Over the course of the past few months I have been working on compiling a list of my 500 favorite songs. It was sort of challenge that I gave myself and I'm super pumped with how it turned out. There were a few rules (only 5 songs per artist being the big rule, among a few others), and here's the list I came up with. Thought it was fun, so wanted to share here and see if it might spark any discussion about song placement, lack of songs/artists, or see if anyone had any similar lists. All thoughts are welcome! (and if you don't care to comb through all 500 songs for your favorite song or artist I'm more than happy to help you track 'em down)

1. Trash Panda - Aging out of the 20th Century
   
2. Djo - Roddy
   
3. The Beatles - Don't Let Me Down
   
4. Snail Mail - Heat Wave
   
5. Phoebe Bridgers - Savior Complex
   
6. Joji - SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK
   
7. The Shins - The Fear
   
8. Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
   
9. The Cranberries - Linger
   
10. Post Animal - Ralphie
    
11. Hop Along - Not Abel
    
12. The Beach Boys - Heroes And Villains
    
13. Electric Light Orchestra - Livin' Thing
    
14. The Monkees - As We Go Along
    
15. Blondie - Heart Of Glass
    
16. The Strokes - Oblivius
    
17. Chet Baker - It's Always You
    
18. The Beatles - Rain
    
19. Electric Light Orchestra - Telephone Line
    
20. Husbands - Must Be a Cop
    
21. Faces - Ooh La La
    
22. The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??
    
23. Frank Ocean - Nights
    
24. Harry James - It's Been a Long, Long Time
    
25. The Turtles - Happy Together
    
26. Etta James - At Last
    
27. The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside
    
28. The Beatles - Here, There And Everywhere
    
29. The Beach Boys - God Only Knows
    
30. Kanye West - Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1
    
31. Briston Maroney - Sinkin'
    
32. John Lennon - Oh My Love
    
33. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - Ladyfingers
    
34. Squirrel Flower - Headlights
    
35. The Backseat Lovers - Maple Syrup
    
36. The B-52's - Rock Lobster
    
37. George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
    
38. Snail Mail - Ben Franklin
    
39. Laura Elliott - Grass Stains
    
40. Djo - Chateau (Feel Alright)
    
41. Tame Impala - Eventually
    
42. The Backseat Lovers - Snowbank Blues
    
43. Claude Debussy - Clair de Lune
    
44. The Weeknd - Save Your Tears
    
45. Talking Heads - Thank You for Sending Me an Angel
    
46. The Zombies - Time of the Season
    
47. The War On Drugs - Nothing to Find
    
48. Queen - Brighton Rock
    
49. The Dream Academy - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
    
50. The B-52's - Strobe Light
    
51. The Cranberries - Dreams
    
52. Fugees - Killing Me Softly With His Song
    
53. Molchat Doma - Тоска
    
54. Tyler, The Creator - ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?
    
55. The Mamas & The Papas - Dream A Little Dream Of Me
    
56. The Chords - Sh-Boom
    
57. The Beatles - The Abbey Road Medley
    
58. The Ronettes - Be My Baby
    
59. The Who - Baba O'Riley
    
60. Dr. Dog - Where'd All the Time Go?
    
61. M83 - My Tears Are Becoming A Sea
    
62. Billie Eilish - everything i wanted
    
63. Outkast - Hey Ya!
    
64. Nat King Cole - Orange Colored Sky
    
65. The Notorious B.I.G. - Hypnotize
    
66. Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
    
67. Foreign Air - Shut Up and Show Me
    
68. Leonard Cohen - So Long, Marianne
    
69. dodie - If I'm Being Honest
    
70. Briston Maroney - June
    
71. Post Malone - Sunflower
    
72. John Lennon - Isolation
    
73. Buddy Holly & The Crickets - Not Fade Away
    
74. Phoebe Bridgers - I Know The End
    
75. Kanye West - All Falls Down
    
76. Alvvays - Adult Diversion
    
77. John Lennon - Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)
    
78. Clairo - Amoeba
    
79. The Beach Boys - I Know There's An Answer
    
80. Paul McCartney - Let Me Roll It
    
81. Frank Ocean - Ivy
    
82. Radiohead - Motion Picture Soundtrack
    
83. Djo - Mutual Future (Repeat)
    
84. Phoebe Bridgers - Scott Street
    
85. Childish Gambino - Me and Your Mama
    
86. Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine
    
87. The Pied Pipers - Dream
    
88. The Beach Boys - All I Wanna Do
    
89. Djo - Change
    
90. Второй этаж поражает - Крайности
    
91. Little Richard - Lucille
    
92. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Shanghai
    
93. Chet Baker - Deep In A Dream
    
94. The Beatles - It's All Too Much
    
95. Post Animal - Dirtpicker
    
96. The B-52's - Love Shack
    
97. EDEN - foreve/over
    
98. Kanye West - Ultralight Beam
    
99. The Zombies - Going Out Of My Head
    
100. Talking Heads - Found a Job
     
101. Snail Mail - Pristine
     
102. Tom Tom Club - Genius of Love
     
103. Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World
     
104. WILLIS - I Think I Like When It Rains
     
105. Chet Baker - But Not For Me
     
106. Naked Eyes - Always Something There to Remind Me
     
107. Tyler, The Creator - GONE, GONE / THANK YOU
     
108. Djo - Half Life
     
109. Trash Panda - Check Please
     
110. Briston Maroney - Deep Sea Diver
     
111. Beach Fossils - This Year
     
112. Momma - Medicine
     
113. Hop Along - Prior Things
     
114. Talking Heads - Road to Nowhere
     
115. Electric Light Orchestra - Turn to Stone
     
116. Briston Maroney - It's Not My Fault
     
117. Tyler, The Creator - NEW MAGIC WAND
     
118. Snail Mail - Headlock
     
119. Phil Collins - Take Me Home
     
120. Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
     
121. The Beach Boys - Do It Again
     
122. Tame Impala - Breathe Deeper
     
123. Ella Fitzgerald - Misty
     
124. Phoebe Bridgers - Waiting Room
     
125. Kanye West - Runaway
     
126. Daft Punk - Get Lucky (feat. Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers)
     
127. Dire Straits - Money for Nothing
     
128. Kendrick Lamar - Alright
     
129. Black Country, New Road - Concorde
     
130. George Harrison - If Not for You
     
131. Harry Styles - Cherry
     
132. Ms. Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop (That Thing)
     
133. Paul McCartney - Junk
     
134. Wings - Maybe I'm Amazed [Live]
     
135. Talking Heads - Houses in Motion
     
136. Del Water Gap - Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat
     
137. Pixies - Where Is My Mind?
     
138. Queen - Seven Seas Of Rhye
     
139. Paul McCartney - Jet
     
140. Sufjan Stevens - Death with Dignity
     
141. A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away)
     
142. Tame Impala - Let It Happen
     
143. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love
     
144. Clairo - Management
     
145. Tommy James & The Shondells - I Think We're Alone Now
     
146. Fergie - Clumsy
     
147. Childish Gambino - This Is America
     
148. Prefab Sprout - The King of Rock 'N' Roll
     
149. Joy Again - Looking Out for You
     
150. Beach House - Space Song
     
151. John Lennon - Mind Games
     
152. The Weeknd - Gasoline
     
153. Weezer - Buddy Holly
     
154. Phoebe Bridgers - Sidelines
     
155. Tame Impala - New Person, Same Old Mistakes
     
156. Lana Del Rey - A&W
     
157. The Dillards - I've Just Seen a Face
     
158. The Doors - Break on Through (To the Other Side)
     
159. Julie London - I'm Glad There Is You
     
160. 2Pac - California Love
     
161. Dean Martin - Everybody Loves Somebody
     
162. Snail Mail - Anytime
     
163. The Strokes - The Adults Are Talking
     
164. Jordana, TV Girl - Better in the Dark
     
165. Juice WRLD - Hide (feat. Seezyn)
     
166. The Wild Reeds - Get Better
     
167. Finom - Mine
     
168. Hop Along - One That Suits Me
     
169. The Killers - Mr. Brightside
     
170. Michael Cera - Clay Pigeons
     
171. Clairo - Bags
     
172. Prince - Let's Go Crazy
     
173. The Zombies - She's Not There
     
174. Blackstreet - No Diggity
     
175. Frank Sinatra - I've Got You Under My Skin
     
176. John Denver - Take Me Home, Country Roads
     
177. Harry James - I'm Beginning to See The Light
     
178. The Clash - London Calling
     
179. Charles Bradley - Changes
     
180. Buddy Holly - (Ummmm, Oh Yeah) Dearest
     
181. Eagles - Seven Bridges Road [Live]
     
182. Moxie - Honey
     
183. Faces - Stay with Me
     
184. Post Animal - How Do You Feel
     
185. New Order - Age of Consent
     
186. Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
     
187. Lana Del Rey - Doin' Time
     
188. Twin Peaks - Blue Coupe
     
189. Kanye West - Gold Digger
     
190. Fruit Bats - The Bottom of It
     
191. Frank Sinatra - Somethin' Stupid
     
192. Lorde - Perfect Places
     
193. Martha Tilton - Exactly Like You
     
194. King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man
     
195. Glen Campbell - Southern Nights
     
196. Claire Rosinkranz - Frankenstein
     
197. Guillemots - Made-Up Lovesong #43
     
198. Fleetwood Mac - Say You Love Me
     
199. Frankie Valli - Can't Take My Eyes off You
     
200. The Crickets - Don't Ever Change
     
201. Paul Anka - Put Your Head On My Shoulder
     
202. George Harrison - Isn't It a Pity
     
203. Trash Panda - Off
     
204. Super Besse - Holod
     
205. Beyoncé - Hold Up
     
206. Charlie Burg - I Don't Wanna Be Okay Without You
     
207. Eagles - Peaceful Easy Feeling
     
208. Ella Fitzgerald - It's A Lovely Day Today
     
209. PERMSKY KRAY - Дорогой Человек
     
210. The Little Dippers - Forever
     
211. The B-52's - There's a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon)
     
212. Patti Page - Old Cape Cod
     
213. Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
     
214. The Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow
     
215. Trash Panda - Things Will Never Change
     
216. Hop Along - Well-dressed
     
217. Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me
     
218. TV Girl - Daughter of a Cop
     
219. LAUNDRY DAY - Jane
     
220. Tyler, The Creator - EARFQUAKE
     
221. Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missile F1-11
     
222. Joji - Gimme Love
     
223. The Backseat Lovers - Pool House
     
224. The Weeknd - Take My Breath
     
225. Mild High Club - Homage
     
226. Doc Watson - Am I Born to Die?
     
227. Daniel Caesar - Streetcar
     
228. The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon
     
229. John Lennon - #9 Dream
     
230. Tame Impala - Elephant
     
231. Chuck Berry - You Never Can Tell
     
232. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
     
233. KIDS SEE GHOSTS - 4th Dimension
     
234. Soft Cell - Tainted Love
     
235. The B-52's - Song for a Future Generation
     
236. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
     
237. Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans
     
238. Billie Eilish - Halley's Comet
     
239. Glenn Miller - In the Mood
     
240. Kid Bloom - Control
     
241. The Cinematic Orchestra - To Build A Home
     
242. Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
     
243. Brenda Lee - If You Love Me (Really Love Me)
     
244. TV Girl - Lovers Rock
     
245. Art Lown - Knew You Well
     
246. Dean Martin - Ain't That A Kick In The Head
     
247. Miniature Tigers - Like or Like Like
     
248. Electric Light Orchestra - Sweet Talkin' Woman
     
249. The Hunts - Ages
     
250. The Cars - Good Times Roll
     
251. Bill Withers - Lovely Day
     
252. Drake - God's Plan
     
253. Kansas - Point of Know Return
     
254. The Neighbourhood - Stargazing
     
255. The Clash - Rock the Casbah
     
256. Hop Along - What the Writer Meant
     
257. Briston Maroney - Under My Skin
     
258. Jack Stauber - Buttercup
     
259. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Ya Love
     
260. Ginger Root - Loretta
     
261. Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now
     
262. Frank Ocean - Pyramids
     
263. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
     
264. Destroy Boys - I Threw Glass at My Friend's Eyes and Now I'm on Probation
     
265. Mild High Club - Dionysian State
     
266. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
     
267. Kevin Abstract - Empty
     
268. The Frights - Crust Bucket
     
269. Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You
     
270. The Shins - Fighting in a Sack
     
271. fun. - We Are Young (feat. Janelle Monáe)
     
272. Lil Uzi Vert - Money Longer
     
273. Miniature Tigers - Cannibal Queen
     
274. The Doors - Touch Me
     
275. Jean Dawson - Clear Bones
     
276. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Catching Smoke
     
277. Molchat Doma - Люди Надоели
     
278. The Go-Go's - Our Lips Are Sealed
     
279. Billie Eilish - ocean eyes
     
280. BOYO - Crown
     
281. The 1975 - Somebody Else
     
282. Husbands - She's a Betty
     
283. Syd Barrett - If It's In You
     
284. Trash Panda - Atlanta Girls
     
285. Frank Ocean - Godspeed
     
286. Alice Phoebe Lou - Glow
     
287. Childish Gambino - Redbone
     
288. New Order - Blue Monday
     
289. Post Animal - Schedule
     
290. Harry Styles - Fine Line
     
291. Harry James - I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You)
     
292. Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again
     
293. Chet Baker - I Fall In Love Too Easily
     
294. The Cranberries - Put Me Down
     
295. John Mayer - Edge of Desire
     
296. George Harrison - All Those Years Ago
     
297. Electric Light Orchestra - The Diary of Horace Wimp
     
298. Alex Clare - Too Close
     
299. Eric B. & Rakim - Know The Ledge
     
300. Peter Frampton - Show Me The Way [Live]
     
301. Simon & Garfunkel - Mrs. Robinson
     
302. Black Eyes - Deformative
     
303. The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
     
304. Bonny Light Horseman - Deep In Love
     
305. The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
     
306. Cage The Elephant - Cigarette Daydreams
     
307. Hot Flash Heat Wave - Raindrop
     
308. Clairo - Sofia
     
309. Kendrick Lamar - PRIDE.
     
310. Camille Saint-Saëns - The Swan
     
311. Weezer - Say It Ain't So
     
312. C418 - Sweden
     
313. Lana Del Rey - Let The Light In (feat. Father John Misty)
     
314. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
     
315. Pickin' On Series - Those to Come
     
316. Lana Del Rey - Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he's deep-sea fishing (feat. RIOPY)
     
317. John Mayer - Moving On and Getting Over
     
318. Field Medic - POWERFUL LOVE
     
319. Cage The Elephant - Flow
     
320. Joji - Run
     
321. The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
     
322. Boston - Peace of Mind
     
323. Ben E. King - This Magic Moment
     
324. David Bowie - Starman
     
325. Beastie Boys - Sabotage
     
326. Harry Belafonte - Banana Boat (Day-O)
     
327. Gene Krupa & His Orchestra - Rhumboogie
     
328. The Cardigans - Lovefool
     
329. The Kinks - You Really Got Me
     
330. The Zombies - She's Coming Home
     
331. Michael Jackson - Thriller
     
332. Moxie - Blue Skies
     
333. The Mamas & The Papas - Straight Shooter
     
334. Peter, Paul and Mary - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
     
335. Green Day - Brain Stew
     
336. Dua Lipa - Levitating (feat. DaBaby)
     
337. The Police - Roxanne
     
338. Britney Spears - Toxic
     
339. Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels
     
340. Rex Orange County - Pluto Projector
     
341. The Strokes - Call It Fate, Call It Karma
     
342. Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still
     
343. The Black Crowes - Twice As Hard
     
344. Ted Nugent - Stranglehold
     
345. fun. - Some Nights
     
346. Wings - Silly Love Songs
     
347. Paramore - Still into You
     
348. Peter Frampton - Baby, I Love Your Way [Live]
     
349. The Monkees - Last Train to Clarksville
     
350. Royel Otis - Oysters In My Pocket
     
351. The Backseat Lovers - Growing/Dying
     
352. Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
     
353. Post Animal - Goggles
     
354. Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No. 1
     
355. Childish Gambino - IV. Sweatpants
     
356. Steely Dan - Dirty Work
     
357. ABBA - Lay All Your Love On Me
     
358. Still Woozy - Goodie Bag
     
359. Arlo Parks - Black Dog
     
360. Goth Babe - Weekend Friend
     
361. George & the Handsomes - Sleepy Beats
     
362. boygenius - 20
     
363. The Mills Brothers - You Always Hurt The One You Love
     
364. Travis Scott - SICKO MODE
     
365. Pinegrove - Need 2
     
366. The Backseat Lovers - Sinking Ship
     
367. Franz Schubert - Ave Maria
     
368. Zac Brown Band - Knee Deep (feat. Jimmy Buffett)
     
369. Justin Timberlake - Mirrors
     
370. Simon & Garfunkel - Cecilia
     
371. The Cranberries - Zombie
     
372. Daniel Caesar - Japanese Denim
     
373. Billie Holiday - Easy Living
     
374. ISLAND - By Your Side
     
375. Phil Collins - Tomorrow Never Knows
     
376. Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin'
     
377. The Four Freshmen - Day By Day
     
378. Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
     
379. Billy Joel - Big Shot
     
380. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
     
381. Yot Club - down bad
     
382. Rihanna - Stay
     
383. Fleetwood Mac - Landslide
     
384. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake, Op. 20, Act 2: No. 10, Scene. Moderato
     
385. The White Stripes - Fell In Love With a Girl
     
386. Alvvays - Easy On Your Own?
     
387. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - If We Were Vampires
     
388. Blackway - What's Up Danger (with Black Caviar)
     
389. Albert Hammond - It Never Rains in Southern California
     
390. Matt Maltese - Jupiter
     
391. John Denver - Mother Nature's Son
     
392. Childish Gambino - Sober
     
393. Claire Rosinkranz - Pools and Palm Trees
     
394. The Cars - Just What I Needed
     
395. The Doors - Light My Fire
     
396. Blondie - Tomorrow Never Knows
     
397. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Hell's Itch
     
398. The Japanese House - Saw You In A Dream
     
399. Franz Schubert - String Quartet No. 13 in A Minor, Op. 29 No. 1, D. 804
     
400. The Drifters - White Christmas
     
401. The 1975 - Robbers
     
402. George Harrison - Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
     
403. The Frights - Tongues
     
404. Paramore - Ain't It Fun
     
405. Billy Joel - Pressure
     
406. Frank Sinatra - My Way
     
407. Art Lown - Going Back to Carolina
     
408. Bruno Mars - Just the Way You Are
     
409. Under The Rug - Lonesome & Mad
     
410. The Mamas & The Papas - Dedicated To The One I Love
     
411. Foster The People - Sit Next to Me
     
412. Weezer - Undone - The Sweater Song
     
413. Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
     
414. Tia Blake - Plastic Jesus
     
415. Los Bravos - Bring a Little Lovin'
     
416. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
     
417. Minnie Riperton - Les Fleurs
     
418. Billy Idol - Dancing with Myself
     
419. Cody Fry - I Hear a Symphony
     
420. Gringo Sapiens - Driver's Licence
     
421. Vacations - Relax
     
422. Glitter Party - time waits
     
423. Steve Lacy - Bad Habit
     
424. The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
     
425. The Pied Pipers - Mairzy Doats
     
426. Mitski - Bug Like an Angel
     
427. James Ray - I've Got My Mind Set On You
     
428. Clairo - Bubble Gum
     
429. Masayoshi Takanaka - SEXY DANCE
     
430. Nat King Cole - (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
     
431. Sleigh Bells - Crown On the Ground
     
432. Olivia Rodrigo - favorite crime
     
433. No Doubt - Just A Girl
     
434. Foreigner - Long, Long Way from Home
     
435. Heart - Crazy On You
     
436. The Hunts - Darlin'
     
437. David Bowie - Heroes
     
438. Alice Phoebe Lou - Hammer
     
439. Thee Oh Sees - Toe Cutter - Thumb Buster
     
440. Roar - I Can't Handle Change
     
441. TV Girl - Birds Dont Sing
     
442. Laufey - From The Start
     
443. Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group - Freight Train (feat. Nancy Whiskey)
     
444. Metro Boomin - Am I Dreaming
     
445. Liana Flores - rises the moon
     
446. POP ETC - Speak Up
     
447. Jean Knight - Mr. Big Stuff
     
448. The Platters - Twilight Time
     
449. Derek & The Dominos - Layla
     
450. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Homeless Man in Adidas
     
451. Charlie Burg - Lovesong (The Way)
     
452. Hot Flash Heat Wave - Gutter Girl
     
453. ABBA - Fernando
     
454. Mitski - My Love Mine All Mine
     
455. Savannah Conley - More Than Fine
     
456. Young the Giant - Mind Over Matter
     
457. Future Crib - Yer Movin'
     
458. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
     
459. benches - Violent
     
460. Musical Youth - Pass The Dutchie
     
461. Olivia Rodrigo - vampire
     
462. Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone - City Of Stars
     
463. Maya Hawke - Thérèse
     
464. Current Joys - A Different Age
     
465. Wayne Newton - Danke Schoen
     
466. La Roux - Bulletproof
     
467. Jason Segel, Walter - Man Or Muppet
     
468. U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
     
469. The Raconteurs - Steady, As She Goes
     
470. The Ink Spots - Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
     
471. Ace of Base - The Sign
     
472. Vulfpeck - 1612
     
473. Nordista Freeze - Hey GiGi
     
474. The Chainsmokers - New York City
     
475. Suki Waterhouse - Johanna
     
476. Pete Rodriguez - I Like It Like That
     
477. Calvin Harris - Summer
     
478. The Rare Occasions - Notion
     
479. a-ha - Take on Me
     
480. Rush - Working Man
     
481. Traffic - Dear Mr. Fantasy
     
482. Starbuck - Moonlight Feels Right
     
483. Van Halen - Drop Dead Legs
     
484. The Troggs - Wild Thing
     
485. Led Zeppelin - Good Times Bad Times
     
486. The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
     
487. Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love
     
488. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack (feat. Timbaland)
     
489. David Bowie - Suffragette City
     
490. Ludwig van Beethoven - Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 "Moonlight"
     
491. Avicii - Wake Me Up
     
492. The Who - La-La-La-Lies
     
493. The Spinners - The Rubberband Man
     
494. MGMT - Time to Pretend
     
495. Hootie & The Blowfish - Only Wanna Be With You
     
496. Sheck Wes - Mo Bamba
     
497. Claire Rosinkranz - 123
     
498. Ringo Starr - Photograph
     
499. The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
     
500. Duran Duran - Rio
     

Has anyone run into anything like this? (... and if so, any words of wisdom?)

2024-05-14T16:40:16Z esxupdate: 2101361: downloader: WARNING: Download failed: ('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', '/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw', 'Incomplete download from http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip, received 197057 bytes, expecting 297656 bytes'), 4 retry left... 2024-05-14T16:40:24Z esxupdate: 2101361: downloader: WARNING: Download failed: ('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', '/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw', 'Incomplete download from http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip, received 209477 bytes, expecting 297656 bytes'), 3 retry left... 2024-05-14T16:40:31Z esxupdate: 2101361: downloader: WARNING: Download failed: ('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', '/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw', 'Incomplete download from http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip, received 90797 bytes, expecting 297656 bytes'), 2 retry left... 2024-05-14T16:40:38Z esxupdate: 2101361: downloader: WARNING: Download failed: ('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', '/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw', 'Incomplete download from http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip, received 229376 bytes, expecting 297656 bytes'), 1 retry left... 

... followed by:

2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: An esxupdate error exception was caught: 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last): 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 359, in _getfromurl 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: self._retry(self._download_to_file, self.options['retry']) 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 224, in _retry 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: _checkRetry(retry, retries, e) 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 208, in _checkRetry 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: raise exception 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 214, in _retry 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: return func() 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 344, in _download_to_file 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: doDownload(robj, fobj) 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 325, in doDownload 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: raise DownloaderError(self.url, self.local, 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: vmware.esximage.Downloader.DownloaderError: ('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', '/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw', 'Incomplete download from http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip, received 232937 bytes, expecting 297656 bytes') 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last): 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 91, in DownloadMetadatas 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: mfile = d.Get() 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 460, in Get 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: return self._getfromurl() 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Downloader.py", line 361, in _getfromurl 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: raise DownloaderError(self.url, self.local, str(e)) 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: vmware.esximage.Downloader.DownloaderError: ('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', '/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw', "('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', '/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw', 'Incomplete download from http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip, received 232937 bytes, expecting 297656 bytes')") 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last): 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/ussbin/esxupdate", line 222, in main 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: cmd.Run() 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/Cmdline.py", line 107, in Run 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 93, in DownloadMetadatas 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: raise Errors.MetadataDownloadError(metaUrl, None, str(e)) 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: ERROR: vmware.esximage.Errors.MetadataDownloadError: ('http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip', None, '(\'http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip\', \'/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw\', "(\'http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip\', \'/tmp/tmpfw0ylxfw\', \'Incomplete download from http://vCenter.mars.local:9084/vum/repository/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-7.0.0-metadata.zip, received 232937 bytes, expecting 297656 bytes\')")') 2024-05-14T16:40:44Z esxupdate: 2101361: esxupdate: DEBUG: <<< 

Overall, can't reliably patch, stage, or check compliance on some of our remote ESXis connected to vCenter via Meraki site-to-site VPNs.
A bit more context:

• this is happening when trying to update an ESXi 7.0u3 via vCenter 7
• the errors happen when doing staging, remediation, compliance checks
• we have about 40 of these remote ESXis; some more affected than others
• those "Download failed" ... "received bytes, expecting bytes" seem to happen randomly on different files each time. Hitting "remediate" button 20-30 times may eventually push the update through - but I feel like a madman doing this... (There gotta be a better way?)
• critical and security patches - can be done manually, via zipped depot updates and esxcli - but the "non-critical" ones don't seem to be available via those depots...
• we use site-to-site Meraki VPN with MX64 and MX100 appliances
• the VPN uses dual load-balanced uplinks at each site with graceful failover
• we also have a lot of other site-to-site VPN traffic between the network where vCenter is located, and remote sites - yet we see no failures or retries with any other traffic
• no errors or warnings anywhere in Meraki event logs...
• some sites are better than others: some get patched w/o retries, some may take days to push updates through

I am stumped... :)
Been fighting this for over a year now.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

For further information on behalf of MAG Silver Corp. Contact Michael J. Curlook, Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications Phone: (604) 630-1399 Toll Free: (866) 630-1399 Email:info@magsilver.com 

Please take all of this with a grain of salt, this isn't financial advice, I'm just sharing information I've gathered (mostly just from reading the Simple Path To Wealth).
Broadly speaking, there are 3 main ways to have your money "work for you"; ie, investment options. You can either invest in real estate, the stock market, or you can start a business. Whichever option you choose, there are 3 criteria you should assess: savings rate, diversification, and fees.
That being said, the self directed IRA through which you can buy shares of Aptera (currently $10.50/share) charges fees for the pleasure of doing so, and investors can choose between an assets under management (AUM) fee or an flat rate fee. I don't recall what the AUM fees were, but the flat fee is $325/year (it's $480 the first year as it includes account startup costs).
Since I'll be transferring in about $10k, the $325 annual fee is essentially a 3.25% fee. This obviously a poor investment as it's high fee, and low diversity. For comparison, VTSAX has a 0.04% fee (you would need to invest $812,500 into Aptera before the $325 annual fee reach 0.04%). Fees are a great way to kiss gobs of potential earnings goodbye, an AUM fee of just 1% can mean you'll lose up to half of your portfolio's potential value over your lifetime (here's a great article with different fee examples).
3% is an insane rate to pay for the pleasure investing in a company, but I'm fine with it as I really like Aptera as a company and I believe the world will be a better place if they succeed.

This week I wrote an autobiographical account of my history with sleep paralysis, RLS, and hypnagogic hallucinations.
I was not sure where to share it. I added it and deleted it from a few subs. The only place it ended up was the creative writing sub, though.
And this appears to be the right spot! There are several themes but the hypnagogia is the focus. So it's quite long and probably no one reads it and that's fine. I just wanted to find somewhere to put it in case my experience could benefit someone.
⚠️ ⚠️ WARNING first part is scary and a bit gory... ⚠️ ⚠️

Childhood

The first time that I encountered sleep paralysis was when I was nine or ten. I woke up screaming, my mind gripped with the sensation of searing pain radiating from my left big toe. Though my mouth wasn't moving, I could hear my own blood-curdling cries, echoing through the darkness. An eerie orange glow spilled into the room, illuminating a sinister cauldron at the base of my bed, around which stood three squat witches. Their dark, smoky faces shifted and morphed constantly, eyes glowing red like embers recessed deeply into the shadows of their crawling flesh, jagged teeth gnashing along with their discordant laughter as roaches crawled from their mouths and disappeared into their black straw hair.
Each witch held their own dainty knife and fork, shaking along with their trembling bony hands, and one was slicing expertly down the center of my big toe with the impossibly sharp blade of their knife. I struggled to move my arms and legs, feeling as though I had freedom of movement, but my physical body remained paralyzed. Unfathomable terror washed over me as I realized that I couldn't scream for help; my mom wouldn't hear me, and I was powerless to stop these witches from feasting on my toes.
I lay there, unable to break free from the oppressive paralysis, forced to endure the excruciating pain as my toes were sliced off and consumed. The air buzzed with the witches' terrifying, joyous laughter, as if they delighted in my agony more than the taste of my flesh. Eventually, my body in a full state of terror jarred itself awake, heart beating more wildly than I had ever experienced, my lungs struggling to gasp more than the tiniest breath. After perhaps a full minute of gathering myself, I drew a deep breath and screamed into the night.
My mother came, of course, but was unable to understand the depth and terror of my experience. Her own reality did not include anything close; for her, it was an exaggeration born of childhood fear, and she became exasperated after a time with my refusal to admit that it was a dream, despite being an extremely caring parent.
The witches appeared to me several times between the ages of 10 and 15, their ghastly faces returning to torment me with each episode of sleep paralysis. Every time, I would be trapped in that terrifying limbo, my body frozen while my mind drowned itself in screams of agony and horror. I knew that they would feast on my toes, the slicing of their knives relentless, inexorable. They would smack their lips and toast each other with my blood-covered flesh as I watched.
During those years, restless legs syndrome (RLS) also began to plague my nights. As soon as I began to drift off to sleep, a discomfort would arise in my legs, like there was a swarm of fat round beetles exploring, searching for an exit. A quick kick would settle it down, but it would rise again in a cycle of building tension, acutely uncomfortable climax, and brief relief of a second or two would follow before it began again. My mother, again meaning well but busy and unfamiliar with RLS, told me it was leg cramps and made me eat more banannas. This didn't help.
It became an increasing problem, stealing precious sleep that my young body needed to thrive. The frustration of RLS merged with the terror of a potential visit from the witches. Without medication, I would lose entire nights to the relentless discomfort.
By the age of 15, the sleep paralysis episodes had occurred at least 10 times, each leaving me with the gut-wrenching memory of being eaten alive that I would carry all the next day in my gut like a sack of bricks. As I lay sleeping, every single night, I wondered if they would visit, and braced myself for an encounter.

Early adulthood:

I can't remember how many times the witches visited before I finally stopped panicking. It was after countless God awful nights when I finally accepted that no matter how terrifying or painful the ordeal felt, I would be whole once it was over. I had survived the agony a hundred times before and could endure it again. One night, when the eerie glow of the cauldron illuminated their shifting faces, I felt a calm settle over me. I saw the witches, but for the first time, I wasn't afraid.
They noticed my defiance, their laughter fading into an uneasy silence. Without fanfare, they stood up, collected their cauldron, and retreated into the darkness of my room. Though I still saw them occasionally at the foot of my bed, they became more present than threatening. Sometimes, at the start of an episode, they'd appear briefly before disappearing altogether. They had become inconsequential, and I couldn't even be sure if they were there half the time.
In my early 20s, I discovered that I could almost guarantee a bout of sleep paralysis simply by sleeping during the day. At first, nothing particularly unusual happened, but the paralysis always returned whenever I dozed off, particularly between the hours of 11am and 2pm. I was often sleeping during the day because by then, the restless legs syndrome (RLS) had grown so severe that many nights passed without sleep at all. My body felt like it was full of angry snakes now instead of beetles, desperate to escape. The sensation soon crept upward from my legs to my arms. The cycles of build up, climax, and agonizly brief relief increased in frequency and magnitude. I would often resort to sitting in the shower, flipping the water from icy cold to scalding hot all night, simply to keep myself alert enough to avoid the twitching and spasming until the blessed relief of dawn arrived.
With the daytime paralysis came a variety of hallucinations. Sometimes the witches stood at the foot of my bed, other times they'd disappear, leaving behind benign apparitions like tickling gnomes. There was nothing threatening about these visions, and I began to find a strange sense of comfort in them. I would relax into a dark place where I felt my own energy burning like a sun, present but without physical form. In this state, I felt euphoric, fully aware yet separate from myself. I started taking naps during the day and eagerly anticipated this odd experience.
Yet at night, my sleep remained troubled as RLS tormented me. Eventually, I began taking ropinirole to manage the symptoms, and it brought much-needed relief, helping me reclaim my nights and giving me several years of mostly not worrying about RLS unless I forgot to take my medicine, or the odd night where it bothered me but was still less severe.

New experiences:

I spent several years relishing those euphoric moments of peace, where I could feel the pure energy of being alive without a personal history or identity. In those moments, everything else faded away, and all that remained was a brilliant, infinite energy. My waking life was absorbed by study of comtemporary and historical teachings of non-duality, and with my family and progressing my career as a software developer. I was absorbing Eckhart Tolle and Gautama, Meister Eckhart and Seuhn Sang and integrating their teachings into my daily life. The feeling inside of me that reality ultimately made no sense had found an expression, and I dug in every waking moment for a clue as to the true nature of experience. Given this context, I especially looked forward to and found solace in the experience of being impersonal, boundless energy.
In my late 20s, I also experienced a new type of sleep paralysis hallucination. One day it began that there were no visions or hallucinations; instead, I simply lay in a state of paralysis, aware of the room as a darkened and monochrome version of itself. I entertained myself by trying to move my arms and legs against the paralysis, and developed the idea that I had two bodies; my physical body lay on the bed, while my energetic body struggled and flailed. It was like my energy body could move separately, creating a phantom limb sensation. I felt my energy arms and legs extend out, yet my physical body lay still. As my energy body reached further from my physical self, it would snap back as if held by a rubber band.
Intrigued, I began experimenting with this phenomenon, managing to build enough momentum to "pop" out of my body one afternoon. Suddenly, I found myself looking down at my own sleeping form, resting on my back and breathing gently beside my wife, who was playing a game (probably Candy Crush) on her phone in the bed. It was surreal, and I wasn't sure whether I was hallucinating or truly perceiving my own body from a different perspective. Regardless, it was a revelation, and I felt a new sense of exploration as I gazed down at myself.
That first time, I found myself drifting through the house, checking on my two young stepdaughters as they slept. I had recently married, and it was a quiet weekend afternoon with everyone napping peacefully. Once satisfied, I ventured outside, where I took to the sky and flew around the neighborhood, spying on my neighbors. Though it felt like I was limited in speed, I seemingly had no constraints on the continuity of this hallucination. Everything appeared as a perfect physical representation of Earth, and I could travel without interruption.
The landscape was strikingly accurate, but it appeared in monochrome hues — grays, blacks, and whites — with no bright colors. Letters and numbers were unreadable, reduced to blurred nonsense. Despite these distortions, the sensation of soaring above the rolling hills and rooftops was pure euphoria. I sped along at hundreds of miles per hour, basking in the freedom of movement, and immersed in the stunning view that stretched out below me. There did seem to be some sort of very generous limit to how far I could travel, but I thoroughly explored within the boundaries for hundreds of miles around my home.
Over the years into my early 30s, I tried to pursue this opportunity of flight and exploration every chance I could. But during that time, my restless legs syndrome also became more relentless. In the past, no matter how agonizing the night had been, dawn would bring relief like a cold bath washing over me. I would sit outside and watch the sunrise, and the sensation of snakes slithering through my body would finally calm down, perhaps due to circadian rhythms and dopamine regulation. The cycles now began to climax in totally involuntary movement, spasms that caused me to tense my whole body and draw in a sharp breath every time. It would be 5 seconds of rapid buildup, spasm, a second or two of relief, repeat.
Eventually, even the dawn failed to provide respite, and I struggled during night or day whenever I relaxed too long or became even a bit drowsy. Napping became impossible, depriving me of the euphoric dreams I had learned to look forward to. I switched from ropinirole to pramipexole, hoping for relief. The medication helped me sleep five or six hours a night on good nights, but I still missed one or two nights of sleep entirely each week and rarely could nap during the day, because I took the medicine only a couple hours before bed.
Even though my restless legs syndrome worsened, one out of every ten times, I'd still manage to avoid twitching and drift into that state of peaceful paralysis during the day when I dozed off involuntarily. I gradually lost interest in pursuing out-of-body travel and instead sought every time the burning energy of the sun inside of me — the sensation of being infinitely powerful and formless simultaneously. I would retreat into this boundless feeling whenever I had the opportunity.
During these rare occasions when I could sleep during the day, I stumbled across a third type of experience. It felt like I was being sucked into space at impossible speeds, zooming past the planets of our solar system and beyond until I reached a darker patch of space. This spot seemed like a vast, corrugated sewer pipe that swallowed me whole. I rocketed through the universe, traveling at what could only be the speed of light. Eventually, I would break into the atmosphere of some unknown world, drifting down to its surface sometimes, others crashing painfully into terrain. Sometimes, I would hear a loud sound like an explosion in mid travel, and suddenly aterialize on another distant world without any sort of entrace.
These journeys were exhilarating, and each new landscape presented a mystery, revealing worlds unlike anything I'd ever seen.

The Traveling Years:

One of the first journeys I had involved zipping through space before drifting down through a hole in the top of a greenhouse. The world was painted in shades of orange and brown, its dirt swirling in powerful winds like clay cyclones. The greenhouse itself was dirty and grimy, almost opaque with crusted dirt, and filled with dense green plants — ivy and other dark green foliage that covered every inch inside. Outside, the orange sky churned with the swirling clay, making visibility nearly impossible.
I made my way down a ladder and emerged outside, where I found a man and a boy standing beside a white pinto horse. They both wore hardened leather over rough potato sack-like clothing, their long hair dotted with bone jewelry, their noses and eyebrows profusely pierced with other fragments of bone adorned with feathers. The man seemed to be instructing the boy on something to do with the horse. I approached them cautiously, fully aware of my lucid dreaming state and retaining all my memories, reasoning, and thoughts. Everything about the scene was vivid, from the clay dust swirling around to the squinting struggle to see in the wind.
Unlike the man and the boy, I had no long hair, no mouth covering, and no leather visor shielding my face from the swirling clay-dust. As I tried to speak, it seemed like they couldn’t hear me, and I wondered if I might be invisible to them. Unconcerned, I reached out to pat the horse on its nose, but before I could make contact, the man swiftly drew a long knife from his belt and stabbed me. He struck again, and the intense pain and feeling of my own scalding hot blood streaming down my pants legs snapped me awake.
Not long after my experience in the greenhouse, I found myself learning more about the worlds I could explore, though the opportunities remained rare. One day, I was transported to a beautiful blue tropical world, crashing into the dunes of a pristine white beach. There, I encountered three women, each towering over me at seven or eight feet tall. Their long black hair framed their pale faces, with blood-red lips striking against their alabaster skin. But what stood out most were their fingernails — long and crimson, curling back upon themselves dozens of times like spiraling ribbons. They were two or three feet in length and added a surreal menace to their presence.
They asked me my name and the name of my father, along with other odd questions, and seemed absolutely intriqued with me. There was a certain sort of heavy molasses quality to their voices that was more than sound and impossible to describe. It had the effect of making me feel drowsy and stupid and slow to move.
As I stood there, they began touching me with their nails, tracing them across my body in elaborate, almost ritualistic patterns. I felt my energy drain with every stroke, a profound exhaustion seeping into my core. The sensation was so intense that I woke up feeling completely drained, my limbs heavy and my spirit sapped.
Another time, I appeared without explanation after my space travel in a cavern brimming with glowing fungi and luminescent crystals. I wasn't myself in this world but instead had taken the place of someone else. My father stood beside me, guiding me through the luminous landscape. He taught me how to identify the bizarre and fascinating flora surrounding us — lessons that etched themselves into my mind and last to this day despite the surreal, made-up nature of this world. The glowing crystals and fungi cast eerie shadows across the cavern walls as my father explained the properties and uses of each.
In real life, these experiences would last for about five to eight minutes, but in the dream realm, the passage of time was different. What seemed like mere minutes could stretch into hours or even days, and in rare cases, the dreams spanned much longer.

RLS becomes terrible:

I had a new busy career, an infant daughter, two active growing stepdaughters, and a wife with a hectic job, and I struggled hard through the years between 35 and 39. Each night was pure torture, as restless leg syndrome robbed me of sleep. Days of sleep deprivation left me barely functioning, often teetering on the edge of collapse while the disease gnawed away. The unrelenting discomfort made it impossible to fall asleep, even as my body craved rest. I had no choice but to continue, as I had yet to find a doctor that knew how to move past the ropinirole and pramipexole stage of treatment, and these medicines had almost entirely ceased to be effective for me. My love for my family drove me to conceal the intense effort that day to day living had become. I managed to keep up with my career by farming a prescription for Adderall. I don't have ADHD, so it had the effect on me of methamphetamine and allowed me to push through the God awful existence that life had become.
The toll became overwhelming. I couldn't escape the agony, even after days of desperate attempts to sleep. More than once, I ended up in the emergency room after going four or five nights without sleep. For some people, this will seem like an exaggeration; I assure you, it is not. I would be nonsensical, having conversations with people tha weren't in the room, drifting in and out of intense 1 second dreams before snapping awake with painful spasms. At the hospital, they would give me percocet, and the painkillers provided brief reprieve from RLS for some reason, allowing me one solid night’s sleep, but the relentless cycle quickly resumed, leaving me struggling once again.
Eventually, I found a neurologist who prescribed Neupro patches that provided temporary relief. For a few months, I managed to sleep more consistently, but the patches quickly lost their effectiveness. It wasn't until I added methadone to the treatment that I finally found more lasting relief.
During those difficult years, I immersed myself in non-dual philosophy. In that crucible of suffering, my conviction solidified: my true nature was more aligned with the energy hallucinations I experienced than with a body made of skin, bone, and brain. That transcendent energy, more real and enduring than the physical form I occupied, became my identity in daily life, watching peacefully as my body and brain navigated the situational complexity of life.
Approaching my 40th birthday, I found that I could sleep at night and dream during the day. My life was in good shape, I lost 60 pounds without effort, and I felt fundamentally and imperturbably peaceful. Suddenly, life was in the palm of my hands, every moment pristine and still and perfect. I felt weightless without the burden of needing to endure trauma every night.
Most importantly to this story, I worked from home and could nap on my lunch breaks.

Rapid learning through iteration:

Rarely, I would fail to nap at all due to RLS. Sometimes I would simply doze off and wake up 10 minutes later to my cell phone alarm. But three out of five times, I would travel.
I visited dozens of worlds in a matter of a few short months and quickly was able to confirm some rules that I had suspected were true from my previous adventures.
One rule is that no one I know in real life ever shows up in the travelling dreams. No matter the place or circumstance or strange beings that I encountered, there was never a familiar face.
Another rule was that no dream person ever had a name or a father. The absence of both seemed to be an unspoken universal truth among these dream world inhabitants. Once I had internalized the significance of this, I began introducing myself to most beings that I encountered as "John, son of Michael." It left a strong impression. My name and lineage seemed to set me apart, bestowing an almost mythical quality upon me that earned me a peculiar reverence among all that I met. This knowledge became the key to navigating the dream worlds with confidence and a consistent purpose of discovery.
I learned accidentally of a unique ability during my travels: a form of telekenesis that allowed me to project force from the palms of my hands. This development led to many episodes of paralysis spent ignoring exploration and instead hilariously and painfully attempting to master this ability for the purpose of travel. Over time, I refined my skill, learning to fly much like Iron Man, but solely through the focused propulsion from my hands. Without stabilization from my feet, I had to carefully control the angle of projection and the amount of force applied to control my trajectory and speed.
Mastering this ability took significant practice, but eventually, I could navigate obstacles with ease and travel great distances in short amounts of time. I also no longer crash landed, thankfully. Importantly, I could harness this power to overcome any threatening beings that I encountered. Previously, my best option was to hide or flee, and that did not always work out. Now I had this amazing sense of fearlessness and confidence that simply cannot be rivaled by real world experience. Every time I heard the buzzing sounds and felt the WUM WUM WUM of energy as I prepared to launch into space, I embraced the journey with eager anticipation, confident in my ability to protect myself and learn about whatever strange world awaited me.

To Present Day:

As I grew more confident in my ability to travel almost at will, I began to incorporate spirituality into my experimentation. One day, on a whim, I expressed to the universe that if there were a being that had my best interests at heart and loved me fully, then I gave them permission to guide my dreams and lead me to greater truths, even if they were uncomfortable. This openness led to a new experience immediately, and I began to preface many of my journeys with a similar, simple prayer.
That first time, I fell down instead of up -- into myself, into the infinite dimensionless darkness where I could spin and burn and bathe in the euphoric sense of my own eternal nature. But my peace was quickly interrupted by an intense feeling of pressure at the base of my spine, though I couldn't have pinpointed where the body was that the spine inhabited. Very, very slowly, with a CRUNCHA CRUNCHA CRUNCHA noise for every milimeter of ground gained, it crawled upwards towards my head.
As it climbed, the energy below it intensified, growing exponenentially as the surface area covered grew. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it was terrifyingly intense. That first time, I managed to stay calm long enough for it to reach my shoulder blades before it became unbearably frightening and I jerked myself out of it, sure that I would die if I allowed it to continue upward. Over the last few months I have vowed to myself that I would endure any level of discomfort to see what happens at the end, but I keep chickening out. I have let it go as far as the base of my skull, at which time my head started vibrating so much that I could feel my teeth chattering violently even in my paralysis.
Another time recently when I made this prayer, I went to space as usual, but when I entered the atmosphere of a lush Earth-like world, my telekenesis failed me for the first time ever. Instead, I was pulled like in a slow tractor beam down beneath the perfectly round canopy of a giant, unfamiliar kind of tree. I felt a great sense of calm and peace and simply meditated there for quite some time, maybe 9 or 10 hours of relative time, before I heard a voice from behind the tree.
The man who stepped out from there had his face hidden in shadows. He wore a long dusty leather coat and a huge cowboy hat that shrouded him. As I write this, I find that I am not yet prepared to write about what he said to me, or how I responded. But when we had spoken, he walked solemnly over to me and lay his hand upon my head, and I jerked awake in a state of perfect bliss, despite some conflicting emotions surrounding our conversation. I call him Cowboy Hat Man, and maybe I will write more about him later.
A third time with the prayer, right before I sped off to my normal adventures, I felt a cat jump onto my bed and snuggle against my left leg, purring. It curled up there, and I assumed that it was my actual cat in real life, although it would be very uncharacteristic for him. I actually thought to myself, "Wow, I guess Buddy Socks is my spirit guide today." However, when I awoke, I realized that my door was shut and the cat was not in the room. On that trip, I went to a world that was reminiscent in quality perhaps to 15th century Europe, except on a world where the surface was far more underneath water than on Earth.
I followed the invisible cat to an old man and asked him, "Do you know the truth?" He answered, "No." I followed the invisble cat to young boy and asked him, "Do you know the truth?" He also answered, "No." It was an odd one, really.
Every time I do this, I am setting an alarm for ten minutes. Sometimes the dreams last days in relative time, but I have never yet failed to wake up before that alarm goes off.

Present Day (like seriously earlier this week is what me want to write this):

I lay down eagerly for my lunch break nap, hoping to avoid the disappointment of an off-day. I flew into the atmosphere of a world that seemed to made of rock, with nothing growing on the surface. However, I caught glimpse on the surface of a bright spot, and when I descended, I found that somehow there was a relatively thin crust of sorts around a hollow inside-world.
I lowered myself slowly through a great opening in that crust, down into a lush jungle. It was beautiful but uncomfortably humid, and I quickly found a cool and dry cavern complex to explore rather than dealing with sweat and unfamiliar insects.
As I navigated through the cavern system, able to see somehow with dim light despite no obvious light source at times, I broke out into a very large open cave with a huge exit out into the jungle. I saw that it was dawn and realized that I had spent the night, however long it was on this world, in the caves.
Suddenly, my four year old daughter, Curly, with her naturally bleach-highlighted rings of long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, drifted slowly over my left shoulder and out towards the exit. She moved at a brisk adult walking pace, her back to the cave opening, her expression curious yet slightly concerned. She called out, "Dada?" in a tone that suggested wonder and slight confusion, but no real alarm in the presence of her father.
Reacting instantly, feeling my gut clench solid into a fist of rock, I used my telekinesis to close the gap between us and gathered her into my arms. She wrapped her legs around my waist and settled her butt onto my forearm, a ritual that we have practiced every day of her life. The force gripping her evaporated instantly, and suddenly, my darling girl was there in my arms, as real as any physical embrace. I could feel the tickle of her hair on my neck, the beautiful warmth of her skin, and was enveloped in her familiar scent.
Initially, I was filled with white hot rage, fueled by my instinctive reaction to the thought that some idiotic dream world inhabitant had decided to mess with my family and harm or kidnap her. But as I held her and she nuzzled her nose into my neck, the anger gave way to sheer amazement. For the first time in a decade of navigating these dreamscapes, someone that I knew from my waking life had entered the dream. This was a rule-defying moment that really rocked me, a serious breach of the established norms of these experiences.
A group of maybe 8 or 10 small winged goblins flew down from out of sight above the top lip of the exit and fluttered into the room, laughing in a very non-threatening way. They radiated a sense of innocent mischief, and my fear and anger subsided and gave way to annoyance. I whipped my right hand out and blasted a huge hole in the cavern wall to my right, startling Curly into a yelp. Unphased, I raised my voice and demanded, "Who is your King? I am John, son of Michael, and this is my daughter and she WILL NOT BE TOUCHED AGAIN."
The goblins scattered, their merriment giving way to concern that I might blast them into dust. Behind me, a deep chuckle seemed to rise from the ground itself. A voice echoed in the cavern, neither kind or cruel, full of what felt like wisdom, though that doesn't make sense in the waking world.
It spoke: "I am Eloxman, and I am their King." At hearing him announce his name, my head whipped around in the dream and in real life so hard that I woke immediately with a sprained neck that is still bothering me. I looked at my phone and saw that there were two minutes and fourteen seconds remaining in my ten minute window. I lay on the couch in shocked disbelief: Curly was in my dream, and someone had a name. As I replayed it over and over in my head, I realized that Eloxman was still speaking. I think he may have been preparing to provide the name of his father.

The End:

Sorry, that's actually it. I am going to just see if this continues somehow, but if it does not, then I might get creative with it and make up my own ending. I hope that you enjoyed this if you read this far!

https://preview.redd.it/n7mk7odrtnzc1.jpg?width=1628&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf3af3879e59747695ee5a39b55564d20294dfff
My First UNRAID v6.12.10 NAS build

• 6 of 11 drives populated for 42tb, Max Array speed with Turbo Write (180-210Mb/s consistent)
• Temps are after a 13~14hr Parity build (was slowed by usage and testing), more cooling on the way.

Hardware;

• Old Dell 0GY6Y8 Socket LGA1155 Intel Q77 Chipset Micro ATX System Board
• Intell i7-3770 @ 3.4Ghz
• 16Gb DDR3 Ram
• TP-Link 2.5GB PCIe Network Card (TX201)
• SXTAIGOOD SAS3008 AOC-S3008L-L8E 9300-8I HBA PCI-E 3.0 SATA/SAS 8-Port SAS3 12Gb/s
• 11 Drives Max; 8xSAS/SATA dives + 3 SATA drives
• Samsung 64Gb USB boot drive

Drive IDVendorModelDrive Size Drive 1 (Parity)SeagateST10000N004-1ZF10110.0 TB Drive 2SeagateST10000N004-1ZF10110.0 TB Drive 3SeagateST10000N004-1ZF10110.0 TB Drive 4SeagateST8000VN0022-2E8.0 TB Drive 5SeagateST8000VN004-2M28.0 TB Drive 6Western DigitalWDC WD6002FFWX-68TZ4N06.0 TB
The case was just a budget case <$150can, and although it said it could hold 8x3.5" drives, in reality, it has mounting for 5 drives: 3 drives in a floor tray and 2 in a back removable tray bay that works as an oven when two drives are in it. So, I just mounted two on the fan mounting area. All in all, it is working very well with no drama. I have lots of spare drives, more than 6TB drives, but I'm going to add space as I need rather than using disk life and power for nothing. I have lots of 500gb SATA Samsung SSDs I could use as a cache drive, but then that will put me to the next license level, where I'll probably end up anyhow with 6 & 4tb drives in a pile looking at me. I have one drive running hot, but I have some more cooling coming in tomorrow, and some cable cleanup to do to sort it out better.
This was made to replace my Drobo 5N, which was "working" but dreadfully slow, being 1gbe and freezing here and there, with very slow transfer as it filled up. With the company dead it was not a great option to use any longer. My main ServeNAS is an 81.8Tb Synology DS1821+ with a 10gbe network card; this Unraid build is just for local non-critical backup, so 2.5gbe is fine in my use case. Daily backups go to an offsite NAS; this is just used for a weekly power-on, backup, shutdown, 2nd disconnected copy. Ultimately, it may be used for more since it seems to run well vs the Drobo and is far more capable.
Update: 5/11/24 @ 4:10pm, No idea but it seems I am getting 130-225mb/sec copy speed now, it really varies, however it's not 80-110 anymore. I can live with that for the total cost investment compared to buying another 8 bay Synology. At present, I have only spent around $325 in parts I did not have (new case, 8 port SAS card) not including unpaid license yet) for an 11-Bay NAS I'll call that a win. Is there any chance running the GUI version runs a bit slower? Since I am done messing around I just let it boot the text interface and use a browser.
Update: 5/12/24 @ 6:50am; So after adding some cooling, my average speed seems to be 280Mb/s till the ram fills, I guess, then sustained over a 100 GB copy of 190-220mb/sec. Do you think when the drives get near 40c they run slower? (Ironwolf Pro's) I am trying to figure out the discrepancy in speed between boots.. well temp has nothing to do with it I have all drives between 40-42c one 46c now 2hrs into copying and still avg 200mb/s
A few questions;

• Since right now im just on trail (27 days) and although I have a stack of 6tb and 4tb drives making shreak cat eyes at me I have put only 6 in the array (3x10Tb, 2x8tb, 1x6tb) would it be best for now to go with the Starter at $49 and when it goes on sale upgrade to Lifetime? for the next 6m-1year 42Tb should cover my needs.
• I assume all the system config and stuff are stored on the array, or do I have to somehow backup the USB boot drive?
• My experience with Synology and TrueNAS clearly tells me extra RAM is used for cache; on this, I never see my RAM more than 9% in use; is this the case, or does it use more of the 16 GB?
  • So, more testing today; I have moved the Parity Drive to the Blue SATA connector on the motherboard. That should now put 1/2 the bandwidth through the HBA; nothing has changed not even a small amount, so It's not the SAS Card for sure. Further, both the drives in question are Ironwolf Pros, which should read/write a maz of 235+mb/s. I would blame the CPU but it never really exceeds 25% use.
  • When copying the files I now get a consistent 165-210 MB/s, sometimes I see it as high as 280Mb/s
  • Overall, it runs better and more consistently than the Drobo 5N did at 95% full. Going directly from the Synology to the Unraid and cutting out the computer doing the copy I would think will speed it up more.
• Should I have each share fill a different drive or just let it do what it wants? is re-balancing something that should be done, or, again, wait till there are signs of drama?

Any thoughts?
Thanks

How 2 girls ruined my life 20 years ago and every night I go to sleep hoping I don't wake up.
I (39M) want to die. I have wanted to die basically every day since I was 19 years old. I will give you a little back story since everyone loves backstories. Please bear with me as this will be very long.
Growing up over weight made me the blunt of jokes all thru middle and high school. I was around 325 pounds when I graduated. When I was 17, I met a girl, lets call her Sierra. I was still a junior at this time due to me skipping school 2nd semester sophomore year and failing all my classes sophomore year due to a very bad individual I hung out with during that time. I had met her thru a friend who had a huge crush on me. Lets call said friend Lisa. Both of these girls were 15 at the time and went to school in a little town about 10 miles north of me. When it came time for me to choose, I chose Sierra.
Fast forward a month later, I was head over heels. I had previous gfs, but something about her was different. She didn't seem to care that I was overweight and genuinely seemed to love me. The day I introduced Sierra to my father (who has since passed), and she came up to my room with me. As we started fooling around, she eventually took my virginity. About 2 weeks later she called me freaking out that she was sick and had missed her period. And I thought this was great as even though we had only been dating a month, we had already decided we wanted to have kids together and even had names picked out. This freaked her out and she eventually confessed to her dad and he threatened me that If I ever so much as called his daughter again, I would be arrested.
We spent the better half of the next 18 months or so sneaking around behind her parents back and talking on the phone at night after her father went to bed. Granted, this is 2002/03, so texting isn't a big thing. We would sit in her car when we would meet and cuddle, make out, I'd finger her, things like that. However, she completely refused to do anything sexual to me. At the time, I didn't think anything of it as I thought she just had different ways of showing her affection toward me.
(Changing the tune for a minute, but this all ties in. I swear). After about a year of dating Sierra, I was chatting on MSN with my buddy and his gf in a group chat. Now, me and my best friends gf had brother sister type bond that made her off limits in my eyes. I had introduced them and they hit it off right away. However, without my noticing, she has brought in a friend of hers that had the exact same name. Lets call them both Erica 1(buddy's girl) and Erica 2 (my future gf). After about 20 minutes of thinking I'm talking to Erica 1 and messing around with her like a brother would do to a sister, I realized she started to flirt with me. Just as I was about to tell her that s**t was inappropriate, I looked at the email address under that MSN name, and noticed this Erica had a different last name. It was then that I was realized I had been teasing Erica 2 the whole time and she indeed thought I was flirting with her.
Around this time, it was summer of 2003, I was 18, about to be heading into my senior year(finally). Sierra was 15 almost 16 and going into her junior year. Erica 2 was 16 and going into her junior year. Erica 2 went to school across the state border, so these girls didn't know each other. 1 day, I get a call from Sierra saying she wanted to take a break during the summer because the sneaking around was getting to her. I was absolutely devastated. Cried for days. During this time, Erica 2 was there was for me and we eventually struck up a relationship that lasted throughout the summer. We didn't have am extremely physical relationship, but there was quite a bit of making out and griding.
Come the end of summer, I get a call from Sierra balling her eyes out telling me it was the worst 2 1/2 months of her life without me in it and wanted to get back together. After much deliberation, I ended things with Erica 2 because I couldn't get over Sierra and was still madly in love with her. From what Erica 1 told me, this absolutely devastated her, as she spent the 1st week of her junior year crying every day.
So here I was, back to sneaking around with Sierra behind her parents back. Back me to showing her how I loved her physically and her still not touching me in a loving way. Fast forward about 5 months, and my world had came crashing down. One day on AIM (for you younger folk, that's AOL instant messenger), I got an IM from a guy, and to this day I still can't remember his AIM name. All it said was, "dude, I didn't know she has a b/f". That was it. I replied asking who this was, but never received another message.
A few weeks before I received this message, Lisa has regularly been calling me asking me how I was doing and always checking in on me. I found it odd, because for the last year she had basically cut me out of her life for choosing Sierra over her. About a month later, Lisa asked to meet her at her job before closing (she worked at a local fast food place). She gave a me a recording that completely ruined my life. On it, Sierra was talking to all her friends, Lisa included, as she had still thought at the time that Lisa had cut me off, explaining how she had just have the best sex of her life last night. Lisa, was furious, saying you knew how much I liked OP and that she didn't want to hear about her and our sex life. That's when Sierra dropped the bomb to everyone. It wasn't me. When Lisa asked Sierra when she had broken up with me, she told her she hadn't. Sierra said I was basically like her best friend who she allowed to make out with and finger her every once in a while, but I was nothing more. She then told them that after we had sex that first month of dating, she couldn't feel my small dick enter her and knew that we would have a no future together. She then started making jokes about how her baby brother, who she helped take care as her parents worked until late evening, was bigger than me and he was 6. Lisa, who sounded furious at this point, asked her why she didn't just break up with me, and Sierra stated she really thought she was in love with me and enjoyed spending time with me. She figured she could sleep with other guys and keep it on the DL, and then get all the emotional parts from me and since her dad had forbidden her from seeing me. It made it easier to get away with it. She said she had an emotional connection with me that the other guys didn't give her, but that sex between us would be non existent.
After hearing all this, I flipped. I threw the recorder thru glass door at the restaurant, (thankfully this was before cameras were everywhere) and Lisa said she would handle it saying some drunk asshole fell thru the door. She apologized to me and said for a month or so she has been having suspicions that Sierra was cheating on me, and that's why she took the recorder with her, because she has been told what happened that night. As I was walking out, Lisa said she had a few more things to tell me. At this point, I was already numb. Apparently, after Lisa had stop recording, Sierra let every know her body count, which before we hooked up, was 1, was now at a whooping 21. Man she was an overachiever. Also, she had faked the pregnancy thing to use it as an excuse to never have sex with me. Yeah, every time I brought up sex, she said she still wasn't over that scare and didn't want to risk it.
Her prom night was the next month, and she ended up going with her gay best friend, and yes, this guy was gay. Everyone knew. She wanted to come over to my house afterward, but I was at my buddies and and told her she could meet me there. At this point, she has no idea I know everything. She shows up about 1030ish and we head down to his basement. About 30 minutes later, we are going at it hot and heavy, and I once again, try to initiate sex knowing this is going to the be last time we are ever together. She is hesitant and I say I can use 2 condoms to make her feel safer. After a few minutes of debating, she says she can't do it, but wants to continue fooling around. By this time, I was already drunk as my buddy and I have been drinking SOCO and E&J all night while playing Triple Play on PS2. I told her no, that I was ready to go back up to my buddies room and get back on the PS2. She was furious. She left without saying anything.
The next few weeks I got back in touch with Erica 2 to see if there was any shot as rekindling what we had. She said she has just got out of a relationship and wasn't looking to get into another one. But if I felt like fooling around, she was game. So, Erica 2 and I started fooling around for about a month before I finally let Sierra know my endgame. One night at a bonfire across the state line, Erica 2 and I finally had sex. I was on cloud nine. I was thinking back to the 9 months prior realizing what a mistake I made picking Sierra over Erica 2. I was supposed to call Sierra at 1030 as that had been out nightly routine for 18 months, but I didn't that night. She called my cellphone around 50 times that night, and I just kept ignoring her. I called Sierra that night when I got home around 3 AM. She answered and let me have it. "Where the hell have you been? I have been worried sick about you. I thought you were dead and I was about to have a panic attack". I explained that I was at a bonfire with Erica 2(by this time, she has known about me and her the previous summer) and she started to flip out on me. By this time, I was exhausted with our relationship and let her know that Erica 2 and I have sex. Sierra had the f'n nerve to start crying. Asking how I could betray her like that. I told her that her facade was over. Lisa had recorded her entire convo the other day and that we were done. She cried for a bit, then hung up on me. The next morning, she called me on her way to school like she had done every day for the 18 months we were together, crying saying she didn't want us to end and she couldn't lose me in her life. I told her she lost me the first time she let another dick penetrate her, just neither one of us knew it until she got caught. Should would call from time to time, but I never answered. I was looking forward to seeing Erica 2 that night, as there was another bonfire.
Being it was spring time and towards the end of the school year, parties were starting to pick up. I showed up late to the party as me and some buddies went to a bar to pre game for a bit. Once we got to the bonfire, I searched for Erica 2. I saw her talking to some friends. I snuch up behind to surprise her, but as I was sneaking up, I heard the convo she was having. She was making fun the guy she had sex with the last night. She said and I quote "He pulled his pants down and it took every ounce of energy in my being not to laugh. When he entered me, it felt like I was using my pinkie to masturbate." I just stood there stunned. At the time, Erica 1 saw me standing behind Erica 2. She exclaimed "OP". She didn't know Erica 2 and I had started messing around again, so Erica 1 was just excited to see me(she wasn't at the previous night bonfire because her and her b/f were out of town for the night.) At this point Erica 2 turned around. Erica 1 saw my face go pale. I looked at Erica 1 and she had a confused look on her face. Then I turned my attention to Erica 2. I started at Erica 2 for what seemed like hours, but was actually about 30 seconds. I turned and just started walking way. As I was walking away, Erica 2 "oh there goes the baby boy now". I heard a smack. I turned around and saw that Erica 1 had coldcocked Erica 2, which was basically her best friend beside me and came over to console me. I left the party about 10 minutes later.
I spent all my 20's and early 30's drinking heavily. Never once looking for a the affection of another girl. I had always wanted to have 2 kids. A boy and a girl. But within 2 months, 2 girls had ruined me. I would never let another girl touch me again. My dad and my grandparents all died while I was in my 20s within a years of each and my weight ballooned out of control. At my heaviest, I was around 500 lbs. A few months ago, I started having tests down and found out I have low T. My glands are working fine, but my body isn't making testosterone. I'm assuming this has been going on since my teen years as I have never had acne and never really developed facial hair. My dad(had) and brothers all have full beards. So they want to put me on Astro gel claiming it will help me lose weight along with Ozempic, as I am currently at around 430 lbs. But right now, I just don't care. Every day since the day after Erica 2 did that to me, I wake up every morning and say "f**k". I say that because I wake up. I'm ready for my life to be over. I have suicidal thoughts every day, even though, apparently like my relationships, I'm too much of a pussy to do anything about them.
I just got done at the doctors where they are putting me on testosterone. I was told this will make me sterile. And its hitting me hard. The realization that I will never have kids is destroying me. My parents had always asked me if I wanted kids in my 20's and I always made excuses like "I don't want to being kids into this world" or "I don't want to put up me growing up". The real reason I didn't want kids was I knew every day I woke up, I wanted it to be my last. I didn't know if I would ever have the guts to finish the job I almost started about a month after what Erica 2 had done to me, but I didn't want to take a chance leaving a child without a father. For context, I got really drunk at the town hangout about a month after the Erica 2 situation and took a bunch of pills because I wanted to it all to end. I was sitting alone when I did it, or so I thought. One of my buddies at the time saw me take all the pills and ran over to me, calling about 5 or 6 friends over to help him. Keep in mind, at the time I'm 5'11, 325. I put up a fight. But enough of them held me down and induced me to vomit up everything, which I could tell included all of the pills that were now all over the ground. I just laid there crying for what seemed like hours with a couple buddies consoling me.
So here I am, sitting here writing this post wishing my life would just end. I haven't had any friends in years, my days consist of work and going home. I just don't know what to do. I haven't kissed a girl since I was 19. I would get drunk and hit on girls in my 20's, but the next day when I was sober, I would pretend it didn't happen when they brought it up to me to avoid what would be the obvious disappointment in sex.
So that's my story. Sometimes, as I'm driving to work, I fantasize about what it would be like to turn my car head on into an oncoming semi. But I couldn't risk hurting someone else or putting some poor human thru that. Outside of that, I'm just dead inside. I feel nothing for anyone outside my family.
Any advice would be welcome because each day gets harder and harder and I have no one to talk to.
TLDR: penis size was made fun of by girls I had strong feelings for and attempted to end it

Friday is here! And as usual, I'm back with my weekly game recommendations based on the most interesting games I played and that were covered on MiniReview this week! :) I hope you'll enjoy some of them.
Support these posts (and YouTube content + development of MiniReview) on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NimbleThor <3
This episode includes a fantastic deck-building rogulike game, a fun casual puzzle game that recently returned from the dead, a neat RPG Dungeon Crawler, a paid incremental simulation game, and a light-hearted Metroidvania puzzle adventure game.
New to these posts? Check out the first one from 216 weeks ago here.

Let's get to the games:

Wildfrost [Game Size: 809 MB] (Free Trial)

Genre: Deck-Building / Roguelike - Offline
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review by AlexSem:
Wildfrost is a high-quality roguelike deck-builder that expands on the usual formula of the genre with interesting new mechanics like card timers, and the ability to reposition units on the field.
The game has us participate in a series of battles and random events to ultimately defeat the powerful boss waiting at the end. Starting with a deck of weak cards, we gradually improve and reorganize them to prepare for the dangerous challenges awaiting us.
The battlefield consists of two rows, each with six pre-defined positions for troops: we can place ours on the left side, while enemy troops spawn on the right side.
Each unit on the field has a counter that is reduced every time we play a card from our hand. When it reaches zero, the unit attacks the closest enemy in its row, and the counter restarts. Our goal is to dispose of all the opponents while keeping our leader alive.
Interestingly, we can freely reposition our troops on the field, or recall them back to our deck for healing. Meanwhile, spell cards are used to support our troops, damage enemies, and trigger various effects - but playing them reduces the unit counters, so we must use them sparingly.
Contrary to many other deck builders, mindlessly playing cards from our hand almost never works in Wildfrost. To succeed, we must calculate our every move and carefully plan around the build we’re aiming for.
I especially liked the Charm mechanic, which lets us attach charms to our cards that trigger special effects when the card is played. Used correctly, these charms become a real game changer.
Wildfrost is free to try, with a single $6.99 iAP unlocking the full game.
If you are looking for a really complex deck builder where every choice matters, I think you’ll love the amount of strategy Wildfrost offers.
App Store: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (review score + user ratings):: Wildfrost

Super Monsters Ate My Condo [Total Game Size: 222 MB] (Free Trial)

Genre: Puzzle / Arcade - Offline
Orientation: Portrait
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review by NimbleThor:
Super Monsters Ate My Condo is a unique fun arcade game where we feed floors of an apartment building to hungry monsters to earn as many points as possible – all while ensuring our high-rise building doesn’t collapse.
The core gameplay consists of rectangular condos of different colors constantly falling from the top of the screen, stacking up to create a skyscraper-like tower. On each side of the building are 2 of our monsters. It’s our objective to swipe left and right to feed the colored condos to the monster of the same color.
If we swipe too slowly, the new condos falling from the top will land unevenly, which may lead our tower to lose its balance and fall over. If this happens, it’s game over. And to make matters worse, if we feed the wrong condos to a monster, it eventually starts stomping the ground in frustration, which creates devastating vibrations.
Stacking three condos of the same color directly on top of each other turns them into a single special condo that can be used on any monster to activate their respective special power. Stacking three condos is also how we swap between our four total monsters.
Each level is randomly generated and the goal is to survive for 2 minutes, which makes the game perfect for quick, casual play.
At the home screen, we’re constantly shown 3 goals that get replaced as soon as they’re completed. The only other sense of progression comes from unlocking cosmetics for our monsters.
The gameplay is chaotically fun. I only wish there was an endless mode.
Super Monsters Ate My Condo is free to try, with a $2.99 iAP unlocking the full game.
App Store: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (review score + user ratings):: Super Monsters Ate My Condo

Dungeons of Aether [Game Size: 198 MB] ($4.99)

Genre: RPG / Dungeon Crawler - Offline
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Some
tl;dr review by AlexSem:
Dungeons of Aether is a fun story-driven dungeon crawler where we use a unique "dice drafting" gameplay mechanic to win a series of one-on-one battles against numerous deadly enemies.
Playing as a motley crew of four colorful characters trying to save a troubled town from a greedy mining corporation and a powerful ancient evil, we explore lots of pre-designed dungeons to fight enemies, collect loot, solve light puzzles, and uncover bits of lore.
The turn-based battles span multiple rounds. Each round, we roll six dice of different colors and then take turns drafting them with our opponent to increase our Attack, Defense, Speed, and Accuracy stats.
Accuracy defines the number of moves we can choose from. The offensive moves deal damage only if our Attack value surpasses the enemy’s Defense, while support moves let us stack the odds for the next rounds. Speed defines the turn order, and we can set up clever traps and ruses if we manage to move first. For example, making the opponent's otherwise perfect attack fail because we suddenly have increased defense.
Unfortunately, the enemies’ movements are so predictable that some attacks work better than others - up to the point where mindlessly spamming the same move in every fight works wonders. Fortunately, we still often end up in situations that require strategic thinking and clever use of our equipment and consumable items.
Dungeons of Aether is a $4.99 premium game without ads or iAPs.
The game offers a memorable journey full of funny character interactions, great humor, drama, intrigue, unexpected plot twists, and all the other attributes of a great tale. And a separate mode with randomly generated dungeons ensures great replayability after finishing the main story.
App Store: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (review score + user ratings):: Dungeons of Aether

WizUp! [Game Size: 216 MB] ($4.99)

Genre: Incremental / Simulation - Offline
Orientation: Portrait
Required Attention: Little (semi-idle)
tl;dr review by JBMessin:
WizUp! is a fun incremental idle RPG with pixel art wizards, a great soundtrack, and tons of resources and upgrades.
The core gameplay loop consists of our wizard auto-battling waves of enemies until defeated. It then heals up and starts from the first wave again. Each enemy drops souls, gold, and XP, which we use to gradually grow stronger through an insane number of upgrades.
While our wizard does the fighting, we buy magical items and upgrades that get placed on a large inventory-like board split into grids.
There truly are a staggering number of resources to manage in WizUp!, which would quickly get confusing were it not for the fact that we can freely drag and drop resources, items, and upgrades around our board.
So for example, XP gives us the “Orbs of Power” resource, and whatever upgrades require this resource can be placed next to it on the board so it’s all quick to find when the board soon gets crazily crowded.
What I love the most about WizUp! are its arcade vibes, which are rare in an incremental game. In fact, as my numbers went up and upgrades became available, I found myself tapping my finger to the beat of the game’s hype-pumping soundtrack. Once I got into the flow of the many mechanics and resources, I really started enjoying what the game had to offer.
There are also several neat customization options, like the ability to change how numbers are shown, and my favorite QoL feature: the ability to completely pause the game.
WizUp! is a $4.99 premium game. It’s definitely worth checking out if you enjoy the wizard theme and premium incremental games.
App Store: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (review score + user ratings):: WizUp!

Red's Kingdom (Game Size: 325 MB] ($2.99)

Genre: Adventure / Puzzle - Offline
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review by AlexSem:
Red's Kingdom is a light-hearted "Metroidvania" puzzle adventure about a young squirrel on a perilous journey to retrieve its stolen stash of nuts – oh, and defeat the evil king responsible for all the troubles that have plagued the kingdom.
The gameplay involves traversing colorful locations to collect nuts and unlocking passages to the next areas. Swiping up, down, left, or right makes our squirrel roll in that direction until it hits an obstacle. So in each area, we must figure our the correct sequence of moves that let us reach the exit while avoiding traps and dead ends.
As we progress, we encounter new obstacles, such as ramps, crumbling floors, lava pits, button-controlled gates, and even enemy goons who may harm us and force us to restart the level. We also get to meet new NPCs who help us on our journey in one way or another.
The game’s semi-open world lets us revisit finished areas to search for secrets and hidden treasures. In fact, I did that quite a lot, as new powers and quest items allow us to gain access to previously locked-off places.
Despite being mechanically simple, I was attracted by the game’s cute art style, high-quality animations, neat sound effects, and silly story full of goofy characters that are interesting to follow.
Red's Kingdom is a $2.99 premium game without ads or iAPs.
It's one of those games that play perfectly on mobile, so if you enjoy non-complex yet challenging puzzle adventures, you can't go wrong with this one.
App Store: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (review score + user ratings):: Red's Kingdom
NEW: Sort + filter reviews and games I've played (and more) on my mobile games discovery platform, MiniReview: https://minireview.io/
Special thanks to the Patreon Producers Wrecking Golf, "marquisdan", "Lost Vault", "Farm RPG", and "Mohaimen" who help make these posts possible through their Patreon support <3
Google Sheet of all games I've played so far (searchable and filter-able): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bf0OxtVxrboZqyEh01AxJYUUqHm8tEfh-Lx-SugcrzY/edit?usp=sharing
*The newest mobile games (with gameplay) on my YouTube channel: * https://youtu.be/8wX-9SW4Z8o?si=j0PNTWf08xd8mwEQ
Episode 193 Episode 194 Episode 195 Episode 196 Episode 197 Episode 198 Episode 199 Episode 200 Episode 201 Episode 202 Episode 203 Episode 204 Episode 205 Episode 206 Episode 207 Episode 208 Episode 209 Episode 210 Episode 211 Episode 211 Episode 212 Episode 214 Episode 215 Episode 216

Friday is here! And as usual, I'm back with my weekly game recommendations based on the most interesting games I played and that were covered on MiniReview this week! :) I hope you'll enjoy some of them.
Support these posts (and YouTube content + development of MiniReview) on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NimbleThor <3
This episode includes a fantastic deck-building rogulike game, a fun casual puzzle game that recently returned from the dead, a neat RPG Dungeon Crawler, a paid incremental simulation game, a light-hearted Metroidvania puzzle adventure game, and a fun deck-building dungeon crawler.
New to these posts? Check out the first one from 303 weeks ago here.

Let's get to the games:

Wildfrost [Game Size: 809 MB] (Free Trial)

Genre: Deck-Building / Roguelike - Offline
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review by AlexSem:
Wildfrost is a high-quality roguelike deck-builder that expands on the usual formula of the genre with interesting new mechanics like card timers, and the ability to reposition units on the field.
The game has us participate in a series of battles and random events to ultimately defeat the powerful boss waiting at the end. Starting with a deck of weak cards, we gradually improve and reorganize them to prepare for the dangerous challenges awaiting us.
The battlefield consists of two rows, each with six pre-defined positions for troops: we can place ours on the left side, while enemy troops spawn on the right side.
Each unit on the field has a counter that is reduced every time we play a card from our hand. When it reaches zero, the unit attacks the closest enemy in its row, and the counter restarts. Our goal is to dispose of all the opponents while keeping our leader alive.
Interestingly, we can freely reposition our troops on the field, or recall them back to our deck for healing. Meanwhile, spell cards are used to support our troops, damage enemies, and trigger various effects - but playing them reduces the unit counters, so we must use them sparingly.
Contrary to many other deck builders, mindlessly playing cards from our hand almost never works in Wildfrost. To succeed, we must calculate our every move and carefully plan around the build we’re aiming for.
I especially liked the Charm mechanic, which lets us attach charms to our cards that trigger special effects when the card is played. Used correctly, these charms become a real game changer.
Wildfrost is free to try, with a single $9.99 iAP unlocking the full game.
If you are looking for a really complex deck builder where every choice matters, I think you’ll love the amount of strategy Wildfrost offers.
Check it out on Google Play: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (website version):: Wildfrost

Super Monsters Ate My Condo [Total Game Size: 222 MB] (Free Trial)

Genre: Puzzle / Arcade - Offline
Orientation: Portrait
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review by NimbleThor:
Super Monsters Ate My Condo is a unique fun arcade game where we feed floors of an apartment building to hungry monsters to earn as many points as possible – all while ensuring our high-rise building doesn’t collapse.
The core gameplay consists of rectangular condos of different colors constantly falling from the top of the screen, stacking up to create a skyscraper-like tower. On each side of the building are 2 of our monsters. It’s our objective to swipe left and right to feed the colored condos to the monster of the same color.
If we swipe too slowly, the new condos falling from the top will land unevenly, which may lead our tower to lose its balance and fall over. If this happens, it’s game over. And to make matters worse, if we feed the wrong condos to a monster, it eventually starts stomping the ground in frustration, which creates devastating vibrations.
Stacking three condos of the same color directly on top of each other turns them into a single special condo that can be used on any monster to activate their respective special power. Stacking three condos is also how we swap between our four total monsters.
Each level is randomly generated and the goal is to survive for 2 minutes, which makes the game perfect for quick, casual play.
At the home screen, we’re constantly shown 3 goals that get replaced as soon as they’re completed. The only other sense of progression comes from unlocking cosmetics for our monsters.
The gameplay is chaotically fun. I only wish there was an endless mode.
Super Monsters Ate My Condo is free to try, with a $2.99 iAP unlocking the full game.
Check it out on Google Play: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (website version):: Super Monsters Ate My Condo

Dungeons of Aether [Game Size: 198 MB] ($4.99)

Genre: RPG / Dungeon Crawler - Offline
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Some
tl;dr review by AlexSem:
Dungeons of Aether is a fun story-driven dungeon crawler where we use a unique "dice drafting" gameplay mechanic to win a series of one-on-one battles against numerous deadly enemies.
Playing as a motley crew of four colorful characters trying to save a troubled town from a greedy mining corporation and a powerful ancient evil, we explore lots of pre-designed dungeons to fight enemies, collect loot, solve light puzzles, and uncover bits of lore.
The turn-based battles span multiple rounds. Each round, we roll six dice of different colors and then take turns drafting them with our opponent to increase our Attack, Defense, Speed, and Accuracy stats.
Accuracy defines the number of moves we can choose from. The offensive moves deal damage only if our Attack value surpasses the enemy’s Defense, while support moves let us stack the odds for the next rounds. Speed defines the turn order, and we can set up clever traps and ruses if we manage to move first. For example, making the opponent's otherwise perfect attack fail because we suddenly have increased defense.
Unfortunately, the enemies’ movements are so predictable that some attacks work better than others - up to the point where mindlessly spamming the same move in every fight works wonders. Fortunately, we still often end up in situations that require strategic thinking and clever use of our equipment and consumable items.
Dungeons of Aether is a $4.99 premium game without ads or iAPs.
The game offers a memorable journey full of funny character interactions, great humor, drama, intrigue, unexpected plot twists, and all the other attributes of a great tale. And a separate mode with randomly generated dungeons ensures great replayability after finishing the main story.
Check it out on Google Play: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (website version):: Dungeons of Aether

WizUp! [Game Size: 216 MB] ($4.99)

Genre: Incremental / Simulation - Offline
Orientation: Portrait
Required Attention: Little (semi-idle)
tl;dr review by JBMessin:
WizUp! is a fun incremental idle RPG with pixel art wizards, a great soundtrack, and tons of resources and upgrades.
The core gameplay loop consists of our wizard auto-battling waves of enemies until defeated. It then heals up and starts from the first wave again. Each enemy drops souls, gold, and XP, which we use to gradually grow stronger through an insane number of upgrades.
While our wizard does the fighting, we buy magical items and upgrades that get placed on a large inventory-like board split into grids.
There truly are a staggering number of resources to manage in WizUp!, which would quickly get confusing were it not for the fact that we can freely drag and drop resources, items, and upgrades around our board.
So for example, XP gives us the “Orbs of Power” resource, and whatever upgrades require this resource can be placed next to it on the board so it’s all quick to find when the board soon gets crazily crowded.
What I love the most about WizUp! are its arcade vibes, which are rare in an incremental game. In fact, as my numbers went up and upgrades became available, I found myself tapping my finger to the beat of the game’s hype-pumping soundtrack. Once I got into the flow of the many mechanics and resources, I really started enjoying what the game had to offer.
There are also several neat customization options, like the ability to change how numbers are shown, and my favorite QoL feature: the ability to completely pause the game.
WizUp! is a $4.99 premium game. It’s definitely worth checking out if you enjoy the wizard theme and premium incremental games.
Check it out on Google Play: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (website version):: WizUp!

Red's Kingdom (Game Size: 325 MB] ($2.99)

Genre: Adventure / Puzzle - Offline
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review by AlexSem:
Red's Kingdom is a light-hearted "Metroidvania" puzzle adventure about a young squirrel on a perilous journey to retrieve its stolen stash of nuts – oh, and defeat the evil king responsible for all the troubles that have plagued the kingdom.
The gameplay involves traversing colorful locations to collect nuts and unlocking passages to the next areas. Swiping up, down, left, or right makes our squirrel roll in that direction until it hits an obstacle. So in each area, we must figure our the correct sequence of moves that let us reach the exit while avoiding traps and dead ends.
As we progress, we encounter new obstacles, such as ramps, crumbling floors, lava pits, button-controlled gates, and even enemy goons who may harm us and force us to restart the level. We also get to meet new NPCs who help us on our journey in one way or another.
The game’s semi-open world lets us revisit finished areas to search for secrets and hidden treasures. In fact, I did that quite a lot, as new powers and quest items allow us to gain access to previously locked-off places.
Despite being mechanically simple, I was attracted by the game’s cute art style, high-quality animations, neat sound effects, and silly story full of goofy characters that are interesting to follow.
Red's Kingdom is a $2.99 premium game without ads or iAPs.
It's one of those games that play perfectly on mobile, so if you enjoy non-complex yet challenging puzzle adventures, you can't go wrong with this one.
Check it out on Google Play: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (website version):: Red's Kingdom

Lost For Swords (Game Size: 100 MB] (Free)

Genre: Deck-Building / Dungeon Crawler - Offline
Orientation: Portrait
Required Attention: Some
tl;dr review by AlexSem:
Lost For Swords is a grid-based deck-building dungeon crawler where we fight progressively harder enemies using a deck of cards that we gradually improve by creating great synergies.
The game features multiple towers of varying difficulty, each of which consists of several floors that we ascend to face the powerful boss at the top. At our disposal is a deck of equipment and skill cards that gets randomly shuffled and then laid on a square grid alongside some cards from the enemy’s deck. Our character is also represented as a card on this grid.
Turn by turn, we move across the grid to reveal cards, pick weapons and loot, trigger spells and environmental objects, and engage in combat with enemies who use every opportunity to hit us back. But since weapons have limited durability, we must plan how to make the most out of them before they break.
When we exit a floor, all surviving enemies get shuffled back into the deck. They will reappear in later floors until we completely defeat them, and only then do we get access to the final boss.
The permanent progression comes in the form of unlocking new characters, new starting decks, and new cards that we may encounter during a run.
The game seems deceptively casual at first, but once we start mindlessly tapping cards, we quickly realize the fallacy of this approach. While the first floors are easy, the difficulty gradually ramps up, requiring us to exercise caution and calculate our every move. Hardcore strategy fans will definitely appreciate this.
The developer is very actively publishing new updates, so I think the game will only become more polished and diverse as time goes by.
Lost For Swords is completely free, without ads or iAPs, making it an easy recommendation for anyone who likes deck-builders.
Check it out on Google Play: Here
Check it out on MiniReview (website version):: Lost for Swords
NEW: Sort + filter reviews and games I've played (and more) in my app MiniReview: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=minireview.best.android.games.reviews
Special thanks to the Patreon Producers Wrecking Golf, "marquisdan", "Lost Vault", "Farm RPG", and "Mohaimen" who help make these posts possible through their Patreon support <3
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I (39M) want to die. I have wanted to die basically every day since I was 19 years old. I will give you a little back story since everyone loves backstories. Please bear with me as this will be very long.
Growing up over weight made me the blunt of jokes all thru middle and high school. I was around 325 pounds when I graduated. When I was 17, I met a girl, lets call her Sierra. I was still a junior at this time due to me skipping school 2nd semester sophomore year and failing all my classes sophomore year due to a very bad individual I hung out with during that time. I had met her thru a friend who had a huge crush on me. Lets call said friend Lisa. Both of these girls were 15 at the time and went to school in a little town about 10 miles north of me. When it came time for me to choose, I chose Sierra.
Fast forward a month later, I was head over heels. I had previous gfs, but something about her was different. She didn't seem to care that I was overweight and genuinely seemed to love me. The day I introduced Sierra to my father (who has since passed), and she came up to my room with me. As we started fooling around, she eventually took my virginity. About 2 weeks later she called me freaking out that she was sick and had missed her period. And I thought this was great as even though we had only been dating a month, we had already decided we wanted to have kids together and even had names picked out. This freaked her out and she eventually confessed to her dad and he threatened me that If I ever so much as called his daughter again, I would be arrested.
We spent the better half of the next 18 months or so sneaking around behind her parents back and talking on the phone at night after her father went to bed. Granted, this is 2002/03, so texting isn't a big thing. We would sit in her car when we would meet and cuddle, make out, I'd finger her, things like that. However, she completely refused to do anything sexual to me. At the time, I didn't think anything of it as I thought she just had different ways of showing her affection toward me.
(Changing the tune for a minute, but this all ties in. I swear). After about a year of dating Sierra, I was chatting on MSN with my buddy and his gf in a group chat. Now, me and my best friends gf had brother sister type bond that made her off limits in my eyes. I had introduced them and they hit it off right away. However, without my noticing, she has brought in a friend of hers that had the exact same name. Lets call them both Erica 1(buddy's girl) and Erica 2 (my future gf). After about 20 minutes of thinking I'm talking to Erica 1 and messing around with her like a brother would do to a sister, I realized she started to flirt with me. Just as I was about to tell her that s**t was inappropriate, I looked at the email address under that MSN name, and noticed this Erica had a different last name. It was then that I was realized I had been teasing Erica 2 the whole time and she indeed thought I was flirting with her.
Around this time, it was summer of 2003, I was 18, about to be heading into my senior year(finally). Sierra was 15 almost 16 and going into her junior year. Erica 2 was 16 and going into her junior year. Erica 2 went to school across the state border, so these girls didn't know each other. 1 day, I get a call from Sierra saying she wanted to take a break during the summer because the sneaking around was getting to her. I was absolutely devastated. Cried for days. During this time, Erica 2 was there was for me and we eventually struck up a relationship that lasted throughout the summer. We didn't have am extremely physical relationship, but there was quite a bit of making out and griding.
Come the end of summer, I get a call from Sierra balling her eyes out telling me it was the worst 2 1/2 months of her life without me in it and wanted to get back together. After much deliberation, I ended things with Erica 2 because I couldn't get over Sierra and was still madly in love with her. From what Erica 1 told me, this absolutely devastated her, as she spent the 1st week of her junior year crying every day.
So here I was, back to sneaking around with Sierra behind her parents back. Back me to showing her how I loved her physically and her still not touching me in a loving way. Fast forward about 5 months, and my world had came crashing down. One day on AIM (for you younger folk, that's AOL instant messenger), I got an IM from a guy, and to this day I still can't remember his AIM name. All it said was, "dude, I didn't know she has a b/f". That was it. I replied asking who this was, but never received another message.
A few weeks before I received this message, Lisa has regularly been calling me asking me how I was doing and always checking in on me. I found it odd, because for the last year she had basically cut me out of her life for choosing Sierra over her. About a month later, Lisa asked to meet her at her job before closing (she worked at a local fast food place). She gave a me a recording that completely ruined my life. On it, Sierra was talking to all her friends, Lisa included, as she had still thought at the time that Lisa had cut me off, explaining how she had just have the best sex of her life last night. Lisa, was furious, saying you knew how much I liked OP and that she didn't want to hear about her and our sex life. That's when Sierra dropped the bomb to everyone. It wasn't me. When Lisa asked Sierra when she had broken up with me, she told her she hadn't. Sierra said I was basically like her best friend who she allowed to make out with and finger her every once in a while, but I was nothing more. She then told them that after we had sex that first month of dating, she couldn't feel my small dick enter her and knew that we would have a no future together. She then started making jokes about how her baby brother, who she helped take care as her parents worked until late evening, was bigger than me and he was 6. Lisa, who sounded furious at this point, asked her why she didn't just break up with me, and Sierra stated she really thought she was in love with me and enjoyed spending time with me. She figured she could sleep with other guys and keep it on the DL, and then get all the emotional parts from me and since her dad had forbidden her from seeing me. It made it easier to get away with it. She said she had an emotional connection with me that the other guys didn't give her, but that sex between us would be non existent.
After hearing all this, I flipped. I threw the recorder thru glass door at the restaurant, (thankfully this was before cameras were everywhere) and Lisa said she would handle it saying some drunk asshole fell thru the door. She apologized to me and said for a month or so she has been having suspicions that Sierra was cheating on me, and that's why she took the recorder with her, because she has been told what happened that night. As I was walking out, Lisa said she had a few more things to tell me. At this point, I was already numb. Apparently, after Lisa had stop recording, Sierra let every know her body count, which before we hooked up, was 1, was now at a whooping 21. Man she was an overachiever. Also, she had faked the pregnancy thing to use it as an excuse to never have sex with me. Yeah, every time I brought up sex, she said she still wasn't over that scare and didn't want to risk it.
Her prom night was the next month, and she ended up going with her gay best friend, and yes, this guy was gay. Everyone knew. She wanted to come over to my house afterward, but I was at my buddies and and told her she could meet me there. At this point, she has no idea I know everything. She shows up about 1030ish and we head down to his basement. About 30 minutes later, we are going at it hot and heavy, and I once again, try to initiate sex knowing this is going to the be last time we are ever together. She is hesitant and I say I can use 2 condoms to make her feel safer. After a few minutes of debating, she says she can't do it, but wants to continue fooling around. By this time, I was already drunk as my buddy and I have been drinking SOCO and E&J all night while playing Triple Play on PS2. I told her no, that I was ready to go back up to my buddies room and get back on the PS2. She was furious. She left without saying anything.
The next few weeks I got back in touch with Erica 2 to see if there was any shot as rekindling what we had. She said she has just got out of a relationship and wasn't looking to get into another one. But if I felt like fooling around, she was game. So, Erica 2 and I started fooling around for about a month before I finally let Sierra know my endgame. One night at a bonfire across the state line, Erica 2 and I finally had sex. I was on cloud nine. I was thinking back to the 9 months prior realizing what a mistake I made picking Sierra over Erica 2. I was supposed to call Sierra at 1030 as that had been out nightly routine for 18 months, but I didn't that night. She called my cellphone around 50 times that night, and I just kept ignoring her. I called Sierra that night when I got home around 3 AM. She answered and let me have it. "Where the hell have you been? I have been worried sick about you. I thought you were dead and I was about to have a panic attack". I explained that I was at a bonfire with Erica 2(by this time, she has known about me and her the previous summer) and she started to flip out on me. By this time, I was exhausted with our relationship and let her know that Erica 2 and I have sex. Sierra had the f'n nerve to start crying. Asking how I could betray her like that. I told her that her facade was over. Lisa had recorded her entire convo the other day and that we were done. She cried for a bit, then hung up on me. The next morning, she called me on her way to school like she had done every day for the 18 months we were together, crying saying she didn't want us to end and she couldn't lose me in her life. I told her she lost me the first time she let another dick penetrate her, just neither one of us knew it until she got caught. Should would call from time to time, but I never answered. I was looking forward to seeing Erica 2 that night, as there was another bonfire.
Being it was spring time and towards the end of the school year, parties were starting to pick up. I showed up late to the party as me and some buddies went to a bar to pre game for a bit. Once we got to the bonfire, I searched for Erica 2. I saw her talking to some friends. I snuch up behind to surprise her, but as I was sneaking up, I heard the convo she was having. She was making fun the guy she had sex with the last night. She said and I quote "He pulled his pants down and it took every ounce of energy in my being not to laugh. When he entered me, it felt like I was using my pinkie to masturbate." I just stood there stunned. At the time, Erica 1 saw me standing behind Erica 2. She exclaimed "OP". She didn't know Erica 2 and I had started messing around again, so Erica 1 was just excited to see me(she wasn't at the previous night bonfire because her and her b/f were out of town for the night.) At this point Erica 2 turned around. Erica 1 saw my face go pale. I looked at Erica 1 and she had a confused look on her face. Then I turned my attention to Erica 2. I started at Erica 2 for what seemed like hours, but was actually about 30 seconds. I turned and just started walking way. As I was walking away, Erica 2 "oh there goes the baby boy now". I heard a smack. I turned around and saw that Erica 1 had coldcocked Erica 2, which was basically her best friend beside me and came over to console me. I left the party about 10 minutes later.
I spent all my 20's and early 30's drinking heavily. Never once looking for a the affection of another girl. I had always wanted to have 2 kids. A boy and a girl. But within 2 months, 2 girls had ruined me. I would never let another girl touch me again. My dad and my grandparents all died while I was in my 20s within a years of each and my weight ballooned out of control. At my heaviest, I was around 500 lbs. A few months ago, I started having tests down and found out I have low T. My glands are working fine, but my body isn't making testosterone. I'm assuming this has been going on since my teen years as I have never had acne and never really developed facial hair. My dad(had) and brothers all have full beards. So they want to put me on Astro gel claiming it will help me lose weight along with Ozempic, as I am currently at around 430 lbs. But right now, I just don't care. Every day since the day after Erica 2 did that to me, I wake up every morning and say "f**k". I say that because I wake up. I'm ready for my life to be over. I have suicidal thoughts every day, even though, apparently like my relationships, I'm too much of a pussy to do anything about them.
I just got done at the doctors where they are putting me on testosterone. I was told this will make me sterile. And its hitting me hard. The realization that I will never have kids is destroying me. My parents had always asked me if I wanted kids in my 20's and I always made excuses like "I don't want to being kids into this world" or "I don't want to put up me growing up". The real reason I didn't want kids was I knew every day I woke up, I wanted it to be my last. I didn't know if I would ever have the guts to finish the job I almost started about a month after what Erica 2 had done to me, but I didn't want to take a chance leaving a child without a father. For context, I got really drunk at the town hangout about a month after the Erica 2 situation and took a bunch of pills because I wanted to it all to end. I was sitting alone when I did it, or so I thought. One of my buddies at the time saw me take all the pills and ran over to me, calling about 5 or 6 friends over to help him. Keep in mind, at the time I'm 5'11, 325. I put up a fight. But enough of them held me down and induced me to vomit up everything, which I could tell included all of the pills that were now all over the ground. I just laid there crying for what seemed like hours with a couple buddies consoling me.
So here I am, sitting here writing this post wishing my life would just end. I haven't had any friends in years, my days consist of work and going home. I just don't know what to do. I haven't kissed a girl since I was 19. I would get drunk and hit on girls in my 20's, but the next day when I was sober, I would pretend it didn't happen when they brought it up to me to avoid what would be the obvious disappointment in sex.
So that's my story. Sometimes, as I'm driving to work, I fantasize about what it would be like to turn my car head on into an oncoming semi. But I couldn't risk hurting someone else or putting some poor human thru that. Outside of that, I'm just dead inside. I feel nothing for anyone outside my family.
Any advice would be welcome because each day gets harder and harder and I have no one to talk to.

Hey all, long post, so strap in. I'm 31m and just recieved my first CC. My parents were/are financially illiterate, and I had to unlearn "poor tax" habits. I'm in a season of actually being able to accumulate a savings and holding onto the majority of taxes this go around, and things like "building a future" I was pessimistic uncaring of because I felt I'd just always be behind (grew up poolittle access), and am now working towards better literacy and habbits.
Married, sole provider, family of 4. Income is $42.5k/yr. Rent $900. 7k in savings. 1 vehicle loan for 14k@325/mo 78k miles, 100% payment history. spouses vehicle owned (~5500 value, 82k miles) 19k total debt, including the vehicle and about 5k in student loans, and obviously $0 CC debt Score ~630TU/590EQ(pending 1 closed collection(nothing else outstanding)
Just got approved for my first credit card, capital one plat, $0 anual, $1000 limit. As I've learned more about credit age and history, I get the impact on your score of having scarcely used cards remain open and under 30% with no carried balance, and instead of being "afraid" of credit cards, I'm excited for this plan:
The goal is to have 4-5 total cards of $0 annual fees, splitting small, auto-pay-in-full payments on, adding my children and wife to them later to help them build as well. I want totegorizing them to simplify the monthly budget and to keep them open as long-term accounts to build history while only spending what we already spend monthly anyway.
I've only ever had debit cards, so I'm accustomed to the correct spending habbits anyway, and I see these as nothing more than "I feel late to the party and I need a house eventually," and I'm not a risk to incur any interest, but I'm aware my budget and situation is tough, and I'll only considering carrying a balance in a homeless or otherwise emergency, and not without first having a catchup plan in place. That all being said:
This first one I plan to set it to some monthly small bill, set the bank to auto pay in full every month, and essentially "set and forget" build that account to "perfect" history and look ahead to card #2
For cards 2 and 3 in no specific order, the Amazon prime one and BofA customized cash rewards seem like the options.. both $0 annually, 5% back on Amazon would allow me to "set and forget" the auto ordeauto pay on some of the household item budget like cleaning products, and the BofA would be a gas card with 3% back on gas, and if the limit is high enough, utilizing the 2% on groceries as long as we don't come close to that 30% mark.
Cards 4-5 down the road are still up in the air. But I'm targeting these 3 structures to start. Are there any flaws or drawbacks to this plan I'm unaware of? What kind of timeline is reasonable between applications? Would applying for 2&3 at the same time, say in 6mo, be worth it for establishing the "start date" of both and aging them faster? Or better staggering it like a card per year?
Lastly, is there anything I should add, remove, or do differently considering my situation, goals, and plan. Thanks

Herbag (black) $325
[US ONLY] Hermes HERBAG - H Family $325
Black, black, black! 31 size (auth comes 31 and 39) Black canvas w black leather. Retourne. High end mid-tier. Other reviews often say really no difference between H Family, Steven, or other high end Hermes sellers (do your own QC!)
Purchase Price - 2430 CNY + 620 CNY ship = 3050 CNY = $450USD + 4.99 PayPal fee
From - H Family
Selling price - $325 USD plus shipping* 📦 (generally UPS as it’s less a pain than the post office) - price reflects bag being used daily for 2 wks
Included - lock/keys, interior pouch, plus little box that was sent w charm, twilly, and booklet - no box was included due to my customs concerns (it’s in the PSP pics but I didn’t have it sent)
Condition - Used for a solid 2 weeks after receiving. It collects lint and dust (like if you brush up against something) but the canvas is not damaged or worn down. I think that’s just the nature of the type canvas as it has a slight texture - it isn’t smooth.
My Photos - https://imgur.com/a/l3H7lUz
(bottom 5 pics or so are from the day it arrived. So much lint shows up in the pics but it arrived in perfect condition and perfectly wrapped)
PSP - https://imgur.com/a/ZNFv5WB
Mini Review/Thoughts -

• Quality - canvas is nice and heavy; leather is thick and stiff. No UB high-tier or lower tier bags to compare but seems spot on for higher quality IMO
  
• Leather - leather honey was used on the leather several times, but it’s still really stiff - almost like bridle leather? I think it will soften with use and more conditioning.
  
• Accuracy - I see no flaws compared to authentic. Stamping is hard to see, but Herbags are blind and not done in foil. With all auth Hermes bags there’s slight variations. Stitching is neat. Herbags can be “disassembled” to change canvas - this one unscrews without issue; I’d assume replacement canvas is available for purchase from H family but didn’t enquire.
  

HOUSEKEEPING: * All sales are final (no refunds) so please do your own QC to make sure you are happy. The above notes are my thoughts and opinions only. Please message me if you have any questions or need more pictures.

• Paypal Friends and Family with 1-2 days later for shipping depending on day of week.
  
• Will provide a shipping quote once post code is provided
  
• UPS normally includes $100 of insurance - if you want more let me know so I can include it in the quote for shipping. Saturday or Sunday delivery is normally more expensive too…
  
• Once payment has been made please PM me with your complete address.
  
• I am NOT responsible once tracking has updated and is en route to you, so please make sure you have the correct address so the package can be left safely. Once it’s shipped, the item is no longer my responsibility. Thank you🙂
  
• Please be a Reddit member for at least 6mo
  

Barred From Each Other: Why Normative Husbands Remain Married to Incarcerated Wives—An Exploratory Study – page 4
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77, 216-243.

In the United States, Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for all the good things in our lives.
We gather with family and friends, enjoy a big meal, and maybe watch football. But what about the food?
What are some of the best dishes to enjoy on Thanksgiving? If you’re looking for some Thanksgiving foods that start with R, here are a few of our favorites:

1. Roasted Potatoes

Roasted potatoes are the first on our list of thanksgiving Foods that start with r. There are many different ways to cook potatoes, but one of the most popular methods is to roast them.
Roasting potatoes is a quick and easy way to create a delicious side dish or snack. And since potatoes are such a versatile food, they can be roasted in various ways to suit any taste.
So what are the best techniques for roasting potatoes? We've got a few tips to help you get started.
First, you'll want to choose the right type of potato. Second, you'll need to preheat your oven and prepare your baking sheet.
And finally, you'll want to season your potatoes before roasting. With these tips in mind, you'll be well on your way to making the perfect roasted potatoes. So go ahead and give it a try!

2. Red Wine

Red wine is also one of the Thanksgiving Foods that start with r. It is often considered a sophisticated drink to be enjoyed with a meal. But did you know that red wine can actually enhance the flavor of your food?
That's right - red wine can be used as an ingredient in your cooking to add depth and flavor to your dishes.
So how does it work? When red wine is cooked, the tannins and other compounds are broken down, which helps release the flavor compounds in the wine. This can add a complex and robust flavor to your food.
If you're interested in trying it, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First, you'll want to use a dry red wine for cooking.
This means avoiding sweet wines like Port or Sherry. Second, you'll want to cook with a red wine you enjoy drinking.

3. Ravioli

Ravioli is a type of pasta that has been around for centuries. The first mention of ravioli dates back to the 14th century, and it is believed that pasta was invented in Italy.
Ravioli is made by rolling out a thin dough sheet and cutting it into small squares. Each square is filled with a small amount of filling, such as cheese or meat. The ravioli are then cooked in boiling water until it is tender.
There are many different types of ravioli, and the fillings can vary depending on the region where it is made.
Some of the most popular ravioli fillings in Italy include cheese, spinach, and meat. In the United States, ravioli is often made with various types of meat.

4. Ratatouille

Ratatouille is a French dish that typically consists of eggplant, zucchini, bell pepper, tomato, and garlic, all cooked in olive oil.
It can be served as a side dish or as a main course and is often served with rice or bread.
Ratatouille is a healthy and flavorful dish that is perfect for summertime. It is light and refreshing but still filling and satisfying.
Plus, it is easy to make - you only need a little time and some basic ingredients.
We highly recommend giving ratatouille a shot if you're looking for a new dish to try this summer. It's sure to become a new favorite in your household.

5. Raspberries

Raspberries are next on our list of thanksgiving Foods that start with r. It is a delicious and nutritious fruit that can be enjoyed fresh, frozen, or canned.
They are an excellent source of Vitamin C and fiber, and they also contain a compound called ellagitannins, which have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
There are many different ways to enjoy raspberries. You can eat them on their own, add them to a smoothie or yogurt, or use them in baking.
Raspberries can also be made into jam, jelly, or syrup. If you are interested in growing your own raspberries, they can be grown in most areas of the country.
Raspberries are generally easy to care for and can be harvested from June to October.

6. Rarebit

Rarebit is a quick and easy dish that is perfect for a light lunch or snack. It is typically made with cheese, beer, or ale and is served on toast.
Rarebit is thought to have originated in Wales, and the name is derived from the Welsh word for cheese, "caws pobi.
The dish became popular in England in the 18th century, and there are many different regional variations of it.
Today, rarebit is enjoyed worldwide and can be easily made at home with just a few ingredients.
If you're looking for Thanksgiving foods that start with r a new recipe to try, give rarebit a try - you'll be glad you did!

7. Rapini

Rapini, also known as broccoli rabe, is a leafy green vegetable with small clusters of green flowers. It is related to the turnip and has a slightly bitter taste.
Rapini is a nutrient-rich vegetable that is high in vitamins A, C, and K. It also contains calcium, iron, and magnesium.
Rapini is a versatile vegetable that can be used in various dishes. It can be sautéed, stir-fried, or used in soup.
It pairs well with other vegetables, meats, and cheeses. Rapini can also be eaten raw, in salads or sandwiches.
Rapini is a great option if you're looking for a nutrient-rich vegetable to add to your diet. It is versatile, easy to prepare, and has various health benefits as thanksgiving foods that start with r.

8. Ramen

Ramen is a Japanese noodle soup dish that has recently gained popularity. It typically consists of wheat noodles in a broth made from pork, chicken, or beef and is often topped with assorted vegetables and meats.
Ramen is a relatively simple dish to make, but there are a few things to keep in mind to make a delicious bowl of noodles.
First, the noodles should be cooked al dente, as they will continue to cook in the broth.
Second, the broth should be rich and flavorful, and third, the toppings should be fresh and complementary to the broth.
You can easily make a delicious bowl of ramen at home with a few simple tips. So why not try it next time you're ready for hearty and comforting thanksgiving foods that start with r?

9. Raita

Raita is a popular Indian dish with yogurt, vegetables, and spices. It is often served as a side dish or a condiment and can be made with various vegetables.
The most common vegetables in raita are tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. Other vegetables that are sometimes used include peas, potatoes, and carrots. Raita can also be made with fruit, such as mangoes or bananas.
The yogurt in raita helps to cool and refresh the palate, while the spices add flavor and depth. Raita is a simple dish to make, but it can be a great addition to any meal.

10. Raisins

A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and can be eaten either fresh or dried. Raisins are a good source of vitamins and minerals, including iron, potassium, and fiber.
They can also help to prevent certain health conditions, such as high blood pressure and anemia.
Many different types of raisins thanksgiving Foods that start with r, including Thompson Seedless, Black Corinth, and Muscat. Raisins can be used in various recipes, including cakes, cookies, and trail mix.

11. Radish

Radishes are a type of root vegetable that are typically red, white, or pink in color. They have a crisp texture and a slightly spicy flavor and are often used in salads or as garnish.
Radishes are a good source of vitamins C and B6 and potassium and magnesium. They also contain antioxidants that can help protect against certain diseases.
Radishes can be eaten raw, cooked, or pickled. They can also be used in various recipes, such as roasted radish dishes, stir-fries, or soups.

12. Red Kitten Spinach

Red kitten spinach is a type of baby spinach that is characterized by its deep red leaves. It is a popular ingredient in salads and smoothies and is grown in many countries worldwide.
Red kitten spinach is a good source of several nutrients, including vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium.
It also contains a compound called nitrates, which has been shown to improve blood flow and help reduce blood pressure.
So if you're looking for nutritious and delicious Thanksgiving Foods that start with r to add color to your diet, try red kitten spinach!

13. Rice

Rice is next on our list of thanksgiving Foods that start with r. It is a food that is consumed by millions of people around the world daily. It is a staple in many cultures and has been a part of the human diet for centuries.
Rice is a grain that is cultivated in many different parts of the world. It is a versatile grain that can be used in various dishes.
Rice can be cooked in different ways, such as boiled, steamed, or baked. It can also be eaten raw.
There are many benefits to eating rice. Rice is a good source of complex carbohydrates, which are an important part of a healthy diet.
It is also a good source of vitamins and minerals. Rice is low in fat and calories, and it is a good source of fiber.

14. Roasted Turkey

A classic roasted turkey is the perfect centerpiece for your holiday table, but it can also be a bit daunting to prepare.
However, with a little planning and some simple tips, you can roast a delicious turkey that will impress your family and friends.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when preparing your turkey thanksgiving foods that start with r:

• Choose the right size turkey. A good rule of thumb is to allow 1 pound of turkey per person.
• Make sure your turkey is thawed. A frozen turkey will take much longer to cook and may not roast evenly.
• Season your turkey with a simple rub of salt, pepper, and herbs.
• Place your turkey in a roasting pan breast side up.
• Roast your turkey at a moderate temperature, 325-350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Use a meat

15. Rye

Rye is a cereal grain that is most commonly used to produce bread and alcohol.
It is a hearty grain that is high in fiber and protein, making it a popular choice for those looking for a nutritious option.
Rye is also known for its distinct flavor, which has been described as earthy and nutty. Rye is a versatile grain that can be used in various recipes.
It can be cooked and eaten as porridge or used as flour for baking. Rye bread is a popular option, as it is hearty and filling.
Rye can also be used in soups, stews, and casseroles. If you are looking for new grain thanksgiving Foods that start with r to add to your diet, consider rye.
With its distinct flavor and nutritional value, it is sure to become a favorite in no time.

16. Russet Potato

The Russet potato is a type of potato that is commonly used in many different dishes.
This potato has brown skin and white flesh. It is a popular choice for baking, frying, and mashed potatoes.
Regarding nutrition, the Russet potato is a good source of vitamins and minerals. It is also a good source of fiber. This potato can be a healthy addition to any diet.
The Russet potato is a good choice if you are looking for a versatile potato that can be used in many different dishes.
This potato has brown skin and white flesh. It is a popular choice for baking, frying, and mashed potatoes.

17. Risotto

Risotto is a traditional Italian dish that is made with rice, broth, and other ingredients. It is a very popular dish and is often served as a main course.
Risotto is usually made with short-grain rice, such as Arborio or Carnaroli. The rice is cooked in broth until it is creamy and tender.
Risotto can be made with different kinds of broth, such as chicken, beef, or vegetable.
There are many different ways to make risotto, and it can be flavored with different ingredients, such as cheese, vegetables, or seafood. Risotto is a versatile dish that can be made to suit any taste.

18. Reuben Sandwich

The Reuben sandwich is a classic American sandwich made with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing on rye bread. It's a delicious and hearty sandwich that's perfect for a quick lunch or a hearty dinner.
While the Reuben sandwich is a delicious and classic sandwich, it's also a bit of a mystery. The origin of the sandwich is unknown, but there are several theories.
One theory suggests that the sandwich was invented by a Jewish deli owner in New York City in the early 1900s.
Another theory suggests that a Nebraska man in the 1920s invented the sandwich.
Whatever the sandwich's origin, one thing is for sure - the Reuben sandwich is a delicious and iconic sandwich that has stood the test of time.
Reuben sandwich is the best If you're looking for a delicious and hearty sandwich, thanksgiving Foods that start with r.

19. Rigatoni

Rigatoni is a type of pasta that originates from the Italian region of Lombardy. It is made from durum wheat flour and water, and its name comes from the word "rigato," which means "ridged" in Italian.
Rigatoni pasta is typically ridged on one side and smooth on the other. Rigatoni pasta is traditionally used in Italian dishes such as "allaarbonara" and "al pesto.
Rigatoni can also be used in various other dishes, such as pasta salads, soups, and casseroles.
Rigatoni is a great option if you're looking for hearty and filling thanksgiving Foods that start with r meal.
It pairs well with various sauces and can be made ahead of time, making it a great meal for busy weeknights.

20. Ricotta Cheese

Ricotta cheese is an Italian cheese made from sheep’s milk. It is a soft, white cheese with a slightly grainy texture. Ricotta cheese is used in a variety of dishes, both sweet and savory.
In sweet dishes, ricotta is often used as a filling for desserts such as cannoli and cheesecake.
It can also be used as a topping for pancakes or waffles. Savory dishes such as lasagna and stuffed shells also often include ricotta cheese.
Ricotta cheese is high in protein and calcium and is a good source of vitamins A and B12. It is also low in fat and sodium.
Ricotta cheese is a versatile cheese that can be used in various dishes.

21. Rice Pudding

Rice pudding is also on our list of thanksgiving Foods that start with r, which has been around for centuries.
It is made with just a few simple ingredients - rice, milk, sugar, and spices - and can be easily adapted to fit any Dietary restriction.
While rice pudding is traditionally made with white rice, you can also use brown rice, wild rice, or even sushi rice.
The type of milk you use is also up to you. While many people use cow's milk, you can also use almond milk, coconut milk, or other non-dairy milk.
Rice pudding is a versatile and delicious dish that everyone can enjoy. So next time you're looking for a comforting dessert, give rice pudding a try.

22. Retsina

Lastly, Retsina is a resinated white wine that is popular in Greece. It is made by adding pine resin to the wine during fermentation.
This gives the wine a unique flavor that is often described as piney or resin-like.
Retsina is typically made with the native Greek grape varieties Assyrtiko, Athiri, and Rhoditis; it can also be made with other grape varieties.
Retsina is a versatile wine that can be enjoyed with various dishes. It pairs well with grilled meats and vegetables and traditional Greek dishes such as Souvlaki and Gyro.
Retsina can also be enjoyed on its own as an aperitif or after-dinner drink. So if you're looking for a unique wine to try, be sure to give Retsina a try.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our blog has helped a list of varieties of Thanksgiving foods, starting with R.
While there are many other delicious Thanksgiving dishes, these are some of the most popular and iconic in our blog post.
So if you're looking for a great Thanksgiving meal, be sure to include some of these delicious thanksgiving foods that start with "R" dishes.

Genders: Male(1), Female(3), Other(1).
Classes: Controllers(1), Figthers(2), Mages(1), Marksmen(0), Slayers(0), Tanks(0), Specialists(1).
Regions: Bandle City(0), Bilgewater(0), Demacia(0), Icahtia(0), Ionia(0), Ixtal(0), Noxus(0), Piltover(0), Runeterra(4), Shadow Isles/Blessed Isles(0), Shurima(0), Targon(0), The Freljord(0), The Void(1), Zaun(0).
Minimal Changes/Balance-Clarity (0): .
Significant Changes/Mid-Scope Updates (4): Halime, Ronan, Velma, Arka'Zha.
Huge Changes/Reworks (1): Renee.
Minimal Changes/Balance-Clarity Updates: Includes number changes, filling missing values, fixing grammatical errors, rephrasing ability descriptions/names, swapping ability positions.
Significant Changes/Mid-Scope Updates: Includes (all of the above and/or) adding/removing certain effects from one or more abilities, fundamentally changing one ability.
Huge Changes/Reworks: Includes (all of the above and/or) fundamentally changing two or more abilities, changing the fantasy of a champion.
​

Halima, The Eldrich Owl: Female, Specialist (Runeterra)

Curse Of The Owl Beast (Passive)

Halima’s Resource Bar is replaced with Corruption, with a maximum of 100. Halima gains 10 Corruption whenever she casts an ability & loses 5 Corruption after not casting an ability for 5 seconds & 5 more for every second thereafter. Upon reaching 100 Corruption, Halima transforms into an owl beast for 10 seconds, altering her abilities, reducing her Attack Range from 550 units to 175 units, granting her 100 - 500 (based on level) bonus Maximum Health, gets Healed by the same amount & gains Slow Immunity. When she transforms back to her normal form, she only retains her Current Health%.

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Touch Of The Elder (Q)

Halima sends a feather 900 units in the target direction, dealing moderate Magical Damage to the first enemy unit hit, Rooting them for some seconds & Slowing enemies within 300 units by 25% for 1.5 seconds.

• Root Duration: 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2

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Touch Of The Elder (Beast Q) - Active

Halima sends 3 feathers 700 units in the target direction, in a conic shape, each dealing moderate Magical Damage to the first enemy hit & marking them for 3 seconds. Halima can reactivate this ability within 3 seconds.

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Touch Of The Elder (Beast Q) - Reactive

Halima dashes to a marked enemy within 700 units, Rooting them & the other marked enemies for some seconds.

• Root Duration: 0.5/0.75/1/1.25/1.5

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The Last Breeze (W)

Halima deals lesser Magical Damage to enemies in a cone, in the target direction, reducing their Magic Resist for 3 seconds.

• Magic Resist Reduction: 10%/15%/20%/25%/30%

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The Last Breeze (Beast W) - Passive

Halima’s Basic Attacks deal a percentage of Attack Damage to secondary targets in a cone in front of her.

• Secondary Target Damage: 20%/25%/30%/35%/40%

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The Last Breeze (Beast W) - Active

Halima releases a wave of dark energy in a cone, in the target direction, dealing lesser Magical Damage to enemies hit & reducing their Magic Resist for 3 seconds. Once the wave reaches its destination, it travels back to Halima, dealing the same instance of damage to enemies hit & Knocks them 250 units toward Halima.

• Magic Resist Reduction: 20%/30%/40%/50%/60%

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Sudden Impact (E)

Halima dashes to a targeted area within 475 units, becoming Untargetable until she travels to the area, dealing lesser Magical Damage to enemies within 250 units & empowers her next Basic Attack within 4 seconds, causing it to deal moderate Magical Damage to enemies within 300 units from the target.

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Sudden Impact (Beast E)

Halima dashes to a targeted area within 675 units, dealing moderate Magical Damage to enemies within 350 units & Stunning enemies within 250 units for some seconds.

• Stun Duration: 0.5/0.75/1/1.25/1.5

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A Parliament Of Owls (Ultimate)

Halima creates an area of some units around her which stays on the ground for some seconds. While within its perimeter, enemies are Revealed & Halima gains bonus Ability Haste. Additionally, whenever Halima deals Magical Damage to an enemy champion with any of her abilities, a helping owl will attack them, dealing them moderate Magical Damage. This effect can only occur once every 0.25 seconds, per enemy champion.

• Radius: 1000/1500/2000
• Duration: 5/6/7
• Bonus Ability Haste: 5/15/25

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Skins (3)

1. Default Halima
2. Sphinx Halima
3. Coven Halima

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1st Iteration
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Ronan, The Nightmare Collector: Male, Diver (Runeterra)

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Exposed Nightmares (Passive)

Whenever Ronan damages an enemy champion with a Basic Attack, they get Exposed Nightmares for 5 seconds. Ronan’s next damaging ability against an enemy with Exposed Nightmares will cause Ronan to collect their nightmare. This effect has a 40 - 20 (based on level)-second cooldown per enemy champion. Collected nightmares empower Ronan’s basic abilities.

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Sickle Slash (Q)

Ronan slashes his sickle at a targeted rectangle within 700 units, dealing moderate Physical Damage to enemies hit & Slowing them for 2 seconds. This ability’s cooldown gets reduced by 1 second for every successful Basic Attack landed. At 15 nightmares collected, this ability Heals Ronan for 75 (+10 for every nightmare after 15) Health when it damages an enemy champion.

• Slow: 14%/17%/20%/23%/26%

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Caustic Guage (W) - Passive

Ronan’s Resource Bar is replaced with Guage, with a maximum of some Guage. Ronan gains 10 Gauge whenever he successfully lands a Basic Attack on an enemy unit. After not successfully attacking an enemy for 4 seconds, Ronan loses 25 Gauge & 25 Gauge every second thereafter. If Ronan hasn’t taken any damage from enemy champions within this period, he converts 100% of his Current Gauge to a shield for 5 seconds. This effect has a cooldown of some seconds & the cooldown counts down after the shield expires. At 25 nightmares collected, the shield’s effectiveness is increased by 5% (+5% for every nightmare after 25).

• Maximum Gauge: 100/150/200/250/300
• Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6

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Caustic Guage (W) - Active

Ronan’s next 3 Basic Attacks within 5 seconds gain bonus Attack Speed, grant him 20 Gauge instead & deal a percentage of Attack Damage to enemies adjacent to the target. These empowered Basic Attacks can collect Exposed Nightmares.

• Bonus Attack Speed: 20%/25%/30%/35%/40%
• Adjacent Targets Damage: 30%/35%/40%/45%/50%

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Steady Pace (E)

Ronan dashes 400 units in the target direction, becomes Ghosted for 3 seconds & his next Basic Attack within 4 seconds deals bonus on-hit Magical Damage to the target. At 35 nightmares collected, this ability has a maximum of 3 charges, gaining a new one every 15 (-1 for every nightmare after 35) seconds. If Ronan successfully lands a Basic Attack on an enemy unit within 2 seconds of activating this ability, he refunds a charge, otherwise, it goes on cooldown for 6 seconds.

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Final Verdict (Ultimate)

Ronan creates a zone of 500 units around himself for 5 seconds, dealing lesser Magical Damage to enemies within every second & giving them a stack of Final Verdict every second while within the zone. When the zone expires, Ronan deals a final instance of moderate Physical Damage to enemies within 500 units & Stuns them for 1 second. Ronan deals 10% bonus Physical Damage for every stack of Final Verdict & consumes all stacks.

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Skins (3)

1. Default Ronan
2. Worldbreaker Ronan
3. Inkshadow Ronan

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1st Iteration
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Renee, The Dream Collector: Female, Burst Mage (Runeterra)

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Exposed Dreams (Passive)

Whenever Renee damages an enemy champion with any of her abilities, they get Exposed Dreams for 5 seconds. Renee’s next ability against an enemy with Exposed Dreams consumes the dream & causes a different effect. This effect has a 40 - 20 (based on level)-second cooldown per enemy champion. The cooldown counts down only if the dream gets consumed.

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Bursting Flares (Q)

Renee creates flares 900 units in the target direction that deal moderate Magical Damage to enemies hit. The flares are created in 3 sequences, each of them being 300 units long & with a delay of 0.25 seconds between them. Enemies with Exposed Dreams take moderate True Damage instead.

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Dust Of Sharing (W)

Renee can target an allied champion within 800 units to empower Renee’s & the target’s next Basic Attack within 4 seconds. The empowered Basic Attack deals lesser bonus Magical Damage to the target & if the target has Exposed Dreams, all enemies within 300 units from the target get Exposed Dreams. The target with Exposed Dreams will not get their dreams consumed from this ability, but will refresh their duration instead.

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Handy Dreamcatcher (E)

Renee sends a dreamcatcher 1000 units in the target direction, dealing lesser Magical Damage to the first enemy hit & explodes in area of 400 units upon impact. Enemies within the explosion are Slowed for 1 second. Enemies with Exposed Dreams are Rooted instead for the same duration.

• Slow: 10%/15%/20%/25%/30%

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Good Night! (Ultimate)

Renee creates an area of 400 units within 700 units that lasts for 4 seconds, which Slows enemies within. If an enemy stays within the area for 2 seconds, they get Asleep for some seconds & the next instance of damage they receive from Renee or an allied champion deals them bonus Magical Damage & wakes them up. Enemies with Exposed Dreams only take 1 second to fall Asleep.

• Slow: 30%/40%/50%
• Asleep Duration: 2/2.5/3
• Bonus Magical Damage: 70/100/130

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Skins (3)

1. Default Renee
2. Arcanist Renee
3. Faerie Court Renee

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1st Iteration
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Velma, The Lonely Witch: Female, Enchanter (Runeterra)

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Lost Artifacts (Passive)

Every 30 - 15 (based on level) seconds, artifacts of 3 - 6 (based on level) kinds spawn within 1500 units from Velma. Velma can pick up an artifact by walking near it & can hold a maximum of 10 artifacts at a time. Green artifacts spawn near bushes, red artifacts spawn on the ground & blue artifacts spawn near water. Whenever Velma picks up an artifact she gains 10% - 50% (based on level) bonus Movement Speed for 5 seconds. The artifacts linger on the ground for up to 90 - 45 (based on level) seconds before disappearing.

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Sustained Bind (Q)

Velma creates a bind that travels 1000 units in the target direction, dealing lesser Magical Damage to all enemies hit, while Slowing the first enemy hit for 2 seconds & Rooting all subsequent enemies hit for some seconds.

• Slow: 14%/18%/22%/26%/30%
• Root Duration: 1/1.15/1.3/1.45/1.6

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Mix & Stir (W)

Velma puts all of her current artifacts inside a cauldron within 800 units, empowering it for every artifact added. Additionally, for every artifact added, Velma gains some bonus Ability Power for 4 seconds.

• Bonus Ability Power: 1/1.5/2/2.5/3

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Cauldron Of Disaster (E)

Velma places an inactive cauldron at a targeted area within 800 units which activates after 1 second. Every second, for 5 seconds, the cauldron releases a pulse of 400 units which causes different effects to enemies & allies & these effects last for as long as the cauldron is active. Velma & allied champions deal some (+0.15% for each green artifact) bonus damage per pulse, get Healed by some (+2.5 for each red artifact) Health per pulse & gain some (+0.3% for each blue artifact) bonus Movement Speed per pulse. Enemies deal some (+0.15% for each green artifact) less damage per pulse, take some (+2.5 for each red artifact) Magical Damage per pulse & are Slowed by a percentage (+0.3% for each blue artifact) per pulse. If an enemy champion steps on the cauldron, the cauldron gets destroyed & 50% of its cooldown gets refunded.

• Bonus Damage: 0.5%/0.75%/1%/1.25%/1.5%
• Heal: 5/10/15/20/25
• Bonus Movement Speed: 1%/1.5%/2%/2.5%/3%
• Damage Reduction: 0.5%/0.75%/1%/1.25%/1.5%
• Magical Damage: 5/10/15/20/25
• Slow: 1%/1.5%/2%/2.5%/3%

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Overflow (Ultimate)

Velma causes the cauldron to increase its effective radius to some units, become Invincible for some seconds, while additionally granting Velma & allied champions within its range a shield equal to a percentage (+0.1665%/0.1875%/0.2% for each artifact added) of the target’s Maximum Health per pulse & Polymorphs & Disarms enemy champions within range for some seconds.

• Radius: 450/500/550
• Invincible Duration: 3/4/5
• Shield Value: 3.33%/3.75%/4%
• Polymorph & Disarm Duration: 1.5/2/2.5

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Skins (3)

1. Default Velma
2. Honey Brewer Velma
3. Winterblessed Velma

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1st Iteration
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Arka'Zha, Monarch Of The Void: Other, Juggernaut (Void)

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Monarch's Right Hand (Passive)

Arka’Zha’s trinket slot is replaced by Monarch’s Right Hand. Arka’Zha targets an allied champion within 1000 units & channels for 3 seconds to create a bond with them. Every 40 - 30 (based on level) seconds, while within 700 units from the bonded ally, Arka’Zha can dash to an area of 400 units around the target & gain a shield equal to 20% - 50% (based on level) of its Current Health for 3 seconds. When this ability is on cooldown, Arka’Zha can use wards.

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Recurring Punishment (Q)

Arka’Zha damages enemies within 450 units with its claws, after a 0.75-second cast delay, dealing them lesser Physical Damage. Enemies that are at least 250 units away from Arka’Zha are dealt moderate Physical Damage instead. Marked enemies are dealt lesser True Damage if within the inner radius & moderate True Damage if within the outer radius.

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Eternal Servants (W) - Passive

Whenever Arka'Zha kills an enemy unit, it stores them in a portrait above its item hotbar, up to a maximum of 3.

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Eternal Servants (W) - Active

Arka’Zha summons all of its stored servants at a targeted area of 200 units, within 600 units. Servants that are enemy champions, epic or large monsters have some Health, some Attack Damage, 1.5 Attack Speed, 125 Range, some Armor & some Magic Resist. All other servants have some Health, some Attack Damage, 1.5 Attack Speed, 125 Range, some Armor & some Magic Resist. Servants attack the nearest enemy unit & mark them for 5 seconds.

• Elite Servants Health: 200/275/350/425/500
• Elite Servants Attack Damage: 5/10/15/20/25
• Elite Servants Armor: 20/25/30/35/40
• Elite Servants Magic Resist: 20/25/30/35/40
• Normal Servants Health: 100/175/250/325/400
• Normal Servants Attack Damage: 5/10/15/20/25
• Normal Servants Armor: 10/15/20/25/30
• Normal Servants Magic Resist: 10/15/20/25/30

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Eternal Servants (W) - Reactive

Arka’Zha commands all of its servants to move to the target location or attack the targeted enemy unit within 800 units.

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Dark Acid (E)

Arka’Zha spits a pool of acid at a targeted area of 300 units, within 700 units that lasts for 3 seconds. Enemies within the are Slowed, take increasing Magical Damage every 0.5 seconds & Arka’Zha gets Healed by a percentage of its Maximum Health every 0.5 seconds if there is at least 1 enemy champion, epic or large monster in the pool. Marked enemies are Grounded instead.

• Slow: 20%/25%/30%/35%/40%
• Heal: 1.5%/2.5%/3.5%/4.5%/5.5%

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Behemoth Of The Void (Ultimate)

For 6 seconds, Arka’Zha becomes Farsighted, meaning it can’t see, reveal or use Basic Attacks on units that are within 300 units from itself, its Attack Range is increased from 125 units to 350 units, it gains some bonus Attack Damage & bonus Attack Speed.

• Bonus Attack Damage: 20/40/60
• Bonus Attack Speed: 15%/20%/25%

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Skins (3)

1. Default Arka'Zha
2. Death Blossom Arka'Zha
3. Guardian Of The Sands Arka'Zha

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1st Iteration
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Feedback is always welcome.

My doctor sent a prescription for iron sulfate 325 mg which is going to cost around $11 for 90 day supply. But i was wondering if there’s a difference between the prescription and like nature made or natures bounty. I could save some money getting the OTC if there’s no difference.