Red nose avant pitbulls for sale

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/vl0cKpB
Hey y’all, got some stuff for sale. Prices are shipped to the lower 48, payment via PayPal or Venmo, buyer covers G&S.
BCM Aimpoint 1.93 Mount, like new - $85
Trijicon MRO Red dot with Reptilia 1.93 MRO Mount - $355
Surefire 5/8x24 Warcomp, used - $60

its red, rhere are 2 red ones for sale. a brand.new one for 21.6k and this buddy for almost 19k. Which one would you buy? has to be red.
the brand new xar with my deposit would cost about 270 a month before insurance

“So, how much?”
I didn’t know Charles well, but well enough to guess that the grizzled hog farmer was a talented salesman. ‘No lowballs,’ I imagined him drawling, waggling his finger, and speaking over his exceptionally jutting chin.
“Three-hundred fifty for the land, the pen, and the house,” the man said. He spat, hard, and the tobacco-black phlegm stuck to the side of the fence post and slowly ran down the side in three rivulets.
“Then another twenty grand for the hogs. Two-hundred thirty-three of ‘em, not a large passel. Price of swine is goin’ up, I’ll tell you, so t’s the best I can give you for what you’s gettin’.”
I had expected to hand him even more money. Charles and his wife had a small operation, but big enough to matter, with a beautiful two-story farmhouse to accompany it nicely. I wasn’t getting a better deal anywhere else. At least not anywhere I wanted to be. I’d longed to live as a farmer in Tennessee ever since my family’s entire property burned to the ground back in the fall of ‘68. It was dry, and we’d just fertilized after the harvest.
Not a living thing was left untouched by the flames, not even my father, who ran back to get the horses after the barn shot up with a pillar of fire. We never found his body. Or maybe we did, but the charred dust of the barn, the corn, and the animals we called our lives and the blackened remains of the man that was my world were all reduced to ashes in the end. And when the wind came, they all blew away just the same, forever to leave me, my two sisters, and my mother behind.
I held out my hand to Charles and we shook on it.
It wasn’t the life I envisioned for myself. Not when I got my engineering degree from Georgia Tech. Not when I began work at a small engineering firm. Not even when I saw the hog farm for sale less than an hour from my house did I realize that was the world I lost that I needed back. My wife didn’t care; in fact, it brought her work commute down to forty minutes from an hour ten.
After we moved there and I began consulting part-time to make allowance for the time I needed to spend raising the hogs, caring for the land, and tending to my now-pregnant wife, the fulfillment I sought seemed that much closer. But only that. Closer, yet still out of the reach of my yearning clutches. It wasn’t until two years after I bought the farm, almost to the day, that the chips seemed to fall on my side with her.
“Micah?”
Jackie was calling from the cubicle over. Then I heard footsteps coming towards my own office space.
“Hey, yeah, did you finish the drainage plans for the floodplain you were working on? If so, I’d happily review and sign off on them.”
Jackie had come here a couple of years after I did. She was an intern at first, and everybody loved her cheery smile and sharp intellect, so she was hired on after she finished her degree. The youngest of our crew, she lived by herself in an apartment, but her lack of experience didn’t keep her from coolly sharing her opinion on matters of work when she knew she was right. And she was always right.
Jackie had always taken a liking to me in a way she didn’t seem to show toward the others. I never became sure of why she did, but I had my suspicions. Trauma and mystique go hand in hand. Maybe she saw me as broken in the same way she saw herself. After all, it didn’t take a psychologist to tell Jackie had her own skeletons in her closet. She just had that aura, the one that neglected children and broken adults share with each other. Nobody knew what life she walked out of and nobody cared. She did her job, and that was all the company cared for. But not me.
I turned away from my computer screen towards the opening of my cubicle and she was there, half silhouetted by the light behind her, staring me in the eye. Jackie trailed a finger down the edge of the cubicle wall, her mouth open barely enough for me to see her tongue flit deftly over her perfectly-aligned incisors. Ignoring my question, she continued.
“Your wife, I take it?”
She gestured with an outstretched palm toward the wedding photo I had framed on my desk.
“Yeah. Hard to believe we’ll be a family of three soon. Ha!”
I chuckled, nervously. Slightly excitedly, too. I can’t tell if Jackie knew that the latter was for what I knew was coming rather than what I had already said, but I don’t think she would have cared one way or the other.
“Say, she must be lonely waiting for you at home? I know that feeling. Being lonely.”
She took a step towards me and I glanced down at my feet. Looking back, it felt like an eternity, that looking down, that knowing what was happening and making a decision. It was a choice. And while it felt like it stretched for minutes, hours, I knew it was but a moment. Yet it only took a moment to make my descent into sin.
“I know it too. Well. Too well. She’s on a business trip - a long one. Say, I raise hogs. Prize swine, there’s good money in them. What’d you say about coming to see my farm sometime?”
It had been two hours since Jackie had left the farmhouse and was almost one-thirty in the morning, yet I wasn’t tired. According to my doctor, I have insomnia. According to my mother, I have “bad juju.” According to myself, well, I guess I just don’t feel like sleep is worth the trouble sometimes. That night, though, I didn’t sleep at all until the sun shone through my window in the early hours of the morning.
Living among swine never gave me a lot of grief before then. Some people hated the stench - my wife among them - but the manure never bothered me, and, come to find out, it didn’t bother Jackie, either. I would have asked if she had been on a farm as a child, but her demeanor and attitude told me that she wasn’t interested in the slightest in my life and that I shouldn’t be in hers, either. I suppose I wasn’t - not in the one outside of our affair, at least.
But that night, when the stars were out and shining like eyes in a limitless black sea, and when the wind rustled through the trees, a gigantic army moving across the land like a plague towards destinations unseen, I started to feel bothered in a way I never had before.
I had been sitting on the back porch in view of the pig pens after having just finished the chores. I knew I wasn’t drunk, I was only on my second beer, but sitting outside, half-empty bottle in hand, I suddenly wished I could be completely wasted. I’d never been one to believe in those types of things that you can’t touch with your hand or see with your eyes. The hair stood up on my arms and the taste of metal lapped my tongue as if a storm was coming. No, I didn’t believe in the things you couldn’t really feel, but I could sure as hell feel something now.
Unsettled, I was turning around to go get another beer before something caught my eye in the pig pen that made me glance over.
All of the pigs visible from this side of the house could be seen, through the metal fencing, staring in my direction. The ones who were blocked by the lumpy bodies of the other swine stood on the hind ends of the others to see. With their combined mass, the pigs strained the metal of the pen stalls until each stall’s fencing bulged out in the middle where the weight was distributed.
Most unique of all was the unanimous behavior of the swine. Not one fell out of sync. Each one, eyes glowing like headlights in the dark, bodies silhouetted against the light of the moon, was without noise or disturbance. Once all of the pigs were in position, they all stayed ominously still.
As I watched, one by one, hundreds of eyes closed, and a wave of darkness spread over the pen as no more eyes were open to reflect the light. I swore for a moment that the stars did too and that the world around me plunged into complete darkness, but I cannot be for certain, because at that same moment, I involuntarily blinked.
I say involuntarily because, frozen in place, the scene was too strange for me to willingly turn away from. I do not know if the same force that caused the swine to flicker their eyes caused me to do the same, perhaps a gust of wind - or of something less tangible - but upon opening them, the pigs had returned to their discord, with several having already gone to sleep. Deeply disturbed, I went inside the house and drank until the morning came and I finally found sleep.
My wife returned from her trip soon enough and without much ado upon her arrival. For the next month or so, the two of us were together, and our lives were lived without significant discord. None that she knew about, anyway. I never told her about Jackie and I certainly didn’t mention the times I saw my coworker after my wife returned, either. And while I did float an innocent question to her asking if she had noticed any of the hogs’ strange behavior, I didn’t enlighten her as to the motivation for my interrogative manner. She never appreciated being in the company of swine as it was, and turning her disdain into disgust wasn’t on my agenda.
Almost as abruptly as she had returned, my wife left, again, to be gone for the next week and a half on another trip. Probably best for her, too, because the hottest days of the year hit western Tennessee when she wasn’t there to experience them. And no sooner had she gone than Jackie resumed her nightly visits to the farm. Each time, she showed up without much notice, if any at all, and left just as abruptly.
Funnily enough, I didn’t care much. I felt no more and no less empty after she left than when she was here. So after I spent my days with my eyes on my screen and my nose in my boss’s ass, I spent my nights staring up through the bottoms of bone-dry bottles, faintly wondering if the path I walked down could’ve been just a little warmer or just a little brighter if things were different.
In spite of my catering towards my boss’s every wish at the office, he didn’t return the good-will in kind.
“What do you mean you’re asking for a raise?”
I swallowed and continued.
“I mean that it’s been five years, Glenn. I simply asked that my pay might increase to match inflation.”
My boss folded his hands across his desk and sighed. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed at a couple of beads of sweat running down from his brow. We were in the heat of summer, and the air hung thick and humid around us. The office had air conditioning, but the unit was old, and the fan whistling away in the corner didn’t do much good against the record-breaking heat pressing in around us.
“I’m sorry, Micah. It’s just that you’re consulting, now, and… I can’t afford you those kinds of benefits-”
“What do you mean benefits? I’ve been here long enough I’m owed at least that, Glenn! What the fuck do you think I’m still here for? Pot lucks?”
That was the first time I had lost my temper at my boss; at least, the first time since he ripped up one of my drafts for a project several years back. That had been a long day for both of us. Now, Glenn sat back and scowled ever so slightly, and only for a brief moment, an indication that his inhibitions keeping his attitude in check were wearing thin. Nonetheless, he put on a smile, and chuckled coldly.
“Micah, look- you always were my right hand man, but you’re here so little now. One could say you’re more like my right thumb man, now.”
That was a long day too. The heat didn’t help. Somehow some bugs got into the office. Somebody probably left a door open to quash the heat, fruitlessly.
No wonder the AC’s shot, I thought to myself.
By the time it was the hour for me to leave, there were moths flitting around the lights, flies eating the stale food in the cafe, gnats alighting on every exposed surface in the office- insects were everywhere. I figured that door must have been left open most of the day.
Gotta be pretty stupid bugs, if this is where they want to be.
The time came for me to leave and I did so without a fuss. As little as I could manage, anyway. I took time to complete some errands and returned home, only to realize the heat wasn’t much less oppressive there than it was at the office, even if there weren’t any insects. If anything, it felt oddly empty without them, even after Jackie showed up. The rest of that evening was a blur of empty bottles and used cigarette butts littering the porch.
At some point — two in the morning, three, it didn’t matter — I was pulled out of my drunken slumber and forced into sobriety by a noise I could no more determine the source of than what I had eaten for dinner a year ago from the day. I sat up with a jolt and listened, suddenly feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
The sound, if it could be called that, was discordant, unnatural, wrong — and yet, I couldn’t remember another thing about it. It wasn’t a sound heard through your ears, a vibration in your skin, nor even a sensation of one’s physical brain; it was a thought processed through one’s sleeping soul, something that certainly cannot be described with words without diminishing the weightiness placed; without negating, in full, the sense of abject horror at its state of being.
I had sat atop that precipice between reality and unreality; sleep, the abyss, where devils absently play amongst the nightmares of men. I told myself it was just that, a dream, but I know now that the place I was and the places I was soon to go were gateways between the waking world and the one beneath it. Before I had time to process what I had just felt, I heard another sound, this one very much real, and resembling a dying animal. Slowly, I made my way out of my crumpled bed and opened the blinds. I almost wished, upon doing so, that I was back on the precipice.
Thirteen of the hogs stood in a circle on the lawn; how they had gotten out, I don’t know. Each stood perfectly still, equidistant from the next, and faced a quivering shadow in the middle of them all. I could make out faint features: a scraggly beard, a bottle- whether the man was a hiker or a drunk, I couldn’t tell. Nonetheless, he had wound up on my property, and found himself caught in a circle of pigs.
I watched the man’s motions and noted with rising horror that as he walked in one direction, the circle of pigs shifted to keep him at the center of the ring, and all the while they drew nearer to him. The man was clearly intoxicated now; it was almost half a minute before he stumbled, fell, and no sooner squelched in the dirt than thirteen squeals rang through the night and the animals blotted out his body from sight with their unified mass.
The man let out one scream but could manage no more than one. The ring was a blur of motion. I saw little but I saw enough; one pig reared its glistening head and I watched part of a scalp fly from its gaping mouth, arcing dark liquid as it trailed across the yard. Another couple chunks of meat rolled away from the pile and reached a stop several feet away in the yard; once the pigs were through with their feast, they broke off from the previous site, now nothing but a red stain on the earth, and gobbled up the pieces that had got away.
It took me the next four hours to get the pigs back into their pen, but I managed it. And, none had to be shot in the process, though I surmised I should come with a gun readied. A cleanup wasn’t necessary either; it was a hog farm, so it’d be getting dirty again soon. I considered another individual might find the stain, but there was no proof it was human blood, and I had no intention of calling the police out there.
That morning, my boss was late to work. I suppose that’s to be expected, though, when one has had their tires slashed. He was livid, and I didn’t correct his supposition that his ex-wife had committed the act, though I’m sure he would have loved another reason to fire me. After all, I was nothing more than a right thumb man.
The day had gone quicker and cooler than the former, and the low droning of the rain made the day seem just a little less lonely. Of course, I was slated to see Jackie that night, and after lunch I had left work, gone off to purchase more drinks from the local liquor store. I remember having gotten enough to fill the passenger seat of my truck, and felt almost as if the pile of liquor was a singular being, watching me; the silently judgemental friend. I had a twinge of anxiety, and half wondered if I was going insane; at that, I laughed.
The air was cool when Jackie got there. My mother always used to call that the first breath of autumn, when the reaper opened his eyes and cooed softly to his crop before the inferno was snuffed out by the frigid winter. As a child, I didn’t pay much attention to her words, but as I grew older I felt the cold in my bones, and tonight I felt it in my soul, a faint whisper of death like the mark of the beast. I watched Jackie’s hair whip to the side, a black flag in the wind, as she approached the house. On the doorstep, we embraced, and I recall she said she needed to talk.
“You’re an awfully successful man, Micah. And I know you’ve got a lot of money. Maybe you’re not wealthy, no, but you’re richer than me, and there’s enough to go around. It’d be a damn shame if your poor wife found out about me. No, I haven’t said a thing yet, and I know you know that, for the poor thing couldn’t take the stress and might just die. But I could say a thing, and maybe even a little more. And a nasty thing it’d be, too. I’d just ask for $1,000 a month, but times are tough, so I’m inclined to say $2,000 would be enough to keep my mouth shut. And, of course, we could continue seeing each other. . . if you’d so please.”
Some say they see red when they’re angry enough, but I still remember how I saw even less; the next five minutes of my life were no clearer to me than several brief glimpses of reality, interspersed by periods of unreality before the next glimpse. A scream, and then another. The thought: she’s got a knife. A bone snapped: mine, hers, it didn’t matter. Blood; spattered on the carpet, on my shirt, and the drip-drip of a glistening red globe, smashed in through the side like a cracked egg. I remember the silence before the adrenaline eased and I felt pain, and I remember the pain before the squelch when I issued one last kick to the body, lying on the ground.
It had been time for me to feed the pigs. Jackie usually helped me with the feeding when she came over, always with a coy look, and often it was short lived and I needed to finish the job on my own after she left. I was betting that she could help me again. Hoisting her up onto my shoulder wasn’t difficult, though I supposed she was lighter than usual. I stooped to pick up the last few pieces that didn’t come with the rest of her and took the two of us to our yard.
The part of the brain we, as people, already understand cannot possibly encompass every sensation which we, as people, feel. Scientifically, maybe- but that feeling that makes dogs bark at empty rooms; that makes cats stare into walls before jumping away, frightened; that feeling exists in humans, too. Call it a sixth sense, or ESP, it’s there, and I felt it when carrying Jackie. The birds had stopped calling, the trees had ceased rustling, and a low, droning buzz resounded outside the pig pen. It rose in volume and pitch, and as I dropped Jackie’s lifeless corpse onto the ground, it blocked entirely the noise of the world around me.
I didn’t even hear the thump. Nor did I hear the pigs, for it wasn’t until I looked up from her body, panting heavily from the effort of what had transpired, that I saw that we stood on the fringe of a gathering of the pigs. I couldn’t see if any remained in the pen, but I could see that at least a hundred gathered here outside the pen, all staring at me with glassy eyes and salivating mouths. Some stood on the haunches of the others to see, and many were covered in blood, having been left uncleaned since the events of the previous night. Even through the foggy daze I was in, my fear registered on a guttural level and, in horror at the unreality of what I was seeing, I backpedaled, eventually tripping over a rut in the earth and falling to the ground.
The next moment, each of the pigs had turned to look at what was left of Jackie. For a couple of seconds, they stared at her, and I realized that the droning in my ears had stopped, replaced with nothing but an ominous silence. That silence was short lived, for in one, unanimous, ear-splitting squeal, the pigs raced each other to the body, and carnage ensued.
The hogs in front no sooner reached the body than were ripped apart by the pigs behind them. Huge flaps of fatty skin hung in ribbons from the napes of their necks and blood sprayed in all directions as necks, limbs, tails, and extremities were mangled with the reckless abandon of a pack of wild dogs. I suppose that’s what they were; even if I treated them like domesticated creatures, they were animals, and they were out of the control of any constraints that civilization wanted to place on them.
The mass of flesh moved rhythmically and dripping bodies were flung like oversized rag dolls from the fray to land wetly and lifelessly on the earth. Occasionally, I would hear a crunch as bones were rent and snapped under the pressure of the fray, and squeals as the broken limbs stabbed through the fleshy bodies of the animals atop them. Hooves, teeth, and bones carved the flesh of the other pigs, and while blood and feces sprayed freely, chunks of gore rolled out of the fray like meaty baseballs.
The pleasant temperature drop had undone itself, as the wind had stopped blowing, and the stench of the scene hung thick in the hot and heavy air of late summer. I vomited, over and over, bent over in the shit and the blood, eyes watering from the smell, and blood dripped from everywhere on my body. It ran off my body in rivulets and pooled around my feet. Some was mine, but more was Jackie’s, and more yet was the remains of the pigs. Blood dripped from my mouth onto the dirt, and I could no longer tell if I was looking up towards the cruel stars, down at the earth, or witnessing the slaughter before me, for my sight was veiled by a coating of blood, and my senses were clouded by the rush of adrenaline, though I could do nothing but sit in shock.
Breathe.
A chunk of meat smacked me in the shoulder.
Breathe.
An ear bounced off of my forehead.
Breathe.
An opened artery sprayed blood across my face in a line.
Breathe.
My eyes recognized four pigs on the fringe of the conflict abandoning their course for what was left of Jackie and I saw turn to me, each foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal. I saw two get ripped away by two other pigs, but the remaining couple charged. The one that reached me first clamped its maw around my leg not a moment before the next reached it, bit into its neck, and thrashed it back and forth.
I couldn’t hear my own screams above the countless squeals of the hog pile and the constant wet ripping that resounded through the dark sky. Eventually, the pig that had bit me gave out with a squeal, but not before the lower half of my leg was snapped with one, final pull, and the pig behind then buried its face in the body of the dying hog before being dragged back into the conflict by another. I failed to even hear my cries of pain over the sounds of the fray; I knew I screamed only from the burning in my throat.
Breathe.
A second later, I was thrown by the arm and crashed against the soggy earth several feet away from the conflict. For a moment, I wondered if I was alive, or if the world I was seeing around me was really Hell, and I was a damned soul being punished for my sins. At that, I blacked out, and entered a timeless, dreamless slumber that sent the world back into the buzzing mayhem I had felt before the carnage.
I opened my eyes some brief time later to find that the buzzing persisted in my ears while awake. Perspiring heavily from the heat, I found I was lying on my back on the ground, facing the burning remains of my house. The buzzing was really the rush of flames lapping at the sky and the crackling of embers as the roaring fire pulled them out of sight.
“Swine,”
The voice, which rang impossibly clear in the noise of the night, above the roar of the inferno and the sounds of the approaching sirens, had come from but a few feet behind the back of my moist head. Even after all that had transpired, the word made my hair stand on end, for it was spoken with a voice that could snuff out the stars if it were to say that they ought to stop shining.
I turned my head to face behind me, groaning sharply from the pain, to see a man atop a mountain of hundreds of mutilated hogs. The pile ran with a constant stream of blood and feces, which dripped slowly over the terraced stack of corpses to form a small lake underneath, the edge of which lapped my face with miniature waves of gore.
“. . . they never learn.”
Then, the man smiled, and I realized with horror that his legs resembled those of ruminants.
And atop his head rested two ebony horns, glistening in the moonlight.

I’m back again to ask for advice and not so much a story time. I’ve found myself in quite the pickle. If readers aren’t up to speed, please go back and read my post from last year. I inherited my late grandparents home after my Mammie passed away in late 2022. In early 2023, I changed the locks, got all utilities transferred over to my name. My dad was understandably miffed that he didn’t inherit the home, but he’s known since I was 9 years old when my grandparents deeded the home to me.
I’ve had a very rocky relationship with my dad over my 31 years. He has poor taste in women, and turned a blind eye to the abuse I endured during the years I lived with them. She has 4 children from a previous marriage. 3 of which are one wellfare and get constant handouts from them. When I left my home at 18 I was on my own financially and went to pursue a degree I have yet to complete 13 years later. I’m married and have started my own family now. We do quite well all things considered. My husband is in a professional field and I have an Etsy store where I make designed products for book lovers and plant parents.
Given these facts, her children decided to insert themselves and tell me I owe it to my dad and stepmother to live in my late grandparents house. I did not cave to the notion. It’s mine. I am now in the process of selling my house so I can live in my inherited home. It needs major renovations in terms of plumbing, electrical and cosmetic. I’m in contract with a realtor and we will be moving mid June.
My dad has offered to help us move. I was open to the idea. Without asking me first, he purchased a SW one way ticket to FL to help us move. That wasn’t what bothered me. It was how fast things have escalated. In the last week, he has dropped a bomb on me that he is “finally leaving my step mother.” We’ve all heard this song and dance before. I admit to all the trauma and abuse I suffered from her emotionally, mentally and physically, only for him to show up with her without warning months or years later. It’s jarring to say the least and frays on my mental health. But apart of me holds on to hope. I want to blame her but ultimately he is also complicit in allowing it.
Then within twenty four hours of announcing his secret to leave her, he is asking if he can stay in one of the spare rooms at my late grandparents house (his parents) while he finds another RV to park on his land that joins mine. He wanted to arrive in KY a week before the move, and do pest control and prep the house before we get there. While we wait for our FL to sell, we were going to stay in my inherited house. When it sells we will move out and start renovating with the cash from the FL home sale.
I’ve been keeping my aunt and uncle in the loop who has a home next door that’s been unlived in for 4 years. They bought another home 30 minutes away closer to my uncles work. They have two daughters in college. I offered to rent their home next door while we renovate as it would be beneficial for all parties. The county we are moving to doesn’t have a lot of rentals available. I want my daughter in school there because my Aunt works at the school she will be attending. I can also keep an eye on contractors. My family wants nothing to do with him. When I was growing up, I was gas lit into thinking their behaviors were okay. My grandparents and aunt and uncle never stopped fighting for me and showing me love. They’ve lived through these things as adults and have very hard opinions on my father. They are cordial with him, but do not rub shoulders, do holidays or even dinners with him. Not since I left the home at 18 anyways.
But now I’m at an impasse with my family. They do not feel comfortable with my dad moving up there, and circumstances have changed throwing a wrench in their plans. My dad is very charming. But he has also committed fraud and theft from him parents over the years and no one trust him. I’m not upset with my aunt and uncle for reneging on our arrangement. They fear him getting into their house and taking from them. But I am 3 weeks from our move and I’m panicking. This move was about finding my peace and financial freedom living debt free. I’ve kept my dad from arms length all these years putting states and states of distance between us, only for it to go down the drain in one of the biggest milestones in my life.
He says he wants to help. I want to believe him. There’s still that little girl inside that yearns for her father’s attention and love that he so freely gave to my step sisters. He didn’t attend my wedding because he was at a gun show. My daughter was two months old before he met her. He was miffed my mom came down to help after I gave birth and decided he would pitch a fit. As the old saying goes, he has that “my way or the highway,” mentality. There are so many red flags going off right now, and it’s cost me a very lucrative living arrangement. The cost to rent next door was far cheaper and closer than having to go to neighboring towns and cities to rent. I’ll have to commute 30 minutes to the house and school daily. If you are familiar with rural areas, you understand the conundrum. I can make do, but I feel defeated in a way. Conflicted.
I want an honest relationship with him but I’m afraid of him hurting me again or my daughter. She’s 8 years old and is very frank about her distain for him. Somehow she has more wisdom than myself. Am I opening up a can of worms that I’ll regret? I still feel emotionally drained from how the will played out and his reaction. He basically got nothing but a bunch of stipulations on 12 acres. No alcohol, no trailers long term, not bringing my stepmom’s family to live. I don’t know if it would hold up in court. He tried to manipulate me when I said there wasn’t a key to get into the house. He said he guessed he would pitch a tent outside because he can’t afford to eat a $124 southwest flight. If that’s the case, how the hell will he afford RV hookups on virgin land in addition to purchasing a used RV?
Do I pull the plug now and go no contact? Do I forgo moving all together? I hate Florida, the cost of living is insane and my property taxes and insurance have gone up. I only moved her for my mom. I do love my home right now but the way the economy is I feel the need to get out from under my mortgage before it’s too late. Interested to hear the worm army’s thoughts and the OK OP fam. When you read my story last year I felt so validated but this situation seems to have gotten much more complicated.

I previously picked up one of the newer MSI Rapid VA panels that was curved. I had a bright patch that ruined darks and found reds were really weak on it which was fixable in Windows/Nvidia but not solvable for PS5. The response time was definitely fast and clean with zero black smear but it was still choppy on 24fps media content, anime particularly since it's a lot of solid color blacks with defined outlines running 24fps. I returned it and waited a month to get this AOC monitor knowing the mini-LED would be assurance against poor black uniformity that the curved panels seem to suffer from and also seeing the response time specs on Rtings was promising. The MSI was a shot in the unknown with no professional reviews. I have a Gigabyte M32U and it's very choppy for this use case in comparison. Spoiler, the AOC is smooth!
Had Newegg cancel 2 orders I made shortly after restock alerts and then got it on the 3rd try where it seems like they actually had enough inventory to keep the sales going a few days after. Amazon had a month delay shipping as if they were pre selling them which I canceled when the 3rd try on Newegg got through. I know there's some more of us who just got their monitors too in this recent batch. It's possible that panel quality can vary between batches so I know that those of us who just got theirs this week are probably in the same group. I don't see the red tint issue with mine and the black uniformity is perfect, but the text clarity is a fail for productivity use.
BLACK SMEAR & MOTION
This does have very minimal black smear or outlining. Anime is a perfect test to see 24fps look choppy because it's a lot of solid colors with black outlines. I can see a subtle amount of black smear but I really have to look for it, but for once panning images don't look choppy, even the MSI Rapid VA would look choppy in this scenario, my Gigabyte M32U IPS is choppy in this scenario. The AOC is smooth like my 10 year old 60hz TN panel which was a confirmed fast panel. The only odd thing about the minor black smear is I use dark mode and a black wallpaper fill, my mouse cursor is enlargened and black with white outlines. Moving this around it's like the cursor fades away even with local dimming turned off. For actually watching content or gaming it's a non issue.
LOCAL DIMMING - SDR
I'm still figuring out what local dimming option to use. Looking at star fields is fine in a dark room but would be ruined in daylight. Switching between local dimming full or off along with comparing to my IPS monitor there's nothing ever being dimmed to the point of being lost but watching a video where various stars twinkle is the one case where the local dimming fails, without any local dimming you can see the brightness rise and peak on a twinkling star but with local dimming it's dulled out. This applies to all local dimming options, even low drops the backlighting by more then half way, only medium and full will actually give you the perception of a black background while low is just mild backlight still looking very dark.
The menu buttons are tough, so navigating to the local dimming option and flipping through wasn't enjoyable but I switched around quite a bit. Something I did most of my testing on was RE:Zero, an anime that has plenty of dark scenes but almost never any actual solid black zones without some sort of detail. I continually found that even on full local dimming it would almost never black out small dark areas either because the image technically wasn't 0,0,0 RGB black, there were subtle details that can be seen if you look for them. Then there might be some much smaller areas that truly are black (or maybe not)but the amount of dimming zones is too few to actually turn them off completely if they were actual pitch black. If it's a large black zone then it will go pitch black but this meant switching the content. We probably won't see panels that can shut off small black spots until we see 3,000 zone VA panels which is 10x of this one, and IPS panels will probably need more due to the more intense glow they emit.
The thing I find disorienting about local dimming full is that a fade to black will seem like the screen just powered down, then the media resumes with dark scenes that still look amazing but you just get reminded on every fade to black that none of those dark scenes ever gave you true black. This could just be an issue with using RE:Zero for the testing since it's full of dark details without actual black zones. My later FF15 HDR test gave me fade to blacks where this didn't seem like an issue anymore.
The local dimming is still great, you just have to think of it as dimming most of the time with actual blackout in large black spaces only. Flipping between the settings it continually improved contrast and never did it erase fine details in those dark areas. With full local dimming the image looks best but some of those fine and tiny details in the darkest spaces you have to be looking for deliberately while on medium you see everything without needing to focus for them. So you can choose between full or medium depending on what you prefer in this regard.
One major reason I'm favoring medium over full for SDR is fade to black. Every fade to black was a reminder that I never saw actual black in those very dark scenes, when the backlight drops to zero on the fade to black it breaks the dark room immersion. Having it on medium leaves the smallest amount of backlighting and It keeps me connected to what I'm watching better. The media I was watching never had true black beyond very small spots, it was just generally dark scenes, so I would likely have this complaint on an OLED too and I'm just not used to seeing the screen go pitch black like it was powered off.
COLOR
The colors are good. I'm used to using night light and would not be bothered by red tint so I could be biased or conditioned to not notice it, but I was paying attention here and I didn't notice this. Next to the M32U IPS that's a very well regarded display for color vibrance. My M32U produces phenomenal reds that will make you start to love the color red so you can't expect this AOC VA panel to match that exceptional case but it's sure as hell not lacking like the prior MSI. I had no issues with the AOC here, if anything it made the Gigabyte M32U look too yellow which I noticed on white screens that it has a yellow tint. This AOC looked way better in any really bright areas and of course darker areas. So the color is balanced for content.
What I am having trouble with is the desktop experience. Application icons just look funny, like if I jacked up the colors too much. I noticed with the previous MSI I returned that it would look better on sRGB mode with stronger colors but it would reveal artifacts in poor quality streams. It seems like the color gamut default mode is stronger then sRGB and both will reveal artifacts. Then there's DCI-P3 which does best to hide those artifacts but they just can't be unseen since the contrast on this allows more dark details to show. So I'm not sure what to do about colors. For gaming it's good, for streaming and artifacts in compression this reveals the unseen imperfections.
TEXT CLARITY
This fails. Out of the box had scanlines but the low input latency mode was the culprit. Even when turning that off this doesn't look crisp as other 27" 1440p displays that I could just read with ease at 100% scale which this requires scaling up the size. There's no setting for sharpness I can find in case that's too jacked up. Rtings rated this 7.5/10 and I've seen rated 7/10 displays give better text.
LOCAL DIMMING - HDR
Run this on full local dimming when doing HDR. The added backlight from medium will wash out the darkest details unlike in SDR where it's easier to see dark details on medium. My HDR testing is limited.
Mass Effect Andromeda on PC looked amazing 1440p ultra running 110-130 fps. I could go in a dark room with flashlights, or back outside where it was daytime with lots of lightning and the lightning bolts really flashed without needing the rest of the atmosphere to be dark.
Mass Effect 2 legendary edition remaster on PS5 doesn't take advantage of HDR so well. Any other displays I tested would wash out the colors more then what this monitor did, this one maintaining more similar color between SDR and HDR. the game just doesn't show off bright lights in the atmosphere or from combat powers so well to utilize HDR.
FF15 on PS5, this looked graphically inferior to Mass Effect 2 on every 1440p or 4K display I tested these on before. This time around the contrast capabilities from this display shined. You can either be in the dark woods or a dark cave with nothing but flashlights and combat effects for light and you get the pitch black where it should be, and dark details can be seen elsewhere with the lights flashing nice.
Stellar Blade PS5. I think the game is screwed up for HDR because the black background in the menus turned grey. I will have to edit this back after testing it back on my M32U. This game just turn off HDR.

I’m new to fragrances so i’ve been trying to get my nose on as many as I can so I can get a feel for what I like and what I don’t. I’ve come to conclusion that i’m very picky and have only found a few perfumes that are a love for me. What other perfumes do you think i’d like? I’d love something for the hot weather coming up but i’d take any recommendations you have :) My two favorite perfumes:
Kayali Eden Sparkling Lychee
Top Notes: Lychee, Black Currant, Red Apple and Italian Lemon Mid Notes: Violet, Rose and Jasmine Sambac Base Notes: Sugar, Vanilla Absolute, Musk, Amber, Sandalwood and Cedar
Le Monde Gourmand Fraise Fouettée
Top Notes: Fresh Strawberries, Florida Orange, Hint of Banana Mid Notes: Heliotrope Flower, Soft Butter, Coconut Water Base Notes: Whipped Sugar, Vanilla Cream
A like, almost love for me is: Skylar Boardwalk Delight
Top notes: Aquatic Accord, Watery Apple, Juicy Raspberry Sorbet Mid notes: Water Lily, Guava Flower, Coconut Milk Base notes: Cotton Candy, Vanilla, Solar Amber, Musk

Buyer pays shipping (via Pirate Ship), or happy to meet for local sales.
Game has been very lightly used
I cant remember if there is any of the X-Men content in the lot. Ill have to check it when I get home and update.
For sale: Marvel Champions Lot

• Core Game
• Campaign Expansions
  • Rise of the Red Skull
  • The Galaxy's Most Wanted
  • The Mad Titans Shadow
  • Sinister Motives
• Scenario Packs
  • Green Goblin
  • The Wrecking Crew
  • Once and Future Kang
  • The Hood
  • Mojo Mania
• Heroes
  • Captain America
  • Ms Marvel
  • Thor
  • Black Widow
  • Dr Strange
  • Hulk
  • Ant Man
  • Wasp
  • Quicksilver
  • Scarlet Witch
  • Star Lord
  • Gamora
  • Drax
  • Venom
  • Nebula
  • War Machine
  • Valkyrie
  • Vision
  • Nova
  • IronHeart
  • Spider Ham
  • SP//dr

Want:
The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth Lot

• Base game
• Shadowed Paths - Expansion
• Spreading War - Expansion
• Villains of Eriador - Figure Pack
• Dwellers in Darkness - Figure Pack
• Scourges of the Waster - Figure Pack
• Middle Earth Gamemat (not a requirement but a want)

Paypal

I fairly sure this is a scam, but this is one I haven't seen before and I'm not sure how the scam might work.
Maybe someone here can explain what the catch is
I meet this girl online (I think Instagram) but they are all alike now, 99% seem to be scammers).
We talked for a couple of days, just chit-chat, and then she wanted to move to WhatsApp or Telegram. I told her I prefer Telegram, so we continued our conversation there.
I was waiting for the crypto pitch, but it hasn't come, yet.
Instead she explained she was helping her sister on an international air ticketing site. She said to complete ticket booking tasks, and she made about $3K doing it. No explanation yet.
She sent me a screenshot of the site, and told it to me. cheap-pro-dot-com
When I asked her for more details she replied:
Cheap is a platform that helps global airlines increase their visibility and ticket sales. It was founded by the Kayak-dot-com subsidiary of Booking Holdings. Cheap is equivalent to an intermediary, connecting consumers who love travel with merchants who need to increase sales and bookings.
She was doing it as a part-time job and she can only do a few each day, and one mobile phone can only log in to one account, and an invitation code is required to join. She said you can only complete the task 20 times per day.
She offered to walk me through it, and I said maybe tomorrow (which was a couple of days ago). My first check, was the domain name, which was only 10 days old. [1st red flag]
Then she asked me if I would be willing to help her, that she would pay me between $20-200 in commission based on the progress of the work completed.
I asked what's the work and she replied - ordering task and click submit. When I told her I was confused she said not to worry she would teach me [for me 2nd red flag]
She also said it only takes 20 minutes to complete each task.
The next day she asked me if I was ready to start and she said the url was [posted in title] which also goes to .com, She also provided me with an account number (which is a mobile cell phone number and a password, which was "123456" [3rd red flag]
Again, she wants me to log in and send her a screen shot and she will mark the steps for me [4th red flag]
I have not figured out if this is a scam [Yes I think it is] and how it works or what's the catch
Has anyone know anything about this?
Thanks

Timestamp https://imgur.com/a/xhuB8A3
Serial photo in timestamp
Serial # A2376481
Glass/reticle pics (impossible for me to get the reticle to look right through my iphone, I took 10+ and this was my best) https://imgur.com/a/ixR4R6P Can certainly send more upon request or videos.
Combo only, not splitting at this time.

• Eotech EXPS - red dount, qd, lower 1/3. Includes box, etc.
• Primary Arms full size SLx magnifier mounted on an Eotech STS qd mount (g33 compatible)
• ScopeCoat soft cover for the Eotech

These were on a safe queen, no scratches or delam, on the eotech. Fantastic condition 2022 inspection date. The PA magnifier is nice - it’s way better than the older gen models and better eye relief than the micro
Asking price is: $669 PPFF shipped and insured
Check out my other crap for package deals! https://www.reddit.com/GunAccessoriesForSale/s/74pcz8i3PQ
Only possible trades: C7 upper PA 3x prism - full size or micro
Reply then PM me

Micro Center has really screwed the pooch with their stocking of the King 95 Pro. First it took a few months to even get Pros in and then they only got black and white (I want red) and the pricing is above Amazon and Newegg. They also cranked up the prices of the regular King 95 $10-$20.
They clearly know they're losing sales due to the lack of Pros because now they're offering 50% off Montech fans when purchased with a vanilla case. There's an issue with some of the required fans not discounting in the cart (I'll hit up MC chat support about that later), but it would be $110 for the red case and should be $35 for the same assortment of fans, making for $25 savings over the Pro if not for needing to buy a hub.
The Question: What hub could I get that will allow discrete control of fan speeds and RGB as opposed to the Montech splitter's One Speed & Color To Rule Them All hub? (I want to use the layouts of SignalRGB.) A quick look around shows that unless you go with proprietary controllers like a Corsair Commander (which only controls Corsair fans) anything you get is just a splitter and there are plenty for <$20.
While the hassle of having to put in all the fans and wire them sucks, if I can save a few bucks off the Pro price. If it's going to be a wash, I'll just order from elsewhere. But if I could do discrete control for not much more, that'd be cool.
Thanks in advance!

The Monaco Grand Prix is sometimes referred to as the Crown Jewel of the Formula 1 calendar, and (with the exception of the 2020 season due to, ahem, "operating restrictions") has been on the calendar each year without fail since 1955. Held in the streets of Monte Carlo, this event is one of the most prestigious races in all of motorsport, held amongst all the glitz and glamour of the fabulous wealth of the Cote d'Azur. It also happens to be the site of one of Formula 1's more unusual (and light-hearted) mysteries: the missing Monaco diamond. With the Monaco Grand Prix being held this weekend, I thought it would be nice to discuss this little legend of Formula 1 history.
In 2004, the Jaguar F1 team ran a special promotional livery at Monaco, advertising the newly released film "Ocean's Twelve". As part of the livery, in addition to the usual excessively garish (even by Formula 1 standards...) paintjob, a pair of $200,000 Steinmetz diamonds were installed in the nosecones of both cars. Due to the nature of the stunt, no sane insurance company (for reasons that are about to become clear) was willing to insure the diamonds. Perhaps this should have been the first clue to Jaguar that what they were doing was not a good idea. Regardless, they pressed on with their stunt.
In the seat of one Jaguar was Mark Webber, on his 3rd year of driving in Formula 1, while the other seat was taken by Christian Klien, a rookie in his breakout season.
A little bit of context here. The nosecone of a Formula 1 car is... not a very strong piece, all truth be told. It's also one of the easier pieces for a driver to break if they have a crash, being, y'know, right at the front of the car. There is a reason why Formula 1 teams carry multiple sets of front wings to each race.
Bearing that in mind...
Monaco itself is known for being a real challenge of a track. Unlike most modern tracks, Monaco gives drivers minimal, if any, room for error. In motorsport parlance, Monaco is a "street circuit", which is exactly what the name suggests; the circuit is built out of existing streets around the principality. Being residential streets with normal speed limits in place for about 361 days of the year, the streets of Monaco are, by F1 standards, notoriously narrow. Few, if any, of the turns have any "run-off" space if a driver makes a mistake in a corner and goes off. As a result, if a driver screws up here, they are very likely to end up hitting the Armco barriers around the track nose-first, and face a very lonely walk back to the team garage.
Remember what I said about the nosecone being quite a fragile piece... yeah...
I think you can see where this is going.
An uninsured $200,000 dollar diamond, placed on the most fragile part of a Formula 1 car, driven by a rookie, at the one circuit most likely to see the destruction of the aforementioned most fragile part of a Formula 1 car; it sounds like something out of a slapstick comedy.
It took all of, ooohhh, about 5 corners before the inevitable happened.
Coming out of Turn 5 (Mirabeau Haute), Christian Klein crashed nose first into the Armco barrier, putting him out of the race.
The car was quickly taken off the track by the marshals, the wreckage swept up, and the race resumed. But Jaguar's mechanics could not get to the stricken R5 until the race had finished. Lo and behold, when they finally recovered their car, much to the horror (but probably not the surprise) of all involved, the $200,000 Steinmetz diamond had gone missing.
2 full decades later, the diamond has never resurfaced, sparking endless debates on the ultimate fate of the gem. Did an opportunistic marshal or fan steal it? Could it have been simply swept into a Monegasque storm drain and washed out to sea? Might it still be somewhere around Sector 1 of the Circuit de Monte Carlo? There are even rumours that, at the last minute, Jaguar swapped the real diamonds on the nosecones for replicas.
The idea of the diamond becoming dislodged and promptly "acquired" by an opportunistic marshal or fan in the grandstands is a very real possibility. Fans have been known for their "creative acquisition" of "souvenirs" in the past, up to and including things as small as marbles (motorsport parlance for bits of rubber shed from tyres) after a race. A $200,000 diamond would likely make for the ultimate souvenir from a race.
Alternatively, there is also a good chance that the diamond was swept into the drains. If that is the case, it's almost certainly somewhere out in the harbour by now, never to be seen again until erosion and/or continental subduction consume it once and for all, barring some freak occurrence with a random diver who spots a weird glinting object on the seafloor.
Perhaps the diamond ended up being carried off with the tyre barrier and dropped far away from Sector 1, or it might even be somewhere around there.
As for the rumours of the whole thing being a sham, well, there's some merit to this idea as well. Seeing as most F1 engineers and marketing people aren't exactly idiots, it doesn't seem that farfetched for a quick swap to have been done on the nosecone, perhaps changing out the diamond for a piece of Cubic Zirconia or even just some clear glass/plastic. Not as if you'd notice the difference from 40 feet away on a blur moving at around 150mph anyway. Though, it's worth noting that Jaguar's Head of Communications and Public Affairs, one Nav Sidhu, has bluntly denied these allegations. Sidhu, incidentally, remains firmly of the belief that someone, somewhere out there has his $200,000 diamond. Equally, Klien saw the real diamond in his car before he got in, and it certainly didn't leave his sight until he crashed at Turn 5!
All's well that ends well, however, and Jaguar ultimately got exactly what they wanted from the stunt: publicity. For several weeks, the story of the disappearing diamond was in the news all over the world. The team's name was all over the headlines, with flashy pictures of their car. And while yes, some people called them out as reckless for putting on such an insane stunt, the old saying "There's no such thing as bad publicity" certainly applies. There is some merit to the idea that the publicity was a major factor in convincing another buyer to take Jaguar out of Ford Motors' hands. Incidentally, that buyer happened to be one Red Bull GmBH, the current reigning F1 World Constructors Champions!
The Monaco mystery of the disappearing diamond remains one of the most unusual and perhaps more light-hearted mysteries of the great sport. One thing is for certain, the idea of putting multi-thousand dollar gemstones on the most vulnerable parts of racing cars was not revisited again to my knowledge in motorsport!
Further reading and listening:
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/listen-to-the-incredible-true-story-of-monacos-lost-diamond-in-first-of-a.7HGzmXmLsKpSYaKsBPk92d
https://www.thedrive.com/news/44733/an-f1-team-lost-a-250000-diamond-at-the-monaco-gp-and-its-still-missing-today

INFO: 28M 5"10 155 pounds United States
So, yeah, at this point I'm kind of just trying to survive. I've tried going to doctors and I realize that...this might be it for me. Was already a lethargic, slightly fat child growing up and got "fit" in my early 20s--to my shock, it had 0 influence on my condition. But hey, at least I have muscle now, eat better food, and I'm a healthy weight?
The one good sleep took place under weird circumstances; stayed up all night - I usually sleep at a good time and get 8 hours - was talking to a friend, etc. I woke up late in the afternoon and...everything felt different instantly. I flew out of bed, noticed my dark circles I've had since I was young were gone, could actually THINK for once, etc. Even walking outside just felt...different. I wasn't getting far more tired just walking around like I usually get. I have had a few other decent days, of course, though they were pretty rare and weren't quite the same feel. I also went to the hospital for a GI illness and was given some sort of IV or injection that made me feel more alive than I had in a few years--but it only lasted, what, an hour? Maybe it was just drugs. Note that I have been treated before with meds and given pain killers before. None ever made me feel that great. Some foods do make me feel weird, but a basic allergy panel just indicated I am severely allergic to shrimp, mold (like everyone), and dust. Antihistamines don't make me feel better.
Misc. symptoms or odd things:
Eyes and eye area feel and look fucked up; sunken, red, dark, etc. They sometimes get worse, they pretty much directly reflect how horrible I feel. My eyelids constantly twitch. Oh, I was told, "wow, your eyes don't look fucked up for once!" by someone after I had that one good sleep...predictably. I also have extremely severe dry eye.
I nearly constantly yawn. It is usual for me to wake up and yawn several times--and it sucks because it sets off my TMJ (jaw pain).
My body is constantly tense and uncomfy. When I briefly have felt better, my body felt much better in general.
Headaches have gotten far more common in recent years; I probably have one a few hours every day. Head also feels very pressured and uncomfortable 24/7.
Caffeine or aspirin makes me feel like hell; in fact, a few weeks ago I got deathly ill and I realized it was from aspirin, when I stopped taking it I felt much better in the next hours. I didn't even overdose!
I have one of the worst cases of cystic acne in the entire world and it has been getting worse and worse with age. I have dozens of cysts and even more pimples. Accutane and derm-recommended skincare failed. I'm sure it's completely unrelated to the fatigue issues though.
Other issues: on/off zinc deficiency (I do take zinc consistently), asthma (it's mostly very bad lung capacity inhalers don't help), bite/jaw issues (ortho recommended surgery; I can't afford it), past nose deformity breathing issues (insurance paid for surgery and, hey, it at least improved my life a little).
I did try to get some things, like a sleep study, but it fell through. I spent almost a year to finally get one referred by my insurance and...I wasn't able to fall asleep. I spent 9 hours just lying there, my body extremely uncomfortable and tense, exhausted out of my mind. I realize I will never be able to get a sleep study done.
Anyway, I'm sorry for the poor formatting, just really wanted to cover everything and I'm not even sure what's relevant anymore.

BoxOfficeTheory Presale Tracking
USA Showtimes As of May 17
Presales Data (Google Sheets Link)
BoxOfficeReport Previews
DOMESTIC PRESALES
Furiosa Average Thursday Comp/Prediction assuming $3.5M for crazymoviekid, $5M for el sid, $4.4M for keysersoze123, and $4M for YM!: $3.99M/$4.09M

• abracadabra1998 (Comp: $4.59M THU. Removed Apes as a comp because I didn't track EA on its T-0 and also because it seems walk-ups will be the opposite story. So while the average doesn't tell the whole story, it still dropped significantly against every comp. The MTC1 over-index is crazy too. Based on pace, I will go with a final prediction of $4.3 Million, +/- 0.3 (May 22). Down against every comp. Highly overindexing in MTC1 and Alamo (only 28% sold in other chains is pretty low). Most comparable to... BoSS, which is (not) coincidentally the lowest comp value I have. Right now with this pace and thinking about those variables I think $4.5-5 Million is a good target, but I will be looking closest at that comp moving forward (May 21). Still kickin it (May 20). Still doing quite well here (May 19). GxK really propping the average up but for now I could see that settling at around $5 Million, still good pace! (May 12). Really good stuff in this market (May 9).)
  
• AniNate (Might be copium but Saturday presales being significantly higher than Friday gives me hope of a certain casual interest (May 22). Encouraging to see the weekend fill out a bit. Been seeing a lot of promotion during the basketball playoffs so general awareness has to be getting there now. (May 15). Skimmed through ThuFri and Valley View (Cleveland vicinity) has sold roughly 60 Furiosa tix so far while Tinseltown (Canton) has sold 40. I'm guessing the upfront audience does lean more toward the urban/cosmopolitan sensibilities (May 9).)
  
• Charlie Jatinder (Comp: $2.76M THU $5.96M FRI $6.15M FRI 3-Day Pace. I think Furiosa gonna end well below 4. Something like 3.75M. Awful trending and MTC1 overindexing (May 22). Will underindex here but MEH sales. No improvement either with comps dropping (May 22).)
  
• crazymoviekid (Comp: $2.80M THU $4.61M FRI. Pretty steep drop, looking more like $3M-$4M Thursday. Somehow still very mute for Friday. No way, but these FRI comps are giving $5M (May 22). Decent day for THU since comps either ticked up or are level. Feeling $4M-$5.5M THU. Rather mute start for FRI (May 21). Best between $3.5M-$5M for now (May 20).)
  
• el sid (Comp: $8.3M THU. On MON it was still doing really fine in my theaters but be prepared that this number will go down because for the comparison films with less than 1k tickets it was way easier to have good jumps percentage-wise. Still, Apes and GxK comps can't go below 5M because Furiosa IS already in front. Overall I doubt that Furiosa's average numbers will be below 5M in my theaters tomorrow, its presales are already too high for that (May 22). Furiosa continues its strong performance in "my" theaters. The movie yesterday had already 1.310 sold tickets (for THU, May 23). Up 15% in ca. 24 hours which isn't bad at all after the first rush. Already comfortably in front of The Fall Guy's final sales (it had 1.071 counted on THU for THU) and almost on par with Civil War's final sales (1.357) and also the Apes finally had not more than 1.657 sold tickets in my theaters (May 11). I also can't complain about Furiosa's presales in my theaters, not at all. Already 1,138 sold tickets (in all of "my" 7 theaters) for May 23. 14 days left. Promising start. Civil War on THU of the release week for THU had 1,357 sold tickets and The Fall Guy finally had 1,071 sold tickets (May 9).)
  
• Inceptionzq (Denver Comp: $3.40M THU. Drafthouse THU/FRI/SAT/SUN comp: $4.53M/$6.17M/$6.40M/$4.76M. Emagine THU/FRI/SAT/SUN comp: $2.19M/$2.64M/$2.92M/$1.75M.)
  
• katnisscinnaplex (Comp: $3.94M THU.)
  
• keysersoze123 (Thinking 4.3/4.5m for Furiosa (May 22). Meh acceleration again. Furiosa looking finishing in 4.x at this point (May 21). Really meh increase. Could be the impact of Wolverine PS (May 20). Accelerating at the right time (May 19). Definitely chugging along. I am feeling good about 5m+ previews (May 15). It has way stronger sales than Garfield and that is expected. I am thinking of 5m previews for now (May 14). I think this is a solid OD presales. With a short PS window its probably looking at 5m+ previews (May 9).)
  
• Porthos (Comp: $3.39M THU. WHELP! Never a good sign when showtimes start disappearing the night before release (Only three, but still...). My RotB and Fall Guy comps both got boosted by EA, so keep that in mind. Still, none of the other comps improved all that much, so.... Yeah. Sacto might just be under-performing. But if not, 3.75m or so might be in the cards (May 23). If I had to bet, I'd bet on it doing over 4m, as I do think Sacto is either underperforming or I'm very likely using the wrong comps. Meh (May 22). Not exactly blasting down the doors here. Could be late arriving crowd (see The Fall Guy comp with $4.41M), could be bad comps, could be under-performing here (May 21).)
  
• Rorschach (Comp: $3.97M THU $9.21M FRI. Not an amazing finish, but not horrible either. Still believe it can reach $4 mil, but given the pessimistic turn-around on this film in the past couple days, I'm really not so sure anymore (May 23). THU is still holding strong. FRI collapsed a little bit against Apes, which enjoyed a huge bump the Wednesday before. A tad concerning (May 22). Holding up okay against Apes comps. Comps crept up just a bit from yesterday (May 21).)
  
• TalismanRing (Comp: $4.10M THU. NYC.)
  
• TheFlatLannister (Comp: $4.00M. Thinking it just barely gets to $4M previews. Going with $4M +/- $0.2M. Pretty solid recovery all things considering. Let's see how walkups go this evening (May 23). Just yikes. Not sure if this gets to $4M for Thursday (May 22). Yeah, idk this had a great pace up until Deadpool just sucked the air out of the room. Don't really know if $5M previews is happening anymore (May 21). Not impressed with pace to be honest (May 20). Does look like it's heading to maybe $5M (May 19). Second straight day of weak growth. Not a great sign (May 18). First meh day since presales started (May 17). Keeps climbing at a strong pace (May 11). This continues to grow at an excellent rate (May 10). Really strong day 2. The short presales is for sure a factor (May 9).)
  
• TwoMisfits (Final sets for Garfield and Furiosa were the same at my PLF and reg theater - 3 screens (with 1 PLF each) at the PLF and 3 screens at the non-PLF. Plenty of room to do well this weekend if either can. PS - And they have acres of showings today. The new Cinemark 2024 policy seems to be the clear out Thursday nights for openers, so they have almost as many showings today as Friday (May 23).)
  
• vafrow (Comp: $3.5M THU. This is a very weak finish. It didn't maintain pace with POTA, which I was hoping it might follow. At this stage, it's extremely IMAX heavy, but no showings over the course of the weekend are more than a third full, so there's zero rush factor to buy tickets. I don't think we're looking at bigger than normal walk ups or anything (May 23). Isn't bad for a property that should be more front loaded. I still think the POTA comp ($5.7M) is probably the best, and it's looking strong (May 22). Decent growth and slight bump up (May 21). Slipped slightly. Nothing too eventful. But we're still in holiday weekend more in Canada right now. Tomorrow might see a better bump (May 20). Losing pace. It might be the long weekend effect though, with this being a holiday weekend (May 19). A bit of a step back today (May 18). It's starting to heat up (May 17). Comps are showing as steady since the last update, but it dipped quite a bit this week before rebounding today. Advance ticket buying has been so off in this market recently for some reason. Holding pace with Apes is a good sign (May 16). It had a good day (May 12). Mediocre day 2 (May 10). Not the hottest start. IMAX is the format of choice so ATP will be high (May 9).)
  
• YM! (Southeast Wisconsin: Furiosa’s T-6 hours is 197 tickets across four theaters. Should match Napoleon’s 272 tickets that NS/MF had thirty minutes before showtime. Thinking around 3.5m-4.5m previews. Thinking Furiosa should do around 35m OW (May 23). Solid growth shown within the past two days although I do think Deadpool tickets slowed its sails. Currently at 68.4% (or 30% if we use just NS+MF) of Napoleon’s T-30 minutes before previews at North Shore and Menomonee Falls. Feeling a bit less optimistic considering the muted jumps and this is likely going to be last post on it due to work but thinking around 3.5-4.5m previews prediction (May 22). Solid growth shown within the past two days although I do think Deadpool tickets slowed its sails. Currently at 53.7% (or 21.7% if we use just NS+MF) of Napoleon’s T-30 minutes before previews at North Shore and Menomonee Falls. Not much has changed from my 4-5m previews prediction (May 21). Furiosa looking healthy from a quick and dirty glance. They’re trying a Parking Lot Cinema Drive In at Majestic in addition to 2 of the 3 PLFs. Healthy at Majestic and North Shore with 30-ish at primetime, very soft at Menominee and Brookfield Square with PLFs around 10-15 at primetime. The PLFs are slowly inching ground but should have a solid idea TUES. Still thinking 4-5M previews (May 20). Not much has changed. Pace is solid and growth is normal. Feel about right for the 4-5M previews range (May 19). Pretty solid I guess. Seems that most of it's business is in the Marcus Theaters in Mequon/Waukesha so not really expecting much a diverse showing but there seems to be a fanbase around it. Feel good in 4.5-5M previews range (May 17).)
  

Hit Man

• vafrow (For THU previews, only 2/5 theatres are playing it for previews (an additional is picking it up starting FRI), with only two tickets sold across the four showtimes. Taking a wider 50km radius (captures most of the Greater Toronto Area) gets 35 total tickets sold, with most being in the downtown locations (which also happens to be theatres where it probably played during TIFF). Playing in 11/26 theatres, with 26 showtimes. Not getting any marketing that I can see and really playing to cinephiles that have heard the word of mouth (hence the TIFF theatres doing better) (May 22). Getting a theatrical release up here in Canada, and early signs are that it might get a pretty decent screen count. Not super wide or anything, but a pretty decent amount for a weekend that has a lot of other releases (May 14).)

The Garfield Movie EA Estimate: $0.57M
The Garfield Movie Thursday Comp/Prediction assuming $1.55M for keysersoze123: $1.23M/$1.38M

• abracadabra1998 (Comp: $1.13M THU. Rose against a few comps and kinda converging a little bit. I'll go with $1.2 Million, +/- 0.2. Maybe this will have stellar walk-ups, I sure hope it does, but I am not seeing it from pre-sales sadly (May 22). Gonna keep sounding the alarm bells. HORRIBLE update for this so close to release (May 21). I think people that are expecting this to break out like it seems like it is doing so overseas are in for a rude awakening come this weekend (May 20). This could have a good late surge since EA has been sucking away some pre-sales up until this morning, so let's see if this bounces up a little. Not impressed at all at this stage though, not seeing the break-out some are anticipating (May 19). The two comps that are most helpful, Wish and Trolls (not PLF, EA on a weekend, family movies) are both pointing to a lot lower than average, so I'm inclined to give those a lot more weight. I'm thinking $500-600k for EA (May 18). Still not really accelerating, and the EA is falling against comps (May 12). Good EA numbers, but many of these comps were PLF-only EA, which this is not, so I think the ATP will be quite lower and that should be adjusted for (May 9).)
  
• AniNate (IF seems to be holding its own in presales, 42 Friday compared to Garfield's 75. Imagine it's pulling a significant audience away (May 23). I am surprised presales have been so low in the suburban red county theater I've been looking at compared to IF (May 21). EA screenings are pretty filled to the brim here now for what that's worth. Maybe a surge in family demand will present itself later next week (May 17). EA sales look decent now, but this does feel rather weak compared to the IF presales. Not 100% certain what's going on here but based on this I buy the trades' opening estimates over the forum vibes (May 15). I definitely haven't seen as much of a rush here with Garfield as with IF (May 11).)
  
• AnthonyJPHer (Let me hop onto the doom train. It’s… not looking good. I’m very much considering a sub 30m opening weekend. From all the theaters I have tracked, this movie has sold a whopping… 246 tickets for Thursday previews. Compare that to the well over 750 tickets for Inside Out 2, and it’s pitiful. I hope the weekend proves me wrong and walkups are strong, but it’s not looking good (May 22).)
  
• Charlie Jatinder (Comp: $2.09M THU $4.53M FRI. Decent THU sales but FRI remains POOR (May 23). Decent to Okay THU sales, Poor FRI sales (May 22). Would guess $500K EA based on MTC 2 (May 19).)
  
• crazymoviekid (Comp: $1.04M THU $2.63M FRI. Fine day of sales, for THU but still not recovering. Looking between $1M-$1.5M THU. Much needed recovery day for FRI, still a long way to go. $3M-$4M FRI right now. (May 22). Pretty bad THU and FRI is pretty dreadful (May 21). Looking around $1.5M-$1.75M. Not stellar, but it's kid -driven animated. THU isn't a real rush (May 20).)
  
• el sid (Comp: $0.8M THU. The $0.8M comp is too low but I had no better and more comps. By the way, Garfield's Friday looked (way) better with 240 sold tickets compared to 173 on THU (IF had 421 sold tickets on Thursday for Thursday last week, Dolittle 395 back then). I don't think Garfield can reach these numbers but at least it will be a closer battle. I think it's still too early to panic because IF had also very muted sales and the acceleration did not start until early THU , at least in my theaters (May 22). Not much to see yet. There is some acceleration. So far I don't worry because things didn't start to look better for IF till early THU plus Garfield had EA shows and it is/was a holiday weekend (May 20).)
  
• katnisscinnaplex (Comp: $1.11M THU. Lightyear probably the best comp here size-wise for EA, probably ends around 750-800k (May 18).)
  
• keysersoze123 (Thinking 1.5/1.6m for Garfield (May 22). Meh acceleration again. Looks like finish 1.5m minus early shows (May 21). Really meh increase. Could be the impact of Deadpool (May 20). Still pacing similar to what I saw 2 days ago. Just awful number. Around what Trolls did late last year and that burned way more through its early shows which was like 12 days before its release (May 19). With it being just 1PM regular show on a SUN, it wont over index on MTC1 like early PLF shows for big movies. Probably around 400k ish for early shows. $500k possible if early shows are everywhere (May 19). 4 days later. Almost no pace so far. SUN shows are near sellout and so limited growth. Previews are like 35% of Panda 4 and FRI is under 1/3rd. That said this will under index in MTC1 as Panda also did that. Still struggling to see this as a breakout. Looking at the current state, it looks like half of IF as well !!! Of course that had Reynolds and did not finish that great (May 17). Its definitely weaker than even Elemental. That said these movies tend to finish strong and so I am not writing it off so early. Just that the long PS window is irrelevant for them. They could start presales a week before release and it would be the same. Meh. Wait until next week to gauge where its going to finish. Has very low ATP as well and actual would be even lower as its going to see tons of kids tickets (May 14). Early shows are regular digital shows at 1PM this SUN. So ATP will be very low. I think 500k ish at best. Previews let us see how things go in the final week. Presales are almost non existent (May 13).)
  
• Rorschach (Comp: $0.86M THU $3.71M FRI. At this point, better hope for some big walk-up turnout (May 23). Bleh (May 21).)
  
• TheFlatLannister (Comp: $1.82M THU. Based on trend, I'll take under $1.8M for Thursday and think previews will be reported around $2M with EA (May 23). This is so bad. Sold 1/3 of what it did yesterday (May 22). oof steep drop today (May 21). Well, there's at least some sign of life (May 20). Pace is actually terrible (May 19). Not much movement at all in the past week. Probably heading to $2M+ (May 17).)
  
• TwoMisfits (Final sets for Garfield and Furiosa were the same at my PLF and reg theater - 3 screens (with 1 PLF each) at the PLF and 3 screens at the non-PLF. Plenty of room to do well this weekend if either can. PS - And they have acres of showings today. The new Cinemark 2024 policy seems to be the clear out Thursday nights for openers, so they have almost as many showings today as Friday (May 23).)
  
• vafrow (Comp: $0.7M THU. I did a quick count on Friday sales. While Thursday sales don't seem to have moved much from my morning count of 30, Friday sales are at 238. That's a pretty ridiculous ratio that we don't see often. There's maybe more potential here over the weekend. That's a weak finish for something with a really low baseline. Last week, at least IF saw a good final surge. This failed to match that pace (May 23). Good news is that it's not far off from IF which had strong enough walk ups to be decent. But it's still not great. 20.2% of Paw Patrol 2. Canada was the only market with previews. I had to take an estimate of the data as I captured a bigger radius. If Paw Patrol could do well in September, there's really no excuse here (May 22). Even with a slight jump, this is miles behind a decent total (May 21). EA sales aren't bad, but previews are still extremely slow. This is clearly going to be a family weekend type film, but I'm surprised we're not seeing anything for previews yet (May 19). Comps don't paint a pretty picture though. EA shows are doing okay (May 11). May holiday in Canada is weekend of May 17-20th, not the weekend after with Memorial Day. I can see families prioritizing getting out the holiday weekend when they have more time (May 4).)
  
• YM! (Garfield feels like about 1.5-2M with EA for previews. Thinking Garfield around 25m OW (May 23). T-6 hours is at 39 tickets sold for Thursday and 89 including EA, therefore Garfield is at 34.5% of IF without EA, with EA it’s at 78.7% at about the same point in time. Friday and Saturday looks weak so it’ll need good walkups. So yeah 1.8M-2M with EA is my guess (May 23). Amazing, Garfield sprinted from 35 tickets to a whopping 36 tickets. Still not that strong without EA but is at 75% of IF (T-6.5 hours until previews) and 34.4% of Wish’s North Shore+Menominee Total (T-30 minutes until previews) when you factor EA (26.3% of Wish, if we use the same theaters and include EA). Thinking about 1.5-2M Thursday previews including EA but am thinking 25m might be hit or miss with a good chance at O/U 20m (May 22). Finally moves tickets. Still not that strong without EA but at 75% of IF (T-6.5 hours until previews) and 34.4% of Wish’s North Shore+Menominee Total (T-30 minutes until previews) when you factor EA (26.3% of Wish, if we use the same theaters and include EA). Thinking 1.5-2.25m THU previews including EA but losing confidence in an OW above 30m (May 21). With EA, currently at 72 tickets (only 22 tickets are for THU). Not seeing any movement at any of the theaters, feels like it’s dead. Should get to a total similar to IF T-6 hours before opening but that’s mainly because of EA (May 20). Returns are common but apart from a decent EA showing, it feels really muted. Feels like with IF doing solid, it took some air out of Garfield. Thinking 1.8-2.25M THU previews range with EA. With less than twenty minutes to go, 50 tickets sold for EA. Thinking 500-600K for EA, so 2M previews total (May 18). Combined previews total for Garfield is 35 tickets with 23 tickets coming from EA, which is pretty solid. Still thinking 2-2.75m previews with EA as while not as widespread, the showings seem like they’re filling up nicely. Think it does about the same as IF though OW as due to the likely lower ATP and seemingly little screen space with no PLFs. Meh, kids animation doesn't really make much notion until the MON for release and Garfield seems indicative of that. Thinking the 1.5-2M THU previews range folks were spitting out makes sense. Nothing screams breakout though and the fact it's getting one screen, maybe two at most for previews makes me feel like OW might be similar to IF (May 17).)
  

Domestic Calendar Dates (last updated May 16):
MAY

• (May 23) Presales Start [Summer Camp]
  
• (May 23) THU Previews [Furiosa + Hit Man + Garfield + Sight]
  
• (May 26) Presales Start [Bikeriders]
  
• (May 27) Opening Day [MON: Spider-Man Far From Home Re-Release]
  
• (May 28) Presales Start [The Forge]
  
• (May 30) Presales Start [A Quiet Place: Day One]
  
• (May 30) THU Previews [Ezra + Haikyu!! + Summer Camp + Robot Dreams]
  

JUNE

• (June 3) Opening Day [MON: Spider-Man No Way Home Re-Release]
  
• (June 5) Presales Start [Despicable Me 4]
  
• (June 6) Presales Start [Twisters]
  
• (June 6) THU Previews [Bad Boys: Ride or Die + Watchers]
  
• (June 8) 1-SAT Re-Release (1st day) [LotR: Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition]
  
• (June 9) 1-SUN Re-Release (1st day) [LotR: Two Towers Extended Edition]
  
• (June 10) 1-MON Re-Release (1st day) [LotR: Return of the King Extended Edition]
  
• (June 13) THU Previews [Inside Out 2]
  
• (June 15) 1-SAT Re-Release (2nd day) [LotR: Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition]
  
• (June 16) 1-SUN Re-Release (2nd day) [LotR: Two Towers Extended Edition]
  
• (June 17) 1-MON Re-Release (2nd day) [LotR: Return of the King Extended Edition]
  
• (June 20) THU Previews [Bikeriders + Janet Planet]
  
• (June 27) THU Previews [Blue Lock + Horizon: Chapter 1 + A Quiet Place: Day One]
  

JULY

• (July 1) Presales Start [Longlegs]
  
• (July 2) Opening Day [WED: Despicable Me 4]
  
• (July 4) Opening Day [THU: Possum Trot]
  
• (July 4) THU Previews [MaXXXine]
  
• (July 11) THU Previews [Fly Me to the Moon + Untitled New Line Horror movie]
  
• (July 17) EA [Twisters]
  
• (July 18) THU Previews [Twisters]
  
• (July 25) THU Previews [Deadpool and Wolverine (including 1 PLF fan show at 3 PM) + Didi + Fabulous Four]
  
• (July 29) Presales Start [Alien: Romulus]
  

AUGUST

• (August 1) THU Previews [Harold and the Purple Crayon]
  
• (August 8) THU Previews [Borderlands + It Ends With Us + Cuckoo + The Fire Inside + Trap]
  
• (August 15) THU Previews [Alien: Romulus + Horizon: Chapter 2 + Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure]
  
• (August 22) THU Previews [Blink Twice + The Crow + The Forge + Slingshot]
  
• (August 29) THU Previews [City of Dreams + Reagan + They Listen]
  

Presale Tracking Posts:
April 23
April 25
April 27
April 30
May 2
May 4
May 7
May 9
May 11
May 14
May 16
May 18
May 21
Note: I have removed most tracking data that has not been updated for 2 weeks. I think there is value in keeping data for a week or two but at a certain point they start to lose their value and should not be treated the same as more recent tracking data.

These are all in fine condition - only selling because I've either got these materials in other formats or don't think I'll read them again. Add $5 for media mail shipping on each order.
Spine pic of all for sale
Injustice Year 1-3 Complete Collections - $35 for all 3 *Pics 1 and 2
Captain America - $30 for the below 3 *Captain America: Winter Soldier Ultimate TPB -$10 *Captain America: Red Menace Ultimate TPB - $10 *Captain America: The Death of Captain America Complete TPB - $20 *Pics 1 and 2 of the above 3
Batman - $25 for the below 3 *Batman A Death In The Family TPB - $10 *Batman Earth One Vol 1 TPB- $10 *Batman Last Knight On Earth HC - $15 *Pics 1 and 2 of the above 3
*Batman: Bruce Wayne Murderer & Fugitive TPBs - $100 Pics 1 and 2
Wonder Woman - $30 for all 3 *WW Earth One Vol 1-3 HCs - $15 each Pics 1 and 2

I posted here a few months ago about significant issues with my engagement ring from Market Square Jewelers (MSJ), a local jeweler in New England with a location in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A lot has happened since then, and I wanted to share an update, especially for those who might be considering working with MSJ.
To recap, my partner and I found and purchased a semi mount setting at MSJ to use with my mom’s diamond in from her engagement ring. MSJ called my partner and said he could pick up the ring even though the appraisal wasn’t ready. He picked it up, proposed, and then they called him and said actually they had forgotten to do the appraisal and we needed to send it back to their New Hampshire headquarters in Dover (and it would take 3-4 weeks). This was shocking, but we tried to be okay with it, given that I had noticed visible issues with the ring when I was proposed to and also wanted them to look at these issues. The issues: ring had one obviously noticeable super sunken sapphire as well as extremely visible metal blobs around the bezel, which looked like sloppy leftover glue to me at first. The sales people in the Harvard Square location said they would make sure the folks at the headquarters addressed these issues and that the ring would be returned to us absolutely perfect (which of course they had promised to do the first time). However, there was a pretty immediate red flag when on our receipt for the appraisal (which they charged us for, even after forgetting it and needing us to give them back the ring, which was already frustrating) the instructions were to “Please also look at the ring and clean. Customer believes that one of the sapphires is a bit uneven.” We called back, wanting to make sure that more specifics had been communicated to the jewelry repair team. We were assured everything would be taken care of. When they called to say it was ready, we were told that it was perfect, but that the sunken sapphire could not be fixed because of the shape of the archway (?). Nothing else was mentioned, so I asked if they had figured out what the silver blobs around the bezel were- I was not given an answer, just told they knew I would be really happy with it. Despite sending it back for these defects to be corrected, the ring was returned to us in the same exact condition we gave it to them in.
After sharing my concerns on Reddit, a few wonderful folks including jewelers commented the sapphires were likely cut too small and that the silver was from the “setter turning down small slivers of metal onto the stones to tighten them in the channel, which is a totally cack-handed way of doing this setting.” Additionally, they rightfully pointed out that our jewelers didn’t have “the proper skills nor quality control to manufacture a properly done ring.”
Following this advice and equipped with more clear ways of describing what seemed to be wrong, I contacted MSJ’s NH headquarters location. I was put in touch with the Manager of Repairs, who assured me that they would remake the ring (without explaining why the initial ring had been sent it out in this shape, and then sent back to me again without any changes). They mentioned two options: remaking it with the original designer or starting from scratch with a new designer (once they received the ring back, they would have the original designer look at it to make sure the diamond’s proportions worked with the design). I opted for what they deemed best. However, when the remake was nearly finished, I was shocked to see that the ring looked even worse. The milgrain was smushed, there were noticeable gaps where the sapphires were too short/ not making it as far around the diamond (which was not a problem in the previous version) and the bezel was jagged and even twisted. When I raised these new issues, the manager admitted she chose the wrong designer and stated that she had a 50/50 chance with her choice (it was not my understanding that this choice was ‘luck of the draw’ - it was supposed to be an informed decision, & also even writing this now, the issues were actually with the handiwork, not with the design). She also said that she didn’t have a “good eye” like I did, which was incredibly shocking and frustrating to hear. Additionally, she mentioned that MSJ was losing money on this process, which was inappropriate and irrelevant to our concerns. We were given a choice - refund now, or let MSJ have the other designer attempt this ring for a last time. Almost laughably, we were only sent 3d images of rings totally unsimilar to ours that this other designer had done.
We decided to take a refund instead of another remake attempt due to the complete lack of quality control. Unfortunately, when we received the loose diamond back, it had two noticeable chips that were not there before. I informed the manager about the chips, showing photos, but their response was dismissive, claiming if something happened in the setting process, the jeweler would have told them. MSJ also claimed the chips were pre-existing (though months prior when they first got the ring, they called my partner to tell him there was a small chip on the bottom - they did not mention two chips on the top) and infuriatingly, claimed that the “bottom” of a diamond actually can mean “side” or “top” depending on the way someone is holding it (yet when you google ‘bottom of the diamond’ - culet comes up, which is in fact the singular and recognized bottom part of a diamond). They said that they stood behind their work, and that they have been setting/designing/repairing diamonds for 40 years. I was pretty shocked, as “we stand behind our work” did not feel like an adequate response given that MSJ had this ring three times in its possession and each time there were significant issues, and each time it did not even seem that MSJ was aware of these issues until I had to point them out (which is almost in opposition to “if something happened in the setting process, the jeweler would have told us” - although I guess the manager could have been told these previous instances and just not been up front about any of them with us). I congratulated them on 40 years of business but told them that does not negate what we’ve experienced with them, and asked them if there were 3 out of 3 times that MSJ showed 0 quality control, how could we trust them this time? Despite the clear evidence and a history of negligence, MSJ refused to compensate for the damaged diamond.
This experience has been incredibly disheartening, time-consuming, and stressful. The consistent negligence and lack of quality control from MSJ were appalling. I hope this post helps others avoid similar issues. If you’re in MA, NH, I urge you to think twice before trusting Market Square Jewelers with your precious jewelry. I would not want anyone to go through what we did.

I have this random thing about textures that if I see something that’s not smooth, I start rubbing/playing with it, if that makes sense.
For example, i rub my nose with my fingers a lot to the point that the skin gets rubbed off (I only started this when I cut my hair short, otherwise I used to always twirl the sideburn thing near my ears). When my nose started to hurt, I switched to rubbing the small bumps on the top of my back until a LOT of my skin peeled off and that time, I didn’t even bother if it hurt or not.
Well, the skin of my back is smooth again so I started rubbing my nose a lot. Because I do it without thinking too much, I end up rubbing enough for enough skin to peel off that it ends up being purple/red and even then, when I’m doing something, my free hand returns to my nose to rub it more even though it stings.
Recently, the hot weather has caused there to be a small cut near my lower ear lobe (near the place where it connects to head) which I know happens due to dry skin. Anyway it stings a LOT but if there’s no rough skin to rub at on my nose or back, I end up just touching that cut way too often than I should and I know this would have dire consequences because I think the cut can get deeper?
I’ve always been a very big nail peeler, if there’s even a bit of growth (the white portion of the nail), it’s ought to go. This causes my fingers to always be bleeding because sometimes my nails are sharp enough to cut my skin when I’m trying to peel my other nails off.
I think I resort to rubbing my nose because I currently don’t have long enough nails to peel off? If my mom’s around she tells me to stop rubbing but once she leaves I start doing it all over again.
What do I do? I know for a fact that I can’t sit completely idly without doing something with my hands. My mom wanted to get me a fidget toy but I don’t think that would be something I’d carry around everywhere and I’d end up picking at my non-existent nails..
I sometimes try to focus and stop myself from doing these things but as soon as I start doing something, my free hand resorts to doing either of the things I’ve mentioned above. Whatever this is, I want to attempt to get rid of it before I start my internships because it wouldn’t be a good look. Any advice will be greatly beneficial, thanks!