It's another big weekend of local fun in Blacksburg, at Virginia Tech and throughout the New River Valley with over 65 events. However will have to keep our fingers crossed the weather cooperates on Saturday for any of the outdoor events (some for tonight & tomorrow are already cancelled or postponed including this weekend's top 15 softball match-up).
The Hokie Women's Basketball will have most of the attention tonight and hopefully on Sunday afternoon, though I have included a few late Friday events for those that are interested.
Here's the Weekend Rundown: 1. Performance with Rissi Palmer Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg Friday, March 31, 2023, 8:00 - 10:00 PM General Admission: $15.00, Students with ID and Youth 18 and Under: $10.00 Rissi Palmer's 2017 twangy mid-tempo anthem, "Country Girl", made her the first Black woman to grace Billboard’s Hot Country charts in over 30 years. Rissi Palmer's gift lies in reaching across all musical boundaries. While Palmer made her mark in country music, she is equally at home in R&B music, bringing the entire spectrum of popular music to bear on music she calls "Southern soul". Raised in a musical family that loved both country and R&B, she was a part of a singing and dancing troupe sponsored by a local television station at age 16, and by the time she was 19 years old, she had already been offered her first publishing and label deal. A few highlights throughout Palmer’s musical career include performances at the White House, New York's Lincoln Center, and multiple appearances on the Grand Ole Opry stage. She has toured extensively across the country, sharing stages with Taylor Swift, The Eagles, Chris Young, Charley Crockett, and many more. She has also made numerous national appearances on Oprah and Friends, CMT Insider, CNN, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America to name a few. Palmer is also a special correspondent for CMT's Hot 20 Countdown, featuring chart-topping music videos, news stories, live performances, and candid interviews from country’s biggest stars. This performance is part of "Up 86," a trio of spring performances is the culmination of a new collaboration between the Moss Arts Center and North Carolina artist Shirlette Ammons, who is serving as the center’s first independent guest performing arts curator. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=679928
2. College Baseball: UVA vs. Virginia Tech English Field, Virginia Tech Friday, March 31, 2023, 8:00 PM, Saturday, April 1, 2023, 7:00 PM, Sunday, April 2, 2023, 1:00 PM Adults: $10.00 Youth Ages 6-18: $5.00 Youth Ages 5 & Under: Free Watch the Virginia Tech Baseball Team compete against ACC conference and in-state rival the University of Virginia in a three-game series. Gates and ticket booths at English Field will open 90 minutes before first pitch on gamedays. Fans accessing English Field on gameday are encouraged to use free parking in Lot 16 ("The Cage"), located northwest of the stadium along Duck Pond Drive. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685268
3. Phlegar Hill in Concert Bull & Bones Brewhaus & Grill, Blacksburg Friday, March 31, 2023, 9:00 - 11:45 PM Admission: Free The Phlegar Hill band plays a variety of music and crosses many genres and is based in Floyd, VA. NOTE: Due to Virginia Tech Women's Basketball playing in the Final Four on Friday at 7:00 PM, the concert will start after the game. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=686142
4. 2023 Annual Bob and Sue Duncan Memorial 5K Virginia Tech Cross Country Course, Blacksburg Saturday, April 1, 2023, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM Participants Ages 13 & Up: $25.00, Participants Ages 12 & Under: $10.00, College Students: $20.00, Canines: $5.00 The Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine (VMCVM) and the VMCVM Student Chapter of the American College Of Veterinary Pathologists present the 16th Annual Bob and Sue Duncan Memorial 5K to honor Bob Duncan, a beloved veterinary college professor who passed away in May of 2007 and his wife who passed away this past October. Both walkers and runners are welcome. Leashed dogs are welcome too with a proof of rabies vaccination and signed waiver required. Following the 5k, participants can enjoy raffles, music, freebies, lawn games and food trucks at the Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition. The entire run will be on the Virginia Tech Cross Country Course. Water will be available at the finish and at the halfway marker. T-shirts are guaranteed for those who register by March 24th. For those who register after, shirts will be available on a first come, first serve basis. All profits from the race benefit the Bob Duncan Memorial Diagnostic Veterinary Pathology Scholarship which awards a fourth-year veterinary student for a commitment and zeal for diagnostic veterinary pathology. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685940
5. 2023 NRV Home Expo Christiansburg Recreation Center, Christiansburg Saturday, April 1, 2023, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM and Sunday, April 2, 2023, 12:00 - 5:00 PM Early Bird Tickets: $5.00, Day Of Tickets: $7.00, Children under 18: Free when accompanied by paying adult The New River Valley Home Builders Association has put all your home care needs into one convenient location. This is the place to be if you are looking to: Build a new home, Remodel your current home, Find your mortgage lender, Meet service providers to help you with your current project list and more. The floor will be full of local, trusted professionals who are available to answer your home care questions, provide you reliable resources and quick quotes, as well as show you samples of their skills and services. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=680019
6. 2023 Spring Craft Show Auburn High School, Riner Saturday, April 1, 2023, 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM Admission: Free The Riner Volunteer Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary presents their 5th Annual Spring Craft Show. Find unique gifts for that special someone or something for yourself. Vendors include wood working, crocheting, sewing, essential oils, jewelry, glass work, wreaths, food, direct sales and more. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=684665
7. Historic Smithield Opening Day 2023 Historic Smithfield, Blacksburg Saturday, April 1, 2023, 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM Adults: $8.00, AAA, Military, Seniors (55+): $7.00, Virginia Tech Students: $5.00, Children (Over 12): $5.00 Kids (6-12): $3.00, Kids (5 & Under): Free Join Historic Smithfield to welcome the first day of their 2023 Visit Season. Tour the Manor House, site and outbuildings, engage with our knowledgeable interpreters. Onsite you can watch blacksmithing demos and living history presentations. Join them for a presentation at 11:00 AM from author Heather Cole and her book "At Home with the Virginia Presidents". The book is an engaging armchair travel talk about the eight Virginia-born presidents and the sites that shaped their lives. Attendees will learn a bit about the presidents’ lives, take a peek inside their homes and get ideas for their next history road trip. Heather Cole's book will be available for purchase in the Museum Store. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685719
8. 2023 Easter Egg Hunt for All Ages The Crafter's Corner, Christiansburg Saturday, April 1, 2023, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM Admission: Free The Crafter's Corner presents their 1st Annual Easter Egg Hunt. Eggs will be hidden all throughout the store for anyone to try to find. And, make time to meet the Yzma-Bunny and take a picture with her. This event is for all ages, but some eggs will be more difficult to find. The event will go on all day until eggs run out so this is first come, first serve event. Eggs will contain different things such as candy, small free items, discounts and there will be one Grand Prize Egg. No purchase necessary, however if you find a discount egg you might want to use it. Countryman Jamaican Grill food truck will be onsite for food sales from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM so bring your appetite. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=686152
9. Yoga on Tap Long Way Brewing, Radford Saturday, April 1, 2023, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Admission: $15.00 Join Big Body Yoga at Long Way Brewing for no-experience-necessary yoga classes every other Saturday on Long Way's outdoor patio. Expect an upbeat playlist, laid back atmosphere and all-levels yoga class followed by a fresh cold beer. A ticket to the event covers the yoga class and your beer after. Be sure to pre-register for each class you plan to attend. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=684784
10. College Softball: #13 Duke vs. #12 Virginia Tech Tech Softball Park, Virginia Tech Saturday, April 1, 2023, 12:00 PM, Sunday, April 2, 2023, 12:00 PM and 2:00 PM (Doubleheader) Admission: Free Watch the #12 Virginia Tech Softball team compete against ACC conference opponent #13 Duke in a top 15 match-up and three game series. No tickets are required for Hokie Softball games. Parking is available behind the outfield at Tech Softball Park and enter along the right field side of the stadium. Stands open one hour prior to the start of the game. UPDATE: Due to the inclement weather, the three game series schedule has been updated from the original schedule. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685862
11. JH Bards 2nd Anniversary Celebration J.H Bards Spirit Co., Radford Saturday, April 1, 2023, 12:00 - 8:00 PM Admission: Free Enjoy the release of their Spring Cocktail Menu from noon until 8:00 PM with the Bluegrass BBQ Food Truck serving from 1:00 PM until 7:00 PM. And, Jen Bertiaux will be hosting their first ever no covers Open Mike from 4:30 PM until 6:30 PM. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685906
12. 2023 Mercedes Cup: UVA vs Virginia Tech Polo Match Alphin-Stuart Arena, Virginia Tech Saturday, April 1, 2023, 12:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: $5.00 The Polo Club at Virginia Tech presents the Annual Mercedes Cup featuring a polo match with Virginia Tech hosting the University of Virginia. After a three year hiatus, the Mercedes Cup is back in-person. There will also be a wine tasting, food served by Block & Bridle, a silent auction (ending at 4:00 PM), vendors and fun halftime events. All are welcome. All profits goes towards care for the Club's horses and the equipment to play. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=686156
13. Free Drive-Thru Lunch with Grilled Cheese and Homemade Vegetable Soup Park United Methodist Church, Christiansburg Saturday, April 1, 2023, 12:00 - 2:00 PM Admission: Free Enjoy a homemade lunch consisting of Vegetable Soup, Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Dessert which will be prepared and packaged for carry-out and delivered to you in your vehicle while supplies last. There is no charge, however donations will be graciously be accepted for local neighborhood missions. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=696157
14. Above The Fray and Triquetra in Concert Buffalo Mountain Brewery, Floyd Saturday, April 1, 2023, 1:00 - 4:00 PM (Above The Fray) and 6:00 - 9:00 PM (Triquetra) Admission: Free Enjoy two concerts on Saturday. Above The Fray is a Virginia band that performs blues, old rock and Americana. Triquetra Band is a new take on a classic jazz ensemble featuring multi-passionate, multi-instrumentalists with a strong penchant for music that moves the listener both gracefully and intelligently. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685836
15. Mike Gangloff, Solar Hex, Gina & Jason Dilg in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Saturday, April 1, 2023, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Fiddlers Mike Gangloff and Gina Dilg, cellist Kaily Schenker (Solar Hex) and Banjoist Jason Dilg present an evening of music traditional and less so. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=684806
16. Wayne Henderson & Friends in Concert Floyd Country Store, Floyd Saturday, April 1, 2023, 7:00 - 10:00 PM General Admission: $25.00, Reserved Seating: $30.00 Wayne Henderson is a musical legend known worldwide for both his lightening fast "pinch picking" guitar style and the beautiful guitars, mandolins, and banjos he crafts in his shop in Rugby, Virginia. His guitar playing has also been enjoyed at Carnegie Hall, in three national tours of Masters of the Steel-String Guitar, and in seven nations in Asia. In addition to his reputation as a guitarist, Henderson is a luthier of great renown. He is a recipient of a 1995 National Heritage Award presented by the National Endowment for the Arts. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685929
17. Lucy the Spy and Tripolar Express in Concert XYZ Art Gallery, Blacksburg Saturday, April 1, 2023, 7:00 - 10:00 PM Admission: $5.00 XYZ Art Gallery presents a concert with Tripolar Express opening for Lucy the Spy. Lucy the Spy is an indie rock band from Roanoke, VA. Tripolar Express is a garage rock and grunge band based in Blacksburg, VA. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=696148
18. Naturally Sharp Spring Concert: Natman, The Sharp Knight Rises Haymarket Theater (Squires Student Center), Virginia Tech Saturday, April 1, 2023, 7:00 - 8:30 PM Preorder Tickets: $7.00, At the Door: $10.00 Naturally Sharp presents their Spring Concert titled "Natman, The Sharp Knight Rises". Join the caped crusader, the boy wonder, and Virginia Tech's best dressed a cappella group as they tackle the greatest supervillains of all time. Founded in 2002, Naturally Sharp is Virginia Tech's premiere all male a cappella group. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=686155
19. Brad Heller and The Fustics Camp Culture in Concert Dogtown Roadhouse, Floyd Saturday, April 1, 2023, 8:00 - 11:00 PM Admission: $8.00 Hailing from Wilmington, North Carolina, The Fustics continue to expand their audience throughout the East Coast with spirited live shows, and acclaimed studio releases. Blending an array of musical genres into their own distinctive style, the band has evolved from humble acoustic beginnings to a high-energy touring outfit. Incorporating a slab of blues, gallons of folk, a pint of punk, and a hint of country within their blue-collar rock, The Fustics have increased their base through radio, the internet, print media, and a heavy touring schedule. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=686150
20. 2023 Sinkland Farms Easter Eggs-Travaganza Sinkland Farms, Riner Sunday, April 2, 2023, 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM General Public: $10.00 Seniors, Military & First Responders: $9.00, Babies 23 months and Under: Free UPDATE: Due to the weather forecast of rain and high-gusty winds, Sinkland will not open on Saturday as planned and just open on Sunday. Sinkland Farms presents their first Easter Eggs-Travaganza with Easter Egg Hunts for ages 2-10 groups by age starting at noon and visit from the Easter Bunny. Enjoy baby farm animals, Kidz-Zone playground, special kid’s activities, and face painting. Join the Music Sing-along with musician Leslie Brooks (performing at 1:30 PM and 3:00 PM daily), Kid’s Karaoke, and Story Time at 11:30 AM! Dress-up for the Princess and Superhero Parade at 2:30 PM with prizes. Parents can listen to music, explore Arts & Crafts vendors, enjoy beer, wine, food trucks and more. Remember to bring your baskets. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685257
21. Sip-N-Stitch: Italy Blacksburg Wine Lab, Blacksburg Sunday, April 2, 2023, 1:00 - 3:00 PM Admission: $35.00 Blacksburg Wine Lab continues their Sip-N-Stitch series featuring Italy. Your ticket includes a tasting of three Italian Wines, a selection of house made dips with crackers & pita to snack on and a yarn tasting featuring Italian Yarn, along with several pattern suggestions for knit and crochet from New River Art & Fiber. Bring your work in progress and enjoy great company while trying new wines. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685386
22. Virginia Vineyard Month JBR Vineyards LLC, Pearisburg Sunday, April 2, 2023, 1:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Wine Tasting: $5.00, Glasses of Wine: $5.00, Bottles Range from $10.00-$25.00 Start Virginia Vineyard month by tasting wines rarely grown in Virginia with our Pinot Noir and Riesling. Picnics, kids, and dogs welcome. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685911
23. Virginia Tech Flute Studio and Flute Choir Squires Recital Salon, Blacksburg Sunday, April 2, 2023, 3:00 - 4:30 PM Admission: Free Start Virginia Vineyard month by tasting wines rarely grown in Virginia with our Pinot Noir and Riesling. Picnics, kids, and dogs welcome. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=686148
24. Award-Winning Wine Pairing Dinner The Bad Apple, Pembroke Sunday, April 2, 2023, 5:00 - 8:00 PM Admission: $85.00 A Governor’s Cup winning winemaker brings gold medal wines to pair with six delicious courses at The Bad Apple. Live music will be provided by the Mood Swing Duo. Tickets include all taxes and gratuities. Reservations are required. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=685925
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Have a great weekend and thanks for reading! Go Hokies!

POET Technologies Reports Fourth Quarter 2022 Financial Results
TORONTO, Ontario, March 31, 2023 – POET Technologies Inc. (“POET” or the “Company”) (TSX Venture: PTK; NASDAQ: POET), the designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer™, Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) and light sources for the data center, tele-communication and artificial intelligence markets, today reported its audited consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2022. The Company’s financial results as well as the Management Discussion and Analysis have been filed on SEDAR. All financial figures are in United States dollars (“USD”) unless otherwise indicated.
Fourth Quarter and Recent Business Highlights

• The Company achieved the following during the three months ended December 31, 2022 and more recently:
• Successfully completed a non-brokered private placement of an aggregate 1,126,635 units of the Corporation at a price of C$3.81 (US$2.78) per unit for aggregate gross proceeds of C$4,292,479 (US$3,184,332).
• Released to production four optical engine products, further advancing the Company’s commercialization goals. The products included transmit and receive optical engines for 100G CWDM4 as well as receive optical engines for 200G FR4 and 400G FR4.
• Developed multi-engine 100G CWDM4 and 100G LR4 chip-on-board solutions for its lead customer, ADVA Optical Networking SE. ADVA will use POET’s multi-engine transmit and receive chips in an innovative pluggable solution that packs the functionality of four independent 100Gbit/s interfaces into a single QSFP-DD housing that is scalable to high volume as well as higher data rates.
• Began sampling 400G FR4 and 800G 2xFR4 receive optical engines in partnership with Luxshare Technology Co., Ltd., a global technology provider for data-communication facilities and enterprise-level products, to enable the sale of power-efficient and cost-optimized 400G and 800G transceiver solutions.
• Amended the terms of 1,764,720 common share purchase warrants with an expiry date of February 11, 2023 and an exercise price of C$11.50 to expire on May 11, 2023 at an exercise price of C$4.25. The Company had received US$5,475,102 from the exercise of 1,758,716 of these warrants by March 10, 2023.
• Demonstrated 800G optical engines and light source products at the 2023 OFC Conference and Exhibition, where the Company also hosted numerous meetings with potential customers, partners and media. Additionally, the Company introduced and showcased a live demonstration of “POET Infinity™”, a new chiplet-based transmitter platform for 400G, 800G and 1.6T pluggable transceivers and co-packaged optics solutions.
• Entered into an agreement with Beijing FeiYunYi Technology Ltd. (“BFYY”) to design optical engines for deployment of optical modules in the telecom market globally, beginning in China. The agreement, valued at up to $1 million over a two-year period, includes NRE for POET and an initial purchase order for 10,000 units that will be used to sample customers. BFYY has forecasted optical engine purchases from POET’s joint venture company, Super Photonics Xiamen (“SPX”), at over $30 million over a three-year period.
• Announced a collaboration with Vanguard Automation GmbH, the developer of 3D-nanoprinted Photonic Wire Bond and Micro-Lens technology and manufacturer of software-defined equipment for photonic integration and packaging, to enable the integration of Micro-Lenses on the POET Optical Interposer platform to maximize coupling efficiency while maintaining POET’s wafer-level passive assembly process.
• Several current and former directors holding warrants that expire on April 3, 2023 have exercised their warrants.

Management Comments
“The Company’s effort during the fourth quarter has been well rewarded in the form of several pivotal announcements in early 2023,” stated POET Chairman & CEO, Dr. Suresh Venkatesan. “In January, we released to production four optical engines, marking a significant commercialization milestone for both POET and Super Photonics. Having recently completed product design verification and reliability testing on these optical engines, we are now working closely with multiple customers on the internal qualifications for their end customers. We were also pleased to announce POET’s optical engines enabling ADVA’s unique MicroMux Quattro pluggable device. The opportunity to work with ADVA serves to further validate the Company’s optical engines. As additional evidence of our progress, in February we announced our partnership with Luxshare Technology, which is focused on leveraging POET’s highly integrated Infinity chiplet platform to expand its 400G and 800G pluggable transceiver solutions for the data center market. Also notable was the signing of key supplier arrangements in the fourth quarter with Lumentum Holdings for its directly modulated lasers.”
“Most recently, the Company participated at OFC 2023 where we successfully hosted live demonstrations of our advanced optical engine and light source products as well as held meetings with a series of prominent prospective customer and partners. In conjunction with OFC, we also showcased our POET Infinity chiplet-based transmitter platform for 400G, 800G and 1.6T pluggable transceivers and co-packaged optics solutions. Our team was extremely pleased with the high level of interest and engagement at OFC, which we anticipate to lead to expanded product sampling and customer qualifications in the coming quarters. We believe POET is increasingly in a predominant position to become a leading optical engine supplier at advanced data rates, as we continue preparations to ramp volume production in the second half of 2023. Additionally, we are making important advancements on our targeted products for AI-ML applications at an ideal time as market demand rapidly expands for new scalable, cost-effective solutions.”

1) Have an all-or-nothing mentality.
This attitude can blind you from the progress that you’re making. A reduction of problematic behavior, instead of a full elimination, is still progress. Going from 7 porn sessions per day down to twice per week is a huge accomplishment, even if you aren’t yet reaching your goal of living life completely porn-free. Everybody has to start somewhere. Your favorite sports star wasn’t simply born with those abilities; they also had to train for years to get where they are today. It is the same thing for recovering porn addicts – it often takes months (or even years!) of consistent work and improvement to kick the habit fully. Don’t let slip-ups turn into give-ups. Keep on moving forward and avoid getting so upset that you completely abandon your recovery goals.
2) Think that quitting porn will fix everything in your life.
Yes, overcoming porn addiction or problematic porn use has many potential standalone benefits. But many of the benefits you can experience are likely due to you living your life more fully. For example, quitting porn doesn’t directly result in better fitness; it’s up to you to spend your extra time and energy pursuing healthier habits such as exercise. Quitting porn doesn’t make you super-human but can help you regain the natural capabilities you were born with.
3) Continuing to watch porn if you’re recovering from porn addiction.
If you are a recovering porn addict, you almost certainly shouldn’t be using porn. For some reason, we get many messages from people asking us whether or not watching porn “counts,” just so long that they’re aren’t finishing to it. Yes, it still “counts” even if you are not masturbating to orgasm. If you are watching porn, you could still be conditioning your brain to porn rather than a sexual partner.
4) Not trying to improve yourself.
A sedentary and unengaging lifestyle creates an environment where problematic porn use can thrive. You want to live a life that is so fulfilling, with a schedule so full, that there’s no room for compulsive porn use to leech its way back in.
5) Not taking quitting porn seriously enough.
Recovering from porn addiction is far more than a one-month “challenge,” and recovery is certainly not a “quit overnight with these ten easy tricks” snake-oil scheme. Fully recovering from a severe porn addiction could be the most challenging thing you’ve ever done. We’ve had multiple people with histories of other compulsive behaviors reach out to us to tell us that quitting porn was harder for them than quitting alcohol, smoking, or even hard drugs. Despite how challenging quitting porn might be for some people, it is possible. Thousands of people have done it before – and you can too.
6) Beating yourself up over slip-ups.
From our observations, many porn addicts try to quit porn dozens to hundreds of times before finally making significant progress towards kicking the habit for good. Most importantly, you have two options – let a slip-up or relapse set you back even further than needed with toxic shame, or use the slip-up as a learning experience, forgive yourself, and continue forward with a new resolve to pursue self-improvement.
7) Focusing too much on motivation.
In reality, people aren’t always motivated, which certainly holds true for recovering porn addicts. You probably aren’t always going to feel motivated to stick to your porn-free goals. You have to learn to stay porn-free, even when you aren’t feeling motivated to do so. While your brain might be screaming at you to use more porn, recovery is a calculated decision to quit because the cons of continued problematic porn use outweigh the short-lived benefits that it brought to your life.
8) Being too focused on recovery.
If you are always focusing on recovery, you are always thinking about recovery. If you are always thinking about recovery, you are always thinking about porn. The focus should primarily be on building a new life of positive habits that keep your mind off of porn and on your family, friends, romantic partner or dating life, career goals, or whatever else you may be interested in and care about.
9) Not learning the basics of recovery and how addiction works in the brain.
NoFap published an easy guide that runs through the basics of how porn addiction develops and how the recovery process works. Seriously, knowing the mechanics of why our brains get hooked on sexual media is tremendously helpful in recovery. If you learn the science, you will have an explanation for why you experience certain things and always know that recovery is possible.
10) Listening too much to strangers on the Internet.
We cringe at some of the misinformation and pseudoscience floating around about porn addiction. If you read something on a random message board, please don’t just assume that it’s a fact. There is some advice circulating around that might be genuinely harmful to recovery. At NoFap, we do our best to consult with real clinical and scientific experts and ensure that our messages are evidence-supported. Do your own research and learn the basics of the addiction brain science, and you’ll be able to spot and even help to correct some of the misinformation that’s out there yourself!
11) Not developing new ways to cope with stress and emotions.
Many porn addicts rely on pornography as an emotional crutch to get through the day. You’ll likely need to find replacement activities. If you fail to develop skills to combat other issues in your life, you might fall on your butt whenever you are hit a problem that quitting porn can’t solve.
12) Not taking care of yourself.
Maybe you are already doing this – and if so, great. But many addicts neglect their personal health, including not getting enough sleep, not eating well, not exercising, and living high-stress lifestyles. Recovery is a great time to start taking some steps towards living a healthier life.
13) Not relaxing enough.
Some people strive a bit too hard for self-improvement during recovery, at the detriment of their wellness. Eventually, they often burn out and slip back into old habits. The goal should be a sustainable recovery. Give yourself some time to relax! Not taking care of yourself and being overloaded leads to feeling stressed out and unhealthy, which can easily lead right back to your old problematic porn habits.
14) Being too reliant on other people.
Ultimately, you are the person who needs to quit porn. Your romantic partner can’t quit porn for you, nor can your fellow NoFap community members or a therapist. The same even goes for blocker software. You have to be the one who blocks porn out of your life. Ultimately, you are the decision-maker. You are the one who has to stick to your goals, show up to therapy sessions, participate in accountability relationships, and go through the porn quitting journey.
15) Partaking in your recovery in complete secrecy.
Addiction thrives in secrecy. Secrecy is almost a prerequisite for addiction. To escalate into addictive behavior, you often have to hide aspects about it and the consequences of it from your family, community, loved ones, friends, and even coworkers. Secrecy can also lead to shame. By telling somebody about your problematic porn use and your decision to quit porn, you’ll be adding external accountability to push you towards your sexual health goals.
16) Not getting help, if you need it.
Whether it is a porn addiction therapist, a good friend, signing up for NoFap, getting an accountability partner, or joining an accountability group, you might be missing out if you don’t get some kind of helping hand during your recovery.
17) Thinking that anyone else’s journey will be yours too.
We get these questions all of the time: what happens on day 4? When will my porn-induced erectile dysfunction be cured? How long does it take to quit porn? These are impossible to answer and only serve to set unrealistic expectations for yourself. Every recovery journey is different.
18) Over-complicating the recovery process.
There are now 10,000s of pieces of advice circulating online on how to best overcome porn addiction. This could quickly become overwhelming. Keep in mind that quitting porn is as simple as not using porn. There’s only one step. Everything else revolves around that one step. So if you are feeling overwhelmed to the point that you feel like just giving up, keep that in mind.
19) Being overconfident.
Just because you are doing well on week one does not mean it will always feel easy. Recovery from porn addiction is not a linear process that gets better and easier every day. It’s usually a twisty, winding road of ups and downs, and you never know what is coming next. Even if you feel confident, which is good, the proper mentality is to take recovery day by day, because you never know what to expect next.
20) Being under-confident in your ability to quit.
People lived without Internet porn for many generations before you were born – so living life without it is entirely possible. Thousands of people have successfully quit. If you ever feel like quitting porn is a hopeless endeavor, read the thousands of success stories posted on NoFap. You can quit porn.
-Article from https://nofap.com/articles/20-ways-to-not-quit-porn/

The English Department at Georgia State University in Atlanta is hiring several Lecturers to primarily teach classes in the First Year Writing Program. Lecturers at GSU are full-time non-tenure track faculty with both teaching and service requirements who directly contribute to the mission of the university. Lecturers have the opportunity for promotion to Senior Lecturer and Principal Senior Lecturer, based on excellence in teaching and appropriate service. Our lecturers are full members of the department’s intellectual community and leadership team.
The typical teaching load for this position is 4/4, and the starting salary is expected to be $55,000, depending on experience, with the possibility for additional compensation for summer teaching (10% per course). The start date for this position is August 2023. Review of applications begins April 1st but will continue until the positions are filled.
I'm happy to answer questions about my experiences in the English Department at GSU; questions about the position can be directed to George Pullman, Search Committee Chair, at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). The job ad is copied below and is also available on The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Best Wishes,Ashley
Ashley J. Holmes, Ph.D. (she/her)
Associate Professor of English (Rhetoric & Composition)
Director of Writing Across the Curriculum
Georgia State University [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Lecturer in English (Rhetoric and Composition)
Department of English, GSU, Atlanta Campus
The Department of English of Georgia State University invites applications for the position of Lecturer at its downtown Atlanta campus, which serves a diverse and expanding undergraduate and graduate student body. We seek a versatile candidate to offer coverage in our First Year Writing Program and growth in high-demand areas as we prepare students for emerging careers.
Lecturers at Georgia State University are full-time non-tenure track faculty with both teaching and service requirements who directly contribute to the mission of the university. Lecturers have the opportunity for promotion to Senior Lecturer and Principal Senior Lecturer, based on excellence in teaching and appropriate service. Our lecturers are full members of the department’s intellectual community and leadership team.
Essential Qualifications

• MFA or PhD in English at the time of appointment
• Demonstrated excellence in teaching first-year composition or other college-level writing courses
• Interest in teaching and mentoring students of diverse backgrounds

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in teaching in hybrid or online modalities
• Research and/or work experience in multimodal composition, scholarship of teaching and learning, professional writing and editing, and/or writing program administration
  The typical teaching load for this position is 4/4. Lecturers will primarily teach writing classes for the First Year Writing Program, which serves all students in the university; additional course assignments will depend on the teaching expertise of the hire and departmental and university needs. Starting salary is expected to be $55,000, depending on experience, with the possibility for additional compensation for summer teaching (10% per course). The start date for this position is August 2023.
  Situated in the cultural and economic center of the Southeast, GSU is a vibrant urban public research institution ranked nationally as a leader in undergraduate teaching and in fostering the academic success of diverse populations. The College of Arts & Sciences and the Department of English seek to recruit and retain a diverse community of scholars. We encourage applications from women and members of underrepresented groups and support faculty professional success through mentoring programs and representation of faculty from all ranks in college-level program development. GSU is an institutional member of the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity.
  To Apply
  Please send the follow materials to George Pullman, Search Committee Chair, at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).
  

1. Application cover letter
   
2. Curriculum vitae
   
3. Teaching statement that addresses ability to teach a diverse student body
   
4. Student evaluations or other evidence of success in instruction
   
5. Names and contact information for three references
   Review of applications will begin on April 1, 2023 and continue until the position is filled. An offer of employment will be conditional upon background verification. Georgia State University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against applicants due to race, ethnicity, gender, veteran status, or on the basis of disability or any other federal, state, or local protected class.
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I have no personal frame of reference for this opinion, but I imagine being a drug runner for the Mexican cartel (or any cartel) is loads more fun in a video game setting than in real life. The latter pays more I'm sure, but the stress, risk to life and limb, and persistent threat of jail time have me convinced to stick with legal employment. Not so for some GTA Online gamers who thought it a good idea to become meth mules.
It sounds wild (because it is), but apparently drug cartels sometimes use online multiplayer video games as a source for new blood. Back in October of last year, for example, Mexico's assistant public safety secretary, Ricardo Mejía, said a cartel recruiter purchased bus tickets for three teenagers between 11 and 14 years old.
The recruiter found the teens on Garena Free Fire, a popular online game, and offered them each $200 per week to serve as lookouts for the cartel. Authorities detained the teens before they boarded the bus, but Mejía told ABC News that other cartels have also recruited drug mules and lookouts through video games, including Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Grand Theft Auto V.
Now three months later, Forbes says it discovered that US officials have evidence showing GTA Online is also used as a recruitment tool for drug cartels.
It's not clear how long this has allegedly been going on, but according to the site, border agents stopped and inspected a Jeep Cherokee in Arizona last November and found almost 60 kilograms of methamphetamine. The driver, Alyssa Navarro, said a man named George first contacted her in GTA Online, through which they got to know each other over time.
Those in-game chats later pivoted over to Snapchat, where George raised the idea of being a runner, albeit for electronics to be sold in Mexico. Navarro claims she was offered up to $2,000 per trip, depending on the size of the load.
The only problem for Navarro is that the cartel allegedly hid meth in the Jeep's fuel tank. Authorities have charged Navarro with conspiracy to import and sell meth, and also possession, charges for which she has pleaded not guilty.
It remains to be seen how that case will turn out. Suffice to say, though, if someone online propositions you for an offer that seems too good to be true—or is outright illegal—it's best to politely decline.

Hey folks, I have a question for people with more knowledge than myself. I have a very active job and workout 4-5 times a week for the last month. I track calories burnt with my Fitbit and calories taken in a chronometer. Neither are perfect but give me a good idea of where I’m at. My issue is after 3 solid meals with plenty of protein I may only hit 2000 calories eaten. My calories burnt is usually between 3500-4000. My Fitbit has never served me wrong and I have lost 30 pounds trusting this thing. So my question is, do I need to be trying to stay more in the 500 calories deficit range for the best results or just do what I’m doing, which is intuitive eating. I genuinely have a hard time eating more than 2500 calories even if I were to eat junk.

My wife seemed sound asleep as I looked over at her side of the bed, awakened in a cold sweat in the middle of the night from the strangest dream. Like many of my dreams, they don’t exactly manifest in the form of placing me in its shoes, seeing the fantasy world from my own point of view. It’s more like watching a film play out before me; the invisible camera operator guides the picture whichever so way they please, and I simply sit back and watch it unfold. I’d brought this up to my psychiatrist many times before, of course, and his reaction was always the same. “Isn’t it obvious, Ace?” he’d playfully tease, “You’re an actor. It only makes sense.”
This one started differently than any other one my mind had conjured up before. I was guided along an aisle between a sea of auditorium seats, and vertically ahead sat the dock of the theater stage. Unlike the vacant cushioned red row seats that surrounded me, the stage appeared occupied with 12 figures that I assumed to be the actors. From this distance, their faces and even the outlines of their bodies stood as a blur.
The ‘camera’ proceeded forward, and as it did so, my line of sight became more in-focused, and strangely enough, I could make out that they were all of a similar size, race, age, and near identical in stature, only slightly different in their demeanor, and I could almost swear, the closer I got, I could hear them all speaking amongst each other with the exact same voice. It didn’t take me long to figure out that they were identical variants of one another, but furthermore, I was a little embarrassed of myself of how long it took to realize that they were all actually duplicates of myself.
Twelve different versions of myself, dressed in separate costumes and hairstyles, speaking in different accents and dialects, all mingling amongst themselves in a single horizontal line across the stage, the entire scene looked like a moving painting of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. As I stepped closer - or I should say ‘glided’ closer, wherever which way this imaginary ‘camera’ intended to lead me - one peculiar version of myself stood out to me first. It wore a brown leather jacket, washed-out jeans on top of rugged boots, and blew a cigarette as the fumes danced over its curly brown bowl-cut hair.
That was the Lance Jackson character I’d played in The Curbside Chronicles, one of my first gigs on an old NBC serial drama back in my early acting days. The character was somewhat of a rip-off of James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause if the angsty teen persona didn’t sell that enough.
Another one presently on the stage was my Reese Malone character I’d played in my first feature film role, a shy but clever recluse who served as the ‘nerdy one’ of the bunch amongst the main cast in the movie. And no, I didn’t get the girl in the end.
Henry Clerval, in a made-for-TV adaptation of Frankenstein, appeared on the stage as well, standing out like a sore thumb dressed in 19th-century garb. That one landed me a Primetime Emmy nomination.
Then there was Charlie Stone, the tall, dark, and handsome gentleman next door who actually did get the girl this time in a romantic comedy I’d played in. Don’t confuse that flattering description of myself with me being conceited; my makeup artist did wonders for me in that role, I remember. God, I secretly cringe looking back on it, though I’d never mention a word of it in interviews.
Cliff Potter, the passionate and eager-to-please high school teacher with a chip on his shoulder, did everything in his power to prove to his inner-city students the importance of a good education to get far in this life. Ugh, not one of my proudest works - another to add to the bad trend of ‘white savior’ flicks from the 90s.
As the perspective shifted through the line of the various roles I’d played over the years, like a physical timeline of my portfolio reflected before me, I began to notice the main one who stood center stage, not talking to anyone. Instead, his eyes stared off aimlessly into the empty crowd.
It was one of the more recent roles I’d played, just after the one that landed me my first Oscar. Jonathan Mayfield, a good family man, loyal husband, caring father role I nabbed in ABC’s latest sitcom, Joop’s Boulevard, a complete reverse from the role I’d played prior…
I tried to make out the words that were being said amongst the crowd of duplicates of myself, but to no avail. You know how dreams are; nothing makes sense at all while everything also does at the same time, in the moment, at least. It’s not until you wake up and realize how nonsensical everything is. Words and text appear impossible to decipher in dreams, and hearing things with your left and right brain sometimes proved no different.
Though, as I concentrated harder, I began to notice that the volume that they were all speaking at began to descend, until, eventually, they each came down to a subtle whisper to the variant next to them. Just going off of my judge of character, though I still couldn’t make out their words, they seemed to be whispering out of means to keep some sort of secret, as if they didn’t want to be heard. Everyone but Jonathan, that is, who remained as frozen and rooted to the ground as a tree, staring off blankly into the distance.
Then the ‘camera’ began to pan more toward his direction, and soon began closing in on his face. Even though my physical body wasn’t present in this very scene, from some abstract dimension, I suppose, a sensation from within my gut grew a nervous itch. Something was off about Jonathan’s eyes. They were mine, of course, with my actor body serving as the canvas that played him, but his lifeless eyes, as I perceived them, weren’t actually lifeless at all. Something lay just beyond the windows of his sockets.
He was afraid. Of what, I didn’t know, and that, in turn, made me just as anxious…
In the frame of the dream currently presented by the ‘camera,’ Jonathan then remained the only center focus of attention, his paralyzed, panic-filled eyes serving as a close-up shot. It’s almost as if he was staring at me face-to-face, making me more uneasy. And at once, the whispering amongst the eleven other clones of myself stopped altogether, and dead silence remained.
I could feel my heartbeat rapidly climb from that imaginary place where my body would’ve otherwise stood, and slowly, as the ‘camera’ panned into an over-the-shoulder shot in reference to Jonathan, I suddenly discovered the source of fear shared by him and the rest.
Behind him stood the character I chose to shut the door on and never look back a little over a year ago now, the one who, even in my dreams, still came knocking even after all this time. The Oscar winner himself…
He stood parallel behind Jonathan, glaring malevolently at him, but Jonathan remained to stare forward, trembling, as if he knew turning his head would end for him the same way it did the Greeks who looked Medusa in the eye.
I woke from the dream immediately after that with a sort of survivor’s relief, as if doing so saved Jonathan’s life. Ridiculous, I know, but as I said before, you know how dreams can be…
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Chateau Marmont
The following afternoon, we wrapped up shooting for the day for the new and upcoming police detective role I was currently starring in as the lead, and I was now leaving the studio lot to meet Patrice for lunch at the Chateau Marmont, our usual lunch date spot. She had ordered her usual caesar salad with a side of just berries (said she was trying to watch her weight, which I thought was ridiculous; she looked fine) and I got the charcuterie board with a side of hummus and fries.
Patrice liked to make fun of the way I took it upon myself to remove pieces of crackers and cheese of the sort that overlapped each other and placed them at their own corners of the plate. I’m one of those types; I just didn’t like things on my plate touching each other.
Some moments passed of us picking out our meals before she started with her opening question.
“How’s shooting going?” she asked, taking a bite out of her salad.
I nodded, as I was still chewing my own food before scarfing it down and answering, “Good. I think this season’s gonna be really good this time around.”
“That’s good to hear. I’m sure the ABC execs could use the pull. Not everyone’s fully gotten on board with moving everything over to streaming, it seems like.”
“It’s streaming,” I affirmed.
“I know, but you know how stubborn a lot of the oldheads are with understanding that the days of episodic, weekly releases are kind of a thing of the past. Everyone wants to binge nowadays.”
“Mmm, I don’t know. I think there’s some sort of strategy to doing weekly releases over dumping everything at once still,” I added. “I mean, think about it, you binge a whole 13, 22-episode season at once in, like, one or two days, and then now you’re craving more and you have to wait a whole entire before the next one is released, versus if you release then weekly throughout the season, it gives more time for people to talk about it, bringing in more viewership and buzz, and then before you know it, hey, season two is out before winter.”
Patrice concurred with a nod. “Touche. Maybe you can sit in with me at some of these exec meetings back at Universal; they could learn a thing or two from you.”
Patrice was only five years my junior, but if you ask me, leagues ahead of me in the game. I’d been acting since I was a child and got my first break when I was a still pretty much a kid at the age of 15, but ever since she sealed her first contract with CBS to direct an episode of Jordan Peele’s 2019 revamp of The Twilight Zone, she’s been a trailblazer amongst her peers, defying the odds that a woman can still make it in this business well past her prime. She’s long paid her dues jumping through hoops, from running miscellaneous (and at times downright demanding) errands as an on-set PA, then onto 2nd Assistant Director, followed by 1st Assistant Director, before finally landing her big break. The rest is history; she runs her own production company now after her first Primetime Emmy win, and is now in talks to direct and produce the next big project in collaboration with Monkey Paw, A24, as well as Blumhouse. To say I was proud of her was an understatement. She didn’t need my approval.
She then changed the subject.
“So, when I woke up this morning, I found a nice little note left on the kitchen island after you left,” she spoke in a playful inflection, as though it were an inside joke of some kind.
I furrowed my brows. “What note?” I asked honestly.
She smirked suspiciously, like a parent questioning a guilty child.
“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” she teased.
“Uh, sorry, hon, I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted.
She shook her head. “You’re not gonna give me anything, huh?”
“Give you what?”
“You’re acting skills may fool the rest of the world, but you can’t fool me.”
She then pulled out a small folded piece of paper from the breast pocket of her blazer, which I assumed was the note she was referring to. She held it up momentarily for emphasis before opening it up and revealing what was inscribed.
“‘Til death deliver us from evil, dear Sadie,” she read the words aloud, sending slight shivers down my spine.
A nervous chuckle escaped me, as I didn’t have a clue as to where the note came from, though there seemed to be no other suspect at the moment. She and I were the only ones who lived in that big house, and Teresa, our cleaning lady, only stopped by once every two weeks, and this week wasn’t her turn.
“Hey, tell you what, I won’t spoil any ‘possible’ upcoming surprises for our… you know,” Patrice said.
I did know exactly what she was referring to. Our 7th anniversary was just two weeks away, and no, I didn’t forget. But this wasn’t part of any elaborate scheme leading up to a big surprise. That wasn’t what I had planned, anyways.
“Patty, I’m sorry, honey, I seriously don’t know-”
“Gosh, you thespians sure know how to commit to a role, don’t you?” she leaned back in her seat, hands clasped, still attempting to fish it out of me - to which ‘it,’ I still wasn’t sure of.
“You said you found it on the kitchen table this morning?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
I took a closer look at the words, particularly the handwriting. It wasn’t in the way that I wrote.
“That’s not even my handwriting,” I noted.
“Oh yeah, I’m quite aware of your dedication skills to playing the part - believe me, I know,” she egged on.
I stammered at what to say next, but nothing came out.
“Like I said, I won’t spoil the fun. I’ll just play along and see where this leads me to,” she continued. “Besides, who said I maybe didn’t have a little surprise of my own?”
She sipped her sparkling lemon water as my eyes somehow got transfixed on the endless bubbles fluttering to the top of the glass.
“‘Til death deliver us from evil, dear Sadie?” I repeated the words.
It was the most quoted, repeated, and arguably recognized line from modern-day cinema taken from the last picture that cemented my status as an Academy Award winner. It was as famous a line as “Good evening, Clarice” or “May the Force be with you.”
“I’ve tried not to even think about that script since…” I began, then faltered.
Patrice grew quieter as well, dancing her fork between her salad.
“I know,” she spoke in a low voice. “Me neither. That’s why I was… intrigued, is all. Hopefully, it doesn’t in damage control or anything like that,” she dryly humored.
After taking a bite from her fork, she looked up and noticed the solemn demeanor on my face, and quickly reverted herself.
“I was just kidding, babe,” she tried to soothe.
I took in a quick, deep breath and looked down to notice I’d barely touched my food.
“You know how I feel about that role,” I said almost in a whisper.
Patrice nodded earnestly. “I’m sorry. That was… insensitive of me. Trust and believe, I didn’t forget.”
All I could remember, on the other hand, from last night was that disturbing, trippy-ass dream. I never experienced anything like it. I just said I hadn’t thought of that role since then, and yet, he showed up at my subconscious door last night, clear as day, as true as the sky is blue…
“I think I might need to pay Cromwell a visit,” I suggested.
“Cromwell? Why?”
“I think I might be sleepwalking.”
“Um, what makes you think that? You’ve never sleepwalked before. Right? Well, at least as long as I’ve known you.”
“No, I haven’t, but I remember my mother saying that my dad used to do it years ago from time to time. Not too often, just once in a blue moon, but it did happen, so I know it runs in the family. I’ve been told it’s genetic.”
“Do you think it can happen this late in your age?”
“It’s possible. It’s the only other explanation I can think of as to how that got there.”
I could tell Patrice wanted to prod again with another playful tease at the notion that I was bluffing but could perceive her noticeably restraining herself.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
“So, how’s the production going?” Dr. Cromwell asked, taking a seat in the chair across from mine.
“Well,” I nodded. “Very well.”
“That’s very good to hear.”
His cheerful, gravelly, booming voice was filtered throughout his old age, and I always found his grey mustache to be a suitable accessory to his facial features. Patrice jokingly referred to him as the ‘real-life Pringles man.’
“My wife and I finally got through season one just the other week,” he continued, “after we finally had some time to ourselves to relax finally, and I gotta say, you might be my new favorite TV dad, Ace.”
I smiled and forced a flattered chuckle. “Aww, you’re too kind, Kirk.”
“Well, I think the day I become ‘too kind’ might be the day my field of profession is a little too oversaturated,” he joked. “So tell me, what’s on your mind? I know since the last time we spoke, we were at a different place, but it seems that things have improved since then, which is wonderful, but I’ll go ahead and stop speaking and let you have the floor, yeah?”
I inhaled and exhaled.
“Well, like you mentioned, things have been a lot better since last year. I, uh, haven’t had a drink in six months, so that’s something.”
“Good,” Cromwell uttered. “Is that something you’ve been managing well? Are you happy with staying sober?”
“Much happier,” I affirmed. “I haven’t had a taste for a beer, wine, anything since…”
My mind began to trail off to last night’s vision of terror. The menacing figure looming over Jonathan flashed in my mind.
“... Yeah, since then,” I finished.
“That’s great, Ace,” Cromwell said. “That’s really great. Glad to hear things are going well for you.”
“Mmm, well, almost perfectly well.”
A short laugh escaped Cromwell. “I guess I suppose you wouldn’t be here today if things were, am I right?”
“Yeah… just a forewarning, it’s nothing bad, really. At least, nothing at this level, I should say.”
Cromwell’s lips furrowed in a curious study.
“I… think I sleepwalked last night,” I confessed in a low tone as if I had just admitted to wetting the bed. “As far as I know, I’ve never done it before. I mean, Patrice claims I never have, but I do know it runs in the family. My father used to do it once in a while, years before he passed, per my mother.”
“Hmm,” Cromwell uttered. “What made you come to that conclusion? That you sleepwalked?”
“Well, yesterday, Patrice and I had lunch, and she pulled out a note that she said I left on the kitchen island either the night before or maybe the next morning - whenever. I have it right here, actually.”
I pulled out the note and handed it to him to see for himself.
“Recognize the words?” I asked.
Doc’s eyes danced left and right in succession as they studied the paper.
“‘Til death deliver us from evil, dear Sadie,” Cromwell repeated the words. “If I didn’t know any better, that’s a quote from The Eight Ball, isn’t it?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s right.”
“Congratulations on your Oscar win, by the way.”
I hesitated a moment before responding with, “Thank you.”
“But uh… I’m sure you’re not just here to gloat about your recent career boost to me now, are you?” Cromwell candidly confirmed.
“... No,” I answered sincerely. “To be honest, Kirk, I know it sounds a little ungrateful to say, but I’m not proud of my win. Everyone around me praises me for my work, applauds me for my performance, saying I absolutely, without a doubt, deserved it, but the truth is…”
I trailed off, noticing Cromwell’s understanding visage, knowing good well why I felt the way I did.
“... Well, you remember how I was last year,” I stated, to which Cromwell concurred with a single nod. “The heavy amounts of drinking, the bad financial decisions I made, the random violent outbursts…”
I shook my head at every word that carried with my voice, ashamed of each action I’d made in the past year following the departure from the role.
“I swore to myself,” I continued, “swore to Patrice, that I’d never take it that far ever again for any role that comes my way from here on out. I will never commit myself that much to a character like that again. Any character.”
Cromwell squiggled his notes on a piece of paper.
“I’m going to assume that,” Cromwell held up the note, “that based on this note, and based on what you’ve told me today, you believe this is what you wrote when you slept-walked - excuse me, sleepwalked - last night, something in relation to the character you played in that film? The same film that nabbed you the Academy Award, must be still haunting you? Is that correct for me to assume, Ace?”
My face stared off at the ground at Cromwell’s feet, I’d imagine in the same pose I’d seen Jonathan replicating in the dream. And as with the dream, from some unseen dimension, I could feel the presence of some malevolent figure looming over me, with me oblivious to his company.
I simply nodded as an answer, as if speaking might set off an internal alarm of dreadful pandemonium.
A moment of silence passed before I finally had the courage to speak again, clearing my throat.
“If you notice, too,” I added, “from my pre-screening sheet when I signed in at the desk, you’ll notice my handwriting on their compared to the handwriting on the note aren’t even the same. I know that because when I took on the role of… him, I adapted a new one to better immerse myself.”
I followed Doc’s eyes again, noticing them shift left and right from both sheets of paper, as his head nodded in confirmation.
“Yeah, it does look like two different people wrote these,” Cromwell said. “Ace, last night, when you believed to have been sleepwalking, as you claim, do you recall having any dreams of some sort?” Cromwell finally asked. I was expecting it.
“Yes,” I whispered. “He was there.”
“Who was?”
That face… that face burned into my brain. A glare that could make the Devil himself flench.
“Geb Oleander,” I hissed his name, like spouting venom from a snake. “The character I played.”
“Mmm,” Cromwell nodded. “And why do you think Geb would show up in your dream last night? Has he been on your mind lately?”
I shook my head. “No, no he hasn’t,” I answered quickly. “He’s the last thing I’d want on my mind. And I’m not sure why he popped up in my dream, or nightmare, I should call it.”
“Describe the dream to me - if you feel comfortable, of course.”
Maybe talking it out with someone was just what I needed to shake the feeling off. After all, that’s what Kirk was here for.
I described in as great of detail as I could recollect, from how the perspective of the dream seemed equivalent to treading along a dolly camera system, and how it felt like I was floating rather than walking, to the numerous duplicate versions of myself in the different roles I’d played over the years lined up on stage mingling, and of course, the terrifying transition of the dream into a nightmare as the camera closed in on the Jonathan alter ego-version of myself, petrified as a prey locking eyes with its predator.
“I haven’t thought about him in over a year, and there he was, as if he was just, you know, taunting me,” I spoke. “Almost like a reminder, you know? Like, he was saying, ‘I’m still here.’”
I don’t think I realized it at that moment, but my voice had changed to his when I said the words, and with a shuddered recoil, quickly brought myself back.
The doc’s left hand scribbled across the paper in various loops and directions, which I assumed was legible to him and only him.
“Ace, correct me if I’m wrong, but the current part you’re playing right now - that you’re currently shooting - is a detective role, yes?” Cromwell asked.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“This is a new sort of part for you, isn’t it?”
I tilted my head left and right in a so-so way. “I’ve played similar personality types in the past, but this is my first actual role as a cop, yes.”
“So you’ve been fulfilling this new role as a police detective, a very competent one at his job, I’d assume, and you’re now having visions and nightmares of a previous role you played as a serial killer returning in your sleep… can you guess where I might be going with this?”
It wasn’t that hard to put two and two together. I think Kirk sometimes forgets that part of my job as an actor is to be a part-time psychologist in order to get in the heads of each character I play. No offense to him.
“You think the archetype of the detective is in a tug-a-war within my subconscious against that of the serial killer?” I presumed to be the correct answer.
Cromwell nodded, then raised his hand in preparation for possible blowback, “It’s all right, you can say it.”
I let out a brief sigh. “I know it’s your job to analyze down to the barest bone, but don’t you think that might be a bit of a reach, Doc?”
“Ace, wouldn’t you agree cutting a patient down to the barest bone to discover an ailment can be quite unnecessary when all they came in with was a bad cough?” Cromwell remarked.
As funny as it sounded, I suppose he had a point.
He continued, “Sometimes, the simplest answer is just that. Our brains hide everything from us while at the same time leaving behind its messy footprints for all of us to see. You being the actor that you are of your caliber, I’d imagine, are putting in all this work, all this research, studying this new character you’ve taken on from top to bottom, reshaping your mind into that of an actual detective - this is simultaneously coinciding with the previous role that you did as the complete opposite, whether your consciousness chooses to recognize it or not. I can see it clear as day. You soon start to realize that our different personalities within us aren’t just separate pieces of a puzzle, but instead they all bleed into each other. A baked pie had to be whole before it got sliced into pieces, it didn’t just become that way to start. Now, am I one-hundred percent confident that I’m right on that theory? Of course not. Everything is subject to be questioned and further analyzed like anything else, and me being an expert doesn’t make me the expert. However, the last thing I want for you is to overthink and overanalyze a problem that’s already proving to be somewhat stressful for you. For the sake of simplicity, for now, let’s just say things are exactly as they appear, yeah?”
At the end of the session, after some time chit-chatting and discussing more trivial matters, Cromwell slipped me his own special doctor’s note for reference in case the studio execs or producers needed it.
“I’m gonna prescribe you some Trazadone,” Cromwell said. “We’ll start you at a low dose of 25 mg, and if need be, we can increase the dosage if your quality of sleep doesn’t improve. It should help lower the chances of any potential sleepwalking in the future. I also recommend asking Patrice to keep tabs on you as well, see if she notices any unusual sleep patterns from you or, of course, if you commit the naughty deed, of you sleepwalk again.”
He smiled to add a pinch of humor at the end to always try and end on a positive note, putting up his finger like a parent politely correcting their child, and I appreciated his warm goodwill. I was to have a follow-up appointment with him again three weeks from now for an update.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After picking up my Trazadone prescription from the pharmacy, I was exiting the hospital lobby when suddenly a high, cheery female voice called out my name.
“Ace!” the voice called.
I jerked my head, always expecting the 50/50 chance of an unexpected fan encounter, then was met with delightful surprise to see my old co-star.
“Mandy,” I grinned as I made my way over to her for a hug.
We briefly embraced, as we hadn’t seen each other in a little over eight months since we wrapped up shooting on The Eight Ball, and a firsthand, up-close witness to my elaborate performance as the notorious Geb Oleander. She did reach out to me much later than that, actually, after news broke out - thanks to TMZ, yours truly - that I went into rehab, showing her support and that if Patrice and I ever needed anything she’d be there.
“How’ve you been?” she began. “You and Patrice getting by well?”
“Yeah, we’re great, Patrice is doing wonderful. I mean, can’t even begin to scratch the surface,” I said forcing a chuckle.
“Oh, that’s so good to hear… and you? How’ve things been? I know since we last spoke, things were kinda…”
She didn’t have to finish, as I knew exactly what she was about to say.
“I’m doing much better, thanks,” I assured her. “Much, much better.”
“That’s great, Ace. Seriously, I’m happy for you - happy for you both.”
“Thanks, Mandy. You look great, by the way. I’m digging the blonde on you.”
She blushingly scoffed. “Aww, you like it? Thought I’d switch things up, ya know? Gotta reinvent yourself every once in a while. You’re not looking too bad yourself, these days. TJ and I’ve been watching Joop’s Boulevard almost every week, when we have time, that is, and we both just adore you as Jonathan on the show.”
I coyly smirked to the side. “Aww, thanks,” I appreciated. “I see you’re making big moves yourself. Hear you’re in talks with signing a deal with Disney for an upcoming Marvel project?”
“Mmm,” Mandy playfully grinned, looking to the side. “I’ll just say, it’s ‘in the talks’ still.”
“Nice. I have no doubt they’ll find a good fit for you. Patrice is more of the geek with that stuff, so I’m sure she could give you some pointers.”
She laughed. “Well, Ace, I’d love to stay and chat some more, but I got a meeting to get to in like” - she looked at her smartwatch - “yikes, fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course, no worries, we’ll catch up,” I let her on her way.
We were both just leaving the hospital and on our way out, and I held the door open for her as we both exited the building. She pulled out her Ray Bans and slipped them over her eyes as the bright LA sun stunned us both in the face.
“But hey,” Mandy said, “send me a text later and we should all plan to get together and have dinner or something, yeah? TJ and I, you and Patrice? We’ll make it a double date.”
“Absolutely, that sounds good to me. I’ll catch ya later, Mandy.”
“It was good seeing you, Ace!” she smiled and waved as she walked in the opposite direction of the parking lot to her car.
“You too…” I almost forgot to say back.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I made it all the way back to my Jeep Grand Cherokee (Patrice gifted it to me for my 47th birthday last year) and after taking a seat behind the wheel and shutting the door, stared at the orange bottle of pills I’d just been given. My eyes, for some reason, got fixated on seeing my name in capitalized print across the label, then to my date of birth.
When I looked up at the rows of cars lined up across from me, I could still see Mandy making her way to her car, reaching in her purse for her keys, strolling carelessly by in her flowy dress, and her dyed blonde hair dancing in the wind. She was a natural brunette, I remembered, and the only other time she dyed it blonde, from as long as I’ve known her, was when she starred alongside me in The Eight Ball…
Then, a strange phenomenon began to occur. Recalling the events, it was hard to say specifically when each moment overtook me, but by a weird flash, not of light, but brief black-tinted shades of vision, overlapped my eyes, like the switching shutter of a vintage projector, and my brain grew foggier with each passing second. It was like slowly noticing and growing more cognizant of upcoming inebriation, though, I hadn’t had a drink in a little over a year. I was afraid of passing out, but in a moment’s notice, it was suddenly over just as soon as it started, or so it seemed.
Some beats had passed before realizing that my eyes had followed Mandy all the way from her stroll in the parking lot all the way to her car. I’d been staring at her for way too long, I thought. But it was only just that - a thought. I’d compare another time to this sensation almost like when I used to get ‘runner’s high’ when I used to do long-distance running, but it felt as though me, myself, were taking a seat behind the wheel of my conscious, and the rest of my body started driving on autopilot. I suppose that explains why I didn’t take notice of me tossing out the bottle of Trazadone on the overpass not too long after.
Again, it’s hard to say how long the entire thing lasted, but at some point, I made it back home to Patrice in time for dinner that evening.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
She was in her study, as usual, typing profusely on her desktop, answering and sending emails back-to-back, with a cup of hot tea on the side.
“Hey, hon,” she greeted.
“Hey.”
“How’d it go?”
“How’d what go?”
“Your appointment with Cromwell?”
“Oh… yeah, it went well.”
“So, what’d he say?”
“Um, he, uh… prescribed me some Trazadone. Said it would help with the sleepwalking. If that’s what it is.”
“Okay, well that’s a good start. When’s your follow-up?”
“Three weeks from now.”
She nodded, then her eyes furrowed at the sight of what I assumed was my attire.
“Did you have that on when you left this morning?” she questioned.
“What do you mean?” I sounded puzzled.
She shrugged. “I coulda sworn you threw on your teal blazer and slacks when you left this morning, not your jeans and leather jacket.”
“It’s just blue, baby.”
“No, it’s teal.”
I scoffed. “You like the blazer better?”
“You look good to me in either one, handsome.”
She shot me a devious smirk, and I shot back a playful wink.
“Let me go grab my pills out of the car, I think I left them.”
“Okay.”
When I got to the car to check, however, I began to wonder just where the hell I put them. Losing little things like keys or cards were normal for me, and Patrice often had fail safes in place for me in the event of it happening, but strangely, I found the brown bag that I’d pulled the bottle out of, but not the bottle.
Recounting my steps, the last thing I could honestly recall was getting in the car after leaving the hospital, and staring at the prescription bottle, confirming that I did indeed pull it out from the bag. All just after I got done talking to Mandy…
I checked under all of the seats to see if it rolled under, but found nothing. Then I checked the trunk, to which there was still no orange bottle, but something else unusual caught my attention. An ever-so-slight hint of greenish-blue glistened in the sunlight over me barely sticking out from the cargo floor, stuffed in the spare wheel tub.
Then Patrice’s voice naggingly echoed in my brain, “It’s teal.”
I lifted the compartment, and there it was. My ‘teal’ blazer and gray slacks, both crunched and sloppily bundled up atop the spare tire. Damn, I just took that to get dry-cleaned last week, too. And then I noticed another color jumbled across the solid tints of teal and gray.
Splatters of newly-dried crimson…
Is that why I changed? Was I bleeding earlier? Surely, I would’ve remembered that…
I went back into the house to meet Patrice in the study.
“Honey, I’m gonna have to drive back to the hospital, I can’t find my-”
When I made it to the doorway, I noticed she wasn’t there. But this time I could hear the TV was turned on, with the volume echoing throughout the house with how loud Patrice must’ve had it. I met her in the living room and saw her standing in front of the screen with her hand clasped over her mouth, eyes liquidated in horror and dread.
“What is it, honey?” I stood next to her.
She said nothing, just stared at the news ahead, and I soon did the same.
Breaking news reported that Mandy Shoemaker, who I’d just seen not too long ago, was found stabbed to death in her home. Her husband, TJ, also a friend to Patrice and I, wasn’t home at the time, and unfortunately had to be the one to find her desolate body sprawled on the living room floor.
Patrice sniffled, and I put my arm around her for comfort.
The news anchor spoke, “It’s still unknown at this time of any prime suspects and as to a motive for the horrific murder of Mrs. Shoemaker, but police have shared a disturbing finding at the crime scene that we presume was left behind by the perpetrator. We do want to warn folks sitting at home or at work, viewer discretion is advised.”
They proceeded to show a partially blurred photo of Mandy’s lifeless body, revealing barely legible blurred letters carved into her torso by the sick fuck. He left behind a message? God…
The news anchors translated the words for us in fine print, as they didn’t want to show the actual photo taken at the crime scene for obvious reasons. When I read what was inscribed into her skin, I felt nauseous, taking my arm from around Patrice.
“‘Til death deliver us from evil, dear Sadie.”
Then I just blankly stared at the screen, and realized I was standing there just as Jonathan was in the nightmare. I could feel his presence looming over me, somewhere in an unseen dimension, his glaring, hellish eyes jeering at me.
Geb Oleander was back, and it seemed he had some unfinished business with me…

Hi everyone I'm new here. I'm trying to loose roughly 60lbs in six months. From a weight loss calculator I found online at: https://www.bmi-calculator.net/weight-loss-calculato#result, to do this I would need to "consume 1482 calories per day, down from 2646 calories per day currently, or exercise more to boost your calorie burn rate by about 1164 calories per day."
I haven't really worked out since I was in highschool and now I'm starting again (woot woot)I've been going to the gym for two weeks now, four times a week, every other day. I stay for 2 - 2.5 hours each time. Eventually I'd like to go 5 times a week for two hours or more each time. I don't have a smart watch that can track how many calories I'm burning anymore but today my regimen was:
Ab Machine, 55lbs, 15x Reps, 3x Sets Row Machine 70lbs 15x Reps, 3x Sets Seated Leg press 140lbs 8xReps, 3xSets
Stair Stepper Machine 94 Flights, x30min 225Cal Burned
Treadmill w/ .5hr incline 64min 2.62mi. 425Cal Burned
2.5Hrs total
All said and done it might be around 850 Cal burned through the workout alone, and in total it could be 2,400+ Cals I'm burning throughout the days I work out. (Unless if someone here has a better idea plz help). I also ate about 1,300 Calories today.
SO I'm wondering about it all. If I'm burning 2,400 Cals in a day but only consuming about 1500 Cals or slightly less, is this healthy?? It can't be sustainable right? or.. am I doing this right technically
Edit: forgot to mention I'm also slowly transitioning over to a Keto diet

If you see a movie you want then comment. First come, first serve. Limit one per redditor. Codes not redeemed by deadline will be posted here in the open. You must have 10+ transactions to qualify.
List:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17KrEv6EQCfRF3zSUZjzBy6YCrvdE5hwTUaBNybDK-qE/edit#gid=0

I have no personal frame of reference for this opinion, but I imagine being a drug runner for the Mexican cartel (or any cartel) is loads more fun in a video game setting than in real life. The latter pays more I'm sure, but the stress, risk to life and limb, and persistent threat of jail time have me convinced to stick with legal employment. Not so for some GTA Online gamers who thought it a good idea to become meth mules.
It sounds wild (because it is), but apparently drug cartels sometimes use online multiplayer video games as a source for new blood. Back in October of last year, for example, Mexico's assistant public safety secretary, Ricardo Mejía, said a cartel recruiter purchased bus tickets for three teenagers between 11 and 14 years old.
The recruiter found the teens on Garena Free Fire, a popular online game, and offered them each $200 per week to serve as lookouts for the cartel. Authorities detained the teens before they boarded the bus, but Mejía told ABC News that other cartels have also recruited drug mules and lookouts through video games, including Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Grand Theft Auto V.
Now three months later, Forbes says it discovered that US officials have evidence showing GTA Online is also used as a recruitment tool for drug cartels.
It's not clear how long this has allegedly been going on, but according to the site, border agents stopped and inspected a Jeep Cherokee in Arizona last November and found almost 60 kilograms of methamphetamine. The driver, Alyssa Navarro, said a man named George first contacted her in GTA Online, through which they got to know each other over time.
Those in-game chats later pivoted over to Snapchat, where George raised the idea of being a runner, albeit for electronics to be sold in Mexico. Navarro claims she was offered up to $2,000 per trip, depending on the size of the load.
The only problem for Navarro is that the cartel allegedly hid meth in the Jeep's fuel tank. Authorities have charged Navarro with conspiracy to import and sell meth, and also possession, charges for which she has pleaded not guilty.
It remains to be seen how that case will turn out. Suffice to say, though, if someone online propositions you for an offer that seems too good to be true—or is outright illegal—it's best to politely decline.