As a pansexual, intellect is the #1 most attractive trait I find in a significant other. I need someone whom I can have a solid productive discussion with. Intimacy only takes you so far; if you can’t bond on a mental or emotional level, then I can’t stay engaged in a relationship with you.

Empathy is a close second; without empathy, I can’t necessarily trust that your conversation or personal morals/goals are coming from a good place. And I will quickly start to doubt every choice you make in the relationship.

Physical attractiveness is always a bonus, but not required. I am happy with any gender, any body type. I have preferences, but they won’t make or break a relationship. My wife used to worry because she has the opposite body type to some of my preferences. But I informed her that her differences gave me a new experience and helped me to better appreciate her body type. There’s no such thing as a bad body type in my opinion.

I married my wife, not because of her looks or gender, but because she’s my best friend in the whole world. The one person I can talk to about anything and not hold secrets from. We understand each other, wholly support each other, and can agree on most things. And the few things we disagree on doesn’t hurt our relationship. You shouldn’t blindly agree with everything anyway. It’s good to have some conflicting opinions in your life so you don’t get sucked into confirmation biases.

Again, discussion is key. If someone just accepts what you say without any personal thoughts or opinions, then I don’t feel like they’re able to make informed decisions or use critical thinking skills. And that’s not attractive at all to me.

If you were a member of ISIS, you would be considered a member of ISIS regardless of whether you were a janitor or secretary or worked in the cafeteria or you were a combatant.

By this logic, all Americans are terrorists, since they exist under the rule of the US government and haven’t risen up to overthrow it. Therefore, complicit in its actions.

Which, by the way, is the mentality I was regularly exposed to while living abroad. There are some countries that judge our entire nation based on the actions of our government and persecute any citizens of that country because of it.

The world isn’t black and white. Real life is complicated. You can’t make blanket statements against an entire group of people based on the actions of an organization. That’s just encouraging hateful and biased rhetoric toward people you don’t know anything about.

That’s a life lesson I learned while traveling the globe. Some people treated me like a hero when I arrived; some treated me like a terrorist. None of them actually took the time to know me. I was judged based on the actions of the organization I associated with instead of taking the time to witness how I was trying to influence that organization.

And the same could be said of other countries. We’d receive reports of terrorist cells embedded in the populations of third-world nations and be told not to trust the citizens. Yet most people I encountered in that nation were grateful for our presence and glad that we kept the local crime and violence at all-time lows, simply by being there.

I worked with Iraqi citizens who begged us not to leave their country because they hadn’t known peace until we arrived; there was so much violent and murderous infighting between the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds. And having a foreign military power in the area, especially one with our reputation, prevented a lot of deaths and gave local citizens a chance to rebuild and get back on their feet.

I don’t believe in violence. I don’t believe in supporting rich powerful elites. I joined the military to help empower the working class; to give them the tools and resources to rise up against dictators and take back their rights as human beings.

And during my 20 years of service, I had a net positive result in that regard. I never had to raise a weapon against anyone. Never had to violate anyone’s rights while supporting their oppressive government. Never had to compromise my own morals for my job. I accomplished my personal goal of being a positive influence on this world.

You talk about Iraq as if it was a one-off, an outlier.

This was the largest conflict during my time in the military, so it was the first example I defaulted to. Yes, I’m aware that the US has involved themselves in foreign conflicts that it doesn’t have any right to be associated with. Heck, I’ve been protesting our direct involvement in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the poor way we’ve handled the Russo-Ukraine War so far.

I am but one man. I can’t stop the US government from making bad decisions. But sitting on the sidelines and protesting something I don’t have any experience with hardly made a difference. I chose to be directly involved so that I can influence positive change from the inside.

While serving, I made sure my subordinates were educated on our military’s current actions. I made sure they made informed decisions when ordered to do something, so they would use critical thinking skills when given orders and not just be “yes men.” This was not only to protect them, but to ensure they made choices that helped people instead of pushing ruling party objectives.

The military is a propaganda machine, I won’t deny that. But by being directly involved, I could use that propaganda to push its members toward wholesome choices. The military claims they’re a humanitarian service? Fine, let’s do some solid humanitarian work! Let’s get outside and actually help struggling citizens.

Community volunteer service was a requirement in military life, and I made sure myself and my subordinates were actually affecting positive changes in communities instead of just going through the motions for the publicity. We rebuilt low income neighborhoods, set up organizations to house and feed homeless and/or abused people, created safe spaces for people to receive free mental health services, etc. I did my best to ensure we weren’t just showing up to a single public event to “help out” and then abandoning it the next day.

Change comes from within. You can shout and protest the government’s actions from the sidelines all day, but what are you doing to actually change them? Until you’re directly involved and have hands-on experience with that organization, you can’t really claim to be doing something positive. This is why I joined the military, despite my friends and family thinking I wasn’t the kind of person to do well there. I didn’t join to shoot people or spread hate and fear. I joined to use their power and influence to help out citizens. And I’d like to think I succeeded in that regard, while also positively influencing other military members to do the right thing.

My hope is that the “butterfly effect” of my actions permeates through the organization and continues to positively influence members. Heck, I’m still mentoring some of my old subordinates, several years after my retirement.

One of my friends is currently working for a unit stationed in Germany that is filled with pro-Trump members, and he claims it’s getting hard to see any opinions besides their view. We’ve had lengthy discussions on the destruction and harm Trump has been up to here in America. I’m hoping he can turn around and be a voice of logic and reason in his unit and spread some reality instead of the fascist propaganda that’s already settling in. If I hadn’t served, there would be at least one unit in Germany who is falling for that fascist propaganda. Every little bit helps.

If you’re a US citizen, I’d recommend getting involved yourself. You don’t need to join the military, but we need positive voices in local and federal government positions to fight against tyranny and oppression in our own nation. Our human rights are already on the chopping block and we need everyone we can to speak up against it from positions of authority. Even being on the board of your local town hall is better than nothing.

Yes, this was one of the common stereotypes I heard a lot, mostly from anti-war people who only view the military as a war vehicle. Fortunately, I had no direct involvement in terrorism during my service. We mostly engaged in humanitarian aid. Publicly, we promote ourselves as a humanitarian service, and in my experience, that was the majority of what we focused on. But some people (like myself, initially) only know the military through war films and assume we’re just there to kill people.

That’s not to say the US is completely exempt from bad deeds. For instance, the Iraq War should never have happened and there was literally no reason for us to be there. That was a very bad call by Bush Jr., who expected we’d find something to justify our campaign into the country. (Note: we did not.)

We have regulations about what type of orders we have to obey and what orders we’re required to disobey. Thanks to the Nuremburg Trials, we know that “just following orders” is not an excuse to carry out horrific actions. So if we’re given an order that violates the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), we’re expected to ignore those orders, and depending on the situation, we may even remove the person who gave those orders from command.

Honestly, I’m glad I retired when I did. I served during Trump’s first term in office and it was a dark time for us. But he was mostly restrained by a majority Democrat government that time, so most of the fascist ideals he demanded got shut down.

This time around though, he’s running with a majority Republican government and they’ve given him a green light to do as he pleases. He even replaced the Secretary of Defense with an unqualified alcoholic National Guard captain. Completely circumventing the promotion programs we have in place to ensure only the best and brightest are allowed to hold those positions. You’d better believe I’d be abusing the hell out of that regulation to disobey unlawful orders if I was still serving.

what OS do they use in the military?

It depended on the function, but most computers were Windows. Historically, Windows has had the most versatility with other common file systems that we and our allies/enemies used, plus it was easy enough for any service member to pick up and use with minimal training.

However, we always had custom-configured Windows images; we didn’t just install a blank copy. Like I mentioned, our systems were severely locked down, so there were plenty of registry configurations and custom software suites that would take us a few days per computer to install manually. So we would build one that met our requirements, then create an image of it and copy that to every other computer in our unit.

Depending on the unit, there might be custom software builds to meet a particular mission requirement, so there were always several images ready to be pushed to specific computers.

they believed that the best security was older systems that had been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities

Oh no 😅 I am not a cyber security expert but that seems to me like a recipe for a disaster

It worked well enough for a while, but computer technology kept evolving, so we were constantly playing catch-up.

For the first half of my career, we were always at least one OS behind the civilian sector. When I joined in 2002, we were just phasing out Windows 95/98 and replacing it with Windows 2000.

Then in 2008, we were on Windows XP and Microsoft was trying to get us to upgrade to Windows Vista. Vista was a terrible OS, so we decided to just skip it and go for the new Windows 7 that was supposed to be coming out a year later.

Then Microsoft announced an end to support for Windows XP in a few months. We can’t have an OS without any support, so we quickly signed a contract to upgrade to Windows Vista. Before the ink dried on the new contract, Microsoft announced that they would be extending support on XP for 4 more years.

So we got suckered into a Vista contract, and as soon as Windows 7 dropped, we switched to that. We stayed mostly caught up ever since, although it could take up to a year before we switched to the latest OS. Our own cyber security teams did their own vulnerability assessments before pushing out a new OS across the Air Force, and that could easily take them months of testing and research.

In the last few years before I retired, the Air Force started testing the concept of handing computer support functions over to civilian companies. This was something they had been talking about long before I joined the military, but they were finally pushing forward with it. My last base was one of the test beds in the US, and AT&T took on the contract at that particular site.

Our base-wide IT unit had to hand over administrative access to our unclassified network to them, and as the civilian company took charge of more functions (and had security clearance investigations completed), we started handing over classified networks too. Which seemed wrong to me; we had always kept our classified networks secure by managing them ourselves, so handing it over to a civilian company felt like trouble.

It was even worse when Trump became president the first time and started discussing classified operations on Twitter. Dude had no concept of security protocols and messed up a lot of missions we had overseas, putting our members’ lives at risk so he could brag about secrets he knew.

He ordered us to give security clearances to a bunch of civilians whom we had already refused in the past for being a threat to national security. But you don’t say no to the president, so we started handing over classified access and before long, a bunch of our foreign operations started getting compromised. It was an absolute clusterfuck.

Things mostly went back to normal under Biden and I soon retired. I can’t imagine how messed up my old career field must be now, since Trump got back in office. All I can say is I’m glad it’s not my problem anymore.

They later said the only finished animations were the ones in the trailer. Live action filming was done, but they had barely gotten started on the CG animation when the awful trailer dropped, so it was easy to change course and redesign Sonic for the rest of the film. Also, the film was delayed while they made changes, so it did cause a setback.

Although I would believe that somebody dropped that trailer to prove a point that no one would watch a Sonic movie with that abomination. After the outrage and public backlash, the point was proven and whomever greenlighted the original design backtracked and let the animators fix it.

Of course there is Roger Craig Smith from AC II

Roger Craig Smith will always be my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog voice actor. The others are pretty good, but he has a quality that I personally feel captures the character.

Being in the Air Force, the job was mostly like any civilian IT job. We worked off a ticket system to resolve computer issues, dealt with “customers” (other military members), managed servers, satellites, networks, etc. The specifics depended on the exact job; it seemed like every base I was assigned to had different equipment or mission requirements, so I was always learning some new system to manage.

Probably the biggest difference from the civilian sector was that military networks were severely locked down. There were approved software lists that were managed from much higher levels in the Air Force and only that software was allowed to be installed on computers. Half the time, even us administrators at the base level couldn’t mess with installed software.

There were software scans that would detect unauthorized software and boot computers off the network until it was resolved. Most places I worked, you couldn’t bring CDs or flash drives with your own programs on them. USB devices would be flagged instantly and get your account kicked off the network until you completed remedial training through your local IT office.

Our web browsing was severely limited too. Some bases only allowed official military website access; others would allow access to the web but only from an approved white list of sites. It depended on the job and the classification of the network.

Also, they believed that the best security was older systems that had been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities, so we were usually a step or two behind the civilian sector in terms of operating systems and software/hardware. They preferred that new systems were thoroughly tested in the civilian sector first, most vulnerabilities identified and remedied, and then we would trust it. So I rarely got to learn about modern IT technologies unless I researched it myself in my own free time.

EDIT: In terms of harassment, there was sometimes a lack of respect for the IT guys. Lots of higher-ranking officers made unreasonable demands, expecting us to make some impossible network requirement magically work because “that’s your job.” Or just getting mad when things were broken, because “Why do we have IT guys if things are always broken?” Or the same if things work: “Why do we have so many IT guys when nothing ever breaks?” We had our own leadership in the IT field whose job was to explain to other leaders exactly what we did and how it benefits them, so the rest of us could focus on the job.

I don’t understand, this happened years ago. Both Rocket League and Fall Guys originally came out on Steam, but disappeared from the Steam Store and became Epic Games exclusives. If you still own a Steam copy though, you can still play it.

Is this saying that the game will be unplayable without an Epic Games authentication or something? It’s not like the Steam versions are getting updates anymore, so they should still be playable with other Steam members. Unless the publishers are pushing an update to the Steam version as well.

EDIT: Upon rereading, I see these games are being ported into another game. Does this affect Steam users at all, since Fortnite is an Epic Games exclusive?

I won’t touch Epic Games, so this doesn’t seem to have any effect on me.

The branch you join does make a difference in experience. I was in the Air Force, which is one of the most chill branches to serve in.

Despite the name, most Air Force members are not pilots. In fact, only about 5% are pilots, while the rest work in careers that either directly or indirectly support those pilots. We have doctors, lawyers, accountants, police, cooks, engineers, teachers, etc. I was an IT professional in my service, so my job was basically to sit at a desk and fix computers.

The Army and Marines tend to abuse their members, both mentally and physically, so I wouldn’t be surprised if those guys don’t recommend military service to others. I’ve heard horror stories from my Marine buddies, and I’ve personally witnessed some of the harassment/hazing rituals Army members go through.

They have a lot of toxic behaviors that keep getting passed down to the next generation. Surviving it and promoting above it is more a badge of honor than anything, so they subject the new guys to the same abuses to “toughen them up” or something.

The Department of Defense also uses it as an excuse to give them the worst equipment and hand-me-downs in the military, so they tend to operate with old and barely serviceable gear, while the Navy and Air Force tend to get the newest equipment.

But the Air Force was pretty fun. The Navy is pretty good too. They have some of the best technical schools in the armed forces, so they set you up with plenty of opportunities when you leave the service.

The Space Force is basically Air Force 2.0. All our space programs were under the Air Force until the Space Force was officially created, so they just transitioned those members into the new branch and copied Air Force regulations over until they could define their own unique requirements.

That is very true. Leaning more toward the terrible side, in my experience. However, the terrible people usually get out pretty early in their career, while the good people tend to stick around longer and make a full career out of it.

Not always the case; I’ve definitely met some terrible high ranking leaders in the military. But generally speaking, You need some solid core values in order to go far in your military career.

As a teenager, my friends and family always told me I was the nicest guy they knew… and they were genuinely shocked when I joined the US military.

I came home after Basic Training for a couple weeks before moving to my first assignment and everyone was surprised I came back successful. They expected I would’ve been kicked out for being too nice. In fact, I earned Honor Graduate.

I didn’t know much about the military when I joined, except for what I’d seen in old war movies. But they had some amazing benefits that I couldn’t pass up, and my uncle, a retired service member himself, highly encouraged it. I got free medical and dental, free college education, my initial career field training qualified me for most of an associate’s degree in my field, free travel around the globe, free food/housing… and they paid me to do it all. It was the best deal I could get right out of high school.

My whole military experience was a lot different than I expected; I spent a lot of time correcting stereotypes about military service with my friends and family. I actually had a pretty good career and retired after 20 years of service.

Do you use youtube mainly?

I use it pretty frequently. I wouldn’t say “mainly.” It’s a source of education and entertainment for me, but not my only one.

Do you care about clickbait?

It’s a pretty large annoyance to me, so yes, I do care about it to the extent that I wish it would go away.

Did clickbait make you stop seeing some creator?

Yes, I’ve purged creators from my subscription list solely because I was getting annoyed at the clickbait titles and/or title cards they used in their videos.

Did you use youtube but clickbait (among other things) made you to stop using it’s platform?

I avoided YouTube for a while, partly because of all the clickbait, but also because of the amount of ads popping up on the service. I only came back when I learned how to block ads. I tolerate a certain amount of clickbait now.

Do you think clickbait is the major of the YouTube’s problems?

One of the larger problems, yes. But not THE major problem of the platform. I feel issues with censorship, AI moderation, and an abundance of advertisements interrupting videos are worse issues that should be addressed.

Clickbait is more of a creator issue; it could be resolved by creators refusing to use clickbait to draw in viewers. Let the quality of their content speak for itself. But because monetized content is earned based on views, it creates an incentive to get people to click on your video no matter what, which promotes clickbait. If you’re using YouTube primarily to make money, then clickbait is the default most content creators go for.

I guess YouTube could fix that by changing their monetization standard. Maybe base it on popularity ranking over time instead of number of clicks or something. But it would take time to phase out clickbait, and I doubt it would ever fully go away.

Do you see something good in clickbait among the bad things? Like, which ones?

I personally don’t see any value in clickbait. It’s just a way to pull your attention in an ever-distracting online world. It’s the lowest common denominator of recruiting views for your content. I don’t hold any respect for anyone who employs it in their content.

Could we see clickbait as a necessary evil?

Never. It’s a tool used by people who don’t know how to market their own content to the general public. It’s using manipulation to draw your attention to content that typically doesn’t live up to the clickbait title. It’s an extreme action in a distraction-filled world to stand out.

With a little effort, creators could market themselves better and not need clickbait. But it’s the easy way out, and most creators would rather go this route than put effort into expanding their audience.

mine is risotto

Rizzo the Rat is unfortunately gone. His original creator and performer, Steve Whitmire, was dismissed by Disney in 2016 and they haven’t announced plans to hire a new performer for Rizzo since.

On the Muppets shows and movies, they’ve fully replaced Rizzo with Pepe the King Prawn. He’s Gonzo’s new annoying sidekick.

Me personally, I’ve always been a Kermit fan. He’s exactly like me, personality-wise. And I’ve definitely dated a Miss Piggy or two over the years…

I have not heard of that. I’ll have to look into it.

how accurate are movie portrayals of the military?

Not at all accurate. For one thing, movies like to focus on officers as the main characters. Which is like a movie about a company focusing on the COO, CFO, CEO, etc. and claiming that’s representative of company life.

Most of the military is made up of enlisted members, which are the actual “employees” who do the hands-on work. Officers are like upper management. There’s not as many of them and they’re all in higher leadership positions, sending down orders to the enlisted.

Also, I was in the US Air Force as an enlisted guy, so my experiences may be very different from people who served in the Army, Marines, Navy, or the new Space Force.

Do higher officers yell at you all the time?

Nope. At least, not in the Air Force. We’re considered the “corporate branch,” because we tend to be much more relaxed than the other branches. It’s almost like working for a 9-to-5 business most of the time. I was an IT guy, fixing computers. So I had a desk job.

That said, the military training environment generally has a lot of yelling. Basic Training, which is the first program you go through, is intentionally meant to stress you out. Because if you can’t do your job with people yelling at you constantly, then you’re not a fit for military life.

In war, when shit hits the fan and people are dying, you need to keep your wits about you, or the mission will fail and everyone could die. So Basic Training only graduates people who can hold it together despite the stress and frustration. After that, the operational military life is pretty chill.

Do fellow soldiers harass you?

Asking this is like asking if people are harassed in a corporate environment. The answer is, it depends on where you work and who you work with. Most people are pretty cool, but there are bullies in every job and sometimes you end up being their target.

I personally experienced harassment in my service, in several different jobs. It was not a constant during my service, but it happens. As long as you know your job and follow regulations, usually it’s not that big of a deal. If it does become a problem, then you can go talk to your First Sergeant (the military’s version of HR) and your commander and come up with a solution.

Like I said, the Air Force was pretty chill, and the Navy is a pretty sweet gig too. The Army still abuses their members a lot, treating them like government resources instead of human beings. And it’s stuck in an infinite loop, where young guys are mistreated by the higher ranking folks, so when they go up in rank, they feel it’s their turn to abuse the next generation. And the abuse cycle keeps going.

The Marines are the worst, though. They’re brainwashed into loving the abuse. They’re taught to believe that if they’re not suffering, they’re not living up to their full potential, so they invite harsh conditions and celebrate rough experiences. Lots of mentally (and some physically) abusive conditions with those guys. I did not enjoy working with them. They were always trying to one-up each other over who survived the worst conditions in the field.

Personally, me as an Asian American, I’m terrified of the military, especially the discrimination aspects

During my service, I didn’t really notice much discrimination. We had annual training programs concerning racial discrimination, sexual harassment, religious tolerance, suicide awareness, etc., so it was beat into us to respect our fellow service members regardless of their background. I’m a white male though, so I understand that my privilege may have blinded me to some discrimination going on around me. But I served with a whole melting pot of cultures, genders, and religions, and it never appeared to be a problem.

I did have one Airman who grew up a poor black kid in the ghetto, and he admitted to hating anyone in a position of authority over him, as his local white cops regularly discriminated against black people in his neighborhood. He told me this right after I was appointed his boss. So I quickly learned to adjust my leadership style to accommodate him. He was one of those people who was highly productive until I spoke to him about anything, then he’d just shut down and be a problem for the rest of the day. So I learned to give him a task or two at the beginning of the day, then step back and let him do his thing and he would be my best performer in the office.

Shortly before I retired, I knew a black Technical Sergeant (rank E-6) who was about to retire. I thought it was cool that he qualified for retirement and I was excited for him to move on to the next big thing in his life. But he seemed kind of bummed about it.

I found out later that he had been a Master Sergeant (E-7), with an approved promotion to Senior Master Sergeant (E-8). But amongst his black friends, he told a black joke, and some white Navy guy overheard it and took offense. He was reported to his commander for racism (?!), who removed his promotion and then demoted him to Technical Sergeant. He didn’t have enough time left in service to promote again, so he was basically forced to retire as the lower rank.

Our current commander fought with his previous commander, trying to get him to reverse the demotion because it was destroying his career over a joke he made about his own race. But the former commander wouldn’t budge. Claimed he had a “zero-tolerance policy about racism.” Sounds to me like justification for his own racially-charged discrimination.

So because he told a joke about his own culture, amongst his own cultural peers, he lost two ranks, a bright future in the Air Force, and was forced to retire early. That’s probably the worst discrimination I’ve experienced during my service.

Did you ever get PTSD from it? Ever actually been in combat, or was it just during peacetime?

My entire service period was during wartime, and I did deploy to several combat zones. Suffice to say, I do have some PTSD from it. As a computer guy, and as an Air Force guy, I was never placed on the front lines of battle. But I was close enough to witness people dying, and even had a few close calls myself.

I signed up for the Air Force in my senior year of high school, in August 2001. Literally a month later… 9/11 happened. I was terrified I just signed up to go die in some foreign war and I seriously considered dropping my contract. But in the end, the benefits outweighed the negatives, and I knew the Air Force was a relatively safe branch to be in. We mostly just fly overhead and drop bombs; we don’t really go in boots-on-ground and fight. So I graduated high school in June 2002 and left for Basic Training 2 weeks later. I’ve never regretted the choice.

President Bush Jr. officially declared the “War on Terror,” designating 9/11 as the start of the war. That war ran until the year before I retired, when President Biden officially ended it. So my entire 20-yr service was literally one whole conflict.

Also, we throw around the term “war” a lot, but it’s only officially war if Congress declares it, and they haven’t declared a war since WWII. So officially, on government records, they’re known as military campaigns, not wars. For instance, I served in Iraq and was awarded an Iraq Campaign Medal. I never made it to Afghanistan, but people who served there got the Afghanistan Campaign Medal.

Outside of all this, my career was actually really great. I spent almost half of my career stationed overseas. I lived in Japan for 3 years, South Korea for 2 years, Germany for 2 years, several deployments to Hawaii, Africa, and Iraq, plus a few stateside assignments. And I always made an effort to travel and explore no matter where I was assigned. I saw most of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. My wife and I took a Mediterranean cruise line for our honeymoon and visited a ton of countries bordering those seas. I got a chance to go to Australia to be the best man at a friend’s wedding, but I turned it down because I was a broke Airman at the time and couldn’t afford the plane tickets. It’s my one biggest regret in my career.

I retired at 38 years old and am now 41. I’m a bit beat up, both physically and mentally, and have a 100% disability rating from the VA, which gives me free medical and dental for life, plus a sizeable monthly pay that’s twice as much as my pension. My wife didn’t retire from the military, but she also got the 100% disability rating, so she gets the same pay and benefits as me. We’re both enjoying the quiet life in the countryside now. If I had the chance, I’d definitely do it all over again.

I will say, I’m thankful I retired when I did. I served under Trump the first time he was president and it was a nightmare for us. He pulled a lot of fascist shit, but was blocked left and right by the Democrat-majority government. This time, though, he has a Republican-majority government and immediately replaced everyone he could with unqualified loyalists, so our military is kind of a shitshow now.

I have a buddy whom I mentored shortly before I retired and he’s been messaging me, repeating a lot of lies about “Antifa is overthrowing state governments and the military needs to swoop in and take back our states!” He’s stationed overseas right now, but is terrified he’s going to be attacked by “liberal extremists” if he comes back to the US. I had to inform him that none of that is actually happening here in the US and he’s in more danger from ICE than any left-leaning civilians (he’s not white).

I’m a night owl; I’m wide awake and super productive all night. During the day, I’m kind of sluggish and unproductive.

It’s apparently a genetic trait. I took a DNA test about a decade ago and paid to have my genetic data matched up with current research into specific genes. Turns out I have a gene associated with people who stay up most of the night. My mother and grandmother are the same; they usually don’t go to bed until after 3 AM most nights. So it’s definitely a genetic quirk and not necessarily a choice.

I spent 20 years in the US military, which required me to get up at ungodly early hours of the morning every work day. I was miserable for those 2 decades. Every day off, I slept in until close to noon just to feel rested again. Every work night, it was a struggle to go to bed at a reasonable time and shut my brain down so I could wake up ready for another day at work.

I have ADHD, so getting my brain to be quiet so I could sleep has always been a challenge. When I retired from the military, I fully retired. No more work for me; my pension and benefits cover my basic needs and that’s good enough for me. Now I sleep when I’m tired and get up when I’m awake, no matter what time of the day it is.

I think, because of my ADHD, I prefer the nighttime because it’s dark and quiet. No distractions, no noises, no people. I can just focus on what I need to get done. During the day, the world is filled with distractions and I can’t focus on anything.

It’s currently 6 AM here. I’ve been up all night long and I’m actually going to stay up as late as I can today. Every once in a while, my sleep schedule gets flipped so drastically that I end up sleeping all day and being awake all night. Which is fine, except that since COVID, most places aren’t open all night anymore. Not even Walmart or McDonald’s. So I can’t be productive with anything outside of my house.

So I reset my sleep schedule by staying up as long as I can the next day. Eventually I’ll crash and sleep most of the night through. Then I’ll be awake the next day and have plenty of business hours in my day to get stuff done.

Honestly, I need days to be about 26-28 hours long. Every single day, I stay up just a little bit later because I’m not tired yet, and that’s how my schedule eventually flips completely. If I could just be tired at the same time every night, I could maintain a solid schedule. I’m married, so I have to consider my wife’s schedule too. She gets lonely if I’m sleeping all day.

I mentioned this on Reddit years ago, but I would love to make a TV miniseries for James Bond that’s a period drama, 100% faithful to the original Ian Fleming novels.

Novel Bond was about a dull, uninteresting man whom things happened to. He was a dark and cynical man, thanks to his draining line of work. A loveless, high-functioning alcoholic who did his best work with a few drinks in him at all times. Which is likely why his drink of choice was a vodka martini; a strong, stiff drink to get him going when the going gets tough.

And the books were written in the 1950s, shortly after WWII, of which Ian Fleming served as a British Naval Commander and Intelligence officer. So Bond was written partially based on the experiences of real-world missions that Fleming commanded during the war.

Then in the 1960s, the movie rights for one of Fleming’s novels was sold and they reinvented James Bond for the big screen. People in that era didn’t want a dark, hopeless, cold-blooded assassin. They wanted a hero they could cheer for. So he was made a handsome, suave womanizer, with a penchant for social drinking and smoking (sexy vices of the time). He always dressed for style, always had expensive and luxurious tastes in cars and living, always saved the day, and he always got the girl. He was an idol for men and a dreamy catch for women.

Back in those days, they didn’t care much for loyalty to the source material, so while they were reinventing Bond, they decided to beef up his adventures too. The movies rarely had anything to do with the books, except for borrowing the titles every now and then, plus some key plot points once in a blue moon. And Movie Bond grew with the times. He got more technologically advanced gadgets, bigger global stakes, and more modern threats.

For example, the Moonraker novel was about Bond stopping a nuclear warhead from launching at London, whereas the Moonraker movie was about fighting a villain in space, who planned to poison humanity and repopulate the Earth with genetically superior humans aboard his space station. Totally different stories, same title.

Movie Bond changed in the '90s when Albert R. Broccoli, the producer of the films, passed away and left the franchise to his daughter Barbara (who had been involved with the franchise since the late '70s) along with her brother, Wilson. Barbara helped to reinvent Bond for the modern era, removing his smoking, reducing his drinking, and giving him strong, intelligent women to work with (or fight against) instead of rescuing ditzy damsels in distress.

Then… Austin Powers came out in 1997 and it was a complete parody of James Bond. The trilogy satired every common spy trope that James Bond had made famous over the decades. And it was a global hit. Barbara was pissed. She claimed that Austin Powers completely fucked them over. By turning their formula into a joke, Bond would forever be compared to Austin Powers.

So she rebooted the entire franchise in 2006 with Casino Royale, a movie based on the very first James Bond novel, and mostly faithful to the original story (except set in modern times). It was a return to the dark, gritty origins of the character. Bond was a high-functioning alcoholic, a blunt instrument who was fiercely loyal to his country, but still a wildcard who could barely be controlled.

This Daniel Craig era of films was excellent, my personal favorite version of James Bond out of his many decades of history. And the closest version to the original books, even if only the first movie was actually based on a book.

But I still want to see an actual period piece, set in the 1950s, that follows the original novels faithfully. I would love to see it as a TV miniseries because some of the books are just collections of random short stories, and some books themselves are hard to tell in movie-length detail without adding a bunch of fluff. Like the Casino Royale novel, which was 90% just a bunch of guys sitting at a table, gambling at baccarat. The 2006 film added a lot of action scenes that didn’t exist in the original book, just to pad the runtime.

Amazon recently bought MGM Studios, the company that makes the James Bond movies, and Barbara Broccoli has been complaining online about Amazon trying to ruin Bond. They want to make spinoff TV series, movie franchises based on side characters, as well as their own version of Bond films that Barbara doesn’t agree with. She claims they’re overriding her creative control and are going to run the franchise into the ground at a breakneck pace.

The last I heard, Barbara and Wilson begrudgingly ceded creative rights to James Bond to the new Amazon MGM Studios earlier this year under a $1 billion contract. So the James Bond franchise may already be doomed.

Fun fact: Douglas Adams, the creator of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, actually wrote most of the movie script. He died before the film was finished, but they kept it mostly the way he intended. So everyone complaining that it missed the point of the books or deviated wildly from the source material are arguing against the original creator’s intent.

Another fun fact: One of Douglas Adams’ running jokes with the Hitchhiker series is that it’s never told exactly the same twice. There was a radio show, novel series, video game, comic book, movie… and every version is different. Sometimes the story is told slightly different, sometimes it comes to a completely different conclusion. So having a “loyal/faithful” version made is technically impossible, as there’s no official canon story to recreate. Not should there be, as the ever-evolving retelling is part of the joke.

As a fan of the books in particular, I’d love to see an anthology TV series that is somewhat loyal to the book version. But I understand that Douglas Adams wouldn’t want that, so I’m happy for the various media we have so far.

Ooh, I have both of those games in my Steam library but I haven’t played either. That might be fun to check out.

I was hoping to write a review on Metal Gear Solid ∆, as MGS 3 is one of my favorite of the series, but I got distracted on my first playthrough and didn’t get very far. I need to go back and play a bit more of that before I review it.

Other games I’d eventually like to write about include Jump Space, FBC: Firebreak, Hollow Knight, Helldivers II, The Division, The Stanley Parable, PowerWash Simulator, Overlord, Something from the DOOM franchise, Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3… and a whole bunch more.

As far as horror games for the season, I’m thinking about reviewing Zoochosis and the Poppy Playtime series. I know there are others I’m interested in, but they’re not coming to mind at the moment.

Wallet, smartphone, headphones, 36 oz water bottle (topped off), keys if I’m driving somewhere.

Oh, and I double-check to ensure I’m fully (properly) clothed and wearing my glasses. I’ve definitely made it as far as my car, before realizing I’m still wearing pajama pants.

And my vision is not that bad, so I can roam my house without glasses. But once I hit the open road, I suddenly realize I can’t see anything.

When I was in the military, I used to carry a multitool (eg. Leatherman) on my belt everywhere I went. But now that I’m a retired civilian, it just causes problems if I need to explain why I have a knife on me.

Even though it’s a multitool, everyone just sees it as a blade. And I’d rather not have someone confiscate it. When you’re wearing a military uniform, no one questions it. But I’ve definitely been stopped in some stores because I was carrying it in civilian clothes.

My wife also bought me a lockpicking set, but I don’t know how to use it yet, so I removed it from my keychain. No sense carrying it around if I can’t use it. Maybe once day…