Random Anime Musings: Rent-a-Girlfriend, Toxic Fanbases, Crunchyroll Free

i noticed that there was a way to watch some ad-supported/free episodes on Crunchyroll.  Let's just say, that tier is unstable.  i would consider Crunchyroll/Hidive if they had gift cards that i could purchase in cash at retail.

* Crunchyroll Free Streaming: What's not to love - the 22+ ads in a 23-minute episode or the failure of ads to load - giving you an infinite black screen.  That was on the app on my Xbox, maybe PC is more stable.  Sure, there other problems, but those were the most annoyingly egregious.  

i think i saw How to Train Your Dragon ads at least 100 times.  Don't you hate in it in ad supported streaming when they take a break to show ads in the middle of sen....  Brought to you for 2.5 minutes by sponsors of a product/service you don't want or even need.  tence?

If the advertisers are getting charged based off the number of ads shown, they are getting screwed. Frequently play the same ad back-to-back.  The ads are set up as follows: 2 into ads, and an additional 4 sets of 5 or 6 ads.

Why i Hate Per Capita (100k)

"There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) referencing a quote attributed to Benjamin Disraeli.

Lately, i have been seeing a lot of talk about per capita (especially crime rates).  Let's just say i'm not a fan (if you didn't gather that from the title of the post). Why?

- Stat normalization is decent in theory - used to compare populations of different sizes.  However, there are inherent problems with it.  A big one is that it tends to extrapolate data in lower populations and slightly suppress it in larger ones.  True, variability is lower with larger populations.

Per capita is a rate stat for "normies" to massively oversimplify data. It is not really that useful and can be misleading.  Comparing data in a very questionable way, while stripping out context.  Per 100K, makes it look to me like the data has 4 or more leading zeros (after the decimal point).  Always thought aggregate data was more meaningful.  i don't need per capita for the data to make sense.

Example: if i had $1, and it was adjusted per 100,000.  That would be treated as $100,000.  Where did the extra money come from?  Nowhere, because it never existed. That is an issue with lower populations - it extrapolates/creates data (which may not exactly exist) at a common rate.  Yes, that is an extreme example.

Random Musings Today: Juneteenth and other stuff

 What is week this week ("week" in this context not necessarily applying to a specific 7-day contiguous period).

- Juneteenth is upon us again.  Why should i care?  A Texas state psuedo-holiday carried over due to the venerable St George Floyd (the patron saint of drug overdoses).  This should have never gone national - too bad the nation sold out to the scam that was Black Lives Matter.  

To be fair, i think most holidays should not exist.

- Best anime name ever: Perv Asshat (from Eminence in Shadow - assume it might be an English name only).

Happy Friday the 13th

Happy Friday the 13th.  The only one in 2025.  Next year, if it exists, there will be three (February, March, and November).

i never understood the fear of it (paraskevidekatriaphobia), it is just another day.  This superstition never made any sense to me.  It is not like we are around Camp Crystal Lake or live with someone named Jason.

The original Friday the 13th movie mostly took place in June.  Will pseudo history repeat itself?  One can only hope

i always hoped Friday the 13th could be a lucky day - to be fair, it hasn't been any unluckier than any other day.

WTF: i saw a bad Debbie Gibson song cover on a Mayo ad

What is the world coming to?  Last night i saw a really bad cover of the Debbie Gibson song "Lost in Your Eyes" on a Best Food mayonnaise commercial.  A man was painting a garage door and got stuck to it.  i think he might have loved his sandwich a little too much.  If you are going to defile the song, at least pay for rights to the original.  i didn't recognize the song the first couple of times i saw it - pretty bad cover.

It is so hard for me to see these 80s songs defiled by crass commercialism.  Good songs in bad ads.  Yes, i will admit to singing along (quietly) to the music playing in Fred Meyer.  Put more 2010 songs in your ads - oops i forgot how bad post 2000s music was/is.

i guess this is like what Don Henley meant when he "saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac.  Don't look back you can never look back" ("Boys of Summer").  i didn't actually look the lyrics up, sorry if i was slightly off.  A Cadillac was once considered a luxury car, seeing a hippie sticker on a luxury car must have seemed strange.

Did i ever mention that i used to have over 250 CDs?  At one point i could have given you a list of all the songs on a CD in order and also knew over 70% of the lyrics.  Thankfully, my memory is not quite that sharp anymore.    

Random Musings Today: New Calendar, Closed Captioning, and More

What have i been pondering lately?

Well i think that some things should change.  Obviously getting rid of Daylight-Saving Time would be awesome.  9 PM sunsets suck.  Why stop there?  Why is the calendar the way it is now?  

Calendar: This is not my idea.  However, it is a concept that i learned about recently.  What i propose is to change the calendar to 13 months of 28 days each (yes that is only 364 days).  Sorry big calendar.  Would be nice to have more consistency - all months being the same length.  Also seems a little more organic/attuned to humans.

Close Caption: was watching anime on Hulu with subtitles on.  Amazing how bad they are.  Probably less than 70% accuracy.  Character/place names are probably less than 25% accurate.  i suspect Hulu is using an AI type solution that uses speech to text functionality.  Program encoded subtitles would likely be much better.

The Summer of My Discontent

This date X years ago, i guess it is now X+1 years ago, i left college.  This was the start of a series of events that i could have done without.  Have i ever mentioned how much i hate summer?

A few days earlier, i was hanging out with my college girlfriend.  i wanted to keep her in my life so bad, but that was never going to be.  On some level i think i knew it.  i spent most of that day crying.  i suck at goodbyes.  Girlfriends are not generally impressed by guys crying for hours at a time over them (especially when they are in the same room).