#and my really dodgy capitalisation

[hxhhasmysoul]

"JJK really went from a loved manga to a mid-to-bad story with insufferable fans 🙏 may more of us hate it in the future. It snatches the spotlight from genuinely good shows and its another case of "general shonen fan will call any trash 'goat' if the fight is well animated".

I used to be a fan, until the start of the culling game. And after this controversial, inconsistent and inhumane adaptation of shibuya, im glad that I have no interest in both manga and show anymore.."

Thoughts on that statement? Do you think culling game really that hard to understand, cause I saw quite a lot start dislike JJK since that arc....?

If I had seen this in the wild I would've blocked the account that produced it. I block for very liberally and while I will block for obvious bigotry and shitty harassment behaviour, so like serious reasons,I will also block for general annoyance. Fandom is my hobby and I don't want it to be annoying and stress me out through unleashing my adhd and flood my brain with thoughts. And this qualifies as annoying.

But since you brought this to me I will actually explain why I find these kind of posts annoying and not worth engaging with.

While I would've blocked it before I got to the second paragraph on the "may more of us hate it in the future" alone, I will actually start analysing it from the second paragraph where op pretends to give an explanation for this turn in attitude towards JJK they experienced.

Reason 1:

"I used to be a fan, until the start of the culling game."

Op invokes the Culling Game arc as if it's an obvious reason to dislike JJK and hence your question at the end of the ask. And I will get to that but I need to set the stage first.

Reason 2:

"And after this controversial, inconsistent and inhumane adaptation of shibuya,(...)"

(Side note, I find it genuinely dodgy that Shibuya, an actual rl geographical location is not capitalised when the abbreviation of the manga's title is.)

What is controversial, inconsistent and inhumane about the adaptation of the Shibuya arc? The working conditions at Mappa are inhumane indeed, but it's an industry wide problem and with how JJK is a beloved title the animators actually could do a strike with a chance of the company making concessions. I don't think there would've been the same amount of fan support and pressure for animators of smaller titles. And the way the anime is produced isn't really the reason why JJK as a story should be hated because the story isn't responsible for industry exploitation that has been happening since long before JJK was even conceived by its author.

The word "controversial" honestly feels flippant when it's together with the far more appropriate "inhumane" and feels like it was added for the aesthetics of having 3 adjectives.

Now the word "inconsistent" actually makes me believe that the outrage in this sentence is not genuine and is typical posturing of "I'm critical of the media I consume so I'm a good person" crowd." This is the only adjective that actually describes the adaptation and not its creation process. And the inconsistency of the adaptation is in its animation quality. And that inconsistency stems from the inhumane working conditions. Pulling is out as a reason as to why op is "glad that I have no interest in both manga and show anymore." feels really callous and shows their hand, that they are upset that they can't consume the pretty moving pictures in peace anymore.

Huh...

"It snatches the spotlight from genuinely good shows and its another case of "general shonen fan will call any trash 'goat' if the fight is well animated"."

This is a typical example of trying to put on the guise of intellectualism through being against the popular thing. There's also this classist distinction between high art and pop culture with the idea that only a certain level of education and intelligence allows for interacting with high art thus it's only for the intellectual elite.

So there's a certain group of people who equates obscurity with quality because if they can claim liking things that others don't know about they feel like they are smarter than the rest. This way they can make an appeal to intellectualism even if they are not interacting with what would traditionally by the upper classes and social climbers be considered high art.

Popularity means that the unwashed masses like it and and the intellectuals will look down on them and their tastes, even if the intellectuals are leftists. The mob is defined by its stupidity and by liking primitive and simplistic things for vulgar reasons.

In this framing, the moment JJK became popular it lost any claim to quality. JJK is liked by the "general shounen" fans who only like pretty moving pictures. The shounen fan mob doesn't care about the "genuinely good shows" and because the mob is huge and loud those better shows suffer in obscurity. Of course no show gets specified by op because they are addressing this to those who are in the know - like those who are at their level will immediately conjure the image of those "genuinely good shows" and nod along.

And now we will circle back to the Culling Games arc. This arc feels like a HxH arc, especially Hakari and I love it. But not only for that. The arc is much slower than the previous ones and I actually hoped it would be a signal that the story will slow down like this, take more of its time to follow one or two characters and delve deeper into them. I love how that arc fleshes out the power system so much more. I hoped we would get more on the new and old characters, and we get it on same Yuuji, Megumi, Maki, Noritoshi, Hakari, Kahimo, Charles, Higuruma though not enough on Kirara, Uro, Remi, Ishigori or the Kyoto school characters or later on Hana and Angel, the time wasted on Yuuta could've been used much better. But alas then Gege cut the breaks and put their foot down on the acceleration pedal and it makes me sad.

The thing is that the Culling Games are disliked because of how slow they are and how much reading there is in them. You will read the chapters online and the comment section will be full of:

"wtf, i'm not reading that lol."

"what did i just read, i don't understand a thing"

"ugh, does anyone know what's even going on in this manga?"

So saying that JJK fans are "insufferable" "general shonen fans" who only like flashy animation and the bring up the Culling Games as a reason why JJK is bad, is very funny to me.

People also stop liking JJK at the Culling Games because the Shibuya arc removes or sidelines several favs of the western tumblr and twitter fandom. Sexyman Nanami gets killed, cute Inumaki gets sidelined, sexyman Gojou gets sealed, sexyman Chousou stays in the tomb with a woman and it's becoming very hard to be delusional that Kenjaku isn't a real important character of their own but actually sexyman Getou who will return soon.

There are many new characters introduced who aren't sexymen, apart from Higuruma and Kashimo (canonically Kashimo doesn't have a defined gender but when has that ever stopped the fandom).

And the western fandom does not like Yuuji and even among those who claim to like him there's a not insignificant subset that likes their head canon of him as a manic pixie dream himbo that they like as a background to their favs and not as someone the story concentrates on.

Basically the Culling Games are not fast and flashy enough, and the arc is really hard on those fans who were skipping dialogue when it delved into lore and power system in the previous arcs. Already Shibuya gets difficult at times if you didn't pay attention to the world building in the earlier chapters but with the Perfect Preparation and the Culling Games and anything after I imagine it must be a chore to read when all the concepts seem new but the plot and character arcs heavily rely on the previously established world building.

The truth is that if you delve into the fandom tags it quickly becomes perfectly clear how poorly the fans are acquainted with the text. How to many fans the characters exist mostly as their head canon versions and not as they are in the text. You will see fans complaining that the manga changed into something else from something they liked. But when you learn what they think the manga used to be it becomes apparent that they were ignoring huge portions of the text for one reason or another and just focused on the parts that interested them. That they blow out of proportion the significance of their favs and get disappointed when the story doesn't centre them.

It's okay not to want to follow a story when the character you liked dies or gets sidelined but that doesn't mean that the story is bad for it, that it's definite proof of bad writing or whatever. And it's not the story's fault that someone only liked one or two characters and didn't care about the rest, it happens.

And this is the crux of the issue. People who write opinion like the one above speak as if they represent some large group. The language of the post you cited suggests that there's some general consensus about the quality of JJK, about the Culling Games being the reason to dislike it. That the choice is exclusively between these two options:

thinking that JJK is "mid-to-bad" for some reasons that should be obvious to the reader

or being a part of the unwashed anime fan masses who like it only because of the animation.

You're either among the intellectuals who are in the know and also morally correct in their hatred for the story or you're an insufferable cretin.

People like the author of that post can't just dislike something, can't fathom that something can be not for them. For them it's not okay for something to exist in a neutral way and not be for them. Them not liking a thing means that there's something "objectively" wrong with the thing and the people who like it. And they can't fathom that a serialised story not going in the direction they like doesn't mean that it's "objectively" badly written. It's natural to feel disappointment when the story one used to like turns into something they don't enjoy anymore. But posts like this hint on the fact that the author believes that stories exist just to satisfy them personally and when it fails to do that it needs to be publicly denounced and anyone who dares to like it needs to be shamed and informed of their intellectual failures.

[veidtveidtveidt]

This is what Tumblr did to your ask, @citi76 --see the box on the bottom right. (I was the one who blurred out the contents of your message, though, to protect privacy.) It disabled my options to reply to you in any form whatsoever. IDK if they're trying out some more c*e*n*s*or*sh*ip b*u*l*l*s*h*i*t, but maybe if you spelled your message better, it wouldn't disable my answering option. It did look pretty crazy, so perhaps that's why Tumblr thought it was s*p**am. Or then it included some words they think are always dodgy or something. Or then you have blocked people from sending you any messages whatsoever, so I can't reply to you. I really don't know. But please try again, and with better spelling, capitalisation and punctuation this time, ok? And without having blocked non-followers or whatever?

And if someone, anyone, can explain WTF is going on with Tumblr right now (I don't really come here except to reply to p/w requests on this blog's askbox, so I'm not up to date with the latest crazy)--if this is, indeed, some new policy b*ol*l*ox, then do enlighten me.

[aussiboris]

We made it to the Semi-final! England versus New Zealand

October 26th 2019

That had been the plan. To see England play. To hopefully see them in a quarter final match. We had gambled and got tickets for both quarter finals so they didn’t even have to top the group. We would get to see England play in a competitive match. We did see them and it was a fantastic day. We watched their victorious win over Australia. Now we could enjoy the semi final and finals - whoever may be in them at our local rugby pub. 

Then, on the bus back to our hotel after the seven hells of Beppu exploration, we reminisced about how great it had been. How it would be so nice to support England in the semi-final. They were going to lose I reasoned, they were up against the two-time World Cup holders New Zealand, but wouldn’t it be great to be there to support them... Were we really ready for our live World Cup journey to be over? Ok, let’s see how the tickets are going on the resale sites. Not horrendous. The price would only increase closer to the day. We didn’t have to worry about accommodation, and we could get the shinkansen up on the day as it didn’t start until 5pm. So we did it. In a tourist information shop with dodgy internet connection in Beppu, we splashed out on the tickets which would continue our World Cup Dream. We were going to Yokohama to watch England fight for a chance to make the World Cup Final. 

It was a lovely sunny Saturday morning. We donned our festive supporters gear, borrowed the England flag from Mel and made our way to Yokohama. We wanted to get there early to soak up the atmosphere in the fanzone!

We arrived by 1.30pm and already the place was filling up. There were stalls, photo stops, food and drink available. We took photos with a few people who appreciated Mel’s flag. We grabbed some food to eat whilst the big screen replayed other World Cup matches. 

We knew we wanted to get to the stadium early to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy every moment we could, so we headed to the train station at about 3pm. Once there we followed the continuous flow of people and the helpful games makers towards the stadium. 

Outside the stadium we chatted with a few English fans, taking photos for each other. We were particularly impressed with the couple with the Ren Ji hats, if a little jealous. 

We had a good wander around the whole stadium and finally made our way to our seats. We found we were sat next to some lovely English boys; Jamie and Sam and pretty quickly convinced them to help us wave our flag. 

The stage was set, the Japanese weather was again putting on another beautiful sunset. 

The atmosphere was electric. There were a lot of England fans but there were a lot of All Blacks fans too. The numbers of the Kiwi supporters were swelled by the Japanese who worship the All Blacks as their second team. 

The warm up complete it was time for the iconic Haka. The All Blacks formed their arrowhead shape and in a shocking turn of events the England team formed a V outflanking the All Black team. At one point it looked like Billy Vunipola and Joe Marler were actually going to advance on the All Blacks, but they were ushered back behind the halfway line by the match officials. 

The crowd were audibly shocked and the normal hush that accompanied the sacred Haka was disrupted. Owen Farrell, England’s captain, looked on from the top of V with a satisfied smirk. Everyone in that stadium knew that the gauntlet had been thrown down. England were ready, they had made an incredibly bold gesture, now they had to back it up with action. 

England were kicking off. Straight away they set to confuse the opposition by making it appear as if George Ford would kick but as the whistle blew he passed it back to Farrell. England began with real intent. Anthony Watson skipped along the line evading defenders, and offloaded across the pitch. The whole team were involved in passing and carrying the ball towards the All Blacks’ try line. It felt like an inevitability then when Manu Tuilangi completed the attack my diving over the try line just two minutes in. The vaguely stunned crowd erupted. England had come to play.

England’s line out was working like a well oiled machine. They suffocated the All Blacks attacks by ushering their wingers into touch and turning over the ball with frightening efficiency. The forwards showed their skills as they tackled with ferocious brutality and carried and passed with silky ball skills. Finally at 24 minutes it looked like England had cleaved their way through the All Blacks defence as Sam Underhill charged over the try line. After consultation with the TMO however, Nigel Owen decided that Tom Curry had obstructed a defender from tackling the ball carrier and therefore the try was disallowed.

Just a couple of minutes later, Owen Farrell received a dead leg that would continue to haunt him for the rest of the match. After a bad kick by Ford the All Blacks capitalised but the attack was finally naturalised as three white shirts forced Jack Goodhue into touch. 

Just a couple of minutes from half time England are 7-0 ahead of New Zealand. The All Blacks are on the attack but Tuilagi’s sudden presence makes the usually confident Richie Mo’unga hesitate, giving Sam Underhill the opportunity to make the tackle and get over the ball. The resulting penalty taken by George Ford brings the English side to 10-0 over the World Cup holders at half time.

We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. At no point did I relax and think England had this in the bag. This was the All Blacks team who had torn Ireland apart just the week before, surely after half time they would come back and show their class. 

Shortly after half time there was a messy bit of play that saw England lose their attacking ball to the All Blacks; however, the England forwards piled in with Maro Itoje forcing a penalty. After a swift kick England activated their set piece. From the line out they created a maul and drove towards the line. The ball was released to Ben Youngs who spotted the space and wove between defenders for the try. 

Unfortunately, during the replay of the points being scored, a close up showed some shifting of the ball during the maul. After careful TMO scrutiny, it was decided that the ball had been lost forward in the maul and regathered and therefore, another try was disallowed. At 49 minutes the All Blacks gave away another penalty and George Ford with apparent little effort makes them pay with his precision kick to take the points to 13-0. 

At 55 minutes Slade and Tuilagi had to sprint across the pitch to halt Sevu Reece from scoring in the corner. This tackle had to be examined for foul play but Slade was given the benefit of the doubt as he tried to wrap one arm. The result was an England line out. Jamie George confidently throws the ball high as he has been doing all game. This time something went wrong with the machine, either the jumper has not reached the heights he needed or George has overthrown. Ardie Savea needed no more encouragement, he catches the loose ball and dashes for the line. Finally the All blacks have points on the board. After the Richie Mo’unga conversion the All Blacks  coming back 7-13. Within five minutes to go, the All Blacks are desperately defending their try line from the onslaught of the powerful England forwards. They give away a penalty and again George Ford takes 3 points with a kick.  

I keep expecting for the All Blacks to come back at England but the men in White contain the opposition effectively. So much so the usually clinical Kiwis end up giving away another penalty that leads to points, making the score 19-7.

By the 80th minute the All Blacks were labouring across the field but their repeated attempts were dashed against the rock hard wall of white shirts.

Nigel Owens blew his whistle to end the game as Jordie Barrett attempted to keep the ball alive. 

England had done it. They had looked in control of the game. Every member of the team had played exceptionally. Maro Itoje had frustrated the All Blacks at the break down and looked supremely confident in the line outs. He was influential in attack and defence and rightly deserved man of the match. Considering we thought there was a sliver of a chance of a win against the clinical All Blacks, we were delighted to have been there to experience it. But the question now was could they overcome the final hurdle and lift the World Cup?

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Sonic the Hedgehog (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the day the movie is first released in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen the movie do not read on until you have.

General Reaction:

It's difficult with today's movie going audience to predict how movies like Sonic are going to perform and be received. Especially when the ad campaign did absolutely no favours for this movie other than convince Paramount that Sonic needed a more truthful redesign than what they originally put out.

Here's the thing. Sonic the Hedgehog to me is trying to be 2020's Detective Pikachu capitalising on that nostalgia of a beloved classic franchise.

However, I do feel that the haters and internet trolls out there are not going to be able to get past the comparisons this movie draws to 2011's Hop, which was a live-action/CGI-hybrid movie starring James Marsden who becomes the companion of a somewhat overbearing CG creature.

But, I encourage all movie goers, including the haters, to go into this with an open mind...particularly if you have any history with Sonic because you will get some enjoyment and walk away afterwards feeling happy overall.

My personal history with Sonic is slightly less-so than I would like. I played the original 2 SEGA games countless times and did watch some episodes of the earlier animated shows.

Having said that, my main Sonic fandom actually comes from the mid-noughties series Sonic X, which I feel this movie could have adapted but alas. Also I played the Shadow the Hedgehog spinoff game and more recently Smash Bros where I actually won as Sonic recently.

Now this movie reminds me of those shows and games practically in no way. I mean there is that opening sequence where you see Sonic running around and looping like he does in the SEGA games, I do also feel like James Marsden's character could easily be an older version of Chris, the boy from Sonic X, but aside from that, the gold rings and Robotnik...there's not a lot for the Sonic fans to spot.

I can't say this is a perfect movie, because it really is not. There are a lot of super speed gags and some of them do stick but some just fall flat and at times feel repetitive.

The worst crime this movie commits in my opinion is stealing Quicksilver's gimmick of speed scenes. By which I mean there are not one but two occasions when time is slowed down to almost a halt and we see Sonic running around still. They even have songs specific for these scenes.

Also, because I'm not fully aware of every Sonic incarnation, I did not understand why Sonic is effectively The Flash with being able to generate lightning. I mean I understand the laws of physics of generating enough friction can create static but I have never known Sonic to have any electric attacks.

I did like how the static electricity was preserved in his quills when they fell off though. In animation and the games you don’t think about Sonic’s realistic hedgehog qualities such as having quills so it was a nice touch.

I am also aware that Sonic has turned Super Saigen before with the help of the Chaos Emeralds I believe, so the fact we see a similar transformation here is quite good to see for that reason.

In terms of story I do think this is a simple plot that has been done numerous times, Hop is definitely one example that comes to mind, but I feel it’s also a very accessible story for non-Sonic fans.

I don’t know if Longclaw the Owl is an original character or one from Sonic mythology but I did not really vest much interest in her. Baby Sonic I thought was cute, but I refuse to accept anyone saying he is cuter than Baby Yoda as no one is cuter than Baby Yoda.

On the subject of age, it was good to see them acknowledging Sonic’s age for a change as opposed to just presuming because up until now I did always think he was some sort of teenager but this confirms it. If Baby Sonic is around 5-9 years old then Sonic in present day is late teens which makes sense with his temperament.

The gold rings being used as teleportation devices, I don’t know if they’re meant to be in the games but loved their use here.

I enjoyed the use of technology in this movie and particularly Robotnik’s commentary on how technology is more reliable than people which ties into his ultimate fate of being stranded alone without another soul on the planet he is sent to which forces him further into insanity.

The fact Sonic’s story is about fitting into society while James Marsden’s character is about figuring out what’s right in front of him are great parallels and do balance each other out rather well.

Also where he ends up with effectively being part of a family as well as a town hero was a nice way to wrap things up.

However, that mid-credits scene showing the arrival of Sonic’s faithful protege Tails to the real world looking for his friend screams for a sequel, especially if this means that more of Sonic’s companions could be introduced in the future like Knuckles, Shadow or even Rouge the Bat.

Characters:

Dr. Robotnik:

I don’t want to say he is the best character because I feel all four of the main cast members do a great job, but my favourite definitely is Jim Carrey as Robotnik. This is Carrey back on form and there were so many great shades of back when he was at the top of his game in the 90s with work such as Ace Ventura, The Mask and The Grinch.

From his first scene he stole every scene he was in. You could tell that he was taking the role seriously while also having the time of his life with it and this is why, back in the day, he was on such high form.

He may not have been the overweight bald megalomaniac, at least with the latter two not until the end of the movie, but he was the evil genius and mad scientist and almost every line he delivered he nailed.

I think “rockonnaissance” is going to be the new “joygasm” for him but it worked for The Riddler and it works for Robotnik.

I’m also happy he was nicknamed Eggman in the movie by Sonic because of the shape of his drones, I thought it was fitting. I can’t wait for Sonic to see the new bald version.

Sonic:

Yes Sonic is second but I said it before, there were times when he was overbearing.

Ben Schwartz by the way does a fantastic job voicing the character, I know he voices Dewey in the new Ducktales series and also for some reason voices BB-8 in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but this is my favourite role of his voice is so realistic for a wide-eyed and somewhat innocent “alien” hedgehog.

I enjoyed how when he first came to Earth he was this urban legend around Green Hills who spent those 10 years people watching and either making up nicknames for the citizens while also longing to fit in with them but knowing not to.

Also the movie’s comedy was never as vulgar as Ryan Reynolds or immature as Russell Brand. I think they had one fart joke in the movie but the rest was generic comedy movie material which was hit and miss in comedy.

It was quite touching also that he was so protective of Green Hills and the status quo so much so that when Tom said he was planning on leaving to move to San Francisco, he was so offended and I thought it was going to be that trope of “Oh now they’re going to separate only to discover they need each other later” but instead it was a few digs and then they got over it.

I am so happy they did redesign the character because the movie’s original look for him was horrendous and did make Cats look reasonable whereas this is more like the Sonic everyone knows and I did not realise he didn’t have his traditional running shoes until Jojo, the niece of Tika Sumpter’s character, replaced them for him.

I will keep saying I want a sequel just because I am interested to see where Sonic’s story takes him next, especially with Tails now on Earth and the potentiality that others could join.

The Wachowskis

Again I thought James Marsden and Tika Sumpter did very pleasant jobs. This is my favourite James Marsden performance to date. Up until now his roles have been either corny or simply bland for me but here, yes there were a couple of dodgy jokes and moments but overall I thought Tom was a very likeable character and at the very least a driven character.

His wife Maddie, first of all props to the movie writers for having a mixed-race couple front and centre in the movie. But also, Maddie, who is also an accomplished career woman alongside her accomplished career husband, did not weigh Tom down or the story down as simply being “just the wife”.

I also enjoyed Maddie’s sister and niece, Jojo is quite cute and for the little screentime that she has does well with it for a child her age. While Natasha Rothwell continues to grow in my estimations after her fabulous turn in Love, Simon as the very sassy teacher.

Others:

As for the rest of the cast, this was a great who’s who for spotting the great jobbing actors as Lee Majdoub, Neal McDonough, Michael Hogan and Adam Pally all have minor supporting roles that do not go unnoticed.

Meanwhile Colleen Villard (née O'Shaughnessey), who voices Tails in the video games as well as voicing Wasp in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes series and Sora in the Digimon franchise, reprises her role as the anthropomorphic fox in an uncredited mid-credits scene. I am hoping she returns for the sequel because it is good to hear her acting again.

Recommendation:

I do see a future for this movie in terms of a franchise. I do not quite see it crossing over with Detective Pikachu as I know there were rumblings of some sort of Super Smash Bros. movie cinematic universe.

However, if the movie does warrant a sequel, and with a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 64%, considering this seems to be a deciding factor for some cinema goers, I don’t see why not. I am hoping the future of this franchise does see the introductions of Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge and even Amy.

Potentially also spinning off from this franchise, there could be Donkey Kong, Mega Man and maybe even Mario to create that Super Smash Bros. universe.

Overall I rate the movie 8/10, it’s a great movie and definitely has some rewatchability to it.

Having said that I can see where some cinema snobs or even haters may come from as they inevitably target the movie but I encourage everyone not to be taken in by other people’s opinions, not even mine, make up your own minds and see it for yourself.

So that’s my review of Sonic the Hedgehog, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

[robotslenderman]

So hey, I realised I only told a couple of friends of how jury duty last year went, so I’ve copy-pasted (with minor editing) the shenanigans below. Content warning under the cut.

Content warning: the guy was a pedophile who tried to (keyword being “tried”) bait 13YOs into meeting up with him.

Having said that, I walked into this case expecting to be scarred for life and instead the whole thing was so ridiculous, the man was such a loser, the victims were so badass that the jury was like “this guy is a total joke.”

Especially after the fuckboy incident.

The trial ended up being pretty goddamn funny. Mostly thanks to the Crown Prosecutor, who had no fucks to give and was yelled at more than once by the judge for getting really sarcastic.

Here are things I wrote down over the course of jury duty:

The phrase, “Having sex with twelve-year-olds is overrated.”

“John* is now going to read about masturbation.”

That time we accidentally trapped two judges in a supply closet.

The random, partial handprint on the ceiling of the courtroom. Only one other juror ever saw it.

At one point I was exhausted and pretending to read from my folder and closed my eyes for a while. 

Afterwards, our jury officer went “ha ha ha I saw you but you were totally reading, right?”

“HA HA HA WHAT A COINCIDENCE YES I WAS!”

How awesome the victims are. Snips from the logs:

“Want to see a picture of my great penis?”

“What’s so great about it?”

“I love you.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“I don’t.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not some Asian hooker!”

“I’m in love with you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Because you also said that to my sister!”

“I love both of you!”

“[Not amused]”

“Please block me, or I’ll keep wanting to talk to you. Thank you for helping me get over you, Nina*.”

The fact that the accused was trying really hard to be dodgy and creepy by convincing another victim to keep it secret. Meanwhile the victim was just as determined to bring him home and have him meet her family.

“I love you, Audrey*.”

“My name is Adriana*!”

Meanwhile, the face identity the police set up to catch the pedophile was as dumb as a post.

And the accused fell for it.

Then later spent half his time on the stand insisting the fake identity was so dumb that there’s no way he could possibly have thought she was really thirteen.

(No, really, he actually used that as a defence.)

One of the victims had the name of a Mass Effect character.

The “fuckboy” meme.

First conversation after being appointed to the jury, wondering if it’s too late to escape:

“What do you suppose we’d have to do to get kicked off the jury?���

“Come in wearing a badge saying ‘It’s Okay To Say No!’“

“OOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!”

Explanation: the marriage equality vote was going on at this time and the “No” campaign’s slogan was “It’s Okay To Say No [to same sex marriage]!”

One of the jurors is a middle eastern guy who grew out his stubble for a few days before the trial and glared at the barristers when they were rejecting jurors in the hope that they’d “think [he] looked like a terrorist” (his words) and get rid of him.

It didn’t work.

After he told us this, he said, “I should have grown a beard and put three plaits in it.”

Watching the slow decline of our next door neighbours’ collective mental health.

Waking up one morning to find they’d posted jury duty memes on their door.

“Waiting for the jury to come to a verdict” 

[Picture of a skeleton]

“Look at all the fucks I give” replaced with “look at all the counts we have to decide”

A picture of a group of old white guys in suits laughing their asses off, captioned with, “And then I said it’d only take fourteen weeks!”

They’ve been deliberating for two and a half months.

Every time one of my fellow jurors ran into them they came back wide-eyed and traumatised, convinced next door had totally lost it.

“Ha ha ha, you must be new here.”

Next door’s jurors often looked over their shoulder and squinted at us suspiciously if we happened to glance in their direction when they went into their room.

Rumour has it that they’d lost it so much they’d become obnoxiously perky, in that “I’m about to go insane” kind of way. I wasn’t sure about this, but later one Very Happily opened a door for me with a massive grin and a bit of eyetwitching, and... yeah, it’s totally true, they lost it.

There was also a rumour one of their walls was covered in mugshots, but I never got to see it because of aforementioned suspicious squinting and cagey behaviour.

Occasionally, between sessions, a member of the jury will, out of the blue, say, “Fuckboy” and have the entire room crack up.

“Fuckboy 2.0!”

Wincing a bit and thinking, “Man, the Defence is asking the accused some hard questions!” only for the CP to basically go “hold my beer” and totally lay into the guy.

I will never, ever in my life see anything as awesome as the Crown Prosecutor laying into a pedophile ever again. It’s over. I may as well keel over and die now. I’m amazed the accused didn’t crack because he held this guy’s balls to the fire for three days.

Ladies and gentlemen and distinguished guests, the fucking Crown Prosecutor:

“So your aim with these meetups isn’t to have sex with underaged girls, but simply to get them to agree to meet you?”

“Yes.”

“... That’s it?"

“It’s a hobby.”

“Have you considered stamp collecting?” [Gets chewed out by the judge.]

“So the pinnacle of your sexual satisfaction is when they agree to meet, is that correct?”

“Yes. At my age, I don’t need anything more.”

[Vaguely smug] “Well, here we have Jane Doe* agreeing to meet up with you. That’s the pinnacle of your sexual satisfaction, that’s all you want from this conversation, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Great! Let’s have a cigarette!”

“In this chat log, we clearly see that this woman has claimed to be fifteen years old, and you’re now telling the jury you think she was lying. Why?”

“She’s in Rwanda, and claiming to have dated many white men. That’s not possible because I’ve been to Rwanda, there’s barely any white men like me there."

“So you must be hot property in Rwanda, huh?”

[Slightly put out] “Well, actually, yes!”

The accused kept insisting that no, cybersex didn’t turn him on unless the other person was turned on, no really, honestly, truly, he would never be aroused unless they were too and this was all for his partners’ benefits! Really!

He kept doing this until the CP blurt out, “Oh for god’s sake, if you’re so damn nice, why don’t you open a charity?”

(The judge yelled at him again.)

Reading the following sentence out in a completely deadpan tone of voice, as if describing the weather: “I suggest to you that you wrote the phrase ‘I want to suck your clit and cum -- C-U-M -- inside you’ in order to obtain an erection.”

He often read out sexually explicit excerpts like this. It got even funnier every time there was a misspelling, because the CP would absolutely insist on pronouncing it exactly as it was misspelled and also spelling it out.

“The victim said she was ‘spechless.’ I think she meant ‘speechless.’“

As he read out excerpts where entire sentences were made out of internet slang, bad spelling and acronyms, you could visibly see him age.

Srsly the other jurors thought this guy was boring. Boring. What was wrong with them this guy is amazing.

Fuckboy

The deadpan, srs bsnss dry humour of the Crown Prosecutor was only made even funnier by the contrast with his counterpart (the Defence Lawyer) being flamboyant and found of flourishing his cape every time he sits down.

The jury naming the DL “Happy Jumps” because he liked to spring out of his seat every time he was addressed and, when standing, would never stop smiling. Then when he sat down again cue the cape flourish!

(Even funnier because every single moment he wasn’t standing up he knew perfectly well his client was screwed and his face reflected it.)

I Would Now!!!! :)))) Like To Address The Jury!!!! :)))) To Inform Them :)))) That I, Happy Jumps, :))))) Speak Like This :)))) As If I'm Capitalising Every. Word. I Say. :)))) Complete with lots of. Hand. Gestures. :))))) And Emphasizing Every Other Word :)))) And Pausing. Inexplicably. In The Middle Of My. Sentences. :)))) Just So I Can :)))) Smile At The Jury :))))

He talks exACTLY LIKE MY FUCKGING DAD DOES WHAT THE FCUK

Except for the part he introduced himself to us and at one point said, “As the court case climaxes, I will -- wait, advances, I MEANT ADVANCES.”

The jurors naming one of Happy Jumps’ cronies “Benny” because of how much he looked like Ben Affleck.

At one point Benny got inexplicably banished to the public gallery.

It’s okay, he was invited back to the bar table later.

The moment Happy Jumps officially doomed his own client to never being taken seriously by the jury again:

“So, your screenname here is written as JohnDoefb*. John Doe* is your name, correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“What does ‘fb’ stand for?”

[Flinches]

“?”

[Incoherent mumbling]

“Could you please repeat that louder?”

“...”

“...”

“... ‘Fuckboy.’“

The entire jury lost their shit.

(Very, very quietly.)

[bucketofchum]

So today’s been a long day. I guess I owe it to anyone who has been following my nebulous updates throughout the day (and night) if you were awake then to see the beginnings of my struggle day hah). I guess I’ll start from last night. (Warning: really fucking long post under cut)

I was already feeling faint and weak by 6:30pm or so yesterday. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, which is bad, I know because I’m supposed to sleep a little more than normal due to the concussion. I slept about 5 hours the precious night. I thought I’d probably crash soon since I didn’t think it was likely that I’d be able to stay awake much longer. But I wanted to get some work done too that night and I had to shower too. Took my shower – that woke me up a bit, thankfully. I worked for a few hours and finished up a document, which, although it wasn’t much work, at least I got something done for this other job so I wouldn’t feel as bad. Around 10pm I started fading again. I crashed at around 10:30pm finally, hoping to get a solid night of sleep so I’d have a productive day of work tomorrow morning. I had a lot of writing to get done.

Instead, I had…a nightmare? Of sorts? It started out as kind of a normal every day kind of dream. I was messaging a friend here on tumblr as we usually do, and they sent me a gif of them eating a pizza – cuz if I went to sleep, then they’d eat pizza. Or something. So I was glad to see them enjoying their pizza. I don’t hear from them again for 3 hours, and it turns out the pizza was weed infused, haha. So now they’re pretty high and having a good time. I’m really happy for them. It turns out they’re going to attend graduate school where I went to undergrad, which is awesome – I was very excited to have them share a school experience with me ahah. But then I don’t hear from them for a little while longer and then get this short dense message from them that’s hard to read, but it seems serious. It’s about 3 sentences long, but it has no punctuation or capitalisation so it’s really hard to focus and see what it says. I get the gist of the first part “this is really hard for me to say…” and then I think it goes into them talking about how they have come to the difficult decision of annulling our friendship. ….I can…hardly believe it. I try really hard to read exactly what the words are saying to better understand what I did wrong, but I can’t focus – I’m dizzy and the words keep blurring together. I can only gather that I’m too unpredictable and not forthcoming or something along those lines – but it’s so hard to read.

Then I wake up from the anxiety attack induced by this. It’s a little past midnight.

I needed to confirm that the dream wasn’t true, so bleary eyed (I had only slept about 1.5 hours, but my heart was thudding out of my chest from anxiety), I turn to my phone. No messages from them. Hm. There’s also a chance they aren’t awake but idk. So I message them about the dream hoping for confirmation that the dream wasn’t real. They are awake. But the confirmation I was hoping for – to be comforted that the dream was unfounded – I did not receive. Shit. So. Well then… even if the dream did not happen, it would not be unreasonable to believe that it ..could happen. At any point. Sometime soon? Did they not want to be friends anymore? At least since I was talking to the real deal now and not trying to read a message in a dream, they could verballing confirm for me what the reasons would be for wanting to annul out friendship. They could tell me what I’ve been doing wrong that was so intolerable. And I’d respect it. I’d respect their decision to stop talking to me.

I realise I was.. probably delirious. And just not in a good mental place. For a lot of reasons. The dream-induced anxiety, the lack of sleep, the concussion, etc. But I had it in my head that there were these set of reasons that my friend had come up with for why they decided that they could no longer continue our friendship. And I needed to wring this out of them. And they were being dodgy and evasive and using vague words like “it’s complicated” or “you have your flaws” – but those weren’t responding to exactly what those were – or the reason to annul our friendship. The combination of the words they were using in this real life scenario and my dream of them wanting to annul our friendship.. was.. just a very bad combination. Nothing about the way I was thinking was.. on track.

Eventually they end up telling me some of their concerns, which are…not at all the concerns I thought – or had imagined in my dream. And that cognitive dissonance was able to break me out of the dream-mental-reality I was in. idk. That delirious talk also raised some other questions, but.. they needed to sleep. I can’t even imagine what that conversation must have been like on their end, tbh. I can hardly conceptualise what it was on my end since so little of it was grounded in reality.

It’s another hour or so before I fall asleep. I sleep at maybe 3am. Wake up promptly at 7am without an alarm (7:02 was sunrise; I remember I checked my phone at 7:04am). It takes me way too long to get ready for work. I was planning on walking to work, not biking (it’s about a 40 minute walk), but by the time I am ready to leave, it’s already 8:55am. I don’t know where the time went. So I stagger over to get my bike because if I’m going to be late, at least I won’t be…ridiculously late.

I’m at work by 9:30am. I can’t get any work done. I can’t focus. I make some edits to the document based on suggestions my supervisor had left, but I’m unable to generate complete sentences. I’m distracted and just can’t focus on anything at all. But I… check my e-mail and see I got a free haircut because of my blood donation at this hypermasculine place called SportClips? I check locations, and the nearest one is some 4 miles away. I don’t know if I want to make that trek – but I am due for a haircut I guess. I’ve been looking shaggy and haggardly lately I guess. My friend strongly urges me to get my hair cut – I guess on account of the recent attack. I guess I can pass as female (like a short haired androgynous female), so they do urge me to get my hair cut. Buzzed. Okay. I’ll have to find some time to allocate to get to this SportClips then. My friend and I laugh about how ridiculously hypermasculine this place is marketed. “Sports on TV” “Guy Smart Stylists” “It’s good to be a guy!” “You’re always welcome for a mini Man Break.” *images of attractive women cutting men’s hair and men watching Sports™ together* Tbh it’s a little nauseating. 

My supervisor checks in on me and tells me I should go home. I haven’t even been at work for 2 hours and she is sending me off because – I guess – I’m in terrible shape. She tells me I can make up the hours tomorrow and Friday. I only worked 3.5 hours yesterday too. I’ve just been… not doing great. But I know I can’t get anything done at work, so I take her advice and leave. It’s 11:30am – not even noon, and I’m already off work.

Huh. I figure I can get that haircut then. Since I unexpectedly have some time.

Have to figure out how to get there. There’s a …tube… it looks like only cars go there? I quickly look up that tube on the internet to see if it’s amenable to foot/bike traffic. The one site I checked confirms it is – says it’s a narrow pass, so only one bike can fit at a time - if there are two bikers, they have to dismount to pass. Fair enough. Makes sense. So I turn into the tunnel.

It…… hhmmmmm. I am only on the road for a few meters before I realise I am the only bike on a very high speed highway like road with no shoulder. Off the the side behind a fence is a small narrow sidewalk. But why didn’t I go in there? I passed the entrance?? I don’t think so. I don’t remember an entrance. So I dismount. On the fuckin freeway. I have to walk back against traffic. There is no shoulder. I’m fuckin. Terrified. But. I can’t keep going forward into the tunnel with this traffic. I would die. So less chance of dying is walking back to try to find how to get on the other side of this fence thing. It takes a while to walk back just a couple dozen meters or so because. It’s a blind curve. With trucks and cars going at 50-60mph. And I’m walking. With a bike. It’s just a terrible situation. I finally get back to where the fence starts. And it’s???? Fuckin??? NARROW??? The opening of the fence is just barely big enough for me to fit through sideways. Now look – I’m a decently slim person. When I looked at that entrance, just eyeballing it, I would have told you I wouldn’t be able to get in there. But. Idk I’m in too deep now. How to get my bike through, though. I dismantle the front wheel of my bike so that I can turn the handlebars sideways and…flip the bike through. It is too narrow for even the pedals to fit through. I guess that gives you an idea of how narrow this is. With enough finagling, I’m able to squeeze the bike through. Then the front wheel. Then my backpack. Then myself. On the other side of the fence now, I put my bike back together.

Now I guess if I were in my right mind I would not have done that. I probably would have called it a day. But clearly I guess I wasn’t thinking. My head is definitely not set on right from a combination of shit – the lack of sleep, the concussion, the combination thereof, the anxiety dream from the night before…? Any number of factors idk. But clearly the fact that I did all that shit without questioning anything means I wasn’t thinking rationally.

Anyhow once I got past that narrow entrance I felt relatively safe from the cars. I was elevated and behind a fence. Once in the tunnel, I was clearly the only non vehicular traffic. It was narrow enough for just me and my bike (for the handlebars of the bike to be straight across), but nothing else. Idk what that website was on about because there is no way two bikers could fit, even dismounted. Also – this is a highway???????? There is only one way traffic.

The tunnel ended after a mile. I did not feel 100% safe even behind the fence but that was…a lot safer than I felt outside the tunnel. No more fence, and the ledge narrowed to a staggering foot and a half wide. Which might have been fine – maybe – if not for the big arrow signs off the walls directing the car traffic. Why? I don’t know. It’s a fucking highway it’s not like there are multiple ways you can go. It’s those arrows that tell you the road is turning/curving, I guess so you don’t ram into a wall since you’re going 60-70 mph. Anyhow. 

I… was convinced I was going to die. If I stuck ad arm out at any point, I would have lost it. I tried hard to keep my body as close to the wall as possible, but those giant metal arrow signs meant that I occasionally had to step off into the actual road. I was gonna die here. And nobody would know where I was except the one friend. And for what. For a haircut. A haircut that would maybe prevent me from being assaulted another time? Idk.

This was.. the worst stretch of road. Honestly. Probably the first time I started thinking rationally all day. Why the fuck was I here? There was no way out of this. I’d shake every time a car or truck passed because of the speeds and they were close enough to almost clip me. It would have been so easy for me to die. 

But. I didn’t. Eventually the wall ended and it opened up to another highway. An open two way highway that was slower – I guess mostly local traffic. (Slower as in fewer cars, not slower speeds). I hopped the short divider fence and pulled my bike over, waited for the second highway to clear up, and traversed the four lanes. To. A …strip mall? Honestly idk at this point I felt unreal. Like if you’ve ever spent 3-4 days with no sleep and you feel ethereal and timeless and like you don’t actually have a corporeal form. That’s how I felt. It was a little past noon by this point. Of course the strip mall is relatively dead. Who goes to a strip mall at noon on a Wednesday? Liminal space. 

I wander around kind of delirious and find the SportClips. I fuckin almost died for this stupid SportClips. My body was covered in soot from the tunnel I guess, but the lady at the reception was kind enough not to say anything about that or my vacant stare and hollow tone of voice. 

But then idk what proceeded was…? One of the most pleasant experiences of my life? Idk if it was cuz I was so delirious but. Hm. So I usually cut my own hair, so I don’t know much about getting hair professionally cut. I didn’t have a picture or a goal in mind. Just.. short. Buzzed. She offered some suggestions and tbh I said “yeah sure okay” to them all. “You’re so picky – what am I gonna do with you?” she joked. She asked me how I normally wear my hair. ???? idk I just.. I just wake up and it’s on my head idk. I don’t use any product I guess. And she cut it…so it looked really nice?? Huhhh…..

And then since it was my first time there, she asked if I wanted a warm shampoo and head massage??? Um???? Okay???? She brought me around to the back and sat me down in a chair that reclined. And put a hot towel on my face. And massaged my temples of my forehead and my cheekbones ???? through the hot towel??? And then washed my hair with shampoo and massaged my head???? While doing it?????? It was the single most pleasant experience I had ever had in my entire life I think. Also?? The chair…was vibrating the whole time?????????? God… 

That didn’t last that long hah, but then she brings me out and sits me down in another chair. I guess it’s to dry off. She wiped my face off with the hot towel and I… just felt… really taken care of??? Idk I felt safe? Hah. Then she says dryly with a smile “but wait there’s more” and pulls out a thing – I don’t even know what it is but tbh I’m too afraid to ask. It almost looks like an…air horn…? But hold up, it’s not plugged in. I think maybe it’s a blow drier? And it’s. A fucking. Massage thing. She gives me a fucking neck and shoulder massage. I’m. Fucking. Dead. This is the most amazing thing I have never asked for, and I did not expect any of this. 

Then she tousles my hair with some product although tbh it looks pretty damn amazing even without product. I ask if I can give her kudos or anything on the website or anywhere. Turns out it’s her last day, so it’s not like it’ll do anything. But I can do it anyway so they know what they’re missing. Okay, I say. I’ll do that. Because of my blood donation, it was free. A $20 haircut and an unexpected massage for free. Wow.

Hm okay. Now I have to figure out how to get home. It’s about 12:30. There is a tube for the Northward direction but god idk there is nothing I wanted less at that moment than to relive that underground highway tunnel experience. I’m not sure I would survive a second attempt and I’d …really rather not. My heart had still not settled by that point. And just the thought of needing to do that again was anxiety inducing.

There’s a bus in the area and also a ferry. The bus is nearby but I don’t know if they will allow a bike on. The ferry is another 4 miles out of the way and will take me pretty far out, but I guess I can bike home eventually… before my tutoring. God, I still have to tutor tonight. As I’m looking for the bus station, I feel my legs buckle underneath me. I realise I haven’t eaten yet. It’s about 1:30pm. I think I last ate yesterday around…5pm? Hm. Anyhow if this bus thing doesn’t work out, I’ll look for the ferry and figure out how that works when I get there. Hopefully the bus works.

But I realise. I don’t have fuckin cash on me. Last week, a woman approached me and said she was homeless and needed money for food. I’m.. not in the best financial situation right now, as you guys probably know, but also I’ve been there – where you don’t know when or where you can get your next meal. She said please. I dug out my wallet and gave her the only bill I had – a $10. That would buy her lunch. Idk I didn’t feel as great as I should have because honestly I’m.. really not doing well myself. But. No one should have to go hungry. So. That’s why I have no cash on me. And the bus comes. The fare is $2.25. They don’t take card. And it’s exact change only. I’m kind of.. panicking as I’m digging through my backpack. My pockets are empty and every pocket in my backpack seems em…pty…? I see something shiny. A fuckin. Coin? I have… I miraculously have $2.25 in my backpack. I don’t know what sort of deity is pulling for me tbh – clearly some god somewhere is working overtime, cuz I somehow have exact fucking change for a bus fare. Lord in heaven. And the bus even has a rack for my bike.

The bus somehow crosses the channel without my noticing. Damn that was fast…? I’m so close to home. Also my hair smells ridiculously good. Even when I was in my “how to get home” panicked state, I kept on randomly smelling how ridiculously good my hair was. It was.. the strangest experience. Couldn’t focus on getting home because I was just distracted by the smell of my hair. Soot on my body and disheveled clothes, I probably looked like a hobo with a really fuckin sharp haircut. Idk. 

I get off about 8 blocks from my house and it’s a strange walk back. It’s about 3pm maybe and I’m just feeling delirious. Everything about it feels unreal but I just know I’m really close to home. I make it home, safe, and I can’t support myself upright anymore. Crash on my bed. I send a tremendously short e-mail to my tutoring client “I don’t think I can be there for our lesson tonight.” Probably conjugated a verb wrong, but I couldn’t think enough to write anything more. I finally crashed. I slept for about.. half an hour to an hour? About 40 minutes, I think. And spend another half hour lying there, trying to get up.

It’s now about 7pm. And I need to cook something.

[alexballracing]

MSVR Elise Trophy 2019 - Round 4: Snetterton 300

Normally Snetterton never fails to spoil my year  - I've never been there without an issue. In 2014 I had a hub snap and fall off an Atom Cup car, in 2016 I had a head gasket fail and a clutch bearing failure, in 2017 I had engine dramas with low power, in 2018 it snowed and we had a clutch failure... I wasn't expecting much better in 2019.

We arrived on the Saturday afternoon in the rain, and luckily got signed on and had the scrutineers look at the car before setting up camp - I like to be prepared as we're a tiny "team" and time is always tight in the mornings. The rain and wind were pretty horrid but luckily the Hangar 111 guys, and Dan from BSCS were there to help hold down the Gazebo before we could weigh it down. We put the car under it, threw the cover over it, and went to the hotel.

Waking up in the morning, hearing the rain splashing off the hotel window is never really a great feeling on a race morning, but the weather is one of the few things we can't control so we just have to crack on.

11:30 Qualifying.

The clouds were low, dark and it was raining. Nicky set the car up to what she thought would work well for the wet, and we went to the assembly area to wait for the start of qualifying.

The first few laps were an adventure. In the wet you can't just go for it like the dry, you need to explore, work out where the grip is, so the next time round you can increase your speed. I tried to work out how to be fast, while limiting wheel spin, sliding and brake locking. It's pretty dodgy on ZZRs in the wet as you can't hear the wheels locking up, and in my car that happens a lot!

With every lap I was improving, other than having to bail on a lap when coming across a spinning Toyota-powered S2, and by the end of the session I got down to a 2:37.69 - 27 seconds worse than the dry - but it was good enough for pole position (by over 3 seconds!). John LaMaster was second, with Jason McInulty in his gorgeous S3 Cup R in third.

14:50 Race 1.

It was still raining, though not very hard. The track was still wet. Both our races were rolling starts, and this time very slow at around 30mph due to the weather and the tight final corner. We set off when the lights went out and I was able to retain the lead, from pole position.

I led for the first half of the race, under constant pressure from Jason who had taken 2nd from John. I held him off for as long as I could, but after about 4 laps of trying, he managed to get past and went on to win. I finished in second position (but first in class) 1.7 seconds behind Jason, and 20 seconds ahead of John and the following pack.

17:40 Race 2.

We were the last race of the day. It was still very overcast, but the track looked dry-ish, and it was no longer raining. We went to assembly to await being sent to the grid. During the short time we were waiting to go to the track, it started raining again. Luckily Nicky was 'on it', and made some minor alterations to the car just before we were sent to the grid.

Again, a rolling start, but with it being Race 2, I was starting 10th. Next to me was John, and Jason just in front. We rolled towards the lighting gantry, and as the red lights went out, we all jumped on the throttle and the race was on. I managed to get through the first half of the top ten pretty quickly as the track was not perfectly dry and there was some hesitation into turn 1 that I was able to capitalise on.

The second half of the first lap was a great fight with Paul Baker, Simon Walsh, John Atherton and Tim Stracey. After the end of the first lap I was leading, and then on the second I put in my fastest lap of the race trying to pull a gap on Jason and John who were still battling through the pack.

Then, the rain got harder and my third lap was slow - really slow. I was seven seconds slower than the previous lap, and Jason seemed to be barely affected - I imagine some of that is the car advantage with TC and ABS, but he was driving brilliantly, and caught me very quickly despite the gap I'd started to build.

We battled for a bit, but on lap 5 he passed me, and that was that. I tried to fight back, but no matter what I tried Jason had an answer for - the weather was very changeable and the racing line was usable one lap, and then the wet line was required the next. Great fun, but I didn't get the most out of the car, really.

I finished, again, in second overall (1st in class), 3.7 seconds behind, and 26 seconds ahead of John who had also built up a big gap of over 10 seconds on everyone else.

So that's that for Snet. My first time at the track without any issues - Two class wins, but second overall in each race. Slightly annoying to not win outright, but it makes no difference to the points we receive as the classes have their own points. I also got fastest lap in both races (overall in race 1, but just in-class in race 2), which is pretty nice.

Yet again, I must thank Nicky for her hard work. She's taken over running the car this year, and she is doing a stellar job of it. Thanks to my sister and husband who came to watch despite the weather, and to my mate Mark who also came, who I haven't seen in about 10 years.

Next time out is Brands Hatch GP in six weeks.

Mega thanks to Jon @ SnappyRacers for the awesome photos!

[lost-decade]

for the fanfic ask meme, "social eyes" + 3, 9, 11 and 12?

Hey, thanks so much for asking! Fic here if anyone's interested. 

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

It’s not a particularly wordy fic, this one. But this is probably my favourite line:

The sun was setting over the harbour when Nico made his way out onto the terrace, the streets still alive with racing, the advertising hoarding glinting in the dying light.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Hmm, not that I can recall. It was written from a prompt and turned out a little more bitter and cynical than I intended. I remember debating whether to make it completely AU, with princessy socialite Nico bumping into arrogant F1 driver Lewis and going the whole ‘hate each other at first but then fall head over heels’ type romance story, but I like the darker side of celebrity and the idea came to me that Nico could be so damaged over his failed racing career that he was determined to live this vacuous life just to stop himself from feeling anything.

Also there’s a Somerset Maugham quote about the French Riviera that I love, about it being “a sunny place for shady people”. I didn’t really capitalise on that idea (iirc this was the last fic I wrote in my epic spell of writing of when I was off work for a month when I couldn’t walk, so I wanted to get it done quickly while I still had the time) but I kind of wish I had a bit more, played up the idea that the circle that Nico moves in is full of people fucked up by money and drugs and general dodginess.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I like that I managed to write it in past tense, which I don’t do very often. And also something I really love to try and do in fic is to contrast public and private image – so on the surface Nico has a pretty amazing life but Lewis sees through that completely and knows that inside he’s lost and lonely. I tried to touch on that a bit. It was fun writing Pierre Casiraghi too, I think I had a bit of a crush on him when he had long hair, and he was photographed karting with Nico last year so they do know each other.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

It’s much too short. It should’ve been fleshed out a lot more.

[tweenerdadventures]

Hamilton - A Summary

Right so. Basically Alexander Hamilton was born in the Caribbean poor as shit. His father left when he was 10 and his mother died 2 years later after they were both ill. He moved in with his cousin and started reading, writing, and working, moving up very fast in the ranks of the trade firm. Then his cousin committed suicide and a hurricane destroyed the town, but the town put together a fund to send him to America to study and make something of himself. He gets there and gets into Kings College, but wants to graduate in 2 years instead of 4 so he can go fight in the revolution, but the college is like nah fam and he's like "FIGHT ME IRL" and then punches the bursar. Needless to say they kick him tf out and he rolls into town to see Aaron Burr (who had graduated in 2 years cause his parents died and left money to the college - rich kids amirite). Burr tells him to talk less smile more, and is like generally "Hamilton sit down". Hamilton ignores this then meets some other revolutionary peeps (Laurens, Lafayette, and HERCULES MULLIGAN - You'll understand later why his name must always be capitalised). He gets them all riled up and drunk as shit and is like we should go fight someone. So they roll up to a guy called Samuel Seybury who doesn't support the revolution and they're like HOW DARE and try to fight him. While this is going on the Schuyler Sisters (Angelica, Eliza......... and Peggy) are rolling through NYC trying to pick up dudes, and Burr tries to hit on them but they tell him to fuck off and start talking about how women should be equal to men (amen sisters) Then King George III rocks up and is like why are you doing this America I thought we were BFFs how could YOU. And then he's like that's it definitely sending my army in now. So ding dong it's all aboard the revolution express and George Washington is emo because he needs someone to help him out and his soldiers are demotivated. In rolls Burr like ayo I was a captain before and my previous commander got shot so... HIRE ME. It gets awks. Real fast. But Hamilton shows up and Washington is like THANK FUCK Burr you can go. Hamilton then agrees to be Washington's right hand man. Back to the sisterhood of purity and now it's time for a LOVE TRIANGLE 0.o - So Angelica sorta fancies Hamilton but also Eliza loves Hamilton and they're like omg what shall we do. But Angelica is like aha I'm probably too good for him he can have my sister instead. Then she has the regrets and is like to her sis please share him ;-) And Eliza is like A HAHAHA GOOD JOKE but pls don't steal him. So Eliza and Alexander get married and Burr rocks up to say congrats but then Alex and the crew wail on him for zero reason other than fuck Burr I guess. Also turns out Burr is having an affair with the wife of a British officer and Alex is like oh damn son but srs why are you scared go get her why do you wait. And Burr is like LEMME TELL YOU A STORY about waiting. Burr explains his parents and grandad were great people who did amazing things but then they died and left him with only their legacy to protect and that is why he is so cautious. He has one of the most heartbreaking lines in the show "If there's a reason I'm still alive when everyone who loves me has died, then I'm willing to wait for it". He also expresses sorta admiration/disbelief that Alexander keeps taking and taking and not waiting, and yet he keeps winning. Ding dong it's back to revolution and Hamilton wants a promotion. He's like PLS George Washington give me my own command. And Washington is like nah fam imma appoint this other dude Charles Lee instead. This goes badly when Lee nearly gets everyone killed, and Hamilton is like SOMEONE SHOULD FIGHT HIM. Laurens fights him and wins but then Washington is piiiiiiiiissed and sends Hamilton home where it turns out NEWSFLASH Eliza is pregnant and just wants Alexander to stay home as that would be enough for her. But Hamilton is like nah fam war isn't done - ANGST. Back to revolution and Lafayette is rapping REALLY FUCKING FAST cause he's suddenly learned all of English when he wasn't very good at it before. He explains how he brought reinforcements and shit from France but is like Washington you really need Hamilton back and Washington is like omg you're right Hamilton pls come back I'll give you soldiers to command BUT first listen to my song about the first time I was in command and oopsed and got my men killed so yeah DON'T DO THAT also bear in mind history has its eyes on you they may even make a musical someday ayo ;) So Hamilton comes back and they end up winning and King George gets SUPER UPSET because parliament won't pay for his war anymore but he's like good luck lmao now see what I've had to deal with being in charge. So revolution is over and America is born, meanwhile Burr and Hamilton both have kids at the same time and turns out they're pretty similar in that they wanna build a good world for their kids to live in. Hamilton moves back to New York finishes his studies and becomes a lawyer, where he ends up working with Burr on the first murder trial in America. He shows off as usual and Burr gets pissed, but is also like how do you keep doing all this stuff oh my God you're non stop. INTERMISSION So yeah now we've skipped forward a bit and Washington is President, Hamilton becomes Treasury Secretary. But UH OH Thomas Jefferson is back from France where he has been getting hella high and sleeping with loads of women, and he's here to fuck Hamilton's shit up. They have a straight up rap battle in a cabinet meeting and Hamilton wins but realises he's outnumbered anyway and need to change tactics if he wants his financial plans implemented. Meanwhile Eliza really wants him to take a fucking break and listen to his son play piano and rap, and also go with her and Angelica on holiday. Hamilton is like nah fam I have to work soz and they go away anyway. But then Hamilton fucks up. Literally. He sleeps with a woman called Maria Reynolds who rolls into his office asking for dolla. But UH OH turns out her husband knows and blackmails Hamilton to keep it quiet, and he agrees because he's an atrocious human being. Back to politics for a sec and Hamilton makes a deal with Jefferson to move the capital to Washington DC from NYC if his financial plans go through. But Burr gets super angry because nobody invited him to government camp, and then Hamilton is like I got what I wanted but WHAT DO YOU WANT. *side eyes emoji* And Burr is like I wanna be in the room where it happens. So finally in the second act we know what Burr actually wants. And apparently his first step is to get elected a Senator. So ofc he's like lol I'll just kick Eliza's dad out of the Senate how could this go wrong ^^ Surprise surprise it goes poorly and Hamilton is piiiiisssssed. And Burr's dropping mega shady vibes like Hamilton your pride will be the death of us all ;) ;) Beware it cometh before the fall ;) ;) ;) So there's another cabinet meeting now and France is fighting Britain and wants America's help. Hamilton is like NUUUUPE we can't do that it's a mess lol sorry France. Jefferson meanwhile is like WHAT THIS IS OUTRAGEOUSSSSSSS. He forms an alliance with Burr and they call themselves SOUTHERN MOTHER FUCKING DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS. He then resigns from the cabinet and is like imma run for President. Washington by this point is too old for this shit and is like I don't wanna be President anymore. And Alexander is like A hahaha ha good joke. And Washington is like no fam I'm serious. And Hamilton is like 😭😭😭 so they write a farewell address to the nation and everyone is sad but then Washington rides off to go enjoy his retirement. So Jefferson loses the election to Washington's Vice President, John Adams. But Jefferson is the new VP. Adams fires Hamilton and is super racist towards him but then Alexander is like HOW DARE and destroys him in the paper. Jefferson and Burr have at this point noticed some weird payments coming out of Hamilton's accounts to James Reynolds and think he's been doing some dodgy financial corruption shit. So they roll up like hey we got the cheque stubs boy explain this. And Hamilton is like oh shit so he confesses his affair but is like please keep it secret omg. And they're like k I guess. Hamilton then remembers how he wrote his way out of the Caribbean and so OF COURSE he can write his way out of this situation as well. So he decides to write and publish the Reynolds pamphlet where he is like "yall think I'm guilty of financial crimes but JOKES ON YOU I actually had an affair ayo" and everyone's like wait what. And Eliza is like wait WHAT. And Angelica is like MOTHERFUCKER WHAT. So Hamilton definitely fucked up his whole political career never to be fixed woops. Angelica shows up and Hamilton is like thank gawd someone who understands me and Angelica is like BITCH I'M NOT HERE FOR YOU I'm here for my sister so go away. Eliza is v angry and basically burns all Hamilton's letters to her and is like I hope that YOU burn (also a fucking chilling emotional line). Ding dong. It's time for a time shift and now Hamilton's son Philip is 19 and just graduated from King's College. But UH OH someone talked shit about his father and he's like IMMA FIGHT THEM and Hamilton is like fine but pls don't actually shoot them and Philip is like fine when we duel I won't shoot dad omg. So they duel and Philip aims for the sky intending not to shoot but they other guys pulls a dick move and shoots before they count to 10. So Philip is deceased and Eliza and Hamilton r upset. So Hamilton is pretty :’( and now wanders the streets by himself, finds jesus (not in the streets, in like his heart), and eventually him and Eliza make everything right. But hold up its politics time again and now it's an election year. Jefferson is running for President again and John Adams is gonna lose but uh oh Burr also runs for President. It's a tie and the whole party goes to Hamilton like Bro who you want to be Pres? And Hamilton is like leave me alone. And then they say it again LOUDER and Hamilton meets Burr whilst out campaigning and is like "is there anything you wouldn't do to win" and Burr is like "no and I learned that from you". So Hamilton finally agrees to endorse someone and SHOCKER endorses Jefferson. His reasoning is I'm enemies with Jefferson but at least he has principles cos Burr has none. And Jefferson is like wait what. And Burr is like MOTHERFUCKER WHAT. So Burr writes some angry letters to Hamilton basically blaming him for everything that's gone wrong in his life. Hamilton responds with an itemised FUCKING LIST of the disagreements they've had. Burr is like take it back. Hamilton says no. Burr is like fight me then. Hamilton is like k fam let's go. So they're gonna duel but before that Hamilton writes a letter to Eliza explaining all this shit. He then rocks up to the dueling ground across the river and Burr is like Wait is he actually gonna shoot me omg THIS MAN WILL NOT MAKE AN ORPHAN OF MY DAUGHTER (also a tearjerker moment) so they count to 10 and shots are fired. Hamilton is hit and does a death soliloquy like oh shit what is my legacy. He sees the light and all the dead people he loves and is like imma go there too. Back to realtime and Burr is like he's aiming his pistol to the sky? ? WAAAAIIIIIT. But it's too late he's shot Hamilton in the ribs and he's rushed away and gets a drink. He's told he'd better hide cause Alexander died. He now laments that history obliterates and paints him in all his mistakes, and that he's now the villain in our history. Basically he has the mega regrets. Then everyone gets together and sings about Alexander's life and Eliza explains how she's telling his story to everyone, and how she lives another 50 years (time that he always wanted). She raises funds to build the Washington Monument, speaks out against slavery, and is basically the real MVP for the rest of her life. But her proudest achievement is establishing the first private orphanage in NYC and helping loads of kids grow up and she's like "in their eyes I see you Alexander I see you every time". She now wonders if she has done enough and if people will tell her story, and that she can't wait to see him again Musical over.

[entergamingxp]

Five of the Best: Made-up words • Eurogamer.net

Five of the Best is a weekly series about the bits of games we overlook, those poor old things. I’m talking about crowds, potions, mountains, hands – things we barely notice at the time but can recall years later because they’re so important to the overall memory of the game.

Now is the time to celebrate them – you and me both! I will share my memories but I’m just as eager to hear yours, so please share them in the comments below. We’ve had some great discussions in our other Five of the Best pieces.

How to spruce up your sales pitch? It’s like a chapter in a marketer’s handbook. Why not make up a catchy phrase to describe your project’s best ideas? Nothing will scream ‘new’ like a punchy buzzword. Soon you will have everyone saying it.

Orrr it will end up here and be lampooned instead.

Drivatar

What, exactly, is a Drivatar? Like many of the things on this list, it’s something you’re probably already familiar with: a drivatar is a computer-controlled character, though the twist is that their behaviours are informed by those of your friends as they play the same game. It’s what we used to call AI around these parts, but someone working on Forza thought that didn’t sound quite snappy enough, so in their infinite wisdom they went with Drivatar. Lord I wish they hadn’t.

-Martin Robinson

A jolly look at some misbehaving Drivatars.

Revengeance

You what? Do you mean revenge or vengeance? If you’re getting your own back, you mean revenge, but if you’re doing it on behalf of someone else, you mean vengeance, so which is it? Metal Gear Rising: Vengeance doesn’t actually sound that bad, and it’s a proper word. But I see: you want alliteration and an extra syllable. You want Revengeance.

Ridiculageous.

Lots of random capitalisation in this trailer though, Koj – not sure I approve.

Roguelite

This bugs me. It bugs me because I’ve never played Rogue, the oh so hallowed originator of the term, and I bet a lot of you haven’t either – it came out in 1980! So when I saw ‘Roguelike’ for the first time, I didn’t know what it meant. Did it mean the game was a bit dodgy, a bit scoundrelly? Was it a little bit of a rascal? No. It means you have one life to see how far you can get (more or less), which is very simple, so why not say that in the first place?

To make matters worse, it’s now accepted as a kind of gaming lingo, which means it’s apparently OK to modify it to fit your bespoke needs, hence Roguelite, meaning it’s like Rogue but only a bit. Just describe your game in plain terms! People shouldn’t have to learn lingo in order to understand what a game is. It’s time to invite everybody in whether they’ve read the history books or not.

See also: Metroidvania.

(‘Soulslike’ bothers me but not as much. It’s more current.)

Here’s a gentle and insightful look at the history of Roguelikes and what it all means.

Levolution

Imagine having to say “Levolution” in interviews. I really feel for the DICE developers who were on the press circuit for Battlefield 4 – I bet they didn’t come up with it. “Levolution”, “Levolution”, “Levolution”. It was the big Battlefield 4 idea: multiplayer levels which changed as key structures were destroyed – tower blocks which crumbled with people fighting in them. And it sounded really cool – the idea not the word, that is. Pity it didn’t really work. The only thing that crumbled were the game’s multiplayer servers.

Levolution, Levolution, Levolution!

Freemium

Oh dear I’ve just thrown up everywhere.

‘Free-to-play with microtransactions’ was bad enough. It didn’t need jazzing up. At least it didn’t try and sound friendly. Now, it sounds like a bunch of business people trying to be casual in crisp jeans and shirts, whereas what it actually sounds like is ‘watch out, game is greedy’.

Feeling queasy? This won’t help.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/five-of-the-best-made-up-words-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-of-the-best-made-up-words-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[realestatedigitalsales]

Real Estate - Business that could fail in a property crash

Real Estate - Business that could fail in a property crash

Real Estate - Business that could fail in a property crash

By Jason Murphy   Real Estate - As property prices continue to nosedive, commentators are getting worried about who will pay the most in the event of a housing crash. House prices are causing a lot of people sleepless nights. The pace of price falls just won’t stop accelerating. Where will the impact hit? Some commentators keep looking nervously at the banks, which have huge property exposures. In my view, the people who say our banks will collapse are assuming we are similar to the US. I see big differences. Mortgage arrears are low and our banks are well capitalised. But a sharp house price downturn can still cause a wave of bankruptcies and people losing their life savings. Banks control about 80 per cent of the mortgage market. That remaining 20 per cent is not small beer. There are billions in housing loans made with other players. They are not banks because they are not authorised to take deposits, and they don’t face the same strict regulation as banks. If we get a really steep fall in house prices, I’d be shocked if at least one non-bank lender didn’t go broke. But long before those guys get into any trouble there’s a whole other layer of businesses that could crumble and burn. PROPERTY IS SOWN DEEP INTO THE SEAMS OF OUR ECONOMY Property is a massive industry in Australia and there are millions of businesses involved — from major banks through to property developers and real estate agents, small plumbing and bricklaying companies, all the way down to the people that run dodgy property seminars. As the next graph shows, the rate of insolvencies in Western Australia has risen when house prices have fallen. (Look especially at the more recent results, where the end of the mining boom is long past and less of a confounding factor.)

Business insolvency is no joke. Every blue bar in this chart represents dreams being ruined and families being torn apart. When a business is insolvent, it is illegal for the owners to keep operating it, and it goes to administrators. Administrators are professional firms who specialise in dealing with insolvent companies. They usually try to sell it off and get at least money back to the people who are owed, while taking a cut along the way. When a business goes bust, it causes ripples that make other businesses more unstable. It leaves bills unpaid, which can put other businesses into a precarious position. Some of these will be small businesses backed by the owner’s home, meaning the bank can take possession of their home if the business fails. (This could even cause a second round of home sales to hit the market.) I’m not going to name names here of businesses that could collapse. I don’t want to create panic. I expect all the businesses in this article are probably fine. But we will talk about the types of business that could get into strife. SPRUIKERS START TO SQUIRM One of the first to fall could be property spruikers who use complex financial arrangements to help people get into houses. One property spruiker was recently taken down, not by insolvency but by the consumer watchdog. The company, which made most of its money from running seminars, promised people they could buy a house for $1. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission whacked the company and its director Rick Otton with an $18 million fine. “We Buy Houses and Mr Otton peddled false hope to people simply looking to get a foothold in the housing market or invest money in real estate for their future,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said. “The record penalties imposed against both We Buy Houses and Mr Otton reflect their egregious conduct.” Then there’s Nathan Birch, a property investor and investment scheme operator, whose website claims he owns more than 200 properties and that he makes more than $500,000 in “passive income” a year. If these claims are true, we could do the maths and see that each property is making a passive income of about $2500 a year. Less than I would have expected, given that holding property is neither riskless nor effort-free. Birch uses the hard-sell to make people who aren’t investing in property feel like they are missing out. “What if I told you that we are living in a system, designed to benefit just a few — at the expense of ordinary people … The fact is we are living in the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme. It’s a system that rips power away from many individuals … and transfers it to a handful of shadowy elites,” he says. Apparently, he drives a Bentley with the number plate CSHFLO, and Birch says a report appearing in The Australian Financial Review earlier this year claiming he was being sued for missing his mortgage payments was not true. PORTFOLIOS UNDER PRESSURE In a property downturn, we can expect more stories like that of Kate Moloney. Kate was dubbed property investor of the year 2012 by Your Investment Property Magazine, but she was deep in the red by 2016. She owned 16 properties in mining towns and said “if we were to sell our properties, we would still owe the banks about $3 million dollars (not including arrears interest and selling costs)”. I expect journalists will have a field day tracking down all those young people who appeared in the press in “inspirational” (or at least aspirational) stories about owning a vast property portfolio by age 22. Finding out how they are going with prices down 20 per cent will be very interesting. Real estate agents can’t be finding it easy either. The number of houses trading hands in Australia is at record lows, that means the number of commissions trading hands. (Oh, how my heart bleeds for all those twenty-something real estate agents who won’t be able to keep up the lease payments on their Mercedes!) But while I might get some personal schadenfreude from real estate agents and all the rest doing it tough for once, it’s not good for the economy. Read more https://global.goreds.today/real-estate-84/   Read the full article