Part 3
The landscape changed as Gary prowled through it. It started as the farmland he remembered so well. Small copses of trees began to appear as he moved around, hunting. Between them, individual trees began to appear. The buildings, small houses and sheds, mostly, thinned out as the trees grew thicker. The ground grew steeper and mountains rose around him.
Before long, he was prowling the slopes of a narrow wooded valley. He could see ixlets darting through the woods around him. He glanced down the slope and saw a mix of greasers and Taliban, moving through the trees.
He moved further down the valley, towards the Taliban and greasers. They ignored him, except to keep their distance. That suited Gary just fine, as he was after a different prey.
Down below the greasers, the landscape changed again. The trees thinned out and vanished, replaced by rocky, windswept tundra, dotted by small lakes. He found a ruin there, massive gray stones emerging from the ground.
He moved past the ruin. Trees appeared again, but instead of oak and ceder and ash, he found mangroves and pines and huge ceibos. They came together, getting denser and denser until he stepped out onto a large rock and could see the town of Esteli spread out before him.
He continued on, into the narrow streets. The buildings crowded together, wall to wall. There were signs everywhere; for the shops that dotted the streets, for American companies that selflessly graced the slums of Nicaragua with their business, for local brands, for strip clubs and bars.
The people crowded the streets, competing with the tiny cars and occasional donkey. Gary moved on.
The streets changed. The crowds changed, too. They had darker skin and wore less clothes. Trikes began to appear, enclosed three-wheeled ramblers built around a motorcycle frame. A sign pointed him to Clara Town in English.
This time, Gary paused. He remembered this place. Monrovia, Liberia. On the west coast of Africa. His first contract for the Agency had brought him here. The spook he was here to protect had been a stupid little shit that had ruined his own operation and gotten them into a gunfight. He'd met Drake here, as well. The younger man's bright pink hair had stood out to Gary, a massive cross-section on his gaydar.
He remembered being holed up in a run-down hovel following the fight. Everybody was injured, but nobody had died. Gary was down to two mags, one of them in his rifle and the other half-empty in a pouch on his chest. Drake had offered him a blowjob for the half-empty mag, confirming Gary's suspicions about which way he swung. Gary had handed it over without a word, but as they rode away in a beat up minivan driven by one of their assets, he'd leaned over and asked Drake to pay up, half jokingly.
Well, maybe a quarter jokingly.
That had been a bad day, but far from the worst he'd seen. And not someplace he would find the bugbear.
"Where the fuck are you, ya foggy little goblin?" Gary muttered. This place felt wrong. He remembered what Inanna had said, somewhere else.
"...They're not intelligent, though they can speak."
Gary glanced around. This place... This was not a place of fear. This was a place of a curious, entertaining memory. Frustrating, at the time, and painful as well. But not frightening. Not like those fields where he'd killed the boys.
The bugbear wasn't here, he realized. It hadn't been any of the places he'd been. Instead, it had been sending him away from it. Sending him to places where he'd hunt the thing, while it...
Gary knew where to go.
He pictured the park and began to walk.
He tried to work it out. He was in his own head. He needed to get out, to get back to the real world. He reached out with his magical senses, feeling the world around him. It felt... Delicate. As if it would fall apart at a simple touch. Experimentally, he reached out with a bit of magic. The buildings on one side of the street crumbled.
He pushed out harder, reaching out all around him, tearing the world apart with magic, until he floated in a deep void. From here, he could feel the real world. It was up. He turned his face in that direction and flew.
----
Inanna Williams, Fucking Shit Balls, Motherfucking Cock Sucker
She would not call Jerry. Or Yarm, or Sookie, or anyone else who might be awake right now. But she was getting pretty fucking disgusted with this thing. Suzanne crouched below one of the picnic tables as Inanna held her sword in her hands and kept herself between the bugbear and the girl.
Her sword blazed with fire, of course. Drawing flame from metal was one of the simplest acts of magic, an effect easily imbued into any artifact. And the weapons forged by Grandfather were works of art, pristinely forged and crafted and eager to soak up any enchantments they could. The flames were good, they helped. They weren't the problem.
Keeping magic suffused through her body was the problem.
She'd already moved around more magic today than she had in the last week. The effort had exhausted her. She barely had the strength to hoist her sword. And she was making a continuing effort to keep enough magic in her body to actually hurt the bugbear.
She didn't know how long she could keep this up.
The bugbear lunged again and she whipped her blade up, tip menacing the thing. It growled and hissed and spat, but it had already learned what pain that weapon could inflict.
Inanna glanced over to where Gary had collapsed, only to realize he was not there. His sword and shield lay on the ground, but Gary was gone. She carefully flicked her eyes from the bugbear to different areas of the park, searching for him. She saw no sign of him whatsoever. Gary had vanished.
A grin split her features.
"You are in for a world of hurt, you ugly motherfucker," she said menacingly. The bugbear ignored her, of course. It was a beast, after all.
----
Gary Johnson, Fucking Pissed
He didn't even bother with his weapons. He remembered Inanna's words, and the effect Percy's punches had on the thing. He pulled in his shield, burying it just below his skin. He poured more magic into it, thickening it, strengthening it.
He could feel the tension of the shield as he crept off into the shadows. The bugbear was menacing Inanna, who menaced it right back with her big ass sword. She looked exhausted, like she might fall over at any minute. Too much magic use, Gary thought. The rituals had each taken a toll on her, and he knew how difficult teleporting someone who wasn't touching him was.
He snuck around behind the thing as Inanna said something he didn't catch. He idly wondered why she hadn't called Jerry, but the answer presented itself before the question had even been formed. It was pride, of course. She could not bring herself to ask for assistance defeating something she'd dismissed as 'not particularly tough'.
Gary got to within tackling distance and then brought his wet blanket back up and threw it over the monster. Its blurry form solidified, the pale white face and dark body coming into focus. Its limbs were long, with long claws on each finger. Its elbows and shoulders were bulbous, its chest sunken, its hips protruding. It noticed, of course. It snarled at Inanna, but before it could strike, Gary rushed it, his temper cheering at the thought of getting his hands on the thing.
It spun at the sound of his feet pounding on the grass, so Gary swung a textbook perfect punch right between its eyes. The blow clotheslined the beast, flipping its feet forward, tossing it on its own head and neck with a sickening crack that would have killed any mortal.
Razor sharp claws lashed out at him as he threw himself on top of the thrashing monster. They scratched at the top layers of his skin, but the wounds closed and they couldn't penetrate past his shield.
He used his left hand to interfere with the claws, getting his forearm onto the bugbear's and pressing down. With his right hand, he pounded at the beast's face, over and over. Each blow crunched into the thing with the force of a freight train, the unfocused magic in his body turning itself into raw physical power.
The bugbear roared in pain and rage, so Gary opened his mouth and roared right back. The beast slipped its arms free and jammed them into Gary's sides, but he ignored them and got his left hook working the thing as well.
Snarling in rage, he snatched his knife off his chest and brought it down into the thing's throat. Its roars turned into a wet, gurgling sound. Gary pulled the knife out, then thrust it into its belly and ripping up, the force of the move shattering ribs and spraying Gary with a black ichor.
He growled deep in his chest, pulling the knife back out and slamming it into the bugbear's neck again, this time from the side. He left it there and resumed punching it, slamming his fists down with enough force to shatter the bones in his hands, leaving them just enough time to heal between blows.
He struck the beast over and over and over, ignoring the pain in his hands, focused only on hurting the thing. He kept going long after it stopped fighting back, stopping only when he felt a small hand on his back. He spun, his eyes wild and angry, but it was only Inanna there.
"You got him, Yarm," she said wryly. Gary stared, uncomprehending at her for a moment. Then it clicked. He barked a short laugh out and rolled off the thing, sitting on the grass next to the unmoving body.
"Is it dead?" he asked, his chest heaving from the exertion.
Inanna held a hand out towards the bugbear. "Yeah, it's dead."
"Good," Gary said. They sat in silence for a moment.
"The girl all right?" he asked.
Inanna nodded. "Yup." She looked over her shoulder and called out, "It's okay, hun. You can come out, now." A tiny figure moved hesitatingly towards them, stopping at the dead body of the bugbear and looking down at it.
"It's dead, darlin'," Gary said. "Nothing but a bag o ectoplasm, or whatever that black stuff is."
"Ectoplasm," the girl said quietly. Gary nodded and looked back at Inanna.
"Did you just call me Yarm?" he asked. She chuckled. "You reminded me of him just then. You were fighting like him."
"Heh," Gary said. "Balls to the wall, unchecked aggression."
"Yup," Inanna agreed.
"Don't tell nobody, but I gave a bit of thought to dropping trou and squeezing out a stink pickle on the thing's face. Just for a second, mind."
Inanna laughed. "Why didn't you?" she asked. Gary shrugged. "No point. It's long past caring what I do to it."
"Now there's the Gary I know," she said. Then she looked at Suzanne and frowned. "The Washingtons are dead. She's got nowhere to go."
"I might have a lead on that," Gary said. "In the meantime, she can come stay with me."
Inanna scoffed. "You'll adopt her within a month," she said. Gary just shrugged. "Maybe. Like I said, I got a lead."
----
Liam MacReady, On His Day Off
Liam answered the door to reveal an older guy standing there. He had a big, bushy beard that was mostly gray, a leathery face, and a figure that suggested a lot of time in the gym. He had a veteran's air about him, too, Liam noticed. It was in the the insouciant sloop of his shoulders, the stiffness of his lower back, the way he stood with his hands on his hips.
"Can I help you?" he rumbled.
"Liam MacReady?" the man asked, his voice tinged with a backwoods twang. Liam nodded, so the man held out a leather mitt. "My name's Gary Johnson. I'm with the Divine Crisis Management Group. I have some records here that say you applied to become a foster parent about two years ago, is that right?"
Liam frowned even as he shook the man's hand. He had a firm grip, but he didn't try to crush Liam's hand. Which was good, because Liam had mastered that particular show of dominance long ago.
Still, he didn't like this. "Why you looking into me, bro?" he asked.
"There's a little girl, goes by the name of Suzanne," Johnson said. Liam's hard look evaporated at the mention of the little girl he'd tried to take in.
"I know that look," Johnson said in a softer voice. "I got a daughter of my own. Can I come in?"
Liam thought about it. A cop would ask him to step out, not ask to come in. Unless he wanted to search for something. But Liam could kick him out if he started poking around. He pushed the door open wider and stood to the side.
Johnson walked in. He didn't poke around, but went straight to the living room and waited for Liam to join him. Liam closed the door and walked into the room, taking his favorite chair and gesturing at the couch for Johnson to sit. He did.
"So what's this about Suzanne?" Liam asked.
"Can you tell me how you know her?" Johnson asked.
Liam threw up his hands. "Brother, can we just get to the point?"
"This is the point, Mister MacReady," Johnson said. "I need to ask you some questions about her."
"When'd you serve?" Liam asked.
"Eighty-seven to oh-seven," Johnson answered without hesitation. "You?"
"Oh three to twenty-ten," Liam answered. "Second Ranger Battalion."
"Fifth Group," Johnson said. Liam quirked an eyebrow. "Green berets. Choice gig, that."
"Kinda sucked, to be honest." Lian chuckled at his answer.
"So how did you meet Suzanne?"
Liam rubbed his chin, thinking. After organizing his thoughts a bit, he spoke.
"Dated a girl a couple years ago. Suzanne's mom. She was a train wreck, but it took me a while to realize it. The girl..." Liam chuckled again.
"She was scared of me at first. I got these burns," he gestured to the side of his face, "In Kandahar. Don't do a lot to make me pretty, you know? But she warmed up to me in time. Sweetest little thing, she was. I never really thought of myself as a parent, you know? Always had too much going on, what with work and the club. But I loved spending time with that girl.
"I'd have dumped her mom's druggie ass much sooner, if not for her. When I finally had enough of her shit, I called CPH. Left an anonymous tip. I put in my application to be a foster parent, knowing that they'd rather her go with someone she knows. But they denied me. The club, me being single... I guess I can't blame them."
Johnson had been carefully watching Liam's face as he spoke, and Liam felt a strange sensation in the air. The temperature had dropped, and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.
"You gotta good heart, Mister MacReady," Johnson said.
"Uh, thanks, I guess," Liam responded. Johnson pointed at Liam's kutte. "What's the missing rocker?" he asked.
Liam looked down, noticing the threads still hanging out. "Master-at-arms," he said, touching it with one blunt finger. "I stepped down back when I was trying to become a foster parent. Freed up more of my time, you know?"
"Would you like to see Suzanne? Spend the afternoon with her?"
Liam leaned forward, his interest thoroughly captured. "Yeah. You can make that happen?"
Johnson raised a finger. A few seconds later, Liam heard a knock on the front door. He stood and walked out there, to find a bookish-looking man in a suit and bowtie standing there. He was flanked by two more figures. One was a short, brunette knockout. She had a middle-eastern cast about her, curves like a scenic railroad track and tits that could stop all conversations within a dozen yards. But she wasn't the one who caught his eye.
"Mister Liam?" Suzanne asked. Liam's face lit up in a wide grin as he knelt down and threw his arms out.
"Hey punkin!" he cried as she rushed into them. He hugged her carefully for a long moment.
"Mister MacReady," the nerdy guy said. "I know about the troubles you had applying to become a foster parent. There's nothing we can really do about that, it's a state matter. But we have lawyers in all specialties, including family law. I'm confident we can arrange a private adoption. We've already contacted her mother at the MCI women's facility, and she's agreed to relinquish custody."
Liam stood, still clinging to Suzanne, who gripped him tightly.
"Why?" he asked.
"We want her to be with someone who loves her. And Gary is quite sure that's you."
"Uh..." Liam wasn't good with this kind of stuff. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's me." Johnson stepped past him and all three of them stepped off the stoop.
"I'll be back around nine," Johnson said. He handed Liam a pair of cards, which he took and carefully examined over Suzanne's shoulder. Both were for the same company he'd mentioned earlier. One had his name on it, and the other had a woman's name.
"Call the woman, Astrid, when you're ready to move forward on the adoption," Johnson said.
"And the other?" Liam asked.
"Call me if you ever find yourself willing to give up the outlaw life and work a steady, good paying job," Johnson told him. He met Liam's eyes and then nodded.
"I missed you so much," Suzanne said as Johnson followed the other two out to a black Humvee parked by the curb. Liam grinned so wide his face hurt.
"I missed you too, punkin," he said.
The End.

Prehistoric Aluwa is often thought of as a primitive society, but although the progress was slow, over the centuries they continued to advance their knowledge in every facet of their life.
Arguably the most significant advancement of this time was the gradual development of tanning leather. First, a deerskin would be cleaned by soaking it in water and scraping it with flint or clamshell tools. Then, it would be soaked again, this time in the same lime solution used in nixtamalization, in order to remove the fat and grease. Finally, the hide would be worked with deer brains, preferably the brains of the deer from which the skin had come – this was thought to improve the durability of the leather, since it was all from one animal – and stretched over an oak fire. The combination of enzymes from the brains and tannin from the woodsmoke would soften the hide and convert it into buckskin leather. The lime soaking and oak smoking also had ritual significance, being linked to similar processes in food preparation; it is thought that these elements were used in deerskin preparation for at least a century before the brains were added to the mix.
The development of tanning caused significant changes to Aluwa society. Now that buckskin clothing could be expected last for many years, it became much more common for people to wear pants and shirts during the spring and autumn, instead of only during the coldest days of winter. They also began decorating their clothing with chalk and ochre, both as a fashion choice and as a signifier of tribe loyalty. These didn’t replace earlier traditions of wearing short skirts and loincloths or decorating themselves in body paint (face painting in particular continued to be a major feature in Aluwa fashion, since it would be visible even when dressed in full buckskin), but it did begin a parallel development that would gradually overtake them in importance. Leather also replaced earlier materials for many other purposes, from wigwam coverings to waterskins to sandals.
Even as leather became more prevalent in Aluwa society, hunters themselves were becoming more marginalized. In Aluwa spirituality, birds and mammals were considered a higher tier of being than reptiles, amphibians, fish, or invertebrates. Hunters, who killed deer and gamebirds as a way of life, were viewed with suspicion. The development of tanning only increased this suspicion – the noxious smells the process produced meant that it had to be done at the border of the village, so the hunters, who also did the leatherworking, ended up living at the edge of society.
But it was not only hunters who were making technological innovations at this time. The herb-gathering wise men who had learned to identify medicinal plants improved their knowledge of healing. They invented splints made of wood and palm fiber rope, which could be used in an early form of bone-setting. The results can be seen in the healed bones of skeletons from people who lived at the time, many of which have growth patterns showing that they lived for decades after the injuries that would have been otherwise deadly.
Other gatherers, less wise in the ways of herblore, developed a new type of axe with a long wooden handle and a head made of flint or bronze. This was much more effective than earlier tree-felling tools, and the ani’Aluwa used it to clear away farmland at a significantly faster rate, the fallen trees becoming fuel for their cookfires or material for their houses and boats. With the new ease of acquiring wood, these houses and boats slowly started increasing in size, with larger constructions becoming a status symbol for powerful tribal matriarchs and wealthy seafaring merchants.
Aluwa fisherman were also innovating. Previously, the gathering of clams and oysters had been entirely passive, but now the ani’Aluwa began to shape their environment to fit their needs. They built long, low stone walls parallel to the coast, which trapped sediment that would otherwise wash out to sea and extended the width of the tidal zone. They would also clear out rocks and churn up the sand to provide an ideal environment for bivalves, and harvest said bivalves in a sustainable way. Using these new clam beds, they were able to greatly increase the clam and oyster harvest, providing more meat and more mother-of-pearl, which became quite popular for use in jewelry and decorations.
New technologies also changed the way of life for women back in the village. Previously, maize (nixtamalized into hominy) and cassava had been treated much like beans, squash, peppers, or sweet potatoes, being cooked and smoked but otherwise left in their natural state. During this period, however, Aluwa women first began to grind maize and cassava into flour using handheld grindstones. This led to the innovation of new foods: hominy flour (masa) would be baked into a flatbread called Yatilu, while cassava flour would be formed into dumplings called Plopayam, which were most frequently used in Globiplo, cassava dumpling soup. A uniquely Aluwa dish was Ha’uwam, a ball of dough like a swallow made by pouring either masa, cassava flour, or a combination of both into boiling water and stirring it until it had enough consistency to stick together. These dishes would prove to be the staple foods around which Aluwa cuisine would grow.
At the intersection of different Aluwa lifestyles and gender roles was the domestication of citrus. Aluwa lies at the intersection of the native ranges of various wild citrus fruits – wild oranges (Citrus indica) to the west, wild citrons (Citrus medica) to the northwest, wild mandarins (Citrus reticulata) to the northeast, and wild limes (Citrus hystrix) to the southeast. Male gatherers had begun the practice of grafting fruit- and nut-bearing trees centuries earlier, which reached new heights as they combined the different citruses, breeding them into a new form with bigger fruits that had smaller rinds. The result was the Hihuwi, or Aluwa yellow lime, a somewhat bitter fruit that became a mainstay in Aluwa cooking, especially when combined with chili peppers.
The changes this brought to Aluwa society were less to do with the fruit itself than with its cultivation. Wild plants of the forest were the domain of men; cultivated plants of the farm were the domain of women. Lime trees were trees, descended from wild cultivars, but required constant careful tending and were short and shrubby enough to grow alongside other domesticated plants. In the end, the question of who should be in charge of tending the limes came down to practicality: the most efficient place to plant the lime trees was among the farms around the village, and the women were already working those farms. This represented the first step of women, who were for the most part expected to spend their whole lives in and around their home village, expanding into the broader territory of a domain that had once been exclusive to men – even if, in this case, the trees came to the women rather than the women to the trees. Still, it was at around this time that myths and legends began to include rare examples of female heroes venturing forth to wander the world like their male counterparts had long been doing.

I’m interested in the wyze thermostat and room sensor package but I think in my head I’m making them out to be more than they are.
So let’s say I have a three floor house - finished basement, main flooliving area, upstairs/ bedrooms. And in the summer especially the bedrooms get to be quite warm in the early evening hours as the house faces west. So if I place one sensor in each level it will wait until I enter the bedroom and then crank the ac until the room cools down - is that right?
So the thermostat doesn’t care that the basement is turning into an icebox as long as that bedroom stays cool?
In my head I was hoping it would try to balance all three floors by using the furnace fan and the ac condenser independently to try and move/ balance air around the house but it appears it doesn’t do that? Is that right?

This book is about a boy who moved to the west coast, an island there. He was a teenage boy and he moved with his father. One day he left the motel they were staying in and he decided to explore the island. He found this old abandoned house and he went inside of it and found a lot of stuff, like photos of a class, a suitcase full of clothes, and stuff like that. A couple days after he found the house, he went back and met this girl, she was around the same age as him, and she took him through a tunnel, (i don’t exactly remember if that’s what happened here). The old abandoned building was there too except it was old and looked lively. Apparently there was a class of students and a teacher who lived there. The teacher was making all of the students live the same day again and again. But the boy, main character, wasn’t and if any of those kids went through that tunnel then they would die, because they were living the same day over and over for 40+ years which would make them age a lot. And the rest of the book is interactions and the girl and the boy start to have a romantic relationship, while she starts to think about leaving to join the boy in the real world.
This book is either science fiction or dystopian. I read this book when I was in elementary school, around 5-6 years ago, and I really wanted to find out what it was. This book is a trilogy. The book I am talking about is the first book.

We were planning on moving to the east coast to have help from our families. My job was remote status and now they are changing it so I would have to stay where we currently live on the west coast if I want to keep my job. I can’t afford to lose my job. Am I able to cancel my current sale contract on our house on the west coast? What are the ramifications if I do?

Don't know if it is ok to post this kind of question, and apologize if it is wrong place, but kind of worried and need advice.
About a year and a half ago, I was diagnosed, or rather mis-diagnosed with epilepsy. The PA I was seeing had me on ALOT of meds like Oxcarbazepine and Zonisamide . Basically, for that year, I became a total zombie with rage issues thanks to the Keppra. I couldn't even form complete sentences, and finally went to the hospital and they were able to refer me to another neurologist who helped me wean off the meds. I have been off the meds for a while now, can function, drive, and complete sentences. I can have a conversation with someone without glitching. Seems my brain is just naturally abnormal and doesn't fit in the textbook normal category.
Anyway, now to problem, think I might have to go back to neurologist. I live alone, and before meds, while I am not a neat freak, I kept a reasonably clean house. On the meds, I was able to do anything, even clean and actually hired someone to clean for me because I was unable to. Even though I am off the meds, I still have issues. Example, there is a paper bag on the floor. I have taken groceries out of it, it just needs to be picked up, folded, and put with the others. Don't know why this is issue. Every time I walk by it I think about picking it up, but it is like my brain glitches and I end up walking by it. It has now been there for almost 3 weeks. I do clean sometimes, but not like I used to. Don't know if I am just getting that lazy or if the meds might have messed with my brain.
Has anyone else ever gotten off these meds and noticed behavior issues that changed? Should I go back to the neurologist or should I find myself a good shrink? Frustrated that it feels like my brain just doesn't work the same as it used to.

Motion to Condemn Israel's Annual 'Flag March'

That this House:
(1) condemns the annual ‘Flag March’ through Palestinian neighbourhoods of Occupied East Jerusalem marked by widespread racist and islamophobic chants, including “Death to Arabs,” “We will burn your village” and “Muhammad is dead”;
(2) further condemns the frequent attacks on Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem by marchers, and attacks on journalists; noting with deep concern the endorsement and participation in the march of members of the Israeli Government as well as encouraging inflammatory remarks against Palestinians;
(3) recognises the deep historical, religious, and cultural significance of East Jerusalem to the Palestinian people, and acknowledges their right as recognised under international law;
(4) decries any form of provocation, incitement, or actions that exacerbate tensions and promote hate against the Arabs and instability in the region, and considers the conduct of Israeli ‘Flag March’ in Occupied East Jerusalem to fall under such category;
(5) recognises the failure of the Israeli Government to issue its own condemnation of these events and to take action to prevent them, and believes this failure is indicative of broader discrimination against Palestinians in government policy which Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory have all concluded to be the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
The House calls on the government:
(1) to demand the Israeli Government to respect the cultural and religious sensitivities of the Palestinian people living in East Jerusalem and to cease actions which disrupt peace and harmony by issuing sanctions;
(2) to work with humanitarian organisations and utilise its diplomatic relations with its international partners through the United Nations to advocate for the discontinuation of such potentially inflammatory events and behaviour by Israelis;
(3) to reconsider its current economic relations with Israel, including the potential suspension of specific trade agreements and restrictions on arms exports until Israel complies with international law and the rights of Palestinians are duly respected’
(4) to take a stronger stance on this issue, including bringing it to the attention of the UN Security Council for potential action and resolutions;
(5) to support, both financially and politically, credible NGOs such as United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) as well as humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.
This Motion was written and submitted by the Most Hon. EruditeFellow, Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and sponsored by the Rt. Hon. ARichTeaBiscuit, Shadow Secretary of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of His Majesty’s 37th Most Loyal Opposition.
Opening Speech:
Deputy Speaker,
I stand before you today feeling compelled to do so by a strong sense of moral obligation and by a moral necessity to address the level of turmoil, derision and cruelty that ensues from the annual 'Flag March' through the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Occupied East Jerusalem.
The dark and sinister undercurrent of the march is not hidden by any means. It is heralded by chants of unabashed bigotry, a symphony of hate. The very essence of these chants strikes a chilling and frightening chord of hostility, discrimination, and malice. But this dissonance of disregard does not end at the borders of words. It overflows into an onslaught of violence, a tornado of injustices, and an avalanche of fear. The bulk of this storm does not just fall on the Palestinians. As the storytellers of our shared human experience, journalists are also not exempt. To make matters worse, members of the Israeli government, both past and present, have actively supported and joined this march. Their inflammatory remarks against Palestinians add fuel to the already raging inferno of hate.
Deputy Speaker, we must recognise the historical, religious, and cultural significance of East Jerusalem to the Palestinian people, a significance that finds its roots intertwined with their very identity. We must acknowledge their right to this land, a right enshrined in international law, a right that whispers their claim to their ancestral home and we must decry, with the full force of our collective voice, any form of provocation, incitement, or actions that stir the pot of animosity, actions that fan the flames of hate, actions that push the precarious balance of this volatile region towards chaos.
The Israeli Government's failure to condemn these events but engage in dangerous rhetoric inciting violence is an international travesty of our rules-based order. Their failure to prevent these inciteful events is not merely a failure of governance. It represents a failing of justice, empathy, and compassion. It is a symptom of a larger discrimination against Palestinians, which Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have all classified as the crime of Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians.
I now urge the government to cease hiding behind the darkness of tyranny and injustice and to stand boldly as a guiding light of justice and humanity. The British Government must exert pressure on the Israeli Government to stop acting in ways that disturb peace and to respect the cultural and religious sensibilities of the Palestinians residing in East Jerusalem. In the face of corruption, we must use sanctions as a vehicle of peace and justice.
Britain must collaborate with humanitarian organisations and leverage its diplomatic relations with its international partners through the United Nations, to advocate for the discontinuation of such potentially inflammatory events and behaviour by Israelis in the interest of safeguarding human life.
We must reconsider our current economic relations with Israel, to consider the suspension of specific trade agreements, to contemplate restrictions on arms exports until Israel complies with international law and the rights of Palestinians are duly respected. Remaining idle on the matter risks Britain’s position on the international stage – we risk being recognised as supporters of the suffering being enacted against Palestinians.
This Government must take a stronger stance on this issue. We simply cannot stand idle while the echoes of our words dissipate into the ether of inaction. As the Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour put it, "Every action we take now matters. Every word we utter matters. Every decision we delay matters".
Deputy Speaker, most states consider Israel's settlements on land it won in a war with the Arab nations in 1967 to be illegal. Israel rejects that and cites security reasons as well as referencing its biblical connections to the West Bank. But we must keep in mind that it is up to us to prevent historical accounts from serving as the chains that tie us to a future of strife and division.
We must extend our support, both financially and politically, to credible NGOs and humanitarian efforts working tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. To stand by them in their hour of need is not merely an act of charity, but an act of justice, an act of humanity, an act of hope.
I implore you to heed the call of justice, to listen to the cry of humanity, to feel the pulse of the world. Let us not be the bystanders in the theatre of history. Let us be the actors who shape it. Let us be the voice that calls out against injustice, the hand that reaches out in aid, the heart that feels the pain of our fellow human beings. And let us, in our actions today, lay the foundation for a future of peace, justice and hope.
This division will end on 6th June at 10pm BST.

Earlier this year I ran away to Frankford PA with my ex boyfriend. We had no reason to, we just went. I only had my jacket and a phone in my pocket. Not even a charger. No money at all. He didn’t even have a jacket. Back then I thought it was the coolest idea. We took the Amtrak train from New York. Sneaking on ofc. I’m surprised we made it all the way there without being stopped. Well we stayed at his sisters house for 2 days. And then the police knew we were there so we had to really go on the run. We slept in a laundromat, train, behind a supermarket on the concrete, and on a bale of hay in a park. Where we then heard shots being fired nearby so we decided to leave. It was a horrible experience. We got caught trying to buy a bus ticket at the station. And I was then put into a psych ward. When I tell you it’s not worth it. The horrible people you come across, it’s scary.

Large map;
Playing as England, 10 civs, Interesting start by the coast with seagrass, fish, and stingrays, on land there’s cannabis, deer, sheep, and olives, and far (north)west outside my borders there’s wheat, potatoes, stone, and diamonds, There’s a barbarian camp to my east and lions roaming near as well, Sharks outside the coast of London and wolves to the north, China’s capital Xi’an to the north of me, Germany to the east of me,
Idk I love this game it’s fun just wish the AI was better.
I am lonely tho…
I have to vacuum the house today and organize my room a bit again ugh it’s so annoying, and I can’t start until my bro wakes up. So like in 2 hours or something.
Omg China a bitch- settled where I wanted to :(
Yayy my cat’s here! Tell us O’Mighty Genghis Khan! How shall we deal with the Chinese? Horsesies? Horses it is, lol. But there’s no horses near me so oof
Omggoshh he’s attacking my hand!! What has I done to deserve this my lord?! Was it the no horses part!?
Okie kinda tired of writing. Kinda hungry for some sourdough hummus toast with chia seeds & dried basil sprinkled on top, but I already ate some this morning, so idk.

Good day fellow Redditor,
I am seeking some guidance and support with a recent entry into the world of HomeKit.
A few days ago I purchased a pair of HomeKit receptacles to control a pair of bedroom lamps, and that lit the fire and urge to move to HomeKit and expand automation in my home. I’m hooked. I bought a 4K Apple TV Ethernet to act as the home hub.
But here’s where it went sideways.
I have been using Yale Assure SL Z-Wave+ door locks on 3 of the doors to my house. I have been using SmartThings to control. Not overly impressed, set a couple of automations using ITTT to lock the doors at certain times, etc.
I purchased 3 Yale Wi-Fi modules to replace the Z-Wave modules I had installed as HomeKit doesn’t recognize Z-Wave. The modules also came with Yale Doorsense to monitor if the doors were fully closed. Neat.
I installed the modules, drilled the holes in my door frames for the sensors, and learned that the Wi-Fi modules were eating the batteries and would need to be replaced every 6 weeks. Not cool. One of the locks despite multiple factory resets would recognize in the Yale Access app and then go unresponsive. Annoying. I then found out that the Doorsense modules were not recognized in HomeKit, only in the clunky Yale Access app. Rats.
At this point, I was frustrated and decided to go back to what worked. I reinstalled to the Z-Wave modules, and removed the sensors from the doors, leaving holes in some nice wood frames. Damn.
I have done some research and have seen that a Thinka hub would bridge SmartThings to HomeKit, but it’s very cost prohibitive ($500+).
Further research suggested to use Google Home/Assistant as that application allowed integration with SmartThings. I linked accounts and the locks didn’t show up. I found out that was because Google Home doesn’t support door locks.
I reset the Apple TV, packaged it up along with the Wifi modules and door sensors.
So, it’s been a ride, and I’m at a loss.
I’m open to any and all suggestions on how to automate my current setup. It seems like it’s still the Wild West of consumer grade automation and my current items don’t play well together.

Hello, I have an inquiry if someone is able to help and I hope I am in the right area. I recently received a massive jump in my annual property taxes. I was paying 629 annually now it has jumped to 2,075 annually. As someone who knows little about Property tax, does this seem normal? "Based on the current tax rate, for every $10,000 in increased value, your yearly tax bill will go up by $140." I found this on a Philadelphia legal website explaining the tax increase. Ok so doing a little math here if my taxes went up over 1,400 dollars annually that means my house increase in value by over 100K? I did not receive any mail saying the value of my home went up at all. The site says I would have received a "Notice of proposed valuation" that anything had changed about my house. Does this seem incorrect? Is an increase of this size normal from year to year? Should I file an appeal? Thank you to anyone who knows anything.

I've shared fiction here before and it didn't go altogether too poorly, so I'm going to press my luck and do it again. This was written about a year ago, and I'm tired of trying to peddle it to lit magazines. Might as well share it here, know that it met a few eyeballs, and have done with it.
It's relevant to the sub insofar as it's about urban alienation and the working conditions at a small business run by IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE people. (I tried to pitch it as a story of the great resignation with a momentary flicker of cosmic horror.) It's based on a similar job I took on after getting laid off during the lockdown, and the circumstances of the main character's breakup are faintly similar to one I went through several years back (her job sucked the life out of her).
Without further ado:
* * *
It was getting close to midnight, and the temperature outside was still above 80 degrees. We’d locked up the shop at 10:15 and walked over to Twenty, the dive bar on Poplar Street, where a single wall-mounted air conditioner and four wobbly ceiling fans weren’t putting up much resistance against the July heat baking the place from the outside and the dense mass of bodies giving it a stifling fever from within.
Just now I came close to saying it was a Wednesday night, because that was usually when the cyclists descended upon Avenue Brew, the gritty-but-bougie craft beer and sandwich shop I was working at back then. Every Wednesday between March and November, about fifteen to twenty-five Gen Xers dressed in skintight polyester, all packages and camel toes and fanny packs, locked up their thousand-dollar bikes on the sidewalk and lined up for IPAs and paninis. They reliably arrived around 8:00, an hour before we closed, making it impossible to get started on the closing checklist and leave on time at 10:00. The worst of them were demanding and rude, and even the best got raucous and stubborn after a couple drinks. There were nights when bringing in the sidewalk tables couldn’t be done without arguing with them. Most were sub-par tippers, to boot.
After Wednesday came and went that week without so much as a single 40-something in Ray Bans and padded shorts stopping in to double-fist two cans of Jai Alai, we dared to hope the cyclists had chosen another spot to be their finish line from there on out. But no—they’d only postponed their weekly ride, and swarmed us on Friday night instead.
I was the last person to find out; I was clocked in as purchaser that evening. The position was something like a promotion I'd received a year earlier: for twenty hours a week, I got to retreat from the public and sit in the back room with the store laptop, reviewing sales and inventory, answering emails from brewery reps, and ordering beer, beverages, and assorted paper goods. When I put in hours as purchaser, my wage went up from $11 to $15 an hour, but I was removed from the tip pool. On most days, tips amounted to an extra two or three dollars an hour, so I usually came out ahead.
This was back in 2021. I don't know what Avenue Brew pays these days.
Anyway, at about 8:15, I stepped out to say goodbye to everyone and found the shop in chaos. Friday nights were generally pretty active, the cyclists' arrival had turned the place into a mob scene. The line extended to the front door. The phone was ringing. The Grubhub tablet dinged like an alarm clock without a snooze button. Danny was on the sandwich line and on the verge of losing his temper. Oliver was working up a sweat running food, bussing tables, and replenishing ingredients from the walk-in. The unflappable Marina was on register, and even she seemed like she was about to snap at somebody.
What else could I do? I stayed until closing to answer the phone, process Grubhub orders, hop on and off the second register, and help Danny with sandwich prep. After the tills were counted out, I stayed another hour to take care of the dishes, since nobody had a chance to do a first load. Oliver was grateful, even though he grumbled about having to make some calls and rearrange Sunday's schedule so I could come in a couple hours late. Irene and Jeremy, Avenue Brew's owners, would kick his ass if he let me go into overtime.
Danny suggested that we deserved a few drinks ourselves after managing to get through the shift without killing anyone. Not even Marina could find a reason to disagree with him.
The neighborhood had undergone enough gentrification to support an upscale brunch spot, an ice cream parlor, a gourmet burger restaurant, a coffee and bahn mi shop, and Avenue Brew (to name a few examples), but not yet quite enough that the people who staffed them couldn’t afford to live within a ten-minute walk from the main avenue where all these hep eateries stood between 24-hour corner stores with slot machines in back, late-night Chinese and Mexico-Italian takeout joints with bulletproof glass at the counters, and long-shuttered delis and shoe stores. Twenty on Poplar was the watering hole set aside for people like us. It was dim, a bit dilapidated, and inexpensive, and usually avoided by denizens of the condos popping up on the vacant lots and replacing clusters of abandoned row houses.
When we arrived, Kyle waved us over. He didn’t work at Avenue Brew anymore, but still kept up with a few of us. He was at Twenty at least four nights out of the week.
So there we all were. I sat with a brooding stranger freestyling to himself in a low mumble on the stool to my left and Oliver on my right, who tapped at his phone and nursed a bottle of Twisted Tea. To Oliver’s right sat Marina, staring at nothing in particular and trying to ignore Danny, who stood behind her, closer than she would have liked, listening to Kyle explain the crucial differences between the Invincible comic book and the Invincible web series.
I recall being startled back to something like wakefulness when it seemed to me that the ceiling had sprouted a new fan. I blinked my eyes, and it wasn’t there anymore. It reminded me of an incident from when I was still living with my folks in South Jersey and still had a car, and was driving home from a friend’s house party up in Bergen County. It was 6:30 AM, I hadn’t slept all night, and needed to get home so I could get at least little shuteye before heading to Whole Foods for my 11:00 AM shift. I imagined I passed beneath the shadows of overpasses I knew weren’t there, and realized I was dreaming at the wheel.
I was pretty thoroughly zombified at that point. Heather and I had broken up for good the night before, and I hadn't gotten even a minute of sleep. Calling out at Avenue Brew was tough. Unless you found someone willing to cover your shift on like six hours' notice, you were liable to get a writeup, a demotion, or your hours cut if you couldn't produce a doctor's note. So I loaded up on caffeine pills and Five-Hour Energy bottles at the corner store, and powered through as best I could.
I finished the last thimbleful of Blue Moon in my glass. Oliver wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with a napkin and covered his mouth to stifle a laugh at the KiwiFarms thread he was scrolling through. Pool balls clacked; somebody swore and somebody laughed. The TouchTunes box was playing Bob Dylan’s “Rain Day Woman #12 & 35,” and enough bleary 40-something men around the bar were bobbing their heads and mouthing the words to make it impossible to determine which one of them paid two bucks to hear it. A guy by the cigarette machine who looked like a caricature of Art Carney in flannel and an old Pixies T-shirt was accosting a woman who must have been a toddler when he hit drinking age, and she momentarily made eye contact with me as she scanned the area for a way out. Danny was shouting over the bartender’s head, carrying on a conversation with the Hot Guy from Pizza Stan’s, who was sitting on the horseshoe’s opposite arm.
I never got his name, but when Oliver first referred to him as the Hot Guy from Pizza Stan’s, I knew exactly who he meant. Philly scene kid par excellence. Mid-20s, washed-out black denim, dyed black hair, thick bangs, and dark, gentle eyes. He was only truly alluring when he was on the job, because he seldom smiled then—and when he smiled, he broke the spell by exposing his teeth, stained a gnarly shade of mahogany from too much smoking and not enough brushing.
“How’s Best? Marcus still a joker?” Danny asked him.
“Yeah, you know Marcus. You know how he is.”
So the Hot Guy had been working at Best Burger (directly across the street from Avenue Brew) ever since Pizza Stan’s owners mismanaged the place unto insolvency. (Afterwards it was renovated and reopened as a vegan bakery—which incidentally closed down about a month ago.) Danny used to work at Best Burger, but that ended after he got into a shouting match with the owner. I happened to overhear it while I was dragging in the tables and collecting the chairs from the sidewalk the night it happened. It wasn’t any of my business, and I tried not to pay attention, but they were really tearing into each other. A month later, Oliver welcomed Danny aboard at Avenue Brew. I hadn’t known he’d been interviewed, and by then it was too late to mention the incident. But I’d have been a hypocrite to call it a red flag after the way I resigned from my position as Café Chakra's assistant manager two years earlier—not that we need to go dredging that up right now. Let's say there was some bad blood and leave it at that.
Anyway, I was thinking about giving in and buying a pack of cigarettes from the machine—and then remembered that Twenty didn’t have a cigarette machine. I looked again. The Art Carney-lookalike was still there, fingering his phone with a frown, but the girl was gone—and so was the cigarette machine.
I had only a moment to puzzle over this before Danny clapped me on the shoulder and thrust a shot glass in front of me.
“Starfish!” he said. (Danny called me Starfish. Everybody else called me Pat.) “You look like you need some juice.”
He distributed shots to everyone else. Marina declined hers, but changed her mind when Kyle offered to take it instead.
She and Kyle had stopped sleeping together after Kyle left Avenue Brew to work at the Victory taproom on the Parkway, but Marina was still concerned about his bad habits, which Danny delighted in encouraging.
We all leaned in to clink our glasses. Before I could find an appropriate moment to ask Marina if I could bum a cigarette, she got up to visit the bathroom. Danny took her seat and bowed his head for a conspiratorial word with Kyle.
I watched from the corner of my eye and tried to listen in. Like Marina, I was a little worried about Kyle. He got hired at Avenue Brew around the same time I did, just before the pandemic temporarily turned us into a takeout joint. He was a senior at Drexel then, an English major, and sometimes talked about wanting to either find work in publishing or carve out a career as a freelance writer after graduating. But first he intended to spend a year getting some life in before submitting himself to the forever grind.
He read a lot of Charles Bukowski and Hunter Thompson. He relished the gritty and sordid, and had already been good at sniffing it out around the neighborhood and in West Philly before Danny introduced him to cocaine, casinos, strip clubs, and a rogue’s gallery of shady but fascinating people. (None were really Danny’s friends; just fellow passengers who intersected with the part of his life where he sometimes went to Parx, sometimes came out ahead, sometimes spent his winnings on coke, and sometimes did bumps at titty bars.) Kyle recounted these adventures with a boyish enthusiasm for the naked reality of sleaze, like a middle schooler telling his locker room buddies about catching his older brother in flagrante and seeing so-and-so body parts doing such-and-such things.
Marina hated it. She never said as much to me, but she was afraid that the template Kyle set for his life during his “year off” was in danger of becoming locked in. The anniversary of his graduation had already passed, and now here he was trying to convince Danny to contribute a couple hundred dollars toward a sheet of acid his guy had for sale. He wasn't doing much writing lately.
I was the oldest employee at Avenue Brew (as I write this I’m 37, but fortunately I don’t look it), and when Kyle still worked with us I felt like it was my prerogative to give him some advice. The longer he waited to make inroads, I once told him, the more likely he’d be seen as damaged goods by the publishing world. He needed to jam his foot in the door while he was still young.
I could tell the conversation bored him, and didn’t bring up the subject again.
The bartender took my glass and curtly asked if I’d like another drink.
“No thanks, not yet,” I answered.
She slid me my bill.
I missed the old bartender, the one she’d replaced. I forget her name, but she was ingenuous and energetic and sweet. Pretty much everyone had some sort of crush on her. Sometimes she came into Avenue Brew for lunch, and tipped us as well as we tipped her. Maybe three months before that night—Danny witnessed it—she suddenly started crying and rushed out the door. Everyone at the bar mutely looked to each other for an explanation. (Fortunately for Twenty, the kitchen manager hadn’t left yet, and picked up the rest of her shift.)
She never came back. None of us had seen her since. But drafts still had to be poured and bottlecaps pulled off, and now here was another white woman in her mid-twenties wearing a black tank top, a pushup bra, and a scrunchie, same as before. Twenty’s regulars grew accustomed to not expecting to see the person she’d replaced, and life went on.
“How’re you doing?” I asked Oliver, just to say something to somebody, and to keep my thoughts from wandering back to Heather.
“Just kind of existing right now,” he answered. His phone lay face-up on the counter. He was swiping through Instagram, and I recognized the avatar of the user whose album he hate-browsed.
“And how’s Austin been?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. Not even three weeks after getting over the jetlag from his trip back from the Cascades, he’s off touring Ireland.” He shook his head. “Living his best life.”
He’d hired Austin on a part-time basis in September. We needed a new associate when Emma was promoted to replace a supervisor who'd quit without even giving his two weeks. There was a whole thing. I'm having a hard time recalling the guy's name, but I liked him well enough. He was a good worker and he seemed like a bright kid, but he was—well, he was young. Naïve. One day he found Jeremy sitting in the back room with his laptop, and took advantage of the open-door policy to ask why the store manager and supervisors didn’t get health benefits or paid time off. Jeremy told him it "was being worked on," and that he couldn’t discuss it any further at that time. I understand the kid got argumentative, though I never knew precisely what was said.
Irene started visiting the shop a lot more often after that, almost always arriving when the kid was working. No matter what he was doing, she’d find a reason to intervene, to micromanage and harangue him, and effectively make his job impossible. A coincidence, surely.
It’s something I still think about. By any metric, Jeremy and Irene have done very well for themselves. They’re both a little over 40 years old. I remember hearing they met at law school. In addition to Avenue Brew, they own a bistro in Francisville and an ice cream parlor in Point Breeze. They have a house on the Blue Line, send their son to a Montessori school, and pull up to their businesses in a white Volkswagen ID.4. But whenever the subject of benefits, wages, or even free shift meals came up, they pled poverty. It simply couldn’t be done. But they liked to remind us about all they did to make Avenue Brew a fun place to work, like let the staff pick the music and allow Oliver and me to conduct a beer tasting once a day. They stuck Black Lives Matter, Believe Women, and Progress flag decals on the front door and windows, and I remember Irene wearing a Black Trans Lives Matter shirt once or twice when covering a supervisor's shift. None of the college students or recent graduates who composed most of Avenue Brew's staff could say the bosses weren't on the right team. And yet...
I'm sorry—I was talking about Austin. He was maybe 30 and already had another job, a “real” job, some sort of remote gig lucrative enough for him to make rent on a studio in the picturesque Episcopal church down the street that had been converted into upscale apartments some years back. Austin wasn’t looking for extra cash. He wanted to socialize. To have something to do and people to talk to in the outside world. He wanted to make friends, and all of us could appreciate that—but it’s hard to be fond of a coworker who irredeemably sucks at his job. Austin never acted with any urgency, was inattentive to detail, and even after repeated interventions from Oliver and the supervisors, he continued to perform basic tasks in bafflingly inefficient ways. Having Austin on your shift meant carrying his slack, and everyone was fed up after a few months. Oliver sat him down, told him he was on thin ice, and gave him a list of the areas in which he needed to improve if he didn’t want to be let go.
When Austin gave Oliver the indignant “I don’t need this job” speech, it was different from those times Danny or I told a boss to go to hell and walked out. Austin truly didn’t need it. He basically said the job was beneath him, and so was Oliver.
It got deep under Oliver’s skin. He did need the job and had to take it seriously, even when it meant being the dipshit manager chewing out a man four or five years his senior. He earned $18 an hour (plus tips when he wasn’t doing admin work), had debts to pay off, and couldn't expect to get any help from his family.
The important thing, though, the part I distinctly remember, was that Oliver was looking at a video of a wading bird Austin had recorded. An egret, maybe. White feathers, long black legs, pointy black beak. Austin must have been standing on a ledge above a creek, because he had an overhead view of the bird as it stood in the water, slowly and deliberately stretching and retracting its neck, eyeing the wriggling little shadows below. As far as the fish could know, they were swimming around a pair of reeds growing out of the silt. The predator from which they extended was of a world beyond their understanding and out of their reach.
The video ended. Oliver moved on to the next item: a photograph of the bird from the same perspective, with a fish clamped in its beak. Water droplets flung from the victim's thrashing tail caught the sunlight. And I remember now, I clearly remember, the shapes of like twelve other fish stupidly milling about the bird's feet, unperturbed and unpanicked.
Danny peered at Oliver’s phone and observed a resemblance between the bird—its shape and bearing, and the composition of the photograph—and a POV porn video shot from behind and above, and he told us so. Elaborately. He made squawking noises.
“And mom says I’m a degenerate,” Oliver sighed. “Can you practice your interspecies pickup artist shit somewhere else?” Oliver flicked his wrist, shooing Danny off, and held his phone in front of his face to signal that he was done talking.
Danny sagged a little on his stool and turned away. I sometimes felt bad for him. For all his faults, he had the heart of a puppy dog. He really did think of us as his tribe. There was nobody else who’d only ever answer “yes” when you asked him to pick up a shift, and he did it completely out of loyalty.
He was turning 29 in a week. I wondered how many people would actually turn out to celebrate with him at the Black Taxi. Kyle probably would—but even he regarded Danny more as a source of vulgar entertainment than a friend.
Then it happened again. When I turned to speak to Oliver, there’d been a pair of pool cues leaning side-by-side against the wall a few stools down. Now they were gone.
This time it might have been my imagination. Somebody passing by could have casually snatched them up and kept walking.
But a moment later I seemed to notice a second TouchTunes box protruding from the wall directly behind me. I let it be.
Marina returned from the bathroom. Danny rose and offered her back her seat with an exaggerated bow. Before she got settled, I asked if she’d like to step outside with me. She withdrew her pack of Marlboro Menthols from her canvas bag, which she left sitting on the stool to deter Danny from sitting back down.
Marina never minded letting me bum cigarettes from time to time. I couldn’t buy them for myself anymore; it’s a habit I could never keep under control, and was only getting more expensive. Like everything else in the world. About once a month I reimbursed her by buying her a pack.
The air out on the sidewalk was as hot as the air inside Twenty, but easier to breathe. After lighting up, Marina leaned against the bricks and sighed.
“I wish Oliver would fire Danny already and get it over with.”
I nodded. Marina rarely talked about anything but work.
“He sneaks drinks and doesn't think anyone notices he's buzzed,” she went on. “He steals so much shit and isn’t even a little subtle about it. He’s going to get Oliver in trouble. And he’s a creep.”
“Yeah,” I said. These were her usual complaints about Danny, and they were all true. “At least he’s better than Austin.”
“That’s a low bar.”
Three dirt bikes and an ATV roared down the lonely street, charging through stop sign after stop sign, putting our talk on hold.
“Remind me. You’ve got one semester left, right?” I asked after the noise ebbed.
“Yep.”
Marina was a marketing major at Temple. She’d had an internship during the spring semester, and her boss told her to give her a call the very minute she graduated. Her parents in central Pennsylvania couldn’t pay her rent or tuition for her, so she was a full-time student and a full-time employee at Avenue Brew. Her emotional spectrum ranged from "tired" to "over it." She’d been waiting tables and working at coffee shops since she was seventeen, had no intention of continuing for even a day longer than she had to, and feared the escape hatch would slam shut if she dallied too long after prying it open.
She’d considered majoring in English, like Kyle. She went for marketing instead. I couldn’t blame her.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’ve been kind of off all day.”
“I’m terrible.”
“Why?”
I gave dodgy answers, but she asked precisely the right follow-up questions to get me going about what happened with Heather the night before.
It was the new job. Before the pandemic, Heather worked as a server at a Center City bar and grill. (That's where I met her; we were coworkers for about a year, and then I left to work Café Chakra because it was quieter and closer to where I lived.) When the place closed its doors and laid everyone off during the lockdown, she got a stopgap job at the Acme on Passyunk, and hated it. Then in March, she found a bar-and-lounge gig in a ritzy hotel on Broad Street. Very corporate. Excellent pay, great benefits. Definitely a step up. But her new employers made Irene and Jeremy look like Bob and Linda Belcher by comparison. It was the kind of place where someone had recently gotten herself fired for leaving work to rush to the hospital after getting the news that her grandmother was about to be taken off life support, and not finding someone to come in and cover the last two hours of her shift.
Heather seldom worked fewer than fifty-five hours a week, and her schedule was even more erratic than mine. At least once a week she left the hotel at 1:00 or 2:00 AM and returned at 9:00 the next morning. Neither of us could remember the last time she’d had two consecutive days off, and it had been over a month since one of mine overlapped with one of hers. She’d spent it drinking alone at home. All she wanted was some privacy.
I’d biked to South Philly to meet her when she got home at 1:30. The argument that killed our relationship for good began around 2:30, when I complained that we never had sex anymore. Heather accused me of only caring about that, when she was so exhausted and stressed that her hair was falling out in the shower. Quit the job? She couldn’t quit. The money was too good. She had student loans, medical bills, and credit card debt, and for the first time in her life she could imagine paying it all off before hitting menopause.
So, yeah, I was cranky about our sex life being dead in the water. Say whatever you like. But at that point, what were we to each other? We did nothing together anymore but complain about work before one or both of us fell asleep. That isn’t a relationship.
She said my hair always smelled like sandwiches, even after bathing, and she was done pretending it didn’t turn her off. I told her she was one to talk—she always reeked of liquor. As things escalated, we stopped caring if her roommates heard us. “You want to be a father?” she shouted around 4:00 AM. “Making what you make? That poor fucking kid.”
We fought until sunrise, and I left her apartment with the understanding that I wouldn’t be coming back, wouldn’t be calling her ever again. I biked home and sat on the steps facing the cement panel that was my house’s backyard. After my phone died and I couldn’t anaesthetize myself with dumb YouTube videos or make myself feel crazy staring at the download button for the Tinder app, I watched the sparrows hopping on and off the utility lines for a while.
At 11:40 I went inside. One of my roommates was already in the shower, so the best I could do was put on a clean Avenue Brew T-shirt before walking to the shop and clocking in at noon to help deal with the lunch rush.
“That’s a lot,” Marina finally said. “Sorry.”
I don’t know what I was expecting her to say. She was sixteen years my junior, after all, and just a coworker. She didn’t need to hear any of this, and I definitely didn't need to be telling her. But who else was there to tell?
She’d already finished her cigarette. I still had a few puffs left. She went inside.
I decided to call it a night.
The second TouchTunes box was gone—naturally. Danny had taken my stool, and regarded my approach with a puckish you snooze you lose grin. I wasn’t going to say anything. I’d just pay my bill, give everyone a nod goodnight, and walk the five blocks back home.
And then Danny disappeared.
One second, he was there. The next—gone.
Danny didn’t just instantaneously vanish. Even when something happens in the blink of an eye, you can still put together something of a sequence. I saw him—I seemed to see him—falling into himself, collapsing to a point, and then to nothing.
You know how sometimes a sound is altogether inaudible unless you’re looking at the source—like when you don’t realize somebody’s whispering at you, and can then hear and understand them after they get your attention? I think that was the case here. I wouldn't have known to listen if I hadn't seen it happen. What I heard lingered for two, maybe three seconds, and wasn't any louder than a fly buzzing inside a lampshade. A tiny and impossibly distant scream, pitchshifted like a receding ambulance siren into a basso drone...
I don’t know. I don’t know for sure. I’m certain I remember a flash of red, and I have the idea of Danny’s trunk expanding, opening up as it imploded. A crimson flower, flecked white, with spooling pink stalks—and Danny’s wide-eyed face above it, drawn twisting and shrinking into its petals.
For an instant, Twenty’s interior shimmered. Not shimmered, exactly—glitched would be a better word. If you’re old enough to remember the fragmented graphics that sometimes flashed onscreen when you turned on the Nintendo without blowing on the cartridge, you’ll have an idea of what I mean. It happened much too fast, and there was too much of it to absorb. The one clear impression I could parse was the mirage of a cash register flickering upside-down above the pool table.
Not a cash register. The shape was familiar, but the texture was wrong. I think it was ribbed, sort of like a maggot. I think it glistened. Like—camo doesn’t work anymore when the wearer stops crouching behind a bush and breaks into a run. Do you get what I’m saying?
Nobody else seemed to notice. The pool balls clacked. A New Order track was playing on the TouchTunes box. A nearby argument about about Nick Sirianni continued unabated.
Finally, there was a downward rush of air—and this at least elicited a reaction from the bartender, who slapped my bill to keep it from sailing off the counter.
“Danny,” I said.
“Danny?” Kyle asked me quietly. His face had gone pale.
“Danny?” Oliver repeated in a faraway voice.
After a pause, Kyle blinked a few times. “You heard from him?”
“God forbid,” said Marina. “When he quit I was like, great, I can keep working here after all.”
“Oh, come on—”
“Kyle. Did I ever show you those texts he sent me once at three in the morning?” The color had returned to Oliver’s face.
“No, what did he say?”
Oliver tapped at his phone and turned the screen toward Kyle.
“Oh. Oh, jeez.”
“Right? Like—if you want to ask me something, ask me. You know? Don’t be weirdly accusatory about it…”
I pulled a wad of fives and ones from my pocket, threw it all onto the counter, and beelined for the exit without consideration for the people I squeezed through and shoved past on the way.
I heard Marina saying “let him go.”
I went a second consecutive night without sleep. Fortunately I wasn’t scheduled to come in the next day.
The schedule. It’s funny. Oliver was generally great at his job, and even when he wasn’t, I cut him a lot of slack because I knew Irene and Jeremy never gave him a moment’s peace. But I could never forgive him those times he waited until the weekend to make up and distribute the schedule. This was one of those weeks he didn’t get around to it until Saturday afternoon. When I found it in my inbox, Danny’s name wasn’t anywhere on it.
As far as I know, nobody who hadn’t been at Twenty that night asked what happened to him. We were a bit overstaffed as it was, and everyone probably assumed Danny was slated for the chopping block. The part-timers were, for the most part, happy to get a few additional hours.
Oliver abruptly quit around Labor Day after a final acrimonious clash with the owners. I never found out the details, and I never saw him again. Jeremy and Irene took turns minding the store while a replacement manager was sought. None of the supervisors would be pressured into taking the job; they knew from Oliver what they could expect.
About three weeks after Oliver left, I came in for my purchasing shift and found Jeremy waiting for me in the back room. I knew it was serious when he didn’t greet me with the awkward fist-bump he ordinarily required of his male employees.
“You’ve seen the numbers,” he said. Business for the summer had fallen short of expectations, it was true, and he and Irene had decided to rein in payroll expenses. My purchaser position was being eliminated. Its responsibilities would be redistributed among the supervisors and the new manager, when one was found. In the meantime, I'd be going back to the regular $11 an hour (plus tips of course) associate position full-time.
Jeremy assured me I'd be first in the running for supervisor the next time there was an opening.
I told him it was fine, I was done, and if he’d expected the courtesy of two weeks’ notice, he shouldn’t have blindsided me like that.
“Well, that’s your choice,” he answered, trying not to look pleased. His payroll problem was solving itself.
I racked up credit card debt for a few months. Applied for entry-level museum jobs that might appreciate my art history degree. Aimed for some purchasing and administrative assistant gigs, and just for the hell of it, turned in a resume for a facilitator position at an after-school art program. Got a few interviews. All of them eventually told me they’d decided to go in a different direction. I finally got hired to bartend at Hops from Underground, a microbrewery on Fairmount.
I’m still there. The money’s okay, but it fluctuates. Hours are reasonable. I’m on their high-deductible health plan. There’s a coworker I’ve been dating. Sort of dating. You know how it goes. In this line of work you get so used to people coming and going that you learn not to get too attached. I walk past Avenue Brew a few times a week, but stopped peering in through the window when I didn't recognize the people behind the counter anymore.

Rookie Performance Evaluation 4

With so many players in the MLB, some of the newest players get lost behind some of the high profile names. We are here today to evaluate every rookie who has played this year and highlight the top performances of the last two weeks and for the entire year. This week Josh Jung murdered some baseballs, Grant Anderson struck out seven in his debut out of the bullpen, and Bobby Miller shut down the Braves (and Nats).

Top Bi-Weekly Performances

American League:

1. Josh Jung (TEX 3B): Josh Jung continues to dominate at the plate, winning back to back AL rookie of the month awards in April and May. Josh Jung ended the month of May by slugging for 5 doubles, 1 triple and 4 home runs. Jung leads all third baseman in runs and batting average and leads all rookie batters in runs (4), hits (61), home runs (12), and RBIs (37). In his last 10 games, Jung had 9 extra base hits. Offensively, Jung is already worth 2 WAR and has only gotten better throughout the year. Jung sees the ball well, hitting 50.5% over 95 mph (top 90% in the league) and has been able to barrel 12.2% of pitches seen (top 81% in the league). Defensively Josh Jung is in the bottom half of 3rd baseman, having negative -2 defensive runs saved and -1 outs above average. Despite his below average defense, Josh Jung has been one of the best third baseman in the majors all season.
2. Masataka Yoshida (BOS LF): The Japanese superstar is doing all he can to keep the Red Sox afloat. Yoshida continues his hot streak, batting .348/.412/.500 in the the last 15 days. After a somewhat slow start to the season, Yoshida has emerged as one of the two big favorites for AL rookie of the year (along with Josh Jung). Yoshida still only has 21 strikeouts and walks on the year through 48 games on the season. Yoshida will put the ball in play and will rarely kill a batting rally with a strikeout. He hardly chases the ball and is top in the league on whiff rate. Yoshida has adapted to MLB pitching very quickly and will remain a superstar for years to come.
3. Logan Allen (CLE SP): The Guardians have a loaded starting pitching staff with the return of Aaron Civale and Triston McKenzie. Logan Allen, along with rookies Tanner Bibee, Hunter Gaddis, and Peyton Battenfield, has shined in the starting rotation. Allen had his best game of the season, going 7 innings against the Baltimore Orioles allowing only 3 hits, no earned runs, and striking out 10. Through 7 starts in the year. In his last three starts, Allen has only allowed 4 earned runs through 18.2 innings. Of the four rookie starting pitchers for Cleveland, Allen has pitched the most innings (39.2) and holds the lowest ERA (2.72). Allen’s next start is scheduled on June 3rd against the Minnesota Twins.
4. Louie Varland (MIN SP): Varland pitched seven shutout innings against the Houston Astros. Varland has pitched back-to-back quality starts in 4 of his last five starts. The only game Varland did not get a quality start was against the Angels, where he gave up only 2 earned runs in 5 innings. Varland primarily throws a 4-seam (42%) and cutter (30%) and goes to his slider (12%) and changeup (12%) to put batters away. Varland hardly walks batters but gives up a lot of hard contact. Nonetheless Varland has pitched effectively, limiting the damage done in most games he has started. Varland's next start is projected to be on June 6th against the Tampa Bay Rays.
5. Ryan Noda (OAK 1B): Ryan Noda powered a three-run home run to snap the Athletic’s 11-game losing streak. In the last 15 games, Noda has batted .256 with 3 home runs and 3 doubles on 11 hits. Noda hits 48.2% of balls 95 mph or higher and barrels 16.9% of pitches. Despite this, Noda ranks in the bottom percentile in whiff rate. Noda whiffs on 36% of fast balls, 42% in breaking balls, and 38% of offspeed pitches. Noda has struck out in 33% of his plate appearances (61 strikeout total) but simultaneously ranks in the top percentile in walks taken (35 walks total).
6. Zach Neto (LAA SS): Despite all the preseason hype for Anthony Volpe and Gunnar Henderson, Zach Neto has quietly emerged as the most consistent bat for rookie AL shortstops. Only 22 years old, Neto was the first player from the 2022 MLB draft to make the majors. Defensively, Neto has been steller. In 44 games, Neto has already racked up .8 defensive war and has generated 2 more outs above average than other shortstops. In the last 15 days, Neto has 11 hits with 4 doubles and a home run. Neto had small injury scare against the Marlins with a finger contusion, but has already made it back into the starting lineup.
7. Grant Anderson (TEX RP): Grant Anderson has only played in one game this season but I figured he deserved a special shoutout. In his major league debut, Anderson pitched 2 and 2/3rd innings out of the bullpen striking out 7 of the 9 batters. Anderson only gave up one hit and earned the win against the Detroit Tigers.

Pitchers	W / L	GS	ERA	IP	SO	BB	H / R / ER	HR	WHIP	HBP	GDP
Allen, Logan	1 - 1	7	2.72	39.2	43	11	41 / 13 / 12	3	1.31	0	1
Varland, Louie	1 - 0	7	3.51	41	39	8	39 / 16 / 16	9	1.15	1	2
Batter	Team	Games	At Bats	AVG/OBP/SLG	HR	RBI	SB / CS	SO/BB	2B / 3B / HR	Off WAR	Def WAR
Jung, Josh	TEX (3B)	52	207	.295/.341/.531	40	37	1 / 2	63K / 14BB	11 / 1 / 12	2	0.3
Yoshida, Masataka	BOS (LF)	48	186	.312/.389/.500	26	31	3 / 0	21K / 21BB	12 / 1 / 7	1.1	-0.6
Neto, Zach	LAA (SS)	44	147	.245/.319.374	15	18	3 / 0	32K / 7BB	6 / 0 / 6	1.2	0.8
Noda, Ryan	OAK (1B)	53	143	.231/.393/.448	28	19	2 / 1	61K / 35BB	11 / 1 / 6	1.3	-0.1​
Relief Pitcher	G	W - L	ERA	IP	SV / SVO	SO / BB	WHIP	H / R / ER	HR	GDP	HLD
Anderson, Grant	1	1 - 0	0	2.2	0 / 0	7K / 0BB	0.38	1 / 0 / 0	0	0	0​

National League:

1. Bobby Miller (LAD SP): The Dodgers #2 prospect has done nothing but impress. In his first two starts on the season, Miller has posted a 1.64 ERA through 11 innings. Miller equally throws a sinker, changeup, slider, and 4-seam fastball. On his fastball, Miller averages 99 mph on his sinkers and 4-seam and sometimes will go to his curveball to strike out batters. In his debut, Miller went 5 innings and only one earned run on 4 hits against the Atlanta Braves. He followed his debut by going 6 innings, allowing only 1 earned run on four hits. Bobby Miller's next scheduled start is June 4th against the New York Yankees.
2. Spencer Steer (CIN 3B): Spencer Steer uses every side of the field. In the last 15 days, Steer has batted .389/.424/.667 with 4 doubles, one triple, and three home runs. Steer currently leads NL rookies in hits (59), RBIs (T28 with Outman), and doubles (T15 with Tovar). Steer has recently returned to his 2022 self hitting 8 home runs on the season and putting the ball consistently in play. Steer has struggled greatly defensively with -8 outs above average at both first and third base and generating -.4 WAR on the season. He ranks in the bottom 1% of outs above average and, when fielding, is completely 7% of plays as expected at both first base and third base. Despite these struggles, Steer’s production at the plate has lead him to be named the National League Rookie of the month for May.
3. Matt McLain (CIN SS): The Red’s #5 prospect made his major league debut after TJ Friedl was moved to the 10-day injured list . In the last 15 days, McLain has the most at bats (57), hits (T21 Steer) and runs (T11 Steer) in the National League. McLain won this week’s player of week and continues to bat .329/.390/.486 in 16 games. McLain is primarily causing damage against fastballs and breaking balls, batting over .400 on such pitches. Defensively, McLain has been stellar. In only 16 games, he has generated 2 outs above average at shortstop and has added 5% success rate at the position off 43 attempts. If McLain can continue his success at the plate, along with fellow ROY contender Spencer Steer, then they can help Cincinnati compete for a relatively week NL Central division (who knows what may happen if the Reds call up fellow shortstop Elly de la Cruz).
4. Corbin Carroll (ARZ LF): Corbin Carroll continues to impress and at this point I feel like I am repeating myself. The 22 year old left-fielder has power, defense, and speed. Carroll has helped the Diamondbacks to take control (or at least tie) in the National League West. In the past 15 days, Carroll has slugged for 4 doubles and three home runs on 15 hits. He leads the national league in stolen bases and has a real shot at joining the 20 / 20 club as a rookie. On the year, Carroll’s slash line is .287/.372/.516. Of all rookies, Corbin Carroll leads in WAR, already accumulating 2.1 on offense. On the defensive side of the ball, Carrol has generated 2 outs above average and has added 2% to the expected fielding average in left field. Expect to see Carroll on these lists for the rest of the season.
5. Patrick Bailey (SF C): Joey Bart was thought to be the replacement at catcher for the San Francisco after the departure of Buster Posey. With everyone’s focus on Bart, Bailey went under the radar. In 11 games, Bailey has batted .333/.350/.564 with 12 hits, of which 3 were doubles and 2 were home runs. In the minor’s. Bailey was praised for his framing abilities behind the plate. If Bailey can continue his success at the plate, San Francisco may be posed well at the catcher position for years to come.
6. Will Brennan (CLE RF) - Although he is not a batter that consistently hits the ball hard, Will Brennan, in the last 15 days, has 12 hits in 12 games including 3 doubles and 1 home run.. He is batting .364/.400/.515 and has been reliable at the plate when batters are at first base. Brennan has a batting average of .318 with a runner at 1st (23 plate appearances) and batting .500 with runners at 1st and 2nd (6 plate appearances). Though Will Brennan did kill a bird on a ground-ball single last week. So… he has that going against him.

Pitchers	W / L	GS	ERA	IP	SO	BB	H / R / ER	HR	WHIP	HBP	GDP
Miller, Bobby	2 - 0	2	1.64	11	9	2	8 / 2 / 2	0	0.91	0	0
Batter	Team	Games	At Bats	AVG/OBP/SLG	HR	RBI	SB / CS	SO/BB	2B / 3B / HR	Off WAR	Def WAR
Steer, Spencer	CIN (1B)	53	204	.289/.358/.500	30	28	1 / 2	47K / 21BB	15 / 2 / 8	1	-0.4
McLain, Matt	CIN (SS)	2	65	.354/.417/.523	13	9	1 / 1	20K / 6BB	5 / 0 / 2	0.9	0.2
Carrol, Corbin	AZ (LF)	54	188	.287/.372/.516	27	24	16 / 2	43K / 23BB	14 / 1 / 9	2.1	-0.3
Bailey, Patrick	SF (C)		39	.333/.350/.564	4	12	0 / 0	11K / 1BB	3 / 0 / 2	0.6	0.2
Bae, Ji Hwan	PIT (CF)	51	149	.275/.329/.360	19	12	15 / 5	40K / 10BB	8 / 0 / 2	0.1	-0.4​

Worst Bi-Weekly Performances:

1. Brice Turang (MIL 2B) - In the last 14 games, Turang is batting only .077/.122/.154. In his last seven games, Turang only has one base hit. In his last 15, Turang only has 3. Turang, on the season, has struck out in 27% of his plate appearances and barrels on only 3.6% of pitches. Turang primarily is struggling in making contact with offspeed pitches, whiffing on 40% of those seen.
2. James Outman (LAD OF) - After starting the season hitting everything out of the park, Outman bat has cooled off immensely. In his last 10 games, Outman only has two singles and is batting .074/.182/.074. Outman hits the ball hard when he makes contact, but has whiffed on 40.4% of pitches seen. Outman has striked out in 35% of his at bats. Outman leads all rookies in strikeouts and 5th in the majors. Defensively, Outman has been above average in furling in the outfield. He is converting 3% more outs than estimated success rate and has created 3 outs above average in the outfield.
3. Anthony Volpe (NYY SS) - Defensively, Anthony Volpe has been phenomenal at shortstop. The Yankee’s #1 prospect is only 22 years old and already has .7 defensive war. Volpe has recently struggled at the plate. He is second among rookie pitchers in strikeouts (68) and 8th in the majors. On the season, Volpe is only batting .192/.270/.355. But when Volpe does get a hit, he hits for power and brings speed on the basepaths. Volpe has 13 steals on the season and has yet to be caught stealing.
4. Karl Kauffmann (COL SP) - Kauffmann made his major league debut on May 19th and has not had a good time. In three starts, Kaufman has posted an 11.37 ERA and earned 3 losses. In his first start, Kauffman went 4.1 innings against Texas and allowed 4 earned runs off seven hits. In his next start, Kaugment again went 4.1 innings against Miami ang gave up 5 earned runs on 6 hits. In his final game, he went 4.0 innings against Arizona and allowed 7 earned runs on 9 hits. In all three games combined, Kauffman only struck out 7 and walked 8. Kauffman is only averaging 90 mph on his fastball and has left too many pitches in the middle of the strike zone.

Shout out to Miles Mastrobuoni as well who is batting .053 in 9 games (19 plate appearances) and for having an ERA of 108.

Pitchers	W / L	GS	ERA	IP	SO	BB	H / R / ER	HR	WHIP	HBP	GDP
Kauffmann, Karl	0 - 3	3	11.37	12.2	7	7	22 / 17 / 16	3	2.29	1	4
Batter	Team	Games	At Bats	AVG/OBP/SLG	HR	RBI	SB / CS	SO/BB	2B / 3B / HR	Off WAR	Def WAR
Turang, Brice	MIL (2B)	53	156	.205/.253/.301	13	12	7 / 3	46K / 10BB	4 / 1 / 3	0	0.4
Outman, James	LAD (CF)	55	175	.234/.323/.469	28	29	6 / 1	70K / 19BB	8 / 3 / 9	0.7	-0.2
Volpe, Anthony	NYY (SS)	58	201	.194/.272/.358	20	24	13 / 0	68K / 21BB	5 / 2 / 8	1	0.7
Casas, Triston	BOS (1B)	48	149	.188/.301/.349	23	16	0 / 0	49K / 25BB	4 / 0 / 6	-0.7	-0.6​

My Early Rookie of the Year

American League:

1. Masataka Yoshida (BOS LF) - See my blurb above
2. Josh Jung (TEX 3B) - See my blurb above
3. Esteury Ruiz (OAK CF) - In 58 games, Ruiz is already at 28 stolen bases. ALthough Ruiz is not hitting for extreme power, his speed is turning almost half of his base hits into what is essentially a double. In most offenses that are not the Oakland Athletics, this would typically translate to more runs and have them take leads early on balls just put in play. Among qualified rookies in the American league, Ruiz ranks 3rd in batting average, T1st (with Jung) in hits, and 1st in doubles. Ruiz does rank in the bottom percentile for hard hit percentage (1%), barrel rate (5%) and walk rate (5%).
4. Hunter Brown (HOU SP) - In 11 games, Hunter brown has a 3.64 ERA and recently overtaken Kodai Senga for the lead in strikeouts for rookie pitchers. Brown struggled in his last start against Minnesota, giving up 5 earned runs on 6 hits. This was after Brown had pitched back-to-back quality starts against the Oakland As (7 IP 2 ER and 6 IP 1 ER).
5. Logan Allen (CLE SP) - See my blurb above
6. Bryce Miller (SEA SP) - The Mariners #2 prospect dominated the league in his first five starts going at least 6 innings in each and allowing only four runs in total. Miller only had one hiccup game in which he allowed 8 earned runs in 4.2 innings against the New York Yankees. Miller's success has been largely in part in limiting walks and throwing many strikes for weak contact. Miller is top in the league in walk rate only allowing walks in 2% of at bats. Miller primarily throws his fastball 68% of the time and goes to his offspeed pitchers to put batters away. Miller is set to start on June 4th against Nathan Eovaldi of the Texas Rangers.
7. Yennier Cano (BAL RP) - In his first 9 innings of the year, Cano did not allow a single base hit. Can has 30 strikeouts on the season through 30 innings of relief. In 5 save opportunities, Cano has successfully earned 4 saves with a 0.93 ERA and a WHIP of 0.59. Cano remains the secondary closer behind Felix Bautista, used primarily to maintain leads in close games and as the set-up man for the 9th inning.

Pitchers	W / L	GS	ERA	IP	SO	BB	H / R / ER	HR	WHIP	HBP	GDP
Allen, Logan	1 - 1	7	2.72	39.2	43	11	41 / 13 / 12	3	1.31	0	1
Brown, Hunter	4 - 1	11	3.61	62.1	74	20	57 / 29 / 25	4	1.24	4	6
Miller, Bryce	2 - 0	6	3	36	31	3	24 / 12 / 12	2	0.75	2	0
Batter	Team	Games	At Bats	AVG/OBP/SLG	HR	RBI	SB / CS	SO/BB	2B / 3B / HR	Off WAR	Def WAR
Yoshida, Masataka	BOS (LF)	48	186	.312/.389/.500	26	31	3 / 0	21K / 21BB	12 / 1 / 7	1.1	-0.6
Jung, Josh	TEX (3B)	52	207	.295/.341/.531	40	37	1 / 2	63K / 14BB	11 / 1 / 12	2	0.3
Ruiz, Esteury	OAK (CF)	57	223	.269/.335/.350	24	24	28 / 5	44K / 10BB	13 / 1 / 1	0.4	-0.9​
Relief Pitcher	G	W - L	ERA	IP	SV / SVO	SO / BB	WHIP	H / R / ER	HR	GDP	HLD
Cano, Yennier	23	1 - 0	0.93	29	4 / 5	30K / 1BB	0.59	16 / 3 / 3	0	3	11​

National League:

1. Corbin Carroll (ARZ LF): See my blurb above.
2. Spencer Steer (CIN 3B): See my blurb above.
3. Kodai Senga (NYM SP): In his last start, Kodai Senga pitched 7 innings of 1 hit baseball against the Philadelphia Phillies. Senga ranks first among national league pitchers in strikeouts and second in innings pitched (behind Ryne Nelson). Kodai Senga strikes out 29.8% of batters but gives up lots of hard contact. Batters are still only batting .125 against his ghost fork and strikes out 59.1% of batters as a putaway pitch. This is primarily because batters have a 59.1% whiff rate on his forkball (66 PA) and his slider (7 PA). Senga is scheduled to pitch on June 4th against the Toronto Blue Jays’ Yusei Kikuchi.
4. Ezquiel Tovar ( COL SS): In 55 games on the season, the Colorado shortstop has accumulated 46 base hits in 55 games. Tovar leads all NL rookies in doubles (16) and is currently slashing .241/.286/.398. Defensively, Tovar has been exceptional at shortstop accumulating 0.9 defensive war. Tovar has 6 outs above average at shortstop and has successfully converted 3% more plays than the estimated success rate.
5. James Outman (LAD CF): See my blurb above.
6. Francisco Alvarez (NYM C): The Mets #1 prospect has taken the league by storm. Alvarez has been above average in framing especially above the zone and has 5 blocks above average. Alvarez however has struggled in maintaining run control having -3 CS above average. At the plate, Alvarez has 6 doubles and 8 home runs on the season in 35 games with a slash line of .252/.308/.523.

Pitchers	W / L	GS	ERA	IP	SO	BB	H / R / ER	HR	WHIP	HBP	GDP
Senga, Kodai	4 - 2	10	3.44	55	70	31	43 / 21 / 21	6	1.35	0	4
Batter	Team	Games	At Bats	AVG/OBP/SLG	HR	RBI	SB / CS	SO/BB	2B / 3B / HR	Off WAR	Def WAR
Carrol, Corbin	AZ (LF)	54	188	.287/.372/.516	27	24	16 / 2	43K / 23BB	14 / 1 / 9	2.1	-0.3
Steer, Spencer	CIN (1B)	53	204	.289/.358/.500	30	28	1 / 2	47K / 21BB	15 / 2 / 8	1	-0.4
Tovar, Ezequiel	COL (SS)	54	187	.241/.286/.396	19	23	2 / 1	57K / 10BB	15 / 1 / 4	0.8	0.9
Outman, James	LAD (CF)	55	175	.234/.323/.469	28	29	6 / 1	70K / 19BB	8 / 3 / 9	0.7	-0.2
Alvarez, Francisco	NYM (C)	35	111	.252/.308/.523	14	19	0 / 0	29K / 7BB	6 / 0 / 8	1	0.3​

MLB Debuts

• 5/19 Karl Kauffmann (COL SP) - u/TEX 4.1 IP, 4 ER, 7 H
• 5/19 Patrick Bailey (SF C) - Mia 0-0
• 5/23 Bobby Miller (LAD SP) - u/ATL 5 IP, 1ER, 4 H
• 5/26 Randy Vasquez (NYY SP) - SD 4.2 IP, 2 ER, 4H
• 5/28 Andruw Monasterio (MIL 2B) - SF 0-1

Pitchers	W / L	GS	ERA	IP	SO	BB	H / R / ER	HR	WHIP	HBP	GDP
Kauffmann, Karl	0 - 3	3	11.37	12.2	7	7	22 / 17 / 16	3	2.29	1	4
Miller, Bobby	2 - 0	2	1.64	11	9	2	8 / 2 / 2	0	0.91	0	0
Vasquez, Randy	0 - 1	1	3.86	4.2	6	3	4 / 2 / 2	1	1.5	2	0
Batter	Team	Games	At Bats	AVG/OBP/SLG	HR	RBI	SB / CS	SO/BB	2B / 3B / HR	Off WAR	Def WAR
Bailey, Patrick	SF (C)	11	39	.333/.350/.564	4	12	0 / 0	11K / 1BB	3 / 0 / 2	0.6	0.2
Monasterio, Andruw	MIL (2B)	3	4	.375/.444/.375	0	0	0 / 0	3K / 1BB	0 / 0 / 0	0.1	0​

The stats I used for this analysis were prior to any games on Friday May 2nd. If you want to see all the rookies I reviewed and their stats as of me writing this I have attached a (google sheet link here)[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hMB-Eu4fowNgdKSRHoBorhtCOKr8KaTx3kYXfcUvZvc/edit?usp=sharing\]. I am primarily a Chicago Cubs fan so you will likely know more about your team than me, so I apologize if I may have overlooked or underlooked anything. Let me know if there are any memorable moments I may have missed or your own hot takes.

I can’t wait for the day to come na makaipon ako and to move out of my papa’s house. Planning to move out by Jan 2024 but mukhang mas need mapaaga due to a toxic argument today sa bahay.
For context, my kuya (has his own family) lives next door to us. The house and lot (both our house and kuya’s house) is named under my papa but since he stopped working 6 years ago, kami na ng kuya ko sumalo ng monthly ng house and natapos na rin siya last year. Btw kami na rin pala ng kuya ko gumagastos ng lahat ng expenses sa bahay.
Earlier, my kuya and papa got into a heated argument kasi my kuya was scolding his eldest child (medyo mainit rin ulo ng kuya ko today, napagbuntunan ng init ng ulo yung eldest nya) and sumabat ang tatay ko. Basically nagsigawan ang dalawa, batuhan ng kung ano ano, to the point na madami ng marites sa labas ng house namin.
Ngayong ngayon lang, my papa told me he’s gonna go to the brgy and ask my kuya to be removed from his property because sabi nya my kuya doesn’t respect him na. I retaliated na respect goes both ways. He doesn’t agree to that. He said dapat sya lang daw respetuhin.
I cried so hard, to the point where I cant feel my face and my hands and I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to go to the hospital kasi I though di na mababalik yung normal breathing ko. I was so scared. I felt like he doesn’t appreciate yung contribution namin ng kapatid ko sa bahay. I never knew such a scumbag existed. Yung puso ko punong puno ng galit. I fucking hate how he acts so tough and mighty when in fact wala siya kakainin if wala kami ng kapatid ko.
Also btw, my papa received his pension from sss starting last yr, he opted to get the lump sum (i dont fucking know why), and then this yr sinabi nya na wala na daw siya pera when in fact wala naman siya ginagastos sa bahay. Also, itong papa ko notorious rin sa pambabae nung may pera pa siya.
I cannot fucking wait to move out and cut off my papa sa buhay ko.

TLDR at the end.
The earliest I can remember in the dream was going to this huge house for a get together with friends from a new church that invited me. The house had a large TV, a very spacious living room, a line of doors north the living room that lead to another part of the house, stairs on the east of the room that lead to the outside patio, three doorways southwest of the house the lead to three rooms each with a large stain glassed window of Jesus, and to the west of the house was a kitchen that had large stairs that lead up. In this house, there were about 8 girls around my age, a medium sized dog, and a man in his late 20s - early 30s with his wife and a buddy of his. The couple and his friend decided to leave the house for some reason and I was left alone in this house with the girls and the dog. At some point, I accidentally hurt the dog (not badly though, just made him yelp) and one of the girls grabbed the dog and yelled, "I hope you never do that again. If you do that again I'll kill you. I'll kill your right here." In a fit of rage I screamed back, "Well I hope you do. I HOPE YOU DO FUCKING KILL ME!" At that moment I grabbed some of my things and ran up the stairs, however I was still missing my backpack. I looked behind me and saw the girl angrily grab an empty bottle of svedka and march up the stairs after me as I hurriedly fiddled with the shitty doorknob to the outside patio. Once I got out there the patio was mostly covered in smooth gravel with the occasional concrete squares and a metal grater close to the door that was falling in. I stood outside of the door as the girl who I pissed off as well as the other girls started throwing glass bottles at me and everyone of them missed me and shattered behind me. They were shouting at me as I was trying to explain to them that all I needed was my backpack and I would leave. A girl with blonde wavy hair walked out of the house and started shoving me and pushing her glass bottle into my arm and chest. At that moment, I realized that her pushes felt like nothing and a voice inside my head said "You're dreaming". I forcefully pushed her away and looked at the ground while I did it then looked back up only to realize the blonde girl disappeared. I looked back over at the door to see the girls staring back at me then shutting the door. I walked back into the house with the girls nowhere to be found and the dog peacefully sleeping on the floor. I walked back down the stairs and once I reached the bottom I noticed one of the girls peaking from behind one of the lines of doors from the north side of the room then slowly closing it. I realized now would be a good time to find my backpack and head home. This was when I looked into the different doorways that lead to the rooms with the stain glassed windows and thought, "Damn, this house is huge." I walked into the kitchen only to be welcomed by the man and his wife and friend walking through one of the doors that lead outside. I told him about the backpack situation and he said I would get it back after the church service and lead me up the stairs in the kitchen and it was at that moment I realized I was shirtless. I covered my breasts with my arms and walked up the stairs to a huge chapel full of people. I sat down for a few moments then decided to just leave and maybe come back later once i was dressed. Once I got home and put a shirt on I noticed how absolutely filthy my room was. There were yellow and white stains on the carpet, the windows were covered in condensation on the inside, and both of my pet's tanks (I have am axolotl and a hamster) were disgusting. I also noticed that my axolotl's bubbler was on in his tank and half the water was gone. I quickly unplugged it then stared out the window because I noticed my mom's suitcase on the floor and she was nowhere to be found so u assumed she'd be coming home soon. I first saw a woman I didn't know walk up the stairs to my house and knocked on the door and stood there then I saw my mom. I turned around only to see her already walking up the stairs to my room and I explained the situation with the bubbler. She replied, " oh its good for him" to which I said, "no, if you leave it on too long it stresses him out." I looked away and looked back only to see the bubbler on again and my axolotl vomiting became of it. Once again I turned it off and said "Keep it off, I mean it." "Oh, he likes it." "I MEAN IT!" Just then mom let out my old family dog who died 2 years ago. Her fur was completely white when it was usually brown and black and she could barely walk. She fell to the floor and started vomiting profusely with the occasional human-sounding burp in between gagging. Then I woke up. It was the craziest thing I ever dreamt.
TLDR: I went to a big church house that housed 8 girls and a dog. I hurt the dog and the girls got mad and fought me. I realized I was dreaming when I didn't feel them hurt me. They ran off and spied on me in the house when I went looking for my backpack. The man who owned the house returned with his wife and I realized I was naked at this point. He told me I would get my backpack back if I went to a church service. I went home instead to put on some clothes. At home my room was filthy and my pets were sick. I got into an argument with my mom over it.

I have always been fascinated with Little House on the Prairie and pioneer life in general. One thing I can't figure out is how they went to the bathroom during those 3-day blizzards in The Long Winter. Pa used to have to tie a rope from the house to the stable so he wouldn't get lost in a complete whiteout. I doubt they would have done the same with the outhouse due to the danger factor. Granted, at the worst of it, they were only eating a half of a baked potato a day so there probably wasn't much coming out.

FMK-3 submachine gun Submachine gun
The FMK-3 is a selective fire blowback-operated submachine gun of Argentine origin designed by Fabricaciones Militares in 1974. Around 30,000 were produced for the Argentine military by 1991.
Quick Facts Type, Place of origin ... FMK-3
Type Submachine gun Place of origin Argentina Service history In service 1974–present Used by Argentina Wars Argentine Dirty War Croatian War of Independence Falklands War Guatemalan Civil War Salvadoran Civil War Production history Manufacturer Fabricaciones Militares Produced 1974-1993 No. built 85,000 Variants See Variants Specifications Mass 3.4 kg (7.5 lb) empty Length 523 mm (20.6 in), stock folded 693 mm (27.3 in), stock extended Barrel length 290 mm (11.4 in) Cartridge 9×19mm Parabellum Action Blowback, open bolt Rate of fire 650 rounds/min Effective firing range 100 m Feed system 25, 32, and 40-round detachable box magazine Sights Flip up iron sights Close Development In the 1950s, the FMAP DM (Fábrica Militar de Armas Portables Domingo Matheu), belonging to the Dirección General de Fabricaciones Militares, acquired the production rights of a copy of the U.S. M3 A1 submachine gun, more commonly known as the "Grease Gun". This Argentine version was chambered for 9×19mm cartridges, as opposed to the .45 ACP in the original model. The DGFM released two versions called PAM 1 and PAM 2, with and without handle latch.
In the early 1970s, FMAP DM decided to change the design to use a telescoping bolt which allows a shorter weapon, and a magazine in the pistol grip. This concept was designed by Jaroslav Holecek in mid-1946 and greatly reduced the size of the weapon. He popularized the CZ-23/25 and it was later also adopted by the Israeli UZI, the Ingram MAC-10 and the Star Z-84. Thus was born the PA-3 DM, later known as the FMK-3.
At first glance, the FMK-3 may be associated with the UZI. This Argentine sub-machine gun fires the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge and hosts its magazine in the pistol grip, along with a fire selector and grip safety on the rear of the grip which must be squeezed in order to fire the weapon. Above the hand grip, is the upper receiver which houses the barrel, bolt and recoil spring.
In the first series, the FMK was presented with three versions of stocks: one-piece plastic fixed, fixed to wood, and retractable wire. On the left side of the upper receiver is located the charging handle. This has a sliding dust cover that prevents the entry of foreign materials in the interior of the weapon. On the same side but at the rear is the sling holder. In early versions, the front one is similar to the Uzi, although it went on to be captive and rotating in the shield that holds the barrel to the receiver. On the receiver aiming devices are: a hooded front post sight and a rear "L" shaped flip sight adjustable for windage and with 50 and 100 meters sight positions. It is all protected by side ears. The ejection window is small sized and is located to the right of the aforementioned drawer or upper receiver.
Overview The FMK-3 is chambered in 9×19mm Parabellum, with a rate of fire of 650 rounds per minute. 20-, 32-, and 40-round magazines are available for the FMK-3 as well as the adaption of a silencer and grenade-firing capability.
Unlike other similar submachine guns, the safety, the disconnect and auto sear the FMK-3 are located behind the handle. In this way, ahead of the trigger is only the selector mechanism of shot and the manual safety. The safety selector has a wing-type lever that is activated from the left and which presents three positions: upper intermediate, "S" (safe), "R" (repeat), and "A" (automatic fire).
As an additional security measure, the FMK-3 has a safety grip that acts in the following way: If the weapon is not correctly grasped, the safety locks the bolt. Thus, even if the gun is ready to fire, if not pressed, the bolt is blocked from closing and firing the weapon. In addition, as mentioned above, with the bolt at rest, empty chamber and the full magazine the grip safety prevents accidental discharge of the weapon drag. Therefore, it is a very safe weapon to carry in any condition.
Variants FMK-3 Main variant and the most produced variant. The FMK-3 has a retractable wire stock. Fixed stocks have been recently made that can be installed by two prongs. FMK-3s have also been adapted with picatinny rails.
FMK-4 FMK-3 with fixed stock. The fixed stock appears to be made from polymer, and similar to that found on the H&K G3.
FMK-5 The FMK-3 is also produced for the civilian market, in semi-automatic-only version as the FMK-5.
Users Argentina: Used by Law enforcement in Argentina and Argentine Army. Bolivia: Used by Bolivian Army. Croatia Guatemala: Used by the military. El Salvador: more than 600 FMK-3s received during the 1980s, used during the Salvadoran Civil War and later put into storage. Used in the 2010s by private security guards. Uruguay: Used by Uruguayan Armed Forces and National Police of Uruguay.
Next copypasta: Uzi Vz. 23 SIG SG 540 TZ-45 Madsen M-50

so, malapit na birthday ng girlfriend ko. i really want to give something na magagamit niya for med. decided to part-time muna, wala din naman akong ginagawa sa house because wala na pasok. last week, pumunta ako sa house ng aalagaan kong bata. may autism yung bata, pero go pa rin kasi i really need the money. altho, nag-alangan ako kasi may trauma ako sa mga taong may special needs (sexually harrassed when i was a kid). pero sa isip ko, baka kaya ko naman, pero i was wrong.
this morning i woke up at 6am, then pumunta na sa house nila. yung feeling na pagpasok ko palang ang sikip na ng dibdib ko. habang pinapaliguan ko siya, nagwiwisik siya to the point na basang basa ako paglabas. i changed his diaper too. gusto kong umiyak. gusto kong umuwi nalang agad. then as a someone na may trauma sa maiingay na bagay or tao, everytime na pinupukpok niya yung pader-- gusto kong umiyak. kapag may gusto siya sasaktan niya yung sarili niya. it was a messed, but yung tao sa house nila normal nalang sa kanila. i was in shocked talaga. pinigilan ko siya kasi i was worried na baka magkasugat siya. kinurot niya ako, sobrang lala na kurot. at that time, iniisip ko na na first and last day ko na dito. hindi ko talaga kaya. gusto ko pa magstay kasi malaki din yung sweldo and iniisip ko yung jowa ko huhu. sorry baby :( kakauwi ko lang, grabe yung sakit ng katawan ko. mentally and physicall drained ako.
grabe salute ako sa may mga relatives na may special needs. pano niyo nagagawang maging strong? grabe, di ko kinaya ng one day what more pa kaya sa iba diba. hindi siya talaga biro. ngayon iniisip ko saan kaya ako kukuha ng pera. ayoko naman humingi kasi mapride po akong tao huhu

Today will be again much like yesterday with scattered pop up storms especially west of Kansas City. Yesterday's activity over Lenexa produced a very fast 0.46" at my house, along with real neat cloud features driving back from Lawrence from a Birthday.
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Tomorrow we may do it again too - today's best chance of rain is after 6 PM and tomorrow between 1 and 4 PM. This said, there is nothing extremely organized showing up except a backdoor cold front around the 11th.
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Typical summer weather. Get out and enjoy the pools!

Company Name	Title	City
Erickson Senior Living	Healthcare Marketing Associate	Parkville
Penguin Random House	Marketing Aide	New York
Penguin Random House	Marketing Assistant	New York
Penguin Random House	Sales Marketing Assistant, Crown Publishing Group	Yonkers
Karat Financial	Head of Marketing	Los Angeles
Genomatica	Vice President of Product Marketing	San Diego
Thomson Reuters	Sales Executive, Digital Marketing (West Coast)	San Diego
Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Inc.	Vice President, Marketing	San Diego
Weights & Biases	Head of Product Marketing	San Francisco
Rippling	Product Marketing Manager	San Francisco
GoodRx	Director, B2B Lifecycle Marketing	Santa Monica
HNI Corp	Marketing Manager	Muscatine
Thermacell Repellents, In	Digital Marketing Coordinator	Bedford
Cornerstone Research	Chief Marketing Officer	Boston
Confidential	Marketing Director	Waltham
Erickson Senior Living	Director of Talent Development, Sales Marketing & Communications	Baltimore
Masco Corporation	Brand Marketing Manager	Novi
First American	Product Marketing Manager - Remote	Portland
The Travelers Companies, Inc	AVP, Integrated Marketing Strategy	Philadelphia
Foxtrot	Senior Vice President of Marketing	Dallas
LendingTree	Email Marketing Manager	Seattle
Foley & Lardner	Senior Manager, Business Development & Marketing	Milwaukee
CHI Living Communities	Immediate Openings Director Of Marketing Riverview Place Fargo	West Fargo
Cégep Héritage College	Conseiller ou Conseillère en marketing et en communication	Gatineau
Société des casinos du Québec	Chargé(e) de projet - Marketing	La Malbaie

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in . Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!