Fluffy

    Recently, a minor scandal erupted when Disney was thinking about censoring one of the cartoons they broadcast but not produce themselves, Bluey.  Yes, I know I'm nowhere near the target demographic, but I'm immature for my age. For those who don't know, Bluey is about a six/seven-year-old dog in Australia, her five-year-old sister Bingo, her Mum Chilli, and her Dad Bandit. She has very imaginative adventures involving her family and friends.  They can get somewhat surreal, very deeply emotional, or downright silly.  This 'controversy' erupted due to the nature of the episode's plot, which is fairly silly.  'Family Meeting' opens up with Bluey, Bingo, and Dad having a discussion in the kitchen about what Dad did earlier when Bluey was in her parents' bedroom.  Dad apparently had a 'fluffy' directly in Bluey's face.  He denies it. Mum comes in a declares a family meeting to find out the truth.  She returns with rollers in her 'hair,' reminiscent of judges' wigs.  Before the trial, she declares that the bodily function only be called a 'fluffy,' with 'fluffied' and 'fluffed' as acceptable past tenses.  Bluey goes first and recreates the scene with her toys, with a skunk representing her smelly Dad. Dad immediately says that he would never do such a thing, yet a flashback when Bingo pulled his finger proves him wrong.  Next, Bluey goes over the food he ate the previous day, raising a hand-made "Fluffy-meter" to its highest level.  Bingo is the next witness, and she claims she was there and saw it all happen.  Dad declares she wasn't there.  Bluey had bribed her with a lollipop, and Mum advises Bluey about how the truth will set her free.  Bingo's evidence is discarded.  Then, Dad announces a surprise witness, Mum!  She admits she was dozing, but the only thing she heard was Dad moving the bedside table like he frequently does when his tablet falls off from charging overnight.  She imitates the sound she heard.  It was the 'fluffy!'  Dad calls another surprise witness, a non-existent man, as a distraction, and he then flees.  Bluey and Bingo ran after their Dad and caught him in the front yard.  They tie him up in a jumprope and return him to the trial.  Before Mum passes her sentence, she asks Dad if there was anything he'd like to say.  His response, "He who smelt it, dealt it." He then explains away the accident 'fluffy' in his daughter's face as being due to the fact that her face is at the same height as his bum.  Bingo starkly declares that it could have been her, as she is slightly shorter and would have been worse off.  Mum sentences Dad to an hour of horsey rides for both Bluey and Bingo.  The younger sister runs off to prepare, while Mum tells Bluey about how the truth prevailed.  Dad then tells Bluey that the truth will come out.  Bluey then admits that she was only in her parents' bedroom to play on her Dad's tablet, something she wasn't supposed to due until the weekend.  Mum then sentences Bluey to play horsey for Bingo for an hour as well.  Mum noisily backs her chair out from the table and tries to shoo Bluey and Dad out of the room.  The two start to smell something, and they realize that Mum had made a 'fluffy' too!  The episode ends on that note.  From what I could tell, nothing was really altered about this episode's US broadcast.  However, my Bluey viewing habits have greatly multiplied since I first noted the episode, especially since I have no young children in my life. I watch way too many cartoons, both those intended for children and this for an older audience.  Oh well.

The Memory Remains, Except for Sometimes on Facebook

    I have written over 370 posts for this blog, plus hundreds more on two other blogs. One of those is pretty much defunct while the other is currently on a months long hiatus.  I also have dozens of videos on my YouTube channel.  Whenever I post something on here or YouTube, I link it to my Facebook account so that my friends can see them without having to leave one social media platform for another.  However, all of these hundreds of links don't show up on my Facebook memories.  Now, with so many posts, I should have a memory most of them for many days. Yet I don't.  The videos I cross-post on my store's Facebook page usually come up in my memories, yet not those on my personal page.  What's worse is that I frequently can't share those videos to my main page for some reason.  So many things that I would like to re-post and remember, but I can't.  I remember that some of the posts I see from others mention this same problem.  Things posted directly to Facebook or shared from another Facebook location don't have this problem.  Neither do those posted from some third-party sites.  Other posts that have links usually have problems, especially those to Google sites.  Well, this week marks a change in trying to outwit the Facebook algorithms.  Today's blogcast post will be double linked onto my page.  Not only will I be using my usual post with a link, but I will also be doing a second post.  This second post will have the link to my blog in the comments and not in the main body of the post.  Sure, it will take a year to see if this trick will work, but it should be worth it.  I just hope to remember to do all of this additional posting every week.  It will take awhile before I get the hang of it.  Why, I almost forgot to write a post this week at all!  Yeah, that is why this post is so short as well as over an hour late.  My bad. See you next week.

Just Because You're Paranoid, It Doesn't Mean You're Wrong

    I've been waiting on the latest edition of a game I really like for a few weeks now.  I ordered it months ago, but it officially came out on August 30.  The store where I ordered it from hasn't gotten it yet, and it might not ever.  It has had problems getting some of the niche products that I like.  I would ordered it directly through my store, but the publisher doesn't use my distributor any more.  I could order directly from the publisher instead, but I would prefer not to, as that would be way more expensive.  Also, if I don't like it, I got possibly return it if I go through other channels.  And as of right now, based on everything I've read, I probably won't like it.  When the new edition was formally announced last fall, controversy has surrounded it.  Soon after the first statement was made, one of the designers mentioned in an interview that the new edition would not be a direct continuation of the game.  This fact, along with some of the other changes first announced, brought the fan community into a frenzy.  Many long-time fans hated these decisions, especially when compared to other games that this company had updated.  While calls for open-mindedness prevailed, many people on some of the social media platforms I visit were having major doubts.  These doubts began to increase with the first previews earlier this year.  The artist had traced the image of a well-known activist who does not like his image and tattoos reproduced.  The art was reportedly changed, but further previews had more traced art of people in the public eye.  While this is an accepted technique, to some degree, the art director should have been alerted about possible problems.  Maybe the previews came out before final authorization was finished.  Maybe it was a lax editing process.  Maybe it was all a publicity stunt to grab attention. I believe any of this is possible.  The art previews did stop, though.  Rules previews were next.  One of the designers for an earlier stage of development noted that the rules preview seemed to be lifted directly from their design. (The final version of the game was the third development pass-through.  The first two ended in bad faith.) Fans were wondered if the writer would be credited.  Again, there were possible explanations. Maybe there was no other simpler way to present the information. Maybe the final version would have a different version written up.  Maybe management just didn't care who they were angering.  Then, with just a few weeks left before the debut, one of the designers for an early iteration for the new edition posted an interview about the horrible working conditions he was put through, specifically by one manager whose heavy-handed interpretation of how the game would be like may have been the cause for the first two iterations of the new edition to be scraped.  Well, many older fans were immediately thrown off for the new edition, at least on the sites that I frequent.  When the game finally came out, they dissected the changes very critically.  The overall opinion was that the new changes weakened the game and made it less appealing for most players.  The game basically forced the player into a certain game style that was never a predominant position in previous editions.  Most of the vitriol was directed at management, whose ideas for favoring this style of gameplay through each of the lines of games in the new editions of this world were turning away many of the game's older fans.  While many of the positive changes were praised, frankly because certain parts of the game hadn't aged well and needed updating, many of these fans were considering either skipping the new edition or using a lot of adaptations to get it to work.  A few were trying to work with the new edition and were not hated for it.  Attacks on the designers were mostly discouraged, as many felt that they were only doing what they were asked to do to get the game to work.  Other platforms weren't so encouraging.  Older fans were noticing how their views were being shut out on other sites, claiming that they were showing extremist views, even when they were just dissecting changes. I even looked into one such group of new edition fans myself.  They were showing such hatred against older fans, claiming they were fascist for hating the changes, particularly one change.  And this was just as the early PDFs of the new edition was coming out.  Even after more people got the new book and a more nuanced and balanced opinion came out, the hatred aimed at older fans was still vicious.  I noted that some of the posters in this group seemed connected to the gaming industry.  I don't know if they were connected to the game's publisher or not, but it was a red flag.  A few of the most vehement fans of the new edition appeared to have joined the platform just so they could support the game.  Either that or they managed to keep almost everything else about themselves private, including information that is usually kept public.  Maybe they just skipped some parts of their profiles. Or they might not be entirely 'real.'  I don't know, but their profile gave off the same vibe as the friend requests I used to get from women from foreign countries whose posts were mostly photos of them barely dressed. Or less, as one was a full frontal shot that probably was against policy standards.  Anyway, I am not sure what is going on.  Maybe I'm just spotting a conspiracy where there is none.  Or, maybe the game publisher is running a long-range publicity campaign to boost the appearance of their new product, when they know it might not be a good as they think it is.  I can almost believe anything after all of the mixed messages I've seen over the past few months.

All I Hear Is Hear Is Radio Ca-Ca

    Well, I'm having more problems with the radio in my store again.  The latest instance started last Friday.  While I was listening to my favorite radio station on the way to work, I noticed that there was quite a bit of static.  Now, while other stations had been known for getting interference, this station usually was pretty clear for this stretch of road.  I made a note to make sure I knew what song was playing when I got in to check that the radio was playing the same one.  The store radio was not playing the same song.  In fact, it wasn't playing any song at all.  There was just static.  I fiddled with the dial some, but it was to no good.  I was getting the public radio station two clicks down, or some Christian station two clicks up or so.  I didn't know of any Christian stations anywhere near mine Top 40 station on the dial.  I tried every trick I had developed over the years in trying to get a clearer signal.  None of them worked either.  For almost all of the day, all I had on the radio was a dull static in the background.  I needed some sort of background noise to help me concentrate.  Fortunately, I kept the volume down so as not to interfere with any customers, although I don't think we had anyone actually come in that day.  From what I could gather, the Christian station may have just started up that day, the first of the month, because I couldn't figure anything else out.  I waited until the following day, Saturday, to try a few more radical ideas in case the radio was still acting up.  I moved the radio around a bit without unplugging it.  Didn't clear up the static.  I moved the radio to the only easily reached outlet that wouldn't block anyone coming into the store.  After some fiddling with the dial, I thought I was getting the UK pre-game show, but only after turning off some off some of the lights.  The lights create a tiny bit of interference, so turning them off clears the signal ever so slightly.  Well, I don't like to listen to sports on the radio, so I just turned the radio off for the rest of the day.  I brought a CD to listen to that afternoon, but the rest of the day was silent.  When I left for the day, I checked the car radio to find out the results of the game.  My favorite station wasn't playing the post-game show, which I found to be odd. I checked a different station, and that one was playing the post-game show. Oh-oh.  I tuned the radio to the country station that plays UK games that sometimes interferes with my radio station, even though it is over ten clicks away from it.  Yep, they were playing the post-game show too.  So, either my radio station no longer carries anything but the actual game, or they are no longer part of the network at all and the store radio accidentally picked up the country station again.  The store was closed for the rest of the weekend, so I couldn't do any more until yesterday, Tuesday.  I got in late because I was expecting a delivery at home.  It got delayed due to some engine trouble, so I went on in to work and left someone there to take care of the delivery.  I fixed the dial some more, and I turned off a different section of lights, and I got my station back.  The signal is back to almost the same as it was before this latest problem.  After a moved light post, a boosted country station, new lights, a bunch of high-profile vehicles parked outside, and a new Christian station, I am almost ready to buy a new radio with a digital tuner so that I can dial in the exact station instead of estimating with my current analog tuner.  Maybe that will help, or maybe it won't, as all of the other sources of interference are too much to overcome.  My favorite station might not be the best, but it is the one with the most variety of songs that I sort of like, even when they play a song twenty-to-thirty years old instead of the current Top 40, minus much of the rap and hip-hop of course.   Why they won't play it, I don't know, but it is still my favorite.