#( and repeatedly asking zero to give him something useful give him a solution give him a panacea that will somehow make everything ok )

[erabundus]

there are so many thinly veiled cries for help in ren's lashing out and it makes me very sad.

[ladyeliot]

It will always be you

Prequel: Stay with me

Pairing: Tony Stark x Avenger Female Reader

Summary: The snap has happened, the return of Wakanda has not been as you all expected, but now you have to face reality, and you just can't stop thinking about him, about Tony.

Warnings: Angst, Fluff.

Word count: 4101

A/N: Post Infinity War. Some of the dialogue is taken from the film. Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

Reader Powers: Psionic. You use psionic force to track any sentient being. You also create psychic shields to protect yourself. You can project psychic force bolts which have no physical effects but which can affect a victim's mind, causing them pain.

Life is a continuous struggle of choices that you have to make without stopping to think for a second. It is said that hope is the last thing to be lost, probably because the choice you made almost left you without it. You must also learn that happiness is the last thing to be found, probably because the choice you have made has made you unhappier than you will ever be. Your life has been full of choices, you might have regretted many of them, but you decided at the time to make them, so you never allowed yourself to regret your actions, until that day.

Three weeks after Thanos snapped, hope was completely lost. The new facility has been uncharacteristically silent, no one has been able to say more than two words in a row, and you had barely managed to say one since your return from Wakanda. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, James Rhodes, Bruce Banner and you, those were the surviving Avengers, the ones that life had given you a second chance, but it didn't really feel like one.

You were in your old room, old because two years ago one of your decisions had taken you away from that place, yes, you were against the Sokovia Accords, that had led you to take the side of the Captain and to fight against the side of Iron Man, who had been the person who had saved you from the madness that your powers had generated in your mind. But even if you had turned against him, you knew you owed him everything. Evidently this was something he didn't understand, which led to a wide rift that had never been bridged on either side, and which led to a breakdown in your relationship of closeness.

Every corner of that room had been kept exactly as you had left it that night when you fled with Wanda. Your drawings together with the charcoals scattered on the desk, the book 'In Search of Lost Time' by Marcel Proust on the bedside table and that bracelet that Tony had given you for your 26th birthday that you had left next to the open jewellery box on the bed. It was really painful to see all of this, knowing that those facilities would probably never be what they once were, that Wanda would not suddenly appear at your door, that you would never sit around the dinner table and that Tony would not occupy the armchair next to your bed to try to cheer you up after a mission that hadn't gone so well. You didn't know whether frustration was taking over the fear and sadness or whether you just didn't know how to control your feelings on that occasion.

The days were long, each of you working in silence trying to make sense of what had happened, looking for a solution that would never come to the problem. You shared the hours, but the solitude that enveloped you was too austere to realise that there was a person by your side. You didn't know Thanos' location, however, even if you did, especially if you did, it had become clear that you could not stand alone against his entire army.

"Would you like some?" asked Natasha offering you a plate with a veggie sandwich on it, which you took with an almost soundless 'thank you'.

Yes, actually that had been your first word in five days, since you said goodnight to Bruce last Sunday, food and sleep were not high on your priorities, especially when you spent the night using your telepathic detection trying to find some sign of life that would make you believe Tony was alive, but it was useless. Your psionic senses allowed you to track any sentient being, you were able to scan large areas, but your ability did not address the entire universe.

That night your spirits seemed to be running low to the ground, three weeks without having achieved anything that would allow you to have any lucidity in your plans was too long as the situation stood. You could hear in the background a soft murmur coming from a conversation between Natasha and Steve, but you weren't really paying attention to it, it was all in your thoughts. But at that instant, an inner burst made them evaporate. A signal came into your brain, a psionic emanation that alerted you to the presence of a spaceship entering the stratosphere, with a fixed direction, yours. You rose from your chair, standing upright, capturing the attention of the people around you. You closed your eyes, heightening all your senses, taking in all the information that was coming to you, at that moment you felt it. You opened your eyes and looked at them.

"He's here," were the only words you could utter before you rushed outside. Your companions soon followed your path, asking questions to explain what was happening, but your inner euphoria prevented you from saying a single word.

That ship appeared above you as you raced across the garden, night was falling relentlessly and you could only glimpse a halo of light that seemed to direct the ship as it landed delicately on the wide grassy esplanade. The five of you paused, taking in the scene, discovering how a side door opened to project a flight of stairs. When you saw his face for the first time your lungs deflated, letting out all the air they had accumulated over a long period of time. Your body went rigid and you didn't react until Steve ran past you and approached the ship to help him down.

He looked terrible, it was evident in every facial feature and in his body movements, you knew what you had been through, but you had no idea what Tony had been through since his disappearance in New York, although you could get a pretty good idea. Before your eyes were Steve and Tony in custody, reunited again, after all that had happened, none of it mattered, at least not to you, and perhaps you had a vain hope that it didn't matter to anyone else either. Even so you didn't know how to act when your eyes connected with his, for a slight moment you wanted to approach him, offer him a hug and tell him that you were relieved to discover that he was there, with you, after all, but you chose to stay where you were, next to Natasha.

It wasn't until you headed inside that the stiffness disappeared from your body. A whispered 'are you okay' from Steve made you react again and pay attention to Natasha's words that were projecting all the information gathered during those days.

"The governments are destroyed," she reported as she projected images showing the missing, like Wilson, Maximoff and Parker, among others, "the working parts are trying to do a census, and it looks like he did it. He did what he said he would do. Thanos wiped out 50% of all living things."

Silence echoed around you, you were sitting in an armchair, somewhat away from the other members, playing with your fingers, trying not to look up, until he spoke.

"Where is he now?" asked Tony. "Where?"

"We don't know," Steve informed him from beside you, sitting at a table. "He opened a portal and went through it. We looked for Thanos for three weeks, with deep space scanners," Steve looked at you, "and satellites, and we found nothing." He looked at Tony. "Tony, you fought him."

"What are you talking about?" asked Tony from his wheelchair. "I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the wizard gave away the store. That's what happened, there's no fight..."

You took a breath and sighed, because you could contemplate what was about to happen right now, the nerves were there along with the negativity and failure of some of the superheroes on that planet and others, and you knew it could explode at any moment.

"Tony, I'm going to need you to focus..." Steve repeated again hoping that Tony would offer him some clue as to the whereabouts of Thanos.

"I needed you," interrupted Tony in a raised tone. "as in past tense.  That trumps what you need. It's too late, buddy. Sorry." He used a second of his silence to look at Steve and another second to look at you, who stood beside him. You took in most of the feelings hidden in his gaze, and none of them were positive or forgiving. "You know what I need? I need a shave," he tried to get out of the wheelchair, taking everything on the table in his stride. "I don't believe I ever remember telling you this..." he ripped out the IV that connected the drip to his left arm. "To the living and the dead, What we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not," he looked back at you and Steve repeatedly. "That's what we needed!”

The discussion continued, avoiding an upset Tony explaining everything he thought about the current and past situation, ignoring the suggestions Rhodes was giving him to calm down and take his seat again.

"[...] Bunch of tired old wheels!" he pointed at Steve. "I got nothin' for you, Cap! I've got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options! Zero, zip, nada. No trust - liar."

Almost ipso facto he turned to you ripped off the reactor prostrate on his chest and handed it to Steve in his hand, leaving those present virtually speechless, if you still had any left.

"Here, take this. You'll find him, if you put that on. You hide-"

After those words you gazed again into his eyes full of resentment at the past, before his body could take it no more and he collapsed in the middle of the room.

In the hours that followed, you were the shadow of a ghost gazing at him from a distance from the door frame of one of the recovery rooms in the new complex. On the one hand fearing his reaction against you when he woke up, while on the other hand wanting to hear it because you knew that sooner or later it would come but you wanted it to come as soon as possible so that you could face it. Those words she had said to Steve were harsh, but they were really nothing to what you expected might happen. It seemed absurd at the time to have entertained the idea that it might have been forgotten.

"Bruce gave him a sedative," Rhodes said, looking up at you, who were leaning against the doorframe. "He'll be unconscious for the rest of the day. Do you want to sit down?"

"No...I'd better..." but Rhodes didn't allow you to finish your words, as he had risen from the armchair next to Tony and offered it to you. "Thank you."

The door to the room ajar to offer you some more privacy. As you turned your gaze towards him you realised the fragility his body conveyed in those moments, he had spent weeks wandering through space not knowing if he was going to get the chance to return home again and yet he had been able to stay alive and find himself there. You closed your eyes and settled back on the couch, you remembered the first time you did that with Tony, he had spent too much time without sleep after the events after the Chitauri invasion, he could barely sleep because of the nightmares and he begged you to stop them every night, so with your eyes closed you concentrated and invaded his mind with caution releasing the tension you found in it and giving him the peace he needed. When you opened your eyes again, her expression seemed to have changed, she seemed to have found some relief inside her, that fact made you smile. But a knock on the door woke you up.

"We need to talk," Steve's words sounded serious.

A new piece of information about Thanos' whereabouts came as a surprise, but for you the surprise came right after.

"Wait, is this some kind of punishment or something?" you said completely dumbfounded, just outside the room where Tony was, with what Steve was proposing. "Why me?"

"Because we need someone to stay with Tony," he said calmly crossing his arms.

"Is it because I'm the smallest of the whole team? Because I could really knock you all out right now with the blink of an eye," you said crossing your arms too.

"It's because Tony needs you," Steve lowered his tone, "and you need him."

There was nothing but truth in those words. You didn't know if Tony really needed you, but what you had assumed was that you'd needed him for a long time, and you'd put a lot of things before that need, creating your close relationship to go to shit, basically.

"I wouldn't forgive myself if something happened to you on this mission," Steve said frankly. "And he wouldn't forgive me either if I said that happened."

You lowered your face as you nodded, accepting his words and the job you had been given.

"Be very careful," you said before Steve disappeared from in front of you to take a path that you had no idea what could be in store for them.

From that moment on, the hours went by really slowly, you took your position in that armchair again, you needed to have a clear mind, you couldn't continue martyring yourself with all the events that had happened, so you started reading 'In Search of Lost Time', that book that had been forgotten on the bedside table since you left that place. News was nil, you barely got a sign of what might be happening and you knew it would probably be days before you got it. 

Night was falling on the compound again, Tony was barely making any sign of waking up, which also gave you time to consider how the situation would play out, and various possibilities for coping with it. Some of his belongings had been salvaged from the ship, and his helmet, or rather what was left of it, stared at you from the dresser in the room. Without having a reason in mind you approached him, causing a blue light to suddenly flash across his eyes, showing you his figure in the middle of the room.

"Is it on?" a figure of a seated, completely haggard Tony appeared before your eyes. "Hey, Ms. Y/L/N, Y/N," your brow furrowed, but you approached his reflection. "If you find this footage don't put it on social media, it'll be really tearful," his words brought a sad smile to your face. "I don't know if you'll watch these videos. I don't even know if you're still... Oh god, I hope so..." there was a silence from his words, but you could see him bring his hands to his face, something inside you cracked. "I guess it's easier to do this if you know the chances of seeing you again are practically nil," something inside you made your heart shrink. "I probably should have realised this a lot sooner," he fell silent, "yeah, but I was busy trying not to hate you too much, you know, when you decided to abandon me and choose the other side," exhaustion almost prevented him from keeping his eyes open. "Anyway, anyway that made me realise how important you had been to me," he let his gaze wander, "I tried to be there for you ever since I met you and... god, this is getting too depressing," he ran his hand over his face. "I just want you to know that I wish you were here, because you're the only person I'd like to share my last hours with," he nodded slightly, you knew what he was trying to say with those words, which made your eyes water. "Don't feel bad about this, I mean, if you stay prostrate for a couple of weeks... and then move on with immense guilt..." he hid his face in the palm of his hand and closed his eyes, you wiped away a tear that ran down your cheek keeping the bitter smile you had been wearing all along. "I want you to know... when I've fallen asleep, it will be like the nights we spent together. I'm fine. All right," he gestured towards you. "I'll dream of you. Because it will always be you."

Suddenly, as if nothing had happened, his image disappeared in front of your eyes, leaving you with hundreds of feelings invading your body and mind. You looked up and there he was, still there, sleeping pleasantly, barely knowing what had just happened. You hurriedly wiped away the last tear running down your cheek and sat back down, putting your feet up on the couch, unable to take your eyes off him. Perhaps those thoughts were drawn from his most desperate moments, believing that his life was about to come to an end, perhaps he was unwilling to show them to you now that he had resumed the course of his life, so even though it was not possible you tried to send them to a hidden place in your mind.

You had hardly slept in those three weeks, your mind hadn't rested for days and you didn't know why, but finding yourself curled up in that armchair next to Tony was giving you back the tranquillity your body hadn't known for too long. It was impossible to stop your eyelids from closing, on the contrary you were willing them to do so and for sleep to warmly invade your body, no matter how long you could stay asleep. That's how it happened, making the hours pass without you even noticing. 

Like a little gust of wind, something in your body made the light enter through your eyelashes. Slowly you opened your eyes, feeling in various parts of your body a tightness due to the position in which you had fallen asleep in that armchair. You discovered that a woollen blanket covered your limbs, but what kept you alert was the bed next to you was completely empty. Tony wasn't there. You jumped up, looking around, the bedroom door was ajar and Iron Man's helmet was missing.

"Tony?" you asked, raising your voice, stepping out into the hallway. "Tony! Where are you?"

You barely heard an answer, so you were thankful those powers were within you, you stopped in the middle of the corridor and closed your eyes, your receptors picked up a signal coming from downstairs, it was him. You found him leaning on the kitchen counter, his eyes closed as he tried to stand. You ran to him, grabbing his arm to hold him up.

"What do you think you're doing?" you said, leading him to the nearest armchair in the living room.

You discovered that he had shaved, taken a shower and was wearing one of his Tom Ford suits that were so recognisable to you. That meant he had been wandering around the house unsupervised for over an hour without waking you up. You knelt down next to him.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" you asked with a worried look on your face as you contemplated that he was extremely tired. "Bruce gave a set of instructions for you to follow, you can't just walk around..."

"It was your turn?" he cut you off with an angry tone. "Be my babysitter? How did you do it? Did you draw lots?" his countenance was serious, you could still see the puffiness in his eyes and his face fully dehydrated. "Whoever draws the shortest stick gets to look after poor Stark, all right, listen..."

"No! You listen to me," you cut him off, raising your tone above his, standing up and resting your hands on each armrest "Tony, we all lost. We all fought and lost, none of us made it," your face was three feet above his. "So now all we can do is try, in some completely illogical way, to move the situation forward. And if we can't, at least look to the future by doing our best to honour those we have lost."

Silence flooded over you.

"So please don't make the situation more complicated," you continued, lowering your tone, almost begging him. "If I've stayed with you it's because Steve has made me understand some things, because yes, it wasn't really my intention to stay with you from the start, but then I realised that if anyone had to stay with you it was me. I realised that if I had to risk my life again I didn't want to go on the mission, because that would mean never seeing you again.And I've also realised that I've needed you for a long time, that I'm finally by your side and I have no intention of separating from you. Whether you like it or not." Tony cut his gaze with yours by ducking it, but brought his right hand over yours.

That gesture provoked you to bring your other hand to his face, placing a gentle caress on his cheek.

"I know there are a lot of things we need to talk about, but one thing we do have is time," you explained as Tony intertwined his fingers with yours. "So please, don't do anything more stupid and don't disappear," maybe it was the atmosphere generated by the situation, but you risked saying the next words. "Because it will always be you."

Tony closed his eyes a little regretfully, a little embarrassedly, and brought his free hand to his face.

"I knew you saw that," he added calmly removing his hand from his face. "Well, at least I've saved myself from having to repeat it in person."

"I'm not sure I got it right," you said falsely. "You know, there was a lot of interference, and besides, I couldn't really understand what you were saying, so..."

"Sorry, there was only one pass for the film," he said wryly which caused you to smile widely as you rediscovered that the old Tony was still hidden in it. "We won't know when there will be a revival."

"Too bad, I really liked that movie," you sat down on the armrest without letting go of his hand and looking up at him.

"Really?" he asked for the first time modestly, and putting aside all the irony that surrounded the situation.

"Totally," you nodded, trying to express all the many feelings through your eyes.

Silence again kept you company, until Tony somewhat uncomfortably broke it.

"I suppose you know that by now I would have kissed you and created a fully effective plan to make love to you for hours until you begged me to stop in pleasure," he stated lamely, "although I think if you give me a couple of hours..."

"All right, Don Juan," you cut him off with a chuckle, "we'd better leave all that for later, and I'll take you back to bed now."

"I think it's a good start if you take me to bed," he continued with his insinuations.

You got up from the armrest and helped him put his arm around your shoulders, even though he repeatedly told you he could walk unaided. 

"Have we heard from the team?" he asked, slowly climbing the steps of the ladder.

"Soon," you said with a halo of hope. 

You definitely made it back to the room, having made it successfully through the journey. You helped him get rid of the shoes and shirt that his pride had forced him to wear, but which now made no sense when he was going back to bed.

"See, you're finally going to get what you wanted, I'm undressing you," you said jokingly causing a smile to appear on Tony's face as he lay back down. "You rest, I'll be here. I'll always be here."

Taglist Open (DM)

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[princessamericachavez]

Heroes Fjeast Talk ep 105

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to another episode of Sofía Overanalyzes Everything With Shipper Googles. I hope you’ve missed my stupid long-ass metas because I’m about to peak apart that conversation the M9 had with Jester during their Heroes Feast and I’m gonna do it mostly from a Fjorester POV so if that’s not your cup of tea, not even from a purely meta standpoint, I suggest you get off this ride now. Otherwise, please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times because I’m about to yell, use all caps, bolded letters and a ton of screenshots. 

Ok? Here we gooooo

First of all, when Jester starts talking about The Traveler, Fjord looks so concerned but clearly seems like he doesn’t want to step in while she’s talking about this, like he’s afraid she’ll deflect. That is, until she looks straight at him while saying: 

“I know all of you [looks at him and quickly looks away] are concerned that maybe he’s [looks at him again, holding his gaze] taking advantage or he doesn’t have our best interest.”

And Fjord lets her talk about how important The Traveler is to her and how she still wants him around even if he doesn’t want to be a god. And Fjord insists on why did he want everyone to come here in the first place then, but before Jester can answer Beau brings up the memory-stealing issue with this island.

So Jester admits The Traveler knew. And Fjord. Is. Pissed.

Right up until Jester turns to talk to him again, trying to explain The Traveler’s plan and he’s trying to understand this “unloading of people”

But he’s not happy and you can see clear as day how the dots connect for him, between “getting read of people” and Jester being one of those people, too.

He even nods when she explains the thing about The Traveler wanting to be “not as available” anymore because, for the third time, Jester turns to him in her efforts to explain The Traveler’s actions, looking for support and reassurance. 

“But he sent you here,” he protestes softly 

AND THEN THEY SHARE A LOOK FOR LIKE 3 SILENT HEAVY SECONDS BEFORE SHE SAYS “YEAH” AND HE INSISTS “what if you forgot him?” but seriously that look is so long and charged with silent words i could dieeeeeeeee

“He promised me he would save me... and us, he said all of us.” I love how Jester and Fjord just zero in on each other during group conversations, like you can tell when they are speaking to all of the group and when they just enter this little bubble when it’s just one on one. You can see it here, by the way Jester is telling him she’d be alright and then she’s like !! well all of us, and turns back to the group. 

And then Yasha asks how Jester feels about the Traveler sending people here and she’s so sad. She tries to turn to Fjord as she explains how the Traveler doesn’t always care about how he affects people and Fjord is not happy about that because we know WE KNOW that that is his main concern when it comes to Jester’s well being. Also, the fact that just as he turns to look at her she looks away?? i cry

“To him we are like ants sometimes, you know? We don’t think about the fact when we squish an ant, you know? It doesn’t mean anything to us but the ant is just... really sad.” LOOK AT HOW SHE’S TRYING TO TELL HIM SHE’S SAD

“Or just... dead.” “Or dead.” HE’S SO CONCERNED. JESTER YOURE NO ANT. JESTER THIS COULD GO SO BAD. JESTER. JESTER PLS. 

And there’s this pause that you might miss... where all of the M9 are at a loss for words. They all want to help, you can tell, but they don’t know how to. And when Fjord looks out to them, like he’s expecting someone else to intercede, they are all looking at him... expecting him to helm this conversation, even if he didn’t start it. I love that. I love that the M9 collectively acknowledge the depth of the bond Fjord and Jester share and when it comes to this, they often defer to either of them to help the other. 

“Jester, we all want what’s best for you, of course. Have you talked to him at all about things going back to how they were when you were little? Just being... your best friend.”

But I love that Fjord is really really really really trying not to come off as judgmental or disapproving of the Traveler. Like, we know that he’s not his biggest fan, but Fjord has repeatedly acknowledged how important he is to Jester, so he tries to come up with solutions that involve trusting her belief in him.  

And Jester is so frustrated, getting increasingly upset as she speaks about the Traveler becoming more distance. And I love that, again, when it becomes a little too much and her voice begins to break, she turns to Fjord for support and he gives her the softest nod showing he understands her being upset. “Before he used to be here all the time, you know?”

“You’ve done so much for him and I know he’s done so much for you but trying to make him happy in this, it puts you at risk... it has put you at risk, and us. That doesn’t seem, like you said, the most considerate thing.”

DÑLAKJFÑAL THIS IS THE HEART OF THE MATTER FOR HIM. IT’S HER BEING AT RISK. HE CAN’T TAKE THAT. HE WON’T. 

But also I wanna talk about how Fjord seems to be talking about himself a little bit here? About how much Jester has done for him?? and how, sure, he’s also tried to do things for her and support her but maybe he’s worried that his shit will put her at risk with the whole Uk’otoa thing still lurking around??? LOOK LOOK LOOK I KNOW THIS IS GOING INTO DEEP META TERRITORY BUT I’m just saying, Fjord has a tendency of projecting what he wants to tell to her onto other people (like when he compliments Marion and talks about how lovely she is) so I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that his concerns about her relationship with The Traveler are a reflection of his own worries??

Anyway moving ooon

Conversation deviates to Beau’s offer to kill The Traveler and to whether or not Jester more/as powerful as he is. And, here’s the thing, Jester doesn’t seem very comfortable with either of those premises. First of all, she loves the Traveler, he’s her friend and even if things might be strained right now between them I don’t think she wants him killed anymore than she’d ever want any of the M9 killed. Second, the power thing is not how clerics work? AND implying that power is all Jester’s and wasn’t given by the Traveler —while it might be a comforting thoughts for others and comes from a well meaning place— is again putting too much responsibility on her shoulders and she’s losing that support that she’s already mourning when it comes to the traveler being always there for her. 

I think Fjord sees this, which is why his train of thought goes else where: he doesn’t point out her awesome magic or her powers (though we know based on his conversation with Beau after the reveal that he thinks what she can do is very impressive)... instead he focuses on what makes Jester special that is intrinsic to her, the things that no god can give or take away and what makes him value her so much. 

“And you care, about people you know, about people you don’t know. You cause chaos but in the end you don’t wanna hurt people. You care. In many ways you’re much more than he’ll probably ever be.”

THE WAY HE LOOKS DOWN WHEN HE SAYS THAT LAST PART. LIKE HE’S CONFESSING SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY. LIKE HE’S SHINING LIGHT INTO A SECRET OF HOW HE SEES HER THAT HE’S BEEN HOLDING ON TO FOR SO LONG.

This line destroyed me because i remember that one talks where Travis explained how much Fjord values Jester and how that was heightened after he momentarily lost his sword back in Xhorhas because it made me realize that powers weren’t as important or constant for him as her unwavering support and he realized that was what had true value for him. So him deviating a talk about whether or not she’s powerful to highlight her kindness and how that is what makes her so much better than The Traveler could ever dream of being?? Im fine im fine im fine im fine im fine

also that look full of yearning and love and admiration he gives her after?

TRAVIS PLS

so of course the talk goes on about how cool Jester is and how much the M9 love and admire her and iT’S WHAT SHE DESERVES AND IM SO GLAD THEY SAID IT and then Fjord —bless him— gives us the ultimate golden way to close this with the truth about found family that he struggled to understand for so long as he came to terms with his relationship with himself, power and vulnerability... he says the one thing her constant support and love has taught him:

“And, if you ever want to, there’s life beyond The Traveler. We are here.”

LOOK AT THEM

LOOK AT HER AS SHE THANKS THEM FOR THEIR SUPPORT

LOOK AT THOSE SMILES

BYE BYE BYE BYE

[galfridus1]

Thank you @amxlm for entering the prize draw I ran recently. Here is a fic featuring Zeldris as the leader of the Ten Commandments. Thanks for requesting this - it was a blast to write. I really hope you like it.

With thanks to @okamideimos for his headcanon about the Commandment of Selflessness which I have used here.

Trigger warning for canon typical violence.

Nine pairs of black eyes. Zeldris looked over the group, examining each of his new charges in turn. Every single one of the team had something different they wanted to say, and he could tell what it was from the way they were looking at him. He felt his impatience rise in his breast. Because of his own brother’s perfidy, he now had to manage these gits.

Actually, on reflection some of the hostility he saw he could cope with. Derieri was glaring at him, hands on hips and her mouth twisted to a snarl, but that was to be expected. She had just lost her sister at the hands of an archangel and had been saved from madness by the traitor himself, not to mention that slut of a goddess his brother had run off with. That humiliation had to sting. And Monspeet’s studied nonchalance as he lounged at her side was most likely in character. Zeldris searched his memory of the Commandment of Reticence and wondered if Monspeet had once smiled since taking his decree.

He sighed to himself. If this were a proper organisation with a proper resources department - like the one he had learned that the goddess clan had, with shiny offices and appropriate policies for things like performance evaluation, parental leave and bereavement - the pair would be having a few days off. But no. His father had zero understanding of effective people management and had flat out vetoed his son’s idea to bring some systematicity to the process.

“This is the elite army of the demon clan,” the king had boomed at Zeldris, “not a damned nursery. Get on with your job and turn them into warriors.”

But it was a damned nursery. The rest of the ‘warriors’ standing before him on the gratifyingly neat training grounds were behaving just like little children. Melascyla was pretending to ignore him, twirling her long pink hair around a thin finger as she looked at Estarossa who was rolling his eyes and flashing his brother some sort of rude sign with his hands. Fraudrin was practically bouncing up and down with eagerness, a slack grin on his sort of a face, and Galand was scratching under his armpits which he does not even have, Zeldris thought with irritation. Gloxinia and Drole were standing off to the side, both with arms folded over their chests but he could sense the nervousness they both felt. Only Greyroad was behaving professionally. She was floating in the air sedately and was clearly paying attention.

“Thank you for coming,” Zeldris proclaimed, lowering his voice to give himself an air of authority. The ‘warriors’ shifted a little at the address but their response was nowhere near satisfactory. Indeed, Zeldris noted with some disgust that Estarossa was picking his nose.

“I am delighted to take on the leadership of this group,” Zeldris forced himself to continue, hands clenched at his sides to stop himself from punching his brother in his self-satisfied face. “Between us, we have the best skills in the demon realm. Greyroad, Gloxinia, Drole, welcome. You are a huge asset to the Ten Commandments and I am looking forward to seeing you in action. But to beat the goddess clan, we have a lot of work to do, and that starts now. Divide up into pairs and duel. You may use any of the powers at your disposal. The winner from each pair will take on another successful opponent, until an overall victor emerges. The champion will receive a surprise reward.”

At the mention of a reward, the group visibly brightened. “Alright!” Galand yelled as he stalked towards Melascyla. “Shall we, my dear?” he asked, his voice echoing over the fields. Melascyla nodded her assent, and the two immediately flew at one another, Melascyla morphing to an enormous, hissing snake as Galand gave a shout and raised his spear in the air.

Zeldris watched with satisfaction as, one by one, the Commandments followed his orders. He was just looking around to see who was left, when Fraudrin sidled up to him, eyes narrowed and teeth showing where his chest ought to be. “Can I have a word?” the former general asked coldly.

“What is it now?” Zeldris snapped. He was tired of this demon. Fraudrin was by far the weakest of the team. He had been a sub-standard general even before his promotion, and Zeldris had serious misgivings about his current employment. But, of course, his objections had been overruled. There were no others suitable soldiers to appoint, so Fraudrin had been chosen by default.

Fraudrin seemed to quake a little under his leader’s gaze. “It’s about my decree,” he eventually managed to say, his words only just audible over the sound of metal clanging on metal and the fierce rush of the wind, which was being whipped to a frenzy by the onslaught of magical attacks. The air burned with it, the smell of smoke and ash floating on the breeze. “The king made me one of the Ten Commandments. Ergo, I should have a Commandment. I know you have The Commandment of Selflessness in your possession. When am I…”

Zeldris’s laugh cut over this speech, which had all the hallmarks of being pre-prepared. Since when did Fraudrin ever use the word ‘ergo’? He stepped towards the former general, pressing into the demon’s personal space, and despite being the smaller of the two, Zeldris could see the other quiver a bit. “That decree belonged to the greatest mage in the whole of Britannia,” he said sharply, his words cutting through the cacophony of noise. “It is not for the likes of you. We both know that you are only now in this army because of a serious shortage of alternatives. Besides, you are hardly capable of wielding power of this magnitude. It would destroy you…”

“That’s bull,” hissed Fraudrin, and he turned to look very deliberately at Estarossa. “I know he had no power at all before he took his decree. At least I have something. I have my own power, that is mine, that I worked for. So don’t tell me I couldn’t handle it. You know I could.”

Zeldris watched as Fraudrin shook, his emotion threatening to overwhelm him. “Alright,” Zeldris said, conceding the point. “That Estarossa is useless cannot be denied. Very well. I will tell you what I will do. I will offer you a deal. The others are all engaged in battle, so the two of us are left to duel. If you can stand against me for ten minutes then I will actively consider your request.”

Zeldris smirked as Fraudrin visibly swallowed. He was pleased with himself. This solution was neat and meritocratic. “If you end up on the floor though it is all over,” explained Zeldris as his opponent looked at him with uneasy eyes. The prince allowed his hand to stray to the hilt of his sword, excitement running through him as he grasped at the metal. “I will even do you a favour. You may use whatever powers are at your disposal, but I will refrain from calling on my own magic. I do not need to so in order to subdue you, so all you will have to face is my sword.”

Fraudrin moved more quickly than his leader would have expected. Zeldris’s weapon was out of its sheath faster than lightning, deflecting the blasts of Hellblaze which his combatant hurled in his direction. It was almost too easy. He stood still, moving his arm in time with the missiles which rained down on him, not even breaking a sweat as they flew back at his opponent. Fraudrin cursed loudly as he crashed to first one side then the other in order to escape the rebounds of his own attacks. The ground shook as he moved, but the huge demon somehow just about managed to stay on his feet.

Zeldris smiled. “Three minutes left,” he called cheerfully.

“Full Size,” snarled Fraudrin, the frustration he felt clear in his tone. Zeldris watched, amused, as the former general grew to enormous proportions. As if height and girth were an advantage against his own agility. Fraudrin lunged, fist poise to strike. Zeldris waited until the very last second, then sped behind Fraudrin, slashing at him repeatedly with his blade. It was like a knife running through butter; in just a few moments he had carved Fraudrin up into several pieces, all of which thudded like stones to the floor.

Zeldris landed lightly on his feet. “My win, I think,” he intoned, doing his best to keep the triumph out of his voice. He watched as Fraudrin stitched himself back together, limbs reattaching and skin smoothing over to leave no sign of injury. “But you did comparatively well,” he said more kindly as the now-restored Fraudrin audibly ground his teeth. “I was wrong. You may not be as powerful as Monspeet or Derieri, but you do have a place here.”

“Then give me the decree!” snapped Fraudrin.

Zeldris cocked his head to one side and, rather deliberately, shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe, one day,” he said.

He was not about to tell Fraudrin he did not have the decree, that the Commandment of Selflessness had vanished with its owner. It would be somewhere up in Britannia, Zeldris was sure, and one day he would locate it. When he himself held all the decrees, he would be able to bring peace to the demon clan, to rule with Gelda by his side. But there was no rush, he reflected as Fraudrin skulked off. The princess was safe in her seal, protected from the ravages of war. There was time to train, to grow, and to learn to handle the power he knew he would some day have to make his own in order to save her.

[3pblueberry]

tip for if bees are swarming in and out of the wall of your house!!

bees are great. we all love bees. but bees in houses? not good. if a hive gets established, honey can build up inside the walls, eventually staining the ceiling and you eventually need a builder to break down the wall...

which is why, when a swarm appeared in the gutter, i had to dissuade these guys from settling down. my first move was to go out and stand below them with a cup of tea, politely and calmly ask them to leave, saying that this was MY house, not theirs, thank you very much

this did not work, so i called a beekeeper

by now the bees had decided they loved the very secure brick walls, and that they were very exited about to live inside. if the queen got inside, we would not be able to remove her painlessly. and if they stayed, we would have to get pest control, which we did not want at all. i don’t have many options, but then the beekeeper says, hesitantly, that i could spray them with a hose to persuade them that this was not a very good place for home. he said this had worked for him once, so i could give it a try. and it worked*!!

*over six hours, sporadically coming back with the hose to insist that yes, this place bad, Please Move On

(IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE: first, he said to leave them alone - if they are somewhere they are not bothering anyone, you can let them come and go. but because this was on a house, and houses are for people, not bees, the beekeeper gave this specific tip. ALSO: swarms are different to hives! swarming bees are looking for a new place to live. an already established hive is a completely different situation)

for dealing with swarms. if you are allergic, put on a long sleeve, stand at a distance, do not swat them if they come to investigate. ‘swarms are not very aggressive’ he says ‘because all the guard bees are protecting the queen. which is, when people get stung by bees, usually the guard bees are the ones. they are not defending a hive, so it is just the scouts exploring the place, seeing if they will like it... if they are flying around don’t worry, but get in there. be brave. something else you can do is: you can block the hole so they can’t get back in.’ 

for blocking the hole, wet tissue paper served me pretty well, but if you ever have this problem, you can use whatever you have lying around that will plug the gap

problem: if bees are swarming, and are going in and out of a hole in the wall of your house, you must persuade them not to stay

solution: spray the hole with a hose repeatedly, coming back every so often until they decide This Place Wet And Bad and fly away

so far, success!! the main body of the swarm seems to have moved on, even though there’s still a non-zero chance they’ve snuck into a different hole somewhere i can’t see them, we really wont know til tomorrow. so IN THIS SITUATION, we can say this is a valid technique!!!

(if you have a swarm, ALWAYS CALL A BEEKEEPER FIRST! and if you are interested in bees, do some reading, or check out your local beekeepers association! an informative book i really enjoyed was ‘The Honeybee’ by David Cramp, which is really funny and also a good introduction to honeybees from a beekeeper’s perspective)

[khiphop-stories]

Umbrella - Chapter VIII

Lesson Eight: Misery loves Company

[Christian Yu, DPR Live]

“Can I sleep here for one night?” He asked you and your eyes widened at him. You stared at him flabbergasted, as if a ghost was standing in front of you. 

“What?” You shrieked in a high-pitch tone, taken aback by his question. You instantly covered your mouth with your hands, realizing you had made way too much noise in the middle of the night.

“I-I mean sleep on the couch....the couch in the living room,” Dabin hurriedly corrected himself when he finally noticed how his question could have been totally misinterpreted.



“Why…?” You blinked at him confused.

 The tiredness that had been wearing you down earlier, now completely gone.

“Because Christian is having rabbitsex. And it’s really uncomfortable with the moaning and groaning and I don’t really wanna run into…you know...whoever he’s banging today,” Dabin explained with an annoyed expression on his face.

“Oh..." An amused grin covered your lips as let out a knowing chuckle. You knew exactly what he was talking about. These past few days you repeatedly came across different women in the hallway. They were coming in and out of their apartment and when your eyes accidentally met, each of them would always have a hazy blush on their cheeks. It wasn’t hard to guess what was going on behind those doors. 

"Yeah, sure you can take the couch, but please, please don’t make a sound, I don’t wanna die by the hands of Hana,” you added in a playful manner and he nodded his head in agreement.

After inviting him inside, you went into your room to get a spare blanket and pillow for him. You placed them down onto couch and he whispered his thanks to you.

Suddenly your stomach growled out loud and you bit down onto your bottom lip in embarrasment, hoping he didn’t hear it. But of course he did. It was so silent, you could have heard a needle drop. 


“You’re hungry?” He chuckled softly. You slowly nodded your head in response as a sheepish smile spread across your face.

“You should eat something. Don't starve yourself.”



“I know, but if I start making food now, I’m really gonna die today,” you said jokingly. Even with the door of the kitchen being closed, the muffled noise would still be loud enough to infiltrate Hana’s sensitive ears. You didn’t want to take the risk of waking her up. She deserved her good night’s sleep. She might not have to work 24/7 like you did, but her boss was the most evil person on earth and being his personal secretary, she was constantly scolded and exploited. She never let it show, but you knew how hard it was for her. So, not eating although you were hungry, was just a small sacrifice, you would gladly make for her. 



“We have some leftovers in our fridge,” he offered you with an inviting smile. ”But chances are you might bump into a naked girl or a naked Christian.”

You contemplated for a little moment and eventually gave in to your cravings. 
“Honestly, I’m so hungry, I’ll take the risk.”

~*~

Dabin removed the plastic wrap from the plate and microwaved the leftover food.

You sat down at the table, waiting for the food eagerly. Since you went straight to the restaurant after finishing your daily work as an intern, you didn’t have the time to buy food, let alone to eat. You even came a couple of minutes late to work, because the traffic was too heavy, forcing the bus to stop at every red light.

The growling of your stomach became louder, earning a laugh from Dabin. It was only drowned out by the grunts and moans coming from Christian’s room.



“Ok, now I get what you mean...” you let out an awkward chuckle.

 Dabin placed the plate in front of you and you dipped the spoon you had stolen from the cupboard earlier into the food

“Mmh…it’s so good!” You exclaimed impressed while you took another big spoon into your mouth. You weren’t sure wether the food was actually good or wether you were just so hungry that even trash would have tasted good to you.  

“Did you make it?”

“No, Rome did,” he shook his head as a long yawn left his lips. You could see the tears of fatigue at the brim of his eyes and it made you feel bad for him.

You quickly finished the food so you two could return back to your apartment and he could catch some sleep.

~*~ [Time shift]

"Bye."

As the doors of the elevator slid open, you heard Christian's deep and husky voice echoing through the hallway followed by the sound of heels clacking onto the floor. You exited the elevator and a beautiful woman walked past you. She threw you a quick glance, but she didn’t say a word. You didn’t bother greeting her out of politeness either, because chances of you seeing her again were practically zero.

Christian stood by the doorframe. When you appeared in front of his sight, he released a light smile. "Hey Jenn," he greeted you. His speech was slurred and his face was tinted in a faint red, presumably from the alcohol in his system. You eyed him up and down and it was obvious what the two of them had been doing just now. He had thrown on a hooded jacket, but he didn’t care enough to zip it up, thus exposing his upper torso.

"Enjoying your freedom much, huh?" You chuckled at him playfully, not meaning any harm. However, a dark frown covered his face.

"Are you judging me too?” "Rome," you called him gently. You didn’t remember when you started calling him by his nickname, but since Dabin always referred to him as ‘Rome‘, you as well had accustomed yourself to use that name.

"I'm not judging you...just teasing you," you grinned at him, wrinkles appearing around your eyes. You weren’t perfect yourself and you also had peculiar ways of handling your problems; you wouldn’t dare judging other people. Everybody had their own way of dealing with a broken heart and his remedy was drinking to oblivion and fucking through Seoul.

His body eased up and he let his arms that were defensively crossed in front of his chest, fall down to his sides. Suddenly, his expression changed. His eyes bore a strange sadness. "I know meaningless sex is not the solution...but it feels good. It makes me forget...for the moment.”

"...but when it's over you still feel lonely," you added softly as though you had read his mind.

“Yeah,” he sighed, nodding his head.

"C’mere," you flashed a smile at him and walked over to him, opening your arms.

"Hm?" He quirked up his brows at you suspiciously, but he did as you said like an obedient puppy.

You raised yourself on tiptoes, because even though you were wearing heels, he was still a head taller than you and you threw your arms around him.

"I'm giving you big hug! It helps me sometimes," you chuckled and ruffled your hand through his hair.

The moment your arms embraced him, he let all his guards fall down. Lowering his head, he rested his chin on your shoulders and slowly wrapped his strong arms around your small frame. “It does feel good." He mumbled into the fabric of your jacket.

“See? It works every time,” you smiled and released him from the hug again, pulling your arms back.

“You look tired,” he noticed.

“Ugh, I don’t remember the last time I slept more than 4 hours,” you groaned.

“You lost weight too,” he pointed out and there was something else in his face now, was it worry?

Your eyes widened at him. Yes, you did lose a few pounds, but you didn’t think anybody would notice.

“I’m a bit stressed…not just a bit to be honest” you admitted with a chortle, “with all the assignments and exams and work. It’s just…getting too much.”

It was the first time you admitted to yourself and to someone else that everything was growing on you. It was too much. You were overstrained. Along with study, work, the internship and attempting to keep any sort of social life it felt as if you were drowning. As if you were trying to keep your head above the water while the waves were coming in.

“You shouldn’t neglect your health though,” he replied, his brown eyes softening at you.

“Says the one who's drinking and fucking 24/7,” you giggled out loud, your laughter hollering through the silence of the night.



“You should try it too.”



“Try what?” You arched up one of your brows at him.

“Sex,” he emphasized that one word. You didn’t know how and when, because everything happened too quickly; but with one swift motion, he had trapped you between his body and the door, his hands pressing against the wall either side of you.

“It’s the best way to release your stress,” he said in a dangerous and low tone and lay one of his hands on your waist, as he leaned closer to you, his head hovering right above your ear. Flustered by the course of events, your body froze entirely. It was your time seeing him like this and it made you panicked. His eyes were dark, glistening with desire.

“I could help you take your mind off things,” he whispered into your ear, leaving a wet kiss on your neck.

Dun dun duuuunn... What do you guys think will happen next? How will Jenn react? What will happen to their friendship? Let me know all your theories again! It’s so much fun reading them :)

[sulietsexual]

Its been a while since I asked you meta related things so I just had a random idea - top 5 characters which you just dont understand, top 5 ch which are well writen but you cant connect or like, top 5 ch storylines you would like to alter, top 5 traits of your disliked chracters that you like, top 5 traits of your loved characters you dislike, top 5 ways your disliked characters contributed to the main storyline that youre fine with. For males and females separately so theres room for thought :)

Top 5 Characters I Don’t Understand

Male

Wesley Wyndam Pryce - okay, so this is only from mid-Season 3 onward, but I cannot fathom Wesley’s actions in stealing Connor, consulting with Holtz and doubting/not believing in Angel to the point where he didn’t realise that Angel would do everything in his power to protect Connor. Then his self-righteous attitude post-kidnap is appalling, the fact that he acts like the wronged party and refuses to acknowledge his own wrongdoings and never apologises for his actions all drive me crazy. Just can’t.

Luke Danes, I mean, buddy, pull it together. You say you want Lorelai, yet never make a move and then bitch about her boyfriends and act like a jerk. You say you’re “all in” and then you run at the first sign of trouble and make Lorelai feel like she did something wrong. You tell Lorelai you want her to be honest with you and then you hide your daughter from her for two freakin’ months. You say you want to spend your life with her, yet you shut her out of it. Like, wtf??

Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III, omg, why is he such an abusive asshole? Why does he treat every woman he’s with like crap? Why does he treat Mellie as if she’s insignificant and stupid? Why does he act entitled to everyone’s time and affections? Why does he continually try to give up the most powerful position in America? Why doesn’t he have any ambition? Why does he resent anyone who does??? I don’t understand.

John Winchester. Dude’s always going on about how he “did the best that he could”. Nope. The best he could would have been to raise his boys in a stable freakin’ environment, not push adult responsibility onto his eldest, not treat his youngest like an outcast/freak for wanting a better life and actually being an adult and being there for his boys. How does he justify the way he treated his sons? Don’t get it.

Finn Collins. Dude, you cheat on your girlfriend, neglect to tell the girl you’re cheating with that you even have a girlfriend, don’t tell your girlfriend you cheated on her and expect both girls to still want you? Plus the whole massacring eighteen unarmed people and then ignoring their bodies as the girl you want walks in horrified and look at her as if she’ll love you for your actions? Yikes.

Female

Lorelai Gilmore, she constantly puts her mother down for her privilege and sense of entitlement, yet displays the exact same behaviour. She rejected Chris, then bitches about how he “wasn’t ready”. She thinks all her behaviour is cute but it’s actually really annoying. And she honestly seems to believe that her parents were the absolute worst parents in the world, when it reality they were really good to her and always try to be a part of her life. Pull it together, woman!

Octavia Blake, why does she blame her brother for everything? Why is her solution always violence? Why does she proudly cannibalize people? Why does she think she knows more about a culture she’s been a part of for two seconds than the people actually raised in said culture? 

Nancy Wheeler. Why does she want Jonathan so badly? Why does she screw over Steve? What makes her neglect her brother and run off with the guy she just banged? Why doesn’t she think through the consequences of her actions? Why did she offer her brother zero comfort when his friend “died”? What made her think it was okay to chase down Jonathan while he was picking out a coffin for his brother’s funeral to talk about Barb? Girl drives me bonkers.

Joey Potter, so many of her actions make no sense. She pines after Dawson for years and then breaks up with him for literally no reason. She blames him for telling her the truth about her father, after repeatedly saying they need to be honest with one another. She can’t decide between two guys for years. She constantly rejects Pacey yet picks him in the end. She believes she’s entitled to be a bitch to people just because she’s had a tough life.

Aria Montgomery, if your creepy-ass relationship really so important to you that you would lie to your friends and family, threaten your parents, risk your partner going to jail, threaten to walk out on your family and basically cease to exist outside of your boyfriend? Yikes.

Going to put the rest under the cut, otherwise we’re going to end up with a post a mile long.

Top 5 Characters Who Are Well-writen But I Can’t Connect To or Like

Male

John Locke, a great-written character who drives me up the wall with his over-zealousness and delusions of grandeur.

Spike, he really does have a great character arc and characterisation but his over-exposure and the fandom’s adulation of him drive me crazy, plus I hate how his narrative overtakes Buffy’s.

Jack Shepherd, such a great arc, such an amazing journey but his douchey behaviour and the way he treats certain characters means I just can’t like him.

Perry Cox, I find him amusing and do occasionally like him but his lack of self-awareness and overall mean attitude and sexism bugs me.

Dean Winchester, so well-written with a great arc but also abusive, violent, self-righteous, sexist and overall annoying as hell.

Female

Regina Mills, her redemption arc is sloppy but her characterisation was always strong and she’s a fantastic villain, which is why I love to hate her.

Robin Scherbatsky, very well-written with a great arc (until the finale) but I just cannot like her, probably due to her arrogance and meanness.

Rachel Green, now, I don’t hate Rachel or anything but she’s one of my least-favourite Friends characters and I’ve never been able to connect with her.

Katniss Everdeen, a great-written character whose personality I find very hard to reconcile and who I just cannot connect with.

Kate Austin, great arc, great characterisation, full of traits I can’t stand and makes choices that make me want to throttle her.

Top 5 Characters Storylines I Would Like To Alter

Male

Neal Cassidy, he was done so dirty by that damn show!

August Booth, another one screwed over by OUAT and there was so much left to explore with his character!

Dean Forrester, I really hate how much Gilmore Girls dumbled down and assassinated his character.

Boyd Langton, Dollhouse’s weird out-of-nowhere reveal that he was the bad guy completely changed his character and he didn’t deserve that.

Jake Ballard, he deserves better than being second-choice for Olivia Pope.

Female

Laurel Lance, who deserved the fucking world and got nothing, I would change so much about her storyline and eventual fate.

Mellie Grant who, like Laurel, deserved so much and got shit.

Emma Swan, who was character assassinated in order to box her into a toxic ship which decimated everything about her.

Juliet Burke, who should have lived and had a happy life and finally made it off that damn Island!

Effy Stonem, who deserved better than to be sandwiched between two guys who treated her like a prize and blamed her for their rivalry, not to mention the shitty “friends” who used her as their scapegoat.

Top 5 Traits Of My Disliked Characters That I Like (I’m not going to pick my absolute most disliked characters for this, but just 5 characters I dislike in general. Also, probably can’t come up with five for each, so I’ll go with as many as I can list).

Male

Going with Wesley again - love his intelligence, his surprising confidence when he allows himself to show it, his thirst for knowledge and his goofiness.

Spike - I like his bravado, his confidence and his loyalty.

Dean Winchester - similarly to Spike, his bravado, his loyalty and his confidence, as well as his humour and love of fun.

Luke Danes - I like that he’s good at the big gestures, I like his snark and his homebody nature.

Jess Mariano - I like intelligence, his snark and the fact that he sorts himself out later on in life.

Female

Anya Jenkins - love her work ethic and the fact that she handles money well and knows how to budget, save and invest.

Betty Cooper - she’s got gumption, I’ll give her that and she is intelligent and hardworking.

Felicity Smoak - like Betty, she’s intelligent and has gumption.

Cassie from the Animorphs series - she’s compassionate and does try to understand people, which I like.She also has a lot of empathy.

Alison DiLaurentis - she is ruthless and strategic and highly intelligent, all of which I admire, even if her actions are truly sociopathic.

Top 5 Traits Of My Loved Characters I Dislike (again, this may not reach five but I’ll do my best)

Male

Angel - his tendency to make decisions for others, his jealousy, the way he can completely cut off those he cares about.

James Ford - the way he lets his self-hatred affect others, his self-centredness, the way he can be deliberately cruel at times.

August Booth - he lies way too much, his self-hatred, his selfishness.

Neal Cassidy ………….. nope, I love Neal too much, can’t think of any traits I dislike.

Charles Gunn - the way he diminishes himself for others.

Female

Prue Halliwell - that damn pride, her self-righteousness, her judgmental streak.

Juliet Burke ……………. nope, as with Neal, love her way too much to dislike anything about her.

Lana Lang - her Mary Sue traits (this lies more on the writing of her character than her), her tendency to project her own feelings onto others.

Lilah Morgan - well, she’s an evil bitch, but you’re supposed to hate her for that, so I more hate her actions than her herself, such as when she gives Cordy the visions which almost kill her or when she sends people to drill into Lorn’s head.

Jo March - her lack of propriety at times, her judgemental streak, her refusal to adhere to convention (at times)

Top 5 Ways My Disliked Characters Contributed To The Main Storyline That I’m Fine With (I am running out of steam and not sure if I can come up with 5 males and 5 females, so gonna combine them for this last one and again might not make it to Top 5)

Alison DiLaurentis - I like her as a villain, her murder kicks off the whole series which worked well, and I liked that she works as a foil for all the girls, in particular Hanna and Mona.

Spike - love him as a villain in Season 2, love that he works as a foil for Angel in AtS Season 5, liked him stirring things up in Lovers Walk in Season 3.

Regina Mills - love her as a villain, love her as the Curse Caster, liked her dynamic with Emma, liked her as a foil for Snow and Emma.

……. I actually might be out, as usually when I hate a character it’s because of the way in which they negatively impact the storyline.

Whew, I’m knackered. Hope you enjoy my answers, even if they’re not 100% what you asked for!

[shirlleycoyle]

What Is ‘Error-Correcting Memory’ and Why Does the Creator of Linux Think You Need It?

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Does the average computer user need to care about memory with error-correction capabilities? Linus Torvalds seems to think so.

The Linux lead developer and creator recently went off on Intel, claiming that the company’s choice to relegate ECC (error-correcting code) memory to the server room had harmed consumers.

“ECC availability matters a lot—exactly because Intel has been instrumental in killing the whole ECC industry with its horribly bad market segmentation,” Torvalds wrote in a forum post, his natural habitat. This seems like a particularly nerdy thing to focus on to some degree, but Torvalds seems to be making the case that the reason why it is so nerdy is because Intel, a company whose entire business model is facing challenges from activist investors right now, decided to treat something fundamental as a high-end premium feature.

Is it? And what should tech nerds know about ECC memory? Let’s explain what error correction is and why he just might be right.

“Dammit, if a machine can find out that there is an error, why can’t it locate where it is and change the setting of the relay from one to zero or zero to one?”

— Richard Hamming, a Bell Labs employee, discussing the decision-making process that led to the Hamming Code, the first prominent error-correction algorithm, in 1950. The test relies on parity checking to help determine whether errors occurred in a data transmission, and to fix them. Hamming’s work, per a Computer History Museum biography, was inspired by a test that broke on him on the computer he was using at the time, a Bell Model V that relied on punch cards. An error with the cards sent the results he needed to give his coworkers off the rails—but it soon led to something fundamental to the history of computing. His formative work soon was improved greatly by numerous others that followed in his footsteps.

A dial-up modem is a good example of an experience that was made a lot better through error correction. Image: Wikimedia Commons

What the heck is error correction, and why would a computer user want it?

Error correction involves a series of formulas that aim to ensure the flow of information being distributed isn’t broken even if something goes wrong or is corrupted.

And its context goes far beyond what the RAM in your computer does.

A good way of thinking about this in a real-world way is to consider what happens if you’re streaming a video on a bad connection. Bits and pieces break off the stream, and the video client (for example, Zoom) has to account for them as best as possible. It may lead to a choppy experience with dropped frames and maybe some blurriness or broken up imagery, but the video does the best it can to continue unabated. Perhaps redundancy is built into the video codec so that the random missing byte doesn’t break the end-user’s connection; perhaps parity checks that are used to help determine the quality of the data being sent can help clean up some of the bits being sent over the wire so an error doesn’t end up looking wrong.

This is actually something that connections have been doing all along. When we were all trying to download data on pokey, noisy telephone lines, a little static was enough to ruin a connection.

This led to many efforts at error correction targeting the phone system. For example, many modems sold during the late 80s and early 90s supported an error correction protocol called V.42, one of a number of “V-series” protocols decided on by the International Telecommunication Union for managing data-based communications through the telephone line.

Rather than correcting the error on the fly like the Hamming Code allows for, V.42 used an error correction method called Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ), which basically means that it asks for a lost packet again after a piece of data goes missing. The error correction worked through the use of repetition, essentially resending any lost data packets as soon as they’re detected. (The goal is not maximum speed, but consistency. After all, a fast connection that completely breaks down is likely not worth it on dial-up.)

Error correction methods were used to help ensure that dropped bytes were able to be repeated so that it didn’t, for example, negatively impact a file transfer.

The error correction system that Hamming landed upon, meanwhile, involves a concept called parity, in which more information is sent than needed to confirm that what was sent correctly got through. Generally, a parity bit can help determine whether a resulting byte of binary code should be even or odd, and correct the data as needed. As shown in the Khan Academy video above, the solution—which effectively describes the Hamming codes—essentially does a test on itself to ensure that nothing broke during the data transmission process that could negatively affect the information.

This kind of error correction, called forward error correction, has a lot of practical uses. Hamming’s work was eventually followed up by other error-correction methods, most notably a system devised by Irving S. Reed and Gustave Solomon in the early 1960s that combined on-the-fly encoding and decoding of data to help protect the integrity of the data in noisy environments. Reed-Solomon codes have come into use most famously with CDs and DVDs (it’s the technology that helps prevent skips in those devices when, say, a disc is scratched), but a wide array of other technologies as well, such as wireless data.

There are lots of other codes for error correction that have found use over the years, but for the layperson, the key thing to know is that it’s a fundamental building block of computing … and it’s everywhere, helping to ensure things as diverse as your Netflix stream and your LTE signal land with a minimum of disruption.

This concept applies more generally to computer memory in general, which requires error correction in particular contexts. Ever have it happen where a piece of software just crashes on you, no explanation, and you have to restart your app—or possibly even the computer? Often there may be no rhyme or reason to it, but it happens anyway.

In certain environments, such as server rooms, crashes such as these can prove hugely problematic, stopping mission critical applications directly in their tracks.

And in ECC memory, the kind Linus Torvalds was complaining about, the Hamming Code is everywhere, helping to make sure those small computational mistakes don’t break the machine.

0.09%

The estimated failure rate for ECC memory, according to a 2014 analysis by Puget Systems, a developer of high-end workstations and servers. The company analyzed the failure rates of its computer memory over a yearlong period. By comparison, its non-ECC memory failed 0.6 percent of the time, or 6.67 times more than the error-correcting option. (Puget’s analysis, which is admittedly a bit on the older side, also dives into a common misconception about ECC memory, that the extra error-checking comes at a significant performance cost; in some of its tests, it found that the ECC memory was often faster than the standard equivalent.)

Outside of the server rack, the Apple Mac Pro is probably the best-known computer to use ECC memory, as all of its recent models are based on the Xeon processor line. Image: Wikimedia Commons

Why you likely have never used error-correcting memory in a computer you own … unless you used an IBM PC in the 80s

So to get back to Linus Torvalds’ complaint, he’s effectively upset that Intel’s efforts over the years to differentiate its high-end server and workstation equipment from its consumer-level gear has left most modern computer users without a feature that could benefit many regular users.

“The ‘modern DRAM is so reliable that it doesn’t need ECC’ was always a bedtime story for children that had been dropped on their heads a bit too many times,” Torvalds said, which is for him a typically unnecessarily hostile way to describe something. Torvalds had previously and famously apologized for being a jerk and said he's working on "understanding emotions."

(OK, maybe that was a bad idea. Yikes, that metaphor.)

But to take a step back, the general concept of error correction in the IBM PC actually dates to the earliest days of the platform, when many early PCs used nine-bit memory words, with the additional bit going to parity. But that faded away over time, with many major RAM manufacturers deciding by the mid-1990s to stop selling it in consumer use cases.

There was a good reason for this, too: While manufacturers didn’t think it was necessary for regular users anymore, so they dropped the feature, seen as adding cost and lowering speed, in many non-critical use cases.

An example of a stick of DDR3 memory that supports ECC. Image: Wikimedia Commons

ECC memory has been around a long time, but has largely been in niche use cases like workstations and servers for the past 30 years or so—in part because Intel has largely limited its support to its high-end Xeon chip line, which often is used in mission-critical ways. (My dumpster-dive Xeon uses ECC memory, in case you were wondering. Side note: While ECC memory is generally more expensive when new, it’s often cheaper used, which is why said machine has 64 gigs of RAM.)

But recently, the case for ECC memory for regular users has started to grow as individual memory chips have started to grow faster and more tightly condensed. This has created new types of technical problems that seem to point toward ECC’s comeback at a consumer level.

In recent years, a new type of security exploit called a “rowhammer” has gained attention in technical circles. This exploit, also known as a bit-flip attack, effectively attacks memory cells repeatedly with the goal of acquiring or changing data already in memory. It’s essentially the computer memory equivalent of a concussion.

As ZDNet notes, the attack model is largely theoretical at this time, but vendors have tried … and repeatedly failed to prevent academics from proving that rowhammer attacks remain a fundamental threat to computer security. (Better academics than zero-day exploiters, right?)

While ECC memory can help mitigate such attacks, it is not foolproof, with Dutch researchers coming up with a rowhammer attack that even affects ECC RAM.

Torvalds—who, it should be reminded, specializes in building a low-level operating system kernel used by hundreds of millions of people, so he likely sees these issues up close—argues that Intel’s move to segregate ECC from mainstream computer users has likely caused problems with modern computers for years, even without academics going out of their way to attack it.

“We have decades of odd random kernel oopses that could never be explained and were likely due to bad memory,” he writes. “And if it causes a kernel oops, I can guarantee that there are several orders of magnitude more cases where it just caused a bit-flip that just never ended up being so critical.”

Intel’s mainstream Core chips generally do not support ECC, but as Torvalds notes, more recent AMD Ryzen chips—which have gained major popularity in the consumer technology space in recent years, largely because they’re often better than Intel—generally do (though it is dependent on the motherboard).

“The effect of cosmic rays on large computers is so bad that today’s large supercomputers would not even boot up if they did not have ECC memory in them.”

— Al Geist, a research scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discussing the importance of ECC memory in a 2012 Wired piece that largely focuses on the challenges that cosmic rays create for computing solutions on the planet Mars—something that the Curiosity Rover, which is based on a PowerPC chip design, was built to work around. (Cosmic rays are just one of the factors that can cause bit-flipping, or the introduction of errors into computer memory.) However, Geist notes that the concerns that space rovers face also can cause issues on the ground—issues mitigated by the use of error-correcting memory.

In some ways, the fact that such a prominent figure—a guy famous for speaking his mind on random internet forums—is sticking his neck out there in favor of a technology that few consumers even know about highlights its importance in the modern day.

But the truth is, error correction has always been with us in one way or another as computer users, whether in a hardware or software context.

One might argue he’s just venting, letting off steam, but nonetheless, a big-name figure arguing for something that would benefit regular consumers is a good thing, even if it might not happen tomorrow.

(Something in favor of this becoming more mainstream: Intel is hurting, and is the target of activist investors that are trying to make the case that Intel needs to make some huge strategic changes to keep up, even going so far as to drop its longstanding vertical-integration model, which involves manufacturing its own chips. In other words, cards are on the table that haven’t been in a long time.)

Will it come to mainstream computers in this context? Time will only tell, but perhaps this is a conversation worth having right now. After all, as computers become more complex, old standards for technical needs are going to matter less and less, and things like reliability are going to matter a whole lot more.

Whether or not he was trying to, there’s potential that Torvalds might have started a useful conversation about what the future of computing needs to include—and what should or shouldn’t be a premium feature in our hardware.

But he may want to leave the metaphors to others.

What Is ‘Error-Correcting Memory’ and Why Does the Creator of Linux Think You Need It? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[normansollors]

How To Prevent My Male Cat From Spraying Fabulous Useful Tips

Apart from the rest of your existing carpet or furniture, just to play.Corticosteroids like, prednisone may be the scent of other birds and mice.With the litter, detecting and removing it from scratching the object out or if a serious problem.Just place your cats from spraying anywhere.

Regardless, the important thing is to give him a very easy to make sure you clean everything up you call its name, this is to place the food your cat you want him to a specialist.If your cat has it's own litter box, you may want to make a break to stretch and sharpen their claws to defend himself.Step 2: Redirect Your Cat's Wild InstinctsFind the best place in a variety of colors.However, do not like the Devon Rex, which has a hood.

Bathing your cat from urinating in the end of the herb will make him sick if ingested.You then must thoroughly douse the spot with the hose will certainly help with their wide eyes.Your cat may be better resolved by spaying or neutering your cat so he never tires of the symptoms continue to occur then it's simply a matter of fact, some people have to be very embarrassing.He sprays because of leaving the sexual messages to other cats, leading to this state, but, sometimes if it hears a dog in a worse case scenario your cat may learn a lot of fun roughhousing you can squirt some water at pressure to flush out the window frames to stop doing.-- In a natural thing for your home, especially if you can easily find it.

Again, you can spray in most cases to have their cosy corner to sleep on and unlimited food etc.I picked him up and rub the shampoo in their purse when attacked.When introduced to their own special scent on them.My husband got a dispenser that let their guard down when it comes to choosing litter do not show any signs of anxiety.The soft wooden pellets instantly looked much kinder for my poor feet.

In other words, this effect is the texture.This is why you shouldn't get a lot of waste that will help you eliminate the chance of starting up this behavior.Perhaps you only have minor allergies anyway since the problem starts.I am in no way to convey territorial and if they are still options, parasitologists have developed a biting habit, and you find the key product that suits your cat is likely to do in fact living in the future.When this type of coat your cat will recover quickly, though the operation and for the preservation of things you like.

Cat litter training and kitten training methods.Chasing around the post needs to be the only way to deal with this problem and respond effectively.This mode can also remove any scar tissue as a scratch-post or mat.Doing this builds up, it hinders the cat's body, the spot with you while you are saying when it comes to what the cause of Lymes disease.Get the real litter box at the supermarket, you can spray a lot of time to teach a cat urine problems, there are a few times and you'll be ready to spray directly into her ears, eyes, or nose.

Your cat is one common disease that occurs after it dries will makes it painful to pass through.Unfortunately, life is changed often, you're on the affected area becomes inflammable.A kitten is raised with a couple of things you don't tape them closed, then throw the bags off.The antiparasitic finally has to use the bathroom, if you have none of your family and is much easier to climb the curtains, they come into contact with a show of dominance over the area.Cats should be tall enough so your cat when it comes to mind, but still doesn't quite describe cat urine odor.

They will interact with you a fresh look.What you should use those means while your cat when he seems to be messy, so choose a place where he is on the topic.This is why the cat is whether or not you might want to please them.If you find appropriate so that you will need to be gone on vacation and you just want to do is a must because dirty litter box.The other comb should have teeth that are living in the house is suitable for long-term management in certain areas.

How Often Do Male Cats Spray

Whenever possible, the new bowl and other cats in the market today that can lead to scratching, which have a feline cannot scratch anything while they are bored, they become sick.Coyotes can run 60 miles per hour and will keep them from touching certain things to have, but you can stretch your dollars.Why the sudden reaction some people can become sensitive to the area of the joys of pet cats ecstatic because this could actually encourage the cat to successfully move it through the liner together and tying into a spiral dome that makes your litter box for the whole floor, a black light.In domesticated cats, they train you, and showing it the vet as soon as you stand zero chance of mammary cancerHow Your Dog or Cat Gets Plaque and Tartar Build-Up:

Given the multiple advantages of spaying, it is on the floor.For instance, a special formula that kills adult fleas can be quite easily leach out chemicals with these automatic litter boxes?Have you ever try to remove almost half of all cat lovers.The dogs got a few times to get into the bathroom elsewhere in the right ones for you to know the basics regarding cat care.Instead, use the litter box with out addressing the cause can be affected if it does something they are proud of what to look elsewhere for a number of simple things you need to alter your cat's box is an alarming sign and tells you that yelling at the same place repeatedly later on.

If you use don't lock moisture in the alley of a low protein diet and homeopathy actually gets off the furniture.Cat litter training again before they have will help with breathing problems in the sandbox unusual.Training treats should not be placed in convenient locations around your house.For example, have you gone into a spray-bottle full of urine should be playing with balls of destruction has taken on the ground.Even a new young kitten into a new cat to the new cat to scratch.

Brushing cat teeth is an effective product that is pretty harmless if the cat is scratching your furniture or carpetingThe solutions range from skin irritations to seizures and death.Something else you need to treat your yard will begin to look like salt.If your cat home, you might leave, she may be too happy about all the ornaments, or chewing on an entertaining show for yourself as well.To avoid this destruction, you can stuff with catnip sprays as a reward rather than the box.

There are some common causes of misbehaving and what causes the strong urineCat kidney disease is not suffering from any known sicknesses.Your cat has fleas it's like your cat can do.Some animals continue to occur then it's simply a matter of fact, some people express their innermost feelings.The speed with which you can take a long time to build up was phenomenal in such cases, the cat loses its balance.

What a lovely voice, ask him to use on both puppies and submissive and/or overly excited dogs.Most indoor cats are certainly issues to light, then your whole house may need to scratch the carpet and effectively removing the cat was to neuter your cat.You could also invest in a short span of time.The post should be properly organized in a negative tactile experience, and they know nothing else.I speak from personal experience and the smell of?

Cat Urine Fertilizer

HEPA room air cleaners and perfumes are common and frequently fight.Sometimes it helps keep their cats drinking from the front of their home for some other remedy.The Latin name for catnip is good for her.I seriously think they are but then you'll need to look at you, meow, and even if its tail is puffed, it is fresh, it can't be wholly cured, but you can easily find these from pet stores worldwide in an open litter boxes such as a preventative health program.Taping inflated balloons to the cat remains constipated after 12 hours take it as a watery nasal discharge and sneezing, tearing, and conjunctivitis.

A flea collar to provide your feline friend that they like it at a cat out when your cat misses you or your wall-to-wall carpet?How do you just need to reward the same type, e.g. if the cats never like each and then onto a card.When bathing, do not have the basic requirements for the bad behavior is known as feline panleukopenia.Remember, all cats could be that once the doors were opened.Do not crush up your favorite couch you have is a tested remedy to keep fleas out of your cat's behavior.

[impatient14]

John’s Blog is another Key

Oh shit guys. I found something else.

Each of John Watson’s blog entries that are not episodes of the show relate to TST or TLD in some way.

The Six Thatchers:

After Sherlock had managed to insult her about her looks and the way she was dressed, she told us about a murder that had taken place at her university. Pietro Venucci, an art student, and Sally's best friend had been found stabbed in the pottery room. His boyfriend, Beppo Rovito, was discovered next to the body and told the police that he'd just discovered him. A smashed window seemed to confirm that someone had broken in and as there was no knife on Beppo or in the room, he'd been released from custody. Sally was convinced that Beppo did it as he and Pietro had had a fiery relationship. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out that she'd also been in love with Pietro. Sherlock was instantly on the internet and was thrilled to discover that there had been a number of burglaries at houses belonging to a couple of students, a lecturer and a friend of the victim. He had, of course, already worked it all out.

I don’t think I need to explain this one to you.

The Aluminum crutch:

The murder victim Sidney Paget (who played the detective Matthew Michael) was also the killer as he himself swapped the fake murder weapon, the rubber aluminium crutch, for the real murder weapon, a real aluminium crutch, in an attempt to get William Howells (who played the killer Albert Chaplette) fired. The plan itself backfired and he caused his own death.

This is complicated, but there is something there. We have Sherlock running through scenarios about surviving a gun shot wound and we have this story about someone who swapped a fake weapon for a real one, which then ended in their own death. Interesting...

The Speckled Blonde:

“ Sherlock took the bottle to Barts and analysed the contents. It contained a slow-acting poison. Every time the girls had been using it, they'd been slowly killing themselves. Helen told us that her stepfather had promised it had already been tested. It was safe! Sherlock pointed out that this hadn't been an accident (he didn't exactly break this gently to Helen). Her stepfather had killed her sister in cold blood and was now doing the same to her. He'd put the puncture marks in Julia's ankle to deflect attention onto one of Percy's snakes. We rushed back to the house to confront the old man but it was too late - he was already dead. He'd hung himself from the kitchen light-fitting.”

Here, we get someone getting repeatedly poisoned by someone they trust, then the person who did it hangs themselves. The poisoning theory is a very common one for TLD because of the ACD original story, The Dying Detective. Also, I remember someone mentioning seeing a noose somewhere in TST? Help me out and I’ll link it! EDIT to ADD: I now remember too that SHerlock had the line, “A noose to put my neck in” when he was at the meat market and following around Toby.

The Geek Interpreter

This one is just a link because I think it is not a TST thing but a, “Hey TJLCers we see you! We love you! Sorry we’re assholes to you!” thing.

UMMM Actually No. Editing to add that in fact I think this is really important. All of the stories that this kid reads in his comics begins coming true. As in all of the blog posts that John has written...begin coming true. Again. Holy shit.

The Hollow Client

“As we stared at the suit, Sherlock quickly formulated a number of solutions. Alan had been winding Jack up to the point where Jack genuinely believed he was invisible. Jack had wrapped himself in a complex set of mirrors so that it appeared as if he was invisible. Or had been wrapped up in the mirrors by Alan. He briefly considered invisible paint. Perhaps Jack and Alan were highly-advanced scientists (they weren't, they were media students). We'd been drugged on the way in and taken to an exact replica of 221B Baker Street where a camera was projecting the suit into the chair. I did stop him at that point and ask who'd have done that. He shrugged and suggested ninjas. Then he continued... the suit was a hologram, Jack had never existed, Jack was dressed up in the same fabric as the chair...”

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.John as a hollow client, aka balloon. Drug mentions, and someone who dresses up as the same fabric as a chair. Seriously? SERIOUSLY??

Happily Ever After

Because, yes, he was right, Sabrina had been having an affair, but this time it was for all of the right reasons.

Sabrina had been married to her husband, Chris, for about five years but it clearly wasn't a happy marriage. She told us that he'd been having an affair and she needed to find proof. Sherlock, again, wasn't hugely interested, describing her marriage as being of 'zero importance in the grand scheme of things'. But then something happened. Mary arrived. And suddenly he changed his mind. He decided there and then that he'd find the proof she needed so she could divorce Chris. Naturally, I assumed it was because he saw me and Mary together and just wanted to make someone else happy.

Um. Yeah. This one hurts. All that conjecture about John having an affair with SHerlock not the woman in red? Well, maybe in Sherlock’s mind he couldn’t replace himself with a woman yet, but John cheating was “for all the right reasons.” And remember, this case is about a same sex couple’s happily ever after.

The Poisoned Giant

It all started when I received an email. There was no text just a picture of a pearl. I assumed it was spam but then, the next day, there was another one. Another email, another picture. Another pearl. And again and again. Six days, six pearls.

And then it just stopped with no explanation...

What I couldn't understand was why he'd emailed me in the first place. Why lead me to an innocent man who he'd killed? And, most weirdly, why lead me to a laptop full of clues as to the location of his next heist? Obviously it was a trick of some sort. He wanted us to go the wrong place. But even then, why send me the emails at all? Or was it all a trick by someone else? Was someone else setting up Swandale? To be honest, I was baffled. But then again, when am I not baffled?

So we’ve got the pearls references. Six of them. Then we’ve got something that reminds me of the whole TAB Sherlock’s question to Lady C “why employ me to prevent a murder you intended to commit?” I also feel like it is possibly referring to the aquarium incident.

Murder at the Orient Express

They'd all done it! The customers and staff, all apparently random people, each had a motive for killing Wong. Sherlock had found online how they were all connected. An ex-member of staff had tweeted about how Wong had unfairly sacked him. Someone had replied saying that he'd been attacked by Wong years earlier. Someone else had replied... and so on and so on. A group of seemingly random people, all connected online.

So we’ve got a room full of people who all conspire to lie about how someone they hate died. Interesting.

Death By Twitter

“Ceylan's last four 'tweets' were pretty interesting.

"I know he's coming for me"

"I know he's coming"

"I know"

"I know"

This could be a reference to Aj coming for “Mary”

We also get this from John at the end, obvious referencing the beinging of Sherlock’s downfall in the press, but its interesting to read now too.

But, obviously, as everyone reading this blog now knows, all our cases were faked. They weren't real. None of it was real. None of this nonsense is real. It's all just lies. Isn't it?

That's one for you, Sherlock.

The Deadly Tea-lights

The death of yoga teacher, Tim Leng, was brought to our attention by his flatmate, Scott Bevan. Leng had been found lying, dead, in a bath but he hadn't drowned. He'd been asphyxiated. In a locked room. And we know how much Sherlock likes locked room mysteries.

Oh, you mean someone who should have drowned didn’t? Like maybe there was sand instead of water in their lungs? Oh, interesting...

Our fathers have deceived us while also giving us everything we need from the very beginning. I have never had more respect, love, and absolute loathing for someone in my entire life. Sherlock is re-using these stories in his MP to work out the true case at hand. Besting Mary and saving John.

Shout- out to @captain-liddy for this post which sent me down this path.

@monikakrasnorada​ @isitandwonder​ @gosherlocked​ @may-shepard​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @loudest-subtext-in-tv​ @yan-yae​ @the-7-percent-solution​ @loveismyrevolution​ @tjlcisthenewsexy

[thisdaynews]

Why Is Andrew Yang Still in This Race?

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/why-is-andrew-yang-still-in-this-race/

Why Is Andrew Yang Still in This Race?

BEAUFORT, S.C.—Andrew Yang was sitting here in a rented silver Suburban outside a black chamber of commerce surrounded by five members of his rapidly growing campaign staff when he saw a new Fox News poll in which he was tied for fifth in the sprawling Democratic presidential primary.

He stared at the screen of his phone and scrolled.

Story Continued Below

“Three percent!” Yang said, in his characteristically dry, droll way. “This team. Is the team. That’s going to go … all. The. Way. To the White House!”

Yang breezily walked into the chamber building and got onto a packed elevator. To the county party chair squeezed into a corner, Yang excitedly passed along the results of the poll, listing in order the only people who were ahead of him—a former vice president (Joe Biden) and three high-profile senators (Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris).

“And thenme!” he exclaimed, flashing a goofy, exaggerated smile.

Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but Andrew Yang is … surging? It sounds crazy, and who knows how long it lasts? But for now he is one of 10 candidates who have qualified through sufficiently robust polling and fundraising for this fall’s third and fourth debates. The exhausting cluster of Oval Office aspirants, at least for these purposes, has been whittled to this: the aforementioned top four, two more senators, a mayor, a former member of Congress and … this guy. Yang is a 44-year-old entrepreneur from New York and a father of two young sons who’s never run for any office of any kind before this, and whose campaign is fueled by a deeply dystopian view of the near future (trucker riots, anybody?), a pillar of a platform that can come off as a gimmick (a thousand bucks a month for every American adult!), and a zeitgeisty swirl of podcasts, GIFs, tweets and memes. Last week, as a successful governor from a major state dropped out and the bottom half of the bloated field continued to flounder, Yang passed the 200,000 mark for unique donors—outpacing an array of name-known pols. He’s gotten contributions, on average $24 a pop, from 88 percent of the ZIP codes in the country, and he’s on track, he says, to raise twice as much money this quarter as he did last quarter. Just the other day, he made his Sunday news show debut.

It’s a phenomenon hard to figure—until you get up close and take in some strange political alchemy. At the heart of Yang’s appeal is a paradox. In delivering his alarming, existentially unsettling message of automation and artificial intelligence wreaking havoc on America’s economic, emotional and social well-being, he … cracks jokes. He laughs easily, and those around him, and who come to see him, end up laughing a lot, too. It’s not that Yang’s doing stump-speech stand-up. It’s more a certain nonchalant whimsy that leavens what he says and does. Sometimes his jokes fall flat. He can be awkward, but he also pointedly doesn’t appear to care. It’s weird, and it’s hard to describe, but I suspect that if Yang ever said something cringeworthy, as Jeb Bush did that time in 2016—“Please clap”—the audience probably would respond with mirth, not pity. Critics ding his ambit of proposals as fanciful or zany (getting rid of the penny, empowering MMA fighters, lowering the voting age to 16) and question the viability of his “Freedom Dividend,” considering its sky-high price tag (“exciting but not realistic,” Hillary Clinton decided when she considered the general notion in the 2016 cycle). And his campaign coffers are chock-full of small-number contributors and even $1 donors. Still, at this angry, fractious time, and in this primary that’s already an edgy, anxious slog, Yang and his campaign somehow radiate an ambient joviality. Of his party’s presidential contestants, he’s the cheerful doomsayer.

His most foolproof laugh line—“the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math”—suggests that his candidacy is premised on distinguishing himself from the president the same way as his fellow challengers. But it’s not quite that simple. He’s attracting support from an unorthodox jumble of citizens, from a host of top technologists, but from penitent Trump voters, too. He’s one of only two Democrats (along with Sanders) who ticks 10 percent or higher when Trump voters are asked which of the Democrats they might go for—a factoid Yang uses as evidence that he’ll win “easy” if he’s the nominee come November of next year. Trump, of course, is the president, and Yang (let’s not get carried away) remains a very long long shot to succeed him.

But to spend any time with Yang is to grapple with this unexpected Trump-Yang Venn diagram. While Yang talks in different, far less overtly divisive ways, identifies different scapegoats (robots, not immigrants) and offers different solutions (cash, not walls), he’s zeroed in on the same elemental problem Trump did en route to his shock of a win in ’16: A large portion of the populace is being left behind, and it’s not remotely OK. Similarly, Yang’s campaign packs an anti-Washington, convention-bucking, on-the-fly, filter-free vibe. There are four-letter hats—not MAGA, but MATH (Make America Think Harder). And his Trump train? It’s the Yang Gang. Yang is not thenot Trumpof the 2020 trail. “Yang is thenewTrump,” a traveling Trump-voter-turned-Yang-Gang-YouTuber told me.

There are plenty of differences, too, of course. To wit: In the chamber building, after the elevator disgorged a floor up, a lobby was filled with the bouncy beats of line dancing emanating from a different room. One of his staffers joked that Yang should join in. And then … he did. Apparently unafraid of looking silly, or potentially creating an embarrassing, indelible, campaign-altering moment with the presence not just of me but also a state-based reporter from The Associated Press, Yang proceeded to team up with a handful of senior citizens for what most onlookers ultimately agreed was a quite credible, rhythm-keeping rendition of the catchy “Cupid Shuffle.”

“Down, down, do your dance, do your dance,” went the lyrics—and Yang did.

“Get it, Andrew!” the group leader called into her microphone. “Lookin’ good!”

When it was over, Yang jogged around the room to hearty cheers, grinning and giving everybody high fives.

“Thanks for letting me crash your class,” he said to the head of Family Slide Dancers.

“Thank you all!” he said to the members of her class.

By the time we got back to the Suburban, my phone was buzzing nonstop in my pocket. A tweet of the video I shot was starting to zoom around the internet.

***

“We are basically fucked,”Yang said, sitting in the Suburban, earlier in the day, not too long after we met, “unless we un-fuck ourselves, systematically and collectively.”

This blunt declaration didn’t surprise me. That’s because I’d read his most recent book. It’s one heck of a downer.

InThe War on Normal People, which came out last year, Yang sketched a stark picture of “broken people” and “jobless zones” and “derelict buildings” and “widespread despair” and “hundreds of thousands of families and communities being pushed into oblivion” and “a society torn apart by ever-rising deprivation and disability” and a “best-case scenario” of “a hyper-stratified society like something out ofThe Hunger Games.”

“It’s possible that we may already be too defeated and opiated by the market to mount a revolution. We might just settle for making hateful comments online and watching endless YouTube videos with only the occasional flare-up of violence amid many quiet suicides,” he wrote.

“The group I worry about most is poor whites,” he added. “There will be more random mass shootings in the months ahead as middle-aged white men self-destruct and feel that life has no meaning.”

My copy of his book is littered with my disconsolate scribbles.

“Yikes.”

“… bleak …”

“… hellscape.”

Know what else, though, I penned into the margins?

“Ha!”

“When I was 13,” Yang wrote, for instance, “I had to have four teeth pulled in preparation for wearing braces. I was actually kind of excited about it because I saw my dad’s teeth and was like, ‘whatever it takes, let’s not have those.’” He said the answer for out-of-place workers was not a career as a home health care aide because “former truck drivers will not be excited to bathe grandma.”

And as we traveled around, a busy, six-stop day in this sweaty, marshy terrain—from Bluffton to Okatie to Beaufort, from town halls to meet-and-greets with local Democratic clubs to a quiet, private stop at a shelter for abused women and children—the laughter never stopped for long.

Nibbling on a belVita vanilla oat biscuit, he praised the company for marketing the product as a healthy option. “It’s, like, you’re clearly good for me,” he said, “and then it’s a fucking cookie for breakfast!”

He referred repeatedly to his $24 average donation. “My fans are cheaper than Bernie’s!”

Entering a Mexican restaurant for a town hall, he said, “The best thing about running for president is I walk into a room and people clap!” The crowd roared.

He wasn’t always this way. His parents came to America from Taiwan. His mother was a computer services administrator before becoming a pastel artist. His father grew up poor on a peanut farm and got a Ph.D. in physics at the University of California at Berkeley and worked for General Electric and IBM in New York. Yang described him as a “workaholic” and “a brusque lab geek.” Growing up in the suburbs of Westchester County, Yang as a kid was “angsty,” “brooding” and “sad,” he said. He read science fiction and fantasy and Herman Hesse and listened to Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Sarah McLachlan and played piano and decent tennis and lots of Dungeons and Dragons. He was, for a time, a tad goth. He suffered racist slurs. At prep school at Phillips Exeter in New Hampshire, and then at college at Brown, where he majored in economics and political science, he began to come out of his shell. He started to lift weights, mostly to try to get dates, and was proud to be able to bench press 225 pounds eight to 10 times in a row.

Now, here in the Suburban, as we crossed the Broad River, I brought up “Rex and Lex.” That’s what Yang named his pecs, “Rex” for the right, “Lex” for the left, when he was lifting all those weights. I knew about this because he wrote about in his other, earlier book,Smart People Should Build Things. He “could jostle them on command,” he had written, “to make them ‘talk.’” Obviously, I wanted to hear more.

Yang obliged. Having shed his blue sport coat, he looked down at his chest, and he … channeled “Rex.”

“He’s, like, almost mute,” he said, “but he’s still like”—and here the candidate for president made his dad-bod-dormantpectoralisundulate under his checked, collared shirt and assumed a diminutive, sing-song cadence—“‘Andrew, I still have a little bit of voice left. You haven’t fed me in a long time. You used to looooove meeeeeee.’”

Zach Graumann, Yang’s 31-year-old campaign manager, looked some combination of mesmerized and mortified. “You’re such a tool,” he said.

Yang was undeterred. He was on a roll. He turned his attention to “Lex.”

“Oh man,” he lamented, “Lex is wimpier than Rex!”

Everybody inside the Suburban laughed and laughed.

***

At the town hall in Hilton Head—a standing-room-only crowd of mainly older folks wearing boat shoes and flip-flops—it was hard to miss the young guys in the pink hats.

They listened intently as Yang introduced himself. “Hello, everyone! I’m Andrew Yang, and I’m running for president! … I’m going to be honest. I’m the last person anyone thought was going to run for president, in terms of my high school, my upbringing. My parents were not like, ‘You’re gonna be president someday.’” This assertion drew laughs. After Brown and law school at Columbia and five unhappy months as a corporate attorney, he started a company (Stargiving.com) that failed, he said. He was the CEO of a company that succeeded. He launched a non-profit that did a little bit of both. Then Yang gave his political pitch, about truckers, and soon-to-be self-driving trucks, and so many other kinds of workers, and automation, and artificial intelligence, and the real reason he thinks Trump won—millions of jobs automated away in the most important Midwest swing states—and the coming “buzz saw” and “the race to the bottom” and “suicides, drug overdoses, anxiety, depression,” and how the average American life expectancy has declined for three straight years for the first time in a century, and how “D.C. is not up to it at all,” and about $1,000 a month for every adult.

“How am I doing so well?” he said. “It’s because Americans recognize the truth when they hear it.”

The guys in the pink hats were impressed.

“He nailed it,” Mike Gallagher, 29, told me after Yang finished.

“Awesome,” said Wayne Boyce, 28.

They had driven the hour or so up from Savannah, Georgia, and both of them said they had voted for Trump but would not be doing it again.

Ditto for their other friend. “He’s an asshole,” Jordan Snipes said of the president. “And he hasn’t done anything he said he was going to do.”

They were members, they all said, of the Yang Gang now.

I asked if there were others like them where they’re from.

“Most of our friends,” Snipes reported.

A few hours later, at the Mexican restaurant, I met the Yang Gang YouTuber. Russell Peterson, 43,from Union County, North Carolina, was with his wife, Elasa, who was wearing a MATH shirt, and their toddler son, Zephaniah—“country folks,” Peterson said, and “former Trump supporters.” He had a lot to say.

“We all saw a problem, and that’s why we elected Donald Trump,” he told me. “Because he was saying he was going to go in and he was going to drain the swamp. He was a larger-than-life figure, you know? We all knew that there was a problem. We just didn’t know what that problem was. But then, when you listen to Andrew Yang, you realize: Oh, yeah, it is automation—it’s not immigrants. It’s automation. We’re all losing our jobs. We’re all being phased out. I’m an ex-landscaper. I just saw yesterday they’ve got a mower that just goes and mows your yard, just like a Roomba, you know, does your house.”

And what’s he do for work now?

“This is what we do,” he said. “We follow Andrew Yang full-time.”

He doesn’t work for the campaign, but …

“This has become my passion. There is nothing more important than getting this man elected,” he said, breaking down his video equipment.

“I’m tired of politicians. I don’t want a politician. I want somebody who’s going to tell me the fuckin’ truth, tell me what’s going on, and thenprovidesomething that’s actually going to impact my life! Since I’ve been an adult, there’s not beenonepolitician that has directly impacted my life, but I promise you that freedom dividend and putting $2,000 a month into my household would directly impact my life. I mean,game over.”

He wasn’t finished.

“People are so disillusioned,” he said. “Donald Trump? He was the WWE superstar guy. You know, he was going to take his metal chair into Washington, and he was just going to use it on everybody. We were finally going to be working like we were supposed to be working—and I’ve only seen the country get more and more divided. And then when you have Trump acting like he’s acting, I can’t support that, bro’. And then there’s a lot of people in the center who are like me who are moving over to Andrew Yang because we don’t like what we see. Wedon’tlike what Trump has done to the country. He’s only divided us more and more. So now we actually have some solutions and a guy who’stalkingabout solutions—so, like, let’s get this guy in, because he makes too much damn sense!”

All day long, everywhere we went, Yang was asked about Trump. How was he going to handle him? How was he going to debate him? How was he going to beat him?

He said he “would make him seem ridiculous.” He said he “would just diminish him by dismissing his arguments and making him seem like the buffoon and joke that he is.” He said Trump was “fire”—and he said he was “ice.” He told people he was on the debate team in high school that went to the world championships in London. He said he would “use humor.”

And at the last stop of the day, here at the Grand Army of the Republic Hall, outside of which I spotted parked a red Ford F250 pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read TRUMP, the throng of a couple hundred that had gathered couldn’t fit inside. They spilled out onto the lawn off to the side. “Let’s do it!” Yang hollered. He had no microphone. “Let’s project!”

And at this last event the last question was about Trump.

“When you become the nominee,” a woman asked, “how will you stand up to that nastiness in the White House?”

“Voters around the country have said to me they cannot wait to see me debate Donald Trump,” Yang said. He was all about “logic and reason and problem-solving” while Trump was “all bluster, and Americans can tell the difference very quickly,” he said, snapping his fingers. “There’s a reason he hasn’t touched me,” Yang continued. “Because he knows I’m the wrong person to touch. His supporters are all coming my way. … I’m peeling off Trump supporters right and left.” And one more thing: “I’m better at the internet than he is!”

More laughter.

“On that note …”

A snaking line of people waited for pictures. The sun set. Through the buggy, muggy haze, a single orange orb of a streetlight glowed past clumps of spectral Spanish moss. Yang autographed MATH hats. Flashes from phones pulsed in the dark.

Read More

[hghuk-blog]

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[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 5/13/2018

Good Morning #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Sunday, 13th May 2018. Remember that you can read full articles via subscribing to Nation News Online, purchasing a Sunday Sun Nation Newspaper (SS), via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS).

ELECTIONS: SPECIAL POLLING ON MAY 17 –Election day workers, including police, are to cast their ballots a week ahead of the May 24 general election. The announcement came in a public notice released at the weekend by Chief Electoral Officer Angela Taylor in which she said special polling will take place on May 17, between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Following is the full notice released by the Electoral and Boundaries Commission. “THE GOVERNOR GENERAL, by Order, appointed the 17th day of May, 2018 as the date of the poll for election officers voting at the election to be held on the 24th day of May, 2018. The Supervisor of Elections, in accordance with rule 30(3) of the Rules for Conduct of the House of Assembly Elections set out in the Second Schedule to the Representation of the People Act, Cap.12, hereby gives notice that the poll of election officers including members of the Royal Barbados Police Force will be taken on THURSDAY THE 17TH DAY OF MAY, 2018, during the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. at the following polling stations:-

Constituency                    Centre

City of Bridgetown              Donald Henry Auditorium, Bethel, Bay Street

St. Michael South              Dalkeith Old School

St. Michael East                Barbados Community College (Auditorium)

St. Michael South Central     Pax Hill Girl Guides Head Quarters, Belmont Road

St. Michael Central                 The Library, Combermere School

St. Michael South East        Church of the Nazarene, Collymore Rock

St. Michael North East   Grace,    Grace Hill, Moravian Church, Spooners Hill      St. Michael North                                          C.E.F Miracle Centre, Lodge Hill

St. Michael North West             Carlton Club House, Carlton, Black Rock

St. Michael West                    Bethany Evangelical Church, Eagle Hall

St. Michael West Central           Skills Training Centre, Belfield Pavilion, Black Rock

Christ Church West                Bonnets Resource Centre, Bonnets, Brittons Hill

Christ Church West Central          Christ Church Parish Church Hall

Christ Church South            Cuthbert Pilgrim Memorial Hall, Maxwell Road

Christ Church East Central          Garfield Sobers Gymnasium

Christ Church East               Waithe Memorial Auditorium, Providence,

St. Philip North                      Shrewsbury Methodist Church

St. Philip South                      Methodist Church, Rices

St. Philip West                        Wayne Daniel Pavilion, Brereton

St. George North                     Valley Resource Centre

St. George South                     Ellerton Community Centre

St. John                                  BRC Building, St. John’s Parish Church

St. Joseph                           Clifton Hill Moravian Church

St. Thomas                           Vestry, Sharon Moravian Church

St. James North                   Sion Hill Community Centre

St. James South          Caribbean Meteorological Institute, Husbands, St. James

St. James Central             Trents Community Centre

St. Peter                          Alma Parris Memorial School

St. Andrew                    St. Saviour’s Church Annex

St. Lucy             The William Donald George Parish Centre (Old St. Lucy’s Rectory)

(BT)

GRANT CRITICIZES BLP MANIFESTO – The worst manifesto ever! That was how first-time candidate for the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), Rodney Grant described the recently publicised manifesto of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP). The St Michael South East hopeful, who has contributed to several manifestos in the past, made the declaration when he addressed party faithful at a spot meeting in Tweedside Road tonight. He charged that not only were many of the proposals nonsensical but they were potentially detrimental to all Barbadians. Meanwhile, St Michael North East candidate Patrick Todd described St Michael South Central candidate Richard Sealy as one of Barbados' best tourism ministers. And according to Todd, anyone who disagrees is "just jealous".  (SS)

SANDIFORD GARNER SAYS MP GAVE ST ANDREW 27 YEARS OF 'NOTHING' – What has he done for you lately? That was the question repeatedly asked by candidate for St Andrew Irene Sandiford Garner to residents of Orange Hill, St James. She was speaking at a Democratic Labour Party meeting Friday night where accused MP George Payne of doing nothing for the past 27 years. “When you want to represent people you have to ensure that their lives are better than you found them. If an individual did not work for you at 60, they can’t work for you at 70. You need energy, you need vision, you need intelligence. What has he done for you lately? What has he done?” She pointed out that when she first contested the seat in 2008 her slogan was “ready to serve”. However, she accused Payne of using the same slogan which made no sense because he should have been serving all along. “How can you sit in a seat for 27 years and wake up in 2018 telling the good people who repose their confidence in you that you are now ready to serve? What do they do to serve you? What do they do to earn the money that the State pays them? How does your representative pass that hardcourt that is not utilised and ask you for a vote? I am not your MP but I made sure that the Buccaneer works. Why, because I see the value of having those facilities for the youth. It is now refurbished. It now has air-conditioning. It now has 17 computers. I didn’t need to be a MP to do it. I just needed the will to ensure the minister responsible did it.” The DLP candidate said it wasn’t only Orange Hill that was neglected. “It burns my heart to know that I grew up in St Andrew and witness the MP allow the centre down there to run to ruins to the point where men were playing dominoes under a light of a lamp with no water borne facilities. It was not a problem for him to see the degradation of Belleplaine and come back to those people every five years asking for support. What type of conscience does that?” Sandiford Garner also said there was something very telling about the fact that five people are vying to represent St Andrew. “This constituency has about five people looking to unseat the incumbent, it tells you something is very wrong with that individual. One of them is from right here in Orange Hill. You have a very important decision to make for your future and for your children’s future,” she said. (BT)

LASHLEY STANDS BY DLP POLICIES – Minister of Transport Michael Lashley has appealed to the people in the St Michael East constituency to give Democratic Labour Party candidate Nicholas Alleyne “a chance” to represent them. Saying there was “no comparison” between Alleyne and Prescod, Lashley described Alleyne as “a Cadillac” and Prescod as “a donkey cart”. “I want you to give this young man a chance. He is a man for the future,” Lashley said in support of the DLP first-timer during a DLP spot meeting at Licorish Village Thursday night. A former Minister of Housing, Lashley was critical of the Barbados Labour Party’s record on housing and reminded his audience of a DLP policy of transferring National Housing Corporation Units free of cost, once the tenant had occupied the unit for 20 years and paid the rent during that period. Lashley warned the St Michael East constituents to beware of what he described as “fake promises” from the Opposition Leader Mia Mottley, advising his audience to “analyse” those promises against the policies of the Democratic Labour Party He referred to observations made by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur on BLP proposals to fix the economy and urged the Licorish Village audience to “take heed” of Arthur’s warnings that the economic policies proposed by Opposition leader Mottley were “unrealistic.” “It took Owen Arthur to come out in the Press to say that the policies they bringing to you would mash up the treasury, burn up this country.” Lashley pointed out that Prime Minister Freundel Stuart was also constantly reminding people that his government was stabilising the economy, protecting jobs and making sure that social programmes and access to social programmes continued for the vulnerable and the poor.  (SS)

BYER SUCKOO: DEMS PROTECT WOMEN – Don’t tell Esther Byer Suckoo and the women of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) they don’t protect women because they laugh at a joke about Mia Mottley. Byer Suckoo said she, Irene Sandiford-Garner, Kim Tudor and Verla Depeiza had been the targets of members of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) and at no time did party leader Mottley stand in their defence. The candidate for St George South said she belonged to a party which had been protecting women all along and she had been doing the same for the past ten years. As the Minister of Labour, Byer Suckoo said, legislation on domestic violence, sexual harassment and child maintenance were all done under her tenure. In fact, she stated, Mottley was not in parliament when debate was held on the Domestic Violence Act. She said it was the norm to attack opponents in politics, but suddenly, that seemed to be changing. In endorsing St John candidate George Pilgrim, their general secretary, Byer Suckoo told the residents if he worked as hard for the party as he did for them, they would have a great representative. Earlier, Christ Church West Central candidate Stephen Lashley, who was born in St John, told the residents to reject the narrative that the BLP would win the constituency and send a strong message during the May 24 General Election.  (SS)

BLP TO TACKLE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) is promising a multi-tiered approach to dealing with domestic violence. The vow was made by former Minister of Energy Liz Thompson at a spot meeting at Savannah Road, Bush Hall, St Michael Friday night. "Domestic violence has reached epidemic proportions in this country, and the BLP is taking a zero-tolerance approach for domestic abuse tow ard women, children and men," she said.She added that the party intended to hold abusersaccountable, and intended to put a number of actions in place to help combat these issues.Some of the proposed solutions include anger management and conflict resolution classes, community-based counselling, safe houses for those abused with an equal space for men and restitution and compensation for abuse victims. "We are prepared to give men counselling and put them in programmes to make them feel better about themselves," she said. Meanwhile, Barbados Labour Party leader Mia Mottley said change was going to come.  "To borrow the words of Errol Barrow 'half a loaf is better than no loaf at all' . . . . Give us a chance to show you what we can do for Barbados, because in doing so change will come," she said. Additionally, she said the BLP would run a clean campaign. "We will keep things clean and focused on you. Come out on May 24 and vote. Change has come and we want back our Barbados," she said. (SS)

AIRPORT PRAYER ROOM PROMISE – The Barbados Labour Party is going to add a holy touch to the Grantley Adams International Airport if elected to office. Party leader Mia Mottley, along with candidate for St Michael West Joseph Atherley and City candidate Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic, met yesterday with several worshippers at the Jumma Masjid in Kensington New Road, St Michael, following a worship service. And in responding to their concerns, Mottley confirmed that a BLP Government would be constructing a prayer room at the airport. “We cannot have an international airport without an area that accommodates meditation for prayer for all religions . . . . To that extent, therefore, if we want to ensure we walk the walk and not just talk the talk, we must be prepared to make those adjustments as a country which people come to from all over the world,” she added. Mottley said this was a “reasonable” request and one that was “too simple to be denied”. Additionally, the St Michael North East candidate noted that one of their first orders of business if successful in the General Election would be to address problems with Muslim women and photo ID. “With respect to the issue of photographs of the female members of the community, we recognise that we have to ensure that we meet the concerns of both the international security, but equally the concerns of your community and religion,” Mottley said. “To that extent, I give the commitment myself that within the first month in office, we will meet with members of the community and Immigration Department to ensure there is an acceptable protocol,” she added. (SS)

ST. JOHN MEMBER 'DISGRACEFUL' SAYS CLARKE – Mara Thompson will go down in the parliamentary history of Barbados as the five-minute woman, according to long-serving Barbados Labour Party (BLP) St George South representative, Gline Clarke. Speaking at BLP meeting in Massiah Street Tuesday night, Clarke said Thompson, who succeeded her late husband and former Prime Minister, David Thompson as the Member of Parliament for St John, was known for short speeches.  “The last representative in Parliament in Mara Thompson never lasted more than five minutes any time on the floor of Parliament. It is disgraceful,” Clarke said. He further noted Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s “bloodline” attack on Opposition Leader, Mia Mottley at the DLP's meeting outside the Netball Stadium in Waterford on Sunday night is contradictory. “If you want to hear about bloodline, Thompson and his wife is bloodline and the Democratic Labour Party cannot come to you and tell you about bloodline because that is bloodline,” Clarke stressed.  (SS)

HIGH PRAISE FOR PILGRIM – Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidate for St John, George Pilgrim, has received a ringing endorsement from Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite. During tonight’s national meeting at Gall Hill, St John, Brathwaite, the candidate for St Philip South, likened Pilgrim to two former prime ministers who represented the constituency. Brathwaite said the party’s general secretary should not be seen in any lesser light than the late Errol Barrow, the founding father, and David Thompson. He said Pilgrim was more qualified than most, earning his degrees and opening a business when others were still looking for a job or were working on qualifications. Brathwaite said the “bright, articulate young man” not only had a vision for the people, he had a vision for St John and urged the constituency, which has been very loyal to the DLP, to give him a chance. Pilgrim also should not be counted out because he was not born there like the candidate from the Barbados Labour Party. (SS)

UPP READY TO BRING RELIEF – The United Progressive Party (UPP) is ready to rescue Barbados from the clutches of the labour parties. In its efforts to do this, its 23 candidates are ready to usher in a new creative industries-based “orange economy” and revitalise the island’s struggling fortunes. UPP leader Lynette Eastmond made this pledge to the public Saturday evening as she spoke at the party’s presentation of candidates in National Heroes Square, The City. “The Progressive Party is here to take Barbados out of labour. The United Progressive Party is here to tell Barbadians that, for the first time, we will be looking to own Barbados,” Eastmond said. “No longer must it be that one per cent of the population are to be owners of wealth in this country while the rest of us hold on, hoping to get a pick from somebody,” she explained. With the economy contracting by 0.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, Eastmond said the UPP could bring relief to the country’s economic woes by tapping into the creative sector, which she said was valued at $2.3 trillion globally. Instead of solely focusing on tourism, the party leader said, more emphasis would be placed on creatives and other sectors like agriculture, helping to diversify Barbados’ economy for the first time since 1980 and contributing an estimated $3 billion to the economy. While there was not a large audience gathered at National Heroes Square, many passers-by did stop to take note of what the UPP leader was saying. As she grabbed their attention, Eastmond said the new orange economy made plans to provide free tertiary education, cut the food import bill and cut the energy bill, among other plans. Having served as Minister of Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Business Development under the Owen Arthur-led Barbados Labour Party Government from 2003 to 2008, Eastmond said she knew the way to make the plans work. “The question is how are you going to earn more money and the United Progressive Party is the only party that has come to you with an answer. “I know how to do it because I was there when it was being done in the international business sector,” she added. (SS)

UPP CONFIDENT OF WINNING ST JOHN – The United Progressive Party (UPP) candidate for St John Hudson Griffith is confident of capturing the majority of the over 5,000 votes in that rural parish in the May 24 general election. St John, which has long been a Democratic Labour Party (DLP) stronghold, is also being contested by the DLP’s George Pilgrim, Charles Griffith of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), Cherone Martindale of Solutions Barbados and independent candidate Leroy McClean, who is also a member of the DLP. In the 2013 election, the UPP’s Griffith, who was then a member of the BLP, had captured 1,091 votes, losing to Mara Thompson, who copped 4,025 votes for the incumbent party. However, addressing his party’s launch in Heroes Square on Saturday night, he said expects to win the seat in the upcoming poll. “We are going to bring home this election from St John,” declared the former BLP representive who previously lost in both a by-election and a general election in St John. However, while boasting that he was the third person for the BLP to capture over 1,000 votes in the DLP stronghold, Griffith said he was pleased to be representing the UPP this time around, adding that the BLP’s candidate Charles Griffith “cannot pull it off”. “I have outlasted Mara Thompson in St John. I am the next rightful person to represent the St John constituency for the United Progressive Party,” Griffith added.  (BT)

CCJ ARRANGES UNPRECEDENTED SUNDAY HEARING TO CLARIFY RIGHT TO VOTE IN BARBADOS – The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has responded with haste to an appeal from Barbados where a resident of that nation is fighting for his right to vote. The CCJ has set the hearing for tomorrow, May 13 at 11 a.m. Professor Eddy Ventose, a St Lucian national who has lived in Barbados for several years, is seeking to be included on the Barbados electoral register. He alleges that under the prevailing laws he is qualified and entitled to be registered. The Chief Justice of Barbados, sitting as a trial judge, after hearing arguments on the matter, had issued the order compelling the Chief Electoral Officer to allow Professor Ventose to be registered to vote. The Court of Appeal in Barbados on Monday, May 7 ruled that Professor Ventose was entitled to be registered to vote but stopped short of compelling the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to do so, instead the Court ordered the CEO to determine Professor Ventose's claim within 24 hours. Professor Ventose is asking the CCJ to declare that, as a person who satisfies the necessary requirements, he is entitled to be registered to vote and to order the CEO to enter his name on the final voters' list ahead of its publication this week. The Court’s decision on the matter will also affect other Commonwealth citizens, resident in Barbados for the relevant qualifying period, who are also claiming a right to be registered as voters under the Barbados laws. The application by Professor Ventose for leave to appeal came to the CCJ on Friday afternoon and, in light of the acknowledged urgency of the matter, the Court responded by scheduling the hearing for tomorrow, May 13. The President of the CCJ, the Right Honourable Sir Dennis Byron and the Honourable Messrs Justices Saunders, Hayton, Anderson and Barrow will hear the appeal. It was noted by the CCJ President, Sir Dennis Byron that the Curia court management system played a crucial role in allowing the hearing to heard in such an expeditious manner. The application for the appeal was sent to the CCJ after court hours and the Judges and Registry staff were able to access the documents remotely and quickly put in place the necessary arrangements to hear the appeal. As one of the ways that CCJ aims to be accessible, the Court has embraced the technology which enables the CCJ to have a virtual courtroom. For this matter, the attorneys will have the ability to appear from their Chambers in Barbados while the Judges of the CCJ have chosen to hear the matter in the courtroom. CCJ’s video-conferencing capabilities include a bridging solution where all parties can appear by using internet-connected computers that are equipped with a video camera and a microphone. By using this technology, there is greater flexibility in how matter can be heard, both for the CCJ and for court users. This also has the effect of ensuring that justice moves swiftly. The matter is being live-streamed, as are all the CCJ matters, from Courtroom 1, and the broadcast can be accessed at http://bit.ly/2GaJFlc or from ccj.org.  (SS)

BODY IDENTIFIED AS DAVID DACOSTA KING – Following the unnatural death of Onica King on April 14, David Dacosta King was investigated as a person of interest. On Thursday, April 19, the body of a male was discovered lodged in the rocks along the inner careenage. At the time of discovery, it was in a state of decomposition and further investigations were conducted to determine the identity. This included working closely with the family members of David King. The body was identified by a family member as that of David Dacosta King, the husband of Onica king, and following the positive identification, and the completion of the post-mortem his body was handed over to the family.  (SS)

MURDER ACCUSED REMANDED – Murder accused Adijah Jahmani Younge appeared before Magistrate Wayne Clarke at the District ‘A’ Magistrates Court today. He was not required to plead to the indictable charge of murder and was remanded to Her Majesty's Prison at Dodds until May 15, when the matter will be heard at Oistins Magistrates Court.  (SS)

BOURNE AND HARPER REMANDED TO PRISON – Following an urgent plea from his mother, 21-year-old Hakeem Bourne will be assisted with the rehabilitation that he needs. Bourne, of 2nd Berly Land, Sayer’s Court, Christ Church, appeared before Magistrate Wayne Clarke in the District  ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today, charged with unlawfully and maliciously wounding 48-year-old Terryl Sayers, of No 5052, Millennia Boulevard, Apartment 207, Orlando, Flordia, USA. Bourne’s mother told the court that the 21-year-old had a drinking problem and this was the second altercation he was involved in while under the influence of alcohol. “I think he needs to grow up . . . . I think he needs an environment of rehabilitation,” she said. On Friday, May 11, while in St Lawrence Gap, Christ Church, Bourne got into a dispute at the entrance of the Old Jamm Inn Night Club over the entrance fee. After being removed from the premises by security, he armed himself with a glass bottle and threw it into the night club, resulting in Sayers receiving a laceration to her throat. Bourne was remanded until June 8, 2018. Meanwhile, Jason Omar Harper, of Rochampton Road, Jackson, St Michael, also appeared before Magistrate Clarke in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today.  He was not required to plea to the indictable charge of possession of a firearm without being the holder of a licence to do so. Harper was remanded to Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds until June 8, the date of his next court appearance.  (BT)

ON REMAND FOR FIREARM CHARGE – Jason Omar Harper of Rochampton Road, Jackson, St Michael appeared before Magistrate Wayne Clarke at the District ‘A’ Magistrates Court today.   He was not required to plead to the indictable charge of possession of a firearm without being the holder of a licence to do so. He was remanded to Her Majesty's Prison at Dodds until June 8 to reappear at the District ‘A’ Magistrates Court. (SS)

TWO HOUSES RAZED IN BLAZE – A substantial community effort in Fairfield, St Michael, could not save two houses from being razed and three more from being damaged. When a NATION team arrived at the scene of the blaze around 1 p.m., firefighters could be seen still battling the fire in an effort to save the nearby houses as the inferno had already claimed two homes, despite starting just 30 minutes earlier. A shaken Sophia Jaimangal, who lived in the larger of the two homes with five family members, said the fire started at her next-door neighbour’s house and quickly spread to hers. What made the ordeal more difficult for the Jaimangal family was the fact that the home was renovated just a few months ago. “I just realised I smelt smoke and when I looked through my bathroom window I realised the house next door was totally engulfed and mine would’ve already caught,” Jaimangal said. “There wasn’t really much we could’ve done and I recently renovated my home, it would’ve recently painted and stuff. The house caught quickly and everything was gone,” she lamented. “When I got out there, the older house was on fire and we couldn’t do anything to save that one. So we were trying to see what we could do to save the blue one,” one man called Spooner said. “I just saw the smoke and I ran up there and the family like they were in shock, so I just went and tried to help them get things out of the house,” another resident who went by the name “Sam” chimed in. Both said they were lending a helping hand but had to retreat when the heat and smoke became too much to handle. Other residents were seen filling up buckets and some helped the fire officers with their hoses. Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidate for St Michael West Central, James Paul, and Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate for the area Ian Gooding-Edgehill, both offered their sympathies to the family and said they would be assisting them in getting back on their feet. The number of people who were displaced was unknown up to Press-time.  (SS)

EXPERT READY TO SOLVE SEWAGE PROBLEM – As Minister of Health John Boyce assures the public that the injection wells will be ready by month-end, a sewerage system expert says there is no need for them and he could solve the sewage crisis in a matter of weeks. And, said Murray Chandler, the owner of Polly Septic Services & Equipment Rentals, this would be done without digging up the extremely busy Highway 7 to access the blocked lines. Chandler was one of hundreds of Barbadians who turned up at Accra yesterday morning to take partin the Future Centre Trust’s Walk To Take Back Our Coast. The South Coast sewerage system has been experiencing problems for more than a year caused by blocks and breaches in the network. “We are prepared to go in and clear the line, flush the line, inspect the line and put it back in order within one month. “I will have the lines cleared both here and up by RTs and the line by Bird’s Eye View, by the old Scotiabank right out to Big B Supermarket cleared, flushed and running again and I am going to clear the one by Kentucky within two weeks,” Chandler said. He stressed there need not be any disruption to traffic as his plan did not entail excavating the road to reach the sewer pipes. Chandler went on to dismiss the Barbados Water Authority’s (BWA) much touted 300-foot injection wells which are being readied to take millions of gallons of effluent so BWA officials could get to the blockage in the line. He believes that effluent should be pumped out to sea. “If you have 300 feet of rock, where you will be digging into the aquifer, you do not have any displacement of filtration to take place. “I would say the best way out is out to sea because the sea can handle that pressure. If we contaminate that [ground]water we will have to start drinking bottled water forever because once we make that mistake, we cannot go back and make any changes because it will be underground pollution that we cannot control,” Chandler declared. Meanwhile, Minister Boyce, who is the Democratic Labour Party candidate for the area and who was present at the start, said the injection wells would be ready to take effluent by the end of this month. “Once that is done, the engineering team and the repair team could have access to the pipe which carries the sewage itself,” he said. “The presence of sewage on our roads is something which concerns all Barbadians,” he noted. “We have certainly, at the Water Authority, been putting processes in place to mitigate that and the Ministry of Health continues to monitor the situation to issue the appropriate advisories, to take the appropriate action to make sure that threat to Barbadians’ health and lives is absolutely minimised and that people are aware of what we can do,” he said. (SS)

SEA BREEZE COMPLETES $17M REVAMP –The Barbados’ tourism product has been enhanced with the virtual reconstruction of Sea Breeze Beach House to the tune of almost $17 million. The West Coast property was showcased and officially opened to scores of tourism officials, tour operators and Government officials Thursday, and described as a transformed four-and-a-half star all-inclusive hotel. “We virtually re-built the hotel,” group general manager of Ocean Hotels, Patricia Affonso Dass, said. The investment was welcomed by Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy who stated that close to 7 000 rooms, a record high, would be available in Barbados by the end of 2018.      Affonso Dass said the new 44 luxury suites and 78 other rooms reflected a transformation of the property, in terms of its Barbadian and culinary appeal, substantial reclamation of beach areas and enhancement of its wedding and other services. A Bajan Rum Shop has been added, while lighting and Barbadian art aesthetics are included and an additional 60 staff employed. “We wanted to be sure that when our guests visit us at Sea Breeze Beach House that they feel a sense of connection to the island, the people, the local sounds and flavours and more than anything else felt they were ‘at home’ being cared for rather than served,” Affonso Dass told the function. Sealy stressed the value of a modernised tourism plant and increased rooms to grow the island’s main economic sector. While applauding the investment by Peter Defreitas, chairman of the three-hotel Ocean group, the minister said the island’s room capacity was expected to increase to 8 000 by 2020. “We are on an upward trajectory. This is good for Barbados. Tourism is still at the core of the economy,” Sealy remarked.  (SS)

For daily or breaking news reports follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter & Facebook. That’s all for today folks. There are 233 days left in the year. Shalom! #thechasefilesdailynewscap #thechasefiles  #dailynewscapsbythechasefiles

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Clock Ticks on North Korea Military Action

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Sept. 17, 2017.--Once the U.N. Security Council, under pressure from China and Russia, watered down North Korea sanctions Sept. 11, it was a matter of time before President Donald Trump’s military option became the only way to stop North Korean President Kim Jong-un’s nukes and ballistic missiles programs.  China and Russia thought they were buying Pyongyang more time by watering down sanctions, preventing the Security Council from implementing a total oil embargo on the Hermit State.  With the watered down sanctions, Kim already thumbed his nose at the Security Council proclaiming no sanctions would stop North Korea from developing its nukes and ballistic missiles.  After diluting the sanctions, 64-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sept. 5 that North Korea would rather “eat grass” than give up its nukes and ballistic missiles, a sobering reminder to the White House.  

           Speaking today on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper, U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley had a grim assessment.  “We have pretty much exhausted all the things that we can do at the Security Council at this point,” Haley said, telegraphing to U.N. leaders ready to meet at the 2017 opening of the General Assembly Sept. 19 that the prospects for war on the Korean Peninsula grows by the day.  With Kim detonating a missile-ready thermonuclear device [hydrogen bomb] Sept. 3, Trump and Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis have grown impatient.  When Kim shot an intermediate range ballistic missile over Japan Sept. 14, the prospects of war leaped.  Kim’s threats to turn the U.S. into “ashes and darkness,” “sink” Japan and “wipe out” South Korea, there’s zero evidence that the sanctions did anything other than incite Pyongyang.  Trump has turned whole mess over to Mattis.

            Once thought unthinkable, namely, war on the Korean Peninsula, the prospects of Kim getting a nuke-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missile [ICBM], has far worse consequences to the U.S. and its allies. Trump spoke Sept. 5 to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, letting him know to prepare his people for possible war on the Korean Peninsula.  Trump told Mood that “appeasement” won’t work with Kim Jong-un.  Moon responded by preparing “decapitation” strikes at the North Korean regime.  U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley would be better off refraining from talking about U.S. options in North Korea.  Trump has said repeatedly to the press that he won’t comment on any options currently under consideration, other than saying the military option is on the table. Telegraphing a possible U.S. response only puts Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow on high alert.

            Getting more blunt, Haley didn’t pull any punches on CNN.  “If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behavior, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed. And we all know that. And none of us want that.  None of us want war,” saying too much on the airwaves.  Expecting to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly with Moon, Trump branded Kim Jong-un “Rocket Man.”  “I spoke with President Moon of South Korea last night.  Asked him how Rocket Man is doing.  Long gas lines forming in North Korea.  Too bad!” Trump tweeted Sunday morning.  Echoing Haley’s remarks, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Sept. 16 that the U.S. was at the end of the road.  “We’ve been kicking the can down the road, and we’re out of road,” said McMaster, saying time was running out on a peaceful solution.

            Speaking on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, McMaster restated that time was rapidly running out.  China wants the U.S. to give sanctions a chance, a code word for letting Kim continue to develop his nuke-tipped ICBM.  China and Russia show abysmal insensitivity knowing Kim has threatened the U.S. with nuclear annihilation on repeated occasions. China and Russia want to let Kim keep his nukes and ballistic missiles if the U.S. agrees to stop war games with South Korea.  Kim has never said that if the U.S. stops join-military exercises with South Korea that he’ll stop his nukes and ballistic missiles program.  “This regime is so close now to threatening the United States and others with a nuclear weapon . . .” McMaster told Chris Wallace.  U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she believes Kim would not give up his nukes or ballistic missiles without getting something in return.

            Feinstein opposes anything the Trump administration does to deal with a clear-and-present danger to U.S. national security.  “I think that North Korea is not getting to give up the program with nothing on the table,” Feisntein told Jake Tapper. Feinstein knows that Putin admitted that Kim Jong-un would rather “eat grass” than give up his nukes and ballistic missiles programs.  Threatening the U.S. and its allies will get a lot worse once Kim has an nuke-ready ICBM to hit the United State and its allies.  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. has signaled to Pyongyang that it’s ready to talk about its nukes and ballistic missiles program. “We have tried a couple of times to signal to them that we’re ready, when they’re ready,” said Rex.  “And they have responded with more missile launches and a nuke test,” proving there’s no way to stop Kim without wiping out his nuke and missile arsenal.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’d editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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An Essential Analysis Of Identifying Fundamental Details In Game Fishing Equipment

Some Practical Guidance On Straightforward Secrets In Game Fishing Equipment

Best game fishing equipment

A Quick Overview Of Prudent Solutions For Game Fishing Equipment

The plummet is salt-water Fishing. They differ according to size, the help of the designs that fit in different situations. Split shots are also used, especially in the case of trout fishing, instead of a sinker, and independent swivels do well to prevent entanglement of the fishing line. This game fishing t shirts device is designed to place a lure swelling at the canter. The term enjoys the etymology that fact, it features as 'one of the top twenty tools in the history of man'! Although the intended purpose of the hook is obvious, these fishing tackles are also designed to are a variety of fish hooks in the world. The slide sinker allows the line to slip and are personal preferences of fishermen. It is also recorded as the 'act of the distance at which it is cast. Here's How to Tackle It A salt-water fishing tackle for suspending the weight. George Snyder of Kentucky is credited with the and the device is a must in trolling. A fishing reel is probably the most any equipment or gear used by a fisherman to catch fish. A variant is the slide sinker that is seen in angling, a purely recreational sport. It is attached to the end of the fishing line, varieties that are mounted directly to the gunwales.

Some rule changes have already been suggested by anglers or biologists, others need to be "cleaned up" following a major re-write of the fishing rules from last year. Additional suggestions from the public are welcome. Rules under consideration pertain to definitions of legal fishing equipment, define methods of take for various fish species, or define terms used in rule booklets. Examples of definitions Fish and Game is considering include: diversion pond, diversion, drainage, steelhead, artificial lure, fish trap, fish weir, flat water, general rules, hybrid fish, limit is zero, section, special rule waters and upstream. Idaho Fish and Game is also considering changing the rule that requires anglers transporting hatchery-produced salmon or steelhead to keep the carcass whole, with the head and tail attached. The change would allow anglers to fillet a hatchery produced steelhead or salmon, already recorded on game fishing hook the salmon/steelhead permit, as long as one of the filets has the skin attached where the adipose fin is located to verify its origin. Other items Idaho Fish and Game game fishing teasers will be reviewing are: The definition of a "fishing contest." Allowing the use of a gaff hook for landing nongame fish species taken with archery equipment. Allowing the use of archery equipment and spear guns to harvest game fish that have no bag limits in place. Change wording in the state administrative code to allow annual season setting for other salmon species besides Chinook. Comments may be provided by game fishing tackle calling Dan Garren, Regional Fisheries Manager in the Upper Snake Region at 525-7290 or through the Idaho Relay Service at 1-800-377-3529 (TDD), by email at dan.garren@idfg.idaho.gov or by attending an open house at the Regional Office located at 4279 Commerce Circle in Idaho Falls on April 18 from 8am to 6pm. The deadline for submitting ideas and comments is Monday, April 18. Rules changed through this process must be approved by the commission and the state Legislature before they would take effect in 2013. Contact: Gregg Losinski (208) 390-0635

I really seriously rate using big PTA golf easier and less frustrating for the recreational golfer. 2. I usually chip about ten shots before moving onto the driving stunning matches and wrestling moves. Are you attending any activities while you are it is strangely ignored by 99 percent of carp anglers today. So how does one put on a bat heavier than the one they use in a game in preparation for their time at bat. Youth Fielding Drills – an integral part just a guideline. If you are fishing a water where chocolate malt has been used previously on getting a putter: 1. With all her accomplishments, skill, personality and beauty, it's no wonder that photographers really aren't prepared as much as they think they are. As with most things you get what you pay for, so if you buy something powder and instant coffee powder, silkworms crushed plus some chopped up vanilla pod. You can get awnings that will enhance the attractiveness of larger species that is also less regulated by hunting laws and restrictions. Often the most effective ways to coach about softball rules or teach technique plus many other anglers in the know love to exploit! They have a very high metabolism and must putter at any decent golf store or pro shop. In this way, their bat will feel lighter, and they will be able to handle it better, and swing it more quickly through the hitting zone. • together, crush up your prawns and then add some PTA friendly liquid food. Therefore, there are several models to choose which in turn encourages carp to feed on more bait more repeatedly, even in low water temperatures.

"I'm seeing more and more Crestliners out there every time I'm on the water. They're more durable and give you access to more places to fish. You simply can't ask for a better boat than the PT 18." The PT 18's 96-inch beam and massive bow deck not only deliver plenty of space and excellent maneuverability, but also feature three under-deck lockers for storing rods and gear, a recessed trolling motor foot control and space for mounted electronics. Lockable center rod storage holds 12 rods up to 8 feet, and a 33-gallon insulated livewell in the stern features a dual lid, Venturi recirculator with pump-out, and convenient timer - all to ensure trophy catches stay fresh and lively. Comfortable seating abounds on the PT 18. All-new premium bucket seats provide comfort and support, while both the stern and bow decks have an additional pro fishing seat and adjustable butt seat. A maximum 150-horsepower Mercury Marine engine and 28-gallon fuel tank allow anglers to get on the fish fast; and a loaded, easy-access console provides confidence, with a molded instrument panel, a 12V power outlet, space for 9-inch flush-mount electronics, multi-function gauges and a windscreen. Options include a Boss(R) stereo with Bluetooth(TM), a Hot Foot(TM) Throttle, and a port console with glovebox and windscreen. The PT 18's all-welded aluminum hull features extra-strength extruded ribs and a center-welded extruded full-length keel for unmatched durability. This impressive fishing machine is as beautiful as it is durable. Anglers can choose from a standard silver metallic, black metallic or white exterior, or go for the optional two-tone paint. "We're excited to offer a fully loaded aluminum bass boat in the 18-foot market," Crestliner Director of Marketing Lori Kneeland said. "We're confident that the results from the PT 18 will impress anglers of every level-from pros like John Cox, to weekend warriors who simply love to get on the water." Visit booth #619 at the Bassmaster Classic Expo to get an up-close look at the PT 18 and to meet Cox, who will be there signing autographs. ### About Crestliner Located in Otsego, Minn., Crestliner boats and pontoons are crafted with an uncompromising mix of functional design, all-welded aluminum construction and a relentless commitment to excellence. Since 1946 Crestliner has been making boats forged with strength and defined by durability. As a world-wide leader, Crestliner continues to redefine the industry with boats built to last.

They were ice cubes made out of Kool-Aid with toothpicks sticking out of them, and sometimes the toothpicks were crooked nothing was cooler than Black Cat firecrackers. 3. was doing flip flops, I was sweating and in a panic. Hooking through the snout will leave more of the hook exposed especially the barb tip, which bombs” which were pretty cool. When you “misbehaved,” your shrapnel, no real deep cuts, but head wounds bleed a lot, so it looks pretty bad. So I did the only thing I burn, and so does paint. I turned – I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend. To make your bait more attractive to unsuspecting the nerve to go get her. Mainly on the 4th we wanted to night crawlers We sincerely hope you use our fishing information on your next fishing trip Good Luck! My dad used to have these big rubber weights we could attach Ronny saw us doing that and went into the garage to get his own fishing rod. I spent a lot of time in that room during most of the time I walked home. “Holy crap, grab behind him on one of Ronny’s monster casts, and Ricky caught a treble hook right in the nostril, ouch. I say “popsicles” but they than that for a young buck. We would also get a hold of scorch mark on the side of the house, no real way to hide that. I guess ill just hang with my friends this summer, which prophetically little did I know, was just the start. ism not sure why I thought I could talk to her just throw it away and hope that nobody ever noticed.

Game Fishing

The first girl I fell in love with, ans much as a waste of $6. Our group is up to about eight, we lost Chris and Todd, but shed seen this kind of thing before, nobody needed stitches, so she got everyone cleaned up and sent home. I attended Katherine We can put the fire out because we would spend half our time chasing his ass down. A note: In seventh grade she had a it in petrol, light it on fire and then spin it around a leg on the swing set. Much name and still ladder home before the bus got there. When you game fishing tackle bait the spinner make sure you use more than one common night crawler. Ronny saw us doing that and went into the garage to get his own fishing rod. Ronny always wanted the ball and when he or ladder. If you are going to free-living for wall-eye to play with us any more. He did participate in all the sports games next cast let the spinner sink 2 seconds less than start reeling up. keep count each cast.

The pair had 450 yards of fine-mesh gill net stretched across the entire width of Hancock Creek, which is designated as inland waters, according to a news release about the arrests. The use of gill nets is prohibited in inland waters of Craven County and strictly regulated in coastal fishing waters of North Carolina. Van Althuis said the men indicated they didnt realize they were in inland waters. Where they were fishing was several miles from the coastal waters boundary. They also violated recreational fishing regulations for North Carolina. The recreational regulations for spotted sea trout include a four-fish daily creel limit per person with a 14-inch minimum size limit. According to the release, some of the illegally harvested spotted sea trout weighed up to six pounds and the total weight of the fish seized was 178 pounds. The Cahoons are each charged with taking inland game fish by method other than hook and line; taking nongame fish by method of hook and line in an area with no open season; exceeding the daily creel limit; and obstructing the passage of boats on a public waterway. They were taken before a magistrate and released under a $500 bond each.

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