The Musings Of The Consensus

It's been a few years since he passed away after a valiant fight with cancer, and I never really voiced my feelings on the man, but considering the impact he had on my life and so many others, I feel I should say something. He was, first and foremost, a pillar of integrity in every community he set foot in. Even well into retirement, until cancer set in, he was working hard for his community as a builder, carpenter, plumber, painter, and any other job he could do for people that involved constructing things because he liked to create useful things for other people. He was also a devout believer in God and served with distinction in every church he set foot in. He led my family in reverence for the Lord and was a moral anchor for more than one generation. He was also incredibly erudite. He had enough certifications, plaques, and degrees to wallpaper a house, and he was very learned in his letters and his speech. He was also a firm patriot, and he served his country honorably...

Before I do this review proper, I just want to add I've always loved the Star Trek episodes where diplomacy of some sort was the focus of the protagonist cast, because usually the Federation's ambassadors were usually competent but nigh always had ego problems, were idealistic to the point they were convinced they could get anyone to join hands and sing Kumbayaa with them, and their arrogance usually caused most of the issues in the episode. This is going to be one of those episodes. We begin as Kirk narrates a captain log about how they are enroute to Eminar VII to open diplomatic relations with the people there. Just as Uhura and Kirk discuss whether anyone is picking up the phone in response to their hails, Ambassador Robert Fox walks onto the bridge, just as Uhura confirms they got the message, and sent back a "Code 710" Fox is all "Uh, what's that?" and is duly informed that is shorthand for "Go away and stay away." Fox tells Kir...

This was recommended to me to review on the Kiwi Farms by a user there, so I decided to give a whirl. We start the episode as Captain Kirk walks onto the bridge to get the news of a garbled distress call from a nearby solar system, only intelligible words being "Constellation." Worse, the planets in that system have all been destroyed. Now, I know William Shatner gets accused of overacting, but his stunned "Wat?" to all this is actually pretty good. As we cut to next scene, he's still in shock mode as Sulu reports yep, no sign their sensors were full of it, stuff is destroyed. However, Spock discovers the two innermost planets of the system they are currently investigating (as more than one seems to have been destroyed) seem to be intact. Also, given they are search for the "Constellation" and a starship currently lying adrift has it's distress beacon blinking on sensors, Kirk orders Sulu to head out to check on it. As they approach the sh...

It's been awhile since I took some time to discuss a topic of this nature, but I just wanted to sit down for a moment and share some personal thoughts about the more disappointing aspects of human nature. Whether you believe in religion or not, most people concur the mass majority of us tends toward seeing the worst. Because even the average atheist will concede we are far from perfect, it's human nature to be suspicious of anyone claiming a virtue. They expect that, not entirely unreasonably, to be another shoe to drop. To be fair, this is partially based on some truth. Since so much of humanity tends to see the worst in others, believing terrible things about them is easy, and from that it becomes easier to rationalize anything good about them as being a smokescreen for them being as bad if not worse than you believe they really are. The more you convince yourself someone is a horrible human being, the more confirmation bias drives you to take whatever truth you learn abo...

I eventually plan to review this game for ChristCenteredGamer, so I'll save any content related to it's technical merits for that, so I mostly just want to talk about the plot and translation. First off, the plot. While the past few games in Super Robot Wars have been dimension hopping and that was getting a bit old, this game, while still having you briefly visit a few other dimensions, still mostly takes place in Earth's solar system. I wasn't exactly one of those people who hated the dimension hopping plots, but it's nice to see the writers don't have to use that as a crutch to write a decent crossover plot, they wrote something that uses that only when necessary, not to justify every single part of the plot. Second, they added Captain Harlock, Cowboy Bebop, and Magic Knight Rayearth. They did a good job making sense of all the above, I'm happy to say. Feel a little potential was missed with Cowboy Bebop, but it's a credit to the writers they mad...

As I write this, Iran is retaliating against the US for taking their head cloak and dagger man, who provably incited terrorists to attack one of our embassies. As to taking down said inciter, they brought blood on their own head by hurting Americans and he paid the price for it. It's regrettable either side shed blood, but it is what it is. But now it looks like there might be even more conflict that becomes a war over this, and I find nothing to be happy about. It was likely inevitable, and I doubt it could have been avoided, but killing people is nothing no one should be cheering for, at least not if you aren't a murderous animal. If US troops have to fight this out, they have my support as an American citizen, but I hope their deaths are as few as possible and it ends as quickly as possible. As for the Iranians, I hope common sense breaks out and they decided to put down the sword before too many of them die by it. Enough have died already. As for me, I'm going t...

Note: This post used to be on Medium.com until it was taken down for a rules violation, which I have not contested. I am rehosting it here and hereby release it for anyone to rehost wherever they please, just link back to this original to show where you got it. I’m taking a trip down memory lane to take apart a long ago GamerGhazi post by Brianna Wu where HE (read one of my earlier Medium posts if you want to see why I no longer humor John Flynt’s wishes to refer to him by female pronouns) say he refuses to comment on the subject of his being transgender. Brianna Wu: Why I don't respond when Gamergate accuses me of being tr... This is a post I've been meaning to write for a long time now. Every single day, I have Gamergaters writing to call me… archive.is (Original in italic, my comments in regular font) This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time now. Every single day, I have Gamergaters writing to call me transgender. Somewhere along the way, it...