with xkit, and voila! Brand new tab! I could close the malfunctioning tab and everything would be refreshed to normal! But without pagination, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, after reblogging a few posts, the beta version of this site breaks, and doesn’t open a post tab to add commentary or even tags. It just... reblogs the untagged post with no warning whatsoever. You know... that’s really really not cool. I tag EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. The tags are the only way to keep track of the 40k+ posts on my blog. And warn people that I am posting potential spoilers, or other specific content. It’s REALLY inconvenient to have to either immediately go to my blog to edit the post and add tags, or even comments. The alternative is to scroll up to open individual posts I want to reblog in a new tab, and then reblog directly there. Ironically enough, THOSE pages actually open with xkit installed, and everything (surprise!) functions perfectly there.

It’s perfectly reasonable to understand why this specific issue has limited the number of posts I reblog. Reblogging content should not be this much of a hassle. Creators have been complaining for a while that reblogs have drastically slowed down, and I think making it even more annoying and difficult to reblog posts will not help this problem.

Also, with xkit enabled, there’s a function that auto-loads images as you scroll, so the images are always visible BEFORE they appear on screen. I don’t have to look at the colored boxes and wonder if this is a post I’ve already seen or something I should sit and wait for. Don’t even think about watching tumblr videos. Loading priority is given to the ads that you cannot pause or dismiss, so that video loads and plays in choppy two second bursts instead of being given priority. Since that’s the content I am actually here to consume, it kinda makes me want to do the opposite of patronizing anyone who advertises here with graphically intense ads. And then when you scroll away, with xkit, gifs and videos you’ve scrolled past STOP loading and playing, which I think might be contributing to the intensity of the resource hogging that’s literally melting down my laptop.

And for reference, I have a pretty decent little gaming laptop. A blogging platform shouldn’t be driving it to the brink of frying itself. I didn’t realize just how much xkit worked to streamline this and provide basic functionality to this site.

*And lastly, if you're an XKit user, know that the XKit team is working hard to update things on their end to make it compatible with the beta dashboard.

And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’ve lost without xkit. And this is a really REALLY garbage response to user complaints. “Oh, yeah, sorry we made our site suck even worse, but those nice people who do our jobs for free will surely fix our garbage soon!”

Dear wonderful people at @new-xkit-extension, I love you, and I miss you, and while I wish xkit worked with this beta version I’ve been forced into living with, I truly feel for y’all who are trying to deal with this nonsense on behalf of all of us.

And to the folks at Tumblr... maybe try to just... make your site actually more like xkit. You know, actually functional. None of these special new features are useful or functional to me. I respectfully request for a fourth time to be removed from this inane beta test.

Give us OPTIONS. Let us display ALL THE TAGS without having to click a button. Let me have back my Activity+ that actually allowed me to interact with people from my dash! That showed me real-time inline notifications in a way that I could reply to with a single click! Bring me back to my column of open messaging conversation icons so I have easy access to the people I talk with throughout the day instead of closing them all every time I refresh the page. I already feel socially isolated in freaking quarantine, please stop shutting off all my avenues of communication!

Let us have pagination! I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to force heavy users of this site into a beta version that doesn’t allow us to opt out until your engineers had actually figured out how to make it work in a very basic way.

*Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with!

YES. PLEASE REMOVE ME FROM THIS BETA TEST NOW. I have let you know exactly what I want from this site. I just want it to ACTUALLY WORK. For someone who spends 12+ hours a day on this site, this beta test version is NONFUNCTIONAL. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. I WILL ACTUALLY PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT OF THIS AND GO BACK TO HAVING A FUNCTIONAL BLOG AGAIN. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

PLEASE! 

I AM OFFICIALLY AT THE END OF MY PATIENCE FOR ENDURING THIS NIGHTMARE.

(one final quick note... I’ve only been back on my dash long enough to make the parenthetical edits-- i.e. adding italics that don’t display and then adding the asterisks at the beginning of each section of quoted text, and already my laptop is overheating again. For reference, I originally typed this entire post from within my tumblr inbox page-- which still functions normally with xkit-- and spent over an hour on it. My laptop was fine the entire time. Clearly the issue is this beta version of the website. I will never forgive tumblr if y’all fry my literal only portal to the outside world at this time. PUT ME BACK TO NORMAL NOW. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING AND ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE. Thanks)

(oops apparently i lied... when the asterisks and the previous final note failed to display, I thought that seemed suspicious, and realized that I literally needed to refresh my entire dash in order to see edited changes. Funny how xkit enabled me to do that in real time, which is just another bit of functionality I’ve lost with this beta program. Please guys, this is really, really not working for me at all, just put it back.)

[bomberqueen17]

catch up

sigh my back is still really stiff from chicken slaughter day and i am pretty confident that if i took the time to do a solid yoga thing about it I could sort it out but I have not actually had or taken the time to do that. maybe now that i live in my own house again I can, except that my own house has no floorspace. but. i could collect my thoughts to that extent, possibly.

Friday I did school with the kids most of the day and then we had a final Goodbye Apprentices dinner that I cooked some for and then Saturday was nuts because I had to pack all my things up and watch Farmkid for a bit and then go get BIL from the farmer’s market so he could come home and do some work, and in the midst of that Sister came stomping in from chores covered in ice (it was 20 degrees out, the First Cold Morning, for which they’d been preparing all week and still weren’t ready because the First Cold Morning is always when Everything Breaks on the farm, especially the livestock watering equipment) and said to me, “I was trying to help,” and i said, “what” because that’s never good.

(this cut is just for length, it’s just a lot of life story here)

Well it transpires that my car doesn’t have a functioning blower motor for the ventilation system. I know it did as of last weekend because I drove it, but then it’s mostly been moved from parking space to parking space around the farm since then.

She’d also ripped one of the windshield wiper blades off because it was frozen but she’d retrieved all the pieces so I could easily put them back on. We have these carefully-researched wiper blades that Dude painstakingly acquired for us at some point and they really are fantastic wipers but they fall off at the slightest provocation, which is nerve-wracking. I fixed that without a problem, but as for the ventilation system... when you turn the fan knob to any of the “on” positions, there’s a loud and distinct “click” from inside the dashboard way over on the passenger side. Not hopeful.

Dad came over for unrelated reasons, so while he was there I asked him what he thought it’d be. (I had not attempted to work it out on my own because I had to go get BIL, so I took the farmfam’s car instead, and left mine parked in the sun.) We poked at various things, and read the owner’s manual which was spectacularly unhelpful, mostly being full of instructions to use features not available at the trim level I actually purchased on this car. Dad settled on checking the fuses, and I was rather pleased with myself that when he complained there was no diagram to say which fuse was what, I pulled one up on my phone instantly. (It turns out there was a diagram, on the inside of the lid, which he had not looked at, so I felt a little better, but it was in fact the same diagram as the shady ad-filled Car Fuse Box Diagrams site I’d Googled had, so the shady ads I was being shown were upfront enough at least.) 

Anyway I learned where all the fuses in my car are, and that automotive fuses are standardized on several wildly different formats that aren’t named anywhere on them so truly, if you need one, bring the broken one into the auto parts store in your pocket because there’s literally no other way to tell which kind you need. (Fortunately, that’s an old trick in our family book; always bring the broken bit to the hardware store if it weighs under forty pounds, and if it’s over, maybe bring it in the car anyway so you can compare the new one right away.)

I replaced the fuse on my own (there were two fuses, and of course only one spare in the car-- for the record, your car probably has two fuse boxes, one in the dashboard and one under the hood, and the one under the hood very often has spares in the lid, and mine promised it’d have a fuse puller there too but that was an actual lie but a pair of tweezers will work and as it happens, my fingers are small enough that I just used them and was fine), and as I’d expected, that did not do it (I feel like if the fuse was blown the relay wouldn’t even make the click noise as it tried to turn on), so.

I was worried I’d have to bag my intended overnight stop in Rochester, without a functional windshield defroster, but a quick check of my weather app confirmed that it wasn’t expected to dip below freezing in Rochester that night, so I went ahead as planned.

I dropped BIL back off at the farmer’s market (he’d driven the truck in and helped set up, and then was needed to drive the truck back home), but not before he poked under the hood, declared he didn’t know how a blower motor looked when it needed replacing either, said I should put in more engine coolant and windshield washer fluid, helped me do both when we stopped at the auto parts place to get a fuse (discovered I didn’t really need coolant, it had just been cold and shrunk below the fill line, I shrugged and topped it off a little anyway and am just glad that’s not leaking, it’s not like oil where you might lose some, or not supposed to be anyway), and then said farewell.

I got onto the Thruway and put MM and DF’s address into Maps, and the arrival time was showing me slightly earlier than I’d meant to get there. (They were having a Halloween party for the neighbor kids, outdoors with masks, so. Normally I’d be all about that but In These Times I’m like oh definitely no.) So I set the cruise at Maximal Gas Efficiency Speed (also for the record: slower is better for that too, I just normally drive like a bat out of hell on the Thruway out of pure boredom) and, extravagantly, stopped at a rest stop. (Which was futile, as the starbucks was closed of course, but then I bought candy so I could make myself faintly sick in honor of the holiday, which worked a treat.)

I still arrived just as the kids were leaving. Their neighborhood, which is a moderately wealthy inner suburb, was very clear about its various Halloween intentions; at dusk, several families were setting up tables in their driveway with lit Jack-O’Lanterns on them, and most of them had set up little fire pits two meters away and some chairs for the household members to sit in, to hang out outdoors and enjoy whatever trick or treating was going to happen. You could just glance down the street and see; 3/4 of the houses had their lights off, but the ones who were open had active open fires, so. Absolutely zero confusion there.

It’s the kind of street that’s a destination street for kids from other less-walkable neighborhoods, and also the neighborhood itself is chock-full of kids. MM has always felt it a duty to put out a big spread on Halloween, and has always been pleased to be a destination neighborhood. But, tonight, she had the light off, because her kids are still too little to really man an open fire pit in the front yard.

We had the classic sit around in the tiny kitchen party we’ve been having a while now, because what always happens is the kids put the TV on and then aggressively shush anyone who wants to talk, so we sit in the kitchen which doesn’t have chairs and we all wind up on the floor just laughing and laughing.

At bedtime, Girlchild, who turned six this summer, had a proper like two-year-old screaming-sobbing meltdown. She’s not doing well with the whole *gestures broadly* situation. The next day she had a sobbing meltdown over being asked to choose what kind of sandwich she wanted for lunch. What’s improved slightly since I was there, though, was that when she came back down, more composed and hiccuping slightly, Dr. F sat with her and very calmly and quietly and methodically went through the options with her and kept her calm as well and helped her choose, and it worked really well. He’s supposed to finally be able to step back from the one job he had that he gave notice to in like June, as of November, and should have more time to be home with the kids. (They’ve consulted all sorts of doctors and counselors and therapists and everyone agrees that Girlchild is indeed suffering from the whole situation but unfortunately since fixing the whole situation isn’t happening, she’s just going to have to take a little more time and everyone do the best they can; MM was in surprisingly good humor about it because she said the neighbor kid Girlchild’s exact age had spent two hours scream-sobbing on the next door porch earlier in the week, steadily refusing comfort from every one of his siblings and parents, and all the parents agreed that yeah there are a lot of kids who just aren’t really coping very well with all this, and a lot of adults too, and it’s grim but at least nobody really feels alone in it.) (At the very least, she’s getting closer with her neighbors; it costs her a lot of spoons to make small talk but it helps to feel like you’re not in this by yourself, so it’s taken this to really get her to go for it, but she has, and they are mostly nice enough people.)

Anyway, that was my one extravagant excursion outside of my isolation pod, and now I’m locking myself back down.

Unfortunately it is Dr F’s 40th birthday in about a week and a half, and he’s never had a birthday party in the 21 years I’ve known him but he wants to this time of course. However, he super gets it, so he was suggesting possibilities we could do masked, and likely, we’ll do a bonfire in the backyard. Because of course his family’s being careful but the kids are in school, there’s no way to properly have an isolation pod with the kids in school. You do what you can, and obviously, those kids need school. (Girlchild both hates and loves going to school, and super-clearly needs the socialization, but it’s terrible for her anxiety, but she really really needs the socialization, and Boychild is so extroverted that the two days a week they get of in-person school is barely enough for him and he is ravenous for attention at all times. Fortunately he’s a bit more robust, mentally, if for no other reason than because he’s almost 8, and is pretty philosophical about it, and occasionally he’ll just come tell his family “i need attention” and they’ll say “okay” and watch him dance or something.)

Anyway. I need to get my car fixed and do some work and maybe I’ll do yoga at work while the film transfers are rewinding or something, I gotta do something here. Sorry that was a wall-o-text, I’ll try to come back and fix it on DW. I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed and need to write it down.

[arfox158]

Wireless External Hard Drive For Mac

Wireless External Hard Drive For Macbook Pro

What’s the best portable external hard drive with 10 terabytes of storage space?

This Seagate Wireless Plus 1TB hard drive is everything you could need and offers an incredible performance. On average, you can expect to receive 2MB sequential speeds using the Seagate wireless hard drive. It measures 115.50MB/s for reading and 114/42MB/s for writing, while its previous version, Seagate GoFlex, has a much worse overall performance. The WD My Passport Pro won out as the best wireless external hard drive for Mac. Because it’s a cost effective and flexible wireless hard drive. The WD My Wireless Pro drive comes with an SD card reader slot. Perfect when you want to offload photos and videos from your camera, drone or GoPro. This hard drive is entirely compatible with Xbox One, Macintosh, and PC. Providing 7200 RPM, it’s impressively fast which saves you precious time. It’s 2.2 pounds and only 7.75 inches tall, 4.75 inches wide, and 1.4 inches deep. We primarily recommend it for anyone looking for a faster than normal 10TB external hard drive!

An external hard drive is a data holding storage device that plugs into your computer. Not only is it an efficient way to hold much more space for your computer or gaming system, but it’s also fantastic for physically transferring storage data to different locations. On top of that, they’re an outstanding way to backup files, as well.

Each terabyte of storage is 1000 gigabytes. Therefore, each 10TB external hard drive carries 10000 gigabytes of data. In most cases, 10TB of storage is enough space to efficiently hold an adequate amount of high-quality videos, pictures, backup files, audio files, etc. Unfortunately, not all external hard drives were made equal. Some can be very slow at file transfers, break easily which can result in loss of files, compatibility with different software, and overpriced.

After extensive research, testing, and reviews; We formulated a list of the 9 best portable external hard drives with 10 terabytes of storage. Each one of these is very reliable and provides the best value.

In Short, Here Are The Best External Hard Drives With 10 Terabytes Of Storage

WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN

LaCie STHA10000800

Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP

Seagate Expansion STEB10000400

G-Technology 0G05678

WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN

Oyen Digital

Seagate (STEL10000400)

G-Technology 10TB with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

1. WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN

First up, the WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN is an exceptional external hard drive with 10 terabytes of storage space. Not only can it easily hold all the data you need, but it’s also very dependable. User’s give it outstanding ratings across the board for its reliability. On top of that, you’ll have peace of mind with its 3-year limited warranty.

This is one of the few hard drives on the market which provides hardware encryption password protection. With its compatibility with Time Machine and WD backup software coming with the purchase, you’ll love its auto-backup ability. Overall, it’s an amazing choice!

Users Say: “I purchased two of these. One as a media storage drive, and another as a backup. They arrived in great shape, and are working as intended. By default, they come with EXFAT formatting (likely for compatibility with Windows, Apple, and Linux OSes including USB plugs for home routers/clouds. I reformatted to NTFS for my needs, and I used the WD tool to set the sleep timer to 90 minutes to better suit my media-playing/storing needs. I think the default is only 30 minutes to drive spin-down/sleep.”

Tech Specs & Details

Universal connection

Compatible with Time machine

USB 3.0 port

3-year limited warranty

10 terabytes of storage

Hardware encryption password protection

Auto backup

2. LaCie STHA10000800

Next up, the LaCie STHA10000800 is an exceptional 10TB external hard drive. Coming with the purchase, it includes a 5-year limited warranty. One of its essential attributes is its quick 240MB/s transfer rate speed. You’ll also appreciate the 1-month complimentary Adobe creative cloud membership.

The primary downside with this external drive is it’s a bit faulty. Many people complain about it prematurely breaking or their compatible computer doesn’t recognize it. However, a far greater amount of users are extremely happy with it. Be sure to check out the reviews below.

Users Say: “I have several of LaCie’s products and they always prove trustworthy and this unit did not disappoint. I have a large number of photos and videos that I need to back up and store and all I need to do is plug this into my computer and drag the files onto it. Easy to organize files, view, and retrieve.”

Tech Specs & Details

Compatible with 3 USB-C and USB 3.0

10 Terabytes of space

Max Speed: 240MB/s

5 year limited warranty

Compatible with PC and Mac

3. Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP

Not only is the Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP one of the faster 10TB external hard drives on the market, but it’s also currently on a 7% discount. This hard drive is entirely compatible with Xbox One, Macintosh, and PC. Providing 7200 RPM, it’s impressively fast which saves you precious time. It’s 2.2 pounds and only 7.75 inches tall, 4.75 inches wide, and 1.4 inches deep. We primarily recommend it for anyone looking for a faster than normal 10TB external hard drive!

Users Say: “I use this with an XBox One and had no problems installing it or using it. It’s set as the default memory for installed games and I notice no lag or other issues when loading or playing when compared to the internal HDD for the Xbox. I’ve had no problems with a rattling noise as some complained of so it might depend on how you have it resting – I just put it down flat on top of the XBox unit (not using the stand it came with). I recommended the same unit to my brother who picked one up and has also had no complaints. Lots of memory and fast access times at a very reasonable price. I’d buy it again.”

Tech Specs & Details

10 terabytes of storage

1-year manufacturer’s warranty

Compatible with Xbox One, Macintosh, and PC

7200RPM

USB 3.0

Construction: Aluminum

Software compatibility: Windows 7 or later and Mac OS x 10.6 or later

4. Seagate Expansion STEB10000400

Next in line, the Seagate Expansion STEB10000400 is another wildly popular 10TB external hard drive with great customer reviews. Coming with the purchase is an 18-inch USB 3.0 cable and peace of mind with a 1-year limited warranty. Upon connection to your Windows software, the hard drive is automatically recognizable. With a 6.93 length and 4.75 width, its easy for travel. Overall, it’s an excellent choice for windows!

Users Say: “I’m a huge fan of these for backup drives. Small, cheap, portable. I can buy two and have redundant backups in case one fails and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. They’re super quiet (no noise at all really) and don’t vibrate like some drives. They also do NOT require external power, just the included USB cable (which is normal USB on one end but not the other so if you need a longer cable you need to buy a USB extension cable).”

Tech Specs & Details

Dimensions: 6.93 x 4.75 x 1.44 inches

10 Terabytes of storage space

Compatible with USB 3.0

Transfer speed: 160 MB/s

5. G-Technology 0G05678

The G-Technology 0G05678 is another fantastic external hard drive with a massive 10TB of storage space. Uniquely, it has a modern sleek design which is much more attractive than the standard hard drive. Along with that, it’s currently on a large 23% discount, as well.

For added durability, it’s made with an all-aluminum enclosure. You’ll also enjoy the extended 3-year manufacturer’s limited warranty. It’s compatible with USB-C. Overall, it’s a great choice and we highly recommend it. Be sure to check out the reviews below!

Users Say: “Excellent device. Works great. Simple to setup. Great for storage and backup of iMac In case anything should happen to it. Highly recommend this to others.”

Tech Specs & Details

USB C connector

Apple Time Machine

All-aluminum enclosure

3-year manufacturer’s limited warranty

10 terabytes of storage

6. WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN

For many reasons, the WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN is the most famous 10TB hard drive on the market with near-flawless reviews. This external hard drive is compatible with USB 3.0. You’ll also be very impressed with the amount of storage its compact design is able to handle. Coming in at 5.31 x 1.89 x 6.53 and weighing 2 pounds, you’ll have no issues fitting in a travel bag.

Another tremendous benefit is its 2-year manufacturer’s limited warranty providing peace of mind. It’s compatible with both Mac and Windows. Whether you’re gaming or need it for PC storage, it’s a fantastic bang for the buck portable external hard drive. Be sure to check out the reviews below!

Users Say: “This worked out great for my iMac. Great price value. Only a small delay in getting it formatted for the Mac. There’s an insert in the package that gives a link to the WD site showing you how to do it. Once you go to their site, the instructions are very simple and the drive works great. I have 8 WD Passport drives I’ve been using for 6 years and they have served me well.”

Tech Specs & Details

Formatted NTFS for Windows and Mac

10 Terabytes of storage

Compatible with USB 3.0

2-year manufacturer’s limited warranty

7. Oyen Digital

Although it hasn’t quite been discovered yet, the Oyen Digital is an incredible choice. This 10TB external hard drive has a USB 3.2 Gen II interface and it’s compatible with USB-C. Not only does it have a tough build quality, but it’s also shockproof with its aluminum body and silicone sleeve. Overall, it’s an amazing choice and it’s highly dependable!

Users Say: “This drive was easy to install and to use. Great investment to protect my photographs. 8TB of storage for a reasonable price and the product is very sturdy. Now I can free up space on my computer.”

Tech Specs & Details

10 terabytes of storage

USB-C

Dimensions: 7.00 x 5.70 x 1.40

USB 3. 1 Gen II Interface

Compatible with Thunderbolt 3

8. Seagate (STEL10000400)

Just recently, the Seagate (STEL10000400) had a drastic reduction in price 36% off the original amount. Although we’re unsure if this discount is permanent or temporary, we believe it’s a remarkable 10TB external hard drive. It provides two USB 3.0 ports and a 2-year limited warranty.

With the purchase, you also get a 2-month Adobe Creative Cloud Photography membership. Not only is it fantastic for backing up your data, but the added USB port can charge your phone, as well. Overall, it’s a great choice and we highly recommend it. Be sure to check out the reviews below!

Users Say: “I only have the Mediasonic 4 bay units to compare this to and I am very happy. The list of troubles I don’t have any longer is long. The front plate of my old units would not stay on, copying between drives would constantly fail, no more excessive wires from the power bricks, no more loud fan noise, no more constantly running drives 24/7, no more shutting down when the USB wire was disconnected. Plus these were half the price. This 8 drive unit replaced 2 of the 4 bay units by Mediasonic. Anytime I tried to copy multiple files from multiple drives, it would never complete the job. I would come back later and it would have failed. I have never used customer with this company but with the other company, it was non-existent. There were firmware upgrades that were unobtainable. I am very happy with this unit. It works with 4 10 TB drives and 4 8 TB drives installed and everything is snap-in and auto recognized.”

Tech Specs & Details

2-year limited warranty

10-terabytes of space

2 Months Adobe CC Photography

2 USB Ports 3.0

9. G-Technology 10TB with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

Last but not least, the G-Technology 10TB is a phenomenal 10TB external hard drive with both USB-C and Thunderbolt 3. There are a plethora of reasons why we love it. It has a robust aluminum case build, a stylish design, it has a high-speed transfer rate and an impressive 5-year limited warranty. Overall, it’s a pricey, but exceptional hard drive!

Users Say: “One week review. Have additional GRaid drives with no problems over the years which made me go to Drives. Decided I would add non-raid drives to another system. Doing still photography about 1Tb+ per year and using LR and PS. Use for photo storage only. Purchased Thunderbolt for enterprise quality and daisy chain capability. Speed is adequate and can process from the drive with “maybe” minimal lag – so far not enough to move a current process file to SSD internal which is an option on my system. No noise issue and does not run too hot. Noise is less than my raid drives. Purchased a cheaper USB C same size Drive for direct clone backup of TB drive. This drive is less speed-dependent and I connect to a USB port saving my other TB port. Very pleased with the system. Non-TB same width and height but length less nevertheless stacks well.”

Tech Specs & Details

Construction: Aluminum case

7200 RPM

Dual Thunderbolt 3 ports

USB C port

USB 3.1 Gen 1

250MB/s transfer rate

10 terabytes of storage

Quick Recap

Here Are The Best 10TB External Hard Drives

WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN

LaCie STHA10000800

Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP

Seagate Expansion STEB10000400

G-Technology 0G05678

WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN

Oyen Digital

Seagate (STEL10000400)

G-Technology 10TB with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

Looking for a shock-resistant hard drive? See our top choices here.

Need maximum space? See our most recommended 12TB hard drives here.

Wireless External Hard Drive For Macbook Pro

If you’re interested in a super-wide monitor, see our top 8 here.

[boomstyle]

Sonic Boom: Friend or Foe

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and settings of Sonic boom. Oh, watch out for OCs!

Robot Apocalypse (Part 1)

As soon as the robot merged, my gang and I set ourselves in a battle.

Time for spin dashes!

I spin dashes cubot prototypes while Amy hits another robot with her hammer.  We noticed a group of villagers escape from the Octopus bot.

Geez, something tells me this is not from Eggman. No one operates the machine.

"Hahaha... Octo-pie Mainstreet!", Orbot laughed. Yeah! Funny, Orbot! (Don't laugh at that!) Orbot is clearly on the right mind.

Male Fennec protects himself from a Mantis Bot with a broom. Lady Walrus runs with her baby Chumley from Bee-Bots.

"It's pandemonium... is what I'd say if we were being attacked by pandas. But in this case, it's Robo-monium. Residents young and old are all falling victims to this mechanical onslaught. [Turns to Mrs. Vandersnout] Ma'am, care to comment?", Soar the Eagle reported.

"Don't just stand there. Help me!", Mrs. Vandersnout instructed while she was struggling to fight off the crab bot. Exactly, Mrs. Vandersnout! There's no point to report news in a life-threatening situation like this, Eagle guy. We've got to do something man.

"Oh, what a sad world we live in. We live in a world where brutal robot attacks elderly woman. Pity...Tsk...Pity....", Soar the Eagle continued a while until one of Eggman's robots fire a minor missile at him and he ran away. Not a good time for news reporting, Eagle guy! Cut the crap, Sonic! You're supposed to focus on the battle, not the news reporter.

As soon as the eagle guy ran away, I give a little help to Mrs. Vandersnout. Not exactly, more like rescuing her but whatever.

"Thank you. You saved my life, young man.", Mrs. Vandersnout thanked then I bowed in reply.

Afterward, I rushed to Octopus Bot only to see Orbot and Cubot coming out of Egghead's lair. Get it? Nah, just ignore them!

Octopus bot soothes inks through every road. The villager nearby walks away in fear while I approached the target and destroys Octopus Bot with a homing attack.

Meanwhile

"ugh... The malware signals are everywhere.", Tails complained.

"Tails, can you reach team cyborg, bolts, and Mighton for help? We're outnumbered right now.", I called. This is just like last time but I am sure this is going to end sooner than last time because we have Team Cybonic, Bolts, and Mighton to aid us. At least that's what we thought

"Let me try! (communicator ringing)....", Tails launched a video call.

"Hey, Cyborg Sonic. Can you guys help us down here? We have a robot situation"

"Hi, Tails. Sorry, but we're full of hands as well. The snake guy sure is powerful. He dodged off all of us(Team Cyborg) at the same time. Ooo... We're toasted(sound of Enerbeam and cage)", Cyborg Sonic answered the video call. What? Lyric was still alive and in Roboken. That's impossible. He fell when Shadow disarmed him and I opened the hatch. Who would survive on that fall? No one will survive from the fall unless there's someone else saving him but he would be severely injured by now.

"HAHAHAHA... You think you could defeat me. You and your foolish friends are wrong. Now, taste my wrath, you fools. Your robot friends can't defeat me. 

HAHAHA", Lyric the Ancient bragged himself. Oh, you think capturing them scares me. If you think so, then you got it wrong, Snakehead.

"You'll pay for this, Lyric.", Cyborg Amy said. Yeah, as interesting as the conversation is, there's a pressing situation to deal with right now.

So, I quickly grab Tails' communicator and shuts it. Tails must be amazed but we don't have time for this. Then, Mayor Fink quickly approaches us. Must be about the campaign or anything. Whatever.

"Sonic, Tails (gasping) Don't just stand there! The town is in the middle of a robot apocalypse while 20% of my campaign contribution came from this town. I need the town or else my future election and campaign will be affected.", Mayor Fink said in despair.

"This is just like last time. The source derived from Roboken and we have GPS coordinate of where the skyscraper lies.", Tails explained.

"Well, you seemed so sure of it. So, have at it!", Mayor Fink replied.

After our conversation, we eliminate some of the robots along the way to request an offer from Shawn, Sticks, Amy, and Knuckles before we left the town again.

"Sonic, Tails", Shawn called.

"Gang, could you guys hold these robots for a bit?", I requested.

"I'm on it, Sonic", Shawn replied.

"No problem!", Amy answered.

"You got it!", Sticks replied.

"Regular force or blanket?", Knuckles asked a stupid question again.

"Tails and I are going to Roboken to address these robot issues.", I explained. Phew, luckily, the town's name has changed. Morristown? What a mediocre name.

Tails and I got into Tail's plane with Tails as a pilot, just as usual. Not that plane, again! I wish for a better ride just to be comfortable or at least just add some amenities.

Sky

"How much longer?", I asked desperately. Ugh! I wish Tails upgraded the plane by adding entertainment, a food counter, or anything fun(grumble).

"Don't worry! Morristown is ahead.", Tails assured me. Oh, come on, Tails. I wanna get out of the plane.

"Uhm... Tails.", I called.

"Yes", Tails replied.

"Would you mind if you offer some in-flight entertainment or a bag of peanuts next time? It's boring up here.", I offered some advice on amenities.

"Sonic, cutting amenities is the only way to keep the budget low. Besides, Roboken is close-by", Tails explained. Yep, it is indeed very close but we have a problem. The place was locked down and worse, the sentry spaceships pursue us just like last time.

"OOO! The place is locked down and the sentry spaceships chase us down."

"Oops, we're doom. The sentries spotted us.", I said out of concern.

"You think?", Tails said confidently.

Speaking of that, the spaceship launches laser attacks at us. However, Tails manage to dodge them by tilting and steering the plane.  It's good that he dodge the lasers off but now, he's lining the plane up to fly-in between spaceship. That's crazy but he knows what to do. Oh, no! What is he going to do now? Wahoo, it great! Tails dodges a laser by pulling the plane upwards. A laser strikes an ally sentry, setting it on fire. The pilot of the burning ship uses his ejector seat to evacuate, flying his way back to Roboken.

"Woohoo! That's totally great. Hey, Tails. You've got a great amenity right here.", I complemented excitedly as I notice the fire lasers.

"Let's do a barrel roll like last time."

And yeah, he barrel roll the plane. OOO..., this is going to be excited.

"Hey Sonic. Wanna pay this guy a visit?", Tails joked sarcastically.

"Oh, yeah! I'm dropping by, baby. Don't try this at home, kid", I am super excited to drop the plane. This is so amazing. Adventure... Action.... Thrills....

Tails rotates the plane upside-down. I jump down onto the sentry, winks, and does a Homing Attack. My homing attack take down the second sentry in the process thus bouncing back off and falling towards the canyon.

"Arghh! Any time now, Tails! Woah!", I am frightened of my life but luckily, Tails' Plane swoops down and manages to rescue me. I am not satisfied with the landing though. Ouch! That hurts

"How's that for in-flight entertainment?!", Tails responded.

"Great, but you still could do the bag of peanuts.", I replied to his rhetorical question

Tails has another 2 sentry behind his back. He flies inside the canyon, steering around a rock wall. Both sentries are confused thus Tails ends up behind the sentry, and aims the target to hit the middle of the radar. Tails fires the Unbolterizer, paralyzing both sentries. The pilot uses an ejector seat to get out. Both ships fall into the sand. Tails' Plane lands on the site of the fallen spaceship. Tails and I jump off.

"What are you doing? Roboken's that way!", I am confused again.

"Yeah, but if there are more sentries, my plane's got no chance of making it through. Time for plan B.", Tails talked back but he got a good point. As soon as we take off the plan, we run toward the sentry's ship and jump of the plane. Hereby, there are 2 sentries behind us, one from the left and the other on the right. We choose the right side and hop in the spaceship. As soon as we hop in, Tails works on setting up the ship, while  I played around with the chair feature. It was great while Tails got to some work, I just seat and watch Tails do the magic.

"Elevator up, elevator down.", I laughed.

"I figured out how to fly this thing.", Tails said while he's repairing the machine. "Great job, Tails! I knew if we work together we'd figure it out. [shaking] Oh, massage function. Ahh...", I said. 

Thanks to Tails, the spaceship boots up, reverses out of the sand, turns around and flies back up towards Roboken.

"Woohoo!", we saluted at each other. We did it.

"I gotta get me one of these!", Tails said.

"Hah, looks like it worked. Those chumps don't suspect a thing.", I replied back.

The Plane's HUD Changes

OOO... What is going on?

"Tails, what's happening?", I asked.

"It's an auto docking sequence. They're bringing us in.", Tails explained. Yep, he's right. The ship closes in on Roboken.

"Here it is. The robot-utopia in the clouds."

"Roboken, here we come!", I said excitedly.

Finally, we reached the entrance of city skyscraper of Roboken. As we enter and land to the skyscraper, we explore Roboken once again. However, our excitement is replaced by shock when we find out this place is deserted and in smoke.

"Whoa, what happened here?"

"Enemy spotted. Engage robot formation attack!", a robot mechanism detected. Whoa, suddenly we're attacked.

Hey, guys. Guess what happen to Roboken and Hedgehog village later? Did Shawn and Lyric has something to do with this? Please answer in the comment section! Until next time!

[comicteaparty]

May 11th-May 17th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from May 11th, 2020 to May 17th, 2020.  The chat focused on Gender Slices by Jey Pawlik.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Gender Slices by Jey Pawlik~! (https://topazcomics.com/genderslices/vol1/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until May 17th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I have read the comic before. The whole thing and the author's comment at the end. It is such a shame to hear that Jey has gotten hate for their work. It takes a lot of bravery to be so openly queer on the internet, and I admire it a lot.

I like the art!

It is simple and clean and expressive.

This might be a bit of a weird comment, but from how Jey draws themselves, I feel like I have an understanding of how they actually look?

Like, their face and body are just a few lines here, but they're a distinctive few lines.

About the writing: it's hard to make a short form comic like this! Brevity is the soul of wit and all that, and it's hard to be concise!

But I think they manage it well

I feel like every panel has a purpose

I think it's fascinating, and sometimes saddening, how how you are and how you look affects how others treat you

This comic gave me greater insight into what it's like to be seen as non binary. Or, to not be seen as non binary when you are

I don't know if Jey will be reading this, but thank you for making the comic <3

I hope that many other people learned something from reading it as well

eliushi [a winged tale]

I really enjoy comics that give me more insight into other people’s lives. Bookmarked and will go through the comic this week!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Wow, I love the way the webcomic showed how being nonbinary was like. It's very simple and gets the point across very well. I'm also going to keep reading it.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

On Gender Slices; - I enjoy how personal and insightful about Jey's journey as non binary. - I like how clean and straight forward the story is. It's more like an auto bio comic strip - Even though the designs are simplistic, I see the author's personal struggle within. - As a reader, I really like self discovery stories. Gender Slices is helping me think about gender spectrum, respecting pronouns. - Overall, it expresses how different stages of your life, your identity can change as a non binary person. Wow this comic accurately shows the common issues my enby friends complain about. But it's much clearer in this comic format(edited)

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I loved Gender Slices! It's hard for me to comment on character and stuff when it's, like, autobiographical? Like, that's a real human person lol. But I really think the comic does a great job of conveying Jey's journey through their identity with all these short scenarios. It feels like a diary of sorts, and that's really cool to me.

eliushi [a winged tale]

I really enjoyed this and will be recommending it to folks I think will benefit from understanding this community better. I found the most powerful messages and portrayal of experiences come from the small everyday things that we often take for granted. I felt the clean art style and clear panels helped the autobiographical narrative be very approachable. Most importantly, the tips offering better phrasing and approaches to talking about gender in the comic were very enlightening and useful. I hope more people read this, young to old to in-between! There will always be things to learn on how to respect and love each other more.

RebelVampire

What I like about the beginning of the comic and the art style all in one is just how clean the art is. I'm a huge fan of good, easy to read linework, since it's much easier for me as a reader to understand what's going on. This is something that occurred through out the comic, so each strip's message was conveyed really clearly. <3 I am overall glad this comic exists, as it's good to hear people's unique stories as they deal with life, whether it's something unique related to being nb or something that's somewhat universal regardless of those sorts of issues; I know at the beginning, disappointing parents was a pretty big theme and I think that's something we all experience. This was also clearly an extremely personal story at work, and it takes a truly brave soul to make something like this. Which honestly, I think those are the parts that make the comic the strongest. It's a personal story, and you know these events really happened and get to connect with the creator on a personal level without even knowing them. As such, the material really sticks with you because of that personal, emotional connection that's developed as you read it. As for a "favorite" moment, there is one strip that stood out to me (which I sadly didn't bookmark). But in it, Jey talks about how they appreciate having words and "labels" to describe themself, but also acknowledges that some people don't like to label themselves. And as a person who doesn't like to label themself, I really appreciated that. This is something I feel rarely gets mentioned in webcomics, so I liked that there was a mutual respect established in the strip that it's ok to have a preference in that regard and that whether you want to find labels for yourself or don't want to, you're a cool person.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Of the moments in the comic, which did you find the most personally relatable and why? In what ways do you think that moment might help others who read it?

10. What do you think the personal stories in this comic teach us about finding personal happiness, self-acceptance, and acceptance from others?

11. Why do you think telling stories about the sorts of gender issues presented here are important, and what moments in the comic show why that’s the case?

12. How does the comic being autobiographical versus fiction affect your views on the comic’s messages? In what ways does it being autobiographical make it stand out from other comics?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

I've already talked about the most relatable moment in regards to favorite for me. I think it's a helpful moment because it just helps show everyone is different, and that it's good to have mutual respect all around. I think that the personal stories teach us about the themes of happiness, acceptance, etc. is that it's hard work. You aren't gonna nail it in one day, and you also can't be expected to. Society certainly may want you to have a grasp on these things, but ultimately these things are achieved at your own pace and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it. These stories are important for a lot of reasons, but for me personally I always think the most important thing is that it just makes people feel not alone. And I think the part of the comic that shows this is the strips about Jey finding people in their community. Humans do not like to feel lonely, and these stories help show people that no, even if you're in a community where this isn't a thing, there's billions of people in the world and theres always a community out there to share your experiences with and bond with. Autobiographical comics, in my opinion, tend to have a much stronger emotional connections. Sometimes with fiction stories, it can be hard to really get into the emotions, since at the end of the day, characters are representations of people and not exactly people. They can be damn good and feel super real, but there will always be that gap of "but it's fiction." Autobiographical stories don't have this. They are basically raw emotions put onto a page, and there's just this inherent sense of reality to them that fiction struggles to capture sometimes. As such, the messages they deliver are more powerful in most cases.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Going back to the previous question; 9. Most personally was expressing how Jey tried to self talk to adjust to a new name. But end up falling back to their birth name. 10. It helps to see how one might struggle internally, what gender disphoria feels from the character's pov. 12. It gives a deeper insight since this is a real person's experience and not a fantasy character going through the stages. I will continue reading Jey's journey and learn from their experiences. I think it's a good guide to what a non binary person goes through.(edited)

RebelVampire

Well since the comic is done, I am looking forward to seeing more people discover it. I know lots of people really need stories like this, so its nice to see when people are positively affected by them. Once again, it is a great thing this comic exists. Maybe it's not a comic for you, but it's one of those comics where you can tell it means a lot to someone out there, and I think everyone needs those special collection of stories to help them navigate through life

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Gender Slices this week! Please also give a special thank you to Jey Pawlik for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Gender Slices, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://topazcomics.com/genderslices/vol1/

Jey’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jpawlik

Topaz Comic’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/topazcomics

Topaz Comic’s Shop: https://topazcomics.com/shop/

Topaz Comic’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/topazcomics

[operationrainfall]

Title Woven Developer Alterego Games Publisher Alterego Games Release Date November 15th, 2019 Genre Adventure, Puzzle Platform PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One Age Rating E for Everyone 10+ – Fantasy Violence Official Website

I really wanted to love Woven. After all, I was one of the original backers of the unsuccessful Kickstarter project, and was duly impressed by Alterego Games’ decision to self publish the project afterwards. The premise of Woven was really compelling and different, taking place in a soft world of woolen yarn and fabric that is being invaded by strange mechanical insects. Our hero is a goofy elephant named Stuffy, and he quickly comes across a new friend, a firefly-shaped robot named Glitch. Together, they set out to discover the truth and explore this world, transforming and reweaving Stuffy to scale various obstacles along the way. If only the adventure had lived up to that fantastic premise.

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Woven is the sort of game that would have made my childhood self smile. It plays out like a live action Winnie the Pooh, in a calm and mellow land where all that matters is relaxation and finding flowers. At least at first. Stuffy is a very amicable protagonist, but not the brightest bulb. A fact that is repeatedly referenced by the game’s narrator. The narrator’s tenor sounds very British, and at first I enjoyed how his paired sentences usually rhymed. It does grow old rather quickly though, especially when you realize that the narrator is not gonna help you much with direction. If you get lost at all, he’ll start reminiscing like a grandfather with dementia, talking about the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. None of which is helpful. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that getting lost is a regular occurrence in Woven. Or at least it was for me. I managed to get stuck about 5 minutes into the game, in what would be considered the tutorial area. That’s because the game doesn’t hold your hand much, and trusts you’re clever enough to pick up on the clues in your environment. Sadly, what Woven thinks is plainly evident very rarely is. Case in point, the very first blueprint machine I came across gave no guidance how to operate it. I eventually figured it out, but it was a sign of things to come.

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There’s dozens of blueprint machines spread across Woven’s 5 regions, including meadows, deserts and jungles, and each blueprint gives Stuffy new transformation options. To unlock the blueprint, you play a little musical mini-game by operating mechanical levers to select notes. Though this was confusing initially, I grew to enjoy the mini-game. At first I assumed that each animal form would have set limbs, but you can mix and match after you acquire several, creating bizarre chimeras. Case in point, you can pair Pig legs with Lion arms and a Rhino head. You can even have two different arms or legs simultaneously. Each body part has different capabilities that allow various actions. You’ll need these to solve puzzles and make your way through the game. Though Woven is nominally a linear experience, the world is so wide open it’s easy to not immediately know where to head next. A good example was when I came across a short hilltop ringed with mountains, with a circular passage full of cranky yak creatures. I could stomp my foot to force the Yaks to move, but after moving in a complete circle, I wasn’t sure what to do. I eventually found the solution online in a very helpful playthrough, but it was frustrating being on the cusp of a solution and having no idea where to go next. This was due to the fact many of the puzzles in Woven are time based, but they don’t tell you they are. If a clock had showed up indicating I had a certain amount of time, I would have known to hurry up. And the farther I got in the game, the more complex and active the puzzles got. I much preferred the puzzles that required thinking but not fast reflexes.

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While it’s clearer why you would want to transform Stuffy to progress, it’s less clear how to use color palettes called patterns. You’ll find tons of flowers as you wander about, and by stomping your foot, they’ll open up and allow Glitch to scan them. You can also scan some animals for these, but they rarely sit still, so you’ll either need to be quick or find a way to distract or incapacitate them. Lastly, there’s patches you’ll randomly find on the map to unlock patterns. Patterns do a couple of things. On the one hand, they let you decorate Stuffy at the knitting machines, making him look as fancy or hideous as you please. You might be more surprised to realize you need some for puzzles. An example are giant snakes that block your progress unless you match their pattern. There’s another cool segment where a mechanical spider will pounce on you unless you blend in with the background. I don’t mind using patterns strategically, but it’s very easy to not scan the right one, and then be forced to backtrack until you find it. Some sort or an indicator of where key items resided would have helped, but there’s no such thing. And given the wide open format of Woven, it’s rather easy to get lost and miss the proper patterns. Oh and did I mention there’s more than 100 of them spread across the entire game? Which makes it even more daunting when you manage to pass one without realizing it.

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You may be wondering what Glitch does, and the simple answer is he operates every mechanical device you interact with. He turns on the blueprint machines and knitters, scans items and can also use his light to illuminate dark caves. The little firefly is pretty helpful, and his backstory ties directly into the plot of Woven. You’ll find lots of nodes that reveal bits and pieces of his lost memory as you go. I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say there’s a reason Glitch feels so strongly pulled by the planet’s moon. I wish I could say Stuffy’s backstory was as interesting, but he’s almost an incidental character. He could literally be anything or anybody else, and it wouldn’t change the course of the game. I never knew much about the elephant, other than he was apparently simple, cowardly and loved flowers. It’s not clear how long he’s been around, what he did before Glitch or anything really. He’s just there to progress the story, and that’s a shame, especially since he’s nominally the main character.

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Not everything in the game works poorly. I did find it handy how the different Joy-Con controlled Stuffy and Glitch, respectively. And I appreciated visual prompts indicating what abilities I needed to get past obstacles, and found the camera easy to operate. The problem was primarily with the game’s physics. Woven is a wide open 3D world, but often what seems a clear path forward ends up tripping you up with invisible stage geometry. Bushes often kept me from moving forward, which was awkward. As a fan of platformers, I found this made Woven a lot harder to enjoy, since I was never clear if I could progress or not. Sometimes you do actually need different abilities tied to animal parts, such as jumping or pushing, but you never know in advance. So if I came to an area with a puzzle and had the wrong parts, I would have to backtrack all the way to the nearest knitting machine and reweave my elephant friend. I really think it would have been much easier if Stuffy could fast travel to these, since they’re spaced rather far apart and it’s not very fun walking about. Failing that, I would have loved a mini-map, since that would have cut down how often I got lost in Woven dramatically.

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Visually, Woven has a cute storybook aesthetic. There’s lots of bright colors and soft details. While I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with the graphical fidelity. I will mention I played the Switch version of the game, and from what little research I’ve done, it runs far better on other consoles. I normally don’t complain about things like framerate or the like, and usually find most games I play on Switch run great, but oftentimes the graphics here were muddy and fuzzy. Simply put, this game suffers from Bloodstained syndrome, meaning every other iteration of the game plays better than the one on Nintendo consoles. Which is truly a shame, since this is the perfect sort of all ages game that would otherwise appeal to a lot of Nintendo gamers. Musically the game is frankly dull, and quite muted musically. Sound effects lack punch, and actions often don’t have the proper impact as a result. When Stuffy punches a box out of his way, it just slides quietly out of place. Much like the rest of the game, aesthetically Woven is a very mixed bag.

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While I hate to add onto my other complaints, I have a few more. For one thing, I find it completely awkward how Stuffy always looks at Glitch as he runs forward, contorting his head to follow the firefly everywhere. That’s minor, but a more significant issue relates to the linearity of the game. If you miss any collectibles or achievements, you can’t get them until the next time you play through the game from the beginning. Once you reach a new area, there’s no backtracking, and the game auto saves. So if you’re one of those people that loves to platinum games, best of luck. And finally, while I don’t mind the general lack of combat in the game, it makes it that much more challenging when you have to contend with the final boss.

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Much as I wanted to love Woven, I left the experience quite disappointed. There was promise here, but for whatever reason it wasn’t met. If you don’t mind clumsy physics and very complex and vague puzzles, you might enjoy what’s here. Even then, it’s a hard pill to swallow at $19.99. Though you can beat the game in less than 5 hours, it took me around 9 due to getting lost repeatedly. So at least you’ll get some bang for your buck. This is one of those games I recommend you pick up on a sale. Hopefully Alterego Games has more ideas they can breathe life into in the future, cause I’d honestly like to see them succeed. In the meantime, I’ll lament this tale of an elephant and his firefly buddy.

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[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”1.5″]

Review Copy Provided By Publisher

REVIEW: Woven Title Woven

[elvenvishnu]

Drain Overflowing, differing advice given about how to address

Hello,

I appreciate any help that anyone can provide on this issue! I first noticed that my basement drain was overflowing around 7 days ago, at the same time there was massive work on a pipe on the road outside of my house. This original work involved overnight work involving heavy equipment and tearing up the road. Portions of the road were closed during this work.

The work has since stopped, but my drain is still over flowing. I've attached a picture to this message. As a note, the weight on the drain is to prevent my cats from messing around with it.

Since the work has stopped, a plumber has come out and cleaning the pipes with snake/augur. They stated that the pipes were cleaned past my house, but that the issue was with the city's sewer lines. They recommended I contact the city sewer district for review. The city came out and stated that it's not their lines, and the issue is actually with my pipes instead. I was shown pictures (unfortunately I do not have those pictures) and what was shown in the pipes didn't appear to be anything large enough to block water flow.

So essentially, I have two groups blaming each other, but the issue is still occurring. I'm not exactly sure what my next step should be. I have to admit, I'm skeptical of both sides, as while the plumber was working outside I did hear them audibly complain about how they're not going to be making much money for this job and they did try to upsell a higher service. And as the work on the road was just completed, if something major was wrong they may not be willing to own up to either.

Any advice you can give would be appreciated! And if you have any questions, please let me know!

https://preview.redd.it/ncrgvpcyoq481.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0cc83b640fde1a6e5425a55b898479315dc552af

submitted by /u/Carmeggeddon12 [link] [comments]

from Plumbing help offered here, please post pictures. https://ift.tt/31GzMN4

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS - SPRING 2020

It’s been a while since I’ve had to look at a blank Microsoft Word document and write these words but: welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS! 

This may or may not be a pretty long episode but this is also the start of a new edition of the show in which the format is changed pretty immensely. After a couple years of this chart show, I’m going to be honest: I got bored of doing it every week, so I simply stopped doing it. I reviewed songs in secret, wrote notes of future potential episodes, but never released anything. However, recently, I’ve decided that perhaps it would be smarter to not cancel the show but adopt a new format. Basically, I will not do an episode every week, rather every month, where I review each new arrival on the UK Top 40 during that month, without covering any of the nonsense that happened during that month outside of the new arrivals. I’ve actually been wanting to change the format to this for a while but after doing the BRITs special I’ve decided that this actually might be a more palatable workload. Hopefully this’ll work and I can get back into this chart thing and start enjoying looking out for new music again but we’ll see; potentially if I enjoy this I can get back to the weekly stuff. So, let’s start off the new format with a bunch of garbage from March, April AND May that I didn’t review, in chronological order, rounding up everything that I missed in these interim weeks. So, let’s start:

MARCH NE W ARRIVALS: 01/03

#40 – “Moral of the Story” – Ashe

Produced by FINNEAS and Noah Conrad

This is Ashe, a female singer-songwriter from California who got big on TikTok. This song, from the soundtrack of Netflix comedy To All the Boys (Haven’t watched it), is produced by FINNEAS, as he branches out from just producing for his sister Billie. Yup, that’s my pre-amble. The song is pretty cute, and I admit I quite like Ashe’s sing-songy, musical theatre style of singing, which is actually more of a spoken style in the verses. FINNNEAS’ production isn’t too bad, either, with an infectious and jaunty piano melody as well as some cool, explosive choir samples during the post-chorus that sound pretty cool. Admittedly, I’m not listening to this with my headphones (Not currently working because of course they’re not), so I can’t really tell about the mixing (which is something FINNEAS has gotten wrong a worrying number of times). For Ashe’s first UK Top 40 hit and first hit in general, it’s not a bad song at all. I’m not going to save it or praise it to high heavens, but for what it’s worth, I can’t complain. Decent track.

#39 – “City of Angels” - 24kGoldn

Produced by Neek and Omer Fedi

Speaking of people who got big off of TikTok and have their first UK Top 40 hit, here is 24kGoldn, a rapper-singer also from California. You probably know him from his breakout single, “Valentino”, but this other single from his debut EP, Dropped Outta College (Classy), seems to be the bigger hit worldwide. I hate “Valentino”, for the record, and I think it’s practically unlistenable garbage, so I don’t expect to like this. Also, fun fact: This trap-rap song about sex and drugs does not have any profanity. Kids these days with their clean, acceptable music. To be fair, I don’t actually hate this, mostly because of that catchy guitar line used as the main backing for what isn’t actually a trap-rap beat and instead kind of a power-pop type drum beat, with this Juice WRLD rip-off vocally riffing over it in a way that’s just disrespectful to the producers. Jokes aside, this is a good song, with a pretty catchy chorus, though admittedly an underdeveloped structure, with only one verse and two choruses. It’s kind of edgy nonsense but I could see an emo-pop band doing this justice, so I can appreciate it, actually; I do like the rough-around-the-edges vocal style in this context a lot more than “Valentino”. Also, this kid got a Fetty Wap feature on his EP. I’m jealous.

#34 – “Mice” – Aitch

Produced by LiTek and WhYJay

Ah, this guy, back again for more whitebread British trap, hey? Well, I guess I’ll give him another chance; the guy keeps coming back on the chart so there’s got to be some appeal to him, right? Well, nah, not really. This beat is kind of funky but it’s just his other big hit’s beat with less instruments anyway. It’s got the flute, it’s got the crow, it’s got this white dude talking over it. If you make a song that’s just one verse and has a standard beat, you should know that people expect BARS – if the focus is on Aitch, and not the minimalist beat, which didn’t need two producers, or the catchy club chorus and hook, then we need impressive flow or lyricism. You know, wordplay, cool punchlines, something. Aitch doesn’t even have bars. How are you going to make a song about bars when you don’t have bars? I mean, the flow does get impressive by the end and I’m astounded by how he just keeps going here, especially when he’s got nothing interesting to say, and he does ride the beat fine, until he literally gives up at the end. Like, come on, this is a lead single, not a SoundCloud loosie one-off. At least try.

#33 – “Dior” – Pop Smoke (featuring Gunna)

Produced by 808Melo

When this charted, the late Pop Smoke would have recently passed away as result of a shooting and home invasion. I was never a fan of Pop Smoke, and I won’t pretend to be like most of the people listening to his songs after his death. I can say that anyone who is murdered by cowardly thugs at age 20 deserves at least a respectful message and best wishes to his mourning family and close friends. May he rest in peace. You hear that, record labels? In peace. Don’t milk this guy’s unfinished material like you did X. At least be respectful with it like they did with Peep (mostly) and Mac. My feelings on the song are irrelevant at this point, and I feel like bringing them up would be almost disrespectful, but it is my obligation to say that I don’t like the song, his uninteresting cadence, his somewhat homophobic lyrics or the shitty Gunna guest verse on the remix. The beat admittedly does kind of bang but otherwise, I’m just not a fan; the rest of his posthumous album is actually quite a bit better. I personally really like “Snitching” and “Make it Rain”. Regardless, rest in peace, Pop Smoke, and I’ll stop the review here.

#21 – “On” – BTS (featuring Sia)

Produced by Pdogg and Mick Schultz

Oh, yeah, these Korean boys are back... kind of. I mean, they’re always gunning for a “comeback” but it does feel arbitrary to have comebacks every four months. I like BTS for the most part, and their songs do tend to grow on me a lot as time goes on. “Boy with Luv” is such a grower, as are “Fake Love” and “Make it Right”. However, I didn’t like the lead-off single from Map of the Soul: 7 (“Black Swan”) to be interested enough in this new album, so I haven’t listened to it and probably never will; I never actually listened to the last album. I was hoping that this new single wouldn’t fall into the trap a lot of K-pop does, and, oops, it does. There’s a chaotic structure that mixes tribal drumming intros with spacey trap drums, awkwardly Auto-Tuned bilingual singing and rapping from all of the boys, none of which sound particularly good here, not even in the chorus, which has a lot less groove than the other singles I like from them, with a pretty stiff, electronic drum beat. The flow isn’t particularly impressive and I don’t really buy in to the cute aesthetic of the music, so overall, this is just ear fluff that serves little purpose to me other than wasting my time. The Sia remix isn’t any better, either. Congratulations on the top five hit in the US, though, boys. I hope the record label isn’t treating you that bad, although they probably are, knowing the situation with some other overworked bands there. I won’t make any baseless assumptions, though. In terms of K-pop, I prefer YUMDDA. Check him out, I like “Flight” especially.

#20 – “After Hours” – the Weeknd

Produced by the Weeknd, DaHeala and Illangelo

By this time, the Weeknd has released his album, obviously, but at this time, it was a promotional single that came out of nowhere and surprised everyone with how non-single it was. Despite me loving the two lead singles, I didn’t listen to the album for whatever reason (I should probably get on that, actually, since it’s the Weeknd I’m probably missing some good stuff), so let’s hope the title track boasting a six-minute runtime and no discernible chorus gives me a good taste for the album. I mean, the production here is pretty sweet, for the most part, and I like the urgency given by the alarming synths in the intro, coupled with a pretty tight falsetto and grand vocal performance from the Weeknd as always (Can I call him Abel?). I can’t help but feel the song does drag on a bit, though, and I hope that’s not just my attention span but this does get a bit tedious, especially due to very little interesting development towards the climax in the intro, which means the drop feels abrupt and thus not satisfactory in the least, but it’s a pretty great beat admittedly. Actually, the song reminds me of one of my favourite songs of all time, “Instant Crush” by Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas, which is a similarly eerie robotic funk song with vocoder-mangled falsetto vocals. Whilst that song is constantly emotive and full of great hooks from each and every inch of the music, vocals and lyrics, this one feels completely aimless, and after four and a half minutes, it just meanders for a little bit, proving itself as a bit of a waste of time, frankly, even if the lyrics are very well-written albeit vague and perhaps not necessarily too profound or interesting, especially since this is building up a story presented throughout the album. I appreciate this for what it is, but it could have been a LOT better.

Conclusion

Best of the Week probably goes to “City of Angels” by 24kGoldn, which isn’t what I expected but it’s the only song I actually saved from this bunch. “After Hours” by the Weeknd gets the Honourable Mention, but just barely. Worst of the Week would be a bit of a dick move if it went to anyone else but Aitch for “Mice”, and there isn’t really anything worth a Dishonourable Mention here. Let’s move on.

NEW ARRIVALS: 08/03 #40 – “Blueberry Faygo” – Lil Mosey

Produced by Callan

Listen, I really didn’t want to like this stupid TikTok dance song that samples a cheesy 80s R&B track by Johnny Gill, but, man, this is just inescapably catchy. Lil Mosey is a pretty pathetic rapper on his own, so I didn’t expect him to hold himself in any capacity here, but he flows and rides the beat well enough, which is surprising considering his hot garbage fire of an XXL cypher verse. The real standout here for Lil Mosey’s first UK Top 40 hit is the beat from Callan. You just can’t resist the soulful sample and jovial vocal samples here, it’s such an addictive, fun track, and that’s without Li Mosey rapping a repetitive but infectious chorus that can’t get out of my head at all. Yes, he doesn’t talk about anything interesting here, at all, and he bites TAY-K of all people in the first verse, but the verses are short and they immediately transition back to that sweet, sweet chorus. I feel like this is the stuff Lil Yachty should still be making right now, but alas, he’s being Oprah, I think. Yeah, I love this type of cloud rap that just oozes sunshine and beachfronts. It’s not a great rap song and it’s not even a great song, but it’s impossible to resist that beat, and it’s not like this kid from Seattle who may or may not be able to say the N-word is ruining that for me.

#35 – “Death Bed” – Powfu featuring beabadoobee

Produced by Otterpop

Or, as it now wants me to call it, “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)”. It’s not often a song just straight-up renames itself but hey, it’s the streaming era. Anything can happen. Speaking of unpredictability, this is the first UK Top 40 hit single for both half-Filipino BRIT Award nominee beabadoobee as well as sadboi Canadian rapper Powfu, and the first UK Top 40 hit single for the genre of lo-fi hip hop beats to relax and study to. You love to see it: lo-fi hip hop in the charts. Honestly, this genre gets way too much slack and there are releases I adore from people like Jinsang and GentleBeatz, and if you look at it in a broader sense, you can look at stuff like MIKE, Navy Blue or the newer Earl Sweatshirt stuff, and I eat that stuff up now, so what I’m saying is: you can’t really go wrong with lo-fi hip hop... until you do. This song sucks. Powfu’s flow is cringeworthy at best, and the pitched-up beabadoobee sample runs through the whole song, becoming pretty irritating by the end of the song in all honesty, despite the original song being pretty sweet, in my opinion. This got big on TikTok, and listen: Powfu can’t sing and he can barely rap (This dude’s flow sounds like it came from Looperman.com), but I won’t complain about people digging the undeservedly maligned genre of lo-fi hip hop in 2020, so I’ll accept Powfu and I’ll accept Will Smith’s quarantine beats, if it makes people accept and appreciate the genre just a bit more.

#28 – “Boyfriend” – Mabel

Produced by Steve Mac

Mabel will not bring anything interesting to the Tabel. I can almost guarantee it. I don’t mind Mabel at all, I mean, Neneh Cherry’s daughter has got to have some talent, right, but relistening to her discography, I noticed it is plagued by bland and uninteresting R&B production. I love her voice and some of the songs are still pretty fun, especially “Don’t Call Me Up”, but overall, I find myself disappointed and the potential wasted. This song is actually pretty okay, to be fair, as most of her songs are, but mostly due to an interesting sample choice – “Remember Me” by house DJ Lex Blackmore, or Blue Boy. “Remember Me” was a massive hit for him, and in reality, the sample here is actually a sample of a sample (from “Woman of the Ghetto” by Marlena Shaw), but my favourite song of his is “Sandman”, which is an infectious and fantastic song that I think is quite underrated, despite performing somewhat well on the charts at the time. You should check it out, it’s amazing. This song, on the other hand, has no interesting characteristics other than said sample. Thanks, Mabel, very cool. Let’s move on to something interesting.

#5 – “Stupid Love” – Lady Gaga

Produced by Tchami and BloodPop

I mean, I hope this is interesting. It’s the big return for Lady Gaga onto the pop scene after A Star is Born practically saved her career, and with BloodPop behind the boards, it’s got to be at least interesting, right? Right? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I actually like the sound of the chugging 80s synths here that remind me of the 2010s club boom, which of course was Lady Gaga’s heyday, and while I didn’t exactly expect lyrical depth from that era of Gaga, I expected some of the development in her music since to shine through here and it just hasn’t, making this song feel really shallow and empty, and dare I say, boring. Gaga’s vocals here are as good as ever, and in fact, quite unique in the pre-chorus, and I can definitely say the whole song is just one train of constant hooks playing on top of each other, but the transitions are shoddy and abrupt, the vocaloid drop is typical and whilst it sounds great and is well-implemented, strips the song of the character it could otherwise have, especially coming from one of the most interesting and engaging pop singers of the last decade. I can see why this underperformed, as this song is like a Simpsons rerun with all of the funny jokes cut out. Basically, it’s disappointing.

Conclusion

I don’t think there can be an Honourable or Dishonourable Mention here, but Best and Worst of the Week fall out pretty nicely. Best of the Week goes to, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Lil Mosey for “Blueberry Faygo”, whilst Worst of the Week goes to “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” by Powfu and beabadoobee, for just being the epitome of dullness. Again, let’s move on to something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 15/03 ALBUM BOMB: Eternal Atake – Lil Uzi Vert

Hey, an album I actually listened to – and liked! Lil Uzi Vert has always been hit or miss with me and whilst Eternal Atake is more of the same in that regard, its highest highs are incredible, especially in the middle third of the album, but overall, despite some filler and straight-up bad tracks sprinkled throughout, Uzi’s sophomore effort is very enjoyable, slightly more so than its pointless deluxe reissue (although I come back to “Bean (Kobe)” with Chief Keef a lot more than I’d like to admit). Now that I’ve praised the album, let’s talk about one of its worst songs, because, well, that’s how chart works.

#37 – “P2”

Produced by TM88

Should this really count as a new song? I mean, it’s a glorified “XO TOUR Llif3” remix, with the same producer, practically the same chorus and definitely the same premise, and whilst I didn’t like the original, I understand its purpose, story and appeal. Here, despite my respect of the continuation of the song’s narrative, I question the existence of the song. Did the original need a continuation? Not at all. Does this cheapen the original song’s impact, legacy and influence? I mean, not directly, but instead of being able to appreciate the original in the context of one-off hit single by charismatic emo-rapper, I know have to comprehend it as the disappointing sequel to a film that was never all that great in the first place. I’m not a film buff so I can’t think of an analogy that’ll work for that exactly, but you know how there was that old episode of SpongeBob with Bubble Buddy that was fun but overall pretty forgettable? Yeah, they tried to bring him back in season eight but the new episode was just bland and didn’t even promise what a sequel should promise, whilst also being pretty pointless as the original’s cliffhanger worked fine and added to the episode, as did the overall mystery of the Bubble Buddy character that had been dissolved with the creation of a new episode? Yeah, that’s my analogy, don’t care. Next song.

#36 – “Baby Pluto”

Produced by Cousin Vinny, Bugz Ronin, Brandon Finessin and Ike Beatz

Now THIS is the Uzi I like. Much like “Free Uzi”, which probably should have been on the album, this is Uzi spitting rapidly with a slippery flow that at times creeps into off-beat territory but isn’t noticeable because his energy level is astounding and rubs off on the listener. Lil Uzi’s charisma and tone is determined yet loose, and he switches from flow to flow and from topic to topic swiftly and without a care in the world. It helps that the beat from the Working on Dying collective is freaking incredible (Although not the best beat on the album), with sweet glistening piano loops and sci-fi sound effects dropped in for some reason or other. The beat is also genius in how it cuts off exactly where you’d expect it to drop, teasing you every time that Lil Uzi’s flow reaches the point where the beat should logically drop, until it finally does and it is so satisfying, especially when Uzi gets in his lower register and actually sounds intimidating. The term “Baby Pluto”, whilst being a nickname Uzi uses, isn’t even mentioned in the chorus, but there’s an equally iconic line here, “I turned to an addict, I bought me a Patek”, which is just poetry. I don’t know exactly why he’s going to war, either, but hey, it sounds cool, right? “I bought a G-wagon, that shit was the BRABUS”? I have no clue what the hell that means, but it sounds awesome. He’s so casual in how he goes from verse to verse and from flow to flow, it sounds effortless. Lyrically, it’s all over the place (But generally correlates to luxury) – his neck is “on squeegee”, he mentions Ouija boards because of course he does, he seemingly doesn’t understand the concept of blindness (Seriously, Uzi, Stevie Wonder couldn’t see THEM, not the other way around). In the second verse, he brags about being a pescatarian (In a pretty clever way) and moves states for again, seemingly no reason. And, of course, in the third verse, he says he is so sex-deprived that he’d even do it with your girlfriend in a Honda Accord. Sure, there are some filler lines (I don’t think any “icy wrist” pun can beat Future’s ridiculously blunt “I just put my whole damn arm in the fridge”), but they go by so quickly and so breezily you don’t notice them. This is a great song, and an incredible introduction to the album as a whole.

NE W ARRIVALS #39 – “Supalonely” – BENEE and Gus Dapperton

Produced by Josh Fountain and Gus Dapperton

A song by zoomers for zoomers which got big on TikTok. It’ll make sense in the context of this depressing pandemic, in fact all pop music seems like it’s having suicidal thoughts right now. I’ve heard of Gus Dapperton before; he was on the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack with a vaguely 80s-sounding indie pop song that to be fair, I actually really liked! In fact, listening to it now, I think “Of Lacking Spectacle” should have actually been the big hit, but alas, we have “Supalonely” by BENEE, who I’ve never heard before. She’s from New Zealand but her biggest listening audience is Jakarta, Indonesia, for whatever reason, and I guess I should get onto the song... wow, this sure is a song. It’s like the groovy funk and disco pop without much groove or even funk – this song feels really staccato, especially due to that droning chorus, intentionally of course but accentuated by more sincere, Auto-Tuned inflections and ad-libs that add emotion and character that take this song from being “understandably boring and annoying due to its subject matter and hence better in that it reflects those emotions effectively” to being “wasted potential and perhaps just a failure at making a pop song”. I like to use the word “janky”, but so far, most of these songs have been too competent for my liking. Oh, and Gus Dapperton sucks here too. Have fun with your guitar lick you found on FL Studio, guys, but I’m not a fan.

#26 – “Self-Obsessed” – Da Beatfreakz featuring Krept & Konan, D-Block Europe and Deno

Produced by Da Beatfreakz

If you’re not British, you will statistically have no idea who these people are. If you’re British, you will statistically have no idea who most of these people are. Da Beatfreakz produce a lot of British trap and Afroswing hits, Krept & Konan are one of the biggest grime duos of all time, Deno was a guy who was vaguely funny on a song once so we kept him around, and D-Block Europe... well, they’re D-Block Europe. Just as I was talking about songs being too competent, we review this song, which will likely be a trainwreck. Firstly, let’s get it out of the way: what dumb shit does Young Adz say in this song? Well, it’s not initially clear who’s self-obsessed but he’s talking about a woman here, because we’ve got to love that sweet, sweet misogyny, which is even blunter and more disgusting in British rap for whatever reason. You know that if you already ate it in the Porsche, you’re not legally obliged to give her some more, right? You can just give who is assumingly  a prostitute a wad of cash and drive off, as you are big famous rapper man. In the chorus, he also says he sells crack but only smokes marijuana, which is reassuring I suppose, and that he plays chess on his Louis Vuitton bag because he is bored. Okay, he’s trying to say that he’s so rich he could deface designer fashion but playing chess isn’t exactly a messy activity, and I highly doubt this man knows how to strategically play it. Also, who are you playing chess with? The prostitute, or the other member of D-Block Europe, Dirtbike LB? Speaking of, his verse depicts the time where he was thinking about the... anatomy of the woman his best friend was... interacting with when he crashed that Porsche. Also, if this woman is so self-obsessed, why are you not letting her get a Louis bag before she sucks you off? I know it’s just flexing and rapper talk, but it’s painfully not self-aware. He also has an odd moment of feeling love for the woman but immediately retracts it after a one-line topic shift, because of course he does.

Girl, I hate it when that love’s feeling strange / Paid cash for the car, that’s the Range / If I ever said, “I love you”, then I think I’ve gone insane

Wait, how many cars do you have? Oh, and Young Adz comes in immediately afterwards.

Long story short, made a boy do the running man

Oh, and he’s actually kind of funny on purpose for once.

Three litres of blood, swapped it for a couple grand

Wait, wh—

Should have saw her face when I crushed a Xan

Huh?

Every bitch want to f*** a man

Somebody’s got to tell this dude about lesbians before it’s too late. This is all, in typical D-Block fashion, rapped awkwardly and stiffly with 17 layers of malfunctioning Auto-Tune and reverb coating the two until they’re indistinguishable over a beat that... admittedly, this one’s pretty good, but I swear it’s a fluke. Oh, and if you hadn’t had enough of Young Adz, his ad-libs are all over Konan and Deno’s verses. No-one else says anything interesting, by the way.

Said she want to F a drug dealer, but, baby, I wasn’t raised in the trap

Bro, then why are you on this song? Deno’s whole verse seemingly revolves around the fact he has never sold drugs and doesn’t use swear words. Yeah, this is tough, but exactly what I expected.

#3 – “Rain” – Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith

Produced by Tay Keith

Tay Keith’s beats are all the same. Aitch’s bars are all the same. It’s a perfect combination. At least AJ Tracey could be amusing here, and admittedly he is, with a catchy chorus and a pretty great verse, where not only does his flow stand out as particularly interesting but he throws a lot of funny pop culture references in there too, like Kenan Thompson, Bugs Bunny and the ridiculous “gyal on curry, neck McFlurry”, which he accentuates with a “bling-baow”? The first line is actually a reference to an obscure term for people from Manchester coined by Liam Gallagher, and Aitch is from Manchester, so, you know, it’s those nice little additional touches that count, and while AJ’s verse isn’t exactly flooded with wordplay, Aitch, come on, man, step your game up. Your flow and rhyme scheme is excellent but you have absolutely nothing to say. There’s a vague Blueface reference, I think, but that’s all. Ultimately, the song isn’t bad at all, and the beat is pretty menacing and slaps pretty hard, with both rappers riding it effectively, especially Aitch’s straightforward, intimidating triplet flow in the pre-chorus and AJ’s more rapid, free-flowing cadence, and, hell, I have a soft spot for that dumb eagle caw sound... but I mean, it’s just more of the same, and I can’t think of a way to restructure it that makes sense; without the chorus it’s too short and directionless, without Aitch it’s too staccato, and without AJ Tracey, it’s outright garbage, so, yeah, mixed feelings but I can listen to this with no issue. Oh, yeah, and this is Tay Keith’s first UK top 40 hit as a credited artist.

Conclusion

Best of the Week definitely goes to “Baby Pluto” by Lil Uzi Vert, with an Honourable Mention to Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith for “Rain” because, well, it’s somewhat entertaining, I guess. Worst of the Week goes to “Self-Obsessed” by whoever the hell with a Dishonourable Mention to “Supalonely” by BENEE and Gus Dapperton for existing simply without purpose. Let’s move onto something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 22/03 #37 – “Papi Chulo” – Octavian and Skepta

Produced by Go Grizzly, YoungKio and BricksDaMane

Or something exactly the bloody same. This is Octavian’s first UK Top 40 hit. Welcome to the chart. As you can tell by the Skepta, this is a British rap song that might have some more quality to it than usual. So, it’s produced by the “Old Town Road” producer, YoungKio, and it’s got a Latin-flavoured guitar, as well as stupid falsetto skrrt ad-libs instead of a chorus, gross sex talk that is just unpleasant to listen to, misogyny for days, and Octavian sounding like Sean Paul on painkillers. Yeah, just absolutely disposable, exhaustingly dull garbage which I don’t have much to say about. Maybe doing this in bulk is getting to me.

#35 – “The Take” – Tory Lanez featuring C**** B****

Produced by Sergio R., Play Picasso, Papi Yerr, Tory Lanez, Alo905 and Rajah

There was a Drake interview where he said he squashed his beef with CB because it was “silly” and “girl stuff”... you know, like when he gruesomely and infamously assaulted Rihanna. Silly girl stuff. Yeah, I’m glad you and Ray William Johnson are on the same page, Drake – I hope at least someone gets that reference. I am not listening to CB, I am not helping CB, I am not funding his bail next time he kicks a woman in the face for not liking his new five-hour epic about having sex with your girlfriend. Tory Lanez, please don’t play as an enabler or apologist for this man anymore. I’ve heard your album, you know how to rap, don’t give any playtime to this sicko who barely knows how to function as a non-violent, law-abiding citizen. Thanks, Tory.

Edit: Fuck, nevermind. Both of these guys make me sick.

#34 – “Boss Bitch” – Doja Cat

Produced by Sky Adams and Imad Royal

Finally, someone talented this week. I don’t know why this song actually peaked and debuted this high though – I don’t know if the film it was attached to, DC’s Birds of Prey, did particularly well here in the UK, but I know the nation likes the Harley Quinn character enough for E4 to start airing the mediocre animated series to much appraisal, so I’d assume the song got popular off of that, maybe? Otherwise, Doja Cat’s a pretty big star now so it’s a good choice for the soundtrack, especially since she does give off the same vibe as a lot of the film. Yes, I did watch the movie, and it was, as most movies I have watched, vaguely tolerable. This song was in it, during a scene that I remember being colourful. What insight. Anyway, the main focus here is the song itself, and yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Sure, you can rip on how derivative of Nicki Minaj it is, and she does sound exactly like her here sometimes, especially with the Barbie references, but you can’t deny that infectious, simplistic mantra of a chorus, and the pure charisma diffusing out of the sassy lyrics and nasal, aggressive vocals from Doja, often resorting to yelling, as well as that noisy house-pop beat with chimes and screaming in the background. It is just a beautifully chaotic song, especially with the off-beat pitch-shifted vocal loops in the final chorus; hell, it doesn’t really work well as a pop song because it’s just so bloody all over the place, and, yeah, I can dig this. It’s pretty much a complete mess, but it takes you along for a ride with it, so I’ll endorse it.

#32 – “No Judgement” – Niall Horan

Produced by Tobias Jesso Jr. and Julian Bunetta

Before I write this section, I am going to take a break because I have written entries for a bunch of songs in the span of an hour and a half if that, including one or two that were very long, hence I am starting to grow tired of the chart music and also sound very cynical. I didn’t want to sound too cynical when talking about a pop song like this, which is frankly just existent and relatively inoffensive, even if its funky tropical guitar beat does feel dated and Niall Horan’s vocal presence is so small compared to “Nice to Meet You”, which is a really good song, and—Goddamn it, I’m reviewing the song anyway. Okay, well, let me just conclude this and then I’ll take a rest.

Conclusion

No Mentions of any sort here because there’s one garbage song, one awesome song, one song I cannot mathematically have an opinion on, and one which I do not want to listen to due to being morally righteous or something like that. So, yeah, obviously Best of the Week is Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch” and Worst of the Week is “Papi Chulo” by Octavian and Skepta. See, this different format works out well because this would have been a short-ass episode otherwise. I’m barely awake now and actively feel myself nodding off every few sentences – sorry for any errors due to this but I can’t be bothered to fix them – so I’ll see you when I’ve rested, I hope.

NEW ARRIVALS: 29/03 #39 – “War” – Mastermind and Bandokay

Produced by LiTek

Just so you know, I had to check the Spotify credits for this song because there is seemingly no Genius lyrics page with all the details and such (as of my writing this). It exists, for sure, but it just lists the artists, the title and displays a “no lyrics available” message, with the cryptic song bio of “Mastermind X #OFB Bandokay”. I mean, sure. Well, I have no idea who these guys are, but their song kind of bangs. Well, at least the beat does, produced by LiTek, who I have also never heard of. That fluctuating flute paired with the pretty intense, exploding trap patterns make for a rap song that actually feels like it’s fulfilling the purpose trap should. I say that without taking into consideration that both of these guys can’t rap for squat and that most of the time, their high-pitched nasal Auto-Tuned whining – or “crooning”, if I’m being kind – is pretty aggravating and pretty derivative of their American contemporaries. British hip hop has never been particularly unique but with the pretty great drill beat here I expected at least some attempt to reflect its intensity in the vocals, but alas, this is just okay, if that.

Oh, apparently Bandokay was the son of the late Mark Duggan, who was killed by police, leading to the 2011 England riots. The more you know.

#36 – “Sunday Best” – Surfaces

Produced by Forrest and Colin Padalecki

I listened to this once without writing anything about it, and honestly, yeah, that’s enough. I should, hypothetically, love this song. Surfaces are two dudes with pretty alt-rock voices who decided to make a pretty, cute pink indie-pop song with a pretty nice trap skitter and simple piano chords, as well as a lot of robotic stuttering. This sounds like it should be some great, catchy stuff, but I actually found this pretty infectious in a different way, which may sound insensitive considering the current state of the world, but I don’t care, this song is garbage. These guys can’t sing, and they don’t want to attempt to hide that fact, instead obnoxiously sharing that with the world through their egregiously optimistic lyrics that seem pretty reassuring in these times, if you’re into shallow, vague rhymes and repetitive fluff that substitutes any kind of genuine, inspiring message or motive. I would say I’m disappointed, but I’m not entirely sure how low my expectations were in the first place.

#34 – “Flowers” – Nathan Dawe featuring Jaykae

Produced by Nathan Dawe

I assumed this would be another trap or grime song but actually this seems to be a DJ once again using uncredited female vocals for his electro house tune fused with dance-pop and a bit of UK garage. I am pretty intrigued by Jaykae’s feature though since he’s a rapper. The song focuses on the UK garage sample used, which is “Flowers” by Sweet Female Attitude and Cutfather, which was a pretty massive song for the genre in the year 2000 that seems to be pretty adored amongst British musicians. It’s been covered by Bastille, remixed by AJ Tracey and finally sampled by Nathan Dawe and Jaykae. I recognise the song – I don’t particularly like it but I respect in how it is a pioneer of the Vocaloid drop that became big in electropop, house and related genres like future and bubblegum bass decades afterwards. Nowadays, despite some pretty and surprisingly modern production at times – it definitely sounds like some bubblegum bass stuff from years later – it’s a pretty sloppy song, thanks to some unneeded complexity in the drop, and ends up sounding clunky as all hell. This new song uses the stems of the vocals – or perhaps a re-recording from the group themselves, or at least a pretty damn good impression – to create a pretty standard house tune that is nothing to write home about but is joyful enough and pretty club-ready. I like the vocodered “Whoa, baby” in the pre-chorus, but overall it just seems like a lazy flip of the original, especially since the drop is basically unchanged. Jaykae’s verse attempts to recreate the hype of a fun verse the DJ or a classic grime MC would add at a club and I do appreciate the new nostalgia for this type of music, but his verse is also kind of garbage. Also, despite his lyrics, this song is decidedly not the type of music you would sip lean to, but, sure, Jaykae, whatever you’re into.

#17 – “In Your Eyes” – the Weeknd

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and the Weeknd

It’s the Weeknd’s 22nd UK Top 40 hit: the double A-side with “Heartless” was released oddly, with “Blinding Lights” here being released days after and about a week after, was finally accompanied by a music video that’s really just an advertisement for Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Neither single got to experience their best possible tracking week in full, but nonetheless, both are still pretty high because it’s the Weeknd, and I’m actually somewhat excited for this. I’ve heard that it interpolates A-ha’s cheesy 80s synthpop classic “Take on Me”, and it wouldn’t be the first rendition I’ve heard of the song in 2019. That would be Weezer’s hilarious cover on both the Jimmy Fallon show (Where they played it with kids’ toys) and their “Teal Album”. Sorry, I bring Weezer up too much. Is the song good? Hell, yes. It starts with an overwhelming wave of ominous distortion before retro 80s synths quickly come in and an iconic, reverb-heavy drum pattern comes in that sounds awfully familiar – it’s probably also from “Take on Me”. The synth riff, as typical with 1980s synthpop, is hilariously grandiose and egregious, but the Weeknd kills it here as well, not letting the instrumental or even the freaking bongos playing during the verse shine over him or put him off. He blends in with the airy synth painting in the chorus, and it is gorgeous, it really is. I wish this was a tad catchier but that definitely will be a possibility for it to grow on me later on (Which hopefully it does, it’s already perfectly qualified for my best of 2020 list). The Weeknd’s vocals on the bridge are oddly powerful, and that last moment in the penultimate chorus where there is this epic beeping synth that rises until the synth riff drops once again is awesome. The pre-chorus is probably my favourite part, though, especially when the synths cut out for it to just be the Weeknd over the drums, right before the chorus kicks in. I love this so much, unexpectedly so, and I’m so glad it charted so high. I hope it survives the Christmas songs, though.

Okay, all jokes aside, this is a good song, albeit safe as all hell. I feel like I’ve heard this song a bunch of times before, not just in “Blinding Lights”, and Abel can perform, sing and even produce better than this, so I’m left with little to no original insight. I’ve grown to like the Weeknd more when he’s on his depressed trap-R&B style as well, so this is even less appealing to me now. Oh, yeah, and the Doja Cat remix is cool, in fact I might prefer her verse to the original song. She flows pretty well. Oh, and I figured I should specify the Doja Cat stuff would have been written before the whole ‘oops, she’s racist’ scandal. I don’t defend her on that really. In fact, due to a lot of this being written in bulk at different periods of time (Half of this review is from January, the other half being from both May and July), some things may be pretty dated or currently untrue.

Conclusion

The only good song here is Abel’s, so I guess Best of the Week is going to “In Your Eyes” by the Weeknd and Worst of the Week goes to Surfaces’ “Sunday Best”. Nothing else here is all that good or bad, or even worthy of a mention, so next month?

APRIL NEW ARRIVALS: 05/04 ALBUM BOMB: Insomnia – Skepta, Chip and Young Adz

No, I didn’t listen to this album either. What, you think I’d listen to an album by a guy called Young Adz? The Guardian gave it four stars because it had Skepta on it, if you’re interested. Let’s just listen to the songs and get this over with. It’s Young Adz so it’ll have some funny lyrics at least.

#32 – “Mains”

Produced by Skepta

Oh, no, I like this song. This beat, produced by Skepta, is actually pretty incredible, with a very catchy, joyful flute loop smoothly placed under a pretty hard trap beat, which sounds really cutesy, kind of like some Lil Yachty stuff. And Skepta, of course, being Skepta, pretty much kills it – in a good way, that is. His flow is impeccable and I mean, how can’t you ride a beat you produced? Young Adz is actually fine here, and I’d argue his ad-libs actually add to the experience here rather than subtract from it as usual. I’m actually starting to like this guy’s zany charm. He’s much better than Chip, who sounds rusty as hell here, with some badly-fitting Auto-Tune and an off-beat flow. The whole song is one verse between a chorus, with all three rappers sharing the verse pretty much equally. Young Adz kills his second verse in a way I never expected him to, and I love how his ad-libs are implemented into the beat and his “WHAT?! SKEET!” yells are honestly really charming. Yeah, this is pretty good, but it’s Young Adz so...

I’mma whip that crack like banana pudding again / When I step in the bando, fiends and the workers act like Vladimir Putin just came

Got a little three-two concealed in my boxers, call that fire in the mains

You know, now that this guy has improved, these ridiculous non-sequiturs start to sound more like a genuinely funny guy rather than just... an idiot. Also, this:

Come in her p****, a lava lamp

That’s just gross, man.

#18 – “Waze”

Produced by Cardo

I hope this one is good, I mean, I’ve never liked Cardo as a producer, but trap has always been dependent on the vocalists anyway, and Skepta and Adz have both never been ones to disappoint, each in their unique ways. The music video for this is rather pretentiously subtitled “the movie” for whatever reason, by the way. The song, despite the beat coming in via a fade out, which is an odd decision, is pretty okay beat-wise, albeit uninteresting. Young Adz decides to be a lot slower and whinier here so he’s pretty boring and much worse than when he goes on his speedy, rapid, ad-lib-a-plenty verses. Chip tries to be badass but ends up sounding pretty dull, although his verse about rappers claiming they’re the best when they’re the only people in the room is kind of funny, unlike Adz here, who isn’t even humorous here. Skepta is just as bad as Chip, arguably worse, with a really short verse, so, yeah, this album is looking pretty inconsistent so far, just from two tracks. The album’s actually pretty short so I might listen later.

NEW ARRIVALS #38 – “If the World Was Ending” – JP Saxe and Julia Michaels

Produced by FINNEAS

I don’t know who JP Saxe is, I assume he’s some industry playlist singer. Julia Michaels we know, I assume, and FINNEAS is, of course, the producer of Billie Eilish’s hits and her brother. However, most of the time, his other productions don’t end up being nearly as interesting, unique or really anything like his work with Billie. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe that’s a bad thing, I, however, do not care, because frankly, nothing he produces outside of his solo work and with Billie ends up being all that noteworthy. His voice is just a typical white-guy-with-an-acoustic-guitar voice, the instrumentation is minimal and generic (I swear I’ve heard that same piano sound hundreds of times before). This song has been contextualised to relate to the whole COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences but that is arguably as ridiculous as the whole 5G garbage. Speaking of garbage, this song. Music criticism, everybody.

#28 – “Savage” – Megan Thee Stallion (featuring Beyoncé)

Produced by J. White Did It

I haven’t listened to a Megan Thee Stallion project but what I’ve heard ranges from tolerable to pretty damn great. I particularly really enjoy her breakout single “Big Ole Freak” and of course, I applauded “Hot Girl Summer” with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign on this show before. On the other hand, songs like “Captain Hook” or “Cash Shit” with DaBaby, where Meg boasts about her prowess in both the bank and bedroom over a pretty simple bass-heavy trap beat are just dull to me, regardless of how funny her wordplay is or how occasionally impressive her flows happen to be. “Captain Hook” especially, I mean, at least “Cash Shit” had the DaBaby verse, splashy percussion and sound effects and some pretty memorable bars, as well as the iconic profanity-laden chorus. I haven’t listened to the Suga EP but I did like the lead single, “B.I.T.C.H.”, with the pretty nice 2Pac sample flip. Given that and the other songs I like from her, she may be at her best when she’s rapping over a soulful, early-2000s-esque R&B beat with a helpful pattering of trap skitters. Considering this is produced by J. White Did It, whose discography consists of cheap pianos, stiff trap drum patterns and blocky 808s, he sells off to mostly female rappers like Cardi B or Iggy Koopa, I’m not expecting that, I’m expecting a boring brag-rap song that Megan sounds way too good to be on, and, yeah, pretty much. To be fair to J. White Did It, this beat is pretty nice with the smooth keys and the driving beat behind Megan who kills it with the sass here in the verses, even with an overly repetitive chorus. I especially like the opening verse where she’s the hood Mona Lisa and breaks a [gnarly dude] to pieces, although the second verse has its equal share of notable and funny lines.

I keep a knot, I keep a watch, I keep a whip, ooh / Let's play a game, Simon says I'm still that bitch, ayy

A while ago, I made SpongeBob say the second verse using artificial intelligence and that was funny. Again, music criticism, everybody. Beyoncé isn’t out of place on the remix but I still think she’s not intriguing as a rapper, and I personally prefer her trailing ad-libs in the chorus. I do appreciate Megan adding like three new verses, which is pretty unprecedented, but the two do not have chemistry and it just feels like Beyoncé singing along to the original song sometimes, although her second verse is a lot better. I still prefer the original, though, it’s just more concise. Oh, and there’s an official chopped-and-screwed remix of this, and it’s pretty good, although it doesn’t give me the same ethereal vibe DJ Screw does. The whole “Say So” vs. “Savage” thing was a bunch of malarkey, by the way. No malarkey in Bikini Bottom, please.

#12 – “Believe It” – PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna

Produced by NinetyFour, Cardiak and Bizness Boi

I still can’t tell if PARTYNEXTDOOR is a parody of alt-R&B yet. As with most of Drake’s OVO signees, he makes most sense as a backing vocalist for Drake. I like him ooohing on “Ratchet Happy Birthday”, which is a ridiculous joke song in itself, and his crooning on “Loyal” is just hilariously awful, so he’s just Drake’s friend who decided he could be funny and sing R&B songs, right? So. how did this dude get Rihanna? Okay, I’m half-joking, he’s a serious R&B singer, he just happens to be bad at it. We’ll talk more about Drake in a bit, so let’s listen to the single from PARTY’s most recent album... PARTYMOBILE. Come on, this has to be satire. Anyway, this collaboration is a perfect fit, mostly because PARTY wrote a bunch of Rihanna’s recent songs, but the song itself is a pretty soulless washed-out guitar lick under some inconsistently intricate vocal layering, a gross chipmunk vocal sample, a boring trap skitter and barely any Rihanna.

You got the power, p***y power

I can’t be the only one who thinks this guy is joking, right?

#9 – “Break Up Song” – Little Mix

Produced by Goldfingers and KAMILLE

Little Mix are a girl group practically formed by a talent show that have had more longevity than anyone would have expected but after leaving their awful label management under Simon Cowell, they’ve pretty much consistently flopped. They have these high debuts and drop off pretty quick, whilst Cowell is making cameos in sub-par Scooby-Doo movies. The whole team isn’t doing well after their decade of success, really, and one of them’s hosting a show on MTV or something? I don’t know, I keep getting adverts for it. This is not a good song. It is a vaguely EDM-fused pop song with some reverb-heavy 80s-esque drums. It sounds a bit like “Blinding Lights” production-wise. The lyrics are a remnant of the Industrial Revolution, the melodies could rebuild the Berlin wall, and the song has about as much worthwhile content as the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has Jews. That sounds a lot better than it is, but trust me, this song is just empty and void of anything. It makes his three-minute runtime feel like a Star Wars VHS, complete with grain.

#6 – “Break My Heart” – Dua Lipa

Produced by The Monsters & Strangerz and watt

Now THIS is some good nostalgic dance-pop. I loved the album, it was full of energetic, perfectly-constructed and excellently written bops, although it was slightly knocked down a few points by some filler, which sounds weird saying about a 37-minute record, so it’s a lot more or a bit less noticeable than a longer effort, if that makes sense. In this case, I was jamming out to the infectious hooks so much I didn’t even notice that two or three of the tracks were samey and boring... including the second single, for some reason. I still think “Physical” is pretty mediocre. This song, however, is one of the highlights of the album. The groove here is undeniable and Dua’s voice compliments the at-times minimalist production perfectly, especially in the intro where it’s just her and the bassline before it abruptly transitions into a dreamy pre-chorus full of strings... and then drops back into the pure funk for the chorus, full with strings and horns that despite sounding particularly 90s are effectively timeless. Is this anything that impressive production-wise? Well, no, it is a pretty simple track which is admittedly at times kind of sloppy and rushed, especially in said chorus, but the little touches like the spitter-spatter of 808s in the first few bars of the chorus before it truly drops are there, and they are pretty sweet. The bridge is my only real complaint because I don’t really see the point in its existence since it just repeats a line from the chorus in a really short string break and it seems kind of messy overall, kind of dampening an already fragile structure. Okay, well, it’s not a perfect song, and its flaws are evident towards the end of the song, but I can’t say that detracts from the experience for me overall. Oh, yeah, and I don’t usually watch the videos for these songs when or before I review them but, oh, my God, Dua Lipa in this video is so--

Conclusion

Okay, so Best of the Week is actually pretty much a toss-up here because there are two great songs with pretty obvious flaws that debuted this week, but I’ll give it to Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”, with Honourable Mention going to “Mains” by Skepta, Chip and Young Adz. Worst of the Week is also pretty difficult to plot, but I think I’ll give it to “Believe It” by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna for just being a joke of an R&B track, with a Dishonourable Mention to “Break Up Song” by Little Mix. Moving on...

NEW ARRIVALS: 12/04 #39 – “This City” – Sam Fischer

Produced by Jimmy Robbins

Am I the only one who thinks Jimmy Robbins is a funny name? No? Okay, well, let us discuss this next song then. Who’s Sam Fischer, you ask? Well, I  had no idea either so I looked him up and found out that he was some R&B singer from Sydney, Australia, and this song is a single he released in January of 2018 that happened to get big on TikTok – so big in fact that RCA Records slid in his DMs and signed him to re-release the song. So surely there must be something in this song to make it memorable to the average TikTok viewer, and hopefully something good. Before I talk about the song though, the Genius page at the time I’m reading it and writing this is hilarious and kind of heartwarming. Seemingly, this guy communicates with his fans via poorly-written Genius annotations, and there’s specifically this one person in the comments, Genius user “Sechser”, who is lonely, or “lonley”, during quarantine, and she wishes to express this on this Genius lyrics page for whatever reason, leading to someone else asking if they were on Instagram so they could talk. That’s nice and friendly, unlike my reaction to the person who said the song was underrated when it had four Goddamn remixes, including some from Anne-Marie and Kane Brown. While I’m on Genius, I might as well explain what the song is about: being exhausted and tired by the city you live in, and becoming disillusioned by everything going on around you, but not in Sydney, Australia. No, instead, this is a diss track towards Los Angeles, California. Clearly a cultural and economic hub that happens not be the capital of one of the biggest and wealthiest English-speaking countries in the world wasn’t good enough for him, so he moved to another one that fit the exact same description. Oh, and the song? It’s kind of boring. It’s just a white guy with an oddly-mixed acoustic guitar and vocal chords as generic as the plastic finger snaps that suck the power out of this power ballad. If this were the only pop music I knew existed, I’d say pop is dead. Let’s move on.

#34 – “Thank You Baked Potato” – Matt Lucas

Produced by Kevan Frost

Okay, so at this point, the UK is on full quarantine COVID-19 lockdown mode, and I am forced to talk about this in this episode because of this unfunny racist Anthony Fantano-looking motherf—

Okay, so back story: Matt Lucas is a comedian who got big off of the comedy show Little Britain with David Walliams and as a connoisseur of the Dave television channel, I conclude that he’s not very funny. Due to the fact that he portrayed iconic British stereotypes of the 90s and 2000s, such as the disabled guy (?), homophobic homosexual (Wait--) and... okay, so I don’t know how he got so loved by the British public, but he’s a bald guy who people found funny and now he’s making charity singles, not the first time he’s done so either. He also lent his voice to Gnomeo and Juliet because, well, of course, and fittingly this is a children’s song. In the early stages of the pandemic, Europe was asking everyone to wash their hands and stuff like that, focusing on the hygiene ethics that you should follow every day to prevent spread of the virus. So he adapted this song he wrote on some comedy show a couple years ago to fit with the ongoing pandemic, and it’s going to help the NHS workers. It’s a valuable cause for a guy who is ‘very sorry’ but also ‘very willing’ to bring back the blackface from not the 1920s but the mid-2000s, and also really eager to defend Israel’s breach of international law only when Black Lives Matter starts to comment on the situation in the occupied territories. He has also been rather cryptically tweeting videos daily despite his pinned Tweet claiming he has been taking a break from the platform, seemingly to hide his gross-out jokes and gross-out politics in case anyone realises that no, this man isn’t as much of a CBeebies-friendly happy chap with a bald shiny head and enthusiasm as you could have suggested. He’s still got the bald head I suppose but that’s beside the point. The song is (vaguely) listenable despite being completely irrelevant to the cause and also completely bad because he puts on this nasal annoying voice for half of it, when he can’t sing anyway. It’s almost like he’s making a mockery of the pandemic. Regardless of the song’s contents and history, we can all agree it’s a children’s song with a runtime of barely a single minute, hence it shouldn’t be in the UK Top 40, or even the charts at all. At least the guy who made “Baby Shark” wasn’t racist. Free Palestine. Anyway: Drake.

#2 – “Toosie Slide” – Drake

Produced by OZ

You know, I didn’t like “Nonstop”. In fact, I really hated “Nonstop” – but there was at least some charm in it, intentional or not. You know, the Tay Keith beat kind of bangs for what it’s worth, and some of the lyrics are really that bad that they cycle all the way back to being really funny again. “I just took it left like I’m ambidex’”, “Yeah, I’m light-skinned but I’m still a dark [gnarly dude]”, “Bills so big, I call ‘em Williams, for real”? Only Drake could make up garbage this humiliating for both him and the listener, and kind of get away with it. Surely, he can replicate that in “Toosie Slide”, his new drab, dry trap banger with a pretty audible lack of colour, especially in this time of depressing quarantine and lockdown and... yeah, no, this song just doesn’t work in any context. It was propelled by TikTok and is effectively and by all intentions, a dance song much like “Watch Me” or “Crank That Soulja Boy”. Unlike “Crank That”, however, it is not a song you can use in a mash-up or DJ mix, it is not a song you can exploit or have fun with, or even really dance to, despite the cynical, unabashed trend-hopping on display here. Maybe that’s the point, right? I mean, in the video, he’s dancing by himself in his massive mansion where he keeps art of Chairman Mao (Relatable) with a ski mask on, so maybe this intends to reflect the current lockdown period... but I can’t even stretch that far enough, and I tend to stretch the meanings of songs a lot on this show. Sure, musically, with its ambient synths and piano loops, it works as a parallel to real-life, and I guess how easy and depressingly boring the dance is also reflects that, but the rest of the song is completely irrelevant to both the lockdown and dance.

Black leather gloves, no sequins

Oh, thanks for specifying that you have no sequins, Drake, I appreciate that, it really helps create the imagery of a dull white void or a single balloon in the wind, drifting into thin air.

It goes: Right foot up, left foot slide, left foot up, right foot slide

Alright, so that’s a pretty simple set of instructions, I mean, I could do—

Basically, I’m saying, “Either way, we ‘bout to slide”, ayy

So the last instruction was not an instruction but just a recommendation? I just have to slide and that counts as a Toosie Slide?

Can’t let this one slide

So you are prohibiting any form of sliding. Got it.

Don’t you want to dance with me? No? I could dance like Michael Jack... son / I could give you thug pass... ion / It’s a Thriller in the trap... where we from

Okay, first of all, you cannot dance like Michael Jackson, secondly other than “Smooth Criminal” and I guess, “Bad”, he had very little thug passion. Thirdly, this is just lazy and Goddamn unbearably so. He mumbles to himself in a single, droning Auto-Tuned vocal layer, with little to no dynamics in the vocal at all, and clearly an obscene lack of effort that is just despicably abusive of the platform Drake has. He built his career through connections and a universal, likeable charisma, and he is doing a solo song where he shows absolutely no unique charisma at all. After not long ago reviewing “Baby Pluto”, where Lil Uzi masterfully creates a burst of character through rapping about being vapid, materialistic, and having as little character as possible, this is just shockingly bad, honestly. How are you going to make a simple, fun dance for children sound this grading and colourless? It’s almost impressive, honestly, which makes a nice contrast for the non-existent but nonetheless pathetic bars on this track. “It’s a Thriller in the trap where we from”? Bro, he said the Michael Jackson album and he just compared himself to Michael Jackson! This guy’s a genius? Oh, and he said this trap house he most likely did not grow up in or participate to the extent of having any detailed memories about that would constitute a rap verse was as scary as Michael Jackson! Wow, Drake, how many millionaire kiddy-fiddlers were in your meth labs? Jesus Christ, this is just deplorable, honestly. I try not to get upset or mad at songs anymore on this show because it’s just sounds at the end of the day, but this may just be the worst song I’ve reviewed this year so far. Usually I can put up with Drake’s nonsensical garbling or misogynistic rambles but without anything to sugarcoat Drake’s questionable morality and ethics, we can just see a pure-bred Aubrey Graham doing what he does best: being an absolutely miserable man in his thirties surrounded by yes-men and drunk on star power. It doesn’t even have an insensitive and nonsensical reference to Osama bin Laden like the other big Drake singles completely lacking in structure that were released this year, “Life is Good” and “Oprah’s Bank Account”, which by the way are both pretty great songs.

I could give you satisfac... tion

That’s not even a freaking Michael Jackson song—you know what, let’s just conclude this. I’m sick of this.

Conclusion

Oh, I wonder who will be getting Worst of the Week. Yeah, it’s obviously “Toosie Slide” by Drake, and I haven’t even written the reviews for the other songs while I’m writing this one, so make of that what you will; I will be more opinionated on the rest of the songs by the next sentence.

I wish I wasn’t. Both of those songs were garbage. No Best of the Week.

NEW ARRIVALS: 19/04 #39 – “Skechers” – DripReport

Produced by Ouhboy

This is a TikTok meme in which the Indian YouTuber talks about a woman being attractive because of her light-up Skechers. That is the song. That is the joke. Let’s move on.

No, but seriously, while I don’t find the song funny I appreciate it being some kind of lighthearted fun in what seems like a dour pop scene. The trap beat here is freaking pathetic though, and don’t get me started on the Tyga remix; seriously, I’m surprised his verse didn’t make Skechers cease-and-desist Tyga for defamation. The Badshah guy on the other remix kind of kills it though. Oh, and the actual Skechers gave away like a million face masks because of this song so I guess I do respect this stupid freaking song for its... cultural impact. Yeah, shawty bad with the Skechers. It’s a movement.

#24 – “Rover” – S1mba featuring DTG (DejiTheGamer)

Produced by RELYT

S1mba is a Zimbabwean musician who spent his first nine years under Mugabe before moving to Swindon, England, where he started listening to gospel music. DTG is a YouTuber from Croydon. Naturally, their big breakthrough single is a trap-Afroswing song about cars, or specifically the women that young British men can potentially attract with said cars... and somehow it is pretty good. That chorus is undeniably infectious and S1mba is a pretty damn charismatic guy who honestly sounds pretty good singing in the pre-chorus. DTG is considerably less impressive, Auto-crooning repeated lyrics several times with very little effort put into the inflections or cadences. The pianos here are pretty solid and I particularly like the strings in the outro. Also, the build-up to the third chorus is pretty epic. There are also four remixes of this song, including big names like ZieZie, Joel Corry and Lil Tecca, accumulating about 10 people across five songs. I listened to them all and here are my opinions: On the first remix, Poundz sounds kind of awkward as an auto-crooner, ZieZie sounds pretty great – I don’t really know why his verse is bilingual but sure, why not – and Ivorian Doll, who I assume is rather fittingly from Cote d’Ivoire, sounds great rapping but her stuttered singing is less than impressive. S1mba provides a new verse here and it’s pretty mediocre. The Lil Tecca remix is pretty great actually, with Tecca riding the beat effortlessly. Maybe the song can have some popularity stateside because of this? I mean, Young T & Bugsey did it with “Don’t Rush”, which I was surprised to see. Tecca sounds great on the outro, too. Oh, and there’s an Australian remix, too, because Aussie drill is a thing, apparently. The Youngn Lipz guy wastes time, and is not really sounding very Australian unlike the thickly-accented Hooligan Hefs who provides a pretty good verse which is kind of tonally out of place, which is the same with the Hooks guy. And finally, the house remix with Joel Corry, which is censored for some reason but I imagine is getting a lot of radio play despite being a lot less interesting and joyful than the original. It’s a pretty danceable, club-ready banger but you can’t really just get a song’s isolated vocals and put it on an unrelated house beat and expect the best... okay, well maybe Imanbek can, but that’s not the point. Joel Corry just does his thing here, and his thing is pretty freaking boring. Also, I’d like to point out that this is only the remix with DTG on it, and is hence not one of the best remixes. I’d put this above the Aussie remix and the first remix with Poundz and ZieZie (which ZieZie kind of carries), but below the original and the Tecca remix, which is my personal favourite and the one I’ll be saving. I really hope this remix trend continues to be a thing because I’m getting so much more writing out of this. Also, apparently this song is about a specific Range Rover – the 2019 Land Rover Evoque. Great.

Conclusion

“Skechers” by DripReport is Worst of the Week. I know it’s harmless and ultimately just a fun time but that Tyga remix is a crime against humanity, so “Rover” by S1mba featuring DTG and eight other dudes is Best of the Week. I mean, there’s only two songs so you could probably infer this conclusion.

NEW ARRIVALS: 26/04 #39 – “Where We’re Going” – Gerry Cinnamon

Produced by ???

Yeah, neither Genius or Spotify knows who produced this. I assume it’s the artist, Gerry Cinnamon, but that’s just my best guess. He’s an acoustic guitarist from Scotland, which is a bad sign, but this is actually a pretty damn good song. It’s a new wave-ish post-punk song with a fast-paced folkish riff that reminds me of The Cure, specifically a slightly more depressive “Just Like Heaven” came into mind immediately. Cinnamon isn’t a bad vocalist but his performance here is kind of sub-par and lyrically the song suffers from la-la-la syndrome but it makes perfect sense in the profanity-laden, careless tone of the lyrics and the song itself, which relies on the oddly profound hook of “Where we’re going this shit don’t matter”. Whilst I like this song a lot, I am slightly turned off by its dreariness which would work if the song weren’t four minutes, which is perhaps a couple choruses too long, but yeah, this is pretty good for what it is. I’m surprised it’s here in the UK Top 40, but this guy has been big in Scotland for a while so I guess this is his big single. He seems like more of an album artist, anyway. I need to listen to this guy’s album, perhaps.

#29 – “Rockstar” – DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch

Produced by SethInTheKitchen

It’s funny how two songs can be so different yet so similar. At its core, both this and “Where We’re Going” are profane, carefree and reckless pop songs with acoustic guitar as a focal instrument and a pretty bleak-sounding atmosphere to it all, which is fitting with the world being bricks and all. The main difference between the songs is that DaBaby is not a Scottish punk singer, and, last time I checked, neither was Roddy RIcch, although things change pretty fast in the music industry, and Taylor Swift just released her overhyped indie folk album as I’m writing this, so who knows? It’s not even her best album. I stand by reputation being her best but I don’t think I should elaborate on that hot take until “cardigan” inevitably debuts at #1. This is the second #1 hit trap song in the US to be a duet between two rappers about being a rockstar (this one is stylised in uppercase rather than lowercase, though). DaBaby also made a song about being a “Pop Star”, which Drake and DJ Khaled did a couple weeks ago. Trap-rappers are really original, I swear. Anyway, the acoustic plucking here courtesy of SethInTheKitchen is pretty funky here, but the drums do feel pretty stiff here. I love the Auto-Tuned “Oooooooh” that I think Roddy provides; again, the second #1 this guy has had with a vocal gimmick. DaBaby flows impressively in his first verse, where he recounts when he killed a man in front of his daughter and that he’d do it again. As you do. Roddy isn’t particularly interesting here but his Young Thug impression hasn’t worn off on me yet, so, yeah, pretty okay, decent song. Not many lyrics to analyse here, either.

Brand new Lamborghini, f*** a cop car / With a pistol on my hip like I’m a cop

This line in the chorus inspired DaBaby to release a “Black Lives Matter” remix of the song, and whilst it’s not as good as the original, simply because the beat doesn’t drop or hit as hard due to the extended intro and the song’s brevity is kind of its main saving point for me, I really respect his introductory verse on the remix where he raps viciously without a beat about police brutality, even referring to personal experiences he’s had with systematic racism in the United States. Also, in both versions, the sudden and brazen “SETHINTHEKITCHEN” producer tag never fails to get a chuckle out of me. Now that we’ve listened to two pretty respectable pieces of art, how about some manufactured plastic-wrapped garbage made in a factory by television producers?

#25 – “You Taught Me What Love Is (Britain’s Got Talent Live Recording)” – Beth Porch

Produced by Matt Banks, Charlie Irwin and Paul Jones

Those are the producers of Britain’s Got Talent, if you’re wondering. Spotify doesn’t list any producer credits because of course, they don’t. This is not really a typical pop song rather it is Simon Cowell’s attempt at replicating an indie-girl songwriter with an acoustic guitar and typical indie-girl voice, and, man, I don’t like half of those artists and Porch here can sing, but come on, this is just pathetic and desperate. I remember when Cowell started the talent shows, he didn’t have to directly replicate other trends really because he was making and defining the sound of British pop music in a way. It wasn’t very good but you can remember some of his signatures that are still present in remnants of pop music on the island today, especially this song, which has the skyscraper chorus and crowd cheering at the end, but God, this is just sad. I’m glad we’ve moved past the need for singer-songwriters, boy bands and girl groups created by reality television for the sake of putting more money in old rich white guys’ pockets. If I were doing this show any earlier than 2015, I feel like it would have been plagued by this stuff. Thank God for the streaming era, I suppose.

#20 – “I’m Ready” – Sam Smith and Demi Lovato

Produced by ILYA

This is a Sam Smith song featuring guest vocals from Demi Lovato. They are both good vocalists. The production from ILYA is not very interesting. Okay, I take it back, the production here is kind of cool, because it’s half an intimidating dated trap song and half a piano-based power ballad, and neither of these guys are convincing on a deep sliding 808 or rattling hi-hats. Oh, yeah, and the trap beat sucks. Like what’s with that snare? Yeah, this is garbage. I’m not sure why I expected otherwise, to be honest. If this is motivational to you, all respect to you but to me, this is pure cremation.

#5 – “Times Like These (BBC Radio 1 Stay Home Live Lounge)” – Live Lounge Allstars

Produced by Fraser T. Smith

“Times Like These” is actually my favourite Foo Fighters song; I’ve never been a big fan of the band but they have some incredible songs that I love very dearly and “Times Like These” is one of them. I guess it’s a fitting song for the current situation but I’m not expecting the Live Lounge Allstars to bring anything other than a washed-out, dry and bland cover of this classic. Who are the Allstars? Well, BBC Radio 1 has a series called Live Lounge where artists perform covers live or something to that effect – I don’t watch/listen to it – and this song features a lot of artists from that show who are more relevant, commercially viable or connected to Foo Fighters genre-wise, including Simon Neil, Zara Larsson, Sam Fender, Rita Ora, Rag’n’Bone Man, Paloma Faith, Mabel, Hailee Steinfeld, Grace Carter, Coldplay, Celeste, Biffy Clyro, Anne-Marie, AJ Tracey (Wha—), 5 Seconds of Summer, Dermot Kennedy, Sean Paul (Because of course), YUNGBLUD, Sigrid, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Bastille, Ellie Goulding, Jess Glynne, and of course, the only Foo Fighters present, Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins. I’m not going to pretend this song doesn’t have potential (I love Royal Blood and Dua Lipa, hell, a cover of this song with just those guys – or even Bastille – could work pretty damn well) but this is over-flooded with completely random artists, other than a couple rock bands picked out so they could replicate some sense of vague guitarism, whatever that means. Anyway, let’s remind ourselves why “Times Like These” works in the first place: it’s a lighthearted adult alternative song with a real message to learn from mistakes and to always think about the decisions you make before you hurt feelings or you feel guilty. It’s got a maddeningly infectious chorus, an iconic guitar riff and a so bad it’s good music video. It’s what the Foo Fighters are good at making, but it’s warmer and perhaps more intimate than usual, being based on actual events and internal drama within the band. It’s almost a diss track Dave Grohl wrote to himself, but in the most jovial tone possible with metaphors that are just odd and creative enough to be memorable to the listener. In the song, he beats himself up for being indecisive, ignorant and confused, before reassuring us and himself that he will learn from these lessons and become a better person, even if he has to drill the mantra into our heads. It’s just a great song... and it doesn’t really work in the context of this pandemic. Sure, the whole vague idea of becoming a better person in the new normal following lockdown, and how the lockdown will be troubling for the mental health of the British public, but otherwise, I mean, it’s a song that specifically refers to an event in Dave Grohl’s life, and has the typical, sludgy post-grunge vocals and some charmingly janky production choices (There, I said it), such as that echoing vocal in the verses. It all makes sense in the context of the song, though; here, it just feels impersonal. Sure, Grohl himself wrote off on it and contributed to the song, but there’s a certain lack of sincerity to the vocals here that makes the song’s profound lyrics feel cheap. I’m not going to say they disrespected a classic anthem. After all, “Times Like These” isn’t a brilliantly written song in the first place and it’s not like it’s influential or held in high regard. These singers are generally pretty talented, albeit not showing their best performances here. Despite that, with the slow, acoustic trod of this new cover, the shadow of dullness that looms over the whole song, and some outright garbage vocal performances from Simon Neil and YUNGBLUD, it doesn’t hold up to the original in any way. I wish this wasn’t acoustic either; again, Bastille, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Biffy Clyro and Coldplay could all do great covers of this song with some electric backing and some actual Goddamn energy. As is, it’s just a shoddily made charity single that misses the point of the original song completely. Oh, yeah, and the AJ Tracey guest rap verse is freaking AWFUL, and so out of place. It’s about making a wicked pasta bake, seemingly, and is capped off by Sean Paul giving the best performance out of any of the singers here, because, well, of course, he does. It’s Sean Paul. Big up the dude on the glockenspiel as well.

#1 – “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – Michael Ball, Captain Tom Moore and the NHS Voices of Care Choir

Produced by Nick Patrick

Reviewing this song misses the point of the song, as this isn’t a song for you to listen to, really. This is a song for you to appreciate and respect the charitable cause it represents. Captain Tom Moore is an army veteran who is 100 years old, making him the oldest person to ever get a #1 on the chart. He served in India and Burma during the Second World War, and 70-odd years later, he started walking laps around his garden to raise charity for NHS workers, and, naturally, he garnered media attention and attracted more than £30 million in donations. This song in particular is pretty special to a lot of Britons because of its attachment to the Liverpool football team (it’s been a crowd chant for a while after it was originally written by Rogers-Hammerstein in 1945 and further covered by Gerry and the Peacemakers in 1963). Even The Weeknd, who was #1 at the time, asked his fans to give him the #1 instead. Several people were inspired by Moore and practiced similar fundraising efforts that also raised millions for similar causes. After the song was released, Queen Elizabeth II, who is also approaching 100, knighted Moore, so, yes, he is Captain Sir Thomas Moore. I have nothing but respect for the man and his service to the country. To many people in the United Kingdom, especially elderly people who have had particular struggles during the pandemic and increased loneliness, especially without the otherwise regular family visits, he is a hero, and I completely understand that. I mean, the guy was on Blankety Blank once in 1983, so you’ve at least got to respect him for that. If you have the time, read up on the man’s life story, because as one would expect, he’s been through a hell of a lot in 100 years.

Conclusion

I can’t give Worst of the Week to charity singles, I’m sorry, I don’t have it in me. Sure, the Allstars butchered a great Foo Fighters classic, but if it helps people in these trying times, then I can’t say the song is worthy of my bile, really. So Worst of the Week goes to “I’m Ready” by Sam Smith and Demi Lovato, and Best of the Week goes to “Where We’re Going” by Gerry Cinnamon. Next month.

MAY NEW ARRIVALS: 03/05 #39 – “Kings & Queens” – Ava Max

Produced by Cirkut and RedOne

I just today found out that Cirkut ISN’T Dr. Luke. For some reason I always assumed so. Anyways, Ava Max is back to prove she’s not a one-hit wonder by making her one hit another time. Man, I’m just so bored of this. One of the reasons I stopped bothering or trying to make these blogs and music review list type things is that I gravitate less than ever towards music reviewing and journalism. I would love to use this hobby and passion for some good at some point and maybe make a career out of it but as an Internet music critic who reviews nearly exclusively chart music, this shit is just boring – and 2020’s supposed to be a really cool, unique interesting year for the charts. I’m kind of disillusioned with the whole cinematic top 10 build-up and this massive, melodramatic aggravated assault on the #1 worst song, when in reality everything is subjective and it’s not worth doing that. I mean, as well as I rested my case about “Taki Taki”, it doesn’t remove the song from existence or the charts. People won’t stop liking the song, it’s just my measly opinion, and, yes, while I think the whole idea of reviewing art is futile and at times counterproductive or toxic, it is completely fair to say your opinion on something, otherwise I wouldn’t be still writing this months after this song had first charted. I just don’t get the idea of a pop music reviewing community or whatever, which obviously does exist, and you’re probably a part of it if you’re reading this in all honesty, if you even got  this far. In the bluntest way possible, they just argue with each other. I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking way too much into this, it’s just a bit of fun but I just don’t care for the whole slog of reviewing five songs every week when I know I won’t like half of them. I feel like when I started, I viewed myself as one of those music-reviewing YouTubers with Pokémon avatars and top 20 rankings, and yeah, I don’t get that anymore from doing this. I just get apathy, although when I do feel happy and productive, which isn’t often nowadays, this is one of the first things I start thinking of and start doing so that should show that maybe chipping at this brick wall of Top 40 singles every couple months is fun? I don’t know. I decided today that I’ll release this block as the first part of this wall of sound, no pun intended, and I don’t know how good that’ll make me feel after releasing it. It’s definitely a relief, I guess. Anyway, Ava Max, I guess.

If all of the kings had the queens on the throne / We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Wait, sorry what was that?

We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Sorry, could you clarify that first part?

We would pop champagne

No. NO.

Pop champagne

#38 – “Don’t Need Love” – 220 KID and GRACEY

Produced by Will Graydon, Sam Brennan and Mark Ralph

Okay, back from mental trauma, is this song good? I don’t know, man, I don’t know who these guys are. 220 KID is a self-proclaimed “fizzy pop” artist from the UK, and GRACEY is a singer from Brighton who at some point lost her voice. Sure. This is their breakthrough song, I assume because of TikTok since they both don’t have an album yet, and I haven’t heard anything about them or their other singles, but I’m probably just ignorant. I mean, this is 220 KID’s debut single so they might just be a great, upcoming artist. I wouldn’t be able to tell because this is just really a mediocre house-pop song in theory. I mean, it has the exact same robotic, distorted and echoey vocal production, similarly thumping bassy beats, a stitched-up vocal drop, but something about this sounds cold. Maybe it’s the weak albeit bouncy production and snapping, maybe it’s the odd amount of dead space, maybe it’s the admittedly cool-sounding synth pads, but really, I think it’s just that non-existent drop. It doesn’t feel climactic, it doesn’t feel like anything, it just feels like someone ate the charting dance-pop singles from the past three years and regurgitated it. GRACEY sounds really nice in the falsetto towards the end now, and I like the melodies in the verse, I suppose. It’s not all bad, not that it was bad in the first place, just sonically void of personality. Also, there are way too many remixes and different releases but I still listened to all of them. The acoustic version is really sweet, and I think I actually really like how this song is written when hearing it stripped-down, but her desperate moaning in the chorus of the acoustic version feels a lot more genuine than the pitch-shifted garbage we get on the official, not that it doesn’t sound awkward on all versions. The Majestic remix is kind of nuts and I like the UK garage production but it’s way too long, and the TCTS remix is just the original with annoying beeping.

#26 – “Righteous” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Charlie Handsome and Nick Mira

I’m still pretty hurt that Juice passed. To be only 21 and die so suddenly after such a successful albeit brief career, at a moment where Juice seemed to be on top of the world more or less, is a tragic reality and Juice seemed like a nice, genuine guy from interviews so it was pretty shocking to hear the news, to say the least. Now, this gets awkward, like Pop Smoke from earlier, in the case that I was not a fan of Juice WRLD, and I’m still not. I think he was a very talented songwriter who attracted a fanbase due to a pretty unique 2000s emo-pop-inspired brand of trap, and he wrote some of my favourite emo rap songs ever, like “Lean wit Me” or “Robbery”, which is a damn excellent song and one of my favourites of last year. It even was in the top five of my Spotify Rewind 2019 playlist, I love that song to bits. However, most of his music had not appealed to me, and to be honest, I haven’t listened to that posthumous album, Legends Never Die, and probably never will because of that. I don’t want to dislike an album that serves as a genuine tribute to a good person, and I also am not sure if I’d be able to get through the entirety of the album, to be honest, mostly because of this song, which impacts me emotionally in a way not many songs do. The instrumental consists of a pretty sparse, spacey and minimal guitar-based trap skitter that is just a perfect base for Juice to pour his emotions onto in a way that feels eerie and sad but also pretty accepting, which makes the lyrics feel haunting, especially because the topics he discusses are mostly centred around how he thinks death for him is imminent. The first lines of the chorus already hit so hard with how he pictures himself as a “righteous” angel figure in his all-white Gucci suit and says, “I know that the truth is so hard to digest”. Then Juice continues to talk about the sheer quantity of drugs he’s consuming, which is just harrowing. This song feels like Juice was introducing someone to his lifestyle and realising how depressing and draining it was as he goes, especially in the first verse, where by the end he starts reassuring someone, who could be his girlfriend, his audience and fanbase, but most dauntingly, himself, that he’ll get out of this addiction and lifestyle at some point, when, in reality, he passed before he could even try, and he passed as a consequence of this lifestyle. In the second verse, he parallels how he died in his lyrics, saying and almost threatening to his inner demons, who he characterises as people he knows (but they “don’t know [him] like that”), that he will “take a pill for the thrill, have a relapse” and “crash”. The fact that this song is sprinkled with the silly, melodramatic metaphors not atypical to Juice, makes this song feel directly personal and not a retelling of the same line a lot of emo-rappers have sang and sadly, some have fallen victim to, about taking copius amounts of Xanax and codeine. Much like “Robbery” and a lot of his other work, Juice adopts a longing and nasal cadence and vocal delivery, but it feels much more trained and tuneful here, especially among the subtle vocal samples in the verse, and it is used sparingly in turn with a more muted delivery, particularly prominent in the chorus and the second verse, which connotes Juice’s lethargic acceptance with a lifestyle that he fell victim to. I don’t react emotionally that much to music, and I think that’s the same with a lot of people, but those first two lines in the chorus hit like a dagger and sound so great while doing so. Rest in peace Jared Higgins, and may the beauty of this song reflect on your talent.

#14 – “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” – The 1975

Produced by Jonathan Gilmore, George Daniel and Matthew Healy

I really loved “Me & You Together Song” but I find it hard to get behind anything else these guys made, really. They actually released an 80-minute album this May featuring backing vocals from Greta Thunberg, because of course, they did. I feel like if they started making music that was more natural and organic and didn’t try to make Pitchfork-bait political statements or whatever, I would appreciate them more. Not that I’m against political statements in songs – I’m definitely not, in fact, I’m sad “The Bigger Picture” by Lil Baby missed the top 40 this year – but the 1975, particularly Matt Healy, have never commented on pop culture in a way that’s not incoherent, preachy and frankly kind of stupid and obnoxious. Thankfully, this song, their biggest so far, is just about meeting a girl on FaceTime so you know, it makes me much more optimistic. The intro is really pleasant ambiance, but that awkward main guitar/bass riff makes it sound a lot less serene and more chaotic, even with FKA twigs providing some choral background vocals. Then the steady drums and 80s synths drown it out and once again, it suddenly becomes a fun, catchy song, even if Healy sounds really annoying with some inflections and notes that just sound... kind of horrific, especially with the multi-tracking that makes him even more irritating. He sounds even worse on the pre-chorus, but the cheesy and unabashed chorus where he says “Maybe I would like you better if you take off your clothes” followed by this corny, clearly synthesised horn riff, is just incredible. I kind of have to embrace Healy’s incompetence here because I can’t help myself but chuckle hearing him shout over 80’s beats in a way I guess isn’t too dissimilar to bands like Duran Duran, and hey, I love Duran Duran, and this is a good replica of a post-new wave 80’s synthpop track, even with a Goddamn saxophone solo. Is it too long? Yes, but so were those 80’s songs, and they just awkwardly faded out afterwards, and there is a shorter edit without the intro that cuts a whole minute off the track, meaning it starts just as awkwardly as it finishes, but that’s kind of the charm. Yeah, this is a pretty fun track, and maybe that Notes on a Conditional Form album is worth checking out. Maybe I give the 1975 too much flack. Wait, nevermind, no, I don’t, they’re called the 1975.

#11 – “The Scotts” – THE SCOTTS (Travis Scott and Kid Cudi)

Produced by Dot da Genius, Plain Pat and Take a Daytrip

Whoever decided to call this song “THE SCOTTS” is a brilliant mind and intellectual. Not only do I laugh every time I see this song title, just on pure absurdity alone, but it’s also by The Scotts. No one will proudly say, “Yeah, I’m listening to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS.” It’s also in all caps as if it’s this monumental, groundbreaking track, or at least an important, interesting one, but it’s actually just because all Travis Scott songs will be TITLED LIKE THIS NOW, ever since ASTROWORLD. It also amuses me that this makes absolutely no sense if you tell someone that this is actually a collaborative project between Kid Cudi and Jacques Webster. Travis Scott’s name isn’t even Scott, and Kid Cudi’s never used it in his name, although admittedly, in a lot of songs – and many I adore and remember fondly – he does say his name, Scott Mescudi, or some shortened variation of it. He doesn’t do it here, but Travis does say “You lettin’ THE SCOTTS outside”, as if it’s dangerous to let THE SCOTTS outside of their zone or outside of their cage or whatever. This song was also performed and premiered live on Fortnite, has like ten different vinyl editions to bump up its sales (It went #1 on the Hot 100 in the US in fact), and, man, the very idea of this song and everything surrounding it is just funny to me. Too bad the song’s not. I really like the keys loop used here coupled with some great-sounding drum fills but it is just destroyed by this ugly, slow bassy trap skitter and really gross-sounding Travis Scott vocals. He just uses this one lethargic flow, and switches it briefly in less of a technical or interesting way than Cudi does later in the song, delivering a really great verse, but my issue is that it sounds like a Travis Scott verse. He even tries to do his ad-libs. Then there’s this chiptune outro that sounds like a Mike Dean idea, mostly because it sounds kind of cool but doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t do anything to improve this shoddy song and its messy, dare I say, janky structure. “Baptized in Fire” is a much better collaboration from these two, and it’s telling that that one doesn’t have a verse from Travis at all. Rodeo is still amazing, but this guy has been disappointing and underwhelming for such a long time now. Maybe he’s lost his charm, but even with ASTROWORLD, where his experimental production shines and he is the most energetic he is in recent years, he just sounds tired and lazy. And Cudi, well, he’s Cudi. He’s made some of my favourite songs of all time, and some of the most confusing garbage I’ve ever heard. The duality of man.

#6 – “Houdini” – KSI featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne

Produced by AjProductions and Jacob Manson

Hey, this mildly amusing but definitely not my thing YouTuber got two of my favourites of the recent crop of British Afroswing and drill rappers on the same track. That’s something, right? I mean, yes, this is something, because this beat is AWESOME. It’s so full of joy and energy, even with the dark 808 tones and sparse vocal tones. I just love the bouncy, funky production on this thing and Swarmz kills it on the chorus with his typical happy nasal tone. Stormzy also kind of kills it, at least for the first half where he flows really swiftly and with a lot of smooth swagger, before he starts listing things and saying “Check” afterwards, for whatever reason. Tion Wayne delivers the clumsy fun he usually does, and whilst neither him or anyone here really brings any interesting lines or wordplay with them to the track, except a really awful corny line from KSI where he says his fourth letter is getting bigger in the alphabet, the track still feels really fun and cheerful, and most importantly full. Even when there’s literally silence, or no-one’s saying anything, it never feels like there’s dead space because the beat is always doing something cool. This is notable especially when Tion Wayne starts flowing really awkwardly and even when the beat cuts out for a really odd, nothing line, it still feels kind of worth it. Not much to say about this song other than it bangs, and a lot more than I’d expect from a guy like KSI.

Conclusion

I actually have pretty positive feelings on this week, which is good to go out on, I suppose. Best of the Week is obviously and undeniably going to the late Juice WRLD’s “Righteous”, with tied Honourable Mentions to the 1975’s “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” and, yes, KSI’s “Houdini” featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne. There’s not much to complain about here, so Worst of the Week goes to “Kings & Queens” by Ava Max for the kind of vapid nothingness I can’t even bring myself to stay on topic to talk about and Dishonourable Mention to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS because it’s “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS, and I don’t know about you but to me, that’s just laughable. See you in the next year, hopefully.

[mechagalaxy]

Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184: Pre-war interview with Robert C Goetz (#172656)

(By Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184) Pre-war interview with Robert C Goetz (#172656)

As the date of the war drew closer, my various formations were put through the paces. While the overall performance was tolerably well, there were some glitches and rough spots that had better be taken care of. Case in point. My current scout spotted another formation, and called out "Unknown formation sighted. Probably pirates, engaging"

Before I could get into sensor range, the fight was in full swing, and we were loosing badly. When I got the readings I cursed violently, and called out. "This is Bungler actual. All Bungler elements, break off action. Do not, I repeat, do not fire another shot even if they keep firing." On another channel. "Robert, sorry, my crew need to spend some serious time in signal recognition, we are breaking off and standing down."

After both sides had stopped firing I got out of the mech and went over to Robert to try patching up. He was all smiles, "Ah, my boys needed an exercise, and getting a surprise attack like that will teach them to keep on their toes"

We sat down and had a chat about this and that, among other topics the upcoming war:

Sten Hugo Hiller. So how do you think this war will turn out for the AFF. You do have several clans in the war, but can they rise to the top?

Robert C Goetz. To be frank. I think we're outgunned in most divisions... Some movements in clans in divisions hit us just wrong. For example both Collectors and Rangers got bumped down from D3 to D4. Either of them would have won D4 or D3 since best clans in that range. BlackWatch got bumped down to D5...so easy pickins for them...both the Rangers and or Collectors would have enjoyed facing them instead of each other , also makes D3 open now with both of us gone. Now look down few divisions, now here's a fight to watch Revenge vs Diamond DRagons. I'd give edge to Diamond Dragons normally, but they have no specialist so I have to say Revenge has the edge. Look down little further. Disciples are in the same division as Ronins and Renagedes. we have all solid clans. So it will be fun. Look down further. Hecklers they are in a very competitive division,so over all, we should fight for gold in several divisions, but how many will we win? Only time will tell.

Sten Hugo Hiller. An straightforward and honest answer. So do you think the high number of specialists will influence the outcome of many Battles and the end result in the divisions?

Robert C Goetz. Yes. Div 1 is a perfect example. Warlock vs Magnificent7...Warlocks went with 9 members. while Magnificent-7 with 7 and since they have more of the top 10 specialist in the division they should win the Gold. Then go to D2. The Bunnies went with 7 10T specialist, other clans will have to beat all the others and couple of them to beat them, should be fun to watch… And the same goes in other divisions. like I said look at DD vs Revenge no specialist vs 5 specialist...could be the difference maker there..others same way..but not going to run through all clans and divisions here...lol

Sten Hugo Hiller. So, in your mind, is this an improvement over the 2-4 specialists we have normally, letting the weaker clans fight more on their terms, or is it a bad move?

Robert C Goetz. Well don't know that i'd say having 7 specialist being weaker players... I mean sure guess if all the same..like 10t...but I like the 5 for 7 members better myself... But honestly would like clan sizes to increase to at least 8, but prefer maybe 10, and as for divisions.. That's another issue, I would rather see more 4 clan divisions. All these 8 clan divisions cause huge level gaps from top clans average to bottom clans... I know the aurguement that less clans means less silvers and bronze..more wood..but also more golds...but like I said it's about the average gaps from top to bottom of divisions for me

Sten Hugo Hiller. Some have suggested forced specialists. We have had some before, like all clans had to have one specialist of on type (for instance 20 tons) Does this sound like a good idea to you?

Robert C Goetz. Yes. I'd like to see a more varied Specialist for sure. Say you can have up to 5 but 3 must be 10t-20t-30t for example... Or it could be rainbows, or whatever, just have 2-3 that are a must. Rotate each month so people will have to keep a variety of specialist updated, or miss out on those possible points.

Sten Hugo Hiller. Sounds like a workable option, and will as you say force clans to get those formations or forfait lots of wins. There is a rumor going that we might have a Chaos war later in59. I know you cant speak for all Your members, but are they ready and eager for another war, or are they mostly going to sit it out?

Robert C Goetz. We will fight..as always. Might be few not up for another war if close to this one, since so many close together causes a dedication from the guys that normally do only wars, and once a month is what they like. But I hope if another chaos war happens then we can pick teams like draft, not just thrown together... Too many inactive or not really ready for prime time players thrown into what could have been decent clans and fights. For this to work would need longer lead time, so say sign ups for those wanting to do it starts soon, then after cut off time divisions set, players in those divisions vote for leaders, then leaders select their members...So say get 8 hr window, then next leader picks, if you miss selection then a selection is auto made, then so on till all members in division set. The selection process would take several days is why i said start process before the next war so could be the 2nd war of the month type situation.

Sten Hugo Hiller. Sounds like it could work, -if it get implemented. Of the details many complain about are the prizes from the war, and the raids (Number of Mechs to beat, Hardness of walls and Payooffs) As you have participated in most wars so far, what is your impression? Have the prizes become better or worse over the years?

Robert C Goetz. Many things about raids seem crazy. The # of mechas should be adjusted, there should be enough for all members to get a full share plus extra for over runs, and the %'s should also increase, and honestly none above D10 needs those crystal prizes... As far as the toughness...yes some seem stupid tough others can just blow through waves only slowing to refill energy...I know some of the lower division clans complain they hit waves that take them nearly 1 day to kill them..hours and hours of 0's and 1's looks like binary code or something...I mean no one minds a challenge, but also many can't sit in front of a pc screen 24/7 trying to get a share hitting their heads against the walls. Many changes over the yrs have improved, so for those changes I appreciate it. But still needs tweaking.

Sten Hugo Hiller. Well, thank you for your time and your Insights. Best luck to you and yours in the war.

Robert C Goetz. Thank you for your time and efforts as well...Good luck in war as well.

[marionvirginia]

“Lost” – The Weeknd x A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie | Type Beat 2019 | Free R&B Instrumental

I’m a producer in the exact same line of business, however fortunately (for you) I’ve been on your side of the pond as well.

Yes, that’s right! I utilized to call myself an artist and I had this insane fantasy of ending up being an effective artist. Sounds familiar?

I used to invest hours on Soundclick.com to search for that ideal track. And when I found it, I downloaded the free version (with tags and all) and taped the next day. I wasn’t even purchasing the beats online! (Oops. bad example).

So without knowing a thing about mixing and mastering, I bounced the track to an MP3 (In low bit-rate so that it would not take too much area on my 128MB MP3 Player) and let all my friends hear it the next day. What do you think their response was? Okay enough, let’s return on subject and provide you these pointers for purchasing beats online.

1. Go to the Producer’s own site (even if it’s Soundclick!!).

So, you want to start purchasing beats online for your new job( s) and you lastly discovered that heat on, for example, YouTube or Soundcloud. (Soundclick is not mentioned due to the fact that it’s gradually passing away).

STOP!! Do not you even begin writing a single word!

Make sure the beat is still available. You truly don’t want to know the number of times I have needed to dissatisfy a great artist by telling him or her that the beat is no longer available. If your record is really great, that’s screwed up for both people.

Also, inspect if the website is ‘alive.’ I have everything running on auto-pilot so when I’m away for a month everything still runs efficiently. Not all producers are lucky to have such an automated system. Just send out an e-mail stating that you wish to BUY. If the website lives, you’ll see how fast they are to react.

By the way: I have actually checked out some short articles from producers about this subject and the tips they have for buying beats online and in some way they declare you need to not buy from Soundclick pages. Wow, what’s that about? If the producer’s website is a Soundclick page it really does not imply he or she is not trustworthy.

Just make sure you use PayPal when you’re purchasing beats online. You can always open a claim if a producer is not sending you the audio you have bought. (HA-HA! Another pointer). 2. Don’t buy the MP3 Leases if you consider yourself an Artist!

Like I mentioned, I utilized to use lousy MP3 formatted tagged files. Since you’re checking out purchasing beats online instead of downloading them totally free, it tells that you’re serious about your craft.

MP3’s are low quality and you can truly discriminate when you begin mastering the final track. Ask any audio engineer you know.

Major Labels and A&R’s are continuously browsing the online neighborhood for possible superstar artists. Even if you composed a killer hook, recorded lovely harmonies and have created a potential Billboard charting track, when the audio is crap they fast forward to the next track even prior to they come to that hook.

Tracked-Out leases are the best alternative since they (generally) include the raw files from the production task and haven’t been restricted or compressed. Sadly, this is not always in everyone’s budget.

In that case; Opt for the WAV rather. 3. Know your rights for both special and non-exclusive licenses.

This is quite obvious, however still, I want to attend to 1 particular topic. You most likely learn about all the producers having these good introductions with what comes with a particular license and what not. Don’t be deceived!

READ THE PDF LICENSE CONTRACT!

Everybody who sets up some sort of an agreement has small print added someplace and trust me (or even better. do not trust me. Just trust no one!) it’s not going to be all up in your face while checking out the website.

4. The Online Beat Market is unclear, keep your eyes and ears open!

Wow, I stated it. However it’s true! Finding and buying beats online is simply too damn simple. You can find whatever you like and there are 100.000’s of producers out there that have actually created 1.000.000’s of beats for artists worldwide. However.

MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE HANDLING! What are music beats? In music and music theory, the beat is the standard unit of time, the pulse (frequently duplicating occasion), of the mensural level (or beat level). … In popular use, beat can describe a variety of associated ideas consisting of: pulse, pace, meter, specific rhythms, and groove.

Have you ever encountered a producer who offers Exclusive OWNERSHIP for $50? I wager you do.

Those are the type of producers who are in it for the fast cash. They are offering you all the rights which is simply plain silly of them, however likewise a dangerous individual to be working with for you.

Why?

Individuals who are driven by loan and by money only are the ones who can’t be relied on.

Whenever you’re working with an online producer, especially when it concerns Exclusive Rights, make sure you have all the documentation reviewed prior to making payment.

Take a look at all the details and ensure you get a signed copy from the producer as soon as you’ve made the purchase.

This is not a strange thing to ask and if the producer is reliable he will do that for sure. But when he begins acting all unusual about it, it remains in your best interest to go out as quick as you can.

I’m not stating that this is common for all producers who offer $50 exclusives of course! Just know who you are handling. 5. Bulk Offers– The Golden Suggestion (Producer World inside-information right here).

Okay, so say that you went on a producer’s site and you discovered 3 or 4 beats that you truly like, but your spending plan just permits you to buy 2 today. “Oh well, I’ll simply come back later when I get my paycheck and buy them then.”.

You’re incredibly excited about it and can’t wait to acquire them and make some hits.

Okay alright, capture your breath and take a minute, due to the fact that GUY (or girl). CHECK THE BULK DEALS!

Producers have Bulk Deals going on all the time. Like, buy 1 get 2 totally free for instance.

You truly do not need to know on the number of events artists bought 3 licenses from my site while they might have gotten 5 rather. They simply didn’t see the advertisement to include 2 more to their cart for free.

I know how hyped you can be while you remain in your zone vibing to those beats. Trust me, I get it! You can’t wait to drop your magic on it however “come on!” Don’t let 2 Free Beats go to waste because of that. So now for the Golden Pointer; What if the producer doesn’t have a Bulk offer going on?

SEND OUT AN EMAIL!

Us producers are ALWAYS in to make a deal. Just inform him that you found 4 beats, but can’t manage to purchase them all right now. Ask if he got any offers going on today or anytime quickly and if he would think about selling 4 for the price of 2.

You will most likely get a reaction like;” No, but I can do 4 for the price of 3.”

BOOM!! You just got yourself 1 FREE license!

It does depend on how high the overall rate of your order will be. Producers are more than likely to make a deal if the overall quantity that you are providing is anywhere above $50. Just make a deal he can’t refuse.

Try it and you’ll see that it actually works! That’s it, guys!

These ideas I provided you all originated from my individual experiences as both an artist and producer.

Once again; Discovering the best music for your job( s) online is ending up being far too easy. You just need to know what you’re doing and understand a little about the essentials prior to you start purchasing beats online.

If you have any questions about this, let me know and I’ll assist you out with it!

Best of luck on your Journey through music.

Nah simply joking! Keep it enjoyable and keep doing it for the love of music. Do that and you’ll see the chances crossing your course quickly.

Very First Time Buying Beats Online?

I have actually been offering beats online for a couple of years. Before I began doing anything related to making beats, I sat on the opposite of the table.

I used to rap. I utilized totally free beats and I was buying beats from online producers.

Because I’ve sat on both sides of the table, I can think of the scenario that you remain in right now. The entire reason that you’ve chosen to read this post.

You’re beginning with music, however you’re preparing to take this seriously. Or, you’ve already been doing music for a while however things are starting to get more major. You’re checking out purchasing beats due to the fact that you’re done utilizing tagged beats. I get it, it’s sidetracking. Or possibly you have actually reached that level where the rational next step would be to appropriately accredit the beats you’re using.

If you recognize yourself somewhere in these lines, then you’re right where you require to be.

Because I am going to tell you whatever you need to learn about purchasing beats online! Using Complimentary Beats

First, let’s discuss free beats.

The most convenient way to acknowledge a complimentary beat is by the producer tags that you hear every 30 seconds.

Once you buy a license for a beat, it will no longer have the tags in it.

If you remain in the ownership of beats without a license contract from the producer. Then you might think about that a complimentary beat as well.

In that case, you’re not authorized to use it for commercial purposes. Producers vs. Artists discussion on Free Beats

There’s been a conversation going on for years. Definitely worth discussing a little bit more.

Producers dislike it when artists ask for totally free beats. And yes, it takes place all the time.

When you’re searching for beats on YouTube. Most of the titles you’ll discover state “( FREE) BEAT” or “FREE DL.”

So, they’re offering free beats but then complain about artists utilizing their beats free of charge.

How is that NOT confusing?.

The reason we do that has to do with marketing techniques and ranking on YouTube. It’s simply click bait.

In defence of the producers, including myself. Believe me when I state that lots of artists are taking advantage of our craft and effort. Which is simply rude if you ask me. What are music instrumentals? An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics, or singing, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as screamed backup vocals in a Big Band setting.

My music is downloaded hundreds of countless times in the last couple of years. The majority of them illegally.

Picture the headaches …

So, I do not feel bad about asking someone to buy a beat with an appropriate license that includes it. It makes it much easier for all celebrations included. What can you finish with a totally free beat?

Very little … At least, absolutely nothing commercially or successful.

Uploading on Facebook. Is that commercially? Nowadays, yes.

Same chooses YouTube and Soundcloud (both are streaming services).

I use free beats to let artists …

Try it out before they purchase. Tape-record vocals and see if their vocals match the secret of the beat. Record a demonstration and get feedback before purchasing a license for it.

I am enabling them to ensure that it’ll be worth the investment.

Sometimes I do permit people to publish their tunes created with my free beats to Social Media.

But if I wish to take the tune down for no reason. It’ll be removed within minutes.

Yes, I can do that. Do not tinker free beats!

It’s amusing because there is really no such thing as a FREE BEAT. If you are going to ask for something free of charge, request a totally free LICENSE.

If you’re utilizing a beat for which you have not gotten a license agreement in composing from the producer. You’re unauthorized to use it. And you could get in severe trouble.

As you can see, the statutory damages for copyright violation are extremely high. Believe me, you don’t wish to tinker that.

Purchasing beats online– How does it work?

By purchasing a beat, you are purchasing audio files that are copyrighted by the producer. In return for your payment, the producer grants you a number of rights to use the beat.

This is what we call the License Arrangement. There is a distinction between:

Non-exclusive licenses Unique licenses.

The greatest difference is that a non-exclusive license for one beat can be offered to several artists.

Yet, a special license can only be sold when and to one artist just.

In this article, I will just deal with the topic of non-exclusive licensing.

Various licensing choices– Which one to choose?

Online producers offer different licensing choices. In my case, I have 3 choices.

Basic Premium Endless

Some producers call them MP3 Lease, WAV Lease or Standard Lease however it pretty much works the very same.

The more expensive your license, the more rights you receive from the producer.

Likewise, the more pricey your license, the much better quality audio files you will receive.

So, what is the very best option?

I am not gon na lie. The majority of people that are buying beats online opt for the more affordable licenses. One that comes with less user-rights and low-quality audio files The user-rights given in those less expensive licenses might be enough for them.

Yet, more importantly are the quality of the audio files.

If you’re aiming to create quality music or a minimum of wish to make music the proper way. Then ensure you get the Tracked Out files.

If possible, always choose a license that features Tracked Out Files. In my case, that would be the Premium or Endless license.

When I purchase a beat– Do I own any copyright?

Once you write your lyrics and record it over the beat, you will own the copyright to your lyrics just. And what you will produce with the beat is a Brand-new Tune, likewise referred to as a “Acquired Work.”

This indicates that you will own and control 50% of the so-called “Author’s Share.”

The producer will own and manage the other 50% of writer’s share.

You do not own the master or the sound recording rights because New Tune.

You have been licensed the right to utilize the beat and commercially exploit the song you make with it. Based upon the terms of the license contract you have actually bought.

The producer will stay the sole owner and holder of all right, title, and interest in the Beat. Consisting of all copyrights to and in the sound recording. And the underlying musical compositions, composed and made up by the producer.

What if I buy a non-exclusive license, then someone else buys the exclusive license for that exact same beat?

When it pertains to buying beats online, you’re given the rights that you got when you acquired the beat.

So, when somebody else acquires the special rights, it will not (immediately) affect you.

However there are some things you require to understand …

In the old days, you were given the user rights in the non-exclusive licenses for life. And the majority of producers still run in this manner.

Nowadays, some producers offer licenses that end after 2-4 years. In my case, my licenses expire after 4 years.

This implies that you will have to purchase a new license after that term.

If somebody bought the unique rights throughout your term. That will only mean that you will no longer be able to restore your license. After your term is due.

Producers do not constantly show this info in their licensing tables. Make certain you inspect that before you make the purchase.

One more thing!

I have actually observed recently that some producers set up a brand-new term in their license contract.

One that grants the producer the right to end your license contract even before your term is due.

The producer consists of in their agreements that they’re enabled to terminate the license agreement upon written notification to you.

In return, they will pay you double or triple of what you’ve at first spent for the beat.

That does not need to be an issue for you, however whether it is, depends entirely on the success of your song.

Constantly inspect your contracts prior to buying beats online!

Buying beats online– Is it safe?

Most producers use a Beat Shop Provider to offer their beats online. The most typical ones are:

BeatStars.com Airbit.com

These platforms both have a great credibility for representing producers and their music. That’s why a great deal of producers’ sites and music players look the same.

These music gamers have instant delivery after checkout.

After you’ve made the payment, you will be rerouted to a download area. And you’ll likewise get an order verification by email.

If you’re not sure if a producer is connected with among these platforms. Go to the BeatStars or Airbit website and look for the producers’ name.

If they are on it, you can make the buy from BeatStars’ or Airbit’s Marketplace, simply to be safe.

If they’re not on these platforms, connect to the producer with any issues you have. They’ll respond as soon as you tell them that you have an interest in purchasing beats from them.

Before you reach out; Make sure you’ve examined the website for a FAQ area. If you’re asking questions for which the responses are right in front of you, they do not always react.

Keep in mind … On platforms like BeatStars and Airbit, producers still develop their own license contracts. They operate on their own terms.

Before you purchase a beat, constantly examine the complete license agreements or licensing terms.

Like I stated, those fancy pricing tables do not always show you everything!.

Here are some tips for buying beats online:.

Pay with PayPal or Stripe. Examine if the producer offers through a BeatStars or Airbit player. Read the License Agreements. Connect to the producer with your issues.

[woodcider]

Growing up in the outer boroughs of NYC, I always thought theater was out of reach with tickets in the hundreds of dollars. I didn’t find out until last year that the whole time I was a teen I could have been a seat filler and seen any show I wanted to by walking in after the Intermission. I’m a little bitter about this. Anyway… I’ve seen more plays this past year than I’ve watched TV or movies. And that’s with bootlegging a friend’s Netflix account.

Let’s start with the free and work our way up from there.

Yelp Yelp is more than a place to give one star reviews to Mexican restaurants because the waiters dare to speak Spanish.  As much as I rip on Yelp and Stoppleman’s haircut, having Elite status does get you a steady supply of free food and drink. It’s actually worth being that person who won’t let you eat until they take a picture of your dish under different lighting conditions and angles. Even though I’m blacklisted from ever becoming Elite (long story…), it’s still worth my while to have written 378 reviews since 2011. That’s an average of 4.5 reviews a month. And here I am thinking that I barely write reviews.

Yelp’s open events are what I stick around for. They are free-free. All my other sites have “processing fees”. $5 isn’t much, but it still isn’t free. Most of the seats have been font mezzanine but I’m not gonna complain about a free shows and views like this:

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Fool For Love

Kinky Boots

Incognito

Fun Home

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Phantom of the Opera

As you can see I’ve see the most and the best shows with Yelp and for that I’m grateful.

Show-Score The dark-horse of low cost theater tickets. The quality has been all over the place. I recommended it to a friend just when it hit a growth spurt. Really bad timing. Not only did it take forever for him to start getting offers, the majority of these plays were off-off-off Broadway and what I call “Church Basement” plays. “Theaters” in office buildings and community centers. If they weren’t hot messes only populated with family members and other unfortunate Show-Score reviewers, then I wouldn’t have complained, but they were twice baked hot messes on metal folding chairs. I learned the hard way to google the theaters. If it’s located in 59E59 it’s guaranteed to be good. Thought recently all the seats Show-Score gets are by the sound booth up in the nosebleeds. The tickets used to be completely free but once they took off, they had to start charging a $5 processing fee. It’s not bad and helps stop people from thoughtlessly ditching shows. I think they’ve gotten their sea legs back because they’ve started curating for quality again. Or maybe I’m just better at picking the good stuff.

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The Bad and the Ugly

The Good – Wild Women of Planet Wongo

The Best – 59E59 always delivers

I really like the review format. It used to be limited to 140 characters for and 140 against seeing the show. Recently they started offering a longer format. I’m not a fan. The Twitter style was challenging and forced me to be creative. Here’s how I handled it: My Show-Score Reviews. As you can see, I’m a generous reviewer. They’ve also expanded into the Today Tix and GoldStar realm of offering reduced and full priced on Broadway tickets. Here’s hoping they maintain the quality of their “free” offerings.

Goldstar I’ve mostly used Goldstar for a wide variety of events like baseball and bull riding (Yes, there’s bull riding in NYC) but I’ve had my best luck with the comp off-Broadway show Neal Brennan’s 3 Mics. It’s on Netflix right now, you should catch it. I paid an $8 processing fee for a seat with a seriously obstructed view. But I made out like a bandit when the theater manager started moving people to fill seats smack dab in the middle. It was my first stand-up show and I loved it. GoldStar will get a mention later for sure.

Neal Brennan’s 3 Mics

Even with the head, these seats were 1000x better.

TodayTix The link above will take you to my referral page so you can get $10 towards your first purchase. With Lottery tickets starting at $20, it’s a sweet deal. TodayTix is a combination of full-priced, discount, Rush, and Lottery tickets. Set the search filter to Price>> Lottery/Rush so you don’t have wade through the full priced shows.

I was going to mention Shakespeare in the Park sooner since it too is free-free, but by far the most convenient way to get tickets is through TodayTix. You can set up an alert in the app to let you know as soon as shows become available. Once the lottery opens at midnight you have until noon to enter the drawing via the app. Then you have to check your email from noon until 2:15pm to see if you’ve won. It’s up to you to claim them in 45 mins. or else they return to the pool. Similar rules apply with the Rush and Lottery tickets. Rush tickets are within the $30 range. Still a sweet deal.

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Heisenberg

Shakespeare in the Park’s Taming of the Shrew

I don’t know how updates work on blogs (I’m so painfully green), but as I use new programs I’ll update. Since I’m a student again, I know there are other free/low cost ticket programs like Student Rush, but I won’t review them until I actually use them. No need to go off half cocked and give out bad information. Stay tuned!

Links:

Yelp.com  

Show-Score.com  

Goldstar.com  

TodayTix.com

The Broke-ass Guide to Free/Low Cost Theater! Broadway and off-off-off Broadway. Growing up in the outer boroughs of NYC, I always thought theater was out of reach with tickets in the hundreds of dollars.

[shadowlink720]

FE: Birthright Randomised Chapter 3 and 4

(aka ‘Azura has no chill. At all. Ever.’)

It’s Time for more of this madness lol

We gon’ do at least chapter 3 this time aroooound

ah yeah we start with a really vanilla cutscene w/ Garon being like ‘hey i don’t care if i adopted ya, i’ll literally kill ya if ya step outta line, so do this thing at the Bottomless Canyon and i may forgive ya this time’ n’ all that Also Iago >:Y Did u guys know that Iago has the same English VA as Subaki? I didn’t until I looked up Jaffar’s FE Heroes va, who’s also the same guy Though nothing can compare to Hayato and Saizo having the same va tbh-

Ah yeah, there’s Hans, one of the only dudes in this game to not wear trousers :V then Xander’s like ‘nah, don’t trust them, m8′ ‘k, bruh’

Onward to the Bottomless Canyon! .... I just realised this may be a little difficult without a healer ahahah;;;; oh well >:V aaaand there’s Gunter complaining about how he doesn’t like the Bottomless Canyon well at least he won’t need to look at it for long :3c >:3ccccc

there goes Hans being a suicidal idiot Just think; literally none of this would have happened if Hans didn’t kill that generic samurai, but nah, we gotta have plot, yo

FORCED TUTORIAL ABOUT BATTLE FORMATIONS GOOOOOOO

Hans only has 1 luck as a level 2 Beserker lMAO WEAK he has the same base strength as Kaze tho;;;;

yeah just gonna.... let Hans die from those Samurai on the bridge there, while I sneak around their range

Free stuuuuuff >:3cc

aaaand there goes Hans he Ded Time to use this Dragon Vein! c:

Another level up for Corrin! Much better this time; HP, strength, magic, speed and res

.... ok I’m glad she dodged that archer, because that would have been rather troublesome seeing as I have no healers- Also I’m gonna trade Gunter’s steel lance to Kaze at least before I end the chapter and see if he still has it when he comes back later? Or maybe I should just give it to Corrin to hold on to, idk ..... wait I can’t trade items yet gdi fates

It’s only just occurred to me how many samurai are in these chapters lol

“You’re quite skilled” yeah Kaze, they’re also quite dead

aaand the reinforcements come along blech- ...... I don’t like how low Kaze’s hit rate is against Omozu- Or Corrin’s for that matter ahahah;;;

Oh... nevermind then it wasn’t a problem

yet another level for Corrin, this time HP, strength and speed

.... I think I’m gonna wait for these sky knights to come over to get Kaze some more exp, idk ... wow, he got a basically blank level up except for Defence that’s a surprise Anyway time to seize!

time to see who Azura’s retainers are >:3ccccccc

..... holy shit

... This basically sums up the entire randomiser, tbh //inhales IZANA IS SAIZO and therefore Rinkah’s brother .... well they both have white hair soooo......? Hair colour genetics-wise, it actually kinda works???

I’m sorry but look at this madness I’m

Aaaand here comes the vanilla Nohr siblings again

I wonder who Kagero is; we’ll find out very soon, at least :’’’D There they are!

.... it’s Hayato it’s hAYAT O AND I WAS JUST MENTIONING HOW HE HAS THE SAME VA AS SAIZO EARLIER-

Azura ‘No Chill’ coming to kick some Nohrian ass right here I love that she’s Ryoma tho, have I mentioned that? It’s perfect idk about you guys but I’m having a blast with this so far

Anyway time to continue the plot

I can’t believe Gunter is freaking dead bYE THEN Time for dragons I do quite like the design for Dragon Corrin tho, it looks quite different from usual dragons, and it’s pretty darn neat

welp off I go down the Canyon lol;;; aaaand there’s Lilith the fishdragon thing

off to the astral plane ayyy

with it’s explanations that we’ve already heard and whatnot and the fact that it puts the quarters right in the middle of the path -3-

Jakob ambush Jakobush ... that was terrible, sorry

Anyway that’s the end of Chapter 3! :’D Time for Chapter 4! >:3ccc

So Jakob, what are ya looking at that’s so interesting? :o

ah yeah then they talk about ‘o ur gonna execute me, aren’t ya?’ ‘nnaaaaaaah’ HOLY HECK I COULDN’T GET IT BUT LIKE His model went weird because his model doesn’t have the right animation and then he just- floated for a little bit It’s... really something you’d need to see for urself asfdauiudhusd .... Jakob what is so interesting about the roof?

ayyy there’s Rinkah again :D Oh my farore- Corrin said “We meet again. Rinkah, right?” and Rinkah’s voiceline was ‘Not even close!’ so I just imagine it’s like ‘wow ok who else could ya be then-’

Off to Castle Shirasagi we gooooo

oooo there’s Azura ‘No Chill’ (ok well she’s pretty chill now but w/e) :D

She’s a Spear Master :o wait that means she can’t use the Raijinto heck- Maybe she can heart seal into a class that can?? idk, hopefully? I mean I do love Spear Masters, but we can promote Rinkah into one soo :V

Aaaaand there’s me mum, Mikoto ... I just realised Jakob and Rinkah disappeared hahaha

wait nvm Jakob’s back, I can see his hand right in the corner

Right theeeere

There goes Azura humming again lol

Heck yeah, man Yeah I think I’m just gonna call her Azura ‘No Chill’ from now on, because she really doesn’t have any o<o;;;;

~~~Flaaaaaaashhhhhbaaaaaaaack~~~

oh hey another generic samurai, yeah sorry I kinda killed a lot of your identical twins; but it was self defence, man, they attacked first-

.... Azura, Shigure doesn’t exist yet, do you just yell that name sometimes knowing your going to give it to your future son or whuh-

Anyway time to help Mozu and Takumiiiii

oh my farore, Mozu, it’s not nice to say someone smells like a goat like that like, who are you even talking to? Takumi? those Faceless surrounding you? tbh I’d think they’s smell more like rotting flesh or just... mould and dirt, tbh, something repulsive idk

Ya know what? I like the thought of Takumi being a good older sibling to Mozu, it’s an interesting dynamic

lol, Azura’s sprite still says she’s a Swordmaster (for stability b/c she isn’t joining us yet-)

oooOOOOooo Rinkah has a Beast Killer :o that’ll come in handy I do believe, given how many mounted units are in the Nohrian army >:3ccccc And Jakob has a Brass Katana

Let’s look at Jakob’s stats and stuff, shall we?

Not bad; he’s got Pragmatic (+3 to damage dealt and -1 to damage taken against injured foes, pretty darn sweet) as a personal, and he also has Shurikenfaire which is.... kinda useless with his current class lol But a C rank is swords is pretty darn neat! :o E rank in Dragonstones not so much, but they only go up to C rank anyway, right? Nothing grinding can’t fix, if I decide to keep him this class :V His bases are pretty even which is pretty good, they aren’t exactly great but this is still early game :V He’s gonna be interesting to use, at least :’D (Growth rates are HP = 25, Str = 45, Mag = 40, Skill = 20, Spd = 45, Lck = 15, Def = 45, Res = 20, so yeah skill and luck are his weaknesses but we can work around that)

(Can’t really look at Rinkah’s stats yet b/c technically she isn’t in the army at this point since I haven’t branched off into Birthright yet hahahah;;;)

Anyway let’s go! >:D

ah yes, NOW we can trade items where were you when I wanted to give Kaze a free steel lance, bruh?

oo that Goddess Icon will be handy, either for Corrin or Jakob; given their lower luck growths

Takumi about to kick some Faceless ass lol oddly fitting for him to say something like that

obligatory auto-battle tutoriaaaalll

also Azura looks great w/ Raijinto, just saying

Rinkah levelled uuuup, she got HP, Strength and Luck c: And she learned Seal Defence awwwww yeeeeaaaah soonnnnnnnnn

Azura, please chill, that’s a little overkill, isn’t it??

all right, just one more Faceless remaining >:3 Oh hey! Corrin’s weapon level went up!

dang it, Azura got the last one >:V AND IT WAS A CRIT HOLY HECK

oooh we get to see Mozu’s class now!

... I can’t tell if it’s a Merchant or Apothecary, but we’ll find out soon! :’D

Ok but Diviner!Takumi looks pretty cool, ngl

anyway an obligatory explanation of Faceless later

oh yeah and a cutscene talking about Corrin’s old room idk

oooooh! Now we get to see who Azura is! :D Hah, because it’s not Azura there’s no song at all :p

oh my Farore-

It’s Kagero holy heck- Hopefully she’s showing up as a ninja for stability, and she’s... not actually randomised into a ninja- (Nope; glancing at the output folder she randomised into a ninja. What are the odds of that happening, am I right?? >:V Oh well, she’ll still have different heart seal options we can mess around with :3c)

it’s funny because she’s a Hoshidan ninja-

yadda yadda yadda, talking about Nohr and Hoshido and Mikoto, stuff like thaaaat

Aaaand that’s Chapter 4! :D I also think I’m gonna stop playing here so it doesn’t get too long Next time I do believe we’ll be doing chapter 5 and maybe chapter 6 as well! therefore officially branching off into Birthright, and hopefully not breaking the game! :’’’D

ahhh but this is so fun ashfudhfsuhdf I love just being able to ramble on about this tbh, hahah

[manleycollins]

Journal Entry #30 - Let's Talk About The Elephants....Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression....What Happened During the Process? And my visions? Part Two

JOURNAL ENTRY #30 Name: Manley M Collins Social Security Number: 5 7 9 - * * - 6 5 4 1 Date of Birth: 06/21 Place of Birth: Washington, District of Columbia Country of Birth: United States of America Date: January 1, 2020

TOPIC: Let's Talk About The Elephants....Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression....What Happened During the Process? And my visions?

DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Justice DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Education DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Health DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Transportation DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Labor

Part Two (2)

Guess what? It seems life does not want me to have anything nice or make an independent living especially in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia.  Since I mentioned I am not getting anything for taking everything away or telling right, read this on my brand spanking new Suzuki Burgman 650 Executive. I randomly parked my vehicle throughout Zone 6 where the vehicle is registered from 18th St SE, G St SE, 6th St SE, 4th St SE, 18th St NE, 4th St NE, G St NE, L St NE, 3rd St NE, 3rd St SE, M St NE, etc, the list goes on.

1. It was parked on the 400 block of M St NE.....guess what - tags stolen.  So I bought anti-theft screws, thanks to Rhode Island Ave AutoZone Auto Parts.

2. It was parked on the 300 block of A St SE....guess what - total loss while parked.  Let me tell you the story behind this one.  I made sure it stayed in one place until I move since I was doing bicycle.  Saturday, November 2, 2019 around 12  NOON, I checked the motorcycle was fine and standing upright, I checked the tires, tags, felt all over it to make sure nothing happened.  There are no emergency parking signs posted and everyone else's car is sitting in place. Wednesday, November 6, 2019 at 9 AM, motorbike sitting on its side with the evidence that another vehicle hit it very hard and left no information...the paint was red and white from the other vehicle.  I was hot, angry, and upset on how everyone else's vehicle still in place and still no signs posted.  Thanks goodness for full coverage GEICO insurance, right?  I did call 9-1-1 twice to get a cop out to the scene immediately.  The resident of 313 A St SE comes out and she (middle aged, white, plus size woman) says the vehicle was down on its side, Monday morning, November 4, 2019.  My memory bank had to search through every action like a 5Ghz computer chip to understand how did this happened to a parked vehicle.  The resident of 315 A St SE comes out and he (older close to death, white medium sized man) says a truck hit it and signs were posted, and I should give him my information for anything that happens while he was hopping in another car.  The construction crew from across the street comes out and asked what happened.  I am submitting the evidence and information on my insurance claim while waiting for towing service.  The resident of 311 A St SE saw I was waiting by the motorbike until towing came, she (a 50ish, white brunette lady, slender) tended to her two dogs and paid me no mind.  The resident of 309 A St SE saw I was waiting by the motorbike until towing came, he (a younger, white brown-to-black haired dude, medium sized) seem to be heading to work...I was going to talk to him to validate 315's story. Towing arrived....guess who came back at the time of arrival of tow truck?...the resident of 315 A St SE.  The resident of 315 A St SE and I had a discussion before about the bike and his car, but did not exchange information.  Back story to 300 block A St SE, I stayed one day in October 2019 to due touchups on my vehicle and I saw people rotating and moving their cars around to either escape DC parking enforcement for visitors or provide a different scene for the DC parking attendant.  Back to the original story, as I was working with the tow truck driver to move the motorbike on the truck, 315 A St SE resident and I are going back and forth about he did not know if my vehicle was registered or had a residential parking permit (which is posted on front windshield of bike) and also you can check the vehicle tags, and he was trying to validate his story of the truck that came and hit it and it was no way to catch the tags, and I asked him where were the signs.  315 A St SE owns a red mustang permanently parked in front of his residence with a beatup front bumper that seems to ran into many things....so my suspicious lies there because no one from the block can validate his story and neither the cops.

Guess what else happened?  As I am doing my claim, Thursday, November 7, 2019, the independent valuation company and GEICO came with estimate $7,173.  I financed $12,000 for the vehicle.  I wondered why so low.  I always had full coverage on all my vehicles and insurance always paid them fully.  I went the to dealer and service department.  The estimate to repair my vehicle was $7,804, which makes the vehicle a total loss to insurance company. I sat down with the dealer manager and we talked.  He said since I did not put anything down and did not have GAP insurance that I am on the hook for remainder of the loan. I am still getting through my mind, they sold me a $7,000 vehicle for $11,000 with full coverage insurance and extended warranty, and he stated I needed GAP insurance because my depreciation did not catch up with my payments on vehicle. I was about to blow a fuse.  So if my FULL coverage insurance does not pay this vehicle off, that poor GAP loan money will just have to wait until all depreciation catches up with it because it will not be paid.

Friday, November 8, 2019, I surrendered my tags to the DC DMV and submit paperwork to insurance company.

The insurance company sent me a letter that I had options for my insurance. They actually validated the dealer's story in keeping the vehicle as a salvage vehicle and can have unlimited total losses. I thought decades and ten vehicles later that this knowledge came to me.  Anyways, I canceled insurance and let the vehicle go.  It was interesting that I did more paperwork for this vehicle than my previous vehicles.  For the very first time and remembering what my stepdad did (for our green limo/bus), I am going to participate in an auto auction.

Highest memory of the Suzuki Hayabusa was riding it from Springfield, Virginia to Washington, DC in the HOV lanes...kept up the cars and got the bike up to 110 miles per hour.  It was a great adrenaline rush.

Also, for anyone with a motorbike, the best place to play is Dupont Circle on Connecticut Ave NW under the bridge...I got the bike up to 90 miles per hour.  Another great adrenaline rush during travels or deliveries.

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On Friday, November 8, 2019, Smoothie King was my final W-2 position in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The reason for the abrupt ending was to focus on the transition and watching what else does happens when I person stays in place.  I also had two total losses of brand new vehicles in one year by no fault of my own under the same insurance company in the same city.  However, let me talk about H Street NW Smoothie King. It was a small format red and white.  We became an instant family and met the owner's family.  It was truly Smoothies with a purpose. Smoothie King was to become apart of the everyone's active and healty lifestyle, and a portion of the profits went to the owner's neighborhood in Ethopia.  It is the best recommended store I do not mind being associated with for healthy and performance enchancing smoothies.  Of course, the store was located on the strip of all kinds of activity - homeless, oils, singles, alcohol, theft, etc.  The store owners were a white male, ethopian lady, and the kids and they had another location in DC.  The store had a morning female manager and evening female manager.  It had a morning male shift lead - the owner's junior manager.  I was a blend employee promoted to mid afternoon shift lead.  The original female evening shift manager was doing super big personality and did not care in a way that it was hard to get through the day.  The female evening shift manager was combining construction, retail, homeless, and restaurant all at the same time.  The original female morning shift manager was very good and it showed from her experience including her structure.  However, the morning shift manager had everyone at the store - all her family and phone calls to the store were off the hook - it was funny.  The male shift lead from New Orleans was a funny dude with his administrative/office background.  He would leave messes for other people to clean up and moved slow as a turtle.  He kept twerking and dancing everywhere. Some people liked my extrovert personality because I was the promoter of anything Smoothie King, I ensured about 80% of the customers have that personable experience, or say something to somebody when their message does not get through to the person. My job was handling the front of the house/store, do rotations, do retail, translate/transfer all management messages to the next shift, and talk to the customers. A brother and sister was working in the store.  The two siblings had two different personalities.  I enjoyed their little sibling disagreements and agreements all at the same time.  The girl sibling kept long nails, Diana Ross hair, and always kept talking to family and friends on the phone.  The girl hair kept falling in the ice and DC Health customers complained about it. The boy sibling wore pants with a string tied around it and a customer complained for seeing his underwear.  After the original female evening manager was fired/terminated, another young lady with dreads was trained to close the store.  She had another job during the day.  She had all her personal business go haywire in the store with domestic violence spilling over to the store.  She and the boy sibling with dreads had this love and hate relationship going that it was funny. She kept telling the boy sibling to do stuff, and he would do the opposite and not listen. She had fun mocking people, and I was unsure if she was talking to herself or someone on the phone.  They all knew I spoke to myself silently when stressed or alot pushing through my mind.  The Ethopian soccer boy kept flying from the cash register to pouring smoothies in a flash.  I thought I was fast, but he kept doing it.  He was funny, but kept coming in with his funky Smoothie King shirt.  We gave him cologne and throw it in the washer/laundry.  He insisted on keep coming smelling like the soccer field he just played on.  The Ethopian girl was funny too by coming in messing up operations and the system we (the two morning leads and I) had.  The Ethopian girl normally would go to Rhode Island Row and work.  She was a messy girl when making smoothies. Powder be everywhere.  Juices all over the place.  She definitely does some of the cross contamination of products.  One African-American girl from Connecticut and student at a college was only working one day a week and hardly to keep working on that day.  She would call out at the last minute/one hour before her shift starts.  Also, she was giving free cups like water to anyone who asked.  Another new black, young girl came from Rhode Island and hired through the Marion Barry program was cool a little, but kept doing Rhode Island stuff at H Street by combining same smoothies in one blender.  I know they are disappointed I am gone especially when I was the most flexible person that filled in for most callouts or messed up scheduled times by owner.  Smoothie King does provide fresh products, but overprepping does lead to expired product which is still served to the customer.  I do like the concept of the clean blends and the no-no list of products not in the smoothie.  Smoothie King can get big like Popeyes or Starbucks.  Customers sometimes assume we are the former Starbucks that was in the location or Capital One that was also in the same location.  Customers did have some funny ways to make a smoothie especially the ones that take everything out of the smoothie, and put a whole bunch of different ingredients knowing they not going to drink it.  The scamming professionals - one pretty young lady came in mentioned she spoke to me and the manager that she had a bad experience with a smoothie last week. This pretty young lady had no receipt and no smoothie.  We had one young girl on cruthes ordered a drink with everything in it, stated she worked for the company, and she always get the same smoothie all the time.  She kept giving us a hard time on the smoothie while the line out the door, then did not have a penny to pay for it. The neighborhood high school kids felt bad and paid for it.  Another homeless lady come in and grab retail, head straight to the bathroom to eat the product and leave the evidence, and smelled so bad.  A construction latino male came in and kept trying to connect with me stating he is pro-life and needed to roll up his drugs/weed in the bathroom, and he is going to purchase a smoothie.  I had to think why he needed to tell me what he is going to do in the restroom.  Homeless males were the boldest to panhandle in the store or right at the door.  One homeless male kept passing the door back and forth, then came in to talk about owning the block and throwing homophobia slurs and talk.  We made customers pay for using the restroom by asking them to make a purchase even it is just a cup of ice or water.  The majority of support came from the neighborhood high school kids and the high school sports teams, the neighborhood community college, apartment complex, a major retail store, and neighboring businesses and organizations.

Email went straight back to DC Metropolitan Police Department.

I thought of a new concept for every call on 9-1-1 to follow up with email for credibility.

---------------------------------------------- My November 5, 2019 Physical Report

Unity Healthcare Upper Cardozo Health Center 3020 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20009

Composite Metabolic Panel (Overall Result = normal)

Glucose (Value = 78)(Reference Range = 65-99 mg/dL)

BUN (Value = 17)(Reference Range = 6-24 mg/dL)

Creatinine (Value = 1.05)(Reference Range = 0.76-1.27 mg/dL)

eGFR if NonAfricn Am (Value = 87)(Reference Range = >59 mL/min/1.73)

eGFR if Africn Am (Value = 100)(Reference Range = >59 mL/min/1.73)

BUN/Creatinine Ratio (Value = 16) (Reference Range = 9-20)

Sodium (Value =142)(Reference Range = 134-114 mmol/L)

Potassium (Value = 4.3)(Reference Range = 3.5-5.2 mmol/L)

Chloride (Value =104)(Reference Range = 96-106 mmol/L)

Carbon Dioxide, Total (Value =23)(Reference Range = 20-29 mmol/L)

Calcium (Value =9.3)(Reference Range = 8.7-10.2 mg/dL)

Protein, Total (Value = 7.0)(Reference Range = 6.0-8.5 g/dL)

Albumin (Value = 3.8)(Reference Range = 3.5-5.5 g/dL)

Globulin, Total (Value = 3.2)(Reference Range = 1.5-4.5 g/dL)

A/G Ratio (Value = 1.2)(Reference Range = 1.2-2.2)

Billrubin, Total (Value = 1.2) (Reference Range = 0.0-1.2 mg/dL)

Alkaline Phosphatase (Value = 72) (Reference Range = 39-117 IU/L)

AST (SGOT) (Value = 17)(Reference Range = 0-40 IU/L)

ALT (SGPT) (Value = 12)(Reference Range = 0-44 IU/L)

RPR (Overall result = negative)

RPR (Value = Non Reactive)(Reference Range = Non Reactive)

Trichomonas (Overall result = negative)

Trichomonas vag by NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference Range = Negative)

HIV (Overall result = negative)

HIV Screen 4th Generation wRfx (Value = Non Reactive) (Reference Range = Non Reactive)

CBC without diff (Overall result = wnl)

White Blood Cell (WBC) (Value = 4.3)(Reference Range = 3.4-10.8 x10E3/uL)

Red Blood Cell (RBC) (Value 4.32)(Reference Range = 4.14-5.80 x10E6/uL)

Hemoglobin (Value = 13.7)(Reference Range = 10.0-17.7 (g/dL)

Hematocrit (Value = 40.7)(Reference Range = 37.5-51.0 %)

MCV (Value = 94)(Reference Range = 79-97 fL)

MCH (Value = 31.7)(Reference Range = 26.6-33.0 pg)

MCHC (Value =33.7)(Reference Range = 31.5-35.7 g/dL)

RDW (Value = 11.4 [Low]) (Reference Range = 12.3-15.4 %)

Platelets (Value = 229)(Reference Range = 150-450 x10E3/uL)

QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus (Overall result = negative)

QuantiFERON Incubation (Value = Incubation performed)

QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus (Value = Negative) (Reference Range = Negative)

QuantiFERON Criteria (Value = Comment)(The QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus result is determined by subtracting the Nil value from either TB antigen (Ag) tube. The mitogen tube serves as a control for the test.

QuantiFERON TB1 Ag Value (Value = 0.03) (No reference range in IU/mL)

QuantiFERON TB2 Ag Value (Value = 0.03) (No reference range in IU/mL)

QuantiFERON Nil Value (Value = 0.03) (No reference range in IU/mL)

QuantiFERON Mitogen Value (Value = >10.00) (No reference range in IU/mL)

Chlamydia trachomatis, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

------------------------------------------------- My November 11, 2019 Sexually Transmitted Diseases Report

Whitman Walker 1525 14th St NW Washington, DC 20005

Chlamydia/GC Ampli. Ureth, Cerv, Urine STD Kit Chlamydia trachomatis, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

IH Rapid HIV L-HIV 1/2 ELISA (Value = Non-Reactive/Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

RPR With Reflx to Quanti and Confirmatory FTA RPR (Value = Non-Reactive) (Reference range = Non-Reactive)

Chlamydia/GC NAA, Pharyngeal STD Kit C. trachomatis, NAA, Pharyn (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

N. gonorrhoeae, NAA, Pharyn (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Chlamydia/GC NAA, Rectal STD Kit C. trachomatis, NAA, Rectal (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

N. gonorrhoeae, NAA, Rectal (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Syphillis (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

-------------------------------------------------

My December 5, 2019 Physical Report

Unity Healthcare Upper Cardozo Health Center 3020 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20009

Blood Pressure 93/43 and 95/45 (low blood pressure)

Heartbeat 67 beats per minute

Weight - 168 lbs to 171 lbs

Psychiatrist suggested two options for me Abilify or increase dosage of olanzapine to 10mg.  I told her I would not be able to function at 10mg.  She states 2.5mg is not working and it is the dosage of a two (2) year old.  Citalopram is sedation too and works great....no comments on taking that one.  We discussed all the medications regarding sedation and non-sedation. I enjoyed the sedation part of olanzapine.  When I came off olanzapine, that named city 'C' happened with the participation of New York, District of Columbia, and South Carolina. When I researched the side effects of Abilify and that named city 'C' aunt came through so big, yes they f*cked up their own brother (my daddy) to death as nurses.  You will have figure a new way to do the son (or nephew) while on olanzapine up and down dosages and he will never speak or see any family until April 3, 2056.  Life according to olanzapine and me while taking it everyday works for me until the rest of my life or until all manufacturers stop making it.  I am still Superman and Queen Elsa combined (ice, cold, and angry)....life took Princess (Queen) Anna (warmth and care) away April 3, 2016.

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My December 10, 2019 Physical Report

Unity Healthcare Upper Cardozo Health Center 3020 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20009

Blood Pressure 103/56 and 100/53 (low blood pressure)

Heartbeat 55 beats per minute

Weight - 168 lbs to 171 lbs

My last talk with the primary care physician.  I told her everything was okay.  We went over my numbers and tests.  She did confirm that according to my weight that a lipid (cholesterol) test was not necessary.  She and I talked about the level of voices that was going in my head...I stated it was residual voices and families.  She and I discussed getting more exercise, getting rest, monitoring weight, and eating healthy.  She advised of a new app called Insight Mediation for sleep music.  She discussed the monitoring of kidneys and liver while on Truvada and so far my kidneys and liver are functioning healthy.  She stated all my blood count and numbers are appropriately healthy.  She also stated low blood pressure is my normal window for the past several years.  I did not tell her about the bike accident that gave me a mild concussion in Washington, DC and almost took out my left arm...saving that examination for South Carolina.

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To cap off the divorce with my birthplace metro area (Washington, DC), I was traveling in the southbound lane of North Capitol St NW on my way to perform a delivery.  Guess what happen?  An SUV parked  on North Capitol St NW in front of GPO building decided to open its door without looking. Cross street is H Street NW.  I swerve and hit the door, then slid into the middle lane in which a smaller sedan slammed on brakes hitting me.  Thank God my left arm took the brunt of the impact and my bike helmet giving me a slight concussion, temporary blackout, and anger release.  Yes, the bike was fine.  The same MPD officer showed up that took my first bike accident in the area few months ago.  The driver of the Maryland SUV was a black female and had a teenager female passenger.  The driver of sedan was black older female and mentioned she had a scratch on the bumper.  Everyone (DC MPD and US GPO Officers) kept asked for my driver's license.  I guess it was an assumption that I would have a different state/city driver's license. I came to and felt fine.  I declined the ambulance because I wanted to get checked out elsewhere and not in Washington, DC.  The headache and left arm soreness came the next few days.  Poor Maryland SUV girl stated it could have been worse.  True, it could have been avoided if she looked out of her driver's mirror to watch for bicyclists.  She stated ride on the sidewalk, but DC is a city made with bike lanes.  If you are driving any type of vehicle of four wheels or more in any metropolitan city, then you have to watch for pedestrians, bicycles, scooters of two motorized types, skateboarders, segways, uniboarders, etc.  I am not pursuing paperwork on any of the drivers' from any of my accidents because DC MPD does not get it right, and I am leaving DC, Virginia, and Maryland for good.  Life already stated I am getting nothing out of the situation.

From that moment of recovery, I had to rush through all my talk, memories, and what I sent to the universe for such an accident happen.

Again, biological family of all types, I do not want to see, talk, or speak with you until April 3, 2056.  All biological family make sure you have the medical, witness and legal proof to be called "family" after April 3, 2056.

Time to occupy my time with track and field competitions, and gun competitions (did not know this existed).  NRA has rifle competitions, but I have no place to store a rifle.  NRA, I will stick with pistol competitions and I have plenty of places to store my pistol accompanied with knife.  Why all the Glock Sight and Lasers accessories all sold out?

Regarding IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation), USATF, and World Athletics, life showed me all the missed opportunities if I would have stuck with that one track and field sport via YouTube.  I am slightly angry and pissed.  The masters division have similar activities, but not as exciting nor as much television and media coverage.

It is very interesting how Muscle and Fitness, and Men's Health came back into my life through International Federation of Body Building (IFBB) and YouTube.  All the celebrity athletes I remembered came back through YouTube on how they developed their bodies.  I did want muscle big when I was younger, but I do not want to be that big...I was aiming for power for sprinting.  I am going the other direction (slender figure) which means lighter due to running in my age group and very healthy living plus healthy numbers.  However, if I can get a Mr. Olympia Physique competition and place first (1st) twice, I would be happy.   It hurts like h*ll in losing weight and keeping it off.  Everyone remembers a small Marvell and yes, he is going back to small Marvell.

Eventually, I will look for employment.

I visited Shiloh Baptist Church in Shaw neighborhood in DC....it was a wonderful experience with African-Americans again. To experience something different, the entire church did the entire Doxology in sign language.  It was good to see.  Gallaudet University, if you need a church or watch Shiloh on public television, I recommend it 100%.  Greater Mt. Calvary (Edgewood/Brookland neighborhood) and Shiloh (Shaw neighborhood) signs the entire service.  I have not been to an African-American church in three years....I almost did not know how to act, but it was fun.

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I was very surprised to be able to gain access to a former consumer technology tool that had my account since 2001.