@Shounenbat
@Shounenbat
Anime Review: The Vision of Escaflowne (天空のエスカフロネ) Curious to know why I started learning Japanese? It’s all thanks to an anime called *The Vision of Escaflowne*. This wasn’t the very first anime I’d ever seen; Pokemon had taken the US by storm and brought with it a host of shows that could be edited and dubbed for American children. We had *Digimon, Monster Rancher, Flint the Time Detective* and more. Even as teenagers, we flocked to these shows, as they were just…
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The Last Unicorn: A Literary Masterpiece (Spoiler Free) Last night, I watched the old animated film *The Last Unicorn* with my family and was once again touched by this masterpiece of philosophical fantasy. The book and film were both written by Peter S. Beagle, a man who still seems intimidated by the success of the book, heralded as one of the best fantasies ever written. The story is about a unicorn who lives in a lilac forest where, thanks to her presence, the leaves and…
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Universal Basic Income: Human Rights, Dignity, and the Pursuit of Happiness Andrew Yang, a presidential candidate in the Democratic party 2021, based most of his campaign around a single issue: universal basic income. He foretold the coming AI revolution, the next step of human progress, and the devastating effect it will have on the ability for humans to work. According to him, mankind will need to be provided a basic living expense in order to survive. Yang’s campaign…
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Making Money in a Pinch – What I’ve Tried First of all, a quick update on my dog, Molly. It’s not been one month since she began her experimental cancer treatment, GDF11. She has regained all of the weight she lost and is full of energy! No signs of additional tumors. It may be a bit early, but I’d say that GDF11 has licked this thing, and hemangiosarcoma is one of the deadliest cancers known to dogs. This leads me to the crux of this post. All of this costs money. A lot of…
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Ancient Board Games You Must Play: Nine Men’s Morris Watching a chess match and thinking there were no board games before the likes of chess, checkers, and backgammon? Do you really think that the concepts of even our modern, electric board games are wholly original? Believe it or not, people have been playing board games for thousands of years, likely since the dawn of humanity as we know it. Before our more sophisticated video games, everyone seemed to enjoy a good board…
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The World We Strive For Time for some rambling thoughts. I apologize to those who normally enjoy reading my articles for such crazy ramblings, but after spending too much time on forums, I’ve come to wonder just what kind of world we’re working toward and how it may play out. The world feels like it’s going mad, so here are some thoughts. **Mandatory Vaccines** The coronavirus pandemic certainly thrust the world into a state of fear, didn’t it? I know one person who was lost…
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Ancient Board Games You Should Play: Patolli Time for another entry into my ancient board game series! This time we’re focusing on the Aztec game Patolli, which means “beans” in English. Of course, the game wasn’t just played by the Aztecs; it was also played by the Mayans, the Toltecs, and other Mesoamerican peoples. The rules for this game have been reconstructed, but they’re a bit sketchy and may or may not accurately represent all of the rules of the original game. You…