HaVe YoU tRiEd HiTtInG yOuR kId?

 I live in the south. A lot of people, especially in Tennessee seem to think it's reasonable and rational to hit their kids. I've had several conversations with people where I have regaled them with the shenanigans my daughter has gotten up to and I am often met with the response, "I'd beat the shit out of my kid if they did that," which makes me wonder why these people had children in the first place? Did they just want someone to abuse? 

Personally, I don't think there is an appropriate time to use corporal punishment (This is an example of the type of people I am talking about, using the bible as justification for their shitty behavior and be sure to read the one lone comment on this article and the lack of acknowledgement from the author almost a decade and a half later) on any kid, let alone a toddler. There are better, more healthy ways to discipline and teach your kids consequences to their actions other than physically throttling them because they slightly inconvenienced you. 

It's like changing their diaper, sure it's gross and they'll fight you every step of the way and it can be hard to do when you're tired but you do it anyway because for some reason you love the unreasonable little hellion that can't do it for themselves. That's the thing though, our kids rely on us to provide them with safety, to offer them security when they don't even know what to expect, and when you hit your kids you are violating that trust between you and your child. 

Was I mad when my daughter got into a bag of sugar and then proceeded to pour it all over the floor so that I had to clean it up? Yeah, it sucked, but hitting her would not undo what she did and it would just make me feel like shit afterwards, and that's the thing though, why do people think this is "normal?" People complain about violence and crime within society but they don't ever look at themselves and see that their attitudes towards themselves and even their children are a reflection on society.

It starts in the home and I decided that I was going to raise my children differently, that's not to say I do not show them discipline, I usually just redirect their behavior, or I isolate them from the problem and find a better way to unpack both my emotions on the situation but to also address theirs in the moment too. My little girl is getting smarter every day and she does not have a mean bone in her body, she's more inclined to try and feed you than she is to just throw a fit because she did not get her way. 

While our parents may have used corporal punishment on us, and their parents probably did too, however not sound cliche, violence is not an answer to our children misbehaving. When you hit them, all you are doing is showing that if you want people to comply with your demands you just hold a sword of Damocles over their head in the form of your emotions until they give in, and while it may work some of the time, it just fucks up and distorts their perception of other people and does not equip them to be able to navigate the real world when they become adults.

Stop using the bible to justify hitting your kids.

Being a Dad

 

Silly boy

I've been a dad to two beautiful little kids now for about three years, my daughter is two and a half and my son is going to turn one in a few weeks and in that time I've done a lot of diaper changing 
and bottle feedings and I've come to learn what it means to be patient with someone and how to really care for some one. It hasn't been easy, of course, I have had my share of crash outs and fights with my partner along the way, but that also led to me getting treatment and therapy that have made me a better person so that I can continue to be there for my kids.

 Life is hard, sure, and expensive, but I have been blessed to have my kids to anchor me where I need to be so I can get up every day and face a shitty world of inequality and existential dread as our rights as workers are slowly eroded away because we're all more preoccupied with surviving that we are too tired to fight back against the autocratic demands of Capitalism. 

Not that anyone reads this blog, but if you took the time to check in with me, thanks I guess. I want to write and make some new content, but life keeps catching up with me as I seem to rather sleep more than to wake up and record something new. I won't make any promises but I have some ideas for videos I could make and I hope you all look forward to it because it'll probably be poorly edited with bad sound just like everything else I've made.

Side note: I've been working on an essay and when I do finish it I will record it in audacity and upload it with maybe some magic arena as B-roll in the background. Stay tuned I guess.

Devil May Sigh... Thanks Netflix.

 

I don't know how Netflix manages to take an IP like Devil May Cry and turn it into the most boring mini-series I've watched in a long time. The biggest sin of this show is just how boring it is, and as a fan of the series they made a bunch of baffling and weird choices that make me wonder if the people that made this show ever played the game. If you're looking for something to watch and you want to turn your brain off, the pyscho-babble that they try to insert to explain things that never needed to be explained before will leave you rolling your eyes and wondering why they even bothered to explain it in the first place, the sound track of the show is also kind of weird too. They choose to appeal to washed-up guys like me that never grew up past the early 2000's sonically, the opening theme is "Keep Rollin'" by Limp Bizkut, and later episodes play such gems as "Butterfly," and an off-brand version of "Devil Trigger," that is played too late and loses its effect as fan service. The show's attempt to be grounded and emotional also kind of fall flat as characters are killed off unceremoniously left and right and most of the time you're just left waiting thinking, "Wait, who was that again?" 

Want me to say something nice about the show? There's some hints and glints that they understood Dante as a character at least, some of his signature goofiness shines through, and Marry is a good foil to him but she's also kind of the worst both personally and morally. There is also an episode that tries to explain some character's back-stories, but they come too late and end up being tonally weird considering the episode that follows it. I feel the back story should have come a lot sooner and the show just spends to much time spinning its wheels going no where. Oh, and the show also smashes lore and characters from DMC 2 which is just disappointing. I think the franchise as a whole ignores that game entirely so the fact that they thought it would be a good idea to throw it in at the end of the show.

Over all, if you're a fan of the series you'll just be left wanting and bored. Skip it.

FYIGM

 So there seems to be this attitude of "Fuck you, I got mine," in this country. Why give people a home to live in for free when you've spent your entire life working/paying rent? Why provide hungry people with free food and clean water when you've been surviving on ramen noodles and off-brand soda? The answer to these questions and my initial point is, we all should access to these things regardless of whether or not they're able to work.

Finland figured this out, and it's cheaper to just give people a place to live so that they can then get a job, however again the problem of labor in this country is that everyone is working more than ever but still not making ends meet, and that is by design. Capitalist want our labor but do not want to pay for it. 

Libertarians will tell you, "Oh you don't have the right to earn a living, but you do have the opportunity to earn it." The problem with this sentiment is the fact that they think they are in a position to dictate to you what you "earn," while they are the same people exploiting your labor and are the reason you're working three jobs and still not making enough to live. When the "free market," says you should be homeless or go without food, is it really a "free market?"

Which brings up the false dichotomy that people operate under that the scary "leftists," just want to tell everyone how to spend their money and how their taxes should be spent while not acknowledging that under our current system that's exactly how it works right now, just instead of the government providing services, services we need to exist in society, are provided by private interests that funnel public money into their private coffers while we get evicted from our homes and live out of our cars.

When Republicans and Democrats speak of "freedom," they are not talking about you and mean, they're talking about corporations, which thanks to Bush Jr. are now people and are able to spend as much money (speech) as they want to gas light the rest of society into privatizing things that used to serve a public good; like schools. School vouchers for private schools is just a way to divert your tax dollars to religious charter schools that will deliver worse results and probably close within a year or so because their business model is unsustainable; but they still got your money.

Is all lost? Not exactly, you can become "woke," and call the bull shitters out on their bull shit and push back. Remember, these same people only think democracy belongs outside of the workplace because they control the public narrative, but the social contract applies to us all so why keep contributing to a system that only seems to benefit the interest of the owning class at the expense of everyone else? I should take my own advice here, but maybe we all should be voting for people who actually represent our interests and start grass root organizations but if voting got us here in the first place, will it also get us out of it? As long as both parties serve capital, I doubt things will change.

TL;DR Eliminate capitalism while we still can or we will be nothing more than digital serfs working the Farmville fields as our society and environment collapse around us and it's too late to reverse it. 

Social Murder

 

I guess I'll go die then.

Where do I begin? A CEO was shot and half the population celebrated it while the conservatives grabbed at their pearls in horror. 

Why? 

Social murder, when the owning class create the conditions under which working class people die, and do nothing to prevent these deaths because it would cost them money. When you look into our modern healthcare system, the more you will find that profits are being put before people at the expense of people.

How did we get here?

Apathy and corporate consolidation.

The privatization of American Health Insurance through the Affordable Care Act has made the cost of healthcare all but unreachable for most Americans. These plans have out of pocket costs as high as $10,000 for their government funded base plans. I would know, I had a plan like this when I lived in the state of Florida. I could not use the insurance to go see a doctor because all of the hospitals that would take my insurance were over 100 miles from where I lived. Millions of Americans have these shitty policies, and our taxes are subsidizing these plans. 

When healthcare is provided for profit, guess who ends up paying more in the end? Us. 

How do we change this system?

We can end the profit motive for healthcare and enshrine price controls into law like most other countries and nationalize hospitals. When you remove private profits from the hands of people who receive public money like hospital executives, you can take that money and reinvest into programs that help low income people who are most effected by higher prices.

I think a lack of imagination and a lack of leadership on this issue is why our country has become such a capitalist hellscape. When the "free market," decides that you have to work three jobs a day for more than 80 hours a week in order to make ends meet, then maybe the "free market," ain't too "free."

The only way forward for our society is to decommodify essential services like housing and healthcare. Until then the Capitalists that run our society will continue to gaslight and manipulate us to vote against our own interests until nothing is left of our planet but a dried out husk exploited at their bequest.

Brian Thompson after being shot

Fuck CEOs.

Dockside Finally Banned...

 

   

 ... Good thing I sold my copies right before the ban. Honestly kind of glad it got banned, card created some really problematic play patterns, along with all the other cards that were banned alongside it. So what other cards were banned along Dockside?

Nadu, Winged Wisdom:

Nadu got the hammer, for obvious reasons. He gets out of hand because his trigger happens so easily and can lead to some feelsbadman moments when it just explodes ahead of everyone else. My experience with this card is playing against on Arena, and while it's not as optimized as the paper version, the deck is still kind of toxic to play against and causes me to groan anytime I see it.

Mana Crypt:

Mana crypt got the ax too, and well, I'm kind of glad it did too. I've had more than a few games I just gave up on winning when I saw someone play this card because I would just be so far behind I had no chance of catching up. I find this ban to be a bit ironic giving WOTC added it to the Ixialan set as a chase rare, so RIP to everyone who bought those packs in hopes of opening one. Another reason to just stop buying sealed product.

Jeweled Lotus:

Another day, another zero cost artifact banned. Sure this card is restricted to just making only one type of mana specifically for casting only your commander, I guess this card was also becoming a problem in more casual games. Who knew something that has no cost and goes mana positive despite its restrictions would be a problem?

TL;DR:

A bunch of stupid toxic cards got printed in the last few years as chase rares, expect for Dockside, that card was only printed to make the worst deck in the whole set somewhat playable and was mostly seen as a "fine on paper, broken in gameplay," kind of card. Most of these cards were printed to encourage people to buy packs, and now they're banned, for obvious reasons. This announcement just further justifies my position of not buying any more sealed product for the foreseeable future. 

Stop Buying Sealed Magic

 Seriously, just stop it. The quality of the product is shit and it's not going to get better because WOTC does not care so long as people keep buying the slop they put out. I've been playing Magic for over a decade now and in that time I've watched this game slip increasingly into the scalpers hands because there's so much money to be made on the secondary market especially when it comes to commander. 

I sold out and I recommend you do too, it's only going to get worse. As for me, I'll stick to playing Arena and it's janky historic format. It's cheaper and easier than going out and interacting with adult children. Call me an "old fuck," if you want, I'm also super burnt out by all the product that they've been releasing the last couple of years because even when something interesting is released WOTC manages to either restrict distribution of the product, or side load it with a bunch of bulk while including playable cards.

Next time you want to buy sealed magic, instead take that money and either set it on fire or maybe invest in bitcoin/altcoins or something normies do because those things are more productive than giving money to a corporation more interested in exploiting their existing customers than actually making a quality product. INB4 someone says, "Well that's just Capitalism for you," that's the fucking problem you dolt. Capitalism exploits us all and turns the things we love into soulless cash grabs because we're all broken monkey's living on a rock hurling through space trying to find meaning in meaningless things.