Here's a great story about an entrepreneur crushing it an unglamorous, unsexy industry: porta-potty rental.
Pooping is a great equalizer. No matter who you are — you, me, the King of England, the President of the United States, and the person who does the President’s dry cleaning — at some point in the last day or two, we’ve all had to sit down and perform this most basic of bodily functions.
(If you haven’t, please see a doctor urgently, or at the very least, eat more fibre.)
And when people have been doing something for thousands of years — eating out, building homes, swimming, watching plays, and yes, pooping — there’s probably a profitable business in that niche.
That brings us to Gary Mead, the poop millionaire of Chelmsford, Essex, here in the UK.
Gary has built Euroloo, his porta-potty rental business, into a company with revenue of about £9m and profit of £1m. Renting porta-potties.
How has he built this business?
Origins
Gary’s story begins in the late 90s. At the tender age of 22, he started a small property management company in his home town of Chelmsford, Essex, about 30 miles northeast of London. According to his LinkedIn profile, he grew it every year for five years in a row, achieved profitability, and sold it. A successful exit by the age of 27 — not bad at all.
Possibly just to prove it wasn’t luck, Gary then started a small property management company in his home town of Chelmsford, Essex. He grew it every year for three years in a row, achieved profitability, and sold it. Again.
(If you take nothing else from this post, learn this: if Gary Mead ever sells you a property management company, make sure you include a non-compete clause.)
As a result, at just 30 years old, Gary had two successful exits under his belt. Likely holding some capital and a well-earned degree from the University of Hard Knocks, Gary scouted around for the next chapter in his career.
What next for this intrepid entrepreneur? Go for the property management three-peat? Start a SaaS business? Rest on his laurels and start a coaching business?
Not for young Gary. No, Gary saw his future paved with brown gold.
In 2003, Gary Mead founded Euroloo. Euroloo rents porta-potties to you, for a fee, including drop-off, pick-up, and weekly servicing.
This is what Mike Rowe would call a Dirty Job. When these porta-potties are dropped off on site on day one, they’re clean. When they’re picked up again on day seven, they are not. Someone has to make them clean again before renting them to the next customer.
That’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse because, you know, you have to clean up poop. For more detail on this subject, check out this article from the wonderfully named company Poles and Holes:

“A good pair of gloves and a spray bottle full of cleaner is all it really takes to keep a porta-potties looking like new!”

It’s a blessing because grads from Harvard Business School and the LSE don’t want to go into this business. It’s not glamorous, it’s not sexy, and you probably don’t get admiring looks when you talk about it at the dinner table.
That’s great, because you don’t want to be competing against HBS and LSE grads. You want to compete, as Nick Huber says, with the type of person making a lot of money and using a fax machine. You are more likely to find those people in an industry like porta-potties. And with some smart use of technology, you can out-compete them.
SEO works with poop too
Euroloo are doing a couple of things you don’t usually see from companies in industries like this.
Firstly, they’re putting time and money into paid search. If you google “portaloo hire [city]” you’ll see them come up (at least in the UK). I did this for my city, Nottingham, and Euroloo are #2 in the sponsored search results, and they’re also #2 in the organic search results.
If I click through on mobile, I’m taken to a landing page, that includes the city name, and a phone number with a local area code.
But wait! If I google “portaloo hire Manchester,” they’re the #2 sponsored result again. If I click through, I’m taken to a different landing page, that mentions a different city, with a different local phone number, which makes them look like a local Manchester business.
This is a level of tech and internet marketing that you honestly just don't see it blue collar industries like this. Definitely makes them stand out. And it's not that hard to do either.
Is there money in porta-potties?
Short answer: yes.
Euroloo are based in the UK so a lot of their company financials are public info. I dove into Euroloo’s financial statements to see what I could learn.
They don't publish a full P&L because they're so small, but their retained earnings -- i.e. the total cumulative profit in the business -- went up by £871k in 2022.
That means that after any dividends paid, Euroloo made £871k profit.
The UK corporate tax rate is 19%, and £871k is the after-tax profit, meaning the pre-tax profit must be £1.075m.
I also estimated their revenue based on the accounts receivable. Euroloo are selling to trade customers, probably on credit terms, so those construction crews and event management teams are paying for their porta-potties after they’ve used them.
On 31st March 2022 they had £422.8k outstanding in accounts receivable. That includes 20% VAT (UK sales tax) that they can’t count as revenue, so if we strip that out, we're left with a figure of £352k.
Guessing that their customers are on 14 day credit terms, then you do 352k / 14 * 365
= £9.2m annualised revenue.
Lastly, just for fun, I got a quote from Euroloo to rent my own porta-pooty.
The minimum rental period is 4 weeks at £195. That works out as £48.75 per week.
If their revenue is around £9.2m and each toilet rents for an average of £48.75 per week, we come up with a total of 188,438 toilet hire weeks per year.
I'm guessing each toilet is in use 90% of the time to account for time spent picking up, cleaning, and delivering. That means they need about 4000 porta-potties.
Their financials say they've spent £3.2m on fixed assets, which means each toilet costs around £800 each.
This also tells us that the real business here isn’t buying expensive assets and renting them out. Porta-potties are about £800 each, and you can rent them for £48.75 a week. Your payback period is less than 6 months.
So this is really a logistics and distribution business. The trick here is making sure that your 4,000 porta-potties are on site, earning income, as much as possible.
The secret sauce
So our master of poop, Gary Mead, has a business with around £9m in revenue, a fleet of around 4,000 portaloos, netting him at least £900k a year, while employing 93 people in the process.
What I really love is how Gary describes the secret sauce. The engine of growth. It’s word of mouth and repeat business. How do they drive that word of mouth? What ensures their incredible reputation?
Gary's LinkedIn page simply says:
We want our customers to recommend us to others and to use our services time after time because:

• It’s easy to work with euroloo
• We deliver and service as promised
• We are friendly and customer focussed
• Our people are trained and good at their job

I love the simplicity. These principles are not rocket science. Euroloo is a phenomenal example of, as Charlie Munger says, “taking a simple idea, and taking it seriously.”
So you can get rich following the Euroloo playbook:

1. Pick an unglamorous industry.
2. Focus on operational and customer excellence.
3. Layer in some technology.
4. Keep at it for 20 years.

That’s what Gary Mead has been doing since 2003. Over that time he's built an incredible business worth millions that provides a great living for him, his family, and his team. I love to see it. Anyone could do this. It’s not easy, but it is simple.
​
(if you want more detail, check out this post, which includes a bunch of figures and screenshots I couldn't put here)

Ok so i was messing around with AI characters a little, and ended up fleshing out the story of my two OCs that i posted here before, the Blood breather Akaji and the Shrine maiden Kanna. So, here's the legend of their home, a mysterious place known as Yokagawa village.
​
DO YOU KNOW THE LEGEND OF YOKAGAWA?
Long ago, there was a large and thriving community, full of people who were always kind. Whenever something bad happened, the entire town would help fix it, and even the most devastating disasters were fixed in a matter of days. Then one day, a strange smell covered the town, but by the time they found the source, it was too late.
That night, hundreds of demons surrounded the town, and when the last ray of sunlight disappeared behind the trees, they attacked. In a single night, thousands of lives were lost, but for some reason, despite having more than enough time left of the night, the demons left, leaving behind a few dozen humans alive.
The remaining people were traumatized, but soon began rebuilding, and after a few decades, the town was alive again. Upon seeing that the town had risen once more, the demons returned and repeated their genocide from all those years ago, once again leaving behind a new dozen people to rebuild the town again. To them, this was nothing more than a self refilling buffet.
This vicious cycle repeated itself over and over for many centuries, until one lone shrine maiden began praying to the gods, begging them to save them from these demons.
While many gods did not answer her call, one lone fox spirit overheard her desperate cries, and upon witnessing the centuries of slaughter these people have gone through, decided to take pity on the poor shrine maiden. The fox spirit granted the Shrine maiden a sacred power, one known as the "Sacred spirit art: The fox spirit's trickery".
With this sacred power, she was able to fight back against the invading demons, and although her sacred art proved too powerful for most of the
demons, a couple managed to see through her tricks and overpower her art, and she was about to be killed when a young boy, one who had lived through the past slaughter, saved her with a breathing technique he had created himself - Blood breathing.
Together, the two defeated the invading demons once and for all, promising to forever protect their people, no matter the cost.
With a promise and the power of the fox spirit, Yokagawa village was born, and it is said that the two still protect the village from intruders to this day.
But Yokagawa holds an even bigger secret, one known only to those who live within its walls - There is not a single living being present in the entire village.
As a result of the fox spirit’s power, all those who have fallen within its walls in the past were reborn as spirits in Yokogawa, creating the first settlement where humans and demons live together in harmony.
The demons have all but forgotten how to fight, and because they are all dead, they have no need to consume human beings.
For the past 416 years, Akaji and Kanna have protected the village and its secrets, even plunging their blades into human flesh when no other choice remained.

Hey all, quite a big sporadic update today. Quite a lot has to do with post prestige content so be warned there are spoilers.
The Stylist
We've added a new alien - the Stylist. To unlock her you need to purchase two new Rift Stones (costing Cosmic Runes). The Stylist sells skins. Two for the NecroMerger, two for the Tip Stone and one for the Devourer. The skins cost alien currencies and give boosts related to the alien content.
Changes to how Time Shards are calculated
We've removed the Time Shard Experiment entirely, if you've upgraded the Time Shard Experiment, you'll be refunded the Time Shards you spent on it (so make sure you spend them!).
There are two main reasons for this change.
Firstly, people who weren't upgrading the Time Shard Experiment were seeing their runs being compromised in a big way.
Secondly, the amount of Time Shards you had to spend on the Experiment (especially in the first few prestiges) was so high that most people couldn't afford to spend much on other Experiments. So they weren't seeing much progress other than increasing their Devourer's max level.
Instead Devourer level contributes a lot more to the amount of Time Shards you earn.
To rebalance costs - somewhat - we've increased the cost of the last two levels of the Weakening Experiment (but the cost increase is less than what was being spent on maxing out the Time Shard Experiment).
Golden Goose Cravings/Robo Chickens Changes
We've limited the amount of Robo Chickens to 3. If you have more than 3 currently, they won't disappear, but you won't be able to build more.
We've changed how many Golden Geese the Devourer will require at higher levels. Before the most it would ask for at very high levels was 7, now it's 4.
Note, if you have a Golden Goose craving active and you've exceeded the craving following this rebalance you'll need to feed it one more Golden Goose to complete it.
Lair Themes
We've updated the graphics on both the Pirate and Alien themes.
We've also changed it so the Alien theme isn't visible until you've unlocked the Architect.
There are now notifications when your Decorations are ready to collect and if you have unused Decorations ready to display.
Information Panels
Most characters (Champions etc) now have updated information panels to give more useful information.
Offerwall
We've now removed the IronSource Offerwall completely, so TapJoy is the only option (IronSource now own TapJoy). If you've got an ongoing offer then you can still complete it, but you won't be able to access the Offerwall.
Patch Notes

• New alien added - the Stylist. This alien sells 2 NecroMerger, 2 Tip Stone and 1 Devourer skin.
• The way Time Shards have been calculated has changed. The Time Shard Experiment has been removed (people who bought it will be refunded). Later levels of the Weakening Experiment have had their costs increased.
• Lair Themes have had their graphics updated.
• Updated information panels have been added for a number of characters.
• Golden Geese Cravings need a lower amount at higher levels.
• Robo Chickens are now limited to 3.
• Event rooms are now prettiemore varied.
• Updated the look of some buttons.
• Weekly notification for the Architect.
• IronSource Offerwall has been removed. You can still complete offers but will no longer be able to access the Offerwall.
• New one off in-app purchase selling Gems and Gold available in the shop.
• We ask for reviews a lot less frequently now.
• Technical update to allow for more devices to play the game.

Note, the update is currently only available to 25% of people, once we're confident there are no critical issues we'll roll it out to everyone else.

This sub has been an incredible source of information and inspiration, so I gave myself an hour to write down and share some insights from the recent three-week road trip I’ve had with my partner.
General remarks:
- Our main goal was to enjoy nature, so we were okay with spending absolutely no time on the golden circle or in Reykjavik. Due to the weather, we ended up doing both anyway; but these would be the parts of the trip I would skip first. Coming from continental Europe, we had almost no jetlag and could safely start directly with our journey. With more jet lag, some more time to adapt is definitely a good idea.
- We rented a 2WD campervan from Star Car Rental and spent all but the final night on campsites. Our experience with Star Car was very good. The price was competitive and included unlimited mileage, additional driver and all necessary utensils (chairs, table, cooking stuff). We got picked up from the airport and were ready to go within 15’. When giving back the car, we got driven to our hotel without any inspection (we did have zero excess insurance).
- Mid-May to beginning of June was a very nice time to travel. The days are long (I’ve seen no darkness), almost all camping places are open, but the crowds at the highlights are small – except for the big boys in the south.
- We started our days quite early and therefore typically arrived during the afternoon at the campsites. The kitchen area, showers and laundry spaces were often free to use. Be prepared to go to campsites that have only 2 stoves and 1 shower. During prime time, expect some waiting times.
- We picked up around 100 € worth of cash – two campsites were cash-only, everything else was absolutely card-first / cash-free.
Useful ressources:
- Vedur and Safetravel: This sub is absolutely right. Learn how to read and anticipate the weather before you get there. We were there during two yellow warnings and these things are really no joke. It helps to have plenty of time to spontaneously adapt the schedule. And we’ve seen it all: blizzard in the West, hail up North, storm in the East and sun in the South.
- Google reviews & park4night: These were pretty accurate for the campsites. 4+ stars are no-brainers, 3+ depend on your needs (kitchen, shower, electricity) and less than 3 should be avoided. Also, remember to rate them yourself during/after your trip to increase the statistical significance ;)
- Google Maps/MyMaps: MyMaps was useful during our planning to fill with random highlights (waterfalls, hotpots, hikes, campsites) and to set up a rough itinerary. Google Maps is accurate on paved roads. On gravel roads, expect some significant delays. Maps calculates with 80 km/h, while you will probably never exceed 50 km/h. In the Westfjords, we guess-timated our times with 2 minutes per kilometer on the gravel roads. The Happy Campers Campsite Map as well as the Hot Pot Iceland Map were nice to have in the back-pocket to check with some time to spare whether something is close by.
- Polarsteps: This was a cute little App, which we used to keep family and friends informed. You can add pictures and some text to your highlights. This way, you don’t send the same picture into various chats and there is a location- and time-dependent context.
Cost: This is the per-person cost breakdown for our 21-day trip (20-day camper rental, 1 hotel stay, total 3’500€).
- Rental (zero excess insurance, additional driver): 1’135 €
- Flight (from continental Europe): 700 €
- Activities (Pools, Spas, Horse-riding, Kayak): 300 €
- Camping (pretty consistent 2’000 +- 500 ISK p.P.): 275 €
- Groceries (Bonus, Kronan, Netto): 255 €
- Coffee, Beers, Food in Restaurants: 260 €
- Petrol (420 € in total for roughly 3’600 km): 210 €
- Souvenirs: 180 €
- Ferries (into Westfjords and to Westman Islands): 95 €
- Hotel: 75 €
Highlights:
- Sundlaug and Spas: When camping in small towns, very often there will be a swimming pool close by. They are not expensive (around 1000 ISK pP) and a great way to relax after a long day. Also, it feels nice to take longer, hot showers without knowing people are waiting in line. We decided to go for some smaller premium spas and were very happy with all of them: Krauma was one of our first stops, the Forest Lagoon was incredible during evening hours and GeoSea was also fantastic. Re: nudity. It takes a bit to get used to, but its very refreshing to see this very open approach to nudity in the pools. No one cares, no one watches – just do your thing. It’s cool to see groups of friends at all age groups be so open about it. Certainly very different compared to continental Europe.
- As we had to skip the Eastfjords a bit due to storm, we had some time left at the end. We spent the last 3 nights on the Westman Islands. It was great to leave the car for a longer while and do everything by foot. There are plenty of things to do and the swimming pool is fantastic.
- Mulagljufur: Use Google Maps to find the exact location, as of now, there is no sign along the road. The canyon is very beautiful and we ended up hiking for almost three hours. Couldn’t get enough of the views.
- Glymur: The infamous log wasn’t placed when we were there, but the short hike to the cave and towards the canyon was absolutely worth it.
- Camping highlights: Melanes campsite at Raudasandur beach (Westfjords): incredible scenery, wild drive to get there; Thingeyri campsite (Westfjords): directly at the fjord, fantastic infrastructure (probably the best kitchen we’ve had) and IMHO a great alternative to the Tungudalur campsite in Isafjordur; 66.12 N campsite (near Husavik): insane ocean view, good infrastructure, one of the best sites along the diamond circle; Glamping&Camping (Westmann Islands): beautiful setting, good infrastructure.
Itinerary (Highlights: *, ** or ***)
Day 1: Arrival at KEF during the afternoon in pouring rain, set up campervan, first grocery stops at Bonus and Kronan, Dinner at Issi’s Fish&Chips*, Camp at Hjalli Kjos
Day 2: Glymur hike** (up to river, no log), Krauma Spa**, scenic drive into Snaefellsnes, Camp at Freezer Hostel
Day 3: Check out Snaefellsnes highlights, get to Stykkisholmur in the afternoon, Ferry Baldur to Brjanslaekur, Hellulaug hotpot*, drive to Melanes campsite*** on Raudasandur beach
Day 4: full day at Raudasandur, great hikes, another night at Melanes campsite.
Day 5: Long drive through westfjords. Highlights included the self-service fish station in Talknafjordur (amazing fisk bollur**), Dynjandi waterfall and Sandfell hike. Camping at Thingeyri*, relax in local swimming pool
Day 6: drive to Isafjordur, check out city (kind of underwhelming, but it was a national holiday; the brewery is nice), do some small hikes in the area. Camp at Tungudalur.
Day 7: very long drive out of westfjords towards Varmahlid. Hot dog stop in Holmavik and arrive at Lambeyri campsite (cash only)
Day 8: woke up with dead battery, but got jump start by campsite owner. Horseriding tour at Lytingsstadir* was very nice, drive to Akureyri, visit Forest Lagoon**. It was Saturday night when we visited, upon leaving we had police checking every driver for alcohol – so better hold off the pool-side bar ;) wanted to camp at Vaglaskogur but campsite wasn’t open. Went up until the CJA campsite in Laugar with a late-night stop at Godafoss (around 10pm, were the only people there)
Day 9: check out Myvatn area: Dimmuborgir hike, Hverir, Leirhnjukur hike**. Then continue to Dettifoss and camp at Asbyrgi. Late night hike to Asbyrgi ‘island’*.
Day 10: Hike in Asbyrgi canyon, continue to Husavik, visit GeoSea**, camp at 66.12N***
Day 11: long drive with very strong winds. We had to go back to Akureyri (optician to fix broken glasses), so went through Myvatn again with a quick stop at Grjotagja. Beautiful drive, weather was too bad for Studlagil canyon, so we continued all the way to Borgarfjordur eystri. Crazy winds during the night and we were happy that our car didn’t get blown away.
Day 12: unfortunately, no hikes in this beautiful area. Waited for storm to pass until lunchtime, visited harbor with puffins**, drive to Egilsstadir (hot dog stop), continue to Seydisfjordur (kind of underwhelming town, the drive is gorgeous though) and, due to weather forecast, continue all the way to Djupivogur campsite.
Day 13: Incredible drive from Djupivogur to Höfn, stops at Hvalnes and Jökulsarlon. Hike at Mulagljufur***, camp at Svenifell.
Day 14: early-morning hike in Skaftafell**, continue to Kirjubaersklausur for campsite. Had to skip Fjardrargljufur due to weather, visited local swimming pool.
Day 15: yellow warning again. Continued to Vik for Skool Beans Coffee*, quick stop at Reynisfjara beach (red alert was on, so we didn’t go further than the sign), continue to Skogarfoss and hike part of Fimmvorduhals*, camp in Selfoss – swimming pool was closed unfortunately.
Day 16: Weather forecast was very bad, so we spent the day in Reykjavik. Walked around town, grabbed some coffees and visiting the local Sundhöll*. Camp at Mosskogar** (cash-only)
Day 17: Golden circle: hike at Thingvellir, look at Geysir, skipped Delfoss. Camp in Selfoss again.
Day 18: quick stop at Seljalandsfoss, ferry to Westman islands. Set up camp at Glamping&Camping** for the next 3 nights. Visited Brothers Brewery*.
Day 19: Kayak tour with Kayak-and-Puffins-company***. Visited local swimming pool* (trampoline slide was very nice) and watched a local handball game.
Day 20: Hike along volcanoes and coast**, visit brewery again, go to puffin bay**
Day 21: Ferry back to mainland. Drive back towards KEF. Drop-off campervan and spent night in Konvin Hotel. Early morning shuttle to airport (we arrived about 2h early for our 7 am flight and had plenty of time).
Of course, I’m very happy to answer any questions you might have!
Hope this is helpful to some of you :)

If I mention Legacy, it had three things people agreed on:
Cuirassiers were too strong Oprichniks were too cost effective Japanese Units got too many buffs
In Definitive Edition some things were fixed: Cuirassiers less hitpoints and damage (425, 25), Oprichniks 64 Siege Damage (75), and Golden Pavilion Nerfs (10% instead of 15%).
So I think that had there been a change before DE, it would have looked like this:
Cuirassiers 450 hitpoints Oprichniks either 120 food, 60 coin (90 food, 60 coin), or 64 siege damage (75) Small buff to Yabusame, Samurai (cheaper cost) Nerf to Golden Pavilion (10%), Ashigaru +1s train time (34 to match with Sepoy)
​
There were others, such as Iroquois Units' Wood cost, or Dance Pit spawning of Units which took too long to be useful (Travois, Medicine Men, Dog Soldiers, Skull Knights; in some cases Warrior Priests), and things that have been fixed such as Dutch Settler Population (50; 60 it is with cards in DE).
Also to mention were economic advantages such as Britain's Manor Houses Boom, in comparison to Spain's XP Bonus, or French Coureur des Bois in comparison to Ottoman Settler Spawning.
These things were fixable by increased Town Centers limit, and on Sea Maps nations that had no economic bonus had a chance to get 2 docks (talking of booming, not rushing) to produce villager economy, and thus get a fair chance to win a game versus another civ that had a powerful economic bonus to start with (Such as Russians 3 Villagers per batch with 2x train time).
Then there were units with insufficient upgrades, such as Rajputs and Gurkha (lacking upgrade cards), Halberdiers (high cost; in DE they have more attack), Overpriced units such as Mahouts (good units, but very pop heavy, costly and hard to use), Strelets not having same train time reduction as other Russian Infantry (making them less useful; they had in Vanilla and in DE), and lastly, Tower Limit.
Tower Limit has been discussed from the beginning, why Towers had a small limit in AOE3 but an infinite limit in AOE2, if you had enough Stone.
And another, about Trading Post Cost: if a Trading Posts cost 100 Wood, it would be maybe very easy to obtain, and in DE they have added the option for 100 food, 100 wood auto-build which is very similar.
There are many things that would be mentioned, and I think I have covered them.

Hello Houston!
My GF and I (both 23) are international students here in the Midwest US, we just graduated and have been to other bigger cities in the country (Chicago, NYC, DC, etc.) But we decided to visit your wonderful city this weekend. We'll be there for about 3 and half days, not enough to explore everything Houston has to offer, but just enough to see the highlights of it. We'll be renting a car too since we heard that is Houston's best mode of transportation.
Our main goal for this trip is to spend some quality time together, exploring the city and relaxing, while not spending a large sum of money. I built a rough itinerary and wanted to get some feedback from you folks (the locals) if anything seems improper. Please let me know if there is anything that I have missed about Houston, and any recommendations on where to get food and what else to do!
Thank you!
We'll be staying at an Airbnb in midtown, near Buffalo Bayou Park. We also intentionally avoid the Aquarium because we heard it's pretty depressing.
Day 0.5 (THU)

• We arrive in Houston at about 6 PM.
• POST (dinner) + Skylawn

Day 1 (FRI)

• Baby Barnaby's (breakfast)
• Gerald D. Hines Waterfall
• Space Center
• Kemah Boardwalk
• Landry's Seafood House (dinner)

Day 2 (SAT)

• Blacksmith (breakfast)
• The Galleria/River Oaks District
• Xin Chao (lunch)
• Museum of Natural Science
• Buffalo Bayou Park
• Nancy's Hustle (dinner)

Day 3 (SUN)

• Chinatown
• Golden Dim Sum (brunch)
• Memorial Park
• Our last day in Houston ends around 5 PM

My GF also really like going to cafes, so we'll pick a couple of these to visit:

• Blendin Coffee Club
• Tenfold
• Giant Leap
• Cavo Coffee
• La La Land Cafe

Hi there! Let me apologize in advance if the title is either intimidating or pretentious or both, but I hope you read my post to completion. Apologies as well if I can't engage you on the actual astronomical concept as I am still recovering from a painful breakup with Lady Science.
To save you a few clicks, here's the Fermi Paradox. And to save your attention, basically ang problema ni Fermi ay: "Kung may alien talaga, bakit wala pa tayong nakakausap?" Di ako naghahanap ng alien dito ah, what I mean is intelligent life.
Maraming paraan para kontakin tayo ng alien. What I'm trying out is the equivalent of the Voyager 1 Golden Record. Sorry science nanaman, pero cool 'to pramis. Sinubukan ng mga gumawa ng Golden Record na kung anong sibilisasyon man makatuklas dito, kaya nilang maintindihan na may mga tao, sa planetang Earth, na pwede nilang maging friend! O kainin. Ewan, depende?
So, para sa iyo, Mam/Ser Intelligent Being, ito ang katumbas ng Voyager 1, ang mga paraan ko para mag-reach out sa yo. My main vessels are: boardgames, music (sampler playlist here), and humor. (to add: basketball and footb-- err soccer. More of the latter recently as my team's had a wonderful update 🤍) I've had success in previous missions, through all of these nahanap ko ang alien ng buhay ko! 💍
As for my Golden Records, I fully believe lahat naman ng plaka natin ay ginintuan. You'd definitely attract another lifeform if your opinions match for example. But what I'm sending out here, is a more valuable disc-shaped object. Here's a few ideas I'm open to discussing, among many: a philosophy of biological wisdom (e.g. don't work like a machine, because those break! Be an organism instead, efficient and evolving!), a mature approach to buffets (which is applicable to life in general), and something probably better than a time machine.
At T minus 0, I hit "post" and launch this satellite headed your way. The planet me and my partner are on is in search of life like yours. Kung di naman applicable sa yo, keri lang, I wish the best of luck on your own space program!

Capture your aliens! 👽 Peace out ✌️

Bloons TD 6 v37.0 - Update Notes!
Rolling out now on iOS, Android, Steam please restart your storefront or be patient if it does not appear for you, these updates can take some time to be rolled out to every region due to how the storefronts are set up.
Key New Features

• New Paragon - The Magus Perfectus! (loves casting spells) Some of you know we teased this last year, but we needed more time to balance the art and design required to make this extra special, so we are very pleased to get this live! Wizard Monkey’s Paragon is designed to be a higher level strategic Paragon with powerful ability usage similar to the Doomship.
  
  • The core of the Magus is a toggle to and from a Draining Beam which deals very small single target damage but absorbs graveyard mana as it damages and destroys Bloons
  • While toggled off from the Drain Beam, Magus attacks with a powerful Arcane Spike that deals massive damage to MOABs and revives Bloons it slays, while a Dark Phoenix circles overhead attacking with Firebomb breath and a radial fireball attack
  • Phoenix Explosion Ability: can be cast to consume the Paragon’s entire graveyard to set all Bloons on screen on fire for 30 seconds and summon one Zombie ZOMG for every 9000 graveyard mana consumed
  • Arcane Metamorphosis Ability: can be used to consume all graveyard mana and transform the Magus briefly into an alternate form which decimates everything with a flame cascade attack; Metamorphosis lasts longer the more mana it consumes
  • Magus was designed for armchair play so it will fill and consume graveyard mana on its own, but our goal was to create more actively controlled Paragon for those who will enjoy microing between Beam on and off and choosing which awesome Ability to unleash and when

New Awesome

• Happy Birthday BTD6 - On June 14th, BTD6 will celebrate 5 years of monkeytastic fun and strategy! We hope you’ll join us for the main menu changes, skinned Collection event, special Questing, and general celebration. Thank you for five amazing years and we’re looking forward to all the years ahead!
• New Hero Skin - Jiangshi Sauda, a fun new cross-cultural look for Sauda brainstormed by the art team, mixing inspirations from a favorite show and Chinese folklore
• New Map - Erosion
  
  • Community designed advanced map Erosion
  • TheWiseTroll’s original concept proposed land and water but when thinking about map colors and the little stories we think of behind each map, the concept of the polar bear walking back with the shrinking ice was too compelling to do anything else
• New Quests
  
  • Birthday Party - Pop the Party Bloon as many times as you can before it escapes
  • Blade Sauda Nowhere - Try out Sauda and learn some of her skills
  • Patch’s Cheap Chimps Challenge - Beat Logs with as little cash spent as you can
  • Striken Bad - Defeat the BAD on round 100 using First Strike. The spelling hurts us, too, you’re not the only one - but we had to do it!
• Least Cash and Least Tier Boss Events
  
  • We’ve heard feedback about and have been wanting to shake up Boss rules, so here we go!
  • Applying new victory conditions to Boss Events completely changes the focus while still needing the damage output and type to handle each Boss
  • Time still matters, as the secondary time score will break any ties
• New Trophy Store Items
  
  • Heroes: Geraldo Pack Mule pet, Quincy Spec Ops Drop In placement
  • Monkeys: Sweden Village Flag
  • Bloons: Party Hat Bloons
  • Game & UI: Vortex Avatar, Sunset Samba 64 Mix music track, Quincy Arrows banner
  • Nexus.gg Creator Supporter Avatar - show your support for Content Creators by using the Creator Support button on the Settings screen and purchasing any IAP
• Limited Time only {trophy items if there’s a seasonal}
  
• 5 Year Anniversary Avatar, 5 Year Anniversary Banner
  
• New CT Team Store items
  
  • Base Props: Treasure Chest
  • Icons: Overclock icon, Archmage Staff icon
  • Frames: Bloon From The Dead frame, Mage Hat frame
• New Slider
  
  • Everybody loves sliders, right?
  • After lots of discussion on the team and a fair few player requests, we’ve added a ‘Projectile and Effects Scaling’ accessibility option to main menu Settings
  • This is primarily for accessibility to minimize the size and brightness of projectiles and effects, especially when the screen is crowded with Monkeys and Bloons
  • This is not directly a performance improvement feature, so please do not expect the game to run noticeably better - just noticeably cleaner
  • We tried not to remove key game state indicators but this is ultimately in player control - if you adjust the slider and effects and projectiles make it harder to play the game, please reset the slider until the game is working the way you want
  • It’s also really fun for silly screengrabs, so please post your favorites!

​
Game Changes / Additions

• New Party Time game theme event!
• Refactored how leaderboard scores are stored so that we could add Least Cash/Tiers ranking options for Boss Events
• Bosses on spawn will now clear the map of all existing projectiles
• Highest Round profile stat renamed to Highest Round (All Time) & added in the new profile stat Highest Round (Current Version).
• The 4 different Highest Round profile stats are now grouped together near the top of the profile stats page
• Freeplay budget scaling reduced slightly (same speed/hp, but number of Bloons added per round will increase at a slower rate)
• Added a new Roundset with Income curve to be used by our events team; this customized income curve allows us more flexibility to make this roundset than would otherwise have been possible with existing roundset tools
• Translated game into Thai

Quest Changes

• Added a ‘Play Again’ button to the victory screen for quests
• Added a ‘Disable Dialogue’ checkmark for some quests after beating them
• Game hints are now hidden during Quests
• Story Quests now sort to the top of the quest list & completed Story Quests sort to the bottom

Bug Fixes & General Changes

• A large number of localization fixes - thanks for the player feedback on your pet peeves!
• Resolved a number of general crashes
• Number of additions/changes to improve existing quests, highlight scores to beat & increase our possibilities for quest creation
• Resolved an issue with abilities highlighted in quests remaining highlighted after restarting
• Holding down on a tower should correctly hide the UI again
• Quests no longer play placement effects for any pre-placed towers
• Resolved an issue that could prevent Total Damage from counting correctly to profile
• Resolved an issue where total insta monkeys profile stat would decrease if the instas were used
• Resolved certain very specific freeplay seeds causing crashes on certain rounds
• Bloons Leaked summary no longer gets cleared in co-op after reviewing map
• Stairs in the top corners on Resort are now placement blockers
• Resolved a crash that could occur when waiting on the events screen as events end
• Resolved a crash that could occur when the Hero Booster popup was canceling via any map mechanics forcing the player to deselect the hero
• Fixed some towers not targeting the test bloon when set to target type Strong
• Fixed position of the full patch notes link on update popups on some resolutions
• Midnight Mansion plays a fishie animation in the bloon exit on loading in
• Resolved an issue where placed items on the map lose their cosmetic skins after a resync occurs during a co-op game.
• Obtaining towers from redistribution on co-op that are still locked for you will now show messaging in the unlocks screen as to why you are not earning XP for it
• Pressing back from the avatabanner selection will now just back out of that selection
• Changed Pop Count on summary screen to Damage Count and added actual Pop Count
• Hero portraits no longer linger too long on the screen after exiting the upgrades menu in game
• Paragon art state changes moved from 22/42/62/82 to 20/40/60/80
• Resolved map-based buffs not inheriting to subtowers correctly
• Resolved an issue where an external proxy could sometimes cause the game to hang on loading forever
• Co-op red areas fade in more slowly when you cross the boundary
• Resolved online/Invisible profile setting displaying text incorrectly
• Audio polish when opening reward chests in the collection event
• Updated wording on logout screen to address some confusion
• Added a background to the rewards UI
• Added confirmation pop-up for In App Purchases added from outside the game
• Monklish font has been regenerated to include the Māori macrons

Tower Specific Fixes
Ice Monkey

• Resolved a number of cases of the xx2 Refreeze crosspath not re-freezing bloons when dealing certain numbers of damage.

Monkey Buccaneer

• xx5 Trade Empire should no longer buff too many merchants in co-op
• Resolved tower moving from flagship to navarch displaying vfx at the wrong scale
• Resolved "Paragon available" pip displaying for Buccaneer with only Flagship and Pirate Lord unlocked
• Resolved an issue where Navarch’s attack rate buff would not apply to Doomship in some cases depending on build order

Monkey Ace

• xx2 Centered Path ace no longer displays it’s placement target on screen initially when loading a save
• Upgrading to 002 Ace no longer refreshes the cooldown on the special toggle
• Resolved an issue with Monkey Ace jumping offscreen after a Retry Last Round

Banana Farm

• 5xx Banana Central no longer buffs other Banana Centrals in co-op

Engineer

• 1xx Engineers can now place their sentries correctly on One Two Tree
• Overclocking a 5xx Engineer’s sentry just as it starts exploding no longer crashes the game
• Engineer Paragon no longer crashes if created while a Bloontrap is being deployed
• Engineer Paragon no longer crashes when selling the main tower while it has a sentry moving through the air that has not landed yet
• Engineer Paragon should no longer throw sentries into the middle of the map due to techbots
• Resolved an issue where the Paragon’s permanent speed boost per round would not load until the end of the first round played after loading a save

Beast Handler

• 3xx Great White projectiles can no longer hit bloons far out of range
• 3xx Great White rare crash that could occur at end of rounds has been resolved
• 3xx Great White’s slow applied to grabbed target now expires correctly
• 310 Beast Handler now has eyebrows, just like that one map suggestion
• Corrected the splash asset for crosspathed 4xx & 5xx Beasts
• Merging an Orca into a Megalodon while it's taking out a bad should no longer cause a 2nd Megalodon to briefly appear
• x1x Microraptor no longer fails to attack in some cases when being moved to different heights
• x4x Tyrannosaurus Rex ability now scales with Challenge Editor ability cooldown slider
• Beast Handler's bird targeting no longer breaks when set to strong if bloons are leaving radius
• Resolved a crash that could occur when moving a beast to the screen boundary

Hero Specific Fixes
Obyn Greenfoot

• Resolved an issue where Obyn’s Wall of Trees when placed on an intersection looping back around on itself would not be able to hit the children of any targets that passed over it

Psi

• Resolved a crash that could occur when attacking glued Bloons

Geraldo

• Resolved an issue where selling Geraldo, and then re-buying him would show the description of the last-viewed store item from before selling him

Platform Specific fixes

• PC: Beast Handler’s hotkey in the hotkeys menu has been moved up near the rest of the support towers
• PC: Added a ‘ Monkey Special 2’ hotkey (for towers like Beast Handler, Necromancers & Ace Paragon). By default the Special 1 & Special 2 hotkeys have been assigned to PageUp & PageDown and ordered so that PageUp triggers the upper specialty, and PageDown triggers the lower one
• Arcade: Resolved a strange one pixel wide black line that can appear above some text characters on the arcade font
• Chromebook: Game no longer crashes if attempting to login via webview
• Chromebook: Resolved an issue with bluetooth mice being unable to scroll

Balance Changes
Boomerang Monkey
This part has to be included along with the Lych Soul rework with Paragons which is finally making it in this update after necessary delays. As Boomerang Paragon’s knockback hits so many times so quickly, we need to make it more reasonable when applied to targets that aren’t immediately destroyed.

• Boomerang Paragon knockback amount reduced 3 > 1

Bomb Shooter
MOAB Assassin fills a useful role of a pure long cooldown ‘single target assassination’ in the game, but when compared to something like First Strike it feels a little lacking that it is unable to carry damage through MOAB Layers

• x4x MOAB Assassin ability passes through MOAB layers
• x4x MOAB Assassin ability explosion centers around the impact target

Tack Shooter
Blade Shooter has always struggled to find much value without MK or as a step to Maelstrom, so to give it build value on its own we feel like this should be a part of the base value on the upgrade.

• x3x Blade Shooter pierce increased from 6 > 8

Ice Monkey
Lowest tiers of ice monkey are far too effective for their cost against ceramics, with this scaling well all the way to round 100, we feel like ice duration against ceramics needs to be reduced to counter this but for now this reduction will only apply until T3.

• 000 Ice Monkey freeze duration reduced by 50% on ceramics
• All T3 Ice Monkeys increase freeze duration on ceramics from 50 > 100%
• 203 Icicles crosspath now gains camo prio

Glue Gunner
The Bloon Solver’s rework has been very popular, however, we’d like to have a better lead up into the new mechanics by introducing this earlier at the tier 4 now.

• 4xx Bloon Dissolver now creates puddles on track leading up to Bloon Solver, puddles deal 1 damage, all other stats and crosspath benefits are the same.

Sniper Monkey
This will allow Cripple MOAB to take out regular MOAB layers in one shot until round 100; for such a slow attacking single target tower we feel this will help top path flex, even if mostly for show.

• 5xx Cripple MOAB damage increased from 80 > 280

Monkey Buccaneer
Reworking Grape Shot crosspathing as it gains far too much crosspath value by T2 but then is lacking in purpose at higher tiers, double shot will only work as one extra grape however Destroyer will now apply its full attack rate buff to the grapes and Flagship will equip aspects of Grape Shot on the mini planes.

• 210 Grape Shot total projectiles reduced from 10 -> 6
• 310 Destroyer also reduced from 10 > 6 grapes
• 310 Destroyer now increases grape attack rate twice as much, matching increase to the regular attack
• 410 Aircraft Carrier planes radial attack now fires an arc of grapes instead of darts
• 410 Aircraft Carrier planes radial Emission Angle 360 > 90
• 410 Aircraft Carrier planes radial projectile count 8 > 6
• 410 Aircraft Carrier plane grape projectile speed 100 > 200
• 420 Aircraft Carrier planes radial projectile art: dart > hot grape
• 420 Aircraft Carrier planes radial damage type Sharp > Fire
• 400 Aircraft Carrier plane radials damage 1 > 2
• 4xx Aircraft Carrier missiles now follow tower target priority

Monkey Ace
Spectre is shifting a little of the ceramic bonus around into basic all damage at the cost of reduced pierce, which should make up for lack of single target damage while also making the pierce crosspath more necessary when being used for cleanup focus.

• xx4 Spectre Dart damage increased 3 > 4
• xx4 Spectre Dart ceramic bonus reduced 2 > 1
• xx4 Spectre Dart pierce reduced 15 > 10
• xx4 Spectre Bomb damage increased 2 > 3
• xx4 Spectre Bomb ceramic bonus reduced 4 > 3
• xx4 Spectre Bomb pierce reduced 30 > 20

Heli Pilot
Even with the map-range advantage, rotors are weak compared to any other constant AoE circle like this. Chinook feels like it’s near a place we are happy with now, however we want another tiny nudge on cost while keeping cash generation value the same. Pushing some higher values on the last Comanche Commander changes as the missile attack is effectively such a small portion of the tower’s total damage late game.

• 302 Razor Rotors will now benefit from the faster firing crosspath
• 3xx Razor Rotors cooldown rate 0.75 > 0.5
• x4x Support Chinook price reduced from $10500 > 9500
• x4x Support Chinook supply crate cash generated reduced $1650 > 1,550
• x4x Support Chinook max uses per round reduced from 3 > 2
• xx4 & xx5 Comanche mini's follow the target priority set on their main Heli
• xx5 Comanche Commander missile damage 7 > 15
• xx5 Comanche Commander missile moab bonus 5 > 8
• xx5 Comanche Commander mini's missile dmg 5 > 15
• xx5 Comanche Commander mini's missile moab bonus 5 > 8

Mortar Monkey
As the Rapid Reload crosspath has actually fallen behind in value compared to Burny Stuff for top path Mortars we want to try a slight stun duration increase as this buffs the base path with a larger benefit to Rapid Reload mortars as a stalling option. Mortar consistency is lacking at x3x making it tough to spend on even though x4x is fairly good, so some of the T4 rate is shifting down to help out with this. As the camo property has grown quite weak and currently Signal Flare is considered the best decamo tool, we want to push back slightly on its cost and by reducing the blast radius of the decamo area while emphasizing crosspathing for effectiveness there.

• 4xx The Big One stun duration non-MOABs increased from 0.5s > 0.75
• 5xx The Biggest One stun duration MOAB increased from 0.3s > 0.5
• 5xx The Biggest One stun duration BFB increased from 0.2s > 0.3
• 5xx The Biggest One stun duration DDT increased from 0.2s > 0.3
• x3x Heavy Shells attack delay reduced from 1.08 > 0.81
• x4x Artillery Battery attack rate buff reduced from ¼ to ⅓ (remains the same rate: 0.27)
• xx3 Signal flare cost increased $700 > 800
• xx4 Shattering Shells price reduced from $11,000 > 10900
• xx3 Signal Flare decamo radius reduced from 50 > 43
• 103 Signal Flare decamo pierce increased by 5 > 10
• xx4 Shattering Shells burn DoT deals moab bonus +5

Super Monkey
As Engineer sentries do this already, newly spawned Mini Avatars from temples will now by default match the target priority of the temple.

• 4xx Sun Temple's Magic Sacrifice mini Sun Avatars when placed will spawn with the same target prio as their parent tower

Ninja Monkey
We’re changing the Ninja Monkey Paragon’s focus as a fighter against camo, as we feel like a greater strength and tactical value against camo will be the full reveal of all camos rather than all camo removal.

• Ascended Shadow now grants global camo detection for all your towers
• Ascended Shadow no longer strips camo from Bloons with every attack
• Ascended Shadow main attack gains bonus to camo +6
• Ascended Shadow Flash Bomb Explosion gains bonus to camo +20
• Ascended Shadow Flash Bomb Shurikens gains bonus to camo +16
• Ascended Shadow Sticky Bomb Projectile gains bonus to camo +3200
• Ascended Shadow Sticky Bomb Explosion gains bonus to camo +700
• Ascended Shadow now deals 25% damage to all non-Boss MOABs that spawn

Alchemist
Alchemist Transforming Tonic is in a weird spot with the transformation unable to attack through walls when the base alchemist is able to. Also with this, including a QoL fix for the T5 that currently prevents transformed towers from functioning with target priority.

• x4x Transforming Tonic transformed alchemist can now ignore line of sight
• x5x Total Transformation towers transformed by the x5x will keep their Target Priority

Druid
While the tornado doesn't do anything to MOABs, it still spends itself on them which wastes a relatively long cooldown, so addressing this flaw. Avatar of wrath doubles the base attack speed before any scaling is applied, but this hasn’t ever applied to the 205 Lightning, so taking care of that as well. Housekeeping - even deep in the forest, it does actually make life better.

• 3xx Druid of the Storm’s Tornado no longer targets MOAB-class Bloons
• x3x Druid of the Jungle no longer pops Lead Bloons without 130 crosspath
• x3x Jungle Vine follows target prio of tower instead of strong
• x3x Jungle Vine defaults tower to strong priority when purchased
• 205 Avatar of Wrath base Heart of Thunder attack rate increased 2.3s > 1.15

Spike Factory
We’ve heard the feedback, so Spiked Mines get a tweak to get more mines exploding but with less pierce on each, to overall increase quality of life in more frequent use but less wasted pierce. This will help out with some of the problems it has scaling into late game super ceramics.

• 4xx Spiked Mines pierce increased from 12 > 20
• 4xx Spiked Mines explosion pierce reduced from 40 > 30
• 4xx Spiked Mines DoT damage increased from 1 > 10
• 5xx Super Mines explosion pierce remains at 60
• 5xx Super Mines DoT damage increased from 1000 > 2500

Monkey Village
A minor QoL for cheap Monkeyopolis creation, we included a small base amount of cash production to the generation formula.

• xx5 Monkeyopolis income formula now includes a base +$2500 minimum

Engineer
The 005 crosspath fix in the last update left XXXL Trap slower than previously even if crosspathed to 205, so we are increasing that base 005 slightly to match up the 205 crosspath again so that it isn’t any slower than before.

• xx5 XXXL Trap attack cooldown reduced from 5.8s > 4.6

Beast Handler
As our newest tower to be added to BTD6, we went over feedback for every path and made a large number of adjustments addressing a variety of points.

• 3xx Great White thrash rate benefits from speed buffs
• 3xx Great White damage increased 4 > 8
• 3xx Great White max extra damage from merge increased 8 > 16
• 3xx Great White max attack rate buff from merge increased 0.20634 > 0.38
• 3xx Great White extra thrash knockback duration from merge increased 0.1 > 0.2
• 4xx Orca thrash damage increased 20 > 30
• 4xx Orca thrash max extra damage from merge increased 40 > 60
• 4xx Orca max attack rate buff from merge increased 0.37829 > 0.38
• 4xx Orca thrash radius increased 20 > 24
• 5xx Megalodon price reduced from 55,000 > 45,000
• 5xx Megalodon thrash radius increased 30 > 36
• 5xx & x5x Beast handler paths are now overclockable
• x4x and x5x Max Merge Bonus: Overkill damage on MOABs now distributes to the children of that target
• xx1 Gyrfalcon path deals +1 damage to Regrows to stop accidental infinite regrow farms
• xx3 Golden Eagle pierce increased 12 > 15
• xx3 Golden Eagle pierce range increased 24 > 30
• xx3 Golden Eagle ceramic pierce penalty reduced from +3 > 1
• xx3 Golden Eagle Max Merge Bonus: Now grabs MOABs with pierce penalty +14

Gwendolin
Removing the stacking aspect of Gwendolin’s burn damage over time, but increasing the damage as she levels up so that it actually scales up in power now.

• Lv6 Gwendonlin main attack DoT stack count 0 > 1
• Lv6 Gwendonlin main attack DoT damage increased from 1 > 2
• Lv9 Gwendonlin main attack DoT damage increased from 1 > 4
• Lv10 Gwendonlin main attack DoT damage now increases by 1 per additional level

Adora
While they are complicated individuals, Adora can now fully appreciate the sacrifice of the newest Monkeys in the struggle against the Bloons.

• Lv7 Blood Sacrifice can now be used on Beast Handlers

Admiral Brickell
We aren’t happy with strats that start looking like exploits with frequent sell-replace loops.

• Upon Selling Brickell - all of her placed Mines are now expired along with her as well

Psi
Psi’s stalling out of the end of round is an odd mix of useful / annoying / out of control, so we are for now capping this to a 3 seconds of overtime stalling. Psi’s Psychic Blast ability also has weirdly low pierce for a long cooldown ability with no damage, we are increasing the base pierce greatly but it no longer increases in pierce at Lv7 since the extra pulse brings more pierce anyway.

• If no Bloons are left unpopped on screen aside from ones Psi is currently holding & destroying, these Bloons will be destroyed after a maximum of 3 seconds
• Lv3 Psychic Blast pierce increased from 50 > 200
• Lv7 Psychic Blast pierce increased from 100 > 200

Event / Boss / Relic / Knowledge

• All Lych Soul variations can now be stunned/slowed by paragon tier upgrades

Looking Forward
Five months of 2023 done and dusted, which feels to us like it has zoomed by, perhaps because the Auckland office where the BTD6 team is based has only just reopened after the severe flooding at the end of January. All of Update 36 and the majority of Update 37 were completed while again working from home, but we’re very excited to have the office repairs done, the flood wall almost finished, and the ability to work shoulder to shoulder again on fun new things for the monkeyverse! Here’s the latest gaze into the crystal ball:

• Update 38 Key Content
  
  • New Boss - Phayze: another all new Boss concept and play style, not giving any other hints apart from the name itself
  • Summer fun: a new Brickell hero skin and a waterpark map aimed toward Intermediate to help keep northern hemisphere summer cool
  • Quests: continuing to build new quest system features and adding a few new Quests to the list
• Update 39 Key Content
  
  • Map Editor: under construction since last year with internal systems testing happening during 38.0 development, we are super excited to put map creation tools in player hands on as many platforms as possible when it goes live
  • New Hero - Spirit Walker: another unique design that we’re sandboxing already to make sure it has as much balance and art iteration as possible, again no hints other than the name
• Update 40 Key Content
  
  • New Paragon - Monkey Sub: we’ve tagged sub as the next Paragon, so tell the Navarch to stop hoarding all of the Portable Lakes!
  • Stretch Goals - Boss Rush Team Event and CT Themes: lots of unknowns 3 updates out but we have strong plans for a new Team event and new parameters for Contested Territory that will make each CT more dynamic - anything that we don’t get done by end of year will have strong groundwork for next year
• Console
  
  • Getting closer to submission on Xbox and PlayStation but this has been slow going. We’ve added another programmer and are working even more closely with platform partners to get through our last issues and launch as soon as possible, but that’s likely at least another 2 months. Switch is still a consideration depending on response to Xbox and PlayStation, as it will require additional bespoke development.

He spends 20 years in bed. 20 years.. Why won’t he get out of bed? Because the fucking floor was too cold for his gnarled old feet. He sat on his wrinkled, smelly ass for two decades, smoking his pipe, living off his daughter’s hard work as a laundry wench. He just sat there, undoubtedly smelling of foul cabbage farts and old man stink. If he didn’t get out of bed, he probably had to use a bed pan to expel his watery cabbage shits. Charlie’s mom gets done washing Rich people’s shit-stained underwear for 14 hours, and what does she get to do? Sponge bathe an old, stinking man. The fucker couldn’t have even been old when he first got in bed. I mean, what did he do? Turn 50 and just crawl into bed and fucking quit on life? Because his FEET WERE COLD?
Keep that all in mind, when you consider how he reacts to his grandson winning a tour of a chocolate factory. He sees this precious boy, who works to feed his aged ass, holding a golden ticket, and he starts to FUCKING DANCE AND CLICK HIS HEELS.
Now, left to his own devices, Charlie just wins the factory, incident free. Those other little monsters all bite the dust, and but for that sack of fucking feces Grandpa Joe, Charlie would have made it through the day clean as a whistle.
But no. Grandpa Joe just got out of bed for the first time in Charlie’s lifetime. What’s he decide to do? Steal. He decides the best thing he can do is make his grandson into a petty fucking thief for the sake of drinking magic La Croix.
Grandpa Joe almost cost Charlie fabulous wealth and security for a soda. And he isn’t even sorry about it. Wonka points out the devastation his detour from the visit to the factory will cost him, and Grandpa Joe shouts at him. His bellowing isn’t even forceful or intimidating. His cries are the cries of a shriveled, weak old coward. He has no remorse for the harm he causes anyone. He is a heartless piece of shit sociopath. He does that disgusting thing old people do where they leave their mouth open for too long and then frown because they ran out of energy before they could bitch and moan about something that doesn’t matter. He is a lazy, fraudulent sack of human excrement. He is the devil on his grandson’s shoulder.
He deserves to burn in hell for the rest of eternity.

Humans are not the fastest, not the strongest, not the most durable, or even the smartest race. They do not proliferate quickly, live very venerably, or evolve rapidly at will. They variously track higher on all of those scales, certainly making them one of the most formidable species among the stars, but none of that is what makes them the most terrifying predators in the known universe.
As humans would put it, the six sensory groups are touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing, and place. There are many many more specific senses of course, but each is a subset of one of those, such as a sense of temperature being part of touch, or the sense of motion being part of place. There is however a seventh sense that all humans possess and only humans possess: Precognition.
Several thousand cycles ago, a ship of the Tlygot was investigating the human home world long before they came to be and found many species of similar build to modern humans proliferating across the planet. They were all variations of the same evolutionary line, but not quite sentient. Seeing potential to corral them into a docile, slave race they collected a few specimens to see which genetic variations had the most desirable traits and began experimenting with the Terran genome.
They wanted a race capable enough to complete nearly any task they might be assigned, but not innately intelligent enough to defy their masters. They removed genetic markers for dangerous traits like claws and fangs, and then crippled their infants to prevent escapees from becoming invasive to the local environments wherever they may be. As fits the Tlygot reputation, it was masterful bioengineering, but there was a single flaw. One of the newly spawned hominids possessed a genetic mutation that seemingly gave them the ability to predict future events. This was not immediately apparent to the Tlygot, and all evidence had been written off simply as savantism. As such, the Tlygot release the first humans to their homeworld to reproduce and eventually become a valuable source of labor amongst the galaxy once they’d reached significant enough numbers to collect.
Following their standard procedure for such ventures, the Tlygot left the world under the eye of an AI meant only to alert them of anything that might spoil their investment. A few hundred cycles later they were alerted that the planet had begun to show signs of civilization which should never have occurred. Assuming another race had missed, or more likely ignored, their claim to the planet, they returned with a small task force of assault craft should they need to deal with them aggressively. Instead they found that their creations had spread across the globe and advanced far faster than even the most intelligent known sentients would have in that time. Still primitive and restricted to simple wood and stone, but a dangerous development nonetheless.
As per galactic treatise, no species may subjugate or enslave another without formal declaration of war, requiring witnesses from at least three non-party races. As an uncontacted race would have no representation, the war could not be approved by the Assembly. This was a problem for the Tlygot because, before bioengineering, the various species of the world had been pre-sentient; therefore outside jurisdiction of the treatise. A clearly sentient species however could not be enslaved, and furthermore, resource rights to the entire local cluster would be lost.
Attempting to hide their mistake before it was made known to the wider galaxy, the Tlygot had their assault craft divert an asteroid to strike the planet in an attempt to wipe the slate clean. The impact caused massive climate change across the biosphere that decimated the populations of all life on the planet, but unexpectedly enough humans survived to not only replenish their numbers, but allow them to advance further still. The Tlygot tried again by setting off a super volcano, and both again, watching the evidence each time they returned and witnessed as the humans somehow managed to predict what decisions would lead to another advancement. Even lacking the Tlygot's own genetic memory traits, they passed their knowledge on to subsequent generations despite the crippling of their young. It was in the young that they found the truth of their mistake.
Lacking the physical ability necessary to survive in any capacity for the first several cycles, the species had adapted to continue development of the brain far beyond infancy. Particularly the enlarged frontal cortex. This has been well documented to be the origin of sentience, or at least its equivalent in other species. All sentient species in the galaxy evolved as predators due to the increased need for the brain to predict the actions of its prey and prepare the appropriate reaction. This would eventually lead to planning and reasoning and the building blocks of sentience. Humans have a frontal cortex so highly developed that what most species would take rotations to calculate and predict, they can often do off handed in moments. While most species could not develop any feasible ranged weapons of war until the development of advanced mathematics, humans could sling stones at avion prey while in motion and predicted where large beasts would flee over long distances, all before they had even invented clothing.
For the Tlygot, the species they had created was beginning to become too expensive to hide and while resetting a biosphere was doable without being noticed on the galactic stage, destroying one would be troubling to say the least; but better to lose a single planet than the entire cluster. The Tlygot with their final attempt decided to crash a comet into the planet's moon on a path that would then in turn cause the moon to collide with the planet. Gravity tugs were dispatched to gradually curve the comet into a collision course to better avoid any unexpected witnesses. As if by cosmic coincidence, the new path accidentally converged with a major hyper lane and an antimatter fuel ship collided with it, destroying both of them along with many more; and slingshotting the situation to the forefront of the galaxy's awareness.
The debacle immediately cost the Tlygot much more than they would have ever lost had they simply openly admitted to everything from the start. The Tlygot were immediately sanctioned and the entire sector of space around the Human homeworld was quarantined while the Galactic Assembly reviewed the records turned over by the Tlygot. The ruling against them for the destruction of the fuel ship and cascading damage to everything within 500 stellar units along the hyperlane was damning. They were forced to inevitably sell themselves into indentured servitude to pay off the debt that could never be repaid.
While the Assembly prioritized matters of blame and repayment, the matter of the fledgling sapients at the center of the events was entirely overlooked. After all, new sapients blinked in and out of existence frequently, and few ever advanced far enough to even be worth contacting. Those that did, took millions of cycles to stumble into electricity let alone any form of communication that could be interpreted into galactic common. They had expected to have ages to come back to the small world, after they settled the financial matters first. The quarantine enacted after the hyperlane disaster had left their corner of the galaxy practically uninhabited and untouched, and with the cloud of antimatter blocking the hyperlane, it stayed that way until the Assembly ordered a proper clean up.
By the time the Tlygot’s sentence was carried out, the Galactic Assembly found themselves facing an entirely different monster than had ever been expected. The humans had advanced. They had advanced into a thriving interstellar civilization. Not just one civilization either, but several independent states of their own. Their ability to predict possible futures inevitably gave way to the means of creating said futures. While every sentient race was capable of planning and devising new means of accomplishing goals, they did so out of immediate need or convenience. None did so with the foresight of humanity.
The disastrous antimatter explosion that ravaged the hyperlane and facilitated the human’s isolation didn’t go undetected by them. Their primitive detection systems registered the energy release and caught their attention like lightning to an iron rod. The whole of humanity suddenly became aware that they were not only not alone, but that they had been in the direct path of imminent destruction. They leapt forward into the stars with all their intuition, which they had mistaken for imagination and ingenuity.
They imagined reviving the reassembled dead with lightning and manufactured their medicine into defibrillation and artificial organs. They imagined being able to fly like insects and avians and navigated their means of transit to hypersonic jet propulsion. They imagined statues that could think and function autonomously and fabricated their machinations into robotics and cybernetics. They imagined harnessing the power of stars and delineated the secrets of fusion power. They imagined faster than light travel and illuminated their physics to the warping of space and time. They imagined instantaneous communication and compiled quantum mechanics into the creation of an ansible.
It was the humans who made first contact with the Galactic Assembly, much to the shock of every other sapient race. Humanity had used its time to not only advance to a level of technology almost on par with the Assembly, but had predicted where and how to communicate with them once the cleanup of the hyperlane was underway. As far as the rest of the galaxy was concerned, a new galactic power emerged from the aether overnight. A power that proved proficiency in nearly everything they came in contact with. Anything humans didn’t know, they quickly figured out; and anything they couldn’t do, they quickly made something to do it for them.
In physical ability they were certainly not the strongest or the fastest, they didn’t have the most powerful weapons and armor, and there were ships far larger and more advanced; but all of that counts for little in combat if your opponent knows what you are going to do before you do. Even more so if your opponent is the one who planned for you to do it. Their ability to predict what others might do and what events might unfold was so ingrained in their society that their most simple spawnling games involve divining where their opponents might hide from a predator.
By adolescence most were already so proficient in prediction that they played dozens of advanced simulations that follow various sets of goals and restrictions involving everything from combat and commerce to technological development and social engineering. They even bestowed the title of Grand Master to those so proficient in their clairvoyance that their greatest competition wasn’t each other, but advanced artificial intelligences that could calculate every possible move faster than their own minds.
Humans were the most cunning diplomats and merchants because they could guess how far to negotiate before settling any deal. Humans made the best security forces because before danger they always felt their hair “stand up”. Humans seemingly avoided disasters and created miracles seemingly on a whim based on nothing more than a “gut feeling”. Humans navigated the ins and outs of societal norms and taboos simply by feeling “the vibe”. Even works of art or ability they themselves deemed masterful were often attributed to simply being “in the zone”.
In the span of only a few Human centuries, the new galactic standard of time, humanity had seemingly conquered all of known space simply by existing. They may have been products of the Tlygot’s less than savory business practices, but even they were freed by their creation as the humans saw no need to enslave what could be just as easily guided to a better future.
A future of their own design.

The best way to bring down a drone – not with a skeet-shooting mentality, says Oleg Vornik, CEO of Sydney-based DorneShield, Counter-drone Defense solutions company. That’s fine for the sporting field, but it’s a whole different world when it comes to protecting politicians, stadiums, and combat patrols.
“It’s the most natural question people ask,” Vornik says. “The answer is it’s very difficult to do. You have a small object, perhaps as big as a dinner plate, blending in against a complex background or a similar colour to the sky. And it’s moving erratically.”
The builder of drone tracking and disabling technology says he’s seen trained military personnel fire dozens of shots trying to bring down a drone just 30 metres away.
“Those bullets are going to land somewhere. So you’re going to have collateral damage”.
Mostly drones are helpful tools or enjoyable pastimes, but they can also be unwanted spies in the sky, delivery devices for acts of terrorism, or – as in Ukraine – front-line combatants.
Countering them (c-uas), says Vornik, is a complex equation of risk against reward, and cost versus return.
“If you’re a military base, chances are you want to take down the drone as fast as possible,” says Vornik. But using a $150,000 shoulder-launched Stinger anti-aircraft missile against a $1500 off-the-shelf drone isn’t economically viable.
“If you’re a prison, for example, we don’t recommend you take it down,” he adds. “That’s a temporary solution. But if you track in real time where it lands, who picks up its package and who’s controlling it, you can solve the whole crime in one hit”.

Battle of attrition

Sci-fi-inspired ideas of flashing lasers, darting interceptor drones and radar-guided slugs are often the first thoughts that come to mind to defeat swarms of cheap, nimble opponents. But there are practical, real-world issues to consider, says Vornik.
“With lasers, it’s like a naughty child trying to burn ants with a magnifying glass,” he says. “The ant is running for its life, and the kid has to try and hold it in the focal point long enough to have an effect. And what if there are five ants? It’s actually very, very difficult”.
Miss in a stadium, and you may take out the eye of a sports fan. Miss on the battlefield, and you may blind a friendly satellite far beyond your target.
And any laser-based weapon system needs large power generators, complex lenses, and a high-resolution targeting system to put – and keep – the narrow beam on target.
“I think lasers definitely have a place,” he says. “But most lasers today are the size of a car. They’re very expensive. They may be effective against missiles, but swarms of small drones are another matter altogether”.
The proliferation of such commercially-available devices is forcing militaries and governments to rethink their policies.
“Drones are so ubiquitous,” he says. “They can be everywhere. But if you’ve only got five exquisitely effective systems to respond with, then your response is crippled from the start.”

Freeze, then drop

Unlike lasers, radiofrequency jamming devices can be small, portable, and energy efficient.
They “fire” beams of radio waves over a distance measured in “multiples” of kilometres (the actual ranges remain an operational secret). Each beam, like that of a searchlight, can catch more than one drone in its “glare”. The drones lose contact with their controllers.
“The jamming effect is instantaneous,” Vornik says.
Drones flying on autopilot must access satellite GPS navigation signals or electronic beacons. “These can be disabled using our jammers”.
And holding the beam on them longer magnifies the effect.
“It will freeze a drone,” Vornik adds. “It will put it on the ground”.
Such DroneShield systems neutralised four suspicious devices amid the tens of thousands of people attending the inauguration ceremony of Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in January this year.

Sense and sensibility

Vornik says his business started in 2015, using acoustic sensors to detect and isolate the sound of drones.
“The problems were numerous,” he says. “The most obvious is that it’s very imprecise. And it can be saturated in a noisy environment like an airfield or stadium”.
Radar, at first glance, appeared to be an obvious alternative.
But when it comes to areas with lots of moving objects – such as forests, fields and football fields – it’s almost impossible to discriminate between a flitting bird, a meandering cow, a frantic fan and a low-flying drone.
“So we came up with the hand-held radio frequency sensor,” Vornik says. “It’s basically identifying the uplinks and downlink signals between the drone and the controller. The flight telemetry. The video feeds.”
Such transmissions can be triangulated at distances of multiple kilometres. And their details are assembled via software, overlaid on digital maps, and displayed on portable devices.
“Radiofrequency is a complex sensor to develop but fairly cost-effective to build,” says Vornik.

Develop, react, adapt

“To counter cheap, disposable drones, you need to have not-quite disposable but very cheap drone countermeasures. Counter-drone systems you can make and use on a similar scale,” says Vornik.
Drones must then be shielded to defeat RF jamming. That could involve anything from expensive gold foil, casings of thick aluminium plates, or satellite-grade radiation-hardened computer chips. Navigation and communications equipment must also be more powerful, complex, and resilient. This, in turn, means more powerful engines and batteries are needed to carry all the extra weight.
Such an arms race puts cheap, off-the-shelf drones at the bottom of the heap.
DroneShield’s portable RF solutions are easy to handle. They have few moving parts and carry the same standardised rechargeable high-capacity batteries used in other military devices, such as night vision goggles, radios and portable computers.
“We build them to use as little energy as possible,” says Vornik. “We don’t even do little coloured screens because they consume more energy and drain batteries faster”.
Each RF jammer carries enough power for a day’s worth of use and spare batteries can be easily carried.
And the portable drone detectors are passive, meaning they emit no signals. Radars, for example, rely on bouncing radio waves off objects to “see” them. But those same radio waves reveal the transmitter’s location.
“With radiofrequency, you’re invisible until you choose to light up your jammer,” Vornik explains. “And then you will want to move pretty quickly to avoid a responsive artillery strike if you’re fighting a near-peer adversary like in Ukraine.”

Nobody gets anywhere by themselves. “Self-made” people often fail to list the help they had along their path, even if it was small.
Your parents are hurting you. They diminish your achievements, they make you feel less than, they treat your younger sister like shes the golden child right in front of you while simultaneously disregarding you. Every day, I half expect to hear something they did or said to you that hurt you, and every time I try to talk to you about staying at my house until you get on your own two feet, you shoot it down immediately and lie to me saying, “Its okay. I’m okay. It’s not that bad.”
It is that bad. Its worse actually.
I just wish I understood why you want to get out of your parents house the hard way. You can stay here until you have enough money to get the best place for you. You wouldn’t be moving in permanently. Everyone in this house absolutely adores you. We all want you here so bad, I want you here so bad it just hurts that you shut me down every time I bring it up just so you can wait and get hurt by them more.
I know they’re your parents, and I know they hate me, and I know they probably won’t talk to you if you did it but would that be such a bad thing? You’re convinced that ANY relationship is better than none but at what cost? Your mental health? Mine, while I watch them do all of these things to you?
Don’t you think God makes the right answer easy sometimes? I just wish I knew why you wanted to take the hard way.

I'm likely also going to post my overall itinerary for review in a travel-based subreddit, but I am hoping that some natives can chime in on if my rough itinerary for my San Francisco portion of my trip makes sense... in terms of distances, grouping things together, how much time things take, etc.
I've already done a ton of research, but this is part of a bigger overall trip and the first time I've ever planned such a trip myself in detail.
Suggestions for where to go (and where not to go!) are most welcome. :) I will be going in July. This will be my first time to SF. I am trying to be frugal where possible, but not so cheap as to miss doing stuff completely.
Tuesday:

• Fly in
• Drop bags off at lodgings
• Chinatown (Fortune Cookie Factory + Dim Sum Bistro for lunch)
• Cable Car Museum
• Antique Vibrator Museum
• Paxton Gate & Pirate Supply Store
• Peephole Cinema (closed?)
• Dinner at Tacos El Patron

Wednesday:

• Breakfast at lodgings
• Pier 39 (exact activities here TBD)
• Lunch (seafood?)
• Alcatraz tour (unsure about day vs night tour at this point)
• Big Bus Tour (mostly to see Golden Gate Bridge, not hugely interested in walking it)
• Dinner (possibly cheap food back at lodgings)

Thursday:

• Breakfast at lodgings
• Golden Gate Park (Botanical Gardens, Sky Wheel, Japanese Garden)
• Lunch at Japanese Tea House
• Land's End + Sutro Baths
• Legion of Honor
• Dinner (possibly cheap food back at lodgings)
• Exploratorium or Atrium in evening

Friday:

• Breakfast at lodgings
• Bus to San Jose
• Pick up rental car
• Slate Creek via Portola Redwoods State Park (original plan was Muir Woods but that's going to be too crowded and the other options I eyed are already reserved in the permitting system)
• Lunch and dinner at camp

Saturday:

• Breakfast at camp
• Local hiking in park?
• Lunch while hiking or in/near San Jose
• At some point drive back to San Jose
• Drop car off by 8PM to leave SF

I only moved here 3 weeks ago and started my job like 9 days ago but I'm already feeling insanely depressed and lonely. Actually I was already feeling sad by day 2! I have a roommate (rented room in house) but they have zero desire to talk to me and she and her boyfriend keep to themselves. Work is already tiring despite me still being in the training stage, and I have to keep a smile on my face even though no one seems to want to talk to me at work and networking makes me want to puke from anxiety. I've never been so alone before since even in college I commuted and lived with my parents.
I also didn't think I'd miss my home so much. Home life wasn't that great, my dad is not a nice drunk, but he was familiar, and loving and attentive otherwise. Most of all, it was familiar, and it had a lot of things (like supplies) that I didn't even know I needed. It seems like every day I discover something else I don't have that I need to go out and buy. I feel like I am spending so much as it is.
Also I started feeling even more depressed after I made about the worst dinner possible. I got sick of eating pasta and salad and sandwiches so I made myself a stir fry except I put too much spice so I can't even eat it. So now I feel stupid and incompetent. Also the area I moved to is extremely different from my hometown, so I'm not as familiar with the different spices and foods here, so I'm trying to stick with what I know which is...not a lot. I didn't realize how much groceries costed if you want to eat different things every day and now I feel like I'm either going to gain or lose fifty pounds. I am a big foodie and love all sorts of foods that require more diverse ingredients, but the closest grocery store is small and bad which just makes me even more depressed.
I can't imagine doing this for the rest of my life. My workplace is depressing, it looks kinda nice but it's all just rows and rows of cubicles. And everyone is colorless and unfriendly.
Ok honestly from an outside perspective it's not even bad. The people aren't actually that bad, my workplace is technically nice, the area is boring and kinda small but it's not ugly and has many pretty trees. I just think I would die doing this for the rest of my life, and I probably will since I don't want to starve and I'm paying for everything on my own
Oh and to add -- I have been meeting people. I have gone out like 15 times with several different people already because I downloaded a dating app and even Bumble BFF. But this meaningless stream of socialization is making me feel worse... I feel okay for a bit when I am talking to people and then numb again after

Obviously it's still really early.
Bur I will update this as I go along. I arrived at PDX in Portland on the afternoon of Sunday June 4th. I had not planned on renting a car for this week, but instead using Uber.
Well mid day on a Sunday Uber was a minimum of $68.00 usd. Doing some quick math and realizing that is equivalent to a full tank of fuel for my four door Jeep Wrangler I opted out. I asked one of the airport help people if there was a restaurant or lounge I could sit in and wait for high time to go down. Now I realize, but the time I order a meal and fries, I'd have probably made up the difference in cost anyway, but for me it was a matter of principal. They airport man suggested the train, which is $1.25 for half a day or $2.50 for a full day. I took the train as it was scenic.
After a 45 minute journey, I arrived at my hotel, Hotel Roae by Stay Pineapple. It's pretty cute and everything has a pineapple theme. 🍍 They allow dogs if you have a furry companion to join you. My room wasn't ready immediately so they held my bags and I went exploring. I went to the Portland City Rose Festival across the street. It was $15.00, entry with re-entry allowed. Lots of carnival food so instead I went to Paddy's Pub for nachos, they weren't great and the service was soso. Honestly I think I'd have enjoyed the carnival food more.
Later on I went for a walk and took some photos. Went to the Target and bought myself some yogurt, milk for tea, and drinks. I had dinner at Hubers, the oldest Cafe in Portland, the service was wonderful, the waiter was friendly and made brilliant recommendations. I had an American Style Thanks Giving Dinner, not what I am used to, but so yummy! Also bread with butter, a coffee and brownie fot dessert. Now I don't know about Texas, but based on this brownie, they're much bigger in Portland!
The next day, Monday June 5th, I had my 09:00am pre op with Dr Thomas. I finally met Estelle and Jonica, now I've seen them both and can pick up on the differences in their voice, I know who is who! Dr Thomas was really nice. I can see how some people might not click with him, but I totally did. I think it's because he is a very analytical and scientific person. I appreciated his honestly and bluntness. I definitely feel he was the right choice. The office is so cute and has plants so felt right at home. These clinical, white marble floors lab places make me feel like I'm in a Resident Evil film.. Not the games but the films. ("She's mutating, I want her in the Nemesis Program.") Sorry I'm a nerd.
So, following pre op I had breakfast, then went to my hotel to wash my hair and do my make up. I then went exploring I met loads of people I chatted to, I love how friendly people are here.
By 7:00 my friend and care giver while surgery is happening arrived. We put his bag in the hotel and then got dinner. Buffalo Wild Wings, because it shut down where we live. The service was.. not great. After that we went to the hotel, cleaned up and slept.
Then today, Tusaday June 6th we Uber to the Wilshire Surgery Centre, it felt like it was over in a jiffy, now I just cannot talk for two weeks.
More to come soon!

Obviously it's still really early.
Bur I will update this as I go along. I arrived at PDX in Portland on the afternoon of Sunday June 4th. I had not planned on renting a car for this week, but instead using Uber.
Well mid day on a Sunday Uber was a minimum of $68.00 usd. Doing some quick math and realizing that is equivalent to a full tank of fuel for my four door Jeep Wrangler I opted out. I asked one of the airport help people if there was a restaurant or lounge I could sit in and wait for high time to go down. Now I realize, but the time I order a meal and fries, I'd have probably made up the difference in cost anyway, but for me it was a matter of principal. They airport man suggested the train, which is $1.25 for half a day or $2.50 for a full day. I took the train as it was scenic.
After a 45 minute journey, I arrived at my hotel, Hotel Roae by Stay Pineapple. It's pretty cute and everything has a pineapple theme. 🍍 They allow dogs if you have a furry companion to join you. My room wasn't ready immediately so they held my bags and I went exploring. I went to the Portland City Rose Festival across the street. It was $15.00, entry with re-entry allowed. Lots of carnival food so instead I went to Paddy's Pub for nachos, they weren't great and the service was soso. Honestly I think I'd have enjoyed the carnival food more.
Later on I went for a walk and took some photos. Went to the Target and bought myself some yogurt, milk for tea, and drinks. I had dinner at Hubers, the oldest Cafe in Portland, the service was wonderful, the waiter was friendly and made brilliant recommendations. I had an American Style Thanks Giving Dinner, not what I am used to, but so yummy! Also bread with butter, a coffee and brownie fot dessert. Now I don't know about Texas, but based on this brownie, they're much bigger in Portland!
The next day, Monday June 5th, I had my 09:00am pre op with Dr Thomas. I finally met Estelle and Jonica, now I've seen them both and can pick up on the differences in their voice, I know who is who! Dr Thomas was really nice. I can see how some people might not click with him, but I totally did. I think it's because he is a very analytical and scientific person. I appreciated his honestly and bluntness. I definitely feel he was the right choice. The office is so cute and has plants so felt right at home. These clinical, white marble floors lab places make me feel like I'm in a Resident Evil film.. Not the games but the films. ("She's mutating, I want her in the Nemesis Program.") Sorry I'm a nerd.
So, following pre op I had breakfast, then went to my hotel to wash my hair and do my make up. I then went exploring I met loads of people I chatted to, I love how friendly people are here.
By 7:00 my friend and care giver while surgery is happening arrived. We put his bag in the hotel and then got dinner. Buffalo Wild Wings, because it shut down where we live. The service was.. not great. After that we went to the hotel, cleaned up and slept.
Then today, Tusaday June 6th we Uber to the Wilshire Surgery Centre, it felt like it was over in a jiffy, now I just cannot talk for two weeks.
More to come soon!

Obviously it's still really early.
Bur I will update this as I go along. I arrived at PDX in Portland on the afternoon of Sunday June 4th. I had not planned on renting a car for this week, but instead using Uber.
Well mid day on a Sunday Uber was a minimum of $68.00 usd. Doing some quick math and realizing that is equivalent to a full tank of fuel for my four door Jeep Wrangler I opted out. I asked one of the airport help people if there was a restaurant or lounge I could sit in and wait for high time to go down. Now I realize, but the time I order a meal and fries, I'd have probably made up the difference in cost anyway, but for me it was a matter of principal. They airport man suggested the train, which is $1.25 for half a day or $2.50 for a full day. I took the train as it was scenic.
After a 45 minute journey, I arrived at my hotel, Hotel Roae by Stay Pineapple. It's pretty cute and everything has a pineapple theme. 🍍 They allow dogs if you have a furry companion to join you. My room wasn't ready immediately so they held my bags and I went exploring. I went to the Portland City Rose Festival across the street. It was $15.00, entry with re-entry allowed. Lots of carnival food so instead I went to Paddy's Pub for nachos, they weren't great and the service was soso. Honestly I think I'd have enjoyed the carnival food more.
Later on I went for a walk and took some photos. Went to the Target and bought myself some yogurt, milk for tea, and drinks. I had dinner at Hubers, the oldest Cafe in Portland, the service was wonderful, the waiter was friendly and made brilliant recommendations. I had an American Style Thanks Giving Dinner, not what I am used to, but so yummy! Also bread with butter, a coffee and brownie fot dessert. Now I don't know about Texas, but based on this brownie, they're much bigger in Portland!
The next day, Monday June 5th, I had my 09:00am pre op with Dr Thomas. I finally met Estelle and Jonica, now I've seen them both and can pick up on the differences in their voice, I know who is who! Dr Thomas was really nice. I can see how some people might not click with him, but I totally did. I think it's because he is a very analytical and scientific person. I appreciated his honestly and bluntness. I definitely feel he was the right choice. The office is so cute and has plants so felt right at home. These clinical, white marble floors lab places make me feel like I'm in a Resident Evil film.. Not the games but the films. ("She's mutating, I want her in the Nemesis Program.") Sorry I'm a nerd.
So, following pre op I had breakfast, then went to my hotel to wash my hair and do my make up. I then went exploring I met loads of people I chatted to, I love how friendly people are here.
By 7:00 my friend and care giver while surgery is happening arrived. We put his bag in the hotel and then got dinner. Buffalo Wild Wings, because it shut down where we live. The service was.. not great. After that we went to the hotel, cleaned up and slept.
Then today, Tusaday June 6th we Uber to the Wilshire Surgery Centre, it felt like it was over in a jiffy, now I just cannot talk for two weeks.
More to come soon!