Fireplace with christmas tree

i don't know if it does this to anyone else but it makes me want to go find a large tree and sit underneath it
The place where I live, there is about a 3 mile hike in the desert (reminds me of the Waste since I live in the Southwest US) and there are cactus and brush, lizards and snakes that are often found on the trail. But when you get to the end of the 3 mile hike, there is a lone pine tree, far in the distance, completely out of place among the desert surrounding it.
I always think of that tree when I read this scene.

So, I‘m fairly creative and love making the best out of things but I‘m literally at my wit’s end with the place my boyfriend and I will soon move to. Basically, his parents build a new house for their retirement and will give us their old house on their farm. We are obviously beyond grateful.
However, the place is a mess. Not, like that it has bad structure or anything just the long-term-design-choices made by his mum are mismatched and hideous. We are talking bright red sinks and giant, Mediterranean fire places hideous. And worst of all: the ginormous living room has a fluffy red carpet! It’s so obscenely ugly paired with the terracotta+white fireplace, that it literally makes me angry 😂 the carpet is still relatively new and replacing it is unfortunately outside of our budget right now. Plus, I would feel bad wasting a high quality carpet like that after 6-7 years of use.
Red is the one color that matches nothing but white/cream or even more red for the walls and curtains. The cheap 2000s wedding vibes I get from that makes me not want to walk in there, ever. My boyfriend and I both despise the carpet and the way it limits our options for a room that we will have guest over in and spend a lot of time in.
Has anyone ever taken a carpet out and dyed it? Is that possible? How did it go? We would both love to have it dark gray/anthrazit. Space is not a problem. There are large buildings on the premise that would definitely allow for such a process.
If not: does anyone have any ideas how to make this room not look horribly outdated? If you have red carpet, what color is your couch? How did you paint the walls? What color is the rest of the furniture? How did you decorate?
Basically, my main issue is that I‘m not into Mediterranean style. The fireplace can be styled farmhouse-aesthetically through decoration but that doesn’t work too well with the red carpet. I’m already dreading the red carpet+black TV+white walls combination. The only thing I hate more is animal print with pink.

I've seen a lot of post in this sub discussing quest markers - both pros and cons, which is natural in a discussion about Bethesda games.
I tend to lean towards the anti quest marker crowd personally. I think the elder scrolls series peaked with Morrowind and I love the idea of unreliable narrators and getting better ot worse directions depending on who you ask in the game. There are examples of quests in Bethesda games where you have no way of knowing how to complete certain quests without markers, which I think is bad game design.
I don't think it's realistic to expect a morrowind style system with journal entries and bad directions, but I would like it to be a little more interesting than just following the big arrow. With Starfield being themed around exploration I would be very disappointed to learn that the main quest was just a string of going from A to B fetch quests mindlessly following markers.
With the game's Sci fi setting there's an opportunity to implement all kinds of scanning mechanics. The least I would expect is some equivalent to the clairvoyance spells from skyrim, but I would hope for something a little more involved - the scanner probes from eve online comes to mind.
In a game like this, scanning could be it's own separate skill tree. Scanning for resources, scanning for signals, scanning for rogue drones, pirate ships and hidden stations, scanning ships and cargo containers - the sky's the limit. What does everyone think? Will we learn some news about scanning tomorrow?

I am a beginner at world building and writing, but I would like people to give me real feedback/questions I can ask myself and add to my novel ideas. Plus, I just came up with this idea a week ago, so give me a bit of time to finish it. Sorry if this is in any way confusing.
Saffrus is a minuscule planet made up of consistently tundra wasteland, with one tiny forest that contains many trees including evergreens, oaks, and elders. However, with only a century of creation of humanoids, the human species have risen up and returned to their greedy ways, attempting to "Tame" the land. In a result, pollution and clutter had been scattered. The main five Higher Beings (Or gods) Touch, Taste, Smell, See and Hear, vanquish their creation to become a part of the salty seas. They had created a new humankind, which only consisted of adolescents and young adults. However, if they were to have a child, both the two parties of the creators will be turned into soil, so the population has reduced, as a test. The test was if they could show minimal greed and were able to restore their planet into a somewhat inhabitable land, so the more mature adolescents worked together to create the three pods. The Trashy Turnips: The Backbone to their society, the ones who collect carcasses, clutters and the left orders to give to the other two pods to try to turn into something useful. Next the Recycled Radishes: The ones who try to craft something their planet-mates can use, for example, clothing, shelter, containers, etc. Finally, the Compost Carrots: The ones who take animal carcasses, diseased bodies, or just rotten food and turn it into life, sustainable food. Once in a while the Higher Beings gift the children rainwater to collect and drink, so they won't die of thirst. The Adolescents take shelter in an enormous old ruin of an ancient University, and although they do not go to school, there's plenty of dorms and books to share and dwell in. However, now the Old Generation had arisen from their watery banishment, one of the Higher Beings had betrayed the planet, and plans to remove every single plant or tree so there will be no more oxygen. Additional notes: There's these children who are birthed from trees but are hunted by many for their sweet sap blood called saplings. There's two more Higher Beings, one who controls death and one who controls creation. Imagination and Trapper, one a creative being who crafted the planet Aswell as the creatures within, the other a hunter who only wears orange and kills anything innocent or pure, thriving on destruction and chaos (He's the betrayer) Also there is three bear clans called Solar; Berry; and Kodiak. They consist of a leader who can transform into a beautiful woman and sooth her prey into a dire fate. And yeah, I might add some more later. Thanks so much for reading and give me questions and feedback to help on my journey. Do you guys think this will be a decent publishable story? Why or why not?

Some of you may recall that I posted a few months ago about a new SB who turned out to be my son’s math teacher. We’re still seeing each other a couple times a month. I told her a while ago that if she needed any ‘guy stuff’ done around the house she could call me.
Thursday night she called me, sounding like she was on the edge of hysterics. She told me that a big snake was in her house, she had called a couple pest control companies but it was after 9 pm and her calls went to voicemail. I told her that I was on my way, grabbed my snake stick, and drove over.
She and her kids said that it was last seen in the living room and I got enough of a description to be fairly sure it wasn’t venomous, but I was still cautious. I found the snake under the couch, and when I started to move the couch it went up into the couch. I moved the couch and flipped it over. The snake turned out to be a Western Rat Snake, about five feet long and pretty feisty. I got it out of the couch and got control of it, and got musked in the process.
After I had control I did a little show and tell with her kids, boy and girl, both under ten. They were fascinated by the snake; their mother, not so much. She had the willies from just being in the same room.
I had never been to my SB’s house before. She lives in an older subdivision that dates to the 1970s; lots of trees, shrubs, and big yards. On the other side of her backyard fence is one of the creeks that run through town. I let the snake loose in the creek bed and went back inside. I talked with the kids briefly about the local venomous snakes and how to identify them, and how to be safe around snakes. My SB sent the kids to bed and invited me to use her bathroom to take a shower while she washed my clothes. I ended up spending the night in bed with her.
Yesterday morning during breakfast her son asked me if I was his mom’s new boyfriend; she and I exchanged glances, and I told him yes. He seemed to take that pretty well, and after the kids left the table she told me that her son generally had difficulty with her dating and she had been prepared for him to react negatively, because he usually didn’t like her boyfriends.
After breakfast I called a pest control company and had them send a guy over. He and I talked about reducing the snake friendly habitat in the backyard, but there’s nothing we can do about the creek because it’s city property and natural habitat. He looked for ways the snake might have gained access to the house, for signs of rodents, and he looked in and around the house and yard for the possibility of snake eggs. I don’t know enough to be able to tell the difference between a male and a female snake, and it didn’t cross my mind on Thursday night. He advised me that this time of year is when rat snakes mate and they lay eggs and leave them. I did NOT tell my SB about the possibility that she might see some baby snakes in several weeks. Based on how she reacted last night I wouldn’t be surprised if she moved into a hotel for the rest of the summer. I paid the pest control guy to seal up some possible access points into the house and to reduce some of the potential snake habitat in the yard, and I called my yard guy to add her place to the weekly service. Her backyard is fairly overgrown, and it’s going to take some work to clean up.
It didn’t occur to me until this morning that I might owe her a PPM for Thursday night, but on the other hand coming over to catch a snake in her house at 10 pm, paying a pest control service to come out, and adding her to my yard service might be considered payment in kind.

I just got this overhead cargo bin preparing for my first camping experience with my children. Even if we don’t stick with camping I know we will get use of it, but I’m truly hoping camping is something we can get into, and the Ascent has opened me up to the idea. We’re awaiting a car tent that the hatch would open into and looking forward to testing it out. I’d like to get a cover of some sort for the vehicle since it’s black and we will be under the sun by the beach with no tree coverage; any suggestions?(bonus points if they are cheap and don’t involve cargo bin removal[I’m not opposed to rigging up some tarp/bin configuration though])

https://apnews.com/article/ted-kaczynski-unabomber-dies-federal-prison-95fdd4f398fbfe20aaadf5d53a91dc26
Kaczynski was one of the few men in our day and age who walked his talked. He was fed up with civilization and did his best to remain free from its clutches. Called both genius and insane by detractors and even some supporters Kaczynski's work still remains largely misunderstood or unknown to a majority of people. I have spent 3 years on and off studying Kaczynskis work and his personal life, the amount of disinformation and misunderstanding about this man is endemic from his worldview to what did or did not occur in his life. In one of his correspondence letters in the last years of his life he asked the individual to plant a tree on in his memory.

A happily married man does not does not daydream about romantic love. Similarly, a man does not romanticize frontier freedoms unless he is suffering from the lack of personal autonomy

https://www.thetedkarchive.com/category/topic/the-various-ted-k-archives
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/authoted-kaczynski?sort=pubdate_desc&rows=50

Hello, all!
I have a terrarium in my sun room, and it has one of those unidentified “terrarium plants” in it that is thriving. I’m considering moving both of them into a larger terrarium or possibly pruning and then propagating in another terrarium (I’m scared of upsetting them and their happy little ecosystem).
However, I don’t want to do any of that until I can identify the little green plant in these photos: https://imgur.com/a/RqTN6x6
An app I tried says it’s a China doll (Radermachera sinica) plant. The leaves look similar, but I’m skeptical. I know every tree starts somewhere, but it’s such a little baby!
Texture: Smooth, tender, not waxy.
Scent: No smell that I can tell.
Environment: terrarium in a sun room, south facing window, humid, temperatures are pretty consistently in the 70s and 80s in that room (if I had to guess)
Condition: Thriving. Seems to play well with others. Fairly fast growing. Grew to this size in approximately… 4-6 months??? I’m not good with time, but I know it hasn’t been a year.

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https://preview.redd.it/nzmqy2u9685b1.png?width=2282&format=png&auto=webp&s=b49e5c447c341d38686ac6f19c6953aab3e45e13
Hi there! We're about to complete on our first home and are unsure about where to locate our TV & HiFi gear.
The current homeowners have a small-ish TV and soundbar tucked in the corner, which would not work well with our setup as we currently use these kinda large walnut bookshelf speakers which I really really want to keep, and a Rega Planar 2 in white which will need a home.
This (in my mind) means that our future TV (42 - 48 inch) will have to either go above the fireplace or on the wall adjacent.
Right now we're torn as to which option is best for the space, I think the fireplace would be the most aesthetic option. However, I really don't want to be a part of the /TVtooHigh crowd, so would be willing to go with a smaller TV mounted slightly lower.
Any and all advice welcome, TV mounting or not!

This is not a political position, but a thermodynamic one. The world is heading from a time of excess to a time of scarcity. With more people enjoying fewer comforts, humanity is faced with the direction it takes for the rest of our species' future on this planet and others: we can't fight each other for what's left or we can share with each other what we need.
This isn't - or has never before been - a serious question because this world has never felt universal hardship before. In the past, when any major scarcity was faced (with the exception of 536) there was always a neighboring ally to buffer the loss or an enemy to subjugate; until now, there has always been more. Climate change is a global pressure on a globalized economy. There are no external economies that are thriving to prop up the luxuries we've come to feel entitled to. When that luxury can no longer be provided, people are trained to blame each other and ask for the boss to complain about our level of service.
This is the attitude fueling the shift to the right "all this liberal 'science' bullshit has turned my country into a place i dont recognize. Time to get my country in order!", but like how the long term side effects of COVID will be blamed on the vaccine rather than the virus, humans are apparently hardwired to look for a person or institution that's responsible for their problems, because they live in a world that's manifestly run by humanity. Politicians don't help with this because they promise change that a large bureaucracy isn't capable of... every time they step in front of a mic. Politicians feed the sense that the world is divided into teams and the team that's running things is doing harm. They are the anti-vax evangelists of a world simply running out of good time as a result of spending all the good time since the end of WWII.
Humanity cannot fly. That shouldn't be arguable. It's a fundamental limit of our physiology that cannot be overcome without shedding everything about us that makes us human; brains are heavy. When we get on a plane, we are not 'flying', we are taking a bus full of people, strapping a rocket engine to it, and firing it in a ballistic trajectory toward our destination. For all the celebration of progress in the tech age, we still can't figure out how to move something forward without throwing something out the back. That's not just why planes are absurd but why they cannot continue to be considered a good invention. Think of how much fuel would need to be burned to rocket yourself across a lawn, let alone through the sky; it's an insane amount of fuel and an absurd justification for burning it, especially virtually all domestic travel can be accomplished by rail or bus... which also use the same principle of throwing out enough exhaust gasses out the back to displace the weight of the thing that's burning the fuel. When this thing is on the ground, it burns much less fuel than pushing it through the sky.
Humanity assumes novelty is benign. Im not sure if this is one of the hidden rules about capitalism that we all follow as a culture "have you seen the new x!? It's amazing and works way better than x-1!", or if we're evolutionarily programmed to assume new is good and the direction we should be heading in. In either case, it has allowed us to adopt planetary destruction as a necessary aspect of each of our lives. It isn't anything we do consciously, it is the background of our lives that feeds big industry and steals time from the future. It's our commute, our food, our total acceptance that running a furnace is fine despite getting all worked up about oil spills and fires when we see them uncontained. The maze we all run was designed to have as much distance as possible between you and the cheese at the end so you would spend half or more of your cheese burning calories to get from the start to the finish and repeat all over. It is why people feel the problem is too big for them: there is nothing one person can change in the part of the life they control that will redirect the planetary system away from collapse because it is the pattern of our lives that is the destructive part.
Since our shared pattern is so destructive, it is self limiting. We are feeling the effects of that now with COVID (forests being pushed toward ecological breakdown leads animals to look for new territory and new food, leading to conflict with species already there and malnutrition from food with an incomplete nutrient balance), extreme weather doing damage to vital infrastructure and shipping losses.
Which brings us back to Ukraine. The world needs a beacon. A Western country with the courage to model a sustainable lifestyle through active change. I assumed that would have been Canada but I was wrong. Instead, with Ukraine being forced to rebuild in a time where supplies have never been more expensive, and in a state where its people have gotten used to living without luxury, it can either be an incubator for redesigning human life to restore the environment rather than destroy it.
There is no stronger people to take on such a challenge and the world that has been paying for weapons to defend. If we can send explosives to break, we must send hands, tools, and materials to rebuild. If we rebuild the same way, the world will fall into war since the causal push of all existing conflict is space and resources or their control, and we will continue to pretend that individual human choices are to blame for war. We will continue to refuse to look deeper and will soon find ourselves in a position where taking up arms seems like the only solution left to us. If, on the other hand, the rest of us find the courage to look one step deeper and ask "why is the world falling to war? What is driving conflict?", we will see it is the same thing driving our thirst for more luxury and, hopefully, realize that the only survivable path to the future is one where we change our behavior to relieve the force that's pushing us in that direction.
When more is never enough, less is a horrifying concept. Without a model for how to happily live as a human in a self sufficient community, there will be no "green transition", there will only be more disease, more scarcity, and more conflict on the edge of that scarcity. The more each of us takes, the more we contribute to conflict around the world.
There is no way to make a car "green", just like there is no way to make a compostable battery. The problem isnt the means of conveyance, it is the distance we need to cover to survive. Whether or not we change our habits to adapt to this reality is inconsequential to its eventuality, it just seems absurd to ignore the reality of hardship until you're being strangled by it simply to "enjoy the time you have left".
If the war in Ukraine ends and the world moves in to turn it into the first net zero country, there is hope for a future for our species. If we act like everything was fine until a mad man decided to invade a sovereign country, war will spread like a fog descending on the world. Demands will be met by force as a result of people pushing for impossibly cheap access to resources. Slavery will return as the foundation of the global economy and, in all this horror, we will be hastening and worsening our own conditions.
Like a train whose tracks go over the grand canyon, humanity needs one last train stop to see what it looks like to live somewhere other than a train at constantly increasing speed. We need a model for a future that is too nebulous to explain: it must be seen and experienced, how much living can be done as humans on and with the land. If nothing else but to illustrate that a train going over a cliff was not a predetermined consequence of "human progress", and that a choice has been made to define that progress with the inventions of a few men, all of which run by stealing energy from the past and stability from the future. It would allow us to see the train from the outside and force us to question the value of a murder-suicide pact.
For the demonstration to be compelling, there can be no or very little carbon footprint for the country. Structures must be built from salvaged (cheap) material, focusing on isolated but functional communities.
We have already lost the battle to save most of what we recognize in our world but we don't need to continue to burn it all down. Since there is no more track for this paradigm, there is no consequence for trying something new and certain death and misery by doing the same. This message can be shared in every possible way, but without a demonstration of what it looks like on a cultural level, we will never have the discussion that leads to the choice to keep going or get off the death train.
We are not the creations or technology we obsess over, we are an ape descended species on a planet we're stuck with and have killed 80% of in 50 years. We cannot survive on a lifeless world because we are alive and life feeds on life to survive. I have a hard time getting people to relate to the rest of the living world as a branch of the same tree we belong to because of how separated we are from other life. The more life that's lost, the less we'll care about it being gone and the more committed we will be to our preoccupations to avoid having to face reality.
The cowardice ive encountered when it comes to facing reality has been incredibly disappointing and disturbing. We will pass laws in our country to prevent poaching and hunting in other countries where our emissions and lifestyle -guided by our laws- are pushing the same animals to total extinction. We will talk about this from a position of moral superiority, only, and will take no responsibility for the conditions our behavior has already created. There is no "border crisis", there are people being pushed out of their homes by new weather that has made those homes incompatible with survival. I've heard lots of Americans talking about moving north in response to climate shifts as if that is something completely different from what is happening on their southern border or in Europe. No one leaves their ancestral home to cause problems in another country, but if that country is responsible for the force that pushed them out, they should either stop pushing people out of their homes or open their borders. To refuse either is to accept that you live a life of evil and as the person that will one day deny you shelter to protect what they have.
These a new times with new stakes and new bad guys. The only good thing about being the bad guy is you can choose to stop, while your victims can only beg you to stop and, eventually, resist/insist on a different course. It is up to each and all of us how the future plays out. The party is over. No one gets to sit this out.

Not so much today as a week ago. I'm in AZ for a team building work thing and decide to go on the kayaking adventure. I've never kayaked before, but this was billed as a calm "Level 1" river. Cool. We get kitted up and the "instructors" give us a brief run down on how to paddle, basically put the shit in the water and pull. Oh, I thought I just waved it around in the air. Sweet, I got this. Did I mention they told us to leave our phones? Yeah, but I'm too smart to listen. My shorts have zippers. My phone will be nice and secure and I can take pictures while kayaking. Big brain.
Okay, two people per kayak. Immediately as we start out I realize that coordinating paddling in a kayak is a lot more difficult than one would think, as is keeping a kayak going straight. At the start we are already spinning around and having to right ourselves. And then we hit the bank with tree roots sticking out, nearly capsizing us. It's all good, we're champs and right ourselves again. A few more spins, light bumps into other inexperience colleagues in other kayaks, and everything is fine and dandy.
Break time. Alright, perfect spot to whip out the personal phone and take a picture of everyone. But revanchisto, in your supreme idiocy you decided to bring both your work phone and personal phone with you, since you're already that stupid why not do the smart thing and take the picture with your work phone. Well, this is TIFU. Naturally, I use my personal phone to snap a few pictures and put it back in my pocket. What? You thought I dropped it then, no. I'm not that dumb. But, this is like fuck up number 3 at this point.
You see, my left pocket has been having trouble zipping up as of late with ease. Even when calm and sitting down at the gym, I often have to struggle to zip back up that pocket. Of course, that is the pocket I place my personal phone. Genius. We continue our trek down the river, I snap some more pics, and start trying to zip back up my phone. Yet, the pocket remains as stubborn as ever and I also need to balance paddling while zipping. Suddenly, the current picks up pretty quick and oh look, another kayak duo got stuck on an tree branch sticking out of the middle of the damn water!
Okay, decision time. We can keep trying to zip up the phone in our pocket, or paddle as hard as we can to avoid crashing into these people. Fuck it, I want to live. We paddle. We crash anyway. So much for valuing my life over a phone. But guess what, we're still fine. We haven't capsized. Oh wait, what's this? Another boat coming in to smash into all of us creating a kayak sandwich? Yes, yes it is. BAM. We capsize and go over. Thank you life vests. Bye, bye paddle.
Guess what? Miraculously my phone is hanging on for dear life in my pocket, we can still salvage this situation. One hand holding my phone in my pocket, one hand on our kayak as we float down the river. Finally, the guide crew come around to help us back into our kayaks. Final fuck up time, do I do the smart thing and say, "hey man, hold my phone first before pulling me up?" No, I'm a dumbass, remember? So, I reach out for that hand to pull myself out of this goddamn river and whoosh, bye phone...forever. Didn't even feel the thing leave my pocket. Whoosh.
TL;DR I sit here, without my personal phone, because I didn't leave it behind before going on a kayaking adventure, because I put it in my faulty zipper pocket, because I couldn't paddle correctly to avoid the damn crash, and because I couldn't even think to just hand the damn phone to the crew before having them pull me back up into the kayak.
So, if anyone comes across a Samsung S22+ that has washed up on the shores of a AZ river bank, shoot me a DM. Otherwise, that is my fuck up.

TWBS Previous Next First
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---Simone’s perspective---
---Thursday, 4th of January, 2683 Terran Calendar---
---Southern England---
“So… let me get this straight…” I say, frowning at the pair before me “…Within an hour of landin’, you…” I point at the tall, dark haired boy “…were bitten by a king brown snake and were laid up for the next two days, unable to contribute more than advice to Reid while she did all the heavy liftin’… You weren’t able to call an evac because, between the two of you, you’d managed to leave the beacon you should have had here in Graffham… and you think I should pass you for that, do you Privates?”
“Yes, Ma’am!” answers the redhead.
“Why should I pass you for that, Reid?”
“We fulfilled the terms of the assignment: We survived the full five days in the environment we were dropped in using only the allowed equipment and without calling for an emergency evac, Ma’am.” answers the Scot, straight faced, somehow.
“You admit that you would have called an evac if you could have, Private?”
“Yes, Ma’am… but we couldn’t so we didn’t.”
“You admit that it was your own shared stupidity that meant that you didn’t have a beacon with you when you went, Privates?” I ask, drily.
“I… don’t believe lack of stupidity was a requirement of the test, Ma’am.” answers Reid, cheekily.
“Guess again, Private! Lack of stupidity is always a requirement in the Military! Stupid Soldiers are dead Soldiers!” I correct, sternly.
“My mistake, Ma’am.” apologises Reid, hastily.
My anger subsides as I say “Buuut… as you say… you did make it out alive… you didn’t call an evac, even if only as a result of bein’ stranded by stupidity… and…” I take a sniff and then chuckle “…it certainly smells like you two are gettin’ along better than you were when you left…(!)”
“I’m… not sure what…?” starts Reid but I cut her off.
“Don’t play dumb, Private!… You’ve tried to wash it off but I’m half Tshwane… you can’t fool this nose!”
The pair shift uncomfortably before I reassure them “Relax! You’re not breakin’ any rules… So long as this relationship doesn’t negatively affect either of your performances, we have no issue… I also trust this means you two won’t be at eachother’s throats so much… At least, in public… don’t really much care what you’re into doin’ in the privacy of a bedroom… or a cave, as the case may be(!)”
“I think it’s safe to say our rivalry is a thing of the past, Ma’am.” provides Taylor.
“Or shifted onto much friendlier terms, at least…” smirks Reid.
“Good…” I turn to Taylor “…Taylor, now you’ve reached the age of majority, you’re eligible to be moved to a bunk in a shared room…”
His face falls, clearly having hoped I’d forget about that.
“…but…” I continue, causing him to perk back up “…I’m a busy woman and assignin’ you one is able to remain low on my list of priorities… so long as you (or Reid) aren’t givin’ me the impression that you might benefit from more rest, that is!… Do we understand eachother, Taylor?”
The boy gives me a rare smile and answers “We understand eachother perfectly, Ma’am.”
“Good!… You are dismissed, Privates.”
The two of them turn to go.
“Oh, and, Privates?”
They both turn to look at me, expectantly.
“Happy New Year…”
---Esme’s perspective---
---Friday, 5th of January, 2683 Terran Calendar---
“I can’t believe you’ve been sleeping in a conjugal room this whole time!” I grin at the handsome man, currently acting as my mattress in the broomcupboard sized space.
“Technically, it wasn’t a conjugal room… it was designated as a private room for me, since I was a minor…” he smiles without opening his eyes.
“Oh, aye(!) Let’s protect the wee baby boy from any indecency by putting him in the rooms where he’ll be able to hear all the sex through the paper thin walls, every night(!) I see no issue here(!)”
He shakes his head “It wasn’t that bad…”
“Oh it wasn’t, was it(?)… You nasty little perv(!)” I smirk, mischievously.
“Most of the time… people are some combination of embarrassed and considerate enough to keep the noise down… It’s rare that I would have out and out screamers next door… That’s all I meant…”
“Attention all:…” comes Sands’ voice, making the morning wake up call over the PA “…It is now 0630hrs… Time to wake up!… After breakfast, you are to assemble in the yard. Father Christmas came by last night to drop off some late presents for all of you(!)”
---Oskar’s perspective---
I find the crate that has my name on, shaped (ghoulishly) somewhat like one of the wooden boxes that Christians bury their dead in.
I pick it up and carry it aside… it’s heavy!
Looking around for someone who’s done using one of the crowbars that are being passed around, I make eyecontact with Milligan.
He raises the length of metal he holds, proffering it to me.
I take it, appreciatively, and thrust the claw end between the box and its lid.
What is inside does nothing to dispel the ghoulishness of the container’s outward appearance…
The box contains a humanoid figure, almost my exact height and build, rendered in jet black metal with a rippling, wootz pattern.
“Fresh off the forges of Ivaldason and Sons’ Durasteel Foundry, Iceland…” announces Sands, strolling through the throngs of people opening their respective crates “…Between 20 and 30kg each, dependin’ on your proportions… Wearin’ this armour, you become nearly as close to indestructible as it is possible to get without enterin’ the realm of divinity!… These suits are bulletproof and bombproof!… They do have some limitations… they’ll not, for instance, protect you from a long drop and a sudden stop! Your organs will still be rendered into slurry in that case… Neither’ll they protect you from bein’ cut in half with a plasmasword!… From now on, you’ll wear these from dawn to dusk! Classes may be taken with your helmets off… Durin’ PT, however, you WILL wear them in their entirety!… It’ll be hard to begin with but, after less time than you think, your bodies’ll have acclimatised to the extra weight… and you’ll find movin’ in these almost as easy as movin’ out of ’em!… This mornin’s workshop’ll be an instructional on how to properly don, remove and maintain your armour!… Do please give it all your attention!"
---Esme’s perspective---
---Tuesday, 9th of January, 2683 Terran Calendar---
This is HELL!
The armour is perfectly fitting and nicely padded… but it’s so fucking heavy to wear that I can’t think about much more than how sweaty I am and how much my muscles ache from the days I’ve already been wearing it!
Sands said we’d get used to it sooner than we thought but, so far, I feel like exhaustion is making me worse, day on day!
I had to go and sleep in my dormroom last night because I was just too exhausted to engage in any… extracurricular exercise with Oskar(!)
He was quite understanding about it… A little too understanding… I wish he’d seemed at least a touch disappointed!
Back in the present moment, the black metal giant (boosted to over 2m by the height he gains from the boots and helmet) rams the tip of his training sword into my solar plexus… the one upside is that I’ll probably get less bruises wearing this armour!
“Hey…!”
“You’re dead, Esme…” is the only answer that comes from that expressionless helmet.
“You not feel like going a little easier on me now, Oskar?!… I am your girlfriend!!!”
“Caring more about you makes me wish to see you better able to protect yourself… So, no… I’m not going to coddle you…”
“Perfectly logical…(!)” I mock in a flat, midAtlantic accent, holding up my right palm, the ring and little finger splayed from the middle and index.
“Change partner!” shouts Sands.
Not too long ago, my heart would have leapt at that instruction and I would have utterly squashed any feeling of disappointment… Now, however, it causes my already flagging morale to vaporise!
Of course… it makes sense… If you only ever fight with one partner, you only ever learn to fight one way…
I shuffle along while Oskar stays where he is.
The next partner I’m up against is Kilroy… I might have a chance of holding my own against him at least!
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Hi! As a Canadian I was wondering what's the aesthetics/culture of Christmas in places where there's no cold winter or snow. The traditional Christmas culture and aesthetics that we know in cold places, and that we most see in pop culture, is all about snow, Christmas trees, wintery meals, hot cocoa and whatnot. But I guess all of this would seem out of place/irrelevant in places that are always warm and never get snow. So I'm curious to know how do you decorate, what do you eat, etc. English is not my first language so I hope my post isn't too awkward. Thank you!

Stolen from punk. Each Day comment your favorite pop punk album that begins with the letter of the alphabet of the day. I’ll count most upvotes (not comments) and that will win the letter.
Letter L (Ex. Life’s not out to get you- neck deep )
Top 3 for K
Kings of the new age 105 votes Killing time 92 votes Kerplunk 79 votes
State champs with the W. Reminder to only vote under one comment, I won’t count duplicates because it could be double votes.
Winners
A- All Killer No Filler- Sum 41
B- Bleed American- Jimmy Eat World
C- Commit This to Memory- MCS
D- Dookie- Green Day
E- Enema of the State- Blink 182
F-From Under the Cork Tree- Fall Out Boy
G-The Greatest Generation- The Wonder Years
H-Homesick- A Day to Remember
I- ..Is a Real Boy- Say Anything
J-Joyride- Transit
K-Kings of the New Age- State Champs
L-??? ( should I just put neck deep here, mate??)

In the past hour I contacted my spirit guide for the first time. Or one of them.
At the start of my meditation I heard: “Do not fear, God is here”.
I was a little scared, but continued any way. I was sitting in my dim kitchen, with a candle I lit with the intention that it was for my guide. I was sitting in a basic meditation stance and focused for the first couple minutes on my breathing.
I visualized a luscious forest/jungle. I heard crickets and frogs. There were hanging trees, some branches extending to a pond below. There was a waterfall and moss-covered rocks and logs. I walked on a soft earthen path with my hiking boots.
I reached a clearing before I even could have guessed I’d be ready. It was black rocks covered in moss. I saw my spirit guide somewhat. Not very clear.
It’s a she with perfectly shaped nails and hands, almost white as snow. Her voice sounded like my own but slower and more loving. I asked her name and she said Senova. But I’m not sure if I got it right. She was very tall very thin and she didn’t have wings but it’s like energy leaked from behind her that was sort of shaped like what could be wings.
I asked her “who am I” and she said “good / one of the good ones. There is good and evil in this world”.
She told me to keep faith. Enjoy the little things. Spend time with family and friends. That there is a man waiting for me. Someone I should meet.
I sat down on a moss rock and burst out crying. I told her: “I am so tired. I want to go home, I want to go home”. And she said: “not yet”.
Then I thanked God for this experience and blew out the candle.
I’ve been hearing “keep faith” a lot lately so I’ll keep trudging on as I have and stay hopeful.

Ko-fi
"So, tell me about yourself." The female alien from the planet Azegon T-45 said to Terry. She was tall about 6'6 with silver teeth, purple eyes and caramel skin like butter. Her hair was actually part of her skin that had split off into several ends on top of her head and were all a crimson hue. She regarded him above her plate of 'Hungiu' A dish Terry knew nothing about but looked to resembled a foot dipped in frosting to his human eyes.
Terry peered over a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. What she'd said weighed heavily on his soul, what could he possibly tell her that would make her see him as a man of value? He'd recently lost his job after his boss walked in on him masturbating in his cubicle. He had no friends except the mailman who brings his mail and talks about shagging his neighbour's wife. He often wondered whether he should regard the mailman as a friend for confiding in him about his neighbour's promiscuous wife. His rent was due last month so for the past few weeks he'd been avoiding his landlord by jumping in through the back window of his apartment that he always left open, never using the front door. He also might be having hemorrhoids which he needed to check soon. All in all, his life was a disaster and he'd only agreed to this date after his mailman had assured him that Azegon T-45 women had the ability to relieve stress during sex.
"During sex they secrete a hormone that's like cocaine that eradicates your worries and lowers your stress levels for hours on end. They'll only bang you if you show them you're a man of value though" His mailman had said before hooking him up with the number of an Azegon T-45 woman. With the galactic federation linking planets with thousands of sentient life hence broadening an individual's possibilities, Terry still wondered why he felt stuck and in need of shagging an alien in order to have some semblance of what happiness is. But how would he come across as a man of value? He was by far the most apathetic man in the universe, he didn't care about anything and that's probably why he'd started masturbating at work, at first he'd done it for the thrill that later evolved into a habit of which he was curious to see whether he'd get caught. He did get caught, just as he was climaxing. It was a sticky affair.
The alien surveyed him, waiting for a response. He cleared his throat. "Sorry, you wanted to know something about me? Well, yesterday I woke up to the sound of birds chirping at my window. It sounded like music to anyone else's ears but to me it was a disturbing sound. I went to the window and sure enough, several birds were lined on a branch in a tree outside my apartment. Singing their God awful songs, I suddenly got angry and grabbed a shoe and hurled it at them. The birds dispersed then I realized I needed my shoe back. I climbed out of the window in my boxers and vest to retrieve the shoe only to bump into a man coming out of my neighbour's house, the man was my mailman, he'd just come from fucking my neighbour's wife, he approached me and told me about it." Terry took a sip of the cognac in hand. "So there I was, outside my apartment in my boxers with a shoe in hand, talking to a man who was zipping up his pants while telling me of the reason his zipper had been down in the first place. It was at that moment that I realized my life is shit. It came as an epiphany, everything pulled up together and the realization of great truth hit me. My life is shit and you know what the worst thing was?"
She leaned forward. "What?"
"The birds, they were still singing their God awful song."
"Are you those people who hook up with Planet Azegon T-45 aliens for the stress we relieve during sex?" She asked. Her purple eye rapidly scanning him up and down.
Terry leaned back in his chair. "I jerk off at work, got fired the other day for doing it. Thing is, I wanted to be fired. So there I was beating my meat and the manager walks in just as I'm climaxing, I do it standing up so I can look at people's faces across the cubicles, I mastered how to beat my meat without my entire body moving with the jerking motion. I normally catch someone's eye from across the cubicles as I climax but the manager stepped right in and I turned and busted a nut all over him. You know what I did immediately after?"
"What?"
"I laughed. It was the funniest thing in the world and it got me fired, irony."
"You're creepy."
"Tell me about yourself." Terry said, leaning back in his chair.
"I'm the fourth born of the litter." She stared. "We're born in litters on planet Azegon T-45 and—"
"What does the 45 stand for?"
"What?"
"The 45 in Azegon T-45, what does it stand for? I hate the number 45, takes me about 45 minutes to fall asleep, when I was caught jerking off the manager gave me a tongue lashing for 45 minutes and my mailman wears an undershirt with the number 45 printed on it. I hate that number."
"It's the number of our position on the conveyer galactic belt." She answered.
"Oh, that's nice."
"You're a weird man."
"And you were born in a litter, can't you see the connection between us? Me with my weird implications about existence. You and those purple eyes that were born in a litter." Terry said and smiled.
"You like my purple eyes?" She asked.
"No, I don't care about eyes."
"Oh"
"You know what I do like? The fact you can take away stress during sex. You can make a fortune as a prostitute." Terry said with a laugh.
"Excuse me?" She retorted, a hint of anger to her voice.
"There's so many men who are stressed out, yet you only give in to men of value. Why don't you just place value on the act itself and become rich? Then you'll seek men of no value whom you'll find plenty of."
"You jerk! I'm not a whore!" She flung her dish at him, the foot like meat with frosting hit him on the face and slid down his nose. She then stood up, "You're a sick man of no value." She walked away from the table.
"There's plenty of us around." Terry said to her retreating back. He checked his watch, the date had taken exactly forty five minutes. "Damn it." He cursed.

I was given a fig tree that was propregated from a cut off by my very green fingered agricultural cousin. It is currently about 3/4 feet tall in a pot.
I have it out in the sun at the moment- but I was wondering if June is too late to plant it into my yard here? Should I keep it potted till next spring? I am not too worried about the soil being viable for it as we have a massive dogwood and a persimmon tree also have had many fruits and veggies planted by my aunt and uncle before they passed.
Is there any special care I should take in planting it? I was going to bung it into the ground give it a good water, cover it with my pine needles to protect the base and then leave it alone! I don't want it to be too late in the season and have a hard winter though-- I am planning on protecting it with burlap this winter.
I really would love not to kill this plant- my grandmother made fig preserves that everyone loved and I'd love to take up that mantle.