Example here: https://ibb.co/tQ6bFbT
I've nearly figured this out in capcut mobile. But I have to re-adjust the 2 clips with my fingers and can't get both clips to line up evenly and perfectly line up. One is higher or bigger etc. Is there an easier way to do this? Thanks!

Found this cell in Atlanta on the belt line while walking this morning. Doesn’t appear to have 5G+ unfortunately. Really lacking in 5G+ in Atlanta sadly. :(

I've accepted many offers below my listed prices in the past! Don't be shy! I usually accept reasonable offers!
If you are on mobile and do not see pricing, try swiping left on the tables below.
If you're particularly interested in something, CHAT me for some more pics!
Proof photo. Closer-ups from last time. Lots of rare, low mintage, vintage, and otherwise very collectible pieces...
ALMOST EVERYTHING will be shipped via Bubble Mailer With Tracking (BMWT) First Class for $5 added onto the total. If you want Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box (SFRB), it'll be $8 added on instead. Totals of $1000 or more get free shipping via SFRB.

GOLD

Qty	Weight	Item Name	Price Each
1x	.2 ozt agw	2021 Type-1 and Type-2 1/10 AGE Designer Set	$750
1x	.85 ozt agw	2016 Centennial US Gold Set PCGS SP-70 White/Gold Label	$3100
--	--	BACKDATE GOLDBACK SETS	--
1x	.091 ozt agw	2020 Utah Goldback Set (1,5,10,25,50)	$490 PENDING
1x	.091 ozt agw	2020 Nevada Goldback Set (1,5,10,25,50)	$450 PENDING
1x	.091 ozt agw	2019 Utah Goldback Set (1,5,10,25,50)	$1400 PENDING

I've accepted many offers below my listed prices in the past! Don't be shy! I usually accept reasonable offers!

ALBUM SPLIT ASEs

Item Name	Price
1987	$35
1988	$35
1989	$35
1991	$35
1993	$35
1994	$35
1995	$35
1997	$35
1998	$35
1999	$35
2000	$35
2001	$35
2002	$35
2003	$35
2006	$35
2008	$35
2009	$35
2010	$35
2011	$35
2012	$35
2013	$35
2014	$35
2015	$35
2016	$40
2017	$35
2020	$37

I've accepted many offers below my listed prices in the past! Don't be shy! I usually accept reasonable offers!

ALL OTHER SILVER

Qty	Weight	Item Name	Price Each
--	--	INSTANT COLLECTIONS	--
1x	14 toz	Armenia Noah's Ark FULL FRAC SET 2011-2018	$500
1x	10 toz	Destiny Coin - FULL BU SET	$450
1x	21 toz	CHAD "Egyption Relic" FULL SET	$635
1x	20 toz	GB QB SET (No Completer)	$855
--	--	USA SILVER	--
3x	1 toz	2022 ASE Proof	$75
1x	1 toz	2023 ASE Proof	$75
1x	2.876	2021 Type 1+2 ASE+ Proof Set	$249
1x	1 toz	2002 ASE BU Air-Tite	$36
1x	1 toz	2009 ASE BU Air-Tite	$36
1x	1 toz	2011 ASE BU Air-Tite	$36
1x	1 toz	2012 ASE BU Air-Tite	$36
1x	1 toz	2013 ASE BU Air-Tite	$36
1x	1 toz	2014 ASE BU Air-Tite	$36
1x	1 toz	2016 ASE BU Air-Tite	$40
--	--	KOMSCO	--
1x	1 toz	2017 Chiwoo Cheonwong BU	$61
6x	1 toz	2018 Chiwoo Cheonwong BU	$34
1x	1 toz	2019 Zi:Sin Scrofa (Non-Ghost)	$33
--	--	POURED	--
1x	7.5 toz	Yaegermeister Bottle Bar	$295
--	--	NICHE COLLECTIBLES	--
4x	1 toz	2016 Morgan (Unmarked Sivertowne)	$33
1x	1 toz	2016 Bitcoin w/ COA #1887/2500	$120
5x	1 toz	Black Horse of Famine (RARE)	$65
1x	t toz	Pale Horse of Death (RARE)	$65
1x	1 toz	Red Horse of War (RARE)	$65
1x	2 toz	Destiny Coin - Blacksmith	$90
1x	1 toz	Lim. Mintage Liberty (500 MADE)	$40
1x	1 toz	Lim. Mintage Great Seal	$36
1x	1 toz	Lim. Mintage Molon Labe (500 MADE)	$40
1x	1 toz	Lim. Mintage Curled Cat	$35
1x	2 toz	Lim. Mintage Chupacabra	$72
1x	1AG/.1AU	DUNE Spice Melange	$370

I've accepted many offers below my listed prices in the past! Don't be shy! I usually accept reasonable offers!
Zelle or ApplePay preferred. Venmo or CashApp may be considered. NO PAYPAL. Wanna send a check? Have 10+ Feedback and items will be held for at least 7-10 days.

I remember a few months ago enrolling for the Network Pass to try out T Mobile. Noticed like last week the eSIM for it wasn't working anymore. I figured maybe T Mobile ended the trial and that was it. I deleted the eSIM from my phone. I tried activating my eSIM with another service and it says my eSIM IMEI was not available. I'm on an Android device. Is there something on T Mobile's end they are supposed to do?

///11th of June, 2006
“Dad, the moon!” I shouted as I entered the garage. My father was on the floor, under his Bugatti 57SC Atlantic, obsessively removing and re-installing pieces of the car like he always did. He quickly got up, a smile on his grease-stained face.
“Finally!” He said with his beer-breath, grabbing a towel and cleaning most of his face, before running outside as fast as he could. I followed him. I don’t know why I always liked these moments. Any child would find them terribly boring. But I always reveled on them. Maybe it’s because they were the only moments he smiled. He positioned his telescope on our front yard, adjusted the lens, drank a beer can and started looking at the full moon above us.
“Do you see it?” I asked, sitting on the grass next to him.
“Shut up.” He said, still looking. After half an hour of waiting, he started laughing. I opened my mouth to ask if he was seeing it, but I held my voice. Didn’t want to anger him.
“It’s blinking! It’s blinking Johnathan!” He laughed. I smiled. That wasn’t my name, though he called me that. Only several years later I would learn that was the name of his deceased younger brother. Every full moon, we would come look at it with the telescope. And he’d always call me Johnathan. Probably because he was always so drunk. But from always avoiding me or calling me “Brat”, Johnathan was a nice shift.
“Can I see?” I asked, and he lowered the tripod so I could see the moon. There was a small light blinking on it’s surface. It was truly beautiful.
“Fine, my turn again.” My father shoved me back, adjusted the tripod back, and started looking at it again. “It’s blinking so much tonight… Maybe… Brat, get my camera!” He shouted at me. I quickly went inside the house, and looked around for the camera in the living room. There it was, on a little pile of beer cans and empty rythmol boxes in the corner of the room. I hurried back outside, as fast as I could, as I did not want to anger my father.
I stopped on my tracks as soon as I was out of the house. There was a strange being involving my father. It looked like a snake, but I knew it was anything but a snake. There were not snakes that big where I lived. And certainly not with human faces. My father seemed oblivious to it, looking through his telescope, but the thing was all around him, from the bottom of his legs all the way to the top of his head.
“It’s blinking so much…” He said, in awe. The creature looked at me, locking eyes with me, and smiled, revealing several sets of sharp fangs. And then, it disappeared. My father looked at me, he was sweating. “I think… I need to lay down for a bit…” He muttered, before falling on the grass. I spent the entire night trying to wake him up, before my mother found me there crying the following day.
///09th of November 2021
“And that’s why you decided to study astronomy? Really?” Melissa laughed.
“Oh, come on, babe… Don’t make fun of my tragic past.” I said, finishing my waffles. She went to the fridges, grabbed the orange juice, and poured some in our cups.
“Shall we toast?” She asked.
“With orange juice? And what for?”
“Your impending graduation. What else?”
“Impending? Ha! I didn’t even start my capstone thesis.”
“So, what will it be about? Venus, right? Or was it Mars?”
“Nope. Too many people I know will already be working on planets like Venus and Mars. I thought about Neptune, but it’s too far away. So I figured, why not the Moon?”
“Please, don’t tell me this is about your father.”
“Mel, he wasn’t the best dad in the world. But he did left me his collection of vintage cars. This is what paid for my education.”
“He didn’t left it to you, it was divided between you and your mother.”
“Regardless, I feel like I owe him this. Apart from the cars, the moon was the only thing he loved.”
“You owe him nothing, Ezra.”
“I need to know what the blinking lights are! Lunar transient phenomena, it’s how they call them. There’s no scientific explanation to what they are.”
“Just because there’s no known scientific explanation, it doesn’t mean one does not exist. And if there’s one, it’s certainly not creepy snake-man” She laughed.
///04th of September, 2022
The first thing you feel when you start seriously investigating the moon is how mysterious it is. We only went there a handful of times, and then never again. All reasons are given for this, but it never really felt right to me. Maybe what happened to my father always made me feel paranoid about the subject, but I somehow felt there were things about the moon that were hiding on plain sight.
The focus of my research, the lunar transient phenomena, is incredibly unknown. Few studies were done about it, and most of them were never published or were abandoned. The few that were made available were either from little-known universities in third-world countries, in languages that I couldn’t understand and without English translation, or mere compilations of recorded occurrences. I found some theories. The lights were caused by magnetism, or by gasses, or by asteroids, perspective…
But mere hypothesis were not enough for me. I needed to know. I needed to understand. I needed… I needed to confirm it weren’t those lights who killed my father that day.
So, I delved deep into the research. I spent weeks in my bedroom, reading books and more books, entering all sorts of websites, sending emails to experts, looking for anything that could give me more information. But through all my effort, the only thing I could find were theories or hypothesis, all of them with little to no evidence. In my search for answers, I started straying further away from modern science, entering strange websites and reading books that talked about blatant pseudoscience, like astrology or the paranormal.
///17th of February, 2022
“So, what books will you be basing your capstone on?” My orienting professor asked. I could not see his face properly, we were talking through a videocall and he was not very tech savvy, so his eyes and nose were out of the frame.
“Chris, I can only see your mouth!” I laughed.
“Sorry…” He said, adjusting his camera. The framing was not perfect yet, but it was better. "Have you read the books I sent you?"
"They... They were not what I was looking for."
"What were you looking for, Ezra?"
"I told you. Answers. I have been looking for answers, yet I only find questions."
"We will only be able to find real answers when we actually set a lab on the moon. Until then, we will have to live with merely hypothesizing."
"I know, but..."
"Have you tried reading Kulikovsky?Or Hakan Kayal? Non-american studies in general."
"Yes, professor Chris. But... All studies seem to contradict themselves. Some point to studies that I can’t find anywhere, like they don’t exist anymore. Like they were erased by someone…”
“Some texts were never made digital or registered. It’s very unfortunate.”
“Everyone tries to find a logical explanation... What if there isn't one?"
"What is this truly about?"
"What?"
"It's just... You do know you can change your capstone thesis theme, right? Maybe an analysis of something more well-known could work better with your methodology."
"Chris, I will not change my mind. We have discussed this before."
"Well, well... I talked to one of my former colleagues, he is retired now, who also studied the moon, but his research was more focused on gravity. He told me there's a book called "A Study of the Moon with a New Lens" or something like that. Written by one Dr. Karl Hollfern in 1935."
"That is way before LTP was even catalogued."
"Catalogued, yes. Recorded? No. Hollfern studied extensevely the lunar mysteries. Unfortunately, he was executed by the Nazis because he opposed them. But his research lived on. My friend told me they have one of his books in the library. But it's in German."
///18th of February, 2022
I entered the library carrying a bag full of German grammar books and a dictionary. I would not let a little language barrier stop me from getting to the truth.
“Hello, how can I help you?” The librarian asked, barely averting her eyes from her cellphone.
“I’m actually looking for a book that could either be in the astronomy section or in the foreign titles section… Can you help me?”
“Which book?” She was still looking at her phone, seemingly playing one of those generic casual mobile games.
“It’s in German. Old, from the 1930s. Talks about studies of the moon made at the time.”
“Unusual request, but ok…” She put her phone on the counter, and started typing on the computer. “Can’t find it. Do you have the author’s name?”
“Karl Hollfern.”
“Uncanny. It’s unlisted.”
“What?”
“We have it in the library, but it’s not available. We usually do this when books are being cleaned. Usually takes a couple of days… It says it won’t be listed until… Until 2100?
“What? How does this makes sense?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been working here for sixteen years, and have never seen something like this. Regardless, I can’t lend you the book. I can’t even let you access it in library grounds.”
///23rd of February, 2022
I was drinking my Starbucks cappuccino while trying to make myself comfortable on the shopping mall bench, to no avail. I was tense. I had never involved myself with something like this. If my mother or girlfriend knew, they would kill me. An older man made his way out of the crowd and patiently sat down next to me.
“You were supposed to be sitting on the bench next to Nike. But no problem.” He laughed.
“Sorry. I got confused…” I facepalmed.
“I got the book you asked me too. But the price is going to be different in your case.”
“As in more expensive?”
“No. Normally, I charge twenty five grand, or double If the job is hard. In your case, the job was ridiculously easy. I will be charging five grand only.”
“Thanks! I’m transferring to your account right now…” I said as I typed on my phone.
“The book is in your car.”
“How did you… Oh, of course.”
“Pleasure doing business with you.” He got up and left. I immediately went to my car. There it was, Eine Untersuchung des Mondes mit einer neuen Linse.
///28th of February, 2022
“Honey, are you still awake?” Melissa asked me. I was sitting on a pillow in the corner of the room, aggressively doing more and more Duolingo lessons.
“I’m busy, Mel.” I said, without averting my eyes from the green owl.
“Is this about that German book you have been taking everywhere?”
“No…” I blatantly lied.
“Honey, you’ve been up all night. It’s ten to six.”
“What?”
“You are obsessed with this shit, Ezra! Look at you! This is the third time I find you here studying German instead of sleeping!”
“I’m sorry, but you do know I have a capstone thesis to finish, don’t you?!” I screamed back at her.
“Oh. So this is what’s all about, right?”
“Babe, it’s not like that…” Before I could say anything, she stormed out of the apartment. I stood there, frozen, for a minute or two, before I went back to my Duolingo.
///3rd of March, 2022
“Hello Ezra” Chris said, as I adjusted my camera. As usual, I couldn’t see his face properly.
“Good evening, professor Chris.”
“Ezra, are you okay? You look tired.”
“I’m fine.” I said vehemently.
“Ezra… I… I have bad news for you.” When he said that, I felt like a hand was smashing my heart. “The university has rejected your intended theme.”
“W-what?”
“You’ll have to pick something else. I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?!”
“Apparently there’s information about Lunar Transient Phenomena that is undisclosed to the general public. The feds were here yesterday, talked with the dean about it. Said that researching the LTP was considered meddling in national security affairs, and that all projects focusing on it were to be halted.”
“Bullshit!”
“I’m sorry. I know how much time you have already invested in this. But we’ll find something else, Ezra. There are more lunar mys…” I interrupted him.
“Why is it so hard to research a simple lunar phenomena?! Every time I advance, everyone tries to block me! They will not stop me from uncovering what happened to my father!” I slammed the table.
“What?”
“This will not stop me.” I muttered, while ending the videocall.
///8th of March, 2022
After some turbulent days, I was finally making progress again. My knowledge of German wasn’t great, but knowing basic grammar, using online dictionaries, and with a little help from online German studying communities, I was making my way through the book.
The book was almost a century old, yet I felt like I was finally making progress. The research by Hollfern was fascinating, but disturbing. He described how the “blinking moonlights” if watched carefully, could be interpreted as having meaning. My German was advancing but far from perfect, so I didn’t have the exact translation, but it said something about the moon speaking in some sort of secret code using the lights.
It also referenced some books, most of which seemed to not exist anymore, but some of them not only existed, I also managed to download their scanned PDFs. It was pretty unorthodox for a scientific study. There was a book on symbols and sigils of different religions, a compilation of theological texts about Gnosticism, a book compiling works by Schopenhauer, and a Hindi scroll explaining Chakras.
I didn’t understood yet how everything connected. Seemed like a strange collection of unrelated weirdness.
///10th of March, 2022
I stumbled upon something I had previously overlooked. There’s an work by Schopenhauer where he discuss reading the Upanishads, which are old Hindi texts. The Hindi text I had downloaded was translated to English, but what if I looked for the original? Maybe there was something I wasn’t shown.
The original had a section that was censored in the English version that talked about a Devas that was corrupted by an evil unknown entity called that attached on it’s solar plexus and made it miserable with overwhelming sadness and pain. A thing described as a floating jester.
///13th of March, 2022
The phone in the living room started ringing. I left it there, unwilling to stop reading the book and trying to translate the contents. The call went to voicemail, and then I heard the caller recording it:
“Hey Ezra, I know you’re going through a bad time, but as your orienting professor, I care for you. You didn't show up for any of your tests. I know you seem to be focused on your research, but this isn't the-" I unplugged the damn thing.
///16th of March, 2022
I got evicted after not paying my rent. Or I was supposed to be at least. I picked up my research stuff and rented a cheap motel room on the outskirts of my town. I could not pay for the rent, and least not for now, I spent most of my money buying books and old magazines during the last weeks. I don’t need a place to call mine for now. I just need to find the truth.
I know the government will come after me. I’m coming too close. But if they want me to stop, they will have to kill me. I’ve already lost everything. This investigation is all I have left.
///18th of March, 2022
There's an old website that I found while researching. A true relic, seems to be from the early 90s. It contains old conspiracies theories, like stuff about the Illuminati and New Age, Satanic Panic, how Ronald Reagan was actually replaced, among other things. But there was something among the insanity that I felt was the last thing missing in my investigation. The true reason why we never returned to the Moon and why the Soviets never even attempted landing on it.
According to that website, during the last moon expedition, in December of 1972, the astronauts were secretly instructed to find out what was causing the Lunar Transient Phenomena, and spent three days on the Taurus-Littrow Valley, the region where the phenomena was more frequent on the previous five years. They were carrying a seismometer, as the most influential theory at the time was that the LTP was being caused by moonquakes cracking the surface of the natural satellite and releasing gasses.
But what the seismometer detected was that there were no such thing as moonquakes. Their equipments revealed humongous structures, seemingly biological or mechanical, moving under the moon surface.
One day before they left, NASA detected an instance of LTP a few kilometers near where they were stationed, so the astronauts went there to check. What they found there was never disclosed, but some theorize they met one of the beings responsible for causing the blinking lights. And that was the reason humanity abandoned all expeditions to the moon. After five missions in three years, we never returned there.
///20th of March, 2022
I woke up feeling like my head was spinning. I was lying on the sofa of my motel room. Once again, I had spent the entire previous night and day reading texts cited by Dr. Hollfern. My tablet was out of battery, so I got up, feeling pain all over my body, and went looking for my charger. It took me a couple of minutes to notice the two men wearing dark suits, black ties and dark sunglasses sitting on my sofa. One of them had a silenced pistol on his hand.
“Good afternoon, Ezra Thornbridge.” The one holding the firearm said, with a voice so ordinary it was scary.
“W-what?!” I blurted, still trying to overcome the pain.
“Oh, don’t mind us. We are just here to recover something.” The other man said, smiling.
“Something that isn’t yours, yet you’re in possession of.” The man with the gun complemented.
“I… Who are you?” I asked.
“Right now, I’m the man pointing the gun at you.” The man with the weapon said, while his partner just shrugged.
“Fine, I’ll return your damn book. But I already know about it. I already put the pieces together."
"Oh, interesting. What do you think you know, Thornbridge?" One of them mocked.
"The Solar Plexus Clown Glider. I have studied them in depth. Or do you prefer to call them like the Gnostic theologians called them back in the day? Archons…”
“Look what we have here, Spencer. Like father like son.” The guy with the gun scoffed.
“I told you we should have just doped him and looked for the damn book while he slept. He is totally gone.” Spencer said.
“I’m not crazy! The Archons are real! They killed my father! They kill people! And you, instead of trying to protect the people, just hide their existence, just lie, just lie and lie and lie!”
“How can you be so smart yet so stupid?” The guy with the gun said.
“The Archons don’t kill people, Ezra. They just make you miserable and drown you in fear and pain.” Spencer said.
“But I saw one kill my father.”
“Your father died of chronic ventricular arrhythmia coupled with excessive alcohol ingestion. The thing you saw was merely an emotional parasite, feeding off his negative emotions and influencing him to indulge on them.” Spencer said.
“Does this mean…”
“Yes. It also infected you that day. That’s why you saw it. It’s been with you ever since. The more you learn about it, the more you dread, the more you obsess, the more you lose… You were feeding it all along.” Spencer explained.
“And why do you think we tried to protect you, dumbass? If the knowledge was harmless, we wouldn’t be around breaking the law and breaking people’s necks to prevent it from spreading.” The guy with the weapon said.
“It’s not too late, Ezra. When your father was alive, there wasn’t much we could do, but now we have technology to make them go away. But it has a cost.” Spencer explained.
“What cost?”
“You will forget your father. You will forget most about the moon and astronomy. Probably the entirety of the last few months. And there are probable side effects, like sporadic short-term amnesia.” Spencer said.
“Or we can just fucking shoot you in the forehead right now to prevent the thing from infecting more people. Your choice.” The guy with the gun said. I just turned around and ran as fast as I can towards the window behind me. I jumped out of it, shattering the glass, and fell on the hard cold concrete of the parking lot. I tried to get up, my body was all cut from the glass, and I felt something warm on my back, even though it was raining.
“Are you stupid?!” I heard the guy with the gun shouting while he and the other agent descended the staircase that led to the parking lot. I finally got up, feeling cold from the rain, and tried to run, but could only limp. Yeah, jumping out of the window like I was in an 80s action movie wasn’t the best idea. I heard another click behind me, and fell to the floor. I could see the agents running towards me, smoke coming out of the gun. There seemed to be snakes around both of them, smiling witch their human faces and several sets of sharp fangs.
I looked towards the sky. Among the raining clouds, I could see the moon above me, full and blooming. Blinking. Blinking so much.

///11th of June, 2006 “Dad, the moon!” I shouted as I entered the garage. My father was on the floor, under his Bugatti 57SC Atlantic, obsessively removing and re-installing pieces of the car like he always did. He quickly got up, a smile on his grease-stained face. “Finally!” He said with his beer-breath, grabbing a towel and cleaning most of his face, before running outside as fast as he could. I followed him. I don’t know why I always liked these moments. Any child would find them terribly boring. But I always reveled on them. Maybe it’s because they were the only moments he smiled. He positioned his telescope on our front yard, adjusted the lens, drank a beer can and started looking at the full moon above us. “Do you see it?” I asked, sitting on the grass next to him. “Shut up.” He said, still looking. After half an hour of waiting, he started laughing. I opened my mouth to ask if he was seeing it, but I held my voice. Didn’t want to anger him. “It’s blinking! It’s blinking Johnathan!” He laughed. I smiled. That wasn’t my name, though he called me that. Only several years later I would learn that was the name of his deceased younger brother. Every full moon, we would come look at it with the telescope. And he’d always call me Johnathan. Probably because he was always so drunk. But from always avoiding me or calling me “Brat”, Johnathan was a nice shift. “Can I see?” I asked, and he lowered the tripod so I could see the moon. There was a small light blinking on it’s surface. It was truly beautiful. “Fine, my turn again.” My father shoved me back, adjusted the tripod back, and started looking at it again. “It’s blinking so much tonight… Maybe… Brat, get my camera!” He shouted at me. I quickly went inside the house, and looked around for the camera in the living room. There it was, on a little pile of beer cans and empty rythmol boxes in the corner of the room. I hurried back outside, as fast as I could, as I did not want to anger my father. I stopped on my tracks as soon as I was out of the house. There was a strange being involving my father. It looked like a snake, but I knew it was anything but a snake. There were not snakes that big where I lived. And certainly not with human faces. My father seemed oblivious to it, looking through his telescope, but the thing was all around him, from the bottom of his legs all the way to the top of his head. “It’s blinking so much…” He said, in awe. The creature looked at me, locking eyes with me, and smiled, revealing several sets of sharp fangs. And then, it disappeared. My father looked at me, he was sweating. “I think… I need to lay down for a bit…” He muttered, before falling on the grass. I spent the entire night trying to wake him up, before my mother found me there crying the following day. ///09th of November 2021 “And that’s why you decided to study astronomy? Really?” Melissa laughed. “Oh, come on, babe… Don’t make fun of my tragic past.” I said, finishing my waffles. She went to the fridges, grabbed the orange juice, and poured some in our cups. “Shall we toast?” She asked. “With orange juice? And what for?” “Your impending graduation. What else?” “Impending? Ha! I didn’t even start my capstone thesis.” “So, what will it be about? Venus, right? Or was it Mars?” “Nope. Too many people I know will already be working on planets like Venus and Mars. I thought about Neptune, but it’s too far away. So I figured, why not the Moon?” “Please, don’t tell me this is about your father.” “Mel, he wasn’t the best dad in the world. But he did left me his collection of vintage cars. This is what paid for my education.” “He didn’t left it to you, it was divided between you and your mother.” “Regardless, I feel like I owe him this. Apart from the cars, the moon was the only thing he loved.” “You owe him nothing, Ezra.” “I need to know what the blinking lights are! Lunar transient phenomena, it’s how they call them. There’s no scientific explanation to what they are.” “Just because there’s no known scientific explanation, it doesn’t mean one does not exist. And if there’s one, it’s certainly not creepy snake-man” She laughed. ///04th of September, 2022 The first thing you feel when you start seriously investigating the moon is how mysterious it is. We only went there a handful of times, and then never again. All reasons are given for this, but it never really felt right to me. Maybe what happened to my father always made me feel paranoid about the subject, but I somehow felt there were things about the moon that were hiding on plain sight. The focus of my research, the lunar transient phenomena, is incredibly unknown. Few studies were done about it, and most of them were never published or were abandoned. The few that were made available were either from little-known universities in third-world countries, in languages that I couldn’t understand and without English translation, or mere compilations of recorded occurrences. I found some theories. The lights were caused by magnetism, or by gasses, or by asteroids, perspective… But mere hypothesis were not enough for me. I needed to know. I needed to understand. I needed… I needed to confirm it weren’t those lights who killed my father that day. So, I delved deep into the research. I spent weeks in my bedroom, reading books and more books, entering all sorts of websites, sending emails to experts, looking for anything that could give me more information. But through all my effort, the only thing I could find were theories or hypothesis, all of them with little to no evidence. In my search for answers, I started straying further away from modern science, entering strange websites and reading books that talked about blatant pseudoscience, like astrology or the paranormal. ///17th of February, 2022 “So, what books will you be basing your capstone on?” My orienting professor asked. I could not see his face properly, we were talking through a videocall and he was not very tech savvy, so his eyes and nose were out of the frame. “Chris, I can only see your mouth!” I laughed. “Sorry…” He said, adjusting his camera. The framing was not perfect yet, but it was better. "Have you read the books I sent you?" "They... They were not what I was looking for." "What were you looking for, Ezra?" "I told you. Answers. I have been looking for answers, yet I only find questions." "We will only be able to find real answers when we actually set a lab on the moon. Until then, we will have to live with merely hypothesizing." "I know, but..." "Have you tried reading Kulikovsky?Or Hakan Kayal? Non-american studies in general." "Yes, professor Chris. But... All studies seem to contradict themselves. Some point to studies that I can’t find anywhere, like they don’t exist anymore. Like they were erased by someone…” “Some texts were never made digital or registered. It’s very unfortunate.” “Everyone tries to find a logical explanation... What if there isn't one?" "What is this truly about?" "What?" "It's just... You do know you can change your capstone thesis theme, right? Maybe an analysis of something more well-known could work better with your methodology." "Chris, I will not change my mind. We have discussed this before." "Well, well... I talked to one of my former colleagues, he is retired now, who also studied the moon, but his research was more focused on gravity. He told me there's a book called "A Study of the Moon with a New Lens" or something like that. Written by one Dr. Karl Hollfern in 1935." "That is way before LTP was even catalogued." "Catalogued, yes. Recorded? No. Hollfern studied extensevely the lunar mysteries. Unfortunately, he was executed by the Nazis because he opposed them. But his research lived on. My friend told me they have one of his books in the library. But it's in German." ///18th of February, 2022 I entered the library carrying a bag full of German grammar books and a dictionary. I would not let a little language barrier stop me from getting to the truth. “Hello, how can I help you?” The librarian asked, barely averting her eyes from her cellphone. “I’m actually looking for a book that could either be in the astronomy section or in the foreign titles section… Can you help me?” “Which book?” She was still looking at her phone, seemingly playing one of those generic casual mobile games. “It’s in German. Old, from the 1930s. Talks about studies of the moon made at the time.” “Unusual request, but ok…” She put her phone on the counter, and started typing on the computer. “Can’t find it. Do you have the author’s name?” “Karl Hollfern.” “Uncanny. It’s unlisted.” “What?” “We have it in the library, but it’s not available. We usually do this when books are being cleaned. Usually takes a couple of days… It says it won’t be listed until… Until 2100? “What? How does this makes sense?” “I don’t know. I’ve been working here for sixteen years, and have never seen something like this. Regardless, I can’t lend you the book. I can’t even let you access it in library grounds.” ///23rd of February, 2022 I was drinking my Starbucks cappuccino while trying to make myself comfortable on the shopping mall bench, to no avail. I was tense. I had never involved myself with something like this. If my mother or girlfriend knew, they would kill me. An older man made his way out of the crowd and patiently sat down next to me. “You were supposed to be sitting on the bench next to Nike. But no problem.” He laughed. “Sorry. I got confused…” I facepalmed. “I got the book you asked me too. But the price is going to be different in your case.” “As in more expensive?” “No. Normally, I charge twenty five grand, or double If the job is hard. In your case, the job was ridiculously easy. I will be charging five grand only.” “Thanks! I’m transferring to your account right now…” I said as I typed on my phone. “The book is in your car.” “How did you… Oh, of course.” “Pleasure doing business with you.” He got up and left. I immediately went to my car. There it was, Eine Untersuchung des Mondes mit einer neuen Linse. ///28th of February, 2022 “Honey, are you still awake?” Melissa asked me. I was sitting on a pillow in the corner of the room, aggressively doing more and more Duolingo lessons. “I’m busy, Mel.” I said, without averting my eyes from the green owl. “Is this about that German book you have been taking everywhere?” “No…” I blatantly lied. “Honey, you’ve been up all night. It’s ten to six.” “What?” “You are obsessed with this shit, Ezra! Look at you! This is the third time I find you here studying German instead of sleeping!” “I’m sorry, but you do know I have a capstone thesis to finish, don’t you?!” I screamed back at her. “Oh. So this is what’s all about, right?” “Babe, it’s not like that…” Before I could say anything, she stormed out of the apartment. I stood there, frozen, for a minute or two, before I went back to my Duolingo. ///3rd of March, 2022 “Hello Ezra” Chris said, as I adjusted my camera. As usual, I couldn’t see his face properly. “Good evening, professor Chris.” “Ezra, are you okay? You look tired.” “I’m fine.” I said vehemently. “Ezra… I… I have bad news for you.” When he said that, I felt like a hand was smashing my heart. “The university has rejected your intended theme.” “W-what?” “You’ll have to pick something else. I’m sorry.” “What? Why?!” “Apparently there’s information about Lunar Transient Phenomena that is undisclosed to the general public. The feds were here yesterday, talked with the dean about it. Said that researching the LTP was considered meddling in national security affairs, and that all projects focusing on it were to be halted.” “Bullshit!” “I’m sorry. I know how much time you have already invested in this. But we’ll find something else, Ezra. There are more lunar mys…” I interrupted him. “Why is it so hard to research a simple lunar phenomena?! Every time I advance, everyone tries to block me! They will not stop me from uncovering what happened to my father!” I slammed the table. “What?” “This will not stop me.” I muttered, while ending the videocall. ///8th of March, 2022 After some turbulent days, I was finally making progress again. My knowledge of German wasn’t great, but knowing basic grammar, using online dictionaries, and with a little help from online German studying communities, I was making my way through the book. The book was almost a century old, yet I felt like I was finally making progress. The research by Hollfern was fascinating, but disturbing. He described how the “blinking moonlights” if watched carefully, could be interpreted as having meaning. My German was advancing but far from perfect, so I didn’t have the exact translation, but it said something about the moon speaking in some sort of secret code using the lights. It also referenced some books, most of which seemed to not exist anymore, but some of them not only existed, I also managed to download their scanned PDFs. It was pretty unorthodox for a scientific study. There was a book on symbols and sigils of different religions, a compilation of theological texts about Gnosticism, a book compiling works by Schopenhauer, and a Hindi scroll explaining Chakras. I didn’t understood yet how everything connected. Seemed like a strange collection of unrelated weirdness. ///10th of March, 2022 I stumbled upon something I had previously overlooked. There’s an work by Schopenhauer where he discuss reading the Upanishads, which are old Hindi texts. The Hindi text I had downloaded was translated to English, but what if I looked for the original? Maybe there was something I wasn’t shown. The original had a section that was censored in the English version that talked about a Devas that was corrupted by an evil unknown entity called that attached on it’s solar plexus and made it miserable with overwhelming sadness and pain. A thing described as a floating jester. ///13th of March, 2022 The phone in the living room started ringing. I left it there, unwilling to stop reading the book and trying to translate the contents. The call went to voicemail, and then I heard the caller recording it: “Hey Ezra, I know you’re going through a bad time, but as your orienting professor, I care for you. You didn't show up for any of your tests. I know you seem to be focused on your research, but this isn't the-" I unplugged the damn thing. ///16th of March, 2022 I got evicted after not paying my rent. Or I was supposed to be at least. I picked up my research stuff and rented a cheap motel room on the outskirts of my town. I could not pay for the rent, and least not for now, I spent most of my money buying books and old magazines during the last weeks. I don’t need a place to call mine for now. I just need to find the truth. I know the government will come after me. I’m coming too close. But if they want me to stop, they will have to kill me. I’ve already lost everything. This investigation is all I have left. ///18th of March, 2022 There's an old website that I found while researching. A true relic, seems to be from the early 90s. It contains old conspiracies theories, like stuff about the Illuminati and New Age, Satanic Panic, how Ronald Reagan was actually replaced, among other things. But there was something among the insanity that I felt was the last thing missing in my investigation. The true reason why we never returned to the Moon and why the Soviets never even attempted landing on it. According to that website, during the last moon expedition, in December of 1972, the astronauts were secretly instructed to find out what was causing the Lunar Transient Phenomena, and spent three days on the Taurus-Littrow Valley, the region where the phenomena was more frequent on the previous five years. They were carrying a seismometer, as the most influential theory at the time was that the LTP was being caused by moonquakes cracking the surface of the natural satellite and releasing gasses. But what the seismometer detected was that there were no such thing as moonquakes. Their equipments revealed humongous structures, seemingly biological or mechanical, moving under the moon surface. One day before they left, NASA detected an instance of LTP a few kilometers near where they were stationed, so the astronauts went there to check. What they found there was never disclosed, but some theorize they met one of the beings responsible for causing the blinking lights. And that was the reason humanity abandoned all expeditions to the moon. After five missions in three years, we never returned there. ///20th of March, 2022 I woke up feeling like my head was spinning. I was lying on the sofa of my motel room. Once again, I had spent the entire previous night and day reading texts cited by Dr. Hollfern. My tablet was out of battery, so I got up, feeling pain all over my body, and went looking for my charger. It took me a couple of minutes to notice the two men wearing dark suits, black ties and dark sunglasses sitting on my sofa. One of them had a silenced pistol on his hand. “Good afternoon, Ezra Thornbridge.” The one holding the firearm said, with a voice so ordinary it was scary. “W-what?!” I blurted, still trying to overcome the pain. “Oh, don’t mind us. We are just here to recover something.” The other man said, smiling. “Something that isn’t yours, yet you’re in possession of.” The man with the gun complemented. “I… Who are you?” I asked. “Right now, I’m the man pointing the gun at you.” The man with the weapon said, while his partner just shrugged. “Fine, I’ll return your damn book. But I already know about it. I already put the pieces together." "Oh, interesting. What do you think you know, Thornbridge?" One of them mocked. "The Solar Plexus Clown Glider. I have studied them in depth. Or do you prefer to call them like the Gnostic theologians called them back in the day? Archons…” “Look what we have here, Spencer. Like father like son.” The guy with the gun scoffed. “I told you we should have just doped him and looked for the damn book while he slept. He is totally gone.” Spencer said. “I’m not crazy! The Archons are real! They killed my father! They kill people! And you, instead of trying to protect the people, just hide their existence, just lie, just lie and lie and lie!” “How can you be so smart yet so stupid?” The guy with the gun said. “The Archons don’t kill people, Ezra. They just make you miserable and drown you in fear and pain.” Spencer said. “But I saw one kill my father.” “Your father died of chronic ventricular arrhythmia coupled with excessive alcohol ingestion. The thing you saw was merely an emotional parasite, feeding off his negative emotions and influencing him to indulge on them.” Spencer said. “Does this mean…” “Yes. It also infected you that day. That’s why you saw it. It’s been with you ever since. The more you learn about it, the more you dread, the more you obsess, the more you lose… You were feeding it all along.” Spencer explained. “And why do you think we tried to protect you, dumbass? If the knowledge was harmless, we wouldn’t be around breaking the law and breaking people’s necks to prevent it from spreading.” The guy with the weapon said. “It’s not too late, Ezra. When your father was alive, there wasn’t much we could do, but now we have technology to make them go away. But it has a cost.” Spencer explained. “What cost?” “You will forget your father. You will forget most about the moon and astronomy. Probably the entirety of the last few months. And there are probable side effects, like sporadic short-term amnesia.” Spencer said. “Or we can just fucking shoot you in the forehead right now to prevent the thing from infecting more people. Your choice.” The guy with the gun said. I just turned around and ran as fast as I can towards the window behind me. I jumped out of it, shattering the glass, and fell on the hard cold concrete of the parking lot. I tried to get up, my body was all cut from the glass, and I felt something warm on my back, even though it was raining. “Are you stupid?!” I heard the guy with the gun shouting while he and the other agent descended the staircase that led to the parking lot. I finally got up, feeling cold from the rain, and tried to run, but could only limp. Yeah, jumping out of the window like I was in an 80s action movie wasn’t the best idea. I heard another click behind me, and fell to the floor. I could see the agents running towards me, smoke coming out of the gun. There seemed to be snakes around both of them, smiling witch their human faces and several sets of sharp fangs. I looked towards the sky. Among the raining clouds, I could see the moon above me, full and blooming. Blinking. Blinking so much…

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Is it possible to test T-Mobile 5G home when you addresses doesn’t show available? Can I use a friends address but use it at the address that isn’t available?

Hey guys, I’m on mobile so apologies for any weird formatting!
I’ve been seeing this guy for a couple of months now. When we first started hanging out he mentioned that he’s not emotionally available enough for a relationship which was fine with me.
Since then, we’ve been hanging out a lot, he’s made it clear that I’m known to his friends and his family, he holds my hand in public and there’s PDA too. Just a lot of stuff that suggests he has caught feelings and is ready for a relationship. I know I could probably ask him outright but I’m in a bit of a pickle. He’s going on a vacation with his friends and I won’t be seeing him for a while but I feel like it’s the right time to have the ‘what are your feelings/ expectations for this’ conversation. My brain will not rest until I do so, and I’m debating shooting him a text to get some insight.
Just unsure how to go about this if I even should. I don’t want him to feel backed into a corner but I also need clarity else it’ll eat away at me haha.
Thanks!

I live in a rural area that thankfully has a companionate power supplier (Ontonagon REA) that doesn’t send shut off notices if you’re unable to pay until April. But, because of that and because I had someone living here that used utilities that they ended up not paying for (and then I kicked them out for not fufill if their promises of paying their own bills) I ended up with a massive overdue bill. I’ve been trying to apply for state help with this since February when it was more manageable (about 800$ of unpaid power bills from the kicked out person who refused to use anything but electric heat in his room of our originally wood stove heated dwelling) but they said they couldn’t let me apply for state relief until I had a delinquent/shut off notice. I then reapplied around April when I got the first delinquent/shut off notice after a few months of having to use only electric heat after the snow and ice (I live in upper Michigan) damaged my stove pipe for my wood stove in March.
Relying on electric for the heat for those months and the late fees skyrocketed my bill into 1,500$ mark by April. When I reapplied in April, I mistakingly labeled my property as my address with the part of the description being ‘a dilapidated uninhabitable double wide on site’ instead of ‘a dilapidated uninhabitable mobile home on site’ and the welfare office thought I had a second property and then turned down my State Emergency Relief application (and canceled my food assistance as well) because I couldn’t verify anything about the second property they thought I had, I mailed in the verification document saying I don’t have a second property. Then I called, asked them what they meant about a second property, we figured out it was the same property and I don’t have a second property, and they reapproved my food assistance and I thought restarted the process for my S.E.R, but they didn’t(and the person on the phone claimed that was restarted too but it wasnt). I’ve been paying what I can when I can towards it, but I’ve never had it this high before and my busiest vendor event for my farm in the year is this month. Now I can’t even finish the rest of my items for it because I have no power for the equipment. Usually I would just pay what I can, and since it wasn’t usually that much, they would let me pay back up when I had money..
My power got turned off with an overdue balance of I think the welfare office said 1,950$(and some change I’m not sure of the exact amount I’m waiting to receive that in the mail) on may 31 around noon. I have someone here with me who requires to use their nebulizer to be able to breathe. They have extremely bad asthma and have now gone without a breathing treatment for 2 days. We ran them over to the neighbors for an emergency one this morning. Thankfully they were home.
I’ve been on the phone the last 2 days trying to see if they can help. Finally got a decision today from them that they can’t help at all until I can come up with a 950$ co-pay and pay that to the power company, then they can come in and pay up to 850$ in assistance.. I don’t know how I’m supposed to come up with that when I can’t make my stuff to sell. My first event isn’t until June 10th. I have 2 others this month, and 3-5 next month.
Once I get the paper in the mail that says the exact amount I can email that into this modteam, post it, or send it to one of the mods, whatever they require.
Is there anything anyone can do to help me?

Been on Google fi for many years and have had no issues. My pixel 3 is literally falling apart. I considered getting the pixel 7 but I'd rather wait for the 8 so taking advantage of the 24 month credits is not ideal.
A family member has an extra line and phone and said I was more than welcome to it. I don't want to give up my Google fi as I use my data only sim cards a LOT, but would like to just have calls and messages forwarded to the other phone (Samsung s21 on TMobile) for the next several months. I see how to do that for calls but not for text messages. Does anyone know how to do that?
If it matters, I also have a Google voice number. So if I could forward to that, that could also work. Thanks for any advice!

Part 24: https://www.reddit.com/Viidith22/comments/13taoss/my_roommate_is_slenderman_part_24_revised/
(Terry)
It had been a day or so and I hadn’t gotten a response from Megami. There are spurts where we don’t talk, she tends to be pretty accident-prone with electronics. Sometimes the frequency she’s singing goes haywire and fries it. But it had been a good five months or so since we last spoke. Taking a shot in the dark, I called Rachel.
“What is it, Terry?” She grunted, “I’m a little busy.”
“I need to talk to Megami, but she’s been MIA since the whole ‘Maerod’ situation.” My mind shot back to what Jones had told me, to watch out for “her,” momentarily questioning whether or not Dexter’s team had been dumb enough to keep her alive.
There was a pause, the line was silent. Then, a sigh, “Actually, I’ve had the same problem. I figured she just broke another phone, or was pissed at me for… Well, I’ll keep an ear out and let you know if I hear anything. What do you need her for?” She grunted again.
“Small mission.”
“Joseph?”
“Yeah.”
The line went silent again, then an exasperated sigh, “Good luck, be sure to bring The Doctor with you. You know how you can get.”
A flush of anger pulsed through me, but I took a deep breath, “Sure.”
She shrieked, “Oh shit!” The call ended.
I thought over the list of everyone, wondering what I was gonna do. I had actually intended to have Doc and Megami be the last two after Smudge, no one else would really work. Chad wasn’t right for the type of incognito mission we were doing, Abraham wasn’t available, Rachel and Sepratine just didn’t quite mesh with what we were doing, Megami was supposed to be the last one to fill out the party. I mulled it over, but I still owed David, the huuldefolk, a favor from the Maerod raid. I would’ve called Jacob, but he was in another country doing who knows what.
My phone rang as I stood, leaning against the couch, “Jones, something wrong?”
He chuckled, “Not in the least. You got your group together?”
“We’re one short.”
“No problem, bring everyone by tonight, we need to prepare on our end, and Dexter sent us a bit of backup.” He hung up.
I called up Doc and Smudge, telling them to be at my place and ready by the time dusk rolled around. Heading to the bathroom I downed my meds, trying to shake off a weird feeling that slowly crept up on me. As if something was going to happen when we got there. It was more than just a bad feeling, but a conviction, I knew something would happen, and it made me uncomfortable. One of the pills I took was supposed to ease it, but when it got that bad, it meant my brain had already determined some kind of outcome. It’s not a superpower or anything, more like enhanced intuition. It only happens when my brain has the information to go off of. But there’s a disconnect between my conscious and subconscious, so whenever something like that happens, I just have to wait for it to come to fruition.
-----------------------------------------
Stepping into the office, I looked around, “Where’s the new guy?”
Xavier looked up, baffled at the sight. Then Jones stood, walking over to greet us, the bags under his eyes less defined, “He’s in the back getting himself something to eat. Smudge, nice to see you again, you haven’t aged a day.” Smudge chuckled at that, “You must be The famous Doctor, I want to thank you for coming. I’m sure you’re a busy man.” He outstretched his hand, but Doc just gestured between Jones and me.
“You see, that’s how you should greet me. You really ought to get a notepad out, you might learn a thing or two about how to respect your elders.”
“If I remember correctly, I’m about 2,000 years your senior. When did you start your… questionable medical practices again? 16th, 17th century?”
Doc ignored me, angrily shaking Jones’s hand, “Nice to meet you, lad! Glad to hear somebody thinks highly of me, even if it is a meager thinskin.”
“Me and my dislocated fingers thank you for that.” As he brought his hand back, Jones uncomfortably pushed his fingers back into their sockets one by one. “So, who were you planning on bringing? You said there was going to be another?”
“Right, had my sights set on a Siren, she’s pretty skilled and can be silent when the occasion arises. But I couldn’t get ahold of her.” I paused, “Actually, you’ve got your ear to the ground, you heard anything about someone named Megami? It’s been a few months since we talked, I’m kinda worried.”
Jones was a mannequin, despite trying to seem calm, his eyes flicked to Xavier before shooting back to us. He leaned against his desk, reaching for his coffee mug several times, not looking away from us, before finally grabbing it, and raising it to his mouth.
I stared hard at Xavier, a few moments later, he cracked, “Look it was a life or death sit–”
My legs tightened, I could feel the meds pushing to the side as I grew, stepping over to him in two long strides. He threw out his hearing aid, grasping his one intact ear as he held himself up with his free hand on the desk, “You killed Megami! Tell me why I shouldn’t give you the same treatment!” Something grasped my waist, then each of my legs. They were trying to push me back. When I released a tentacle to shoot Xavier through the head, I felt a prick stab into it. I fell limp, shrinking back down instantaneously.
Much calmer, I looked at my surroundings, Doc stood over me, making sure I was fine, Smudge looked between Xavier and me, wondering how he should react. Then I saw Xavier, Jones standing beside him, and on the other side of the desk, just across from us, stood the blonde buzzcut, and scarred musculature, of a Texan soldier. “Fucking Tucker.” I chuckled with disdain, “Of course.”
“Wish I had my H.O.P.S. but unfortunately it was destroyed along with the U.S.P.M. You’re one terrifying son of a bitch when I’m not in a full suit of armor, I’ll tell you what.” Looking close, I noticed he was wearing one of the older exosuits they used to wear. It was clean, but there were scuffs in the black paint job here and there.
“The U.S.P.M is just a bad fucking omen at this point.”
“Hey, we didn’t kill Jeff, and we didn’t kill Megami. So why don’tcha chill the fuck out.” Tucker crossed his arms, staring at me.
Smudge let out a jittery sigh, “You know, Jane’s death wasn’t necessarily the fault of Jeff.”
I looked at him, “Are you really going to side with the thinskins on this one?”
“Terry, behave yourself. We’re only here for Joseph’s sake. After we’re done you can go wipe out the US government. But we’re here for a reason. Doctor back me up here.”
“I’m neutral in this, I don’t care much for anyone.”
“And yet you’re here to help save Joseph.”
He sighed, “Joseph is okay I suppose. But I’m here because Terry gave me a deal on a pixie a month or so back.”
Smudge and Doc continued their back and forth as I stared at Xavier, he stood upright again, fixing the aid back into his ear, “I don’t blame you, Terry, I’d kill me too. I even did. But at least wait till this is over, yeah? I wanna slip in one last good deed if I can.” He blinked tears back as he put on a ski mask.
“When we’re done, I’ll thank you, but you better hope we never cross paths again.”
“I could say the same to you… I could.”
The air was still for a minute or so, even Doc and Smudge had stopped their bickering. “Well then.” Tucker smacked his hands together, making a metal clink, “Y’all ready to kick some shit in?”
“How long is the drive? I’ll need at least an hour to recover.”
Jones answered, “Hour and a half to two, you’ll be fine. We’ve got guns in the van, all suppressed. I had a mutual acquaintance of ours send us a care package yesterday. Regardless, I say we should all keep our blood inside our bodies.”
Tucker joined in, “Speaking of, I managed to scrounge the materials to make up some of those SIOM rounds. I left them in the van, along with the last resort.” He winked at me.
Jones nodded, “We should be good to go then, you guys oughtta join us in the van, less conspicuous.”
I nodded, “Yeah, that’d make the most sense. I’ll be taking the lead when we get there though. Which reminds me, you never sent me the schematics.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll send them over. Are you gonna have enough time to put a plan together?”
“Yeah, I already know how we’ll follow into the building. I was thinking Tucker at first, but without his suit, he’s basically just a liability.”
He rolled his eyes, “Yeah, we’ll see about that one.”
-----------------------------
As the van slowed, Tucker pulled on his combat gloves. He was decked out in full gear that I hadn’t really noticed till we got in the van. A flexible vest that was essentially a skin-tight long-sleeve shirt, meeting his wrists. His pants were tight and were made of the same fabric as his shirt.
We came to a complete stop as he slung his rifle around, clicking off the safety on his Bizon. Doc clapped his book shut, and Smudge stood.
“Alright, everyone up, we need to get to the gun cases.” Jones had come back through a door-sized hole connecting the back of the van to the front. He’d already pulled his mask over his face, the only color that came from him was his remaining eye and parts of his lips, only revealed by small, cut strips in the fabric.
We stood, sidestepping so he could get to the guns behind the seats. One by one we filed out the back.
Xavier hopped out the back, followed by Jones who stared at Tucker for a moment, “Did you uh… Did you put a new scope on this?” He raised his PS90 which held an ACOG and a suppressor.
“Oh yeah, it’s kinda like a thermal scope. But instead of heat it picks up… well I don’t actually know. But you should be able to see anything invisible or not.” Xavier inspected his own gun, “Sorry guy, I only had enough for Jones and me. You should be fine, but just cause you don’t got a fancy scope don’t mean you can go missing your shots. Them rounds’re expensive as hell.”
“Well, let’s get going, I’ve got the map down, I know how to get there. Second floor of their basement has the data. Unfortunately, we have no idea what security looks like, so we have to be cautious if we intend to stay hidden.”
Tucker spoke, “Just to be clear, you’re upfront, Jones is behind you, then the Doctor, then Xavier with me covering our asses.”
“Smudge is behind Doc, and while I’d like to have Xavier in the back–”
Xavier rolled his eyes, “Well I’d like to have you in back.”
Tucker sighed, “Anyhow, guess it works. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll have a huuldefolk I can put some rounds through. Release some of this tension.” He shot his gaze between Xavier and me.
“Well let’s head out. Smudge, you’ll be able to keep the cameras down right?”
“Based on what you said about their layout I should be able to, but I won’t be able to keep us hidden from the perception of the guards once we’re inside. There are far too many electronics I need to keep down so if we run into anyone inside the building, we need to kill them and hide their bodies to avoid being caught. I can’t keep the entire building down, so I can’t stop them from setting off an alarm if we miss anyone.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Tucker lifted his gun.
“Let’s hope those sights are as powerful as you say.”
Before long, we were on our way. We’d parked some distance out so as to not draw any attention. Taking the lead, the only noise I could hear was the occasional snapping of twigs as we walked through a forested area. Despite having come in contact with the exoskeleton previously, it still surprised me how stealthy Tucker could be wearing it.
Breaching the treeline, I held up my hand. Surrounded by a gravel driveway stood a three-story tall modern office-style building. Men patrolled around the lot, all wearing tactical gear. Focusing on the shadows, I could tell there were hidden guards as well, those ones were wearing light, flexible clothing and minimal if any weapons.
“Smudge,” I whispered, waving him up with two fingers.
“Yes.” As he looked out, he seemed to understand, “This will be a tough one if they aren’t all humans. Seems like there are about 30 guards that may see us. If even one of them is around a five, I won’t be able to blind all of them from our presence. If Rachel were here we’d be able to determine such a thing, unfortunately, we don’t have her spiritual sense.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Tucker whispered from behind us.
“What kind of bullshit caused you to break formation without my asking.”
“As I said, these scopes can sense alternative forms of energy. I have a few frames of reference, I know what civies look like through this thing. Smudge, if you can point out all the hidden ones, I’ll be able to tell you what we’re dealing with.”
Smudge looked at me, then shrugged, “Alright, if you’re certain.”
---------------------------
“We’re good to go then? That was the last one?”
“So it would seem, that scope of yours ought to be reliable.”
“If we don’t get by, you have my full permission to do whatever you want to Xavier.”
Jones butted in, “I believe that’s up for me to decide. I still need him around.”
Smudge whispered at a frequency that’d set dogs off, “Enough bickering, you’re worse than when I have to babysit Chad and Rachel. Everyone get in formation, it’s easiest on me if we go in single file.” Getting back into position, he spoke up, “Sorry Terry, I know you’re leading, but, well you get it.”
I nodded back to him, “Everyone ready? No piss breaks past this point. If you have cold feet, just head back to the van.” I looked back to Xavier, to which he flipped me off, signaling me to start.
I wasn’t worried about the situation until we got about ten feet from the door. One of the two guards standing beside it looked over at us. I signaled everyone to stop, and the guy continued to stare. A few moments later, he shrugged, facing forward again, and we continued on through the door.
There was no one in the immediate vicinity, though there were several cameras pointed toward us, blinking.
Smudge said one word as he took a deep breath, “Break.”
Nodding, I signaled for the three of us up front to take the right wall, and the other three to take the left.
------------------------------
Once Smudge caught his breath, he stood back up, and we all got back into formation, right as a guard turned the corner. I shot a tentacle out, grabbing him by the throat and snapping his neck, all while bringing him closer so we could hide the body.
That was when an alarm went off, “FUCK! Keep the humans hidden, Doc and I can handle ourselves.” My brain froze time, trying to figure out what happened. Eventually, it clicked, heart monitors, a precaution not even Maerod took.
“Leave me out of it Smudge, I can handle myself too. You need all the focus you can get.” Tucker stepped up, aiming down sights.
The door bashed open before I could get my tentacles out. Turning, Tucker already faced the door, dropping people in one to two rounds a piece.
Turning back toward the dead body, I headed on, alarms blaring overhead. Bodies came and went. Despite how badly we’d apparently messed up the plan, I knew where the database was, and I refused to let anyone stand between me and it.
Each step I took was further than the last, “KEEP YOURSELVES SAFE, I’M GOING FURTHER IN!”
“Not without me you’re not!” Metal clattering rang out, “IMBECILE!” Doc caught up to me as I flung several bodies out of the way.
“Watch where you’re throwin’ em!” Tucker yelled out, “We shouldn’t split up!”
I was already at the staircase making my way down when something smacked across my face. Turning to my right, I saw a lanky man with his hands in his pockets. He was slouched as if bored.
“FINE, GO DOWN, I’LL MEET YOU THERE!” Swinging a tentacle at him, he made a popping motion with his mouth, the limb slammed into a wall. Shooting them all at him, he blew air out in a circle, then at me directly, lunging at me as he threw me off balance. He kicked me in the chin, then down on my head, knocking me to a knee. A second later I was thrown into the air, then to the ground.
“Damn man, you look like you could use a hand.” The strange man stood over me, offering me his right.
I took it, spinning him around, snapping his arm, and flinging him against the wall, where lay motionless. I stabbed him in the head, then the heart just to be safe. Scoffing at his arrogance, I headed down the stairway.
When I got down to the second basement floor, there were already several dead bodies strewn about. Everyone was hiding behind metal tables. Tucker injected Doc with something, sitting beside them was a heaving Smudge.
I put my tentacles away, and a sudden burst of gunfire came from the back of the wide-open office room. A few bullets hit me, but I was already too tall, they crumpled on impact.
“THEY GET AHOLD OF YOUR FORMULA!?”
“Fuck that’s loud, yeah, there was a leak a few months back! Doc ain’t doin’ so hot!”
“That’s, The Doctor, to, you.” He spoke each word with individual breaths.
Walking toward the guards, they panicked. With a thud hitting my chest, one of the men screamed, “We need you up here!” Looking down I found a pinless grenade, which I kicked, knocking one of the men unconscious. Bodies tumbled over one another as it exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere. A few pieces stuck in my face, but I headed straight for the room.
“YOU’LL WANT TO GET BACK! SOMEONE IS COMING FROM DOW–” The ground gave out from under me, falling a few floors, I was kicked into a wall in a dark room, aside from the hole. Landing on my feet, I looked around, rubbing my side. I felt something wet, where I’d been hit. Then I saw who it was. A scaly humanoid, each scale tipped with a tinted blue, serrated prong. His shadow fluctuated, then its eyes sprung open, and a black mist shot me. I blocked with my tentacles, but they were cheese to a grater.
“Kenet himself breaking in here? Must think you’re hot shit!”
I grunted, springing off the wall, using a shredded tentacle to slam the scaly man with a table. Sure enough, the mist formed into a shadow-walker, same as Jacob. I slammed my fist into his face before he could react.
“I NEED SOME LIGHT DOWN HERE!”
But the scaled man already rebounded, swinging his pronged fist at my face. I managed to block with my arm, but it was getting stiff.
“DOC, I NEED YOU!”
I heard Tucker to my left, “He’s still recovering, close your eyes!”
Before I could tell him I couldn’t close my face, a clinking sounded, and I saw a small metal canister roll into view. A blinding light took over, banging nine times, each followed by a flash. Then several gunshots.
Accepting the pain to come, I grabbed the scaled man, flinging him into the ceiling, dazing him. The shadow-walker was already dead on the ground, three bullet holes planted in his skull.
“NICELY DONE!”
“Got any weaknesses on the other one? Never seen anything like him.”
“SKIN TRANSFORMATION, WE MUST WEAR HIM DOWN!”
“Lovely.”
The prongs tipping his scales had already shrunk considerably. Stumbling to his feet, he glanced down at the motionless skinwalker, “Goddamn.” His scales evaporated, leaving behind a hollow man, standing still, “Ju–”
Tucker put a bullet right between his eyes, “Didn’t have to ask buddy.”
As we turned to head back up the stairs, a thud reverberated from behind us. Turning back, Smudge lay, face first, and uncovered. He wore a full-body outfit ensuring no skin was revealed, but my concern was on whatever had dropped him down. Aside from the alarms, it was eerily silent. They landed on Smudge, hopping off, and kicking him into the wall.
The black suit was almost a fabric, but it was certainly mechanical. Parts at joints stuck out slightly, giving him mobility along with full body protection. At his neck, the material fluctuated, phase shifting at the slightest movement. The entire front of his helmet was a velvet red visor, the changed to a light blue when the light reflected just right. He had several weapons littering his body, including two hook swords, an unknown kind of pistol, a pump action shotgun, and a few others; all of which were as black as his armor.
I had to lean my head and chest down to avoid hitting the ceiling. I couldn’t move anymore, and Tucker looked a little nervous, “DOC! YOU ALIVE!?”
A German accent replied with a chuckle, “He was already dead.”
“Yeah, right.” Tucker said, “What’re you waitin’ for big guy?”
Shooting out my back, I held the odd man at tentacle point, Tucker readied his carbine, and the man retrieved his hook blades.
“Come, let me get this over with.”
Tucker stammered, “B-be careful.” He swapped magazines, “This guy is radiating like a human.” He fired a round, I felt it slide between two tentacles, and as it hit the man in the visor, an explosion errupted. I engaged, picking the man up by the leg, but before I could fling him, pain shot through it, the tip was sliced off. Tucker fired two more rounds, both exploding as they met their target, filling the room with a cloudy haze. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to move, but I felt like a turtle.
Suddenly, my leg ripped up, I held in place, stabilizing with a few tentacles, then smashed where a crack had formed on his visor, but he swung his other blade down, cutting it in half. A rapid succession of explosions slowly knocked the man back, and for the first time, he looked at Tucker, throwing one of the hookblades at him, it was angled for his face, but he snatched it mid air, then lunged at the man. He slammed the blade down on his shoulder, spinning it around and hooking the back of his arm, yanking him in, Tucker punched full force. In an instant, Tucker was against the wall, falling face first into the tile floor, leaving ceramic to crack the area around him.
The man chopped the last of my tentacles down as he approached me. When they were practically useless, he put the remaining blade away, pulling out the pump action shotgun. He shot me in the face six times before throwing the gun to his side. A small stream of black ooze dripped down my chin, and I had a hard time seeing anything in front of me.
“Damn, you’re one tough fucker, I’ll give that much.”
Pulling out his pistol, he proceeded to unload every round into my forehead, despite being ordinary metal, something about them kicked like a mule. When that gun was out, he dropped it, looking to his right, seeing where Tucker had dropped his gun.
“I wonder, how will you hold against explosive rounds? Not well?”
As he picked it up, I felt something prick my back, a familiar sensation made its way toward my heart, like organic WD-4D.
“You’re awfully quiet over there. Lost will to fight?”
“You’re an asshole!”
“Please, stop, I’ll shit myself.” He let out an antagonizing laugh, “You’re strong, but you’ve too much a stiffy going on there.” He let off a round into my face, nearly knocking me down, but I staggered just enough to stay in place.
“Wow, this has some nice kick to it, perhaps I’ll join the military after this.” He shot three more into my face, with each explosion, my skin peeled away just that much more, my brain rattled, but my limbs loosened.
By the fourth round, I regained some mobility, walking toward him. He stepped back, switching the gun to burst fire. I maneuvered around three bursts, only getting hit three times, each one in my torso. Those explosions seemed to boost the Doc’s serum, and I was able to grab the man by the head, crushing his visor with the palm of my hand. “You rely too much on your gadgets and luck. Neither will get you out of this.”
The helmet cracked, and blades shot out, slicing my fingers off. He pulled his remaining hook blade and slid under me. A sharp pain hit the back of my skull, then a cracking reverberated through my head. A metal clattering followed, and when I turned, the man stood there, shocked. He lunged back, throwing several kunai at my face, but I ducked them. With my full range of motion returned, I slung one of the tables at him, flinging him into a wall front-first.
Walking over to where he’d dropped Tucker’s rifle, I snagged it, and walked over to the man. He staggered back to his feet, a broken nose and a shard of ceramic sticking out of his eye. I held the gun to his forehead and fired, his head bursting like a pipe bomb.
I stumbled over to Tucker, dropping his gun beside him, and dropping to one knee. I smacked him in the face a few times, “You still alive?”
He rolled onto his side, “Kinda wish I wasn’t.” His face was covered in small cuts from the ceramic tiles, “Wish I’d had my Odyr suit, couldda kicked his ass. Fuckin hell what a dick.”
I sat beside him, “Hopefully he was their last line of defense, I think your gun gave me a concussion or something.” The room spun, my stomach on a Ferris wheel.
“Wow, the Doctor was right.”
I turned to the stairway, Xavier held Jones’s arm around his neck, helping him stand, “What happened, is Doc really dead?”
Tucker staggered his way to a standing position, “Nah, that stuff I gave him slows heart rate. He was too stupid to check for a full minute. He should still be alive, don’t worry.”
“And you two?”
Jones cleared his throat, “Smudge hid us, but he was worn down.”
Hearing that, I turned back to see Smudge, still laying flat. I stood, stumbling over to him, checking his pulse. It took a bit, but eventually, I felt a weak heartbeat. “DOC, YOU ALIVE UP THERE!?”
“I suppose!” He groaned.
“WE NEED YOU DOWN HERE! SMUDGE IS IN BAD SHAPE!”
A faint hint of a sigh made its way down the hole. I picked Smudge up, and moments later, Doc landed on the ground, a leg giving out from under him.
------------------------------------------
Some time passed, and we patched ourselves up as best we could before heading back up to the proper floor. Jones was able to walk on his own, but his right leg was in bad shape. I carried Smudge on my back, and despite Tucker’s several broken bones, he was walking just fine, occasionally stumbling from a torn tendon. As far as Doc went, the only sign he showed he was injured was his panting. Fortunately, we never ran into anyone else aside from the odd straggler, and we managed to grab the data we needed.
With the stressors passed, we laughed and joked, trying to bring ourselves back down from the adrenaline high. Exiting the building, I spoke up, “Xavier, I’m not going to forgive you, but I will thank you.”
He looked over at me, “To be fair, it was the Doctor’s idea.”
“That’s why I’m not forgiving you, anyone could’ve done it.”
“Oh, fair enough. Guess you could’ve done it too aye Doc?”
“That’s Doctor.” He let out an exhausted sigh, “In theory, but by the time I got around to it, who knows if Terry would still be alive. For a thin-skin, you did well.”
That’s when a limo pulled up through the gravel headed right for us, stopping just in time to not hit us, “Doc, wake Smudge, have him get you guys out of here. NOW!” I set him on the ground behind me.
“Well, I certainly hope he’s feeling up to it.”
“If not, you guys need to run.”
The back door opened, and a man in a suit stepped out. Pulling off his glasses, he tossed them in the back seat before closing the door and signaling the driver to leave. They couldn’t get away fast enough.
“Terry, son of Charles, I was under the impression you wouldn’t get involved with us. But after the Maerod incident, we decided we should implement additional security measures. Seems we should’ve invested more heavily into that. What was your intent here? If you had just called on Charles and told him about us, I’m certain he could’ve turned the entire building to mist.”
“If you know that, why’d you come to see for yourself, you can’t kill him. Or are you really that arrogant?”
The man laughed, “Because the alarm is still going off. If he had come, there would be no signal sending the alarm. You’re strong sure, but even three assassins managed to do this to you. Hence the difference between you mortals and us gods.”
“Didn’t realize living for 3000 years classified me as mortal.”
“You know, it’s interesting. Even after thousands of years, some still feel the need to attach themselves to this world. It’s as if they’re unaware of the insignificance of this world, this solar system, galaxy, supercluster, hell this universe! If you will live to see it all end, then what’s this part of it matter? They get animals to give themselves more meaning, call them pets. They feed the animal, water them, domesticate them, protect them. But they also prevent them from living in their natural habitat. Pulling the animal from where it belongs to give themselves a sense of purpose, it’s selfish wouldn’t you say?”
“Sure, I guess in a nihilistic sense.”
“So why are you here? To retrieve your pet? As I’ve said, there’s a transmitter in there, I saw what you pulled. Data on where your pet is. Why not just let him live in his terrarium?”
“He’s one of us now.”
“Due to your interference.”
“What are you really doing here!?”
“That’s the question of the day is it not? Quite frankly, I think Maerod was right to kill her. You’re far too attached to this world, though I suppose you are still a mere child. You could be so much more wise, and yet you refuse to allow it, you latch onto what’s been lost when you could focus on what you could have.”
“Sounds to me like you’re not quite past your own insignificance.”
He sneered, “Are you certain that’s your final answer?”
“I guess so.”
“Gods, the apple really does fall right to the roots.” The grass around him shriveled to dust when he charged me. Time stopped as the gleam in his eyes froze me, each fist pummeling me to the dirt, creating a deeper crater with each fist.
Then I was back in place, so was he. I’d never felt it so strong before, but I couldn’t deny the reality, he would kill me. Unlike Maerod, that man had absolute control over his soul, a feat all my attempts couldn’t achieve. All I could do was hold him off until I had an opportunity to slip out of his perception.
The grass around him slowly disintegrated, ready for his lunge, I leaped into the air, grabbing him mid-air with my tentacles and throwing him full force into the building. I sprung myself to the forest, latching onto a branch and engrossing myself in the tree, doing what I could to suck as much energy out. It wasn’t long before I was forced out. The tree crumbled to dust and I lept from it, charging the man with what little extra energy I had. He stood still, tanking four punches to his face. He kicked me back, nothing but a streak of blood running down his nose.
I lunged back searching for another tree. I found one a ways back, flinging myself at it, I fell into it and absorbed the tree’s power. I forced myself and found I could suck it out of other nearby trees. Until I was once again forced out, the trees crumbling in decayed mass, “You’ve gotten a bit stronger, Charles must be so proud.”
“What are you trying to achieve? Is losing your HQ really that important?”
He stepped toward me casually, “The same thing Maerod was trying to achieve, and really all the other gods in this disoriented country. However, no, killing you isn’t punishment for the damages, it’s for the audacity it took for you to do it. Entering my domain and destroying my primary facility? That takes balls, unfortunately, the rest was only a few inches.”
I tried to leap back again to gain a foothold, but all nearby trees crumpled to dust. Seeing no other way, I charged him again, but just as I came face to face, I spun and sidestepped, launching a single tentacle for the back of his heart, but on impact, it turned to dust.
“Unfortunately, the rest of you won’t be so easy to get rid of.” He turned, jumping, and once again, I met his bloodthirsty gaze. My skull cracked on impact, and when my head hit the dirt, a crater was left behind. He stood over me, “I’m gonna be on his shitlist for this one, but really, it’ll be worth it.” He pointed a finger gun at my head, and as the darkness closed in, three gunshots followed by a familiar light filled my senses, and when I could see again, his head was missing, the body still standing up-right, three bullet holes oozing blood at different angles...
I staggered to my feet, adrenaline keeping me awake. I looked around, seeing everyone but Smudge scattered around, “RUN! HE’S GONNA BLOW JUST FUCKING RUN!” I used my tentacles to move, sticking them in the ground and launching myself, then staggering to my feet. I headed in the direction the van was in, and a few seconds later, an intense blue light erupted from behind me, the shockwave hitting immediately after.
Part 26: Coming Soon!

Anyone else so terribly annoyed with nurses and dr shaming you for what you do with your child at checkups? My LO had her 12month vaccines yesterday and I swear I almost knocked the nurse out. So first she goes to mention her weight and ask me all these questions, basically aiming that I don’t feed my child enough. (To point out, there’s not many times in the day where she’s NOT eating, she has a very healthy appetite) saying that she’s a VERY small baby (which she is, she weighs just over 18lbs) but she eats! She drinks! Very well!! Then goes on to tell me that I MUST brush her teeth minimum twice a day… has anyone tried to wrangle a baby to brush their (FIVE) teeth?? (Yes I do brush them once a day, and I understand mouth hygiene but I mean cmon) then goes on to ask if she’s been to the dentist or if I’ve made n appointment yet- I said, I thought that was more of a 2yrs old -3yrs old time- she stares into my soul and says “we’ll she has teeth doesn’t she” like UM ain’t no way my child will sit still for a dentist to poke around in her mouth? If anything it’ll scare her and she’ll have issues going when she’s older?! And here’s the one that really set me off “Do you do screen time and how much?” I answered yes a bit, in the background while we play (it’s miss Rachel btw) and she again stares into my soul and says, no screen time is necessary until 2. Yes, I understand that, but I can’t have a quiet house, I get lost in my thoughts (yes even chasing my LO) and again it’s not like she’s planted infront of the tv unable to move for hours… she literally never even pays attention, she way to hyper. Anyways that’s my rant, im just sick of the judgemental looks and “advice” from nurses and drs. She’s very healthy, plays, chats, mobility is good and yet they still find something to tell you you’re doing wrong. Like fuck off. I don’t think that what was mentioned will completely altar my child for the worst. Anyways, thanks for reading. Rant over 👍🏻
EDIT: I’m not looking for advice😂 I’m looking for support. If you have a common story, I’d like to hear it. That’s all. SECOND EDIT: I know these are common things to ask 🙃 the problem was the reaction to my answers and the complete lack of empathy.

I've been a product marketer in technology my entire career - 20 years at this point. And I think AI is going to wipe us out through economic loss, then loss of control, and destruction. I'm not the only person to say this, but without hyperbole, we're all in serious trouble.
I've worked and watched the rise of cloud computing, cybersecurity, online commerce, mobile tech, and the Internet basically change everything we do. I've liked a lot of what I've seen, and I've been concerned about other technology leaps.
Last night I used ChatGDP for the first time - it's fucking scary good, and I worry about where this tech is going to lead and leave us. I asked it to write an elevator pitch for a product I'm working on - gave it some context, and boom - what would take me a couple hours to put together a solid piece of material was generated in seconds. It needed some polish, and I told it how to polish it, and after a few prompts giving ChatGPT direction, I had a final version that was as good as anything I could put together. I'm really good at what I do, this early stage AI tech is much, much better than me.
I think it's fair to say AI will become the biggest and most disruptive technology, shit, not even tech, the biggest and most disruptive creation of mankind. And I worry for our future.
I worry for my teenage kid, picking a career to pursue has just gotten a lot more complex. Writers, AI will replace them. Coders, there will likely be a top group of people directing AI what to build. And while there will be secure, bug free, powerful software created quickly, there are countless ways where AI can go wrong. And when it does, it's going to happen fast. There are very few jobs that will be immune. Big companies will have the opportunity let most workers go, it's a huge cost saver.
I think the safest job for kids going into college now is teaching. Sure, there are outlier careers, but for people who want a tried and true career, teaching will remain. I think.
I wish governments would step in and regulate it, but they won't. The most powerful tech companies in the world have already invested billions, there's no way out. Lawmakers in the U.S. struggled to understand fucking Facebook when they questioned Zuckerberg - none of these people will be able to grasp the looming danger AI poses to the workforce, much less the risk of posed to humans and our quest to survive.
I'm just a guy who has been around awhile and I'm sure there are people much smarter than me reading this - someone tell me I'm missing something. That I'm wrong. That there's a plug tucked away I can pull. Because right now I think we're all fucked.
Rant over.

Hey all, I have a place in the middle of a swamp that I visit a few times per year. The only option for Internet is HughesNet which charged us $70/mo for very inconsistent <25 Mbps... It rains a lot here so rain=clouds and clouds=no satellite internet.
I get >350 Mbps here with T-Mobile regardless.
I just need to be able to get updates from my security sensors while I live 8 hours away which probably won't use over 50 Mb per month anyway.
I have a couple questions:

1. It would be best to plug a mobile hotspot into an outlet timer so the battery can periodically drain and recharge, correct?
   
2. I haven't looked far into TMobile home internet but I'm assuming that would be overkill for what I need, financially? (Assuming it's even available in this area)
   
3. Is there a solution I'm missing or overlooked?
   

Also, I'm sure there's another subreddit I can ask but I wanted to get your opinion first since not every device can use T-Mobile, which I'm positive is my best option.
I appreciate you and have a great weekend!