Klein hard hat fan

I’ll be passing through Miami Beach tomorrow & Monday. Are there any fan experiences available during this time of year? I don’t think Hard Rock does Stadium Tours…? Are there any gems to seek out in my short time in Miami?

Board recommendations

• Board Type: Inflatable
• Your Height and Weight: 5'4" 165lbs (Oscillate between 155 - 170 lbs). May occasionally bring light camping gear (Food, water, drinks, hiking shoes, hammock), I'd hazard 5lbs-30lbs max.
• Desired use/uses: day cruising, relaxing on the river in the sun, exploration, fitness, potentially overnight trips
• Terrain: river, lake
• Experience level: BeginneIntermediate
• Budget: $750 or less. Oregon, USA
• What board(s) you current have or have used and what you liked/didn't like about them: I've used both hard and inflatable boards throughout the years, whatever was on hand to enjoy the moment and (unfortunately) did not pay attention to model/brand or likes/dislikes. I remember not being a huge fan of boards that strafed sideways easily, made navigating/paddling more difficult. But perhaps there is a pro to this that escapes me.

Tina Manchetti slopped nacho cheese into a box of corn chips and tried not to lose her shit. Twenty minutes to the weekend, then it was nothing but sweet grass, Atari, and the Allman Brothers. She tossed in a handful of jalapeno peppers, grabbed a vanilla shake with picante crunchers, and handed the customer her Vanilla-peño Grande. A large woman with a slim cigarette and a mound of hair-sprayed locks leaned out of the Dip-N-Sip’s back room to yell, “Tina!” Tina ignored her manager and said to the last customer, “You have a creamy, crunchy day, ya hear.” She craned over the counter and confirmed there was no one else in the parking lot. Just her mint green Buick LeSabre and Liz’s motley Bel Air. She shouted back, “We had a customer! Whachu you need, girl?” Liz’s hair emerged from the back and, a few moments later, the rest of her followed. She inhaled her cigarette, then rasped, “You’re working tomorrow.” “Bullshit,” she said, “I did three weekends in a row.” “I got a date,” Liz said. She waggled her eyebrows and said, “In the city.” She asked, “What are you doing in the city?” “Ray-Lee got us tickets to KISS.” Tina scrunched her nose in disgust and not just because of the Signature Creamy Beef congealing on the range. She said, “Ray-Lee Pettimore? He’s gross.” “He’s my kind of man.” “Spendy and easy?” “Fun,” Liz said. “Speaking of, you’re working tomorrow,” Tina picked guacamole off her smock, then put her arms akimbo and said, “I have a life too you know.” Liz tucked her chin and shook out twenty pounds of auburn curls. She checked her reflection in a mirror, then said, “Arcade games and dope aren’t a life, they’re an addiction. I’m the manager and you’re working.” Tina gave her the finger as Liz headed for the parking lot. On her way out, Liz shouted over her shoulder “Love you, girl!” While clearing the toppings bar, Tina splashed her goldenrod hip huggers with a gooey slug of red sauce - enchilada or strawberry, it was hard to say. Shit, there went fifteen dollars down the drain. She headed into the back room to see if Liz had any club soda hidden in her desk when she saw them: Crisp fives and hard-used ones, green and soft and beautiful, just sitting there in the open. Liz had counted them out, put them by the safe, and never actually locked up. Now that was interesting. She riffled a pack of bills. She could toss it all in her car, smash the place up a bit, maybe drop a joint. Then, in the morning, call the cops, turn on the tears and let the pigs blame it on hippies. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was a fine jumpstart on the future. She sighed as she stacked the bills carefully in the safe and spun the dial. There were better ways to change your life than robbin’ the Sip-N-Dip. Like magic mushrooms.
The LeSabre growled around the backroads of Contention, a shining gem of modern engineering in defiance of the clapboard houses and rotting farms. She’d bought it too cheaply off a sweaty-handed man out back of a Waffle House, but best not to think hard on it. Someday she was driving this girl out of the hollers and off to who knows where. Today, she was just heading to Mildred Mitchell’s place to score a bag of caps. She landed the big girl up on the gravelly shit-pit Mildie called a yard and scowled to see Skeeter’s battered Gremlin out front. She drummed on the steering wheel. Did she want them that badly? Skeeter badly? She sighed. Yeah, she did. She tapped the door frame as she came in saying, “Knock knock.” Mildie was cradling a Banquet beer and watching Hollywood Squares. She seemed oblivious and pleasantly confused, which was perhaps the finest way to endure the charms of country life. Best way to handle Hollywood Squares anyway. Mildie struggled to focus, but finally said, “Rad outfit, Tina. I dig the, like, cool pickle guy.” “That’s Chilly. He’s a chili pepper who makes ice cream.” She said, “That’s really beautiful. You can’t let them fence you in, you know. You gotta do it your way.” “Been playing a lot of old records today, Mildie?” “Oh woah, yeah. You’ve got a really strong intuition. Have you been getting out on the outer vibrations?” Tina rearranged the filth so she could claim a seat, then said, “I was thinking you could help me with that. Do you have any shrooms I could pick up?” “Oh, uh, no. I don’t think we have any shrooms, hun. Man, that would be rad though, do you have any?” This is what you get when you try to score late in the day. Tina tried to roll with it and said, “What are you rocking on tonight, sister?” Mildie perked up. Every burnout is a documentarian; They have a rich, personal chronicle of pills, fumes, droppers, and blotters that they want to share with the world. Mildly said, “Nothing much just a bit of grass and some brownies. Well, and a little chill pill to shake the paranoia - I put too much oil in the brownies. Ooh yeah, and the shit Skeeter got. That moss. That’s some cosmic stuff and it’s all natural, you know, a gift from gaia.” Mildie was drifting back toward the glib nonsense of Paul Lynde and the clock was ticking. She needed to get some goods, get dosed, veg out, and still get up on time to open tomorrow. She was losing precious tripping time. “Sounds far out, let me pickup some moss, then.” “Skeeter! You got a customer, babe,” Mildie said before completely disappearing into the vast wasteland. A bony, bird-like man emerged from the kitchen wearing nothing but basketball shorts and a brown felt hat. He was carrying a jug of whole milk and a mixing bowl full of Tang powder. He nodded at Tina and dropped into a bean bag chair. Milk sloshed over him and sank into the crevices of the bag, but he seemed unbothered by this. He moistened the orange powder and slowly shook the mixing bowl to swirl them together. He lifted it up like an ancient king draining a goblet, smacked his lips, and said, “You want to score some of that good green, little girl?” Tina tried not to shudder at this Tang-encrusted caveman. She couldn’t even pick up without some slavering dog howling at her. For all the talk, the average hip man was just a Nixonite pig with better taste in music. At least, Skeeter was too stupid to overcharge people. “Hey, Skeeter, I hear you’ve been gardening,” Tina said. “Oh yeah, I’ve been working on a hybrid strain up in the attic. The key is to water them,” he said gravely as if imparting ancient druidic lore. He slapped more milk into his trough and swirled without breaking eye contact. “I was talking about some new shit? Some moss you found?” “The moss, yeah. I don’t grow that though, that’s from the old mine, babe. It was soaking in this rad pool of water. I swear it was glowing, man, although I was on a lot of MDT at the time, so you know, most things were glowing. Do you think I could grow it with the bud?” “I want to buy drugs from you,” Tina said slowly, holding out a five dollar bill. “Give me the moss.” “Right on,” Skeeter said. “Let me get you a package. You’re going to want to take this with a lot of booze for that primo slam.” Mildie saluted with her beer and said to the TV, “Primo.” Skeeter dug around on the ground, then tossed a plastic baggie of silver threads on the table. He didn’t even ask for cash before sinking back into the bean bag. He was too busy milking his Tang to close the deal. It seemed like he was falling into the gravity well of TV nonsense as well, so she just dropped the dough on the table. “Take a pinch and down the hatch,” Skeeter said as he went totally potato. Tina wasn’t one to argue with an expert.
The LeSabre was stationary as the world sped past her window. Birds hovered in flight and the radio was reading The Stepford Wives to her. When she changed the station, it just started on a different chapter. Except for the Country station; that one was reading in Portuguese. There was a faint crackle at the edge of her vision, but it didn’t get in the way. She imagined it was the moss, hitching a ride on her optics to peep the world above ground. Ride along, little friend, and welcome to the planet earth. She’d made this drive a thousand times, but this one was something special. Ghostly sharecroppers rose up from the glens to tend the metaphysical echo of corn and tobacco stands. The Quiktrip melted into strips of brightly-colored modeling clay, then rebuilt itself as an old time saloon. Looking in the rearview mirror, the saloon fell on hard times and a small tree forced its way through the gap-toothed shingles on the roof. A 50’s sedan the size and shape of a river barge nearly clipped her bumper as it overtook her on a blind turn and evaporated into a pepto pink fog. By the time she reached her apartment building, the crackle in her eyes was ecstatic and she was on the cusp of a panic attack. This was a lot. Like, a lot a lot. She just needed to get upstairs, get into clothes that didn’t smell like nacho cheese, and rescue the planet from some Space Invaders. Maybe throw on Fillmore East or get wild with Money Talks. It was Friday night and there was time enough for both. When her feet touched the lawn, she was suddenly wired into the primitive consciousness of every object in her domain. She felt the late evening sun kiss each blade of grass, she felt the rust grow on the iron railings, she felt the cement foundation adjust under the weight of the apartment building, and even heard the low hum of the basalt beneath the ground. The tension left her chest, drained away by the simple joy of the stones and the breeze. When she blinked, she teleported forward. She appeared beside the empty pool to visit the fallen leaves. She took careful stock of the laundry and listened patiently as the dryers complained of disrespect and overloading. She tried to cheer up the mailroom, but every box was trying to talk over all the others and the rug was simply boorish. She was in her clean, plain apartment playing Breakout and eating a turkey and coleslaw sandwich. Judging from the cans, she’d been here for some time. She was over the peak, but not back to normal. Which is to say, she wasn’t sober enough to pretend the world was normal; She was still open to the fundamental weirdness of reality. She grabbed a cooler with snacks, Six Days of the Condor, and a light jacket. Camped out by the empty pool, she settled in to read accompanied by a soundtrack of cicadas. Not quite as funky as the Bar-Kays, but the bugs and the frogs brought a lot of passion. The late evening glow was gorgeous and the gray crackle at the edge of her eyes framed the reds, purples, and oranges nicely. Like a simple frame on Rothko. She was thirteen pages in when a helium blimp named Martin Wellsby floated at her. A small dog on a long leash was the only tether keeping Wellsby chained to the Earth. He hissed hot gas at her and tried to ogle her legs when he thought she wasn’t looking. The dog sniffed her twice, then backed away growling. Tina lifted her book as if to say, “Trying to read here, dude.” Wellsby wasn’t easy to dissuade and he started hissing longer and louder. All the while, his little dog was yapping, yapping, yapping. Tina stared at the blimp as it bobbed around her. Did he think he could talk her into giving a darn? Like, what was the end-game here dude? Just take a hint and go hassle someone else. Elmira Skump, an R Crumb drawing of a woman with towering legs, crossed the courtyard. She caught Wellsby’s attention and he floated away tugging the dog along behind him. Elmira stared at Tina in disgust, her eyes were yawning portals to a neon furnace, burning brilliant and ice cold. She greeted Wellsby and turned her glow to warm reds and oranges. Tina lifted her book and left those two to torment one another. If they wanted to clobber one another with their aching insecurities and groping desires, that was their business. Just leave her out of that mess. She was still on the first day of the condor when the McGregors exploded into the common area. Red-faced and snarling as usual, Roger McGregor was surrounded by a hive of wasps boiling with rage. Every few seconds, a platoon would break loose from the swarm to prick his weathered children. Mrs. McGregor was a wraith stepped straight from an El Greco. Gray and blue fumes slid off of her like fog from a block of ice. These noxious vapors tore at her husband and children, but most of all they recoiled back to nip at her thin, papery limbs. Two sapphire bands dropped suddenly from her face and shimmered back and forth. Roger’s swarm reached new heights of frenetic buzzing, diving at the children over and over. The poor kids hunkered down like sailors lost in a hurricane. She tried not to hate, but my god she hated that man. She laid back in her lounge chair and let her fingers drop to brush against the grass. She couldn’t find their psychic voices again, but she was comforted knowing the little blades were there, just excited to be alive and drinking in the light. The static caught her attention like it was tugging her toward the moon. Luna’s pale face was placid as always, but, now that she looked, there was something a bit strange. She held her breath and leaned forward to focus. It was hard to see, but tiny black lightning crackled around the rim of the moon. Thin veins of gray spread from the poles faintly staining the moon’s countenance, and then they were gone. The apparition lasted less than a second, but that moment stretched out like hours for her. Just as her grip relaxed, it came again. Then again and again, building in strength each time. The veins staining the moon were deep black now and filled the entire orb like the eye of some demonic stoner. The crackling black lightning was no longer a mere fringe; It was flailing in space, the flagellum of a vast and unholy amoeba. Defying reason, it was brightly black against the staid darkness of space. The blackness of unreality. The color of nothingness. The unbeing arms of the moon strained back and whipped a bolt of black lightning at the diving board. There was a terrible crash that no one else seemed to hear. The bolt congealed around the poles and dripped to the ground like writhing molasses. It gathered itself up and grew scythes, clasping mouths, and broken antennae. A towering beast of nothingness screamed at her, a savage challenge, the absolute opposite of that delicate communion she’d found just an hour before. And then it was gone. She was sitting astride a lounge chair pointing at the peeling paint of an old diving board while her neighbors glared at her. Two young people were flirting awkwardly and playing with a small dog. An older couple was arguing with one another and their tired children. She was slightly cold and extremely thirsty. Mrs. McGregor wiped her eyes and shouted, “Will you please go inside, you awful hippie. We’ve got children here.”
Tina sat down at her kitchen table with the notebook she used for grocery lists, a cool glass of water and two aspirin. Bad trips happen. That’s just a fact. Sometimes you go out to far reaches and drink from the well-spring of all creation. Sometimes you think the FBI is wiretapping your toaster. She’d had a journey turn on her before, but she’d never felt anything like that. She’d never seen anything like that. She tapped her pen on the notepad and wrote out everything she’d experienced from downing the moss to then. She needed some distance. Each step of the way, what did it feel like? What did it look like? How did her thoughts work? Once it was on the page, the break was obvious to her. Any square would write it all off as druggie nonsense, but she was an experienced pharma-naut and she could draw a stark line between regular chemical madness and this black lightning crap. There’s a difference between seeing things and seeing something. Maybe she was doing a bit of both, to be fair, but still. She stuck her grocery pad back to the fridge with a strong magnet and started pacing. She went to the window and flicked open the drapes just enough to peek out. Nothing there but an empty swimming pool and some flickering lamps. Evening had given way to night and the bats were out in force dropping down from the low clouds to streak through the riot of flies around each lantern. Terrified, the flies swarmed even closer to the lamps, packing themselves together to make their murder all the easier. What did the flies make of the monsters in the dark? Did they warn one another of the screeching hunters? Did they train their children to trust the light? Did they pray to the god on a pole or to the demons from the sky? She fixed the drapes and dropped into a crouch in the middle of her living room. She closed her eyes and stilled her breathing. Thoughts tugged at her attention, but she wished them well and let them pass her by. Crackling static. Small, and inconsistent, but there at the edge of her vision, half-hidden beneath the mind’s ceaseless chatter. Hold onto that shape and let it lead you. She returned to the window and looked out into the dark, but she couldn’t find anything apart from the mundane darkness. “Mundane darkness.” It’s funny how fast you can shift into a new normal once you open the mind’s eye. Her hands were drawing back from the drapes when Roger McGregor stamped out to the poolside. The static in her eyes peaked and something more than mere nosiness told her to stay and watch. McGregor was ugly drunk and alternated between swearing and sobbing. Pretty normal stuff for a macho asshole come-apart. About once a month, he got way up in his feelings and instead of, you know, accepting the call of the universe or talking to his wife, he’d get Bukowski-grade drunk and sobbed about the communists ruining his life. He didn’t need help from the KGB to pull that operation off. He suddenly stopped and stood, wobbling in the dim light of the street lamps, as if someone was talking to him. After a moment, he started beating his chest and boasting about something. Without warning, he stuck out his butt and dropped to the ground. He held onto his knees and started rocking back and forth wailing, “You ruined my life Mary. You ruined everything.” The night was cool and dry, but she was sweating and her heart was racing. The crackle in her eyes was tugging her attention into the darkness. There wer small flashes of the black-beyond-black. They weren’t as coherent as before, but there was something out there. She ran out the front door and sprinted down the stairs. She shouted, “Go inside. You need to go inside, it’s not safe.” He growled wordlessly at her and waved his arm clumsily as if to shoo her away. There was a short strip of grass, a decorative fence, and a few feet of concrete between them, but it may as well have been the Berlin Wall. She was urging herself on, but something held her back, the invisible threads of some monstrous spider web. “Mr. McGregor. Roger. Please, go inside.” “Don’t judge me, you stupid beatnik.” Beatnik? What was this 1950? She was struggling with the latch on the gate. It didn’t even have a lock, what was going on here. She said, “I’m not judging you, Roger, I just want you to be safe.” “Get away from me. I hate you, I hate all of you. You humiliated him!” “Who?” He was sobbing, his face contorted with rage and hatred. Snot was rolling from his nose and he screeched, “Nixon, you witch.” A bolt shot from the gate and drove her hand back from the latch. She leapt away from the gate and saw a small black nimbus around her own hand and gray veins pulsing under her skin. A tendril of black-beyond-black flailed from the gate and burned itself out in the concrete pitting the surface. The black veins pulsed once more and then faded back into her skin. When she looked up, a great bolt of black lightning struck just behind Roger. It gathered much more quickly this time, the scything hands, the gouging mouth. Roger was rocking himself faster and faster, gibbering and moaning. The arcs of black unbeing were blinding, the crackle deafening, but he didn’t respond at all. He was looking at her with hate in his bloodshot eyes when it took him. She watched, unable to move as umbral scythes opened him like a letter. A man-shaped coral of living, twitching nerves hung in the air facing her while the flesh fell away. She ran.
She could barely breathe when someone finally answered at the Sheriff’s office. She didn’t even remember dialing the number. “Hello? Can you speak? Are you having a heart attack?” She got enough air in her to speak. Once she started, the words flooded out, “My name is Tina Manchetti and I just saw something. I don’t know what it was, it was this thing.” “Ma’am, are you on anything tonight?” “It killed him!” “Ma’am, did you see someone get injured?” “I saw something. I don’t know what it was, OK, but it was a thing and I saw it kill my neighbor.” There was a long silence, then, “Ma’am, could you give me your address?” “Eight thirty six, Old Cornelius Way.”
The sheriff Jim Clark was only a few years older than her, but he seemed antique as he paced in her sparse living room. He gave her a condescending, but comforting smile like an indulgent grandpa. The woman with him was tense and unfriendly, and she wasn’t wearing the normal police uniform. She was wearing a gray coat cut very loosely and had the swagger Tina associated with G-men in old movies. The sheriff said, “Why don’t you make us a cup of tea, Karen, while I talk this through with our friend one more time.” The woman nodded like he was a sergeant barking orders instead of a prematurely old man leaning on the back of a chair. He looked at Tina and said, “When you called in, you seemed a bit… worked up. Were you experimenting with anything that may be a factor here?” “I swear to god, I was not hallucinating.” “I didn’t say that you were, I just want to get all the pieces together.” “I saw him get… I saw something kill him out by the pool. Just go down there and look at him. Nothing normal could do that.” He looked genuinely worried for her and patted the air with both hands, then said, “Slow down there, slow down. I looked all over out there and there’s not a drop of blood. Karen looked, she didn’t see no blood. We checked on the McGregors and they’re not even home. Place locked up tight and empty as can be.” “I just don’t understand, I saw it. I was six feet away. I was talking to him! When it…” Karen yelled out of the kitchen, “Do you have sugar?” “It’s in the yellow tub with red posies by the mail tray,” Tina said. She picked up her thoughts and said, “I know it sounds crazy.” “I don’t think you’re crazy, ma’am. I just think you maybe didn’t see what you thought you saw.” “It was made of black light. It was huge.” “Think on that a moment, Tina. How can there be black light?” She took the cup of tea when Karen offered it and smelled the herbal steam. “Did I have green tea?” “I had some with me,” Karen said. “To help with witnesses.” “That’s really nice, actually,” Tina said while sipping the tea. “I didn’t know you did things like that.” “Sometimes a soft touch is all it takes,” Karen said. There was no trace of warmth or kindness in her and Tina felt, if anything, more frightened. But as the warmth spread out from her stomach, her tension slacked and it no longer seemed so pressing that the sheriff disbelieved her. She’d said her peace, now it was in their hands, you know? The sheriff squatted down beside her and started speaking softly, “You were having a bit of fun tonight weren’t you? Maybe you had some marijuana or did a square of acid.” Tina nodded slowly. She did like to do drugs. “You were reading these scary books, this conspiracy stuff,” he said, picking up Six Days of the Condor. He went on, “It got you in a bad place, got mixed up with those drugs. It happens, you know?” She was feeling very tired, but not in a bad way. She felt like she’d just sat down after a long, long shift. “You thought you saw something, even called it in, because you’re a good citizen and you want folks to be ok. But it was just two wires crossing. Just a bad trip, man.” The woman said something, but she couldn’t make it out. She was too tired. “You can’t sleep just yet, Tina. You need to tell me where it started. Did you do anything before you had that bad trip?” “Oh,” she said, “I talked to Skeeter. He had been to the mine. That’s where I got the stuff.” Karen was on her other side now, gripping her shoulder with bony fingers. She said, “Tell me about Skeeter. Tell me about the mine.” Normally Tina would never drag someone else into this, but these two seemed so helpful and, somehow, this all seemed very far away.

Tina woke up late and puttered around in the kitchen making pancakes. She hadn’t bothered to make pancakes from scratch in ages and it felt good in a Betty Crocker kind of way. A woman named Liz called and said a lot of things about ice cream and the band KISS, but she was having trouble making sense of it. Tina apologized hoping it would make the lady happy and hung up on her. She sat on her sofa and let the TV tell her stories for a while. It wasn’t very interesting, but it was something to do. She found a book on the floor, but it had a very ugly aura and she wasn’t looking for anything that harsh today. After lunch, she took a walk around the block and noticed a nice young man and his lady friend talking. They seemed very interested in her, but didn’t wave for her to come over. On the contrary, they looked a bit afraid of her. Maybe she’d acted out a bit last night. She couldn’t really remember what she’d done, but something funky had happened for sure. She didn’t remember drinking that much, but maybe she’d got a hold of a bum tab of acid. You can’t be too careful these days, you never know what people put in that stuff. 

For some reason, she felt like she’d talked to the pigs, but, well, she was walking around free. If she’d narced on herself, she would have woken up in the drunk tank at the very least. Most likely the man and woman had seen her being a bit out there and freaked themselves out. Maybe she’d play a Zappa album when she got back and cultivate a reputation. She laughed at the idea and went home feeling fresher than she had in a long, long time.
Someone had eaten all of her snacks. Strong evidence for the ‘bad trip thesis.’ Oh well, she needed to pick up a few things anyway. She picked up her groceries notebook and flipped to the end. Page after page of dense sentences. She skimmed it quickly and a throbbing headache built up behind her eyes. Reading was making her feel sick. She wanted to just put this down and forget about it. She forced herself forward. This was her handwriting, but she couldn’t remember any of this. The headache was so bad she could only keep one eye open, but she had to keep reading. There was something gathering around the edges of her vision. Not tunnel vision, not that kind of darkness. Something else. A different kind of darkness. She looked at the journal again and saw she’d meditated to find that same tricksy sensation before. She willed herself to focus, counting her breaths and leaving space for the universe to speak. There was something else in here with her, she could tell that for sure, but it wasn’t ready to be caught. Or she wasn’t ready to catch it. She opened her eyes and a dim memory of a memory stumbled into view. She’d taken the moss, she’d cracked her mind wide open. She’d seen her neighbors in the true light of the weird. And then she’d gotten scared of the dark. There had been something in the dark. Liz! She was supposed to open for Liz! She’d fucked everything up. Her horoscope was right, she needed to make major changes this season. She was moving toward the phone rehearsing an apology, when she caught herself. Why was she worried about that? Wasn’t there something more important, something she’d just thought to do? It was as if something was trying to push her mind away from what she needed to get done. God she had to stop smoking so much pot. She set Liz aside as Monday’s problem and reread the notebook. Instead of feeling like a story someone had told her, last night started to reform into real, solid memories. How the hell had she forgotten all of this even if she was blazed? Her apartment was stuffy and ominous, the spartan decor inhuman. Intuition drew her out to the courtyard, where she wandered about doing her best to channel Philip Marlowe. Something had happened here. Nothing obvious was amiss, there was no blood or broken glass or anything like that. In fact, there wasn’t anything going on at all around here except for movers carrying boxes out of the McGregor place. There was something wrong with her eyes, like a visual static. Mildie would call it a cosmic vibration resonating with the ape brain. That thought pulled at her, but she didn’t see what to do with it. Instead, she crouched down to inspect the concrete closely. Just old concrete. Smelled like spilled beer. The crackle was sticking with her, but it didn’t seem to be getting any worse. How hungover was she? Dissatisfied and worried, Tina headed back to her apartment. As she reached for the gate, a gentle static shock forced her hand back. She stared at her fingertips for a long moment. The gate, the pitted concrete, the burning feeling in her fingers… She invited this into her mind. She let her thoughts and worries drift away. They could tend to themselves for a while; This was important. The haze was here, but it wasn’t her enemy. It was beckoning. It wanted her to remember. Her mind tried to bolt, it tried to find something, anything else to drag her away from this. To drag her away from the truth, but she was hip to the game this time. She waited alone in the cacophony of her thoughts and let the crackling haze lead her through the hangover, through the gap in her memory. And then she remembered.
The LeSabre tore down the country roads like a rockslide. She’d squealed on Skeeter after they dosed her. What the fuck had they put in that tea? Hopefully, she hadn’t mentioned Mildie. If the Man took Skeeter, she’d be bummed for sure, but you know, shit happens, man. But if they’d done something to Mildie… She pumped the accelerator and took turns as fast as she dared. A proper square in a tan Cadillac beeped at her, but she was too busy even to flick him off. Her heart sank as she passed a tow truck dragging a battered AMC Gremlin. She couldn’t be sure it was Skeeter’s - every Gremlin looked equally shitty in her eyes - but it wasn’t a healing omen. She slid around the last turn and accelerated into the skid, her new tires grabbing fistfuls of asphalt and dragging her back into the right lane. For the first time in her life, she was relieved to see the awkward gray slump of a Gremlin in Mildred’s front yard. She burst through the front door shouting Mildie’s name and nearly tripped herself stopping short. Mildred waved bleary-eyed from the sofa and finished a bong rip. “Hey, Tina, you want a beer?” “Oh thank god, you’re OK.” “Sure I am, babe, I’m eating organic and staying off the brown liquor. You know it's the dye that gets you, not the booze.” “Mildred, this is very important: Where is Skeeter?” She looked up slowly from the TV and cocked her head like a confused Spaniel. She blinked one eye then the other and, at last, said, “We broke up ages ago, Tina. That guy was a loser.” “Then why is his car in your front yard?” Mildred stood up unsteadily and peered through the blinds. She looked at Tina with gentle confusion and said, “That’s not Skeeter’s wheels. That’s, uh, the lady from the university. Shit, Karen! That’s what it was. She’s out checking the levels.” Tina clenched her teeth so tightly she thought a molar might crack. She exhaled slowly and tried to hide her fear as she said, “She’s out back?” “She’s out in the woods, you know, checking the levels.” “The levels of what?” “Toxins, girl.” “I think I’m going to go talk to her, Mildie. We can smoke a bowl when I get back.” “Sure thing, I didn’t know you were into science though.” “I’m getting into all kinds of new stuff.”

Karen hadn’t bothered with subtlety, so Tina had no trouble following her trail through the woods. It was cool and smelled of hummus here, but there was something else on the wind, a subtle rush of air with a tang of old water and mildew. A rusty sign warned her of open pits and it hit her: the mine. That’s where Skeeter had found the moss, that’s where Karen would want to go. She was breathing heavily as she picked her way carefully down the entry shaft. This wasn’t the mine proper, but some kind of entry way or staging spot right at ground level. There were a few rusted out wheelbarrows and some bat crap, but nothing else of note. The darkness closed around her as she pushed her way forward and the crackle in her eyes stood out all the more sharply. At first there were only spots on the walls, then little nets and traces, and finally a shag carpet of softly glowing moss. There were pools of silver here and there, but the rest were black-beyond-black. She felt very cold and not because of the icy breath of the mine. The entry gave way to a proper cavern and she gasped. The Karen woman was standing beside a small mound in the middle of the chamber basking in the light of unreality. It wasn’t just moss here; There were pools of sludge, crooked spires of rock, and scuttling vermin all dancing with hateful black lightning. Karen turned at the sound of her footsteps and smiled at her. She beckoned and said, “It’s something else isn’t it?” “This place isn’t safe,” Tina said. “Don’t ask me how I know, I just know we shouldn’t be here.” Karen laughed and said, “No, it isn’t safe. It’s not safe at all. It’s powerful.” “What did you give me last night? Was that some MKULTRA shit?” “No it’s not ‘MKULTRA shit,’ Tina. It’s just a flower to ease your weary mind,” Karen said. She wasn’t mocking her, exactly, but she seemed chipper despite the obvious otherworldly bullshit all around them. And, you know, poisoning her the night before. “It fucked me up, whatever it was.” “Not too badly, it seems, since you’ve made it out here. I’m quite surprised at your tenacity, young lady. We’ll have to do something about that.” “Why are you doing this?” “You don’t even know what ‘this’ is,” Karen said as the joy slid off of her face. She swaggered toward Tina, blinding her with a maglight. “It killed them all last night, you know, not just the man.” “What?” “The McGregors. It took the father, the mother, the children. It even got their goldfish,” Karen said with mild amusement. No, not amusement. Admiration. “I spent all morning cleaning that up. Do you know how expensive it is to book movers same-day?” “Holy god,” Tina whispered to herself. “He isn’t going to help you here,” Karen said. She withdrew into herself for a moment, then blinked the distraction clear and said, “There’s just lil ole me, Jim, and a few friends - well, ‘friends’ - who have the will to do what it takes. What you saw was just a little taste of the fucked up freakshow that is the real world, Tina. I think you see it, I think you know what you have to do. Do you understand what I’m saying?” “What did you do with Skeeter?” “He was a vector and I contained it,” she said, “And quite quickly at that. I’m pretty pleased.” Tina looked back at the small mound in the darkness. She couldn’t see clearly enough to be sure, but she knew what she would find there. He was dead. “Are you going to stop that thing, that monster?” Tina asked as tears gathered. Karen gave it a moment of thought, then said, “Probably not. Some things you solve, some things you bury. This one feels like a ‘bury’ to me. If you want to try, well, I’d like to see it.” The strange woman pulled a gun and pointed it at the center of Tina’s chest. She was still smiling when she said, “Or, I can bury you too, right here and now. But you did well getting here. How do you feel about a change of careers?” Tina was trembling and scared. The static in her eyes was off the charts, but she didn’t need its help - whatever the hell it was - to know this woman was a stone killer. 

There are better ways to change your life than robbing the Sip-N-Dip. Maybe this was a good idea.

It’s been getting hotter lately in the UK and since we don’t have AC or anything it makes it 100% more difficult. I got so overwhelmed and upset by the heat that I just started crying and screaming and I couldn’t seem to calm myself down I just felt so overwhelmed and I hardly ever have meltdowns I usually just shut down. Doesn’t help that my fan is broken and the new one that came is also broken since the plastic has fallen off and it’s dangerous to use and I won’t be able to get a replacement for like a week

A little more context for the specific situation I'm asking that I understand could be pretty relevant- at the time he gave it to me- I had given him a couple cigarettes and answered some questions and made basic conversation but also laughed off some questions and found a nonconfrontational opening (as I was wearing a pride shirt and my city's parade is coming up and he said he was looking forward to it) to say I'm 100% a lesbian- and he took out a baggie and replaced the empty space in my cigarette pack with it as "karma". Now, to clarify a little more- I really, really get this. I'm not homeless anymore and I don't think he was but our city has a strong let's say gutterpunk culture where people sharing some kind of smoke for smoke can often be very real and not sketchy. We're both currently employed and probably housed - we're both in restaurants and talked about our jobs- I know where he's at, I know some old hats he namechecked at his current job and I believe him- but I'd say could read some of this background off each other.
​
Then he spent a devoted and increasingly creepy 30 min or so alternating between small talking me about the music that was playing and trying to leverage the conversation into more personal information as I said I wasn't too familiar with it and he insisted it's very popular music that someone my age should know and tried to ask if I was "from a church family" etc- trauma fishing IMO- and trying absoltely too hard to get me to take a walk and smoke up with him. More local context- that was extra sketch as we could have smoked weed at that bar and been totally fine. It's 'decriminalized but not legal' here but we were at a spot where it's common and no problem and there are no raids or whatever. There is even specifically a courtyard where it's known to be done as opposed to inside or the sidewalk tables, but he walked me to the sidewalk tables specifically to have our cigarettes and then went on trying ot convice me we needed to walk to the park to smoke up.
I got out of it and as I said, he left of his own volition when it became clear I wasn't going to a second location and even if we're not close, I know people there and some of them were paying attention to this interaction by now.
I could very much be wrong- I have been before and that's why I'm writing this out and asking- but I didn't read him as more butthurt about it than any other dude who realizes he's struck out. No big performance indicating I owed him the drugs back if he was leaving or anything along those lines I might expect from someone giving out roofies.
I know this post sounds pretty bad, honestly I also want to clarify I'm in a decent place- I'm not asking because I'm desperate for this weed, I promise. I wouldn't hate a free joint rolling my way right now, it's off season for bartenders in my tourist city and I struggle, but honestly this is not a story wehere I'm trying to make it ok because I already know I won't throw it out.
I realized this situation this a good chance to stand back and study discernment and how I conduct myself around strange, even slightly older men. How bad is it that I let it get to this point and how crazy is it that I didn't immediately flush it in the bar after he left? I don't know- and I'm 30. He was late 40s I think. It's time for me to be sorting this kind of shit out.
When I examine my own reactions, I don't have any logical or measured assessment of the situation. My immediate reaction was "smoke up bitch" and when I push myself to be better, my brain jumps all the way to "he's probably a rapist serial killer, throw it out, report him, it's definitely laced with cyanide". So as I said, I'm embarassed to be making the post- I get that the answer is "no strange drugs from strange people" but I hope I'm making sense in spelling out how I experienced this and why that wasn't my immediate reaction even though I was wary of him as a human- and also how my cautious reaction was also probably exaggerated. All or nothing, black and white thinking. Classic trauma symptom.
I welcome specific analysis of this situation as well as general kind of answers about this type of dilemma.

A little more context for the specific situation I'm asking that I understand could be pretty relevant- at the time he gave it to me- I had given him a couple cigarettes and answered some questions and made basic conversation but also laughed off some questions and found a nonconfrontational opening (as I was wearing a pride shirt and my city's parade is coming up and he said he was looking forward to it) to say I'm 100% a lesbian- and he took out a baggie and replaced the empty space in my cigarette pack with it as "karma". Now, to clarify a little more- I really, really get this. I'm not homeless anymore and I don't think he was but our city has a strong let's say gutterpunk culture where people sharing some kind of smoke for smoke can often be very real and not sketchy. We're both currently employed and probably housed - we're both in restaurants and talked about our jobs- I know where he's at, I know some old hats he namechecked at his current job and I believe him- but I'd say could read some of this background off each other.
Then he spent a devoted and increasingly creepy 30 min or so alternating between small talking me about the music that was playing and trying to leverage the conversation into more personal information as I said I wasn't too familiar with it and he insisted it's very popular music that someone my age should know and tried to ask if I was "from a church family" etc- trauma fishing IMO- and trying absoltely too hard to get me to take a walk and smoke up with him. More local context- that was extra sketch as we could have smoked weed at that bar and been totally fine. It's 'decriminalized but not legal' here but we were at a spot where it's common and no problem and there are no raids or whatever. There is even specifically a courtyard where it's known to be done as opposed to inside or the sidewalk tables, but he walked me to the sidewalk tables specifically to have our cigarettes and then went on trying ot convice me we needed to walk to the park to smoke up.
I got out of it and as I said, he left of his own volition when it became clear I wasn't going to a second location and even if we're not close, I know people there and some of them were paying attention to this interaction by now.
I could very much be wrong- I have been before and that's why I'm writing this out and asking- but I didn't read him as more butthurt about it than any other dude who realizes he's struck out. No big performance indicating I owed him the drugs back if he was leaving or anything along those lines I might expect from someone giving out roofies.
I know this post sounds pretty bad, honestly I also want to clarify I'm in a decent place- I'm not asking because I'm desperate for this weed, I promise. I wouldn't hate a free joint rolling my way right now, it's off season for bartenders in my tourist city and I struggle, but honestly this is not a story wehere I'm trying to make it ok because I already know I won't throw it out.
I realized this situation this a good chance to stand back and study discernment and how I conduct myself around strange, even slightly older men. How bad is it that I let it get to this point and how crazy is it that I didn't immediately flush it in the bar after he left? I don't know- and I'm 30. He was late 40s I think. It's time for me to be sorting this kind of shit out.
When I examine my own reactions, I don't have any logical or measured assessment of the situation. My immediate reaction was "smoke up bitch" and when I push myself to be better, my brain jumps all the way to "he's probably a rapist serial killer, throw it out, report him, it's definitely laced with cyanide". So as I said, I'm embarassed to be making the post- I get that the answer is "no strange drugs from strange people" but I hope I'm making sense in spelling out how I experienced this and why that wasn't my immediate reaction even though I was wary of him as a human- and also how my cautious reaction was also probably exaggerated. All or nothing, black and white thinking. Classic trauma symptom.
I welcome specific analysis of this situation as well as general kind of answers about this type of dilemma.

long time watcher, grew up absolutely obsessed and i’m on my millionth rewatch since it’s now resurfacing a lot. (not a fan of the LA seasons at all, Pittsburg seasons were way better imo). What are some of your favorite episodes? I’m jumping around a bit as I know some by heart, but it’s hard to remember which episode had what moments! TIA

Panama clung to our bodies—Probably cut—Anything made this dream—It has consumed the customers of fossil orgasm—Ran into my old friend Jones—So badly off, forgotten, coughing in 1920 movie—Vaudeville voices hustle sick dawn breath on bed service—Idiot Mambo spattered backwards—I nearly suffocated trying on the boy’s breath—That’s Panama—Nitrous flesh swept out by your voice and end of receiving set—Brain eating birds patrol the low frequency brain waves—Post card waiting forgotten civilians ‘and they are all on jelly fish, Meester—Panama photo town—Dead post card of junk.’ Sad hand down backward time track—Genital pawn ticket peeled his stale underwear—Brief boy on screen laughing my skivvies all the way down—Whispers of dark street in Puerto Assis—Meester smiles through the village wastrel—Orgasm siphoned back telegram: ‘Johnny pants down.’—(That stale summer dawn smell in the garage—Vines twisting through steel—Bare feet in dog’s excrement.) Panama clung to our bodies from Las Palmas to David on camphor sweet smells of cooking paregoric—Burned down the republic—The druggist no glot clom Fliday—Panama mirrors of 1910 under seal in any drug store—He threw in the towel, morning light on cold coffee— Junk kept nagging me: ‘Lushed in East St. Louis, I knew you’d come scraping bone—Once a junky always spongy and rotten—I knew your life—Junk sick four days there.’ Stale breakfast table—Little cat smile—Pain and death smell of his sickness in the room with me—Three souvenir shots of Panama city—Old friend came and stayed all day—Face eaten by ‘I need more’—I have noticed this in the New World—‘You come with me, Meester?’ And Joselito moved in at Las Playas during the essentials—Stuck in this place—Iridescent lagoons, swamp delta, gas flares—Bubbles of coal gas still be saying ‘A ver, Luckees!’ a hundred years from now—A rotting teak wood balcony propped up by Ecuador. ‘The brujo began crooning a special case—It was like going under ether into the eyes of a shrunken head—Numb, covered with layers of cotton—Don’t know if you got my last hints trying to break out of this numb dizziness with Chinese characters—All I want is out of here—Hurry up please—Took possession of me—How many plots have made a botanical expedition like this before they could take place?—Scenic railways—I am dying cross wine dizziness—I was saying over and over “shifted commissions where the awning flaps” Flashes in front of my eyes your voice and end of the line.’ That whining Panama clung to our bodies—I went into Chico’s Bar on mouldy pawn ticket, waiting in 1920 movie for a rum coke—Nitrous flesh under this honky tonk swept out by your voice: ‘Driving Nails In My Coffin’—Brain eating birds patrol ‘Your Cheating Heart’—Dead post card waiting a place forgotten—Light concussion of 1920 movie—Casual adolescent had undergone special G.I. processing—Evening on the boy’s flesh naked—Kept trying to touch in sleep—‘Old photographer trick wait for Johnny—Here goes Mexican cemetery.’ On the sea wall met a boy with red and white striped T shirt—P.G. town in the purple twilight—The boy peeled off his stale underwear scraping erection—Warm rain on the iron roof—Under the ceiling fan stood naked on bed service—Bodies touched electric film, contact sparks tingled—Fan whiffs of young hard on washing adolescent T shirt—The blood smells drowned voices and end of the line—That’s Panama—Sad movie drifting in islands of rubbish, black lagoons and fish people waiting a place forgotten—Fossil honky tonk swept out by a ceiling fan—Old photographer trick tuned them out. ‘I am dying, Meester?’ Flashes in front of my eyes naked and sullen—Rotten dawn wind in sleep—Death rot on Panama photo where the awning flaps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3DgVCnbbYQ&ab_channel=%EC%93%B0%EB%A6%AC%EB%9E%91%EC%BB%A4%ED%94%8C
I came across this group while on Naver looking at old KPOP magazines. Honestly, their name is kinda cringe lmao. I mean, "OPPA" ? Really? But apparently, it's an acronym for "Omni-Potenza Per Avanzare", supposedly Italian for "infinite power to become the best". (Ah, 1st gen groups and their strange abbreviations...) Their official name for fans is UNNI (unnie). Ngl...they kinda had a lot of members. About 8...definitely the biggest 1st gen group I've found. Additionally, they also had a sub-unit called "OPPA 007". Apparently, they were the first group to even have a unit.
Moving on, this song, "I'm Sorry", one of their follow-up songs from their first album, is what I believe to be their biggest hit. This is probably one of my favorite song and stage from them. Their outfits are so colorful and vibrant (like the colors of a rainbow), the dance is fun and dynamic, and the song itself is quite lively and bubblegum-poppy, something I like! (I love Choi Changmin's "Jjang" song for the same reason, hehe.)
It's too bad they didn't last long...they seemed really promising. In 2000, they released their last album "Reincarnation", promoting title song "God" and follow-up "Promise", but due to the drastic member changes (the roster for the 2nd album was much more different than the previous...the group was actually reorganized and half the members were replaced) it didn't get much popularity. Eventually, O.P.P.A ended up disbanding in 2001 and the members went their separate ways. Some members are still in entertainment (although hard to find/under the radar), while others have left and are living normal lives.

Hi, im a huge fan of the Nintendo game series Fire Emblem, and I want some nice romantic and very sexual relationships with the many beautiful women of the franchise.
Please read the whole thing, please.
I'm looking for some people to play one of the many female characters in the series as futas with reasonable sized uncut cocks, and smooth shaved sweety balls.
I'll play the character of Kiran the summoner from the mobile game Fire Emblem Heros. I summon you and then a romance starts and leads to some romance and hard fucking.
I'd prefer to do rps with different characters so please have about 5 character options incase some one else has already chosen a character. I'm all in for some poly relationships two so if you have a les ship with two girls, I'd love to be there third.
Or if you just want to do a gangbang with a group of characters I can do that do, but that will be a short rp of me just getting fucked, so not alot of dialog with that.
My favorite things are, blowjobs, cum, face fuck, gangbangs, incest, realistic sizes, pregnancy, romance, public, freeuse, sweety balls, and some others I can't think of at this moment.
My nonos include smegma, gore, blood, violence, abuse, scat, unrealistic sizes, hairy bodies, and men. There may be more that I'm not thinking of but I will let you know if something comes up that I'm not into.
Let me know if your interested, see you in my messages, I hope.

I showered today and it is hard omg. How do I get the area dry? I don’t know if I can’t just lay around. Trying to fan myself. will it get infected if I just put on a pad and mess underwear. And lay under a blanket. Any suggestions?

To start I’ve always been a big fan of post apocalyptic books/video games. Wether it be the The Last of us or Fallout, or Swan Song/The Stand.
After reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy I’ve gone into an utter slump. His writing was just too damn good that I’m having a hard time reading anything else. But it got me wondering, are there any western post apocalyptic books that are reaaally good?
I’ve read Tender Is the Flesh, Swan Song (Big fan, highly recommend if you’ve never read Robert mccammon), The Stand. I just wanted to give an idea of books I liked.
Anything outside of apocalyptic that fits this, I’m open to as well.

Look, i know this is a joke sub, that nobody but trolls and die hard fans of the croods uses. But it’s really important that even the smallest subreddits help, and it will remain off until reddit changes for the better

Preface:
I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan; I re-read the books typically once a year. I also adore the movies, and find all of Tolkien's legendarium absolutely awesome. Truly one of my favorite hobbies so I'd like to offer some critiques and excitement of flavor gems from Tales of Middle Earth. I won't do every card, but I'll comment on some individual cards and how WOTC did on it. I will comment on the cards abilities but only insofar as it impacts the flavor; i.e. what the card is doing not power level, etc.
To be clear: I understand there are sacrifices you need to make for the greater game, and sometimes those come first. For these articles: I am looking at each card in a vacuum, so if I seem harsh it's because I am using a single lens.
Next up: Radagast the Brown!
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https://preview.redd.it/yfcmdsm71a5b1.png?width=400&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4013da9f34038db07329f12b4ad6c7c991efc86
Flavor Preface
I've already written a bit about Radagast here, in the commander version of the character. To expand: Radagast was sent to Middle Earth along with Saruman and Gandalf. Unlike Saruman, Radagast did not want to come to Middle Earth but was dragged to Middle Earth by Saruman. Like Saruman: Radagast spent much of his time in one place, Rhosgobel (of which little is known). Radagast played a minor role in the War of the Ring and seems to have spent more time with the birds and beasts of the world than with humans.
There is debate as to whether the four other Wizards besides Gandalf 'succeeded' or 'betrayed' their mission. It is unquestionable that Gandalf succeeded, and it's unquestionable that Saruman failed. Radagast and the Blue Wizards are less clear. Tolkien hemmed and hawed as to whether Radagast failed, or simply chose a poor tactic to help the peoples of Middle Earth. Overall, it is clear to Gandalf at least that Radagast did not fall to evil.
The one time Radagast appears in the story is in Book II. Radagast is sent by Saruman to bring Gandalf to Isengard, which he does, before returning home. Before he leaves Gandalf asks Radagast to send out his birds and beast friends to search and communicate within the world for tidings. This alerts Gwaihir, the Lord of the Eagles, who eventually saves Gandalf. Had Radagast fallen to evil: this never would have happened.
Color
I think Radagast is a true green character. I felt he was miscast as a Green-Blue character in his commander card and like this much better.
Abilities
I think his ability is fine. It kinda matches the small role Radagast played in the story (using his friends to send messages and scout) and it encourages you to play many different kinds of creatures. So I think it's OK. Since so little is known about Radagast, it's hard to hit the flavor perfectly one way or the other.

so im still quite new to this app. i have been using the RP mode mostly, because i can kind of use the RP description as memory storage for my SM. now im wondering how is the memory of the normal mode? does the SM remember how it looks like? what it did yesterday? what its hobbies are and what it likes? in the RP mode i can just type that in the description and it can always recall it. but because of the character limit, its kinda hard to get everything in there. so i have noticed, hat in RP mode the AI is quite forgetful. i wonder if that is improved in the normal mode (normal mode should use a different AI version)