Monthly Archives: September 2020

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Stand Or Not: It’s America

I’m a hardcore Patriots fan. New England for life. Football really is one of the few traditional sports that I can sit through and love every second of it. I don’t care about the things off the field, mostly. I mean, if I heard that a player I liked sexually assaulted women and beat their kids, I would stop being a fan of them and root for their demise in the league and legally. But aside from being creepy, douche-y, or otherwise a harm to society, I don’t care. You want to play football with a Trump sticker on your Patriots helmet? Fine, I don’t care just do your job and score touchdowns. You want to kneel during the National Anthem? Cool, make those blocks. I honestly don’t care what your political ideals are any more than I care about what an actor thinks.

I pointed this out on a friend’s Facebook, specifically stating that one’s political beliefs don’t impact me like that. A person’s response? “I’m not watching that crap.” I didn’t respond back. I don’t care if they’re not going to watch it. Them not watching the game has 0 impact on my life and how I feel about watching the game. Your beliefs have 0 impact on me as long as you aren’t trying to force me into believing in the same things. Then, I have a problem. Otherwise, I’m not going to argue with you about why you should watch. I honestly don’t care. It’s your right not to and it’s my right to watch. One should not have an impact on the other.

Another person pointed out how disrespectful it is that they are kneeling. I countered the point: “Jehovah’s Witnesses typically don’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance or National Anthem, but no one seems to care. What’s the difference?” They didn’t think about it that way. So what is the difference? One difference is that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe their allegiance is to God’s Kingdom and not the country. The other difference is that the football players actually kneel or stand in solidarity rather than ignoring the anthem. So, I would argue isn’t it worse that Jehovah’s Witness don’t even acknowledge the importance of these symbolic words than kneeling in respect of them? The only reason it’s a problem is because politicians made it a problem. Also, religious freedom so I don’t care as long as they stop ringing my doorbell at 9 am on a Sunday morning.

That’s really the problem with everything. Everything needs to be politicized and you need to fall on one end of the spectrum or the other. They don’t believe in a gray area. They just follow whatever they are supposed to follow rather than just thinking about things rationally for a second. It took me 2 seconds when politicians started complaining to remember a friend of mine growing up who wouldn’t stand for the flag during the morning announcements because of their religion. I didn’t think anything of it because I grew up with this silly notion that, and I know it’s crazy, that their beliefs didn’t affect me. What’s the difference if it’s religious beliefs or a moral belief? Isn’t religion just a moral belief system? I don’t necessarily believe in religion or believe that you need religion to have morals, but aren’t morals just morals no matter the origin?

So stand or don’t stand. I don’t care. It’s your right as an American to follow your beliefs and as long as you’re not forcing others to have those same beliefs, then it doesn’t matter.

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It’s Like Watching Something on Television

Who doesn’t enjoy watching shows that discuss political intrigue and unbelievable circumstances? We binge-watch television shows and movies all about these topics, discussing what would happen if this were the real world. We’d laugh; that would never happen.

…Except, isn’t it? What if we watched a television show where the president of a country that brags about freedoms, ends up deciding that they are going to be the president forever because they want to even if they are voted out? Because it isn’t possible that there are people who legitimately don’t want him as president anymore. Because people are tired of reading Onion article headlines and wondering if it’s actually real because the “reality” we live in just doesn’t seem quite real anymore.

I’ve been avoiding writing lately. I haven’t “felt” it. My heart isn’t in it because honestly my heart isn’t in much right now. The world around me hurts my brain and whatever soul I have left and I’m left here jaded because everything just feels so insane to me right now. My only thought is “Would everyone be so cavalier about what’s going on right now if the other party was doing it?” Because, I’m pissed at both sides of the arguments and I know for a fact that I would be pissed in either situation. If Schumer had said “Trump shouldn’t get his pick because we have 6 months left in the election” and then said “Early voting already started and Biden gets his pick”, I would be outraged. And I’m honestly enraged that people don’t seem to care about it except the Democrats, who are the party of righteous indignation. But are they outraged because they are right? Or are they outraged because everything outrages them right now?

Do I agree in the choice to let President Trump select a Supreme Court Justice when an election has already started despite not letting President Obama do the same several months out of the election? No. If you can’t do it in one situation, you shouldn’t do it in the other. When you are on camera and you reiterate this point, then back it up because it benefits you, it’s wrong. It isn’t about benefiting you politically; it should be about what’s right. If they had let President Obama get his pick out and then did it now, I wouldn’t necessarily like it but it wouldn’t be wrong. What’s wrong is potentially putting someone up who wants to make laws based on their religion, not the constitution. A Supreme Court Justice should uphold the constitution, not push a religious agenda.

I don’t want to talk about any of that. I don’t want to keep talking about how insane the world we live in right now is. I don’t want to remind people of how divisive the country is and how people either don’t realize or don’t care that they aren’t helping matters. I hate how in the past I could point out logical flaws in people’s posts without any problems or even with comments of “I never thought of it like that”, but now I refrain because people don’t care about what’s logical or reasonable. They don’t like the effort of free-thought. Everyone has to have an agenda. You are either with them or against them. It couldn’t be possible that I don’t like President Trump and not be a Democrat. It can’t be possible that I’m not that keen on Biden but am not a Republican. People seem to think that independent thinkers actually exist. We do and we’re pissed.

We live in a television show now. We live in a television show that has ruined actually watching these types of shows. Why should I finish watching “House of Cards” if I’m essentially living it? What happens if I wished “Designated Survivor” actually happened, but maybe without Ben Carson taking over as president? It doesn’t matter anyways. I’m getting close to just thinking that it just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what party is in office if you can’t fix the underlying problem: the States of America are not United. They are divided by race and religion and political ideals. They are divided by the principle of “whoever doesn’t agree with me is the enemy”. It doesn’t matter if they back up their opinion with rational thought; it’s not about facts or logic. It’s about right and wrong, even if the truth is somewhere in the middle.

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Shadowlands: The True Beta Experience

Now that there’s really not much to talk about in the Overwatch Leage, aside from my MVP choice Fleta winning the award and Washington Justice somehow doing exceptionally well in the playoffs before finally falling to the Philadelphia Fusion, it’s time to look at the Beta Experience for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

At first, the experience started off well. The story was great. I’m not sure I liked the story more than some of my other favorite expansions like Legion and Wrath of the Lich King, but the story was far more interesting than what BFA turned out to be. (I admit, I did enjoy the BFA story for a while but eventually was bored of it.) The prequel book was good and a great lead-in to the beta… but there was something missing. Things were pretty easy to get through, and it was interesting coming across some of these characters that we have loved in the past to see where they are now that they are dead.

The Bug That Ended it All. And Led to Another Major issue.

But then, things halted. As you can see, there’s this really cool looking effect on the side of the screen. The problem is… that’s not supposed to be there. That’s the effect you get as you travel through the wormhole to get to Oribos. This is how the whole situation happened, though according to the forums these 2 issues are completely separate:

  • I moved on from Maldraxxus, which is a cool zone for those fans of necromancers in WoW, into Ardenweald. This zone in pictures was gorgeous and the creatures and NPCs that were in this zone looked so stunning. I suppose it helps that this zone had beautiful shades of blue everywhere. It was fun questing, finding mischief with the NPCs… until I go to turn in the quest.
  • There was seemingly everyone on the server who was trying to also unsuccessfully turn in this quest. Tried the usual things and even abandoned the quest. I tried to retrieve said quest, “Tending to Wildseeds”, and the NPC was nowhere to be found. Cool.
  • I hearthed, forgetting that my hearth was back in Bastion. Easy enough… just fly back to Adrenweald and try going back again. Except when I landed, now I’m stuck with this wormhole effect that lags and makes playing impossible.
  • Go to the forums, it’s a common issue. Just do an arena skirmish or instance and it will clear when you get back out. Went into an instance, could barely do anything because of lag caused by said instance, then got out and still had the issue.

The Problem With These Issues

As already mentioned, the wormhole effect makes it so that the game lags horribly and I can’t really do anything. Which I suppose is fine, because apparently I can’t do anything anyways. In Shadowlands, the quests are linear. So when a quest bugs and you can’t do it/turn it in, you’re stuck in the game. You can’t get quests elsewhere. You can’t just move onto another zone. While I enjoy the linear storytelling of this approach, when you have a bug that breaks the game so you can’t complete the quest you are stuck in a loop of nothing. You can’t do anything, except instances. Which, with the wormhole bug, makes that impossible too.

The Concern

The game is supposed to be released next month. This has apparently been an issue since the beginning of September and if it’s still an issue today, then is the game even going to be able to be released on launch day? Or are they just hoping that people won’t level that high until some time (/lulz) and they can just wing it? Is the response to just not make that a quest that requires you to move on?

Please Make This Work

The beta in Shadowlands has been fun. I can’t wait to play it more… maybe another toon won’t stay perma-stuck at 57 because of the same bugs. Maybe not. But I’m actually still really excited that this could be a fun expansion with a great story. I’m hoping later this week, with the kids back at “school”, I can get into streaming it. For now.. please make the game work. I really want to try the covenants.

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Overwatch League Playoffs 2020: The First Week

I went into the knockouts expecting the Boston Uprising to lose their first match. I still was going to watch and root for them, since I’m not the type of fan that just turns my back on my favorite teams. But I mean, they weren’t going to win right? Even if they were going up against Houston, who has had a difficult time lately. I would’ve been okay with a Houston win, since I like the team. They are good people, have great role models for kids, and are just generally hilarious when you read their social media or watch them stream. But then, the first match broke so many brackets. Because Boston won that first match!

I couldn’t believe it. They did so well the first map. They rolled out with different comps each match. They tried new things. They played aggressively. Our DPS played on characters that they were actually good at. Myunbong was on his apparently most amazing character ever (Ana) and just tossing out sleeps that seemed impossible to get. If this was the team that we had all year, we would have had more than just 2 wins in the regular season. While I admit that when I saw Fusions roll out on the Roadhog I was scared, it turned out so much better than I thought. He was able to play more aggressively, which seems to be his preference. Punk was amazing. They were all amazing. It was incredible and bittersweet to watch. We finally get a meta that works for us, and it’s in the playoffs.

Then the drawings happened for the playoff teams to pick their choices for the next round of knockouts. The first team didn’t pick us. (Gladiators) Then, Atlanta’s resident “villain” picked us. However, instead of his normal trash talk saying things like “ez”, he picked us because he wanted to see the drama and storyline about Decay (Justice) going up against his old team (Fuel) that released him while badmouthing him right before the playoffs.

Now, of course we lost the second round, but I’m not disappointed in the loss. They didn’t get destroyed. They put up a fight. They looked good; just Atlanta looked better.

The playoffs showed me that this team had talent. It showed that I was right; you figure out a way to let these guys play the characters they are good at rather than forcing a meta and they win. They look and play more confidently, which means that they are more aggressive. It was far more enjoyable watching the Uprising lose to Atlanta in the playoffs than it was to watch them lose practically all their matches all season long. Why? Because they played their heart outs. They looked great out there. They weren’t losing because they were terrible; they were just losing because Atlanta was just a little bit better.

What do I want to see next season? I’m definitely hoping for new coaches. Ones that can plan out better strats and work with the strengths of the players rather than forcing something that obviously isn’t working. Is it the coaching or HuK micromanaging? I’m not sure. If he is, maybe he should take a step back and let the coaches do their job. The playoffs showed the potential of this team. I wouldn’t be opposed to everyone staying now. I would even keep Fusions as a tank. I want the team to have more players next season, so that you can swap players in and out like other teams do. Because character picks can be dependent on the meta and the map, so the ability to swap players in and out means that you can get the perfect comps for each map. At least one backup for each position. I’m not asking for a lot here. And maybe next season, actually swap players in and out. Or change strats on the fly. Because there were so many games this season that the team just smashed their head against the wall repeatedly hoping for different results but getting the same exact stomping by the other team. Maybe then, we can have a winning team.

My pick for the Grand Finals winner is Shanghai. I have them in my now deceased bracket going against the Shock in the finals, but I’d love to see a Shanghai win. Plus, Fleta was my pick for MVP so I’d like to see that too. The Shanghai redemption arc would be so amazing if they could add “Grand Finals Champions” to their name.