Apartments for rent in florence co

My mom is 65 and my dad is 70. They would like to retire, but are unsure about the path forward.
These are my parents’ current details: - Rent 3br apartment, considering buying a house to rent out or live in. - Live in high cost of living area - Own 2 cars - No debt - Their joint income, including my father’s SS, is about 400k. - They historically have poor spending habits/budgeting abilities, and have previously had a lot of debt, so their savings are not where they should be. - My father has stock worth 700K in the company he works for. He can liquidate now but is waiting for it to grow. - My father has life insurance through his employer
They would like to retire soon. My question is, are they in a comfortable position to do so?

This paper by Maya Gudka and co-authors explores the potential positive impacts of social media use, through a meta-analysis of 118 prior studies (spanning 7 social media platforms, 50K+ participants, and 26 countries). They classify outcomes of interest into the following categories: relationships, engagement & meaning, identity, subjective wellbeing, optimism mastery, autonomy/body. From the abstract:

Background: Over 50% of the world uses social media. There has been significant academic and public discourse around its negative mental health impacts. There has not, however, been a broad systematic review in the field of Positive Psychology exploring the relationship between social media and wellbeing, to inform healthy social media use, and to identify if, and how, social media can support human flourishing.
Objectives: To investigate the conditions and activities associated with flourishing through social media use, which might be described as ‘Flourishing through Social Media’.
Method and Results: A systematic search of peer reviewed studies, identifying flourishing outcomes from usage, was conducted, resulting in 118 final studies across 7 social media platforms, 50,000+ participants, and 26 countries.
Conclusions: The interaction between social media usage and flourishing is bi-directional and nuanced. Analysis through our proposed conceptual framework suggests potential for a virtuous spiral between self-determination, identity, social media usage, and flourishing.

This seems like a really useful reference for folks interested in studying subjective outcomes related to the use of social media and online communities. Are you doing work exploring the relationship between social media use and personal or collective subjective outcomes? Tell us about it!
Article available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17439760.2021.1991447?needAccess=true&role=button

Hi, I am a graduating student (Course: BS Com Sci) A little backstory, I didn't like my course but thankfully I am graduating on time. I was asked and forced to took it by my oldest brother. This post is a bit long but please I need advice :C
I have lesser skills, my programming knowledge i basically zero and I am only good at designing but never on development. I have several job offers coming from our Department Faculty, my oldest brother, and from my tito. However, I am currently experiencing a personal crisis/issues sa mga offer nila.
•Dept Faculty
Pros: - Under ng govt project. (Research & Development) - Salary is impressive for entry-level position - Job description is easy - I'll be working with my thesis mates 🥰
Cons: - Delay lagi ang sahod especially for part timers/contractual agreement - Malayo yung papasukan ko if ever ma-push ko
Issue ko: - Will need to pay for monthly rent, eh paano ko mababayaran kung laging delay ang magiging sahod ko? - Ito rin yung first job offer na natanggap ko bilang unemployed, hindi ba may kasabihan na masama raw tanggihan ang pinaka unang offer na work?
•Brother's offer He has a start up company (web/mobile dev) and he's offering me for a co-founder position.
Pros: - Co-founder agad - Mabango sa resumé
Cons: - Di ko sure kung papasahurin niya ako or ano kasi wala naman sinabi na meron - My skills are not vast enough to help him build it.
Issue ko: - Hindi naman dahil ayaw ko sa offer niyang work pero siya ang ayaw kong makatrabaho.
•Tito as my backer
Pros: - Easy makapasok sa work - Known company yung papasukan if ever
Cons: - I don't know what work I might end up with
Issues: - It's cheating 😭 Alam ko naman na sa totoong buhay ay connections talaga ang kailangan pero hindi ko talaga kaya pa magawang magsend ng resume/cv sa kaniya para magtrabaho 😭

Looking to see if this is actually justified/legal.
I’m currently living alone and have already renewed my lease for July 2023. My boyfriend and I decided to live together and have him move in with me. So I asked my landlord if it was possible to add his name on the lease as well for July 2023.
He said it was no problem but seeing as there would be an additional person, the “usage of the apartment would not be the same and therefore the price would need to be adjusted”. He wants to increase the rent again since we are to modify the lease.
Is this legal? I can’t find any information on the TAL website.

At the start of lap 54, the gap between Verstappen and Alonso was 12.365s. At the end of lap 54, the last timing loop before Alonso pits records the gap as 8.177s. Alonso exits the pits and the gap grows to 26.115s.
Verstappen is now on his in-lap and really struggling on very old mediums. He runs wide at Portier and clips the barrier. By the time both he and Alonso get back to the pits next time around, the gap has fallen drastically to 19.946s. Alonso gained 6.159s even on his fresh mediums!
The question is: would he have gained even more time, and thus made up the 8.177s gap, on fresh intermediates?
To analyse this claim, we can check the sector times of drivers already on inters and compare their pace to Verstappen.
I can't compare the sector 3 times because Verstappen pits, and I can't use the mini sectors for Sargeant, Tsunoda, Bottas, Zhou and Albon because they were lapped, so I have decided to just compare sectors 1 and 2.
For the drivers exiting the pits, I have added 2 seconds to their time gained to account for the pit lane speed limit and slower route through turn 1.

Lap 55	Sector 1	Sector 2	Time gained	Notes
Verstappen	28.610	55.513
Sargeant	26.987 (pit exit)	48.440	-11.353
Tsunoda	27.933 (pit exit)	47.660	-10.520
Bottas	24.529	49.612	-9.982	Yellow for Sainz + stuck behind Leclerc and Hulk on slicks in S2
Ocon	27.678 (pit exit)	48.771	-9.674	Yellow for Stroll/Russell
Hamilton	27.422 (pit exit)	47.069	-11.632	Yellow for Stroll/Russell
Zhou	24.778	49.642	-9.703	Yellow for Stroll/Russell + blue flags for Hamilton
Albon	25.792	47.123	-11.208	Yellow for Stroll/Russell

Here's an image of the track map after Alonso's first stop, he was in clean air roughly 5s behind Tsunoda (also on inters).
The timing data for the other drivers shows that if Alonso matched their pace he would have undercut Verstappen quite comfortably. Furthermore, he was ahead of the Sainz/Stroll/Russell incidents and so wouldn't have had to slow down for yellows.

Hiya :) I'm looking to move back to newcastle after somehow trapping myself in the south east of england for five years (stupidly moved back home after graduating uni and then the pandemic and life got in the way).
Does anyone have any advice/tips for moving to Newcastle in terms of job finding, flat finding etc? I'm applying for jobs at the moment and currently working for the NHS as a medical secretary, so have been looking on the NHS jobs website etc. Not really sure where else to look aside from the usual Indeed type websites.
I'm a bit worried that even if I do find a job, I'm going to struggle to find somewhere to live as I've only ever lived in newcastle as a student. I do have friends that will put me up temporarily, but no idea what the renting market is like up there nowadays. Has anyone done anything similar recently? I'm wanting to live on my own and avoid flat shares if possible.
Would appreciate any tips/advice on how to escape the south, thank you :)

hello everyone, im traveling to abudhabi next week and i could not find anything online (i mean physical agency and not online booking) if any one of you knows is there a agency or a rental shop in the airaport and is it worth renting a car there or no and how much was it for you?
thank you in advance ❤️

In recent years.. Motorola has launched some of the best value for money phones and I would like it if Marques would review the major ones.. not all of em, but some of the major ones. For example I've been using edge 20 pro for the past 1.5+ years it has a 10bit 144hz OLED, SD 685, 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage and it offers a clean stock Android experience... The closest to pixel apart from pixel of course. I would like to see if the team could feature a Motorola phone in a short or a dedicated video. What are your thoughts?

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I'm honestly surprised it took this long for the Adderall shortage to hit my state, seeing as I've been hearing about it for a really long time now. Didn't have any issues until last week, I called for my last refill, no pharmacies have my medicine anywhere near me. I've been raw-dogging the ADHD for about a week now.
My current hyperfixation is baking and pickling. Pickling is really easy and fun to do. You can pickle literally everything y'all, and it's fairly cheap tbh. And it's so customizable. Decided to mess around and make spicy pickles seasoned with some basic pickling spices and Tapatio...Literally so good. I also invested in a bread maker, I feel like little miss Holly Homemaker with all the bread I'm making. Also fun, easy, and super customizable. And it makes your apartment/house smell really good. I've also been trying my hand at cakes and cake decorating. Definitely takes a lot of practice and patience, but super fun.
Anyway, since I've been unmedicated, I cannot stop making food. I'm even cooking, and I hate cooking. I spent the last 2 days preparing food and treats to take to my parents' place today for Memorial Day, even though they're not grilling or really doing anything for Memorial Day, just seemed like a good excuse to put my hyperfixations to use lol. I made chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow buttercream, lemon cupcakes with strawberry buttercream, a lemon blueberry tart, baklava for my dad, pickled jalapeños and carrots, queso, a loaf of bread with garlic and parmesan cheese, southwestern chicken salad, deviled eggs, and jalapeños poppers! Basically everything is made from scratch. I've been moving non-stop for a few days. Feeling kinda bad for my roommate, she hasn't had much time to make her own food since I've been monopolizing the kitchen...She hasn't said anything though.
I also bought the stuff to make layered red, white, and blue drinks! I'm not really that patriotic, but the science behind layered drinks is fascinating to me! 7Up with grenadine, blue gatorade, and regular 7Up...The different densities allow the liquids to layer instead of mix, HOW COOL?! I know that's like, basic 5th grade science, but I love it, even as an adult.
I also bought some chips and dip for my family to eat while I finish preparing some of the food, since some of it couldn't be fully made ahead of time. Also bought a watermelon, but my father will have to cut that up (I nearly cut off a finger attempting to cut a melon without permission/supervision in 5th grade, haven't been able to feel the top half of that finger for about 12 years now lol). Might make a 7 layer dip or something too...
Anyway, I'll just deal with the consequences of all the money I've spent on food and baking/cooking tools later...That's a future me problem. Past and present me are loving all the cooking/baking/pickling!
I need my Adderall...And soon lol. Everyone says I'm more "fun" without it, which is probably true, but medicated me would be a little more conservative with all the food and money...Oh well. It is what it is. Hopefully everyone enjoys my treats! If everyone is happy and enjoying themselves, it'll be worth it! Hope my US friends are enjoying the long weekend!

About me: I am a single person in my early 30s. I work in tech and make £70k pa before tax. My monthly take home is ~£3600. I have a chronic illness, but can do my job mostly working from home and the condition is currently managed fairly well. However, even though I love my job, working 5 days a week full time may not be sustainable for me in the long run. If my health deteriorates in the future, I need to be prepared so that if I become unable to work FT or at all, that I could still live well and enjoy life. I want to be prepared for this but I’ve never been very financially savvy before and I’m learning a lot from groups like and this and reading MSE etc. I’ve taken a few steps lately which feel like a start: - tracked down pension pots and put all of them except the current one into PensionBee - moved all my debt into 0% interest options and started saving to pay it all off by June 2024 - opened a chip instant access account and started to put away the money needed to pay off 0% card debt when the periods expire - opened a first direct monthly saver 7% - paying the NI on incomplete years
About my parents situation: I’m currently paying my parents mortgage which went from 0.25% last summer to 4.5% this week, so the last payment was ~£2000 which is awful but this is hopefully temporary. I got some excellent advice from ukpersonalfinance a few months ago on how to sort out my parents mortgage problem, and have now helped them understand that they could sell our current home and still buy a lovely home a bit further out and become mortgage free. They might even have about £200k left (after stamp duty and fees etc). This depends on the eventual sale price and also if they find something they like on the lower end of their budget. They offered to give me £50k towards a flat deposit which is very kind but I’m not sure if I should accept it. Being immigrants my parents did the best they could, and they have been lucky with the house being worth ~5-6x what they bought it for; but they took some bad advice and made some poor decisions with the mortgage and one is on DLA and the other has been self-employed with no private pension. Both will get state pension eventually.
My current wish list/ vaguely informed plan: - buy a flat for myself in London close to work, ideally a 2 bedroom so I have a guest room/study or could even rent a room. Ideally this is without accepting the £50k from my parents - explained in the next point - I am thinking to move with them to their new place in the first instance, support them there and save for my flat deposit myself at the same time. Then with their £200k I want to help them to invest it and generate an income to support themselves so I won’t have to support them from my salary, which in the long term might be better than accepting the money for the deposit.
So my questions are: 1) Do you think my current ideas are realistic/wise? 2) What can I start doing immediately (if anything) to put myself on the path to FIRE? 3) Did any of you become disabled young? If so, what would you advise me to do to make sure my health condition doesn’t impact my FI? 4) What is the best way to utilise my parents’ £200k to make them FI so they won’t need to depend on my income forever more? Even when they both get state pension it won’t be enough to run their new house on.
Sorry for the long post, but any advice would be really helpful here and much appreciated. Thank you so much in advance!

The community managers of our building in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, have decided take away roof access from non-domicile owners.
We rent, so our roof access will be revoked. Only live-in owners will have access. More than half of the people living in the building rent. There are no Airbnbs, all are long-term tenants.
Facts:

• It's an old building in Barcelona's old town.
• The only way out is either down or up a single staircase. (You can climb over to other buildings via the roof.)
• If there were to be a fire lower down, we would not be able to escape via the roof. There are bars on the windows, and the door is metal. So we'd be cooked alive in the building or have to jump several stories down.
• Apart from 2 landlords, all of them voted in favour of this decision.
• We weren't invited to any of the meetings where they decided this.
• Edit: The community roof is unused apart from laundry lines. It's a large, empty space. The apartments directly under it are all inhabited by renters.

Can they do this? What are our rights?

The Nature of Predators was created by u/SpacePaladin15.
Special thanks to u/Saint-Andros for giving feedback on this first chapter's draft!
This is my first time writing a fanfic, or any multi-chapter story for that matter. Updates are likely to be slow and inconsistent. Your feedback is definitely appreciated, so if you have anything to say please leave a comment!
I hope you enjoy.
===
THE FOLLOWING PROGRAM IS RATED [TV-MA-HM] (FOR HUMAN-STANDARD MATURE AUDIENCES) AND CONTAINS:
- ADULT OR "PREDATOR-LIKE" THEMES
- COARSE LANGUAGE
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
===
SLEEPWALK
CREATED BY NEKAN AND SIMON GREY
1 - Prologue to a Nightmare
===
JULY 8, 2136
Walk in, be polite, do your job, walk out, and no more.
It was the five-step mantra my feathered friend had given me to get me through the working days, and it’s served me quite well for the past couple of years. His voice was always a soothing guide, repeatedly ringing in the back of my head like a well-meaning wake-up call.
I was getting on in my years a little, at least it felt like it, so I still gladly accepted his help even after all this time. He was a polite fellow, almost as old as I was but far more able and proficient. Maybe he cared about me a little too much as he did many things for my convenience—he even got me my janitorial job in the first place—but who was I to turn away such a good friend?
I gave a satisfied tail swish as I said goodbye to Fevri, the receptionist’s lovely tone a soft farewell. The end of every shift always came with a calming walk back to my apartment building, like an extra treat for all the helpful work I’ve done. It was far enough from the office for the time to last but close enough to not be tiring, giving me a moment to appreciate the ambiance of the Capital and ‘mull things over’ as my friend would always encourage.
Well, mulling things over, almost everything was in its place. My job was still good; I was doing good. I was good!
My friend just hasn’t been visiting lately, which is fine. It’s happened a few times before, and he’s told me what to do to get through the day so many times that I know his instructions like the back of my paw.
I just hope he’s doing well too, and that he’ll be back soon to give me some medicine again to stop my recent headaches.
I didn’t know why, but recently I’ve been expecting something to happen to me. Something bad or good, I didn’t know. But this sort of feeling and the headaches always came up when I didn’t take my medicine.
My friend’s voice softly chided me, his advice echoing from the past. “Remember, Havan: you can’t get the medicine from any other doctor. You’ll get hurt and taken away from your home.”
The air was colder today. Strangely, I knew that for whatever reason it wasn’t why I felt a shiver go through me. I had no reason to be afraid, I was good! Always good!
I walked through the apartment building’s front door and swiftly made my way to my own unit. Before, it was much easier to push that feeling of—fear?—aside. Maybe something bad is coming this way.
Right to my doorstep.
I hurriedly locked the door behind me.
I shed my jumpsuit and tool belt, setting them aside on a rack. The jumpsuit wasn’t particularly dirty—for now, at least—so I could just have it washed some other time. My friend would understand. He always did. I just hope he’ll be back soon with more of my medicine. I don’t want to be bad.
After a small meal, it was time for bed. I couldn’t eat more as the headache was getting worse by the minute, ending my appetite.
My paws placed themselves over my forehead like useless cushions. The worst was yet to come; the bad dreams would arrive the moment I fell asleep. Sometimes, even the medicine wasn’t enough to stop them from invading my head like a predator on the hunt.
They were mostly the same. A woman and her child: a dream repeated forever like the infinity of space.\
For some reason, I felt like I should know them.
Whenever I tried to look at their faces, I could feel something rip my gaze away with claw and fanged force—when I could see them at the edges of my eyes, their empty faces were nothing but smudged paint on a watery canvas. Just out of reach, an orange-eyed predator snarled behind them.
It always scared me.
I’ve tried talking to my friend about it many times, but he never wanted to hear it. He’d look away and tell me to let it go, just take the medicine and forget the nightmares.
He was like me in the dream.
I hope he’ll be back soon.
Sometimes, he’d look ready to tell me something—staring straight at me mid-conversation. Then, he’d just look away all tired and heavy, deflating like someone had given him a weight to carry. He’d usually take his leave whenever those moments happened: “Farewell, Havan. See you next time.”
Now that I think about it, he also looked like that whenever I told him about the dream. Maybe he wished he could know them too.
​
​
JULY 11, 2136
I’m losing track, I think. I’m not sure. I’ve got a slow-burning headache that just won’t leave, simmering every part of my mind it could get its claws on. I can barely keep myself upright most of the time; I had to call in sick yesterday. My friend’s still not back with more medicine.
Medicine for what; I didn’t even know anymore.
Wake up.
“Shit… d-dammit,” I managed to croak out before hurling the rest of my lunch into the toilet. The act of cursing was paradoxically unknown yet familiar to my tongue—like an old routine left untouched for years.
All my dreams were relentless and mocking—I was rendered helpless to their onslaught. I couldn’t tell what was real and what was cruel imagination. In fact, the only things that felt real were the solid and smooth toilet and the force of my vomiting. I held on for dear life to save myself from the vortex churning around me.
A singular thought beckoned me again, a glaring beacon in a foggy sea of pain: ‘Wake up.’
There was nothing else to wake up to.
“DAMMIT!” I repeated before unceremoniously slumping back onto the floor. Something within me was changing—rapidly and viscerally. I was a stranger in my own body, adrift in a world far removed from the one I knew. I couldn’t breathe.
Someone was knocking on my door, calling my name.
I dragged myself out of the bathroom, feverish and frail, ignoring that weak voice in my head that asked: ‘What if it wasn’t your friend?’
I needed anything. Anything at all.
My body moved on its own, paws desperately reaching the doorknob. Somehow, I managed to unlock the door. It wasn’t my friend.
I would’ve screamed if I had the strength left for it. Instead, my legs gave way; my back eagerly greeted its old friend: the floor. Dragging myself backward with my vision blurred and hearing muted, the stranger came inside—crossing the threshold that marked my safety from the things my friend warned me about.
“Please… don’t hurt me…”
But the stranger marched on, grabbing ahold of me.
I curled into a pathetic shield, attempting to cover as much of myself as possible. Somehow, it all still felt like I was falling.
Through the blur, I heard the stranger’s voice. “Havan! It’s just me!”
Fevri?
The realization was a bullet through the skull, rattling my brain into something like focus. There it was: the receptionist’s young and frightened face. Lying in the hallway beyond the open door was a basket full of goods that were probably meant for me.
Whoops.
“Let’s get you lying down somewhere comfortable, okay? You need to rest. I’ll call a doctor—”
My head snapped back up. “No! Y-you shouldn’t! You can’t!”
“O-okay! Okay. No doctors. I’m sorry,” she reassuringly patted my shoulders after having dragged me to the side of my couch. “Look, forget that I ever mentioned it. Now, I need to pull you up onto the couch; is that fine with you?”
I limply nodded. I probably didn’t have the strength to do something as simple as that by myself.
Fevri pulled me up while that all too familiar voice in the back of my head spoke again: ‘She better keep her word, or I’ll…’
​
…
​
I didn’t finish that thought. What the hell was that all about? I wasn’t a violent man.
Was I? I can’t even recall who I am anymore. The vortex of dreams overtook me again, Fevri’s voice fading away as she momentarily left my side to grab the basket outside.
I was alone once again.
A predator’s face revealed itself in the blood-orange veil of my brain, sneering as it revealed itself to be the beckoning voice echoing through my skull.
‘WAKE UP.’
I fell.
I don’t know what it would mean if I’ll ‘wake up.’ Powerless, I lost myself to a seemingly infinite and dark slumber.
​
​
JULY 12, 2136
I arrived at the light at the end of the tunnel, the bottom of the bottomless pit.
My eyes opened, and a strange sense of peace washed over me. Coming from the television were alarm clock tones, an emergency broadcast stuck on the screen. ‘Predator arrival,’ ‘evacuate,’ and ‘await further instructions’ were the only phrases I took note of before rising from the couch.
This wasn’t my home.
The window blinds were closed throughout my apartment. Outside, the city was deathly silent. I didn’t need to look to know that there were likely a few bodies lying face-down on the street, casualties of panicked stampedes to the bunkers.
What happened to me?
Decades of half-remembered memories flooded outward, smashing through the dam of my mind. To my horror, I realized this was the first time I’d felt my heartbeat in a long, long while.
My Krakotl ‘friend’ was an exterminator; he always wore his uniform whenever he visited me. The medication was for predator disease.
I’m not ‘Havan.’ I didn’t use to be, and I couldn’t remember my real name.
The woman and child in my dreams were my wife and son—
With no other outlet for my frightened rage, I resorted to slamming my foot into the side of an empty trash can.
I gritted my teeth as pain shot up through my leg. For the first time, I felt the stiffness and aching that came with being middle-aged and taking those damn predator disease pills for years. Twenty years. I’d been out of it for twenty fucking miserable years.
A small part of me wished I stayed ‘asleep.’ I cast the thought aside almost immediately.
The exterminator had never given his name. How convenient. I had nowhere to go.
I should be weeping.
My head turned towards the bedroom door as Fevri walked out, clearly having just woken up. “W-what’s going on? What was that noise? Oh, Havan, you’re awake!”
“Nothing,” I winced, forcing the scowl off my face. “I just… accidentally knocked a trash can over. I should be the one asking you what’s going on.”
Fevri shook her head, trying to focus through her drowsiness. “Uhm, alarms started ringing out through the city, and that emergency broadcast said it was predators. N-nothing’s happened, though. It’s been about an hour and a half since it started, but it’s been so quiet.”
“You stayed.”
That seemed to wake her up. “I couldn’t leave you—you could’ve gotten hurt if something did happen! I… I couldn’t ask for help bringing you to the nearest shelter—everyone else was too busy trying to get themselves into safety.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say to that. I sat back down on the couch, rubbing my paws across my face as I mulled over everything.
I bet my past self had never felt as lost as I did at this moment. All I could feel was the weight of my newfound clarity and my current confusion—a balancing act of anguish and pain.
“Is something wrong, Havan? Don’t worry about the predator raid; if nothing’s happened so far then we’re probably safe and sound.”
“No, it’s…”
I paused myself. Did I actually want to tell Fevri everything? She was only an acquaintance from work.
But she did stick around and help me. That said a lot about the kind of person she is.
Call it foolishness, call it loneliness—I told the truth, recounting everything I could to her. Right now, she was the only friend I had. She was horrified, of course, but surprisingly it was directed to my circumstances rather than myself.
Fevri sat down beside me, placing a sympathetic paw on my shoulder. “I know it isn’t much, but… I’m really sorry. I thought—we all thought…”
“Thought what?”
“Well, we always had a feeling that you had some form of predator disease. You were amicable, sure, but you were always… distant? Plus, you never talked about your family and always dodged questions about them. We all thought you lost them to a raid and it just made sense to us.”
She nervously flicked her tail. “Guess we weren’t entirely wrong, in a messed up way. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
I sighed, flicking my ears dismissively to show I wasn’t offended. Everything else about me would always be worse by comparison, a pillar of distress as strong as an Arxur’s jaw and equally as biting.
What else can I do now? I have no leads. All I had were blurry faces and names I didn’t know.
…
Why’d he stop?
It made no sense for my ‘friend’ to suddenly stop medicating me for weeks. The fact that he had consistent access to medication to give me made me suspect that he was an exterminator-specialist, which would also make him a doctor specializing in treating predator-diseased individuals like me.
In fact, none of what he did made any sense at all. Why go through the effort of giving me a false name—to give me instructions on how to live by myself and dodge questions?
He had been trying to protect me. Was it a fucked up way of doing it? Absolutely, but it didn’t change the fact that he actually helped. For all I knew, he was the one thing stopping me from finding a new home in a correctional facility.
My tail twitched with irritation. Fevri looked expectantly at me. “What now?”
“I don’t know. I guess looking for the exterminator to get some answers would be my safest bet, but I’m not walking to the nearest guild office or the damn headquarters to ask for him.”
“Maybe I can? After the lockdown, anyway.”
“I don’t know. Honestly, this sounds like a stupid idea,” I shook my head, another sigh escaping from my lips. “Hell, I’m lucky you still want to help me for some damn reason I can’t think of.”
To my surprise, she let out an amused snort. “It’s the right thing to do?”
“I’m predator-diseased. Probably dangerous in some way.”
“Well, you won’t hurt me, will you? Besides, you look like you really need the help.”
She didn’t get my point, but fine. I guess that answer was enough for now.
Fevri must’ve noticed my reluctance, making her continue. “Look, you don’t seem to be a bad man. Just… someone caught up in something really horrible. Everyone back in the office—myself included—liked you and felt sorry for you, you know? That hasn’t changed with me, at least.”
“Alright, alright,” I stood up from the couch, giving in to the receptionist’s offer. There was something else that made her want to stick around; I wasn’t an idiot.
For now? I couldn’t doubt her. She’s my only real friend; anything is better than being alone.
“I’m gonna clean up.”
She gave a nod of acknowledgment as I entered the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I stared at the unfamiliar visage in the mirror, examining every little line and nick that marked my face. The graying Venlil in front of me was someone else entirely.
I was old. I was exhausted. I was likely insane—but I was awake.
My true trial is just beyond the walls of my apartment building once the lockdown ends. The past twenty years of being lost and asleep had only served as a prologue to a nightmare.
The worst was yet to come.

I've had my tabby (2F) for about a week and she's had this 'scratch' on her neck. At first I didn't really notice but today it's actually grown quite a bit. I'm going to schedule her with the vet. It's less a scratch but more of a circle and you can see red (but it's not actually bleeding). I think our kitten may have made it worse because he's very aggressive when play fighting.
Here's a picture. Is there anything I can do currently? I'm very concerned and she's also getting spayed tomorrow. We live in Ontario. Other info that might be important is that she had kittens around 2 months ago, but I didn't have her at that time.

Hi, I'm looking for advice as I have started working on my PhD thesis(machine learning) and organizing the sections. I did an internship lastyear (during my PhD) that yielded two publications. Both works arerelevant to my PhD research however I did not include my PhD advisor as aco-author in one of them (the paper was published with co-authors fromthe internship only). I'd like to include both papers as chapters in mythesis because they are building blocks of the thesis idea.
Is it strange to include work that was during a summer internship? Appreciative of any advice!

Its doing wonders. Cbt is so effective f0r me. I havent gambled in weeks. Www.gamcare.co.uk
Ive been reestablishing goals, finding new fun activities, buying stuff ive needed for months.
Best of luck gang.

My edible was hitting right as Ms. K’s AMC ad started before LITTLE MERMAID, and it got me thinking about this:
What sets the AMC ad apart from other things and made it a meme is that it is not trying to pander to kids. The vibe is chic, she’s not watching cartoons or schlock, and it was created to give AMC a sense of elegance.
Which of course brought me to the Internet memeificaion & cultural response to SUCCESSION and a lesser extent TÁR. For those of us who have come of age in an influx of media that is pitched squarely at 19 year olds & 4-quadrant viewers, I think comfort is found in media with moral ambiguity and unabashed attempts to feel upper-crust.
(And yes this is coming from a largely white millennial liberal east coast perspective)
Is this just the weed talking or am I on the right track with this theory? Obviously this isn’t the only media that could be applied here.
Blank it.

Primer was produced for 7000 dollars.
Like Neil, its largely the work of one man. It is written, directed, produced, edited, scored, and had cinematography by, the same guy who also co stared as one of the films leads.
He's basically doing what Neil Breen does but he does it right. He produces the hardest scifi ever seen in movie form and creates a story with a wonderfully twisted time travel plot

Hi guys! It's almost my birthday! I usually go to Vegas for it but this year I wanted to spend time with my mates and enjoy the day at home. I plan on throwing a sort of BBQ party in my backyard where I smoke a lot of meat for it and have people bring sides, beer, etc. Almost 90% of people in attendance will be from my Muay Thai gym.
I plan on having:
- A pinata filled with mini liquor bottles, maybe some knuckle wraps, little fun toys
- Waterguns
- A few sports items (soccer balls, football)
- Beer pong (obviously)
I feel like there should maybe be one or two more activities that I have included, but I'm not sure what. Honestly after a few drinks we usually start to play fight each other, so there's always that. Maybe I can rent a projector and put UFC fights on the side of my shed? But what else could I do in my backyard? It's pretty sizeable.
TIA for any suggestions you might have!

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