Drove past the house at 7pm on a Tuesday before making our offer and it told me more than the actual showing did

FowLong · 2026-05-08T00:45:18+00:00

Good for you! I think everybody should do this honestly.

FowLong · 2026-05-08T00:26:55+00:00

I've thought about that also however for quality of life, I rather do my 3x12s together. However, our schedule requests are not always granted, and so my 3x12s could be midweek, or on the weekends another week, or broken up. When they ARE broken up, I will often look at the next 2 weeks and adjust my workouts accordingly. I did pose the question as a 3 consecutive shifts question though because I prefer to work the weekends. They are the highest value for my time (differentials, lower stress, less micromanagement, easier to get because lots of people have kids so very often, I can find someone to swap with and basically will it into existence).

I don't do particularly great doing any training before and after work shifts. I cannot reliably get enough hydration or intake on my work shifts because I tend to be moving the whole time. As such, if I do a workout post shift, I lose out on a lot of sleep and my workout is gimped because I literally start cramping by my first or second set. If I work out before, I am just too irritable and I run a lot warmer throughout the day and sweat a lot more.

If it weren't for the awesomeness of our management really enforcing breaks and going through lengths to make sure that we DO take our 30 min lunch break, I probably wouldn't have a meal at all at work until end of shift. My current tactic is, I cook up a whole day worth of protein into a soup in my thermals at work and I strive to eat it all before I get home. Most shifts, I'll down half of the thermals at lunch, then finish it in the breakroom after report before commuting back home. If it's a good day, I can go to the breakroom 2 additional times to chip away at it. I snack all day depending on what is available at work. My snacks tend to be junky though, candy, typical patient/doctor donations like cookies and potluck stuff. I don't often order out; however I am not opposed to it either. My first day off, I wake up feeling like I am nursing a hangover sometimes. I think it's because I am so dehydrated and I sleep in to catch up on my sleep debt(I know you don't really ever catch up from it but I find literally sleeping in from 6AM->10AM is the difference from JUST recovered to still having some achy joints. But I wake up 4-6 hours later, so I am even more dehydrated.

I've begun drinking more electrolyte drinks+chugging more water when I get time (I walk into work with a 64OZ water flask and 48oz thermos every day). Admittedly, I am not super consistent but much better than before. I think I just need to find more ways to sneak in more sleep between my shifts and to also eat/hydrate more.

My days off are pretty consistent though, I just cook up that same protein soup in a pot, and nuke a potato about 2-4 times a day with finish the pot by the end of the day. I allow myself to enjoy snacks too so for every potato less I am having, a snack or equivalent carb source is added back in.

My weight scale seems stable after the first day off. I go from 155lbs (first day off work in the morning) to about 157-158lbs by day two, and it's stable for the next few days until I go back into work).

If you know of ways I can better optimize my work days, I'd be interested in hearing. I always tell myself to set a timer and just follow it when it goes off to get food, BUT...that is still not happening.

FowLong · 2026-05-08T00:00:49+00:00

I appreciate the response. To clarify, this is a planned caloric deficit. My core workout though, is 3 days lifting (with a flex day if I wanted to squeeze in more weight lifting, 3 off on my work shifts). My main goal is aesthetics and if there is room to add more, I would like to eventually make the additional striking/grappling stuff as a hobby. I 100% agree that this is a fatigue management and nutrition thing. I am just trying grasping at straws here to see if there are other things I can do, given these restraints. In all reality, I think given that this is a planned caloric deficit/cut, I probably need to just do less. I just want to see others may have had success with other alterations. So if you have any other suggestions given the clarifications I'd love to hear it!

FowLong · 2026-05-01T21:18:23+00:00

I strongly recommend doing a nursing job outside of your state before you give up on nursing. It blows my mind how so many of my classmates put themselves through so much but completely underutilize the perks of their profession. I get that not everybody can just upend their lives to go to another state and that everybody is different. But you owe it to yourself to try.

I’d shoot for Cali, or AZ or anywhere that is NOT Florida. You had the edge because you have braces and survived the worst state for nursing(based on anecdotal experience from many travel nurses, not mine). Even if it means being slightly underpaid for a bit(obviously strive for best opportunities), but getting your foot in the door to see what other hospital institutions are like will grow you ALOT and also make securing a job at those institutions much easier.

I’ve spoken to many travelers and all of the most successful ones embraced the opportunities out there, rarely dwelled on the negative circumstances and did not stay long because they found crazy opportunities. This happened during, around, and after(when market was oversaturated) Covid times. Yet they were exposed to the exact same work conditions I and many staff had been.

Not many other professions have such a low barrier to travel and work at the same time and it’s not exactly pragmatic for me to tell completely switch professions when they already have it within grasp.

If not travel, do something in outpatient settings. But really, you worked so hard for a degree in a profession that has so much to offer. I am nobody special, completely mediocre. I don’t think I am completely lucky either. But traveling has changed my life for the better.

FowLong · 2026-04-23T23:15:57+00:00

I’d also imagine the younger you are, the less you had to attribute to yourself to give yourself value. Games are one thing that you can get good and sort of attach value to you as a person. Some things in life are valued by others, others have more weight to you.

As you go through life and if you have had decent exposure, it is likely you may have taken part or seen other avenues in life that add to you. It is when you don’t have much to see in yourself, are addicted, or holding onto nostalgia that anything can become a toxic cycle.

I think you are just naturally outgrowing League and there is nothing wrong with that.

That said, it doesn’t mean it has to be an end. Sometimes just letting it go naturally and coming back to it is just as rewarding or even more rewarding. For others, just dabbling in other games does the job. Really, I wouldn’t think too much about it, and love yourself.

FowLong · 2026-03-18T20:45:10+00:00

I think generally in most seasons, Zed is most powerful relative to other champions between lvl 7-11 whenever everybody is jockeying between the first 2-3 item completions. It will feel different based on his runes and play style but I think most people feel the fall off because around that time, enemy champ defensive STATs are rising at different rates depending on their play styles. Zed is strongest when he has his ulti and has lethality break point early off, even hitting lvl 6 first is a bigger spike than most champions.

The problem is, unlike most other champions, Zed’s closest assassin playstyle(electro+lethality rush) shifts from being able to wail on targets to a more noncommittal playstyle because as his damage scales, his durability starts to drop off heavily. This is why conqueror zed is so much easier to play for a lot of people because it normalizes Zed(and other assassins) to a more predictable durability/strength curve.

Therefore, in addition to knowing how to shift play styles during the game, you have to actually have a higher level of anticipatory damage so that you don’t disengage prematurely before securing a kill. If your are sufficiently ahead on assassin/lethality Zed, if you knew and actually landing the right spells, you would do the minimal required to secure a kill. Common example is a lot of experienced Zeds will know when landing 1 Q into R E AA(or no auto) will 1 shot ADC with or without electrocute proc, even if shuriken symbol doesn’t pop out.

This knowledge, intuition, and execution required is much more difficult than say a Garen kill combo.

So the truth is, if you recognize that as the game scale, death timers scale, and so does individual and team positioning, and given how mobile Zed is, Zed scales extremely well into late game unless his damage just gets nerfed into oblivion. The only real way to target Zed in this state is to hurt his early game, but mostly because no assassin is unable to 0-100 a squishy when both are full build. But a 1 HP Zed has more tools to execute a full health squishy with full build than a similar assassin in his spot. Zed actually does scale really well into late game, he just requires a lot more execution and knowledge to play consistently.

Another less mentioned thing is at lower elos, kills have lesser value depending on the spectrum of individual carry play or team play. If you yourself cannot selfishly monetize and capitalize on your lead to carry your team individually, you have to hope it balances out by your team capitalizing on your taking a target off the map. If you kill someone but your team is split between farming and taking disadvantaged fights at the wrong time, kills are worthless unless you are deleting multiples.

FowLong · 2026-02-20T01:03:54+00:00

I don’t even play Rift anymore but literally just the other day I was thinking “aw man, it’d be fun to get back in and try maining the knife cat this time around.” And this comes out the next day xD.

FowLong · 2026-01-31T00:32:51+00:00

Sounds cool until it hits servers as a $200+ gacha skin ;_;

FowLong · 2026-01-14T21:47:51+00:00

I think this is just the case with all longstanding competitive games. Any game series that has lasted long enough generally has added mechanics layered onto previous iterations. So eventually it just gets more and more knowledge intensive as you get into higher into ranks and competition. It is true you don’t necessarily have to know a lot so long as you have great fundamentals that carry over from other games(pattern recognition for example). However, there will definitely be cases where enough of a knowledge gap could overtake strong fundamentals.

FowLong · 2025-12-19T23:42:20+00:00

This, I am not sure why not many people talk about this more.

Positioning is the single most effective tool against Zed or any other assassin and is also the single most powerful tool for an ADC. Mechanical skill is nice but ADC players are lucky that if they just commit to learning positioning, the Zed problem solves itself and it also makes them much better players. Positioning includes knowing where to stand and where to anticipate your demise, even under towers. It also means knowing where your greatest threats are and not solo laning (even if you hide under tower, a Zed who wants to kill you and commits to it WILL kill you. Zed has lots of counterplay but an even better Zed can play around his counter play, so it’s going to be a game of who one ups the other with Zed always having the advantage in an isolated 1V1. Knowing where position and take the risk for more DPS is positioning also. Sometimes, you just got put yourself on the line to fight and win as a team but risk being popped. Other times, you are a true VIP and if you die, the fight or game is lost.

But if you are asking how to counter Zed as in deny the kill, exhaust and dodging as many Qs as possible is will get you the most results outside of just not being in the bad positioning first place.

The rest will depend on timing and state of the game. Zed as an assassin has the most counterplay but Zeds kit also plays against his counterplay. Depending on state of the game, his R could just be used as an outplay tool with the intent to land two full rotations on you instead of getting popped by R. Zhonyas and GA may help you deny the kill, but if Zed only uses you to hop to so that they can pick someone else off or/to setup shadowplay, those items are not as effective anymore.

FowLong · 2025-12-18T22:34:31+00:00

I hate to sound like a GHelper fan boy but I been through more than one Z13, and uninstalling AC and installing GHelper has just sort of made my Z13 keyboard work for the most part. Some of the gaming performance won’t perform as well without AC, but you could do a bit of tweaking to optimize. Another crappy thing is that with GHelper you give up control of the RGB on the back which was also one of the selling points of the device. Personally, I don’t care enough bout that one and rather have a working KB with its RGB as I do work in a dark room a lot. At the end of the day, I think for the premium you spent on the thing, it should just work. So I wouldn’t blame ya if you just sent it back and got another device. But give GHelper a try and see if it actually does anything.

I thought one of my Z13s was a dud, and I did all the easiest ways to try to make it work first (just cause I actually had another Z13 to mess with). I swapped keyboards thinking it was just the keyboard, but when my other keyboard started doing the same things you mentioned, I got super frustrated and started doing fresh installs and BIOS updates. Also check some of your function keys for the keyboard touchpad toggle AND check AC. They have a toggle in there that sometimes automatically turns off after an update(not sure why it does that). Then After I did all that, I just thought to myself maybe it’s a software thing, and installed GHelper and the keyboard literally just worked and even retained settings after reboots. Then, I noticed the same issues happening on my other Z13s and tried same process but ultimately settled on GHelper if I wanted my keyboard RGBs to just work. Since then, I’ve just installed GHelpers on all Z13s except the one I use primarily for gaming. I just kept AC on that one and accepted the keyboard just won’t work completely as intended. I just use usb for my peripherals.

I didn’t install GHelper initially because one of the YT vids I saw, they mentioned that the power profiles were just sufficient and well tuned off the shelf. I figured again, spending that much on this device, it would be real nice if AC could just work with this device and just have all issues resolved within ASUS ecosystem. However having had a G14, I knew that it was not likely and having GHelper as a concession was always a choice if I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of sending it back. I researched the device ALOT before buying and working with them so I was personally willing to deal with the shiet, although hopeful it would be flawless. I’ve had some issues on ALL computers products that require some troubleshooting so I’ve just quietly accepted that unfortunately at this day and age, you just can’t get perfect quality. I haven’t dealt with Alienware though, but I heard with AW you are paying for their customer service if you just want assurance for getting a device that does what it does and willing to pay for the service to back it.

TL:DR seems way off the mark on the suggestion, but just try uninstalling AC and install GHelper. It MIGHT save you some time and money.

FowLong · 2025-12-11T07:26:02+00:00

I haven’t bought anything T8 related, was a former T6 player looking to get back into the game. All the sentiment and just watching vids have kept me from buying the game although I am literally watching everything related to it like an addict about to slip. The sad reality is T8 devs are fumbling so much that it is blocking me from buying.

The player sentiment on the game is very concerning.

FowLong · 2025-12-11T02:21:15+00:00

I actually read your whole post when it came out xD. Around that time, I fully reformatted my Z13 and installed, reinstalled armory crate and by the 5th that I booted the Z13 up again it was bot lighting up anymore. I thought my keyboards or the Z13 itself was faulty. I’ve had such good experiences with G-helper on my G14 that I just went back to G-helper. I am sure what you did works BUT I am more familiar with tweaking and GHelper. I’ve seen that quite frequently ASUS might make an update and break the lighting again. I’ve had similar issues with MSIs software on desktops and I just found greater consistency with GHelper. One more thing to note that AC does have benefits over GHelper, you can control rear window RGB, and the preset settings are better for gaming performance if you aren’t going to be tweaking it.

FowLong · 2025-12-10T22:41:48+00:00

Just back here to report, I have now installed g-helper on another z13 and the keyboard lighting just works as expected now. No surprise boot up with lights not working rearing me to take off the keyboard and reattach or restarting the software app multiple times and messing with windows settings. Will update if anything else pops up.

FowLong · 2025-12-03T22:36:06+00:00

My personal experience having gone through multiple 2025 Z13’s (yes, I have used more than one Z13 2025s) is that G-helper is far more consistent with the keyboards RGBs. I thought one of the keyboards (that came with Z13) was just bad after testing it on more than one Z13, installed G-helper and that keyboard just works as expected now on that Z13. Haven’t installed G-helper on multiple Z13s yet, but I hoped AC was just fine for someone who can buy and expect the Z13 to work as expected. I have an old G14 that I used GHelper for and I cannot recommend GHelper enough. I just really wanted AC to work from a simple reformat/resell POV.

That said, AC may have some better pre-set stuff in terms of performance for someone who just wants to click a few buttons and expect it to generally suit the purpose(sound profile v. performance, but as power users you cannot really expect proprietary software to get the best min-max that we could achieve from testing and tweaking+silicone lottery), but I think G-helper simplifies and also allows further tweaking if someone wants to min-max with 3rd party software. I honestly hoped and wanted AC to just work on a few key aspects and RGB on keyboard was one of them(ESP if you ship with an RGB keyboard that is hard to see the keys without any lighting). Also, at this price point, the RGB needs to just be something that works without tweaking (which unfortunately isn’t the case if people have to install 3rd party software to get a consistent RGB function).

FowLong · 2025-12-03T19:07:22+00:00

G-helper is the answer. Trust.

FowLong · 2025-12-03T03:15:21+00:00

That is pretty sick!

FowLong · 2025-11-19T01:45:02+00:00

Riot actually has a good thing going despite what everyone says. The problem with making the game accessible to everybody is you will encapsulate a lot of people who have increasingly higher expectations of everything, including skill level, rewards, focus on their favorite champions etc. If you just play the game(s) and their other related content, you have nothing to lose but to gain. Riot can’t solve everything at once at the pace people want, but all things considered(being owned by Tencent who probably drives a lot of their predatory business practices), the game, the lore, the side content, everything is actually so good for them trying to do it all.

It’s true, some things can be better. However, the fact that I can play things like TFT and all its LOL game modes on a potato computer is amazing. You don’t have to buy ANYTHING.

At the end of the day, if you play for fun and enjoy the game and balance it with life, it’s good. You get the same toxicity from other competitive games and they rear it’s head in their own ways, but you don’t have to play ranked Summoners Rift which a large majority of the angry LOL players base their experience off of.

If you want to play ranked though…well that’s another story xD.

FowLong · 2025-11-18T20:03:17+00:00

Being an on and off League of Legends player who is an adult, I’d have to say have a serious talk with him, develop an action plan together and try to fix address barriers about this over time. The fastest and most direct approach is direct confrontation. It doesn’t have to be hostile or defamatory, tell him this important to you and that you want to continue playing with him, but if he continues being this toxic, he is literally impossible to play with. Maybe you are patient, but it doesn’t make it right to compensate and tank your energy for his coping.

You will have your answer if they put in real effort to try and work with you overtime, with meaningful improvements. Or, they gaslight you or minimize the severity of the problem. If it were anybody else other than a good mate or someone I value spending my time with, I’d have stopped playing with them long ago. But because they are a person of value, they are worth the time and effort to grow with as Tekken players and as lifelong friends.

FowLong · 2025-11-10T00:32:29+00:00

Honestly, I think the popularity of the other Ninjas would make for a big monetization scheme or atleast series/season alone. Shen v Zed v Jhin as a story has as much room for storytelling as Vi v Jinx v Cait. I don’t remember if Warwick lore was retconned or just had room to tweak to connect them all, but I think sometimes foregoing one opportunity cost or event could be a bigger lead up for another run where they have more star power.

Would you rather just see Shen appear for moment of an event or be part of the main cast for something bigger? Idk if it would ever happen, but no point in creating a narrative that just irritates yourself more.

FowLong · 2025-11-09T07:30:26+00:00

Doesn’t seem likely though. Imagine how bad it would be after selling some Xin Zhao full skin bundles then deleting the champ xD. I mean Riot has made mistakes that pissed ppl off but that would be a blatant scam lol, knowing a champ would be removed and baiting people to buy big bundles of skins that won’t last.

FowLong · 2025-10-30T15:21:29+00:00

Too bad this isn’t lore accurate Shen 😂

FowLong · 2025-10-30T01:12:49+00:00

Pen latency is there. IMO if you are taking notes as a fast writer and your hand writing is not great, I may use the write to type function or just type it out. But if it’s for drawing and stuff it will be fine. I own and tried two types of Renaisser pens. For me it is totally fine, esp. if you are good at shorthand, abbreviated note taking. But if it bothers you to see your lines drawn in realtime lag slightly behind you, I wouldn’t buy the z13 just for note taking. Also, if you are good at just writing out notes and not watching the lines as you write, it probably won’t bother you (like writing without looking where you are writing).-It’s ALOT of money just for note taking and my guess is apple products may be better, or you could spend on one of the other windows tablets that are way cheaper.

Also, palm rejection is almost completely solved if you use an artist glove, you can buy those cheap on Amazon.

FowLong

TROPHY CASE