Numbers Don't Lie (But the Trump Administration Does)

The inauguration of Donald John Trump was the biggest event in human history - bigger than the civil rights marches of Dr. Martin Luther King, bigger than the Beatles playing for the first time on American television, and even bigger than the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

President Trump is the answer to all of our prayers to God, even more so than his only begotten son, who was a loser that didn't do as much for humanity in his lifetime as our new savior will do in the next four years.

Say goodbye to all crime, poverty, and the evil Muslims who toss burning American flags at our good Christian neighbors as they tear across this once great country in their quest to bring us to our knees.

Donald Trump is Batman, Superman, Gumby, the Pope, and the entire Marvel roster (except Jubilee) rolled into one. Only he can save us, and now that he is in power we can make America great again™!

And if you believe any of that, you may have just earned yourself a position in Trump's cavalcade of talking heads and alt right puppeteers. Congratulations! I do have some bad news for you though - all of the best positions in the cabinet have been taking by the highest donors.

I know what you're thinking right wingers, alt righters, working class who have lost hope, neo Nazis, and the like - give Trump a chance. The election is over, the bad blood has settled, and now it's time to respect our new commander in chief and see him for what he REALLY is. Not the lie spewing megalomaniac, or the hate mongering caricature of a real human - we get to see the REAL Trump, and we need to give him a chance because we're Americans dammit and we want to see America succeed!

Well, I hate to break it to you, but we did give him a chance. And in the first weekend of his term he's already lost my trust and any hope that his presidency will amount to anything more than I already assumed it would.

The time for jokes are over. The humor is gone. Now is a time of distrust and fear the likes of which I've never experienced in my thirty four years on this Earth, and I'm going to tell you why.

A Return to the Pokemon TCG

 Like many kids in the 90's, I was a fan of Pokemon. I could never satisfy my lust for the anime merchandise, since it was released in the US before anything else.

My brother and I found out about the trading card game leading up to the original video game release. Naturally we wanted it, and like so many other kids, once we had it in our hands we had no clue how to play.

Playing the game was never a huge deal to me, I actually lost interest in that aspect quickly.

No, I just wanted to collect the cards.

I liked the art and it was just another way to "catch them all." Plus there was a certain thrill to opening a booster pack and wondering if you'd get that holographic card that you'd been hoping for.

I was an avid collector though the first few expansions. I had the original starter box set with the classic holo Machamp, and lucked out with a first edition at that. That luck continued with boxes for the Jungle and Fossil expansions, but my favorite box came with a holo Vaporeon. I still love that card to this day. I didn't have a ton of money at the time, so I didn't get as much as I'd like.

It didn't help that I was also getting into anime at the time so my budget was getting stretched thin from various fandoms at once.

Reflections on Jem

I got a little surprise today after work. I was killing some time at our local Hastings and saw that Jem and the Holograms, the movie, was out on Blue Ray and DVD already. I mean I'm not really that surprised. It bombed in theaters so the quick home release is a tactic to make back some sales.

Now I was in no way ready to just buy this failure, I've heard few good points about it, but I still wanted to see it for myself. So I hopped over to the rental section and nabbed myself a copy for the night. After a quick stop for pizza, Jem got popped in the Xbox One and the journey started.

I told myself going in that this was not going to be a good Jem film, so I tried my best to just look at it as a movie in general. Yes I still picked at the Jem aspects because that's what it was mean to be, but I didn't hold them accountable for the most part. As a Jem movie yes is has some major problems, but as a feel good coming of age movie it really wasn't bad.

The characters were likable, and and you had no problem hating the villain. It was touching, though a bit pushy at times. If it had been just a basic music based film it would have probably fared much better.

The problem, it wasn't. It was meant to be a Jem and Holograms movie. 

Pessimistically Off-putting and Oppressively Ruminative (Part 2)

It should go without saying that I am no fan of myself. I don't think it's the case with every single person that experiences depression, but it makes sense that someone that can't control their own feelings of hopelessness won't see themselves in a positive light. I have particularly negative feelings toward myself, as well as the assumption that everyone else shares those feelings. 

If I don't even like myself, why should anyone else? 

I won't argue whether or not that reasoning has valid points, it's just something long periods of absolutely bottomed out self esteem has produced, and it's very hard to reason against. In fact, logic is completely disarmed in these fights because they're my own thoughts and they make perfect sense in my head. I like to rely on logic quite a bit, so it took a long time to even start to think that maybe this doesn't make as much sense as I think it does. When you couple that reliance on logic with paranoia, new and awful ideas take root. Coincidence has no place in a paranoid world, and when that person you don't even know just happens to look your way and laugh, there's obviously no other reason for that laughter than you being the most pathetic being they've ever witnessed.

Pessimistically Off-putting and Oppressively Ruminative

Note - The following article was sent to me by an anonymous guest writer, who will remain so until they decide to reveal themselves. I am just posting this trip for them. Enjoy!

It's difficult to start anything, regardless of significance, but what would be the best way to place your musings into a form that could potentially be viewable by others? How do you manage the complication of requiring large quantities of time to produce the smallest bit of text because you're never sure how you want to word it?

Obviously, the answer is this, because while this first paragraph took longer than it should, I have no deadline of any kind. I have all the time I want or need to put down thoughts that I may end up tweaking or outright deleting later, with no one knowing, or caring, one way or the other how many obstacles, false starts or dead ends it took to reach this end.