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— 24fun (@24funme) December 31, 2019
from Twitter via IFTTT

After years of saving, we finally had enough money to replace one of our 2 old family vehicles with a new one. Both of our older vehicles had become a bit old and janky, and we wanted a car that had leather seats and a bit of luxury so that we could take long road trips and drives in a pleasant way. We planned to keep this car for the next 10 years.
We were replacing the SUV he normally drives because it was a couple years older then the one I drive - so I told him to pick any SUV he wanted because he'd be the primary driver. Once I said that, he decided on a Toyota 4Runner, a SUV that is more like a truck and something he knew I would hate. I swallowed my opinion and stuck to my word, and even agreed to go over our budget $10,000 so he could get all the bells a whistles. I thought, "Well, I hate it, but at least he's happy." The following week he blacked out all the chrome with a blackout kit. Then he tinted the front side windows. Then he bought a tow kit with a trailer we don't need. (He works behind a desk). He said - "I'm getting new tires and then I'm done."
Fast forward to me returning from visiting family to our $45,000 4runner with monster tires, a lift kit, and a giant tow hitch cork of an animated character. We are in our 50's. He took me for a ride and at 5'2", I had to struggle to get into it. Since he also "leveled" it - it drives like an off road vehicle. It's bumpy and harsh. The "nice" car we'd planned to take on trips and to dinner is now a monster truck.
When I tried to move it yesterday morning from the driveway to get my car, I cranked the wheel, and the giant tires scrapped the wheel well and made a loud "ssccreechhh" as neighbors watched in disbelief and amusement. One neighbor friend asked if "I was OK." The tires are too big for the wheel well so my husband had to hack off part of the brand new car's wheel well to accommodate these giant tires. I got the credit card bill - he spent $2500 on these tires and rims.
I'm beside myself. We've been fighting nonstop. I would never do something like this to him and I don't understand how or what is happening. We rarely vacation so long drives were our way of connecting - now long drives are out unless I want to go for a bumpy and embarrassing experience. Even my 12 year old son feels embarrassed by this vehicle, and said to me "dad wants me to have the truck when I go to high school - do I have to take it?" He doesn't want to be dropped off in it - we live in a fairly conservative area that is densely populated - no where near the country where maybe this truck makes sense?
When I see this monstrosity on our narrow street, I'm filled with sadness that I can't shake. It's a car I can't enjoy - but my husband loves it. If he told me he wanted a monster truck - we could have split up the $45,000 - gotten him a slightly older truck to modify, and still gotten a decent replacement family car - but now we are tapped. AITA?
UPDATE: I asked him to read all the comments here and we'd talk when I came home. When I returned, he read them, but said it wasn't fair because it wasn't "a monster truck" - yes the tires were bigger and yes it need a lift kit to accommodate, and yes, he had to trim the wheel well even after the lift kit - but technically it wasn't "a monster truck". (To me it was, but it wasn't the clownish ones he showed me online.) I agreed it could be worse - so (for my husband) "hey Reddit peeps, my bad - it wasn't an actual monster truck, I took creative liberties that were not fair and I apologize."
Then we moved on to the bigger issue for me - my main issue was that he turned our brand new family vehicle into a mod toy that only he would enjoy. I told him it was uncomfortable and embarrassing. He really couldn't understand the "embarrassing" part. Why did I care what others thought?? He really tried to convince me that I was too concerned about what others thought and that I had a problem. At this point I changed the subject to "can we go to the store and pick up dinner?" He was grateful for the change of subject and I went upstairs to change.
I put on the tightest pink v-neck t-shirt I could find, and stuffed my sport bra with every pair of socks in my drawer. I then rolled up a few t-shirts and stuffed them in for good measure. My body was now in the shape of a very top heavy letter "P". I then commenced to tease out my long hair into the perfect 80's hairdo with lots of hairspray with makeup to match. I also threw on a pair of heels with my leggings. When I walked past our kids, they laughed. When I walked down the stairs, my husband's eyes widened. He was betting I wouldn't go outside like that, and he said "let's go" - thinking he was calling my bluff. I strutted my stuff right to his truck with an exaggerated swing. He started to sweat. Once we were in, he said - "where to?" I said, "the grocery store" (smack dab in the center of town). Halfway there - he said "Fine, I get your point". I said "take me to the store". It was packed. Once we got there I jumped out, arched back, and started strutting to the entrance - at this point he panicked and said "I get it, I get it!!!" I turned around and said - "are you sure?" - the look of fear in his eyes was enough. We both returned to the truck.
Afterwards we went for a drive and had a long talk. He explained that what he thought he was buying and what actually ended up on the car wasn't exactly the same, but he felt he was in too deep. (Didn't help that the car guys were all patting him on the back in admiration). He then convinced himself that this look was even better than what he really wanted. I then explained that a modification could void our warranty. This really freaked him out - he didn't think about this. Luckily it is the kind of lift that can easily be removed. I think in the end, the voided warranty is what swayed him. We'll take a financial hit for sure, but we're in a much better place today than this morning, and are trying to figure out what works for both of us. I'm so glad the guy I married showed up today, because I didn't marry "monster truck guy" - he's a total A-hole.

Sharing my library. It's a mixed bag, from some truly atrocious quality to some hi-res titles. I don't have a huge online storage as I'll just be using the free Mega account (It just went down to 15GB from 50GB). Please comment on any specific titles you'd like me to upload and I'll reply with the link once uploaded.
​
-If there's no quality specified in [], then it's 16/44.1
-Sample rate is only listed when it's higher than 44.1/48
-[16 or 24] is 16-bit or 24-bit
-[When this # is 3 digits] Indicates MP3 and the number is kbps
-[96] MP3 at 96kbps, stay away from these. I told you it's a mixed bag lol
​
​
​
2 Chainz - Based on a T.R.U. Story
2 Pac - 2Pacalypse Now, Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ, Me Against the World, All Eyez on Me, Americaz Most Wanted
8 Mile Original Soundtrack
8Ball - Lost
21 Savage - Slaughter King [320], Savage Mode, Savage Mode II [24]
50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin', The Massacre
112 - 112, Room 112
A Boogie wit da Hoodie - The Bigger Artist [256], Artist 2.0 [24]
A Great Big World - Is There Anybody Out There? [320]
A$AP Ferg - Furious Ferg
A$AP Rocky - Live.Love. ASAP, Long. Live. ASAP
Aaryan Shah - In the Making, The Arrival: Part II [24]
Ace Hood [320] - Studio Album: Gutta, Ruthless, Blood Sweat and Tears, Trials & Tribulations
Mixtape: Ace Won't Fold, All Bets on Ace, Final Warning, Street Certified, The Preview, I Do It.. For the Sport, The Statement, Body Bag Vol.1, Sex Chronicles, The Statement 2, Body Bag Vol.2, Starvation, Starvation II
​
ACG:
.hack_Sign OST 1+2 [320]
Castlevania - Akumajo Dracula Best Music Collections Box
Curse of Darkness - Prelude of Revenge
Harmony of Despair
Lament of Innocence
Lament of Innocence Limited Edition Music Sampler
Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate
Symphony of the Night
Death Note OST 1+2+3 [320]
Detective Conan OST 3
Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite
Final Fantasy VII OST
Final Fantasy VII Reunion Tracks
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy X
Gensomaden Saiyuki - OST, Single Collection
Guilty Gear X - Heavy Rock Tracks, Rising Force of Gear Image Vocal Tracks
Guilty Gear XX OST
Guilty Gear XX - Sound Alive/A.S.H.
Hikaru no Go - Theme Song Selection
Howl's Moving Castle - OST, Symphony Suite [320]
Hunter x Hunter - OST 1+2+3, The Last Mission
Joe Hisaishi - Dream Songs/The Essential Joe Hisaishi
Koudelka
Legend of Mana [320]
Madlax
My-HiME - OST 1+2
Neon Genesis Evangelion - Single Collection
NieR:Automata
Noir - OST 1+2+3
Ragnarok Online Complete Soundtrack
Rurouni Kenshin - OST 1 [320], OST 2+3+4, CD BOX [320], Director's Collection, Premium Collection, Songs, The Best Theme Collection
Shaman King - Comics Image Album, Melody of the Spirits, Osorezan Revoir ~au revoir~, Osorezan Revoir ~prologue to shaman~, Single Vocal Album, Vocal on Parade!!
Slayers TRY Treasure BGM
Spirited Away [320]
The Legend of Zelda - Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time
Tsubasa Chronicle - OST 1+2+3+4
Yu-Gi-Oh! Theme Song Single Collection
Z.O.E. - Zone of the Enders, Anubis: Zone of the Enders
Zenki - Character Song Collection 2, OST 2 Raigou Shourin!!
軒轅劍三外傳:天之痕 - 三個人的時光
風色幻想 - 1+SP+2+3+4+5
​
Adam Ben Ezra - Discography
Adam Lambert - Trespassing
Adam Lopez - The Popera, Showstopper, Till the End of Time
Adele - 21
Afek-T - Les brumes
Agnes Obel - Philharmonics, Aventine, Citizen of Glass [24], Myopia [24]
Akon - Trouble
Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls [320], Sound & Color [192~320]
Alejandro Fernández - de noche - clasicos a mi manera, Confidencias [320]
Alicia Keys - Songs in A Minor
Aloe Blacc - Shine Through, Good Things, Lift Your Spirit
Amber Run - 5am [320], For a Moment I Was Lost [320]
Amy Winehouse - Frank [160~320], Back to Black [196~246], Lioness: Hidden Treasures [320]
Andrea Bocelli - Romanza, Verdi
Angra - Discography (1992 - 2010)[160~231]
Anita Baker - Rhythm of Love
Anthony Ramos - The Freedom EP, The Good & The Bad
Ariana Grande - My Everything [24], Dangerous Woman [24], Sweetener [320], Thank U, Next [24]
Arvo Part - Various works
Aurora - Discography (2015-2019)[24, except Infections of a Different Kind which is in 320]
AZ - Do or Die
Az Yet - Az Yet [320]
Babyface - The Day
Bad Meets Evil - Hell: The Sequel
Ballet Class Music [320]
Banks - Discography (2014-2019)[16~24]
Basso Profondo from Old Russia
Belly [320] - Another Day in Paradise, Inzombia, Mumble Rap
Beyoncé - 4, Beyoncé, Lemonade
Bilal - 1st Born Second
Bill Evans Trio [320] - Explorations, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Waltz for Debby
Bill Withers - Lovely Day: The Very Best of Bill Withers
Billie Eilish - Discography
Birdy - Discography [320]
Bishop Briggs - EP [320], Church of Scars, Champions [24]
Black Hill - Discography (2014-2019)[16~24]

Stvannyr - Secrets of the runes 

Black Panther - Original Score [24], The Album [24], Wakanda Remixed [16]
Blindspotting - The Collins EP [320], The Miles EP [320]
Bloom - Sinses [320]
Blue - All Rise
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Legend
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony - Creepin on ah Come Up EP
Brent Faiyaz - A.M. Paradox EP, Sonder Son, Lost EP, Fuck the World
Bruno Mars - Discography (2010-2016)
Busta Rhymes - The Coming
Call Me By Your Name OST
Camila Cabello - Romance
Cardi B - Gangsta Bitch Music Vol.1 [128], UnderEstimated - The Tour Album [128], GBMV2 [128], Invasion of Privacy
Carolina Eyck [320] - Theremin, Waves
Case - Open Letter
Céline Dion - All the Way.. A Decade of Song, Courage
Charlotte Cardin - Big Boy EP, Main Girl EP
Charlotte Cardinale - Florescentia
Chase Holfelder - Major to Minor (Vol. 1)
Chet Faker - Thinking in Textures, Built on Glass [320], Lockjaw
Childish Gambino - Camp, Because the Internet, 3.15.20
Chingy - Jackpot
Chloe x Halle [24] - Sugar Symphony EP, The Kids Are Alright, Ungodly Hour
Choral: Aliqua, Chor Leoni Men's Choir Discography, Christmas with The Princeton Singers, The Manitou Singers - Repertoire for Women's Voices, Vol. 2
Christina Aguilera - Christina Aguilera [320], Stripped, Back to Basics, Bionic, Lotus [320], Liberation [24]
Cirque du Soleil - Discography (1992-2015)[128~320, 3 albums in 16]
Clann - Kin Fables, Seelie
​
Classical:
100 Great Symphonies
Bach - Selected Organ Works, The Famous Cantatas, The Six Motets
Beethoven - Complete String Quartets, Piano Sonata No.8 op.13 'Pathetique', Piano Sonata No.14 op.27 'Moonlight', Piano Sonata No.23 op.57 'Appassionata'
Brahms - Brahms on Life and Love, Requiem, Symphony No.1
Bruckner - Te Deum
Chopin Complete Piano Music [192]
Dvořák - Mass in D, Requiem, Symphony No.7+8+9
Fauré - Requiem
Glazunov - Violin Concerto in Am op.82
Grieg - Piano Concerto op.16 in Am
Liszt - 10 Hungarian Rhapsodies, Piano Works
Mendelssohn - Symphony No.4, Violin Concerto in Em
Mozart - Clarinet Concerto in A, Concerto in C for Flute, Harp, Orchestra, Horn Concerto No.4, Piano Concerto No.20, Piano Concerto No.21, Requiem
Paganini - Salvatore Accardo plays Paganini's Guarneri del Gesu 1742
Schubert - Piano Sonata No.14+19
Schumann - Piano Concerto op.54 in Am
Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.1, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, The Symphonies [192]
Verdi - Requiem
Vivaldi - Concerto in C for Violin and Double Orchestra, Concerto in D for Violin and Double Orchestra, The Four Seasons
​
clipping - CLPPNG [24], There Existed an Addiction to Blood
Coco OST
Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise
Corey Payette - Children of God, Les Filles du Roi
Craig David - Born to Do It
Curtis Clearsky and the Constellationz - Indigifunk
D12 - Devil's Night, D12 World
Daley - Those Who Wait [192], Days & Night [320], The Spectrum [320]
D'Angelo - Brown Suger, Black Messiah [24/96]
Darren Hayes - Spin
Daveed Diggs - Small THings to a Giant, Seven Nights in Chicago [320]
David Morin - Every Colour
Deen Squad Mixtape 2015 [320]
Destino - Forte, Beginning Again
Destiny's Child - Destiny's Child, #1s
Disclosure - Caracal
DJ Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
DJ Drama - Quality Street Music 2
Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No.1+2+3+4+5+6+8+9+12+14+15, Violin Concerto No.1
DMX - It's Dark and Hell is Hot, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, ...And Then There Was X
Dr. Dre - 2001, Compton
Drake - So Far Gone [320], Thank Me Later [320], Take Care [320], Nothing Was the Same [320], If You're Reading This It's Too Late
Dream Theater - Discography (1989-2019)[16~24/96]
Dream Warriors - Subliminal Simulation
Dru Hill - Dru Hill, Enter the Dru
Dumbfoundead - We Might Die [320], Inside/Outside [24]
Dylan Brady - All I Every Wanted, Choker [128], Dog Show [128]
Eagles - Hotel California
Eazy-E - It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa, Eternal E
Elijah Blake - Bijoux 22 [128], Drift [253~276], Shadows & Diamonds [320], Blueberry Vapors [320]
Eminem - The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show, Encore
En Vogue - Funky Divas
ES Posthumus - Unearthed [320]
Evanescence - Discography (2003-2017)[16~24]
Fantastic Negrito [320] - The Last Days of Oakland, Please Don't Be Dead
Far East Movement - Free Wired
FKA Twigs - LP1, Magdalene
Flipsyde - Discography (2005-2012)[128~320]
Florence + the Machine - Discography (2009-2018)[16~24/96]
Flume - Skin [24]
For vance - From Muscle Shoals [24]
Frank Ocean - Discography (2011-2016)[16~24]
Frank Sinatra - Ultimate Sinatra
Frozen OST
Fugees - The Score
Future - Beast Mode [24], Future [24/96]
Gallant - Zebra [320]
Game of Thrones - S1-8 OST, Various Orchestra Albums, For the Throne
Ghost - Meliora [24]
Ginuwine - Ginuwine... The Bachelor, 100% Ginuwine
Gorillaz - Gorillaz [24], Demon Days [24], Plastic Beach [24], Humanz [24/96]
Grace VanderWaal [24] - Perfectly Imperfect, Just the Beginning
Guru - Jazzmatazz Vol. 1
GZA - Liquid Swords
Hamilton: An Americal Musical - Cast Recording, Hamildrops, Instrumentals, The Hamilton Mixtape
Hans Zimmer - The Dark Knight [24/96], Inception [24][5.1], The Dark Knight Rises [24], Intersteller [24], The Classics [24/96]
Harry Potter OST
Hercules [192]
Higher Brothers - Black Cab, Five Stars
Hozier - Discography (2013-2019)[16~24]
Igorrr - Hallelujah [320]
Il Divo - Discography (2004-2018, except A Musical Affair)(320~16]
In tha Beginning... There Was Rap
Ingrid Michaelson - Discography (2005-2014)
J.S. Ondara - Tales of America (The Second Coming) [24/192], Folk n' Roll Vol.1: Tales of Isolation [24]
Jacques Loussier Trio - Vivaldi- The Four Seasons
James Blake - Discography (2011-2019)
James Vincent McMorrow [320] - Early in the Morning, Post Tropical
Janelle Monáe - Discography (2010-2018)[16~24], Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) EP
Janne - Meeting the Wolf EP
Jay-Z - Discography (1996-2017)[16~24]
Jeremy Dutcher - Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa [320]
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? [24]
Jhené Aiko - Chilombo [24/96]
Jimi Hendrix - Experience Hendrix- The Best of Jimi Hendrix
JMSN [320] - Priscilla, Pllajë, JMSN
Joe - All That I Am, My Name is Joe
John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once/The Lost Album
John Legend - Discography (2005-2016)[320~16]
Jon Mcxro - The Fifth of Never [287~310]
José Tomás Molina - Discography (2014-2019)[16~24]
Josh Groban - Discography (2001-2015)[320, except Stages in 16]
Joss Stone - Introducing... Joss Stone
Juice OST
Justin Timberlake - Discography (2002-2013)[16~24]
k.d. lang - Ingénue, Invincible Summer
Kadebostany - Pop Collection
Kanye West - Discography (2003-2019)[320-24]
Kendrick Lamar - Discography (2011-2017)
Kerry Muzzey - Trailer Music 3, The Architect, Trailer Music 4: Neo
Kid Cudi - Discography (2008-2013)
Kiel Magis - Kiel Magis
Kieran Fearing - Reprieve
Kieran Martin Murphy - The Painter's Hand, Theatrics
​
Korean:
DJ Doc - 4th Album
eAeon - Guilt-Free
H.O.T. - We hate all kinds of violence, I yah!, Age of Peace OST, Outside Castle, The Best
Rain - First Drop
Shinhwa - First Mythology, My Choice, Wedding
​
k-os - Exit, Joyful Rebellion, Atlantis: Hymns for Disco
Krizz Kaliko - Son of Same [239~270], Go [320]
Kwabs [157~246] - Wrong or Right, Pray for Love, Walk
La La Land - The Complete Musical Experience [24]
La Quinta Estación - Sin Frenos [192]
Ladysmith Black Mambazo [192~257] - The Very Best of
Lana Del Rey - Discography (2012-2019)[16~24]
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Le Flow - The Definitive French Hip Hop Compilation
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares - Vol.1+2 [320]
Le mystère des voix Corses - les plus belles polyphonies [320]
Led Zeppelin - Discography (1969-1982), Remasters [24/96]
Lenny Kravitz - Greatest Hits
Leonard Cohen - The Future
Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien - The High Road to Kilkenny
Leslie Odom Jr. - Leslie Odom Jr. [24], Mr.
Lhasa de Sela - La Llorona [320]
Lil Dicky - Hump Days [256], So Hard [320], Professional Rapper [128]
Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake
Linkin Park - Discography (2000-2017)[16~24/96]
Lionel Richie - Back to Front
Loïc Nottet - Selfocracy [320]
London Grammar - If You Wait [24/96], This is a Beautiful Thing [24]
LP - Lost on You [320]
Ludacris - Chicken-Beer, Release Therapy
Ludovico Einaudi - Echoes: The Einaudi Collection, Divenire [320], Nightbook, Islands: Essential Einaudi [320], Elements [320], Seven Days Walking [24]
Luniz - Operation Stackola
Mac Miller - Circles [24]
Madredeus - Various albums (1987-2005)[128~320]
MAGIC! - Don't Kill the Magic [320]
Maksim - Discography (1999-2010)[320, except 2 albums in 16]
​
Mandarin:
5566 - 1st Album
Energy - E3, 無懈可擊, 米迦勒之舞
F4 - 煙火的季節
IPIS 蟑螂 - 第四蟑
RuRu - 美麗心情
S.H.E. - 青春株式會社, 美麗新世界, Together
不能說的秘密 OST [148~224]
伍佰 - 夢的河流, 冬之火 九重天演唱會特選錄音專輯
伍思凱 - 分享
南拳媽媽 - 南拳媽媽的夏天
周杰倫 - Discography (2000-2004)[16 except 同名專輯 in 320]
宋岳庭 - Life's a Struggle
張信哲 - 精選, 從開始到現在
張學友 - 走過1999, 張學友音樂之旅Live演唱會
張智成 - 凌晨三點鐘
張衛健 - 齊天大聖孫悟空
徐婕兒 - 愛之初
戴佩妮 - 怎樣
手牽手大合唱
林俊傑 - 樂行者, 第二天堂
海豚灣戀人 OST
王心凌 - Begin...
臥虎藏龍 (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) OST
范逸臣 - 同名專輯
蔡依林 - 看我72變, 城堡
薔薇之戀 OST
許慧欣 - 孤單芭蕾, 幸福
謝霆鋒 - VIVA, 了解, Viva Live 謝霆鋒演唱會
郭富城 - 目眩城迷 全精選
陳冠希 - Edison Chen
陳小春 - 抱一抱, That's Mine
​
Mandido - Time on Our Hands
Marc Anthony - Discography (1993-2013)[320]
Marian Hill - Act One [24], Unusual
Mario Frangoulis - Various Albums (1998-2014)[128~320]
Marques Houston - MH
Mase - Harlem World
Master P - Ghetto D
Max Richter - Discography (2002-2020)[16~24/96]
MC 900 ft. Jesus - Welcome to My Dream, Open Step Ahead of the Spider
Meek Mill - Dreams Worth More Than Money [24], Championships
Metallica - Discography (Remastered)(1983-2020)[24]
Metro Boomin - Not All Heroes Wear Capes [320]
Miah Luz - The Coming LP
Michael Bolton - Only a Woman Like You [320]
Michael Bublé - Discography (1995-2013)[96~320]
Michael Conway Baker - Four Musical Portraits
Michael Jackson - Discography (1972-2014)[320 except Invincible in 16]
Migos - Discography (2015-2018)[209~24]
Miguel - Discography (2010-2017)[16~24]
Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool [24/192], Bitches Brew [24/88], Kind of Blue
Mirah - Discography (1997-2009)[198~256]
Misha Mishenko - Discography (2016-2019)
Missy Elliott - Under Construction
Moana OST
Mobb Deep - The Infamous
Mos Def - Black on Both Sides, The Ecstatic
Moulin Rouge! OST
Muddy Waters - Anthology
Muse - Origin of Symmetry [24/96], Absolution [24/96], The 2nd Law [24/96], Simulation Theory, Drones [24/96]
Musical Theatre - Various Musical Cast Recordings (1934-2017)[170~202, except Come From Away and Hamilton in 16]
Nahko - Dark as Night, On the Verge, Hoka [320], My Name is Bear [320]
Namie Amuro - Break the Rules, Genius 2000
Nas - Illmatic, It Was Written, Stillmatic, God's Son, The Lost Tapes, Street's Disciple, Life is Good
Naturally 7 - Discography (2000-2015)
Naughty by Nature - 19 Naughty III
Nav - Good Intentions [24]
Ne-Yo - Discography (2006-2012)[320~16]
Night Lovell - Discography (2014-2019)[320]
Nina Simone - The Essential of Nina Simone [24/96]
Nipsey Hussle - Crenshaw, Victory Lap
Niykee Heaton - Bad Intentions, The Bedroom Tour Playlist
Norah Jones - Come Away with Me, Feels Like Home, Not Too Late, Pick Me Up Off the Floor [24/96]
Notre-Dame de Paris (Musical) Cast Recording
Obie Trice - Cheers
October London - Discography (2016-2018)[320]
Omar LinX - A Cold Welcome [320], City of Ommz [320], The Living Dead EP [128], Victor [320], M.O.R [320]
Omarion - O, 21, Ollusion
Once OST [96]
Onegin (Musical)
Opera Babes - Beyond Imagination
P. Diddy - No Way Out, The Saga Continues...
PartyNextDoor - PX3
Pentatonix - Various albums [128~320]
Peter Gundry - Discography (2016-2019)[16~24]
Pharrell - Girl [24]
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon [24/88][DSD64], Pulse
Playboi Carti - Die Lit
PNL - Deux frères [320]
Portishead - Discography (1994-2008)
Post Malone - Discography (2016-2019)[16~24/88]
Prince - Discography (1978-2019)
Pusha T - Daytona [24]
Putomayo - World Reggae, Asian Lounge
Quavo - Quavo Huncho [320]
Queen - Greatest Hits
Rae Sremmurd [320] - SremmLife, SremmLife 2
Raincity - Tell Me, Stuck on Replay, Raincity EP
Raleigh Ritchie - You're a Man Now, Boy [320]
Rick Ross - Discography (2006-2017)
Ricky Martin - Ricky Martin, Música + Alma + Sexo [192]
Rihanna - Anti
Rockapella - 2
Roscoe Dash - J.U.I.C.E. [320], Dash Effect [160]
ROSK - remnants
Ruelle - Up in Flames, Madness, Emerge
Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2, RTJ3 Instrumentals [24/96]
Sade - The Best of Sade
Sam Cooke - Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964 [123~252]
Sam Smith - Discography (2014-2017)
Sandra van Nieuwland [320] - And More, Banging on the Doors of Love
Santino Le Saint - Cloud 304, Xeno, Blue Pill [24], Rage of Angels
Sara Bareilles - Discography (2007-2015)[320, except What's Inside - Songs from Waitess in 24]
Scorpions - Discography (1972-2015)
Scott Leonard - 1man1mike
Sevdaliza - Discography (2017-2020)
Shai - If I Ever Fall in Love [128]
Sia - Discography (1997-2017)[16, except OnlySee + Healing is Difficult in M4A260, This is Acting in 24/96]
Sigur Rós - Discography (1997-2013)
Snoop Dogg - The Doggfather, Tha Last Meal, R&G (Rhythm&Gangsta): The Masterpiece, The Blue Carpet Treatment
Solange - A Seat at the Table
Southern Journey - Bad Man Ballads (Songs of Outlaws and Desperadoes, Vol. 5)
Stacey [128] - Stacey, Stacey (Reconstruction), First Move
Stevie Wonder - The Definitive Collection
Stromae - Cheese [256], Racine carrée [24]
Sun Kil Moon - Discography (2003-2017)[320, except Benji + Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood in 16]
Swollen Members - Bad Dreams
SWV - It's About Time
System of a Down - Toxicity
SZA - Ctrl
T.I. - Trouble Man Heavy is the Head
Tamia - Tamia
Taylor Swift - folklore [24]
Tech N9ne - Discography (1999-2013)[192~320], The Storm, Enterfear
TGT - Three Kings
The Beatles - Discography (1963-2009)
The Carters - Everything is Love
The Chorus OST
The Chronicles of Narnia OST
The Cinematic Orchestra [320] - Every Day, Man with a Movie Camera, Ma Fleur, To Believe
The Game - The Documentary, Jesus Piece [320], Blood Moon: Year of the Wolf [320], The Documentary 2+2.5 [320]
The Godfather I+II+III OST [320]
The Great Gatsby OST
The Great Tenors - Vol.1+2, In Concert
The Lion King - Complete Score [128], Return to Pride Rock [128]
The Lord of the Rings OST [24]
The Lumineers - Cleopatra [24/96], C-Sides [24], Live Tracks [24], III [24]
The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die, Life After Death, Born Again
The Nutcracker (Ballet) [24/96]
The Pink Panther OST [320]
The Savannah Leigh Band - City of Grey
The Tango Project - The Tango Project
The Tenors - Discography (2008-2015)[156~254, except Under One Sky in 16]
The Tony Rich Project - Words
The Weeknd - Discography (2012-2020)[16~24/192]
The xx - Discography (2009-2017)[320, except I See You in 16]
Three 6 Mafia - Most Known Unknown
Timbaland - Shock Value
Tinie Tempah - Demonstration [320]
Toni Braxton - Toni Braxton, Secrets
Tony Bennett - The Essential Tony Bennett, a wonderful world (with k.d. lang), The Absolutely Essential 3 CD Collection, Duets II [320], Tony Bennett Celebrates 90
Tory Lanez - Discography (2010-2020, except Daystar)[160~320, except Chixtape 5 + The New Toronto 3 in 24]
T-Pain - Discography (2005-2012)[192~16]
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
Travis Garland - Discography (2011-2015)[160~320]
Travis Scott - Discography (2015-2018)[24~24/88]
Trey Songz [320] - Trey Day, Passion, Pain & Pleasure, Chapter V
TroyBoi - icekream [128~320], SoundSnobz [128~320], Left is Right [128], V!BEZ [128], V!BEZ, Vol.3
Tsar B - The Games I Played [320]
Tyga - Discography (2008-2016)[320], Legendary
Tyrese - I Wanna Go There
UltraVillain - Lost in You [320]
Ulvesang - Ulvesang [24], The Hunt
Unity: Athens 2004 (Olympic Games Album)
Usher - Discography (1994-2018)[16~24]
Van Morrison - Moondance
Vitas - Discography (2001-2009)[128~256, except A Kiss as Long as Eternity+20th Century Hits in 16]
Waka Flocka Flame - Flockaveli
Whitney - Light Upon the Lake
Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston
Wisin & Yandel - Discography (2000-2012)[320]
Wiz Khalifa - We Dem Boyz [320], various songs [320]
Wiz Khalifa & Curren$y - 2009 [24]
Wyclef Jean - Carnival, Vol. II- Memoirs of an Immigrant
X Japan - Discoraphy (1988-2017)[16~24/96]
XXXTentacion - Revenge [320], 17 [24/192], ? [320]
Xzibit - Restless
Yann Tiersen - Discography (1995-2003)[96~160]
YG - My Krazy Life, Still Brazy, My Life 4Hunnid [24]
Young Bleed - My Balls and My Word
Young Buck - Buck the World
Young Thug - Barter 6 [320], Slime Season [24], Slime Season 2 [320], I'm Up [320], Slime Season 3 [320], Jeffery [320], So Much Fun
Yuki Kajiura - Discography (includes side projects: FictionJunction/YUUKA, Kalafina)(Anime soundtracks 1996-2018)
Yuna - Chapters [320]
Zed Yun Pavarotti - French Cash [320]
Zeina [320] - Odd One Out, various singles

I'm making this post because I don't think I have very good resources and would like more, but I'll get the ball rolling:
GENERAL BETTING:

• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfSnsW5irOc7gibek5BK6tg - This guy has a good youtube channel, takes you through using excel
• https://www.aceodds.com/bet-calculatoodds-converter.html - This site converts odds to implied probability, useful for calculating the vig on markets with many outcomes
• http://www.aussportsbetting.com/tools/online-calculators/kelly-criterion-calculato - Not sure what your bet sizes should be? Try using the kelly criterion. This site has a simple bet size calculator
• Twitter - Often the best place for team news. If you put some work in following the right people for your sport, you twitter can pay off. I don't actually have any good sports specific follows to shout-out though. There are also decent sports bettors who post their picks if you're in to tailing.

SOCCER:

• https://understat.com/ -A site that tracks xg across the big 5 leagues
• whoscored.com - Lots of stats, and they use opta data which most betting sites also use. Gives most accurate rendition of stats vis-a-vis matching your sportsbook.

BASKETBALL:

• https://stats.nba.com/teams/advanced/ -the NBA website tracks basic advanced stats. I mostly use it to check off/def ratings, what pace team are playing at and how teams will match up on grabbing rebounds, but it's pretty customizable and I imagine could be used for more
• https://www.teamrankings.com/ - also a good site for free granular stats. Covers most American sports. I don't use it too much but I probably should.
• https://www.basketball-reference.com/ -Everybody should know about bball ref. Best one-stop shop for stats.
• Dunc'd on podcast and the Lowe Post -Probably the 2 most informative podcasts when it comes to keeping up with the league
• rotowire and rotoworld for team line-ups

REQUEST: I'd love to know some basketball blogs that preview games from an X and Os match-up, or data perspective, even if it's only specific to one team.

Since Riggs, Trent, and Frankie have turned their golf positions at Barstool into less blogging and more playing with themselves and selling $50 cases of soda, I decided to take a dull, butter knife stab at a preview blog for this weekend’s Memorial Tournament.
Last Week
Real quick let’s talk about how much we should all hate the PGA after Sunday’s off-air debacle, and then about some questionable feature groups this week. For weather reasons on Sunday, the Workday final round tee times were moved up so players could finish before incoming storms. Great, that all makes sense. But somehow the PGA was not able to broadcast the round on TV, and when they did have to kill the live broadcast, they didn’t even mention where to go watch the rest of the tournament. THERE ARE NO OTHER FUCKING SPORTS ON, WHAT COULD CBS HAVE MADE PRIORITY OVER THIS FINAL ROUND? No seriously, someone please tell me because I would love to know what aired on CBS from 11 am to 3 pm instead of live sports. Can we also talk about how terrible the Thursday/Friday coverage is every weekend on all networks? You usually get 2-4 featured groups you can stream online from 9-3 (even these groups you often need NBC Sports Gold to watch), and then get maybe 3 hours of full coverage in a TV broadcast. There is legitimately a channel called the Golf Channel, who are airing a shitty preview/talk show while you are missing coverage. Here’s a fucking mad idea - put live golf on the golf channel before the major networks get prime coverage.
Then we got a look yesterday at the featured groups for the Memorial. How do you fuck this up? If you are younger than 70 and even sporadically watch golf, you could do this job better than whoever does it for the PGA. Here’s the formula: Brooks Koepka makes a joke about Bryson Dechambeau using steroids one week ago = you put them in the same group. Golf has so little drama because all these guys are friends and making millions of dollars even when they aren’t winning. Fans need these storylines/rivalries to be buffed up, not ignored because they might hurt Bryson's feelings.
This Week
As far as a course preview, we get a strange twist this week with the players coming back to Muirfield, who just hosted the Workday Charity Tournament. I’ve been watching golf for a long ass time and cannot remember the last time this happened, but it’s not a major headline at all so maybe this does happen on occasion. Either way the setup this weekend will look different than last weekend, with much faster greens, thicker rough, and some changes in tee box locations. I think we see some youngeinexperienced players struggle with the change in green speeds, especially since they just played these same greens and they were rolling like carpet (stimpmeter will go from 11 to 13.5). My gut tells me the winner is either a veteran or someone who didn’t play here last week. This would rule out guys like Hovland, Burns, Merritt, Niemann, etc.
Finally, we have to mention that Eldrick Tiger Woods returns to the field this week. I’m looking at his +2000 odds and hate the value because we have no idea where his game is at right now. That being said, Tiger has won the Memorial five times and placed T9 last year, and T23 the year before. I will root for Tiger to win every tournament he enters, but I won’t look at a future for him at these low odds, and for his first post-break golf since The Match.
Now let’s go over wagers this weekend and what you should look for. I am usually not a fan of betting on outright winners, before any golf has been played. The odds always look so good but you will rarely have a profitable year trying to bet winners every week. That being said, here are some of the best value picks IMO.
​

• Dechambeau +850
  • This man is -69 (nice) in his 4 tournaments since the resumption of the season, with final results of 3rd, 8th, 6th, and 1st. Not only is he launching drives 10% further than the field consistently, but his confidence is sky high and that mental edge goes a long way. Bryson also won here 2 years and 40 pounds ago, so he does like this course. But let’s not forget what a whiny bitch he is. Give me odds on if he will punch a cameraman this week and I would hammer yes.

​

• Rory McIlroy/Justin Thomas +950
  • Rory holds the current #1 world golf ranking, and JT holds the current #1 FedEx cup ranking. Neither golfer has won since returning from quarantine, however they each grabbed a trophy or two early in the season (pre-pandemic). Both have seen some inconsistencies in the past month, with over par rounds or missed cuts, but undeniably still playing great golf. You might want to think about JT’s state of mind after blowing a lead and then a playoff last weekend, but I still like him to show up and be in the mix.

​

• DJ +1500
  • DJ recently daddy-dicked Brendan Todd in the final round of the Travelers, starting his final round 2 shots behind and leaving with a 1 shot victory (6 shots ahead of Todd). He might win, he might not, either way he’s going home to Paulina Gretzky and a Johnny Depp style lunch spread.

​

• Koepka +1750
  • I’m going to choose to ignore Brooks’ round one 74 at the Workday this weekend, followed up by a missed cut. His previous two tournaments he posted 8 consecutive rounds under par, and a Sunday 65 to place 7th at the RBC Heritage. That being said, in my brief research it looks like his best finish at the Memorial was T31 in 2017, so maybe he hates this course. But Petty King’s hate for everyone besides himself is a great motivator. Can’t wait until we get a “suck on that Faldo” on a hot mic.

​

• Morikawa +2000
  • My guy Collin is less than a year removed from his amateur status, and has now made 24/25 cuts to start his career. Three weeks ago he lipped out a 3 footer to lose in a playoff, had a rough 2 weeks at the RBC and Travelers, but then he came right back and won in a playoff this past weekend. This dude is a sniper from the fairway, but can he stay straight off the tee and hole some putts? 2 playoffs in his last 4 tournaments would indicate yes.

​

• Cantlay/Matsuyama/Rose/Kuchar +1250 to +6500
  • All four of these guys have won the Memorial in the past, with Cantlay at the best odds trying to repeat his title from 2019. I sneaky love Justin Rose here who has been playing great golf, and reminds me of a slightly less hate-able version of Adam Scott. Always fun to root for Kuch daddy as well, but his association with Sketchers is unforgivable.

​

• Hovland/Simpson/Schauffele/Berger +2000 to +3000
  • Three young studs who have won or come close to winning this season, and a veteran who has been playing lights out golf (Webby). I would not be surprised to see a slow start for Hovland after two disappointing Sundays in a row, but he is too good not to make a push if he makes the cut. Schauffele actually scares me, he is definitely the odds on favorite to be a serial killer after his PGA career (eh maybe Mickelson). But that focus and weird fatheson relationship has been working for him, and he’s sitting just a few spots outside the FedEx cup top 10 and playing great golf. Meanwhile Webby is sitting at #2 in the FedEx cup rankings with a win at the RBC Heritage and a top 10 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Side note, why is there a “t” in mortgage? Fuck that word.

​
My pick: once again reiterating I will likely not bet on a Sunday winner before Thursday starts, but if I was I would put my money on Justin Rose +4500 or Xander Schauffele +2500.
Thursday Matchups
Easily the best way to bet on golf, and in my experience the most profitable. Here are a few picks I’ll be making before Thursday. Currently I am 4-2 betting matchups (last 4 PGA events) and I’ll track my picks moving forward. If I get to Jack Mac or Reags level of bad betting, I promise I’ll retire and not pretend I know what I’m talking about. I’m only going to pick matchups in the featured groups for Thursday. Nothing worse than betting on someone like Marc Leishman, and having to refresh the golf cast simulator thing instead of watching live play.
Dechambeau (-115) over Thomas (-105): everything is so planned out and calculated with Bryson, and his sit-out at the Workday feels like a part of his plan. Fucking hate rooting for this kid, but I see him coming in fresh against JT who blew an enormous lead last weekend.
D. Johnson (even) over Morikawa (-120): my favorite first round matchup bet. It seems counter-intuitive going against the guy who won at this course a few days ago, but don’t forget the major change this week will be how the greens roll. And Morikawa is 150th on tour in strokes gained with the putter. Lock it in.
Take a flier - round 1 leader
I don’t think I’ve ever bet this prop but I’ve also never written a golf blog before so let’s take a shot here. I’ll put a half unit on it as well: Rickie Fowler +4000
Rick's finishes at the Memorial the past 3 years: T14, T8, solo 2nd. In 2017 when he placed 2nd, he shot an opening round 66. I also feel like I see him in the mix a lot in early rounds, but can’t quite put together those low weekend rounds.
That’s all I’ve got. Sorry it’s not funny but it’s better content than we’ve gotten out of Foreplay.
Let’s make some money and blow off work Thursday and Friday.

Despite a busy schedule u/eruwenn kindly helped me be twice as productive this week, teamwork pays off. Bonus chapter!
First / Prev / Next
Aaron sat in the open air-lock on the Porkchop Express, looking out over the treetops of Eden from his perch high above the park wall. He picked up the datapad and flicked to a screen with a map and six red dots, one of which had the name Tony floating next to it. Jolie, another red dot, was nearby - she was the third leokas that had grown healthy enough to be released into Eden. After Tony had shared his kill with her, she had stuck close to him. Aaron was glad his friend had bought his date dinner first.
He was so engrossed he didn’t notice Alexa approaching until she kicked him. “We’re leaving soon.”
“Ow!” He exaggerated. “And, I know. I was just trying to spot him. Ya’know, one last time. In case he needed some biscuits or something.”
Alexa slid her back down the wall to sit beside her human, wrapping her arm around his. As her head rested comfortingly against his shoulder, she reached out with her other arm to enlarge the map. The dots of Tony and Jolie were now side by side. "You saved his life. You found him a home, and gave him his freedom. He even has a mate. You've done enough, Aaron. He is the richest leokas in the world, his merch selling on practically every planet in the Federation, and he even has a breakfast cereal with his likeness on it”
“It’s grrrrreat.” Aaron laughed half-heartedly at his own joke.
“It has entirely too much sugar in it,“ she scolded him gently. “But, the toys were a nice touch.” She snuggled into him, enjoying a rare moment when he wasn’t being chased by a member of the crew with business issues. She savoured their privacy, remembering the first few cycles with just the three of them in the animal pens onboard the Azrimad. “One day, you, Sassie, Aiov and I should come back and visit Tony. Just the four of us.”
Aaron choked up a little, realising that Aiov would eventually be another goodbye. “She has a spot reserved in Eden, once she’s grown up.”
The door to the Overlook opened and Daynd came stomping towards them. “Will you two get back in the Tulseria damned ship! I need to re-check all of these seals, since you keep using the airlock as your personal viewing platform.” He waited for them to stand, tapping the metal tool in his hand against his leg. “Hurry up, Pilot, pre-flight checks are your job as well.”
Managing to make her salute as sarcastic as possible, she led Aaron by the hand back into the ship. “He’s grumpier than usual. It's been a few celes since he was on a planet for such a long stretch... I think he likes it here.”
The human sympathised; the ship would feel pretty small after Kasur, and a little emptier without the guest in the cargo hold. As he thought about it, another member of the crew had seemed rather absent lately. “How’s Norrin?”
Alexa shrugged. "In his barrel." Her herald had been struggling to maintain his solid form, so Aaron had put a barrel in his room. It had seemed like a dumb idea at the outset, but allowing Norrin to spend time as a semi-liquid had indeed helped to slow his deterioration.
“And you?” Aaron wasn't sure whether he feared asking the question or receiving the answer more.
She released his hand and poked his undefended stomach. “I can still kick your ass if you keep looking at me with those sad eyes. Don't worry," she added, reaching up to mess with Aaron's hair, "we can get what we need on the world we were found on. There are Inorganics there who can help.”
Aaron huffed, reaching up to try to re-tame his hair by flattening it down. Kasur didn't have barbers, as fur needed no cutting, and after a long period of wearing him down Chae'Sol had finally managed to convince him to sit for a haircut. Upon seeing the results of the Niham’'s efforts, Alexa had then made an attempt to fix Chae'Sol's fix. After that, it had been up to Aaron to fix the fixed fix, using a pair of scissors as well as an animal clipper to try to sort out the back and sides. In the end, it was a haircut, but not a good one. Without careful styling, it looked like he was a cast member in Dumb and Dumber. "Good," he replied after a last press-down on his unruly locks. "Having one crew member in a barrel is quite enough.”
Upon entering the Bridge, they found Embar and Chae'Sol waiting, already running their tests. Sassie was present as well, asleep on her back in the captains chair. Aiov was also sleeping in a legs-in-the-air pose, nestled in her small, open-topped box under the seat. Aaron tried to reclaim the captain's chair for himself, but though he tried to squeeze himself onto the seat beside his dog, the German Shepherd didn't budge.
The Niham navigator passed a datapad to Alexa. “Your checks are done.” As she nodded her thanks, he turned back to watch the power struggle unfold. “Just let her have the seat. She spends more time in it than you.”
The human frowned. “There’s space for both of us if she just moved over.” After another shove, Sassie grunted and finally allowed the human to slide her rump around. Tail swishing, she licked his face as he leaned over her, and he scratched her tummy as he sat down beside her. He wiped his face on his sleeve and tapped the screens in front of him. Danyd’s checks, he noted, were also complete. “Set a course for…” He paused, looking to Alexa. “What is your world called again?”
Alexa shook her head. “It isn’t our world, it’s just where we were found, and it has a twenty seven digit alpha-numeric designation given by the research team.”
“Eurgh. Screw that.” He raised a hand stopping her from reeling off the forgettable digits and paused to consider his options. “Set a course for planet Alpha-Numeric Designation!”
Alexa turned her seat away from him. “We have to take off first, idiot.”
“Fine! Just get on with it.” He stood up. Being the captain was a lot less fun than he had hoped. “Sassie, you have the bridge. I’ve got a call to make.”
After Aaron made his defeated exit, Alexa opened comms to the Kasurian flight controllers.
At the same time, Chae’Sol brought his Navigation console to life and checked over his calculations. “Are you nervous?” he asked the Inorganic.
“Nervous?” She looked at the controls. “No. I am an excellent pilot.”
The Niham and Rinoxian laughed together. Embar’s deep voice replied, “Not the flying. Are you nervous about taking your human home to meet mom and dad?”
“Not at all,” she lied swiftly. “And, we don’t have parents. Anyway, it’s a barren world with only a select group of my people manning a small facility. What could he possibly do?”
“True, true.” Chae’Sol rubbed his chin. “But what about your people? Before you made Norrin your herald, didn’t he want to kill you?”
Embar tapped the pistol on his hip. “We’re prepared for that eventuality.”
She couldn’t help but smile at the protectiveness of the large Rinoxian general. “Thank you, Embar. And Norrin didn’t want to kill me. He wanted to remove the parts of me that make me me; my individuality. Hopefully, we can discuss things calmly with the others of my kind.”
The navigator folded his arms across his chest. “Hopefully. However, Ranjaz is taking bets on how many we kill, and whether or not we start a war.” The silver-haired girl scrunched up her nose, focusing on her piloting so she could appear to be ignoring the Niham as he continued, “I put credits on three, and no war.”
Down the corridor and through the Overlook, Aaron closed the door to his workspace and took a seat. He propped his datapad up against some prototype cereal boxes and sent a notification to the councillor that he was available when she was.
The response was almost immediate and he tapped the datapad screen to see the councillor at her desk as always, the fish tank behind her an ever-present distraction for him. The Anatidae bowed her head in greeting. “Ambassador Cooper, thank you for making time to speak with me.”
Aaron was slightly thrown by the more formal than usual greeting, but bowed his head as he responded in kind. “I always have time for a Councillor of the Galactic Federation.”
She smiled; he had followed her cue perfectly. “Thank you, I will make this brief as I’m sure you have other matters to attend to. I understand you are preparing a selection of Earth’s media for release? I look forward to learning more about your home world.”
The human nodded. He knew that the Councillor had access to Earth’s media already. In fact, she had been the one to provide him with the data. Something wasn’t right, but he replied carefully, hoping to connect the dots as they spoke. “We have chosen a varied selection, and hopefully there will be something to your taste. I would be most interested in hearing feedback from you, should you look through the options. It would help us immensely as we prepare the next selection.”
Eruwenn continued smiling and nodding; another show for the Sentinels. “My work keeps me quite busy, but I will send you what feedback I can. Now then, down to the business at hand. We are finalising the renaming process before we update the records across the Galactic Federation. As you know, we can not stop you calling your worlds whatever you please, but for us to update the central databases it would be beneficial to have some more information, especially regarding some of the naming conventions used. For instance, you wish to rename the star Optimus Prime?”
Aaron tried not to smile. “A great hero from Earth’s mythology, he died for us and rose again. He was a great leader who believed that freedom was the right of all sentient beings.”
“Very noble.” She took a note, it seemed the human was playing along nicely. “And the first world and the accompanying moon?”
The human leaned back in his seat, putting his hands behind his head. “A childhood friend who would always come first. I named the planet Konrahd after him, and the moon is Talon X which was his online name in Gran Turismo.”
Tapping away, the Anatidae didn’t look up from her datapad. “Ah, of course. The human obsession with coming first. Please continue.”
“Sure.” Aaron leaned forward, reaching under the table to where Danyd had installed a small fridge. He took out a can and opened it loudly. “The second planet has been defaced by a meteor impact, all smashed up with an exposed and dead core. We’re calling it Alderaan, after a destroyed world in our pop culture. The two moons took quite a lot of damage as well. The lumpy one is Freak and the one with the big slash across the surface is Scar. No special meaning, one’s a bit freaky and the other has a scar, makes it easy to remember.”
“And the third planet?”
“New Terra.” He drank deeply and then stifled a burp, the development team had definitely put too much gas in this mix. “Nothing clever in the name, but it has potential. The moon is Elune, named after a lunar goddess. You’ll know more about it once we release the vanilla game.”
She looked up, narrowing her eyes. “It’s a marketing stunt for a game release?”
“An homage,” he corrected, although he already had a team working on merch and a possible theme park, with a whole line of cosplay accessories being planned.
The councillor didn't believe him for a second, and on some level was shocked he had not yet named a world Buy A Cupcake. “And that brings us to” -how she loathed this name- “Earth Two Electric Boogaloo, and I really must ask again. Why?”
He laughed, poker face slipping at her obvious discomfort. “Human joke, we add the suffix Electric Boogaloo to unwanted sequels. Plus, it really irritates Alexa.”
Eruwenn realised now why the former inspector clicked his pen so often. She would have appreciated a tactile release right now. “Perhaps she should have had more influence over the names. And the moon, El-ahrairah? Am I pronouncing that correctly?”
“Good enough. It’s named for the Prince with a thousand enemies.” His jovial tone vanished; Aaron knew what would happen to the rabbits if they began to colonise E.T.E.B. “Read the book, or watch the movie. Next.”
With that avenue of questioning closed down she moved on, marking her notes Royalty for the record. She was now quite curious as to which book he was referring to. Clearly it was an emotionally charged subject. “Next is Gaia? And the moons Lakshmi, Kratos and Milda.”
Aaron relaxed a little. “Some of humanity's old gods, I’m hoping to bring them out of retirement.”
The councillor paused. Were he intending to start a religion, it would certainly prove to be popular. She decided not to ask, in case it gave him any ideas. “And the large gas giant with seven moons?”
Now his smile returned in full. “Snow White and the seven dwarves. I can’t name them from memory unless you want some reindeer names mixed in. A folk tale; the gas giant is a perpetual blizzard.”
Eruwenn made another note, folk tale. The council would have questions and the more vague her answers were the better. “Next is Tortuga, which has a flag already, how delightful. Is that a human skull and bones?”
Aaron nodded emphatically. “We won’t actually be encouraging piracy.” He noticed the alarm in her eyes and hastily added, “Yeah, Jarby didn’t like that one either, even after my Captain Sparrow impression.” He saw the incomprehension on her face and explained further. “I did the impression for the asteroid belt as well, but nobody appreciated that either, and I wasn’t about to draw that stupid tattoo on my face.”
She looked at her reference map. “Ah yes, between Snow White and the planet Gallifrey, you have Tyson’s Belt. With asteroid mining advances you should have a steady supply of materials once your initial construction phase is completed. And those names?”
Aaron finished his can and crushed it, they may need to tweak the caffeine content down a notch as he could feel his heart racing. “Sports, and medical.”
She smiled. Naming a planet after someone from a medical field was commendable. “And who was Doctor Gallifrey?”
“Doctor who?” He recognised the wires that were crossed. “No, the Doctor was from Gallifrey.”
“Oh, my apologies. And his name?” she politely enquired.
“Who.”
“The doctor.”
“Doctor Who.”
“The one from Gallifrey!” she snapped, if she had a pen it would have been clicking furiously.
“He was on first base.” The plumage of the councillor's green crest was beginning to rise, so Aaron opened one of the cereal boxes, snacking to provide time to think. Eruwenn was still staring at the screen, confused and frustrated when finally he spoke with slow deliberation. “He was called Doctor Who. Can we move on, because the four moons around Gallifrey are Stark, Banner, Odinson and Rogers, and if you can’t follow Doctor Who I’m not getting into Marvel multiverse theories. Just put named after myths and legends or something.”
“Fine.” She did as instructed, but was still a little confused over who the Doctor from Gallifrey was and why he was now a myth. “The largest planet by far is next, and you called it Pluto.”
A mixture of triumph and anger came over the human. “Yeah, fuck you NASA, Pluto’s not too small now, bitches! You can chalk that one up to revenge, it’s named after a planet from my own solar system that got downgraded on a technicality.”
The councillor had hoped to gain an insight into the human mind through the names he chose for these worlds. What his priorities and aspirations might be, and what he held dear and wanted written in the cosmos. It seemed that he was just as insane as Rilla had repeatedly warned her he was. “Fine.” She didn’t understand a word of what he said, but named after a planet from home was good enough for the bureaucrats. “And Pluto’s five moons?”
“Michael, Tito, Marlon, Jackie and Jermaine.” Much better than Alexa’s choice, she had wanted to name them after the Spice Girls. With a resigned tone he added, “just put down musicians or something.”
Between the insanity and marketing was another welcome addition, music was a beautiful thing that almost all races could share in. “Wonderful, I look forward to listening to them on Musicify.” She had listened to some of Earth’s music during her research, finding that it was as varied as everything else they produced. She had found the classical genre most pleasant, especially while drinking tea. “And finally, on the very edge of the system, the frozen world and the two ice moons.”
The human was relieved to be on the final planets, as the energy drink was buzzing through his veins. “The world is Elsa, named after a princess, and the moons are Cube and Vanilla. You can put those under music, but maybe put an asterisk next to Vanilla.”
The councillor was once again very confused, but did as she was instructed. So often when dealing with the human she felt like she was one step out of time with the conversation. “Well, that concludes my questions. I can get this sent over to our stellar cartographers and the updates will go live in a few cycles. Thank you for your patience.”
“What?” Aaron was confused, he could have done this via a written message. What was the point in the video call? “Oh, ok. Well, thanks for the call, I guess.” After some minor pleasantries it was over, and he still had no idea what it had been for. Mildly disappointed and confused he picked up the prototype cereal box he had been eating from, looking at the cartoon leokas on the front. Turning it over in his hands there was a large drawing on the back for the kids to colour in, and he laughed at another of his prestigious contributions to the galaxy.
Estrilla entered, quickly closing and sealing the door. “Here.” She tossed him a small datapad, that had clearly been modified judging by the bulky addition on the back. It began to vibrate. “It’s Eruwenn. For you.” She looked at his stupid face and snapped. “It’s a secure line, answer it!”
The crew had been called together for an urgent briefing once they had jumped out of Kasur space, and as they gathered around the central table of the lounge they noted no snacks to be tested. This was a serious meeting.
Sassie and Aiov were under the table, and the little leokit with eyes opened was stumbling about with her four-legged guardian watching over her. Despite this development, there was no joy in Aaron's expression. Next to him, in front of the screen, Estrilla paced back and forth, and the Captain gently reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. "She's your friend, you can start."
The doctor wanted to argue that they were no longer friends, but she realised her feelings had changed of late. “Fine.” She cleared her throat, shooting Ranjaz a sharp look clearly indicating that none of his usual nonsense would be tolerated. “As you all know, I am a former shipmate of Councillor Eruwenn Aix Sponsa. Many of you have even met her. We were part of a crew led by a former Imperium soldier and we worked behind enemy lines. For Eruwenn that work never truly ended, she just realised her targets were closer to home. She entered politics to engage with them on their terms, while also using her experience as a covert operative to gain whatever advantages she could.”
The yellow Kachna began to pace back and forth again. “There is a group of powerful people who want to see us return to war. They want to stir up the Hive and the Imperium and, as yet, we don’t know what their goals are. Power, profit, using one atrocity to hide another - we just don’t know, but we plan to stop them. Though this is Eruwenn's goal, if she can gain more power for her people and herself she'll likely take those opportunities as well." It was a harsh truth, but Estrilla no longer knew exactly where the Anatidae's loyalties truly lay.
Aaron walked forward and took a seat at the table. “We can delve into the lore later; let’s just show them the message.”
“Right.” The doctor picked up the modified datapad, noting some confused looks around the table. “This is a relay datapad, off the standard networks. It uses encrypted back channels or something - I’m a doctor not a spy, so don’t ask me how it works. Just know that this message is not to be talked about with anyone outside of this crew, and you are to keep no records on personal datapads. Am I clear?”
There was a murmur of consent. Even Ranjaz seemed solemn, acknowledging the gravity of the situation. Either that, or he was simply missing Skeena. Hoping for the best, the doctor stepped aside as the screen blinked on.
The view was obscured at first, and nothing could be heard except heavy breathing. Then glimpses of a corridor could be seen between someone's fingers - the camera was being carried at a run. The view cleared, sweeping along the corridor to reveal scorch marks from energy weapons and several bodies on the floor. A sibilant voice echoed down the hall from elsewhere, and the camera shifted. "Shit," said a different voice, and a Lacertan came into view, still on the move. "They'll find me soon, I have to be quick. I have a small drone hidden in the debris field and I'm uploading to it. Long after this is over it should head to a relay and send this message on your network. I pray this reaches you in time."
The camera operator pushed through a door, still breathing heavily. "This is the lab," she said as the camera panned around slowly. More scorch marks adorned the walls, and the bodies this time were wearing high level bio-hazard suits. "They were working on a weapon, some sort of pathogen, to kill the Hive."
Energy weapon fire could distantly be heard, and the Lacertan leapt behind one of the counters. As she huddled into a ball, she began crying. "Tell my mother I'm sorry. You'll do that, won't you?" Her terrified eyes were pleading with the camera. "I promised her I'd come home safe. I promised. Tell her I'm sorry for ever complaining about the pink packages and that I loved every single one. Tell her I love her, and that I'm so sorry.”
The sobbing intensified, and the camera sagged in her grip. The security uniform with a badge reading Amel came into view - she was a lieutenant. There came a deep breath, and the camera swung back up to her face. "Sorry. I was prepared for this when I volunteered, don't blame yourself. Just... stop them." Her eyes were now ablaze with anger as she tried to share as much information as she could. "They have a plague from this cursed shithole we've been orbiting for cycles. Last time I stopped them when they got too close to the answer they were looking for... by releasing it. Killing some researchers. People I knew, and worked with. I'm sorry for that, but it worked to stop their progress and I thought they would give up.”
She shuffled further around the counter, trying to get as much cover as she could. “Almost a full bost ago a Sentinel paid us a visit, bringing with him some new data. The diseases on this world are thousands of generations away from the original plague, but this data was the real deal. Their research surged ahead, and I didn’t have time to react. Tulseria curse them to eternity, some brainless Doctor Dix defrosted a patient on the edge of Tulseria-knows-where, and now these assholes are going to start a war and kill billions. You have to stop them.”
Voices and footsteps could be heard in the corridor and her voice became hushed and frantic. “They have to be close to release it, and somewhere with a lot of traffic so it reaches deep into their territory before they realise. It isn't finished. It was supposed to target only the Hive, but I heard Doctor Glimnop talking with his assistant about that not yet being the case. It mutates fast, too. It it gets out it could devastate the galaxy. You have to stop them.”
She leaned back against the counter, her breathing becoming ragged and her voice cracking. “They needed more time.” She was gasping. “I needed more time, I could have stopped them. The Sentinel said something about new colonies, and the need to tidy up. I knew, then.” Her gentle sobbing returned. “I ran.”
The sound of the lab door opening caused the slits of her pupils to widen with fear, and it was a moment before she whispered again. “Don’t come to Darnis, we’re already dead.” The camera panned down to her stomach, where her uniform was burned away and the scaled skin beneath charred and split, bleeding profusely. “Stop them releasing it, promise me!”
Angry yelling could be heard and the camera spun to show a Niham in a smart grey suit, his weapon raised. He fired twice. The camera fell to the floor for a moment before being picked up by the killer. “Damn it!” he cursed, “Find where this is transmitting to!” Then the video cut out.
The silence hung for several tiks as everyone processed what they had just watched. Estrilla gave them the time they needed. “They didn’t find the drone, and other than Eruwenn and her assistant, we are the only ones to have seen this.”
“You hope,” Embar said carefully. “They may have traced it, and then used the drone to follow the signal. Anyone who’s seen this is dead if the Sentinels find out.”
The doctor nodded. “That would only lead to the councillor, not us. She won’t talk.”
Embar was more dubious. “Torture can loosen lips. You think she can tough it out?”
Estrilla looked the general in the eye. “She has before.” He gave a polite nod, veteran to veteran, and she moved on. “We don't have much to go on. Sentinels have their past erased, and are good at staying off of the grid. With only a picture and a voice sample, our chances are slim... and if we look too closely, we'll give ourselves away.”
“His name is Krast.” Everyone turned to look at Ranjaz, who savoured the moment. “He’s the bastard who paid me to break into the military research centre. Asshole thought he was smart. He was going to steal something else, and use my job to cover it up.” All eyes were on him and he gave a mean grin at the memory of betrayal. “But, I beat him to it. Took the lot, and that’s when he set me up. I knew that fucker suspected me, so I kept my mouth shut. Played it innocent while he was watching from the shadows, did my time in Xeno-Biology Protection like a good boy.”
Allistan’s pen was clicking furiously. “What in Tulseria’s name did you steal?”
Everyone was looking intently at the Kittran, and he reveled in the attention for as long as he thought he could get away with before he shrugged. “No idea.”
Next

Hello fellow crazy people! (just kidding.) I’ve had quite a long history of panic disorder, and now that I’m on the other side of it, I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject in the hopes that at least one person can benefit from my experience. If you’ve done an exhaustive amount of research on panic attacks in an effort to rid yourself of them, as I did, then I probably won’t share any revolutionary magic trick that you’ve never heard of before. (sorry about that). However I did find some solace in a few reddit posts that I related to when I was suffering, so hopefully this can serve as that for someone.
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I imagine that this will be a very long post, so for those that aren’t looking to read some schmuck’s whole life story, I’ve categorized my thoughts as followed:
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1. My personal history of panic disorder. This is not to satisfy my insatiable need to talk about myself, but rather to detail what I dealt with so that you might relate your own struggle to mine.
   
2. My progression of approaches to how I eventually “beat” panic attacks, and why I annoyingly put “beat” in quotes
   

3.Summary/explanation (perhaps the most helpful part if you’re a TL:DR person)

1. Quick tips for in the moment of a panic attack
   
2. Resource recommendations eg. books and articles.
   

*disclaimer: My progress was made without the use of medication or therapy. I want to be clear, that I am not taking the stance that someone suffering from panic disorder can’t or shouldn’t benefit from these things. In fact it’s possible that I would have healed quicker had I used these resources.
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1.) I am a professional orchestral musician, and for close to 10 years, I would have a panic attack on stage for about 95% of the performances that I took part in. Most of those 10 years were during my college years, and the last couple were once I was in a professional orchestra. In school I would have a performance approximately every 2 or 3 weeks, sometimes more sometimes less, and as a professional I have performances at the very least once a week. That totals hundreds of panic attacks over a 10 year period. In that time, I also would occasionally have panic attacks in other situations, but I primarily suffered from them on stage. I share this to emphasize that you can be very deep in panic disorder, and still make it out panic free.
My panic disorder started when I was a senior in high school. I was scheduled to play a solo with my youth orchestra, where I am standing at the front of the stage with the orchestra playing behind me. During one rehearsal, I was standing up front, when I started to feel somewhat sick. I didn’t want to disrupt the rehearsal so I didn’t say anything, but the sick feeling only got worse. Along with feeling somewhat sick, I also started to freak out a bit and get tunnel vision. I had to ask the director if I could sit down, at which point he was shocked to point out that I was super pale. I sat down, feeling sick, freaked out, and now super embarrassed as this was all happening in front of my orchestra mates. Finally, after a few minutes, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom where I promptly and violently threw up. I had food poisoning. While some could have had a brief incident of food poisoning and moved on with their lives, my brain decided to turn that moment into a decade long panic saga.
That rehearsal put the thought in my head, “what if that happened during a concert??”. For the next 10 years every time that I was on stage, this thought would come to mind, which would start a bouncy spiral which anyone browsing this subreddit is most likely familiar with. On stage, any little body sensation was magnified accompanied by the thought of “o shit it’s happening”. Since you’re likely to be anxious while on stage performing anyway, there are plenty of nervous body sensations to attach this thought to. Soon my mind expanded it’s repertoire of increasingly horrific scenarios to taunt me with: “What if you pass out on stage??”. “What if you just lose control of your body and scream something really loud during a soft passage of the music???”. “What if you get so nervous on stage that you have a heart attack on die on stage?? your heart is beating really hard, it could happen. They would have to stop the whole performance just for you if you died!” And finally the worst one, “you can’t keep living like this. You picked the wrong career and ruined your life.” A non panicked person can read those ideas as a bit silly but in the moment of panic, as you surely know, they are very real.
My level and duration of panic during performances would vary a bit each time, which actually added to the stress of them. Not knowing what would come that night was quite daunting. A lot would depend on where I was seated on the stage. During a panic attack, I often found myself looking where the stage exit was and constantly accessing whether or not I needed to leave or if I could rough it out. Being seated in a way that would make exiting more difficult often led to stronger attacks, whereas the attacks would sometimes be more mild if I was seated very near the exit where leaving might not make that big of a scene.
My symptoms included profuse sweating, racing heart, shortness of breath, tunnel vision, and most noticeably a barrage of thoughts mostly centered around whatever terrible thing I was surely moments away from experiencing. These could last anywhere from a couple of small bursts (small maybe 5 minutes increments throughout the performance) to essentially the entire performance ( a couple of hours with a 15 minute break in the middle.
Afterwards I would feel sweaty, exhausted, and completely defeated. I felt like a fraud among my fellow musicians who had a complete, calm, control over their nervous systems (actually not true), and very often felt hopeless against this mountain of a problem that I had been battling for so long with seemingly no end in sight.
It’s now been a bit over a year and a half? (hard to tell in Covid time) since I’ve suffered from a panic attack on stage, and I’m actually confident that I won’t suffer from one in the future.
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2.) For the first several years, maybe 5 or so, I didn’t even acknowledge that I was having panic attacks. I just told myself that I got really nervous on stage and that I needed to work on that. I certainly didn’t tell anyone else about it. I wanted to be the cool, calm and collected one on stage, and the fact that I was the farthest thing from that humiliated me. I didn’t realize that this attitude was a big contributor to my problem until much later. I eventually told my parents that I was having a problem with “freaking out” on stage sometimes, but I still didn’t let on just how consistent this “freaking out was” until much much later when I finally accepted what was happening to me, I was having panic attacks. This acknowledgement was step one in getting over them.
So now I was about 5 or 6 years into having panic attacks, and I was determined to beat this monstrous thing. I read countless online articles about panic attacks and how to overcome them, as well as posts on support boards from fellow sufferers This was *sort of* step 2 in recovering. I now knew that I was suffering from a problem known as panic disorder, and during the actual attack I was able to recognize it and say to myself “I am currently having a panic attack”. In my research, I also learned quite a bit on what is happening to my body in a panic attack. The most helpful fact that I got from my reading was this: if you’ve experienced multiple panic attacks, you’ve probably already gone through the worst symptoms. In other words, whatever you’ve experienced in previous panic attacks, it won’t get worse for future panic attacks. Your body is reacting in a set way, and will continue to react in this set way when prompted by panic. This was a big improvement from before when I was just “freaking out” and anything could happen. I now was dealing with a documented disorder that I had some knowledge and understanding about. The only problem was that I was still having them!
Thanks to my plentiful googling of panic attacks, I understood that my “brain was trained for threat detection against saber toothed tigers except now there aren’t any saber toothed tigers but my brain doesn’t know the difference blah blah blah”, but I was still having these fucking panic attacks and they were uncomfortable as hell!! I could recognize that I was just having a panic attack, but the scary scenarios that I was terrified of were still on the table. “I might be just having a panic attack, but what if I panic so much that I throw up, or pass out or (insert other fate worse than death here)?”
Just knowledge wasn’t enough. I was now about 7 or 8 years in, and I was still having panic attacks at the same regularity. I needed a strategy or technique to apply if I was ever going to defeat this thing. At this point, I was also dealing with new opponents in anxiety and depression brought on by some other big life changes. I became a regular in my library’s self help aisle and was always in the middle of some book on mental toughness or stage fright, determined that I was just a couple pages away from solving this bear of a puzzle. As I was learning a multitude of techniques from these books, I realized that in a weird way, my consistency of panic attacks was an advantage to my overcoming them. Rather than being randomly struck by them at different points, I knew that at 7:30 pm that night, I would have a panic attack on stage. This meant that I could plan out a strategy ahead of time, try it out, and then learn and adjust from that strategy for the next time. Further still, I opened up a word document entitled, “Panic attack journal” where I would enter the date, the strategy I had for that night’s concert, and then how it went afterwards. Every so often I would have a performance with no panic what so ever. I would joyfully write that I thought that I had overcome this terrible saga in my life, only to try and apply the same strategy the next night and be met with the same familiar freak out. Looking back on my journal, my favorite entry is a simple one: “03/12/18 Strategy-focus on your left big toe every time you feel like a panic attack is coming on. This proved successful in the last performance. Result- thought that I was going to die the whole time, go fuck yourself.” Nevertheless, I believe viewing my panic attacks as opportunities to grow rather than strictly fearing them was the third step in my overcoming them.
This self help searching naturally brought me to the field of mindfulness and meditation. I had dabbled with meditation before as it’s commonly brought up in the world of orchestra auditions, but had never committed to it fully. I decided to dive in fully and commit to meditating every day. In addition to practicing, I shifted my reading more to books on this subject and found myself very deep in trying to understand the concepts behind meditation, as I found the subject to be applicable not only to this problem, but many other aspects of my life that I wished to improve: performance, happiness, focus, etc. I had a few experiences experimenting with meditation that are extremely interesting that keep me meditating to this day, but as a very impatient person, I was very frustrated with my perceived lack of progress on the panic attack front.
Side note- I did actually find a meditation that I could do before concerts that consistently eliminated panic attacks. I say that this is a side note because I was hesitant in including this meditation here because this isn’t actually how I eventually overcame my panic disorder. This meditation would eliminate my panic attacks for that night, but I would have to do it every day, otherwise the attacks would return. While this meditation would clear up my panic on stage, I ended up feeling very “off” and not myself the rest of the time, which scared me a bit and made it hard to continue practicing this meditation. Looking back, I now understand why I felt so “off” from this meditation, and I do encourage anyone suffering to try it and see if it helps them. If you also feel a bit weird after doing this meditation, I promise that that feeling will go away eventually. The mediation is simple and as follows:
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-Sit in an upright but comfortable posture. I would do this at the foot of my bed or a chair.
-Close your eyes and try to settle any obvious tension that you have in your body.
-When ready, deliberately silently think something verbal to yourself. For me, it would be reciting the alphabet. Do this for about 30 seconds or so. Pay attention to “where” in your awareness you are hearing this
-Once you are done reciting the alphabet or your favorite Nickelback song or whatever, keep your attention on that same spot in your awareness where you were hearing it.
-Just wait for another thought to pop up. This is the trickiest part of this meditation. You are going to want to “reach out” and try and think something yourself or make something happen. Just waiting for a thought to come up on it’s own is actually more difficult than in sounds. I often found myself reminding myself to “not reach out” or “let it come to you”. These are of course thoughts themselves, but they did help get me in the right mental spot.
-Eventually, you might notice that a thought comes up, seemingly without your authoring it. It might not even be a clear concise thought, for me it often just felt like mental activity rather than a sentence or something. When you feel a thought come up without your creating it, you are in the right spot. Just sit in that perspective, and watch the mental activity do it’s thing without you having to do anything about it. This might last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. For me, this was often accompanied with some relaxing of muscles, but not always, so don’t expect any relaxation to occur.
-When finished, take a few moments to look around the room and reorient yourself to your surroundings. This is not a required step, but I found it to be nice to ease out of the meditation, rather than just jump off the cushion and back into life.
-I would sometimes use a timer for this, sometimes not. It was less about how long I sat, and more about getting into that state of mind. Sometimes I could find that state within 30 seconds, other times after several minutes, other times I couldn’t find it at all. The key factor in this was my willingness to just sit there and wait for a thought, and not reach out and try and make any thing happen. Feel free to message me your experiences with this if you’d like to talk about it as I won’t cover it any more in this post.
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After reading countless books spanning the subjects of eastern meditation, sports psychology, and various western therapy methods, I started to notice a few commonalities, the most obvious one being the idea of acceptance. Particularly emphasized in meditation and ACT (acceptance commitment therapy), in relation to panic attacks, this is the idea of fully embracing and allowing the panic to be there and theoretically, the panic will subside on it’s own. Now if you’ve listened to my ramblings thus far, then you’re probably pretty desperate to get rid of your panic attacks, and thus have probably already heard of this concept of acceptance, and then might be annoyed that you’ve read all this way just to hear the same solution that you’ve heard before.
I say this because that person was me. I had heard so often that accepting my panic was key to me overcoming it, and yet I just couldn’t do it. I would go into a performance thinking “ok, just accept the panic, and then it will go away. That’s all you have to do, just accept that it’s there, and it will go away”. Of course what would happen is I would step on stage, put on my acceptance armor, and when the panic showed up, would freak out that my strategy wasn’t working. Not very accepting was I? This is the stage that I bet a lot of people get stuck on. They read that acceptance is the key to moving past panic, but are still unable to accept in the moment. The bad news is that, I’m not actually entirely sure how I was able to get to the moment of acceptance that I did. It might have been the daily meditation. It might have been just hearing that acceptance was the answer over and over again. It might have just been luck. The good news is that it might only take one true moment of acceptance to get over years of panic, at least that’s what it took for me.
The performance was not unique from any other, I was sat somewhat in the middle, so escape would be somewhat difficult and embarrassing. I had suffered from panic attacks for nearly 10 years now and wasn’t really sure what to do about them. In fact I sort of didn’t care any more. Everything I tried so far failed to get rid of them, but on the bright side maybe I didn’t have to. Interestingly enough, for someone who was terrified to throw up or pass out on stage every performance for 10 years, neither of those things had happened to me yet. I was tired of fighting this whole thing. Somehow during that performance, I truly didn’t care if I had a panic attack or not. I had played enough performances under panic where I knew that I could make it through, so why bother putting the effort into preventing one?
That performance ended up being one of the most bizarre, but transformative experiences of my life. About 5 minutes into the performance, the usual panic symptoms arose. My vision narrowed, my heart beat increased, thoughts of doom and demise flashed through my mind. There was a difference this time though. This time, I took no involvement in any of these symptoms. Even my terror filled thoughts seemed to flash in front of me and then subside without my ever having created nor got rid of them. In fact, I saw the entire cycle of a panic attack come up to it’s fullest most terrifying height, and then subside, all seemingly without trying to adjust or get rid of it. It felt as thought the panic attack was all happening on a movie screen separate from me, rather than happening to me. In that moment, it all felt so impersonal.
The weird thing about this performance was that it didn’t feel like the big victory that it was. I hadn’t applied a long thought out strategy and vanquished my decade long nemesis. I hadn’t done a special meditation before the performance and made myself immune from panic. I didn’t even go into the performance with a plan to “accept it fully” so that I could transcend it. Rather, I just did absolutely nothing about it. And yet since this performance, I haven’t suffered from a single panic attack. This leads me to what I believe to be the most important point in this whole post. So important that I will bold it and underline it. You will stop caring if you have a panic attack, before you stop having them. In other words, any solution that you have against panic is only fueling them. All the solutions that you have tried to your problem, are actually the problems themselves.
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3.) Now, I recognize the frustrating paradox that is created here. One might take this advice and try to “allow” the panic to be there as hard as they can, only to be frustrated when this strategy doesn’t work. Again, I don’t know exactly how I was able to overcome this paradox and arrive at a point of true acceptance, but I have some theories:
Change the priority that panic has in your life. In my moment of acceptance and since then, the idea of a panic attack has gone from this big scary thing that needs to be conquered, to at most a somewhat annoying thing that might arise. The idea of a panic attack now feels like it’s at the same level as the idea of an itchy nose. I’d rather not have either of them, but I don’t really spend any energy trying to prevent an itchy nose. While I’d prefer not to have an itchy nose, I don’t actually care all that much if I get an itchy nose. Which is a great segue to repeat my important, bold, underlined point: You will stop caring if you have a panic attack, before you stop having them. Again, lessen the priority that panic attacks have on your life. If you make them the main focus of your life, then they will be the main focus of your life. Changing this relationship with panic might feel impossible right now. It might feel like panic is controlling your life, and the idea of not fighting it tooth and nail might feel like something that you can’t do. I would suggest committing to this acceptance as much as you can for a month and see what happens. Give up the fight for a month. If it doesn’t get any better, than you can go back to fighting and you’ll know that acceptance doesn’t work for you, but I suspect that you’ll be surprised in your ability to care less about your panic attacks.
I also think that my meditation practice helped me strengthen this accepting muscle. There are plenty of resources for meditation available online and on phone apps. I’ll detail what I used below. Meditation is relevant to acceptance in that you will be keeping your attention on an object which will often times be the breath. You will inevitably get distracted by something. You then accept that distraction’s presence and return your attention to the breath. This is a skill that can be improved through repetition and that very is relevant to accepting panic: You notice the signs of panic, accept their presence, and return to something more important.
Finally the last tip on acceptance of panic is to try and have some humor with it. I used to approach my panic as a evil nemesis: weapons in hand, ready for trial by combat. In my moment of acceptance and today, I see it as an annoying neighbor that might show up on a bad sitcom. “O ya there’s panic, look at him go, what an idiot”. I said that I haven’t suffered from a panic attack since my moment of acceptance, but I have had the symptoms come up a couple times since then (maybe 3 or 4 times in 1.5 years, each one less intense than the last). While the symptoms would come up, I didn’t suffer from them as there was no fight to be had. I just saw them come and go as I would that itchy nose or annoying neighbor would, and commented on how silly it looked as it did.
The steps of my recovery that I’ve outlined in this post are as followed. In my experience, each step is necessary in order to get to the next one
1.) Recognition of what’s happening: I’m having a panic attack.
2.) Knowledge of what’s happening: This is what a panic attack entails.
3.) Seeing your panic attack as an opportunity to grow: What happens when I try this?
4.)Applying acceptance: Let it all happen. You’ve got better things to think about.
As I mentioned, I haven’t suffered from a panic attack for over a year, after having them consistently for almost a decade. I’m confident that I wont suffer from one in the future, not because I don’t think one will arise, but because I don’t really care if it does. (although the symptoms of panic really don’t ever arise anymore anyway). I still have some work to do. Years of performing with panic has left a negative feeling associated with performing that I’m still working on, although it’s steadily getting better. I still deal with with symptoms of depression and anxiety, although I feel like what I’ve learned with panic attacks applies with these feelings so I am very hopeful for improvement here.
Lastly, I strangely feel somewhat grateful for having gone through what I did, and I hope you will too. I now feel like I have a sort of vaccination against panic, which is a valuable thing during these uncertain times. I feel like I’m able to handle stressful situations easier than ever before, and there is a huge sense of accomplishment in overcoming something that for so long felt impossible to overcome. If you have any questions about my journey (I hate using that pretentious word in this context, but I can’t think of a better one) please feel free to comment or send me a message and I’ll try to get back to you with as honest of a reply as I can. Thanks for reading this far, or at least skipping until this point. Please know that however long you’ve been dealing with symptoms of panic, a panic free life is not far away. Or maybe I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, but give it a try.
​
4.) I wanted to include a section on brief tips for in the moment of a panic attack. I want to encourage sufferers to always try and lean towards the route of acceptance as this is the road towards freedom, but also recognize that applying this knowledge is not always possible in the moment, especially for particularly bad panic attacks, so I wanted to include small tips that have helped me in the moment.
​
-As I mentioned earlier, If you suffer from regular panic attacks, recognize and reinforce the idea that you’ve probably already experienced the worst thing that will happen to you. I never threw up or passed out on stage, but even knowing that, every time a panic attack came up, I thought that maybe this would be the exception. After learning how panic attacks work, you realize that if something hasn’t happened in previous panic attacks, it’s not gonna happen in future ones. A body that is accustomed to routine panic attacks is going to react in routine ways. Usually the worst part of a panic attack is not knowing how bad it will get. Remind yourself that you’ve already experienced the worst of it before and were fine. This reminder is critical in moving towards acceptance.
-Shift your attention, particularly to the 5 senses. This is a common technique, but it’s common because it works. Your panic is no more important than the other things in your awareness, yet you give it all your attention simply because it demands that you do. Simply put your attention on other immediate senses. I found success with senses that aren’t immediately obvious. Can you feel the sensations in the second knuckle of your left ring finger? How about your right nostril? Putting at least some of your attention somewhere else in your immediate awareness takes some of the strength away from your panic and it will eventual shrivel on it’s own.
-Your panicking because you’re not breathing and you’re not breathing because your panicking. Check in with your breath. Chances are it’s shorter than normal. See if you can lengthen it a bit, particularly the out breath. For extra credit, see if you can feel every molecule of air flowing in and out of you for just one breath. I found that exhaling through slightly pursed lips was a good way to lengthen my exhalation as well as make the sensation of breathing easier to follow.
-This one is a little weird and might only apply when you’re by yourself, but give it a try. When panicked, balance on one leg. If that’s too easy, try it in the yoga tree pose. If that’s too easy, then try it in yoga tree pose with your eyes closed. If that’s too easy then go teach a yoga class. I was skeptical about this when I first heard about it, but was pleasantly proved wrong. Your brain only has so much attention it can use at a time. When panicked, we usually put the majority of our attention on the panic and what we’re panicked about. Balance takes a certain amount of attention to achieve and so you’ll find your mind almost magically settling in order to achieve equilibrium on one foot.
-Talk to someone. Anyone. This is easy to do when you’re with a close friend who might know about you’re panic disorder, but harder to do if you’re in a store with a bunch of strangers. You’ll most likely be self conscious, thinking that everyone can see this psycho losing their mind in the sock aisle, but most likely you look completely normal. Like putting your mind on another sensation or balancing, engaging in a conversation will take attention points away from the panic and panic needs attention points to survive. Plus you might make a friend. Probably not but do it anyway.
​
5.) Here are a few resources that I found myself coming back to and that I still reference today:
Ten percent happier books, apps and podcast- There are a ton of meditation resources out there now but ten percent happier has been my go to. It’s an organization spear headed by Dan Harris, a skeptical journalist who has his own experience with panic attacks and now is a strong proponent for meditation. I first read his book by the same name, then went on to download the company’s meditation app, and am now a regular listener to their podcast. I’ve dabbled with most meditation apps out there, but am drawn to ten percent happier mostly because I find Dan to be the most relatable figure in the field. As a very secular, non spiritual person, I am often turned off by some of the seemingly put on serenity and “foo foo” of other spiritual teachers. Dan’s book is a great gateway into the world of meditation, for someone like me that has no desire to deal with metaphysical claims but just simply wants improve their mind. His app continues in this vein. The app also includes meditations and talks from many different teachers, so your chances of finding someone’s voice whom you relate to are good.
The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris- I find this book to be the best “self help book” that I’ve ever read. It is essentially a break down of the steps in ACT (acceptance commitment therapy), but is done so in a very easy to understand way. It reads as a sort of user manual for handling difficult emotions, and does so in a very relatable voice. This book is mostly geared towards dealing with symptoms of anxiety, which while different than panic, I find the approach to be transferrable. This is one of the only books that I made sure to go out and buy after reading it from the library, as I wanted to keep referencing it later.
Anything by Dr. Claire Weekes- Claire Weekes was an Australian Dr. that wrote several books on the subject of anxiety and panic. As her books were written in the 60s and 70s but read with the same understanding of books of today, she is considered a pioneer in the field. I personally have her book “Hope and help for your nerves”, but I think reading any of her books or listening to any of her talks on youtube are beneficial. She had a remarkable way of simplifying what can so often feel like such a complex problem.
This guy’s post: https://www.reddit.com/Anxiety/comments/61hi78/things_i_have_learned_about_anxiety_and_how_to/
I’m not sure why, but I found this reddit post to be very encouraging to me. So much that I bookmarked it and revisited it several times. It’s a well written story of someone overcoming a strong anxiety disorder, more challenging than what I went through. It also inspired me to put what I’ve learned out on the internet, just in case someone might be encouraged as i was.
I don’t know how to end reddit posts.

Edit: There's obviously big money at stake as I started receiving death threats the moment this post hit the front page on hot. Be careful with your personal info and probably best to avoid commenting here if you have doxxable details on your reddit account. Stay safe, it's just a game and not worth it.
TL;DR:

1. Tarkov is a crazy wild game with a bunch of people running around trying to do weird things. Remember that bizarre outcomes are just as likely (if not more) to be happenstance than suspicious behavior. Don't let others gaslight you into thinking every encounter is a hacker or cheater.
2. Cheat sellers, RMT vendors, and their customers, all want to push the narrative that rule-breaking is far more common than it actually is, and that the game developers are ruining the game so you may as well just hack/cheat yourself to level the playing field. It's great for business as a seller, and it helps rationalize malicious actions as a customer. Spreading paranoia, mass outrage, and undermining the developers are CIA-level tactics to sow chaos and anarchy that benefits bad actors at the cost of everyone else.
3. The best thing we can do is silence attempts by bad actors and focus on productive, positive discussions in Tarkov and let BSG (who are the only people who can do anything) do their jobs. They spend 65% of their resources on crushing bad actors and their profit margins, so this isn't an issue that's flying under their radar. As a community, the best voice we have against malicious behavior is deafening silence to starve it of attention and free publicity, minimizing the chances that they can sow enough fear and angst to radicalize players to get more customers.

---
First off, the point of this discussion is not to debate how prevalent cheating in Tarkov is. This sub already has more than enough speculation on that topic and as you read further along you'll see that letting fear and paranoia fester is exactly what bad faith agents in Tarkov want.
Wherever you have competition, you're going to have cheating. Whether it's Tarkov, Olympic sports, or the stock market. As long as there is competition, there will always be someone who looks to gain an unfair edge, and it doesn't even matter if it's something as mundane and trivial as online chess, there's always going to be that guy who runs their opponents moves into a grandmaster-level AI because their enjoyment comes from that win at any cost.
However, despite the fact that bad faith competition exists in nearly every facet of life, it seems like the Tarkov community is far more paralyzed by fear, anger, and suspicion than any other competitive forum. Why is this?
​

1. The game design makes it exceedingly difficult to discern bad faith actions from legitimate play. A naked level 1 with a TT pistol can accidentally get a lucky hipfire shot that instantly kills a fully kitted veteran who is highly skilled in the game. The incredibly punishing nature of the game also makes it so that deaths are highly impactful, which makes it difficult to "let go" of trying to figure out what went wrong. All put together, it means that players are forced to simply accept highly punishing deaths without being given any insight or explanation on how they were killed. 20 headshots with an R99 SMG in Apex Legends is incredibly obvious aimbotting. But in Tarkov, the fight is over with just 1, which leaves a lot of unanswered questions with no satisfying answers.
2. Because the shared raid map system that Tarkov uses, players have a wide variety of objectives that lead to very differing goals, resulting in bizarre interactions where the original intentions of other other players is unclear. Someone who's hiding in a raid to wait for the violence to die down could be stumbled upon by some other person who is completely lost trying to find a quest objective, or wandering around exploring an obscure area trying to find easter eggs. From the vantage point of the hider, it seems suspicious they were hunted down by someone who had no reason to legitimately to hunt in the location that they were. In other words, players will frequently run into other players acting in inexplicable ways that can be easily misattributed to malice when it was just as likely to be happenstance.
3. The lack of SBMM (skills-based matchmaking) means that all players are drawn from the same pool when forming raids. This means a complete new player to FPS genre entirely could be running face first into the most skilled players in the entire game. When the competition spans the entirety of the skill curve, it's incredibly difficult to know what is going on because player actions are often contrary to expectations of others. Chaos makes it easy to be suspicious about bad faith play because nobody is acting "logically" from each perspective. Naive players may charge in aggressively in silly ways that end up working by sheer luck that more experienced players will assume would only be as a result of unfair information. A very high skill player can take fights that they win with superior mechanics that most would assume you would only engage because of unfair aim.

The point is, this game is designed to breed suspicion, paranoia, and fear. Which is great in one way, because it's what makes it so exciting and fun to play. However, when channeled in the wrong way, is a serious problem because it's exactly what bad faith actors want.
Let's think about various actors in Tarkov, and ask the question, "do they want people to believe that rule breaking is more or less prevalent than it actually is?"

CHEAT SELLERS: MORE

Because the narrative is, everyone is cheating, the game is unfair no matter what, every raid you load into has someone that is map-hacking, every fight you take is against someone who is aim-botting. Therefore, you should consider picking up some little helpers yourself to make it fair again, or be a naive idiot that willingly plays at a disadvantage while everyone else is using hacks.
The idea that literally cheaters and hackers are infesting every single raid is probably the best possible sales pitch a cheat seller could have. The few instances of cheating leads to fear and paranoia festering, prompting more people on the fringe to consider cheating themselves, leading to more cheating, more fear, more paranoia, more business.

RMT VENDORS: MORE

Because the narrative is, this game is filled with cheaters anyway, half the lobby is people who bought stuff with mom's credit card, and Nikita is setting out to personally reduce your happiness in life and the game is unrewarding and unplayable for a normal legitimate player that doesn't hack or make a full-time job out of Tarkov. Why bother doing all the pointless stupid grinds while you're dying 50 raids in a row to hackers or someone who bought all their gear with their credit card, when you can just buy a few little cheeki Roubles from the side and get to having fun in the game?
Negativity and toxicity toward both the existence of other bad faith players, as well as toward the game design itself, is inherently the best possible environment for a thriving RMT system. This is especially perfect for Tarkov because unlike other MMORPGs, it's much more likely that incremental changes will be more brutal rather than having power creep / loot creep / money creep, which fuels despair and more interest in RMT.

CHEAT/RMT USERS: MORE

This one is simple. If they can convince everyone that it's more common than it actually is, the more they can rationalize their own behavior. It's not that bad, everyone else is doing it anyway! Besides, it's not even that big of an advantage, some other cheaters cheat even harder! Some of you may have seen a recent thread where one individual texted "lmao I'm gonna turn off cheats for this group though, cuz these guys play legit."
As if playing legit was actually the minority situation for a massively mainstream FPS game.
Zzz.

THE AVERAGE PLAYER LIKE YOU AND ME: ?

It is human nature to rationalize defeat. When you face down failure with no explanation on why like in Tarkov, it's tempting to blame cheaters, hackers, etc. Different games often have different ways of rationalizing defeat. In team games like Overwatch or League of Legends, teammate-blaming is common to offload the burden onto random strangers. In solo matchup games like Starcraft II, race balance is often used by players who are frustrated that they lost. What's even more, these other games do an excellent job of explaining where you could have done better, but players will still look for ways to blame someone other than themselves. It's no surprise that in Tarkov, fear and suspicion of bad faith gameplay exists.
The problem is, if we allow ourselves to be tempted to err toward the side of suspicion, to blame negative outcomes on the belief in rampant cheaters, hackers, etc., then we are aligning ourselves to the same narrative that bad faith actors like cheat sellers and RMT vendors want to push. We allow ourselves to be corrupted with the idea of "this game is bullshit, everyone else in the game is not playing fairly, why do I even bother trying?"
This is a dangerous mindset because it fuels a toxic narrative that "this game is never going to be fair to me, the devs don't care, the game is becoming less and less fun for me, I should just quit if I'm not going to cheat myself."
Let me be clear, I'm not saying that toxicity itself will convert an entire playerbase into cheaters. In fact, I think it has a minimal impact at a high level perspective because there just aren't that many people that are willing to traverse to the disreputable ends of the internet and take risks just to gain some internet points. However, even a 1% cheating rate to 3% cheating rate is a 300% proportional magnitude in the profitability of selling cheats or RMT vending. And more importantly, it significantly damages the enjoyment and integrity of the community at large.
You can see clear evidence of bad faith actors in this subreddit. There have been several threads in this subreddit just in the past few days that have reached the front page claiming 1) false bans are rampant, Nikita should just let RMT be 2) hello I am bob, I am hacker all day, you should hack too because literally it's everywhere you don't even KNOW, btw PM me for cheap hacks 3) xyz devs are ruining the game, why stop RMT/hacks, just let it go, you're DESTROYING THE GAME, STOP DOING THAT BSG!.
I'm not going to say any individual thread (even though many examples have been debunked) are complete bullshit. I'm just going to say that the narrative of these threads is completely aligned with individuals who are lobbying to protect their interests in making a profit out of bad faith play.

What can you do to stop this?

It starts with the self.

• When you get an incredibly lucky clutch/kill, remember it for yourself, and use it as a reminder as to how fickle this game can be. Think about how your opponent must be so confused/suspicious about what you got away with.
• When you yourself are on the receiving end of that ridiculous death, remind yourself of all the times where you were on the other side. Make your default reaction be "damn, Tarkov is crazy" rather than "I bet that was hacking 100%." Remember how easily flukes can occur, and how easily luck could be conflated with cheating.
• Focus on learning and improving in a game where there is endless room to get better, something that is irrelevant to whether some minority of players chooses to play unfairly.

Encourage productive discussions, positive mentalities, and discourage DESTRUCTIVE SPECULATION and toxic attitudes.

• Upvote threads that discuss legitimate aspects of the game, whether it's discussions on strategies, advice on how to get better, or general productive discussions that are within our control as regular players.
• Downvote threads that revolve around discussing cheating, hacking, or a bullshit "Reddit expert panel" of trying to speculate whether gameplay footage was legitimate or not, especially when there is a lack of context on user lag/latency, frames, system specs, server issues, date stamps, etc.
• Upvote threads that explain technical nuances known to impact Tarkov gameplay, e.g. desync bullets resulting in apparently unkillable players, etc.
• Downvote threads that attempt to sow paranoia in masses of players that have nothing to do with anti-cheating efforts. At best, they are attention-seeking threads made by users to profit infamy at the cost of community integrity. At worst, they are propagandized pieces designed to undermine faith in the developers and increase the temptation to use black market cheats/services and perpetuate a death spiral.
• Downvote threads that attempt to induct mass outrage against developers. When someone says "they nerfed X, this is bullshit, we should all just RMT now," it could be from legitimate upset players, but keep in mind that it's also perfectly aligned with exactly the type of agenda that bad faith actors have. Remember that the best thing that malicious actors can do is to pit the player base against the developers so they can create a lawless wasteland to do business undisturbed.

BSG has shown an exemplary degree of interaction with this community. Always wait for an official response before jumping to conclusions.

• Go try making a thread about cheating/hacking/boosting in Overwatch or Apex Legends and see how much official response you ever get from developers. This subreddit has been gifted with probably one of the best levels of community engagement from devs you could ask for.
• When someone tries to hit the front page with a thread like "I've been falsely banned," track that thread carefully and wait 3-4 days for the official response. If it's anything like 90% of the threads we've seen in the past few days, you're going to see the truth hammer get dropped, providing the poster doesn't delete their own threads/accounts when they're exposed to be full of lies.
• Upvote threads that make grandiose claims that are worthwhile for an official response. Then mercilessly scrutinize how events unfold, because 99% of the time, it's always liars that are hoping they can incite a riot as "punishment" for the developers interfering with them than anything else. This is a common occurrence in other communities that have high developer interaction like Old School Runescape, where banned players are known to make top-page threads about being falsely banned, before evidence is provided showing that they are completely full of shit and memes ensue when the truth hammer is dropped.

--
BSG spends 65% of its resources fighting cheaters and RMT and is a developer that has shown endless passion and commitment to its install base. As beta players that are trying to help them develop the best possible game, the best voice we have against bad faith actors in the Tarkov community is deafening silence. Starve them of attention, free marketing, free publicity. Demonstrate that just because they can infect one player, that will not tilt the hundreds of legitimate players into letting themselves surrender and be infected themselves.

I woke up. Looked with one eye at the time. It was later than I would have liked. To the left was blessed water that drunk Zoink had brought to bed and left on the top of my great grandfather's traveling chest that now housed my collection of CD's from the nineties. I drank the water.
I had to go to work.
I rolled out of bed because it was later than I would have liked. Mental calculations put me at enough time for a shower, coffee, a quick breakfast, and maybe David Lynch's daily weather report. Not enough time for a wank. That's like seven minutes or so, so not today.
I had spent the last three days thinking about the most diplomatic way of asking my wife to get the last of her shit out of my place, sign the divorce petition, and leave keys. While the shower was getting lukewarm I texted her: 'What is your plan for retrieving your things, signing the petition, and leaving the keys?'
As I showered and listened to music from the local radio station I received a series of texts from her the last of which read: 'I was waiting on you!"
To do what?
I shaved. Combed my hair. Sighed.
'I don't believe my presence is required for any of the things required. You can discharge them at your convenience.' was my reply.
I made a breakfast of oatmeal with fried eggs on top and some Tapatio and kim chee. Drank the last of my Stumptown French Roast.
'I've missed hearing from you. You should watch the new season of Umbrella Academy.'
A woman who once threatened to email my work and the nearby high school and tell them I was a predator and to be on the watch for me. Because she found out that I was watching internet videos when she was away. Youtube videos. About history. Mostly about Napoleon's various battles because it took me away from the emotional violence that she had been putting me through.
I put on my work clothes. Carhartt pants, an undershirt, a shirt. I wore the nice socks. I wanted to march in nice things.
'Blah blah, blah, blah...blah blah blah blah blah.' she said. I didn't read it. I was on my way to work. H-dog, my soon to be ex wife, has a way of over talking a conversation far beyond it's finishing point. She likes to prove she's the smartest person in the room even if she is the only person in the room.
She once started an argument with me about the state of the bathroom. I reminded her that she had not liked my style of cleaning which had been thorough. That she had decided that the bathroom's cleanliness was dependent entirely upon herself. That the bathroom's state of affairs was entirely upon her according to her.
She did not like that. Accused me of wanting a Mom and not a wife. I disagreed. "I had wanted a partner in life." I said. That was not the right thing to say to her. She head butted me in the face. I bled from the nose and would sport a black eye for the better part of a week.
That was then this is now. I just wanted her to sign the divorce petition but she would not.
I went to work, yesterday.
Work. I wanted to throw myself into it. To slam my body around and so I did.
"Hi!" "Hello" "How are you?" "Your hair looks nice!" "I'm good, thank you!" "Did you ever think that the bottle of Stubb's barbecue sauce should have a dialogue bubble next to Stubb's face? Something like: 'This shit is the tits!' or 'Y'all are some fine lookin' white folk!'?"
I'm still pretty drunk from the previous night. I check in with my boss and he looks at me and has this sort of disappointment in his eyes. But then he starts telling me what to do and I'm writing it down and his eyes perk up. He digs around in his apron and gives me this stupid patch like thing that the leaders at my work give out for doing a good job.
"Autumn wanted me to give you this." One of the other team leaders. Department head of the beer, wine, spirits, cheese, and other things that can kill you department.
I took it. He didn't tell me why I should.
I started at the top of what I call the key. I work in a grocery store, the produce department. The top of the key is right where people come into the store. The front door. It's where our front display is and right now it is grapes. I made up a cart of grapes and filled it up, three high all to the back.
Got to the back and saw Mr. Lucas who told me some bullshit thing that global needed done needed to be done by 7 o'clock. I said I'd do it but told him what I thought about the fuckwads who were making us do it. He laughed.
Mr. Lucas was doing the load, unloading all the stock that comes in on large pallets. We get, like, maybe, five to ten of them per day and it's a bitch to unload. So I start helping him out, Mr. Lucas, I help out. 20, 35, 50 pound boxes, just slamming myself around throwing, tossing and turning.
The nectarines go here. The apples over there. Tomatoes over there. Peppers, my God, the peppers all in a pile and someone came and overturned them and they went everywhere but we picked 'em up and got them to where. The onions go over there but keep in mind we got conventional and organic and keep 'em separate, please. Yes, done. Done. Done. Done. Done. Done. Done. Done.
Then it's out to the floor. Fill the bananas. Take a question. Answer it. Another. Fill the bananas. "I need ginger, where is it?" It's over there in the corner, in a place that's hard to find that's why they couldn't find it. Most people never do. That's why they ask. They always ask where the ginger is. It's in the corner of the department where no one thinks to look so they ask.
There's Tanea. We talk about horror movies for a few minutes. She works in the body care part of the store but we never talk about that we talk of horror movies. She loves them and so do I. I just saw The Relic and told her I loved it and that she should watch it and she says she would. That night, she said she would.
Corn, the corn needs stocking. I stock the corn. People come up wanting corn and I make the same joke I make every year: "The corn is really good. We must have picked the right person in the lottery this year." I say. And no one gets it. It's a reference to Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' short story but apparently no one reads worth shit because no one except one per season gets the joke. It's not a funny joke but I like to tell it.
And it's hot as balls out so everyone is dressed in less than needs be. Pretty girls all about but see I'm in the middle of a divorce. All I see is: "Oh, pretty girl, bet her bathroom looks like shit." Pretty girls usually don't keep their bathrooms clean so whenever I see a pretty girl, and I see a lot, all I think, nowadays especially: "Damn, bet her bathroom is filthy!"
I went to lunch. I had a pineapple coconut water drink. It was on sale otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. Poked around online. Then got back to work.
Bags needed to be refilled so I did it. Supplies needed to be put away so I did it. Hum, ha, hum, ha, hum. Got it done lick smart quick and now starting to sweat.
Out on the floor, the peaches need to be refilled. The good peaches. The local peaches. The Valicoff peaches. They are so velvety and sweet. Customers wait all year long for them and then walk right by so you have to push them back up to where they are. But the peaches are moving so we need them to sell down so we can't fill them up. Not as much as we should so we don't. Fill them up.
But the cherries aren't moving so I put out all of those. Stack 'em three layers high, that's what you do, don't stack 'em higher. You stack cherries too high they compress and it hurts their integrity and they die. You need to treat cherries with compassion or they die.
Then hit up the open pint cherry tomatoes. Pull 'em forward and put the new ones in back. It's tedious but I love the cherry tomatoes this time of year. They are the tits! You should get some if you can get some, I tell folk. I replace what I can but it isn't enough to make the display look nice but nice enough for the night crew, I suppose.
So, it's late, now. Just about time to start pullin' in the things we need pullin' in. The cauliflower that's out, the asparagus, the Romanesque, putting a curtain on the corn that we leave out.
Jack brings in the watermelon bins, four of those.
Davey cleans up in back.
"I got caught up in some things, couldn't make it over today." she texted me.
She has only three things to do, I don't understand how hard it is for her to do them.
"Okay." I replied.
I got a walking home beer, some brie and some olive. My favorite indulgent snack: brie and nicoise olives on toast.
"Why do you have to be so angry?" She says.
At some point during the night I had to take something to the other side of the store. Crossing Specialty. I spied Autumn who had given me a beanie. A thing they give out for good service. I asked her why she had my boss give me one.
"Your department just lights up every time you are there. Just smiles all around. I've personally seen 4 great customer service interactions. No, like, seriously, your department shines when you are there."
I put my head down. I was half fried drunk still. No one should look up to me.

It all started 3 months ago when my friend introduce me to sports betting where he paid for picks and I thought it was a good winning percentage and he would give me the picks they sent him every day for free. Eventually I would just bet on my own accord since I didn't think their picks were that good. I will gamble on anything including sports- today is the day I am try to quit. I've lost my savings which was not much but it made me take out loans that I am still paying for. I had 2.5k in savings which now is gone. and -$1500 in credit card debt, and on top of that I have a loan that takes money out of my paycheck every two weeks. I hope by posting here I can actually stop thinking/obsessing about gambling every second of my life. It doesn't help that I have an addictive personality as well. I actually just put my last 30$ I had on a online gambling website in a parlay. I hope I lose so I don't have to think about betting more. I gamble because of boredom and the feeling of winning is such a high I'm also a weed smoker which doesn't help. It makes me think about the next bet a lot when I'm high but it also helps me to deal with the pain of it..

NC State Wolfpack will look forward to continuing their success against Virginia Cavaliers in an important Atlantic Coast Conference play. NC State is holding a 2-1 record in the ACC play and they hold the same record overall. As for the Cavaliers, they are 1-1 in their conference play and the same overall. The Wolfpack will enter this game with a winning record while the Cavaliers are coming off an unsuccessful attempt against Clemson Tigers. Sports betting picks and odds are available online as these teams clash at David A. Harrison III Field in Scott Stadium, Virginia.
Visit: https://www.betnow.eu/ncaaf/nc-state-wolfpack-vs-virginia-cavaliers-10-10-2020-ncaaf-results-odds-predictions/

To answer this question, assume the following:

• You have the results from every sporting event on the planet upon which you can place bets with professional sports books (casinos, race tracks, online, etc).
• Assume this book of results can never be lost/stolen/damaged or accessed by anyone other than yourself (e.g. you have multiple copies in multiple secure locations).
• Bookies and casinos will never know you have the almanac, but given enough time/exposure, they are certain to mark you as an unacceptably good bettor and refuse to take your bets. You don't know when/how that will happen. You just know that if you fuck this up, it will happen. You must balance winning with staying under the radar.
• Assume that, for personal reasons, you don't ever want fame of any kind. This means you can't use friends, family, cut-outs or betting agents to place bets (as they will also eventually recognize you as being unusually skilled at betting, and you can't control their actions). This also means you can't position yourself as a "sports betting guru." You won't host your own ESPN show or accept payment for sharing betting tips.
• You will have to deal with max betting and max payoff rules (e.g. Vegas casinos won't accept massive bets that have the potential of causing true financial problems for themselves).
• If you bet online, your performance will be tracked. If you bet in person, you will have to deal with physically placing bets and collecting winnings. This will mean something as complex as facial recognition and something as simple as "Oh hey, I remember you. You're that guy that won the Pick Six last week..."
• You will start with $100.

Ready, set, go!