Thursday, October 13, 2022

10/13/2022 Journal / 10/14/2022 Music Releases

                Another week has come and gone and it’s Thursday time again.  The big winners, for me, last week, were the album I pre-ordered for my sister-in-law (all I can say right now is it’s an early Christmas album), Deep Purple playing the backing band for Ronnie James Dio on “Rainbow in the Dark” and Starless releasing her “Vampire” single, which I helped the Kickstarter project for back in spring.  I was also able to celebrate Bella Thorne, Lzzy Hale and most importantly, John Lennon’s birthdays last weekend, creating a six-hour Spotify playlist dedicated to his compositions. 

 

               I also beat Xenoblade Chronicles 2 after 5 tries on October 9th, and am working on Pokémon; Legends Arceus’ postgame.  This might be the last video game plot I will beat, unless I get enough in Amazon.com gift card money to buy Splatoon 3 this Christmas or Edelgard is in Fire Emblem Engage alongside Marth so we can get Tara Platt-Yuri Lowenthal Fire Emblem dialogue.  I feel age wearing down on me and this isn’t as fun as it used to be, in fact, I’m just revisiting Legends Arceus because I like the character Irida and want to spend more time with her (though it is fun to crush enemies with Legendary Pokémon, two of which rule time and space and were worshipped as gods by people in this game).  I’ve always been more of a character-based gamer, playing a game to understand a character better.  The issue is when the game is so hard or confusing, I don’t really want to play it to understand the character and I feel most of my remaining games are starting to fall into that category; Metroid Dread’s bosses are too hard and I’d have to start all over in Rookie Mode to see if that’s actually significantly easier, Final Fantasy 7 doesn’t easily tell you where on the open map you should go next, so you’re likely to go where the enemies are too weak or too strong (the guide I found isn’t much help, either, in this regard) and Final Fantasy X’s protagonist Tidus isn’t as fun a character as Yuna, Wakka, Rikku or Lulu in the same game, it’s hard to argue when someone dismisses him as a “whiny jock.”

 

               I also feel I’m losing interest in voice actors, not many are responding to my tweets, so I have to respond to tweets of theirs, which can be outside my usual interests and as such, it can feel like I’m straining to “fit in with the cool kids.”  It’s nice these people have real lives outside their work, but it’s not something I can relate to at this time.  As such, I’m contemplating slowly resigning from the website, just showing them some screenshots, celebrate some birthdays and show off some incoming figurines before going to Facebook full-time, because I don’t have to strain myself to maintain relationships there.  I also suffer the fear that if I disagree with someone I like on something on Twitter, they will cut me off, then tell all their friends to do the same, leaving me friendless, alone and picked on.   I will discuss all these issues with my counselor today.

 

               I am aware the Mariners lost the first game of the ALDS to the Astros on a Walk-Off Three-Run Home Run.  If anyone is to blame, I feel it is Paul Sewald, for not locking down the lineup before Yordan Alvarez’s turn.  He had a .500 average on the day going into that at-bat and had been responsible for 2 of the Astros’ 5 runs at that point, it was likely he was going to get a hit that would be bad for the Mariners regardless of the pitcher, he’s also an aggressive baseball player who hit well during the regular season.  But it was hard to be too mad about that because of Twitter, because the Nicene Creed was trending, I asked why (stating I liked it and the Apostle’s Creed) and a homophobe replied it was trending to change my behavior, while I was upset my National Coming Out Day posts weren’t getting any likes.  I’m noticing a pattern that conservatives like that will always strike when I’m already not feeling great and prey upon my lack of confidence and suggest if I became a rigid homophobe, bad things would stop happening to me.  This is why I’m tired of fighting these people in real life and in social media, because this is how low they will go to make converts.  You cannot debate with that, you cannot argue with that, because they are thoroughly convinced that homophobia is as important to Christianity as Communion, Lent, Christmas, Easter, Advent, Sermons, Prayer and Music.  And I’m starting to feel that I have to deal with this attitude on a daily basis, which is killing me.

 

               On a happier note, this week has two releases I’ve preordered for my family, one for my sister-in-law and one for my Mom.  It’s the one for Mom I’m most interested in, as we’ve not had too many good Christian music releases this year, the best we’ve had all year is Amy Grant releasing “Put A Little Love in Your Heart” while most other releases are either too soft or just pandering to a conservative crowd, making jokes/threats about pop culture.   This looks to finally change that, and I’m praying it will, America desperately needs a reminder of the light of God, they associate God with homophobia, misogyny, racism and blind worship of Trump.  This is not what Jesus is about, I cannot imagine Jesus supporting these policies and prejudices.  Maybe I am just a naive 33-year-old, but I know if we continue down this path, we will continue to lose ground and support until we cease to exist.  God doesn’t need a Church in America, but America needs God, the REAL God, not some god that shames them for social media or religious choices or pre-programmed orientations, but a compassionate God who listens and hugs the tears out and a Church who is willing to admit its mistakes and shortcomings.  We cannot go on claiming to be the sole authority if we back racist, misogynist and homophobic people, nobody will support that authority.  Other significant releases are Alter Bridge, Orianthi and Dolly Parton’s Ultimate Deluxe Version of her Christmas album.

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