reading my own post history

Yeah, January 1st won't make one whit of difference to the level of general stupidity.
2020 has been a pivotal year for me.
Case in point, I received Charan's book for my birthday :)
And, got a job that I really wanted.

"

I read through the pinned megathread tonight to check out where we are compared to where I thought we'd be. Except for vaccines (thankfully) arriving quicker than I imagined, I and a few other science aligned people were deadly accurate.

I find it amusing that it hasn't be deleted, despite Sarah saying she would. Amusing and gratifying. Erasure of important records is rarely a good thing, and that thread is significant as regards a historical account of the past year from our collective perspective.

And how quickly things can change: I met with my Gastroenteroloist last week, and we were both really positive. News of the vaccines, no community transmission, closed international borders. Australia/Sydney really looked on track to be a well-lauded example of How To Do It Right; even Fauci had cited us a few times (and compared to the US, it's still true).

But then we had a simple spike of 4 cases, then 20, and now 60. In 3 days. And of course that's only the known -- we're easily into the triple digits by now, given the tracing has people from all over Sydney exposed for the past 6 days. In less a week we've gone from good cheer and hopefulness to state closures, cancellation of massive sporting events and restricted Xmas house visits. We weren't clever or smarter here. We were just lucky, and when you take that for granted, you pay for it later.

The only uptick is that our hospital system is far from capacity, so I don't expect we'll see many fatalities.

I watched a news-blurb last night about how some in Europe are taking the resurgence. It was an expected resurgence, IMO, yet with news of vaccines on the way, some countries in Europe have upwards of 40% who say they're not going to get vaccinated out of "concerns about the vaccines."

"Concerns?"

...

I get it, I guess - Maybe the fast-track of vaccines "concerns" some people. But, watching people's lungs liquify should also have a slight level of "concern."

i feel like I'm looking at some crazy "Armeggeddon:The Rapture and the End-of-Days of The Stand for Apockyclips" movie... Except, instead of good and evil, I'm looking at stoopid and "not-necessarily-smarter, but more practical." Or smarter. Yeah, I can go with that.

"

Morkonan wrote:

i feel like I'm looking at some crazy "Armeggeddon:The Rapture and the End-of-Days of The Stand for Apockyclips" movie... Except, instead of good and evil, I'm looking at stoopid and "not-necessarily-smarter, but more practical." Or smarter. Yeah, I can go with that.

Question is, which was stoopid and which was practical: Abigail's lot in Boulder, or Flagg's crew in Las Vegas? Once you remove the overt good vs evil aspect of The Stand's main factions, it becomes much harder to figure out. Flagg's bunch were corrupt but highly efficient; the Boulder flower power lot were so stupid a disgruntled kid and a pill popper completely undid them.

True Good is stupid; True evil is more practical. Eh, ancient themes I guess.

Except that what we have now is the worst of both worlds: stupid, low-rent evil. Petty, selfish evil. The real deal, en masse.

On a brighter side, I'm sure we can all agree that Gabriel Byrne pissing an entire street into fiery oblivion is fucking awesome. Peak 90s right there.

"

DoubleU wrote:

2020 has been a pivotal year for me.
Case in point, I received Charan's book for my birthday :)

Been mulling over this, and I've concluded: I'm willing to bet me selling it to you was at least as pivotal as you receiving it, given what it means to me to find a dedicated reader and not just a casual buyer or someone eager to support an old internet pal from back in the day (that happens!). Your reception of my work has been a highlight of my year. So thank you.

__

The only time I go over my own post history, to pull this a bit back on topic, is when I'm googling certain topics from POE and I stumble onto an old post of mine. More often than not I've forgotten I wrote it. Naturally this doesn't happen that much anymore now that over half of my posts have been removed from existence, but now and then...

No, it's others' post histories that I mostly peruse. if GGGod didn't want us doing that, They wouldn't have made them public...

Waiting for the rewrite of The Stand from Trashy's POV. My Life For You: The Pyro's Tale where all of his dialog is replaced with "Hunna hunng hnggha"

"

crunkatog wrote:

Waiting for the rewrite of The Stand from Trashy's POV. My Life For You: The Pyro's Tale where all of his dialog is replaced with "Hunna hunng hnggha"

M O O N, that spells 'Stephen King needs to stop using 'simple' people as supernatural/magic conduits and/or messianic stand-ins'.