Guess Brand Quotes

True saddness is when someone still thinks your the same person after all these years. They brand you because of their own ego, fear and lack of spirituality. What's sadder is when they are Christian.

Adam is Dark Fae. His brands are fully developed now. He's your familiar, so my guess is that you are as well, which means I'm your Prince fucking Charming.” His eyes sparkled mischievously.

If the right person tells a story, I guess it doesn't matter how many times you've heard it. Your heart still hears it brand new

When I was a boy in the midwest I used to go out and look at the stars at night and wonder about them. I guess every boy does that. When I wasn't looking at the stars, I was running in the my old or my brand-new tennis shoes, on my way to swing in a tree, swim in a lake, or delve in the town library to read about dinosaurs or time machines. I guess every boy has done that, too. This is a book about those stars and those tennis shoes. Mainly about the stars, beacuse that is the way I grew up, getting more and more involved with rockets and space as I moved toward my twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years. Not that I have forgotten the tennis shoes and their powerful magic, as you will see in the last story here, which I have included not because it concerns the future, but because it gives you some sort of idea of the kind of boy I was when I was looking at the stars and thinking of the years ahead. Nor have I forgetten the dinosaurs that all boys love; they are here, too, along with a machine that travels back in time to step on a butterfly. This is a book then by a boy who grew up in a small illinois town and lived to see the space age arrive, as he hoped and dreamt it would. I dedicate these stories to all boys who wonder about the past, run swiftly in the present, and have high hopes for our future. The stars are yours, if you have the head, the hands, and the heart for them.

Billy lit a cigarette with a brand from the fire and laid the brand back He smoked. It looks a lot better from up here than it doesn down there, dont it? Yes. It does. There's a lot of things look better at a distance. Yeah? I think so. I guess there are. The life you've lived, for one. Yeah. Maybe what of it you aint lived yet, too.

I need you, Teft,” Kaladin said. “I said—” “Not your food. You. Your loyalty. Your allegiance.” The older man continued to eat. He didn’t have a slave brand, and neither did Rock. Kaladin didn’t know their stories. All he knew was that these two had helped when others hadn’t. They weren’t completely beaten down. “Teft—” Kaladin began. “I’ve given my loyalty before,” the man said. “Too many times now. Always works out the same.” “Your trust gets betrayed?” Kaladin asked softly. Teft snorted. “Storms, no. I betray it. You can’t depend on me, son. I belong here, as a bridgeman.” “I depended on you yesterday, and you impressed me.” “Fluke.” “I’ll judge that,” Kaladin said. “Teft, we’re all broken, in one way or another. Otherwise we wouldn’t be bridgemen. I’ve failed. My own brother died because of me.” “So why keep caring?” “It’s either that or give up and die.” “And if death is better?” It came back to this problem. This was why the bridgemen didn’t care if he helped the wounded or not. “Death isn’t better,” Kaladin said, looking Teft in the eyes. “Oh, it’s easy to say that now. But when you stand on the ledge and look down into that dark, endless pit, you change your mind. Just like Hobber did. Just like I’ve done.” He hesitated, seeing something in the older man’s eyes. “I think you’ve seen it too.” “Aye,” Teft said softly. “Aye, I have.” “So, are you with us in this thing?” Rock said, squatting down. Us? Kaladin thought, smiling faintly. Teft looked back and forth between the two of them. “I get to keep my food?” “Yes,” Kaladin said. Teft shrugged. “All right then, I guess. Can’t be any harder than sitting here and having a staring contest with mortality.

I guess the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I was already a weary connoisseur of my dad’s pornography and had begun to develop my almost supernatural ability for guessing women’s bra sizes.

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars... And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined our street... Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper... And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird... And Janie... And Janie... And... Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday.

Forced socialization with adults I don’t like is its own special brand of torture, and I guess there are limits to what I’ll do for my kid.

It's been the longest time Since I've been in this place, Where I spend my whole day Hoping I'll see your face. Then I script things to say, And maybe what you'd say back. You don't know it yet, But, girl, it's a fact That I can see us Staying up late, Talking all night, But I guess I'll have to wait. 'Cause it's brand-new, Yeah, I know we just met. I want to be there with you, But not just yet. Girl, you've got that look, Like you're hard to impress. So I'm bumbling with words, 'Cause my mind is a mess. You were out of the blue And you caught me by surprise, With a slight smile, that long stare, And a challenge in your eyes I could feel all this In that single look, Like you could see my soul. You could read me like a book, And I think it's something. Though I know we just met, I'm gonna get there with you. You just don't know it ... yet.

@mink: Guess what I got in the mail today? A brand-new copy of The Philadelphia Story. @alex: Nice! Love that movie. We should watch that together sometime if I can find a copy. @mink: Definitely. It’s one of my favorite Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn films! @alex: Well, in other good news, since I know you LOVE gangster movies so much [insert sarcasm here], I just sent you a ton of Godfather screens with Alex-ified captions, changing things up for you. @mink: I’m looking at them right now. You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you? @alex: Only if you do. @mink: You made orange juice go up my nose. @alex: That’s all I ever wanted, Mink.

The blouse was an even better deal,” Barb continued. “It’s Guess brand, originally seventy-nine dollars, but I got it at T.J. Maxx for eighteen.” “Wow,” Corrina said. “Every time I go there, I never see anything like that.” “Well, you gotta know when to go to these places.

Me, I’m my own brand of perfect, I guess. The kind that has to work a little harder than everyone else.

So let me guess,” Casey said. “You have also failed to read Harry Potter.” I nodded. Casey collapsed against the nearest wall like he’d been shot. “Must...get...help...

Rory’s Rules of Alchemy The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. Don’t design for average. It doesn’t pay to be logical if everyone else is being logical. The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience. A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget. The problem with logic is that it kills off magic. A good guess which stands up to observation is still science. So is a lucky accident. Test counterintuitive things only because no one else will. Solving problems using rationality is like playing golf with only one club. Dare to be trivial. If there were a logical answer, we would have found it.

Much worse is to be paralyzed by fear of failure. Society tends to evaluate us based solely on visible results. At times, I even sense an air of intolerance toward failure. No one wants to be branded as a failure. We hear adults belittle kids, saying they have no talent and so should give up and face reality, or that they'll fail no matter what, so they might as well not even try. Who wouldn't second-guess themselves if told something like that?

there's a part in the essay that kind of does this academic "Let's unpack the idea of Lynchian and what Lynchian means is something about the unbelievably grotesque existing in a kind of union with the unbelievably banal," and then it gives a series of scenarios about what -- what is and what isn't Lynchian. Jeffrey Dahmer was borderline Lynchian...what was Lynchian was having the actual food products next to the disembodied bits of the corpse. I guess the big one is, you know, a regular domestic murder is not Lynchian. But if the man -- if the police come to the scene and see the man standing over the body and the woman -- let's see, the woman's '50s bouffant is undisturbed and the man and the cops have this conversation about the fact that the man killed the woman because she persistently refused to buy, say, for instance, Jif peanut butter rather than Skippy, and how very, very important that is, and if the cops found themselves somehow agreeing that there were major differences between the brands and that a wife who didn't recognize those differences was deficient in her wifely duties, that would be Lynchian -- this weird confluence of very dark, surreal, violent stuff and absolute, almost Norman Rockwell, banal, American stuff, which is terrain he's been working for quite a while -- I mean, at least since -- at least since "Blue Velvet.

I have it so good. So absurdly, improbably good. I didn't do anything to deserve it, but I have it. I'm healthy. I've never gone hungry. And yes, to answer your question, I'm- I'm loved. I lived in a beautiful place, did meaningful work. The world we made out there, Mosscap, it's- it's nothing like what your originals left. It's a good world, a beautiful world. It's not perfect, but we've fixed it so much. We made a good place, struck a good balance. And yet every fucking day in the City, I woke up hollow, and... and just... tired, y'know? So, I did something else instead. I packed up everything, and I learned a brand-new thing from scratch, and gods, I worked hard for it. I worked really hard. I thought, if I can just do that, if I can do it well, I'll feel okay. And guess what? I do do it well. I'm good at what I do. I make people happy. I make people feel better. And yet I still wake up tired, like... like something's missing. I tried talking to friends, and family, and nobody got it, so I stopped bringing it up, and then I stopped talking to them altogether, because I couldn't explain, and I was tired of pretending like everything was fine. I went to doctors, to make sure I wasn't sick and that my head was okay. I read books and monastic texts and everything I could find. I threw myself into my work, I went to all the places that used to inspire me, I listened to music and looked at art, I exercised and had sex and got plenty of sleep and ate my vegetables, and still. Still. Something is missing. Something is off. So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?

If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov, who spent all their time guessing what would happen in twenty, thirty, or forty years, had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed with iron rings; that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the ‘secret brand’); that a man’s genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov’s plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums.

Love is un-natural. Do any of these traits come naturally? Granted, we know how to turn them all on when we’re winning and wooing. But love does not sustain itself naturally. What come naturally are passion, lust, chemistry, and that “can’t wait to get you alone” feeling. But over time, all of that is eventually squashed by our unbridled, selfish, self-preserving natures. The brand of love Paul describes is a nonnegotiable for those desiring to sustain the chemistry and romance that make the early days of a relationship so exhilarating. Romance is sustained by patience, kindness, humility, and a short memory. While none of those things come naturally, every one of them is necessary. Otherwise our wounds, insecurities, and parental implants will become the driving forces and send the relationship in a bad direction. When that happens, good-bye, chemistry. Good-bye, romance. Hello, I guess I just haven’t met the right person. It’s that kind of thinking that creates the myth. It’s a myth to think that once you meet the right person, you will become a different person. The love of your life should bring out the best in you. But only you can prevent forest fires. Sorry. Only you can prevent your impatience, unkindness, pride, anger, and record keeping from undermining your relationship.

Riley pulled on his jeans and she almost moaned. Focus, Mercy. "I’ll check,” he said, zipping up those damn jeans as she slid on her own. “But we might get lucky with an insomniac.” When he turned, she saw the marks on his back were almost healed. Fast, even for a changeling. Which meant Riley was more powerful than she’d guessed, more than he let on. There was nothing flashy about him. Just —“What the—” His hands were on her waist and his mouth on hers before she could do more than gasp. Lightning. Bright. Sizzling. Perfect. This time she did moan, wrapping her arms around him and luxuriating in his strength, in the sheer speed with which he’d come at her. With both of them only wearing jeans, her breasts were pressed against the exquisite roughness of the hairs on his chest. She rubbed against him, giving in to the leopard’s innate sensuality. He tore away his lips but they remained less than a millimeter apart. “This is your fault.” “Hell, no.” She sucked on his neck, biting him a little too hard for emphasis. “You jumped my bones.” Tugging back her head with a hand fisted in her hair, he glared down at her. “You were all but licking me the way you were looking.” “Looking’s not the same as touching.” Her mouth watered at the idea of licking him. They’d been in too much of a rush last night. Even the second and third time. As if they’d both been hungry so long, they’d needed to gorge. But—“We don’t have time for this.” He held her for another couple of seconds, pure male muscle and heated skin. “We need to make time.

I think that’s the lesson of this story: you never know what is going to happen. Other lessons: •  No matter how good you have it, it’s cool to want more. •  Self-pity gets results. •  Sometimes you can get a second chance. •  Sometimes you get a third chance. •  Never take a vacation. •  Austin Mahone has a bright future as a singer and youth-brand spokesperson. •  It’s OK to drink tequila in the car if you just had a really good meeting. •  If you believe in yourself and work hard, your dreams will come true. •  Well … I guess the people who work hard whose dreams don’t come true don’t get to write books about it, so we never really find out what happens to them. So … •  If you believe in yourself and work hard, you have a fighting shot at having your dreams come true.

Homewrecker" Every boyfriend is the one Until otherwise proven The good are never easy The easy never good And love it never happens like you think it really should Deception and perfection are wonderful traits One will breed love The other hate You'll find me in the lonely hearts Under 'I'm after a brand new start' And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker Girls and their curls and their gourmet vomit Boys and their toys and their six inch rockets We're all very lovely 'til we get to know each other As we stop becoming friends and we start becoming lovers And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) I'm only happy when I'm on the run I break a million hearts just for fun I don't belong to anyone I guess you could say that my life's a mess But I'm still looking pretty in this dress I'm the image of deception When everything is life and death You may feel like there's nothing left Instead of love and trust and laughter What you get is happy never after But deep down all you want is love The pure kind we all dream of But we cannot escape the past So you and I will never last 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker

In his 1973 “literary investigation,” The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn exposed the practices of the Soviet penal system: “If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov who spent all their time guessing what would happen in twenty, thirty or forty years had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed within iron rings, that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the ‘secret brand’); that a man’s genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov’s plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums.

You have to imagine what it was like to be on the receiving end of vicious antagonism: sneering, contempt, ridicule, slights about one’s intelligence, integrity and motives. In those days, women even ran the risk of dismissal for their opinions. And this treatment came from other women, as well as men. In fact, “in-fighting” between various schools of nurses who had some sort of training in midwifery was particularly nasty. One eminent lady – the matron of St Bartholomew’s Hospital – branded the aspiring midwives as “anachronisms, who would in the future be regarded as historical curiosities”. The medical opposition seems to have arisen mainly from the fact that “women are striving to interfere too much in every department of life”.* Obstetricians also doubted the female intellectual capacity to grasp the anatomy and physiology of childbirth, and suggested that they could not therefore be trained. But the root fear was – guess what? – you’ve got it, but no prizes for quickness: money. Most doctors charged a routine one guinea for a delivery. The word got around that trained midwives would undercut them by delivering babies for half a guinea! The knives were out.

You ever wonder what happens to people when they die?” I asked. He shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I guess they go to heaven? That’s where my Grans went.” “I think about it a lot,” I said. “I think when people die, their souls go to heaven but just for a little while. Like that’s where they see their old friends and stuff, and kind of catch up on old times. But then I actually think the souls start thinking about their lives on earth, like if they were good or bad or whatever. And then they get born again as brand-new babies in the world.” “Why would they want to do that?” “Because then they get another chance to get it right,” I answered. “Their souls get a chance to have a do-over.

Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where ’Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. Though men hail it as reality and brand thoughts of its many-dimensioned original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite. That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality.

Noah Kagan, a growth hacker at Facebook, the personal finance service Mint.com (which sold to Intuit for nearly $170 million), and the daily deal site AppSumo (which has more than eight hundred thousand users), explains it simply: “Marketing has always been about the same thing—who your customers are and where they are.”5 What growth hackers do is focus on the “who” and “where” more scientifically, in a more measurable way. Whereas marketing was once brand-based, with growth hacking it becomes metric and ROI driven. Suddenly, finding customers and getting attention for your product are no longer guessing games. But this is more than just marketing with better metrics; this is not just “direct marketing” with a new name. Growth hackers trace their roots back to programmers—and that’s how they see themselves. They are data scientists meets design fiends meets marketers. They welcome this information, process it and utilize it differently, and see it as desperately needed clarity in a world that has been dominated by gut instincts and artistic preference for too long. But they also add a strong acumen for strategy, for thinking big picture, and for leveraging platforms, unappreciated assets, and new ideas.

I woke up hollow, and … and just … tired, y’know? So, I did something else instead. I packed up everything, and I learned a brand-new thing from scratch, and gods, I worked hard for it. I worked really hard. I thought, if I can just do that, if I can do it well, I’ll feel okay. And guess what? I do do it well. I’m good at what I do. I make people happy. I make people feel better. And yet I still wake up tired, like … like something’s missing. I tried talking to friends, and family, and nobody got it, so I stopped bringing it up, and then I just stopped talking to them altogether, because I couldn’t explain, and I was tired of pretending like everything was fine. I went to doctors, to make sure I wasn’t sick and that my head was okay. I read books and monastic texts and everything I could find. I threw myself into my work, I went to all the places that used to inspire me, I listened to music and looked at art, I exercised and had sex and got plenty of sleep and ate my vegetables, and still. Still. Something is missing. Something is off. So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?

I have it so good. So absurdly, improbably good. I didn’t do anything to deserve it, but I have it. I’m healthy. I’ve never gone hungry. And yes, to answer your question, I’m—I’m loved. I lived in a beautiful place, did meaningful work. The world we made out there, Mosscap, it’s—it’s nothing like what your originals left. It’s a good world, a beautiful world. It’s not perfect, but we’ve fixed so much. We made a good place, struck a good balance. And yet every fucking day in the City, I woke up hollow, and … and just … tired, y’know? So, I did something else instead. I packed up everything, and I learned a brand-new thing from scratch, and gods, I worked hard for it. I worked really hard. I thought, if I can just do that, if I can do it well, I’ll feel okay. And guess what? I do do it well. I’m good at what I do. I make people happy. I make people feel better. And yet I still wake up tired, like … like something’s missing. I tried talking to friends, and family, and nobody got it, so I stopped bringing it up, and then I just stopped talking to them altogether, because I couldn’t explain, and I was tired of pretending like everything was fine. I went to doctors, to make sure I wasn’t sick and that my head was okay. I read books and monastic texts and everything I could find. I threw myself into my work, I went to all the places that used to inspire me, I listened to music and looked at art, I exercised and had sex and got plenty of sleep and ate my vegetables, and still. Still. Something is missing. Something is off. So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?

If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov who spent all their time guessing what would happen in twenty, thirty, or forty years had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed within iron rings;1 that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath;2 that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the “secret brand”); that a man’s genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov’s plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums. Yes, not only Chekhov’s heroes, but what normal Russian at the beginning of the century, including any member of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, could have believed, would have tolerated, such a slander against the bright future? What had been acceptable under Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in the seventeenth century, what had already been regarded as barbarism under Peter the Great, what might have been used against ten or twenty people in all during the time of Biron in the mid-eighteenth century, what had already become totally impossible under Catherine the Great, was all being practiced during the flowering of the glorious twentieth century—in a society based on socialist principles, and at a time when airplanes were flying and the radio and talking films had already appeared—not by one scoundrel alone in one secret place only, but by tens of thousands of specially trained human beasts standing over millions of defenseless victims. Was it only that explosion of atavism which is now evasively called “the cult of personality” that was so horrible?

It's funny, you know. We're free. We make choices. We weigh things in our minds, consider everything carefully, use all the tools of logic and education. And in the end, what we mostly do is what we have no choice but to do. Makes you think, why bother? But you bother because you do, that's why. Because you're a DNA-brand computer running Childhood 1.0 software. They update the software but the changes are always just around the edges. You have the brain you have, the intelligence, the talents, the strengths and weaknesses you have, from the moment they take you out of the box and throw away the Styrofoam padding. But you have the fears you picked up along the way. The terrors of age four or six or eight are never suspended, just layered over. The dread I'd felt so recently, a dread that should be so much greater because the facts had been so much more horrible, still could not diminish the impact of memories that had been laid down long years before. It's that way all through life, I guess. I have a relative who says she still gets depressed every September because in the back of her mind it's time for school to start again. She's my great-aunt. The woman is sixty-seven and still bumming over the first day of school five-plus decades ago. It's sad in a way because the pleasures of life get old and dated fast. The teenage me doesn't get the jolt the six-year-old me got from a package of Pop Rocks. The me I've become doesn't rush at the memories of the day I skated down a parking ramp however many years ago. Pleasure fades, gets old, gets thrown out with last year's fad. Fear, guilt, all that stuff stays fresh. Maybe that's why people get so enraged when someone does something to a kid. Hurt a kid and he hurts forever. Maybe an adult can shake it off. Maybe. But with a kid, you hurt them and it turns them, shapes them, becomes part of the deep, underlying software of their lives. No delete. I don't know. I don't know much. I feel like I know less all the time. Rate I'm going, by the time I'm twenty-one I won't know a damned thing. But still I was me. Had no choice, I guess. I don't know, maybe that's bull and I was just feeling sorry for myself. But, bottom line, I dried my eyes, and I pushed my dirty, greasy hair back off my face, and I started off down the road again because whatever I was, whoever I was, however messed up I might be, I wasn't leaving April behind. Maybe it was all an act programmed into me from the get-go, or maybe it grew up out of some deep-buried fear, I mean maybe at some level I was really just as pathetic as Senna thought I was. Maybe I was a fake. Whatever. Didn't matter. I was going back to the damned dragon, and then I was getting April out, and everything and everyone else could go screw themselves. One good thing: For now at least, I was done being scared.

In passing, I met some very interesting cows and sheep just north of Breda. One of the cows had escaped from England during that bogus Mad Cow thing. He (she I guess – I don’t know much about cows) told me that he swam all the way to Holland from England but I don’t believe him (her). I’m staying in a hotel adjacent to the red light district. I sat in my window for three hours this evening. I bought a brand new purple light but attracted only some drunken German businessmen. There must be a better way to deal with loneliness.

I guess heartbreak is simple. Problems seem to unfurl themselves like crumpled bills on a nightstand. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The first night that I locked myself away, you didn’t even notice I was gone. Every door is the same when I kneel in a corner—with a hand over my mouth. Every bathroom floor is different, but no mourning I do feels familiar. It feels brand new.

You don’t tip before I’ve delivered the service, mate.” I may be a prostitute but I don’t accept payment when I haven’t worked for it. I’ll be vulnerable to peculiar demands later on. “I want you to have it.” Ali shifts his feet uncomfortably. He gazes at me for a long moment, seemingly debating what to say. “I...I want us to have sex as though we’re making love.” Making love? Jaysus. I scratch my head. I am at a loss why the words scare me. It’s not like I don’t understand what it’s about, theoretically. “Okay. You mean more kisses and shit?” Ali laughs. “And shit.” His face lights up and he looks about ten years younger. “Like cuddles.” Cuddles. Hugs. Kisses. Luxuries for other people. Sex has been only sex to me in the last few years. I guess grown-ups sometimes need some tender loving care. Fuck knows why Ali wants that from me, but if it’s what he fancies, it’s not the weirdest request I’ve ever heard. “’Course. The customer is always right.” A frown appears briefly on his handsome face. I take his hand and lead him into the bedroom. We are still standing when I start kissing him, slowly at first as if I need to taste his lips and savour them. All the while, I try to think of him as someone I want. Strangely, it turns me on more than I care to admit. As I undress him, each small button of his shirt I undo brings expectation that thrills me. His strong hands seem too big for the same task, but they are delicate at the same time with the act of revealing my body. Soon, we are both topless and breathing heavily with anticipation. Even with my boyfriends, I have always been a fuck first, think later kind of guy, so this is brand new

You said the god spoke to you. What did He say?" "That I was sent here, in answer to prayers, Illvin's among others, probably. The Bastard dared me, by my own son's god-neglected death, not to turn aside." She frowned fiercely in memory, and dy Cabon edged a little back from her. "I asked Him what the gods, having taken Teidez, could give me that I would trade spit for. He answered, Work. His blandishments were all decorated about with annoying endear merits that would have bought a human suitor a short trip to the nearest mud puddle by the hands of my servants. His kiss on my brow burned like a brand. His kiss on my mouth"—she hesitated, went on doggedly—"aroused me like a lover, which I most certainly am not." Dy Cabon edged farther back, smiling in anxious placation, and made little agreeing-denying motions, his hands like flippers. "Indeed not, Royina. No one could mistake you for such." She glowered at him, then went on. "Then He disappeared, leaving you holding the sack. So to speak. If this was prophecy, it bodes you ill, Learned." He signed himself. "Right, right. Um. If the first kiss was a spiritual gift, so ought the second to be. Yes, I quite see that." "Yes, but He didn't say what it was. Bastard. One of his little jokes, it seems." Dy Cabon glanced up as if trying to decide if that were prayer or expletive, guessed correctly, and took a breath, marshaling his thoughts. "All right. But He did say. He said, Work. If it sounds like a joke, it was probably quite serious." He added more cautiously, "It seems you are made saint again, will or nil." "Oh, I can still nil." She scowled. "That's what we all are, you know. Hybrids, of both matter and spirit. The gods' agents in the world of matter, to which they have no other entree. Doorways. He knocks on my door, demanding entry. He probes with his tongue like a lover, mimicking above what is desired below. Nothing so simple as a lover, he, yet he desires that I open myself and surrender as if to one. And let me tell you, I despise his choice of metaphors!" Dy Cabon flippered frantically at her again. It made her want to bite him. "You are a very fortress of a woman, it is true!" She stifled a growl, ashamed to have let her rage with his god spill over onto his humble head. "If you don't know the other half of the riddle, why were you put there?" "Royina, I know not!" He hesitated. "Maybe we should all sleep on it." He cringed at her blistering look, and tried again. "I will endeavor to think." "Do.

People just can’t help themselves when it comes to quotation marks. As if they’re completely paralyzed by this particular punctuation. I guess it’s really not that big of a deal, but it does seem to be a widespread brand of easily avoidable buffoonery.

In war, love is a luxury. It comes at a high price... This brand of marriage, I guess, takes steady nerves.

I dare you to…” He pauses, and I want him to say it. I want him to want a kiss, because I realize I’d do it so fast it’d make his head spin. “I dare you to do your happy dance,” he says instead. “Happy dance?” “Come on, everyone has a happy dance.” “But… I have to be extremely happy to do a happy dance. It’s not something I can just, you know, jump into.” “How about I give you some inspiration.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and presses a few buttons. A song with an upbeat keyboard begins, and Logan stands up. The happy lyrics say something about a birdhouse and a bee. He waves his hand at me to follow. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he looks at me expectantly. I stand up to face him and try to sway a little. He shakes his head as he turns the volume up. “I just can’t, I’m not happy enough.” “Pretend like the Natchitoches Central Chiefs just won the Super Bowl.” He bounces a little more enthusiastically. “That’s good, I guess.” My sway becomes a little more pronounced. A smile takes hold, not because of the thought of the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl, but because Logan is such an awkward dancer. He’s gone from bouncing to alternating snaps of his fingers as he bobs his head. Plus, he’s a little off rhythm. “There’s a Tangled marathon on in two minutes!” He has to yell over the music now. “That’s better.” I start nodding my head to the beat. “It’s Christmas! You just got your Hogwarts acceptance letter, a copy ofAction Comics #1, and a brand new car that runs on water!” “Hell yeah!” I scream and let go.

If you believe that success is inevitable, you’re less likely to work your tail off in order to achieve it. Hard problems are definitely immune to the power of belief. Simply deciding that you’ll solve something doesn’t solve it. The best problem-solvers I know hold in their head a kind of contradiction. They simultaneously hold two beliefs: They have the skills needed to solve the problem, and they fear that this might be their moment of failure if they are not vigilant. They have the confidence to dive right in and get their hands dirty, to jump into unfamiliar situations, to explore processes or science that’s brand new to them. And along with it, they know that there is no path to success laid out for them that they can follow. They must forge their own way, and they are wary of getting lost. They hate the thought of failure, and they know it’s a real possibility.

If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov, who spent all their time guessing what would happen in twenty, thirty, or forty years, had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed with iron rings; that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the ‘secret brand’); that a man’s genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov’s plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums.

I have it so good. So absurdly, improbably good. I didn't do anything to deserve it, but I have it. I'm healthy. I've never gone hungry. And yes, to answer your question, I'm-I'm loved. I lived in a beautiful place, did meaningful work. The world we made out there, Mosscap, it's-it's nothing like what your originals left. It's a good world, a beautiful world. It's not perfect, but we've fixed so much. We made a good place, struck a good balance. And yet, every fucking day in the City, I woke up hollow, and... and just... tired, y'know? So, I did something else instead. I packed up everything, and I learned a brand new thing from scratch, and gods, I worked hard for it. I worked really hard. I thought, if I can just do that, if I can do it well, I'll feel okay. And guess what? I do do it well. I'm good at what I do... And yet I still wake up tired, like... like something's missing. I tried to talk to friends, and family, and nobody got it, so I stopped bringing it up, and then I just stopped talking to them altogether, because I couldn't explain, and I was tired of pretending like everything was fine. I went to doctors, to make sure I wasn't sick and that my head was okay. I read books and monastic texts and everything I could find. I threw myself into my work, I went to all the places that used to inspire me, I listened to music and looked at art, I exercised and had sex and got plenty of sleep and ate my vegetables, and still. Still. Something is missing. Something is off. So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?

A knock came at the door and I stiffened, getting to my feet so that I could open it. Darius stood outside wearing a black tux which looked like it had been made specifically for him. It fit perfectly and my mouth dried up as my gaze roamed over him. His dark hair was slicked back and the rough stubble lining his jaw ached for me to brush my fingers over it. No, no, no. Bad Tory. “Darcy’s not here yet,” I said in place of a greeting. “I can see that,” he replied. Before I could lose myself to the spell of his unfairly good looks, I turned away from him, heading back to the mirror which hung on the wall as I applied another coat of lipstick which wasn’t in any way necessary. He stayed by the door, leaning against the frame as he watched me. “You’re not wearing the dress I sent you.” “This might be a good time for you to realise, I don’t tend to do as I’m told,” I said dismissively. “I think I like this one better anyway.” I turned to look at him in surprise as his gaze slid over me in a way that made heat rise along my skin. “Nice to know you can admit when you’re wrong,” I said. “So you’re actually going to stick to your word about being nice?” Darius flashed me a smile which transformed his face in a way I’d never seen before. “I am. Just try not to fall in love with me though, it could make things awkward when we go back to fighting with each other tomorrow.” I scoffed at that and tossed my lipstick into my clutch just as my Atlas pinged. Darcy: I bumped into Orion by The Orb. He says he’s coming with us and that you should meet us here... I raised an eyebrow in surprise and tapped out a quick response. Tory: Okay, I’ll be there to rescue you from his grumpy face ASAP x “Darcy says she’s going to meet us at The Orb. She ran into your bestie and he told her he can’t bear to spend the evening away from you so he’s tagging along. I just hope that this party isn’t going to be dull, because inviting a teacher has really lowered my expectations for debauchery,” I said as I moved out of my room and locked up behind me. “In all honesty, Lance is more likely to add to the debauchery than detract from it,” Darius said, offering me his arm. “Ooo Lance has a first name. Will he want me using that or is it a special right only given to those who get a tattoo in his honour?” I asked, touching my fingers to Darius’s forearm where I knew the Libra brand sat on his skin beneath the fancy suit. I didn’t take his arm though and started walking down the corridor unassisted. “What makes you think that tattoo is for him?” Darius asked, falling into step with me easily despite the fast pace I set. “Oh is it a secret? I thought everyone knew he was your Guardian and you’ve got that little soul bond thing going on.” “Who told you that?” Darius demanded, his voice dropping an octave. “You just did.” I flashed him a smile and he scowled at me. “Done playing nice so soon?” He released a long breath as we reached the common room but didn’t reply. A lot of eyes turned our way. I guessed the sight of the two of us suddenly hanging out was pretty weird. (Tory)

He’s not happy with the new bartender. He thinks there are not enough bottles of the blood the count is said to prefer, according to an interview in American Vampire.” I tried to imagine Vlad Tepes, impaler of so many of his own countrymen, chatting with a reporter. I sure wouldn’t want to be the one holding the pad and pencil. “What brand would that be?” I scrambled to catch up with the conversation. “The Prince of Darkness is said to prefer Royalty.” “Ew.” Why was I not surprised? Royalty was a very, very rare bottled blood. I’d thought the brand was only a rumor until now. Royalty consisted of part synthetic blood and part real blood—the blood of, you guessed it, people of title. Before you go thinking of enterprising vamps ambushing that cute Prince William, let me reassure you. There were plenty of minor royals in Europe who were glad to give blood for an astronomical sum.

That I can see us Staying up late, Talking all night, But I guess I’ll have to wait. ’Cause it’s brand-new, Yeah, I know we just met. I want to be there with you, But not just yet.

I Guess there is a Limited Gap in this Republic of Bananas due to the DeKay N Y is Le Vice such an alarming Exchange when you Express your Benetton? Ask Tommy, he’ll figure!

A light patter of rain began to fall, and Alexei put on the windshield wipers. We took the Alaskan Way Viaduct up past Elliot Bay into Ballard, then turned toward the water and bumped along an older part of the wharf to a warehouse at the edge of a pier. The warehouse, like the pier, was old and unkempt, with great rusted doors that slid along tracks and peeling paint and an air of poverty. Dmitri climbed out, pushed open the door, and we drove inside to park between a brand-new $100,000 Porsche Carrera and an $80,000 Mercedes SL convertible. Guess the air of poverty only went so far.

Employment was better than idleness for men, because it kept the enemy guessing.

If you don’t win you can’t get away with it. And I win, I win, I always win. In the end I always win, whether it’s in golf, whether it’s in tennis, whether it’s in life, I just always win. And I tell people I always win, because I do. “I guess to a certain extent it is all about winning when you think about it, and it’s about style. It’s probably about winning with style. “A lot of people build a brand and they study it very carefully and every move is calculated. My moves are not calculated. My moves are totally uncalculated. I’ve got a brand, sometimes despite me. And it’s a hot brand.”6

Are you sure it’s going to fit? You told me to get a double.” “I did?” She glanced at the platform. “I meant a full. That’s a little narrower, isn’t it?” “I don’t know. I hope they’re the same. Measure twice, move once.” Doubt flickered across Kenzie’s expression. “That’s not how the saying goes.” “It’ll do for now.” “Let’s just try it.” She curled her fingers around a handle and dragged it onward. Linc reached for the other one and helped her flip it down. It hollowed in the middle and hung over the edge. “I’m guessing I got suckered,” he said with annoyance. He looked at the label sewn into the side. “It isn’t a national brand--the measurement sure isn’t standard. The damn thing is about three inches wider than the platform.” “The length is correct,” Kenzie said helpfully. Linc lifted it back up again and leaned it against the opposite wall. “Yeah. Great.” “Sorry,” she offered. He bent over and ran a hand along the platform’s edge, pushing gently on the long wooden bar that kept the mattress in place. It gave at one corner. “Stapled. Not exactly quality construction.” He thumped at it with a closed fist to pry it loose and di the same thing at the other end, straightening with the bar in his hand. He handed it to her. “This can go in the closet. You get to explain to Norm.” “He won’t care. You’re a genius.” Linc hoisted the mattress and flipped it down again. “If you say so.” He grinned. “At least the bed’s flat.” Kenzie rested the bar in a corner and got busy stripping off the plastic while he watched. The luxurious satin top gleamed softly--he’d spent what she’d given him. When she was done, she had an armful of plastic that she stuffed into a bag on top of the crumpled rock-star posters. With a sigh of happiness she sat down on her new bed. “Thanks so much. You really came through.” “I like protecting you from lecherous mattress salesmen. You don’t need to thank me,” he joked. “How about a kiss instead?” Linc was taken aback. He opened his mouth, too surprised for a second to say yes. No never entered his mind.

Hello, friends, it’s a brand new day & guess what? We get to own it! Let’s ditch the dreaminess (slothfulness) & charge out of the starting gate like the champions we are! Darling listen – you weren’t born to just exist, to wait for each minute to unfold. You Were Born To Conquer, To Be Consequential & Champion! Therefore, sweetheart, ditch the “wait & see” attitude & start doing things not bcoz they feel ‘good’ or are “easy” but bcoz they represent who you can be & want to be. Today I wish & hope that you have the opportunity to fully explore your real potential & to be ALL you came here to be. Wishing you continued success & happiness. Blessings!

I heard you were in a fight,” I speak. His eyes snap up to look at mine before they go to Haidyn. “Saint…I didn’t…” “Hit my wife?” I arch a brow, and he swallows. “I guess the footage I saw of you and her in the elevator must have been fake as well?” I look at Haidyn who snorts. “I…uh, no…I didn’t—” he rambles unable to lie but refusing to tell me the truth. “Threaten to rape and kill her.” I finish for him. Not caring what else he has to say, I push off the counter and step forward, and he starts screaming, trying to pull away, but he’s not going anywhere. Devin pushes the cart over to Emerson and removes the syringe as Emerson begins to scream. He knows what’s coming. He’s been through it before. It’s routine for brandings. But this one will be a little different. The Spade brothers pride themselves on being creative. It’s not as if there is a rule book on how to torture and kill people. But if there ever was, we would be the ones to write it.

Henry has always called me dramatic for various reasons, so I guess it’s on-brand.

An old cowboy goes into a bar and orders a drink. As he sits there sipping his whiskey, a young lady sits down next to him. She turns to the cowboy and asks him, “Are you a real cowboy?” He replies, “Well, I’ve spent my whole life on the ranch, herding horses, mending fences, and branding cattle, so I guess I am.” She says, “I’m a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower or watch TV, everything seems to make me think of women.” A little while later, a couple sits down next to the old cowboy and asks him, “Are you a real cowboy?” He replies, “I always thought I was, but I just found out I’m a lesbian.

I’ve been talking about the ins and outs of local mandates so far. These are situations where you are the decision maker, which gives you access to a wealth of information as well as all of the players. In any decent-sized organization, you are equally likely to be on the receiving end of foreign mandates. This is a mandate that occurs way outside of your sphere of influence. We have a brand new strategy. Ready. Go.Yes, the tables are turned. Mandates might just randomly show up and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. Guess what? The same rules mentioned previously apply, with one exception. Just like your team, you are going to have one of the three opinions (yay, boo, or yawn) regarding the mandate. Regardless of what your opinion is, you must figure out the justification behind the mandate.

Despite my desperate need for money as Pronto emerged from Rexall in 1962, I’d had a bellyful of under-the-table offers from creameries. “We’ll pay you in cash, if you’ll just meet us anywhere outside the United States—our foreign subsidiaries will fund it, and the IRS will never know.” That was a typical pitch. I was prudent enough to guess, however, that it would expose me to blackmail should I ever try to switch brands.

FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER! I don’t know about you, but I enter all those darned magazine company sweepstakes. I go for the Reader’s Digest sweepstakes and I buy my weekly lottery tickets—after all, as a character in the movie Let It Ride said, “You could be walking around lucky and not know it.” In a lot of years, though, I have gone winless. The guys with the balloons and the giant-sized check have not shown up at my door. So the headline FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER! got me. I read that letter. And if you send a letter to every one of your customers with that headline on it, every one of them will read it. What should the letter say? Here’s an example, courtesy of the late, great copywriter, my friend Gary Halbert: Dear Valued Customer:    I am writing to tell you that your name was entered into a drawing here at my store and you have won a valuable prize.    As you know, my store, ABC Jewelry, specializes in low-cost, top-quality diamond rings and diamond earrings. Well, guess what? The other day we got in a small shipment of fake diamonds that are made with a new process that makes them look so real they almost fooled me!    Anyway, I don’t want to sell these fakes because they could cause a lot of trouble for the pawnbrokers around town. So I’ve decided to give them away to some of my good customers whose names were selected at random by having my wife, Janet, put all the names in a jar and pull out the winners.    So, you’re one of the winners—and all you’ve got to do is drop in sometime before 5:00 P.M. Friday and you’ll have a 1-karat “diamond” that looks so good it’ll knock your eyes out! Sincerely, John Jones P.S.: After 5:00 P.M. Friday, I reserve the right to give your prize to someone else. Thank you.

Chestnuts have always been an ingredient that goes well with gamy meats. And in French cuisine, chestnuts are often seen in combination with venison. But the mildly sweet flavor and tender texture of these sweet chestnuts makes them melt in the mouth! That flavor combined with the smoky aroma of the charcoal grilling, makes the juicy meatiness of the venison stand out in stark contrast! This flavor isn't something that could be created with regular chestnuts. It's a deliciousness made possible precisely because he chose to use sweet chestnuts! "He minced some of them and added them to the sauce as well! Doing that spread their mild sweetness throughout the whole dish!" Soma's Chestnut Sauce Starting with a base of Fond de Veau (a brown stock usually made with veal), he added a cinnamon stick, orange zest and minced sweet chestnuts and then set the sauce to simmer. "Wait a minute. How odd! Charcoal grilling usually adds a unique and very distinctly bitter taste to ingredients. A taste that is decidedly outside the canon of French flavors! Yet this dish has taken that bitter taste and somehow made it fit seamlessly! Is there some secret to it?!" "That would be the coffee." "What?!" "Coffee?" "Yep! You guessed it! That's the Divine Tongue for you. One of the things I learned at Master Shinomiya's restaurant is that cacao goes really well with game meats. I've never used cacao much, though, to be honest... So instead I grabbed some instant coffee! The bitterness of coffee is similar enough to pure cacao that it paired up nicely with both the charcoal grilling and the gamy venison... ... resulting in a deeply rich and astringent flavor that's perfect for a truly French sauce. I added both coffee and chestnuts as secret ingredients to my sauce! This is a Yukihira Original and a brand-new French dish. I call it... ... Charcoal-Grilled Venison Thigh with Chestnut Sauce." In formal Japanese cooking bowl dishes, such as soups and rice bowls, are constructed from four elements: the main ingredient, the supporting ingredients, the stock and the accents. Similarly, the French dishes are constructed from three different parts balanced in harmony: the main ingredient, the sauce and the garnishes. But this dish... this is eccentric and novel and entirely unconventional while still remaining undeniably French! It's almost as if it's a nugget of flavor found only by cracking and peeling away the shell of common sense...

They used my name and permit to grow the weed and earn money to repay their debts and compensate their investors. To keep my girlfriend. To take her. I am uncertain if any of them have ever spent a minute in jail for any of these activities. Adam proudly showcases his new motorcycles on Instagram, posing on a hill above Barcelona. He also displays his brand new electric camper van, which they use to travel and transport drugs across Europe and Iberia, as well as his gigantic marijuana cultivation located in Portugal. People like Ruan and Martina admire his public images. I came across a picture of Ruan and Martina together in Berlin, where their mother Fernanda visited them. Martina became member of the Evil Eye Cult, and the custom made mafia group in Spain, which used her as a pawn in their porn and drug-related activities. She now operates as their representative in Berlin. Martina and I have lost the ability to genuinely smile. Her social media posts only show disinterest or a malicious demeanor. ‘A boot stomping on a human face.’ In a picture with her brother and mother, she puts on a forced fake “good vibe” and “happy” smile, revealing her flawless teeth and the subtle lines of aging. With each passing day, she bears a greater resemblance to her rich and so happy mother, the bad person. As far as I know, none of these individuals have faced consequences for their actions, such as having their teeth broken. As I had. Innocently. Taking care of business and their lives. With love. I find this to be incredibly unjust. In the 21st century. In Europe. On planet Earth. By non-EU criminals. “Matando – ganando” – “killing and gaining” like there were no Laws at all. Nowadays, you can observe Sabrina flaunting her fake lips and altered face, just like Martina her enhanced breasts. Guess who was paying for it? It seems that both girls now sustain themselves through their bodies and drug involvement, to this day, influencing criminals to gain friends in harming Tomas and having a lavish lifestyle filled with fun and mischief. Making a living. Enjoying Spain. Enjoying Life. My money. My tears. This is the situation as it stands. I was wondering what Salvador Dali was trying to tell me. I stood in front of the Lincoln portrait for a long time, but I couldn't grasp the point or the moral behind it. I can listen to Abraham Lincoln and ‘trust people. To see. If I can trust them.’ But he ultimately suffered a tragic fate, with his life being taken. (Got his head popped.) I believe there may have also been a female or two involved in that situation, too, possibly leading to his guards being let down. While he was watching: Acting performances, he was facing a: Stage. Theater. It is disheartening, considering he was a good person. Like Jesus, John Lennon and so on. Shows a pattern Machiavelli was talking about. Some individuals are too bright for those in darkness; they feel compelled to suppress those brighter minds simply because they think and act differently. Popping their heads. Reptilian lower brain-based culture, the concept of the Evil Eye, Homo erectus. He couldn't even stand up properly when I was shouting at him, urging him to stand up from the stairs. ‘Homo seditus reptilis.’ But what else was there in the Lincoln image that I didn't see? What was Dali trying to convey or express or tell me? Besides the fact that the woman is in his mind, on his mind, in the image, exactly, his head got popped open. Perhaps because he was focusing on a woman, trusting her for a split second, or turning his head away for a moment.

I remember that moment, you know, when you’re starting to understand the world…and you see some kid at the playground and that kid’s actively trying to be good because that kid actually believes in Santa but then you see his mom and his snacks and his brand-new sneakers and it’s like…well of course that kid believes in Santa. Santa shows up at his house. He has reason to believe and I guess I always had reason to question things.

Confidence doesn't come easy. You have to focus on what you want and work every day to achieve it. I guess you build on it brick by brick. Maybe someday you'll be able to climb over that wall of self doubt completely and leap off into the brand new world of peacefulness. Until then, use the mortar of equality in how you treat others and yourself to construct a place your heart, mind, body & soul can embrace." - A.H. Scott 6/15/12

Let’s discuss our Swoosh-less Nike sneaker for a moment. My guess is that if you removed the branding from a pair of Nike Dunk sneakers, they would be worth no more than twenty-five percent of their retail price. That means that at least seventy-five percent of the value of a Nike sneaker is tied up in the emotional elements you can’t see or touch, the intangibles. But just because you can’t see them or touch them doesn’t mean they aren’t real.

Let’s discuss our Swoosh-less Nike sneaker for a moment. My guess is that if you removed the branding from a pair of Nike Dunk sneakers, they would be worth no more than twenty-five percent of their retail price. That means that at least seventy-five percent of the value of a Nike sneaker is tied up in the emotional elements you can’t see or touch, the intangibles. But just because you can’t see them or touch them doesn’t mean they aren’t real. For a parallel example, let’s look at Kanye West’s relationship with Adidas. Kanye has little or no athletic prowess—he’s a musi- cian, a tastemaker, a hype man. Whatever you may think of Kanye, he gets people talking and has been able to use his brand to create value for his partners. And that’s exactly what he did when he designed a line of sneakers for Adidas, the Yeezy Boost. In February 2015, a limited run of his shoes sold out within ten minutes at a retail price of two hundred dollars. The shoes were then released to a wider audience a month later and once again sold out in record time. This is where things start to get interesting. According to Complex magazine, in the following quarter the Yeezy Boost accounted for $2.3 million in sales on eBay, three times the gross sales of its closest competitor, for an average price of $751 per pair. Let’s generously assume it cost Adidas fifty dollars per pair to produce and market a pair of Yeezy Boost. If that’s the case, Kanye West’s creativity is worth $701 per pair, and that doesn’t include the halo value to the overall Adidas brand.

Clemens’s loss was literature’s gain. Forced to earn his daily bread once more, he turned to mining in the Mother Lode country. He found little gold, but gathered impressions and experiences. He met Bret Harte, and guessed that if Harte could make money from stories about the gold country, so could he. He proved himself right with a tale about a jumping-frog contest in Calaveras County, which won him a wide and enthusiastic national readership.

When the book comes, Dad, will the game stop?” “I’ve stopped it already. About three weeks ago.” He’d never thought to tell Tom. “Why did you? You get tired of it?” “No, it just ended.” “Are you ever going to play it again?” “Not really.” Detailed explanation was beyond him. “Maybe in a different sort of way, though.” “If you just skip a game for a while,” Tom said as if to comfort him, “and then play it again, it’s just as good as if it was brand-new.” “I guess that’s right with ordinary games.” “But not with this one?” “No. If everybody knows it’s a game, you can’t go on with it because then they know you’re just imagining it and they stop playing.

Trump talks tough on China, but much of the Trump-branded products including his hideous ties are made there. President Trump has launched an incompetent trade war with China that cost American farmers and consumers billions. When he started losing, he tried to help farmers. But he screwed that up, too. Most of the money went to big corporations instead of family farms. The money for Trump’s corporate farm bailout was borrowed from— yes, you guessed it— China.

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Ma, she’s nineteen … no, Ma, listen to me ... Ma, she’s not the devil. She’s NOT trying to kill you.” Seriously? If anyone overheard my end of this phone conversation, they would assume my mother was insane. She might be teetering, but who was I to question her sanity? After all, she did raise three girls. Okay, maybe she had a little more work to do with Mercedes, but close enough. “I have to go, Ma, I’m at work … yes, I will speak to her, promise … I really have to go … Ma … Ma, I. Have. To. Go … Love you, too. Ciao.” Mercedes strikes again. I ended the call and rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. I loved my family to death, but they bordered certifiable. And even though my baby sister should probably be labeled an angel, navigating peer pressure, college, and boyfriends all under Alonzo and Cecilia Chiappetti’s roof, I could also see my parents’ side. I may have talked her out of branding herself with a car insignia, but I guess in her mind an eyebrow ring didn’t seem as permanent.

I guess that’s at least one thing you two agree on.” “Who the hell do you think you are comparing me to that backwards cretin?” Iz demands, indignation pinching his strong features. “I got a front row seat to your brand of selective progressivism,” I fire back. “And at the end of the day, you both judge people you don’t know anything about by the color of their skin.

The wagon’s wheels squealed, the cargo rattled, the straining crew bellowed at one another. Then Koll said, quietly, “Are you my brother, then?” “Guess so. If you’ll have me.” “Reckon I could do worse.” The lad shrugged, as if it didn’t matter much either way. But Brand got the feeling it did.

Since I had two brand new Ender Pearls, all I needed was Blaze powder. I fished around inside my magic expandable pocket and pulled out the yellow Blaze rod I had picked up when I visited the nasty Nether a few worlds back. I plunked it down on the crafting table, and two little piles of yellow powder appeared! That was the easy part. Then came the hard part—putting everything together! Making stuff in Minecraft usually means arranging every single ingredient on a crafting table in EXACTLY the right way. And if just one little thing is out of place, you get NOTHING! Let me tell you, I was NOT looking forward to hours and hours of trial and error and error and error and... But I psyched myself up by remembering that Eyes of Ender were my only way back home! I took a deep breath, and got ready for a long and boring day of flailing around at a crafting table. So of course, after getting myself all worked up, the second I put the ingredients on the crafting table an Eye of Ender instantly appeared! I guess you could say it was “Eye-ronic!” (Heh. Get it? Eye-ronic = ironic!) Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining! I’m just glad that the Minecraft irony worked in MY favor for once! Then quick as a flash, I had two brand new Eyes of Ender! Unfortunately, that didn’t mean my problems were over just yet. The torn page made it sound like I’d need a bunch of Eyes, and I was fresh out of Blaze powder! I couldn’t go back to the Nether (no Nether Portal… and no DEATH WISH either!), so there wasn’t any way for me to get more! Hmm. Or was there? Hanging all over the walls inside the tower, were all kinds of framed pictures. One of them was a Blaze rod, and another one was Blaze powder. They looked totally life-like. Then a crazy idea popped into my head. I reached out, and tapped a picture. The Blaze rod went POP! out of the frame, and onto the floor! It WAS real! I tapped the “picture” of the Blaze powder, and it popped out too! WOW! Man, if I had known the items in the frames were REAL, I’d have pulled out stuff in the other hacker kid houses, and saved myself TONS of time and trouble and, more importantly… PAIN!

conversation on the left these days, it’s always so competitive, it’s always each person trying to outperform the person before them in terms of their oppression or their lack of privilege or their personal trauma or, like, the fact that actually they’re Jewish or actually they’re bisexual, or guess what, they’re a quarter this or that ethnicity, which gives them the right to speak or the right to take offence or whatever. It’s a marketplace! Yet again! You can dress it up in the language of sensitivity and social justice and blah blah blah, but the point of intersectionality isn’t to learn how to transcend our differences, or eliminate them, the point isn’t solidarity, it’s about shoring up your brand, cornering the market, everyone out for themselves, maximising profit and minimising risk—

There are two key steps that a mathematician uses. He uses intuition to guess the right problem and the right solution and then logic to prove it.

could tell. The disruption to the natural order of the universe. After another twenty seconds of awkward-as-walking-in-on-your-dad-shaving-naked-in-the-bathroom quiet, Rose set her crackers down, leaned back in her chair, and let out a sigh. “Okay,” she said. “I’m guessing you’re all new to this ‘girl at the table’ thing. How about this: I promise that I won’t bite or give you cooties or whatever else it is that you all are flipping out over. I won’t talk about my hair or blather on and on about celebrity heartthrobs or all the girls I hate, because, frankly, I’ve only been here for three hours, which isn’t quite enough time to hate anybody yet. I won’t discuss brands of moisturizers or lip gloss or use the word ‘crush’ in any kind of nondestructive capacity. And in return, you can stop looking at me like I’m some deranged lunatic. How does that sound?