TW: Miscarriage
My domestic partner suffered a devastating miscarriage in January of 2023. Subsequently, our fertility doctor sent the fetal tissue to a third party provider for lab services to determine whether a chromosomal abnormality was the cause. Since then, we've been fortunate enough to have a beautiful healthy baby girl. It wasn't until April of this year (a year and three months after the service) that we received a bill in the mail for $799 from a company called Natera. The bill was for the lab services requested by our doctor, and the bill explained that our insurance refused to cover the services, so we would instead be on the hook for the payment.
Setting aside that this bill was a slap in the face and reopened the wound of an upsetting point in our lives, Natera is in-network, and this service should absolutely have been covered by my health insurance. I'm fortunate enough to have good insurance through my work, and, through my benefits, a patient advocate who sometimes acts as a buffer between employees and our insurance company. I reached out explaining the situation, and my patient advocate reached out to Cigna, my insurance company, who explained that Natera had failed to complete a preauthorization before the service, which is why their claim was rejected, but that they were "prohibited from billing the patient." When I looked in my Cigna portal, I saw the claim and EOB, which indeed noted multiple times that this was a mistake of the provider's, and that I was not on the hook to pay anything, even noting that if I had already paid the provider, I should request reimbursement from them.
Cigna in turn reached out to Natera, who said they would submit a new claim with retro preauthorization. However, I never saw a new claim surface in my portal, and we continued getting more mail from Natera with increasingly urgent language about our bill being "PAST DUE." Not knowing what else to do, I called Natera billing myself on three occasions to speak directly with customer support. The first time, the specialist said she would escalate the matter to her supervisor and that I should see the balance on my bill go back to zero at payment.natera.com within a week (it's been over a week and the balance is still $799). The second time, I was disconnected. The third time, the specialist told me to hold while he connected with customer support, and, over the course of a half an hour, repeatedly returned to the line every two minutes to robotically let me know he was still waiting for a response and could he put me on a brief hold. In the third instance I told him "I know this isn't your fault, but I've been on hold with you for a half an hour; can you just call me back when you hear from them?" He said he would call back in between 30-60 minutes and never did.
I submitted a message to Natera's online portal explaining the situation, the research I and my patient advocate did confirming this was Natera's fault and that it was not just to be billing me for their mistake. I noted that Natera had told my insurance they would resubmit the claim but that no such claim had surfaced. A week later, I received a response thanking me for choosing Natera and saying that because their claim was rejected by insurance, they had no choice but to bill me (citing the original claim from a year ago — not even noting any new claim with retro preauthorization).
I am writing this in part because I am at my wits end being harassed by Natera — while also trying to parent my infant daughter and return to work — and unsure how to proceed getting this nightmare resolved. Furthermore, I want to spread the word that Natera's billing department is cruel and predatory, and hopefully assure someone else in my shoes that they aren't alone. Upon research, it sounds like Natera has been accused and even brought to court for ripping off customers with bogus bills, so I can only hope they're brought to some semblance of justice.
On the first point — my being unsure how to proceed — any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help.

It sounds so cringey saying it out loud (typing it but yk what I mean) that I was a manipulator. Maybe the genetics of my father is what caused me to naturally manipulate people. Or maybe it was watching my beautiful mother be manipulated by my father that made me never want to be a beautiful woman used in a man's game? I get super turned on when I know I'm making someone yearn for me, or making a man hate me (rather making a man hate that they can't hate me). I lovebomb and make a man think I'm so in love, I act so sweet so innocent like I could never purposely hurt anyone, I purposely seduce them and knowing that I'm pretty attractive I give them the "male fantasy", only to go completely ghost with no explanation, living my life as I normally do. I call them up when I'm horny and start to treat them like whores, fuck them passionately lovingly and then dip again. I wait for the right time to catch them when they're getting over me. I know a lot about psychology and use that to my advantage. Such as reading a person when I first meet them and understanding what they're looking for in a woman and giving them exactly that only to turn away when they think things are getting serious. I can understand other people's emotions so perfectly that I would use it to my advantage. As icky as it sounds I loved to watch a man destroy himself from the heartbreak I had given them. I honestly loved the way my mind worked, I felt in control of my life and in control of their lives. But after I had an ego death on a high ass dose of shrooms, it genuinely doesn't interest me anymore to purposely manipulate someone. I don't even do it subconsciously anymore. Although I was disappointed in how much I had changed after my ego death, I saw things more clearly and am finally allowing myself to indulge in people in a loving way rather than in a controlling way. It's saving what love is for me as I had never understood what true love was before. So if you're reading this and enjoy manipulating people, if you find it funny making someone fall in love with you and you could care less about them.. really look further into yourself and what's wrong with you. Idk why I'm saying that like it'll change anyone, as I knew perfectly what was wrong with me (I more so saw it as an advantage in life) and didn't care to change. But it's so delightful to finally come out of it and become a loving person, not a deceptive one.

I am a 20 year old student and I was driving from my college to home and while I was driving home and I was on nagarguna Sagar road all the cars were going in 60 speed and I was also going on same speed on my car then the car in front of me did a sudden brake cus the bus in front of him did the same in spite of there being no u turn then the i applied brake on my car as much as possible and it slowed down to almost 0 and touched the car in front of me with a speed of 5 I think and then 3 guys got out of the car in front of me saying i damaged their bumper and for perspective I was driving an i20 based model and they were driving a fortuner and one of the 3 guys were cursing a lot saying all sorts of obscenities and grabbed my key and told me to get out and got in the driver seat and were about to dive off i got in the back seat then he drove my car for 3km and stopped and were demanding 25k saying they need to do bumper dent paint and at the same time i got a call saying I needed to go to hospital as my grandpa was admitted and I was in a hurry now so I paid them the 25k as they were refusing to give me my key and then they left this is what they were claiming happened cus of me bumping their car a bit

I went to a game exhibition called Gamecores on Saturday. They gave each person 25 minutes of trial play time. l went to play twice, and below are some of the information and impressions l got from the trial. Moreover, since the game is in the Chinese version, l cannot guarantee that the translation of the name of the innate skill is correct. For some names that are difficult to translate, l will directly describe which demon possesses them and their effects.

Innate skill

Innate skill is somewhat similar to Trait in Persona 5 Royal, not all innate skills are unique, but for now, it seems that they cannot inherit other demons' innate skills like in P5R.
The X means to skill type like fire ice light dark etc.
X Melody: While active, all allies will deal increased X element damage when striking enemies with a weakness to X. There is also physical version, but it increases the critical hit damage. There might also be an Almighty version.(for this guy is ice)
Enhancer: While active, allies with a lower affinity for X skills than yourself will have their affinity increased to the same level as yours(for unicorn is light)
The higher the affinity for a X element among allies (except yourself, the higher the damage of your corresponding skills. for apsarā is Ice)
Higher accuracy and critical hit chance against enemies inflicted with status ailments.
More likely to naturally recover from status ailments.
Innate skills with a chance are more likely to activate.
Pathfinder - The accuracy of your next ally is greatly increased, and it is not easy to misjudge targets even when inflicted with mirage.
Wanderer - While active, the refresh time for relics becomes shorter.
Neko 2 Punch - If there is another member in the party with this trait, damage is increased.
Allies’ magic skills also have a chance to critical hit enemies inflicted with status ailments.
While in the active party, allies with Omagatoki effects will have multi-hit attacks' Accuracy and max possible hits increased.
When demons are unhappy during a conversation, they will come out to mediate.
While in Omagatoki effect, inflicting an enemy with a status ailment does not cost a press turn.
When attacking an enemy in a sleep ailment, the sleep will not be dispelled.
If the previous all performed a single-target attack, then attacking the same target will have Increased accuracy and critical hit chance.
Innate skill: Magatsuhi Spring - When the Magatsuhi gauge is full, restore some mp. New unique skill: increases 30 hp and mp
Yoko's innate skill: Deceased demons will be restored to 1hp after the battle ends.
Other innate skill or unique skill without image:
Unique Skill:
Pellaidh -Seal and lower attack 1 level to all foes
Innate Skill:
Andras:-The higher the number of hits from our attacks, the higher the damage of our own wind attribute skills.
Inugami-Increases the damage to weaknesses for the next ally.
Mokoi-Increases the damage to weaknesses against enemies with status ailments.
Leanan Sidhe-Increases damage to weaknesses and the success rate of inflicting status ailments.
Since it's the very early stage of the game, I didn't find any new miracles. The protagonist's innate skill should be able to be changed through the essence of Aogami, but whether we can use other demons' innate skills remains unknown.

New Demon

Glasya-Labolas
Race: Beast;
Null Force/Dark and Mirage, weak to elec
Yesterday's live stream showcased its unique skill, but the specific effects are unknown.
Innate Skill: When our party members hit/evade increase 2 level, critical hit chance is increased

New Magatsuhi Skill based on alignment

The Hare of Inaba side quest for rewarded a law-neutral alignment Magatsuhi skill. By gathering two law-neutral demons, you can use the calamity skill “Spring of Order.” It only requires one demon to participate in battle. The effect is to heal the skill user beyond their maximum HP and increase 1 press turn icon for the next round (which means 10 actions in total).
Additionally, the rate at which the Magatsuhi gauge fills is noticeably faster than in the original smtv. It feels like the combat system in smtvv is built with Magatsuhi skills as one of its cores.
https://preview.redd.it/6asjuxkids1d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b069ca9280af32bcc1927d3c2ea720f83ef518f
https://preview.redd.it/b1o7t1jkds1d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=929991d119d1800032215649e5763beb28147584

Naamah Boss fight

Stat
Weak to physical, reist fire/ice/elec/force, null dark?(can't remeber too well, kind of blur)
Innate Skill: When the team member are same race with Naamah increase accuracy and evasion
Unique Skill: Dekaja+Charm to all foes
The Naamah boss battle takes place in the original 'The Angel's Trail' quest. Naamah will teleport you to the sacred land of Qadištu, which is the place with the giant snake skeleton shown in the trailer. After the boss battle, the remaining members of Qadištu appear, and Lilith says, “Now the time has come for you to prepare the Nahobino for sacrifice."
This battle seems to test a newcomer's understanding of the ailment and resistance system, because Naamah only uses dark skills. If you have a demon that nullifies dark, you can easily neutralize it. The more challenging part is the charm, as there aren't many ways to cure status ailments for whole team in the early stage of the game.
My team composition was Obariyon, Zhu Tun She, and Daemon. I needed to protect Zhu Tun She because it is weak to dark. Apsaras and Mermaid served mainly as support roles and Magatsuhi skill launchers. Apsaras's Magatsuhi skill can grant up to 10 actions in the next round. Mermaid's innate skill increases the maximum number of hits and accuracy, but there might be a cap on this maximum number of hits in Omagatoki effect; it seems that Aramasa still hits 8 times, which is very obvious when using other multi-hit skills. The trial play lineup was quite limited; the official version will offer more choices.

Misc

The game runs on PC, with 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, very smooth, and the graphics look good. You can use the sky view anywhere.
Didn't really explore the demon haunts much.

Anyone know how to disable the 60sec auto off feature of the Sculptor grinders?
have a 078s and like to slow feed, but I often have to do it in batches because it turns off in 60 seconds.

Most recent tale: We were at a grocery store parking lot this past Sunday, waiting for someone to back up out of a parking spot that we wanted to take. There was another car behind us, patiently waiting since these were only one-way parking aisles. All said and done, we were waiting for about a minute tops, when some old boomer guy comes and loudly slaps the driver's side window as he's walking by, headed towards the entrance to the store. We were like "wtf?" And my wife rolls down her window and screams at the guy "what the fuck is wrong with you? You're old enough to know how to act properly in public!" And he turned around and flipped us off?!
Like, we honestly have no idea where he even came from, and why he was so pissed off at us? We were just waiting for a parking spot like people do when they see a car leaving. And he wasn't even the one who was waiting in the car directly behind us. (We couldn't tell if there were other cars behind that one.) But I'm proud of my wife for what she yelled at him. Luckily we didn't see him again inside the store.
The second tale: My mom, wife and I were in a grocery store in a senior community area (near 65+ homes). Unfortunately my mom lives near one of those communities even though she's not part of it. (She's gen X). Anyway, my wife and I are metal heads. satanists, and I'm goth. So it's normal for us to get weird looks when we go places usually.
But anyway, we passed this old boomer guy and he stops my wife, and GRABS the bill of her hat. He starts questioning her about what her hat says on it (It said "antichrist"), and he says "do you think this is funny?" regarding her hat. And she's standing there, quietly warning him to take his fucking hands off her, or she's going to deck him. She said she's not afraid to deck an old person and that he has no right to put his hands on anyone. Basically, my mom and I were just watching in awe and shock. Finally, he takes his hand off her hat bill, and goes about his way, but not without more grumbling. We were utterly shocked by his behavior.
Last tale: AGAIN, at a grocery store... my wife and a friend and I were at the self checkout, about to leave with our items. I was pushing a cart, and so was some boomer lady, who was also headed towards the exit from the right. She looks at me, and stops, so that I can pass her. But we kind of play chicken with each other a couple times, like 'who's gonna go first?' Finally she stands down, and as we continue on our way, she starts yelling at us, "oh sure! GO AHEAD! You young centennials are all the same! So rude and selfish!!!" And I'm just kind of listening to her in shock, but then here comes my wife to the rescue, lol. She yells back at the lady, "do not ever talk to my wife that way you old bitch! You better keep walking!" Or something to that effect. The lady shut up real quick and went to the far exit to avoid us, lol! And yes, she was walking perfectly fine and was not in a wheelchair or had a cane or anything.
There's a theme that I can't help but notice. Why are all my main and worst interactions with entitled boomers at the grocery store? I've seen a lot of other people's stories take place at grocery stores as well.
Also, bravo to my wife for always having something to say back to these idiots.

Clash at the Castle:
King Gunther vs Ilya Dragunov 60 minute iron man match- fantastic match, dream match, you love to see it
Ciampa vs Gargano - after Ciampa turns on Gargano weeks prior
The Bloodline 2.0 is kinda boring so we can live without it. Cody is now overrated and boring so we don't need him neither.
Drew McIntyre vs CM Punk 60 minute iron man match, after the feud they had obviously you gotta have a big epic match
Money In The Bank:
King Gunther beats everyone before the match and makes this a one on one for the briefcase against Ilya Dragunov. they proceed to have a banger of a match which ends in a draw
Ciampa vs Gargano - 120 minute iron man match - Peak NXT! They gotta show what they have
Drew vs Punk - I Quit match - after everything that Drew said will he say I Quit? You gotta have a match like this!
Due to time restraints no other matches
SummerSlam:
King Gunther vs Ilya in a "king on the line" match. Ilya wins and becomes new King of the ring
Gargano vs Ciampa in a 2 out of 3 falls match
Drew vs Punk in a loser becomes Scottish match
Bash in Berlin:
King Ilya vs Gunther in a match type which someone will try to trace back to Nazi Germany and clame it's offensive
Drew vs CM Punk in a ladder match
Ciampa vs Gargano in a bullrope match
Fastlane/Payback:
The last match was just so controversial so now we jsut get a pure SUBMISSION MATCH between King Ilya and Gunther
Drew vs CM Punk in a submission match
Ciampa vs Gargano in a submission match
Crown Jewel:
Gargano vs Ciampa in an Austin Theory on a pole match
CM Punk vs Drew Mcintyre in a WWE 2k simulation since Punk would not travel to Arabia unless he's a hypocrite and he is obviously not. no sir
Ilya vs Gunther in a non-king match cause Arabia has only one king
Survivor Series:
Drew, CM Punk, Gargano, Ciampa, Ilya and Gunther against Gunther, Ilya, Ciampa, Gargano, Punk and Drew
Royal Rumble:
Drew vs Punk
Gargano vs Ciampa
Ilya vs Gunther
Due to time restraints, everything else is canceled
Giulia wins women's Rumble as only woman remaining on the roster
Elimination Chamber:
Gargano, Gunther, Ciampa, Punk, Ilya and Drew. It ends in a draw
WrestleMania:
Big blowoff match!
Gargano vs Ciampa - 60 minute iron man match
Drew vs Punk - 60 minute iron man match
Gunther vs Ilya - 60 minute iron man match
If this doesn't happen WWE failed, it's over, they are not listening to the fans, I'm done, fuck Hunter

So, as the title says this is a post on the review and guide to VARC1000 course by Gejo Sir (the VARC God for me I'll say) 🤌🏻 First, I would like to add 2 important notes :)
Note 1 : I went through this year's VARC1000 course and it's very different from last year's course but I'll try to give you a review of it 🫠
Note 2 : You'll find many people suggesting and saying that "pirated content le le" and stuff. But I won't really suggest that. VARC1000 course is more than what the pirated content will offer. It's not just about VARC okay? It will help you with DILR and QA too (Last year Gejo sir had made videos on how he himself solved DILR and gives really amazing tips and tricks). There will be content/materials for GDPI prepration, profile analyser (which I didn't really find helpful tbh), calls predictor (which again turned out to be not so true in my case but for others it was helpful), daily vocab, GK section, WAT topics, your acads specific questions generally asked during PIs etc etc. All this you won't get in the pirated stuff. You'll just get the videos of his lecs that's it. Course hi lena bhai if possible 🙂
👉🏻 Coming to the course's details : This time they have divided the course into 4 sections Launch Phase, Enhance Phase, Advanced Phase and Peak Phase. And each phase (from Enhance Phase) will be launched in specific months from June onwards. As of now the Launch Phase is active 👀
Coming to the description of the phases : As per my understanding it's perfectly summed up to take you from the very basic (launch phase) to the advanced level (peak phase) 🔥
Focus more on the Core Lessons which Gejo Sir will teach you. He'll just tell you the methods and tricks in these videos ig (that's what happened in the last course) and then maybe he'll teach you to apply them. He'll take a particular RC and solve it. Focus on how he deals with all this okay? Obv take the learnings and develop your own strategy/method (you can copy him but we all can't be like him) 😂
He'll throw some tests before the start of the video.. apply your brains there and see how you do. Then he'll also come up with the strategy lessons (very important) wherein he'll tell you about how to approach the VARC section in those 40 mins and what approach you should have. The core lessons, application lessons and strategy lessons were launched together last year in the course and were really helpful! Till now all the is for RC btw. For VA the material won't be much different but he'll teach you specially about how to deal with the VA too!
Then comes the Daily Article Dose! Do it! Roz karo! It's really good. He'll upload the solutions for it. For every article dose he'll do that and solve it for you. Also, throughout this course you'll find a diverse range of RCs! Humanities, Philosophy, Natural Sciences, Arts etc etc. Everything. And I hope that like last year, this year also he'll make seperate videos for every genre! It's really helpful in that sense! 🍻😌
Coming to the tests! He'll give you a lot of sectional tests (minimum 10 sectional tests) and previous year ke course ke bhi kuch tests alagse (this happened in the last year's course). So you need not worry about the sectionals. You'll get a satisfactory number of those. He'll also solve some sectionals for you. You'll be able to see how he solves the VARC section (trust me you'll be amazed seeing his way of solving). You'll also get Daily Drills where you'll have small tests or say 1-2 RCs and a few VA questions etc. this will also be there. Also, you'll get PY CAT papers as mocks and also as sectional tests separately! So that's also a done deal!! 🍻✨
Don't miss Gejo sir's live sessions! He'll have 1-2 every month ig. And those will be really helpful. It's an interactive session so you can ask your doubts there. He's a very funny guy so you won't be bored. He'll also give you some videos (hopefully) on how to approach DILR! He's a genius in DILR also (atleast for me) 💥
Then comes the Telegram Group of VARC1000 where Gejo sir will also be there! It's a very interactive group and very much helpful. A really nice place to be in I'll say as you'll find serious aspirants mostly.
I hope that I was able to include most of the important things of this course and if needed I'll update this post in the future! :')
Overall I'll say that this course is worth it? It'll definitely improve your VARC skills and understanding if you follow it religiously. As I have said... This course is not just about VARC but there are many many things in it and it'll turn out to be helpful overall! 🩵 Do share this review with your friends and other aspirants! 😼
All the best with your prep! If you have anything to add about the course or your opinions then feel free to drop it in the comments! ;')

noticed this post in the Alevel subreddit, so lets make an olevels version of it!
a few hilarious things from the alevel post:
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• So today in my bio paper the girl in front of me decided mid exam to give herself a fish tail braid rather odd when everyone else is writing like their life depend on it (u/stockleyacademia)

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• I've seen someone fall asleep within the first 5 minutes of an exam starting. (u/CSApplicant101)

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• During my o levels this one kid could not keep his laughter in and he kept giggling under his breath. The invigilator asked him what was so funny and that is when his laughter exploded, the whole class started laughing including the invigilator. It was a small room. (u/sufferinfromsuccess1)

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• There was a girl crying during maths and she peed herself 😭 (u/holiestkiss)**

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• Some girl got up onto her desk and ripped up her paper - it was math (u/StfuJohnny)

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• A girl who was taking arabic sitting next to me. every time i’d glance at her she would be reading the passages in the paper like it was an actual book. Never saw her write a thing in the 2 hrs we were in there. walked out without an inch of anxiety on her face. queen behavior. (u/Drilling-Pickle)

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• At the end of the math exam this year, there was this dude next to me (retaking the exam) who was going through his paper and loudly whispering “Yes! YES” while happily smiling and waving his hands around. (u/NoAverageMe)

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• Saw a guy take a nap during a history exam. Woke up with a confused look, saw everyone else writing furiously, then grabbed his pen and started scribbling furiously about... the French Revolution as a fashion show (u/Kellywatson7886)

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• During a GCSE geography practise exam and we were in our classroom that had a floor that when you walked over it, it made a loud noise. The teacher who wears high heels walked through the class room and her shoes made such a noise that everyone stopped and watched what she was doing. When she left the room, someone at the back of the classroom said ‘And that’s how earthquakes are made’. Everyone laughed at that, it took a minute if so for everyone to calm down and get back to their papers (u/RainbowRevolver)

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• During Chem GCSE, kid two seats behind me on the right just starts barking, then begins meowing. He’s obviously playing around with his mates given by how he’d turned his chair around to face them. Invigilators did nothing. (u/idonotexist20)

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• During an AS exam when an examiner left the room some guy (external candidate) pulled out a can of beer took a huge gulp, then reached back to his bag and retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit it, took a puff then put it out and threw it back in his bag. We never found out who the guy was, but I still think he’s a legend. (u/Plus-Deal-1669)

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and thats all i had time for!!
personally the most exciting thing in my exams (first time, O2) was literally ''Welcome on behalf of the British Council. I am your exam supervisor...'' I LOOKED FORWARD TO IT CAUSE IT WAS THE ONLY THING THAT WASNT A BORING WAIT. oh well.
any funny experience you all had? (cmon we're MUCH more funnier than those depressed alevel kids -_-)
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‎ ‎ PS : the huge gaps in bw are so that its easier to read -- personally i couldnt understand a thing even with the bullets, so yeah!

WIBTA if I don't tell my inlaws we will be on vacation when they plan to visit?
I guess to set the stage, I'll (31M) just say that my wife's (Cami, 38F) parents have always been terrible people. When she graduted from high school, she went to college and only come home for short visits. Her relationship with her parents has always been strained. For me, in low doses, they are tolerable, and sometimes even funny (but they are the joke). When they would come to visit, they'd stay a week or more and act like our house was a B&B and they were on vacation. One time I asked them to take our son to school because I had some meetings and my MIL actually said that they were on vacation not here to run our errands and besides, Cami should be taking him to school because she's the mom (they are big on trad wife roles). The suposed point of their visits is to spend time with their grandson, but there was frankly little of that. He'd come home from school and they'd say hi, but go back to watching NewsMax and the WWII channel. After their last visit, I told my wife that the next time they should stay in a hotel. I work from home and they have no boundaries or respect for others.
All fun and games when dealing with family, but recently, they finally went too far and my wife went no contact with them. We were having a marital issue and she moved out for a few weeks. Once they found out, they took it to a whole different level and it went from classic over the top trad wife roles/religious hypocrite/ boomers being fools nonsense to vicious. When she stopped answering their calls/texts/emails, they started in on me. I've only responded once, telling them that they were in the wrong and need to appologize to their daughter and they can't use me to do an end around. I haven't told them that we've reconciled and my wife is back home, but even if she was a hated ex, I would not let these fools use me to bypass her.
Cami and I have planned a family vacation and one of the recent emails from my inlaws stated that they intend to just show up uninvited. As it turns out, it will be while we are gone. They want to see their grandson and because they think we are still separated, stated that Cami wouldn't even have to know. Do I break the NC and tell them that we won't be there? It seems cruel to let them come and knock on the door and not even know that we are gone. On the other hand, it's pretty presumptious to just demand a visit and tell me when (and not ask if that works for us). I also feel like if I respond, I'll be opening the door and they would just demand to come some other time. To me, this is a problem they need to solve with their daughter.

Female attraction, luck, increased libido and energy. I feel like i can conquer the world when im on a good clean streak. Started nofap at like age 16 i think, just turned 20 now and have been on it since then on and off. My longest streak back then was like 120 days, but with a couple of other streaks of 90 days, 60 days etc and everytime ive been on these longer streaks i feel like nothing is impossible in this life.
About 90 days ago i found out about semen retention and started taking it seriously. And that was like step 2, with nofap being the first step.
When i was on nofap i used to still be addicted to other stuff like energy drinks, nicotine pouches and vape, junk food and other stuff. I still looked at girls bodies, and said "dayuuuuuummmm" when a girl with a nice ass walked by just like all my friends still do. Now i cant help but to cringe when i see my friends do that type of behavior, like animals.
Dont get me wrong i will still sometimes look at a beautiful girl if she walks by and sometime admire her body, even tho i try not to. But it feels different from before. Its not in the animal way, now its more of admiring the body and beauty and i not as much as an object anymore.
(Yeah i know the old feminist "men see girls as objects" saying, which i have always hated before. But when im on semen retention i can not ignore how many other guys, especially younger like my age just see women as objects.
Bad habits
Now that i found semen retention i have easily kicked alot of bad habits, with energy drinks, nicotine and alcohol being the main ones that i felt was holding me back. (Been drinking energy drinks like everyday since i was 14, my main addiction). No shit i was feeling like shit and hated my life. I just sat at home fat, drinking energy drinks and jerking off. No shit i wanted to end it. Now i just feel disgusted when i see these chemicals and wonder why anybody would put them in their body.
Nowadays i only crave good natural food, and wonder why anybody would destroy themself and their body with these bad habits.
Life gets so much easier when you get more discipline in your life, alot easier. People seems to think that eating only good natural food is hard and that you are not living, by restricting yourself to only. But to me, i see people eating junk food and consuming substances, jerking off, that they are really taking the hard way in life.
SR is like a cheat code. I dont know the science behind it but all the benefits are true. Luck, stuff seems to just fall into place when on a good streak. People are friendlier. Girls come up and start conversations about random things, like at the gym asking for help with certain things or just saying hi when they walk by. People respect you. Old people seem to like u more and not see u as a thug. Animals seems interested in u. Things that i manifest become real. Almost all benefits that i read on here are really true.
I have gotten alot more spiritual. I go into nature and just become one with the nature. Observing.
Semen Retention has saved my life. Everything started with nofap believe it or not. But after hopping on SR i have leveled up and kicked my bad habits. I do still enjoy smoking weed sometimes, and i do still drink coffee. And if i do meet a girl that i really like, then i will have sex while trying hard not to come.
So yeah im dedicating my life to this practice, lets see what happens. Sky is the limit.

Hi, my name is Juan, I'm from Colombia and I been having a very huge problem with my xbox series s since a couple of days. There was a storm with lightnings in the place where I live and for a few seconds there was a black out, so I disconnected my TV and the console and after the storm ended I turned on the console again but it took a very long time to start and when the homepage finally appeared it said that it was not connected to the xbox network and It seemed pretty weird to me, beacause the console was already wired connected so I thought it was a problem with my wi-fi router so I disconnected the router for about 5 minutes and also I restarted the console, but the problem remained the same, and I just realized that it couldn't be a wi-fi problem beacuse my laptop was working perfectly with the same LAN cable that I was using in the xbox, the funny thing is that I also tried a wireless connection but it kept saying that the console was NAT connected and that I had to disconnect the wire, even when it was ALREADY DISCONNECTED, so basically I was not having any internet connection at all, so I decided to reset the console to factory settings (and went just worse) first I tried to reset and keep my games and apps, then mid process the screen displayed a message saying checking for updates but after that a message saying error code 0x8B050084 0x00000000 0x00000201, and I really tried it all to solve this but none of my efforts worked, at that point I only had three options to try, "try again", "check network" and "turn off console", if I press on "try again" the same error code displays again, if I press on "check network" it ask me to check wired or wireless connection and when I press wired it says it's all good and the console it's wired connected even when the LAN Cable it's unplugged, which is a big problem, so I tried to check the wireless connection and it didn't show me my wireless network not even wireless networks nearby, the only thing displaying it's "Add wireless network" so when I press it, it says Specify SSID and at this point it's not even a surprise that when I put my SSID it didn't work at all, saying that my security protocol won't work, I even tried typing the SSID's from my neighbors and also none of them worked, so I'm stuck in the factory settings mode and the only possible solution that I found in the internet was doing an offline update through a flash drive, so I reset my pendrive to NTFS format and I downloaded the OSU1 file from the xbox webpage and I just copied the "$Systemupdate" file to the USB, then I get to the xbox troubleshooting menu and I inserted the pendrive to perform an "offline system update". I really thought that this method was going to be effective but when the update process was at about 80% the console just stopped the update and started to display "checking for updates" again just to end up showing the same error code 0x8B050084 0x00000000 0x00000201 AGAIN. I was so confused beacuse what is the point of doing an offline system update if it is going to check out the network connectivity anyway, I've tried to perform the offline system update three times but the result was same, so at this point my series s won't start at all and I really don't know what to do.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/live/cjn8w8j06ik?feature=shared

• They're having a jam session when we join
• 3:45 Neo and Luke are improvising a song about all the guys. I'll just translate the lyrics that Luke sings in Thai because he also sings in English a bit too. When you hear Neo talking/singing, he's trying to translate what Luke is singing, but sometimes he's a little off.
  • Mix: "can be good but also bad. Likes to eat a lot with Pond"
  • Phuwin: (sings in English)
  • Pond: (sings in English) "Everyone knows that he always wants to eat rice with Thai omelette (extra salty)"
  • Neo: "He's probably the most annoying in the house, but he's also cute. He loves annoying everyone a lot, especially Earth. That's the kind of person he is. He plays guitar really well."
  • Khaotung: "I like how he likes similar things as me. I like how he plays darts with me. I like how he also wins games like me."
  • (pause while they laugh)
  • 6:30 Earth: "Everyone who's watching this livestream knows that he likes to wear this red sweatshirt." (pause because Neo needs to think of what to play) "Red shirt, red shirt, has nice stuff in his hair" (then sings in English) (pause because of Neo's mistranslation) "Actually, he should be the best in the house, but right now he has the lowest score. But that's alright, because there's lots of time for him to win more games."
  • Gun: "Yellow shirt, like the Sang Sang that he's the presenter of. He's really tiny, but his smile is huge. He's also very good-looking and the nicest in the house" (then Luke says something a bit funny but rude, which makes Gun get up and try to push a pillow in Luke's face)
• 9:50 Mix and Gun go to the kitchen. The others realise that they can watch the footage of the kitchen from the TV.
• 10:45 Neo and Khaotung consider improvising a song for Luke since he didn't get to sing about himself, but Luke declines.
• 12:15 PD asks everyone to assemble in the kitchen. She makes a notification sound before speaking so that the guys don't get startled, which they appreciate
• 13:20 Medal competition sponsored by Sea Me Now. Gun reads the rules. They will divide themselves into two teams. Each team will send two members to prepare "yum" (a type of Thai salad served at room temperature, often involving some kind of noodles like glass noodles) within 15 minutes, using the seafood from Sea Me Now. Meanwhile, the remaining 4 guys will wait in another room until the dishes are ready, and they will come and blindly taste the dishes and vote on which dish is better. Winning team gets one medal each.
  • 16:00 PD asks the teams which member each thinks is the best cook in the team. Phuwin is the best of the left team, and the right-hand team are undecided between Gun and Khaotung. At 17:30 PD asks which member from each group is the worst at cooking. The guys start to figure out that PD is going to pair the best cook with the worst cook, so the right-hand team try to blag that Khaotung and Gun don't know how to cook that well after all. At 18:30, Neo is the only one who hasn't caught on to PD's plan, so he raises his hand to indicate that he's the worst cook on that team because he thinks it means he won't have to cook. Final cooking teams are Phuwin/Neo and Gun/Pond. The rest go to wait in the play zone.
  • 21:00 Phuwin has only just realised that they are required to make "yum," which he doesn't know how to make. He mistakenly thought they could make whatever they wanted. Gun is also not confident.
  • 23:00 Cooking timer begins. Both teams decide to use the salmon. Phuwin/Neo decide they're going to leave their salmon raw. Pond asks Gun if they're going to leave theirs raw too, and Phuwin accuses him of copying them. Gun decides they're going to lightly blanch their salmon.
  • 28:00 Neo goes to look for a food processor. Gun asks if he can process enough chilis for both teams, and Neo initially jokingly declines, but then agrees.
  • 30:15 Phuwin asks Neo to make the glass noodles. Neo isn't sure how to prepare them, and Phuwin guesses that they're supposed to just put them briefly in boiling water (which is correct)
  • 31:30 We cut to the play zone where the tasting teams do a light brand plug for Sea Me Now. They teach Luke a new word that basically means "great." (I guess it's kind of like "sick" in English how the actual definition of the word is different, but it's slang when used in context). Mix is confident that Gun/Pond are going to make the better dish.
  • 37:00 PD announces one minute remaining, and that "the customers are complaining." Gun/Pond finish with some time to spare and present their dish to the camera, but Phuwin/Neo finish a little late (but it's fine; there will be no penalty. PD just keeps rushing them to finish)
  • 40:30 PD asks the teams to write the names of their respective dishes on the mini boards provided. Pond originally writes a name that indirectly reveals that he and Gun made that dish, and PD says that the names can't have any hints of who made which dish.
  • 43:30 PD asks the teams to pose with their respective dishes, and invites the audience to screenshot and caption them. Gun/Pond's dish translates to, "Definitely delicious; try it and see," and Phuwin/Neo's dish (roughly) translates to, "Just making a 'yum,' but don't know how to make it" (It's a rhyme/pun in Thai)
  • 44:30 Cooking teams leave the kitchen and go sit in the living room so they can watch the tasting on the TV. PD warns them not to cheat while the teams are changing rooms.
  • 47:15, the tasting team goes to the kitchen. They each get 3 ping pong balls with which they can vote. Phuwin/Neo's dish is the white side, and Gun/Pond's is the blue side. The votes can be cast by dropping the balls into the coloured containers corresponding to the dishes.
  • 48:00 It is immediately obvious to all of them immediately which team made which dish. Transcription starting from 48:20:
    • Earth: "Why don't we start by judging the presentation before we taste?"
    • Mix: "Looking at these two dishes, this one (blue) is definitely wins."
    • Earth (trying to help his team): "I think I'm going to go with this one (white). Listen, none of us know which dish was made by which team..."
    • Luke: "But we have theories."
    • Mix: "I just want to know in what way this (white) dish could possibly be more beautiful than that (blue) dish."
    • (pause while they think of some nonsense) Luke: "The vegetables. They just look so nice. And there are so many of them."
    • Earth: "I'm giving it to this team (white)."
    • Luke: "Me too."
    • (audio cuts out for a few seconds)
    • Mix is saying "The truth?!" to implore Earth and Luke to admit the truth, but they stick to their decisions
    • Luke: "It's my personal opinion. I'm not changing."
    • 49:55 Mix comes up to the camera and mouths, "There are cheaters here."
    • Earth and Luke say, "Who knows? This plate could have been made by anyone."
    • 50:15 Mix: "Okay, let's move on to the flavour." They taste Phuwin/Neo's first.
    • Earth: "I hear laughing outside. Who's laughing?"
    • 51:00 Luke: "Very good."
    • Earth looks at Luke. Luke: "It's actually good. It suits my palate."
    • Mix: "I mean, it's alright. It's not bad. The salmon and imitation crab are good. They taste really fresh. But the noodles are awkwardly super cold. Like, is this bamee yen (a cold noodle dish)? Also, there's just something not right. It's sour, and it's like trying to be spicy but not spicy, trying to be salty but not salty. It's not balanced. What do you think, Earth?"
    • Earth: "I'll give it to you honestly."
    • Mix: (puts his hand on Earth's shoulder and looks into his eyes) "Yes, give it to us honestly."
    • Earth: "Okay, honestly, I like the raw ingredients. I like that the imitation crab meat is in large chunks. But..."
    • Mix: "Look, he's talking about the raw ingredients. He's not even talking about the flavour of the dish."
    • Earth: "The flavour is like how Mix described. And honestly, it's sour. It's so sour. Uncomfortably sour. Like, too sour. Can I have some water?"
    • 52:40 Luke: "I really like how there are lots of vegetables here. That means that dish is really healthy for you. If you ask me if I can eat the other dish, I can eat it, but it won't be as healthy as this dish."
    • Earth: "Oh, okay, so he's talking about the health value of the dish."
    • Mix: "But we're talking about the flavour of the dish, here, no?"
    • Luke: "I'm a person who doesn't like eating things too spicy. (uses the vocab word he learned earlier) So I like that this one is a good balance. It's not too spicy for me.
    • 53:35 Earth looks at Luke and says, "Is it not too sour? I think you've already helped our team a lot here."
    • Luke: "No, I don't think so. I honestly think it's good. But we haven't tried the other dish."
    • Earth: "That's true. Different people have different flavour preferences. Some like super sour, for example. And if those people also don't like spicy food, this dish is for them."
    • 54:05 They ask for Khaotung's review. He pauses and then quietly says, "Um... Sour. It's sour."
    • Mix: "How about between the words 'delicious' and 'not delicious'?"
    • Khaotung: "Well, I can definitely eat it. But it's super sour. It's not well-rounded."
    • 54:35 They move on to taste Gun/Pond's dish. Mix comes to the camera and enthusiastically whispers, "It's SO good!"
    • 55:15 Earth: "I like the creativity of this team. The salmon was raw, but this team lightly blanched the fish so that the inside is still raw, which adds a lot of layers to the flavours and textures of the dish. I like it."
    • Mix: "Can I speak extendedly? It's SO good. It's amazing. It's well-rounded, yummy, the textures are amazing, and it's easy to see that the person who made it really knows how to cook. I'm pretty sure I know who made it." Khaotung agrees.
    • 56:40 Luke decides to still vote for the white dish because the second dish is a bit too spicy for him. Earth sees that there's no way that the white dish can win anymore, so he puts his last ball into the white container anyway.
  • 58:00 More brand plugging for Sea Me Now
  • 59:45 PD calls the cooking teams back to the kitchen to announce the results.
  • 1:00:35 Luke says to Phuwin/Neo: "I tried, guys." Neo says, "I love this guy. He said the truth straight from his heart." Earth says that he tried to say the truth too. Neo complains that he was working with so many ingredients he had no idea how to use. I was just putting everything in randomly. Mix asks who did the seasoning/flavouring, and Neo said, "Me, but we didn't have time to taste it because we ran out of time."
  • 1:02:00 The cooking teams try each other's dishes (and Phuwin/Neo try their own dish for the first time too). Neo tries Gun/Pond's dish. Earth immediately feeds him a huge bite of his own dish. Neo pauses and says, "It seems like it's missing something." Mix and Earth say, "Not something. Many things. Like deliciousness." Earth feeds some to Phuwin, and he also doesn't like it.
    • 1:02:45 Neo looks at Earth and says, "You did the right thing." (in reference to criticising this dish and voting for the other one). Earth says, "So you understand me now?!"
    • Neo makes fun of how Gun was previously dramatic about not knowing how to make "yum." Gun says that he truly wasn't sure, and Neo feeds Gun some of Phuwin/Neo's dish saying, "See? This is what it means to truly not know what you're doing." Gun's eyes water while eating it, and he says, "It's so sour," and goes to hug Neo and Phuwin.
  • 1:04:00 More brand plugging for Sea Me Now
  • 1:05:00 Neo says that he's glad that there's at least someone (Luke) who enjoys eating his food. He then realises that Luke has only been eating the seafood and the vegetables, none of which have been flavoured/seasoned. Luke then takes a bite of the noodles to appease him.
• 1:06:00 Seafood lunch. Menu includes (professionally-made) "yum" with salmon and imitation crab topped with salmon roe; oysters with a seafood sauce; scallops fried with garlic, salt, and pepper; and grilled salmon steaks
  • 1:17:45 Khaotung and Mix go to the kitchen to make some more food with the fresh seafood they have
  • 1:19:15 Luke asks Earth why he's sitting so far away from him, and Neo turns it into a pun about Earth wanting scissors ("sitting far away" sounds a bit similar to "looking for scissors")
  • 1:21:10 This is Pond's first time trying mashed potatoes. Luke and Phuwin explain what they are to him and explain that in some Western countries, they eat less rice than they do in Asia, so sometimes they eat potatoes as the starch (a lot of the dishes for this meal were prepared in a Western way)
  • 1:22:30 Neo teaches them Isan slang that a more polite phrase to basically say, "BS-ing." They also mention the Central equivalent of the phrase. They ask Luke what an equivalent in English would be, but Luke can only think of "BS-ing," so he says that he can't say it out loud. He eventually goes with "spinning stuff." Neo says that he feels like English doesn't have as many rude/swearing words as Thai does, and Earth makes a joke that he wouldn't be surprised if Neo's name was rude in English.
  • 1:23:55 They like how Luke seems especially giggly today, so they try to keep him laughing. Neo says a Thai phrase/idiom that basically means that he's not even being funny to his full capacity right now, then Earth and Phuwin give some sarcastic remarks that are like playful insults to Neo, which Luke continues laughing at.
  • 1:26:00 Phuwin and Gun join Mix and Khaotung in the kitchen to cook some more seafood. They're prepping some salmon, scallops, and oysters. Gun wants to make lightly floured and pan-fried tofu.
  • 1:27:30 The guys at the table are joking to Luke that it's Thai culture to be polite to people, but then the closer you get to them, the more you insult them. You start the insults behind their back, but then you can eventually insult them to their face (it's not technically false, especially for some friend groups, but the way they were explaining it is a bit too much, hahaha). Then they demonstrate that, actually, the best thing to do is to be polite to someone's face, and then behind their back, you compliment them again.
  • 1:29:00 They exchange the English and Thai versions of the phrase "fishing for compliments"
  • 1:32:20 Luke is trying to tell the story of why he came to Thailand, but he's still in his giggly mood. He wanted to be an actor in the US, but he was scouted from IG to come and be a model in Thailand, so he arranged to come for 3 months, but he liked it, so he stayed.
  • 1:34:10 They mention that they're glad they have Neo in the house because otherwise it would be so much quieter and less entertaining.
  • 1:40:15 Gun brings the tofu for the guys at the table to try. They struggle a bit because it's still very hot, but they approve.
  • 1:43:45 The guys at the table talk about ventriloquists. Luke explains how in the US, ventriloquism can either be creepy or funny depending on the act, but in Thailand it tends to mostly be creepy. They start discussing some related film/series plots.
  • 1:59:30 Pond, Neo, and Luke dance a bit for the cameras
• 2:01:00 Relaxing time. Mix presents the dish he made to the camera: spaghetti pad kee mao (drunken noodles) with scallops, crab, and salmon roe. He brings it to the living room for everyone else to try.
  • 2:08:40 Some language lessons. Phuwin and Luke ask Neo some questions for him to answer in English. They also ask Luke some questions in Thai. They try to ask Neo and Luke to speak English and Thai (respectively) for two minutes each, language exam-style.
• 2:13:50 PD asks the losing team from the last game to go wash dishes. They say that the sink area is small, so two people will wash at a time.
  • 2:36:05 Earth drops and breaks a dish. Earth tells a story about how when he was very young, he hated washing dishes, so sometimes he would secretly break some dirty dishes behind his house so he wouldn't have to clean as many. Eventually his mother started wondering where all the dishes were disappearing to, but she just kept buying more
• 2:41:15 PD asks for someone to wake Gun (who's napping on the sofa) and assemble in the area in front of the medal board for the next medal game. She asks Mix "the one with many medals" and Earth "the one with hardly any medals" to take the lead in reading the rules. Earth is offended, but PD says, "Earth, you have to accept the truth."
  • 2:42:40 Game sponsored by Super Coffee. They will divide into two teams. King of the Day chooses the pairs that will compete together. Each person in the pair will wear a sumo costume with a bag of Super Coffee attached to their back. Whoever is the first to successfully remove the bag of coffee from their opponent's back wins that round, and their team is awarded one point in the game. Once all the pairs have competed, the winners will compete to determine the final winner. Winning team gets one medal each. The rules say nothing about singing or having dancing breaks during each match, but the guys do so anyway.
• 3:21:20 PD asks everyone to change into swimming clothes and meet at the pool. Phuwin has to study, so he won't join for the next activity.
• 3:39:00 Neo reads the directions. They're going to play the Werewolf (ma paa) game. Between the 7 of them, they will randomly get assigned roles: 2 werewolves (who can kill people), 1 bodyguard (who can choose someone to protect from death each round), 1 seer (who can privately uncover the identity of one other player each round), 1 hunter (who, if they are killed, can choose one other person they suspect of being a werewolf to die with them), and 2 villagers. PD will be the narratoreferee. The game is basically between the werewolves and everyone else. Each round, in order, the narrator will instruct the werewolves to choose someone to kill, then the bodyguard to choose someone to protect, then the seer to privately uncover the identity of one other player. Then everyone must talk and decide on one person to kill out of suspicion of being a werewolf. If both werewolves are killed, the common people win. If there's at least one werewolf left at the end of the game, the werewolves win.
  • [PD is a very dramatic and colourful narrator, which is why everyone is reacting to most of her lines throughout the game. Werewolf in Thai is "ma paa" and villagetownsperson is "chao baan," to help you guys understand what's going on. All the other roles are called in English, although sometimes they call the bodyguard "moh" which means doctor]
  • 3:45:30 First game: Werewolves=Gun/Earth, Bodyguard=Neo, Seer=Khaotung, Hunter=Mix
    • First round: No one dies
    • Second round: Pond dies. They vote to kill Khaotung
    • 4:04:45 Third round: No one dies. Neo says that Mix is a common person because he saved this round. They vote to kill Earth
    • 4:13:30 Fourth round: Neo dies. They vote to kill Gun. Common people win.
  • 4:19:00 Second game. They're no longer allowed to say whether they saved someone or not. Werewolves=Khaotung/Mix, Bodyguard=Gun, Seer=Luke, Hunter=Pond
    • First round: Earth dies. They know someone is lying because too many people are claiming to be villagers. They think they should believe Neo because he was so honest last round. They vote to kill Khaotung.
    • 4:34:10 Second round: Pond dies and choses to kill Mix with him. Common people win.
  • 4:37:50 PD asks them to vote on the best and worst liar. They aren't sure yet, but Khaotung is voted the worst liar. Punishment is cleaning one of the bathrooms tomorrow.
• 4:41:15 Relaxing time. Neo gets thrown in the pool.
• 5:08:00 Fan talk
  • Group 1: It's supposed to be the 4 top scorers on the medal board, but Khaotung is still showering, so Earth goes in his place because he's lowest. Neo did a bit more exercise with Luke this morning. They recap the walking doll game from the morning and how random and unpredictable it was. Mix was bitter that he felt like being King today was more of a burden than Luke's experience the previous day. Luke says it's probably because Mix's Thai is better, so they felt like using him for more jobs/tasks. They recap the cooking competition; Gun/Mix say they were lucky that they were on the team that had several options of people who knew how to cook. They talked about how the judging was biased, but Earth said that at the end, he had to admit the fact that Phuwin/Neo's dish was so sour that he could feel it in his brain. Gun/Mix were glad that they didn't have to wash dishes today because there were so many dishes to wash, and they made fun of Earth breaking the dish. They all enjoyed the sumo game. They started to regret that they started the singing/dancing gag, but they committed to it for entertainment purposes. They agreed that Khaotung is indeed the dark horse because no one expected him to be that quick in the sumo game. Everyone also had fun playing Werewolf.
    • 5:18:45 Fan comments: They like how Gun seems like the eldest brother in the house, taking care of everyone. People made fun of Earth's childhood dish-breaking story. (The guys eventually start talking amongst themselves, mainly about how Earth doesn't think he has a chance to win anymore, and they say that there are many more opportunities for medals in the coming days, so anything can happen)
  • 5:26:15 Group 2: They talk about how much Pond likes rice with Thai omelette [note: pretty much everyone in Thailand loves it, but Pond feels like eating it all the time], and he likes to make Phuwin make it for him in this house. They're all impressed with how good Khaotung was at the sumo game. Phuwin/Neo explain what happened during the cooking competition: Phuwin usually never eats "yum," but last week, his family made some but he didn't have any, so he regrets not having it so he would have a better idea of how to make it. Neo said he was just randomly putting things in without knowing for sure if they were supposed to go in. They made fun of Neo's dishwashing "technique." They recapped Werewolf, and everyone was unsure whether to trust/believe the things Neo says because he talks rubbish a lot.
    • 5:32:45 Fan comments: They mention that this has turned into a pure comedy show. They like how everyone works together and the vibe isn't overly competitive.
  • 5:37:00 Late-night meal. Menu includes fried chicken wings, spaghetti carbonara, spaghetti with bacon, sticky rice with pork, sandwich, pizza, more spaghetti, and minced pork wrapped with noodles.
    • They feel like today was very full/busy, and they're all feeling tired, but they've had fun.
    • 5:47:00 Earth and Neo say that they may not have many medals, but at least they're funny. They get up and try to entertain the rest of the guys.
• 5:52:45 Everyone bids farewell to Gun because it's his last night. Gun says to the audience, "Thank you so much for watching all of us these past three days. I hope you've enjoyed seeing our dynamics in this more relaxed environment. I hope you'll continue watching the rest of the guys for the rest of the days and see what fun is in store."

Hello! Sorry for any grammar mistakes in advance, I'm Hungarian. So I've been dealing with this problem since last October. I bought an Asus TUF RX 6900 XT near the end of 2022 and it worked flawlessly for nearly a year then these random black screens started to appear. I shouldn't even say black screen because the monitor just doesn't get any signal. My MSI motherboard does the 1 long 2 short beeps that indicates graphics card issue according to their site. After this I have to power down the PC. The reset button doesn't work. I tried so many things already:
- Changing the cable, trying both HDMI and displayport in different ports on both the monitor and the card - Did a DDU session, even resinstalled Windows and upgraded to 11 from 10 - Updated the drivers many times since the issue started to appear.
-I updated the motherboard chipset drivers as well and even the BIOS in my desperation - I took out the card, cleaned it, plugged in different power cables after re inserting it - Checked the temps while gaming and they are completely fine. Edge temp is barely above 60 and hotspot is around 75. - I did a VRAM test and everything was fine - Undervolted and underclocked the card
- Run different stress tests: Built in Adrenalin, Furmark and Furmark 2, Superposition but these never produced a crash even after half an hour. If you think the PSU might be at fault, well not very likely. Even after I used MPT and let my card pull 410 watts while I also stress tested my overclocked Ryzen 5 5600 that also pulled nearly 90 watts, my Thermaltake Toughpower 850W platinum was doing just fine. Meanhwile crashes still happen when my card only uses about 200w in certain games. Funny thing is I managed to overlock my card to get 12414 points in Superposition 1080p extreme which is among the best air cooled RX 6900 XTs LOL.
- I changed my 4x8 Gb Corsair ram kits to 2x16 G.skill - The warranty is still active but guess what? All they did was running a 3D Mark stress test for 10 minutes and of course that didn't crashed so they said the card is fine...
So about the games. Some games are straight up unplayable like the new Indika or Horizon Zero Dawn and crashes happen after a few minutes or even seconds, meanwhile Death Stranding (that uses the same engine) has never crashed. There is also a middle ground with other games like Cyberpunk, Baldur's Gate 3 or Fallout 76 that can run for hours but still produce a crash sometimes. Some of these games use different launchers and they are on different SSD's. One SSD is NVME the other one is SATA. So quite a lot of things are already ruled out.
Next I'm planning to change the CPU to a Ryzen 7 5700X but I highly doubt that would solve the problem.
Any ideas what else could be done?

After 5 gruelling months of navigating a tough job market I finally landed a role. It’s not my dream job, but it is my saving grace and I couldn’t be more proud of myself for getting to this moment.
I spent 15 years building a career in sales and project management only to realise I didn’t like what I was doing. There was plenty of progression in the last 5 years but I seemed to had deviated from who I was as a person. I think my 18 year old self would have been disappointed that I ended up in an office working 60 hour weeks staring at a computer. When my last project came to an end 5 months ago I decided to go looking for a career change. Then I really felt the pinch of the job market.
During the 5 months I submitted countless applications (some tailored, some one size fits all) and turned up to 10 interviews. The emotional turmoil I went through from preparing to waiting to hear back was maddening. I turned into a lesser version of myself so much so that my mental health, relationships and finances suffered. I stopped believing in a higher power because how could such a thing allow someone to go through such agony. Suffice to say 9/10 interviews didn’t result in a job. In my entire life I’ve never found it so difficult to land a job, with each rejection call/email shrinking my confidence.
The one interview that did, happened because I had interviewed for an advertised role and the hiring manager was part of the panel. I didn’t get that one but she offered me the chance to interview for one of her internally advertised roles. It would be at the level below what I’m used to but I knew when switching careers I’d need to take this step. I agreed and a week later I met with her to talk about the role. Turns out she had a similar background to me so maybe she saw that and thought I was worth investing in. Whether that’s true or not I’m grateful to have received an offer.
I’m still feeling the effects of the last 5 months so there’s still a fair way to go before I feel 100%. This provided the hope I needed to start picking up the pieces and mend the parts of my life that were neglected. I really feel like I suffered an ego death in pursuit of a career change. Almost like I couldn’t be the 60 hour a week computer staring robot I once was. Here I am starting again with the belief that if I can build a career once, I can do it again.
Good luck to everyone doing it tough in this economy. I’m rooting for you!

Hi guys. Making another shot at this. Cut prices on a few things because I'm just running out of room for storing my new builds. Order multiples and I may cut you a deal.
This post is mostly for people interested in buying, but I love a trade! If you're interested in trading see my latest post in /letstradepedals. I post there every other week, usually on Tuesday. I got non-DIY stuff in the trade post, too.
What I got for sale is hand-built stuff that I made, mostly relatively unique or heavily tweaked designs built on vero or point to point. Many are housed in upcycled tins, a few in hammond boxes. I've also got small practice amps built inside whatevers that you can crank up and enjoy at low volumes. They all run on standard 9v pedal power.
PRICES DON'T INCLUDE SHIPPING -- I ship USPS priority using pirateship.com, so expect shipping to be between $5 and $15 depending on how close you are to Tennessee. Would prefer to not deal with international shipping, but if you want it bad enough to pay for it, I'm game.
I accept Paypal or Venmo.
MOBILE USERS: There are 4 columns in the table below: Name, Price, Links, and Notes. If you don't see all 4, scroll over or ask for more info.
Fuzzes

Name	Price	Links	Notes
Bazz Me Fuss You #1	$90	PIC DEMO	A bazz-fussified perversion of the Escobedo push-me-pull-you, featuring controls for octave and volume. This is the first unit I've built using my own custom PCB. Housed in a painted 125B with top jacks.
Space Fuzz	$80	PIC DEMO	This is a Hollis crash sync fuzz that I souped up with an LFO to modulate the filtesync frequency. Really wild flangery/phasey type gated fuzz sound. At the right settings you can get some octave-down effects as well. Housed in a ~3.5 inch square game tin reinforced with recycled plastic. Pretty pleased with this build.
SwirlFuzz	$75	PIC DEMO	Modulated octave fuzz prototype. It's an octave fuzz, but you can switch on an LFO to modulate the octave amount. Controls for Rate, Depth, Gain, and Volume, plus switches for waveshape and mode (Normal/Octave/Modulated). In a circular tin reinforced with recycled plastic.
Big Green Fuzz for Attractive Bass Players	$75	PIC Demo	Like my bazz-me-fuss-you circuit, but with a big muff tone stack, a clean blend, and optional clippers for more compression. Housed in a big round tin reinforced with recycled plastic and designed specifically for attractive bass players. Unattractive ones may not really gel with this.
Creature from the planet Chyowngg	$65	PIC Demo	Prototype of a unique fuzz I've been developing that I call the Chyowngg fuzz. It's a 2-stage octaver that gives a bright synthy tone with a distinctive envelope (hence the name). You can toggle each stage from octave to non-octave mode for a variety of interesting timbres. Also has a tone control, but the tone control is before the octave stages so it results in interesting behaviors depending on the switch settings. It's in a tin meant to be painted like an alien, though some say it looks more like a triceratops.
Baller Fuzz	$60	PIC DEMO	Another Bazz-Me-Fuss-You build with an added BMP-style tone control. In a slightly beaten-up heart-shaped basketball tin. Y'all ready for this?
Wiff Spwinkles on Top	$45	PIC Demo	This point-to-point fuzz lives in the same neighborhood as the Harmonic Percolator, but has a few differences. I altered the way the gain knob works, and added a switch to toggle bass cut. It's housed in an ice-creamity welly tin.
Dumbo's Bazzrite Fussrite	$40	PIC Demo	A bazz-fussified mosrite fuzzrite circuit I cobbled together in point-to-point wiring style. Housed in a little Dumbo puzzle tin with GLITTER! Controls are for balance (kind of tone-cum-gain) and volume.

Drives, Distortions, and Boosts

Name	Price	Links	Notes
Bronze Drive	$85	PIC Demo	This is a point-to-point, transistor based overdrive I designed based loosely on the Davisson Easy Drive. Good for low-gain crunchy tones and plenty of output volume on tap if you want it for a boost. Tone circuit is like a BMP stack but with a mid hump instead of a mid cut. Housed in a painted 125B with top jacks.
Copper ZenerMorph Drive	$65	PIC Demo	This is an experiment in zener diode clipping. Nice crispy drive that gets beefier as you turn up the gain, lots of good edge-of-breakup tones to be had. Housed in a decorated tin reinforced with some plastic.
GOOST	$65	PIC	A simple JFET boost vaguely based on the Runoffgroove Fetzer valve. Switch toggles bass cut for a treble-boosting sound. Point-to-point build housed in a small tin reinforced with recycled plastic.
B is for Beast	$55	PIC DEMO	This fun little drive/boost consists of two cascading MOSFET gain stages with optional clipping in between. It goes from clean and loud to massive wall-of-gain distortion nicely. Controls for gain, clipping, and volume. In a small heart-shaped tin about 4in by 4in.
Shining Hope Drive	$40	PIC Demo	Differential mirroring drive, gives a kind of overdriven-mixer-channel distortion. Controls for gain, tone, and volume. Housed in a star-shaped Christmas tin.
Green Sparkler Boost	$35	PIC	Just an Escobedo Duende JFET boost built point-to-point in a sparkly little round tin. Gives a little gain and a bit of warmth to the tone.

Non-Dirt

Name	Tier	Links	Notes
Gift of Chykka Wakka	$65	PIC DEMO	First build of an all-transistor envelope filter I designed. Built point-to-point style and housed in a little giftbox tin reinforced with recycled plastic. Controls for Q and Sweep, switch toggles envelope smoothing.
Vortex of Funk	$65	PIC DEMO	Second build of the Chykka-Wakka circuit, this one features attack, Q, and range controls. Built point-to-point and housed in a painted tin.
BZZZ BOOP BEEP	$50	PIC DEMO	A basic square wave oscillator on a momentary switch. Can go from bzzz to boop to beep with a sweep of the big knob. Also has tone and volume controls, and a 3-way switch for different decay amounts. Use it to simulate a spring door stopper or dying cow. Or bleep your foul-mouthed frontman. Or mess with the sound guy. Or send Morse code to the bar. I dunno. Housed in a painted tin reinforced with recycled plastic.

Little Amps

Name	Price	Links	Description
Ample iMank	$65	PICS DEMO	This is a Runoffgroove Ruby Amplifier built into this old multimedia speaker enclosure designed to look like an old iMac. Glows blue when you turn it on. It runs from a standard 9v pedal power. It's not terribly loud, nor terribly clean, but if you dig the classic mac vibe it might be fun. Controls for gain and volume, and a power switch on the back.
Nosy Amp	$75	PICS DEMO	Another solid-state amp based on the Ruby amplifier, housed in a repurposed bookshelf speaker. This one actually has pretty decent volume, even on 9V (can run on 12V as well for more), and can stay clean while getting loud enough for a quiet jam with friends.
Fleur-de-Lis Amp	$90	PICS DEMO	A tiny bookshelf speaker turned into a practice amp. This one features a class D power amp for lovely cleans, and a custom designed discrete preamp that gets punchy & crunchy when cranked. Runs on 9V but pretty loud nonetheless.

That's all for now. I just keep building and building, though, so there'll be more.