#magic boom bars for sale

[william-scott77]

Magic Boom Bars chocolate

 is vibing with psilocybin. They created their 3,500 mg. psilocybin mushroom Boom Bar to help you effortlessly enjoy your monthly dose of shrooms.Therefore, Brainstorm crafts their artisanal chocolates using only Canada’s best ingredients and utmost care. Their brand understands how important it is to have shroom-based products that you can trust, and that’s exactly why Brainstorm dedicates themselves to quality and consistency. So, truly, you won’t find better tasting edibles in the Canadian market.

[cottoncandypopcorn1]

Mushroom Chocolate Bars for Sale Online: A Growing Trend in Wellness and Taste

Mushroom chocolate bars are exactly what they sound like: chocolate bars infused with extracts or powders derived from medicinal mushrooms.mushroom chocolate bars for sale online     These mushrooms are known for their potential health benefits, which can range from immune system support to enhanced cognitive function. Popular varieties of mushrooms used include:

Reishi: Known for its calming properties, Reishi is often used to promote relaxation and better sleep.

Lion’s Mane: Believed to support brain health and cognitive function, this mushroom is popular among those looking to improve focus and memory.

Chaga: A powerful antioxidant, Chaga is often sought after for its potential to boost the immune system.

Cordyceps: Used by athletes and fitness enthusiasts, Cordyceps is thought to improve energy levels and physical performance.

By blending these functional mushrooms with chocolate, manufacturers offer a product that is both enjoyable to eat and may offer holistic health benefits.

Why Buy Mushroom Chocolate Bars Online?

As consumer interest in alternative health and wellness continues to grow, so does the accessibility of products like mushroom chocolate bars. Buying them online offers several advantages:

Convenience: Online platforms provide easy access to a variety of mushroom chocolate products, eliminating the need to visit specialty stores or wellness shops.

Variety: From gourmet options with dark chocolate to bars mixed with other superfoods like nuts and berries, online retailers often carry a broader selection than brick-and-mortar stores.

Information at Your Fingertips: Buying online allows consumers to research ingredients, read customer reviews, and compare different brands before making a purchase. Many websites also provide detailed information about the mushrooms used, helping customers make informed decisions.

Exclusive Deals and Discounts: Many e-commerce platforms and mushroom-focused websites offer discounts, bundles, and subscription services that make purchasing mushroom chocolate bars more affordable.

The Health and Wellness Boom

The rise of mushroom chocolate bars ties into broader trends in health-conscious eating and functional foods. Consumers today are more mindful of the ingredients they consume and are increasingly looking for foods that offer more than just taste. Functional mushrooms have been part of traditional medicine in various cultures for centuries, and they are now being rediscovered and integrated into modern diets.

Mushrooms like Lion's Mane and Reishi have been studied for their potential neuroprotective and immune-boosting properties, respectively. Combining these with dark chocolate, which is already known for its antioxidant properties, creates a powerful combination that appeals to health enthusiasts.

Legal Considerations and Psychoactive Mushroom Chocolate Bars

It is important to differentiate between mushroom chocolate bars made with medicinal mushrooms and those containing psychoactive mushrooms (often known as magic mushrooms). Psychoactive mushroom products, containing compounds like psilocybin, are illegal in many parts of the world. However, in some jurisdictions where psilocybin has been decriminalized or legalized, psilocybin-infused chocolate bars are also becoming available online.

If you are purchasing mushroom chocolate bars for their health benefits, ensure that the product you're buying contains non-psychoactive medicinal mushrooms. Reputable sellers will clearly indicate the type of mushrooms used and their intended benefits.

What to Look for When Buying Mushroom Chocolate Bars Online

When shopping for mushroom chocolate bars online, here are a few things to consider:

Ingredient Transparency: Ensure that the company provides clear information about the mushrooms used, the source of the chocolate, and any other added ingredients.

Dosage: Functional mushroom supplements come in varying strengths. Look for products that clearly specify the amount of mushroom extract per serving.

Certifications and Lab Testing: Reputable brands often conduct third-party testing to verify the purity and potency of their products. Certifications like organic or fair-trade may also be important to some consumers.

Customer Reviews: Always check user feedback to get insights into the quality and effects of the product.

Shipping Policies: Check the seller’s shipping policies,mushroom chocolate bars for sale online       especially if you're ordering from an international seller, to ensure your product arrives fresh and in good condition.

Final Thoughts

As the world of health foods continues to expand, mushroom chocolate bars stand out as a novel product that marries indulgence with potential health benefits. With so many mushroom chocolate bars for sale online, consumers have easy access to a variety of options that can suit their taste preferences and wellness goals. Whether you're looking to enhance your focus, reduce stress, or simply enjoy a delicious chocolate bar with added benefits, mushroom chocolate may be worth exploring.

However, it’s crucial to research products carefully and choose reputable vendors to ensure you're getting a quality product that aligns with your needs. As the demand for functional foods grows, mushroom chocolate bars are likely to become a staple in the wellness and gourmet sectors alike.

[greyeyedmonster-18]

"Remus, my moonlight, come see what I got at the shops!" Sirius's voice boomed through their tiny flat, successfully disrupting the quiet afternoon Remus was having. Their flat was a tiny box--the tiniest one they had looked at despite Sirius having the ability to buy something much more spacious for the two of them, he had wanted to be close, please, and how could Remus say no, really--Sirius needn't shout to get Remus's attention, let alone magically amplify his voice.

But Remus got off the couch anyway, walking the 10 extra paces to their tiny kitchen and his mouth fell open.

"....Sirius..."

"Look! I got soap! And washing rags, and a new toothbrush and stopped by the grocery and got all the things on our list. And, guess what? I used a coupon."

It was Remus's idea to introduce this to Sirius, and one, like most things Remus wanted to introduce came back to bite him in the ass. Remus didn't want Sirius paying for everything under the sun, even though his boyfriend didn't mind, and a compromise was to start using coupons. To start paying attention to when things were on sale.

"...Did...did we actually need soap, Sirius?"

"Well no, but it was on sale. Who knows when it's going to be on again, so I had to buy it!"

"Baby..." Remus started, eyeing the mountain of shopping bags on their kitchen table, most of which contained soap. There was one of groceries that Remus could see.

"They didn't even question when I handed them that little paper. Just like that, and then the soap was on sale! Bloody insane what muggles come up with." Remus laughed softly, walking closer to Sirius and putting his arms around his waist, "Did I do alright?"

"You did," he said, not wanting to squash the bright-eyed innocence just yet. That was a tomorrow conversation, or even a conversation a few minutes from now when Sirius realize there was no place to put the 20 boxes of bar soap he had bought that would make it easily organized.

Remus left out the part about buying all the soap available when it's on sale definitely defeats the purpose of the sale and just kissed him instead.

[everythingnerdyxoxo]

The Virus ~Chapter One - X7231

Just a little fanfiction I've been working on...!

The sounds of breaking furniture, cheers and shouts filled the Fairy Tail Guildhall just like any other afternoon. Gray and Natsu had started fighting over something irrelevant and once again just about everyone had joined in on the fight. Lucy and Wendy sat at the bar with Mirajane watching the ruckus unfold in front of them.

‘My, my, their rather energetic this afternoon, aren’t they?’ Mirajane spoke with a smile, seemingly unfazed at the mess in front of her.

‘You can say that again.’ Lucy watched with her head leant again the bar counter. ‘I’d rather be earning rent money than watching this.’

Wendy laughed at her statement. ‘We only just got back from a job, have you spent everything already?’

‘Well, after paying for my rent, and using some of that money to pay for the damages Natsu caused to the city, it’s left me with enough money to last me a day.’ Lucy stated with a sigh.

‘Ah yes, Natsu was a bit over the top wasn’t he.’ Wendy rested her hand on Lucy’s head in support.

‘Natsu is always over the top!’ Lucy threw up her arms exasperatedly. Taking Mira and Wendy by surprise. ‘Geez, there was a really nice top on sale in my favourite boutique as well. I was really hoping to buy it before the price went up again.’ Lucy stated dropping her head back onto the bar.

‘Oh dear. I should probably break this fight up before Juvia tries to take her clothes off again.’ Mirajane said with a smile before leaving Wendy to help with Lucy’s self-pity.

‘Mirajane.’ With the mention of her name, she stopped approaching the fight and turned to their current master; Makarov Dreyar.

‘Oh Master! I was just about to break up this fight. I hope it didn’t disturb you.’ Smiling at her current master she could tell the look on his face meant something was wrong. ‘Is everything alright, Master?’

With a sigh Makarov looked towards his children of Fairy Tail, before climbing onto a nearby table and clearing his throat.

‘That’s enough! I have something important to say!’ His voice boomed throughout the guildhall catching the attention of everyone and stopping the fight immediately.

‘Aww Gramps! I was so close to frying this ice-princess!’ Natsu hit his forehead against Gray’s as he spoke. ‘You wish flame-brain!’ Their magical aura’s built as they prepared to fight once more.

‘You can do it Gray-Sama! You’re so much stronger than he is!’ Juvia released Gajeel from the headlock she still held him in to raise her arms in a cheer.

‘Natsu. Gray. The Master has something important to say we must listen.’ Erza’s aura engulfed the two mages causing an almost immediate reaction. ‘Yes Sir!’ ‘Aye Sir!’ Linking arms, they turned their attention to Master Makarov as did everyone in the Guild.’

Clearing his voice once again he spoke. ‘Now that I have everyone’s attention. I have just been contacted by the Grand Magic Council via Lacrima.’

In that one statement most, glances turned to Natsu, expecting this to have something to do with him.

‘I do not want to worry anyone. We are currently unsure of the extent of this but there has been an outbreak of a virus in Onibus Town. We do not know the cause of this virus or how serious, but we have been informed that we are advised against all but essential travel to Onibus Town. Therefore, all jobs to this area have been cancelled.’ After a few collected groans Makarov left the guildhall entering his office with Mirajane following behind him.

‘Onibus Town? That’s near Clover Town, right? Where the Master goes for his meetings?’ Wendy looked to Lucy who seemed deep in thought about what they had just been told.

‘Yes Wendy. We’ve been there a few times to perform plays as part of a job.’ Erza headed over to them at the bar, ignoring the continuation of the fight behind her.

‘A virus. That seems ominous don’t you think? You don’t think it has anything to do with Zeref do you?’ Lucy looked concerned at the S class mage in front of her.

‘Who knows. All we can do is assess the situation as it comes for now.’ Erza looked on towards her master’s office appearing deep in thought.

Next chapter: https://everythingnerdyxoxo.tumblr.com/post/663517942822076416/the-virus-chapter-two-x7233

[fleckcmscott]

Fun and Only

Summary: During a night out, Y/N and Arthur bump into someone from Arthur’s past. Y/N tries to decipher him.

Warnings: Swearing

Words: 4,088

A/N: This was a request from the sweet, kind @imdeaddear2! I hope you like it! Thank you for making the request, because I never would have written this scenario without it. 😀 Special thanks to @arthurflecc for the beautiful intro pic! Also, thanks to @hhandley80​ for reviewing the exchange in the middle section!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask. Requests for Arthur and WWH are open!

"Y/N, it's little league season. Know what that means?"

Needing to finish the paragraph she was reading, Y/N raised a finger. The dense case on her desk was a tough assignment; she'd been toiling at it most of the morning. She liked her new position. Truly. But the pace at which she prepared files was slower than she would have preferred. The particulars of labor laws were, well...laborious. Reviewing evidence types she wasn't familiar with took time. It made her impatient. Anxious to soak up all the information she could get her hands on.

But, she supposed, no longer being plagued by guilt for indirectly supporting the Waynes was worth the learning curve.

Leaning back in her chair, she crossed her ankles, swinging her foot back and forth as she regarded Terry. While he was incredibly friendly, chatting with everyone and anyone, they remained acquaintances. Periodically, she conferred with him over a motion or sought to get his opinion about the upcoming mayoral election. ("I've seen Wayne's legal bullshit. He's not getting my vote.") Those discussions didn't go far. Usually, he tried to bond over parental matters - she and Arthur didn't even have a plant.

She could tell this was going to be another attempt. "You're doing a fundraiser and I should buy chocolate bars?" she asked.

"Even better." Digging into his too-tight pants pocket, he retrieved a checkbook-sized pamphlet. "The Gotham Squires are selling these to charter a bus for the All-Stars tournament. They're the number two team in the state!" He shoved a photo of his kid at her.

She murmured a polite, "He's all grown-up." He spoke of the team's new uniforms and his nine-year-old's batting average. Half-listening, she flipped through the booklet. It was a coupon collection, mostly two-for-one sales at various restaurants and vouchers for discounted movie tickets, good on weekdays only. They were quite pricey at fifteen dollars apiece. But she was inclined to buy one. The savings might help Arthur practice letting go of his wallet. Allow him to stop worrying about money and indulge a little, the way he deserved.

What made the cash fly from her purse to Terry's palm was the certificate in the back: a half-off deal for Amusement Mile. Satisfaction was written all over her face as she studied the yellow cardstock's terms and conditions, the outline of a circus tent, the faded ink encouraging her to "Enjoy the Ride!" Coming from a rural area, she'd never gone to an amusement park. One had been four or so hours east, but her father had preferred to stay close to home, fearing he might be needed in an emergency.

The annual county fair had been a must. Everyone had worn his or her Sunday Best, the occasional breeze kicking up dirt as they toured the fairground. The rides had been creaky, unsound, and should have been reported to the local safety commission. She'd gone on the Tilt-A-Whirl and the giant slide, waving at her parents and hanging onto her burlap sack. One year, Mabel had screamed and cried until Y/N grabbed her hand and led them out of the house of mirrors.

Swinging the mallet as hard as he could, her father had impressed her mother with the strongman game. The puck wouldn't hit the bell. Doily and needlework competitions had been her mother's purview, crafts Y/N had practiced but quickly tired of. She'd preferred the pie contest. Her mouth had watered, hankering for a taste of the first-place winner. The agricultural exhibits had been the largest section, with its prized horses, pigs, and chickens. She'd broken the rules and stuck her fingers in the rabbit cages to feel their soft fur; she'd been bitten once.

Wistfulness wasn't the only reason the theme park appealed to her. There was Arthur's history with it. He kept a postcard of the Ferris wheel pinned to the divider in his writing nook. And he'd described some of the odd jobs he'd done. Carrying boxes of merchandise, filling in for other clowns, picking up litter (and keeping the returnables). It hadn't been steady, merely hours offered to him if he'd inquired. But it'd given him pocket change. Enough to buy cigarettes and keep the utilities on for another month.

The week had been warm up till now, and the good weather was expected to continue. He loved taking her to new corners of the city, had ever since their first date. Introducing her to his old stomping ground wouldn't take a lot of convincing.

When she got home, he was perched on the sofa, clad in a thermal shirt and a pair of her too-short pajama bottoms. (A funny combination that meant their laundry was in the machine.) Elbows on his knees, journal on the coffee table, and pen at the ready, his concentration was plain to see. The discipline he had to pursue his dreams, the way he studied comedy specials on TV was admirable. She got a glass of water and smiled at his ill-timed laughter. That he didn't understand the host's humor was logical. Roasts were usually unkind. While Arthur's jokes weren't always funny, they weren't mean-spirited.

She crouched next to him, peppered kisses along his shoulder. His damp curls brushed her cheek, and she breathed in the zesty musk of his shampoo. "I wouldn't waste too much effort on this guy," she said. Her caress followed the freckles on his bare forearm, feeling the muscle flutter under her fingertips. "He's kind of an asshole."

"The audience helps me figure out the timing." He muted the television, lips quirking. "You like some of his songs."

"He makes a better singer than comedian," she rebutted with a peck.

They went over their respective days, how his earlier appointment went, the paperwork she'd done. Tuna casserole was their choice for dinner, and Arthur put on an LP while they cooked. Once the dish was in the oven, she hugged him close. "I have an idea for Thursday night." She went over the Amusement Mile discount, enthused about his expertise, reveled in how her praise softened his features and brightened his eyes. "I'd love it if you took me around. Taught me all the magic behind the scenes. And I'm dying to see where you do your street performances." She massaged the nape of his neck. "Maybe I'll stop by and give you a tip."

Crooked tooth peeking out, he nodded. Then he grasped the counter on either side of her hips and pressed his forehead to hers. "That sounds great."

~~~~~

A small memorial flowerbed, filled with alternating swirls of white gardenias, purple pansies, and yellow daffodils, was situated just beyond the park's main entrance. The marble fountain bubbling in the center reminded Y/N of a bird bath. It was modest, from a bygone era in which the wealthy hadn't dared to flaunt their fortunes for fear of strikes. The bronze plaque declared the city's thanks to Benjamin Wayne for funding Amusement Mile's construction during the height of Gotham's industrial boom. Before most of the factories had fled. Before times had become tough for the majority Gothamites. It was annoying, how the Waynes had their fingers in everything. She hoped not one nickel of what they spent tonight went into their bank accounts.

Arthur paid it no mind. His head was tipped back a degree or two, his clear green eyes darting from attraction to attraction. Smoking was one of his habits she disapproved of. But she couldn't dispute how attractive he was, puffing the cigarette dangling from his puckered lips. The chestnut tones of his brown hair were brought to the fore by the grounds' multi-color lighting, and a lock or two fell over his temples. The loose curls at his neck bounced with each step, a boyish buoyancy to his gait.

Her stomach growled as soon as the aroma of fair food hit her. They picked a booth that claimed it sold Gotham's original franks. He asked to order for her. She let him, watching as his grin widened and he stated, "Four hot dogs for my girlfriend and me, please. With relish and mustard." Then they shared a candy apple, taking turns nibbling at the fruit's hard, sugary shell. Its juice dribbled onto her pale pink top, staining the embroidered neckline. Her groan of disapproval became giggling as he stole chaste kisses, wiping her off as she chewed.

His palm at the small of her back, guiding her as they walked down the midway, fanned a glow in her heart. He'd made headway when it came to displaying his affection in public, though he still tended towards timidity. Early on, she'd concluded his reticence had nothing to do with her - he never pulled away if she grabbed at him. He was simply a gentleman.

Most examples he followed were from an older era, one lost to the bluntness of the eighties. Those moments he'd let himself go, when he'd make it clear they were a couple, lifted her spirit. Not only due to the pride she felt at being on his arm, but also because it meant he was finding his own way. Arthur wasn't a shy suitor or a contemporary romantic hero. Rather, he was somewhere in the middle. Old fashioned, through and through, with threads of modernity woven into his fibers.

As they strolled, they stumbled onto a black and white photo booth. She sat on its cracked wooden stool and tried to tug him inside. But he wanted a picture of her, he said. To put in his wallet. To look at if he was having a bad day and wasn't at home. Her response was to snag his collar and yank him to her lips. Snorting, he shut the nylon curtain. At the clink of quarters in the coin slot, she straightened her puffed, cap sleeves and fixed her hair in the scratched featherweight mirror. The camera's flashes blinded her, but she thought she'd managed to smile naturally enough.

Before she had a chance to stand, he whipped open the drape and showed her the strip of portraits. "I knew I was dating the prettiest woman in the city. Maybe even the sweetest."

She cupped his cheeks as she stepped out. Rubbed the tip of her nose to his. He was unfailingly generous. Too generous. While she was fine with her appearance, she wouldn't win a beauty pageant. Hell, she wouldn't even be a runner-up. Or a contestant. And sweet was one of the last words she'd use to describe herself. But she wasn't going to correct him. "And I found the handsomest, funniest man." His stare was wide-eyed. After releasing a stuttering breath, he pulled her along.

Upon entering the gaming area, he slung his arm around her waist. Mischief laced his whisper as he spilled secrets. The darts for the balloon pop were dull, the balloons underinflated. He advised her to stay clear of the baseball and milk bottle stand, saying, "The bottom bottles have lead in them. You'll never knock them over."

Then he warned her off the ring toss, saying the rings were too small to win the best prizes. She decided to take her chances, regardless, and paid the attendant. Arthur tutted gently as she gave him the last ring, having already wasted four.  A step to the side, then he paused to line up his throw. A short clap announced his victory. The prize options included a dinky toy car and a rubber snake. She picked a plastic, red keychain, embossed with "I was Amused in 1982" and the silhouette of a coaster. It was an improvement over her old car dealership tag. "I'll think of tonight whenever I see it."

Gaze fixed on her mouth, he sighed happily. He began to reach towards her, his arm raised ever so slightly-

"Art!" a rich baritone called. "Hey, Art!"

Arthur flinched. She moved to peer behind him. The approaching man was tall, his balding head half a foot higher than Arthur's. A blue and red flannel shirt with gray trousers covered his portly physique. Confidence oozed from him with every stride, a pleasantly surprised smirk on his round face.

Y/N's interest was piqued. Unless it was someone who remembered Arthur from Live! with Murray Franklin, no one ever approached him on the street. And she hadn't heard him be referred to by anything other than his proper name (besides Penny's terrible "Happy.").

But his reactions concerned her. Arthur's back tensed as the man closed in, stopping a yard away. "Hi, Randall."

"How's my boy been?" Randall asked jovially, hands at his sides. "Gary told us about your mom. Could you use a little cheering up?"

Arthur blinked faster than usual. "No. She's okay. And I feel a lot better now."

"Oh. Well, good for you," Randall said.

Going back and forth between them, she tried to puzzle out their dynamic. Their familiarity was obvious. Randall seemed caring enough, although she found it odd he'd referred to her thirty-five-year-old partner as "boy." Arthur had mentioned Gary was a former colleague. It would make sense Randall was, too.

He threw her a glance. "Hey, you have family visiting. Is this your cousin?"

She brushed off the assumption and extended her hand. "I'm Y/N L/N. His girlfriend."

"Oh, yeah. The paralegal." He shook it firmly before addressing Arthur again. "Gary said you finally got a date."

The pat to Arthur's bicep was a little too hard, jolting his stiff frame. The set of his jaw and flaring of his nostrils betrayed a turmoil she hadn't initially picked up on. She touched his hand but he shoved it in his pocket.

All right. She had to get to the bottom of this. It was hard to ascertain if his current reaction was due to his social challenges (which could cause discomfort) or Randall's words. She didn't want to jump to conclusions. After all, she and Patricia teased each other whenever they met for lunch or chatted on the phone. A good ribbing was needed every once in a while.

Starting a cross-examination in front of Arthur would contribute to his unease. After a moment's deliberation, she nudged him. It took a couple of tries to get his attention. "Would you please get us a large lemonade?" His brows rose, anxiety in the wrinkles of his forehead. She stretched to kiss his temple. His eyes narrowed but he got the hint, scuffing his shoe and glowering at Randall as he walked off.

When Arthur rounded a corner by the water pistol race, she lounged on one of the booth's metal poles. "Have you known Arthur long?"

Randall nodded in the direction Arthur had gone. "We worked at HaHa's. I'm a clown, too. We did parties, the children's hospital, store openings."

"Arthur loved that job." She crossed her arms over her chest. "It's too bad the slow season hit. But he's doing pretty well on his own."

Confusion crossed the big man's visage. "Uh, yeah. The slow season." He chuckled, then. "Anyway, you and Art, huh?"

Smiling broadly, she folded her arms over her chest. "Yes, me and Art."

"Pretty serious, huh?"

If he wanted gossip to bring back to the workplace, she'd gladly give him some. Especially if it reflected well on Arthur. "We live together. It's been great."

"No kidding." With a sardonic grin, he shook his head. "A woman like you. I didn't know he had it in him. It was always just him and his mom. Talked about stand-up sometimes. Mostly kept to himself, though. Never really talked much." Randall shrugged lightly. "But we liked him. He did all the shitty jobs no one wanted and never complained."

Arching a brow, Y/N felt her suspicions grow. While Arthur was learning to disagree and contradict her without hesitation, he nevertheless had the inclination to go along. It was plausible he hadn't argued about gigs. Had they taken his preferences into account?

Then Randall confirmed her skepticism, saying in a jokey tone, "That laugh really got everyone going, too. And his laminated cards. We had a pool on whether it was part of his act. I mean, him being in Arkham and all, who knows what the fuck he could have come up with?"

Deciphering what kind of man stood in front of her was suddenly uncomplicated. She'd run into his type all too often. They lurked in garages and offices. Diners and restaurants. Courtrooms on both sides of the bench. People with no real power who walked on others. Persons who threw their weight around to feel in charge. Bullies who hid behind a veneer of kindness.

She understood why he'd called Arthur "boy."

What she said had to be chosen carefully. Randall and Arthur worked in the same field, likely competed for clients. If her big mouth came back on Arthur, she wouldn't forgive herself. She straightened, squared her shoulders, and forced her voice to stay professional. "If you liked him, wouldn't you have split the less desirable jobs with him? I'm sure he didn't like being taken advantage of."

His looked at her in disbelief. "Hey, he was paid fair and square, like all of us."

"And he understands how to speak to a 'woman like me' more than you ever will." A sharp exhale as her cheeks burned. "From what Arthur has said, you could learn a lot from Gary. Please tell him hello from us and have a good evening." With that, she headed off to find Arthur, ignoring Randall's lame attempts to call her back.

Arthur was in line when she spotted him. He stepped forward and pointed to the menu. As she approached, she noticed how he fidgeted with his cigarette, tapping it repeatedly though there was no ash. The subtle tremble in his knee. If he continued to carry himself so tightly, his muscles would cramp.

Clearing her throat, she slipped behind him and hugged his back. "Did you have to deal with that insufferable know-it-all every day?"

He grabbed the proffered cup from the clerk and headed to a nearby table. Plunked himself down and took a drag off his smoke. Stress poured off him, clear in every flex of his fingers. His palm went to his stomach as he practiced controlling his breathing. "What- What did he tell you? That everyone thought I was a freak? How much I fucked up?" His voice lowered then, barely above a whisper. She could tell he was talking to himself. "The hospital?"

"Enough to know he was a jerk. I'm glad you're not there anymore." She put her chin on his shoulder. Watched him take a sip of lemonade. "Nothing he said matters, but I told him how important you are to me." She tucked a hair behind his ear, and he leaned into her touch. Their gazes met, his shining in the dim light. The evening had been fantastic so far. She wasn't going to let some asshole ruin it. "Come on," she urged, jutting her hip towards him. "We still have half the park to explore."

~~~~~

About a third of the way through their ride on the Mad Hatter, Amusement Mile's famous coaster, Y/N realized eating had been a mistake. A big one. Thrown to a fro in the sharp curves, she could nearly taste the bile in the throat. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, willing her nausea to pass. For his part, Arthur appeared exhilarated, laughing with every peak and valley. Seeing that happiness was a gift, one that gratified and partially distracted from her queasiness.

Fortunately, the enclosed cabins on the Ferris wheel were a respite. They waited an extra turn to board the outer wheel, which rotated at a leisurely pace and allowed her stomach to settle. The view from the top was beautiful, Gotham Cathedral's lit spires and the Westward Bridge prominent against the night sky. Wayne Tower was also visible, but she did her best to ignore the high-rise and its gaudy "W." He pointed in the direction of Burnley and said, "There's our home." She was unexpectedly moved. Then he kissed her soundly, which quickly advanced to mild necking when the wheel paused.

The carousel was antique, according to the sign. The only original attraction left in the park. A massive wooden structure with a mirrored center, it had three rows of horses, broken up by the occasional bench. He stepped onto the gray platform and picked one, painted red and yellow, roses etched along its back. But she climbed a nearby leaping horse instead, its black mane and tan body faded by years of sunlight.

He quirked a dark brow until she beckoned him with a nod. Cheeks pink, countenance tender in the lingering blinks of the incandescent bulbs, he followed suit. "Hang onto me," she instructed. As the calliope's whistles began their jaunty tune, he cupped her hips and pressed into her. A flutter tickled her stomach. She reclined against him, let her eyes fall shut as his warmth surrounded her. Round and round they went, chuckling airily. Not at any jokes or amusements, but at the joy of one another.

Arthur picked the last ride, an old mill called Romantic River Caves. She had to stop herself from snickering at the idea of a middle-aged woman and her nearly-middle-aged boyfriend cruising along in something built for teenagers. But he delighted in cliches and corniness, a preference she attributed to his inexperience and kind nature. Though such gestures hadn't thrilled her since she was a girl, she appreciated them with him.

The boats were short and narrow, just wide enough for the two of them to sit side-by-side. Curved backrests encouraged cuddling. Off-key versions of old standards played through tinny speakers. Myriad displays were inside, a mix of plaster dioramas and paintings. Two swans swimming, their beaks touching. A couple on a picnic under a tree. Bouquets and hearts galore. There were five or so seconds of darkness between each one. He took advantage of those breaks, kissing her again and again until she was breathless.

She scanned the starry painting above them, the comets' trails stretched across the tunnel's ceiling. "It's been a long time since I've done anything like this. Twenty-five? Thirty years?"

"Me, too. I snuck in when I was a kid. To see the circus and the merry-go-round." He smoothed his hair back, pressed his legs tighter together. "When I moonlighted here, I could've gone on the rides and to the shows. I- I didn't want to alone."

He paused and she put her palm on his thigh. Gave him an encouraging squeeze. "That postcard I have?" he said. "By my desk? It was in my locker at HaHa's." His fingers covered hers, tips tracing her knuckles. "It's good to have a person to have fun with. To have you."

She beamed at that sentiment, for she felt it, too. Yes, she'd been complete on her own. No, she hadn't been lonely. But he added to her existence. Introduced her to activities and experiences she hadn't previously considered or realized she'd needed. Going to a comedy club. Dancing despite her lack of skill. Or enjoying vulnerability during quiet conversations in their bedroom rather than fearing it. He'd broadened her life in ways she was still discovering. And he regularly told her she'd bettered his. "You're my favorite ride," she said.

A sharp snort left him, followed by a bashful chuckle. He shook his head. "You're crazy."

"I didn't mean that." She batted his chest playfully. Tried to cross her legs under the safety bar. "This relationship we've started." Light appeared at the end of the tunnel, the shallow pool's grimy floor coming into view as the water level fell. Soon they'd be amongst the crowd. "Remember when I said we'd never be perfect? I like our imperfections. They fit. Like..." She contemplated. "A pen and paper. They're good on their own but they're best together." Cringing, she covered her face. "God, that didn't even make sense. A pen needs paper."

"Didn't you say you needed me?" he teased, pulling her hand from her brow to place it on his sternum. "I don't mind being your paper." Blushing, Y/N turned to him when he cupped her jaw. Ran his thumbs over her cheeks. She joined him in ignoring the attendant's instruction to disembark. Arthur kissed her, a delicate graze to her mouth before he drew her bottom lip between his. "You're the best ride, too."

~~~~~

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve​, @howdylilflower​, @sweet-nothings04​, @stephieraptorr​, @rommies​, @fallenstarsabyss​, @gruffle1​, @octopus-plasma​, @tsukiakarinobara​, @arthur-flecks-lovely-smile​, @another-day-in-chuckletown​, @hhandley80​, @jokerownsmysoul​, @64-crayon​

[vertex-official]

VerTex Reviews 2021| Scam Or Does It Really Works?

What is Vertex?

Vertex is a software that makes personalized video marketing easier than ever. Utilizing a simplified editor and robust DFY templates, you can quickly and easily create personalized campaigns to boost conversions, engagement, and sales. No complex timelines or messy merge tokens.

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With VerTex – a new first-of-its-kind Traffic App, you’re minutes away from driving unlimited Buyer Traffic to any link or offer you want to promote.

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Honest Vertex Review – My Opinion: Is it worth using?

Gaining better visibility is key and this tool will absolutely do this. The time taken to make decent videos is necessary but now the drudgery of posting can be taken away. This will be such a huge time saver allowing me more time to create more content and more profits.

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Vertex can help me gain more exposure for my promo videos and at the same time helps build quality backlinks to my videos which will definitely boost my rankings on youtube and google which ultimately will lead to sales

Vertex seems to be one of the best video syndication softwares I’ve seen in a while. How it could help me? Well, it can help me launch my online education business faster by uploading my promo videos and my instructional videos all over the internet! So, yes this is definitely a tool that could be life saving for any start-up online business!

It seems like the whole online world is going absolutely crazy for Vertex. The brand new, affordable, easy to use, video personalization tool is opening up new worlds of video marketing and profits for it’s users – So I wanted to send you the top #10 reasons why I think Vertex is perfect for you:

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When you watch your first Go video and you see your name and your face in the video – it CERTAINLY makes an impact. It looks like magic. And I totally get why these videos are flying off the shelves to clients

The Vertex guys have a whole bunch of successful case studies and testimonials – and even one from a 11 year old girl who made her first $200 online using this thing. It really does live up to the hype.

[thebrewstorian]

Collection Report: McMenamins Brewery Collection, 1983-2015

Oh my gosh, this collection has been in my backlog for YEARS! It has been so long that when my daughter helped with the inventory on the brew sheets she was 11 years-old and couldn't check herself out of summer camp [now she can drive and has taken the SAT], but she could talk with John Richen (brewing manager at the time) about her favorite beer names and things she'd noticed about ingredients.

Go straight to the guide: http://bit.ly/mss_mcmenamins

Learn more about the Oregon brewing industry in my Oregon Encyclopedia article

The McMenamins Brewery Collection is, truly, a gem. We scanned thousands of brew sheets, which is a part of the magic, but I'm also delighted by all the fun ephemera, including a full run of their coasters. I'll also add that the company biography included in this guide is really a love letter to the company, and I thank Fred Eckhardt, John Foyston, and all the other journalists over the past 30 years for recording all the fun quirks about this company.

SUMMARY McMenamins is a family-owned chain of brewpubs, breweries, historic hotels, and theater pubs in the Pacific Northwest.

The McMenamins Brewery Collection includes digitized brew sheets, digital images, brochures, coasters, decals, event programs, flyers, newspaper clippings, tap handles, posters, labels, a wooden cask, and a six-pack of Hammerhead beer.

COMPANY BIO

McMenamins is a family-owned chain of brewpubs, breweries, historic hotels, and theater pubs in the Pacific Northwest. It was founded by brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin, who grew up in Northeast Portland. In 2021, they operated 56 properties, with twelve hotels; dozens of breweries, pubs, and restaurants; movie theaters; spas; music venues; and a coffee roaster, winery, cidery and distillery. Many locations are rehabilitated historical buildings and at least nine are on the National Register of Historic Places. McMenamins only sells its beer in its own pubs, restaurants, hotels, and movie theaters.

Early businesses

Mike and Brian McMenamin both graduated from Oregon State University, Mike with a Political Science degree (1974) and Brian with a Business degree (1980). Mike and two college friends purchased the Produce Row Café, a bar known for all-night, high-stakes poker games, in Portland's warehouse district in 1974 and sold more than 100 types of beer. The building was built in 1951 and opened as a breakfast café for produce dockworkers in 1953; in later years, it was a barbershop. Mike and Brian bought Bogart's Joint, another Portland-area pub on 14th and Flanders. At various points in history, many beer-related activities occurred in this building: Kurt and Rob Widmer brewed in this location, and it was later space occupied by Portland Brewing and Rogue Ales Public House. By 1980, they'd sold Produce Row, Bogart's Joint, and a third tavern, the Stockyard Café.

Mike opened a wine distributorship and Brian opened the McMenamins Pub in Hillsboro. By 1983, Mike’s distributorship had failed, and the brothers decided to try the bar business again. Rather than the smoky, male-dominated taverns common in Portland, they were inspired by the community hubs they’d seen in Europe. They bought the Fat Little Rooster tavern on Southeast Hawthorne and renamed it the Barley Mill Pub; in addition to a varied beer selection, the pub was known for Grateful Dead memorabilia and anniversary parties. The namesake “barley mill,” which can still be found onsite, was used by Chuck Coury at Cartwright Brewing Co., Portland’s first post-Prohibition brewery. It was originally a kitty litter grinder but is now used annually to grind the grain for anniversary ales.

One major event that impacted the trajectory of the beer industry in Oregon in the 1980s was legislation that married production and sales. Fred Bowman and Art Larrance (Portland Brewing), Dick and Nancy Ponzis (BridgePort Brewing) and their brewer Karl Ockert, Kurt and Rob Widmer (Widmer Brothers Brewing), and the McMenamins lobbied to legalize on-site sales. On July 13, 1985, Governor Vic Atiyeh signed Senate Bill 813, the “Brewpub Bill,” into law. It allowed brewers to make and sell beer on the same premises, key for increasing revenue and gaining new customers.

First brewpubs

The McMenamins took advantage of the new law, and by the early 1990s had opened several brewpubs, each with its own small brewing system attached. They opened the Hillsdale Brewery and Public House October 31, 1985 in the Southwest Portland neighborhood of Hillsdale. Not only was it their first brewery, it was also the first brewpub in Oregon since Prohibition. Known as “Captain Neon's Fermentation Chamber,” a nod to Mike McMenamin’s nickname, the first several batches of beer were brewed with old Tillamook dairy equipment. On October 25, 1985, Hillsdale's first brewer Ron Wolf, who had previously worked at Anchor Steam, brewed the first beer in a small copper kettle and called it "Hillsdale Ale.” It fell loosely into the “Special Bitter” classification of beer styles and was a malt extract brew. Hillsdale Ale was brewed 29 times at the Hillsdale location and 14 times at Cornelius Pass Roadhouse between 10/25/1985 and 11/28/1986. In the first year, several brewers moved through the facility and made Hillsdale Ale, including Ron Wolf (who only brewed 13 batches before leaving), Conrad Santos (who replaced Wolf as brew master), Mike McMenamin, Brian McMenamin, John Harris, Scott Barrow, and Alex Farnham (the company’s first female brewer).

In 1986, they purchased a 125-year-old farmhouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, and turned it into the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. Later that same year, they opened the Lighthouse Brewpub in Lincoln City. The Fulton Pub and Brewery opened in Portland in June 1988 and the Highland Pub and Brewery opened in Gresham in July 1988.

Eventually, 27 breweries would operate under the McMenamins umbrella and they became a training ground for new brewers, many of whom have gone on to found breweries of their own. Alumni include John Harris (Hillsdale, Cornelius Pass Roadhouse), Jack Harris (Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, Lighthouse Brewery), Jason McAdam (Edgefield, Hillsdale, Crystal Ballroom), Alex McGaw (Fulton, Crystal Ballroom), Ben Nehrling and Kevin Lee (Edgefield, Highland, Kennedy School), and Mark Goodwin (Old Church, Crystal Ballroom).

In addition to serving beer at their brewpubs, the company also hosted festivals, concerts, and other public programming events at their properties, including Dad Watson’s Brew Fest, Edgefield Brew Fest, Highland Pub and Brewery Eurofest, Hillsdale Brew Fest, Lighthouse Brew Fest, Mid-Valley Brew Fest, and the Thompson Barley Cup.

Beer and Other Beverages

The McMenamins’ beers could be unsettling to brewing traditionalists; they used ingredients like apples, spices, and candy bars, as well as lesser used malts like Chocolate and Crystal. They introduced fruit beers to Oregon and early batches featured blackberries from the Hillsdale brewpub parking lot. Hand in hand with their experimentation, McMenamins developed three core beers that are brewed at all their breweries. Terminator Stout (1985) is a dark, English-style brew; Ruby (1986) is a light, raspberry-flavored beer; and Hammer Head (1986) is a classic Northwest Pale Ale. Ruby and Hammerhead are iconic company characters as well; artist Lyle Hehn created Ruby Witch and Hammerhead, and both are staples of murals, posters, and coasters.

Terminator Stout made its debut in 1985 at the Hillsdale Brewery & Public House as the 12th beer brewed. Old Hammerhead, as the strong ale was first called, was brewed January 25, 1986 and was the 37th brew and made with malt extract. John Harris, who later created Mirror Pond for Deschutes Brewery, was the first to make Hammerhead an “all-grain” beer. Harris was hired in 1987, and when they transitioned away from extract brewing, he decided to rewrite the Hammerhead recipe; besides changed the grain, he also added more hops. Ruby, originally called “Ruby Tuesday” before the food chain objected, was first brewed in 1986 and used 42 pounds of pureed Oregon raspberries.

The company made more than beer. They planted 3 acres of Pinot Gris fruit in 1990 and looked to regional vineyards for additional grapes; McMenamins Edgefield Winery was established in 1992 and began by making Rhone-style wines, including grenache and viognier. The Edgefield Winery produces 20 different white, rosé, dessert, and sparkling wines and supplies 350 tons of wine to McMenamins pubs. Also in 1992, and predating the boom by more than 20 years, McMenamins started making cider at the winery and in 2018 sold as much cider by volume as wine.

In 1995, they began experiments with distillation and made brandy under contract by Carneros Alembic, a California distillery owned by Remy-Martin. In 1997, they built their first distillery in an old root vegetable storage barn on the Edgefield property. Their most popular whiskey is Hogshead, but they make several others, including Money Puzzle, which is dry hopped with Teamaker hops (which has 0 IBUs) and is sweetened with blackberry honey harvest from hives on their property.

Historic preservation

The brothers’ love of historic structures directed business growth and community involvement, and preserving important historical buildings is integral to their business. When the McMenamins started, they couldn’t afford new construction, so they purchased old buildings, which came with stories. They employ a small staff of historians to research and document the history, and those are in turn incorporated into each property’s art, murals, menus, place names, and architectural details.

In 1987, the company opened its first theater, the Mission Theater Pub, in downtown Portland. The converted 1890s Swedish Tabernacle, a church-turned-union hall, was also the state's first theater pub. In 1991, McMenamins turned a 1927 art deco theater that was slated for demolition into a second pub and movie house. These businesses were significant and ushered in a new way to watch movies with beer and food.

In 1987, the brothers purchased Edgefield, which was built in 1911 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They paid $560,000 and invested another $2.5 million to transform the farm's 80-year-old buildings into a multi-utility complex. Edgefield was once the Multnomah County Poor Farm, a self-sufficient facility with a meatpacking plant, power station, large rooming house, and infirmary. When the remodeled Edgefield Manor opened in 1991, the meatpacking plant was a brewery, power station a pub with a movie theater, infirmary a winery, and rooming house a 100-room hotel. There was also a meeting space, catering operation, restaurant called the Black Rabbit, herb and flower gardens, four liquor and cigar bars, distillery, golf course, and amphitheater. One of the more outstanding features of Edgefield, and something that would become the McMenamins' signature, was the extensive art installations created by local artists. Art popped up in surprising places throughout the complex (on ceilings, exposed heating pipes, eaves, fuse boxes) and showed local subjects (former residents, Northwest Indians, 19th-century brewers, the Columbia River Gorge). Within a few years, the company had a set of 12 freelance artists ready to work on new property acquisitions. Edgefield brewery is still the company's largest property.

In 1997, they purchased the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, which had been vacant for 30 years, and filled it with murals depicting the building's history, a brewpub, and a bar. The building was famous for its swaying dance floor, which sat on ball bearings. The Crystal Hotel was built in 1911 and became a dance hall and concert facility that hosted national music acts. Around the same time, they partnered with the Portland Development Commission and invested $4.5 million to remodel the Kennedy Elementary School. What was once a boarded-up building was transformed into a 35-room multi-use hotel with an onsite brewery, restaurant and four bars, a movie theater, a jazz hall, cigar bar, and soaking pool.

In 1999, the McMenamins opened McMenamins Hotel Oregon in downtown McMinnville, Oregon. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and had been a hotel since its first two stories were erected in 1905; five years later, two more floors were added. In 1932, the hotel was renamed Hotel Oregon. In addition to renovating guest rooms, the McMenamins renovation added two bars and an art gallery with old photographs and new paintings that showed the history of the hotel and McMinnville.

Many property renovations followed. In 2000, they opened the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove, Oregon, which was formerly a Masonic home built in 1922. In 2001, they opened the 27 room Olympic Club Hotel and Theater, which was an expansion of the McMenamins Olympic Club Pub in downtown Centralia, Washington. The original Oxford Hotel was built in 1908 and Olympic Club was built in 1913. In 2003, they reopened the Rock Creek Tavern in Hillsboro, Oregon, which they had purchased in 1995 when the original tavern burned down. In 2016, the Anderson School in Bothell, Washington opened. The original Anderson School was built in 1931 and opened in 1936. In April of 2018, McMenamins opened their latest project, the Kalama Harbor Lodge in Kalama, Washington. Other properties include the White Eagle Saloon & Hotel in Portland, which was built in 1905; Boon’s Treasury in Salem, built in the 1860s; and Old St. Francis School in Bend, which opened in 1936.

ARCHIVAL COLLECTION INFORMATION The brew sheets and some event materials were provided to the Special Collections & Archives Research Center in 2015 and 2016 for digitization. The original items have been retained by McMenamins.

In addition to the brewery activity and the various beers released by McMenamins, this collection also contains information on events organized by the company, such as homebrew competitions and festivals. The cask held in the collection was used at the Oak Hills Pub and is decorated with a pen drawing created by brewer Chris Haslett. The photographs show art installation, artists, and property renovation.

The brew sheets and some event materials were provided to the Special Collections & Archives Research Center in 2015 and 2016 for digitization. The original items were retained by McMenamins.

Physical and electronic records are available for use in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center reading room.

[callmethehunter]

Maggie and Robert

Here’s a new chapter!  I hope you like it.  Thank you to @firethatgrewsolow​ for feedback and help with editing.  As always, there’s a recap of the previous post, followed by the new material.   RECAP:   After a passionate and funfilled night on the beach with Robert, Maggie now has to face the music…aka her old man, Steve

End of Part 3:   As Robert’s silhouette grew smaller in the distance, she knew that she needed to see him again. She simply HAD to see him before he left for the UK on Saturday.  He was magical.  The passion and connection that she had felt with him during their brief encounter was exactly what was absent with Steve and what she deeply craved.

 When she lost all sight of Robert, her eyes swept over the skies.  The sun was beginning to rise, dispersing the quiet darkness of the night...a night she would treasure always.   She sighed wearily, turning her back to that golden sunrise as she headed back home to a man she did not truly love or even respect.  

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Part 4:  Steve and Schemes

Maggie slowly made her way back to the Bahia Mar just as the dawn lightened the skies.  It was as if the sun was awakening from the depths of the sea to continue it’s restless journey.  There was something about the light and the retreating darkness that made her feel exposed, unable to hide from others or from herself. With each step, closer to Steve, her dread mounted. She replayed the moments with Robert, reliving them as she put one foot in front of the other.  It distracted her from the looming anxiety about having to face Steve and explain where she had gone off to the previous evening.

While she believed that honesty was the best recourse, she decided to make an exception in this case. Just this once, she thought.  She rationalized that it was none of Steve’s business how she chose to spend her time, given that they weren’t married and he had no claim on her.  

They had shacked up for convenience sake. Their initial arrangement had been that each of them paid half of all expenses, which then gradually became Steve paying a larger share.  She had quit bartending at the Elbo Room back in January so she could attend community college.  

But Maggie knew his cash flow came from dealing in weed and acid, not from a 9 to 5 job.  In her opinion, it was easy money since the hippies had started congregating at the northern end of Fort Lauderdale Beach where housing was cheaper, granting Steve access to a booming clientele.

It was the age of tuning in and tuning out.  Timothy Leary advocated the use of psychedelics such as acid as a means to spiritual and personal growth. The drugs  practically came with an endorsement, for crying out loud and added to the Free Love movement that was spreading like wildfire especially now that the Pill was in greater use.  In fact the media was touting last summer of 1967 as the Summer of Love.  

Her internal dialogue was interrupted when she heard her name being shouted repeatedly.  She spotted Steve sitting in the shiny red Camaro, his prized possession. It was one of the only vehicles in the lot this early in the day.  He started the loud engine and practically peeled out of the parking space headed towards her.  

Oh fuck!, she cursed under her breath. Here he comes... The smidgeon of peace that had remained from her magical evening with Robert went flying out the window, replaced by a deep annoyance at having to explain herself to Steve.

“What the fuck, Maggie!” Steve barked as he pulled up next to her. “Where have you been all this time? I was worried about you out there trippin’ all by yourself.” He gestured wildly towards the beach. “One minute you were there, then the next time I looked you were gone. Man, I thought you drowned!  I sure hope it was worth it to keep me hanging like that,” he berated her.

Maggie’s tactic when he became this belligerent was to placate him and act contrite. “Steve, I know...I am so sorry you had to go through all that.  That purple microdot was so strong I don’t even know what all I did, I just remember being at the Jetties, and laying down somewhere looking at the sky...probably for hours.  The stars looked as if they were dripping wax from candles on the beach and the colors were so bright!” 

She ventured a glance at his face, which appeared calmer. “You know how it is, babe, I didn’t mean to worry you.” See?  she said to herself, telling half truths was not really lying, she rationalized again. But in her heart she knew that she was skating on thin ice.

“Yea, I know, that shit’s groovy, man, but you can’t just walk off and not tell me what you’re doing or where you’re going for hours!”   The fact that his voice was back to a normal decibel was promising.

 “C’mon man, get in the car. I’m starving thanks to having to sit there all fucking night waiting on you.” As usual, the crisis had become all about him.

“Steve, seriously, who are you kidding? You know damn well you and your friends were partying all night... You barely missed me, seeing as Shannon the chipmunk was hanging on your every word when I left.”  She wasn’t buying his ”holier than thou, concerned boyfriend” crap. It might work on Shannon but it wasn’t going to work on her.

That must have been what happened, because Steve did not respond as he sped down AIA towards the House of Pancakes.  By the time they pulled into the lot, they had toned it down.  Steve had a short memory, probably from all the weed he smoked, and now that they were going to eat, his self-righteous attitude diminished.  After they were seated, he studied the menu, commenting on what he should order.  

Maggie breathed a sigh of relief.  She had been right in only revealing where she’d been and not who she was with...Only the sexiest and most intriguing man she had ever laid eyes on, she said to herself.  Had she divulged that small yet crucial detail, she would not have heard the end of it.  

Yet Steve was the one who had brought up having an open relationship when they shacked up the year before. They were more like friends on equal footing back then but somehow he seemed to have developed a sense of ownership.  Nowadays he acted as if he was her sugar daddy or had some claim on her.   The longer she allowed Steve to finance her life, the longer she would be in this rut. She had become lazy and complacent.  The realization deeply troubled her and she vowed to take action, once and for all.

After ordering a breakfast platter, Steve mentioned he had been looking at a boat that was for sale at the docks near the Bahia Mar.  It was  last year’s model, a 1967 Chris Craft Cavalier, he said, as if that would explain it.  

“Well, tell me more about it.  I don’t know much about boats,” she added, “except that some have cabins and some don’t.”

“Man, I gotta teach you about the finer details of boating! if I can get this dude to go down on the price. I think he will, seeing as I fronted him 100 hits of acid and some weed last week and he still hasn’t paid me.”

“You know what, Steve? One of these days somebody’s gonna screw you over so bad or you’re gonna get busted by the fuzz, man,” she chided him. “You gotta be more careful, people talk…”

“Maggie, shut the fuck up, you don’t know what I do or don’t do.” He spat out bits of the omelett he was chewing, with how forcefully he replied. “I've been doing this shit since I was 16, so for over 10 years now, I ain’t never had a problem...well, except with a Cuban dude that tried to rip me off one time. But anyway,” he continued, “I don’t have to do shit, you hear?”

She hated when he spoke to her with disdain, belittling her intelligence, sometimes right in front of his friends. Most of the time, she sucked it up and went with the flow, letting it roll right off her back.  But lately, this type of behavior angered her and she had been growing increasingly resentful towards his snide remarks.

  “Fuck you, too, Steve” she countered, setting her toast down on the plate, suddenly losing all appetite.

“Whatever...Look, Maggie, do you wanna go see the damn boat or not? You’re lucky I’m even asking for your opinion seeing that we’re gonna be spending a lot of time on it.”

“Oh really?” she replied, “what if I don’t like boating, did you ever think of that? What if I always get sea sick, huh?” she asked but he just looked at her, mouth agape.

“Steve, you know I don’t like it when the water’s really deep, you can’t just assume I’m gonna feel comfortable on that boat day in and day out…”

“Why not?” he asked incredulously. “You should see the cabin, Maggie. It’s got a full sized bed, mini bathroom and little kitchen. It’s sweet, baby, you’re gonna forget all about that you’re on the water...It’s gonna be like being in a camper on land. You’ll love it, baby.”

She cringed at the familiar way he disregarded her feelings, bulldozing over them and then pretending she had been the one to suggest whatever it was he manipulated her into doing.  This was insanity!  He’s never gonna change!, she realized. 

Almost in a defeated tone, she answered “Yea, maybe you’re right, Steve. Let’s go take a look when we leave here.”   

He reached over the table and patted her hand, “Thata girl. We’ll go right after I pay.”

With that, he signaled to the waitress to bring the check, took a wad of cash out of his pocket, and glanced over the bill.  

Maggie looked out the window and realized they were only a few minutes away from Tugboat Annies.

She mustered up all her courage and nonchalantly asked  “Hey, sweetie, if we were to get the boat, could we dock it over by Tugboat Annies? It doesn’t cost as much as the Bahia Mar and you can pull up through the intercoastal, dock it in the back, and you’re right at the bar....There’s actually a really good band playing this weekend,” she continued, “if we had the boat, we’d look so cool pulling up in it, right?”

She knew Steve well. He was a show off and loved to appear important. The idea that the hip people at Tugboat’s would notice his latest purchase was irresistible to him.   His growing smile told her everything she needed to know, and her heart soared as she thought about seeing Robert again.  She ached with longing for him.  That gorgeous blonde, that sexy man. 

She smiled back sweetly at Steve, proud of herself for having turned the tables and being the one who manipulated the outcome, making him feel he was still in control.  

Her self-congratulation faded as a tinge of anxiety surfaced.  Steve was a narcissist, that much was true, but he was no dummy and he was extremely possessive of her time.  How was she going to manage making contact with Robert while Steve was hovering nearby? How was she gonna pull this one off?  

Different scenarios ran through her mind.  She suddenly realized that the answer lay in having distractions... Lots of distractions.  They would put the word out and invite all his cronies out to the concert, in part to celebrate and party on the boat.  People could step out onto the marina behind Tugboat’s and score, getting their stash for the week in the privacy of the boat’s cabin.  She’d wait to suggest that part later… 

After the waitress brought back the change, she grabbed her bag from the back of her chair, stood and followed Steve out of the diner, this time with a light heart and a bounce in her step.

To be continuied at Tugboat Annies....

[argentdandelion]

Welp, I’m Going to Grillby’s: A Fanwork Analysis

Many fan works suppose Grillby set up a new pub (also called Grillby’s) on the Surface after the Pacifist ending. Cross-species patrons and booming business is only possible for monster-run businesses when anti-monster prejudice is low, and there are few reasons (other than prejudice) humans wouldn’t patronize Grillby’s. Therefore, in any work where anti-monster prejudice is fairly low, Grillby’s will always have some degree of popularity among humans. Thus, the success of Grillby’s, and how quickly Grillby’s-related problems are solved, is a useful clue or indicator of anti-monster prejudice levels.

Fan Works

GlitchTale

Camila Cuevas's GlitchTale (specifically Season 2) is very unusual for how quickly Grillby’s becomes very popular, as well as the low prejudice levels and speed of monster integration in general. To be more specific, Grillby’s business (and Muffet's business) is not only patronized by humans, but are explicitly the most popular restaurants in the city, and compete for customers. If Muffet, a spider-like monster who only ran a bake sale before, can have a thriving business, it suggests Grillby’s popularity isn’t a statistical anomaly of a sign of especially good food. That, and the fact the blue bunny NPC still sells Nice Cream, suggests monster food vendors’ success is part of a greater trend. Admittedly, the popularity of Grillby’s could be from the restaurants' very novelty, given the work’s time scale. Yet, the fact so many people are trying out magic food, made by a fire monster and a spider monster within less than a month after monsters’ reappearance, suggests people adjusted to living with monsters very well. Indeed, the time scale of Grillby’s suggests business-folk and lawmakers are also friendly to (or at least indifferent to) monsters, to the point Grillby and Muffet can both start businesses and get food vendor licenses very quickly.

The work’s very fast integration and positive sentiment to monsters would be very unrealistic, were it not for the fact GlitchTale’s world differs so much from Earth. Its socio-political, historical, and geographical details all make for a smooth path for monsters. Indeed, institutions (e.g., The Anti-Monster Department) and knowledge from the first war of humans and monsters even continue to the modern day. The result of all these differences is that monsters are (largely) very comfortable in human society.1

Charakterny Comics

Insanelyadd's Charkaterny comics show a world with slightly greater anti-monster prejudice. The comic has a small plot, set a year after the barrier was broken, in which a kid bought a hot dog from Sans and the kid’s mother “freaked out” and made lots of complaints upon learning it was magic. Due to some legal oversight, magic food apparently isn’t included in a normal food vendor’s license. Therefore, after all these complaints, Sans gets his food vendor’s license revoked for “violations” with the food. Papyrus (now an ambassador) suspects what happened to Sans could also happen to other monster food sellers (e.g., Grillby). While Grillby’s itself is not shown, other monster food vendors signing the petition suggests the success of Grillby’s isn’t unusual. Apparently, a significant number of humans like magic food and/or monster businesses, and they disapprove of the possibility monster businesses can be shut down for serving magic food. The petition is signed, and the plot is quickly resolved.

Undertale: Long Road

(As a fanfiction, Long Road does not have illustrations. The author of this article provided one)

WolvenOne's* Long Road* takes place a year after the barrier broke, and although things are fairly good for monsters, they have to deal with influential groups of anti-monster politicians and a monster-killing mage squad.

As its timespan is much longer than GlitchTale’s, the level of Grillby’s success and species intermixing is more plausible, by real-world rather than fictional standards. In this work, Grillby's explicitly has at least one human employee, who is happy to work there and with monsters. Since magical food “didn’t need to be digested, converted to energy instantly, could heal minor injuries, [...] and never made you fat”, it became popular among humans: “even humans preferred magically prepared foods, at least on the occasions that they could get it.”

The Anomaly

Coffelemental's The Anomaly’s has one of the more complex approaches to human-monster relations, with anti-monster levels varying by time period and region. Unlike most works, The Anomaly is explicitly set in real-world geographical areas, cultures, and time periods, putting more real-life-inspired context to the monsters’ struggles. Although Grillby’s is popular among humans in The Anomaly, there's no indication it's unusually so: it’s normal for a popular bar/restaurant. No other monster food shops are shown, but many monsters have gainful employment in a variety of professions[^2], suggesting being a monster food vendor is feasible. The twelve-year timespan means there has been plenty of time for monsters to integrate into wider human society, but also plenty of time for people to make anti-monster laws.

Deeper Down

Zeragii's Deeper Down treats monsters the worst: monsters were restricted to the forest around Mt. Ebott for weeks in encampments. While The Anomaly’s timeline also started with similar encampments, the actual story is set twelve years after the barrier breaking, when monsters have more rights and societal integration. Though Grillby still makes food in Deeper Down, he does not operate a restaurant: that Grillby's doesn't even exist shows the situation is very bad for monsters.

Conclusions

Based on the five works, one can make certain conclusions about the success and patron composition of Grillby's in a Post-Pacifist setting. (These conclusions ought to be taken with a grain of salt, due to low sample size.)

There is a negative correlation between the success of Grillby's and anti-monster prejudice.As prejudice goes down, the success of Grillby's increases.2

At a certain high prejudice level, Grillby's cannot exist. (No works sampled have Grillby's closing down due to anti-monster prejudice, though.)

If prejudice levels are very low (GlitchTale), Grillby's will receive human patrons very quickly. If prejudice levels are higher (The Anomaly, Long Road), Grillby's will receive human patrons later.3

There can be different prejudice levels among customers, lawmakers, and departments that give out food vendor licenses.

Anti-monster prejudice is still a problem...but the biggest threat isn't from a human.  ↩︎

Presumably there's some limit to this. Otherwise, at the point where's no anti-monster prejudice, Grillby's becomes a chain restaurant that takes over the world. Extending that, if the prejudice gets into the negatives, where lots of humans absolutely love monsters, Grilby's would presumably become an international food conglomerate. ↩︎

In the U.S., sushi and Chinese food were once variously viewed as dirty, gross, bizarre or unhealthy (for special reasons), but they're very popular there now. Given how long it took for those foods to become popular on the national level, the time scales for Grillby’s popularity for all of these works is especially impressive. ↩︎

[perksofwifi]

Max Factor: Hemi-Powered Dodge D-100 Was a Rebel In Its Time

THESE DAYS, factory hot-rod pickups are as commonplace as rock stars wearing guyliner, but all of them owe their heritage to the specially equipped Dodge D-100 Custom Sports Special you see here, which debuted in 1964—eight years before Ziggy Stardust painted his face. Yes, in the same year designer Mary Quant changed the fashion world forever with the miniskirt, Dodge attempted to upend the pickup-truck status quo by introducing a “personal-use” maximum-performance model of the D-100—a Hemi-powered hot rod truck lavishly trimmed with bucket seats and a console.

Perhaps some spark of inspiration came from San Diego DJ Dick Boynton’s success racing his 1963 Dragmaster truck, a Dodge D-100 powered by a 413-cubic inch 420-horse Max Wedge engine that won its B/FX (factory experimental) class at the 1963 Winternationals in Pomona by laying down a 12.71-second, 108.99-mph run. That’s impressive for a 3,900-pound truck carrying 70 percent of its weight up front. Soon the 413 became a factory special-order option as part of a High-Performance Package. HPP included a 360-horse Street Wedge four-barrel dual-exhaust 413 (superseded in early 1964 by a 365-horse 426), a push-button 727 LoadFlite three-speed automatic, heavy-duty springs, traction bars, power steering, and a gauge package with a 6,000-rpm tach.

The HPP option cost a whopping $1,235—67 percent of the base price (about $8,700 in today’s money). To order it, buyers had to pay in full for the truck in advance, without Chrysler Corporation financing. And while the marketing literature touts its availability, management capped total production at 50 trucks sold and built over three model years. That’s probably because there was little or no profit in it, due to the high degree of hand fabrication involved (custom brackets were made to attach the Imperial/300 traction bars to the rear axle, a frame crossmember had to be torched out and replaced with brackets, the firewall had to be dented for exhaust-manifold clearance, etc.).

But there’s way more to the story than that dragstrip drivetrain. The pickup world had been gradually shucking its farmers-and-contractors-only image for several years. Chevrolet’s mid-1955 introduction of the smooth-sided and chrome-bedecked Cameo pickups marked a first attempt at serious gentrification. Ford and Dodge responded in 1957 with their Styleside and Sweptside truckbed designs respectively, the latter of which involved Dodge slapping an ill-fitting two-door station wagon quarter panel onto the existing pickup bed through January 1959. These classier trucks looked more at home in suburban neighborhoods and vacationland campgrounds, sporting in-bed campers or towing trailers. We noted this trend in an October 1964 RV feature, attributing a boom in comfort-oriented light truck sales to skyrocketing camper sales (up 28 percent between 1963 and ’64).

Dodge upped its pickup game for 1961 with an all-new design that included the option of a properly integrated, full-width Sweptline bed (available since mid-’59) as well as stronger frames, increased track width, plus longer and wider leaf springs and Oriflow shocks at all four corners for better ride and handling. To attract new customers to the segment, Dodge offered a comfort-and-style oriented Custom Sports Special package in 1964, priced at $235. The package included black vinyl bucket seats borrowed from the Dodge Dart GT, a center console from the Polara, dual armrests and sunvisors, a fully carpeted floor and gas tank, chrome bumpers and grille, and racing stripes up the hood and cab. The CSS package could be ordered with a variety of engines, any bed (or chassis-cab) configuration, with rear- or four-wheel drive on half- or three-quarter ton trucks in 13 colors.

The lucky few who sprang for the magic combination of CSS and HPP bought the great-granddaddy of every Ram SRT-10, Ford F-150 SVT Lightning, or Chevy Silverado SS454 pickup—and at a pretty good price. Typically equipped, they went for around $3,500, less than $25,000 in today’s money. The original owner of this pristine example was a gentleman farmer who loved to street-race his buddies on rural backroads. Lore has it that the dealer or factory somehow botched his paperwork and, instead of what he ordered, an identical-looking Custom Sports Special arrived with a measly 230-horse, 318-cubic-inch V-8 instead of the mighty 426. The dealer apologized profusely and allowed him to drive the 318 while the 426 was reordered. He never mentioned this bureaucratic bungle-up to his streetracing pals, allowing them to beat his supposed Street Wedge beast. Then when the real thing arrived, he told them he’d been tinkering with the carburetor and asked if they would give him one more shot. This time, of course, there was no contest. (He was reportedly good enough not to claim any pink slips.)

A surprising number of these original High-Performance Package trucks have remained in the families of their original owners, including Benjamin Simons’. His folks stretched to buy their $3,420 truck (eschewing the CSS frippery) and racked up 450,000 miles on it, crisscrossing the country with a bed capper and a camping trailer in tow. Ben fondly recalls riding with his mom or dad (they both had lead feet) when some musclecar would stop next to them at the light. They’d press the “1” button on the transmission selector, and it was game on. Their sleeper pickup shamed its fair share of GTOs, Fairlane 390s, Corvettes, and the like, and was once clocked by a Florida Highway Patrol aircraft at 130 mph. The trooper on the ground refused to write the ticket, disbelieving such a plain-Jane truck could go that fast. Those were the days…

Driving the 1964 Dodge D-100 Custom Sports Special

Our ivory Custom Sports Special test car was lovingly restored by its current owner, the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Climbing aboard, it takes some reminding that this was among the poshest pickup trucks on the market in 1964, given the sybaritic standards set by today’s Laramie Longhorn, King Ranch, and Denali trim grades. Most of the interior is painted metal, including the door-access panels, which are (correctly) bright white—as jarring a mismatch with the ivory as the mocha brown door armrests are against the black seats (also correct). That unique 6,000-rpm tach doesn’t match the other gauges either, and the (optional!) turn signal stalk can’t be reached without removing a hand from the steering wheel. There’s not much “bucketing” to these thrones, but they’re nicely padded, and the huge console offers plenty of storage. The rattan headliner is a nice touch, coordinating nicely with summer cowboy hats. There’s no inside rearview mirror, as the regulation stipulated only two mirrors, and each door got one to ensure visibility should the rear window be obscured by a load.

The big block fires instantly and settles into a delightful lope. A bit of “stiction” in the throttle linkage makes it nearly impossible to roll away from a stop without spitting gravel from the tall, narrow bias plies while parading for the camera at a suburban Detroit horse farm. The steering feels as if power assist was simply added to a manual gear, and with five turns lock to lock, it’s astonishing how much input is required to negotiate the gentlest of bends. Keep flailing, however, and it turns tight enough to negotiate a U-turn on a two-lane road with ample shoulders. The brake pedal travels some distance before the manual drum brakes kick in, but they feel strong and are easily modulated. Ride quality is in keeping with half-century-old solid-axle, leaf-sprung technology—purposeful but not overly harsh. A brief spin on the paved roads around the WPC Museum the next day reveals the challenge of routing 470 pound-feet of torque through two hard contact patches that are 4.25 inches wide each. Feather the gas through most of first gear to prevent total tire immolation, and dither it again at the 1-2 upshift or risk another big dose of wheelspin. But, wow, does that bellowing Wedge sound sweet drowning out the Goodyears’ squeals for mercy.

After way too little of this hi-po hooliganism, the rising shriek of an unraveling speedometer cable joins the chorus, cutting the test drive of this historic factory muscle truck short. But it’s been enough D-100 426 seat time to paint a smirk on this face that mere cold cream could never clean off. (Editor’s NOTE: This story originally appeared in the Spring 2011 issue of Motor Trend Classic).

1964 Dodge D-100 Custom Sports Special Specs

Engine: 425.6-cu-in/6974cc OHV V-8, 1×4-bbl Carter AFB3611S carburetor Power and torque (SAE gross): 365 hp @ 4,800 rpm, 470 lb-ft @ 3,200 rpm Drivetrain: 3-speed automatic RWD Brakes: Drums front/rear Suspension: Solid axle, leaf springs, front/live axle, leaf springs, rear Dimensions (l x w x h): 214.1 x 79.9 x 67.1 in Weight: 3,874 lb Performance quarter mile: 14.1 at 102 mph (Valdosta Raceway run, Simons family truck, running a 3.55:1 SureGrip axle and stock-size, race compound tires) Price when new: $3,500

ASK THE MAN WHO OWNS A DODGE D-100 CUSTOM SPORTS SPECIAL

BENJAMIN SIMONS is a Web designer and photographer for the University of Florida school of business by day, and an oracle of Sweptline high-performance truck information by night.

WHY I LIKE IT: “I came home from the hospital in this truck and grew up with it, taking innumerable family camping vacations in it.”

WHY IT’S COLLECTIBLE: Only 50 Street Wedge Sweptlines were built, and they’re historically significant as the first factory high-performance pickups.

RESTORING/MAINTAINING: New or repro parts for Dodge pickups of this vintage are nearly nonexistent, so find a good truck or an ace body shop and fabricator.

BEWARE: Quick-rusting footwells, cowls, and door edges. Valve covers are unique to the trucks, and are ultra rare, as are the hand-fabricated rear axle traction-bar mounts.

EXPECT TO PAY: Concours ready: $90,000; solid driver: $25,000; tired runner: $12,000

JOIN THE CLUB: Walter P Chrysler Club (chryslerclub.org), 1961-1971 Dodge Truck Association, (DodgeSweptline.org), Custom Sports Special & High Performance Package Registry (cssregistry.com)

THE MOTORTREND TAKE

THEN: “Acceleration, even with the rather conservative 318 engine, wasn’t just brisk—it was pleasantly alarming. Tires chirped at the shift from low to second, even on normal starts. Coupled with the light body and heavy-duty suspension components, the Palomino offers a maverick choice.”—Carl Isica, Motor Trend, April 1964

NOW: In terms of power, performance, engine note, and handling, Dodge’s Street Wedge D-100 is every bit as much a “muscle truck” as any ’49 Rocket 88 or ’64 GTO is a musclecar—it’s just a whole lot more interesting because there are so few of them.

ONE-OFF CONTEMPORARY RIVAL: 1963 FORD F-100 XL

At about the same time Boynton was tearing up the West Coast with his Max Wedge Dragmaster, a purpose-built Ford F-100 “unibody” pickup was tearing up the Eastern U.S., outfitted with a 425-horse Galaxie drag engine running twin four-barrel carbs, a Borg-Warner T-10 transmission, a heavily modified suspension, and 4.86:1 gearing. Dearborn Steel Tubing, which pitched in on many Ford Racing programs, engineered and built one truck and published marketing material touting the XL as a dealer-orderable option package, converted at DST and priced at $3,400 above the base truck. This literature claimed the F-100 XL was unbeaten in 16 starts running in the same B/FX class as the Max Wedge Dodge with nearly identical quarter-mile runs of 12.72 sec at 108 mph. Sad to say, the two trucks never met and no more F-100 XLs are believed to have been built.

The post Max Factor: Hemi-Powered Dodge D-100 Was a Rebel In Its Time appeared first on MotorTrend.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/dodge-d100-custom-sports-special-hemi-review/ visto antes em https://www.motortrend.com

[caranfindel]

Recap/review 14.10: “Nihilism”

THEN: Michael. Gadreel! Poughkeepsie! Jack dying. Jack’s soul. You didn’t think to question? Snap!

NOW: We open on a bar scene, complete with a passed-out drunk in a hoodie. I notice the moose head immediately, but The Husband is the one who pointed out to me that there was also a taxidermied squirrel holding a beer. This is Rocky’s Bar, guys! As in Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

Hey, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

The door opens and it takes me a minute to recognize the woman who enters as Pamela Barnes, neither blind nor dead (and also not having aged at all in ten years, damn her), wearing a shirt that says to hell and back. It’s raining, and she complains that people are shopping like it’s the end times. I feel you, Pamela. I hate it when we get a snow prediction and everyone has to go make the run on bread and milk. She produces a bag of limes and we see it’s Dean behind the bar. Ah, so this is where the mystery bar flashback in 14.09 came from! He needs the limes for his house special, a shot of tequila and a beer.

(Sidebar: A tequila drinker, I’m not. I could go for a whiskey, which is normally Dean’s drink of choice. You know when we last saw him drink tequila? I haven’t noticed it since he was a demon, threatening to rip Sam’s throat out. With his teeth.)

Pamela asks about Sam, and Dean tells her he’s still on a ghoul hunt with Cas, but should be home tonight. A woman in a suit comes in, continuing a conversation in which she attempts to buy Dean’s bar. I wonder if she’s a Scooby Doo shady real estate type? He assures her it’s still not for sale. “This bar? I’ve never had anything this nice,” he says. {sob!}

There’s a lot of interesting Easter eggs in this bar beyond the moose and squirrel. The Impala’s original Kansas tag. “Daphne loves Fred” carved into the bar. (Even in the bar of his dreams, Dean can’t hook up with Daphne.) A neon “Texas Star” sign. An anime calendar in the office. Probably more things that I haven’t caught.

Later, Dean’s at a desk going over paperwork. Pamela comes in with a couple of shotglasses. They banter and drink and they’re adorable, and then she brings up selling the bar and he says “Sell this bar? This is my dream.” (duh duh duuuuuhhh!) Then we see him in the walk-in refrigerator. Pamela calls him out because they’ve trouble - it’s a werewolf, or one of Michael’s werepire hybrids, coming to settle a score because the Winchesters killed his entire nest. Turns out Unconscious Hoodie Guy (who I halfway expected to be Sam) is his buddy. They attack, but Dean wins easily. As Pamela wipes the blood off his pretty pretty face, she comments on the monsters who keep coming in to kill him. “What can I say?” he grins. “I’m famous.”

Title card!

Hitomi Plaza. “Now, this just feels right,” Michael!Dean says. He’s inexplicably wearing a suit now. Did Dean’s clothes change into a suit when Michael snapped his fingers? He does something painful to TFW and gives a monologue about hope, explaining that he saw every single thing they did (through Dean’s eyes, thanks to his “open door”). While he talks, Sam is getting something out of his pocket. Cas lunges at Michael, apparently to provide a distraction while Sam makes a little molotov cocktail of holy oil and tosses it at Michael. While the archangel is preoccupied, Cas snaps the magic handcuffs on him. I guess whatever Bobby did to juice them up actually worked.

(Sidebar: I covered the names of the guest stars on first watch, as you do, but now I see the name Thunderbird Dinwiddie? Originally Pamela’s actress went by Traci. Did she change her name after that, or has she always been named Thunderbird and Traci was her nickname?)

Sam pleads with Dean to come out and take over, but it doesn’t work. And suddenly we hear a lot of sirens outside. Oh yeah, Michael’s monster army. Sam’s phone rings - it’s Maggie. She rounded up every hunter she could find and they’re getting reports of monsters attacking, but to infect, not to kill. So, Maggie’s in charge. Huh. Okay. I mean, not the choice I would have made, but. Okay.

Sam’s plan is to take Michael downstairs and put him in the trunk of the Impala. “But Garth is in the trunk,” Jack points out. “It’s a big trunk,” Sam says. Oh, god. I laughed at that. I’m not proud.

Suddenly we hear monsters slavering at the door. Jack jams it shut with the broken Testicle Spear, and Cas holds it with angelic powers, but they don’t have any other way out of the penthouse. “It’s not like any of us can fly,” Jack says. “Well, one of us can,” says Michael. “Shut up,” Sam snaps. Oh god. I laughed again.

Jack asks Sam “are we going to die here?” and poor Sam looks so distressed and Michael just smirks but then Sam gets an idea and yells for Jessica. You know, his own personal reaper. He knows she’s watching. The reaper who shows up is an unfamiliar one named Violet. “It’s my shift. We have shifts now because you mess up so, so many things.” Bless you, Violet. Sam asks her for help, and she is just full of emotional support but not much else. Jack and Cas are confused, because they can’t see her. But Michael can. He tells her that in his world, they locked Death away and enslaved the reapers, and she’s all, aren’t you a creepy one. At first she says she wouldn’t help them even if she could, but then she seems to get a message from elsewhere, and them boom, they’re in the bunker.

I would have broken all the rules to rescue this poor distressed cinnamon roll. ALL THE RULES.

Sam asks how she did that, and she says “I didn’t. Have fun.” And she’s gone. And I’m thinking wait, the Impala is still in Kansas City, and Garth is still in the trunk. This is not good.

Later. Jack asks if Michael should be in the dungeon, and Sam says that if the cuffs won’t hold him, the dungeon won’t either. “I can hear you,” Michael points out. They move six feet away. “Really?” Yeah, I’m enjoying Jensen as Michael, finally.

Sam explains to Jack and Cas that when he was possessed by Gadreel, the angel created a dream world inside his head. (Apparently someone told Jack the story of Gadreel, because he’s following right along.) And Crowley was able to come in and tell him how to kick Gadreel out. But Crowley’s dead. Oooooh, is De Facto King of Hell Sam going to call up a minion and have them break into Dean’s head? (And why does Sam suspect Dean is in a dream world in the first place, since 1. Michael didn’t do that the first time he possessed him, and b. Michael wants Dean to see his world destroyed, in order to crush him. Discuss.)

Maggie calls again and says they’re almost at Hitomi Plaza, even though Sam specifically told her not to go there. He asks her to get Garth out of the trunk (oh, good, but please warn her that he’s been Michaelized and he’s going to attack them, and also, have someone drive the car back to the bunker!) and she tells him the monsters have stopped attacking and are all heading west.

“Remind me, Castiel,” Michael says, all smooth and evil. “We’re west of Kansas City now?” Why, yes, they are. A 4 hour 22 minute drive. Cas is, oddly enough, surprised that Michael is bringing his monster crew to the bunker, and gathers Jack to “lock it down.”

(Sidebar: Remember when we first found out about the bunker, and it was supposed to be completely impenetrable? Ha ha ha.)

“Yes, put a chair against the door, that’ll help” says Michael. Dang, I really like this snide little bastard. He tells Sam that nothing has changed. “Tonight, everybody dies. And Sam, the last thing you’ll see, is this pretty smile, as I rip you apart.”

(WITH MY TEETH?)

Next we see Sam rolling out a bit of equipemnt. “It’s the messed-up British Men of Letters thing they use to get inside people’s heads,” he tells Cas. Oh Sam, throwing your technical jargon around. But I do feel compelled to point out that this wasn’t a BMoL thing. Toni found it in the bunker. Americans are messed up too, Sammy. Sam thinks if he can get into Dean’s head, like Crowley did, he might be able to get him to expell Michael.

Back at Rocky’s Bar, Pamela asks, again, if Dean has heard from Sam. And Dean replies, again, that he’s “working that ghoul thing in Wichita with Cas,” but they should be home tonight. They drink again, the wannabe bar buyer comes in again, they fight the monsters again, later, rinse, repeat. After a few rounds of this, Dean says he’s having “some serious deja vu.” I bet you are, sweetie.

Back at the bunker, Jack is alone with Michael. Michael says he’s insulted that a nothing like Jack has been left to guard him, and I honestly don’t think it was such a good idea either. He starts playing mind games with Jack, telling him that Dean didn’t care when he died, “because you’re not Sam.” And yes, he could have stopped right there and I would have been happy, but he continues. “You’re not Cas. You’re a new burden that he was handed. You’re a weak, helpless thing.” Boy, I hope none of that influences Jack later!

Cas calls him away and tells him not to believe anything Michael says, because he’s lying. “No I’m not, and I can still hear you,” Michael says, to my delight. Jack is clearly affected by the conversation and stomps off.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Lebanon, Maggie and her crew (Maggie’s crew, for fuck’s sake; there really isn’t anyone better to lead this group?) get a call saying some monsters have broken through and are on their way. Her inspirational speech is “Sam needs our help,” and okay, maybe she’s got this under control after all, because that’s enough for me. A van pulls up and Team Maggie points their guns at it.

Bunker. Michael is working on Cas now, telling him that his own version of Castiel wouldn’t have been so “anemic.” Yeah, well, I killed your Castiel, he says. No, he doesn’t, but he should. Instead, he brings up loyalty and compassion, which is basically saying here, Michael, here is what’s important to me, use it against me. He tells Cas he wants to destroy their world “because I can,” and then reveals that he and Lucifer thought God would come back to them when they fought, but nothing happened. And now, with Dean’s memories, he knows why.

God, Chuck, is a writer. And like all writers, he churns out draft after draft. My world, this world, nothing but failed drafts. And when he realizes that they’re flawed, he moves on and tries again.

No, that’s not… why would he do that?

Because he doesn’t care! About you, me, anything. Now, at first I thought I’d do it better. Show him. Be more god than God. But now? I just want to burn everyone of his little worlds until I catch up to the old man.

And then what?

Even God can die.

I’ve got to confess, I like this. We’ve never had any motivation for Michael’s destructiveness, but this? Destroying his father’s works because he’s angry over being abandoned? This actually works pretty well for me. It’s not new (it was Lucifer’s M.O. too, wasn’t it?) and it doesn’t really explain why Michael set out to destroy this world before he accessed Dean’s memories, but I like it.

(Sidebar: I’m also horrified, because does that mean the characters in my unfinished fics feel the same way? Because there are so many of them. Are they wandering around, lost and sad, saying Someday the Goddess will return and tell us whether we were supposed to burn this monster’s carcass at night or during the day, and someday Sam will actually leave the ER bay and get his MRI, and all questions will be answered, and until then we wait and pray? And are they eventually going to get angry enough to rise up against me and destroy all my other unfinished fics? And then me?)

Yep. This is how you die.

Outskirts. Team Maggie approaches the van and finds it empty. Because everybody got out while all of Team Maggie was watching them? Someone named Tiger runs into the woods following some tracks, ignoring Maggie’s feeble instructions not to go into the woods CHASING MONSTERS WHO WILL TURN YOU INTO A MONSTER alone. This won’t end well. Tiger returns and says the monsters are now on foot and no one says “cool, Tiger, but I think we’re gonna test you with silver just to be sure, ‘kay?”

(Sidebar: Would Sam or Dean have thought to test Tiger? Discuss. Personally, I think they would have, unless the plot required that they didn’t.)

Bunker. Sam’s fiddling with the Messed-Up BMoL AMoL Thing (oh, he’s soldering, and why is that sexy?)

It’s because Sam’s doing it, and he’s using his big Sam hands.

Jack asks if it will work, and Sam is honest and says he doesn’t know. Jack suggests that he might be able to do something using the magic that keeps him alive.

Burn off your soul?

Not all of it.

Jack. Dean wouldn’t want to be saved. Not that way.

You don’t know what you’re walking into.

Last time he was possessed, he said it felt like he was drowning. This time…

What?

Probably be worse.

Yes, it should be worse. Whatever Michael is doing to Dean right now should be SO MUCH WORSE than feeling like he was drowning. Or, it should be just letting him watch through Michael’s eyes. Either of those would make a lot of sense.

You know what else would make sense? Sam saying “I’ve been without a soul, and this is what it’s like, and I don’t want you to risk it.” But okay.

Michael sits quietly as Cas applies the apparatus to his head, so I guess he’s not only angel-powerless, but human-powerless as well. Or he’s just enjoying the science project, which he gives “a solid B minus.” Oh, poor Sam. I’m sure it would be an A if he graded on a curve. Sam’s wired up as well, and Cas clutches him to “hitch a ride.”

Jack asks what he should do, and Cas tells him to pray. Which I guess is something an angel would say, but come on, Cas. You know what to expect from that. Sam adds that he should make sure no one kills them. So, you know, no pressure. Michael points out that he’s not chained up inside Dean’s head, and Sam’s adorably concerned. And off they go.

The inside of Dean’s mind actually looks a lot like The Empty. Cas does a glowy thing with his hand and looks for him, and while he can’t see anything, he can hear all of Dean’s bad memories. And there are a lot of them. “So much trauma in Dean’s mind,” Cas says. “So many scars.” He says if he knew what he was looking for, he could go to it, but since he doesn’t know, he has to wade through all of Dean’s bad memories.

Well, we’ve already got this set, so…

Wait, says Sam. Would Michael bury Dean in trauma? Because Dean thrives on trauma. He suggests that if Michael wanted to distract him, he’d give him something he’s never had before - contentment. So Cas starts scanning Dean’s good memories, and Sam hears one he doesn’t recognize. “This bar? I’ve never had anything this nice.” That’s got to be it; the one that never happened. Yay Sam! Cas does the glowy eyes and boom, they’re in Rocky’s Bar.

“Hey, there they are,” Dean says cheerfully. “Kill a ghoul, get a beer.” The beer tap proudly advertises FB Beer Company (as in Family Business, Jensen’s brewery) and the names of the beers (Cosmic Cowboy and Fox Rye) are so prominent that I suspect they are actually Family Business Beers.

“I’ve got this great IPA from Austin,” Dean says, and okay, we’ve gone past the clever nod and wink and are in a full-blown advertisement, I think. Then the angel Anael/Sister Jo walks in and says “Oh, that’s a great brewery, and they have tours and a playground for the kids.” (NO, NOT REALLY.)

Sam and Cas are both stunned when Pamela walks in, neither blind nor dead, and Sam tells Dean that none of this is real. When he mentions Michael, Dean and Pamela disappear, because it’s time for the drinking-in-the-office portion of this recurring dream. They watch Dean go through the drinking and the walk-in and the monster-killing, with Dean and Pamela not remembering any of it. Sam reminds him that Pamela was blinded, and Dean gets a flashback of that event. When it ends, Dream!Pamela is blind, complete with her freaky white contacts. “You can thank Feathers here for that one,” she says, although it was actually completely her fault. He told her not to look. The music goes all slow and distorted and Sam says Pamela’s not just blind, she’s dead, and Dean flashes back to that too.

Dean fights it, but then Sam says Poughkeepsie and it all comes back. “I remember,” Dean says. “I remember everything.”

And you know I love Sam being the one to get through to him, but it’s not like Poughkeepsie is some magic spell. It’s just a code word for “drop everything and run,” and it only worked with Gadreel because it was coming from someone other than Dean. If Dean had doubted this was actually Sam, it probably would have been effective. But it wouldn’t have triggered Dean’s memories like that in this situation. I appreciate that they took the time to remind us that you can be oblivious in your own mind, inside a dream world, but that’s not what’s happening here. Gadreel created the dream world for Sam. Dean created this one on his own. And what does that say about Michael’s plan to crush Dean by forcing him to witness the horror Michael was wreaking on his world? I think it says we decided to back off from that. Because if Michael wanted Dean to witness what happened when he snapped his fingers, why would he allow him to hide in his dream bar?

Whatever. (handwave!)

So much pretty in this scene, especially Sam’s blood-splattered throat {blows a kiss to director Amanda Tapping} and Dean doing that THING with his TONGUE behind his TEETH, mmmm, yes.

Pamela disappears, and there’s a slow clap from the other side of the bar. Uh oh. Michael’s here! Dean orders him out, but Michael says he doesn’t really mean that. He says Dean only feels responsibility toward Cas because “he’s the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition, or whatever,” and he does that in a robotic Castiel imitation AND I LOVE IT. He also claims Dean was happiest when Sam left for Stanford. “You don’t even like them,” he says. “They’re not your family, they’re your responsibilities. They’re a weight around your neck.” Well, that would have been more effective if you hadn’t told us in the previous episode that Dean was too squirmy because he loves Sam (and Cas and Jack and whatever but Sam).

However, Cas suddenly realizes Michael is stalling. Oooh, why would he be doing that? Maybe because it’s been 4 hours and 22 minutes since everyone left Kansas City. Maggie and her crew arrive to find Sam and Cas still hooked up to the Messed-Up Thing, unable to help defend the bunker. She tells Tiger to lock the door and instructs everyone else to get ready to shoot. I’m thinking I’d have been outside the bunker, rather than waiting to defend it until the monsters get inside, but I don’t have Maggie’s awesome leadership skills.

Inside Dean’s head, TFW figures out that Michael doesn’t have any angelic powers. No problem, he’ll crush them with his bare hands. They fight karate movie style, with one person attacking Michael at a time. In the bunker, Michael smiles happily, because inside Dean’s head, he’s winning. Oh, and the monsters are here. And Tiger didn’t lock the door because he’s a monster now, DUH MAGGIE. The monsters come in and Jack watches the hunters get pummelled and finally he puts out his hand and gets glowy yellow eyes and yells NO and they all disintegrate. But it obviously took a lot out of him.

Back to Dean’s head. Michael says they clearly haven’t thought this through, because if Dean does manage to eject him, “you’ll be nothing but blood and bone.” This stops him for a second, but then he says “then we don’t kick him out; we keep him in.” He shoves Michael into the walk-in and jams the handle. “My mind, my rules,” he says. “I got him. I’m the cage.” Oooooh!!!!

Aftermath! Maggie tells Sam that the monsters have all gone their separate ways without Michael’s control. She says she didn’t know Jack could still do angel magic, and Sam looks away in distress and says “I didn’t either.” In the kitchen, Cas is lecturing Jack, telling him that using the magic burns away his soul. Jack claims it was an accident, and Cas would have been killed. Cas says it doesn’t matter because he’s doomed anyway, remember? (NO HE DOESN’T.) He tells Jack that he’s seen what happens when you lose your soul, and it’s not pretty. (I mean, it’s very pretty. It’s sexy as hell.) Jack promises it won’t happen again. I’m pretty sure he’s lying.

In his bedroom, Dean does some angsty mirror-gazing while Michael bangs and screams inside the walk-in in his mind. “It’s just you,” he tells himself. “It’s all you.” (OH CRAP the last time Dean said “it’s all you” was right after he tried to brain Sam with a hammer and WHY DOES THIS EPISODE KEEP REMINDING ME OF DEMON!DEAN???)

Then we hear a familiar voice - it’s Billie! “I did say I’d see you again soon,” she says, and DAMN THEY REMEMBERED THAT. GOOD. She does a little “told you so,” reminding him that she warned him about the dangers of jumping between worlds. He thinks it was worth it, but oh, guess what? You know that library with all the Dean Winchester deathfic? Well, all of those books have been rewritten. Now they all end with Michael escaping and using Dean as his vessel to destroy our world. Dean asks how she even knows that, did she re-read all of them, and she says here, look at my AO3 tags, look how every single fic in this series has the exact same tags and there’s no more mauled by ghouls or death by taco or tw: cannibalism. (NO SHE DOESN’T SAY THAT.)

What she does say is there’s one story that hasn’t been written over as Michael!Dean destroys the world. She hands it to Dean and he opens it and reads it and goes from anxious to confused to horrified.

What am I supposed to do with this?

That’s up to you.

He looks at the book again and then looks up with tears in his eyes, but Billie is gone.

WELL.

None of this is okay.

(Sidebar: Someone in the writer’s room really liked Infinity War, didn’t they? The last episode had the Finger Snap of Doom, and now we’ve got Dr. Strange’s every iteration of this ends with us losing, except one, and that’s not really a good one either. Maybe next week, Ant Man will show up outside the bunker.)

Wow. Once again, I’m surprised to say I really like this. My knee-jerk reaction was that the one good ending required Dean to die. But no, he wouldn’t react that way to his own death. This is something else. This is someone else. This is something horrible happening to someone he loves. What, and who? Sam is an obvious guess. They’ve been reminding us lately that Dean loves him (IN CASE YOU FORGOT, HA HA.) And there’s Cas, but Cas has his own issues. Or Jack? They’ve been hitting us with that relationship too. Mary, even? If this something awful turns out to be the way to get rid of Mary, I’m cool with that. (Jack, not so much.)

It’s hard not to think it’s Sam, though. It’s hard to imagine Dean’s immediate reaction being such horror (and grief?) for anyone other than Sam. Someone else, he’d be angry. He’d be in denial.

I’m sure I’m wrong. They probably even spoiled it in the previews for next week. (WHICH I DID NOT WATCH. PLEASE HELP ME REMAIN UNSPOILED.)

[dxncodestrikeresult-blog]

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[myfriendpokey]

clearance sale

clearing out some of my backlog of opinions before the new year so i can start anew. in this post I have accumulated some writing scraps on the only three topics: 1. finance 2. mystery 3. location

FINANCE

i enjoyed these recent-ish posts against the idea of indie sustainability, although as someone who already works a day job i always feel a bit ambivalent about the advice to just work a day job to pay for this stuff - - like yes, absolutely, do it, BUT sell your shit too in the knowledge that the type of precarity we associate w/ creative work is already in the process of being implemented everywhere else as well (or has already been - zero hour contracts, sub-living wages etc). like i am fortunate to still have a day job which pays a living wage and leaves me time to work on my own things on the side - but this feels like an anachronism rather than an inevitability right now.. maybe my unsustainable games will help keep me afloat when my job gets automated and i have to go work in an amazon warehouse, unsustainable games for an unsustainable job, ha ha ha. video games are an exploitative bubble but so is the rest of "the market".

it is true that this is a political problem rather than one in the narrow remit of things that can be fixed with the right 10-point sales plan- -  nevertheless i think the issue of trying to make even small money off these things will remain kind of pressing as, in turn, regular employment comes more and more to resemble irregularly compensated hobbyist labour.

anyway one point i found really interesting, which i think all the above posts kind of grapple with - - the idea that it's not necessarily more "realistic" to aim at selling 1000 copies rather than 100,000. i think while we make fun of the aspiring millionaires a lot of people have just been banking on the idea of a fertile middle ground between the two extremes of tiny and ludicrous amounts of sales, between boom and bust. i'm sure there are still people working in that space but it seems like it's shrinking.

one question brendan keogh asks in his piece is "why should game makers be any different  [from the norm of artists, musicians etc not really making any money]?" i think this can actually be answered a little - because hobbyist game development sort of exploded in tandem with the internet itself becoming more naturalized within everyday life, because the economic basis for indie games was always centered around the internet, which means people working in indie games were always in the vicinity of the massive, startling movements of capital that the internet rendered more visible and immediate. no more were the weird vicissitudes of the market hidden behind closed doors, in boardrooms or stock quotations - now you could log onto any site and see just bewildering amounts of money suddenly funnel into the pockets of this or that individual in real time, frequently to their own surprise as well. and i think this connected to something more general - a sort of ambient awareness of financialization, the way "the financial sector" cannibalized things like industry, the greater visibility of capital not as something embedded in some specific product or set of individual practices but as a kind of weird free-floating aura arbitrarily descending or departing. enormous reservesof "general" wealth became more visible just as the benefits and stability of waged employment became yet more desolate and i think you need to see the draw of one in part as a consequence of the other. 

gacha-capitalism, permanent artificial scarcity coupled with the vague, insistent prospect of fantastic gains, as long as you keep playing. which is a rhythm already enshrined in many areas of working life - broke college students and unpaid graduates hustling for eventual employment, waged workers grinding through until  retirement. but it's one the enhanced immediacy and swiftness of capital on the internet intensified and extended. fabulous payouts can strike anyone at any time, in exchange for slowly bleeding out the prospect of any other kind of livelihood. much like the austerity following the financial crash which levelled so many basic social services for no particular purpose other than the hope that doing so for long enough would please the gods of prosperity to start tossing money around again. all dues, no pay.

i do think it's worth being cynical about the efforts to domesticate this process, building a fair and sustainable biome within capitalism, by using the tools of that same capitalism etc.  but if the format can't be seperated from the wider world then that's something which swings both ways. for me the most interesting critical work around vgames right now is in the effort to move outside of the constant, numbing boom-and-bust cycles of capital, the idiot repetition of exhilaration and depression and exhilaration and it'll all be okay as long as we can hold out one more cycle, particularly when that's a rhythm which has been central to the development of the format from the beginning. i think anyone involved with developing videogames has probably seen multiple generations of cool shit emerge, get abruptly killed off and written out of history in accordance with market diktats, and then replaced with a new wave of cool shit whenever the investors shift gears into "expansion" mode again. a mode of thinking about and preserving what people do that stands in opposition to this is something i can easily imagine being more generally useful in the culture, as ever more areas of life and culture start becoming subject to the same questions.

MYSTERY

there's a mystery in depth and a mystery in shallowness. with depth the habitual glance of recognition goes out and falls through - you can place roughly where something is in relation to the world, but not what it's doing, not where it goes. as a presence it seems to require a new mode of attention to be recognized, which i guess is why it sometimes makes me uneasy - that challenge, the way that challenge can be moralized. are you a bad enough dude to engage with art?? if there are 100 black obelisks in a field which one do you decide to look at? and will it really turn out to be deep, or just dense?

videogames can feel like depth-worship, like the embodiment of an essentially cthonic system of values. how deep did you go and what did you see there? did  you find the gold bars in pac-man? (www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=info&page=pmgoldbar.info.txt) did you see the secret ending? how far did you get into the game mechanics, into the lore? this marks the top 10 deepest players on this game. surpass  them... if you dare. an ethos of diligent attention, hierarchial levels of  understanding and initiate-dom, a sub-culture. and at best a maguslike  dedication to altered states of consciousness that i can respect, an interest in shifting through mangled pieces of debris in search of secret mysteries. at worst the authority cults and tests of true belonging that spring up around those mysteries, whose value is in being hidden and whose guarantee is in the strenuous effort with which they must be located. paranoia about true spiritual meanings being plundered by opportunistic interlopers. stay out. get good.

the videogame has the basic opacity of the computer system and the act of engaging with this curious abyss is allegorized into dungeons, castles, mazes. trapdoors and secret corridors. one pleasure in looking up older games for me is in seeing them recognize and learn how to thematize this basic sense of mystery. in bubble bobble the obscure scoring mechanics and secret endings are cheekily perverse, arcade challenge by another means - another system to game. in king's quest there's something like a crossfertilization between the strange causal voids of the fairy tale and the adventure game: "Exit the gingerbread house and go east and east. There is a large walnut tree here. Take walnut and then open walnut to discover a gold nut. Head east and take bowl . Look bowl  to see the words “fill” at the bottom. Fill and the bowl will fill up with a delicious stew." the wizardry games took the connection between mysterious game systems and occult knowledge much further - the "true" ending of wizardry iv means finding a secret chamber and answering a series of riddles based on your knowledge of the kaballah (or at least, kaballah-derived tarot interpretations).

it's easy to moralize depth - lotus eaters, magic islands. you wander through a strange land and then return to find it's 5 hours later and you forgot to eat. there's something creepy to me about depth on an industrial scale, about building huge tunnels with massive teams on forced overtime, and then a team of professional tunnel reviewers cautiously start descending on ropes and come back every so often and say, well, 20 hours in and it all looks ok, and meanwhile everybody else is jumping en masse. maybe that's more of an issue with consumer culture in general. but sometimes it feels like a way to avoid dealing with certain inherent limitations of that culture, or even limitations of art in general, by projecting those limits out to the end of ever-deeper tunnels that fewer and fewer people will ever see, the rest of them straggling back, exhausted, getting jobs. well, i can't tell you if red dead 2 is good or not. i only got 60 hours in, and i never even found all the falcons.

if the mystery of depth is having too much space for speculation to operate coherently within, the mystery of shallowness is having not enough space for speculation to operate at all: something is too manifestly there, limited, closed-off, it's hard to push it away to get some metaphorical breathing room. 

i feel this way sometimes reading writers like tove jansson, flannery o'connor - SOMETHING happened, the stories are short and clear and describe some definite event without too much uncertainty, they even have "broader themes" raised - but somehow the themes feel embarrassingly outsize for the stories, and the stories remain too clearly defined to sink back into the murk of a generalized moral or experience. they feel like moral stories when you can't work out what the moral might be.

robbe-grillet on raymond roussel: "Now these chains of elucidations,  extraordinarily precise, ingenious, and farfetched, appear so derisory, so disappointing, that it is as if the mystery remained intact. But it  is henceforth a mystery that has been washed, emptied out, that has become  unnameable. The opacity no longer hides anything. One has the impression of  having found a locked drawer, then a key; and this key opens the drawer impeccably... and the drawer is empty."

there's a famous shallowness to videogames as well that's most often caught by people outside the culture - when you see the fake videogames in a comicbook, or on tv, and they're named something like "washing machine simulator 3000" or "municipal tax assailants". and part of this also stems from the computer, the history of the computer as it insinuated its way into everyday life, as a mysteriously elaborate and convoluted way of doing just impossibly banal things, like balancing chequebooks or printing text. the stubborn thingliness of not-quite-functional machines, the way the thingliness glosses and corrodes their own internal fantasies, mirrors of the basic weirdness that is human consciousness as a material fact within the world. 

with my friend i used to joke  about "e3" just being the dumpster behind an abandoned gamestop - all those needy longform experiences frozen into evocative trinkets. find a nonfunctional disk copy of mario odyssey and it gives you all the same delight as playing mario odyssey, only without having to. i think there's something beautiful about that flatness, that directionless object-hostility, the rejection of the grandoise hero's journey fantasies that it implies – as well as something baleful, a rejection of consciousess in general, the idea that it could take you anywhere not inside your own head.

LOCATION

why are there so many videogames about going outside? every time i've played a videogame it's been inside a room, usually a dark one, mostly while still wearing my pajamas. for me it is an internal activity. but not only do all these games take place in fields and plains, they always talk about the wonders of going on a voyage, the beauty of the great outdoors, the superiority of the wandering main characters to the slugs and layabouts who sit at home all day.... it's weird to me, i demand we move past these cloying pseudo-critiques. raymond williams once pointed out that the first pastoral was written from the perspective of a rentier daydreaming of cashing out and moving to a country home. i demand more games with the courage of their implict convictions and that if they require you to sit motionless indoors  for hours they should explicitly establish and argue for a value system in which this is the best possible thing that you can do. imagine if movies were all set in dark chambers full of people sitting down - i think i can say they would be much less insipid as an artform. "all of man's problems stem from an inability to stay in his room".

(images: Gakken No O Benkyou Soft Kazu Suuji, Legend of Legaia, a Chinese bootleg cart, and ...Iru!)

[theliterateape]

From the Archives: Unpacking Branson: A Thanksgiving Improbability

By Don Hall

For Thanksgiving in 2012, I was single and Mom decided that I should come out to my step-sister's place in Branson, Missouri for a good old-fashioned country Thanksgiving. The carrot was family. The stick was Missouri.

In the late 1960s it was pretty much a tiny city in the Ozarks known for roadside stands peddling wares that proliferated the hillbilly stereotype. And, sure enough, there are still today roadside stands that exist only to continue to make fun of that stereotype. It's an odd thing to walk into a business in the middle of the Ozarks that sells you the stereotype it tries to escape from. Like buying a taxi cab medallion from an East Indian store or an “I’m a Wetback” T-shirt in a store that sells Mexican merchandise.

It is said you cannot judge a book by its cover.

This is true most of the time, but there are some things you can judge immediately by its cover and pretty much know what your getting.

An Ann Coulter book. Sean Hannity. A FOX News broadcast. Great America. Applebee's.

I assumed that Branson, Missouri would fall into this latter category. I was right and wrong. And the complexities made it a real trip to remember.

Branson is where the Beverly Hillbillies came from before moving to California.

A winding series of roads littered with signs and theaters and restaurants. Lots of bumper stickers that declare “I’d Rather Be Dead Than SOCIALIST” and random tributes to past GOP glory. In the three days we trucked around the city, I counted perhaps one hundred people of color the entire time — I didn't start the trip by calculating this but after a bit, it was hard to escape. Thousands of old white people with canes and wheelchairs abounded but that doesn't really look that much different than Navy Pier or the audience at Chicago Shakes — old white people like to be tourists and Branson is, after all, a haven of tourism.

My step-sister, Hannah, tells me that the crack business booms among the residents of Branson and there is evidence around if you’re looking for it. The place is slightly schizophrenic in its place as a home to rednecks and hillbillies while trying desperately to distance itself from that by appealing to the tourist trade. There are places that stink of what one expects in Ozarks — a biker bar called the Hawg Trough that even my pro-GOP brother-in-law avoids and a Smoke Shop that doesn't sell cigarettes and has a pit bull guarding the door. But there are surprises that popped up during my three-day Thanksgiving vacation that defied my pre-judged expectations.

The surprises came in weird ways. When I arrived, we ate at a place called the Rowdy Beaver — a place with T-shirts that trumpeted “I Like Bald Beaver” and “That's A Mighty Nice Beaver” and had washboard walls. The thing that surprised was that the food was out of this world. It was delicious and well prepared and not at all what I expected. “Our chef prepares everything from fresh ingredients,” trumpeted our waitress who seemed completely fine with her job at a place filled with such juvenile innuendo.

The Hollywood Wax Museum was fun but the wax figures left me a bit wanting — a frequent refrain of our visit was my niece saying “Who's that?” and me doing my best to figure it out. I tried to convince my family to go to Silver Dollar City so I could find and steal a urinal cake but it was $60 per person and even I couldn't argue that $300 was reasonable for me to complete a toilet cookie tale. We had tickets to a magic show billed as the World's Largest (by the way, every attraction in Branson is billed as “Show of the Year,” “The Most Amazing in the World,” and “Mindblowing”) but the show was cancelled due to illness. Turns out Kirby VanBurch’s greatest trick is to take your money and disappear.

Our replacement show for the afternoon was going to be either Jim Stafford (I desperately wanted to see this) or SIX (the nieces had heard it was awesome). Stafford only did an 8 p.m. show, so SIX at the Mickey Gilley Theater it was.

SIX is six middle-aged brothers who debuted on the Donnie and Marie Show and have fashioned themselves as sort of an older version of an a cappella boy band. As soon as they started with a cheeseball version of Don’t Stop Believin’, Hannah and I turned to each other with a look of pained resignation. These guys had pretty good voices and the arrangements were fine but the self-consciously hip pose and cornball attempts at cool banter was unbearable. I learned that wanting to see an awful Branson show and actually sitting through one are two different things. I also learned that I will never, as a middle-aged white guy, ever use the words “homie” or “peeps” ever again. To be fair, the second act was better — a selection of Christmas songs and a tribute to their dead mother. Apparently this tiny woman had ten children, all boys, and I suspect she isn't dead but just got the fuck out of there before having to bear an eleventh kid. But the damage of the first act left me scarred and a little terrified of that evening’s show — Legends at the Dick Clark American Bandstand Theater.

Legends is a show that debuted in Vegas and moved to Branson. It is a rotating cast of celebrity impersonators ranging from Barry White, Marilynn Monroe and Tim McGraw to the staples of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Our bill was George Strait, Whitney Houston, the Blues Brothers, Liberace and Elvis. As we entered and sat down, once again surrounded by octogenarians, I steeled myself. This was going to be fucking awful.

And it wasn’t.

Really. In fact, it was a blast. The Whitney Houston knocked it out of the park, Liberace was funny but completely inappropriate in a callback to the dark days of The Gay Closet and the Elvis impersonator was so fucking good, if we had been sitting in the nose bleeds it would’ve been like actually seeing Elvis live. My mom, a huge Elvis fan from when he was alive, commented that he was the best Elvis impersonator she had ever seen. Hell, even my teenaged nieces enjoyed the show.

But we saved the best, most Branson-y show for Saturday. Yakov Smirnoff. Holy shit. I couldn’t wait. I was absolutely certain it would embody everything I expected Branson to be — cheesy, cloying, the very portrait of a has-been celebrity stretching out his 15 minutes of fame as paper thin as he could in the heart of the Vegas of the Ozarks. We were greeted by a giant Yakov head making awful jokes about... the size of his head! Inside, it turned out that Yakov was a painter and had his paintings for sale!

The beginning of the show was the longest version of the national anthem I’ve ever heard (who know there were, like, nine verses?) and then I was hit with another fucking surprise. On the video screens came an old Paul Harvey “The Rest of the Story” about a painter known as Jacob who painted and commissioned a painting in tribute to the fallen at Ground Zero in NYC following the Attacks of 9/11.  Painted on the side of a building overlooking the rubble, it was the backdrop to the first anniversary of the attacks. The painter was an anonymous Yakov Smirnoff. He paid for the commission out of his own pocket.

Some of his show was what I expected: a revisitation of his “What a Country!” schtick from the ’80s—a sketch of him as the president answering questions from the audience, and he actually quoted the Lee Greenwood God Bless the U.S.A. as a closer. But other parts were not at all what I anticipated. Turns out that Yakov went out and got a Master's Degree in psychology and decided that his show could also serve as a relationship counseling session as well. Sort of like Defending the Caveman meets a less arrogant Dr. Phill with the takeaway being that we begin relationships laughing and giving each other little gifts and that, if we simply return to giving each other gifts and finding laughter in our relationships, we’ll be happier, healthier people.

Was it a great show? Not really. The dancers were cheesy and only there to fill time, the jokes were funny in a “Yeah, I remember that one” sort of way, the political stuff was tame (although at one point, Yakov asked the audience who was happy with the results of the latest election — a smattering of applause that included my mother and I enthusiastically cheering — and who was ticked off by it — a thundering, slightly ugly ovation — with the Russian comic commenting “Yeah, that's about even...”) and the recurring pro-America stuff was hard to hear after a while. But the thing is... I liked him.

I mean, I really liked the guy. He was so overwhelmingly sincere and genuine. Christ, I wanted to hug him. And, while his show is corny and inoffensive and gentle and perfect for the Branson tourist crowd, this is a guy who lives in Branson, Missouri suggesting that people spend time laughing and loving one another instead of being shitbags.

Prejudice is a funny thing. Judging books by their covers is what we do as people. I imagine it’s a hard drive instinct. But, as I am often heard saying, while we are all unique and precious snowflakes and each of us is completely distinct, we are all made of fucking snow. We all are simply people trying our best to get along in the world. Yes, that means that our baser, uglier instincts come to play like ordinary people rioting in a Walmart on Black Friday to get a discount on a portable DVD player. It also means that our better, more generous nature comes into play, and sometimes it's nice to be reminded that even in Red State Hell, Yakov Smirnoff is telling thousands of people every week to just be fucking nicer to each other.

On Thanksgiving, the point is to be with friends or family and celebrate those things in our lives we are (or should be) thankful for. Sure, the holiday is laden with cultural markers that include the genocide of the Native Americans and our national quest to bequeath every American with diabetes but the point is gratitude. Gratitude can come from a lot of places and I’m thankful to remember the lessons I learned in Branson. 

[impress-vinyl]

Best Quality Vinyl Record Pressing In Melbourne?

If you need a gift for someone who abides by the trends, what could be better than a custom vinyl record pressing with a high cool factor? But, buying a vinyl record now is different from when records shops were universal. There’s a booming, dynamic and widely accepting community of vinyl enthusiasts worldwide.It’s fun to collect them, especially when you’re an audiophile. The custom vinyl record pressing is somehow more personal than digital music. Nothing beats the old, warm and atypical sound of a vinyl record placed on a turntable. However, pressing vinyl introduces a cost that is mostly inaccessible to developing artists.To ensure the best quality, a vinyl collector knows the touch and feel by removing, placing, flipping, inserting and perusing various materials aspects of the packaging. In this way, vinyl records aren’t merely owned and heard but felt and engaged.

There are a few ways to check for quality vinyl

Vinyl fans love to hear their favourite artist music on vinyl; after all, when a pressing plant works best to look beautiful with sound quality, it will add extra to the listening experience.Nonetheless, customer interest in custom vinyl record pressing is undoubtedly something to celebrate. The vinyl record pressing Melbourne community has a growing concern surrounding quality control. This worrying trend needs preaching in a world where music is sold free, and custom vinyl records are premium products with experience.Requirements before pressing your vinyl

An experienced sound engineer must master the sound emitting through a vinyl record. Each vinyl is compulsory to transmit a compressed file in ZIP or RAR file and note the side you want to master.

The graphics and designing of the vinyl record must be completed and transmitted before pressing. The visual representation of the cover also plays a vital role in the music universe of an artist or a label.

Ensure sales and distribution management by setting up catalogue or bar code as company standards.

The custom graphic designs and sound performance will make vinyl an unrivalled medium.

Different vinyl formats and their weightsDifferent Vinyl formats are used by Melbourne vinyl pressing as per customer needs, below are the three most widely used formats: 1. Format 7″:6 minutes of maximum listening time on each side 2. Format 10″:12 minutes of maximum listening time on each side 3. Format 12″:18 minutes of maximum listening time on each sideThe weight of a vinyl record ranges from 120 grams to 200 grams. A 140 and 180 grams are two of the most famous weights that vinyl records come in.Many big record labels switched to 120-140 gram vinyl pressings because they are cheaper to produce. By reducing the weight, you make compromises. The best custom vinyl Record pressing is on the weight spectrum’s heavier end. A 180-gram pressing won’t magically make lousy mixing and mastering sound good.When looking for vinyl record pressing Melbourne, consider if your listeners will be happy with a lower weight or worth the extra cost to build 180 grams.People who buy many vinyl records can distinguish between lightweight vinyl and heavier records. A 40 grams difference doesn’t seem much, but it is almost 30% heavier.If you hold many records, you’ll know when you hold a heavier record. A record shop might inspire someone to buy your record over another. Most audiophiles might weigh the record and agree that 180g records are the best format, far more promising than 140g models.RPM speedsDifferent vinyl formats run on different speeds called “revolution per minute.” Though it’s hard to be confident, there are other signifying signs of quality vinyl. 45 RPM playback speeds tend to be sounder; in the same way, faster tape speeds are better.In terms of value, 45’s are often more expensive than 33 ⅓ RPM records.If a custom vinyl record pressing “from the original analogue master”, this can be another great sign that it will sound good on vinyl. It’s always a good idea to check out custom vinyl records Australia and their track record using similar websites and tools.

New vinyl or recycledRecycled vinyl records have more of a dull grey look to them. Vinyl records that don’t sell or damage can be recycled. When everyone would employ an LP record as their preliminary way of listening to music, custom vinyl record companies and record stores were motivated to send unsold vinyl records back to be recycled.Recycled vinyl is only the factor, but there are scientific reasons why new vinyl is better. New vinyl means the record is its first use. Vinyl is likely to have more flaws when recycled. Some individuals complain that the label won’t go off when recycled.A lot goes into how a record sounds, from recording the music to mixing, mastering, and pressing the record. Even a slight defect can negatively affect the sound.Blemishes on your brand new record. Recycled vinyl is another area that splits belief. It does not imply that the record will sound wrong. Yet, using new custom vinyl records Australia is a sign to buyers that you’ve prioritized the audio quality and clarity to enjoy a soothing experience.Surface noisePart of the charm of vinyl is the way it looks and feels to many collectors. Some people love how they look, and others like plain black vinyl. Music fans rarely universally settle on anything.The result is more surface noise because manufacturing a picture disc uses the same vinyl as the base. And there is a printed picture latched in place by Polyethylene Foil and numerous materials piled up instead of pure vinyl.There is still a demand for picture disc vinyl, and good custom vinyl records

Australia can still do an excellent job on them. It just might not sound entirely as good as pure vinyl.Melbourne vinyl pressing still sound surprisingly crisp and clear when printed as picture discs. As we’ve already cited, there are more important things, such as starting with a well-mixed and well-mastered audio file to start.Manufacture dateIf you’re buying older vinyl, check the year. Try to get original prints, and reproductions often come from a digital source, which is a bit of a pity if you’re transferring it to an analogue medium, like vinyl. You can also lookup the company that created the vinyl.Next, you can check the grain count. You can assume it’s 120g, which is standard. High-quality records are often 180g. It means that they’re slightly thicker and will last longer.Due to the pandemic, the newer generations embrace, and older generations are re-embracing the format for the very reason they were put down for years: fragility and contact.The price for a disc varies slightly from one service to another, but it depends partly on the total time to burn and the options chosen like colour, weight, shape, materials.So many hours and days go into making an album and producing a custom vinyl record pressing. And obtaining the pressing right is essential to show off your music’s sonic quality and dynamic range. Melbourne vinyl pressing offers top-notch custom vinyl records distributed through retail stores and direct sales in and around Australia. Each vinyl record is created and delivered with love and unwavering attention to detail. Talk to our vinyl expert now.Source:

Best Quality Vinyl Record Pressing in Melbourne

[anisanews]

Now’s Your Chance to Buy One Of Montana’s Famous Treehouse Chalets

The treehouse-inspired chalet, called Ponderosa, in the Whitefish Mountain Ski Resort area of … [+] Montana is listed for $3.999 million.

National Parks Realty

It started as some of the best ideas do: scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin.

“I was sitting at a bar having a glass of chardonnay with my husband, and he asked, ‘what’s your next project?’ And I said to him, ‘I’m going to build a treehouse’ and drew this structure on a cocktail napkin,” says Gail Goodwin, owner of the world-famous “treehouse” Snow Bear Chalets on Whitefish Mountain Ski Resort’s Hope Slope.

The two-bedroom chalet was designed by entrepreneur Gail Goodwin, who came up with the idea on the … [+] back of a cocktail napkin.

National Parks Realty

Goodwin made her mark on Hope Slope by designing a collection of three magical luxury treehouses and a separate structure with seven penthouse chalets. Since opening for business, the on-mountain properties have drawn vacationers from around the world while being featured in more than 300 publications, including TIME magazine, which recognized Snow Bear Chalets as one of the ‘World’s 100 Greatest Places’.

“It has been humbling how well received the [treehouse chalets] are by the guests who stay here and continue to keep coming back,” Goodwin says.

Pocketing walls of glass open the interior of the chalet to wrap-around decking that overlooks Hope … [+] Slope.

National Parks Realty

The pinnacle of the ski-in/ski-out destination property is a whimsical freestanding chalet called Ponderosa that sits three steps from Hope Slope. Now for sale at $3.999 million, the turreted two-bedroom, two-bathroom has a front-row seat of the mountain action with cathedral-style ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides.

The great room, which serves as the hub for residence, features a gas fireplace decorated with Montana Moss rock and native Ponderosa pine that gives the space a cozy ambiance. Cambria Quartz countertops pair with high-end appliances and cookware in the kitchen—all of which are included.

Locally sourced stone and Ponderosa pine lend a cozy quality to the living room fireplace.

National Parks Realty

Goodwin believes it’s a feeling of youthfulness that keeps people coming back to the treehouse chalets. “I think it makes [guests] feel like children again. It permits them to be a child again—and I’ve had it said to me more than once.”

Much of the childlike quality comes from Goodwin’s attention to fanciful. “My mantra in creating [the treehouses] was: if Harry Potter got together with Hansel and Gretel and decided to build a house, would this specific product go in this house? If the answer was yes, it made the cut to go in the treehouse. If the answer was no, it didn’t. Everyone that walks in says, ‘it’s so magical and whimsical’.”

Access to Hope Slope is just steps away from the Ponderosa chalet. The treehouse chalets are coveted … [+] for their on-mountain location.

National Parks Realty

But to experience the chalet’s best feature, one must head for the stars.

“The turret is a nine-foot-round room that sits at the top of the turret. The ceiling is covered with 600 fiber optic twinkle lights in the form of stars with nebulous constellations,” Goodwin says of the unique feature. The room, which features a seven-foot-round Xorbee microfiber cushion, is beloved for its mountain views and custom installation.

The Ponderosa chalet features a turret with 600 fiber optic twinkle that depict the stars and … [+] constellations.

National Parks Realty

As one might expect, the dramatic display often elicits overwhelming reactions from guests, says Goodwin. “An 86-year-old man once climbed up the tower, got to the top, and started singing an Italian aria a capella and was weeping. When I asked him why he told me, ‘this is my 86th birthday, and this is the best present I’ve ever had’.”

Montana’s mountain resort boom

Like other mountain resort areas such as Lake Tahoe and Vail, Montana’s Flathead County, where Whitefish and Bigfork are located, is having a record year. The average price for single-family homes in the county is now about $1.83 million, as access to world-class skiing and fishing continues to draw buyers from around the world. So far in 2021, about 90 sales recorded were in the million-plus range. 

Montana and its four seasons continue to attract buyers coming from crowded cities in search of a … [+] lifestyle change, says area specialist Jen Dolan of National Parks Realty.

National Parks Realty

Luxury real estate specialist Jen Dolan of National Parks Realty holds the listing for the Ponderosa chalet and says that Montana’s mountain resort areas have become hot markets. 

“People are moving out of the crowded cities in search of a lifestyle change,” Dolan observes. “Inventory is very low and properties are selling very quickly at or above asking price.”

The treehouse chalets at night.

National Parks Realty

The run on Montana real estate isn’t limited to resort condos or waterfront homes. Rental properties are also having a moment, particularly VRBO properties, the agent says. That’s good news for the next owner of Ponderosa chalet, who could utilize it as a private residence or income property.

As buyers continue to seek out more space and access to the best parts of Montana, it’s safe to say the treehouse chalet may not be on the market for long.

National Parks Realty is an exclusive member of Forbes Global Properties, a consumer marketplace and membership network of elite brokerages selling the world’s most luxurious homes.

from Anisa News https://ift.tt/3uZHfzd