#and if you disagree that’s ok I know that not liking game Joel is an unpopular opinion!

[chrissology]

HBO Joel is resonating with me so much more than game Joel ever did and… the story of TLOU is just completely coming together for me.

[snailsaxophone]

The type of music I think Penny, Nemona, and Arven would listen to

Source : trust me bro

Penny

oh god why did i start with penny

mela got her hooked on Green Day and MCR so i think that’s a good place to start

she’s also deep into the internet, so yk, tally hall, jack stauber, lemon demon, maybe will wood?

also lofi she’s literally the lofi girl in the lofi live streams

i think she’d listen to a lot of game soundtracks and some anime openings

overall she has good taste in music

i could also see her liking kpop, i don’t listen to kpop and it’s a scary place so i’ll leave it up to ur interpretation of which groups she likes

Nemona

This is also another hard one, but i could see her jamming to 70’s and 80’s disco funk

she would VIBE to ABBA. Cannot tell me otherwise

also upbeat 2010’s pop. for nostalgia.

as for newer music, she listens to lizzo and doja. lot of women-empowering music too

i could also see her listening to rap

she’s the rapper eminem was too afraid to diss

nemona va MC of RIP rap battle when????

so speaking of in-game musicians, she’d be a huge fan of Ryme not only because she’s a gym leader but her music is amazing

Arven

i see a lot of people saying arven wouldn’t really listen to music, but i disagree. in his official art from the art book you can see him humming in a lil sketch (i attached it cause i’ve barely seen anyone talk about it please can we talk about this 😭)

ive said this in a pervious headcanons, but arvens a whistle guys. there’s whistle guys, singing guys, and humming guys. arvens a whistle guy

ok so i think he’d like almost every type of music, but if favorite is classic rock

bohemian rhapsody is his favorite, he cries during the “mamaaa ooooooo” part (me too, me too)

he’s a big elton john, queen, billy joel, and david bowie fan

tho I can see him listening to almost every type of music, depends on his mood

for example, when it’s time to let out a good cry, he’s putting mitski on (the girlies that get it, get it 😔)

his favorite mitski songs are class of 2013 and townie

ok this was fun, if anyone has any other ideas if what these dumbasses would listen to let me know and i’ll add them! also might do one with team star

[eamonorus-blog]

Why Abby from TLOU2 is a non-compelling character.

OK, I know that what makes a compelling character is subjective. If you say you really related to Abby I can hardly tell you you are wrong about that. However, there are reasons why Abby is so controversial and disliked, and there are more than simply her being responsible for killing Joel. Let's look at other characters who have killed beloved fan favourites. Zeke Yeager from Attack on Titan, Tywin Lannister from ASoIaF, Silco from Arcane. All of these guys have many fans, and even those who dislike them tend to agree they are well written characters, they may root against them, but they don't resent their inclusion in the story. In my experience at least, a character being disliked doesnt have terribly much to do with how much the audience disagrees with them, or the bad things they do. So long as a character is understandable in their motivations, and possesses certain admirable qualities we can respect, then they will be well liked, and even those who dont like them will at least appreciate the role they play in the story. in TLOU, most people loved Joel as a character. But even if you didnt love the guy, you could at least understand and appreciate him and his story. His character is almost universally respected in terms of protagonists in video games. Does the fact that he robbed and probably killed innocent people in the past change this? Does the fact that he is mean and short with Ellie when they first meet change this? How about the fact that he is a criminal smuggler, that he tortures men for information, that he killed a doctor trying to do whats best for mankind? No, none of those things changed the fact he is well written and broadly very well liked. Why is that? Because we can understand every step of his journey why he does what he does. In the harsh setting of tlou, we expect that people have to make harsh choices to stay alive and protect those they love. And this is NOT because we see things from his perspective. We would feel the same way if he was a side character that we saw him through someone else's eyes. All the characters I mentioned before aren't ones we really see the perspective of, and yet they are hugely well liked, and even those who don't like their characters admit they are well written and compelling. So why does Abby not fit into this category? Lets start with how we are first introduced into her. We learn a few things about her fast. 1. She is willing to capture and torture innocent people on a slim chance of getting revenge on someone. 2. She is willing to put her friends and comrades at risk to do it. 3. She has no sense of gratitude or thankfulness to somebody who saves her life. 4. She shows no remorse at torturing someone to death while their loved ones scream at them to stop. This is not the kind of actions which this harsh world justifies to a degree. This is pointless self destructive killing at its most extreme. Its hard to even wrap our minds around how someone could get into the space mentally to be so psychotic.

But then we are given the supposed rationale for why she is doing this. And what do all the flashbacks with her Dad show us? 1. She was willing to kill Ellie for the cure. This tells us a number of things about her, at least, a number of different things which might be true. Either that she REALLY wants the world to be saved and is really idealistic. Or that she doesn't care about the life of a strange girl at all. The former could be something I suppose, if we got any indication of this afterwards. But she immediately gives up completely on fighting for a greater cause after her Dad dies. Which makes the idea that she is SUPER committed to saving the world a bit suspect if she gave up on it so quick. Instead Owen is the one who hangs on to it and is more likable as a result. But its also just a really bad indicator of her moral character, speaking on someone elses behalf. She really shouldnt be volunteering someone elses life. 2. She knew what her Dad was going to do with Ellie but she still considers Joel totally evil. Again, this is only a justified response if she was totally onboard with her Dads mission, but the fact she never shows any indication of wanting to continue it or trying to fight for a better world, that seems unlikely. Or maybe she was just angry for the normal human reason that someone had killed a member of her family. Well, if family was so important, why is she risking her de-facto families lives by going after him across country attacking a large, fortified settlement? The evidence doesn't support her either having a family first attitude, or an idealistic attitude, only a bloodthirsty one. And with Ellie she has the gall to berate her for coming to Seattle after she let Ellie live! Oh really? So its wrong to try and kill someone after they attack you but let you live? Well Joel didnt even attack her and let her live, instead he risked his life to save hers unprompted, but she doesnt seem to think thats valid. What all the previous characters I have mentioned have, that she does not is a kind of inner strength of character, a value and goal they fight for and remain consistent in. Abby doesnt have this. Sure she helps Lev, but this isnt related to what she did to Joel, I mean it could be I suppose, but you have to reach to make a connection there. She never goes through serious retrospection or self examination about her own hypocrisy or how she is responsible for what happened. Her connection to the WLF that she casts off to help Lev isnt related at all to what she did to Joel, so her main arc has nothing really to do with killing Joel. This means that the game never really demands she reckons with what she did. With Joel we fully understand what drives him and what he fears. With Abby we have a vague sense of a desire for revenge and a willingness to kill people who have done her no harm and are no threat to her, and a desire to be a better person without having to confront what she has done.

[etoile-gracieuse]

im so sorry yall im regressing into all sorts of old obsessions these days.

just saw a post talking abt why dex (and jack at one point) from check please would be banned from aux at parties (im not reblogging bc it is from 2020 and i dont want to argue with anyone i just want to explain why im right LMAO) and all of the reasons they gave were. What. i had a haus of my own, only for a significantly larger team (track not hockey), and i know my experience is not universal and there's definitely someone out there who Also had a team and a team house w big parties that disagrees w everything i say etc etc but like. it is so odd to see people's ideas abt how that goes when it's the complete opposite of my experience

me rambling abt expectations vs reality for music at parties hosted by doofus athletes for doofus athletes below the cut with a short aside about how canon's housing is deeply confusing to me

it's not just party music assumptions that confuse me, it's on all sorts of levels, like the haus being their only team related off campus space. we had... 11?? off campus houses?? and even if you narrow it down to just houses w mens distance runners in it (approx the same number of people as umich's hockey team rosters) then we had 5 houses plus underclassmen in dorms. like the math is not mathing if there's just the 3 bedroom plus attic haus. what 21/22 year old is choosing to live in a traditional dorm. there's just no way your options as an upperclassman are "be lucky enough to be one of Maybe 6 that can squeeze in if several people share rooms" or "live in dorms. hopefully you get a single" when theoretically they should be averaging like 6.5 people per class year. not the point, a gripe i have w canon really anyways, whatever.

but the collective sense of what goes for party music... i get that the canon era is like 2013 to 2018 or so but like i have met some of our class of 2018 alumni. and i feel preeetty confident in saying the below was also true then.

'he would play come on eileen [and get banned]' - im sorry but that was played at LEAST once per party at my athlete frat house, how is that an aux-bannable offense

"they would be like 'we want party music not sea shanties'" - shipping up to boston is a Thing (capital T deserved). and rattlin bog. do you know how many drinks i have finished while listening to/playing rattlin bog. that is a classic drinking game (i double checked to make sure this wasnt invented like right before i hit college or smthn and found a tweet referencing it from 2014). also we did actually several sea shanties at a st pattys party (our aux guy did have to be bullied into it. worth it) though i would not say that that one's a universal experience.

"this absolute ding dong [jack] says 'i like carrie underwood' and is never asked for his input again" - you're telling me you haven't gotten down in a house full of stolen signs that is falling apart at the seams to before he cheats???? i have watched 22 year old 6'7" men stand on tables and truly Perform their hearts out to this song and you're telling me that holster wouldn't pull that shit?

"plays country and gets banned" - see: before he cheats. but also our most popular party theme (aside from disco i think) was farm party. we had hay bales and apple bobbing. our number of international harvester streams hit double digits before midnight. i did not go to college in the south, or in the middle of nowhere, or any of that. even city kids like to get drunk in overalls and cowboy hats singing about farmers' daughters sometimes

"he just plays dad rock" - i think once again people underestimate how hard college kids go for shit like that when theyre drunk. i have watched people pole dance around a basement support beam to billy joel and bruce springsteen before (admittedly not super frequently but also often enough that i think i have 2-3 videos of it happening). ok actually im looking at a dad rock list and. what do you mean people havent danced to queen at parties. or the killers? or the fratellis? no chelsea dagger or henrietta? no american pie at 2am when youre so tired you can hardly keep your eyes open but youre leaning on your friends and swaying enough to call it dancing so it's ok?? no the boys are back in town???

[dyke1]

this is mostly directed at an anon im not posting because the stuff u shared was too personal but i know joel has some loyal fans so don't take it 2 heart when I post mean stuff about him... its really NOT a serious matter and im not saying ur a violent misogynist for liking some guy ok!.. i just personally really disagree with this trope of fathers having to learn to love again because of a little girl. I get that ppl feel strong emotions about the grief in the 2nd game especially if you've ever had to deal with a murder in your family- its something that really disrupts your perception of the world and the 2nd game drags you through that exact intense narrative so I'm not trying to disregard what that story means 2 ppl but. thats what it is...its a story thats not real 🤑🤑🤑😎🤕🫄so thanks anon but please don't take it to heart

[petphantoms]

the abusive flower husbands thing does actually just come across as homophobic at some point. interpreting things in your own way is all well and good but as a gay man seeing people who are not gay men (from a lot of what I've seen anyway, not saying it's true for everyone), bending over backwards to say "no really they're abusive because I'm going to take these jokes and bits completely literally" it feels bad actually. I'm also not cool with the way people also tie this into scott being aro, bc I'm also aro and implying that he's abusive because he is aro is bad actually! sorry i really don't want to start anything this has just really been bothering me and you're the first to actually bring it up. it just has uncomfortable ties to the way people treat scott (as a character and as a real life person) as a gay man, and i think people should be more critical of these patterns

i had no idea scott was aro? huh! so i wont be able to comment on that fully because i havent seen it personally used as a point of discussion but that's really interesting..and im sure ur telling the truth i just. i havent seen it so i cant say much about my experience with it

other than that, yeah! like i said in my rb response, people dont tend to give the way that joel and grian and etc all bully jimmy the same treatment, where theyre Also horrible and abusive to jimmy etc, it just. it strikes me?

i know not EVERYONE who is interpreting FH as abusive hates scott or is even homophobic but it does just come off weird when people just don't seem to like... enjoy. the people involved at all. ... i enjoy some problematic ships because im interested in the dynamic and how things happened and the outcome, um. .. not because i hate this other guy??

idk if that makes any sense. id love to talk about the nuance and importance of media analysis and interpretation/representation of problematic relationships whether they be intentional or not but thats not rly what ur here for.

personally i do love discussion so if you have more shipping takes i am literally all ears, even if i disagree i really enjoy trying to understand different perspectives, which is a huge reason why i even made that post in the first place. it was a cry of frustration and confusion with what i was seeing because i had no context.

anyways everyone please remember we love eachother and to be civil and that im just here for discussion and understanding. i dont think FH is abusive personally, to me it reads as very just messing around and rough housing in a bad and unfamiliar situation (the life series is not like. a kind game, and 3l was the first! ofc theyre gonna be less comfortable).

i dont think its actually indicative of anyones personal beliefs unless theyre being freaks but i would implore everyone regardless of what you do or dont like both CCs and ships and etc to like. ask yourself why you dont like it, and where you're getting that information from, ykwim?

ok ty for the ask nonnie xx -🍄

[kenzrocks47]

WHY I THINK THE LAST OF US PART TWO WAS AN AMAZING GAME BOTH STORY WISE AND PLAY WISE

I know a lot of people hated the game and felt like it wasn’t executed the way that it should but I disagree. It might be because I wasn’t waiting for 7 years for the game to come out, I only played the first one less than a year ago so i didn’t have the same expectations.

I think that people see Joels death as poorly executed and some felt like they threw him away, as well as being angry he wasn’t a bigger part of the story. Joel was a huge part of the story on the contrary, i get that he wasn’t a playable character and didn’t accopany the Ellie on her quest for vengance but i think its actually better that way. I love Joel as much as everyone but having him as a compainion would have taken away from her story, her struggles. I’ve heard that people think that the way he died was unlike Joel, and that he wouldn’t be as naïve as they thought he was. Which honestly makes me kinda mad. Joel litterally had no choice, he had just saved a stranger from a horde of infected and she had a place that they could escape from the horde. He didn’t expect to be shot in the knee with a shotgun and beat to death by a girl who he didn’t know prior to him saving her. Even if he did, it wasn’t a situation he could likely get out of alive anyway. Unlike the first game, this group wasn’t spread out and somewhat unaware he was there, they all knew who he was, and were all in the same room, him and Tommy were outnumbered and taken by suprise. Joel would have died either way.

The next thing i know people absolutely hate about the game is the ending, Ellie and Dina are settled down in a farmhouse with their son JJ and are happy, and then Tommy comes to tell Ellie he knows where Abby is. Ellie leaves, knowing she’d lose Dina and JJ if she went after her, and still decided to go. Only to not kill Abby, so she lost her family to go after someone she didnt kill in the end. People understandably were outraged by this and thought Naughty Dog did this for no reason, but there was reason.

Throughout the game if you were really paying attention and thinking about whats going on in the story, you can draw a lot of parallels between Ellie amd Joel. Even though she only knew Joel for around four years, they had a very deep bond and he affected her more than anyone. She experienced his ruthlessness and actions first hand and learned from him, as she never really had much experience with violence beforehand. At first in Part 2 she seems ok with killing and is pretty good at it as well, but unlike Joel, she hasn’t ever really killed for her own reasons outside of survival, shes killing people out of vengance and rage because of Joels death at the hands of the WLF and it starts to affect her. She tortures Nora, which as far as we know shes never had to do before, and it affects her, makes her afraid of herself in a way that she wasnt before, it makes her realize how ruthless shes become. So it would make sense in my mind that after all this killing at Ellies hand that when she finally gets to the end of her mission, she finally gets to Abby, that suddenly its not what she wants anymore. She killed so many people and now while she knows why she did it, she cant find the will to end another life for her own desires. We dont know how we would react in her shoes, how it would affect us or if we would be able to live with it and kill the one person you killed hundereds of people to get to. I dont know about you but i think id be tired of it, still angry and still vengeful, but tired most of all.

To be honest, i understand why they went after Joel. I love him and i cried when he died but their anger at him was understandable. He took away the only people that had a chance at making a vaccine/cure and killed numerous fireflies in the process. We are biased because we watched and played through his story, we loved him, but he wasnt a good person, in this kind of world no one would be.

One of the biggest things on my mind about the story is that while its based around vengance, its also about the consequences of our actions on ourselves and others. The consequences of Joels actions being some of the biggest. By saving Ellie, he doomed humanity and later himself. His actions led to his death years later. But it also strongly affected Ellie obviously. His actions led to her becoming very much like him, killing dozens of people for her own agenda being hard and ruthless and not caring much for others outside of the Jackson community. It led her down a path of violence and death and self destruction. And it continued to when she lost Dina and JJ when she went to kill Abby. She had to learn and lost her everything in the process.

(Sorry im not very good about expressing my thoughts clearly in a way that say exactly what im trying to cause i think more in picture and scenes)

I dont think i really have to go to much into why the gameplay was amazing but i will a little. It still amazes me how natural the character interactions are, and how the relationships weren’t awkward or forced. I also liked how when they had you play Abby, they added little things to make her more human, like her recklessness, fear of hights and her relationships with her group, even that little bit of conflict you can see when she realizes that the person who saved her life was the person she hated the most.

Ok can we TALK about the newer functions tho??? Going prone, UNLIMITED SHIV, and fucking being able to craft motherfucking silencers??? Dont even get me started on how much i love love love the ability to break glass because it made me want to cry i was so happy. Plus how much more open the world was in Part two! Still not really that open but way more than before and was really fun, plus Ellie can finally swim!

As much as i hate Stalkers (those fuckers freak me out) i love how they were more used in a way, not commonly like Runners and Clickers thank god but still a little more used.

Oh! And how machetes and axes and shit have longer use now! I always thought they would be realistically less breakable than wood planks so this made me really happy!

I love the crafting, how you can make more shit now and the upgrade sections for different skills (stealth being my favorites). I also really like the animations when you upgrade your weapons, i think its really cool honestly even tho its such a small part of the game. Another small part i liked was the guitar functions, i think its really awesome and shows a part of Joel she kept with her.

I also really like what the flashbacks added to the story, seeing Ellie and Joels realtionship over the four years and how close they were and how they changed.

I could probably say more but if you read this far i think I probably said enough. These are all my opinions and i know not everyone will agree with them which is totally fine! There is more i most likely forgot and some things i dont know how to phrase right but thanks for suffering through my paragraphs if you’re reading this! :))

[badluckbee]

the last of us part 2 opinions that no one asked for but i need to get out of my system !!SPOILERS!!

i literally don’t give a shit if the story is for you or not, art is subjective. BUT i think that there are some fundamental misunderstandings about what makes a good game or not?? idk you’re welcome to disagree but people are throwing around a lot of “i didn’t like it, therefore it is bad” ideas & it’s not sitting right with me. there’s gonna be spoilers in this post you’ve been warned.

i loved this game. it challenged me and even though it has its issues, it was still really good it still made me think and feel things so some of these reviews have seriously made me go ??!??!?!?!??

if you didn’t like tlou2 and want to argue with people that did like it about how bad a game it is i’m not going to do that,, you can go play the first game again i’m not stopping you from not liking and not playing this game. this is simply my perception of the game and the most common criticisms i’ve seen.

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if the only reason you don’t like the game is because boohoo they killed my favourite character,, literally as someone who has had the majority of my favourite characters die, they didn’t disrespect joel by killing him & ppl being THIS babyish about it & calling for them to rewrite the whole story is immature and embarrassing as fuck. that’s my biggest problem with the “fanbase” right now, we all knew that joel did a bad thing in saving ellie and we know that he’s done a ton of bad things before that, remember “we’re shitty people, joel, it’s been that way for a long time”?? tess wasn’t wrong, it makes sense that someone someday would come back for him and they did. if that’s what you’re mad about lol get a grip it’s not like we don’t see him throughout the whole game. (also i thought we all knew he was gonna die from the first trailer anyway) (also also did you guys not pick up on it when there was a song where the first line was “if i ever were to lose you, i’d surely lose myself” they laid out the whole game for you right there lmao)

things i’ve seen in reviews repeatedly that didn’t sit right:

1) joel and tommy wouldn’t have trusted abby.

joel and tommy have been living in a close knit community for four years with friends and family, there’s already a false sense of security. as far as they know, this is just a group passing through, they had no reason at all to believe that there was any malicious intent after not only saving abby but abby returning the favour and helping them out. they’ve never met them before, up until ‘the moment’ they’re very nice and welcoming, they also needed abby to trust them if they were all going to get out of that mess of infected alive. (ppl also forget that in the first game joel was, although hesitant, still perfectly willing to trust and travel with people, including henry and sam, who were kids just like this group so don’t play the ‘first game’ card)

2) ellie should have killed abby.

you’re seriously trying to tell me that killing abby would magically cure ellie of her ptsd??? if you weren’t blinded by your love of joel you’d know that’s not true lol literally the point is that killing her wouldn’t bring joel back it would only leave lev alone and vulnerable like ellie was and the meaningless violence would continue. literally none of the killing the characters did in this game made them feel remotely better, that’s the point. abby moved on from her pain by finding lev and looking after him, not by killing joel, just like ellie needs to begin to heal, not kill abby. if you wanted that fight to have a choice of whether you could kill abby or not i could POSSIBLY accept that but i would absolutely choose to spare abby every time. that last fight didn’t feel right anyway imo, i wanted to let her go before they even started.

3) ellie should have ended up with dina.

this game is shouting at your face that your actions have consequences!! no other ending made sense, if ellie killed abby and went back to find dina & jj still at the farm waiting for her there would be no lesson learned and no character growth!!

3) you shouldn’t have played as abby.

this is a grey one to me, i absolutely think you should play as abby but i think that the order was a little off, no one would be rooting for her over ellie after she killed a favourite character but if you have an open mind abby’s section of the game is really really fun and has some of the best moments in the game. i have some thoughts about what i personally think would have been super cool and i’m going to put it at the end of this post on the off chance that someone reads it but i totally get why they did it the way they did and it worked very well from abby’s day 2 onwards!!

4) it’s too violent?????

tell me what i’m missing here??? nd was as transparent as possible that this is a violent game centred around revenge and hatred that would feature brutal violence, smart ai and devastating cutscenes. yet there are people complaining that the game is too violent WHILE describing how bad they want to fuck up abby???? i understand not enjoying the violence, i wasn’t too bothered bc i’m pretty desensitised & i use way more stealth anyway but there were moments when it didn’t feel right & that’s okay?? that’s what they warned us about???

5) it’s just pushing an agenda, it’s too sjw.

people exist that are not male, white, straight and cis. stop crying about it.

i know no one will read this but i had a thought about a way to order the story to connect more with abby & needed to put it somewhere:

ok imagine for a minute if they had marketed it as a spinoff not a new game with new characters & no ellie or joel. you start as abby from her first day in seattle, forget everything before that for now!! imagine playing from there through to day 3 as normal, there are some very vague references to her dad dying and to her finally finding the killer but nothing that’s a giveaway for who her dad was or what happened in jackson. then we get to day 3 and that sniper scene (which was fuckin spectacular btw) and we see that it’s tommy there and it’s like ??!??!?!?!!??!? but we have to let it go for now to move the story on until we get to the theatre and we see eLLIE ?!???!??!?!!?!!?!!!!? and that’s where it cuts off and we go back and play as ellie and we see what abby did

i’m not a writer and i know that there would be problems with doing it that way but wouldn’t it be such a plot twist if we had been playing as abby from the start and connected with her and her friends more before finding out that ellie and tommy are even in the game never mind on their way to kill us??? i get why they didn’t do that though lol no one would have played it.

anyway this post isn’t attacking people for not liking the game or thinking that there are issues, this post is specifically about the people that claim that it’s objectively a bad game because they personally don’t like it.

here are some fuckin good awe-worthy moments that people are conveniently forgetting about:

- this is personal but tommy is one of, if not my favourite character, at least to me he’s one of the most interesting so seeing jeffrey pierce get more screentime was a big win for me!!

- jesse, yara and lev are DELIGHTFUL i love them v v much

- the museum i cried so much it’s so cute

- the acting!!?!?!?? especially ashley, the scene where ellie forced the truth out of joel is my favourite scene in either game acting-wise it BROKE me

- i said it before but the sniper scene was incredible

- the rat king!!! i'm a wimp it was so scary but man that reveal was fantastic

- abby’s fear of heights,, HELLO that scene on the bridges!!! i’m not scared of heights but it really got me

- the hotel!! how does nd manage to make hotels so scary

- the switch between playable characters was a plot twist and a half!!!! i gasped it was so unexpected i loved it!!!

- actually showing that the characters aren’t invincible and struggle with what they’ve been through,, showing ellie’s ptsd was so important!!!!

- ok idk why but the scene in the first game with david in the restaurant makes me so nervous every time,, i start shaking and sometimes i cry when i finish it bc that’s the definition of horror to me i HATE it it’s too scary. so when i got to that parallel with ellie and abby at the theatre and ellie was ‘the david’ of that encounter i had to sit and think about it for a long time, that scene shook me and i love nd for doing that!!

there’s probably more but this is already the longest post i’ve ever made & i’m tired (i’m not the best at getting my points across as well so if there’s anything that’s worded weirdly that’s on me)

[bobbystompy]

68 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2019

Below are my favorite quotes from 2019. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “I don’t bitch about Millenials.

John Entwistle once complained that he didn’t understand rap. Pete Townsend said, ‘It’s not our job to understand it. It’s our job to get the fuck out of the way.’

New generations come of age. The older generation’s job is to shut up and adapt.” - @danagould

2) “I can’t do drugs with you until we kiss.”

3) “If you pay me $50 I'll show up to your funeral but stand really far away, holding a black umbrella regardless of the weather, so that people think you died with a dark and interesting secret.” - @DanaSchwartzzz

4) “A human being is a dangerous thing to let loose in a room with itself, when it cannot think.” - Roger Ebert

5) “There are no bad bourbons, only better bourbons.” - Dave Hernandez

6) “You can’t put a dollar in a kimono.”

7) “This is how it was.” - rampant takeaway from watching ‘Superbad’ several years after its release

8) “What if I had been born fifty years before you in a house on the street where you lived / Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike / Would I know? / And in a wide sea of eyes, I see one pair that I recognize” - Ben Folds, ‘The Luckiest’

9) “Learn the rules so you can break them.”

10) “Nobody makes chili for two.” - Stacy Massey

11) “‘Best city in the world,’ I mutter to myself, as i adjust my ‘driving blanket’.” - Chicago resident Deanna Belos, during the 2019 Polar Vortex

12) “Dude, no one’s ever got arrested for listening to Counting Crows.” - Ricky O’Donnell, justifying late night music volume at his party

13) Bill Belichick: We’re going to have fun tonight. Rob Gronkowski: Yes we are. We deserve it. Belichick: You’re damn right. Gronk: I haven’t stepped out in like eight months. I gotta step out tonight. Belichick: I’m with you, man. I’m even going to step out. Gronk: Oh, I like it!

A Super Bowl winning exchange.

14) Center David Andrews thanked Bill Belichick for giving him "a shot".

Belichick disagreed with it.

Andrews: Thank you for giving me a shot. Belichick: A shot? I didn't give you shit. You earned it! I don't give anything.

Another Super Bowl winning exchange.

15) “We elected one of the very worst living human beings to be President, and it's exhausting. Each and every day, it's an exhausting slog, just to exist in a world where that's true.” - Michael Schur

16) “Some of y’all always picked Odd Job when you played Goldeneye and it shows” - @thedad

17) “Any app is a dating app if you try hard enough.” - Z.W. Martin (though he says it’s lifted)

18) "Once you're as woke as I am, you learn to feel bad all the time.”

19) “Everything’s a balance beam when you’re 90.” - John Dingell

20) [I wake up in a world where The Beatles never existed]

Me: Check out this song I just wrote

[I begin playing “Ob La Di Ob La Da” without having first built up years of goodwill]

Crowd of people: Wow, this sucks ass

-- @seanoneal

21) “People change people.” - Corey Matthews, Girl Meets World

22) “The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.” - William Goldman

23) “Dan could be like a difficult uncle. I didn’t love his fire-breathing conservative politics. I didn’t love the transformation that came over his novels. In Semi-Tough, he created two benighted Texas jocks and laid their prejudices bare. He was declaring himself a member of the Mark Twain coaching tree. In later books, Dan seemed to be trying to prove he could still tell a racist joke. He insisted that his memoir—the last truly immaculate piece of writing he delivered—include a tirade against political correctness. When his editor said people might be offended, Dan said, ‘Fuck people.’

There are certain writers whose style you pilfer. Certain writers whose moral fiber you try to inherit. For me, Dan represented a third category: a writer whose aura you replicate—or, failing that, try to stand in for a while.” - Bryan Curtis, on Dan Jenkins

24) “Never marry anything. Never choose. Even in love, it's better to be chosen.” - La Dolce Vita

25) “An uncluttered, uncomplicated happy ending might sound wonderful, but it’s hardly ever satisfying. Because the value of great stories lies in the tension between desire and need, between the yearning for the ideal, and the unshakable conviction that ideals don’t really exist, at least not the way we want them to. A great story should hurt a little when it leaves us. There should be some hope, but that hope should remain somewhere just an inch beyond our fingers, because that’s the truth. Even if you had all the perfect moments in the world, you’d still be reaching.” - Zach Handlen, on the Futurama series finale

26) “You can’t see him because he has sunglasses on.” - Alissa Levy

27) “The cinema is the greatest art form ever conceived for generating emotions in its audience. That's what it does best. (If you argue instead for dance or music, drama or painting, I will reply that the cinema incorporates all of these arts).” - Roger Ebert

28) “‘Are you gonna let politics ruin a friendship?’ 

Yes tf I am

People talk about politics as if it’s this isolated, abstract concept that only matters at election time. Somebody’s politics is their world view. It’s whether they think certain human beings deserve rights. It’s how they think the world should be. And if somebody thinks that the world should be colder, meaner, less accepting and downright hostile to people that are different to them, then sure as fuck is the friendship over.”

29) “Can the Supreme Court get me mushrooms?” - J-Papp

30) “Any song under two minutes already has a head start on its way into my heart. Just scream at me and then leave me.” - Drew Magary

31) “Long neck cold beers never broke my heart.” - Clemson Tom

32) “I’d just like to point out that the last spoken words of Game of Thrones were: 

‘I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel.’”

- @Authoroux

33) “Just once before I die, I want to toss my keys to someone and tell them ‘Bring the car around’.” - Mike Skully

34) “For all the weight they're given, last words are usually as significant as first words.” - Grand Maester Pycelle, Game of Thrones

35) “The best remedy for unrequited love is a trip around the world.” - Cheers

36) [on switching from a hotel to a motel]

Manny: I don't like the sound of that. A lot of amenities disappear when an H turns into an M. Jay: Hey when I met you, you were eating cereal out of a bucket.

-- Modern Family

37) “You and Lindsey don’t want to be ‘estranged’. Estranged is the relationship we want to have with our mothers.” - MegFil

38) “Cigarettes are undefeated.”

39) “My toes are like my fingers on my feet. I can pick stuff up with them.” - Tracy Cunningham

40) “Republicans govern without shame, Democrats shame without governing.” - Bill Maher

41) Sam: I don’t understand the vagaries of the Internet Josiah: Post often, without thought, and you’ll either get cancelled or cancel someone else.

-- Blink-155

42) “Hang a lantern on your problems.”

43) “What a weird web we weave.” - The Situation, The Jersey Shore: Family Vacation

44) “Let the ocean worry about being blue.” - Alabama Shakes, ‘Hang Loose’

45) “Honesty without tact is cruelty.” - Shelley Rokos

46) “My whole life is the wrong porn link.”

47) “One parent can take care of 10 kids, but 10 kids cannot take care of one parent.” - Joe Gestetner, via “an old Yiddish saying”

48) “There are no heroes in the room.” - Classics of Love, ‘Gun Show’

49) “If I am a little dismissive, it's only because of my harrowing backstory.” - Mitchell, Modern Family (on why he doesn't like sports)

50) “Every time I’m wearing black, I meet a dog.” - Tracy Cunningham

51) “Shower sex? Why would I fuck in my crying chamber” - @chridollarsign

52) “My theory about quarterbacks, having written about some of them, is you either have to believe in god or think you are a god.” - Mina Kimes

53) “The contradictions of capitalism always manifest in our lyrics if you look deeply.” - Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker, Riot Fest 2019

54) “Got a ‘hang loose’ from the weakside bartender.”

55) “It’s Jennifer’s birthday always.” - Eric Hutchinson 

56) “I can’t think of a less relevant artist in 2019 than Kanye West. A Jesus freak in a MAGA hat. Yeah, congrats dude -- you’re every grandma who watches ‘Young Sheldon’ and mails checks to Joel Osteen now.” - Dan Ozzi

57) “The past and future are in the mind. I’m in the now.” - Tom Brady, via someone else

58) “Sometimes you walk around boring places and you feel like the most exciting thing in it.” - Drew Magary

59) “Sitting is the new smoking.” - Modern Family

60) “I'll straight up fight folks at a book club and discuss books at a fight club I really don't give a shit anymore.” - George Wallace

61) “Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.” - Rose Garvey via wine country

62) “It’s all ‘ok boomer’ until you need someone who can drive stick shift.” - @OrdinaryAlso

63) “He likes the result of the math.” - Dad, talking about my worst subject frustrating during the process but satisfying in the end

64) Stepmom: Do you want a Bears urn or Alabama urn? Dad: Ask me after they play Auburn.

65) “A cold body carries a warm heart.” - Stefanos Tsitsipas’ Instagram, after his Iceland sabbatical

66) [preparing a dish called the Sandwich of Justice with his friend’s recipe]

"The fun thing about it is when you give it to someone, you can say 'Justice is served.’ That's, uh, Ryan's line. I built my whole life on the backs of my friends." - You Suck At Cooking

67) “Usually three people can keep a secret only when two of them are dead.” - The Irishman

68) “An artist can't control who consumes their content any more than a chemist can control how their chemicals are used once they're created.” - Brian Crooks

[wolf-skins]

millennial joel headcanons (and other stuff) feat @fabulouslittlefox, part two:

fabulouslittlefox NICE also he loved the original Mummy movie W Brendon Frasier

wolf-skins ok it's so fucking long so i saved it and will edit later UH YES HE DID

fabulouslittlefox sweet! GOOD

wolf-skins but he'd also mutter under his breath about inaccuracies in historyf or ANY movie he'd be a Nathan Drake in that regard

fabulouslittlefox INDIANA JONES TOO bitch same LMAO

wolf-skins YES DEFS INDIANA

fabulouslittlefox Hmmm Jaws?

wolf-skins do u think he'd play the game STRIFE (you can see it in-game, there's a board game that looks like the game Life but is called Strife lmaooo) jaws definitely jaws

fabulouslittlefox I bet he would omg fuckin sick

wolf-skins Sarah would get so mad at him if he watched it around her she loved her sea friends

fabulouslittlefox AWH SARAH I bet he enjoyed the old black and white universal monster movies

wolf-skins probably had a shark graphic tee that joel bought her off some random rack in the street but she loved it + god godzilla he would've fucking be all for the classic godzillas

fabulouslittlefox GOOD ALSO YES

wolf-skins he wouldn't even be bothered when the mouths were off sync bc of the english voice overs

fabulouslittlefox I feel also not a movie but the old dukes of hazzard show He woulda ate that shit up

wolf-skins i've never seen it so i can't agree or disagree

fabulouslittlefox basically a group of rednecks acting all Robin hood-esque with an old souped up car to help them escape their shenanigans lmao

wolf-skins sarah loved vanessa carlton + i saw the movie when i was a kid w what's-her-face but i barely remember it. was taught what a double d meant bc of it though

fabulouslittlefox Oh my god I can just see Sarah and Joel belting out a duet of A Thousand Miles

wolf-skins exactly they would have just jammed while driving somewhere singing it so loud even with the windows rolled down

fabulouslittlefox 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 sometimes on the journey with Ellie she'd catch him humming it and when she'd ask what song it was he'd change the subject

wolf-skins NO do you think after a while tho he would start sharing those same songs with ellie god

fabulouslittlefox After a while, yes

wolf-skins i agree i feel it

fabulouslittlefox At first it'd feel like pouring salt into the wound but as time goes on he realised that it actually helped him move on

wolf-skins he just adores ellie ok

fabulouslittlefox Hhhhhhhh yes

wolf-skins he'd try very hard to help her play a video game since she always wanted to it never worked and it wasn't the same bc it still wasn't riley ouch

fabulouslittlefox damn Liz

wolf-skins ellie would've opened up to joel about riley over time too

fabulouslittlefox Oh definitely

wolf-skins there'd never have to be a coming out though bc that shit got wrecked when society turned into zombies it was just like k

fabulouslittlefox yeah right lmao "idc who u wanna kiss just get this clicker away from me"

wolf-skins lmaooooo fucking clickers man i hate them

fabulouslittlefox bitch same!!!! Bloaters are the worst tho

wolf-skins i actually don't have trouble with them after the first

fabulouslittlefox hmm really? They're still bitches to me but then again, I suck at viddy games lmao so

wolf-skins all you have to do is make lots of nail bombs, lay them around or throw them, but mainly: kill those assholes with fire. and a shotgun. but mostly fire. you get that flamethrower so i mostly only ever use that on bloaters, since it's perfect, and also use looots of molotovs well the ones you have fire gets them most though, nail bombs can help

fabulouslittlefox oh shit nice ty fr yr expertise

wolf-skins the first one is hard so i do my main thing during boss battles which is run around in circles attacking while you can the second is in the basement section of the hotel but honestly get the door card BEFORE tackling the generator trust me it fucking makes a difference to kill the zombies that come for you then so you have less later. anyways lay a nailbomb before you do the gen and run up that slab (which i think you know) and just fucking RUN LIKE A BITCH to the door. don't fight any of them. just run. get to the door and you don't have to worry. after that you have the flamethrower and the molotovs so it's easy peasy for the most part. ellie fighting the bloater isn't too bad either if you save what bombs/molotovs you can. also. running always helps my dude. good tactic in any video game anyways that's all i got

fabulouslittlefox SICK I'm gonna remember this

wolf-skins yeah idr what made me first use the flamethrower on a bloater but ye fire's the key

fabulouslittlefox hell yeah make that bitch toasty 😩😩😩👌👌👌👌🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

wolf-skins oh my GOD

fabulouslittlefox I LOVE EMOJIS SORRY FLDLCKSCKDK

wolf-skins it's okay lmaooo kill them kill them with fire

fabulouslittlefox me, molotoving a bloater: THIS GIRL IS ON FIREEEEEE🎵🎵🎵

wolf-skins NOOOOOOO btw tho it was while playing the game that i thought of the cha cha slide

fabulouslittlefox OMG

wolf-skins at tommy's while they're fixing the turbine someone goes "to the left" and i automatically replied "take it back now y'all"

fabulouslittlefox good KFKSKCKSKCKD

wolf-skins and i thought of that headcanon

fabulouslittlefox god bless I lov

wolf-skins i really hope they made tommy's entire town do it one night people threatened to revolt

fabulouslittlefox PLEA S E

wolf-skins imagine joel teaching ellie it she would only think his time was even stranger than the ice cream truck made her think

fabulouslittlefox LMAONGKDCKSKCKKS at least the breakout happened before the Dab and fidget spinners GOD NOOOO I JSUT THOUGTB ABOHT FIGDE T SPINNER S IN THE APOCALYPSE KCKSKVOSNX

wolf-skins OH MyDOFGH joel dabbing stop it

fabulouslittlefox IF NATE DRAKE CAN DAB THEN SO CAN JOEL

wolf-skins SOPT

fabulouslittlefox NEVER 

[eamonorus-blog]

Joel, Game vs Show (part 1)

Ok, to be clear, I have only seen parts of the show, not all of it, so please correct me if I get things wrong. Still, I can't help but feel that the changes made for the show, though minor in some ways, all contributed together into a quite different experience. First of all, we have to address the difference in mediums. One of the things which so many people talk about being incredible about the game, and something that I very much agree with, is the way that the story uses the medium of video games well in telling its story. Sure, it's mostly just another cinematic third person shooter with lots of cutscenes and crafting. It’s a kind of video game genre which is often mocked for being a kind of Oscar-bait, a lame attempt to make video games into films, that relies too much on cutscenes and voice acting, and not enough on the actual gameplay. And while I totally get the criticism of the game that it is mostly uninspired and basic, even if well executed, in terms of gameplay mechanics and complexity, I think that saying that tlou would have been better as a show or film from the start, or that the medium of video games isn’t used at all is selling the game seriously short. In the game you spend the overwhelming majority of it with Ellie by your side, as she helps you with puzzles, quips, and passes you ammo. Stuff like that. Not only do you feel like she is growing and learning with you as the game goes on, but you have a lot of time to just sit with their relationship and let it slowly change over time.

There is no need for sudden dramatic turns in their relationship, except at a few key points. From the beginning to the end, their relationship has gone from deeply reluctant and detached, to one of dependence and trust, and it never feels forced. From Ellie helping untie Joel from Bills trap while he fends off infected, to him pushing the car while she tries to start it, to him finding comic books for her as collectables, to her deciding not to escape with Bill and Henry, but instead go back for him, we see their relationship grow. This could all so easily have gone poorly. Companion characters, especially children/teenagers, are so often disliked and found annoying in games, that making the whole game about this relationship was really risky, but it is done so well that it is almost universally beloved, and I don’t think anyone would disagree that the whole game hinges on it. If it didn’t work, if it even wasn’t great, but only passable, the whole game almost may as well not exist at all. There has been so much ink spilled, both in other tumblr posts and elsewhere about why their relationship works so well and is so well written that I won’t belabour the point with examples. I will just bring up how the game differs from the show in ways that I think detract from the experience. You see, because this is a game, we get to spend so much time with Ellie, and we are in Joel’s pov almost the whole time. The show doesn’t have the same amount of time, so it really needed to spend every moment it could trying to make up the difference.

It doesn’t do this though. The first episode deals heavily with the actual outbreak, which to me was always among the least interesting parts of the story. Sure, it at least makes the effort to make the zombies a bit unique with the whole fungus thing, but the game had the sense to narrow our focus and only tell us the minimum we needed to know about the outbreak, both so we wouldn’t get sidetracked, and to maintain a sense of mystery and dread around it. I think it was a mistake to try and make the story more about the disease itself, and about the world. I love worldbuilding and its important, but this story is all about Joel and Ellie, and the focus should be there. Then we have Bill and his lover in episode 3, the Ellie and Rylie flashback, and a flashback to Ellie’s birth. Sure, this is all stuff which was in the original game in one sense or another, but its still taking away and distracting us from the main dynamic, the main point of the story. And considering that we aren’t in Joel’s shoes non-stop the way we are in the game, I don’t feel like the show can afford to be diluting this any further. The game gets a little fantastical and ridiculous at times with how many people Joel kills, and this is where the story having to fulfill the role of being a third person action game filled with obstacles to fight might arguably let it down somewhat. Still, the story utilises the fact that it’s a game quite well here. Just as it does with having Ellie help you with puzzles, continually commenting on things, and all this helps endear you to her, the constant combat serves a purpose too. One of tlou’s greatest aspects as a game are the combat animations. They are smooth, brutal, and make you wince with their violence. Joel isn’t a military man, and he isn’t a John Wick style professional killer either. He is a hardened survivor who has fought and killed countless enemies by using whatever he had on hand at the time and going for the kill every time. The scrap collecting mechanic plays into this. The nail bombs, the edged attachments to your melee weapons, the Molotov cocktails, they all play into the sense of Joel being an expert at turning whatever is nearby into crude but effective weapons. He is a modern man forced by circumstance into becoming a ruthless killer every day just to survive.

[evnoweb]

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

I hope that everyone is comfortably shoveled out on this Friday.  It was quite a bit of snow pushing around here but I did get out to get things done.

But a little snow isn’t going to stop me from getting out my Friday post, featuring some of the best Ontario Edubloggers.  As always, there’s been some great thoughts shared this week.

Breakout Games

There’s been a great deal about digital breakout games in the classroom lately.  I’ve featured posts from Larissa Aradj and Cal Armstrong here.  So, we’ve had a look at a Google solution and a Microsoft OneNote solution.  Both are great and have a purpose but Eva Thompson had a different take.

She wanted to take her students back to the original or, as she calls it, Classic Breakout activity with her students.  Click through and see if you don’t agree that sometimes the newest and technology-ist isn’t necessarily the best.  Getting up, collaborating, problem solving, …, she had it all.

Stephen Hurley shared with me this research article The Rise of Educational Escape Rooms.  It’s a definite good read if you want more information.

Four Ways To Transform EQAO

If Andrew Campbell was King of the World, he’d change a few things.  This time, he takes a look at what he’d do with EQAO – in four easy, ok not-so-easy, steps.

All four take on a modern approach to a testing situation that doesn’t seem to want to go away.  All four are indeed worth a read and consideration but there were two that really struck me:

Respecting professional judgement

Respecting Students

He describes the day-to-day reality that both teachers and students deal with and yet is thrown out the window on EQAO testing day.

Makes you think.

What If We Focused On Thinking And Problem Solving Instead Of Coding?

It isn’t often that I disagree with Aviva Dunsiger but I sure had the hair standing up on the back of my neck when I read her title.  But the world would be boring if we all agree on everything.  Her topic was influenced by another post that she had read that I found completely misunderstands what the Hour of Code is all about.

There would be huge backlash if her title had been

What If We Focused On Thinking And Problem Solving Instead Of Mathematics?

What If We Focused On Thinking And Problem Solving Instead Of Play Based Kindergarten?

What If We Focused On Thinking And Problem Solving Instead Of Language?

…

You get the point.  If you look at the activities that people focused on with the Hour of Code, the “code” part was definitely there because of the branding but the activities are anything but passive and are all about Thinking and Problem Solving.  That’s what coding/problem solving is all about.  If you can’t see that in your activities, then you’re doing it all wrong.

Superior-Greenstone District School Board Beyond the Hour of CODE Challenge

I have to give a big unrelated shout-out to Stacey Wallwin.  She introduced me to the concept of “Freighter Friday”.  Believe me, it’s a thing…

This tags on so nicely on my thoughts about Thinking and Problem Solving.  Stacey shares with a challenge from Superior-Greenstone that takes them beyond the Hour of Code and invites you and your students to join them.

Embedded in the post is a Slides presentation with more details and links to deal with all of these topics.

Well done, Stacey.  It shows that people are ready to move beyond that one Hour and really make a difference.

Teamwork and Problem Solving

On the ECOO blog, Peter McAsh shares with us an activity that he’s been involved with the past few years.

During Computer Science Education Week, the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) at the University of Waterloo acts as a local host for the Programming Challenge for Grade 10 Girls.  PC4G

The girls get a chance to be guests at the university which is always a treat but then Prof. McAsh leads them on a learning journey involving the Alice programming language.  (slide deck attached to his post)

To “make things count”,

A group of University of Waterloo math professors met in a conference room to “judge” the submissions from the girls. The primary tool for assessment is to view the animated movies created by the girls’ code. Lots of smiles and laughter from the professors. Somehow I think this is not the atmosphere in the room when they are marking Euclid Math Contests!

It sounds like a wonderful opportunity.  If you’re in Southwestern Ontario, it’s an annual thing!  Details here.  How about next year?

Let Me Teach Like The First Snow Falling

Lisa Cranston is learning that it’s sometimes nice to recycle blog posts.  Many tag them “Posts from the Past”.

In this revisit, she talks about the changing role of centrally assigned teachers.  I still remember her first day on the job and my chance to meet her and Brent.  They were going to change the world in teaching mathematics.

Things have changed since there.

Since that time there has been a dramatic shift in how we support educators in their professional learning and much of our work is done at the school using a model of collaborative inquiry where the teachers and consultants engage as co-learners in action research based student learning.

Ironically, I was thinking about this the other day when I was explaining to my wife that, in the beginning, principals didn’t like that approach since we didn’t check in with them and make presentations at staff meetings…

Too Much

It hurt to read this post from dear friend Colleen Rose.

This year has been tough. I discovered that I have limits because I pushed myself past them; my commitments, projects and goals became too much as I began to cope with a variety of health concerns in my family, including my own.

She’s experiencing a lesson that all teachers need to learn.  So many learn later rather than sooner.

There’s only so much that you can commit to before the important things in life start to suffer.  Paying attention to those that give you advice about “balance” is so important.

It’s wonderful to read the support that she’s getting from friends in the comments.  It’s always nice to know that you’re not alone.

La mémoire corporative

This post, from Joel McLean was so timely for me.

I’ve always had Microsoft and Google accounts and the online storage that goes with them.  I do have an organization scheme that works for me although I recall being laughed at during an OTF seminar for the way I do things …

Now, I have access to a Team Drive.  When I first started to use it, I didn’t think of it differently from any other organization that I’ve used in the past.  I was completely wrong.  (Yes, I gave in and read the documentation)

This blog post should be compulsory reading and understanding by principals or anyone in charge of organizational groups.  Life was different when a teacher left resources for someone else and they happened to be in a file cabinet.  What if that file cabinet is now in the cloud?

An Interview with Jim Cash

From this blog earlier this week, in case you missed it.

How’s that for your professional reading for a Friday.  Click through and read each of these wonderful posts.  The authors will appreciate it.

If you like this post, please share it with your network and let’s give these blog posts some extra digital love.

While at it, make sure you’re following:

leftyeva

acampbell99

avivaloca

wallwins

pmcash

lisacran

ColleenKR

jprofNB

cashjim

Don’t forget to check out all the great blogs from Ontario Edubloggers here.  There’s always some good reading.  And, if you’re blogging and not in there, please add yourself with the form.

This Week in Ontario Edublogs published first on http://ift.tt/2gZRS4X

[liveonlinematches]

We’re going to be doing this till the tip of time, so you may as neatly come to phrases with it.

(Dejan Lovren/Fb)

If I instructed you that Dejan Lovren, the evergreen punchline on the middle of Liverpool’s protection, used to be 30, would you think carefully about it? What about 31? 33?

Lovren is if truth be told 28 and only a handful of video games into his fourth seasons with the membership, however by no means thoughts: it positive appears like he’s had the entire profession of a bumbling defender in that point, just like the slog thru every lapse and its attendant information cycle has brought about us all to age a decade with him. Having lived thru this precise tale such a lot of occasions, how can any people needless to say Dejan Lovren had a complete lifestyles ahead of coming to Liverpool? How, for that topic, may just he?

The most recent installment of Lovren’s defensive groundhog day got here within the Merseyside Derby, which is to mention that it naturally got here in the newest fit he performed. Liverpool used to be up 1-Zero within the 77th minute when Lovren took it upon himself to delicately shove Dominic Calvert-Lewin within the again. Penalty. The ones deeply invested in mitigation can observe that it used to be infrequently probably the most violent of shoves, however the remainder of us can rightly shrug as though to mention “so these items move.” The ghost of Wayne Rooney scored the penalty, and Liverpool went on to attract a fit the place it had 79% ownership and had restricted Everton to a solitary shot on the right track and nook. That is how any other week of What’s The Subject With Dejan Lovren? starts.

(A temporary digression: Dejan Lovren used to be agreed upon as a subject matter days ahead of the Merseyside Derby, however your relied on correspondent knew to attend ahead of writing the lede as a result of Dejan Lovren’s considered one of lifestyles’s few inevitabilities. I empathize with the man, however that doesn’t imply I will’t see what’s coming.)

The quite a lot of explanations for Liverpool and Lovren’s travails have through this level been forever rehashed. Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, ‘tactically minded’ columnists stay bleating, performs a device that leaves heart backs uncovered. Lovren’s supervisor, a few of have famous, improves lots of his fees however no longer central defenders; Klopp’s best possible years at Borussia Dortmund got here when Mats Hummels and Neven Subotic might be fielded in maximum fits and the chief used to be loose to fret about different issues. Lovren isn’t ELITE. The triumvirate of Lovren, Simon Mignolet, and no matter different heat frame Liverpool trods out to patrol the penalty field lacks management. (I’m lovely positive that one approach they’re international, however that’s additionally a good null speculation for Premier League punditry.) One thing about Virgil van Dijk, I suppose.

Some aggregate of the ones theories more than likely accounts for the Dejan Lovren enjoy, however none of them can absolutely specific its tragic high quality. He used to be a promising if no longer nice younger heart again at Lyon, the place he vied for enjoying time with octogenarian Cris, Jean-Alain Boumsong and Bakary Koné. Then got here one just right season at Southampton adopted through the mandatory switch to Liverpool. Arduous as it will now be to imagine, Dejan Lovren looked as if it would have a shiny long term forward of him in the summertime of 2014. The place, then, did all of it move fallacious?

What if it didn’t? Internationals of Lovren’s pedigree are anticipated to make a bounce round 25, however maximum don’t. They continue to be principally just right, however will have to reside with the query of what would possibly had been. So it’s with Lovren, who has been just right sufficient to stick within the Liverpool beginning XI however no longer just right sufficient to mend all of its issues. He has no longer been helped through methods or training or teammates on this regard, however would that actually substitute the participant we all know Dejan Lovren to be?

For the entire rending about Dejan Lovren, Liverpool’s protection is principally ok. It conceded a non-absurd 42 targets in 38 Premier League fits remaining 12 months—3 greater than Manchester Town, two fewer than Arsenal—and 6 targets in its remaining 10 fits. Those aren’t title-winning numbers, however this isn’t actually a title-winning facet. At its core, the grievance of Lovren and Liverpool is basically aesthetic: they won’t surrender loads of targets, however the ones they do concede have a tendency to be of the slow-motion automobile crash selection. In three-and-change years at Liverpool, the Lovren-led backline has certainly collected a outstanding selection of comfortable pushes and neglected set items.

The class confusion between a classy failure of a protection and a surely unhealthy one has made it exhausting to discuss what’s if truth be told going down at Liverpool. Defensively minded aspects like Claude Puel’s Southampton or Sean Dyche’s Burnley in 2016-17 have been praised for solidity whilst leaking extra targets. The principle distinction, past wage expenses, is they tended to concede in uninteresting type. A Burnley concession, like the whole lot Burnley does, is a essentially uninteresting instance. A Liverpool concession, then again, combines just right intentions and unlucky timing in a fashion extra regularly related to romantic comedies. The endurance of this development has added a comedic inevitability to this tableau: don’t open that closet, Fibber McGee! There may be catharsis in pronouncing that Lovren and Liverpool have goofed once more however little or no explanatory energy.

Amidst this defensive churn, Dejan Lovren has been an extraordinary consistent for Liverpool. He’s been there as Jurgen Klopp waffled between Simon Mignolet and Loris Karius. He’s outlasted Martin Skrtel and Mamadou Sakho—the latter relatively unfairly, granted. He’s publish with Liverpool’s discount basement churn of heart backs like Joel Matip and Ragnar Klavan. Conversely, maximum of the ones gamers have escaped with much less blame for Liverpool’s defensive frailties largely through no longer being relied on to be at the pitch as steadily. Dejan Lovren is the survivor in Liverpool’s protection and is being again and again punished for the feat. You’ll see the wear and tear on Dejan Lovren his face, which has come to rival Eli Manning’s in its shell-shocked vacancy. You additionally listen about it and the numerous ache injections he now must play. Liverpool has reworked Dejan Lovren right into a grizzled, imperfect veteran whilst nonetheless in his nominal high. If I instructed you Dejan Lovren used to be 33, you’d no less than must pause ahead of disagreeing.

Liverpool will most probably finish this season having conceded a completely commonplace quantity of targets of which a particularly prime share of them may have been a bit foolish. Dejan Lovren will most probably had been concerned about many of the silliness and been at the pitch for almost it all. We can trod out the similar questions on ways and staff. Perhaps Liverpool will in spite of everything signal Virgil van Dijk and possibly the membership gained’t. Like Dejan Lovren, we’re all growing older and soccer is grinding us to mud.

Practice David on Twitter @DavidSRudin. 

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Beverly Hills: State of the City -- When Mindless Densification is Not the Solution

The following article is adapted from my "State of the City" address which I gave to the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce in October of 2016. In Martin Buber's collection, the "Tales of the Hasidim," he relates the tale of Rabbi Zusya. Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, "In the coming world, if they shall ask me 'Why were you not Moses,' I shall have an answer. But if they ask me, 'Why were you not Zusya?' I will be left with no reply." We have heard from our Supreme Court and from some politicians that "Corporations are people, my friend." I couldn't disagree with this more. It's a ridiculous proposition, just as ridiculous as the notion that "money is speech." And until we get rid of two of the worst Supreme Court rulings since the Dred Scott decision, money will continue to pollute and corrupt our political system in every manner imaginable. In the New Testament, Timothy 6:10, we hear that "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." Sadly, these words also perfectly describe our own flawed political system. In a democracy, in a true marketplace of ideas, it is those with the best ideas who should win the day, not those with the biggest megaphones. Not those with the most megaphones. While the Supreme Court seems to feel our system was not designed to create a level playing field, without a level playing field we can never truly fulfill our potential as a nation. If corporations are not people, if they are not living, breathing organisms, it is a very different situation with cities and communities. It would be far more appropriate to compare a community, a city like our own, with a human being. While a corporation has one goal and one goal only, namely, to turn a profit, cities are where we make our lives, cities are our home. Cities encompass the entire spectrum of human endeavor and so we are connected with cities, in this case Beverly Hills, our home, in a very different way. We are all Rabbi Zusya. And so is our beloved home town, Beverly Hills. The question "Why is Beverly Hills not New York, or Dubai, or Coral Gables, or Hong Kong?" is a question we can probably answer if we want to, though it isn't necessarily a question we need to ask. The real question we should be asking ourselves, like Rabbi Zusya, is: "Why are we not being Beverly Hills?" And so we need to work to remember what the potential of this special place is and always to ask ourselves what we can do to be a better first-rate Beverly Hills and not a second-rate Manhattan or London or Milan. When we look at the development and growth of cities and urban areas, we can very well continue to use the metaphor that a City is like a human being. It's a very fitting metaphor. Each one of us has a G-d given potential and each of our potentials is in some way very unique to us. One size really rarely fits all. And as we grow into adulthood and try to reach our ideal sizes and weights, we should exercise, eat nutritiously and live a healthy lifestyle to achieve our peak potential. But if, after we have finally grown into our ideal size and weight, we continue to try to force ourselves to grow by continuing to eat indiscriminately, by continuing to stuff our throats because we somehow think that growth per se is good, we will eventually become bloated and our arteries will become clogged. So it is with cities when they misuse land use planning principles and allow unbridled development. As we see in so many places, the arteries of our cities are quite literally becoming clogged. While I don't know if Rabbi Zusya was interested in the wonky politics of his day, when it comes to local land use planning and the future of cities, many of our politicians seem to want to take a top-down approach. Recently President Obama weighed in, making statements which seemed to suggest that it should be easier for developers to densify across the board, with less local control for communities to try to determine what works for them to ensure their quality of life. We have heard similar rhetoric from Governor Brown and Assemblymember Bloom. While we absolutely need to look at solutions to the housing crisis, in my opinion, we need less Big Brother and more local control. Local government, if done correctly, is the best form of democracy. It is closest to home, and home is an almost sacred concept. Communities should be able to decide for themselves what kind of development they feel is appropriate for their residents, for their own vision of the future and they should not be forced into models which don't allow them to fulfill their unique, individual potential. Once again, the Good Book, gives good advice. In Ecclesiastes 3, we read: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, And if I may add myself, "A time -- and a place -- to densify and a time and a place to let it be." In an article in the LA Daily News early this week, Chapman university urban fellow Joel Kotkin writes about "how to make post-suburbanism work." It's an insightful and courageous article, from which I am now going to quote at length because it is so relevant to what I have been saying and was planning to say. Writes Kotkin: Our cognitive elites dislike the very idea that Los Angeles, as Dorothy Parker once supposedly described, has long been "72 suburbs in search of a city." Yet, Southern California, as I discuss in a new Chapman University report, has from its early emergence grown around a "post-suburban" model of dynamic, smaller clusters. This urban form has become common in many major metropolitan areas as automobiles have replaced transit as the primary means of getting around. This model worked here brilliantly for most of the last half century -- until planners, real estate speculators and California bureaucrats decided that we needed to emulate New York City and other older monocentric core cities. Like the provincials they consistently prove themselves to be, our leaders have generally complied. So, after nearly 15 years spent in pushing this direction, what have we accomplished? A transit system that barely serves as many people as it did before we started building trains, housing prices among the highest in the nation, super-high poverty rates and a population that continues to seek to go somewhere else, including some 1.6 million net domestic migrants who have left the L.A. and Orange County area since 2000. Some see densification as necessary to meet the demands of an expanding population. Yet, both L.A. and O.C.'s populations are growing slower than both the state and national average. Nor has the pro-density regime relieved any of the pressure on housing and rent... The advocates of the "new" dense Los Angeles have stirred opposition throughout the region. True, some of those objecting to new growth may be too concerned with preserving the past, but many others, including some in Los Angeles, have rightly concluded that the region's once splendid quality of life is being consciously undermined by planners, politicians and their real estate paymasters. (Unquote). Bingo. Kotkin hits the nail on the head in this article. We might well ask ourselves - perhaps mixing holiday metaphors - "Why is Southern California different from other regions?" Kotkin correctly recognizes that our urban model is in many ways organically unique compared to other cities. The fact that "planners, politicians and their real estate paymasters" are focusing on the density chimera as an urban planning silver bullet proves they really don't understand Southern California and they most certainly don't understand Martin Buber's Rabbi Zusya parable or the Ecclesiastes quote about "a time (and place, my embellishment) for everything." Not surprisingly, the "density mirage," as Kotkin calls it, has created a backlash and the proponents of LA's "Neighborhood Integrity Initiative," which will appear on the ballot in Los Angeles next March, have quite rightly seized upon ordinary residents' frustration with a planning process which is stacked against residents and quality of life in favor of corporatized profits and all the political influence they afford. Ah, yes, we come back to Citizens United and Buckley vs. Valeo and the polluting influence of money throughout our political system, including urban planning. I certainly personally support the idea of putting the brakes upon development-run-amok in our neighboring city because we ourselves suffer from bad planning decisions made in a city in which the planning process is notoriously "pay to play" and "forget it, Jake: it's Chinatown." Just look at the monstrosity next to the High School. Just look at our traffic, 70% of which is pass through. Interestingly enough, in all of these discussions in which indiscriminate densification is seen as a solution to all our housing problems, there is one critical question which nobody ever asks. Not President Obama. Not Governor Brown. Not Assemblymember Bloom. And yet it is perhaps most important question we can ask. And we need to ask it. What is the end game? Yes, what is the end game? OK, let's say we densify according to these half-baked patchwork plans. What then? Indeed, the proposed densification model almost assumes an endless spiral of growth. But why are we not instead talking about sustainability? We talk about it almost every other context: energy policy, water usage, agriculture, you name it. Why not in urban planning? Isn't an endless spiral of densification the very definition of unsustainability? The densification efforts supported by President Obama, Governor Brown, Assemblymember Bloom, and of course all the diverse members of what I'll call the "Developer/Construction Industrial Complex" have presented a "solution" (and yes I am putting the word in quotation marks), which is essentially a trickle-down theory of housing, because almost all of the new dense housing being constructed is luxury, high-end housing. I will note not a little bit of irony in the warm embrace of what was a central tenet of Reaganomics by just these politicians. By the way, and here's an interesting fact, Kotkin points out that all high-density housing -- not just the luxury variety -- is more expensive to construct. But the big problem with the "trickle-down theory of housing and densification" is not the ideological irony; it's that it doesn't really work. Vacancy rates in LA County of luxury housing remain at 15-20% while regular housing vacancy rates are much lower. In transportation, there is a theory of "induced demand." Essentially, the theory says if we add lanes to a freeway, traffic will not improve because the additional capacity will attract more vehicles. It's water seeking its own level. One could make a similar case about the construction of more housing, especially affordable housing. Let's face it. Southern California can be a great place to live. Think about it. We have wonderful weather, something none of us who have ever lived in colder climes will ever take for granted. There isn't a wall around Southern California, it is not a closed ecosystem. So if a glut of affordable housing becomes available, we would quite naturally attract people from around the country and around the world who would love to live here. And then we're back to square one with an increased demand on our collective infrastructure, transportation, water and everything else. Yes, that's also a logical example of inducing demand, though urban planners with their blinders on have been ignoring it. It all goes back to the question of the end game, which no urban planners seem to want to talk about. What will the region look like in 50 years, 100 years? What should it look like? We're great at a lot of things in this country; but long-term thinking often doesn't seem to be one of them, whether it's corporate America or American politics. While some growth within the region may be inevitable, whether we like it or not, not everyone in the entire world can move to Southern California. So in dealing with our housing crisis, we need to look at a combination of old and new solutions. A combination of housing subsidies and rent control might be able to ensure a continued diverse mix of residents within the county, while the "let's build it" densification espoused by these politicians who incorrectly feel we can build our way out of housing shortages actually leads to displacement and gentrification. Instead of looking at tired old models which may work elsewhere, instead of urging Zusya to try to be Moses, we need to look at solutions which work for our own unique region and our own unique City. Last month the Chamber voted narrowly to support the MTA's Forever Tax, Measure M. This was not only misguided from a fiscal perspective - I mean, come on, a Chamber of Commerce supporting a pro-tax measure which would bring our sales tax rate up to a gobsmacking 9.5%, among the highest in the nation - but this was also stunningly short-sighted from an urban planning perspective. The Forever Tax is planning on sucking up well over a hundred billion dollars of taxpayer dollars in the next few decades. If the money were actually well spent on actually increasing mobility, we might feel we are getting good value for our taxpayer dollars. But as Joel Kotkin mentioned, we would be continuing to fund "A transit system that barely serves as many people as it did before we started building trains." In fact, the MTA has already increased sales taxes three times in the past and yet ridership is actually down. The notion that another half-cent sales tax increase will somehow magically provide "traffic relief" is the very kind of myth and fairy tale which allowed the likes of PT Barnum to create a sucker every minute. Fool me once, shame on you; but fool me four times? In fact, the MTA's obsession with trains and tunneling would pump taxpayer dollars into a planned system which one regional transportation expert called, "a great plan for the turn of the century. And I don't mean the turn of the 21st century. I mean the turn of the 20th century." We are looking at an investment which a fellow LA County mayor called, "planned obsolescence." Indeed, if we are building a transportation system for the next 100 years, as MTA's CEO Phil Washington has said, then we need to look to the next hundred years, not just to the past. It should be so obvious. If we heeded Martin Buber and the sage wisdom of Rabbi Zusya, we would realize that disruptive, new transportation technologies which we in Beverly Hills as a City have embraced and which the MTA is studiously ignoring, will help not only revolutionize public transportation itself, but also the way we plan and develop cities and our region. Beverly Hills has taken a lead in working towards developing a public transportation system based on emerging autonomous vehicle technology. As envisioned, our Municipal Autonomous Shuttle System will provide on demand, point to point mobility. It will solve the so-called first and last mile challenge - something the MTA bizarrely has ignored - and it will achieve nothing short of the democratization of public transportation. The potential outside of our City for the entire region is enormous. It is a system which is particularly well suited to what Kotkin calls the "post suburban model of smaller, dynamic clusters." So, for example, instead of spending $10 billion on a tunnel through the Sepulveda Pass, as the MTA is proposing with Forever Tax revenue, imagine if we dedicated one or two lanes on the 405 to autonomous vehicles. Our technology committee, in which AJ Willmer and Grayson Brulte are spearheading our AV efforts, has suggested that autonomous vehicles could exponentially expand the capacity of the 405 so that the Sepulveda Pass Tunnel would not be necessary. Just imagine what we could do with those $10 billion. Yes, $10 billion. Autonomous vehicles, both as a form of public transportation and replacing the current paradigm of car ownership for individual rides, not only has the potential to democratize public transportation by making public transportation a first choice for mobility, it also has the potential to revolutionize land use planning. We need to start thinking ahead about that potential now and we need to start asking the questions about how autonomous vehicles can and should change urban planning. Density advocates today like to talk about the questionable theory of TOD or "transit oriented development," which suggests there should be automatically more density around fixed rail stations. Yet in many if not most cases, the transportation system is used as an alibi for densification which may not be neighborhood appropriate. In fact it often is not neighborhood-appropriate. The totally out-of-place Cumulus project, a 30 story skyscraper, near Jefferson and La Cienega is a perfect example why a build-out of our transportation system must not be used as a bogus justification to ruin the integrity of neighborhoods. It is a case in point of why LA's Neighborhood Integrity Initiative needs to be taken seriously and why cities must have a General Plan and a standard, fair development process which they adhere to. And, yes, process does matter and, yes, we need to collectively resist all efforts to circumvent a process which was designed to protect the residents and our Community. Here too, we need a level playing field. While TOD (which spells "Tod" and incidentally means "death" in German) has largely been discredited for our region, we should in fact be looking at the more dynamic AOD or "Autonomous Oriented Development," a new model based on the potential of autonomous vehicles, which would provide us with the opportunity to address housing needs without destroying communities, because development would not be limited to fixed-line rail stations. AOD and autonomous vehicles will open up new horizons in urban planning with the significant potential to leverage our existing road infrastructure and allow better access to jobs throughout the region - a solution which would be critical in combatting income inequality. And, yes, in contrast with the MTA's Forever Tax plans, a fully integrated mobility plan which features autonomous vehicles will also achieve what the MTA has long promised us without ever in reality delivering. In addition to increasing safety, providing better mobility for all of us, including seniors, the disabled and children, integration of AV's within public transportation will actually provide real traffic relief. And what's more. It will allow Beverly Hills and the entire region to develop in a way which truly allows all of us to fulfill our unique potential. As Joel Kotkin writes: "Southern California can only enjoy a greater future if it embraces our bold history of urban innovation." A forward-thinking mobility system integrating autonomous vehicle technology would not only embrace our bold history of urban innovation, it would also allow us to continue to focus on our quality of life, it would provide for continued local control and it would allow Beverly Hills, our home, to emulate Rabbi Zusya - or the incomparable Vin Scully for that matter -- and to be the very best version of ourselves possible. This is the way forward not only for Beverly Hills, but for our entire region. I think Rabbi Zusya would approve...

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