Crunchyroll Anime Binge Part 2: Binge Lesser

So, i got 3 months of Crunchyroll via Amazon Prime again.  The same issues still exist missing dubs/subs, missing episodes, misplaced episodes, etc.  It is getting harder and harder to find and watch some of the back catalog of Crunchyroll, so this time i rewatched several series.  i did finish off a few Spring Season shows (some i was waiting for the season to end to list or forgot).

Weak, arrogant, and obsessed characters (battle junkies, magic junkies, etc) tick me off more and more as time goes by.  i don't want to see the hero MC or his party crying (or being whiny at all).  i am not a fan of "revenge" stories (as they said in Trapped in a Dating Sim - the best revenge is being happy).

Random Musings Today: Stuff?

Another random musing post.  Let's see what has been weak the last few weeks...

* Coming off of 3 months of Crunchyroll streaming/binging (three month each for $.99 ended about a week ago).  Maybe another post on that one.  At some point, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and stuff is less interesting.  i did rewatch a few shows this time.  Still about 7 Spring Season shows i'd like to finish at some point in the future (to, the extent i have one).

 * Puzzles: finished six 1,000-piece puzzles in about 12 days.  It is getting harder to do (questionable lighting, harder to discern color differences, dropping pieces on the floor, etc).  So many whites, grays, and browns.  Two were "mystery puzzles" - the puzzle is not the picture on the box (makes things a bit harder).

Puzzle tip: sorting plays a big role in completion time.  It is better to set asides pieces for certain blocks of the puzzle (like flowerbeds, or prominent features) then "take it as it comes".  One puzzle (from China) had the section written on the back (A-F).  i think that one took less than 6 hours.

i sold 8 puzzles at the yard sale for $1 each.  i already have two puzzles in hand for next Winter Solstice.

Random Musings: A Very Gen X Yard Sale, Birthday, etc

Time for another random musing - hold your applause until the end.

* My sister decided to have a yard sale yesterday (she actually was working on it for about a month).  A yard sale is a lot of work for little payoff (unless you have some awesome stuff, or very specific buyers).  You find the items, get them out, "warehouse" them until the event, price them, and try to sell them. Then if your stuff doesn't sell, back to the closet with it.

i decided if she was going to have a yard sale, that i might as well throw a couple of things in.  Ok, maybe a couple is a bit of a misstatement (i have almost 11 pages of tables in Word, two columns landscape orientation).  My "couple of things" were mostly video games, board games, and puzzles. 

The stuff a Gen Xer or an older millennial might have in their closets: video games (Xbox, Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii), a few too many games based off the 80s (the best decade), and some pop culture references familiar to that generational cohort.  i did have 4 versions of Trivial Pursuit and a VH1 Pop Up Video Game.  i even had a Mr. Potato Head called "Taters of the Lost Ark".

Random Musings Today: Birthdays, Anime, etc

 i decided to muse randomly today, i know it has been a while (March 2nd).

Birthdays:

Once you hit 25, is there anything to really celebrate anymore?  Congratulations, you're one year closer to death.  Why would anyone want to live to 100 years old?  Have they seen 70–100-year-olds who are constantly taking pills, and whose senses (vision, hearing, etc) and joints are shot.

My paternal aunt has a repetitive birthday song - it starts with "we're glad you're not one.  We're glad you're not two".  It then goes up to the age the person is (x to n, where n is the current age).  i estimated that my alleged mother's recent birthday would have taken over 6 minutes to get to her age.

My Ideal Messed Up World

My reality is unsatisfying and disappointing.  The "modern world" is layers of abstraction stacked on top of each other.  Sometimes, technological dependence can seem more like an albatross than a boon.  Life was never meant to be a subscription service.

On the surface, there are more choices, but is that really a good thing?  Today is full of psuedo-decisions that are more programmed responses than actual conscious decisions.  There can be so many theoretical branching impacts of decisions that it can cause decision paralysis (where few decisions are actually made).  Most choice is little more than illusion.  In some ways, i think less options and more "real decisions" would be far preferable.

Idle wondering when i couldn't sleep led me to think what my warped view of a more perfect world would be.  i got another $1.99 each for 3 months deal on Crunchyroll, so that tempered my view a little (a lot of fantasy/medieval period type shows).

The US Constitution is a Suicide Pact

The US Constitution is a suicide pact.  It did not start out as one, but it turned into one with unnecessary amendments giving the federal government more power than was ever intended.  To be fair, a litany of bad court decisions furthered this.

i could understand including the Bill of rights, but all of the amendments after the 10th could have been decided congressionally without weaking the foundation of the Constitution.  Yes, adding more amendments does weaken the whole.  Some of these actually went against the intentions of the founders.  The 18th and 21st Amendments show that the process was abused.

The language and intent of many amendments were weakened by compromise-based phrasing and word usage that does not reflect the current lexicon.  Ideally, the US Constitution would be rewritten taking out any ambiguities present in the current version, modernizing certain key terms, making it more concrete, and eliminating most of the amendments (which were never really necessary).

The most destructive amendment might have been the 16th Amendment (authorizing income taxes).  That accelerated the increase in the size and scope of the US government.  The awful Helvering v Davis decision (authorizing unnecessary programs outside the scope of government in the guise of "general welfare" ignoring the prevailing exigent circumstance) and 16th Amendment enabled the New Deal (better to call it the "raw deal") which extended the Great Depression.

More revenue equals more irresponsible spending.  More spending leads to more debt.  Debt begets debt.  Destruction of the US through government largess - i'm starting to think maybe that was the intent.

Happy Easter

Another Easter is upon us.

For me it was one of the two major candy holidays (Easter and Halloween).  Xmas had candy too, but it wasn't the primary focus.  My alleged father would hide candy around the house.  Yes, i dyed a few eggs this year with Paas.  Hiding eggs?  Why would people do that?  What is the point of egg rolling?

My easter was a secular holiday.  The whole Christian Resurrection story never made any sense to me (i've never believed the concept of an afterlife was anything more than a sucker bet).  Was Rankin and Bass even trying (there was Here Comes Peter Cottontail and The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town)?  Though, the Cadbury mini egg commercial with the lion is still decent after all these years.

Should have staged this a little better, but i didn't have that annoying fake green grass that got all over the place.  This is a small LEGO set (40523, 288 pieces) my alleged sister got me a few years ago placed in one of my two clearance Easter baskets.  It is not the blue denim-ish homemade Easter basket that i grew up with.