#and the first time I tried hard mode after mastering medium... well

[kagaintheskywithdiamonds]

ford pines would be so good at guitar hero though. if you've played guitar hero/rock band on difficulty level hard or above you know what I'm talking about

[doorsclosingslowly]

Your death is a number but I cannot count that high (11/16)

In which Death Watch enter the enemy ship, and Asajj gets her shot at freedom.

Zombie Savage AU | 2.5k | warning for body horror

For the first time in weeks, Asajj feels light. It’s almost offensive, how quickly she slipped from world-devouring grief and heartburn and eternal nightmares into mission planning and execution mode, but then again: she enjoys bounty hunting. Pursuit and infiltration are basically her comfort zone, and even the present company cannot spoil her thrill.

She finally has solid ground under her feet again. The swamp that broils and laps at her with every dream and with every wriggling fleshworm that fucking Savage Opress sends her way is receding, and soon enough, when she gets her chance, she’ll kill it off—kill him—for good.

Asajj’s sisters and Mother Talzin may have accidentally landed her in a malignant trap when they tried to help her fight Dooku, but Asajj will chew her way free.

That’s why she volunteered to be ground troop today. She needs to rescue herself. She needs to cut off this bond, cut off the mate, cut off the drowning boulder. She’d been prepared to argue and fight for the opportunity, since it’s not like anybody trusts her here, but it was surprisingly easy. Not even a doubtful look—no, the only response she’d received was appreciation for her fearlessness in the face of certain death. Well, maybe it is. Maul keeps insisting that Savage’s torture is a trap laid by Sidious, his past shadowy Sith Master, and that setting a foot on Entralla means getting fried and disappeared and tortured. He himself is going down still, obviously—by now it doesn’t even appear to be bravado or tending to his image before his following but genuine mushy affection for that dumb creature, and if Asajj wasn’t busy she might almost be curious—Maul is coming down with her, as are Kast and Saxon and three dozen other supercommandos. That’s what they’d settled on, once their advance droid surveillance footage yesterday had revealed their target to be a small spaceship surrounded by a hundred medium-sized tents.

Maul, Kast and Saxon at once, who as far as she’s observed are the three highest-ranking members of Death Watch, and on what all of them believe is a suicide mission—Asajj would call them brain-dead, but actually, she doesn’t care. Either Maul is every inch the scared wretch of a cast-off Sith plaything he appears and is making mountains out of skrant-hills, or she’ll, most likely, be dead too. Looks like that gamorrean sow Kast likes to suck face with will soon inherit the whole sorry rest of their terrorist crew.

Most of Death Watch, though, is inside three hundred small Kom’rk-class fighters or the two stolen Separatist dreadnaughts, standing by to intercept any fleeing ship with gravity wells or sheer violence. Well. That’s one of the reasons. Every ground Mando is in periodic radio contact with one of their motherships, and should they go silent when Sidious gets them… if the mission goes sour, dead man’s switch. Asajj doesn’t know about the exact logistics of how many have to miss check-in before the omnicidal aerial bombardment begins… but she’s starting to understand Maul’s paranoia regarding this ‘Sidious’ well enough to know they’re going to risk killing their Mand’alor sooner rather than later. It’s reassuring, almost. They’ll kill Sidious no matter what.

Well. And her, too.

But Asajj knew when she allowed that Mando to think she’d captured her that this wasn’t going to be easy. Up until know she’s always found a way to make it out alive. She’ll manage. And Sidious killed her sisters. Killed Talzin. Killed Dathomir.

Sidious will die, and so will Opress. Anything else is secondary.

She’s wearing a set of scavenged armor over her clothes and a jetpack and a gas mask, nothing more. Most of the ground team have massive tanks mounted on their back, too, full of some quick heavyweight airborne soporific Death Watch managed to procure on short notice.

(“If it’s taking this long to cook something up, we could just use poison,” Asajj had suggested, entirely not for selfless reasons. “We’re using the weedkiller tanks you Mandos use for farming, after all. We could just keep the weedkiller.”

“This is still a rescue mission,” Kast had replied severely. Unfortunately, despite being a fanatic terrorist and obeying Maul of all people and a habit of throwing tantrums about the horrible plight of Savage Opress, she wasn’t entirely braindead. “Damage is acceptable, but we won’t kill our brother.”

Maul had looked on, silent.)

Maul and Asajj are going to enter the ship first. That makes sense—both of them are assassins more than soldiers, they’re better than the Mandos at keeping quiet—and even if Maul will be a hindrance when they find Savage, she can use him as a distraction before that.

It feels weird, somehow, touching ground in front of the enemy’s ship. The unconscious guards on the ground are wearing clone trooper armor, which means that—yes, it means Death Watch got the drop on them and it means the soporific gas is effective, which is great, but Asajj didn’t expect this mission against Sidious to include a Grand Army of the Republic protection detail, and neither did Maul, though he appears far less perturbed by this information than Asajj is. Nothing before has linked Sidious to the Republic. She trusts the magicks she used to find this location, though. This is where the bondmate is being held.

Maul opens a control panel next to the ship’s door and plays around with a couple of screwdrivers, while Mando supercommandos direct their sedative gas into the ship’s pried-open air vents.

And… they’re in.

Too easy.

This was far too easy for a secret prison of the illusive Sith Lord, and Maul, apparently, thinks so too. He keeps glancing sideways at her while the supercommandos tie up the sedated soldiers outside and while they enter the ship’s galley, and he insists they shouldn’t split up.

“This location does not appear my Master’s—my former Master’s style,” he whispers in his clipped accent. “It’s neither desolate, nor are there plush red carpets. It’s not a torture dungeon.” Maul looks at Asajj, and his eyes gleam with suspicion. “If you have lied to me, you are dead. If this hurts my brother, you’ll wish you were.”

“This is the place. My sisters’ magicks are never wrong,” Asajj replies haughtily. It won’t do any good if both of them admit to their unease.

(Maul’s been vibrating faintly ever since Asajj broke into his brain to find Opress. It’s probably fear and anticipation, and most of all the superfluous awareness of him that she’s gained ever since exploiting both their bonds. Maybe he was always this high-strung.

“Someone’s attacking him,” he’d whispered to her just minutes before they reached Entralla, as if by joining their minds she had proven she cared. His eyes had been dark, agonized. In a movement that appeared entirely involuntary, he’d gripped at his neck as if looking for a pendant, and then he’d hugged himself, holding onto his torso and stomach as if his slippery entrails were ready to leak out.

Asajj had looked down and realized she was mirroring him.

When she slid her eyes half-shut, she could see the shadows of undulating metal cables.)

The ship, on the inside, just appears a standard Republic cruiser. It has a single long hallway that Asajj is pulled down by the worms in her gut, and Maul, frowning and broadcasting dread, follows.

They pass unconscious Republic clones at uneven intervals.

It’s so—ordinary. Asajj knows these ships. And there are no traps at all, just that pulsing connection drawing her forwards, shading and twisting, the memory of desolation and grief and that orange boy getting chocked (Kast’s eyes were so hard when she said, “He tried to give me his lightsaber, too, so I would have an easy time of killing him, if—when, he said, when he was used again to hurt his little brother,” that Asajj almost felt guilty) and everyone on Dathomir is dead and—

There.

She stops, and Maul comes to a halt behind her, ‘saber raised.

An open doorway, half-blocked by an armored redhead that seems vaguely familiar, and the beckoning hand of her sisters, and if Sidious doesn’t have the heart to provide a distraction for Maul then Asajj will just improvise.

“Back there, I think,” Asajj whispers, pointing at a random closed door to her left. “I can feel your brother in there.”

Maul’s eyes are wide. “I do not feel—are you sure?” he whispers, and he looks so young and hopeful bathed in the green glow he doesn’t understand and never had a right to wear that Asajj almost dares to believe her plan will work.

“I know these magicks,” Asajj drawls. “I don’t mind double-checking, but I thought you wanted him as alive as possible. He’s not doing well. Might get deep-fried at any moment, that’s not healthy for such a weak brain.”

It works. Maul bites back whatever kind of response he might have had, and he starts frantically working on slicing the door that was—her sisters are smiling upon Asajj—thankfully locked.

Asajj, meanwhile, tiptoes hurriedly forward and past the redhead—almost a decent glimpse of his head, why does she feel she knows him and—and inside the room she looks at a monster. The scene is arranged as if to mock her, a single bare cot in the middle of the room approximating a stone slab and the dimmed red electric lights a stand-in for the fire on the day she was tied to the boulder that tries to drown her. On the cot, as he was supine on the slab back then, lies unconscious Savage Opress.

Well. The used dog toy formerly known as Opress.

He’s always made her uncomfortable, even when they met. First, it was his silent bruised obsequiousness and the glances he’d shoot her after that arena fight, like he expected her to ravish him then and there just because she’d beaten him up. The sense that she’d stumbled into a world she didn’t understand drawn in silent rules and violence and sex—and Asajj has never liked that anxiety born of ignorance though she can and will tough it out and persevere, and only with the bond strangling her did she realize her stupid mistake—the sense that there was something hiding below her feet ready to devour her. He only got more obsequious and annoying after the ritual that tied Asajj to him, with his empty brainless eyes that somehow simultaneously said do whatever you want with me and I’ll kill you. She was happy to use him, if it got her traitorous ex-Master Dooku off her back, but she was at least as happy that the plan included Opress staying at Dooku’s side, not hers. Well, in the end, he was as useless as he was stupid and creepy, and Asajj had to fight Dooku on her own while Opress escaped his leash and used the power gifted to him by Talzin to harass innocent villagers and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He doesn’t have the body that Mother Talzin gave him anymore. Not that he ever deserved it.

Savage Opress, who is bound by ancient magicks to Asajj, looks like someone took his corpse and stuffed it full of a crashed spaceship debris in a desperately poor attempt at covering up an accident. The body Mother Talzin’s Dathomiri magicks gave him was stout, forceful, architected and executed with a keen eye and deep control, while whoever did this was a careless butcher. Asajj has seen carnage and pain, she’s fought and killed and maimed, and yet she has never seen anything as bestial as the body before her.

Savage Opress, who is making her share his torture through a telepathic bond, looks like a gutted carcass. This is what became of one of the three last survivors of Dathomir: worms writhe in and out of him, the things she’s been feeling like phantom maggots burrowing into her heart made real and she can see them feasting and seaming up his raw mottled shoulders and lap at the empty spots where someone tore out his hearts. He’s still conscious, though, just asleep. She can feel him feeling the worms. She can see him breathing, though he doesn’t need to, not without an intact torso. Not without hearts. She feels sick. So this is what has been calling out to her. What has been sliding into her mind, unstoppable and unwanted. This has violated her dreams.

Savage Opress, the bondmate Asajj came here to covertly murder, looks like death would be a mercy.

“Ventress, what are you playing at? The room was empty and Kenobi is here,” Maul hisses from somewhere behind her. “I told you. You’ll die for your betrayal—Savage…”

Asajj turns, expecting a fight, but Maul looks like the air was punched out of him, and he’s rooted to the doorway. The air around him tastes of abhorrence and dawning dread. He could have reached Savage before her, in her stupor—he could have jammed his ‘saber into her back—but now she’s jolted loose and ready to take her one chance at freedom.

To take mercy on Savage, for once in her life.

She drives her lightsaber into his right eye socket.

Maul’s scream behind her is vile, deeply inhuman and guttural and echoing over and over and over in the small room. It’s so loud her eye starts to hurt. His howl is the storm and the cave and the first drink in a lifetime. It’s green. It’s gentleness and sympathy he thought his Master had long driven out of the apprentice, but in teaching Savage he can’t help but refrain from using the techniques he once had endured himself. He doesn’t understand the reason—he is Sith and if he does not teach his apprentice to draw power from pain, he will have failed him. He doesn’t understand, but he feels something quake when he is called brother and when he notices he turned his back to Savage and never even expected to get hurt—he doesn’t understand, but somehow, he does. He loves Savage. Savage loves him. Maul was never meant for love, was made a weapon to be used and abused and discarded by a Master wielding power he’ll never attain, but somehow, Maul found this one person who loves him. Maul lost the person who loves him. Maul just lost him again. Maul won’t lose the person who loves him. He won’t. He can’t. He refuses. He loves—

And desperate love paints the room acid green. Greedy love tears the cot to tiny metal shreds. Unconditional love presses hot and painful into Asajj’s right eye, and she’s taking tiny measured steps toward Savage, in rhythmic unison with Maul and unstoppable no matter how hard she tries to take back her body.

Love, no matter what it takes, and both their green-bathed hands touch Savage.

All goes black.

[theobaldhobson]

Once the pier and the fingers were in place, we knew we had something that would work.

In some cases, excessive earwax in dogs may lead to ear infection, whereas in others, ear infection due to other causes lead to excessive earwax. "This agreement is an integral step towards Pacific Seaplanes' goal of providing expanded seaplane services to the west

oakley m frame ice iridium

coast of Vancouver Island," said Pacific Seaplanes CEO Randy Hanna."Attracting seaplane scheduled service here has been a priority of the port and certainly on my desk," said PAPA director of public relations and business development Dave McCormick.Getting seaplanes to utilize Centennial Pier on catalog cercei aur turcia a scheduled basis has been a project years in the making, said City of Port Alberni economic development manager Pat Deakin."We began seriously chasing after seaplanes in 2013," said Deakin.Although the pier's main purpose was to act as a breakwater for the ships at Fisherman's Harbour, Deakin said that it was built with hopes that it would be a multi use structure."Once the pier and the fingers were in place, we knew we had something that would work."Deakin sees the seaplanes boosting economic development in more than one sector."It's huge for many sectors of the economy," he said."Tourism operators, for people going fishing, kayaking out in the Broken Group [Islands]. The "rotoscope" became one of the key patents in animation. She’s so wretched without you. The living arrangement the two of you have doesn't appear to be healthy for either of you. The goal: to move people through the terminal and nike air max 102 essential white out to the concourses as quickly as possible.. Jeff the BrotherhoodAre they in the zone or zoning out? The answer, of course, is yes. But the yard held darker memories as well. Just as well, she thought.. The shafts of sunlight had vanished when the last thin slice of the sun was swallowed beneath the western woods. Known Clark for years, Johnson said. Put your dancing shoes on and dance for.Santa Ana: Entrada Gratis! is one of the happy headlines of this highly popular weekend long festival, but there are several others from a performance by Ninel Condes to Flamenco and Cha Cha dance presentations. I emailed Twofour, the TV production company. My 2,4 sample has a higher maximum brightness (and black level), better grayscale color accuracy, and lower color temperature (more yellow). Dr. Hard coded references to ATTACH_HUD_CENTER_2 should be preserved in the code as it is used to test if an attachment went to a body part or a HUD location.When moustiquaire lit 1 personne ikea a HUD is worn for the first time, or when it changes retros kabátok to a different attachment point, the user is presented a dialog asking if the HUD is correctly positioned. Selmy took his simple supper llantas 4x4 online out onto the queen’s terrace that night and ate it as the sun went down. Of Colorado Women Lacrosse William Sadler Tufts Univ. "A lot of people think it's a place for bands to get signed," said Appelgren. “I gave you three. “I will have no more Unsullied slaughtered. “Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to pendientes bulgari precio call them the Usurper’s dogs. Jaime ignored that. He has also served in some of the major planning arms of the military, including a stint as assistant chief of air staff.. The witness stated that the negro ‘stood firm on his feet,’ that he adidas mariposascould turn freely in whatever direction he wished, and that he made no complaint of the mode of his confinement. Bridal Village has been left high and dry and unable to confirm if any of their orders will still go through.Minneapolis police officer has yet to talk to investigatorsMinneapolis police officer has yet to talk to investigatorsPosted:

bocanci grisport 480

Wednesday, July 19 2017 1:17 AM EDT2017 07 19 05:17:51 GMTUpdated: Wednesday, July 19 2017 6:03 PM EDT2017 07 19 22:03:45 GMTThe partner of a police officer who shot and killed an Australian woman who had called 911 told investigators he was startled by a loud sound near their squad car seconds before his partner fired his weapon.. The blade had a bit of rust on it, but that would only make it nastier. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own broken body. One may do fatal mischief without this recklessness; but when the act is done, regardless of consequences, and death ensues, it is murder in the eye of the law. Food. I know he throws hard but eventually hitters are going to figure him out. "Results to date are right in line with what we predicted and where we wanted this engine to be.". With a size of 315mm 265mm 400mm (H and a total volume of 0.0334m3, the Carbide Air 240 is not a very compact Micro ATX case, yet it takes less than half the volume of the Air 540 (61.55% less) and less volume than the Obsidian 350D (21.87% less). Simeon Souther was indicted at the October Term, 1850, of the Circuit Court for the County of Hanover, for the murder of his own slave. He has had to stand tall and strong to learn to like that one.. "Then the mines started then people started to move here and then we became a community and a territory," he said. But I do hope it works and I think that it is a very well organized and informative plan that if it does work will help the enviornment and the future generations. It's cool to see

scaun rulant inchiriere

how nicely (and responsively) it hugs even complex geometry in our model.. Every other man seemed to be clutching one, with a quiverfull of bolts hanging from his hip.. It was very awkward for her to sit on the droshky. Edd and Emmett crossed the room, their footsteps ringing on the stone floor. Lovejoy arose, and called me to go with him to see what was the result. C'mon starving Kohli of strike in the finals was unacceptable, he did this in the game against WI to Rohit. Flakes of dried blood crumbled at the touch of her fingertips, black in the lantern light. (I really did; you imagine I never read anything.) I met you afterwards in shabby boots, in the mud without goulashes, with a battered hat, and I drew my own conclusions. We see the public sentiment which has been formed by this kind of education exhibited by the following paragraph from the Cambridge Democrat, Md., Oct. At the top corner of the card, PCI Express 6 and 8 pin supplemental power connectors are present.. Australia were shot out in 32.2 overs and New Zealand were going to bat before the scheduled dinner break once again.. No. He is the living proof of the vitality of kabuki." Kishin Shinoyama, himself a master of the photographic medium, spoke to Paradis about his singular rapport with Bando Tamasburo.". One of the others might have realized what was happening. Since young King Tommen and his counsellors have become so obdurate, we mean to broach the subject with King Stannis. Look at the pictures for reference. And now that he's won the first race of the start of the end of his career, here's a look at what's next for Team Pharoah:After the race, he was led back to the stall he's been staying in at trainer Kelly Breen's barn on the Monmouth Park backstretch.

[spiritualgravity]

Spiritual Gravity

The first time I can recall hearing from a spirit is going on 20 years ago while at the gym. I was on the treadmill, early in the morning, stomping away in order to clock a few miles.

Walking at a fairly fast pace, and slowly inching up the incline, while simultaneously holding on for both dear life and onto the handle bars in hopes of not falling backwards…I attempted to skim a magazine.

There was an article about breast cancer awareness in the publication, and suddenly I had the presence of my maternal grandfather with me.

He passed away when I was 8-years-old; I only have a handful of memories of him because we did not live close by.

It was the very first time in my life when I literally knew a spirit was with me, and still, even today, I find it hard to explain this experience as well as all of them that would later happen over the next two decades.

It was as if he appeared out of no where; I didn’t physically see him, but just knew it was him. I was taken back, and quietly in my mind acknowledged him.

“Hi, hello. Umm, did you want to tell me something?”

We went back and forth — him showing me visualizations, as well as audible messages all for my sister, Christine. The messages had to do with urging her to get a mammogram, which I later found out, she had been putting off. He told me that there was nothing alarmingly wrong, but that she needed to be diligent about that screening.

There are several types of ‘mental mediumship’ abilities, ways to communicate with spirit, i.e. souls who are no longer in their physical bodies. I have clairvoyance and clairaudient abilities. 

We are spirtual beings having a human experience.

Clairvoyance is the ability to see a spirit or images (I only see images in my mind’s eye…well, until recently I physically saw spirit for the first time, but I’ll get back to that story later) that are sent telepathically by a spirit. The word has roots in two French words: clair (clear) and voir (to see), so clairvoyance means “clear seeing.” 

According to the book, Where Two Worlds Meet, the most common way mediums see clairvoyantly is through subjective clairvoyance, which is much like the way we see things in our imagination, as mental images.

Clairaudience is when mediums ‘hear’ messages from spirit. For me personally, I don’t literally hear voices — no one is shouting at me from across the room — the messages come across like my own thoughts, but they’re not mine.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been sensitive. And for most of that time, I considered this a flaw. As a teenager, my Mother used to encourage me to “stop taking on others’ drama or issues.” Like a good Mother, she was trying to protect me. I have always tried to be a good listener, and do whatever I can to help loved ones feel better by showing empathy, sometimes to a fault. 

Actually, it was pretty much always to a fault.

I’m currently in the middle of reading Glennon Doyle’s latest book, Untamed, and I had an ah-ha moment when she shared an insightful sentiment about being a sensitive person. She spelled out that the opposite of being sensitive is being insensitive, and that’s - well - a terrible thing to be! I finally realized, at the age of 40, my sensitivity is an amazing gift.

There have been countless stories and circumstances of serendipity over my lifetime. I oftentimes know things before they actually happen. I have hunches, I have feelings, or I just…know. It turns out that all mediums are also psychics, but not all psychics are mediums.

One lovely happenstance of divine intervention was learning about and virtually meeting Dougall Fraser 10 years ago, a renowned psychic and life coach who lives in Los Angeles. While working at a pet products company at the time and handling their public relations, Dougall’s manager and husband David contacted me for a raffle giveaway to be used on Dougall’s radio show. We hit it off, became virtual friends, and I’ve been following Dougall’s work ever since. He can see and feel people’s auras. I’ve easily taken at least six of his remote classes, and one in particular was eye opening for me. His class, Empowering the Empath, helped me to learn how to protect my own energy (empaths are like sponges and can inadvertently taken on other’s energy). 

Light worker. Empath. Healer.

There are many, many names to identify people like me.

I haven’t publicized or publicly shared my ability to communicate with spirit, probably because I didn’t want to be judged. Only closest friends and family know this (very important) part of my life. I try to live my life with integrity, to share my authentic self, and believe that being vulnerable is absolutely beautiful. 

As the years go on, this ability to connect with spirits has become stronger and stronger, and that is because I have become more spiritually grounded and connected with my higher Self. I am a sucker for metaphors and one that I’ve used for a long time to explain this ability is an antenna. When I am practicing self-care, prayer, and in a chronic state of gratitude, my antenna is sky high and consequently hear from spirit more often.

Last night I was on a Zoom meeting with yet another renowned light worker who is also a medium, James Van Praagh. During that experience, I felt an unrelenting nudge to share my ability with the world.

I had no idea why now, all I knew was I’ve come to trust this voice inside of me and I was going to listen to it.

There was a tiny bit of hesitation as I was getting ready to hit “post” on my Facebook page, sharing this secret ability that I’ve kept close to me for half of my life. Not because I thought anyone would judge me (thankfully, I’ve overcome the tragedy of deeply caring what people think of me), but because it would mean I would need to become code red vulnerable, more than I’ve ever been before.

At this point I am not giving readings as a profession. But I’ve also learned to never say never — my heart feels that I needed to come out of the spiritual closet in order to move my life’s greater work forward, which is ultimately and simply to help people.

Several years back, I met a gal who would quickly become my spiritual mentor, Karen. She is a reiki master and a medium. She is truly gifted and has influenced my life in a number of ways. In fact, she is responsible for the title of this blog. During one of my reiki (i.e. energy healing & balancing) sessions, and sharing messages that she received from spirit for me, Karen said, 

“You are the sun.” 

I feel, in the depths of my being, that I’m on this planet, in this lifetime, to spread light — so that message made perfect sense. 

I’m currently in something known as a ‘small circle’ that Karen put together. It means that a small group of people meet every few weeks and we learn from each other — practice healing exercises with one another, we do group meditations, balance our energy fields, and much more. We’ve continued to meet remotely since the pandemic quarantine hit over two months ago and I’m forever grateful for this small circle of like-minded men and women.

After I shared my truth on Facebook last night, a friend asked me what the experience has been like for me — how did this evolution of my gift happen — and is what ultimately prompted me to write this blog post. Since reading that inquiry, I’ve been flooded with memories.

Memories of random spirits coming through while I’m innocently enjoying myself while out to dinner with a group of friends, and friends of friends. 

“Hi, I know you don’t know me and we just met, but I have to share something with you. I think your Mother is here in spirit.” 

Memories of workshops, classes, seminars, group readings, and beach meditation retreats that I’ve attended. Reading Born Knowing, Intuitive Studies, Where Two Worlds Meet, But You Knew That Already, and many more books about this private piece of me, to better understand it all.

Having the ability to communicate with spirit is like knowing how to speak a language, but you don’t actually remember learning how to speak it. You just, speak that language.

Historically, spirit has come through when I’m in an altered state of consciousness. In the shower or taking a bath, working out at the gym, on a walk, or after a few glasses of wine. When we are fully conscious and awake, our brains emit waves of electrical energy that are very different when meditating or sleeping. In normal, awake consciousness, we are in Beta mode — exterior stimuli dominate our thoughts. It involves solving problems, thinking, and taking action. 

To connect with spirit, we need to at least be in Alpha mode, or even Theta. You’ve probably entered Alpha mode without even realizing it. Think about a time when you’ve been driving a car, pulled up at home, and then realized you don’t quite remember the last few miles of driving. Thankfully, our subconscious mind kept the car in the correct lane and took the proper turns to make it home, until the conscious mind returned to the wheel. 

This explains why I rarely ever remember messages from spirit. When they come through, it feels like I’m dreaming, but still awake. I will scribble down notes as I get messages because I know, otherwise, there is no way I’ll remember them in order to convey to the intended recipient. 

Spirits always come to me, without invitation. I’ve only intentionally tried to connect with a spirit proactively one time a few years back. A friend of a friend, who became an acquaintance of mine, wanted to connect with her grandmother. Our mutual friend suggested that maybe I could try...so I figured it was time to take off my training wheels and give it a go.

Before she even arrived at my house, her grandmother was already coming through and showing me signs. My mentor / guru Karen gave me some prayers and intentions to say prior to the “medium sitting” and I felt very comfortable with the experience. But, I haven’t done anything like that since then.

As time has passed and I’ve had countless experiences connecting with spirits, it’s been easier for me to make that connection. My antenna is up, and has evidently stayed up, as my own soul has expanded and grown.

So much so, just last week a spirit appeared to me while I was in my bedroom, hanging out with my daughter after she woke up from her nap. I looked up and in an instant, saw a spirit (remember, I don’t normally see anyone, I just feel their presence). It was a man. It happened so fast, that I was completely in a state of shock. My jaw was literally dropped and I stared into space, trying to wrap my head around what just happened.

Because I typically have to be in a super relaxed state of mind (note: quarantined with a two-year-old is not conducive to a relaxed state of mind), I was mostly surprised that someone could even get my attention while I was totally distracted. The second reason I was picking my open mouth up off the floor was the fact that I literally saw a man. 

Once I got a grip and accepted the fact this just happened, I asked him,

“Hi, hello. Umm…who are you?”

And just like that, the exact same sequence unfolded as it did 20 years ago with my Grandfather. 

I knew who it was instantly.

The man was my friend, John, who tragically died in a car accident when I was in high school.

Mind you, I haven’t thought about him for a very, very long time. 

And just like every other connection that spirit makes with me, I started to hear messages from him, as well as see visuals in my mind’s eye — scenes played out that depicted what the silent messages were conveying. The messages were for his girlfriend at the time of his death. Now, I need to track her down and make the awkward, but important phone call.

Growing up in a strict Catholic household, hearing directly from spirit was never in the playbook for my life. Praying was seemingly a one-way street — I would make requests, give thanks, and have a one-way conversation with my guardian angels, God, His son, and His tribe of saints. But God had other plans for me, to make this journey on planet Earth a two-way street of conversations, and I’m grateful to be a conduit for spreading love beyond the stars.

A consistent message that I’ve been given for my life, is that in order for me to accelerate and fully utilize this gift, I would need to stop taking on and carrying other’s pain — that has been my spiritual gravity barrier, holding me down. I’ve been working really hard on overcoming that hurdle for quite some time, from learning how to meditate, learning how to forgive those who have hurt me, and learning to energetically protect myself — and now, I’m finally ready to turn up the sunshine. 

[nyrator]

And thus ends another Kresnyan week of wonders

It was quite an eventful week so buckle up for tons of photos, mainly arcade photos~

okay so I talked about Monday already

Tuesday was good, first thing in the morning we play F-Zero GX to wake us up, and somehow managed to beat the Ruby Master Cup with Silver Rat. What an awful, awful character, and yet such a good game for rewarding good mechanics.

Then we went around town exploring the local shops, got led into a strange pawn shop where the entire building was covered with junk, you had to shimmy through a small hall of junk to get through the place, and the owner followed in behind us without us realizing, pretty strange. Also entered a quiet little music shop and had Kresna serenade me with his good accordion skills, then visited my workplace and discussed seeing fireworks with them (we decided not to and instead played EDF and then more DDR, I also even bought a dance mat + two PS2 DDR games that day)

speaking of I got a second PS4 controller and so we played EDF 4.1 and over the course of a few days managed to 100% Hard mode with me as a Wing Diver and him as a Fencer, good times, lots of me dying and him saving me. Reminded me a lot of the PS2 one we played story-wise which after looking it up is a form of reboot of it, so neat. We decided to go straight to Inferno after that and managed to get up to about mission 23 before he had to leave, but man, we were decimating that mode (let’s ignore the having to deal with dragons in the future)

Bit disappointed we didn’t unlock Geist D because as dumb as it is I love the Geist, but mannn, got a sweet laser and Thunder Bow/Sniper 40s that I like to use

Anyway, Wednesday, the big event.

Round1

So initially it was a three-person trip that’s been planned all year, Kresna, Spade, and myself, though sadly but understandably Spade couldn’t make it this time. But mannnnnn.

So, we get up, struggle waking up, and head out on the two-and-a-half hour drive to Exton~

there was lots of neat street signs

there was also a Batman Road but couldn’t take a picture in time

also tons of great sights I forgot to take pictures of, but man, wouldn’t mind living in this area honestly, very pretty and very tree, we took a bunch of detours to avoid tolls and it was a very nice trip

but yes

round 1

this place is massive

this is what we first see going inside

that’s probably less than half of the cabinets they have

you got the shooting and driving cabinets to the right of the entrance, to the left is all more simplified games like pinballs and other popular brand ones, down the hall is the bowling alley which is adjecent to a bunch of claw grabbing machines for things from plushes to anime figures, past that you got the billards with karaoke booths, the fighting game cabinets, and at the mall entrance you have all the dance and musical cabinets, and mannnnn

see when I heard of this place I figure “oh yeah they advertise their bowling alley and also have karaoke, probably an arcade on the side, yeah”, no, this is an arcade feat. special guests bowling and karaoke

we got there at 1PM, took a small food break halfway through, and left around 5PM

my dudes, this place is amazing

I admit, I’m not much of an arcade gamer, but mannnn, what an amazing place.

Here are some of the games we playeddd

Kresna with his Tetris Grandmaster skills~ He played it three times, but man, given enough time he can easily top the scoreboards for sure

Some Outrun 2 SP~ My first time playing and I am bad at it but Kresna did pretty well

I tried playing some of that Gunslinger Stratos game I’ve heard about (aka saw there was Kuja costume DLC some years ago) but unfortunately the gun cursors were awful on the machine I used, all over the place, still beat two missions somehow with the girl in the giant robot, but mann, those cursors

heck yeah, some dekarissss and boy I absolutely am awful at tetris I am so sorry Kresna, the giant joysticks are fun though but man, multiplayer dekaris was suffering for the Kres

for reference, his solo attempt

there was also some rhythm heaven which was neat, Kresna again amazing at it and me not-so-much

we also decided to play this to fulfill our DDR thirst before taking a break

also SHOUTOUTS TO MUSIC GUNGUN, a simple but fun game with lots of good music and Kresna and I love it and may have to buy a cabinet, probably my favorite game there

after the break was more games but less photos to save battery life and repeating some of the aforementioned games, some that stood out

playing lots of Mario Kart DX, I won a grand total of once at the end but I’ll take that, thanks Waluigi and curse you Rosalina

I tried playing some Gitadora but failed miserably, my high school guitar hero skills were not enough for Medium Gitadora

meanwhile Kresna and his incredible talent at Beatmania

we finished the day at Round1 with some last bit of Music Gungun and trying out two-player Dancerush Stardom

and thus ended the trip to Round1, where we decided to head... east

East into New Jersey.

There was one more cabinet we needed to play.

Have some foliage that I forgot to take earlier to show how trees PA is~ There was a ton of nice foliage driving on the way there like I mentioned, just did not get to photograph ittt~

After another hour and a half drive (most of it spent in Philadelphia traffic, I will have you know that I am scared of heights or at least get vertigo easily, as well as being terrified of cars, and being in Philadelphia traffic is still absolutely terrifying to me)

I tried taking a photo of the Delaware but mannn could barely look up out of my seat because crippled with fear (seriously it’s only gotten worse the older I get for some reason)

anyway, just past 6:30, we finally arrive

Tilt Studio at Voorhees, NJ.

I admit, it had some neat cabinets, like Luigi’s Mansion, but nothing like Round1. However, we played none of these other cabinets

Kresna and I (mostly me) had a mission, and that mission was one cabinet

F-ZERO AX, BABYYYYY

look, you don’t understand

f-zero ax

I don’t have an addiction okay

anyway I brought my Memory Card (except I have unlocked basically everything in GX already so hm) and played with my custom vehicles~

and in just under $20 dollars worth of credits (with some used by Kresna of course) I managed to race every single race and I got my name on every single leaderboard (though they’re probably erased at the end of the day at this point)

yes we drove basically four hours to play F-Zero AX (plus Round1 goodness)

was it worth it? Yes

Sadly there aren’t any more licenses (to be expected though), but Kresna and I may have to buy our own cabinet, but a Deluxe Cabinet- the kind with moving seats and two-player actionnn

(it’ll happen you’ll see)

So then, the journey home, a night drive through NJ and bed

Thursday was firework day, though it was mainly EDF day for us. What a good game, EDF. Got some ice cream and hung out and was nice

Friday things began to slow down, EDF feat. more pizza and DDR dates~

Saturday was also pretty slow, slightly stressful day, including blahs from both of us, struggling at Inferno EDF and suffering my bad gameplay, and getting a flat tire on the way back from our last DDR trip of the night (oh boy), though we decided to watch a movie at least~ Genocidal Organ, based on a book Kresna read, it was pretty good~ Got Netflix to watch it (and Spy Kids 3D in honor of Red Square), though sadly SK3D didn’t have an anaglyph 3D option, and Genocidal Organ wasn’t on US Netflixxx, but we watched it through other means instead~

Today we finished the day with some car repairs, window shopping, and eating a big meal at a diner~ This is notable for being my first time eating somewhere in public and eating something that wasn’t just french fries (I had a blueberry pancake with whipped cream~)

Speaking of foods, this visit I tried sardines for the first timeee, not a fan but it was edible, my first time ever eating something fish-y~ Otherwise some neat treats from the Kresna involving many eggs and toasts and even an english muffinn

it was a good first anniversary week, and being with Kresna is always wonderful

And now to await the end of August, where I will finally migrate north and visit the Canadian lifestyle...

[howsareeasy]

it isn’t failure; it’s data

Equipment: mac pro 2014 with inbuilt mic. Moto G3 (and then Moto G6) for reading via the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader. For hosting purposes, Dropbox and Mediafire. Software: both GarageBand and Audacity.

There’s 1600 words under the cut. Or you can read here over at Dreamwidth if it’s easier

Chose: GaragageBand or Audacity:  For the sheer scope of the information gathered alone, Audacity. I held out on using Audacity until I got my head around GarageBand, because GB was Apple. I did five of my first podfics in GarageBand (and the last six in Audacity). I'm glad that I did GarageBand before I got into Audacity, because Audacity didn't feel that difficult when I got my head around it, because I already had my wars with GarageBand. Although I do like GarageBand for the ease of rerecording (you literally just record over the offending area), and insertion of silences, it has a lot of drawbacks. For instance,  when it comes to longer files (about 180mins) it will start to eat your files. In addition, because not many people use GarageBand, information on troubleshooting is pretty rare, and Apple insists on upgrading and changing the interface ever so often. As a result, a lot of people I know are working from their legacy interface from 2014. It doesn't help me with what I have now. I only know one person (other than myself) who worked in GarageBand, and got tired of bugging her (she's busy and took ages to respond to my questions, because she's BUSY). whereas with Audacity, there are enough people to have a wiki. There are guides everywhere in terms of how to use Audacity, especially podfic specific guides. Overall, Audacity is a bit more straightforward, once you know what to look for. The wiki is relatively comprehensive and easy to follow. For instance, once I got my head around recording edits and putting them in the spaces where they needed to be, the process of recording patches then patching them for reedits is fairly straight forward. Audacity has the advantage of doing more pin point edits when it comes to mouth noises, and general cleaning up of fic background noises with noise plates. Audacity's envelope application is a lot better and smoother than GarageBand's fades (in terms of say, if you want to have music fading in or out of your narrative). Now, I don't think I'm going to be the sort of person to use music in a podfic unless the writer is pretty much waving semaphore flags and going - this piece of music here!- but it's a neat effect. Hardest thing about podficcing: For me, it was getting the reading down pat, to be honest. When I listen to my first five podfics, I'm surprised at how fast I'm reading, so every reading it's been me telling myself to slow down. It's one of the reasons why I started to edit as I go, because it forced me to refocus, and check my speed when rabbiting along. Then because my reading got slower, I could engage in the process of the fic more. However, as I grew more confident with the reading flow, I'd allow myself to read through a chapter or so, and then go back and edit. I didn't really get the concept of what a read/performance was until podfic 7, I guess (AO3 is down now, so I can't remember what it is. I want to say Cloud City). The whole concept of pauses in podfic and how that's a part of hitting the ear didn't really strike me until about podfic 10 (Stay In My Eyeline to the point where I took it down and recut for silences). But I think podfic 9 (Good Timing), made me happy enough with my narrative and voice bits. As much as podfic 11 KICKED MY ARSE, I'm more or less happy with the pauses and spaces in the fic. I mean, I could have done more, let the quiet spill out, especially towards the ending, but you can only learn by doing. I'm not going to beat up myself with the first podfics, tbh, because no one is born a master. Now, that last podfic. I don't think I had any hubris with the first ten podfics. I tried to improve on every one as I went on, and I think they got better quality wise when I jumped over to Audacity, because again, because of noise plates and edits made for a cleaner product (I could get rid of the 'clunk' sound when I'd stop the recording), but that last podfic (Now That I'm In Madrid) almost made me rage quit many a time. Between the file deletions, Audacity freezing, my files crashing, having to borrow someone else's PC to get my three hour files on as well as the edits, the installation of my mpegg plug in refusing to deal on my macbook (until I had to manually install it, after overriding Apple’s admin permissions to accept the plug in), only to export the chapters and not being able to bundle them into a book. Plus my voice turning to gravelly mush in the last third of the reading, it's been a hard knock on my confidence, to be honest. To the point where, I'm like, "Yeah, I liked podficcing, I guess? But erm... I don't think it likes me much." That being said, I really like the last story, and I'm sorry that I didn't do my best by it, but it was beyond my ken. To the point where, if I had to redo the podfic (lol, no), I couldn't do it any better right now, and that's fine. Reading source: A lot of people read their fic on screen while the recording is going on in the background. I tend to read directly from my smartphone, using the Adobe PDF app. I do like the app because you can highlight bits, and insert comments on the document, it's also smooth scrolling experience reading wise. My Moto G6 has more power and a better screen so it's an easier read. File hosting: Dropbox and MediaFire are relatively straightforward. They are fine. Most annoying bit of podficcing: Podfic covers. As much as I know that they didn't have to be made, I pretty much did it, because people do expect them (before Itsadrizzit started the push to overturn the practice). I wouldn't do anything beyond a text box now, but podfic covers came at the worst time for me. After recording, edits, and listen throughs and before uploading for hosting. I forever whinged around that. Most surprising bit of podficcing: The edits, I guess? I didn't mind them at all. I can do edits while being sociable, whereas for preprepping and doing the reading itself, I had to lock myself away and put my phone on 'do not disturb' mode. Would I podfic again? I don't have the resources, nor will I be in a position to get a new laptop for the while so, no, I don't know. More no than yes. It depends? As it is, I can't risk anything more than a 60 min run time (no more than 9.5k word count) and even then, I do wonder if I should review that to 30 mins (about 3-4k word count) because I can't trust my equipment. It makes no sense to set your stall up for anything less than a 2k word count. It's too much hassle for me to find an empty space and record for anything under 1.8k at least.  Not to mention the edits, listen through (ugh) and hosting. I can't do anything chaptered in terms of podbooks (because I don't know how to bundle the chapters to export without having ppl downloading 24 separate files and I don't have the bandwidth to deal with that right now. I'd just do a basic .m4b file, although I hear that people aren't fans and NEED. CHAPTERED .m4b podfic, but these madams will have to deal). My computer cannot be trusted to splice various files together (for instance, if I wanted to do a fic with a run time of 180mins, I'd have to do three 60min files, then splice them together. My computer crashed twice doing that feat, so no). This is tragic, because it's knee capped what I wanted to do. Liiiiike that 25k fic to pod in my bookmarks is now deleted (170 mins run time, three files of 57 mins give or take). Overall, yay or nay?  Yay! I'd like to think that I have shown respect for podficcers before, but after doing it for three weeks (11 podfics in three weeks, but I spent two weeks before doing the research) my respect is tenfold. It's not just reading what's on the page, but reacting to it with a mixture of control with the air of surprise. There's an art to it, as well as the technical bits, be it just having a fluid and enjoyable listening experience. Hell, just reading aloud alone is its own feat of stamina. There's the weighing up of file hostings, and this on top of the lack of Blanket Permissions, so if you find a fic that you want to do but there's no BP, you're out of luck, and there are far too many writers who are really arsey toward the whole medium. Conclusion: So, yeah, my experiment ends here! It wasn't a total failure, but it hasn't been an activity brimming with triumphant successes either. Thanks for the weigh ins and the advice from the podficcers who've been doing this for a minute. If you're a writer and are reading this, please think about including a BP in your profiles, even if it's a yes, maybe so (please ask) or hell no (so you won't be bothered).

[sims4-challenge-bank]

My adaption to the sims4 asylum challenge from 2019

Asylum Challenge

Introduction

Hi there, I’m Shaebae, I got this set of rules from Englishsimmer who got it from her friend Nick and this is The Sims 4 Asylum Challenge! This challenge was originally created by Scout for The Sims 2, then revamped for The Sims 3 by BlakeS5678. So want to apologize if these rules seem scattered or not to make sense. These are modified by myself and I tried to re read a couple times to make sure everything made sense but I’m only human.

If anyone has any modification suggestions email me @ shaebaesimmer@gmail.com or message me on Instagram @shaebaesimmerman

For those who do not know the Asylum Challenge, here is the backstory:

"You have been committed to a run down mental health facility against your will. In order to prove that you are fit to rejoin society and earn your freedom, you must achieve the goals your psychiatrist has set for you – your aspiration. The catch? You need to achieve your goals as quickly as possible, while keeping 7 other patients, who you don't know and are out of your control, alive and as happy as possible. Add to that budget cutbacks leading to a lack of decent furniture and limited supplies, and your task gets harder."

For this challenge there will be an easy mode, medium mode and hard mode, just to spice things up a bit.

Setting Up

***Create your Patients***

Create your main sim in CAS. They must be a young adult. You can choose whatever you want for looks, clothing, voice and walk styles. They must have the erratic trait and the other two traits can be anything except for custom traits. You may choose story mode but you have to make sure they have the erratic trait otherwise you have to cancel the story. They may be any species you wish (except dog or cat)

You can also choose any aspiration except for the following:

-Successful Lineage

-Big Happy Family

-Super Parent

-vampier family

-Fabulously Wealthy

-Mansion Baron

-Any location aspiration

-the pets aspiration (only 8 members to a household so pets won’t fit)

-no famous aspiration (ie master actor/actress, world famous celebrity

-no love aspirations

-no party animal aspiration

After finishing your main sim, create seven other sims. They all must be young adults and they must all have the erratic trait. The other two traits and their aspirations can be whatever you want. (I recommend having a few evil, mean and romantic sims, just to make things interesting). None of the eight sims are allowed to be related. If you want to make things really interesting you can set it so no one has the same trait (except erratic because they all have to be crazy, a really good combo is erratic, paranoid, and evil/mean)

***Building your Asylum***

Next step is to build the asylum on a residential lot. Recommended lots are

- forgotten hollow

- oasis springs..

-strangerville

- Glimmerbrooke

But you aren’t limited to just those places

The size of the lot does not matter. You can build the asylum yourself, download an asylum from the Gallery using the hashtag #AsylumChallenge or modify an existing house in the worlds listed above.

Money cheats are allowed when building or placing your asylum. Depending on your mode of difficulty depends on what objects are allowed in your asylum, but all objects must be the cheapest at the beginning excluding child items and architecture (Cheap counters, cheap beds, cheap couches etc.). You cannot have objects in the asylum which affects sim’s emotions (unless the object was obtained through a career reward) or which prevents fires.

When you have finished building the asylum you cannot modify further except for buying books, unless sims get stuck in a certain area or your asylum saves up enough money for a new skill building item or when you can purchase an upgraded item. Pools are allowed but they are classified as a skill building item (unless one of your sims is a mermaid, you must lock gates for everyone but the mermaid(s) for it to not count as a skill building item unless otherwise stated in your difficulty’s rules)

When you have finished creating your asylum, your family funds must be at the required amount for your difficulty. To change the family funds you must first type into the cheat box “testingcheats true” (without quotations), then type into the cheat box “money (amount required). For example, for easy mode you would put "testingcheats true" followed by "money 1000" followed by "testingcheats false".

Upgrading Objects

When the asylum saves up a bit of money you can start replacing the cheap furniture and appliances with high quality furniture and appliances. You can only replace items, you cannot buy extra items. For example you can replace the fridge but you can’t have two fridges. You cannot upgrade objects in hard mode.

Using the handiness skill to upgrade objects is allowed in all difficulty modes.

Gameplay

- You must only be selected on your main sim, you are not allowed to click on the other sims at all to check their needs. If they die, they die. You can check to see what they are up to but cannot control them to help them. The only time you’re aloud to control them is when you are getting ready to lock the front gate or bedroom gate/doors.

- If you want to, at 12am, you can click on the other sims to check their inventory if they have books, food etc. When doing this your game must be paused.

- Cheats/mods/hacks which boost sim’s needs or skills are not allowed. High free will must be turned on, so the other sims in the asylum will do things by themselves.

- You can not use your inventory to reserve items for yourself. For example, you can't put a book or guitar in your inventory just so no one else can put it in theirs.

- The age settings can either be on normal or long, it’s your choice.

- No rearranging of furniture to reserve or use something for yourself. For example, you can not move the TV into a bedroom and turn it on just to get an uncontrollable sim out of bed so you can sleep in the bed. Nor can you remove a door so others can't gain access to the bathroom so you can use it when you come home from work.

- If a sim dies you must keep the grave on the lot, you must keep the grave on the lot. If their ghost gets too annoying (e.g. they keep breaking objects) you can banish their ghost.

- Putting toilets and showers/baths in separate rooms is OK in all difficulties, as dying from embarrassment tends to occur too much.

- Making your sim “work hard” in their career is ok, you cannot make the other patients “work hard” in their careers.

- You may not wake up other sims to get a bed. If you missed out on sleeping in a bed oh well. Go nap on a couch.

- when leaving you must take everyone with you. If someone would rather not come you must summon them to current lot

- During normal day to day activities you must have your time speed at 1x or 2x. You may only speed up time to 3x if you are fishing or sleeping

- You may have romantic relationships but no trying for baby or getting engaged, you may have a boyfriend.

- -locking sims in a pool is not aloud

- Isolating a patient is permitted for 3 sim hours

-

Game Pack/Expansion Pack Changes

**Outdoor Retreat & jungle adventure**

-Outdoor Enthusiast aspiration is allowed.

-You can only travel to Granite Falls when you need to complete certain goals in the Outdoor Enthusiast aspiration.

-When travelling to Granite Falls you must bring all of your fellow patients with you and choose the campground as your destination.

**Spa Day**

-When completing an aspiration, you can reward your Sim with a trip to the spa.

**Dine Out**

-Your Sim cannot own a restaurant.

-Your household cannot visit a restaurant.

-you may visit a bar IF you have vampires so they can get a plasma drink or drink from someone who doesn’t live in the asylum with you

**Vampires**

-Vampire patients are allowed.

-Vampire aspirations are allowed.

-your vampire is not aloud to feed on other asylum patients, one of the few times you can control vampires sims that aren’t your main sim, to prevent them from drinking the plasma from fellow patients. Also so when you go somewhere you can make them (easy mode: compel for deep drink; medium mode: compel for small drink; hard mode: main sims- ask permission/non main sim- compel for small drink)

-if main sim is a vampire you may get vampire perks and weaknesses

-you are allowed 1-3 plasma fruit tree when building your asylum depending on difficulty level (easy: 3; medium: 2; hard: 1)

**Parenthood**

-Super Parent aspiration is not allowed.

-children are not aloud because they get taken away when neglected

**Get To Work**

- Alien patients are allowed.

- Active careers are not allowed as they require leaving the lot.

- Your Sim cannot own a retail business

- If a member of the Asylum is abducted by aliens and comes back pregnant, when they give birth you have to send the baby back to Sixam.

**Get Together**

-You can create an Asylum club for the patients, you cannot add outside Sims to the club.

-Club perks are allowed for all levels of difficulties.

**City Living**

-Apartments cannot be asylums

**Island living**

- Pools don’t count as skill building if you have a mermaid as a patient as her duration is one of their needs. Must be locked to everyone except the mermaid(s) if not a skill building item. Can be “open to public” for 3 hours of the community time depending on your difficulty level (listed below)

- Pool Must be locked during bedtime hours as it counts as a place to sleep.

- Floaties count as a seat.

- May Travel to beach but asylum can’t be placed in sulani (goes with location aspiration) everyone must go to the beach together

**Get Famous**

Main sim May not have any famous aspirations (previously specified)

**seasons**

Must have one extreme weather set in your game options (ie rain and thunderstorms but just snow or snow & blizzards but just rain)

**cats & dogs**

Can build asylum in brindled bay (or whatever it’s called)

Can have stray animal house traits if desired

May not own an animal as the base of the challenge is to have 8 sims which is a full household

**Strangerville**

May not live here (goes with location aspiration rule)

Can visit but must bring/summon everyone

Difficulty Modes and Rules

There are 3 different modes of difficulty for this challenge.

Easy Mode:

- Starting funds: $1,500

- Complete two aspirations, then you are free!

- Can have the TV and the computer at the same time.

- Two sinks, two toilets and two showers/bathtubs. You may have a duo

- No more than 6-7 ‘bed spots’. Your choice. For example you can have 6 single beds, or 3 double beds, 1 double and 4 single beds etc.

- There can only be total seating for 7. That includes couches, lounges and chairs. If you have a dining table with 5 chairs then you may not use a couch that seats 3. Computer chairs don’t count.

- You may only have a total of 6 Skill Building items in the house, so choose wisely at the start. Computers, stoves, bookcases, mirrors, pools (if you have a mermaid patient) and TVs don't count as skill items. It is highly recommended to have skill items which make money, for example the easel and wood working table.

- Everyone in the asylum is allowed a job, but the non-controllable sims must be in the Criminal Career or an unpaid or part time job that pays under 20$ or less. You are not allowed to level them up in their career. If they lose their job, they have lost it forever. Your main sim can have whatever job they like. (It is recommended that their job is related to their aspiration. For example a sim with the Master Chef aspiration should be in the Culinary Career) you may not have work that you have to travel to, you may have work from home jobs

- Having a maid and ordering pizza is allowed.

- Can leave the lot to go fishing and collecting at anytime. Can only travel to other people’s houses and community lots during the hours of 7am-5pm. (When travelling to another lot you must bring everyone from the asylum along with you)

- If a sim dies, as long as you have one less bed as you do household members, you’re good, seats don’t need to be deleted.

- Beds must be locked from 8am to 8pm, one of the few times you can control other sims and interrupt their sleep is after 8am when the gate needs to be locked

- Pool must be locked from 8pm-8am as it’s a way to sleep

Medium Mode:

- Starting funds: $700

- Complete three aspirations, then you are free!

- You cannot have a TV and a computer at the same time. It is recommended that if your sim has the Computer Whiz aspiration for example, that you should have a computer.

- One sink, one toilet, one shower/bathtub. May be a duo if you wish

- No more than 4-5 ‘bed spots’. Your choice. For example, you can have 5 single beds, or 2 doubles and 1 single bed etc.

- There can only be total seating for 6. That includes couches, lounges and chairs. If you have a dining table with 4 chairs then you may not use a couch that seats 3. Computer chairs don’t count

- You may only have a total of 5 Skill Building items in the house, so choose wisely at the start. Computers, stoves, bookcases, mirrors, and TVs don't count as skill items. It is highly recommended to have skill items which make money, for example the easel. Punching bags are a grey area, you decide if they count because they can also be a type of therapy

- Only 2 non-controllable sims are allowed jobs, both must be in the criminal career. Your main sim can have whatever job they like. (It is recommended that their job is related to their aspiration. For example a sim with the Master Chef aspiration should be in the Culinary Career)

- you may not purchase satisfaction rewards

- No maids and no pizza.

- Can leave the lot to go fishing and collecting between the hours of 9am-3pm. Can only travel to other people’s houses and community lots during the hours of 10:00am-3:00pm. (When travelling to another lot you must bring everyone from the asylum along with you)

- If a sim dies, 1 seat must be deleted until there is 1 seat remaining.

-Beds must be locked from 7am to 8pm, one of the few times you can control other sims and interrupt their sleep is after 8am when the gate needs to be locked

- Pool must be locked from 8pm-7am

Hard Mode:

- Starting funds: $250

- Complete four aspirations, then you are free!

You cannot have a TV and a computer at the same time. It is recommended that if your sim has the Computer Whiz aspiration for example, that you should have a computer

- One sink, one toilet, one shower/bathtub. Not duo

- No more than 3-4 ‘bed spots’. Your choice. For example, you can have 4 single beds, or 2 double beds, 1 double bed and 2 singles

- There can only be total seating for 4. That includes couches, lounges and chairs. If you have a dining table with 2 chairs then you may not use a couch that seats 3. Computer chairs and chess chairs don’t count, unless you want them to.

- You may only have a total of 4 Skill Building items in the house, so choose wisely at the start. Computers, stoves, pools (if you have a mermaid patient), bookcases, mirrors, and TVs don't count as skill items. It is highly recommended to have skill items which make money, for example the easel, etc...

- Non-controllable sims are not allowed jobs. You main sim can only have a job if their aspiration requires it. For example the Master Chef aspiration requires your sim to be in the Culinary Career.

-You cannot purchase satisfaction rewards

- No maids and no pizza.

- Can leave the lot to go fishing and collecting between the hours or 12:00am-5:00am. Travelling to other lots is banned, unless your sim’s aspiration requires them to. In that, you can travel to other lots between 12:00pm-5:00pm. (When travelling to another lot you must bring everyone from the asylum along with you)

- If a sim dies, 1 bed and 1 seat must be deleted until there is only 1 bed and 1 seat remaining.

- Beds must be locked from 6am to 9pm, one of the few times you can control other sims and interrupt their sleep is after 8am when the gate needs to be locked

- Pool must be locked from 9pm-8am

Aspirations

In the difficulties it states that a number of aspirations must be completed. This refers to aspirations such as the Computer Wiz aspiration. It does NOT refer to groups of aspirations such as the all of the aspirations in the Creativity category.

Scoring (Optional)

+50: per aspiration completed.

+1: per skill point any of the 8 Sims have at the end. Only living Sims count.

+1: per 1000 Satisfaction points every Sim has.

+5: per every human turned vampire by your main sim

-20: per Sim that died.

-20: per fire which has occurred.

-20: per day when the power and water is shut off. (E.g. Power and Water shut off for 2 days =-40 points)

-5 points every time you forget to lock a gate/door

-20 points if a vampire patient uncontrollably drinks

-30 points if a vampire patient uncontrollably drinks from fellow patient

[jaymiestrecker]

"The Next American Revolution"

Some quotes from and comments on "The Next American Revolution" by Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige. I had mixed reactions to this book and wanted to sort them out.

Main points

"Revolution, as Grace emphasizes, is not a onetime, D-day event that will happen when a critical mass of forces takes the correct action at the proper time. It is a protracted process tied to slower evolutionary changes that cannot be dismissed." — Scott Kurashige in the introduction

Examples of revolutionary activities by this definition:

"Creating new forms of community-based institutions (e.g. co-ops, small business, and community development corporations)" "to produce local goods for local needs"

Growing food in community gardens on abandoned lots

"Reinventing education to include children in community building"

A theme of the book was grassroots or bottom-up change, democratically organized with shared leadership rather than under the command of a charismatic leader.

Problems

"Our representative democracy, itself a product of the first American Revolution of 1776, trains us to focus on the results of elections. Most Americans equate democracy with voting, and they expect their elected officials to do their bidding once they put them into office. But as Grace asserts, that system, while it still has room for some admirable individuals, has been thoroughly corrupted by what the Zapatistas call the 'Empire of Money.'" — Scott Kurashige in the introduction

"Still, it becomes clearer every day that organizing or joining massive protests and demanding new policies fail to sufficiently address the crisis we face. They may demonstrate that we are on the right side politically, but they are not transformative enough. They do not change the cultural images or the symbols that play such a pivotal role in molding us into who we are."

"'When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people,' [Martin Luther King, Jr.] declared, 'the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'"

I couldn't find the quote, but I think at some point the book characterized capitalism as a system that borrows from the future to pay for the present. In the afterword, a discussion between Boggs and Immanuel Wallerstein moderated by Scott Kurashige, Wallerstein described capitalism as a system that requires endless growth, which obviously can't go on forever. He and Boggs asked us to think about what comes after capitalism collapses. They were speaking in the middle of the recession of 2009 and saw the collapse as coming within a few decades. Now, in 2021, with the US stock market surging despite all the misfortunes of the pandemic, it seems to me that capitalism is not at all in its death throes. I've been waiting for years just for Twitter to collapse, when investors finally realize that they're throwing more and more money at a company that has never turned a profit, and even that hasn't happened. The only pyramid schemes I see possibly falling apart are the social safety net programs like Social Security that rest on the assumption of capitalism: of endless growth.

Solutions

"[Paulo] Freire argued that revolutionary work must transform the oppressed from passive victims to agents of history, seeking 'the pursuit of fuller humanity.' Thus, the emphasis is on people taking control of their own destiny—'self-determination' in the truest sense of the word. Transforming relations means that revolution is not about the 'have-nots' acquiring the material possessions of the 'haves.' It is about overcoming the 'dehumanization' that has been fostered by the commodification of everything under capitalism and building more democratic, just, and nourishing modes of relating to people."

"The revolution to be made in the United States will be the first revolution in history to require the masses to make material sacrifices rather than to acquire more material things. We must give up many of the things which this country has enjoyed at the expense of damning over one-third of the world into a state of underdevelopment, ignorance, disease, and early death…" — Jimmy Boggs

I agree that it would make the world better if the wealthier people in the world (including the US middle class) would reduce consumption, but how the heck do you convince them to do it? "A History of Future Cities" talked about India in post-colonial times turning inward (less trade with other countries) and turning socialist, but eventually people got tired of it for various reasons (bureaucracy, corruption, economic stagnation) and the pendulum swung to a recklessly unregulated capitalism. In an article in El País about the reunification of East and West Germany, an interviewee from socialist East Germany said that one of reasons they came to favor capitalism was that the people on their side were envious of the nice toys that the other side had.

"The problem is working out a strategy that combines a very short-run, immediate attempt to solve people's needs and a medium-run strategy of transforming the system. I think of the very short run as one of minimizing the pain." — Immanuel Wallerstein

It's unclear to me, and this book really didn't clear it up, how to tell the difference between reforms that are a step within evolutionary change and reforms that prop up a harmful system. Elsewhere in the book, Boggs even counterechoed Wallerstein's phrasing when criticizing "palliatives masked as 'reform'".

Changing one's mind

One theme I liked in this book was that people can and should change their minds, refine their thinking, over time. Boggs (who turned 96 the year the first edition of this book was published) talked about how her own thinking had changed over the years through reading, discussion, and trying to apply her ideas in practice. She talked about one writing of Karl Marx that people always quote, and how he was in his 20s when he wrote it, and how people tend to jump to conclusions a bit in their 20s when they would be more cautious later in their lives. She talked about how Martin Luther King Jr.'s thinking had become more radical in the last few years of his life. She quoted Mahatma Gandhi a lot from later in his life, but also mentioned how, as a young man living in London, he tried to assimilate into English culture by buying a silk hat and taking dance lessons.

Meaningful work

"Quoting the nineteenth-century political economist Henry George, King advocated 'work which improves the conditions of mankind'—the kind of 'work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought.' This kind of work 'is not done to secure a living,' King continued. 'It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by masters or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake and not that they may get more to eat or drink or wear or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.'"

Relatedly, from a book I just started reading, "Good Economics for Hard Times":

"Economists have a tendency to adopt of notion of well-being that is often too narrow, some version of income or material consumption. And yet all of us need much more than that to have a fulfilling life: the respect of the community, the comforts of family and friends, dignity, lightness, pleasure. The focus on income alone is not just a convenient shortcut. It is a distorting lens that often has led the smartest economists down the wrong path, policy makers to the wrong decisions, and all too many of us to the wrong obsessions. It is what persuades so many of us that the whole world is waiting at the door to take our well-paying jobs. It is what has led to a single-minded focus on restoring the Western nations to some glorious past of fast economic growth. It is what makes us simultaneously deeply suspicious of those who don't have money and terrified to find ourselves in their shoes. It is also what makes the trade-off between the growth of the economy and the survival of the planet seem so stark." — Abhijit V. Bannerjee and Esther Duflo

That all sounds good to me. I would love to get to a point where the world's surplus is used to provide a basic income for everyone, and where the tedious jobs are all automated, so that everyone has the chance to do something purposeful with their life. That requires moving forward, but the thing I disliked most about "The Next American Revolution" is it seemed to want to move backward:

"The main reason why Western civilizations lack Spirituality, or an awareness of our interconnectedness with one another and the universe, according to Gandhi, is that it has given priority to economic and technological development over human and community development. Advanced technology has made it possible for people to perform miracles, but it has impoverished us spiritually because it has made us feel that outside forces determine who and what we are. Traditional societies lacked our material comforts and conveniences, but individuals had more Soul, or a belief in the individual's power to make moral choices, because these societies valued the community relationships that they depended on for survival."

"We're having to go back to when people shared things and started taking care of each other." — Will Allen

"During the struggle for independence, Gandhi recognized that the educational system… had been designed to supply the next generation of clerks to sign, stamp, and file the paperwork to run the British Empire. As a result, most elite Indian students found manual work 'irksome.' However, he retorted, the development of a true intellect necessitated the balanced and 'harmonious growth of body, mind and soul.'"

I would counter that with a quote from "The Jungle":

"Now set aside the modern system of pneumatic house-cleaning, and the economies of co-operative cooking; and consider one single item, the washing of dishes. Surely it is moderate to say that the dish-washing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with ten hours as a day’s work, it takes, therefore, half a million able-bodied persons—mostly women—to do the dish-washing of the country. And note that this is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper; of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children—for all of which things the community has naturally to pay." — Upton Sinclair

That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it does seem like a waste to make humans do boring chores that could be easily automated, when we only have, what, 80 or 90 years if we're lucky to try to figure out what we're supposed to do here and try to learn as much as we can and try to plant some ideas or good deeds or whatever that will live on for a while after we're gone. I don't think the question is whether we should try to preserve mind-numbing work for some reason (whether to keep people from losing their jobs or to provide some sort of moral benefit), but how much we can automate in an environmentally sustainable way, and how much we can automate without degrading the quality of the product or service, and how to provide income and education for people who will lose their jobs. How do we optimize for well-being rather than for profit?

Furthermore! What is this supposedly more virtuous, more spiritual past that Gandhi and Allen are talking about? Nostalgia for a past that never existed.

One reason I'm frustrated with this back-to-farming vision is that I feel like there's no place for me and the work that I find meaningful, i.e. software development. If I'm going to have something interesting to work on (as opposed to simple websites that don't need any programming, for example), then I really have to look beyond this town. The whole turning inward / providing local services thing doesn't work for me. I like globalization in that respect. I like how I'm building on pieces of software that are made by too many people to count in many different places, most of whom have never met.

I'm trying to imagine how Boggs would respond to this (she's dead now), if I could manage to explain it to her (disappointingly, she really didn't seem to understand science or technology at all). I suppose she would say that the farming in Detroit was just an example, not something everyone has to do. She did say at one point that she envisioned this revolution being brought about not by some vanguard of activists, but by people of many different jobs doing what they could with their skills in their realm.

The trouble with that is, I still can't figure out what I can do with the skills that I have that would actually be useful toward reform/revolution.

Soul, heart, love

Boggs talked a lot about "growing our souls". I found this frustrating on multiple levels.

I disagreed with how she placed the "soul" or "heart" in opposition to the mind. In the most egregious example, she talked about "… rejecting scientific rationalism (based on the Cartesian body-mind dichotomy), which recognizes as real only that which can be measured and therefore excludes the knowledge that comes from the heart or from relationships between people." First, I don't think that's an accurate depiction of what scientists today generally believe, or what a more modern philosophy of science would say. Second, science has shown that the body and mind are interrelated, which is why for example we treat anxiety and depression with a combination of drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy. Emotions aren't a separate system from analytical thinking.

I'm not sure how to differentiate between "growing my soul" as opposed to an individualistic and regressive approach of doing "charity" because it makes me feel like a good person.

Another recurring word was "love" (and King's "beloved community"). As an extreme introvert and an atheist, I felt kind of left out by all this talk of "souls" and "love". So I was relieved to come across this passage:

"Shea Howell, Oakland University rhetoric professor and former director of Detroit Summer, has helped hundred of students and community organizers appreciate what Jimmy meant: Love isn't just something you feel. It's something you do every day when you go out and pick up the papers and bottles scattered the night before on the corner, when you stop and talk to a neighbor, when you argue passionately for what you believe with whoever will listen, when you call a friend to see how they're doing, when you write a letter to the newspaper, when you give a speech and give 'em hell, when you never stop believing that we can all be more than we are. In other words, Love isn't about what we did yesterday; it's about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after."

Phew, some of those things seem doable. I'm still not sure what I personally can do that would actually be effective toward reform/revolution, but at least I don't feel like I should just give up.

[droneseco]

AOSO S3 Robot Vacuum Review: High Power, Budget Price

AOSO S3 Robot Vacuum

8.50 / 10

Read Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

Read More Reviews

See on amazon

The AOSO S3 robot vacuum does a great job whether doing routine clean-up or getting at those tough to reach places. If you're willing to set it up for success, it'll prove an invaluable time saver.

Key Features

166° Wide Angle Camera for Smart Visual Navigation

2000Pa Suction at 3 Levels (Low, Medium, and High)

Remote Control and App Dual Operation

Multiple Cleaning Modes

Specifications

Weight: 7.98 pounds

Collection Capacity: Unspecified

Wattage: 30W

Filters: Sponge

Pros

Calls Out Its Location via Voice Reply

Easy to Clean

Great Spot and Edge Cleaning

Manual and Automatic Controls

Plenty of Audio and Visual Cues

Adjusts Suction for Carpets

Low 3.0" Profile Body

Cons

No Mopping Feature

Weird Pathing Glitches

Light-Sensitive

Requires 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi to Pair Device

Buy This Product

AOSO S3 Robot Vacuum amazon

Shop

// Bottom var galleryThumbs1 = new Swiper('.gallery-thumbs-1', { spaceBetween: 10, slidesPerView: 10, freeMode: true, watchSlidesVisibility: true, watchSlidesProgress: true, centerInsufficientSlides: true, allowTouchMove: false, preventClicks: false, breakpoints: { 1024: { slidesPerView: 6, } }, }); // Top var galleryTop1 = new Swiper('.gallery-top-1', { spaceBetween: 10, allowTouchMove: false, loop: true, preventClicks: false, breakpoints: { 1024: { allowTouchMove: true, } }, navigation: { nextEl: '.swiper-button-next', prevEl: '.swiper-button-prev', }, thumbs: { swiper: galleryThumbs1 } });

Robot vacuums help take on an important load for people. However, they're often considered a luxury, and their value is undersold.

The AOSO S3 robot vacuum challenges this by offering a budget-friendly vacuum meant to last. While not perfect, it's tailored cleaning simplicity and choice makes it an attractive option.

Unboxing The AOSO S3 Robovac

Upon opening the box, you'll notice the AOSO S3 robot vacuum snuggly placed atop everything. After removing the not quite eight-pound vacuum, the remaining pieces and support tools are as follows:

Charging Dock

Sponge Filter

Remote Control

2 AAA batteries

2 Side Brushes

AC Power Adapter

Screwdriver

Cleaning Tool

Setting Up Your Charging Dock

Before running your first cleaning routine, you need to plot out a place for the charging dock. Since the AOSO S3 functions around mapping your home, establishing a long-term spot early on makes its learning and return charging pattern much easier.

To further smooth out this process, there are a few criteria to meet. Generally, it's advised to place it against the wall on a hard and level surface. You'll also want to utilize a higher wall outlet since if the power adapter cord is left on the floor, it's both an obstacle for pathing and an easy target for getting tangled.

If you want to reduce issues further, remove any objects within three feet of the charger's left and right side. Also, keep six feet of space in front of the charger open. This allows the vacuum to have a clear path when it returns to charge either automatically or by your command.

Managing the First Cleaning and Initial Mapping

While the AOSO S3 does have its own visual navigation system, you want to set the vacuum up for success while it's mapping your home. This primarily entails moving any small objects from the floor. Otherwise, you may find your vacuum dragging things along or getting stuck on various objects.

During this stage, you'll be most likely to run into general pathing bugs. These were never triggered by floor type; they instead were mostly caused by the room's furnishings.

For instance, I witnessed the AOSO remap my kitchen several times. During this, it navigated a maze of chairs placed under a long dining room table. I thought for sure it'd get stuck during its repeat visits in tight, narrow places; it always emerged without issue.

I also heard the vacuum voice for assistance more than once as it tried to map into an adjacent room that required a step-down. After falling thrice, I blocked off the section; it continued mapping normally.

Overall, the initial mapping can prove a little odd. Still, with a small amount of robot handholding, your vacuum can master it's cleaning path.

What Are The Cleaning Modes?

There are four cleaning modes to the AOSO S3:

Auto Cleaning - A mode that cleans rooms in a pattern and adjusts routes according to the situation.

Spot Cleaning - A mode that cleans a specific area in a spiral pattern.

Edge Cleaning - A mode that cleans along walls and around furniture legs.

Scheduled Cleaning - A scheduled cleaning time. It will work in Auto Cleaning mode.

By design, each mode is easy to jump between. So at any time during the present mode, you can pause the AOSO S3. Afterward, you can swap to another mode to either finish up a room or get a specific spot.

As a note, some modes such as edge cleaning are completed faster than auto cleaning. So you may need to repeat them more than once if the robot misses a spot.

How Easy is Clean-Up?

After you finish using the device, it's advised to clean up after each use. Since the AOSO S3 features a relatively small dust bin, it also tends to fill up quickly. Still, it's easy to pop out, and you can utilize the included cleaning tool to tend to the filter simultaneously.

For the outside brushes and wheels, I followed the same routine as a standard vacuum cleaner. For any hair or excess build-up, it was easy to cut them off. The rotating brush also pops out without much effort, so you can keep the main brush really clean.

Ultimately, the side brushes took the most effort as they'd occasionally require some reshaping due to pathing injury. They were also the most vulnerable to hair tangles due to their bristles, which wasn't an issue when cleaning after each use.

Cleaning always felt easy based on how accessible each part was.

TuyaSmart App vs Remote Control

One of the great facets of the AOSO S3 is how much it indirectly leaves up to the user. Unlike some other smart applications, you can entirely bypass using the TuyaSmart app if you want. So there's no mandatory hardware activation required.

Image Gallery (3 Images)

Expand

Expand

Expand

Close

Image 1 of 3

Image 2 of 3

Image 3 of 3

window['gallery_1'] = new Swiper('#swipper-1', { direction: 'horizontal', spaceBetween: 20, slidesPerView: 1, centeredSlides: true, preventClicks: false, observer: true, observeParents: true, loop: false, keyboard: { enabled: true }, // If we need pagination pagination: { el: '.swiper-pagination', }, navigation: { nextEl: '.swiper-button-next', prevEl: '.swiper-button-prev', }, }); var images = document.getElementsByClassName("gallery-1-images"); for (var i = 0; i < images.length; i++) { images[i].addEventListener('click', function (event) { var swiperDiv = document.getElementById('gallery-modal-1'); var imagesArray = document.getElementsByClassName("gallery-1-images"); index = Array.prototype.indexOf.call(imagesArray, this); window['gallery_1'].slideTo(index, false, false) swiperDiv.style.display = 'block'; document.body.style.overflow = 'hidden' }); } function closeGallery(element){ element.parentNode.style.display = 'none'; document.body.style.overflow = "initial"; }

However, if you want access to features like scheduled cleaning, a visual representation of your pathing, third party control (Alexa and Google Assistant), and remote use, then you'll want the app. Otherwise, the TuyaSmart app shares the same options as the battery-powered remote control. Both have the ability to jump between automatic modes, manual control, change suction power, and make the AOSO S3 call out its location.

With that said, there are still some advantages to using its remote control in person. When trying to pause a mode and change to another on the AOSO S3 via the app, I found it wouldn't always register the command. In comparison, the remote control worked without issue.

Pairing the AOSO S3 to TuyaSmart App

Image Gallery (3 Images)

Expand

Expand

Expand

Close

Image 1 of 3

Image 2 of 3

Image 3 of 3

window['gallery_2'] = new Swiper('#swipper-2', { direction: 'horizontal', spaceBetween: 20, slidesPerView: 1, centeredSlides: true, preventClicks: false, observer: true, observeParents: true, loop: false, keyboard: { enabled: true }, // If we need pagination pagination: { el: '.swiper-pagination', }, navigation: { nextEl: '.swiper-button-next', prevEl: '.swiper-button-prev', }, }); var images = document.getElementsByClassName("gallery-2-images"); for (var i = 0; i < images.length; i++) { images[i].addEventListener('click', function (event) { var swiperDiv = document.getElementById('gallery-modal-2'); var imagesArray = document.getElementsByClassName("gallery-2-images"); index = Array.prototype.indexOf.call(imagesArray, this); window['gallery_2'].slideTo(index, false, false) swiperDiv.style.display = 'block'; document.body.style.overflow = 'hidden' }); } function closeGallery(element){ element.parentNode.style.display = 'none'; document.body.style.overflow = "initial"; }

One complaint about the AOSO S3 is that it doesn't support pairing over 5 GHz Wi-Fi. If you have a router with a clear split between the two types, it doesn't take long at all to pair. But if you have to go in and change your router settings, that's an unwelcome extra step.

Should You Buy The AOSO S3 Robovac?

Whether you should buy the AOSO S3 Robovac largely depends on your home. If you need some extra assistance to maintain a clean environment, this vacuum thrives. It's great whether it is tackling wood, carpet, or tile.

As long as you're willing to learn its hiccups initially, it is well worth what it offers as its price point. However, if you need a much larger dust bin or mopping capabilities, you should save towards a more expensive robot vacuum.

AOSO S3 Robot Vacuum Review: High Power, Budget Price published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[entergamingxp]

Zombie Army 4: Dead War Review — Sharknado: Zombie Edition

February 3, 2020 11:00 AM EST

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is the most refined entry in the series so far and offers hours upon hours of zombie-killing content for your enjoyment.

From Resident Evil to the upcoming The Last of Us Part II, zombies have been featured in video games for as long as I can remember. It’s a tried-and-true formula that just works. I think the zombies and video games relationship can be best summed up by paraphrasing Forrest Gump; they belong together like peas and carrots. However, it was Treyarch’s hidden mode from Call of Duty: World at War that made Nazi zombies all the rage. The merging of the two evils inspired the creators of Sniper Elite to feature Nazi zombies in the game’s expansions which ended up being so popular with fans, it went on to spawn its own franchise. Now, the fourth entry in the series, Rebellion’s Zombie Army 4: Dead War, will be releasing shortly on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

At the end of the Zombie Army Trilogy, Hitler was defeated and sent to Hell. It’s now one year later and Hitler’s dead army still roams the earth leaving a path of death and destruction in their wake. In Zombie Army 4: Dead War your task is to defeat this leaderless army of zombies before they can revive their supreme evil leader Adolf Hitler and wipe out humanity in the ultimate zombie apocalypse. The all-new campaign starts in Italy and ends in Hell as you encounter the most grotesque enemies ever seen in the series such as zombie tanks and sharks.

“Rebellion, who both developed and published Zombie Army 4: Dead War, has improved upon the gunplay quite a bit.”

There are four characters to play as and as you level up, you can customize and upgrade them to match your gameplay style. This includes up to five perk slots that boost your offensive and defensive tactics along with a special category that provides things like the ability to carry more ammo for weapon types. You need to level up to unlock these slots with the fifth and final one unlocking at level 35. Your character can also get a special melee attack that ranges from giving you a small amount of health to an incendiary axe throw.

Rebellion, who both developed and published Zombie Army 4: Dead War, has improved upon the gunplay quite a bit. The game also still includes the oh-so-satisfying X-Ray Kill Cam made famous in the Sniper Elite series. If you are unfamiliar with the X-Ray Kill Cam, it slows up time so you can watch the bullets shatter brains, organs, and bones. If you have played any third or first-person shooters before, controls and gameplay will feel familiar and easy to master.

Zombie Army 4’s arsenal includes a handful of rifles, assault rifles, shotguns, and pistols that are typical and standard in most WWII shooters such as the MP44 and the Gewehr 43. Making them unique is the fact that they are upgradeable with a variety of cool perks that will enhance your bullets with lightning or Vampir scopes that return a small amount of health on successful critical hits.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War’s campaign can be played solo or with up to three others in co-op. Unfortunately, I couldn’t test out co-op too extensively in this pre-release form. Since I prefer playing campaigns first on my own before joining others anyway, this didn’t really concern me, although it’s easy to see that the game is designed with cooperative play in mind.

I also tested out the new and improved Horde mode and while it’s not impossible to play on your own, it’s definitely not easy taking on progressively more difficult and numerous waves of zombies. Even in my failure, I still had fun with Horde mode but I’m looking forward to being able to play with more friends once the game releases.

There’s a whole lot more to Zombie Army 4 than just killing zombies. There are objectives and obstacles to conquer which provide a little more depth and polish to the overall experience. Traveling down the canals of Venice in a boat, you will have to stop and refuel with the fuel being scattered throughout the level. Once you find the tanks of fuel, you must make your way back to the boat amidst zombie chaos and only the use of your pistol. For those of you treasure hunters, each chapter includes several collectibles to be had including weapon upgrade kits which you don’t want to miss. Of course, the real reason we are here is to kill zombies, and the game does a good job of not getting repetitive by offering several varieties of zombies to blow away. Half of the battle becomes learning the weaknesses of each type so you can quickly eliminate them.

The graphics and art direction of Zombie Army 4 bring lifelike realism to the various zombie forms as well as depict some of Italy’s notable landmarks in a ruined but still lovely state. The sound crew at Rebellion have added to the intensity of the zombie attacks with a perfect mix of sound effects and zombie cries. The scream of a Suicider will become all too familiar as you frantically seek the direction it’s coming from before it’s too late and self destructs in front of you. I was reminded of the Clickers from The Last of Us and how the sound of them haunted my dreams long after I finished the game.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War poses a challenge in its punishing gameplay that feels mostly balanced, with the exception of the lack of health. I’m currently at level 43 in the game and only a very small portion of my health bar regenerates. In order to regenerate to full health, you need a medkit. You can carry one extra medkit with you, but given the length and difficulty of some chapters, sometimes one alone is not enough. Ammunition is scattered around the levels very generously, so you rarely run out of bullets, but I almost never found medkits. After each level, you are sent to a safe house where you can re-supply and often that was the only time I would see them. I’m not saying I didn’t come across the random medkit here and there, but it was an extremely rare occurrence. I even tested all three difficulties to see if they spawned more frequently on Easy, Medium, or Hard and the result was always the same.

“Zombie Army 4 offers a cohesive and fun experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously.”

Another pitfall of playing games prior to release is that often I’m playing it before it has been fully optimized with the day one patch. That was, unfortunately, the case with Zombie Army 4: Dead War at times. The worst error which took place for me was during the Death Canal mission where I was prompted to pull a lever to lower a bridge but the ability to actually interact with the lever never manifested. For a while, I was stuck here and couldn’t progress. Since it was fairly early in the game, I started over from the beginning and was able to finally move along. There were other similar incidents throughout the game, but nothing as severe as this. Typically, restarting the most recent checkpoint fixed most of my other problems.

Another odd issue I experienced had to do with beating the final boss. Upon defeating this baddie, the game immediately went straight to the main menu, with no story wrap up, cutscenes, or anything. The only way I knew the game was over, was because the achievement for finishing the game popped. Replaying the last chapter properly ended the game for me and I was able to see how things actually wrapped up. Fortunately, these problems I had shouldn’t be an issue for you as Rebellion has sent out the contents of a day one patch that should fix these and a few other minor bugs that are currently plaguing Zombie Army 4.

Unlike the direction the Zombies mode from Call of Duty has taken in the past few iterations, Zombie Army 4 offers a cohesive and fun experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s engaging from start to finish and with its weekly challenges, the arcade-like setup of the chapters and leaderboards, and with Horde Mode, there’s a bunch of replay value here. Zombie Army 4: Dead War has finally broken free of its Sniper Elite shackles and will hopefully give rise to a lasting franchise of smiting out Nazi zombies.

February 3, 2020 11:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/zombie-army-4-dead-war-review-sharknado-zombie-edition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=zombie-army-4-dead-war-review-sharknado-zombie-edition

[reviewape-blog]

Goal Setting Formula

https://www.reviewape.com/?p=15830 Goal Setting Formula - Product Name: Goal Setting Formula Click here to get Goal Setting Formula at discounted price while it’s still available… All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. Goal Setting Formula is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked. (function ($) { var $self = $('.adace-loader-5c350fbe4c44f'); var $wrapper = $self.closest('.adace-slot-wrapper'); "use strict"; var adace_load_5c350fbe4c44f = function(){ var viewport = $(window).width(); var tabletStart = 601; var landscapeStart = 801; var tabletEnd = 961; var content = ''; var unpack = true; if(viewport=tabletStart && viewport=landscapeStart && viewport=tabletStart && viewport=tabletEnd){ if ($wrapper.hasClass('.adace-hide-on-desktop')){ $wrapper.remove(); } } if(unpack) { $self.replaceWith(decodeURIComponent(content)); } } if($wrapper.css('visibility') === 'visible' ) { adace_load_5c350fbe4c44f(); } else { //fire when visible. var refreshIntervalId = setInterval(function(){ if($wrapper.css('visibility') === 'visible' ) { adace_load_5c350fbe4c44f(); clearInterval(refreshIntervalId); } }, 999); } })(jQuery); Description: This complete Goal Setting FormulaTM system will transform your life from totally nothing to everything you ever wanted in your life from scratch! Scroll down for juicy details on how you can start immediately… Dear Success Seeker or Goal-Chaser, If you are the kind of person who loves to discover easy, simple and super-fast shortcuts to achieve anything you want in your life… then this will be the most electrifying and exciting letter you’ve ever read. If someone were to ask me which book is worth reading to help you becoming a successful person, my answer would undoubtedly be – Shawn Lim’s Goal Setting FormulaTM.This book has given me a clear picture on why goal setting is important, how to set goals and what should I do after I have set the goals. Guess what? After finish reading his book in just an hour, I became motivated and dare to dream big. I realized that goal setting is mandatory if you want to be successful in life. Truly amazed at how inspired I could be in just a short time!I am so glad that I have this eBook as a guide to my brighter tomorrow. Thank you very much Shawn, for such a lovely, clear, concise and highly motivational eBook.Anabelle LimA University Student Because you are about to find out one of the precious formulas that you can use to transform your life into a super achiever and achieve basically any dreams and goals you want in your life. The well-known martial artist and movie star Bruce Lee became supreme exponent of martial arts and was once the master of masters in kung fu. Through a short but explosive film career he made the world aware of Chinese martial arts and he then became one of the highest paid movie stars in the world. For Bruce Lee to become successful he had to overcome incredible obstacles. As you know, he had to overcome the obstacles of being the first Chinese movie star in the West. There was a lot of prejudice towards the Chinese so this was a huge challenge… However, Bruce overcome all the obstacles and he even used his martial arts as a medium to unite the eastern and western culture and bring down the racial barriers at that time. In Planet Hollywood in New York City, there is a letter hanging on the wall that Bruce Lee wrote to himself many years before he was successful. The letter is stamped and is dated January 9, 1970. Bruce wrote on this letter clearly what his goal was to be. It said: Bruce Lee attained this goal and he became a mega superstar and attained huge wealth well beyond the goal he set. I have read your eBook, Goal Setting FormulaTM, to say the least I am impressed by the book. I would like to call it a life changing guide to a goal setting break through. It offers a step by step guide through the process and giving a more participative and practical approach which is very easy to understand and apply. I would like to recommend this eBook to any aspiring persons who are serious about goal setting and achievement. Thanks to Shawn Lim. – Lennimore Dauda Harare, Zimbabwe The formula that Bruce Lee used is called “Goal Setting” and many other successful people like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Napoleon Hill, Donald Trump, Brian Tracy, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Anthony Robbins, etc, etc, etc. So how did all these successful people achieve so much in their life? The answer is plain and simple… This formula is as easy as drinking water: Let me show you another real-life example of what this guy achieved with goal setting… I just finished reading your excellent book ‘Goal Setting FormulaTM’. I have to say I really liked it and did not put it down until I finished it. I literally read it from beginning to end in one sitting, and then read it again, step by step, as I thought about my goals. What I loved about the e-book was its simplicity, in language and presentation, making easy to follow and understand. I highly recommend it to anyone who seriously wants to move ahead in life. Thank you, Shawn. Best wishes,Hani Al-Qasem When he was 12, he was lazy, unmotivated, hated to study and labelled as a slow-learner. However, he still managed to turn the world around. Who he is? He is Adam Khoo. One of the youngest self-made millionaires in Singapore. So how in the world can he achieved so many amazing results in his life? This is simply because Adam understands how goal setting works… So now you might ask, if all of these are so easy, why don’t everyone achieve what they want in their life? Why aren’t more people living the life of their dreams? Why doesn’t everyone have the perfect career, home, body and relationship? The reason is that there is more to goal setting and goal achievement. Goal setting is not just a wishful thinking. You can’t just sit down for 3 minutes and write down what you want to achieve in your life, and hope that everything will come true the next day after you woke up. There is a formula that you need to go through, a short series of steps that takes you from where you are to where you want to be. Providing you go through that process, in the right order, there is little that you cannot achieve. From someone who learned about goal setting and success the hard way I can tell you that Shawn Lim outlines a great way to get going with your plans and start living life to the fullest. Anyone who reads this book will move on with a clearer head about their goals. When you walk on the path that you designed, you will have the natural motivation that keeps you going all the time. You’ll live your life happier than ever before simply because you are living the life that you wanted exactly. People who believe that they are the master of their life change their life and achieve whatever they want. People who believe whatever happen will be will be change by their surroundings. They are waiting for opportunity instead of creating opportunity. Goal setting may not be new to you, maybe you have tried to set goals and achieve them before. If you didn’t succeed, there is a high probability that you would presumed that goal setting does not work. Perhaps, Brian Tracy says it best… Firstly, most people do not know what they really want in their life. Sounds crazy, but it’s true. If you do not know what you really want in your life, how in the world are you going to achieve it? You need to find out what you really want to achieve in your life before you can achieve them. Don’t be a lost sheep and following the crowd. Find out what you truly want in your life. If you’re not sure what you want to do with your life, don’t worry. You will learn how to discover your true goal with Goal Setting FormulaTM. What would you expect from this eBook? That’s the first thing came across my mind, but after reading this eBook, it is giving me a crystal clear view about Goal Setting. Why we need to set our goal? For me if you do not set any goal in your life yet and I am pretty sure you shall live your life the same before. I quote from this eBook: “Goal setting is the powerful vehicle that can bring you to whatever you want, and action is the fuel that drives the powerful vehicle.” I can tell you that this is not the ordinary information written in this eBook. It will guide you step-by-step to setting up your goal and I like the “What Should You Do Now” chapter and if you want to know why, then grab this eBook. So my advice to you, for those who seeking a success in his or her life and dare to be extraordinary people, take your first action by getting this eBook and you would be thankful to Shawn by making this eBook. If you are given everything, what do you want to achieve in your life? “It was only recently that I discovered goal setting. In a nutshell, it means setting a goal, writing it down and telling the whole world about it. In the past, I did set goals, but I would do it only in my mind. In many cases, when the going got tough, I would compromise, or bargain with myself for a simpler goal, or conveniently “postpone” the goal for another time. Most of the time, the goal would not be fulfilled in its entirety. Sometimes, it never got fulfilled at all. Now, when I set goals and tell people around me about it, my approach to the goal changed. I would be actively seeking for ways to achieve that goal, whether it is with the people I talk to, or the TV program I’m watching, or the article I’m reading. And I will take the initiative and go out there and do whatever needs to be done to achieve my stated goal. In fact, when I’m in my “goal achieving” mode, it is as if every fibre of my being was tuned to getting my goal achieved. In everything that I say or do, I will be looking for ways of moving myself closer to my goal. It actually becomes very difficult to fail. Goal setting works! With the “Goal Setting FormulaTM” eBook, you will learn to set goals and adopt the right strategies to go about achieving your goals. It outlines a step-by-step guide so that achieving your goals has never been easier.” Warrior Forum MemberDavid “It is true that one need to set goals, in fact it is of utmost importance if you have any intention of being successful in life. Taking the time to read this eBook has most definitely put me in the right prospective as to areas in which to set my goals after all most of us just think along the line of financial goals and not necessarily marking out a balance field, prioritizing, successful keys to goal setting, setting goals i love, as when you really love what you do you will give it your all. I believe that one can truly inspire another and this eBook has done it for me. Thanks Shawn, every time I come up short of reaching my goals I will come back to this place to remind myself of the direction to take and the ways to go about it.” Therefore, if you are not committed toward what you want to achieve in your life, you will never going to achieve them. I know that you want to achieve great success and create amazing results in your life. But the question is, “Are you 100% committed to achieve them?” Last but not least, most people do not know how to achieve what they want. If you are just like most people, you are so eager to achieve what you want but you do not know how, this is the right moment for you… Let me show you what is inside this eBook. It took me such a long time to figure out in writing this because I want to add in real and great value for you: How to set and achieve basically anything you want in your life (As long as you follow through the steps in my eBook)! How to live a balance life by achieving great success in every areas of your life. Learn how to stay focused and put in 100% concentration in what you do. Help to find out who you really are and what you really want to achieve in your life. Learn how you can craft and design your own destiny. Develop strategies how to drive yourself and keep yourself motivated all the time! Learn how to deal with feedback and change your strategies to align with your goals. Learn how to make your goals actionable that you can actually act on! How you can set empowering goals that drive you all the time. How to put yourself on the line and become a super achiever! I’m not crazy, however I want you to… download “Goal Setting FormulaTM” eBook now and apply every formula and secrets for the next 60 days! (More than 8 weeks!) And if you think that my “Goal Setting FormulaTM” eBook does not help you in your journey to success, I don’t want your money. I’ll gladly return every single cent you invest here with no questions asked! YES Shawn! I want to download and discover the Goal Setting Formula secrets! I want to transform into a super achiever and achieve my goals like a winner, every time! *** There’s no BEST TIME or RIGHT TIME to set goals and create your own destiny. When you have the chance, you should GRAB IT! You don’t have to repeat your last year this year. Make a change. This is the best time for you to decide and to transform your life. Don’t let this great opportunity slip by. This is your chance, grab it NOW… To Your Success!Shawn Lim PS. If you are really serious in achieving your goals and success in your life, then I will be serious with you as well – You are investing for your future. PPS. Do this for me and for you, there is no risk involved. Test out my “Goal Setting Formula” guide with totally zero risk for the next 8 weeks! If you’re not completely satisfied with it, just let me know and I’ll immediately issue you a full refund with no question asked. What’s more, if you like it (and I’m sure you’ll do), keep the eBook plus the bonuses and use every tip, every secret, and every tool included in there. Either way, you WIN. So what are you waiting for? Click here now to get everything you need to transform yourself into a Super Achiever! © 2016 GoalSettingFormula.com ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales, Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 917 S. Lusk Street, Suite 200, Boise Idaho, 83706, USA and used by permission. ClickBank’s role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products. Click here to get Goal Setting Formula at discounted price while it’s still available… All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. Goal Setting Formula is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked. - ReviewApe - https://www.reviewape.com/?p=15830

[30somethingrookrookie-blog]

Days minus-4 through 0: Introductions

Thursday (day “minus four”): My best friend found himself in a hospital burn unit after a cooking accident.  With temporarily immobilized hands and feet from skin grafts, and his immediate family out of state with other commitments, he wasn’t going to be able to do much on his own.  I came by to stay at least through Sunday morning, in order to help him with food, drink, lip balm, and just generally keep him company.

While the burns had been healing somewhat well, he had just had his skin graft performed when I came in.  He was in immense pain, reporting that his thighs (the skin donor area) hurt worse than the actual burn sites.  They kept him under heavy painkillers and he faded in and out of both sleep and lucidity.  While he appreciated the company when he was able to talk, he spent more time out of it than in.  I realized quickly that I would definitely want to find something to focus on during the times when I wasn’t needed, because I planned to be there for a while.

Now I had played chess on-and-off before.  I had the chess.com app on my phone to mess with casually, and even was briefly on my middle school chess team a couple decades ago.  But, I had never taken it even slightly “seriously” and still considered myself an absolute beginner.  I had checked “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” out from libraries a couple times in my twenties and was loosely familiar with things like forks, pins, and checkmating a king when he was all by himself on the back row, but never learned to apply any of it, so really, my level of play was always “probably beat someone who just learned the rules, and literally nobody else.”

What had brought me back around to chess was an ad I saw in an idle game I was playing for an app called “Magnus Trainer”, which seemed to be a chess training app released with the blessing of a notable player (who I would soon find out is the current World #1 and World Champion, Magnus Carlsen from Norway).  I went looking for it in the app store, found two programs with this guy on it: the “Trainer” I was looking for, and also a cute program called “Play with Magnus” that offered simulations of the Champion at various stages of his life.  I installed both, because it sounded a lot of fun to play against the 5-year-old version of a future world champ.

I poked around both of the Magnus apps and the chess.com app for a little bit, and then watched some TV with my friend.  The cable selection was extremely basic (no FX, no Cartoon Network, only ESPN for sports channels), so we found ourselves watching lighthearted programming that was easy to watch back-to-back, like TruTV’s prank show “Impractical Jokers” and the CW’s stage magic showcases “Masters of Illusion” and “Penn And Teller: Fool Us”.  The nurses were reticent to give him heavier painkiller doses, because of the risk of respiration difficulties, but he was eventually able to get off to an uneasy sleep, and I found myself drifting off in the recliner.

Yowza, I’m starting to notice I’m using a ton of brand names on this.  I promise I’m not being endorsed by anyone to make a stupid blog about being a 30something chess newbie, or to trick anyone into watching dumb TV shows or downloading free-to-play apps.

Day -3 (Friday): Friend was in a lot of pain still, but his respiration rates had stabilized, and they were able to give him some of those unspellable medications they have.  I found myself with a lot of free time between the moments he was able to get up, and decided to really crack into the lessons on the Magnus Trainer app.  It started off with super-basic lessons that amounted to drills practicing the pieces’ moves and captures, and gradually increased in difficulty so slowly I hadn’t yet noticed it was happening.  Some of the “games” in the lessons seemed especially bizarre - there was one where you were moving around trying to escape from a “monster” piece which slowly floated around in real time.  The challenge would increase when it would as you to pick up “keys” on certain squares as you fled, and then to play as pieces that are increasingly difficult to get to those particular squares, such as knights.

I was having a good time and felt more confident, so I tried playing the Play With Magnus game.  Happily I discovered that the biographies for the first few difficulty levels (Ages 5, 5 1/2, 6, and 6 1/2) indicated that they all took place before he developed a particular interest in playing chess, and mostly talked about his hobbies at the time (soccer, geography trivia, and books about pirates).  I tried a few games against ages 5 and 5 1/2 and found that he would often make completely erratic moves, failing to capture in obvious exchanges or just leaving pieces completely en prise (fancypants chess talk for “just sitting there so you can straight up snatch em up).  A few wins boosted my confidence further, and I went back into the Trainer app, completing all of the sessions marked Basic and Easy, and making some headway into Medium.

Day -2 (Saturday): At this point I had started to grow a little obsessed with this Trainer app.  I was sometimes failing tasks, especially on the ones where speed was an issue, and I got determined to keep on plugging through, and at the very least finish all of the Medium sessions before I left the hospital burn ward on Monday.  

Couldn’t sleep at all, except brief nods-off in the recliner that peaked at maybe one hour.  When my friend was asleep, I’d put my headphones in, pop on a podcast (listened to a lot of McElroy family shows in this time, especially Sawbones, My Brother My Brother And Me, Wonderful!, and the backlog of the discontinued Coolgames Inc.), and blast straight into the chess tactics and games.  I found myself beating the ages 6 and 6.5 versions of Play With Magnus (plays somewhat similarly to ages 5 and 5.5, but doesn’t as often decide to just randomly give up the queen or miss an obvious capture).  I was intimidated by the description of age 7, where young Carlsen was motivated by sibling rivalry to defeat his older sister at the game, so I started playing games against the CPU of the chess.com app, which even offered an estimate of the CPU’s Elo level (the score used most commonly to rate a chess player’s overall performance.  a number in the 3-digits is a true beginner; an Elo rating of 2000 in the USCF is considered an Expert, and a professional International Master player holds a FIDE score of no less than 2400).  As that parenthetical aside probably tells you, I ended up doing some research as to what the ranks and rating numbers mean, and what I could expect to know at each stage.  As I played the chess.com app, I noticed that Level 1 (Elo 200) seemed to play full nonsense moves most of the time, and Level 3 (Elo 500) seemed to be the level where it first started really punishing any super obvious blunders I made.  Unfortunately I found myself moving too quickly and leaving valuable pieces en prise, so I ended up going back to tactics in the Trainer.

My goal was to finish all of the Medium lessons by Monday.  I finished them by the end of Saturday and was starting to crack into the last set, the “Hard” ones.  Sleeplessness is a Thing, y’all.

Day -1 (Sunday): Doesn’t matter how many tactics lessons you do, you lose against easy mode CPUs if you leave your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  All losses and no mates make Jack a dull boy

Day 0 (Monday / yesterday): Left hospital at 6 PM, confident my friend was once again in good hands.  The next day he was to have his graft sites looked at, and should have regained some of his ability to do things (I will update this tomorrow with his condition).  He was acting like his normal self, and even suggested that the experience might have given him the experiences he needed to go back into standup comedy, which made me happy to hear.  It was what he had wanted to do a decade ago, but politics at some of the local comedy clubs ended up leaving him with a distaste for the scene, and he had quit.  I hope he follows up on that, he’s legitimately a funny and talented guy.

Still starting to make some headway into the Hard section of the Trainer app.  Moved exclusively to playing Play With Magnus on the 7- and 7.5-year-old levels, as level 8 is officially where it jumps to “intermediate” and suggests that the boy had started to put in some serious study, which seems well beyond my point.  Still found myself making reflexive moves without thinking, and moving pieces that were critical to defending other ones.  Currently, my record against this app is 28 wins, 7 ties, and 16 losses, and it rather generously estimates my level of play at 892.

During a game against the Level 3 (Elo 500) chess.com app CPU, I managed to get the game down to a mate-in-1 situation 3 times in the endgame without even noticing.  I will make a separate post about that one, it’s wicked silly.

Day 1: done made me a blog, yeehoo!

I’m trying to figure out what a realistic goal is, if I keep on practicing fairly consistently, where I can try to reach in a month and in a year.  I’m in my early 30s, which is probably way too old to start taking a game seriously and expect to become the best ever, but I do wonder if I can ever make it out of “beginner” and into, I suppose, “chess player” status.

[buildercar]

New Post has been published on http://www.buildercar.com/first-drive-2018-chevrolet-camaro-zl1-1le/

First Drive: 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE

KELOWNA, British Columbia — Have you ever been to Kelowna? Neither had I as I boarded the final flight on my way to drive the 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. Terra firma meeting my little Alaskan Air twin-prop prodded me out of nap land. I had to think for second where I was and what I was actually doing here. I’ve been traveling flat out since January, when I flew to the Middle East to compete in the 24 Hours of Dubai sports-car race. Since then, among other responsibilities, I’ve been to Germany several times to run at the Nürburgring, and now here I am — 170,000 miles later — in the Pacific Northwest for a test of the latest Camaro track special.

As I eyed the 1LE for the first time, its ultra-aggressive stance made me think of the long-standing Mustang/Camaro rivalry, with fanatical fans on both sides. They’re nothing like political or religious fanatics, of course; they’re way more civilized. That said, seeing the 1LE’s rabid front fascia in a rearview mirror may be the vehicular equivalent of a middle finger to anyone in its path.

Camaro chief engineer Al Oppenheiser informs us, “The 1LE is focused towards track and then street. We aimed for a vehicle buyers (General Motors figures people age 50 and older) can drive to the track, enjoy driving on track, and then drive it home.”

The 1LE seems to follow function more than design. Air management was a chief consideration throughout its development. Bodywork had to change, because the 1LE’s wheels (11 inches in front, 12 in the rear) are an inch wider than the ones found on the standard Camaro ZL1. The fenders are 0.7 inch wider to efficiently move air around the larger rubber (305/30R-19 front, 325/30R-19 rear). As a historical note, this is the widest rubber ever employed on a factory-built Camaro. Unique to the 1LE package, Chevy chose to use 19-inch wheels instead of the base ZL1’s 20-inchers. The 19s pull air through them as they roll to aid brake cooling.

The 1LE has a longer front splitter molded over the standard fascia, plus racing-derived dive planes and larger front grille openings. All of this adds downforce to the front, which means a new rear wing is necessary to reestablish aerodynamic balance. The 1LE rear wing is highly efficient, adding downforce with little drag. The use of carbon fiber allows the wing to be very thin where needed, which means aero effectiveness dictated the shape rather than manufacturing limitations or design eccentricities. Total downforce, according to Chevy, is 300 pounds at 150 mph.

Chevy went to suspension masters Multimatic to work on the 1LE, the same company that’s heavily involved with the new Ford GT supercar. As does the Ford GT, the Camaro 1LE uses Multimatic’s Dynamic Suspension Spool Valve, DSSV, damper technology front and rear. DSSV technology has been used in Formula 1 and other professional racing series and is, of course, very expensive. The main tech difference in a DSSV damper compared to a typical one is the use of exquisitely engineered pistons, with port holes instead of the deflective discs, or shims, traditionally found inside.

DSSV technology allows for much more specific shock tuning and a wider range of capability. Note: The 1LE’s dampers are not adjustable. In an effort to delete chassis/suspension flex, traditional rubber mounts and bushings were eliminated where possible. The 1LE front dampers are hard-mounted, top and bottom, which should lead to more consistent handling at the limit. Interestingly, despite the hard mount, loosening just three bolts and rotating the strut can increase front camber to 3 degrees negative in minutes. This is a very useful option for trackside preparation. Ride height is also adjustable by a total of 0.78 inch via the front-strut spring perch. Plus, the rear stability bar has three positions. Amazingly, the DSSV dampers on the 1LE save 23 pounds over the ZL1’s regular setup.

More than 20 years have passed since I worked with Goodyear tire engineers to develop super-sticky street-based race tires. After a long layoff, at least on my side, I can say Goodyear is back in the sticky street-tire game with this new Eagle F1 Supercar 3R (1LE specific). Think Pirelli Trofeo, Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s, etc. In other words, they are exceptional — and wear out if you look at them too long — but, oh, how they grip. Goodyear worked alongside the Camaro group on the new R3. “Normally we would see maybe four iterations of development tire at most,” Oppenheiser says. “With the 1LE tire, Goodyear submitted seven over three years.” Indeed, it’s good to see another player in the sticky street-tire business, as it should provide more competition and improve and increase choices for all enthusiasts.

My street drive of the 1LE takes place in northwest Washington, around the picturesque Oroville, Tonasket area. I drive 300 miles, sitting in the driver’s seat for around eight hours. I’ll say something right here about the seats in the 1LE (identical to the ZL1): These are without doubt the most comfortable seats I have ever found in a GM vehicle. That is good news because this car feels stiff — and I mean really stiff. The 1LE does not have a lot of suspension travel, and the dampers are designed to work best on the limit at racetracks.

In fact, expansion joints on public roads cause the car to skip. Ripples in asphalt while approaching a couple stop signs send the 1LE into a tiff, as it skips from one ripple to the next. Staff photographer Robin Trajano and I find ourselves out of our seats a couple of times (yes, we have seatbelts on) as we encounter abrupt road heaves. But once I understand how the 1LE is set up, I drive accordingly. The car’s ride and handling reminds me of driving a Porsche 997 911 GT3; they seem to share similar compliance levels. I have not heard anyone with a GT3 complain about a stiff ride, as usually they know what they bought. I suspect and certainly hope 1LE buyers will be equally discerning.

Regardless of the stiffness, the 1LE feels fine 99 percent of the time on Washington’s superb country roads. Handling at spirited (not nutcase) speeds was predictable and impressive. The Goodyears provide constant lateral grip of more than 1g with no fuss. Despite the big grip, I could manipulate the 1LE at will. I practiced some “overdriving” scenarios with traction- and stability-control nannies set to minimum intrusion. I leaned on the front tires and used quick hands to upset the rear. Nothing caused a twitchy or snappy reaction, just manageable little slides corrected easily with steering input or by the traction/stability controls. The chassis and Goodyear combo worked well.

I could not use all 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque from the supercharged LT4 V-8 for more than a few seconds without reaching jail-time speeds. This is power enjoyed fully on a track, as the 1LE is a really big stick, and you can’t come close to using all of it on the street.

The MH3 Tremec six-speed manual gearbox is excellent. In fact, it is one of the best production-car manual transmissions I’ve tried, and the rev-match feature is flawless as far as I’m concerned. The brakes (six-piston Brembos front, four-piston rear) are superb. The steering feels connected and direct, probably helped by the solid mounted struts. A fair amount of tire noise comes into the car above 60 mph, but it does nothing to hinder conversation. Engine noise is a friendly burble in normal driving, only changing to “Can you freakin’ hear me now?” with a heavy foot.

Why, though, in such a track-tuned car, does the 1LE have electric seats, as there must be 60 pounds worth of electric motors included in them? Oppenheiser answers, “We left all the ZL1 content in, as we believe the 1LE buyer will demand it.” He adds, “This is not a stripped-out car, [something like] that would tend towards a Z28.” So then, despite all the track-focused bits and tuning, the 1LE remains all ZL1 inside and weighs only 67 pounds less (3,820 pounds).

The basic Camaro controls are simple to use, and I had no problem achieving an ideal driving position. I managed 15.3 mpg during our 300-mile day, including at least an hour of engine idle time.

As far as racetracks go, we headed to Area 27, a six-month-old facility just outside of Kelowna. The 3-mile track has 16 turns and was designed by Canadian F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve. I can confirm he did not design it to be boring. There are fast, medium, and slow corners, a wicked blind 100-mph chicane, and great elevation changes. It’s an excellent circuit.

The Camaro ZL1 1LEs Chevy brought out for track driving were set up before we arrived, the setup work carried out by Bill Wise and other GM ride and handling engineers. As mentioned, front camber, ride height, and the rear stability bar are all easily adjustable. These engineers know their stuff and are as fast as pro drivers in the cars these engineers have developed. (Check out the superb 1LE Nürburgring lap on YouTube: 7 minutes, 16.04 seconds).

Whenever testing, I try out all the traction-control modes from the most restrictive to everything switched off. I find no surprises here; the traction/stability systems do a great job of keeping the chassis and power under control. The 1LE gives me the ability to correct all the silliness I throw at it. The least restrictive “race mode” TC cost me only a few tenths of a second over “everything off” on a two-plus-minute lap.

However, there is no getting away from the fact the 1LE is a heavy car. The majority of its weight resides over the front axle, and a driver can induce understeer if clumsy with steering inputs. The rear stays really stuck unless severely provoked. The 3R tires stay consistent after multiple laps, times falling off only slightly, even with ambient temps in the mid-80s. The ultimate stick of the Goodyear does not quite match that of the Michelin Cup 2s I’ve tried, but it’s close. The brake pedal stays solid for me all day, though I am not known to have a gorilla foot. (On the track I would not let tire pressures exceed 35 psi, and 28-30 psi seems to be a sweet spot.)

My photographer wants some drifting shots at the end of the day, and the 1LE is a pleasure to slide, giving me plenty of control and feedback. I had used the same car/tires all day, and after finishing up I am amazed to see minimal tire wear. I don’t know how long the new Goodyears will last, but these well-abused specimens did much better than I expected.

It’s just another example of modern engineering and technology, and the fact we live in an amazing time for the automobile. Autonomous innovation is coming, millions of hybrids are out there, but we can buy a weaponized 650-hp Camaro ZL1 1LE for $69,995. No one knows for sure how long this will last, but I am going to enjoy the ride for as long as possible.

2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE ON SALE: Now PRICE: $69,995 ENGINE: 6.2-liter supercharged OHV 16-valve V-8/650 hp @ 6,400 rpm, 650 lb-ft @ 3,600 rpm TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual LAYOUT: 2-door, 4-passenger, front-engine RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE: 14/20 mpg (city/hwy) L x W x H: 188.3 x 74.7 x 52.4 in WHEELBASE: 110.7 in WEIGHT: 3,820 lb (est) 0-60 MPH: 3.7 sec (est) TOP SPEED: 190 (est)

Source link