These are not in any particular order - some may have come a few weeks ago, some today.
But I do have good news: I did NOT work on cards at all this weekend, because I spent Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday all doing amazing fun things with my wife as we kicked off our celebration of Pride month. For those who don't know, we currently have two houses, in two different states, one where she mostly lives (in the U.S. Pacific Northwest) and one where I mostly live (in the U.S. Southwest, known as the Cactus Cathouse). We are gearing up to sell our northern outpost house and live together in the Cactus Cathouse, and this was sort of our "last hurrah" weekend before showings and whatnot really get started.
But now, I'm trying to get cardthings caught up so that I'm not trying to deal with them during the eventual relocation, starting with these thanks and hopefully progressing on to a request and an offer tomorrow as time permits.
Also, someone in this (long) list sent me a lovely, large rainbow snail vinyl sticker, but I couldn't tell whose mail it came from. (Maybe u/amyt13?) Anyway, whoever you are, I appreciate you immensely and I'm sorry for not organizing myself better.
Thanks to:
(First of all, thanks to the flair team, because yikes this is the worst and I'm very sorry!)
u/amabisca - This handmade purple card (my favorite color!) is amazing and was such an uplifting surprise. Thank you so, so much!
u/amyt13 (x2) - Thank you for the beautiful handmade collage card, the Oscar Wilde card, and all the extras! I hope you are able to find a good place to call home too - the one you were describing sounds like my kind of town, and I hope it works out. I'll cross my fingers for you!
u/AppleCritter723 - This cute botanical card/letter I an opening from you is dated in April. APRIL, friend. I am sorry. It is full of good news and cute stickers and I swear I will write actual mail and not just send weird envelopes of things to you and your "bigger little" soon. I hope your Memorial Day weekend travels weren't too bad, and that Gandalf the adventurer is letting you occasionally stay inside. You created a meow-monster!
u/awachob - Goose!! I can't believe I got to be the goose! Thank you so much for a fun offer. (And for the neat stickers!)
u/blue-wanderer-quartz - I am very late saying thanks for the Five of Pentacles cat tarot sticker reading, but it was incredibly appropriate to read about pooling resources as my wife and I re-combine households in part due to love but in large part due to, well, wanting to actually have disposable income! I think it's interesting that we both chose pentacles for each other! (And the cat postcard your reading is on is very cute, I don't want to forget that!)
u/bluedecemberart (x2) - I love the vintage VA hospital postcard from Maine... and we already chatted about the "not noticing the chores" thing but rereading the card as I went to post this made me sure again that we are somehow the same person. WEIRD, but COOL. And your New York skyline postcard is lovely, and now I want to watch A Crown of Candy!
u/championvilla - I adore this MarioKart card! My wife and I used to play a lot (right now, we have the game systems packed for house-showing). I hope that your husband is continuing to feel better (and that the cat finally decided to get off of him, lol!)
u/chiquita61 - The sloth mermaid dolphin thank-you card with penguin stickers is absolutely wonderful... and I am so happy you liked my "reject" sticker card in all its glory!
u/comingtogetyoubabs (x6) - This crystal ball card with Petit's ABSOLUTE WISDOM is just amazing, friend. (Also, did I get a little teary at "writer of hugs in card form" MAYBE). And the amazing goodies you included - the cat-yang patch, your beautiful handmade notepaper... there is no way I deserve the awesomeness that is you "buzzing" into my life. And then the second cat card and all the goodies, including the adorable bookmark...! And THEN I realized you had hand-drawn me three tarot cards that you wrote about, AND then I found your origami letter... I am in awe, friend. You are wonderful!
u/cswl (x10) - This is what I get for not keeping up with my thanks, I feel silly with how behind I am for you, my dear friend! (Both in thanking AND in writing back.) Thank you for the cute plant notecard (I do not do Informed Delivery because it will just make me sad, I think); the red fox postcard (did you go to Fogo, which is one of my favorite places ever??); the "sources of acid" postcard (I always feel better when I have time for myself too, and also always delay it too long); the absolutely delicious LouPaper charcuterie board postcard (I have both too many cards and somehow never the ones I really feel like I wish I had to send people); the postcard from The Lion King (yay garage sale days!); the Strange Planet vibrating cat postcard (so outnumbered, I have given up, they are in charge now); the two different New Yorker cartoon cards (you are 100% right - hard times are harder on the one holding down the fort in SO many ways, been there/done that, and also guilt trips suck and I'm sorry the person tried to send you on one); the cute bird saying hi card (the one-house thing was her idea first, and it will definitely be for the best, though I need to make sure I keep focusing on me too!); and especially thanks for "Content Lives Everywhere" collage you made - that is just wonderful. You are so great. I am sorry I'm such a bad postal pal but I'm trying to do better!
u/dazeyferry (x2) - My dear friend, this penguin with flowers card is AMAZING and I am so, so grateful that you thought of me when you saw it. And the little floral thank-you card addition was perfect as well. I love you and I am so glad we are friends! As far as bingeworthy shows - have you seen Ted Lasso? Schmigadoon? (Both on AppleTV.) Those are amazing. We also started watching Hello, Tomorrow, which is a bit sad sometimes but really good! I'll try to think of some more, too.
u/draconic_healing - I love this little tiny Polaroid-style postcard - it's adorable! Please pet the kitty for me - I couldn't tell if you wrote "Bear" or "Bean" but both are great names!
u/dwrfstr - This gold penguin card is amazing and adorable and I cannot believe your luck to find it thrifted! I picked up a set of hundreds of vintage postcards from an art reuse store that's near where we met up, and I ended up with, like, 16 of the same weird chapel at a church camp in South Dakota, so you definitely win...
u/fancayschmanzayyy - Your cat thank-you card was wonderful (as were the cool stickers!) And most of all, I very much appreciate you telling me about your act of kindness and I especially appreciate your caregiving nature. I cared for my mom for many years before she passed away and stories like the one you told will always be especially important to me. You make a difference and I am so grateful you exist!
u/Fancykiddens (x2) - I feel terribly, terribly guilty for how late I am thanking you for this amazing CARD-CEPTION package!! First, from the pengin section: the pengin family you drew me, how awesome are they?! You are so talented! I almost never keep envelopes but this one got immediately saved with my "penguin stash." Then there was your beautiful handmade Frida Kahlo card - exactly my vibe, I love it! The penguin goodie bag with the penguins and their fish snackles inside was adorable too. And then, moving to the "monsteroo" or cute monster section, I adored your Monsters Inc. letter and goodies as well! I especially liked hearing that, at the time you wrote it, you were feeling particularly well and accomplished, and I adored hearing how much carding has helped your outlook. SAME, FRIEND. So much so!!
u/feellikebeingajerk (x2) - Holly Hobbie card (the first, maybe?) has arrived! And yes, it brought back awesome memories. I didn't get a lot of "trendy" things growing up, as my parents and I didn't have a lot of money, but there was a discount department store near us, sort of an early version of a T.J. Maxx or Ross that was called Hills, and it would sometimes get slight misprints or seconds of things like bedding, which is, I am -positive-, how I came to be able to have Holly Hobbie. And I don't remember anything "wrong" with it, so, way to go, Mom of PinkPengin, for that find! LOL. Also, thanks for the cool Papyrus thank-you card from your random offer, and for the stickers!
u/fieldofcabins - This adorable bee thank-you postcard is so great (and the penguin as the stamp image, ahhh!) I am glad your dad is healing and please let him know I'm still thinking of him. (And of course I'm always thinking of you, too!)
u/GizmoDOS - Thanks for the solar system postcard, friend! I loved hearing from you. Life really has been hectic lately. I hope yours is moving in the direction of settling down. Mine is going to be rough briefly but then hopefully a lot smoother!
u/hermitcreature - I love this Studio Ghibli-themed card and all the great stickers and dragon facts from your book (and the amazing Zimbabwean owl stamp)! I hope you will like your card from me in exchange when it arrives - I just sent it this week, I am very sorry!
u/HexagonalRainbow - I loved your anime postcard but even more, I loved hearing about your concert!
u/isar-love (x2) - These cartoon owls with their hats and shoes on your card from March are AMAZING! (And the accompanying postcard with more behatted owls also made my day!) I agree with you very much that owl facial expressions are the thing that especially warms my heart to them. They seem so intelligent and curious and often kind (especially in illustrations) with their big eyes looking right at me! I have several little stuffed-animal friend owls, including two very special ones named Swoops (who is tan) and Fwoops (who is pink, though his name reference is from fuschia - he is a "Fuschia Swoops" - way better than a Pink Swoops, who I fear would have to be "Poops," LOL!) Thank you so much for your wonderful kindness and friendship and fun mail!
u/jaimekj - Thank you for the floral card, great stickers and most importantly your note and your friendship! I do like New Mexico (more than my part of the Southwest, honestly, but we had family reasons we picked where we did)! I'm crossing my fingers about an interest-rate drop. If I had my choice, I'd either like to find someone bigger in Washington, or move back to Pennsylvania, I think. There are ups and downs to both. And I will VERY much hate going back to snow, that's one thing I do love about where I am in the desert!
u/jvanct88 - I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to have a letter from you with an update (and updated address), dear friend! In one way, I am VERY sorry for all the things you have been finding out, but in another way I am happy that you finally know the truth and I believe that knowing it will be very helpful in having closure and a good feeling as you move to a new chapter in your life. And I am VERY hopeful that your tattoo came out amazing! I am a big, big fan of tattoos and piercings. A funny story is that I got 2 new tattoos and several piercings when my wife and I were separated, including a nosering, which she always said she hated. (She didn't mind other tattoos and piercings generally.) When we got back together, she apologized for ever saying that, and said how good it looks on me. That was nice, but I very plainly also told her, "I wouldn't care even if you hate it, because I love it and I'm keeping it forever." LOL! Anyway, I love this dinosaur princess cactus card and I am very happy to hear from you and will write to you again soon!
u/KatDuq (x3) - My dear friend!! This butterfly card you made to thank me for MY card in honor of your new letter opener is beautiful (as are the included penguin stickers, which are beautiful, of course!) I also loved your separate letter talking about the things you make. I do journal, sometimes, but I suffer from the problem of all notebook and journal-havers... I hate to USE the beautiful books I have lest I "mess them up!" What really helped me get out of that mindset somewhat was actually the Happy Planner notebooks, because I felt like I could always remove pages and rearrange! And now I am getting into bookbinding and I feel like that helps too because I can more easily make things "modular" and not have the fear of ruining a whole gigantic book right off the bat. I know that's perfectionism talking and I am working on getting rid of that mindset altogether, but for now, baby steps. And HUGE congrats on what you've sold, you definitely have a customer in me if you get an online store set up! Finally, thank you for the lovely oracle reading, which (unsurprisingly) was just what I needed to hear now, tonight, as I write this! I specifically didn't look closely at it until now because I figured I'd see it when the time was right and... yup. I did. You are amazing and I appreciate you sharing your beautiful new deck with me. (And that logo stamp you got! SO worth it, it looks amazing!)
u/littlemermaidxx - Your Pride Is Everyday postcard is beautiful - thank you so much! I have Pride happy mail coming your way too.
u/maiiiu (x3) - WOW, you are way too kind to me!! What an adorable thank-you postcard, first of all. And I adored your wonderful handmade penguin collage thank-you card too, and loved hearing the good news about your summer trip plans. I hope it is a truly special time for you and your dear best friend! And then this custom penguin stationery... WOW. You are just amazing and I am very grateful! (Also, the way you attached your sticker gifts in your collage card was great, I might steal that method.)
u/melhen16 - Where did you find this amazing desert-post-office-style card? Did you make it? It's amazing! (And thank you for the beautiful stickers, too!)
u/mumbagoespainting (x3) - Your handmade hometown card is so beautiful, my friend! I loved hearing how you learned to say it. (I admit - I get that one wrong on the first try and have to correct myself every time, despite being from not terribly far south, where we heard it more than occasionally!) And your watercolor dragon is absolutely fabulous!! I loved hearing that we have very similar color tastes - purples, grays, teal! Seeing the dragon pick up those colors was perfect. Finally, your black-and-white abstract card with the glitter made me smile, though I was sad to read about why you had to miss the trip... I hope you are feeling better! And, of course, thank you again for all your stickers and other extras and most importantly for your kindness and friendship. I am beyond grateful for you!!
u/ninajyang - I like the crafty postcard from Pipsticks! And yeah... Hairspray... love the music, definitely not sure about some other things... sigh.
u/nirelleth - I absolutely adore this great penguin and fox postcard for our "wish" exchange! I hope you like yours when it arrives, too. (I just sent it last week, I am so sorry for the wait!) I think my favorite fact about penguins is that they are not all polar; in fact, some of my favorites are temperate ones. (I say, in fact, that I myself am a "temperate pengin!")
u/non_avian (x3) - I am VERY sorry this has taken me so long to write (and even to open and fully enjoy). Your handmade Scoffby postcard with my past-present-future reading was absolutely amazing and is going on my "display shelf" of some of my most treasured cards! I need to know how you made his crystal ball, which is gorgeous! Also, please tell Scoffby that I am very much food-motivated (in fact, I just bribed myself tonight with hibachi). So, his signature chant is VERY well-placed when directed at me. I also adored your letter and the cute paper it was written on, and I am thrilled about the Furby washi card and all the goodies, too! I had no idea that Furby washi even existed, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised... and the capy noodles sticker and adorable penguins and everything else... I am so grateful. I have some mail coming your way very soon; all the "parts" are ready, I just need to put them together and actually get it sent!
u/Peonynote (x2) - Your cat thank-you card was adorable and most importantly, I am so excited for all your travels (and I LOVED seeing your penguin friends together!) And the lovely rainbow card with penguin stickers and super-cute penguin sticky note, in honor of Pride Month, made my day! I hope your walking is going well, still, now that it's getting warmer and stickier.
u/ResidentComposer1939 - I loved your sweet bird notecard and your penguin drawing (it's WAY better than my drawings, let me tell you!)
u/SherlockLady (x3) - Your beautiful butterfly card was lovely as it was, and then I saw the cute mini-card with the reminder about being the happiest/healthiest version of myself, AND the special penguin painting from your young carding apprentice... and wow, I just felt so special! What an awesome gift.
u/soft_distortion - This Gender Is Such a Drag postcard is perfecttttttttt. I loved hearing about the drag brunches too!
u/thecalendonianrose - This square penguin card is amazing and I am so grateful that you thought of sending it to me! (And all the stickers are lovely, thank you!) My wife and allllll the kitties say hello back.
u/TigerLady13 - This is definitely a late thanks, I apologize! But I appreciated the vintage Continental Divide postcard and the "Peng-Win" pun... made me giggle!
u/TyeDyeAmish - I love this pufferfish card, and I have really enjoyed getting to chat with you recently! Most importantly, how was the book sale?! I'm fairly certain it's one I've been to in the past, based on the date you said you were going, and I miss it and a few others in the area so much!
u/umeshufan - Why, yes, this Cat Island postcard DOES look like my house, and yes, there are really 19 inside, and even funnier, YES, I am allergic to cats. The thing is, you do build up a tolerance to ones you are around regularly, but when I travel and then come back, it is truly a nightmare. Thankfully I almost never let any in my bedroom and never to sleep, so I can at least breathe overnight!
u/wabisabi_sf (x2) - My friend, I am in awe of these amazing pink-and-penguin-themed pieces of happy mail!! I had never seen these before and I am DEFINITELY going to be getting more. You are so wonderful to me!
u/welshfancy (x5) - Thanks for the Laughlin postcard (very belatedly)! Your trip to Long Beach sounds almost as multi-stop as my recent cards' journeys to you, though thankfully you didn't need your passport, at least?! And thank you also for the amazing handmade "blooms" collage card (which, as far as I'm concerned, is appropriate for spring OR summer, so it seems perfectly timed to me); the great cat mini-card that you wrote while either eating breakfast or getting your tires changed on your travels; the penguin-with-J-based-life-preserver doodle (which I thought was GREAT, so don't even say it's worse than your others, which I also liked!); and your lovely letter on penguin paper, plus of course the bonus stationery! You spoil me!! I'm thinking of you as you try to decide "what's next" locationally, too.
u/yetanotherblankface - I think your beautiful handmade card for the "Hometown" meta challenge is giving exactly the right vibes! It certainly made me feel cozy and relaxed, which is the feeling I'd most like to associate with home.
u/yviantics - Your hand-drawn Pink Party Penguin postcard with its lovely hat, and the great penguin sticker, absolutely made my day!! I do not draw well at all and I am always amazed when people who can will share their talent with me. Thank you so, so much! (And, by the way, I tried the bananas-and-barbecue-chips combo and was really surprised at how good it was, so thanks for that, too!)
u/56thorns and u/UseYourRuler - Thank you for the wonderful postcard from the "Falls!" My wife and I were there to ring in the New Year for 2019 and I've been a couple other times too. Such a lovely place for a getaway, and it sounds like you had fun!
u/todayisfab, u/sebisrude and u/KeenEvergreen - In my stack of not-thanked-yet mail I found my very own postcard from our meetup, and it made me smile all over again. Thank you all so much, again, for a fun day. And to whichever of you put penguin stickers on this along with the cacti - I am super impressed that you pulled that off without me noticing, they are WAY too cute.

Welcome to my PRIVATE/HQ SHARED accounts shop.
Check out my listing:
Legend : Warranty plan・$ Amount
PRIVATE ACCOUNTS
Netflix UHD
6 months・$40
HBO MAX
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Plus Upgrade
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Upgrade
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Spotify Upgrade
12 months・$12
Fubo TV Canada (380 Premier League Games+ Serie A)
12 months・$60
Fubo TV USA Ultimate
6 months・$110
Fubo TV USA All addons
6 months・$150
SHARED ACCOUNTS (one stream)
Disney+
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
Hulu w/Ads/No Ads & Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Paramount+ No Ads
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Showtime
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
DAZN CA/DE/IT
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Fubo TV USA
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Sling Orange + Blue
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
DIRECTV Stream Entertainment
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Curiosity Stream 4K
6 months・$8
12 months・$12
NBA League Pass
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
NFL Sunday Ticket (App)
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
MLB.TV
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
BritBox UK
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Udemy Courses
Per course・$5
Nord VPN for all devices
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Grammarly Premium
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
TERMS OF SERVICE

For private accounts only, the user is free to change the password. In this case, changing the password does not void your warranty. The user is free to utilize all the streams allowed to run simultaneously and share the account with friends/family at their discretion. These guarantee 99.99% uptime. I doubt that you will need a replacement but I provide a warranty nonetheless :) For shared accounts, the user can only use the service on one device (one stream) and they are not allowed to change any login details. This will enable the account to last even longer past the warranty period. Warranty is as specified above. In case of issues with the account, please PM me with the current details of the account for a replacement. Kindly allow for at most a day for the replacement. This may also apply to regular deliveries. I am not online 24/7 but I try to be online for as long as possible. Kindly be patient as you wait for your ordereplacement. I accept PayPal and BTC (10% discount-may not apply to all items). These prices are in USD and do not include the PayPal transfer fees. The buyer bears the fees. In case you have issues with the payment process, PM me. Sales are final. No refunds or charge-backs will be entertained. However, I retain the right to refuse to transact with anyone and the right to refund proportionately at any point during service. It's the buyer's sole responsibility to find out if the service they are interested in works in their country with/without a VPN and with their specific streaming device before purchasing. Kindly PM me before any purchase to confirm availability and payment instructions. For quicker service, please include the warranty plan you want and your payment method in your first message. The warranty on private accounts does not cover the buyer's personal password hygiene issues or any adverse changes made on the account settings other than changes to the login credentials. It is generally assumed that the password is changed immediately after receipt of the account. The warranty plan starts at the time of purchase and runs uninterrupted unless otherwise stated. It is assumed that the account is used continuously by the buyer after purchase. Limited stock available. Prices and terms may vary over time so kindly refer to my latest thread. All buyers are assumed to have read and agreed to these terms before purchase. 

Kindly PM me or open chat if you have any further questions.

Welcome to my PRIVATE/HQ SHARED accounts shop.
Check out my listing:
Legend : Warranty plan・$ Amount
PRIVATE ACCOUNTS
Netflix UHD
6 months・$40
HBO MAX
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Plus Upgrade
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Upgrade
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Spotify Upgrade
12 months・$12
Fubo TV Canada (380 Premier League Games+ Serie A)
12 months・$60
Fubo TV USA Ultimate
6 months・$110
Fubo TV USA All addons
6 months・$150
​
SHARED ACCOUNTS (one stream)
Disney+
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
Hulu w/Ads/No Ads & Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Paramount+ No Ads
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Showtime
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
DAZN CA/DE/IT
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Fubo TV USA
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Sling Orange + Blue
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
DIRECTV Stream Entertainment
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Curiosity Stream 4K
6 months・$8
12 months・$12
NBA League Pass
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
NFL Sunday Ticket (App)
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
MLB.TV
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
BritBox UK
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Udemy Courses
Per course・$5
Nord VPN for all devices
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Grammarly Premium
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
TERMS OF SERVICE

1. For private accounts only, the user is free to change the password. In this case, changing the password does not void your warranty. The user is free to utilize all the streams allowed to run simultaneously and share the account with friends/family at their discretion. These guarantee 99.99% uptime. I doubt that you will need a replacement but I provide a warranty nonetheless :)
2. For shared accounts, the user can only use the service on one device (one stream) and they are not allowed to change any login details. This will enable the account to last even longer past the warranty period.
3. Warranty is as specified above. In case of issues with the account, please PM me with the current details of the account for a replacement. Kindly allow for at most a day for the replacement. This may also apply to regular deliveries. I am not online 24/7 but I try to be online for as long as possible. Kindly be patient as you wait for your ordereplacement.
4. I accept PayPal and BTC (10% discount-may not apply to all items). These prices are in USD and do not include the PayPal transfer fees. The buyer bears the fees. In case you have issues with the payment process, PM me.
5. Sales are final. No refunds or charge-backs will be entertained. However, I retain the right to refuse to transact with anyone and the right to refund proportionately at any point during service. It's the buyer's sole responsibility to find out if the service they are interested in works in their country with/without a VPN and with their specific streaming device before purchasing.
6. Kindly PM me before any purchase to confirm availability and payment instructions. For quicker service, please include the warranty plan you want and your payment method in your first message.
7. The warranty on private accounts does not cover the buyer's personal password hygiene issues or any adverse changes made on the account settings other than changes to the login credentials. It is generally assumed that the password is changed immediately after receipt of the account. The warranty plan starts at the time of purchase and runs uninterrupted unless otherwise stated. It is assumed that the account is used continuously by the buyer after purchase.
8. Limited stock available. Prices and terms may vary over time so kindly refer to my latest thread.
9. All buyers are assumed to have read and agreed to these terms before purchase.

Kindly PM me or open chat if you have any further questions.

Hi everyone, I'm getting rid of some items from my collection that I haven't used in a while/don't see myself ever playing. Everything is CIB unless noted. I have a swap post Shipping is below. I am only taking FF.
First Class 0-8oz $4 9oz-16oz $5 Anything over 1lb $8+ (will give quote)
I am willing to ship media mail if you are comfortable with that 0-8oz $3 9oz+ $4+

Game	Info	Price
Consoles & Accessories
GBA Gameshark, Black	For parts, pins bent	$40
GBA Gameshark, Clear		$130
New 3DS XL	Galaxy, Intermittent freezing & sometimes needs to be booted in safe mode, when console powers on, it plays fine. If you shake it or set it down freezes	$125
Genesis controllers	Various 3rd party, multitap, arcade stick	$5
Genesis power cable	MK-2103	$15
Genesis RF Cable		$2
Dreamcast RF cable		$2
Sega CD Model 2	loose with power cable	$175
Sega CD Model 2	CIB	$290
NES
Battletoads Double Dragon	loose, https://imgur.com/a/lop1zyH	$80
Bomberman II	loose	$155
Gyruss	SEALED	$175
Mighty Final Fight	loose	$285
Romance of the 3 Kingdoms	https://imgur.com/a/coL6e6i	$70
SNES
ActRaiser 2	https://imgur.com/a/1NKLzhm	$155
Addams Family Values	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/NzSDOHW	$200
Arkanoid	SEALED, https://imgur.com/a/AYGYCEi	$60
Demon's Crest	https://imgur.com/a/lgN6nXV	$405
Final Fantasy III	loose https://imgur.com/a/qZY64Fg	$70
Firestriker	box wear https://imgur.com/a/ea66Ai2	$230
Illusion of Gaia	Loose	$30
Metal Combat	Box wear, no cart holder https://imgur.com/a/AqsaYUK	$25
Nikelodeon Guts	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/hP3rnzv	$220
Pocky & Rocky	Box wear https://imgur.com/a/PeF9giJ	$410
Run Saber	Loose	$90
Soul Blazer	loose https://imgur.com/a/TcE1Xux	$116
Space Ace	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/JwyN1dL	$190
SPAWN	loose	$14
Super Castlevania IV	https://imgur.com/a/6HhBBQg	$160
Super Turrican 2	Box wear	$700
TMNT Turtles in Time	Box wear, https://imgur.com/a/xKoMFbO	$160
World Heroes	No Manual	$40
Zombies Ate My Neighbors	https://imgur.com/a/5jZu1Vh	$105
Gameboy & GBC
Metal Gear Solid	Loose	$125
Pokemon Blue	Some wear to box & cart https://imgur.com/a/JIOHWoU	$190
Pokemon Trading Card Game	https://imgur.com/a/luagewX	$135
Small Soldiers		$62
Woody Woodpecker	Graded 9.0 A+	$320
Gameboy Advance
Advance Wars 2		$97
Banjo Kazoo Grunty’s Revenge	https://imgur.com/a/p9MQyAj	$100
Castlevania Double Pack	Graded 8.5 A+	$400
Final Fantasy I & II Dawn of Souls	Missing cart holder https://imgur.com/a/beVqX9X	$43
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance	Missing cart holder https://imgur.com/a/TUSG0em	$70
Golden Sun The Lost Age		$105
Mario Tennis Power Tour	SEALED	$100
Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue	https://imgur.com/a/EPI220w	$100
Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon	no cart holder https://imgur.com/a/wT3aBYu	$100
Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun		$105
Mega Man Zero 2		$90
Ninja Five-O	loose, label damage https://imgur.com/a/81gCA0b	$325
Pokemon Sapphire	New battery https://imgur.com/a/cP3cd5n	$250
Rebelstar Tactical Command	SEALED	$100
N64
Banjo-Tooie	https://imgur.com/a/4gpXsYQ	$120
Bomberman 64 Second Attack	Missing cart holder, some box wear	$800
Conkers BFD	https://imgur.com/a/J1HJ60i	$295
Diddy Kong Racing	No cart holder, https://imgur.com/a/6w50Xzo	$80
Hexen	SEALED	$140
Madden 99	SEALED	$90
Mario Tennis	https://imgur.com/a/8VrcjM5	$62
Mia Hamm Soccer 64	SEALED	$120
Ogre Battle 64	https://imgur.com/a/EyUdp3s	$240
Quest 64		$90
Resident Evil 2	box has some wear	$140
Snowboard Kids	No cart holder	$225
Star Fox 64	Big box version, no cardboard insert	$100
Stunt Racer 64	Loose	$400
Wave Race		$50
Zelda Ocarina of time		$130
Zelda Ocarina of time	Collectors Edition, some box wear	$235
DS
Ace Attorney Apollo Justice	SEALED	$105
Bleach the 3rd Phantom	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/ZZi8Wb6	$150
Chibi Robo: Park Patrol	SEALED	$95
Children of Mana	SEALED	$75
Chrono Trigger	loose https://imgur.com/a/hxKCrOR	$65
Dragon Quest IX	loose	$34
Dragon Quest V	Graded, 9.6 A+	$400
Magicians Quest	Loose	$140
Mario & Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/1GoouU3	$55
Mario & Luigi Partners in Time	SEALED	$140
Mega Man Battle Network 5 Double Team	Graded 85+	$220
Monster Tale	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/yMlHxGf	$90
Pokemon Black Version 2	Loose	$125
Pokemon Conquest	loose	$57
Pokemon Conquest		$90
Pokemon Soulsilver	loose	$95
Sonic Colors	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/Hcukcvz	$40
Zelda: Spirit Tracks	Loose	$75
3DS
3DS & DS lot Backyard Football, Bakugan, Brain Age, Brain Age 2, Club Penguin, Flash Focus, iCarly 2, Puzzle Quest, TMNT, Touchmaster 2, Lego Batman 2, Angry Birds SW	All loose	$31
Gamecube
Gotcha Force	no manual	$400
Metroid Prime		$40
Pokemon Channel	SEALED, case is bent & seal has tear	$75
Pokemon Colosseum	loose	$115
PuyoPop Fever		$40
Ribbit King	no manual	$190
Spawn: Armageddon	SEALED	$72
Super Mario Sunshine	loose	$30
Urbz Sims in the City	SEALED	$55
Viewtiful Joe	SEALED	$120
Viewtiful Joe 2	SEALED	$80
Zelda Collector's Edition		$65
Wii
Kirby’s Epic Yarn	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/v0L7KL5	$37
No More Heroes 2	SEALED	$37
Resident Evil 4	SEALED	$37
Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles	https://imgur.com/a/L9fp8v2	$35
Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles	https://imgur.com/a/L9fp8v2	$10
Rune Factory Frontier		$37
Master System
Miracle Warriors		$40
Genesis
LOT, Earthworm Jim, Garfield caught in the act, Krustys fun house, monopoly	all loose, some have label wear	$30
Arcus Odyssey	No Manual	$170
Battletoads Double Dragon	Loose	$23
Captain America	no manual	$45
Eternal Champions	loose	$5
Fire Shark	No manual	$45
Ghouls N Ghosts	No manual	$60
Gunstar Heroes	no manual https://imgur.com/a/Tg7fYyP	$120
Jeopardy	SEALED	$30
The Lost Vikings	SEALED, cart is loose	$120
Mega Turrican	no manual	$150
Pac-Mania		$28
Predator 2		$65
The Punisher	with repro art & original case	$140
Red Zone	No manual	$65
Shadow Dancer Secret of Shinobi	no manual	$47
Shining force II	Box has slight sun fading	$150
Spider-Man X-Men Arcade's Revenge		$25
Sonic the Hedgehog		$35
Sunset Riders	no manual	$90
Thunder Force III		$140
Toki Going Ape Spit	no manual	$50
Ultimate Qix	No Manual	$58
Zombies Ate My Neighbors	no manual	$45
Zombies Ate My Neighbors	loose, label damage https://imgur.com/a/3Jk86iZ	$20
Sega CD
Adventures of Willy Beamish	loose	$13
Bram Stoker's Dracula	Manual only has cover https://imgur.com/a/Fo4IyXY	$6
Dungeon Master II Skullkeep		$40
Ecco The Dolphin		$25
Ground Zero Texas		$13
Joe Montana's NFL Football		$10
Lunar the Silver Star	https://imgur.com/a/lh9n8Lt	$200
Midnight Raiders	loose	$10
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers		$20
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers	Graded 8.5 A+	$225
NHL 94	loose	$5
Novastorm		$145
Rise of the Dragon	SEALED	$90
Supreme Warrior	SEALED	$100
Vay	Some wear on manual & case	$130
32x
Kolibri	No Manual	$220
Night Trap		$110
Saturn
Albert Odyssey	loose https://imgur.com/a/J5UNXAs	$170
Enemy Zero	Generic disc sleeves https://imgur.com/a/yyV6NNg	$150
Panzer Dragoon		$70
Panzer Dragoon II Zwei	loose https://imgur.com/a/MJ2jhw5	$45
Dreamcast
Charge N Blast	SEALED	$40
Giga Wing	SEALED	$250
Illbleed	SEALED	$400
Industrial Spy: Operation Espionage	SEALED	$160
Maken X	SEALED	$65
Q*Bert	SEALED	$40
Sports Jam	SEALED	$75
Star Wars Demolition	SEALED	$50
PS1
Alundra 2		$40
Breath of Fire IV		$120
Contra Legacy of War		$20
Doom	longbox	$65
Einhander	Loose	$85
Ehrgeiz	loose	$25
Fear Effect	No manual https://imgur.com/a/rUqjVfW	$20
Final Fantasy VIII	SEALED (GH)	$60
Hellboy Asylum Seeker	SEALED	$125
Klonoa	loose	$200
Koudelka	SEALED, https://imgur.com/a/1NNkrll	$400
Mega Man X6	SEALED, black label	$115
MDK		$20
Parasite Eve		$70
Point Blank 3	SEALED	$85
Rascal	SEALED, some wear	$25
Strider 2	both discs, loose	$66
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo	loose	$20
Tactics Ogre	Loose, has rental stickers on top	$75
Tales of Destiny II	no manual	$225
TigerShark	SEALED https://imgur.com/a/9ANOk4Y	$25
Tomba		$145
Tomba	SEALED, promo copy w/ drill hole	$460
Treasures of the Deep	loose	$7
Vagrant Story		$95
Wild Arms 2	no manual	$45
PS2
Black		$7
Blood Will Tell		$380
The Fast & the Furious	SEALED	$40
Fatal Frame		$85
Fatal Frame II		$90
Godzilla Save the Earth		$40
Grand Theft Auto III	SEALED, https://imgur.com/a/neMZAcO	$15
Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction		$20
Jak 3		$7
Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al Revis Premium Box Set	Graded, 9.4 A+	$240
Medal of Honor Vanguard		$6
Monster Rancher 4		$70
Need for Speed most wanted	no manual	$11
Rule of Rose	No manual	$460
Silent Hill 2		$117
Silent Hill 3	no manual	$120
Silent Hill 4 The Room		$115
Sky gunner	no manual	$95
Suffering Ties That Bind		$40
Urban Reign		$40
PS3
Blitz the League II	no manual	$45
Eye of Judgement, Def Jam Rapstar, DJ Hero 1 & 2, PES 2011 lot		$13
Digimon All Star Rumble	no manual	$20
Killzone Trilogy		$37
Xbox
Conker: Live & Reloaded	loose	$23
(360) Digimon All Star Rumble	no manual	$13
(360) Halo Reach	SEALED, white label	$37
(360) Metal Gear Solid V Phantom Pain	SEALED, Day one edition	$15
Other
(PSP) Final Fantasy IV	SEALED	$55
(PSP) Gungnir	SEALED	$87
(PSP) Star Wars Force Unleashed	loose	$3
(Switch) - Mega Man 11	SEALED	$20
Boxes & Manuals Only
(NES) Widget	Box	$90
(SNES) Ignition Factor	Box	$40
(SNES) Shadowrun	Box (has wear)	$60
(SNES) Star Trek the Next Generation	Box & manual (has wear)	$20
(GC) Pokemon XD	Case	$35
(GC) Super smash bros melee	Case	$13
(SCD) Dark Wizard	case	$40
(Dreamcast) - Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike	Case & back art	$40
(PS1)Kartia	Case	$35
(PS1) Mega Man Legends 2	Case https://imgur.com/a/jJGsA40	$40
(PS1)Tactics Ogre	Case	$60
Guides
(PC) World of Warcraft Dungeon Companion		$5
(N64) Pokemon Snap		$15
(N64) Pokemon Stadium	BradyGames, has wear on a corner	$10
(PS1) Driver 2		$12
(PS1) Small Soldiers		$15

Some Kool-Aid for your Sunday.
CJ Stroud named Fields as his 5th best current QB in the league which set off a bunch of salty Twitter replies. Made me think back to the Eagles and Dolphins games this past year where a bunch of opposing players made positive comments about Fields afterwards, so thought I would do a round-up of those comments plus what some other opposing players have said about Fields at random times.
I didn't include current teammates or coaches because they're generally going to be complimentary regardless of who is the QB. Didn't include retired players now in the media either because they have incentive to generate some buzz with their takes.

• Tyreek Hill “DJ Moore with J fields is gone so fun to watch.” source
  
• Jaelan Phillips “Justin Fields is a monster. He’s legit.” source
  
• Melvin Ingram “Special. Special. Special. Special. It's simple. He's special.” source
  
• Tua Tagovailoa “He impressed me a lot. Dude’s a baller.” source
  
• Brandon Graham “That boy nice. Everything we’ve seen on film, we knew that already. We knew that boy was fast. We knew what he liked to do. We knew we were gonna have to run today. He got me a couple times. Man, I just felt like he gets on you so fast. I don’t even trip because I understand my limitations, but I give him all the credit because they ran that play on me every time. I tried to get him, that boy fast. I respect him. He’s up and coming for sure.” source
  
• Hassan Reddick “I think he’s a great talent at the quarterback position. He’s making it happen with his feet. He’s trying to get it done any way possible whether it’s using his arm, running, he’s just trying to get it done. He’s a great competitor. Relentless competitor at that, because he took some big hits today, too, and he kept coming.” source
  
• Von Miller “He has all the tools to be one of the best quarterbacks ever in NFL history.” source
  
• Darius Slay “He reminds me a lot of Jalen Hurts, but a little bit bigger and a little bit faster. Man got a lot of potential. He’s going to be very very good. Kid going to be special. He going to light the NFL up. He’s going to be very special.” Talked about Fields for about 4 minutes altogether. Also talked very positively about Jaylon Johnson, saying he's studied his film and said he is “one of the up and coming corners in the league” source
  
• Josh Allen “He’s a special talent. He can spin the rock. Obviously, you see what he can do in the open field running-wise. He seems like a really good kid. I think everybody’s their own guy. I don’t think he’s gonna be the next me. I think he’s gonna be the next him.” source
  
• Micah Parsons "How isn't" in response to a Twitter person saying Fields/DJ Moore wasn't the same as Hurts/AJ Brown and Allen/Diggs. source
  
• Chase Young "Down the line, he's gonna be one of the great quarterbacks you talk about to have played in the NFL." Grain of salt since they were OSU teammates but still thought it was noteworthy. source
  

Sunday, May 28 - Saturday, June 03

Fresh Albums

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
330	39 comments	[FRESH ALBUM] Protomartyr - Formal Growth in the Desert	[AM] [Dzr] [SC]
255	48 comments	[👀] [FRESH ALBUM] Beach Fossils - Bunny	[AM] [SC]
133	39 comments	[FRESH ALBUM] Bully - Lucky for You	[AM] [Dzr] [SC]
58	15 comments	[FRESH ALBUM] Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Council Skies
54	15 comments	[FRESH ALBUM] KNOWER - KNOWER FOREVER

 

Fresh Videos

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
121	25 comments	[FRESH VIDEO] Protomartyr - Polacrilex Kid	[Sp] [AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]
92	6 comments	[FRESH VIDEO] Tennis - Need Your Love (Live on KEXP)	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC]

 

Fresh Performances

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
293	17 comments	[FRESH PERFORMANCE] Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Tiny Desk Concert
52	1 comments	[FRESH PERFORMANCE] Tennis - Full Performance (Live On KEXP)

 

Fresh

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
201	23 comments	[FRESH] Queens of the Stone Age - Carnavoyeur
143	16 comments	[FRESH STREAM] Phoebe Bridgers - Waiting Room (proceeds to Music Will)	[SC]
97	14 comments	[FRESH] Cut Worms - Ballad of the Texas King	[AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC] [YT]
96	12 comments	[FRESH] Protomartyr - Polacrilex Kid	[AM] [YT]
92	10 comments	[FRESH] Blonde Redhead - Snowman	[Sp] [Dzr] [YT]
75	15 comments	[FRESH] Blake Mills - Skeleton Is Walking	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC]
56	5 comments	[FRESH] Arthur Russell - Very Reason	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC] [YT]
41	8 comments	[FRESH] Bloc Party featuring KennyHoopla - Keep It Rolling	[Sp] [AM]
40	1 comments	[FRESH] Alice Phoebe Lou - Lose My Head
38	7 comments	[FRESH VIDEO] Helena Deland - Spring Bug	[Sp] [AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]

 

Top 5 Other Posts

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
773	400 comments	[AMA is Over, thanks Ben!] I am Ben Folds. I still play piano. AMA!
746	49 comments	[ANNIVERSARY] Talking Heads released 'Speaking in Tongues' 40 years ago
648	39 comments	Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross Are Scoring Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
624	40 comments	Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan threw out the first pitch at today's Mets game
449	21 comments	Turnstile and Christian Lee Hutson Recorded New Songs for ‘I Think You Should Leave’

 

Pretext - out of boredom, gonna write a summary of the ongoings of a certain hotel at Jax Beach. I get to vent, you get hot tea not seen on tv or streaming.
The Story So Far - New hotel is opening soon. They fired their old staff during covid and need new workers. They host an internal job fair(they are the only company there hiring) at a sister location.
I go to the fair on Saturday, I want to be a laundry-person so that I can work without having to put on a fake smile in front of people everyday. I also interview for front desk. I am turned down for not having front desk experience. I get turned down for laundry and instead get pushed to being a lobby person because of my "personality". It gets described as almost like a restaurant hostess position with tip potential, the base pay is higher than my past job so eh. I get hired. After a delay in paperwork, we show up two weeks later for orientation. Nothing out of the ordinary except we are told that we have to put the hotel together ourselves once we get the permits to be on location. We train at two hotels. Nothing remarkable except workers were drinking guest coffee and apparently the housekeepers were running the clock. Our breakfast manager gets into an argument with some of us during the computer training section because we need to be quiet and do our work. First crack in the social fabric.
We finally get the permits to be on the premises. Less than a week of being on site, a house keeper and the breakfast manager start arguing. Not long after that, the same housekeeper got fired for cussing out our HR lady while arguing with the head chef in the elevator going home.
During a planned power outage caught two workers giving head in one of the rooms while I was putting hangers in each room. My partner for the same task would never return to work after lunch.
We were promised an extended weekend near the hotel opening. The day before said weekend, corporate came by and canceled that weekend. Everyone was pissed and I was the only one of few people to show up on Sunday. Around this time, my manager decided to fill our staffing gaps with a staffing company. Two of these workers were caught spying on everyone else to take pictures on everyone and go to my manager with the pics. My manager also cussed out the staffing company because how dare people want to be off on Sunday or have a life outside the hotel. Go cuss out corporate for being a bunch of tone deaf idiots.
My manager sent me and 3 others to go clean the employee break area. We did not need that many people. I could have done it alone myself. I have to once the hotel opens anyway. I decided to just delegate different cleaning tasks and then finish up once they are done. Breakfast manager comes in and just starts sweeping for no reason. My boss comes in and chews me out in front of other people. I do later get an private apology in our gym, but I felt I was set up.
We are allowed to visit bars but not drink alcohol and must be at tables, not the bar section itself. Breakfast manager was going to Lynch's for lunch and having a beer, and then showing the pics of said beers to my co-workers. The managers in general got caught with some apple based alcohol in their office as well.
So once the hotel opens, our positions become malleable. I was told I would be either Lobby or Houseman. I have to now do the duties of both + room service. And no, people don't tip for room service, at least I am paid decent enough, then again I don't pay rent so maybe I am speaking from a privileged position.
Let's talk about the two spies - They are the other lobby-person and our main houseman. Everyone hates cleaning windows. The other lobby-person is supposed to handle such a job but neglects them. After back and forth with my manager, I handle windows now. Our houseman is supposed to handle the upper floors + take out the trash. He is seen constantly on the second floor laughing it up with laundry and doing lobby person stuff. I asked for a assistant and was denied, but the other lobby-person gets one. He was slacking off so hard that he neglected to clean the guest laundry for three days, and as such we got complaints daily about it being dirty. I now handle the guest laundry. I caught him following me and taking pics. And some other workers came up to me and said they heard him in conversation with my manager over these pics. Apparently the pair wouldn't work until our manager came to work, and would sit for hours in the break room, yet complained about our graveyard shift worker doing the same. They started disappearing in the morning before the manager came in. No one knew where they went. We found out at last what they were up to. They got caught in one of these house keeping closest having sex. This same person is about to get promoted. Suck your way to the top top top.
We were having issues with keeping housekeeping closets stocked because our houseman was busy having a party in laundry. I started stocking them myself during my shift. Due to the benefits of such, people during my shift(not me anymore) have to stock the closets now. We had a similar issue with laundry as there is only some much we can wash and dry in one 8 hour shift. I suggested we open up a night shift for laundry. In the meantime I would wash and dry as I could. We eventually got a night-shift. Laundry flows so much better now.
They choose a terrible color for our lobby floor. White and it's various shades including cream are hard to keep clean. Especially with the foot traffic from people coming to and from the bar. After an complaint from bar staff about the spots our temp cleaning machine missed. I got the idea to just take some industrial de-greaser and scrub the floors myself. It took three days. It so also happens that our president was coming for a visit, so my little idea of scrubbing the floors also saved everyone's tooshies. Did I get a thanks? No. "When are you gonna clean up your mess" was the response while I waited on the floors to dry because degreasers take forever. I have to put down wet floor signs so that we don't get sued to oblivion if someone slips. Sorry that wet floor signs aren't aesthetic. Dirty floors aren't either you know.
I got written up twice. Once for leaving early and not telling graveyard shift such. I was told by my manager that if I arrive late to shift my leaving time so I am still giving the company 8 hours of work. The same for the vice versa. It was also around the time when I realized that I was now also doing houseman duties despite what I was told and promised. So written up for following manager instructions and low key insubordination because excuse me for trying to do the job I was contracted for. I arrive early to work and leave exactly at the appointed time. You just written me up into more money. Thanks.
The second time was really really my fault. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have been doing social media on my current accounts for like 6-7 years. Work + keeping up with it was getting a little overwhelming last month and I worked myself into going to work, doing social media stuff up to two hours before before my next shift with no sleep, and went to work. I was exhausted and should have sent myself to the break room. I was instead chilling with front desk between tasks and that got caught on camera. My manager also was trying to accuse me of not cleaning the bathrooms properly, but after seeing my process realized that it wasn't me. And I didn't get any verbal warnings that I was picking up bad behaviors. Straight to write up. She gives me this look after that incident, but that might do to now wearing sunglasses and a mask to work. I clean bathrooms for a living now. Excuse me if I don't want to be breathing in poop and pee particles + these heavy cleaning materials. My mother is sick with cancer, I don't need to be bringing anything home. Period. Also the lighting is too bright, thus shades.
Oh, yes the Lobby-person position. It's just another term for janitor. I asked to be transferred to the kitchen after my manager got caught making fun of me to other managers and suggesting ways to fire me, but she blocked the transfer. I went in an asked for a raise, radio silence.
Starting today or Monday is associate/employee appreciation week. It is also time for our 90 day assessments. I fully expect to be fired this week, so maybe these posts will last for only one more post.
See you next Sunday.
Edit: I do not give permission or consent to other content creators to reproduce this post on their pages or websites. Same goes for news pages. Go make your own original content you annoying reddit story time youtube channels.

Hi,
Here's what I can offer for trades. CIB unless noted otherwise. List may get updated after initial posting.

Have

PS1
Breath of Fire 3	Manual damaged. Missing first page. Disc plays okay.
Breath of Fire 4
Parasite Eve	Small crack in the case
Tactics Ogre
Alundra	missing map
Dragon Warrior 7
Legend of Legaia
Metal Gear Solid	missing manual
Lunar Silver Star Story Complete	some damage in outer box
Suikoden	small rip in first page of manual
Wild Arms 2	loose disc only
Final Fantasy Tactics
Revelations: Persona	box only
Star Ocean: The Second Story
Gran Turismo	Brand new. Plastic wrap is gone but seal at the top is still intact.
A bug's life
Black Dawn
Formula1 98
Small soldiers
The next tetris
Star wars: Episode 1 The phantom menace
Twisted metal III
Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style
Apocalypse
Playstation Underground Jampack
NHL FaceOff 99
NFL Xtreme
NFL GameDay 2001	Sealed. Small rip in the plastic wrap
NFL GameDay 2000
MLB 2000
3Xtreme
Contender
Jampack Summer 99
Jampack Winter 98
Interactive CD Sampler Pack Volume 3
Spyro
Bust A Groove

​

PS2
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 [Limited Edition]	outer box showing some wear
.Hack Quarantine	Missing anime DVD, Case may not be original
Front mission 4
Katamari Damacy
Silent Hill 3
Silent Hill 4
Suikoden 3
Final Fantasy XII Limited Edition (steelbook)
Xenosaga Episode 1
Xenosaga Episode 3
Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero Metallica
Guitar Hero III Legend of Rock
Rockband AC/DC Track Pack
Grandia II
Grandia III
Yakuza 2
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
Kingdom Hearts	GH
Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3

​

PSP
Untold Legends Brotherhood Of The Blade
Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Legend Of Heroes III Song Of The Ocean	loose umd only
Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories	GH
Robots	UMD Movie

​

Vita
Killzone Mercenary	loose

​

PS3
Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection [Artbook Bundle]	Sealed with artbook
Dante's Inferno Divine Edition	with slipcover, missing manual
Yakuza 3
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend
Batman: Arkham City
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Disney Infinity starter pack	Sealed
Record of Agarest War 2	Sealed, One corner of box is dinged
Dead Island Riptide [Rigor Mortis Edition]	Sealed
Dead Space 3 Dev-team Edition	Sealed, 4004/5000
Battlefield 3
Battlefield 4
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 4
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010
Heavy Fire: Afghanistan
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
Little Big Planet Karting
Batman: Arkham Asylum - GoTY edition
Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Need for Speed: The Run LE
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit LE
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit	loose, GH
Need for Speed: Rivals	missing manual
Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
Duke Nukem Forever
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes	GH
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens	loose
Destiny
Lost Planet 3	Sealed
God of War Collection	GH

​

PS4
Fallout 4 Pipboy edition	Sealed
Elder Scrolls Online Tamriel Unlimited Imperial Edition	Sealed
Wolfenstein II: The new Colossus Collector's Edition	Sealed
Final fantasy vii remake
Final fantasy vii remake deluxe edition	Sealed
Neptunia x SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars	digital code
Sekiro: Shadows die twice
Kingdom Hearts All-in-one	sealed
Fifa 14
Battlefield 4
INSIDE / LIMBO double pack
WWE 2K15 Hulkamania Edition	sealed
Dying Light
Fallout 4
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

​

PS5
Tales of Arise	Sealed
Elden Ring Collector's Edition	Sealed
Elden Ring preorder code x3	Willing to throw this in free with any trade
Elden Ring with steelbook bundle	Bundle seems to be Bestbuy Canada exclusive
Scarlet Nexus	Sealed
Evil Dead	digital code
Horizon Forbidden West Collector's Edition	Sealed

​

Xbox
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines	gamestop sticker on manual

​

Xbox360
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Fallout 3
Halo 4 LE	Sealed
Lost Odyssey
Silent Hill: Homecoming
Otomedius Excellent

​

GameCube
Resident Evil
Donkey Konga 2	Sealed

​

Wii
Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition	Sealed
The Last Story LE
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor	Sealed

​

Switch
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country	Sealed
Xenoblade Chronicles 3	Sealed
Metroid Dread Special Edition	Sealed
Shin Megami Tensei V Fall of Men Premium Edition	Sealed
Hoa	Sealed
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town Premium Edition	Sealed
Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1 [Deluxe Edition]	Sealed
AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES – nirvanA Initiative Collectors Edition	Sealed
Legend of Zelda the tears of the kingdom Collector's edition	Sealed

​

GBA
Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage	loose
Avatar: The Last Airbender	loose
SpongeBob SquarePants Movie	loose
American Dragon Jake Long Rise Of The Huntsclan	loose
Ty The Tasmanian Tiger 3	loose
Pokemon LeafGreen	loose
Pokemon Sapphire	loose, dry battery replaced
Chronicles Of Narnia Lion Witch And The Wardrobe	loose
Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3	loose
Tales of Phantasia	loose
Shining Soul 2	loose
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror	loose
Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland	loose

​

DS
Coral Pink DS Lite	Excellent cosmetic condition, charger included
White DSi	no charger, stylus
TMNT
Lego Harry Potter Year 1-4
Phantasy Star 0	missing manual
Flash Focus
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia	loose
Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume	loose
Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light	loose
Pokemon HeartGold	loose, small damage on label
Pokemon HeartGold	Complete minus Pokewalker
Pokemon SoulSilver	box only
Pokemon Diamond
Pokemon Diamond	loose
Pokemon Platinum	loose
Pokemon Black
Pokemon Black	missing manual
Pokemon Black	box only
Hoppie	no manual, some water damage in cover arts
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Metroid Prime: Hunters - First Hunt	loose
Diddy Kong Racing
Fossil Fighters
Professor Layton And The Curious Village

​

3DS
3DS XL Black+Red	CIB, Cave Story digital installed
New 3DS XL Galaxy	loose. Charger included. Missing stylus, Dual IPS screen
Pokemon X
Rune Factory 4
Bravely Second: End Layer	Warning booklet missing
Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance LE	Missing AR cards
Pokemon Sun	loose
Pokemon Ultra Sun	loose
Pokemon X	loose, have 2
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire	loose
Kirby Triple Deluxe	loose
LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens	Case in rough shape. Missing manual
Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond The Myth [Launch Edition]	sealed
Sonic: Lost World
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Mario Kart 7
Kirby: Triple Deluxe	Nintendo Selects
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D	Nintendo Selects
Tales of the Abyss	sealed
Fantasy Life

​

Amiibo (all SSB except noted otherwise)	All sealed in original box
Peach (Super Mario)	025W1
Yoshi (Super Mario)	524W2
Mario	434W2
Bowser	464S1
Diddy Kong	424S1
Luigi	434S1
Pikachu	474W2
Squirtle	279W5
Ivysaur	299W5
Snake	2559G1
Sonic	494W2
Peach	444W3
Link (Link's awakening)	2079G1
Link	524S1
Link (Majora's mask)	187S1

​

Guides
Tales of Vesperia	BradyGames
Dark Souls	FuturePress, Sealed
Dark Souls II CE	FuturePress, Sealed
Dragon Warrior VII	Prima
Breath of Fire IV	Prima
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch	Prima, Hard Cover
Wild Arms 4	Prima
God of War III	BradyGames
Resident Evil 6	BradyGames, Hard Cover, Sealed
Legend of Zelda Collector's Box Set	Prima, sealed

​

Manuals
https://imgur.com/a/DLa5yM4	Too many to list. Some 360/PS3 ones may be in French. Please ask. Harvest Moon (GC) is traded.

​

Steelbooks	G1 size unless noted. No games included.
Assassin's Creed 3	in shrink wrap
Assassin's Creed Collection
Batman Arkham City Armored Edition
Batman Arkham City	G2
Call of Duty Black Ops II
Dead Space 3	in shrink wrap
Devil May Cry	G2
Dishonored
Duke Nukem Forever	in shrink wrap
Epic Mickey 2
Farcry 3	in shrink wrap
FF XIII Lightning Returns	in shrink wrap
Hitman Absolution
Injustice Gods Among Us
Medal of Honor Warfighter	G2
New Super Mario Bros U
NHL 12
Prototype 2	in shrink wrap
Sleeping Dogs
Thief
World of Warcraft Mist of Pandara

​

Misc
FF X Play Arts Tidus	Still in original box, never displayed out of box
FF X Play Arts Yuna	Still in original box, never displayed out of box
FF X Play Arts Auron	Still in original box, never displayed out of box
FFVII Advent Children Play Arts Sephiroth	Still in original box, never displayed out of box
FFVII Advent Children Play Arts Vincent	Still in original box, never displayed out of box
FFVII Advent Children Play Arts Cloud with Fenrir	Still in original box, never displayed out of box
Steer 'n win jr racing wheel/pedal	compatible with PS1/N64
Diablo III Collector's Edition PC	Sealed
Diablo III Reaper of Souls Collector's Edition PC	Sealed
Homeworld Collector's Edition PC	Sealed

Want:

Mostly interested in JRPGs and horrors. Working design, Enix, Falcom, NIS, Atlus, etc. Must be CIB unless noted otherwise.
​

PS1
Adventures of Lomax
Deception III: Dark Delusion
Echo Night
King's Field (Long box)
King's Field II
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
Koudelka
Misadventures of Tron Bonne
RayCrisis: Series Termination
RayStorm
Shadow Tower
Tail Concerto
Thunder Force V
Torneko: The Last Hope
Resident evil survivor

​

PS2
Blood Will Tell
Echo Night: Beyond
Forever Kingdom
Haunting Ground
ObsCure
Shadow Heart
Silent Hill 2 (Greatest Hits)
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Tsugunai: Atonement

​

PS4
Atelier Ryza LE
Atelier Sophie LE
Tales of Berseria CE

​

PS5
The Last of us Part 1 Firefly edition (sealed)

​

Vita
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Brith 1 LE

​

GBC
Dragon Warrior Monsters
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Cobi's Journey
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure
Dragon Warrior I & II
Revelations: The Demon Slayer

​

GBA
Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament
Klonoa: Empire of Dreams
Lunar Legend

​

GameCube
Star Fox: Assault	Manual only
Jet Black GameCube box and cardboard inserts
Indigo wired OEM controller	low want

​

Switch
Dragon quest xi	sealed preferred

​

DS
Commando: Steel Disaster
Dragon Quest V
Dragon Quest IV	Box and manual only
Etrian Odyssey
Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja
Lunar: Dragon Song	Manual only
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence
Sands of Destruction
Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Endless Frontier

​

3DS
Corpse Party: Back to School Edition
Dragon Quest VII
Dragon Quest VIII
Etrian Mystery Dungeon (Launch soundtrack bundle preferred)
Etrian Odyssey Nexus (launch edition)
Fire Emblem Fates SE
Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology (launch edition)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers (with soundtrack)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker (launch edition)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked
Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse Launch Edition

​

Others
Turbografx-16 Console (CIB) and CIB games
Dragon Quest Slime controller for Switch
All Uncharted Waters games (SNES and Genesis, CIB)

Notes.

• Prefer to trade within Canada, but will consider cross border too if offers are attractive.
• Will provide pics upon request.
• I have not listed everything in haves/wants. I will gladly check your list and work something out.

Today I was leaving the gym after meeting with a client when I was approached by a regular in the parking lot. For context I’m a young female, and the approacher is an older male.
He asked me how long I had been training and proceeded to tell me “don’t worry, I know you have a boyfriend, the front desk already told me.” He started telling me about his connections in the NFL, and said if I reach out to him he can get me connected to begin training the wives of the football players. He also mentioned getting me connected with a nutritionist who I can pay to write up meal plans and charge more to my clients.
He also suggested I go to Fit Expo WITH him as he has an entire set up (or so he says) all the way in LA, 10 hours from me in car. He said he will get my brand on a shirt for me and make sure I’m taken care of?
I really was not interested from the beginning as I am secure in my career and am not looking to expand with a complete stranger. The whole thing was odd and seemed like he just wanted to use me in order to make money off of me somehow….
Does anyone else get this frequently? I have only been training for roughly a year and this is probably the 3rd person to approach me with such suggestions. I still don’t know how to respond in these scenarios. I usually just smile, say thank you, and never follow up, but I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about it.

Welcome to my PRIVATE/HQ SHARED accounts shop.
Check out my listing:
Legend : Warranty plan・$ Amount
PRIVATE ACCOUNTS
Netflix UHD
6 months・$40
HBO MAX
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Plus Upgrade
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Upgrade
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Spotify Upgrade
12 months・$12
Fubo TV Canada (380 Premier League Games+ Serie A)
12 months・$60
Fubo TV USA Ultimate
6 months・$110
Fubo TV USA All addons
6 months・$150
SHARED ACCOUNTS (one stream)
Disney+
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
Hulu w/Ads/No Ads & Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Paramount+ No Ads
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Showtime
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
DAZN CA/DE/IT
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Fubo TV USA
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Sling Orange + Blue
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
DIRECTV Stream Entertainment
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Curiosity Stream 4K
6 months・$8
12 months・$12
NBA League Pass
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
NFL Sunday Ticket (App)
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
MLB.TV
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
BritBox UK
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Udemy Courses
Per course・$5
Nord VPN for all devices
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Grammarly Premium
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
TERMS OF SERVICE

For private accounts only, the user is free to change the password. In this case, changing the password does not void your warranty. The user is free to utilize all the streams allowed to run simultaneously and share the account with friends/family at their discretion. These guarantee 99.99% uptime. I doubt that you will need a replacement but I provide a warranty nonetheless :) For shared accounts, the user can only use the service on one device (one stream) and they are not allowed to change any login details. This will enable the account to last even longer past the warranty period. Warranty is as specified above. In case of issues with the account, please PM me with the current details of the account for a replacement. Kindly allow for at most a day for the replacement. This may also apply to regular deliveries. I am not online 24/7 but I try to be online for as long as possible. Kindly be patient as you wait for your ordereplacement. I accept PayPal and BTC (10% discount-may not apply to all items). These prices are in USD and do not include the PayPal transfer fees. The buyer bears the fees. In case you have issues with the payment process, PM me. Sales are final. No refunds or charge-backs will be entertained. However, I retain the right to refuse to transact with anyone and the right to refund proportionately at any point during service. It's the buyer's sole responsibility to find out if the service they are interested in works in their country with/without a VPN and with their specific streaming device before purchasing. Kindly PM me before any purchase to confirm availability and payment instructions. For quicker service, please include the warranty plan you want and your payment method in your first message. The warranty on private accounts does not cover the buyer's personal password hygiene issues or any adverse changes made on the account settings other than changes to the login credentials. It is generally assumed that the password is changed immediately after receipt of the account. The warranty plan starts at the time of purchase and runs uninterrupted unless otherwise stated. It is assumed that the account is used continuously by the buyer after purchase. Limited stock available. Prices and terms may vary over time so kindly refer to my latest thread. All buyers are assumed to have read and agreed to these terms before purchase. 

Kindly PM me or open chat if you have any further questions.

Welcome to my PRIVATE/HQ SHARED accounts shop.
Check out my listing:
Legend : Warranty plan・$ Amount
PRIVATE ACCOUNTS
Netflix UHD
6 months・$40
HBO MAX
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Plus Upgrade
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Tidal HiFi Upgrade
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Spotify Upgrade
12 months・$12
Fubo TV Canada (380 Premier League Games+ Serie A)
12 months・$60
Fubo TV USA Ultimate
6 months・$110
Fubo TV USA All addons
6 months・$150
​
SHARED ACCOUNTS (one stream)
Disney+
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
Hulu w/Ads/No Ads & Disney+ & ESPN+ (bundle)
6 months・$20
12 months・$30
Paramount+ No Ads
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Showtime
6 months・$9
12 months・$14
DAZN CA/DE/IT
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Fubo TV USA
6 months・$15
12 months・$23
Sling Orange + Blue
6 months・$11
12 months・$17
DIRECTV Stream Entertainment
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
Curiosity Stream 4K
6 months・$8
12 months・$12
NBA League Pass
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
NFL Sunday Ticket (App)
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
MLB.TV
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
BritBox UK
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Udemy Courses
Per course・$5
Nord VPN for all devices
6 months・$10
12 months・$15
Grammarly Premium
6 months・$12
12 months・$18
TERMS OF SERVICE

1. For private accounts only, the user is free to change the password. In this case, changing the password does not void your warranty. The user is free to utilize all the streams allowed to run simultaneously and share the account with friends/family at their discretion. These guarantee 99.99% uptime. I doubt that you will need a replacement but I provide a warranty nonetheless :)
2. For shared accounts, the user can only use the service on one device (one stream) and they are not allowed to change any login details. This will enable the account to last even longer past the warranty period.
3. Warranty is as specified above. In case of issues with the account, please PM me with the current details of the account for a replacement. Kindly allow for at most a day for the replacement. This may also apply to regular deliveries. I am not online 24/7 but I try to be online for as long as possible. Kindly be patient as you wait for your ordereplacement.
4. I accept PayPal and BTC (10% discount-may not apply to all items). These prices are in USD and do not include the PayPal transfer fees. The buyer bears the fees. In case you have issues with the payment process, PM me.
5. Sales are final. No refunds or charge-backs will be entertained. However, I retain the right to refuse to transact with anyone and the right to refund proportionately at any point during service. It's the buyer's sole responsibility to find out if the service they are interested in works in their country with/without a VPN and with their specific streaming device before purchasing.
6. Kindly PM me before any purchase to confirm availability and payment instructions. For quicker service, please include the warranty plan you want and your payment method in your first message.
7. The warranty on private accounts does not cover the buyer's personal password hygiene issues or any adverse changes made on the account settings other than changes to the login credentials. It is generally assumed that the password is changed immediately after receipt of the account. The warranty plan starts at the time of purchase and runs uninterrupted unless otherwise stated. It is assumed that the account is used continuously by the buyer after purchase.
8. Limited stock available. Prices and terms may vary over time so kindly refer to my latest thread.
9. All buyers are assumed to have read and agreed to these terms before purchase.

Kindly PM me or open chat if you have any further questions.

I parked in the tower's lot, letting my headlights bore into the amalgam of twisted metal and glass for a few moments before shutting them off.
Josh muttered, his voice low. "We're really doing this, huh?"
He ran a hand through his mop of curly hair— a dumb tic he developed last summer when his girlfriend, Annabeth, told him it was sexy. She was beside him now, cuddled up in the backseat across his lap.
I glanced at my own girlfriend, Ellie, in the passenger seat. She was trying her damndest to appear brave, but I knew better. There was no way she was comfortable with trespassing tonight.
I sighed, realizing that Josh would also chicken out.
"We're doing this? You sure you want to come?" I prodded.
Josh shifted in his seat, hand running through his hair yet again. "Maybe it's better if I stay in the truck.”
Annabeth shrugged next to him, unsurprised.
"Me, too,” Ellie chimed in, nodding at Josh.
Annabeth met my eyes, a glimmer of understanding passing between us. Our partners were both boring, god-awful goody two shoes.
"Pussies," I jabbed, swinging open my door without giving them a moment to respond.
Annabeth hopped out behind me, waving at the two losers in the truck before spinning towards me with a grin on her face.
"They're weird," she said, rolling her eyes.
For a moment, I was drinking in the way her golden hair shimmered in the moonlight. A light breeze tickled at our faces, sending sparkles of her moon-lit hair between us.
"Yup," I mustered.
I turned, strolling towards the chain link fence that formed a circular perimeter around the base of Sabe's Tower.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of abandoned potential, whispering of times past when our town's inhabitants thought we'd hit a population boom, becoming the Houston of West Virginia. In the 70s, our success was tied to coal. Jobs flooded in, and with them, a myriad of people trying to make their way in life. Then the mines abruptly ran dry, decimating our town's economy. Since that time, our population has done nothing but dwindle.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of decaying grandeur, silently rotting from the inside out. Some say that's what happened to Sabe himself— a rot took hold in his core, spreading and spreading until nothing but rot was left. In the end, he took his own life, which some say was for the best. He was a greedy fool, the wealthiest man for miles, owning half the surrounding countryside before the mining industry took off. Made a fortune selling his family's land to coal companies, putting every ounce of profit into making his towering hotel more luxurious than a Ritz Carlton.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of failed dreams, now screaming vulgar obscenities at our eyes. It is a truly ugly behemoth, domineering our town's skyline with unmerited arrogance. Sabe thought painting the tower purple would give it an air of majesty, like royalties of the past, swaddled in silky lavender robes. His aspiration, after all, was nothing less than to emulate the sacred Tabernacle of Moses, to make his hotel a dwelling place for gods among men. In its current state of disrepair, however, the tower was no more than an eyesore— a visual cacophony of broken glass, peeling sickly-purple paint, and rusted steel inlays.
Adding to the hotel's disgrace, it was cylindrical in form, perched atop the highest peak for miles, jutting into the sky like a middle finger to the gods. Its phallic outline stood in stark contrast to the run-down strip malls lying in its wake.
The fence surrounding the tower was a bit too tall and a bit too wobbly to safely scale, so we circled, looking for an entry point. Every few yards, a DO NOT TRESPASS sign hung, tied to the fence with zip-ties in each corner. Someone had taken the liberty to spray paint a word underneath each sign, now making them all read:
DO NOT TRESPASS ALONE.
"Good thing you're coming with me," I joked, pointing at one of the signs.
Annabeth paused to read it for a moment. "Yeah... kinda weird that someone did that. I wonder why?"
I shrugged, continuing around the perimeter.
Eventually, we found a gate in the fence, held closed with chains at waist level. The gate's post careened steeply outward, creating a manageable gap near the top. The gate post was only held in place by the chains, not even slightly anchored to the ground. Without too much of a struggle, we hoisted ourselves up and through the gap.
Once inside the fence, I found myself spellbound by the abandoned hotel. The stars in the night sky reflected across the windows, bending and warping around the curved perimeter. Each glimmer of starlight turned into dizzying fractals, melding together and slipping between the shards of broken glass with each shift of my gaze.
The result was honestly breathtaking.
At night, the eyesoriffic tower was beautiful. Its silhouette dared to embrace the star-studded cosmos, standing with a quiet dignity that defied its daytime mockery.
I felt Annabeth shuffle beside me.
Suddenly, her phone flashlight was on, illuminating a path through overgrown concrete to the tower. At the end of the path was the structure’s entrance— a gaping hole with no attempt to conceal the darkness within.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" I yelled, spinning to face her.
"W... What do you mean?" she stuttered.
"Turn that off, you idiot," I explained, lowering my voice. "Someone might see the light and call the cops."
The light flicked off, Annabeth mumbling apologies.
I blinked away the afterimage of weeds eating through the concrete lot, silently cursing myself for being so ridiculously hostile toward her.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"You're good, Donovan" she whispered, brushing her hand across my arm.
As we continued to the open doorway, the outside of the tower came into focus. It was far further dilapidated than I had realized— each accent of purple paint, faded and peeling, was bulging out from between the glass and steel like it was trying to escape. I rubbed a fingernail on the paint, revealing a soft, rotting wood beneath.
I entered the tower first, pausing to let my eyes adjust. The darkness of the doorway opened up into an atrium that must have once made for a magnificent entrance. It was shaped like a slice of pie, us standing near the crust, peering inward toward the center. Above was pitch black, not yielding any answers to just how high up this mighty room's ceiling stretched.
The musty scent that filled my nose was surprisingly welcoming— somewhere between the smell of fishing trips and century old bookstores. I took a deep breath, relishing in the soft stench.
I could vaguely make out wires dangling down from the ceiling of the atrium. They were impossibly long, stretching upward into the infinite gloom.
"They look like vines," Annabeth whispered, her voice a soft purr.
The air was thick with falling dust, filtering down from the abyss above, twirling between the wires in satisfyingly slow-motion. The falling dust made it even harder to see in the dark, leaving the walls on either side of the room foggy blobs. I waved my hand, sending fleeting dust spirals through the air.
I remembered seeing photos of the atrium online, taken on some of the earliest digital cameras ever made. Those pictures showed marble countertops, intricate wooden carvings, and lushly carpeted floors.
The room, as it stands today, is a barren husk of Sabe's vision. The carpet, only present in scattered clumps, was impossibly dark, soiled to the point of true black. It clung to the concrete foundation, viciously holding on for dear life in a losing battle.
I bent down to examine a clump of carpet in front of me, amazed by the absence of light reflecting back. It was like staring into a pit of nothing, a vague absence, an outline of something that should be there.
I poked the toe of my boot at it.
FPOOSH.
It exploded, erupting into my face.
I gagged instinctively, tasting the vile substance mix into my lungs. Annabeth slapped my back as I continued gagging and coughing, begging the mucus to tear itself free from my lungs and just fucking get out of my body because it feels like I'm dying oh GOD.
And eventually, it did.
The violent hacking subsided into slight wretching, then was gone.
"Are you okay?" Annabeth tested.
Do you think I'm fucking okay?
"What the fuck was that?" I spewed.
She bent over the clump of carpet. Underneath the blackened top layer that just violently erupted was a pale network of matted spiderwebs.
"Hmm..." she began, "It kind of looks like mycelium."
She met my raised eyebrow with an eye roll.
"You know, like the roots of a fungus or some shit, I don't know. I just saw the shrooms growing in Bryce's closet that one time he showed me his stash. This white stuff looks just like it. So I guess that makes this black stuff like the part of the shroom we eat, or whatever."
"Oh dip," I responded, nodding. "That makes sense. One time I saw a nature show about some plants that shoot their seeds everywhere when something touches them. It's probably just spreading its spores when we touch it."
"Yeah," she breathed, "pretty gnarly."
We shuffled deeper into the gloom, weaving between dangling cables and clumps of fungus. I felt a drop of moisture flick off a cable, sliding onto my arm.
I groaned. "Fuck. That cable was wet."
"Disgusting," she whispered back.
We made our way to the apex of the room, the center of the tower, revealing a rusted set of elevator doors leaning together like drunks at a quinceanera. The doorway to the stairs, however, beckoned to us with the same unobstructed, pitch-black allure that the tower's entrance emanated just minutes before.
In the dark, it's truly amazing how utterly void all open doorways look.
Upon stepping inside the stairwell, the world vanished. The only proof of having working eyes was a faint, vertical glow of light filtering through the door, abruptly fading into all-consuming black.
Every sound in the entire building bored through my soul, bouncing from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, echoing on and on for all of eternity. The stairwell, directly in the center of the decrepit hotel, was the focal point of every creaking floorboard, every popping nail, every howling gust of wind. It was as if I was holding up a monstrous conch shell to my ear— a deafening murmur of echoes in disarray, smelting together to form satanic harmonies.
"Whoa," Annabeth mumbled.
Her word cut through the other echoes, impossibly loud against their monotonous hum.
Instantly, the echo of her voice filled the stairwell, rising like the build up of a dubstep song until peaking, impossibly overwhelming for a few brief seconds. The echoes of her voice then faded as quickly as they arrived.
She put a hand to her mouth, the whites of her eyes barely visible in the glow coming from the doorway.
I reached out, placing a hand where her shoulder should be. There was not enough space for us to stand abreast in the stairwell, leaving us in a comically squished proximity. She was breathing rapidly, barely managing to stay silent. I squeezed, and her breathing quickly slowed. I felt her hand creep onto mine, and we stood for a minute, simply listening to the cries of the dying building echo around us.
As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a staircase spiraling up the curved wall. Clearly this was a service stairwell, as it is much too cramped for the likes of Sabe's guests. Only a few steps were visible through the darkness at a time, making the staircase feel even tinier than it already was. Luckily, no fungus grew on the stairs themselves, leaving the metal alone to rust.
Annabeth shuffled onto the first step, producing a small object from her pocket. She handed it to me, then pointed up the stairwell, careful to not send echoes through the cylindrical chamber again.
I brought it close to my eyes for inspection, straining against the lack of light.
A joint...
She wants to go to the roof and smoke.
A smile cracked my lips. Classic Annabeth.
Every couple stairsteps, there would be a doorway. Most of them let in a dim glow, offering a glimpse into what must have once been a custodial closet on each floor.
On floor 9, I tugged at Annabeth's hand. We made eye contact in the faint light coming from the doorway. I motioned through it, pointing to the nearly fungus free floor. I wanted to explore at least a little bit, to see if the closet circled around the stairwell or not.
I poked my head through the doorway, freeing myself from the overwhelming cacophony of echoes in the stairwell.
I verified that the closet did, in fact, curve around the circular staircase like a donut. A few steps in one direction led to a terrifying drop— the elevator shaft. Next to it, a sidewalk sized ledge led to an open door, giving a view of the floor's main hallway. The path looked safe— no fungus, cracks, or otherwise obvious defects— so I proceeded, treading as light as a fox, fumbling for Annabeth's hand behind me.
The main hallway ran between the custodial closet and the guest rooms, creating another donut ring around the central stairwell. Throughout the hallway, patches of fungus grew alarmingly close together, threatening to overtake the concrete.
"That stairwell was insane," Annabeth whispered.
I nodded. "Fuck yeah, I wonder what it was like when the hotel was actually open. Must have been miserable for the staff."
We weaved through the fungus filled hallway, coming to room 901. I glanced at Annabeth, raising my eyebrows. The door was slightly ajar, hanging from its one remaining door hinge. I pushed gently, eliciting a monstrous creak.
The room was empty, extending away to the outside in a familiar pie shape. The mold seemed to grow thinner in the room, leaving most of the exposed concrete safe to cross. At the far side, a floor to ceiling panel of windows looked out over our town.
I gasped, taking in the view. Never before had I seen our town from this high up. My eyes drew to the smokestacks by the river, their blinking lights ominously flickering over downtown. Individual streets ran in parallel lines away from the tower, lit with yellowing streetlights. Between the roads, tiny lights cast from window panes twinkled, blending with one another into a starscape of their own.
"Dude," I said. "Look at this."
No response.
I spun, looking for Annabeth, frantically scanning the room. My eyes had adjusted to the outside light, leaving me sightless.
"Annabeth," I hissed.
A cold tingle went up my spine, pulling at hairs on the back of my neck.
"Annabeth?"
​
Silence.
​
Silence.
​
Silence.
​
I crept back across the floor, now aware of the entire room at once. There was nowhere for her to be hiding. No desks, cans of paint, ladders, nothing. Just an empty room with patchy fungus growing on the cement.
Something must have happened.
I studied each fungal growth in the room as I passed by. Even with the light cast from the windows, the tops remained impossibly dark. Not a single feature was discernible— only an outline was visible.
Halfway to the door, a three foot wide hole led straight to floor 8. I could have sworn it wasn't there before. I peered into the opening, seeing straight through to the room below. From what I could see, it was identically empty.
"Annabeth," I tried again, nearing the door to the hallway.
"BOO!"
I stumbled backward, tripping over my own feet. I landed squarely on a patch of fungus.
FPOOSH.
I remembered to hold my breath, close my eyes, and plug my nose.
Annabeth cackled from the threshold of the doorway, standing over me with both hands on her forehead.
"You should have seen the look—" she began, breaking off into another fit of laughter.
"Shut up," I groaned, pushing to my feet. My entire body was covered in squishy fungus gunk. I pointed at the hole behind me, continuing. "You could have killed me."
"Blah, blah, blah," she mocked. "You're fine... you're just being a baby."
Annabeth gave me a playful shove, hands lingering for a moment overdue. Swatting her paws off me, I marched back to the stairwell. I led the rest of the way to floor 13, followed by her snickers.
As I reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the 13th floor, my jaw dropped. It was a scene straight out of a surrealist painting. An enormous pool room lay before us. Glass walls extended up from the tile floors, creating a massive, clear domed perimeter. A swath of stars twinkled brilliantly through the clear ceiling, their light refracting through the glass, casting ethereal patterns onto the room's otherwise bleak surroundings.
The pool itself was a semi-circular cutout covering half the floor space, starting at ground level and deepening in a corkscrew motion. Its ceramic tiles, once probably a bright blue, were now tinged with patches of the same fungal growth we had come across on the lower floors. The growth was sparse here, though, letting the original floor design take prominence.
In the center of the room— on top of the staircase we just stepped out of— stood a circular pillar that extended up to the middle of the glass dome, like a spine holding up the entire tower. A small antenna jutted out from above the pillar atop the dome. Surrounding the antenna was a low fence, perhaps a safety measure for maintenance workers.
Annabeth, having finally contained her laughter, stepped beside me, her face illuminated by the soft starlight filtering in through the dome. She too stood silent, taken aback by the unexpected beauty of this forgotten space.
As we moved around the room, our steps echoed across the vast emptiness. With every patch of fungus we passed, the same eerie darkness hovered, the undulating mold standing stark against the ceramic tiles.
We made our way back to the central pillar. A ladder, carved into the pillar, connected to the glass ceiling with a trapdoor.
"To the roof?" Annabeth sang, rubbing her hands together in a goblin-like motion.
"Ladies first."
As she climbed above me, I couldn't help but crane my neck and drool. She slammed open the trapdoor, and we burst through to the roof.
The fenced-in area was covered with a dark spongy surface, gripping at my knees when I stood up. Wind whipped around us, carrying a chill that cut through my clothes and bit into my skin. With each gust, the antenna above us groaned and swayed, almost as if it were joining in a dance with an unseen partner.
We sat on the squishy rubber surface, comfortably in silence. I met her eyes, smiling dumbly. We passed the joint back and forth until it dwindled down, its ember glow flickering one last time before extinguishing completely. A familiar haze crawled through my thoughts, slowing the passage of time to a languishing crawl.
"Hey..." she started, "I think I've finally found inspiration for my next album."
I scooted closer to her, taking her hand. I knew the topic brought about an unusual timidity in her— a blemish in the badass persona she's so keen on presenting. She won't even talk to her own boyfriend about her music career.
"Yeah?" I floated.
She hesitated for a second, settling into the moment. I felt a tug at my crotch, suddenly all too aware of how pretty she looked in the moonlight. I took in every detail— the way her hair fell across her face, the pattern of her freckles, the soft speckling of stars reflecting across her eyes.
"I think you need to take off your shirt, first, though," she whispered, now inches from my face. "You're filthy."
I glanced down, remembering the fungal gunk that had soiled my clothes when she scared me.
Without warning, her hands slid under my shirt, warm and sure. I helped her yank it off, collapsing into her lips.
***
When we got back to the truck, I was still high enough to see everything in slow motion. Before pulling out of the parking lot, Annabeth and I regurgitated the events of our urban exploration, trying to show our significant others what fun they missed out on. It goes without saying that part of the story was intentionally omitted.
Ellie and Josh were unamused. Their lack of adventure will forever be a mystery to me.
We swung out of the lot, hopping onto the highway headed into town. I swayed between lanes, struggling to keep the double-yellow lines in focus.
"Are you sure you're good to drive?" Ellie asked, gripping the armrest.
"I'm fine," I slurred.
Seconds later, another truck materialized in front of us. I swerved to avoid it, then everything went black.
***
I woke up to a strong hand pulling me out of the window. My truck was upside down, the roof completely caved in.
I groaned. "Aww... fuck...."
The person who pulled me out looked like the kind of guy to chew tobacco and spit wisdom. His fishing cap cast a deep shadow across his eyes in the moon's glow, concealing his gaze. He was an old timer, that's for sure, one of those folk who came during the coal rush and decided to stay when all was said and done. I could see his truck— the same truck I saw moments before the crash— pulled into the shoulder of the highway with its blinkers on.
"Easy now," he reassured, his voice like gravel under a boot. "Anyone else inside?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
I plopped onto the grassy slope embarking off the side of the road. The old man pulled their mangled bodies out, one by one.
The countryside shrank around me. I felt the corners of my vision pulling in, the weed in my system straining the limits of shock I could take before melting down.
"I'm sorry, son," he whispered, his voice carrying the weight of my guilt. "The police will be here soon. Don't you worry."
The police.
I stood up. I knew exactly how the police treated people with my skin color in this town.
I ran.
"Hey now!" the man hollered.
I kept running.
Away from my truck, away from my dead friends, away from the police.
I ran until my breath came in ragged, uncontrollable huffs. I flopped to the ground, laying on the cool concrete, cradling my head with my hands. Blood flowed between my fingertips, pooling onto the pavement.
I laid there until police sirens wailed through the night, rapidly approaching. They stopped at the wreck, leaving me in silence. Moments later, the sirens picked up their mournful song again, heading toward me.
I sat up.
I was back in the lot of Sabe's Tower. Only then did I realize how little distance I really ran from the wreck— a couple hundred yards at most.
Four, five, maybe even six sirens filled the air. They were all coming for me. They knew what I had done.
I bolted from my position on the concrete. I could hide in the tower. No way the cops would look for me in that rotting place. They wouldn't dare.
I squeezed through the gap in the fence, same as before, vaulting past the
DO NOT TRESPASS ALONE
signs in a fluid lunge. The sirens behind me screamed into the night, melding together into a continuous doomsday chant.
Red and blue lights filled the lot. I hit the ground right in front of the gaping entrance to the tower, praying that the weeds poking through the concrete would be enough to mask my form. I army crawled, inch by inch, dragging myself across broken bottles and plywood shrapnell, until I was safely in the darkness of the tower.
In.
Out.
I breathed.
In.
Out.
A police cruiser parked in the lot. Its siren drowned out all other wails for a moment before shutting off. A chubby white officer hopped out, surveying the scene. His gaze came to rest on the spot where I had lain. He squatted down, raking a finger through the pool of blood I left behind. He took a few steps toward the tower, squatting down yet again. Another splotch of blood, no doubt.
His voice floated through the plaza, slightly nasal and a little out of breath. "Dispatch, this is officer Chetty, badge number 741. I'm on the scene at 1019 Pleasant Valley Lane, in the lot of Sabe's Tower. I've located a pool of fresh blood that may be linked to our hit-and-run suspect. Possible injury, suspect could be close. Requesting immediate backup and forensics for evidence collection."
Fuck.
I wormed my way further into the tower's belly, sliding between patches of fungus like a mouse in a snake pit, heading for the stairwell. I had to ascend, to find some nook or cranny out of reach of the pursuing officers. The godforsaken tower was one big game of hide and seek, only this time, losing meant far worse than a bruised ego.
Something gurgled in the darkness.
My blood froze. I halted, my heart hammering a tattoo against my ribs. Holding my breath, I strained my senses, eyes peering into the graying murk, searching for the source of the sound.
It came again, a wretched retching, like an animal choking on its own vomit. Hacking, gurgling, bubbling wetness bursting through strained vocal chords, a sound of fading vitality. It was coming from near the door, just outside the meager halo of light slipping through the hole.
A wet line smeared across the back of my neck. A yelp escaped my lips before I realized it was just a cord dangling from the ceiling.
At my yelp, the gurgling paused.
A heavy hush fell over the place, the quietude of the hunted.
I could faintly make out echoes emanating from the stairwell, only a few feet behind me.
The gurgling continued, sucking at the thick air. It began to drag itself forward through the fungus covered floor— a slow, steady, rhythmic drag against the concrete.
FPOOSH.
A geyser of spores bloomed, mingling with swirls of dust in the meager light. The creature, or whatever it was, did not slow its approach. Out of the darkness, a form began to shape— a silhouette clawing its way toward me.
FPOOSH.
I could see this eruption envelop the mass on the floor. One hand appeared, then another. Its fingers scrabbled over the concrete, searching for any purchase to grip. They flexed, heaving the thing even closer.
A mop of curly hair appeared between the hands. A body, face down. It pulled itself closer, into another fungal growth, grinding its face through the rough concrete.
FPOOSH.
A knife protruded from its back. The handle jutted upward, a grim totem amidst the grime and gore. I shuddered, involuntarily taking a step closer to the stairwell.
It looked up at me.
Or rather, Josh looked up at me.
I stared back, mouth agape.
His face was nearly sanded off from the concrete. His nose took the worst of it, ground down to the bone, leaving only two sucking, gurgling holes between his eyes. His cheeks were a mangled mess of blood and rocks, viscous red flowing freely to the tip of his chin before dribbling off. The chunks of meat hanging where lips should have been flapped against his teeth with every jerky motion, tethered to his face by all too little strands of flesh. Beneath them, his teeth showed bright red and white in a perpetual grimacing smile.
"Josh?" I managed to whisper, my voice a frightened squeak.
Josh opened his mouth as if to respond, ripping both cheeks in half. He hacked, gurgling, spitting up blood that came from deep within his torso. He slowly cocked his head to the side, but instead of stopping at a slant, he kept twisting his neck until bones started to crack and his head dangled upside down.
His mangled, upside down head swung limply as he pulled himself to his knees, his neck like jelly. He wasn't wearing the same clothes he was wearing earlier tonight— no, he was wearing clothes from the night Annabeth first cheated on him with me. He was at a Villanova game, supporting his favorite team since birth. Annabeth knew he would be gone for the weekend, so we took our chance. I was still at her place when he came back, wearing his Collin Gillespie jersey and reeking of beer.
Now in front of me, his prized jersey was in tatters, torn to ribbons by the concrete. He groaned, shuffling and reaching for me with bloody fingers.
I bolted into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. I pushed myself faster and faster until the door to floor 9 loomed to my side. I didn't pause for a moment, pushed forward by the gurgling echoes reverberating from below.
My thighs, weak from the frantic climb, begged for a break. I wobbled into the hallway, painfully tip-toeing through the fungus. The door to 901 beckoned ahead, hanging open like it had been awaiting my hasty return.
I stumbled over the threshold when Annabeth's singing filled the room. "Oh, Donovan!"
I froze.
Outlined against the window was a two-headed beast. One face belonged to Annabeth, the other to Ellie. The creature swayed, an obscene dance of bare, fused flesh. It wore no clothes, as if to mock God himself. It had two sets of everything— eight appendages total, like a humanoid arachnid. Annabeth's breasts, now side by side with Ellie's, put Ellie to shame, even now.
Annabeth crooned again, "Oh, Donovan!" each syllable laced with acid and honey. The sound made my skin crawl as it floated through the silent room.
"You always did want more, didn't you Donovan?" Ellie sneered, a harsh grin splitting her face.
Annabeth spat, "More than Ellie could give. More than anyone could give."
The thing dropped to the floor with a thud. All eight limbs moved in unison as it crawled.
"Isn't this what you wanted? Both of us at the same time?" Their voices tumbled over each other, mouths moving in synchrony. Together, their laughter filled the hollow room. "Don't you like the thrill, Donovan? Don't you like playing with fire?"
The thing scurried at me, jumping over fungal growths with powerful leaps. The sudden movement broke my paralyzation, spurring my legs to action. I darted into the closet and through the stairwell door, into the gurgling echoes.
Back down the stairwell I ran, the two headed beast in pursuit. Both girls snarled, hindered by their conjoined size in the narrow passageway. Their struggle echoed through the stairwell, mixing with the gurgling. I fled further down, needing to put distance between that thing and me.
I stopped dead in my tracks between floors 2 and 3.
Josh was there, leaning against the wall with the knife removed from his back, now grasped tightly in his hand. I staggered back up the stairs, instinctively retreating, narrowly avoiding the blade as he lunged at me.
Glancing up, I caught a flash of pale skin bearing down on me, cutting off my escape. My only way out was the door to floor 3. I charged through the closet, leaving the echoes behind me.
Floor 3 was empty— no walls, only fungus and windows. The atrium loomed to my left, a pie shaped hole missing from the floor and ceiling. I backed away from the door, eyeing the dangling cords hanging in the atrium.
Maybe... Just maybe....
Josh stumbled from the stairwell, filling the air with his wet slurping. Annabeth and Ellie followed, scrambling toward me.
I didn't have time to think.
I jumped, grasping at the dangling wires, praying they would hold my weight.
Time stuttered, hanging suspended like an icicle on a winter's morning. The world spun in a dizzying blur as I twisted, fingers stretching for a grip. Panic clawed its icy fingers up my spine, but it was the surprise that struck me most. The simple disbelief that this was happening.
A wire found its way into my hand, snapping without slowing my fall.
The wind whooshed past, ripping the breath from my lungs. Above me, the third floor retreated, its grimy concrete replaced by a view of the atrium's ceiling, wires swinging back and forth from my desperate escape.
Then came the sensation of falling. It's a feeling that strikes a primal chord, an orchestra of fear and adrenaline that means the end of a life. My stomach lurched, free-falling alongside me, while the rest of my body seemed to hover in a state of disbelief.
The impact came as both a shock and an inevitability. There was a moment of sheer, undiluted pain, a soundless scream reverberating through my very bones. It felt like being shattered from the inside out, an explosion of agony that started from my back and radiated outwards. An iron-hot spike of pain shot through me, and then, a chilling void as everything below my waist slipped into a terrifying numbness.
The echo of my body's collision rang in my ears as the world spun into a disorienting whirl of blurs, shadows, and pain. The cold concrete beneath me felt real, solid, a chilling contrast to the sudden loss of sensation in my legs.
In the throbbing silence that followed, I understood. I had fallen. I was broken. I lay sprawled on the atrium floor, gasping, the world tilting dangerously in my vision.
Annabeth and Ellie emerged from the staircase, scrambling across the atrium floor. Red and blue police lights filtered through the tower’s windows, making shadows dance between the monster's eight limbs. Josh wasn't far behind, still clutching onto the bloody knife, head rolling upside down between his shoulders.
"Police, we're coming in!" a familiar nasally voice shouted.
The moment officers stepped foot in the tower, the monsters vanished in a spray of spores.
​
X

EDIT: I just gotta say that this post got a lot more attention than I ever expected, thank you guys so much for validating my feelings on this issue and for the helpful suggestions! After reading most of your comments this morning I sat my husband down and had a serious talk about this, how his remarks really hurt me and that I felt I had every right to expect some help from him. He was understanding, and apologized for his words. He was scheduled to work a night shift today, but took the day off, made us all breakfast, cleaned up, and we finally have our living room and kitchen set up. A lot of work still needs to be done, but honestly I already feel so much better about the progress. Tomorrow his friends are going to come over and help out with the furniture, and we’ll just continue to go from there with the rest of the boxes. I wish I didn’t need to make a post about this to help get it resolved, but I thank you guys for helping me find the words and courage to express my concerns to him!
I’m 32 weeks pregnant and we have a 2 year old. I stay home while he works anywhere from 60-70 hours a week. I totally understand he does so much to support us and allow me to stay home, but what he said to his friends was hurtful to me.
We just moved into a new place a month ago, and we’re still not settled in. There’s still boxes and boxes of our packed things. Furniture still isn’t put together. A lot of things I simply can’t do by myself, much less while pregnant and keeping an eye on the kid. I do my best to keep up with the necessary tasks, like dishes, laundry, cooking meals. But the place is just a wreck. It’s getting hard for me to navigate around the clutter, and I’m honestly terrified we won’t have everything in place when the next baby gets here. My husband is only off one day a week (sundays), and at this point I’m basically begging him to help me when he doesn’t have to work. He tells me he will, and assures me things will be done before the baby comes, but Sunday after Sunday he just simply doesn’t want to do any of it. I get it, he’s had a long work week and wants to relax, but I just can’t keep stressing about this.
Today while on a video game chat with his friends, he made a joke that I’m going to bug him on Sunday to unpack when he just wants to relax, then followed up with “she’s the one that’s always home, more could’ve been done by now.” I nearly cried on the spot, and asked him how on earth he’d expect me to move the dressers and desks, or assemble a bed frame, ask the toddler to help? He just shrugged and said this is why he doesn’t ever say it out loud. One of the two friends on the voice chat seemed to be trying to defend me (I couldn’t hear anything, just guessing based off of husband’s responses), but he just kept saying that he’ll lose his job if he doesn’t do it, we won’t lose the place if we don’t clean it. I just don’t get it, I thought he understood where I was coming from and why the clutter of the place is stressing me out so much. Maybe I’m being too emotional, or expecting too much out of him, but I’m really not wanting to bring in a newborn to a place that isn’t ready for one, knowing we’ll have even less free time to try and get everything together.

First off, I've (31m) never posted anything on Reddit before, I've only ever been a phantom browser (or listener for the few of us who listen to Slash), so if there are formatting errors, or if I've mucked this entire post, forgive me; but that's not what I'm here for so get bent, I'm dying to unload all of this. There's a lot to unpack here, so please bear with, and without further ado:
I'm currently dealing with the loss of my best friend James (27m) who successfully completed suicide a few weeks ago. I'm so unbelievably angry at his loss as he was one of the brightest most intelligent people I've ever known. A person who was too smart for his own good regularly led him down a dark path that I've talked him out of several times in the past. Before we get into the heart of the matter, I'd like to provide some insight to when it all started.
I've known James from our time in the Service together, when we were both assigned to perform military honors for veterans. We met back in 2016, and I'll admit, at first I was standoffish as I am with most new people I meet. After a few weeks we bonded over our disdain for the training regimen and requirements for new Honor Guard(HG) trainees. I wouldn't say we became fast friends, but we deepened our relationship over time with big dreams and even bigger goals. Talking about cars, preferably JDM, guns, technology, games, anime; actually, just everything. This man knew a lot about everything, and we found in eachother kindred spirits. Although he was much better at knowing what the best (in his opinion) of the best was, and what I should focus my efforts or should buy, and I trusted his knowledge. He really was the best.
We maintained a pretty good relationship over the next few years when I left the service in 2018 and moved back home to Ohio and he was left back in Illinois to finish out his service commitment. And during that time, we talked regularly, if not every day, then every other day. With some spotty communication between, we're guys, talking all the time isn't always necessary, and it got to the point of regular check-ins and talks about life and the bullshit going on. Mine being the transition from the military to civilian life, and his, just regular bullshit within the service, and whatever car he was dealing with at the time.
It wasn't until 2019 when things started to unravel, and he decided he wanted to be in a relationship with a woman Brenda (27f) that he'd met at the airport. I'm not sure when he had, but it might've been a few years to a few months prior to the autumn of 2019. The only significance of Brenda was that James had managed to hook up with her AT THE AIRPORT. I dogged on him for being such a smooth talker and having the ability to do that. To my knowledge, it was a one and done thing, but he maintained contact with her, which led to them developing a relationship, and being "official" the autumn of 2019.
After three months, a total of 90 fucking days, this man was smitten. To the point of which he was so torn up about her getting cold feet and breaking up with him. Something I've never seen before from this man who basically had a revolving door with women in the past. I had to talk him off of the figurative ledge because of how much he felt he gave her. Nonetheless, they ended back together, and he moved her into his house to live with him and a long-time roommate Neil (25m). James introduced Neil and I and we've been pretty good friends, but nothing as significant as James and I. Either way we were all pretty close, and both Neil and I advised against staying with Brenda, as she was, as far as we could tell, unbalanced. That was putting it lightly.
This cycle of being together and not being together, and getting angry over petty things, begins to impact the relationship between James and I. To the point where I can't just talk about the bullshit between him and Brenda. So I stopped talking to him for a few months in 2020 and tell him off about how I can't listen to him bitch about his girl anymore.
Either way, we begin talking later on in 2020 and things are friendly as usual, with the exception that we don't really talk too much about Brenda anymore. Which is a nice change of pace. Anyway, from the time I was in the service, my experience translates to driving trucks. So what did I do when I got out? I drove trucks, which sucks, but pays well. So I've always nagged James for what I should do as far as getting out of trucking, and in to computers and IT. I've tried my hand at it in the past when I tried to get my BS in Comp. Sci. in 2019, which I failed miserably.
So back to trucking I went always looking for a way out, as I've got a wife and two sons, it makes it hard to raise a family and be present. So he maintains his relationship with Brenda and keeps it on the backburner for conversations, rarely bringing it up, all the way up into 2022 when he's been out of the service for two years, and has made a name for himself in the IT community. He came out to Ohio in Nov 2022 to buy some big ticket items for his own racing setup. He convinced me (without too much arm pulling) to drive out to St. Louis with him to visit our old digs. During this 6 hour drive we catch up on all the old bullshit and what's going on in his love life. The constant fighting, bickering, and me doing my best to cheer him up and let him know, that outside of what he's failing at in his relationship, he's got a pocket full of spades and is exceptionally successful at every other aspect of his life. I mean, what other person do you know who goes from making less than $40k a year to making over $600k in two years? Nonetheless, we also spent that entire time talking about what he currently does, and he set me on a pathway of learning, specifically books, that he said I should read. After I got back to my daily life, and read them; We talked about them, and he made sure I understood the concepts held within them, and oddly he said he'd get back to me.
This is just the surface stuff, what makes James an outright amazing person, is that he's always looking out for those close to him. He had so much pull at his current company, that he was able to make a special position just for me, as a "loyalty program" to get people to train who otherwise didn't have experience in his career field. The books he had me read were primers to see if I had the aptitude to take on this kind of training. The company signed me on at my current monthly rate (as of Dec. 2022) to come on and train exclusively and meet my commitments by the end of January. From then on, it was daily talks of knowledge this, or what experience you have in that. And daily life in general. I came to find out just how little I knew about how knowledgeable and smart James was, and a new appreciation for our friendship,
Where I was once his mentor in the service, he was now my mentor in the tech world. And he was brilliant. Things that would take a whole team months to do, he was capable of doing within a week. I saw him work magic, and was excited to see how I could graft his knowledge and experience into my own. In March, we had a work requirement to meetup at the work site (because IT is remote, duh) and meet with the team that our company supported. There was a whole fiasco and we got up to some of our old shenanigans, but everything was great with the exception of one thing: her. I hadn't asked the entire trip, and he had mentioned that this was the best he'd felt in years. I just didn't want to ask what the problem was, until the day we left to go back to our respective states. I'd come to find out, that the day before he'd left to come out for our trip, his now wife, had locked him out of the main portion of the house (luckily he has over 5000sq/ft house, so he made do with the "other half" as he called it) and I just listened as he lamented about all the garbage that happened prior to his departure. How he gave up everything; his interests, his desires, just to be around her more. How after everything he's sacrificed, he just wanted it to work. That he'd do anything for her, and all she did was spit in his face and shit all over his effort. This last argument he'd had with her before he'd left was all because of him wanting to go get tacos with some of his local friends. A simple disagreement that turned into a 3-day argument.
So things like this progress and he's talking to all the people he needs advice from. His pastor, his therapist, and they're all telling him to run from this woman. These things I've been telling him for years are all starting to come together, and I feel like I can finally take a breath. From hearing stories of how he's slept under his desk to avoid confrontation with her, how he works endlessly because she won't bother him while he works. I was so excited that divorce was now finally an option for him. Until finally she was moving out, and everything came crashing down.
Friday, May 12, 2023. It was work as usual, and he'd spent a little longer at work, and was talking about going out to play pool with a friend. So I ended up talking to him later that evening asking him how things were going, mostly just because I was bored and wanted someone to talk to. When he replied that he was "big sad" and I asked him what was going on. He told me that he was tricked into going out with his friend by Brenda. That the friend was convinced to ask James out by her, so that she could come by their house and move her things out. Which she had never done before, but was prone to leaving at the drop of a hat and going to her sister's house 1.5 hrs away. I expressed that I was sorry for what he had to go through, as I had also gone through a divorce years prior. That regardless if it was for the best, that it is still a painful process. The last thing he said to me: "Can't be mad about a loss that costs me the wins when I'm the one who made the bet" I replied, "Maybe not, but I can understand the loss still hurts."
That was the last thing I said to him at 0016. I'm so fucking mad, at him, at her, at everything. The entire situation, that I would be out there to help him, I joked about moving my family out there with him in that big ass house. That we'd buy property, hundreds and thousands of acres just to bullshit with, and do "hoodrat things with my friends." I texted him and called him Saturday to check on him, but figured he had a hangover, so I didn't want to bother but let him know that I would call a wellness check on him if I didn't hear back. So I called him a few more times on Sunday, which eventually lead to me calling the wellness check at 1421 on Mother's Day. Two hours later, at 1621 exactly, I get a phone call from a detective asking me questions about James. I thought he was in a snag with the police and was doing 180 on the freeway or something, or pulled some Eminem nonsnense. Did I fail to mention that Brenda claimed to be pregnant, and would use getting an abortion as a way to control James? No? Well it was one of the first things I told the detective after they asked me about him being depressed. I didn't understand why the questions were being asked, but they eventually came to tell me that upon their arrival, he was dead. The world snapped to a startling clarity, and I broke out into a cold sweat. I didn't think it could be possible, and my brain reeled at the rushing reality of it all. The sickening reality of it, that she didn't even care because she had already given up, had pulled her claws out of him. It was done, no new memories, no grand dreams, no future plans to conquer the world. But as we know, this is only just the beginning, the aftermath is where it all hurts more.
So his body had to be transported to his hometown on the other side of the country near the coast, from the OTHER side of the country. 3000 miles just to be put in the ground, all for his parents' sake. Which was nice, and a kind gesture, that Brenda allowed and a relatively beautiful ceremony. We show up the day James shows up, a 10 hour drive with no AC and the windows down. My wife and I both knew and loved James, so we were going to be there no matter what. I meet his dad for the first time, a topic James and I regularly talked about. How his father is the best person he knows, and would do anything for. I can see that now, and James' wife had sent a picture to my wife of one of their conversations, about how I reminded James of his dad. That shit broke my heart, and was hard to see, but I appreciated it. Although I think she reveled in twisting the knife. Anyway, come to find out from his dad, that Brenda allowed him to write the obituary, and as James' dad was finalizing it with his wife and James' sisters, Brenda took it and made changes and deleted the things she didn't like.
James' dad took us all around his hometown, showing us where he went to school, where they lived, and what he liked to do. He also took us out for lunch to a local place James liked. I've never felt so at home while not at home. We even got haircuts at James' dad's favorite barber. I met James' mother and sisters, and found that they share a lot of gestures and nuances that were just uncanny. It was good, although, terrifyingly sad. I'm so fucking glad Neil was there, dude was a rock.
The day of the funeral and memorial We got to say our final goodbyes, and there was a line of James' next of kin. Starting with his mother, and ending with his youngest sister. His wife sat separately and was laughing and joking before people started showing up. She adopted a somber and sorrowful set, when we locked eyes, I saw the poison, vitriol, and hate she had for me, and anyone else who cared about James. Her eyes looked like that of Bellatrix Lestrange. She didn't cry, once. It hurt to see someone James cared about so much, not care one lick at his loss. She didn't plan anything for this funeral, didn't appoint pallbearers, nothing. Fortunately, me, Neil, another roommate James had--Jesse, and some other close relatives of James, we raised him one last time. Everything was executed by his parents and was done wonderfully. At his burial site, he was given military honors, which he and I would joke as being terribly done, but for the masses, was acceptable. For military ceremonies like this, the next of kin gets the flag. And unfortunately, they were still married at the time of death. Which she received and treated like nothing so much as a burden. James' parents knew how vile she was and STILL invited her to attend a remembrance party in Honor of James. To which she ran off and never attended. This, this is still the easiest part of the entire process.
James parents are trying to file an injunction, but Brenda hasn't even filed the proper paperwork to begin the probate process. So there isn't even anything to file an injunction against! They want to be able to handle his estate, but can't. There's nothing to do, no memories to take. We fear that everything will be repossessed, foreclosed, and she will laugh her way to the bank to cash in on James' demise. I wish he'd had a will, or started the divorce process. I wish even more, that he was still here. For anyone out there who thinks you won't be missed, you will. For those who think no one will notice them gone, you will be noticed. I would rather talk to you for hours, than be at your grave. Please, reach out, ask for help, or just to talk. I'm sorry things get tough, but you have love and support here if you need it. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, or talk you out of it. I love you man. Til Valhalla.

Purtle's Internet Lineup for June 2nd, 2023 2:54pm
Pics:

• me in sf6 https://twitter.com/SoundestOfBois/status/1664187522124075009
  
• So I bought a computer from goodwill for 10 dollars to see if I could revive it, and I did. It’s filled with HUNDREDS of written reviews for gay pornography. I can’t stop laughing [thread] https://twitter.com/CaseyJPod/status/1664311026458808320
  
• Law & Order: Boston https://twitter.com/Thomas_Carrieri/status/1664657759671926785
  
• To all my small content creator homies https://twitter.com/Win98Tech/status/1664234209244790787
  
• Barbie movie used so much pink paint it caused a shortage https://twitter.com/UltimaShadowX/status/1664595874163351553
  
• Crabmeat isn’t worth the hassle it takes to eat crab. https://twitter.com/theemare/status/1664311124718919680
  
• Street Fighter 6 Stuff
  
  • A special message to the community from the voice of Luke https://twitter.com/StreetFightestatus/1664361451153408001
  • Street Fighter 6 has just SMASHED the All-Time concurrent players of every Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or Tekken game on Steam https://twitter.com/BenjiSales/status/1664502543320334336
  • it's zangiefs birthday https://twitter.com/StreetFightestatus/1664286308955738114
  • First hit on Marisa is free. (: https://twitter.com/lastrewards/status/1664370962345730050
  • chun li taunt does a hit https://twitter.com/ryo_redcyclone/status/1664566524550729728
  • Graphic Settings you NEED to fix that the game doesn't tell you about. Start SF6's launch on a good note. https://twitter.com/GhostFrom3S/status/1664010423459274753
  • Potato Mod v0.1 is done. Links and instructions on comments https://old.reddit.com/Kappachino/comments/13y7z3k/potato_brethrens_potato_mod_v01_is_done_links_and/
  • Marisa just outright told me she'd rather fight completely naked if she could, this is the fucking woman of the year hands down. https://twitter.com/UltimaShadowX/status/1664390985080504322
  • nsfw Classic Cammy All Colors Presented by Chipotle and Kotaku https://old.reddit.com/Kappachino/comments/13yc9b2/classic_cammy_all_colors_presented_by_chipotle/
  • pink cammy outfit backside https://i.imgur.com/axcK62h.jpg
  • more cammy plot. people are going crazy for it lmao https://i.redd.it/lt9gfriz7f3b1.jpg
  • they have ripped the model https://old.reddit.com/Kappachino/comments/13y80g3/ssj3_cammy_booty/
  • Juri game ovecontinue in arcade mode https://twitter.com/mememenome/status/1664356507230830592
  • Li-Fen and Chun-Li https://twitter.com/ssshuckle/status/1664380416231342084
  • Street Fighter 6 - All Game Over Animations [6:44] https://youtu.be/KSj48BZ0cWY
  • Combos/setups/tech
  • Characters with free throwloops in the corner [2min] https://twitter.com/corybellFGC/status/1664309352818442241
  • manon v marisa combo https://twitter.com/tkintheglobe/status/1664333352797876224
  • You wanna know what happens if you wake up DP vs Marissa? https://twitter.com/Bigbird_fgc/status/1664380179899203586
  • honda - I can chip kill from 20% in the corner with one bar, haven't tried to improve this at all because it's a fantasy scenario, but can anyone do better? This is all real if the opponent has no super, no gap is large enough to be challenged :] https://twitter.com/popnquinbee/status/1664390737704935424
  • Air Blanka Ball is CRAZY https://twitter.com/HiFightTH/status/1664428187735166976
  • JP corner combo https://twitter.com/BESAME_GEN/status/1664335451082330112
  • ehonda combo https://twitter.com/Alioune85/status/1664356676856692738
  • lily combo https://twitter.com/tkintheglobe/status/1664292802086453249
  • jp combo/setup https://twitter.com/kevinsparkz/status/1664412867402301442
  • marisa combo https://twitter.com/TENGOKU_HERO/status/1664347600756285440
  • Corner Dhalsim setup with Yoga Arc after OD Yoga Fire. Without dash you are +24 after Arc connects https://twitter.com/Narath_FGC/status/1664362979947868160
  • anti blanka setup https://twitter.com/Noble_Cathedral/status/1664430026685829120
  • cammy combo/setup https://twitter.com/kevinsparkz/status/1664413675988615168
  • honda looking scary https://twitter.com/Mr_MadGeastatus/1664277247212294145
  • Alioune cammy combo/setup https://twitter.com/Alioune85/status/1664368843362385922
  • blanka setup https://twitter.com/lllmokelll/status/1664373842670936064
  • blanka combo https://twitter.com/lllmokelll/status/1664350330404962304
  • Dee Jay EX fireball corner combo. https://twitter.com/GriffyBones/status/1664365995212046336
  • manon v marisa combo/setup https://twitter.com/masat0226/status/1664316890179842048
  • blanka combo/setup https://twitter.com/hirasyain77/status/1664344414255468545
  • holy manon grapple damage https://twitter.com/AndyLO2_/status/1664443784262811648
  • Zangief reversal punish in the corner. Idk if this is optimal but I like how it looks. https://twitter.com/AngelFreak_/status/1664430881866670082
  • manon anti fireball combo https://twitter.com/teamspooky/status/1664462791812739073
  • another manon anti fireball combo https://twitter.com/Mibeadostatus/1664394001947181056
  • JP can safe jump to instant-overhead fuzzy. https://twitter.com/DiNyc3st/status/1664515035064934400
  • MAX Marisa combo https://twitter.com/FrostXCVI/status/1664447134182129665
  • JP - you want to be +52-55 on oki if you want throw to beat their 4 frame while setting up 214P. 214PP is only 10 frames less so you would need +42-45 for that. https://twitter.com/ShowYouCanSYC/status/1664490564845453312
  • JP sequence https://twitter.com/greed4453/status/1664419150511603712
  • sonicfox two touch with jp https://twitter.com/SonicFox/status/1664522022083493894
  • DJ optimal corner combo https://twitter.com/findyourtechgg/status/1664326396313829376
  • DJ hadouken punish https://twitter.com/_elvss/status/1664416769530908673
  • DJ side switch https://twitter.com/wideawakeanimal/status/1664601445004455936
  • DJ Full punish anywhere on screen with Deejay that does 5.2K+ with 2 bars and full drive gauge, probably not the best combo but a start at least https://twitter.com/TaliosDrakei/status/1664606885411188738
  • A simple but painful Zangief DP punish! Maybe someone can squeeze a little more juice out of this https://twitter.com/Jaadooski/status/1664575063385858058
  • Dhalsim sequence https://twitter.com/MistahCrimson/status/1664558835820789761
  • Blanka sequence https://twitter.com/TqkatenMAY_chan/status/1664344131865575424
  • more blanka https://twitter.com/TqkatenMAY_chan/status/1664491585025998848
  • JP sequence https://twitter.com/kevinsparkz/status/1664648072125730816
  • JP setup + sequence https://twitter.com/KIT_KUN_JP/status/1664491833446240257
  • how to win with blanka day 1 https://twitter.com/HiFightTH/status/1664653935360000001
  • JP command throw setup. Beats 4F normal and tested against throw also. https://twitter.com/NoMoreMrIceGuy_/status/1664659698627354624
  • Biting heads and cashing checks - Blanka https://twitter.com/EvenMoTempest/status/1664655257123844096
  • GGs shake my hand - JP https://twitter.com/HUEBERT47/status/1664540278861058048
  • cammy mixup https://twitter.com/pero0126/status/1664622578462498816
  • JP corner stuff https://twitter.com/greed4453/status/1664374243772219393
• Pokemon news
  
  • They’re just posting DVD extras on YouTube now, for free LOL https://twitter.com/DogasusBackpack/status/1664586423067082753
  • what type of gym leader are you quiz https://uquiz.com/quiz/r0lGkB/what-type-gym-leader-are-you

Clips:

• Diablo 4 opens chat by mouse click mid fight - Streamer doesn't realise https://clips.twitch.tv/GiftedMoistSquirrelNotATK-sL5KAhDUDRM4mY6d

Videos

• Primitive Technology: New Brick Kiln Design [13min] https://youtu.be/7SH4irC_xMs
  
• SF6: Ryu Combo Video - desk [3:48] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMKs1PyQg6k
  

Articles/News/Other

• The US Air Force tested an AI enabled drone that was tasked to destroy specific targets. A human operator had the power to override the drone—and so the drone decided that the human operator was an obstacle to its mission—and attacked him. https://twitter.com/ArmandDoma/status/1664331870564147200
  
• The almost thouht to be canceled game is coming out - Everybody 1-2-Switch! just got stealth announced on US eShop. $29.99, out June 30th https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1664438318682230784
  
  • you know it has to be bad if it comes out on eshop and at $30.
  • this was a game that apparently playtested horribly
  • rumor froma year ago https://twitter.com/tylermcbride/status/1664440576396210187
• League of Legends players have launched the first-ever strike in pro esports. The professional video gamers are standing up to developer Riot Games, which scrapped a rule that supported up-and-coming talent and is threatening the jobs of dozens of players and coaches. Thread https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1664361584569753601
  
• For anyone who runs a Kaillera server, I just released a brand new server (EmuLinker-K) that I've been working on for almost 2 years. Please give it a try and let me know if you find bugs or have feature requests. https://twitter.com/6kRt62r2zvKp5Rh/status/1664642776326184962
  
• Fidelity cuts Reddit valuation by 41% https://old.reddit.com/technology/comments/13xumjl/fidelity_cuts_reddit_valuation_by_41/
  
  • ‘Fidelity also slashed the value of its Twitter stake, it disclosed in the filing, valuing Elon Musk’s firm at about $15 billion.’

Hi lovely people,
We just came back from our first trip to Japan and it was truly a memorable trip. We spent over 3 weeks in Japan from 07th May until 30th May. WE LOVE JAPAN! Can't wait to come back.
A little bit about us: We are both ~30y olds and enjoy a mix of urban, outdoor and culture during our holidays. We are foodies, but not hard-core as in we don't specifically organize our trips around restaurants. There are so many restaurants in Japan, it is hard to get a bad meal. We enjoy just wandering around neighbourhoods. Mostly low/mid-budget stuff with a splurge once in a while.
Our travel itinerary can be found here
General comments

• Time period of travel: We arrived 7th of May which is the last sunday of Golden week. We specifically wanted to avoid Golden week, as we heard it can be crazy busy due to domestic travels. And we also didn't want to go too late in May because June is rainy season in Japan. We were pretty lucky with the weather overall as we only had a couple of days of rain, most days were sunny and we even had some days of sweltering heat :O
• Like other people suggest, try to get in shape before you go! We are both in average shape. Almost every day we walked around 20.000 steps or more. The only rest days we had were the days where we were switching between cities, i.e. sitting in trains for longer periods of time. No complaints ;). I brought two pair of shoes: water-proof hiking shoes and one pair of light-weight running shoes. Switching between shoes was nice, I didn't have any blisters during my time in Japan luckily. All the walking compensated all the eating though!
• Check whether region specific JR passes might work for you. We decided against getting the nationwide JR passes as they didn't fit our needs and were expensive and instead opted for a regional JR Setouchi area pass. It was perfect for the Shimanami Kaido. We could travel from Osaka to Onomichi -> Hiroshima/Miyajima -> Kyoto. And it also gave us access to Nozomi shinkansen (fastest) and a great ferry ride between Matsuyama and Hiroshima.

Japanguide has a nice overview of all the passes : https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2357.html

• Be flexible (That's how we like to travel). I mapped out most of the sights beforehand according to must-see's and mapped out what other interesting sights there would be in those areas. The day before or in the morning, we would decide what we would do roughly, sight-see according to neighborhood and just wing it a little bit. We just love to wander around and see what we come across, mixed with some google maps + "explore" function. Some days you are just tired and just want to hang out in a park, or you have temple-fatigue and want to do something entirely else. Same with food/restaurants, we usually just used google maps to see what kind of great restaurants were near us at that moment. We haven't lined up more than twice our whole time there and still ate wonderfully. We do tend to avoid overly hyped stuff anyways. I do keep in mind that everyone has their own ways.
• Buy e-sim if possible, it is the cheapest and easiest way. My partner bought an e-sim and it was so convenient! My phone unfortunately didn't support it and I had to buy a sim. I opted for getting one at BIC camera, which was the cheapest I could find. 10GB for 30 days for 3200 yen.
• Keep plastic bags for trash. Buying food from conbini, and eating it somewhere? say yes to that plastic bag, because you will need it to stash your garbage until you are back at your hotel where you can throw it away or you find a garbage bin at the train station per chance. I read about this a lot on this subreddit, but still I found it astonishing the lack of trash cans. Fascinating how the streets of Japan are so damn clean.
• Try Pokari sweat. :) I tried it for the first time there and I was hooked immediately. It is awesome! Best electrolyte drink ever and it definitely saved me during those hot sweaty days there. CC lemon is also great!
• Go for a haircut or some other beauty/massage treatment. The hospitality is amazing in Japan. You won't regret getting pampered in Japan. They have all kinds of crazy treatments. I got the best haircut of my life for 4400yen.

Trip report

PS. I am not mentioning everything we did in this post. I will just mention highlights. It is still a long read though ;).
D1 - D2 Osaka
We landed at Kansai airport. Before our trip, we also bought train vouchers for Osaka online (https://www.howto-osaka.com/en/ticket/). Best decision ever, because the journey was rough and we were exhausted by the time we landed. We only had to exchange our vouchers at the station and off we went.
Osaka was nice city to start with as it is a more manageable "smaller" city whilst recovering from our jetlag. Despite being smaller, I do think it is worth a visit. Osaka is so iconic at night. We stayed at a spacious Airbnb near Kuromon Ichiban market.

• Takoyaki :) We had our first try of takoyaki at Takotako King instead of one the places at Dotonbori to avoid the crazy lines. You can sit down, have a beer and yes the takoyaki is amazing. It should be crunchy on the outside and deliciously goeey on the inside, doused with sauces and katsuobushi. Man, I wish I could go back and eat it again. It is true, you can't get great takoyaki outside of Osaka, at least I didn't get that same crunchy gooey combo again in other cities.
• Discount sushi from Takashimaya department store. For the budget-minded, this is a no-brainer. Around 7PM, an hour before closing time, you can get delicious fatty tuna maki at discount prices in the basement of takashimaya. Other foods at the department store food floor such as the fresh mochi are delicious also. Takashimaya is my favorite department store for food I think!
• Osaka castle - Our first castle in Japan. The green roof and the golden ornaments are beautiful and unique!
• Dotonbori - iconic :) fun to walk along. The queues are long there. We avoided eating at Dotonbori.
• Shitenno-ji - beautiful pagoda with buddha statues inside. Do pay the fee to go inside and see the garden. You can also go into the pagoda and walk up.
• Huge fan of Shotengai's, Shinsaibashi-Suji Shopping Street. They are so quintessential Japan.
• Ramen Tendo, the first ramen joint that we tried in Japan, so it has a special place in my heart. They specialize in chicken broth with lots of umami katsuoboshi flavor. Noodles were great too, very bouncy. Delicious! Little did I know that this ramen joint was really one of the best we would have this trip. It set the bar high for sure!
• Visit a local grocery store. Maybe it is just me, but I love to browse at local grocery shops (KOHYO namba Minatomachi) and be fascinated by all the different things they sell. It is also a great place to buy food souvenirs, like miso, green tea etc. Lots of pre-cooked meals/ fried stuff. Just a wider selection than your typical conbini. And again discounts if you go ~1hr before closing time.

Skip Shinsekai: We visited during the day and it felt very empty to me. More like a tourist-trap, the eateries didn't look appealing to me. Maybe during the evening this area is more fun.
D3 Nara
We did Nara as a day-trip from Osaka.

• Yes, to feeding the deer. It is touristy, but it is so much fun to be chased by cookie-crazed deer. One more thing: deer's fart a lot. We were wondering where this weird high pitched sound was coming from, those are actually deer farts.
• Todai-ji is very impressive, definitely a must visit.
• Just wander around in Nara park, it's very lush and beautiful and has many more shrines and interesting sights, such as manyo botanical garden. I wish we had one more day to explore Nara but oh well maybe next time :)
• We ate lunch at Magura Koya, a small restaurant run by a lovely elderly couple. Delicious tuna dishes. I had a tuna sashimi bowl and my partner the fried tuna set meal, so fresh!
• We had the best pork bun at Hourokutei at the end of the Higashimuki shopping street. It's a small hole in the wall, but omg the squishy-est juicy-est porkbuns ever.

D4 Onomichi
After staying in Osaka for 3 days, we headed west for the Shimanami Kaido. We decided to stay in Onomichi (Hotel Beacon Onomichi) for the night before we started our two day bike trip. For this part of our trip, we picked up our 7-day Setouchi area pass at Shin-Osaka JR station. I just want to mention that I really love the hospitality of the staff in Japan. The JR office people were so nice and helpful. We reserved our seats for the shinkansen and off we went to Onomichi. Onomichi is a lovely little seaside town to just stroll around and take in the views. I really recommend spending at least half a day here. Don't skip it!

• Senkoji park observatory - we walked up to the observatory (ropeway available), please walk up as there are lots of nice alleyways, shrines and cats along the way :). The view is amazing, especially at sunset.
• Cat alley: honestly, every alley is cat alley.
• Onomichi Shotengai - very retro, lots of cute shops. We bought a nice poster from a little granny there.

D5 & D6 Shimanami Kaido -> Matsuyama
The next day, we picked up our reserved cross bikes from the general bike rental and off we went. Honestly, biking the shimanami kaido was the highlight of our trip. We took two days to bike the whole way, one day would definitely be too rushed for us. We stopped at Ikuchi island (Shimanaido NEST) for our halfway stay.
The sights along the way were great! It was so much fun to go down-hill, the uphills were do-able. We had great weather also, not too hot and no rain. Everything was clearly indicated, we just followed the blue lines. I felt very safe biking in Japan. PS. My butt did hurt from the saddle, so be warned! Bring some cushioned pants if you want to be safe side.

• First pitstop after the first bridge was Hassakuya. You have to stop here! They have delicious strawberry and citrus daifuku! The citrus had a bitter aftertaste, but they are famous for their citrus so its definitely nice to try.
• Just enjoy the views, stop everywhere to take pictures. There are lots of things to explore along the way.
• Stop at roadside stations such as > tatara shimanami park and yoshiumi iki-iki-kan. Especially before you take on the last bridge just do a little pit stop. It's a nice place to take some pictures of the insanely long bridge and have a citrus/vanilla soft cream.

https://shimanami-cycle.or.jp/ for more info and bike rental
We decided to bike one-way from Onomichi to Imabari and we have no regrets. I liked that we ended the bike trip with the longest bridge (4km!!). Imabari is very industrial, but after the fun long way down from the last bridge and being exhausted from biking you just want to get to the station and stuff yourself with pastries from the bakery at the station and go on to your next destination. Thus, we immediately took the train to Matsuyama. Originally, the plan was to enjoy the famous onsen in Matsuyama, but we didn't have enough time and we were also pretty tired. After checking-in at the hotel, it was already 4, we made our way to Matsuyama castle but unfortunately, we were too late to go in. It was still nice to view it from the outside and walk around the park. We planned to do sightseeing in Hiroshima the next day, so there was no more time to explore Matsuyama further.
D7 Hiroshima -> Miyajima
After Shiminami Kaido, we headed towards Hiroshima/Miyajima. We took an early ferry from Matsuyama. The ferry was included in the setouchi JR pass, so we gladly took advantage of that. It's a nice way to get to Hiroshima, just one last view of the Seto inland sea. One remark: if it is not JR serviced transportation, you do have to obtain separate tickets. Normally, just showing your setouchi JR pass is enough to get onboard the train, but for the ferry you do have to go to the ticket desk and show your JR pass to obtain the ferry tickets.

• Peace memorial museum - a history we must not forget and do not want to repeat
• We tried another Hiroshima speciality for lunch: Hiroshima Tsukemen. This tsukemen is GREAT. One of my favorite dishes. We ate at Tsukemen Karabu Tokaichimachi. The spicy umami dipping sauce is very addicting!

Surprisingly, it was very hard to find affordable good accommodation in Hiroshima. It was the weekend and two weeks before G7, so maybe that was the reason why it was harder to find accommodation. In the end, I found a nice simple hotel on Miyajima island and it was a good decision after all! After a long day in Hiroshima, we made our way to Miyajima to stay two nights. Staying on Miyajima island is lovely especially when all the day-trip tourist leave.
D8 Miyajima
Honestly, Miyajima is truly magical. Another highlight of our trip! We started the day early to get ahead of the crowd and that made it all so much more enjoyable. Seeing shrines and temples without a crowd is truly 1000x better! If you can stay at Miyajima island, do it! You don't have to splurge on expensive ryokan (although it would have been nice). We stayed at Sakuraya, which was very budget-friendly.

• Itsukishima Jinja - Nice but Daishoin and surrounding nature were the highlights for me.
• Daishoin - it is the most beautiful shrine complex I have seen in Japan this trip. I think it's because it was so quaint and it was embedded in the hill, surrounded by lush green nature. There were multiple complexes. There was a pathway studded with Jizo statues, buddist cave, prayer wheels and much more. While we were there, a ceremony with a monk was ongoing and everyone could participate in helping burning the origami peace cranes made by children, to make their wishes come true. We bought a little peace crane made from the ashes to remember this moment.
• Mt. Misen - we hiked up from Dashoin. It was ~2hrs? of steep stair climbing, 500m elevation gain. A challenge for sure but we definitely earned our way going down by ropeway :P. Views are great! go go! There is a bus to the ropeway so you don't have to suffer if you don't want to.
• Momijidani park - If you don't like Momiji trees, you can't be my friend.
• Snack along the Miyajima ometesando street. Crowded, but the cakes are great!

One remark, our hotel didn't include dinner and all the restaurants on the island close quite early. Luckily, with our setouchi JR pass, we could take the ferry for free, so went to the mainland for dinner. Just keep this in mind, when booking your stay.
D9 - D13 Kyoto
We took the early train to Kyoto and checked in at Tokyu stay Sanjo-karasuma. We had 5 days to explore Kyoto and by this time we had lost our FOMO a little bit and also decided to take it a bit more slow. We still ended up walking a lot anyways but at least we were sleeping in.
The day we arrived,15MAY, was supposed to be Aoi matsuri so we headed to Kamo river to see the festival. Unfortunately, the festival was postponed due to the slight rainfall and we had no clue! but we were next to Kyoto botanical garden and we decided to visit that instead!

• Kyoto botanical garden: it is a lovely garden with a huge variety of plants and trees to see. Really well maintained and during our visit there was a great rose garden in bloom. I recommend going there! It has a nice japanese garden section too with momiji trees and moss. A greenhouse with orchids. Lot's to see here. Only 200 yen.
• Arashiyama area - I really loved this area, not just for the bamboo forest. Togetsukyo bridge and Katsura river were the highlights for me. You can walk along the both sides of Katsura riverbank. A nice way to get to the bamboo forest and bypassing the busy beginning at the start of bamboo forest is by walking along the katsura river bank into Kameyama park and following the signs to Okochi sanso garden. You will end up at the backside of bamboo forest, which is the nicest part. We went more north to visit Pottery Tanuki, this area was very nice and quaint to walk around; bamboo, shrines and traditional houses everywhere.
• South kyoto - Fushimi Inari + Uji day trip - We visited fushimi inari around 9am and it was already very busy! If you hike deeper into the Tori gates, it gets more quiet. We decided not to hike to the top, but instead do a little loop and we stumbled upon some lovely fox shrines. After Fushimi Inari, we took the train just a little bit more south to Uji. If you like matcha, visit Uji. It is a scenic little town with lots of matcha specialized cafes. We ate at Torikiku, famous for their matcha soba and udon. I had the best matcha icecream dessert at Nakamura Tokichi Byodo-in. Again, the river views are beautiful! It's a great daytrip from kyoto. On the way back to kyoto, we spontaneously decided to visit the Gekkeikan Sake museum. It's a small museum, mostly about the history of Gekkeikan, but for 500 yen entry fee, you also get 3 small sake tastings. Fun for an hour or so. I wouldn't go all the way here just for the museum, but for us it was a nice stop on the way back to Kyoto.
• Gion - visit Gion in the evening and just wander around the little streets. Hanamikoji street is one of the more famous streets there.
• We ate amazing gyoza lunch at Gyoza-dokoro Sakemasa. Best gyozo of our trip.
• Higashiyama area - Heian jingu shrine, visit the attached garden for a fee, definitely worth it! We ate amazing mazesoba and ramen for lunch at Menya Yamahide. We also visited Kyoto handicraft center in this area where we bought an ukiyo-e painting. There was also a vintage antique market at that day. We just browsed a bit around the market and honestly that was a day worth of exploring :).

I didn't mention everything we did in Kyoto here. We also had so much more planned for Kyoto, but didn't get around to it, which was totally fine! We were also a bit temple-fatigued by that time and needed a slower pace. Hopefully next time, we can visit some of things we skipped. Furthermore, some days were incredibly hot (30 C degrees and humid) or we had whole days of rain. On those days, we decided to go shopping instead.

• Sanjo Meiten-gai shopping arcade , Compasso teramachi. One long shopping street between Omiya and Kyoto-kawaramachi station. My favorite shops were: Standard products, Tokyu hands and Loft.

D14 - D15 Takayama
After spending 5 days in Kyoto, it was time to leave the city and head for the Japanese alps. We took the shinkansen to Nagoya, where we changed to a limited express to Takayama. It took around 3 hours to get to Takayama, but we didn't mind. Train travel = resting time for our legs! Also, the views from the train were great!! I really enjoyed this train trip to Takayama. We arrived around noon and immediately checked in at our hotel (Hotel Kuretakeso Takayama). We had two nights in Takayama to explore the town.

• Hida beef - it's the wagyu of this area and I found my favorite place to eat it: Ajikura Tengoku. We went there twice for lunch, because it was that good. It was our first time in Japan to try yakiniku and sukiyaki. I really do appreciate the taste of wagyu but only in small amounts. I couldn't eat it everyday, because it's really so rich and yes paying for the premium cuts really does make a different in taste and texture of the wagyu beef.
• We really loved Takayama. Again, if you have time, stay overnight and wander around the streets during the evening when all the daytrippers leave. The town has such a nice vibe and it still has a very local feel to it.
• Miyagawa morning market. Fun to stroll around
• Hikaru museum - we stumbled upon this via google maps. It's a mayan temple-inspired building, very unique. You could visit the place just for the architecture itself, really impressive. It has a very nice collection of art. When we reached the top floor, there was a whole exhibition dedicated to a specific religious person. We didn't know beforehand but this museum is connected to a cult. Suddenly, it all made sense why this museum was so unique. We didn't mind, but it definitely puts the whole experience in a different light. It's a 1-hour walk from downtown, there is no direct bus connection unfortunately.
• Hida folk village - Open-air museum with nice re-builds of traditional mountain houses. We spend over half a day there. You can see local craftsmen doing their thing and you can also participate in pottery for example. There is a lovely pond and it is just pleasant to walk around. it's only a ~10 min. busride from Takayama bus station. You can buy combined entryfee+bus combo tickets at the bus station.

D16 Kamikochi -> Matsumoto
After checking out of our hotel in Takayama, we took the 7am bus to Kamikochi. We were only going to spend a day here, and then continue our way to Matsumoto to stay overnight.After ~1 hour of bus, we finally made it to Kamikochi. The Japanese alps are amazing. I wished we stayed longer in this area, but just the bus ride alone to Kamikochi was already a great with the views. We decided to hop off at Taisho pond bus stop and walk along all the major sights in the park. We had no specific plan. Just hike around as far as time allowed. For lunch, we stopped at this cute teishoku restaurant, where we ate katsu curry, a big lunch to fuel our walking. We also saw wild japanese macaques and lots of wildflowers where blooming during our time there.At the local shops, we bought some yummy pastries to snack on. I had the tastiest baumkuchen with cheesecake center and my partner had a chocolate ganache cookie. I really regret not buying more kamikochi pastries to take home while we were there.After spending the day walking around, we hopped on the 4pm bus towards Matsumoto. Checked in at Tabino hotel lit Matsumoto, where I relaxed in the onsen.
Tips:

• We were only carrying backpacks, so we hiked with them until we reached the kamikochi bus terminal, where you can drop off you bag at the storage for a small fee.
• Reservation is mandatory for the bus Kamikochi -> Matsumoto, you can do it online or while you are at the busstation before hiking.
• Transportation in the Japan alps is mostly by bus, do reserve ahead if you go at peak times. Main bus company is Nouhi bus: https://www.nouhibus.co.jp/english/.)

D17 Matsumoto Tokyo
After sleeping in, we did some sightseeing in Matsumoto before we moved on to Tokyo. We really liked wandering around in Matsumoto. Lots of cool shops with local crafts. We didn't know but the biggest national crafts fair is held in Matsumoto. Unfortunately, we were only able to stay for one day, but next time we would love to visit this crafts fair!
Matsumoto Castle - I really like the interior of the castle. It has been renovated, but still contains that castle feel. It is 5 story castle and you are allowed to climb all of it. It also included a pretty extensive gun/weaponry exhibition. Do arrive early because you do have to line-up within the castle to get from one floor to the other. This is due to the steep stairways, on which they allow only one-way traffic at a time.
Matsumoto city art museum - There was a nice exhibition from Yayoi Kusama. We didn't know but Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto. It is a good replacement exhibition if you aren't able to snatch up tickets for Yayoi Kusama museum in Tokyo.
Nakamachi street and Frog street - street with persevered houses with craft shops, cafes, brewerys. What more do you want.
After spending the day in Matsumoto, we took the train to Tokyo, our last destination of our stay. We decided to stay in Ueno (Hotel resol ueno). This hotel was located close to Ueno JR.
D18 - D24 Tokyo
Last 7 days in Tokyo. By this time, we were just enjoying everything at a much slower pace. Tokyo is huge! Staying near the JR line is indeed a must like everyone said. I could go on hours about Tokyo, I am just going to mention some highlights here.

• Anmitsu at Anmitsu Mihashi. My favorite dessert! It contains agar jelly, mochi balls, red bean paste, fruit and a scoop of matcha icecream.
• shopping in Ginza - It's nice to go during the weekends when they close of the streets for cars. We liked visiting flagship stores of Muji, Uniqlo. Go to Itoya if you are a stationary freak.
• Ueno park - Museums, shrines, Lotus pond. Have a look at their website, there are almost always events in the park. :)
• Tsukiji market - very busy, but fun to have a look. Lines everywhere. Look for sushi restaurants that open around 11am, line up at one of those places. I don't think it has to be the one with 4.5 rating and 1000 reviews. Why? There are so many good restaurants in Tsukiji area. We went to Tsukiji Kagura Sushi.
• Hamarikyu gardens - Bonsai pine trees pruned to perfection. Ponds filled with sea water, thus there were seabass, little sardines and jellyfish in the water. Very special! You also had a nice skyline view from the park which is a cool contrast! It was nice and quiet.
• Tokyo Skytree - best view :) it also has a great shopping complex attached to it.
• Asakusa area - Senso-ji
• Yanaka Ginza - we went during the weekend and there was live music, little stalls and just very lively in general. Really nice to spend a morning. Largest preserved cemetery, which apparently welcomes visitors a lot for flower viewings. It is a preserved neighborhood with traditional houses and lots of shops selling crafts, gifts, souvenirs, and unique snacks.

That's it!
For 24 days, we spend around ~2500 euro p.p. (excl. 1000,- flights). This amount includes food, transportation, entrancefees and shopping/gifts. so average is ~100 euro/day. We didn't track every cost. Hotel costs were 900,- pp, which ranged from 50,- to 120,- per night accommodations. The conversion yen/euro is also great at the moment, so it might have contributed!
I hope you enjoyed my trip report. Let me know if there are any questions.

Rodney was awakened by the ringing of his cell phone. He had set a special ring tone for Peter just for that purpose, knowing that when his colleague called, it would not stop ringing until he answered. “Morning, K,” he muttered as he slowly crawled out of bed.
“Rod, you need to get over here right away!” Peter said in a shaky voice. Rodney chuckled absentmindedly, “What did you screw up this time?”
“I just made us rich, that’s what I did!” Rodney’s face straightened, “Are you serious?”
“I’m about to post a Twitlonger, that’s how serious I am, Rod. Now get the fuck over here before I do.”
.
Sami arrived at the research lab early in the morning. She was told that the video department liked to start the days early, but the door seemed to be locked. She tried knocking, but with two coffee cups in each hand, the effort seemed as futile as it was embarrassing. She was about to gently tap her foot on the door when Rodney came around the corner.
“What are you doing?”
Startled, Sami turned around, “Oh! Dr Craig. Er, good morning!”
“Were you just trying to kick the door in? You know we have cameras, right?”
Sami smiled nervously, “No, why would… I was trying to get in-”
Rodney cut her off, “I’m just messing with you. It’s Sami, right?”, Sami answered with a shy nod.
.
As Sami and Rodney came walking through the door, Peter was sitting behind his laptop.
“Finally!” he shouted without taking his eyes off the screen, “Hey Rod, remember those new parameters we talked about last Friday? Guess what!”
“K, this is Sami.”
Peter turned around in his chair and looked at Sami in confusion. “Who is this?”
“I literally just told you. What were you saying about the parameters?”
“I’m the new intern,” Sami interjected with the friendliest voice possible.
Peter smiled, “Oh yeah, you’re the influencer!”
“Yes… Well, no, actually. I used to be a content creator on TikTok, not an influencer. But I guess it’s similar.”
“How did that work out for you?”
Sami alternated between staring at Peter and Rodney with a forced smile before breaking the awkward silence, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Dr. Kaymak.”
“Dr. Kaymak is my wife, call me K,” Peter said with a rehearsed smile and reached out for a conciliatory handshake, but Sami still held the cups.
“Oh, sorry! I brought coffee, where should I…” The two scientists each grabbed a cup from Sami’s hands.
“I’m Rod, by the way,” Rodney muttered in Sami’s direction, “What about the new parameters, K? Did you make any progress?”
Peter turned back to his laptop and gestured at it, “Oh, I made progress, alright! I had the program run through the routine again before leaving last Friday night. It was supposed to create the videos and all the metadata, post them one at a time, and delete them once it had retrieved the analytics data. Only it didn’t do that.”
“So it didn’t work?” Rodney asked impatiently.
“Well let me finish… So far we trained the model on the first four hours of viewing data, so any autonomous adjustments it makes in subsequent runs will be optimized for that time frame. But since you designed the AI to continue training on any data that YouTube feeds back to it, I decided to give the program some leeway. If the AI module determines that there is more relevant data to collect, the process doesn’t automatically stop and the video isn’t deleted.”
“That still sounds like a bug to me.” Rodney interrupted again. Feeling smug, he took a sip of his coffee and jumped abruptly. “This is very cold,” he said to Sami, pointing at his cup.
Sami shook her head nervously, “I waited outside the door for 15 minutes!”
“You could have knocked, I’ve been in here for hours,” Peter said as he typed on his laptop.
Rodney laughed, “Pete, be glad it’s just cold coffee, she almost vandalized our door."
Sami took a nervous sip and winced as well.
Peter looked at her confused for a second before regaining his composure, “Can we focus here? This is big news!”
“Well, so far you’ve only given me your Twitlonger speech. If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear more about the ‘making us rich’ part.”
“Me too,” Sami added confusedly, followed by “Sorry” as she tried to disappear into the background.
Peter inhaled tensely and took another nonchalant look at his screen before turning back to face Rodney. “Well, basically what happened is that we accidentally cracked YouTube’s algorithm. Initially, just one video was uploaded and it went viral immediately. It got 7 million views in 8 hours before our test channel was shut down by YouTube.
.
“You’re joking.” Rodney looked at Peter incredulously.
“I’m not. 63% of the views were from within the US.”
“Holy shit!” Rodney instinctively began to strut around Peter’s desk. “Okay, but that was a coincidence, right?”
“Well, after my program detected that the channel had been terminated, it created a new one and uploaded the second video, which got 49 million views before YouTube killed it again.”
Rodney stared at Peter with a dull face, trying to process the number he just heard.
Peter continued, “Our channels get deleted for spam quite often. I saw the first email notification on Saturday night but didn’t think much of it. Then I got the second one on Sunday morning.”
“Are you telling me that one of our test videos was seen by more people than the super bowl?”
“He doesn’t watch much sports,” Peter laughed, directing his words at Sami. “But yes, a lot of people saw our test video. I had no idea this was even possible. When I saw the emails from YouTube, I figured something about the new parameters must be messing with the anti-spam routine, so I came in on Sunday to fix it. But it wasn’t a spam problem. I think the spike in views must have triggered YouTube’s fraud detection. They probably thought we were using bots to increase the number of views on the videos, which we weren't obviously.
“Huh, that’s new.”
“Yes, exactly. Now get this! When I realized what was happening, I wanted to try to reduce the effectiveness of the program, but adjusting the parameters only reduced the views back to normal, so in that sense, I guess it actually was a fluke. I decided to try switching back to older training data, and that actually helped a lot. Since then, each new video has been getting a steady 140,000 views every two hours before dipping after about 12 hours. The newest channel is still up with several videos. Retention is still pretty abysmal and the comments section is a mess. I guess millions of users were just as confused as we were when they clicked on the thumbnails. But regardless, imagine what someone with real creative talent could do with this kind of exposure. Imagine what they would pay for it!”
Rodney started to walk in small circles again. “Holy shit, K! I mean, if we do this right… if there is a smart way to monetize this, then… holy shit!”
“We did it, Rod. We’re going to make so much money on this,” Peter said, ending Rodney’s train of thought, “But we gotta be really smart about it. YouTube can’t know what we’re up to! Besides-”
“What are the videos about?” Sami asked.
“What?” Peter and Rodney answered in unison.
“I mean, what kind of video gets 50 million views in a few hours? What was it about?”
Surprised by such a badly timed, totally unimportant question, Peter glanced over to an absent-minded Rodney, “Um. I don’t know, I’d have to look it up. But it doesn’t really matter, the parameters can be applied to any topic. We use politics and gaming as our main categories because they tend to get more engagement on YouTube.”
“Wait, you didn’t watch the videos?” Sami wasn’t sure if Peter was just too caught up in the technical side of things, but Peter and Rodney looked at each other completely unfazed.
“Sami, no offense, but given your ‘professional’ background, you of all people should appreciate what we just accomplished. I’ve watched some of the videos. But the point is that this process can be used for any kind of genre with just minor adjustments to the training data.”
“Of course! I think your program is incredible. Um, I’m just a little concerned about the potential damage such a tool could do in the wrong hands. Right?”
Amused by Sami’s unexpected spark of virtue, Peter shrugged. “You mean like in the hands of a social media influencer?”

Hi all,
About a month ago I injured my neck when going up for a header in a football match (soccer, for those across the pond). As I stretched upwards to reach the ball, someone collided into my right shoulder from behind me with force, causing my neck/shoulder to be abruptly and unexpectedly forced forwards and against the upwards momentum that I had from jumping for the header. Side note: The ref of course gave no foul and the game carried on:)
There was a decent level of immediate pain, but I played on for the rest of the match, and for the next day or two the pain wasn't so bad. However, the pain began to increase in intensity and frequency a few days after the initial injury, so much so that even just sitting at my desk was painful enough to warrant the taking of several ibuprofen.
The most painful movements seemed to involve:
- turning my head to the left.
- dropping my right shoulder and tilting my head to the left (a stretch that my physio had showed me about a year before to relieve tightness in my neck and shoulder)
- sleeping on my right shoulder (I typically sleep on my side).
A dull ache also extended from where my neck joined my upper spine, across the upper back and shoulder, and down the upper portion of my arm.
Finally, the muscles in my shouldearm seem less able to harness their power. My right shouldearm seems to only be able to generate about one third to two thirds of the force that my left shouldearm can. Movements where the right arm extends across the body, such as doing a backhand in tennis, are where the right shouldearm is the weakest and can hardly generate any power. Similarly, with overhead press where my left arm can do a full set, my right cannot even lift the weight to the starting position. The biceps and triceps seem to be less badly affected, as I can curl and dip probably two thirds of the weight when compared to my left arm with these muscles/movements.
The good news is that most of the time the neck/shoulder doesn't seem to hurt more during exercise than it does day to day. However, I did hit the gym last night and exercised my back, shoulders and biceps, and I feel like my shoulder is now feeling more painful this morning than it would otherwise be had I not gone to the gym.
I went to see my physio about a week after the initial injury, who gave it a massage and clicked my neck/shoulder a few times. He advised that I could continue with my usual exercise (including lifting weights, playing football and tennis, etc) as normal. He also gave me some stretches to do to relieve the neck and shoulder tightness which had occurred in response to the injury. He said my right shoulder was very tight.
After a few weeks of regular stretching and exercising as normal, the pain seemed to be lessening, in that I was barely having to take any ibuprofen for it. But then last Sunday (about 4 weeks after the initial injury) I played a football match. As the balled was whipped in to the box, I braced myself ready to leap up and header it in. But as I began leaving the ground, someone pushed their hands down into my shoulders/upper back, using me as a launchpad off of which to reach the ball themselves, and so the upwards force of my jump was counteracted by the sudden downwards pressure of their weight on my neck/shoulders.
I heard and felt 3 clicks in my neck/upper back and fell to the floor in quite a bit of pain. No foul was given and I played the rest of the match:)
I haven't been to see the physio since, because this only happened a few days ago, but I'm wondering if the physio is even the best place for me, since I've always regarded physios as being the people to go to for muscle injuries, but to me this has always felt like it's something to do with the upper spine being out of place, and the 3 clicks which I heard when I got the second injury add to that belief. I feel like maybe a chiropractor is what I need, so that they can move some stuff around in my upper spine/neck area. I've felt for a while like my head sits further forward than it used to and that it perhaps needs a professional to force it backwards until it clicks nicely back into place, but I am no expert myself, so I may just be chatting out my arse here.
Anyway, I'm hoping someone here might be able to diagnose what my injury might be, and/or whether it requires any more professional input (be it physio/chiropractor, or someone else), or whether it should get better over time if I continue doing my daily stretches. I'm just worried that even if the pain reduces over time, there may still be some residual weakness or susceptibility in that area, which could cause the injury to reoccur when I go back to playing regular football in two months time, which is why I kind of want a professional to click a few things so that I feel like everything is back in place again and won't just be easily dislodged again the next time I play football.
Thanks to everyone who read to the end, and to anyone who bothers to comment:)

​
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Enjoy your weekend Houston!
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THURSDAY - JUNE 1st

Rocky Horror Picture Show @ Rooftop Cinema Club Uptown @ 7:45PM
Astros vs Angels @ Minute Maid Park @ 7PM *Promotions: Alex Bregman Jump Throw Bobblehead and Coca-Cola Ballpark Bundle.
'Chocolat' Screening @ MFAH @ 7PM This classic 1980s film about the legacy of French colonialism in Africa is shown in new 4K digital restoration.
MusiqaLab @ CAMH @ 6:30PM Free concert by MusiqaLab collective.
Toy Story in Concert @ Woodlands Pavilion @ 8PM The Houston Symphony performs the award-winning score by composer Randy Newman live to the film.
Golden Dawn Arkestra @ Discovery Green @ 7PM / 9PM Virtuosos Golden Dawn Arkestra take listeners on a whirlwind adventure through musical genres and styles.
Matt Mathews Stand Up @ Houston Improv @ 7:30PM / 9:45PM
Ill Nino @ Warehouse Live @ 6:30PM

FRIDAY- JUNE 2nd

Astros vs Angels @ Minute Maid Park @ 7PM *Promotions: Lance McCullers Jr. '90s Throwback Replica Jersey, Pregame Happy Hour, Lou Gehrig Day, Friday Night Fireworks.
Playdate @ MFAH @ 11:30AM Through play and experimentation in programs like MFAH Playdate, toddlers have their first experience with art.
World Trekkers: Philippines @ HMNS @ 7PM Expand your horizons with an evening dedicated to the culture of Philippines- see a traditional dance performance and craft a special inlay box.
Classic Albums Live - The Beatles @ Miller Outdoor Theatre @ 8:30PM The beloved Classic Albums Live partners with the Houston Symphony musicians for an epic performance of the 1967 Beatles album 'Stg. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.'
Jay Wheeler @ Smart Financial Centre @ 8PM
Bryson Tiller @ House of Blues @ 7PM
Randy Rogers Band @ White Oak Music Hall @ 6PM
Dillon Carmichael @ Warehouse Live @ 8PM
Gareth Emery @ Stereo Live @ 10PM
Keeshea Pratt Band @ The Heights Theater @ 8PM
Dolly Parton Dance Party @ White Oak Music Hall @ 9:30PM

SATURDAY- JUNE 3rd

Astros vs Angels @ Minute Maid Park @ 3PM *Promotions: Jeremy Peña Gold Glove Bobblehead and Girls’ Night Out
Dash vs Orlando Pride @ Shell Energy Stadium @ 7:30PM
Double Exposure Portraits @ CAMH @ 2PM In this drop-in activity, visitors can create a digital double exposure portrait inspired by one of current museum exhibitions.
Ongoing - Saturday Stargazing @ George Observatory in Needville
Ongoing - Workouts in the Park @ Discovery Green @ 9AM / 10AM This week, enjoy Hatha Yoga and Tai Chi at the park!
Ongoing - Arte en el Parque / Art in the Park @ Discovery Green @ 12PM Students, ages 3 to 12 will create a unique art piece while improving their speaking and listening skills en español!
'Turning Red' Screening @ Discovery Green @ 7PM / 8:45PM Enjoy this Disney and Pixar movie at Discovery Green's Anheuser-Busch Stage.
Coffee and Cars @ POST @ 9AM Come out and enjoy an amazing display of machines at POST!
Accordion Concert @ Miller Outdoor Theatre @ 7PM Presented by Texas Folklife, this evening concert is a dedicated celebration of the unofficial instrument of Texas - the accordion!
Janet Jackson @ Woodlands Pavilion @ 7:30PM *With Ludacris
Rebelution @ Bayou Music Center @ 6:30PM
RUEL @ House of Blues @ 7PM
Doyle @ Warehouse Live @ 7:30PM
Rhapsody of Fire @ Warehouse Live @ 8PM
shame @ White Oak Music Hall @ 8PM *With Been Stellar
Paul Oakenfold @ Stereo Live @ 10PM
Hoang @ RISE Rooftop @ 10PM

SUNDAY- JUNE 4th

Astros vs Angels @ Minute Maid Park @ 1PM *Promotions: Astros Baseball Clutch, Kids Run the Bases, Yoga Day, and Family Sunday 4-Pack
'Dancing the Twist in Bamako' Screening @ MFAH @ 5PM This is a romantic story set against the backdrop of post-colonial Mali in 1960s on the cusp of dramatic political change.
Sunday Family Studio @ MFAH @ 1PM Spend time exploring the galleries with a teaching artist and then head to the studio to create your own artwork.
J. Worra @ Clé Pool @ 2PM

All Weekend

THURSDAY & FRIDAY - 'Sleeping Beauty' Ballet @ The Grand @ 7PM The classic tale performed by the Galveston Ballet.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY - Houston Palestine Film Festival @ MFAH The MFAH is hosting the opening weekend of the 16th Houston Palestine Film Festival with a trio of internationally acclaimed features.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY - Nimesh Patel Stand Up @ Houston Improv
SATURDAY & SUNDAY -Led Zeppelin Experience @ HMNS @ 5PM The music and lyrics of the classic rock group Led Zeppelin have been visually interpreted using three-dimensional fulldome technology.
All weekend - 'Wicked' Musical @ The Hobby Center A Broadway sensation, this musical looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle.
All weekend - 'Divergence' Ballet @ Brown Theater LAST CHANCE - This mixed repertoire program features Stanton Welch's explosive 'Divergence,' as well as several other exciting new performances.
All weekend - 'Torera' Play @ Alley Theatre LAST CHANCE - A world premiere play written by a stunning new voice in the American theatre, 'Torera' tells a poignant story about becoming your truest self by proudly stepping into the ring

Ongoing events

Ongoing - Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces Exhibition @ MFAH NEW - See outstanding works by art stars including Cezanne, Degas, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Manet, and Modigliani presented within the context of their experiences.
[Ongoing - Si Lewen ‘The Parade’ Exhibition @ Menil] (https://www.menil.org/exhibitions/366-si-lewen-the-parade) Menil’s latest exhibition features 63 drawings by Polish-American artist Si Lewen, which compromise a graphic novel depicting WWII and the liberation of Poland.
Ongoing - ‘Hyperreal: Gray Foy’ Exhibition @ Menil The exhibition features American artists Gray Foy’s most important and celebrated works.
Ongoing - ‘The Curatorial Imagination of Walter Hopps’ Exhibition @ Menil The exhibition explores the influential vision of one of the most distinguished curators - Walter Hopps, and features artwork by Warhol, Kienholz, Gilliam, and many others.
Ongoing - 'Art of the Cameroon Grassfields' Exhibition @ Menil This exhibition celebrates the enduring artistic traditions from Cameroon and its global diaspora.
Ongoing - Wall Drawing Series: Mel Bochner @ Menil Drawing Institute The Menil Drawing Institute is proud to work with artist Mel Bochner on the fourth installment of the museum’s ephemeral wall drawing series.
Ongoing - 'Where Do We Go From here' Exhibition @ CAMH Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s (CAMH) Teen Council presents their 13th biennial exhibition featuring work from Houston-area teen artists.
Ongoing - 'Ming Smith: Feeling the Future' Exhibition @ CAMH NEW - the exhibition explores artist Ming Smith’s unique, multi-layered work in various formats.