I'm a service manager for Albertsons and been working there for a year now and worked for Kroger for 5 years before. I'm about to start a new position in HR for a smaller local company in a few weeks.
I worked my way up from cashier at 16 years old. Therefore, I seen some stuff in my working life in grocery stores over the course of time, and worked with some pretty special figures. Instead of telling you stories about annoying customers like you always see, here's some examples of what workers do that annoy me and probably a lot of others.

• The control freak, power hungry co worker.

These people often are older and expedienced. However they are horrible at something part of their job that prevents them from moving up, like being a team lead. These people don't have boundaries and will often try to run over the people who's actually in charge. Control freaks also just make things harder than they really need to be and often piss off customers with policies that corporate doesn't have anymore or enforce. Sometimes this person will make up stupid policies themselves that tick off the customers and want others to enforce it manager or not.

• The stores designated boot licker

These people are different from control freaks because they don't want power. They just want validation from the store manager. These workers don't mind their own business and will tell on people who are late. Who did what task incorrectly or will take matters in their own hands if the boss isnt there, and call people from o every department who was originally scheduled but was approved the day off in short notice, and ask why they are not at work. There's always someone in every store thats like this . I don't know why but probably wants validation to slack off in the future or make a better work environment in their eyes.
-That one person that works at the customer service desk
These people are unique. They are the face of the store. They have great people skills and loved by customers but are really unliked by coworkers. The reason being is either they don't do anything but stand behind the desk while cashiers need help bagging or they do help out but complain about everything. They often feel entitled to everything from either working for the company for a long time or great secret shopper scores.

• Control freak store manager

Really the same as Control freaks but are managers. They make life hell for everyone. They control every departments schedule. They control the ordering and approve pto themselves. They come in on days off and bark orders at their department heads As managers they are sometimes good, but employees hate life. When they are bad though, they don't care if their decision made the store and company look bad. They just want to be the one who does everything and will pass blame on department heads or the assistant manager. I had a manager who cut my departments hours in half because we didn't sale enough donations boxes and made me the only front end employee for two hours on a Sunday afternoon. My boss was off that day and I wanted to die running register, service desk and SCO during that time before help came in.
-The store manager who only cares about their bonus
These managers are annoying because they look at metrics. That's what some companies care about when grading stores over time. The problem with metrics stores use is the don't matter or show how effectively the store is operating. The store managers get bonuses throughout the year when goals are met. Most managers know they don't have to to anything to get their bonus since their employees do the work. These managers will intimidated their employees to meet these metrics placed on them by corporate usually either by yelling at them or document sub lar standards and write them up. They will go as far as letting people go and bring someone else in. There's much more they do including shady stuff with people's salaries to save on payroll.
-The assistant manager that stepped down from store manager
These people are the same as before but step down to assistant manager. Usually they are older and want a more relaxing ending to their career. However they are stepping down because they were told too and still asked like they are the manager if they get transferred. They will act like the big dog when the manager is off and they are working. From my experience they will be an ass because there egos are boosted when they are to approve anything. This type of manager actually tried writing me up for working unapproved over time even though I was a department manager that covered for a sick employee. Took me another week to get paid too because he denied my timesheet.🙄

• People that ask for about promotions that are open but won't open their 6-2pm Monday-Friday dvisability.

This is mainly younger people but why do want to be promoted but not work times that the position is really needed. If you want to be a supervisor I'm all for it but I can't promote someone that can't or doesn't want to lose their morning shift. This only happened once to me but a lot of drama was caused when I promoted someone over another people one time and my desiding factor was they could work weekends.

• No call no shows

I learned how annoying this is when I became a manager. Just please let you manager know of something happened or quit. Even if you come into work the next day your schedule I usually won't ask for a doctors note or anything if the employee didn't have a habit of not showing up. Life happens and even last minute.

My boyfriend knows I'm posting this, but I need some unbiased advice beecause this situation is actually making me have an existential crisis. Apologies for any grammatical or spelling errors is advance, I'm litteraly going crazy lol.
(Background info)
My boyfriend and I have been together for a little over a year now. We were friends before he confessed his feelings for me and we started dating a year later.
I have a pretty troubled home life. My mother's family have never liked me because my father is black and my mother has always sided with them. This caused me to move out at 18 and I've been on my own since.
I'm not going to pretend I'm not fucked up. I've known I was mentally ill since I was 13 and I put all my effort into getting better. I went ont medication, got therapy and researched the crap out of any self help page or book I could find because I wanted to be normal.
Still, I have my flaws. My biggest one is yelling. My family has always communicated through anger. If my mom was upset growing up she would scream at me for hours about how much she hated me and wished I was dead. It's not right, but I haven't shaked my inability to not yell when I'm overwhelmed.
(Actual Situation)
This all started when my ear got infected last Sunday. I put in a new earing and I guess the person that sold it to me the day before lied about the material it was made out of because I woke up the next morning with my ear swollen.
It hurt so bad that I couldn't even touch my ear without imediatedly bursting into tears. I asked my boyfriend to help me take it out and we ended up in an argument because he yelled at me.
We've been having argument's recently due to the way he used to treat me for eight months of our relationship. He was emotionally unavalible because of a traumatic event from his childhood and while I understood, I never let him think it was okay. I told him I would support him through everything, but I told him that being avoidant to prevent himself getting hurt wasn't healthy. Life is painful and you can't lock yourself away because you're scared someone will hurt you. All you can do is know that you'll be strong enough to keep going even if you do get hurt.
His avoidance took a tool on our relationship. Planning dates was left to me and he ignored me every night so he could play video games with his friends. He never walked me home, asked me to spend time with him or called me beautiful even though he called another girl beautiful infront of me.
I started doubting that he cared for me and no matter how hard I tried to communicate with him he never changed. We ended up having our first big fight where he told me he wanted to break up with me and I snapped. All the patience I had for him left me and for the first time in our relationship I yelled at him.
He apologised and begged me to stay together and things were fine until I found out he was talking to another girl. He had told someone that girls could, " Be is bitch anytime" and siad he would make an effort to start talking to her more. He deleted their entire chat before I could see it and even though he swore up and down they only talked about art, he still broke my trust because he had promised he wasn't going to talk to her because she openly expressed he feelings for him.
All that stuff kept messing with my head and his family didn't help either because they encourage his bs. They think he's God's gift to humanity even though he was unemployed before he met me and I got him his first job. I've been with him every step of the way trying my best to help him, yet in their eyes I'm the bad guy because I made him cry after he litterally cheated on me.
The situation got out of hand because I told him to get out. He doesn't pay rent for out appartment and I was fed up. His family came after he called them but he told them to leave because we would sort it out.
More drama later they came back enen though they told him not to and barged into my appartment. Keep in mind at this point my boyfriend is telling me he doesn't want to go, so I'm freaking the fuck out because his family, who I have explicitly stated are not allowed in my appartment, are grabbing shit and are telling my boyfriend I can't legally do anything to them. At one point I was grabbing my boyfriend's stuff and handing it to him (I was basically shoving it at him) and I guess he dropped them because his sister came running in, shoved her finger in my face and told me not to touch her or her brother.
Like, I litterally had no idea what was going on because my boyfriend is saying he doesn't want to leave but he's doing nothing about his family.
Eventually he tells me the won't leave unless he goes with them so he'll just leave to make them happy and come back tomorrow. He didn't come back the day after and was ignoring my calls. We ended up speaking because I told him that this wasn't healthy and if he was upset he needed to tell me because this was between us and we were the only two people that could solve it. I told him it was fine if he was upset and wanted to end things, but he couldn't just ghost me and them show back up like nothing happened.
He ended up telling me that he told his family he wanted to leave but was too afraid to tell me. This man is 6'1 200lbs but is afriad of his 5'5 140lbs girlfriend? Like, what? I've litterally always given him a listening ear and yeah I've gotten mad when he cheats or is avoidant, but I'd like to think after all the time I've been patient and undersatnding with him he would see that I care yk?
Long story short we went back and forth with me telling him he needs to talk to his family about the boundaries they crossed and about the passive agressive way they treat me and his sister tells him that she doesn't belive it because I'm manipulative and that he was super happy before he met me and that i issolate him from his family. This man has never once said he wanted to go see his family. I've literally bought stuff for his little sister and begged him to go drop it off and he hasn't so this is news to me. The only problem I've had was them showing up with no notice. If he wants to go there, yeah I might be a little sad or upset because our jobs are super demading and we don't get a lot of tome together, but I'm not going to stop him.
And like, I've been making an effort with his family. His mom was begging him for $400 to pay her internet bill and I litteraly gave her $1000. And even though they're passive agressive and ignore me, I still make the effort to showup to family things, So, idk how I'm manipulative and "need to talk to a therapist and get medicated" as she says.
So, yeah. I guess I just needed to vent because i'm genuinly so scared that I'm secretly a master manipulator and I have him here against his will.

1. Install Required Software:
   • Visual Studio: Download and install Visual Studio with C++ development tools.
   • Python: Download and install Python from python.org. Ensure it's added to your PATH.
   • Node.js: Download and install Node.js from nodejs.org.

Step 2: Install MongoDB

1. Download MongoDB:
   • Download MongoDB from mongodb.com.
2. Install MongoDB:
   • Follow the installation instructions and ensure MongoDB is running as a service.
3. Create MongoDB User:
   • Open the MongoDB shell

​

mongo 

Create a database and user: js

use pool db.createUser({user: "pooladmin", pwd: "password", roles: [{ role: "readWrite", db: "pool" }]}) 

Step 3: Install and Configure nodejs-pool

1. Install Git:
   • Download and install Git from git-scm.com.
2. Clone the Pool Repository:sh

​

git clone https://github.com/Snipa22/nodejs-pool.git pool cd pool 

Install Dependencies: sh

npm install 

Configure the Pool:

Copy the example configuration: cp config_example.json config.json 

• Edit config.json:
  • Update dbUri with your MongoDB connection string.
  • Set the wallet to your Monero wallet address.
  • Configure other settings such as pool ports, pool difficulty, and fees.

Step 4: Install and Configure Monero Daemon and Wallet RPC

1. Download Monero CLI:
   • Download the Monero CLI from [getmonero.org]().
2. Extract the Files:
   • Extract the downloaded files to a directory, e.g., C:\monero.
3. Run Monero Daemon:
   • Open a Command Prompt and navigate to the Monero directory: sh

​

cd C:\monero 

Start the daemon:

monerod.exe --detach 

Run Wallet RPC:

• Start the wallet RPC: sh

​

monero-wallet-rpc.exe --wallet-file C:\path\to\your\wallet --rpc-bind-port 18082 --disable-rpc-login --rpc-bind-ip 127.0.0.1 

Step 5: Start the Mining Pool

1. Initialize the Pool:
   • Open a Command Prompt in the pool directory: sh

​

cd path\to\pool 

Initialize the pool: sh

node init.js 

Run the Pool:

• Start the pool: sh

​

node pool.js 

Step 6: Configure and Start Miners

• Configure Miners:
  • Configure your miners to point to your pool's IP address and port.
• Example Miner Configuration for XMRig:
  • Create a .bat file with the following content

​

xmrig.exe -o your-pool-ip:port -u YourMoneroWalletAddress -p x --keepalive 

1. Run Miners:
   • Double-click the .bat file on each rig to start mining.

Step 7: Monitor and Maintain

1. Monitor Pool Performance:
   • Use the pool's web interface to monitor performance and worker statistics.
2. Maintain the Pool:
   • Regularly update the Monero daemon and wallet RPC.
   • Monitor the server logs for any errors and resolve them promptly.

Total Storage Estimate with Pruned Blockchain

• Monero Blockchain (Pruned): 50-60 GB
• MongoDB Database: 10-50 GB (more for larger pools)
• Log Files: 10-20 GB

Overall Storage Requirement: Approximately 70-130 GB for a small to medium-sized pool. Larger pools or those with longer data retention policies will need more storage.

Tips for Managing Storage

1. Monitor Storage Usage: Regularly check disk space usage to ensure you have enough capacity.
2. Log Rotation: Implement log rotation to keep log file sizes manageable.
3. Database Maintenance: Perform regular maintenance on the MongoDB database, such as archiving old data and optimizing the database.
4. Expand Storage as Needed: Be prepared to expand storage as the pool grows and more data is accumulated.

When I was 18 I used to work the overnight shift at a grocery store. Some nights I'd have to work the register which sucked cause I preferred stocking the shelves. I was promised this wouldn't be a constant thing (it was). So one night this dude pulls up to the register with a cart overflowing with groceries. He takes a few looks around and then throws a hundred dollar bill down on the belt and says "this is for you if you turn the other way and let me walk out". Being an 18 year old, super low on weed, and tired of constant mischeduling, I told him to do a lap around the store while I put up a "BRB gotta piss" sign and when he saw the coast was clear he could walk right out. This became a regular thing with him once every 2 weeks or so. We would also get a lot of homeless regulars coming in and after a while I figured if I was letting this dude who clearly made a living (construction worker I think) take what he wants then why am I charging homeless people for food and drinks? So I started letting them do the same, no charge. I had heard that at some point, from people on the day shift, that the management was tight af about the amount of "shrinkage" aka stolen stuff at this particular store, but I honestly am not sure how much of that is directly because of me. If I'm being honest though, if I had to work a retail job again I would probably do the same exact thing. I just cannot be convinced that these stores need all that profit more than people in my community need food and water. I definitely benefited from it, cause I was getting paid shit and an extra $100 every 2 weeks was the initial incentive but as I've gotten older I genuinely feel good about what I did, I really have a hard time finding what's bad about that situation.

Hello plant lovers. I got this as a gift just over a year ago. At that time it had very large leaves and was blooming with yellow flowers. The flowers stuck around all summer it seemed like. I live in the PNW so I kept it outside during the warm months and brought it in for the winter.
How do I take care of this thing? It hasn’t bloomed and the leaves seem pretty healthy, just not large like they were last year. I know I need to trim off the dead ones!
Thanks in advance. I am not a green thumb.

{UPDATED} Rare Heirloom Cannabis Seeds for Sale - NY
Hey everyone! I was pleased by the overwhelming interest I got in my collection, as someone who has a passion for building soil and hunting beans for unique phenos the last 15 years. I am glad how many people appreciate true one of kind heirloom genetics!
Why am I getting rid of them? Simply put - I am trying to go the legit route and this state is making it beyond difficult. I need to recoup and regroup. Any support is much appreciated. I’ve waited my whole life for this.
Pricing - I updated below. Much of my collection is very hard to find one of kind stuff that is highly sought after. No random pollen chucking, true bred stabilized genomes. There’s a lot of history in that list as well if you’re someone who understands the genomics of the plant. You’ll see breeder, where they’re out of, the strain name, the cross and a little bit of history / description on some of it. Some very very special stuff. Pricing is either what I paid for it or a little more if it’s something special that’s not easy to find or not being bred anymore.
*Each strain is in original packaging stored in a curidor at a steady 52 degrees, no light, no humidity. I find this is the best way to store beans for long term storage and guaranteed high germination rates. I usually get 97-100% germ rate with my germination method which I will include on a printed out sheet for anyone who grabs any of my offerings. I want you to succeed and find something special - I cherish my collection and sad to see a lot of it go but you gotta do what you gotta do. I’d really like to see this stuff go to growers who care about the plant and preserving the uniqueness to it for years to come. Hope all of this helps
Here is the full list:
coasttocoastgenetics@gmail.com (get in touch)
{Regs}

~ Oni Seed Co (Maine) ~ 

Tropicanna Cookies F2 - Girl Scout Cookies x Tangie (multiple award winner) [R] 250 ~ Elev8 Seeds (Seattle, Washington) Tangerine Cookies - Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies x Tangie [R] 120

~ Mountain Organics ~ 

Cosmic Lotus - Gonzo x TOVR (Thai, Afghan, Haze, Northern Lights) [R] 120 Maya - Acapulco Gold x Lotus [R] 120 Gold Rush - Colombian Gold x Lotus [R] 120 The One BC1 - 1976 Highland Thai x 1971 Kandahar Afghani [R] {Clackamus Coot} 150 {See Mountain Organics Genetics PDF (now MOB seeds) for more info on genetic lineages.} ~ MOB seeds (Mountain Organics) ~ Psyche - The One BC1 x The One BC1 (Afghani Hybrid) [R] 120 Eros - The One BC1 x The One BC1 (Thai Hybrid) [R] 120 The One BC2 - The One x The One BC1 [R] 120 Morpho (Blue Lotus F2) - Blue Gonzo x Lotus [R] 120 Blue Gonzo BC1 - Blue Gonzo x Blue Lotus [R] 120 {Blue Gonzo - The One x (Nevilles Haze x NL5) (blue pheno)}

~ Symbiotic Genetics / The Village (Sacramento, California) ~ 

Mimosa - Clementine x Purple Punch F2 [R] (multiple award winner) 200 Banana Punch - Banana OG x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Cherry Punch - Cherry AK47 x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Wedding Crashers - Wedding Cake x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Orangeade - Tangie x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Big Block - Motorbreath 15 x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 {Purple Punch lineage - Larry OG x Granddaddy Purple}

~ Exotic Genetix - EG Mike (Washington) ~ 

{Over 50x Cannabis Cup Awards since 2008} Tina F2 - (Tina x Tina) Constantine x Triple OG [R] (multiple award winner) 200 Paradise Circus - Tropicanna Cookies x Tina [R] 200 Cookies & Creme - Mystery Cookies x Starfighter F2 [R] (multiple award winner) 250 Big Smooth - OG Blueberry x Cookies & Creme [R] 200 Scoops - (Gelato x Tina) x Cookies & Creme F2 [R] 200 Strawberries & Creme F2 - Strawberry x Cookies & Creme F2 [R] 250

~ Dying Breed Seeds - Shiloh Massive (Mendocino, California) ~ 

California Black Rozé - Rozé x OG eddy [R] 350 Red Rozé - Rozé x Adonai [R] 350 Sour Zkittlez - Zkittlez x Candy Zkittlez #3 x Adonai [R] 400 Watermelon Zkittlez - Watermelon Zum Zum #3 x OG Eddy [R] 400 {Zkittlez - Grape Ape x Grapefruit} {Adonai - (Russian Kush (LA Cut) x Silver Tooth (Super Silver Haze x Train Wreck)) x Sweet Tooth}

~ Humboldt Seed Company (Humboldt County, California) ~ 

Blueberry Muffin F5 - Purple Panty Dropper x Razzle Berry [R] 100 Purple Mountain Majesty F3 - Purple Train Wreck x Train Wreck x Blueberry Muffin [R] 100 Amethyst F3 - Purple Panty Dropper x Blueberry Muffin [R] 100 Mango Sherbert F3 - Mango Trees x Mango Kush x Sherbert [R] 100 {2018/2019 HSC Phenotype mega hunt - Best 0.1% selected out of 10k plants} Mango Trees F5 - Mango Kush x Humboldt OG x Jack Herer [R] 100 Banana Mango F3 - Mango Trees x Banana OG x Blueberry Muffin [R] 100 Magic Melon F3 - Mango Trees x Honeydew Melon x Mango Sherbert [R] 100 Pineapple Upside Down Cake F3 - PUDC BX3 x Pineapple Train Wreck x Cookie Monster [R] 100 {2019/2020 HSC Phenotype mega hunt - Best 0.1% selected out of 10k plants} Very Cherry - Old Timer Seed x Lemon Kush Bx3 [R] 100 Vanilla Frosting - Humboldt Frost OG x Humboldt Gelato Bx3 [R] 100

~ Gage Green Group (Detroit, Michigan) ~ 

Grateful Breath F2 - OGKB (OG Kush Breath) x Joseph OG [R] 400 5th Dimension - Out Of Body Experience x Synchronicity [R] 300 Guiding Light - Out Of Body Experience x Breathwork [R] 300 Luna Golden - High School Sweetheart 2 x Synchronicity [R] 300 Mo Lune Day - Motorbreath 15 x Breathwork [R] 300 {Out of Body Experience - (Skywalker OG x Grateful Breath) x Grateful Breath F2} {Synchronicity - Irene x Grateful Breath} {Breathwork - Mendobreath x Grateful Breath} {High School Sweet Heart - Cherry Pie Kush x Grateful Breath}

~ Dominion Seed Co - Duke Diamond (Virginia) ~ 

Stash Plant - The Puck (Skelly Hashplant) x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Munson - Northern Lights #5 x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Kough Drop - Strawberry Afghani x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Free Bird - Headband x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Shine Apple - Virginia Beach Afghani x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Pine Bomb - Sensi Durban Poison x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 {Screaming Eagle lineage - Airborne g13 x (88 g13 Hashplant x Kandahar Afghani)} Granny Skunk - Virginia Beach Afghani x (Skelly Hashplant x SSSC Skunk #1) [R] 200 Local Skunk - Original Diesel x (Cuddlefish HP x Sour Diesel IBL) x (Skelly Hashplant x SSSC Skunk1) [R] 200 Sis Skunk - Chem Sister x (Skelly Hashplant x SSSC Skunk1) [R] 200

~ Lucky Dog Seed Co - SkunkVA (Virginia) ~ 

{Holder, Preserver, Sharer of the most elite / influential Chemdog cuts in existence.} Dog Patch - Chemdog 91 Bx2 x Chemdog D [R] 150 Hunza Valley 91 - Skelly Hashplant x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 Road D.O.G. - Crossroad Chem x Chemdog 91 Bx2 [R] 150 Chem Fuego - Sour Band (Sour Diesel x Headband) x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 Double Krush - Chem Krush x Chemdog 91 Bx2 [R] 150 Guerilla Fume - Silver Chem (Silverback OG x Chemdog 91) x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 Bohemian Highway - Occidental Kush x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 SkunkVA Chemdog 91 S1 - Chemdog 91 x Chemdog 91 [F] {Crossroad Chem - Chemdog 91 x SFV OG Kush Bx2 (Chem pheno)} {Chem Krush - Chemdog 91 x SFV OG Kush Bx2 (Kush pheno)} {Chemdog 91 lineage - Nepalese x Thai Landraces} Chemdog 91 is considered to be “the godfather” in cannabis genetics and has paved the way for some of the most popular strains in history such as Sour Diesel and OG Kush. Chemdog lineage can be found in most modern day hybrid genetics and these crosses are from there original seed stock - Original Skunk VA Chemdog 91 S1 gifted to me by Headies Gardens. Friend & Distributor of Skunk VA genetics Lucky Dog Seed Co.}

~ Green Bodhi (Eugene, Oregon) ~ 

{Intentional Horticultural ~ Mexican ~ Thai ~ Afghani} Hazy Kush - Hazy Kush x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] (extremely unique genotype in Phylos Galaxy) 120 Hazy Dog - Dog Walker OG x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy Star - Stardawg x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy Sour - Sour OG x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy OG - OG Kush x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy Ghost - Ghost OG x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Sour 78 (Tenzin Kush) - Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG [R] (extremely unique genotype) 200 Dog Walker 78 - Dog Walker OG x (Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG) [R] 150 Kosher 78 - Kosher Kush x (Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG) [R] 150 SBSE 78 - Sour Best Shit Ever x (Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG) [R] 150 Ancient Tenzin #2 - Tenzin Kush #2 x Ancient OG (72 Iranian x Snow Lotus) [R] 200 Ancient Tenzin #4 - Tenzin Kush #4 x Ancient OG (72 Iranian x Snow Lotus) [R] 200 {Hazy Kush lineage - Golden Pineapple x ((Trainwreck x Purple Affie) x (OG Kush x SAGE))}

~ Old World Genetics - DJ Short (Eugene, Oregon) ~ 

Newberry F5 - Blue Heaven F4 x DJ Short Blueberry F4 Male [R] 300 Velvet Krush F5 - FXW #4 Mother x DJ Short Blueberry F4 Male [R] 300 Blueberry F5 - Highland Thai x Afghani Indica [R] (first place indica cannabis cup 2000) 150 {Blueberry seeds are F4-F5 selectively bred from pure Landrace P1s since the 1970s. The mother for DJ Shorts Blueberry is over 20 years old - Selected in 1998 and rereleased in 2004.}

~ Dynasty Genetics - Professor P (Portland, Oregon) ~ 

Oregon Huckleberry IBL - Oregon Huckleberry F4 x Oregon Huckleberry Bx3 [R] 150 Mt. Hood Huckleberry F4 - Mt. Hood Huckleberry F3 x Mt. Hood Huckleberry F3 [R] 150 Huckleberry Kush V5 - Oregon Afghani x Oregon Huckleberry [R] 150 Crater Lake V6 - Super Silver Haze F2 x Oregon Huckleberry [R] 120 Alpenglow - Cherry Vanilla Cookies x Oregon Huckleberry 2017 #5 [R] 120 Blue Magoo Bx2 - Blue Magoo x Blue Heron #111 [R] 120 Salmon River OG - Pre 98 Bubba x Blue Heron #111 [R] 120 Birds Of Paradise - Kali Snapple x Blue Heron #111 [R] 120 Starduster - Pre-99 East Coast Sour Diesel x Ms. Universe (clone) [R] 120 {Kali Snapple - (Snowbud x Pineapple) x Kali Mist (Pre 2000)} {Ms. Universe - Dess*tar (Starship x Kali Mist) Mother x Space Queen F3 Farther} {Oregon Huckleberry - Oregon Blueberry (Blueberry X Temple Flo) X Morning Glory (Hawaiian x Afghani x Shiva Skunk)} {Blue Magoo - Oregon Blueberry F4 x Williams Wonder F2} {Blue Heron - Blue Magoo x Blue Magoo / Huckleberry}

~ Relic Seeds - Professor P (Portland, Oregon) ~ 

{Preservation of Rare Heirloom ~ Landrace ~ Unique CBD Varieties} Relic Grapefruit - Grapefruit IBL x Grapefruit F2 [R] 140 Durban Grapefruit - Durban Poison x Grapefruit F2 [R] 140

~ Massive Seeds (Rogue Valley Terroir, Southern Oregon) ~ 

{Bred, Grown and Harvested outdoor at 42.0 Latitude (Same Latitude as mid Hudson Valley) Some of the largest growing / biggest yielding plants on record with massive uniform nugs.} Pineapple Pomegranate F3 - Pomegranate x Applegate Hornblower [R] 140 Durban Pomegranate F2 - Durban Poison x Pineapple Pomegranate F3 [R] 140 Black Pomegranate - Pineapple Pomegranate F3 x South African Landrace [R] 140 Rogue Valley Wreck - Big Wreck x Blueberry Snow [R] 120 Summer Sunset OG - Purple Hindu Kush x Lemon Larry OG [R] 120 Mint Sunset - Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies x Summer Sunset OG [R] 120 Purple Lemon Chem - Chem 91 x Summer Sunset OG [R] 120 Snow Skunk - Yuki Dog x Purple Lemon Chem [R] 120 Chem541 - Chem91 Bx1 x (Chem91 x Session Sour Diesel BX1) [R] 120 {Pomegranate - Shishkaberry x Blueberry x Oregon Snow x Lemon Pineapple} {Applegate Hornblower (Pineapple Trainwreck) - Mexican x Thai x Afghani}

~ Freeborn Selections - Mene Gene (Mendacino, California) ~ 

Piña F4 - Super Silver Haze x ((Dirt x Bigbud) x (Dirt x Purp) [R] 300 Sky Cuddler Kush F3 - PK x (Skywalker OG x (PK x (Hindu x Big Red) [R] 300 Lime Pop Kush F3 - OG x (PK x Black Lime) [R] 300 Cherry West Bx - Cherry West x (Cherry West x Cherry Limeade) [R] 300 {Thoroughly worked lines over at least 3-4 generations before released to the public.} {(Dirt x Bigbud) x (Dirt x Purp) and (Big Red) are 80s Afghani lines from Santa Cruz.} Black Lime Reserve F2 {Eclectic Elegance Preservation} - Northern Lights x Purple Kush x Chemdog Special Reserve [R]

~ Emerald Mountain Legacy - Mandelbrot Brothers Family Heirlooms {Ras Truth} ~ 

Royal Kush IX (Bx10) - (Sour Diesel x Highland Afghani) x Southern Humboldt Purple Kush [R] 350 Oil Spill (Bx5) - XXX OG x Royal Kush 7 [R] 300 Royal Spill - (XXX OG x Royal Kush 7) x Royal Kush 8 [R] 300 The Real Rozé - (Zkittlez x Royal Kush 7) x Royal Kush 8 [R] 300 Royal Limez - (Zkittlez x Black Lime Reserve) x Royal Kush 8 [R] 300 Royal Maui Berry - Diesel Maui Dawg x Blackberry Kush x Royal Kush 9 [R] 250 {Royal Kush genome is one of the most sought after stabilized / homogenized IBLs in existence from the heart of the Emerald Triangle in Northern California.}

~ Karma Genetics (Holland) ~ 

Biker Kush (Ha-OG Bx2) - Ha OG x Biker Kush V1 [R] 150 Sour Power OG - Sour Power (cup winning cut) x Biker Kush V1 [R] 150 Tha Melon - Melon x Biker Kush V1 [R] 150 Karma Sour Diesel Bx2 - Rez Sour D x (Rez Sour D x (Rez Sour D x Biker Kush v2)) [R] 350 Headbanger - Rez Sour D (KG cut) x Biker Kush V1 [R] {2013 Amsterdam Cannabis Cup 1st} 300 Josh D OG - SFV OG x Triangle Kush x Hells Angels OG [R] 300 {Real OG Kush Story - Josh D & Matt “Bubba” Berger began developing these genetics in Orlando, Florida back in 1991.} {Biker Kush v2 - Ha OG x (Ha OG x (Ha OG x SFV OG Bx2))} (cup winning genetics) {Sour Power - Starbud x East Coast Sour Diesel} (cup winning genetics) {Sour Diesel used in Karma Sour crosses is a KG cut of a Rez Sour D IBL selected in 2007}

~ Surfr Seeds (Pacific Northwest) 

Citrus Tsunami - Tropicana Cookies x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 Island Zkittlez - Sour Strawberry x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 North Shore - Mendo Purps x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 Endless Summer - Purple Punch x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 So Pitted - MAC1 x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100

~ Pacific North West Roots - Ras Kaya Paul (Washington) ~ 

Koffee F5 - Alien OG x Alien Kush {Rare Pacific Northwest Roots Hierloom IBL} [R] 300 Black Koffee - Black Dog Kush Bx4 x Koffee F5 [R] 300 Koffee & Donuts - Glazed Cherries F4 x Koffee F5 [R] 300

~ Green Source Gardens (Southern Oregon Heirlooms) ~ 

Pinkleberry Kush F5 {Mendacino Blackberry Kush Hierloom IBL} [R]

~ HBK Genetics ~ 

Chile Verde - Key Lime Pie x Lavender [R] 300 {Emerald Cup 2018 Winner - Best Personal Use} {Key Lime Pie - Durban Poison x Cherry OG x OG Kush} {Lavender - Super Skunk x Big Skunk Korean x Afghani Hawaiian}

~ Alien Genetics ~ 

Sour Apple IX (IBL) - Sour Apple IBL x Sour Apple IBL [R] 350

~ Mos_Cutty ~ 

Cherry AK 47 IBL (Original Serious Seeds stock) 250 {AK47 - Colombian x Mexican x Thai x Afghani} [R]

~ Motherlode Gardens (Yosemite, California) ~ 

Ancient OG F5 - 1972 Iranian Landrace x Snow Lotus {Bodhi Seeds Hierloom IBL} [R] 200

~ Twenty20 Genetics (Mendacino, California) ~ 

SFV OG Bx5 (SFV OG IBL) - San Fernando Valley OG Kush [R] 150

~ Elev8 Seeds (Seattle, Washington) 

Bruce Banner OG - OG Kush (Ghost Cut) x Strawberry Diesel [R] 140

~ Jaws Genetics ~ 

Fruity Pebbles OG IC1 - Fruity Pebbles OG F2 x Fruity Pebbles OG F1 [R] 200

~ OrgnKid / Zoolander ~ 

Banana OG F3 - OG Kush x Sagmartha strain [R] {Original Seed Stock} 200

~ GG Strains (Las Vegas, Nevada - RIP Joesy Whales) ~ 

Gorilla Glue #4 IBL (Original Glue) - GG4 x GG4 Bx6 [R] 300 {Original Seed Stock of Michigan / Los Angeles High Times Cannabis Cup Winner 2014 and High Times Jamaican World Cup Winner.}

~ FYG Tree (Santa Cruz, CA) ~ 

Black Rose F13 (Heath Robinson IBL) - Black Russian x Shiva Skunk (purple pheno) [R] 200 Shiva Skunk Bx - Shiva Skunk x Black Rose F12 [R]

~ AK Bean Brains (Anchorage, Alaska breeder and old school genetic preservationist holding beans & cuts for over 30 years from original Dutch Seedbank stocks.) ~ 

N L #1 x N L #5 [R] 100 TK/NL5 Haze - Triangle Kush x Northern Lights #5 [R] 100 (Northern Lights #1 x Big Skunk) x Northern Lights #1 [R] 100 (Big Skunk x Northern Lights #1) x Super Skunk [R] 100 95 Black Domina - Northern Lights x Ortega x Hash Plant x Afghani [R] 100 Black Domina Bx (Black Domina x Pacific Northwest Hash Plant) x Northern Lights #1 [R] 100 (Black Domina x Matanuska Thunder Fuck) x Northern Lights #1 [R] 100 Matanuska Thunder Fuck Bx3 - Alaska Thunder Grape x Dutch Thunder Fuck [R] 100 {Northern Lights was brought to Neville Schoenmakers in the Netherlands in 1985, where he worked the line before releasing it under “The Seed Bank of Holland” ~ NL #5 became the High Times Cannabis Cup Winner in 1989, 1990 and 1992 and is considered one of the most influential strains of all time. These seeds have been preserved in Alaska since the late 80s.}

~ The Nature Farm (Real NorCal Culture) ~ 

Cheddar Skunk V2 - 89’ UK Cheese (Exodus Cut) x Uncle Festers Skunk #18 IBL [R] 100 Hidden Hills Skunk - 94’ SFV OG x Uncle Festers Skunk #18 IBL [R] 100 Uncle Festers Skunk #18 IBL aka Skunkbud - Afghani Indica x Mexican Sativa (64’ Brick Weed) x Colombian Gold & Red [R] 100 {Original Hells Angels strain bred in 1964 by “Uncle Fester” an early 60’s psychologist turned outlaw. Authentic Original Skunk #1 lineage that is pre Skunkman. Preserved / held by family in Northern California over 3 generations.}

~ Doc D Seeds ~ 

Bandaid Haze ix 3.0 (Piff) - Cuban Black Haze x A5/Thai [R] 200 (2 packs) {These seeds originally came from a Spanish grower in the “A5 crew” out of Southern Holland. “A5” was short for their NL#5 x Haze A open Thai pollination project. These seeds were shared with legendary grower Bodhi, who found one male and used it to pollinate a cut of “Cuban Black Haze” that he had. The strain was referred to as “Piff” and the seeds were shared almost exclusively with Doc D. After running the seeds, Doc selected “Piff #7” and shared the cut back with Bodhi who further worked the line. The cut was a significantly better long flowering haze variety with a shorter flowering time than the Cuban Black Haze mother or A5 father. Bodhi then later referred to the strain as “Bandaid Haze” coining the term because he said “it heals all wounds” This genome has direct lineage to the New York Hazes (NYC Piff / Uptown Piff / Washington Heights Haze) of the 2000s without any of the paranoia/anxiety that came from many of the hazes from that era. Many world renowned breeders agree that most of the “New York Haze” and “New York City Piff” varieties are all just different cuts of the same strain, that most likely comes from an early selection of Neville Schoenmakers (NL#5 x Haze) which is often referred to as the “pinnacle of cannabis breeding” that has dominated cannabis scene from the 1980s in Holland to the present day.}
{Fems}

~ Mass Medical Strains (Massachusetts) ~ 

Star Pupil - Purple Thai x Afghan/Pakistan [F] 150 {High Times Flower of Month - Jan. 2017} Pu Tang - Star Pupil x Tangie [F] {High Times Top 10 Strains of 2019} 150 Grape Pupil - Pu Tang x Star Pupil [F] 150 Triangle Pupil - Triangle Kush x Star Pupil [F] 150 Bubba Pupil - Pre-98 Bubba Kush (Katsu Bluebird) x Star Pupil [F] 150 Nepali Blue - Nepalese White Mountain Charas Sativa Heirloom x Blue Magoo Bx2 [R] 200

~ Compound Genetics (Portland, Oregon) ~ 

Gelateria - Acai Berry Gelato x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 Liquid Imagination - Blue Zkittlez x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 Icicles - White Sherbet x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 Petrol Rainbows - Sour Gelato 5 x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 The Menthol S1 - The Menthol x The Menthol [F] 150 {Jet Fuel Gelato - Gelato 45 x (High Octane OG x Jet Fuel G6)} {The Menthol - Gelato 45 x (White Diesel x (High Octane x Jet Fuel G6))}

~ Phinest Cannabis (Sacramento, California) x Cannarado (Colorado) ~ 

PB Souffle - Dosidos x Lava Cake [F] 150 Lava Breath - Mendobreath F3 x Lava Cake [F] 150 Magma Cookies - Cuvee Cookies x Lava Cake [F] 150 {Lava Cake - Grape Pie x Thin Min Girl Scout Cookies} {First major genetic line released to public that was created from tissue culture / micropropagation - RIP Jai Malloy (founder of Phinest Cannabis)}

I (43F) am getting married in October. I’ve been NC with nDad and eStepMom for almost two years. It has been glorious. Except for having to heavily stamp out them trying to send gifts to my daughter (11yo) there has been zero contact.
They have met my fiance (52M) three times total in 6.5 years. They cannot remember the names of his children, despite a big show of presents for them at one Christmas.
I am terrified that they are going to show up and cause a scene. I don’t even know if they know I’m getting married (again). My first wedding was 80% paid for by them and they made it a gigantic show about how much money they supposedly had. It was obvious and stupid.
My older sister (the GC) is still in contact with them. I do not believe that she or her wife will share information about things.
My younger sister is my half sister and has never met our dad. Hell, I just met her in 2022. She and her mom (my dad’s ex) will be at the wedding.
I have a friend who is on tap to be the vigilant bouncer if he shows up.
Anyone else ever been in this ridiculous of a situation?

38 may seem quite young to some of you, or it may seem really old to some of you...either way, I am not trying to be ageist by putting my age in the title, it is just a factor for me in my question.
I work in a management position and I earn well, but I have been quite stressed in my role for years now. It has become even worse since I became a mum, as I often work at home after a full day. I feel I am missing out a lot on my time with my child and husband. I don't think I am fulfilling my job to the best of my ability given the time I need to give in order to be really good at my job, and I am honestly not fulfilling my role as a parent as I am not always 'present' for my child and he has more 'packaged' than fresh meals than I care to comment on! I feel inadequate in two major areas of my life, and although my husband is terrific and we have a wonderful relationship, I do worry my stress and inability to balance my time will also affect my marriage...I am thinking about swapping jobs/industries, likely taking a massive pay cut, starting from the bottom...etc., but on the other hand possibly being less stressed due to work, and being a better parent and partner...I don't know what to do. Its a risk, and being the age I am, and a parent with all the financial responsibilities that comes with, I am wondering if I am imagining the grass is greener, or if my feelings about my current employment are legitimate and I need to make a change before my mental health becomes worse.
Any advice is welcome

Disclaimer: I do not speak Korean. This is purely translated by machine with a lot of cleanup afterward. With that in mind, I am open to criticism to improve these translations. Enjoy!
​
Chapter 424
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Kwaaaaah!
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Engulfed in searing blue flames, the vortex devoured everything in its path,
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Buildings crumbled - their concrete skeletons exposed and steel frames twisted grotesquely. The ground was littered with the scattered bodies of humans and monsters alike, casualties of the relentless destruction.
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The ultra-high heat obliterated nearly everything, reducing it all to ash and molten remnants.
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Except for one.
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- Blink.
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Everything but him.
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Beep.
​
​
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- Skill, [One Strike] has been activated!
​
- [Qi] has been completely exhausted!
​
- Everything comes with a price. Despite serious injuries, you have overexerted your power.
​
- Status abnormality, [Exhaustion] has been applied!
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- [Strength], [Stamina], [Agility] have temporarily plummeted!
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​
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My strength ebbed away, leaving me hollow. The alerts from the System rang incessantly in my ears, while the distant cries of the Skeleton Warlord in my inventory faded to mere whispers.
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My body felt leaden, as though submerged in icy water. In the frigid solitude of my mind, one thought spun relentlessly:
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'This was my last chance.'
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Why hadn’t I seen it coming? Why hadn’t I guessed?
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The Arch Lich had warned me; he had been observing me through his network of familiars scattered across the battlefield.
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I should have suspected he'd seen my earlier uses of [One Strike] on the Liches and Death Knights.
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I should have questioned it, even without certainty.
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‘Idiot.’
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A laugh, bitter and mocking, broke from my lips. I had promised myself never to let down my guard, yet here I was, caught in the most critical of errors.
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The lack of options was no excuse. In battle, it is the outcome that counts, not the intent. This was the bitter fruit of my negligence.
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Thud!
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The iron bar I clutched fell from my weakening grasp, clanging loudly as it hit the ground. My legs buckled, forcing me to kneel.
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Head bowed, I was enveloped by a suffocating darkness.
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- You, human. How does it feel to pay the price for your reckless courage?
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Struggling to lift my head, I locked eyes with his fiery red gaze. A hoarse whisper clawed its way through my parched throat.
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"Of course it feels shitty, you damn bastard."
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- It was a fearsome strike. I'll give you that much praise.
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The Arch Lich’s voice dripped with triumph.
​
Despite his use of teleportation magic, he couldn’t entirely evade One Strike, resulting in the loss of his left arm. Yet, there he stood, a grim victor amidst the chaos of the battlefield.
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His eyes, a sinister red, gleamed with a cruel joy as he gazed down at me, kneeling like a penitent sinner.
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- I waited until the end. Despite the humiliation suffered at the hands of a human, I endured and persevered. And finally... this body claims victory.
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His cunning was undeniable.
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As I had feared, he had been anticipating One Strike from the outset.
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Previously, I had obliterated Liches and Death Knights with One Strike, replenishing my stamina through leveling up, but he had keenly observed the moment I depleted all my strength.
​
- Do you understand now? This is your limit - the limit of a human.
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Limit.
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That word burrowed deeply into my chest.
​
Despite all my struggles, the label of F-rank haunted me. It was a limit I had strived to surpass every day since acquiring the System.
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'Is this really the end?'
​
I had fought desperately, for myself and for those I loved, pushing through peril after peril. This was my life: a relentless challenge of transcending my own boundaries.
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"It's not over... not yet."
​
The words fell from my lips, hollow and lifeless, as if spoken by another.
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My vision blurred as I raised my eyes to meet the Arch Lich’s gaze.
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- What?
​
"It's not over yet."
​
A battle to the death concludes only when one side falls and the other stands victorious.
​
Until then, the struggle persists.
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As death loomed close, I whispered to myself.
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'Inventory open. Summon.'
​
I thought I had secured one of the spears from my inventory in my grasp.
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But then, I dropped it.
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Clang!
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In that moment, I realized my strength had waned too far to wield a spear, let alone swing it.
​
- Hahahaha!
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The Arch Lich’s laughter was grotesque, reveling in my plight.
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Yet, surrender was not an option for me. I would not, could not give up.
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'Open Inventory. Summon.'
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Weapon after weapon appeared in my hands.
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Thud!
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And one by one, I dropped them.
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'Open Inventory. Summon.'
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Thud!
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- Oh, you foolish, stupid human!
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The Arch Lich's mockery rang out.
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Yet I persisted, undeterred.
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Is it courageous to humbly accept one's end? If that is courage, then label me a coward.
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I must survive — I believed this was the highest respect I could pay to the life I had fought so hard to live.
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'Open Inventory. Summon.'
​
It was at that very moment.
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Ding.
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​
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- [Endurance] greatly increases.
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- The attribute, [Endurance], transforms into [Will]!
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- Those with strong will are not easily broken; they do not fall. They will fight with all their might until the very end.
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- A strong will, at times, can give you the power to overcome your limits!
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- Special effect, [Indomitable], has been activated. Temporarily, all attributes slightly increase, and fatigue is reduced!
​
​
​
A surge of warmth spread through my core, faint yet fiercer than any force I had known.
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It wasn't just a burst of power.
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It was a beacon of hope kindled by my desperation and given by the System.
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With hands shaking, I clasped the cold spear shaft firmly.
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- You...
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The Arch Lich had noticed the shift too.
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His gaze, previously dismissive as if I was merely an exhibit, now widened in alarm. Seizing the moment, I mustered all my remaining strength and lunged forward.
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Time seemed to stretch, elongating the seconds as I thrust the spear towards his looming figure.
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Screeeeech!
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As the spear tore through the air with a sonic boom, I saw it clearly — the Arch Lich’s eyes, twisted into a crescent of scorn.
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It was a sneer.
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- Blood Explosion.
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Boom!
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The force of the explosion reverberated through my body, sending shockwaves pulsing through every fiber.
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With the last of my strength spent, my muscles seized up. The spear slipped from my weakened grip and impaled the ground at an awkward angle.
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I blinked through eyes filled with blood. In a world now painted a visceral red, something warm and sticky splattered onto my face.
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Drip, drip-drip.
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'...Ah.'
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It was blood.
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My own blood, spurting forth like a gruesome fountain, showered down in a macabre rain.
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As I raised my trembling hands, quivering like aspen leaves in a storm, the ghastly sight of my shredded flesh and starkly exposed bones confronted me.
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Blood Explosion. A literal explosion of blood.
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From the edges of my dimming consciousness, the cries of the Skeleton Warlord pierced the air.
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- ...Human, human!
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How long had he been shouting?
​
I tried to answer, but all that escaped my lips was a grotesque mix of blood and fragments of my organs.
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"Cough."
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The world spun chaotically before my eyes.
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I reached out toward the Arch Lich, now just a blur through the blood-smeared lens of my vision, but my hand grasped only air.
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Perhaps it always would.
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- Snap out of it! Aren't you supposed to live?
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Is that supposed to be encouragement?
​
I knew I had to survive, defeat him, and return home.
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But...
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'Can I really?'
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Slowly, the world seemed to tilt.
​
No, the world was stable; it was I who was faltering. My body, ravaged by relentless bleeding and grievous injuries, used the last vestiges of its strength just to keep from collapsing.
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'No. If I fall, it's all over.'
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I propped myself up on a broken ankle.
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The faint, thorn-like pain was a grim reminder that I was dying, yet the intermittent shouts from the Skeleton Warlord, sounding through the haze like a broken radio, affirmed that I was still somehow alive.
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- ...Do it, human! Hurry!
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Do it? Do what?
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- Summon me now...!
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My eardrums were ruptured, my consciousness slipping; the Skeleton Warlord's shouts were just muffled echoes in my shattered senses.
​
Even if I could have made out his words, there was nothing I could do to intercept the Arch Lich's next move.
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- You have some interesting possessions.
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Suddenly, in the Arch Lich's hand was a familiar object.
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My cherished weapon, White Flames, which had weathered many battles at my side, now blazed in the hands of this usurper. He laughed, his skeletal frame aglow within the dancing flames.
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- I have received a gift far too extravagant. I suppose it should be returned to its owner.
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The Arch Lich drew back his arm. A potent magic dampened the inferno of White Flames and surged along the spear’s blade.
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- Farewell, noble adversary — or perhaps just a fool who might have been something more.
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Screech!
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The sonic boom was fleeting, yet the moment stretched into an eternity.
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I watched, mute, as White Flames hurtled towards me like a meteor. A whirlwind of thoughts raced through my mind, leading me to an inevitable conclusion.
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'I can't avoid it.'
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Then the only end left for me was death.
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I had survived countless battles over the past seven years, but never had the specter of death loomed so palpably.
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All I could do was witness its relentless advance.
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'Yes, this is the end.'
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I repeated the thought with eerie calm.
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Crack!
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The blade of White Flames cleaved through bone as it impaled me squarely in the chest.
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I froze, eyes wide in shock — not pain.
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"...You."
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- Why, what?
​
Words failed me as I stared into the flickering blue eyes just inches from my face.
​
From a skull no larger than a soccer ball, the Skeleton Warlord had morphed into a towering figure over two meters tall, his voice blunt and confounding.
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- Don't ask how I was able to get out on my own. Even this commander doesn't understand why.
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"But why? ...Why?"
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I asked, facing him.
​
The blade of the spear, protruding from the Skeleton Warlord's back to his chest, halted just a whisper away from piercing me.
​
If no one had intervened, I would have surely died.
​
He had just thrown himself to save my life.
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- ...I don't know anymore. Damn it. I don't know anything now. Maybe I was enchanted by this sword.
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Only then did I recognize the identity of the sword in the Skeleton Warlord's hand.
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"Hero's Soul."
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The only relic of Lei Fei, a sword that cannot be wielded by those who are not qualified to be heroes.
​
Yet here it was.
​
Held not by a hero, but by a Named Monster — the Skeleton Warlord.
​
- Hero's Soul, huh? For something made by humans, that's a pretty decent name. No, honestly, it's cool. Although it's too late to swing it properly now...
​
His voice trailed off, and the intense blue light in his eyes began to fade.
​
I understood what was happening to him.
​
'Extinction.'
​
Undoubtedly. Even now, the magical force of the Arch Lich, carried by the blade of White Flames, was devouring the Skeleton Warlord.
​
"You."
​
- Don't say any more. I'm already regretting this as it is.
​
I doubted his sincerity, especially given the soft chuckle that seemed at odds with his typically gruff demeanor.
​
- Human. There's something I'm curious about.
​
As the Arch Lich approached and the shoulders of the Skeleton Warlord crumbled, I gave a silent nod.
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"Anything."
​
He hesitated for a moment then asked in a soft voice.
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- About what you said last time. Was it sincere?
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"Last time, what... Oh."
​
I suddenly remembered. The way he had been right after Lei Fei's death, pondering his forgotten past.
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And the casual remark I had made.
​
​
​
'Well, I think he was probably a pretty good guy.'
​
'...Huh? Are you talking about me?'
​
'No. I'm just talking to myself.'
​
'Oh, yes. Right.'
​
​
​
So that's what it is.
​
For the Skeleton Warlord, who had awakened with power from a spirit that had lost all its memories, I might have been the closest thing to a friend he ever had.
​
The simple words I had spoken were like a pebble tossed into the still waters of his heart, causing ripples to spread outward.
​
'What an idiot.'
​
What was that all about? Why go this far over such a trivial thing?
​
A surge of emotion welled up within me, heat flushing my face, but I reined it in. I barely managed to muster my voice.
​
"Of course it was sincere."
​
- Yes, I see.
​
At that moment, as the blue light in his eyes flickered feebly, a cold voice cut through the air, heralding the end.
​
- Are you finished with your farewells?
​
"…!"
​
- Bone Explosion.
​
Boom!
​
Instinctively, I shielded my face with my arms, but the force of the explosion hurled me backward, sending shockwaves pulsating through me.
​
As I staggered to my feet, I witnessed a skull catapulted into the sky, bones splintering and scattering like brittle ice.
​
And then… silence.
​
The Skeleton Warlord had vanished.
​
Whoosh!
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[Hero's Soul] plummeted from the heavens, its blade burying itself deep into the earth, gripped by a hand that had not relinquished it until the very end.
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This is a throwaway account obviously, but tl:dr is that my father in law has 2 daughters still living with him, one is 17 and the other is 15. He is an alcoholic and doesn't take proper care of them. We don't have the ability to care for them. What options are available to the girls now that they're quite old?
I'm not sure where to start, so I'm sorry if this is a bit of a ramble. My FIL and their family used to live 6 hours north of us in a shipping container "home" away from big towns and WiFi and what-not. Unfortunately my MIL died at the end of 2020, and FIL was forced to move down to Sydney with his daughters so he could get a job and start sending them to school again. Suffice it to say that he has failed to step up to the plate when it comes to responsible parenting.
He has finally managed to hold down a job for the last few months, but he still struggles with time and money a little. My wife and I don't have the funds to help out very much currently, nor does his eldest daughter and her partner. However, he doesn't make it much easier for himself. He gets the girls, who are both already overweight with no motivation to exercise, take-out almost every night. His rental house is filthy all the time, riddled with mould, smells awful, and the girls do nothing to help around the house, despite neither really going to school. The 17 year old has stopped completely and is sort of doing some short course things, but has an incredible aversion to authority and pretty bad anger issues. The 15 year old doesn't want to keep going to school and has fewer anger issues but similarly has no motivation to do much at all.
I understand that this is a really difficult set of circumstances for any single parent to navigate, but FIL is doing the bare minimum, and sometimes less. He's a bit of a conspiracy theorist, and as touched on above hates WiFi, believes Covid is a conspiracy of some sort, is anti-vax, and doesn't really believe in the education system either. So he knows he should send them to school, but when push comes to shove and the school/courts come knocking, he says it's all bullshit and schools are useless anyway. Obviously this is not conducive to them actually going. He's also an alcoholic, and literally never goes a day without it. He only just got his driver's license back, but I'm worried he will pose it again. He drinks every night, often forgets to feed the girls until it's too late to do anything but order them McDonald's, and is prone to fits of anger and shouting when drunk. He has his mates over every Saturday night for jam sessions where he again often forgets to feed his daughters, and they have told us that they don't feel comfortable with all of them in the house.
He refuses to go to the doctor or dentist for himself, despite having awful teeth from decades of smoking, but worse he also won't take the girls to the dentist for their bad teeth, or the doctor for their various health issues. We have taken them a few times in the past, but often they are themselves convinced they don't need to go. This is another thing I'm concerned about, he's been spouting such harmful nonsense for so long that they believe a lot of it. I am worried they will never truly gain independence, and will not transition well into adulthood at all. I have often toyed with the idea of involving authorities, but I don't really know what that looks like here in Sydney. I would want to do it anonymously, but again I don't know where to start or who to speak to. Would I go straight to CPS? Or is there some service I can get advice/less direct help from? Even my wife agrees that it may be time for intervention, because we have all done all we can but nothing seems to get through to my FIL. We can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Sorry if not all of this makes sense, I just want to know if we have any options available to get the girls help, because they really need it. They cannot stay in that house with him much longer. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Phil Aston: Hello and welcome to the Now Spinning Magazine podcast with me, Phil Aston. And in this episode, I’m absolutely delighted to have with me Tony Martin, one of the UK’s most underrated rock vocalists. You’ve had a really varied career, but what we’re going to talk about today specifically is Black Sabbath and the new “Anno Domini” box set. So, welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for joining me.
Tony Martin: Thank you. And thank you for having me on the show. Very cool.
Phil Aston: A bit of context, because I think this is kind of helpful for you. My son is 30 now, but when he was 15, he set up a Facebook group, kind of saying, “One day, please can we have the Tony Martin Black Sabbath albums released?” That was 15 years ago. He was still at school, half his lifetime ago. And I think in the early time when he set this up, he may have reached out to you and you might have said something like, “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, Dan.” And here we are, all these years later, and it’s not only happened, but it comes out this Friday. How does that feel to know that these albums are now going to be available again?
Tony Martin: Well, first of all, well done to your son. It took 15 years, but he got it done. To be honest, there’s been a few periods when I didn’t think it was happening. In fact, about a year ago, Tony Iommi’s manager called me and said, “You know what, this is just so complicated. I don’t think we can do this.” So I was resigned to it not happening myself. It’s all to do with band politics, really. There are so many people involved or have their fingers in the pie that they all have to be on board. And there were allegiances changing all over the place, left, right, and center. So in the end, it was getting a bit tiring, but well done to Tony Iommi and BMG. My God, the patience they showed to get this thing together and actually get it out there. Wow. But how does it feel? It feels brilliant, to be honest. I’m very excited. I haven’t actually had these albums in my own hands physically for the past 25 years. I gave all mine away thinking I’d be able to get some more, and I didn’t. They just stopped making them. So to actually physically hold them again is really cool. What a great job they’ve done of it. So I’m thrilled and excited. And I’m helping out now because I’m not in the band, obviously, anymore. So I just offered my help to promote it and they said, “Great, let’s do it.”
Phil Aston: Isn’t it amazing? Because I’ve done quite a few reviews about Black Sabbath box sets and stuff, but this one, within about 12 hours, there’s literally 12,000 views of the review. The love for this period of Black Sabbath is actually huge. It’s grown. It almost feels as if the profile is higher now than it was at the time.
Tony Martin: Yeah, there is a kind of reason for that. Partly people have got over the “it’s the new guy” thing, and also it’s been 25 years since. So now we’re reaching out to a whole other group of people, in addition to those that were already there. But to the outside world, it looks like there was a huge gap, and to me it felt like a huge gap. But actually, the fans were always there. I’ve been waiting myself as well to get this back out there. And it’s just band politics, really. That’s all it is.
Phil Aston: Because you had that period when it was almost as if this part of Sabbath’s history was hidden because of band politics. None of this really happened, which I think probably stirred up more interest and kind of people wanting to find out more.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it could be. It’s an old famous thing, you know, if something ain’t around for a while, people start talking about it. But yeah, it’s a strange thing, the music business. You’re either in fashion or you’re not. But I am just thrilled that they’ve got around it. Just the patience they’ve shown to actually put this together. At one point they were just saying, “We can’t do it.” But I’m really chuffed anyway.
Phil Aston: I imagine there’s been compromises along the way. Lots of fans probably don’t understand how complicated the politics and all the different licenses and everything that goes on over the years, they become more and more entangled. People say, “Where’s Eternal Idol?” But of course, that was a different record label. Different people own it.
Tony Martin: Yeah, absolutely. It’s owned by somebody else. And also Eternal Idol, or “Eternal Idiot,” as we call it, was kind of reissued not that long ago. Really.
Phil Aston: That’s right. With the two CD version, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. So they were kind of thinking, “Well, there’s no real panic because that’s already been done and let’s just move on.” Because that would have wrapped them up in contracts for centuries, I think. I can’t even think that they’ll ever get them to let that go. But they were struggling to get the people involved with these four albums to make up their minds and do stuff. I’ve been all for it all the way along, I have to say. Obviously, because it’s my career, my history. It’s not just the band’s history. It’s ten years of my life that went AWOL. So, yeah, I’ve been up for it all the way along, but some people don’t and it’s taken them a while to get on board.
Phil Aston: I think it’s fantastic. The first one was Headless Cross. You joined one of the biggest rock bands with all that history behind it. You were an established singer with the Alliance. But this was a chance, as you say, with Eternal Idol, you went in and it was already prepared. You sang it, but this one was where you could really put your mark on it, your personality lyrically as well as musically. Can you remember what it was like actually being at the beginning of that? Did you feel comfortable around Iommi and Powell and thinking, “Right, what kind of lyrics am I going to do by Headless Cross?”
Tony Martin: Yeah, I was comfortable by then. Well, kind of. The thing is, with Eternal Idol, if I can just backstep a little bit. The Eternal Idol wasn’t the first call up. The first call up was in 1986 when they were doing the Seventh Star with Glenn Hughes. And that scared me to death because I can’t sing like Glenn Hughes. Nobody can sing like Glenn Hughes. They put me on standby back then, so I’d sort of tentatively had an introduction to Tony Iommi. Then in ’87, they got me in for the audition, and that was the next introduction to Tony Iommi. But because Eternal Idol was already written, that gave me a whole year plus a bit more to find out what this thing was. What the hell was I supposed to do? So just doing Eternal Idol like that was fine by me because I didn’t have to discover anything myself back then. It gave me a chance to get my feet in. So by the time it got to Headless Cross, now I know all the guys, and I kind of know what’s expected of me. I still had to find the “me” that I needed to find. I went around it the only way I could, by focusing on things I was interested in. I couldn’t do the lyrics and melodies that Geezer was writing for Ozzy because that was a generation before me. The stuff that Ronnie was doing was fantastic, but I couldn’t get inside his head. So I had to think about what I was going to do. I had an interest in the old gothic death stuff, like Dracula and Frankenstein, Mary Shelley type writing, and of course, in England, we have Shakespeare. Nobody speaks English like that anymore, that old English text. I thought, “Old English text, gothic death, and Black Sabbath. That might work.” So I put them all together and came up with Headless Cross, which is where I lived. I lived in a village called Headless Cross.
Phil Aston: Yeah, you put that on the map. They weren’t pleased about it. The most recognition I’ve got is my name on a bus stop. And Cozy Powell thought the album needed more death, didn’t he?
Tony Martin: Oh, that’s true. That’s actually true. We were recording “When Death Calls,” and he was in the studio playing, and he suddenly stopped. We went, “You alright?” He went, “Yeah, just remind me, what’s this song called again?” I said, “It’s called When Death Calls.” He said, “I don’t think there’s enough death in it.” And he carried on playing. So, okay, maybe he’s taking the piss, but isn’t it such a great sounding album? As Tony Iommi says, he never left Black Sabbath. So when people criticize him, saying, “You should change the name or whatever,” he never left. So it was still Black Sabbath. The riffs, the guitar sound was reaching new peaks of excellence around this time.
Because when it was just him and Ozzy, for example, it was guitar, that was it. When Geoff Nichols joined during the Dio period, it introduced a few more keyboard things. That allowed Iommi to play solos against those keyboard pads and chords. And then you come along and start sticking 50 tracks of vocal harmonies on it, like in Anno Mundi and stuff like that. It just kept developing. Sabbath isn’t really known for vocal harmonies and keyboards, but underneath that was still Tony Iommi. And it still sounded like Sabbath. We were happy to do that. We just wanted to make Tony happy and do the best for him. It was his band. So we were happy to seek out that Sabbath sound and make sure it did what it said on the tin. A couple of times, like with the Seventh Star thing, he ventured a little bit away from it. Songs like Heart Like a Wheel don’t really make the Black Sabbath sound, but it’s still good stuff. I have great respect for all of the eras that went before. I had to sing all of the songs. So I do have great respect for it. And it’s been an honor, you know, like being part of the whole story. But he was the only one that stuck it out. And we respected him for that. You’re right, they did ask him to change a couple of times. He said, “No, I can’t change now.”
Phil Aston: The next one, if I pronounce this right, it’s Tyr.
Tony Martin: Yeah.
Phil Aston: Because when it came out, me and my friends, actually, because there was no Internet back then and nowhere to go and check it, we did call it Tyr. To be.
Tony Martin: Yeah, Tyr.
Phil Aston: Watch you find in Birmingham. You know what I mean? So it actually rhymes with beer, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It is, yeah. Actually, it’s Tiw, which is Scandinavian for the son of Odin or something.
Phil Aston: Well, this is almost as close, probably, to Sabbath getting into almost a concept album. Isn’t it? This is a collection of songs that in another time and space you probably as a band would have gone out and performed the whole thing.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it wasn’t meant that way, but they were struggling to find a name for the album. We were recording and getting towards the end and the management called us up and said, “We really need a name for this album.” And Cozy said, “I’ve got one. Let’s call it Satanic Verses.” We went, “What, like Salman Rushdie thing?” He said, “Yeah, it would be great publicity.” We said, “Yeah, but we’ll all be dead.” So we did struggle, but they happened across the artwork. We’d done Anno Mundi, we’d done Gates of Valhalla and all that sort of stuff. They went, “What if… Tyr?” It was fine by me. So it took on the Viking sort of theme. By that time, I was thinking, once I’d done Headless Cross and started to have an interest in the Vikings and stuff. As you know, the Vikings haven’t been particularly good for us. They came over and stole all our women and sheep and whatever. But I had an interest in them as well. So I was thinking, every culture, every religion has its dark side. There’s always a devil type in a god type. I thought we could go around the world and I could do this. You could pick up on all sorts of cultures and pick out the dark side of various things. But it was the last kind of… I still did that with various other songs and various other artists. But Tyr was leaning towards that theme.
Phil Aston: It’s an excellent album. Then of course, the strangeness of the politics in Sabbath. Dehumanizer comes along and Dio re-enters the scene. You obviously had an opportunity because every cloud has a silver lining. You can go off and do your solo album at this time. But you did kind of like… It sounds like it was almost a forced relationship, the way that he was and he wasn’t. I mean, how was that period for you? Because you did demo some of the tracks, didn’t you?
Tony Martin: Firstly, it was a shock. I didn’t see that coming at all. Literally just walking out the door to the next writing rehearsals. My managers called up and said, “They don’t want you to go.” From what I recently found out, although I had my suspicions, Tony Iommi said the record label just wasn’t supporting it. They weren’t getting behind us at all. Then they started banding about all different names and stuff, and Ronnie’s name came up. They thought they’d give it a go. He said it was all on and off all the time. After they let me go, it wasn’t too long before Tony called me back and said, “Can you come back?” I said, “No, I can’t. I’m doing my solo album.” More time went by, and he called me back again and said, “Are you sure you can’t come back?” I said, “I’m doing my solo album. I really can’t.” He said, “Do you want to come down and try?” So I did. I went down and tried putting my voice on some of the songs, but it would have meant rewriting everything, and they weren’t going to do that. So I said, “The best thing is if you finish this with Ronnie, get this done and out of the way, then maybe we can talk again later.” So that’s kind of what happened. By that time, I’d done my solo album, which I wanted to get as far away from the Sabbath thing as I could at the time. I went back to doing what the Alliance and some of the bands I’d been with, that middle-of-the-road AOR type stuff. But when they called me back to Sabbath, Polydor dropped my solo album like a brick. They said, “We can’t do this if you’re going to go back with them.” So that got stopped. It’s so confusing. By the time I got back with the guys to Cross Purposes, it didn’t feel that much of a gap for me, because I’ve been talking to them and working with them through the Dehumanizer thing.
Phil Aston: Stylistically, that album, because it was on the IRS label, I know some people have said, “Well, it should be in there.” Stylistically, musically, it’s very different. I mean, you take it out. These four albums in this set, excluding Eternal Idol, they sound like a progression. Dehumanizer sounds like a kind of sidestep. Even the way the riffs are done in the songs, it’s changed. You take the vocalist out, but the music continued. You took you out and it was very different.
Tony Martin: I suppose it does a bit. If I go back and think over it, I guess that’s what it was. It was kind of an interruption into the flow of things. When we were doing Tyr, I thought we were doing really well. I thought we were onto something. Dehumanizer, in that sort of respect, does feel a little bit like an interruption. But there was some good stuff on there. Ronnie’s always been a good singer. I don’t quite know how they feel about it, but it was kind of nothing to do with me. I just let them get on with it.
Phil Aston: After that, Cross Purposes is probably, out of the four albums in this set, my personal favorite. Geezer’s back in the band now, so you’ve got his bubbling bass in there. And again, lyrically, it’s all you. Did you feel any kind of, “Oh, Geezer’s back. Will he want to help out?”
Tony Martin: I did ask. He just said, “No, you can do it.” So I just carried on.
Phil Aston
The reason why I love this album is that it’s varied. A lot of people think of Black Sabbath as the Godfathers of heavy metal, and heavy metal is always heavy metal. But if you think back to albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in the seventies, they weren’t all heavy metal. There were all sorts of things on there. There were keyboards and light and shade. This, I felt, connected to that album, because you had light and shade on it. So there were more dynamics in the lyrical delivery and the song delivery, in the way that Iommi is weaving his riffs around the melodies. What are your thoughts looking back on this album now?
Tony Martin: I think you’ve just summed it up. It did sort of shift up a notch. Not only that, but the sound they were getting with Leif Mases producing it, it sort of grew up. It lifted somehow out of what they’d done before. It felt like, “Oh, this sounds good.” The songwriting and the exploring we were doing with the songs and stuff. At the time, Geezer Butler said that’s the best album he’s ever been on. He never said that again, but he said it at the time.
Phil Aston: I can imagine him saying just that.
Tony Martin: But it was good. Having Bobby Rondinelli in the band as well. Technically amazing. Brilliant player. His drums close in, and he plays with his wrists. Very technical. Whereas Cozy’s drums are stretched out far and wide. He’d lean over and hit them. But great to have them both in. What an honor. I mean, it’s Geezer Butler as well.
Phil Aston: When you got to South America, Bill Ward was in for a few gigs, wasn’t he? That must have been quite surreal. Bill Ward and Geezer playing songs like Headless Cross, which they had nothing to do with.
Tony Martin: They had nothing to do with. We were kind of weird because once we’d started to get Geezer and Bill back in, they wanted to start doing more of the older songs. That just makes you look, read between the lines going, “What’s going on? Where’s this going?” Once it’s happened to you, you know it. Then you’re reading between the lines. You start to feel it. Then you go, “Ah, right.” You can feel it. They’re clearing up. I did ask if they were going to do a reunion with Ozzy. Iommi was always denying it. Said, “No, no, we’re not doing that.” But I didn’t mind. The reason for that is because I knew what I could do in the future then. I thought, “Well, if they just tell me, that’s fine. Cause then I can plan.” The first time it was a shock and I didn’t know what to do. But I was kind of keyed up for it the next time. But he kept going. They got Bill in. I love Bill. I think he’s brilliant. We did some shows with him. But for some reason, and I don’t know what it is, I mean, I can tell you Iommi loves Bill. He regaled so many stories about when they were out there and how funny it was. I never understood why they never gave him time to get back in it. When you think of Def Leppard, they made a drum kit for a one-armed drummer.
Phil Aston: Yes, very true.
Tony Martin: Surely they can find time to get Bill settled back in. Whatever problems they’ve got. I mean, come on.
Phil Aston: You would think, yeah, very true.
Tony Martin: Get on with it. I thought, “Right, this is going to go south again.” But it didn’t. We carried on with Forbidden, and then Cozy came back after his accident. It was really up and down. Confusing. People in and out. During the time I was in the band, there were eight different lineups.
Phil Aston: It was very much a revolving door, wasn’t it? Before we move on, I just want to ask, because I know a lot of fans ask this. In the booklets in these box sets, there’s an image of Cross Purposes Live. That was a VHS tape and a CD. Is there a reason why that wasn’t included in some way? Is that game politics?
Tony Martin: I did ask about that, and they were just keen to get on with it. They said, “Come on, let’s go, let’s do it.” What they told me was that they’re going to take their time now to see what else they can gather and do an additional thing to this along the way with more of that in it. With the Cross Purposes Live and some other stuff. There’s a track that I recorded with them when Eddie Van Halen came and did Evil Eye.
Phil Aston: Yes, yeah, Evil Eye, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. I used to take the track out. I had it everywhere. Writing sessions, recording sessions, rehearsals. I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know who was coming. Iommi just turned up with Eddie Van Halen. I went, “Holy hell, it’s Eddie Van Halen. What’s he doing here?” He did some rehearsals with us and then disappeared. Never saw him again. But I got the recordings of the rehearsals that we did.
Phil Aston: Oh, wow.
Tony Martin: So I sent them to Tony Iommi. I said, “Use these. Get these on.” He said, “No, no, we can’t.” The reason they said was anything that has the slightest newness about it looks like a new Black Sabbath track or album track. They’re not allowed to release anything new under the Black Sabbath name. So even if it’s historical, they couldn’t allow it. It’s really weird.
Phil Aston: That means there must be lots of live stuff recorded. More bands were recording live stuff from the nineties onwards that you just couldn’t work on because it would go out under the Black Sabbath name.
Tony Martin: Not just live stuff. I’ve got about eight tracks that we never released. Just from the writing sessions and rehearsals and stuff that we used to do. They just can’t get out. They just won’t allow it.
I don’t understand. Well, I kind of understand. When you’re trying to protect your name, your mark, your image, your everything, which is where the band politics comes in, they won’t allow you to do anything that they think. And there’s all kinds of… Everybody from Ozzy to Dio to everybody. They don’t want their thing to be diluted or taken away. I do understand that. There are people involved all along the way that have an objection of some kind or another.
Phil Aston: But I guess, hopefully, this box set’s going to sell out really quickly and will show there’s a demand for this material and for this part of Black Sabbath history. There’s a lot of love for it. A lot of people worked really hard within it, like yourself. They’re great albums, wonderful songs. If there’s other music waiting in the wings, whereas we all get older, thinking through the eyes of the fan, it would go down so well, wouldn’t it? But I am, as you are, very grateful that these four albums have arrived in a box.
Tony Martin: Yes, it’s an important thing for me. It’s an important thing for the band, and it’s a great thing for the fans. I’m thrilled. It’s been an honor to be part of the story. I love the fact that it’s out there now. They did say there is no limit to the box sets. They have sold out on day one.
Phil Aston: I’m not surprised.
Tony Martin: They said the way they do it is they tend to poll the outlets and stuff and say, “How many do you think you can sell?” And they put their numbers in, and they’ve gone way past that. So now they’ve got to go back and produce more. There’s no limit to it. I love what they’ve done. There’s more in the box set than just the albums. Posters, programs, and everything.
Phil Aston: And then Forbidden. I’ll be honest, Tony, when I heard this for the first time back in the day, I didn’t like it. I tried, but I didn’t like it. My son liked it because I think probably because his dad didn’t. But now the remix, it’s as if someone’s released the drums and the guitars. It sounds like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It does. It’s brilliant. I love the fact that they’ve dismantled it and put it back in a way that they couldn’t or didn’t with the other three. Forbidden needed it for all kinds of reasons. It was done under a sort of cloud where a lot of us weren’t really into it very much. But it was also an attempt at trying to give Sabbath a kind of acceptable twist to the youth. It didn’t work.
Phil Aston: The nineties were weird, weren’t they? The nineties were strange for heavy rock.
Tony Martin: The problem was we were fast heading towards great new bands like Nirvana and eventually Green Day and Metallica doing stuff. We were going and they were trying to change the sound to fit in. It didn’t work. We didn’t think it would. But there are people out there that love Forbidden as it is. I said that to Iommi. Last time I saw him, there are people out there that love it. He said, “They’ll probably love this version now.” But shaking the chains, guilty as hell, rusty angels, forbidden. And of course, “Loser Gets It All” is a great track. That wasn’t even on the album originally.
Phil Aston: It’s brilliant.
Tony Martin: Yeah. Strange. I absolutely love it now. It does sound like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds like it should be there in amongst the others. They’ve done a great job. Tony and his engineers have really pulled it together. It’s slightly more guitar and slightly less keyboard. They’ve done Cozy’s drums. Fantastic job on those.
Phil Aston: They’re just unleashed, aren’t they?
Tony Martin: Yes. They haven’t changed anything. They’ve mixed it and given it a new attitude, which is brilliant. They’ve given it more space. It sounds bigger. I just love what they’ve done to it. I’m really proud of it now. I didn’t like it then. There’s still a couple of tracks where I would love to have gone back in and…
Phil Aston: Yeah, you know.
Tony Martin: I thought at the time, because I was that off it at the time, my head just wasn’t quite there. A couple of tracks I thought I could have done better. I did sort of say when they were doing it, “Can I go back in?” They said, “No.”
Phil Aston: I suppose because that might edge towards it being a new recording then.
Tony Martin: Yeah, tricky. I’m not going to tell you which tracks it is, but there were a couple in there that I wasn’t quite happy with. But on the whole, it’s a great job they’ve done.
Phil Aston: Because when you were playing live, there were more songs from your period in Sabbath coming into the set, weren’t there? You were a unique vocalist in many ways for the band. You could cover Ozzy, Dio. You probably could have done Ian Gillan. Anything. You could have the ultimate set list, really, going through every era.
Tony Martin: That was a bit of a mistake. I told them I could sing anything, really. They thought, “What can we give him to sing?” They threw all sorts of stuff at me. I had a shot. Fortunately, I’ve got the kind of voice that can get around most things, and that’s a result of being in so many different kinds of music. I’ve been involved in everything from reggae to rock.
Phil Aston: Who were your key vocal influences growing up? As you say, outside of this Black Sabbath badge, your voice can go in any direction. So who were your influences? Was it blues, soul, rock?
Tony Martin: It kept changing. Everything I listened to, I thought, “That’s good. That’s good.” Each couple of years, something else took my attention. I’d really pour my soul into it. When I started off with reggae, believe it or not, I worked with Musical Youth and Dexys Midnight Runners in the studio. I was a guitarist back then. Then I loved blues. I got into prog rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull. Then it shifted to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That led to Rush and bands like that. Then I had to come down out of that prog rock technical stuff because Sabbath is much more honest and basic and straightforward. To a point. When you’re in the band and you find out how he does it, it’s stunning. I never even gave it a thought. I thought, “It’s got to be easy.” It wasn’t easy at all. Iommi can put seven, eight different riffs into one song, and each one of the riffs could be a song on their own.
Phil Aston: Very true.
Tony Martin: So, wow. You get your head around it. It’s weird. Plus, the time signatures he was throwing at us. There was a 14/4 and a 15/8 or something he was throwing at us. How he gets his head around it, I just don’t know. When I saw him a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a really good job on this.” I said, “Thanks, man.” He said, “I actually don’t know how you sang over some of this stuff.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Phil Aston: Just mad, isn’t it? You could try anything. I might have thought, “That means you might be able to put some of the songs in that Ozzy couldn’t do into the set. Or I can try something that I’ve never been able to do before because Tony says he can do anything.”
Tony Martin: It’s because I showed willing. I told them I’d have a go. And I did have a go. I did put into it. The songs, the writing, the live shows, whatever. I kind of made a rod for my own back in some ways because it was hard flicking between all of the different vocal techniques. But I did my best. It sort of came across okay. The problem is when you try to do stuff like that, it can sound a bit like a tribute act. But we got it nailed, I think. Especially having people like Cozy Powell, Geezer Butler, and all those guys in the band. We were willing to seek out that Sabbath sound, and we were conscious of it. So we were all aiming for the same thing. From outside, it might have looked like a chaotic mess. But on the inside, it all had a focus. We were all willing to give it a go. That’s what I think they saw in me. I knew they liked my voice, but I think that’s what they saw, a willingness to have a go and see if you can make it work. All those different time signatures and riffs that I had to go, looking back, to me, it’s Black Sabbath. Like,
Phil Aston I’m a Deep Purple fan, and every lineup of Deep Purple is still Deep Purple. I know Black Sabbath, there’s lots of politics in the way some of the fans look at it. But I think, which is why they had Heaven and Hell later on instead of Black Sabbath, because of the politics. But listening to these four albums, one after the other, you brought to life Viking mythology and song. More death. Just your passion and the way you projected the lyrics and your phrasing makes these albums unique. An important part of the Sabbath story. Finally, do you feel like this outpouring of love for this lineup is validating everything? Any doubt that might have been back then?
Tony Martin: Yeah, doesn’t it just? The biggest validation is from Tony Iommi himself. It wasn’t regarded that highly until he sat and listened to it without the bickering going around. When I went down a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a great job on this. There’s fantastic songs on here.” I said, “I know.” It’s just that validation that he gives it. The fact that the fans are returning to it. The fact that we’ve got new fans coming to it. Whole new record labels. I think it’s Rhino in America. It’s BMG in the UK, Europe. The record labels are coming back to it and getting behind it. They see something in it. The management sees something in it. So it’s all coming together. Which is a shame because I’m not in the band anymore.
Phil Aston Who knows? Maybe you and Tony will think, “It’d be great if some of this other stuff can come out at some point and we don’t have to wait another 25 years.”
Tony Martin: If he was going to do that, he’d say, “Let’s just write some new stuff.” But from what I’ve been told, Tony’s touring dates are done now. He won’t be going out on the road again. That’s probably out of the question for writing. I did tell him I was interested if he wants to do something. But he’s got so much going on. He’s still busy. Doing stuff. He had that ballet, the Black Sabbath ballet.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that’s true.
Tony Martin: Never saw that coming. No, he’s working on all kinds of stuff. He’s writing new material for something else now.
Phil Aston: So what about you, Tony? Have you got any plans for another solo album?
Tony Martin: I never actually stopped. For the past 25 years, my career took me into the studio and writing for people. My voice appears on 89 albums and projects now. It’s been good for me. I owe everything to Black Sabbath because that’s how the world got to hear my voice. People know what they’re talking about when they talk to me. “Can you write, can you sing on this?” They already know what they’re hearing or expecting. I always try to make it better than what they give me in the first place. A lot of that is me in the studio, and I’m happy, and I still am, happy doing that. But I do tend to choose what I do these days.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that makes sense.
Tony Martin: So I’m still doing the odd thing for people now. I did have a solo album a couple of years ago called Thorns.
Phil Aston: Great album.
Tony Martin: Yeah, totally unknown guitarist from America, Scott McClellan. I only met him because he kept badgering me on Facebook. He kept sending me stuff. I was like, “Go away.” He said, “Listen to this. What about this one?” In the end, I listened to it and it was brilliant. So I gave it a go and it turned out really well. But then Covid interrupted that and we couldn’t get out there with it. Some countries were saying, “Yeah, you can come,” and other countries were saying, “No, you can’t.” It all got distracted. I haven’t finished with Thorns because they wanted to do a vinyl for it. They said we had to take some tracks off to get it to fit on the vinyl. I don’t want to take any tracks off.
Phil Aston: Make it a double.
Tony Martin: Yeah, make it a double. Write some more. I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m pacing up, trying to write some new songs. Scott has sent me loads. We’ve got enough tracks for Thorns 2, but I haven’t finished Thorns 1 yet. I’ve got to come back to that. I do want to finish that off and get that done. Then if we can do the next Thorns thing, who knows? We’d like to try and get it out on the road. Getting out on the road for me is so different to the Sabbath thing. The Sabbath machine is huge. They only have to mention it and all the cogs start turning all at the same time all the way around the world. It all starts fitting into place within days, within weeks. On your own, it’s different. I can’t do that. I have to hire other musicians to go out on the road and rehearse the whole thing and start again with a brand new show. It’s a lot harder for me, but I would love to get back out there. My career took me into the studio, so I’ve got more to do. But I just tend to choose now.
Phil Aston: If people want to get Thorns, is it DarkstarRecords.net? Is that the best place?
Tony Martin: No, Battle God. They are the main label. Darkstar were involved and they’re still there, but they’ve had some troubles in the past couple of years. They were on board and I did two versions of it from between the two territories. I liked that. But mostly now, Battle God is the label to grab hold of it. It’s still available and I’m still signing them. People send me the stuff to sign.
Phil Aston: But I haven’t finished yet, so there’s more to come.
Phil Aston: Brilliant. Well, thanks very much, Tony, for all of your time today. Everybody, make sure you go and get a copy on CD or vinyl of this Black Sabbath Tony Martin years box set, “Anno Domini.” It’s absolutely superb.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it is good. I’m just smiling. I think it’s brilliant.
Phil Aston: No, that’s it, isn’t it? Whatever anyone thinks, these albums are available again. People can hear just how awesome this time for Sabbath really was.
Tony Martin: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Phil Aston: All right, take care, and hopefully I’ll talk to you again in the future.
Tony Martin: Thank you. All right, Phil, thanks, mate. Cheers.
Phil Aston: Well, a huge thank you to my guest, Tony Martin. That was fantastic. I’m almost lost for words in knowing what to say to sum up that interview because I know a lot of you are really interested in this box set, “Anno Domini” by Black Sabbath, which is out on CD and vinyl. Just as I thought, it’s sold out already, but there’s going to be another pressing. I was able to ask some of the questions I know some of you have been wanting to know, like why weren’t there extra tracks? Why wasn’t the live Cross Purposes included, etc. So now you know. Some of it is really exciting because it means there might be a companion set with some outtakes or live stuff as well. That’s really exciting.
Tony Martin is a fantastic vocalist, really passionate, really imaginative with his lyrics and his vision of how he writes his music. These four albums are essential. They’re Black Sabbath albums, okay? That’s what they are. They sound like Black Sabbath albums. Wasn’t it interesting that Geezer Butler said Cross Purposes is the best album he’d ever played on? It is a truly remarkable album. But they all are: from Headless Cross, to Tyr (which I can now pronounce correctly), Cross Purposes, and Forbidden, which has been given a new lease of life. Seriously, it is incredible. Just stunning.
Thank you again to Tony Martin for joining me here on the Now Spinning Magazine podcast. Please keep spinning those discs, whether they are vinyl or CD. Check us out on the podcast. We’re on every platform you can think of, from Apple to Spotify to Amazon. Of course, we’re on YouTube. Please subscribe and check out the website at nowspinning.co.uk. Remember, music is the healer and the doctor. So take care and I’ll see you all very, very soon.
Watch the full interview here
Phil Aston Now Spinning Magazine

This is going to be a long one so bear with me please. I am also giving a lot of backstory and past issues bcz I feel they are relevant to the matter and also I feel like ranting. Also this is in India so the currency is Rupees. Before we start I just want to say that I am not perfect in any way or form and I have done any fair share of mistakes. I(20F) have been in a relationship with my bf Jake(22M)(fake name) for roughly 5.5 yrs now. My family is not rich but we do have a lot of money bcz both my parents are doctors but I did not realise we have this much money until 2yrs ago. (Am not very street smart as U will see in this post). Since after abt 1.5 years of relationship (May 2020)when lockdown started his family fell on hardtimes as his family owns a shop and bcz of the Pandemic they weren't able to run it. At first it was bcz one of his friend got into an accident so he needs money and he told me he will give it back etc (i don't remember if he ever did as it was yrs ago). At the time I had money saved up so I helped out the first few times with my own money. Then when I ran out of money then he said to ask my dad or mom, or steal from my house and give him some. A lil back story here, my mom and dad are separated so they did not used to talk about finances so I would take extra money from my dad than what was actually required and give the rest to jake. For e.g I required 3k for a parcel or smrg then I would ask for 5k, give my mother the 3k(I live with her, my father lives separately) and give the 2k to jake. I also gave him cash many times by essentially stealing from my mother's closet. When I used to say NO he hurled abuses at me and called me every name in the book which a person can imagine, guilt tripped me and pushed me very hard and I gave in almost every time. He told me he will give me back eventually, he has made an investment,etc. Basically all stupid lies to have more time, then one day during an arguement I pressed on when he is gonna return the money and after a lot of time he told me there is no investment and he used the money in his family's shop. After 2.5 year of this in October-Nov of 2022 we both got admissions in universities which were around 2 hours away from each other. Till then this pattern continued and his family was still struggling bcz of his father's brother divided the joint business or something else. Before this when we were at out respective homes he told me he got some operation done for smtg in his abdomen. I gave him 10k from my mother's closet for that and even when I went to meet he had an area bandaged (was very unprofessionally done my dumb self should have understood that it was also fake) one of his friend also confirmed that he had operation done and I was coordinating with him on the said dates when he was supposedly admitted. He also used to frequently tell me that he has suicidal thoughts and he will end himself etc . After we went to our respective colleges once we had a big fight and next day he told me that he tried to end himself by jumping of the balcony but his friend (who he was staying with at the time),Luke, stopped him worrying for him I called Luke later and told him I was worried for Jake and to pls take care of him. He was confused by this and asked me why what happened. I asked him abt last night's attempt, he told me nothing of that sort happened. This opened a can of worms where it was revealed that he was making a fool out of me, guy owned a fucking Iphone and was telling me that his family was on hard times and taking money from me. This is also when I found out that their was no operation. I don't remember what else I found out that night but felt like a huge betrayal and I talked to 3 of his friends that night for quite a few hours where a lot of lies were revealed. I broke it off with him, at this point I had lent a total of Rs.75-80k. He begged me for weeks for forgiveness, at first I laughed in his face but as weeks went by I started to miss us. He came to meet and win me back a few times at my uni. Eventually, a month later I forgave him on some conditions like he wont lie and share everything with me, won't tell me who or who not to be friends with (he did that before a lot). Few months later the cycle started again, I was back to giving him money from the monthly spending amount I used to get(it was a lot at first bcz I was just settling in,now my monthy allowance is wayyy less). He did not like the friend group I was in so I stopped talking to them (bcz they knew abt our situation as I broke down crying in front of them when I found out abt all this so he felt like he lost respect and They didn't respect me etc, admittedly they weren't good and I would have distanced myself eventually anyways maybe cuz the vibe didn't match but that should have been my call I feel) and he still (>1 year later) yells at me if he suspects that I am casually talking to them. My college is in a much smaller city so I go to meet him once to twice a month as he shares a flat with few ppl and the city has more activities to do. Other than the first few times (when we got back together) I pay almost if not all bills like gas (for his 2 wheeler) and food. It's very frustrating at times but I understand that he does not has enough money as his father does not send him enough to cover rent, food and expenses or so he says ( sighs IDK anymore guys what's true and what's not). Jake says his family is still struggling bcz his sister went to UK last year to study and that took a huge chunk of money and they have loans to pay, etc. I can believe this is true. Also he says they have virtually almost no savings left bcz business isn't doing great hence his father sends him rent t food expenses andsays to manage The rest on his own (he does not has a job so guess where the money comes from 🤡). In the Past few months admittedly he has not asked for money frequently but when he does its like a huge chunk. He has also taken loans (with interest) from some of his friends without telling me. He has done this multiple times before after I have repeatedly asked him to stop. (Embarrassingly I admit there are more instances when he has acted like a red curtain but I think I can write a book at this point if I list them all out so let's move on to the latest problem).
Onto The current issue Almost 3 days ago now, Jake called me (we already have been fighting for I don't even remember how many days at that point a week maybe?) and we told me that he was told by his dad that they have been unable to make payments for the loan they took from a person keeping their shop as collateral, they have to pay half the amount (Total amount was 5 lakhs) and interest which was 64k tomorrow to that person, they have arranged most of the money but are short by abt 30k. He asked me can I do something (steal or ask my dad). I refused as there is no money in my mother's closet anyway and I haven't talked to my dad in abt 3 months now. (ofcourse I did not outright refuse and just gave him my reas oning buz I'm a doormat 🥰🤡🤡). I pressed me to pls talk to my father about money and tell him I need it for my tablet (I bought one just a few days prior). I refused and said he won't give me money anyway. He asked what about my mother's bank account, it must have something. One account is linked to UPI ( It's for making online payments in India) and one is not. The one that is linked does not have much money bCz my mother's salary has not been credited in 4 months. The other account has money but as it does not has UPI activated online payments cannot be done.I told him all of this. He asked can I activate the UPI if my mother's asleep and plz transfer him the money (also said to transfer it first to my own account so if she finds out then I can say my friend needed it so I have lent some for a month or two🙂 ) I mean maybe I could if I really wanted to but I have had enough, I do not want to steal. Now his family is potentially loosing the shop and he is blaming me for it. I have repeatedly tried to reason with him and told him that if I had the money in my account I would have given him (My account had 1k and I transferred him that😔). He says his blood relatives (his father's siblings refused to pay even a dime, I mean they and their children all are grown ups and have jobs and if They didn't pay how does he expect me, who does not has never had a job give him money, probably it's my fault I have enabled him enough every down time by giving him money so how he just expects everytime that I'll help bcz I am family).
He is still pressing me to give like 5k now bcz now he wants to go to another city and talk to the lender's brother to pls provide them with some Time. But I do not have the money 😕. He says that 'if I would have really wanted then I could but I did not think of his family as mine ', " U will understand my pain when U will loose something of yours for lesser value Than it really is " (The shop's market valve is 4O lakhs and they lost it for 5 lakhs) Also has called me quite a few names since then. He arranged 1K and said " I'm going today there I'll see what to do after reaching there." Says he wants to breakup ( it's pretty normal to say it's over after fights so I don't really know if he is even serious) for 2 reasons - 1. I did not give him money 2. When he will go to uni he won't have any spending money so he'll expect are to help out, and he knows I won't and he does not want that disappointment.
I mean TBH I wouldn't care if it were a few hundred rupees but it won't be, additionally I will be The one covering The costs as usual when I go to meet him. I won't have any money left for my own. And I really want to start saving up again. I have spent outrageous amounts of money in The past year (go figure the reason) and saved up nothing. Today he was still begging (he used the word) me to pls arrange the money. He said I leave for uni in 2 days after summer vacations so I'll get my allowance, technically I can ask for it in advance and give him. But I don't want to after he has treated me. Everytime I tell myself that this is the last time, I'll leave the next time he does this but I just stay. I know I'm not responsible for him and his family but I still feel really guilty about not giving him the money. I know I should end things but it's just difficult to leave something which you have been attached to for so long, it just feels natural to you. Rn he owes me I don't even know how much but it's maybe around 1 lakh something. Not counting The amount of gifts (some he guilt tripped me into buying 🙄 ) I have bought him and the money I have spent on my trips to visit him. IDK if I'll ever see that money again probably not. Please also give me advice on how should I proceed with the breakup, I don't want him to do anything drastic like come to my house or call my mom to tell him abt our relationship (frowned upon in India).
I know the answer but still need the answer should I give him some money from my allowance and WIBTA if I don't ? (Sorry for any errors in writing, I'm writing on tablet with a stylus)

1,000 days! This was my next big personal goalpost after 1 year. But today is bittersweet because my senior cat and I are waiting on some critical results. He’s fading. I might have to make a big decision for him on Monday. But - I’m not drinking about it. And for the past 1,000 days I have been present for him, home at night and I’m so grateful for my sobriety and the gift it gives back. Pray for the comfort of my boy: Dr. Spaceman. He was with me for my party days (I found him in a dumpster at a bar) and he’s now seen me through my 20s and pretty far into my 30s. He’s a fantastic cat I’m glad I could really be there for him when he’s needed me the most over the past two years. IWNDWYT. I’m proud of myself, I haven’t even wanted to. 🖤

1. A question for the UK Bogleheads here, I have a SIPP with Vanguard and i'm curious what your portfolio choices and weightings are?

Currently i'm 100% in equities with VHVG, the FTSE developed world ETF (ACC).
At 33 years old I generally dont contribute towards this SIPP and just use it to combine my work place pensions whenever I leave that employment. I didn't really fuss too much about bonds with my investment horizon but i'm open minded and interested in those of you who advocate for asset diversity, whether it be for an all weather type reason or other.

1. As a bonus to all lurkers of this post, I was planning on a single broad based accumulation index fund as I have mentioned above for my SIPP, but I'm also using a Lifetime ISA (LISA) where I do contribute regularly for retirement. This is tax free and I'd rather put my cash there as a first port of call. In this fund I was going to go a bit more aggressive and aim for overweighting/underweighting some funds. The weightings are approximations at the moment and I'm open to suggestions:

• VUSA at maybe 50%
• A global small cap Value fund, overweighted to 15%
• Commodities at 10%, metals, agriculture or renewables specialised fund (I know this isnt commodities, but its in the same little extras category, just for the purposes of my list)
• A rest of the developed world (ex US) for the remaining 25%
• failing a rest of the world fund ex US (because they seem to be rare here) I'd probably split between developed Europe and Developed Asia, with a slither of Developing or EM.

My LISA is with AJ Bell
Thoughts?

Hey everyone! I was pleased by the overwhelming interest I got in my collection, as someone who has a passion for building soil and hunting beans for unique phenos the last 15 years. I am glad how many people appreciate true one of kind heirloom genetics!
Why am I getting rid of them? Simply put - I am trying to go the legit route and this state is making it beyond difficult. I need to recoup and regroup. Any support is much appreciated. I’ve waited my whole life for this.
Pricing - I updated below. Much of my collection is very hard to find one of kind stuff that is highly sought after. No random pollen chucking, true bred stabilized genomes. There’s a lot of history in that list as well if you’re someone who understands the genomics of the plant. You’ll see breeder, where they’re out of, the strain name, the cross and a little bit of history / description on some of it. Some very very special stuff. Pricing is either what I paid for it or a little more if it’s something special that’s not easy to find or not being bred anymore.
*Each strain is in original packaging stored in a curidor at a steady 52 degrees, no light, no humidity. I find this is the best way to store beans for long term storage and guaranteed high germination rates. I usually get 97-100% germ rate with my germination method which I will include on a printed out sheet for anyone who grabs any of my offerings. I want you to succeed and find something special - I cherish my collection and sad to see a lot of it go but you gotta do what you gotta do. I’d really like to see this stuff go to growers who care about the plant and preserving the uniqueness to it for years to come. Hope all of this helps
Here is the full list:
coasttocoastgenetics@gmail.com (get in touch)
{Regs}

~ Oni Seed Co (Maine) ~ 

Tropicanna Cookies F2 - Girl Scout Cookies x Tangie (multiple award winner) [R] 250 ~ Elev8 Seeds (Seattle, Washington) Tangerine Cookies - Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies x Tangie [R] 120

~ Mountain Organics ~ 

Cosmic Lotus - Gonzo x TOVR (Thai, Afghan, Haze, Northern Lights) [R] 120 Maya - Acapulco Gold x Lotus [R] 120 Gold Rush - Colombian Gold x Lotus [R] 120 The One BC1 - 1976 Highland Thai x 1971 Kandahar Afghani [R] {Clackamus Coot} 150 {See Mountain Organics Genetics PDF (now MOB seeds) for more info on genetic lineages.} ~ MOB seeds (Mountain Organics) ~ Psyche - The One BC1 x The One BC1 (Afghani Hybrid) [R] 120 Eros - The One BC1 x The One BC1 (Thai Hybrid) [R] 120 The One BC2 - The One x The One BC1 [R] 120 Morpho (Blue Lotus F2) - Blue Gonzo x Lotus [R] 120 Blue Gonzo BC1 - Blue Gonzo x Blue Lotus [R] 120 {Blue Gonzo - The One x (Nevilles Haze x NL5) (blue pheno)}

~ Symbiotic Genetics / The Village (Sacramento, California) ~ 

Mimosa - Clementine x Purple Punch F2 [R] (multiple award winner) 200 Banana Punch - Banana OG x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Cherry Punch - Cherry AK47 x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Wedding Crashers - Wedding Cake x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Orangeade - Tangie x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 Big Block - Motorbreath 15 x Purple Punch F2 [R] 200 {Purple Punch lineage - Larry OG x Granddaddy Purple}

~ Exotic Genetix - EG Mike (Washington) ~ 

{Over 50x Cannabis Cup Awards since 2008} Tina F2 - (Tina x Tina) Constantine x Triple OG [R] (multiple award winner) 200 Paradise Circus - Tropicanna Cookies x Tina [R] 200 Cookies & Creme - Mystery Cookies x Starfighter F2 [R] (multiple award winner) 250 Big Smooth - OG Blueberry x Cookies & Creme [R] 200 Scoops - (Gelato x Tina) x Cookies & Creme F2 [R] 200 Strawberries & Creme F2 - Strawberry x Cookies & Creme F2 [R] 250

~ Dying Breed Seeds - Shiloh Massive (Mendocino, California) ~ 

California Black Rozé - Rozé x OG eddy [R] 350 Red Rozé - Rozé x Adonai [R] 350 Sour Zkittlez - Zkittlez x Candy Zkittlez #3 x Adonai [R] 400 Watermelon Zkittlez - Watermelon Zum Zum #3 x OG Eddy [R] 400 {Zkittlez - Grape Ape x Grapefruit} {Adonai - (Russian Kush (LA Cut) x Silver Tooth (Super Silver Haze x Train Wreck)) x Sweet Tooth}

~ Humboldt Seed Company (Humboldt County, California) ~ 

Blueberry Muffin F5 - Purple Panty Dropper x Razzle Berry [R] 100 Purple Mountain Majesty F3 - Purple Train Wreck x Train Wreck x Blueberry Muffin [R] 100 Amethyst F3 - Purple Panty Dropper x Blueberry Muffin [R] 100 Mango Sherbert F3 - Mango Trees x Mango Kush x Sherbert [R] 100 {2018/2019 HSC Phenotype mega hunt - Best 0.1% selected out of 10k plants} Mango Trees F5 - Mango Kush x Humboldt OG x Jack Herer [R] 100 Banana Mango F3 - Mango Trees x Banana OG x Blueberry Muffin [R] 100 Magic Melon F3 - Mango Trees x Honeydew Melon x Mango Sherbert [R] 100 Pineapple Upside Down Cake F3 - PUDC BX3 x Pineapple Train Wreck x Cookie Monster [R] 100 {2019/2020 HSC Phenotype mega hunt - Best 0.1% selected out of 10k plants} Very Cherry - Old Timer Seed x Lemon Kush Bx3 [R] 100 Vanilla Frosting - Humboldt Frost OG x Humboldt Gelato Bx3 [R] 100

~ Gage Green Group (Detroit, Michigan) ~ 

Grateful Breath F2 - OGKB (OG Kush Breath) x Joseph OG [R] 400 5th Dimension - Out Of Body Experience x Synchronicity [R] 300 Guiding Light - Out Of Body Experience x Breathwork [R] 300 Luna Golden - High School Sweetheart 2 x Synchronicity [R] 300 Mo Lune Day - Motorbreath 15 x Breathwork [R] 300 {Out of Body Experience - (Skywalker OG x Grateful Breath) x Grateful Breath F2} {Synchronicity - Irene x Grateful Breath} {Breathwork - Mendobreath x Grateful Breath} {High School Sweet Heart - Cherry Pie Kush x Grateful Breath}

~ Dominion Seed Co - Duke Diamond (Virginia) ~ 

Stash Plant - The Puck (Skelly Hashplant) x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Munson - Northern Lights #5 x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Kough Drop - Strawberry Afghani x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Free Bird - Headband x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Shine Apple - Virginia Beach Afghani x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 Pine Bomb - Sensi Durban Poison x Screaming Eagle [R] 140 {Screaming Eagle lineage - Airborne g13 x (88 g13 Hashplant x Kandahar Afghani)} Granny Skunk - Virginia Beach Afghani x (Skelly Hashplant x SSSC Skunk #1) [R] 200 Local Skunk - Original Diesel x (Cuddlefish HP x Sour Diesel IBL) x (Skelly Hashplant x SSSC Skunk1) [R] 200 Sis Skunk - Chem Sister x (Skelly Hashplant x SSSC Skunk1) [R] 200

~ Lucky Dog Seed Co - SkunkVA (Virginia) ~ 

{Holder, Preserver, Sharer of the most elite / influential Chemdog cuts in existence.} Dog Patch - Chemdog 91 Bx2 x Chemdog D [R] 150 Hunza Valley 91 - Skelly Hashplant x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 Road D.O.G. - Crossroad Chem x Chemdog 91 Bx2 [R] 150 Chem Fuego - Sour Band (Sour Diesel x Headband) x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 Double Krush - Chem Krush x Chemdog 91 Bx2 [R] 150 Guerilla Fume - Silver Chem (Silverback OG x Chemdog 91) x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 Bohemian Highway - Occidental Kush x Chemdog 91 Bx3 [R] 150 SkunkVA Chemdog 91 S1 - Chemdog 91 x Chemdog 91 [F] {Crossroad Chem - Chemdog 91 x SFV OG Kush Bx2 (Chem pheno)} {Chem Krush - Chemdog 91 x SFV OG Kush Bx2 (Kush pheno)} {Chemdog 91 lineage - Nepalese x Thai Landraces} Chemdog 91 is considered to be “the godfather” in cannabis genetics and has paved the way for some of the most popular strains in history such as Sour Diesel and OG Kush. Chemdog lineage can be found in most modern day hybrid genetics and these crosses are from there original seed stock - Original Skunk VA Chemdog 91 S1 gifted to me by Headies Gardens. Friend & Distributor of Skunk VA genetics Lucky Dog Seed Co.}

~ Green Bodhi (Eugene, Oregon) ~ 

{Intentional Horticultural ~ Mexican ~ Thai ~ Afghani} Hazy Kush - Hazy Kush x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] (extremely unique genotype in Phylos Galaxy) 120 Hazy Dog - Dog Walker OG x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy Star - Stardawg x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy Sour - Sour OG x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy OG - OG Kush x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Hazy Ghost - Ghost OG x Hazy Kush Bx2 [R] 120 Sour 78 (Tenzin Kush) - Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG [R] (extremely unique genotype) 200 Dog Walker 78 - Dog Walker OG x (Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG) [R] 150 Kosher 78 - Kosher Kush x (Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG) [R] 150 SBSE 78 - Sour Best Shit Ever x (Sour OG x 78 LA Affie OG) [R] 150 Ancient Tenzin #2 - Tenzin Kush #2 x Ancient OG (72 Iranian x Snow Lotus) [R] 200 Ancient Tenzin #4 - Tenzin Kush #4 x Ancient OG (72 Iranian x Snow Lotus) [R] 200 {Hazy Kush lineage - Golden Pineapple x ((Trainwreck x Purple Affie) x (OG Kush x SAGE))}

~ Old World Genetics - DJ Short (Eugene, Oregon) ~ 

Newberry F5 - Blue Heaven F4 x DJ Short Blueberry F4 Male [R] 300 Velvet Krush F5 - FXW #4 Mother x DJ Short Blueberry F4 Male [R] 300 Blueberry F5 - Highland Thai x Afghani Indica [R] (first place indica cannabis cup 2000) 150 {Blueberry seeds are F4-F5 selectively bred from pure Landrace P1s since the 1970s. The mother for DJ Shorts Blueberry is over 20 years old - Selected in 1998 and rereleased in 2004.}

~ Dynasty Genetics - Professor P (Portland, Oregon) ~ 

Oregon Huckleberry IBL - Oregon Huckleberry F4 x Oregon Huckleberry Bx3 [R] 150 Mt. Hood Huckleberry F4 - Mt. Hood Huckleberry F3 x Mt. Hood Huckleberry F3 [R] 150 Huckleberry Kush V5 - Oregon Afghani x Oregon Huckleberry [R] 150 Crater Lake V6 - Super Silver Haze F2 x Oregon Huckleberry [R] 120 Alpenglow - Cherry Vanilla Cookies x Oregon Huckleberry 2017 #5 [R] 120 Blue Magoo Bx2 - Blue Magoo x Blue Heron #111 [R] 120 Salmon River OG - Pre 98 Bubba x Blue Heron #111 [R] 120 Birds Of Paradise - Kali Snapple x Blue Heron #111 [R] 120 Starduster - Pre-99 East Coast Sour Diesel x Ms. Universe (clone) [R] 120 {Kali Snapple - (Snowbud x Pineapple) x Kali Mist (Pre 2000)} {Ms. Universe - Dess*tar (Starship x Kali Mist) Mother x Space Queen F3 Farther} {Oregon Huckleberry - Oregon Blueberry (Blueberry X Temple Flo) X Morning Glory (Hawaiian x Afghani x Shiva Skunk)} {Blue Magoo - Oregon Blueberry F4 x Williams Wonder F2} {Blue Heron - Blue Magoo x Blue Magoo / Huckleberry}

~ Relic Seeds - Professor P (Portland, Oregon) ~ 

{Preservation of Rare Heirloom ~ Landrace ~ Unique CBD Varieties} Relic Grapefruit - Grapefruit IBL x Grapefruit F2 [R] 140 Durban Grapefruit - Durban Poison x Grapefruit F2 [R] 140

~ Massive Seeds (Rogue Valley Terroir, Southern Oregon) ~ 

{Bred, Grown and Harvested outdoor at 42.0 Latitude (Same Latitude as mid Hudson Valley) Some of the largest growing / biggest yielding plants on record with massive uniform nugs.} Pineapple Pomegranate F3 - Pomegranate x Applegate Hornblower [R] 140 Durban Pomegranate F2 - Durban Poison x Pineapple Pomegranate F3 [R] 140 Black Pomegranate - Pineapple Pomegranate F3 x South African Landrace [R] 140 Rogue Valley Wreck - Big Wreck x Blueberry Snow [R] 120 Summer Sunset OG - Purple Hindu Kush x Lemon Larry OG [R] 120 Mint Sunset - Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies x Summer Sunset OG [R] 120 Purple Lemon Chem - Chem 91 x Summer Sunset OG [R] 120 Snow Skunk - Yuki Dog x Purple Lemon Chem [R] 120 Chem541 - Chem91 Bx1 x (Chem91 x Session Sour Diesel BX1) [R] 120 {Pomegranate - Shishkaberry x Blueberry x Oregon Snow x Lemon Pineapple} {Applegate Hornblower (Pineapple Trainwreck) - Mexican x Thai x Afghani}

~ Freeborn Selections - Mene Gene (Mendacino, California) ~ 

Piña F4 - Super Silver Haze x ((Dirt x Bigbud) x (Dirt x Purp) [R] 300 Sky Cuddler Kush F3 - PK x (Skywalker OG x (PK x (Hindu x Big Red) [R] 300 Lime Pop Kush F3 - OG x (PK x Black Lime) [R] 300 Cherry West Bx - Cherry West x (Cherry West x Cherry Limeade) [R] 300 {Thoroughly worked lines over at least 3-4 generations before released to the public.} {(Dirt x Bigbud) x (Dirt x Purp) and (Big Red) are 80s Afghani lines from Santa Cruz.} Black Lime Reserve F2 {Eclectic Elegance Preservation} - Northern Lights x Purple Kush x Chemdog Special Reserve [R]

~ Emerald Mountain Legacy - Mandelbrot Brothers Family Heirlooms {Ras Truth} ~ 

Royal Kush IX (Bx10) - (Sour Diesel x Highland Afghani) x Southern Humboldt Purple Kush [R] 350 Oil Spill (Bx5) - XXX OG x Royal Kush 7 [R] 300 Royal Spill - (XXX OG x Royal Kush 7) x Royal Kush 8 [R] 300 The Real Rozé - (Zkittlez x Royal Kush 7) x Royal Kush 8 [R] 300 Royal Limez - (Zkittlez x Black Lime Reserve) x Royal Kush 8 [R] 300 Royal Maui Berry - Diesel Maui Dawg x Blackberry Kush x Royal Kush 9 [R] 250 {Royal Kush genome is one of the most sought after stabilized / homogenized IBLs in existence from the heart of the Emerald Triangle in Northern California.}

~ Karma Genetics (Holland) ~ 

Biker Kush (Ha-OG Bx2) - Ha OG x Biker Kush V1 [R] 150 Sour Power OG - Sour Power (cup winning cut) x Biker Kush V1 [R] 150 Tha Melon - Melon x Biker Kush V1 [R] 150 Karma Sour Diesel Bx2 - Rez Sour D x (Rez Sour D x (Rez Sour D x Biker Kush v2)) [R] 350 Headbanger - Rez Sour D (KG cut) x Biker Kush V1 [R] {2013 Amsterdam Cannabis Cup 1st} 300 Josh D OG - SFV OG x Triangle Kush x Hells Angels OG [R] 300 {Real OG Kush Story - Josh D & Matt “Bubba” Berger began developing these genetics in Orlando, Florida back in 1991.} {Biker Kush v2 - Ha OG x (Ha OG x (Ha OG x SFV OG Bx2))} (cup winning genetics) {Sour Power - Starbud x East Coast Sour Diesel} (cup winning genetics) {Sour Diesel used in Karma Sour crosses is a KG cut of a Rez Sour D IBL selected in 2007}

~ Surfr Seeds (Pacific Northwest) 

Citrus Tsunami - Tropicana Cookies x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 Island Zkittlez - Sour Strawberry x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 North Shore - Mendo Purps x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 Endless Summer - Purple Punch x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100 So Pitted - MAC1 x Orange Zkittlez [R] 100

~ Pacific North West Roots - Ras Kaya Paul (Washington) ~ 

Koffee F5 - Alien OG x Alien Kush {Rare Pacific Northwest Roots Hierloom IBL} [R] 300 Black Koffee - Black Dog Kush Bx4 x Koffee F5 [R] 300 Koffee & Donuts - Glazed Cherries F4 x Koffee F5 [R] 300

~ Green Source Gardens (Southern Oregon Heirlooms) ~ 

Pinkleberry Kush F5 {Mendacino Blackberry Kush Hierloom IBL} [R]

~ HBK Genetics ~ 

Chile Verde - Key Lime Pie x Lavender [R] 300 {Emerald Cup 2018 Winner - Best Personal Use} {Key Lime Pie - Durban Poison x Cherry OG x OG Kush} {Lavender - Super Skunk x Big Skunk Korean x Afghani Hawaiian}

~ Alien Genetics ~ 

Sour Apple IX (IBL) - Sour Apple IBL x Sour Apple IBL [R] 350

~ Mos_Cutty ~ 

Cherry AK 47 IBL (Original Serious Seeds stock) 250 {AK47 - Colombian x Mexican x Thai x Afghani} [R]

~ Motherlode Gardens (Yosemite, California) ~ 

Ancient OG F5 - 1972 Iranian Landrace x Snow Lotus {Bodhi Seeds Hierloom IBL} [R] 200

~ Twenty20 Genetics (Mendacino, California) ~ 

SFV OG Bx5 (SFV OG IBL) - San Fernando Valley OG Kush [R] 150

~ Elev8 Seeds (Seattle, Washington) 

Bruce Banner OG - OG Kush (Ghost Cut) x Strawberry Diesel [R] 140

~ Jaws Genetics ~ 

Fruity Pebbles OG IC1 - Fruity Pebbles OG F2 x Fruity Pebbles OG F1 [R] 200

~ OrgnKid / Zoolander ~ 

Banana OG F3 - OG Kush x Sagmartha strain [R] {Original Seed Stock} 200

~ GG Strains (Las Vegas, Nevada - RIP Joesy Whales) ~ 

Gorilla Glue #4 IBL (Original Glue) - GG4 x GG4 Bx6 [R] 300 {Original Seed Stock of Michigan / Los Angeles High Times Cannabis Cup Winner 2014 and High Times Jamaican World Cup Winner.}

~ FYG Tree (Santa Cruz, CA) ~ 

Black Rose F13 (Heath Robinson IBL) - Black Russian x Shiva Skunk (purple pheno) [R] 200 Shiva Skunk Bx - Shiva Skunk x Black Rose F12 [R]

~ AK Bean Brains (Anchorage, Alaska breeder and old school genetic preservationist holding beans & cuts for over 30 years from original Dutch Seedbank stocks.) ~ 

N L #1 x N L #5 [R] 100 TK/NL5 Haze - Triangle Kush x Northern Lights #5 [R] 100 (Northern Lights #1 x Big Skunk) x Northern Lights #1 [R] 100 (Big Skunk x Northern Lights #1) x Super Skunk [R] 100 95 Black Domina - Northern Lights x Ortega x Hash Plant x Afghani [R] 100 Black Domina Bx (Black Domina x Pacific Northwest Hash Plant) x Northern Lights #1 [R] 100 (Black Domina x Matanuska Thunder Fuck) x Northern Lights #1 [R] 100 Matanuska Thunder Fuck Bx3 - Alaska Thunder Grape x Dutch Thunder Fuck [R] 100 {Northern Lights was brought to Neville Schoenmakers in the Netherlands in 1985, where he worked the line before releasing it under “The Seed Bank of Holland” ~ NL #5 became the High Times Cannabis Cup Winner in 1989, 1990 and 1992 and is considered one of the most influential strains of all time. These seeds have been preserved in Alaska since the late 80s.}

~ The Nature Farm (Real NorCal Culture) ~ 

Cheddar Skunk V2 - 89’ UK Cheese (Exodus Cut) x Uncle Festers Skunk #18 IBL [R] 100 Hidden Hills Skunk - 94’ SFV OG x Uncle Festers Skunk #18 IBL [R] 100 Uncle Festers Skunk #18 IBL aka Skunkbud - Afghani Indica x Mexican Sativa (64’ Brick Weed) x Colombian Gold & Red [R] 100 {Original Hells Angels strain bred in 1964 by “Uncle Fester” an early 60’s psychologist turned outlaw. Authentic Original Skunk #1 lineage that is pre Skunkman. Preserved / held by family in Northern California over 3 generations.}

~ Doc D Seeds ~ 

Bandaid Haze ix 3.0 (Piff) - Cuban Black Haze x A5/Thai [R] 200 (2 packs) {These seeds originally came from a Spanish grower in the “A5 crew” out of Southern Holland. “A5” was short for their NL#5 x Haze A open Thai pollination project. These seeds were shared with legendary grower Bodhi, who found one male and used it to pollinate a cut of “Cuban Black Haze” that he had. The strain was referred to as “Piff” and the seeds were shared almost exclusively with Doc D. After running the seeds, Doc selected “Piff #7” and shared the cut back with Bodhi who further worked the line. The cut was a significantly better long flowering haze variety with a shorter flowering time than the Cuban Black Haze mother or A5 father. Bodhi then later referred to the strain as “Bandaid Haze” coining the term because he said “it heals all wounds” This genome has direct lineage to the New York Hazes (NYC Piff / Uptown Piff / Washington Heights Haze) of the 2000s without any of the paranoia/anxiety that came from many of the hazes from that era. Many world renowned breeders agree that most of the “New York Haze” and “New York City Piff” varieties are all just different cuts of the same strain, that most likely comes from an early selection of Neville Schoenmakers (NL#5 x Haze) which is often referred to as the “pinnacle of cannabis breeding” that has dominated cannabis scene from the 1980s in Holland to the present day.}
{Fems}

~ Mass Medical Strains (Massachusetts) ~ 

Star Pupil - Purple Thai x Afghan/Pakistan [F] 150 {High Times Flower of Month - Jan. 2017} Pu Tang - Star Pupil x Tangie [F] {High Times Top 10 Strains of 2019} 150 Grape Pupil - Pu Tang x Star Pupil [F] 150 Triangle Pupil - Triangle Kush x Star Pupil [F] 150 Bubba Pupil - Pre-98 Bubba Kush (Katsu Bluebird) x Star Pupil [F] 150 Nepali Blue - Nepalese White Mountain Charas Sativa Heirloom x Blue Magoo Bx2 [R] 200

~ Compound Genetics (Portland, Oregon) ~ 

Gelateria - Acai Berry Gelato x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 Liquid Imagination - Blue Zkittlez x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 Icicles - White Sherbet x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 Petrol Rainbows - Sour Gelato 5 x Jet Fuel Gelato [F] 150 The Menthol S1 - The Menthol x The Menthol [F] 150 {Jet Fuel Gelato - Gelato 45 x (High Octane OG x Jet Fuel G6)} {The Menthol - Gelato 45 x (White Diesel x (High Octane x Jet Fuel G6))}

~ Phinest Cannabis (Sacramento, California) x Cannarado (Colorado) ~ 

PB Souffle - Dosidos x Lava Cake [F] 150 Lava Breath - Mendobreath F3 x Lava Cake [F] 150 Magma Cookies - Cuvee Cookies x Lava Cake [F] 150 {Lava Cake - Grape Pie x Thin Min Girl Scout Cookies} {First major genetic line released to public that was created from tissue culture / micropropagation - RIP Jai Malloy (founder of Phinest Cannabis)}

Looking for some careelegal advice
Few stats/timeline:

• Been at current company for just under 2 years
• Company is a VC backed high tech company with over 700 employees
• Joined running a direct sales team (net new logos) as a "manager"
• Compensation was 450k OTE (50/50 Split)
• Hit quota every quarter, etc.
• After a year, was asked to run channel sales team, promoted to a "Senior Sales Manager"
• Joined channel sales team, and company was going through changes, growing etc., my compensation ended up being tied to the overall sales number for a few months, but changed to holding a quota (SQLs and Closed Won deal attribution) started in January
• Ended up not being the "leader" of all of channel sales as they hired a much more senior exec (understood)
• From January until now, team has hit and exceeded quota (200%), so the commission checks have been very high since I am still on the 450k ote (50/50) split
• I was told yesterday my company wants to reduce my compensation from 450k ote, to 350k ote and change the split to 70/30 to more align with channel sales being a "support" sale

To recap, ran direct sales team for a year, asked to moved to channel sales ~ 9 months ago (no compensation change) and now, 9 months later, being told compensation is decreasing 100k OTE
Overall, I know my compensation is higher than the industry norm, but I have industry expertise in this specific space and it is one of the reasons I left my larger corporation to join this smaller tech startup. I do agree with the change in the 50/50 split to 70/30, but think the 100k OTE drop is quite excessive and do not appreciate the bait and switch of leading all of channel sales vs. just managing a team in channel sales
Do I have any "recourse" here? Open to recommendations :)

I have 3 step kids, 2 bios with my ex, and an ours baby with my husband. His ex follows the HCBM playbook word for word, complete with parking lot meltdowns, parental alienation, and trying to turn my husband against me. We refuse to speak bad about her to the kids, but she affirms any normal frustration they have and any consequence he gives them shes there to alleviate.
My step son seems to be following in his moms footsteps and cant fathom that his actions have consequences. My husband coaches his baseball team and got on him a few months ago for bullying his teammates, cheating at school, and lying. He decided he didnt like this and sent my husband a text that he wasnt coming back home and was staying at his moms to avoid the consequences from all of this at our house. This same thing happened last year with my step daughter and my step daughter made it 6 months over there before she came running back.
Anyway, we are traveling right now for a game and my step son and his teammate walked by me and my son. The teammate said hi to my toddler but my step son just completely snubbed his brother.
My husbands ex flipped shit when she found out we were expecting, during my postpartum time at the hospital she was constantly texting my husband that she couldnt do xyz for her kids and he needed to leave and go do them (he only agreed to one of these requests as it was a valid reason picking up SS from school). Shes screamed at him in front of her own kids that my toddler isnt the kids real brother, and that my husband clearly doesnt give a shit about his “other kids” anymore (even though 2 of the 3 live here 50/50 and he coaches their sports teams. Doesnt seem to fit her narrative that shes telling people which just makes her look crazier).
I feel like all of this is turning my SS against his brother and now he wont even acknowledge him. And at this point i am kind of wondering if i even want SS coming back here if he decides to. He treats my other 2 kids like shit, he cries if hes critiqued about anything, his entire social media is a narcissistic cesspool, and is turning into a compulsive liar.
Im not sure if this is something i need to be more understanding of because hes had his mom actively creating this mess for all of them for years, or if i have a right to be pissed off because it feels wrong being pissed off at a kid to the point of not wanting him back in our house with this behavior. At the same time though, per my therapist, hes old enough to know right from wrong even if he does have a mom who is encouraging this.
Would like some perspective from step parents

May got out to a lightning start for me, continuing the torrid April pace for a while before cooling off a bit in the back end of the month. That's partially by design, as I jumped into a pair of longer games (one enormously so) which I won't finish until deeper into June, but I've also noticed I'm slowly bleeding gaming time from my evenings. As my kids get incrementally older and the days grow incrementally longer entering summer, an hour that would previously be my own is now deferred to them, and that adds up over the course of an entire month.
Not that I'd trade my kids, you understand.
(Games are presented in chronological completion order; the numerical indicator represents the YTD count.)
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#27 - Contra: Hard Corps - GEN - 8/10 (Great)
It's been fascinating to watch the Contra series evolve over time, and Hard Corps on the Sega Genesis is no different. With no Mode 7 (the SNES' proprietary isometric viewpoint mode) available on the system, necessarily some of the top down content from Contra III would need to be altered or removed, and that begged the question of what would take its place: after all, a return to basic sidescrolling action might feel like a big step down, and we can't have that. So I think I expected Hard Corps to throw in a new wrinkle to keep the formula a bit more fresh. What I did not expect was for it to make three enormous changes.
For one, Hard Corps has four different characters to choose from, and each is actually unique. It's not just the look - where else can you play a cybernetic wolfman? - but they've got different sizes and hurtboxes as well. And while each starts with the same basic low power machine gun, each has a completely different loadout of possible weapon upgrades, ensuring that all four play very differently from one another outside of the fundamentals of movement. To that end, the two weapon toggle of Contra III is expanded in Hard Corps, allowing you to hold all four of your upgraded weapons simultaneously and switch between them at will, which adds a new layer of depth and strategy to the action. Building upon this notion of enhanced player choice even further, the second big change is that the game has branching paths. After the first stage you make a choice that determines where you head for the second level, and then later on you make another choice that creates further divergence, such that the game has four main endings (and a secret fifth!), all with their own dedicated unique stages. It's for that reason possibly the most replayable game so far in the franchise; I myself did a run through of each ending using a different character per run to get a feel for them all.
This leads to the final big change, which is the only one I don't regard a resounding success: the entire game is basically a boss rush. Let's zero in on the main path that I followed on my primary playthrough and add up all mini-bosses and full boss phases. What number might you expect that to come out as? A dozen or so? Well, sorry about your naiveté, but the answer is 43: it's bosses all the way down. This is a MUCH more mentally taxing load than previous Contra games where you could kind of skate through the non-boss sections with good fundamentals. And that's just one of four possible paths through the game! It's absurd! It's also way more fun than it sounds it would be from the description, but I've heard people say Hard Corps is the toughest Contra game and now I know why. I do miss just running and gunning and dropping dudes in one hit before a thrilling finale; it's hard to be properly wowed by a boss fight when that's all you ever see. But nevertheless Contra: Hard Corps is lives up to the legacy of greatness the franchise had up until that point established...just steel yourself mentally for the extensive memorization it requires of you.
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#28 - Ancient Enemy - PC - 5.5/10 (Semi-Competent)
Solitaire is one of those games that nobody really wants to play. It’s a game of convenience and opportunity, only attractive in the absence of something better, which is to say “nearly anything else at all.” Slightly more entertaining are variations on the form, such as Mahjong Solitaire or Free Cell, where certain cards/tiles are locked until the ones above them have been cleared away. These are still just time wasting games for people with nothing else to do, but when presented as a discrete set of challenges there’s a bit more appeal. Do you know they say that every one of the 32,000 numbered games of FreeCell on classic Windows operating systems was supposedly beatable? Did you know a very bored teenage me once decided to see if I could prove it by playing and beating every single unique game of FreeCell in order? I got into the low 30s or so before I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life and wisely moved on.
Well, Ancient Enemy is a game for people with nothing better to do, masquerading as a game that would qualify as "something better to do." It’s an RPG, I guess, but the gameplay revolves entirely around a solitaire variant. You have a deck of “stock cards” numbered 0-9 and start each encounter (“hand”) by flipping the top one. Then on the board you have to collect a card with a number adjacent to the one you’re displaying - 0 serving as a bridge between 1 and 9. Getting a card reveals any card trapped immediately below it and enables that card to be collected as well. If you can’t make a move, you can flip a new stock card over to get a random new number until your deck runs out. Some levels are simple puzzles in this vein, trying to clear all the cards from the board. Most encounters though are battles, where you do the exact same thing, except the color of the card you collect enables you to attack, defend, or cast a spell. So it’s turn-based combat, except each turn is you basically clearing as many cards as you can from the board to juice up your attack or bolster your defense, and that’s about it.
Now, at first, this is actually way more fun than I’m making it sound. I mean, I like solitaire type games for what they are, and the extra mechanics definitely do enrich the experience. You get consumable wild cards, battle boards have bonus cards with instant benefits, you get powers that manipulate the board, new types of cards appear, all good stuff. The problem is that the game completely runs out of these new ideas about a quarter of the way through, at which point you’re just going through the motions until the end, accompanied by a complete nothing of a story that I was confident I had figured out, only to find that the ending was somehow worse than the cliche I’d been anticipating. Thus, the game sadly settled into that exact same niche of games it was supposed to improve upon and supplant. Which I suppose is ok…if you’ve got nothing better to do.
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#29 - Snakebird Primer - PC - 7/10 (Good)
I follow a general rule of always playing game franchises in order, but Snakebird Primer is a unique case wherein the developers of the original Snakebird decided that it was too off-putting to new players, and so they made a sequel that they explicitly wanted newcomers to play first. A "primer" in truth to ease you into the overall Snakebird challenge, as it were. So when I decided to check out Snakebird, I thought all right: just this once I'll do it your way.
So how does Snakebird Primer shake out? Well...it's fine. It's a jaunty kind of puzzle game, with bright colors, friendly art and music, and general good vibes. In each stage you control one or more segmented "snakebirds" and have to get them all to the rainbow portal to complete the level. Sometimes you need to eat fruit to open the portal as well, but that's the entire game in a nutshell. It's a very simple concept, complicated only by the fact that a snakebird that has no body segments touching the ground will fall, and so each stage is a kind of pathing challenge, tasking you to figure out the right order of operations to reach the end. The levels are very well paced and designed if you just go in order: there aren't any hand-holdy tutorials, but new ideas are introduced organically at various intervals, and the challenge always feels reasonable, especially because you can undo any number of moves at will, like stepping through code to find an error.
There is, however, a significant difficulty spike for the last couple levels, which is pretty jarring. And when you add to that the fact that the designer of Baba Is You said he built a lot of his design philosophy around the original Snakebird, I've got to admit I'm a lot less keen on checking that one out. It's in that same realm of "enter these six dozen commands in precisely the right order" that made Baba Is You eventually feel more tedious and frustrating to me than anything else, so I think for now I'm happy to have just played the "lite" version instead.
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#30 - It Takes Two - PS4 - 8.5/10 (Excellent)
When trying to write down a genre for It Takes Two in my tracking spreadsheet, I wanted to put "Yes". It's as though the developers wanted to make a bunch of different kinds of games and, rather than accepting any limitations (self-imposed or otherwise), they just found a way to do it all at once. It Takes Two is a platformer. It's a third-person shooter. It's a puzzle game. It's a rhythm game. It's a racing game. It's a stealth game. It's a boss battling action adventure. It's a minigame collection. It's a romantic comedy. It's an exploration playground. One minute you're flying around on a jetpack chucking Captain America shields at devils and the next you're literally playing a timed game of chess. None of the things that It Takes Two does would be characterized as masterpiece forms of their respective genres, but that's not the point. There's sufficient depth and development of each mechanic that it never feels like a lazy tack-on to check a box - and that in itself is beyond impressive - but it's the sheer number of different ideas tossed into this package that make it truly special.
It's hard for me to even review this game, frankly. Part of that is because I feel a strong bias towards the game for the audaciousness of what it tries to achieve, and for the way it inspires me to keep stretching myself in new ways however I can. But it's also hard because I don't remember the whole thing. It Takes Two is both fresh in memory, having just finished it, and yet far away and mingled in my mind with similar bits of similar other adventures (Tearaway foremost among them). Why is that? Well, I first booted up It Takes Two in May of 2022 as a co-op experience to share with my wife - quite fitting, as it turns out, given the nature of the game's plot of trying to reconcile an embattled couple. We'd only play in smaller bursts of 1-2 hours at a time, but every session we played it felt like we were playing a new, different game. Music to my ears, but much harder on my gaming-challenged wife, who took longer to adjust to each mechanical shift. Pretty soon we were playing less and less often, even as I was playing a game like Tearaway early on that occupied some similar design space in my head. Soon we stopped playing at all. When I tried to suggest resuming this title over the past year, I was repeatedly rebuffed until finally a month ago I managed to wear her down enough that we picked it up again for about an hour a week. So it is that the first half of the game is fuzzy and nebulous to me, even as I recall that I loved playing, whereas the back half is much fresher, and it's nigh impossible for me to separate my wife's frequent frustrations from my own experience - especially since I've been playing on a controller experiencing heavy stick drift, so managing the camera was a nightmare through no fault of the game's.
All that said, how could I not recommend this game? It's best played with two experienced gamers, but the story only fully lands if you play as a couple, so there's a bit of potential for a disconnect there, as I experienced. It's not a perfect game. But it is an incredibly ambitious one that had me routinely grinning from ear to ear, despite the grumblings on the couch next to me. When I pointed out to my wife that we finished the game in May 2024, almost to the day when we started back in '22, she said "They should've called it It Takes Two Years." We're both glad it's over, but I think for very different reasons.
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#31 - Rogue Legacy 2 - PS5 - 7/10 (Good)
Some game sequels try to really shake things up and try something different from the one before. Final Fantasy is probably the biggest and most obvious example of this, but you can also see it in virtually every Super Mario Bros. game, in the Castlevania series, and the list goes on extensively from there. On the other hand, some game sequels treat their predecessors like rough drafts to be perfected. With these, the idea is to take the vision for the previous game, use the increase in time/budget/developer expertise now available, and try to execute on it more completely than was possible before. When a game like this is successful, there becomes almost zero reason to ever play the original game (other than possibly its story), because the new version has replaced it entirely as the definitive experience.
Rogue Legacy 2 is one of these latter types of games. Everything from the first game is pretty much still there (bosses excepted): enemies, basic combat and room design, character classes, traits, progression, etc. It immediately feels like "Hey, I've played this before," yet a cursory look reveals a huge wealth of additional content over the first game. Classes are better differentiated, you get new weapons, more spells, special abilities, new items, new upgrades, new explorable regions, new mechanics, new new new. It truly is a total replacement for Rogue Legacy 1 in this regard, a "go ahead and uninstall that thing forever because we've got it all right here and then some" type of mission statement. I was amazed at how I kept finding ever more avenues of progression and discovery, even many hours into the game, In fact, I never did manage to play as every class, and each class has a variant form as well, most of which I didn't even unlock. It's overflowing with stuff.
And I think that's why it didn't work quite as well for me as the first game: it's all too much. Now there are four different types of currency, all acquired in different ways, all for different upgrade paths. You're always competing with yourself on what to level up between runs because there are too many choices and all of them seem pretty good, but as you're finding your early groove the game throws a big wrench in there: labor costs. While each upgrade has a set gold cost that increases as you level it up, early on the game adds a universal tax mechanic to the entire upgrade tree, making it increasingly prohibitive to spend your money on stuff, and it feels awful. Rogue Legacy 1 had a similar system where each upgrade cost 10g more than the previous, but in the sequel these escalate far more rapidly, to the point where you'll complete a huge run and still feel like you can only afford one or two upgrades that barely move the needle. It's a pure inflationary grinding system meant to pad playtime, and I'm not about that. I played RL1 through multiple New Game + levels, but I was thrilled to beat RL2's final boss and move on because the economy is so frustrating. Other than that though, it's got quite a lot going for it.
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#32 - Undertale - PS4 - 7/10 (Good)
When is some information too much information? Undertale is notorious for its rabid fan community insisting that there is only one "right" way to play the game, and so if you've ever heard of Undertale there's a good chance you already know what that preferred method is: pacifism. Undertale takes a unique approach to the JRPG in two primary ways: first, that defending against enemy attacks is an active system pretty much akin to dodging in a bullet hell game, and second that you almost never actually need to choose the "Fight" command from the battle menu in order to succeed in an encounter. The argument from the community is that you must play in this fully pacifist manner, largely because of a design decision that thoroughly punishes players who do not, only revealed after the game's conclusion. Thus, these players are "helping" curious newcomers by saving them from falling victim to a fairly vindictive design choice that would create a lot of frustration.
The problem with that approach is that Undertale makes it abundantly clear from the outset that you have the option for these alternative combat approaches, trains you on how to use them, and then gives you a positive feedback loop for choosing that direction with your gameplay. Which means the discourse surrounding this game effectively undermines not only the game's own ability to surprise and educate you, but also the authorial intent of that same design decision, which in context is a conscious player decision to go against the grain and suffer the possible consequences of doing so. In short, I wish I'd never heard of Undertale before I played it, as I'm sure I would've had a much better time.
As it stands, Undertale is still a highly creative take on the genre that, despite an aesthetic I didn't care for and writing that leaned a bit too hard at times into "lol I'm so random" territory for my tastes, still managed to get me invested with some of its characters and even make me laugh aloud at times. I was particularly impressed with that aforementioned approach to combat, as each enemy introduced unique hazards to avoid, so fighting a new monster was far more exciting here than in a standard turn-based RPG where the only meaningful question is "How much damage did this whatever move do to me?" So for those reasons I applaud Undertale. Even still, there's a lot of walking back and forth with no major purpose beyond "it was decided the game should be a little bit inconvenient here," adding some unnecessary tedium to the mix. In short, Undertale's a generally good time, but if you want it to be even better, just pretend you haven't read anything I just said.
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#33 - Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PS5 - 7.5/10 (Solid)
2018 was a big year for Miles Morales. In the fall he showed up in the PS4 title Marvel's Spider-Man as a major supporting character, and by the end of the year he was stunning cinema audiences in the fantastic Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as the primary protagonist. It's no surprise then that by 2020, with his brand so hot, Sony and Insomniac Games would cash in with a follow-up title to the hit PS4 game with Miles front and center. And for the most part, the game is what you'd expect it to be from that basic pitch: more of the same from 2018, only focusing on Miles' family, his new home of Harlem and its people, and his path to becoming a fully fledged hero in his own right. That's all fine, but here's the problem: all of it has been done better before, and recently to boot. Miles' story of personal growth and family drama was handled better in the Spider-Verse series, even though MSM:MM wisely walks chooses to walk some different beats along the way. "Superhero of Harlem" was done masterfully by Netflix with the Luke Cage series (the first season, at least) back in 2016, and MSM:MM doesn't even try to address any issues beyond the most surface level. And the "more of the same" gameplay?
Well, admittedly that's still pretty good. Web swinging is as fun as ever to the point that there's an XP challenge to web swing at high speed for a full cumulative hour of real time and I caught myself thinking, "Hmm, maybe..." There are fast travel points that unlock relatively early on, but the joy of traversal feels like the main point of the game, so why would you bother? Miles also gets some new Spidey moves related to his bio-electric powers, and these are really fun and impactful to pull off, such that "more of the same" isn't in this case a damning phrase. And yet, it's also distinctly not "more, but better." In order to emphasize your new powers, the goons you fight (now including women for the first time I can recall ever seeing in a superhero game like this) have upgraded their own abilities as well, which means the simple pleasure of chaining big combos is a bit diminished. Maybe this enemy just blocks all your basic attacks and stops you cold. Maybe this one turns the tables to dodge and counter you. Or maybe you're just constantly surrounded by a flood of dudes with guns and rocket launchers and you feel like you never get a chance to press "punch" without being thoroughly punished.
Now add to that the game's relatively brief length and general lack of meaningful activities compared to its predecessor, as well as its truly awful villains and the ho-hum plot that they service, and you've got a title that's decidedly a step back from what came before. Of course, what came before was excellent, so even a step back still lands you in territory that's quite fun to play around with. My 6-year-old summed it up best when he came downstairs to ask me a question one day and caught me playing: "Whoa...how are you Spider-Man?!" Which is to say that Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that really makes you feel like a wannabe Spider-Man who hasn't gotten it all figured out just yet. And I guess that's all right.
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Coming in June:

• I've had less time for PC gaming lately for a couple of different reasons, but I'm expecting that to be a temporary thing, and I don't think I'm in danger of failing to finish Mass Effect 3 by the end of June. I didn't realize the version of the game I had included all the DLC. Nor did I actually know what any of the DLC was. So I was quite a ways into the game and feeling great about my progress when I got suspicious that the section I was playing wasn't actually base game content. I looked it up and found that, in fact, about 90% of what I'd played to date was DLC and I'd barely actually started the base game itself. That explains why the main story was taking a while to get off the ground, at any rate.
• Speaking of getting off the ground, my journey through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom began impatiently a few months after release, but I took an extended break from the game and have now spent pretty much all of May continuing my thorough trek through the game world. I'm well over 200 hours into the game and am only several days away from having explored the entirety of the game's map. At which point I believe I'll finally advance the main quest past its initial stage.
• In my review for Rogue Legacy 2 above I mentioned the Castlevania franchise, which I feel I can speak to as a whole given that I've finished nearly every game in the series to date. Unsurprisingly I felt most drawn to the metroidvania style games, so there was a layer of disappointment in exhausting the last of those to discover. Disappointment that will soon be temporarily eradicated when I boot up Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, produced by that same creative mind.
• And more...

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I feel like I've driven myself in circles with research, so hoping for another set of eyes to help me understand my options in case I've missed anything. I drive ~700 miles/week and have averaged 25-30k miles per year for the last 6 years. In that time, I've driven a 2018 Civic (loved it!), and a 2021 Accord Hybrid (tolerated it!). I'm at the point in my life where I'd like something nicer, but I'm really struggling to see what that means without blowing past my budget or compromising in some other meaningful way.
My preferences:

• Sedan/hatchback. Really dislike driving SUV's (and my wife has a Tucson for when we need it for longer family trips).
• Reliability. My schedule just doesn't allow for me to have a car in the shop every other week. If I'm spending luxury car money, would really love to get this one to last me 4-5 years with maintenance being manageable. I've mostly focused on Japanese cars here, but feel free to change my mind.
• Has to fit two car seats in the back with enough room for the kids to manage when we do make short trips in this car.
• 30+ MPG at a minimum, but it's as much about total range as it is MPG honestly.
• Comfortable. I originally was looking for "fun", but I've decided at almost 40 years old my morning highway commute isn't going to be fun no matter what I do, so at least be comfortable. This is both about seat/cabin comfort as it is technology, as I like having a larger screen to work with for maps/carplay.
• No fully electric. I have no charging available at work, and no real option at home without a significant remodel/electrical upgrade. That's a next car kind of timeline.
• I'm in the NYC metro area, so AWD is nice to have but not required.

I've so far looked at:

• Crown Limited - Very comfortable and good MPG, but it's a bit noisy at highway speeds. I don't hate the styling, but I don't love it either. Would be more of an option if the Platinum didn't exist, maybe.
• Crown Platinum - Love the engine, (relatively) tons of fun to drive... but I'm worried the 32 MPG highway rating doesn't hold up in the real world. If I'm stuck at ~25 MPG I'll go crazy going to the gas station every other day. Really wanted to love this car.
• Lexus ES 350 - Basically the same concerns as the Crown Platinum, but nicer on the inside. Only FWD and more traditional to look at.
• Lexus ES 300h - My compromise car - Tons of comfort, great MPG/range. I actually had an offer down on a UL that unfortunately fell through, but now I'm having second thoughts as it's right at the top end of my price range.
• Other cars I've researched but not driven: Genesis G80 (beautiful car but range concerns, would probably have to do a CPO which wouldn't be bad, but is slightly harder to find in stock), Acura Integra (is it big enough for two car seats in the back? is it nice enough to just not buy a '25 civic?), Volvo S60/S90 (upper end of my budget, why aren't I just getting a Lexus?), Lexus UX/IS (some combination of too small / not good enough MPG, and neither have that many redeeming qualities over the ES).

Am I missing anything? Am I just resigned to Lexus as the boring but correct car in all cases?

This is gonna be a long post, and it’s mostly incoherent ramblings but I’ve been on the fence about recovery for the past few days and it’s driving me insane.
To preface this, I am 15F and have struggled with a restrictive ED for the past 2-3 years. I’ve lost ~50 pounds in that time, and am now bmi 18s, but I’ve been stuck with some kind of EDNOS for a while now. The whole restrict, binge, compensate ect. It got really bad this year as the purging aspect flared up at the start of the year, and I transitioned into more heavy restricting around March. Now I’m doing high intake, and have had some more success with not binging, but I still do sometimes, which I compensate for. DESPITE ALL THAT, I’m still not underweight. I’m about to be, but that last bit just doesn’t want to come off, and I know it’s because my body doesn’t want to completely shut down, but it’s so frustrating. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t feel like I deserve recovery. Before my restrictive ED, I feel like I had some sort of BED. I remember constantly just eating and eating. Safe to say I was an overweight kid, meaning I got told by everyone around me that I was fat and needed to lose weight, thus devolving into this. I’ve also always had bad body image issues, and even though I’ve lost like half my body weight from when I was younger, I feel like I look the same. What’s weird is, I lost my period pretty early on into my restrictive ED. Probably around BMI 25, which I know doesn’t apply to children but just to give a number ya know. It was never stable (I only had it for like a year at that point), but there was a period of time where I didn’t have it for almost 10 months, before being put on progesterone. All that to say, I’m scared that my set point weight is in the overweight or even obese category. I’m scared that I’ll overshoot and become fat and ugly. Even when I was restricting, just not as heavily, I was in the middle of the normal category. As I lost more and more weight, more people started complimenting me too. Adults/family friends would always comment on how much prettier I looked, and how impressive my weight loss was. Acquaintances and fiends I haven’t seen in a long time would be astonished at how different I looked (in a good way). I also felt more confident in wearing the clothes I wanted to wear, more jiraikei-coquette-cutecore stuff. I liked the feeling of not fitting into my old clothes, and wearing xxsmalls. Another reason I don’t want to recover. I can’t imagine dealing with the comments that’ll come with weight gain. All the talking behind my back ec. I feel like I’ve also lost my personality. All I focus on is my eating disordefood, and when I talk or rant to my friends it’s about the fucking eating disorder, or some kind of effect I’m feeling because of it. I’m scared that once I get weight restored, I’ll have nothing to me, and that I’ll just be the fat kid. The people I see at school and even my friends make it really hard for me to accept that I’ll gain weight as well. It’s not their fault, but they all seem to be ‘naturally skinny’. They eat whatever they want whenever, but can stop or say no to food just as easily. They have thigh gaps and slim frames, which I worked so hard to destroy my body for. And they just have it. It’s not fair. Whenever I see them eat and stop, I always wonder how they do it. I’m constantly feeling like I could devour an entire buffet by myself. Since I developed this so early on, I was probably never able to grow to my true height. My family isn’t tall by any means, but I’m only 5’1, if even that. There’s also the thing about my boobs and ass too. Sorry if this is inappropriate, but I’m at that age where I care bout it somewhat (not all that much, but that’s a whole nother story regarding my gender). My family is stacked in this department, and it makes me sad whenever they comment on my assets being small. My friends being concerned whenever I tell them about my intake or what I feel makes me want to recover, but it also makes me take pride in the fact that I’m sick enough to give two shits over. My family, especially my grandma, crying over what I’m doing to myself makes me want to recover so bad. TLDR; I want to recover, for being able to eat whatever whenever, to not think about food all the time, to not feel cold and dead all the time, to eat with my family and friends without stressing, to grow taller and get my, assets, back, ect, but my biggest opposition is weight and fat gain. There’s also the thing with recovery where water retention and bloating is prevalent, which is what I experience when binging. I don’t like that feeling. It’s also summer, so yk.