Random Thought

I have all of my Christmas shopping done now.
While I was at Ben Franklin's I noticed they were having a sale on all Bluray cases for only .47
each so I ended up getting 13. That means I have only about 30 some DVDs that are still in the one remaining CD Sleeve Case I have.
When I get enough to take care of those I think the next thing will be to find some that I can use to
transfer the DVDs in the CD cases back into DVD or Bluray cases.

Saturday I went and re-read the review of Banner of the Stars II at The Anime Review.
I hadn't read anything there for a long while(mainly because it's been inactive for over two years now). The review was based on the dub and he gave it something like a B or B+.
Evidently he was unaware of the new developments and said that Banner II was the finale.

Well after the military failed to overthrow Erdogan it only means that he can get away with more now. The interesting thing about the killing of the Russian ambassador is that it was one of the
police who were supposed to be protecting him that did it.

I suppose in the case of Erdogan, the military and civilians are going by way of the same fate of the German Resistance following the 20 July Plot. Well, somewhat similar, but that's what I picture in part, that for some reason despite world pressure and obvious diplomatic threats that Erdogan posses to the nation that the army did not come to join the common cause of the people.

Then again I'm not Turkish, I am even farther removed from their context, than in Russia, which luckily I do have some more folks who can explain how they can balance the tendencies of Putin versus voting say Communist or any party whom would make their elections more difficult regardless.

Still no idea what to write at the moment. I could write episode synopses, but I am preparing for Christmas with my dad, and of course I now own the Arpeggio of Blue Steel . . . Found my new obsession in it and World of Warships :C

Berlin attack while sad reminds me that in any other election season, Merkel would have swept even harder had she not secured 49% of the vote in the prior election. I expect the AFD-CDU-CSU coalition in the near future in that case, though maybe AFD will fall by the way side like Der Linke did, since the SDP and Greens refuse to form coalitions with them. Merkel or the CDU-CSU would have a hard time securing the trust of the people in future elections if they ignore the AFD.

It pleases me to see how many Faithless Democratic electors there were. Yes, Trump had two votes swing randomly due to faithless electors, but despite the pleading to undo American Democracy online, it was the Democrats who had to damage control their electors; reassigning at least one elector and forcing at least one other to vote again.

As a person having studied political science, I am not sure how such a dramatic 180 happened for both parties. The Republicans, despite their mid-term victories seemed poised to "collapse" popularly in 2015 and early 2016. Then the Democrats to ensure "electibility" proceeded to mud-sling and gas-light Sanders supporters. They got the candidate and the party they wanted, and the price they paid was the election and the cohesion of the only major Center-Right party in the United States. Now it seems the Democratic party is on the verge of complete collapse. I struggle to find any comparable example in global political history.

The closest to such political suicide I've seen came in the same year when the Labor Party of the UK stupidly chose to vote their own leader, Jeremy Corbyn, without confidence . . .only for him to beat the challenges who had the support of almost all the seated delegates and beat that challenger big. At least the British Labor Party kept Corbyn thanks to that new leadership election. Conservative or not, hopefully this will compel some big changes in the United Kingdom for their workers.

The turkish military and the attorneys are done already more than two years ago. Only the supreme court is holding out but not much longer.

Nah, it's still political suicide to join hands with the AFD in germany. Unless people realize the SPD faction would be more crappy they will win next time. Merkel is unlikely going to be chancellor again.

What are you saying history is full of these cases. Did you forget Alexis Tsipras when he reversed course against his party? Other examples Alexander, Pope Gregor VII - Henry IV, Frederick II, Genghis Khan etc.

Alexis Tsipras was always more a centrist, and him reneging on his economic plans for Greece were more a panicked response to a rapidly deteriorating situation. I doubt anyone, include the opposition who were eventually elected against him would have done better. Those other examples, I suppose I should have been more specific. If it's ok with you could you tell me about those other cases, Frederick the Great and Genghis Khan, I am not aware of cases which they acted in a way to betray the interest of council or the people. To be fair though F the G II, was insane and acted so occasionally.

Popes I ignored in part since their political decisions akin to say Benedict XVI made incredibly bad decisions for the Catholic church which did serious public harm. However, the Pope sadly is not obligated to listen to the Catholics of the world.

The Democrats and in the same year the Labor Party (UK) both made incredibly questionable decisions in actively opposing their constituents. Where at least Labor can recover hopefully from their attempted suicide since Corbyn won, I do not know what the Democrats can save. They will lose a lot for the next 8 years.

In Democratic histories, the only other case then if I go far enough back I would then say, the Senators who assassinated Ceasar, that was literal and figurative political suicide; a decision which actively opposed to interest of the people.

I did forget about France and actions of collaboration during World War II, but that's a mix of many factors, not solely political. When I think about the reversal of fortunes of a party poised on victory, that it was almost guaranteed and the other party demonstrably was on the verge of collapse; I am trying to think of a such a perfect storm of circumstances that completely reinvigorated one party and almost utterly left in an irrational state their opposition.

Now that I think about it Japan comes close where somehow and for some reason Shinzo Abe was ousted in an election due to the suicide of one of his ministers, Japan goes through three Social Democratic Prime misters before they hilarious collapse and split (Now the SDPJ and DPJ) and Abe has complete control of the Japanese Diet. Despite his unfortunate historical and social conservative views, I respect his efforts and his political comeback in Japan.

Well there's no getting around the fact Trump got a lot of Obama voters which is one reason he won.

I don't think either the GOP or Democratic Party is going to go away or become irrelevant, at least not in my lifetime. They both have the knack of unexpectedly coming back when you least expect it.

What the Dems need are more moderate to conservative candidates that are more like the constituents that they represent and get away from the more radical far left ones.

I watched St. Olaf's From Norway yesterday on PBS. It was pretty cool.
St. Olaf's College Choir did a special from a cathedral in Norway with the cathedral's girl choir.
At the end the girls from the cathedral choir marched out with lighted candles over to where
the St. Olaf's choir was and they lit the candles the choir were holding.
I always enjoy watching the St. Olaf's music at Christmas time. They have one of the best
music programs around.

I'm stressed out again this xmas but I'm done, thankfully.

Well, except for communism, fascism we don't ever have to fear there will be a day where only one party rules. Without any other party it wouldn't be party, technically.

Oh, well there's a few things need done today so talk to y'all later.

All right I made my last minute grocery run + special items. I'm kind of low on food stock since my hiatus.

So it seems MarsOne is as good as a pipe dream. They have moved plans back to 2032 and there's gonna a TV selection show. I doubt it can make a come back.

It appears some countries or Europe as a whole is starting to require people to register when they intend to come (starting next year). Likewise, and additionally people going to the states have to provide social media accounts. It won't be long till everyone has a number on their forehead...

Oh well,
Have a happy xmas everyone!

Well I feel a bit overchurched right now after having Christmas Eve service on Saturday and then regular church on Sunday. There weren't that many on Sunday because a lot of people came on
Saturday night.
The Catholics had a full house on Saturday night. Don't know but is Christmas one of those Days of
Obligation that they have to go to Mass?

We're still searching for a new minister for our church. May take awhile because of it being a smaller town and most of the congregation being older.

So Happy Boxing Day everyone!

Well, the word catholic means coming together in unision with (the Lord/Christ) as such you pledge your belief and are baptized. So it's more like the only days in the year where you have to pay your dues (to Christ).

I couldn't help but down a few too many cookies, too.

Cookies and hot chocolate!

I went to one of the local second hand stores in town after going to the bank and bought three DVDs:
1.Watchmen
2.Aeon Flux:The Movie
3.A.D. Police

I know the first two got dissed, but they still should be a fun watch. I read the graphic novel that the first one is based on.
As for A.D. Police, since I already have some of Bubblegum Crisis it be interesting to see the show it was based off of; also interesting to see how Leon does without the Knights Saber
*koff* Priss *koff* around to back him up.

Also finally went and ordered Akame Ga Kill Part 1 today so that is taken care of for now.

And I been re-reading the Xena novel: The Huntress and The Sphinx. Fun!

It's a merry time and we chatted away senselessly. And so I'm going to extend a bit of landscape design here. It's one of many issues/theme for a colonization. Sit back and enjoy one aspect or view of landscape design. Follow the rabbit!
http://flavorverse.com/15-worlds-beautiful-tree-tunnels-get/

That first Welsh one had me thinking of Druids and King Arthur.
A couple of the Japanese ones, but especially the one with the girl walking away, reminded me of
the final scene of the home made movie in Time Traveler:The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

Looks like Putin isn't biting this recent game of window dressing (certain failures).

Oh, yeah, decade old news is making the rounds on social media about mysterious gravity anomaly in the antarctic. If only they knew there are other similar places, too.

The Webarchive needs donations now!
https://archive.org/web/
It's as important or more than wikipedia because many documents are saved there for prosperity. But frankly people don't take as much note.

I have been playing online a bit these days. My once a years session but a few months late. While playing "Tree of Savior" I realized the .Hack-Sign universe was obviously inspired by their original "Ragnarok Online" which would eventually led to "Sword art Online". I wonder how the SAO game to the anime is doing...


LOL

I haven't even seen SAO so I can't comment on how good or bad it is.

We had blowing snow yesterday so had a grand total of about 20 people in church yesterday.
Had to shovel the dirveway twice, once before I left for church and once afterwards.

RIP: William Christopher who played Father Mulcahy on M*A*S*H died of cancer at age of
84. Another one of the good guys gone!

Additional: looks like Tenchiforum is now finished. Went there and Dagon had a message up.
So sad to see it no longer, like Dualfans and Abh Nation forums. Well it was fun while it lasted.

SAO
The show is about adventure and creating the right mood despite the looming threat. It's entertaining and enjoyable. As for how good the story is in (fine) detail aka novel, well, I already said the very same things the youtuber said from the very beginning before the anime even got aired. If you look past all those fails it's all about fellow/relationship and adventure. A good story that matters more. Details are there to flesh out and give fans food for their imagination. Note that if you ever write stories.

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Tenchi
It's really sad Tenchiforum is dead forever. It was certainly one of the best if not the best group of fans and definitely the most fan-invested and best supported single fan group. I took it for granted it would stay long past OVA4. The timing is too bad now that OVA just aired. I dunno about Discord. I don't have faith in them but I hope the fan repository will be kept alive as long as possible.
Gosh, now that I think about it I lost everything here on my dead drives. It's going to be troublesome to get them...
Anyway, I think one of those recent troubles that supported the decision were those spams. It's just not possible to manage a forum alone when there's so much traffic.

Looks like we are the only group left now.
btw. Abhnation's forum repository is up again. Please support it with regular visits. http://abhnation.com/ use exact url writing!
I hope it's

Yeah, it is sad to see another fan forum go like that. I also thought it would be around longer even beyond OVA4. Also, agreed that part of it may have been the spams. But I think also by the time the decision was made really not too many of us were active on the actual forums.

I think the only reason we're still going is that we're too stubborn to quite!
That and the fact that one of the others will come by every so often and occasionally post.

AFAIG: Even Animenation Forums is having the same problems. I read on one of the threads how
even after the Anime Today Forums members from Rightstuf merged with them the activity there
has gone down. Some of course have been banned but others haven't been around for awhile.

Probably a lot of people with Facebook accounts have switched to using social media has a way of
keeping in contact.

More, like gamer chat group it seems. I'm not playing too often to join or have enough time to spare for that matter.

People just got lazy while it's more attractive to using "chatting" and other real-time communication tools. But you gotta have the right timing or have lots of time on your hands. The net's become more of a real social life than real life.

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Apropos, while surfing on "Space Engineers" stuff

It's an amazing feat (and in that size). "Space Engineers" has a crappy block building system compared to Lego and there are a bunch of problems with rotors and pistons - he most important blocks to do anything mechanically advance. I'm using them lots, too, for similar things but can't rely or trust. They somehow get kinetic energy, vibrate etc. and explode taking more with them than explosives. Bad bugs.
Also it seems players only recently discovered or realized how exceedingly dangerous true (space) weapons are. Nothing new really. Just people being ignorant of real facts.

For fun and entertainment examples of those engineer's efforts: Massdriver / Railgun / Gravity cannon etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_ampb7dcyA
Bomblet applied to space, the last real world design with exact technique was used in the gulf war... Highway of Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-YblZ-uNSo

That reminded me of the time in Robotech they discovered that the ship could actually transform.

Finished reading the Enterprise novel Surak's Soul yesterday.

So see what I can pick for my first library check out of 2017 on Monday.

I also hope it warms up as it has been hovering just above 0 in the daytime and below 0 at night for the past week. At least we haven't gotten any new snow so far.

For a moment I thought "Surak's Soul" was an "old" novel I've read (similar to movie).

Yeah, even though snow appeared a few days late it was still within the margin of being on time. And it is indeed a little colder than last year but still not comparable to the past imho. I'm used to but don't really want it cold or snow. Too much trouble. If possible I would like to move to the south at an advanced age but where it's preferable not too much humidity. This probably means near some coast where I can enjoy storms all year or tsunamis. or Unless someone invents FTL and I can join those crazy MarsOne people. lol

These days there are so many science news I'm lagging behind. Of course some probably won't turn out as great as they sound but the progress is amazing. This is probably a perception due to how fast news travel these days. Review requests still come in but I don't have that kind of time anymore.

Lots of (useless) discussion (after the fact) about Putin and election these days. We saw it happening but didn't do anything so what's the point other than trying to create a new system? I doubt there's gonna be much of a change. Then again I think I said about most of these long ago when Abhnation was still around. Btw. net based polling or opinion (social engineering) manipulation appeared in the Negima manga more than a decade ago.

Well the thing is this sort of hacking has probably been going on since at least the Clinton administration so why are we not surprised?

I mean it's like Claude Rains in Casablanca when told about Rick's being used for gambling:
"I'm shocked, shocked I say that there's gambling going on here!"
(remember in the scene just as he says that he's handed his cut of the take! )

Of course it is odd that we never heard of such things before now even though everyone knew it was going on all along.

Anyways...I was lurking over at the Sailor Moon Forums and saw a post from one of the
other former members of Tenchiforum. They mentioned the whole thing with OVA 4, though I think it was just the final nail in the coffin myself.

And my first read of 2017 from the library will be about Davy Crockett!

After mailing a letter to the Des Moines post master (really they don't have an e-mail?! Seriously!
at least none that I could find) about my package I come home to look it up at the tracking and low and behold it already left Fderal Way! So I feel rather stupid about it and hope I learned a lesson about being more patient next time(hopefully there won't be a next time!)

I was going to change my Gabby avvie to something else, but since we finally seem to be getting
Heroes & Icons network I think I will keep her up for awhile. Though the irony is of course that next week they replace Xena and Hercules at the 5 and 6 p.m.
(PST) time slots with Star Trek and Next Gen. so it will be non-stop Star Trek all week day evening long. Which isn't any thing wrong there,though it means
less MacGyver and Metv for the time being.

And speaking of Star Trek, they ran that episode on DS9where Quark has a temprorary sex change
in order to make sure that Zek gets to remain Grand Nagus. OTOH Voyager was part 2 of Unimatrix Zero. More Borg!
Plus it was one of the few times we got to see Jeri Ryan sans her Borg prosthetics.

In FAKE NEWS: and now they're claiming that President Putin and the Russians have something
'shocking' on President-Elect Trump. Really?! They keep trying to dig up stuff to either keep Trump from being an effective President or just to embarrass him. I'm pretty sure that the DNC is behind some of this.

They just don't want to bother with replying customers in written form (for legal reasons). But I see there's a comment section or maybe the are more open on twitter?

Nah, the media just has nothing better to do or to report and obviously censorship / gag orders are not in place in this case like usual. I'm sure Drump's gonna do worse but we'll see.
There's so much social engineering these days from all sides... You gotta have the experience, 1st hand accounts etc. to actually get it. People born these days are grown with lies pushed onto them more so than ever before. It's not going to end well.

Anyway, my yearly cleanup and paper work has me shudder a bit these days over all the mountains of papers/bills/tax/etc. I definitely don't want everything in electronic form but my cupboard & locker is already full. Loos like I need to plan to set aside a small room long term.

I've played around some more with Space Engineers. As far as engineering & building goes it's absolutely worse than the Lego building or simulation programs e.g. LDD http://ldd.lego.com/ or http://www.ldraw.org/
You are wasting time with the littlest building issues and basic mechanics that don't even work properly. I guess it's only good for its multiplayer game part.

On a side note I've noticed something that looked like a periscope on germany's latest stealth command frigate. I'm wondering if that's a consequence of stealth pushing "observation & discovery" back to old days.

Uber is now part of goggle maps and you pay via google maps. Sounds good in practical terms but I still have doubts about security / safety. Not to mention having goggle track you 24/7.

Well there's always Lyft if it's still around.

AFAIG: I did get my package finally. And now I can look forward to Akame Ga Kill Part 1
coming. Hope no problems with it. I'm going to order part 2 at the end of the month after I get paid.

Looks like Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary will go through without much difficulty; although
Twitchy did have fun with the fact that there was one commentator in the MSM who couldn't tell the difference between General Mattis (white) and Dr. Carson (black)!

Also a Judge in Baltimore said that the police officers who were accused by Mosby can now file
malicious prosecution suits against her. And this is what happens when you promise blood before
you even have the facts in the case.