Clearing the Backlog

Correction: 191 subscribers for me, 5 for my brother. The video editor on my new laptop will take some getting used to, but at least it works, unlike the version on the one that just died. My original laptop still randomly shuts off, but after what happened to the last one (which is 8 years old and they still couldn’t get a replacement battery for it), I will have to prepare myself for the inevitable. I got rid of Google AdSense and my HubPages accounts too. They were being threatened by CCPA, the California version of COPPA. It’s not being handled any better, since you have to click a button to restrict ads to be in compliance, but when you click ‘save changes,’ nothing happens. I don’t use it anymore, so I had no reason to keep it, but I want to keep YouTube. It’s the Content ID that has me concerned. I didn’t care if copyright holders wanted to put ads on my videos if it meant I could keep them up. However, we can’t trust YouTube, especially since they use language like “We trust you, but if we think you’re wrong or abusing the system, we can reset your audience settings and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Finally finished reading the Dream Drop Distance novel. We get a short bit with Lea meeting the three good fairies, but that’s pretty much all. I would’ve loved an extra scene of Lea going back to Radiant Garden to tell them what happened before going back and going with Kairi to train with Merlin. Still no insights from Xigbar, so that’s disappointing. I’m adding (probably drawing) a scene with Kagemiya having to comfort Ienzo after Ansem “leaves” because everyone else is busy processing their own grief; Xehanort also gives him the purple tie, saying that he can decide for himself whether or not he’s ready. This of course makes it worse, since Ienzo had wanted Ansem to give it to him as a rite of passage; classic Xehanort trying to help but making it so much worse than it already was. Like, I just got him to stop crying and you come and do this? What’s wrong with you?!

Not surprisingly, Maria doesn’t like hacking and would rather people fight each other to the death. I never noticed before how much Jacques sounded like Beerus because that’s who his voice actor is. The new actor for Qrow is getting better at sounding like him, and Caitlin Glass is Willow Schnee. It’s the return of drunk Winry from the FullMetal Alchemist movie shorts!

My favorite episodes of Steven Universe Future so far are Volleyball and Why So Blue?. I also liked the first episode. Segue: Does the Diamond Authority come from coal? Is it bad I wanted to root for Gilbert Gottfried in the TTG Christmas episode? He was a better Santa anyway.

Adult Swim mashup: Wizard: “Slut dragon!” Bitch Pudding: “Hey, I’M a slut!”

Disaster Strikes

According to analytics, my YouTube channel has no demographic data. So…am I safe? Or is it going to be like my bank (which charges a fee on accounts when their balance falls below 10,000 dollars when it was free under the bank they bought out) and find a reason to go after me after the fact? They’re only doing this to recover the costs of their fine in the first place. I’m glad that our complaints are forcing Google to clarify, but it’s still too broad and completely at their discretion. Plus, my brother and I never monetized our channels – only the copyright claims on music do that. So yeah, if that counts, I guess we’re screwed. But Toon Ruins said they probably won’t go after small channels since they know they can’t get anything from them. I have 193 subscribers and my brother had 2, so I'm pretty sure that's small enough. Plus, since his channel's inactive, they could very well just delete it and call it a day if they wanted. Time’s running out to do anything about it, but I’ve just been so busy. Maybe they announced this when they did so that people like me would be too busy to try to defend themselves.

Another reason I’ve been busy is that Sword and Shield came out. My husband caught a shiny (Square?) Stufful and named it Fred Bear. Finally got around to watching the new batch of TTG episodes – did not like the Doom Patrol even more than I already didn’t. And they had to drag Dale Jr. into the two-part Transformers parody. They should sell the Titans-themed cars though. If I had to pick a least-worst episode, it would be the one with Cyborg and Robot Man.

Apparently Marzgurl got banned from Twitter for starting KickVic. I had no idea she was involved with this at all. With everything that happened with Justin, she has good reason not to trust Vic or anyone else. Vic lost his case but won an appeal, so I’m not sure how this will turn out or whether he’s innocent or not. This season of Survivor was horribly edited, and the MeToo storyline that ended with Dan getting removed from the game for touching a female production member makes it the worst season in recent memory. Not that they could’ve predicted his behavior before they started filming, but this should’ve been handled better by production and players alike as soon as it became a problem. The fans called him out on being creepy right away, so how could the producers not have acted sooner? Ratings (and other players using it to their advantage to vote out the original victim, Kellee). Before it was revealed on the editing screen, I thought maybe something had happened to Dan’s son, who’d just been there for the family visit challenge. As with previous seasons, Dan should’ve been eliminated right away for causing problems, but they decided to keep going until it affected production. I’m sure if this was Big Brother, Dan would’ve been told to go to the Diary Room and then escorted out immediately, since those are mounted cameras with no human personnel to fondle. Big Brother keeps the peace.

Things I like about my hometown: the land, Hong Kong Chinese restaurant (and the Japanese restaurant attached to it), East Side Pizza (across the street from Hong Kong), Trackside Pizza (a rail car parked next to an active railroad track!)

Things I hate about my hometown: most of the people who live there (apparently, it’s Trump country - and here I thought we were trying to get away from that past)