Whenever I see New Year's Eve abbreviated to NYE, I keep on thinking we're talking about Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Fuck this cold. Every time I start falling asleep, I start coughing and wake up.

Things that would make Final Fantasy XV better instantaneously:

1. Be able to pick up items whilst riding a chocobo.
2. If an enemy has Analyze used on it already, the stats will remain if you encounter the same enemy again.

I also watched Handa-kun. I never finished the manga (wasn't fully translated and the group doing it seems to be dead), but I thought it was a mildly-funny situational comedy. The anime changed the chronology of events, but what it did portray was a rather faithful rendition. My main complaint is what I found hilarious about Handa-kun were the little details. For example, when the protagonist Handa was fleeing from the student council, his track-and-field "rival" Dash attempted to race him, only to crash into a pile of boxes. Small moments like that were often removed from the anime, which for me were the true charm of the series.

However the anime added this scene, which did make me spit out my drink:

The way the ending also added Handa's each new associate was a nice touch too.

I have no idea why but every year mom forgets this conversation. This past week she's brought it up again but for some reason this time she's more tenacious about it because she discovered the other ladders in the house can only withstand 225lb as well. I can tell she's trying to tell me to use the step ladder from now on so she doesn't have to, but wouldn't it be safer if I just stopped using all ladders altogether? I'm losing weight, but until then should I get something with a greater capacity?

Catching up with all the shit I've been missing since Christmas presents consumed me, starting with Zeta: A New Translation. It's not quite like Do You Remember Love?, which was completely revamped graphically to the point of some of the characters being unrecognizable, but rather scenes were inserted or removed. Consequently when watching it you're stuck with shitty 1980s animation an then suddenly switch to a scene from the early-2000s production level. It's rather disconcerting but it allows you to easily tell what's the new content.

As a movie summary of a fifty-episode series of course they're going to leave shit out to the point of being awkward or jarring. It starts off with Camille in the interrogation room without the scene of him and Jerid fighting, which in turn makes their already weak rivalry somewhat nonsensical. Amuro's also not a little bitch so some of his actions aren't easily explained; in the original show Beltachika had to offer her pussy to motivate Amuro to fight, except here he's enthusiastic from the start so all of these discussions about his fears are odd. Reccoa's dissatisfaction with Char and her way of life was rushed, and hence her betrayal is confusing; she was captured and then suddenly working for the Titans. Most interestingly is Rosamia was almost completely gone. In the original Zeta she had some scenes piloting the Psycho Gundam Mk-II, but her face was never revealed until about thirty episodes later when she thinks Camille is her brother. They added more moments of her in those initial scenes but then removed her plot entirely, which was sort of my point: After Four died I think the writers felt Camille needed a second crazy bitch, but she wasn't a necessary addition. However she strangely appears in the final scene with all the other dead people Camille can hear in space, which would be completely confusing for anyone who hadn't seen the series. There are other small changes, like how Reccoa is killed by Emma instead of Yazan. And Bask is killed by Yazan instead of Reccoa. But of course the major one is Camille doesn't go crazy at the end. I'm guessing they take that part out in ZZ?

Overall I think it's a good adaptation of the series. The condensed time gives greater impetus to AEUG's actions, one of the complaints I had about the original series,, but I feel there's still a lack of overall direction, particularly since Char's speech to the world was cut out. It's not bad if you have the time, but I still say stick to the 1980s version.

Christmas = failure this year. I didn't finish the hat and scarf.

Down to the final stretch...!

I think the album cover of Vent ~ Grandia is probably the greatest of all time:

Typing with one hand is a real bitch. I can barely remember what it was like before I learned touchtyping.

Well, my wrist finally gave out from crocheting. Hopefully I can get it up and running again in a day or two.

Fuck this blanket.

OK, I have to make two scarves, one blanket, one sweater, one hat, and fourteen origami pieces and then I'm done. I'll be done. My hands can finally rest.

dundun: I fished the whole time
dundun: And then I ran out of lines, so when I went to the guy to get more
dundun: Four iron giants popped out of the ground.
Rizhall: Four.
Rizhall: That's a lucky number.
dundun: Actually, there may have been more. I stopped counting after a while when these spiders came.
Rizhall: I had a grim reaper come out with the lemonade once.
Rizhall: ... With the iron giant.
dundun: .........I was genuinely debating whether to ask for further information about that or if I really wanted to know.
Rizhall: It was an honest typo.
Rizhall: That's all it was.
dundun: But of course. The letters are all right next to each other.
Rizhall: One or two mistyped letters can really change things up, you know?

Oh Jesus Christ, I just remembered Tales of Berseria is released next month. I'm fucked.

Another thing about the iPhone 7: Wow, the battery life dies quickly. What the hell did they put on this that just kills the whole thing? When I check it's the mp3 player, but I'm only listening to that for maybe twenty minutes? And the rest is in the background. What the fuck is it doing that just drains the thing?

Before if you wanted the lyrics, you'd tap on the CD art in the first picture and they'd pop up. Now you're required to scroll down to look at it. This can get annoying because if I want to rewind, I then have to scroll back up, pull the song back about ten seconds, and then immediately try to go back down and find my place. It's particularly problematic when I'm doing listening comprehension exercises on my phone because god knows I need to relisten every ten seconds to fully comprehend all the sounds coming out of their mouths. I don't know why Apple didn't just keep the lyrics there with all of the controls because it's easier to use if all of the functions and data is on the screen at the same time. It's not like the lyrics were fucking up the aesthetic since you had to tap the CD art anyway to get it.

(Also for some reason the lyrics for half of my songs aren't uploading, even though they were fine in the previous iOS.)

All of these gripes I make are minute in the grand scheme of things, but it just pisses me off that Apple is shown as a paragon of good design when I, some idiot in her basement who majored in Medieval History, can identify immediate problems with their layout and how to fix them. What did these people learn in college? What are they being paid for? How are they messing this shit up?

For some reason since I've gotten back, I've had problems downloading updates for Windows, drivers, etc. Right now I have a Microsoft security definitions stuck at about a quarter in. I have no idea what the hell happened to this laptop while I was gone in SF.

OK, right now it seems the plan is to just crochet every night until I fall asleep on top of the yarn.

During the final battle of Okami, there's a point where you see a group of people standing around and only the chest down is visible. I commented to Alex during our playthrough that I've played the game so much that I was able to recognize each NPC in that shot. And really that was one of the amazing parts of Okami: Each NPC was unique. I can't think of a single sprite they replicated except for some of the guards. Talking to each one gave me a taste of their personalities and really expanded the game to feel like a world.

I'm bringing this up because of Final Fantasy XV. Again, I'm early in the game but I'm worried because so far all the sidequests have been variations of fetch quests or bounties. And half of them come from the same three people! It's gonna get pretty tedious after a while.

See, Okami had fetch quests, but they never told you it was one. You would talk to an NPC and he'd mention he's visiting the city and is looking for a hairpin for his wife. Or another would say someone took his mask. And later on you would find that shit, remember the NPC had mentioned it way back when, and returned it to him. That's part of what made the game immersive. I learned a bit of the people's lives by talking to them -- how he fears his wife's wrath or what that mask meant to him -- and along your journey you bring up those memories when you happen to find it. And when you bring back those objects, you're given another window in the NPC's psyche with how he expresses his thanks. That's what makes a game interesting. Not going back to the same dude and he says, "Hey, thanks for this stuff. OK, I need more of this stuff."

Now that I've played Final Fantasy XV, I've noticed some significant changes between it and the first demo that was released, particularly with the battle system. First of all, all of your weapons were equipped simultaneously (I think there were five or six), and you used them depending on your actions during battle. For example, there was a list like, "Warp," "Close-range attack," "Finishing blow," and you decided where you wanted to put your broadsword or lance.

Then each weapon had its own move. Like the broadsword had "Tempest," the lance had "Jump," and the two short swords had an HP aborb move that I can't remember the name of. So during battle you'd toggle the moves with the D-pad and then press square to do your special attack.

The developers removed both of those completely. You can only equip four weapons (or spells), and then use the D-pad to select which one to use. Not only that, but Noctis doesn't have any special moves anymore. They've been given to your teammates, and for some of them Noctis can join in if you press circle at the right moment. It's somewhat bizarre, playing as a character who only has a limited amount of physical attacks. Maybe this expands later, but somehow I doubt it.

Also because they allowed Noctis to do combo attacks with his teammates' moves, they completely removed another team attack that was in the demo. During battle sometimes a teammate would have a yellow circle next to him. If you stepped in that, a quick-time event would appear and you'd get a multi-hit combo together. Again maybe they add this feature later, but I'm thinking probably not.

Right now I'm withholding judgment. So far it's fun and I like it, but I'm worried they're gonna push this game too much into MMO territory (so far the sidequests have been variations of "kill this monster" and "do this fetch quest") without much character development and storyline. Or that may be becuase I'm having so much fun running around in the field to actually progress with this.

"Kusudama" are a type of origami that involve the parts being sewn or glued together and usually hung with a tassel. Supposedly it would contain a potpourri inside, but nowadays it's just a decoration hung from the ceiling. And I wanna say fuck these things. Gluing this shit together is one of the most painful fucking experiences in the goddamned world. By the time I'm done, all my fingers are sticky and I pray to god I didn't get globs of it all over the piece itself. ...But they are very pretty.

Each time I think I've gotten a good count, I suddenly remember one other scarf I have to crochet for a Christmas present. My fingers are going to be sore for the next few weeks...

I want you guys to return to our teenage years and try to remember the run up to the Iraq War. We were already in Afghanistan thanks to Osama bin Laden. It made sense for us to be there because we were out for blood, so the Bush administration had lay groundwork to turn our attention to Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with September 11th. Probably the most memorable part was Colin Powell in 2003 bringing a bottle of anthrax into the UN, but the process was already beginning the year before. Cheney was making speeches declaring Iraq had WMDs, citing The New York Times as proof. From about September 2002 to April 2003, Times writer Judith Miller published a series of articles detailing Iraq's WMD program and the government ran with it.

Which is weird because last I heard the media was a liberal bastion and foe of the conservative president at the time. Bush and Cheney themselves would bitterly complain The New York Times published biased articles against them because it's in Democrat New York City. How can they be simultaneously liberal and yet not only let the Bush administration get away with false accusations but also fuel the justification?

I think whenever people complain about "the media," they really aren't looking at it. Or they just pay attention to 24-hour cable news. Or their perception just is derived from reading shit off of Facebook. And it's funny because reporters can never win. Conservatives hate them because supposedly they're all liberals deep down, and liberals hate them because it's filled with white men who silence minorities. I feel none of these people actually open up a fucking newspaper and look at the whole thing.

For example, right now I keep hearing people whine how no one is talking about the police brutality around the North Dakota pipeline protests. Guess what? All the major newspapers are covering this story. NPR touches on it several times a day. It's just not paramount because our president-elect is announcing his picks for the cabinet, and that's way more fucking important. If the news decided to ignore that and focus on a bunch of people fighting law enforcement in the cold, I'd actually be pissed off. I'd rather be hearing about the people who may shape our healthcare system, our treaties and relations with other countries, or our environmental policy than that. And the editors know it, so the pipeline business, whilst not unimportant, got bumped to page five or so.

Are there biases in the news? Undoubtedly. They know they won't get business if they tell uninteresting stories, so they tend to hype up shit or ignore horrible things that happen repeatedly. Let's go back to the Iraq War. During 2005-06 there were horrific bombings every single day as the country devolved into sectarian violence. All those stories got less prominence because, and this is going to sound terrible, people get bored after hearing about another eighty people who died in a suicide bombing. Hundreds of people are dying each week trying to cross the Mediterranean, but unless it's a large amount of people drowning in one boat those headlines are mentioned only in passing when compared to the US election or some sort of governmental scandal or whatever major sports victory happened last night. And yeah, the reporters may have their own personal proclivities as well. CNN was depicted as racist after Hurricane Katrina because it said whites were scavenging for food whilst blacks were looting stores... but then again no one would've given a shit about the Duke Lacrosse team case if the stripper wasn't black.

I find if you look at the top stories, the editors are able to identify what is most pressing and across all the newspapers it's usually reported with almost the same information. There's no extreme differences in portrayal. When Castro died, that was what everyone was talking about. When the Volkswagen emissions scandal broke, that too was on the front page. And when Ferguson was turning particularly gruesome, then you could view a plethora of videos and photos. Just because you personally are invested in an issue — Harambe, the shooting of Tyre King, gun rights — and the media isn't all over it, it doesn't necessary mean discrimination. There could be more fascinating shit going on. Or people have stopped talking about it because the news cycle has moved on. Instead of whining about it, why don't you actually read this stuff? Because I don't get my news from social media and somehow I'm abreast of all the issues... by consuming media.

Jesus, sorry I've been busy either in SF or Harlan came over. Will try to update diligently.

A little late, but a review of my train trip across country:

Last time I went through Kansas and across the Rockies via Denver, but this time I headed up north to Portland to see Paul. I remember years ago mom saying we should turn North Dakota into a national park because no one lived there, and wow she was right. All of it was just an empty flatness. If I had to describe Montana, it was a slightly bumpier North Dakota. Unfortunately we passed through the most fascinating parts, the Rockies and Glacier Park, at night. Thankfully Washington and Oregon are gorgeous and I was able to view some of that in the morning. If you're taking this route, I recommend heading east instead of west and during the summer with longer sunlight hours; you'll be able to see all those sights. So yeah, I preferred the other route but this wasn't horrible. The wide, open sky was beautiful and I feel I have a taste of other parts of the country I hadn't grasped before. When I read about people on the Oregon Trail or people trying to explain America's Great Plains, I'll have a sense of it now.

Dad: You know, after you eat a huge dessert the French say, "En finir avec la sucre."
Harlan: Does that mean "Give up to Hitler?"

First impressions of Portland:

The cars will let you cross even if they have the right of way. It's led to many awkward situations where I stare at the drivers thinking, "What the fuck are they doing?" And the drivers looking at me thinking, "Why isn't this bitch moving?"

There are no trash cans anywhere. I fucking walked three or four miles today trying to figure out how to dispose of my hot chocolate cup and the only one I found was the sanitary napkin dispenser in a public bathroom.

They think giving grocery bags without handles is OK.

OK, I'll admit it: I was secretly delighted to skip Halloween this year. We always got lots of kids being the only houses in the area, but in the past five years or so it's completely exploded. My neighbors reported that they've seen people actually drive to just trick-or-treat at our block. We're guessing it's the influence of one particular neighbor who's been promoting Halloween with pumpkin pageants and such.

Also, it's interesting to see how the generations change. Back in my cousin's day (this cousin used to live in the house with us), the kids would just go out by themselves without parental supervision for about an hour or two and traverse the neighborhood by themselves. Nowadays not only are the parents there, but they have better costumes than the children.

I really have no idea what I'm going to do in Portland, so I went to TripAdvisor. According to the popular vote, the top five places to visit there are gardens.

Dad had to come downstairs to investigate why I was squealing with joy so much.

Sorry, really busy tonight. Here's a clip of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as a teen comedy, a tribute I think to the effects of editing:

DMC thread (or "floss" as it's called in the needlework world) pretty much has a monopoly. Let's say you want jade green. Each one of their colors is attached to a number, so if you get a pattern somewhere it'll say, "Get DMC 505," and it'll be jade green. There's literally hundreds of these with the highest number being 3866. Recently I got a new pattern that with numbers higher than that, which confused the shit out of me. And it was worse when I went to all the thread stores knew of and they didn't have anything higher than 3866. It seems DMC released sixteen new colors recently, but because every single shop has a display that has the exact amount of thread, there's no room for the new ones. And because I haven't seen this new palette in real life, I can't match it to an existing thread that's close. Why the hell would they do this to us? Isn't hundreds of colors enough?

You have to be there to find this as funny as Moham and I did, but I'll try to explain: In Grandia a very muscular woman joins our party and says we should meet her husband because he knows the old lore and would be able to help us on our quest. Over and over she talked about her husband: how much she loved him and missed him and how she couldn't wait to return home and see him. Now, because of her body structure, I expected her race to be something like the orcs from World of Warcraft: Although ripped as fuck, the females are still smaller than the males. I thought when we met him, he would be huge.

When we entered the town, she squealed in delight at seeing him, and then the camera panned over to show us this:

It took about 0.5 seconds for this image to register before Moham and I collapsed in laughter. Our lungs literally were hurting for the next two hours because we howled so much. That probably was the last thing I imagined her husband to be. And the worst part is this isn't interspecies! Every single male in town is some sort of adorable cow creature! How high were the designers tripping when they designed these people? It doesn't add anything to the game; after commenting he looks like a bull, the characters just moved on with their lives. So why make him like that? It's so ridiculous I started laughing again as I uploaded this picture.

Although in third person, Harry Potter is definitely narrated from Harry's point of view with the exception of the occasional chapter that takes place elsewhere. And as such, I've picked up on some of his speech patterns. For example, he almost always calls someone of his age group by their first name ("Dean" instead of "Thomas"), even if they're on bad terms ("Ernie" instead of "Macmillain.") Older students he varies; he tends to use last names unless if he's friendly with them ("Diggory" became "Cedric" after the Triwizard Tournament) with the exception of Oliver Wood. Slytherins are always by the last name ("Malfoy," "Crabbe," "Goyle") however he consistently uses first names with females whether he knows them well or not and even if they're in Slytherin ("Pansy" instead of "Parkinson," "Millicent" instead of "Bulstrode"). If he meets a student's parent, he will call them by title to differentiate them from the child ("Mr. Malfoy" for Lucius) and he very, very rarely calls an adult by their first name even if they're close. And now I'm stepping into controversy: If he meets a black person, he will instantly note their race, which is why I don't think Hermione Granger is black, but he doesn't for other races.

These small nuances is what makes a character unique and creates layers to their personalities. It shows how they view other people and how they regard their relationships with them. Harry is respectful toward his elders, but with his godfather, the one person he views as a surrogate father, he calls him "Sirius." And if you're going to translate this type of stuff, you need to pay attention to these to retain the richness. For example, let's look at this:

This completely threw me off because the speaker always calls him by his last name, Okumura-kun. I've always taken note of this because I found it weird to call him that when they're brothers. So I checked the original and the line is, "君もこちらへ." Yeah, he didn't call him Rin! The translator just fucked up!

These kinds of discrepancies are all over the place in many different series. If you make these types of errors, then fans start treating these words as gospel and write long-ass essays about stuff that isn't even right. I would not be surprised if I found a post saying these two brothers' relationships has strengthened now that they're on a first-name basis, even though it's completely, utterly wrong. Admittedly for scanlations the groups aren't being paid for this, but I would hope if you like a series so much that you dedicate your spare time to translate it, you would notice these nuances.

What concerns me particularly about the picture above is I believe it's from the official translation. Meaning someone was paid for that fuck up.

Grandia is a 3D game, and even though for the time that was pretty impressive, I really wish it went with a fixed camera. Let's compare it with a contemporary, Final Fantasy VII. It had gorgeous drawn backgrounds that were so memorable that to this day I can look at a screenshot of it and know which direction I was supposed to go. Grandia has no focal points in any of its dungeons; they're literally all the same walls and floors. It's one step away from just drawing a maze with lines. And because it's 3D, it's harder for me mentally to remember whether I came from the right or left and there's no focal point to situate myself. And Grandia dungeons aren't like the ones nowadays. None of them are linear. There are branches in every direction, and some places have you walking up and down floors. I lose track sometimes if I've been somewhere already. If you're going to create dungeons that complicated, please dial it back a bit. Don't waste your space for graphics on 3D and spend more resources on generating unique backgrounds so I can figure out where the fuck I am.

If you're going to throw a metaphor into your work, it needs to be somewhat understandable. Take Animal Farm. We all know it was about communism. We can even say which animal was Stalin or Trotsky. Or in The Lord of the Flies, Piggy is civilized society. I get it.

Because otherwise it's going to confuse the audience, particularly if the metaphor isn't subtle. Last night I watched Wagner's opera of Tristan und Isolde, a story about two people who accidentally drink a love potion. Unfortunately Isolde is married off to Tristan's uncle, and eventually their love affair is revealed. After being injured in a duel, Tristan dies and Isolde mourns her loss.

Whenever Tristan soliloquized his difficult situation, on occasion an actor in a white uniform or a small child would appear on stage, walk around a bit, and then disappear into the darkness without uttering a line. They clearly were placed there by the current director and were not an invention of Wagner and are supposed to represent... something, but I had no idea. Duty? Innocence? I thought my ignorance was perhaps because I'm terrible at this shit, but during the intermission from overheard conversations I could tell no one else could figure it out either.

It's like when that wolf would randomly show up in Advent Children. The creators are clearly aiming for something, but it's so vague it's nonsensical and even destroys the flow of the narration now that the viewer is bewildered. Metaphors are great if they enhance the experience. Doing it like that is not. It's jarring and can actually upset the audience. Don't fucking do it, unless you want your entire work to be a giant mindfuck like Ulysses.

My local library has a huge kids' section and often tries to help the community in various ways, like hosting talks, providing computer or ESL classes, or even giving a space for knitting circles. That's great and I'm really proud that they're providing a valuable service that's desperately needed.

What I don't appreciate is no one seems to realize this is a fucking library. I come here because it's too damned loud at Starbucks. Kids will be screaming as they stand in line and the parents don't even bother to teach them this is a quiet area. People will just have long, loud cellphone conversations. Teenagers delegate this as their hang-out spot and start arguing the merits of a video games. One dude started watching a boxing match on his laptop and didn't put his headphones on. Again, this is all great, just do it outside of the door. And the staff doesn't give a shit. They'll let it all happen. Where the hell are people expected to study?

I've had a Hotmail account for the past two decades that I use mostly for online purchases. However in the past two years the Hotmail website (now under the auspices of Microsoft Outlook) is nearly fucking unusable. I delete shit and when I check later it's still in my inbox. I try to open an email and it just doesn't work. Maybe they're designing it purely for Explorer, but they really should assure it functions on different browsers. Microsoft is on the defensive right now, so you'd think it would be best not to alienate more users. And seriously, how fucking difficult is it nowadays to make shit compatible?

Recently the McDonald's near my house added kiosks. If you've ever used them, you'll notice they as for you to provide a "location number," which I assumed meant you could sit down somewhere and they could locate your place using that number. It's just none of the McDonald's I've patronized ever pretended it was anything besides a fast food joint.

Except for my local McDonald's. They will walk out with a tray and hand it to you at your seat. However they never added the kiosk to their system. Normally they'd hand you a cup at the counter and then you walk to your seat. If I'm ordering from a kiosk, then there's no cup. And I blame corporate McDonald's a bit as well; they never really explained what a "locator number" is from the start, and after the whole city doesn't heed them, I just waited in line patiently for them to give me my order, not realizing a woman was walking around the tables with my food, looking for me.

Really, if they're going to add this system, they need to give better cues and flexibility. Tell me what a locator number is and tell me to wait at my seat. If that store doesn't do that, then allow the management to remove that part of the ordering process so I don't just assume it's meaningless. How the hell hasn't anyone figured that out?

Update on yesterday's post: Even the map on the GamePad is tiny because the developers felt it completely necessary to add a giant button in the center to honk your horn, as if anyone would listen to that.

The Wii U GamePad has a screen on it, and developers have been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since, but so far it's mostly used for menu or map purposes. I generally find them annoying because I have to move my finger away from its default over the buttons to the touch screen, and then even look down because there are no physical cues to help direct my finger where to go.

But the most asinine usage so far is Mario Kart 8, which does put the map on that little screen. Who in their right mind would take their eyes off the screen during a race to stare at their hands? What was wrong with it in the corner of the TV like has been for over a decade?

Through some miracle of God, Legaia 2 was completed before Alex went off to China. You may have heard bad things about this game, and I can assure you it's pretty accurate. The plot is short and weak: The world was created in the "Source Forge" by three crystals. Some crazy person wants to destroy the world and create it anew by misaligning these crystals à la Kefka. Somehow both the protagonist and the antagonist were directly smithed by the forge — how and why wasn't revealed — so we are "Star Shapers." I guess that means we're more powerful and special than others, but like Zidane I don't see how the protagonist is stronger than the rest of the party. Through the Power of Hope and the Will of All Living Things we managed to put the crystals were they belong. I guess. On top of that there are people called Mystics who have these summon spirits that perform magic and everyone hates them, but no mention why they have it or how they were chosen. Really the whole thing didn't make much sense.

Characters are pretty blah. They're not terrible but none really stand out in my mind that I'll keep with me like with other games. The writers wanted to demonstrate how layered a people's personalities are; two siblings who were nothing but dicks the whole game had a touching death after revealing they were abandoned by their parents for being Mystics. It's just the writing is so bad that the heart strings are never tugged.

Music is aight, but the first game was better. Clearly the composer thought so too because about a fifth of the tracks are just remixes. The original song is probably the final boss.

Fundamental game design could've been tweaked too. If you've ever played the first Legaia, you know these are long battles. To reduce the time, they could've stopped a combo if the first hit killed the enemy instead of making us watch the whole thing. They didn't need these long zoom-ins of the enemy after an attack. But if they insisted on keeping those, they should've realized it is a fucking long battle system. By the time we're done, we forgot what we're doing in a dungeon. So what would've been better is to adjust the experience gained and needed, and lowered the encounter rate so we could fucking get shit done instead of spending seven hours in battle for just one dungeon.

Speaking of dungeons, holy shit. So at one point we needed to sneak into a castle via the sewers. A really complicated thing involving water levels and sluice gates. So we get to the end... and it's literally a ladder leading manhole cover at the end of town. We could've just walked there above ground. It didn't bring us to the castle. Apparently you're supposed to punch a hole in the wall right next to the ladder which brings you forward except it doesn't look anything different from the rest of the walls so without a FAQ it's impossible to know. Why did they force us to do the entire sewer dungeon then if we could've just gone down the manhole then? And even worse, after we went through that hole, there was another fucking dungeon afterward that was just as long! What the hell! And then the castle was another dungeon! Three ridiculously long dungeons in a row with puzzles and a high encounter rate. And the worst fucking part was we needed to go back to the castle again, meaning we had to do all that bullshit over again!

So yeah. I would not recommend this to anyone unless if they're out of things to play. It's not the worst thing out there, but it's not high up by any means. I can see why the series died with it.

I'm becoming more and more concerned about my memory. My short-term is completely shot, I've known that for a while, but even words are an issue now. Names in particular have always been a problem since I was young, but now I'm even forgetting regular terms. Here's a list of what I've had difficulties recalling in the past week:

• Dome
• Stew Leonard's
• Wisteria
• Music
• Hyde Park
• Malevolence
• Drapes
• Cue stick
• Tournament
• Museum
• Container
• Firetruck
• Playing cards
• Newspaper

The thing is I don't even know how to address this. When you've reached the point that you can't even remember the name for a firetruck, what can be done?

I really hate talking on the phone. Although I have no problems texting or IMing, for some reason when I'm talking with someone and not being able to see their face to gauge their emotions bothers the fuck out of me. I will go out of my way to avoid a phone conversation whenever possible. To the point that even when I get phone calls from fake, imaginary guys I can feel my blood pressure rising. How is this possible? They don't exist and I'm still stressed out!

Do you think my parents would be pissed at me if I did this?

Child: I'm tired of playing "I Spy!"
Me: OK, what do you want to play?
Child: Let's play a game where I find a color in the room and you have to figure out what it is.
Me: ............Let me get this straight. You look around the room, find an object, tell me the color, and I have to guess the object from that.
Child: Mm-hm.
Me: ............And this is a completely different game from "I Spy."
Child: Mm-hm!
Me: ............Because you're tired of playing that.
Child: Mm-hm!
Me: All right, let's go with that logic.

Busy again today, here's a video:

">

Voting rights have always been a contentious issue in this country. It envokes old memories of whites standing outside the polls with guns to deter blacks. It reminds us of workers being forced to vote for a certain candidate if they wanted to keep their job.

The matter still continues today with the right decrying voter fraud whereas the left says this is voter suppression, but in some ways I feel both are wrong. Several independent studies demonstrated any voter fraud, if there is any, is so small to the point of being insignificant to the outcome. But conversely when people talk about voter suppression, I wonder what the issue is.

Now if they're closing polling stations in black or Latino areas, that I can understand is an issue. But if they're asking for an ID, that I don't understand. Why is this a problem? Who the fuck doesn't have an ID? How do you buy alcohol? Or drive a car? Or get a loan? Or apply for a job? Honestly if you don't have a government-issued ID, I just automatically assume you're an illegal immigrant who can't vote anyway. Why is requiring an ID a problem? I fucking need one to walk around NYC because the cops can detain me otherwise. And I know outsideo of NYC everyone needs to drive everywhere to get places. How does no one have an ID?

Then there are other things like same-day voter registration. I'm sorry, why the fuck are you registering to vote literally the day of the election? Honestly I'm not certain you can complain about being surpressed when clearly you didn't give a shit about voting until literally the last second. You've relinquished the right at that point. Do you even know what the issues are?

Sorry, busy today as well so here's a picture of Christopher Columbus' coffin:

How fucking cool is that? Imagine your final resting place is literally the anthropomorphized four kingdoms of Spain carrying you to the afterlife. I want something as cool as this.

Sorry, busy for today. Here's a link for too much information about Voldemort.

Since playing Dynasty Warriors, I've noticed there are a lot of women as playable characters. I'll admit I haven't read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I highly doubt more than two in the entire work are mentioned as fighters, and I even think that's a gross overestimation. I'd be surprised if even one is listed. After going through the names and looking up their real historical significance, I was pretty much right: They're either a wife or a daughter of an actual soldier. Most are mentioned in passing, but even those who contribute much to the story are never on the battlefield themselves.

There isn't a lot of diversity in gaming to be sure and many boundaries have to be broken. I feel though this isn't one of them. Unlike something like Street Fighter or Final Fantasy where you're creating something from scratch, this is actual history. I'm willing to forgive a lack of female representation. I'm expecting people to be sexist c.190-c.240. In fact I wish they were removed from the game altogether. There are so many people I have to keep abreast of -- their alliances, their roles, their relations, their time period -- that I feel I have to learn the War of the Roses all over again. Please do not start adding more characters who didn't actually appear in the story.

Super Mario Bros. Aquarium

I used to have an aquarium, a nice one on top of a wrought-iron stand. Its last occupant was an angelfish called "Fishie" who had brutally murdered the rest of its comrades. After dying itself around 2005, I drained the aquarium and left it empty until the fire.

When I see cool shit like transforming your fish's home into a Super Mario Bros. level, I think, "Man, I kinda wanna get a tank again and do that." I have this weird position where I want a pet, but simultaneously I know it's gonna be a pain in the ass I don't want to deal with. Definitely not anything like a dog because that requires training and walking. No cats because of my ailurophobia. So I think something that can be contained in a cage like a guinea pig or chinchilla, but I still have to wipe up their piss or provide dust baths. So maybe something low-maintenance like a snake or tarantula but then there's mom's ophidiophobia and my own severe entomophobia. And I return to fish because you feed them once a day and clean out the tank maybe once a month, maybe every other month. Except then I have flashbacks of the horror show it was to vacuum that tank. So here I am petless, but that's probably for the best.

Watching these are helping with my entomophobia somewhat. I don't know why, but they are.

My neighbors were running late this evening and asked me to babysit their kids and put them to bed. Of course like most households, I had to read them a bedtime story. What did these kids hand me? It's a book that explains where babies come from. OK... so I thought it would be like, "The baby is growing in mommy's tummy! Look how big her stomach is!" And then the parents head to the hospital and bring back the new baby sibling. Or something.

I was fucking wrong. It explained in graphic detail the reproductive system. With diagrams. These kids I was babysitting were chanting, "Scrotum! Penis! Rectum!" repeatedly ten pages in. Once the authors started describing that sperm is created in the testicles, I had to stop. I had no idea where this road was headed, but I wasn't about to let it lead me to describing how sex works to a five- and seven-year-old.

I put the book back on the shelf and tried to pick something innocuous, but now that I know what the parents were buying for their kids, nothing seemed safe anymore. Would truck-nuts be nailed onto The Little Engine That Could? I had no fucking idea anymore.

I texted mom and dad about this, and when I got home dad greeted me with a shout of, "Scrotum! Penis! Rectum!"

My neighbors love shopping at Costco, but usually their bounty is too much for their two-person household so they give the extra to us. When it's stuff like limes or apples, that's OK. But they just handed me twenty-five tulip bulbs. Tulips are gorgeous, but holy shit they are a pain in the ass to plant since you gotta dig deep. I can feel a headache coming on thinking about doing this, but hey maybe these are the flowers I need to populate the lower garden.

Me: I downloaded an app that's basically you chatting with hot anime boys. I will give you a report shortly, but so far I'm not impressed.
Me: Mostly because they haven't sent me naked pics yet.
Me: Where are these dick pics men usually send right away?
Paul: Hahahahaha!
Paul: It's called "pic4pic" dude. That means to get a picture you need to give a picture.
Paul: Of your dick, I mean.
Me: I have many anime dicks in supply I could offer.
Paul: That is... honestly not surprising in the least.

Zeta Gundam completed. It's an interesting sequel that expands well on the universe, and the new cast builds well off of the old one. However I think there are two large flaws in the show.

The first I had no fucking idea what the plan was, and I suspect they didn't either. Yeah, Titans are bad and AEUG is trying to stop them. It's just they didn't seem to know how to achieve this and were just wandering around having random battles with them on occasion. Every now and then they would have a major offensive like infiltrating Jaburo or Char giving his speech, but they never followed up on it and just focused on surviving. I think if the Titans' colony laser hadn't forced AEUG to join with Haman Khan, who then attacked Sedan's Gate and started the final battle, Agama and Radish would still be floating around in space, twiddling their thumbs. Compare this to 0079. Even when they spent twenty episodes flying around Earth doing complete bullshit, I still knew what the end game was: get to Jaburo to unload all the refugees, and then head to space to take out the Zabis.

The second is I think the focus of the series was more about the relationships between men and women than the actual war itself. Just as much time if not more was devoted to sexual tension than actual battles. I lost count of how many times Camille would cease fighting to jump out of his Gundam and start chatting with a woman. I guess that would be fine... if it were better written. It's the same problem I had with Resident Evil 2: It's hard for me to believe you've formed this deep, emotional attachment if you've only known them for an afternoon. The only one that struck home deeply was Reccoa since we've had time to get to know her and feel the depth of her betrayal... but conversely she left AEUG for Scirocco, a dude she met for about five minutes.

My third gripe (which I don't think is as fundamental as the other two) is I can't figure out why this was the AEUG crew. The circumstances in 0079 explained its ridiculousness. Zeon attacked Side 7 and killed most of the soldiers, so all the civilians jumped onto White Base and got the fuck out. Bright had to pull young men from the population who showed capability to fight, but in the end they weren't trained soldiers and were prone to talking back, making stupid mistakes, and weren't disciplined. Meanwhile you have the civilians running amok all over the base, causing chaos and disorder. It was a crazy situation.

This shouldn't be happening in Zeta. Why are there two children rampaging everywhere? It's not like they keep to their rooms too. They will barge into the bridge to bother Bright in the middle of a battle. They start locking themselves into mobile suits that need to launch. And then AEUG seriously couldn't fucking hire anyone else besides angsty teens? Camille, OK, he's a Newtype, so you need him. And he actually keeps a relatively mature head on his shoulders, particularly when you compare him to Amuro in the first half of 0079. But Fa and Katsu? Half the time Katsu was just doing whatever the fuck he wanted. That is not how a soldier should behave. If you fucking disobey an order, you're fucking out. But no, they let him do it. And how the hell was he storming out in a mobile suit without permission? How the fuck is the launch pad not controlled by the engineers in Agama? Why does Bright not have some sense of control over his own damned troops? See, he wasn't slapping people enough in this show. Even fucking Kai got into line in 0079 after a while. So why the hell couldn't AEUG just get professional soldiers instead of these idiots?

So those were my complaints. On the positive, I think plot-wise it's nice see how the world changed in the aftermath of the One Year War. Personally I would've liked greater involvement of the people from White Base, particularly Amuro, but I accept many of them wanted to move on with their lives. Char's ample screen time is nice, but he's not as cool as in 0079. He did the best he could given the terrible name and horrible fashion sense. To be honest the most excited I got was whenever Amuro and Char were on screen simultaneously and I was hoping they'd start fencing or something. It also had some of that trippy shit I disliked in 0079 but it wasn't as much or as freaky so it was palatable. And at the end of the day I liked Camille. He stepped into his role and dealt with war as best he could, but really all of this shit could've been avoided IF HE JUST WENT TO FUCKING SCHOOL LIKE FA TOLD HIM TO.

Overall it's not a bad series. I think 0079 was better, but in some ways Zeta was superior to its predecessor. Of course it's necessary if you want to keep up with what happens in the UC timeline, and as I continue this project hopefully I won't take as long. Next up, Zeta movies.

Mom and dad's printer wasn't working properly when printing from the web, and as I doing diagnostics I pulled up the first site I could think of with large blocks of text and would repeatedly print the first two pages. After a fruitless hour of work, dad came in and said I had screwed up from the beginning because I wasn't using a "real webpage." What was a "real" one? According to dad, the Union for Reform Judaism. So now you know. If you ever need to see if your printer is working properly, use that.

Every child is taught when Columbus sailed across the Atlantic, the Europeans thought he was crazy because he'd just fall off the side the world. They thought Earth was flat with edges, and it wasn't until he collided with the New World that they realized there's more out there.

I thought that too until as a child I read about Eratosthenes, a Greek mathematician. He had heard at noon on the summer solstice in Syene there were no shadows cast in the well. However there were in Alexandria, where he lived. From that he posited the earth was spherical. From calculating the angles of the shadows in Alexandria and Syene and the distance between them, he was able to figure out surprisingly accurately the circumference of the earth.

So what happened in between? Well, the excuse is after the fall of the Roman Empire, scientific knowledge disappeared in Europe and only started up again during the time of the Renaissance. All right, but as I started studying the Middle Ages this didn't work either. Aristotle, the one ancient philosopher everyone read, said the world was a sphere, and other prominent medieval writers like the Venerable Bede agreed with him. But there was also the belief the world to be a disc, and the sky is a dome called the firmament above it.

Which one is it? Probably a little of both, depending on the time period and the location. I said before Aristotle and some medieval writers said the world was spherical, but that didn't mean everyone read their works. In a time period where many monasteries didn't even have a complete Bible, it's believable that many didn't have access to this knowledge. But in 1492 did people think Columbus would fall off the edge? Nope, they did not. At that point most upper-class people were educated to some extent and knew we lived on a ball, not a disc. What they didn't know about was the Americas, so they just thought Columbus would run out of food in the middle of the ocean before he hit eastern Asia.

What is interesting about this all is Columbus wasn't the first European to discover America. It was the Vikings. By jumping from Greenland, they were able to create some temporary settlements c.1000, but the journey wasn't worth it so they abandoned the project. The New World remained in Icelandic sagas for generations, a hidden gem no one knew about.

If you ever hang out with Moham and me, chances are you're going to hear the two of us quoting something from this. We spent weeks watching it over and over until I felt I had to buy it. My only experience with Dynasty Warriors is mostly Hyrule Warriors and a bit of the eighth installment I played at Wong's house. Number three came out in 2001, which is a huge throwback. I'm fine with shitty graphics. It's the controls that freak me out. You can't move the camera unless if you block — then it swivels behind you — but it's so unwieldy I rarely use that. Speaking of blocking, that never works. They literally shatter my defense in the first or second hit. And my god, the difficulty curve. In the campaign the first battle was all right. But then it took four or five tries to finish the second one. I have a jump button, but I'm still trying to figure out what for other than mounting a horse. In Hyrule Warriors, your troops aren't really necessary other than to slow down powerful enemies. Here, you need them. Stray too far from the front line and you're fucked. It's a completely different mentality.

I can see Toei hadn't fully tweaked and polished the game by this point. But now I kinda wanna go back even further to the PS1 and play the first game to see how this mess was an improvement from before.

Rizhall: Son...
Rizhall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOzM4ClFG1o
dundun: ........
Rizhall: THE ENTIRE SOUNDTRACK.
dundun: That's a lot of time devoted to make this.
dundun: At some point
Rizhall: THE ENTIRE FUCKING SOUNDTRACK.
dundun: Did the person wonder what he was doing with his life?
Rizhall: I CAN'T STOP FUCKING LAUGHING
dundun: It won't fucking stop.
dundun: I'm skipping around.
dundun: It just won't stop.
Rizhall: Now I must ask.
Rizhall: If there was a live concert with Tidus' voice actor singing these songs out to an orchestra...
Rizhall: How much would you be willing to pay for it?
dundun: .............................
dundun: A considerable amount of money.

I watched Alex play Resident Evil 2 for me, LeonA/ClaireB. (Thank you Alex.) I played pretty far into the original Resident Evil and saw the beginning of Resident Evil 3, but 2 was a giant blank for me so fortunately I didn't suffer from the same problem as Metal Gear Solid and everything was new and refreshing. And it was nice to see a person who knew what he was doing so we didn't have to devote several hours figuring out puzzles.

For its time it should've been a fun game. There are serious problems with gameplay — being unable to turn efficiently remained from the first game — but I reserve the biggest problems for the plot. Why did Leon and Claire form such strong attachments to people they literally just met? Leon was defending Ada's integrity as if they had been dating for a while even though their total interaction time probably clocked at ten minutes. Sherry was two steps away from proclaiming Claire her new mother, even as Claire led her through a dungeon room with the ripped torso of the police chief prominently displayed on the floor.

And then there's the case of William Birkin. Why did he inject himself with the G-virus? Yeah, it has regenerative properties, but he knew damned well what that would turn him into. Or even more glaring, Umbrella Corporation. How the fuck did they think they could get away with this? One isolated mansion incident, all right. But a whole city? Considering they sent Nemesis to kill S.T.A.R.S. members to silence any potential witnesses to their crimes, they seem to be totally cool with creating a shit ton more people to testify against them.

I heard from Alex the plot is really different if you switch the scenarios. It depends on whom you select to play as first. ClaireA/LeonB may make more sense, but I doubt it would answer my questions substantially.

At the end of the day though, it's a fun game. It's great to dodge zombies, crows, and god know what else as you solve puzzles. The atmosphere is tense and claustrophobic. The bosses are fun to combat. And the backgrounds are interesting to look at and explore. Even with its flaws I still say it's a solid game worth checking out if you're into that genre.

Also, according to Resident Evil 2, the term for this is "manhole opener."

I wanted to remind myself to look up an anime opening so I emailed myself the title, except autocorrect wrote it out as "Le Shin." Can any of you figure out what the fuck I meant by that?

Me: Where do you keep your dueling gloves?
Peguero: Next to my coats.
Me: Greene needs it.
Peguero: What happened to his?
Me: He isn't a lawyer so he didn't get one.
Peguero: It's a common misconception that only lawyers can get dueling gloves.
Me: Then who else gets them?
Peguero: Anyone over the age of 18.
Me: I haven't gotten mine!
Peguero: It's not like it automatically arrives in the mail on your 18th birthday! You have to apply and pay the application fee.
Me: That sounds like more government bullshit. What as a lawyer are you doing about this?
Peguero: Nothing. I support background checks for dueling gloves.
Me: But people would just use jock straps otherwise! Do you want a jock strap thrown at your face??
Peguero: Dueling gloves are dangerous, we can't let convicted felons and violent people have access to them. It's impossible to control the illegal use of jock straps, but that doesn't change that we must be careful about dueling gloves.

OK Greene, now you know.

Back in about 1996 my brother pushed a new cartridge into the SNES and said I would enjoy this. Coming off of Chrono Trigger, I had mixed feelings about Final Fantasy VI (or Final Fantasy III as it was known back then). Why was I teleported into another screen when it was time to fight? Why were we standing in a row? Why were the enemies much larger and more detailed than my party members? Why did these battles seem to happen randomly instead of me touching an enemy wandering around the screen? Don't even get me started on the giant chickens and these white ghosts called "moogles" that were only capable of saving "kupo kupo."

But then I reached a point in the desert where this crazy clown tried to capture the girl. And this glorious music was playing in the background. Up until that point, I was like any other child and hadn't fully developed my taste in music, rather mimicking whatever I heard around me. Listening to The Magic Flute on my parents' record player. Popping in Harlan's Wu-Tang cassettes. Even watching music videos of NIИ on MTV when Harlan was into them. But for the first time in my life I alone without any outside influence thought this song was fucking amazing. I would start the game from the beginning and proceed to that point in the desert just to have that song in the background as I did other activities. Before I started acquiring MIDIs, this was all I could do: I had several strategic saves before great songs. I racked up so many hours on my saves from listening to music alone. And when I got the ability to have my own MIDIs (and later mp3s), I wasn't downloading the latest Backstreet Boys but rather the entire Final Fantasy VII or Chrono Cross OST. To this day if you look at my song library, classical and video games dominate everything else.

I met Uematsu the other day, the man who started me down this long, long road. Thanks for everything. You made me into a fucking nerd who can't talk about music with anyone other than a select group of friends.

Referring to signing something for a fan and my unintelligible scribbles:

dundun: Yo son.
dundun: Imagine if I got famous and was in that situation.
dundun: Having to sign my name to shit.
Rizhall: Oh my god.
Rizhall: You would be absolutely fucked.
dundun: At what point would I just start writing "fuck everything" or "for Yan Liang" and no one would be able to tell the difference?
Rizhall: Yo.
Rizhall: That should be your signature!
Rizhall: "For Yan Liang!!!"
Rizhall: every single signature
dundun: Would YOU be able to tell the difference?
Rizhall: .... I...
Rizhall: The only thing giving it away would be the lack of horizontal line for the letter t.
dundun: I could possibly pull that off with the L.
Rizhall: What if you just crossed the whole thing out after you wrote it?
Rizhall: One long line.
dundun: "Nah, fuck this."
Rizhall: You could fool people into thinking that's the t.

Child: Shut your mouth please.
Me: Hey! You don't say that. That's really rude. Don't say that again.
Child: But I said "please."
Me: "Please" doesn't negate the rudeness. "Shut your mouth" is really rude.
Child: But I said "please!"
Me: I can say, "Please know you're really ugly." That's still rude!
Child: Hey, I'm not ugly!

I really love reading Churchill because he fucking makes anything sound dramatic. Here's him talking about visiting FDR and deciding the seating arrangement in the car:

We had a dispute about where we should it in the car for this three-hour journey. Alike by his rank and from his infirmity there was only one place for the President. Mrs. Roosevelt wished to sit in one of the small front seats, and put me next to the President. I would not have this, and the British Empire went into action. After about three minutes' conflict of wills I won, and Mrs. Roosevelt took her proper place by her husband's side. ^*

He fucking invoked the British Empire for this little incident. Just for this! Imagine him with actual battle scenes.

^* Winston S. Churchil, The Second World War: The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Hougton Mifflin Company, 1950), 795.

Here are the finalists for the worst post office in New York City

It's difficult for me to answer a question like this because I've never been to any other post office than my own. Yes, mine is terrible. I know that. It's improved somewhat in the past year or two, but it started off so dismal that any amelioration amounts to almost nothing. But I have no idea what the conditions are at Bushwick or Williamsburg. If I enter there, will I get punched in the gut? I don't know, it's certainly not happened at mine. That certainly would be worse conditions.

This type of situation plays out all over the place. I got into a debate with someone over rising college tuition, and my position ultimately was I have to first see what the college costs are and how they're allocating funds. I just don't have enough data to form an opinion. Or a researcher called the house and asked me how much of the city's budget should be spent on the arts. Well, first priority would be security, schools, social services, and infrastructure. I'm not going to say off the bat the percentage until I see how those other four cost.

We all throw out opinions without sufficient information, but if I really thought about an issue hard I'd probably revert to the "I don't know." Clearly other people did not agree with me because if this quiz tells you that people from Colorado, Idaho, and Texas are voting in for our worst post office.

Claude Debussy was a French composer in the late 1800s whose music is associated with Impressionism; it's a smooth, almost otherworldly type of sound that feels like you're entering a dream. Years ago I learned Children's Corner, a suite of six movements that are supposed to invoke feelings of childhood. For something about children, it's actually pretty fucking difficult and even today when I listen to it I get flashbacks like I'm suffering from PTSD or something.

Anyway, the movements are called:
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
Jimbo's Lullaby
Serenade for the Doll
The Snow is Dancing
The Little Shepherd
Golliwogg's Cakewalk
The last one sounded pretty different from the others, and for years I wondered who the hell "Golliwogg" or what a "cakewalk" was. Eventually I read somewhere that a cakewalk was originally a dance done by American slaves and became known worldwide after it was displayed on the Centennial Exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia. It wasn't until my piano teacher played Children's Corner for me the other day that I decided to look up who Golliwogg is.

Well, it turns out a woman named Florence Kate Upton published a children's book called The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg, and the latter is the name of a ragdoll. The book became a popular and companies made actual dolls named after the character, much like Raggedy Ann and Andy. In case you're wondering what he looks like, he's the dude on the right:

After staring at that for a few moments, I laughed and said to my piano teacher that there's no way this would fly nowadays. But what was incredible is she said, "Oh, why not?" ...Really?

Sorry, busy tonight so here's a vine:

I sent a physical letter to GameArts, the maker of the Grandia series, pointing out it's been awhile since the last installment. I got a response and the first sentence said, "Thank you for your email." Well, it's nice to know they were paying attention.

Even during the height of the Cold War, I'm fairly certain Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, or whoever could take consolation that the US was never, ever going to invade Russia. It was just something that isn't done. Tchaikovsky even composed a song about why it's so stupid. The country is huge with little means of supplies in between major urban centers. It's hot as fuck in the summer. It's fucking freezing in the winter. And in between those extremes the roads are so muddy whole vehicles can get sunk in them. And Russia knows this. Their plan of attack is just to retreat and pull their enemy into their hinterland so deep that the supply column can't keep up and the land itself overtakes them.

So why did Hitler try it? Oddly enough he did study Napoleon's attempt very thoroughly, so he knew the possible consequences. It's just in between the Napoleonic Wars and World War II, one major event changed the world view of Russia: World War I. They did fucking terrible. Their army was shit and didn't have enough munitions. And even if they did, it was often outdated or they didn't have trained personnel to work the artillery or planes or whatever. Germany's plan in World War I was to basically send their entire army to France and take it out before Russia could appear on their Eastern Front. Unfortunately for Germany, Russia showed up faster than they anticipated. Fortunately for Germany, the tiny forces they did leave in Prussia completely wiped out the Russian Second Army in one night. Russia was so completely unprepared for World War I, they couldn't feed the population. Revolution happened and communism took over.

In 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Finland and although they eventually won, they did absolutely horribly in that war. It should've been an easy job; it's fucking Finland! I've never heard of them doing anything substantial militarily since the Vikings. How could the Soviet Union, whose army was three times the size of Finland's, do so poorly? Stalin had purged most of the army of its high command in his paranoia, the only people left were yes-men without much skill.

So Hitler looks at this and thinks the Soviets may have the numbers and the land, but in reality their governmental and military structure is weak. If he could just deliver a blow similar to what happened in World War I, he could topple the entire regime and win. Plus Germany's in a much stronger position; by the time Hitler invaded he had already taken out most of his opponents in Western Europe. The German army seemed unstoppable.

The end result was completely atrocious. More soldiers died on the Eastern Front of the Second World War than the rest of the war put together. You can include all the shit happening in the Pacific and D-Day and it still would not compare to the crazy shit happening in Russia. And who knows what would've happened if Germany hadn't fought the Soviets? Their troops wouldn't've been bled dry and the Soviets would've still been on the Axis side, meaning the US and UK would've had to fight Germany AND the USSR.

But these hypothetical scenarios probably wouldn't've happened: If you read Mein Kampf, it's pretty clear Hitler was planning on invading Russia as early as the 1920s. I suppose the real questions we should be asking is if Hitler was a better military commander (he as far from a genius), could he have actually done it? Could the Russian behemoth actually be tamed? If he had headed straight to Moscow instead of focusing on the Ukraine, would he have won in 1941 before the Soviets could get their shit together? Or would the truism of Russia still stand: his supply train would be impossible to maintain and the German troops could never capture the Russian army? Who knows, but I don't think anyone's gonna try it any time soon.

Man, I can't even fucking remember anymore what number this is. Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?

Me: What is this casting on shit in knitting and why is it needlessly complicated?
Peguero: It's how you get the yarn on the needle. It's not that complicated, you build muscle memory.
Me:
  Fuck you.
Peguero: Wow, yeah it does look complicated. But it really is muscle memory! Youtube might be helpful, it's how I learned.
Me: I think you're just showing off by this point.
Peguero: Dude, you have actually made impressive things with your magical, magical hands. If I can learn, you can not only learn but also defeat me in knitting combat.
Me: Listen, until these hands can grope eight people simultaneously, they are but useless stubs of flesh.
Peguero: FALSE. I have seen your grand works of art.
Me: But without being able to achieve my dreams, what use are these appendages?
Peguero: Your appendages will help you achieve your dreams! You just have to have faith!
Me: How can I grope eight people at once???
Peguero: I don't know, but by god if anyone can figure it out, it's you.

Thanks for coming to the party everyone! How did the addition of a BBQ work out? Do you think I can approve it?

PSA: My mom set the pick up time for the fried chicken at 12:00, which is when the party starts. I deeply apologize if I'm not there.

Me:
Pokken Tournament.
Alex: What's next, sexy maid Pikachu?
Me: Wouldn't work. No tits.
Alex: You of all people should know that wouldn't stop anyone.

Surprise: People are still seeding anime subs from the early 2000s. Good work, guys.

For years I've been reading about the benefits of globalization. And they have materialized: clothing is cheaper, different varieties of food are available... On the other hand, it has destroyed our home industry. Factories went overseas. We moved to a service-based economy. It's hard to find a job with only a high school degree. So what happens to the people who depended on those jobs? Usually the idea is thrown about to retrain them, but in all seriousness who the hell would hire a fifty-something who has no previous experience in the field?

I mentioned before how the lack of solution to this problem helped lead to Trump. At some point there is going to be a boiling point if a group of people are kept down long enough with no recourse. It doesn't have to happen in only a democracy. That's why the French Revolution and Russian Revolution were so violent.

I wonder sometimes if economists take that into consideration. Yeah, globalization may have helped us overall, but it left behind a group of people. That's the nature of things: there are haves and have nots. But if there are too many have nots or there isn't enough to help alleviate their situation, a society can get wrecked. Surely someone must've studied this. If you drop enough factory jobs in the US, when is places like Alabama, West Virginia, Ohio, or South Dakota going to raise bloody hell? Did no one write a paper called, "How to retain the benefits of globalization by shipping our jobs to Bangladesh whilst assuring that the US does not suffer a possible communist revolution?"

Inflation strikes again: Book Off's $1 section is now $2 or $2.50. Times have changed. War has changed.

This is all the hair that came out of my head when I brushed it this morning. It's not an unusual amount. I've read humans lose about 100 strands a day, which seems to me mathematically impossible. Even as I stare at this clump in my hand, I can't believe this happens. If I had short hair like men usually have, OK. I can see that. But my hair reaches my lower back. How am I losing 100 strands every day and still maintain my length? It takes about a month to grow a centimeter. This shouldn't be happening.

Long day, so have fun reading this.

My mind words in weird ways: It's easier for me to remember pronunciation of a word if I look at the kanji than if I'm reading the hiragana itself.

I've read over the years several complaints from women about the rules on their business attire, saying it's discrimination on a woman's body. Complaining about how short the skirt is or not letting the shoulders show. I guess, but then again I wouldn't let a guy wear something like that either. Casual attire, OK, fine. But if we're in a business setting and I'm a boss, if a guy came in with a suit and for some reason the pants aren't at the ankles and were cropped on the thighs, I would send that guy home. Or if he came in with a tank top. That shit just is not acceptable. So why would it be for a woman? By allowing a woman to show more skin, is that in itself somewhat sexist?

My continuing problems with Apple and iTunes: iTunes like any music program allows the user to upload album covers for the mp3s. This is particularly useful for the smaller iPods because you can easily see the cover in a wave of small text. However recently Apple thought it'd be a good idea to connect your mp3s to Apple Music, their streaming program. So let's say I had a few mp3s of Brittney Spears. Instead of the cover for Hit Me Baby One More Time, I'd get whatever profile pic she chose for Apple Music, along with options to listen to her other songs. I guess that would be kinda useful, but it would be particularly aggravating if I really just wanted to see the album cover I already had uploaded. But that's a small gripe in the grand scheme of things. The real question is what if I had music by someone else called Brittney Spears? I'm fucked then, aren't I? I'm stuck with a picture from this bitch from the 90's.

That's how I got into this situation:

Who the fuck is this bearded douchebag and why is he stealing the name of a beloved cartoon that's probably older than he is? Get the fuck out of my phone!

The other day I was leafing through an origami book and the author wrote something along the lines of, "Go to this youtube video here to learn about the first steps and then when you're done you can start attaching them as described below." I'm always taken aback whenever I see a link in a book. Not just that it feels weird to see a reference to a digital medium when I'm holding a physical book, but because of the ramifications. I rambled about physically owning something so you can retain it for decades, but at the end of the day no one's expecting Sony to go bankrupt anytime soon and all our PSN shit will be for naught. Link decay however is an issue. I paid for this book. And part of it will be useless the moment that address changes. Which could've been avoided if, you know, the author just wrote the fucking diagram, which is what I bought the book for.

And now that Olympics season has begun, my phone won't stop buzzing every hour as a new gold medal is awarded. Because of recent events, I fly to my phone to hear about the latest economic meltdown, terrorist attack, police shooting, coup, and instead I find out someone won men's fencing.

Half the time when I look at glitch videos, I wonder what the hell the player was doing to achieve this. How did you figure this shit out? It's not even something I would remotely think of while playing, like "Hey, if I open this menu forty times as I stand two pixels away from this, I beat the game." How does this happen? How long do you spend standing up against walls, pressing buttons, equipping random shit at random points, hoping you'll get something?

The Zeta and Wing Gundams can transform into planes, which is fine but why are they doing this in space? Does it serve any purpose? The wings don't change anything because it's not like they need air to fly. It's not like turning to a plane will cut down on wind resistance. The only reason why NASA's shuttles are in that shape is because they wanted them to survive entering the atmosphere instead of having to replace a burnt-up capsule each time. It didn't help with space exploration. So why do they keep doing that?

Nothing is fucking worse than a mosquito bite on the bottom of your foot. You can't leave it alone because each step you take irritates the shit out of it and I just wanna scratch the night away.

Busy, so here's a silly vine:

I wrote in the last post I'm an independent simply because I don't want nagging for donations, and that's probably a bigger fuck up on my part. The Sanders campaign touted "$27," his average donation amount, meaning ordinary people funded him instead of the rich. That's nice and all, but besides Sanders who else can claim that?

We all agree money is a problem in politics, but what have we done to remedy that? Again, it's great that people are contributing to the Sanders campaign, but the president isn't in charge of the money. Isn't in charge of making the laws. Isn't the one being lobbied. It's congress. How many of us contribute money to our congressman or senators? I've given $0 to Rangel, Schumer, or Gillibrand, and I can guarantee most of us claim the same. So without any cash from the citizens, legislators turn to big donors and then they have greater sway in the Capitol Building. I did some poking around, and it turns out on average for senators about 14% of their campaign funds come from the small donations, congressmen about 10%. So really, how can we whine about money and politics when none of us are trying to solve it?

This is the first year I've seen where no one is happy with either presidential candidate, and The New York Times made a graphic showing how we got to this situation: Only 9% of the population voted for either Clinton or Trump. Less than 10% of the population got us into this situation.

I'm probably part of the problem. I opted out of being out of either political party just solely because I didn't want them bugging me for donations, but honestly I don't really think I would've helped in this situation; New York went mostly for Clinton and the other Republican candidates had dropped out by then. Still, I wonder why people complain about politicians if they don't try to resolve the situation. Yeah, OK, New York will always go Democrat (unless there's a major switch in the parties), but you can affect congress, which honestly at this point I think would make a greater impact than the presidential election. Why the hell aren't we participating?

Punctuation is mostly a medieval invention although we would not use it fully until about the Renaissance. In fact if you go back to the ancient era, all writing was in capitals without spaces. ASENTENCEWOULDLOOKLIKETHIS. So if you're reading a modern book of Latin all these marks have been added, and sometimes I ponder the editor's decisions. Let's take this:

ego sub quadam fici arbore stravi me nescio quomodo, habens lacrimis, et proruperunt flumina oculorum meorum^*

I would translate this as, "I was laid out under some fig tree, I don't know how, crying, and rivers rushing out from my eyes." Notice where I put the commas. The editor didn't do that and just wrote straight, "I was laid out under some fig tree I don't know how." When I first came across this I had to read it three or four times before I realized these were actually two separate sentences due to the lack of serious demarcation between the two clauses.

What threw me off is he properly did it for the "crying" (habens lacrmis), so I just assumed the whole thing would be separated properly. In a weird way I feel either he should've done it correctly or not at all because if you half-ass it, I'm then put into a half-Latin, half-English mode in my head where I assume commas mean something, and if you don't follow the modern rules then I'm completely confused. If there's nothing at all, I'm in a complete Latin mode and just figure out where the sentence ends naturally.

This happens all the time and I wonder why. I know in modern English the comma's status and usage is up for debate, but there are certain things I think we can agree on. That editors are constantly fucking this up confuses me. This is your job. This should only happen once in a while, not in literally every single Latin book I've read.

^* Augustine, Confessions Book VIII Chapter 12.

[19:11:18] Dun 4 Hire: Char's outfit is completely ruined by the fact he has no sleeves.
[19:11:34] Dun 4 Hire: The only thing that surpasses it is his name is Vagina.
[19:11:44] Turinturambar200: You shut up, his outfit is great
[19:12:42] Turinturambar200: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/gundam/images/e/e2/Quattro_bajeena.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110309000604
[19:12:46] Turinturambar200: look at that stylish mother fucker
[19:15:54] Dun 4 Hire: Nope. He needs some fucking sleeves.
[19:16:07] Dun 4 Hire: Everything would've been great if not for that.
[19:19:31] Turinturambar200: It's hot on earth
[19:19:39] Turinturambar200: dude doesn't have time for sleeves
[20:32:21] Dun 4 Hire: He's in fucking space!
[20:32:34] Turinturambar200: be he also spends a bunch of time on earth
[20:33:15] Dun 4 Hire: True, but right now he's in space and is still rocking that.
[20:33:24] Dun 4 Hire: See, this is why Reccoa left. She realized the other side has better outfits.
[20:33:52] Turinturambar200: she left because she wanted to bone Paptimus
[20:34:23] Dun 4 Hire: Probably because of his uniform.
[20:36:38] Turinturambar200: Do you think that's why eventually, there'll be a Neo Zeon faction called The Sleeves
[20:41:42] Dun 4 Hire: Precisely. This fashion disaster had to be remembered and remedied.

This is called a corpse flower. It's about seven feet tall and it smells of rotting flesh, hence the name, because it uses flies to pollinate. This picture here is when it's open and in bloom, but it only has about a thirty-six hour window before that purple sheath around the phallus in the center wilts. This blooming only occurs once every seven to ten years. So when I got an email from the Botanical Garden that theirs was open today I skedaddled my way over. Apparently everyone else had the same idea because I've never seen the garden this crowded: Forty minutes to get into the greenhouse when usually there's no line at all.

But I was thinking as we waited: Why are we doing this? Why are we coming here, many people probably taking the day off, to look at a single flower that has the fragrant odor of a cadaver? Why would anyone want to see that? Does that say something about humanity? We're willing to travel from all over the city for a glimpse this flower, which we couldn't even get close to because of the pool?

I guess so because it was fucking awesome and I don't regret a single moment of it.

Final Fantasy VII Monopoly announced

What to do... on the one hand, I don't really need a Monopoly set since I only play it maybe once or twice a decade.

On the other hand... Final Fantasy VII.

On the eastern pedestrian walkway on the Broadway Bridge -- never the west one -- there are ripped pigeon bodies. It's rare you will see an intact corpse. It's either a wing, or a headless one that's missing its chest, or just the head, or just a wing and half a torso... I guess this is due to the 1 train that may be hitting pigeons that perch by the tracks, but why are the bodies on only one side of the bridge and why are they on the walkway at all, which is far from the tracks? Regardless, you have to carefully navigate through a graveyard of pigeons.

The other day I was distracted. I heard a crunching noise and saw I had crushed a decomposing ribcage.

Jesus Christ.

This happens at least three times a week:

Ate Neneng: What the English "sumbong?"
Me: Why would I know?
Ate Neneng: Sumbong!
Me: I don't know. I don't know Tagalog.
Ate Neneng: Sumbong, like "talk."
Me: Then you know, it means talk.
Ate Neneng: No, not talk. What the English?
Me: I don't know!
Ate Neneng: (makes frustrated noise)

I specialized in medieval Christianity, so I spent most of my time reading theological tracts instead of fiction. Whenever I do delve into literature, it's always refreshing because it depicts daily life and society. And here's what I usually get: Life was fucking violent as hell, particularly in the early period. Take the chapter titles from this book about King Arthur and the Round Table:

How tidings came to Arthur that King Riencce had overcome eleven kings, and how he desired Arthur's beard to decorate his mantle.
How Balin was pursued by Sir Lanceor, knight of Ireland, and how he jousted and slew him.
How King Arthur had a battle against Nero and King Lot of Orkney, and how King Lot was deceived by Merlin, and how twelve kings were slain.
How a sorrowful knight came before Arthur, and how that knight was slain by a knight invisible.
How Balin met with that knight named Garlon at a feast, and there he slew him to have his blood to heal therewith the son of his host.
How a knight slew his love and a knight lying by her, and after how he slew himself with his own sword, and how Balin rode toward a castle where he lost his life.
How the hart was chased into a castle and there slain, and how Gawain slew a lady.
How Sir Lancelot rode with the damsel and slew a knight that distressed all ladies and also a villain that kept a bridge.
How Beaumain fought and slew two knights at a passage.
How at night came an armed knight, and fought with Sir Gareth, and he, sore hurt in the thigh, smote off the knight's head.
How that said knight came again the next night and was beheaded again.
How Sir Tristan and Iseult were in prison, and how he fought for her beauty, and smote off another lady's head.^*

I didn't even put in much effort to find these. I literally just flipped through a few pages and got them because on every single page something ridiculous happens. It got to the point of ludicrous. People would just be traveling, see another knight, and be like, "Well, I guess we have to fight then." Why? Why not just keep on journeying? Why do you have to just fight it out? Why can't you just live your lives?

^* Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur Volume 1, ed. by Janet Cowen (New York: Penguin, 1969).

If you fiddle around with a shortwave radio for a bit, you may stumble across an odd station that consists of weird noises or a mechanized voice reading out a long list of numbers. These are called "number stations," and they're believed to be the work of intelligence agencies. If an organization like the CIA, Knesset, or KGB has an agent within a country, a foolproof way of contacting them is through these signals because it's impossible for a government to trace who's listening in. And if you do dial in, only the spy could understand these string of numbers using a one-time pad. Literally all of New York City could tune into one signal tomorrow night and none of us would know who it's intended for and the meaning. Its height was during the Cold War, but it's still being used. In the US it's mostly for agents working for and against Cuba (although this may cease now that relations have normalized) and in the East around China.

Number stations follow a format. You turn on their frequency and they're (usually) silent for the whole day. Then at a pre-arranged time, usually at the top of the hour in the evening, suddenly something called the "interval signal" would come on for a few minutes. This is an old short-wave radio technique that allows the listener to fine tune the signal before the real broadcast starts. Then it's the header, which is usually a bunch of numbers, that people assume is a code for whom the message is intended for. After that is a noise to demonstrate the dispatch is about to begin, usually a series of beeps or even a voice saying "ready ready." After the voice will start spewing out the numbers, and this could last for a long time, maybe even forty minutes.

I sometimes wonder who designed these channels, particularly the interval signal, because they're so strange. Take this one. Who in room somewhere said, "Let's have a woman say 'Yankee hotel foxtrot' repeatedly. That's a good introduction to our code.'" Or the Lincolnshire Poacher, named after the song it plays. Why that crappy version of the song? Or the creepiest one of all, the famous gong channel that came out of East Germany? Did no one at the Stasi think, "Man, why would we put our agents through this? Isn't it pretty obvious they're listening to something crazy when people hear these loud gong noises coming from their room?"