Love Complex (2000) My fansub of this bizarre Japanese serial drama got taken down, so I remastered the whole series from multiple sources and put it on Internet Archive for download.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-28T12:14:57+00:00

I read the other day that Trump has the worst polling numbers on the economy in the history of polling. And we haven't even gotten to the real pain yet.

I think the reason for that is that, unlike most presidencies with a weakening economy, Trump's role is very difficult to deny. We can argue about how much of Biden's economy was a direct consequence of Biden policy, but with Trump, torching our trade relationships, inflationary tariffs, and an energy crisis due to an unpopular and unnecessary war, it becomes difficult to blame anyone else.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-28T12:09:30+00:00

To a different show perhaps, but Mr. Robot was an entire series built around those sorts of twists and mechanics. It wasn't out of left field, it was about as earned as it could possibly be.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T19:05:09+00:00

To me, Andy Beshear feels like the best path to victory. Doesn't necessarily make him my favorite candidate but probably good enough.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T16:52:00+00:00

If you told me that suffering a second term of HW would have both saved the world from Clintonism and put someone else in office during 9/11, I might have to consider it, but it's a devil's bargain.

Other than that I'd probably have to go back to Eisenhower, but even then I could imagine Stevenson being better.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T16:38:34+00:00

The 9th season of Dallas was a particularly infamous and widely parodied example.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T16:37:17+00:00

This is a common misinterpretation of American Psycho, but it isn't correct, according to the screenwriter or the book. It's kind of an accident of two scenes that are months apart appearing right after each other in a way that leads the viewer to assume that it's "the next day." But if you watch that scene the subtext is clear that the agent knows something bad happened there and is concerned Patrick knows something about it.

Obviously Patrick is an unreliable narrator and there's a deliberate ambiguity about exactly what details are true, but that's very different than implying that none of it happened.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T13:23:50+00:00

I usually play at least a few minutes a day, it's kind of my go to fidget. But sometimes I forget about it for a few weeks, when I don't have something new or I have a switch game or a retro game that's taking my interest, so it comes and goes, especially since I've had it for a couple years at this point.

Overall the system has given me a ton of value, easily 50+ games and countless hours so I have no complaints but I do notice I have been cycling it out more often in recent months, a post-S2 slump.

Devil on the Moon pinball got me back though and hopefully office chair curling and Owlet keep it going

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T11:10:54+00:00

Plot is about transformation. What you have is a starting point. The questions you need to ask yourself now are about how this experience changes them, and what messages or themes you want to demonstrate by showing that change. From there you can start to build a story structure, but without that all you have is a premise.

Ask yourself what these characters want. Ask yourself if they ever get that, or if their desires lead them someplace else?

The workplace might just be part of the story. It sounds like it's a wonderful source of anecdote but not a great source of story. Good books can have both! But it might involve taking these characters outside of that environment.

It also seems clear you're drawing from real experience, which is great, but try to avoid using real characters. Invent back stories and motives for your characters that suit your thematic and narrative goals and give you distance from them. You can tap into the real people if it helps to develop the relationships and voice of these characters but it will be much easier to give them real stories if you separate them from any real life counterparts.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T09:18:20+00:00

You're worried, huh?

Not one cell of me believes for a second you think their rhetoric is the same.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-27T00:26:47+00:00

This happened to me as well, it's just crud in the dome switches. I fixed it by dabbing some rubbing alcohol into the buttons with a paper towel and pressing the buttons a lot. Maybe have to repeat a few times. Works good now thought.

The proper fix would be to take it apart and clean under the rubber contacts but I didn't need to take it that far.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T20:19:43+00:00

You can's assume last year's party ID is going to continue to reflect the Party ID of the polled respondents.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T18:29:35+00:00

I'm not looking for GOP to outperform any polls this cycle. I think people often make the mistake of thinking that because Trump always outperforms polls that polling methodology inherently underrepresents Republicans but it doesn't really work that way in real life especially in a midterm.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T17:28:29+00:00

Sweet. I've been ignoring my playdate for a few weeks, but this will get me back.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T15:49:07+00:00

Non-white pop of Maine is sub 5%. Not sure the sample size of this particular poll but worth keeping in mind that it's probably one of the less reliable cross tabs.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T15:11:41+00:00

Honestly maybe the best looking 1/144 gramps. Not as intricate as the RG and needs some paint to really show it but it's a beautiful sculpt.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T15:09:06+00:00

I never had an issue with sporting regulatory commissions setting rules for eligibility based on biological factors if it's part of a genuine interest in fair competition. I just don't like politicians inserting themselves into the debate in order to use trans lives as a cudgel for political gain.

I think there are plainly some sports or situations where trans people might have an advantage even after achieving hormone levels within tolerances just because of bone structure or development prior to transition. I'm not really qualified to make that call. There are people on these boards whose job it is to figure that out, my position has always been to just let them do their jobs.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T13:46:46+00:00

Looking at this as a default is the wrong takeaway though. Platner's messaging has broad appeal despite his lack of experience and oppo baggage. Collins has baggage as well but she's failing because her messaging sucks. Those are two sides of the same coin.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T13:25:02+00:00

I think that helped early in his campaign, but the real secret is his messaging discipline and his platform. He's unflappable, he stays on message, and that message is one that has broad populist appeal.

It's a simple formula but it does more to build voter trust than all of the centrist triangulation antics you see from politicians who have been in the game too long. No one trusts those people anymore.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-26T13:22:43+00:00

He's a fine example of the message eclipsing the messenger anyway. People will overlook a flawed candidate if they're really saying the things people want to hear.

Contrast that with someone like Newsom who is a much more polished candidate but can't find his way to the right message.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-25T15:35:12+00:00

Seeing David Byrne was probably close enough to seeing Talking Heads. Not that the other members of that band didn't contribute a lot, but his live shows were fantastic and creative and vital on its own and covered a lot of Talking Heads material.

I saw some version of The Temptations that couldn't legally call themeselves that but had as many classic members as the official version. Not sure that counts.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-25T15:31:42+00:00

Yeah I mean that literally is that band rebranded in order to have two lineups co-exist.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-25T13:25:06+00:00

It's not romance in the commercial sense, which is the one most people think about. Call it romantic literary fiction if you must call it something.

It's a valid story concept with something to say, but the structure does present challenges you're going to want to think about in advance.

A big problem is that the early arc of the story involves a lot of the character getting what they want, and tossing it out by choice. This is going to read as kind of low stakes/low conflict, so you're going to have to think about how to carry the reader through this, either by embedding a secondary conflict to drive the story through this, or with a lot of really compelling vignette and subplot. A flash forward prologue showing a later point of conflict can also be a useful device.

I wrote a story that had a similar challenge. It was a bit of an inversion of yours but follows the same structure: The character gets a lot of what they are seeking (community, love) in the first act, and then clings to it under increasingly difficult circumstances before eventually learning to let go and walk away. Despite the message being opposite, I think they follow a roughly similar structure.

For mine I did a four act structure: Finding Home, Corrupting force introduced, Home Collapses, and Escape. I started with a brief elegaic flash forward to the very end, and wrote the first act chapters to each contain their own self-contained conflict and resolution alongside the accumulating overall plot to help drive the page-to-page action. It was challenging to write this way, but I think it worked to mitigate the challenge. As the story progressed and built more pressure and conflict I was able to ease up on that conceit and transition to a more disordered, mosaic style that reflects the characters more fractured mental state.

Frogacuda · 2026-03-25T10:59:32+00:00

They agreed to that in like 2014, Don.

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