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Sunday, August 1st, 2027
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7:04 pm - Intro post!
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This used to be an "I HAS DIGIMON EPISODES" post, but they're easier to find than they once were, so it's an intro post now.
I'm an anime otaku who also enjoys grand strategy games and is studying history at Boston University's Metropolitan school. Friend if interested, but be warned of despair entries - I'm better than I once was, but that's far from perfect.
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| Wednesday, December 4th, 2019
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2:42 pm - Pokemon I still need!
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Slowking
Kingdra
Raikou
Entei
Suicune
Sableye
Mawile
Zangoose
Seviper
Lunatone
Solrock
Relicanth
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| Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
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2:06 am
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How the heck did PokeSupe get so awesome?
I'm still five volumes behind or so. Reading the Emerald arc. Finished the epic Mewtwo/Deoxys battle and the exploding airship and Giovanni's search for his kid.
I don't know if people who aren't pokemon fans would enjoy this. Pat of the appeal is in how they interpreted certain pokemon world concepts - like making Yellow have Red's Pikachu way back, or having Ruby (the guy) doing contests. The way they bring it legendaries probably doesn't seem as cool if you haven't thrown 30 pokeballs at one. ...but if you aren't a pokemon fan, at least give it a look. And if you *are*,
I give it my strongest possible recommendation. I'm not sure if I ever enjoyed any creative work this much, even digimon adventure.
(And yes. I say this every time I go back and read it. But I plan on catching up this week, so you probably won't have to listen to more than lj-cut posts on the latest scanlations after that.)
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| Sunday, January 31st, 2010
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4:31 pm
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| Thursday, January 28th, 2010
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3:33 am
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- Watching Escaflowne. I thought I was straight, but it turns out I just hadn't watched a shoujo in a while. Also cool setting and neat mechs... but Hitomi Kanzaki really grates on me. I. Don't. Like. Her. And I have HIGH tolerance for shoujo heroines - I even liked Miaka!
- Turned 21. I don't think I've posted since I turned 21 a few days ago. Still not drinking - I like meh brain cells.
(Okay, confessing to a guy and crushing on another one within the space of three episodes won't win you many points in my book. Even if they have the same face.)
- Feeling a little overwhelmed by my class amount. Which would be better if I weren't only taking three classes. I hope it's just 'cause I'm getting back into it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared...
- Got a new laptop and have been playing EU3 nonstop, now that it doesn't take 5-10 minutes to load. Also I HAS HARD DRIVE SPACE. :D
- At the end of the day, I still feel unproductive. Especially at the end of this day. Also I miss having human contact and such. Maybe that's the cost of indulging in the raw hedonism of video games... even though it's not like the forum posts I'd be making otherwise are some grand contribution or whatnot.
- Think that covers it. If I left anything out, let me know!~ [/catchphrase]
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| Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
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10:54 pm
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| Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
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11:30 pm - So I wrote my congresspeople
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Regarding my health care situation - y'know, the "Blue cross + blue shield ripping my family off to the tune of $3000" thing. Wrote my state rep, my state senator/soon-to-be-federal senator, my federal rep and my federal senator alike. Related my situation and asked if they could do something about it, either through legislation or pulling strings.
Hope this works.
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9:29 pm
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So that's it. We lost. Martha Coakley was the worst candidate I've ever seen, but even still.
The Massachusetts voters said "I've got mine, screw you" when it comes to health care. I want the House to quickly pass it, but in reality we just sank the hope for millions of Americans of having what we have. We probably won't even get regulations on pre-existing conditions and rescission.
Another recession will come. How could it NOT? We don't have the votes to pass financial reform, and we never will. The Repubs will pick up seats at the midterms, the recovery won't give any jobs back... heck, their filibusters might even cause an economic collapse California-style.
We still have 59 votes in the senate. The most any party has had since the '70s. But the Republicans have decided on filibustering everything, and Scott fucking Brown is my Senator.
And the recovery? It'll be a jobless recovery, if we even get one. Say goodbye to the jobs bill, goodbye to the hope of young people like me finding decent employment in this country... maybe *I*'m hard-working and studious enough to eventually get a PHD, but what about the rest of my generation?
I'm crying now. You should be too.
EDIT:
Silver lining: Capuano in '12?
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| Monday, January 18th, 2010
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5:22 pm - Pre-election blogging
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Three polls were released today. One has Brown up 9, one has Brown up 6, one has a tie. Pretty much every recent poll gives Brown the lead. Nate Silver gives Coakley a 25% chance of pulling it out. Furthermore, I am a pessimist; last night I posted a rant complaining that Brown would win and health care would die and such. (Pelosi's said today that it won't even if Brown wins, but does she have the votes?)
I read a lot about it today. So why do I, despite all the experts, think this is a toss-up?
1) Special election polling is not necessarily on target. In the recent race for New York's 23rd congressional district, the polls showed the Conservative candidate, Hoffman, up by 5, 5, and 17. The democrat won.
2) There's a snowstorm hitting western Mass (Coakley's base, but not very populous) along with central and northeastern mass (Brown's base, and more populous) but mostly leaving Boston alone.
3) The crosstabs for the Insider Advantage poll... don't really make any sense. They have voters age 18-29 supporting Brown by a 2-1 margin, despite that being generally far and away the most liberal demographic. They're also hard to survey because of the cellphone issue. Coakley has weaknesses among that group - she's anti-marijuana and came out hard against the decriminalization bill last election, and there was the whole mooninite embarassment - but 2-1? Seriously? That doesn't pass the smell test. (For comparison, the R2K poll has Coakley winning young voters 2-1, which makes a lot more sense.)
Brown also wins 25% of African-Americans: Republicans typically win 10% at most, and there's nothing special about Brown which would make him especially likely to pick up votes in this community. Furthermore, he wins Hispanics 3-1 - I don't know that much about how Massachusetts' Hispanic community differs from the national one, but like young people, this is a demographic which trends heavily democrat. Maybe - MAYBE - the immigration issue being placed on the backburner has created a seismic shift in Hispanic voter attitudes; they did back Bush for term one, albeit by a closer margin. Maybe Martha Coakley is somehow an even worse campaigner in Spanish than in English. But the standard thinking is that Hispanics trend conservative on social issues and interventionist on the economy, and this election has mostly been about the economy. (The only way this makes even a lick of sense is if Coakley's attacks on Brown over emergency contraception had her seen as anti-Catholic, but even there it doesn't make sense.)
When you toss that poll out, you're left with a six-point poll from ARG and an R2K poll showing a dead heat. The R2K poll is done on behalf of Daily Kos, so they have every incentive to lie and make it look close to encourage people to get out the vote... but it's also a reputable polling firm with a good record. The ARG poll makes sense, but I'm not sure about the likely voter model.
On a related note, the earlier polls included the president's approval rating. They had an electorate turning out for this election which approved of Obama by only +1%, when the electorate in Massachusetts as a whole gives him +24%! That's three times worse than the turnout gap in Virginia's gubernatorial election, and while Coakley's bad, she hasn't been THAT bad.
(As a caveat, I must say these were older polls, and the recent trend was "more Obama voters turning out, but many of them doing so to vote for Brown.)
4) Okay, so you take the Insider Advantage poll out, but the average over the past couple days still shows Brown up 3 or 4. Up 3 or 4 is not a toss-up - it's an outside shot, margins of error and such, but not a toss-up.
Except that on average, polls in heavily partisan states like Massachusetts understate the dominant party's vote share by 2.3%. And Massachusetts is more partisan than most.
This puts Brown up 1.5 percentage points. Add the help of mother nature, a massive nationwide GOTV effort, and a Coakley edge among registered (just not likely) voters, and I think she has a decent chance of winning this. Heck, I'd even call it a toss-up. And I don't quite trust the polls on this one.
5) We're in the position (judging from internet arguments) where Republicans are expecting a solid victory and Democrats a close race. This is a total reversal of what was happening earlier, and although people are more enthusiastic about Scott Brown, it might dampen Republican turnout: "if my vote won't matter, why vote?"
Either way, we'll know tomorrow. Probably from turnout numbers alone.
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1:08 am
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My family's out a couple thousand dollars because of Blue Cross Blue Shield dicking around on my therapy for depression. (My family is out the money, as I'm a student and don't actually *have* $2000. Or didn't until social security started coming in - and therapy actually costs more than the government gives me a month. Honestly, if my family was like "pay now or stop going" I'd stop going, 'cause I'd much rather have the money.)
Scott Brown will probably win. 538 says tossup, but I'm not seeing it. It's not looking like recount territory, either, so we won't be able to tie this up in court.
The House won't pass the Senate bill, because 96% vs. 94% and not taxing cadillac plans is more important than reigning in insurance company shenanigans. A ton of progressives will be with 'em on that. These idiots had months to negotiate this and still couldn't come up with anything.
And the same thing is happening to countless people across the country. Having insurance isn't much of a hedge against medical bankruptcies these days, because insurance companies don't pay what they owe their clients and get away with it.
tl;dr fuck Blue Cross Blue Shield and Congress
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| Saturday, January 16th, 2010
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7:54 pm
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- I think Brown will win, I hope Coakley does. That said, paying attention to every poll that's released can't be good for me. Massachusetts still has health care either way, although the rest of the country's probably SOL. :P
That said, unless you voted absentee, be sure to get out on Tuesday and VOTE.
(Anyway, the filibuster has made the country damn near ungovernable.)
- I have the katakana down in theory. In practice, I usually have to figure out shi/tsu and so/n by context, and if I can tell varies from font to font. Haven't started on hiragana yet, though I know "n" ('cause it looks like an n) and "no" ('cause of the nonowa meme) anyway. No progress yet on vocabulary.
- Classes started. English composition looks like it'll be a real pain in the ass to sit through. Comp sci I should be able to handle easily and learn a lot as well. History of American Warfare hasn't met yet, and won't for a week because of MLK day. (Yeah, a pacifist taking a military history course. It's interesting stuff, know thy enemy, etc.)
-I feel like I should have a fourth thing to throw in here. BUT I CAN'T THINK OF ONE. T_T
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| Friday, January 15th, 2010
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12:48 am - On memorizing katakana
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The character for "hi" looks like it is giving a hitler salute.
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| Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
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8:01 pm
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So.
I'm finally making a serious effort to learn Japanese. One character at a time. So far I think I can write "fushigidane" but I just learned how, so I'm not sure if I'll retain it.
(And that's the part that worries me. Retaining the information. Hopefully I'm tracing it out enough times that it'll stick. And from there I'll keep this up one pokemon at a time until I've memorized the whole damn katakana alphabet. And then find a source of hiragana - perhaps actual Japanese writing or something.)
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| Sunday, January 10th, 2010
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12:47 am
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Polling shows a toss-up between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown among likely voters.
Coakley is... not a good candidate. She's one of those "protect" the children type prosecutors. She's most famous internationally for being the chief idiot involved in the mooninite scare. She's running a crappy campaign, too. I voted for Michael Capuano in the primary, and he would be winning this race in a landslide. And if Coakley looked like *she*'d be winning in a landslide, I'd probably be writing in Capuano - I. don't. like. Coakley.
But she's also a reliable vote on most progressive issues, and if we lose this seat, the Republicans will filibuster the entire democratic agenda. We'll lose health care, the economy will continue its tailspin, and good luck getting any environmental legislation passed.
Scott Brown stands for the government being out of millionaire's wallets, in your bedrooms, and torturing PoWs. He also runs great ads, campaigns heavily on right-wing talk radio, and has his base fired up.
Please. Get the word out to everyone in Massachusetts you know. Make sure people get to the polls on election day. Low turnout is the only way Brown wins, and we can not allow this to happen. Besides, if you vote and convince someone else to vote, it's like you get extra votes!
It's Ted Kennedy's seat, dammit.
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| Thursday, January 7th, 2010
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8:21 pm
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I want to play online games. Multiplayer ones. With people I currently count as friends. (I mean, making new friends through games is good... but making n00bish mistakes in front of a bunch of strangers is embarassing, y'know? And there's the whole "have online friends, want to do things with 'em" thing.)
This, however, poses a problem: most online games cost money. *I* have money, but my friends don't always, and if they do they may be unwilling to spend it on whatever I try to drag them into.
So I come to you with a question: What are some fun, free, online multiplayer games? You know, the kind you play in your browser or download, the kind that run on flash or javascript or something like that. I'm fond of Shoddy Battle (for competitive pokemon battling) and LackeyCCG (for the pokemon card game... although right now I am frustrated because, for all my efforts, my deck is not invincible. I always like to adjust my deck after I lose, but I can't figure out what to change this time!) along with Lexulous for old-fashioned online scrabble - or scrabble clone with slightly different letter values, anyway.
EDIT: This is a single-player game. It does not solve my quandry. It has nothing to do with the rest of this post - it's only attached 'cause I didn't want to make two posts so close to each other.
...but I finally picked up a Touhou game, and it's some nice, arcade-ish fun, if difficult as heck. XD
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| Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
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6:46 pm
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It's been thirty-three months since that day in MIT anime club when I played pokemon while watching Saikano. A lot has happened in my life since, some of which I can even use as an excuse for it taking this long.
Well, it's done now, anyway. My tale of love, war, and politics in the pokemon world.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4540844/1/Love_War_and_Pokemon_Battles Read, review, and enjoy!~
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1:32 pm
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I'm thinking of specializing in communist studies or whatever they call it. Partially because it holds my interest, partially because most of the secondary sources I've read about it have EXTREME bias one way or the other - Trots trying to prove that the Soviet Union was counter-revolutionary and not communist in any sense of the word, right-wingers who treat it like an ultimate evil worse than nazism, or Stalinist apologetics making excuses for every crime committed by groups calling themselves communist.
The world needs more neutral books on communism, and more people who can see it for what it is - a movement which was at the forefront of the struggle for civil rights, a government which could get Croats and Serbs, Armenians and Azeris to live together in peace, which fought the predecessors of Al-Qaeda when the US was giving 'em guns... a movement which broke up the power of the nobility and church and tried to create a better world... but also a movement which led in some countries to bread lines and intentional famines and the cultural revolution.
You know. A multifaceted political movement which did different things in different countries, some good, some bad. A movement which was the lesser of two evils in some places and in some the greater of the two. A historical force with good and bad qualities, like pretty much every other force throughout history. (Save nationalism. Nationalism is pure evil.)
There's no reason a historian can't write dispassionately about it, or sympathize with some commies and oppose others. And some probably have, but... not nearly enough. Maybe it's something I could spend my life doing.
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| Monday, January 4th, 2010
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1:45 am
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So I spent this weekend being a complete fantasy geek. Marathoned the LotR movies yesterday (Great movies, BTW. Epic in the not-watered-down sense of the term. Best fantasy battles ever, and a damn good story stretching them together.) Today... played Morrowind, which I recently bought. Combat system leaves much to be desired and too much walking around, but man is it immersive.
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| Thursday, December 31st, 2009
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5:32 pm
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- Wrote a short piece for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) pokemon_drabble. Which you should totally join... if you're into short works of pokemon fanfiction. I'm not a mod or anything, I don't have a personal stake in it, but I had a lot of fun with a similar digimon community and was spurred to write a lot, so I really want this comm to take off.
- It's December 31st, but I don't feel miserable. Year-in-review stuff is annoying, though. (Few classes but good grades, am getting over my depression and hopefully not just because of the "not ronery ^_^" thing, not THAT much creative output but I did write an AAR and finish Love, War, and Pokemon Battles... which I will get around to uploading the final chapter of... eventually.)
- Was considering running for municipal government despite the skeletons in my closet. I can talk to people when discussing things I'm interested in, and my shyness isn't what it once was. In my hometown it's not that hard to get elected, because no one cares about town government. And it could get my foot in the door for state rep and maybe even congress someday.
On the other hand, I don't know how long I'll live in Needham - there's housing and public transit and stuff to think about. Municipal issues... I'm not experienced with, to say the least. If it were state I could talk about the need for a more progressive tax structure (Abolish sales tax, raise income tax to compensate) and advocate improved public transit and more equitable school districts and such, but Needham is a rich town where nothing ever happens. Maybe I can do a single-issue thing on affordable housing? I need to learn what the status quo *is* before I run on fixing it. x.x
EDIT: As an added issue, I'd put it a lot of effort, but lose. My precinct is the most hotly contested in the town - there are parts where people won with *one* write-in vote, but mine there were twelve candidates for eight seats, and the worst of the guys who got elected still had 199 votes.
- Think that covers it. Geass icon because this is the first step on my path to world domination. If I left anything out, let me know!
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| Sunday, December 27th, 2009
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9:51 pm
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