So apparently Chinese vertical dramas are a thing?

 You will have to ask the wife what this is all about, I have no idea.

Trash Talking Generations

I see a lot of trash talking between generations online. Listening to these conversations, it amazes me that we forget who is responsible for what. Boomers who are complaining about entitled Millennial's need to remember that it was Boomer's who raised the Millennial's. likewise Generation X complaining about the work ethics of Millennial's, need to remember it was Generation X who were supposed to be mentoring them early in their careers. In case you are not sure how this works, here is a breakdown for you.

At any given time, there is a generation that is both raising children and mentoring young adults. Yes, those very same Boomer's who hurl the participation trophy insults at Millennial's, were the one who actually gave them all those participation trophies. So, before anyone goes off complaining about the younger generations, consider who it was that was responsible for influencing these young people during their formative years. 

The Ends Times are here!

The death of Betty White could possibly be heralding the end of the world, because if 2021 got Betty White, then what hope do the rest of us stand!

Crypto Currency

 Over the last couple of days I have entered into Crypto mining. No I have not bought a $12,000 Bitcoin miner, I am not that crazy. No, I joined a Monero mining pool, which allows me to put low powered machines to work mining the Monero crypto coin and still some small amount based on how much work these otherwise idle machines do, everyone who contributes CPU cycles gets a cut. I put 2 Raspberry Pi 4's to work along with 2 Optiplex 3050 mini's to work on this project. The 2 Pi's are averaging about 90 hash's per second, the two Optiplex's are averaging around 600 hash's per second. Over the last couple of days as I put my mini farm to work I have acquired 0.0003 Monero or about $0.05. Yeah, I know, its not much, but hey, if I eventually get 1 complete Monero, at its current price of $190, That will pay for every penny of what I have sunk into this equipment over the last 2 or 3 years, then of course I can start paying off the power this sucks down.

I am not a big believer in the whole crypto currency thing. Frankly to me it is like gold in World of Warcraft or maybe even Monopoly Money. It have no real value except what people attribute to it and eventually all those big mining operations and hedge fund managers who are hoarding all this crap are going to cash out and it is all going to come crashing down. There is no way I would ever spend $190 of actual cash on buying a Monero or god forbid $47,000 for a Bitcoin.

So why then am I putting effort into mining it? Well for one thing it is an interesting technical challenge setting up the hardware, compiling the code, getting everything working. Second, though eventually this is all going to come crashing down, until then there are some uses for crypto currency, especially Monero, which has some extra security features on it that make tracking it much more difficult. While I have no intention of doing anything illegal, you just never know when you will need a stash of untraceable money at your disposal.

Anyone interested in getting started should watch this video, it is a great starting place.

Review: Once an Eagle

Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a long damn book, probably a lot longer than it needed to be. I am pretty sure this book could have been done in 500 pages, there was a lot of unnecessary sections to the book, chapters that did not move the plot forward or contribute to character development. The authors writing style was often rambling and one too many times changed the scene mid paragraph. While the characters, specifically Sam Damon and his wife Tommy, were well developed, the author clung too hard too stereotypes, especially with the secondary characters.

Having said that, this was actually a good book, following the career of General Damon from a farm boy through being an enlisted man, and through to becoming a General. Sam Damon lived a good life, one that many of us only wish we could have had. He was strong, proud and never wavered, except for once, in a moment of weakness, which he regretted the rest of his life. His character was obviously based on every character John Wayne ever played and his wife was Maureen O'Hara, red hair, green eyes and a fury personality. Don't let all of this fool you though, this is very much an anti war story, war is not glorified in this book in any way. Even World War II is portrayed as it actually was, bloody, messy and corrupt. While reading the story, I was often reminded of Catch-22, where the villains are not the Japanese or Nazi Germany, but rather the upper echelons of the military, horrible people who mismanaged the war and made questionable decisions that cost more American soldiers lives than was needed.

I can see why this book is on every 2nd Lieutenants reading list, the book portrays Sam Damon as a man's man and leader among leaders. A leader who is willing to go out on a limb for his men and even crippled his own career at times to do the right thing. The sad thing is, I think a soldier like this would be washed out of service before he ever made Major. Sam Damon is how every officer in the military views himself, but in reality an officer like him would be branded a wild out of control renegade and no one would except him into their command.

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I wsh I were a better man

Okay so, I try not to slut shame and what I mean by that is I try not to denigrate women for expressing their sexuality. In fact I will be the first person in line celebrating women's sexuality. I like it when women fearlessly show themselves as sexual beings and I appreciate the feminine form. Of course the problem for me and all men really is where to draw the line, because we also do not want to objectify women, women are more than just a set of boobs. I of course fail at this more than I like to admit. This is a good example of one of my failures. When this picture appeared in my FaceBook feed, my first reaction was, "Really, so we are going for Artist are we?".

That was really not a fair reaction to her, it is really none of my business what she considers her profession and my response to the picture she uses for her page is not her fault, but rather my own.

For those of you who want to know, I did not click on the link for her page, nor did I follow her.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day I think gets a bum rap. Lots of people don't like it because it is a greeting card holiday, meaning it was created as a way to sell greeting cards and it is a total commercial fabrication. Others do not like it because it is only for women and men are not into it. I disagree with both of these opinions.

Now don't get me wrong, my wife and i do not celebrate Valentine's Day in any significant way, but I do go out of my way each year to specifically tell her that I will love her until the day I die and this will be true unless I receive a brain injury that erases the last 40 years of my life.

My thing is, Valentine's Day is a holiday meant to celebrate love and friendship and yes, I think little kids in school should be expected to give those cheap little cards to each other and even as adults we should give them to the people we love and even our friends to remind them that we care. Love and friendship is something we should celebrate, especially when you consider how many holidays we have to commemorate various wars and don't even get me started on Columbus day and Thanksgiving.

I really don't think it is too much to ask to have one day a year where love is celebrated and we show appreciation for the people who loved us throughout our lives. So the next time someone complains about having to buy some chocolate and flowers for his wife, remind him that she is the mother of his children, remind him she has been there for him through the hard times and even the times when he was not a very nice person to be around.  If you hear a woman complaining that her husband never does anything for her on Valentine's Day, ask her if she is making worth his while to celebrate it, remind her that it is not just a day for her, but it is a day for him as well. Believe me ladies, if you give him a blowjob on Valentine's Day, he will have flowers in hand the next Valentine's Day.

Sad Day in History

Today I was sitting a room full of Millennials, now normally I don't rail on  Millennials, they do have a rough life ahead of them and it is pretty much our fault. However, what occurred to me is, I was the coolest person in that room. Seriously, I am D&D nerd, I was never cool by any standard, but there I was and there was not a hip person in that room besides me. This is the real reason Millennials are pissed off, they are the first generation that has parents cooler than them and worse, their grandparents are cooler than them too. The Baby Boomers came of age in the 60's, the era when the youth culture was born and rebelled against its masters, GenX came of age in the 80's, the era the youth culture came into its own and dominated virtually every facet of life. The Millennials were born into a world that was already cool, everything they can think of has already been done, Recreational sex, been done, recreational drug use, yep, Rock and Roll, Oh yes, been done big. This is why "Retro" is a thing to day, Millennials simply have no where to go.