Hello everyone (yes i started doing some work 20 words in 2 hours later and ended up here that's how bad it is)
I am Lazy and demotivated to do anything and when i have to do something it takes me 10x longer than an average person to do it because i get distracted so easily.
i feel like i have zero emotions towards anything like i can be sad or happy which is really rare but usually i am just like meh.
i might have like 2 hobbies but i don't peruse them in any way except doing them once a while.
been to therapy and sat there and felt like such a wasted drag that i refused to go again.
Can somebody please help me ? is this depression or something else that i can goo and Research or somebody that had the same and got out ? thank you :)

yung tipong lahat ng tao nakaplano mag travel pero ako gusto ko lang humilata maglaro video game, manood movies(plano ko mag lars von trier movie marathon), series(ongoing marathon ako ng Mythbusters) kung same lang tayo ng plano tara mag usap baka mag-vibe tayo and hopefully same goal tayo na mapunta sa relationship if ever.
me: - 31, 5'7, 170cm, INTJ-A, long hair, fit naman size L ang tshirt - single/no kids/never married - atheist - sana ndi dealbreaker religious stand ko. - works in tech(hybrid wfh setup sa taguig office) - taga south laguna - other interest: anime(evangelion, steins gate, monster and recently kakatapos ko lang bocchi the rock) movies(trainspotting, reservoir dogs, clockwork orange), music(smashing pumpkins, the cure, bjork, jpop/jrock), reading books, electric guitar, video games(mostly single player JRPG) craft beers, bisikleta(nagiisang physical activity ko).
you: - 28 to 35yrs old - single/no kids - sana may stable career din pero may mga hobbies parin ndi puro work lang. - around south ncr or laguna pwede din taguig kung din work location mo. - same field of work sana or same hobbies/interest para madami tayo mapagusapan - physical preference: slim #flatisjustice plus kung short hair or naka glasses basta looks healthy hanggang size L siguro ang damit hahaha (inspire naten isat isa maging fit) pwede naman exchange pic agad para d sayang oras.
send k na lang ng ASL or any interesting intro about you, takits kung masamahan mo ng pic much better mag send din ak. takits sa inbox.

Latest observation

Wednesday, 29 March – 5:00 PM Cocos Islands Time (CCT; 00:30 UTC)

JTWC Warning #1		3:30 PM CCT (09:00 UTC)
Current location:		13.7°S 101.0°E
Relative location:		480 km (298 mi) ESE of the Cocos Islands (Australia)
Forward motion:		SE (144°) at 19 km/h (10 knots)
Maximum winds:	▲	75 km/h (40 knots)
Intensity (SSHWS):	▲	Tropical Storm
Intensity (BOM):	▲	Cyclone (Category 1)
Minimum pressure:	▼	998 millibars (29.47 inches)

Official forecasts

Australia Bureau of Meteorology

Wednesday, 29 March — 1:30 PM CCT (07:00 UTC)
(Note: Wind speeds have been converted from ten-minute values to one-minute values.)

Hour	Date	Time		Intensity		Winds		Lat	Long
	—	UTC	CCT	BOM		knots	km/h	°S	°E
00	29 Mar	07:00	1PM Wed	Cyclone (Category 1)		45	85	13.7	101.0
12	29 Mar	19:00	1AM Thu	Cyclone (Category 2)	▲	55	100	14.4	102.8
24	30 Mar	07:00	1PM Thu	Cyclone (Category 2)		55	100	15.2	104.3
36	30 Mar	19:00	1AM Fri	Cyclone (Category 1)	▼	45	85	15.8	105.4
48	31 Mar	07:00	1PM Fri	Cyclone (Category 1)	▼	40	75	16.5	106.0
72	01 Apr	07:00	1PM Sat	Cyclone (Category 1)	▼	35	65	17.3	105.6
96	02 Apr	07:00	1PM Sun	Tropical Low	▼	30	55	17.4	103.4
120	03 Apr	07:00	1PM Mon	Tropical Low		30	55	16.5	100.4

Joint Typhoon Warning Center

Wednesday, 29 March — 3:30 PM CCT (09:00 UTC) JTWC Warning #1

Hour	Date	Time		Intensity		Winds		Lat	Long
	—	UTC	CCT	Saffir-Simpson		knots	km/h	°N	°E
00	29 Mar	06:00	12PM Wed	Tropical Storm		40	75	13.7	101.0
12	29 Mar	18:00	12AM Thu	Tropical Storm	▲	50	95	14.4	102.8
24	30 Mar	06:00	12PM Thu	Tropical Storm		50	95	15.2	104.3
36	30 Mar	18:00	12AM Fri	Tropical Storm	▼	40	75	15.8	105.4
48	31 Mar	06:00	12PM Fri	Tropical Storm	▼	35	65	16.5	106.0
72	01 Apr	06:00	12PM Sat	Tropical Depression	▼	30	55	17.3	105.6
96	02 Apr	06:00	12PM Sun	Tropical Depression	▼	25	45	17.4	103.4
120	03 Apr	06:00	12PM Mon	Tropical Depression		25	45	16.5	100.4

Official advisories

Bureau of Meteorology (Australia)

Joint Typhoon Warning Center (United States)

Radar imagery

Not available

There is currently no radar imagery available for Cyclone Herman.

Satellite imagery

Floater imagery

Conventional Imagery

Regional imagery

Bureau of Meteorology (Australia)

Satview

UW-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)

Analysis graphics and data

Wind analyses

Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)

Satellite Fix Bulletin

NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services (NESDIS)

Multiplatform Surface Wind Analyses

UW-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)

EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Applications Facility (OSI SAF)

Advanced Scatterometer Data

Sea-surface Temperatures

NOAA Office of Satellite and Product Operations (OSPO)

Sea Surface Temperature Contour Charts

Tropical Tidbits

Ocean Analysis

Model guidance

Storm-Specific Guidance

Southwestern Pacific Guidance

Tropical Tidbits

Who wants to do a fun hour or two long endurance race at the Nurburgring? I'm finding it almost impossible to find people that will do longer races. I'll put the work in to host a very high bandwidth lobby for a multi-class Gr3/Gr4 race. Would like to get at least twelve dedicated racers to make it worth while for everyone. I can also broadcast the live feed and post the replay. Who wants to do some real racing? Maybe Thursday/Friday practice lobbies, with the race on Saturday night? I'm open to suggestions, v however we can get the most participants involved. Let's make it happen!

Hi, I used to attend an art class for three hours on a Wednesday evening. It was a great way to stay accountable and to keep up an art practice instead of defaulting to lying on the couch in end-of-day tiredness. It was also great for socializing as we would take a break halfway through. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep up with the lessons as it was really expensive and I'm finding that I'm losing momentum as my daily commitments are absolutely draining my energy and while I am wanting to draw or paint, the idea of sitting at my desk and trying to get through a drawing just does not sound appealing.
So, I would like to know if there are any Discord servers out there I can join that could provide some outside motivation and maybe some passive socializing/discussion about art as a hobby.
Thanks

If you’re looking for a way to make some extra money on the side, a side hustle can be a great option. But with so many different opportunities out there, it can be hard to know where to start. So what’s a good side hustle? Here are some things to consider.

1. A Good Side Hustle Should Be: Something You Enjoy

First, a good side hustle should be something you enjoy. Whether it’s a hobby or a skill you’ve developed over time, doing something you’re passionate about can make the work feel less like work. Plus, when you’re doing something you love, you’re more likely to stick with it and put in the time and effort needed to succeed.

2. A Good Side Hustle Should Be: Flexible

Second, a good side hustle should be flexible. One of the benefits of a side hustle is that you can do it on your own schedule, but that flexibility is only valuable if the work itself is also flexible. Look for opportunities that allow you to set your own hours or work from home, so you can fit your side hustle around your other commitments.
Read on...

This is a very long post, detailing my experience trying to pick up Warhammer as a hobby.

When I was a child I had a couple of boxes of Warhammer Fantasy models, some paints and even some terrain. I never played the game but I was fascinated by the models. Unfortunately, at some point it all ended up in a box that never got opened again.
But lately I've been playing a lot of Total War: Warhammer, and that same excitement I felt over Warhammer when I was a kid, was abruptly reignited. And I decided, mostly on a whim, to pick up the hobby. So where do I even start?
The obvious first step was to decide between 40.000 and Age of Sigmar. And I quickly settled on AoS, purely based on the aesthetics. I know nothing about the lore, nor am I very interested - it's just that the fantasy setting has always been more appealing to me than a sci-fi one. I should also mention that actually playing the game is of little to no interest to me - I might play a few games with friends and family if I ever get to the stage where I have two complete armies, but the process of building and painting them is what actually interests me.
Next step was to pick an army... So I ended up on the GW website. I navigated to the AoS section, and checked the "Starter-Kits" box, but I realized that not all armies have one of these, so that wasn't an option. Then I instead checked all boxes for each of the armies/factions, and had a look. During this process I continuously un-checked the boxes for the armies that wasn't appealing to me. And after a little while I ended up with a list of four potential candidates:

Slaves to Darkness
Ogor Mawtribes
Skaven
Ossiarch Bonereapers

Then I repeated the process trying to eliminate them one by one. The only one I managed to remove from my list were the Ogor Mawtribes, after realizing that the only aspect I enjoyed about them were the mammoths (I mean, they're really cool...). So then I had a list of three, but I couldn't eliminate one, they were all equally cool in their own right.
What I ended up doing was looking at the boxes for each faction, trying to do some napkin math to figure out which one had the most bang for my buck, also taking in coolness factor. And after a couple of hours I not only had picked an army, but a specific box I wanted. The only problem was that this box was out of commission, but luckily I found it on a website in my country, and it was even a tad cheaper than the current Vanguard variant. "Start Collecting! Skaven Pestilens" ended up being my box of choice. And I immediately ordered it.

Total: $67

Okay great! What else do I need? Well, I obviously need paints, so lets start there...
During my drooling on the GW website I had noticed that the boxes all had a list of paints you need in the description. One problem - since the box I had chosen was out of commission it wasn't on their website... I tried searching everywhere for the list of paints to no avail, I even tried using the wayback machine, attempting to find a snapshot that included the box, but no luck. I eventually figured out that I could look up each of the units included in my box, all of which was on their site! First paint I need - Gun Metal.
I went to my chosen retailers website and searched for Gun Metal - but no results... That's odd I thought, but oh well, maybe they don't have that one. I tried the next one, Parchment. Same thing there, and with the next one. I found out after clicking on one that these were actually consisting of multiple paints - Gun Metal was actually Leadbelcher and Nuln Oil. This was worrisome, how many paints will I need? Only one way to find out - I added all the ones I needed into my cart, which ended up being 19 or 20 different paints. And that was just for "Battle Ready" (I'm still not totally sure what this means, but my guess is that "Parade Ready" is an extra step to make the minis look even better). Next I added the ones I needed for "Parade Ready" as well, but noticing the total price I quickly went back to just the "Battle Ready" ones. All of the paints I needed were nearly twice the price of the actual minis, which took me by surprise.

Total: $182

Okay what else do I need? I watched a few videos and read some articles, and made myself a list:

A selection of brushes
Cutting mat
Knife
File
Clippers
One of those things to hold the mini for me while I paint
Chaos Black and Corax White primer spray
Cement (which i found out is not the same as glue)

Oh no... Okay lets just add everything to my cart...
First I had to do some research on brushes, since I have no prior experience. A common consensus amongst the creators of the videos I watched and articles I read was that the Army Painters Most Wanted set is an excellent starting point. It includes a regular brush, fine detail brush and a dry-brush (I had to research what that last one actually meant). I found a relatively cheap toolkit that included a cutting mat, clippers, file and knife with some spare blades, so I went with that one. Citadel had one of those mini holders for pretty cheap, added that one as well. Found some cement, and last thing remaining was the primers. I found out Corax White doesn't exist anymore, and I had to determine which one took its place - which seemed to be Scar White.

Total: $255

At this point I just sat back and watched some videos of people putting together and painting some minis, trying to see if I had everything. Which is when I noticed that the base which the mini stands on was just plain black plastic. On all the pictures I'd seen they were all on cool, thematically fitting bases. They don't come like this out of the box. Well, what do I need to make them look good? I went down the rabbit hole for a little while but managed to dig myself out. After a long while of researching I found a method that gave a good result, which wasn't overly complex. I ended up adding Citadel Stirland Battlemire, Army Painter Steppe Grass and a Citadel Medium Texture Spreader to my cart.

Total: $274
plus shipping:
Total: $284

I had already ordered the box of minis, and it had been a day since then, so it was already on its way. What do I do at this point? How can I justify spending nearly $300 to paint some rats?
I'm currently just waiting for the box of minis to get here, not sure what to do with it when it comes - do I return it? Do I bite the bullet and spend this ungodly amount of money? I actually ordered the other stuff as well but cancelled the order after an hour.
Have I added a bunch of unnecessary items to my cart, or is it actually this expensive to start the hobby? A quick summary of everything I've determined I need:

Start Collecting! Skaven Pestilens
Army Painter Most Wanted Brush Set
Revell Contacta Liquid Cement
Citadel Painting Handle v2
Citadel paints:
- Mephiston Red
- Agrax Earthshade
- Leadbelcher
- Bugman's Glow
- Reikland Fleshshade
- Warplock Bronze
- Caliban Green
- Nuln Oil
- Deathworld Forest
- Athonian Camoshade
- Dryad Bark
- Abaddon Black
- Mournfang Brown
- Rakarth Flesh
- Zandri Dust
- Seraphim Sepia
- Castellan Green
- Biel Tan Green
- Mechanicus Standard Grey
- Stirland Battlemire
Citadel Spray Chaos Black
Citadel Spray White Scar
Citadel Medium Texture Spreader
Army Painter Basing Steppe Grass
Italeri Plastic Modelling Tool Set

TL:DR
After a whole lot of research I've bought a box of minis and added everything else I need to a cart, only to find out it comes in at nearly $300. Which left me paralyzed, and I'm not sure where to go from here.

I’ve been keeping the Everfolk Point Lighthouse for around four years now. It’s a decent enough job, although probably not what one might imagine if they signed up to be a lighthouse keeper.

I figure that people probably picture me living alone on some desolate rock, spending my days tending to chores and looking sternly out at the sea during the evenings with a cup of warm grog but that’s really only half true.

For starters, I’m not alone. There’s always been at least one other person with me during my rotations at the lighthouse. It’s better to work in teams, partially because it’s good to have company and partially because in case anything happens, it’s better to have someone who can call for help. Working at any lighthouse can be dangerous. When you’re that close to the sea, any storms that come your way hit you like a brick and if you’re not prepared, they will kill you dead.

Working at a lighthouse is hard work too. I’ve met some folks who think that the job is just turning the light on and off again, but it’s nowhere near that simple. All lighthouses, even the automated ones still need maintenance. The storms that come off the water wear them down quickly, so you spend most of your time shoring them up, making repairs, and doing maintenance. In the four years, I’ve worked at Everfolk Point, I’ve probably repainted the whole property two or three times and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have to repaint it two or three more before I get transferred.

That said, while they work me like a dog, it’s not all bad. I don’t actually stay at the lighthouse 365 days a year. I spend one month there, and then I get one month off. In effect, I’m really only working six months out of the year. They do it to prevent people going stir crazy, like you see in the movies, although it doesn’t stop you from going a little crazy.

Simply put - when you’re working at the lighthouse, things can get a little weird and that’s okay! You’re more or less completely cut off from the rest of the world save for one radio you’re only expected to use in an emergency and little to do in your leisure time. Put in those circumstances, people tend to find some interesting hobbies to keep themselves occupied.

For example - one of the guys I often worked with, Gideon took an interest in taxidermy and collecting bones. He’d find dead animals washed up on shore or out in the woods and turn them into little projects. He actually got pretty good at it. Once he even brought home a freaking moose skull. It was simultaneously the creepiest and coolest thing I’d ever seen in my life. He brought that skull home with him after our rotation ended, and as far as I know, it hangs in his living room to this day.

Personally? I always passed the time by baking bread. I’d originally only started doing it out of necessity (we had to make most of our food completely from scratch) but after my first few batches turned out badly, I wanted to up my game and may have gotten a little obsessed with it. Oh, I could talk for hours about baking bread! I’ve even come up with my own recipes! I make this fantastic, spicy, cheesy bread that’s to die for! It’s great for a sandwich. And lately, I’ve been expanding into bagels which is kinda an art form in and of itself. If you’ve never made bagels from scratch before, you just haven’t lived. A real homemade bagel makes the stuff you get at the grocery store look like a sad joke. One taste of the real thing and you’ll never be able to go back!

Ah, but there I go getting all carried away. I didn’t sit down to talk about bread. That’s not what’s really on my mind tonight, no.

See, I got back from my last rotation about three days ago but I’ve had this particular incident on my mind for almost two weeks now. I really don’t know what to make of it. I’ve filed the relevant reports, of course, and as far as I know, the situation is technically resolved but that hasn’t given me much in the way of closure. I suppose I’m hoping that by sharing it here and putting it out into the world, that will change.

I worked at a few different lighthouses before I got posted at Everfolk, and as I said before I know that sometimes the isolation can make you a little weird. But in my experience, it’s always been the people who’ve been weird, and up until I went to Everfolk I hadn’t seen a single thing I couldn’t logically explain. But when I started finding the dolls, that all changed.

I first noticed them a few months after first starting my posting at Everfolk. It’d been a quiet Sunday morning and I’d been going down the beach to do some fishing when I saw one. I’d initially figured that it was just garbage. We saw plenty of it washed up on the rocky beach. Usually, I’d just pick it up and get rid of it. But as I went to grab it, I noticed the puffy cheeks and squashed nose. As I looked down at the face, it clicked that what I was looking at was the face of a baby and I felt a brief stab of panic before realizing that this thankfully wasn’t the corpse of an actual baby. It was just a doll. It was worn down by the elements, yes and it sure as heck looked like it’d seen better days, but it was just an ordinary baby doll.

Well… mostly ordinary. When I picked it up to inspect it, I couldn’t help but notice that somebody had gone through the effort of putting actual baby clothes on it. This stuff looked handmade. Honestly, the sight of it kinda broke my heart. Once upon a time, somebody must’ve really loved this doll and it was a little tragic to find it washed up on some faraway shore. The idea of just casually throwing it out didn’t really appeal to me. Call me sentimental, but hurling something that well loved into the trash just felt… wrong. So, I kept it and as I went down to my usual fishing spot, I carried it with me so it would dry and not soak the contents of my backpack. I guess I’d wondered if maybe I could somehow find its owner. The internet is a big place, maybe if I posted it when I got back home I could reunite it with whoever the original owner was. Even if they didn’t want the doll back (it was in pretty rough shape) the clothes could probably still be salvaged.

***

“That’s gotta be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” said the girl I’d been working with back during my first rotation at the lighthouse. Her name was Ashley and she'd been there for two years longer than I had.
“Oh come on, look at his little coat, it’s kinda cute,” I’d replied.

Ashley had just grimaced.
“It’s still got weeds tangled in it,” She said. “And look at the eyes, the paints faded off.”
“Eh, give him a little TLC and he’ll be right as rain,” I said although Ashley didn’t seem convinced. She just stared mistrustfully down at the doll, inspecting it without daring to put her hands on it.

I was busy preparing that day’s catch for dinner, and Ashley reached over to take one of the wooden spoons we used for cooking so she could use the handle to turn the doll over.
“Look at the teeth marks on it too… something’s been chewing on this,” She noted.
“They’re battle scars,” I said. “No fun going on an ordeal like this without some battle scars, right? And besides, I always thought flaws like that gave something a little bit of personality.”

Again, Ashley just huffed.
“There’s some cracks on the back of the head,” She noted.
“I saw some coyotes down by the beach the other day, maybe they thought it was food,” I said with a shrug. “I’ll glue it and patch it up. Then see if I can’t find the original owner. I’ll bet some kid probably wants this back.”
“You are aware that this thing’s probably been floating out at sea for years, right?” She asked.
Again, I just shrugged.
“Well, maybe I’ll make some random woman's day, then,” I said and that was that.

True to my word, I did post some photos of the doll I’d found online when my rotation ended although I never heard anything back about it. A few people commented on just how creepy the doll was, but I didn’t really pay them much mind. It was an abandoned doll that had washed up on a remote beach in Labrador. Of course, it was doomed to be a little bit creepy. But I was hoping that somebody would claim it all the same, and when nobody did I still kept the doll, putting it on the desk of my apartment just in case. It still felt wrong to just throw it out after all.

***

I found the next doll about four months later, during one of my winter rotations. I was working with Ashley again, and we’d been trying to shore up the lighthouse against an oncoming blizzard that was due to hit us that night. The winds were pretty strong that day and had already torn some shingles off of the shack where the fog horn was kept. It’d blown them down toward the beach, and I’d gone down to collect them. We couldn’t fix the shed until after the storm, obviously. Just being too close to the fog horn would’ve shattered your eardrums. Even from down on the beach, the periodic drone from the horn made my entire body shake. Even in the cabin, we had to time our conversations around it lest it interrupt us. But, I figured it was better to at least have the shingles so we could do the repairs later and while I was collecting them I noticed another shape lodged between some of the rocks.

This doll was in significantly worse shape than the last one I’d found. In fact, I didn’t even recognize it as a doll at first. The head was completely missing and the body was tattered to the point where I could see the bendable joints inside.

This one was past saving, but I still brought it with me if for no other reason than to get it off the beach. After I’d finished up outside, I came in to find Ashley drinking a cup of hot chocolate in our kitchen, sitting comfortably under a stained glass mural of a ship she’d painted.

“Made you a cup,” She said gesturing to a steaming hot cup of coca on the table beside her, before noticing the tattered doll in my hand. “Oh God, not another one!”
“Found it down on the beach,” I said.
“You gonna fix this one up too?”

I looked down at the broken doll, before shaking my head.
“Too busted,” I said before deciding that this one needed to go in the trash.
“So that’s two now?” She asked, pausing to wait for the fog horn to sound before continuing, “Is this gonna be a thing with you?” She only seemed to be half joking.
“Well, you gotta admit it’s a little more interesting than stained glass,” I teased.
“Hey, screw you, man!” She replied, cracking a small smile. I took my coca and took a sip of it. The fog horn blared again, allowing her to continue.

“For something to keep me from going crazy, at least it’s constructive. And you gotta admit that I’m getting pretty good at it!”
I looked up at her mural and nodded in agreement. She was getting good at it.
“We all go crazy in our own little ways,” She said. “I make stained glass, you collect weird beach dolls.”
“I mean, I don’t think taking the other one home was that weird,” I said, as the fog horn sounded again.

“I was talking more about the fact that there even are beach dolls,” She said. “That’s a little weird, don’t you think? Usually, we just see bottles, and pieces of plastic. Stuff like that. Never seen any dolls on the beach before.”
“Ocean currents, maybe?” I asked, “There’s a lotta crap out there.”
“Maybe,” She said with a shrug, “I guess it’s not the weirdest thing you could possibly find but… I dunno.”

The fog horn punctuated her sentence and I looked down at the ruined doll again. Studying it closer, I couldn’t help but remember how Ashley had mentioned that the last one looked like something had been chewing on it. This one sorta looked the same, although much worse for wear. I shrugged off the state of the doll and tossed it in the trash. No point in looking too hard at it, I figured.

***

Over the next couple of years, I found another doll once every few months down by the beach.

They weren’t all the same. Each one was different in its own unique way. The next one I found was further down the beach, near the bottom of a charming little waterfall I sometimes visited during the hikes I took during my downtime. This one opened and closed its eyes depending on if it was laying down or not, although the eyelids had partially rotted off, meaning that they technically stayed open no matter what. It seemed a little bit older than the others and was actually starting to grow moss on it. But it was intact enough that I took it with me.

I’d been working with Gideon that month, and when he saw me bring the doll in, he actually laughed at the sight of it.
“Found another one?” He asked.
“Down by the waterfall,” I replied, holding it up to show him. “Gotta say, this one doesn’t seem to be in all that bad shape!”
He just shook his head in disbelief.
“That’s easily the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” He said.
“Creepier than the moose head?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue.

I spent that afternoon cleaning the moss baby while I waited for my bread to bake. Getting the moss out of his hair was the hardest part, and even when I was done it still had a greenish tint to it. When I got back from my rotation, Moss Baby was the second doll I posted online. Just like the first, nobody came forward to claim it.

Two months later and I found a crocheted baby doll on the beach. This one was in very rough condition, having almost completely dissolved into wet threads, but I kept it anyway and tried to put it back together. It became the third I posted, although I ended up throwing it out after trying and failing to put it back together for the better part of two weeks.

As time went by, the dolls in my apartment piled up. Every few months, I’d find one I thought I could save and brought it home with me. The office of my apartment started to become something of a museum, with shelves lined with the sea battered dolls I’d found. I started seeing them less as things I hoped to return and more as mementos of my days at the lighthouse. I even kept them beside some of the gifts I’d traded with my colleagues. A mounted elk skull I’d gotten from Gideon and a stained glass sign that Ashley had painted for me as a gift that read:

Advice From The Ocean
Be shore of yourself
Take time to coast.
Avoid pier pressure
Sea lifes beauty
Don’t get tide down
Make waves!

I still never really considered doll collecting to be my ‘weird hobby’ but it was still turning into a hobby, I suppose… right up until I found the red haired doll.

***

It was a clear night. Gideon, Ashley, and I were all working a rotation at the lighthouse and had decided that it was the perfect night for a campfire. Ashey had brought marshmallows for just a night like this and was greedily toasting one after another and shoveling them into her mouth while Gideon sat nearby, calmly reading a book.

I’d gone down to one of our sheds near the beach to get more firewood when in the light from my lantern I saw a speck of red among the rocks. I’d paused before going to investigate and finding yet another doll there.

This one was plastic, with an ugly moping face and frizzy red hair. Someone had scribbled all over her face with a marker, giving her big glasses and an attempt at a smile, although with her face bleached pale from the sun, it made her face look more like a grinning skull than anything else.

I held on to the doll while I grabbed the firewood and brought it back with me to the campfire. I’d barely even made it back when Ashley noticed the doll.
“Oh God… Gideon, he’s got another one!”
“Seriously? Steve, where do you keep finding these?”
“On the beach,” I said plainly as I set the firewood down and held up the doll for them to see.
“It’s official, this is the worst one yet,” Ashley said, popping another marshmallow into her mouth. “Does this one look chewed up too?”

I frowned and looked down at the doll.
“A little bit,” I admitted. “But you gotta admit, it’s one for the collection!”
“Oh, so now it’s a collection,” Gideon said. “You know the first step is admitting that you’ve got a problem.”
“That what you did with your deer heads?” I teased.
“It’s not a problem, it’s art,” He replied.
“Keep telling yourself that, buddy.”

In an effort to annoy my colleagues, I set the Sad Skull Girl (as she had just been christened) down by the fire beside me. Ashley just shook her head and smoothed back her long brown hair before sitting back and reaching for another marshmallow.
“Did anyone ever claim any of those dolls you’ve been collecting?” She asked.
“Nah, they’re sitting on a shelf at home,” I said.
“There’s a shelf now?” Gideon asked, “My dude, how many of these things do you have?”
“I dunno, seven. Eight, now I guess.”

He just shook his head in faux disgust.
“Crazy…”
“Hey, I’ve still got them up online,” I said. “Maybe one day, someone will claim one!”
I had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be.

***

I posted Sad Skull Girl to the usual places, asking if she belonged to anyone but I never expected to get a response.

First time for everything, I guess.

I woke up around a week after I’d posted her to an email from a woman named Lillie Thompson that read as follows:

Mr. Lawson
A friend of mine has shown me the doll you posted to social media recently and I regret to inform you that I do recognize it.
I have a close friend - Donald Trantham who’s granddaughter owned a doll identical to the one you shared. A doll who was with her at the time of her disappearance last year.
Please Mr. Lawson, can you reach out to the St. John’s police? Show them what you gave found. Donald is a dear friend of mine. He and his family have suffered greatly from their loss and I want nothing more than to see them receive some closure.
Yours - Lillie Thompson

I think it goes without saying that reading that email sent a chill through me. The markings on that doll were distinct. While I was sure that identical dolls existed out there, none of them would have had a face like Sad Skull Girl. Someone had drawn on her. Tried to change her face. Tried to make her smile.

And that someone had been missing for over a year now.

Obviously, I reached out to the St. John’s Police. I sent them photos of the doll I’d found, along with Lillie Thompson’s email. Then around three days later, I had the police knocking at my door. I answered their questions, told them where I’d found the doll, and even mentioned that Gideon and Ashley had been with me when I’d found it. I even showed them some of the other dolls I’d found washed up along the shore and let the police photograph them. I didn’t think that anything would come of it… but not even a week after they’d interviewed me, they came back.

Six of the seven dolls I’d found had been connected to children who’d gone missing in the past five years. The police took them as evidence, brought me in for questioning and I told them everything. They even brought in Gideon and Ashley to confirm my stories, since they’d been with me when I’d found a couple of the dolls.

Ultimately, I wasn’t arrested. My story stood up to every question they asked. But I was still shaken down to my core. All those dolls… the ones whose owners I could not find, were mementos from some missing child, and I couldn’t deny what that probably meant.

It was a few days after the police questioned me that Ashley invited me out for coffee. We didn’t live in the same city, but she’d come down to talk to the police and figured she’d check in on me while I was there.

“All those kids…” I said, staring lifelessly down into my cup, “And what about the dolls I didn’t save… how many more…”
“Hey… you had no way of knowing,” She said, putting a reassuring hand over mine. “And you were trying to do the right thing, posting those dolls, trying to see if anyone recognized them! If you hadn’t been doing that, then those parents wouldn’t have heard anything at all! The Police wouldn’t know where to look for…” She trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence but I didn’t see any point in trying to spare my own feelings.
“Look for the bodies,” I said. I wasn’t stupid… I knew what the abandoned dolls probably meant.

Ashley gave a grim nod.
“You did what you could,” She said. “That’s all any of us can do.”
“Yeah… I guess…” I said softly, although I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t enough. Then again… what would be enough?
“And look on the bright side, you’re not a suspect anymore! So… there’s that!” She tried to force a smile but it seemed hollow.

“Yeah, and whoever the hell’s been doing all of this is still out there,” I said. “I never saw anywhere the dolls could have come from… I never… all I was able to tell the police was that it wasn’t me!”
Ashley’s fake smile faded. She shifted uncomfortably.
“What?” I asked and she sighed.

“Okay… well… that might not be entirely true,” She said. “When I was talking to the police, they asked me if I saw anything strange out at the lighthouse over the past few years. Something that might be connected to the dolls and… I dunno, maybe it was nothing but I remembered something.”
“Wait, really?” I asked, leaning in a little closer.
“Okay so, it could be nothing!” Ashley said, “I mean, it’s probably nothing! But every now and then I saw this boat, out on the water. It wasn’t all that big. Gunmetal gray, kinda boxy looking. I usually saw it early in the morning. It only really popped up once every month or so but it was out there pretty frequently. And… look, maybe I’m just making a connection that isn’t really there, but sometimes I thought I saw him throwing something into the water. I always figured that the guy was just out there fishing… but with this stuff about the dolls…”

My stomach turned.
“You think it was him?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Ashley said. “But the police asked if I remembered anything and that’s what I remembered!”
She took a sip of her coffee, her brow furrowed as she did.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” She said.
And maybe it was… I hoped it might be.

***

When it was time to rotate back to the lighthouse, I was almost afraid to go. I was even more afraid that Ashley and Gideon wouldn’t be there with me, but they were. Our first few days back were quiet and almost blissfully uneventful. We did our maintenance, we tended the light and we kept to ourselves. In the evenings, I baked bread while Gideon read and Ashley worked on her latest stained glass project and if ever any of us needed to go down to the beach, I let one of them do it.
I didn’t think I could handle finding another doll, knowing what it would probably mean.

For two weeks, we just sort of existed… until the morning where Ashley saw the boat again.

I’d been asleep when I heard her yelling, and coming down the stairs.
“Gideon! Steve, get on the radio!” She called.
I sat up, groggy and only half conscious as she burst into my bedroom.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The boat,” She replied, a grave look in her eye and it took me a moment to realize what she meant.

Gideon had just barely poked his head out of his bedroom when I ran out. Ashley was already heading back out the door, a pair of binoculars in hand while I got on the radio to call the coast guard. I saw Gideon barreling down the stairs past me, running out the door after Ashley to watch the boat.
“This is Everfolk Point Lighthouse,” I said into the radio. “Calling in regarding a suspicious watercraft.”

I told them everything, before switching out with Gideon when he came back inside so I could see the boat for myself.

The gunmetal gray boat sat below the rocky cliffs in the distance, although seemed to be already moving away. Ashley offered me the binoculars and I took them, staring out at the distant boat.

Behind the wheel, I could see a man. He looked to be somewhere in his forties, with a thin scuff and dead eyes. He stared vacantly ahead, not even noticing us as he passed. I noted every detail of his face… knowing that I may need to identify him again.

He’d made it a good distance away from the cliffs when we saw the coast guards' ships arriving and as they boarded him, I felt a quiet sense of relief wash over me.

If this was the man… then they’d gotten him.

***

We heard nothing from the coast guard or the police over the next few days, although once my rotation ended and I made it back home, I heard plenty both on the local news and through a friend of mine who’d married a cop.

The man on that boat was identified as Brian Ligon. Apparently, he lived in a small cottage, outside of a town several kilometers down the coast from our lighthouse. And while they found no bodies in that cottage, they clearly found enough to arrest him.

“The way I heard it, the guy was completely nuts!” My friend said, “Soon as they booked him, he’d started screaming and ranting about how he had to kill those kids… how he was actually a good person and he had to ‘feed something’.” She’d shaken her head in disgust, “This is why I never ask about these things. It just makes me sad!”
“Well… I appreciate you asking for me,” I said.

My friend took a sip of her coffee, giving a frustrated sigh.
“Supposedly, he was throwing those dolls into the ocean because he believed their souls lived inside of them, and were feeding something in the water or something like that… either way it’s crazy.”
“Crazy…” I agreed, although my mind wandered back to the teeth marks I’d seen on some of the dolls.

I tried not to think too hard about it.

I read somewhere that Ligon was found dead in his cell the other night… and I can’t pretend that I don’t find the news of his death a little relieving. It’s clear to me that he was a monster… and that there are parts of this story that I do not want to or need to know. I’ve told myself that I won’t pry any further for the sake of my own mental health… I have enough nightmares about the dolls as it is now and there’s a very large part of me that just wants to forget that any of this ever happened.

But the questions still gnaw at me all the same.

Ligon was probably crazy… and when he said that he believed he was feeding something in the ocean, those were probably little more than the words of a deeply disturbed individual. But I can’t forget the teeth marks I saw in the plastic flesh of some of those dolls. I know it’s probably nothing, logically it has to be nothing!

And as I sit here tonight, staring at the only doll I have left, the first one I took from the beach, I can’t help but look at those old scars in her flesh and wonder.

Work is very slow today, which is making me very bored. What I do thoroughly enjoy however is just chatting the hours away with someone. To me, it doesn't really matter what the topic is about, I'm open to anything really. Simple going person, easy to talk to (so it doesn't matter if you're shy) and I'd really enjoy getting to know you!
Small intro about me: as I've just mentioned I work, and it's an office job. I'm a part timer (4 days) since I also study on the side (1 day). Hobbies include gaming, watching tv shows, airsoft, cooking and I really want to have a garden one day so I can have my own crops.
Looking for someone to chat with and get to know you through and through. There's nothing specific that I'm looking for so just hit me up, I'm open to anything! I do like to put a face to the person I'm chatting with, so I'd like to swap pics.
I have average looks and built, am confident and always think that I'm hilarious. Ideally you'd be from either Asia or EU, since the timeszones match up better.
Anyways, don't want to make it too long, just hit me up! :)

I played heavily two or three seasons ago and I was pretty good consistently placing top 3 getting a lot of damage and kills.
Well me and my one buddy(who played years a go as well) tried to get back into it and damn this game is so much harder than I remembered. We’ve been trying to get back into it for about a week now and struggle to win any fights the skill level has grown to be insane. Everyone’s movement is crazy I feel like half the lobby is TzTimmy.
Even in gun game my teams typically always 3rd place or last not even close to the first team. Some fights I’m unable to do anything but watch as the 10k kill pathfinder zip lines up to me and melts me before i can even turn to him.
I’m just wondering if anyone has any insight on this or experienced the same thing. I feel like this game isn’t for casual players anymore it’s kind of sad i love Apex more than any other royal, but geez at this rate if you’re not using aim trainers and practicing movement for a couple hours a day there’s no way you can compete.

I've had a difficult time finding hobby/professional breeders of Sugar Gliders in West Texas. There is one pet store, 200 miles away, that occasionally carries this exotic.
With an educational background in Biology and Zoology, I have recently been breeding Standard Grey Sugar Gliders. It is literally a 24/7 small operation. Over the past year I've spent hundreds of hours studying every aspect of glider ownership and care. I've also spent thousands of dollars of trial-and-error best practice care for my animals.
I specialize in the fine details and product safety for optimal success for responsible ownership of Sugar Gliders. Please reach out to me for any questions you may have or if you're interested in bringing new Gliders into your life. (Take into consideration travel time versus next day airline shipping costs and risks. )
Remember these are exotic animals and take specialized attention for them to strive in captivity.
I look forward to being a supportive member of this community.

After 22 years of growing up in the church, it is my conclusion, no, my testimony, that the church feeds off of mental illness and unhealthy thinking errors. Whether it be by exacerbating preexisting genetic conditions, or by promoting harmful thinking patterns, the Mormon "Gospel" depends on a mentally and emotionally oppressed people.
I can give my own experience growing up in the church with severe OCD, and more particularly Scrupulosity (religious perfectionism). At times my life was a living hell throughout my teenage years. I took religion so much more seriously than my Utah mormon peers, and I constantly felt like I wasn't good enough or even worth anything at all. I would spend hours begging for forgiveness from God (I later learned this was called a "neutralizing behavior" in clinical terms) and mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically beating myself for things such as having a sexual thought go through my mind (you can imagine the chaos that caused for a pubescent high school boy) or enjoying my hobbies too much (for fear that I was being "covetous" or "materialistic"). I would frequently confess things like "lapses" in masturbation to my bishop. Therapy was the best thing that ever happened to me. After years of mental acrobatics and deconstructing every doctrine to try and make it logical, I found an excellent treatment center and within six months I went from being the ultimate giga-TMB to completely leaving the church.
I don't blame the church for my OCD, I was born with that. Instead, they put my unhealthy thinking patterns up on a pedestal as an example of excellence, "here is a righteous youth of Zion". I actually had a seminary teacher call me the Captain Moroni of the class, and then express his disappointment in me when I was caught chatting with my classmate while we were supposed to be studying the scriptures quietly.
I don't think someone has to have a chronic anxiety disorder to have a similar experience to me. The church fosters these kinds of thinking patterns even in the absence of a genetic condition and these have very dangerous effects on people. I don't think it's a coincidence that Utah earned the nickname "the suicide belt". Thankfully I had a loving family and people people that supported me along the way, both church members and not. I'm ok now, I finally got the help I needed and I'm just beginning to experience the indescribable magnificence and joy of a free life. However, if I could give my younger self and every teenager in my previous position one piece of advice, it would be this: run away from the Church for your lives.

Ive gotten into drumming because of joey jordison, my goal is to be able to drum to a slipknot song, that is my first and foremost goal. So i bought an ekit (yamaha dtx435k if i remember correctly) and bought a drumeo beginner 3 months course, that was 4 months ago.
I was enjoying it at first but all ive been doing is practice grooves, i still havent gotten to the rudiment or fills parts, 3 times a week about an hour each time. I wanna learn a song already ( i think im able to at this point ) but i keep telling myself to push through until i learn fills, feels like im unqualified.
Is it the right way to focus solely on practice as a beginner or am i being too harsh on myself?
I would like an opinion from experienced people, i feel like im restricting myself from enjoying a hobby due to the need to practice.

Just this past weekend, the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas held one of its biggest events on its annual calendar: the NASCAR Cup Series.
After a decade of the US Grand Prix at COTA – interrupted only by Covid – Formula 1 appears to have finally found a solid footing in America. Rather than fizzle out like so many other attempts to establish a US race over the decades, attendance at COTA has grown over recent years to the point where it now boasts the largest crowd of the season in terms of total attendance over the race weekend.
F1’s arrival at COTA in 2012 ended its five-year absence from the USA. Now it is one of three American rounds on the 2023 F1 calendar. The introduction of the Miami Grand Prix last year and the much-hyped addition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix near the end of this season means there is effectively a race in the east, west and centre of world’s wealthiest nation.
But COTA chairman Bobby Epstein is confident the popularity of the Texan race will not be diminished by the recent emergence of two rivals in the same country, as F1’s popularity enjoys a boom period in America.
Epstein admits that when he first got involved with the sport over 10 years ago: “I can’t say I was an avid, diehard F1 fan.”
“Because it was very hard to follow the sport in the US until more recently,” he told the Black Book Motorsport Forum. “Austin was a fast-growing city and I had this piece of property – my only real estate investment actually – and the idea came up about the possibility of bringing Formula 1 to Austin.
“I really thought this was a great opportunity to do something for the communities where we live, as well as something that we could make a profit on and we’d have some fun with, and would make a big difference.”
“The more we talked about and thought about it, we really looked at this as an opportunity to build a world-class entertainment destination, and with F1 as the cornerstone gives us a wonderful brand to start with,” he says. “It brought crowds right away. Our goal for the campus is to make this a place where people want to come and have fun and build memories with friends and family. F1 is one part of that overall picture.”
The United States Grand Prix may have secured record attendances over the last two seasons, but Epstein is under no illusions that the sport is cresting a large ‘Drive to Survive’ wave, growing very popular with casual fans as well as hardcore motorsport fanatics. He says all major motorsport series – be it F1, IndyCar NASCAR or otherwise – need to find ways of trying to hold onto those more casual race-goers.
“In IndyCar, when we’re in Indianapolis, one week you have a quarter-of-a-million people,” he explains. “You take the exact same product, put it in a different but similar venue, but a different location, and you see that attendance is ten or 15% of what it might have been, or less, sometimes. That tells you that’s where the difference is between a ‘diehard fan’ and the ‘event fan’.
“It’s not that we don’t offer the best experience for the diehard motorsports fan. But as is the case in any sport, you’re going to have to appeal to what I call the ‘second tier’ below the diehard fan – it’s not their hobby, it’s not their passion.
“We’re absolutely living, breathing, diehard fans of motorsport. But those sports aren’t going to survive on our interest alone. It’s going to have to be a step down of interest to the casual fan, who is also a fan of an event, and want to be a part it.”
He believes COTA has certain features which particularly appeal to dedicated fans who know what makes a good motor racing venue to spectate at. “If you’re a diehard motorsports fan, you’ll notice if you come to COTA and you’ll hopefully go away and say ‘that was the best sight line, that was the best view, I saw some action’.
“Because of the hills, you can see five or six turns from a general admission seat, and you can see seven or eight or nine from the reserved seats. That’s unusual, and the diehard fan will recognise that as unusual. The casual fan will just accept it, but they will notice.”
However Epstein is firm in his conviction that motorsport promoters cannot ignore the casual end of the market. “We have to recognise that the percentage of people that are the diehard fans is not enough to sustain the sport alone.
“For any of the motorsport events, the sport itself might survive on TV, but we have to talk about what’s the future, not just in motorsport. What’s the future of motorsport venues, and the sports themselves? I hope we’ve done a good job of utilising that.”
When it comes to the addition of two other American races on the calendar, Epstein believes there is room for Miami and Las Vegas to coexist with COTA, as the US Grand Prix offers a different kind of race experience to the other two.
“Sometimes competition is good,” he says. “So as long as there’s enough fans, we can have a lot more.
“But I think our goal is to always be unique and stand out and give the focus on the fans and just do the best we can. I do think for the ticket-buying fan base, we have to be careful and make sure there’s enough fans in the US to buy tickets to sustain it as a venue.
“We have advantages over others, so I welcome the competition from that standpoint. I do think the fans that choose to be repeat visitors will choose to come to COTA because we have an advantage.
“We were built for racing. The strip in Vegas was not necessarily built for racing, but it’s a fun place. It’s an international world-class destination.
“It’s going to make great TV. I don’t know how long people go back and buy tickets for it.”
While Italy and Germany once regularly held two races per year, it’s rare to see as many as three in a single country. “They’re obviously competitors,” Epstein concedes, but “I think we have an advantage.”
“There’s a difference, all three events right now are so uniquely different that they [can] all survive.”
One striking difference between the new Las Vegas Grand Prix and the COTA round which will take place a month before it is on the undercard. While no support races will take place at Vegas, COTA featured Formula 4 and the W Series last year.
Epstein admits Las Vegas may prove an interesting case study of how much other racing fans actually want on a grand prix weekend. “You have to look at the type of support races sometimes,” he explains, “But the fans are going to answer that question.
He admits some races failed to draw the attention of fans last year. “We saw W Series really struggle as a support race. The fans didn’t go to the seats, and they didn’t really watch it enough.
“So maybe that tells me that they’re not as important. I think we’ll find out. I hope they’re important, because it’s one of the factors that differentiates us with Las Vegas not going for.
“We think the fans want a lot of value for their investment and I think they want more content. We’ve got 30 hours of ‘programming’. If we find out that all people needed was two hours, we waste a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of money.
“I like to think that they want more content. Whether it’s support races they want or they want a music concert, we got both. But I’m not sure.”
The world championship has a long history in the United States from the early days when the Indianapolis 500 was a points-paying round to dedicated road courses, the rise of street races and temporary return to Indianapolis before Austin arrived. But while the race has drifted between being on and off the calendar over the decades, it seems that the race has finally found a permanent home.
“I think it’s sustainable,” he insists.
“Let’s say we do believe the Netflix effect is real, and that it’s been tremendous, and say what are the components of that? One is the danger and excitement. That’s not going to change. I think Survivor has been on TV 20-plus years – that has that thrill effect to it. And then I think The Bachelor – that has sort of the heartthrob, romance sex-appeal. That’s what you got in F1. So the outlook from the Netflix effect standpoint should be really strong, and it’ll continue for a long time.
“Then I’d ask ‘what about the events?’. Not just the sport, but what’s the sustainability of the events and why do people go? Because that’s what we focus on. Are we going to be here five, ten, 15 years from now? One of the hardest things to buy – what you can’t buy – is tradition.
“You look at some sporting events and ask why are they still around? Indianapolis 500. Why does it draw so many people, or the Kentucky Derby? Or some of these events that were around before TV? People had to go to experience them, and it became a tradition. It becomes a family tradition. And once you have tradition, that’s it.”
Epstein says COTA’s race has already become a traditional fixture for many who attend. “One thing COTA had, because it had a head start on the other events that are taking place in the US, is we have found now that there’s a tradition to families coming back. We see it in our repeat visitors.
“So I think we’ll sustain because we’ve created an atmosphere that people want to come back to. And then for the sports themselves, I think what they offer, and with the Netflix-type connection, the future should be good.”
Source: https://www.racefans.net/2023/03/29/we-were-built-for-racing-unlike-vegas-cota-boss-not-concerned-by-new-f1-rivals/

Hobby lobby o'fallon mo hours

Lazy, procrastination and lack of interest

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Table of Contents

1. A Good Side Hustle Should Be: Something You Enjoy

2. A Good Side Hustle Should Be: Flexible