Directions to ollie's

First post- https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/13wy7qb/i_was_a_lab_assistant_of_sorts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Hey guys, I’m back again with an update.
It’s been a couple of days and the food is just about gone. Luckily, there’s a sink in the corner so I don’t have to worry about water. It tastes a little metaly but it hasn’t made me puke so I guess it’s fine. For some reason, there’s a bag of cat food in the corner so I guess if it comes down to it I can eat that.
Okay, now onto what you’re all really interested in.
The little potato dude is okay. He’s still a weird little guy, but I haven’t had to smash him yet. I know what he eats now, but that's getting ahead of myself a bit. We’ve come to an understanding but it definitely took us some time to get there.
The first day was the worst.
As I tried to find ways out of the little room, the little guy just kept screaming to be let out. The longer he screamed, the more he started to sound like a baby crying for food. I swear I could hear him through my headphones, and after they died, I was stuck with just the sound of him crying. I alternated between charging my phone and charging my earbud case, but sometimes I was still left listening to the little guy scream.
He cried till about midnight, and that's when I almost snapped.
I picked up the tank, now more like a fish tank and less like a jar, and stared through the glass at him. I must have been pretty scary because he stopped yelling and just stared back at me with his multiple eyes. He had so many, they were all over his body, and we had a little staring contest before I finally told him to shut up.
“Or else I will smash your little tank and squish you like a bug.”
He seemed to think about that, and when he nodded it was like his whole body nodding.
We had some silence after that as the two of us sat and made our little plans. I thought about calling campus security, but when I tried, they just thought I was goofing. I tried to explain to them where I was and what was going on, but they just told me not to play games and hung up on me. I tried 911 again, but they said the same thing. Heck, the lady on the 911 call threatened to call the police if I kept calling, and I told her to go right ahead. Maybe the police could find me better than campus security, but since they haven’t broken down the door yet, I guess not.
It was about three am when I finally thought to look at the tank and found him watching me.
“Well?” I asked, making the little guy jump, “Have you got any ideas?”
He seemed to think about it, but before he could say it, I cut him off.
“And don’t say let you out of the tank.”
“Fair enough,” he said, “In that case, I have nothing to add yet.”
“Terrific!” I said, putting my head in my hands and staring at the floor.
“Have you, perhaps, thought about vents or drains?”
I had, but they were all too small for me to climb into. There was a drain in the floor but I couldn’t even get a foot in there. The ventilation shafts were an idea, but most of them would be too snug for me. I’m a beefy guy, not muscular but kinda fat, and getting stuck in the vents sounded like a terrible way to die without anyone realizing it.
“Yeah, obviously. I’m too big to fit through those.”
“A problem I do not have.” the creature reminded me, more than a little smugly too.
“Back to that again,” I growled, “And what's to stop you from just leaving me hanging once you get out?”
The little dude didn’t say anything for a few minutes, contemplating his next move as I Googled like a madman. I was looking for blueprints for the college online since a place like this would have to have them filed. See, I’m not super smart when it comes to math and science, but I know a little bit about building permits and filing your blueprints with the city. If this place was built by the college, then it had to exist in the public sphere.
After an hour of looking with no results, I was ready to throw my phone down. I went and grabbed some kale chips out of the little fridge, munching them sullenly as I tried to come up with a plan. The little guy was back to looking at me again, and I couldn’t help but notice that something had changed. All the eyes on his body opened and closed but they were never all open at once. He also looked tired, maybe even a little pale. I looked down at the bag of chips and thought again about how I might have to feed this little guy at some point.
“Do you need to eat? It’s been about twenty-four hours since Doc was here, and I don’t think I’ve ever been here when he feeds you.”
The little creature pulled its lips up into a sad smile, “You couldn’t feed me what I want. I don’t eat normal food and you aren’t equipped to give me what I need.”
I started to get a little offended, “What's that supposed to mean?”
It looked at me, and I felt a little shudder ripple over my skin as it did.
“I feed on brain waves. Creative brain waves, to be precise. The Doctor feeds me by just being around me like his lab assistants did. You, however, don’t seem to create the same way he did. You look at your little device all the time and it makes your brain waves taste bland and unappetizing. That's why The Doctor’s Assistants kept getting headaches. The more they created, the more I fed. The Doctor doesn’t get them because his mind is like a wellspring. You, on the other hand, are incapable of nourishing me. You simply don’t think the same.”
I sat back, not sure whether to be happy that I couldn’t feed him or offended that he was sayin I was too dumb?
In the end, I guess I just decided to roll with it.
“Well, I guess we’re both stuck then. You need to eat brainwaves and I need to eat food. We can’t get either here, so what do we do about it?”
“Is there anything in here we could use to break open the door?” the creature asked hopefully.
“Checked already. There’s some lab equipment and the fridge, the table you're on, and the chair I’m sitting in. Other than that, not much. There are books, but none of them are gonna get us out of here.”
I kept searching on my phone for something that looked familiar in the blueprints, but it was getting frustrating.
“Ugh, if only I knew where we were. If I knew the name of the building I could find the right map or tell security where to find us!”
“Wait, is that all you need to get us out of here?” it asked, floating close to the side of the tank so it could look at me.
“Well yeah. If I knew where we were then I could tell security where we were stuck.”
“I know where we are,” it said, and it sounded less smug and more sinister when it said it.
I stared back at it for a few seconds, waiting for it to fill me in.
It sat there for a few seconds, waiting for me to ask the question.
“Well? Are you gonna tell me or what?”
“Why should I?” it said, “If I tell you, then you’ll just leave and I’ll be stuck here. What guarantee do I have that you won’t just leave me once you’ve gained your freedom.”
The little son of a bitch had me there. There would be nothing to stop me from just leaving him here to die in that tank. Without any brain wave to gobble, he’d shrivel up and die. Maybe that's what he deserved, but I just couldn’t bring myself to hate him like that. The little dude had never done me wrong, and I couldn’t mess up my karma by shafting him like that.
“I promise that if we get that door open, I’ll take you with me.”
“And release me?” he asked, hedging.
“Dude, if you get us out of here, I’ll take you to SeaWorld and release you, if that's what you want. The kale chips are going to run out soon, and if I starve, you are SOL little bud. You might not be able to eat my brain waves, but you can’t open your tank or dial my cell phone with those baby fingers either. Whether we like it or not, we kinda need each other right now.”
The creature nodded, bumping its little head against the side of the glass.
“Agreed. I will have to trust in your honor, I suppose.”
“Brah, I am chocked full of honor. I've never welched on a promise and I’m not gonna start now.”
“Very well then,” it said with a little smile, “The building is called Rashley Laboratories. At least that's what the assistants always thought of when they thought about it at all. One of them thought it was spooky when they walked through it to get here, and the images led me to believe that it might be abandoned.”
I already had the cell phone out and Googling as he finished. There was no Rashley Laboratories, but there was an R. Ashley Science Hall. It had been abandoned in the nineties after an explosion in the science wing, but the campus had never torn it down for some reason. It had been named a historic building in two thousand nine and while they had renovated the outside to make it prettier, the inside was pretty much untouched. Sounded like a great place for a secret lab and a covert experiment.
Campus security picked up on the second ring, and I sighed when I realized it was the same guy I had dealt with the night before.
“Campus security, Officer Rob speaking, how may I help you?”
“Hey, yeah, we talked last night before you hung up on me. I still,”
“Hey, I remember you. Are you still playing this game? This has got to be getting old by now.”
“Look, just listen. We’re…I’m stuck in the R. Ashley Science Hall and I need help.”
There was silence as he digested this.
“Okay, nice try, but that building has been closed for years. I’m pretty sure the doors never open. How exactly did you get in there, if you are actually stuck in there?”
“It’s hard to explain,” I said, looking at the little potato dude as I thought about how to start.
“I’ve got time, let's hear the whole story,” he said, pretending to be interested. To hell with it, I decided, might as well lay it all on the line.
“I’m sitting down here with Doctor Crandler’s experiment, the one who got arrested for buying stuff to make. He pays me to sit down here and watch it at night, but the door is locked and I need someone to let me out.”
The line was quiet for a few seconds, and then Officer Rob started laughing.
“Wow, great story. I love the little name drop, but I’m kind of busy to be going down to an abandoned building and tromping through dust right now, why don’t you call back when,”
“Fine,” I said, deciding to take another direction, “maybe I’ll just call the Feds and let them know that I have a highly illegal experiment that Doctor Crandler was working on and that the college was probably helping to fund. Then, when they ask why campus security didn’t take the call, you can tell them how you thought it was a big joke and didn’t look into it. That's probably going to make you look really great.”
There was silence for a minute, then a big sigh from Rob.
“Okay, kid. It’s at least worth a look, I guess. Give me your cell phone number so I can call you from my security phone when I get there. You can help me find you since you’re so lost.”
I looked back at the potato dude, putting my hand over the phone as I whispered, “Got any other ideas about how to find us?”
He looked like he was thinking, before nodding and saying he could probably guide him to us.
So that's where we’re at now. Help seems to be on the way, and I’m updating you guys as I wait for the security dude to call back. I’ll post again when I have an update so stay tuned for more news. Wish me luck, hopefully, we make it out of here pretty soon cause one more kale chip and I might need a barf bucket.

Day 1:
Few of the tributes got much sleep that night. The parties all throughout the Capitol did not end until dawn, and the noise could be heard in the accommodation building. Vannery and Carton ate breakfast slowly, like zombies. They were subsequently taken to the holding rooms. Organza wished Carton good luck before accompanying Vannery in her cell. She kept trying to reassure her as she put on her beige shorts and t-shirt. The young girl attached her hair with a purple ribbon that had been provided and climbed into the glass tube. Organza hugged her one last time, feeling her tears soaking her shoulder.
It was Platonia Travers who accompanied Carton. She muttered to herself about the outfit choice for this year. She tried to be cold to the boy, but she accepted to help him tie the purple ribbon to his wrist. He gave her a sad smile : “I probably won’t come back, but it’s nice to know that everyone in the Capitol isn’t heartless.” Platonia stood, mute, as the boy’s platform started to rise. She couldn’t keep the tears in this time.
A few cells over, the atmosphere was as morose. Alexandra had finally deigned to discuss their strategy with Delta. She accepted his plan of staying on the sidelines while he ran to the cornucopia. Still, he looked at her suspiciously and hounded her about working together for the whole breakfast. Halifax gave Delta one last pill to combat the morphling withdrawal, assuring him that the only symptoms he would experience were a mild headache and maybe some stiffness. He subsequently accompanied him to his holding room while Sean Callahan went with Alexandra.
Halifax took advantage of being alone with his mentee : “You shouldn’t trust her. I know these kinds of girls. They look harmless, but they’ll stab you in the back as soon as you let down your guard.”
“But-but…”
“You like her, huh ? Too bad, she doesn’t. So, man up and move on !”
Delta did not know what else to say. He climbed into the glass tube in silence, his brows forming a single black line over his dark eyes.
In the next holding room, another conversation was happening. “You don’t plan on allying with Delta, do you ?” asked Sean Callahan. Alexandra looked away coyly. “ I have other plans… With Angelo, we have an agreement.”
The mentor sighed, but he did not criticize the girl. He just told her to be prudent. You couldn’t trust careers. Alexandra nodded then flinched as the glass tube started descending from the ceiling.
The first thing she noticed as she rose into the arena was the noise. She hadn’t even emerged that she could hear a cacophony of bird songs. It was almost deafening, and she covered her ears before protecting her eyes from the sunlight.
The racket made Delta’s headache intensify. He first looked to his sides ; Hattie (3) cowered on the left while Angelo (2), on the right, was focusing on the cornucopia. This year, it had been made out of a thin weave of golden metal, almost like a very shiny basket. After this zoom on the cornucopia, the cameras started moving around to show off the arena. The tributes stood in the clearing of a dense rainforest. The terrain was relatively flat, with a few creeks and an explosion of colorful flowers. The main attraction of it was the birds, however, as thousands of them fluttered about, sang, and screamed.
As Carton looked around for his allies, Head Gamemaker Vishwa welcomed the tributes and wished the odds to be ever in their favor before starting the 30 seconds countdown. With Borea (5) and the girl from 10 to his sides, he didn’t feel safe. He finally found what he was looking for, but he didn’t like that his allies were so spread out. He made eye contact with Rivage and Vannery but was unable to see Sardine, who stood on the opposite side of the cornucopia.
Vannery caught sight of her district partner, as well as Sardine. She gave them a small wave, but made the mistake of looking to her left, where Perfecto (1) was sneering at her. Georges (N), on the other side, was just as intimidating. Instead, she looked straight ahead. As the countdown reached ten, she spotted a coil of rope on the outside of the cornucopia.
Delta had been pondering, unsure if it was worth entering the bloodbath. Alexandra, who happened to be just two podiums over, winked at him. She then pointed to the cornucopia. He understood. At that moment, the countdown reached zero. He sprinted to the center of the clearing, expecting her to follow, but she stayed on her podium.
On later replays, it was shown that Alexandra was winking at Angelo and not her district partner. As the boy from 2 sprinted forth to the cornucopia, the girl waited for a few seconds. She moved only when most of the other tributes were too occupied and grabbed a knife as well as a small bag of food. Angelo acted like he helped the other career tributes in order to pick up weapons and supplies, but as soon as they were occupied, he joined Alexandra. The pair was actually one of the first to leave the clearing, not counting Circuit (3) and the pair from 10 who had run away immediately.
When Vannery realized that she was running side to side with Perfecto (1), she immediately changed course and ran to Carton. She had to give up on the rope but managed to pick a water bottle off of the corpse of the boy from 9, who had just been stabbed by Glare (9).
If the career pack didn’t notice the disappearance of one of theirs, it wasn’t the case for Delta. When he saw his district partner escape with Angelo, he became enraged. He tried to exit the cornucopia. Fraxen then attacked him to try and steal his backpack. Delta threw him to the ground and punched him so hard it broke his neck. Now he had lost trace of Alexandra. As the fighting started to die down, he ran in a random direction.
Carton had dodged one of Glare’s knives and grabbed a bag of food and an unwieldy lance before Vannery and Rivage joined him. The trio heard Sardine scream from the other side of the cornucopia. Carton wanted to go and help her, but a second gargled wail convinced him that they couldn’t do anything else, especially since Proserpina (2) had now retrieved her axe from Sardine’s chest. As they left, they could hear the crunching of Ora’s neck (12) at the hands of Georges (N).
Meanwhile, Alexandra and Angelo were already far away, giggling at each other. It was only after Perfecto had stabbed Hattie (3) to death that the career pack noticed Angelo’s absence, but they didn’t seem bothered by it.
Delta was halfway to the perimeter when the five bloodbath cannons sounded. He was still seething, and the running helped him calm down. Eventually, he collapsed on the side of and old mossy tree, out of breath. Once he was a little better, he explored his surroundings. The big tree had a hole in his roots where Delta could fit, although it was a squeeze. He decided to stay there for now and used moss to hide himself. He also put some in his ears, which helped with his headache.
Carton, Rivage and Vannery had been running in the opposite direction. They wanted to put the most distance between themselves and the other tributes. They stopped long after the bloodbath cannons had sounded. They set up camp a few hundred feet away from the Northern part of the perimeter, next to a creek. Carton helped Rivage to take inventory. He had the lance, Rivage had gotten a trident, and between the three of them they had enough food to last two days at most. The bottle Vannery had taken was only half full, but the water of the creek was clear and drinkable.
The trio decided to stay put. Vannery and Carton would work on a shelter while Rivage fished for their dinner, as they had agreed to during training. In the early afternoon, they heard hurried footsteps coming their way. The boys readied their weapon, protecting Vannery between the two of us. Circuit (3) came running into their little encampment, which took him by surprise. He skidded to a halt and turned around as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving the trio dumbfounded.
Angelo and Alexandra had quite enough supplies to last a while. He held a sword in his hand and an “emergency axe” strapped to his back, while Alexandra held two knives. At first, they wanted to get away from the careers, but Alexandra eventually convinced Angelo to follow them from afar. They weren’t really hard to track, their bickering could be heard over the constant chatter of the birds. The noise also covered them. Proserpina, Glare and Perfecto were circling around the central clearing, slowly moving away from it. In the late afternoon, they discovered Forger (12) who was lying unconscious. He had received a deep wound during the bloodbath and was now at the mercy of the other tributes. Proserpina killed him.
The subsequent cannon surprised Vannery. She had climbed on top of a tree to get a view of the arena, and the sudden sound almost made her loose her grip. She didn’t fall, but while reaching her hand for a hold, she grabbed something warm and spherical. It crumbled and a viscous liquid dripped onto her finger. She looked up. She had inadvertently grabbed an egg from a nest. She was silent a moment, and a bright purple starling looked at her. “Oh no !” she whispered to herself. The bird screamed louder than she thought possible. Then it attacked.
All the birds in a radius of 50 feet coalesced into a multicolored tornado. Vannery fell to the ground, fortunately not hurting herself on the way down, and a feathery mass started clawing and pecking at her. They also attacked Carton and Rivage, who had been chilling at a distance. They batted the volatiles away, trying not to get scratched. Vannery managed to get up and run to the makeshift tent they had built. She picked up Carton’s lance and swung it, hitting some of the birds. She swung a second time and hit the metallic water bottle with a resounding CLANG! It seemed to stun the birds, but Vannery was too busy keeping them out of her face. Carton, however, noticed their reaction to the noise. He shouted loudly and flailed his arms : “Make noise ! They don’t like noise !”. Just his screaming was enough though. Eventually, the three tributes managed to drive the mutts out by hitting their weapons against rocks and the water bottle and screaming as loud as they could.
Delta also had an encounter with some angry birds. Those were red, with a long curvy beak and fearsome talons, but he managed to kill them all with a big branch he used as a bat. He then ate them, cooked over a small fire. Argus berated him for building a fire that could alert the other tributes to his location. However, the “Aviary Jungle” as it had been baptized by Urania Whimsiwick herself, was way too dense for anyone to see the smoke.
As the sun started to set, Delta squeezed himself back into his root hole, being careful to camouflage himself with moss. He held his branch in front of him just in case. An hour later, two cannons sounded in quick succession. They belonged to the pair from 10, who had had the great idea of making an omelet. The flock did not appreciate that…
When the sun started to set, Angelo suggested he and Alexandra find a place to sleep, preferably away from the career pack. She agreed, so they stopped following. They looked for a safe spot in the light of the dusk, eventually settling on the middle of a tight thicket. It was complicated to get inside, but the small space was comfortable, and the pair even had a view of the darkening sky. They ate some food then laid down, hand in hand. “Your district partner doesn’t seem to mind that you ditched her” joked Alexandra.
“I don’t think she cares. Maybe they believe I’m dead. But they’re not looking for us at least.”
“I think Delta is, though. You should have seen his face when he saw us. I almost feel bad about leading him on.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of him if he isn’t dead yet.”
“I’m sure he’s feeling the same thing”, responded Alexandra before going to sleep. Angelo kept the first watch.
In another section of the arena, Carton took the first watch. He had spent the remaining hours of daylight cleaning his wounds, along with Rivage and Vannery. The two of them slept, hoping to feel better the next day.
A little before midnight, Rivage awoke. He came to sit next to Carton, and the boys talked about their families, their school. Suddenly, a cannon sounded. It belonged to Ulma (7), who had stumbled upon Quinoa’s (9) camp by accident. The younger girl had not hesitated to stab a pointy branch in Ulma’s throat. This cannon prompted Carton to go to sleep, Rivage taking second watch.
At midnight, the hymn of Panem resounded in the arena and the portraits of the 9 fallen appeared in the sky : Hattie (3), Sardine (4), Fraxen and Ulma (7), the boy (9), both (10), Ora and Forger (12). This left 17 tributes after an eventful and interesting day.
Day 2:
Delta didn’t sleep much that night. The uncomfortable position coupled with a strong headache meant that he was up before the sunrise. As the first hints of blue appeared to the east, Delta got up. He needed to occupy his mind. The moss had stuck to his clothes, and he decided to take advantage of it. He caked his face and hands in mud and used it to stick more moss to his clothes. Urania commented that he looked like a green Orang-utang, which prompted laughter in the Capitol. Once he was fully camouflaged, he started roaming the arena. Stealthily at first, but as the sun rose and the birds started their cacophony as well, he allowed himself to move a little faster.
Alexandra and her district partner had spent a restful night. As she awoke, she was surprised to be cuddling with Angelo. Her rousing awakened him, and he turned around to look at her, puzzled. “I guess you’re the little spoon”, she joked. They ate cereal bars in awkward silence. Soon, the voices of the career pack walking in their direction prompted the pair to hide. Proserpina and Perfecto were loudly arguing about someone stealing their water bottles. Unbeknownst to them, it had been Glare who had hidden them in her own bag.
As they moved away from her, Alexandra suggested they follow the trio like the day before. Angelo thought it was a safe strategy as long as they kept their distances. They made their way out of the thorny thicket and followed. A few minutes later, a scream warned them that something was going on. It was Glare (1). She’d walked into a trap laid by Georges the day before and was now hanging upside down from a rope. Perfecto started to help her, but the stolen bottles fell from her bag, along with a few hidden knives and more food. Instead of killing her, as Perfecto wanted to do, Proserpina convinced him to leave her there. She screamed and screamed. Proserpina and Perfecto left her there wiggling. Before Alexandra and Angelo could arrive, the thin rope holding up Glare by the ankle snapped. She fell headfirst on the ground and her cannon sounded. Alexandra winced, but Angelo told her that it was better this way, since you could survive for many hours hanging this way. Then another cannon sounded.
Delta had been unsuccessful for a few hours. He had avoided a couple of poorly made traps and fought off a flock of tiny yellow canaries but had been unable to find another tribute. Eventually, he decided to change tactics. He found a path that clearly looked like it was in use and hid in proximity. His ambush eventually worked. Lavandine (11) walked past him, clutching a meagre stick in her pale hands. She didn’t even notice him getting up and following her, his branch raised. Many viewers thought it looked cartoonish, the tiny girl, followed by a big man with a club, not noticing anything. Glare’s cannon gave him the signal he expected, and he swung at her head. Lavandine flew and crashed into a patch of ferns. Her head was bloody, but she was still alive. Delta walked up to her in order to finish what he had started. The cameras cut to another group of tributes.
For the whole morning, Vannery, Rivage and Carton had been staying put. They foraged, fished, and built rudimentary spears just in case. Vannery climbed trees, very carefully in order not to disturb any more birds, so she could spot any tributes. Eventually she did, a little after midday. The pair from district 5 was heading their way. They were armed.
Vannery transmitted the information to the boys, who debated leaving or fighting. “Let’s fight !” said Vannery. There were 3 of them against 2, and they had weapons. Carton had his lance, Rivage his trident, and her… a spear and a rock would do the trick. So, they waited for what felt like a century. As soon as Borea and Zapp entered their field of vision, they attacked. The pair was surprised, but not enough to let themselves be killed that easily. Borea shouted at Zapp to run while she fended of Rivage’s trident with her sword. She had wrapped metal coil all around her arms, as she had seen on one of the older games. They clashed for an instant, enough time for her to disarm him, and then she ran too. On the way, she threw an egg she’d hidden in her pocket to the group. A flock of angry sparrows was the distraction the pair from 5 needed to escape.
Proserpina and Perfecto seemed to have made up a little and were now actively hunting. Still, they weren’t aware of the couple _ the “double A couple” as they were now called in the Capitol _ following them from afar. They dared not speak, but the looks they shared meant a lot more. They say love makes you blind, and maybe that’s why Alexandra didn’t see the orange and turquoise pheasant she walked on. It screamed and ran away, catching the attention of Proserpina. She turned around and shouted, “I knew it !” before charging at Angelo and her ally. Her first axe hit a tree a few inches above Alexandra’s head. She was hesitant to fight a career, but Angelo had already jumped into the fray and was now battling his district partner. So, she ran at Perfecto, who was lagging behind. He quickly turned around and sprinted when Proserpina’s cannon sounded. Angelo had managed to stab her in the gut. The look of betrayal was still printed on her face as the hovercraft claw took her away.
The pair was unsure if they needed to pursue the boy from 1, as Angelo assured that he was an “ego-inflated wimp” . Instead, they rifled through the bag Proserpina had dropped and decided to rest a little. They could have stayed there longer if it hadn’t been for the fire…
After getting rid of the birds, the trio decided to keep following Zapp and Borea (5) in order to get their supplies. Vannery managed to track them thanks to their footprints and the trail of broken branches. They found them quite quickly. Indeed, the gamemakers had decided to trigger a forest fire in order to move the tributes around a little. This explained why they had seen so many birds flying away. The pair from 5, however, had found themselves cornered on three sides by the flames, and the last side was where Carton and his allies arrived from.
Rivage thrusted his trident straight into Borea’s back, sounding her cannon. Carton’s lance, however, flew past Zapp and into the fiery inferno. The boy from 4 barely had the time to pick up his trident before a tree fell, smashing into the boy from 5 and sounding his cannon. As other trees started to creak and groan, Vannery led the boys back to the creek, where she believed the water would keep them safe.
Delta ran as soon as he smelled smoke. He ended up in a small clearing in the Southern part of the arena. As the grass quickly burned, he jumped into the flames. Many viewers gasped, thinking he had just killed himself, but he just ran a few seconds then stopped. Argus explained that the fire had been controlled in a way that it burned quickly and extinguished itself just as fast. From his spot of scorched earth, Delta was safe for now. From the sky descended a small silver parachute bearing the number 6. It contained a water bottle and some aspirin. Delta was the only one to use this strategy successfully. A few minutes after him, Circuit (3), who was shorter and weaker, tried. He fell face first into the fire and did not get up, his cannon sounding a few moments later.
Angelo and Alexandra were some of the closest to the central clearing, so it was after the three cannons that the fire reached them. They ran. Angelo was practically flying but the fire was catching up to Alexandra. Another tree cracked. It crashed onto the girl, pinning her legs to the ground. Thankfully, it was a much younger tree, and it did not cause her much more damage. For an instant, Alexandra thought the boy from 2 would just keep running. That he would be glad to get rid of yet another opponent. But he turned around. He used his axe as a lever, bending it in the process, to get the girl free. Then he picked her up onto his back and ran again. Angelo was not a very muscular tribute, but he proved to be quite a strong one.
Neither Carton, nor his allies had suffered any injury thanks to Vannery’s quick thinking. The creek was wide enough to protect them from the flames, and they avoided any falling branch. Quinoa (9) had had the same idea. She internally debated reaching the small group, but eventually decided not to. In the late afternoon, it started to rain, revealing that many of the trees and plants of the forest were actually fireproof. It was much sparser now, but the rain cleaned off the soot and, soon enough, the forest was green again.
Rivage, Vannery and Carton huddled together. They stayed that way for the whole evening, until Carton took the first watch while the other two went to sleep.
Delta was almost unharmed too, apart from a few minor burns on his ankles. The aspirin had taken effect, and for once in a long time, he felt totally clear headed. He hoped his district partner had died today.
The fire had changed the landscape quite a lot. What used to be a lush jungle was now less green. The ground was visible in most places, and the humidity levels had gone down. The sky was more visible. It also meant that the traps set by Georges and Odette (N) on the first day were either destroyed or very conspicuous. The boy from 6 avoided them all.
Delta found a pond where he cleaned himself from the soot and the half-charred moss. The fresh water also soothed his burns. He ended up settling close by, between two fallen trees.
Angelo and Alexandra, however, had suffered many burns. Fortunately, as they were setting camp and trying to remove their singed clothes, a silver parachute descended over them. It contained two containers of oil, as well as a blanket and a note from Angelo’s mentors, which he did not show to Alexandra. It would later be revealed that it scolded him for keeping his plan of betraying the career pack secret. The oil was perfumed and designed to almost instantly heal burns. It worked a charm. As the massaging continued, the two tributes started to get more and more steamy. They were intimate that night.
While they were busy, the portraits of the fallen appeared in the sky. The second day of the games had seen the loss of Glare (1), Proserpina (2), Circuit (3), Borea and Zapp (5), and Lavandine (11). This left only 11 tributes for the third day, with better odds now that a few strong tributes were gone.
Day 3:
On the morning of the third day, an announcement was made by Head Gamemaker Vishwa. She informed the tributes that a feast would be held at noon, three hours from now. The 11 surviving boys and girls would find supplies they desperately needed there. She then wished everyone a glorious day and the dampened sound of the birdsongs came back in full force.
The announcement awoke Delta, but he decided not to go to the Feast. He still had food and a source of water nearby, as well as his heavy branch. A real weapon would have been nice, but he didn’t feel safe going to the central clearing. Instead, he decided to just sleep more. He only woke up again when the first cannon sounded.
As for the couple, they were lost in bliss. Their show from the previous night had to be censored, although it was available for those who had enough “connections”. Let’s just say that it was quite memorable, and cemented Angelo and Alexandra’s place as favorites. They got ready after a long cuddling session, grabbing their bags and their weapons and heading to the cornucopia. They arrived with minutes to spare. Actually, they were the last tributes to arrive.
Vannery had been the first on site, scouting for other tributes. Once she had been sure the coast was clear, she had signaled to Rivage and Carton that they could come. They hid in the bushes nearby; this area having been spared from the fires. Little by little, other tributes started to arrive. Kumquat (11) hid behind a tree, Perfecto (1) stood in the open, Odette and Georges (N) huddled together.
As Quinoa (9) and the “Double A couple” finally arrived, the cornucopia started receding into the ground. It reappeared at once, and a bell rang.
Vannery stayed behind. She watched all the tributes run to the center where laid 8 numbered bags, including Carton and Rivage. The fighting raged in the cornucopia. Her allies attacked Alexandra and Angelo, as Kumquat escaped with his bag. Quinoa (9) almost got out, but Perfecto (1) caught her by the ponytail and stabbed her in the throat, sounding her cannon. He then picked up her bag in addition to his.
Alexandra and Angelo fought side to side, covering each other. She scared Odette (N) away, while he pushed back against Rivage. The boy from 4 tried to hit Alexandra again, but her ally caught the trident and almost tore it out of Rivage’s hands. Instead of trying again, he attacked Georges. The trident hit him in the back and sounded his cannon a few seconds later. Angelo took advantage of this distraction to slash at Carton with his sword, causing the boy from 8 to bleed out.
Vannery screamed and ran out of her hiding place, almost colliding with Odette (N) on the way. Rivage grabbed the district 4 and district 8 bags in one hand, and Vannery’s arm in the other, and they ran away together. The young girl cried and struggled to keep up the pace. She wanted to go back, but Carton’s cannon sounded, ruining her hopes.
Angelo and Alexandra were the last tributes to get their bags. One of Perfecto’s knives punctured Alexandra’s. The pair turned back, giving Kumquat (11) enough time to flee. They chased Perfecto into the woods. He was quick, however, and they had a hard time gaining on him.
The following hours were very quiet, boring, even, so Urania and Argus invited a few guests to discuss the bloodbath and the tributes’ different strategies. It was only in the late afternoon that Delta deigned getting up. He was well rested. He ate what remained of his food and started camouflaging himself once again in order to hunt. The tributes were now very spread out, however, and it appeared that Delta was in an area devoid of them. He walked until it got too dark to continue, before letting out a scream of rage. His sudden outburst scared some resting birds. They flew away and hit Kumquat (11) square in the face as he was in the process of climbing up one of the taller trees. The surprise caused him to lose his grip and he fell to his death a few feet away from Delta, his Feast bag laying next to him. Suddenly, Delta laughed and thanked the birds. He emptied the contents of the bag, glad to find some fresh food and water. He settled right there for the night.
Angelo and Alexandra eventually gave up on hunting Perfecto. Every time they thought they heard him; it turned out to be another bird. He was nowhere to be found. The pair settled down near a creek, right where Carton and his allies had camped earlier, in order to clean themselves. It was another spectacle to behold. The couple played in the fresh water, wearing only their underwear, and at one point, Alexandra winked at one of the cameras. This resulted in the appearance of a sponsor gift a few seconds later. She caught it and opened it discreetly once she was dressed again. She checked that Angelo was busy with the campfire before peeking inside. There was a water bottle and a tiny, sheathed stiletto knife, about two inches long. There was also a note that said : “You will only get one chance” – S. She acted nonchalant, thanked her sponsor for the water, and hid the knife in her sock. She took the first watch, jumping when a cannon sounded.
Since they had come back from the Feast, Vannery felt that Rivage was acting strange. He kept pacing and muttering to himself and seemed unhappy even though they had received enough supplies to last five more days in the arena at least. They found another place to sleep, Vannery built a new shelter. As she was about to go to sleep, Rivage approached her, trident in hand. He didn’t speak, so she asked him what he wanted. “I’m sorr-“ he started. Vannery interrupted him : “Behind you !”.
He spun around and threw his trident. It caught Perfecto in the head, sounding his cannon before he had hit the ground. He had been sneaking up behind Rivage with a knife in both hands, but Vannery had a keen eye. Rivage seemed to deflate. He cleaned up his weapon and went to sleep. Vannery tried to ask him what he wanted to tell her, but he didn’t answer. Instead, she took the first watch.
At midnight, five portraits appeared in the sky : Perfecto (1), Carton (8), Quinoa (9), Kumquat (11) and Georges (N). The six remaining tributes were spread out around the arena : Rivage and Vannery to the East, Angelo and Alexandra to the North, Odette (N) in the South and Delta to the West.
Day 4:
The sound of a cannon startled Delta out of his slumber. He was feeling well rested and decided to head to the cornucopia with just his branch and a knife he had taken from Kumquat. With only 5 remaining tributes, he knew that the showdown was about to take place and was about as excited as the viewers in the Capitol for it to happen. On the way, he stumbled upon a suspicious mound of leaves. He almost let it be, until he saw two feet poking out of it. As he bent down to look at it, a sharp pain entered his shoulder blade. By pure reflex, he swung his club backwards, hitting a barefoot Odette (N) in the forehead. She stumbled backwards, clutching her knife, and tripped on a rock. Delta jumped onto her, planting his knee in her stomach, and stabbed her with her own knife. He added it to his “collection”.
The atmosphere between Alexandra and Angelo had been quite tense since they’d woken up. They hadn’t slept so well. When the first cannon sounded, they set out to get to the cornucopia, and by the time the second cannon echoed throughout the arena, they were in position. “We’ll fight together, right ?” asked Alexandra. Angelo nodded solemnly : “Until there’s no one else. I’m so glad I got to meet you.”
“Me too… Too bad one of us will have to die.”
As she said those words, a twig cracked in a nearby bush.
The first cannon had shocked the viewers quite a bit. As Rivage finished his watch, he looked at Vannery, asleep next to him. He murmured “I’m sorry”, so low that it had to be subtitled. Then he plunged his trident in her throat. Before leaving, Rivage let out the longest sigh of relief.
Alexandra climbed onto the cornucopia, hiding herself, a length of rope held tight between her hands. She waited as Rivage entered the clearing. He was focused on Angelo. Delta appeared a few seconds later, on the other side of the cornucopia. He walked under it, oblivious to the girl awaiting him. As Angelo charged Rivage with his sword, Alexandra lowered the rope. Delta let out a choked growl as she pulled. He was much stronger, however. With one labored step, he yanked her off the roof. The rope was still around his neck, but his hands were now around Alexandra’s. Nevertheless, she held on to the rope, using it to hold him at bay. Just before she fell unconscious, she kicked him in the groin. She let out a few coughs, before grabbing the two ends of the rope again and pulling Delta against one of the steel columns of the cornucopia. Delta tried to stab her, but she was behind him, and he was quickly loosing consciousness. With one last brutal pull, the rope crushed his windpipe.
Alexandra watched Angelo dispose of Rivage with one final feint of his sword, and his cannon sounded at the same time as Delta’s.
Silence fell on the clearing. Even the birds had shut up. The couple was breathing heavily. They hugged tight. Something glinted in Alexandra’s hand. She almost reached Angelo’s neck when he gripped her wrist. He smiled, but his eyes were full of sorrow. “I had to try at least !” she half-laughed, half-whimpered. He sat her down and hugged her once again. She told him that he deserved to win. That he was a good man. He took his swords and gently stabbed Alexandra in the heart. She barely cried as he looked into her eyes. A cannon sounded. The last one. Jahani Vishwa announced Angelo Clearfell, of district 2, as the victor of the 119th Hunger Games. He had to be forcefully removed form Alexandra’s corpse in order to be retrieved.
Aftermath:
The games took an immense toll on Angelo, who was unable to speak for more than a month. Even when he had gotten the use of his words back, he fell into a lengthy depression. His interview with Urania Whimsiwick and Argus Brown had to be cut short as soon as they mentioned Alexandra.
After that, he remained alone in his home of the Victor’s village. He received no guests and did not act as a mentor the following years. The other victors of his district described him as “disillusioned” and “a killjoy”. The situation stayed the same until his disappearance two years later.

Hello there!
A friend of mine intends to cosplay Left, and he is a cosmaker. He has the 3D printer and whatnot. He wantes to make it by himself, but, we couldn't find anyone showing the process of making the mask. Is anyone can point me in the right direction, that'll be great, since we will cosplay as a duo on October. Thank you in advance!

I have created a few playlists for Retroarch, So for example in the NES playlist it will direct to D:\\ROMS\\NES ROMS
Now if I change drive so D: becomes E: or I wanted to change to a different external hard drive, how can I write a path so retroarch will always pick the roms up. Hope this makes sense. So I used Notepad++ to replace all the D:\\ROMS\\NES ROMS to E:\\ROMS\\NES ROMS. Now this works but is there a path I can write so that I don't need to change from D: to E: or E: to D: etc. Any help would be appreciated

I’m having the worst time with my daughter (22m). I’m 7 weeks along with the next and I’m sick as hell. But I’m doing all the care, all the diaper changes, all the cooking for the family, all the cleaning. Or as much as she’ll let me at least.
My partner is currently working the Night Shift from 6:30 pm to 6:30 am, so when he’s home he’s sleeping.
She is currently in this phase where she HAS to be all over me. Crawling on me, elbowing into my sore boobs or super nauseated stomach. Pressing her forearm into my throat, which makes me gag, which makes me throw up. If I put her down, the slightest noise sets her off and she gets TERRIFIED and claws up my legs until I pick her up. She’s become a huge coward lately and that keeps me from doing anything. I can’t vacuum the stairs one-handed. I can’t sweep one-handed. If she’s not being scared, she’s being obstinately naughty. She’ll look me in the eye and proceed to do exactly what I’m telling her not to, and my “stern” voice doesn’t do jack shit. The only reaction or change is if I take away/redirect, or end up yelling just to be heard, which causes a tantrum and more crawling up/all over me. She whines, she pushes, rather than using her words or signs (which she’s SO good at so it doesn’t make any sense). Last night she looked straight at me when I told her to come get her diaper on before bed, and while maintaining eye contact she peed directly on her bedroom floor. Her carpeted bedroom floor. In a place we’re renting.
I just really want to love my child again. I hate this toddler phase so much. I’ve always been great with kids once they reach a certain age but I’ve always hated the toddler phase SO much. I thought as she got older I’d have a little more freedom, but I have less independence now than when she was a baby and contact napping. How do I get through this?

Emerging media co based in Orange County set to launch. Can you write, direct and produce content because we need lots of it in the near future.
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Hello! Me and a friend are in town and are wanting to film a small project where we take a look at the most haunted places in the state because we don’t believe in ghosts. We’ve looked at the courthouse, etc. But we would prefer to find something less commercialized. Is there anyone willing to show us around any places they may know or point us in the right direction? thank you.

i dont know what to do, my boyfriend of over and a year and a half and i have had a shift in dynamic after he went to college. i am at home on a gap year, and there have been many times when its been perhaps the hardest time of my life, where i needed him, and im pretty sure he knew this, but fell very short, and yes i did have high expectations, but nothing i dont expect of myself, and i know and get he was fresh into college and freshers, parties and shit, and i couldnt see him cause i have strict parents, i just feel like if i was in his position, i wouldve done so much more, because i loved him so deeply. and i communicated this to him very clearly many times and he just didnt 'get it'
he eventually started putting in more effort, after he did absolutley nothing for my birthday (im gonna include a post i had wrote before but didnt post for context (its very long), so now im in a position where he wants to do more, or wants me to tell him speak to him (im going through some tough exams), but i just dont feel comfortable doing so, his uni exams, and uni has finished, but he went back up to do idk what, so hes not coming down despite wanting to 'support me'. idk like i shouldnt expect him to come home and support me but i wouldve been here for him, and its like why are you saying you want to be there for me then just not being there, not like wholeheartedly, especially since both of us are bad at ldr and hate calling and shit.
ive just regressed so much, i went from never speaking about emotions, to completely opening up, to not wanting to depend on him so just not opening up at all again. i feel like a burden for asking him of anything, and just feel uncomfortable opening up to him because i dont want to seem dependent (especially cause hes doing so much and im stuck at home this year cause of my strict parents) , i feel like if he wanted to get it he would cause ive spelled it out for him so many times, and the thing is hes 'trying now' or idk is kinda trying, but i just cant bring myself to reciprocate any of it, id rather just not speak to him, idk how to explain it, like i dont wanna seem invested in him at all because i was so wholeheartedly invested, then crushed almost.
i dont know what to do, cause nothing is wrong so to speak, and ive mentioned most of this before.
CONTEXT (LONG - quite repetitive)
i f19 have been dating bf 19, for over a year and a half (my first boyfriend), and the first year was an absolute blessing, no arguments, nothing, but now in hindsight i might've been too in love, and not seen any red flags. issues arrose when in September he moved away for college, I'm taking a year out, and to add i have very strict parents who don't know I'm in a relationship, so i can't just simply go see himto put it into perspective some things that have happened since, so September, i was going through perhaps what was the lowest time of my life, i was depressed for the first time ever, couldn't sleep or eat due to family stuff, now i don't know if it was unreasonable to expect this, especially when its the start of uni, and its a time for parties and stuff, but if i was in his place, i would have been there for me, which he wasn't, there would be days which we wouldn't speak cause he was out, but it was also the first time i ever really needed him, which might be a lot to expect from a person? but i would've been there in his shoes, you know? like i wholely believe in going above and beyond, i admit to being kinda dependent on him, and i went from a stage of being emotionally numb to so in love in my first relationship, but even without the dependency i don't think he was there for me at all.and there were boundaries set in the summer while i was away ( sorry this is all jumbled up ), simple reassuring things, like sending snaps when out, letting each other know when we've left and are home, which i did to the max while he wasn't out in summer, to make him comfortable, now when I'm at home and he's out, or was out, he didn't do any, just apologised for forgetting all the time.these things would repeat, like he'd promise we would call, and then be one hour two hours late, and this was a pattern, even tho i understand he was getting used to a new environment come on now, at least let me know you cant call?at one point i told him i needed to physically see him, and asked him to come down (the one and only time) for me, and the first thing he did when he was back was go to a party with his friends,in our anniversary, he wasn't even planning on coming down on the actual day, which he didn't, i get he doesn't think these things are important but they are to me and I'm sure he knows this by now.throughout all of this, till around jan i was still trying, sending paragraphs, being nice, sending him chocolates and flowers, which he would occasionally though rarely reciprocate. but it was always me making the first move, always being the one thinking of someone new.by jan i lowkey detached emotionallymy birthday came soon after, he didn't come back down (home town where we both live) for my birthday, my friend came without me even having to ask, and on the actual day he literally was 'busy' till 11pm, playing football, which he asked me to go to, but if he's asking and we've already spoken about this type of stuff, why would i say no, he shouldn't even had asked. but yeah, he didn't get me a proper present either, basically 0 effort., he didn't do anything significant for my last birthday either, but we were relatively new, and i was so in love which is why i didn't mind, i then went as all out as i could for his birthdaythroughout this period i had tried to communicate a lot of things, but id kinda sugarcoat everything cause i always felt bad, and hence,i could never express my hurt and it built up as a lot of resentment and pain really. and when i did explain hed first understand, then just as it seemed like he was getting it, he'd hit me with a logical argument rather than actually understanding how i felt, and ofc i have made mistakes, especially at the start of the uni year as i missed him and didn't direct it very well, but acknowledged it and have since worked and fixed it. after my birthday he made a few slight changes? but like there was 6-7 months when despite me telling him how i felt, and how i needed more reassurance from him and yada yada, there was nothing and the upset of that. and with my whole birthday he apologised and literally cried at first, thencompletely 180 flipped and logically and blindly began to defend himselfhe started to get annoyed that i was so easily frustrated in the coming weeks, cause of everything building up and we spoke about it, which he finally, or so i thought understood what i was trying to explain all this time, then i came up with the idea of giving each other small inexpensive gifts at the end of each month, as just a little reassurance, could be anything, and he literally didn't do the first month, out of pure laziness, which he admitted to. and HE KEEPS APOLOGIZING LIKE WHY DONT U CHANGEhe was also incredibly disrespectful in a situation for the first time, which i cba to explain but he said something along the lines of i don't care for your respect. side eyenow, as i mentioned previously, before he had put an emphasis on texting each other 'leaving now,love you' and waff, not a big thing, but i do it cause i value him, and its not even that important to me really, however I'm furious cause he can so easily just skip over and forget about it, then just say apologies.now i know hes not cheating 100%, and i know he loves me, but i simply don't think he cares about me, on looking on this rant, there's no pros to me acc being in this relationship, i think I'm scared cause its my first one, and probably holding onto how it was in the past but if i do leave i don't know how i should, or how to deal with it, and i cant helo but feel like its my fault (i always so easily blame myself its a very bad habit) thank you for reading up to here if you have, any advice?ALSO i told my mum about us back in summer when everything was good, and shes very much against it, not only cause he's from a different country (unfortunately that's juts my immigrant parents mindset) but also cause she says I'm too young, which is waff, and idk its drove a wedge between my mum and i and my parents can make me feel guilty so easily so subconsciously its like, if we break up, is everything that happened with my mum for no reason?

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So I have a WFH job. I'm 31 years old, my wife (29) is an unemployed SAHM, and I'm currently living with my parents. I moved in with my parents and my younger brother (27) when my wife was pregnant with our first child, and my wife doesn't want to move out because my parents help with the baby and it helps with our bills. Currently, my parents are doing home remodeling/ renovations, and it is a very noisy work environment.
Due to all the work noise, I can't work from home since my job involves being on the phone all day. My brother is a small business owner who does e-commerce sales and has his own office space that he pays a lease on. When my parents started their remodeling, I asked my brother if I could hang out in his office while I do my job. I wasn't happy about it working at my younger brother's company, but I wouldn't technically be his employee. I would just be using space.
Well, apparently my brother was complaining to our mom and my wife that he doesn't want me at his office, though he never said anything to me directly. I'm not technically my brother's employee, I'm just using some of his office space to do my own work for my own job and don't bother him. Then my mom and my wife were telling me that my brother doesn't want me at his office, and to not go there anymore. I was upset that my brother didn't come to me directly and passed on the message to our mom and my wife to give to me instead, but whatever.
Today I decided to lease a workspace in the city so I could actually do my job for the duration that home renovations are going on. I parked by a parking meter and was about 10 minutes late trying to pay for the meter again, and in that short 10-minute span, I got a parking ticket. The ticket cost me about the entire day's pay. Then later I got a call from my brother asking where I was. I told him about my wife and our mom telling me that he didn't want me at his office, and I ended up leasing a spot downtown since I couldn't work from home during renovations. I didn't tell my brother about the ticket.
He then says that I can keep coming by his office and not worry about it. At this point, I already got a lease, I already got a parking ticket. All in all it's been a really bad day so far.

Not sure if this a feature or some other issue like Av or a config issue. Can anyone else Drag a attachment direct from a email to the desktop for example?

Hello everyone!
I’m a genealogist & I am trained in discovering local Michigan family lineages and stories through vital records, census records, and newspapers.
This is the interest form I put together for anyone interested in learning more about their personal Michigan family history. I create family trees, ancestral maps, and historical road trip itineraries based on YOUR personal family history! It’s a great way to connect with your heritage and wonderful knowledge pass down to future generations.
LINK TO INTEREST FORM: Family History Interest Form
Here are some things you can discover from my research:

• Newspaper articles about your ancestors (Crime? Scandal? Who knows!)
• Custom ancestral mapping showing your approximate ethnic admixture
• United States migration mapping showing how your ancestors migrated throughout the country
• Your great-great-great grandparents’ names
• Physical descriptions of your ancestors from census records and war draft cards
• Six full generations back of your family tree
• Photographs of your ancestors you have never seen before (Found in Newspaper archives, I have subscriptions to several newspaper websites)

I have a degree in Anthropology and have spent several years working for a professional genealogy company. I have been working as an individual genealogist for about 6 years. If you have any questions about my research, please fill out an interest form or email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
For those of you with ancestry outside of Michigan, please send me a message. I’d be happy to help you or direct you to a better suited genealogist. Thanks!
Ancestral Origins Map Example
https://preview.redd.it/nh2c3pm18n4b1.png?width=962&format=png&auto=webp&s=e6524bd8f741606e8bb79b08cd44580cbe462002
USA Origins Map Example
https://preview.redd.it/gbkmek328n4b1.png?width=973&format=png&auto=webp&s=f2d9252881cd62da3ea26d151ea6bbeac053682a
LINK TO INTEREST FORM: Family History Interest Form

Company Name	Title	City
Dungarvin	Behavioral In-Home Direct Support Professionals	Baraboo
Eau Claire Leader Telegram	Pressroom Trainee	Chippewa Falls
Orthodontic Specialists Of Green Bay	Sterilization Technician	De Pere
First Congregational Church	Organist	Eau Claire
Eau Claire Leader Telegram	Media Sales Development	Eau Claire
Accu-Trailer	Mobile Service Trailer Mechanic	Franksville
Briarcliff Apartments	Maintenance Technician	Kenosha
Ktown Transportation	Driver- Full Time/Part Time	Kenosha
Kenosha County	Custodian	Kenosha
Kenosha County	Registered Nurse- Brookside Care Center	Kenosha
Dunn Paper	Production	Ladysmith
City of Madison Fire Department	Fire Protection Engineer	Madison
University of WI-Stout	Steamfitter	Menomonie
University Of Wisconsin Stout - Career Services	Marketing Specialist/Career Services	Menomonie
University of WI-Stout	Marketing Assistant	Menomonie
Mosser Lee Company	Accounting Position	Millston
Madrigrano Trucking of Kenosha, Inc.	Class A CDL Drivers- Experienced	Milwaukee
OSR Systems	Scuba Diver	Necedah
NeoSoft, LLC	Software Engineer	Pewaukee
Engineered Exhaust Systems/b-t Inc	Web Developer	Saukville
Kikkoman Foods, Inc	Production, Traffic Office Lead, Mechanic, Electrician	Walworth
Meyer Bros LLC	Class A Cdl Driver	City Of Eau Claire
SSM Health	Emergency Room Nurse	Baraboo
SSM Health	LTAC RN	Baraboo
Stoughton Trailers, LLC	Production Supervisor- Sheet Metal - (AWS)	Brodhead

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings , feel free to comment here if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

Hi
basically the title. Situation is kinda complex, so please bear with me through this longtext. Last 8 months truly was a ride. TL;DR at the bottom. After studying CS and freelancing as a PM for two years, I decided to partake in a bootcamp to switch from (a miserably failed) PM contract into development. Due to sheer luck, I've been presented with this amazing job opportunity in Q4 of last year at a US startup. It was more of a “right time, right place” situation - a buddy from my conference/hackathon network basically introduced me to the team and into an interview call. I was told my github / code was ‘good’, but I think the other candidates maybe have just been kinda weaker than I was, which just made me look ‘better’ in comparison. This is not me being humble or imposter syndrome - I literally had no dev experience after uni beside some weekend-long hackathon projects and had just finished a 6 week part-time bootcamp. With that CV and experience, I had another job lined up in my home country: as an ‘associate developer’ (literally 1 step below `junior`, usually for people who just finished uni) and half the salary. I considered this a good, fair offer and was very happy when they mailed me the contract. But since the opportunity for the startup job presented itself and I could literally earn twice as much, unlimited vacation days, no work hours tracking, fully remote - of course I took it. I think 99% of people would’ve done the same. So. For 2-3 months I was a very heavily overpaid junior dev with the salary of an experienced mid-level / young senior dev. Cue constant feelings of being inadequate and not good enough for the salary. And although I was giving my best, my senior dev and some other contributors started to notice how slow I was and that the quality of my code wasn’t too great. This led to the beginning of the year when I had a call with my superior and he confirmed my fears, stating my salary and my experience level aren’t aligned, that the startup made a mistake hiring me for that salary tier and that we’d need to re-adjust the compensation to a smaller level in the next quarter. Ok. Fair enough. I obviously didn’t like that too much, but in my gut I knew that he was right and that overall a pay reduction would be fair for both sides. We never discussed specifics, but even with a 50% pay cut my salary would still be more than comfortable in my home country. But then, very shortly after that call, things changed dramatically: Completely out of the blue, my only other tech team member, senior dev and mentor, who was a part of the startup since its first moment and had built most of its infrastructure, left for a better job at a competitor. There was a lot of drama. When the dust settled, suddenly I was the only full-time dev on the tech team and the only person in the whole startup who was (kind of) familiar with the clunky and complex legacy codebase. I was kind of lost in that situation and didn’t know what to do. After reading up on this subreddit, because apparently there’s quite a few people in similar situations, I decided that I had nothing to lose if I just took this chance. I stayed on, tried to learn as much as possible, tried to keep the ship afloat and on course and just keep things rolling until we’d find a new Lead / Senior Dev. Somehow, magically, this worked out. Which I contribute more to the codebase than me - coz albeit it being clunky and complex, it’s also very robust and built by people with a lot of experience, which showed. But despite me trying to rise to the occasion, I also feel that my mental health started slipping. Briefly before starting this job I was diagnosed with ADHD and started taking medication for the first time (at 32 years old). So feelings of Anxiety or Depression I already knew and knew how to handle; observing myself procrastinate (and combatting that with the medication) is also nothing new to me - but the extent of this has started to grow and has been coming to the surface more in the past weeks. What is new for me is feeling kinda hopeless, passionless, joyless - kind of burnout-y and I’m not really sure how to deal with that except trying to enforce better boundaries between my personal life and my work life. Which brings feelings of inadequacy and shame, since I honestly don’t think I am working nearly hard enough or am productive enough to justify feeling ‘burned out’. Which brings me to my current dilemma.
TL;DR: Joined a startup as a VERY much overpaid junior dev straight out of bootcamp. Two months later, review call: ‘you’re doing great work for the experience that you have - but we hired you into the wrong salary tier. Our mistake - will have to adjust salary down to your exp level soon’. Then only senior dev + mentor left and I was the only full-time dev left in tech team dealing with big and complex legacy codebase. No more talks about salary adjustment. Tried rising to the challenge and kept the ship on course for several months while startup searched for a new senior dev / CTO. Learned a lot in the meantime, finally felt like I started to earn my salary. But also kind of paid for that with mental health. So now… We found a new senior Dev. He’s honestly great. Tons of technical experience, vast knowledge to our specific niche, yet humble and considerate. Overall just a great guy to work with and I really look forward to learn from him and work with him. But since he started, it already became clear that his main responsibility is more towards the direction of CTO than Senior Dev. He’s working super hard on several different things (tech and management related). But I feel so god damn inferior. Since we’re now focusing on building a new product (which we can use to fundraise) and newDev is starting to correctly manage the tech team (creating tickets and using a scrum board, scoping, doing standups that are closer to 15 mins than 30, …), I am back to coding and I realize that I am still so very slow. I have been stuck building a super simple thing for weeks. FOR WEEKS. It’s basically doing some REST API calls. But I just can’t seem to finish or make it work. I sometimes commit code to github just so that there’s activity in the repo - knowing full well that it doesn’t work. I have no idea how to solve this. I have literally tried every thing I could to make it work. It just won’t. Yesterday, I jumped over my shadow and told newDev that I am stuck and need help from a senior. He immediately carved out some time for me, hopped on a call, was very reassuring when my codebase was a mess (unsaved, uncommitted local changes, when trying to revert to a working commits it was just a bunch of conflicts). For nearly an hour we sat on this call, he doing something different, me trying to make my local code run. Eventually it did and we went over everything together. And we figured something out and made one successful API call. After which we ended the call and I quit for the day. This morning I start my local code up again - API call fails again with the same error message as before (despite having the changes from yesterday saved and effected). I know that this is such a comparatively little fucking thing. But I feel like I just want to quit. Just drop everything and walk away, never look back and start fresh somewhere else. Fuck the salary. Fuck the overall good perks or otherwise nice team. Fuck the specific knowledge of our old codebase which won’t bring me any benefits in any new work setting. I feel like it’s just a matter of time until they realize that I don’t know jack shit about coding, that my code is shit, unrealiable, untested, and just insufficient. That the new product is launched and the old one deprecated. And then my knowledge about the old repos doesn’t matter anymore and since i’m shit at coding, they’ll just tell me to fuck off (in nicer terms) and hire somebody more qualified.
And that I’ll never find a job that is even remotely close to paying me the same amount of money in the next 4-7 years. Can you give me any advice for my situation?

Project Bluebeam and other theories of the Government carrying out a Global False Flag in which a Fake Invasion brings about a One World Government, sounds extremely flawed to me.
The US and China are on a one way collision course for direct conflict over becoming the sole Power Broker of the world. We're already in sort of a Cold War with them and battle lines are being drawn on the Geopolitical stage.
If we were to have one World Goverment, one entity will have to assume control, whether it's a Country like the US or China or an Alliance or Union of Countries, like NATO or the UN. I just can't imagine the US or China allowing the other to assume the lead on a One World Government or to work together on this. Or the many other countries aligning with one side or the other (Russia, North Korea, Iran etc).
I don't see this False Flag being a successful or even feasible event to bring about a One World Government until an inevitable WW3 shakes up the World Order and one country emerges as the sole Great Power.
Unless of course all the countries have secretly been working together behind the scenes and any conflict is just theatrics to keep the populace under control. Much like the world of 1984, where the countries were in perpetual conflict. Which I honestly don't buy knowing how corrupt and Power hungry the elites of the World are.
Just my thoughts on why I don't think a False Flag Invasion for a One World Government is ever going to be a reality.

Hello all,
I know this is somewhat a niche question, so pls point me to the right community if im wrong!
As the title says, im tinkering with the rpi-pico. Rust is great, so i realy want to do this in rust!
I got my pico working with rust, and was even able to write data to a WS2812b strip! Thats great news everyone, so i was realy hyped to make my tinkering into a real project. The missing link was therefore some sort of input, and what else to use for lighting as dmx? So i got my dusty dmx controller, connected it to the pico via a max485 and a logic level converter, and tried to read any input from it. BUT here is the problem, because i could not make any sense of what i was reading. It seems, that this is some garbage, because i did something wrong in the first place. I cant find any library that does this for the pico in rust. There is one in cpp with classes, but is porting that worth the effort?
Could someone point me in the right direction?
I dont know if you need it in this stage, but for the interested folks, here is my source code in a bit striped down version:
#![no_std]
#![no_main]
use fugit::RateExtU32;
use rp2040_hal::{
clocks::init_clocks_and_plls,
gpio::{FunctionUart, Pins},
pac,
sio::Sio,
uart::{self, DataBits, StopBits, UartConfig, UartPeripheral},
watchdog::Watchdog,
Clock,
};
use rp_pico::entry;
use panic_halt as _;
use rp_pico::hal;
use usb_device::{class_prelude::*, prelude::*};
use usbd_serial::SerialPort;
use core::fmt::Write;j
const XOSC_CRYSTAL_FREQ: u32 = 12_000_000; // Typically found in BSP crates
#[entry]
fn main() -> ! {
let mut pac = pac::Peripherals::take().unwrap();
let mut watchdog = hal::Watchdog::new(pac.WATCHDOG);
let sio = Sio::new(pac.SIO);
let pins = Pins::new(
pac.IO_BANK0,
pac.PADS_BANK0,
sio.gpio_bank0,
&mut pac.RESETS,
);
let mut clocks = init_clocks_and_plls(
XOSC_CRYSTAL_FREQ,
pac.XOSC,
pac.CLOCKS,
pac.PLL_SYS,
pac.PLL_USB,
&mut pac.RESETS,
&mut watchdog,
)
.ok()
.unwrap();
let pins = (
pins.gpio0.into_mode::(),
pins.gpio1.into_mode::(),
);
let uart = UartPeripheral::new(pac.UART0, pins, &mut pac.RESETS)
.enable(
hal::uart::UartConfig::new(
250_000_000.Hz(),
hal::uart::DataBits::Eight,
None,
hal::uart::StopBits::Two,
),
clocks.peripheral_clock.freq(),
)
.unwrap();
let usb_bus = UsbBusAllocator::new(hal::usb::UsbBus::new(
pac.USBCTRL_REGS,
pac.USBCTRL_DPRAM,
clocks.usb_clock,
true,
&mut pac.RESETS,
));
let mut serial = SerialPort::new(&usb_bus);
let mut usb_dev = UsbDeviceBuilder::new(&usb_bus, UsbVidPid(0x16c0, 0x27dd))
.manufacturer("Fake company")
.product("Serial port")
.serial_number("TEST")
.device_class(2) // from: https://www.usb.org/defined-class-codes
.build();
let timer = hal::Timer::new(pac.TIMER, &mut pac.RESETS);
let mut say_hello_timestamp = 0;
loop {
let mut buffer: [u8; 1024] = [0; 1024];
if uart.read_raw(&mut buffer).is_ok() {
// write the buffer to uart
serial.write(&buffer);
serial.write(b"\r\n");
}
if usb_dev.poll(&mut [&mut serial]) {
let mut buf = [0u8; 64];
match serial.read(&mut buf) {
Err(_e) => {
// Do nothing
}
Ok(0) => {
// Do nothing
}
Ok(count) => {
buf.iter_mut().take(count).for_each(b {
b.make_ascii_uppercase();
});
let mut wr_ptr = &buf[..count];
while !wr_ptr.is_empty() {
match serial.write(wr_ptr) {
Ok(len) => wr_ptr = &wr_ptr[len..],
Err(_) => break,
};
}
}
}
}
}
}

So y'all probably know Windows has a UX feature wherein you click middle mouse button on a browser or text reader app and you can move the mouse in any direction to scroll, this feature is amazing for any app where you have to scroll a lot, like, say, a chat with large channels...
So does anyone know of a Telegram client that supports it? Because the official doesn't, Unigram doesn't, and Kotatogram doesn't, I'm so tired of having to scroll manually for several minutes to look through a chat.

Hi everyone, I (22F, taking Zoloft, birth control, & Omeprazole) suddenly noticed about 2 months ago that my right lymph node in my neck/jaw felt larger than usual. I wasn’t sick that I knew of, other than a persistent cough I’ve had since I caught covid in May 2022. The only other related thing I can think of is that I vape Delta-8 resin pens and go through about 2-3 in a month.
I already had a GP visit scheduled when I noticed the lymph node enlargement and in the weeks leading up to my appointment the lump felt like it got bigger. It’s soft and mobile and not painful unless I mess with it. My GP referred me for an ultrasound and afterwards, she assured me it was just swelling and nothing to be concerned about. I also had routine blood work done and all my values were WNL (other than slightly elevated creatinine).
However the node is so enlarged now that I can feel and start to see it externally; I don’t think it’s still growing but it’s hard to tell. What could cause something like this? I’m very concerned about lymphoma (the symptoms, including weight loss and fatigue, could be attributed to my depression) or another illness not being taken seriously. As a young otherwise healthy woman I feel like this was brushed off. Should I get a second opinion, or is the ultrasound usually accurate?
——————————————————-
Here’s what the ultrasound report said:
There is a 1.1 x 0.5 x 0.9 cm typically reactive appearing normal-sized right level 1 lymph node. There is no cortical irregularity or nodularity. Hilar blood flow is visualized, without increased cortical blood flow.
There is a similar 1.0 x 0.5 x 0.6 cm reactive appearing right level 1 lymph node which is directly adjacent.
There is a mildly enlarged reactive appearing 2.7 x 0.4 x 1.7 cm right level 2 lymph node. There is no cortical nodularity or irregularity. No increased blood flow is noted.
There is a 1.1 x 0 0.8 x 0.5 cm reactive appearing left level 1 lymph node. There is a 1.6 x 0.6 x 1.0 cm reactive appearing left level 2 lymph node.
The partially visualized thyroid appears unremarkable.
IMPRESSION:
There is mild bilateral upper cervical lymphadenopathy, most marked on the right, which appears reactive as discussed. Follow-up ultrasound may be obtained in 3 to 6 months as indicated clinically.

I am a newbie to arduino but have done some amount of electronics work in my life, so let's call me a beginner.
The TL;DR is that I'd like to use an Arduino to open and close switches in a circuit and I'd like advice on how to configure that. (e.g. do I need relays?)
The project I'd like to make is an arcade fighting game style controller using capacitive touch sensors instead of push buttons for the directional inputs. The idea is to take the notion of a leverless controller like the Hitbox to the next level using touch instead of buttons for direction input.
The basis for this project will be the Brook Universal Fighting Board (UFB) (https://www.brookaccessory.com/detail/06960737/) which is the brains of the arcade stick and you just need to wire up switches to it.
At first I looked into using TTP223 sensors but they recalibrate frequently (depending on state, every 15 seconds or less) and don't function during calibration (and worse, could calibrate while being touched) so they're no good.
I've seen suggestions to other people with similar requirements that they use an Adafruit MPR121 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1982) sending input to an Arduino since the MPR121 calibrates once at power-on.
When the MPR triggers I'd like to close a circuit for that direction on the UFB. I need this to be as low latency as possible. I don't understand how the Arduino I/O pins work at all. Can I create a circuit on the UFB by feeding the leads from the UFB to an input and output pin on the GPIO of the Arduino, or are those not actually connected? Or can I not drive that directly off the Arduino and instead I would need to use the Arduino to control a MOSFET or solid state relay to close the circuit on the UFB.
I tried to include all the information - probably too much.... Appreciate any advice you can give.