Hurlshort

Is the joke that all bunnies are jerks?

They have to be beheadings to count?

That might have been the best case scenario, as Amazon has the deepest of pockets.

The comparison to Rockstar is a good one, as it sounds like they have created a similar workplace. But yeah, they've always done right by their fans, for the most part.

Yeah, you missed 13 seasons of stuff, so I'm not sure what you would expect. Pretty strange that you watched the whole thing, really. I mean, the season 13 finale ended with this: So...it isn't exactly just a horrible people being horrible show.

Why can't both be bad? Last week I taught a lesson on satire and censorship and covered the Charlie Hebdo story as well as the recent teacher killing in France. But I did request that my students not kill me, so *fingers crossed* It's basically a 1st Amendment lesson. So it covers freedom of religion, speech, press, and protest rights. It's based on previous lessons about the Magna Carta and Henry II's Royal Court system. I also shared news stories about the NY Post and Twitter censorship of the Hunter Biden story, as well as last years actions by Blizzard and the NBA in regards to China and the Hong Kong protests. It's pretty hard to gauge how it went during digital learning. I think I may need to rework it, since it has become a bit overwhelming with all the crazy stories that I can use to teach it. And this week we started our unit on Islam, so the students all get to learn about a very different, non-secular way of life.

Grading my first Unit exams during this digital teaching experiment reminds me that there are two kinds of people in this world; those that can extrapolate on limited data.

After reading that, my brain is now concerned with the fat content of tapioca pudding.

Oh man, that General Commander looks bad in a very bad way. I was just telling my students about the Halloween movies this week. We are watching the great epic The Message as we start our Islam unit, and I always like to explain how amazing it is Moustapha Akkad was even able to make the movie, and his role in helping produce one of the first big horror movie franchises. I even have a student named Michael Meyers in class this year.

I watched that Dresden interview, and I had no idea that Spike wasn't British. Wow.

Outer Worlds struck me as a game that I will probably go back to waaay down the line. I need enough time to really forget the storylines. It was a fairly linear game. I think a lot of that comes down to the scope of it, as it was a pretty small universe. The DLC will help whenever I do go back, but I'd rather have them all be done, so another reason to wait. But I also don't think every game needs to be constantly replayable. I think a lot of games sacrifice narrative strength to cater to replayability.

Grounded is basically a sequel to Alpha Protocol. You are clearly in Heck's backyard.

Picked up Stoneshard for sale, which is a good Halloween type game for the weekend. I only died once during the tutorial, so that felt good. It's a turn based RPG that is a little bit of Battle Brothers with a bad save system, but well worth the $15.

We have to claify it here because none of the politicians seems capable of it. Seriously, our banter on this forum is absolutely tame compared to the massive overstatements that our politicians are prone to today.

All of that sounds very vague and hyperbolic. I watched the 60 Minutes segment today and learned that both Trump and Biden are unlikeable and creepy. Pence came across alright and Harris just seemed happy to be there. https://www.yahoo.com/news/bar-rescue-host-jon-taffer-223220477.html This is probably the closest thing I've seen to a rationale endorsement of the Trump administration. You've got a hospitality expert focused solely on policy in respect to his industry. I'd love to see more of that instead of all this stupid hyperbole and bluster. None of these people are great saviors or flesh golems. They're just politicians with agendas. My interests are better represented by Biden at this point. Betsy Davos is a poor representative for public education and I can hold Trump responsible for that. End of story, that is my main interest.

Ah yes, I do tend to cook all my salmon on the grill, usually with a good brown sugar and mustard marinade. We get about 5 pounds of salmon a month from a local processing facility. Basically they cut off the ends and send the big pretty part to Costco. We get the ends for a great price from an employee. This stuff is so much fresher than what you get in the stores. My son survives off mahi mahi patties from Trader Joes, so that tends to be what ends up in the all-clad. Shrimp is the other staple, and I can see where shrimp would be pretty awesome on a skillet. I've only done the cedar plank once and it was a weird experience. I ended up with a pretty charred piece of wood.

I use my All-Clad for fish.

This seems kind of like a flimsy way of explaining our existence. Dust may do all sorts of crazy things in an explosion, but it doesn't really change the nature of the dust.

I also thought season 2 of Umbrella Academy was a big step up in terms of fun. They embraced the dysfunctional family aspect and it was less drama-y. Plus the alt history stuff was great.

I harvested about a pound of hops this year from my hop vines, but I have no way to dry them, and all the brewing equipment is in storage, so they will simply be decorative for the time being. Still, it was nice to see them getting more productive. Next year maybe I will have a plan in place to use them.

Decided to give Start Trek Online another whirl. This time I'm playing the Enterprise timeline, because I've been watching that show recently. It seems like a good place to start since it is a bit simpler in terms of story, and my memory of Next Generation is super fuzzy.

Students are tested on Social Science in 8th grade, and the test breakdown was pretty much 4 questions on 6th grade content, 3 questions on 7th, and 4 questions on 8th grade content. It has actually shifted quite a bit in the last few years and is no longer the silly multiple guess format. I also teach in an area with a lot of parent involvement and it is predominately Asian, so I am spoiled by not having to really worry about the test scores. I have taught in lower socio-economic schools and it matches that clip from The Wire to a tee.

Yep, that's basically it. We have certain educational standards we have to cover. We have a textbook that covers those standards. How we teach it is going to vary greatly, and is why we all go to school for 5+ years, student teach, take credentialing tests, attend professional development, etc. New teachers lean heavily on the textbook. You have to figure a new teacher relies on it for about 80% of the year's content and instruction. As you get further along in teaching, it becomes easier to streamline the boring textbook content and introduce more varied sources and lessons to students. I'd say I was down to about 30% with the previous textbooks while still covering the standards. We just adopted new books, and I have less teaching time in digital learning, so I'm probably back up to about 60% on the textbook this year. I am sure some states, districts, and administrations are way more heavy handed in forcing lessons on teachers. I know it is a lot more stifling to do math and ELA in my district. But Social Science is a pretty magical subject.

I am the expert, asshat.

I'm mostly trying to figure out how to cover that story without sounding like a preacher, but also in a timely manner. Trying to find good material for it is a huge minefield. Are you trying to make my job more difficult?