Podcasts about Honestly

You're likely aware of many of the great things AI can do for you. And I'm guessing you've seen many of the nefarious things it can be used for. I was just brought up to speed on one of the latter items, and it's something you should be aware of as well. In my discussion with Marcus Webster, the Founder and President of Webster and Webster Associates, I learned that people are using AI to help them get jobs, and in some cases, they are jobs that they should not be getting, for security reasons. People are submitting fake resumes and even conducting fake video-based job interviews. Honestly, it's both fascinating and scary. Check out this week's Embedded Executives podcast to learn more.

The holidays hit different, don't they? One minute you feel like you've had your whole year together, and then suddenly, October and November roll in and you're like “what the hell am I even doing?!”If that's you, you're NOT alone - my clients feel this every.single.year (and yep, I've been there too). Honestly though? You're doing WAY better than you think. Even if you haven't been “perfect”, you've been building quiet, meaningful progress day after day. It deserves more credit than it gets!Slow progress doesn't always look glamorous, but it freaking MATTERS. You may not “feel” ahead because you keep raising your own bar. While it's not a bad thing to keep evolving and aiming for more, you've got to stop and recognize how far you've come!This “quiet progress” has made your entire life feel lighter, and it's actually the most underrated part of transformation. As you move through the holidays, remember: you don't need a new diet, challenge, or total reinvention in January. You just need to keep building on what's already WORKING. You're a total badass, so don't forget to celebrate yourself!!Episode recap:Why you're doing way better than you thinkWhat “slow progress” actually looks like in real life + why it mattersWhy it's hard to feel ahead when you keep raising your own barHow to collect REAL evidence of your progress this yearThe power of doing an “energy inventory” & noticing what feels lighterReflection questions to help you see how far you've comeWhy you don't need to reinvent yourself in January (just build on what's already working)Links/Resources:Ep. 217 | Simple Habits I'm Grateful For + Why They Matter Even More Right NowGrab your FREE Body Recomp Meal Prep BlueprintListen to Girls with OpinionsJoin FIT CLUB, my monthly membership with workouts you can do at home or the gymPRIVATE COACHING is my 1:1 program (choose 3 or 6 month option)Connect with me on Instagram @kristycastillofit and @unfuckyourfitnesspodcast so we can keep this conversation going-be sure to tag me in your posts and stories!Join my FREE Facebook group, Unf*ck Your FitnessClick HERE for my favorite fitness & life things!Send me a text with episode ideas or just to say hi! Support the show

In this episode: Lifestyle Design, Mindfulness, Financial Independence, Entrepreneurship, Location Independence with Jess Fick from The Fioneers.Jess Fick from The Fioneers discusses her path to financial independence and her transition toward mindful living. She emphasizes the value of identifying your true needs and building a life aligned with your values instead of racing to the finish line. Jess also offers actionable advice on lifestyle design and developing three unique life paths to explore various possibilities.Guest BioJess from The Fioneers is a blogger focused on financial independence and lifestyle design who promotes mindful and intentional living. As an entrepreneur, speaker, and coach, she empowers people to build a life they love now instead of waiting for FI.Resources & Books MentionedJess' Upcoming Slow FI Retreat"Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and Dave EvansConnect with JessWebsite: TheFioneers.comRetreat : Slow FI RetreatTwitter: @thefioneersInstagram: @thefioneersKey TakeawaysLifestyle design involves introspection, generating ideas, and experimentation.Develop three different life paths to explore various possibilities and encourage curiosity.Use an improv approach of "yes and" to brainstorm ideas without judgment.Mindfulness means being kind, curious, and receptive to whatever emerges.Consider your ideal day/week/month/year and memorable experiences to identify your passions.Monitor your activities and evaluate them to make adjustments and discover what brings you joy.

The holiday season is upon us! This can bring a lot of anxiety for some... Honestly, for most. Now is the time to start navigating how to handle some of the tough situations. Most people in the weight loss community are people pleasers by nature. It's what we've always done. But it doesn't typically serve us. The healthiest thing you can do for yourself this holiday season is remove yourself from the role of people pleaser! It is ok to take a pass on Aunt Suzie's world famous pie (unless it's incredible and you REALLY want it!). It's ok to NOT give in to buying the most expensive gifts. It's ok to decline an invite to a gathering that doesn't align with your goals. Bottom line... it's ok to do what serves YOU! The first thing you can do to set yourself up for success over the holidays is to set boundaries early on and actually stick to them. Listen in as we talk through our strategies and what we've learned over the years. On the next podcast, we will discuss wrapping up 2025 and setting yourself up for 2026. We hope you all have the best holiday season, with minimal stress!Follow Justy & Steph on Instagram, where they share their weight loss journey and road to living a happy & healthy lifestyle.@we.are.losing.it If you prefer video to see us talk through our topics, you can watch us on YouTube. https://youtube.com/@wearelosingitShow your support by hitting download, like & subscribe! We truly appreciate each and every one of you!!

In this episode, Toni sits down with Jyl to talk about how Unforgettable mirrors so many real-life blended family dynamics — from those awkward mood-killing moments, to the pressure of perfection, to the kind of “helpfulness” that feels more like surveillance than support.We also chat about:the relatable tension between new relationships and old attachmentsthe curated, image-driven motherhood we've all bumped up againsthow control can hide behind routines, reminders, and “just being helpful”those unexpected drop-ins that send every stepmum's blood pressure upthe school-gate politics that make you feel like you're walking into enemy territorythe emotional manipulation and identity spirals blended families know too welland the truly unhinged moments in the film that had us saying, “Honestly… been there.”This isn't a movie recap — it's a stepmum conversation about the wild accuracy buried inside a Hollywood thrillerSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/raising-his-kids/donations

Dr. Greg Smalley and Erin Smalley delve into the critical issue of supporting friends in abusive or oppressive marriages with Darby Strickland, an expert counselor and author. Darby explains an insightful definition of abuse as 'oppression,' framing it as the antithesis of God's design for marriage. The discussion addresses the common mistakes helpers make, identifies the patterns of abuse, and offers practical advice for those who may be abusing subconsciously. Is It Abuse? Article: What You Need To Know About Domestic Violence and Abuse Domestic Abuse Hotline 800-799-7233 - Text BEGIN to 88788 Sign up for our FREE Marriage Newsletter Send us your email or voice mail here! Send Us A Review! Support the show! If you enjoyed listening to the Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage podcast with Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley, please give us your feedback.

Hello! Welcome to episode 58 after a long hiatus. Well, this is technically not a real podcast – it is more of a sharing and audio experience with you podcast. When the Disney Treasure launched in late 2024, Skipper Society deputed onboard. The centrally located lounge not only features nods to the iconic Jungle Cruise attraction at Disney theme parks around the globe, but also a lovely background music loop. The BMG loop started each morning during my cruise at 7:05 AM.   The Skipper Society Background Music Loop is based on spending hours sitting at a booth working during the Disney Treasure's December 28, 2024 to January 4, 2025 7-night Western Caribbean Cruise from Port Canaveral where I used Shazam to compile the track list. The actual tracks used onboard may differ, but this is the compilation I was able to compile using available audio once I returned home.   I hope you enjoy.   Yes, this podcast is still available and if this episode appeared in your feed, thanks for staying subscribed. Honestly, I am not sure when another episode will drop, but who knows anything can happen. 

Episode 2296: Kid A.G., El Pres, and Hat Trick walked into the studio like three people who definitely should not be allowed microphones. What followed was the usual circus of bad ideas and worse opinions. We started with Demi Moore's new movie The Substance, where she basically clones a younger, hotter, meaner version of herself. Hollywood's message is crystal clear: aging is fine, as long as you're willing to let your younger clone murder you and wear your skin like a prom dress. Honestly, sign me up. I'd kill present-day me for a 25-year-old upgrade too. We all would. Don't lie. From there we took a hard left into the Smithsonian-level exhibit of pubic hair through the decades. The 1970s had bushes you could lose a toddler in. The 90s gave us the landing strip, which is just nature's way of saying "the runway is clear, please crash your plane into my vagina." And now? Bald. Completely bald. Like a porn star or a dolphin. Grown adults are out here waxing themselves into pre-pubescent seals because apparently hair is the ultimate boner kryptonite. Congratulations, humanity, we've solved sex by turning it into a slip-n-slide. Politics tried to crawl in (something about Epstein files), but we gave it the 45-second mercy kill it deserved. Nobody came here to feel depressed; we came here to feel confused and slightly aroused. AI music is apparently so good now that the guys made a legit alt-metal intro in thirty seconds. Thirty. Seconds. Your band has been practicing in your mom's basement for twelve years and still sounds like a trash-can fire. Skynet just replaced you with a laptop and a dream. In other news, competitive sperm racing is a thing and it just raised ten million dollars. Ten. Million. Somewhere there's a venture capitalist watching tadpoles do laps while yelling "SWIM, YOU LITTLE TRUST-FUND BABIES, DADDY NEEDS A YACHT." Some study says seventy percent of people would rather go to a concert than have sex. Seventy percent. The crew reacted the way normal humans do: with violent, screaming denial. Who are these eunuchs? Name them. I want to fight them in a parking lot while a Dave Matthews cover band plays in the background. Hat Trick then treated us to the Director's Cut of her weekend with the new fireman: Hampton Inn points, drinks, an hour-long first round, choking on date one (very romantic), and a recovery time so fast the entire room accused him of mainlining sketchy blue pills. Also "good girl" still turns her into a puddle. Science is undefeated. We rounded things out with Ozempic side effects, breeding kinks, praise kinks, Andrew Tate's nightmare hypothetical (Megan Fox with a dick vs Hulk Hogan with a pussy—still the worst would-you-rather in history), personal 24-hour body-count records that would make Caligula blush, a brutal takedown of the "women don't need men" TikTok crowd (congrats on the vibrator, enjoy dying alone with twelve cats and a charging cable), and the daily reminder that your phone is listening to you masturbate. Oh, and Paralyzer's Hottie of the week is back, a wiffle-ball-bat phone prank went full war crime, and the AI closed the show with an Irish-punk song telling everyone to chuck their phone into the ocean because it's just a glass pacifier for adults who are terrified of silence. Same circus, Same clowns. Press play and lower your expectations accordingly. Explicit • You already knew that • #GoinDeepShow #Episode2296

There's not all that much to say about the Ukraine peace negotiations as delegations head to the USA and Russia, but I cover a few issues, from Trump's 'businessified' approach to geopolitics to the departures of both Andrii Yermak and Dmitri Kozak.In the second half, I use Russian folklore, and the arrays of terrifying threats in the deep woods and the potentially terrifying spirits of hearth and home as a parable for Russian strategic culture. Honestly.The forthcoming book I mention is Sophie Pinkham's The Oak and the LarchThe podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and similar situations.You can also follow my blog, In Moscow's Shadows, and become one of the podcast's supporting Patrons and gain question-asking rights and access to exclusive extra materials including the (almost-) weekly Govorit Moskva news briefing right here. Support the show

How do you become a C++ Standards Committee member?Why is C++ prevalent in audio?Should you still use it for audio software?Honestly, Timur Doumler is someone I have looked up to ever since I saw his “C++ in the audio industry” talk at CppCon 2015.He has a rich development history with C++ and/or audio:developer at Native Instrumentsdeveloper of the JUCE C++ framework (podcast sponsor ❤️)C++ linter developer and developer advocate at JetBrains (who make the CLion IDE)founder of Cradle, an audio plugin startupC++ Standards Committee memberCppCast podcast hostnotorious Audio Developer Conference and CppCon speakerI have probably missed a ton of stuff here, but that should already give you a flavor of what Timur is up to

Hey Xiaomaos, here's a little Christmas gift from my heart to yours.This is my cover of “Christmas Eve” (クリスマス・イブ) originally written and performed by the legendary Tatsuro Yamashita (山下達郎). His music has shaped so much of what Christmas feels like, and this is my tiny tribute to his magic. I've been playing a lot in the world of music arrangement and production lately, and giving this classic a new life has been pure joy. It's wild how a familiar melody can carry the same soul yet feel completely reborn with a new voice.Honestly… that's exactly how I feel about this season of my life too.I've been thinking a lot about reinvention. How we can keep the heart of who we are while shedding the version that no longer fits. How endings can be beginnings in disguise. How creativity is this infinite well we get to drink from again and again.This song is the first taste of an upcoming 7-track Christmas EP. Every track is a reinvention of a classic. Every one carries a little farewell, a little thank you, and a whole lot of love for the community that's been with me through all the chapters.So here's the lead singleA soft lantern in the December nightA tiny warm hug set to musicAnd a small reminder that reinvention is a gift we're allowed to give ourselves anytime.I can't wait to share the full EP with you soon.Merry Christmas, my Xiaomaos.-------Come say hi!

Andy’s Brave New World: Part 4 Andy and Sarah continue to explore the Presidio settlement. Based on a post by the hospital. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels. "I've no intention of giving up our supplies or the consulate. All of that is ours, fair and square, and we can be choosy about who we share with. Right now, even if people like Rachel are a little envious of our situation, they won't try anything. There's no real competition for resources or territory yet." They paused, watching a volunteer coordinate a cache of water bottles. "Yeah", Sarah mused thoughtfully. "I guess the real question is what happens down the line. What if people like Rachel do get jealous of what we have but we don't want to share." She smiled a little. "Post-apocalyptic wealth inequality." "I mean, yeah it's a legitimate question. And if we assume the Presidio is going to be the government here, it'll come down to how it develops. Will they let people have "private property", Andy said, making air quotes, "whatever that means now, or go more communal?" "What do you think would be better?" Sarah asked. "I believe strongly in balance," Andy said thoughtfully. "Yes, the government, or the community, whatever, needs power to redistribute wealth when inequality gets extreme, and it should do its best to ensure everyone has a fair shot, especially because people will naturally gravitate toward supporting their own; you know, nepotism. There's also lots of things that are public goods that only make sense for the government as a whole to organize and provide." "But there's also got to be some concept of private property, that's what motivates people to build, to create, to work hard. Without private property it's hard to have accountability once your group gets bigger than a couple hundred people, and with no accountability it's hard to get people to do things." He gazed around at the bustling camp. "If I can become a respected voice here early on, maybe I can help push development in that direction. A strong but fair government that works to provide public goods and protect individual rights while ensuring nobody falls too far behind." "This is all theoretical though, and way out into the future. For now I think the hope is that people pitch in, work together, and share on their own, because we're all just trying to survive." Sarah studied his face. "You've really thought this through." Andy chuckled. "Yeah, well, before we left Yosemite, I was reading those prepper manuals Miguel, you remember Daniela's dad, left us. They had some interesting takes on politics and government, alongside all the survival and engineering stuff." He shrugged. "They're written by preppers for preppers, so they've definitely got a libertarian bent. But I think some of their core arguments are pretty sound." Andy slowed his pace, watching a woman in scrubs directing several volunteers near the medical tent. "Before we donate these antibiotics, we should ask around about where they should go. Especially ask anyone who looks like they're in charge." "Why not just give them to the medical tent?" Sarah asked. "Because we want as many people as possible to know we brought them," Andy explained quietly. "Each person we ask is another person who knows we're contributing to the community. Better to establish that goodwill early." Sarah nodded thoughtfully. "Smart. What about the apples?" "Yeah, we should be strategic with those too. When we talk to people, first find out if they're actually living here at the Presidio or nearby in the neighborhood. No point giving them to random visitors or people just passing through." He adjusted his pack. "We don't have an unlimited supply, and temporary goodwill from strangers isn't worth much. Better to save them for people we might actually build relationships with." "Like Rachel," Sarah noted. "Since she lives on our street." "Exactly. The apples are a resource, we should use them to build connections that matter." Sarah shook her head ruefully. "You're already playing 4D chess while most people don't even know they're in a game yet." "Maybe a bit Machiavellian," Andy admitted. "But my intentions are good. I want to help rebuild something worth living in." Day 8, Midmorning After an hour of carefully distributed apples, they asked around for Guillermo Herrera. They found him in a makeshift office in one of the old administrative buildings, bent over a desk covered in inventory lists. He was a stocky man in his forties, wearing partial combat fatigues with a well-maintained fade haircut that spoke of decades of military discipline. A younger woman sat nearby, organizing what looked like personnel rosters. Guillermo looked up as they entered, his expression professionally neutral. "Can I help you?" "Andy Rhee," Andy introduced himself. "We just checked in with registration. They suggested we come see you." "Any military experience?" Guillermo asked squarely, brow furrowing as he studied Andy closely. "I was a park ranger. I'm comfortable with firearms, good shot, but no formal tactical training." Guillermo glanced at Sarah expectantly. "No, nothing. Haven't even held a gun before to be honest." She said with a self-deprecating shrug. "I'm eager to learn though, if there will be classes." "Yes, we're in the process of organizing some." Guillermo turned back to Andy. "Talk to Michelle to sign up for the militia." he said, pointing a thumb at the woman behind him. His expression shifted to polite dismissal. "One other thing," Andy continued, "one of our group members, Daniela Martinez, she's fourteen, but she actually got extensive military training from her father, an ex-Marine, also a ranger. He was;" Andy paused. "Very, very prepared for something like this." That caught Guillermo's attention. "How extensively?" "She's currently setting up our defense perimeter. Planning kill zones, considering sight lines, working out mine placement. Her knowledge is really impressive. I'd happily trust her with anything security related for our group." Guillermo leaned back, reassessing. "Put both their names down on the militia list," he told Michelle. "We're trying to catalog available combat personnel." He turned back to Andy. "Any significant weapons?" "Yeah, a reasonable amount," Andy said carefully. "Rather not detail it all yet, until we see how things develop here. But we might be able to share some if there are specific needs." "Sure, nothing urgent right now," Guillermo replied. "There hasn't been any trouble yet. But we're discussing organizing supply runs to the military installations in the region. Travis Air Force Base, Coast Guard Island, Camp Parks, Moffitt Field." He tapped areas on a map on his desk as he named the locations. "San Jose State is open to joining, and we'll reach out to whatever leadership emerges in Oakland if and when it does." Andy nodded. "Good idea. I'd be happy to help when that happens. Daniela too, she'd be valuable on a mission like that, you could probably have her lead a team, if you could convince people to follow her." "Noted." Guillermo made another mark in his notebook. "I'll want to meet her, evaluate her capabilities myself." "Of course. We're at the Korean consulate in Presidio Heights when you want to arrange that." They exchanged Beacon handles, then Andy added, "By the way, who's coordinating the mass grave? I read about it on Beacon. We have a body we need to deal with, and I'm sure we'll find more once we clear our street." "Alyssa Daniels," Guillermo replied. "She's;" he paused thoughtfully. "Diligent. High-strung, but gets things done. She's coordinating from the west side of the grounds." "Thanks." Andy reached into his pack. "And last thing, would you like an apple? Just got them yesterday." Guillermo accepted with a nod of thanks. Andy handed one to Michelle as well, who smiled gratefully. "Also, we have some antibiotics with us to donate, should we take them to the medical tent or is there another place for them?" "Medical tent. Dr. Wilson's in charge there." "Thanks. We'll head there next. Have a good one." Day 8, Midday They found Diana Wells near the western edge of the parade ground, bent over a topographical map spread across a folding table. Her silver hair was pulled back in a practical braid, and she wore well-worn hiking gear that spoke of years spent in the wilderness. Several compound bows and a collection of hunting rifles were carefully arranged on a nearby table. "Diana Wells?" Andy asked, approaching the table. "I heard you're organizing hunting expeditions." She looked up, her weathered face breaking into a smile as she noticed Andy's holstered glock. "Finally, someone who might actually know what they're doing!" She extended a calloused hand. "I've been trying to put together hunting parties, but haven't found a lot of takers." She smiled ruefully. Andy chuckled, immediately warming to her direct manner. "Andy Rhee. I was a park ranger at Yosemite, before all this." "Ranger? Perfect." Diana's eyes lit up. "We need to start organized hunting soon, can't live on canned food forever. But these city libs, bless their hearts, most of 'em never even held a gun;" She caught herself, glancing at Sarah apologetically. "No offense meant." "None taken," Sarah said with a small smile. "I'll freely admit I'm one of those city libs who needs to learn. Actually hoping to start training soon." Diana's expression softened. "Well, that's different then. Admitting you need to learn is the first step." She turned back to her map. "I'm thinking of starting with some deer hunting in Marin. Less competition from other survivors up there, and the herds should be getting bolder without human pressure." "Smart," Andy nodded. "How many experienced hunters do you have so far?" "Three, including me," Diana sighed. "Got a former Marine who did some hunting growing up, and a Forest Service guy from Oregon. Could really use someone with your background." Andy traced his finger along the map's contour lines, studying the terrain. "What about sustainability? Should we be worried about overhunting?" Diana straightened up, giving him an approving nod. "Good to hear a ranger asking that, shows the right mindset." She pulled out a small notebook, flipping through some rough calculations. "It's something I've been thinking about. We should probably try to establish some quotas for the region at some point, coordinate between different hunting groups." She gestured at the camp around them. "But honestly? That's going to have to come later. Right now;" She shook her head with a wry smile. "Way things are going, I doubt we'll find enough competent hunters to make a real dent in the population. Most folks here can barely tell a rifle from a shotgun, let alone track and shoot a deer." Volunteer Coordination. They found the volunteer coordination center in what had once been a Presidio administrative office. The space buzzed with focused energy as women, and a few men, moved between folding tables covered in papers, calling out updates and cross-referencing lists, while several people either requesting or volunteering various types of services spoke to them. At the center of the organized chaos stood a striking woman in her early thirties, her presence commanding attention without effort. Megan Lunn had the kind of natural relaxed attractiveness that didn't need enhancement, high cheekbones, clear gray eyes, and naturally red hair pulled back in a practical braid that reached halfway down her back. She wore simple, well-worn outdoors clothes that suggested genuine outdoor experience rather than posturing. "Jenny, can you cross-reference these lists with medical?" she was saying as Andy and Sarah approached. "We need to know who has first aid training versus actual medical degrees." Her voice carried naturally, pitched to be heard without shouting. She glanced up as they neared, her sharp eyes taking in every detail of their appearance. "Welcome to the circus," she said with a tired smile. "I'm Megan, or Meg. You must be the new arrivals Alice mentioned, the ranger and the biology student?" Up close, Andy could see the subtle signs of command experience in her bearing, the way she positioned herself to keep the whole room in view, how she tracked multiple conversations while maintaining eye contact. A silver pendant in the shape of a compass rose hung at her throat, and a well-used Leatherman multi-tool was clipped to her belt. "That's right," Andy replied. "Andy Rhee, and this is Sarah Chen-Mitchell. You're coordinating the volunteer efforts?" "Trying to," Meg said with a self-deprecating laugh that didn't quite hide her competence. "I was a wilderness guide before all this, led backcountry expeditions, taught survival skills. Turns out organizing twenty stressed people in the wilderness was good practice for;" she gestured at the controlled chaos around them, "whatever this is becoming." A younger volunteer approached with a stack of papers, and Meg smoothly took them without breaking conversation. "We're trying to match skills to needs, and build some kind of structure. Luckily lots of people want to help out." She studied them both with those penetrating gray eyes. "I hear you've set up at the consulate rather than joining us down here?" There was no judgment in her tone, just neutral statement of fact. Andy found himself wanting to explain his reasoning, to have this attractive, capable woman understand his choices. Before he could respond, she held up a hand with another slight smile. "Don't worry, I get it. You've found somewhere defensible, and secured resources. Smart move, actually." She marked something on one of her many lists. "We'll need multiple strong points around the city eventually, not just one central location. The important thing right now is staying connected." Andy found himself immediately impressed with her diplomacy, and her recall of their group and situation. "Yes," he responded. "We are interested in being a part of the Presidio, we just have our own space right now." "Glad to hear. I was hoping, based on the description of your group, that you weren't one of those ultra-right-wing, prepper, sovereign citizen types. I'm sure they're having a blast right now, the ones that survived anyway." Her eyes held a hint of amusement. "So, what can I do for you Mr. Rhee?" He and Sarah shared a glance. "First we have some apples to offer, and some antibiotics to donate. And we've heard you're taking a lot of lead in organizing here, I was wondering if we could chat, big picture." Meg smiled. "Ah, so you're here to play the game as well. No doubt." She called out, "Fresh apples, everyone, get them from the kind Mr. Andy Rhee over here." Sarah and Andy were briefly mobbed by the people in the office, handing out most of their remaining apples. "Let's step outside. I could use a walk." She announced to the room she'd be out for a few minutes. They stepped into the bright sunlight. "Shall we head toward the medical tent to drop off the antibiotics?" she asked. "Or do you have any more people to mention them to first?" Her smile was wry. Andy felt a little exposed. "Yeah, you got us, we have been announcing them first. What gave it away?" "You checked in with Alice over two hours ago." Andy immediately wondered why he hadn't put that together. "It's what I'd do in your position as well." She studied him. "So, what's your strategy here Andy? Give me your assessment of things." Andy paused to gather his thoughts. "Well, it's clear that the Presidio will be the new center of power here in SF. There's a chance another center emerges but at this point, it's unlikely, with so many people already here the network effect is too strong." He continued, warming to the topic. "I want to help rebuild. I've already offered what basic skills I have, but I'd also like to get involved politically. I believe good, well organized government is the best route to getting our basic needs met, as a collective. Water, agriculture, power, trade, defense, medicine, and eventually engineering and manufacturing." He counted off the different needs with his fingers as he named them. "These ultimately require some centralization and broad geographic control to do them sustainably at scale. Not something you can make happen with just you and your plucky band of survivors. Well, power, maybe with solar, and water if you live close enough to the water table to dig a well. But everything else, we need organization and cooperation. Government." His voice grew more serious. "It's still early days but the norms and political decisions and organizations we form today could have long lasting repercussions for our future, assuming we make it that far. And I have thoughts on the direction things should go. I'd like to start shaping things now. I don't care particularly for political power myself, although I'm open to it. I'm more concerned with making sure whatever power ends up taking place is competent and benevolent." Meg listened intently as they walked, her gray eyes occasionally flicking to study Andy's face. The morning fog had burned off entirely now, leaving the parade ground bathed in clear sunlight. Sarah walked slightly behind them, taking in their conversation while maintaining a respectful distance. "That's; a remarkably clear-eyed assessment," Meg said finally. "Most people here are still just trying to process what happened." They passed a group of women organizing supplies, lowering their voices. "And you're absolutely right about the network effect. Every day more and more survivors arrive. If things continue we'll be a small city soon." She stopped walking, turning to face Andy directly. "Also, I appreciate that you didn't lead with just seizing power and controlling things. You led with meeting basic needs." Her penetrating gaze held his. "You're thinking about infrastructure first, then governance to support that. I agree with that mindset." Andy felt oddly exposed under her careful analysis, but also validated. This was clearly someone who also understood the bigger picture. "So, tell me, Andy," Meg said, resuming their walk toward the medical tent, "what direction do you think things should go? You must have opinions about governance structure." Andy considered his response. "I think the immediate challenge is establishing legitimate authority," he said. "Right now, everyone's cooperating because we have to. But once basic survival is handled, power dynamics will get complicated fast." Meg nodded thoughtfully. "Especially with armed groups involved." "Exactly," Andy agreed. "And that's actually my biggest concern. The military and police need to see themselves as subordinate to civilian leadership from the start. Otherwise;" He gestured at the armed men patrolling the perimeter. "Well, history shows what happens when guys with guns decide they should call the shots." "But how do you establish that civilian authority?" Meg asked, genuinely curious. "Elect a President?" Andy shook his head. "Not yet." He paused, watching a group of volunteers unloading supplies. "For now, I think we just need something simpler. A small council, maybe, anyone who can gather enough supporters to qualify. Just enough structure to build an institution that can capture some of the legitimacy that our decisions and communications will earn from being competent, and in turn lend more legitimacy to whatever decisions and communications the current leaders are already making." "And longer term?" Meg prompted, clearly intrigued. Andy laughed. "Well, do you want to get in the weeds here?" Meg nodded so he pressed on. "I think elections work well in theory, but once they scale up, they become easily corrupted. Politicians make impossible promises, cater to special interests, play on people's fears, and on and on. You know." Meg smiled and simply nodded. "I recently learned about this thing called sortition," Andy said. "Like jury duty, but for legislation. Get people who are interested in specific areas, agriculture, defense, infrastructure, to volunteer for a pool. Then randomly select among them to serve on committees that draft laws related to those areas." He warmed to the topic, encouraged by Meg's engaged expression. "Those proposals would then go to another randomly selected assembly, this time drawn from the entire population, for yay or nay votes. Pay them like jurors, give them a fixed term. Let them elect one of their number as an executive to oversee implementation." Sarah, who had been listening quietly, spoke up. "That's; actually really interesting. We talked about the problems with our current election system a lot in our poli-sci classes. It sounds like this would get rid of career politicians, and make it harder to concentrate power in any individuals." "Right," Andy agreed. "But that's all theoretical right now. The immediate priority is establishing the Presidio's authority through competent organization. Getting systems in place for collecting and distributing supplies, coordinating defense, managing resources." He gestured at the bustling camp. "Build legitimacy through effectiveness first. Then we can worry about formal governance. If there's anything I or my group can help with, we're here." Meg studied him closely. "You've clearly given this a lot of thought." "I've had some time to read recently," Andy said with a slight smile. "And seeing everything collapse; well, it makes you think about how to build something better." Meg considered his words thoughtfully. "Well, this is certainly food for thought. I've never heard of this "sortition" before, but it seems quite reasonable." She nodded slowly. "And I definitely agree that we must establish legitimacy through competent governance." "And what are your goals in all this?" Andy asked. "Similar to yours, just less defined in terms of politics," she replied. "I want to help people, make sure we rebuild successfully." Her expression grew more serious. "And in the long run, hope we don't collapse into some kind of anarchy or tyranny. We've suffered enough already." "Agreed," Andy said firmly. He extended his hand. "I'm happy to talk about this more, but for now, I'd hope we can consider ourselves allies." "We can, Mr. Rhee," she said, meeting his gaze and taking his hand with a firm grip. "I'm glad you're with us. I'll mention you to the others who would be on this little council. Maybe we could get a few meetings of us all together at some point." "We'd welcome hosting those meetings at the consulate," Andy offered. A knowing smile crossed Meg's face. "Yes, of course you would. Being the host would give you natural authority." "Hey, just playing the game as you said. And we have a nice formal dining room. And some nice wine stores," Andy replied with a matching smile. "Are you staying here at the parade grounds?" he asked. "Yeah, I have a tent here." "I'd like to offer that you move in with us at the consulate. We have quite a nice setup there right now." Meg shook her head. "I need to stay here, thanks. I can't be a good leader without being among the people, going through their same hardships." A slight smile. "And I honestly prefer camping to living indoors." She considered for a moment. "But, I'd love a hot shower if you have one? And maybe some hot coffee, anything that gets donated gets immediately requested, and we haven't had anything new come in for a while now." "We don't have hot water yet," Andy admitted, "but we do have cold running water. And plenty of coffee." "I start my day at 6AM," Meg said. "If I could come tomorrow morning at 5 to shower and have some coffee, you'd have earned quite a big favor from me." "Anytime," Andy replied. "I'll be up and ready for you. Message me on Beacon if anything changes." "Oh, and who else should I talk to?" he added. "Who would be on this council? I've talked to Guillermo and Diana so far, and I know about Alyssa." "Let's see," Meg said, counting off on her fingers. "Dr. Elena Wilson, she was chief of emergency medicine at UCSF. She's coordinating all our medical operations from the main tent. Brilliant woman, I couldn't believe our luck when she arrived. She's already setting up training programs for basic medical care." She gestured toward the solar array setup. "Then there's Marcus Qin, he was a high-up engineer at Tesla's Fremont plant. He's heading up our power infrastructure projects, working on getting reliable electricity to key facilities, planning longer-term solar installations. He's looking for people with electrical engineering backgrounds, thankfully we have lots of those in this city." "Jennifer Brown is essential, she was regional operations manager for Whole Foods. She understands large-scale food storage and distribution better than anyone here. She's organizing our pantry systems, tracking supplies, planning preservation methods for when scavenging isn't viable anymore." "And probably Rebecca Foster. She was a water resource manager for East Bay M U D. Keeping clean water flowing is going to be crucial once our bottled water supplies run low. She's already mapping out plans for gravity-fed distribution systems and planning wells and filter stations. Desalination, too, if we can get the equipment and power for it." She straightened up. "Those are the key players right now, along with the ones you've met. Each of them has proven themselves competent enough that people naturally started following their lead." On the shore of the Bay. Andy and Sarah stood at the water's edge near Crissy Field, looking out over the bay. The midday sun sparkled off the water, and Alcatraz loomed in the distance, a stark reminder of civilization's remnants. A cool breeze carried the salt smell of the ocean, rustling through Sarah's layered black hair. "Woof, I'm pooped already," Sarah sighed, stretching her arms overhead. Her cropped athletic tank rode up, revealing her toned midriff. "And we still have five more names to talk to." "Yeah, but there's no hurry right now," Andy replied, watching a seabird wheel overhead. "I think today was a good start. Let's take a quick break here, then maybe talk to one or two more people before heading back for lunch." "Ok, I'll message them that we'll be back in about an hour and a half." Sarah pulled out her phone, her manicured fingers tapping quickly. "We're a bit late. Can one of them be Elena? I want to sign up for medical care lessons as soon as I can." She tucked a strand of blonde-highlighted hair behind her ear. "I'm sick of telling people I have no useful skills." "Sure, we can. And yeah, to be honest I didn't expect there to be so much going on here. Beacon said it was 50-ish people two days ago, right?" "Yeah. Exponential growth." Sarah's hazel eyes lit up. "We run into this a lot in biology. It would be interesting to get the exact numbers of new arrivals per day and see if you could fit the growth curve and try to predict where we'd end up." Andy studied her as she gazed out over the water. Her heart-shaped face was animated as she talked, light freckles crinkling around her nose. She had an innate talent for connecting concepts and processing information, backed by determination and resourcefulness. She genuinely cared about helping others (well, except for maybe Crystal). And with her approachable, pretty features, she'd be perfect for politics if there ended up being elections. If they could accept someone so young holding power. His eyes drifted lower, taking in her athletic figure, the perfect curves of her tits under her compression top, the slim waist tapering to curved hips in her matching leggings. Approachable, pretty face, and a fantastic body. She caught him ogling and flashed a self-conscious smile, subtly adjusting her top to emphasize her cleavage. "Hmm, is someone thinking with his dick again?" She stepped closer, looking up at him through long lashes. "Does my, what was it, fearless protector, my *Machiavellian* fearless protector need some special attention?" Andy laughed and reached out to touch her cheek gently. She closed her eyes and smiled, pressing against his hand before looking up at him with those striking hazel eyes. "Alright, what's up Andy?" "I was just thinking, you'd do great in politics." "Huh?" Her full lips curved into a surprised smile. "What do you mean?" "You're smart, you make connections well and pick up new information fast. You're very determined and resourceful. You care about helping people." His eyes traced the delicate lines of her face. "And you're really pretty, in an approachable kind of way. If there were elections, you'd do really well." Sarah shifted her weight, the movement highlighting her athletic figure. "I also totally lack real world skills it turns out, and;" she gestured at her carefully coordinated athleisure outfit, "well; one could say I care too much about how I look." "Like I said, perfect for politics!" She laughed and poked him in the chest, her perky tits bouncing slightly with the movement. "OK, I like this sweet talk. This is like the nicest thing you've said to me since we met." "Well, don't forget I think elections are inherently corrupting." "Hmm, so you want to corrupt me?" she purred, taking his hand. Her skin was soft and warm against his. "Why don't you tell me what you were really thinking." "What I said. And then I stared at you for too long, noticed the rest of your body, and then my brain lost a lot of blood flow." "What, now you notice my body?" She brought his hand up to her tit, letting him squeeze it gently through the compression fabric. Her nipple hardened under his touch. "Four days of wearing the cutest skimpy little matching sets, posing for you, fidgeting with my tops to make you look at my boobs, talking about my body nonstop, and you finally now tell me you notice me while thinking about politics?" She shook her head, making her highlighted layers catch the sun. "You're a real odd duck you know." She suddenly pressed against him in a tight hug, her firm tits pushing against his chest. "Thanks for believing in me." Andy stroked her silky hair, breathing in her light floral shampoo. "Of course." Sarah stepped back, adjusting her top. "Ok. Let's go back." She paused, a mischievous glint in her eye. "Unless; are you sure you don't need any;" She made an exaggerated blowjob gesture, pushing her tongue against her cheek while moving her fist near her mouth. Her full lips curved into a teasing smile. "We could sneak behind those dunes real quick." Andy felt his arousal surge instantly. "Can you do that again?" "What, this?" She repeated the lewd gesture, looking every bit the corrupted coed fitness influencer with her subtle makeup, highlighted hair, and coordinated athleisure set that showed off every curve. "Ok, let's go," Andy said, taking her hand and walking toward the dunes. They exchanged horny smiles and giggles on the way to the dunes, Sarah's athletic figure moving gracefully beside him. Behind the dunes, Andy reclined against the sand and took his pants off while Sarah gathered her layered black hair into a high ponytail, a few honey-highlighted strands falling loose around her face. She knelt between his legs, her compression leggings hugging every curve. Starting with just her hands, she looked up at him through long lashes. "Remind me, what did you say about me just now?" Andy repeated his earlier compliments about her intelligence and determination. "Ah yes, thank you." She gave him a firm squeeze. "I do like a good compliment you know." She leaned forward, her perky tits straining against her top as she took him in her mouth. Her technique was skilled and enthusiastic, starting with gentle kisses and licks along his shaft before taking him deeper, her tongue swirling around his head while her hand worked his base. Her full lips slid up and down his length in perfect rhythm, alternating between quick, teasing strokes and slow, sensual ones. Andy closed his eyes, enjoying the sensations. He switched to praising her body, how toned and tight it was, how perfectly optimized for looking good, how it showed her determination and focus. She hummed appreciatively around him, the vibrations sending shivers through his body. Despite her current activity, a blush crept across her freckled cheeks at his words. She pulled off him, sucking hard as she did so, making her mouth feel deliciously tight before popping off him. "I guess you're wanting me to take my top off?" she asked, sitting back on her heels. Andy nodded. "Ok," she said with a playful smile. "Get ready." She pulled off her compression top and sports bra in one fluid motion, revealing her perfectly perky, symmetric, B-cup tits. They were exactly as impressive bare as they had looked in her carefully chosen sports bras, firm and high, with rosy nipples standing at attention in the cool air. She gave them a little shake, watching his reaction with amusement. "Right, where were we? I believe I was in the middle of, ah, restoring proper blood flow in my patient." She leaned forward again, her tits swaying slightly as she resumed her ministrations. She worked him skillfully, one hand pumping his shaft while the other gently massaged his balls. Her tongue focused on his sensitive spots, especially the underside of his head, occasionally taking him deeper and holding him there. Though she mostly looked down, concentrating on her rhythm, she would glance up periodically through her lashes to make eye contact, her hazel eyes sparkling despite her blush. The contrast between her innocent blush and what she was doing made Andy laugh. "What?" she asked, pulling back. "You're blushing?" "I don't know, it's awkward," she said, self-consciously tucking a loose strand of highlighted hair behind her ear. "It can't possibly be a cute look." "Don't worry, you look beautiful with my cock in your mouth." "Well, if you say so." She gave his head a playful lick, her hazel eyes sparkling. "I am obsessed with looking good after all." She resumed in earnest, using her tongue to continue to rub against his sensitive spots on the underside of his shaft that she'd discovered with her hands yesterday. Within a minute of this rhythm, Andy was ready. He moaned a warning to her. Andy felt the pressure build to an explosive peak. His whole body tensed as waves of pleasure crashed through him. Sarah's hazel eyes locked onto his as she pulled back to his head, her full lips wrapped tight around him. She swallowed eagerly, her small hand squeezing and stroking his shaft with perfect pressure, milking every pulse of his orgasm. The sight of her looking up at him, her pretty face focused on pleasuring him while she swallowed his cum, made him shudder and spurt several more times. When the last aftershocks subsided, she made an exaggerated face, her perfect features scrunching up adorably. "Honestly, we need to find you some canned pineapple or something. Too many rehydrated beef stews." Andy laughed and relaxed, pleasant sensations spreading through his body. "I thought I was getting a sponsored post." "Oh right!" Her eyes lit up as she shifted into her content creator voice. "Hey loves! Quick update from your fave outdoor wellness girlie! Just discovered the most amazing hidden spot in the Presidio for my morning protein boost." She dabbed delicately at her lips with one manicured finger. "You know I'm always on the lookout for sustainable, all-natural sources of nutrients, and let me tell you, this one hits different! Super thick and creamy, with these really;" she gave a subtle eye-roll, "complex umami notes, definitely not your basic store-bought protein shake." She struck an exaggerated influencer pose, bare tits thrust forward. "Loving how it just slides right down, and it's packed with all those essential minerals my body craves." She tossed her ponytail and gave an exaggerated wink. "The best part? My super knowledgeable park ranger friend showed me exactly where to find it. We'll definitely be doing more outdoor taste testing sessions soon! Remember ladies, staying fit during the apocalypse is all about finding those secret spots and knowing exactly how to; work them!" She finished with an innocent smile. "Like and follow for more wellness tips and behind-the-scenes peeks at my outdoor adventures!" She giggled and reached for her top, pulling it back on with practiced grace. "Ok, feel better? Did I overdo it?" "No don't worry, that was quite a great ad." he said, pulling his pants back on. "Let's chill here for a moment before we go." She curled up next to him, her athletic body fitting perfectly against his side. Her layered hair tickled his arm as they watched the waves, the sun warm on their skin. After a few peaceful minutes, she stirred. "Ok, let's go." They stood, Sarah adjusting her ponytail and smoothing her outfit back to Instagram-ready perfection. As they walked back toward the Presidio, she bumped her hip playfully against his. "You know, for someone who claims to be above politics, you sure know how to negotiate for what you want." Day 8, Early Afternoon The medical tent hummed with barely contained chaos. A dozen cots had been crammed into the space, most occupied by patients in various states of distress. Someone moaned from behind a makeshift curtain while a volunteer with shaking hands tried to sort through a box of donated medications, labels facing every direction. The sharp smell of antiseptic couldn't quite mask the underlying odors of sweat and sickness. Dr. Elena Wilson hunched over a patient chart at a wobbly folding table, squinting at her own handwriting. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her silver-streaked hair had escaped its bun in several places. Her scrubs were wrinkled and spotted with what might have been coffee or something worse. When she reached for her pen, her movements were quick and economical, like someone who had learned long ago not to waste energy on unnecessary gestures. "Excuse me?" Andy cleared his throat. "Are you Dr. Wilson?" She looked up, blinking as if emerging from deep concentration. "Yeah, that's me." Her eyes flicked between Andy and Sarah, assessing. "You need medical attention?" "No, we're actually here to donate some supplies," Andy said. "I'm Andy, and this is Sarah. We just got to the city yesterday." Sarah nodded. "We brought antibiotics." Dr. Wilson's expression shifted subtly. "Let's see what you've got." Andy unzipped his pack and carefully laid out the bottles on the edge of the table. Dr. Wilson picked each one up, examining the labels. "Oh thank god," she murmured, almost to herself. Then louder: "Riti! Come here a sec!" A harried-looking nurse in faded scrubs hurried over, clipboard in hand. "Log these in," Dr. Wilson said, gesturing to the antibiotics. "And put them in the locked cabinet." She turned back to Andy and Sarah. "Thanks, you might have saved a few lives today." Sarah took the opportunity to speak up. "I heard you might be starting some kind of medical training," she said. "I studied biology at UCLA before; all this. I know it's not the same as medical training, but I really want to help if I can." Dr. Wilson ran a hand through her hair, further disheveling it. "Biology, huh? That's something at least. We're doing basic emergency response training on Tuesday morning. Everyone needs to know how to stop bleeding and recognize infection now." She glanced over at a patient who had started coughing violently. "Michelle will add you to the list. I need to check on Mr. Peterson." As Dr. Wilson hurried away, Michelle gave them a tired smile. "Don't mind her. She's been working pretty much non-stop since everything went down. The class starts at nine on Tuesday." She wrote Sarah's name in a notebook. "And thanks for the antibiotics. We're running low on everything." Day 8, Early Afternoon The afternoon sun beat down on the cracked pavement as Andy and Sarah made their way back through the empty streets of Presidio Heights. The silent houses loomed around them, windows dark and lifeless. Sarah tugged at her ponytail, trying to smooth it down. "God, it's so quiet," she said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness. "I keep expecting to see someone walking a dog or mowing their lawn or something." Andy nodded, stepping over a newspaper that had yellowed in the sun. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Still doesn't feel real sometimes." "So;" Sarah kicked at a pebble. "Dr. Wilson was something else, wasn't she? I mean, I get why she's stressed, but jeez." "She's got a lot on her plate right now," Andy said with a sympathetic shrug. "At least that Michelle woman seemed nice. Makes me a little less nervous about the class." "I'm sure you'll do great," Andy said. "Maybe", she paused. "It's weird how some things from before seem useful now and others just; don't matter anymore." They walked in silence for a moment, their footsteps echoing slightly. "Meg seems pretty capable though, "Sarah said, glancing sideways at Andy, "I noticed you were quick to invite her to stay with us." She raised her eyebrows teasingly. Andy laughed. "Can't put anything past you, can I? Yeah, I thought having someone with her connections around might be helpful. But honestly? I respect her more for saying no. It shows she understands she needs to be with the people she's trying to help." "Hmm, very diplomatic of you." Sarah smiled, bumping her shoulder against his. "Well, despite the slightly terrifying doctor, I'd say it was a pretty good morning overall. Made some connections, signed up for medical training;" Her smile turned mischievous. "Found that nice spot overlooking the bay;" "With the excellent protein options," Andy added with a straight face. Sarah burst out laughing, her cheeks flushing slightly. "You know what's funny? After everything that's happened, pretending to be my old influencer self actually helps sometimes." Her voice softened. "Like, it's proof that I can still be that silly, excited person sometimes, even if I'm reviewing very different products these days." "Your authenticity really shines through," Andy said with mock seriousness. "Very engaging content." Sarah rolled her eyes and shoved him lightly. "Just wait until you see what I've got planned for future episodes." She looked at him more seriously. "But honestly? With all your political maneuvering today, what I appreciate most is how you make me feel like it's still okay to be silly sometimes. To still be; me." Without thinking, Sarah reached for his hand. Their fingers intertwined as they walked, finding comfort in the simple connection amid the silent streets. To be continued. Based on a post by the hospital, for Literotica.

Today we're talking about connecting to the CORE energy of your manifestation and it's a WILD RIDE! Join me for my legendary 2026 New Year's Goal Setting Party! Create the life of your dreams one year at a time.I hope you enjoyed this episode of Law of Attraction Changed My Life and it adds some value to your life! Learning this technique of connecting to the core energy of your desire has really shifted things for me and I hope it does for you too. You can find the meditation on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/y_ZfYZoqXyg?si=l2nAsQBb9NjxYEGnPlease do share this episode with a friend who would like it or share on your socials if you feel so called to do so!By the way, do we love my new Amazon Storefront - it was EVERYTHING I love and talk about on there!(contains Amazon affiliate links/Amazon associate)You can buy my Sunday Times Bestselling book Manifest Like a Mother here.Come and find me @francescaamber & @lawofattractionchangedmylife on Instagram - I would LOVE to hear from you.Join the Book Club B*tches as we read The Calm & Happy Home starting the 1st December. We are the UK's largest self development book club. Honestly this book club and the bad b*tches within it are my self development secret. They are the BIGGEST secret to my success and I'm in love with life long learning! Come and join us, it's not a cult, it's probably not a coven but it IS the best.You can find all my work including overnight subliminals for weight loss, wealth, fertility, beauty and confidence, success etc..as well as online masterclasses on my website, francescaamber.com and if you click HERE you'll get it all for LESS in my BIG BLACK FRIDAY SALE!Things I love that I think you'll love too...Hitting my health and body goals every day with my at home walking pad. Use code 'francescaamber' for 5% off.Try my favourite magnesium supplement for FREE with this 5 day free trial.Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you again next week,Fran xxx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Click here to get 25% off EVERYTHING at Upswing Poker during the Black Friday sale! "Honestly in the 20 whatever years I've been on and off studying poker I don't know if I've ever seen a more impactful, concise, practical and actionable 20 minutes of content. Very very well done. Thank you." - Verified Lab 2.0 Member Click here and watch 'How to Play Pocket Kings'. Learn how to play Ace-King with clarity as Uri Peleg breaks down real hands and shows you exactly when this "premium" hand is powerful—and when it's just Ace-high. By the end, you'll know how to avoid costly mistakes, read tricky situations, and confidently extract maximum value from one of poker's most misunderstood hands. 00:00 Why Ace-King Is a Deceptive and Difficult Hand 01:59 Playing Ace-High on a Dry Board 03:29 When Ace-King Becomes "Just Ace-High" 03:56 Deep-Stacked 3-Bet Pot on a Connected Board 06:08 Strong Flop and Clean Runout With Ace-King 06:57 Blind vs Blind: Managing Missed Flops 08:46 Navigating Bad Boards With Ace-King This video is a deep dive into one of poker's most misunderstood hands: Ace-King. Uri Peleg explains that while Ace-King is ranked among the strongest preflop holdings, it behaves very differently from true premiums like Aces or Kings. The hand's profitability is split: when you hit an Ace or a King, it becomes a powerhouse, but when you miss, it shifts into a marginal holding that often under-realizes its equity. The core message is learning to separate the emotional attachment players feel toward "big slick" from the actual strategic reality of the board, ranges, and runouts. Uri walks through a series of real hand examples that illustrate how dramatically Ace-King's value can fluctuate. In the first scenario, he shows how Ace-King with no pair is essentially just Ace-high—nothing more. He encourages players to visualize the hand as something as humble as Ace-Deuce when facing river aggression, reminding viewers that the preflop strength is irrelevant once the board runs out and equities shift. When the hand misses, the correct approach is often checking back, calling once with overcards, or folding river bets that only beat bluffs. The next hands highlight more nuanced spots, such as 3-bet pots where you flop draws or turn top pair in dangerous textures. Uri demonstrates how paired boards, four-to-a-straight runouts, and coordinated middling textures can crush Ace-King's value. In one hand he turns top pair top kicker but immediately explains why it's still a weak holding due to the connected nature of the board and the many wheel Aces that dominate him. He stresses discipline—letting go of the "premium hand" mindset and evaluating each street as if holding an ordinary bluff catcher. The video also includes best-case scenarios where you not only flop top pair but continue running out safely. Uri shows how to extract value on clean textures and when to size aggressively with strong but vulnerable holdings. These examples are balanced with tougher ones where the player gets to showdown cheaply or picks up a lucky river improvement after checking twice and avoiding check-raises. Uri reinforces a key concept: Ace-King is not a hand that wants to inflate pots blindly. Its strength is highly contextual, dependent on the board, the action, and the opponent's range. Sometimes it plays like a monster; other times it plays like a weak Ace-high.

It's our 100th episode! I celebrate this milestone with Karen Bradley, NP, discussing the biggest wins, most common questions, and key themes from nearly two years of podcasting about women's sexual health and menopause.We dive into the FDA's recent decision to remove the boxed warning from vaginal estrogen a huge victory for women's health advocacy. This warning has prevented countless women from getting treatment for painful sex, recurrent UTIs, and other symptoms of genitourinary syndrome of menopause. I share a powerful story of a patient with breast cancer history who was denied hormone therapy by her oncology team, only to have them completely reverse course once the boxed warning was removed.The conversation covers the most frequently asked questions from listeners: Is it perimenopause or just stress? (It's both.) Why is my libido gone? (Biology, psychology, and life circumstances all play a role.) Why do I keep getting UTIs after sex? (Often it's vestibulodynia or changes in the vaginal microbiome from estrogen deficiency.) How do I talk to my partner about sex? (Communication is key, and sometimes you need a sex therapist to help.)We also discuss the reality of midlife weight gain, the role of GLP-1 medications like Wegovy and Zepbound, and why building muscle matters more than endless cardio. This episode is a celebration of how far we've come and a reminder that you don't have to suffer through menopause.Highlights:The FDA removed the boxed warning from vaginal estrogen—what this means for access to careThe biology behind midlife low libido and why it's not "all in your head"Why recurrent UTIs after sex might actually be vestibulodynia or vaginal microbiome changes.How to talk to your partner about sex when you've never had those conversationsThe truth about midlife weight gain and what hormones can and can't doGLP-1 medications: FDA approvals for weight loss, cardiovascular protection, MASH, and sleep apneaThank you for being here for 100 episodes. Honestly, there have been times I've wanted to stop, but then I get a DM from someone saying they heard something on the podcast that changed their care, or a patient tells me they finally found answers here. That's what keeps me going.The biggest way you can help me keep doing this work is simple: share this show with someone who needs it and hit subscribe. When you share an episode with a friend who's struggling, a family member who's been dismissed by doctors, or post about it on social media, you're helping me reach more women who deserve better care.Thank you for listening, for learning, and for advocating alongside me. Here's to the next 100.Get in Touch with Me: WebsiteInstagramYoutubeSubstack

Welcome back, my fellow creatives!Yup, I'm back to looking at the first five pages of variousstories, for those five pages can make or break the engagement of a reader--or an agent. So, let's scope out the stories of others to see how they hook anaudience!Honestly, I've a few gripes here. For one, I really don't like second-person for a pov. Just because one can do a thing doesn't mean one should. It's also jarring because the book doesn't stay in second-person; only the prologue talks to readers like they are the protagonist Holland finding the mysterious theater with the mysterious college class about folklore. Don't get me wrong: the theater's beautifully described, and Garber knows how to build up tension by using the present tense for Holland — well, the reader — waiting for that class to start. But it's a weird shift putting readers into Holland's shoes for three pages before yanking them out for a more traditional third-person in the first chapter. The true first chapter starts with a date and some exposition about this too-perfect guy that Holland is seeing, aaaaand I was already getting a bit bored when my reading ended with her discovering a poster mentioned in her mysterious folklore class.There's a lot of promise here with the magical underworld of L.A., and fans of Garber are likely accustomed to her writing quirks to be ready for pov shifts and meet-cute exposition. But the magic of that theater in the prologue felt like a bait-and-switch. It can be tough to know when a story truly begins. It feels like Garber considers Holland's date and search for something she heard about in the folklore class to be the start of the story...but if readers don't know about the magic of the class, then they won't understand Holland's determination to do that search. The prologue feels like a cheat to cover this, and I'm just not a fan.I'm taking December off from blogging and podcasting, so we'll have to see what stories await us in the new year! Stay tuned!And what will we discover in the next story's five pages?We'll have to wait and see. xxxxRead on, share on, and write on, my friends!

Being tall is absolutely amazing, but it can also be annoying at times…No one can deny that fact lol. One of the most annoying things is the clothing situation and not being able to find pants that reach our ankles, long sleeves that reach our wrists, shoes that are big enough, etc. Honestly, that's probably the #1 problem tall people experience, especially women. People and their stares, comments, jokes, and backhanded compliments: those things can also get annoying or even make us insecure. Spaces like bathrooms, cars, airplanes, and kitchens aren't the most tall-friendly, making some of the most basic life tasks very uncomfortable or hard to do. These are just a few of the struggles. Recently, more and more tall women have been speaking up on social media about the things they love about being tall, especially with trends like the Big Mama trend. However, there's been a bit of a shift. There's a new trend where the tall girlies are now expressing their insecurities and frustrations surrounding their height.This kinda makes you wonder: is the tall girl confidence real, or is it just a trend that's dying out? Well, we're answering this question in today's episode, so be sure to tune in! Buy Me A Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/atallgirlspodcast Subscribe to A Tall Girl's Newsletter: https://atallgirlspodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribeLet's stay connected: https://beacons.ai/atallgirlspodcast Leave a review and let me know how tall you are: https://atallgirlspodcast.com/reviews  

Andy’s Brave New World: Part 2 The group leaves Yosemite, encounters Crystal. Based on a post by the hospital. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels. Day 7, Morning The morning sun caught the fresh paint scratches on the two Ford F-350 Super Duty trucks as they pulled out of the Yosemite Valley maintenance yard. Both were recent-model crew cabs in dark green, commandeered from the park's heavy maintenance fleet, their diesel engines rumbling with carefully checked fluid levels and fresh filters. Andy drove the lead vehicle, while Daniela rode shotgun, her Remington propped against the center console within easy reach and the binoculars Andy had found yesterday hanging around her neck. She sat at attention, eyes sweeping the tree line. Despite the A/C, they were sweating a little under their body armor. In the truck's bed, they'd packed their supplies with care. Multiple jerry cans of diesel fuel secured in metal racks, the heavy weapons cache (including the RPG and its rockets, carefully cushioned), cases of ammunition, tactical gear, and the most essential survival equipment. The rear seats held their medical supplies, communications gear including the Starlink array, and several days of ready-to-eat food and water. Sarah followed close behind in the second truck, its bed loaded with the bulk of their food stores, camping equipment, tools, and additional fuel. She'd gotten her way about the clothing, she wore a matching set in a striking deep purple: high-waisted Alo Yoga leggings that hugged every curve and a longline sports bra under a cropped zip-up jacket. Her highlighted hair was styled in loose waves, and she'd even put on light makeup. "If we get into any actual fighting, I'll be useless anyway," she had insisted, gesturing at Andy and Daniela's tactical loadouts. "You two are the ones with the training. I'm just a driver." She gave one of her practiced smiles. "Besides, first impressions matter. When we meet other survivors, one of us should look; approachable." Andy had started to argue, but Daniela simply shrugged. "She's right. We look scary. It'd be good to have someone look not scary." The conversation had ended there. Now, as they passed the park boundaries, Daniela pulled out their carefully annotated road atlas. Their route would take them west on Highway 140, then north on 99 through the Central Valley, avoiding both Fresno and Modesto. They'd skirt Sacramento to the east, then cut west to the Bay Area through the Delta region. The path balanced speed with security, staying on main roads for ease of travel while avoiding major population centers. "Time check," Daniela's tense voice crackled over their handhelds. "0700 hours. Three hours to the first waypoint." "Have you spent much time outside of the park?" Andy asked, trying to see if conversation might help her relax. Daniela shook her head, staring out the window at the wooded hills. "No, not really. Just for track meets. Dad hates cities. He'd always complain to the school that our trips weren't secure enough." Andy had a sudden mental image of Miguel lecturing an exasperated school bus driver on sight lines and evasive maneuvers. He chuckled slightly. "Yeah, that sounds like him." Noticing Daniela still looking somber, he tried to pivot. "Well, are you excited to see San Francisco?" A pause. "I don't know. I know it's the right place to go, but I'm a little scared to leave Yosemite behind." She looked off into the distance. "I'll definitely miss being in nature." "You might be surprised, SF has a lot of parks and green spaces. Maybe we'll end up somewhere nice." Day 7, Midday The Sierra foothills gave way to the Central Valley floor, and with it came the strange emptiness of abandoned agriculture. Vast almond orchards stretched to the horizon, their spring blossoms still clinging to the branches. A dairy farm's holding pens still contained its imprisoned casualties, forcing them to detour around the sprawling facility to avoid the smell. In an adjacent field, a small herd of escaped cattle grazed freely, looking up at the trucks' passage with mild curiosity. They passed a tomato field where harvesting machines stood frozen mid-row, the ripe fruit beginning to soften on the vine. "Movement, two o'clock, approximately two miles out," Daniela reported suddenly, her binoculars trained on the horizon. "Vehicle heading north." She tracked it for a moment, dust trail visible against the morning sky. "Pickup truck, moving fast. Can't make out details at this distance." Her voice remained neutral, but her grip tightened slightly on the Remington. Andy glanced in the indicated direction but kept the truck steadily on course. In the rearview mirror, he saw Sarah's truck maintain its careful following distance. After a few minutes, Daniela lowered the binoculars. "Vehicle has maintained its course northward. No change in direction." The radio crackled. "Everything okay up there?" Sarah's voice carried a hint of nerves. "Just another survivor," Andy replied. "They're heading away from us. Nothing to worry about." They passed through Merced without incident. The smaller city was eerily still, traffic signals dark at every intersection. A home security alarm wailed somewhere in the distance, its battery backup still functioning after a week without power. The highway was mostly clear, the outbreak had moved too quickly for large-scale evacuation traffic. Sarah's voice crackled over the radio: "Hey, I've had cell signal for the last few minutes, must be near a tower that's still running. There's a Beacon post from yesterday, someone near Turlock warning about a big pileup blocking the 99 around Keyes Road. They've been detouring around it on country roads." "Noted," Daniela responded crisply, already marking the atlas. "OK, here's the alternate route. We'll exit at Pueblo Avenue, rejoin the 99 past the blockage." She paused, then added with mechanical precision: "Adding fifteen minutes to estimated arrival time. Let us know if you see any other posts while you have signal." "Actually, let's stop real quick so I can give you my phone, it looks like I'm more likely to get signal than you, and I shouldn't be looking at this while trying to drive this thing." The valley heat was building as the day wore on. The radio stayed quiet. Each member of their small convoy seemed lost in their own thoughts, processing the scale of the abandonment around them. Occasionally they'd pass a house or farm with a hastily painted "Help" sign. Once they saw a pickup truck that had crashed into a pole, its driver still sitting upright behind the wheel, succumbing to the virus before the accident could kill them. As they approached the outskirts of Modesto, Daniela began scanning the atlas with renewed intensity, plotting their route around the city center. The midday sun cast a strong heat, and in the distance a thin column of smoke rose from somewhere in the city's north- whether from an electrical fire or something else, they couldn't tell. "Contact ahead, approximately one mile south," Daniela reported suddenly, binoculars trained on the distant road. "Single vehicle, silver Mercedes sedan. One subject visible outside the vehicle." She paused as she assessed the scene. "Vehicle appears to have front-end damage. Subject is; actively signaling for assistance." Andy keyed his radio. "Sarah, hang back for as sec." Through the windshield, he could just barely make out a glint of metal on the horizon. "Copy that," Sarah responded, as she let her truck slow to a stop behind them. "Update on subject?" Andy asked. Daniela adjusted her optics slightly. "Female, white. Light-colored hair. No visible weapons. Standing clear of the vehicle, continuing to wave." She swept her view across the surrounding terrain. "I don't see any other movement." They approached slowly, staying in the northbound lane, until they were about a hundred yards from the Mercedes. Andy could now make out a figure in light-colored clothing standing near the disabled vehicle's front end, still waving periodically. "Hello!" a woman's voice carried across the distance. "Please, I could really use some help!" "Stay where you are!" Andy called back through his opened window. "Are you alone?" "Yes! Just me! My car hit something back there, I think the suspension's broken!" Andy glanced at Daniela, who gave a slight nod. "Could be a trap," Daniela said quietly, though her tone suggested she didn't really believe it. "Though; it's a really crappy location for an ambush. A random gravel side-road in the middle of the fields? Plus you have poor sight lines, no cover, and multiple escape routes for potential targets." "Agreed," Andy said. He keyed his radio again. "Sarah, we're going to pull up closer. Stay a little bit behind us." They rolled forward slowly, closing the distance to the disabled Mercedes. As they got closer, the woman took a few steps back from her car, keeping her hands visible. Andy's breath caught slightly as her features came into focus. Even disheveled and stressed, she was stunning, the kind of beauty that belonged in magazines, not stranded on an abandoned highway. Tall and gracefully built, probably 5'9", with the kind of natural curves that didn't need strategic athletic wear to enhance them. Her light red-orange hair fell past her shoulders in natural waves, gleaming in the midday sun despite the obvious lack of styling products. Her face was a study in classical proportions, high cheekbones, full lips, straight nose, and large bright blue eyes framed by naturally long lashes. Even with smudged makeup and a light sheen of sweat on her forehead, her beauty remained striking. She wore form-fitting designer jeans that accentuated her long, slender legs, paired with an ivory silk blouse that was wrinkled and stained with grease from her attempted car repair. Impractical Italian leather boots completed the ensemble, the kind meant for Los Angeles sidewalks rather than Central Valley backroads. Despite her obvious exhaustion and the stress evident in her expression, there was something magnetic about her presence, an effortless grace that made even her nervous fidgeting seem elegant. Andy keyed his radio. "Sarah, we're going to talk to her. She's almost certainly not a threat. Your call whether to stay in your truck or join us." "Come with me," he said quietly to Daniela. "Stay alert." He opened his door and stepped out, Daniela following smoothly with her rifle held low but ready. The woman's face brightened with a nervous but dazzling smile as they approached. She took a step forward with her hand extended, but stopped when Andy halted several paces away. "Thank you so much for stopping," she said, letting her hand drop gracefully to her side. "I'm Crystal. Crystal Parker." Andy kept his stance neutral but ready. "Where are you coming from? Where are you headed?" "I'm from Manteca," she replied, her eyes flicking briefly to Daniela's rifle before returning to Andy. "I was trying to get back to my apartment in L A, but;" She gestured at her car with a delicate wave. "The highways were so crowded with abandoned cars, I thought the back roads would be safer." "Did you get sick?" Andy asked directly. "During the outbreak?" Crystal nodded. "Yes, but just a mild fever for a day or two. Not like;" Her voice caught slightly. "Not like everyone else, like my parents." She stopped, composing herself with visible effort. Behind them, Andy heard Sarah's truck pull up. Crystal's eyes shifted to watch Sarah's approach, something subtle changing in her expression. "What happened to your car?" Andy pressed. "I hit something; maybe a pothole or debris, I'm not sure. There was this awful noise and then;" She gestured helplessly at the front end. "I don't know anything about cars. I tried looking at it, but;" "Why are you going to L A? Are there people waiting for you there?" Andy asked. "Anyone you know who survived?" Crystal's shoulders dropped slightly. "No, I; I haven't been able to contact anyone. I just;" She gave a small, elegant shrug, simultaneously helpless and dignified. "I didn't know what else to do. Where else to go. I thought maybe; maybe going home made sense?" The last part came out as almost a question, like she was realizing for the first time how little sense it made. A pause, then, "If you don't mind me asking; what's your name? Where are you all headed?" "I'm Andy," he answered. "That's Sarah and Daniela. We're heading north to San Francisco." Crystal took this as permission to step closer, extending her hand again. This time Andy accepted it, noting the contrast between her dainty fingers and the engine grease on her fingertips from her attempted repairs. Their eyes met as they shook hands, and Andy found himself momentarily stunned by her beauty up close; the perfect symmetry of her features, the remarkable clarity of her blue eyes, the way the midday sun caught golden highlights in her hair. She gave a small wave to Sarah and Daniela behind him, her smile warm and practiced. "Nice to meet you all. Sarah, I love your jacket." "Thanks" mumbled Sarah, briefly taken aback by the brief change in topic. "I hate to ask, but;" Crystal glanced back at her Mercedes. "Is there any chance you could take a look at my car? Or;" She hesitated, then continued with careful tact, "Or maybe give me a ride somewhere I could find another car? I know it's a lot to ask, but I'm really not sure what to do out here." "Give us a second to discuss it," Andy said. He gestured for Sarah and Daniela to follow him a few paces away, out of earshot. "Looking at the front end damage and the way it's sitting, could be a broken control arm, maybe the sub frame," Daniela said quietly. "Either way, we'd need a lift and replacement parts. Not something we can fix on the road." "So the car's done," Andy summarized. "Question is, do we give her a ride?" "To L A?" Sarah asked skeptically. "That's like three hours away, more like six at the speed we've been going, and totally the wrong direction. To another car, maybe. Honestly;" She glanced back at Crystal, who stood waiting with perfect posture. "I know I'm not exactly Rambo here, but at least I can handle myself OK. She looks totally clueless." Sarah paused, then added with careful casualness, "She is, uh, gorgeous, though." Her eyes flicked to Andy's face, studying his reaction. Andy kept his expression neutral, though his heart raced slightly at just the thought of Crystal's striking features. The idea of leaving her stranded here seemed unthinkable, but he didn't want to appear too eager. "We could offer to let her come with us to San Francisco," he suggested, trying to sound logical rather than hopeful. "She'd never make it to L A alone anyway." "Well, she has no supplies, no useful skills;" Sarah started. "We don't know that," Daniela interjected, then paused. "Well, yeah, she probably doesn't. But still, we should help her," the younger girl said firmly. Her voice softened. "Dad always said the whole point of our preparations was so we could help others when the time came. That's why we trained so hard, why we stored so much." She glanced at Crystal, then back at the group. "Someone like her, no survival skills, no supplies, no real plan; that's exactly who he meant. We have room in the trucks. It's not that much further to San Francisco." Sarah sighed. "Fine. We can give her a ride to San Francisco. But that doesn't mean she is a part of our group." Andy raised an eyebrow, a slight smile playing at his lips. "Oh, we're officially a group now?" "Yes," Sarah said defensively. "We are. The three of us." Andy's smile faded as he recognized her genuine concern. He raised a hand and gently touched her arm. "Hey, I get it. Don't worry, I was kidding. We'll stick together, I promise." Daniela nodded, and Sarah relaxed slightly. "Okay." Andy turned and walked back to Crystal, who had been waiting with patience. "To us, it looks like the damage here isn't something we can fix, it needs replacement parts and proper equipment." Crystal's shoulders dropped again. "Also;" Andy continued carefully, "L A isn't a good place to go, now that we don't have working agriculture." He gestured vaguely around them at the quiet, empty fields. "They're gonna have real trouble with food after they scavenge everything already there." He paused to let that sink in. "We can give you a ride to somewhere you can find another car if you want. But you're also welcome to come with us to San Francisco. The Bay Area is better for a lot of reasons; it has better natural resources, direct access to farmland, etcetera. Your choice." Crystal bit her lower lip, considering. "Could I; could I think about it on the way back to a main highway?" Andy nodded. "Of course. No rush to decide." "Okay," Crystal smiled warmly. "Thank you again, I really appreciate this. Let me just grab my things." Sarah and Daniela headed back to the trucks while Andy accompanied Crystal to her Mercedes. She popped the trunk, revealing a large designer suitcase. As Andy reached for it, she gave him another dazzling smile. "You all seem so; prepared," she said softly. "I've been feeling so lost, but watching how organized you are, how you think everything through;" She trailed off as Andy lifted her suitcase. "It's impressive. Makes me feel a little less scared, you know?" To everyone's surprise, Crystal walked to the front of Andy's truck, opening the passenger door. "Oh, I;" Andy started, but Crystal was already sliding smoothly into the middle seat between the driver and passenger positions. "I hope you don't mind," she said. "I'd love to hear more about your plans, and why you think L A isn't safe. If I'm going to change my whole direction, I should probably understand why, right?" The back row was too full of equipment to sit there, so she settled in next to Daniela, the tight fit of three people in the front inevitable. Sarah caught Andy's eye, rolled hers, and shrugged before silently getting into her truck. Andy's mouth went briefly dry at the thought of Crystal pressed against him in the cramped space, but he climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. Day 7, Early Afternoon The abandoned fruit stand provided a welcome break from driving, its weathered picnic tables shaded by an old oak tree. Fresh peaches and plums, barely starting to over-ripen, made a sweet complement to their rehydrated camping meals. The afternoon sun filtered through the leaves, casting dappled shadows across their impromptu lunch setup. It hadn't taken much to convince Crystal to change her plans and head to San Francisco instead of Los Angeles. Though Andy wasn't entirely sure she'd fully grasped the strategic reasoning behind why L A was a poor choice, she seemed to have quickly intuited that his group knew what they were doing and that she'd be better off following their lead. Daniela had grown surprisingly talkative during the drive, opening up to Crystal about her father's training regimen after Crystal had shown genuine interest in her rifle. Now she sat quietly eating her peach, some of her usual tension eased. "So," Sarah asked, casually as she picked at her meal, "Have you thought about what you'll do once we reach San Francisco?" Crystal dabbed delicately at her mouth with a napkin. "I suppose I'll need to find my place, see where I can be useful." She pretended not to notice the implication of separation behind Sarah's question. "What kind of work do you do?" Sarah pressed. "I'm a receptionist at an investment firm," Crystal admitted with a small, self-deprecating smile. "And before that I was a model. Neither are exactly critical post-apocalyptic skill sets." She straightened slightly, her natural poise asserting itself. "But I used to babysit for some of the executives' children. I'm good with kids, really good, actually. I've been thinking maybe I could help set up some kind of care center, for orphans or children who've lost their families." Her voice softened. "There must be so many of them now." Andy stood, brushing crumbs from his pants. "Need to hit the head," he said, heading toward the small concrete building at the edge of the property. When Andy emerged from the bathroom, he was startled to find Crystal standing outside, her sudden presence making him take a quick step back. Her beauty was striking. She stood with her arms clasped behind her back, the posture naturally thrusting her full, pert tits forward against her silk blouse. Her head was tilted slightly to one side, a delicate smile playing across her full lips as she looked up at him through long lashes. She'd deliberately left the top few buttons of her blouse undone, the thin fabric draping open to reveal tantalizing glimpses of lace-trimmed cleavage and smooth, flawless skin. The silk draped enticingly over her narrow waist, and her entire stance radiated a calculated vulnerability that made her seem both alluring and in need of protection. "I'm sorry," she said softly, raising a hand gently in hello. "I just wanted to talk. Privately." She stepped closer, close enough that Andy could smell her perfume, something light and expensive that she must have brought with her despite the apocalypse. Her proximity was dizzying, making it hard for him to focus. Andy was glad that the bathroom building hid them from view of the others. "I can tell Sarah wants me to find my own way once we reach the city," she said, her voice gentle, her blue eyes meeting his. "And I understand, I'm not trained like Daniela or resourceful like her. But;" She took another small step closer, her voice dropping. "I'd much rather stay with your group. With you." Andy started to respond, but Crystal continued, her voice taking on a subtle warmth. "I know I'm not useful in the traditional sense, but;" She glanced down, then back up through her lashes. "I could make it worth your while. In other ways." Her lips curved in a small, knowing smile. "And I wouldn't be reluctant about it at all. You're very attractive, and I'd be happy to show you my appreciation. Very happy." She placed a delicate hand against his chest, then slowly slid it down his torso until she found his hardening shaft through his tactical pants, giving it a gentle squeeze and rub that made his breath catch. Her breath was hot against his neck as she whispered, "I think I could make you feel really good. And I'm not jealous. I've seen the way you look at Sarah. If you also wanted her too, I wouldn't mind at all." She turned smoothly and pressed her round ass against his crotch with practiced ease, grinding against him in a way that made his hand instinctively slide from her arm to her tit, squeezing the soft fullness through her silk blouse. She threw him a knowing wink as she pulled away, fixing her blouse. "Just think about it, please, sir" she said, then walked back toward the picnic area with her natural model's grace. Andy leaned against the concrete wall, his heart racing and body still responding to Crystal's touch. The fantasy was immediate and overwhelming, Crystal's skilled hands and mouth pleasuring him, her full lips on his, while Sarah rode his cock, both women competing for his attention. He'd already decided he wanted Crystal to stay with them even before her proposition, though he'd need to find a way to present it to Sarah. Taking several deep breaths, he straightened his uniform and walked back to the group. "I've been lots of times." Sarah said, as Andy caught the tail end of their conversation. "Recently for photoshoots at the famous spots, the Golden Gate, Lombard Street, Palace of Fine Arts. So mostly tourist spots I guess." Andy grabbed a few apples from a nearby crate, tossing one to each of them. "These look good," he said, trying to keep his tone casual, though his mind was still swimming with erotic possibilities. "We should take a few crates for the road." As he distributed the fruit, he noticed Sarah's quick glance between him and Crystal. "I've only been twice, for track meets. We mostly stayed near the Golden Gate Park." said Daniela. I used to go pretty often." Crystal chimed in. "The modeling agency I was with was actually headquartered in San Francisco rather than L A. They claimed it was part of them being a more realistic, less superficial brand." She looked to Sarah. "We also did photoshoots at those spots, I wonder if we ever overlapped and just didn't know it." she said sweetly. "You're a model? I mean you look amazing." "Oh, thanks, no, just Instagram" said Sarah self-deprecatingly. "Nothing legit. I had like, a decent following, good for free gear from sponsors and stuff but not really enough for a living." "No, that's cool! I could never, too much effort to post and make hashtags and plan everything out. I was always better when people told me where to go, what to wear, how to pose, you know. But, it sounds empowering to be in control of your content. Although I guess then you've gotta cater to your audience more directly. Did you ever think about Only Fans?" Andy raised an eyebrow, while Daniela chomped on her apple only half attentive. "No, never." said Sarah firmly. "Not my thing." Her cheeks took on some color as she bristled at the suggestion. Crystal raised a hand in graceful apology. "I didn't mean any offense, sorry. We didn't have much money growing up, and I wasn't great at school. I don't think there's anything wrong with using what you have. She turned to Andy. "What about you, Andy? Have you been to San Francisco before? Where are you from actually? You haven't said much." There was a brief pause at the table. Crystal had just broken the unspoken post-apocalypse rule against asking people about their past if they didn't volunteer it. Perhaps in realization of this, Crystal slid a hand surreptitiously under the table and rested it gently against Andy's thigh. "I'm from Seattle." he said, in a stiff tone. He thought to his parents and brother, back in Korea, probably dead. "I've been to San Francisco a few times." he said curtly. Crystal gave him an understanding, apologetic smile, which he tried to return. "Are we done?" he said, glancing around the table. "Go to the bathroom if you guys need, and we should head out." Day 7, Afternoon The early afternoon sun cast shadows across Interstate 580 as their two-truck convoy approached Oakland. Traffic thinned out considerably after they'd managed to navigate around several major blockages, but abandoned vehicles still dotted the shoulder sporadically, silent witnesses to the chaos of those final days. Andy kept one eye on his rearview mirror, checking that Sarah was following OK. Crystal had switched to riding with Sarah after their lunch stop, the two women seemingly settling into an uneasy quiet, while Daniela maintained her vigilant watch of their surroundings from his passenger seat. The highway curved sharply around a hill, and suddenly there was movement, a pickup truck appearing from the opposite direction. Both vehicles slammed to a stop instinctively, tires screeching on the asphalt. "Contact front!" Daniela called sharply, already reaching for her Remington. "Armed individual, driver's side!" Andy killed the engine and was out of the truck in one fluid motion, his ranger training taking over. He reached through the rear window of the cab, grabbing the AR-15 mounted behind the seats. Daniela mirrored his movement on the passenger side, her rifle trained steadily on the other vehicle. Andy keyed his radio quickly: "Sarah, Crystal, stay in the truck, get down below the windows. Now!" The man from the other truck had taken cover behind his own door, his rifle held ready but not directly aimed. He was middle-aged, wearing casual clothes and looking almost as startled as they were. "Identify yourself!" Andy shouted, his voice carrying the authority of his ranger training. "Hey, easy!" the man called back, his voice strained but not aggressive. "I don't want any trouble! My name's Mike Peterson, I'm just trying to get to my mom up north. She's alive, I got a message from her yesterday!" "Keep your hands visible!" Daniela commanded, her young voice carrying surprising authority. "Look, I'm sorry!" Mike responded. "You scared me as much as I scared you, wasn't expecting anyone on this road!" He carefully kept his rifle pointed down. "I swear I mean no harm!" Andy studied the man's body language. "Alright," he called out. "Let's both put our weapons back in our vehicles. Show of good faith. Then we can talk!" There was a moment of tense silence before Mike nodded. "Okay! On three?" "On three," Andy confirmed. "One; two; three!" Both men slowly placed their weapons back in their vehicles, movements deliberate and visible. After a moment's hesitation, Daniela followed suit, carefully placing her Remington back in the cab. Andy let out a deep sigh of relief and keyed his radio again. "Sarah, Crystal, you can come out now. Stand a few paces from the truck, hands where he can see them." He raised his voice to Mike: "We've got two more people in the second truck. They're coming out now, no weapons!" The rear doors of the second truck opened cautiously. Sarah emerged first, her designer athletic wear incongruous against the tension of the moment. Crystal followed, her beauty drawing Mike's attention momentarily before he caught himself and returned his focus to Andy. The two men walked toward each other, meeting roughly halfway between their vehicles. The late afternoon breeze carried the salt smell of the nearby bay, rustling through the wild grass growing between the highway directions. "I'm Andy Rhee," Andy offered, his posture relaxed but alert. "We're coming from Yosemite, heading to San Francisco. You?" "Gilroy," Mike replied, running a hand through his graying hair. "Been on the road since yesterday. My mother's up near Mount Shasta, finally got a message through on Beacon that she made it." He glanced at their trucks. "Any trouble on the roads?" Andy shook his head. "We've been checking Beacon for updates about blocked sections. Had to detour around a big pileup between exits 234 and 236, and there was another rough stretch near the 99-120 interchange, but otherwise it's been quiet. You?" "Seen a few other people on the move," Mike said. "Most heading either to San Jose State or the Presidio. Stopped at SJSU myself, they gave me some medical supplies, antibiotics." He patted the bag at his hip. "What's the situation like at San Jose State?" Andy asked. Mike shrugged, his expression uncertain. "Pretty loose organization, if you can call it that. There's a professor trying to coordinate things, but;" He paused, searching for words. "Nobody's really in charge. Most folks are just passing through, or locals coming out of their homes to get supplies when they need to. Everyone's still pretty shell-shocked, you know? Scared. Confused about what to do next." "I see," Andy nodded. "You need any supplies? We've got two full trucks here." "Thanks, but I'm good," Mike replied. "Stopped at a Walmart on the way up, loaded up pretty good. What's your plan?" he asked. "We're heading to the Presidio to check things out, probably look to settle there," Andy replied. He explained the logic that made San Francisco an ideal place to settle. Mike nodded thoughtfully. "I've been debating between heading there myself or maybe taking over a farm somewhere. My dad was a farmer, I grew up on a ranch, so I know the basics at least." "If you're thinking farming, the San Joaquin delta would be your best bet," Andy suggested. "Close enough to the Bay to stay connected, and the river means you won't need complex irrigation systems." He paused. "Though once people get more organized, there might be competition for that land." "Makes sense," Mike said, considering. "Hey, we should share Beacon handles, keep each other updated on how things are going." "Good idea," Andy agreed. They quickly exchanged their information. "Alright then. Good luck," Mike said with a final nod. "You too," Andy replied, turning back toward his truck. They watched Mike's truck shrink into the distance before Andy walked back to where the others waited. The late afternoon sun cast their shadows long across the asphalt as he summarized the encounter. "He's heading up to Mount Shasta, his mom survived, managed to get a message to him," Andy explained. He saw the brief flickers of pain cross their faces at the mention of family, each of them carrying their own weight of loss. Sarah's hand moved unconsciously to the delicate necklace she wore. Daniela's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, while Crystal wrapped her arms around herself, as if suddenly cold. "He stopped at San Jose State," Andy continued quickly, pushing past the moment. "Says there's some professor trying to coordinate things, but it's pretty disorganized. Mostly just people passing through, getting supplies when they need them." "God, I was so scared when he first stopped," Crystal admitted, her voice still slightly shaky. "But he seemed nice! I hope he finds his mom." She brightened slightly. "It's kind of encouraging, right? Making new friends already?" "We're getting close to Oakland now," Andy said, his tone growing more serious. "This will be the most populated area we've been through. We should pull off somewhere, check Beacon for updates." He glanced at their loaded trucks. "And we need to cover those beds with tarps, don't want to advertise how much supplies we're carrying." Daniela was already moving toward the trucks. "There's an exit about a quarter mile ahead," she said, consulting their marked-up atlas. "Looks like it leads to some kind of business park. Should be good cover, and easy access back to the highway." The Business Park. The business park was quiet, its empty parking lot offering a clear view of the approach. Sarah and Crystal worked on setting up the Starlink array while Andy and Daniela methodically secured heavy tarps over the truck beds, their practiced movements suggesting they'd done this before. "I've been thinking about where to set up initially," Andy said, pulling the tarp tight before securing another tie-down. "There's a Korean consulate building in Presidio Heights I've visited before. It would make a good temporary base." Daniela paused in her work, considering. "Security features?" "Yeah, it's built for diplomatic security," Andy confirmed, testing the tarp's tension. "Reinforced doors, security windows, probably some basic defensive architecture. It's in a quiet residential area, but walking distance from the Presidio." He moved to secure another corner. "Plus it's designed to be relatively self-contained, might have backup generators, water storage." "Got signal," Sarah called from where she knelt by the array, her designer leggings collecting dust from the pavement. Crystal leaned over her shoulder, their phones illuminating their faces as they scrolled through Beacon updates. "The building, is it big enough for all of us?" Daniela asked practically, her young voice carrying that familiar tactical edge. "Three stories, if I recall correctly, and lots of office space we can convert," Andy replied. "And importantly, it's far enough from Downtown that we'll be far from the chaos there, and we won't be right in the middle of whatever organization efforts are happening at the Presidio, but close enough to stay connected." Crystal fidgeted with the hem of her silk blouse. "About that;" she began softly. "I was wondering if; if maybe I could stay with you all?" Her blue eyes flickered between them, settling briefly on Andy before dropping to the ground. "I know I'd be another mouth to feed, and I'm not exactly survival-trained, but I could help out. I could handle the cooking, cleaning, keep watch at night;" She trailed off, her offer hanging in the air. Sarah and Daniela both turned to Andy, waiting for his response. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the parking lot as he made a show of considering the request, though his mind was already made up. "We packed about three months of food for the three of us," he said thoughtfully, watching Crystal's face fall slightly before continuing. "But getting more shouldn't be too hard at this point. There are probably plenty of places we can scavenge from once we're in the city." He adjusted the tarp's final tie-down. "As long as you're willing to help with some scavenging runs, which we should do anyway to build up our supplies, it should work out fine. I can go with you, show you the ropes." Daniela's face brightened with obvious approval, while Sarah maintained a carefully neutral expression, offering a small nod of agreement. Crystal's relief was palpable, her usual poise returning as she straightened up. "Thank you," she said softly. "I promise I'll pull my weight." Arriving at the consulate. Andy and Sarah. Day 7, Late Afternoon The late afternoon shadows stretched across the quiet streets of Presidio Heights as their little convoy approached the Korean consulate. The building stood stolid and official-looking among the surrounding residences, its windows dark but intact. As they drove through the SF neighborhoods, they'd seen scattered survivors, mostly women. Most kept their distance, watching the trucks pass with wary curiosity before returning to whatever tasks occupied them in this new world. Andy pulled up to the front of the consulate, studying the building's facade. The American and Korean flags still hung limply from their poles. The front entrance featured heavy double doors with reinforced glass flanked by simple columns and dotted with CCTV equipment, now nonfunctional. "Stay in the trucks," Andy instructed over the radio. "Daniela and I will check the entrance first." They approached the front doors cautiously, Daniela's hand resting near her holstered Glock. Andy tried the handle, locked, as expected. He knocked firmly, the sound echoing through the empty building. "I don't see any signs of forced entry," Daniela observed, examining the door frame. "Any electronic security would be disabled when the power went out. Probably a pretty heavy deadbolt though." Andy nodded. "Let's try the back. No point destroying the front entrance if we don't have to." He keyed his radio: "We're going to check the rear access." The fence around the property's perimeter was tall but manageable. Andy went first, scaling it smoothly before dropping to the other side. Daniela followed with the grace of someone who'd trained for exactly this kind of situation, her feet barely making a sound as she landed. The back door was similarly secure, but its handle was less robust than the front entrance. Andy retrieved the fire axe from his pack, testing its weight before taking a controlled swing at the handle mechanism. The sound of splintering metal seemed impossibly loud in the quiet neighborhood. Two more precise strikes, and the handle fell away entirely. A careful push revealed an empty hallway beyond. Andy did a quick sweep before returning to the door. "Clear," he called softly. "We'll open the garage from inside." He radioed. "Gimme a sec." Minutes later, Andy and Daniela manually hauled the heavy garage door upward, revealing a spacious underground parking area. Sarah and Crystal guided the trucks inside, the engines' echoes filling the concrete space before falling silent. As the door lowered behind them, sealing them into their new sanctuary, Crystal's voice carried a mix of relief and uncertainty. "Home sweet home?" After securing the trucks, Andy pulled one of the Glock 19s from their equipment and checked the magazine. "We should clear the building together," he said, tucking a couple of flashbangs into his tactical vest. "No splitting up." Daniela nodded, already holding her father's Mossberg with practiced ease. "Standard sweep pattern?" "Sure. Let's trade" he said, handing her the pistol and flashlight. "I'll take point." The basement level revealed its first surprise in a mechanical room, a commercial-grade backup generator system connected to substantial fuel storage. Daniela examined the setup with interest, her usually sober expression breaking into a rare smile. "Looks like there's about three hundred hours of runtime with the current fuel," she calculated, sweeping her flashlight across the gauge. "If we're careful about power usage, could stretch that a while." "That would be amazing." Sarah breathed, her eyes lighting up. "Yeah, let's leave it off for now though." said Andy. Adjacent to the generator room, they discovered a significant water storage system and septic setup. "Diplomatic buildings always plan for siege scenarios," Andy explained, his own relief evident in his voice. "Four, maybe five months of water," Daniela estimated. "If we're careful." "Gosh" Crystal whispered, touching one of the tanks, almost reverently. "I never thought I'd be so happy to see plumbing equipment." "Me neither" said Sarah. "I need a shower so bad." They continued their sweep, finding a heavy steel door marked 'Security' that refused to budge. "Probably need specialized tools for that one," Andy noted, making a mental note to return later. The next door revealed a surprisingly well-equipped gym, free weights, cardio machines, and resistance training equipment. Sarah's eyes lit up immediately. "Oh thank god," she breathed, running her hand along a rowing machine. "I was terrified of losing this." She gestured winsomely at her meticulously crafted curves. "Do you know how many years it took to get my body like this?" Crystal watched her uncertainly. "You're worried about that? I'm barely holding it together right now, I couldn't imagine making myself more tired and exhausted on purpose." "I'd literally rather die than lose this body," Sarah replied firmly, her hand trailing along her flat, gently muscled abs. The seriousness in her voice made it impossible to tell if she was exaggerating. Andy watched this exchange with raised eyebrows, then noticed something else. "There's a sauna in here too," he noted, pleased. "Would be a real luxury to turn on some day." The main floor revealed a layout typical of diplomatic buildings, a reception area leading to various offices, with a modest break room and a more formal dining space clearly meant for official functions. The kitchen behind it was industrial-grade, though smaller than what you'd find in a restaurant. The second floor held more offices, their doors standing open to reveal desks still covered in papers and family photos, frozen in time. To be continued. Based on a post by the hospital, for Literotica.

The History  I started my shopify store around the 10th December 2023 after a viral video on TikTok on December 8th. So I integrated with Bookvault and stayed with POD shipping until February 2025. Since February 2025, I've been distributing and fulfilling all orders from my website in my own warehouse. These are the lessons I've learned from the last ten months of running my own website sales and distribution. And yes, I will talk numbers, but I'm making you wait till the end! Please note, I will talk about finances, systems and the occasional legal thing. Absolutely nothing I say is financial, legal or tax advice. You must seek advice from professionals in your own countries and tax territories. I recognise that this model is not for 99% of authors. It's a LOT of work. It's a lot of logistics, a lot of peopling, team building, paperwork and problem solving. This is as far removed from sitting behind a desk and writing 24/7 as you can get.  Do not listen to this with an open heart. Be skeptical, that will keep you on the right track for creating a business you love. But know that I do love this and I am framing these lessons learned from that perspective. Why Direct? I'd always had a transactional website for Sacha Black work but it barely did £20 a month. So I knew the work I was about to scramble to do for Ruby may be for nothing. But I didn't want to be beholden to TikTok the way I'd been beholdened to other sources of income and I knew if I'd gone viral once, I could do it again and that would lead to relying on TikTok. What do I mean why? Two reasons: why should you as an author have a direct store but also why should readers come to you? For you, you can earn more per sale. POD companies integrating with shopify automatically give you more as there are no hidden fees. But when you shift to print runs you more than half the cost of printing each book. Of course you also give yourself a host of other problems like fulfillment and overheads, but you gain a lot more product flexibility and potential meaning you have the opportunity to make bigger profit. BUT and this is a big but, you have to work out what you want your business to look like. That said, there are consequences. I usually write and publish 3 books a year and this year I've dropped to 2 published. Though I will have written a 3rd and a short story by the end of the year. But I wasn't able to get that third one published. Despite that, this is going to be my biggest year ever for income. It already beat last year in 7 months. Which goes to show that you don't have to be rapid releasing anymore to make good money. The fact I've not published three, is a direct consequence of the warehouse and also the increasing team size and the need to train staff. Thankfully due to the Kickstarter, some rights deals an big increase in direct sales of products and merch, I haven't seen a dip in income. Which goes to show that you don't have to be rapid releasing anymore to make good money. There are other benefits like reader loyalty because you're treating them better, you are able to provide higher quality books and with extra goodies and sign all the books for example. And that's really the heart of the mindset shift you need to have and how you should frame thinking about a direct store. Why should a reader bother coming to you when they can get next day shipping for free on Amazon? Can you answer that before you set up your store? For me this looks like three promises: Every book that leaves the warehouse is handsigned by me (I do this in batches and sign for 4-5 hours and get several thousand books signed in one go so it doesn't disturb writing time.) They get extra bonuses for ordering directly like stickers, bookmarks and character art. Last, if they preorder a book in any format I have for sale on the website, it will get shipped BEFORE the public release date. We aim for delivery a couple of weeks prior but it depends on print runs and me hitting deadlines. Things to consider before leaving POD direct and moving to self fulfillment: Where are you going to stock your books? Do you have local warehousing facilities or somewhere you own you can use? Stock requires more space than you think. Because it's not just books you need space for, it's packaging, and space for parcels before collection and space for a computer and printer etc. What is your cash flow like? Do you have the capital that you can risk losing to spend on investing in this? Thanks to great advice from one of my closest author pals, I didn't buy shipping containers for conversion to put on family land which was a circa 40k investment. Instead I rented a warehouse so that I was only risking the cost of one year's rent circa 9k and I'd also be able to up and leave and close everything down if it went wrong. What's your problem solving resiliency like? Solving problems, if it's not your bag, is relentlessly exhausting. Problems arise in all areas of this business, from shipping to label printing to packaging to import and export paperwork, to sourcing products, VAT, pricing, website, delivery issues. Etc. The list is long. Honestly? There's rarely a day without some kind of issue that needs resolving. How does that make you feel? Excited or horrified? Pay attention to those emotions. The only business you should be building is one that brings you joy. Last, is the reality that if you want to fulfill direct yourself you *will* need staff—if you want to continue to write that is. If you think about it, POD direct staff your website for you. They have teams packing the boxes, printing labels and shipping everything for you. So no matter which way you cut it, whether it's you organising staff or your printers, someone has to do the leg work. Mindset shifts eCommerce  Yes I'm an author, but running your own fulfillment from website sales means you also run an eCommerce business. And over and above that, I now run a physical product business because we have merchandise. Those combined make for a very, very different business structure and set of problems compared to the old school models of being an indie author. Traffic Direction First of all and most basic of all. I direct all traffic to my website without exception. My primary links on social media are my website. If people ask where they can buy my books, it's my website. If they say they can't then I'll direct them online to a more well known store.   Schedules are a bitch.  When you're writing in a solo business and uploading your books online, your schedule is essentially your own. When you then bring on a team, they are reliant on you delivering on time to make sure they can do their job. How does that make you feel? Knowing you *have* to deliver for someone else? For a long time I really hated being beholden to deadlines—probably a corporate spill over. But being responsible for a team and needing to deliver for them is very different. I adore my team, I love them and care about them and I *want* to deliver on time for them. This is a total re-framing for me. It's the right kind of pressure and responsibility attached to a deadline. Does that mean my creativity needs to show up on time? Sure, but I find this motivating because it's the right people around me. However, the first book post warehouse opening, we were all still learning and mistakes were made. I delivered one book late. That pushed everything and made a lot of the timelines difficult including getting the printed books delivered on time. For Architecti there were two main problems: a solid 20% of the order arrived damaged by rain. But we'd already sold almost all the initial print run so we couldn't spare 20% and thus didn't have enough stock to cover our preorders. So this caused a lot of anxiety. Under ordering stock is a terrifying prospect. As is over ordering because do you have enough space for it and what if you then don't sell it?  The second mistake was releasing a book without checking the diaries of the warehouse team who happened to be on holiday during the fulfillment process. Which in a bout of shit timing, my mum then got sick in the crucial week. Meaning I had to stop writing and fulfill 1000 preorders single handedly. It was grueling physically, mentally and emotionally doing it on my own. We're never having that cluster fuck again.  So we've produced a heat map style document with everyone's leave, delivery dates, deadlines for me, product ordering dates, prepping dates and fulfillment periods etc. This was an enormous lesson in logistics of both a warehouse and people. Exclusivity Kindle Unlimited works for a reason. It has books exclusive to Amazon, you literally cannot get them anywhere else. Meaning you're forced to get them there. If that worked for Amazon, you can bet you're arse it works for others.  So I stole the idea. I have four novellas /short stories that I publish exclusively on my website. Does that mean a huge risk for loss of visibility and potential sales? Absolutely. No rank, no visibility in the biggest algorithm machine in the world. But it is also one of the key sales tactics I've used to get readers over to me. And boy has it worked. I make sure it's content I know they'll want, I flash the extra books on my reels and videos and then the questions flood in — how do I get those books… Well I'll tell you…! Preorders Preorders are both a gift and a logistical nightmare. How to get them? We ran an enormous campaign for Architecti. Ending up with 1027 paperbacks, 323 hardbacks and 193 ebooks. For a total 1543 preorders on my website. Plus over 1000 ebooks on Amazon. So the total preorders were in excess of 2500 preorders. Firstly you have to ask why should readers preorder direct to you? As mentioned earlier we make three promises: Everything is signed They get extras and goodies including a Roe-Mantics popsocket, series sticker and bookmark and an art print. As well as a Ruby Roe reading tracking and reading order and some stickers. They get the books delivered early (ebook and physical) We promoted the shit out of these three facts and I do believe this is the reason we did so well. That, plus almost two years of pushing direct sales and building reader trust. I won't go into all the marketing we did as this is a podcast about the warehouse. But we pushed HARD. We made a couple of mistakes: We didn't order enough books. We ordered 1000 paperbacks and ended up having to do a second print run because we sold over 1000 and obviously knew we needed stock on hand for general sales — a good problem to have obviously. But if we had ordered a higher quantity from the start we would have had a better price per book and saved ourselves some money and increased profit. That's a tough lesson to learn as we're always having to balance cashflow. The second mistake was packaging. We pride ourselves on making sure the books arrive in pristine condition. The consequence of that is how long it takes to package. The primary damage a book can fall prey to is the rain, or being dropped. We were individually wrapping each book in foam or bubble wrap before putting them inside bookwraps with the goodies to ship. This took me almost two weeks to do for circa a thousand parcels. I spoke to my warehouse neighbour who is a book box subscription company and discovered that they ship 1000 parcels in a couple of days because they uses origami boxes with packing peanuts and a plastic exterior envelope bag for water protection. This results in them working at a significantly faster rate than us. And has led us to get boxes designed and we're in the process of ordering 10k boxes. Customer Communication Customer communication has been an absolute maelstrom. The more products we create, the more complex everything gets. Becca used to be primarily a scheduler for me. Now, she's moved to be a customer services manager. Major issues include: when they preorder a book and put a published book into the same order. This is a means we have to email them to let them know they have two options: either we refund and they order separately or they wait for both their books. This is a huge problem as there are a number of preorders live at any one time and thus a ton of customer communication needed. It has gotten better as we have educated our repeat customers, put messages and labels on the site. But it is an ever present problem. We have decided to commission a coder to write some code for shopify so that we can charge two lots of shipping and split ship. We've also had so many communications about the tariffs. This has been so difficult because we are not the ones charging but we are the first point of call. It is in large part due to the team being incredible that we got through this. Last, I still receive an email for every single order. So I do one additional thing. I make a point to keep an eye on when someone has ordered multiple times in short succession and then send them to the team to refund duplicate postage.  Protecting Writing Time This is so vital. And has been the hardest part of having a warehouse. I definitely feel like I lost 6 months of writing time. It's the reason I barely managed to get Architecti done, and the reason I didn't meet my primary goal of getting ahead of production this year. Staffing means interruptions. But more than that, having the discipline to put my phone on do not disturb or muting team chats while I write. Now that we're up to speed, refining processes and we have SOPs in place, I am finding it easier and easier to not go to the warehouse. We also stopped having the smaller deliveries sent to my house and instead they're going to my team's houses or direct to the warehouse. Regulations and Tariffs  With a physical product business there are so many more regulations and acronyms and pieces of law that you have to deal with. The level of bureaucracy is quite astonishing and has caused a number of headaches. These headaches are not the type of headaches that most authors would want to deal with. You have to choose the poison you want to drink and I genuinely recognise that 99% of authors would not want this headache. The other matter here is that the regulations have required a colossal amount of time spent on them. More time than we anticipated. Something new is always being thrown at us and usually things that we do not have knowledge on. So we're constantly in a state of adapting and learning. This is both wonderful and also a little gruelling.  As there's not many people doing this we don't have many options for checking we're on the right path, so having to trust ourselves that we've done the best we can with the knowledge we have. And also recognise that it's okay to not know everything. Logistics There's been a lot of logistic lessons learned too. Firstly, that shipping providers are a nightmare. They're massive organisations and that means corporate bureaucracy. Lots of being passed between departments and having to wait for responses. You're probably going to need additional app integrations some of which will cost. Just pay for the apps because it will make your life simpler. We have a DPD integration app that makes handling and managing preorders and labels considerably easier. Batch as much as you can: like signing books, preparing freebie packets, cutting foam and pre-building boxes. Batch packaging, in particular for preorders. For example, all the UK paperbacks then all the UK hardbacks etc. It's easier to do the same thing over and over and then task switch than it is to do it higgledy piggledy. Timelines  Understanding the timelines for launches has been quite the challenge. When you're a solo indie you are in charge of your own time. When you have a team, and other people do parts of the publishing process, you're no longer working on your own schedule. Combined with the fact that a huge percentage of my turnover comes from physical book sales. This means we have to do print runs. Instead of loading up to KDP or the POD services and knowing it will be live the next day or a few days later after a proof copy. Print runs take a couple of days to finalise the files (up to several months for international printers) and then 2-3 weeks to print and deliver to the warehouse for UK printers, and several weeks to months for international. We then have to unpack them and check the quality and then I have to sign them. I am pretty fast at signing now and choose to sign in long batches 4-5 hours at a time and usually manage 1-2000 books in that time. The other timelines that need to be considered are how long things take to pack. But I've already talked about that. But it is something that needs to be considered when planning preorder fulfillment. The more preorders we get, the more significant the time it takes, that or we need more people to help pack. The Money This is the bit everyone is interested. All costs are in GBP.  Set up costs for the warehouse were approximately £4-5000. This included the deposit, racking, furniture etc. In total, I've spent 100k on printing this year. However a significant portion of that was on the Kickstarter. So I don't count that in the costs for the warehouse. Those sit at £61,171. We are still holding a huge amount of stock in the warehouse so this spend should start to even out. In December 2023 I started the shop around 10th December, I made just shy of £1700 which I think was mostly due to the viral TikToks. In the month of May 2024 I broke £5000. November 2024 I broke 10k for the first time and in December 2024 I broke 15k. That was the month I knew I needed to take advantage of what I was building. I knew I wanted to do more for readers who were clearly willing to buy direct. In 2024, the website turned over £73.5k. I collected keys for the warehouse of January 31st. It took a couple of weeks to set the warehouse up and then we had print runs delivered around the 17th and started shipping on Feb 20th 2025. That was a £16k month, and the first time my Shopify sales beat my Amazon, only by a couple hundred pounds, but it still beat it. It wasn't lost on me that it was the first month I had taken control of distribution. April eclipsed Amazon at 29k and I've stayed between 15 and 29k a month since — Finally in November 2025, I surpassed 30k. As of 21st November we're standing at 222k for the year. I suspect we will end up with turnover somewhere between 230 and 250k for 2025.  Creating definitive turnover and net profit calculations are difficult. What I can tell you is that between the warehouse, staff for the warehouse, utilities and insurances I spend approximately 18-1900 a month (21-23k per year). Shipping varies between 500 and 1500 a week on average but on preorder weeks it can spike to 8k. The highest month for shipping was 11k. I suspect for the year it will be roughly 45-55k.  So for print costs, staffing, rent and shipping the total is approximately £133,971. I estimate 4-7k on other costs like packaging and freebies. So let's estimate £140k spend for £222k turnover. So I estimate approximately £82,000 in profit - to which I'll then have to pay tax. That's a 36% profit. Not as high as I'd like, but also it's year one and spend is always higher in year one because of set up. I expect that as we move into year two that will grow and my aim is to reach 45% but the ultimate goal will be 50% I'm not sure if this is possible but we will try. We have a lot of stock that we can sell without having to spend out anymore.  In terms of granular costs to give you an idea of profit on the detail level: The cost of each book is loosely £2.20 per paperback for which we charge £10.99 on average. We allow for £1 of that to cover packaging and freebies. Meaning £3.20 of costs. Though this doesn't include a % for warehouse overheads. I don't have any advertising costs. I have bought all customers in from my mailing list, TikTok and Instagram. On average my returning customer rate is 35%. However, in months where I set up a new product preorder, that rate shoots up. For November 2025 it's 56%. Similarly, my average conversion rate is 5.83% conversion rate. What's interesting is that in those early months my conversion rate was 3.18%. This month it's 8.53%. I think this increase is twofold. First, I have a high returning customer rate, this automatically increases the conversion rate as your customers want what you're providing. Second, I think my marketing has gotten better and better. We're providing more books, stories and products that my audience wants and we're also getting better at marketing to market. Cash Flow One of the best things I did was create multiple pots and accounts. For a long time I'd lived under the assumption you could only have one business bank account. That was bad advice from an accountant. I have since left them and now have an excellent accountant. I've also had lots of advice from a dear friend who knows far more about money and systems than me.  Cash flow can either sky rocket or cripple a business. And when you run a physical business the numbers you run with are so much higher that you can easily crush your company. One of my favourite tactics is to create mini pots and split money up. For every preorder we run I create a pot in my bank, like a mini bank and every week I put the amount earned for that preorder product into the pot. If the product requires a print run, I pay for it out of that pot. If we have to buy wholesale merch, I take it from that pot etc. I also set aside money for tax each month. I move both personal tax money and corporation tax money and set it aside in a high interest savings account. The biggest outflows for running a distribution warehouse are staffing, warehouse rent, shipping and print runs.  For Architecti specifically, we had to do two print runs because we under ordered books. Meaning I had to outflow huge amounts of money twice. The print runs totalled £11,630. Plus 11,000 in shipping fees for that month. If I didn't have the money set aside for this, it could easily have pushed me into debt. One of the main things I did to help prevent cashflow issues, is have dozens of pots inside my bank accounts.  Every week the team calculates the income for orders and shipping for each product we have on preorder (there are always usually 2 to 3) and then I transfer that money to individual pots. Meaning I save all the money from preorders right up until launch. I then take the money for the print runs from this pot and for the shipping. What's left is the profit which is taxable so I move the tax money into my tax pot and then keep the rest. This is the safest way I've found for managing cashflow and ensuring I don't spend money that needs to be saved for specific things. I also have an entirely separate account for my shopify. So all print runs are paid for out of the shopify account. All shipping payments go out of that account. All printing for freebies etc comes from that account. It becomes totally self managing and over time it increases. Then if I want to take out chunks of profit, I do and keep the account at 20k. This is the equivalent of the average monthly turnover for the shopify. So should cover all bills or worst case scenarios.  I also have a tax pot where I move money each month. My accountants have a report that generates each month and estimates my tax. I then place my tax in a high interest account and leave it to earn some money before I have to pay it. Next Steps Business infrastructure. I recently visited Author Nation – the Las Vegas conference that was once 20books. There are so many areas for growth and improvement and I realised that I have essentially brut forced my way to the position I'm in. Upsell app Integration with better email upsell marketing system Possibly advertising Branded packaging

The holidays bring joy… but they also expose every relational tension we've been avoiding. In this episode of Calibrate Conversations, Brady shares 3 essential biblical principles to help you navigate family drama, painful memories, broken relationships, and tough conversations around religion and politics.Before you sit down at the Thanksgiving or Christmas table, take 5 minutes and reset your heart with gospel hope. Your words can bring grace. Your presence can bring peace. And Jesus can bring healing into places that still hurt.If you're feeling the weight of family conflict, prodigal children, loss, or strained relationships this season—this message is for you.

Any takeaways from this episode?This week, we're heading straight into the French countryside — where the champagne is crisp, the men have fantastic accents, and apparently everyone has access to an impossibly charming bookstore.Think: 

This Is Honestly Why I HATE The Fitness Industry

t's the 40 year anniversary of Ewoks The Battle for Endor and we're celebrating by inviting over some of our favorite people, Patrick Cotnoir from The George Lucas Talk Show and the wonderful Stephanie “StaxRebo” talking all about this wonderful dark chapter in the Ewok saga! Join us as we discuss topics like ducks, Cindel, Teek almost drowning, did Mace need to die, Wicket's new look and more! So fly away like that little bird, celebrate the love and listen today! Check out Patrick with The George Lucas Talk Show : https://linktr.ee/georgelucastalkshow Check out Steph on Instagram and her podcast Rise of the Gulp Shitto : https://www.instagram.com/riseoftheglupshitto?igsh=MWtkMW5wNzg3d2tpdg== https://www.instagram.com/staxrebo?igsh=MWp0dmlucGtzb2d6Mw== JOIN THE BLAST POINTS ARMY and SUPPORT BLAST POINTS ON PATREON! NEW ANDOR SEASON 2 EPISODE COMMENTARIES! HEAR EPISODES EARLY AND SO MUCH MORE! Theme Music! downloadable tunes from episodes! Extra goodies! and so much MORE! www.patreon.com/blastpoints Blast Points T-SHIRTS are now available! Represent your favorite podcast everywhere you go! Get logo shirts while supplies last! Perfect for conventions, dates, formal events and more! Get them here: www.etsy.com/shop/Gibnerd?section_id=21195481 If you dug the show, please leave BLAST POINTS a review on iTunes, Spotify and share the show with friends! If you leave an iTunes review, we will read it on a future episode! Honestly! Talk to Blast Points on twitter at @blast_points "Like" Blast Points on Facebook Join the Blast Points Super Star Wars Chill Group here www.facebook.com/groups/BlastPointsGroup/ we are also on Instagram! Wow! www.instagram.com/blastpoints Your hosts are Jason Gibner & Gabe Bott! contact BLAST POINTS at : contact@blastpointspodcast.com May the Force be with you, always! This podcast is not affiliated in any way with Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC, The Walt Disney Company, or any of their affiliates or subsidiaries.

As much as I LOVE the cozy vibes, food, and extra family time that come with the holiday season, it can definitely knock you off your routine if you're not paying attention.Honestly? This is the PERFECT time to check in with yourself, and get thankful for the habits that have actually carried you this year! When it comes to habits, the reality is simple: if it's not a habit, you're not doing it consistently. If you're not doing it consistently…you're not getting results! This time of year gets loud and messy with allll the things going on. It's easy to forget how far you've come, or how many times you've shown up for yourself, regardless of what life throws your way.I've been reflecting on that a lot lately - I've built habits that have helped me stay grounded through one of the hardest years of my life. These habits aren't sexy or flashy, but they've helped me become who I am today.Remember - you didn't come this far just to white-knuckle your way through the holidays, or fall completely off track. You came this far because you're a BADASS woman becoming even stronger, and I'm incredibly thankful you're here!!Episode recap:Why your habits are the core of your fitness progress + will be there when motivation isn'tWhy you should take time to really reflect on your journey this year6 personal habits I'm grateful I've builtSimple ways to keep going + be practical w/your habits during the holidaysWhy the holidays aren't a setback, but an opportunity to strengthen your habitsLinks/Resources:Ep. 216 | How to Train (or Not Train) During the Holidays Without Losing ProgressGrab your FREE Body Recomp Meal Prep BlueprintListen to the Sol Fit PodcastJoin FIT CLUB, my monthly membership with workouts you can do at home or the gymPRIVATE COACHING is my 1:1 program (choose 3 or 6 month option)Connect with me on Instagram @kristycastillofit and @unfuckyourfitnesspodcast so we can keep this conversation going-be sure to tag me in your posts and stories!Join my FREE Facebook group, Unf*ck Your FitnessClick HERE for my favorite fitness & life things!Send me a text with episode ideas or just to say hi! Support the show

This short meditation invites you to practice starting again. In each moment of our lives, we have the opportunity to start again. I hope you enjoy this practice! 

Content Warning for My Happy Marriage: Abuse, ViolenceWe're back for another helping of misery. But first, we get back into the swing of things and find out that actually our lives might be boring week to week. This was way easier where we had like three weeks of things to talk about. Oh well. We do the usual talking about games and stuff.In My Happy Marrage, we finish up the family arc with the worst kidnapping scheme I've ever seen. Honestly, it's like none of them have ever done this before! Miyo gets to do some arts and crafts which is fun and Kiyoka gets to have an x-men battle with a guy. So these episodes are pretty good!

Happy Thanksgiving Sippers! In honor of this festive holiday we watch 5 minutes of a horrible horror and then a completely different horrible (but palatable) horror. What not to watch: Poultrygeist (2006), we got a few minutes in and realized we just could not. So moving on to the actual movie for this episode: The Last Thanksgiving (2020). Which was bad in the right ways for a great low budget Thanksgiving killer horror. Listen along as we watch a canablistic family fight against a small town diner crew. The charm! The cheese! The horrible acting! Joining with us is special guest: The Honorable Spooky Sips Biggest Fan... Liz! We put her thru it! Honestly, surprised she made it thru the whole movie. Partially because she was sipping on our unsuccessful cocktail, recipe below. *Also don't hate us, the audio is not it this episode, we were drunk and traumatized from the Thanksgiving slasher, sorry. Not-Electric Lemonade :1oz Midori1.5oz Lemon VodkaSplash of Pineapple Juice Top w/ LemonLime Soda*Option for Coconut FloaterThanks for listening! Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening and follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spookysips_podcast/Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/SpookySipsPodWebsite: https://spookysipspod.buzzsprout.com

Click here to send me a quick message :) So much of life these days seems to be polarized. As if the world is black and white, right and wrong. And this is no different in the birth world.As social media reach has taken hold, I've been watching the rise of polarity especially in the "free birth" community. Honestly, I had friends freebirthing before Instagram existed, but I also trained in homebirth midwifery for 5 years.So my frame has always been pretty nuanced. I've witnessed empowered hands-off births at home, more hands-on home birth midwifery styles, birth center births with nurse midwives, empowered hospital births and even the cascade of interventions happen in hospitals. Over the years of my midwifery training and birth work (this was 10-15 years ago), I became curious about more hands-off styles in home settings. My favorite births I witnessed were the ones where the midwives left (I was a doula) and/or sat in the corner knitting or reading for hours. And this is exactly the kind of story Leah shares in this week's episode. Except even more surprising in some ways. Her birth was truly self-directed, and the midwives seemed to be holding the container of safety, offering options and reminders and cervical checks when she asked for them, but always deferring back to her direction.There is so much in this story that I hope plants seeds of possibility of nuance in the spectrum of what's possible in birth.And she also shares about the practice of postpartum yoni steaming, and how that was a key to her personal pelvic floor healing after her severe tear which required surgery. So you'll hear about that, too!Resources:Sign up for the waitlist for Natural Contraception the Herbal Way program!Free Track Your Cycle Naturally (FAM) guideToday's shownotes: Get links to Leah's steaming + birthwork offeringsEpisode 25: Immediate postpartum care the herbal way w Liz PhilbrickHarvard study -- reduced inflammation through kinder self-talkcouldn't find the study but found these:Mindfulness + positive health outcomes - Harvard professor Ellen Langer + Harvard HealthEmodiversity + Biomarkers of InflammationIf you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom.  And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I'm an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal health concerns.Support the show

"Honestly, best holiday travel ever!"

Molly, Alan, and Max watch a trio of house pets who navigate the wilderness to get back home to their family. Honestly, MamFam... why would you pick this and do this to us?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey Dave and Jamison, Big fan of the show — listening from Portugal! (Proof that even across the Atlantic, software politics are universal.) I'm a tech lead, and lately I've noticed a culture where people seem to care way more about how things look than what actually gets done. It's like the appearance of productivity matters more than real impact. Honestly, it drives me nuts!! I know politics are part of any organization, and way more in a leadership role, but this feels excessive. As someone who values substance and solid engineering, how do I deal with or influence this kind of culture without losing my sanity (or turning into one of those “optics-first” people myself)? Thanks for all the insights and laughs. Kudos from Portugal! Listener Charlie says, I'm fresh out of college at my first software engineering job. Several months ago I was appointed the accessibility champion for my team. I proposed a few items in the quarterly planning session, but I think it wasn't enough. My project manager called out our whole team, but I think it was mostly aimed at me. I've been struggling with creating Jira cards, shaping with the team, writing a11y guidelines, etc. It's tedious and I'm not really familiar with this kind of work. How can I get better at the “other stuff” besides just writing code? P.S. I volunteered for this responsibility

This one feels extra close to home. As Thanksgiving rolls in, Ryan and I cozy up to talk about dating after divorce, the quiet that follows shared holidays, and what it's really like to rebuild love in your 40s. From last year's lonely Thanksgiving to navigating real-life quirks, triggers, blended-family chaos, and leaving the honeymoon phase behind, we go there. Honestly, it's some of our most real conversations yet.✨ We talked about:Dating after divorce when you've “lived a lot”Navigating the quiet, the loneliness & the healingWhat shifting out of the honeymoon phase really feels likeHow we communicate through triggers, tension & growthThe messy, beautiful truth about modern relationshipsIf this resonates, please like, comment, subscribe, and share. It helps our little community grow. ❤️Watch the full episode on YouTube here or head to https://www.youtube.com/@RealHeidiPowell.Here are the key moments from the episode:0:00 Why Dating After Divorce Feels So Different3:12 The Thanksgiving That Broke Me Open6:01 Why We Stay in Unhealthy Relationships9:18 The Side of Me Most People Never See12:27 Why I Crave Deep, Real Connection15:06 Feeling “Different” My Whole Life18:10 When Someone Finally Sees the Real You21:05 The DM I Never Replied To24:08 Why This Relationship Feels Different27:01 Leaving the Honeymoon Phase30:22 The Miscommunication That Taught Us a Lot33:42 How We Process Emotions So Differently36:29 Why Real Life Feels Like a Milestone39:41 The Hardest Part of Dating After Divorce42:53 What Healthy Conflict Really Looks Like46:06 Choosing Your Hard in Relationships49:40 Why Communication Matters More Than Chemistry53:11 What Surprised Us About Social Media56:44 The Emotional Crash After Big Life Events1:00:29 When Stress Shows Up in Your Relationship1:03:52 How Honest Talks Build Real Safety1:07:10 Understanding Your Triggers in Love1:10:31 Fighting with Each Other, Not Against Each Other1:13:02 When Speaking Up Helps and When It Doesn't1:16:15 What Healthy Love Looks Like NowConnect with Heidi:Website: https://heidipowell.net/ Email: podcast@heidipowell.net Instagram: @realheidipowellFacebook: Heidi PowellYouTube: @RealHeidiPowellTrain with Heidi on her Show Up App: https://www.showupfit.app/

Week 2 of SMALL GOD SYNDROME with Lead Pastor Jason Britt. Pastor Jason reminds us that every Christ follower has a story and a sphere of influence.

You've heard that every good thing comes from God, right? It's true. He is our example, both of how to live and how to react to others. This week, we're talking about practicing gratitude, and as usual, God shows us the way.Psalm 107:1 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”Often, we can become disappointed if we don't get everything we think we should have. But that's a dead-end when it comes to true happiness and peace. And those are things that we all really, deep down, crave.The ultimate gratitude comes from the Lord Himself. We learn in Psalm 149 that “the Lord delights in His people.” He first loved us, and that love flows down and through us. Truly, believers should be the most grateful people on the planet because we know that God has given to us His Son, Jesus Christ.Honestly, the Christian should go through each day so happy he or she can barely stand it. God has given us what we need, much of what we want, and He has already created a future for us that is so wonderful, humans can't even perceive it!Remember, God is the source of gratitude. He shows us how it's done because He knows us completely. Remember, as we go along with this topic that practicing gratitude is a huge key to finding peace.Let's pray. Lord, your goodness overwhelms us. Thank you for giving to us just because. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen. Change your shirt, and you can change the world! Save 15% Off your entire purchase of faith-based apparel + gifts at Kerusso.com with code KDD15.

This week we take a step back to the golden age of the slasher movie, 1982, for a look at a movie that misses the mark by a significant margin and yet it still remains strangely compelling. Starring Bill Paxton in one of his earliest roles, Mortuary attempts to cash in on the slasher boom but can't quite figure out what it is about Halloween and Friday the 13th that makes them so successful. Hint: It's their simplicity. Mortuary can't help but complicate matters with numerous inexplicable subplots that remain unresolved all the way to the end of the movie: Why is there a satanic cult? We'll never know. Young Christie is haunted by a memory of her father's murder that she can't quite square with the known facts. Was he murdered or did he drown and why doesn't anyone believe her when she says she witnessed his murder? Meanwhile, a dude in a black cloak is stalking the night, killing randos while trying to get close to Christie. It's plainly obvious from the jump who the killer is since he's only wearing makeup and not a mask. There's a weird, unpleasant tone of necrophilia running throughout the movie and just about everyone sucks but hey! Christopher and Linda Day George are on the set together and that has to count for something. Honestly, Bryan's not sure why he put this one on the list.Join the Bring Me The Axe Discord: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/snkxuxzJ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support Bring Me The Axe! on Patreon:https://patreon.com/bringmetheaxepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Bring Me The Axe merch here:https://www.bonfire.com/store/bring-me-the-axe-podcast/⁠⁠

⬇️ TEETH CLEANING?? The chore no dog mom wants to do ⬇️Honestly brushing my Dalmatian's teeth is a pain in the toe beans - she is an anxious dog and is very particular about having her paws and mouth touched. We've done our best desensitizing her by positive reinforcement, but brushing her teeth is still a struggle. Lindsey Campbell joins us today to talk about the must-dos to keep our dogs' teeth clean and discuss the new technological advances in pet dental health. I hope this episode is insightful and informative, and helps you understand more about dental health and bacteria growth.Warmest of regards, Jen GlaserHost of Dog Mom Podcast & Co-Founder of ZippyPaws—-----------------------------------------------—-----------------------------------------------

This week I talk with Angela Adan. Angela was highly recommended and she did not disappoint. Honestly, I don't even know how to summarize our conversation. We cover her experiences with animals from a young age, how she went from Vet Tech, to trainer, to rescuer, to educator, and everything in between. Angela shares her experience in the animal rescue world and this is a great episode for anyone who is interested in getting involved. You can learn more about her work on social media @deservingdogs @deservingpaws and @angelaadan and on YouTube @thedeservingdogsshow. Sponsor:LIX - check out www.lixpetwellness.com to learn more about CBD for pets. Use code Rescuepod20 for 20% off your first order! Thanks for listening! If you liked what you heard, please rate, review, and subscribe. If you have ideas for future guests please email me at theanimalrescuepodcast@gmail.com or follow me @theanimalrescuepod on Instagram. You can also learn more about the organizations I interview and how to listen/watch at www.theanimalrescuepodcast.my.canva.site 

When I wrote my 2021 book, Modern British Beer, I made the very intentional decision to put Fyne Ales irreplaceable Blonde Ale, Jarl, right at the beginning. For me, it's a beer that merges two schools of thought: that it is a modern beer, hopped with Citra imported from the Pacific Northwest, showcasing a bold, citrus fruit character, but one that is also a 3.8% cask beer, and at the same time feels resolutely anchored to British brewing tradition. Jarl, though, is not simply a modern British beer—it is a modern Scottish beer. Honestly, there is perhaps no beer experience that is resolutely more Scottish than to enjoy a pint at its source in Glen Fyne. That was the inspiration for this particular discussion—an effort to take a closer look at what's happening in the contemporary world of Scottish brewing. FyneFest, conveniently, provided the perfect place to chew on this topic and indeed it features Fyne Ales' very own head brewer Sam Shrimpton. Also on the panel are two owners/brewers at two of Scotland's youngest breweries: Lucy Stevens of Closet Brewing in Edinburgh, and Harry Weskin of Dookit Brewing in Glasgow.Listening to this episode, you'll quickly realise that no one on the panel claims immediate Scottish heritage (although Harry is pretty damn close.) However, they are, each in their own way, vital to the local, independent beer community. It's great to find out that the spirit that bound businesses together during the last resurgence of small breweries still exists today—in fact I'd argue it probably wouldn't exist without it.Tune in to hear two of the best young Scottish breweries talk about what they do, while perhaps one of the finest contemporary breweries to exist north of the border provides balance and context to this conversation.We're able to produce The Pellicle Podcast directly thanks to our Patreon subscribers, and our sponsors Get ‘Er Brewed. If you're enjoying this podcast, or the weekly articles we publish, please consider taking out a monthly subscription for less than the price of a pint a month.Tickets for FyneFest 2026 are available now, and we'll be back hosting our panel talks and tastings for another year! Get your tickets here.

This week we dive into “The Ossan Newbie Adventurer Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party Became Invincible”, and we walk through the basic setup of Rick's late bloomer adventurer story, and then we get to the full breakdown on what the show did and did not do for us and why it didn't really work. We talk about the rough animation, character designs, and our frustration with the shallow worldbuilding and paper thin noble family antagonists. We also dig into the party's shared “wish,” why that idea falls apart the more the show explains it, and how the emotional beats mostly miss the mark except for a fight and the ogre's backstory. Honestly this anime might still work as a junk food power fantasy, but you are not missing anything if you skip it altogether.About the anime:The anime follows Rick, a man in his 30s who finally quits his long-time job as a guild clerk to chase his childhood dream of becoming an adventurer. He's scouted by the legendary S-rank party Orichalcum Fist and spends two brutal years being literally trained to death and brought back over and over, honing his skills far beyond normal human limits. The story picks up as Rick takes the official adventurer exams, clashes with arrogant nobles, tackles dangerous quests, and enters high-profile martial arts tournaments, all while trying to stay humble and low key. The show mixes easygoing comedy with fantasy action and leans into themes of late-blooming potential, found family, and how an earnest, middle-aged guy can quietly overturn a world obsessed with natural talent and youth.Next Week's Pick: "Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Season 3"Have you had the chance to watch The Ossan Newbie Adventurer Trained To Death By The Most Powerful Party Became Invincible or any of our previous selections? We'd love to hear your thoughts and recommendations for future picks!Deals for You:Supporting your anime binge sessions is what we do best! Here are some exclusive deals that'll make your anime-watching experience even better.Crunchyroll Affiliate Offers: Get 15% off your first anime merch order here. Stream your favorite anime with Crunchyroll. Start Your Free TrialTokyoTreat Special: Use code "FEATUREDANIME" for $5 off your first box through this TokyoTreat link.Looking for some podcast merch? We've got you covered: Main Store Alternative ShopSupport Our PodcastLove what we do? Support the podcast through Patreon! You can get access to ad-free episodes, bonus content, and more.Support us on PatreonStay Connected With UsDon't miss out on our latest episodes or discussions! Join us across our social channels and be part of the community: Contact Us Anime List: Check out our anime list on MyAnimeList. Twitch: Watch us live on twitch.tv/featuredanimepodcast Email: info@featuredanimepodcast.com X (Twitter): @ThoseAnimeGuys Facebook: Featured Anime Podcast Discord: Join our DiscordAnime Info and Our Ratings: Producers: Hobby Japan Yumeta Company, TV Tokyo, MBS, BS TV Tokyo, AT X, Muse Communication, Nippon Columbia, Bit Grooove Promotion Studio: Yumeta Company Source: Light Novel Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, Shounen Aired: July 2024 to September 2024 Number of Episodes: 12Our Scores: Jack's Score: 2 / 10 Rick's Score: 4 / 10

Thankfully Thinking with Frederick Teaser:I'm planning on this episode being a little light. Honestly, I'm not sure how many people will tune in given we are dropping in a week where many of us are thinking more about dinner than data. We are not going to do any music this show, just acknowledging sponsors and diving into two themes. In part 1, we'll look at the motivation equation. I first covered this in episode 247 earlier this year, on April Fool's day of all things. I received a call the same day from an assistant superintendent who said “I want you to do this as a keynote at my principal's retreat.” I was already working with a speaking coach, so I pivoted from reclaiming purpose to The Motivation Equation. Since April, I've given the talk in several different formats, multiple times. All that to say, my thinking on motivation has matured since that episode way back in April. Today, I want to give you a concrete example of thee factors that significantly impact motivation: appeal, ability, and capacity.  In part 2, we will pivot to a different motivation topic and I'll share the results of my experiment with applying Tony Robbins' 7 morning affirmations.  Sponsor Spot 1:I'd like to thank Kaleidoscope Adventures for sponsoring today's show. Lots of companies can help you organize class trips, but Kaleidoscope helps you organize adventures – because isn't that what student trips should be? Kaleidscope is a full-service tour company offering a range of adventure opportunities and they excel at customizing trips based on your unique context, needs, and goals. Kaleidoscope offers exceptional travel experiences for students (and their group leaders). Thinking about student travel? Reach out to Kaleidoscope using the link in the show notes. Show Intro Celebrations: Shoutout to Brad Waid, Darrin Peppard, and Jeff Gargas for helping me get better and believing in me. Also, my family, my Mom and her passion for life, especially for writing, my oldest daughter Gwen with whom I am becoming closer and closer, and who is doing a great job editing these podcasts and helping me think critically about how to improve the show, my sons Lance and Collin, who, in the midst of life transitions have been at home a lot more and bring me joy every day, and of course Mara who has evolved from being a cut-paste-post part timer to being an integral thought partner and, frankly, my business coach. Of course, I'm thankful for my wife Pam, the light of my life. This summer was rough as she fought kidney stones but she's back to going strong. Pam retired from WCU at the end of June, and I'm enjoying watching her find herself again and looking forward to how she navigates and grows into this next phase of life.  Finally, I'm thankful for you. I know it sounds cliché but I mean it sincerely. You are doing the hard work, the vital work, every day. Those of you who reach out and let me know I'm supporting that work – you keep me going, you inspire me every day to grow and be better.  Key Points Part 11.     M=V/E2.     Why important: Feedback=>Curiosity=>Collaboration3.     Lots of things influence Motivation4.     FH trail5.     Think of the reason6.     Appeal, ability, capacity7.     With others, for task, skill, or behavior, assess appeal, ability, and cpacity  Sponsor Spot 2:I want to thank IXL for sponsoring this podcast… Everyone talks about the power of data-driven instruction. But what does that actually look like? Look no further than IXL, the ultimate online learning and teaching platform for K to 12. IXL gives you meaningful insights that drive real progress, and research can prove it. Studies across 45 states show that schools who use IXL outperform other schools on state tests. Educators who use IXL love that they can easily see how their school is performing in real-time to make better instructional decisions.  And IXL doesn't stop at just data. IXL also brings an entire ecosystem of resources for your teachers, with a complete curriculum, personalized learning plans, and so much more. It's no wonder that IXL is used in 95 of the top 100 school districts. Ready to join them? Visit http://ixl.com/assistant to get started. Key Points Part 2Listening to inspirational speeches.“Words have power” The promise is we can make our days positive; training your brain1.     I am in control of my thoughts. 2.     I can handle anything today brings 3.     I am worthy of love and success 4.     My effort creates my future. 5.     I grow stronger every day 6.     I live with purpose and passion 7.     Today I choose to win.·      Writing in the morning·      Tony Robbins (OG motivational guy)·      Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBPymTZbmxE·      I see the upside. Is there a downside.·      Playing with other motivational speeches I've got links to Tony's speech as well as speeches by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Grant Taeff linked on my blog page at https://www.frederickbuskey.com/daily-emails  Special thanks to the amazing Ranford Almond for the great music on the show. Please support Ranford and the show by checking out his music!·      Ranford's homepage: https://ranfordalmond.com·      Ranford's music on streaming services: https://streamlink.to/ranfordalmond-oldsoul·      Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ranfordalmond/·      Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ranfordalmond/  Sponsor Links:IXL: http://ixl.com/assistantKaleidoscope Adventures: https://www.kaleidoscopeadventures.com/the-assistant-principal-podcast-kaleidoscope-adventures/  Close·      Leadership is a journey and thank you for choosing to walk some of this magical path with me.·      You can find links to all sorts...

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE TODAY ... https://solluckman.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=1acb0f35⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ PRAISE FROM SUBSCRIBERS …“There are certain thinkers who don't just write ideas—they ripple through the Field. They leave behind imprints, not footnotes. They speak in a language that doesn't describe reality—it alters it. Sol Luckman is one of these beings.”“If you haven't yet swum in the Taijitu of Sol Luckman's brilliance, I implore you to go explore. I am taken joyfully aback by his deliberate consideration at every turn. Honestly, it feels like manna and I am better for it.”“I could spend all day reading, viewing, listening and learning from all you post. Resonation Station here. Thank you!”“I and others I've worked with have gotten serious, life-saving oomph and vital energy from the kinds of epic ideation and dialogic resonance Sol Luckman explores in his fiction and nonfiction writings.”“Your writing is valuable to me because I personally love it, and I think it's a great offer to the world.”“I just heard you on someone's podcast and it blew me away.”“I'm interested in this new information. It's obvious that Sol has given a great deal of courageous energy and thought.”“Sol has pulled me out of the ‘rabbit hole' to rise above and thrive in thought and actions that have enlightened my soul!”“Thank you, Sol Luckman, for your brilliant takes on reality and the world cult and finding our true potential in the face of ‘the parasite' that surrounds us. You combine such insights with such wit and originality. Robert A. Wilson would be proud, methinks.”“You do an amazing job every time and it's always fresh and interesting!”“Very interesting and informative work.”“Your work is a very different way of approaching life and very different from the mainstream. It makes a lot more sense to me these days.”“Being able to discern ‘reality,' or least unreality, is essential, and your work helps clarify.”“You're a legend!”SUBSCRIBE & SAVE TODAY ... https://solluckman.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=1acb0f35 Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

In this week's episode, I rate the movies and streaming shows I saw in Autumn 2025. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store: GHOSTS2025 The coupon code is valid through December 1, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 278 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November 21st, 2025, and today I am sharing my reviews of the movies and streaming shows I saw in Fall 2025. We also have a Coupon of the Week and an update my current writing, audiobook, and publishing projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off all the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store, and that is GHOSTS2025. And as always, we'll have the link to my Payhip store and the coupon code in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through December 1, 2025, so if you need a new ebook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now for my current writing and publishing projects: I'm very pleased to report that Blade of Shadows, the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, is now out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. By the time this episode goes live, all those stores should be available and you can get the book at any one of them and I hope you will read and enjoy it. I'm also 15,000 words into what will be my next main project Wizard-Assassin, the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series, and if all goes well, I want that to be out before Christmas. I'm also working on the outline for what will be the third book in the Blades of Ruin series, Blade of Storms, and that will hopefully, if all goes well, be the first book I publish in 2026. In audiobook news, as I mentioned last week, the audiobook of Blade of Flames is done and I believe as of this recording, you can get at my Payhip store, Google Play, Kobo, and I think Spotify. It's not up on Audible or Apple yet, but that should be soon, if all goes well. That is excellently narrated by Brad Wills. Hollis McCarthy is still working on Cloak of Embers. I believe main recording is done for that and it just has to be edited and proofed, so hopefully we'll get both audiobooks to you before the end of the year. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:08 Main Topic of the Week: Autumn 2025 Movie Review Roundup Now on to this week's main project, the Autumn 2025 Movie Review Roundup. I watched a lot of classic horror movies this time around. The old Universal black and white monster movies from the '30s and '40s turned up on Prime for Halloween and I hadn't seen them since I was a kid, so I watched a bunch of them in October and November, which seemed an appropriate thing to do for Halloween. They mostly held up as well as I remembered from when I was a kid, which was a nice surprise. As ever, the grades I give these movies are totally subjective and based on nothing more than my own opinions and thoughts. With that, let's take a look at the movies from least favorite to most favorite. First up is The Other Guys, which came out in 2010 and this is a parody of the buddy cop/ cowboy cop movie along with a heavy critique of the reckless and corrupt culture of late 2000s Wall Street. "Dumb funny" movies I've noticed tend to fall on either side of the "dumb but actually funny" or "dumb and not funny" line. And this one definitely landed on "dumb but actually funny". Danson and Highsmith, played by The Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, are two maverick popular detectives who never do paperwork. Their paperwork is always done by Allen Gamble, who's played by Will Ferrell and Terry Hoitz, played by Mark Wahlberg. Gamble is a mild-mannered forensic accountant, while Hoitz desperately wants to be as cool as either Danson or Highsmith, but since he accidentally shot Yankees player Derek Jeter (in a recurring gag), he's a pariah within the New York Police Department. However, Danon and Highsmith's plot armor suddenly run out and they accidentally kill themselves in a darkly hilarious scene that made me laugh so much I hurt a little. Hoitz wants to step into their shoes, but Gamble has stumbled onto potentially dangerous case and soon Hoitz and Gamble have to overcome their difficulties and unravel a complicated financial crime. This was pretty funny and I enjoyed it. Amusingly in real life, someone like Gamble would be massively respected in whatever law enforcement agency he works for, since someone who prepares ironclad paperwork and correct documentation that stands up in court is an invaluable asset in law enforcement work. Overall Grade: B Next up is Fantastic Four: First Steps, which came out in 2025. I like this though, to be honest, I liked Thunderbolts and Superman 2025 better. I think my difficulty is I never really understood The Fantastic Four as a concept and why they're appealing. Maybe the Fantastic Four are one of those things you just have to imprint on when you're a kid to really enjoy or maybe at my age, the sort of retro futurism of the Four, the idea that science, technology, and rational thought will solve all our problems does seem a bit naive after the last 65 years of history or so. Additionally, the idea of a naked silver space alien riding a surfboard does seem kind of ridiculous. Anyway, the movie glides over the origin story of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm and gets right into it. To their surprise, Reed and Sue find out that Sue is pregnant, which seemed unlikely due to their superpower induced genetic mutations. Shortly after that, the Silver Surfer arrives and announces that Earth will be devoured by Galactus. The Four travel in their spaceship to confront Galactus and realize that he's a foe far beyond their power, but Galactus offers them a bargain. If Reed and Sue give him their son, he will leave Earth in peace. They refuse and so it's up to the Four to figure out a way to save Earth and Reed and Sue's son. Pretty solid superhero movie all told, but it is amusing how in every version of the character, Reed Richards is allegedly the smartest man on Earth but still can't keep his mouth shut to save his life. Overall Grade: B The next movie is Superman, which came out in 1978. After seeing the 2025 version of Superman, I decided to watch the old one from the '70s. It's kind of a classic because it was one of the progenitors of the modern superhero film. Interestingly, it was one of the most expensive films ever made at that time, costing about $55 million in '70s-era dollars, which are much less inflated than today. A rough back of the envelope calculation would put 55 million in the '70s worth at about $272 million today, give or take. Anyway, this was a big gamble, but it paid off for the producers since they got $300 million back, which would be like around $1.4 billion in 2025 money. Anyway, the movie tells the origin story of Superman, how his father Jor-El knows that Krypton is doomed, so he sends Kal-El to Earth. Kal-El is raised as Clark Kent by his adoptive Kansas parents and uses his powers to become Superman- defender of truth, justice, and the American way. Superman must balance his growing feelings for ace reporter Lois Lane with his need for a secret identity and the necessity of stopping Lex Luthor's dangerous schemes. Christopher Reeve was an excellent Superman and the special effects were impressive by the standards of 1978, but I think the weakest part of the movie were the villains. Lex Luthor just seemed comedic and not at all that threatening. Unexpected fun fact: Mario Puzio, author of The Godfather, wrote the screenplay. Overall Grade: B Next up is Superman II, which came out in 1980. This is a direct sequel to the previous movie. When Superman stops terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb by throwing it into space, the blast releases the evil Kryptonian General Zod and his minions from their prison and they decide to conquer Earth. Meanwhile, Superman is falling deeper in love with the Lois Lane and unknowing of the threat from Zod, decides to renounce his powers to live with Lois as an ordinary man. I think this had the same strengths and weaknesses as the first movie. Christopher Reeve was an excellent Superman. The special effects were impressive by the standards of the 1980s, but the villains remained kind of comedic goofballs. Additionally, and while this will sound harsh, this version of Lois Lane was kind of dumb and her main function in the plot was to generate problems for Superman via her questionable decisions. Like at the end, Superman has to wipe her memory because she can't keep his secret identity to herself. If this version of Lois Lane lived today, she'd be oversharing everything she ever thought or heard on TikTok. The 2025 movie version of Lois, by contrast, bullies Mr. Terrific into lending her his flying saucer so she can rescue Superman when he's in trouble and is instrumental in destroying Lex Luthor's public image and triggering his downfall. 1970s Louis would've just had a meltdown and made things worse until Superman could get around to rescuing her. Overall, I would say the 1978 movie was too goofy, the Zac Snyder Superman movies were too grimdark, but the 2025 Superman hit the right balance between goofy and serious. Overall Grade: B Next up is Dracula, which came out in 1931, and this was one of the earliest horror movies ever made and also one of the earliest movies ever produced with sound. It is a very compressed adaptation of the stage version of Dracula. Imagine the theatrical stage version of Dracula, but then imagine that the movie was only 70 minutes long, so you have to cut a lot to fit the story into those 70 minutes. So if you haven't read the book, Dracula the movie from 1931 will not make a lot of sense. It's almost like the "Cliff's Notes Fast Run" version of Dracula. That said, Bela Lugosi's famous performance as Dracula really carries the movie. Like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and The Mummy (which we'll talk about shortly), Bela Lugosi really captures the uncanny valley aspect of Dracula because the count isn't human anymore and has all these little tics of a creature that isn't human but only pretending to be one. Edward Van Sloan's performance as Dr. Van Helsing is likewise good and helped define the character in the public eye. So worth watching as a historical artifact, but I think some of the other Universal monster movies (which we'll discuss shortly) are much stronger. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Horror of Dracula, which came out in 1958. This is one of the first of the Hammer Horror movies from the '50s, starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Count Dracula. It's also apparently the first vampire movie ever made in color. Like the 1931 version of Dracula, it's a condensed version of the story, though frankly, I think it hangs together a little better. Van Helsing is a bit more of an action hero in this one, since in the end he engages Dracula in fisticuffs. The movie is essentially carried by the charisma of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and worth watching as a good example of a classic '50s horror movie. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Wolf Man, which came out in 1941. This is another one of the classic Universal horror movies. This one features Lon Cheney Jr. as Larry Talbot, the younger son of Sir John Talbot. Larry's older brother died in a hunting accident, so Larry comes home to reconcile with his father and take up his duties as the family heir. Larry is kind of an amiable Average Joe and is immediately smitten with the prettiest girl in the village, but when he takes her out for a walk, they're attacked by a werewolf, who bites Larry. Larry and everyone else in the village do not believe in werewolves, but they're about to have their minds changed the hard way. The transformation sequences where Larry turns into the Wolfman were cutting edge of the time, though poor Lon Chaney Jr had to stay motionless for hours as they gradually glued yak hair to him. I think Claude Rains had the best performance in the movie as Sir John and he's almost the co-protagonist. Overall Grade: B Next up is Jurassic World: Rebirth, which came out in 2025, which I thought was a perfectly straightforward but nonetheless enjoyable adventure film. After all the many disasters caused by various genetic engineering experiments in the previous movies, dinosaurs mostly live in relatively compatible ecosystems and tropical zones near the equator. No one's looking to create a theme park with dinosaurs or create bioengineered dinosaurs as military assets any longer. However, the dinosaurs are still valuable for research and a pharmaceutical company is developing a revolutionary drug for treating cardiac disease. They just need some dinosaur blood from three of the largest species to finish it, and so the company hires a team of mercenaries to retrieve the blood. We have the usual Jurassic Park style story tropes: the savvy mercenary leader, the scientist protesting the ethics of it all, the sinister corporate executive, the troubled family getting sucked into the chaos. And of course, it all goes wrong and there are lots and lots of dinosaurs running around. It's all been done before of course, but this was done well and was entertaining. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is The Thursday Murder Club, which came out in 2025, and this is a cozy mystery set in a very high-end retirement home. Retired nurse Joyce moves into Coopers Chase, the aforementioned high end retirement home. Looking to make new friends, she falls in with a former MI6 agent named Liz, a retired trade unionist named Ron, and psychiatrist Ibrahim, who have what they call The Thursday Murder Club, where they look into cold cases and attempt to solve them. However, things are not all sunshine and light at Coopers Chase as the two owners of the building have fallen out. When one of them is murdered, The Thursday Murder Club has to solve a real murder before Coopers Chase is bulldozed to make high-end apartments. A good cozy mystery with high caliber acting talent. Both Pierce Brosnan and Jonathan Price are in the movie and regrettably do not share a scene together, because that would've been hilarious since they were both in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies in the '90s with Brosnan as Bond and Price as the Bond villain for the movie. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is The Creature From the Black Lagoon, which came out in 1954 and is one of the last of the black and white classic horror movies since in the '50s, color film was just around the corner. When a scientist finds the unusual half fish, half human fossil on a riverbank in Brazil, he decides to organize an expedition upriver to see if he can find the rest of the fossil. The trail leads his expedition to the mysterious Black Lagoon, which all the locals avoid because of its bad reputation, but a living member of the species that produce the fossils lurking the lagoon while it normally doesn't welcome visitors, it does like the one female member of the expedition and decides to claim her for its own. The creature was good monster and the underwater water sequences were impressive by the standards of the 1950s. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Invisible Man, which came out in 1933, and this is another of the classic Universal black and white horror movies. Jack Griffin is a scientist who discovered a chemical formula for invisibility. Unfortunately, one of the drugs in his formula causes homicidal insanity, so he becomes a megalomaniac who wants to use his invisibility to rule the world. This causes Griffin to overlook the numerous weaknesses of his invisibility, which allow the police to hunt him down. The Invisible Man's special effects were state of the art at the time and definitely hold up nearly a hundred years later. It's worth watching as another classic of the genre. Claude Rains plays Griffin, and as with The Wolf Man, his performance as Griffin descends into homicidal insanity is one of the strengths of the movie. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Mummy, which came out in 1932, and this is another of the original Universal black and white horror movies. Boris Karloff plays the Mummy, who is the ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep, who was mummified alive for the crime of desiring the Pharaoh's daughter Ankh-es-en-Amon. After 3,000 years, Imhotep is accidentally brought back to life when an archeologist reads a magical spell and Imhotep sets out immediately to find the reincarnation of his beloved and transform her into a mummy as well so they can live together forever as undead. Edward Van Sloan plays Dr. Mueller, who is basically Edward Van Sloan's Van Helsing from Dracula if Van Helsing specialized in mummy hunting rather than vampire hunting. This version of the Mummy acts more like a Dungeons and Dragons lich instead of the now classic image of a shambling mummy in dragging bandages. That said, Boris Karloff is an excellent physical actor. As he does with Frankenstein, he brings Imhotep to life. His performance captures the essence of a creature that hasn't been human for a very long time, is trying to pretend to be human, and isn't quite getting there. Of course, the plot was reused for the 1999 version of The Mummy with Brendan Fraser. That was excellent and this is as well. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Wedding Singer, which came out in 1998, and this is basically the Adam Sandler version of a Hallmark movie. Adam Sandler plays Robbie, a formerly famous musician whose career has lapsed and has become a wedding singer and a venue singer. He befriends the new waitress Julia at the venue, played by Drew Barrymore. The day after that, Robbie's abandoned at the altar by his fiancée, which is understandably devastating. Meanwhile, Julia's fiancé Glenn proposes to her and Robbie agrees to help her with the wedding planning since he's an expert in the area and knows all the local vendors. However, in the process, Robbie and Julia fall in love, but are in denial about the fact, a situation made more tense when Robbie realizes Glenn is cheating on Julia and intends to continue to do so after the wedding. So it's basically a Hallmark movie filtered through the comedic sensibilities of Adam Sandler. It was very funny and Steve Buscemi always does great side characters in Adam Sandler movies. Overall Grade: A Next up is Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which came out in 2025. This movie was sort of a self-indulgent victory lap, but it was earned. The writers of the sitcom Community used to joke that they wanted "six seasons and a movie" and Downton Abbey got "six seasons and three movies". Anyway, this movie is about handing off things to the next generation. Lord Grantham is reluctant to fully retire as his daughter goes through a scandal related to her divorce. The next generation of servants take over as the previous ones ease into retirement. What's interesting is both the nobles and the servants are fully aware that they're sort of LARPing a historical relic by this point because by 1930, grand country houses like Downton were increasingly rare in the UK since World War I wiped out most of them and crippling post-war taxes and economic disruption finished off many more. Anyway, if you like Downton Abbey, you like this movie. Overall Grade: A Next up is Argo, which came out in 2012, a very tense thriller about the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. During that particular crisis, six Americans escaped the embassy and hid out at the Canadian Ambassador's house in Tehran. For obvious reasons, the Canadian ambassador wanted them out as quickly as possible, so the CIA and the State Department needed to cook up a plan to get the six out while the rest of the government tried to figure out what to do about the larger group of hostages. Finally, the government comes with "Argo." A CIA operative will create a fake film crew, a fake film company, and smuggle the six out of Tehran as part of the production. The movie was very tense and very well constructed, even if you know the outcome in advance if you know a little bit of history. Ben Affleck directed and starred, and this was in my opinion one of his best performances. It did take some liberties with historical accuracy, but nonetheless, a very tense political thriller/heist movie with some moments of very dark comedy. Overall Grade: A Next up is The Naked Gun, which came out in 2025, and this is a pitch perfect parody of the gritty cop movie with a lot of absurdist humor, which works well because Liam Neeson brings his grim action persona to the movie and it works really well with the comedy. Neeson plays Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the original Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun movies back in the '80s. After stopping a bank robbery, Drebin finds himself investigating the suicide of an engineer for the sinister tech mogul Richard Cane. Naturally, the suicide isn't what it appears and when the engineer's mysterious but seductive sister asks for Drebin's help, he pushes deeper into the case. Richard Cane was a hilarious villain because the writers couldn't decide which tech billionaire to parody with him, so they kind of parodied all the tech billionaires at once, and I kid you not, the original Frank Drebin makes an appearance as a magical owl. It was hilarious. Overall Grade: A Now for my two favorite things I saw in Autumn 2025. The first is the combination of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, which came out in 1931 and 1935. These are two separate movies, but Frankenstein leads directly to Bride of Frankenstein, so I'm going to treat them as one movie. Honestly, I think they're two halves of the same story the way that Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame would be two halves of the same story 90 years later, so I'll review them as one. Frankenstein by itself on its own will get a B. Colin Clive's performance is Dr. Henry Frankenstein was great, and Boris Karloff gives the Creature a suitable air of menace and uncanny valley. You really feel like he's something that's been brought to life but isn't quite right and still extremely dangerous. The movie does have a very pat ending that implies everyone will live happily ever after, with Dr. Frankenstein's father giving a toast to his son. But Bride of Frankenstein takes everything from the first movie and improves on it. It's one of those sequels that actually makes the preceding movie better. In Bride, Henry is recovering from his ordeal and swears off his experiments of trying to create artificial humans, but the Creature survived the fire at the windmill at the end of the last movie and is seeking for a new purpose. Meanwhile, Henry receives a visit from his previous mentor, the sinister Dr. Pretorius. Like Henry, Pretorius succeeded in creating artificial life and now he wants to work with Henry to perfect their work, but Henry refuses, horrified by the consequences of his previous experiments. Pretorius, undaunted, makes an alliance with the Creature, who then kidnaps Henry's wife. This will let Pretorius force Henry to work on their ultimate work together-a bride for the Creature. Bride of Frankenstein is a lot tighter than Frankenstein. It was surprising to see how rapidly filmmaking techniques evolved over just four years. Pretorius is an excellent villain, more evil wizard than mad scientist, and the scene where he calmly and effortlessly persuades the Creature to his side was excellent. One amusing note, Bride was framed as Mary Shelley telling the second half of the story to her friends, and then the actress playing Mary Shelley, Elsa Lancaster, also played the Bride. So that was a funny bit of meta humor. Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein combined is one of my two favorite movies of Fall 2025. Overall Grade: A+ And now for my second favorite movie of Autumn 2025, which as it turns out is also Frankenstein, but Guillermo del Toro's version that came out in 2025. And honestly, I think Guillermo del Toro's version of Frankenstein is the best version put to screen so far and even does the rarest of all feats, it improves a little on the original novel. Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein as a brilliant, driven scientist with something of a sociopathic edge. In other words, he's a man who's utterly inadequate to the task when his experiment succeeds and he actually creates an artificial human that have assembled dead body parts. Jacob Elordi does a good job as the Creature, playing him is essentially a good hearted man who's driven to violence and despair by the cruelty and rejection of the world. The recurring question of the Frankenstein mythos is whether or not Victor Frankenstein is the real monster. In this version, he definitely is, though he gets a chance to repent of his evil by the end. Honestly, everything about this was good. The performances, the cinematography, everything. How good was it? It was so good that I will waive my usual one grade penalty for unnecessary nudity since there were a few brief scenes of it. Overall Grade: A+ So that was the Autumn 2025 Movie Roundup. A lot of good movies this time around. While some movies of course were better than others, I didn't see anything I actively disliked, which is always nice. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

In this special episode, Don and James take a heartfelt pause to honour the life and legacy of the incomparable legend that is… was… Diane Keaton (1946–2025).   This outstanding actress, creative force, and undeniable muse to Woody Allen was one of the most charming and lovable souls ever to grace the world of acting - let alone walk the halls of Hollywood with her unmistakable wit, presence, style and charisma.   Her passing was truly shocking and deeply sad… and even though a few weeks have now gone by, we still feel the void left by her absence.   It was fascinating revisiting all the projects Diane created outside of her work with Woody.. and in this episode, our trusty AI Assistant also jumps in to deliver a thoughtful tribute, spotlighting her lesser-known pursuits as a photographer, director, author, and style icon.   Honestly, we could have spoken about her for hours… but we tried to keep this episode concise, knowing we'll certainly be returning for future Diane-focused discussions. Stay tuned for that!   For now, we simply say: Rest in peace, Diane Keaton. You will be sorely missed. XXX   Please check out the related links below for everything we discussed on this episode, as well as additional materials we think you'll enjoy.   _____________________________________________   This Cool Ai Time Lapse of Diane Keatons life!   E! Hollywood DK Tribute Video   The 'Heaven' Documentary (1987)   David Letterman Heaven / Hell Interview   A Charmingly Chaotic Interview On "The Colbert Report"   Keanu Reeves Recalls Diane Keaton's "Extraordinary, Unique" Acting Style   ___________________________________________   A VERY Special Thanks to The Woody Allen Pages Website & The Woody Allen Subreddit for their continued support and info - check them out for the latest from the Woody Allen Fan Community!   https://www.woodyallenpages.com & https://www.reddit.com/r/woodyallen   PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT on this or any other episode using our comment section video link here >>> https://bit.ly/warpcom   If you like the show, please consider buying us a coffee / giving us a tip via our Patreon campaign >>> https://www.patreon.com/woodyretro   Thanks for listening as always! We would also LOVE a review on iTunes or a 5-star rating via Spotify or whichever podcast platform you are listening on. Please find all our connected links below: https://linktr.ee/woodyretro

This week, listener Leah sends us a harmless little list of questions… and we immediately blow it up into a 2+ hour episode that is pure fun. Honestly, she should've known (but maybe she did). AJ threatens anyone who dares steal her rock-music-marketing-podcast idea, Tara passionately confesses her honey-mustard devotion, [...]

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Welcome to the Find Your Fierce Podcast, where you will discover your fierce, unlock an unstoppable mindset, build unbreakable courage, and completely transform how you show up every single day. I'm your host, Jill Allen, and I'm so glad you're joining me today. In this episode of Find Your Fierce, I'm joined by someone who means the world to me — my daughter, Harper. It's been a few years since she was last on the podcast, and I'm beyond excited for you to hear her thoughts on discipline, leadership, and staying true to yourself in a world full of distractions. Harper is a driven senior who's not only crushing it in cross-country, basketball, and track, but she's also got a wisdom about her that constantly amazes me. Honestly, she teaches me something new every single day. In this conversation, we dive into what it really means to show up consistently — even when no one's watching or clapping. Harper opens up about how she handles pressure, what she does when motivation dips, and how she leans into the small, everyday habits that make a big difference. These are the quiet wins that no one sees, but they matter the most. It's all about leading with purpose, staying grounded, and keeping your "why" at the forefront — even when the easy path is staring you in the face. Here's a sneak peek of what we talk about: 2:05 — From freshman year to her senior year: the highs, the challenges, and everything in between in both athletics and academics. 6:10 — What keeps Harper going when motivation is low and no one is cheering her on. 9:40 — How she deals with comparison, perfectionism, and those internal voices that can sometimes be her biggest roadblocks. 13:20 — Why she chooses the harder, narrower path and how she stays true to her calling, even when shortcuts look tempting. 17:05 — Leading through empathy, building relationships, and holding herself (and others) to a higher standard. 21:15 — How she stays emotionally, physically, and spiritually grounded, even with a jam-packed schedule. 24:30 — Harper shares her favorite quote, her go-to habits, what she refuses to compromise on, and the advice she'd give her younger self. Key Takeaways: Leadership is built through relationships, connection, and showing up consistently, not just titles or accolades. -Jill Your quiet wins matter: what you do when no one is watching shapes your character and your future success. Staying grounded in identity, faith, and purpose helps navigate pressure, comparison, and burnout. -Harper Check out my favorite health must-haves HERE! I finally found a way to lose belly bloat, boost my energy, sharpen focus, and break free from the hormonal roller coaster — all by tackling the real root cause: inflammation! Gold, Rush, and Ignite have been total game-changers for me. Use my code FITANDFIERCE and start feeling amazing!  If you're looking for a boost and some extra support from women who truly understand the busy life, join Fit & Fierce! Become unstoppable with us and enjoy access to over 500 on-demand 20-minute workouts that you can easily fit into your day from the comfort of home. Special offer: Design Your Next Getaway or Private Custom Retreat! Looking to plan your next epic adventure or your very own private getaway or custom retreat? Let's make it happen! NEW Gift Alert: Get Instant Access to SET FIRE NOW Grab your copy of SET FIRE: Stories and Devotions For Women Who Desire A Life On Fire For Jesus Connect with me on: Website:https://jillallencoaching.com/ Facebook: Jill Allen Instagram: @‌jillallen & @‌fit_andfierce Hike.Live.Explore on Instagram: @‌hike.live.explore MAKE SURE YOU SHARE, RATE THE EPISODE 5 STARS & LEAVE A REVIEW!

Grab your genealogy charts and your emotional-support bonnets, because this week we're diving into “Family Tree,” the episode where poor little Albert discovers that figuring out where you come from can be… complicated.When Miss Wilder assigns a genealogy project, Albert realizes his family tree looks a lot like the one from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Naturally, the children of Walnut Grove handle this delicate situation with the grace of a herd of stampeding cattle. Nothing says “friendship” quite like being called a “bastard” on a fishing trip, Laura being completely oblivious to Albert's emotional turmoil, and Nellie Oleson taunting him just for some good old-fashioned psychopath fun. (She's giving Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused. In other words: LOSER.)Albert begs Pa to officially adopt him in an absolutely devastating, tear-jerking scene. (Where are the Emmys for Michael Landon and Matthew Labyorteaux?! Truly.) Pa, suddenly realizing that—oops—he probably should have adopted Albert already, decides to make it official. Big mistake! Albert's biological father is, gasp, ALIVE… and wants Albert back. Not out of love, not out of guilt—no, no. To work on his farm. What a heartwarming reunion!But Albert, being the clever, street-savvy kid he is, hatches a plan: he pretends to be blind, which quickly convinces his bio-dad that this whole fatherhood thing is not for him. Reversing course, he leaves Albert in Walnut Grove where he belongs—back with the Ingalls, where he is (finally!) and officially adopted. (Honestly, having a blind sister really does come in handy here.)“Family Tree” stands out as one of the most emotional episodes of Season 6, highlighting Albert's vulnerability, Charles' unwavering compassion, and the show's ongoing theme that families are made, not just born. But don't worry—your hosts keep the snark, nostalgia, and inappropriate giggling flowing throughout.Then, join us on Patreon, where Alison shares stories about her father, Thor Arngrim, and the surprising similarities between his childhood and this episode. (Oh no… bad orphanage alert!)Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast-LIVE!November 22nd at 1pmat GREEN ROOM 42PROMO CODE for 25% off PREMIUM BOOTH TICKETS: POD25OR LIVE STREAM us! - watch any time up to 30 days after the event!Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast-LIVE!Grab your bonnets and buckle up, New York—because the prairie is coming to the city!  Expect behind-the-scenes stories from the beloved TV show, lots of laughs, audience questions, and a surprise or two.  It's the kind of prairie mischief you get every week on the podcast—but you can be a part of it! So put on your lemon verbena, put down the morphine and hitch your wagon - Walnut Grove is moving to NYC for one night only! Can't be in NYC? LIVESTREAM TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE and the link will last up to 30 days after the event!https://thegreenroom42.venuetix.com/Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind the scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comLittle House 50th Anniversary Bus Tours - www.SimiValleyChamber.org  select Little House 50th Anniversary and then Bus TicketsFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comLHOP EventsLive Podcast! Nov 22 from The Green Room 42 in NYCLittle House on the Prairie Cast Reunion -- Dec 12-14, Simi Valley, CAhttps://www.littlehouseontheprairiecastreunions.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Happy Witchy Wednesday! I'm so excited to unpack the magic of the Vertex and Anti-Vertex with you. They're not talked about enough imo. These two hidden points in your chart reveal where fate meets you and where you become the fated person in someone else's life. We go through the signs, the houses, synchronicity windows, and how to find yours. Honestly, mine has helped me make sense of my own path and purpose. A soft and mystical look at meaningful encounters and the people who shift your path.NEW SUBSTACKraquellemantra.substack.comRAQUELLE + YOMyourownmagic.comig @raquellemantrafb group your own magicFIND YOUR VERTEX + ANTI-VERTEXastro-seek.comSPONSORS' SPECIAL OFFERS hereOur Sponsors:* Check out Everyday Dose and use my code MAGIC for a great deal: https://everydaydose.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code MAGIC for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com* Check out Kensington Publishing: https://www.kensingtonbooks.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/your-own-magic/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Can't have a Part 1 without a Part 2 now can we?  Charmed Again (again!) House of Halliwell is only possible because of YOU. Honestly. So thank you all for going on this journey with us by helping grow the show with your love and support. If you haven't already, please consider taking that extra step and become a member of our family H E R E Special THANK YOU to Finola Hughes for filling in on these first 2 episodes. Her insights and presence were nothing short of amazing. And, as always, to our lovely PRODUCERS - NO WORDS. ALL LOVE. CHARMED FOREVER Carly Kaczmarowski Cassandra A Ryan Melinda Brown Fabrice Foubert Kim Ainge Sara Bowers Melissa Magazine Charlie Nolting Tara Stickles Katherine Satter Bennie Tillman Amanda B Maria Cimino Rita Digilova Jorge Luis Sanchez David Cross Jackie Baird Deborah Watson Ashley Reinhard Shayne Cohen Billie Lonny Kanouff Samantha Matthews Dominique Kiefel Slavica Dinisheva Tran Hoang Long Mister J Amanda Nagle Victoria O'Brien Nancy Downey Ashley Collier-Medley Lance Thigpen Jake Spillar Maria Moor Lauren Matters Valente Thompson Carys Pugh Diana Yordanova Nicholas Simmons Troy Lucia Salas Laresa Thorne Jeremy Joyner Maria Grace Shirley Elisa Brogen Anderson Cassy Crouch Dr Jason Meriwether Lee Israel Gerogii Kaushadze Rachel Shostak Melanie Stout Kelley Baxter Zachary Colyer Jim Ruggiero Ken Montour Kiera McKissic Strachan Journey Ryan Adam Cab Kevin Deanm Louis DeLaGrange Claudia Passarella Crystal Dorsey Tyler Peavey Erica Larabee Lori Steven Maggiolino Stephanie Verbockel Candace Banton Samm Franco CC Kroen Sarah Garliss Annie Omalley Steven De Brandt Angela Marshall Jacqueline Price Ashley Jacoby Jake Pool Philip McCoy Kazz Lark Dusti Young Fabian Maciel Renee Davis Simone Piper Emma Bantleman Samantha Sebuck Kristina Gutheil Andrea Ludlow Ryan Byrum Cindy Bahl Nish Smythe Marina Bonita S Brown Alyssa Olson Connie Artero Daniel Kupper Alaina Ford Stephanie Vega Ayjah Allen Shana Sienna Austin-Monroe Emmanuel Lora JMC Sarah Ritcheson Katey Carmen Alexia Padilla Kerri Cornell Erin Mozingo CJHeart81 Sami Ross

This week we are so happy to welcome back the great AMY RICHAU as we discuss 2005's Star Wars Musical Journey DVD! It came with the Revenge of the Sith CD soundtrack back in the day and it's pretty amazing. Listen as we discuss how it led to the Star Wars In Concert tour, our favorite Ian McDiarmid introductions, how Amy's name is in the credits and more! So run across the theater to see TPM digital, celebrate the love and listen today! Check out Amy's site here : http://amy.richau.org/ See all the Musical Journey videos here : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFxPEK2XBEJjCmy1ia-nBahfwxVbTWjI3&si=w4Nwd0afgSXpYsKr JOIN THE BLAST POINTS ARMY and SUPPORT BLAST POINTS ON PATREON! NEW ANDOR SEASON 2 EPISODE COMMENTARIES! HEAR EPISODES EARLY AND SO MUCH MORE! Theme Music! downloadable tunes from episodes! Extra goodies! and so much MORE! www.patreon.com/blastpoints Blast Points T-SHIRTS are now available! Represent your favorite podcast everywhere you go! Get logo shirts while supplies last! Perfect for conventions, dates, formal events and more! Get them here: www.etsy.com/shop/Gibnerd?section_id=21195481 If you dug the show, please leave BLAST POINTS a review on iTunes, Spotify and share the show with friends! If you leave an iTunes review, we will read it on a future episode! Honestly! Talk to Blast Points on twitter at @blast_points "Like" Blast Points on Facebook Join the Blast Points Super Star Wars Chill Group here www.facebook.com/groups/BlastPointsGroup/ we are also on Instagram! Wow! www.instagram.com/blastpoints Your hosts are Jason Gibner & Gabe Bott! contact BLAST POINTS at : contact@blastpointspodcast.com May the Force be with you, always! This podcast is not affiliated in any way with Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC, The Walt Disney Company, or any of their affiliates or subsidiaries.