Podcasts about Scrabble

Lord Richter and Lady Toast are back this week to dive into the action-packed Episode 84 of the Inspired Incompetence Podcast where we have some fun with the names of some unexpected fey interlopers. As always, you can find us on Twitter (@inspired_incomp) and on Facebook to follow along with our exploits, you can shoot us an email at InspiredIncompetence@gmail.com if you're so inclined. You can find out more about us at InspiredIncompetence.com and join our Discord server from the link at the bottom, where we are always around to chat with our fans (or whoever wants to chat, we're not picky). Lastly, if you're enjoying the show, we humbly ask that you consider supporting us on Patreon to let us know that our efforts are not in vain. Thanks everyone, and enjoy the show!

Jonathan Coachman is joined by Dave Richards, Propstarz, and Sia Nejad to bring you more best props for Week 3 in the NFL!  there will be plenty of NFL prop bets to ponder. Before locking in any 2022 NFL prop picks for Week 2, be sure to see the top NFL picks and predictions from NFL props expert Alex Selesnick. Selesnick (aka PropStarz) specializes in NFL, MLB and NBA prop betting, where he implements a combination of research, statistical analysis and mathematical modeling. His background playing competitive fantasy sports, poker, Scrabble and backgammon helped form the foundation of his sports betting approach. The expert was an impressive 53-37 on his picks during the 2021 NFL regular season for SportsLine and is 58-31 (+20.66 units) on MLB prop plays this year. He's also up nearly 235 units on NBA props and futures plays over the past two-plus seasons. Use promo code ‘EARLY' when signing up for a new account at SportsLine.com to get your first 30 days FREE! Get 20% off Early Edge merch at the CBS Sports Store Using Code ‘EARLYEDGE20': https://store.cbssports.com/collections/the-early-edge?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=early-edge-collection — #NFL #NFLPicks #PropBets #SportsBetting #Picks — ABOUT THE SHOW: Looking for the best picks against the spread and prop plays you can take straight to the pay window? Join Jonathan Coachman on The Early Edge as he speaks with SportsLine's top handicappers to analyze the day's biggest games. From primetime showdowns to off-the-radar action, Early Edge gives you best bets in a quick, informative and easy-to-digest podcast. We promise to keep it short, sweet and to the point as SportsLine's featured experts come together to put some green in your pocket. Follow our crew on Twitter: @TheCoachrules, @LarryHartstein, @Mike5754, @AllanBell247 and @jacob_hallex SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZmtXolnY7-z9HLiBESjkyQ EVERY PICK BY LARRY HARTSTEIN: https://www.sportsline.com/experts/13773/larry-hartstein/ AUDIO ‘Early Edge' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts. You can listen to Early Edge on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Early Edge podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Early Edge podcast." -LISTEN to Early Edge on your preferred podcast platform: https://link.chtbl.com/SportsLineEarlyEdge -LEAVE a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/34nj2II -STREAM on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/earlyedge -FOLLOW on Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3gYw1Wh -FOLLOW CBS Sports for a variety of other podcasts: https://cbssports.com/podcast WEBSITE -MORE top-notch picks and betting content on SportsLine: https://www.sportsline.com/ VIDEO -WATCH CBS Sports HQ: https://cbssports.com/live -FOLLOW CBS Sports HQ on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/CBSSportsHQ/ SOCIAL MEDIA -FOLLOW SportsLine on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SportsLine -FOLLOW SportsLine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sportsline/ -FOLLOW CBS Sports on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CBSSports -FOLLOW CBS Sports on Instagram: https://instagram.com/cbssports/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What in the world are we talking about when we say words like "soteriology," "eschatology" etc.? Yes, knowing them is a great way to win at Scrabble, but it's really about a systematic way to get to know your God, Savior, and Church better! Join us as we take a nerdy journey into a deeper understanding of our Faith through Lewis Sperry Chafer's Systematic Theology.

The Coach is joined by PropStarz, Dave Richard and Dave Richard to bring you the best bets player prop bets for NFL Week 2. there will be plenty of NFL prop bets to ponder. Before locking in any 2022 NFL prop picks for Week 2, be sure to see the top NFL picks and predictions from NFL props expert Alex Selesnick. Selesnick (aka PropStarz) specializes in NFL, MLB and NBA prop betting, where he implements a combination of research, statistical analysis and mathematical modeling. His background playing competitive fantasy sports, poker, Scrabble and backgammon helped form the foundation of his sports betting approach. The expert was an impressive 53-37 on his picks during the 2021 NFL regular season for SportsLine and is 58-31 (+20.66 units) on MLB prop plays this year. He's also up nearly 235 units on NBA props and futures plays over the past two-plus seasons. Use promo code ‘EARLY' when signing up for a new account at SportsLine.com to get your first 30 days FREE! Get 20% off Early Edge merch at the CBS Sports Store Using Code ‘EARLYEDGE20': https://store.cbssports.com/collections/the-early-edge?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=early-edge-collection — #NFL #NFLPicks #PropBets #SportsBetting #Picks — ABOUT THE SHOW: Looking for the best picks against the spread and prop plays you can take straight to the pay window? Join Jonathan Coachman on The Early Edge as he speaks with SportsLine's top handicappers to analyze the day's biggest games. From primetime showdowns to off-the-radar action, Early Edge gives you best bets in a quick, informative and easy-to-digest podcast. We promise to keep it short, sweet and to the point as SportsLine's featured experts come together to put some green in your pocket. Follow our crew on Twitter: @TheCoachrules, @LarryHartstein, @Mike5754, @AllanBell247 and @jacob_hallex SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZmtXolnY7-z9HLiBESjkyQ EVERY PICK BY LARRY HARTSTEIN: https://www.sportsline.com/experts/13773/larry-hartstein/ AUDIO ‘Early Edge' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  You can listen to Early Edge on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Early Edge podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Early Edge podcast." -LISTEN to Early Edge on your preferred podcast platform: https://link.chtbl.com/SportsLineEarlyEdge -LEAVE a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/34nj2II -STREAM on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/earlyedge -FOLLOW on Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3gYw1Wh -FOLLOW CBS Sports for a variety of other podcasts: https://cbssports.com/podcast WEBSITE -MORE top-notch picks and betting content on SportsLine: https://www.sportsline.com/ VIDEO -WATCH CBS Sports HQ: https://cbssports.com/live -FOLLOW CBS Sports HQ on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/CBSSportsHQ/ SOCIAL MEDIA -FOLLOW SportsLine on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SportsLine -FOLLOW SportsLine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sportsline/ -FOLLOW CBS Sports on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CBSSports -FOLLOW CBS Sports on Instagram: https://instagram.com/cbssports/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Eldar is a real estate investor better known as Australia's top-ranked Scrabble player, a title he has held since 2014. David was the 2017 Scrabble World Champion and the 2019 World Runner-Up and is consistently rated among the top five Scrabble players in the entire world. In this conversation, we explore the underlying principles of strategy, language, and gameplay through the lens of Scrabble. Pay attention to David's approach to dominating the meta-skills of Scrabble to discover hidden dimensions in the games you choose to play. For the video, transcript, and show notes, visit https://forcingfunctionhour.com/david-eldar.

Mohamed compte triple Bookmakers #20 - L'auteur du mois : Mohamed Mbougar SarrNé à Dakar en 1990, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr est devenu – en 2021 et à 31 ans – le premier écrivain d'Afrique subsaharienne consacré par le plus prestigieux des prix littéraires français, le Goncourt, pour « La plus secrète mémoire des hommes », enquête au long cours et labyrinthe narratif enivrant, inspiré par le destin tragique du Malien Yambo Ouologuem (éditions Jimsaan / Philippe Rey). Mais avant le succès, ce wonderboy des lettres africaines était déjà l'auteur de trois romans diablement maîtrisés, aux sujets casse-gueule : « Terre ceinte » (2015, sur les milices djihadistes), « Silence du chœur » (2017, sur l'accueil de 72 migrants en Sicile) et « De purs hommes » (2018, sur l'homophobie au Sénégal). Il vit et travaille aujourd'hui à Beauvais (Oise). En partenariat avec Babelio. Mohamed compte triple (1/3)« Il faut surveiller ce petit. » En 2014, Léonora Miano lit « La Cale », l'une des premières nouvelles d'un écrivain sénégalais de 24 ans. Frappée par la justesse de cette évocation des horreurs de la traite négrière qu'on croirait échappée d'un recueil de Conrad, la romancière franco-camerounaise formule un avertissement qui a l'épaisseur, aujourd'hui, d'une prophétie. Il fallait garder un œil, oh que oui, sur Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, fils de médecin, fan de foot et champion de Scrabble, dévoreur de dictionnaires, « fruit du croisement » d'au moins deux spiritualités : d'un côté, sa culture musulmane, de l'autre la culture sérère de son enfance, du nom de cette ethnie qui rassemble environ 20 % de la population du Sénégal. Un peuple essentiellement agricole, dit-il, « structuré autour d'une tradition animiste liée aux rites de passage et attentive aux ancêtres, au prochain, à l'hospitalité ». Mais qui est donc ce jeune vieux sage à l'éloquence élégante, que la France découvre en novembre 2021 – lorsque celui-ci reçoit, à 31 ans, le Goncourt pour son quatrième roman, « La plus secrète mémoire des hommes » ? Quel fut le parcours de ce modeste étudiant qui parle, depuis ses 6 ans, le sérère, le wolof (langue vernaculaire du Sénégal) et le français ? « Lorsque j'écris, explique-t-il, je dois transposer en français l'imaginaire de ma langue maternelle. Je ne traduis pas d'une langue à l'autre, mais d'un imaginaire à l'autre. Je reste donc un étranger dans la langue française, qui est un héritage de la colonisation – ce qui peut mettre très mal à l'aise. Plutôt que d'en faire une difficulté, j'ai décidé d'assumer cette condition : une aventure ambiguë », conclue-t-il, en reprenant le titre du grand roman d'un maître et compatriote, Cheikh Hamidou Kane. Dans ce premier épisode, partons à l'aventure dans les ambigüités fertiles de Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, du pagne de ses grands-mères à la bibliothèque du lycée militaire de Saint-Louis, jusqu'à son arrivée dans l'Oise, sa thèse abandonnée sur les débuts de la littérature postcoloniale en Afrique francophone, et… un blog, qui fut la serre de sa vocation, la serre de Sarr. Enregistrement : mai 22 - Texte, voix, entretien, découpage : Richard Gaitet - Prise de son, montage : Sara Monimart - Réalisation, mixage : Charlie Marcelet - Musiques originales : Samuel Hirsch - Illustration : Sylvain Cabot - Remerciements : Gloria Saltel, Clarisse Le Gardien - Production : ARTE Radio - Samuel Hirsch

I am all kinds of excited today. It's been a challenging few weeks with everything going on with my back (and if you missed that, you can read/listen to what's going on in the https://kimdoyal.com/whats-coming-my-new-non-negotiables-fth-100/ (last podcast episode)). I did my border run to Nicaragua, which went really smoothly, but man was I exhausted afterward. Fortunately, I was smart and planned to take care of myself the day after. I didn't have any calls and allowed myself to go with the flow. Which pretty much meant working at my desk as long as possible and then moving to my bed- regardless of the time of day. I brought a cooler with my ice packs for the journey, which made all the difference in the world. Now I'm set for another 90-days. Which is so close to Christmas, but I'll still have to do one more border run before I go to California in early December. I will apply for Costa Rica's digital nomad visa after the holidays. The digital nomad visa will allow me to stay in the country for a year without border runs, open a bank account here (bye-bye international fees!), get a driver's license, and be a part of the national health care system here (called Caja). I'll pay into Caja, but I'm happy to do so. Now that all that is out of the way, I can focus on business again. I have 3 weeks until my back surgery, and it's game on! There's something about knowing you have a ‘sprint' ahead of you with an end date (even if it's just for a week) that makes it much more manageable to stay focused. Now that you're all caught up let's get into Shutting the Door on Self-Doubt.Shutting the door on self-doubt came up on a https://kimdoyal.com/why-i-still-talk-to-my-therapist-18-years-later-and-the-impact-on-my-business-fth-088/ (call with my therapis)t this morning (I've jokingly said that I will have to pay her royalties at some point  ). We were talking about a new project I'm working on, and I was sharing my challenges with naming it. If you've ever been stuck on naming something, you know what I mean (and if you haven't been stuck, can you share your secret with me?). I had picked a name (or so I thought) for my new project, and two of my dear friends in this space whom I completely trust asked me if that name was right. The whole thing came about because I had hired a couple of people to have logos made. Nothing felt right. https://kimdoyal.com/?p=129207&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=129214#cb8f20a078 (It's time to #FtheHUSTLE! Sign up here!) Instead of trying to figure it out with the existing name, my friends asked if I could use a different name. Holy lightbulb moment!!!  I solved this (and will share the name and what it is) within the next month, but I returned to a book I read years ago when I wanted to name something else. The book is called https://www.amazon.com/Hello-My-Name-Awesome-Create-ebook/dp/B07V6MFHRH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1663013581&sr=8-1 (“Hello, My Name is Awesome” by Alexandra Watkins.) Side note: Go to her website for some before and after name makeovers her company has done. Her website is “Eat My Words,” and I LOVE the tagline on her site: “Your brand name shouldn't look like someone got drunk and played Scrabble.”  I highly recommend the book. It's pretty short (about 128 pages). She gives many examples of companies she's worked with, brands needing help, and then very specific exercises for coming up with your name. And yes, she “names names.” She has something she calls the ‘Smile & Scratch' test. I'm going to share those here with you (in hopes that it inspires you to get the book for yourself and do the exercises). Ready? The “Smile & Scratch” test by Alexandra Watkins: Here are the 5 qualities of a super sticky name (this is the smile test): Suggestive: it evokes something about your brand. Memorable: Makes an association with the familiar. Imagery: Aids memory through...

Jimmy reveals the inside story behind England's victory at The Oval in the final Test match of the summer against South Africa. Plus wobble seams, Scrabble, nightclubs and Issy Wong is back.

This week we sit down with author and adventurer, Markus Stitz to discuss his new book, Great British Gravel Rides. Markus explores gravel cycling in Great Britain through the eyes of local gravel cyclists to discover amazing routes throughout the region. Markus Stitz Website  Episode Sponsor: Trek Travel - Come join us on the Girona Gravel Tour November 6th, 2022.  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Great British Gravel Rides [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: This week on the podcast. We welcome Marcus. Stets the author of great British gravel rides, a book of 25 routes throughout England, Wales and Scotland. . That brings us through the varied terrain in great Britain, through the eyes of community members throughout the aisle each route was designed by a gravel cyclists from that region. In an attempt to get the best. Gravel routes across England, Scotland and Wales. I enjoyed the conversation a lot and i enjoyed the approach to the book and i hope you will too Before we get started. I need to thank this week. Sponsor truck travel and the Girona gravel bike tour. Trek has been offering the Girona gravel bike tour for a number of years. And you may remember an episode I recorded with them about Yorona and what a gem it is for cycling in general, but more specifically gravel. I've been hoping and wanting to go over there myself for a number of years. And I'm excited to say that I'm going to be joining the November 6th trip. And I'd like you to join me. Yeah, I'm not kidding. Take a step back. You can do this. Come join me and ride gravel bikes in Girona trucks. Got everything organized for us from an, a wonderful hotel, right in the center of Girona as well as access to track bicycles to explore the countryside, we've got local guides that have designed amazing routes for us. So we're going to sample everything the region has to offer in this trip. I can't wait to get over there in November and I'm hoping you'll be able to join me too. It'll be so good to paddle with some of you listeners and members of the ridership community. I know we've got a handful of people signed up already and I would love to fill the hotel with people we know and love. As a special bonus, truck's going to give anybody who registers via the podcast or the ridership or free handlebar bag with their trip. So make sure when you go visit Trek, travel.com search Jarana gravel bike tour and mentioned the podcast during your registration process. There's a number of dates this year remaining, but I will be on the November 6th trip. So I'm hoping we can shape the demand and drive you to that trip. We'll have a great time. And I look forward to seeing you there. Remember that's www.trektravel.com. Search Girona gravel bike tour. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with marcus about the great british gravel rides Marcus welcome to the show. [00:02:28] Markus: Hello. [00:02:30] Craig Dalton: It's good to connect with you. I was super excited when I caught wind of this great, great Britain, gravel rides book that you penned and excited to learn a little bit more about your background as a cyclist, and what led to your passion to take on this project and do a great job kind of going throughout Britain and laying out some amazing roots for people. [00:02:51] Markus: Yeah. It's like, it's been an amazing project to work on and especially like, cuz I guess people who live in Britain have, you know, have a better idea of the country. But if you, if you're outside the country, it's such a diverse place. Like it's, it's, you know, from north to south, I think I've been to many countries in the world and it's like, it's, it's difficult to find a country, which is, which is gotten so many different places too, right. In terms of the conditions, but also the people. So my idea was really to kind of look at the community. With all the different shapes and forms it comes and, and, and do a book about it and, and recommend roots to people. Pretty much as an inspiration. [00:03:35] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think that was a super interesting approach and look forward to getting into it with. Before we get started. Why don't we give the listener just a little bit about an idea about your background as a cyclist. [00:03:46] Markus: Yeah. So I, I think I generally came to cycling. I, I started cycling as a child. I grew up in Germany and you kind of know I'm cycling as default, I think. And I I'd never been in any cycling clubs and I wouldn't call myself like a keen cyclist when I was a child. And then pretty much picked up a mountain bike in, in my years at the university, cuz I lived in a place which had like pretty extensive for is a bit like what you possibly. Which comes really close to north American travel or the idea what we have, like big metal roads and, you know, loads of pine fors and all pretty straightforward. So it was a quite great location to, to be based and then do that. And then I finished university and went to New Zealand and. Think that spare really picked up the cycle, touring adventure, cycling mountain biking buck spent two years in Wellington, brilliant location. New Zealand in general is, is just a, a fascinating place to ride and is also one of those places like. There's. Yeah, there's, there's, there's so much outdoor possibilities and you, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't come to New Zealand. I would presume if you want like big city life or you want all the belts and visits of massive cities like New York or LA or whatever. I think I really like the, the mixture between having an outdoorsy life, but also still having a bit of a city lifestyle. Wellington is a capital store. Yeah. We enjoyed it. There did loads of cycling over there. And then. In my time in Wellington, I also decided in some shape or form I want to do around the world trip cycling around the world. And the initial idea was, was just a circus. So I finished my time in in Wellington and moved back to Europe. I moved to Edinburg. And while I was in Edinburgh, I had this idea, or maybe I could cycle from Edinburgh to Dunedin. Dunedin is one of the Southern cities in New Zealand. Then it's the old name for Edinburg. So there's interesting connection there. A lot of settled in that part of New Zealand. So like I could a trip from Edburg to dun and then. At some stage, I think that developed further to say, look, if I'm doing half the world anyway, I might as well do the other as well. [00:05:57] Craig Dalton: And when you, when you were approaching that Marcus, like, were you thinking at that point, like pedaling around the world is something I specifically want to do or were you more, I just wanna travel and experience different cultures and different parts of the world. [00:06:13] Markus: yeah, I think it's a travel aspect, which is which, which was the most important one. Like, and that's like, I think this is coming. I think if you look at all my work so far, like I'm I'm, I would certainly say like, for me, cycling is an amazing tool to connect with people. Like if you look at. Any cycling community. It doesn't matter which one you're looking at. I think they're all slightly different, but I think what they all have in common people who ride bike, speak to each. This is, this is I thing it's, it's like, and they either speak about bikes or you, you know, you just happen to have the same mode of transport. You talk about something else. And, and, and, and for me, that was the important one. I, you know, I was thinking about whether I'm gonna go this. I don't think there's, well, there is no single speed record for going around the world and I could have set that record. Like it would've been an easy task to do because there isn't such a thing. But that wasn't important for me that never played in my mind. I was just like, you know, it will be, you know, it'd be an interesting thing to do, but it would take away from the trip. So for me around the world trip was to meet interesting people. I met so many. Amazing people in New Zealand simply by being friends with a couple of guys that worked in a bike shop and they kind of introduced me to the cycling community in New Zealand. And when I back went back to, to Scotland, it was kind of the same. It was interesting. I came back to Scotland at night. Initially, didn't bring my bikes over to Edinburg and it was the first thing I missed. I was just like, I want my bikes here. There's such a convenient way to get around, but also to make friends if you place, that was the main, that was the main consideration. So yeah, it was, it was like, and is possibly, I guess a lot of people ask why singles speak? Why, why do you take a singles speak bike? And. I guess the most important reason for that one is you don't have to, you don't really need to care about your bike. Like, you know, it's got a chain which needs replacing every now and then there's no F around the bike. It was a pretty straightforward built. You know, everything was rock solid. Most of them were parts were steel. So, you know, like even, even transporting the bike by plane was super easy. Cuz it just Chuck it in a box. There's no area that bends or any, any other expensive part. So yeah, I think that was the, that is the kind of, and yeah, that comes across very clearly in the book right now as well. Like I'm, I'm always, there's always people first, you know, it's about. Is about the community and, and how I connect with them. And, you know, cycling is great. I really enjoy cycling. But I would, I don't think I'd be enjoying just the cycling bit as much as, as I do with the people, [00:08:58] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a big element that everybody talks about with our enjoyment of gravel. It's twofold. It's one just sort of getting off the beaten path and two, the community and the friendliness of it all. I think it's just at least today it exceeds any other form. Any other side of the sport of cycling? I don't think you just, you don't get the camaraderie that you do on the gravel side of. [00:09:20] Markus: Yeah. Yeah. And this, I mean, just on my, it's interesting to look back on around the world trip, cuz I was on the mountain bike. So I was on a SERE, which is, you know, it's a hard tail. You can, yeah, it's a typical, hard to mountain bike built. Basically. You could put some, I didn't have suspension forks, but it, you know, you could write a bit of suspension fork as well. But if I look back now and interestingly enough, I went Toor in Kansas. And I wasn't, I wasn't aware of, well, now I'm going, but back then dirty. And I wasn't really aware of that and impor and called Hedman and he introduced me to the whole Yeah, the Kansas travel community. It was awesome. It was amazing. I think there's still a, we picture in one of the pups of me and sitting, there was really sore on that. Kansas is flat a pancake and it isn't it's, it's just, that's a trade lie because the east of Kansas is very, very. The for the west, you get the, you know, the, the, the fluter it gets, but yeah, cycling along the east of is no piece of cake at all, but it's just the kinda thing. And so I kind got introduced to the idea of, I heard, you know, I had heard about bikes, but you could, you know, you might as well argue that I've a bike around the world is just, just to different bars. They have Jones's bars and instead of bars, like, and yeah, it's the, I think it's the least. There's no real conventions yet. There's no, there isn't really anything that you kind of, you don't have to have a certain thing to, to identify as Scrabble, cyclists, but you know, and that, that's the nice thing about it. It's a bit like. It's like, for me, it feels like I would've been, I, I, I would've loved to be there when mountain biking developed in Mo county. And, you know, kind of was literally about people kind of riding around on bikes, having a good time [00:11:27] Craig Dalton: Yeah. [00:11:27] Markus: doing some, doing some crazy things and not really caring about conventions whatsoever. And I think we are mid travel cycling. It's nice to be in the middle. You know, I think if I think things keep coming back, it's like the early days of the tour farms as well, which I, I basically think later foundations of what you now call ultra cycling. You know, again, there's people, you know, people just having a good time being, you know, also being ambitious about thing. And you can, you can, you can say the thing about mountain biking as well. You know, those things develop. And I think we're there with travel cycling at the moment, which is great to be right in the thick of it. No doubt. I think it will at some stage diversify as well. You know, we've got suspension forks. Now we basically have mountain bike tires now onto level bikes, but that's okay. You know, I think it's, you know, this is, this is the evolution where things go, but just being there right there right now is quite. [00:12:27] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's certainly one of the impetus behind this podcast, beginnings was it was just such an exciting time. I thought in the sport of cycling and someone, as you know, I'd been around cycling my whole life yet. I still made mistakes when I bought my first gravel bike and realized like, oh, I didn't set it up the way I should, or I didn't make the choices I should. And I was like, if I've been around bikes and worked in bike shops and worked in the bike industry and I still managed to screw up this Purchas. There's a lot of people and a lot of questions and fast forward three years, I, I still find myself having interesting conversations with product designers and seeing interesting innovations and new options that just allow people to personalize this equipment to wherever they call home or whatever they're intending to do. [00:13:11] Markus: Yeah. And, and I think it is, I think it, it has made pretty big leaps as well. If I, I think one thing for me, which sticks out is tires. Like if I, if I look back in. So I , I think if you wanna put an official day to it, when I started travel, riding was in 2017 when I had a LER and mapped the first bike packing route in Scotland. And I know back then, I mean, your choice of tires was the 30 yard, the bike. And I could have gone for a Schal G one old round and there were a few other. Tires kicking around on the market. But if you look at right now, just 12 alone has seven different travel tires. Whoa. You know, and, and not speaking about any of the mountain bike tires, you can now, you know, if you look at a fast rolling waste tire for a mountain bike, you can stick that on a co bike these days cuz the, you know, the clearance is wide enough to, to ride those. And so I think this is where you see like how much. You know how quickly the market or the, the, the industry has progressed in, in, in those kind of aspects. So a choice is, is, is huge right now. And yeah, it's, it's, it's great. But I also think, you know, I think it's interesting because I think one thing the book of working on the book has kind of like forced me to do, and I had a keen interest as well. It's just kind of, and, and this is, I think this is where Britain is really interesting is to kinda look back to. You know, what, what you can now call pu writing, where, where did it start? And if you look at Britain, like it started in the 1920s here, cause there's been the rough. So there's been an organization called the rough stuff fellowship. And that that's, if you wanna sum it up, is people starting to ride bikes? Off the beaten track in, in rails, in England and Scotland and various things. And you know, back then, there weren't really any Tomic roads. I don't think, you know, I don't think they had the intention. Like there, there weren't deliberately riding off road, but there they did ride them off road because there was literally no other network. To use there weren't any Timex cycling paths. You know, there were a few roads back then, but not nearly as much as you have these days and they just simply rode their bikes wherever they're placed to go. And I, I think like, I have that in the introduction of my book for me, that's kind of like where it all originates. And then you look at Australia, you look at the Overlands who, again, like this is like possibly the very early stages of bike, you know, who went from a to B I think it's tricky, cuz I think what we have now is modern crab bikes. They are definitely much more advanced I'm riding at the moment. I'm riding a 1970s club Butler bike. So it's one of those bikes, you know, that, that people potentially took when there were rough stuffing and. It's awesome. Fun to ride. I'm really enjoying it for a challenge, but you also see, you know, if you've got a modern gravel bike gear, I mean, this is much more forgiving. Like I was talking to a friend about that, this breaks, for example, whoa. Like they made such a difference, especially if you ride in Scotland, you know, if you've got wind breaks and you're going down the long downhill, you have to. Three times on the downhill, because otherwise you just, your, your ribs are afterwards. So, you know, things like this, which I found is super like you, I think the concept, I think there's also two, there's interesting. Two things to clever writing. I think there's clever riding as a concept of off. And then there's bikes, you know, which. Possibly are what we, what we have now as clever bikes, truck bars, you know, a geometry, which is possibly closer to a road bike than it is to a mountain bike. Tie with, I don't think you can define that any longer, because it's been going up and up and, you know, I don't think we're far off having, I don't know if we're ever gonna get the tweet inch tiles on the bike we might do. Who knows, but I think it's kind of in my book really much picking up on the idea of travel writing as a concept. It's why, when I, when people were asking me, well, like, oh, do I need to have a travel bike? Then it was like, Take whatever bike you think is suitable off road. Bear in mind that the people who will be reading this will potentially be riding this on a 45 millimeter tire to bar bike. So, you know, there shouldn't be any, any severe to above or whatever in there. But if you ride that on a clever bike, or if you take your full as mountain bike or whatever bike, your, your thing is suit. Please do that. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna restrict anything to that concept. [00:17:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I thought that I saw that note at the beginning of your book and I think that's spot on. It's like ride. What you have, gravel is more about the sensation, the community. Exploration, all these different ideas above and beyond the type of bike you actually are throwing a leg over. [00:18:13] Markus: Yeah. Yeah. And this is, and yeah, and, and that, especially in Britain, this , there's many terrains. You can ride your bike over, [00:18:22] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So just finishing your, your sort of backstory, you finished the round of the world trip, and then obviously like you continue to be inspired by the sport. Of mountain biking and did some other big adventures. [00:18:36] Markus: Yeah, I think that, so, I mean, if you look at my career, if you want to call it such, I've always been a person who's been, I've been, always been inspired by many things. Like I, you know, I can't, I didn't have a straightforward career path. I did a multitude of things in my life. And when I came back from the round the world trip, but basically I had a, I had a decision to make what I'm gonna do right now. Am I gonna go back to a nine to five? I never had a nine to five job as such, but, you know, am I gonna go back to to employment and let someone else paying my wages and I'll do my fair bit, or am I gonna use all the experience I have from the, around the world trip? Cause I think what the around the world trip has really taught me is to. You can take so much stuff out of a year on the bike, into, into the life afterwards, you know, it's about leadership. It's about decision making. It's about adapting to new environ. And so I had all of, you know, all of that came with the trip. It wasn't, it wasn't just about riding a bicycle. And I felt like, you know, you can, it's gonna be a tough one to start something new. No doubt about that. But. I'm in a good position to be there. So I started working freelance and, and I have designed a route around Edinburg before I left the world. And the feedback for that was great. And I felt like, well, I'm just gonna up there and this, you know, try to establish myself as. Yeah, offering something else in a tourism industry, tourism back then in Scotland was basically bikes didn't happen, you know, bike route. Didn't really happen either. And I thought like, you know, if I can, if I can make a living out of, of, of really pushing Scotland ahead in terms of cycling route and whatever, then that'd be a great thing. And my, my background before I was marketing so if you combine around the world, trip an interest in developing new roots and having the marketing background, because in the end of the day, You know, a roots only interesting if people know about it and, and actually write it, there's nothing, nothing worse in designing a great route and no one knows about it and no people are not using it. So I kind checked that all in one goal and then also found myself cause I wanted to have a little bit of financial acuity. So I accepted a two day a week marketing role at the book festival. Back then we we're going back then. And with the idea of writing it, because I always thought like, cool. If I ever gonna write a book, it will be, would be quite good to have some, some connections in the book trade and in the book world and kinda do that. So that job paid to rent and the, the other work was kind of like, whatever focus I make that direction is gonna be great. And those were the early days of bike in Scotland and, and yeah, that's pretty much progressed since 2017 and yeah. I don't know, my, my life's taken some interesting turns. I think right now I'm sitting here possibly quite a few people know my films, which is, which is great when I started that. I would've never thought that I've written the book now I've worked with several councils and destination marketing organizations in Scotland to really help them to understand cycling and understand cycle tubing and then, and developing products for them that they can actually put to people and say, look, if you wanna come to this part of Scotland, this is what you can do. And we help you doing this. And, and that's kind of in a nutshell, this with bike packing Scotland, and this it's not just. It's not just mood planning. It's not just filmmaking. It's not just bike, you know, it's like, there's a mixture of, of all the different things and yeah, it's been a, it's been a great journey. [00:22:13] Craig Dalton: Amazing. So let's, let's talk a little bit about the book. So you, you, you've sort of endeavored to kind of cover Scotland, England, and Wales, and give gravel riders a view of the entire country, the landscape through not only your eyes, but the eyes of, of very diverse set of athletes, which, as I mentioned earlier, I thought was a really refreshing approach. Because one of the things in, in my mind, these roots that we find online, they lack personality, right? You're getting a GPX file and you're, you're seeing where something goes, but it's very hard to understand what that's going to feel like. It's very hard to get data on, you know, what kind of bike tires do I need? What kind of equipment do I need for these. Or even more importantly, like what are the communities gonna be like when I go through them? And, you know, part that's part of the reason I started a community called the ridership, because I just, I wanted an online forum to be able to connect with riders around the world and just get that real world beta, you know, so if I'm going to Scotland, I wanna talk to someone who's ridden these roads and trails and just give you a few of the inside tips about what's going on. So I'd love for you to just kind of talk about. Why you decided to approach it that way and what it meant to you and how you connected with the, the numerous athletes that helped you design roots throughout the country. [00:23:34] Markus: Yeah, so I think there's this, this, there there's two basic thoughts I had on the back of my head when I started researching a book, I think the nice thing about clever writing that it seems to be attracting much more women into this sport than, than other. Than other sports in general do. I, I do think that road cycling, although this is changing and it's a good thing to see it changing, but I still feel that road cycling is such a male dominated domain of cycling, you know, and, and, and mountain biking is more diverse. I think by its very nature, but you know, still I was looking at many cycling magazines and thought like, why is there, why is there always a male, a man in his forties with white shoulders looking angry on the form of the cover? You know, it's just, it didn't really like, it, it didn't appeal to me. And I felt like, you know, I think I, I think it's particularly hard and, and, and I guess it's the same in the us. We've seen. We've seen cycling, attracting quite a lot of new people, thankfully. And there was mainly two to, to, to the COVID restrictions and people, all of a sudden recognized I can't do anything, but I can still jump on a bicycle and have a good time. So it was possibly one of the, it was one of the good things coming out of a pandemic, but. I always feel like we didn't really cater for the people who are new to the sport. And, and, and we also didn't really cater for, for, for people of a different ethnic background. It's, you know, is just like, I, I think it was always a bit too narrow and one thing I've found on around the world trip. That's the cool thing. If you go to different countries, you see how a diverse cycling actually is, you know, how like how, how, how it switches. And that's one thing I wanted to have in there. And then the other thing I was really keen on as well is. It's public transport. Like you gets a really bad reputation in Britain most of the times, and it's nowhere near ideal. I was, I was born in Germany. And my girlfriend dips in Norway. So there's this, this, this, this country is in the world, which do much, much better at that, but it, I also think that. We're still doing okay. In this country. so I felt like, right. Okay. I want people to get to those places, ideally by train or by bus. So they don't have to own a car. If they own a car. That's fine. There's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that, but it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be a pre-condition of riding your bike, having to get to those places by car. I want to have a nice mixture of mood. So I want some easy ones in there. I want also some really gnarly ones in there because you know, whoever's gonna buy the book. They'll be at different stages in their cycling thing cycling career or whatever you wanna call it. And I also want to have landscapes in there, which are where you representative of Britain as such a diverse country. And you can kind of imagine there's a lot of logistic. Kind of like, so I came up with this metrics of kind of like, ideally. This is kind of what I feel the book should be looked like. And then, and then, and then I feel like, well, I know a few people already Jenny and mark Beaumont and a couple of other people featured in the book. So this is gonna be a great starting point, but then I really want to reach out to people, which I don't know, you know, but to wide travel byte is the only. Or not even ride travel bikes, you know, they, you happen to be riding off road. I would ly keep it as, as, as, as far as that. And yeah. And then with the help of, of My connections with the sponsors of the book, I was just building this list of people and then the other, I think the additional challenge was also that I kind of needed to slot them in. So I did the book research within other projects as well. So yeah, and, and, and it, it turned out to work pretty well. Like I was, I was fascinated by the thing and I guess the, the big takeaway for me was. It kind of felt a little bit being transferred back to the process of the round, the world trip, you know, I think around the world trip. Very much. So the, I, I did ride my bike during the day. And then in the evening I was really looking forward to speak to people, have a conversation. And, and the nice thing about this book research was so there were some people I knew and you know, we rode our bikes together and, you know, it felt like, you know, being out on a great ride with a, with a friend, you unseen for ages. And then there were the new people in the book, which I didn't know much about it. And it, that was quite as well because, you know, Takes five to 10 minutes. And then you kind of know roughly what you wanna talk about. You know, you wanna talk about the roots and, and the nice thing about this poetry. It really felt like they are taking me on their favorite roots. And they're really showing me their neck of the roots, not from a tourist perspective, but from a local's perspective, this is where a white. This is a cool cafe. You should be going to cuz they've got amazing priorities. This is the proper we should be stopping at. And, and I think that made the whole experience so much richer. And, and ultimately also I think for the reader, you know, they, I think one thing I always miss like not so much cycling guidebooks, but if you look at places guide books like lonely planet or, you know, one of the big ones. I think with lonely planet, you used to get a really authentic experience. You know, it is debatable what the world authentic actually means, but you don't get these days. I don't think so. You know, you'd be shuttled into a range of accommodation and some places, and it's a bit hit or miss some places are good. Some of them. Not so much. , you know, and I think with this approach, I was kind of my, my, my pitch to people was just like, show me around your negative woods. Take me to the cool places. You know, like take me around as you would have a great ride that it is for you. And that also came up with very different approaches. You know, I had guy who speaked guy Kek. He's super fast so we kinda went fulling to the, to the tee shop, had an iced tea, and then we went fulling again. It was great. You know, it was like, there was a thing, whereas there were other approaches where everything was a bit slower and, and a bit more relaxed and, and yeah. And yeah, I really lost the process. It was just really personable. [00:30:09] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's super interesting. I remember in the early days of the pandemic, when a lot of the big gravel events in the United States were getting canceled, one in particular, put a call out to kind of friends and people in the community to do a virtual event on the day of their race. And what I thought was the output of that exercise is that all around the country, you have these routes created by people who absolutely love the sport and absolutely love where they live. So it was just basically, I described it as sort of a, a love letter to the gravel cycling community [00:30:43] Markus: yeah. [00:30:44] Craig Dalton: this route. And it sounds like you got a lot of that out of this experience and this process that you entered for this. [00:30:51] Markus: Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, I mean, the pandemic pandemic played. I mean, it played a key role in the book because it was, I mean, the whole idea was, was based out of, I don't know, I've stopped counting how many lockdowns we went through in the process. And cause I initially thought like I didn't. I wouldn't say I had an idea of a book in my head and when the whole thing kicked off, I was just like, maybe this is exactly the right time to do a book. Because for me writing a book was always, there was always taking, there was always something else that was taking priority. Cuz it's a big daunting project, you know? It's like I spend about it. Yeah. Like a good part of a year doing this book. If. Count in all the things and it's, you know, it, it does take, especially the writing. It really takes you. You really need to sit down and kind of write. I'm just gonna concentrate on that. And it's, you know, it's just like, it's, it's easier to do smaller projects, no doubt. But yeah, when it all kicked off, I was like, okay, if there's something good about this, You possibly find time to do this now because you'll be less distracted by other stuff you can't, there's no such thing. And, and also when you, when I, I think the interesting thing about bikes is that when we were sitting in our living rooms or in, you know, in the best case scenario or with our garden and having a bit of nature around us . All the bikes, all the other bikes are quite difficult to ride from your front door. You can ride a road bike if you happen to live in a place that has some nice roads and is not too busy. You can ride a mountain bike if you happen to live next to mountain bike trails. But. I would say for the majority of people, like there was always something, you know, for roads, either the roads are too busy or the mountain bike twelves they're okay. But you, you know, they're not great. And with travel bikes in a way, the travel bike is a, is a perfect pandemic bike because you can take it off on roads. So you can ride all of those mountain bike trails, which are okay to ride on a gravel bike. But you possibly get a little bit bored on your full assess. and you can ride those cycle paths and you can ride those quiet roads, but, you know, it's just, it's such a, it's such a lovely mixture. Like you can get so much out of, of gravel bikes without. You know, having to push for one thing or the other. And, and that became very clear. And then there's one, one interesting story in the book. And the from Trumper cycles who basically had this idea of building a wooden travel bike, and the idea kind of got shelved initially. And then when lockdown kicked off, that was basically what he focused on and came up with this beautiful piece of work. And, and is all of those little stories I tried to, you know, I think we are all getting a little bit tired of what happened in the last two to three years and you know, it come of a dire consequences for some people as well. But I also. If, if you're looking the positives to take out of like being forced to reconnect with nature, being really seeing the value that if it all fails, you can still go out there and have a bit of an adventure. And even if it's, I dunno, 10 kilometers away from home, that's, what's coming to quite clearly in the book. And, and that was an interesting thing as well. [00:34:19] Craig Dalton: As you thought about the book. And obviously there was a, there was this notion of guide book as a concept, even though you strayed away from that and made it much more personal, but as you thought about great Britain, And across Scotland, England and Wales, presumably you had some notions of like, these are, must have areas that I need to cover. My question is how much of that drove? What ended up in the book versus people you got connected with and the roots that they were saying, you've gotta, you've gotta put this route in the book. [00:34:51] Markus: It was, yeah. So I knew Scotland. Well, you know, and I there's, obviously there's some, there's, there's some bits of Scotland I really want to have featured in there. So I think Scotland, if you look at it it was. It was a bit like looking around my personal environment and you know, this is a cool place to write who do I know in that place? And, you know, do they fit in there? For the other parts of Britain, it was pretty much applying canvas, you know, I and and I think this is, this is, this is quite interesting. I guess there was one another. Bit of a guiding principle behind it is like I'm. If you look at all my work in the UK especially in Scotland, I'm a, think I'm a firm believer in that. The best places to cycle are actually the places that don't get a lot of tourism that are not overwhelmed by people. Because I, I think. Like the popularity of some glaciers, especially in the last five years with channels like Instagram and TikTok and whatever. Like, I, I, I could name a few people in Scotland places in Scotland. I wouldn't want to travel to these days because they are just like, It's for me, it's not an authentic version of what Scotland is. Like. It's a very fabricated and, you know, kind of like influencer kind of based version of what the country is like. And, and, and my, especially in Scotland, my vision, my, my picture of Scotland has always been a very different one, you know, a country which has super friendly people who are actually really, really grateful about you being in a. And, you know, visiting them, whatever. And the other thing I also felt like we, I, I, I do think, you know, I was looking at, so where are people actually living in the UK and, and you will often not find London or Milton Keens or Newcastle upon. In a guidebook because they're big cities and I think your vision of a country to travel to. So would someone who travels to put and necessarily travel to Newcast possibly not. You know, would they, would they choose London for riding a bike? Maybe not. you know, so I thought like, I want to have some, some, I want to have some odd places in there. You know, I think Oakwood around London is amazing. Cause you know, this is, this is where like people sit on top of each other. This is exactly the place where people need to go out, have an adventure. [00:37:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I think that approach, it, it sort of serves two masters, right? It, it, one inspires people in London of this idea that they can be a gravel cyclist living in London. And the second thing is, you know, many travelers may find themselves in London. And see that as an opportunity to ride in a place that they never thought they could ride. I, I think about in the United States, I always loathe going to Las Vegas. And then I learned about this mountain bike terrain rights out outside of Vegas that's world class. And all of a sudden it's like, okay, maybe I, I will accept a trip to Vegas because I can go sneak off and do that and get my feel of the outdoors and then experience the Zs of, of, of Las Vegas. [00:38:05] Markus: Yeah. And I guess I think the approach that kind of like, I always found, like you can basically move to any place in the world, as long as you have cool people there, you can do stuff with, you know, you, you, you, you might be in the best place in the world to ride bikes. If there, if you know, if you don't know anyone there and, and, and you, you can't connect to the people. I just, I just think the people are first and, you know, they'll show you. I don't know. And, and then I think you, you get, you get quite, and that's the thing I love about clever riding, you know, you can. There isn't really any, like, there is no such thing as a gravel trail in, especially in Britain, like we don't have those big metal roads. We have some of them, but is the majority of riding over here? it's I would say varied. You know's. Expect some odd things, you know, expect a bit of single trail expect the odd bit of road or whatever. You know, we, we don't have hundreds and hundreds of miles of long, you know, really, really extensive travel roads as such. But I think this is also that, that thing that makes it such a unique place, you know, and it's also, it's also, I. What you find when you come to here, it's the oddity of the place, you know, that any place, the thing. And, and that really came through when I traveled to the places and rode there, especially the places I hadn't really been beforehand. Everyone's proud of the place they live in, which is quite like there hasn't been a single place where people say, oh, you know, it's a. You know, mixed? No, no, they were super, you know, they were, they were, they were, they were. Super passionate about the places they live and, you know, they accept it in some cases, you know, if you wanna go riding a new car, so yeah. You need to go to some areas which are, you know, they're not tourist destinations, but it's, I always find it fascinating. Those are actually the places where you meet some really cool people, some, you know, and you get a really interesting experience. And, and, and that's the thing I. And one thing for me on the political things, we had some, some pretty interesting years in this country of, of division people voted for and against Brexit and Scottish independence were. So there was loads of stuff that, you know, where people. Pitched against each other. And I, I, I, so one thing for me that came, came across in the whole research is there's actually so much more in the country that kind of unites people than it is that it's. Dividing them, you know, and, and, and, and, and the culture over here, like wherever you wanna go, just find a pop , you'll find some interesting people from all walks of life will happily share, you know, beer with you or whatsoever. And, and, and, and, and kind of like, that's the thing I loved. And there was only, it was, it was, for me, it was kind of back to the initial reasons why I moved to, to Britain, to Scotland. Cause people were welcoming. The love it. Good chat. The love to help you. And yeah, it's, it's all really welcoming. And that, that hopefully comes across in the book. [00:41:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it definitely does. And again, super interesting approach. I'll put a link to everything in the show notes that people can find this book and some of your other work. And I think it's, it's a fascinating way to explore what gravel looks like in great Britain and get to know a bunch of interesting people along the way. [00:41:42] Markus: Yeah. Yeah. And and it's also, I think one thing I've forgot, which is probably a bit of improvement. Like it's, it is also, I've always found that like the people featured in the book, they're also really happy to share their knowledge, you know? So, you know, just, yeah. Like yeah. If you happen to see them and meet them, speak to them [00:42:02] Craig Dalton: absolutely. Cool. Thanks Marcus. Thanks for the time. [00:42:06] Markus: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. [00:42:08] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Marcus for coming on the show. . I loved learning more about gravel riding in great Britain. And I hope you enjoyed it too. Special, thanks to our friends at Trek travel. And that's your own a gravel bike tour. I hope you'll be able to join me. On the November 6th. Trip. Remember, just go to Trek, travel.com and search Girona gravel bike tour during the registration process. Make sure to mention the podcast as they're throwing in a free handlebar bag. If you're interested in connecting with me, please join the ridership@wwwdottheridership.com. It's a free global cycling community. Where you can interact with riders from around the world that are as passionate about gravel cycling. As you are. If you're able to support the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Or ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

When we began accepting submissions for this season, we received an outpouring of stories from women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Stories about how the Church has affected their relationships, how it's affected their careers, their faith, their sense of self-worth. And, while we are very much dedicated to continuing to seek out and promote diverse voices, we also believe that this surge of stories from Mormon women needs to be heard. We received so many of these submissions that to listen to them all at once would be overwhelming, so we've decided to split them up to make sure we can pay adequate attention to each individual experience. In this episode we hear several short, personal stories from women raised in Mormon homes, and we'll return and hear more of these stories later in the season. We're so grateful for each and every one of these contributors for finding the courage to speak and the wisdom to recognize that we all deserve better than the patriarchy we were raised under. To begin this series we'll be hearing from three guests: Tiffany Sowby, Chelsea Homer, and an Anonymous Contributor. Tiffany Sowby (she/her) is the co-host of https://thesisterhoodpodcast.com/#:~:text=Firm%20believers%20that%20women%20rise,We'll%20talk%20about%20it. (The Sisterhood Podcast). A few of her favorite things are: Scrabble games, meaningful conversations, and shopping for shoes. She has an unhealthy dependency on Nutella. Chelsea Homer (she/her) is the founder of https://www.facebook.com/groups/1290631704424963/ (Faith Journey Meetups) and co-founder of a social club for women and genderqueer people looking for connection outside of religion. She loves to write, hike, and go on bike rides with her family.

This week's throwback episode is from July of 2014, and features Mohan Srivastava. Mohan cracked the code on several scratch off lottery games. We talk about beating the lottery. You can read about some of his exploits in this Wired magazine article. https://www.wired.com/2011/01/ff-lottery/. Also on the show we mention a story Mohan wrote about Scrabble. You can read that story here. https://www.cbc.ca/books/literaryprizes/the-gods-of-scrabble-by-mo-srivastava-1.4244078

The Coach is joined by PropStarz and Dave Richard to bring you the best bets player prop bets for NFL Week 1. A 14-game slate on Sunday means there will be plenty of NFL prop bets to ponder. Before locking in any 2022 NFL prop picks for Week 1, be sure to see the top NFL picks and predictions from NFL props expert Alex Selesnick. Selesnick (aka PropStarz) specializes in NFL, MLB and NBA prop betting, where he implements a combination of research, statistical analysis and mathematical modeling. His background playing competitive fantasy sports, poker, Scrabble and backgammon helped form the foundation of his sports betting approach. The expert was an impressive 53-37 on his picks during the 2021 NFL regular season for SportsLine and is 58-31 (+20.66 units) on MLB prop plays this year. He's also up nearly 235 units on NBA props and futures plays over the past two-plus seasons. Use promo code ‘EARLY' when signing up for a new account at SportsLine.com to get your first 30 days FREE! Get 20% off Early Edge merch at the CBS Sports Store Using Code ‘EARLYEDGE20': store.cbssports.com/collections/the-early-edge?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=early-edge-collection Sign Up For Paramount+: paramountplus.com/?cbscidmt=sports&ftag=PPM-22-10bab9g — ABOUT THE SHOW: Looking for the best picks against the spread and prop plays you can take straight to the pay window? Join Jonathan Coachman on The Early Edge as he speaks with SportsLine's top handicappers to analyze the day's biggest games. From primetime showdowns to off-the-radar action, Early Edge gives you best bets in a quick, informative and easy-to-digest podcast. We promise to keep it short, sweet and to the point as SportsLine's featured experts come together to put some green in your pocket. The Early Edge is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Enable push notifications so you always know when the latest episode is available! Every episode is also available on YouTube, go to youtube.com/channel/UCZmtXolnY7-z9HLiBESjkyQ EVERY PICK BY LARRY HARTSTEIN: sportsline.com/experts/13773/larry-hartstein/ Follow @SportsLine on Twitter and Instagram Check us out on YouTube for video podcasts and exclusive content, visit youtube.com/SportsLine Follow our crew on Twitter: @TheCoachrules, @LarryHartstein, @Mike5754, @AllanBell247 and @jacob_hallex  You can listen to Early Edge on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Early Edge podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Early Edge podcast." For more betting picks and analysis, visit SportsLine.com To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit CBSSports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“- Ils n'ont pas honte ces vieux à se bécoter en public ! Aucune décence ! - Qu'est-ce que tu racontes ! Tu ne dirais pas ça si c'était des jeunes !" La bataille contre les préjugés continue avec Culture Gé ! Au programme de cette 2ème saison, des épisodes pour répondre à des questions que nous nous sommes tous posées : Peut-on tomber amoureux quand on est vieux ? Pourquoi votre grand-père ne veut pas de votre aide ? Les vieux sont-ils radins ? Ou encore pourquoi je suis trop jeune pour gagner au Scrabble ? Car ne l'oublions pas, Culture Géronto, c'est une émission qui s'intéresse aux idées reçues sur les personnes âgées. Chaque semaine, nous vous proposons un éclairage à partir des recherches en sciences sociales pour démêler le vrai du faux. Merci à l'action sociale d'AG2R LA MONDIALE, notre sponsor avec qui nous sommes ravis de partager l'aventure de cette saison pleine de nouveautés : Vous pourrez écouter les résidents Domitys La Jocondie poser leurs meilleures punchlines sur le podcast Vous pourrez regarder les épisodes en vidéos sur notre chaîne Youtube ou notre site Vous pourrez découvrir des interviews exclusives en bonus de certains épisodes Je m'appelle Fanny et je vous accompagnerais au cours des 10 prochains épisodes dans un format court, parfois drôle, souvent impertinent mais toujours intéressant. Retrouvez Culture Gé, votre dose de culture gérontologique, tous les jeudis sur votre plateforme de podcast préférée !

We share an early spring visit with the Militant Grammarian,Katherine Shulrds, that delivers some two-letter words for game players.

This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Which Came First” and “The Crystal Ball Moment.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Who Would You Beat Quickfire question with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. Schatzberg and Frischling would ask each guest who they would choose to have better odds of beating in a selected game. Frischling says, “It is by far the funniest question, and one where I will say, I hold the record as the stronger competitor over Schatzy. We've had funny answers throughout the season such as Schatzy being compared to a skinny can of shaken soda waiting to pop.” Schatzberg asks Douglass, “If you were to challenge Jimmy or I to a game of Paintball, who do you have the better odds of beating?” Douglass answers definitely Jimmy. You can check out the best of episode to hear Steven Simoni who at the time was the chief executive officer at Bbot choose who he would have the better odds in beating at Scrabble. Michael Jacober, CEO of Blanket gets asked about Clue, Clockedin's chief executive officer, Eric Smith's question was a round of bowling. Smith sounds like he was going to choose Frischling but picks Schatzberg. To hear all of the best of who would you beat answers to the questions they asked CEO of Ingest, Daniel Meth's challenge response to Slip N' Slide, Targetable, CEO, Andrew Nash pick his odds for Gin Rummy, Minnow's CEO, Steven Sperry's choice for Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, who Mighty Quinn Barbeque's co-ceo, Micha Magid picks for Pin The Tail On The Donkey, Josh Goodman, chief executive office of PourMyBeer answer for thumb war and Dispatch Goods CEO Lindsey Hoell gets asked who she has better odds of beating at Yahtzee. Ivan Matkovic, CEO of Spendgo gets asked who he would have better odds of beating in a game of risk. Matkovic picks Schatzberg. Tune in to hear the challenges and learn who Scott Siegel, chief executive officer from Curbit, Clayton Wood, CEO of Picnic, Rob Carpenter of Valyant AI, Kimberly Smith, chief executive officer of Copia, Taj Adhav CEO of Leascake, Zack Oates, Ovation CEO, Brandon Barton, CEO of Bite, Gary Goodman CEO of Yumpingo and Agot.AI CEO, Evan DeSantola on this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.

Meet Cute Presents: Cruise Ship - Part 4, where Edie meets Renata looking for Scrabble hour and gets a very high score.Story by Sara Shepard. Produced and Directed by Suha Araj. Casting Director and Line Producer: Jenn Nielsen. Audio Producer: Sean Paulsen. Starring: Liz Burdick, Rev. Yolanda, Gretchen Calder, Rasha Zamamiri, Barron Bass, Mathura Hawley, Sean Paulsen.Follow @MeetCute on Instagram and @MeetCuteRomComs on Twitter & TikTok. Join the rom-com conversation on our Discord.Please subscribe and rate us 5 stars!

We play a game of ARTISTS with FRIENDS! (which definitely has no relation to the game of Scrabble). A game where you try and spell as many artists names as possible each turn with the letters you pull randomly out of a sack! While playing the game iHeartRadio's Shannon Burns talks to Johnny Orlando about his new album "all the things that could go wrong", what it's like being in the spotlight, travelling to Egypt and Indonesia, Starting his own Podcast, and being a protective older brother on social media!WATCH THIS EPISODE: 

In his book, Seven Games, Oliver Roeder says that games are a “slice of life.” This hour we look at three games: chess, Scrabble, and Monopoly. We investigate why these games have endured in popularity through history, and we discuss what each one of them can teach us about life. GUESTS: Jenny Adams: Author of Power Play: The Literature and Politics of Chess in the Late Middle Ages Mary Pilon: A journalist and screenwriter and the author of The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game Oliver Roeder: A journalist and the author of Seven Games: A Human History Lindsay Shin: A competitive Scrabble player; she organizes an annual tournament in New Orleans The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired March 15, 2022.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week David and Marina have a casual chat about Scrabble, employees versus employers, the value of experience, becoming less critical of architecture and others, when Marina met David, why David took an extra year in architecture school, design independence, and toxic learning environments. The two also answer listener questions: What should I do if my high school grades are low, but I want to study/practice architecture? (01:00:00) How do I become a more valuable professional? (01:07:09) This episode is supported by Brizo • Monograph • Miele • Graphisoft SUBSCRIBE  • Apple Podcasts  • YouTube  • Spotify CONNECT  • Website: www.secondstudiopod.com • Instagram • Facebook • Twitter  • Call or text questions to 213-222-6950 SUPPORT Leave a review :) EPISODE CATEGORIES  •  Interviews: Interviews with industry leaders.  •  Design Companion: Informative talks for clients.   •  After Hours (AH): Casual conversations about everyday life.  •  Design Reviews: Reviews of creative projects and buildings.  •  Fellow Designer: Tips for designers.

INTRODUCTION We will be taking a brief three-week break from our current series in 2 Corinthians in order to spend our time on what might be called a “back to school” special. Here at Christ Church, and at King's Cross, and at CCD, we will all be addressing the same topics for these three weeks, and using the same texts. The reason for this is that our adversaries are not opposed to us for no particular reason. No, they have arguments, and we have a responsibility to address them. But as we do this, we want to do it on God's terms, not theirs. THE TEXT “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:15–17). SUMMARY OF THE TEXT Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (v. 15). As such, He is the firstborn over all creation (v. 15). He is the firstborn over all creation because He is the Creator of all things in that created order (v. 16). This means, in the first instance, that He is not contained by that created order—He is the Lord of it (v. 16). He created everything in Heaven, and on earth. He created all the visible creatures and all the invisible creatures. He created the thrones, the dominions, the principalities, the powers, and all things else (v. 16). Not only was everything created by Him, it was also created for Him (v. 16). He is prior to, and underneath, everything. He is the one who sustains everything that He has made (v. 17). This means that He created everything, and that He holds together all that He has created. The basic takeaway for Christians is that Darwinism is the Ur-enemy. THAT WORD SCIENCE What is the most basic question we can ask about knowledge? The word science comes from the Latin scire, “to know,” and so science lays claim to knowledge about the material world. But because most people think that our debates about science and reason and revelation are debates about what we know, we go astray. The foundational question rather is this—what are the preconditions for being able to know anything at all? What kind of a universe is necessary for it to be possible for bits of that universe to know things? The scriptural answer to this is plain. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: But fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: And the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Prov. 9:10). And so in the context of our text from Colossians this morning, the Creator of all things was made incarnate so that He might reconcile to Himself all the things that He had made, things which had been estranged from Him because of our sin. “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled” (Col. 1:21). In your minds. In your knowing. This includes scientific knowing. Engineered knowing. Historical knowing. Practical knowing. And so what this means is that the fear of the Lord is not the rival of science. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of science, the foundation of science, the ground of all science. It is what must be assumed in order for there to be any such thing as science. “The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them” (Psalm 111:2). THE REAL QUESTION The materialistic and atheistic scientist wants to treat this subject as a matter of what we know. He thinks the question of whether God made the world or not is the same kind of question as whether or not it is raining outside. “Let's just apply the scientific method and go check.” But if there is no Creator, and the universe is just an infinite concourse of atoms, then no knowledge of anything is possible—and this would include the idea that the universe is a concourse of atoms. That means it is not the same kind of question at all. Now I know that this might seem heady to some of you, but it is really important. If the cosmos is just the debris field of the Big Bang, and there is no God, then it is just simply an accident. But if you want to know what happened in an accident, the one thing you don't do is ask the accident. It doesn't know. It's the accident. As soon throw thousands of Scrabble tiles in the air and then eagerly expect them to spell out a detailed explanation of how no one actually ever invented the game of Scrabble. THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH The pursuit of truth, any kind of truth, scientific and philosophical included, requires an antecedent commitment to the idea that there is such a thing as truth. And if someone denies it, saying there is no truth, just ask him if that is true. If anyone's worldview says that there is really no reason to believe anything he says, then feel free to not. Earlier generations of unbelieving scientists were like the prodigal son before he ran out of his money. They were still spending the capital they had inherited from their father. But now, just like the prodigal son had no money, they have no basis for truth. They say that matter is the only thing that exists . . . but truth is not material. But what color is it? How much does it weigh? What chemicals make it up? The truth represented by the statement that “all is material” is not itself material. The scientific method cannot conclude no God. This is because the scientific method cannot consistently conclude with no scientific method. So it is not the case that science makes the idea of God incoherent. Rather a godless science makes science incoherent. CHRIST THE ARCHE And so we do not deploy our minds in order to defend the faith. Rather we recognize that it is the Christian faith that defends our minds. In the verse just after our text, it says that Christ is the beginning (arche), the preeminent one, the one who was firstborn from the dead. Christ is everything. It means that He is the first principle. He is the integration point of all things. He is the cornerstone. He is the ultimate elemental, the final Word. Christ is Lord. In the gift of Jesus to us, God the Father poured the footings for all possible knowing. But never forget the fact that the foundation of every form of lawful knowing, including the true gift of the scientific method, was established by a bleeding Christ. The crucified and risen one is the one who is given universal dominion, which means that His humility is the foundation of His exaltation. In turn that means that His humiliation is the deep foundation that enables us to know anything. Again, it is Christ or chaos.

It's our second climb into the scruff as your nice hosts continue development on "Dogpile!" We've updated the rules and did a lot of work toward defining the properties of a full prototype deck, consisting of 100, or 150... or maybe 250 unique cards? However many it ends up being, we're looking forward to part 3! Prompt Keep working on "Dogpile!" Game type Card game Player count 2-4 Setup Shuffle a standard 52-card deck.Deal 5 cards to each player.Set the remaining cards aside; this is the draft deckFor the first round, assign the "player one" indicator to the person who most recently played with a dog.TermsTurn: One player's action.Round: Once around the table (each player takes an action).Draft Deck: The pile of dog cards you draw from each round.Dogpile: This is where the dogs that you're able to recruit into your pack will end up.Pack Leader: The card drawn from the Draft Deck once per Round.Player One: The first player to lay their cards face-down next to the Pack Leader card in each round. The First Player status is indicated with a First Player token that rotates clockwise at the start of each round. Strays: The discard pile. Rules Objective: Get as many dogs into the Dogpile as possible!How to playDraw a card from the draft deck and place it face-up in the center of the table. This is the Pack Leader card.Without talking about what's in their hands or what cards they're playing, all players select and number of cards from their hand to lay face-down around the Pack Leader. Each player lays their cards face-down in clockwise order, starting with the First Player.Players can lay down any number of cards up to the full complement of their hand.If a player decides to not lay down any cards (skipping their turn, essentially), then skip to Step 3 below. Remaining players' turns are forfeit.After all players have put their selected cards face-down, all players reveal their cards at the same time.Once all cards are revealed, determine whether the group of dogs (the Pack) will join the Dogpile or become Strays. For the pack to join the Dogpile, every revealed card on the table (players' face-up cards and the Pack Leader card) must be physically "connect" to form a single unbroken shape, consisting entirely of legal connections. As of the recording of episode 275, cards can be connected by number or suit.Cards connected horizontally must be 1 number different (up or down) from the connected card. (Numerical values are 1-13 where Ace = 1 and King = 13).Cards connected vertically must be of the same suit.Cards cannot connect diagonally, and if two cards are physically touching, they must legally connect.The two Jokers are "wild" in that they can adopt any suit or number, but like a Scrabble tile, all cards connected to a Joker must connect based on a single, newly adopted value.Clear the table by placing the group of dogs in the Dogpile, in the Strays. Optionally, the pack of Strays may be tossed randomly about the room. Then, begin the next round.At the start of each subsequent round, players refresh their hands up to 5 with newly-drawn cards, and the Player One token is passed clockwise.Continue steps 1-6 above until the timer rings. How many dogs did you get in your Dogpile?

Annoy me with all your heart. (Part 12)- A Spring Break 13-part Novel.Annoy Me with all your heart.By FinalStand. The player above contains the intro section. Listen to the complete episode by clicking here, at Steamy Stories. “Come here, Mercy,” Rio coaxed, “On your back, my little slut, and spread those legs.” I wished I could see what she was up to because soon Mercy was moaning and gurgling all over the place.“Please, Rio,” Mercy pleaded, “please, ”“Do you like that?” Rio teased. “Wiggle that ass for me, then, Baby.”“Ah, oh, Rio, I love you,” Mercy moaned. SMACK!“None of that, you skank,” Rio snapped. “You are my toy, nothing more.”“Yes,” sobbed Mercy.“Good girl,” Rio responded. Mercy gave off a hiccup, then a gasp of pleasure. “You know you are my tight-ass whore; right?” Her victim lurched and moaned several more times.“Yes, yes, I understand,” Mercy gasped. “I'm yours, whenever, you want.” SMACK!“Good girl. Now shake that ass, Bitch,” Rio continued. Mercy began making choking, sobbing sounds. “Don't you dare cum until you get me off. Work that tongue like you mean it.” I could now visualize Rio and Mercy in a sixty-nine, Rio on top, with a dildo up Mercy's butt.While figuring that out, I almost missed Iona starting to spasm on my face. I could feel her vagina contracting on my tongue. One hand was yanking and releasing my hair while the fingernails on the other dug into my shoulder. I moved my tongue and latched onto her clit with my lips and sucked on it for all I was worth.“Ah, oh, oh, oh, ZANE!!!!!” Iona screamed. Her fluids dripped over my nose, into my mouth, and down my chin, but that wasn't my problem. My problem was that Iona's body was convulsing, bending her backward toward the head of the bed and me forward into Barbie Lynn. Of course, if I couldn't stop Iona's progress, she'd topple onto Barbie Lynn too.“Oh, Godfuckdamn!” Barbie exploded as I rammed my full length into her inadvertently. “Jesus, love, ” which was cut off by her orgasm taking over. Her anal muscles constricted and that was it for me. Hot semen shot down Barbie's gut, causing her to scream even louder. My whole body was trembling from my ejaculation, plus the strain the two women were putting on me.Somehow I hung on long enough for Iona to reach behind her, catching the headboard, while Barbie Lynn extended her arms up to brace Iona from tumbling over.“Fuck, yeah, that's what I'm talking about,” Rio laughed. “Mercy, you can come now.”“Uh, uh, thank, oh, God,” Mercy gasped out. “Rio, Um, ugh,” she choked out before she buried her face into Rio's pussy and muffled further expressions of ecstasy.“Gurr,” Rio growled, before burying her face into the top of Mercy's thigh. I figured by Mercy's thrashing that Rio took a bit of a nip out of her playmate's flesh. In a shuddering heap of sweaty flesh, Iona, Barbie Lynn, and I flopped onto the bed without anyone being crushed. They lay there while I remained on my knees.“Damn,” Valerie chuckled, “I feel like a virgin all over again.”“Hell, I need to take a shower and I just sat here,” Gorman agreed. I moved between Barbie Lynn and Iona. “Fuck, he's still hard.”“Zane's like that,” Barbie Lynn laughed between gasps of breath. “He's always hard after the first round, God bless his soul.”Iona snuggled into me, kissing my chest between gulps of air.“It's only been thirty minutes,” Iona sighed. “We'll let him recharge a little bit before going at him again.”“Yes, my butt hurts,” Barbie Lynn added. “I won't be ready for, say an hour.”Rio dismounted Mercy and rolled next to Barbie Lynn.“Mercy, get up here and kiss me, damn it,” Rio breathed huskily. Mercy staggered around on all fours and crawled up Rio's body until she straddled her. A dreamy smile on her face, Mercy went to kiss Rio on the lips but Rio stopped her.“No, you don't, you cunt,” Rio chastised her. “Here,” she indicated her chin. Mercy kissed it. Rio then led Mercy on a slow quest over her nose, cheeks, earlobe, and finally the lips. Rio grabbed Mercy's hips and pulled the older girl down on top of her.“Okay, I have to ask; how did Rio end up in bed with Mercy? Mercy is one of my better martial artists and Rio is, well, Rio, kind of an annoying little twerp,” Gorman wondered.“I won her playing bingo,” was Rio's smarmy comeback.“They developed a relationship when you put her in our path,” I was a bit more honest. “Mercy discovered something about herself and someone in Rio who could satisfy her needs.” To emphasize the point, Rio spanked Mercy's ass hard and the girl humped Rio in response.“So, besides Cappadocia, are there any of my other girls you, have a relationship with?” Dana inquired. She even leaned forward on the chair she was sitting on.“What makes you think Cappy and I have a thing?” I asked.“On Monday,” Dana rolled her eyes at my naiveté, “she hated you and on Wednesday, she couldn't keep her eyes off of you and couldn't drive the other teammates out of the gym for your, private lesson. Just because I'm over thirty doesn't mean I'm soft in the head.”“That's not fair, Coach,” Rio smiled past Mercy. “We never thought you were bright.”Before I could say or do anything, Barbie Lynn elbowed her.“Ow!” Rio snickered. “Why are you hitting me?”“I owe you. You said a bad thing, and Zane says never fight yesterday's battles. Now that the Coach is no longer the bad girl, we don't pick on her,” Barbie Lynn explained.“But I'm always annoying,” Rio countered. “Why is this time special?”“Rio, don't you think Zane deserves a break? He's always throwing himself onto the train tracks for you and you give him shit for it,” Barbie Lynn sounded a bit cross. “After all, you wouldn't have Mercy if you'd had your way. Zane was right about you being good for the rest of us to know, and he was right about saving Mercy. I trust him about Coach because I trust you too.”“Trust, smust, I'll keep my spank-o-matic,” Rio grimaced. She clearly got Barbie Lynn's point but admitting it at the moment wasn't in her. “So, does anyone want to give Mercy a hard spanking? If not, I'm going to get my big strap-on and ream her ass until she is so hoarse, she can't scream anymore.”“Don't you think you two need to grow together before using the ‘OMG' model?” I warned her. That thing would tear Mercy's unprepared butt to shreds. I reached over Barbie Lynn and spanked Mercy four times, two to each ass cheek. She yelped and jolted with each contact, and while tears welled in her eyes, she couldn't have been happier.“I'm getting my favorite strap-on, then,” Rio wiggled from under Mercy.“Hold her back,” Valerie joked. “She's lost her mind.” Mercy buried her face in the bed, shook her head, and raised her butt up in the air. “Fine, if it's the Spas-monkey you want, so be it.”“Have some of this,” Barbie Lynn fished out the lubricant and handed it to Mercy. “I don't know how patient Rio is going to be when she gets back.”Rio, who was only a few feet away getting out and attaching her strap-on, stuck out her tongue at Valerie and Barbie. “Spaz-monkey? I prefer Vibrator-Bunny, or didn't you two get my tweet?”“How about Vibrating Spaz?” Iona suggested. Rio howled and charged the bed.“That's it,” she giggled, “that tight little virgin butt-hole is mine!” Iona squawked and buried herself under my side.“That's my virgin butt to nurture and enjoy, bro, not yours,” I taunted Rio as I reached around and put a comforting arm around Iona. I wasn't sure how Iona would take that. Her kisses to my ribs ended those worries.“I'll nipple twist you for her,” Rio grinned. Belying her threat, she was lining up behind Mercy while Mercy was rubbing lube all along her ass cleft and anus.“I never considered the benefits of anal sex in a school full of virgin school girls,” Valerie mused. “Oral sex, I expected, but not anal.”“Somehow, when the Founders created the Purity Pledge, I suspect they were forbidding all kinds of intercourse, but they never counted on Zane,” Dana stated.“Rio, I'm not going to take you on in a contest you love and I hate,” I smiled. “How about a shoot-off? I'll spot you two orgasms.”“Four,” Rio hissed. She'd spread the oil over her dildo and was slowly pushing it into the ass of Mercy. Mercy had her face still buried in the sheets, her fists balled up and her hips pushing back.“Uh, uh, uh,” Mercy groaned, as Rio penetrated with short jabs. She rested her hands on Mercy's shoulder and neck.“Okay, now I'm grateful I sleep on my back,” Valerie commented. “I promised Zane I wouldn't break her, but if I felt that poking my hiney, I'd stick it somewhere she'd not soon forget.”“Do the world a favor and stick it in her mouth,” Dana smirked.“Hardy, har-har,” Rio chuckled. She reached down beside Mercy, retrieved her vibrator, and began rubbing it along that girl's pussy slit and clit. Barbie Lynn reached for my cock and began stroking it, rubbing it along her ass and between her cheeks.“I need another beer,” Dana sighed. “All this is doing is reminding me that plastic doesn't really get the job done.”“Get me a Coke and I'll get the popcorn,” Valerie said. “After all, I have an open invitation to join whenever I want.” I had to wonder when that had happened, then I remembered Rio and her big mouth.Iona had settled in on her side, head propped up on her elbow, as she watched me push into Barbie Lynn once more. I had my hands on her hip and thigh, pushing in with more force this time around.“Feels, so, good,” Barbie Lynn sighed, as my cock filled up her rectum. “Make me feel good, Daddy.”I lifted up her left leg, then gingerly took her wounded leg and raised it to my shoulder as well. As I felt the deep reaches of her bowels envelop me, Barbie Lynn arched her back and let out a sob of joy.“Oh, that's what I need,” she moaned, “That's what I've missed.”Unlike our first round, this time we were raw with our hunger for one another. I kneaded her breasts, teasing and pulling the nipples from time to time. Her body was folded up so that our faces were close enough for me to lock onto those gorgeous bedroom blue eyes. Barbie licked her lips and blew kisses at me.I was so into Barbie sensually that I almost missed Mercy going off next to us.“Oh God, oh fuck, oh God!” she verbally exploded. “Please!!!” Rio kept up the slap, slap, slap of her thighs against Mercy's butt.“Don't you give up on me, Bitch,” Rio taunted her. She grabbed a handful of Mercy's hair and pulled her shoulder up off the bed until she was balancing on her hands and knees.Rio shot a look my way and mouthed ‘I love you' as she kept working Mercy over into one cascading orgasm after another. I was pounding deep into Barbie Lynn's tight orifice, Rio was happy, and Iona was giving me a dreamy, contented look. Life could hardly be better.“Zane, we need to, Oh, My God!” Virginia Goodswell cried out in a shocked voice.Faculty Spectators in Zane's Bedroom“Here, have my seat, Virginia,” Gorman grinned. “You look like you are about to fall over.” I hadn't even heard Dana or Valerie return.“Zane, what are you doing?” Virginia questioned.“I'm a little busy,” I ground out. Fucking was hard, attention intensive, and pleasurable work.“Virginia, he's having anal intercourse with Barbie Lynn Masters,” Dana chuckled. “I thought that would have been obvious. Rio Talon is using a strap-on and a dildo on Mercy Chaplain, and Iona, having been touched and licked to two orgasms, is sitting this round out.”“I can see that and, Dana, what are you doing here?” Virginia, my Spiritual Advisor, asked.“I'm unemployed so they aren't my students anymore,” Dana snorted. “Also, Zane's got one of the few illegal internet hook-up plus satellite TV. My apartment is a tomb, comparatively.”“This was the farthest thing from my mind when I learned my Dad was sending me to an All-Girl Christian University,” Valerie added.“It is the skirts,” Rio giggled. “Zane can't keep his hands off the skirts.”“In my experience, Zane has the pathological desire to worship the female form,” Iona joined in.“Listen, I knew Zane was having, relationships, but coming in and finding him in bed with four women, girls, students is a bit much to wrap my mind around,” Virginia related. “My sex life has been a bit vanilla.”“I prefer to think of mine as disappointing,” Dana confessed.“All my boyfriends have lived under threat of dismemberment, so I've had it pretty safe too,” Valerie stated.“Threat of dismemberment?” Virginia stammered.“She's a member of a major criminal biker organization in the Rockies,” Dana informed her.“We are a motorcycle club,” Valerie defended her family.“I'm having sex here,” I growled. “If you don't mind, ”“We are good, Zane,” Valerie replied. “Don't worry about us, and Barbie needs you.”“Gee, thanks,” I grumbled, but she was right; Barbie Lynn needed my attention.“Ms. Palmer, every one of your known associates, except your baby sister, has a criminal record,” Dana said.“I've never been convicted of anything,” Val countered, “and Mom got off on a bad search.”Mercy cried out as Rio shifted to sharp powerful jabs with her artificial cock.“I've got a record,” Rio crowed proudly.“That only means you were sloppy enough to get caught,” Valerie pointed out.“It wasn't my fault; I ran out of road while driving a stolen Porsche,” Rio told us.“You stole a Porsche?” Valerie asked.“How do you run out of road in an expensive, high-performance sports car?” Virginia wondered.“Yes, take that, Mercy, you bitch,” slap, slap, “I stole a Porsche and I ran out of road when I cruised into another car showroom on the far side of town. Who knew that those dumb sons-of-bitches didn't put a back way out that place?”“Rio, why did you steal something that didn't belong to you in the first place?” Iona begged to know.“Blame drugs, teenage hormones, or the fact that it was a school night, I hadn't studied for a test the next day, and this sounded like the best way of not having to take it,” Rio suggested.I would have told them that was Rio-speak for 'I have no idea' except I'd finally stretched Barbie Lynn's hamstrings to the point we had our tongues entwined, mouths pressed, and teeth nibbling on each other's lips like famished lovers. I could feel her anal spasm vibrating up through her body and her lungs fighting for air. She was getting close and I thought it was going to be a big one.“That would be an exhibition of low impulse control,” Dana chided Rio.“I think it shows poor life choices,” Virginia stated.“I think it shows she's fucking nuts,” Valerie declared.“Fine, whatever, but I'm one of the two people fucking a sweet piece of ass while you dykes are sitting on the sidelines,” Rio taunted them.“You are my students,” Virginia began, “I don't, ” She was interrupted by Barbie Lynn.“Ugh, Oh, Lord Jesus, Zane,” she gasped then, “Aye!” she screamed so loud I was afraid my brain would explode. She kept trying to buck me off and thrash about so violently that I was afraid she'd hurt herself, or me.I rode that wave for almost a minute before Barbie Lynn made one final strenuous effort, then went limp in my arms. I gently shifted her legs down my sides to rest on the bed. I remained propped over her until her eyes focused on me and an ephemeral smile graced her lips.“Um, sleepy,” she purred.“Okay, Babe,” I said, then kissed her nose. Her eyes closed and her breathing became low and regular. “Okay,” I whispered once again. I slowly withdrew from her and slid down the bed.“What was that?” Virginia asked softly.“I'm pretty sure that was an orgasm,” Dana responded.“No, I think that was fucking a girl into unconsciousness,” Valerie countered.“Ugh, ugh, uh, Rio, oh, yeah, it hurts,” Mercy moaned.“And here goes the other one,” Dana chuckled.“I know it hurts, Mercy-slut, now cum for your Momma,” Rio groaned to Mercy as he pressed her body onto Mercy's back.“Ugh, I, I'm, trying,” Mercy gasped out, then she screamed as Rio rammed the vibrator onto Mercy's clit and flicked it onto the high setting. “Oh, Fuck Me!!” she screamed. Mercy's body fell forward prostrate on the bed, her lungs fighting for air and her thighs and ass shaking uncontrollably.“Zane, does this kind of thing hap-, oh, my God, Zane, you are still hard,” Virginia exclaimed.“Honestly,” I sighed, “if I had fewer beautiful women in my life, I'd have more blood to the brain to think straight with.” I finished up by opening my wardrobe and taking out a robe.“Now I'm going to take a shower, get re-hydrated, then come back here and see if I can convince Iona to give me a little more of her time,” I continued.“I'll join you,” Rio grinned, as she slipped off the strap-on.“I'll come along as well,” Iona said as she popped off the bed, only to end up on wobbly legs.“No,” Virginia commanded, “Zane showers alone. You two aren't even dressed so there is no way you are going out there among all those other girls sticky with sex.”Rio traipsed over to my dresser and pulled out two of my dress shirts. She tossed one to Iona and put on the other.“See, I'm dressed,” Rio declared.“No, you are not; that shirt isn't even buttoned,” Virginia responded. At this point, I walked out of the room and toward the shower near the hot tub (as opposed to the one by the sauna).PAIGE REVISITEDWith the looks I was getting, I almost wished I could back up. Some of the fifty or so girls at my place wondered what the hell all that screaming was about, a few knew what it was but couldn't believe the volume of the noise, and a few came up and kissed me.“Hey, Slugger,” Opal teased me after a deep tongue tackle. “Who in the hell where you giving it to?”Brandi came up and wrapped an arm around Opal's arm.“It was Barbie Lynn,” Paige snuck up on me and volunteered. “I recognize her inflections.” Her ghosting up on me yet again wasn't the most disturbing part of the young albino maiden; it was the burning hunger in her eyes.“You took Barbie Lynn's virginity?” Millicent Pierce questioned me somewhat fearfully.“That's not the hole Zane goes up,” Opal grinned wickedly. Millicent instinctively covered her backside.“Can you imagine how good that had to feel to make Barbie Lynn scream that loud?” Paige purred. Uh, oh, that was some serious trouble being aimed my way.“Does that hurt?” Millicent murmured.“Yeah, it hurts so much that Barbie Lynn hunts Zane down every other night and has sex with him until she can no longer move,” Opal exaggerated. “Speaking of which, where is our real Dorm Mother?”“She's asleep in bed,” I admitted, somewhat shame-facedly. Millicent looked blown away.“Can I go see her?” Millicent asked.“She's my lover, not an exhibit,” I informed her. “Let her sleep in peace.” I moved through the little crowd and entered the shower.The hot water cascaded over my body, erasing the fatigue from my tired muscles and cleaning my sweaty body and the sex off my cock. Getting out proved that not only did sexually repressed young ladies like to ogle my naked form, but they also paid no attention to my desires. I caught Paige and Millicent sneaking back out of my room with Rio and Iona in tow.“She looks so, peaceful,” Millicent muttered.“What part of leave her alone did you not understand?” I growled angrily.“Spank the naughty bitches,” Rio egged me on.“They didn't do anything to wake Barbie Lynn up,” Iona defended them.“I'm sorry,” Millicent apologized. Paige looked anything but contrite, challenging my gaze instead.“Fine, spank Snowflake here,” Rio persisted.“What? No Edgar Winters reference?” Paige shot back while keeping her eyes on me.“Paige,” I said in a deadly even tone, “apologize or leave.”“Or what?” she taunted. I nodded and took a deep breath.“Oh, you are going to get it now, you skank,” Rio chuckled. Instead, I walked past them all and went to my room.“That was a bit disappointing,” Paige sneered. No one else said anything for a second, then Iona clued in.“Whoops, Paige, Zane will be right back,” Iona commented.“I can hardly wait,” she said sarcastically.In the room, Virginia and Dana had moved to the small sofa on the far side of the room, deep in quiet conversation. Mercy had curled up next to a sleeping Barbie Lynn, and Barbie Lynn looked like some angel, confident, sleeping, and almost otherworldly in her beauty. Before I could hope to enjoy it, I had to get dressed and resolve an issue.I raced through dressing back into my school uniform and walked outside.“Now you are going to get it,” Rio whispered to Paige. Paige snorted.“Paige, you brought me word about Heaven and I owe you for that, so if we can agree that you are going to respect me and my personal space, I'm going to forget about you going to my bedroom uninvited,” I laid it out for her.“And if I don't?” she confronted me.“I pick you up, throw you over my shoulder, and toss you out of the dorm, and you won't be invited back until you grow a personality that isn't all conceited douche,” I answered.“You can't and you won't,” Paige shook her head.“Reality check, Paige,” I grinned. “I'll ask Cordelia to keep you away, and while she likes you, she needs me more, and you don't have the stones to go against Cordelia, do you?”“Is that the best you have, Zane?” Paige sniffed derisively.“Paige, you are a really smart girl, but Cordelia has several really smart girls,” I pointed out. “What matters is how many friends you have compared to how many friends I have. How does that math work out for you?”“That doesn't mean anything,” Paige responded defensively.“Good enough. I don't really feel like arguing,” I shrugged. I swept up on Paige, who had some good reaction time but no skill. I had her up and over my shoulder in three seconds flat.“Put me down!” she squawked. I headed down the stairs, her fists beating my back and her legs kicking.“Bye-bye, ya whore,” Rio chuckled. It didn't take much imagination to know that Iona was glaring at Rio for that comment.“Stop, put me down,” Paige struggled. After we made the elevator, “You can put me down now.” I didn't respond because I wasn't hearing what I needed to hear and I didn't feel like engaging her in conversation.“Please, don't,” she tried, once we landed on the first floor, but to no effect. I took her to the dorm door, kicked it open, and stepped out.“Here you go,” I said as I deposited her. I had no idea how far past tears she'd gotten.“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” she snarled. “Okay? Happy? You win and I lose. You are the popular kid and I'm not.”“No, I'm not happy,” I answered calmly. “This never had anything to do with me beating you up; it had to deal with you constantly slapping me around and I got sick of it. Paige, you got so sick of being bullied, you became a bully.” She clearly didn't believe me. “You are pretty and smart, and you use these qualities as a scalpel to cut people up.”“What would you know about it?” she snapped. “You've always been Mr. Popular.”“Take into account I was in a normal private school for my first ten years. Yes, I was one of the popular kids; good looking, the right parents, and pretty smart. I also knew the social hierarchy and I was certainly unkind to my fair share other students.”“Before you go beating me over the head with you being albino, please understand: I don't care. My parents are gone, dead. I'm never getting them back. You are a slender, smart girl with gorgeous hair who has two parents who probably love you very much,” I smiled. “I only wish you would lead off with those traits instead of constantly reminding everyone how fucking condescending you can be.”Paige looked at me for half a minute, studying me, perhaps looking for some understanding of me. Good luck with that; I barely understand me and I'm inside my head.“Does this mean I can go back inside?” she finally inquired.“Yes. All I wanted was a simple apology, and technically, you are still on the dorm sidewalk so I haven't finished throwing you out yet,” I replied.“Just like that?” she snorted. “You are such an idiot.”“What did I warn you about leading with the grey matter?” I scowled. She seemed to weigh her next words.“You said I was 'very pretty',” she mused, changing the direction of the conversation suddenly.“Well, yes, you have a flawless complexion girls would kill for and, as I said earlier, I really like you hair,” I stated. “It is gorgeous.” I put my arm around her shoulder, spun us around, and went back inside. As we boarded the elevator for the return trip, Paige tapped my hand.“What's with all this?” she indicated my casual embrace.“When you aren't trying to piss me off, I honestly like you, Paige,” I confided in her.“You seem to live your life by making some rather irrational decisions,” she noted.“Paige, you see life as chess while I see it as Scrabble,” I grinned. “For you, it is move and countermove. I tend to see life being something that gives you a constantly changing group of options that you make the most of.”“Oh,” she seemed to digest that, then she said, “I apologize for calling you an idiot. You are a moron; I should have seen the difference.” I laughed from deep within.“I'm a moron,” I teased her. “I bet you've never been held by a boy like this before because if you had, you would know this gives the guy a perfect vantage point to look down your shirt.”Paige clutched her shirt tightly in a fist, blocking my view. She looked bitter and offended.“30-B, a translucent white with lace trim bra,” I told her. “Good choice, but I get the impression you don't wear it as a normal part of your school attire. Wearing it for me?”“What makes you think, ” she started, then “Yes.”“What was the plan?” I inquired.“I was going to spill water all over my chest by accident, ask for one of your shirts to replace it, and for you to show me where it was,” she smiled slyly. “With my bra and your libido, plus a little playful contact, I'd get you into bed.” She was highly confident.“Nice,” I admitted, “but it wouldn't have worked.”“Why not?” she seemed slightly offended. My money was, her insecurities about her body not measuring up to Barbie Lynn's curves were behind that.“I would have given you a robe and sent Iona down to her room to get you a spare,” I informed her. “Your only flaw in the plan is that I find you inherently untrustworthy.”“Why do you say that?” she was now really offended.“Paige, you use people. It is your default relationship approach,” I explained. “It is not so much a bad thing as it is predictable. Someone as smart as you can do better.”“You don't seem to mind it when Cordelia treats you that way,” she countered. We were at the door to my place.“If you will recall, Cordelia told me to kiss her as part of my Handmaiden's Duty,” I reminded Paige. “Now, if you want to be a Cordelia substitute, go ahead, I'll still spend time with you if you like. I only think you need a friend who should point out that people are people from time to time.”“Now you want to be my friend, Zane?” she mocked me.“I'll be your friend, but you have to wear this sexy blood red stocking, garter, bossier, bra and choker combination. It will make your flesh glow like it is on fire,” I grinned lasciviously.“I thought you wanted to see my flawless skin devoid of obstructions,” Paige said.“I'll dress you up in it, and if you don't like it, I'll remove it too,” I smile mischievously. She looked at me, her mighty mental calculator going over where the conversation was going.“Why do you see me differently than everyone else?” she asked.“Give me some leeway,” I requested, then bent down slightly, slipped a hand under her skirt, making her jump minutely, and ran my middle finger under her underwear band into her pussy.She bit her lip but kept staring intently at me as I moved that finger up and down, back and forth, until it was covered in her fluids. I sunk my forefinger in and did the same. I removed my hand and brought the forefinger to my lips. As I sucked the liquid off and savored the taste, I caught Paige licking her lips in sympathetic hunger.I pointed my middle finger at her mouth and pushed it forward, daring her to take it in her mouth. She barely resisted and was soon running her tongue along my finger inside her mouth, cleaning it off. I pulled it out and she grinned at me seductively.“You stick your middle finger into my mouth with my vaginal secretions on it, that is a not so subtle 'I'm going to fuck you'; right?” she teased.“I could say 'I'll tell you when I figure out if I'm a moron or an idiot,' but I'd rather tell the truth. You piss me off,” I confessed, “and I want to hammer you through my bed and into the floor. I want to make you scream, cry, and look down on you with your face glowing from the exertion and your hair damp with your sweat.”Paige's eyes grew wide and her breaths deepened as I told her what I wanted and expected.“Don't worry, though,” I said as I leaned in. She expected a kiss on the lips but I went for the forehead instead, “because it will never happen. Bye now.”“What!” she squalled, grabbing my arm as I tried to move past her. “Why not?”I looked back at her and grinned evilly.“Gotcha!” I smirked. “That's what it feels like when someone yanks your chain. If you still want to go up with me, know I won't screw with you again unless you screw with me.” She didn't react for the longest time so I finally turned back up the stairs.“The point of all this was making you want to screw me,” Paige laughed as she ran to my side.I've said it before and I'll say it again, women are fucking nuts, and I'll grow crazy or end up dead trying to understand them. I could try to run away from the jumble of contradictions and obfuscations that was Paige Zeller but where is the fun in that?“I'm not kicking anyone out of the bedroom,” I cautioned her.“That's fine,” she announced happily, “you do your best work when you have an audience.”“We really need to work on your romantic technique,” I lectured her.“Zane, I want you for your physical prowess,” Paige countered. “If I want mental stimulation, I have this e-pal in Taipei who I regularly communicate with.”“I repeat, you need to work on how you romance your partner,” I grumbled. We opened the door when we reached the top of the stairs and got a few stares as they tried to figure out what was going on. I debated what to do (I was sort of hungry) when Paige dragged me toward the bedroom.“Oh! Pay up, pay up,” Opal called out.“Damn,” bitched Rio. “I keep hoping my boy Zane will develop some standards, but oh, well.”“They were betting on you bringing me back for sex?” Paige whispered, but her desire was glowing bright. I shook my head and chuckled.“Don't worry about it; I still see you as a whirling vortex of passionate lust,” I assured her.We passed around the Chinese screens that separated my area from the rest of the floor and I was relieved to see everyone but Barbie Lynn had left, and Barbie had curled up on the near side of the bed and was still asleep. As we moved around the bed, Paige's resolve began to falter.“Sit down, let's talk,” I said softly. Paige was clearly confused.“The most powerful tool in sex is the brain,” I continued. “I want to know you a little better first.”“I should be great at this,” she replied.“How many boys have you kissed?” I asked as we sat down. She looked surprised by the question.“Two,” was her curt response. “Zane, I want you to take my virginity.” Now it was my turn to be surprised, but I was only put off for a moment.“Tell me about those two times,” I persisted. Paige had started tugging her shirt out from her skirt and was clearly not pleased with my request.“Zane, didn't you hear me? I want you to pop my cherry, break me in, fuck my vagina, whatever you want to call it,” she told me.“Yes,” I nodded, “and I'm looking forward to that, but answer the question please.”“I, I've been kissed by two boys, one kiss per boy,” she replied, but I could tell there was more to it.“Do I have to play twenty questions with you?” I gave an exasperated sigh. Paige flushed with anger.“Fine, damn it,” she growled. “The first boy, I paid to kiss me on the lips. He did so, and he looked at me like he wanted to throw up.” That looked like it hurt her to admit.“The second time, it was a joke, a dare. I closed my eyes, he kissed me on the lips, and then I heard the applause. They congratulated him for kissing the freak,” she recited with anguish. “They laughed at me while I ran away.” She looked furious and miserable at the same time.I tilted her head up toward me. I let my first kiss barely brush her lips. I let her study my reaction, and then I kissed her again.The third kiss pressed our lips together, and on the fourth, our tongues touched. The fifth saw her wrap her arms around me and hold me tight for nearly a minute. She was panting for breath when we came up for air. I used that moment to pick her up and place us both farther into the bed.“Eep!” she exclaimed, then she started to giggle. I straddled her and dove in to nibble her neck. Paige beat at my chest with her fists but couldn't stop laughing. “That tickles!” We fell back into kissing for a while; Paige didn't need to rush into sex despite her declared desires. “Shouldn't we take our clothes off?”I responded to that by sitting up, grabbing her shirt in both hands over the breasts, and ripping it open. Buttons went flying everywhere and Paige's eyes expressed her shock. I reached for her bra but Paige's hands flew to mine.“Wait,” she gasped. “It unsnaps from the front.” I even let her open the bra for me, exposing her ghostly breasts and pale pink areolas and nipples.I shifted down Paige's body and latched my lips to her left breast, causing her to cry out in pleasure.“Oh, damn,” she purred, “this is so much better in real life.” I wasn't sure I knew what that meant, or that I even wanted to know.I feasted on each nipple and breast in turn until they were fully engorged and bright, rosy pink from my attention. She'd spread her legs wide open and was humping her hips up against me. I pulled away long enough to get my shirt off before descending on her for kisses once more. In the midst of that, we rolled over where she grabbed me by the side of the head and covered my face with butterfly kisses.“I've always wanted to do that,” she beamed pure joy at me. I moved my hands down her ribs, waist, and hips until I was able to pull up her skirt and grab her ass. Paige aggressively humped me in response, smiling at me and breathing heavy. Without any urging, Paige pushed up my body until she dangled her breast against my lips.I greedily sucked one in, teasing her nipple with my teeth. Paige yelped but followed me down without comment, cradling my head into her chest and rocking me back and forth.“Careful, Honey, he's addictive,” Barbie Lynn sleepily intervened.“He's going to take my virginity,” Paige exulted.“Is he now?” she grinned at me.“She's asked; I'm considering it, but I want to know she's really ready for it first,” I mumbled back between mouthfuls of tit.“Wait,” she panted, “you promised me.”“Paige, Rule 7 for guys: when sex is involved, we lie,” I informed her.“Oh, what lie did you tell Barbie Lynn?” Paige inquired.“He forces me to orgasm so he can bask in my post-orgasmic bliss,” Barbie Lynn sighed dreamily.“Besides,” I said, as I ran my hands through her fine white hair and tucked a few locks behind her ears, “I am not saying we won't do it, but you are an incredibly tough read and we aren't going to do something I don't think you need.”“How come you get to decide?” Paige sounded annoyed.“I'm the only guy you've approached who you didn't find on an escort service website; we are in my bed; and, oh, yeah, I've had sex hundreds of times and you are in all ways a virgin,” I listed off the reasons. “Paige, you only get to do this 'first time' once, and I would like it to be something you love and want to do again and again.”“Well, I know what I want. I am in your bed and you're half-naked already,” she emphasized by grinding her pelvis into me. “I'm also on top and I don't think you can get rid of me that easily.”“This one is a little firecracker,” Barbie Lynn chuckled.“She's that,” I commented, “but you should always be leery of someone who thinks they are always right.” My words didn't stop me from pressing my cock up against Paige's twat. “We could always have a little butt-sex instead,” I teased.“No!” Paige squeaked. “You are huge and my butthole is tiny.”“Oh, God,” I laughed. “You actually looked at your butt in a mirror.” Paige blushed furiously. “Listen, Paige, trust me on this. You can go into town and find some college guy who will jump at the chance to screw you. What you have to wonder is how much he'll care about you and your needs as well as how good he is at sex. Let's get naked.”“Finally,” Paige mocked. She rolled off and shed her clothes so fast they left angry red tracks down her legs. I took my time but Paige didn't seem to mind. She reached out and ran a hand over my bicep and shoulder.“He's real enough,” Barbie Lynn assured her quietly.“How did you know what I was thinking?” Paige mused. At least she only implied Barbie Lynn was stupid.“Paige, sweetie, how many of us FFU girls expect to be able to choose our man, much less one worth having? And don't you be disparaging of Zane, now, either. I can smell your arousal from here,” Barbie Lynn said with a sexy curve to her lips.Paige was thinking of her retort when she gasped as I caught her distracted and slipped two fingers along the folds of her cunt. When her razor sharp focus latched onto me once more, I pushed her onto her back and mounted her. Her legs splayed out to either side and the location of her hips against my stomach reminded me of how narrow her hips were, narrower than even Iona's.She still did her best to wrap her legs around me as she placed her hands on my shoulders.“Are you going to make me scream?” she asked nervously.“Every girl is different so don't worry about it,” I grinned. “Besides, I can tell you'll be really good at this.”“How can you know I'll be any good at sex?” Paige snapped. Yes, that was the sore point I was looking for.“Your eyes sparkle when you touch me, you react instinctively to my touch, you are in good physical shape, and you're very sensitive all over your body,” I explained. “What you saw as fooling around was me mapping out how your body works and where your erogenous zones were. No two women are the same and I love exploring. Now I'm getting back to it.”I began placing kisses along her sternum, down toward her navel. Her stomach pulsed when I kissed the belly button.“Oh, aha,” Paige moaned. I licked and stroked the area around her navel, causing her torso to gyrate from the sexual stimulation. “Um, that feels nice.”Unlike previous encounters with other women where I avoided the pussy while I worked around it, I instead placed one hand immediately to the area, squeezing two fingers into her cunt and wiggling them around. I left the clit alone for now because I was encouraging a slow boil, not a flash burn. I wanted Paige in an erotically charged high before I challenged her vaginal virginity.Paige's skin had this false translucent quality to it that was exciting to watch. You could track the arousal of a touch by the blood rushing to the skin around the excited area. Physically, she could conceal nothing, and she was far from sexually experienced enough to stifle her vocalizations of pleasure.“I just want to be fucked,” she moaned,“ I just want to be fucked, aha, oh.” Her words said one thing but her body expressed its desire for more excitement. “No, ” she groaned as she ground her hips against my lips. When I stabbed my tongue to her clit, she acted like a jolt of electricity arched through her body.Now, when I've performed cunnilingus on a girl, I expect a bit of movement; I'm doing something wrong if she lays there. Paige was all over the place, pulling away then thrusting back as well as rolling her hips rapidly side to side. At the moment her thrashing turned into trembles, I withdrew my lips and fingers, causing Paige to whimper and look down at me.“Huh?” she pleaded. I gave her a mischievous grin, then blew on her clit. Paige hiccupped, then threw her head down on the bed violently. I began sucking on the inside of her thighs for about one minute, letting her settle down, then leapt on her clit with my tongue once more.“Oh, God!” Paige squealed.I moved my tongue off, trading off with two fingers parting her labia and flicking her clit with my thumb. I alternated back and forth over five minutes until I noticed Paige was sobbing and tearing up the sheets with her fists.“Have mercy, Zane,” Barbie Lynn whispered.I gave a quick nod before placing my lips around Paige's clit and sucking on it with growing intensity plus twirling the tip of my tongue along its tip. I also made tiny fucking motions with two fingers into her cunt. She didn't last thirty seconds.“Oh, my, God, Zane!” she growled.She wasn't loud but she rumbled her orgasm from deep in her chest. It was kind of surprising, coming from such a lithe, ephemeral being. Paige was sucking down further sounds internally so that they were merely sobs. I crawled up to her side, rested sidewise, propped up by an elbow, and placed a hand on her stomach as I watched over her. When she started gasping for air, her eyes locked with mine once more.Paige feebly pushed on my chest so I let her push me on my back. She struggled to rise over me, then collapsed on my chest.“I, that was, you still didn't fuck me,” she wheezed. I sighed in frustration, pulled Paige on top of me, chest to chest, and then began playing slap-happy with her ass.“Ow,ow, ow, ow, ow,” she squalled. “Stop that; I bruise easily,” she added, with tears in her eyes.“Damn it, woman, is it going to kill you to accept that I know what I'm doing?” I responded angrily. “Since you are clearly clueless, what we just did was foreplay. I wanted to relax your body before we moved to the next step.”Paige had enough common sense to look embarrassed but not enough to keep quiet.“Well my ass still hurts,” she pouted.“What?” I questioned. “Did you say you wanted me to hurt your ass?” I grabbed each ass cheek and pulled them apart.“No!” she squeaked, “You are too big.” She grabbed my hands in her smaller grip and tried to pry them off. We rocked back and forth until we rolled over. She struggled but I soon ended on top of her, Paige on her stomach, and my legs prying hers open. “No, no,” she pleaded as she felt my cock resting on her ass cleft.“Relax,” I whispered into Paige's ear, “have you ever heard of doggy style?”“You aren't, going to have anal sex with me?” she gulped. I pushed my body up and after a moment, Paige followed, pressing her back against my torso once more.“I'd never do anything to you that you didn't want me to,” I assured her, “though I am going to have you begging me to bugger you before this semester is over.”“Uh-uh,” Paige assured me, “not going to happen,” but she did wiggle her butt against me playfully, testing my resolve. I balanced on one hand so I could use the other to pull her hair away from one side to the other. Her neck, ear, and the side of her face were now revealed. I sucked on her shoulder while I repositioned my cock so that it slid down her ass, past her anus and pussy, so that it pressed along her pubic mound from below.Paige began humming pleasurably and gyrating her hips against me. I put my free hand on her breast and massaged it as well.“Promise me you won't keep me waiting this time,” she murmured. “Promise you'll take me.”“Of course I will, Paige. You have to relax and enjoy yourself and not get worked up about us having sex,” I comforted her. She rocked against me and I pushed back. “Nice and slow,” I cautioned her. “I'm not going anywhere.” With a little effort, she did as I requested.I kept running my hand down from her breast to her stomach, each time going a little farther down. She'd tilted her shoulders and neck so that we could kiss but she also found my lips on her neck to be tantalizing. I was tricky enough that I had my cockhead parting her puffy lips before she realized it. In fact, I had three separate penetrations that elicited moans, then she looked up at me.“Don't be afraid,” I told her sympathetically. “Remember the faces of all the girls you've seen me with while we are having sex and know that it is going to be just as good for you.” Paige looked down at the mattress and nodded her head. She pushed back but it wasn't easy. Her entrance felt like a vice restricting my entrance.Even totally wet, her vaginal muscles were blocking my progress initially. I patiently kept at it, incrementally advancing with each coaxing touch. When I brushed against her hymen, Paige didn't even recognize the moment had come. I subtly brought my arm down to her stomach and wrapped her up in my arm while teasing her ear with my teeth.“Yip!” Paige exclaimed as I pierced her virginity. “Oh, God, it burns,” she sobbed. I gave her a few seconds to adjust before penetrating even deeper.“No,” she moaned, and tried to pull away, but I didn't let her. “Zane,” she pleaded for me to let her go. “It hurts.” I kept at it. “I never thought it would hurt this bad, please.”She gave one final gasp as I pressed the final inch into her, then we remained there, locked in sexual congress while she wept and trembled underneath me. I considered it a minor miracle Paige had remained on her hands and knees as we reached this point. Now I had to get her past the stage where pain dominated pleasure.“We'll move when you feel you are ready,” I instructed her. Paige nodded, then nothing else for some time. She caught me off guard when she flexed her grasp on my cock.“Um,” she purred. “Did you feel that?” My groan was my reply. Paige pulled away a tiny bit until the pain kicked in and she stopped.Seconds later she repeated the process, withdrawing several inches, then reversing the procedure and allowing me deeper in once more.“It hurts less,” she admitted. A moment later as she shifted to a faster rhythm, “it is really quite nice.”“You might want to ask Zane how he is doing,” Barbie Lynn chided Paige.“But I honestly don't care,” Paige noted.“If you want to do this again, you might want to start caring,” Barbie informed her. I winked at the blonde sex angel.“Zane, do you like having sex with me?” Paige asked in a much kinder tone than normal. She must have been truly appreciating the lovemaking she was receiving.“It feels like you are trying to rip my dick off,” I ground out. “You are damn tight, then you are adding those contractions on top of that. I may not be able to have sex for a week.”“Paige, I like you, but if Zane is telling the truth, I going to seriously rearrange your anatomy,” Barbie Lynn promised with dangerous intent.“I apologize,” Paige pouted. To prove how sorry she wasn't, Paige rotated her hips down then back up several times rapidly. So that's how she wanted to play it.I placed both hands on her shoulders and let her make a few more tentative moves before slamming my member all the way in.“Oh, fuck,” she gasped. I slowly drew back my full length, then rocketed back in time and time again. Paige was sweating and panting from earlier exertions but now she was barely hanging on.Slap, slap, slap, my hips mashed against her ass. Paige gave a breathless grunt each time I drilled her, and that was followed by a relieved sigh as I pulled back. By the desperation in her voice, I knew she wouldn't last much longer.“Oh! My! Fucking! God!” she growled loudly.I now knew what it felt like to have put my dick in a fire hose and had some asshat turn the water on. Paige's pussy juice had been plentiful the first time she had an orgasm. This time they were copious and forceful, and my penis was simply in the way; what got past stung the hell out of my ball sack.Normally I have really good control over my sexual climax but I was being sorely tested. Worse, I couldn't simply pop out of Paige because that would cause her pain. The odds of her using birth control were next to nil and none, so it fell to me to find something to center my mind and not ejaculate.“Zane, are you okay?” Barbie Lynn said in a hushed, worried tone. I could only nod. Paige was erratically pushing up and down on my dick, to the point where I grabbed her hips in order to not have a nasty accident when her muscles relaxed and my overstimulation ended.“Don't, move,” I panted painfully to Paige.Paige didn't quite comply but I didn't blame her because her arms gave out and she slumped forward. I held up her rear by my hold on her hips. I carefully let her slide off my cock and finish splaying out on the bed. I sat back on my heels, breathing deeply and fighting for control.“Come here, Baby,” Barbie Lynn ordered, picking up on my distress.I moved over Paige's leg toward Barbie and she joined me by turning around, meeting me half way.“I've got this,” she purred, as she wrapped my penis in one hand and placed her lips over the head. Despite Paige's vaginal fluids and some blood, Barbie loved it. She bobbed up and down twice before my resolve finally crumbled.“Cumming,” I gasped. Barbie Lynn shot me a quick grin, then pumped and sucked with renewed vigor. When I started ejaculating, Barbie Lynn made some half-hearted swallowing efforts but I knew she was holding something back. I smiled at her as I ran my hand through her honeyed locks.When I finished unloaded into Barbie Lynn's mouth, I pulled her up, she leaned into my body, and we kissed. I tasted my semen on my tongue as we swapped fluids. Barbie Lynn licked her lips in a highly sensual manner as we broke our kiss. She gave me a little wink, acknowledging how much I'd changed her in our short time together: kinky, sexy, and beautiful.“Whoa,” whimpered Paige as she opened her eyes and looked in our direction. “That was intense.” She sighed and took a deep breath. “I should have mentioned this earlier, you didn't need to pull out. I had, issues when I was little and my ovaries were removed. I'm never going to have children.”I switched back to Paige and kissed her on the forehead. This was probably time for some sympathy, if Paige had been anything approaching a normal girl.“You fucking wait to tell me this now?” I chided her. “Do you have any idea the panic attack you put me through? I was stuck inside you and you were so damn hot I nearly lost it. I was trying to figure out what I was going to tell your father, damn it!”“Father?” she seemed confused for a second, then, “Oh. Why would I ever marry you?”“I'm a billionaire philanthropist genius playboy,” I joked.“You are Iron Man?” she mocked me.“Or Batman, your choice,” I volleyed back.“If you hadn't made me feel so fantastic right now, I'd recode your computer to operate in Mandarin,” she snickered. “Iron Man is one of my heroes and I will not have him mocked by the likes of you.”“Clearly, the first round of spanking didn't work, but I'm nothing if not persistent,” I glowered.Paige's hands flew to her vulnerable and still rather red backside.“Don't you dare,” she threatened. I pivoted, she flinched, then I leaned down and kissed her butt cheek. “What?” she murmured then I kissed her again and again. I slowly pried her hands away and soon had planted little signs of affection all over her tender, sore flesh.“Kiss ass,” Paige teased. I had to wonder if she was taking social lessons from Rio.“Tell me something: how did you get to be so quiet? I'm normally pretty good at not letting anyone sneak up on me but you have done it to me twice already,” I asked.“That's not a totally stupid question,” Paige answered.“I have been basically friendless most of my life, if you don't count the internet. I was small, different, and was picked on. I learned to be quiet and go unnoticed,” she explained. “I admit to having a harder time with you than with most people.”“Because I lived out in the jungle and became more observant?” I queried.“No,” she sighed in exasperation. “Because I've wanted to grab you and drag you back to my room since I first laid eyes on you, Zane. Mentally, you are unremarkable, but physically, you scream out 'Sex, sex, sex!'” That observation made Barbie Lynn laugh out loud. My pained and confused expression only caused them to laugh louder.Someday I'm going to come out on top of one of these exchanges. Then I'm going to run away from school because I want to leave on a high note and I'm not likely to ever win a second time.The Chancellor's Last Move*The pursuit of power is pointless unless you know how to use it*A LONG STORY AND I DON'T KNOW THE ENDING“Zane? God Damn it, Zane!” Raven screeched at me as she barged into my room. What could I say? Barbie Lynn was halfway under the sheets but her tumultuous breasts were clearly exposed. Paige was totally naked, face down on the other side of me but had clearly been fucked thoroughly and her tight pale ass spanked hard. Oh, yeah, and I was kneeling between the two, totally naked as well.I vaulted over Barbie Lynn (who was closer to the entrance and Raven) because I didn't want to hurt her injured knee, snatched up my robe, and put it on.“Very complicated, long story, we can laugh about it later,” I dazzled Raven. I took her by the elbow and headed her out of my bedroom. “Why don't we study on the far side of the main Solarium?”The look of betrayal in Raven's eyes destroyed any doubt that she was crushing on me in a big way. For the love of God, I really needed to find some lesbians to hang out with because these straight chicks were driving me crazy. Before we could leave, Iona nearly piled into us.“I'm sorry, Zane. She slipped past me,” Iona apologized.“I only wanted to talk with him and, and he was in bed with yet another girl,” Raven bitched.“I'm still ready to study with you,” I offered.“How can we study if you are always having sex with other women?” she stomped her foot in frustration. Iona shot me a worried look.I put a hand on Raven's shoulder and made eye contact.“Raven, I promise you we will get this project done, you'll get your good grade, and I'll carry my part of the project. I'm here for you,” I assured Raven.“You, you aren't giving any thought about us, our project together,” was her accusation.“What do you want me to do?” I asked evenly.“I, I think I should go to Ms. Goodswell and request another partner,” Raven sighed. I looked to Iona who looked to the living area past the Jacuzzi.“Ms. Goodswell is right over there,” Iona indicated our teacher who was sitting with Dana and five other teachers who had come in while I was, busy.“Your place has controlled access,” Iona answered my unasked question as to why I had so many other educators in my place. “Bass's people can 'accidentally' step in.”Raven was not deterred by the other teachers hanging around Virginia as she made a beeline across the room. At least she was polite enough to wait while Virginia disengaged from the others so she could talk to us.“Raven, Zane, how can I help you?” Ms. Goodswell inquired, yet I had a sneaking suspicion that she was way ahead of the situation.“Ms. Goodswell,” Raven started, “I really need to get a new project partner.”“Why is that, Raven?” Virginia asked.“We simply aren't working out,” she sounded exasperated. “And, I think the other girls were right; I don't feel safe around him,” she tacked on.

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. Lawn Checkers 1900 @Batchelorshow 1/4: The simple magic of checkers: 1/4: Seven Games: A Human History, by Oliver Roeder.  Hardcover – January 25, 2022 https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Games-History-Oliver-Roeder/dp/1324003774 Checkers, backgammon, chess, and go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasing. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as the evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last gochampion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism.” and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language, itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games―and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.

Travie McCoy is an artist, singer, songwriter, and co-founder of Gym Class Heroes. Most importantly, he's one of my biggest influences in finding and falling in love with the golden era of Fueled by Ramen bands and the Vans Warped Tour. I have so much respect for this dude, it's crazy! This was a truly special episode where we got to talk about the very beginning of his career, starting Gym Class Heroes, and signing to Fueled By Ramen. We then talk about his astronomical growth into becoming a full on celebrity, and the new era of music he's currently working on. (P.s. thank you Hodge for making this one happen. You're the realest.) If there's any episode of this podcast that I want the world to hear, it's this one! Do me a massive favor and share it with any friend you think would like it. Thank you so much! Timestamps: 3:34 - The Bi-racial Dilemma He Faced with Identity and Music 12:57 - How Gym Class Heroes Tapped Into Being Different 17:55 - Realizing Their Potential & Recording Music 24:27 - The Song That Connected Them to Fall Out Boy 30:06 - Cupid's Chokehold & Opening for Fall Out Boy 34:30 - Signing with Fueled By Ramen 45:33 - Owning Being the Outcast & Being Kind 53:38 - Scrabble with Kanye West 58:40 - Going Beyond Clout 1:07:48 - Making Art for Charts 1:12:13 - The New Era of Travie McCoy Travie McCoy: @traviemccoy Andrew Cramb: @andrew_ftw Produced & Edited by - Deanna Elise: @deannaelxse Where Are All My Friends Podcast: Website: https://www.whereareallmyfriends.com Subscribe: HERE Discord: HERE Patreon: HERE This episode is brought to you by Manscaped! Use Promo Code: WAAMF20 to save 20% on your entire order HERE

Instinctively, most people know that it's a good idea to save money for the future. But when it comes to saving for retirement, there are complex decisions each person must face—and typically when they are just starting out in the workforce. Is it better to contribute to a 401(k) or a Roth IRA? When can a traditional IRA make sense? How can you convert a traditional account to a Roth account? In this episode, Mark Riepe speaks with Hayden Adams. Hayden is director of tax and wealth management at the Schwab Center for Financial Research. He's also a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and certified public accountant, and he provides analysis and insights on topics like income tax planning, tax-efficient investing, asset allocation, and retirement withdrawal strategies. Hayden and Mark discuss the history of IRAs, the various types of accounts, how to invest once the account is open, and many of the pressing decisions facing younger investors when they are deciding how best to save for their future. Taxes play a key role in many of the decisions, and Hayden walks listeners through the potential pitfalls—and benefits—of each savings-related decision.Follow Financial Decoder for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.Financial Decoder is an original podcast from Charles Schwab. For more on the series, visit Schwab.com/FinancialDecoder. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. Important DisclosuresThe information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered an individualized recommendation or personalized investment advice. The investment strategies mentioned here may not be suitable for everyone. Each investor needs to review an investment strategy for his or her own particular situation before making any investment decision.All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice in reaction to shifting market conditions.This information does not constitute and is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax, legal, or investment planning advice. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, Schwab recommends consultation with a qualified tax advisor, CPA, financial planner, or investment manager.Investing involves risk including loss of principal.Roth IRA conversions require a 5-year holding period before earnings can be withdrawn tax free and subsequent conversions will require their own 5-year holding period. In addition, earnings distributions prior to age 59 1/2 are subject to an early withdrawal penalty.Examples provided are for illustrative purposes only and not intended to be reflective of results you can expect to achieve.Any corporate name mentioned is for illustrative purposes only and is not a recommendation, endorsement, offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security.(0822-2J82)

Instinctively, most people know that it's a good idea to save money for the future. But when it comes to saving for retirement, there are complex decisions each person must face—and typically when they are just starting out in the workforce. Is it better to contribute to a 401(k) or a Roth IRA? When can a traditional IRA make sense? How can you convert a traditional account to a Roth account? In this episode, Mark Riepe speaks with Hayden Adams. Hayden is director of tax and wealth management at the Schwab Center for Financial Research. He's also a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and certified public accountant, and he provides analysis and insights on topics like income tax planning, tax-efficient investing, asset allocation, and retirement withdrawal strategies. Hayden and Mark discuss the history of IRAs, the various types of accounts, how to invest once the account is open, and many of the pressing decisions facing younger investors when they are deciding how best to save for their future. Taxes play a key role in many of the decisions, and Hayden walks listeners through the potential pitfalls—and benefits—of each savings-related decision.Follow Financial Decoder for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.Financial Decoder is an original podcast from Charles Schwab. For more on the series, visit Schwab.com/FinancialDecoder. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. Important DisclosuresThe information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered an individualized recommendation or personalized investment advice. The investment strategies mentioned here may not be suitable for everyone. Each investor needs to review an investment strategy for his or her own particular situation before making any investment decision.All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice in reaction to shifting market conditions.This information does not constitute and is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax, legal, or investment planning advice. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, Schwab recommends consultation with a qualified tax advisor, CPA, financial planner, or investment manager.Investing involves risk including loss of principal.Roth IRA conversions require a 5-year holding period before earnings can be withdrawn tax free and subsequent conversions will require their own 5-year holding period. In addition, earnings distributions prior to age 59 1/2 are subject to an early withdrawal penalty.Examples provided are for illustrative purposes only and not intended to be reflective of results you can expect to achieve.Any corporate name mentioned is for illustrative purposes only and is not a recommendation, endorsement, offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security.(0822-2J82)

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow 2/4: The simple magic of checkers: 2/4: Seven Games: A Human History, by Oliver Roeder.  Hardcover – January 25, 2022 https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Games-History-Oliver-Roeder/dp/1324003774 Checkers, backgammon, chess, and go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasing. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as the evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last gochampion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism.” and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language, itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games―and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow 3/4: The simple magic of checkers: 3/4: Seven Games: A Human History, by Oliver Roeder.  Hardcover – January 25, 2022 https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Games-History-Oliver-Roeder/dp/1324003774 Checkers, backgammon, chess, and go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasing. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as the evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last gochampion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism.” and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language, itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games―and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow 4/4: The simple magic of checkers: 1/4: Seven Games: A Human History, by Oliver Roeder.  Hardcover – January 25, 2022 https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Games-History-Oliver-Roeder/dp/1324003774 Checkers, backgammon, chess, and go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasing. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as the evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last gochampion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism.” and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language, itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games―and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.

Andy just can't resist a toaster.THIS WEEK'S TOPICThe Reporter (Parks and Recreation: S1, E3): Leslie gets the press involved, and Mark makes some questionable decisions. Tom and Ron play Scrabble.USEFUL INFORMATION AND LINKSPlease listen to our explainer “What is Schurt?” episode. It will explain the show in only three minutes.schurt.siteTunkle CastsThe Office (American TV Series)Parks and RecreationBrooklyn Nine-NineThe Good PlaceRutherford FallsSchurt Numbers Spreadsheet (alternatively, view as a pdf)The music is created by me, Henry, with help from my very good music teacher, Brian Ajjan.Contact us at welcome.everythingis@schurt.siteEPISODES THAT WE MENTIONKaboom (S2, E6)The Master Plan (S2, E23)Harvest Festival (S3, E7)Li'l Sebastian (S3, E16)Born & Raised (S4, E3)Leslie and Ron (S7, E4)Canvassing (S1, E2)The Banquet (S1, E5)Rock Show (S1, E6)The Bubble (S3, E15)Ben's Parents (S5, E6)Christmas Scandal (S2, E12)Galentine's Day (S2, E16)Born & Raised (S4, E3)Operation Ann (S4, E14)Fluoride (S6, E8)Pie Mary (S7, E9)

Steven Rinella talks with Chris Parish, Ryan Callaghan, Sean Weaver, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: How Steve still insists on his theory that D&D created today's falconry community; spending 19 hours hunting per single grouse harvested in NY State; MeatEater's Campfire Stories 2: Narrow Misses and More Close Calls is out!; go get our brand new EZ SUK'R cow elk call from Phelps Game Calls; a reminder to submit your project to our Land Access Initiative; FirstLite's partnership with Delta Waterfowl; profile pictures and differing opinions on what's offensive; green crab whiskey and eating invasive species; lead shot and waterfowl die offs; getting thrown in jail for shooting red tails; how the lead issue is definitely not just a condor issue; the story of AC-9; chelation and depuration as great Scrabble words; supplement tubs; how condors returned to the same caves their ancestors had lived in during the Pleistocene; hunters responding; being uneasy about bans; following the science and when science becomes weaponized; the North American Non-lead Partnership and Hunting With Non-lead; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What will it take for Kenny Pickett to win the Steelers QB job? There is some concern of Pickett being the number three QB on the team's depth chart. Chris thinks Kenny will quickly move up the depth chart ahead of Mason Rudolph. Poni believes Kevin Colbert would still be pushing for Rudolph to be the man if he was the active GM. Pickett talked to the media as he showed up to camp and the guys broke down what they heard from the first round pick. The guys discussed where Rudolph's head is at coming into a season without Ben Roethlisberger in his way.  Award-winning reporter Josh Rowntree joined the show. Josh was live at St. Vincent as players arrived at training camp. Josh expects the first practice tomorrow to shadow what he saw during mini camp in the spring when it comes to the QB competition. Josh doesn't see Mason Rudolph being a serious contender as the Steelers QB1 by the regular season. He gave his thoughts on the Steelers signing Jeremy McNichols, who may put Benny Snell or Anthony McFarland on the hot seat.    Cam Heyward took a bunch of board games to training camp with his big one being Scrabble. 

En el programa de hoy nos ponemos las chanclas para viajar a Benidorm junto a Esther García Llovet, que nos presenta Spanish Beauty (Ed. Anagrama), una brevísima novela policiaca de aliento cinematográfico en la que ocurre de todo, desde secuestros hasta operaciones ilegales, pasando por fiestas de mafiosos. Antes, leemos un fragmento de No me acuerdo de nada (Ed. Libros del Asteroide), el último libro de la escritora y cineasta neoyorquina Nora Ephron, capaz de hacer magia con cualquier asunto, como demuestra en este volumen, en el que diserta sobre su relación con el periodismo, las cucharas de postre, el divorcio, las sartenes de teflón, su adicción al Scrabble, la vejez y los correos electrónicos, no en vano dirigió la comedia romántica Tienes un email. En su sección Ignacio Elguero pone otros títulos sobre la mesa: Aniquilación (Ed. Anagrama), la nueva novela del siempre polémico Michel Houllebecq; Antología de la British Invasion (Ed. Sílex), libro en el que Iñaki García hace repaso, a través de cuarenta grupos y artistas, de uno de los movimientos musicales más importantes de la historia; y El reloj emocional. Sobre el tiempo y la vida (Ed. Plataforma) un ensayo del profesor Ramón Bayés sobre cómo las personas percibimos y valoramos el tiempo. Además, Javier Lostalé nos habla de Chica conoce chico (Ed. Nórdica), novela sobre la identidad en la que la escocesa Ali Smith traslada a la actualidad el mito de Ifis en La metamorfosis de Ovidio. Y para terminar, Mariano Peyrou dedica su última sección de la temporada a Olvido García Valdés, reciente Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana, a la que, entre otras obras, debemos el poemario Confía en la gracia (Ed. Tusquets) y las antologías dentro del animal la voz (Ed. Cátedra) y Esa polilla que delante de mí revolotea (Ed- Galaxia Gutenberg). Escuchar audio

We kick off the show by making mention of Kate's new "Flannel" jumper, then Tim has a podcast recommendation for Joel's mum. Who's the idiot at home? Then we discover Joel doesn't seperate his colours and his whites... We open up the Mailbag, and for some reason Kate brings up playing Scrabble with a friend. It's Mums Gone Wild during a school race. Then we cover some big JLo news in the Glossy's. We chat about an interesting sex doll confession, then Bad Mood Alert. Then Joel tries to tell us a story about one of his favourite actresses and a fart. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the "People Behaving Badly" Dept: You'll discover what happens when the little toddlers who threw a fit in the grocery aisle & were coddled by their parents grow up & get charged $1.75 for "extra sauce". My Insane FL Nephew, "Pancho Guero" reveals some UN-covering that took place on 2 police officers who were "investigating" massage parlors & were fondled as part of "gathering evidence". And an ex-funeral director was making money on a side-hustle, selling body parts from dissected corpses. Just check out the rest of the stupidity that was found in the latest "autopsy" of society... FL man says ‘spirits' told him to set boss's future home on fire; Man arrested after leaving kids unattended in car with weapons; Police Look for Someone Who Broke into a Pool...& Dropped a Deuce; The 10 Sweatiest Cities in America Are All in These 4 States; Guy Runs from Cops-Did a Parkour on a Building-Got Caught Anyway; A Man Was Caught After Shoplifting 11 Cases of Beer; Man ‘Doing His Own Research' on Hiker Deaths Gets Lost & Is Rescued; Couple Steals 3 Air Conditioners, But Left Behind an ID....& a Crack Pipe; A Tech Millionaire Bought a Giant Cold War Radar to ‘Find UFOs'; WI woman pleads not guilty to decapitating sex partner, severing his penis; Scrabble players quit game after 400 ‘offensive' words banned; Someone Blew Up "America's Stonehenge"; Narcissistic Men Don't Last as Long in Bed; Shocked hotel guest sees couples having sex in jacuzzis below his balcony; A Guy Broke into His Grandma's House by Headbutting a Window, Then Stole Her Weed Eater; 1 in 3 haven't reconnected with extended family in 4 years! "Pancho" is back to play another round of the weekly "Insane Game Show" & there's a couple more folks with questions to "ASK PANCHO" about troubling life questions like, "My Husband Has 4 Fish Tanks" & “My Ex & Fiance Are Going To Be At The Same Event!" Don't forget to download the TELEGRAM MESSENGER & join the "Insane Erik Lane's Stupid World" Channel to read the actual stories used for the podcast & check out the photos & videos with them! It's FREE & available for Windows, Linux, Android, & Apple for both mobile & desktop! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/eriklane/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/eriklane/support

This week on Anime Pulse we got bad news and more bad news, acceptable CG, and snacks from across the pond. Up first Joseph talks about his experiences with IRN-BRU, Jaffa Cakes, and Digestives. Andrew on the other hand has been on a game buying spree, falling prey to the steam summer sale. In the industry news it's a Joseph only day, with nothing but sad and bad news of the passing of two legendary Japanese icons. And finally in the reviews Joseph continues to be an edge lord in another world, and Andrew hates penguins so much his dad makes him a penguin android to cure his hatred.

Hello and welcome to HBR News where we talk about the news of the week! This week we talk about Popeye the Sailor being gender fluid now, Scrabble bans 400 words, the NYC self defense stabbing that destroyed men, the Ohio bill that allows pregnant people to sue men who accidentally impregnate them, and more!

The boys are back in the building, and it's been a crazy week! Get ready for a lot of yelling. Heinz Field has become Acrisure Stadium and we have some thoughts. A video from Foxtail goes viral for all the wrong reasons. It was....a lot. And an Amazon delivery driver drops a deuce in the middle of the street over in Millvale. Zach Wilson pulls a Finch. An old picture of Chloe Kardashian as a pimp resurfaces. Bam Margera is out partying again after vanishing from rehab. And players are boycotting Scrabble. All that and more in this week's episode of Greenfield's Finest Podcast! Leave us a voicemail at ‪(412) 438-8358‬!

This week's 'special' is a bit longer than usual - we look at the whole concept of 'luxury beliefs' - ideas that only the wealthy and powerful can afford.   Including Dutch farmers and the green ideology; the Sydney floods; Boris Johnson; Negative gearing; destroying Scrabble; Woke Scouts; Guardian Fascists; Abortion extremism; What is America? Pride Police;  Teenage Birds; Jordan Peterson on Pride; Queensland gender reforms; Maya Forstater; I don't care if you are a Christian; Sam Brinton; Wesley's chapel; Lana Murphy; Casting Crowns.

On Wednesday's show: Harris County has a new elections administrator. Well, almost, anyway. We learn why Clifford Tatum, a former election commission lawyer and administrator who has worked in D.C. and Georgia, can't officially start his new job just yet. We discuss that story and all the latest developments in politics in our weekly roundup. Then, in this month's installment of The Full Menu, local food writers talk about their favorite places around the city for refreshing beverages of all sorts -- whether it be juice bars, coffee, or even cocktails. And we go inside the world of competitive Scrabble playing in Houston.

Suspect in custody after 6 killed, dozens wounded at Highland Park Fourth of July parade. Competitive eater Joey Chestnut put a protester in a chokehold during a July 4 hot dog eating contest - and still won. Climate change protest shuts down DC highway. Top selling beers in the US. Scrabble competitions remove 400 words considered offensive.

Matt and Morgan fight about ownership of the podcast, celebrate Anne Sullivan, recap Matt's Scrabble dominance, and answer some Patreon questions.

The Fellowship is pleased to present our discussion of the 1967 movie The Dirty Dozen. This movie has a phenomenal cast and an interesting premise (*cough* Suicide Squad *cough*), and it's a classic war movie of the era. Plus our usual random talk, geek news, and tangents

Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin are joined by ESPN's Greg Wyshynski to discuss the Stanley Cup Finals. They also talk about Dream On, the ESPN documentary on the 1996 U.S. women's Olympic basketball team. Finally, they assess Nike upon its 50th anniversary.   Stanley Cup (2:40): Inside the match-up between the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning.   Dream On (26:57): Looking back at a landmark moment for women's sports.   Nike (50:25): How it became a cultural behemoth.   Afterball (1:12:00): Stefan on his daughter, Scrabble, and Steph Curry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices