Amuro Ray, Newtype Warrior, who looks at a bra as he walks into it and is still surprised when it happens.

Tales has this thing where you can't do the optional dungeons until after you beat the game, which I really don't like. Take Xillia 2 for example: You can't get some of the best weapons in the game until after you've beaten it. Oh, you can use them in New Game+ if you want, but really can I just fucking use them again the final boss? Imagine if you couldn't unlock the best weapons in Final Fantasy X until after you've beaten Sin. That's pretty silly. I suppose Tales looks at other games and realizes if you put the optional dungeon first — take the basement of the tower in Final Fantasy XII for example — the final boss seems like nothing in comparison, so it's better to throw all the crazy shit until afterward. Still, come on. What is the point? I'm not intending to play Xillia 2 ever again after I'm done getting all the weapons.

States Push to Provide Some Ex-Felons a Second Chance

This is another one of those things I'm on the fence about. Felons not being able to land a decent job is probably a path to recidivism, and there needs to be forgiveness for one-time offenders. They've done their done and paid their debt to society. Still, I'm really sympathetic to businesses: If someone they hired had a criminal record and that person committed a crime, that shit would be all over the news. People would denounce the company and ask why they hired such a person in the first place. That's publicity no one really needs. Still, what these people are advocating for isn't firm affirmative action but rather just giving them a chance. That sounds reasonable. Until you realize businesses would just reject them in round two or three of the interview process instead of when you first turn in the application. So I guess nothing changed?

I was listening to an NPR show asking whether Sanders supporters would vote for Clinton if she won the primaries and vice versa. It was mostly Sanders listeners calling in unfortunately, but they overwhelmingly said they would not. This isn't a good sample of anything, but it got me thinking: What is the end game for these people? I guess it's admirable to stick to principle, but then again that's what's pissing me off about politics nowadays: adherence to belief. That sounds pretty fucked up when I say that, but that leads to a lack of compromise. Let's go back to 1992: Many Republicans voted for Ross Perot to protest Bush's tax increases after he said he wouldn't... and Clinton won. It seems like those voters shot themselves in the foot over that one.

Politics is a dirty, dirty business. It's nice to get someone who has probity working there and we should all strive to vote such people in, but at the same time we don't want zealots. We need people with pragmatism. Because if you don't, you have shit like the Freedom Caucus that will literally block every law going through congress just because they disagree with one provision. And as a voter, it's better to be pragmatic too. Sure, you don't have to vote for Clinton or Sanders if you don't want to... but why would you? How does this help you? New York state will always go Democrat, but if you're living in Ohio or Colorado, why would you abstain? What's the point?

You know what's one nice thing about dad as he ages? He loosened the rules a bit about Passover. Before it was a strict situation: no popcorn, no rice, any bread products left over must be stored away in a remote corner of the house. Now, although he wouldn't allow it at the table, he remarked that I should probably finish some of the crackers before they go bad. It makes the whole process a little less painful.

If you look at my front yard, you'd notice it's split into three parts: A back garden by the window, an upper garden on top of a wall, and a lower garden at the bottom of the wall by the sidewalk. I spent a lot of last year fixing up the front and backyards, but I didn't touch the lower garden that much because I knew mom wanted to do landscaping there. At the moment we've put a shrubbery wall encircling it and two rose bushes. Mom wants to let them grow out, so she didn't add anything. I guess, but I feel really embarrassed whenever I see how gorgeous my neighbors' gardens look right now and then this giant dead zone in mine.

Peguero:
My cousin's caughter is turning 3 and her cake legit looks like a wedding cake.
Me: Don't worry; it's not a true wedding cake if there's no dong on it.
Peguero: ...What kind of fucked up weddings have you been to?
Me: What weddings have you been to?
Peguero: Literally not one with a dong anywhere in the decorations.
Me: Oh yeah, some of them are internal. Kinda like when the groom tries to get the bride's garter.
Peguero: SOME of them are internal? What external dongs are there?
Me: Man, you really have not attended many weddings, have you.
Peguero: Maybe this is like those ink blot tests where everything you see is dongs.
me: I think you need to culture yourself.

Harlan's woman: Do you see this? Your brother keeps this display in the kitchen. And he keeps on rearranging them too. Yesterday the Ewok was between the Frozen people. It's not like he just left them there and forgot about it. He's looking at them every day. I don't understand why he put the Frozen princesses with the Star Wars characters. He says it's because they're friends. I need space in the kitchen.

Cannot stop playing around with this.

Hufflepuff

From what I understand, this person believes these images embody what is the essence of the Hogwarts house, Hufflepuff, which include some random shirtless guy and a bunch of pillows. I'm guessing "yellow" is the theme here, except most of them just have a yellow filter overlaid.

Looking at this reminds me a bit of staring at a painting entitled Happiness and it's just two blue stripes over a white background and you ponder what the fuck this means. What steps went on in this person's mind? "Let me find a picture of terribly-drawn lungs. Surely when people see that they immediately think of Hufflepuff, right? Oh, here we go. Perfect. Oh wait, there's also a picture of someone playing cards! That's Hufflepuff right there."

I guess this is why I went into history and not art.

Why the hell do people keep on listing Chinese scanlations as raws? They're still a fucking translation. It's not Japanese. It'd be as if someone put a Captain America comic into Portuguese and said it's a raw because they both use the Roman alphabet.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Fight to Be Heard

This is another one of those things I'm on the fence about. Mom vaguely asked why it takes so long for construction nowadays, and I said one of the factors is probably safety. How many people died making the tunnels to provide NYC water? But that shit wouldn't fly now, which is why we have to slowly break ground to assure no one's gonna get hurt in a sudden cave in or water flooding the whole tunnel or what have you. These people can now work in a more stable environment, I'm certain we're all happy about that, but a negative consequence is construction is slower and more expensive.

I feel that way about this too. Let's take this from the point of view of the health club. They have to take a hit by hiring a sign-language interpreter. I doubt they have enough deaf customers to justify keeping one on hand, but getting someone from outside is still about $50-$150 per hour. And she wanted a gym membership, so who knows how many sessions she would require? I doubt this is a small business, so they probably can absorb the cost. If there're enough deaf people though or if I'm wrong and this is a small business, it would start affecting their profits. And to stave this off, they would start raising prices. All of their customers would contribute to pay for sign-language interpreters.

Now, I think we all agree there are some places that should require these services, like a hospital or a police station, but businesses are the fuzzy area. Of course there should not be discrimination, but this isn't like suddenly opening the doors for women or minorities. It costs money to cater for people with disabilities, whether it's hiring an interpreter or adding ramps to a building. NYC has a good compromise for those with wheelchairs: You can keep a building as is, but if you do a major renovation, then you gotta add in those ADA-compliant parts. But what about deaf people? I actually have no idea what the law is. Is for example a bodega required to keep a sign-language interpreter behind the counter if a deaf person wants to patron them? That's pretty ridiculous and I doubt that's required, but then again that health club was legally supposed to provide one.

Being deaf definitely closes much of the world to you, and like the construction workers, we as a society should make sure there are safeguards for them. There should be interpreters at governmental and emergency services. But should we force a place to get an interpreter on the off chance a deaf person will come in? I'm not entirely certain. We did after all force the construction industry to take better care of their workers, increasing the price for all. But then again, that's hundreds of thousands of construction workers, compared to how many deaf people? On the other hand if it's so small, surely the cost of helping the deaf shouldn't be an issue. Or it would if it fell on the taxpayers, but now we're expecting businesses to provide.

See, this is why I'm on the fence. Maybe if I had a clearer picture of the law I could come to a better conclusion, or maybe not. Maybe that's why we're having problems to this day.

So I was informed that should we ever need to change the batteries in the fire alarms, we would first have to shut off the circuit because they're hard wired. That sounds great, except I have no idea which circuit they're connected to. Who the hell designed this idea so I can punch him in the face?

When his wife sensed her husband was sleeping,
Augusta took up the nocturnal hood of a whore,
Boldly preferring a mat to her bed on the Palatine,
And left with only a young woman escorting her.
Hiding her black hair with a blond wig,
She went to the brothel smelly with old rags
And entered her empty chamber; then she sold herself
Naked, with golden nipples, imitating a She-Wolf
And displaying the womb you came, noble Britannicus.
Flattering, she received those entering and asked their money,
And lying there, absorbed all of the strokes continuously.
When the pimp dismissed all his girls,
She left sadly, and left her chamber as late as
She could, her taunt pussy still burning with lust.

Other animals have sex at certain times of the year, but humans, as it is said, for all hours of the day and night; other animals are satisfied with sex, but got men there is none. Messalina, wife of Claudius Caesar, believing this to be a royal palm, selected the most renown young woman of hired prostitutes for a contest, and defeated her after her twenty-fifth lay throughout the day and night.

These are passages from Juvenal's Satires and Pliny's Natural History about the Roman Emperor Claudius' third wife, Messalina. I think she's a good case study about what historians have to deal with. All of the ancient historians I know say she was an insatiable nymphomaniac, and she's had that reputation for millennia. But nowadays people are looking deeper at the evidence and wondering about this. Take for example her son Britannicus, whom Juvenal mentioned in his poem. If she was so well-known for fucking men, why didn't anyone at the time or later question Britannicus' legitimacy? She was executed after Claudius discovered she had a public wedding with her lover Silius, but how the hell could she have done that when everyone knew she was the wife of the emperor?

The possible answer was a massive, long-lasting smear campaign. Claudius was a capable emperor, but you get the feeling he had social ineptitude, which made him susceptible to domineering personalities, whether it be high-level officials or his wives. Many men of the day were not pleased how they, with long pedigrees of senators, were suddenly at the whim of the empress. Then were was Claudius' fourth wife, Agrippina the Younger, who Messalina's rival for the many years leading up to her death. Agrippina was just as ambitious as her predecessor, and probably did everything in her power to make herself seem saintly in comparison to garner support. Both of these parties could've written everything to destroy Messalina's reputation, and we have nothing from her supporters to counter that.

It's impossible to know for certain, but I think we all agree there's more to it than the ancient sources are telling us. Maybe she did have a guy on the side, but that came later in her marriage. Or maybe she did other unsavory things like manipulating Claudius to bestow lots of wealth, which just gave her a bad reputation overall. Or maybe she was actually a bitch and didn't do all the shit people were saying, but because of her personality everyone believed it. We don't know, but I don't think anyone is taking the story at face-value anymore because it just doesn't make any sense. There's no way she could sleep in a brothel every night without anyone knowing. There's no way for everyone to know about a contest to fuck twenty-five dudes whilst the emperor was in the dark. It just doesn't add up. But sifting through the evidence to get the truth is very difficult.

Let it be known throughout the land I am not very good at translating poetry.

Me: Is it legal to raise chickens in NYC?
Peguero: Hens but not roosters.
Me: Sounds sexist.
Peguero: You can lobby to change the law.
Me: I need a slogan. "Stop sexism against chickens" doesn't really cut it.
Peguero: Free the cocks?

It's hard to top that, but any other ideas?

I have no idea what this is anime is about, and I'm not certain if I want to:

My German teacher said one thing he enjoyed about America is we're very good at small talk. What he meant was we culturally always know what to say in any situation, even if it's of no importance. Germans don't, which is why they come off as rude and brusque. He really appreciated how our shopkeepers and cashiers always knew how to be polite and engaging, and how even upon meeting someone we would know how to slowly open up a conversation.

One student replied she found that to be really fake about American culture and that we pretend to be interested and friendly when in reality we don't care. One sticking point for her was "have a nice day." She said the person doesn't know her, yet is acting like her friend.

I've heard this argument before and I always respond: Well, what is the alternative? Unless you think the cashier is an asshole, do you honestly think that person genuinely wants you to have a horrible day? No, you may be strangers, but I still would hope you'd have a pleasant day, along with every other person I see in the street. Why wouldn't I want to be polite and friendly to someone I've just met as opposed to just criticizng them for what they're wearing? In that same conversation my German teacher said people in his home country would tell you how they think your scarf is ugly or your makeup doesn't match. Maybe that's not two-faced and they're honest, but at the same time, fuck you jackass. That's how fights are started. So to keep the peace, just make small talk about the weather.