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sometipsygnostalgic · 4 years

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It’s been a long decade

This time 10 years ago, I was 14, sneaking onto my brother’s computer, waiting for the new year with @alphahas and a bunch of others on the Roblox forums.

That doesn’t begin to express how much my life has changed this decade, but for some reason, it’s one of the most memorable parts.

In 2010 - I gained my first drop of internet fame making DBZ-themed Roblox clothing, dropped out of school for 3 months leading up to the summer holidays, bingeread all the Twilight books, decided that my education was more important than my feelings about getting bullied, went back into school, got my first Xbox and Laptop, and began playing on Xbox Live 6 hours a day.

In 2011 - I ditched Twilight for Discworld, made some new school friends for the first time in my life, played a LOT of Left 4 Dead 2 with my sister, got my heart broken by Modern Warfare 3, and at the end of the year, I moved in with my dad and his fiance for the first time - moving from a shitty, overcrowded, unclean house into a strict environment where yes I do have to shower every day, and yes I do eat proper food with actual utensils rather than used paper plates.

In 2012 - My dad and his fiance split up and kicked me back down to my mother’s house just before my GCSEs began, and I was obviously very unhappy about this, so I decided to bingewatch Adventure Time across the 3 weeks they took place. Fortunately my GCSEs survived the fallout. I became inspired to draw Adventure Time art, massively improved my digital art style within the space of a couple months, and opened my first tumblr blog dedicated to analysing Adventure Time.

In 2013 - My blog kicked off, I was making plenty of friends during my A-levels, and I was deeply enjoying school for the first time ever. On top of this, my dad finally got a place of his own and invited me to live with him. I’m still living with him now and the quality of life is much better, everything is much cleaner, we have actual heating, I’m actually clean, I had a stable food source, I cannot describe how much the change benefitted my life. Even if he is an unstable moody bastard. Oh, also, I read Homestuck.

In 2014 - I got really fit at the start of the year going to gym 3 times a week, then I studied AMERICAN POLITICS in A-level (which 2 years later I’d deeply regret). I did better in my A-levels this year than the previous year, so evened out to B’s all round. It might have been better if my good sociology teacher didn’t get sacked for accidentally sabotaging every health and social care student... Applied for university and got a placement in the best uni in Wales. Started Uni. Had tons of money for first time. Got fat very quickly, RIP my weight. Got depressed and lonely in Halls. Hated politics classmates. At the end of the year I deleted my Adventure Time blog, and.... started getting really into Homestuck.

In 2015 - Opened up this blog (hello it’s been 5 fucking years!!!), slouched off in university, became a massive Terezi stan, drew lots of Homestuck comics. I ate a tons of Quiche as well. It was okay. I’m going to be honest, other than this blog taking off not a lot of interesting things happened to me in 2015. However, Undertale came out this year, so that was cool.

In 2016 - Found Dad increasingly difficult to live with as he was getting frustrated with... everything about me, for some reason. It sucked. Brexit happened, the US election happened, Homestuck Act 7 happened, Hiveswap went off the map. I don’t remember much about this year and I’m glad for it because I was not happy. I think this is when I joined the Homestuck Reddit though/

In 2017 - Graduated University!!!! Volunteered in a charity shop for a few months whilst looking for a job, did 5 weeks of crappy work experience in a job centre. What else happened this year? I’m sure it was a lot of things but really I can’t remember. Got myself a Nintendo Switch. Became a permanent member of the Homestuck Discord.

In 2018 - I secured myself a job! Hooray!!!! This alleviated the tensions with my dad, because he was happy that I was finally working. We’ve been on good terms since. As irritating as working in customer service for 8 hours a day can be, I liked that I was doing something all the time and the year could be a memorable one for that reason, rather than fading away like the previous 3 years had. The year was capped off by Deltarune, and being given a fuckton of wine by work contractors.

In 2019 - A lot of terrible videogames came out earlier this year but it was mitigated by the release of DMC5, which must be cherished by all. I was put on short-time in January after the first Reckoning, then I got my full hours back in March when given a new role. Then our main client went into administration, and the OMEGA-Reckoning happened and everybody else in my tier lost their jobs with me as the sole survivor. We had no wine this year either, which is the saddest thing honestly. Later in the year I started taking up driving lessons, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to drive by spring, though my instructor thinks that is too optimistic. I’ve found driving tough because of how my brain works; I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, so when I’m doing something right I’m usually doing something else wrong.

What am I doing today - Sitting here playing Persona Q2 and humming the new Pokemon OP to myself because it is catchy. I will probably open the champaigne soon.

From 10 years ago I’ve grown significantly. It’s almost like I experienced my teen years later, because I was so stunted from how I lived. I feel like it’s only now I’m reaching the maturity level, and degree of self respect, to call myself an adult. I’ve always struggled with relating to people offline as well, but... I’m growing okay with that. Who needs other people anyway? They just bring in drama. If I’m comfortable being by myself, there’s nothing wrong with that.

#personal

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wth-storylocke-archive · 2 years

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Chapter 23: That’s what friends are for!

🍃 Nuzforums: https://nuzlockeforums.com/forum/posts/865837 💾 AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/94320313

⋖ Previous ⋄ First ⋄ Next ⋗

Warm.

Mind you, it's a good kind of warm this time. Sitting on a bed, my back laying on Isabel's fluffy stomach while he purrs, Cinnamon dozing off in my lap.

Then on the other end of the bed, there's Blu showing off her new form – by the way, apparently she's been a sea lion all this time instead of a seal, I read it in her pokédex info page –, there's Ayo being very enthusiastic about… well, I'm not quite sure, she looks excited about everything… And Mo, who's finally meeting everyone properly, is making gurgling noises at Espurr.

Oh, yeah, Espurr's here. Ellaine and Rowlet too; the owl orb is with us, they seem pretty happy about getting to see me and Blu again. Apparently, Ellaine showed up mere minutes after she was told about the incident… because she asked the first stranger she saw with a big enough flying Pokémon if they could take her here.

I remember her hugging me, and asking what happened like everybody else, but I was too busy crying my eyes out on Blu to pay attention to how much time had passed.

Actually, I still haven't managed to say a word. And since Melga wasn't very talkative either, they're probably all huddled up behind this door or something, trying to figure it out by themselves and worrying about me… No idea how I'm gonna tell them anything. The words just get stuck in my throat and won't come out.

Also my shoulder still hurts, so that's great too.

knock knock. Oh, now that definitely came from the door!

“pssst, milza, can we come in? just the two of us, don't worry!” Is that Hau? “yes…?”

The door swiftly opens, and surely enough, Hau and Lillie quickly slide in before closing it again. “Phew!” Hau sighs as he turns towards me. “The whopping four adults back there all wanted to come inside to try and ask you questions again! Good thing they figured out overwhelming you would probs be a bad idea.”

“…So they just sent you two instead?” He gives his signature dazzling smile and does a thumbs-up. Okay, I am extremely grateful for that. “Well,” Hau laughs, “it sure is nice they got you a super bed or else you'd be drowning in Pokémon instead!” Unsurprisingly, he's the one who manages to make me crack a smile.

He rummages through his bag for a second, and two rays of light transform out of it into his yellow mouse(?) and fire cat. “Puffle, Leo, BED PARTY!!” he exclaims before pretending to jump onto the crowded bed as if it were a pool, and taking Lillie's hand to get her to sit down too.

I can't help but let out a snort. He really is good at cheering people up. Blu and Ayo immediately make some noise to welcome the newcomers; Leo seems like he's trying not to show that he's impressed by Blu's appearance, and Puffle comes into my lap to greet Cinnamon. Hau claps. “Now we're only missing Nebby and everyone will be here!!”

Apparently the cloud had been listening, because it only takes half a second after Lillie opens her backpack for them to cheerily fly out of it in a myriad of “pew”s.

“Hooray!! There's no one here but us Space Dust Defenders and our trusty partners, so Nebby can totally join the part-- –y… ……Milza?”

What? “Are… are you okay?” Why does Lillie sound so concerned? And Hau too…? “Your face turned white the second you saw Nebby! Did something worse than the Totem happen in that cave?? Do you wanna tell us about it?”

Lillie gently places her hand on my forearm. “O-of course, if you wish not to, it is entirely fine–” “Oh!! Of course!” Hau keeps going. “But y'know, all we know about this right now is that pin you have, and the picture your Rotom sent us when she asked for help, or at least we're pretty sure it was your Rotom, even though now the last two messages are missing and it says it was all sent by a Deleted User-”

He's still talking, I think. Not sure. My mind's drifted off. I wish the words would just come out already. Like, come on, it shouldn't be that hard… I got to yell a few times in the cave, it felt good, finally being able to call out all this bullshit that keeps happening to me. But sometimes I want to scream and sometimes I just want to hide in a hole with no thoughts at all in my head.

My eyes meet Espurr's. A familiar scene flashes back into memory; not too long ago, when it was still the very first evening… The Cat's eyes had helped me then. I don't have the slightest idea why I think this could work… but it's all I have. Help. Help me! PLEASE! I want to tell them, I want to but I CAN'T--

…Well, he sure is living up to the “Psychic type” thing. Apparently, my dumb speechless ass' strategy of “cry out as hard as you can inside your own head in hope that the magic cat will somehow telepathically hear you asking for help” is actually working. It's like I can feel his placid energy sitting just at the edge of my mind, quietly looking over the memories I am erratically rewinding for him to see.

cemetery, FALL, hurt… hands, fatigue, argue, scream, electric, panic… huge. fear. fight! yell! glow--

GASP! That was so much more intense than I expected. Holy fuck. Never again. My eyes quickly switch between Hau and Lillie. They're both staring into the distance… and she has one tear rolling down her cheek. I look at Espurr. His eyes are glowing. Is he…?

“…Milza?” Oh dang, Lillie's looking at me! “um, yes?” She inches towards me and… oh. a hug. I hug back. It feels good. “Espurr showed us… glimpses,” she whispers softly. “I'm sorry. It must've been awful.”

“Hey, I want in on the hug!!” And in Hau comes. “Don't worry, we'll tell the adults what happened so you don't have to!!” Cat's watching us. I look him in the eyes and pretend I'm summoning an energy beam from mine that says thank you so much a dozen times. I think… yeah, I think he just nodded in response.

Hau sits back up and so does Lillie, but she keeps her hand in mine. “…From what my Gramps told me about the trials,” Hau starts, “the Totem is supposed to be the last part, the one that you face after completing the trial's challenge…” Ayo accidentally flies into his hair and he puts her down gently next to Mo before carrying on.

“But between you coming in, uh, not from the entrance, and the Skulls who probably sneaked in, the order must've gotten all messed up… Raticate saw an intruder trying to get the crystal and attacked like it was a challenger.” Hmm… still not completely sure what the crystal is supposed to be for, but when you put it that way, it kinda makes sense.

“And the weird electric air thing? What the heck was that about?” “Oh! I know about that!” Lillie blurts out, before blushing slightly when both our heads instantly turn in her direction.

“Um, it's, well… each of Alola's four islands have a Legendary Pokémon protecting them, in a way. They are the four tapu; the one guarding Melemele is called Tapu Koko. “Among other things, each deity picks select Pokémon to be the trial Totems and lends them some of their power. That's why the Raticate you encountered was so big.”

Wait a goddamn second… does that mean ALL of the Totem fuckers will be as huge as that rat? The fuck is up with Alola, man.

“A-And for the air thing,” Lillie continues, “it happens because the Cavern holds latent remnants of Tapu Koko's sacred power – since it's where the trial takes place. “Once the final battle begins, it is meant to be a fair fight between both parties; until the Totem deems you either successful or defeated. You aren't exactly… allowed to leave… since you need to have accepted these terms beforehand to be able to pass the trial at all.”

“…Except I hadn't.” I sigh, pulling both my hands up to my face and leaning back on Isabel, who starts purring. Hau attempts an embarrassed smile. “I don't think the Totem would've actually hurt you, or the Skulls… but, of course you couldn't know that! And everyone here freaked out anyway cause the trial captain's supposed to be watching over every challenger just in case.”

Ha. So much for “just in case”. “Speaking of those Team Skull people…” Hau absently strokes the fur of Espurr, who curled up right next to his leg. “I never thought I'd say this about them, but we're lucky they were here to save you! “I've always just seen the bunch as some sort of odd gang, but these two seemed nicer in your memories than when we met them this morning…”

I hold the skull pin above my face and stare at it. It definitely seems like there's more to them than the people of this region want to believe…

“Er, um…” That was Lillie. I raise my head to look at her. “Yeah?”

“Do-- do you feel ready to let your mother and the others in? I know she has been particularly worried; the kahuna also arrived after Professor Kukui called him, and Captain Ilima is present as well… “I'm sure they'll want to search the area around the Cavern to make sure there aren't any more, er… to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else…?”

“Who's Captain Ilima?” Hau grabs his fire cat who had started walking in on my stomach. “The one with pink hair! He was here when we found you, remember?” Ohh, right, that guy.

Back to the question. Am I ready to face the adults? Well, I do feel noticeably calmer now. I guess there's no point in making them wait any longer. “…Aight, I'm ready. I guess.”

“Cool!!” Hau raises his hands in the air. “But first!” Hm? “GROUP HUG!!!” Before I can do anything, he laughs as he sweeps Lillie and me into a hug that makes the three of us fall back on the bed.

What he didn't account for was that the entire flock of Pokémon of various sizes we had outside their pokéballs would immediately want to join the hug as well.

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365-money-diary · 3 years

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DAYS 8-14

DAY EIGHT [JAN 8]

9:00 AM - Wake up still feeling full from yesterday’s black bean burgers. Make a chemex and start working. I have a performance evaluation today and as well as an after-work happy hour so I want to try to get everything done before the review and then workout after before HH.

10:30 AM - Eat a banana

12:30 PM - Have a short break before my performance review. Make a Greek-ish salad and drink a Seltzer before my quarterly performance review which I am slightly nervous for since I was very slow in both November & December.

3:00 PM - Performance review went well. No criticism from my boss, though I should’ve known. She is the most direct supervisor I’ve ever had so I always know where I stand. Eat some grapes. I’m not super sore today but there’s something in me that’s saying to take a breather from exercising today (probably my “reward” for a good performance review), so I slowly finish my work for today.

4:00 PM - My best friend (let’s call her T) from high school calls and we catch up for 45 minutes. Pour a mezcal soda while we chat. I let her go attend Happy Hour and realize this after work HH thing isn’t happening. Today is David Bowie’s bday and I get sentimental about the annual David Bowie Nights I would do with H (I never gave him a name in my last diary, but we’ve remained pals over the years and he will probably come up more this time around). I FaceTime H kinda drunkenly and he goes to the corner store and joins me with a bottle of wine. I pour a second mezcal soda. We chat until 7:45 and I lowkey make dinner towards the end.

8:00 PM - K and I eat veggie sandwiches with potatoes for dinner. He slinks off to work more and I facetime another friend, J to chat about H’s latest drama.

10:00 PM - Go out on the couch to find K already falling asleep. I’m kind of drunk anyways and there’s no point staying up so we decide to turn in.

DAY EIGHT TOTAL: $0

DAY NINE

2:00 AM - Wake up sweating. This is my new hangover thing and has been happening throughout quar. Drink some water, turn on the fan, and stay up for an extra 30 minutes until I pass out again.

9:15 AM - Wake up feeling ok! Make a chemex and watch the latest episode of Dessert Person on YouTube.

10:30 AM - Get started on blog stuff for the day. I have a stacked list of stuff I want to shoot this weekend. I’m only one ingredient spread in before I start to feel light-headed from last night’s alcohol, so I break to make breakfast – tofu/egg scramble tacos with soyrizo. I still feel a little weird after so I drink a nuun and things start to improve.

3:30 PM - I shoot thousand island dressing, Russian dressing, cauliflower leek soup, and the first half of seitan corned beef. Tomorrow I’ll finish that, and shoot rubens, italian dressing and a greek salad. I don’t usually shoot 7 recipes in one weekend, but I’m very much out of content.

4:30 PM - Finish shooting for the day and eat a small bowl of cauliflower leek soup.

6:00 PM - Working out on the weekends is always hard because of lack of routine / structure, but I suck it up and do a barre live stream. Shower and watch the last of the Suns game and import photos.

7:45 PM - Make veggie sandwiches with miso butter green beans for dinner. This is the last of our veggie sandwiches which is sad. I love them so much! Spend the rest of the evening with K. We watch part of the 76ers game where they only had 7 players, a few episodes of Letterkenny, and then I read Remain in Love while he played RocketLeague.

DAY NINE TOTAL: $0

DAY TEN

8:45 AM - Doomscroll in bed for a bit and finally make myself a chemex. Put on an old episode of The Challenge. Buy a very belated birthday present for a friend - mamafuku seasoned salts. $34.95

10:30 AM - Pump myself up for shooting for the rest of the day. I have to finish the seitan, then shoot a greek dressing, a greek salad, and reuben sandwiches. None of these things should take too long but I also shot all day yesterday so I’m dragging ass.

3:15 PM - Finially finish! I ended up also taking a decent break to chat with my sister on the phone part way through. I think everything looks alright though.

4:00 PM - Import photos, eat a cup of cauliflower leek soup with a La Croix, watch an episode of The Challenge, try to hype myself up to exercise but by the time I am ready to play DDR, K says we’ll be zooming with his parents in just a short while.

5:30 PM - Drink the last of the wine in the house – a true bummer – on zoom with K’s parents. Cook dinner after – reubens with miso butter broccoli with more La Croix. We watch some Letterkenney and then K plays RocketLeague while I read some Remain in Love / zone out on fone.

9:00 PM - K finishes playing and I assume the DDR position. My tracking has already improved quite a bit since Tuesday. I play most of the tracks on standard and close my Apple Watch rings after 30 minutes. Rinse off, put the Challenge back on and edit photos of Russian Dressing.

DAY TEN TOTAL: $34.95

DAY ELEVEN

8:30 AM - Ugh Monday. I actually have a lot to do already today. Make a chemex and do the dishes leftover from yesterday’s cooking adventures. Pure barre charge comes through. $15

9:45 AM - I have a giant stack of packages and mail in the house from the past few weeks. Open up one of them and it contains a phone case I bought from a “tech company” that is probably just a fancy version of Wish. Slap it on my phone. I honestly can’t believe I went over a month without a case without cracking anything. I’m amazing.

10:00 AM - Missed a call on Friday afternoon from an appraiser scheduler, so I call them back to get something on the calendar for next week after MLK day so I have the 3-day weekend to clean. Eat yogurt for breakfast.

12:00 PM - Make a greek salad for lunch with a La Croix. It’s really good but not very filling. I have a feeling today is going to have a heavy snack vibe.

2:00 PM - Eat a handful of pretzels.

3:00 PM - Eat 2 clementines

4:00 PM - Eat a handful of tortilla chips. Start thinking about dinner. Don’t want to do reubens and burritos sound really nice so I start the process of making chile de arbol salsa and instant pot refried beans.

5:30 PM - Do a Pure Barre livestream. My focus is a little better than Saturday, so I’ll take it!

7:00 PM - Make rice on the stove while I clear some dishes and make burritos for din. Spend the rest of the eve watching random YouTube videos with K. He falls asleep at some point on and I turn on The Challenge.

11:00 PM - Gently wake K up and we head to bed. Put on the Suns game from earlier and cuddle up. By the end of the first quarter, I’m asleep.

DAY ELEVEN TOTAL $15

DAY TWELVE

8:30 AM - Wake up to find a couple of weird charge notifications. One is from Instacart for the exact amount of my last order – a duplicate charge. And the other is an auto-ship from Thrive market but it was supposed to charge my mom. I text her to let her know she owes me $20. I won’t include either of these charges since I’ll get reimbursed / refunded. The autoship also reminds me to look at the account and cancel my next one with Thrive.

9:00 AM - Get the stuff sorted out with Instacart. They’re going to email my sister (we share this account) the deets and she’ll forward to me. Make a chemex and make my way through the stack of paper mail before starting my workday. One of them is a confirmation of my credit score – 749. Sign a bunch of papers and put them in a giant envelope to send back to the loan company.

10:00 AM - Eat plant yogurt for breakfast and try to focus on the outstanding tasks I have this AM which is surprisingly kind of a lot.

11:45 AM - H texts me saying he forgot his wallet to buy lunch and asks me to place an order at Chipotle that he can pick up. Always happy to help! Place the order online and it’s $10.43. He PayPals me $10 for the damage. $0.43

12:45 PM - Make a greek salad for lunch with a La Croix. This salad has like 5 calories since the dressing is oil-free and leaves me wanting more.

1:00 PM - Eat a handful of mini pretzels.

3:00 PM - Heat up a small bowl of cauliflower lentil soup. Officially done snacking until din.

5:15 PM - Done with workie. Make a nuun and do barre live stream. The class recording this time is actually “easy” which is nice – my body must be adjusting to the new moves. Make leftover bean cheeze and rice burritos for din.

7:00 PM - K and I watch King of the Hill for a bit and then he plays RocketLeague while I read some Remain in Love and then work on a post for Russian dressing. Watch some of the Challenge in the background.

DAY TWELVE TOTAL: $0.43

DAY THIRTEEN

8:30 AM - Good morning to me! See a charge come in from Blueland for soap & dishwasher tablets. Kind of a bummer because I don’t need them at all right now. Move my next delivery date to November 1 and put a note on my calendar a week before to check my stock. Note that the Instacart charge is gone. Hooray! Make a chemex, do the dishes and spray down the counters. $25.19

9:30 AM - Not sure what it is about today, but my calendar is clear and I know tomorrow is going to suck with meetings, so I really take my time and ease into the day. I don’t feel super confident posting the Russian dressing all over the interweb and would rather stage it as a thousand island vs Russian dressing kind of thing, so I just decide to post on Insta, Pinterest, and one Reddit forum before deciding that’s good enough.

10:00 AM - Eat a yogurt. These Oui ones are really too sweet for me, but I’m at the mercy of whatever is on sale because honestly yogurt is a giant rip off. I should learn how to make my own.

12:30 PM - Make another greek salad with La Croix for lunch. Fully prepared to snack again since this guy is just not very filling.

1:20 PM - Eat a handful of mini pretzels

2:30 PM - Eat a cup of cauliflower leek soup. I’m actually caught up on work for once which is nice. Looking forward to knocking out barre before 7 PM - hah. We’re still a week out from needing groceries, but it takes a while to plan/prep. With the appraisal on Tuesday, I know it’s not going to be a fun weekend so I start thinking about what I want to make for the rest of the month.

3:30 PM - Find a bougie polenta recipe I want to give a go as well as shoot oil-free instant pot refried beans and nacho cheese with potatoes and carrots. And use all of that to make sheet pan nachos. Should be a fun weekend of shooting there. Eat grapes.

4:30 PM - I can’t hang with how hungry I am. Eat tortilla chips and salsa. Do a barre live stream and do a peloton 10 minute low impact ride.

8:00 PM - K isn’t hungry for dinner so I heat up a Philly burrito and eat it with more tortilla chips and Sweedish Fish for “dessert.” I watch some of The Challenge and then K and I play Mario Kart and watch Letterkenny before turning in.

DAY THIRTEEN TOTAL: $25.19

DAY FOURTEEN

8:30 AM - I hate 9 AM meetings. Get my shit together enough to make a chemex before I have to be on the call.

10:00 AM - I can’t handle how many snacks I keep eating throughout the day. Toast a bagel for breakfast with Earth Balance, everything but the bagel seasoning, nooch, and salt. Eat some Sweedish Fish while I wait for the bagel to toast.

12:30 PM - Make the same greek salad with a lemon La Croix. I eat quickly as I have to present at 1 so I eat quickly in prep for that.

2:50 PM - It’s over! It went well and got good compliments on my presentation skills by all parties. AND I’m not starving. A win for all! I realize half the lights in my bedroom & bathroom are out which is a bad scene for appraisal. Buy some replacements on Amazon. $27.98

3:10 PM - Start building the grocery order for next Wednesday. I realize I’m doing this really far in advance, but I’m worried I won’t have the gusto for it this weekend.

4:30 PM - Heat up a small cup of cauliflower leek soup for a snack. Debate to myself about whether or not I want to do barre and for whatever reason an hour of it sounds boring. DDR sounds fun though so I go for that instead. Get a good cal burn and even AA Kind Lady on Heavy. It’s coming back baby!

6:00 PM - Rinse off and make dinner – we’re doing Reubens tonight with roasted potatoes. Really really delicious dang.

8:30 PM - Drink a yellow chartreuse with Lagunitas Hop Water and play Mario Kart with K. Then edit photos of cauliflower lentil soup for my blog.

DAY FOURTEEN TOTAL: $27.98

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thinkexpand · 4 years

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How to Drive Traffic to Your Real Estate Website: Use Local SEO (Image: Mainstreet ROI) Are you selling or leasing real estate in your local area? Then you have to optimize your website to rank for that keyword. That should be part of your real estate SEO. You can start optimizing your real estate website to rank for, “Best real estate agency Ghana.” This will involve your Google My Business and Local Citation Strategy. Dig Deeper: The Basics of SEO for Business Another key way to help local renters and house buyers to find your real estate website is to optimize the house listings to appear on Google. If you are using the right keywords to list the houses, you will eventually rank high on Google. To optimize your house listings: Search the right keywords used by the local people. Use the keywords in your Alt talks and image descriptions. Write a short description of each house and put the keyword there. Use the keywords in the meta box and headings of each house/room listing. Use guest posting to build backlinks from authority real estate sites to your site. 3. Invest in Content Marketing

How to Drive Traffic to Your Real Estate Website: Using Content Marketing If you don’t want to pay to drive traffic to your real estate website, then content marketing must become a key part of your traffic generation strategy. You need high-quality content that will help to market your agency and drive more awareness about what you do. Visit Our Online Store & Try Our Result-Driven Real Estate Content Marketing Packages Some of the types of content you can create for your real estate website include: Articles Blogs E-books Case studies White papers Infographics Videos Podcasts To avoid wasting time and resources in real estate content marketing, ensure you are creating the right type of content. The right content solves problems for your target audience. It answers their questions and deals with their pain points. It helps them to get inform and make the right real estate decision. This also helps build your real estate brand. 4. Use social media to promote your content

Use Social Media for Real Estate Website Marketing The best content will still need some marketing. Therefore, consider having accounts on all major social media platforms and sharing content there. Create the best content and give it out for free. The more you create content, optimize them, and share them with your local audience, the more traffic you will drive to your site. Dig Deeper: Expert Guide: How to Develop a Social Media Strategy for Your Business Using the right content that solves problems for people, your real estate website will become a great education center that will attract people like bees to a honeycomb. You should be consistent with pushing and promoting your content to social media platforms. 5. Join forums/groups, and answer industry-related questions and links back to your site

Real Estate Marketing: Join Real Estate Forums & Groups and Add Value If you have already created your content, then you have content solutions. You will use those content to provide the answer to questions people are already asking in local real estate groups and forums. You can easily find these groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. Join the groups, listen to people’s questions, and start answering them using the already created content. Always link back to your site. The best place to answer questions is Quora. The more industry-related questions and problems you deal with, the more you tell your local community that you know your stuff and you’re ready to do business with them, providing the best houses/apartments they are looking for. Bonus Tips: You can also drive traffic to your real estate website through your the following tactics: Email Signature Real Estate Flyers Real Estate Office Signboard/Billboard Real Estate Business Cards Real Estate Contract Documents Visit Our Online Store & Try Our Result-Driven Real Estate Marketing Packages Read the full article

#RealEstateMarketing

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pandemoniumofficial · 5 years

Text

Development Update: July 15th, 2019

July 17, 2019

Prototype 5-4c has been released to patrons!

As usual, you can get it on the Chapter 5 Downloads Page. A patron-post will give some details on the new stuff.

July 2019 Budget Report

It’s about damn time.

Sorry this one took so long. I just kept forgetting and/or getting called into work and saying “I’ll do it next week”. And now it’s July.

Fan Art! FAN ART!!! FAN!!! ART!!!!!

It’s Christine as a Harpy! Drawn by Goop Sinpai, who sure is prolific. Go check out her DA.

And if any of you want to make fan art you better believe I will post it, I love me some fan art.

Coding

Nose to the grindstone. I’ve got (most) of the major bugs dealt with and will be adding treasure and abilities to the Biolabs next. That means 5-4d will be a content update!

Artistic Chicanery

Chickenwhite has finished all of the emotes except for Electrosprite Christine, which we hope to have finished soon. Stinkehund is inking them as always.

Recent Artist Addition Koops is working on her first CG image to go in chapter 5. Urimas is making sprites and tiles because that’s what he always does, we can’t stop him. Nobody can stop him.

Musical Chicanery

DrDiss gave us a new boss theme, and patrons get to hear it next week! Hooray!

There’s now just one musical theme left to be replaced before we’re 100% ready for prime time. Go get ’em, doc.

Prototype 5-3c Changelog

It’s boring but read it.

Fixed spotting-circles not appearing in areas using the lighting shader.

If an enemy leader dies, the following entities will now correctly show their viewcones.

Enemies will now always report their stun thresholds instead of waiting to accrue some stun damage.

Enemies will show how long until their stun threshold resets, next to the resist value.

Added a case for the Electrosprite subquest where the player magically knows commands they really shouldn’t.

Fixed collisions around the Biological Services building.

Fixed lighting issues in the Biolab Datacore exterior.

Added some rebel symbols to both Cryogenics and the Genetics labs.

Fixed Catalysts causing Christine to revert to human if picked up in the wrong form.

Added blockers so you can’t go running off to do sidequests without dropping Sophie off first.

Fixed not being able to use the underwater elevator as a Latex Drone.

Fixed SX-399 appearing during the Raibie-Christine quest defeat sequence even when she was never recruited.

Fixed characters not having their special frames after exiting the Raiju Ranch.

Improved map handling. Fading is faster, allows zooming in/out, controls are more responsive.

Added map for the Biolabs.

Being very close to a northern wall no longer makes you invisible to enemies.

Added 55’s Implosion Grenade skill, which you can acquire in the LRT facility’s armory. If you already got the skill in a previous prototype, visit a Work Terminal and there will be a command to unlock it.

There is now a Work Terminal at the Raiju Ranch near the athletics track.

Added a special “Disable Perlin Noise” engine option to help some users with program instability.

Argue about this post on the forums and make sure to spoiler your spoiler talk!

I have a monstergirl problem, enable my addiction by giving me money on Patreon!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are weirdos!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

#monster girl #harpy girl #rpg game #indie game #Adventure Game #pandemonium #pandemonium update

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celticnoise · 5 years

Link

In life you go through processes, paths if you will, to get to a final destination.

I do that when writing for this blog.

Not everything I write makes it onto here, just as not everything James writes does.

There is a process and that process is required to get the standards you want, if you care about standards … which a lot of folk in the game here don’t.

Celtic cares about standards.

We know the importance of the process.

Part of the process now involves dealing with constant negativity.

Operation: Stop Celtic is in full swing.

We know it always is, that it has been for a while, but it’s step up is now bordering on the comical.

We know that the slabbering over Gerrard and the Ibrox NewCo has been going on since he walked in through the doors at Ibrox, and the hype that has surrounded that utterly unimpressive Euro run, consisting mostly of draws draws and a lot of luck. It got them a third in the group.

But the press against us has been terrible.

First there’s the continuous references to the summer.

Yes the transfer shambles was entirely our own fault and it was a big issue, but it has been blown out of proportion.

Then we started poorly.

Hearts got very physical with our players that day, and althuough we played poorly I don’t believe their rough-housing deserved a win.

They were top. How exciting that was for the media!

Oooh Celtic are in trouble!

Let’s all over react!

Then we were out of the Champions League.

Oooh what a disaster!

Shortly before it, King had said that one bad season would cause us to collapse like a house of cards.

And at that point, the media would have had you believe it was happening before our eyes.

Brown injured, Ntcham Injured, ooh what a crisis.

No cover. If only John McGinn had signed!

And at that point it’s about the Ibrox NewCo and Hearts.

Then we had a good November; some said we had gotten lucky though.

Even before the month was a week old, I wrote a piece about those people, charting our alleged “luck.”

But the way players like Christie and McGregor have come on shows an ability in coaching that was not pure luck, but exceptional planning,

I mean there is no way McGregor had been shown that position as a back up in training is there?

God, imagine our club had thought that far ahead!

Yes, Christie may not have been there if the McGinn deal had happened, but Rogers sending him out to get him games, making sure put on weight and giving him the confidence that he could step up when required … all that was luck?

We won the cup, ugly as it was; that was lucky?

McInnes still thinks so today. Aberdeen deserved more, he says, even though they didn’t attack.

Then the Ibrox NewCo go top, oh hooray! Celtic in trouble again! The league is finished!

Oops. It wasn’t.

Beating Leipzig, getting three wins in the group … other teams would have got credit.

But we’re told that it was a late goal by Rosenberg that got us through … more luck, nothing to do with our own good form.

Leipzig not doing as well as we did wasn’t the issue … no this was “the greatest act of larceny in the history of European football.”

That’s a direct comment from Hugh Keevins, on Twitter on 13 December.

An act of larceny.

A quote from a Scottish journalist upon a Scottish club going through in Europe.

The bitterness, the needless spite, drips off the page.

All of it luck, even our being top of league after it all, after a poor start to the season.

Top of the league, with a game in hand.

Then Motherwell get a lucky draw, and the Ibrox NewCo are back on top, oh the slobbering, oh the joy, oh the nonsense … then oops.

And we’re on top again.

Now the Glasgow derby is in sight, and the sensational headlines never stop … oh poor Celtic; Edouard, Christie, Rogic … all out.

Crisis at Celtic.

Well two out of three ain’t bad, right?

And all the while in the background, the transfer nonsense … Ntcham will go, until he signs a new deal.

Broony is leaving for Oz, at least until he signs one.

Calmac is going to the EPL … until he puts pen to paper for another five years.

But no problem, because football is about the future and Dembele will definitely not stay … except now he has.

You have to love our media at times, just not at times like this.

Celtic ignores it all.

Celtic marches on.

If this is luck, you have to hope that it continues into the New Year.

Because this isn’t bad for a club who are always just one defeat away from a meltdown, right?

Dave Campbell is a blogger and Celtic fan from Glasgow, and he thinks we’re all going to have a very Happy New Year.

You can discuss this and and all the other stories by signing up at the Celtic Noise forum at the above link. This site is one of the three that has pushed for the forum and we urge all this blog’s readers to join it. Show your support for real change in Scottish football, by adding your voice to the debate.

http://bit.ly/2EJe79G

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #TheCelticBlog #News

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marilynngmesalo · 6 years

Text

Russian women shamed for World Cup dating push back

Russian women shamed for World Cup dating push back https://ift.tt/2uB02nl Russian women shamed for World Cup dating push back

MOSCOW — Hundreds of thousands of foreign men have flooded into Russia for the monthlong World Cup, setting off a fierce debate in the host nation about the roles and rights of women.

Russian women who have dated the soccer fans have been shamed by some Russian commentators, denounced for allegedly undermining the country’s morals and gene pool.

The widespread, vehement criticism has shown the dominance of patriarchal and sexist views in Russia, where the concept of gender equality is a generation behind that of the West’s.

Still, the reaction against Russian women’s World Cup dalliances has been so strong that some feminists in Russia think it could actually advance their cause by shocking even conservative women who wouldn’t identify themselves as feminists.

“Even those women (are saying) ‘Enough is enough, you’ve gone too far!” feminist writer Snezhana Gribatskaya said.

A 27-year-old Moscow beautician named Mariam was one of those who fell for a foreign visitor, a Mexican soccer fan named Omar who asked her for directions to Red Square.

“He was so kind and respectful to me,” she said. “It’s because of this that I fell in love with him.”

She did not give her last name because she said the romance was a personal matter.

Yet to many Russians, her actions seem disgraceful.

“This is an era of sluts!” wrote Platon Besedin, a columnist for the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. “Russian women are bringing shame to themselves and their country.”

A popular forum on the VKontakte social media service has posted hundreds of videos of Russian women dancing and kissing foreign soccer fans, prompting vehement condemnations of those alleged to be “ruining the country’s gene pool.”

In the first week of the global soccer tournament, Russian lawmaker Tamara Pletnyova warned Russian women against becoming romantically involved with foreigners, lest they should end up raising their children alone. She added it was even more of a problem if the men were from a different race.

Belgium soccer fan reacts as they watch a 2018 World Cup soccer match between Belgium and England on a giant screen in Jette, Belgium, Saturday, July 14, 2018. The match will determine third place.

The next day, her colleague Mikhail Degtyaryov stepped forward to do damage control.

“The more love stories we have connected to the world championship, the more people from different countries fall in love, the more children are born, the better,” Degtyaryov said.

Burger King stumbled badly while trying to counter the censorious attitudes in Russia. It ended up being harshly criticized when it offered 3 million rubles ($48,000) and a lifetime of Whopper burgers to any Russian woman impregnated by a World Cup player.

After the publication of Besedin’s column, the staff at Russia’s Cosmopolitan Magazine started a petition calling for its removal from the newspaper’s website. It has garnered over 53,000 signatures.

“We were outraged by the fact that they decided they can actually control our sex life — who we kiss or go on dates with,” said Gribatskaya, who led the drive.

Although some women have achieved powerful positions in Russia — including the widely respected central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina — their proportions at the top are much lower than in the West. That’s especially notable given that the Russian population is about 54 per cent female, one of the world’s biggest gender imbalances.

//<![CDATA[ ( function() { pnLoadVideo( "videos", "S2U5QItPU3c", "pn_video_536718", "", "", [] ); } )(); //]]>

“In a country where the majority of the population are women, it’s crazy that there are no equal rights and that there is such a dangerous attitude toward women,” said feminist blogger Alena Popova.

Gribatskaya traces the attitudes about women to the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian society and the “traditional values” that have become government policy under President Vladimir Putin. Last year, Putin signed a law that decriminalized some forms of domestic violence.

“I think now a great number of women are thinking ‘Who is this all for?’ and more and more are joining the fight for equality, for respect,” Gribatskaya said.

Mariam, enamoured of her Mexican beau, sees the World Cup as a wake-up call for Russia’s males, whose average life expectancy is only 66 1/2 years and whose health is often affected by smoking and heavy drinking.

“They had better make sure other girls aren’t scooped up,” she said. “(Foreigners) have a completely different attitude toward women. They are very well-mannered and cordial.”

English fans applaud their players after the third place match between England and Belgium at the 2018 soccer World Cup in the St. Petersburg Stadium in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, July 14, 2018. Belgium defeats England 2-0.

Yuri Dud, a prominent sports journalist, suggested that she has a point.

“Foreigners are much more attractive than us … they keep themselves fit, they smell nice,” Dud wrote in a commentary declaring that Russian women should be able to sleep with whomever they want.

A 30-year-old Russian woman named Yulia, sporting a bright yellow Brazilian soccer shirt, joked about the possible benefits to Russia of such cross-cultural alliances.

“These men are definitely popular here — maybe in 18 years we’ll even have decent national football team!” she said, adding that she did not want her last name used out of privacy concerns.

Omar has gone home, although Mariam said they stay in touch, and it remains to be seen whether the foreign suitors will live up to Russian women’s expectations in the long run.

FIFA, soccer’s governing body, has acknowledged that sexism is a problem during the World Cup. It recently suggested a few remedies, including making sure that fewer attractive women at soccer stadiums are shown on TV broadcasts of the matches.

One Russian feminist noted that even FIFA’s solution is sexist.

“Publicly dividing women into attractive and unattractive ones is as bad as it can get,” Anna Fedorova wrote on Facebook. “In other words, if you are shown on television sitting in the stands, hooray! FIFA has judged you to be unattractive enough.”

//<![CDATA[ ( function() { pnLoadVideo( "videos", "IhfDgeidnfQ", "pn_video_641894", "", "", [] ); } )(); //]]> Canoe Click for update news world news https://ift.tt/2mjT16N world news

#metronews24 bangla #Latest Online Breaking Bangla News #Breaking Bangla News #prothom alo #bangla news #b

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investmart007 · 6 years

Text

MOSCOW | Russian women push back at shaming over World Cup dating

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/KQ6PFG

MOSCOW | Russian women push back at shaming over World Cup dating

MOSCOW —Hundreds of thousands of foreign men have flooded into Russia for the month long World Cup, setting off a fierce debate in the host nation about the roles and rights of women. Russian women who have dated the soccer fans have been shamed by some Russian commentators, denounced for allegedly undermining the country’s morals and gene pool.

The widespread, vehement criticism has shown the dominance of patriarchal and sexist views in Russia, where the concept of gender equality is a generation behind that of the West’s.

“Even those women (are saying) ‘Enough is enough, you’ve gone too far!” feminist writer Snezhana Gribatskaya said.

A 27-year-old Moscow beautician named Mariam was one of those who fell for a foreign visitor, a Mexican soccer fan named Omar who asked her for directions to Red Square.

“He was so kind and respectful to me,” she said. “It’s because of this that I fell in love with him.”

She did not give her last name due to the shaming going on.

Yet to many Russians, her actions seem disgraceful.

“This is an era of sluts!” wrote Platon Besedin, a columnist for the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. “Russian women are bringing shame to themselves and their country.”

The next day, her colleague Mikhail Degtyaryov stepped forward to do damage control.

“The more love stories we have connected to the world championship, the more people from different countries fall in love, the more children are born, the better,” Degtyaryov said.

“We were outraged by the fact that they decided they can actually control our sex life — who we kiss or go on dates with,” said Gribatskaya, who led the drive.

Although some women have achieved powerful positions in Russia — including the widely respected central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina — their proportions at the top are much lower than in the West. That’s especially notable given that the Russian population is about 54 percent female, one of the world’s biggest gender imbalances.

“I think now a great number of women are thinking ‘Who is this all for?’ and more and more are joining the fight for equality, for respect,” Gribatskaya said.

Mariam, enamored of her Mexican beau, sees the World Cup as a wake-up call for Russia’s males, whose average life expectancy is only 66½ years and whose health is often affected by smoking and heavy drinking.

“They had better make sure other girls aren’t scooped up,” she said. “(Foreigners) have a completely different attitude toward women. They are very well-mannered and cordial.”

Yuri Dud, a prominent sports journalist, suggested that she has a point.

A 30-year-old Russian woman named Yulia, sporting a bright yellow Brazilian soccer shirt, joked about the possible benefits to Russia of such cross-cultural alliances.

“These men are definitely popular here — maybe in 18 years we’ll even have decent national football team!” she said, adding that she did not want her last name used out of privacy concerns.

Omar has gone home, although Mariam said they stay in touch, and it remains to be seen whether the foreign suitors will live up to Russian women’s expectations in the long run.

One Russian feminist noted that even FIFA’s solution is sexist.

By FRANCESCA EBEL, Associated Press

#FIFA #Hundreds of thousands of foreign men have flooded #Mikhail Degtyaryov #Moscow #Russian women push back #Russian women World Cup #shaming over #Snezhana Gribatskaya #TodayNews #TV broadcasts #World Cup dating

0 notes

whatsupsac · 6 years

Text

What’s Up With Your Weekend, 4/27-29/18:

Friday:

Sacramento County Sheriff & D.A. Candidate Debates: ACLU of Sacramento County & National Lawyer's Guild Sacramento Chapter are joining forces to host Sacramento's D.A. & County Sheriff Debates.Food will be served at approximately 5:15 P.M. The District Attorney Candidate Debate will begin promptly at 6:00 P.M. The County Sheriff Debate will follow. McGeorge School of Law’s Lecture Hall. 5:15PM.

Challenging Exclusion Forum: Art, Activism, and Healing: Discussion on the role of art in activism, social change, and processes of healing trauma. Community members and artists are invited to participate in our installation, along with local artists working on issues related to immigration and social change, to discuss personal and communal processes of healing trauma through art, asking questions about the role of art and artists in policy debates and activism. Sol Collective. 6-8PM. Suggested Donation: $5, no on turned away.

Mad Jacky, The New Crowns: Don't miss out on a night of wailin' Rock & Roll at Shine. First up, is local alt-rock/blues/poppers The New Crowns. Closing things out, Mad Jacky hits the stage to deliver their brand of wailin' Rock! Shine. 8PM. All Ages. $8 Cover.

Holy FXXX - Dance Floor Debauchery: Shaun Slaughter and Requiem Events hosts a WILD night of music and dancing! They’re taking it back to the old FXCK FRIDAYS days! Everything dance floor heavy and fun AF. Holy Diver. 10PM-1AM. RSVP Here for Free Entry.

Saturday:

Sol Blume Music Fest: A music and culture fest featuring an impressive lineup including: Jhene Aiko, The Internet, and GoldLink. Cesar Chavez Plaza. 12-10PM. $85.

Short Film “Choices”: Part 2 of Nor Cal All-Stars: Sacramento International Film hosts the short film "Choices" at the Sacramento International Film Festival. Delta King Theater 1000 Front St. 3-4:45PM. $13.41.

3 Year Anniversary/New Location Grand Opening: Spring brings new beginnings. Join the creators of 1810 Gallery in celebrating the grand opening of their new location- 215 14th Street (14th & C, Downtown Sacramento). They're kicking it off with a massive group show of over 50 artists both local & national. 215 14th Street. 6-10PM.

Hooray For Hollywood: Lights. Camera. Pops! The Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera presents the movie melodies from Hollywood's biggest blockbusters. The Godfather, James Bond, Rocky, 2001, Jaws, E.T., Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, and more! Your favorite music from the golden age of Hollywood. Community Center Theater. 8-10PM. Tickets start at $18.

Sunday:

Point Reyes Backpacking Trip: If you have always wanted to try backpacking, then this is the trip for you since no experience is necessary! The coastal air will be invigorating and relaxing as you pass through a riparian zone to coastal bluffs. Trip price includes guides, transportation, equipment, dinners, and camping permits. Peak Adventures at Sac State. 7AM-6PM. Minimum age is 12. Sac State Student: $ 60.00 Affiliate: $ 123.00 Public: $ 137.00.

Daft Brunch: A brunch devoted to all things Daft Punk + french touch, disco house w/ resident DJs Shaun Slaughter (Lipstick, Holy Fxxx, THIS Midtown) & Adam Jay (Holy Fxxx, Le Twist Events).Food + Drink Specials will be available throughout the event. Come eat, drink and dance! Lowbrau. 12-5PM.

Sacramento Film Awards: Vote for your favorite Outstanding Regional Talent at this link: http://californiafilm.net/, and then come celebrate the nominees and the winners! Delta King. 7:30PM. $32.04.

#sacramento whatsupsac plus1sac sactown midtownsac downtownsac thingstodo weekendfun musicfestival sacfilms daftpunk dance

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minrcrafter · 6 years

Photo

Summa Crossroads [SMP] {1.12.2} {Discord} {Hard} {Custom Plugins} {Custom Endgame Content} {Custom Biomes / Custom World + Live Map} {Custom Nether} {Custom Skylands} {Custom Mobs + Drops} {Custom Waypoints} {Economy + Player Shops} {mcMMO} {Quests} {Spells} {PvP/PvE Arenas} {Parkour}

Server Name: Summa Crossroads

Server Locale: NA East Coast - Beauharnois, Canada

Imgur Album: Prosperus gallery

Facebook: Summa Crossroads Facebook Page

Website: Summa Crossroads

Server Address/IP: mc.summaxr.com

Live Map: http://mc.summaxr.com

Game Play Type/s: [SMP] - Server is survival focused, with lots of PvE content but PvP enabled and PvP arenas for those with a thirst for blood

Additional Worlds: Custom nether, custom skylands, parkour/activity, challenge

Discord: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Long description, tl;dr features list below:

Since 2010, the Summa Crossroads Minecraft server is built on a very simple but very effective core idea - that awesome gameplay should be the focus of development and maintenance. We've gone through multiple maps, updates, and plugin sets, always trying to find that delicate balance of fun, challenge, and drive. We've been around since alpha, and we've learned a lot. This server has been a lot of things for a lot of people, but it's always been a good time.

Today we feature a vast 16,000 by 16,000 map sprawling from edge to edge with beautiful custom biomes, hand-painted and lovingly crafted to bring the sense of adventure and vast scale that you may recall from your first days of Minecraft. Some residents have built towns and gathered the resources to construct their own waypoints, which you can unlock the ability to fast-travel to by venturing there yourself. Much of the landscape is yet unexplored, and each week new adventures are introduced.

For those who enjoy a good challenge, the overworld is bustling with deep caves, and the monsters that come out at night will be no allies. PvP arenas let you challenge your friends and humiliate your foes - paying you out for putting up a good fight. The Underdome and Woodland arenas let you demonstrate your gladiatorial might against wave after wave of things that go bump in the night, with spoils to those who entertain. Vast parkour challenges, one of which has only been completed by one player in the history of the server, will spare you no mercy. Unrelenting instanced temples will push you to your limits, giving you fame and fortune if you show the world that you are a true hero. Accumulate enough might and you can unlock ancient secrets, letting you use magic spells to control the world around you.

We think it's important to foster a strong community, and our player ranks are thus tied to activity on the server. As you continue to build your legend and establish your presence, you will earn your way to glory and prestige.

Often times it's the little things that make the biggest difference, and we have a plethora of precisely tuned pieces that keep the cogs turning. Little tweaks to the basics of Minecraft and bigger underlying systems designed to reward you for playing the game your way. We want players to have fun and enjoy themselves in a world that feels ready for conquest and adventure.

We're a mature survival server, which means we won't teleport you across the world - you've got to make the trek yourself. You might die, but you'll get right back up again and keep fighting. That's what the game is all about, after all! There are plenty of resources and friends to help you out on your adventures, but only you can keep yourself alive.

Some recent highlights:

We've been around since 2010, but we're working on new stuff for you all the time.

Discord integration improvements

Our Discord bridge received some performance and feature updates this week. It will now notify admins about stuff around the server that need their attention. As usual, you can always @Wahrheit if you need help - this works both in-game and on Discord!

Mob loot rebalance

Our mob loot balancing system has undergone another upgrade! In addition to wild mobs now giving triple drops and EXP, you can now also get rewards for finding and breaking Mob Spawners. Upon breaking one, it will drop a diamond block and 1395 EXP - enough to get you straight from level 0 to level 30! Get hunting!

Ice boat racing

It's as fun as it sounds. We're working on constructing multiple courses, and they make for a great night of community building!

More rare mobs, construction of Landmarks

We've added yet more of our new rare mobs, and are slowly expanding the library of them and the loot they drop! Ideas are always welcomed, and rewarded!

This week features the introduction of more Veteran and Elite monsters appearing in the Nether, End, and Heavens!

And, of course, new loot! You can now find additional drops from Veterans and above.

Complementing these mobs is the introduction of our new Landmarks system. As the Heavens is a highly volatile and magical realm, it reforms itself from time to time. Each new iteration will include new rare structures that randomly spawn, featuring rare mobs, rare loot, or both!

Mob health indicators

The action bar will now display the health value of the monster you're currently fighting. Users say this is one of their favorite server improvements to date!

Development of the main quest line

We now have more available quests than ever, and more are in development. User feedback and suggestions are welcomed! Our quests center around helping introduce users to the server, but are expanding to create challenges for more seasoned veterans, too.

More magic spells

This week we added more new spells and rebalanced a few old ones based on user feedback!

Temple challenger bounties

The Fire Temple and The Water Temple remain undefeated. The first player to complete each successfully - perhaps even the same player for both - will receive a key for a Steam game from my vault of many! There are also treasures earned for each completion each time in-game.

Hall of Accomplishments

Currently in development is a new area that will memorialize the first and/or best achievements of players on our server. With so many new features and challenges being introduced, we thought it only right to commemorate the efforts of our bravest heroes. Write your legacy and inspire others to follow in your footsteps! Examples for feats to be memorialized include the first player to complete the Tower of the Gods (Azilizan), the first players to complete each Temple, and more.

Colored repairs

Special items with colored names (read: rare mob loot) will now keep their names when repaired with anvils!

Fixed shooting range

The Shooting Range is now back open for business! Practice your aim and make a little gold, too.

Back-end updates

We optimized and improved a lot of our back-end systems this week. Hooray, performance improvements!

Wiki development

We've created a Wiki for the server and are working on building out some content templates! Soon you'll be able to share what you know about secrets, loot, and more with your fellow players.

PvP arena tournaments

Join us on Sundays at 3pm Chicago time for PvP tournaments! Gear is provided - just bring your a-game. Announcements about signups will go out on Discord each week. This week's winner was ElectricSparx!

As always, seeking your feedback and ideas!

We actively solicit player feedback and ideas for development - after all, the server is for you, and we want to work on what will make you happy. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see, and we'll have a conversation about it! This is yet another great way to make use of the forums.

Server features:

High biome density and diversity, with custom biomes.

Customized, revamped nether.

One home per world.

Unlock warps by travelling to them. Construct your own waypoint node to let others visit you.

An increasingly diverse cast of rare and powerful custom mobs for you to test your mettle against, with suitably rare and shiny loot for your troubles.

Lock your chests and devices.

Open world PvP as well as arenas supporting 1v1 or team combat.

Cooperative PvE arenas vs. increasingly difficult waves of mobs, including bosses, with lucrative rewards. Keep the experience you earn!

Daily and weekly quests, with a main quest line in development.

Elaborate and difficult parkour challenges, as well as a few on the lighter side.

Player shops including enter/leave messages.

NPCs, many of whom have things to say, quests to complete, or services to offer!

Earn gold for participating in server activities or engaging on the forums. Spend it your way.

Milk with a little something extra.

Various quality-of-life commands, such as /where so you don't have to use F3.

Auto link shortener. Don't let character limits ruin your sharing.

Magic spells that have a variety of uses, with more added regularly.

Extensions to redstone usability in certain situations.

Mini-games and other distractions for some simple amusement. Check out our shooting range.

Instanced temple challenges, reminiscent of Legend of Zelda or other dungeons. Check out our trailer for the Water Temple!

Incentive program for positive contributions to the server.

Discord server: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Weekly content and bugfix updates.

While this might already seem like a lot, there's already even more being worked on and planned! We would love to have you be a part of our continued development and growth.

Rules:

No griefing.

No begging.

No whining.

Be friendly.

No hacking, malicious mods, exploitation, duping, or other unfairly advantageous manipulation of gameplay.

Harassment will not be tolerated.

Visual griefing (mutilating the landscape for transport or other purposes without cleaning up after yourself) is not allowed.

No advertising.

Wahrheit's word is law.

Official Rules Thread + "Case Law"

Plugins: In the interest of maintaining "the fourth wall" and reducing risk of exploits, we don't release a full list of plugins. There are over 50 currently active with a few on the sidelines, many of which were developed at our request to provide an awesome gameplay experience that gives you a wealth of options but keeps things challenging. In lieu of plugins, please see the "features" section.

Owner/Admins/Moderators: Owned and administrated by Wahrheit since 2010. Additional administrators include SirusAP, Xarin23, Uniballerkid and Hidendra.

YouTube: YouTube Channel

Questions and comments are warmly welcomed, and we hope to see you in-game!

#Minecraft servers #minecraft

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ronaldmrashid · 7 years

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To Get Luckier, Realize Success Is Mostly Luck

I live by the mantra, “Never fail due to a lack of effort because hard work requires no skill.” It’s a reminder to STOP making excuses when something seems too daunting to tackle. There’ve been too many instances when I didn’t start something because I felt I lacked the skills necessary to succeed. I’ve regretted each non-action.

For example, I postponed starting Financial Samurai until 2009, three years after first contemplating the idea, because I didn’t know whether or not I could write anything insightful. I also didn’t know how to start a website, despite the easy availability of free instruction. The delay cost me over a million bucks.

For those of you who want more luck, I strongly believe the more you attribute any success you have to luck and mean it, the more luck will come your way. Why? Because you won’t take your luck for granted. Gratitude is what will keep propelling you forward. Let me explain by strolling down luck lane.

First, A Reminder About Luck

Here’s the latest reminder to keep the ego in check from a comment left in the post, The Downside Of Financial Independence. I ended the post with the importance of working hard to not dishonor the generations before us who laid the foundation.

On generational wealth, I think people, and successful people especially attribute much of their success to hard work. The fact is, random chance plays much more of a part than we would like to admit. If our grandfather worked 18 hours per day to earn his fortune, there are likely 10 other grandfathers who worked the same 18 hours per day but never became wealthy.

I am moderately successful and sure I work hard. But so do most people. I am successful because early in my career, a hiring manager decided to take a chance on a smart ass kid. Had that not happened, my trajectory would be completely different (for better or worse).

In other words, all our ancestors emigrated at some point. All had to work hard to get ahead. Some got farther than others. Therefore, my great grandparents were simply luckier than others to establish homes and raise families in Taiwan and Hawaii, respectively.

The instant you start telling yourself that most of your success is due to hard work is the instant you start losing your lucky momentum. It’s important to recognize some of your life’s luckiest moments in order to rid yourself of attributing success to hard work. Only with humility will you be able to generate more luck in the future.

Three Lucky Breaks

1) Meeting my wife in college. Life is easier with a life partner. But some folks don’t find their soulmate until later in life. Some never find someone. I was extremely lucky to meet my wife when I was a senior in college. It was unexpected because I was 100% focused on getting a job. She wasn’t on my radar junior year because was was still in high school then.

As my focus was to free up time for job interviews, I took fluffier courses like Advanced Golf and Japanese 101. Hooray for a Liberal Arts education that taught me how to build relationships over four hours on a golf course with important people! Even better was Japanese 101 because that’s where I met my wife.

My original purpose for learning Japanese was to become proficient enough to charm female tourists while back home in Hawaii. I also thought I’d be able to get an easy A just chilling in the back row. Instead, Japanese 101 was the first course I ever got a D on a test! It was a beautiful D, however, because my future wife offered to help me with my studies.

Meeting my wife at William & Mary was 100% luck! She could have very easily decided to attend UVA in Charlottesville where her mom worked. Luckily for me, she chose William & Mary instead because she wanted a more intimate classroom setting. UVA’s 20,000+ student population at the time was 5X larger than William & Mary’s. Further, we couldn’t have met at UVA because I was only wait-listed. So in a very large way, I owe William & Mary a massive debt of gratitude for taking a chance on me.

My future wife was the one who called me at 5:30am to make sure I’d get to my 8am interview on time back in 1998. She was the one who consoled me after each job rejection. When I moved to San Francisco in June 2001, she decided to graduate six months early to join me that December since I hardly knew anyone. In late 2014, she negotiated her own severance package to keep me company during early retirement. Now she’s the COO and CFO of our little lifestyle business.

Having a best friend to experience the majority of your life with is truly lucky.

2) Getting a job offer from a major investment bank in 1999. I began interviewing with Goldman starting in 1998 at a finance career job fair in Washington DC. It was a pretty cutthroat environment with a lot of go-getters from some pretty good schools like Georgetown and Duke. One female recruiter from Merrill Lynch even looked down on me for wearing a teddy bear tie holding a balloon that my girlfriend gave me. Thanks a lot you cold-hearted wench!

Seven round trips from school to NYC, 55 interviews, and two weeks after graduating from the College of William & Mary in May 1999 later, I finally got an email offering me a job. It was so very exciting.

It would be easy to attribute my getting a job at a major investment bank to my interviewing skills and perseverance. But the fact is, if I had interviewed better, I might have gotten the job offer much quicker! When I spoke with my incoming colleagues, I learned that the average number of interviews they’d had was about 15. In other words, having undergone 3.5X more interviews, clearly I was lucky to get through the gauntlet.

Further, no one else from William & Mary got a job offer from GS that year. Nor did anybody get a job offer from GS the year prior. The only reason I was given the opportunity to interview was due to a GS recruiter named Kim Purkiss who selected my resume at the career fair. She fought for me during the recruiting process, and I owe so much to her.

If I didn’t get a job at GS, I wouldn’t have bought VCSY in early 2000, the multi-bagger stock that grew from $3,000 – $150,000 in six short months. Without VCSY, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable buying a $580,500, 2/2 condo in Pacific Heights a couple years later that has now doubled in value and commands $4,200/month in rent with no mortgage.

Without working in finance for the past 13 years, I wouldn’t be able to write about investing, real estate, and retirement with ease. And without Financial Samurai, I’m not sure whether I would’ve left my job in 2012 because I wouldn’t have known what to do with all the free time.

3) Financial Samurai to 1 million organic pageviews a month. Starting a website is easy. Growing a website is the fun and hard part. I do believe most people who publish 2 – 4X a week without fail for three years will be able to generate a livable income stream online e.g. $2,000 – $5,000/month. However, only a lucky few can get to 1 million organic pageviews a month without any advertising, a forum, or public self-promotion.

My lucky break came in 2010 when The LA Times money columnist, Kathy Kristof highlighted my post, Get An Umbrella Policy, Your Teenager Is Going To Bankrupt You. It was just an average post, but it was relevant to Kathy. I met up with Kathy at a conference in 2016, and she said at the time, she had a teenage son who she always worried about. Therefore, the post really resonated with her when she was perusing personal finance blogs to highlight. Talk about 100% luck!

Once The LA Times featured Financial Samurai, other large media organizations began following suit. The more large media organizations highlight your work, the more credibility and traffic you get. Now the badge of honor is jam packed with media mentions eight years later.

One of the more recent lucky breaks was when social media got hold of Scraping By On $500,000 A Year. That came out of nowhere because I wrote the post in 2015. Because that post was viewed several million times, it provided a shift up in traffic that I’m still experiencing months later.

Even more recently, Yahoo decided to highlight The Dark Side Of Early Retirement on its homepage. How cool is that? For website owners, this is kind of like winning the lottery. Companies literally spend tens of thousands of dollars a month with PR companies to to try to get this type of exposure. And here I was getting it for free without having to pimp myself? It’s complete luck to let featured and have my writing stand on its own! From this feature, traffic doubled for several days, bringing in new readers along the way.

So how did this lucky break occur? An editor randomly reached out and asked if she could republish the post and I told her, “Of course! Take everything and my little pony too!” Perhaps the editor reached out because she noticed the Scraping By On $500K post from the month prior since the post talked about a New York City couple and the editor currently lives in NYC as well. Who knows! But I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to annoy her.

There are many far better writers with much longer writing careers who’ve never gotten featured on the front page of Yahoo. I’m definitely not as deserving as so many other people.

Don’t Take Your Luck For Granted

I used to believe success was around 50% luck / 50% hard work. Now I believe success is closer to 80% luck / 20% hard work. We can’t control the 80%, but we can control the 20% so we might as well try. To take my luck for granted would be to dishonor the millions of other people out there who are not as lucky.

The longer you work at your craft, the luckier you’ll get. You just have to be patient, like the fisherman who sets up his station every morning without fail, hoping to reel in the catch of a lifetime.

Finally, I do believe in karma. The more we can do to help other people, the luckier we’ll get. I wish each and every one of you the best of luck. And when you get a fortuitous break, don’t forget to share!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Related: Grow Stronger By Humbling Yourself Each Year

Readers, what kind of lucky breaks have you had in your life? What are some of the things you’ve incorrectly attributed to hard work that in reality were mostly lucky?

from http://www.financialsamurai.com/to-get-more-luckier-realize-success-is-mostly-luck/

#Financial Samurai

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edinfurs · 7 years

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Edinburgh Fursuiting Meet - 15th April 2017

Not much special to say here this time. It has been requested and I have answered! The next fursuiting meet is on the 15th of April.

The Edinburgh fursuiting crew will be going bowling yet again, and all of you(*) are invited to join us! Fursuiters and non-fursuiters alike are welcome to join in a day's celebration of throwing-a-5-to-20-pound-ball-at-some-pins-and-trying-to-smash-them-up-so-good-none-of-them-are-left-standing! So, without further ado, here's our venue!

Our Venue...

Tenpin Bowling - Fountain Park, Fountain Bridge, Dundee Street, Edinburgh EH11 1AW

The facility includes;

Bowling, FREE FOR SUITER! For everyone else at 6,05 a head I have managed to secure us a pretty decent discount off of the normal adult prices.

Pool Tables, for holding mini fursuit & non-fursuiter pool tournaments.

Arcade, for those who don't like bowling as much and/or for those who want to waste some money after the bowling playing video games!

I have booked 2 lanes for us, for an estimated 16 people. This does not mean that we don't accept any more! Anyone(*) is welcome to attend the event to come and watch, play on the pool tables, enjoy the arcade etc. If we do have more than 16 bowlers, all it means is that I'll have to extend the bowling reservation! A task easily accomplished (hopefully). As a not of difference from last time, the venue asked that we didn't use as many lanes as we did previously, they had to refuse other people their lanes while we were playing, and it did take a while for us to clear out after we were done. So, it's likely that we'll be bowling longer.

As this is a public venue, we would like to remind you that its pretty much common sense to respect other patrons who will be also bowling there that day. As a change to the norm I got the three bowling alleys closest to the door for us this time, for that little bit of extra fresh airtm.

Cost of Bowling

Just to make this very clear, yes this event does cost money! It's not a lot though compared to what it would cost the average joe. I have talked with the manager and he was happy to reduce our cost for bowling from the normal 7.55 a pop for adults to the child fee of 6.05 a head. Please try and make sure you have enough cash change at hand as I will be having to pay the people by card on the day and people will be paying me their share of the cost in cash and I don't usually have a lot of change at hand. I will love you forever if you give me a 5 pound note instead of 5 pound coins, it weighs down my bundle very much.

As an added extra, the manager said that suiters can go free! This is confirmed as has been shown last time, so hooray and thanks to the venue!

Times and Places

Edinburgh Fursuit Meet Schedule - 15th April 2017

TIME LOCATION DETAILS

11:30 - 12:15 - Haymarket Train Station Will be waiting around the area in the middle of the station

12:15 - 14:00 - Lunch There's plenty of food places at Haymarket and the Fountain Park, Pizza hut, Indian all-you-can-eat, other stuff

14:00 - 15:00 - Suit up! Lock 'n load! Lets get ready to RUMBLEEEE!!!!

15:00 - 17:00 - Fursuit Bowling I've reserved the lanes for 3pm, we should be there at LEAST 15 minutes beforehand, probably earlier

17:00 - Onw.. - Cooldown Get your heads off and cool down a bit with a cool drink? I haven't organised it yet, but if people are interested I can book a table somewhere?

Traveling Here

If travelling by train or bus, always good to check for any delays and works. If you come by train, I would suggest going for Haymarket train station, as it is the closest. From there, it's about 10 minutes walk to Fountain Park.

If travelling by car, Fountain Park has its own parking garage, free of charge if you're making use of the venues, for up to 4 hours. So either, you leave after 4 hours, or you take your car for a very short spin through the gates and back in. Cheating a little bit, but I don't blame you.

If travelling by bus, Fountain Park is on the lines for many busses coming from the city center. Bus lines 1, 34, 35, 47 stop right in front of it, and 22 and 30 stop right at its back.

Fursuit Walk Previous Pictures

Can be found in the links below!

Foski's pictures of the June 2015 fursuiting meet

My pictures from 15 August 2015

Diamond's October 2015 Fursuiting meet pictures

The Rules

Rules courtesy of Reever.

Don't be a jerk, creepy or overly affectionate to people you don't know. You can TOTALLY hug people (I like them personally) but always ask first.

Respect the places we are! This means no bringing in your own food and drink (especially if you've not bought anything from the place) and treating it like your own place. Don't walk on furniture, spit chewing gum on the floor or anything that will get us kicked out. It will just get you unwelcome to the next meets.

BRING ID! Even if you are not planning to drink... if you look like you are under 25 (or ARE under 25) please PLEASE bring suitable ID. We've been barred entry from pubs before when even one of us doesn't have it. Also, (and this should go without saying) If there is someone under 18 there... don't buy them alcohol. That would just be plain stupid!

Have a good time. This one is mandatory! ;P

Additional rules for those fursuiting (Foski)

Don't be ashamed to ruin 'the magic'. As suiters, we get alot of pressure not to reveal our human heads in public. Ideally you should know your limits but, if at any point, when in suit, you feel nautious, dizzy or close to fainting or is having difficulty breathing, just take off the head or notify someone that you'll be taking your head off, does not neccessarily need to be a secluded area, take a moment to cool down before commencing, someone will be on stand by to supply everyone with fresh, cool water throughout the event. You know, the kids have to grow up some time.. all the kids, apart from us!

Fill your tummy with food! It would not be recommended to go out, in suit, on an empty stomach, make sure you have had plenty of food and drink before commencing on the fursuit walk and I guarentee you'll feel better for it!

Few points on Health and Safety

Do NOT be afraid to take off your head. Just can't stress this one enough, your health is more important than some kid's ruined childhood memories. We do encourage people take off their heads for a few minutes just to cool down a bit after about an hour or suiting, though it is up to you to decide if and when you reach your limit.

First Aid and Hydration. Just like last time, I'll be bringing a first aid kit and hydration pack with me to serve everyone in suit with the much-needed water without the need to take off your head. Yes, it has a HUGE (as in long) straw you can suck on to get a drink, and it's perfectly okay to do that in public. I am also an Emergency first-aider, so if there's anything that might be important in case anything happens, allergies or other medical things, let me know and I'll make a note. I'll always be present during the event.

Getting in contact on the day

We all know how it feels to go to places you've never been before but if you're ever lost, your train is delayed or you need our assistance finding us at any time please feel free to message me on the forums (we'll make sure to check every now and again), send me a text at 0 7 - 5 4 9 4 8 6 9 0 7 or message me on Telegram @diamonddragon. You should quite easily be able to recognise me, I'm 6'2", and I will be carrying a large blue backpack with a large hose coming out the top and down the front.

For watching/arcade/photography (just post a message that you're wanting to attend, but don't want to bowl. It's so I can inform the staff of how many people to expect on the day; Fire emergency protocols)

(*) Unfortunately, it has to be said that this excludes people previously informed that they are not welcome at the event. None shall be named, you should know who you are.

For more information go to UKFur Forums: (Reg required)

https://forum.ukfur.org/topic/50918-edinburgh-fursuiting-meet-15th-april-2017/

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type2diabetestreatments-blog · 7 years

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2012: The Diabetes Year In Review

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/2012-the-diabetes-year-in-review/

2012: The Diabetes Year In Review

Well, we all made through another year!

Surprised we got through this one? Especially with that purported Mayan prediction about the world ending on Dec. 21, 2012? Well, we're still here! Predictions of doom were apparently exaggerated... Perhaps the premonitions were of something "magical" that was supposed to happen, so we were crossing our fingers for a cure being discovered or the FDA approving the best-ever fantasy diabetes device... or somesuch.

But short of that mystical happening, though, this has been an exciting year! Here are some of the highlights we that stand out for us as we look back on the past 12 months -- from personal milestones for our 'Mine team and many members of the Diabetes Online Community, to new products unveiled, to changes among the diabetes industry and policy-makers.

What a 2012 it's been!

JANUARY

The year began with the loooong-awaited MySentry device by Medtronic finally getting FDA approval, allowing a parent or caregiver or PWD (person with diabetes) to monitor their night-time blood sugars from an alarm-clock styled device that synchs with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM).

Amy explored the mystery behind nutrition labels, and we were shocked to learn what the FDA doesn't do in regulating these labels that are so important for carb-counting PWDs -- and for anyone trying to watch what they eat.

News came out that famous butter-and-cream Southern supreme chef Paula Deen has been living with type 2 diabetes, and we analyzed the mistakes and opportunities of her belated public announcement. Later, we interviewed her about the news and how it's impacted her life and cooking. With her sticky-sweet communication style, her sincerity with all this was definitely called into question...

Amy attended the huge-mongous Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that takes place in Las Vegas every year, and saw some exciting new D-tech and health gadgets on display, including a preview of the Dexcom Gen5 and the iHealth meter for iPhone or iTouch, first of many knock-offs of the iBGStar device?

We hosted the enthusiastic director of international operations for the Virginia-based non-profit AYUDA (American Youth Understanding Diabetes Abroad), Merith Basey, who shared a powerful guest post on diabetes in the developing world. (Hint: it's not pretty.)

FEBRUARY

We launched a new Amazing Diabetes Advocates Series, beginning with D-Advocate extraordinaire Cherise Shockley, founder of the weekly Twitter discussion #DSMA and the non-profit Diabetes Community Advocacy Foundation. She leads the way!

Putting on his correspondent hat, our own Wil Dubois examined health insurance for pre-existing conditions, and how a temporary federal program is changing the coverage game.

Amy shared insights about innovation and how DiabetesMine's work is influencing the industry and key D-Device players.

Bydureon hits the scene, getting the FDA's approval as the first and only once-a-week drug to help people with type 2 keep their BGs in check. Is it really "changing the paradigm" for type 2 diabetes care?

We chatted with Charles "Chip" Zimliki, a biologist and fellow type 1 who at the time headed up the FDA's Artificial Pancreas division. Above all, he encouraged patients to get involved by giving feedback.

MARCH

We had the honor of talking with famous endo Dr. Fred Whitehouse in Detroit, who's done everything from intern with the legendary Dr. Elliot Joslin, to head up the American Diabetes Association in the '70s, to treating a woman with diabetes who was one of the first type 1 patients in the U.S. to ever use insulin back in the '20s!

Current ADA CEO Larry Hausner talked with us about the organization's strategy for the next few years, along with ADA's views on hot topics like Paula Deen's diagnosis, promotion of the Blue Circle as the international symbol for diabetes advocacy, and how adults with type 1 are being represented (or not) by the ADA.

Allison trekked to the South by Southwest conference (SXSW) in Austin, TX, and participated in a panel discussion called Friending Pharma, which focused on the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and patients. People don't trust institutions; people trust people, right?

Two of the biggest diabetes sports groups merged, as the Diabetes Exercise & Sports Association (DESA) was integrated into Insulindependence (IN). Strength in numbers, we always say.

Wil infiltrated a Certified Diabetes Educator training program and was disappointed at the lack of empathy for the real people these educators are treating.

APRIL

Do you share your A1C test results with other people? In Spring, we asked this question, which sparked a lively discussion from the Diabetes Community!

Amy traveled to the Medtronic Diabetes Advocates Forum at the company's Southern California headquarters (Mike did, too, though he wasn't a part of the 'Mine team yet), and she reviewed the experience of this second annual forum. Great to see Pharma expanding its outreach to the patient community, for sure.

A story in Women's Health magazine sensationalized diabetes and how females are looking at this condition, and we called them out on it.

PWD and accomplished photographer Roger Ressmeyer has always dreamed of traveling to outer space, and he almost got his chance when he was selected as one of the top 20 finalists for the Space Race 2012, with a Grand Prize of a sub-orbital space flight!Sadly, he wasn't chosen, but we were so delighted to have the chance to feature him.

MAY

We took our DiabetesMine Innovation Project to the next level by introducing the 2012 Patient Voices Contest in which we "crowdsourced" diabetes community patient needs.

We also announced the launch of Sanofi's iBGStar meter, the first-ever medical device to plug directly into an iPhone or iPod touch -- and gave away iBGStar meters as part of Patient Voices prize package.

May was Mental Health Month, and the Diabetes Advocates created a special program to address the issue of depression and stress with the Big D.

Mike Hoskins joined the 'Mine as full-time managing editor! Immediately, we couldn't imagine life without him.

Mike was deployed right away to cover the first-ever Eli Lilly D-Social Media Summit in his hometown of Indianapolis (Lilly finally got on-board with the DOC!). He also traveled to Detroit for a JDRF Research Conference, where he learned about the magical properties of chocolate milk, among other things. And then it was back to Indy for a JDRF Gala where he and his wife met Bret Michaels (!) and chatted with this rock legend about his new national D-advocacy push.

For Diabetes Blog Week 2012, everyone in the DOC was encouraged to find a new friend. We found three.

JUNE

We published several comprehensive reports from the ADA's annual Scientific Sessions for 2012, held in Philadelphia, including what was hot from the expo floor from companies big and small.

Tandem released the t:slim (!), a slick new pump that looks and feels like a modern smartphone. Aside from all the buzz, we investigated the company's return policy and helped start a discussion that appears to have helped changed that policy to the better for patients.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on health care reform, and we looked into what this means for PWDs. Upshot: people with chronic conditions have improved chances of getting improved coverage, so it's a win!

The DiabetesMine Patient Voices Contest winners were announced, and over the next four months, we profiled each one of them individually. Hooray for so many intelligent, well-spoken, and sympatico kindred spirits out there!

The "Caveman Blogger lawsuit" rocked the blogging/free speech world. We explored where one draws the line between freedom to blog health information vs. offering health services. Since then, the Caveman Blogger has lost his first round in federal court and his case is now winding its way through the appeals process.

JULY

At the annual Children with Diabetes Friends for Life conference in Orlando, FL, Adult Type 1s are formally welcomed for the first time, with special sessions just for the grown-ups! Kudos to organizer Jeff Hitchcock for continually growing his fantastic program.

Summer Olympics time!! We profiled some PWDs who were lucky enough to be Olympic torchbearers over the years. Wow.

Ice Cream, You Scream, PWDs love Ice Cream! But is that kosher? It's quite controversial, in fact.

We discovered that Pharma customer service is now being carried out via social media -- via Twitter, in fact. Mike was surprised and a little intimidated by "big brother" Pharma.

Mike headed to the fourth annual Roche Diabetes Social Media Summit in Indy, which focused largely on the "Evolution of the DOC." In other words, we online advocates were given a chance to pat ourselves on the back, and think about where we want to go next.

AUGUST

We had a chance to connect with loving D-Dad and researcher Ed Damiano, who talked with us about his exciting work creating a "Bionic Pancreas" and pushing for progress with the FDA.

At the annual American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) conference in Indianapolis, IN, we heard that educators are finally listening more to patients and the DOC! We also saw a booth on the exhibit hall floor that made us do a double-take: High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) being peddled at a diabetes education conference?!

We subsequently ran an an exposÃ© on the ethics of exhibitor selection for these kind of diabetes conferences, talking policy with ADA, AADE, CWD and others.

This prompted D-Mom blogger Leighann Calentine to launch an HFCS boycott campaign.

The tech world -- and anxious consumers -- were all buzzing about the next-gen iPhone set to be released this year, but there were some specific concerns about how new iPhone 5 changes might impact the compatible diabetes technology. We looked into it, of course.

We had our eyes (hah!) on FA once again, as the agency approved Lucentis, the first-ever drug for Diabetic Macular Edema (DME).

There were some big happenings in the DOC, from fellow D-bloggers taking on new roles in the community to our beloved DSMA becoming its own non-profit under the name, Diabetes Community Advocacy Foundation (DCAF), Inc. (!)

Former 'Mine assistant editor Allison decided to pursue her dream of becoming a Certified Diabetes Educator, and that means going back school full-time. How exciting to have another aspiring CDE with D! (We were fortunate that Allison opted to stay on with us in a freelance capacity, too 🙂 )

SEPTEMBER

Amy and Mike attended the MedicineX conference at Stanford University's School of Medicine, where the voice of the patient was everywhere, thanks to an e-Patient scholarship program sponsored by our company, Alliance Health Networks. It was great confirmation that our voices are incredibly meaningful and should be integral to all discussions of reforming healthcare.

One fellow e-patient at that conference was Regina Holliday, who's created a mobile art project that consists of murals on painted on e-patients' jackets. It's called the Walking Gallery, and she's made the 'Mine a part of it!

The legendary Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston kicked off its own Diabetes + Innovation conference event, which brought together national leaders and helps usher us into a new era of fresh thinking and collaboration -- we hope!!

Medtronic and Bayer jointly announced a new USB-enabled glucose meter, the Contour NextLink, which is mainly remarkable in that these competitors worked together to create an improved, patient-friendly design.

D-blogger and advocate Kim Vlasnik led the creation of a DOC "You are Beautiful" video to help one kid feel better about wearing both glasses and an insulin pump. The video went viral as a best-case example of how social media can help patients everywhere! Go, Kim!!

For Diabetes Art Day 2012 -- an annual initiative thanks to D-blogger/advocate Lee Ann Thill -- we featured a real live, diabetes artist. Don't miss her Epic Wonders.

TCOYD, the amazing national diabetes education conference series for type 2, added a Type 1 Track to its programming for the very first time!

OCTOBER

The Dexcom G4 continuous glucose monitoring system was approved by FDA!! CGM users everywhere celebrated (right?).

We got some reports from the EASD Conference (European Association for the Study of Diabetes) held in Berlin this year that companies were showing off so-called Hypo Simulator contraptions. Weird stuff, indeed.

ADA got called out for a very embarrassing telemarketing snafu -- yet they defended the mistakes made. Not good.

We launched a new series called LWD (Life with Diabetes) Video Fridays, showcasing shorts on real life with D. The series continues into early 2013, so check it out if you haven't yet.

The TV remake of tear-jerker film Steel Magnolias aired. Treatment of diabetes was perhaps a little simplified, but pretty factual overall. The crew gets an A for effort.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) released New Global Diabetes Guidelines -- which unfortunately fall flat of making any meaty and meaningful recommendations for helping the places in the world hit hardest. Disappointing.

NOVEMBER

A huge month for national and international Diabetes Awareness... where to begin?

We previewed all sorts of happenings for World Diabetes Day Nov. 14. And then to mix things up a little, we also explored what Pharma does to observe WDD. And guess what? Some of it is not lame.

The Big Blue Test advocacy campaign benefits the Third World this year -- and hit its goal of 20,000 video views!

Our own Allison launched Blue Cupcake cards, specialized greeting cards for PWDs. They were later profiled in USA Today!

"Uncle Wil" Dubois ruffled some feathers while "keeping it real" with a frank talk about D-teens and drinking alcohol. Do not miss this column.

The Diabetes Technology Society held its annual meeting, where Amy spoke about the impact of social media. This influential group appeared to be finally embracing industry standards - wow!

During that event, the news broke that FDA had approved final guidelines for artificial pancreas (AP) research and development!

We at the 'Mine were psyched to host our very own 2nd annual DiabetesMine Innovation Summit at Stanford University -- a truly amazing get-together of e-patients, industry folk, designers, engineers, mobile health experts and more. Patients are indeed influencing change, and we're so happy and proud to be part of the movement!

During the Summit, we unveiled our "Patients Call for Innovation" video, a powerful testament to what's still missing in diabetes care.

DECEMBER

The FDA -- yes, the national Food and Drug Administration! -- submitted a guest post here at the 'Mine about their reactions to attending the DiabetesMine Innovation Summit. Now that's a new level of interaction between e-patients and the Powers That Be!

And on Dec. 14, FDA approved the next-gen OmniPod, with a smaller insulin pod and updated PDM! We got all the details as fast as we humanly could. Read 'em here.

Generic test strips -- remember that idea? Well, some may be may be hitting shelves soon, in the form of cheaper AND more accurate Shasta GenStrips, despite a lawsuit filed by JnJ.

The CEO of Tandem Diabetes Care shared a guest post on the making of the slick new t:slim pump. We really love learning how good design happens!

For 2013:

For all the Medtronic users out there, we are SO hoping for the company's next-gen Enlite CGM sensor to be approved by the FDA.

We're also very intrigued by how the online community's been evolving, and eager to see how the interactions between patients/bloggers, Pharma, and healthcare providers continue to evolve.

Meanwhile, we continue our daily efforts to bring you diabetes news & views in our unique format, written by and for patients.

How are we covering our Diabetes Community? Let us know what we're doing well and what we could do better.

As always, your input is more than welcome, and we can't wait to hear from you!

Happy New Year,

Dear Friends and Readers!

Yours,

Amy & Mike (and the rest of the 'Mine team!)

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

0 notes

minrcrafter · 6 years

Photo

Server Name: Summa Crossroads

Server Locale: NA East Coast - Beauharnois, Canada

Imgur Album: Prosperus gallery

Facebook: Summa Crossroads Facebook Page

Website: Summa Crossroads

Server Address/IP: mc.summaxr.com

Live Map: http://mc.summaxr.com

Game Play Type/s: [SMP] - Server is survival focused, with lots of PvE content but PvP enabled and PvP arenas for those with a thirst for blood

Additional Worlds: Custom nether, custom skylands, parkour/activity, challenge

Discord: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Long description, tl;dr features list below:

Some recent highlights:

We've been around since 2010, but we're working on new stuff for you all the time.

Triple mcMMO EXP

Happy holidays! Triple mcMMO EXP is enabled through Tuesday.

Discord integration improvements

Mob loot rebalance

Ice boat racing

It's as fun as it sounds. We're working on constructing multiple courses, and they make for a great night of community building!

More rare mobs, construction of Landmarks

We've added yet more of our new rare mobs, and are slowly expanding the library of them and the loot they drop! Ideas are always welcomed, and rewarded!

This week features the introduction of more Veteran and Elite monsters appearing in the Nether, End, and Heavens!

And, of course, new loot! You can now find additional drops from Veterans and above.

Mob health indicators

The action bar will now display the health value of the monster you're currently fighting. Users say this is one of their favorite server improvements to date!

Development of the main quest line

More magic spells

This week we added more new spells and rebalanced a few old ones based on user feedback!

Temple challenger bounties

Hall of Accomplishments

Colored repairs

Special items with colored names (read: rare mob loot) will now keep their names when repaired with anvils!

Fixed shooting range

The Shooting Range is now back open for business! Practice your aim and make a little gold, too.

Back-end updates

We optimized and improved a lot of our back-end systems this week. Hooray, performance improvements!

Wiki development

We've created a Wiki for the server and are working on building out some content templates! Soon you'll be able to share what you know about secrets, loot, and more with your fellow players.

PvP arena tournaments

As always, seeking your feedback and ideas!

Server features:

High biome density and diversity, with custom biomes.

Customized, revamped nether.

One home per world.

Unlock warps by travelling to them. Construct your own waypoint node to let others visit you.

An increasingly diverse cast of rare and powerful custom mobs for you to test your mettle against, with suitably rare and shiny loot for your troubles.

Lock your chests and devices.

Open world PvP as well as arenas supporting 1v1 or team combat.

Cooperative PvE arenas vs. increasingly difficult waves of mobs, including bosses, with lucrative rewards. Keep the experience you earn!

Daily and weekly quests, with a main quest line in development.

Elaborate and difficult parkour challenges, as well as a few on the lighter side.

Player shops including enter/leave messages.

NPCs, many of whom have things to say, quests to complete, or services to offer!

Earn gold for participating in server activities or engaging on the forums. Spend it your way.

Milk with a little something extra.

Various quality-of-life commands, such as /where so you don't have to use F3.

Auto link shortener. Don't let character limits ruin your sharing.

Magic spells that have a variety of uses, with more added regularly.

Extensions to redstone usability in certain situations.

Mini-games and other distractions for some simple amusement. Check out our shooting range.

Instanced temple challenges, reminiscent of Legend of Zelda or other dungeons. Check out our trailer for the Water Temple!

Incentive program for positive contributions to the server.

Discord server: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Weekly content and bugfix updates.

While this might already seem like a lot, there's already even more being worked on and planned! We would love to have you be a part of our continued development and growth.

Rules:

No griefing.

No begging.

No whining.

Be friendly.

No hacking, malicious mods, exploitation, duping, or other unfairly advantageous manipulation of gameplay.

Harassment will not be tolerated.

Visual griefing (mutilating the landscape for transport or other purposes without cleaning up after yourself) is not allowed.

No advertising.

Wahrheit's word is law.

Official Rules Thread + "Case Law"

Owner/Admins/Moderators: Owned and administrated by Wahrheit since 2010. Additional administrators include SirusAP, Xarin23, Uniballerkid and Hidendra.

YouTube: YouTube Channel

Questions and comments are warmly welcomed, and we hope to see you in-game!

#Minecraft servers #minecraft

0 notes

minrcrafter · 7 years

Photo

Server Name: Summa Crossroads

Server Locale: NA East Coast - Beauharnois, Canada

Imgur Album: Prosperus gallery

Facebook: Summa Crossroads Facebook Page

Website: Summa Crossroads

Server Address/IP: mc.summaxr.com

Live Map: http://mc.summaxr.com

Game Play Type/s: [SMP] - Server is survival focused, with lots of PvE content but PvP enabled and PvP arenas for those with a thirst for blood

Additional Worlds: Custom nether, custom skylands, parkour/activity, challenge

Discord: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Long description, tl;dr features list below:

Some recent highlights:

We've been around since 2010, but we're working on new stuff for you all the time.

Discord integration improvements

Mob loot rebalance

Ice boat racing

It's as fun as it sounds. We're working on constructing multiple courses, and they make for a great night of community building!

More rare mobs, construction of Landmarks

We've added yet more of our new rare mobs, and are slowly expanding the library of them and the loot they drop! Ideas are always welcomed, and rewarded!

This week features the introduction of more Veteran and Elite monsters appearing in the Nether, End, and Heavens!

And, of course, new loot! You can now find additional drops from Veterans and above.

Mob health indicators

The action bar will now display the health value of the monster you're currently fighting. Users say this is one of their favorite server improvements to date!

Development of the main quest line

More magic spells

This week we added more new spells and rebalanced a few old ones based on user feedback!

Temple challenger bounties

Hall of Accomplishments

Colored repairs

Special items with colored names (read: rare mob loot) will now keep their names when repaired with anvils!

Fixed shooting range

The Shooting Range is now back open for business! Practice your aim and make a little gold, too.

Back-end updates

We optimized and improved a lot of our back-end systems this week. Hooray, performance improvements!

Wiki development

We've created a Wiki for the server and are working on building out some content templates! Soon you'll be able to share what you know about secrets, loot, and more with your fellow players.

PvP arena tournaments

Join us on Sundays at 3pm Chicago time for PvP tournaments! Gear is provided - just bring your a-game. Announcements about signups will go out on Discord each week. Last week's winner was ElectricSparx!

As always, seeking your feedback and ideas!

Server features:

High biome density and diversity, with custom biomes.

Customized, revamped nether.

One home per world.

Unlock warps by travelling to them. Construct your own waypoint node to let others visit you.

An increasingly diverse cast of rare and powerful custom mobs for you to test your mettle against, with suitably rare and shiny loot for your troubles.

Lock your chests and devices.

Open world PvP as well as arenas supporting 1v1 or team combat.

Cooperative PvE arenas vs. increasingly difficult waves of mobs, including bosses, with lucrative rewards. Keep the experience you earn!

Daily and weekly quests, with a main quest line in development.

Elaborate and difficult parkour challenges, as well as a few on the lighter side.

Player shops including enter/leave messages.

NPCs, many of whom have things to say, quests to complete, or services to offer!

Earn gold for participating in server activities or engaging on the forums. Spend it your way.

Milk with a little something extra.

Various quality-of-life commands, such as /where so you don't have to use F3.

Auto link shortener. Don't let character limits ruin your sharing.

Magic spells that have a variety of uses, with more added regularly.

Extensions to redstone usability in certain situations.

Mini-games and other distractions for some simple amusement. Check out our shooting range.

Instanced temple challenges, reminiscent of Legend of Zelda or other dungeons. Check out our trailer for the Water Temple!

Incentive program for positive contributions to the server.

Discord server: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Weekly content and bugfix updates.

While this might already seem like a lot, there's already even more being worked on and planned! We would love to have you be a part of our continued development and growth.

Rules:

No griefing.

No begging.

No whining.

Be friendly.

No hacking, malicious mods, exploitation, duping, or other unfairly advantageous manipulation of gameplay.

Harassment will not be tolerated.

Visual griefing (mutilating the landscape for transport or other purposes without cleaning up after yourself) is not allowed.

No advertising.

Wahrheit's word is law.

Official Rules Thread + "Case Law"

Owner/Admins/Moderators: Owned and administrated by Wahrheit since 2010. Additional administrators include SirusAP, Xarin23, Uniballerkid and Hidendra.

YouTube: YouTube Channel

Questions and comments are warmly welcomed, and we hope to see you in-game!

#Minecraft servers #minecraft

0 notes

minrcrafter · 7 years

Photo

Server Name: Summa Crossroads

Server Locale: NA East Coast - Beauharnois, Canada

Imgur Album: Prosperus gallery

Facebook: Summa Crossroads Facebook Page

Website: Summa Crossroads

Server Address/IP: mc.summaxr.com

Live Map: http://mc.summaxr.com

Game Play Type/s: [SMP] - Server is survival focused, with lots of PvE content but PvP enabled and PvP arenas for those with a thirst for blood

Additional Worlds: Custom nether, custom skylands, parkour/activity, challenge

Discord: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Long description, tl;dr features list below:

Some recent highlights:

We've been around since 2010, but we're working on new stuff for you all the time.

Discord integration improvements

Mob loot rebalance

Ice boat racing

It's as fun as it sounds. We're working on constructing multiple courses, and they make for a great night of community building!

More rare mobs, construction of Landmarks

We've added yet more of our new rare mobs, and are slowly expanding the library of them and the loot they drop! Ideas are always welcomed, and rewarded!

This week features the introduction of more Veteran and Elite monsters appearing in the Nether, End, and Heavens!

And, of course, new loot! You can now find additional drops from Veterans and above.

Mob health indicators

The action bar will now display the health value of the monster you're currently fighting. Users say this is one of their favorite server improvements to date!

Development of the main quest line

More magic spells

This week we added more new spells and rebalanced a few old ones based on user feedback!

Temple challenger bounties

Hall of Accomplishments

Colored repairs

Special items with colored names (read: rare mob loot) will now keep their names when repaired with anvils!

Fixed shooting range

The Shooting Range is now back open for business! Practice your aim and make a little gold, too.

Back-end updates

We optimized and improved a lot of our back-end systems this week. Hooray, performance improvements!

Wiki development

We've created a Wiki for the server and are working on building out some content templates! Soon you'll be able to share what you know about secrets, loot, and more with your fellow players.

PvP arena tournaments

Join us on Sundays at 3pm Chicago time for PvP tournaments! Gear is provided - just bring your a-game. Announcements about signups will go out on Discord each week. This week's winner is iShank207!

As always, seeking your feedback and ideas!

Server features:

High biome density and diversity, with custom biomes.

Customized, revamped nether.

One home per world.

Unlock warps by travelling to them. Construct your own waypoint node to let others visit you.

An increasingly diverse cast of rare and powerful custom mobs for you to test your mettle against, with suitably rare and shiny loot for your troubles.

Lock your chests and devices.

Open world PvP as well as arenas supporting 1v1 or team combat.

Cooperative PvE arenas vs. increasingly difficult waves of mobs, including bosses, with lucrative rewards. Keep the experience you earn!

Daily and weekly quests, with a main quest line in development.

Elaborate and difficult parkour challenges, as well as a few on the lighter side.

Player shops including enter/leave messages.

NPCs, many of whom have things to say, quests to complete, or services to offer!

Earn gold for participating in server activities or engaging on the forums. Spend it your way.

Milk with a little something extra.

Various quality-of-life commands, such as /where so you don't have to use F3.

Auto link shortener. Don't let character limits ruin your sharing.

Magic spells that have a variety of uses, with more added regularly.

Extensions to redstone usability in certain situations.

Mini-games and other distractions for some simple amusement. Check out our shooting range.

Instanced temple challenges, reminiscent of Legend of Zelda or other dungeons. Check out our trailer for the Water Temple!

Incentive program for positive contributions to the server.

Discord server: http://ift.tt/2rZf1ZT

Weekly content and bugfix updates.

While this might already seem like a lot, there's already even more being worked on and planned! We would love to have you be a part of our continued development and growth.

Rules:

No griefing.

No begging.

No whining.

Be friendly.

No hacking, malicious mods, exploitation, duping, or other unfairly advantageous manipulation of gameplay.

Harassment will not be tolerated.

Visual griefing (mutilating the landscape for transport or other purposes without cleaning up after yourself) is not allowed.

No advertising.

Wahrheit's word is law.

Official Rules Thread + "Case Law"

Owner/Admins/Moderators: Owned and administrated by Wahrheit since 2010. Additional administrators include SirusAP, Xarin23, Uniballerkid and Hidendra.

YouTube: YouTube Channel

Questions and comments are warmly welcomed, and we hope to see you in-game!

#Minecraft servers #minecraft

0 notes