Random Thought

Looks like they're going to tear down the house that had a fire a few months ago. Right now they're tearing down the trees and shrubbery, so suppose the house may come down next. Guess it's better to have it come down than leave the shell still standing and have someone trespass and get into trouble..

Monday's Labor Day already and the start of the Fall. Election is coming closer. A lot of pessimism about the results.

Aurora, Colorado has been taken over by a violent Venezuelan gang...nobody is safe and moms no longer are taking their kids out to the park because of the danger...unless they go in groups. And this is why law abiding citizens need to be armed these days.

Right now they've started on the roof of the house across the street to take it down...

HAPPY LABOR DAY!!!!!

When they say a Venezuelan gang has taken over parts of Aurora, Colorado and its suburbs I have to wonder how much of the city and surrounding area they mean and which parts. This is in the end what you get with no border policy mixed in with Defund The Police. I just have to wonder how many of the citizens of Aurora and the surrounding suburbs will be voting for Trump and how many for Harris; and will their current situation play into their decisions?

well, many more registered voters got purged here and there in certain states while also a lot more new registrations were made than ever. Difficult to tell from that.
But let's be honest only what the electoral college does matter or rather the court decision when it comes to that.
Votes only give pause on their public appearance not their action.


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Anyhow,  Lord of the Rings -Rings of Power S2 has started
at ep4 now.
Story is smoother but lots of holes in details. Many are simple others are forced plot ofc some are unrealistic.
As usual 2nd season sees an uplift in props and set expansion; nice new attire etc.
They filled holes in the Lotr universe that range from typical to emulating the same schemes.
Obviously, the attempt at filling is what many "fans" criticize. I believe many reviewers just trying to get attention/clicks by using the same media tricks of generating outrage etc.

Spoilers!!

Summary:
Elrond discovers that Halbrand was fake and took the rings to be destroyed. Galadriel is forced to reveal to the High King that Halbrand was Sauron. She gets demoted but we are not shown that. Out of desperation the High King see no choice but to use the rings. Again Elrond escapes with the ring to the eldest Elf alive who initially agreed to do his bidding but is stopped by higher intervention/coincidence. Hence, him, the High King and Galadriel each take possession of a ring. Meanwhile Halbrand tries to recruit his old army or rather set the plot for it; and also returns to Celebrimbor. Halbrand reveals himself as a messenger from the gods. Halbrand is now a blond elf named Annatar. He manipulates Celebrimbor and the dwarves to create the rings for men and dwarves. The dwarve moutain was damaged by an earthquack (presumely Modor's outbreak) which puts them on the brink of famin.
Ofc the High King sent a message (riders) to Celebrimbor to warn him of Halbrand but it never arrives.
(For some reason there's no homing pigeons or magic messenger birds)
Gandalf and friends wander and are lost in the desert and are confronted by the dark wizard and his minion.
It turns out the white witches were his spies. Gandalf can't control his magic leading them to get separated in the fight. Gandalf meets Tom Bombadil ofc what do you expect? There's no better teacher for a young wizard than the oldest being around. The halflings meet their "cousins" left behind ages ago who believes one day a brethren would return to guide them back to the family...
Meanwhile, on Numenor political plot seems to succeed in overthrowing the blind queen by higher intervention (huge eagle). What a plot twist. So assuming Pharazon is now king. Also Eärien stole the crystal ball.
Meanwhile, Isildur survived as prey of the spiders and somehow (plot armor) escapes with his trusty horse. He meets up with the other southlander survivors. They meet the Ents in the mids of war with the wild men (Adar minions). While the people move to escape Isildur and the elf go after the Ents to fight Adar.
Other things of note:
new elf faces; we also get to see the other army commanders but never are told who or what they are
we get to see Sauron's/Adar's past
Meanwhile, Elrond is very upset about Galadriel and no longer wants to have anything to do with her.
Despite objections she manages to convince the High King to send her to check on Celebrimbor. Elrond refuses to join her but the eldest elf told him that he has to help her in her darkest hour. So to her shock he's the leader of the team.
His distrust in her reliance on the ring leads them to face undeads; they observe Adar's army and get discovered. Galadriel entrusts the ring to him and goes to buy them time to escape. The young elves admire her courage and sacrifice; to that Elrond replies: she's not saving them but the ring. Galadriel fighting prowress dominates the enemy but is easily subdued by Adar.

Well, if I have to criticize about how or what they filled the universes' holes with then I would have to say
why don't we see powerful merchants, bankers or bandit lords filling up the power holes after the last war and creating their own kingdoms? Welp, I guess nobody dares to implicate the establishment or the powers that be that finance the show. Hence, their shortcoming is unimaginative and gutless. lol Anyhow, I don't think anything could ever satisfy the reviewers.

From what I read it's supposed to be four seasons, so maybe some of the plot holes will be filled in next season or season four if they continue.

I'd like to see the Blu ray version so I could make up my own mind.

It seems though that some of these critics and reviewers decided that they would hate it no matter how good it was. Not The Bee and The Babylon Bee are examples of what I mean; they just can't write anything good about The Rings of Power, instead make fun of it as much as they can. Then again they're all in it for the Dune series...

It appears the critics are also Game of Thrones fan and bash on the show being no match to it.
Well, Lotr is fantasy for young people and had little political intrigue and certainly no depth to begin with.
It's not that kind of show and my above suggestions would only add more interesting forces, although, the option would be there and certainly would be a evolutionary leap.
Anyhow, here's a good channel that goes into details on each episode and explains it (professionally from a historical point of view). I'ven't seen much yet but it's superb and it's a big loss to have missed. If you are a fan this is a treasure.
https://www.youtube.com/@RingsandRealms

a funny take review compilation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER890rWmPZc

Amazon does seem to be preparing DVDs
https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-power-Season-DVD/dp/B0CGDGR1KJ
although it seems legit but it uses ASIN code and the studio name is obviously chinese...

So in other words be cautious.

I wouldn't be too surprised if there were DVDs/Bd's coming out. That seems to be the way of things these days,

My late nephew would probably have enjoyed it; he was a big Tolkien fan. He even had a LOTR
t'shirt, which his mom, my sister, gave to me.

Yeah, a lot of bashing going on towards LOTR:Rings of Power by both Game of Thrones
and Dune fans; though I have to wonder what George R.R. Martin really thinks since he added the additional R to his name in honor of Tolkien.

Instead of the debate I watched Ancient Aliens on History Channel. I figured that it didn't matter who won the debate since ABC was going to be in it for Harris anyways. Actually in the end I think I made the right choice. Ancient Aliens episode about an island in Micronesia that had a mysterious
Venice like city with canals. It was an interesting discussion of how the builders were able to get the basalt stone to the building area. The usual- "It had to be aliens" stuff...but still fun and interesting.
And the question of how they managed to get the stone to the building site is of course valid in and of itself.

As far as the debate itself went: all Trump had to do was score a tie or not loose too badly; OTOH Harris had to be convincing that she was up to the job. The few minutes I saw of it she wasn't.
Trump had only to play small ball but Harris had to go for the long ball every chance she had; unfortunately for her she was as bad as Trump.

Even those who said Harris won conceded that Trump was all around better when it came to having an actual policy, especially when it came to the economy.

Interesting enough the early polling afterwards tended to give Trump the debate.

Sounds interesting.
As far as ancient human history goes I'm most intrigued by the Harappan/Indus Valley/Indus-Sarasvati civilization.
Mostly for 2 or 3 reasons:
1. my conclusion leads me to think they might have been a socialist common wealth kind of society with little to no religion as we know it. Maybe they do believe in some form of spirits but not gods or the like. My conclusion about the society is not complete as I'm missing information on villages and ofc any written texts for that matter.
2. Since there's no monument or engraving text, I've concluded they might have been using some form of paper/pergament/papyrus/tree bulk that inevitable just decomposed. And for the same reason when they got scattered later and no longer had access to those texts or paper production they automatically lost their language since the children can't be taught anymore. Hence, they perished without laving any influence to their harboring benefactor. If they weren't eradicated by other people in the first place ofc.
3. "Canonical grain weights as a key to ancient systems of weights and measures"
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Canonical-grain-weights-as-a-key-to-ancient-systems/4a3390f3b4a0694f9e635703c5df610e2a4a9cf2
The most world wide extensive work on measurement standards of old. This paper is just the tip outlining the results so far. It seems to me the Harappan might have been the originator of it all. The metal ruler found and its precision...is very intriguing. I don't know how they could have done this without advanced mechanical translation mechanism to carve the lines at the precise small distances. And judging that it's likely a common ruler is even more intriguing.


Well, this point in time I think most people have already made up their mind who to vote for. The debate are only there to consolidate the resolve of the indecisive and independents. People's like or dislike might change a bit but it's unlikely to change their choice. And honestly, I've stopped following things closely about two weeks ago. I'm just looking up the regular summary and scurry through to see if there's anything important to note. Currently, we are back to congress and budget discussion, shut downs etc. All the same old except it seems GOP doesn't make a budge at all this time.


Anyhow, I've been noticing a lot of letters coming out in recent years from the establishment and more so tech people of late. Outright lies. They clearly are trying to promote the current destructive course of the free market economy and disregarding every. There's tons of wrongs in them so I won't bother.
One example for your entertainment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kibFAk8HwS4
More than that there's also moves on the web toward enslaving and manipulating people. One key is customized AI with their own secret filter settings (Musk's X). Google recently (months ago) discarded those old-snapshot links. I've come to realize that this literally is an active move to purge the web of old information. Because as those sites no longer get visits they lose revenue or their scores drops dramatically and eventually get remove either by the hosters or private person paying and no longer seeing a reason. We should see a dramatic change within months up to a year.
You can literally see this with your searches rarely showing results older than about 4 years.
Old browser are getting purged now and replaced by ads supporting ones. This is across all existing ones since 1-2 months ago. Youtube is also purging non-account visitors by blocking outright (Tor users or ad blockers) or spamming video ads every few minutes (or when you change tabs or click on another app etc.).
Software application obsolescence and forced cloud subscription thereof has become more and more a thing.
All in all you are being forced to be dependent on the web. And like with Adobe there are hidden costs for when you unsubscribe you still got to pay for the remainder or even more (from xxx to x k USD). They government is now trying to sue Adobe.
There's much more.
I also haven't even talked about any of my calculated projections aside from foreign policy and war...
but I'm getting too tired now. It's shame but I don't envy those coming after us.

I agree that most people have their minds made up.

Welp, when Ancient Aliens sounds more sane than the political debates, you have to think something's wrong there some place.

I can't think of any ancient civilization that didn't have some concept of a deity; if there were it would be a true anomaly.

RIP James Earl Jones...TBS reran an episode yesterday night of The Big Bang Theory where he pals around with Sheldon and ends up inviting him and his friends as his guests at Comic-Con.
( The man seems to have had a genuine great sense of humor if he was anything like the way he played himself.)

With now a second near attack on President Trump foiled it's not hard to start to believe in conspiracy theories of the Deep State having some sort of Black Ops against him. Unfortunately the third time might be successful unless they really do something about deepening security for him. The first two came too close, but a third one might just kill him if they don't really have tighter security.

This, of course, goes beyond simply election interference..

Yeah the trailer for the series finale of Cat's Eye had me really worked up until I saw the actual finale. I wonder if it had the same effect on the original Japanese audience.
And now onto Interviews With Monster Girls, though I keep calling it Interviews With Vampire Girls for some reason in my head. There is a vampire girl though, but she's the only one. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I'm also starting the re-watch of Rosario X Vampire in another couple of weeks as well.

In any case with all that's going on in the world today we really need a change of pace and some escapism like anime, otherwise at least I would go crazy.

Now I wonder who my best girl for Interviews With Monster Girls will turn out to be...

The real problem with places like Springfield, Ohio is that TPTB and the MSM aren't willing to go and take a look at the places where all this stuff is supposedly happening. They're happy is sitting around in their offices and denying anything's happening; it's easier for them that way. If they went out and took a look at what's actually going on they would have to take responsibility and do something about it; which would mean for the politicians that they might not win the next election. Elections after all are now all about staying in power and making a lot of money so that you don't have to do any actual work.

I should be getting a new debit card any day now. If I don't get it by Monday, I'll walk down to the bank and see what gives on Tuesday.

Found out that we have digital cable and that's where Nat Geo andFNC went to, I found the former but not the latter.

The Mariners are now out of the running for a playoff spot having lost 4-3 to the Astros to give Houston another AL West title.

Meanwhile the Orioles clinched the East with their win over the Yankees.

I've both my doctor and dentist appointments next month within a week of each other so will be a rather expensive month.

Been watching the Toon Network on digital now that I found out that we get digital. An entirely whole new expierence of tv viewing. Also found Roots Sports on digital. Before tuning to Toonami Rewind I spent a few minutes there; they were airing this crazy sport that was basically tag on steroids, it made
pro-wrestling look normal by comparison.

It looks like Medieval Otaku is expierencing a bout of burn out, so he's decided to go on an hiatus for the time being. His main complaint seems to be that there aren't enough "serious" anime with adults in the lead roles. He also seems to be suffering from a bit of religious burn out as well. Sounds like someone needs to go on a retreat some place where they can gather their thoughts about their faith and anime viewing habits and take a look at nature and read nothing but Psalms in the Bible for a few days or weeks and then get his feet back in slowly.
A good book to read during this time would be Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God, short but something a Christian of whatever denomination should read every now and then.
Also the Psalms because they can help focus on worship,etc.
Also a break from watching anime for a bit wouldn't hurt.

Didn't watch the debate but did catch snatched here and there; instead I watched the classic period piece: The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex on TCM, it starred Bette Davis, Erroll Flynn as Essex and Vincent Price ( of all people!!!! as Sir Walter Raleigh.

I say that since you usually associate Vincent Price with B grade horror movies such as: The House Of Wax, The Black Cat and The Raven and not historic pieces that are non-horror.

RIP Pete Rose the greatest player not in the HOF in Cooperstown. If it weren't for the gambling "Charlie Hustle" would've been in decades ago. Despite that he was still one of the most popular players of the modern age.
His hits record is one that will stand for a long time to come.

They were working on the board all day yesterday it seems, so I wasn't able to get on until now.

After we had our church men's breakfast I was talking with some of the other men about the New Pac 12 and we pretty much agreed that: 1) the teams that left the Conference are dead to us, 2) with Gonzaga joining the revived Conference as a partial member (basketball but no football) it gives it some
clout and 3) it would be nice if (at least) Washington and Oregon would wake up and smell the coffee and realize they're not going to be able to beat teams like Michigan and Ohio State and it would be best if they could find their way back to the Pac-12.
Though I think with #3 they're pretty much locked into the Big-12 now for the time being because of contracts, etc.

It seems that the phone doesn't stop ringing these days, either someone asking for money or politics or both.
And thanks to Bidennomics don't have the money to give as usually would, so have to pick and choose.
Though now this month with the doctor appointment next week I can't afford to give even if I want to until the end of the month.

Next week is my doctor's appointment and I hope that I can pay for it with my debit card. If I can, and if I don't get my new card by then ( or if I get it in the mail afterwards) I will be going to the bank and they will order me a new one (if I don't get it in the mail first) and then cancel out the old one. It's only good until the end of the month...so if I don't get the new one soon I won't be able to do any ordering online or anything else until the new one comes in.

It's still a mystery as why it's taking so long. Normally it would have been here by now.

Not The Bee had an interesting story from Japan on why watching Anime isn't stupid or dorky in any way: a twenty three year old woman and avid anime fan was at her local convenience store when a robbery was taking place; she subdued the robber by using a hold she had seen on an anime.

While the Not The Bee writer went immediately to Naruto, my own thoughts went to Tenjho Tenge and Ikki-tousen....then I thought it would be even more hilariously funny and obviously appropiate, if she had learned it watching You're Under Arrest!...though it was probably some more recent anime she may have been watching.

Though in the end the moral is that we can learn anything from unexpected sources.
That and really she did a Hakufu on the guy!!!!

Happy Columbus Day!!!!

A new DNA test from Spain seems to indicate that Columbus may have had Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry; though it should be taken with a grain of salt since Spain is one of the countries contesting with Italy over Columbus's origins. I think if it had been conducted by a third party site, such as the Max Planck Institute, in a neutral third country that didn't have a dog in this particular fight it would have been a lot more credible.
All that said no matter what his origins the important thing is how Columbus viewed himself.
Certainly he viewed himself as a Catholic and a Christian, but did he view himself as Italian or Spanish or what? That is the important question.
Also please note that at the time of Columbus' birth a lot of Jews had started to already leave Spain because of the Reconquista brought with it, unfortunately, the Inquistion; so it is possible that he
could have descended from Ashkenazi Jews who fled Spain and came to Genoa, Italy...just saying.