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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • The odd thing about the world’s dumbest firebomber is, why did he do it? There’s no obvious profit to him in shoring up the curse, since he doesn’t seem to want to charge admission to the cave or anything.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if we discovered he was a mook working for someone else. Even then, the ultimate motivation of the person responsible is just as mysterious as why the only modern “spontaneous combustion” case mentioned by the good doctor was the one in which the coroner seems to have been tripping balls. (Well, okay, that isn’t so mysterious—most other cases have been investigated and found to boil down to “cigarette or other obvious ignition source + drugged, drunk, disabled or predeceased victim who couldn’t escape the fire”.)


  • I’ve seen a lot of bad reviews, though, so maybe it is supposed to be taken seriously and I’m the only one laughing at seeing a man pray to the virgin Mary for the souls of the people who he just killed with a sheet of gold leaf.

    I can’t remember whether or not this is the one that got seriously into the opium trade towards the end or whether I’m confusing it with some other semi-historical series set in around that time period, but yeah, I think it was intended to be more serious despite some of the loopier aspects.


  • You think that an unelected body in the government is better than being able to vote for different representatives?

    It doesn’t have to be better, it just has to be not significantly worse (because switching systems incurs a cost, and the expected improvement has to be sufficient to justify that cost). As far as I can tell, the Senate here in Canada hasn’t been significantly worse for the population than comparable elected bodies that exist elsewhere in the world. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t run off the rails in the future, but it could just as easily do that if it were an elected body (which is where the example of the States is relevant).

    In general, it’s better to leave things that work alone, unless you have a better reason for changing them than, “This doesn’t match up with my ideology.”






  • I finally managed to watch at least one episode of everything I was interested in.

    Dropped:

    • Link Click (just didn’t, er, click with me)
    • Farmagia (too much game showing at the seams, not enough depth, protag is an idiot)
    • Greatest Alchemist (not good enough to survive having slavery treated as acceptable)
    • Fruit Master (just mediocre all over)
    • I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons (denial of the main character’s agency to an extent that’s downright icky)
    • Magic Maker (um, dude, I don’t really care that she’s your sister, but you appear to be macking on an oblivious prepubescent girl. No.)
    • Momentary Lily (motion sickness-inducing).

    Hanging by a thread:

    • Aquarion: Myth of Emotions (really ugly artwork and isn’t likely to be good enough in other categories to compensate)
    • Promise of Wizard (first episode felt rather bland, haven’t gotten to the second one yet)
    • I’m a Noble on the Brink of Ruin etc. (just really bland so far, no black marks but not very interesting either)

    I’ll be picking one of those three to keep watching and dropping the other two.

    By the way, does anyone know what’s going on with Fate/Strange Fake? I wasn’t anticipating it dropping off the schedule again after one episode.



  • It’s . . . arguable. The Alberta oil and gas industry doesn’t really benefit “all Canadians”, just the ones working in that industry, and most of us who whose paychecks don’t depend on Alberta oil think the environmental oversight needs to be tightened up. In terms of advocating for the short-term interests of the subset of Albertans that elected her, Smith could be said to be doing her job. Problem is, she’s doing so in a manner that goes against the long-term interests of everyone in the country, including the people that elected her.