u/DanTheMeek

So my wife has been IF for something like a year now, and seen great results. Over the past 2 and a half years I've been dieting through other methods (mainly just reduced calorie intake and eating less processed stuff) but she lost more, faster, and seemingly easier, in one year then I did in two and a half (a little over 50 lbs for me but that only put me about half way to a healthy weight for my height), so she finally convinced me to join her in intermittent fasting.

I've let her largely dictate everything for my eating situation, however, one of the rules was surprising to me, so I just thought I'd check in if this is backed by science or not, or just something that worked for her. She told me I can't have my usual flavored fizzy water (we have a carbonation machine and 0 cal flavor essences I use to make 0 cal drinks for myself) during the fasting time, only during my eating window, but I can have Black Coffee.

She's a Coffee drinker, so that worked out well for her, but I've never really cared for Coffee, I'm more of a tea drinker. Unfortunately, while she told me I could have unflavored zero sugar/milk tea, I've found I can't have tea on an empty stomach or it upsets said stomach something fierce. Although lacking the caffeine of tea or Coffee, I had thought maybe I could use fizzy flavored drinks to fill in the gaps during the fasting periods when I want a different taste then just pure water, but again, per her, those taste too much like food, or at least things I would associate with being sweet, and thus would make this a dirty fast if I drank them because even if in small amounts, they might spike insulin, or at the least, make me feel hungry, making fasting more difficult.

But is Coffee actually better? I feel like its got a very distinct flavor itself. While its not my favorite flavor, I could say the same about plenty of vegetables whose flavor, despite not being sweet, I would also associate with eating and which carry some amount of calories. I guess my concern is that Coffee is impacting me just as much, however minimally, as a flavored fizzy water would. And if that's the case, I'd rather just drink the flavored water. But at the same time, clearly this only water and coffee method worked for her, so I don't want to move outside the proven box and unintentionally screw up my own fast efforts.

TLDR: Are there studies comparing black coffee and other 0 calorie flavored drinks, like fizzy drinks, that show black coffee is actually better during fasting?

Yes yes I know, preseason doesn't meant anything. I heard it all week when Beck (and Slovis) had a great HoF game, and I heard it again when Brisset and Minshew were terrific in their preseason debuts this thursday. But, as many fans around the league are finding out, looking good in the preseason is not a given, whether your with the starters or back ups. Cam Ward, Shedeur Sanders, Tua, Rattler, Dillon Gabriel, Riley Leonard, Garret Nussmeier, Will Levis, Josh Dobs, Trey Lance, Bryce Young, Jordan Love, Aiden O'Connel, the list goes on and on of QBs who at best, extremely under whelmed this weekend, at worst, embarrassed themselves.

Again, I understand, that does NOT mean we have a roster full of top 5 QBs, it remains to be seen if we have a single QB on staff who belongs in the top 30. Just saying it was kind of nice to be reminded why these past 2 weekends of Cardinals QB play have stood out, reminded that looking good in the preseason is not a given. It was also nice to see a team like the Browns and say "I mean, as many question marks as our QB room has, at least we're not in THAT situation, where it's not clear they have a single QB on staff who can even be serviceable."

Again, who knows what this season holds for us (or the browns), I always enter the time of year hopeful, but I'm also not too blinded by optimism to recognize we could still realistically end up 0-17 this year. But at the very least, right now, I'm feeling pretty good. I'd feel better if not for all the injuries, but there's a lot of fans of a lot of teams saying that this week as well. We've got question marks at a lot of positions, but by far the biggest and most important one is at QB, whether its fools gold or not, it's nice, at least, to not be freaking out about our QB room right now, like I'm seeing several other teams fan bases doing.

So I got the Braun Series 9 PRO+ a few months ago and as far as shaving it works well, but since the day I got it I've noticed it always has this blue water droplet icon after use. The manual says this is the Cleaning station indicator but gives me no further detail about its intent. I have a cleaning station, the one that came with it, so I use it, but next time I shave, bam, the droplets back. Repeat for over a month and I've already gone through 1 and a half of the expensive braun cleaning station tank things. At this point I've just started ignoring the icon, and only do a wash cycle every couple of days, but like, is this how the sensor is supposed to work?

What's the point of even having an led if it never changes? Am I just missing something? If I wait long enough between cleanings does it turn red (no indication of this in the manual). All the other display icons change, such as bars of battery life, but this one icon is just always flashes blue after every shave no matter how thoroughly or frequently I clean it.

https://preview.redd.it/s11ea77oswgh1.png?width=675&format=png&auto=webp&s=91bd2b95329bca6dd0ce74abd3375e87f3b461f9

So there's 6 vols of books just called Star Trek, and there's 5 vol of Star Trek Defiant, there's Day of Blood Prelude one shot, a single Day of Blood volume, and then after this is where I'm getting confused. It seems like the single volume of Lore Wars is connected as well, and possibly the single volumne Shax's Best (and worst) day... but when I read whats included in those, Lore Wars seems to collect issues of Star Trek, Defiant, and Shax's worst day, so is Lore Wars redundant is you have everything else? But it doesn't mention Shax's Best Day, so do you still need the Shax's volumne just for that one story even if you have Lore Wars because only the Worst Day issue is in that? And then there's something about Star Trek Omega, but that seems like maybe its also in the Lore Wars one?

TLDR: Which volumes would I need to have the whole story?

ST 1-6

Defiant 1-5

Day of Blood 1

???

Any thoughts appreciated!

So when I got into star wars comics a few years ago, I naturally looked into what everyone said were the must read series. The first series almost everyone points to is Vader by Soule, with pretty much anything Soule has written getting a recommend as well (Lando for example), but there were a few other series people lauded.

What never got recommended to me, not once, was the initial Dr. Aphra run. And given I wasn't super interested in the character based on her appearance in the 2015 Vader run, with no one recommending it to me, I just kind of put it off. However, having made my way through all the recommended must reads, I finally decided to give Dr. Aphra a chance.

I kind of had to push through the first issue, again I wasn't interested in this character, so the story had to win me over, convince me it was worth my time. But at some point it grabbed me enough for me to keep going. And then I found myself commenting to my wife repeatedly how surprised I was at how much I was enjoying it. And then I was commenting to my wife about how incredible it was.

And then here I am, today, on reddit, to announce, the initial run is a straight master piece of story telling. Like, it might be because my expectations were lower, but I think I might have actually enjoyed this more then Souls legendary Vader run, and I did quite enjoy that run so I don't say that lightly.

Which brings me to my question... why isn't this series talked about more? Like don't get me wrong, its not like people don't talk about it ever, or hate on the series, it does seem like its generally well received, but I never see it mentioned among the star wars comic greats, yet IMHO, it really is quite great.

Now I'm only talking about the initial run, Dr. Aphra 2016, I haven't read her 2020 run or Chaos agent, the latter of which I've heard was quite bad, so can't speak on those. But like, not even Soules run, but Gillen's Vader run is almost nothing but 4.2-4.4 on good reads, yet Aphras is 2016 run is mostly in the 3s. It's one thing if people just aren't giving her series a chance, that I can understand, but for those who do, why is this run reviewed a full tier below so many of the others from her comic era?

On a recent rewatch of the OT it occurred to me that Luke was literally dead in the trash compactor, the creature had pulled him under water, and after a few moments of shooting around the room futility in an effort to save him, Leia/Han/Chewie had given up, they weren't even looking for him anymore, they were just standing their scared and accepting Luke was gone.

Then the the trash compactor mechanism starts, causing the creature to flee through a drainage pipe, and free Luke who presumably would not have fit through said pipe, allowing him to come up for air before he fully drowned.

Consequently, if not for that trash compactor starting at that moment, Luke drowns, and isn't there to blow up the death star, let alone turn Vader against the emperor. With out Luke's death star run, Leia and the majority of the Rebellion is blown up with Yavin 4, so Leia isn't even around to be the "there is another" hope.

All of which means that the trash compactor operator who either turned on the compactor at that moment, or previously set it up to automatically turn on at that moment, unknowingly saved the entire galaxy.

What does that mean? Nothing, just a fun thought I had I thought I'd share.

So I've recently been getting into star trek comics for the first time and I've enjoyed a lot of what I've come across. The Star Trek 2022 and Defiant series have that actiony, continuity relevant, DS9 (or Discovery) feel. The Lower Decks comics feel like new episodes of Lower Decks with that more low stakes, feel good, comedic energy. And the Mirror Universe collection has that dark, grisly, with a hint of camp, DS9 (or again Discovery or even original TOS) mirror episode feel. All good stuff.

But what I haven't been able to find is something that feels like TNG. Some camp, some feel good, some low to medium stakes, generally episodic, with frequent social commentary, and most issues resolved via a good speech or coming to better understand "the enemy" of the issue rather then beating them into submission with photon torpedoes, phasers, or a palm strike to the face. Lower Decks feels the closest, its definitely feel good stories with the energy and stakes I'm looking for, and violence isn't always the answer, but it's lacking in social commentary or speeches meant to be genuinely meaningful/powerful rather then satirical.

Also, perhaps more relevantly, I already have all the LD stuff, and I know there's TONS of star trek comics out there, so I come to you all to ask, what comics (again, ideally digitally available ones so I don't have to break my bank to read them, so I can give the largest profit margin possible to the authors, and so I can use my NxtPaper14 I bought specifically for reading these comics) would you say have the most TNG era feel, be that collected volumes, single issues, what have you? Are their any stand outs, pinnacles of star trek comic TNG style story telling that could have easily have been a top tv episode had they been released as such? Bonus points if the comics actually ARE with the TNG cast, but I'd be happy to read about an original crew that was trying to evoke the TNG era style too.

Eight year old daughter got the Winx Club switch game that just came out, was super excited to play it together with me, but after over 30 minutes of fighting with it, the co-op refuses to work. We're past the initial tutorial, wandering around the school, player one works fine, but player two can't control anything, the only button that does anything is L will switch the AI controller character, but we can't actually take control of the AI character. Tried joy cons, pro controllers, re-binding the controllers in game, rebinding the controllers out of hte game, closing the game and relaunching, reseating the joycons on the switch itself, and on and on.

The game is specifically sold as a co-op game, are we just missing something? Everything online seems to suggest player 2 just has to "click in" to start playing...

Interested in getting into Star Trek books but finding it both daunting an confusing. It seems like there's numbered books, non numbered books, books that are part of something called a "lit-verse", books that aren't, books that are connected to each other, books that aren't, and on and on. Written books, comic books, audio books. A series by Simon and Schuster, a series by Pocket Books. Miniseries, anthologies, trilogies, duologies, I think I might have even seen what looked like a manga.

All of which is to say, I'd really love a documentary like break down of the history of star trek books, explanations on how all this came to be, why some are numbered, how to tell if something is in this "lit verse" or stand alone, what books or series if any have an intended reading order, what if any are considered the cream of the crop that people think of first when they think of trek books.

From what I understand of star wars books, there's a generally recommended starting point (Heir to the Empire) for their expanded universe, not the first book but the first one that was so good that everyone felt they needed to expand on it, so its both worth reading because of it being good, and because anything you pick up printed after it will likely benefit from the context of it, does Trek have something similar?

Seems like there's over a thousand books out there, so a history of those books, even if not helpful for me on where to start, could just be an interesting listen/read, at the least.

Lots of talk lately about Rodgers maybe coming to town, but what are people's thoughts on Brendan Sorsby, a QB many had as a top 3 QB prospect, who...

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(Bold814 better explained the situation so I'm posting his explanation here)

"He didn’t have sports betting issues that prevented him from entering the draft this year. He transferred to Texas Tech from Cincinnati. The gambling issues could cause him to lose NCAA eligibility for the year (this is currently a legal issue). Thus, if his eligibility is not restored - he would apply for the supplemental draft."

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Assuming he enters the supplemental draft, which is not yet a given, and some one took him, he'd be the first player taken in the supplemental draft for any team since we took Jalen Thompson (who obviously worked out well for us) with a 5th. He was usually still behind Mendoza on most people who evaluated him (that I saw) big board, but seemed to be viewed favorably to Ty, with a higher ceiling (but lower floor).

I personally wouldn't mind us bidding as high as a 4th on him. I don't think he's worth a high round 2027 pick, and if we won him we would unfortunately have created a sort of Dillon Gabriel + Shedeur Sanders situation, two young mid round guys guys fighting over reps, but I do think Sorsby's ceiling is higher then Becks. For a fourth rounder, I feel he'd be worth rolling the dice. At the least it'd create a real QB competition this year that could make watching the games more interesting.

So I'm re-reading the manga from the beginning again, and I know I'm not the first to notice how protective Sanji is of Usopp in the early sagas, especially compared to the rest of the crew, frequently coming to his defense when no one else was. The biggest stand out was probably during the water 7 arc where he's very aggressive in defending Ussop, both verbally, and physically when Luffy was about to say something particularly cruel to Ussop and Sanji kicks Luffy to shut him up. He also tries to tell Ussop about the coming flood in a way that wouldn't hurt his pride (with choppers help), and much much more.

But it was only on this read that the realization came upon me, Usopp has been to the straw hats crew found family, what Sanji was to his biological family, growing up. He's the lone guy with out super powers in a family full of them. Yes Nami isn't a super human fighter, but aside from the fact she repeatedly proves more reliable in a fight then Usopp in these early arcs, her super human navigation skills still make her an indispensable part of their crew, while Usopp's sniper abilities are, for most of the series, never really needed or even acknowledged. Even when giving his big speech to Arlong where Luffy announces why each of his crew are indispensable to him, the reason he gives for "needing" Ussop is that he (Luffy) isn't good at lying, which unlike the rest who are heart warmed by Luffy's comment about them, Ussop takes offense to as it appears even in such a powerful moment, Usopp is just a joke to Luffy (from Usopp's perspective).

A consequence of this is that Sanji is uniquely positioned to be the only crew member who can truly relate to Usopp when he expresses his feelings of inferiority and uselessness relative to his family. It thus makes sense that Sanji would be so defensive of Usopp, so quick to protect and support him, while at the same time always doing so in a way that allows Usopp to keep his pride, to not feel like he's being pitied or looked down upon by Sanji for doing so. He's been there, he knows how Usopp is feeling all too well.

It really re-contextualized their relationship on this read through, and made some of their sweetest scenes together all the sweeter. Sanji's not just the big brother to Usopp, he's the big brother Sanji wished HE had growing up.