I broke the 2,200,000 barrier:

A terrifying new score challenge appeared in Heaven Burns Red, a monster with a higher rating than had ever appeared before, and a beam that insta-kills the whole party on the first turn.  At first I tried to fight it conventionally with my critical penetration squad but of course it didn't work.

Then I tried my imp Yayoi fire-squad, relying on the invincibility of Adelheid's dodge and Seira's guard break, and indeed it worked, but not well enough to get me 2 million points.  There was still a skill guide and SS-guaranteed recruitment scrip at 2 million and 2.2 million points that I couldn't loot with this squad.

So next I tried moving Adelheid, with her free dodge mechanic, over to my critical penetration squad.  At first I took out Inori to make room and after several tries I did make it to 2 million points.  But what I really wanted wasn't the skill guide, it was the recruitment scrip at 2.2 million.  So I thought I'd try taking out my healer and going all-out offense next time, with Inori back in.  Several fights in a row my characters were broken due to my lack of a healer, and it was looking grim.  But I learned a perfect balance of offense and defense, where if I used Miya's enfeeblement technique at the right time, and the boss attacked Miya that turn, I could focus on offense without being broken.  That got me to 2,197,000.  3,000 short of the loot.

So next I gave Inori the concentration orb skill, which slightly increases critical damage, and tried again.  With all the stars aligned and that little extra damage adding to my 'maximum damage in a single turn' score, I boosted my score to 2,214,000.  I bested the best the game could throw at me, just barely.

This is why I spend thousands of dollars to get stronger in the game, because even with all that money I'm just barely keeping up with their expectations.  I dread to think how weak I would've been against this boss if I'd only played the game for free.

The characters who got high scores on the score challenge got new title badge ranks as well.  My critical penetration squad is at rank 12 or 11, with Yingxia at 10 since I had to take her out to fit in Adelheid, who is also rank 12 now.  The other members of my imp Yayoi fire squad are all at least rank 10.  A lot of title badge growth, because this is the highest score on a score challenge I've ever managed with either squad.

Meanwhile, a wonderful new recruitment campaign became available, with swimsuit Erika being available to roll on 100 times for free.  For free!  Of course with that many rolls I got the new, absolutely beautiful, swimsuit Erika.  There was also a paid quartz campaign with swimsuit Erika being one of the prizes, but after using all my paid quartz I never got another copy of her which would have given me a limit break.  So instead I used my long-saved-up rainbow protean shards to limit break her to level 1.  Soon I'll have enough rainbow shards to get her to level 2.  Why am I eager to power up swimsuit Erika?  Other than swimsuits are fun to look at while fighting, she has an amazing ability that pumps up everyone's morale, and gets stronger with higher morale.  Since she's a dark element SS Memoria, she fits in perfectly with swimsuit Kozue and doctor Seika, who also increase morale and get stronger with higher morale so long as they're dark element.  I now have a synergistic morale squad that has all the pieces needed to be super strong.  The only problem is their limit break levels are still really low, but all good things come with time.

Swimsuit Erika lowers the opponent's dark defense and defense, then creates a dark element field that permanently improves the damage of all dark attacks by 80%, then attacks the enemy directly for decent damage, all for the low price of 8sp.  I can feel the darkness flowing through me.

I also got white-dress Muua, another brand new SS Memoria.  Her exclusive ability isn't that good, but her unexclusive abilities look nice, so I'll be using them on her other versions.

Other than the new Niina and Ichiko SS Memorias I own every SS in the game.  I also got some nice limit breaks, and some inconsequential ones, namely wedding dress Seira to level 4, wedding dress Iroha to level 1, idol Ichigo to 2.5, magician Isuzu to 2.5, a bunch of memento upgrade items (which I used on base Isuzu and swimsuit Erika, but I still have tons more with no current use), swimsuit Tama to level 2, kimono Tama to 2.5, ninja Adelheid to 3, and cute Chie to level 3.

My imp Yayoi fire squad is my second strongest squad right now, and wedding dress Seira is in that squad, so this will yield quality results.  I also gave Yayoi, my strongest seraph, 5 reversions so she could have an additional skill slot and +4 to stats.  Min-maxing is the ideal in every rpg.

Unfortunately my computer, which is only 3 years old, is making a death rattle sound that gets louder by the day, so I decided this time I wouldn't be cheap like last time, but buy the absolute best computer I could find, with the idea that ultimately it would save me money by not dying so quickly.  This new computer, around $2k in price, should be the perfect gaming machine that can run Heaven Burns Red, World of Warcraft, Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era, and anything else at absolute max graphics with no framerate drop and no noise.  It had better be.

There's no point spending thousands of dollars collecting SS Memorias if I don't have a powerful computer to play the game with, that can actually play the game the way it was meant to be played.  The two basically necessitate each other.  As they say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Trump seems to have changed his mind yet again, and now he wants to win the Ukraine and Iran wars.  Even though it was just proven to him that this was impossible, he's such a doddering old senile retard that he's forgotten the lessons he learned last month.  So now we can expect the worldwide depression and famine people were predicting if the Iran war became serious after all.  Thanks, Trump.

The World Cup is down to 7 teams, all of European heritage:

Blacks failed to prove they were better athletes than whites yet again this World Cup.  All the African teams have been eliminated, as well as all the Asian teams and North American teams.  All that's left is a lone holdout from South America -- Argentina -- which is one of the whitest teams and countries left on Earth.  The other six teams are all from Europe -- France, Belgium, Spain, England, Switzerland and Norway.

It doesn't get any whiter than that.

Admittedly, France fields an almost all-black team.  Belgium, England and Switzerland also have a disproportionate black presence compared to their population at large.  Spain and Norway are pretty much pure white, though, and they're still going strong.  More importantly, if blacks were such great athletes, then Senegal or Ghana would be in the top 7, not 7 white countries.  What we're seeing here is that all-white teams either win the World Cup (like Argentina did 4 years ago), or compete for it at the highest level (like Croatia did 8 years ago).  Meanwhile the only way blacks succeed at the World Cup is if they embed themselves into white cultures, white training schemes, white financing, white coaches and white fans.  90% of black success at the World Cup comes from the white support that surrounds them, only 10% comes from their innate athletic talent that perhaps surpasses the talent white athletes can bring to the field.  And I'm not even sure blacks are better athletes when given full white surrounding support, because after all Argentina beat France four years ago.

All blacks have proven so far is they're competitive with whites at the World Cup, when representing white nations.  When they represent their own nations they're totally hopeless.  The best black player in the world, Mbappe, isn't even black, he's half-white.  (Algerian Berber).  A lot of the best black players are actually mixed race.  If blacks were racially superior athletes, you would think that admixture would lower their performance, but instead it seems to raise it.

White athletic performance is not the most important trait to me, I'd gladly cede it to blacks, saying oh well, what matters is intelligence and virtue.  But while I'd gladly cede it to blacks if there was evidence for this claim, every World Cup, time after time, the evidence always comes out in favor of whites.  I mainly keep bringing this up not because it matters to me, who prefers intellectual pursuits, but because it matters so much to my enemies.  Whenever I compare blacks unfavorably to whites, they'll start bringing up the superiority of black athletes -- only to lose yet another World Cup, the only event the whole world competes in evenly and fairly.  The only sport with 5 billion viewers.

Watch Spain or Argentina win it all and embarrass the black supremacists again. . .

4-1:

Belgium destroyed team USA in the World Cup, 4-1.  I watched the whole awful game, and I can verify that all four goals were handed to Belgium on a silver platter.  The first goal, no one decided to cover the easy slow rolling cross to the striker, who only had to tap it in.  The second goal, three defenders and a goalie were contesting a header from one Belgian striker in the area, and the Belgian of course beat all four of them to the ball and headed it in.  The third goal is straight out of a circus, as the goalie forgot how to kick the ball and kicked the ground instead.  This let the Belgian take it right off the goalie's feet and kick it into the exposed goal.  The fourth goal was similar, a defender failed to clear the ball and instead handed it back to a Belgian striker, who easily kicked it into the net from point blank range.

America never played like that up until this point.  The contrast between their play in this game, which 5 year old's would be ashamed of, and their play against Paraguay, where we won 4-1, is night and day.  It's hard to believe team USA through sheer coincidence could play that badly all together.  It was the worst play from any of these players in their lives, all 11 of them.  Belgium didn't have to do anything.  There's no proof Belgium is even a good team.  I could have beat team USA today.  At least I know how to kick the ball and not the ground.

I based my assessment of team USA on that wonderful Paraguay game.  I had no idea they intended to throw their match once they reached the round of 16.  How could anyone predict a showing that awful?  Professionals tend to play better under pressure, when the stakes are higher, but these players all played the worst in their lives.  They shouldn't be professionals.  They failed us so utterly they should just retire in disgrace.  Every single one of them should be replaced before the next World Cup.

How does a country of 340 million people, with the highest GDP in the world, fail to field a team that could compete with Cape Verde?  It's a national disgrace.  First we lose a war with Yemen, then Iran, and now we lose a match to tiny little Belgium.  Not only do we lose, we're completely humiliated.  We're lucky the score was as close as it was.  I thought Trump promised me that with him in charge America would start winning again.  That we'd win so much we'd get sick of winning.  Whatever happened to that?  America has instead become the laughingstock of the world.  On our own home soil.  With FIFA bending the rules to help us.  And this is what we can accomplish.  Clearly, despite all my criticisms, I still don't despise America enough, because I'm still surprised over and over at how awful we truly are.

Meanwhile, I finished my rewatch of Oshi no Ko S3.  To make my great anime hall of fame everything must not only be watched but rewatched and still deemed great.  For my #29 favorite anime, though, this was quite the low hurdle.  Not only was it still great, it made me cry when Sarina got to reunite with her precious Sensei after all this time.  I can't wait for Season 4, which is only going to be better, every episode until the last.

Next up I need to finish Xenoblade X.

'In Another World With 100 Waifus' read for the 53rd time:

I promised that I would not stop rereading '100 Waifus' until I could read through the entire book and not make any edits.  That promise was supposed to have been fulfilled with the 52nd reading, but then I found some more errors in need of editing after replaying Tales of Xillia.  I had spelled Rowen's name wrong and misgendered Teepo.  So I dutifully corrected the errors, and that meant I still hadn't read '100 Waifus' without making an edit.  So now I've dutifully read '100 Waifus' once more.  Once more, I discovered the book was perfect, the greatest book ever written, the sexiest book ever written, and didn't need any more edits.  Once more I've finished this project after eight years of trying.

For anyone who was waiting until it was safe to read '100 Waifus' with the assurance that no more edits would change it under their feet, here's your chance:

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/02/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-1.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/02/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-2.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/02/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-3.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/03/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-4.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/05/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-7.html

Rereading the novel never became a chore because I spread it out over a month, taking it easy and not worrying about how long it might take.  The long lists of names weren't as daunting because this time I approved of all the names and was happy to see them.  The name gallery was the hardest thing to perfect in this book but this time I leave completely satisfied.

I love every section of this story, which is why I can read it 53 times, but the second half of the story where Cute arrives is my favorite.  The story really zooms out and starts talking about religion, politics, history and philosophy.  It's such an elevating discussion.  I feel energized by this waterfall of wisdom pouring down on me.  At the same time, the book doesn't neglect at all the eroticism or the loving dates with all sorts of uniquely and marvelously attractive waifus, which remains the central theme of the story.  With 100 different heroines, there's no need to stop writing about how lovely they are, it's always a fresh new topic because it's always a fresh new girl.  There's something so beautiful, though, about the last chapter, which is no longer about Christopher but his daughter Shiori.  It's the passing of the torch which we all must face eventually.

Hopefully I won't be required to read the book a 54th time, but I could totally see reading it again voluntarily once my memory of it fades a bit.  The book is so good I could read it infinity times.

Meanwhile, I got three more limit breaks, but again they were all worthless.  Raccoon Kanata reached level 2, fortune teller Seira reached level 2, and Spanish dress Yuki reached level 2.5.  If I could get Spanish dress Yuki to level 3 that would actually be useful, but there's no benefit to reaching halfway to level 3.  I now have 26 SS Memorias stuck in the limbo of level 2.5 or 3.5.  It's so awful.  My light squad in particular, the entire squad is stuck in limbo.  Yuina is at 3.5, Yuki at 2.5, Ruka at 2.5, and Tsukasa at 2.5.

I reached the milestone of 20,000 enhancements, after which point the game no longer offers any bonus quartz rewards, because there's no milestone past that.  So sad, but also pretty darn impressive.  I also finished Byakko's skill evolution and reached title rank 11 on Karen, the highest of any character.  It shows how much I've grown to like her since Chapter 5 Part 2 came out.

I added two new characters to my wonderful hall of fame -- the T-1000 from Terminator 2 and Rei from Vividred Operation.  The T-1000 was a truly impressive villain that never showed any sense of frustration, pain, anger, or anything human about it.  It was a totally new type of enemy the world had never seen before.  Rei was also a villain, but her motives were understandable and the anime made very clear exactly how pretty she was, over and over again, so I have zero complaints.  The T-1000 received 'Labyrinthine' from FF15 as his theme song, and Rei received 'Dearest' from Inuyasha as hers.  Now all my 4-star and above rated FF15 music is in my wonderful playlist.

Atelier Ryza has finally come out subtitled in bluray at a reasonable filesize for download, so I happily added that to my archive.  The best series should be viewed at the highest possible quality.

Other than the series I expected to be great, like Nanoha EXCEEDS and BanG Dream Yume Mita, none of the new shows have stood out.  But I've discovered a great trick to watching unimpressive anime.  If you watch it while playing Magic, only paying half your attention to it, it becomes far more bearable.  With Magic at my side, I feel like I can watch a lot more anime than normal.  I should have thought of this before. . .

Konstantynivka falls to Russia:

Years ago I wrote that Chasiv Yar and Toretsk were strategic locations that would determine the outcome of the war, mainly because they formed the two prongs of a pincer around Konstantynivka.  I predicted it would be easy to take the major city of Konstantynivka once those two prongs were secured, and once Russia has taken Konstantynivka, they have a direct path to the largest cities left outside of Russian control in the Donbass, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk.  These two cities, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, are now the entire reason the war continues, because Putin has offered to end the war if only these last two cities were handed over.  So the war literally ends in a chain reaction once you've taken Chasiv Yar and Toretsk.

As it turns out, it wasn't easy to take Konstantynivka, even though it was enveloped.  It took all year for the picture in my head to develop as I had planned.  The Ukraine war is setting a new record for how slowly things develop, but they always develop in the way I expected eventually.

Russia has announced the conquest of Konstantynivka, complete with videos of soldiers lifting flags all over the city, so their announcement is an indisputable fact.  Meanwhile, all of Kupiansk east of the Oskil river has been conquered, with only a portion of Kupiansk west of the Oskil river still to be dealt with.  I stated Kupiansk was another strategic point Russia needed to take to win the war, and they've almost done so.  Once they take Kupiansk my prediction was the war would accelerate in Russia's favor until Russia's inevitable victory.  I expect this prediction to also prove true, but also in the strangely time-dilated manner that all Ukraine war developments take.

On America's 250th birthday, I'm celebrating Russia's victory in Ukraine.  Russia is a good country which doesn't bomb little girls or castrate children to further the sick fantasies of rich men, unlike America which glories in these things.  Russia is a good country which doesn't, like the United Kingdom or Sweden, allow recent Muslim immigrants to rape endless women in their country without reprisal, or have hate speech laws forbidding criticism of this policy.  Russia is a good country which doesn't allow sacrilegious 'art' like 'piss Christ' or 'dung Mary.'  Russia is a good country which doesn't intentionally mutate Covid viruses to be highly contagious and lethal to humans -- either 'for the fun of it,' the 'innocent' explanation, or so that they could be intentionally unleashed on America's enemies, China and Iran, which were the first Covid hotspots, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of people.  It also doesn't develop vaccines for the Covid virus America originally developed which are far more lethal to children than the virus itself, and then mandate all children take said vaccine if they ever want to attend school.  Russia is a good country with honest elections -- no mail-in ballots, no intelligence agencies lying and saying Hunter Biden's laptop is 'Russian disinformation,' voter ID requirements, etc.  Almost the entire world has voter ID requirements and no mail-in ballots, so this isn't really something specific to Russia, but it is specific to America.  We're the only country on Earth without even a pretense of honest elections.  Russia is a good country where to be Russian you must have Russian parents, you can't just traipse across the border and gain citizenship like you can here, even if you clearly hate your 'fellow Americans' and wish them ill.

Russia is a good country where leading presidential candidates are given actual security, not 'bumbling nitwits' who let snipers climb nearby rooftops and shoot candidates from near point blank range without interference.  As if any security detail could be that incompetent, which is the official explanation.  It's obvious Biden directed a hit on Trump, his presidential opponent, and ordered the Secret Service to stand down that day.  There's no other way that roof could have been left unpatrolled.  All other explanations beggar belief.

Russia is a good country where there aren't obvious conspiracies like the JFK shooting or 9/11 or the USS Liberty or Project Gladio or the Gulf of Tomkin or the USS Maine or the USS Lusitania or Pearl Harbor where the government deliberately manipulates its citizens into believing whatever the government wants them to believe in order to further their own agenda, instead of listening to and fulfilling the people's will, which was supposed to be the entire point of democracy.

Russia is a good country where integrity and decency is what you take pride in, not deviancy.

America used to be a good country, before Lincoln tyrannized the South in 1861.  It's all been downhill from there, and now we're pretty much rock bottom.  (Is there anything lower than castrating children?)

I would've celebrated America's 50th anniversary, but 250th?  What could we possibly celebrate now?

Okay, I admit America's economy is praiseworthy.  We've been an engine of prosperity and technological growth for the people who live here, and for the entire world, for a very long time.  We've propped up the entire world's economy multiple times (after the World Wars) and saved it from the spread of an economic disaster known as communism.

America's athletes are praiseworthy.  We have many talented athletes who entertain the whole world and win the most medals at the Olympics.  Right now we're doing pretty darn well in the World Cup, the one trophy America hasn't yet claimed in our distinguished history.

Unfortunately America spends trillions of dollars a year to go out into the world and hurt as many people as we can, while making our own people fat, sick, addicted to drugs, depressed, divorced, indebted and sinful.  Sure, you can point to various good things about America, but the balance is so ridiculously negative that it's almost shameful to even mention the good things.  It's like praising Hitler for being a vegetarian.

I spent $66 trying to get the new Niina and Muua SS Memorias, but of course I failed.  Instead I got shrine maiden Risa up to limit break 3.5, which is excellent, and schoolgirl Inori to 2.5, which is worthless, and magician Isuzu to level 2, which is also worthless.  It isn't all bad, though, I still have a lot of leftover paid quartz from the purchase which will help me in the future.  And powering up shrine maiden Risa to limit break level 4 will help out my critical penetration squad, where she's a powerful support to imp Yayoi.  It will also help out in a lot of other, less vital, squads.  All in all I don't mind results like these, especially considering I have the money to spare, so I may as well use it for something I enjoy.

Tenpure!! Available:

Circus, the maker of Da Capo, also makes other visual novels, and one of them has now been translated -- Tenpure!!.  Circus is the premier eroge company so any game by them is sure to be good.  I just wish they had translated Da Capo 4 or Da Capo 5 instead of Tenpure!!.  It seems like a massive misattribution of resources.  Everyone knows Da Capo is the best visual novel franchise of all time, so why are they translating anything else?

I don't have time to play Tenpure right now.  I have the World Cup to watch, Xenoblade X to finish, Magic to play, the new summer anime season to watch, etc., etc.  It feels like the busiest year in my life.  But I'll get around to it someday.

The monthly refresh came in Heaven Burns Red, and I did get two useful limit breaks -- cute Chie and admiral Mion went up to limit break level 2.5.  This gets me to 22 seraphs stuck at 2.5 or 3.5 limbo.  Admiral Mion's level 3 limit break ability is outlandishly good, though, so I'll concentrate on improving her first.  So long as your special ability costs 15 sp or more, it doubles the strength of your attack.  Obviously I've placed admiral Mion in a squad full of high-sp-costing-attacks, so basically she just doubles the strength of all my moves for free, as a passive ever-present ability.

This is the inverse of imp Yayoi's ability, which doubles the strength of sp attacks that cost 8 sp or less.  Imp Yayoi's ability is also insanely good and I have a squad designed around it too, full of low sp attacks.  That's squad 8, my best fire squad.  Admiral Mion is in squad 10, my best dark squad.  But both of their squads are built around this doubling ability.

Cute Chie is in squad 3, my other dark squad, which the computer gives a much higher power rating than my squad 10, which shows what the computer knows.  It's actually my weakest squad.  If she could get from 2.5 to 3, she would buff the frontline's skill attacks 30%, which is nice, but not the 100% Mion is buffing.  But squad 3 could really use the boost to make it competitive, so it would be reasonable to get her to level 3 next.

At 3% annual inflation, which is what it looks like 2026 will have, I lose about $12,000 automatically.  If I make over $16,000 to counteract that inflation, I suddenly have to pay federal income tax.  Damned if you do and damned if you don't.  How absurd is it that you have to make $12,000 just to tread water, but if you make $4,000 more than that you're punished for earning too much.  As though anyone can live on $4,000 a year.  It's such an absurd tax code, coming at you from in front and from behind.  Chasing you to make more money via inflation, and then punishing you for making said money.  Luckily I've found a loophole, which is municipal bonds.  Any money made from them is exempt from the federal income tax, I assume because the federal government wants to encourage investors to help fund state and local spending projects.  But it means I have a way to both replace the losses from inflation and make enough to pay my bills, all while not paying taxes to this evil government I don't want to give a single dime.  I have no intention of funding a single bomb headed towards the little girls of Russia, Gaza or Iran.

Capital gains also are exempt from the federal income tax, but I find the stock market to be so chaotic and so completely out of sync with any business justification for which stocks go up and which go down, that I've given up on it.  The guaranteed return from bonds is the only thing I can rely upon, so it sucks that the federal government taxes bonds but not stocks.  It's like the government is encouraging people to gamble their money away.  Again, why is the tax code so batshit crazy?  You'd think that you could at least find a safe haven by buying gold, but there's a 30% tax on gold profits in this country, which makes any investment in the metal impossible.  They're fine with you gambling your money on stock bubbles, that's a 0% capital gains tax, but God forbid you try to stow away your money somewhere safe.  If there was any doubt whether the law code was tilted towards oligarchs, there's your proof, now you know.

I had over 56,000 pageviews last month, probably a new record.  It's funny because I'm writing far less interesting posts now than in the past, but only now am I getting attention.  The internet works in mysterious ways.

Witch Hat Atelier S2 announced:

The best series tend to get sequels, and they also tend to reach my anime hall of fame.  As a result, reaching my anime hall of fame is a good prognosticator that the show will be getting a sequel.  I'm happy to announce that Witch Hat Atelier isn't ending any time soon, and that awful cliffhanger ending will be replaced with something more satisfying.

It's a shame the same didn't happen for Release that Witch.  Once I find a good replacement for it, I'll move that anime over to my top movie rankings, because it's only a movie-length show.

Mao followed the correct pattern, though, getting a 2 cour season that instantly makes it a respectable length in my rankings.  The extra episodes also help justify my high ranking of it at #67.  There's no proof it will end with 2 cours, either.  It could eventually get a sequel announcement at the proper time too.

Higurashi also follows my example, a highly rated series in my hall of fame has gotten a sequel announcement.  Unfortunately Higurashi has a good ending and doesn't need any additional eps, so I doubt anything good will come of this.

As expected, Japan was no match for Brazil, though they did keep it close to the very end.  Unexpectedly Germany and Holland both lost in penalty shootouts today as well.  Three close, exciting, unpredictable games in a row makes for a fun World Cup.  As a reminder to everyone, the same Paraguay that beat Germany lost to team USA 4-1.

Every time I go on a spending spree in Heaven Burns Red I cringe at how wasteful I'm being, but my biggest expense isn't Heaven, it's inflation.  Almost all my losses per year are the loss of the value of the dollar.  If not for inflation I would be so rich so quickly.  I make plenty of money, on paper, to cover all my video gaming expenses, my groceries, my car insurance, etc., to the point that it's all trivial.  But staying ahead of inflation is the real challenge.  I really wish America were still on the gold standard.  Inflation was never a problem before the 1970's.  Now it's always the problem.  Houses cost 54% more than they did just six years ago.  They cost ten times as much as they did in the 1970's.  How do you keep up with that?