Diego Garcia

 I swear "Diego Garcia" is in an episode of NCIS or something.
I thought it was a ship, "The Diego Garcia," and who is diego-garcia anyway.

Aren't you glad you stopped to read this? O well.

You need a microscope on Google maps to find it.
If you find it by just typing in the name, the map looks way different.

The confusing news which involves Trump (somehow) is, uh, The United Kingdom (London England)
Wants to
(hmm) 
Return some islands to Maritius and then rent a biggie part for a 99-year lease.
Only, some "Chagossians" are ticked-off and sued.
They either lost the suit or the UK is pushing through the deal anyway.

Who sued and why?
They've had an airforce base there for a while. So,,,, why is the UK involved??

And THEN they found goodies (right?)

Now all's I gotta do is find out why some chagossians sued.

Reuters (Paywalled) IDK

The very long explanation google summarizes can be condensed maybe, but it requires having an opinion and I have none.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/17/diego-garcia-remains-a-dark-british-american-secret-in-the-indian-ocean

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia ... except for all the extreme minutia this article is interesting. Sort of. They tried harder 'n hell to colonize the poor place, and various ventures were attempted.
Then ... ( I stopped reading) No island paradise.

---

If you ever have read the immigration documents full of fine print, You'd know that there are tons of discretionary reasons Some high-up immigration official can welcome you into the US.
Are you a celebrity, Are you well off, are you some foreign potentate, etc.

So this rather bleak looking photo from several years ago, with everyone looking at empty plates, might depress you, and it's meant to, being the top photo of the top news stories on Google's front page, right this second.
I predict (with generalities,) that exceptions will be made, and they'll welcome you into some conservative university post-haste.
But it isn't what I meant to talk about at all, I just like the photo.
Ennui (and no food)

---

cancer and other random trains of thought

 Republicans are quick to smear biden and cancer. 
If you read up on history, you'll find Roosevelt and his wheelchair, and how he tried to hide that he had polio (or is that another republican myth)

We've never had a woman, a Jewish or anyone disabled as president.
McCain would have made a good president despite his hand they kept going on about on news shows.
Bah. I was stuck for an intro. There.

My topic tonight is all those cooking shows cooking seafood, it's as if they were paid to push fish and other creepy crawly things.
Fine, but how do you test your seafood for Arsenic, Lead, mercury and / or DDT?

You for example buy seafood from a fancy place, from a ports-o-call, from Kroger, fresh or frozen.
Which is the least deadly?

I'd love to get all stereotypical and lump nationalities and regions together, but that would only piss you off. 

Some people eat more seafood than others, Some eat seafoody things you wouldn't.

Do they (statistically) have higher rates of cancer or is there an immunity?
Just wondering (Trains beget trains of thought)

generally lower, unless you count "Stomach cancer" geez, how diplomatic of you.

Let's just ask about the elephant in the room:

Does Seafood cause cancer?

It depends.

smoked salted squid?
Extra smelly fish? (which pisses off the nasopharynx?)

One last train: They decided (I don't know when or how) to make sauces from fish.
They ferment it, add other sauces, and sell it as "Fish sauce," "Patis" or whatever name.

It would be pretty easy to buy a bottle or two, 

and send them away to be tested by some lab.

I doubt it would be economical or even feasible to send an actual fish.
This train was brought to you by another train, "How to test for poisons in fish"
but I'm afraid to google it, there being too many poisons to talk about.
Googling separately might be better.
"How to test for arsenic"
"How to test for Mercury"
Etc.

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I don't know the obvious reason for this next headline. If people reviewed headlines, this one would be deceptive. More research is needed, it isn't so bad, says the article, so WHY the headline?
The olive-oil people must love her and shower her in research money, IDK

I practically live on sugar and canola oil. I've no desire to eat your pretentious foods with the prices raised to fund your propagandistic "research" 

(Link)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14732173/why-seed-oils-bad-list-avoid.html

But if you don't believe me, check out the Mayonnaise aisle at your local store, or the egg aisle.
Are they hugging the eggs? 2x the price.
Is the mayonnaise without any soybean oil? 2-3x the price.

"Seed oils" include soybean, I am sure, but better to diss canola.
The soybean conglomerate is too well organized.
Soybean oil, soy sauce, and the zilllllion products made from soy, slowly kill.
oooooo, but blame "Canola"

The seed oil debate doesn't need more hype,
Said the pot to the kettle

But adding a comment (to the 5 or so comments) was like pissing in the wind, and you will never see it.
you Would see comments such as 

so my comment (above) here will have to suffice. 

Edit: it showed up, people hated my comment.
Yeah, really drove it down.
So much for trying.

It was prolly my passive-aggressive attitude (I'll guess)
Or the illuminati running olive-oil

PS (not that you asked) beef tallow and bacon grease are highly toxic to my stomach, despite all the glowing posts in their favor. They're natural, not processed, but they piss off my stomach.

I'm sure I could find a PBS show or two touting the benefits of soy, and how many things can be made from soy.
"Nope," says my stomach.
"I don't like it"

I'm reminded of a small town where they had stores selling nothing but soy, in little bricks, and the landlord would use his prized wok to cook it.
He claimed it would lower cholesterol.
I didn't really do my research (what oil did he use?)
You'd lose weight by pooing more, but did it lower cholesterol?
Is he still alive?
Is he on an olive-oil-kick now?
(What happened to the Wok?)

I'm trying "Dark mode" in my editor. Good for my eyes, but harder than heck to edit...

Evildoers die like everyone else, they just get richer along the way. 

Why do some people stay attractive til death (at 80 or so) and others inflate and grow jowls and chins.

If they're celebrities, it's especially difficult (are they ill?) (does their diet make them that way?)

(Link)

.....

Krispy-Kreme cures cancer, (lol)

You can buy Starbucks coffee with olive-oil, for the truly ageless immortal healthier-than-thou

(link) (Dated)

manque

 One of the very last waking-dream messages I got today was the definition of the word "Manque" which the dream said was a different way of tweaking something (Like TV pixels.)

Manque with something enough and it gets adjusted, or something.
Well, the dream was wrong, as I know you're just busting out to write.

But what does it really mean?
I manque'd with the toast and it turned black?
My so-called manque life?

I'm a "maintenance engineer" and a pilot manque.

Pilot manque

I think I heard the word on a game show when the host asked what the contestant did.

There are no reasons I can think of to write the word, 
and examples come to mind that quickly beg for synonyms.
Wannabe, also-ran, frustrated-(cushy job title)

For the geographer manque in me

---------

This next bit sounds convincingly sane until you remember that Maelle is a kind of a fantasy and unreal.

It reminds me of propaganda in my youth. *

How could you argue with it, without knowing more facts??

Fact 1: Maelle isn't real.
Fact 2: Verso dies saving Alicia.
Fact (ok forget the list)
They're blaming Maelle. In a dream sequence starring Alicia and her dad. Why??

And (For gosh sake) what's with the fire, who started it (in real life) and was it an accident or purposeful??

Alicia's sister Clea gives more clues later on in the game (Way later.)
Alicia's naivete started the whole disaster.
And someone somewhere (I forget where) says, Clea is in a solitary war against the writers.
So, algebra enthusiasts say it's the Writer's fault.
Way too dense math for me to follow.

Believing the story as gospel, it's Maelle's fault, only she never remembers why, not even at the end.

*Illuminati, Rothschild, "Replacement theory", separate but equal, Hitler wasn't bad, not really.

Lumiere etc

Louis Vuitton yada whatever

 

I don't know any french, and I don't understand any of the moves yet.

Insert clever phrase here, translate it into french and Chiaroscuro.

Nihilism. "Nihilisme"

fil de pensée

Train of thought

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJefPaBsSug

(hmm)

Dad vs "Curator" (Dad vs Dad?)

https://expedition33.wiki.fextralife.com/Skills You can learn up the butt but when it counts, only the wimpiest moves are available, the rest are too expensive to use.
I'm doing my homework now (this game has to last until next month)

-----

Gee, *thanks*, google 

"High Contrast" is so low class, so great-unwashed, so crude
FURIO

Some evil huntress lurks.
Will I need "WeMod"?

https://www.reddit.com/r/expedition33/comments/1kcsr5x/i_believe_in_esquie_supremacy/
No one name-dropped Kafka yet.
But they're name-bombing another game I need to google, "FFX"

Yeah, OK.

Anyway I'm stuck totally in a giant aquarium filled with nightmarish boogeymen.
If they respawn that would totally suck.
They've taken away my compass and I'm slowly going in circles.
The game takes its cues from those endless-walk games in which you get lost a lot.
Then you google it. (Ble?)
But I suck at puzzles....
Counting sand looks more promising.
A map, *something* 

They dole out knowledge like typical elitists: Eventually and occasionally you'll get a map, and the map says (mostly) go north, which is impossible without a compass. Didn't the french invent Mazes for rich people to have fun?

The guy with no face, yeah.
But you (the game) never mentions that, I'm supposed to just soak it in (I guess)
We're at camp, no way to upgrade weapons (yet,) now I know why.
Thanks,, google (grrrrrrrrr) 

The money-grubbing fools in walkthroughs have you travelling zig-zag fashion to obtain useless crap instead of plotting a route (mostly, north and east.)
When that doesn't work, you find the rock to go under or whatever.
Ahhh!!!

Anyway in typical game-style there are two biggie bosses to kill and some cryptic lore to follow.

"I am your Father!"
"Noooooo!!"

etc.

Pâtisserie, boulangerie, and viennoiserie
(we're supposed to know what a viennoiserie is...)
I looked it up and I still don't know.
"Between French pastry and french bread"
Bullshit, I wanna say. They could have translated it (croissant) and stuck a "w" in the croissant, but no.
Fine! (deaux nutte does not exist but should)"boutique de beignets" ( bo-teek duh ben-yay)

Krispy Kremes aren't doughnuts, they're candy-coated tooth killers (just saying)
REAL doughnuts have disappeared through a black hole, IDK.
Someone make ben yays, please.
Putain. See, they all talk perfect English but switch to french at pretentious moments.

No one goes on about petites fromages (yet.)

Creamerie Restaurant Fromagerie
(if the picture is too dark to see)

https://www.reddit.com/r/expedition33/comments/1kcjcni/december_33/ (wut?)(*ahem*) "quoi ?"

I want to edit in (a week later) that Critics must be falling over themselves praising this game, with its black-and-white and french phrases. "Astounding, Incredible" Holocaust-level depression, it'll be the game of the year somewhere.
"La vie est nulle !" Merveilleux !" (pardon my French)

(link)

I don't read "Kafka" or ever utter his name, but I know the reputation he has.
So I googled his name and "Expedition 33" and sure enough.

There are games, movies and philosophers I'll never read or experience, but when you-all name-drop them, I look them up.
(e.g., "Inception" which sounds a LOT like "Dreamscape")
No one waxes bombastic on the mimes yet....

https://www.ign.com/wikis/clair-obscur-expedition-33/Sirene

I don't know how to get to the goal of this chapter and the link is very unhelpful.

A large woman dances in the bottom-middle, and her minions

but I'm totally lost.
 I'm stuck on one of the upper levels, or paragraph-1000 of the walkthrough.

OK, after we escaped her lair, I don't know how, 
We meet the paintress' sign eventually.
We shoot the sign (Hologram, whatever) and nothing happens (duh)
I haven't loaded up on skills throughout the game, I just shoot the target with my really big gun.
O well. Morituri Salutamus te. Bonum est hodie mori.

Fromage!

Odd choice. 
The "Main" Character dies and for what? 
Dramatic effect?
But the question is important, assuming you've been careful to build up little defensive points and abilities.
It won't matter, everyone is doomed. His *sister* is the protagonist you've been ignoring for most of the story, so bulk her up.

My regret, if I want to get immersive, 
is that all those little prizes you get after battles, clothes and colored things, lay useless in my inventory.
I have no idea what they are for.
The really bad guy is dead, and now we are to meet the crazy lady who lost her family in some accident.
They dole out details like elitists, and I don't know what the accident was or who died and why people keep coming back from the dead.
My guess,
It's all a dream, a twisted fantasy, And "we" don't exist.
I'm writing this knowing I'll keep playing and replaying like a rat memorizing a maze to get the fromage.
(How depressing)

OMG, it's not done??!!!

Quelle Bombastique

My wake-up dream today: I'm an actor in a sitcom wondering what I'm doing there (playing the part of an underling in a school) alongside the main actors Gerald McRaney and Delta Burke.
Some of the characters in the game serve no purpose at all, except to add a more realistic effect.

Is there a theme? I mean, with all the corpses and broken buildings?

Life is pointless, we're all pawns in someone else's play, and try as we might, we'll die.
Or maybe, don't get too attached.

Uplifting, this isn't.

They explain the plot at the very-very end, sort of, but it's dragged out and I start thinking of food or whatever.
I shall seek a plot summary to explain the "Epilogue"

https://www.ign.com/wikis/clair-obscur-expedition-33/All_Endings_and_How_to_Get_Them

And this entry, compact and succinct, almost tempts me to play until the conclusion,
But it's hard developing an imaginary relationship with these characters.
Who do we root for?
Who is the bad guy?
No, I'll restart.
The real villains are only referred to. "The writers." 
And the major catalyst, a horrific fatal fire, is almost never spoken of (until the epilogue? IDK)

---

The story of the game changes a lot.
Somewhere towards the end, Alicia tells her dad that she's hidden the canvas, where her Mom will never find it.
Oh, you mean that 6-foot wide, twelve foot tall canvas that

your mother's hypnotized body is sitting in front of?

But let's ignore that, obviously there IS a hidden canvas somewhere.
Mom finds it pretty damn quick when Dad needs her help.

A male child  is seen painting the canvas. 
Verso pleads with him to stop painting.
Alicia-Maelle realizes who the painter is but stops short of saying his name.

There are no author's cliff notes, only wrong-headed reddit posts and the blog entry I just found.
https://www.thegamer.com/clair-obcsur-expedition-33-plot-holes-make-no-sense/
In other words, until the commercial ridden TV show comes out or rich people can watch it on Netflix, some stuff will remain a mystery.

I only know a couple obvious inconsistencies.
Who are the mimes and why does the game author hate them?
The "Monsters" (Nevrons?) sit around like security guards waiting to kill someone.

Some are fired-up, gung-ho, and some go through the motions like they don't get paid enough or they're getting too old for this shit.

"Gustav" should not have died, and in the end, he is resurrected. Both him and his girlfriend.
Now that you already know they're copies of the fake-originals, it all seems so pointless.
In fact, you could argue that the plot gets a lot weaker after Gustav gets sliced up.

We discover (too late) that "Maelle" is really "Alicia" but with amnesia.

The whole journal-writing-thing makes the story meaningful and then meaningless (The brat with the big head drops it on the ground)

I just read a professional page that says that writing in the journal means something, because you get a skill later on (that is prolly too expensive to use, so nevermind)
Also the semi-ghosts scattered throughout the game, utter a few pithy phrases, mostly of memories or of regret, and these too are useless.
They're vague and eventually, after three or so phrases, become silent.
Don't waste time talking to anyone.
Don't help anyone (It's pointless, and I'm thinking of You, white blob with a torch)
Don't misinterpret this blog entry to turn into a republican, I'm only parroting the f'ng game, you gossipers.

Uh, (Ooh, that got my heart going) yeah, waste of time talking to anyone to try to be immersive,
Unless you like little points and gold stars.

Without the amnesia Maelle wouldn't have cared as much.

A reddit post wrongly states (inmho) that Dad (Renoir) shows a picture of a woman on the floor coughing and gasping for air, as the mother.
I just assumed it was the for-real Alicia, not her mom with COPD, but you'd have to read the very long reddit post.

Bloggy stuff I usually add for my imaginary two-or-three readers gets erased a lot, and lately it's too terrible to enter into my journal.
Does my life really have to go down the tubes every few years?
Shouldn't I crawl away into fantasies of my own and forget about the real world?
In the game, the fantasy is godawful, and the player has to decide whether reality or fantasy is worse.