Until we find that Nestle is just bottling the same tap water at twice the price. Oops!

I doubt it matters what we think anymore. It barely did before, but I can’t see any light at the end of this American Experiment tunnel.

I play FFXIV. I’ll break it down by expansions, but it’s the one that didn’t follow the general downwards trend so much.

1.0 - trash. They couldn’t figure out how to work together. One guy spends forever making the best looking water wheel ever, in the background, that you never interact with. It’s too graphically intensive, and flows the wrong way from the water. It doesn’t match the building it’s attached to. Meanwhile, they forget to add roads towards main cities. It’s an unplayable mess. It’s literally unplayable, as they killed it off to replace it with:

2.0, A Realm Reborn - they really fixed it under one guy’s leadership. It’s playable, and works. It’s outdated somewhat today, but has a lot of moral grey areas and twists. There’s a lot of running around and time wasting, which was common back then.

Heavenward - they made a great story. It’s one of the best expansions. Streamlined and faster. No needless “talk to 5 villagers” quests like previously.

Stormblood - not as great. There’s a lot of setup they use later. The world building is really great, though. Some of the best looking areas.

Shadowbringers - the best expansion they’ve ever made. Perfectly balanced world building and characters, and story. This is peak FF, with the best music as well. Probably because they can ditch much of the old A Realm Reborn story.

Endwalker - ties it all together. The story leads up to “death is inevitable for everything that has ever lived, so just die now” kind of depression hopelessness that you wonder how they’ll get out of it. Well, because it’s Japanese and FF, it’s the power of friendship that saves the day. But, this really feels like the culmination of everything they’ve learned in the previous expansions.

Dawntrail - this is the downward slide. They force you into a role to support someone for ruler that is almost slapstick bad. Characters don’t make logical choices. The theme is all over the place and can’t decide what it wants to be. Many people say to stop at endwalker, but we’ll see how the next expansion goes, which is years away.

There’s plenty to say about the game otherwise, but the general thought is that they’re gradually cutting corners, taking longer, and under delivering as they’re stretched too thin. They’re feeling the same pressure everyone else in the world is - not enough money. Which is crazy, because FFXIV is THE game keeping Square Enix alive.

Their best album, imo. Which is saying something because they have a lot of great albums.

I got to see this live back in like 2009 I think. When they toured with Dethklok, High on Fire, and Converge. What a cool show! The visualizations were of these images on the cover shooting towards you in space. They played the whole album, which sadly didn’t leave room for Blood and Thunder at the end. But! They did play that during the Mega Monsters tour with Gojira! Unfortunately their visualizations broke during the show, but they were playing such heavy stuff that we’re all thinking that they really are going to make a heavier album next, like they said.

It’s not as iconic as From Mars to Sirius, or The Link, but it’s a great cover. I have this poster hanging in my den!

It also depends on what access they have. Easiest would be to axe subsidies to oil companies, but no way they’re be able to just do something like that. There’s too much protection around that money.

Of course, if they’re doing exactly as DOGE, they suck and I’m glad they’re blocked because DOGE has made terrible decisions.

1. The woman in the video released the footage, to help her case against him.

2. we’re seeing a leopard eat a face in real time, here

3. same, he needs a short, sharp, shock. Right to the head. I would also settle for a swift kick in his ass.

Rachel Maddow and her blistering burns aren’t going to stop trump or save us from musk. They’re throwing sticks and stones while she’s throwing words that’ll never hurt them.

We need actual action. Ideally from elected officials pushing back, public figures, and every citizen refusing to be sucked into the MAGA cult and their objectives.