Bartimaeus

I thought for sure China would take advantage of our extreme foreign policy weakness under Trump and put the kaibosh on Taiwan while Trump was president. Trump has been so wishy-washy in committing to the defense of any allies, and I just didn't see him giving enough of a crap about Taiwan to potentially start World War III over it if China decided to take it...when he could just decide not to. Thankfully, China has not yet pushed the issue.

Yep. Publications have started officially calling for Warnock. Ossof will probably take longer, but at a >95% chance, he has almost certainly won as well. A monumental achievement by the Democrats to take Georgia like this. (e): I've been spelling his name "Ossof" all night and apparently it's "Ossoff". Whoops.

And back in reality, there is no path of victory remaining for Warnock's opponent, Warnock has been given a >95% chance to win (final margin likely to be a ~2 point victory). There is only the smallest sliver of a chance for Ossof's opponent to win, but it is very small indeed (6%). We're just waiting for one particular Atlanta county to drop its results before this is called for at least Warnock and possibly Ossof as well. (e): And there you go, Warnock has officially taken the lead back, with Ossof only very slightly trailing (but with the big drop without any surprise shift, his opponent also no longer has any remaining path of victory).

A few experts have already called it for Warnock, and Ossof is looking better and better as well. Looking pretty likely to be a 50-50 Senate. Wow, Georgia! (e): Warnock at over a 90% chance now, Ossof just outside of 80% (the margin of error). Could thankfully have this settled by tonight.

NYT (which tracks where the results are coming from and models their ongoing prediction of who will win based on who's over- or under-performing where - correctly predicted Biden barely winning Georgia a few months ago very early into the race based on the same kind of early returns even when Biden was down big) gives both Democratic candidates about a ~1 point lead right now. Other election experts saying they favor the Democrats as well at this point. (e): Inching closer and closer towards Democrat Warnock winning, currently sitting at an 80% chance with what's left - just about the margin of error. Democrat Ossof is still doing well as well, but not quite as much as Warnock, at about a 65% chance.

I normally wouldn't mind a split Congress, but these are unusual times (and also, at best, it'd be a 50-50 split so nothing too radical for the Democratic agenda with the few more conservative senators like Manchin still around). There's nothing more I'd like to see than that ghoul McConnell lose Senate Majority Leader.

2020 taketh and 2021 giveth? It's a good start to a new year! (e): Apparently, she's still in critical condition (and also, while she did go to the hospital in December, her death was reported as a couple of days ago, not then, so not 2020's fault).

Came to power via democracy, and then cemented it via illegal and extralegal means once they were in power with the help of collaborators. I know a guy that would love to be able to do the same right about now, but has thankfully been coming up just a little short on the collaborators part so far...

I'm on a site that keeps track of movies I've watched, and what I rated them. It's pretty useful for cataloging what I've seen and what I liked or didn't like over a long period of time (started in 2017, up to 260 titles now). Time can make things fuzzy.

I think the difference is that while that crap was popular among a large segment of the rank and file voters, the top of the party itself (i.e. party leaders and actual politicians) was relatively unaffected for a long time. That's been changing in a large way since Trump, we're now seeing the party more strongly reflect the feelings of its voters. ...Which, in theory, sounds like a good thing in a democracy (and is something the Democratic Party could benefit from in some areas), but when it's fascism and hatred and disenfranchisement of others...well, not so much, not unless you're one of them.

I've played through all of the Momodora games...gave Minoria a try some months ago, but the gameplay felt pretty different for a number of reasons (and...markedly worse). Hated the art style change, too - from a charming pixel art cartoon-anime hybrid style to a much more generic (and kind of creepy, but not in a good way) 3D anime style, no thank you. Ended up dropping it after a few hours. Also, I just realized this is the TGGG thread and not the "What Are You Playing" thread, so I really shouldn't just be dumping on a game like this...but oh well.

lmao

(e): Just noticed Gromnir posted this already, so consider this a reply to his post: The description says "blackmail", but I listened to all of it and didn't really hear anything that could qualify as blackmail (there are no threats or really anything he's holding over the Georgian Secretary of State), so I think that's a little sensationalist, but it was still amusing listening to Trump's pathetic and corrupt pleas.

I got through the first season (10 episodes) of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, thought "wow, that was a supremely mediocre teen drama show with only a slight veneer of actually being dark but maybe the second season will be better". Got through about two more episodes: nope.

Different minds take spoilers very differently, I think. Years and years ago, I noticed that people who get very upset about spoilers pretty much always remember exactly what the spoiler was about, who/what it pertained to, what it would probably mean, etc...so I decided to start making an active effort to not care at all about spoilers. I wouldn't go seeking them out or anything, but if I saw them, I wouldn't get upset or pay much heed. I've since discovered that I'm now basically impossible to spoil unless someone is actually deliberately trying to spoil something I'm currently watching/playing/reading (and sometimes not even then), because my brain just doesn't pay enough attention to it to really fully register it or try to make it fit into what I know of the media. I've given this advice to other people before, but it doesn't seem to be for everyone, . I've watched Lindsay Ellis' several hours-long Game of Thrones summary/analysis, and I'm pretty sure almost none of it would affect how I would watch Game of Thrones (I have not seen a single episode) since I didn't make any mental effort to specifically note any of the character progressions or plot points.

Packers lost All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari in practice to a torn ACL today. One last "**** you" from 2020, I guess.

yeah man, burnt corpses, moms whose faces were literally melted off, starvation and depression...and diseased and dying siblings, totally what I'd have six year-olds watching,

Chibi-Usa: I didn't mind her at first, but I'm starting to get a little more annoyed with her because of how much screen-time as well as the narrative itself she's been dominating since she entered the show. The show is called Sailor Moon, not Sailor...Mini Moon! However, my understanding is that the focus eventually switches back to more on Usagi, so I'm remaining patient with her. Mamoru: That entire sequence was brutal. Logically, of course I know this is going to resolve itself just fine eventually and it's completely silly to spend even a moment thinking about it or feeling bad for Usagi, but just like when the Sailors each met their respective fates at the end of season 1, the execution is brutal and heartfelt enough that my brain stops paying attention to the fact that it's a show where nothing bad is ever going to last (...well, besides poor Naru's dark heaven king guy getting smoked in season 1 - I kind of liked him, and he's still dead, R.I.P.). The absolute despair she was in had me convinced she might legitimately start having like suicidal tendencies for a bit there, but of course, her being herself, she was able to quickly redirect herself in aims of resolving things (and that made perfect sense for both her character as well as the show as a whole, since her being in a depression for an extended period would've been too much to bear). I've probably laughed the most at this show that I've ever laughed at anything (particularly if we look at in the lens of being, you know, an absolutely ludicrous ~40 episodes a season, and it also being a completely wholesome, silly type of entertainment), and the fact that it can elicit other types of emotional responses is...well, great. It's just a great show, it really is - it's right up there with my two other favorite cartoons of all time, which are Steven Universe and Avatar: The Last Airbender (and, of course, my list of favorite shows overall is dominated by cartoons in general, so that's saying a lot from me!). Funnily, I only just barely decided to write about in here at all on the off-chance anybody else had ever seen the show (and also, as a formerly life-long anti-anime zealot, I was kind of embarrassed to admit that I liked and even loved it), so I'm also glad that I did, .

Just gotta beat the Giants and hope the WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM lose to the Eagles and you're in. Aaron Rodgers will be winning his third MVP this season (pending victory over the Bears?), putting him in rare company. Hoping a SBMVP is also on its way, but I'll see it when I believe it. Fantastic bounce-back year for him after a couple of more above average seasons.

Yeah, I'd never be able to vote ever again if my signature was subject to verification. Can't write for crap.

Just a little bit, since clouds were coming in and out. Looked at them a few times with my telescope over the last week since I knew it was going to be cloudy last night. Real cold outside, though, especially since it snowed all day yesterday.

Cowboys winning more pointless games to tank their draft position, you hate to see it.

Try Chrome out once and see what kind of options/solutions you can find for its auto-updating - you'd be running back to Firefox real quick, .