Chatterbox Wednesday

We should do a Tontine.

Whose fault is that?

Morning!*

The fact that it's dark outside at four o'clock in the afternoon is confusing my inner clock.

Games: Not really. I finally have a bike and an Eevee, I keep sending my Pokemans off to earn their curry/cup of Moomoo milk/rare candy/oran berry (delete as applicable), but I couldn't get over Conchord 's complaint that you can't sort your boxes by Pokedex.

So last night I spent my play session on manually sorting the Pokemon in my boxes by Pokedex entry number. This is oddly satisfying and quite pointless. If you cannot control your Pokemon boxes you cannot control your life.

TV: More bland, comforting pap in the form of Midsomer Murder. There's never a need to watch a whole episode in one go, making it ideal for vegging out in front of the telly.

OTTM: Yesterday I felt compelled to respond to a BTL comment of a Guardian article on the impact of the 'hostile environment' on academia. There are a number of issues, including having to report regularly on one's international students (with the expectation to snitch on them to the Home Office if they miss a lecture or a supervision) and having to justify their intention of temporarily leaving the country for personal or academic reasons. If they are not granted leave of absence they aren't allowed back to continue their studies, doesn't matter if their mother just died and they went to attend the funeral. Another issue highlighted in the article is the practice, introduced over the last 8 years or so, of asking academics to produce their passport as proof that they are legally in this country in order to be able to act as external examiners or to give guest lectures outside their own institutions. These activities are frequently not remunerated and payment often amounts to not much more than reimbursement of train fares, so having to produce proof you are not an illegal migrant every time you are claiming your expenses seems a tad oppressive.

I tried to point this out in my comments, only to discover today that just before the discussion was closed someone went through all the threads and added a spiteful little comment to some of them. My comment is "probably one of the most surreal posts" they've read from an academic. Apparently I'm so out of touch with The Real World^TM in my ivory tower that I'm objecting to showing receipts when claiming expenses. They end with
I feel I have brought great shame on the whole academic community and no amount of filing receipts will change that.


*Apologies to Shenguin for copying his shtick, but it seems appropriate. Plagiarism the sincerest form of flattery and all that.

On the coach to Glasgow.
Trains are fucked.

Listening to that Missing Cryptoqueen podcast.


Some gaming tonight.
But first... it's bin night.

Evening.

I'm not reading all that.

Good to see Tenthen is just as batshit as me when it comes to sorting Pokemons. My progress has slowed dramatically on filling the 'dex, just one more addition, taking me to 372, since yesterday. I have joined the 'casual pokemon trading' Reddit though, so, you know, it's good to see that there was still depths to sink to. Also finally hit lvl 100 with my main guy, or in this case, girl. My Gardevoir is a force to be reckoned with.

I'm done after 5 gyms, the game play loop is interesting but dull and the "gotta catch 'em all" is tempting but...

After a while it's just not fun, borderlands is similar, "well you've beaten the game now move on to the real game", fuck that.

4*

Whilst looking for advice on auto sort Pokemon boxes on Reddit (and not finding it because it's not there) I came across this cartoon. As the poster says,
"this gen's friendship text is strangely depressing":



This cuts me to my very soul.

Takes one etc..

It's a great song and seems very poignant for our times.

Yup, read that on the Beeb, hellava read - The fact she got away with it for so long shows not only how smart she was but how vanity and arrogance clouded the judgement of the investors, them not wanting to seem as though they had been had by some out-of-the-blue random woman (no disrespect meant to smart women). makes you wonder how deep a background check they did on her.

I am a failure, it's OK, I'm used to it.