My sins have overtaken me.

  We are in week two of the 2020 Presidential Election. It seems most of the votes have been counted and verified, and Joe Biden leads 290 to Trump's 214. He's also up by four to five million in the popular vote. Trump, most of the GOP, and the Base, however, insist that every weird conspiracy theory and silly misunderstanding of how presidential elections work is so real and Trump totally won, you guys.

 But this was to be expected, really, or should have been. If anyone thought they wouldn't do just this regardless of how the vote turned out has not been paying attention to anything. Trump could've lost the entire country apart from the Deep South, Montana and Idaho with a popular vote lead of a solid million and they'd still cry about voter fraud.

 This is an aspect of the GOP that Trump brought into sharp relief, the idea that whoever whines the loudest is the most right. To date, the only evidence of any sort of chicanery was the revelation that the Erie, PA, mail service worker that told cheap punk James O'Keefe's laughably named "Project Veritas" that his claims of vote tamperings were lies. He admitted that his signed affidavit was nothing but bullshit once federal investigators interviewed him.

 And that's where I stand on all of this, from Hunter Biden's laptop to any claims of voter chicanery. If it's coming from Republicans, it's all bullshit. It's up to them to prove to me otherwise. That's pretty much where I stood beforehand, but this is a fine example of why. Sort of like when I consider white people being racist, they're actually being racist and I'll apologize if I'm wrong. I rarely am, though. I've been taking notes for a long time.

 So much for all of that. I have no doubt Trump will never concede, and I for one hope he doesn't. I want to see him pulled out of the White House, screaming and crying, like William Macy at the end of Fargo. I am rarely this vociferous, much less this vindictive, about politicians, much less presidents. I'll make an exception here, though. Just like I would love to have seen that shoe connect with George W. Bush's head, I will get a massive chubby if Trump is reduced to a blubbering, squealing, snot-nosed mess by people who no longer have to say "yes, sir" to him. Again, though, the Base will see him as the Alpha Male, but what the hell. They're beyond redemption and should be treated as such.

 Now, moving on. I'm almost finished with the fourth book of the "Reality Bleed" series. I made a mistake when I mentioned these books earlier, neglecting co-author Justin M. Woodward along with J.Z. Foster. My mistake. Anyhow, I'm still enjoying it and still interested in seeing where it goes. It moves at a fast clip, though most of the books are less than 200 words. I don't have a problem with this. The plot stays lean and uncluttered without all the unnecessary fluffery that slows down most serial books. There's been a couple of auxiliary short stories to expand the world. It works.

 Unfortunately, I made a mistake and didn't check to see if the other issue with book serials, and that is the revelation that it isn't finished. Dammit. It's just halfway done. The fifth book comes at the end of the month and the series is planned until next August. That's a bone of contention for me. I want to finish the goddamn story once I start. This dates back to Timothy Zahn's first Star Wars books, the Thrawn Trilogy. I knocked out the first two in less than a week and then had to wait almost a year before the third and final book hit paperback. No offence, Mr. Zahn, but there's no reason a Star Wars serial should be a twenty-dollar hardback book.

  Anyhow. That's enough for now. I mentioned in this weekend's News that there might be changes since Trump won't be around to kick around in two months' time. Or it may not, since the GOP doesn't seem to show any signs of not being complete dirt.

I love being a free man.

 Google Chrome is acting screwy again. It's not wanting to load anything but the home page. Nothing times out, it just doesn't load. Microsoft Edge works as does iTunes so it's not a connectivity issue. Matter of fact, this just happens with my tower. My laptop's Chrome is running fine. It did this the other day and only kicked back into gear after putting to sleep and waking up the computer. Weird. I need to get this thing looked at.

 Anyhow. Pennsylvania got through counting all their votes and the state goes to Joe Biden, which means he is the 46th President of the United States of America. Or is projected to be so, anyway. Like we discussed yesterday, there's something called "faithless electors" to contend with but I doubt they'll matter much. Regardless, it doesn't become official until the electors cast their votes and that doesn't go down until December 15.

 Of course, Trump is still pitching his fits and promising to fight it out on the hill that he was robbed all summer. However, the general consensus apart from the hardcore faithful is "sit down and shut up, you had your shot and muffed it." There's a lot of celebrations going on across the country and a lot of Very Serious People admonishing liberals and leftists. Reach out and try to build bridges, they say. Listen to the Trumpers who's been saying "fuck your feelings, America hater" for the last four years and try to understand where they're coming from. Sure.

 Before we get too much further, let's put out this week's News links. Of course, a lot about Tuesday's election this week. Monday was the lead-in and Wednesday was the fallout. Friday was a look at how interesting and unique this year's race was rolling out. From a purely observer's standpoint, as someone who just gets off on how the Game is played, it was entertaining as hell. As someone who has to live in this country and deal with its fellow citizens, it was nerve wracking as a son of a bitch.

 And to paraphrase a Twitter acquaintance, I'm not going to feel completely at ease until Biden is sworn in and Trump is running from the Southern District of the State Court of New York. Now Chrome is working. Weird. Momma just got back with supper from Peppertown Restaurant and I've completely lost my train of thought on this. To sum up, I reckon, unless something weird happens, Joe Biden is our next President and Trump will spend the next two months being as big a pain in the ass as he can be, partly to stay out of jail, partly out of an attempt to scuttle the Democrats, and partly because he's a dick.

 Moving on, I started and finished a rather neat science fiction book by one J.Z. Foster titled Hell On Mars. In a nutshell, the near-future of an alternate universe where the Cold War took a different turn and hasn't ended sees mankind is exploring the solar system among heating international tensions. On Mars, a former Nazi rocket scientist inadvertently opens a door to another dimension and Lovecraftian nasties come through as they are wont to do. A maintenance crew is sent to figure out why the Martian space station is gone black and shit goes south, as one would expect.

 As I've often stated, I'm a sucker for a good Lovecraftian horror set up especially if ol' Henry Phillip has nothing to do with it. It's not a revelation that his prose is almost unreadable purple, his racism, sexism and xenophobia leeks into his stories far too easily. One gets tired of reading how a bourgeoisie white dude from the early 20th century is scared of white people having sex with black people.

 Mixing Lovecraft and space travel seems like a perfect fit. So much of space is unknown and even if there are no gibbering extra-dimensional horrors from the dawn of time, we're still an insignificant part of a much, much greater whole. Movies like Event Horizon are great but not too give too much away, it's still too centred around human conceptions of reality, especially Western conceptions. One of the great strengths of Lovecraft's universe is that humanity is not important at all in the grand scheme of things if we make any noise at all.

 It's a quick, fun little read and a completely believable representation of a very pedestrian support crew being thrown knee-deep into the heaviest of shit. It is part of a series, though, and one never likes that. This was a quick read and did just what a book serial is supposed to do - that is, leave jonesing for the next book - but there are eight books in the series. The last time I dug into one of those it got so tedious I can't remember anything but the barest details. So, we'll see.

 Speaking of Lovecraftian horrors, thanks to the beautiful people at Humble Bundle, I've been messing around with the most recent Lovecraft-inspired game, Call of Cthulhu by Focus Home Interactive. So far, good enough if nothing particularly interesting or unique. Grizzled private dick with a troubled past gets hired for a mysterious case and has to go to Innsmouth, Lovecraft's Deep One-controlled crumbling fishing town. It looks nice and has some good atmosphere, but it doesn't bring much to the table that Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth did in 2006. A little less buggy, a bit sharper designed, but nothing really new so far. Granted, the Innsmouth Deep Ones business is probably my least favorite part of the Cthulhu Mythos and I can't for the life of me understand why it turns so many folks on.

 And that's enough for now. It's been a long week and I, for one, am glad it's over. From what I'm seeing on the internet, a collective sigh of exhausted relief is going on around the country.