Video Game Music Grand Melee:

To create the ultimate video game music playlist, I needed to have a fair competition between Final Fantasy songs and 'everybody else.'  The two music collections are about equal -- FF had 1350 songs or so, ogre battle, star ocean, lunar, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Tales had 1485.

I would play a song from my final fantasy list on shuffle, then a song from my everybody else list on shuffle, to keep the competitors randomized, thus giving everyone a fair shot.  (For instance, I wouldn't want FFIV to plow into the bulldozer of Chrono Trigger and get wiped out wholesale just because both sections happened to be in the same area when counted sequentially.)  Whichever of the two songs was better I would include in my 10 star video game music list.

But this creates a lot of unforeseen difficulties.  What if one of the songs on the list is a repeat or remix of another song?  Does it just default against the opponent?  Or am I allowed to use that newly opened up slot to put in a more deserving song instead?

Also, since the two playlists don't line up numerically, what should happen to the 'everybody else' songs who don't have a proper FF competitor?  Do they all automatically pass?

I thought that was silly, so instead I'm just taking advantage of that disbalance to add worthy songs that may have lost in direct competition but are still better than average from both the misc. and the FF list up to 1485 times, since that's what the size of the playlist should be in the end.

What happens if both songs stink, should one really be let in to a 10 star list?  The answer is no.  Provisionally I'll put the better song in, but once this is all done I'm going to sort through the list and take out any undeserving entries.

So the grand melee is at heart a melee, but the rules are a bit more flexible than that, because ultimately I'm trying to create the perfect video game music list, not just have a competition between FF and Tales.

The final size of the playlist will be no higher than 1485, but it could also be much lower, if there just aren't enough quality songs.  Most of the songs will have beaten a competitor in direct competition to get in, but others will receive a pass just based on their absolute, rather than their relative, worth.  Judging by the number of songs already on my list, my grand melee is about 1/5 of the way towards completion.  So maybe the final list will be ready in a couple weeks?

I'm supposed to be reading Baccano while judging these songs, but volume 16 is so bad it's hard to do that.  I'm about halfway through at least.  It's like reading Dune again.  *sigh*

I finished rewatching SDF Macross and am on to rewatching Macross 7.  Since I promised to rewatch all great anime, I was required to do this sooner or later, so now's the best time before I rewatch Delta.  So far Macross 7 has been a blast.  But I remember this series goes downhill pretty fast and stays bottomed out for a loooong time (the show is like 58 episodes and a movie long), so like Baccano volume 16 rewatching all of Macross 7 might take a while.

In short, it doesn't look like I'll be able to complete any of my current projects for a long time.  I still need to beat FF XV too. . .

I hope Trump goes to war with North Korea.  They are the most villainous regime on Earth and should have been taken down long ago.  I'm more than willing to see Seoul go up in flames if it means permanently ending the North Korean menace.  I also agree with Trump's reprisal towards Assad for using chemical weapons, which I think has been more or less verified by now.  Maybe he'll think twice before breaking the Geneva Convention in the future.  Even warfare has rules and needs to have rules in order for civilization to settle disputes in a civilized fashion that minimizes harm.

I'm very proud of the alt-right legion which fought off antifa in Berkeley this weekend.  I couldn't believe how the right wing has simply stood down and taken it for the last couple years as their speakers, rally-goers, and innocent bystanders were continuously assaulted by left-wing terrorist thugs.  Finally there's some pushback.  Why should we have to just sit around and take their beatings, pepper sprayings, and riots?  For God's sake, fight back people.  God is with us, so stick it to them already.  It's obvious the law has no interest in protecting our rallies or speakers, so it's on us now to defend ourselves.  I don't see why we haven't just mowed down antifa with machine guns the moment they come charging towards our lines, but I suppose winning fistfights is a good start.

At the same time, I think attending rallies and listening to speakers is infantile.  All it does is expose your previous anonymous identity, allowing law enforcement to get a bead on you.  True revolutionary change isn't going to come from guest speakers or democratic election campaign rallies.  It has to be private individuals coming together and forming their own community with their own law code, which is perfectly possible so long as it's a seasteading in international waters, or a space colony, or simply a remote haven in Alaska no one knows about or keeps track of.  The amish and mormons have created separate communities within America, so it's entirely possible for white nationalists to do the same.  All that's lacking is will.

Right now, alt-righters are content with the shape America is in, so they'd rather not inconvenience themselves socially or economically to all move to a centralized location and secede together.  If we pooled our power together, we could easily form a nation of our own, we number in the millions, and among us are the brightest, most courageous and best people on the planet.  Sadly, most of the alt-right isn't serious and only wants right wing politics if they come to them free of any effort or hardship.  This won't change until life in America becomes actively worse than the hardship it would require to escape America.  Potential harm across the horizon just doesn't cut it.  Until people are genuinely living in hell they will never organize or act to achieve anything.  It's just how the human psyche is sadly constructed.

For now, alt-right politics is just a sport or hobby.  It's fun to stick it to liberals and occasionally get in fist fights with them at Berkeley.  It's fun to tweak their noses and elect people like Donald Trump whom they find odious.  It's fun to troll them on twitter.

Fifty years from now, when the country is burning in hell, it won't be fun and games anymore.  It will be serious people getting together to achieve serious things, because there won't be any time left for sports and hobbies.  Sadly, I won't be around to see the day when the alt-right gets serious about the 14 words.  I was born too early and too late.  I would've fit in perfectly to the pre-1965 world, or in the Vinland of the future that's bound to come as a reaction to America sliding into oblivion.  But there is no political present for the likes of me.  So instead of politics, I prefer focusing on art, which is doing just fine in the present.  The art of the world is worth gushing over.  The alt-right isn't going anywhere or doing anything, so there's very little left to say.