#its scary also that this account i started when i was what? 13? maybe 14?

[drinkinggblood]

birthday in 8 days. i will be 17 after waiting the whole goddamn year for december eeerm ! my birthdays on the 13th

[dailyoyo]

GGs ranked by how quickly they would resort to murdering their friends if they were stuck in a timeloop (Real edition)

my sincerest fucking apologies to pseud for what ive done to their blog.

THAT SAID: on account of this being very long and very grim to the point that most of it is too grimdark to even be funny anymore i am putting it under a readmore. This is a half-joke half-serious post about the ggs getting stuck in a time loop and murdering each other so like. you get what you click on.

also these are all specifically based aroudn our interps/jet set radio paradox obviously so bear that in mind lol

RULES TO MINIMIZE VARIABLES: only one of them knows they're in a time loop, each is a separate scenario where the listed character is the one who knows and remembers. they do not know why the loop is happening and they do not know how to stop it. the span of time the loop happens is relatively normal, though dangerous enough events happen (maybe just normal jsr stuff) that people may accidentally die during it depending on the exempt character's actions. everyone who dies during a loop is alive again when the date rolls back over. everything is back to square one. no consequences. 14. Pots pots is a dog, even if a highly intelligent one. assuming he can even grasp the idea of a time loop (unlikely) i believe it is even further unlikely that he would recognize it as a bad thing. very possible he just stays in the time loop contentedly forever 13. Soda it takes like a week (or until the first "someone dies and comes back") for him to even notice he's in a timeloop (general apathy/depression?). but when he does notice he's pretty together about it. obviously he wants out but he's literally got all the time in the world, he doesn't need to do stupid traumatic shit just to see what happens. he's got this.

12. Jazz WHY WOULD MURDER EVEN BE PART OF THIS EQUATION WHAT THE FUCK? shes not gonna kill anybody and would think its super fucked to even raise the idea. how is that supposed to help. That said. she does keep repeatedly explaining she's in a time loop almost every loop and it is getting to the point that she kiiiiinda wants to strangle someone or two as stress relief because by god is she stressed. she Won't, she's got more sense than that, but. But…

11. Boogie i think she never really goes full murdermode or anything and the very idea of that happening would shock and disturb her, but surprisingly early on she gives into the impulse to push one of the other ggs into traffic (it doesn't matter anyway, right?) and watches them get ran over. and she's like O_O oh jesus fuck that was horrible. and she never kills anyone again during the loops but it HAUNTS her and makes her nervous abt the idea that she COULD do it again.

10. Gum she's mostly level headed, i think, so she wouldn't be quick to resort to madness. but give her enough time and she starts feeling desperate and does some scary shit in the hopes that maybe somehow they'll at least remember next time. like more than anything i think it's the isolation of it that gets to her. maybe she doesn't progress to outright intentional murder, maybe she only tries it once or twice to see if it fixes anything (it doesn't). while she doesn't go full-blown axe-crazy she DOES become incredibly dangerous and desperate to just not be the only one who remembers.

9. Garam while his nerves end up aaaabsolutely shot and he loses all his patience to see the same day happening over and over, i think it would honestly take a while for him to become a danger to the ggs. he'd rather take out his stress on Literally Anything Else. that said he'd reach a point where he accidentally kills someone for real (whether a gg or an unrelated party) and it fucks him up reallll bad, but whether it fucks him up in a "fine whatever i can kill people who cares" way or a "I NEED TO BE CAREFUL THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN HOLY FUCK" way depends on the circumstances.

8. Beat honestly? unless something in particular causes him to suspect one of the ggs is responsible for the loop, it takes a while for it to even occur to him that killing his friends is an option. like maybe he might end up killing the GGs' enemies and maybe even rivals, but if you brought up the idea of killing his FRIENDS to him he'd be like "wait huh??? but why even????" that said, though, keep him in there long enough and he might develop a severe god complex and start doing it purely to power trip.

7. Combo putting him in a time loop i think would really be the last straw in his miserable life. maybe he deserves the right to kill someone at this point really. while he focuses intently on trying to find a way to break the loop, as it all begins to grate on him he really just stops giving a shit about much of anything. the murder isn't a constant thing, more like one or two good ol' kill em all style breakdowns, and obviously it only makes him feel sick to his stomach when the date rolls over, but what can he even do about it?

6. Clutch he tries to play it cool at first and not think about it too hard but it isnt long before a sort of prey animal panic is invoked in him and hes like. I gotta get outta here. I gotta get out of here. Oh my god i gotta get the hell out of here. and it doesn't help that hes really not close with these guys yknow. and any concern from the ggs he reacts to with escalating violence until he reaches the point he's killing them multiple times in hopes that gives him a way out. eventually he just gives up

5. Corn at first the thought of killing his friends doesnt even cross his mind but he becomes increasingly desperate to understand what's happening and soon enough it's a last resort. it's all very methodical testing the limits of the loop and himself, not explaining anything to anyone else because they'll forget anyway and becoming increasingly hostile and isolationist. he doesn't want to but He's out of options. He has to FIGURE IT OUT.

4. Roboy what bothers him more than anything else is the feeling of helplessness over the whole thing and even if the others COULD help him he's not going to try to get their help. he kills the other ggs to feel less powerless, like he has any sort of control over the situation, and all it does is make him feel worse and worse and worse. maybe eventually reaches a point where he starts deleting his memories of the resets in the hopes this breaks the vicious feedback loop but all it does is ensure the cycle never ends.

3. Yoyo If you put yoyo in a situation where nothing he does matters and none of his actions have consequences he will do increasingly crazy dumb shit because it's not like it matters anyway. and he will undergo EXTREMELY RAPID psychological decay that DOES end in him killing members of the ggs just to see what effect it has both on the loop and on others' psyches. and he will just assume that the loop is forever and ever with no way to ever break it.

2. Cube cube upon realizing she and she alone is in a timeloop will rapidly come to the conclusion that she is in actual literal hell. everything wrong with her will come to the surface at once. she will suffer a severe psychological break SO fast and the streets will run red. maybe she's enjoying it. maybe she isn't. but she is convinced this HAS to happen. and that she deserves it. 1. Mew As soon as Mew finds out that deaths don't stick she's going to massacre all of the GGs just to see how it feels. just once. to try it. it's fine. it doesn't matter. Where did she get that higurashi cleaver

bonus: with the way i joke about zero beat maybe he doesnt even notice hes in a time loop until After hes maimed someone to death. i dont know man. im lying. who fucking give a shit

[the-bjd-community-confess]

DoA megapost (22 confessions)

Mod: So https://true-bjd-confessions.tumblr.com/post/189300138511/mod-due-to-excessive-offtopic-arguing-in-the

All you guys’ pending DoA confessions presented in no specific order, before we move into the hold, as announced above.

To be clear: I think this is a feature DoA should have yesterday. It’s completely inappropriate to force people to use deadnames and names which are related to traumatic life experiences, or be banned. 

However, *weary sigh, gesturing at the multiple 70+ reply confessions on this topic* people told me they were finding the rapidly escalating discussion to be upsetting and offputting, and that’s not my goal for this blog. ❤️

1.

I am exceptionally weary of all the DoA hate over the person who got banned over making a new account after not being allowed to change their user name. DoA isn’t the only doll forum out there. If you don’t like their rules, don’t join. I for one find their rules about on- and off-topic dolls to be unfair and arbitrary as hell, but in the end it comes down to their house, their rules. Move on.

~Anonymous

2.

Us: Sure would be nice to maybe be able to change your name on DOA.

Some of y’all: Are you asking for anarchy?? If we allow this, what’s next?? A reasonable review of outdated rules??? The rules are there for a reason!!1! The reason may be antiqued because technology has updated and changed since then, meaning there are better solutions available, but it’s still a reason so we DEFINITELY should NEVER change!! Change is too scary for me. :( You’re bullies who want to be special :((( Stop that :(

~Anonymous

3.

I love seeing people get so offended at anon saying “bigots”. How do you know it was about you ? Guilty conscience? DOA could allow name changes if they really wanted to. There are other hobbies where they forbid certain people from entering forums while still allowing name changes. It’s not hard if you really care.      

~Anonymous      

4.

Honestly the way people fall all over themselves to defend DoA against any sort of criticism (regardless of how you personally feel about the validity of said criticism, reader) makes me glad I never got into the community aspect of this hobby. It's just... stressful.          

~Anonymous  

5.

The transphobia in the comments on this blog in particular are so gross. Being a bigot makes your dolls instantly hideous. And no, I’m not saying everyone who is defending DOAs decision is transphobic. I’m talking about the one who thinks trans people transitioning is wrong and their friends. You’re gross and so are your dolls.

~Anonymous  

6.

scammers can & will get around DOA's no name change policy, it's really not that safe. also, DOA isn't the only website which allows the sale of high-value items.

~Anonymous  

7.

First it's "if you want name changes coded in DoA, offer to do it yourself!", then it's "why tf would DoA accept some rando to help code their site?" make up your goddamn mind, your argument is falling apart. 

Also when did this issue become "DoA vs trans people"? Like, I like DoA yet I also recognize it should be more accessible and updated for the modern userbase. I want it to become as good as it can be because I like the community and would hate to see it die out like so many other forum sites do. Yes, it has flaws- and believe me, the folks who get extremely upset about the idea of admitting that embarrass me- but I liked the format since I was new to the hobby. I just wish it was more inclusive!    

~Anonymous    

8.     

girlisav3rb: "this isn't about exclusion or leaving anyone out". Also girlisav3rb: "I'm just kicking your punk ass off [obvious metaphor for DoA]" yyyyiiiiikkkees      

~Anonymous    

9. 

The DOA username debate is really starting to feel like 4 people's personal beefs against each other. It isn't really about dolls and I wish it wasn't dominating all the confessions here. I don't really care about watching pomoaples, pupkinspce, aigisthewlve and tellmeifthursday make fools of themselves daily.        

~Anonymous      

10.

Say it louder for the people in the back: IF YOU INSIST ON NAME CHANGES FOR DOA, THEN VOLUNTEER YOUR CODING EXPERTISE. Don't know how to code and are just squawking about something you can't directly contribute towards? Then shut up or offer up money so the mods can hire a computer programmer to make the changes you're DEMANDING from a FREE service.        

~Anonymous

11.

God it's so painfully obvious to see how many of the people defending DoA on the grounds that name changes would destroy the integrity of the website have never ever worked on or even been part of a forum or really any website of any kind in their lives. Seriously arguing that "the database" would break if you changed a name like?? No??? Have you ever seen a server backend before? You can automate this shit, you know, keep a log of former names, just... it's not some big huge challenge??? 

~Anonymous 

12.           

I don't have a horse in the trans name change race but calling DoA one of the friendlies communities around is abject bullshit lmao. There's not a more elitist, paranoid, abusive community this side of comic books -- but that kind of goes for this hobby as a whole, let's be honest.           

~Anonymous     

13. 

THE RULES ARE IMPORTANT WE CAN't cHANGE THE RULES IT WILL LEAD TO CHAOS IF WE CHANGE ONE RULE WHERE WILL IT END THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!! In my town it used to be THE RULES that POC have to go to separate schools and use separate bathrooms, but sure, the rules are the most important thing, not the people. And before anyone says cOmPaRiNg DoLlS tO rAciSm, 1) shitting on trans people IS a form of prejudice you smoothbrains, and 2) my ass is POC and I call it like I see it. Check yourselves.            

~Anonymous   

14.   

I personally think DOA should just.. go away? It’s been around for years, most people use it as reference rather than a community anymore. Everything is on FaceBook and Instagram now, DOA is pretty much just a glorified Dolly Dictionary at this point. Besides, if they aren’t going to change an Incredibly simple, easy thing to change just to accommodate transitioning people, it’s not the best place to be.

~Anonymous  

15.

I mean about the whole rules is rules is rules thing about doa: the thing is, some rules are there for a reason and obviously do need to be respected whether you agree with them or not, like don’t block fire exits, murder is bad, etc. but some rules eventually become outdated and need to be changed to keep up with society, and that doesn’t make the people pointing out that they need to be changed evil or entitled or spoiled. Imagine if we all still had to drive 10 mph everywhere because when someone pointed out that car technology had improved since 1915 and the speed limit should be increased accordingly everyone had just shouted them down with “BUT TEH RUUULLLEESS!!!” You’d be pretty interested in getting some of this “special treatment” yourself so you could get to work on time, huh?

~Anonymous  

16.

Honestly the easiest solution would be let people change their names only once and have it trackable.. as a trans dude its NOT that deep.     

~Anonymous        

17.

I notice that the unrelenting attacks on DoA are now even using the same phraseology along with the name-calling and implications of sinister motives. These are textbook bullying tactics. Next is the boycott, except that most of these people already say they don’t use the forum because they are just too “21st Century” for it.

Luckily this is just a confession board and no matter how many folks you manage to rile up here, it’s not going to affect DoA. Now, this is why I love DoA–you can’t go on their own site and spew this nonsense. They have Rules. They are Strict. They attempt to avoid drama, especially off-topic drama, and they don’t allow meanness, vulgarity or obscenity. If you’re looking for a pleasant, safe space, it’s your best bet.

~Anonymous

18.

Easy to lay bigotry, laziness, stupidity and worse on DoA mods for not just accepting tales of trauma and pasts to erase.  But the internet has always been full of lies by people trying to get their own way or escape consequences. Not just pro scammers. People who cry things like illness, trauma, disaster, family or pet problems over and over to get sympathy for demands or as all-purpose excuses. Recast ownership lies. People who never got a no before, and don't like being turned down no-how.

~Anonymous

19.

I just realized that no one understands the people saying DOA can allow name changes are the people who have actually modded forums before, most forums unless they’re running a totally outdated system use user id numbers that are linked to display names, which can be changed, and you can write a simple string of simple-baby-code to show old display names on a profile, to explain it in simple terms.   

~Anonymous                    

20.

Honestly I think that the anti-name change people are mostly just shilling for DoA because they can't believe that their precious forum with its volunteer mods could be anything but flawless. Or something like that, given how indignantly these people have *always* reacted to confessions criticizing DoA, even before the trans controversy was a thing. There have definitely been some obvious transphobes as well though, whose bile is really more suited to conservative FB pages or something. Go away!          

~Anonymous

21.   

the DOA mods can obviously change people's usernames because it's 2019 and basically every other site in existence can do it. they might have to change the site slightly to accomplish this. maybe there are reasons for them to choose not to do that, but let's stop pretending it's some technological impossibility.

~Anonymous

22.

How about this: Implement a system on DoA that indentifies users by a unique code and allow users to have a changeable display name. Changing the display name could become a paid feature to pay for the technical changes. Think of a system like discord has. It's a win-win situation. Thoughts?            

~Anonymous

[coolmarriagerecords]

Johan Kugelberg's Top 100 DIY Singles

From Ugly Things via http://www.hyped2death.com/Kugelberg100.html

1. The Desperate Bicycles -The Medium Was Tedium (Refill Records, 1977 UK) The Desperate Bicycles are the yardstick for this obscurist sub genre. No one did it as easy or as cheap as them. Of the slew of unfathomable brilliant pop 45's, The Medium Was Tedium is the apex: The enthusiasm, anger and joy de vivre that oozes from the tracks contained within has me reaching for Village Green-Kinks and first album Cramps to describe the passion. For drunken, leftist dorm-room intellectuals to describe the faith and for Dez/Chavo-era Black Flag to describe the power ? notwithstanding that the recordings themselves are of 4-track bedroom shut-in lo-fi jangle. Too bad the band don't want the material re-released but a good thing indeed that the records barely rate at all in the collector scum price guide pantheon.

2. Beyond The Implode -Last Thoughts EP (Diverse Records UK 1979) Barrett/early-Floyd psych as good (or better) than any Soft Boys, obscurist strum & drang way more passionate than any Flying Nun band I've heard and Inflammable vocals of the purest Oxbridge confusion. The Spacemen 3 never did anything to match this record. [Messthetics #6]

3. V/A -Weird Noise EP (Fuck Off Records UK 1980) The legend doesn't start here, but at least this isn't a cassette-only release in an edition of 50 copies or so like the majority of the Fuck Off Records oeuvre. This lines up the finest advocates of tuneless bashing within the UK late 70's underground: The 012, Danny and the Dressmakers, the Instant Automatons, The Door and the Window and finally the Sell Outs who seem to be Danny and the Dressmakers under a different moniker. The cut "Please Don't Make Another Bass Guitar Mr. Rickenbacker" showcases one of the odder qualities popular music can have: The ability to disorientate the listener. "Simply the very best in bad music" indeed! [Danny...Messthetics Greatest Hits]

4. Desperate Bicycles ? New Cross, New Cross (Refill Records, UK 1978) The godlike power of "I Make The Product" or "Advice On Arrest" (two of the songs on this six song EP) deliver a little salvation of sorts ? the Desperate Bicycles make you believe, make you feel a sense of belonging. Music does that when it is this good. 5.Slugfuckers ? Three Feet Behind Glass EP (No label Australia 1979) Invoke the god Nyarlathotep they do, cover Manson-songs w/o ever having heard him they do, shmear on the middle class art school elitism thick they do. This is an extreme record; noisier and more abrasive than most first generation industrial stuff, a hell of a lot more punk than, say, the Lewd and intelligent in a scary, vicious bullying kind of way. A blazing, hard record at the same time as everything is slightly out of tune, kind of inept and sorta shoddy sounding.

6. Popes -Knup In Your Eye (Vatican Records. UK 1980) This appeared on the worldwide punk list a few issues ago, and educated guesses can be made for this appearing on any other lists I might do in the future. Not only is the record the cats pajamas as far as relentless art school mirth goes (Derek & Clive go through puberty, again!) but the throb and spark of the band makes for repeated play. And then we have to tag on the swollen nostalgia of my friend buying the only copy at the Rough trade shop in 1980 leaving me with none until Bill Forsyth digs one up for me in his back room, oh yeah, and one for Geoffrey too.

7. The Flak -EP (Northern Records UK 1980 (?)) Starts with a depressed "why am I here" poem and moves straight along into "Knocking on Heaven's Door" done dorm-angst-diy-style. This is followed by what sounds like the band attempting a Joy Division-style song the first time they pick up musical instruments. Completely inept, utterly charming and brilliant indeed. Top shelf genre defining DIY.

8. Fatal Microbes -Beautiful Pictures (Small Wonder, UK 1979) Certainly the best record with Honey Bane on it. Charming, relentless punk-crazed homemade guitar crunch. The window of opportunity of the UK underground musicscene in the late 70's is clearly demonstrated here: I doubt the Fatal Microbes stupendous teen energy could have been nurtured in the world of merchandising deals and first-look demo A&R we live in today.

9. The Silver -Do You Wanna Dance (Black Label Finland 1980) The Silver -No More Grease (Black Label Finland 1979) A riddle wrapped inside an enigma etc. The band appears to be around 12 ? 13 years old. They hail from Finland where the trail grew cold a long long time ago. Maybe upon the release of the record. Pussy Galore without post-modern baggage. "Love Theme from the Snails" as performed by SPK. 12 year olds virtually destroying a recording studio captured on tape, not once but four times.

10. Instant Automatons -Peter Paints His Fence EP (Deleted Records UK 1980) More Fuck Off/Street Level-related sublime nonsense. The battle call is the track "People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music" which states: "I was at a pub the other night, when a bunch of mods came in, they eyed me up, then they asked me: Hey man what's your scene? Are you a hippie a mod or a punk? Got a scooter or a motorbike? I can't understand why they burst out laughing when I told them the music I like, because: People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music People just don't understand Why pay six pounds for an album when you can, listen to a weird noise band for free I had a girlfriend named Josephine, she liked Abba and the Bee Gees. She thought music was about lawyers and accountants, percentages and legal fees. Just the other night we stayed up late, playing records til half past ten, then I played the Danny and the Dressmakers tape and I never saw Josephine again, because: People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music People just don't understand Why pay six pounds for an album when you can, listen to a weird noise band for free" The gospel, folks. From God's mouth to your ear via the Instant Automatons. [Instant Automatons 'Another Wasted Sunday Afternon' CD]

11. Sir Alick and the Phraser -In Search of the Perfect Baby (Black Noise UK 1980) As Chuck Warner put it: They wrote beautiful pop songs then destroyed them. More Homosexuals pseudonymous mystique. The intelligent reader who followed our previous musings on this band and their universe know how much we love them and how much they perpetually pull our collective leg. No straight-ahead answers in this lifetime which is fine ? fine as far as record collecting is concerned, fine as far as lifemanship is concerned.[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

12. The Four Plugs -Biking Girl (Disposable Records UK 1979) The subtle charm of marginal culture: Truly marginal culture where 1000 singles were pressed more than 22 years ago. How many got lost? How many are never being played? How many are stored in a box in the attic? How many are being played repeatedly on turntables that cost ten times as much as the recording and pressing of this given 45? "She used to be my biking partner ? she used to be my biking girl. We used to go for rides in the country side". A true punk rock/diy statement issued by the Damaged Goods people, who knew their Chesterton and Thomas Browne.

13. The Evening Outs -Channel (Refill Records UK 1980) Super-fierce skronk from a pissed-off pseudonymous Desperate Bicycles. Puts that no wave stuff to shame, really.

14. Puritan Guitars -100 Pounds in 15 Minutes (Riverside Records UK 1980) How much it cost to make the record and how long it took. Genius sturm und sturm und sturm und drang clank from a seriously inspired one chord wonder.[Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #104]

15. The Flying Brix -EP (Modello Records UK 1980) So subtle it can barely be heard: A band consisting of Wally's and Erberts, with the odd dead-end yob or two. This record could've been released by Illegal, Fuck Off or fit in on Carry On Oi. It could also have been performed on an episode of Noddy or by Flanagan & Allen. Ur-English music, this.[Messthetics #104]

16. Shrinking Men/Beevers -Hazards in the Home EP (Pop Records UK 1981) The Beevers present a Guthrie-esque talking blues here, except that it isn't a blues, but a charming DIY-shuffle, and that Woody Guthrie as far as I know never sang about the plight and blight of the office boy. The Shrinking Men in turn showcase an angry, loutish anti-army rant that Phil Ochs would've been pretty proud of I think. And there you have it: The folk music connection rears its uncombed head. [Beevers -Messthetics #6]

17. Handgrenades -Demo To London (Phonographics (?) USA 1980 (?)) Coulda fooled me ? Excellent primitive punk/chug/diy from Noo Yak City! Who woulda thunk? Somewhere between "Pink Flag" and Fuck Off Records.

18. Homosexuals -You Are Not Moving The Way You Are Supposed To (Black Noise UK 1980 (?)) An untouchable band, and the lack of a retrospective isn't much of a crime in this house (I have lots of their records snicker snicker snicker) but in other people's houses it sure is. As if Gang of Four would've been any good, as if Wire would've immersed themselves in dub, as if indeed. Parallel universe chart toppers indeed. We all know that there is at least one world out there in the ultra-cosmos where the proverbial kids are kicking these jams daily. A truly inspired and inspiring record..[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

19. Cindy and the Barbi Dolls -Press The Shutter EP (A Not Major Production UK 1980) Dorm angst at its very best. Dark, brooding overtly romantic without gothing it up, these jams have the same lurking power as the pre-Joy Division Warsaw EP or the spookier first line up Soft Boys tracks. A possible sister band to Beyond the Implode in the sense that they play a curiously British form of psychedelic music in the midst of the DIY lack of musical chops. This Cornwall band were seemingly very hip to musical peers, thanking the Desperate Bicycles, the Mekons and Ralph and the Ponytails on the sleeve. There are musical (and one lyrical) nod to the Kinks "Village Green Preservation Society" as well. A very good thing. [Messthetics #7]

20. Versatile Newts -Newtrition (Shanghai Records UK 1980) If this record hadn't existed we would've had to invent it: The marriage/blend of the Swell Maps, This Heat and the TV Personalities. In equal chunks with no lumps. Gadzooks! [Messthetics #103]

21. Pink Dirt -Hey Sir (No label Norway 1979) As far as inept, crazed joi de vivre goes ? Here's the acme. I've written this one up before and will do it again. While this is obviously a straight-ahead angry punk rock band, the abandon and enthusiasm of this record could raise the dead. An angry rant against organized religion ("I have this to say tonight ? never, never get involved with christianity!") howled in a barely English Johnny Rotten-imitation by some Norwegian genius backed by shitrock more primitive than the first Endless Boogie rehearsal. There is no sleeve, no labels, just the legend "Pink Dirt Hey Sir/Hooker" scrawled in magic marker. Who were these gods and why did they walk among us? Please email me if you know anything about the people behind this stunning art experience.

22. Scrotum Poles -Revelation EP (One Tone Records Scotland 1980) Helicopter Honeymoon is going to be played at least three record collector funerals I know of, not including mine. The mighty, mighty Scrotum Poles, proudly proclaiming "DIY! We love the TV Personalities" on the shoddy, xeroxed sleeve. Their website (http://home.switchboard.com/hornstreet) is highly recommended, though we're hesitant to vouch for its complete veracity. Here's how they tell it: "'Pick the Cats Eyes Out' featured lyrics found on the back of a set list by one of the first Dundee punk bands, Bread Poultice and the Running Sores..." [Somebody please send us a demo tape!] "Helicopter Honeymoon," meanwhile, came from a headline "in the Sunday Post." What we should add for American fans is that "cats eyes" are what Brits (and Scots) call those little orange reflectors embedded in highway pavement: "Cats Eyes Out Ahead" used to be a common roadside sign. [Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #105]

23. File Under Pop -Corrugate (Rough Trade UK 1979 (?)) Godlike DIY power. Primitive grunting, out of tune skeletal instrumentation and noises recorded at Heathrow. I know a guy with an extra copy who'll swap it for Butchy Butch and the Butch Butchers.

24. Nancy Sesay and the Melodaires -C'est Fab (It's War Boys UK 1981 (?)) Un-musical, un-punk and possibly unpleasant music hall-esque skronk/DIY by the godlike Homosexuals using one of their myriad of pseudonyms. And whence you can't imagine the doofus art wank getting any more unlistenable, they spin on a dime and throw in a beautiful chorus sitting on top of a backwardsy funky drummer beat. I am, as per usual, in awe. Shall I hook some enterprising young bootlegger up with a CDR of all their stuff?

25. Performing Ferret Band -Brow-Beaten (Dead Hippy Records UK 1981) Deeply moving primitive musical fumble from this rare 45 by the masters behind the in my mind most seminal LP to come out of DIY. The eponymous Performing Ferret Band LP, which features jaw-droppers such as "Plastic Macho Man", "Fizzly Drinks" or "Great Duos Of Our Time". Fantastic over-enthusiastic juvenilia of an almost supernatural beauty. The Performing Ferrets - no one told us CD (Messthetics #216)

26. Different Eyes/Royston - Shish EP (Tuzmadoner Records UK 1979) One of the two masterpieces released on the Tuzmadoner label (the other being a 12" comp entitled, uh, "folk music" bringing up more parallels to skiffle that we should probably choose to ignore). Royston are like Flanagan & Allen fronting the world's greatest shit rock band. Different Eyes sound more lethargic than anyone else I've heard I think, and I used to work for Pavement's label. Simon Gilham from either Royston or the 'Eyes later played in Colin Newman's solo band. [Royston -Messthetics Greatest Hits and #1; Different I's -Messthetics #101 (plus their even better track from Folk Music)]

27. Homosexuals -Hearts In Exile (Black Noise UK 1978) Words fail me. As far as beauty goes, this is like Mozart or Shirley Collins. Probably their greatest moment. Somewhere along the lines of Brill Building and traditional UK folk and the Upsetters and ESP Records all at once in perfect harmony. A milestone, I think, and a record that I'd place in a timecapsule of 20th century folk art.[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

28. Andrew Klimek -Felt Hammer (Mustard Records USA 1979) The guitar break alone sends this one soaring over the sky scrapers. Has that patented and most beautiful basement 4-track sound down pat even though I get more and more convinced that all those legendary Cleveland bands all were record collector rock of the umpteenth degree. Extraordinarily self-aware, sly and with meticulously thought out records, this one being no exception. The pompous liner notes on the sleeve of the 45 proves me right. You got to be some kind of Apples in Stereo-type shmuck to brag on a record sleeve that you put the bass guitar through a ring modulator.

29. Mekons -Never Been In A Riot (Fast Records UK 1978) Way before they became icky hippy-punk icons for aging counter culture types across the world they released a couple of singles of gorgeous nihilist slop. This is the first, and the funniest and the noisiest.

30. Jelly Babies -De Nada EP (No label name UK 1981) Simply heaven. A clumsy speed-chug with lyrics about a day of roller-skating and lovely pre-pubescent boozy backing vocals. Genius. Extra-tinny sound, extra passionate execution. I've quoted this portion of the notes on the (shoddy xerox, natch) sleeve: "Recorded at Dirt Cheap Studios, the best studios in the whole wide world by Grant Showbiz, the most silly person in the whole wide world, who steals your food and has a nice red guitar with a super tremelo arm which somebody gave him." Like Blake, the words transcend space, time and mortality. You need this record. Crunchy granola collectors should also note that I have personally seen at least five different (shoddy xerox) picture sleeves for this record where the priority can be determined with relative accuracy using the carbon 14 method. [one from the EP is coming on London v.III: another song from the EP demos appears on Messthetics Greatest HISS (Messthetics #110)

31. Thin Yoghurts -Girl On the Bus (Lowther Street Runner Records UK 1980) More sing-a-longa-slop-charm. You can take the limey out of the music hall but you can't Cute, touching and romantic lyrics about lusting over some tasty lassie on the bus to the kippers factory. They did this record as well as a cassette, which is a hundred bucks in your sweaty palm, if you send it to me. [Messthetics Greatest Hits]

32. Lucky Pierre -This Could Be The Night (No label USA 1984 (?)) Scuzzy, phenomenal art-rant by some Ohio Bowie-boy who'd re-record these musical chairs of Chain Gang, Klaus Nomi and cocaine freebase ten years later for Trent Reznor's label adding a "industrial dance beat" to the mess and changing the band name to Prick. Supposedly (some record-log-pincher told me) there were only 50 copies pressed for Lucky Pierre to use as record deal bait (also the reason that the lyrics are etched on the flip together with a ten second excerpt of the song). Well, I guess it worked. I seem to recall seeing a video for the re-recorded version on MTV during ol' Pierre's 15 seconds in the spotlight. The awe-inspiring power of this record remains tho'.

33. Skabb -78 EP (Mistlur Sweden 1978) Track 2 side one is jaw-dropping Opus-style DIY-crunch punk with Kriminella Gitarrer-guitar breaks. I can't believe this isn't a hotly pursued record by herd-following punk rock turd-swallowers round the globe. Fantastic slop-o-rama-lama-fa-fa-fa production too.

34. V/A -Angst In My Pants double EP (Street Level UK 1979) Imagine how good the previous 33 records on this list are, as I guarantee by risk of punishment of rock writer hyperbole, that this is doubtlessly one of the finest records I've ever heard, and the second greatest compilation in the history of rock! How can I say this wonders Rutger the Punk from his bedroom in Krakow ? Well the proof is in the pudding: Not only does the record include some of the finest recorded moments by the legendary Instant Automatons (who unknowingly channel the Monks!), 012 and the Door and the Window, but furthermore a rare vinyl appearance by the Digital Dinosaurs, heralded by me, Mario and Geoffrey in that most smug sort of way as unheralded gods of music! If that ain't enough you get some fine TVP-related spurts from the Missing Persons and extremely do it yourself DIY frenzy from the Midnight Circus. Who in "Silicone Baby" and "Hedonist Jive" have out-poignanted a tow-truck full of Aimee Mann's and Michelle Shocked's edgy humanity and funny as shit to boot. [Digital Dinsaurs and Instant Automatons are on Messthetics Greatest Hits: Midnight Circus have their own CD...And there's more on Deleted/Street Level at the Instant Automatons website]

35. Pleemobielz -Dagenlang Balen (Kamikaze Records Holland 1981) More sociological sloganeering a la Midnight Circus here: Dagenlang Balen which needlessly translates as "fuck all day" roars through the speakers with all the might of a bunch of over-testosteroned 16 year old virgins singing about what they think it'll be like to have sex some day. Tinniest sound in history. When a copy finally showed up on my doorstep after the fucking (literally!) record had spent a solid 10 years on my want list my expectations were quite low since anyone I had talked to who had heard the record all stated that it was weak/a waste of time etc. Well: It being a want list staple has more to do with the scarcity of the disc than it being a desirable punk rock record. However: It is an extremely desirable record if frenzied DIY bliss is your chosen poison.

36. Just Urbain -Guns & Guitars (No label Australia 1979) Another amazing DIY record from Australia, this one definitely sports a spiritual kinship with SPK, the Slugfuckers, the first Thought Criminals record, and those Systematics and Tactics records I need to find. Very dark, scuzzy art-damaged DIY that (a la Cabaret Voltaire or early SPK) is well aware of the fine krautrock musics coming out of Germany on Ohr or Sky a few years previously. The proto punk of say Neu or Cosmic Jokers is here handled with poisonous skronky passion.

37. The Gags -Sex Ist Schau (Leg Auf Records Germany 1981) And then one has to simply wonder if the belly laughs generated by this piece of vinyl have racist connotations: How much are we allowed to laugh at the Germans? This might be the stiffest record I've heard. The vocals lyrical bark manages to reanimate Basil Fawlty's classic performance in the "Germans" episode as well as the Sprockets. The jams are crazed. Stiff, yes, but crazed.

38. Desperate Bicycles -Smokescreen (Refill Records UK 1977) Their debut, more aggressive than a lot of the other classics and maybe it was the year. This is the 45 that launched hundreds of others: Two songs on one side to save mastering costs, the cheapest packaging, music that had to be documented, and it didn't matter if it was done in the cheapest and easiest way imaginable. [Messthetics #8]

39. Butter Utter -Jävlarnas Jul (Leonid Breznjev Records Swe 1977) Took me ages to find this one. Extremely inept, Shaggs-like fumble with a certain Je Ne Sais Qui of punk rock aggression. A lot of Killed by Death-types paid a lot of moola for this one, that some guy hyped to the moon in a Boston straight-edge fanzine back in the 80's. Only truly "punk" in the musical disaster sense of the word.

40. Cut-Outs -DIY (EMI UK 1979) Great novelty pop monster complete with carpentry noises. Possibly not a DIY record at all, but since the genre is made up by people like me this is a DIY record cuz I sez so. [NOT on Messthetics #7]

41. Massmedia ? EP (Massproduktion Swe 1979) Debut sloppiness from future KBD mainstays. There is no discernable musical ability to be found on this record and yet they play and play and play. The energy level is however awe-inspiring.

42. Dagens Ungdom -EP (Mistlur Swe 1980) Having an art school wank with Dagens Ungdom. Brilliant faux-DIY released on one of the major noo wave era indie labels of Sweden, home of Ebba Gron. All songs have titles nabbed from Kafka books, lyrics are more adjective heavy than a tub full o' Morrisey and the music is flawless DIY stumble n' fumble.

43. The Discounts -Selling Records (Original Records UK 1980) Blank 1000-yard stare DIY novelty straight out of High Fidelity. The lyric is a monologue as by a bored-to-tears record store clerk. The jams are sub-sub-sub-Blockheads DIY stumble. Extremely amusing.

44. Grinder Wickford's So Boring -EP (Wax Records UK 1979) Forget punk rock, bring in hick-rock! The aliases of the band read: "Dav-Id, Si-Kic, Terry-Ball, Stu-Pid and Holy-Grail"!. Three band members have moustaches! The singer is wearing a Rocky Horror t-shirt! The a-side is a "humorous" ditty about the acne problem of Spiderman, reflecting the sleeve front depicting some fool in a Spiderman costume driving a tractor, The b-side is an anti-fuzzy dice song. Genius. It is obvious to me that Wickford wasn't boring at all as long as you hung out with the bold gents of Grinder. The songs range from primitive clunky riff-rock to DIY jangle of the highest order. Messthetics #101

45. Psykik Volts -Totally Useless (Ellie Jay Records UK 1979) More Music Hall-punk DIY genius. The spirit of Vivian Stanshall is looming large; as is the empty pint glasses littering the room as this 45 is stuck on repeat. All together now: "It's to-tal-ly useless"!! The sleeve bears the legend: "Side A: recorded in a sock, Side B: recorded in a morgue. May god bless vocalist and songwriter Victor Vendetta. Now pardon me while I go to the corner and cry.

46. Raisinets -More Fun To Play Than To Listen To (Fun-Ethic Records USA 1979) Fantastic record-collector hippie-punk a la Gizmos/Afrika Korps/Half Japanese. Primitive guitar duets complete with questionable production values and mucho muchacho helpings of pure static. Great post-arrest pre-OD lyrics making fun of Sid too.

47. Dag Vag -Dimma (Ball Records Swe 1978) Two years after this record was released, Dag Vag were playing new wave-scented white-boy reggae to sell-out crowds all over Sweden. This, however, is a one-man band bedroom project by a Träd Gräs & Stenar roadie who had discovered punk rock and the DIY scene. Beautiful dark/sinister home studio atmospherics, killer fuzz guitar and demented lyrics about psychiatric care and drug experiences. A great record. And by all means: Don't buy any other Dag Vag records after you've obtained this one.

48. I Jog & the Tracksuits - Redbox (Tyger Label UK 1978) More lost artform unique stumble-rumble from the UK. Sounds like it was recorded under water this one. A petty miracle of a pop tune with a sublime lyric about waiting for the bus. Gotta bless em for the stamina it takes to get a record out: Recording, Mixing, Mastering, Designing, Printing, Approving, Distributing, Balancing. All to get a little song about missing the bus heard by me 22 years later.

49. Injections -Prison Walls (Radioactive Records USA 1980) This has always been an extremely desired and expensive record in KBD/Japanese Tasty/Moustache circles, and it doubtlessly deserves its inflated price tag even though we aren't talking chainsaw-buzz punk rock per se here.

50. Devils Hole Gang -Free The People (Slow Burning Fuse Records UK 1979) Huge moustaches, huge choruses, and a record that sounds like it was recorded inside one of those Moroccan hotel showers that basically consist of a huge tube of aluminum siding. My pretentious nature is such that I feel forced to unleash the folk art metaphor for this again. If your friendly neighborhood rare record dealer charges you a couple of C-notes for this and you feel like your being had for big G's by the sleaze, then remember that you are investing in art, not buying a record!!

51. Funboy Five -Life After Death (Cool-Cat Daddy-O Records UK 1980) A pure pop record indeed, but where pricey production values would've turned this into a memorable Stiff Records 45, the band's lack of bucks and resulting throwaway/enthusiasm production and energy has created a masterpiece. Both sides are stalwarts for a neighborhood sing-song or a rousing music hall chorus. Punk rock music hall: A genre waiting to happen again! [Messthetics #101]

52. How To Get Rich In Rotterdam - Dapper Dan (Vormgeving Rotterdam Records Netherlands 1981) Brilliant, plodding art-slop that reeks of inside jokedom. This record is a reason unto itself to pay ebay prices for vintage drum machines.

53. Come -Come Sunday (Come Organization UK 1979) Before William Bennett became the Benny Hill of industrial noise, his band Whitehouse were called Come and released a single and an album which both are quite lovely homemade art-dirge crankiness, a friendly psychedelic kind of crankiness indeed.

54. The Riotous Brothers -Vicki's Dancing (Riotous Records 1980) How all these disparate bands came up with a sound this cohesive is a mystery to me. Any of the hints handed to us through fanzines and interviews only mess things up further: Yes, anyone could form a band, make a record, start a record label indeed. Where it gets weird is why so many of them harbor a similar tinny guitar sound, cardboard-y drums, messy synths, inept recording techniques, smart-assed lefty lyrics and nasal singing tone. This was not a movement. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened. That's all. This record has the beautiful simplicity of a Shaker chair or a Maine seafood soup. The swanky speedpunk of "Operation Zero" or the plink-a plunk-a guitar solo on "Emotional Cripple" will some day have their own wing at the Victoria and Albert museum. Make my art primitive!

55. Partizans -Goods (A-Noyz Records UK 1980) Chain Gang's retarded English cousins. Ace!!

56. Amor Fati -Economics 100 (Yuck/Flesh Records USA 1984 (?) Very angry anti-r&r/anti-big-business slightly tongue in cheek rant that shows spiritual kinship to "Rat City" by the Art Attacks. Vertical Slit/V-3. The odd blend of wanting in, wanting to play the game and wanting to stay the fuck away that is symptomatic for a lot of Ohio underground musicians (Shepard, Hummel, House etc.)

57. Desperate Bicycles -Skill (Refill Records UK 1978) Blazing DIY-shuffle and unmistakenly Bicycles. More pro production which has this one slip further down the list. Still godlike though.

58. Sarah Coffman -Titta Jag Ar Död (Konkurrenz Rekårdz Sweden 1980) Excellent primitive shit-rock by band from my hometown!

59. Hornsey At War -Deadbeat Revival EP (War Product UK 1979) Extremely amusing ultra-sloppy DIY. No discernable production values, sound-as-filtered-through-ground-beef, emotionally charged out-of-tune vocals, crackly guitar (broken cable?) and a true aura of dead end yobs (and jobs) instead of the more common middle class art school vibe as prevailing on most DIY records. Hornsey At War are complaining about English radio too: "They won't play this record on the radio because it poses a threat!" Here tis again: That charming blend of hubris and defeatist that seems to penetrate the psyches of most people involved in underground music and/or collectors of it.

60. Take It -How It Is (Fresh Hold UK 1979) Stunning out of control DIY/noise not unlike a more frenzied Soft Boys, a more good Gang of Four or a less psychotic SPK. Igor and Simon seem like a couple of gents with some hardcore political and intellectual pursuits, and like the Desperate Bicycles before them I sense that the choice of releasing a noisy cheaply recorded 45 with a xerox cover was an act of some sort of political defiance, back in the day where such an act was not co-opted from the ground up by extreme sports and Wall Mart hair dye. [Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #2]

61. Rough Cuts EP (Z-Block Records UK 1980) Inspired sampler of four bands (The Boywonders, The Ghoulies, The Czechs and the Decadent Few) two of which tell us their age on the cover (The Boywonders are all 16, The Czechs are all 17). Humbling thought that such musical spirit could be mustered at such a tender age. Great variety of flavors too: The Boywonders great inept, spooky DIY strut where the band might think that a reggae influence is prevailing, us knowing that the stumbleblock shuffle bears more resemblance to ancient Celtic airs, the unbearable beauty of the Czechs utter disregard of tone, meter and signatures or the Ghoulies oddly Booker T-esque chug n' scrape. The business, all and all. [Boywonders and Czechs on Messthetics #104: The Z-Block Story is here]

62. The Petticoats -Normal (Bla-Bla-Bla Records UK 1980) Ripping good-kind-feminist anti-normalcy rant. Spiritually uplifting in a way not dissimilar to first-hand experience of medieval church architecture, I shit you not. Recorded at Street Level which means that this record is Fuck Off Records related.

63. Reducers -We Are Normal (Vibes Product UK 1978) The sub genre Geoff Weiss-punk is hereby coined to describe this record. High-energy ineptitude. There is a strange kinship to the Pink Fairies/Deviants axis on this record ? A similarity in energy and attack, notwithstanding that the Reducers really don't know how to play their instruments very well. [Messthetics #1]

64. Il Ya Volkswagens - Kill Myself (Mechanical Reproductions UK 1981) One more year in the rehearsal space for these guys and I wouldn't be writing this. Discernable elements of gothrock and Bauhaus influence can be noticed as a faint vapor in this aural air to speak it in goth-speak, the crunch of the slightly sour guitar, the plodd of the (genius) bass line and the all-in slouch of the lethargic vocalist and the cracked-everyday electronics elevates this dirge into an 18 carat DIY-cruncher.

65. Quite Ridiculous Nonsense -Identity Crisis (No Label USA 1984) Most ace industrial wank of that rare late 70's variety. Wildly entertaining experiments in four track flatulence and transistor radio static.

66. Pervers/Deutscher Abschaum split 7" (Suff Productions Germany 1984) The Godhead. Reminds me of Teddy and the Fratgirls or the Foams in the sense that one gets the notion that these must have been fun gals to hang out with or date. The timeless splendor of the arty urban misfit girl: Her goofy charm and no-holds-barred enthusiasm for all that she found weird, interesting or sexually appetizing. A toast to the art school weirdo outcast girls of the world: May they forever paint their room black or read Hermann Hesse to you in bed! The music is wild, out of control amateuristic slop goes from Electric Eels fuzzed out haterock to drumkits thrown down the stairs to minimal teen-angst and then back. Beautiful stuff. Got this in trade from Thurston Snore for some boring free jazz records back in the day. What a chump!

67. The Prats -Disco Pope (Rough Trade UK 1979) 15-year old Scottish schoolboy punks seething with rage over the demon disco. Early Downliners Sect-style one chord R&B shuffle complete with the drum breaks that made God decide not to spare humanity. Don't miss it!

68. Plast -EP (Stranded Rekords Swe 1979) Four song EP of the finest in teenage punks attempting to embrace the confusion in their head from listening to TG, Cabaret Voltaire and Pere Ubu. An ungodly racket where the hostility of the chosen sounds meets the cozy ineptitude of the random noises. Plenty of short-wave noises and the crappiest of synths. Utterly charming.

9. Raincoats -Fairytale in the Supermarket (Rough Trade UK 1979) All enthusiasm/zero chops Ubu-esque DIY-charm from these stunning ladies. This is the best of their many records. Some kinda CD anthology that I can't find right now was released in the USA on the basis of Kurt Cobain being a big fan.

70. Tone Deaf and the Idiots -Why Does Politics Turn Men Into Toads? (Blue Angel UK 1979) Tone Deaf and the Idiots how do I love thee. This flexi is taken from their debut album Catastrophe Rock which still stands alongside the Damian & the Criterions "Avant Garde", Alvaro's Drinking My Own Sperm and Kräldjursanstalten's Voodoo Boogie as peerless monuments of original thought as far as late 70's underground albums are concerned. Catastrophe rock indeed. This is what "Music from the Big Pink" would've sounded like if it had been performed by the Portsmouth Sinfonia.

71. Desperate Bicycles -Grief Is Very Private (Refill UK 1980) One of the mighty Bicycles more introspective and subtle moments. Their entire recorded output is well worth hearing, and the range of emotions they paint from their palate quite astounding.

72. Door and the Window -I Like the Sound (NB Records UK 1979) One of many brilliant anti-music art school rants by the grand old daddies of the very genre. They like sound, they don't like the Pop Group, they like noise (um yeah!), they don't like butter The list goes on and I can't say that I reached any enlightenment as such by the end of this demented scratchy noise-fumble. But the journey sure was great.

73. Slugfuckers -Instant Classic (PRS Australia 1979) Homosexuals-y whiteguy funk/noise fracture that Liquid Liquid would've been pretty stoked about. Screeching scrape and dumb jokey asides. Who could ask for anything more?

74. Happy Cadavers -Nothing New (Undefined Records UK 1982) Punk/wave slop from the Midwest ? kind of aims for the Stranglers but hits Small Wonder Records. Charming stuff. Give me a fake English accent any day.

75. The Reflections - 4 Countries (Cherry Red UK 1981) Coulda been by the Desperate Bicycles this: stop/start gurgling plodding slop with most excellent Mark P. whining on top. Patented Karl Blake crumble-o-rific drumming not to mention the ambience added by the illustrious Nag of Door and the Window celebrity status. The Reflections album is well worthy of your grease as well as it is more of the same DIY-gunk but with a more contempo Recommended Records-type sound. [Messthetics #1]

76. Reacta -Stop the World (Battery Operated Records UK 1979) Another one that demands the Desperate Bicycles as cultural cookie cutter ? A beautiful ramble with the edgy guitars of Hilton Bomber-Thought Criminals.[Messthetics Greatest Hits]

77. Crash Action Winners - Hurricane Fighter Plane (Sonic International UK 1979) Somewhere in this mess of static and filtered mud are the chord-change(s) of "Hurricane Fighter Plane". The sleeve hints at the band being American, the sounds point straight in the direction of an English middle class art school, and the record cover furthermore defines them as a bunch of record collectors to boot. Not only is a Roky Erickson tune given the same crap-o-riffic sonic treatment, but the shoddy crumb-bum picture sleeve showcases record covers by the Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators, Russ Meyer and Question Mark and the Mysterians displayed in tasteful collage form. Messthetics #104

78. The Plastic Mechanical Pig -Book Brains (IX Recording Company Japan 1981) Tricky one here, Ricky and Paul, the two guys on the cover of the PMP 45, look like a couple of student teachers and the record sounds like a couple of student teachers recorded a Raisinets/Half Japanese hybrid on a primitive 4 track. Charming record this, with two folky DIY-punk cuts, but why on earth was it released in Japan?

79. V/A - Mell Square Musick EP (Yaw Records UK 1979) I've listened to this record a good dozen times or so, and my jaw still drops. Frenzied homemade punk where the energy could light up a medium-size town. Similar to the Tandstickorshocks, Seems Twice or Red Cross "Born Innocent" LP in its instinctive disregard for notes, chords and melody, the Accused or the 021 are more than deserving of particularly exquisite golden wings in the halls of the Valhalla of Amateurism. I bow my head. [Cracked Actor Messthetics #7; Accused and 021 - Messthetics #103]

80. Tandstickorshocks - Allan Vogalan (King Kong Records Holland 1980) The Dutch Puritan Guitars right here, it is almost spooky how similar the sound of the two bands is. Spinning these 45's makes me wonder if this music somehow managed to sidestep rock & roll and the black music tradition as a core influence. There is something about the Tandstickorshocks which at the same time manages to remind me of Schoenberg, microtonal composers and Irish tin-whistle folk music. This is, needless to say, evidence that I should get out more often, but also that these slices of true-life counterculture juvenilia are not isolated from a cultural context, but embracers of it. Even if it did take a couple of decades for these records to be collected in some kind of organized manner. The kids in Tandstickorshocls must have been aware of Wire and the Young Marble Giants, but the minimal primitive music they create is original in the same manner as the artists on Pat Conte's "Secret Museum of Mankind" compilations.

81. Foams - Paint Me (Pet Me Quick Records USA 1981) A classic of sorts. Frenzied, inept live recordings by this all-girl Austin Texas punk band. The only way that I can explain the similarities to the Slits or the Raincoats are that gals sure have a different way of looking at things, or at least playing drums. Great smutty lyrics and barky art-school vox too.

82. SST -Clutch On the Ward (Tidal Wave Records USA 1977) Super-inept hippie punk/DIY from California with lotsa early punk scenesters name-checked on the sleeve. Ted Falconi pre-Flipper on guitar.

83. The Simple Approach to Newtown Products EP (NTP Records UK 1980) My approach was to pay the inflated price the dealer was asking and happily walk home with this great record. 4 songs, four bands: Crimedesk are toilet-recorded DIY-slop, Basic Unit must be the most amateuristic goth band I've ever heard, Beat Necessity showcase only the finest in tuneless death-dirge with off-key howling and Story So Far is an awesome Joy Division/Factory Records attempt, but with no discernable musical talent. Needless to say, the whole EP is as charming as the day is long.

84. Hörförståelse -Förläst Jävel (CTR Sweden 1980) Demented art skronk of drums, bass and crap keyboards featuring out of tune vocals regurgitating about someone being an over-educated bastard. Perfect, really. A must for fans of primitive shit music.

85. What To Wear - Casual But Smart EP (Basic and Typical Records UK 1980 (?)) Inspired stumble as an attempt to play dub, The Homosexuals can do it ? These guys can't. I don't know if this given failure brought about something new, but this record is a very listenable stab at atmosphere by a DIY band with limited budget and equipment. The flip also contains a couple of amazing speed-pop DIY-rambles. [ Messthetics #104]

86. Contact -Future (Object Music UK 1979) An avantfied klutz by a band who probably wanted to be Tubeway Army one thinks as one gazes upon the sleeve. They move from sloppy pro-rock attempts to full-on art-noise to excellent DIY jingle and jangle. One of many excellent items on the Object label. [ Messthetics #106 and Messthetics #7]

87. Good Missionaries -Deranged in Hastings (Unnormality Records UK 1979) A great stop/start hiccup with the patented GM/ATV tinny guitars and peripheral production. What makes this stand out is that barely concealed aggression, like a slow fuse or something.

88. The Potent Human EP (L'Aventure Records UK 1980) I maintain, and not only because of my middle class lifestyle, that the Bathroom Renovations is the greatest band name in the history of rock. This EP is a four out of four winner. Brilliant DIY fumble from The Mekon (no relation), The Liggers , The Spurtz and the ultra-wah-wah power of the Bathroom Renovations. Let me type that again: Bathroom Renovations. [Liggers: Messthetics #106]

89. Disco Zombies -Here Comes the Buts (Dining Out Records UK 1980) This is my favorite of their three spectacular singles. Thw thuick brogue of an accent blends in a most interesting way with the crappy guitar and dull throb of the melody line or the voluptous Steve Severin-style bass line.

90. Record Players -Double C Side EP (Wreckord Records UK 1978) The Record Players came from Kent, which mustered a bit of a mod scene a couple years later, but otherwise wasn't much of a factor in the punk (or DIY) world. Here they've mustered up an anti-MOR rant with a chorus that comes off kind of, eh, MOR-sounding. Imagine the classic DIY trashing, bashing and gnashing, but with one big ol' chorus, and the most obvious bridge you'll ever hear. "Ignore Us" on the flip is self-defeatist art that'll piss all over any Magnetic Fields as far as smug self-hatred goes. "It's just one thing you gotta do if you want to move along, ignore the music and ignore this song ? Ignore us and we might go away". How about that. [Messthetics #1]

91. Boys and Girls Come Out and Play EP (Boys and Girls Records UK 1980) Might be a grade school project this one, and not an art school project. Bands like the Human Cabbages, The Profile and The Famous Five are very young sounding. The fragile beauty of these tunes remind me of the UK Voice of the People anthologies of field recordings of folk songs. The purity, private nature of the songs and homemade-ness makes for a truly intimate, moving listening experience. The people on this record should be proud of this slice of juvenalia 20-odd years later.[Profile -Messthetics #103 -also a Human Cabbages song]

92. False Idols -Ego Wino (Old Knew Wave Records UK 1980) Paul Morotta's unknown English nephews. This could be a Poli Styrene Jass Band outtake. Great, spazzy DIY with jazzy chording and great, supressed aggression.

93. Bandage -Republik (Bandage Records Sweden 1978) Seems as if the average age of the band members is 16 or so, and that the mere existence of this record points to the purest and most blissfully unaware state of do it yourself: Some kids in a suburb of Stockholm getting turned on by punk rock and the notion of releasing their own record. The four songs are all fuzzed out riff rock, not unlike say, the Crucified EP, but the poor quality of recording, sound separation, levels and what have you is why the record is mentioned on this list. Not that any of that was done on purpose, mind you, for any DIY-ethic of sorts. Necessity and gratification and all that good stuff.

94. 49 Americans -Big Value (NB Records UK 1979) Another hidden Fuck Off Records release? The 49 Americans certainly moved in the same circles, and furthermore share plenty of aesthetic choices with Danny and the Dressmakers or the Instant Automatons. This record consists of 14 short blasts of fuzz punk meets art wank and is absolutely brilliant.

95. Gods Gift -925 (New Market Records UK 1979) Three tuneless tunes of the finest in fuzzed-out death-dirge DIY-slop. Kilslug jamming with the Door and the Window.[Messthetics #106]

96. Mud Hutters -Declaration EP (Defensive Records UK 1979) Mud Hutters ? Information EP (Dead Good Records UK 1979) Truly original band this. Somewhere in a Heartwork Records/Rock In Opposition neighborhood, but with a real Safe As Milk-crunch. There are psych elements on both these records, moments of blistering punk rock, and a generous infusion of the Desperate Bicycles (or Thought Criminals) ethics and esthetics. Fantastic records, and mandatory listening for any fan of the underground music of the late 70's era. Unfortunately, their subsequent album isn't great. By that time the band got Gang of Four damage.[ Messthetics #106: a track from their first EP is on Messthetics Greatest Hits]

97. Horrible Nurds -Consuming Passion (Half Wombat Records UK 1980) Oddly enough, this record sounds a hell of a lot like early Problem (Sweden) on the a-side, with the b-side being Tim Rose backed by ATV in a fantastic art-rock/DIY howler In that lost art form kind of way.

98. Reptile Ranch -Animal Noises EP (Z Block Records UK 1980) Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (one of the most under-rated bands of the last 15 years says I and ponder an upcoming UT article) are here channeled way before they even were formed by some UK art school kids. Fantastic Beefheart-y R.I.O-hybrid DIY. Passionate, crude and obnoxious, sending this record to the top shelf of any record room! [Messthetics Greatest Hits]

99. Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle - EP (Zick Zack Records Germany 1980) Ace generic DIY/punk that could've been at home on an early Rough Trade 45.

100. The Rutto - Ei Paluuta (Ikbals Records Finland 1983) Figured I'd seal the circle with this one: A record as stupendous as "Medium Was Tedium" and as prominently throwing all the weight of the DIY-aesthetic on us, the listeners. The Rutto seem to be your 1983 run-of-the-mill small town punk rockers, and this 45 is generic, frantic buzzsaw guitar 2-chord punk. The magic with this one, however, is that in between the choca-blocks of teen nihilism is a noticeable sense of wonder and joi de vivre oozing thru' the grooves, or maybe I am just getting old and sentimental. Thanks for reading.

[ashtonsunshine]

This is really sad but I needed to get it off my head. Please, don't read it if you can't handle it. I'm serious. I don't want any of you feeling sad because of me.

-

I said I didn't want to go back to how I felt in 2013/14, I promised myself that I would try my best to not let it get to that point again, but I can't help but realise that I am at that stage again in a way.

Back then I was alone in my uni bedroom, living off of milk, Nestum, the occasional chickpeas and tuna, and water, because going out to buy groceries was anxiety-inducing, among all the trash bags I couldn't help myself to throw away and all the dust I couldn't help myself to clean. I would wake up, go to the bathroom, check on 1D and 5SOS, exist, maybe eat something, maybe take a shower, cry my eyes out because of the empty dark pit I felt in my chest, sleep for 13 hours in a bed I would never make, and repeat.

I don't want to be in that situation every again, and I am not. At least physically, I'm not. I'm at home, so not making my bed or not taking the trash out, or not cooking or cleaning aren't an option, but I still feel... alone and sad.

Since I graduated uni, I've been... lost. I wanted to get a job. I wanted to have my money and start my life but that excitement and that positive thinking shrunk very quickly as soon as I realised how hard it is to find a job in my field or a job in general around here that I can get to without a car and that it is not at a clothes factory, a supermarket or at McDonald's (I have personal reasons to not want to work in any of those places, but if you do, I have nothing against it. I just wanted to clear that out.).

All my friends at uni never spoke to me again but I can't blame them. My ex tried and so did his best friend but I'm a master at driving people away and isolating myself from everyone. I haven't spoken to anyone since one of them asked me what I was doing in Paris on my birthday. That was it. It's been months. I see all of my classmates having jobs and a life and I'm... here. I don't know how to make friends and keep them. Sometimes I think I simply use people in order to not be alone and then drive them away, but I don't. That's not me. It can't be me. I don't want to be that person. It takes me a long time to be friends with someone, to open up to them, but making friends as an adult is hard. It's so fucking hard, especially when you have so many walls put up.

It's been two years since I graduated. Two years that I've spent at home, doing home things that I can't avoid, and not knowing what to do with my life. I wonder if I were alone I would have the drive to do things and adventure myself into the unknown world, or if I would be going back to how I lived in 2013. I honestly don't know but it's scary to think that I, after all these years, still feel that empty weight in my chest. It's still there, a little less heavy, but it's still there. The loneliness and the sadness and the fear are all still there.

Yesterday, a thought came to mind and I realised something. All my life I did things with people aiding me. All my life I had someone there with me, either because I was forced to have them there or because I was invited to go with someone. Rare were the times I did things by myself because I want to do them. Right know I can only think of one: enrolling in uni again. I never had to ask for help, and even when I needed to, I refused to be "weak", which led me to never learn to let go of whatever stigmas and prejudices I have and ask for help.

Now, I'm 25 years old with no friends, nobody to talk to, nobody I can trust, and feeling like I can't do this without help. I don't know where to look for jobs in my hometown because I don't know my hometown and its businesses. I don't know where to apply for jobs. I don't know how a job is like. The mere thought of having a job makes me want to dig a hole and hide for eternity. I don't know how to handle a bank account. I don't know anything about taxes. I don't how anything about renting a place. I don't know shit about being an adult. And I'm scared. I'm terrified.

I don't want to keep on living like this but I also don't know what to do.

[belphegor1982]

Okay, this is the last chapter in the desert, I promise. The next ones will be... a different flavour entirely.

FAIRY TALES AND HOKUM

Summary: 1937: Two years after the events of Ahm Shere, the O’Connells are “required” by the British Government to bring the Diamond taken there from Egypt to England. In Cairo, while Evelyn deals with the negotiations and Rick waits for doom to strike again, Jonathan bumps into an old friend of his from university, Tom Ferguson. Things start to go awry when the Diamond is stolen from the Museum and old loyalties are tested… (story on AO3; on FFnet)

(Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

Chapter 15: Before the Plunge (on AO3 here)

The sun was rising far away to the left of the dirigible; the sky looked a washed-out sort of blue that, to Izzy, felt both daunting and a bit bland without any wisp of cloud to break the uniformity. Stifling a yawn, he reached to douse the light he kept overhead at night to be able to read his maps. His muscles felt sore, not at all rested from what little sleep he’d had.

Two nights in a row almost without sleep an’ all. I’m getting a bit old for this bullshit. I’ll get you for that, O’Connell, you mark my words.

Mrs O’Connell was curled up on a bunk in one of the cabins, fast asleep, with only a curl or two of hair visible under the blanket; and that Medjai or what have you, Ardeth Bay, was unceremoniously slumped against the wall of the wheelhouse, his head lolling slightly, completely out for the count as well. Around him on the floor were scattered all the other maps Izzy owned that were not in front of him around the helm. Izzy did not like to think of what would happen when the circumstances demanded that he asked for one of his maps back. Boy, those eyes could glare.

Wait. The number wasn’t right. Where had the kid got to?

Just as Izzy frowned and started looking around, he found the boy sitting by the rail a few feet away. Apparently, he wasn’t sleeping, as the pilot saw him stretch a bit and change positions in order to be completely in the light. The morning sun, still nice and warm and not yet burning as it would be in a few moments, was something to enjoy and the boy seemed to be rightly appreciative of it. Of course, if they usually lived in London (which Izzy had somehow gathered), that kid must rarely see light like that. Good for him that he did now, because he was as white as most white English people were.

That kid was a funny one.

It wasn’t that Izzy didn’t like kids. He supposed that, if you looked really hard for it, you could find a use for them other than quickly becoming adults or something else he could deal with, but generally he liked them better away. That didn’t include the countless children who were always hanging around the place; those were generally there to get a bit of money from the tourists, watch Dee set off or come back, and help if a hand was needed. Other kids, like those from his family clientele, Izzy just didn’t know what to do with.

That Alex was something else. Of course he would be, with a father like O’Connell and a mother like this spitfire of a woman. He had a smart mouth on him, probably a bit too much for his own good, and Izzy hadn’t missed the way the boy had tinkered with his lock. Either they did teach useful stuff at those posh schools, or he’d definitely had lessons from sticky-fingered members of his family. Izzy’s money was on Carnahan. O’Connell probably had a qualm or two about teaching his kid something like that.

Alex being a gutsy and sneaky devil wasn’t surprising in itself. What was more surprising was that the kid didn’t behave like kids his age were supposed to behave, according to Izzy’s limited knowledge of the species. Even if he did pelt the pilot with endless questions about Dee, Egypt, what his dad was like when he was younger (Izzy so far had artfully avoided answering this particular subject, keenly aware that Mrs O’Connell generally seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere) and went just about anywhere on the dirigible when not watched, nimble as an ape… Alex didn’t whine, didn’t make a fuss – much – over simple things like the not-so-great food or the lack of creature comforts, and he didn’t get in the way. As far as Izzy was concerned, this was a first. He’d simply assumed ‘normal’ kids were a nuisance most of the time. But then again, that kid’s pedigree alone spoke against the word ‘normal’.

Izzy blinked and proceeded to yawn his head off big time. On one hand, those were the best hours of the day, with nobody around but him and Dee, and generally that was when he would mutter things to himself or to his dirigible without someone goggling at him like he should be carted off to a madhouse or something. On the other hand, those particular hours were the most difficult to stay awake through, without any sound, any sight or any movement – or conversation – to make steering eventful. It was so boring that a simple encounter with a flock of birds would almost make it into the log for the sheer lack of action.

When his jaw hinged itself back to its right place, he gave a start as he realised the kid was no longer in sight. Indulging in a two-second panic, more than enough time to imagine what would be left of him if something happened to the O’Connell kid, he looked around wildly, only to find a pair of round blue eyes staring up at him from under a blond fringe.

“Jeez, kid, no need to scare me like that,” Izzy grumbled as Alex made his way into the cabin. The boy shrugged.

“I didn’t know you were watching me.”

“I don’t like the thought of a payin’ customer’s kid going over the rail, is all. ‘Specially this kind of payin’ customer.” That said with a jerk of his head to the back of the cabin, where Mrs O’Connell still slept soundly.

Alex’s grin shone as toothy as his father’s. Maybe with a couple of milk teeth that still hung on.

“Think she’s scary, huh?”

Izzy snorted. “You gonna tell me she’s not?”

“She’s my mum. I’m not supposed to be scared. Now you, well…”

“All right. I get it.”

Izzy reported his attention to the desert in front of him. The shadows of the dunes were quickly shortening, their mellow golden colour turning to flat yellow, and what he could see of the sky from under the balloon deepened from pale blue to cobalt. He could even begin to feel the heat reflected from the rising sun by the sand below the dirigible. The day was truly beginning.

For the sake of his nervous system, he glanced around for the kid. Alex had not moved from his spot a couple of steps behind Izzy. He was gazing at the sea of dunes, his eyes already reduced to slits by the sunlight pouring in through the window in front of them.

Remarkably looking like a much younger version of his father in the process.

O’Connell had not been the talkative type most of the time. There were times when he would just be so engrossed in whatever he was doing or thinking that it was useless trying to engage conversation with him. Which was a pity, because Izzy liked silence fine, but didn’t care much for shared silence.

Izzy shook his head inwardly. Amazing how folks can change. There was a time when the words ‘O’Connell’ and ‘married’ could not even be conceived to belong in the same sentence – not by Izzy Buttons of the Magic Carpet Airways, anyway. He had known O’Connell from before his time in the Legion, and at that time he’d been rough, goofy, downright terrifying if he meant to, and enjoying the simple pleasures of life, like a full meal once in a while, a night with a girl nice enough to lower her price on account of his good looks, or getting the upper hand in a bar brawl.

Not the kind of guy you picture married.

Then again, he had also been impossibly young. They both had been, come to think of it. Twenty-two shouldn’t be ‘old’ by anyone’s standards.

Izzy had had time, two years ago, to watch the interaction of the O’Connell couple from as safe a distance as possible, and he had found it rather interesting. In the end, it did not seem that unbelievable that O’Connell could have fallen that bad for the woman, and the opposite was just as true. The guy was rock-solid most of the time, and Izzy guessed that sort of thing was a winner with ladies. On the other hand, given the distance Mrs O’Connell was ready to go to get her husband (or her son, for that matter) out of trouble, and the lengths she proved capable of going to, she was at least equally as stubborn, stalwart, and determined as O’Connell was. Those two deserved each other. They should probably have been living happily ever after in some manor in that famous sun-forsaken London, supporting, loving, kissing and fighting each other like any other happy couple would. Like a bloody fairy tale.

Well, they probably were, until some crackpot decided the end of the world was nigh and made an attempt to materialise his nice little project. That was about as much as Izzy had registered this time, not being included in the ‘Let’s save the world tonight’ gang and being quite happy about it. All he had to do was provide transportation. Nobody would be getting shot this time.

Those two last bits Mrs O’Connell had firmly stated the morning they left Cairo, and the kid had nodded fervently. Which hadn’t kept Izzy from muttering under his breath or mentally counting the times when O’Connell had said, just as earnestly, that he wasn’t going to let his best pilot get shot. Of course, he always added that it was above all up to the pilot in question to cover his ass. Last time Izzy had heard that, he had taken it literally. It had resulted in a bullet hitting the fleshy part of his anatomy while he tried to run for cover. Naturally, he still hadn’t quite forgiven O’Connell for that. Hell, sometimes he had even wondered whether the bloody American kept him around to act more as a bullet repellent than as a pilot.

Izzy gave another yawn and automatically checked the slightly crumpled map beside the helm, scratching his stiff neck. He glanced down at Alex, who was still looking around as though this was the first time he was seeing dunes. The pilot knew for a fact it wasn’t. To tell the truth, he was a bit puzzled. This was the most silent the kid had been for the last three days. The absence of yet another question on how exactly he got Dee off the ground yet was a little unsettling.

“Bored yet?” he asked in a low voice, not particularly wanting to wake up the other passengers.

“Nope,” the kid answered, still staring. “How ‘bout you?”

“I’m used to—hey, I ain’t bored, this is my job.”

“You sure look like you are.”

Izzy slipped a quick half-glare in the boy’s general direction. “You got a smartass mouth on you, kid.”

“Yeah.” A grin. “I get that a lot. Guess it runs in the family.”

“Which side?”

“Both. Mum often gets mad at Dad and Uncle Jon for that. I think she thinks they’re a bad example.”

“Figures.”

Silence settled again, filled mainly by the flapping sound of the propellers at the stern. It was calm, and in a way, restful. But when Izzy took a second glance at the boy, he found him wearing a slightly different expression on his face. It looked more set, and a bit whiter.

Izzy was not an idiot. He had quickly worked out that the kid was thinking about his father and his uncle and that there was something he was supposed to say that should make him feel a bit better about that. Problem was, he had absolutely no cue of what it was he was supposed to say. Knowing you had to do something was one thing; deciding to actually do it was a camel of a different colour entirely.

“So,” he began rather awkwardly, “can’t wait to bring ‘em back, huh?”

Alex looked up and stared up at him for a full minute, his face a blend of many different expressions, including some that Izzy didn’t recognise. Then he began to snort helplessly.

“That has got to be the lamest attempt at cheering someone up I’ve ever heard!” he said when he finally caught his breath, trying hard to keep it low and wiping the tears of laughter off his eyes. Izzy shook his head, frankly disgusted. If that’s what you get for tryin’ to help people…

He was surprised to hear the boy say, “Thanks, though.” And even more surprised when he saw that the trademark O’Connell grin had come back full-force. That’s when the pilot noticed this grin was a bit crooked, giving the kid a subtly ironic, mischievous look when he smiled.

Well. So that’s what you get for mixing up a dashing American adventurer and a headstrong English librarian. Hell of a result.

As Izzy watched him slyly from the corner of his eye, Alex’s own eyes went very round and his mouth opened as though of its own accord just as he exclaimed, “What the hell is that?”

Startled, Izzy peered at the horizon and found what the kid was referring to: a slim column of thick, dark smoke drifting up from something large and black on the ground, like a stain. He frowned, wondering exactly why someone would set fire to something in the middle of the desert, and how. And not quite sure whether it was important enough to go down and start nosing around.

The answer to that came quite unexpectedly from behind, startling the two occupants of the cabin.

“Alex, language.”

“Sorry, Mum,” said the kid, not taking his eyes off the smoke. “D’you think it’s got something to do with them?”

Evelyn O’Connell came to stand behind her son to peer through the window; she bent to get a better look, keeping a hand above her for support. Her hair was all mussed up and dusty, her clothes rumpled and her face still betrayed tell-tale signs of recent sleep, and too little at that.

She looked a far cry from the dazzling, dashing beauties Izzy saw once in a while in the moving pictures, yet suddenly it hit him in the face why O’Connell had held onto her and not let go in eleven years.

Couldn’t explain, though.

“This spot is not part of any usual road,” came a low-pitched, accented voice behind them, making Izzy jump and almost let go of the helm. “It cannot be anything but them.”

“Do you think… do you think there is somebody in that… in that wreck?” asked Mrs O’Connell, her voice shaking ever so slightly. The Medjai guy shook his head.

“No-one can tell for sure from up here. We’ll have to go down and check.”

Mrs O’Connell nodded, looking a bit pale. Izzy would have liked to have something clever to say that would cheer her up, but after his fiasco with the kid he preferred to tread this kind of ground with extra caution. Which for him meant going into full pilot mode and barking at everybody to strap themselves up, that he didn’t want anyone to stupidly go over the bloody rail during a simple landing manoeuvre. And actually avoiding Mrs O’Connell’s eyes when she told him to watch his mouth in front of her son.

He managed to catch the kid’s glance, though, and he got a small smile from him in return. Tight-lipped, from a somewhat pale face, but a smile all the same. Kind of a ‘You got away pretty easy’ smile.

Definitely something else, that kid.

.⅋.

This journey was definitely turning a bit repetitive. Of course there was something enchanting about the Egyptian desert – though they must have crossed the borders of Egypt and possibly Sudan at some point, because they could see the great flat stretch of the Blue Nile in the distance to their right – especially in the early and late hours of the day… But they would soon reach the end of their third whole day of camel-back trekking and, frankly, as beautiful as the desert was, Jonathan would have liked it much better if he had watched it from the dirigible of that Izzy character’s, with a cup of tea or (even better) a glass of brandy and soda, very light on the soda. Also decent sandwiches, too.

And, above all, with neither hide nor hair of a camel in sight.

Now that he had had three days and nights to compare means of transportation, Jonathan found that he actually missed Izzy’s old, patched contraption. Travelling on a dirigible was not unlike sailing, minus the swell. Sure, they’d had a few bumps along the ride, mainly due to their least favourite just-risen-from-the-dead mummy pal, but, all in all, it had been a fairly enjoyable ride. Putting aside any worried thoughts of Alex, of course.

Jonathan yawned and scratched his neck. Although the sun had begun sinking into the horizon, it was still beating down upon their heads like a hammer on twenty or so cloth-covered nails (not counting the camels). The heat on his head and neck had yet to abate despite the sort of scarf he wore on his head and the collar of his jacket that he had put up. Good thing it took a lot for him to sunburn. Tom wasn’t so lucky.

However, of all the little downsides to their current situation, it was not the camels, the sun, or even the icy glare of Hamilton he could almost feel on his back every now and then that really bothered Jonathan. No, what really irked him, what aggravated him to no end was that Rick, Tom and him hadn’t really thought about what was in the lorry before they set it on fire.

If they had, they probably would not have left the rest of the food in it!

Jonathan felt a stupid idiot. The only thought that consoled him through the growls of his empty stomach was that the other two most likely felt like stupid idiots as well. Especially Tom, who was currently staring despondently at the head of his camel, as though imagining a dressing that could make it edible. Jonathan knew better than to tell him that no dressing or cooking, as rich and tasty as it was, could ever make camel meat pass for decent food.

Then again…

Jonathan shook his head to break this dangerous train of thoughts, bewildered and not a little disgusted that his own mouth had been watering at the mental picture of a camel roasting with aromatic herbs and trimmings. As though reading his mind, his mount gave a twitch that almost jerked its unprepared rider off, and skidded to a halt.

“Oh, no you won’t,” Jonathan muttered, pulling the reins and trying to urge the beast forwards with his foot, “not this time.” He could see the other riders overtake him, bobbing up and down with the tranquil pace of their camels, and Tom slowed down, giving him an inquiring look.

“Come on, you gormless useless blighter…”

He was still trying to make his camel at least budge when he came up with an idea. Leaning towards the camel’s head, he grabbed one hairy ear, making the animal give a strangled roar of protest, and said in his coldest, most earnest voice, “Look here, you. I’m sick and tired of these capers of yours. Now you’re going to do exactly as I say, or else I consider you as my emergency food supply. And I’m hungry.”

The camel batted the other ear and let out a whine. Jonathan pulled a bit harder on the handful of ear. “I bet you taste horrible too, but I’m quite ready to overlook this detail – we have been living off the stuff they called ‘stew’ for three days after all. The others are famished too, methinks, so you’d better get going again, now, don’t you think?”

Either the camel understood the gist of its rider’s words, or else it had grown tired of being pulled by the ear; anyway, it shook its head in a ruffled sort of way and started to walk again. Jonathan couldn’t keep a wide grin off his face, and when Tom asked him the reason for such glee, he told him.

Tom let out one of his guffaws that made his shoulders shake.

“Why, you – that was downright nasty!”

“Probably, but at least it’s paying attention now.”

Tom shot him a sideways glance. “I wouldn’t even put it past you anyway. You certainly have a way with animals. Not sure exactly what kind of way, though – you always seem to be viewing them as hypothetical food.”

“Not all of them,” Jonathan protested, as Tom started grinning. “Come on, I’m not that bad – I’m a gentleman, not a bloody caveman, for cripes’ sake.” He paused for a second as a memory resurfaced, and looked back at Tom thoughtfully. “That ram did look tasty for a second though, after four days without food, didn’t it?”

Tom sniggered and shook his head. “Not after it beat the snot out of us it didn’t. Who would have thought those girls kept a ram in the basement, anyway?”

“Didn’t they mistake it for a sheep?”

Tom nodded, still grinning. “Oh, you can joke all you want, but I wasn’t the one who’d discovered such a perfect way to sneak in.”

A second or two passed, during which Tom’s smile gradually faded, and Jonathan’s eyes turned as though of their own accord to the yellowish horizon. As he stared at nothing in particular, a more recent memory sneaked its way into his mind and brought a somewhat wry smile. Tom’s sandy eyebrows shot up. “What’s that look for?”

“Oh, it’s just that I promised Alex I’d tell him this one when he’s a bit older.” This one and some others, too. “Guess I’ll have to wait till he’s of age for that. Can’t have his mother have my skin for a hearthrug, can I?”

“Jon, your skin would not be enough for a napkin, let alone a hearthrug.”

“True enough.”

There was a beat, which stretched into a moment. During this relatively short time Jonathan noticed a slight change in Tom; something funny settled on his face and he seemed to sag a little bit on his saddle. It was subtle, but it was so uncharacteristic of his old friend that he peered at the broad face, wondering what could have brought on this sudden turn. He knew he wouldn’t have to wait very long for some kind of explanation. The Liverpudlian had never been good at this game.

Then Tom gave a small shrug and answered the unspoken question. He said it quickly, but the words sounded as though they were being dragged out against his will.

“Assuming you will be able to tell him someday. I mean, our outlook’s glum enough. You know, world ending tonight and all that rubbish.”

Jonathan was a little taken aback at that. It even made him a wee bit ill at ease. Fact was, he didn’t have a clue how to answer that one – Tom was usually the hopeless optimist, finding silver linings everywhere. This sudden gloom on his part was unsettling.

To be honest, Jonathan had had something of a funny feeling himself about the whole thing. Maybe it was the result of being the ‘rescued party’, as Rick had put it, and being fairly short of friendly faces around, but it had barely been enough to make him more than occasionally slightly uncomfortable.

“Right,” he ventured uncertainly, “and let’s not forget that we burned the food. So now we’ve got not only Hamilton, his minions and a jackal-headed army from Hell after us, but hunger as well. Wonder what will get to us first.” His attempt at a joke failed to have the expected effect as Tom gave the shadow of his ordinary bright grin and shrugged again. Jonathan was starting to worry a little bit.

Eventually Tom cast him a sideways glance and rolled his eyes. “I’m probably being an arse here,” he muttered with the beginning of a smile, “but now that is stupid. I mean, I know we’re not going to die from a day of fasting –”

The fact that his stomach chose that very moment to let out a long, loud growl took a lot of weight off his words. It also took a lot of weight off the atmosphere. Jonathan shot him a sarcastic look.

“Besides,” continued Tom in a would-be natural sort of voice, his ears even pinker than they already were after three days of camel-riding in the sun, “there’s always your camel solution to consider.”

The camel in question gave a bleating, alarmed sort of roar and picked up pace. Jonathan beamed, quite delighted. “Do you know,” he said thoughtfully, “I think this little idea of mine is not the worst I’ve ever had.”

“C’mon, Jonathan,” came a voice tinged with both American accent and smiling sarcasm, “you wouldn’t have the heart to actually eat that faithful mount of yours, would you?”

“Not sure about the stomach, old boy, but I do heartily feel like roasting this thing and saving you a big chunk,” Jonathan replied good-naturedly as Rick pulled on the reins of his camel to ride beside them. “What do you say to that?”

The American shook his head. “I say it won’t be necessary. According to what a couple of agents were chatting about in the back, there’s a reception party at Ahm Shere. So I guess we’ll get some food when we get there, which should be…” He squinted up at the sun and seemed to think for a second. “…In a couple of hours.”

“Heard that as well, didn’t you,” muttered Jonathan, rolling his eyes. Rick grinned his trademark four-hundred-teeth grin.

“Thanks for the offer, though. Too bad for you guys, I bet you’ve never tasted camel meat.”

“And thank goodness for that. I’m sure the insides of this air-brained mountain of hair and flesh smell worse than the outside does.”

Rick snorted and fell behind to refill his water skin. Thankfully all the water cans had not been stored in the lorry; there was a couple left on the car that brought up the rear. When he was gone, it was Tom’s turn to look pointedly at Jonathan.

“Erm, about the schedule and us arriving in a couple of hours and stuff –”

“What?”

Tom jerked his head in Rick’s general direction. “He did the maths. Hamilton asked him – on account of him knowing the desert and the way to Ahm Shere – and I heard the answer.”

Two hours… After three days of endless, repetitive desert trekking, the deadline suddenly looked much closer and coming faster than Jonathan would like. If Tom was right, and the pyramid was destroyed during the night, it meant that they probably would still be inside at the moment. That is, if they could even find a way to stop Hamilton’s little project involving the Army of Anubis, the human race, and the total annihilation of the second by the first.

The funny feeling began to flesh out.

Apparently, Tom had had the same line of thought, because his cheeks looked a little bit paler under his sunburn.

“What are the odds of the Medjai waltzing in to save the day?” he muttered, peering at the horizon as if waiting for black silhouettes on horses to materialise out of nowhere.

Jonathan winced. “Not so good.”

Tom was silent for a full minute. But then he turned to his old friend with a small smile on his face.

“Then again, what were the odds of you surviving two encounters with the living dead?”

That actually elicited a grin from Jonathan. If Tom Ferguson could still see the glass half-full, then things weren’t completely hopeless yet. Besides, he did have a point.

“About as good as you surviving this one,” he replied with a smirk.

Tom nodded, and stopped talking. That was when Jonathan noticed how silent the rest of the party was. The only human-made noise (or sort of) that they could hear was the motor of the car a few feet away behind them. And suddenly he found himself not so keen on chatting, either.

Nobody spoke during the next two hours or so.

.⅋.

Sunset was already well under way when the party reached their final destination. An enormous stretch of sky hung over the desert like a great big blue piece of canvas, and the last remnants of what had been a rich, golden light fell on everyone in sight. Every face seemed to be wearing the same tense expression, and Rick marvelled at the fact that, even though the mellow Egyptian sunset light almost always seemed to make everything appear softer than it actually was, everyone around him appeared nothing but grim and very much closed off. Ferguson kept his mouth clamped shut, and even Jonathan hadn’t piped a single word in a couple of hours. He just sat a little stiffly on his saddle, staring down at the sand right in front of him and looking uncharacteristically subdued.

Rick didn’t feel afraid, properly speaking. He felt determined to do anything necessary to stop Hamilton; sick and angry at the prospect of yet another maniac hell bent on doing what he wanted at the cost of mowing down a large part of humanity; wondering exactly what they were going to find down there, in that pyramid; truthfully, he did feel somewhat naked without at least a shotgun at his side… but not really afraid.

In fact, it reminded him very much of a few somewhat similar situations he’d gotten into in his days as a legionnaire, particularly the one that had ended his career in the French Foreign Legion: the Hamunaptra battle. That one had been bad, bad news from the very beginning. Rick had had a nagging doubt at the time – and hindsight had turned the doubt into a certainty – that the colonel in charge of their garrison had known that the Tuareg fiercely guarding the area outnumbered them by hundreds. Maybe the man had truly deluded himself into thinking that his sneaking in to the City of the Dead without orders, then around the place without a certainty or anything to guide him to the Ancient Egyptians’ treasure and back out again was a good idea.

And maybe Rick would have had no problem with that, had Colonel Saint-Herblain decided to act on this on his own, without involving anyone else. But he had to talk the men into the plan. Many as a result had gone willing, lured by the promise of silver and gold and eternal glory. Quite a few had gone enthusiastically, the rest reluctantly, all ill-trained and ill-equipped for such an operation. Rick wondered how many had realised Saint-Herblain had merely used them as cannon fodder, and at which point. To this day, he still did not know whether a mutiny before they left their outpost would have saved lives. Some men were so intent on gold that it made it hard for them to see anything else.

The Tuareg had been watching them from an early stage, and once they had been sure the legionnaires had no place to run to, they had attacked. At the crack of dawn.

Rick remembered how Saint-Herblain, his face ashen, had told them that they had to fight for French honour and for – how’d he put it? – panache. That it was like the Alamo, or something. Something to do for the country you fight for… never mind that they were supposed to fight for French interests and that the French Republic had absolutely no business in the matter. Being a non-commissioned officer and having to obey his superior’s orders, Rick had prepared his men without a word. But the part of him that was usually shrugging and rolling his eyes at stunts and speeches like that was now seething. Literally boiling with anger. Because you don’t do things like that when you’re responsible for the lives of a hundred men. You don’t go out on a wild goose chase when you don’t even know whether you’ll find what you were looking for, but know for a fact that odds are stacked so high against you.

Come to think of it, Hamilton and Saint-Herblain had a lot in common.

He hadn’t blamed Beni for running off, really. Rather, he had been furious at the little bastard for running off and closing the door in his face.

Rick supposed that, if he stopped being sarcastic about it for one second, he could consider himself a man of honour. At least, that was what Ardeth had once said, and though the American was loath to admit it, Ardeth was right about a number of things. One thing he didn’t consider ‘honourable’ was convincing a whole garrison to go in search of a hypothetical treasure in the middle of unsafe territory, and when under attack, tell the men they had to go down fighting for their country, and that it was the best option. The only one, really, except running off.

Which every man should have done, but one. Carrying out an ill-conceived operation to try to take a position with no real strategic importance with such significant loss was inexcusable. The least you could do, after you messed up so bad, was to face the consequences of your actions. And Saint-Herblain had done just the opposite. He had scampered right off, and left his men to their fate – a fate that had been, at the moment, being slaughtered one after the other.

Dying for one man’s whim did not exactly fit Rick’s idea of honour.

Fighting for the lives of millions did seem a little more like it. Theoretically, that’s what you choose to be a soldier for. He had thrown himself into the Legion after that thing with Izzy, the Italian hitman, and the belly-dancer girl because the alternative had been serious jail time, but the spirit had appealed to him.

But why the hell, he thought, swearing under his breath as he looked over at the centre of the camp, did it have to be him on the case again? After all, he’d been through being a soldier for fourteen years now, and in the end that had been a pretty easy choice to make. No more being the one to clean up the mess somebody else was making or had left behind.

Yeah, right. As if.

Rick snorted quietly as he got down his camel and tied it up. The conclusion he’d just reached reminded him a lot of the pillow talk he’d had with Evy the morning after the theft of the Diamond. He’d chided her then for wanting to fix any old sort of disorder, no matter who had created it in the first place. Evelyn O’Connell was like that: willing to take responsibility for her and other people’s messes so that the world could keep turning. It was one of the minor things Rick thought he could definitely do without most of the time. But it was also something that was a big part of his wife’s unyielding, indomitable, passionate character – and, as it was, he definitely couldn’t do without her character to anchor him in reality.

That was why he had come so close to completely losing it as he had entered the pyramid last time to go after the bastards who had murdered his wife.

A camel nuzzled him none too gently from behind, jerking him out of his line of thoughts, and he turned to see which one it was. Sure enough, Jonathan’s ‘faithful mount’ stared at him glumly under heavy eyelids and long camel’s lashes. He almost appeared to be sulking.

“Odds are you’re not gonna get eaten tonight, buddy,” Rick said, checking that the rope was properly tied to its post in the ground. “Relax.”

He could have sworn there was something like relief in the way the beast shook his head and returned to staring placidly at the bustle in front of him. Rick’s eyes followed. All he could see was a number of backs turned to him, all dressed in the same dark suit.

One of the guys in front of him blocking the centre of the camp from his view moved, and he could finally see properly. What he saw there made him stare for a moment, his eyes narrowed.

Obviously, some of Hamilton’s men had been there for a while – or else they worked damn fast. Their tents were bigger, more built to last than the ones he had gotten used to in three nights. There was a buzz, a sense of urgency and efficiency that somehow reminded him of the army, and he didn’t like that idea at all. It felt too well organised. But what was drawing his gaze most of all was the big hole in the middle, lit by several floodlights, where stood ten or twelve feet of big square yellowish stones set in a triangular shape, with an approximate-looking scorpion on the top that ought to have been supporting something…

They had dug up the top of the Pyramid of Ahm Shere.

He heard a low whistle behind him, and an equally low English-accented voice mutter, “Well, they certainly didn’t do their job by half. That’s motivation for you.”

“These blokes probably haven’t had anything else to do for the past weeks,” said another voice behind Rick. “Must be dead easy to get bored when you can’t pick up the wireless…”

The American turned to see Jonathan raise his eyebrows at Ferguson, who was making a rather successful attempt at a goofy grin despite the lack of colour in his cheeks. He felt the corners of his own mouth upturn slightly in spite of himself.

“So, Jon, is that where you took that diamond from?” asked Ferguson, taking a step closer to the pyramid and squinting at the skeletal sculpture of a scorpion on the top. Jonathan nodded dismally.

“Yes. Such a shame, really. I risked my life to get the bloody thing off the ground, and now they’re going to put it back.” Then he bit his lip and shot a quick glance at Ferguson, who looked surprised.

“You risked your – how’s that?”

“Didn’t he tell you?” asked Rick, who, besides the fact that he was enjoying greatly the way Jonathan’s ears were growing pinker by the second, actually welcomed the break in the general tension. “Izzy had showed up on his dirigible in the nick of time to pick us up from the pyramid, and he –” here he jerked a thumb in Jonathan’s direction “– must have slipped or something, because next thing we knew he was dangling upside down from the net on the side of the dirigible. Almost gave us a heart attack. That’s when he saw that diamond.”

Something of a smirk was creeping into Ferguson’s wide-eyed look. He stared incredulously at Jonathan.

“Don’t tell me he – oh, c’mon Jon, even you wouldn’t be stupid enough to –” He let out a short bark of laughter, and Jonathan threw him a dirty glare. Rick couldn’t help but snort.

“Of course he did. Damn heavy thing, too, nearly pulled him down, and nearly pulled me down when I grabbed him. I should’ve just let them both fall then and saved me a world of trouble.”

He grinned brightly at his brother-in-law, who seemed to have momentarily misplaced his sense of humour and looked distinctly miffed. Ferguson gave a low chuckle.

“Never pictured you as the heroic type, Jon. You must’ve looked quite dashing there, hanging down arse over tip like that.”

“Oh, sod off, both of you,” Jonathan muttered under his breath, looking quite determined to remain righteously annoyed despite the fact that a smile seemed to be pulling decidedly at his mouth.

Ferguson shrugged with a grin, then turned his back on what they could see of the pyramid. He started back toward the camp, stopping to call at Rick and Jonathan from over his shoulder, “I thought you were hungry. Come on, it’s now or never, Hamilton wants to open the pyramid when night has completely fallen. Don’t know about you, but I’m not going in there on an empty stomach. Might be our last meal, too,” Rick thought he heard him mumble in an undertone. He wondered at that as he watched the Liverpudlian stride away. The man hadn’t struck him as the pessimistic type of guy so far.

Of course, odds were that he had simply never found himself in such a mess before.

He followed Ferguson from a distance, remembering Hamilton’s snide remark about the ‘company’ he kept. Obviously his boss didn’t consider hanging out with the prisoners an intelligent thing to do. His brother-in-law fell into step beside him, apparently not having caught Ferguson’s little grim aside.

“He’s right,” Rick said with a quick look at Ferguson’s retreating back, “let’s get some food.”

“See, now you’re making sense,” Jonathan agreed fervently, before adding edgeways in Rick’s direction, “At last, we can eat something we haven’t burned.”

Rick shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. “You’re never gonna let me live that one down, are you?”

This time, it was with a grin that Jonathan answered him. “Never, my good son, I’m afraid.”

Dinner was a quiet, tense business. Sitting on the sand eating lumpy stew while being closely watched with both unfriendly eyes and a few loaded, equally unfriendly-looking guns was not an incentive for feeling at ease. Rick downed his portion as fast as he could, and he could guess, from the way Jonathan almost choked on his stew, that he was not the only one who wanted to have the whole thing over and done with as quickly as possible.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ferguson barely swallowing anything, despite his earlier remark about empty stomachs. The man looked slightly green around the edges. As for Hamilton, he sat neatly on a blanket on the sand, eating with as much refinement as though he was sharing a lamb and mint sauce with the latest King of England1.

Ten minutes later, the sun had sunk entirely below the horizon, and everybody was gathered around the pyramid. Even though only the top part had been dug out it still towered over their heads from a dozen feet. The light-coloured stones looked so tightly woven together that nobody could have dislodged one. But then, Rick had a hunch they might not need to.

Hamilton appeared, looking cleaner than ever, making every other crony of his look scruffy and dirty in comparison. He held aloft the Diamond of Ahm Shere and began climbing the stones to the scorpion on the top in the centre of the floodlights. It struck Rick – who had not seen it in two years – how big that diamond actually was, and what a miracle it was that nobody had attempted to steal it before for its sheer market value. To him, however, the intricate pattern of pearl and gold made it look ponderous and heavy rather than beautiful.

He noticed Jonathan’s slightly slanted eyes go round as he squirmed on his spot. The American suppressed a sarcastic chuckle. If there had been the slightest chance that his brother-in-law could have leaped at the diamond, run with it under his arm and gotten away with it, he surely would have tried.

Unfortunately, there was no chance in hell.

More straight-backed and pompous than ever, Hamilton delicately put the diamond in the golden scorpion’s pincers. Then he stepped back and all but dropped to the ground, thrown off balance by the shudder that worked its way from the top to the very foundations of the structure. Rick could feel it go down into the sand beneath his feet. When it was over, something gave an ominous groan far beneath the ground.

The beat of his heart sped up slightly. Suddenly he was aware how much the temperature had dropped in so little time since sunset.

While Hamilton climbed down the stones, his face showing nothing but excitement and expectation, Rick glanced sideways at Jonathan. He was still staring at the diamond, but the look on his face had changed: suddenly his features were frozen in apprehension and something like denial. As though the same phrase was going over and over in his head, like a broken record, as it did in Rick’s mind – don’t open don’t open don’t open…

There was a sort of snap, and a small cloud of dust sprang from between two large stones.

Hamilton made a sign. A couple of agents stepped in to dislodge the stone blocks and more men came to help them put them on the ground.

There stood an entrance large and high enough for a man to walk in without even bending much. Being closest to the makeshift door, Rick, along with Hamilton, Jonathan, Ferguson and a couple of other agents, peered inside.

What he could make out when his eyes adjusted to the darkness sent a jolt to his stomach. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered without even realising it. Nobody seemed to hear him.

“Bloody hell!” said Ferguson weakly. Jonathan, his face white in the floodlights, didn’t say anything.

Rick nodded grimly. “Hell’s about right, yeah.”

When the Pyramid of Ahm Shere had sunk into the sand, the oasis that Anubis had created to surround it had been sucked into the ground as well, and into the structure. Now, as they stared at the inside of what one of the ways into the tall gold and stone chambers had become, all they could see was dark green.

The oasis had overrun the pyramid and cosily settled inside it. Creepers and lianas twisted their way around the pillars, across the floor, along the ceiling. They could even hear a faint gurgling noise from the bowels of the thing, as a tiny stream would drip from a higher point down into a pond. Aside from this sound, however, almost nothing else.

It was the jungle again.

.⅋.

1Reference to Edward VIII’s 11 month reign from January to December 1936 and George VI’s subsequent coronation in May 1937.

[kaorei-endgame]

Ranking of Resident Evil save room themes?

I got my first latte of the season, it’s chilly enough to wear pants indoors, #Streamtober started yesterday. LET’S DO THIS, NICK. >:O 

17. Resident Evil 6 Chapter Ends, All Characters: Back to the cabbage patch. None of you are valid, with your Netflix Original knock-off of some ABC knock-off of 24-ass soundtrack. Go suck a giraffe’s dick with an Ada clone, Jake Muller.

16. Resident Evil, Deadly Silence: What is this Resident Evil for Babiez? Nintendogz+ResidentEvilz? Imagine listening to this on the crappy DS speakers. Wasn’t there something creepy about Jill’s costume in this game, like you could tear pieces of it off, or am I just conjuring fall memories and combining them with how they went out of the way to add boob bounce to the REmake 15 years after the fact, and now Jill’s boobs on PS4 undulate languidly beneath her shirt like a pair of Dragon Quest Slimes yearning to be free. This track: aural despair, unleavened. A way to quickly induce nausea in dogs who have eaten chocolate or raisins.

15. Resident Evil 6, Ada Chapter End: Well, okay, this one is all right. The first fifteen seconds feel like a HiFi version of a track from those Playstation 1 top-down shooters where you played a murder clown or a pyro guy escaping a space prison where you were held for crimes you definitely DID commit. The little background jog kicks in soon after and look, I’m a soft sell for ululation, what can I say.** But it just all just serves to stir memories like embers finally gone to smolder beneath the fireplace ash, stoking them after all these years, reminding me what a weird psycho they turned Ada into in this game. I like reflecting on how people got so mad about there not being co-op in Ada’s campaign that Capcom patched in a partner but his name is like “TeamMate” or “Buddy” and he has no lines of dialogue and is never addressed in the story in any way and thus is either a figment of Ada’s imagination or he’s a real dude who’s just pretty quiet and ultimately drowned on that sub? Well, I guess life’s tough if you’re the (potentially imagination) friend of an ex-spy turned pod person.

**(i contacted my musician friend, Kylie, who confirmed that ululation  was the term i was thinking of, lest i second guess myself. at the same time, i’ll post her text here lest i misrepresent her words “Yeah, ululate as a technical term is vibrato using the tongue, so that would be wrong, but ululate as a descriptor refers to a sound that has a very pronounced waver between tones to it.” cool! i’ve often wondered if that’s the most accurate way to describe it. thanks Kylie!! :D)

14. Resident Evil Revelations 2: Claire gets the best costumes probably across the whole series and yet it feels like she’s gotten the least love of all the main cast. I never really got it, she looks good in denim, whether jacket or pant, and her Revelations 2 blazer does her all the favors. But now they’re remaking RE2 and they turned her face into this weird porcelain Precious Moments dol—MY BELOVED DAUGHTER. MY MOIRA. I SWEAR I’LL FIND YOU. FOR THE SAKE OF JBLL I WILL AVENGE YOU AND THE OTHER ONE.

13. Resident Evil 0: What’s with all the shivery whiney stuff. Like your younger sibling running nails down the chalkboard of your spine, like how the speed run of this game hinges on juggling an evasive bat with 5 out of the 6 flame rounds on hand, so try. Neither relaxing nor scary. Do I hear something like a bongo in the distance? That is the clarion call of Becky Chamber’s goose booty coming home to roost.

12. Resident Evil 7: I had a dream last night about this game. If you have phobias about glass and/or mouths and/or wasp genitals, I would skip this paragraph. I was in the house where you have to run away from the mom with the disgusting wasp hive vagina. Also—unrelated and yet somehow related, as dreams always are—I had opened a beer bottle in such a way that the stem broke. I had decided to drink it anyway and now, as I progressed through the house, I found that there seemed to be endless small slivers of glass in my mouth that I had to repeatedly spit out lest they cut me. When I woke up, my jaw was clenched to the point of soreness. Welcome to the family, I guess. Otherwise this save room music reminds me of the game itself: mostly dull and barely there.

11. Resident Evil Revelations: Item Box Music, only Save Room Adjcanet. Can’t disassociate this from the “swish-swish-swish-SHUCK” sound effects of navigating menus to equip Charge Shot 2 to my Shotgun. Not as pleasing or as integrated into my bone marrow as  the Resident Evil 3 equivalent, but I have probably played this game through thirteen or fourteen times at this point. Life is short and yet the strings of fate tug us the directions they will.

10. Resident Evil 5: Again, this is menu music. No save rooms at all in this game. Anyway I have no inherent memory of this song because I’m sure I’ve talked over it while upgrading my M92FS to 100 bullet capacity 110% of the times I’ve played this game. Exempted from higher echelon of rankings on these technicalities, but still A POOR PERFORMANCE INDEED for Not The Best Resident Evil Yet Paradoxically The One That’s Given Me The Most Joy In My life.

9. Resident Evil, Dead Aim

: Wow I almost can’t believe I don’t remember this despite playing this game enough to write a speedrun guide for it. Well, that was the style at the time. As was a bloated zombie corpse boss, I suppose (long before Left 4 Dead, those copy cats), whose weak spot was its exposed brain which, halfway through the fight when you’d done enough damage, would pop out and dance a sprightly jig on its brainstem every time you shot it. With the whisper of wind and rain and single intermittent synth I feel like I’m living in a cyberpunk future and not a game whose protagonist’s “””cajun””” accent is as questionable as its presentation of the antagonist’s gender.

8. Resident Evil, Umbrella Chronicles

: Hey now, weird bit of the creepy-freaky bass here kind of does put you in a certain headspace, but it’s not the headspace i remember of this game, which was basically unplayable in co-op for the final 3rd because a failed QTE would result in a hunter slicing away half your health. Good for an Into the Breach playlist to keep you focused on the action and stop you from trying to play it while also binging a Netflix show about werewolves that you didn’t really like anyway, and splitting your attention between visual mediums is just getting Good Pilots Killed.

7. Resident Evil 2: Ominous. Maybe TOO Ominous at points. Aren’t save rooms about being safe? I guess we could argue that because the save room reflects the lacuna of safety  BING BONG piano is the Try Hard version of video game music asking “you scurred yet?” Perhaps a novice mistake from a first-time director who would go on to do so many great things (well, RE2 among them, no lie). In a way, this fits with Rookie Cop Leon S. Kennedy, and anyway it’s so over the top I’m kind of okay with it. Most innervating when first heard on your way to equip a cowgirl costume for fast-firing six-shooter action. Guns suck, and cowboys too, but both are okay if we experience them in the abstract sense. This is what culture teaches us. Fan the trigger.

6. Resident Evil 4: A surprisingly gentle one, considering the series turn towards action from which it would never recover. I am transported to the early minutes of a horror movie where the audience knows something the protagonist doesn’t about the terror that’s about to befall them while they blithely pick up a desiccated nudie mag in an old shed on a haunted property they inherited from their estranged uncle, more focused on the “ballistics” before them than the axe murderer crouched in the shadows of disused farm equipment behind.

5. Resident Evil 3, Nemesis: More languid riff on 2. Strings get you shivery, and no more than a single BONG per two measures proves that save room music is as much about the notes you DON’T play. Two bongs to scare, but one bong to keep you on your toes, disallowing you from getting *too* relaxed by the soothing bleeps and bloops as you combine the 3 Gunpowder As you just found to make sure you have enough ammo to pistol-juke the so-called unkillable Nemesis. You’re not coward, but that doesn’t make you brave. Discretion is the better part of valor, they say, but that’s not taking into account that non-discretiony valor rewards you directly with a faster-firing pistol with critical headshots. :3

4. Resident Evil 1, Vanilla: Gentle, plucky strings make you question your memory, more familiar with later revisions than you are this one. How often was I in this place? Or does its primacy belie its immediacy? If I went to the strange, pointless closet around the corner from this medicine save room, would I find a broken shotgun I expect there, a round of magnum ammo, or simply the ghost of discarded aspirations masking as memories. I recall a time when it felt like time was enough, but then again, this was back when anything sub-three hours would get you the infinite rocket launcher, regardless of how many First Aid Sprays you used.

3. Resident Evil 1, REmake: High fidelity version of RE1’s gentle strings remind you of simpler times when your worst fears were zombies resurrecting into scarier, faster zombies with claws. What we wouldn’t give to go back to those days, and maybe tell ourselves not to take out so much student debt. Listening to this sends a pulse of gentle energy through my shoulder blades that makes me think “relaxation,” though I’m not sure my body understands the meaning of the word. A respite in trying eras, there is no association with the tension of shaving 15 minutes off your time to be competitive. “Safe Heaven,” they call it; a theme for a place that is not our own, but should be.

2. Resident Evil 1, Director’s Cut: Wow I did not expect music box chimes and tones stirs something ancestral in my blood. I’ve played the Director’s Cut far more times than the original RE1 and this is like coming home to a big house where I enjoyed an idyllic childhood, but I now know every box is filled with the creepy knife doll from Onimusha. Though these senations are foreign to me, something about them inspires a thirst for a homeland I never knew.

1. Resident Evil Code Veronica: The absolute chillest. In life, paths may wind, but the ultimate  The strings are tickling your spine. You’re so relaxed you feel like oiling your ponytail, and you could even take a nap in Steve Burnside’s arms without reflexively gagging. When you hear this, you are at peace, and the world seems like a place that can be kind. Truly, the Code is Veronica.

and don’t forget to vote in our poll on whether or not we’re playing Claire A or Leon A tonight!

[themomentsinthedark]

Well this is fun...

CW: Depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal tendencies and thoughts

Ways to tell if your high functioning depressive/anxious friend (ie. me) is in a depressive episode (ie. right now):

1. They tell you, maybe not directly, but they mention the things listed below or just stop saying anything.

2. They send you things at really random hours cause time is no longer a concept and they’re probably not sleeping.

3. they probably have massive bags under their eyes that the strongest cover-up can’t hide because they literally don’t sleep/ only sleep now because they spend most of their time off trying to sleep without success.

4. Not being able to sleep makes them anxious about going to sleep so which makes them not want to sleep which make them more sleep deprived which spirals them into a series of panic attacks until they eventually take their sleeping meds like they should be in the g-ddamn first place (but they hate their sleeping meds cause they make them so tired the next day and the cycle repeats.)

5. They seem to not want to stop hanging out / or they shut down really quick really fast when out and become short with you. If its the first it is because they know as soon as you stop being around they will just be alone again and that's when the scary thoughts happen and so far they can still tolerate being there. When the second happens it because whether they want to or not their brain has decided that they are done and the thoughts can’t be suppressed so it's not that they hate you it's that their brain is short-circuiting on the high functioning aspect and they need to leave... like two minutes ago. Negative thoughts are a regular occurrence for someone who is depressed and anxious. But during episodes, they become that much more severe.

6. They eat everything and then nothing... for days. It all tastes like different flavours of cardboard. Some cardboard is more tolerable than others and sometime you want all the cardboard and sometime you want no cardboard.

7. They casually mention how they’re tired of life, society, people or just want to rest. That’s how they talk about the suicidal thoughts they have at any given moment. Being suicidal and still being here is exhausting. I also understand the reason people become very concerned when you say you have suicidal thoughts. But like, I’ve had them since grade 2 and I’m still kickin’ it so somethings working. I just need to talk about wanting to not be alive anymore sometimes and I don’t want it to be serious, cause then I have to deal with your emotions and that’s even more exhausting when I can’t even handle my own. Just like agree that life and survival are fucking exhausting and it would be nice to not be anymore but then talk to me about some event or activity coming up in a few weeks. Because when I’m panicked and seriously contemplating ending my life later on that night I will think of that thing coming up and be like ”well I can’t die till after that.” It can be as simple as promising to check out a new coffee shop. It’s what’s worked every time in the past. That and needing to prove people wrong. Stubbornness is a great antidote. Being high functioning comes with an obsessive need for achievement and perfection ( that is it’s own fun adventure in imposter syndrome and fear of failure on its own) which allows for something coming up to be the reason to keep going. Which is why when people tell me to cut back on what I’m doing  I joke I would die. It’s cause I would. I could legitmatley kill me. I can’t cut back because that’s when I get my most suicidal. But I also know I need to. Because it could also kill me to not. In the same and different ways. But so far for 24 years I've walked the line. So... I guess it's fine.

(we got personal in the last one, the ‘I’ is coming out. Damn.)

8. We don’t answer you immediately or for a few days, but we don’t hate you. Personally, I’m working to just keep my head above water between work and school and combating the depressive episode that has decided to take up space in my body. Answering your text or message becomes last priotrity and if the choice is lying in bed blankly staring at space while listening to music or a podcast vs answering you I choose the first. Depression makes concetration really hard sometime and therefore I cannot find the energy to pick up my phone nor the concetration to find a suitable answer for you that my anxiety won’t then tell me is silly and wrong.

9. If you need mental support, just ask if I’m up for it before beginning. I’ll probably say yes, even if I’m not cause it’s who I am, but allowing me to consent to fucking my mental state is much kinder than not. It’s also allowing me to define my emotional labour boundaries. That said if your in crisis then this goes out the door and you reach out the moment you need something (note: not for everyone, just for me.)

10. If I’m late it’s probably because I have to account for at least a half hour of mentally preparing to leave my house and another half hour trying to talk myself out of bailing. If I’m not coming from home then it’s normally because I suck at time management and will also sit in my car preping to face people. This is amplified during depressive episodes. I also feel like a dumpster fire of trash when I'm late so like, I get it. You do not need to shame me. I can and am do it just fine for myself and even beat you to it since mine probably started when I was lying in bed, staring at my phone for the time and knowing that if I didn't get up I would be late again. And I still didn't get up. So trust me, I've got shaming down to a fine art on this one.

12. They physically manifest in headaches, stomach aches, panic attacks, sore and/or clenched muscles, ext. I'm not making this up. Don't gaslight me. It's not all in my head. Just cause you can't see cancer doesn't mean it doesn't hurt and cause physical pain. Same with any mental shit.

13. This one is for anyone who needs the reminder: your brain that tells you all these lies is only a small portion of all things it contains. That map of Canada from grade 5 geo holds the same space as that space of negativity. It does not make you. It does not define you. It does not own you. It is small and powerless and it wants nothing more than power. But it has to fight you, and you're strong as hell.

14. To be continued possibly...maybe... when I can write again.

This is where I’m at. I’m now going to try and sleep because tomorrow is a long andscary day. ”I’m prepared to be pleseantly surprised if it works” - bedtime mantra.  

[weekendsabo]

Journal - Saturday, December 1st, 2018

Bob sent me the band Bonny Doon. Now I’m listening to Ricewine which is equally as chill as the Bonny Doon band. Big News! I found the missing piece to that stupid puzzle. I don’t know exactly where is came from, but it just appeared and I’m happy that puzzle doesn’t have a missing piece now. Pretty excited. but got in clean mode so I swept the entire house and cleaned that fan and mopped a little. Nice to have a clean house. If I just do a little everyday it won’t get bad.

Cont. on 11/22

I have to get a washer and dryer. Maybe that’s what I’ll get with my hopeful bonus. Mild orange was next on youtube and they are solid as well. I have plans to meet up at Dillinger with Tsvet and James and possibly more. I’ll definitely throw on a different shirt and.

I saw you in that chair a look and gaze

Lunch was fun with James and Tsvet as well as Dee and Dennis, and the lady in the corner. I like the Dillinger. I go the Ruben and it was solid and some patron. Man, tequila is so good. I’m going to get a bottle for home. I kind of hope Luna doesn’t come over, but with my luck, she probably will. So just got downtown. She’s going to be a little late so I’ll go get a drink at the bar and pee all . I hope it goes well!

Cont. on 11/21

I can’t believe Luna still won’t text me back. I feel bad for her situation. Like, she has the worst luck. I can’t believe he would just hit, Dalton, and while living together. ridiculous. I may- well if she ever texts me back, then maybe I would consider having her come live here. We could car pool and jam and I think it would be fun. Make some vegan food together and just chill all the time. I don’t think I would mind having her around all the time. I’ve tried and whenever I see her shes always super excited to see me. So maybe I just have to but upfront about it and just be like “Hey, I like you, and u was wandering if you wanted to go on a date some time if you’re interested. If not, no biggy. I’m stoked to just be your friend and I’d be 100% okay with keeping it that way. no hard feelings or anything like that. So yeah, I mean we already know each other. but this would be a way for use to get to know each other ore and on a more deeper level. we can talk about sex and stuff like that and see what we both like. Do drugs together and just have a lot of fun. Could be cool if she ever texted back...

Cont. on 11/20

What do I like about Luna?

She has this like nervous laugh that I find adorable. She’ just comfortable. The right height to fit under my arm. That might have been the highlight of my night. Cuddling right up to her. Only way it could have been better is if she put her arm around me. But the head nuzzle worked just as well. I feel she just seem me as a friend and that’s okay. There’s only one way to find out and it just to ask her. Tomorrow night. I’ll go chill at my folks or maybe find something free to do downtown or I can hit up Evan and see what he’s doing. Or maybe I’ll just go chill and walk around DT a little. Possibilities are almost endless. Definitely maybe won’t hit her up. Are you interested in dating at all. I know you might not be be interested and getting out of your relationship. So I completely understand if you’re not down, and this will be the last we talk about it. I just have developed feeling and I wanted to se if you felt to same way. Nothing to lose really. One of the reasons I went to the show last night was to see her. Mission accomplished. Well see, I probably won’t cause I don’t want to make things awkward. So, that's probably the better option.

Cont. on 11/19

Also, she doesn’t smoke cigs, shes open to drugs, she doesn’t drink much which I would be adamant that I won’t drink when she doesn’t drink. She’d fit right on the back of my bike. One that I’m getting with my bonus. I feel we would have a good relationship and would be happy together. I understand depression, and would want to have an open policy on communication cause that is very very important.

Cont. on 11/16

I don’t know if I’m going to  continue using this pen. It’s a little too much bleed through. It’s not to bad once you write. I thought maybe I would have a hard time reading but it looks okay. I’ll keep using the pen for now. Attempted to make pretzels with the pizza dough. I left and I turned out eggy. I think my water wasn’t hot enough or it was just not that great dough. Oh well. It’ll build a turd. I’ll probably make a BLT later for dinner. but really. I’ve eat plenty for today. Well see. I’ll get a wire brush and get the rest of that just out of there. Get a propane tank and itll be cool. I’ll boil those eggs tonight for sure and that’ll be my b-fast and lunch. Cook all that bacon. I’ll bake it so I don’t have to deal with is in a pan. and I’ll be able to get it nice and crispy! It’ll be delicious. AND she listened to music and likes to go to shows! I wold be the absolute best! So how do you think she sees me? Someone who drinks a ton. She knows all about my touring. I would also be 100% okay with her on tour. no problem with that at all.

Cont. on 11/15

I know I want someone that will help me learn or better me. Okay. Bonus equals home gym stuff and guitar. After this trip I’ll get a desk and get that stuff all set up. I’ll see if she has . I can drop her off in the morning and get her a coffee, then go to the gym to kill time. That does sound like a good plan. Then she can chill there or do something. I’d definitely let her take my car. I can get a ride gone from someone. If she wanted to go out. That might actually be good. Just to get that time alone. I’m down. If it gets. It’s not going to get awkward. It’s not like I’m asking her to be with me forever, I just feel like it could be fun. and if that happens, I will definitely get rid of FB. I feel once I do get a girl, I will just get rid of it and set up - I’ll wait till I get the band page going. Goal - Release 2 albums next year or EP’s whatever. I just want some music out there. I’ll make it happen. 2019 is going to be a good and productive year. No drink December starts now. I can do it. Yesterday I already knew that was happening before to deal to no drink to NYE!

Cont. on 11/14

Still not surprised that I spent $5600 on alcohol this year. I probably bumped it up to $5700 yesterday for sure. That ends now! That’s easily a trip to anywhere for a couple weeks. So bad. Cut down on food and booze and I will be doing great! I’ll find an easy recipe for something I can eat all week. Some chicken something. Make some perogies. It’ll be delicious. Invite James and Tsvet over. Find a good Perogie sauce. Keep it vegan hopefully. Id also be down to seriously cut down on my meat eating. I had a nice lunch with my sister today. I hope she quits that job and finds something else. And Zeb just sucks. I know why she doesn’t want to be with him and why she feels she can’t get a divorce. It’s scary. Especially for her. Be so hard to get Makayla over there unless all her rules just goes away. Cut his house, then she would just hate being over at Mel s. I think she will do it soon cause I wouldn’t deal with that for that long. Especially with his separate account. Not that having a separate account is bad, but it was kept secret. So crazy. That guy sucks.

Cont. on 11/13

Date with Gabby.

She was very nice and I did have a lot of fun. From Baltimore. Graduating next May from ASU. Lives with her folks. Has Type 1 diabetes which sucks. Net a natural red head but likes it. We started out at Artiface, we talked about her brothers show and how it went. she said it went really well. Told her about my tour life and stuff like that and stuff. She was super into horoscopes which is worrying. But really I’m not down. I’m pretty sure that I wont see her again. There was just no physical attraction. I don’t want to have to fake a whole aspect of a relationship just to save her feelings. Just it’s not happening. So, I’ll just have to break it of gently. Something like I had a lot of fun and you’re a cool person, but I don’t think we should continue to hang out anymore. I just didn’t feel anything and it’s not going to progress any more that it has so just do not waste your time or should just keep it like this and if we see each other by chance well say high and stuff. and keep if from getting awkward. Something like that should work! Next tie she ask about it I’ll bring in up and hope it goes good.

Cont. on 11/12

I think they are going to be alright. The eggs that is. I’m hard boiling 12 of them so that's 2 a day plus two days where I’ll get three. We can do Tuesday and Thursday. I’ll find a good recipe tomorrow. gotta take a break from pizza. I be I can lose 10 lbs by the christmas party. Especially if I’m not drinking. It’ll be easy. Work out stuff. Eggs are done. Bacon gets like 15 minutes. I may take a bath here shortly or tonight I should say. I’ll get all my shopping done on Sunday. Not drinking will cut the cost of this trip by a ton. I will have one with lunch but other than that no more. just tell them  I’m on a hiatus. They won’t care. It really is no big deal. Tomorrow I’ll take some week and call it good! Save my a ton on money and I won’t feel like garbage on Tuesday. Well, I guess I won’t be cooking tomorrow unless I just come home and leave for the show. I wonder how may extra miles that would be, but it doesn’t matter. Its’ only a couple bucks to not have to kill like 5 hours. So yeah, I’ll come home after work. Make some good and chill, then I’ll head out.

Cont. on 11/10-11/12

I’m more that likely going to roll after Beemaster. Probably watch a song or two of the touring guy to see how they are. Cool, I’ll stay. Not cool, I’m going to rolling after Beemaster. Sorry dude but I have to be up early and I don’t want to be out till the wee hours of the morning for some band. I’ve never heard of. I will ask Luna out and see how that goes before I figure out if I should ask Vivian. I still think I’m not “cool” enough to date her. I would definitely need to step up my wardrobe, or she does like who I am but I could be fun to get dressed up and stuff like that. Lint roller tomorrow so I can wear my blue sweater but tomorrow. Wake up at 5. No snooze go for a run. Shave and shower. Work a little early. Wrap up that stupid 945 west 8th. That job can suck it! Hopefully we’ll be slow this week. I’ll take this with me and get it filled up. I could have filled up so much if I had this at work. Oh well. Either way, I’m jamming music tomorrow and no one can stop me! Friday I will do perogies. Have Ty and Melka and Tsvet and James and I’ll see if Luna is down. Be Like a triple date! Tell the to bring a game!

Cont. on 11/9

BLT was good. I used ricotta instead of mayo since I didn’t have any. I was even at the store too. I could be having some good food, but I was lazy! I need to stop doing that. Tsvet last night just I mean. It’s awesome that they do enjoy it as well. I’ll see if Luna want to come and I’ll do the vegan pirogies. If not, I’ll do the regular ones. Make the. I’ll make the dough and filling the day before, or all of it before, then just boil and fry and they will be golden. Do Like a salad or get some hummus. Borrow their food processor and make some hummus. Slice up some veggies or find a polish side dish and see. What I can fins. Maybe there's some good stuff if not. Hummus it is. I can do two different kinds. Do traditional and tn maybe find a jalapeno hummus. Then cucumbers cherry tomato's, something. I’ll do a onion mushroom top for the perogies. If they're at the show tomorrow I’ll ask the. I’ll shoot them all a message tomorrow. Should be a good time. I know Ty will be down. Still want to have a variety of people over instead of same people all the time.

Cont. on 11/8

I wonder if I can convert the kitchen to gas if I bought this house. I would tear down this wall. Lift the ceiling and just open this house up! but I  do like the setup the way it is. It’s a pretty cute house but who knows. I may bot stay out here and go live in the bus and rent a warehouse or try and by a place with an apartment. I wander how much it'll cost? Maybe just being single is the way to go for a little while later. Maybe not try so hard. I’ll still talk to Luna though. but its just so easy to be myself. and, I took them for granite for sure. I’lI don’t know she wasn't’ right for me, but we had a lot of fun. Disney all the time, living together and working. I got over KC and Rainy. They were just way too much unfortunately. Their family is just way too much. I just wanted to stay home and play video games. I’m happy that is not a hobby anymore. Spent so much time playing games. They are really fond memories, but just doesn’t do it for me like it used too. Crazy how that have changed. I’ve changed a bunch these past couple years.

Cont. on 11/7

My blood pressure was like 14 over 92 with a heart rate of 102. I was just all high and probably because of how much I drank last night. 3 shots and 5 beers in 3.5hours on an empty stomach. I was pretty drunk unfortunately. At least I don’t have to worry about it. I’m so better at life sober so I don’t know why. I just want to feel something. Binging everything to take my mind off things. but I feel if I keep up with the writing I think I will be alright. I don’t need it, I just want it. Lately I’ve been not super happy with myself when I get super drunk. It’s just not fun anymore. I make bad decisions and just don’t do good. So I think I may just have to cut it out completely. It would be like changing my whole life. Bit I think I’m okay with it. I’ll be able to get a lot of things done and I can work more on music and other hobbies. I do want to get into wood working just because it seems fulfilling. We’ll see. I do have time to do these things I’m only 32 and I have a lot of years left to live!

Cont. on 11/6

I wonder if I can just get by with smoking weed and not drinking. I’m going to get some acid for sure. and just have some good trips. Doing it at NYE during the D could be really fun. I would be down to quit everything but psychedelics. They are by far the best. I will have acid parties. Find a girl that's down and just have fun with each other, explore each others body. I want to do that sober. Someone I’m actually attracted to. I still had fun, but it was what I needed at the time. I would sacrifice that physical attraction for being with someone. I went for what was there and easy. I have been good at not just being with someone. I’m so worried about not getting hard. I know when the time comes I will be upfront about it and let them know the deal. I also really need to lay off the porn so much and get some lube. dick is just getting beat up. Lets do a No Porn December with the no drinking and see how it goes. You can still jerk off, but without porn. I have to rewire my brain to stop thinking about porn, and it’s such a bad habit that it would definitely happen when I’m in a relationship.

[eisforeidolon]

I love your posts about SPN! Also I take great pleasure in the way you logically shut-down illogical arguments that occur in this stressful fandom. What are your thoughts on S13, your theories on what's gonna go down, what you hope happens, what you hope doesn't happen, do you want this season to be the last?

Thank you!

I actually don't tend to theorize toomuch in advance generally, and in the context of the current writingteam's ability and willingness to carry out long-term arcs?  Well, I’m even less inclined when I’m skeptical as to how far the writers themselves are really planning ahead.  They may surprise me - after season 10 I thought they’d fallen off a quality cliff they couldn’t come back from and I was wrong.

That said, I'm still honestly kind of ambivalentabout what season the show ends on.  I thought season 11 showed a lotof promise – and then we had season 12.  If 13 is good?  Well,maybe there is some life in the show yet – then again, maybeit'd be best to end on a high note.  If it's bad?  Well, maybe it'dbe best to just put the ol' thing out of its misery already – thenagain, it'd be a shame for such a once great show to trail off into unredeemedineptitude.  From the sound of it, considering the episode count, J2aren't ready to let go until at least a partial season 14, so unlessthe ratings absolutely tank it's unlikely to be in doubt.

TL;DR?  I’m a pessimist trying not to worry about it too much until the season actually starts. 

Actual TL;DR wish list and nightmare list content below the cut.

If I was gonna write up a wishlist,though?  We get a reasonably equal distribution between both brothersof major action/monster kills and emotional reactions (that not onlyactually happen at all, but *gasp* have depth!).  We get more of thebrothers generally, so they stop rarely feeling like more than obligatory glue holdingdumb subplots together.  Rowena lives and mostly does her own thingwith the occasional negotiated assistance to the Winchesters. Stale!Cas stays dead in the Empty and we get Apocaworld!Cas going forward who iscompletely different (and less gullible for having survivedApocaworld).  Normalworld!Lucifer gets immediately squashed like abug by one of the other archangels in Apocaworld and is never heardfrom again.  In fact, we don’t see much of heaven or hell unless it’s an entirely new version from Apocaworld.  Mary either teams up with Bobby in Apocaworld or comesback – and either way shows some actual interest in her sons andgets more in-depth characterization that actually reconcilesthe young woman whose primary desire was to get out of hunting withthe resurrected woman who seemed to care about nothing else.  I admitI pretty much hate the whole concept of Jack so far and the best thing I canenvision is all the hype about him being a red herring and after ahandful of episodes he'll run off to Australia to find Jesse andnever be heard from again.  The main arc, if there isone at all, will get slowly developed satisfactorily across the wholeseason – maybe getting back to Apocaland without Jack ripping upspace/time.  Perhaps they could manage something interesting withthe Winchesters having to deal with his excessive powers goinghaywire and/or him deciding he wants to be normal – maybe evenEvil!Jack and Stale!Cas could be interesting if Cas flips into a straight upvillain and together they try to enact their creepy perfect worldvision - or something better and truly unexpected!  Just so long as they pick ONE.  Hey, there's goodreason nobody's paying me to write their tv show.

What I'm afraid of and think is morelikely to happen, though?  Another season of too many half-assed,rushed plots barely strung together by events we're told arehappening off-screen.  Sam and Dean still never get to react for morethan a minute or two to any of the noteworthy things that happen tothem.  Taking Jared's glee about having a lot of time off intoaccount and the spin off being at least two episodes, I would beleast surprised if the show focuses so heavily onJack/Lucifer/Whoeverthefuck both brothers get painfully sidelined even worse than in season 12. Though I also don't want a repeat of fanboy!Dabb’s lonehero!Sam where Sam angsts about his powers like he's just fallen out of a time warp purely to lead up to saidpowers magically reappearing (but retroactively not being tainted because screw complexity and canon) and the climax is weirdly framed as him growing in regards to some issue he dealt with seasons ago rather than one he wasn’t shown to have.  Meanwhile Dean has a few outbursts of protectivenessand emotion but mainly ineffectually cheers from the sidelines and/or disappearsrandomly for all the action.  (Though suffice it to say I'd likewisehate a different plot doing the reverse, where somehow Dean does allthe major action and Sam disappears, if it turns out Dabb'sproblem is he can't concentrate on more than one brother ata time to any reasonable extent.)  Jack & the Winchestersliving together is, as threatened, written like a bad sitcom where his nephilim powers are conveniently nerfed until Jack ultimately turns on them and goes full-on evil as a *shocking twist* -likely for some completely spurious reason.   We tune in to Same-Ol'-Cas in the Empty just before he getsout in some pathetically easy way without God’s help such that the deaths of everyone, including all the major antagonists, is now potentially reversible so literally nothing from the past twelve years matters.  The entire canon is made meaningless just so Cas can remain the familiarincompetent, spineless plot device he's gradually decayed into.  Evenbetter, not only do Sam and Dean entirely forgive him when he returns without asingle smidgen of a hint of a show of diminished trust while they parrothow great of an asset/family he is?  It never even comes upthat he betrayed them again, because we should feel bad he died andhe absolutely won't do anything like that again for at leasta few weeks!  Lucifer comes back from Apocaworld almostimmediately and takes over hell.  We have to see him almost everyepisode being an incompetent, unfunny caricature of a once greatcharacter that's not remotely scary or even interesting - set to abackground of more dumb hell bureaucracy.  The other angels stink upthe place by doing something sheep-like as a pointless diversion orthree, likely going after Jack and/or Lucifer ineffectually andgetting themselves exploded like the cannon fodder they've become.  Rowena really was killed off summarily off-screen and is now replaced with some new, flat character with similar abilities but a dumber backstory that they’ll need a couple seasons to actually write into someone interesting (when they’ll do the same thing).  Bucklemming and Perez write a lot of episodes with their usual finesse. 

[1aechan]

get to know me better

idk if anyone will actually read this bc i aint nothing special but

i was tagged by @odetonct @1aeil and @markleetrashh

rules: complete the survey and say who tagged you in the beginning. when you are finished you have to tag people to do this survey. have fun and enjoy!!

1: ARE YOU NAMED AFTER SOMEONE : no lol but there was this one novela that might have been taken into account but im not sure lol 

2. WHEN IS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED : i almost shed tears today, i started to tear up while reading a book but the last time i actually cried was thursday watching the last episode of weightlifting fairy omg 

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING : yes, even when its ugly it looks pretty even thought i cant read it 

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH TO EAT : probably like a good sandwhich lol 

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS : UNLESS U COUNT NCT DREAM

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU : dfkskfajl f maybe probably, im funny tbh but like im also annoying so???

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM : ALL THE TIME OMG I DONT DO USE IT THAT OFTEN ON HERE BUT OMG ME A SARCASM QUEEN

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS : omg yes what type of question i- 

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP : nah, im a pussy, im afraid of heights

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF CEREAL : corn flakes 

11: DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF : nah i just kick em off 

12: DO YOU THINK YOU’RE A STRONG PERSON : physically, no, emotionally, for the most part, yes i don’t break easily at least i don’t let it show easily

13: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOUR : cookie dough omg i NUT

14: WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE : either their shoes or their smiles 

15: RED OR PINK : red

16: WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE PHYSICAL THING YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF : um either my hands or my stomach, theyre both fat 

17: WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING NOW : im grey sweats and no shoes on omg 

18: WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE : a tamale omg

19: WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW : nothing lol 

20: IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE: white or black 

21: FAVORITE SMELL : i love the way laundry detergent smells omg any kind i love it sm its like such a homey smell

22: WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU SPOKE TO ON THE PHONE : my sister i think

23: FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH : soccer since its the only i understand omg 

24: HAIR COLOR : black omg 

25: EYE COLOR : dark brown omg 

26: DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS : no!

27: FAVORITE FOOD TO EAT : i dont have a favorite food???

28: SCARY MOVIES OR COMEDY : comedy omg im a pussy

29: LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED : i think the grand budapest hotel??

30: WHAT COLOR OF SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING : grey (im wearing grey on grey lol)

31: SUMMER OR WINTER : winter for sure

32: HUGS OR KISSES : neither, im not very touchy feely 

33: WHAT BOOK ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING : well i finished it today but persepolis by marjane satrapi

34: WHO DO YOU MISS RIGHT NOW : ten and jaemin ahhhh

35: WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD : i have a laptop lol

36: WHAT IS THE LAST TV PROGRAM YOU WATCHED : i dont watch tv lol 

37: WHAT IS THE BEST SOUND : probably silence?? or like donghyucks vocals either one 

38: ROLLING STONES OR THE BEATLES : i dont listen to either but the rolling stones sounds edgier so lets go w that

39: WHAT IS THE FURTHEST YOU HAVE EVER TRAVELED? to Guatemala 

40: DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT : no omg 

41: WHERE WERE YOU BORN : the usa

42: PEOPLE YOU EXPECT TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS: okay i tag @jenothanks @jaeminnana @nctkilledme @tenislove @itshaechan @jung-jeff and @letmarktakeanap2k17

[sadrien]

wanna chat? pt. 14

on ao3 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

i got my harry potter nerd on for this chapter, mostly because i wanted to write and didn't know what to write about

also, i'm glad you all liked the previous chapter <3

dipshit = adrien fergie = alya no = nino dancing queen = mari

enjoy~

16:30

fergie: its 2 quiet in here time for the #discourse

no: no

fergie: shit im blanking i need a topiC @the babs: someone pls

no: i refuse to support this

dipshit: Anything?

fergie: yes

dipshit: Ok give me a second

no: fuck dude i just wanted a day of chill

fergie: babe with friends like us thats just not possible

dancing queen: What are we doing??

dipshit: Hogwarts house discourse Go

no: i cant believe i have to break up with you

fergie renamed this conversation to “hogwarts house discourse”.

dancing queen: Oh no

fergie: alright alright alright adrien = puff mari = puff nino = puff

dipshit: How do you figure

no: uhhh

dancing queen: Sorry al that seems wrong

dancing queen: oh it is it definitely is but ur all sweet enough for hufflepuff and loyal and we all eat too much food hmmm realistic one… adrien = puff mari = snake nino = raven mayb

dipshit: Make Mari Gryffindor and I’ll agree with you

fergie: whaaaaaat our girl is ambitious aF theres no way

dipshit: But she’s also a really strong leader and incredibly brave

dancing queen: If were arguing over anyone Id say adrien should be a gryffindor Oh wait maybe ravneclaw???? Hes super smart Shit this is really hard? He could be in three???

no: the fuck i was thinking slytherin actually

fergie: ???

dancing queen: ???????

no: listen my dudes the hat takes what you want into consideration right? it does it for harry anyway

fergie: what does this have to do with marshmallow being a snake which is just not accurate

no: im getting there

dipshit: Are we going by stereotypes or nah

dancing queen: Nah The stereotypes suck

no: im just saying theres no fucking way if we were wizards teh agrestes wouldnt be pure bloods and gabriel would be classic fucking slytherin

dancing queen: Ok Ill agree with that

fergie: mhmmmm

dipshit: I wouldn’t say that

no: bro even if you arent going off stereotypes your old man is probably the mos t ambitious perosn ive ever met like scary mari is almost as scary

dancing queen: Hey!!!!!!

fergie: so sorting hat

no has changed their name to sorting hat.

sorting hat: sup

fergie: are u saying adrien would ASK 2 b slytherin

sorting hat: well yeah yeah i am 

fergie: …………… i did not consider

sorting hat: i know you didnt

dancing queen: First of all since we cant decide and Im getting mixed answers from online quizzes

dancing queen has changed their name to lion snake.

lion snake: Second of all doesnt the hat also base it off of what you value the most??

dipshit: Lion snake? Like a chimera?

fergie: nerd

dipshit: Actually the chimera also has a goat ignore me

sorting hat: what the fuck

dipshit: Greek mythology

fergie: u kno what i dont wanna kno

dipshit: Anyway back to this

sorting hat: oh yeah anywa yeah the hat does but adrien wanting to please his dad might overrule that idk my dude jk didnt exactly lay ou t the rules of this super great

fergie: jk needs to c h i l l and ye each of the golden trio couldve ended up in at least one other house

dipshit: That would’ve been cool Also I don’t think I try to please my dad that much

fergie: oh sweetheart

sorting hat: dude

lion snake: Adrien you really really do

dipshit: Really?

fergie has changed their name to adriens legal guardian.

adriens legal guardian: someone needs to take care of you

dipshit: I promise I’m fine I’ve got Nathalie

sorting hat: does nathalie give you hugs

dipshit: No? Why is that relevant?

adriens legal guardian: SHE DOESNT COUNT THEN #HUGADRIENAGRESTE2K17

adriens legal guardian has changed their name to i love adrien.

i love adrien: turn on ur location agreste

dipshit: Please know that’s actually kind of creepy I’m at home you don’t have to worry about location

i love adrien: hella

sorting hat: alya chill out with the name chagnes also now im gonna be confuse d

i love adrien: i love him too but truuuuu

dipshit: ????

i love adrien: can i change it

sorting hat: last time for today??

i love adrien: ilysm

i love adrien has changed their name to cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub

dipshit: I have a fanclub? Wait that wasn’t the smartest thing to say

lion snake: Its a good thing youre cute

dipshit: I try to ignore them

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: have u ever been on the official insta of the fanclub bc its hilarious and beautiful

dipshit: …. Alya why

sorting hat: oh we totally googled you

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: mhm

lion snake: ^^^^

dipshit: That’s…..nice of you?

lion snake: Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable omg

dipshit: It’s just? Kinda weird?? I don’t mind and I probably should’ve expected it I just forget sometimes that that’s a thing people can/will do

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: adri if it makes u feel any better i google everyone ive googled everyone in this chat in our class their parents ymself random strangers if im able to

sorting hat: that is not surprising at all

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: ur not special i mean u r ur v special to me and ilysm but not here everyone gets googled and twitter stalked also tell whoevers running ur official accounts to be less lame idc about salad u eat

dipshit: What????

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: ur social media is B O R I N G i kno u dont run it but i still expected more memes

dipshit: Honestly I don’t look at it

sorting hat: its like the person we thought you were when we first met you except more boring

lion snake: Ok no thats not true Because I thought he was an asshole

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: oh shit tru

dipshit: Ahhhh yeah sorry about that

lion snake: Its fine I promise!!! Weve talked about this Its like Super perfect adn model-y and professional andnot  at all a teenage loser who stayed up until 2 watching sailor moon and eating doritos

sorting hat: fucking relatable

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: weebs

sorting hat: yo youre the one who decided to date some

lion snake: Hey Ive never asked Adrien do you have unofficial personal social media???

dipshit: ……………………. Shhhhhh

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: WHAAAAAAAT LINKS LINK S LINKS LINSK

dipshit: I have a tumblr but that’s it

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: oh my go d this weekend  we get 2gether adn make adrien all the social media and we revamp his tumblr bc ur theme sucks

dipshit: ???? You’ve never even seen it???

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: i know it does marsh !!!!!!!! can u imagine if lb and cn had social media!!!!! id c r y

PM between dipshit and lion snake

dipshit: P l e a s e

lion snake: Oh my og d

dipshit: Please please please please please please please plEASE

lion snake: HOld on!!! Im discussing with tikki

dipshit: Plagg says he doesn’t care what we do

lion snake: Yeah we arent trusting him

dipshit: Fair enough WHAT IF I CAN GET SNAPCHAT ON MY BATON A LITERAL SNAPCHAT

lion snake: No Just because of that No

dipshit: Pleaaaaaseeeeeeeee My lady it’ll be great I swear

lion snake: U gh Well talk on it on patrol tonight k??

dipshit: YES!!!!

19:05 in hogwarts house discourse

sorting hat: i know weve moved on but man. fuck snape

 20:12

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: do u think if i track down lb and cn and ask them for their hogwarts houses theyll tell me

sorting hat: worth a shot?

 20:42

cochairman of adrien agreste fanclub: update: chat says ladybg is a gryffindor and lb says shes iether that or slytherin so like mari and they cant agree on cn

 22:53

sorting hat: damn you adrien i cant stop thinking about this what is mari?? what is adrien??? what am i?? al youre either gryffindor or ravenclaw ive decided

lion snake: Youre the sorting hat shouldnt you know all???

sorting hat: bruh we need the actual sorting hat for this

lion snake: Fair enough

sorting hat: lets say adrien is a hatstall and move on

3:03

PM between dipshit and lion snake

dipshit: Rise and shine bugaboo Akuma at 3 o’clock Literally 3 o’clock the time not the like If you’re using 12, 3, 6, and 9 as directions It’s not You know what My tracker on my baton is turned on so use that to find me

 3:08

dipshit: Mari Mari Alright plan b I’m gonna call  you and if you don’t pick up I’m going to show up on your balcony Which sounds creepy but also this akuma is now stacking cars and I don’t really know what to do? They aren’t even trying to do anything else right now Am I missing something??? I’m confused

 3:12

lion snake has changed their name to ahHHH

ahHHH: IM SO SORRY Tikki woke me up my phone was muted She says Waitw e dont hav etime for this Ive gotta transform so Ill talk to you when I get there??

dipshit: It’s fine just watching an akuma build a tower out of cars Remind me to show you how to sync Skype up to your yoyo

ahHHH: Youre on skype on your baton??

dipshit: Yeah it makes things easier

ahHHH: Huh Al and nino didnt wake up?

dipshit: I think the akumas too far away for them to hear, but also it’s not exactly being distructive When we actually start fighting people might start waking up but for now it’s being pretty quiet even with the car stacking

ahHHH: Well thats good they need their sleep Wait if the akuma was quiet how did you know??

dipshit: People started posting to the Ladyblog forums and I had that open in another tab

ahHHH: ???/ Why were you up????

dipshit: Bad night I couldn’t sleep so I put on Howl’s Moving Castle

ahHHH: Feeling any better?

dipshit: I’m sure I’ll feel better when I see you :3

ahHHH: Oh myg do Itst oo early for this Ill see you in fa few just stop that cat face

dipshit: ;3

[tialovestelevision]

Revelations

Well, that was fun. Let’s see what’s next on the list, why don’t we? I don’t really remember this episode at all. 1. Another Dingoes Ate My Baby concert to start us out. 2. Guuuuuilt. 3. They think Buffy is acting strangely. The thing is, even without knowing about Angel, her behavior isn’t strange at all. Maybe they should watch Dead Man’s Party again. 4. Buffy thinks she and Faith are just good friends. I’m not sure Faith agrees. 5. Where was Faith during the last episode? She would have been helpful. 6. I love watching Buffy and Faith work together. They get the best action scenes the show’s yet generated. 7. Huh. New Watcher for Faith. 8. I know Faith gets another Watcher later in the season, so Mrs. Post is doomed, evil, or both. 9. Given how awful she’s being to Giles, probably both. 10. “Interesting lady. Can we kill her?” “I think the Council might frown on that.” 11. Now Buffy and Angel are doing yoga together. 12. And barely not making out. 13. David Boreanaz is starting to age a bit, visibly. Not a ton, but he distinctly looks different from the first episode of the show. I mean, so does everyone else, but Angel’s a vampire, so that’s a small issue. 14. Angel knows the name Lagos. But he’s not giving details. 15. “Then go home. If you choose to stay, then work.” 16. Xander and Willow are together again. We’re getting another scene in the painfully slow-burning disintegration of their relationships. 17. Willow says stop. Xander expresses that he understands what that word means. Xander does not stop. 18. There. He stopped. 19. And now they’re kissing again. 20. Giles saved them from kissing even more. 21. If that’s Lagos, he just no-sold Faith’s high knee. That’s a bad sign. 22. Then he gut-punched her and left. 23. “Hey, Giles, here’s a nifty idea. Why don’t I alleviate my guilt by going out and getting myself really, really killed?” I’m all for it, Xander. 24. Xander just saw Angel. That’s probably a bad thing. 25. Angel didn’t see Xander. 26. Now Xander is in Angel’s house. That’s not a good place to hang out alone and uninvited, Xander. 27. And now Xander has seen Buffy making out with Angel. In other news, Buffy is making out with Angel. 28. Angel found the Glove of Mynhegon. That was nice of him. 29. Xander arrives at the worst moments. Always. 30. Great. Group confrontation on Buffy. Again. Lovely. They need to stop that shit. 31. Xander: “I hope not. Because I think you’re harboring a vicious killer.” Xander, you do not want to go down the road of things people do when possessed by demons, do you? I seem to recall a certain hyena demon and a certain attempted rape in your past. 32. “You must have known it was wrong seeing Angel, or you wouldn’t have hidden it from all of us.” Or maybe it’s because Dead Man’s Party happened. That’s a possibility, isn’t it? 33. “What, you just tripped and fell on his lips?” Xander, do you want to get into it on ill-advised kissing? 34. Willow is handling this… relatively well, except that she’s failing to account for the fact that everyone else involved - especially Xander and Cordy - aren’t. I mean, she’s still misguided, but she’s a very reasonable sort of misguided. Xander is venomous, and Cordy is being her worst self. 35. Giles cutting that one off was the best action anyone took during that scene. 36. I get Giles here. He probably suffered the worst trauma of anyone during Evil Angel’s actions with the possible exception of Buffy herself. But his personal connection to the issue means that keeping him out of the loop could easily be a sign of respect for his job - a respect that knows its boundaries. Giles is an angry man, down at his core, and Evil Angel murdered someone he cared for then tortured him at length before having Dru violate his mind. Nobody could be unbiased after that, and nobody could remember that it wasn’t Angel the man, but Evil Angel the demon who did it when looking into the eyes that watched his torture. 37. And here’s Mrs. Post trying to drive wedges between Faith and Buffy. Definitely evil and doomed. 38. Buffy’s brilliant plan is actually pretty good. It would be better if they secured the Glove first, but it’s a pretty good plan. 39. And Xander’s playing right into Mrs. Post’s plan, because of course he is. 40. Now Xander and Faith are going to try to kill Angel. Because of course Xander’s going to encourage that. 41. Mrs. Post doesn’t want Giles to destroy the Glove. And has now KOed him. Definitely evil. Probably doomed. 42. Guilt Girl Willow. 43. Oh, look, Willow and Buffy found Lagos. 44. He’s underselling Buffy’s moves, but at least he’s not no-selling them. 45. Headless Lagos! 46. … Wow. Xander didn’t jump straight to Angel having brained Giles. He’s… being reasonable. Of course, he’s already done his part - Faith is riled up to the point of murder. But this is a surprising attempt at actually being helpful from him. 47. Xander is actively attempting to murder Angel again. 48. Mrs. Post just brained Angel. That’s… not going to help as much as one might think. 49. I just watched through the whole fight between Buffy and Faith, and against Mrs. Post. That was quite good… Buffy vs. Faith is probably the best fight scene the show’s had so far, and Mrs. Post with the Glove was scary. The way they won worked. The emotional dynamics worked. That whole scene just worked. 50. Buffy should not be asking Xander if they are cool. She was right, all along, he was wrong, and he tried to have an innocent man murdered. Again. Xander should be pleading for forgiveness, if social dynamics are our main concern. 51. Why was Giles not informed when Mrs. Post was thrown out? Why didn’t he call the Council to check? The Watchers never talk and that causes all the problems in this episode. 52. Buffy trying to build bridges here is sweet. Overall: There’s a lot to break down in that one. It once again wanders into the fact that the show tends to absolve some characters (Xander, Joyce) of blame while others (Angel, Buffy) are expected to carry guilt for things that they had no power over or knowledge of the implications of. But that’s incidental to what was a fairly well-assembled episode. It’s also a good opportunity to talk about television and institutions. I’ll put up another post about that once it’s written. Good episode, action-packed, enjoyable, and Mrs. Post was an effective villain. Xander was also a fairly effective villain, but in ways that really should be pushing him out of the main cast and aren’t.

[brajeshupadhyay]

California Becomes First State to Report 600,000 Cases: Live Updates

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

[music]

So far, the debate over school reopenings has been dominated by a president who is determined to send students back into classrooms —

archived recording (donald trump)

We want to reopen the schools. Everybody wants it. The moms want it. The dads want it. The kids want it. It’s time to do it.

michael barbaro

— and by local school officials, who are answering that call.

archived recording (donald trump)

So we’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools.

michael barbaro

Today: My colleague Dana Goldstein on why teachers and their unions are defying those plans.

It’s Thursday, August 13.

archived recording (ron desantis)

Good evening. I stand here tonight not only as governor of Florida, but as a husband, a father, a son and a friend to have a conversation about how we as Floridians approach these challenging times. As a parent of three, I know that my fellow parents here in Florida want nothing more than to provide a bright future for their children. And here’s the hard truth. While the risks to students from in-person learning are low, the cost of keeping schools closed are enormous.

michael barbaro

Dana, tell me about this situation with schools in Florida.

dana goldstein

In early July, just as the Trump administration from Washington was pushing schools to reopen their physical campuses across the country, Florida was the state that really leaned heavily in that same direction under their Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.

archived recording (ron desantis)

The important thing is that our parents have a meaningful choice when it comes to in-person education. Let’s not let fear get the best of us and harm our children in the process.

dana goldstein

The state issued this executive order.

archived recording

The state is announcing it’s requiring all schools to reopen for in-person classes next month, August.

dana goldstein

Telling schools that they had to reopen five days a week.

archived recording 1

So that announcement coming today, given where Florida is. Your analysis.

archived recording 2

I mean my analysis is that that is insane

dana goldstein

And this was shocking to superintendents and school boards. You know, they had spent the months of May, June, into July mostly planning for a hybrid model of education. Kids would go to school two or three, or maybe even just one day a week in person, and be home learning online the rest of the time. School districts all of a sudden were being told you have to offer parents and families the option of five days a week in the building.

archived recording

So we are not ready to open schools in four weeks. We need to slow down and take a pause and get this right around the state first.

michael barbaro

And what would happen if schools didn’t physically reopen five days a week?

dana goldstein

You know, I think the kind of underlying threat was that you would lose state dollars if you don’t provide families with this option for in-person learning. And this threat to them was quite scary. Because state funding for education is the main funding that funds our school system in the United States.

michael barbaro

And what was the state of the pandemic when the state of Florida makes this demand?

dana goldstein

So these numbers were so shocking to us when we did reporting on this that we actually fact checked them many, many times to make sure they were correct.

archived recording

Florida shattering its daily record, recording more than 15,000 cases, accounting for a quarter of the total new daily cases in the United States.

dana goldstein

In some south Florida counties in the month of July —

archived recording

South Florida’s Miami-Dade has seen a staggering daily positivity rate of 33 percent.

dana goldstein

— between 20 and 30 percent of coronavirus tests were coming back positive. And the World Health Organization, the state of California, the state of New York have tended to use a range of about 5 percent to 10 percent test positivity rates as something to look at when deciding whether or not to open schools. So here you might see, you know, four times that number in a city like Miami.

archived recording

Here in Miami-Dade, according to county data released yesterday, the goal for the county is not to exceed 10 percent. They have exceeded that for the past 14 days.

dana goldstein

A strong indication that the virus is completely unchecked in that region. In fact, it was one of the most dangerous cities for the virus in the United States.

michael barbaro

Right. So what was the reaction across Florida to this executive order?

dana goldstein

Anger.

archived recording

If the governor wants to open schools publicly, how about we invite him to come and teach in the classroom? [CHEERING]

dana goldstein

A lot of teachers and educators were angry.

archived recording

If he wants to open schools, how about he provide teachers with hazard pay? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re on the frontlines of a pandemic that you didn’t start, you didn’t call for and we don’t have control for. [CHEERING]

dana goldstein

Because they felt that their safety and, in some respects, safety of the entire community from a public health perspective was nowhere in this conversation.

archived recording

I teach my students the history of America, how this government has run, how it works. This is a democracy. Our voices need to be heard.

dana goldstein

And my inbox and social media were filled with messages from teachers.

archived recording

So I want everyone to hear my voice that if I die from catching Covid-19 from being forced back into Pinellas County Schools, you can drop my dead body right here! Leave my body right here! [CHEERING]

[music]

dana goldstein

And it was just this sense that the question of whether we should go back did not pay enough attention to teachers’ health risks.

archived recording 1

Do you feel ready to return to your classroom?

archived recording 2

I do not. I personally have lost sleep over it. I’ve cried over it. I cry over it a lot. It’s very, very scary. And the one thing I’m going to say, I will say online learning is not ideal. But it will keep our children safe.

archived recording

I’m a teacher. I’ve been with Duval County for 23 years. I have a mother at home that is sick. And if I am to get the coronavirus, I don’t want to bring it back to her.

dana goldstein

Yes, it’s really important that kids get educated. It’s really important that parents be able to work during the day and children have the basic childcare that schools provide. However —

archived recording 1

We teachers love our students. And we agree that the best place for students is in school. But that’s only if they’re safe. If going to school is more dangerous for students or for their families, then we should hold off and do some sort of distance learning or a hybrid model until it’s safe for them.

archived recording 2

I think there’s no way to social distance in our already crowded classrooms. There is not enough money to provide for the extra staff that we would need and the extra P.P.E. that we would need. I don’t think that it’s worth the risk.

dana goldstein

We are used to going into schools that sometimes don’t have soap in the bathrooms, that sometimes have broken windows that prevent us from circulating fresh air, that have dated heating and ventilation systems. And where is our health in this equation?

archived recording

This is not how I want to go back. And I want to go back so bad. Because I love teaching. I miss my classroom. I miss my kids.

michael barbaro

So what did teachers in Florida do?

archived recording

The largest teachers union in Florida is suing the state over its executive order mandating that schools reopen next month with in-person instruction.

dana goldstein

So a bunch of the local and national union groups that represent teachers came together and they sued the state of Florida.

archived recording

In the lawsuit, the union says the state is unconstitutionally forcing millions of students and teachers into unsafe schools.

dana goldstein

Saying that this executive order requiring schools to reopen five days a week in person actually violated Florida’s own state law that also calls for schools to be safe.

archived recording

The suit says children are at risk of contracting and spreading the virus and of developing severe illness, resulting in death. And the state mandate to open schools is impossible to comply with C.D.C. guidelines on physical distancing, hygiene and sanitation if schools are operating at full capacity.

dana goldstein

It’s really very simple what they were arguing, that going back five days a week is not safe and therefore, cannot be legal.

michael barbaro

Huh. I have to think that it’s a pretty unusual act, you know, teachers suing to stop their own schools from reopening.

dana goldstein

Yes. It’s definitely unusual and notable. And interestingly, it paved the way for similar threats to sue across the country, including in northern cities like Chicago and New York. And shortly after this Florida suit came down —

archived recording

The American Federation of Teachers has told its 1.7 million members that if they choose to strike, the union will have their back.

dana goldstein

The American Federation of Teachers, which is one of the two national unions, authorized any of their locals across the country to plan a strike in the event that safety precautions are not being met to reopen schools.

michael barbaro

Wow. So a national teachers union is saying, a grounds for striking — which traditionally we’ve always thought of as wages, health care, those kinds of issues — they’re now saying you may decide to strike over unsafe school conditions in the middle of this pandemic?

dana goldstein

Exactly. The threat to strike is very powerful and pragmatic. Because once teachers threaten to strike over the safety measures and questions of funding, it really puts pressure on the local school districts to give them a big seat at the table. And just the core decision, which is, are we even going to try to have in-person school this fall?

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back.

So Dana, as teachers are seeking a place at the table and threatening to strike if they don’t feel like schools are safe, what exactly are they asking for in order to feel ready to return to the classroom?

dana goldstein

We’re seeing a very broad range of demands from teachers. And it runs the spectrum from very specific and achievable requests, to ones that are hugely ambitious, time consuming, expensive, or maybe even impossible to achieve while we’re still experiencing any transmission of Covid-19.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

dana goldstein

So for example in Orlando, when I spoke to teachers there in July, the requests were really quite reasonable. They wanted face masks to be required. They wanted temperature checks in all school district buildings. And then, the American Federation of Teachers, the national union that authorized strikes, had a very specific set of demands that they were looking for nationally. They wanted to see test positivity rates for the virus below 5 percent, transmission rates below 1 percent, effective contact tracing for the entire region, the school to require masks, update ventilation systems, and put in place procedures to maintain six feet of distance.

michael barbaro

Wow.

dana goldstein

So very much sort of in line with C.D.C. guidelines for being as safe as possible.

michael barbaro

So the union is making demands of an entire community, and level of infection and transmission and contact tracing beyond the school?

dana goldstein

Exactly. They’re expecting those things to work in the whole region before you sort of even get to the question of what sort of P.P.E. is available to teachers or something like that.

michael barbaro

What about less practical requests from teachers?

dana goldstein

So there you see this big movement bubbling up on social media under the hashtag #14daysnonewcases. And this is really quite a radical demand for schools not to reopen physically until there are no new cases in a region for 14 days. Now many nations have been able to reopen their schools safely without achieving that standard. And when I’ve spoken to public health experts about this, what they say is, you know, “14 days no new cases” is not just a controlled pandemic, it’s essentially the end of the pandemic in that region. And it might require a vaccine to get to that standard. Not just a vaccine that exists and works, but that has actually been deployed widely. When will that occur? Will that occur six months from now, 12 months from now, two years from now? We just don’t know the answer to that. And those start to be very big numbers when you’re thinking about children being out of school.

michael barbaro

I wonder what these demands from teachers look like to parents in this moment. I mean, I’m mindful that many parents want their kids to return to school for a variety of very understandable reasons.

dana goldstein

That’s right. I mean, I think the really hard thing is that there is no consensus or even strong majority opinion among parents. One recent national poll found about 60 percent of parents at this moment believe it’s smarter to delay reopening physical schools until the virus subsides somewhat and there are more safety measures in place. But in some big cities, where the virus has been relatively well-controlled, like New York and Chicago, polls have found that a majority of families do have some willingness to send their kids back to school. And to add another layer of complication, it tends to be parents of color and low income parents that are the most scared of the health threats to their children of congregating in school buildings. But those families are also the most concerned about their kids falling back socially and academically because schools are closed. So there is just no consensus among parents as to what they feel is safe. It would in some ways be easier if American parents all agreed with each other about what was right here.

michael barbaro

Mhm. And of course in the absence of physically returning to schools, we’re left with online learning. And we have covered on the show the problems with how teachers and school districts are approaching that. Yeah. So in the spring, only a small segment of American school districts actually required teachers to teach live lessons over something like Zoom video. And here I think there is actually more risk of tension between parents and teachers. Because we’re starting to see from polls what parents are asking for in a situation of continued remote learning. They were not happy that in the spring, many of their kids did not see teachers live over video. Many teachers were interacting with their students primarily over email at sort of random times per day. And that’s not what parents want. They want their students to log on at very specific times and be in something like an online class, where they would have small group breakout sessions and discussions and have the opportunity to ask the teacher questions and get individualized feedback. And teachers unions are still, in some cases, resisting some of these practices, including even showing their faces on live video. And Dana, why would that be? I guess I’m confused. If teachers are deeply reluctant to return to schools for very understandable reasons that you just outlined, and they don’t feel school districts are meeting them halfway, why would they simultaneously be resisting a more enriched online remote teaching experience?

dana goldstein

Well, some of them make the argument that it’s not fair to provide too much live instruction, because students who don’t have an adult to supervise their online learning at home, say, at exactly 10:00 a.m., might just miss out on the live lesson. So they think that that mode of education is not effective. But I’ve also heard some arguments much simpler than that, that they don’t want their homes to be shown. They’re not comfortable in that medium. And they believe it’s a violation of their own privacy to be shown from home in that way. So it’s a range of different arguments there.

michael barbaro

That would seem to raise a real crisis. I mean, teachers both not wanting to be in classrooms, but also not wanting to teach online the way parents want them to.

dana goldstein

Well, this has been the sort of crux of these very tense latest negotiations across the country between teachers and school district leaders.

michael barbaro

Dana, I know a bunch of school districts around the country have actually started classes in schools. And I wonder how that has played out.

dana goldstein

Well, there have been some horror stories, unfortunately.

archived recording

In Georgia, this photo of a crowded hallway, no mask in sight, from North Paulding High School went viral after the school opened for in-person learning on August 3.

dana goldstein

You know, for one of the first school districts to reopen, which was in Georgia, hundreds of staff were told to stay home because of potential exposure to the virus.

archived recording

Today the school remain closed, a week after that reopening.

dana goldstein

In Indiana —

archived recording

One student at Greenfield Central Junior High tested positive on the very first day of school.

dana goldstein

— right away this junior high school was having to call teachers and call students’ families and ask them to stay home for two weeks.

archived recording

Students at Elwood Junior Senior High now have to go remote after staff members there tested positive for Covid-19.

dana goldstein

Now that’s extremely alarming. But I want to say that nobody who’s a public health or education expert believes that we’re going to reopen schools without students and teachers showing up from time to time positive for Covid-19. That’s not a realistic expectation. But what we do need is procedures in place to deal with that when it happens. I mean, it needs to be clear who is getting told to stay home for two weeks. And, is their access to testing for anyone who came in contact with that positive individual? So in many ways, I think these anecdotes that we’re hearing of kind of first-day-back crises in towns and cities that are trying to reopen physically do show that many of the concerns that teachers have brought to the table here are quite legitimate.

michael barbaro

So those are a small number of districts that have already reopened. But of course, many of the nation’s largest school districts — Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., among others, are now firmly saying that they will not physically reopen schools at least initially. And that represents millions of students. So do teachers unions and teachers see that as a kind of victory?

dana goldstein

They do see it as a victory, absolutely. They believe that it’s not only what’s necessary to protect their health but to prevent schools emerging as potential hot spots for spreading Covid-19. But I think within that victory, there is also a real tragedy for American children and actually for our country. Because to be in a place where the needs of public health and safety are really juxtaposed against our ability to fully educate our kids, is to be in a place that very few other developed nations are in right now. And it is because of our failure to control the pandemic itself. We are looking at the real likelihood that millions or tens of millions of children do not attend school for an entire year. A full year of no school. And we just know that it’s going to lead to big problems. It’s going to make kids less likely to learn to read. It’s going to probably lead to higher high school dropout rates. It’s going to lead to students who don’t have enough to eat, because school is where they are fed. And to students that don’t have access to the mental health counseling and the special education services that they get at schools. So the fact that we’re having to choose between everything crucial that the physical school provides and public health, it’s stunning. It’s stunning to me as a 15-year veteran on the education beat and just also as a parent. You know, my daughter is going to come through this pandemic just fine. She has access to a great childcare and we have a lot of resources in our home and family to bring her through this. But still, it’s really sad for our family that she’s missing the preschool experience that we really wanted her to have. It’s been months since she was with teachers and socializing with a group of students. And she’s started even to become more timid around other kids, we’ve noticed when we do take those walks out to the playground. And you know, it’s sad for our family. And it’s just a tiny microcosm of how sad it is for our country.

michael barbaro

Dana, thank you very much.

dana goldstein

Thank you so much, Michael.

michael barbaro

Starting this week, several Florida school districts began holding in-person classes, even as the lawsuit filed by the state’s teachers union moves ahead. A court hearing in that case is scheduled for later today. Meanwhile, in New York City on Wednesday, the influential unions representing principals and teachers called on the city to delay starting in-person instruction by several weeks. In a statement, one of the union’s leaders said that the city had failed to address teachers’ safety concerns and had failed to give them enough time to implement complicated safety protocols.

We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today.

archived recording (joe biden)

Good afternoon, everyone. To me and to Kamala, this is an exciting day. It’s a great day for our campaign and it’s a great day for America, in my view.

michael barbaro

During their first joint appearance as a ticket on Wednesday, Joe Biden praised Kamala Harris for her record as the attorney general of California and as a United States senator, calling her an unapologetic advocate for justice.

archived recording (kamala harris)

Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Joe. As I said, Joe, when you called me, I am incredibly honored by this responsibility. And I’m ready to get to work. I am ready to get to work.

michael barbaro

In her remarks, Harris immediately delivered a stinging indictment of President Trump as a self-absorbed leader who has repeatedly failed America, above all, during the pandemic.

archived recording (kamala harris)

America is crying out for leadership. Yet we have a president who cares more about himself than the people who elected him. A president who is making every challenge we face even more difficult to solve. But here’s the good news. We don’t have to accept the failed government of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. In just 83 days, we have a chance to choose a better future.

michael barbaro

And —

archived recording (dr. anthony fauci)

I hope that the Russians have actually definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective. I seriously doubt that they’ve done that.

michael barbaro

The Trump administration’s top adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, expressed deep doubts about Russia’s rushed plan to distribute a vaccine for the coronavirus. The vaccine, called Sputnik V, was approved by Russia’s government without evidence that the largest and most important phase of human testing had ever occurred.

archived recording (anthony fauci)

So if we wanted to take the chance of hurting a lot of people or giving them something that doesn’t work, we could start doing this, you know, next week if we wanted to. But that’s not the way it works.

michael barbaro

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

The post California Becomes First State to Report 600,000 Cases: Live Updates appeared first on Shri Times News.

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[goldira01]

Phase 1 Signing = Phase 1 Optimism

It’s trade deal week! Are you excited?

Yes, dear reader, the much-hyped “phase 1” U.S.-China trade deal will finally be signed this week. It’s about time, I must say.

In case you’ve been trapped behind a wall, I put all the nitty-gritty details together in bullet points below (We all love bullet points, don’t we?):

China agreed to buy $200 billion in U.S. farm goods and other products/services over two years.

China agreed to address the protection of U.S. intellectual property.

China agreed to provide U.S. companies greater access to its financial sector.

China agreed to not devalue its currency to prop up exporters.

The U.S. agreed to not impose new tariffs on $156 billion in Chinese imports.

The U.S. agreed to halve the existing 15% tariff rate on $120 billion of Chinese goods.

The U.S. agreed to increase the number of tariff exceptions it’s willing to grant.

Not too shabby for a phase 1 deal.

But, Chinese social media account Taoran Notes was quick to remind everyone: “We must bear in mind that the trade war is not over yet.” After all, the U.S. still maintains tariffs on some Chinese imports, and China is “still implementing retaliatory measures.”

What’s more, the U.S. plans to pursue a “phase 2” agreement as soon as possible to address subsidies for Chinese businesses, Chinese cyber intrusions in the U.S. and technology transfer to Chinese businesses.

We’re clearly not out of the woods yet, but this appears to be an excellent starting point.

The Takeaway:

With the phase 1 signing comes phase 1 optimism.

Bullish sentiment surrounding the deal has become quite infectious. Everyone from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) to JD.com Inc. (Nasdaq: JD) to Tencent Holdings Ltd. (OTC: TCEHY) surged today.

Heck, even video streaming service Bilibili Inc. (Nasdaq: BILI) and electric vehicle maker Nio Inc. (NYSE NIO) are joining in the fun.

The thing is, most of these companies weren’t directly affected by the U.S. tariffs anyway. Alibaba makes most of its money selling goods and services in China and Southeast Asia. (Singles Day sales hit an all-time high of $38.3 billion at Alibaba despite the trade war.) It was the same with JD.com.

Tencent has the most U.S. exposure, but most of that is due to online app sales and microtransaction revenue.

The point is, for the vast majority of U.S.-listed Chinese stocks, the trade war can be more accurately described as a war on investor sentiment. If you were able to weather the spike in negativity toward these stocks, you’re about to be well rewarded.

Alibaba, for instance, has surged more than 34% since the phase 1 deal was announced. BABA shares now trade at all-time highs. JD.com shares saw similar performance, but remain about 22% below their all-time highs — so there’s room to grow here for China’s biggest online retailer (by revenue).

Right now, you’re probably wondering: “Should I invest in Chinese stocks, or is it too late?”

Well … it’s not too late, per se, but chasing the current rally might not net you the kinds of gains you’re looking for. Today’s phase 1 signing optimism comes at the tail end of a four-month rally for U.S.-listed Chinese stocks.

Are there more gains to be had? Certainly. But you might be better served if you wait for a bit of consolidation or profit-taking from early investors before diving back into the sector at this point.

That said, keep an eye on Alibaba and JD.com as earnings draw near. Alibaba reports around January 29 and JD.com near February 14. After a record-breaking Singles Day, both should offer up impressive numbers that could send the stocks skipping higher.

Good: Oppenheimer, Destroyer of Shorts

I don’t think there’s a better word to describe Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) short sellers right now than “thunderstruck.” (Well, maybe “screwed.”)

This morning, Oppenheimer dropped a bomb on TSLA shorts by lifting its price target on the stock from $385 to $612 — which is way more specific than $500 or $0. Analyst Colin Rusch said he believes Tesla has hit “critical scale” and can now sustain positive free cash flow.

The boost sent TSLA shares soaring above the $500 mark for the first time ever. But it’s even worse than that for Tesla shorts. The stock has more than doubled in the past three months, raining pain down upon short sellers.

Despite a 5% decline in the most recent reporting period, 19.6% of Tesla’s float (or shares available for public trading) remains sold short. After hitting $500 today, I expect that figure to decline rapidly as shorts get squeezed into buying back their positions and ending their bearish pain.

The bottom line: We haven’t seen the end of the current Tesla bull rally. (And we haven’t even touched on Model 3 fart noises yet!)

Better: Hot Pants, Hot Stock

“What retail apocalypse?”

That’s what investors in Lululemon Athletica Inc. (Nasdaq: LULU) must be thinking today. The athleisure apparel retailer just lifted its earnings and sales forecasts for the holiday quarter due to strong seasonal demand.

Lululemon lifted its earnings expectations by $0.12 to between $2.22 and $2.25 per share, with revenue expected to come in between $1.37 billion and $1.38 billion — a $5 million boost to prior guidance.

That’s a lot of yoga pants. Enough to push LULU shares to a fresh all-time high.

If Lululemon teaches us anything about retail, it’s that this so-called retail apocalypse isn’t affecting every retailer. Only the ones that apparently can’t adapt quickly enough to changing retail demands. On that note, Lululemon already learned its lesson, and it’s executing impressively right now.

Best: In the Cards for Big Data

If you’re not familiar with Cardlytics Inc. (Nasdaq: CDLX), you need to get familiar now.

The company specializes in analyzing banking rewards program data and turning that information into actionable marketing and advertising strategies. While this may sound boring — let’s be honest, digging through someone’s bank rewards data would put all of us right to sleep — Cardlytics’ business model is very profitable.

The company has beaten Wall Street’s earnings projections in every quarter for the past year. And it’s about to do so once again. Cardlytics just announced preliminary fourth-quarter results, and Wall Street is shocked.

The company expects total revenue to be between $68.5 million and $69.5 million on total billings of between $99 million and $101 million. Now, those numbers may not mean a lot to you, but Wall Street is very impressed, let me tell you.

How impressed? CDLX shares are up more than 21% following the preliminary announcement.

It’s a vulnerable time for a lot of these young dudes, feel me? They don’t be taking care of their chicken right. … I’ll tell y’all right now while y’all in it, take care of your bread so when you’re all done you can go ahead and take care of yourself.

— Marshawn Lynch, Seattle Seahawks running back

After losing to the Green Bay Packers last night, Lynch refused to offer up your typical sportsball clichés — and instead offered up a unique perspective on money. Clearly, Lynch’s commentary was aimed at NFL players — 80% of whom suffer from financial stress shortly after retiring.

However, Lynch’s words of caution also apply to anyone when it comes to retirement, echoing the Great Stuff motto of “be prepared.”

I wonder if we could get away with changing that to: “Are you taking care of your chicken right?” or “Are you making bread to keep yourself ahead?”

Maybe we’ll just leave that to Marshawn. That seems best.

Great Stuff Helps You Protect Your Bread

Mr. Great Stuff, you could’ve left the analogy in the last section.

I see your point and sidestep it to tell you the best way to care for your chicken — er, wealth.

If you’re serious about maintaining your wealth, freedom and independence in a (sometimes) scary world, Ted Bauman has your back.

Having worked with clients as high and mighty as the United Nations, the World Bank and the South African government, Ted’s not your ordinary “business consultant.” Instead, you’ll find that Ted cares about teaching you how to protect your money just as much as growing it.

Ted’s thousands of subscribers already know his no-holds-barred perspective from The Bauman Letter … but here’s your chance to reap Ted’s wisdom free.

It’s the best news you could get on a Monday … Ted and company are bringing market insights and real-world commentary to your inbox with the new Bauman Daily! Don’t miss out on the tips and tricks that can keep your money safe … click here to start reading.

Remember, it’s a vulnerable time for a lot of these young dudes (and dudettes) … feel me?

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Great Stuff Managing Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

[themoneybuff-blog]

18 Two-Minute Chores to Tackle Right Away

All too often we explain away our lifestyle or money messes by saying, I just dont have time to do [whatever would have prevented the problem]. Heres a simple, supremely effective tactic: Any time something can be done (or at least well-begun) in two minutes or less, then for heavens sake, do it! The two-minute rule cant fix everything in our lives. But applying it helps to keep chores and paperwork from piling up quite so high. Every time a little thing doesnt add to the big things, our lives get better. More to the point, a small block of time can result in ongoing dividends. For example, shopping apps can get you discounts, cash back, or even refunds if a price drops. Downloading apps like Ibotta, Earny, Shopkick, Paribus, or Cartwheel gives the chance to both save and earn money when shopping for essentials and treats alike. Some of the tips in this article are simple productivity hacks. Others could completely change your financial life. All take just a couple of minutes at a time, and will move you further along the road to financial security. 1. Pay attention to your accounts. Personal finance author Beverly Harzog checks her credit card accounts every morning. It takes very little time, says the U.S. News & World Report columnist, and is a great way to catch fraud in the early stages. Dont want to check every day? Let the account tell you, by setting up an alert. Ask the bank or credit union to let you know when a bill has been paid or a debit card is used, or have the credit card company flag any transactions over a certain amount. Or over any amount, maybe: Jim Wang of WalletHacks.com has his card alert him to every. Single. Transaction. Yes, he really did set the alert amount to $0.00. You hear all these stories of people getting ripped off in $5 and $10 amounts because they dont notice, Wang says. These alerts let you know immediately that somethings wrong. The sooner you report fraud, the fewer losses a card issuer has to eat and remember, the cost of fraud gets passed along to all consumers eventually. 2. Order a free credit report. Are you checking your credit report often enough? You can do it for free three times a year (once for each of the major credit reporting bureaus) by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com. Requesting one report every four months can prevent small issues from becoming big ones. For example, if the report says you missed a payment but you really didnt, write to the credit bureau and get this fixed. Or perhaps theres an account on there that you didnt open. That could be a simple mistake but it could also be a sign of fraud. 3. Consider credit monitoring. Depending on what kind you choose, a credit monitoring service will do things such as check for account applications (bank, phone, credit, utilities) made in your name, provide identity theft insurance, monitor your personal information across thousands of databases, and alert you if there are any changes to your credit report or score. Some of these services are even free, such as Credit Karma and Credit Sesame. Personal finance writer Cameron Huddleston says one such alert clued her in to a drop in her credit score. Turns out she had a payment that she didnt realize was late. I quickly fixed the problem and raised my score in the process, says Huddleston, life and money columnist for GOBankingRates. 4. Set up automatic payments. If youre confident youll always have enough in your checking account, put your bills on auto-pay and let them take care of themselves. No more missed payments! Not everyone can (or wants to) keep that much in checking from month to month, though. Due to the hectic nature of life, Lee Huffman of the Bald Thoughts blog suggests setting up payment for at least the minimum amount each month. You can still pay bills in full manually, but setting an automatic minimum means no more late fees, ever. 5. Download your banks mobile app. Having your phone talk to your bank makes it easy to check account alerts wherever you are. Some apps offer other perks, such as letting you deposit checks remotely rather than having to drive to the bank (big time-saver) or letting you make person-to-person payments (helpful for stuff like chipping in on a shared utility bill or reimbursing a friend who picked up the tab at dinner). 6. Look into student loan refinancing. Some scholars graduate with scary amounts of debt. Figuring out whether to refinance your student loans is a complex subject, since its based on individual circumstances. However, refinancing could also change your life, if only by getting you out of default and on track to a solution. To find out more about whether its right for you, see Student Loan Consolidation: Pros and Cons. 7. Set up automatic savings. If you dont already have an emergency fund, this is a great way to get started. It shouldnt take more than two minutes to log into your bank or credit union account and set up a recurring monthly (or weekly) transfer into a separate emergency fund. Set it and forget it. Or maybe youre aiming for other kinds of savings: a pay cash for the next car fund, a 529 plan for your kid, or a pot of money that youll funnel into real estate or some other investment. No matter what kind of savings youre aiming for, be sure to make the amount sustainable. Specifically, dont commit every non-budgeted penny, because life brings surprises that take you over budget. 8. Deal with the mail. Dont throw it onto the table or desk because its mostly junk anyway. Take two minutes to weed through the junk and toss it into the recycle bin or trash. Otherwise, the pile of untended mail gets bigger and bigger, and you run the risk of missing something. For example, if a bill gets hidden in the stack and doesnt get paid, youll incur a late fee, and maybe even a ding on your credit report. (Yes, some of us do still get bills in the mail.) Bonus: Less clutter = less irritation. A tidy living space is very calming. And speaking of tidiness 9. Try some stealth cleaning. Choose a chore that can be done within two minutes. Vacuum one room. Move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Clean a toilet. Scoop the cats litter box. Carry the trash out to the garbage can or dumpster. This works best if every member of the household takes on a daily two-minute task. Even toddlers can dust, and preschoolers can empty the bathroom trash or carry dishes to the sink. Little by little your living space will get tidier and youll feel better. In the best-case scenario, youll get in the zone and do two or three such chores. Now: Take the money you were considering putting toward a weekly housecleaning and use it for something that advances your personal financial goals. 10. Contact your insurance agent. Sometimes life changes or home upgrades make you eligible for discounts on your insurance policy. Keep your agent updated by e-mail or phone if, say, youve started to carpool (or to work from home), or if you had a home security system installed. Even if nothing changes, get in touch with your agent to ask about other potential discounts. For example, a decent-enough price break for taking a driving course might be worth the cost of the class. Should your credit report or your teen drivers report card improve noticeably, see if that will improve the premium. Still not convinced youre getting the best deal? Then you should 11. Comparison shop for insurance. You can fill out an online quote form in just a couple of minutes and the results might really surprise you. The Simple Dollars insurancearticles can help you understand the different kinds of coverage and find a lower rate. That way you can buy exactly what you need, vs. paying for products that dont support your financial goals. While youre at it 12. Comparison shop for credit cards, too. Some people dislike the current credit scoring system, and in a sense theyre right. Why should they be penalized for paying cash? But its what we have, and a smart consumer will learn to work within it. Thats why if you dont have a credit card, you should get one to build your credit score. It could also be invaluable in case of the unexpected; twice Ive had to drop everything and fly thousands of miles for family emergencies, and having plastic made that much, much easier. And if youve already got a credit card? Make sure youre getting the optimum benefits. Whether youre looking for travel rewards or cash back bonuses,The Simple Dollars credit card section lays it all out for you. 13. Schedule some maintenance. Keeping on top of the manufacturers suggested maintenance on everything from vehicles to home heating systems means preventing problems versus trying to fix them. A friend drove her car for nearly 22 years that way. Dont neglect your own maintenance, either. For starters, see the dentist twice a year. Annual medical exams arent always necessary, but talk with a primary care physician about whether you should at least have lab work done plus any other tests appropriate to your age (e.g., mammogram or colonoscopy). Not only is it cheaper to fix a health issue caught early, it can sometimes be a matter of life and death. 14. Keep an ongoing grocery list. If you use almost all of the remaining toilet paper, cat food, toothpaste, or whatever, add it to the online shopping list right then and there. Dont use online shopping? Add it to the paper list stuck on the fridge. Because you probably wont remember that you need cilantro, cat food, or whatever else when youre at the grocery store later and might find yourself at a convenience store at 10 p.m., grumbling and paying a ridiculous amount of money for TP. 15. Cancel a subscription. Are you even reading those magazines? How often do you go to the gym? Did your kids excitement over monthly craft kits peak at oh, about four months in? Do you really need regular deliveries of makeup, clothing, or snacks? Most people probably have a subscription or two that they never got around to canceling, says Austin Grandt of the Financial Toolbelt website. Apps like Trim and Truebill will corral your current subscriptions, making it easy to weed through what you really want. Remember: These things are generally wants, not needs. And they can cost a lot more than you might imagine. 16. Get a library card. It might take you two minutes to find out whats required in your area, such as photo ID and a current utility bill, and then another two minutes to get a librarian to set you up. Totally worth it! Libraries buy books and movies and subscribe to magazines so you dont have to. Depending on where you live, the library might also lend out everything from toys to art to fishing gear. Libraries offer information on genealogy, social services, and other useful stuff, too. (The main library in my city houses the Cooperative Extension Service.) Many host a wide variety of activities, including but not limited to childrens story hours, public lectures, movie nights, clubs, resume-building workshops, tax help, and film appreciation nights. Most if not all of these things will be free. 17. Set things up before bed. Before you turn in, ready your breakfast supplies. When you stumble into the kitchen at 6:45 a.m. youll be greeted by your favorite mug, a batch of already brewed coffee (thanks, timer!), the box of cereal, and a bowl. So much better than rummaging around for coffee and filter, the cereal, and a bowl and mug while also trying to unload the dishwasher you ignored yesterday. More importantly, this helps cement the habit of eating breakfast at home, which is cheaper and healthier! than hitting the coffee cart or the fast-food drive-through on your way to work. 18. Set up reminders. Cody, the young-and-hustling author of the FlyToFI blog, uses his iPhones Reminders app to avoid errors as simple as forgetting to buy milk, or as potentially life-changing as failing to change the batteries in the smoke detector. This app, or any other reminders system, can save you money in the here-and-now, such as avoiding no-show fees for missed medical appointments. Reminders also help you stay on top of things that keep you financially healthy. Its so easy to think, I really should [look for a better rewards card/get scheduled auto maintenance done/buy life insurance] and then not do these things. If thats you, then set reminders. Re-set them if necessary. Sooner or later (preferably sooner) youll make Future Yous needs a priority. Award-winning journalist and veteran personal finance writerDonna Freedmanis the author of Your Playbook for Tough Times: Living Large on Small Change, for the Short Term or the Long Haul and Your Playbook for Tough Times, Vol. 2: Needs AND Wants Edition. More byDonna Freedman: https://www.thesimpledollar.com/18-two-minute-chores-you-should-never-put-off/