Take your pleasure where you find it.

 Before we get too deep into it, I have some Actual Paying Work this week. One piece is due Thursday and another is due Friday. How this will affect everything, we don't know. Either way, we'll persevere. Anyhow.

 It appears the President's attempts to make us all forget 80,000 people have died from COVID-19 under his watch and in large thanks to his utter incompetence hasn't really taken hold. Nobody is really buying this whole "Obamagate" business besides his faithful, and they think he's the Second Coming of Christ. They are, to put it as nice as possible, untroubled by reality outside of what they're told to believe by the White House. It's getting a bit of play from the ding dongs on Fox News, but they do what they're told. Ironically, the best shutdown of that whole business was on Fox News from National Security lawyer Brad Moss on anchor Shannon Bream's watch. Still, I'm sure we'll hear more and more of it in weeks to come. No one's ever accused Trump or his followers of knowing when to quit while they're ahead.

 Been sleeping too much lately. Granted, I've been staying up too late playing Invisible Inc., Phantom Doctrine and Satellite Reign. That last one is a booger. I'm not sure how to get ahead because every time I try to do one of the side quests, I get stomped in the dirt by the cops. I'm sure there's something key I'm just missing. I do like the aesthetic, though. Both it and Invisible Inc. take place in the future, one where corporations rule the world and you control a team of corporate saboteurs. Invisible Inc. is a turn-based thing like XCOM while Satellite Reign is real-time strategy like the Desperado games.

 I say I like the aesthetic, but I've never been able to completely warm to the cyberpunk thing. I think I've said it before, but I don't know where my world would be in that setting. Small-town or rural South, maybe New Orleans or one of the college towns, what does that look like when corporations rule the world, governments are paper tigers if they exist at all, and people can physically "jack" into cyberspace. I fully believe that's where American culture is going, socially and politically, but it's always set in grimy, rainy mega-cities with a slight Japanese flavor. Where do Merle Haggard fans fit in that world, is my question.

 I suppose if I want to know, I should write that story. I forget who said that as writing advice, "write the story you want to read if no one else has". It's like Neuromancer. Neat concept, interesting themes, but not my world so I have trouble connecting. I don't know why it's so for cyberpunk, though it could be that it just doesn't feel that "far out" as opposed to a fantasy setting or space-faring setting. Maybe I just don't dig on William Gibson's writing, which is true. Transmetropolitan works a little better for me, but that's probably more because Spider Jerusalem is so shamelessly based on Hunter Thompson.

 Okay, what else. I'll leave any news for tomorrow. I'm not going to want to do a bunch of research since one of the APW's is going to involve a fair bit of that. Nothing I've read or watched lately has been anything of note. I think I've finally worked the whole "re-stocking iTunes" thing out of my system. Momma went and got a brand-new modem from the phone company, so it seems our internet woes are taken care of. For the time being, anyway. I guess I'm not really in the mood to write tonight, so I'll tie this off here and maybe come back to it if something pops up later.

 Selah