Mal

Heh. One hell of a slip up. Maybe, just maybe, we should overturn Citizen United. Also one part where Biden was loudly/aggressively talking about China opening up rubbed me the wrong way even if I get where Biden was coming from. My mind drifted to this to compensate with humor. Anyhow, fuck. DNC is a long ways off... not to mention the general in November. This year's politics is going to take a lot out of me.

A rollout of a proven vaccine is probably a year out at best. Guess we got to take general preventative measures to heart (if not already), stay home if we do get it and treat it the best we can at home or go to the hospital. Though, home is where my 80 year old grandma along with four (healthy adults) others are so... ? Then of course there's the young ones in my extended family. Ultimately, it's about the at-risk populations who may be right at home. With no vaccine, guess we'll all roll the dice. Ugh, I'm going to leave this problem for Future-Me...

I get what you are saying but this can ground society to a halt. All you need to do is look at China, South Korea and Italy. No one has immunity to it so at this point it can burn through a population if left unchecked, which can mean that it only takes one person to set off an outbreak (e.g., South Korea and probably Italy. Likely Iran as well). COVID-19 hit China just before the Lunar New Year (it's the largest holiday Chinese communities and China celebrate. China get like a two week holiday for it) which kind of stopped everything. As an aside, of note, at the similar time there is/was a flu wrecking the swine population/stock in China. It's kind of like having a turkey shortage during the holidays out here in the States. Kind of not good. Kind of can make due with chicken or duck but a roast pig is kind of the norm for Chinese New Year dinner. With COVID-19, it was quite quaint this year in China. In some small way, it's also shaking Chinese communities around the globe. People in those Chinese communities are taking extra precautions along with people outside those communities, for better or worse, are doing so too for whatever reasons. All the cases in the United States (outside of the folks returning from the Diamond Princess) are all an one or two off since the infected knew about their chances of getting COVID-19 and was conscious of spreading the virus so they all self quarantined to stop any possible spread besides to their spouses. I suspect that South Korea, Italy and Iran are cases of unknowing infected spreading the virus. For other Americans, there probably will be personal stories from the people on board and back from the Diamond Princess. I wonder how many people will be financially wrecked by this by missing work (2-3+ weeks and growing) or be hindered or wrecked by medical expenses (heard of one case where someone suspected they had it but they didn't and now they have like a $1,500 bill to deal with). If/when it get worse, me and my family should take precautions as well since we have an elderly person at home (my grandma) who is the part of the at-risk population. I don't think none of us want to share some sort of responsibility of aiding in the death of her. And I have personal experience of almost doing it, along with my older brother, of doing such a thing to one of our younger brothers with meningitis back in the 90's (pretty sure I shared this on Discord). Kind of why I go a bit tad extreme at times (one time I suggested to take a shower/change clothes before returning from an ER/hospital visit to my brother and I since my then new-born niece was home with zero vaccinations). So yeah... waiting for this to become endemic but getting to that point is going to be fun. Also got to hope that it doesn't decide to become the Spanish Flu 2.0 and start knocking us healthy folks out like flies (probably the granddaddy of all pandemics).

After a week after my mom's two week monitoring period (she went to Hong Kong and Singapore in late January), I was hoping that COVID-19 would kind of burn out in China but containment of COVID-19 to China failed. It's probably going to burn through the world in the coming months or years even if China contains it due to it seems to have a foothold in South Korea and Italy. Iran and Japan seems likely as well. A strong flu that no one has immunity to is going to be nice. Don't pass it on to the elderly, the young and ill.

I'm working so l'll be listening to that a bit later. Right now though, it's all Joe Hisaishi. This is so late 80's to early 90's, I love it!

Maybe they are trying to surprise show-only watchers. All the cosmic horror stuff kind of came from left field if I remember correctly. People were kind of expecting to be Van Helsing but then came the space monsters and eldritch abominations.

Sonic Heroes was my teenage foray back into Sonic. It wasn't good. At all. This theme song haunts my dreams.

Symphony of Lodoss War Made by the same folks who brought us Touhou Luna Nights.

Something a little different from me... Trump and the elections is just maddening to focus on. Anyhow: As weird and frankly heartless as it seems, despite all the gun violence that breaks my heart, I firmly believe in the spirit of the 2nd Amendment. We're going about it in a fucked up manner though. Be it how people go about getting a gun and how people treat guns. I reject the notion that any checks and balances to the 2nd Amendment is infringement upon it. It actually confers the respect and care the 2nd Amendment deserves for being second only to the 1st Amendment (Freedom of speech). With that said, it blows my mind that civilians don't have to go through similar classes and training. It's not like we as a country don't have resources for such classes/training either. Hell, I argue it should be proctored by Uncle Sam themselves, free of charge, available to any citizen. As it is your right. Hell, maybe even toss in some food as well. In these classes and training, you will learn about guns, how they function, types and all that fun stuff. Probably in just day one. The rest of the time is to safety and practice. Yes, there are those who knows and follows every gun safety practices. It's built in their culture or family practices. Great. It doesn't hurt to have a formal reminder. In many ways it's not unlike safety days/week in the construction industry. Complacency leads to trouble. The sort of trouble that results in someone doesn't go home at the end of the day. And yes, it won't stop people from being evil or straight up dumb. Maybe... just maybe, we should look up mental health's role in shootings... like we said we should have done for the last 20+ years. Of course, another route is just plain getting rid of the 2nd Amendment. Not like we're treating it with the respect and care it deserves. Eaurgh...

Tell that to my family. ? I tend to run whatever phones I get into the ground so the latest is how I would like to roll (I do similar with PC hardware). Used to wouldn't be an issue if I could repair it or replace a battery on my own. Now though... eh. Between how un-repairable phones are and planned obsolescence, it's pretty shitty. My previous phone (Huawei Mate 10 Pro) battery sort of exploded/expanded a few weeks ago so I'm on an older phone now. Time to live my dream of using older phones though I think I want to move back up to something a bit more modern. I'm missing a ton of software features that I like (picture-in-picture for say Youtube, etc). Probably aim for a Note 9 or something that generation. If I'm feeling fancy, a Note 10. I also want to jump from Cricket (AT&T network) to some other carrier, preferably with hotspot included. Google Fi looks okay but I hear that for data usage, it's quite sub-par. "Free" hotspot is nice though and I want to see how well the three networks (T-mobile/Sprint [they might merge soon] and US Cellular) work out. Or I may go directly with AT&T. I have a feeling some of my issues with Cricket is that their network usage is un-prioritized. I see 4G but I am not getting 4G. I really got to review my data usage before I decide on a carrier. I might be able to swing Google Fi and maybe get a Pixel which I could finance. It'd be unlocked and able to be used with AT&T too if I get tired of Google Fi (but, if Pixel 3, at slightly reduced functionality aka one less LTE band I can use. Pixel 4 is fine). Researching all this (carrier plus phones) is so annoying. Edit: Regarding phones to pick up... the newest phones aren't necessarily the best phones to get since features are rather lacking. Thanks new phones every year.

Wow. Well, he's dead but don't go all in channeling this sort of energy: Well, maybe your mom can/will. Just keep an extra eye on her if/when something like it happens again. Best of luck. As an aside, Shen probably learned how unhealthy the above mindset is. He even parodied it. He's a pretty cool dude.

Well, I bought the comic (main series plus the prequel) since they're easy enough to find. Watching the first episode a few days ago was enough to tell me that I'm missing ton of context. The comic might be pretty dense considering its length but let's see if I can crush in a day or two. Then l'll get back to the TV series.

Some of the most finest politics ever witnessed.

Should I watch or read the other Watchmen media before going head into the HBO series?

I really should look up how the Clinton impeachment/trial went down. Probably should do Nixon's as well but that deal was so concrete that he resigned in shame. For Clinton's, I think I hear about "high crimes and misdemeanors" attached to the trial. The House managers failed to argue for the "high" part so Clinton wasn't removed from office. While Clinton did lie among other things (?) about his sexual relations with the White House intern, it clearly wasn't enough to remove him. As for Trump, we'll find out tomorrow. I suppose his orders and actions is clearly not enough to warrant his removal. Anyhow... Whoever decided to use an app for caucuses, primaries and voting needs to educate themselves about the dangers. That is like the last thing you want in the democratic process. Probably be faster to do it by paper. No malfunctions either. Really puts confidence in the Democrats party... *2016 Primary flash backs*

I'll be waiting for Dracula being given flesh by humans wishing to pay him tribute. Also that background is some Hellsing vibe.

Now that I think about it, the (Republican) Senate basically will do a jury nullification. As a jury, the Senate also has tremendous power to decide if additional evidence or witnesses will be called. Isn't this typically done by the presiding judge (Chief Justice John Roberts, in this case)? I suppose the change here is to make the Chief Justice appear more apolitical...

For a series that last for say a decade or more, is it foolish to hope that it grows with the initial audience if it starts out rather adolescent (say geared for 16-18 year old) rather than remain catering to adolescent?

Got to see how NISA handles the Crossbell games if they were to do it. Anyhow, the end of Chapter 3 makes you think. One scene was important enough to block recording from the PS4... It sort of blew my theory* apart. Even if it didn't, I just can't quite make out what's or where Falcom is taking the story*, both for Cold Steel and for Trails as a whole. Not sure if Crossbell would enlighten. * As for the story... Ugh. Sure wish I could research all the things mentioned in the spoilers. One thing I wish I have is a time line. With that said, we're probably going to be smacked with some major anime bullshit. So maybe I'm thinking a bit too much about all this...

So, my guess is the UK fails to get a trade deal with the EU iron out by December 31st and this process will go on til December 2022. Oh yeah, happy independence day? ?

If I were a betting man, I say late 2021 or sometime 2022 for these two localizations. Translations would take the longest assuming the two games are basically the same on the back-end. I'll be playing the Geofront's Zero localization and the, from what I hear, okay fan translation of Ao. So it mostly won't be a problem for me to be ready for CS4 or Hajimari. I do hope for a Japanese break after Hajimari for everyone to more or less be on the same page. I do want Falcom to look back on Cold Steel to avoid what went wrong with it since it is, in my opinion, the weakest of the bunch. Things are for sure better in CS3 compared to CS1 and CS2 but it kind of hinges on the grand overall narrative or things laid out in previous games/settings. I will say that New Class VII is far better than most of Old Class VII in their first games. It's back to form of previous games (Sky and Crossbell). Old Class VII are pretty much two games slow burners to get up to speed. Someday I'll be able to research up on topics in these games to connect dots without fear of spoilers... there's so many layers that it's hard to keep track. I'll probably make another post doing a rough timeline and about any other connections I believe are important just to put them out in words. Hmm, I think things like this may encourage even a fan translation of vanilla Ao. I cannot confirm or deny if Juna was in the Crossbell games or not. Maybe she was just a named generic NPC prior that got upgraded? ^ That. She's basically an upgraded NPC so Juna wasn't there originally but so wasn't Towa during the trade conference. I also hear of other characters and situations not being fleshed out back in the Crossbell games. I guess this is one of the main problems of rounding out the details of a story as you go when games set in the same time period are made like a decade apart. I don't think Sky have this issue or at least I don't recall any introduced CS characters saying they were in Liberl during the games. Also not spoiler this one since it doesn't quite spoil anything.

I also have one of the HAF cases for about the same amount of time. They're so good but yeah, they're showing their age in specs and design philosophy.