General Chat: Yeah, no. I'm still your benevolent neighborhood deity.

1) I've watched a lot of Steven Universe, I think all currently released episodes, and it IS really good. It amuses me that apparently many old Homestuck fans became SU fans, some even call it the new Homestuck fandom. Plus, the stories ARE similar in a couple of points. The strong focus on an interessting race of aliens that allows for easily created OCs is definitely something they have in common.

2) Okay, I have no clue why they'd introduce new pokemons now? Like, there weren't any news about any new games I missed, right?

I am... Not completely lost! I don't watch Steven Universe and I don't really intend to... Not because its boring or because "I'm too matoor for that stuff" but simply because I don't watch TV. Too much of a time sink! I still haven't finished Veronica Mars and that only had two and a half seasons, and I backed the movie...

...that said, I pick up a lot of random tidbits. Fairly sure I have no remaining spoilers left, I know who the major characters are and whatever. When in doubt, wikibinge. (Although having not watched it, I do wonder whether the show is pronouncing Peridot correctly; see: CucumberQuest.) But yeah, Pokemon!! Honestly there's really not a lot to say about the new guy. Conjecture at this point would be silly, but there's solid money on a revisit to Kalos in the near future. Which I am looking forward to! I liked Kalos, as a region, and wouldn't mind seeing it again after getting the Unova Version 2 makeover. I wonder though. Sequel, or third version?? I think I hope Sequel. I'd rather not do the same AZ/Lysandre/Discover-Pointless-Things-About-Mega-Evolution thing again.

In the meantime ORAS is still fun and I have only caught 1 legendary so far so there's plenty left to do.

oh yes oras is so fun to play when you are
uh
omegaing those rubies and alphaing them saphires

uh
how bout that black 2 guys? so fun to still be playing right?

Honestly, I'd kind of like a traditional third version for Kalos just so they can go back and clean up Team Flare's plot so that it's actually coherent. And so they can maybe try redeeming your stalkers "friends".

Alright, two new conversation topics. Pick yer poison.

American politics:

Pop music!:

Trump is hilarious, as long as he doesn't win.

I don't know anything about current music.

I would be totally cool with a third game, as long as they add something new and exciting to the story.

I'm just hoping Trump is only running for the publicity, not because he's actually trying to win. And I've never been good about keeping up with current music. The stuff I've got on my phone is a mix of Homestuck music, video game soundtracks, and musical soundtracks.

if you like politics (and even more if you dont) fivethirtyeight got ideas as to how to run the debates from the internet
just skip by all the boring rational ideas and go for the fun ideas like having all the competitors compete in wheel of fortune and then taking the top eight scorers who would then duke it out in ppv boxing to see who would make the debate or using robot ronald regan from disneyland as the moderator

Some/most of you guys are old enough to vote, right? When it comes to it, are any of you gonna eschew the two-party system and go independent? Whatshisname Bernie Sanders seems pretty popular on the internet and his policies would be more to my taste than Mrs. Clinton's. (I don't like her policies )

Not that I have a say! I have a passport but I'm p.sure I have to be resident for a few years before I can vote. And rightly so. But don't take my word for it, I'm a godless commie european liberal!

e: "really don't like" would be an exaggeration, I mean, there are worse people. But she's just gonna be Obama 2.0 and while I appreciate a lot of the stuff he's done as a person and as a leader and on a lot of social issues, and some financial stuff, I feel he hasn't done enough especially on foreign policy. (speaking as a foreigner with dual citizenship.) But I think he HAS opened up the floor to more left-wing options that wouldn't have been conceivable after Bush. Hence Sanders.

The voting age is 18 here in the US, so I'm not sure how many of us that qualifies. I voted for Obama last time around, but I suspect I may end up voting for Sanders this time since I'm not a huge fan of Hilary (she just feels too slimy), and I don't anticipate the Republicans putting anyone palatable forward. Of course, we're still over a year away from the actual election, so I refuse to lock myself in this early. For all we know, the Democrats may decide that Hilary's too controversial and nominate someone else.

Hrmmm. AFAIK Muffinz, yourself, Octi and Hanky are all over 18 and in the US? I'm probably forgetting some people. But if I'm right, that's, like, FOUR voters. You guys could totally swing a state or two.

If it helps, I STRONGLY suggest doing the political compass test and seeing where your score falls on the map alongside parties and politicians. Mine is... considerably left/left. But the parties that flip power over here (and I do mean a binary flip; they identify themselves as being "Not the Other Party" as opposed to any specific difference in policies) are almost exactly beside one another and are squarely within the right/right zone (about where the US Democrats are). Alas!

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

i know i could swing a state by myself

on an aside why are there already republican attack ads for the 2016 election airing here i mean come on its more than a year away and hillary hasnt already won the democratic nomination just let me watch tv in peace

Of course the attack ads have started. Why am I not surprised. Guess it's a good thing I don't watch live TV much anymore.

Ahh, I don't have a TV available where I am for the summer, and haven't caught up with the Republican Debate yet due to other life things, but...

Yeah, I am of age to vote, and this'll probably be my first time going (by the time I remembered about my absentee ballot last time, it was a few hours too late to run to the Post Office). I'm really torn between Clinton and Sanders, because on one hand, I'd really like to see a woman take office. I really want that precedent, at the very least. But on the other, I agree with CA: she really does feel "slimy."

I'm withholding any sort of final decision until they talk more and commit to more, I think. I'm also not 100% sure about my policy beliefs, as my parents were either never particularly concerned about US politics or didn't discuss them in front of me. So I'm still in that weird phase of trying to figure out what I believe.

I think Barak was pretty great, compared to previous presidents, he was just way too over hyped.

A female president would be nice, but I think one shouldn't overvalue something like that. Also, in case you care, apparently Sanders would be the first Non-christian president?

But then again, I ain't american, so what do I know, I suppose. You do you, just try to not vote for someone who'll fuck over the whole world, please.

Thing with Obama is that he... did try to follow through on everything, or at least most of what he promised to? But he got shafted with a republican-dominated congress who actively shut down everything he tried to do.

I have a new favorite band. It starts with a J.

Yeah, the deck was definitely stacked against him. Although I do also suspect that he may just not be as skilled at leading as he was at campaigning. Plus, the president really doesn't have as much power as we tend to assume. For at least half the stuff everyone wants the president to accomplish, we really need to be pressuring Congress instead.

The whole bipartisan thing is ridiculous anyway. Douglas Adams had a skit on it in the 5th Hitchikers book...

“On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

It's sadly applicable, especially when someone says something like "I like Sanders, and I don't like Hilary, but I'm going to support Hilary because she's most likely to win." Uh. What? So any candidate is better than the other candidate? Jesus, you don't get points for voting for the candidate that won, it's not a bloody betting office. Speaking personally, there used to be a fairly large bipartisan mindset here up until only a few years ago, but it was never THAT bad  (you'd always have Labour, the Greens, some Independents, Sinn Fein...) but power always flipped between the two largest parties, and for 90% of the Republic's history power went to one of them rather than the other because the second one had vaguely Unionist sympathies way back when. Like, 60 years ago. And that was the reason people would vote for the party that was always in power. Absurd.
BUT THEN SAID PARTY FUCKED UP THE ECONOMY SO EVERYBODY FLIPPED SIDES AGAIN AND THE OTHER GUYS ARE ONLY DOING OKAY BUT REALLY THEY'RE JUST DOING WHAT THE EU SAYS SO REALLY ANY PARTY IS A RELATIVELY POWERLESS AND AMORPHOUS PARTY WITH NO REAL POLICIES SO VOTE INDEPENDENT BECAUSE WHY THE HELL NOT
(i'm actually pro EU but the point stands)

Anyway from a personal standpoint I can't reconcile the picture of the friendly, humorous, generally liberal Obama with the one that was in power during the whole Edward Snowden debacle. Like, jesus, guys. I can't believe that's even an issue. Guy exposes the government doing something huge, and illegal, and hella wrong, but it's okay because "terrorism"? And then CLEARLY Snowden was the badguy since what he did was illegal? And the Government also says so? And we must Always Support Our Government, lest we be ousted traitors? Christ. And these are often the same people who like to reference the constitution in Gun law debates. Like... you remember what the "Right to Bear Arms" was specifically FOR, right? Also the fact that Obama's website had a big thing about expanding Whistleblower's Rights while he was campaigning which then disappeared after the Snowden thing. That irks me A LOT. Bearing in mind that when Snowden related debates pop up on US media most of the debate is US centric. The NSA spied on its allies, too, and that's really horrible. And then they continued to do it! (Even if Germany or whatever also does it, you take the high road, dammit.) On the other hand, of course, I'd never have voted for Romney in any of your shoes. Which just shows the whole Bipartisan problem again. There's no winning, really.

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On a lighter note, I made a vanilla sponge cake today. But I let the batter settle for too long, and I added sprinkles with soluble dye, and the oven didn't dry out the center... long story short, my yellow, spongey cake had an inside that looks like grape jelly. Like, GREEN grape jelly. I think the sprinkles melted and green must have been the strongest dye. It was... really gross and very surprising. I salvaged it though.

I'm also trying the Time Machine Method for breeding and I can now breed Exactly One Pokemon with 31/31/31/x/31/31 stats and no HA (first ability slot), but only if I have a female parent with similar stats. I have some, but not a lot. If I had an English perfect Ditto, I could make a Metagross, but since I don't it's just a regular physical sweeper. I don't know what to make though. I already have lots of Tyranitar and Excadrill and Talonflame and Azumarill and Bisharp, Lucario's kind of eh, nobody needs more than one Staraptor, Ferrothorn likes a low Speed, I have two Hippowdon already, Gourgeist-L isn't great, one Mega Lopunny is fine, everyone and their mom has a Charizard, I already have a Garchomp, Technician Breloom > Poison Heal, and that just leaves Diggersby, but no HA... I dunno. Does anybody want me to breed one of these Pokemon for them, assuming the method works? I don't think I need any of them.

...Turns out I'm not everyone or their mom, I guess.

Seeing as I've had very little time to poke at Pokemon recently and might only have a bit more once classes start again (planning to drag the bf kicking and screaming into discovering the world of Pokemon), it'd be cool to have a Charizard so I can rejoin the masses of everyone, but only if you really have nothing else to do

As for politics, I spent a bit more time staring at the issues and the candidates, and it just seems more and more like

how did Trump ever actually become a candidate that people are considering

(Do I just live too far under a rock? Probably. I'm crawling out, I swear...)

Haha I just figured everybody had one 'cause it's always been one of the most popular megas, not least because there's two of them... That said I only bred mine a month ago because I got bored SRing legendaries. Its just... I don't battle very regularly? And when I do its with the same teams more or less. So because megas are a 1-of, I find myself never using most of them. Venusaur, Scizor, Gyarados, Lopunny if I could play offense, that's about it really. But at least Charizard has a lot of different ways to play it. I called mine Burny No.1, Burny No.2 and Burny No.3

Do you want a nickname on yours? I'll go Jolly DDancing set if its okay because its the most popular, and Jolly means you won't lose to all those pokemon at 110 base speed. It's absurdly easy to breed it, too... literally the time it takes to hatch one egg, done. Shame the Time Machine Method doesn't really let you pick the Pokemon you want to breed, though. (P.s I still have almost everybody's giveaway Pokemon, guys )

Yeah, I'm probably going to wait until next week to pick up mine, since Time Warner just replaced our router for reasons unclear, and in addition to only being as fast wired as the old one was wireless, they're forcing us to have this horrendous SSID and password until they send some kind of signal boost in a few weeks. School internet just sounds easier.

Wow, thanks, D! Nickname, nickname... Uh. Man, I haven't named anything in a while. Firecracker, I think. Thanks again!

As for internet, my family wants to go on a trip in Canada next week and I have a big presentation on Wednesday, but if you're available anytime in the evening (5:30 onwards PT) on Thurs/Fri I'll be free as well!

Firecracker, eh? Good nickname though its no Burny No.4.
Done and dusted. It's got DDance, Flare Blitz and Outrage, all it needs is training and Roost or maybe Dragon Claw. I also bred a Klefki for lolz while I was getting used to this time machine thingy... If only getting decent legendaries could be so easy ;_; SRing is so horrible.

Uhh, 5.30 pt is 1.30 a.m. my time, and young and sprightly though I am, I doubt I'll be doing those kind of hours on workdays. Except this week, because I don't start work until Monday after that its too hard to tell! Do employers typically mind if you suddenly stop working and initiate Wi-Fi games on a handheld? I will have to ask, as it was not mentioned in their company policy. But either way the giveaway guys have been sitting in my boxes for a while, they don't mind waiting a bit longer.


Umm. Who got what again? Captain got a Gyarados and after that I don't remember. (Umbreon/Starmie/Salamence)

I got the Starmie.

yeah i dont have a charizard either
because you cant get it outside of frlg or xy and guess how many of those games i have
okay i have y but i dont have a 3ds so i cant play it but as soon as i do
in all honestly probably id probably choose bulbasaur over charmander so yeah
so yeah if you can somehow break all the rules and send those pokemon to gen v and then get past all the wifi servers turned off wow im impressed