Earth's orbit experiences an “Orbital Eccentricity”, 100,000 year cycle orbit and inclination variation, going from circular to elliptical, the hemispheres experience more or less sun or exposure to the sun for extended periods, causing ice ages. Scientists estimate we are near the minimum, a 6% change in solar energy. At peak, the earth experiences a change of 30%.
Modern Day Primates, in the wild and captivity, are able to communicate, near and far, using verbal and gesture components, even to other species. Have been observed using wood as tools, and in using medicinal plants to treat wounds.
44 million y a - Hominid ancestors acquire Herpes virus.
10 million y a - Primate ancestors develop genes to digest alcohol.
6 million years ago - Primate ancestors split from Chimpanzee/Bonobo line (15 million DNA mutations have occurred since then; each person born today has 100 mutations distinct to them, most don’t survive.)
5.3 m y a - Mediterranean Sea experiences the Messinian Salinity Crisis, for 600,000 years the Straight of Gibraltar closed off, causing the Mediterranean to shrink down to two inland seas with Italy and Greece separating them. Ends in the Zanclean Flood, a river of Atlantic sea water flows thru Gibraltar and fills the Mediterranean in 2 years.
5 m y a - Arabian-African continent reconnects with Asia. Land based Turtle species start going extinct.
4 - 3 m y a - Hominid ancestors acquire pubic lice from Gorillas (genetic evidence).
3.6 - 2.58 m y a - Considered the Neogene Period.
3.3 m y a - Stone tools found in Kenya and Ethiopia.
2.6 m y a - Mode One Stone Tools found in Ethiopia, would subsequently spread. Flourished to 1.7 million y a in southern and eastern Africa. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) Era (2.6 m y a till end of last Ice Age, 11,000 y a). Subdivided into the Early- or Lower Paleolithic (c. 2,6 million years ago - c. 250,000 years ago); the Middle Paleolithic (c. 250,000 years ago - c. 30,000 years ago); and the Late- or Upper Paleolithic (c. 50,000/40,000 - c. 10,000 years ago)
2.58 million - 11,700 years ago - Considered the start of the Quaternary Period, and covers the Pleistocene.
2.4 – 1.4 m y a – Homo Habilis (4.5-3.5 feet tall).
2 m years ago - Earliest Hominids start eating meat.
1.9 – 1.8 m y a – Homo Rudolfensis.
1.89 m y a to 110,000 y a - Homo Erectus (first to leave Africa and spread across Asia).
1.8 m years ago - Mode One Stone Tools found on Java.
1.7 m years ago - Mode Two Stone Tools (slicing, hand-axe/butchering, evidence of drilling tools) appear in Kenya and southern Africa.
1.6 m years ago - Mode One Stone Tools found in northern China.
1.6 - 1.5 m y a - Africa, Turkana Boy dies, likely from a tooth cavity infection. He was either 8 or 11-12 years old and 61 inches tall. Brain 880 ccm.
1.5 m y a - Kenya, possible start of Hominids using fire to cook food. (increase in caloric intake, which would lead to evolution; however, Paranthropus Boisei is the local species, brain 500-550 ccm, 54 inches tall)
1 million years ago - Likely split between ancestor of Homo Sapiens and proto-Neanderthal-Denisovan species. (Mitochondrial DNA evidence.) South Africa, evidence of fire use for cooking.
1 m - 700,000 y a - Java, Java Man dies, brain 900 ccm. 5' 8" tall.
900,000 y a – Possible earliest use of boats.
820,000 - 580,000 y a - Durum Wheat develops out of natural hybridization with Einkorn Wheat (genetic analysis).
800,000? y a - Low world temperatures recorded. Height of Ice Age?
790,000 y a - Levant, oldest Fire hearths found. (Homo Heidelbergensis, 1,250 ccm brain, 69 in tall)
740,000? y a - Height of Ice Age?
7-200,000 y a – Homo Heidelbergensis (East Africa and Europe, likely first to hunt large animals with spears)
640,000? y a - Height of Ice Age.
550,000? y a - Height of Ice Age?
540,000 - 430,000 y a - Art: Sea shell formed into decoration by Homo Erectus. (Could indicate when sea shells began to be used as whistles and horns.)
530,000? y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, high CO2 content in the atmosphere, 524-474,000).
500,000 y a - South Africa, evidence of Spears. Genetic evidence of Neanderthal spread from Europe to Caspian Sea, Denisovans occupied land from Caspian to the east.
450,000 y a - Earliest physical evidence of Neanderthal.
450,000 y a - Global temperatures had dropped, stayed that way for thousands of years.
430,000 - 230,000 y a - Durum Wheat cross-breeds with wild Goat Grass (genetic analysis).
400,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 424-374,000).
400,000 y a - Germany, oldest Spears found. France (Terra Amata), possible evidence of manmade shelter using prepared wood.
360,000? y a - Height of Ice Age.
335-236,000 y a – Homo Naledi (South Africa, 4’9”)
310,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 337-300,000).
300,000 y a – Mode Three Stone Tools (smaller knife-like, scrapers, developed in Europe by Neanderthals)
300,000-200,000 y a – Africa, Origin of Male Y-Chromosome that all current males are descended from. (40% of males do not reproduce.)
270,000? y a - Height of Ice Age.
240,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 242–230,000).
200,000 y a - France, evidence of Neanderthals fishing. Africa, "Mitochondrial Eve," source of all Human Haplo-groups that everyone is descended from, existed at this time.
194,000-135,000 y a - Penultimate Glacial Period.
190,000 y a - Early physical evidence of Denisovans. (At least three interbreeding events would occur with Homo Sapiens. EPAS1 gene, hemoglobin concentration, Tibetan plateau.)
190,000-50,000 y a - Flores Island, evidence of tool use by the Human Hobbit.
170,000 - 80,000 y a - Body Lice evolve (genetic evidence, feed on human skin, live in clothing; evidence of clothing)
164,000 y a – South Africa, heat treating Silcrete Stone to enhance stone tool production.
140,000 y a - Homo Sapiens found in Europe.
130,000 y a - Evidence of humans in North America. Crete, earliest human settlements found on the island. Art: Neanderthal necklace made of eagle talons. Croatia: Neanderthal teeth show possible dental work.
125,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 130-115,000). Sea levels 4-6 meters (18 feet) higher then today.
110,000-15,000 y a - Last Glacial Period. Grey Wolves would migrate from North America back to Asia prior to the maximum.
100,000-60,000 y a - Flores Island, bone fossil evidence of the Human Hobbit.
100,000 y a - Oldest example of proper human burial. South Africa, Pigment (paint) Creation Kit found. (would cover bodies in mud/clay and then spray the paint over the bodies, sun screen-protection from insects)
90,000 y a – Harpoons.
86,000-37,000 y a – Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens begin interbreeding, based on genetic evidence found so far.
75,000 years ago - Likely rise of Hunter Genotype in Homo Sapiens.
75,000 y a - Art: Drilled snail shells found in South African cave.
73,000 y a - South Africa (Blombos Cave), evidence of Red Ochre art on pieces of stone, stone with deliberate lines cut into it possibly representing count marks.
72,000 y a - South Africa, Beads found in cave.
70,000 y a - Mitochondrial DNA suggests this is when the Haplo-group of early humans migrated out of Africa to populate the rest of the world.
70-60,000 y a - Earliest evidence of bone and stone arrowheads (for Spear Throwers), found in South Africa. 64,000?
70,000 - 35,000 BCE - Neanderthal burials in Europe and Middle East.
68-16,000 y a – Smallpox evolves from an African Rodent Virus.
67,000 BCE - France, burial shows skulls with Trepanation (cutting holes to relieve brain pressure), earliest example of surgery.
65,000 y a - First humans settle Australia.
64,000 y a - Spain, oldest evidence found of Cave Art (Neanderthal hand).
61,000 y a - South Africa, possible evidence of a Sewing Needle.
60,000? y a - Height of Ice Age?
60,000 y a - Evidence of man/Neanderthal using herbal medicine.
55,000 - 40,000 y a - Italy, evidence of Neanderthal using Pine Tree Resin and Beeswax for hafting tools, in cave. (Beeswax can be used in making Candles.)
52,000 y a - Last evidence of Denisovans.
52,000 – 41,000 y a – Archaeological find of “Bast” tree fiber twisted into primitive cordage, possibly as handle for a Stone Tool. (meaning they had access to Clothing, Nets, Cord for Fishing or Hafting tools, rope; thinking processes of Counting, Sets, Patterns, and possibly abstract thinking)
50,000 - 10,000 y a - Mode Four Stone Tools (long blades).
50,000 y a - Australia, last evidence of megafauna. Siberia, needle made from bone found in Denisovan cave. Genetic evidence of Neanderthal spreading to western edge of China.
50,000 years ago - End point of development of Gatherer Genotype (can survive famine), Teacher Genotype (can handle new and different environments, analytical).
45,000 y a - Evidence of Neanderthal and Homo Sapien interbreeding. (Fossil found, DNA tested.) (France, to create stone tools required precision, “Soft Hammers” were likely used.)
44,000 y a - Evidence of art found in Indonesia.
44,000-40,000 y a - Europe experiences cold and dry weather, displacing populations.
43-42,000 y a - Germany, oldest musical instruments (flutes) found.
42,000 y a - Australia, skeleton of man suggests Atlatl use, pre-dating earliest evidence; earliest example of cremation found. Spain, small amounts of Natural Gold found in a cave.
40,000 y a - (Mankind is at the “Forager” level.) Last evidence of Neanderthal. (Inheritance of "STAT2" gene, immune response. HYAL2 gene, helps skin recover from sunburns.) China, test on body found that ate a lot of fresh water fish. Possible example of oldest petroglyphs. Beads found in Lebanon.
40,000 - 26,000 y a - Studying toe bones, showed they became smaller and weaker, indicating shoes were worn. Prior to this, shoes were likely bags wrapped around feet to protect from cold.
38,000 BC - First appearance of Mode Five Ground Stone tools on Japan. (rock was quarried; thin slivers of flint stone, attached to hafts, man is learning the use of a "handle" for tools and "leverage", create Adzes, Celts, and Axes; grinding helps to penetrate trees and was likely discovered when grinding plant matter; found buried with owners; were traded) Lasted till 14,000 BC. (Would not become popular elsewhere until 10,000 BC?) Germany: Clay Figurine featuring human with lion like appearance, thought to be earliest representation of a Deity.
35,000 BCE - Europe, earliest examples of "Venus figurines" found buried in graves (some showing they were deliberately broken or stabbed repeatedly); would later spread to rest of Eurasia. Early examples of skulls and long bones showing red ochre, indicating possible relic worship.
35,000 y a - Germany, flute made from a vulture bone found.
30,000 BCE – Solomon Islands, first humans settle (60 km sea voyage).
31,000 - 27,000 y a - Evidence of Pit Fire (Earthernware) Pottery developing.
30,000-20,000 years ago - Explorer genotype (Ice Age refugees, idiosyncratic, asymmetrical, contrarian mentality)
30,000 y a - Evidence of starch residue on rocks, indicating where plant matter was pounded and ground. (Would likely be the pre-cursor of developing bread from roots of cattails and ferns. Quern Grinding Stones would spread and gain popularity.) Georgia, Flax used as a textile (harvested, dyed, and knotted) found in Dzudzuana Cave. Fertile Crescent, Einkorn wheat harvested in it's wild form. Evidence of man using the Atlatl. Poland: Boomerang carved from mammoth tusk found. France, Lunar Calendar. Likely when Bolas (stone weight(s) and length of cord) began to be used.
28,000 y a - Europe, oldest evidence of rope.
25,000 - 15,000 BCE - Blood Type A develops in the Fertile Crescent. (able to survive Plague, Cholera, Smallpox)
27,000 y a - Australia, oldest example of petroglyphs found. Czech Republic, earliest example of "Weaving" of material together to create baskets and basic cloth. (Leads to counting and simple math, organizing.)
26,000-13,300 y a - Considered "Glacial Maximum", ice sheets extend to the 45th parallel north. (26,500 considered to be maximum glacial reach.)
23,000 - 12,000 y a – Europe, Perforated Batons found, made of antler, assumed to be a form of Atlatl that uses a leather strap or string to wrap around the spear and give it a slight spin, arrow or spear thrower (similar to Swiss Arrow). Right and left handed throwers find preference. Most carved with Horses, have one or two holes (one had 8 holes).
23,000 y a - Israel, Ohalo archaeological site, hunter-gatherer society (6 brushwood shelters, 132 stone tools some attached to hafts, stone Sickles, dwellings showed flint tools were made at entrance, cooking at other end, grind stone showed sand and cobbles to place and had U-shape of seeds around it) that grew/harvested Barley, Millet, Bromus (grass in same tax tribe as wheat/barley/rye, can be used for fermenting beverages, can be eaten by humans and animals), Rubus (same family as Rose plants, similar to blackberries), and various fruits (seeds from 13 different species), earliest evidence for “Bedding” material.
22,000 – 17,000 y a – France, Solutrean inhabitants make use of Antler.
21,000-17,000 y a - France, Atlatl's found in caves.
20,000 y a - Height of the Ice Age, sea levels 120 meters (360 feet) lower. Mode Five Stone Tools (microliths glued to handles, Fertile Crescent). Earliest example of a building/house found. Ukraine, Bullroarer (wood on rope that is swung around to create sound over long distance) found. Iraq-Iran, Zarzian Culture, had domesticated Dogs.
19,050? - 13,050 y a - Oldest Dryas Period, stadial, abrupt cooling period. Sea levels rose 10-15 m in 500 years.
17,000 BCE - Mesopotamia, Wild Emmer Wheat harvested.
18,000 - 17,500 y a - Siberia, earliest example of a domesticated dog found frozen. Germany, Bow and Arrows found. Early evidence of Darts used.
18,000 y a - Japan, oldest pottery discovered.
15,100 - 14,000 y a - Morocco, earliest example of a cemetery.
15,000 y a – Mode Five Stone Tools reach Europe. Southern France, cave art depicting possible Musical Bow, Nose Flute; "The Sorcerer," a figure showing human and many animal qualities (bison), made out of Clay.
15,000 – 10,000 y a – France, Stone Oil Lamps.
14,500 y a - Oldest example of bread making, Jordan desert.
14,160 - 13,820 y a - Archaeological find: infected tooth partially cleaned out with flint tools.
14,600 - 13,600 y a - "Melt Water Pulse," sea levels rose 16-24 m.
14,000? y a - Older Dryas Period, around 200 year cooling period.
13,500 - 8,200 y a - China, wild Rice domestication event occurs.
15-10,000 BCE - Himalayas, development of Blood Type B.
11,050 BCE - Syria, attempts at domesticating Rye.
13,000 y a - Greece, evidence of lentils found. Earliest evidence of Amber used in jewelry. Israel, archaeological evidence of beer like gruel for ceremonial purposes found at Haifa. Likely beginning of Slavery.
13,000 - 12,700 y a - Fertile Crescent, archaeological evidence of man corralling and using pigs.
12,900 - 11,700 y a - The Younger Dryas Period, when temperatures went cold instead of warming from the Last Glacial Maximum.
10,000 BCE - Jericho, considered mankind's first town, is established. Buildings of clay and straw, dead buried under homes. (Would reach 70 dwellings by 94,000 BCE.) Chickpeas domesticated. Earliest evidence of the Bottle Gourd being domesticated and used (Africa and Asia variety). Azerbaijan (Caspian Sea), petroglyphs of reed boats. Starting point of Ocarina type flutes. Cyprus, humans arrive. Germany, Jet artifact (Botfly larvae, which can be eaten). Curved Stone Oil Lamps.
11,700 y a - Considered the beginning of the Holocene.
9600 BCE - Southern Levant, earliest use of wild Emmer Wheat.
11,500 - 11,000 y a - "Melt Water Pulse," sea levels rose 28 m.
11,400 y a - Cypress, archaeological evidence of pigs (indicating they had been domesticated and brought from the mainland).
9400 - 9200 BCE - Jordan Valley, Fig trees found, indicating earliest agriculture since these trees could not reproduce.
9130 - 7370 BCE - SE Turkey, Gobekli Tepe, oldest known worship location.
9000 BCE - Syria, oldest (Saddle) Quern found. Mesopotamia, Copper first used. Bartering of Cattle and agricultural products likely occurring at this time.
9000 - 3300 BCE - Neolithic Era, roughly. Time period of when man has begun herding, before using bronze.
11,000 - 9,000 y a - Mesopotamia, domestication of Sheep; Rammed Earth construction technique developed. Iran, Domestication of Goat (focused on management of the animal, varieties would come later).
11,000-4,000 years ago - Warrior genotype (farmers, soldiers, inventors); Nomad genotype (life upon a horse, can handle different environments, good immune system)
11 or 10,000 y a - Last Ice Age ends.
8800 BCE - Emmer Wheat spreads beyond the Levant.
8700 BCE - Iraq, Copper pendant.
8500 BCE - Domestication of Barley. Domestication of peas occurs around this time. Turkey, Beer production found at Gobekli Tepe. Domestication of Cattle from the Aurochs (two separate populations, one in Mesopotamia [pop. 80], the other Pakistan). (Rendering cattle bones into Tallow allows for the creation of Candles. Beeswax also used.) Oregon, oldest pair of shoes found made from bark twine. Oats possibly start to be harvested, crop mirrors wheat (is like a weed).
8400 BCE – Cyprus, earliest dug Water Well (26 ft).
10,300 - 8,700 y a - China, Millet harvested.
10,200 - 9,500 y a - Emmer Wheat domesticated(?).
10,000 - 7,000 y a - Archaeological evidence of boats.
8000 BCE (10,000 years ago) – Genetic evidence of breeding Pigeons. Palestine, archaeological evidence of pastoralism. Pre-Pottery Neolithic people in the Fertile Crescent form perfectly smooth stone vases. Iran, Goat domestication. Believed to be when primitive dairy-cheese making began. Flax cultivation. China, Quern Grinding Stones. England, Antler used in headdress costume.
9,500 y a - Cyprus, earliest evidence of cat domestication. SE Anatolia, cold-working, annealing, smelting, lost wax casting of Copper.
7570 BCE – Indus Valley, Lapis Lazuli artifacts.
7500 - 5700 BCE - Anatolia, Catal Hoyuk develops as a spiritual center, found many clay figurines and impressions (feminine, phallic, hunting).
7400 BCE - A monolith ends up submerged in the Straight of Sicily.
7176 B.C. – Earth hit by one of the most massive Solar Storms from the sun ever recorded (visible at night with the magnetic field interaction).
7000 BCE - Archaeological evidence for pastoralism in Africa. China: evidence of mead (honey, rice, water fermented) in pottery; evidence of musical instruments. India, first archaeological evidence of Dance (cave art); evidence of dentistry. Armenian Highlands, art depictions of Cymbals. Durum Wheat made thru artificial selection in Europe and Near East. Greece, earliest evidence of grain silos. Turkey, Catal Hoyuk, art depiction of a Slinger. Afghanistan, Lapis Lazuli mined and traded to Indus and Mesopotamia societies. Europe, Cave Wall art of Honey Collecting.
7000 - 6600 BCE - China, domestication of Soy beans.
7000 - 6000 BCE - Turkey, domestication of Bitter Vetch. (Too bitter for human consumption without being boiled several times, has been found to be great for cattle feed.)
6500-3800 BCE - Ubaid Period (Mesopotamian citystates rise, evidence of specialized workers, evidence of taxation)
6500 BCE - Turkey, evidence of lead smelting at Catal Hoyuk. (Wrapping the dead in textiles, too.) China, archaeological evidence of Silk. Kosovo, oldest Ocarina found in Europe.
8,200 - 7,600 y a - Sea levels rise rapidly. Linked to North American great fresh water lake (Agassiz, Ojibway) sudden draining into Atlantic Ocean. 8,400 y a?
6050 BCE - Moldova, evidence of man extracting salt from a natural spring.
8,000 y a - Western Europe, white skin first appears. Iran: earliest evidence of irrigation; man starts choosing sheep for their wooliness, not just meat and skin (2-3,000 years later, would start wearing wool). Georgia, earliest evidence of wine. Spain, cave painting shows people collecting honey from a wild hive, using a container to hold. China, Buckwheat cultivated (near Tibetan plateau), possible first example of Influenza. Earliest evidence of the Ard Plow used (castrating bulls to train 4 years to become Draft Oxen, also means they can be used to haul logs thru and from forests). Mediterranean, Broad (Fava) Beans, Broccoli. Portugal: Almendres Cromlech, begins, aligned to equinox and solstice, occupied for 2,000 years, would become largest complex in Iberian peninsula, equal to other large complexes in Europe. Anatolia: Obsidian polished into mirrors. Spelt Wheat appears. First Stone hafted Axes. Earliest evidence of “Cock Fighting” game fowl. (Iraq, Kiln.)
6000 - 3500 BC - Mesopotamia (Sumer), Poppy domesticated.
7,8-5,000 y a - SE Turkey, Einkorn Wheat grown and domesticated.
5600 BCE - Evidence of The Black Sea Flood, turning the fresh water lake into a salt water sea, rose shorelines and displaced populations (source of flood myths in religions).
7500 y a - Earth experiences a cold climate period? Lasts for 500 or more years.
7500 y a - Earliest example of chickpeas being used. Poland, archaeological evidence of cheese making. Ukraine, Romania, earliest examples of traps used for hunting. Pakistan, evidence of Cotton found in copper beads. Egypt, earliest Combs found (placing a leaf in the teeth can create a primitive sound instrument).
5500-5000 BCE - Serbia, Copper Smelting.
5200 - 4700 BCE - Iran, earliest evidence of a wheel, for pottery, made of stone or clay.
7,000 y a - Earliest example of Dolmen, single chamber tomb, consists of two stones supporting another on top (table design), found in western Europe, would spread and be common 4000 - 3000 BCE in Europe. Iranian plateau, evidence of Bronze made with naturally occurring arsenic. Tin would replace as the major ingredient (and releasing non-toxic vapors) in the late 3000 BCE period. Iran, evidence of wine found, using sealed containers. China, Hemp domestication (smoking was likely cause for spread, Iron Age would use for production); Rammed Earth construction technique, Silkworm domestication begins. Egypt, Badarian culture starts farming, used boomerangs. Roundels, circular enclosure often with entrances aligned to solstice, would be constructed in Central Europe (Germany, 120-150 altogether). Siberia, oldest carpet found (likely a funeral gift, from Armenia, featured griffons). Mesopotamia: first use of Stamp Seals for government purposes; Rotary Quern milling stones are introduced. Armenia: possible origin of Apricots. Lake Zurich, cultivation of Pear. Indus Valley Civilization, using Bitumen aka Asphalt for waterproofing (a basket), adhesive. Bulgaria, Turquoise beads.
6950 - 6440 y a - Papua New Guinea, cultivation of Taro and Yam.
4800 BCE - Egypt, early evidence of peas being grown. Cairn of Barnenez, Brittany, England, begins (burial monument and later bronze age use, considered one of the oldest and largest man made structures).
4700 - 4200 BCE - The town of Solnitstata, considered the oldest known settlement in Europe. Built around a salt deposit.
6,500 y a - Croatia, earliest example of an oven found. Slovenia, dental filling made with beeswax. Indus Valley, irrigation. Wine production reaches Greece. Carnac Stones, Brittany, France; would become large complex of standing stones, menhirs, domens, tumuli (burial mounds, with passage tombs), large rectangle formed by stone. Americas: various tribes domesticated “chili peppers.” Bulgaria, Carnelian beads. Manufactured Red Pottery Oil Lamps.
4500-4000 BCE - China, Investment Casting develops.
4200 - 4000 BCE - Mesopotamia develops true, easy to spin pottery wheels.
6,000 y a - Earth experiences a cold climate period? (Starting maybe 500 years earlier and ending 500 years later.)
4000 BCE - (Mankind has achieved “Farmer status.”) (Thought to be when Cattle were turned into Oxen for Draft Animal purposes.) Egyptians start building big Brick structures; manufacturing Papyrus; Gold artifacts; (domesticated Donkeys?). Earliest examples of Kilns. NE Italy, archaeological find of Appleseeds. Sicily, evidence of wine found. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Horse domestication begins (they became small and varied in size as compared to their wild ancestors). “Pontic Language Explosion”. [People from north of the Caspian and Black Seas migrated around Eurasia, ancestor of western languages. (shared origins with: milk, horses, sheep, cattle, pigs, goats, grain, copper, carts, yoke, weaving, mead; patrilineal clans)]. Earliest examples of Viticulture (wine making). Levant, earliest examples of harvesting Olives; start using grain Silos. Art: Earliest depiction of Shoes, Sandals. China: example of a Loom for Silk production; Ramie (similar to flax, requires chemical processing, not as popular, believed to be used for Egyptian mummy wraps). Persia (Iran), Mung Bean domestication?, Chang (precursor to Harp) found on artwork, made with sheep guts. Mesopotamia: Stamp Seals come into use; Mirrors made of Copper; 30-40% of animal bones in settlements were pork (understood to be a way of removing trash from community, easy to feed and raise many); Uruk clay tablet describes two temples owning a herd of 95 pigs to be rendered into soap to clean linen; clay pipes for sewage. Europe, farming reaches northern regions. Anatolia, Silver production.
4000 - 1000 BCE - Ethiopia, Teff is discovered (can feed people and livestock, building material).
3800 - 3500 BCE - Czech Republic, possible evidence of earliest plowed fields.
5,700 y a - Lolland Island, a blue eyed, dark haired, dark skin woman spits out some Birch Bark gum; oldest complete human genome extracted; had Mononucleosis ("kissing disease"). Possible archeological evidence of pit traps used for migrating animal hunting.
3630 BCE - Oldest example of silk fabric found.
3600 BCE – Pork bones in settlements (Levant, Mesopotamia) dropped to 16-30% of total livestock.
5,500 - 4,700 y a - Georgia, tomb found had honey remains on pottery. (This culture could identify Linden, Berry, and Meadow-Flower varieties.)
3500 BCE - City of Uruk: (Mesopotamia) begins outward expansion and influence, later first example of organized warfare (would influence Egyptians to start building pyramids); "Cylinder Seals," a type of noble seal, that can be rolled unto wet clay (would be popular until 1000 BCE). Iraq, Kish Tablet, considered to represent the early transition from pictographic to cuneiform. Mesopotamia, earliest Harps and Lyres found; Gold artifacts. Modern humans settle the western coast of Europe, hunter-gatherers. Egyptians show Cat domestication; Gold Smelting; used a vertical Gnomon as a primitive Sundial? Iran, Beer made from Barley. Armenia, earliest Leather Shoe found. China, Pottery in shape of silkworm indicates earliest example of Sericulture (silk worm production).
3500 - 3350 BCE – Mesopotamia, earliest evidence of wheeled vehicles. Indus Valley civilization uses Stamp Seals with a type of script.
3400 BCE (5,400 years ago) - First metal casting. France, Cow skull showing Trepanation found.
5,400 -5,100 y a - Itzi the Iceman dies in the mountains of Northern Italy. Had a copper axe. Earliest evidence of tattoos. Shoes made from two types of animal skin (bear and deer). Arsenic residue in his hair.
3300 BCE - Egypt, tomb paintings show people Dancing. Indus Valley, develop Sanitation.
3200 BCE - Examples of using symbols to represent real life objects (would go to form written language). Ireland, construction begins on Newgrange, largest passage tomb in Europe, aligned to winter solstice. Egypt, Bead made of Meteoric Iron found.
3100 - 2900 BCE - Jemdet Nasr period (following fall of Uruk) would be known as establishing Cuneiform as a proper language.
3100 BCE - Upper and Lower Egypt unified. Mesopotamia, likely evidence of the earliest Lute type device.
3000 BCE - Onset of Bronze. Mesopotamia, Irrigation; Glass Beads appear (possible side effect of making metal); possible earliest Iron working (required higher temperatures), cuneiform mention of Pigeons. Sumer, Medical text found on tablet, believed oldest ever found. Egypt, Hieroglyphs of Pigeons and use of Homing Pigeons for message delivery, first record of a Doctor named, Imhotep; Antimony harvested from rock and made into eye makeup; earliest evidence of domestic Donkeys in the south. Egyptian Mummies show evidence of Smallpox (deathrate 30% especially among babies, can leave people blind). Dromedary Camels likely domesticated in Somalia at this time. (Camel hair can be harvested for shelter and clothing, outer guard hairs make for water proof coats. Camel milk readily turns into yogurt. To turn into butter requires a clarifying agent and extended process.) Chicken reaches Europe from Asia. England, earliest Stone Circles found. Slovakia, Romania, earliest chainmail found. Sheep chosen for wooly coat, not long hair. China, Clay Bells found. India, River Buffalo domesticated (water buffalo); Jute grown for fiber (burlap). Northern Iran, earliest examples of Trumpets. SE Asia, earliest records of Radish. Pakistan, Terracota female figurines.
2800 BCE - Solid evidence of plowed fields. China, Copper smelting discovered. Babylon, evidence of manufacture of soap like substance.
2700 BCE - Chinese treatise on health. 40 kinds identified.
2650 BCE - Egypt, dental work found.
2630-10 BCE - Egypt, Pyramid of Djoser constructed by Imhotep, considered first.
2600 BCE – Egypt, domestication of Honey Bee complete.
2600 - 1900 BCE - Indus Valley, Stoneware Pottery (meaning fired at 1000 degrees Celsius), would become a major industry; (Ivory?).
2580-50 BCE – Egypt, creates first true Ocean Dock for sea trading vessels (with Indus Valley).
2560 BCE - Great Pyramid of Giza completed.
2500 BCE - Evidence of The Amber Road, trade route from the Baltic Sea to Mediterranean Sea. E Iran, Bactrian Camels domesticated. Iraq, "Lyres of Ur," considered world's oldest stringed instruments. Peru, oldest Sling ever found. Egypt, earliest depiction of a Khopesh (sword). Sumerian Clay Tablet with instructions for manufacturing soap (heating mixture of oil and wood ash, earliest record chemical reaction, used for washing woolen clothing). China, axes with Corundum (precious stone). Harappan Culture of Indus Valley, chicken used for Cock Fighting, not food.
2500 - 2000 BCE - Mali, domestication of Pearl Millet. Turkey, Meteoric Iron dagger.
2400 BCE - Sumer, description of Prostitution and a Brothel-Temple to Fertility Goddess.
2300 BCE - Mesopotamia, Urukagina of Lagash, considered the earliest Law Code. (Widows and orphans exempt from taxes, state pays for funeral expenses, the rich must pay in silver and cannot force the poor against will, checked power of priests, protect from usury, abolished polyandry). Iran, Quince (fruit). China, oldest Gnomon (painted stick that casts a shadow for sundial purpose).
2200 BCE - China, first known tax, using salt. Iraq, tablet reads “22 jars of Pig Fat” (each jar 18 liters of Lard, 396 liters total, require 45 adult pigs; likely used to make soap to clean wool of sheep before turning them into textiles)
2200-2000 BCE - Turkey, Iron Smelting.
2100 - 2050 BCE - City of Ur: Earliest written Code of Law discovered. References Butter. (Fines for bodily harm, references murder, robbery, adultery, rape. Two classes of people: free and slave.)
4000 - 3000 y a - Mesopotamia, earliest Scissors (shear, spring type). India, Mung Bean domesticated.
2000 BCE - Murals show horses pulling chariots. Horses become common in western Europe. England, Great Orme Mine started, would become largest copper mine in region (most productive between 1700 - 1400 BCE), used bone and stone tools. China, Bells made out of metal (Bellfounding); domestication of the Swamp Buffalo (water buffalo). Ghana, earliest evidence of Cowpea (black eyed pea). India, Canola/Rapeseed; Diamonds being used to drill beads. Egypt, Lupin Beans. Greece, Kale grown.
1900 BCE – Homing Pigeons used for warfare.
1800 BCE - Egypt, medical text on gynecological issues; Safflower for pigment. India, Iron working.
1754 BCE - Code of Hammurabi (recognized Prostitution and gave women protection and inheritance; theorized that a fertility goddess had a temple that offered sex workers).
1700 - 1200 BCE - (Late Bronze Age) 8 societies in Middle East: Aegean, Egyptian, Hittite, Canaanite, Cypriot, Mitanni, Assyrian, Babylonian. Considered a "globalized world system." Next time this would occur is today.
1700 BCE – Mesopotamia: The "Mari Letters" reference Minoan society, King Hammurabi; clay tablets list Trigonometry Tables and Applied Geometry (for land ownership, speculated to aid in construction).
1628 BCE - Island of Thera/Santorini experiences huge volcanic eruption, possibly causing a tsunami thru eastern Mediterranean.
1600-1500 BCE - Greece, Helmet formed of boar tusks found.
1600 BCE – Levant, Mesopotamia, Pork bones rarely found in settlements (banned from temples in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Egypt). (Found amongst the poor classes, difficult to tax since it did not produce wool or milk or could plow a field.)
1550 BCE – Papyrus Ebers, Egyptian medical text, mentions Chlamydia.
1500 BCE - Modern Trumpet design found in eastern Mediterranean. India, Pigeon Pea domesticated. Egypt, Mercury found in tombs; archaeologists find earliest Sundials; Emerald mines. China, Water Clocks.
1400 BCE - Syria, Hurrian Songs, cuneiform music tablet in Ugarit. Greece, oldest body armor found, made of bronze, Dendra Panoply (not actually worn, more of a showpiece, but clear representation of body armor for battle). China, Meteoric Iron axeheads. Art representation of Scale Mail in Egypt. Art: representation of Shields.
1350 BCE - Turkey, Hittites chronicle Egyptian prisoners of war bringing "the plague.”
1300 BCE - Uluburun Shipwreck, off coast of Turkey, had 300 sixty pound copper ingots (10 tons), 1 ton of tin, and tin objects and ingots of colored glass (blue, rose, brown). From Cypress/Minoa.
1300? - 900? BCE - Eastern Mediterranean experiences a 300? year drought. (Could also be: Cypress 1200- 850. Syria 1250-1187. Galilee 1250-1100)
1279 BCE - Battle of Qadesh (Egypt vs Hittites).
1200 BCE (3,200 years ago) - Onset of Iron smelting. Earliest Camel saddles appear. Last appearance of Megaliths. India, earliest evidence of Firewalking.
1200 BCE - Eastern Mediterranean civilization collapse. Drought in Greece. Earthquake series.
1188-1177 BCE - Egypt suffers invasions from "The Sea People."
1185 BCE - Syria, Ugarit Letter, Famine.
1140? BCE - Ramses 6th, mummy found to have Smallpox. No record of people dying from Smallpox.
1100 BCE - Phoenicians establish nation. Europe, Iron Age.
1100? BCE - Earth experiences a cold temperature period?
1100-750 BCE - Egypt, Iron Smelting.
1070 BCE - Egyptian mummy found with Silk in hair, earliest evidence of Silk Road.
1000 BCE - Early Cuneiform script (late stages, still pictograph in nature). Bactria, Barbat (primitive lute). Egypt, Kenaf is grown for fibers, leaves can be eaten by animals and humans (similar to Jute and Hemp; rope, rough fabric, sails). Mediterranean, Cabbage domesticated. China, Iron Age. Sport: racing Homing Pigeons.
930 BCE - Camel bones found in Arabian peninsula. Jordan, earliest Bloomery for Iron working found.
800 - 600 BCE - Ethiopia, Sorghum Wheat begins to be harvested.
800 BCE - Considered the beginning of Ancient Greece, after the Mycenae Civilization. China, Bloomeries used.
700-500 BCE - The Illiad orally composed. India, Diamond mining starts.
708 BCE – Greece, Olympics, Discus Throw.
700 BCE - Turkey, first Coins in Lydia. Assyria, first equipment recognized as a Saddle for a Horse.
660 BCE – Massive Solar Storm hits Earth.
600 BCE - Earliest example of a Steel Sword.
600-400 BCE - Ancient Greece rise of scientific inquiry and philosophy
550 BCE - The Illiad written down.
540 BCE – Sri Lanka, earliest record of Pearls.
500 BCE - Camels used in warfare. Persians use kettle drums for military maneuvers, frighten enemies. Greece, Grape Syrup, early form of sweetener and preservative; earliest written mention of what could be Influenza. Blackberries consumed around Europe. Spain, Disk Quern developed. India, Cholera described in Sanskrit. Romans manufacture dipped Candles.
430 BCE – Athens, Typhoid Fever outbreak during siege by Sparta.
400 BCE - The "Celts/Gaeil" settle Ireland. Greece, the “Hippocratic Corpus” seventy collected medical texts, mentions Pneumonia, Meningitis, Valerian Root.
396 BCE - Olympics, horn blowing competitions.
314 BCE - China, first mention of Sweet Orange.
298 BCE - Foot powered Loom.
200 BCE - China starts making paper.

''Welcome, my guest, to the palace of Jericho!''
The prince said, waving his hands around, as we made it past the massive doors. Inside, a view very few peasants ever saw in their lives. Of absurdly tall ceilings, of intricate pillars, of statues commemorating past monarchs and high-standing officials. I Dieudonné couldn't believe my eyes, and followed the prince, savoring every sight and every second.
''Tell me, where would you like to have tea? We can go to the royal terrace, the balcony, the inner gardens...'' The prince asked me, as we made our way up the stairs of the atrium. I scratched my head and wondered, what would be the smartest answer?
''Well you see, I've always wanted to see what a prince's chamber would look like... If that's not asking too much of you, my liege.''
The prince turned around, with an annoying look on his face. ''Listen, you don't have to be so formal. Let's just be friends and enjoy ourselves.''
I jumped on the opportunity and raced to him, slapping him on his back, telling him how glad I was. ''But I don't want to be your friend just because you're the prince, don't get me wrong. I just like clever people is all'' I told him, and I saw him smile, through his nose and eyebrow gold chain, scintillating in the light of the hundreds of candles and torches around us.
Alone in the private chamber of the prince, I sat on the pillow on the ground, next to a low wooden table. My new friend the prince poured water in a kettle and put it over the fire. I wondered, why in the world would he make his own tea?
''Tell me, why not ask a servant?'' I finally asked him.
''Well I wouldn't really be treating you for tea, then, would I?'' He replied, walking toward me with a wooden box.
I made sure not to show any greed on my face, yet I couldn't stop wondering if that box was a present for me, considering the sheer luck I had of meeting the prince by chance, and becoming his friend as well. The prince put the box down in front of me, and opened it, revealing dozens of compartments, each holding fine quality ingredients, such as colorful powders, seeds like anis and cardamom, cinnamon bark and so many others I had never seen before.
''Tell me, what's your favourite tea? Do you like sweet, or bitter, hot or cold? Spiced or not?''
I Dieudonné was outmatched for once. I admitted I had no knowledge in tea whatsoever. ''I only know the dry, black one, that you break appart..''
The prince had a surprised look on his face; ''You mean tea bricks? I didn't think you'd be one of those types...''
I asked him what he meant by that, and he explained that people's taste in tea reveals a lot about themselves, who they are truly. I thought it incredibly funny how he needed tea preferences to tell the nature of people, when all I needed was to look at their face. But I rather enjoyed his little trick, this prince wasn't as stupid as people are usually...
''If I could have any tea, I'd have orange tea. I just don't think it's appropriate to ask for that, since you've already been so generous to me.''
For once I was being honest with him. I wouldn't dream of telling him the whole story about my father and the orange, the incense, but it felt good for once to tell the truth. The prince smiled and closed the wooden box, its overwhelming aroma taken away. He rushed out and left me all alone, in his room. For once in my life, I heard it. Complete silence. If not for the occasional crackling of the fire.
I Dieudonné closed my eyes and relaxed. I couldn't wait to sip on orange tea! Insidiously Greed got a hold on me once more, and I got up on my feet, remembering my plan, my princely plan...
I stepped around the room, looking at everything. The comically large bed, the white silken bedsheets, the pillows filled with feathers. The bookshelves full of not only books and scrolls but also of trinkets like a globe of the earth, a telescope and most intriguing of all a tiny chest, half-opened. I could see, if I got close enough, coins perhaps?
I kept listening to any coming footsteps, so as not to be caught in the act, but the kettle started boiling and whistling. I had to get back to my seat but my body was moving on its own! Only one of these gold coins would give me the life of a prince, if only for a single day... And the door opened. I shifted my gaze to the telescope, pretending not to hear the prince coming in, to be fascinated by the instrument.
''Tell me, do you look at the stars sometimes?'' The prince asked me, in his hands, a bowl, filled with orange powder.
''I don't think I've spent a single night not looking at the stars'' I lied, looking at him smiling.
He placed the bowl on the table, brought over the kettle, as I took my seat once more, just before stealing a last look at the tiny chest in the bookshelf. From under the table he took out a tea making kit, with a few cups, a tray and two peculiar statuettes, representing a dragon and a sheep.
I sat there and looked at my new friend, the prince of Jericho, brew orange tea. He gave me a tiny hourglass, instructing me to flip it over once he pours the boiling water on the tea. Instantly the aroma filled the chamber, and I noticed we both started smiling. I brought my cup closer yet to my surprise he poured the tea over the statuettes, wasting the tea.
''Why waste it?'' I couldn't help asking. He laughed and explained how the first steep is merely to wash the tea, and is offered to the tea pets. I sat there, nodding, arms crossed. Ah yes. It seems the prince is a tea connoisseur! I couldn't help but think he just wanted to show off to me, his new friend.
The prince poured the water once more, I flipped the hourglass once more, and he offered me the first cup. I brought it to my nose and Heavens did it smell good. I dipped my lips into it but at that instant I thought about Daysha, how happy she would've been to be here right now, and what she was doing instead, for my sake..
The tea was surprisingly bitter, yet so aromatic! The prince laughed and laughed, and poured himself a cup. His laugh was surprisingly familiar, much akin to the ones of my neighboors back in my hometown. He gulped down his tea and got up, clapping his hands. I did the same and saw him run to the telescope. He brought it over to the window, and gestured me to come over. Stargazing now, are we?
He took a few minutes to set everything up, while I waited outside on the balcony. The view was already incredible, overlooking the inner palace and most of Jericho as well. From here I could see the plaza, but not beyond the tall walls. The prince finally said it's ready, and I got closer, curious as to what that tool could show me that I couldn't see with my eyes. Stars are stars after all.
But what I saw, in that strange little tube was not a star but an orange, stripy ball, with some bright dots around it... What in the world?
''That, my friend, is Al-Mushtari, as the arabs call it. We call it Jupiter, the greatest god of them all!''
To gaze at gods themselves! I fell on my butt, suddenly dizzy. The prince laughed and looked through the telescope as well, smiling ever more. At that moment I really wanted to leave, but also to make sure I'd see the prince again, for my plan hinged on that.
''My prince I must thank you for your hospitality. What pleasure to share tea and spy on the gods with his majesty-'' I started, but he turned toward me with a puzzled look on his face.
''Don't tell me, you're off already?''
I explained to him how I just got to Jericho today, and that I had to get back to my sister and uncle, and he stopped me once more;
''Well remember, then. I'll meet you tomorrow morning at the plaza. I truly wish to meet this family of yours, and offer my blessings. Take care now, my friend.''
And for the first time in my life, the man I was talking to had the face of a friend, and I didn't know what to think for a while. He walked me out in silence, and shook my hand, leaving in it a tiny bag. I smiled and walked out, escorted by the palace guards, inspecting in my hand yet another present from the prince; more of that orange tea powder.
Standing there in front of the metal gate of the palace, that closed behind me, I felt somewhat alone, if only for an instant. I am, after all, Dieudonné, a man that is truly free. Yet I couldn't help but look forward to meeting my new friend again, the prince. And gifting the orange tea to my foolish sister, as an apology. Yet beyond that, the dark clouds that were my princely plans loomed over all.
Making my way back to the fruit shop, I couldn't help but think back on Daysha and that tall man Lemarcus. As much of a fool as she is, my sister truly saved me there, and made it possible to meet the prince as well. This present may not be much, but I hope it'll show her how grateful I am of her help. Though she did owe me one...
The streets of Jericho were unusually quiet and empty. Some loners were here and there, smoking and drinking. Others were hurrying their steps, as if late to some important meeting. How miserable. At that moment I Dieudonné realized I was one of them! One more of these rats, scurrying about in the dead of night, hurrying toward the void that is their lives!
No matter what face I have truly, that of a prince or of a peasant, what matters are my actions. No more of this! I know what to do, to become prince at last, and fate itself landed me a hand! Yes, I will go forth with my plan, no matter what. For the life of a prince is the only life worthy for me.
I passed under a low banner and in this dark alleyway I thought back on Daquan, that guard I had poisonned so cleverly. I couldn't help smiling, and I didn't really like what that meant about me. Is killing a man that simple? Behind me, a fool, coughing and stumbling, his breathing raspy and annoying. I hurried my steps, as I was close to the fruit shop, but it seemed like the sick fool behind me hurried as well. I turned around briefly, and in the feeble moonlight I saw his bearded, scarred face, no longer that of a gambler, but that of a vengeful killer. We crossed eyes and he yelled ''Dieudonné you peasant!''
I didn't like that. I faced him, separated by a few dozen meters, surrounded by boxes and garbage bins and low hanging banners. We were completely alone here in the alleyway, and the only thing I could hear was his struggling breathing, and his coughing, as he was hurrying toward me, holding something in his hand, what, a knife?
I Dieudonné had enough of that man. No matter how grateful I was of the hand of fate, bringing me closer to my goal using that despicable man, I decided to finish what I had started.
''What, you want to kill me, good guard?'' I taunted him, looking at his curved dagger in his shaky hand. Daquan coughed once more and leaped toward me, screaming, murder in his eyes, but he was so slow from the rat poison. I punched his arm and his dagger fell on the ground loudly. ''What did you do to me?'' he shouted, his face so close to me I could smell his incoming death. I remember just how ugly and pityful he seemed to me. He had the face of an angry child, throwing a tantrum for having his favourite toy taken away.
''You deserve this, you failure of a man..'' I whispered, as I grabbed him by the neck. His bloodshot eyes then filled with fear, with dread, and at that moment I let go of him, frightened. What was I trying to do?
But Daquan reached for his dagger once more and I remembered my vow. To do whatever it takes. ''I can't die, for I become prince tomorrow.'' And so I kicked his face and his belly, I turned him on his back and pummeled his face, his gambler face, and ignored whatever he was trying to say to me, until his weak arms couldn't stay up anymore.
I didn't notice rain had started, and I got up from down there, my fists bloodied in red, my head aching. I looked down at the dagger and laughed, what a ridiculous tool. I pushed Daquan to the side of the alley, under a few boxes and a fallen banner, and I spat on him, as he extended his hand to me, begging for help. ''Die as the rat you are..''
I ran away from there, back to the fruit shop. I didn't know if I wanted to laugh at the top of my lungs or collapse and cry. All I wanted was to be alone. I made it to a crossway, and looking around I- well I was lost. Where the hell am I? What am I doing here?
Tall dark buildings. Banners whirling in the wind, wires flailing about, crows cawing, flying around high above me, under the feeble rain. I looked to one side, and the other, I couldn't tell the difference! Where is Daysha, where is the black lake, and my hometown? Why am I here, in this hellish city, alone, my hands stained with murder?
I noticed I was shaking, and couldn't breathe properly, and my mind was spiraling, how dizzy I felt. I sat down, there in a dark corner of an alley, and I placed boxes over me, and covered my feet with a fallen banner, and tried to sleep, just to escape. I tried to sleep just to see if all that really happened. I tried to sleep and realized once more, I was nothing different from Daquan! Here I was, same as him, except I'm to keep living in this shithole of a life I have been so proud of living.
I, Dieudonné, thought of suicide for the first time that night.
The crows woke me up once more, not their cawing but their beaks! I jumped awake and chased the black birds away. Did they think I had died? As if I would die such a meaningless death... My head was aching all the more, and I got up, trying to piece out where I was exactly. I was just a few buildings away from the flower shop actually. All around me, the bustling life of Jericho had started anew, in the early hours of the morning. The sun had just started to rise, and a soft breeze washed away my worries, if only for an instant.
I Dieudonné entered the fruit shop, nonchalantly, my hands in my pocket, for they were still bruised. But no one was there. I was expecting Daysha, ready to jump in my arms, and the tall Lemarcus to be standing in his doorframe in the back, reeking of tobacco. Only the parrot greeted me, with his usual ''Thief, thief, thief I say!''
But I had had enough of that, and as I made my way to the back of the shop I shooed the bird with my hands. Upon seeing my bloodied, bruised knuckles the parrot flew away screeching ''Murderer! Thief! Murderer!'' and I froze. Did I really kill that man? And not by poison, with my own two hands? I walked in the bathroom there, and I noticed a big tall mirror. I made sure not to see my reflection. I jumped in the shower and washed away the dreadful night, to be ready for the dreadful day I become prince at last.
All ready I walked to Lemarcus's door, and knocked quietly. ''Daysha?''
I heard some rustlings, a few steps, and my sister whispered as well from beyond the closed door. ''Go away Dieudonné. I don't want to see you ever again. What a brother you are.''
Her words hit me like a brick. I kneeled down and slid under the door the little bag of orange tea, the prince had given me. ''All I want to say is, I'm sorry.'' I told her. And I meant it.
I heard her pick it up, and scuffle back to the bed. I heard Lemarcus's voice, and Daysha's voice, such loving words, and I was taken aback. I thought she would hate him!
I stole some lotion in the bathroom for my knuckles, thank you Lemarcus. I made haste for the plaza, for the prince himself was waiting for me. On the way there, I could hear faint music, festivities, growing louder and louder. I hurried my steps, much like a child would do, and low and behold a full on festival was taking place, with dozens of musicians playing drums, flutes, lutes and others singing. Dragons and sheeps were dancing to the music, their big colorful bodies going up and down, moved by the many feets beneath them. Kids were running around, petals were falling from Jericho's sky and a new, bold banner was erected, its calligraphy impeccable : Tea Festival.
And there, standing alone at the entrance of the plaza, the prince. Approaching him I noticed his smile, and how relaxed he looked. I took the time to really look at him, at the gold chains on his face, at his crown, at his clothes so elegant. On his face I saw the face of a happy man, and I didn't like that.
He saw me at last and ran toward me, smiling, his eyes full of life. I noticed around him, the people, recognizing their prince, and smiling, and bowing, and I could see how respected he was. I thought, back then, about just how badly I needed that, just how badly I needed everyone to look up to me, to worship me. My vow strenghtened once more, and hugging my new friend smiling I could only think of murder, of deceit.
We entered the fruit shop, and it was still empty, the closed door of Lemarcus in the back there made me wonder if they were still in or out. No matter. All I needed was a few minutes. ''I'd like to treat you to tea, as well, as we wait for my family.'' I told the prince, and he sat down. How glad I was of the parrot not being there, that irritating creature. To my surprise the prince said ''I always wanted to taste that tea brick of yours!'' and I couldn't help laughing.
The kettle whistling, just like it did the day before at the palace, I poured into it the harsh bits of black tea. A far cry from the expensive ingredients of the prince. I told him to bring over a few blackberries, how nicely would they go with our black tea. In the meantime I poured myself a cup, and quickly threw in the rest of the rat poison I had bought the day before in the kettle. I exhaled and closed my eyes for a second. The prince came back and pretended to throw a berry in my mouth, laughing. And he did, a perfect throw! How oblivious can the prince be?
''So, my prince, what are you planning to do today?'' I asked him, pouring down his death sentence in his tiny cup.
The bitter, almost poor aroma of the leaves surrounded us, and as he lifted his cup he told me how he didn't have much planned today, and that they could perhaps spend time at the tea festival. I looked deeply in his eyes, waiting for him to drink his tea at last.
Right then the backdoor opened, and tobacco filled the air, to my annoyance. The prince put down his cup and got up, bowing to the tall man and the curly woman looking at us. Right there I cursed the heavens, and slammed my cup on the table.
''My sister Daysha, uncle Lemarcus, please meet my new friend, the prince of Jericho!'' I proclaimed, a bit too loudly.
I remember the look on lemarcus's face, his squinty eyes, pinning me down, I could tell he didn't like me. Once again Daysha proved to be a useful fool and grabbed his arm, dragging him toward us.
The prince sat back down, and offered them to share tea with us. I got up and took the kettle, saying how I'll just make a new batch, but the prince insisted. ''As you told me yesterday, why waste it?''
Of course I wanted the prince to drink it and die, so that I could take his place. And I didn't mind if that man lemarcus dies, for I despised him. But I didn't want Daysha my sister to die such a meaningless death!
''Very well, but Daysha, you won't like it. Why don't you bring us some refreshments instead?'' I proposed, trying to get her to look me in the eyes, and notice what was going on. But the fool was clutching at lemarcus's arm, smiling, and told me she'll just add my present to the tea, that she took out.
The orange tea I gifted her! And so the prince took it upon himself to pour two more cups to Daysha and Lemarcus. She added the bright orange powder to her cup, and also to everyone's cups, smiling.
Daysha asked a few questions to the prince, as they ate berries, holding their lethal cups, warming their hands. I Dieudonné sat there, and debated if I should just flip the table and maybe punch lemarcus, as a pretext to stop everyone from drinking the tea. After all, I'd get another chance sooner or later.
I looked down at my cup, and catched a glimpse of my reflection, amidst the scintillating of the orange powder, much akin to the prince's golden chains on his face, and at once the fountain of greed within me sprang anew. Damn it all!
She's a fool, he's a lustful man, and he's the prince I'm meant to be!
''Now, let's drink to our new friendship!''
And I burned my throat, gulping down the tea, not even tasting it. I slammed the cup on the table, and to my horror, to my bliss, they all did the same.
With how much rat poison I had put in the tea, the effects would start rather soon. My sister, with rosy cheeks, asked me ''Dieudonné, you told us your friend is the prince, yes, but you never told us his name?''
And at that I couldn't hold my laughters, it was too much for me.
''Yes, you never did ask for my name, even after you told me you didn't care about me being prince...''
We all grew silent. The prince added, smiling, ''Tell me, are we really friends?''
This is when they started dying.
Coughing, and retching, and all that. I dragged Daysha and Lemarcus to their room, making my best impression of someone worried for his friends, for his sister. She held my arm, and in her eyes, the same fear in saw in Daquan the day before. She whispered, in my ear, how she wanted to give me a present, as thanks for bringing her with me here to Jericho. She placed in my hand, orange incense. We both got teary eyes. I told her, once again, for the last time, ''I'm sorry.''
I closed the backdoor. Alone once again with the prince, I towered over him. He was asking for a glass of water, and to go fetch a guard, to bring him back to the palace.
I lied to him once again ''Now, my friend. I have an antidote, but first you have to tell me everything I need to know about you, about the prince of Jericho.''
He was shocked, and couldn't breathe for a few seconds. I fell to my knees and slapped him. I told him ''You see, my friend, I'll take your place as prince, and become the man I was always meant to be.''
At that the prince struggled to laugh, holding my arms; ''I was never the prince! I did just like you, Dieudonné my friend. I took the jewels and the clothes and the knowledge of the last prince, and I made myself prince.''
I got up, and stared him down. He added ''And the prince before that! All pretending, all greedy, all imposters!''
He struggled to get up, fell to his knees, and whispered to me, holding my legs ''I have only ever showed you kindness, generosity, friendship... And you would kill me, and take my place?''
I saw, at that moment, the prince had the face of despair. I pushed him down on the ground, and I couldn't help but cry as I removed his clothes, his crown, and painstakingly removed his golden chains, the true symbol of his majesty.
All the while the prince was laying there on the ground, staring at the ceiling. He tells me, his voice raspy and his breathing short; ''So you'll get my haircut, get some new piercings, wear my clothes and my jewels... So you'll be the new prince of Jericho... Will that satisfy you?''
I froze. I looked down to him. he added, pleading;
''Will you at least spare me, your friend? I'll tell you everything you need to know, the name of the servants, how you should act, secrets, all of it. Just give me the antidote, and give Daysha and Lemarcus the antidote. And go, I'll forget about you, Dieudonné, the man I thought was my friend.''
He told me everything, and I lied to him once more, about how the antidote will save his life. I made him drink some of my tea, and he smiled. I asked him his name, and he told me, crying.
But I forgot.
As I walked out, the parrot rushed in, yelling ''Murderer! Murderer! Thief!'' Once more.
The next day, I was walking down the main road, on my way to the palace of Jericho. On my face, the gold chains, on my head, the crown. And adorning me, clothes beffiting of a prince. And on everyone's faces, admiration, love, respect.
I held my head high, and smiled broadly, for at last I was a prince, with the face of a prince. What bliss.
I entered the palace, and made haste to my chamber, where a few days ago I drank tea and laughed with the previous prince. I jumped on the bed, took a nap. Never slept better in my whole life. I awoke and filled my pockets with gold coins, emeralds and ivory. I demanded a servant to make me some orange tea, but I didn't drink it, I wasted it.
I pushed open the bathroom door, avoiding the mirror once more. And there, the bathtub of a prince, with lotions and soaps and warm water on tap. I poured myself a bath, filled with all the luxury products I could find. I reached for my pocket and took out the orange incense Daysha had given me, before dying of my hand.
I placed it down on the counter, in front of the mirror, and lit it, its fragrance, taking me all the way back to my hometown, to little Daysha and my family.
I glimpsed at the mirror at last, looking at my perfect reflection. Never before had I seen my face so clearly, if not from the still surface of the cursed lake. In the flickering of the candles, I saw the face of a murderer. I saw the face of a thief. I saw the face of a spiteful man.
I couldn't take it anymore, I punched the mirror, reopening my wounds on my knuckles. The mirror cracked, and my reflection was mutliplied. I looked at my bloodshot eyes, at my golden chains, at my stupid haircut, and I grabbed the golden chains and screamed as I tore them with all my force. Blood gushing out, pieces of my nose, my ear and my eyebrow, at the tip of the golden chains. I threw away the crown and tore down my clothes, drops of red staining the royal floor, as I ran away toward the exit, toward the roads of Jericho.
Outside, I walked around, aimlessly, my mind, numb. I was just so tired of it all. So what if I was prince at last?
There, walking toward me, peeling away his orange, the tall man in the white hat, the blind man, the man with the wise face. He puts a hand on my shoulder, and says, as if to himself :
''Ah! There is the man with the cursed face. Welcome to Jericho!''
Thank you so much for reading, please leave a comment! I would love to read your thoughts-

With the team announcements for MCC Kick-Off, I think a lot of us have noticed the number of newcomers, with six, and a couple more players returning after a long time off! The MCC games can be a big learning curve, especially for someone who doesn't play a lot of Minecraft or who hasn't watched a lot of MCC. This post is meant to provide a comprehensive guide to each MCC game for any newcomers (or anyone else who wants to read) to follow!
Each game will be separated into three sections: An objective overview of the game and its scoring, a discussion of some of the most common strategies or things to consider, and a list of vods that you may want to review to get an idea of how the games run.
Just a little disclaimer- MCC is at its core a for fun event, and nobody should feel pressured to practice or vod review a ton. I am just making this for anyone who may be relatively unfamiliar with MCC and wants to learn (and because I want to and think it will be fun to put together). That is why this post will include vods as well as an overview of the game/strategy, so those who just want a general idea can read the basic overviews, while if you want to sweat or practice a ton, you can also watch the vods I provide!
Also, I am not a participant and do not have any experience playing MCC, I am just a viewer who has watched a lot of MCC and really enjoys the strategy/analysis aspect of it. If any other viewers or participants disagree with anything I say or have anything to add, feel free to let me know! I am open to any discussion and/or criticism.
Ace Race
Overview: Ace Race is a three to four lap race consisting of speed pads, jump pads, elytras, tridents, and swimming. This game is purely an individual movement game, and scoring is based on your end placement, with better placements earning more coins. The exact scoring can be found on noxcrew.com/mcc
Strategy: Ace Race will take place on one of its existing maps. Each map will have a relatively straightforward path, however each map also consists of various skips and shortcuts. These shortcuts vary in difficulty, some only requiring a simple variation in path while others should only be attempted by those with a high mechanical skill. The best way to find these skips would be to look through some top players' vods, but this shouldn't be super necessary to get a decent time, and you shouldn't feel pressured to do a ton of excessive vod reviewing just to find a couple of skips. This also probably wouldn't be a good idea to do far in advance, as we won't know the map until the day before when the update video comes out. Also, coming back from this long of a break there is a decent chance we will see a brand new map! My biggest piece of advice in terms of skips is to know your skill. If you think you can make some more difficult skips, then go for them! But it is always better to finish with a relatively good placement than to lose a ton of time because you went for a ton of risky skips.
It is also important to note that there are a few features in Ace Race that don't exist in vanilla Minecraft, in particular the speed and jump pads. I would recommend finding time to hop on the practice server for around fifteen minutes before the event to get a hang of how these features work. Additionally, the Ace Race tridents are a bit different from vanilla tridents. Instead of needing to release the trident to fly forward, these tridents release automatically. I also recommend the practice server to get a hang of these!
Vods: I've attached the fastest pov for each map I believe could be in rotation this MCC (they're all pete, my ace race goat)
Clouds II- Petezahutt MCC33 https://youtu.be/ZO8alq9a8ts?si=1VoTHalItELpg79T&t=5233
Turtle Run- Petezahutt MCC25 https://youtu.be/OQS_RjH74Ow?si=gzrpv3ls_LTmgxm7&t=6342
Yeti Set Go!- Petezahutt MCC35 https://youtu.be/Qr7nIDQLvz0?si=AazMGyH6HYKc2FLE
Battle Box
Overview: Battle Box is a round-robin PVP game that takes place over nine rounds. In each round, each member of your team will select from one of four kits, and then you will fight the other team in a small, enclosed map. In the center of each map, there is a three-by-three square of concrete, where your goal is to break the concrete and replace it with your team's own color. If you manage to replace all of the concrete with your own, you win the round! Coins are awarded based on coins and round wins, with 15 coins awarded to a player for each kill, and 160 coins awarded for each win, split among the team.
Strategy: Specific strategies for how to play are difficult to discuss in a post such as this, as they are very map and team-dependent. However, the general strategy for teams is to try and kill the other players and then fill the middle, because you can earn a lot more points from kills as well as round wins over just winning every round. However, sometimes if a team's strongest suit is not PVP, or if they are struggling to win rounds from just killing, they may instead try and wool rush. This means instead of trying to fight, the team will just try and rush the center of the map and fill in their concrete without fighting in an attempt to win the round. This is often effective in getting a few win points when your team is struggling, although you don't get as many points as when you get kills. Also, it is always very important to keep your eye on the center of the map, so you can make sure you are not also getting rushed!
This game is also very easy to practice, as it is on both MCCI and the practice server.
Vods: Here are some first-place battle boxes, where you can see some general strategies/flow of the game:
Kratzy MCC 35 https://youtu.be/J2Pr4wAzUGk?si=s5AJeMsD7XcxiJJx&t=5979
Wallibear MCC 32 https://youtu.be/KhxRZANqCKk?si=sfv87dMq_aaPTojy&t=3563
Sapnap MCC 24 https://youtu.be/PAOiMx11Z3k?si=ypWorHuZhAUL9LXM&t=5627
These Vods are some I think implemented the wool rush strat pretty well:
Fruitberries MCC AS https://youtu.be/1RRPpZjuvks?si=YsL95MEj8uSROmus
FireBreathMan MCC Scuffed https://youtu.be/jYRU8xdJSnI?si=EGFupilu0IapUa6M&t=3295
Big Sales at Build Mart
Overview: Build Mart is a purely team-based game where your goal is to recreate certain builds as a team using the resources you can find in the map. To get these resources, you fly up on your elytra and mine the blocks you need, then bring them back to the portal and place them in your team's plots to complete your builds. Points are awarded based on completions, with more points awarded for completing builds first. Some builds have a gold border around them and are known as golden builds, and are worth double the points.
Strategy: Build Mart is known as one of the more controversial MCC games, and therefore has not been in rotation much recently. I think it is relatively unlikely we see Build Mart in this upcoming MCC unless we see a revamp of some sort, but I will still cover the most commonly known strategy for Build Mart.
The most common current strategy for Build Mart is known as the floater strategy. This strategy consists of three players focusing on one of the three build plots each, while the fourth player is what is known as the "floater." The floater's job is right at the beginning to get some of each wood, and then after they are basically on command for each other player. The other players need to be constantly communicating with the floater about what they may need, and the floater should always be moving and collecting resources. It is also important to focus on the golden builds when they come up, as those will reward you with the most points. Make sure to always keep comms clear and stay calm!
Vods: Grian MCC 17 https://www.youtube.com/live/yThkemDpp7I?si=y68H55rx_fhThlTf&t=6977
Here is a good floater pov: Sapnap MCC 18 https://youtu.be/PEoiYE_vMrc?si=FqhhxrXVpoCKIxYE&t=6511
Grid Runners
Overview: Grid Runners is a team-based game that consists of a series of puzzle rooms that you must move through and complete as a team. This game requires clear communication from your whole team. Coins are awarded based on the speed at which you complete each room. You receive coins for each individual room, as well as a bonus from your overall placement.
Strategy: There is no overall strategy for grid runners, as it is just a series of unique puzzles, so instead I will just give some pointers or things to watch out for.
Make sure to pay attention to the obvious details of the room, such as the room title and the resources given. Players often miss clues hidden in details such as the room title or don't see a key feature of a resource they are given that will help them complete a room. Make sure comms are always clear, and try to avoid speaking over each other. Also, this might be a game where it is good to turn to a more experienced player for leadership, as many of the rooms you will see are repeats and your teammates who have played multiple events may have seen them in previous MCCs.
Vods: FireBreathMan MCC 30 https://youtu.be/6l3qxzN9Sds?si=umR3L4I-qdatbIS1&t=6263
HBomb MCC 29 https://youtu.be/x4oEG4ckTO0?si=E_Aq4oPVan0v14VS&t=7827
This one is a personal favorite of mine, although they started very behind, they were able to catch up quickly and ended up getting first- Ranboo MCC 26 https://youtu.be/IbsZiNWunbg?si=dnF0ZgD5LNeBf7E1&t=7649
Hole In The Wall
Overview: Hole in the Wall is a movement game where the goal is to stay alive as long as possible over three different rounds. Slime walls will move toward you from four directions, and you need to move and jump through them to survive. As the round progresses, the walls will move faster and will become harder to move through. The longer you stay alive, the more coins you earn. Specific scoring can be found at noxcrew.com/mcc
Strategy: I think the best way to prepare for Hole in the Wall would be to practice it either on MCCI or the practice server, but this isn't a game with any specific strategy that needs to be learned. Most players tend to play in f5, but this is mostly up to personal preference. This isn't a game that I think requires a ton of review unless you're wanting to really sweat it. This game is mostly learning the mechanics through playing it and just being a strong movement player.
Vods: Jojosolos MCC 22 https://youtu.be/5N1U3Wciqo0?si=djmKGqyqyLVGjfIe&t=3697
PeteZahHutt MCC 34 https://youtu.be/ekEpCuvFqB4?si=hl0lS1N4pwBOr-f2&t=3359
Parkour Tag
Overview: Parkour Tag is a round-robin movement game that takes place over nine rounds. Each round, one player on your team will choose to be the hunter. This player will hunt three players from the other team for that round for one minute in a map consisting of parkour jumps and obstacles. At the same time, the other three players will be running from the opposing team's hunter. Points are awarded for survival time and for hunting opposing players, with a bonus if you survive the entire round. Your team also receives a bonus if you hunt all of the opposing team before they manage to hunt you. Specific scoring can again be found at noxcrew.com/mcc
Runners are always glowing and visible to the hunter, while the hunter is not glowing to the runners. The runners have an item called runner vision which allows them to see a glowing outline of the hunters for three seconds, with a cooldown of ten seconds.
Strategy: The most important aspects to remember for Parkour Tag are to stay apart and communicate. When running, it is very important to stay far away from your teammates, as sticking together makes it easy for the hunter to pick you off right after each other. Make sure you stay apart and are always communicating about the hunter. You should be saying where the hunter is, who they're going for, if they're cutting someone off, or any other important information. When you die, you need to make sure you keep an eye on the hunter and communicate with your alive teammates. While it is frustrating to get tagged, you need to remember that even though you are dead, you still have an important role in this game, so make sure you shake it off quickly and talk to your team!
Vods: Fruitberries MCC 34 https://youtu.be/MaQN4zIteIU?si=FRtxbYkZfrpfowBM&t=2049
PeteZahHutt MCC 22 https://youtu.be/4eWsFj-dgGE?si=fF6JlBSPVUwVAZTt&t=10908
Sands of Time
Overview: In Sands of Time, each team is placed into its own identical dungeon. Throughout the dungeon, you will find coins, puzzles, parkour, mobs, hidden rooms, and more that you will need to explore and collect. However, your time in the dungeon is timed, and the only way to extend the timer is to collect sand from around the map and place it into the sand timer in the middle of the map. Each sand will extend the timer by 10 seconds. At the end of the game, you must bank all of the coins you've collected as you leave the dungeon through the portal. If you are not through the portal when the time runs out, you are locked in the dungeon and lose everything.
Throughout the dungeon, there are four colors of keys corresponding to matching vaults: green, blue, red, and gold. The vaults will be down hallways with markings on the wall of their respective colors. Unlocking the various vaults rewards you with a large amount of coins. You can also find rusty keys around the map, which can be used to unlock brown doors that will open to more pathways.
Sands of Time is a high-risk high-reward game, the deeper into the dungeon and the more dangerous you are, the more coins you can earn, but it also increases your risk of death. If you die, your teammate can bring you back to life by sacrificing one sand. Your coins and items will drop where you die, but you will lose 20% of your coins. (If you die in lava, all of your items and coins will be lost.)
Strategy: Sands of Time is easily the most complex game in MCC. If you only had time to review or learn one game, I would recommend spending that time learning Sands of Time. There are too many intricacies for this game to fit into a few short paragraphs for this post, so I recommend reading this post by u/klarinn. While the post is from a few years ago, I think it still contains a lot of useful information, and the strategies are still relatively up-to-date to current MCC.
During a game of SOT, three players will take the role of runners while one player will be known as the sandkeeper. The sandkeeper is traditionally a player who is less comfortable running. The sandkeeper's job is to clear out the center room of the dungeon, flicking all spawners, and collecting all coins and sand from the center. The sandkeeper needs to make sure they are constantly keeping an eye on the timer, and constantly comming how much time is left and how much sand they have. The sandkeeper is in charge of letting the runners know when they need to return to the main room, and the runners will always hand the sand they've collected off to the sandkeepers. The main thing to remember as sandkeeper is you should always know how much time is left and should always be communicating this to your teammates. In my opinion, the difference between a good sandkeeper and a top sandkeeper is that they can communicate clearly, effectively, and constantly.
The other three players will be known as runners. The runners' jobs are to explore the dungeon and collect coins. My biggest piece of general advice for runners is to not take unnecessary risks (unless it's played late and you are in desperate need of coins), and to offhand your torches and make sure to always place them on spawners before you break them (hello hbomb).
The most common strategy for runners is called the vault runners strategy. This strategy is more for people who tend to lead their team or who are very into sweating and strategizing the event, so if that's not you, you don't need to worry about this too much, but it still might be useful to have a general idea of it. In this strategy, one player will always go for the blue vault key first, which is always underneath the sand timer in the middle, and then find the blue path, fully explore it, and search for the blue vault. A second runner will do the same with the red key, which is always found in a puzzle room directly off spawn. The last runner will find either an unmarked path or the gold vault path and will explore it fully.
Vods: Some Top Runner Povs:
HBomb MCC 31 https://youtu.be/1WNcsi83bb4?si=YzQz5XP913J7hf50&t=14025
Jojosolos MCC 28 https://youtu.be/VV6rdBLcEV0?si=HO5hT7XL0sFceGgE&t=10262
Some Top Sandkeeper Povs:
Aimsey MCC 24 https://youtu.be/gcS7etUhoQI?si=c8CjGCtKocGUIeyU&t=9575
Eret MCC 31 https://youtu.be/8h4Uy-re3s8?si=L4kVdKqULLhaSp2B&t=8836
Again, if you were to watch one vod in preparation for MCC, I would 100% recommend it be a SOT vod. This game has a lot of different parts to it and is often particularly difficult for newcomers, and watching the game be played is the best way to get a hang of it!
Sky Battle
Overview: Sky Battle is a PVP game that takes place over three rounds. Teams spawn on islands in the sky with unlimited blocks and must collect resources and move toward the center island, fighting other teams on their way. Coins are awarded based on kills and survival. Specific scoring can be found at noxcrew.com/mcc
Strategy: If you've played Sky Battle on MCCI, the first thing you need to understand is MCC Sky Battle is played completely differently. In MCC Sky Battle, teams are all sticking together, acting very carefully, and strategizing in a way that MCCI players don't do. There really is no specific strategy for Sky Battle, other than stick together with your team and try to not take any too risky fights early on. Generally, the Sky Battle points are very kill-focused, and only surviving until the end with no kills does not reward many points.
Vods: Antfrost MCC 32 https://youtu.be/huAhwyPMD3M?si=zUNhvRUfgZg-p0eF&t=9518
Quig MCC 20 https://youtu.be/4IF5BXwQaTk?si=lk7wCfDRdEVumwWH&t=10756
Fruitberries MCC 32 https://youtu.be/CfxmI4P-s2I?si=oHtSlZVbVD0RfPwi&t=8642
Survival Games
Overview: Survival Games is your classic Hunger Games style PVP game, players spawn around the center, collect chests, and fight to the death! Coins are awarded based on kills and survival. Additionally, throughout the game airdrops will drop from the sky throughout the map, and breaking them will award you extra coins.
Strategy: Survival Games is only one round, which means you need to use your one life carefully! Make sure you always stick together with your team, and be very careful taking early fights unless your team is extremely confident you can win. The biggest reason I see teams struggle is due to them being too greedy and going for kills they shouldn't, causing them to die early and lose a lot of coins.
Vods: Fruitberries MCC 19 https://youtu.be/JAcj7T6RtKo?si=Xyh9dwOcg4HAlNQZ&t=9097
Olliegamerz MCC 31 https://youtu.be/WPJX07gyEXs?si=NCwLh0luL2kwWRK2&t=8123
To Get To The Other Side
Overview: TGTTOS is a movement-based game that takes place over six rounds on six different maps. The goal of each round is simple- to get to the other side of the map and punch one of the NPCs at the end. The maps vary from parkour, to block placing, to elytra, and more. Coins are awarded based on the placement in which you finish, with a bonus being awarded to the first four teams to have all four members finish.
Strategy: While TGTTOS is a game of speed, sometimes trying to do some crazy movement that you aren't really mechanically skilled at can hurt you more than help you. Players who are very good at block placing can try to take the lead, but if that's not you, it's probably more in your interest to follow another player. The team bonuses are huge in this game, so consistently getting alright placements that help your team with the bonus is much better than trying to risk it for top placement and failing. "Follow Fruit" or "Follow Purpled" are very viable strategies and can really help your team with those bonuses.
Vods: FBM MCC 31 https://youtu.be/QJsngifOq4s?si=2TF7eiOOZJJ9VCKf&t=6459
Purpled MCC 29 https://youtu.be/0vFEw0TbQNw?si=nRI9bmHVrPq9y-W6&t=9438
Sapnap MCC 34 https://youtu.be/KFHT5uQl_SM?si=cSFNCQfGm8548bIQ&t=8416 - I put this vod as a way to show the importance of team bonuses, even though their team isn't getting any crazy placements, they are consistently doing well and the team bonuses are putting them in first.
Rocket Spleef Rush
Overview: RSR is a movement game that takes place over three rounds, where the goal is to be the last one standing. Players spawn on floating platforms with an elytra and a rocket launcher that boosts them and destroys blocks. As the platform is destroyed, a new one will spawn that players must fly to. Players are also given one updraft that they may use to save their life a single time. Coins are awarded based on placement and kills.
Strategy: Rocket Spleef Rush is easily one of the least newcomer-friendly games in the event. The rocket jumping mechanics are pretty unique to the event and will likely require some practice, so I recommend hopping on the practice server or MCCI and just getting a hang of the simple boosting mechanics.
In general, players will play RSR in one of two ways: traditional rocket boosting or elytra hopping. Rocket boosting just consists of gliding, landing, boosting, and repeating, while elytra hopping uses momentum from the elytra to jump into the air. Both strategies are very viable, and I don't personally believe one is more effective than the other. Rocket boosting is usually preferred for its simplicity and consistency, while elytra hopping is preferred for its ability to conserve momentum.
Kills are another way to earn coins in RSR, however, specifically going for kills is risky except for in specific situations. I would recommend not specifically trying to get kills, as it can easily backfire on you. There are some situations where it is beneficial to get kills, such in final platform situations where you need to spleef the other player to win. In general, take kills as a fun little bonus when you get them, not as something to try for.
A couple more pieces of advice: be very careful when using your updraft. The updraft will shoot you straight up, and when you are falling it is very easy to panic use your updraft and boost right into a block above your head. When using the updraft, make sure the area above you is clear and safe to boost into! Also, a common strategy used by players is the "horizon strategy," where players look directly at the horizon to lose the least amount of height while gliding.
Vods: Rocket Boosting Strategy:
Purpled MCC 26 https://youtu.be/XfScje4wTHg?si=MNMuniDNiOEScNwH&t=9772
Purpled MCC 31 https://youtu.be/PX3dKlqUZJc?si=P7QyoV8ond5SzF_q&t=1448
Elytra Hopping:
PeteZahHutt MCC 21 https://youtu.be/o_VQ5lWf7k0?si=A-KhGqP58IA_g7XZ&t=12860
PeteZahHutt MCC 31 https://youtu.be/D8iJBAWK11Q?si=vCYW5DC_-Tsf2KOc&t=1838
And a vod that shows how you can correctly go for kills:
Philza MCC 29 https://youtu.be/4K-oyKit_JA?si=p52JViNF61C0lIZH&t=2815
Meltdown
Overview: Meltdown is a bow PVP game that takes place over three rounds. Players spawn scattered in a lab with different rooms that slowly melt as the game progresses. Each player can freeze their opponents with one shot from a bow, and players can unfreeze their teammates by placing down their heater next to their frozen teammate.
Throughout the map, there are scattered coin crates that can be mined using the telepickaxe- an item that one person can wield at a time per team. There are also a large amount of these coin crates at five different capture points throughout the map. The players must traverse through the map, finding coin crates, fighting players, and avoiding melting rooms.
Coins are awarded based on kills, coin crates, and survival. Specific scoring can be found at noxcrew.com/mcc.
Strategy: One of the most important things to remember for Meltdown is to always be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to the map and where you need to go, always be peeking corners, and keep comms clear so your team knows what to do. The specific strategy your team uses often varies based on what your team wants to do, but commonly one person will be in charge of the telepickaxe and mining capture points and coin crates.
The biggest thing that I believe is important for newcomers to remember is to BREAK ENENMY HEATERS! If you are in a fight with an enemy team and they place heaters on their teammates, make sure you break them so they can't respawn. This may seem obvious, but MCC is stressful, and at the moment it's very easy to panic and forget.
Vods: Quig MCC 23 https://youtu.be/wEq3FYEBRUk?si=9BvLnBmh93mJ1TjG&t=12763
Sapnap MCC 30 https://youtu.be/RdlN2PJeKJI?si=yB1qNiziUPEh53mC&t=5299
Purpled MCC 31 https://youtu.be/PX3dKlqUZJc?si=pi90ZII0kcu8AVCV&t=7150
Parkour Warrior
Overview: Parkour Warrior is a movement game where the goal is to earn as many medals as possible. The course consists of one main path consisting of relatively easy sections, while every three sections there is an optional bonus path branching off to the side. The more bonus paths you complete, the more medals you earn. Each main path section gives a stone medal, while the bonus paths give a bronze medal for completing the first section, a silver medal for completing the second, and a gold medal for completing the entire bonus path. At any point while completing a bonus path, you are able to click the scroll in your hotbar and reset to the main path.
At the end of the course, the path will split into three endings: easy, medium, and hard. Whichever ending you complete will apply a multiplier to your team's score depending on which one you complete. The easy path adds 0.15x, medium adds 0.35x, and hard adds 0.8x. If you are attempting a more difficult ending, you can reset and try a different ending up until there are 30 seconds left in the game, when your scroll will be taken away. After the 10 minutes of the game end, there are 30 seconds of overtime in which you can still complete the game, but you will be down to your last life.
Coins are awarded based on the amount of medals you collect, multiplied by your team's total multiplier. Specific scoring can be found at noxcrew.com/mcc.
Strategy: The biggest piece of advice I have for Parkour Warrior is to know your own skill, and to time yourself well. There is a progress bar at the top of your screen that you can use to track your progress and see if you are on pace to finish. While the bonus paths are important and give good coins, the most important part is to finish. The multiplier you get from even the easy ending is huge for your temas score. If you are attempting a bonus path and you are really struggling, it is okay to reset and keep going down the main path. Make sure you leave enough time to finish your goal ending!
Vods: There are two perfect completions of parkour warrior, and viewing these will give you an idea of the type of obstacles you will face. Remember, these are perfect completions, and you are not necessarily expected to complete these as fast as they are. Just try your best, and work with your own skill level!
Purpled MCC 32 https://youtu.be/O4VVGnbqIsE?si=x14rtSl5BttQmSDK&t=6799
Fruitberries MCC 34 https://youtu.be/MaQN4zIteIU?si=LcD1jwm2cQ9iQvdh&t=5885
Bingo But Fast
Overview: Bingo But Fast is a team game where your goal is to obtain the various items or complete the challenges on your bingo card. Your team will need to explore the world, mine, kill, and craft for all your various items. Players spawn with a bingo card, an elytra, speed, saturation, a teleportation pearl that can be used to teleport to their teammates, and a full set of enchanted netherite tools.
Coins are awarded for each item you collect, with the amount of points awarded decreasing every time another team collects that same item. Teams are also given a bonus when they complete lines on their bingo card. Specific scoring can be found at noxcrew.com/mcc.
Strategy: Bingo is still a relatively new game, so there is no specific widespread strategy. However, I would recommend focusing on the easy-to-get-off spawn items first, as the sooner you get them, the more points they will be worth. And as always, make sure you are always communicating clearly with your team about what you need and what you have!
Vods: Smajor MCC 35 https://youtu.be/sFGXvEWeUr8?si=E0waL8BOEeY3G-lw&t=4696
PeteZahHutt MCC 34 https://youtu.be/00IqQWr3TVA?si=Umg0WAX0YCcUlnpx&t=2569

(What a fun title am I right?)
I’m pissed off with smartphones (the concept of, current market directions, existing software, form factor preferences etc) and every time I’ve had to get a new one, the thing I’ve said is “next time I’m making one”, and I guess it’s finally time.
For the last week or so, I’ve been looking into exactly how I’d make a phone, and I’ve sorted the basics. Khadas Edge V for form factor and power (but I need to check power draw), some sort of spdif dac attached to a breakout board from the gpio (phone is gonna be THICK), m.2 b key lte modem with 3 ipex antennae, the juice board for the Khadas edge + a lipo battery of reasonable size (might be limiting myself there, I’m debating seeing if i can reduce the size of a usb battery instead, as they have their own charging circuits, although I’d need to adapt or select for pass through). Probs just a micro sd for storage, and then I’ll 3D print myself a case (or resin print if I want it smooth) that will screw onto the back of the rest of the hardware.
Where I’m making things complicated is that I want a vertical sliding qwerty phone running Linux (Debian probs). Now, I can write my own apps just fine, plus there’s tons of existing ones. That’s easy enough. What I can’t do quite so easily is source all the components I need to make the shell work.
Now, I have 3 options, having done a bit of research:

1. make the entire thing myself. It’ll be a pain in the butt, but there are bb q10 keyboard breakout boards, plenty of generic mipi dsi displays, and you can buy tensioned slider mechanisms online (or cannibalise existing ones). It’ll be a lot of 3d printing and look maybe half as good as a Star Trek tos prop, but it’ll do the job, and I will finally be free of android/apple/bloatware bullshit.
   
2. Cannibalise a bb priv. I do have several options on vertical sliding qwerties, but afaik, the bb priv keyboard should work the same as a bb q10 (where the torch I imagine works more like a curve’s keyboard, and won’t be so clean on repurposing). Similarly, it’s not IMPOSSIBLE (purely in the literal sense) to write drivers for a mobile display. If I’m even lucky, some might already exist. I’m betting that they don’t, but you never know until you check (and I promise I have tried checking, but the bb subreddit seems peculiarly tight lipped).
   
3. Same as above, but find a touchscreen display that matches the non-curved dimensions of the glass screen cover, buy the oem screen cover, and glue it to that (+ paint on the bezels where I’m not using it from the inside). It’s not exactly the most elegant solution, and again, I haven’t been able to find the exact dimensions yet, but it may just work (of course, I might need to make risers to fit the frame if the screen is too thick, but that’s a 3D printer + superglue job, nothing I’m too frightened of)
   

So I guess what I’m here for is:

1. does anyone have literally any information beyond the Wikipedia for the blackberry priv (or even better, an old one with only the parts I need working that I can buy off you). Specifically regarding keyboard assembly, and display connections (or just screen measurements of the flat parts).
   
2. better recommendations on the sbc. I’m REEEELATIVELY sold on the edge V, but I’m really not that fussed. I do like that the ports are down one side though, because it really will make this phone a portable computer. I was considering a dart sd410 for its built in modem and low power + size, but obviously that’s more work on prototyping, and variscite haven’t gotten back to me on unit pricing yet (I suspect they may not be taking me seriously, which is as irritating as it is understandable)
   
3. Recommendations for specific parts. Like I don’t know loads about buying antennas, but I assume they are not all created equal?
   
4. any specialist equipment that’ll make my job easier? I’ve heard using oscilloscopes for signal probing on display connectors is one way to go about reverse engineering. I don’t exactly relish the process, but I can absolutely buy an oscilloscope and stick a probe near a wire no questions asked. Otherwise I think I have most things you’d need?
   

I am open to general recommendations and advice, but I’m not changing the core spec. So yes I’ll hear anyone out on “making your own chassis will genuinely be easier”. I’m even open to “this sounds absolutely daft, following for the trainwreck”. But ultimately, I want to make a vertical sliding qwerty phone that runs one linux distro or another, and I want to use a blackberry priv chassis to do it, so hitting me with the “buy an android and flash it” isn’t gonna cut the mustard. My issues with modern smartphones are just as much with hardware as with the software, and part of the aim with this project is deminiaturisation (to the point of easy modification while retaining handheld form factor, dw I’ve got big hands)
Also, the more oem parts a suggestion lets me keep, the better. I know it’s not a cheap project, and I know it won’t be easy either, but I do care about reuse, I don’t care about how long it takes me, and from a tech evangelism perspective, I get the feeling that the more it looks like a phone, and the less it looks obviously like a stack of pcbs in a plastic box, the more reactions will veer towards curiosity rather than incredulity. Like the phone is for me, but I’m not above trying to convert people to my daftness.

The Vines came almost all at once, on a warm otherwise unremarkable summer night twelve years ago. Teddy didn’t remember their coming. He was only fourteen now, which meant he was two when they came. Actually, it wasn’t exactly accurate to say he didn’t remember their coming.
There were the dreams.
In the dreams he’d be asleep, peaceful in his bed, when suddenly, with the rending sound of a thousand angry zippers the snakes would punch through the walls, yellow eyes flashing, their mouths open wide and hissing, long saber-like fangs spitting luminous green venom. They would spill into the room like waterfalls and begin to coil around him in his bed. Tighter and tighter until breathing became an impossibility and the hissing crowded out even his own panicked thoughts and the world beyond his eyes began to grow dark.
He didn’t always wake up screaming from these dreams, but he did so often enough that his parents worried about it. He could hear them talking about it in low whispers sometimes when they didn’t think he could hear them. Sound carried well in this house. But that tended to happen in structures where the walls didn’t always line up, floors sometimes leaned crazily in every direction, doors had long ago been pulled permanently free of their frames, and windows were smashed and lying on the ground in twinkling shards of glass.
The vines had done all that.
Teddy lay in his bed in the eternal twilight of Vine World, which was what everyone called ground level these days. He knew that if he looked at the wind-up clock on his nightstand he would see that it was eight o’clock in the morning, give or take fifteen minutes. His brain knew what time it was, even if there wasn’t enough sunlight down here to confirm what his brain already seemed to know.
“It’s your Shark-Alien rhythms” his Dad had once explained. Whatever that was. Teddy made a mental note to look up “Shark-Alien” on his next trip to the library, though what sharks and aliens might have to do with waking up with the sunlight, he couldn’t possibly fathom.
The “ceiling” of his bedroom was a vine. Twenty feet in diameter Teddy guessed, big for sure, but not even close to the biggest vine Teddy had ever seen. The vine’s underside bowed freakishly down into his room. On the right side of the ceiling it coiled away and upward towards the sky. On the left it traveled back through the wall it had smashed twelve years ago and down into the ground. Teddy’s Dad had nailed some boards in around the places where the vine touched the walls in an attempt to weather-proof the room, but the vines were alive. They moved constantly, breathed almost, even if it was only barely perceptible, and the seals rarely held for very long. This morning, humidity poured through the gaps between the vine and the walls and a thin sheen of sweat broke out on Teddy’s forehead and in his arm pits.
Mostly the weather stayed on the right side of the “wall”, but not always. It got particularly bad in August, which was Hurricane season here in South Louisiana. But those only hit once or twice a year, and only that often in the really bad years. When they did he would simply move in with his parents, or his brother Bob, for a couple days until the angry wind blew itself out somewhere over Arkansas or Mississippi.
Teddy stared thoughtfully up at the vine. He wasn’t sure exactly what you were supposed to call the skin of the vines… bark he supposed. The bark was scaly, like a snake or a fish, each scale the size of a frisbee and shaped like the business end of a spade. The scales were generally brown, but there was a soft iridescence to them and a subtle shifting pattern of colors constantly rippled across the bark? Scales? Skin?
“Whatever”, Teddy mumbled as he pulled himself up to a sitting position.
It was the thorns you really had to look out for. Teddy was lucky though, there were only two thorns on the vine that had been his bedroom ceiling since just before his second birthday, a day he remembered only in his dreams.
The thorns were not conical like those on the ragged patches of blackberry bush that still somehow managed to thrive in the backyard places where occasional columns of sunlight fought their way down through the alien canopy. No, these thorns were more like the arrowheads his Dad had taught him to hunt with, though much larger. They were shaped like pyramids, with a point sharp enough to stab through wood and four symmetrical ridges so hard and razor sharp they could put a score on a piece of glass.
There was poison in them too. They’d found that out the hard way, hadn’t they? But the less said about that, the better, Teddy thought.
He could hear the house coming alive below him, now. A wood fire crackled in the cast iron stove his Dad had salvaged from… somewhere, and Teddy could smell the faint odor of the smoke working its way up to his nose through the many gaps in the crazy vine-altered structure of their house. Firewood was not a problem in Vine World. The trees that hadn’t been violently uprooted by the sudden appearance of the vines had long since been choked off by the canopy on top and the strangling alien roots below. As a result, there were thousands of dead trees laying in and amongst the vines, quietly seasoning themselves for the cooking fires of Teddy’s future.
Teddy’s short brown Cajun hair sat bolt upright on top of his head. In a simpler time, a time before the vines, his first order of business in the morning might have been a shower. But fresh water was much harder to come by now that you couldn’t get an unlimited supply simply by spinning a tap. His Dad had built rainwater catchment in all the places where the vines funneled water reliably down to ground level. But while rainfall remained as unpredictable as ever, the human need for fresh water did not. And so what fresh water they did have was reserved mainly for drinking and cooking.
He walked through his bedroom “door” which was more like a concept of a door than an actual one. The door frame leaned crazily to one side like something out of the Esher paintings that hung on the walls of the Library in town. He walked out into the hall and scrabbled down the floor which fell away from his room at a loopy downward angle before hitting a bottom of sorts, and then curving back up towards the stairs that would take him down to the bottom floor.
Teddy looked up and saw that Bob was just pulling himself up the last three feet of the incline and onto the landing at the top of the stairs. Always “Bob”, never “Bobby”. His parents had tried “Bobby” for a while but from the very moment Bob had learned to speak he’d begun to correct them. “Is Bobby a good boy?” they’d ask, and little Bob’s face would scrunch down into an expression of deep thought and consternation and he would bellow “—OB!”
And so Bob he had become, and Bob he would forever be.
He was six now and he turned to see his older brother negotiating the crazy rolling hills of their upstairs hallway and smiled. “HI TEDDY!” Bob almost always shouted everything. It was kind of his thing. But he loved his brother, and Teddy loved him right back.
“Hey Bob”, Teddy said as he lost his grip on the hard wood floor and slid back a couple feet. It occurred to him that it probably wasn’t very safe for a six-year-old boy to climb around on a crazy structure like this, but then again almost everything in Vine World was dangerous. You had to pick your battles.
“RACE YA!”, Bob shouted and took off down the stairs, which had somehow remained improbably intact. In addition to the shouting thing, Bob was always “racin’ ya!” everywhere.
Laughing and hip checking each other in a good-natured way, Teddy and Bob bounded down the stairs, their footsteps pounding a syncopated rhythm on the old wood of the staircase. As they neared the bottom they could hear Mom in the kitchen shouting “Hey, hey, HEY! Come on guys, slow it down!” She was worried about thorns, of course, they were everywhere. But after twelve years, six for Bob, the brothers knew exactly where they all were. As they ran, they ducked, bobbed, and weaved like running backs in a sport they would never watch or play, one that had died a quick and violent death on that awful day twelve years ago, like so many other things.
The boys skidded to a stop on the old linoleum floor of the kitchen, still giggling and elbowing each other in the ribs. A vine the width of an elephant’s trunk stood in the very center of the kitchen. It had erupted up through the floor like a demonic volcano and now occupied the room like a support strut holding up the ceiling. It was covered with razor sharp thorns, and Mom and Dad had done the best they could to wrap the lowest and most dangerous of them in old towels, ragged bits of clothing, and a few salvaged traffic cones so that there would not be a repeat of the “accident” that had killed Carthage.
Carthage had been the family dog. He was sweet and friendly and a mutt. “like God threw a beagle, a terrier, and a chihuahua in a barrel and rolled it down a hill”, Dad had often said. Carthage had been a great dog, but a hyper one. It was in his genes. And aren’t we all, ultimately, doomed by our own genetics?
It was his hyperactivity that had killed him.
Carthage was a jumper. All you had to do was look in his direction and even before his name had a chance to fall off your tongue he was up on his hind legs and jumping straight up in the air. Sproing, sproing, sometimes he’d clear three feet straight up, his little head wiggling back-and-forth at the apex of his leap like he was trying to squeeze an extra few inches out of it.
They’d been in the yard when it happened. If they’d been in the house there was a decent chance, Teddy thought, that Carthage might have remembered about the thorns and not jumped so enthusiastically. But they hadn’t been in the house, and Carthage had put everything he had into that final leap.
The thorn caught him just behind his right shoulder and Carthage yelped in surprise and pain, immediately thrusting his tail between his legs and cowering at Teddy’s feet, whimpering with fear and unanswerable questions.
Dad had come running at the sound of Carthage’s distress and at first the injury hadn’t seemed that bad… well not that bad for a severe puncture wound anyway. The thorn had slid into the dog’s flesh like a hot blade through soft butter. But it was not deep, and barring infection it certainly did not seem life-threatening. But something about the drop of green liquid that hung from the tip of the thorn like thick luminous dew had made Teddy’s skin crawl. And within an hour it was clear that Carthage was a very sick doggie.
He’d lasted the night, curled in Teddy’s lap, whimpering and looking up at his boy with big watery eyes that were full of confusion, pain and fear. And little Teddy had cried right along with him, not able to do anything for his dog except to be there for him. To let him know that if nothing else, he was loved. To bear witness.
Carthage’s end had come before the real end, and that, at least, had been a mercy.
There had been a few final labored breaths and Carthage’s nose, which had been resting on Teddy’s leg, rapidly moving up and down with his ragged breathing, suddenly began to weigh down on Teddy with the weight of something no longer in control of its muscles. And then a final breath came out as a whimper, and Teddy knew Carthage was gone.
But that wasn’t the end. Oh no, it wasn’t the end at all.
Teddy had been holding Carthage in a towel and that had probably saved his life. Carthage’s skin had begun to ripple and undulate like his body had filled up with giant hungry maggots. Despite his love for the dog that had been his only pet, Teddy pushed the corpse off his lap with revulsion just as the dog began to literally dissolve in front of his eyes. Here and there, Carthage’s skin burst open with steaming jets of glowing green goop. The skin melted away revealing the jagged curvature of the animal’s ribcage and then even the ribs began to run in gloopy white rivulets. Teddy had just enough time to think “those were his bones” and then, finally, nothing at all remained of the dog except for a putrid greyish-green puddle of bubbling slime slowly eating its corrosive way into the Earth.
And Teddy’s tears, of course.
It was hard, even now, for Teddy to see a thorn and not flash back to that difficult day. To the awful danger of the thorns.
The towels his parents had tried to wrap them in didn’t really offer much in the way of protection, either. The thorns were simply too sharp. If you were to forget yourself and stumble into one, it wouldn’t take much pressure for the tip to stab straight through like the pike thrust of an angry Spartan Hoplite. And from there, a slowly gurgling puddle of alien slime would be your ultimate destination.
You stepped carefully in Vine World. Very carefully.
But the wrappings did serve as a reminder of what was there. The incongruous pastel colors of the towels and the neon orange of the cones caught your eye and alerted you to the danger in a way that simply trusting yourself to notice the same damned thorns in the same damned places day-after-day could not.
Towels had not been their first idea, nor even their second. The towels were more of a last resort. Dad’s first idea, coming right on the heels of Carthage’s untimely and unlovely death, was to saw the damned things right off.
“Come with me”, he’d said to Teddy, who was only eight at the time. And Teddy had gone. Dad had been a contractor before the vines came and his workshop, really just a shed filled with his tools, had survived the coming of the vines mostly intact. Pulled along towards the shed by his father’s rough hand, they walked into the shop together and Dad pulled a two-foot wood saw off the wall.
They’d walked back to the offending vine with its offending thorn still dripping poison in an obscene parody of Teddy’s tears and Dad had lain the saw on the thorn at its base. With a roar of anger, he’d pulled the teeth of the blade across the thorn. Teddy heard a sound like a rifle being fired on full automatic as each of the metal teeth snapped off clean at the edge of the blade. Dad threw the ruined saw on the ground and stomped angrily back to the shed, shaking his head and cursing under his breath… something about “those Christing thorns!” Teddy thought. He’d come back with a fifteen-pound sledge and was swinging it before he even stopped walking. The head of the sledge came down perfectly on the sharpened tip of the thorn and…
PING!!!!
The sound of two heavy metal pipes being smacked together reverberated between the living canyon walls created by the vines, and the sledge bounced off the thorn like a kid jumping on a trampoline. The momentum of the bouncing sledge knocked Dad right on his ass. He pulled himself up off the soft ground and walked over to the thorn. He leaned toward it until his nose was almost touching its smooth surface, almost like he was trying to see it at the molecular level.
“Didn’t even dent the goddamned thing…”, he’d said angrily. And that had been their last attempt to destroy a thorn.
Mom pointed at Bob, “you, sit at the table, I’ll have your breakfast ready in a minute.” Bob happily ran off towards the kitchen table, his hands swinging back and forth above his head. Teddy thought the kid looked like a crazed chimpanzee when he ran.
Bob pulled himself up onto the bench seat at the kitchen table and Mom pointed at Teddy, “And you, put your gear on, I need some veggies from the garden.” She tried to sound like a drill instructor, but there was a nervousness on her face that gave the game away. For his part, Teddy hid his excitement as best he could. He didn’t want his parents to know how much he loved going to the garden. You weren’t supposed to enjoy climbing the vines.
You were supposed to fear it.
Teddy headed back to the “gettin’ ready room”, as in, “we’re gettin’ ready to go outside.” It was a room just off the back porch, the only room in the house where there were no thorns. The one totally safe room in the house. You could do The Macarena in here if the mood caught you right.
On the dozens of hooks Dad had installed on the walls hung gear that he’d scavenged from a demolished sporting goods store on the other side of town. Teddy shrugged into a suit of armor made of mis-matched gear from a half-dozen sports he would never get a chance to play. Football shoulder pads, a baseball catcher’s chest plate and leg guards, thick hockey gloves and a helmet. None of this would stop a serious thrust from a thorn of course, but it would protect against most everything this side of a glancing blow.
Looking like a rejected extra from a Mad Max movie (they had DVDs in the Library too) he pushed the screen door open past shrieking rusted hinges. Mom heard the door opening, hell the whole world could hear this door when it opened, Teddy thought.
“Watch out for the vents!” she yelled from a room away.
Teddy’s shoulders slumped and he sighed with obvious frustration. “Watch out for the vents” was the unofficial motto of Vine World. People said it to each other the way they might have said “have a nice day” or “Merry Christmas!” before the vines came. But Vine World left no room for such trivialities. There was too much danger, too much fear, and too much at stake.
“The goddamned vents…” Teddy said to himself. He tried not to curse in front of his parents, but sometimes, well… sometimes the right word was the right word. “Le mot juste!” he said, much louder than when he’d cursed. And in some weird way, he thought his parents might have been even more surprised to hear him say that than they would have been if they’d heard him say “goddamned.” But when your kid spent every waking hour in a library, that was the kind of thing your kid was apt to say.
Teddy stepped out into what had once been their back yard.
If you could forget about the danger for one moment, it was almost beautiful.
Above his head the vines twisted and coiled around one another in a vast Gordian Knot of alien bark and thorns. Iridescent color shimmered along their lengths and what ground cover had survived the sudden plunge into darkness all those years ago reflected the light as if the aurora borealis blazed overhead. Here in the eternal twilight of Vine World, lightning bugs didn’t know what time it was either, and their belly lights twinkled and shone in the darker corners of what was a living organic cathedral.
From the safety of the back door the scene looked like a magical glade from a Tolkien novel. If a Hobbit, a Dwarf, and an Elvin Archer suddenly appeared walking behind a grey-haired old wizard lighting their way with a magic wooden staff, Teddy thought he wouldn’t bat an eye. “Might not even be the strangest thing out here today”, he thought to himself, and smiled.
Across the glade, an asterisk drawn in bright orange spray paint beckoned. Teddy scanned the yard, looking for vents mostly, but also for the… Things… that came out of them. There were none, and that was something, at least.
He glanced back at the wall of the “gettin’ ready room” and saw his own compound bow hanging next to an empty space where a larger bow should have been. “Dad must already be out hunting”, he thought. Teddy grimaced. “Anything but a Scorch, Dad” he muttered under his breath. He was getting pretty tired of eating Scorch.
Welp, there was always the vegetable garden.
He made his way slowly across the… Teddy continued to think of it as The Glade, even though twelve years ago nobody would have ever thought to call it anything other than somebody’s plain ole backyard. He moved slowly because things could change in a catastrophic instant in Vine World, and things that changed here almost never changed in your favor.
His head spun as if on a swivel and he walked in a strange crouch, ready to run at a moment’s notice in whatever direction might lead to safety. Twenty steps, then thirty, then fifty…. He counted as he went knowing that it was exactly sixty-seven steps to the orange asterisk. Somewhere behind him, he knew his Mom was trying to keep one eye on him as she took care of Bob and got the house ready to face the day. He could feel her worry across the space between them but there was nothing she could do except hold her breath and hope for the best. Vine World was about surviving one day at a time and everyone had to do their part.
The vines had forced Teddy to grow up fast.
“Four thousand, three hundred eighty days…” he said out loud. That was how many days they had survived by taking survival one day at a time. You never thought about tomorrow or next week in Vine World. That kind of optimism could get you killed. The distant terrified shrieks that sometimes carried to Teddy’s ears when the wind was blowing just right in the darkest most silent graveyard moments of the night were an awful reminder of that fundamental fact of their existence.
Teddy reached the asterisk and put a sweaty palm on it (tag, you’re it!). Above him a dozen pieces of two-by-four marked the upward trajectory of a large vine in three-foot intervals. In another time, there might have been a treehouse at the top of those two-by-fours, a sign out front boldly proclaiming, “no girls allowed!!!!” But not here. Not in Vine World.
The ladder steps went up about thirty feet and then disappeared into the tangled canopy overhead. He began to climb.
A minute later he had reached the underside of the canopy and paused to take a deep centering breath. It only got hairier from here. He pulled himself up into the disorienting alien tangle and below him the Glade disappeared from view, lost in waves of shimmering brown scales.
Somewhere below, their visual connection broken, Teddy’s mom stifled a worried sob and tried to focus on Bob.
A few seconds later and Teddy was standing on a broad flat expanse of vine. Here and there thorns gleamed malevolently in the gloom. Dad had helpfully circled each one in orange paint, not that Teddy needed a warning to steer clear. He looked up and saw the route winding its way up through the tangles, marked with more fluorescent orange paint. Courageous beams of sunlight stabbed down through the canopy here and there and it almost seemed to Teddy that the vines shied away from them, like they were more comfortable in the gloom. In the dark. Where the monsters roamed free and ate their fill.
Teddy had no idea exactly how high the vines went. He’d asked his Dad once and he’d said “dunno Kid, more than a hundred feet, less than five?” It was six hundred thirty-seven steps to the top of the canopy, Teddy knew that much, but the twisting path his Dad had marked meandered all over and around the complex tangle of vines. Sometimes you even had to go down a ways before you could go back up again. Teddy guessed it was about two hundred and fifty feet from the top of the vines to the ground.
Teddy was relatively safe up here. The things that came from the vents couldn’t get at him up here. “As far as you know” he reminded himself. Every now and then something new did come out of the vents, and it would be dangerous to assume that the vents would never vomit out a creature that could pursue him into the canopy. A shiver worked its way down his spine despite the heat of the day.
Ten minutes later he had almost made it to the top and he quietly thanked his Dad for the orange trail markings. It had taken almost a year for his Dad to find, map, and mark this route, and even though he’d climbed it hundreds of times, Teddy knew that without the markings he would soon be hopelessly lost up here. And if you got lost in Vine World, the best you could hope for was that you’d die of starvation or thirst before the Things got you.
It was much brighter now. What had been tiny little beams of sunlight down on the ground had become great gushing waterfalls of gleaming warmth up here. Teddy followed one last looping path around a super vine, this one easily fifty feet across, and saw the final stretch of orange painted ladder steps at the end of a short, narrow tunnel.
Teddy laid on his back and began to push himself along this horribly claustrophobic space where a dozen smaller vines coiled tightly around one another. It was so narrow that if there were even a single thorn in this space it would be impassible. As he crawled, he thought of his dream… and the snakes. Were the vines sentient? Might they one day wake up, realize that a boy was crawling through this passageway and suddenly clench themselves into a crushing final embrace?
In the shadows, Teddy shivered uncontrollably.
A few more yards and Teddy pulled himself into the last chamber at the base of the final ladder. His face was bathed in pure white sunlight that forced him to close his eyes so tightly it hurt. Brilliant sun spots danced on the blood red insides of his eyelids and the complex networks of his capillaries stood out in stark relief.
Doc Hebert, the town doctor by virtue of the fact that he was the only doctor to have survived the coming of the vines, had once told Teddy that he guessed Human eyesight would adapt completely to the gloom of Vine World eventually, and that within a thousand years or so, it might be impossible for Humans to venture out in direct sunlight at all.
Teddy thought that sounded like a damned shame and he laid here a minute longer, letting the sun warm his face for a while in honor of his sun-blind descendants, whom he would never meet and who might never get this chance.
But there was a job to do. He opened his eyes to the sunlight again, pulled himself to his feet, and climbed the last few feet to the roof of Vine World.
He rose up out of the gap in the vines like a submarine Captain climbing out onto the conning tower of his ship and looked around. The view never ceased to overwhelm him. All around, in every direction of the compass, was the terrible evidence of what had happened that day.
Vines. Vines by the millions, by the tens of millions… blended and woven as if they’d burst forth from the loom of the fates. They covered, buried, choked off everything he had ever known. If he squinted, it almost looked like a vast shag carpet of brown and green stretching in rolling hills and valleys to the horizon. Up close, you couldn’t see an individual vine move, or breathe, or whatever it was that they did, but across the miles and miles, the subtle combined movement of all the vines together made this alien roof ripple with motion.
A thick mountain of vines rose, alarmingly, to the north. Dad said he figured that must be Baton Rouge, since there were no actual mountains here in the flat Earth of Louisiana.
The idea that this “mountain” might have once been the second largest city in the state was, well, thought-provoking. It suggested that the vines grew as high as they needed to in order to overwhelm whatever might be in their way. Like the Kudzu that had once threatened to choke off all the vegetation in the American South before the Vines had provided the final say in the matter.
Did the Eiffel Tower itself lie dead and rotting underneath a city-sized pile of vines like Tiger Stadium just a couple hundred miles to the north? What about The Freedom Tower in New York? The Burj Khalifa? The London Pickle? The Taj Mahal? the Pyramids of Giza?
Teddy didn’t believe that. Couldn’t believe it.
He just couldn’t believe that everything that had ever been, everyone that ever was, all that had ever been known, could really be buried under the vines. He thought that the day he did start to believe that, would be the day he gave up and let the vines have him.
Up here, the vines sprouted leaves. Massive, lime green and waxy, they were big enough that a married couple could use one as a blanket if they were brave enough to try. As far as anyone knew, the leaves were not dangerous by themselves. But the way Teddy looked at it, you couldn’t be too careful when it came to the vines. The leaves hung like massive organic solar panels, collecting the sun here on the roof and delivering its energy to the real bulk of the vines deep down in the darkness below Teddy’s feet.
Spread out before him were a dozen raised garden beds made of salvaged four-by-fours, anchored into the woody scales of the vines and bristling with summer vegetables.
“Vict’ry Gardens” his Dad called them.
“Victory over what, Dad?” Teddy had asked him once.
“Over starvin’ to death, Bub”, had been the reply, and they’d both laughed so hard their bellies hurt, even though there really wasn’t anything funny about it at all.
It had been hell getting all the wood and dirt up here, but Doc Hebert had told Teddy he thought the “Vic’try Garden” idea, which had been his Dad’s, had probably saved the town. Once Teddy’s Dad had proven the concept, other gardens had begun to spring up all over the “roof”, and Teddy could see other townsfolk tending to their own gardens in the distance. He waved to a distant figure he thought was probably Mrs. Hebert, it was hard to tell this far away, and she waved back. He tried to judge the distance and guessed it at about two hundred yards. “Length a two football fields, Bub”, his Dad might have said, even though Teddy had never seen a football field and probably never would. There was one in town, about two miles east of here at the city high school. But like everything else it was buried under the choking mass of the vines. The goalposts, once shining and white on Friday nights, now forever twisted and rusting in the dark.
Teddy wandered between the rows picking tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers and pushing them into the carry bag at his hip. He loved it up here. Despite the alien view, you could almost feel normal with the sun on your face and a warm gulf breeze tossing your hair around.
Was the Gulf of Mexico still there? Or was it just a memory, buried under the vines like everything else? He didn’t know, and in any case, it didn’t matter. Any place you couldn’t walk to in the hours between dawn and dusk might as well be on the moon.
Which reminded him. He checked the watch on his wrist. He knew it was still early in the morning, but he checked anyway, out of habit. You always needed to be aware of the time in Vine World. You could run into a… Thing, at any time of course, but at night… that was when they hunted.
His carry bag was full now and so he looked once more into the sun, letting it toast his face one last time. He closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself for the long walk down to the ground and the short dangerous sprint across the glade and back into the house. The summer sun was still hot, but Teddy knew that in a few weeks they’d be up here planting the fall vegetables… pumpkins and squash mostly. Over the years, a brisk trade in heirloom seeds had sprung up alongside the damaged church that had been turned into something of a Town Hall by what remained of their little community.
It's always easier to go down than to go up and Teddy got back to the final stretch of ladder steps almost before he realized it. He looked down through the hole in the canopy, down on the warm lights of his house so close and yet so far away. And again, he had that sense that he was looking in on an Elvish Glade. The way the vines had incorporated the house into their infrastructure, the lighting bugs flitting here and there like fairies, the preternatural silence, it was as if this house existed on the outskirts of Rivendell, rather than Southern Louisiana.
He climbed slowly down the last stretch of steps. His suit of armor felt heavy and cloying now that he was so close to safety, and he just wanted it off. His right foot touched the mossy ground and a sound like Armageddon drove a bolt of ice into his spine and nearly stopped his heart. A terrible ripping sound, like the skin was being torn off the world.
He turned slowly… very… slowly and saw it. A jagged crack had appeared on the ground halfway between himself and the house. It started as a single point and slowly grew, right to left, until it was nearly four feet long. The ripping became an ear popping whoosh and the crack broke open like a lanced boil, spilling a sickly green light into the glade.
A Vent. A goddamned vent.
For one crazy moment he thought about running for it, leaping over the vent and through that poisonous light like a horse leaping over a hedge in an equestrian event. His legs actually tensed up, ready to begin pumping themselves across the space between himself and the vent. And then he froze, all thoughts of a heroic escape suddenly and irrevocably banished from his mind.
Because now there was something in the light. Movement. A shadow. Something was coming out of the vent. Teddy leaned back against the vine and waited to see if he would die immediately, or if the vines would decide to give him a fighting chance today.
What came out of the vent was a nightmare mash-up of a scorpion, a lobster, and a spider roughly the size of a large pit bull. Its dinner plate-sized claws clicked together curiously as if searching the air for something to cleave in two. The six legs behind the claws were much longer than a scorpion’s legs, more like a spider’s legs, long, spindly, arching, and multi-segmented. Each leg ended in a needle-sharp point that dug into the soft earth as the Thing struggled to pull itself free of whatever Hell had spawned it.
It was a Scorch.
Plenty lethal of course, but there were much worse Things lurking in the depths of the Vents, and he’d dealt with Scorches before. There was still a pretty good chance he’d die right here at the base of this vine, but with a Scorch there were always… possibilities.
Sixty-Seven Teddy steps away, his Mom stood in the open back door, both hands over her mouth which was open in a terrified “Oh.” There was nothing she could do to help her son now, and she knew it. Whatever was going to happen in the next thirty seconds would happen whether she intervened or not.
Bob stood behind her, peering out between her legs. “WATCH OUT BRUDDER!”, he shouted, and Teddy almost rolled his eyes. “Yeah no kidding, Bob”, he thought uselessly.
The Scorch’s claws were moving ceaselessly, and their SNAP SNAP caused Teddy to flinch each time they closed on one another. But it was the stinger that commanded his attention. It was like a dagger at the end of a long retractable tail and it too moved this way and that, looking for something fleshy to plunge its length into. But Teddy knew that the stinger itself, and the poison it contained, were not the worst part of what that tail could do. At the base of the stinger would be two small holes…
POP POP… the sound of twin firecrackers and Teddy thought “here it comes!”
From those two holes jetted two completely different but complimentary chemicals. And as they mixed in the air they ignited a three-foot jet of blue flame, and any newcomer to Vine World would have known instantly how the Scorch got its name.
Teddy remained rooted to the spot just in front of the orange asterisk his Dad had painted, frozen in place. The Scorch’s alien red eyes, seated on top of long stalks that could rotate in three hundred sixty degrees searched for him, but Scorches couldn’t see very well, and as long as he stood perfectly still, there was a good chance it wouldn’t see him.
But just then a breeze rustled the hair at the back of his head and Teddy knew that he had a bigger problem. The breeze was blowing his scent directly at the Scorch, and a Scorch could target you by your smell as easily as a hunter with a rifle and a scope.
And sure enough, after only a few seconds, the time it would have taken the breeze to travel from Teddy to the Scorch, it suddenly spun on him. Teddy had been spotted.
The Scorch came at him.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl, seconds drawing out into hours, as every weapon in the creature’s considerable arsenal pointed right at Teddy’s most vulnerable spots. Its arachnid legs were a blur. The stinger came up and coiled back like a compressed spring, ready to strike. The claws opened wide and Teddy knew that whatever part of his body they targeted would soon be lying on the ground, detached and spilling great gouts of blood.
He put his arms up in front of his face. Maybe the hockey gloves would hold against the blade-like claws… maybe the umpire’s chest plate would deflect the stinger.
Maybe…
Maybe.
Across the glade his Mom screamed and for a moment it was the only sound in Teddy’s ears, except for the rushing sound of his own terrified blood. And then another sound cut off his Mom’s scream.
THWIP!!!
Followed by a shriek from the Scorch that was so brain-piercingly awful it was almost a weapon unto itself.
Teddy opened one tentative eye and saw a long shaft sticking out of what passed for a head on a Scorch. Both stalked eyes were bending inward, eyes rolling madly in their alien sockets, desperately trying to see what was causing it so much pain.
It was an arrow.
And now the high-pitched keening of the Scorch was joined by the THUMP THUMP THUMP of footsteps running towards the glade, and Teddy looked up and saw his Dad leaping over a low hanging vine, one hand reaching into the quiver on his back as he did. Without breaking stride, Dad nocked the arrow, drew back the string, and fired a second time.
This time the arrow thumped straight into the Thing’s cerebral cortex, or whatever it was that Scorches had rattling around in their skulls. The arrow had the desired effect. The Scorch dropped flat with a meaty thud. Dead before it hit the ground, its lights turned off as if by a switch.
Breathing heavily, Dad looked at his son, lost under a pile of second-hand sports equipment.
“You OK, Bub?”
Teddy looked back at him. “I guess it’s Scorch for dinner after all.”

(As always, flyers are out Wednesdays, most store sales for the new flyer start on Thursdays)
Adonis

• Beef eye of round - $6.99 per lb -- Not the best, but consistently available.
• Royal Sea Bream - $6.88 per lb -- With free cleaning!
• Whole black tilapia - $3.99 per lb -- With free cleaning!
• Shrimp (raw, white, Blue Tide) - $4.99 340g pack -- These 51-60 grade, so tiny. Not good for skewers, but good for pastas, gumbos, etc.
• Eggs (Burnbrae) - $4.77 18-pack -- Excellent price for eggs, works out to 26.5c each.
• Vine tomatoes - $1.49 per lb -- Nice price for vine tomatoes. A relief from higher $2/lb+ averages.
• Blueberries - $2.97 340g -- Nice! Usually a half-pint will run over $2.
• Oranges - $0.99 per lb -- Good rate on standard fruit. Sometimes you can catch these oranges for less, but not often.
• Bocconcini (Tre Stelle) - $3.99 200g tub -- Great price for nice cheese.
• Ricotta (Tre Stelle) - $3.99 475g tub -- Great price for nice cheese.
• Deli - Prosciutto (San Daniele) - $1.99 per 100g -- WOW! That's cheap for prosciutto.
• Deli - Mortadella (San Daniele) - $1.49 per 100g -- WOW! Awesome deal for nice mortadella!
• Deli - Montreal-style smoked meat (Solmaz) - $1.99 per 100g -- Fantastic price for smoked meat. Very nice!
• Deli - Beef bologna (Alzahraa) - $1.29 per 100g -- Good cheap sandwich meat for lunches!
• Walnuts (shelled, Cedar) - $4.99 454g bag -- Good price for a lb of walnuts. Good for snacking or making into desserts (candied walnuts?).
• Canned tuna (Cedar) - $5.00 3* 170g cans -- Works out to 1.66 per can. Fair-ish rate on canned tuna. It's possible to find better.
• Honey (Aurora) - $9.99 1kg jar -- Good deal for honey. Sometimes these 1kg jars can be found for less, but it's rare.
• Produce Price Rating: Medium, but always has well-priced chicken, the deli meat sale rotations are always fantastic, and just the overall variety of goods is refreshing. Personal favourite store.

Farm Boy

• Cucumbers - $5.00 for 4 -- I assume you can buy them for 1.25 each, which is awesome. Cucumbers suffer some wild swings these days.
• Dried Sausage (various, Farm Boy, Rosette de Lyon) - $11.99 300g chub -- Buy one, get the next 50%. That would work out to $18. It's not great, but it's not terrible either. Works out to $3/100g, which isn't terrible for nice specialty dried sausage.
• Produce Price Rating: High

Farmers Pick (can be a little late on their flyer) (https://www.farmerspick.ca/flyer-specials)
Food Basics

• Beef striploin steak or roast - $5.98 per lb -- Probably AA grade. Pretty fair for beef. We sometimes see those dips into the $4/lb territory, but it's very cut dependent.
• Lamb leg (fresh, New Zealand) - $3.98 per lb -- Great price for lamb!! I should buy one of these and make a proper shepherd's pie.
• Atlantic salmon (fresh) - $8.88 per lb -- Awesome price for salmon! And it's Canadian-sourced. Nice!
• Bacon (Schneiders) - $3.99 375g pack -- Coupon deal, one per customer. Regular price is $8.
• Asparagus - $0.98 325g bunch -- Awesome price. Can float up to $3/lb.
• Cucumbers - $0.98 each -- Awesome! I love $1 cucumber!
• Mini cucumbers - $2.98 6-pack -- Interesting note: 5-6 minis is about a pound… And sometimes you can find them loose for cheaper…
• Vine tomatoes - $0.98 per lb -- Fantastic price for tomatoes. But, fair warning, they probably still have a 1000-mile salad bar quality.
• Onions, carrots - $1.98 2lb bag -- Average price for onions and carrots.
• Sweet potato - $1.28 per lb -- Average price for onions and carrots.
• Apples (various) - $2.98 3lb bag -- Works out to $1/lb, which is a good rate.
• Clementines - $2.98 2lb bag -- Good rate for clementines. Hard to find a better price than this.
• Pineapple - $2.98 each -- Not terrific, but not bad given some places charge $5-6.
• Brick cheese (Black Diamond) - $4.88 400g bar -- Good ol' $5 brick cheese!
• Brie (Monsier Gustav) - $7.99 325g wheel -- Nice price for nice cheese. Deal is also applies to their gouda.
• Kolbassa (Piller's) - $4.99 375g chub -- Nice! These are regularly $2-3 more.
• Salami (Mastro) - $6.49 300g chub -- Nice! These can float into $8-10 regular price. You only get a better deal if you got for the big 600g chubs.
• Nuts (various, Irrrestibles) - $2.98 200-250g bag -- Nice! Though, I bought some walnuts the other week and they were a little stale tasting and I couldn't bring myself to eat them before I gave up on them. So to the squirrels they went.
• Fresh baguette - $0.99 235g loaf -- Nice! I think you'd have to look at the RCSS at any regularly low-priced fresh baked baguette.
• Canned tomatoes (Primo) - $1.25 796ml can -- Excellent! This is a stock-up price!
• Dry pasta (Primo) - $1.48 900g pack -- Again, this is a stock-up price! Get a few bags! Tip: orecchiette makes for excellent mac and cheese.
• Rice (Noor, Arjun) - $7.99 3.63-4.54kg -- The Noor bag is the 10lb one. I wonder if there's a quality difference…
• Olive oil (Gallo) - $13.99 1L bottle -- Haha, not exactly a deal. But, such as it is for olive oil.
• Butter (Selection) - $5.99 454g bar -- Not bad. It's interesting though as they advertise this as "locked down". Hmm…
• Dish soap (Dawn) - $5.00 2x 431-473ml bottle -- Math time: 0.5L for 2.50, 1L for $5 ish. On sale, those bottles are on par with the Platinum 2.2L bottle for $12.
• Produce Price Rating: Low to medium low

FoodLand

• Beef top sirloin (AAA) - $9.99 per lb -- Not bad. There's obviously less fancy for less, but this is decent for AAA grade.
• Brick cheese (Armstrong) - $4.99 400g bar -- Good ol' $5 brick cheese!
• Frozen veg (Green Giant) - $2.67 400-750g -- Nice! Brand-name frozen veg for less than $3 a bag. I'm sure the 750g bags are for corn and peas, but still, it's a good price. Get some to keep in the freezer for soup and simple dinner sides,
• Produce Price Rating: Medium-high to high.

Freshco (price matcher)

• Beef eye of round (AA grade) - $3.99 per lb -- Excellent price! Limit of 2.
• Smoked ham (Pillars) - $9.99 800g toupie -- Pretty good. We've seen better, but we're in that $1-1.25/100g rangem, which is very acceptable.
• Dinner sausage (Compliments) - $12.00 1.4kg pack -- This basically $4/lb, which very acceptable for fresh sausage.
• Boneless turkey roast (frozen, Butterball) - $19.99 1.5kg -- Math time: goodness that's $6/lb. I mean, it's a meat-amalgam roast. But still, that's 2-3x the price of fresh turkey…
• Asparagus - $1.49 per lb -- Great deal!
• Brussel sprouts - $1.99 per lb -- Good price, often floats around $3/lb.
• Green beans - $2.49 per lb -- Good price, often floats around $3/lb.
• Celery - $2.49 per head -- I think this is common pricing for FreshCo. Nice to see.
• Coleslaw kit (Compliments) - $1.99 397g bag -- Great price for a big salad kid!
• Strawberries - $1.87 454g shell -- Nice! Good deal!
• Cantaloupe - $2.49 each -- Nice! We've only seen marginally cheaper.
• Brick cheese (Armstrong) - $4.99 400g bar -- Good ol' $5 brick cheese!
• Cream (Sealtest) - $1.99 473ml-1L -- Hmm, not bad. I have to start paying attention to cream prices…
• Bread (Rudolph) - $2.99 500g loaf -- Nice bread for a decent price. I think Costco sells the same bread, but in these combo bags, and they work out to 2.50 a loaf, I think… It's been a while since I've been, however.
• Espresso beans (Lavazza) - $16.99 1kg bag -- Not terrific. Reminds me of a fellow's mention of 1kg bags for $10 at Costco… Anyhow, I grind my own coffee every morning in a simple blitzer. Works out to 10c a cup, or 20c to fill a big mug.
• Produce Price Rating: Low to medium low (more on the medium side)

Giant Tiger (*note the VIP prices; sales begin today) (price matcher)

• Smoked ham (Gold Label) - $9.97 1.5kg toupie -- HOLY WOW COW! That's CHEAP for smoked ham!!!
• Shrimp (Aqua Star) - $5.97 340g bag -- Good price. Not like the Adonis deal, but good still.
• Bacon (Carver's Choice) - $2.77 375g pack -- Excellent price for bacon!
• Carrots - $1.87 2lb bag -- Fair price for carrots.
• Cauliflower - $2.88 each -- Awesome!
• Potatoes (Russet) - $2.97 5lb bag -- GT Member Price. Only buy at the member price.
• Pineapple - $1.87 each -- Excellent price! Get ehse!
• Lemons - $2.88 2lb bag -- Great price for lemons!
• Apples (Royal Gala) - $3.88 3lb bag -- Not bad. Above that $1/lb mark, but not by much.
• Boursin cheese - $4.44 150g pack -- GT Member Price. Sometimes on for $4 in other places. This is still a good deal at the member price.
• Kolbassa (Brandt) - $4.97 250g chub -- Not bad. I prefer the Basics deal…
• Canned tomatoes (Primo) - $3.00 for 2x 796ml can -- Great price! If you plan to stock up, note that Food Basics has them for 25c less each.
• Produce Price Rating: Generally on the low side.

Green Fresh Supermarket (Vanier) (check https://greenfreshsupermarketvanier.business.site/) (full flyers available here https://bbs.comefromchina.com/members/102157/#latest-activity) * Produce Price Rating: Usually very competitive, catering to Asian cuisine. Warning: their newest sales start on Fridays - so this is a late advertising of their sales.
IGA (price matcher)

• Rasberries, Blackberries - $1.93 170g shells -- Scene Member Price. $1 more otherwise, which is no deal at all.
• Cantaloupe - $2.94 each -- Not bad. There's cheaper, but it's a whole melon for $3.
• Pineapple - $2.97 each -- Price is for whole or cored.
• Brick cheese (Armstrong) - $5.77 400g bar -- I prefer seeing these bars for less, but it's Cracker Barrel, so it makes enough sense.
• Cheese and pâté deal - $15.00 for 3 -- The deal is a little loose. Be sure to check the flyer and verify at the check-out.
• Boursin cheese - $3.99 150g pack -- Scene Member Price. $6 regular.
• Butter (Compliments) - $4.99 454g bar -- Nice! $5 butter!
• Produce Price Rating: Medium

Independent

• Turkey (Fresh, Grade A) - $2.49 per lb -- Not bad, but not great. At least it's a clear per lb price.
• Smoked ham (Sugardale) - $2.49 per lb -- If you're not up for a bird, hassleback a ham and slow-bake it with a nice glaze!
• Beef grilling steak (AA) - $7.88 per lb -- Worth checking out if you're in the mood for steak.
• Atlantic Salmon, Haddock, and Cod - $9.99 per lb -- Nice variety of fresh fish at a stable and standard price.
• Eggs (Burnbrae) - $5.49 18-pack -- Nice! Basically brings a midrange quality eggs into the lower-end 30c bracket.
• Asparagus - $2.49 per lb -- Not great, but not bad either.
• Brussel sprouts - $2.49 per lb -- Good price for sprouts!
• Strawberries - $2.99 454g shell -- Not bad. We've seen better, but it might be nice to snag some if they look nice.
• Brick cheese (Black Diamond) - $4.88 400g bar -- Good ol' $5 brick cheese!
• Canned soup (No Name) - $0.50 284ml can -- Hey now, that's actually really dcecent!
• Perogies (frozen, Cheemo) - $2.00 815-907g pack -- Great deal on perogies!
• Produce Price Rating: fairly high with few exceptions

Loblaws

• Turkey (Fresh, Grade A) - $2.49 per lb -- Not bad, but not great. At least it's a clear per lb price.
• Smoked ham (Sugardale) - $2.49 per lb -- If you're not up for a bird, hassleback a ham and slow-bake it with a nice glaze!
• Beef prime rib roast (AA) - $7.88 per lb -- Not higher grade, but slow-roasted and treated well, this could be a nice dinner in the waiting.
• Atlantic Salmon, Haddock, and Cod - $9.99 per lb -- Nice variety of fresh fish at a stable and standard price.
• Asparagus - $2.49 per lb -- Not great, but not bad either.
• Brussel sprouts - $2.49 per lb -- Good price for sprouts!
• Brick cheese (Black Diamond) - $4.88 400g bar -- Good ol' $5 brick cheese!
• Canned soup (No Name) - $0.50 284ml can -- Hey now, that's actually really dcecent!
• Perogies (frozen, Cheemo) - $2.00 815-907g pack -- Great deal on perogies!
• Produce Price Rating: fairly high with few exceptions

Provigo

• Ground beef (medium) - $18.99 per lb -- For the love of God and all that is holy, that's 4-5x standard price ranging!!! What the hell are they thinking of advertising this? Is this gaslighting? LOL Independent and Loblaws have their extre lean ground for 8/lb, and that's STILL not a good deal by any means. How can they do $19/lb!?!
• I don't know what's going on with Provigo this week. This is cracked out. I'm not even bothering with their flyer this week…
• Produce Price Rating: Fairly high to eye watering

Maxi (price matcher)

• Turkey (frozen) - $0.99 per lb -- WOWOWOW OMG! INCREDIBLE!
• Chicken breast (boneless, skinless) - $4.44 per lb -- Hard to find a better deal on chicken breast!!
• Bacon (PC) - $4.88 500g -- Good price for decent bacon.
• Smoked ham - $6.88 700g toupie -- Great deal on a smoked ham, though it doesn't top that GT deal!
• Pork tenderloin (fresh, Olymel) - $4.88 per lb -- More of an honourable mention. I like these cuts. They're very versatile. Pulled pork. Cut into chops and flattened for schnitzel. Roll cut and tie. Roasted whole.
• Lamb leg (fresh, New Zealand) - $5.88 per lb -- Decent deal on lamb leg
• Eggs (Burnbrae) - $3.57 18-pack -- HOLY COW!
• Shrimp and scallops (frozen, Sea Quest) - $5.88 300/400g bag -- Wow! Great deal!
• Sausages (beef and pork, Lafleur) - $6.77 1kg pack -- Awesome! That'S $3/lb!
• Onions - $4.55 10lb bag -- Nice! These haven't been coming up as much.
• Green cabbage - $0.88 per lb -- Nice! Great price for cabbage.
• Brussel sprouts - $1.88 per lb -- Excellent price for sprouts.
• Carrots - $2.77 3lb bag -- Average sale, but better than not.
• Cucumber - $3.77 3-pack -- Great deal!
• Leeks - $4.55 3-pack -- Leeks used to be so much cheaper. Now it's hard to find them for less than $6, and sometimes they're thin and dinky. So, if they look nice, don't pass them up.
• Lemons - $0.50 each -- Puts us into the $2/l-ish. Great deal!
• Grapes - $1.44 per lb -- Excellent price for grapes!! Like, half off, essentially.
• Pineapple - $1.77 each -- Oh! Another good pineapple deal!
• Cantaloupe - $2.88 each -- Nice! More cheap melon!
• Mandarins - $6.99 4lb bag -- Good rate on mandarins. $2/lb is fair, $1.50/lb is very good!
• Brick cheese (P'tit Quebec) - $4.87 400g bar -- Sub-$5 cheese!
• Boursin cheese - $4.44 150g pack -- More sale Boursin!
• Saputo deal (includes Feta and Bocconcini) - $4.77 125-200g -- Decent enough deal for feta, but not really for the bocconcini.
• Double-cream brie (PC) - $11.99 450g wheel -- Nice big wheels, good for baked bries.
• Brie, Camembert (Portneuf) - $4.00 125g wheel -- Or, get a few different wheels for a dinner party cheese plate!
• Canned soup (No Name) - $0.66 284ml can -- Hey now, that's actually really dcecent!
• Flour (Five Roses, Robinhood) - $11.99 10kg bag -- Nice, there's our $12 10kg bag of flour!
• Silk Almond bev - $3.22 1.89L jug -- Nice, about $1 off most other places.
• Beyond Paties - $7.44 226g 4-pack -- Worthy mention.
• Beyond Sausage - $7.44 400g 4-pack -- The sausages are the better deal by weight.
• Produce Price Rating: Generally medium low pricing! This store can post some impressive deals at times.

Metro

• Turkey (fresh or frozen, Butterball) - $2.44 per lb -- Average sale price for turkey. That Maxi sale really puts these other turkey deals to shame.,..
• Beef prime rib roast (AA) - $7.88 per lb -- Not AAA grade, but slow-roasted and treated well, this could be a nice dinner in the waiting.
• Pork back rib - $2.99 per lb -- Nice price for pork rib!
• Pork loin rib or sirloin roast - $2.99 per lb -- Interesting. Not a common cut you find for the same price as the rib racks.
• Atlantic salmon (fresh) - $9.99 per lb -- Decent price for salmon.
• Alaskan Cod (frozen or thawed) - $8.99 per lb -- Decent price for a nice white fish.
• Lamb leg (fresh, New Zealand) - $4.99 per lb -- Decent deal on lamb leg
• Smoked ham (Selection) - $14.99 1.4kg toupie -- This is good any other week, except when GT comes swinging in with the $10 for 1.5kg.
• Fresh greens (Attitude) - $3.99 312g bin -- Good price for fresh greens! These are usually at least $5-6.
• Asparagus - $1.99 per lb -- Decent deal.
• Strawberries - $2.44 454g shell -- Decent deal.
• Brick cheese (Cracker Barrel) - $5.77 400g bar -- Not under $5 but still better than paying regular price.
• Boursin cheese - $3.99 150g pack -- More sale Boursin!
• Butter (Lactantia) - $4.99 454g bar -- Nice $5 butter!
• Produce Price Rating: High. Kinda like Sobeys. You can see a 50% average mark-up compared to a lot of other stores. It's nice produce, but it costs you.

No Frills (price matcher)

• Chicken breast (boneless, skinless) - $4.66 per lb -- Fantastic deal on chicken breast!
• Atlantic salmon (fresh) - $9.77 per lb -- Average sale price for salmon.
• Peameal bacon - $2.88 per lb -- Interesting to see peameal go cheap like this. It's usually closer to $4/lb.
• Picnic pork - $2.99 per lb -- Fair deal on picnic pork.
• Asparagus - $1.44 325g bunch -- Great deal!
• Sweet potato - $1.29 per lb -- Average deal for sweet potatoes. Sub-$1/lb is hard to snag.
• Potatoes (Red, Yellow, Russet) - $3.99 10lb bag -- Nice! $4 10lb bags are always welcome!
• Garlic - $0.89 3-pack -- Good price for garlic. I've seen these go for $1.50.
• Grapes - $1.79 per lb -- Excellent deal for grapes!
• Pineapple - $2.99 each -- Average sale price, but still welcome
• Cantaloupe - $2.99 each -- More $3 melon. Lots of these going around.
• Walnuts (in shell) - $1.99 per lb -- I love in-shell nuts. They're nice to throw onto the table will chatting with family and friends, over coffee or drinks.
• Yogurt cups (Astro) - $3.99 12-pack -- Nice price for a kid's lunch staple.
• Brick cheese (PC) - $5.77 400g bar -- For fair-priced cheese. Not under $5, but still ok.
• Fancy cheese deal (PC branded) - $15.00 for 3 -- Includes a nice variety. Make sure to check out the ad in the flyer for exact details.
• Ghee (HappyDairy) - $12.99 800g -- About $1-2 cheaper than most other places.
• Yogurt (Hans) - $2.29 750g tub -- Nice little deal on plain yogurt.
• Genoa salami (mild or hot, Mastro) - $10.49 600g -- Good deal on a big chub of genoa.
• Luncheon meat - $1.49 340g -- I've seen these cans for WAY more. Good pantry item for cheap meals.
• Canned tomatoes (Unico) - $1.79 796ml can -- Fair price for canned tomatoes. Not that Basics deal. Even GT has a leg up over this one.
• Canned tuna (Ocean's) - $1.49 170g can -- Fair price for canned tuna. Those 99c deals are getting rarer and rarer. On that note, they also have canned albacore for 5.89. That's a wild 4x price. I wonder what the flavour difference is…
• Earth's Own Almond bev - $2.99 1.89L -- Great price! Note that the oat milk is also on sale but 80c more.
• Produce Price Rating: Generally quite low, selectively amazing for some items.

Produce Depot (usually a little late on the flyer) https://producedepot.ca/

• Beef sirloin tip roast - $6.79 per lb -- Decent price for beef!
• Boneless pork loin roast or chops - $3.29 per lb -- Decent price, and you have two options for the cut.
• Fresh whole pickerel - $5.99 per lb -- Not a common fish to find fresh at the counter. Neat! Fair price, too!
• Cod fillets (fresh) - $11.99 per lb -- Frozen and thawed, we saw cod for $9/lb. Fresh is a little more, but it makes a difference, especially if you're battering and deep-frying.
• Kale - $1.49 per bunch -- Nice! I assume they're a standard bunch size.
• Brussel sprouts - $1.79 per lb -- Excellent price for sprouts!
• Potatoes (PEI) - $3.99 10lb bag -- Nice! $4 10lb bags are always welcome!
• Pears (Bartlett) - $1.79 per lb -- Not the best deal, but not bad. I think 1.49/lb is the better target, but this ain't terrible.
• Navel oranges (California) - $1.29 per lb -- A little over that $1/lb mark for standard oranges, but there may be a quality difference that makes them shine. Don't walk by them without giving them a little look.
• Deli - Smoked ham - $1.89 per 100g -- Nice deal on deli ham!
• Produce Price Rating: Medium-low with very competitive specials on a shortened flyer. The small flyer is nice because it doesn't uselessly feature $6 heads of cauliflower and extremely high-price items that are either a confusion on the consumer, or an insult on the injury of not being able to afford supreme quality items.

Real Canadian Superstore (price matcher)

• Beef boneless rib roast or steaks (no grade) - $6.88 per lb -- 4 day sale only - 27th to 30th. This is probably Mexican-sourced. That doesn't mean it's bad, but it means it doesn't a grade. The price is nice, though.
• Turkey (fresh, Grade A) - $2.49 per lb -- More of that standard sale turkey.
• Ground beef (medium) - $4.99 per lb -- Upper-end price for sale ground. $4/lb is the stock-up target.
• Broccoli - $0.88 per crown -- AWESOME! Great price for broc crowns.
• Sweet potatoes - $5.00 10lb bag -- AWESOME! 50c/lb!!
• Onions - $2.99 3lb bag -- Average.
• Carrots - $4.00 5lb bag -- Nice! 80c/lb is a good rate for carrot.
• Green cabbage - $0.99 per lb -- Average sale for cabbage. Nothing to cry home about, but you're not getting ripped off.
• Mini-cucumbers - $4.00 11-pack -- Excellent price on a bulk pack of cucumber.
• Mushrooms - $5.00 680g shell -- Great deal on mushrooms! 227g shells usually got for $3-4, so the extra buck gets you 2.5x the quantity. I like slicing the criminis and baking them with a little oil and salt until very browned. Yum!
• Sweet peppers (Imperfect) - $6.00 2.5lb bag -- Very reasonable rate on peppers considering we're still seeing $3/lb+ on average.
• Grapes - $1.79 per lb -- Fantastic deal on grapes!
• Double-cream brie (PC) - $11.99 450g wheel -- Nice big wheels, good for baked bries.
• Grana Padano And Parmigiano - $22.00 800g hunk -- Math time: works out to 2.75/100g. More often, you'll find 200g for $8-10. So, it's a lot of cheese, but at a very good rate. And, if you store it well, parm will continue to age and dry a bit in the fridge, lending to the "flavour crystals" that build up in the cheese.
• Silk Almond bev - $2.99 1.89L jug -- Nice, about $1 off most other places.
• Produce Price Rating: Generally medium-low pricing, selectively amazing for some items.

Sobeys

• Turkey (fresh, Grade A) - $1.95 per lb -- More of that standard sale turkey.
• Beef sirloin oven roast or steaks (AAA) - $6.88 per lb -- Scene Member Price. WOW! Hold the phone, that's AAA-grade for less than $7/lb. Regular is 7.99, which still really good by any stretch.
• Pork centercut loin or rib - $3.70 per lb -- Not amazing, but not bad. It's a fair price for loin. I'd hit a Metro if you want pork rib.
• Lobster tail (frozen or thawed) - $7.50 each -- Hmm… Interesting. Lobster is a bit of a toss up for price. Comparitively at this moment, this is a fair price for frozen lobster tail.
• Atlantic salmon - $9.77 per lb -- Scene Member Price. 2 days only, 28th and 30th. Reguarly 14.99/lb. This is what some would call "priced for a sale". $15/lb is stupid, $10/lb is a fair deal, but if Sobey's is your only option, then it's a great deal.
• Sausages (Johnsonville) - 2-for-1 - $6.99 250-500g -- It's not clear which packs are the 500g ones. It's meh deal if you get the 250g packs. It's excellent deal if you do the 500g packs.
• Asparagus - $1.77 per lb -- Good price for asparagus.
• Sweet potato - $1.29 per lb -- Average sale, but kinda actually good for Sobeys.
• Celery - $2.49 per head -- Nice! Fair price for celery. Basics still hasn't woken up and is still selling theirs for $4.
• Onions, Carrots - $2.69 2lb bags -- Oufff, this is unfortunate pricing…
• Russet potatoes - $1.49 per lb -- Ouch!! Why Sobeys! You were doing so well!
• Brick cheese (PC) - $5.77 400g bar -- For fair-priced cheese. Not under $5, but still ok.
• Produce Price Rating: Some sales can be quite good. But, it's generally a high price store, especially for produce. Some items are 50% more than more value-oriented stores.

Super C

• Beef fillet mignon (roast or steaks) - $14.99 per lb -- This is actually a good price on a very nice cut of beef! Provigo had it at advertised at 36/lb. I think 25/lb is probably closer to the median price. But still, excellent price!!
• Ground beef (medium) - $3.49 per lb -- FANTASTIC! And lest we forget Provigo's $18/lb.
• Ground pork (extra lean) - $3.49 per lb -- FANTASTIC! Awesome price for ground pork! Extra lean means you're not paying for fat, which you can always add back in somehow haha
• Steelhead trout - $9.88 per lb -- Standard sale price on fresh trout. Not mindblowingly cheap, but still better than full price, which can easily range into $15/lb.
• Snow crab sections (frozen) - $8.88 per lb -- Good rate on crab.
• Lamb leg (fresh, New Zealand) - $4.99 per lb -- Decent price for lamb. Basics has it for $4/lb, but this is still a good rate.
• Smoked ham (Sugardale) - $2.49 per lb -- Nice! Most other places charge 3.49/lb for the exact same ham.
• Radishes - $0.99 per bunch -- Very good price for radishes. It's very rare to find better than this.
• Asparagus - $0.99 per bunch? -- It isn't specified if it's per lb or 325g bunches. Either way, fantastic price!
• Cucumber - $0.99 each -- Nice! $1 cucumber!
• Green cabbage - $0.99 per lb -- Decent rate on cabbage. Fair price, but not the best. I like seeing 88c/lb. And we've seen lower, but it's not common.
• Rutabaga - $0.99 per lb -- Fair enough. I think regular price, rutabaga floats toward 1.30/lb-ish. Like the cabbage, I prefer seeing 88c/lb.
• Potatoes (yellow, red) - $5.99 10lb bag -- Fair enough price for spuds. Not the best, but not terrible. We're seeing 10lb bags go for $7-8 (which is terrifying)
• Grapes - $1.79 per lb -- Excellent rate on grapes!
• Cantaloupe - $1.99 each -- Awesome!
• Strawberries (organic) - $2.99 454g shell -- According to the flyer, the organic and regular strawberries are the same price.
• Coconut - $0.99 each -- Fun!
• Clementines - $3.99 2lb bag -- Decent enough. It's tough to source a lower price than $2/lb.
• Double-cream brie (Le Baron) - $12.99 500g wheel -- Good price for a big wheel of brie.
• Feta (Selection) - $15.00 800g tub -- Good enough rate on feta. $2/100g is a good target price. More than that, and you should question it.
• Dried sausage (Irresistibles) - $7.99 400g chub -- Good price for nice dried sausage. The varieties are quite nice. I like the chorizo especially. That is addictive stuff.
• Pâté (Belle Bretagne) - $2.99 150g pack -- Decent sale. Not the $5-for-2 we saw some weeks ago, but 50c isn't a deal-breaker.
• Canned artichoke (Irresistibles) - $3.00 398ml can -- Nice! This is a sizeable portion for a good price. I love artichokes in salads and on pizza!
• Cretons (Selection) - $5.00 300g pack -- Nice rate on creton. There's also the Norel brand on sale this week for 5.99, same weight.
• Grenache caramel spread - $2.00 400g tub -- Oh wow… I haven't had this stuff in ages…
• Flour (Five Roses, Robinhood) - $13.99 10kg bag -- A little more than some other sales we've seen, but still much better than how smaller bags scale with price.
• Butter (Selection) - $4.88 454g bar -- Nice! Sub-$5 butter!
• Naturalia Almond bev - $2.00 946ml -- Decent price. It's not the $3 1.89L jugs we saw, but if you don't need 2L of it, then this is a fair way to go.
• Produce Price Rating: Generally low, but can creep into medium for some items. But, there's always something decent available!

T&T Supermarket https://www.tntsupermarket.com * Produce Price Rating: Usually very competitive, catering to Asian cuisine. Warning: their newest sales start on Fridays - so this is a late advertising of their sales.
Walmart

• Turkey (fresh, Grade A) - $2.44 per lb -- Meh, for Walmart, I expected better than such an average price…
• Atlantic salmon - $8.98 per lb -- Nice! $1/lb less than most places most weeks. Very reasonble price for fresh salmon.
• Dinner and breakfast sausage (Maple Leaf) - $6.97 900g-1.2kg -- Fantastic deal on sausage!
• Smoked ham (bone-in, Great Value) - $1.37 per lb -- WOW! This is an AWESOME deal on dinner ham!
• Brussel sprouts - $1.97 per lb -- Excellent price for fresh sprouts.
• Broccoli - $0.84 per crown -- AWESOME! Great price for broc crowns.
• Cauliflower - $2.97 each -- This is a good price for cauliflower. Averages can float towards $4-5.
• Celery - $1.97 per head -- Nice! $2 is great for celery.
• Green peppers - $2.47 per lb -- Not bad for peppers. Sitll exorbitant, but better than $3/lb+.
• Pineapple - $2.97 each -- More of that $3 pineapple. Seems like pineapple import season lol. I don't think I saw a pineapple over $5 this week.
• Blueberries - $1.94 340g shell -- WOW! That's cheap! Excellent price!
• Mango - $0.97 each -- Fantastic deal! Hard to find mangoes cheaper than 1.25-1.50 a piece.
• Brick cheese (Cracker Barrel) - $5.77 400g bar -- Not under $5 but still better than paying regular price.
• Rondelé cheese spread - $2.97 125g pack -- Really good cheese spread for a great price!
• Cube stock (Knorr) - $0.88 80g 8-pack -- Normally about $1.00-1.25 basically anywhere any other day of the week.
• Frozen veg (Green Giant) - $2.67 300-750g bag -- Nice! Brand-name frozen veg for less than $3 a bag. I'm sure the 750g bags are for corn and peas, but still, it's a good price. Get some to keep in the freezer for soup and simple dinner sides,
• Instant Pot Pressure cooker - $89.98 8-qt -- $40 off regularly price. For those with small kitchens, this is a life saver. Pressure cooking can cut cooktimes in half or more. These electric countertop ones can also be used as slow cookers, for making yogurt, soaking dry beans, it's great for rice, making soup stocks from scraps, and more. And it's safer than running a stove element in many of those use-cases. There's a bit of a learning curve, but now it's an indispensable tool in my kitchen now and I absolutely abuse mine. And, for those who wonder, they fail safely. I've had one "fail" on me. It's not at all like a traditional stove-top pressure cooker, where if it fails it can blow a lid clear through a ceiling.
• Produce Price Rating: A little all over the place. Some really good prices between a lot of average pricing.

Costco (for referencing when looking through flyers - going to try to comment on these items more often)

• Paper Towel (Kirkland) - $27.99 12-roll pack -- 2-ply; 160 sheets
• Paper Towel (Bounty) - $27.49 12-roll pack -- 2-ply; 86 sheets
• Toilet Paper (Kirkland) - $26.99 30-roll pack -- 2-ply; 380 sheets
• Toilet Paper (Cashmere) - $23.99 40-roll pack -- 2-ply; 250 sheets (on sale)
• Dish soap (Dawn Platinum) - $18.99 2.66L -- Food Basics often has this jug for $10!
• Laundry detergent (Purex) - $24.99 9.24L -- 250 loads
• Garbage bags (30 gallon; large) - $15.99 100-pack -- Amazon has Glad standard 74L bags, 100-packs for $23, sometimes less if on sale
• Countertop green bin liners - $21.99 125-pack -- Amazon has Glad Compostable green bin liners 100-packs for $18, sometimes less if on sale
• Produce Price Rating: I need to do a proper check to be sure, but I find it's pretty average. There's an illusion of getting a good deal because of the bulk. Just be careful.

Jean Coutu (new sales start Fridays)

• Produce Price Rating: I have to start checking these just in case...

Shoppers Drug Mart (new sales start Fridays)

• Produce Price Rating: Sometimes they have cheap butter, eggs, and milk on weekends.

Some additional references!

• Grocery Review Google Drive Location https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xhLvBP1smXb1eSnxAW5yyBjO2aYFLJHC?usp=sharing
• Google Maps list of the Grocery stores in Ottawa https://maps.app.goo.gl/YT7cZmv8vMQWU4J59

First time making mead and I added in some blackberries. But I filled up the carboy too much and had had a few blowouts untill alot of the blackberries are gone and the liquid is below the curve. It was bubbling like crazy for a couple days but now it has slowed down alot. It's only been 3 days. I feel I lost a bunch of yeast in the blowouts. Can I do something or should it be ok? Don't have a gravity measure.

The year was 1921 or thereabouts. The story’s been muddled through time. Waves in hair, fringes on dresses, pearls dangling down to boyish waists. thigh high stockings peeking from beneath shortening hemlines. Derby hats, Ascot ties, Coat tails swinging. shoes shining. secrets hiding. And gosh, did I like to figure them out.
Among it all was me, Millie DuPonte. Theatre actress. A quiet voice concealed behind bold red lips. Always up on the latest trend, my hair was cropped to my chin and always perfectly in place. Oh, those were the days. If I could tell her now what wrinkles and age I’ve accumulated over the years, she’d probably faint. But with age comes wisdom, I suppose. Wisdom enough to avoid mirrors, anyway.
I digress.
I was raised in the theatre and content to stay there, at the time. I rarely landed leading roles, but as long as I was on the stage, I was satisfied. The list of times I was credited as “ensemble” reaches to the heavens. But, how I adored it. The heat of the lights, the click of my heels on the well-worn stage beneath me. The applause and smiles from a satisfied crowd. It couldn’t be beat. Between scenes you could always find me at a my dressing table, but vain I was not. Just particular. Noticing what others didn’t about my appearance and my surroundings. I could notice a single hairpin out of place and all the girls knew it.

At home I was surprisingly mild, considering my life of glamour on the stage (purely in my imagination was the glamour). I shared an apartment with my friend, Beth, who I’ll talk more of later, trust me. We lived humbly. By force, not by choice. That was the nature of the life we chose.. I worked as a seamstress and she worked in a local pub to bring in our main income, while the theatre payed very little. Extremely little. Smaller than the mice in our forty dollars per month abode. Our friends, so we said. The bane of our existence was more like it. Those little buggers ruined everything we owned. But we had a roof over our heads, and we barely even went there to sleep anyway, so we settled.
For a few years now I’d been seeing George McDowell. You’ll hear a lot about him. The love of my life. But that’s what I called every man I met, I suppose. A young man of 30, glasses framing brown eyes and lashes so long they could’ve pushed his glasses right off his nose. All the girls were fond of his eyes. His one truly attractive feature, if I was being honest. His face was rather gaunt, his hair thinning. At barely 5 foot 7, he was only an inch or two taller than I was . I avoided tall heels for that very reason. Flat shoes are more comfortable anyway, I always said. I was lying. I saw the newest highest heels and pined for them badly. But I pined more for George, so he won. In spite of all his faults, he carried himself with a confidence that made it all irrelevant.
On this foggy December night, I was waiting for George to come see me in my show. As usual, I was practically an extra. Credited in the long list at the end of the program simply as “Girl Selling Flowers.” I was fine with the measly role, but George always said he “knew my potential!” with an indignant fist in the air. He’d pushed me to try for more, but I never would.
I was backstage, chatting and applying my makeup. I’d known my costars for years. We always put on the same show every year. Romeo and Juliet. The old classic was an absolute must and the crowds reveled in it each time.
My dearest friend was playing the role of Juliet this year. She often did. Petite and well-mannered, Beth was a gem. An absolute gem. Meek and mild, glowing and lovely without a stitch of blush, and a barrel of laughs at the post-rehearsal pub visits. Beth always had a story to tell. Like the one where the boy she was seeing showed up 45 minutes late to a date. 45 minutes! He groveled at her feet with apologies but, alas, Beth had been quite upset. Not the sniffling, sad, “Give me a cuddle. I’ve been waiting so long,” upset, but the punch-him-in-the-nose kind of upset. And punch him she did. Uncharacteristic, you’d think, being how sweet she was, but she knew what she wanted. Punctuality, apparently.

“Darling! You made it!” I flung myself into the arms of my dearest as George shivered into my embrace.
“It’s awfully cold, Millie . I’m surprised the show is still going on with this much snow.”
“Oh George, my love, the show simply MUST go on!” A little smirk and I slipped back into my dressing room.
“10 minutes to showtime!” The stage

manager’s voice echoed through the aging hallways.

“Thus, with a kiss, I die.”
Thunderous applause rang out for the centuries-old show that never grew tired. Flowers flopped on the stage, thrown by hopeful young men to, mostly, Beth. Graciously, she picked them up and curtsied in her hoop skirt and corset. It cinched her waist somehow even smaller than it already was. Oh, how the boys cheered for her.
“Beautiful, as always, my dear.” George gave me my own bouquet and knelt on one knee. He teased proposals all the time, yet I knew he was still saving for a ring. An insurance salesman didn’t make much, and he wanted the best for me. I’d marry him with no rings at all, as he well knew.
“Drinks all around on the corner downtown?” The same little rhyme was called out by one of us each night. The whole cast and crew gathered together and braved the chill for an ice-cold beer.

Blood. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. It was burned there as securely as the knowledge that Beth was dead. You must forgive me for thrusting this at you so early, but it was such a profound event in my life, I thought it best not to keep it from you any longer. I’d found her in the wee hours of the morning after the show. We shared an apartment on spruce street since who knows when. Best friends since childhood. And there she was in her bed, shrouded in crimson. Her glow had been burned out. Her lovely face smeared with blood. Her lovely face. Her body was untouched. It lay there as if you could find her sweet little head peacefully resting on the pillow above it. But, no. Beth was gone. Not just gone, but savagely ripped away. If I had a second with whoever did this to dear Beth, they’d be sorry.
Who am I kidding, I was a tiny little thing. But I had the burning fire of grief in my heart, so maybe that would’ve given me the strength.
Anyway, Beth was gone and policemen were everywhere back at my place. “How did you know her?” Only my best friend. “Who did she spend time with?” Too many men usually. “Could one of them have wanted her dead?” Not considering what she usually did for them. “When was the last time you saw her?” At the show the night before. I’d begged her to go to the pub with the rest of us, but she wanted to go home and sleep. The one night I wasn’t with her and now this. I considered that it was my fault. Of course it wasn’t, but these are the things that go through one’s mind when one’s best friend was murdered. Brutally, at that.
The sudden urge to run to George surged in my heart. I threw on my coat and ran out the door. He would be upset, as well. George liked Beth. He was my best friend, after all. He’d seen her around quite a bit.
City noise buzzed around me. Lamps on posts mourned for me and snowfall shared my tears. Merchants stopped to look as I stifled sobs. “What’s wrong? Where is she going?” they must’ve thought. “Scorned by some one night stand, I suppose.” No. Guttural sobs for my one true friend. Truth be told, I had no idea what they thought, and they probably wasted not a moment on me, but I wished they’d mind their own business.
I told him the news, and he let me cry on his shoulder until tears soaked through to his skin. “Beth is DEAD!” I cried over and over. He knew not what to say, as most men don’t. But his strong arms around me said all I needed him to. He was always a comfort to me. When my cat, Gimpy, died, George was right there in a second to plan the funeral. Yes, funeral. That cat was a son to me and George knew it. Poor old Gimpy. I still miss him.
“Take me home, George.” I pleaded with the little strength I had after my interrogation. Didn’t those policemen know it was difficult for me? If they knew, they didn’t care.
Of course, he couldn’t take me to my home, for my home was a crime scene, so he took me to his. He’d sleep on the couch, he said. What a gentleman. And then, would you believe it, the next thing he asked me was THE question. The marriage type.
“Will you marry me?” He said.
“Hell no!” I stormed out.
It’s not that I didn’t want to marry him, just that he asked me directly after my friend was murdered. Not the best timing, I’d say. So, the answer was no (excuse me – “hell no”) and our lives moved on for the time being. George and I really were a match made in heaven, though. He made me coffee the way I liked it and I kissed him just the way he liked it. And a few weeks later, he’d try to make it all up to me.

Candlelight and roses. That’s what I walked into when I strolled into George’s apartment 3 weeks later. “What’s all this?” “An apology.” “For what?” “For being a dolt.” “You were that.” “Don’t rub it in.” I sipped the wine and it was my favorite – blackberry. Sweet on my tongue and zingy down my throat with every drink. Before long, the bottle was empty and so was the side of my mind with the grudge. We were both…happy, I guess you could say. Another word for it would be “drunk.” Either way, we were making up. His hand graced my knee and the tingle reached my rosy cheeks. He placed a kiss gently in the little crook where my ear meets my jaw and I was a goner.
“You can have me, George. I’ll marry you.”
“Is that the wine talking?” He slurred into my ear with a slippery whisper that had me melting.
“It may be, but let it talk.”

“That’s the last of it.” I’d just taken Beth’s things out to the moving truck to be taken back to her mother. I couldn’t imagine the anguish of a mother losing a child. Especially one as sweet and wonderful as Beth. The sun caught something glinting at the top of a box. I picked up Beth’s mirror that she always kept on her vanity. “This won’t be missed.” I took it to remember her by.
I’d spoken to police more than my own fiancé by this point, so we were about to hit the town. Forgetting sadness is often done best at night with sparkling lights and chill in the air, so that was our plan. I slipped on my best dress. I felt the silk as it graced my curves, the fringed beading tickling my collarbones on its way to my chest. Boyish little shoes that kept me shorter than my George, and a dangling necklace hung round my neck to swing as the music soared.
A knock at the door and I was face to face with George, dressed to the nines and looking mighty fine, as I always said to him with a glint in my eye.
Off we went.
I adored how the shop windows glimmered. Jewels and clothes and everything I’d ever need or want was held behind the glass. Trees were draped with tiny little lights the size of my little painted pinky nail. Cracks in sidewalks caught my pointed shoes and I couldn’t care one bit. Streetcar horns and tipsy laughter filled my ears and flasks of whiskey filled each pocket I passed. Arm in arm, George and I were witnessing the best mankind had to offer, I had no doubt in my mind. I held my frilled cloche hat and looked up to the stars. “I wish I may, I wish I might…” I began. “Forget the stars and have a wild night?” George finished. “You ridiculous you.” We skipped away as happy as little larks.

Reality set back in in the form of hangovers and grief. A combination I’d rather never experience again, let me tell you. Headaches and tears. Swollen eyes and queasy stomachs. “You know Beth was the only friend I had?” George replied with a squeeze on the shoulder, which is probably all he could muster. Ding dong went the doorbell. Police again.
“Miss DuPonte, we need to speak with you-”
“About my friend, yes, yes, I know. Come in.”
“Ma’am, we’ve discovered something. A fingerprint in the blood on your friends vanity in her dressing room. We’re searching for matches, but it may take some time. May we take your prints at the station at your earliest convenience?”
“Of course,” I replied, “but do you have anything else? That seams a little bit of a measly thing to find in that mess.”
“We’re searching for the murder weapon, which appears to be a kitchen knife. Found in every home in the nation, so it’ll be hard to narrow it down. Cause of death was confirmed to be hemorrhaging in her brain due to the stab wounds.”
I shuddered. They speak so clinically about such tragedy. When does the numbness begin for them? Do they really feel nothing?
“We are truly sorry for your loss, Miss DuPonte.”
Right.
“And we apologize for any inconvenience our visit caused you.”
Only a bigger headache than I already had. “Thank you, officers. Good day.” I held the door for them and shut it a little too loudly once they’d left.
I understood crime solving wasn’t a walk in the park, but I figured they should’ve at least had an idea of who’d done it by now. George reminded me it had only been a month. A month too long. George yawned. “Make me some coffee, Darling.”

Snooping. Over the years I’d found I was quite good at it. Finding Christmas presents, overhearing adult conversations at far too young an age, and now finding Beth’s killer. That was the plan, anyway. So there I was, by her bed in our one room apartment. Reliving the night I found her. Tired old bulbs lit the mirror on her vanity, shining their dim light on the tables. Creaky chairs were pushed up to stained surfaces. Stained with blood and decades-old layers of makeup. I began my search. Lipstick? Useless. Broken mirror? Maybe struck in a struggle? A letter. From whom? I opened the hastily crushed page. It had been tossed in a corner as if unwanted.
Dearest Beth, it began.
I’ve loved you since I met you. Your eyes like the sea in their depth and beauty, your sweetness beyond my dreams. I may not have you, as I have another, but I yearn for you with all my being.
Something must be done, and I’m afraid I must do it.
Yours in another place and time,
I froze as I read, George.
How could he? The man I had just agreed to marry. Tie the knot. Live happily ever after. How dare he? Had his insane sort of love taken Beth? Had he truly killed her?
As you can see, my mind was flooded with questions, and still is.
I ran to George.
My heart was in agony. Ripped to shreds by the one who was supposed to stitch it together. Tears welled up in my eyes as I stormed through the streets. This time I didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. I wiped my weeping eyes with bitter anger. I’ve never felt such anger since.
“You killed her??” I flung open the door to George’s apartment with such force it threw him backward. Either that or he was thrown back by shock at the absolute fire in my voice.
“What are you saying?” He whimpered. A scared little dog he was now. “They said they don’t know who did it!”
“I found the letter.”
“What letter?”
“The one proclaiming your love to my friend.”
“I can explain.”
“Go right ahead.”
My fists clenched, his eyes empty, he fessed up.
“I needed her gone so I could love you! I care for you so deeply, Millie. It was the only way I could go on.”
“Why not leave me for her?”
“I’m engaged to you! I can’t break that promise.”
It didn’t make sense, but nothing did now.
“Well, you’re not engaged anymore. I’m calling the police and you’re going to tell them everything.”
Apparently my shouting had caused the neighbors to already do just that, as I heard sirens down the street.
“One last thing,” I said – and punched him right in the mouth. That lying mouth.
Blind to the hideous snake he was, he hissed through his bloodied lips, “Darling, I should’ve known you hated me.”

Hello, I hope you're all having a good day.
I recently purchased a BlackBerry Curve 8520. However, when I inserted my SIM card, it prompted me to unlock it, requiring a network MEP code. I've searched for solutions online, but all the methods I found require payment. I'm wondering if any of you know of any free methods to unlock it. Any help would be appreciated!

Hi Neighbors!
I’m back again with another Greensboro food guide. In this episode we dive into what I know/do best:

Brunch.

Greensboro has lots of options for brunch and I’ve made it my duty to visit several of them again. Below you can find sage advice on where you should be spending your hard earned brunch bucks. I’ll restate some of my credentials for those who missed my riveting editorial on the Cookouts in town (LINK).
I have been a local kitchen laborer for almost twenty years. I was the head chef at the Iron Hen for 5 years and have managed several other restaurants in the Triad. I have spent thousands of hours flipping eggs and pancakes for the fine folks of my favorite town. I know good brunch eats. Pinky promise I do.
Just a warning, this is a lot longer than my Cookout rundown, It's called reading! Top to bottom, left to right... a group of words together is called a sentence. Take Tylenol for any headaches...Midol for any cramps.
There’s so much I love about brunch therefore there’s so much I have to say. I took this more seriously than my quick takes on Cookouts, because well, I felt like it and you guys deserve the best dammit!
It’s going to take a bit to read all this, but you will finish more well-equipped for brunch life here in Gate City. If you don’t want to read it all, check the comments for my ranked list, but c'mon, what else do you have to do? Work? Yeah right.

Metrics

These things are what makes or breaks a brunch for me. They might not be for you, but hey, I’m the one writing this.

• Coffee- you can’t buy happiness, but you can buy coffee and that’s pretty close.
• Cocktails -I don’t drink much anymore, but booze and brunch go together like…bacon and eggs. I’ll check out the selection/ if they have bottomless mimosas for you and the gals.
• Bacon- Straight up, If you run a brunch spot and don’t serve up good bacon, prepare to be on the receiving end of my wrath.
• Eggs- So simple, yet so easy to ruin. As someone who’s scrambled more eggs than most I think it only fair for me to be critical of them.
• Avocado toast - It’s trendy for a reason. When done well, it’s freaking tasty and I want you to know where to get the best one in town (spoiler alert: Chez Genese)
• A potato product- The great debate. Hash browns vs home fries. I don’t care which one ya like more, but a brunch spot better be doing these right.
• Ambiance- Brunch isn’t just a meal, it's an idea. And that idea starts with how your guests feel from the moment they walk into the door.
• Speed/Accuracy-I’ve made it a point to visit all these spots during busy brunch hours. Nobody cares if you can make a good omelet when the restaurant is half empty. This is a pressure test. You are only as good as your worst plate so if they can’t hang when the tickets are stacked up and the servers are slammed, then they can’t hang in my book.

Best of luck to all these unknowing participants and may God have mercy on their egg pans.

Green Valley Grille

Our journey begins with the oldest relic in the Quaintance-Weaver pyramid. I have to be honest. This was one of the worst brunch meals I've eaten in town as well as one of the most expensive. I cannot recommend it less. I usually enjoy their dinner aside from it being a bit stodgy and outdated. It looked really cool in here 22 years ago. This is definitely your rich great aunt’s favorite spot in town.
The service is always solid here. They definitely train their waitstaff well but it seems like they discourage their staff to have much personality. It’s giving butler vibes which is fine I guess if you’re into that sorta thing. They have a full bar and the coffee was decent. That being said, their brunch is garbo. My poached eggs were cold and I had like 1 oz of ham on my benny and the hollandaise was super bland. It was a really really botched benedict. The scrambies were overcooked on their breakfast plate and my home fries were cooked 15 minutes ago– cold, super mushy and real plain. We had their vanilla scores with lemon curd which was the highlight of the meal, specifically the curd; bright and tangy. We tried their coffee cakes as well which were decent too, but very sweet. Nobody in my party of five was pleased with their meal and I won’t make the mistake of going to GVG before sundown again.
Score - 3.4/10 Never go eat here for brunch. Like seriously, go anywhere else. Go to Waffle house.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $14.22+2.84 = $17.06 

Lucky 32

Lucky’s brings a slightly more contemporary vibe to the Quaintance-Weaver “family.” I’ve never been really keen on the organization. I dunno why, I have a sneaky suspicion it's actually a front for an affluent brood of vampires. Blood money, but like…literally? I find it less stuffy than GVG and the brunch was more enjoyable. It’s still a little behind the times but we’ve stepped from 1989 to 2001. An instrumental version of The Backstreet Boys’ hit album, "Millenium” played as we dined (not really.) They take reservations which is a plus and they had us seated immediately. Shout out to the service staff. Attentive and friendly and not overly robotic.
They have a full bar available, but no mention of mimosa specials. The coffee is Counter Culture, which I usually like, but not the batch they served today – Bleghh.
We tried their green tomato benedict. The poached eggs were on point and the tomatoes were nice, however somebody toasted my English muffin twice…yesterday. Literally uncuttable with a knife. I gnawed on it like a hamster but gave up on it quickly. An okay dish overall, but it lacked salt and was really acidic. Next we went for their avocado toast with scrambled eggs. It was mediocre. The avocado was definitely from a pouch and there wasn’t much of it. The pickled onions set it off, but the eggs were way overcooked. The rest of it was sorta forgettable.
We also had the banana french toast which was my favorite dish of the meal. Cooked nicely, sweet but not sickeningly so. I’d get it again for sure.
We also had a side of bacon which was on point. Their biscuits were buttery and Cracker-Barrel-esque, but honestly I think I like CB’s better. I did not like their home fries. They were crispy enough but just doused in seasoned salt. They really reminded me of one’s from the freezer section.
Last note-worthy item was their side of fruit…How dare they. Sad chunks of cantaloupe and honeydew, which they know everyone hates…like seriously can we just stop growing these awful balls of chemical water already? They tossed a bit of pineapple in there but that was it. They could have saved labor costs by just dumping the fruit straight off the truck into the trash, cuz that’s where it’s all gonna end up anyways. Yuck.
Score: 6.3/10 - Your mom and her sisters would probably love going here for a birthday brunch and the rest of you will leave full and relatively pleased…unless you get a side of fruit or yesterday’s English muffin.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $14.88+2.98=$17.86 

Print Works Bistro

In full transparency I was sorta hoping this one missed the mark so I could lop off the final head of Quaintance Weaver’s Hell-hound and by doing so free all of the tortured souls trapped for eternity in a depression dungeon of sorrow beneath the QW hotels. “You can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave...” I charged through their doors, fork in one hand, sense of disdain for the ruling class in the other only to be begrudgingly disarmed by an overall excellent brunch.
Print Works cultivates a picturesque southern brunch ambiance. A neutral color palette with tall ceilings, decorated tastefully. Natural light pours through all of the windows as delicate music sets an uplifting mood. You’ve stepped off of Green Valley Road and into an expansive Savannah solarium…I do declare. They boast a dining area seating nearly 200 with a charming patio for fair weather dining. The room is alive with the clinking of silver on flatware and the ambient buzz of happy conversation. Yet is spacious enough to allow for a sense of intimacy at each table.
We were seated immediately with our reservation. The service manager wasn’t the friendliest. A cross-looking woman; she sharply peppered orders at a nearby server, prompting him to hustle over and lead us to our seats. QW couldn’t help but remind us all that we live in a social hierarchy and that while all animals are equal; some animals are more equal than others…the servers are dressed as penguins and trained to hop-to when the boss blows her whistle. Oppressive social constructs aside, our server was well versed in the menu and was always around when needed, but never hovering.
They offer a full-bar and have a large cocktail and wine list. The coffee was bold and tasty from Revolution coffee out of Raleigh.
Today, we started with an order of their warm beignets; choux pastry filled with pastry cream, fried to order and then dusted with powdered sugar; served with honey or chocolate sauce. We opted for honey. They were quite tasty and the portion was large. I did feel that they were a bit too sweet and would have gone from good to amazing with some lemon zest or curd to balance it out.
For our entrees; the avocado toast. Overall a yummy dish. The thickly sliced sourdough was flavorful and soft, but I felt it needed a bit more toasting. It left the dish feeling a bit squishy. The toast was topped with a lemony avocado spread, bits of bacon, and poached egg. It was served with a side of yogurt and fruit, which was simple but tasty. We also had their eggs benedict; well executed. I felt the hollandaise needed a bit more lemon, but now I'm nit-picking; we cleaned the plate. We also had a side of bacon, which was spot-on and their home fries were neatly diced, crisped perfectly and had some yummy caramelized onions mixed in.
Score - 9.0/10 - This was a really good brunch. Refined, yet inviting ambiance, tasty food and a chance for the bourgeoisie to get a taste of aristocracy without breaking the bank. Well-played, QW Illuminati. You win this round.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $15.38+$3.07 = $18.45 

The Sage Mule

I sorta like The Sage Mule. It kinda reminds me of The Iron Hen in its glory days, before its evil owner sucked the soul out of it and ran it into the ground. I’ve been a handful of times. Often it's yummy, sometimes they miss the mark, but overall a solid, local brunch place that matches the Greensboro vibe well.
They have good coffee and lattes made with Counter Culture beans out of Durham. They give you a lil biscotti with them which is a nice nibble while you wait for your mains(and sometimes you’re gonna be waiting a min.) They’re drink menu looks decent too and they have a full liquor license if you’re trying to get wavy on a Sunday morning.
Most recently we had their biscuits and gravy which my wife is a big fan of. It’s not a pretty pile of food, but it makes up for it in flavor. The biscuits are on point and the gravy is dang good too. Nice and peppery and not too thin. Good gravy should stick to your spoon. There’s crumbled Neese’s sausage and some yummy pimento cheese in there too. Good stuff. I like their “Midnight Train” which is a Nashville-style chicken sammy with home-made pickles on a yummy soft roll. I get this pretty much every time I’ve been to be honest. “Zac likes spicy chicken!” We also got their dutch baby and I’ve just gotta keep it real. It was real bad. Bordering on gross. I don’t be wasting food and I didn’t finish it. It was super dense and way too strong tasting of egg and not sweet at all. Maybe someone didn’t follow the recipe? I know another spot in town that makes one that is way better…ehem. Anyways. They’ve got classic diner-style hash browns that came out nice and crispy today. The kitchen gets backed up bad sometimes though. I’ve waited close to an hour for entrees before and then the servers get squirrely. The whole energy in there is sometimes chaotic which isn’t what I’m usually craving on a Sunday morning. Too much adderall? Not enough?
They’ve got a nice patio with ample seating which is great for fair-weather days, but I straight up hate how they’ve got the inside set up. The whole back left side of the building is weirdly empty and underutilized and the rest is a total clusterfuck. You walk in the door and surprise! You’ve just entered a mosh pit of hungry, hungover humans waiting for a table. Keep your head down, watch out for spin-kicks, and try to make it to the host station where you can put your name in. The wait gets long on the weekend so don’t come hungry or you wont make it out alive. You also can’t really get out of the chaos because they just shout your name out when you’ve been chosen. Now some of you may like having a panic attack in public first thing in the morning, but I prefer to have them alone in my bathroom in the evenings like a respectable adult. They do have some outdoor space to wait, just tuck and cover as you squeeze your way back outside. The ambiance when you sit outside is nice, but I really rather not eat inside at all.
Score-7.2/10 - It’s a solid place to grab brunch for sure. One I’d recommend everyone to try at least once. It's pretty hip and most everything I've had tastes pretty good. They definitely have good days and bad days so If you go, i hope you catch them on their A-game. If you are the type to wanna rip your shirt off and run screaming into the woods when surrounded by loud strangers like I am, maybe come through on a weekday.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip:$13.33+2.67=$16.00 

Chez Genese

Now obviously I can’t help but have the teeniest drop of bias since I work here, but I promise my goal in all of this wasn’t to convince you to come and eat (you should though.) I went and ate here in the middle of the brunch rush just like everywhere else and I’m holding us to the same standards. Also at the risk of sounding full of myself, I wouldn’t waste my time working at a place that I didn’t think was awesome.
The cafe is so welcoming. There are plants and pictures everywhere. There’s always nice music on, but not too loudly. The owner, whomever she is, knows how to create such an inviting space. It’s a smaller spot so waiting for a table can get a little crowded and loud. Thankfully you can just leave your phone number and they’ll text when your table is ready! Go walk around downtown while you wait! (seriously please don’t just stand in the doorway.)
Chez Genese gets their java from the local roaster, Fortuna which I love love love. Bold and nutty but not too bitter. The baristas make an amazing latte and all of the flavored syrups are made in-house and you can tell. Please get a lavender and honey latte next time you go. It’s gonna change your life I swear. They offer a curated mimosa menu which we saw were very popular and have recently gotten their liquor license for cocktails. They also have a great selection of hot teas from the local Vida pour tea. Try the “Chez Blend.” My wife buys it by the pound. I think she’s headed toward tea trafficking at this point.
Today we went for avocado toast, which is divine. Crispy, buttery multigrain toast topped with tons of fresh, sweet avocado and balanced by lots of tart feta cheese. You can get your eggs on top anyway you want. We got ‘em scrambled and they were so perfect and plentiful. Jacques Pepin would have wept tears of joy. Soft and creamy and seasoned just right. They finish it off with a healthy drizzle of honey and it's just so so good. We also got the cinnamon french toast with a side of bacon and fresh fruit. The french toast is killer. Three big pieces of brioche cooked just right with lovely notes of cinnamon and vanilla. It’s served with house-made spice butter and pure maple syrup. I made myself hungry writing about it just now. The bacon was cooked perfectly. They have the absolute best side of fruit in the city. It’s got all the good stuff: grapefruit, oranges, apples, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, blackberries, bananas…no mealy melons anywhere! They also offer amazing homemade rosemary biscuits that taste heavenly and rival Smith Street’s(RIP) in size.
Orders come out at a decent clip typically. Occasionally you’ll wait a bit longer for some entrees like the pizzas or the cocottes(a unique and decadent egg dish), but considering the size of the kitchen line, it’s never too bad. Plus it gives you an excuse to have an extra cup of coffee. I love that it’s an open kitchen model so you can see the chef’s working their magic back there. I swear the chef/owner is hiding an extra pair of arms by the way she stays on top of all her tickets…truly impressive.
Take all this yummy food and combine it with the amazing atmosphere and you’ve got the best brunch in town. I didn’t even mention their mission statement, which you can read on the back of the menu when you go next weekend, or the fact that they are totally non-tipping and the owner properly pays her staff well instead of making you do it for her.
Score: 9.4/10 - CG’s brunch game is on such a different level. The food is super fresh, tasty, and well-presented. The ambiance is amongst my favorite places in town. Just surround me with plants, pleasant music, and pancakes and I’m a happy guy.
I took points off for 1) the wait can sometimes be over an hour and you can’t make reservations 2) I don’t personally care for the vanilla creme fraiche as I find it makes my crepe soggy and 3) because I pricked my finger on one of the dried thistle in the beautiful flower arrangements on each table. I didn’t bleed or anything, but it did hurt a little…see, I told you I'm not biased.

Median Entree Price; non-tipping : $15.03 

Gia

This is your rich cousin’s favorite brunch place and for good reason. The girl’s got good taste. Gia presents an upscale but not stuffy experience; refined and elegant but unpretentious and welcoming. If you enjoy a nice cocktail this is your spot. Their bartender was in his element and we enjoyed watching him whip up one attractive drink after another. They boast a large, expertly crafted cocktail menu and as non-drinkers, were pleased by their selection of their “zero proof” cocktails as well. However I didn’t care for my americano at all. It was very bitter and bland. I asked where the beans were from and recently found out they are fortuna. They offer a pour-over that I’ll try instead next time.
Our server was friendly and polite as she took our orders and the kitchen had our entrees out in good time. We had the croque madame. Thin prosciutto and cheese in between sourdough topped with creamy bechamel and a sunny side egg. This dish tasted delicious. It needed an acidic element like a dijon…or maybe like a horseradish smear or something… yeah that sounds pretty tasty… anyways! They could've given me a bit more prosciutto for the price. Regardless, we enjoyed it thoroughly. We also had their spinach, marinara, and goat’s cheese Schiacciata…It’s a flatbread pizza, but Schiacciata looks much cooler on the menu. This dish was pretty tasty too. It needed salt and I wanted a spicy element as well. Still really yummy and the flatbread itself is really nice in flavor and texture.
We also had their scones and, for me, they were a miss. Gia also has biscuits on the menu. The main difference between a biscuit and a scone is that a scone usually has egg in the recipe. I’m pretty positive the only difference between them at Gia is that the scones are cut into triangles and the biscuits are circles. I would have liked to see some dried fruit or a glaze or something added to their scone recipe. They were very simple albeit baked well. They came with whipped butter, but it was unsalted and didn’t do much for the scones. We asked for some jam to liven them up a bit. The homemade jam they served was tasty, but it cost us $2 for a little ramiken of it. I already gave ya 6 bucks for two lil scones! Ya can’t hook me up with a little jelly? We were tempted to try their cinnamon rolls, but at the price point of $12 for two pretty small rolls I couldn’t justify it. Their fruit side was a nice mix of berries and garnished with a bit of basil. The basil was very complimentary and I'll be adding that little flavor combination to my mental recipe book. A neighboring table’s pesto potatoes looked awesome, but I skipped them today.
Score: 8.8/10 Overall we really enjoyed Gia. A great date spot or a place to bring your well-off out of town in laws that you want to impress. Lighter sized portions with elevated flavors and presentation. Random, but they could really use some houseplants in there. So much natural light but no plant babies to drink it in!

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $17.83+3.57 = $21.40← this is a bit deceiving, they have two steak entrees priced at ($34 & $44) which skew the curve a bit. Those thrown out the median is closer to $17 

Rascal’s Tavern

Ya’ll, this one hurts to write. I really wanted it to be a good one. It’s local and it's female chef-owned. I've been for dinner a handful of times and always enjoyed the food…but this brunch was real bad. Everything missed the mark and I’m struggling to find nice things to write. I gotta keep it real though.
They do accept reservations and we were seated quickly. I do not like the decor here at all. It's a kinda clunky mashup of a speakeasy and a teen’s bedroom. The vibe’s just not right for me. We were met with a blackboard informing us that they used to have bottomless mimosas, but they are currently not offering them. The server let us know they were out of avocado toast and goat cheese. Okay. They’ve got a full bar and a mimosa menu. We placed our orders, but we found out they were also out of biscuits due to an oven fire. So we scrapped the biscuits and gravy.
We got our coffees (Folger’s, our server told us). It was made well though and tasted decent. Entrees rolled out and, y'all it was rough. The pancakes were burnt badly and very bland. Their bread pudding french toast special was really hideous and had several large eggshells in it. And both of these items were missing the berry compote the menu had said they came with. We also got their eggs florentine, which was the only decent dish today. The eggs were cooked well and the hollandaise was decent but it needed more of it. We also got the hot honey chicken and waffles…man it was bad too. The waffles at a continental breakfast are tastier and the chicken was super bland. There was also no “hot” in this hot chicken. I dunno if it was supposed to be Nashville influenced or be dipped in a hot sauce? It was just a real plain fried chicken thigh and it didn’t taste good. The bacon was also cooked in the deep fryer. It came out clumped in a hard crunchy ball. Cardinal sin. How dare you bastardize bacon like this… A pig died and you’re gonna disrespect its legacy by deep frying its bacon? Shameful, honestly.
It wasn’t super busy but the servers seemed frazzled
I know there was an oven fire that morning, but if that’s going to ruin your whole menu then you should just close for the day and regroup. A fire doesn’t burn pancakes that are being cooked on the flattop. A fire doesn’t drop egg shell into a bread pudding and leave them. A fire doesn’t send out the ugliest pile of “french toast” I’ve ever seen. A fire doesn’t make you forget half of the components that are supposed to be on an item, and a fire definitely doesn’t give you the right to do that to bacon. Ever.
Nobody in my party enjoyed much of anything. I really hoped that they had a new person cooking or something, but I saw the chef/owner was on the line…which bummed me out even more. As a career chef, what came out was totally unacceptable and shouldn’t have been sent at all. Very sloppy presentation, lots of missing components and legit nothing tasted good. I swear I’m not trying to be a jerk or overly critical. It was F-ing bad.
Score 2.2/10
I’m sorry, Rascal’s Tavern. Y'all fumbled this brunch so hard. I know you had an oven fire, but it doesn’t give you a pass on 95% of the issues we had today, especially with the chef/owner in the building. I ran the Iron Hen for 5 years..that entire place was on oven fire owned by quite possibly an actual demon. Ya gotta hold your standards; no matter what shitstorm of a day it is. If you burn the shit out of an order of pancakes, you don’t sell it anyways cuz you’re in the weeds. If the special comes out looking like it’d been…in an oven fire, you scrap the special for the day. Or come up with a quick one on the fly.
If you can’t do any of that, you have to shut it down for the day. What if some random dude comes in who is doing a rundown of all the best brunches in town? :/ Made me feel bummed that I knew I was gonna have to hit ya with a bad one like this. It’d be really hard for me to come back. I just gotta be honest.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $13+$2.60 = $15.60 

McCoul’s Irish Pub

A Greensboro institution. Mccouls has been in business over 20 years. A step inside transports you to a cozy pub in the heart of Kilkenny. You can nearly hear the boats outside puttering down the river Nore. The smell of bacon and Irish coffee wafts through the pub and has me drooling as we are led to our table upstairs. No reservations taken here. You’ll get a table when you get one and ye better like it. In nice weather there’s a ton of patio seating, but this place is no hidden gem. Everybody and their nan has been to Mccoul’s so expect a wait during peak hours.
Service was fairly attentive albeit not super friendly. Seemed fitting for the environment. To be honest the whole pub is pretty dingy and could use some TLC. I’d never been here when the sun was out and as with most things in bars, they look prettier in the dark. The coffee was tasty. “Mccoul’s Nutty Irishmen” was the blend. Our server knew it was local but not for where. Darn good wherever it came from.
They offer a limited brunch menu, but everything we had was pretty spot on. We got the “Cinnamon Toast Crunch.” A fried chicken breast and egg sandwich in between french toast. We got the biscuits and gravy. Great gravy. Rich and peppery. The biscuits were a miss for me. I’m pretty positive they came in frozen and were pretty bland, but they had a nice color to them. I got the traditional breakfast. The fried eggs were on-the-money over medium, the bacon was just crispy enough. I didn’t really like the banger but it has a nice pop to the casing. The potatoes O’Brien were great; crispy and well-seasoned home fries with caramelized peppers and onions. Yum. The gouda grits were awesome as well, especially if you are a cheese head like my wife. I will note that my whole plate came out a little too cold. I figured they were waiting on our chicken sandwich to be done and got my plate in the window a little too soon. Not a huge deal though because it all tasted awesome.
I will add that there’s a bit of a greasy spoon feel to all the brunch items. It’s all super heavy and most of my stuff was a little oily. This isn’t a “hey let's go get brunch and then go out on the town" type of place.” This is a “I drank too much Guinness last night and need some fat and carbs to cure what’s ailing ya joint” Nothing wrong with that at all. It's dang good eats. It’s just not usually what I'm looking for.
My biggest drawback was the price. Not cheap. Not even sorta. We spent $81 after the tip. 3 entrees and 2 coffees. Yikes. It's good pub food for sure , but it's still pub food. Everything’s got a lil grease on it and the flattop they were cooking on wasn’t clean. This menu needs to come down 2 or 3 dollars an item for sure.
Score: 8.1/10 - They make a helluva brunch spread. Dad’s gonna love it and you and the boys can pound boilermakers at 10 am, having the hair of the dog what bit ya. You’re sure to leave fed and full and everybody’s happy besides your wallet and your cardiologist.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $16.18+3.24 = $19.42 

Scrambled

Scrambled has been a super popular brunch spot for some years now and for good reason. They are cranking out solid brunch food. I want to preface by stating that Scrambled is a self-proclaimed diner, so I tried to adjust my expectations by a smidge when comparing them to some other places around town.
You can jump on the waitlist online through yelp which I love. You can see your spot in line and roll in ten minutes before you’re expected to be seated. It cut out on me standing in a crowd for half an hour getting over-stimmed first thing in the morning which is great for my sanity.
I gotta be honest. I think the inside is straight up ugly. The light fixtures are old baskets and the walls desperately need painting. There's silver air duct running all over the ceiling and they’ve got hokey decor on the walls. Welcome to your country grandparent’s basement. I was half expecting my late Grandma Bonnie to be smoking Virginia Slims and playing solitaire at a table in the corner.
Their coffee was good like my grandma’s too. I can still remember the smell of it brewing when I’d wake up at her house 25 years ago. It comes from Carolina Coffee Roasters. Good coffee.
People always talk about their giant pancakes. They are huge for sure. But real talk, I don’t like them. They’re definitely more of a griddle cake. They’re thin and a lil greasy. I’m on team light and fluffy. I’ve had them here before but today I passed on them.
Entrees. We had their fried green tomato benedict which was decent. It didn’t knock my socks off. It needed salt pretty badly, but the eggs were good and the hollandaise was decent too. I got a french toast platter. The french toast was decent. It needed a little longer of a soak in the batter though. My eggs were spot on over-medium and the bacon was good. Good grits too. Buttery and creamy. The fruit was bad. More sad melons…just…don’t. We had a biscuit and gravy as well. The sausage gravy was tasty and seasoned well. The biscuits were ok. They didn’t seem homemade, rather frozen. Regardless, they tasted pretty good.
Score: 6.9/10 - Scrambled claims to be a diner and honestly, they are. The food is all pretty decent. Nothing blew me away, but I left full and with no complaints aside from the bad decor and need for new paint.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $13.25+$2.65 = $15.90 

Melt

We arrived at Melt this Sunday at peak brunch hours and the place was hoppin’. The inside was packed and there were lots of people hanging outside waiting for a table–A good sign to me! People like this place and are down to wait. No reservations here; we waited for about 35 minutes for our table which isn’t bad considering that they were slammed.
As an anxious human, the dining area was really stressful to me. They’ve got the seating maxed out and it is very loud in there. I was really having to focus on holding it together. The decor is nice and I would have enjoyed being in the space much more if it was less crowded and less noisy and I wasn’t triggered into outer space... I made sure to sit facing the wall so I could focus on my wife which helps me a lot when I'm in an overstimulating space. But honestly, all of that’s more of a me thing than a Melt thing so …let’s recalibrate our focus.
Melt is the only place out of all of Greensboro that I’ve found to have bottomless mimosas. I repeat. Melt has bottomless Mimosas. For twenty bucks you can drink endless orange juice and cheap champagne until you spew it all over the parking lot! Woohoo!! They also had a great cocktail and mocktail menu. My wife got a strawberry lemonade that was very yummy. I had their coffee which was bold and pretty tasty, but our server didn’t know where it was from.
Entrees took a hot minute to reach our table. The kitchen must have been hanging on for dear life. However once they arrived we were super pleased. They make a very good benedict. Plenty of ham, very nice hollandaise, and served on a flaky croissant. Yum. We also had “Melts Big Nasty Fried Chicken Biscuit.” Visually, the name fits. It was a hideous pile of food, but holy moly..welcome to flavortown. It’s tasty fried chicken with an awesome hot sauce, lots of pimento cheese and bacon on a very good homemade biscuit and the whole thing is just drowned in zesty cajun gravy. Damn y'all this was good. You’re probably gonna need a nap after, but sheesh! Killer flavor and very satisfying. I thought this was much better than Mccouls’ brunch chicken sandwich and Melt’s is $7.50 cheaper…We also had their french toast. It was cooked nicely and had a great flavor and texture.
I did feel like their side items were lacking a bit. The fruit side was a melon fest and I did not like their grits. They were watery and had a very strong smoked flavor, I'm assuming from a gouda or something, but they weren’t my style. I’m also pretty positive their home fries came frozen. Bright orange and cut just like Ore-Ida’s. Bleh.
Score: 9.1/10 - Let’s freaking go Melt. Y’all are putting out some of the best brunch in the city. The price is right. It’s nice inside, but not so nice that you feel the need to dress up, and the food is straight up delicious. Tighten up those sides and maybe put up some noise-dampening foam and you're the cream of the crop. If you haven’t been for brunch, you’re missing out. I’ll be back for sure.

Median Entree Price + 20% tip: $14.79 + $2.95 = $17.75 

There it is, Greensbohemians. Brunch has been brunched.
Three, arduous months of spiking my blood sugar at 11 am every weekend; rendering my afternoons lackadaisical and unproductive. My wallet isn't thrilled with all these lavish weekend splurges, but I can rest easy knowing my brunch service to the community has come to an end.
I had Lindley Park Filling Station on my list too, but they’re closed for renovations. I could have done Dame’s Chicken and Waffles too now that I think of it…dammit. Fine. Here’s a drive-by review:

Dame’s Chicken and Waffles

I love Dame’s. I’ve been there a bunch. Dank chicken, dank waffles, dank schmears. Amazing collards and mac n cheese . The service is usually pretty spotty and sometimes the food comes out slow. You should definitely go.
Score: 8.4/10 Really good food, but sometimes I worry the server might kick my ass for asking for some syrup.
​
I’m sure I missed a few other spots too…Honestly, I have eaten enough benedicts for a lifetime and I’m over brunch food for a while. Y’all go check out the rest of them, come back and let us know. I’m tapping out. I had such a great time writing this up. I hope you had a great time reading it. I really appreciate you taking the time.
So what’s next?
Coffee shops. I’m about to bite down on that bean baby. I’ll be hitting up all the shops in town and be back with a much more brief and lighthearted rundown of who’s got the best in the ‘boro. I’m gonna catch the vibe, catch a buzz, and be back hyper and excited to tell y'all where’s hot and where’s not.
Until then, your neighbor,
Zac

Hey all,
recently I bought a BlackBerry Curve 8330 from the internet, which I believe runs basically the same firmware and software as an 8300. One of the main reasons I bought it was to play some games on it, but I'm having trouble.
I tried downloading some .jar games from the internet that say they're screen-resolution compatible to my model (320x240), but I can't seem to get any to work. Most just won't install, giving some sort of error message. And the ones that I was able to get to install (Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions and Winnie-the-Pooh: Honey Trouble) will show up as applications in the apps screen but won't run. They'll say something about a "verification error", or they'll say "Uncaught exception: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError".
And as for games that are .asx or .cod or whatever, I straight up can't find any online.
I remember when I was a really little kid I used to play The Sims 3 on a blackberry that looked just like this, and I know these sorts of games are meant to be able to run on this device, I just can't figure out how.
What am I doing wrong? How can I get Java games to work, and where online can I find games that will run? (Obviously not AppWorld since that's been shut down for years.) Anything helps, thank you :)

Ok, so…um. Yeah, well. This is going to be tougher than I thought.
No one is going to believe me anyway, so fuck it, right? Might as well just go for it. I killed my wife. There. Probably not in the way that people think, but people might be pretty close.
I’ve never discussed what happened at Aunt Mary Jane’s house that night. I always thought she was made up by my Grandma, a figment, not a phantom. Just a name to give the house and make it scary enough not to play there. I figured no one named Mary Jane had ever lived there until I found her picture and the thin memory of the grave marker came flooding back. Either way, my grandparents were in cahoots and they had me fooled. It took me years to figure out the truth and I bet they shared a few good laughs about it.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was a kid. My mom was 16 when she got pregnant, 17 when she had a shotgun wedding, and she was 19 when she divorced my deadbeat (and I suspect, abusive) dad. She needed support, and they helped. I don’t know if my mom was determined not to move back home or if it wasn’t allowed by Grandad, but paying all the bills was difficult for us. The result was I got to spend a lot of time at my grandparent’s house and I loved it.
I remember Grandma telling me spooky stories. Sometimes Grandad too, but mainly he would sit around with us and chime in to add a detail or two, making her stories even scarier. One favorite story was about the ghost of Redbeard Pete, a pirate who was known to be stubborn in life, and too stubborn in death to move on. That’s not what this is about. I’m trying to delay it. Or avoid it altogether. If you saw her the way I did, especially then, when I…when I did what I had to do.
What I need to say involves Aunt Mary Jane’s house, and I will only speak of this once. I need to say it, and after that I’ll never speak of it again. If I’m going to tell the story, I need to tell it all and say everything I need to say about it. How I came to know the house is part of our history. It might not seem related to what happened that night, but everything I know about it is relevant to me.
My grandparents lived in a yellow house on a corner lot in rural Virginia. The Northern Neck of Virginia, to be exact. Big yard, the neighbors were family, woods out back, and everyone was a farmer, hunter, or a fisherman, and more likely they were all three. The main road there didn’t have yellow lines until recently. Their house sat in the corner crook where an even smaller side road turned off and led to who-knows-where. It was paved, but just barely. The narrow kind of road where folks usually just drove down the middle until they met another vehicle, then both would wave as they squeezed past one another and tried to avoid the ditch. And if someone ended up in the ditch, you already knew you’d stay and give them a hand getting out. Their house faced that road.
My Grandad’s workshop sat near the edge of the property and barely spitting distance from the smaller road. (Forgive me, it’s been so long that I can’t recall the name of the street. Probably Route something or other.) About a hundred yards down from his shop was an overgrown lane - an old driveway. Aunt Mary Jane’s house.
As kids, my cousins and I rode our bikes past there all the time and never even noticed the house. The lane, yes, but not the house and the dirt driveway was so overgrown with weeds that none of us ever thought to go investigate. In hindsight, maybe there was another reason.
Anyway, the property was overgrown with pine and locust trees, and a few pecan trees. The house was situated among a stand of trees closer to the road than you might expect. It was invisible from the street. The house was hidden, not because it was buried deep in the forest, but because the property was being devoured by weeds, blackberry brambles, and neglect.
The reason I knew about it is because Grandma told me about Aunt Mary Jane. She explained that’s just what everyone called her, and told me to my dismay that she was not my real aunt. Later, she and my Grandad would scare the hell out of me and for years I was oblivious to the truth.
I can’t remember what kind of story Grandma concocted, but I remember it was about Aunt Mary Jane and how mean she was - when she was alive before she turned into a ghost. And how she got even meaner as a ghost. Her story spooked me and I’m pretty sure it was meant to keep me from finding it by accident one day. I used to play in the woods all the time and I guess I might have. It was more visible from the woods on my grandparent’s property than it was out front. Saplings grew through the tottering, tumble-down floor inside, the droopy roof sagged down, bulging into the kitchen, and the dry-rotted old window frames had panes of jagged glass sticking every which way. Needless to say, if our group of cousins had ever discovered the place on our own, there would have been a lot less glass in the windows, and a lot more rocks being thrown through the glass that remained. The house was a donkey mile beyond repair, and far too dangerous for anyone to horse around in or to explore.
Despite my fear, I had trouble believing her story at first, and I told her so. All this time, how could I not know about a ghost who lived right next door? A nasty, bitter old ghost who was a nasty and bitter old witch when she was alive? I would know if there was a ghost, I thought.
She reminded me about the tooth fairy and how I didn’t know about her until I had a loose tooth. This was different, I told her, because I hadn’t always had a loose tooth, but Aunt Mary Jane’s house had always been there.
She told me she would take me over there and prove it. She may have been bluffing, but this was more exciting than the State Fair. I wasn’t calling her bluff, I was dying to see a real life ghost. She put on her shoes and that’s when I got scared. I wanted to chicken out, but she wouldn’t let me, so she promised she’d hold my hand the whole time, just in case we ran into Aunt Maru Jane. And off we went, walking out to Route whatever-it-was and down the road about a hundred yards.
Grandma picked our way through the blackberry briars that sprawled across the lane, holding back the pricker vines I wouldn’t get too scratched up. I ducked under the last tangle and emerged onto the sparse but overgrown lawn in front of a dilapidated house. It looked like every ramshackle haunted house in every movie you ever saw. The paint, which used to be white and probably lead-based, curled back in thick peels, revealing the sun-bleached wood underneath the layers. Reptilian scales to armor old bones. A massive locust tree grew at one corner of the house. One of its limbs thrust into a room on the second floor through a side window. Inside, it angled like an arthritic elbow, and stretched back outside and rested on top of the porch. The front door was partially opened and stuck like that. The rood sagged so badly that a deep slouch had developed in the ceiling and now its weight wedged the door in place. Not wide open, but enough so you could stick your head through to sneak a look. The porch had held up fairly well.
She told me if we were extra careful, maybe we could peek inside, but first she wanted to look around and check if there was a better place than under a collapsing ceiling.
The backyard was also overgrown, but the shade of the house and the tree canopy above kept the weeds sparse enough so it wasn’t difficult to walk around. We were picking our way through the overgrowth when she stopped and shushed me. Then she pointed toward the rope swing.
“The swing?” I was just a little kid and even I could tell that rope wasn’t safe.
She shook her head and pointed again, but lower, and then I saw it. A headstone, beyond the swing, near where a fence might have stood once.
“Is someone really buried there?” I had seen cemeteries before, but discovering a grave anywhere else felt unusual.
She nodded and we walked a little closer, but she stopped me before I got too close. “See? That’s where she’s buried,” she whispered. “Don’t walk on her grave because she might, snatch your ankle and pull you down to hell.”
“MJW” was all I could see. The dates, if there were any, were too low and hidden by the grass and moss that grew in a thicker patch above the grave. I was amazed thinking that a spooky skeleton was almost right under me.
So, a little explanation - it wasn’t unusual to be buried on your own on their property back then. This house was, I imagine, built sometime in the late 1800’s, so these types of grave markers were fairly commonplace for the area. The other thing to know is that this area is full of country folk, real salt of the earth types. My family was Southern Baptist (but not me), so hell was a very real place. Not a metaphor for eternal suffering, but a specific locale full of sulfur, brimstone, and fire. I did not walk on Aunt Mary Jane’s grave. Turns out that when I returned as an adult, it wouldn’t matter anyhow.
Grandma said she was worried we might disturb Aunt Mary Jane, so we could have a quick peek, but we weren’t going to stick around long. Plus, she was worried about the broken glass and rusty nails or something else hiding in the grass. You never knew when you might have an unfortunate encounter with a copperhead. I was more scared the house might turn into a monster and come alive with a front door for a mouth to eat me. I was terrified and I loved it. I might have felt differently, but at the time I couldn’t imagine what came to pass.
She told me the rules. Hold her hand. Don’t go any further than she does. If she says to stop, stop and don’t move. Don’t touch anything. Don’t make too much noise in case there’s a raccoon or opossum who lives inside. That was fine with me. I didn’t want to be too loud and get a ghost angry at us.
She poked at the boards with her toes, checking if they were rotted, but they were okay. The porch window teased an easy look inside, but curtains and the ceiling bulging down blocked it, so she took a peek inside. It was all clear. No sign of ghosts, she told me, so I peeked in and looked around.
I didn’t see any ghosts and it looked mostly empty. Kinda boring. Just a lot of dust, a dried out mouse, a few pictures left hanging on the wall.
“Shh! Do you hear that?”
I hadn’t heard anything/ “What is it, Grandma?”
“Sh. Hear it?” she had a hand to her ear, listening. “I think I hear her coming. I think it’s Aunt Mary Jane!”
I didn’t hear it at first, but that didn’t stop me from being afraid. I still held her hand tight. Then, I heard it. It was quiet at first and I strained to hear it, but after a moment, it got louder. There was no missing it anymore. Spooky moans and groans that rolled through the house like swelling waves, growing louder, then soft, louder, softer again. Grandma got scared and I was already scared. We reckoned Aunt Mary Jane was giving us a warning so we probably ought to listen to her and be on our way. If she didn’t have a grip on my hand like she did, I would have already been tearing through those berry brambles like a dozen wild rabbits.
Next time my cousins came down, I told them how I saw Aunt Mary Jane’s gravestone, and how I almost went inside a haunted house. I was the youngest and they didn’t even listen at first, but when I told them how we heard Aunt Mary Jane spooking around, me and Grandma both? That got their attention alright, but they didn’t believe me. I told them how Grandma went with me and I told them they could go right ahead and ask her if they wanted and they did.
She said it never happened and I must have dreamt it. I cried because everybody thought I was lying and nobody believed me because I was just a little kid. Later, when nobody else could hear us, she explained that, if the rest of the boys knew, they would want her to take them too. She said the last time was too scary to go back. She asked me if we could just keep it between us whenever we heard a ghost. That was even better to me.
After that, Grandma or Grandad would walk the hundred yards or so down Route whatever-it-was and we would stand by the old mailbox to listen for the ghost of Aunt Mary Jane. Sometimes we heard her wailing, sometimes not. We didn’t get too close after the first time.
The following year, Grandma got sick and she died exactly one year after her first trip to the doctor in Richmond. Life moved on and I mostly forgot about Aunt Mary Jane’s house except for the odd occasion when friends start trading ghost stories. Now, I don’t talk about it at all. Not anymore.
Another few years passed and my Grandad Curtis died. It was the day after my 11th birthday and he willed the house to mom. We never lived there and I barely saw it again after that. It sat empty, neglected, and full up with Radon as far as I knew. After a while, the roof sagged, a stripe of tall weeds grew down the middle of the driveway, and the ceiling sank lower and lower until it finally jammed against the front door.
Years passed and eventually, so did my mom. I always figured she had sold the property, and I was surprised to learn she kept it and now I owned it. I can’t say I felt much joy about it, but I guess I wasn’t upset either. It was briefly disturbing, like when you feel something slither against your foot and nearly die from a panic, then realize it was just your dog’s nose. That odd moment when you experience something hideous but the realization comes so quickly after the sensation you aren’t capable of feeling relieved yet. That’s what I felt.
This is where it gets difficult to talk about, but like I said, no one is going to believe me anyway and I need to say it out loud and get it off my chest. If I didn’t have the scars and the medical bills to remind me, I would wonder if I hadn’t hallucinated it. It was real though, and I do have the scars and the bills. I just can’t share what happened with anyone, or I couldn’t before now, here. I can’t tell anybody I know because there’s two ways it happens - One. They don’t believe me and assume I’m crazy. The bad kind. Or two. They do believe me. In that case they don’t have an option and things might be worse. Either way, it could end with me behind bars, with or without soft walls. The truth? Well it doesn’t matter that the truth is because it’s impossible to believe! Trust me, I know how far-fetched it will sound, but listen. I’m the one with trauma, with a broken heart I can’t make sense out of, and a hole in my thigh so deep the doctors filled it with a solid chunk of my rear end the size of a baseball. I lived through it. I know the truth. I know what happened. That doesn’t mean anybody will believe me, or believe the whole truth.
It was a couple months before I made the trip to the property. The thought of my grandparents’ home looking anything like Aunt Mary Jane’s house felt wrong to me. Disrespectful. Like knocking over somebody’s headstone and leaving a bag of garbage on their grave.
Nearly 20 years after my Grandma held my hand and showed me the inside of a real haunted house, I was on my way there. Nearly 20 years after we scurried through the weeds and briars, terrified, running away from the ghost of Aunt Mary Jane’s, it hit me. All this time, my entire adult life and suddenly, on the ride there, I realized it. Only one of them usually walked me over to listen as she wailed at us from the haggard old house. Occasionally, the three of us would go but we didn’t always hear the ghastly groans. It seemed obvious now that I saw it. How could I not see it?
Grandma walked me over, Grandad snuck through the woods. She distracted me while he found a good hiding place. I like to imagine the smile they shared the first time she peeked her head in to be sure “the coast was clear”. I’m sure they loved it, and I love them for the memory, despite everything else.
When I got to their old yellow house I found it looking much better than I had expected. Better than I remembered from before, actually. I distinctly recall the ceiling had reached down to the top of the door and jammed it so you could barely rattle it back and forth. I remember it reminded me of a door that might grow teeth and a house that might eat me.
I walked around the house, peeking through each window. The house had been in such ill repair last time I had seen it, I couldn’t trust it was safe to enter, regardless of the straightened roofline and a door that now looked completely functional. As I went, I became more amazed and more confused. Inside, it looked just like when I was a kid. The same carpet, the same Jesus painting with eyes that opened and closed depending when you looked, the same coffee table I hid under to play, the same television, same sofa, lamp shade, recliner, everything was exactly the same. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t have come about from repairs. None of it made sense. I was bewildered.
I called Leslie to tell her I made it there and to see if she had any rational idea what could be going on. Mom didn’t have the money to stage an elaborate prank like this. We’d always been poor, and she hadn’t sold the property. None of it made sense. Leslie couldn’t think of a logical reason either. After the amazement wore off a little, I asked if she remembered the story of Aunt Mary Jane’s house. She did, so I told her about my epiphany on the ride down. She responded with, “Yeah, I know. You really didn’t know until now?”
At least we had a good chuckle. Sometimes we believe it because we perceive it. I had never had a reason to reconsider the reality of it, or to think about it much at all.
Not until it got up close, in your face, and bared its teeth.
After we hung up, I grabbed a burger from Fermin’s place down the road and had dinner sitting at Grandad’s work table in the shop. I hadn’t gone inside the house yet - I was unsettled by the whole thing. I ate my burger and, on a whim, I took a walk. I went down the barely paved side road side road that led to who-knows-where.
Sure enough, about a hundred yards down, still visible, same as it looked two decades ago. It was the same dirt driveway grown over with brambles, briars and weeds. Further back, a stand of tall hardwoods and pines, a dense crown of leaves to guard the roots and shadows below. It looked just how I remembered it. Surely the walls had given up by now and fallen in on themselves, I thought. The old house should be an overgrown heap of rusted nails, broken glass, and sawdust by now.
I’m not sure why I did it. I wish I could go back and stop myself, but I can’t, so I gotta live with memory. For whatever reason, I was compelled to go on, to see it again. I worked my way through the thorns and found myself standing on the unkempt lawn, staring at Aunt Mary Jane’s house. Thick peels of paint were still there, curled back like scales covering bones. Around back, the headstone sat undisturbed. The jagged glass remained in the dry-rotted window frames, still sticking out every which way. The front porch was still sturdy, the ceiling still hung low, and the locust still made a pass through two of the upstairs windows. But things were a little different than I remembered.
The front door hung open like it always had, but the ceiling, as low as it was, no longer dragged the top. The door wasn’t jammed now. I nudged it open with my foot and it swung easily. I’d had no thought or desire to come see this place or to see inside again, but there I was, tugging the door open, stepping inside. I didn’t know why. I don’t know why.
A pall of dust and sticky cobwebs lay across everything inside. If not for that, the place would have been immaculate. The kitchen was like a time capsule, a snapshot of the mid-1970’s. Teacups hung from hooks under the cabinets, the green toaster had a braided power cord, the linoleum matched the toaster, and the whole room smelled delicious, like someone had a roast in the oven. That was the point when I stopped questioning things and just accepted it. It may have been strange but it wasn’t my concern. It smelled delicious, the home was warm and cozy, and despite my head feeling slightly foggy, I was energized. I felt great, actually.
I noticed a small grandfather clock on the sofa table, its pendulum swinging back and forth. It worked. I accepted it. Sunlight angled through a crack in the curtains and raced across the room. It made me think of sharpened gold and I accepted it. Sunset was less than an hour from now, and through the spotless windows, it was morning outside. I accepted it. That’s how it was, and that’s the way that it should be.
I wandered back towards the kitchen hoping the roast was ready. A teacup swayed on its hook, drops of water on its pattern, curved and magnified, washed clean and hung to dry.
“Honey, could you give me a hand up here? I think my zipper is stuck.” Her voice was melodic and I could almost recall her singing, I couldn’t catch hold of the thought yet.
“Of course dear, I’ll be right there. How’d you get your zipper stuck?” I answered her, of course.
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s this dress. It happens every darn time. I think Mr. Sanderson knows which zippers tend to stick and picks them out on purpose and gives them to me.”
“Now why would Mr. Sanderson do a thing like that?” I was at the top of the stairs.
“Well, because of Marge. Don’t you remember?”
“At the party?” I saw her. She stood with her back to the open door where I now stood. She wore a rose-mauve dress with an ivory lace detail on the shoulders and cuffs. The back of the dress hung in an open V, waiting for help with the zipper. She faced a mirror, and I could only see the angle of her cheek bones, but I knew she was beautiful.
“Yes, at the party!” It was mock exasperation, and of course I remembered. Who could forget a scene like that?
I recalled the stairs, the top of the stairs, standing at the door, and now she was close. Her perfume was familiar. It smelled pretty and I thought it suited her. I have no memory of walking closer, but I was glad to be there. We had never met, but I knew that we had. I knew her intimately. I knew that I had always loved her deeply, and that she loved me. I didn’t question it; I just knew.
“Well, yes, but why would he give you a dress with a stuck zipper? That was Marge’s hullabaloo.” My fingers worked her zipper free. The tab felt familiar and I knew this wasn’t the first time I’d helped my wife like this.
“Because he thinks that I’m the one who told Heath about the conversation at the post office. He thinks that’s why Marge was throwing a fit.”
She swung her hair back and forth, then let it settle down her back. I noticed the nape of her neck. I was lost for a moment, she was all I could see. I felt a need to be closer, to touch her, to kiss the back of her neck and to lay down with her. I still held the tab between my fingers, her dress fully zipped, and there was a moment of stillness, of quiet intimacy. I leaned forward and didn’t question if I should kiss her neck. I was supposed to kiss her there. I needed to feel her skin with my lips. I stopped and savored the fleeting anticipation and I could feel her warmth near my lips.
I was finally there to taste her when she spun around, a whirlwind of beauty and hair and perfume and she flung her arms around me, around my neck and she smiled, a brilliant smile, wide and toothy, and it was no longer a smile and she was strong and her arms were too tight, and her grin grew wider and wider and stretched and contorted into a hideous maw. It happened fast.
The pressure around my neck made me sputter for air and that snapped me out of my daze. Whatever this thing was, it was evil. I felt it now.
I struggled to slip out of her grasp. Her arms had become gray and mottled with purple stains, like old bruises, misshapen. Her hands were large and the proportions looked wrong. Its fingers spindled into hooked claws, sharp, dangerous looking. The thick smell of mold and rot filled the room and I would have struggled to breathe with or without her squeezing me this way. All the air had been sucked from my lungs and they burned. I wriggled back and forth to find any small gap my chest could expand, to breathe.
She spoke again. “What’s wrong dear? Don’t you want a kiss?” This time, her voice was different, no longer melodic, no longer the voice of a woman. Her words came out in a quick raspy growl that reminded me of worms and insects, and as it hissed out that last word, thick fluid strung across its rows of elongated teeth, not saliva, some disgusting mucus that clung like stringy threads over sharp and serrated teeth. Teeth meant for tearing flesh. A few tiny drops of the fluid broke free as I fought against its strength and burned the skin of my cheek where they landed.
I needed air. Now.
I struggled until I was almost convulsing, then when I looked back at the creature…well, there was no creature. There was only my beautiful wife, befuddled, concerned about me.
“Are you okay? Please, you’re scaring me. What’s the matter?” What was wrong with me? Why had I frightened her that way? My chest ached inside hearing that tone in her voice, hearing how it slipped out, how she meant to keep it hidden. The tone that said she was scared. Scared for me, maybe. But her tone said she was scared of me, too..
I embraced her and pulled her to me. I needed to comfort her, to make it right before it was too late.
It’s no small miracle what happened next. If not for plain old dumb luck, the thing would have had me. Eaten me, I guess. Taken my soul, tortured me, I don’t know what, but I’ve never seen anything like that creature. True evil, the deep down core of evil.
The room had looked like a tastefully furnished and decorated bedroom moments ago. An ordinary bedroom for an average husband and a normal wife. And then it was a room with holes through the floor to the room below. The stout limb of a locust tree grew through the busted out window, into the room, and elbowed and angled its way out through the other window.
As I embraced this woman, my wife, desperate to soothe her hurt, desperate not to wound her more, the awful thing with hungry teeth was there again, chirping its unsettling clicks when it lunged. The mouth worked back and forth, scraping teeth together. The mucus had become thicker, and foamy. It had begun to leak and drip from its grotesque mouth. It was a split-second, that I noticed. Only an adrenaline fueled mind could have registered all of it to sort and file them into compartments of how deadly they might be.
I needed help, and somehow, it came. A small miracle, also a creature, but wildly different from this enormous lunging, fang-toothed monster. A miracle that arrived in the form of an opossum who made her den in Aunt Mary Jane’s dilapidated, ramshackle house.
It was all a blur, but I suspect she was a mama opossum, or maybe she was upset at the commotion. All I know is that it snapped and I barely reacted in time. I felt the unnaturally sharp point of the thing’s tooth followed by the searing burn of the mucus foam. It nicked me just under my jaw - way too close to my throat. At that moment, the opossum charged down the locust limb and hissing so loudly that it stopped us both dead cold for a split second. I was overflowing with adrenaline by then and my body was running on autopilot. I felt my body react without my input, and it shot into motion. I lurched away from the thing, trying to go anywhere I could to get it off. It had my leg, but I managed to grab hold of the tree limb and held it tight. The opossum didn’t like how close I got and she reared back on her hind legs. She was ready for a fight to the death.
I kicked and pulled, but I couldn’t shake the nasty thing off my leg. It was too strong and too quick for me to do any more than hold on and to keep trying to pull free. It didn’t work.
It felt like a full block of hot knives plunged into my thigh. I heard myself yelp from the shock of the pain. It hurt something awful, but it got worse. The creature had its long teeth buried in the meat of my leg and then chomped down. The jaw snapped shut and tore out a chunk. I think I felt it hit bone and I could see strands of muscle and fat inside. I almost passed out. Everything turned to gray and quiet nothingness, then the world rushed back in like a full alarm. I knew I had to make it count, right then. If not, this creature was going to have its way with me however it wanted.
I shook and pushed and yelled and pulled and tried to whip loose. I was losing too much blood, too fast. I could smell it, but I didn’t understand until later what it was I smelled. I heard the wet sound of it pouring onto the floor, before it drained through the cracks and holes to the floor a story below us. I didn’t register that it was my blood. It only registered that liquid was leaking and making a mess somewhere.
Both legs were soaked with red, but fortunately the blood made me slick. I yanked hard and jerked loose from its claws a little. Not much, but enough to gain some leverage. I let him pull me towards him, then sprung away, using his momentum against him to slip free. I grasped for anything I could reach, any weapon at all..
Sharp claws raked through my shirt, ripping jagged tears into my back. I ignored it and stretched toward the window and tried to grab a shard of the glass. The things must have had barbs somewhere because when I reached for the glass, I felt a sudden sting and felt the barbs grab and dig even deeper as I fought against them. I ignored that too and shoved myself as hard as I could.
They ripped gashes into my calf. I heard the sound of my body tearing as they pulled through. I got hold of a piece of that glass, though. I knew the glass would cut me too and I ignored it all. I felt it slide through the meaty part of my hand but I just clenched down even tighter. The deeper it was in, the better my grip was.
I whirled around and went after the thing. I had the glass with both bloody hands and swung the shard high over my head, then down as hard as I could. The glass jammed it into whatever part of the creature I could reach. I stabbed it. And stabbed it. And stabbed it.
It screeched and clicked and made odd, wet sucking sounds, then suddenly it was kicking, trying to get away from me. It didn’t last. It was only trying to gain an advantage.
I was no longer choosing fight or flight and there was no logic, only survival. If I had retained any logic, I might have launched myself out the window. Instead, I went after it.
I knew the blood loss might kill me, but I knew if I didn’t do something now, I was dead anyway. Some deep-down, instinctual, snake-brain took over and I leaped on it. I felt it doing things to hurt me, but I felt nothing except animalistic blood-rage. I felt claws and barbs and teeth push through my flesh with a soft pop, but it didn’t matter. There was no pain.
I don’t know how many times I stabbed it before it finally went weak. It wasn’t dead, but I’d hurt it. I was on its chest, heaving and out of breath. I was suddenly weak. I was too cold, shaky.
I looked down at it, ready to finish it. There was a waft of perfume, sexy and feminine, all around me. I noticed how the mirror was trimmed with gold leaf on its scalloped edges. The mirror my beautiful wife had been staring into when I worked her zipper free. I loved her so fully, so completely.
She was beautiful and it pained me to see her look at me the way she did. I’ll never forget that look. I wish I could take it back, to change things, but I can’t.
I had no choice. I understand that. I apply that logic everytime I remember, which is everyday. But the logic doesn’t matter to my heart.
Our eyes met and I saw it. I saw that she knew what I was about to do. I saw that she wasn’t afraid, she was hurt. I hurt her beautiful heart because she knew what I would do. And I did it. I knew the creature wouldn’t show its true self. I knew it would be this woman who felt so familiar to me whom I’d never seen before now. The creature made sure it stung me back as it died.
I kept hacking for I don’t know how long. Eventually, I raised myself up off the body. It was barely recognizable anymore. My arms were limp, and there was no part of me left dry. I was drenched in our blood. Somehow, I lurched across the patchwork floor and down the steps. I hadn’t noticed on the way up, but most were rotten or missing. I maneuvered down on the framework. I got myself to the door but didn’t know if I could make it back through the briars but the human spirit is amazing I guess, because here I am.
On the way out, I noticed a small, ornate picture frame that hung near the front door. A photo of her, my beloved. It was tinted with the brass sepia of old photos. Later, when I got home from the hospital, I looked it over more closely. There were three letters and a date written on the back with a flourish. It said, “MJW” and “1908, April”.

so I recently bought a blackberry curve 8520 and set it up with my WiFi and mobile network, everything else works fine however the phone is completely missing the browser app but has browser configuration in the settings but when I click on it there's nothing there. anyone know why and how I can fix it??

Personal Info:
I live in nothern europe, so currently cold, windy and dry Climate. My Skintype is sahara desert dry, prone to closed comedones plus some light hormonal acne. Sadly im also super prone to hyperpigmentation. My main Goals are barrier health, hydration, acne & Hyperpigmentation management and getting rid of the damn stubborn CC`s... I also follow a kinda skincycling routine wich includes a non AB Retinal product.
In Bold will be the product name + how long i have been using it
in italic will be the ingredients i liked
Axis-Y Sunday morning cleanser: (using for a month now) green tea extract, centella extract, allatonin
Ingredients:
Water, Glycerin, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate, Potassium Cocoyl Glycinate, Coco-Betaine, Butylene Glycol, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Chloride, Potassium Benzoate, Polyquaternium-67, Xylitylglucoside, Citric Acid, Anhydroxylitol, Propanediol, Xylitol, Betula Platyphylla Japonica Juice, Glucose, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Disodium EDTA, Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Extract, Agrimonia Eupatoria Extract, 1,2-Hexanediol, Centella Asiatica Extract, Dipropylene Glycol, Allantoin, Perilla Frutescens Leaf Extract, Saponaria Officinalis Extract, Sodium Acetate, Pentylene Glycol, Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract, Kigelia Africana Fruit Extract, Caprylyl Glycol, Natto Gum, Sodium Hyaluronate, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Ethylhexylglycerin, Hydroxycinnamic Acid, Rutin
Texture:
a balmy texture, foams up to a dense and soft foam
Expirience:
I picked this up because I wanted to change from my old clenaser to something that felt like it had a bit more cleansing power, yet was not stripping. As far as i can tell it seems to accomplish that. It foams up nicely, cleans well and doesent seem to strip my Skin. After washing it off it feels almost as if there is a slight layer on my Skin, but i dont mind it/ think that it contributes to the non stripping?
(4/5)
Cosrx Propolis Toner: (about a month 1/2 of use) propolis, honey extract, panthenol
Ingredients:
Propolis Extract, Honey Extract, Butylene Glycol, 1,2-Hexanediol, Glycerin, Betaine, Cassia Obtusifolia Seed Extract, Panthenol, Polyglyceryl-10 Laurate, Polyglyceryl-10 Myristate, Ethylhexylglycerin, Sodium Hyaluronate, Hydroxyethyl Acrylate/Sodium Acryloyldimethyl Taurate Copolymer, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride
Texture:
a waterlike texture, thats just a bit thicker
Expirience:
To be honest im not overly impressed... its a nice hydrating toner for sure but i didnt notice anything outstanding that would have me choose it again. But it gets a pluspoint for being reasonably priced so i migth pick it up again to reach free shipping...
(3/5)
Holika Holika Aloe Waterproof Sungel (3 Months of use) Aloe
Ingredients:
Aqua, Dibutyl Adipate, Propanediol, Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate, Polymethylsilsesquioxane, Ethylhexyl Triazone, Niacinamide, Methylene Bis-Benzotriazolyl Tetramethylbutylphenol, Coco-Caprylate/Caprate, Caprylyl Methicone, Diethylhexyl Butamido Triazone, Glycerin, Butylene Glycol, 1,2-Hexanediol, Hippophae Rhamnoides Fruit Extract, Daucus Carota Sativa (Carrot) Root Extract, Rosa Canina Fruit Extract, Pyrus Malus (Apple) Fruit Extract, Aloe Ferox Leaf Extract, Artemisia Capillaris Extract, Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Juice, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Pentylene Glycol, Behenyl Alcohol, Poly C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate, Polyglyceryl-3 Methylglucose Distearate, Decyl Glucoside, Tromethamine, Carbomer, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Sodium Stearoyl Glutamate, Polyacrylate Crosspolymer-6, Ethylhexylglycerin, Adenosine, Xanthan Gum, T-butyl Alcohol, Tocopherol, Ascorbic Acid, Moringa Oleifera Seed Oil, Ceramide Np, Phytosphingosine, Parfum
Texture:
a thin cream Texture, not runny but almost there
Expirience:
It comes in quite a big size for a Sunscreen, you can find 80 - 100 ml Tubes online for around 15-17 Euros! Wich honestly was the sole reason why i bougth it xD i figured my skin would be fine with the Ingredients and i just hate tiny sunscreens! And well... that was exactly what it is like, its decently moisturizing and doesnt irritate my Skin. But if you have sensitive Skin be careful, it does have Fragrance, smells kinda like very artificial Aloe. You can smell it but only upon first apllication, it doesnt linger. I have been using 1 bottle for 3 months and still have enough for another month at min. so a win!
(3.5/5)
Purito Dermide Cica Barrier Sleeping Mask: (3 months of use) Squalane, Centella Extract, Jojoba oil, Panthenol, Madecassoside, Asiaticoside, Madecassic Acid, Asiatic Acid, Ceramide
Ingredients:
Water, Centella Asiatica Extract(250,000Ppm), Caprylic/​Capric Triglyceride, Glycerin, Squalane, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Cetearyl Alcohol, Potassium Cetyl Phosphate, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Butylene Glycol, Polyglyceryl-3 Methylglucose Distearate, 1,2-Hexanediol, Madecassoside, Asiaticoside, Madecassic Acid, Asiatic Acid, Panthenol, Ceramide NP(3,000Ppm), Sodium Hyaluronate, Hydroxyacetophenone, Sodium Carbomer, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract
Texture:
A thick Cream, feels quite emmolient
Expirience:
I love, love, loe this! Its the first moisturizer that i found that feels like it actually does its job well on my Skin. As a nigthtime moisturizer it keeps my Skin hydrated all through the Night and has my wake up nicely glowy. I love to use this when my Skin is irritated, it really soothes it quickly. Always have this on my Shelf, you would have to pry it out of my dead cold hands, to seperate me from it. One Bottle last me about 2 months.
HG!
(5/5)
Mary & May Blackberry Cream Essence: (4 months of use) Jojoba oil, ceramides, lotus water, centella
Ingredients:
Water, Nymphaea Caerulea Flower Water, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Hydrogenated Poly(C6-14 Olefin), Rubus Fruticosus (Blackberry) Fruit Extract, 1,2-hexanediol, Methlypropanediol, Centella Asiatica Extract, Ficus Carica (Fig) Fruit Extract, Hydrolyzed Gardenia Florida Extract, Sodium Hyaluronate, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Butylene Glycol, Glycerin, Trilaureth-4 Phoshate, Sodium Polyacrylate, Pvm/Ma Copolymer, Cyanocobalamin, Ceramide Np, Maltodextrin, Ethylhexylglycerin, Tocopherol
Texture:
thin, watery but creamy? (just realized i suck at describing textures haha)
Expirience:
A really nice hydrating and moisturizing Toner, feels like a great balance of the two. Acts nicely as a layer with other Skincare because it absorbs really well. I like it, a bottle lasts me about 2 months.
(4/5)
Abib Quick Sunstick Protection Bar: ( 3 months of use) Aloe, Centella, Ceramides
Ingredients:
Octyldodecanol, Butylene Glycol Dicaprylate/Dicaprate, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Dibutyl Ethylhexanoyl Glutamide, Dibutyl Lauroyl Glutamide, Diisostearyl Malate, Ethylhexyl Salicylate, Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate, Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine, Dextrin Palmitate, Octocrylene, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Centella Asiatica Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Cucumis Sativus (Cucumber) Fruit Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Glycerin, Water, Butylene Glycol, Saccharide Isomerate, Maltodextrin, Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Ethyl Hexanediol, Ceramide NP, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Ethylhexylglycerin, Phenoxyethanol
Texture:
A translucent stick, glides on smooth, feels a bit occlusive on skin
Expirience:
Nicely moisturizing Sunstick, feels good on my Skin and well... does its Job xD I really like the curved shape of it, it relly helps with the application. I just use it for reapplication of my sunscreen, but also sometimes when my Skin gets really dry during the day ( tho its not the best for that)
(3.5/5)
Numbuzin No.2 Protein 43% creamy Serum: ( 4 months of use) Oat protein, Ceramides, cholesterol, fatty acids, ferments, Rice protein
Ingredients:
Avena Sativa Protein Extract, Water, Cyclopentasiloxane, Butylene Glycol, Cetearyl Ethylhexanoate, Cyclohexasiloxane, Phenyl Trimethicone, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone, Hydrogenated Poly C6-14 Olefin, Niacinamide, Panthenol, 1,2-Hexanediol, Glycerin, Erythritol, Limnanthes Alba Seed Oil, Sodium Chloride, Allantoin, Ethylhexylglycerin, Tocopheryl Acetate, Adenosine, Dextrin, Theobroma Cacao Extract, Pantolactone, Ceramide NP, Cholesterol, Palmitic Acid, Oryza Sativa Seed Protein Extract, Stearic Acid, Hydrolyzed Milk Protein, Lactobacillus Ferment, Glycine Soja Protein, Hydrolyzed Lupine Protein, Glucose, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Hydrolyzed Rice Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Hydrolyzed Sweet Almond Protein, Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Myristic Acid, Hydrolyzed Pea Protein, Arachidic Acid, Lauric Acid, Sodium Succinate, Disodium EDTA, Fragrance
Texture:
Very thick serum, really is creamy like the name says
Expirience:
Sooo repairing and soothing, does wonders for my barrier. It really helps keep my Skin moisturized and helps keep my transepidermal waterloss in check. Love it so much! HG!
(5/5)
Purito Aha Bha Refreshing Solution: (1 month of use) Glycolic acid, Salcylic Acid
Ingredients:
Salix Alba (Willow) Bark Water, Butylene Glycol, Dipropylene Glycol, Glycolic Acid (7%), Tromethamine, Water, Salicylic Acid(2%), 1,2-Hexanediol, Sodium Citrate, Arginine, Caprylyl Glycol, Citric Acid(0.28%), Hydroxyacetophenone, Pentylene Glycol, Allantoin, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate, Disodium EDTA
Texture:
like water, it put 2-3 drops on a thin cotton pad and swipe over my Face with it
Expirience:
Since it has only been a month i cannot say too much about how it has worked (and i feel its hard to tell what effects on my skin is retinal and whats from this product) but my comedones are reducing in size and developing into breakouts. But the effects of these ingredients are well studied in these concentrations so i would say its save to say it works. Its my first time using glycolic acid and i can say it packs a punch for sure! So be careful, its intense, so far im using it once a week on my exfoliation day and i dont think ill be moving up.... Might also be the fact that its a combo product, but i have been using salcylic acid and mandelic acid in combo before, and that felt less sensitizing. So im attributing that factor to the 7 percent glycolic acid, since it is the smallest molecule size of all Aha`s.
(3.5/5)
Now lets move to quick first impressions of a few products i just started trying, wich i have seperated from the review portion because i just havent been using them long enough to really speak about the effects on my Skin: (these will also be shorter impressions with less info)
Neo:labs liquid enhancer Pycogenol:
Ingredients:
Water, Propanediol, Hydrogenated Poly C6-14 Olefin, 1.2-Hexanediol, Methylpropanediol, Glycerin, Chondrus Crispus Extract, Saccharum Officinarum Extract, Jojoba Esters, Melia Azadirachta Flower Extract, Salvia Sclarea Oil, Ocimum Sanctum Leaf Extract, Melia Azadirachta Leaf Extract, Curcuma Longa Root Extract, Anthemis Nobilis Flower Oil, Corallina Officinalis Extract, Theobroma Cacao Seed Extract, Melaleuca Altemifolia Extract, Centella Asiatica Extract, Melaleuca Alternifolia Leaf Oil, Pinus Pinaster Bark Extract, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Glyceryl Stearate, C18-36 Acid Triglyceride, Coprylyl Glycol, Hydrogenated Lecithin, C12-18 Acid Triglyceride, Squalene, Sodium Polyacrylate, Tromethamine, Albatreus Contuena Extract, Paimitic Acid, Stearic Acid, Phytasteryl Macadamiate, Citric Acid, Phytosterol, Dextrin, Tocopherol, Butylene Glycol, 4-Terpineol, Pentylene Glycol, Octonediol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Carbomer, Xanthan Gum
Expirience:
Bougth this because of the tea tree extract, oil and 4- terpineol for the antimicrobial and antiinflammatory benefits , plus it also promised balancing the water-oil contend of the skin. So far i have been using it for a week and it feels nicely moisturizing, but i cannot say if it has helped with my breakouts. Smells strongly like tea tree, wich i dont mind.
Isntree Spotsaver Mugwort Ampoule:
Ingredients:
Artemisia Princeps Extract, Glycerin, Butylene Glycol, Glycereth-26, Erythritol, Betaine, Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Extract, Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract, Piper Methysticum Leaf/Root/Stem Extract, Panthenol, Propanediol, Beta-Glucan, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Ceramide NP, Allantoin, Carbomer, Tromethamine, 1,2-Hexanediol
Expirience:
This i got because i heard amazing things about mugwort and it was on a 50 % Sale, so i got it for a steal! So far i like the simple ingredient list an it seems soothing and hydrating.
RNW Der.Ceramide Cream:
Ingredients:
Water, Butylene Glycol, Ceramide NP, Panthenol, Caprylyl Methicone, Glycerin, C12-16 Alcohols, 1,2-Hexanediol, Cetearyl Alcohol, Pentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate, Limnanthes Alba (Meadowfoam) Seed Oil, Cetyl Ethylhexanoate, Polyglyceryl-3 Distearate, Ceramide NS, Phytosphingosine, Cholesterol, Ceramide AS, Ceramide AP, Oligopeptide-1, Ceramide EOP, Sodium Hyaluronate, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hyaluronate, Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Betaine, Arginine, Arachidyl Alcohol, Behenyl Alcohol, Glyceryl Stearate Citrate, Carbomer, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Arachidyl Glucoside, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Peel Oil, Stearic Acid, Adenosine, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Oil, Cedrus Atlantica Bark Oil, Caprylyl Glycol, Sodium Phosphate, Disodium EDTA
Expirience:
Im really intriged by this brand an was debating between this and the Ceramide serum, but got this Cream. At first i was intimitaded by the essential oils and the strong smell it has (herbal, but to my nose very pleasant) so i patchtested it on my cheek. The Patchtests went fine and i have been using it on my whole face for 4 days now and i must say im impressed.
If you have oily skin i feel you could hate it but for my dry skin... the texture is amazing. Its a THIIICK cream, like an ointment, very balmy. Upon apllication it feels nice to spread it and it sinks in so well for the thick texture. The cream surprisingly dries down velvety and leaving a protective shield over the Skin. I also love that it has 3 % Panthenol, 3% ceramides and cholesterol and fatty acids.... so perfect ingrdients for skin barrier repair! Really a potential HG...

Hey Guys,
I thought i'd share my story on my journey of using different modded WhatsApp throughout the years, and where I had put my trust. From WhatsApp+ by Rafalanse in 2013 to my current FMWhatsApp by Fouad Mokdad.
Heres my story:
I started my journey on WhatsApp with the Blackberry Curve 8520, in 2012, but that was short-lived due to the phone dying by water damage. I eventally ended up purchasing a cheap Chinese android Phablet (this thing was a pain, miserably slow, got really hot and the screen kept getting lines) ...
Anyway, I was excited for my phablet and I remember when I got it I was researching different apps to download and try out. Google was (probably still is) my best friend, so I asked a lot of questions, seeking whatever I could put my hands on to try.

1. WHATSAPP+ - By Rafalanse

After some time I had stumbled on some videos talking about WhatsApp+, and I wondered. What is this WhatsApp+? Why is it so different from the original? What also caught my eye was the app icon. It was a light blue/cyan which is my favourite. So, I opened up the video. I vaguely remember it being an Indian guy talking about how to get WhatsApp+ on your PC, via Bluestacks.
I decided to go do some more research and stumbled upon the XDA thread where rafalanse; the creator of the original WhatsApp+ basically had a forum post on what WhatsApp+ was and it's features.
At the time I don't think privacy was a concern, I can't exactly remember if last seen was a thing back then (circa 2013). We didn't have blue ticks then, blue ticks were only released until 2014, and the Status (sometimes referred to as "Stories", now called Updates) was released until Feb, 2017. What drew a lot of people to WhatsApp+ was it's ability to have the app customized with themes. Something that even to this day, the Original WhatsApp doesn't have, the most you get is a light and dark theme.
Facebook eventually purchased WhatsApp for $19 Billion Dollars (and I downloaded it off of Google Play for free? lol), a few months after that aquisition, rafalanse got hit with a DMCA notice from WhatsApp, and he was forced to shut down modding the applicaiton. On January 21st, 2015. Users who were once using WhatsApp+ were hit with a 24 hour ban and were forced to switch to the official WhatsApp. We were broken hearted. WhatsApp+ had officially shut down in 2015.
XDA Article - Cease and Desist: Extract below

Developers in trouble

So, now... it was time to hunt, who would create a new modified WhatsApp? Would rafalanse leak the source code to his mod? Will anyone make themes and remove that pesky blue tick so we can have some privacy?
Rafalanse eventually moved on to create Plus Messenger, a modified version of Telegram Messenger, another popular messaging app (and in my opinion, better than WhatsApp, I just cant convince people to convert... You could even migrate messages from WhatsApp to Telegram and Telegram had the features that WhatsApp has now. They did take a while to add Stories and Video Calling but before those were popular, telegram already had a bunch of features that WhatsApp just didnt have yet.
I decided to stray my own path, I remember Lucky Patcher had a patch for WhatsApp to include the privacy features.

2. GBWHATSAPP - By Omar (@atnfas_hoak)

After some time I stumbled upon this mod called GBWhatsApp. It became widely popular. Created by Omar (Twitter Username: atnfas_hoak). I honestly never really knew what the"GB" in GBWhatsApp stood for, and I was skeptical if he was indeed the original creator since there were starting to pop up a lot of clones with the same name. However I was eventually convinced that this was the original creator based on my research. All the other clones were updating after his release, which means they were all borrowing and copying his mod. His Telegam Channel (Search GBUser on Telegram for the Official Channel) and Group along with Twitter account also frequently updated, giving some insights and plans and there were also other moderators in his telegram group that were keeping everyone engaged.
GBWhatsApp boasted a whole new bunch of privacy featues and the ever popular Anti-Ban code (which prevented users from getting banned for using a modded version of Whatsapp), themes and even very exclusive features! Things like hiding view status, hiding the forwarded notification on messages, Block Calls with/without showing Ringing, Increase on Photos and Videos limit, Auto-Reply, Custom Privacy settings for each contact, etc. I could be wrong but I believe Omar's WhatsApp was based on the WhatsApp Beta versions, because I do remember having access to features that weren't yet available to the public on the official version.
This mod stuck with me for a number of years, until 2019. I can't remember the exact month, but there was a huge ban wave going around, and even I was hit with it. I remember the frustration of people asking me the question "Why was I banned???". It wasn't just GBWhatsApp, but other mods too, like Fouad Mokdad's FMWhatsApp which was another popular mod but was basically copying code from GBWhatsApp, just rebranding it. I tried explaining to people that it's unofficial and according to WhatsApp, (oversummarizing their terms of service) using a modified version of their app is bad, no-no. If anything goes wrong they could be held liable and their excuse is they don't want people to be hacked or data leaked because of these mods, they weren't totally wrong. There was an article from India Today about a mod called WhatsApp Gold. A gold-themed WhatsApp that was basically stealing your private photos back in 2016, It also resurfaced in 2019.
GBWhatsApp got one final update after the ban and.. well... that was it. We never heard from Omar again. WhatsApp usually has their base expire over time to force you to update to a newer version. As time went on we were getting closer and closer to this expiration date but no word from Omar about anything, AT ALL, not even a base update. The other mods of the Telegram were saying the same, Omar either did not respond, or his responses were vague. Eventually... the day came, there was no surprise updates... nothing and On August, 1st 2019. GBWhatsApp was declared DEAD officially by Omar.

*GBWhatsApp Shuts Down* We are really sorry to announce that we have completely stopped the development of GBWhatsApp. It was a great time with all you people. 

3. YOWHATSAPP - By Yousef Al Basha

So, here we were... hanging by a thread with almost nowhere to turn. All the other mods that existed were also shut down because they had relied heavily on Omar's apk to modify and rebrand, without him, they too didn't exist (except for one.. which i'll discuss below now)
I jumped on to using FMWhatsApp but it didn't last long, it too gave the notification of the version was expired. I remember one of the users in the Telegram Group was having a discussion with us, and they recommended "YOWhatsApp" he even linked the Telegram group. YoWhatsApp was different. This was unlike the other mods out there, It didn't seem like it was relying on Omar's GBWhatsApp for it's base nor seem like it was just rebranding GBWhatsApp. This YoWhatsApp had a cleaner UI for it's Mod Menu, it almost seemed like it was actually a part of WhatsApp and not just a random mod menu. GBWhatsApp's menu was a bit cluttered and the UI for those menus were a lot less neat.
...and... IT WORKED! We finally had some hope! Yousef Al Basha continued updating his WhatsApp for some time but it was unfortunately short-lived. Yousef Al Basha also went dark. The notification came up saying that the WhatsApp version will soon be outdated and we would have to update. However Yousef wasn't posting any updates in his Telegram Channel (@YoMODS). On November, 6th 2020 he issued a notice that YoWA v8.50 was not an official YoWA update. This was because someone else faked an update and claimed it was official but Yousef did not issue an update.
And well.... that was it. The group chat was locked, and we were forced to move on in Late November - Early December of 2020. That's where FMWhatsApp by Fouad Mokdad came in.

4. FMWhatsApp - by Fouad Mokdad

After the version had expired I decided to move on to FMWhatsApp, I just couldnt go back to the Official WhatsApp. I had spent the past 8 years on modded versions and it was either I gave WhatsApp completely or find an alternative. I chose the latter and decided to give FMWhatsApp a try. I had stumbled upon the Official Telegram group for FMWhatsApp and began using. Fouad basically was known for copying other's work so when he released his update, it still used to say YoMods in the mod menus or about sections. But what made a lot of people eventualyl migrate to FMWhatsApp was that on February 8th, 2020, Yousef Al Basha sent a message in his telegram channel:

Great work by FouadMODS, walking the same path of YoWA by adding Exclusive Features 👏 I am sharing it here to benefit my subscribers who miss YoWA🔮😇 

and forwarded a message from the official Telegram Channel of FouadMODS (@FouadMODS) showing an exclusive feature to mark a status as viewed if you had turned off Show View Status.
... and well. I have been using it ever since! I've come across other mods like TMWhatsApp and WHatsapp Aero for example which are other popular mods that I see a couple of Youtubers talk about, but they fundamentally take FMWhatsApp's code and just rebrand, WhatsApp Aero actually does it in a cleaner UI than FMWhatsApp and other mods. Though it takes them some time to rebrand and release their newer version.
As far as I am aware, I don't think there is another mod that exists that does it's own mods without relying on reversing and taking apart FMWhatsApp.
I thought that i'd share my journey with you as a guide on my experience in trusting mods. There are so many fakes and clones out there it's really hard to tell who to turst. Im not saying trust these mods either. There is a risk to them all! It's just that these were the most trusted as the years went by, not just by me but countless others.
And as of recent, It seems a new ban wave has been happeneing. Users are now forced to use the official WhatsApp but they are met with a banner message that gives them time to backup their chats and let them know that they're using an unofficial version. I'm not sure what the future will hold, I do hope there's a new anti-ban code and we can enjoy modified WhatsApp again.
Goodluck to you all! Hope my story inspires soemone and atleast points your head in the direction to help find a trusted modder.
For you Rooted users, you guys may have some hope. WATweaker

Ok, so…um. Yeah, well. This is going to be tougher than I thought.
No one is going to believe me anyway, so fuck it, right? Might as well just go for it. I killed my wife. There. Probably not in the way that people think, but people might be pretty close.
I’ve never discussed what happened at Aunt Mary Jane’s house that night. I always thought she was made up by my Grandma, a figment, not a phantom. Just a name to give the house and make it scary enough not to play there. I figured no one named Mary Jane had ever lived there until I found her picture and the thin memory of the grave marker came flooding back. Either way, my grandparents were in cahoots and they had me fooled. It took me years to figure out the truth and I bet they shared a few good laughs about it.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was a kid. My mom was 16 when she got pregnant, 17 when she had a shotgun wedding, and she was 19 when she divorced my deadbeat (and I suspect, abusive) dad. She needed support, and they helped. I don’t know if my mom was determined not to move back home or if it wasn’t allowed by Grandad, but paying all the bills was difficult for us. The result was I got to spend a lot of time at my grandparent’s house and I loved it.
I remember Grandma telling me spooky stories. Sometimes Grandad too, but mainly he would sit around with us and chime in to add a detail or two, making her stories even scarier. One favorite story was about the ghost of Redbeard Pete, a pirate who was known to be stubborn in life, and too stubborn in death to move on. That’s not what this is about. I’m trying to delay it. Or avoid it altogether. If you saw her the way I did, especially then, when I…when I did what I had to do.
What I need to say involves Aunt Mary Jane’s house, and I will only speak of this once. I need to say it, and after that I’ll never speak of it again. If I’m going to tell the story, I need to tell it all and say everything I need to say about it. How I came to know the house is part of our history. It might not seem related to what happened that night, but everything I know about it is relevant to me.
My grandparents lived in a yellow house on a corner lot in rural Virginia. The Northern Neck of Virginia, to be exact. Big yard, the neighbors were family, woods out back, and everyone was a farmer, hunter, or a fisherman, and more likely they were all three. The main road there didn’t have yellow lines until recently. Their house sat in the corner crook where an even smaller side road turned off and led to who-knows-where. It was paved, but just barely. The narrow kind of road where folks usually just drove down the middle until they met another vehicle, then both would wave as they squeezed past one another and tried to avoid the ditch. And if someone ended up in the ditch, you already knew you’d stay and give them a hand getting out. Their house faced that road.
My Grandad’s workshop sat near the edge of the property and barely spitting distance from the smaller road. (Forgive me, it’s been so long that I can’t recall the name of the street. Probably Route something or other.) About a hundred yards down from his shop was an overgrown lane - an old driveway. Aunt Mary Jane’s house.
As kids, my cousins and I rode our bikes past there all the time and never even noticed the house. The lane, yes, but not the house and the dirt driveway was so overgrown with weeds that none of us ever thought to go investigate. In hindsight, maybe there was another reason.
Anyway, the property was overgrown with pine and locust trees, and a few pecan trees. The house was situated among a stand of trees closer to the road than you might expect. It was invisible from the street. The house was hidden, not because it was buried deep in the forest, but because the property was being devoured by weeds, blackberry brambles, and neglect.
The reason I knew about it is because Grandma told me about Aunt Mary Jane. She explained that’s just what everyone called her, and told me to my dismay that she was not my real aunt. Later, she and my Grandad would scare the hell out of me and for years I was oblivious to the truth.
I can’t remember what kind of story Grandma concocted, but I remember it was about Aunt Mary Jane and how mean she was - when she was alive before she turned into a ghost. And how she got even meaner as a ghost. Her story spooked me and I’m pretty sure it was meant to keep me from finding it by accident one day. I used to play in the woods all the time and I guess I might have. It was more visible from the woods on my grandparent’s property than it was out front. Saplings grew through the tottering, tumble-down floor inside, the droopy roof sagged down, bulging into the kitchen, and the dry-rotted old window frames had panes of jagged glass sticking every which way. Needless to say, if our group of cousins had ever discovered the place on our own, there would have been a lot less glass in the windows, and a lot more rocks being thrown through the glass that remained. The house was a donkey mile beyond repair, and far too dangerous for anyone to horse around in or to explore.
Despite my fear, I had trouble believing her story at first, and I told her so. All this time, how could I not know about a ghost who lived right next door? A nasty, bitter old ghost who was a nasty and bitter old witch when she was alive? I would know if there was a ghost, I thought.
She reminded me about the tooth fairy and how I didn’t know about her until I had a loose tooth. This was different, I told her, because I hadn’t always had a loose tooth, but Aunt Mary Jane’s house had always been there.
She told me she would take me over there and prove it. She may have been bluffing, but this was more exciting than the State Fair. I wasn’t calling her bluff, I was dying to see a real life ghost. She put on her shoes and that’s when I got scared. I wanted to chicken out, but she wouldn’t let me, so she promised she’d hold my hand the whole time, just in case we ran into Aunt Mary Jane. And off we went, walking out to Route whatever-it-was and down the road about a hundred yards.
Grandma picked our way through the blackberry briars that sprawled across the lane, holding back the pricker vines I wouldn’t get too scratched up. I ducked under the last tangle and emerged onto the sparse but overgrown lawn in front of a dilapidated house. It looked like every ramshackle haunted house in every movie you ever saw. The paint, which used to be white and probably lead-based, curled back in thick peels, revealing the sun-bleached wood underneath the layers. Reptilian scales to armor old bones. A massive locust tree grew at one corner of the house. One of its limbs thrust into a room on the second floor through a side window. Inside, it angled like an arthritic elbow, and stretched back outside and rested on top of the porch. The front door was partially opened and stuck like that. The rood sagged so badly that a deep slouch had developed in the ceiling and now its weight wedged the door in place. Not wide open, but enough so you could stick your head through to sneak a look. The porch had held up fairly well.
She told me if we were extra careful, maybe we could peek inside, but first she wanted to look around and check if there was a better place than under a collapsing ceiling.
The backyard was also overgrown, but the shade of the house and the tree canopy above kept the weeds sparse enough so it wasn’t difficult to walk around. We were picking our way through the overgrowth when she stopped and shushed me. Then she pointed toward the rope swing.
“The swing?” I was just a little kid and even I could tell that rope wasn’t safe.
She shook her head and pointed again, but lower, and then I saw it. A headstone, beyond the swing, near where a fence might have stood once.
“Is someone really buried there?” I had seen cemeteries before, but discovering a grave anywhere else felt unusual.
She nodded and we walked a little closer, but she stopped me before I got too close. “See? That’s where she’s buried,” she whispered. “Don’t walk on her grave because she might, snatch your ankle and pull you down to hell.”
“MJW” was all I could see. The dates, if there were any, were too low and hidden by the grass and moss that grew in a thicker patch above the grave. I was amazed thinking that a spooky skeleton was almost right under me.
So, a little explanation - it wasn’t unusual to be buried on your own on their property back then. This house was, I imagine, built sometime in the late 1800’s, so these types of grave markers were fairly commonplace for the area. The other thing to know is that this area is full of country folk, real salt of the earth types. My family was Southern Baptist (but not me), so hell was a very real place. Not a metaphor for eternal suffering, but a specific locale full of sulfur, brimstone, and fire. I did not walk on Aunt Mary Jane’s grave. Turns out that when I returned as an adult, it wouldn’t matter anyhow.
Grandma said she was worried we might disturb Aunt Mary Jane, so we could have a quick peek, but we weren’t going to stick around long. Plus, she was worried about the broken glass and rusty nails or something else hiding in the grass. You never knew when you might have an unfortunate encounter with a copperhead. I was more scared the house might turn into a monster and come alive with a front door for a mouth to eat me. I was terrified and I loved it. I might have felt differently, but at the time I couldn’t imagine what came to pass.
She told me the rules. Hold her hand. Don’t go any further than she does. If she says to stop, stop and don’t move. Don’t touch anything. Don’t make too much noise in case there’s a raccoon or opossum who lives inside. That was fine with me. I didn’t want to be too loud and get a ghost angry at us.
She poked at the boards with her toes, checking if they were rotted, but they were okay. The porch window teased an easy look inside, but curtains and the ceiling bulging down blocked it, so she took a peek inside. It was all clear. No sign of ghosts, she told me, so I peeked in and looked around.
I didn’t see any ghosts and it looked mostly empty. Kinda boring. Just a lot of dust, a dried out mouse, a few pictures left hanging on the wall.
“Shh! Do you hear that?”
I hadn’t heard anything/ “What is it, Grandma?”
“Sh. Hear it?” she had a hand to her ear, listening. “I think I hear her coming. I think it’s Aunt Mary Jane!”
I didn’t hear it at first, but that didn’t stop me from being afraid. I still held her hand tight. Then, I heard it. It was quiet at first and I strained to hear it, but after a moment, it got louder. There was no missing it anymore. Spooky moans and groans that rolled through the house like swelling waves, growing louder, then soft, louder, softer again. Grandma got scared and I was already scared. We reckoned Aunt Mary Jane was giving us a warning so we probably ought to listen to her and be on our way. If she didn’t have a grip on my hand like she did, I would have already been tearing through those berry brambles like a dozen wild rabbits.
Next time my cousins came down, I told them how I saw Aunt Mary Jane’s gravestone, and how I almost went inside a haunted house. I was the youngest and they didn’t even listen at first, but when I told them how we heard Aunt Mary Jane spooking around, me and Grandma both? That got their attention alright, but they didn’t believe me. I told them how Grandma went with me and I told them they could go right ahead and ask her if they wanted and they did.
She said it never happened and I must have dreamt it. I cried because everybody thought I was lying and nobody believed me because I was just a little kid. Later, when nobody else could hear us, she explained that, if the rest of the boys knew, they would want her to take them too. She said the last time was too scary to go back. She asked me if we could just keep it between us whenever we heard a ghost. That was even better to me.
After that, Grandma or Grandad would walk the hundred yards or so down Route whatever-it-was and we would stand by the old mailbox to listen for the ghost of Aunt Mary Jane. Sometimes we heard her wailing, sometimes not. We didn’t get too close after the first time.
The following year, Grandma got sick and she died exactly one year after her first trip to the doctor in Richmond. Life moved on and I mostly forgot about Aunt Mary Jane’s house except for the odd occasion when friends start trading ghost stories. Now, I don’t talk about it at all. Not anymore.
Another few years passed and my Grandad Curtis died. It was the day after my 11th birthday and he willed the house to mom. We never lived there and I barely saw it again after that. It sat empty, neglected, and full up with Radon as far as I knew. After a while, the roof sagged, a stripe of tall weeds grew down the middle of the driveway, and the ceiling sank lower and lower until it finally jammed against the front door.
Years passed and eventually, so did my mom. I always figured she had sold the property, and I was surprised to learn she kept it and now I owned it. I can’t say I felt much joy about it, but I guess I wasn’t upset either. It was briefly disturbing, like when you feel something slither against your foot and nearly die from a panic, then realize it was just your dog’s nose. That odd moment when you experience something hideous but the realization comes so quickly after the sensation you aren’t capable of feeling relieved yet. That’s what I felt.
This is where it gets difficult to talk about, but like I said, no one is going to believe me anyway and I need to say it out loud and get it off my chest. If I didn’t have the scars and the medical bills to remind me, I would wonder if I hadn’t hallucinated it. It was real though, and I do have the scars and the bills. I just can’t share what happened with anyone, or I couldn’t before now, here. I can’t tell anybody I know because there’s two ways it happens - One. They don’t believe me and assume I’m crazy. The bad kind. Or two. They do believe me. In that case they don’t have an option and things might be worse. Either way, it could end with me behind bars, with or without soft walls. The truth? Well it doesn’t matter that the truth is because it’s impossible to believe! Trust me, I know how far-fetched it will sound, but listen. I’m the one with trauma, with a broken heart I can’t make sense out of, and a hole in my thigh so deep the doctors filled it with a solid chunk of my rear end the size of a baseball. I lived through it. I know the truth. I know what happened. That doesn’t mean anybody will believe me, or believe the whole truth.
It was a couple months before I made the trip to the property. The thought of my grandparents’ home looking anything like Aunt Mary Jane’s house felt wrong to me. Disrespectful. Like knocking over somebody’s headstone and leaving a bag of garbage on their grave.
Nearly 20 years after my Grandma held my hand and showed me the inside of a real haunted house, I was on my way there. Nearly 20 years after we scurried through the weeds and briars, terrified, running away from the ghost of Aunt Mary Jane’s, it hit me. All this time, my entire adult life and suddenly, on the ride there, I realized it. Only one of them usually walked me over to listen as she wailed at us from the haggard old house. Occasionally, the three of us would go but we didn’t always hear the ghastly groans. It seemed obvious now that I saw it. How could I not see it?
Grandma walked me over, Grandad snuck through the woods. She distracted me while he found a good hiding place. I like to imagine the smile they shared the first time she peeked her head in to be sure “the coast was clear”. I’m sure they loved it, and I love them for the memory, despite everything else.
When I got to their old yellow house I found it looking much better than I had expected. Better than I remembered from before, actually. I distinctly recall the ceiling had reached down to the top of the door and jammed it so you could barely rattle it back and forth. I remember it reminded me of a door that might grow teeth and a house that might eat me.
I walked around the house, peeking through each window. The house had been in such ill repair last time I had seen it, I couldn’t trust it was safe to enter, regardless of the straightened roofline and a door that now looked completely functional. As I went, I became more amazed and more confused. Inside, it looked just like when I was a kid. The same carpet, the same Jesus painting with eyes that opened and closed depending when you looked, the same coffee table I hid under to play, the same television, same sofa, lamp shade, recliner, everything was exactly the same. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t have come about from repairs. None of it made sense. I was bewildered.
I called Leslie to tell her I made it there and to see if she had any rational idea what could be going on. Mom didn’t have the money to stage an elaborate prank like this. We’d always been poor, and she hadn’t sold the property. None of it made sense. Leslie couldn’t think of a logical reason either. After the amazement wore off a little, I asked if she remembered the story of Aunt Mary Jane’s house. She did, so I told her about my epiphany on the ride down. She responded with, “Yeah, I know. You really didn’t know until now?”
At least we had a good chuckle. Sometimes we believe it because we perceive it. I had never had a reason to reconsider the reality of it, or to think about it much at all.
Not until it got up close, in your face, and bared its teeth.
After we hung up, I grabbed a burger from Fermin’s place down the road and had dinner sitting at Grandad’s work table in the shop. I hadn’t gone inside the house yet - I was unsettled by the whole thing. I ate my burger and, on a whim, I took a walk. I went down the barely paved side road side road that led to who-knows-where.
Sure enough, about a hundred yards down, still visible, same as it looked two decades ago. It was the same dirt driveway grown over with brambles, briars and weeds. Further back, a stand of tall hardwoods and pines, a dense crown of leaves to guard the roots and shadows below. It looked just how I remembered it. Surely the walls had given up by now and fallen in on themselves, I thought. The old house should be an overgrown heap of rusted nails, broken glass, and sawdust by now.
I’m not sure why I did it. I wish I could go back and stop myself, but I can’t, so I gotta live with memory. For whatever reason, I was compelled to go on, to see it again. I worked my way through the thorns and found myself standing on the unkempt lawn, staring at Aunt Mary Jane’s house. Thick peels of paint were still there, curled back like scales covering bones. Around back, the headstone sat undisturbed. The jagged glass remained in the dry-rotted window frames, still sticking out every which way. The front porch was still sturdy, the ceiling still hung low, and the locust still made a pass through two of the upstairs windows. But things were a little different than I remembered.
The front door hung open like it always had, but the ceiling, as low as it was, no longer dragged the top. The door wasn’t jammed now. I nudged it open with my foot and it swung easily. I’d had no thought or desire to come see this place or to see inside again, but there I was, tugging the door open, stepping inside. I didn’t know why. I don’t know why.
A pall of dust and sticky cobwebs lay across everything inside. If not for that, the place would have been immaculate. The kitchen was like a time capsule, a snapshot of the mid-1970’s. Teacups hung from hooks under the cabinets, the green toaster had a braided power cord, the linoleum matched the toaster, and the whole room smelled delicious, like someone had a roast in the oven. That was the point when I stopped questioning things and just accepted it. It may have been strange but it wasn’t my concern. It smelled delicious, the home was warm and cozy, and despite my head feeling slightly foggy, I was energized. I felt great, actually.
I noticed a small grandfather clock on the sofa table, its pendulum swinging back and forth. It worked. I accepted it. Sunlight angled through a crack in the curtains and raced across the room. It made me think of sharpened gold and I accepted it. Sunset was less than an hour from now, and through the spotless windows, it was morning outside. I accepted it. That’s how it was, and that’s the way that it should be.
I wandered back towards the kitchen hoping the roast was ready. A teacup swayed on its hook, drops of water on its pattern, curved and magnified, washed clean and hung to dry.
“Honey, could you give me a hand up here? I think my zipper is stuck.” Her voice was melodic and I could almost recall her singing, I couldn’t catch hold of the thought yet.
“Of course dear, I’ll be right there. How’d you get your zipper stuck?” I answered her, of course.
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s this dress. It happens every darn time. I think Mr. Sanderson knows which zippers tend to stick and picks them out on purpose and gives them to me.”
“Now why would Mr. Sanderson do a thing like that?” I was at the top of the stairs.
“Well, because of Marge. Don’t you remember?”
“At the party?” I saw her. She stood with her back to the open door where I now stood. She wore a rose-mauve dress with an ivory lace detail on the shoulders and cuffs. The back of the dress hung in an open V, waiting for help with the zipper. She faced a mirror, and I could only see the angle of her cheek bones, but I knew she was beautiful.
“Yes, at the party!” It was mock exasperation, and of course I remembered. Who could forget a scene like that?
I recalled the stairs, the top of the stairs, standing at the door, and now she was close. Her perfume was familiar. It smelled pretty and I thought it suited her. I have no memory of walking closer, but I was glad to be there. We had never met, but I knew that we had. I knew her intimately. I knew that I had always loved her deeply, and that she loved me. I didn’t question it; I just knew.
“Well, yes, but why would he give you a dress with a stuck zipper? That was Marge’s hullabaloo.” My fingers worked her zipper free. The tab felt familiar and I knew this wasn’t the first time I’d helped my wife like this.
“Because he thinks that I’m the one who told Heath about the conversation at the post office. He thinks that’s why Marge was throwing a fit.”
She swung her hair back and forth, then let it settle down her back. I noticed the nape of her neck. I was lost for a moment, she was all I could see. I felt a need to be closer, to touch her, to kiss the back of her neck and to lay down with her. I still held the tab between my fingers, her dress fully zipped, and there was a moment of stillness, of quiet intimacy. I leaned forward and didn’t question if I should kiss her neck. I was supposed to kiss her there. I needed to feel her skin with my lips. I stopped and savored the fleeting anticipation and I could feel her warmth near my lips.
I was finally there to taste her when she spun around, a whirlwind of beauty and hair and perfume and she flung her arms around me, around my neck and she smiled, a brilliant smile, wide and toothy, and it was no longer a smile and she was strong and her arms were too tight, and her grin grew wider and wider and stretched and contorted into a hideous maw. It happened fast.
The pressure around my neck made me sputter for air and that snapped me out of my daze. Whatever this thing was, it was evil. I felt it now.
I struggled to slip out of her grasp. Her arms had become gray and mottled with purple stains, like old bruises, misshapen. Her hands were large and the proportions looked wrong. Its fingers spindled into hooked claws, sharp, dangerous looking. The thick smell of mold and rot filled the room and I would have struggled to breathe with or without her squeezing me this way. All the air had been sucked from my lungs and they burned. I wriggled back and forth to find any small gap my chest could expand, to breathe.
She spoke again. “What’s wrong dear? Don’t you want a kiss?” This time, her voice was different, no longer melodic, no longer the voice of a woman. Her words came out in a quick raspy growl that reminded me of worms and insects, and as it hissed out that last word, thick fluid strung across its rows of elongated teeth, not saliva, some disgusting mucus that clung like stringy threads over sharp and serrated teeth. Teeth meant for tearing flesh. A few tiny drops of the fluid broke free as I fought against its strength and burned the skin of my cheek where they landed.
I needed air. Now.
I struggled until I was almost convulsing, then when I looked back at the creature…well, there was no creature. There was only my beautiful wife, befuddled, concerned about me.
“Are you okay? Please, you’re scaring me. What’s the matter?” What was wrong with me? Why had I frightened her that way? My chest ached inside hearing that tone in her voice, hearing how it slipped out, how she meant to keep it hidden. The tone that said she was scared. Scared for me, maybe. But her tone said she was scared of me, too..
I embraced her and pulled her to me. I needed to comfort her, to make it right before it was too late.
It’s no small miracle what happened next. If not for plain old dumb luck, the thing would have had me. Eaten me, I guess. Taken my soul, tortured me, I don’t know what, but I’ve never seen anything like that creature. True evil, the deep down core of evil.
The room had looked like a tastefully furnished and decorated bedroom moments ago. An ordinary bedroom for an average husband and a normal wife. And then it was a room with holes through the floor to the room below. The stout limb of a locust tree grew through the busted out window, into the room, and elbowed and angled its way out through the other window.
As I embraced this woman, my wife, desperate to soothe her hurt, desperate not to wound her more, the awful thing with hungry teeth was there again, chirping its unsettling clicks when it lunged. The mouth worked back and forth, scraping teeth together. The mucus had become thicker, and foamy. It had begun to leak and drip from its grotesque mouth. It was a split-second, that I noticed. Only an adrenaline fueled mind could have registered all of it to sort and file them into compartments of how deadly they might be.
I needed help, and somehow, it came. A small miracle, also a creature, but wildly different from this enormous lunging, fang-toothed monster. A miracle that arrived in the form of an opossum who made her den in Aunt Mary Jane’s dilapidated, ramshackle house.
It was all a blur, but I suspect she was a mama opossum, or maybe she was upset at the commotion. All I know is that it snapped and I barely reacted in time. I felt the unnaturally sharp point of the thing’s tooth followed by the searing burn of the mucus foam. It nicked me just under my jaw - way too close to my throat. At that moment, the opossum charged down the locust limb and hissing so loudly that it stopped us both dead cold for a split second. I was overflowing with adrenaline by then and my body was running on autopilot. I felt my body react without my input, and it shot into motion. I lurched away from the thing, trying to go anywhere I could to get it off. It had my leg, but I managed to grab hold of the tree limb and held it tight. The opossum didn’t like how close I got and she reared back on her hind legs. She was ready for a fight to the death.
I kicked and pulled, but I couldn’t shake the nasty thing off my leg. It was too strong and too quick for me to do any more than hold on and to keep trying to pull free. It didn’t work.
It felt like a full block of hot knives plunged into my thigh. I heard myself yelp from the shock of the pain. It hurt something awful, but it got worse. The creature had its long teeth buried in the meat of my leg and then chomped down. The jaw snapped shut and tore out a chunk. I think I felt it hit bone and I could see strands of muscle and fat inside. I almost passed out. Everything turned to gray and quiet nothingness, then the world rushed back in like a full alarm. I knew I had to make it count, right then. If not, this creature was going to have its way with me however it wanted.
I shook and pushed and yelled and pulled and tried to whip loose. I was losing too much blood, too fast. I could smell it, but I didn’t understand until later what it was I smelled. I heard the wet sound of it pouring onto the floor, before it drained through the cracks and holes to the floor a story below us. I didn’t register that it was my blood. It only registered that liquid was leaking and making a mess somewhere.
Both legs were soaked with red, but fortunately the blood made me slick. I yanked hard and jerked loose from its claws a little. Not much, but enough to gain some leverage. I let him pull me towards him, then sprung away, using his momentum against him to slip free. I grasped for anything I could reach, any weapon at all..
Sharp claws raked through my shirt, ripping jagged tears into my back. I ignored it and stretched toward the window and tried to grab a shard of the glass. The things must have had barbs somewhere because when I reached for the glass, I felt a sudden sting and felt the barbs grab and dig even deeper as I fought against them. I ignored that too and shoved myself as hard as I could.
They ripped gashes into my calf. I heard the sound of my body tearing as they pulled through. I got hold of a piece of that glass, though. I knew the glass would cut me too and I ignored it all. I felt it slide through the meaty part of my hand but I just clenched down even tighter. The deeper it was in, the better my grip was.
I whirled around and went after the thing. I had the glass with both bloody hands and swung the shard high over my head, then down as hard as I could. The glass jammed it into whatever part of the creature I could reach. I stabbed it. And stabbed it. And stabbed it.
It screeched and clicked and made odd, wet sucking sounds, then suddenly it was kicking, trying to get away from me. It didn’t last. It was only trying to gain an advantage.
I was no longer choosing fight or flight and there was no logic, only survival. If I had retained any logic, I might have launched myself out the window. Instead, I went after it.
I knew the blood loss might kill me, but I knew if I didn’t do something now, I was dead anyway. Some deep-down, instinctual, snake-brain took over and I leaped on it. I felt it doing things to hurt me, but I felt nothing except animalistic blood-rage. I felt claws and barbs and teeth push through my flesh with a soft pop, but it didn’t matter. There was no pain.
I don’t know how many times I stabbed it before it finally went weak. It wasn’t dead, but I’d hurt it. I was on its chest, heaving and out of breath. I was suddenly weak. I was too cold, shaky.
I looked down at it, ready to finish it. There was a waft of perfume, sexy and feminine, all around me. I noticed how the mirror was trimmed with gold leaf on its scalloped edges. The mirror my beautiful wife had been staring into when I worked her zipper free. I loved her so fully, so completely.
She was beautiful and it pained me to see her look at me the way she did. I’ll never forget that look. I wish I could take it back, to change things, but I can’t.
I had no choice. I understand that. I apply that logic every time I remember, which is everyday. But the logic doesn’t matter to my heart.
Our eyes met and I saw it. I saw that she knew what I was about to do. I saw that she wasn’t afraid, she was hurt. I hurt her beautiful heart because she knew what I would do. And I did it. I knew the creature wouldn’t show its true self. I knew it would be this woman who felt so familiar to me whom I’d never seen before now. The creature made sure it stung me back as it died.
I kept hacking for I don’t know how long. Eventually, I raised myself up off the body. It was barely recognizable anymore. My arms were limp, and there was no part of me left dry. I was drenched in our blood. Somehow, I lurched across the patchwork floor and down the steps. I hadn’t noticed on the way up, but most were rotten or missing. I maneuvered down on the framework. I got myself to the door but didn’t know if I could make it back through the briars but the human spirit is amazing I guess, because here I am.
On the way out, I noticed a small, ornate picture frame that hung near the front door. A photo of her, my beloved. It was tinted with the brass sepia of old photos. Later, when I got home from the hospital, I looked it over more closely. There were three letters and a date written on the back with a flourish. It said, “MJW” and “1908, April”.

I’m just curious to know about everyone’s personally owned and preferred smartphones after seeing the post about the smartphones that people regret buying. It could be your most recent and current smartphone, it could also be your first or second or anything in-between. Which smartphone did/do you like most among all the units you’ve owned over the years?
I’ll start— my favorite phones among all those I’ve owned are the iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S3. In my opinion, the iPhone 4S ushered in a new era for the modern iPhone and is the foundation for the iPhone of today with the introduction of Siri and other essential features that the current iPhones include, from a software, hardware and design perspective. The Galaxy S3, on the other hand is regarded as the “iPhone killer” and is, in my opinion, the first and last excellent Samsung Galaxy phone.
I’m currently using an iPhone 15 Pro and a Xiaomi 13 Pro but I still miss the times when the iPhone 4S and Galaxy S3 were my daily drivers between 2011-2012.
EDIT: I also miss my Blackberry Curve 8520 from 2009 because it reminds me of my first year high school days. And the physical keyboards!!