Bobbing Barrel Brawl

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

It’s shocking to see an Ellie level so high up, but for once we have a level that focuses on her abilities ( & not just the ability to throw barrels, which the Kongs can already do themselves ) & not her weaknesses. E’en better, this level adds many variations to her shooting & sucking skills & breaks up this theme with basic platforming to keep this level from feeling 1-dimensional, making this level feel like it came out o’ DKC2. The only caveat is that this level does have mo’ stopping & waiting than a normal DKC2 level, Ellie’s sucking ability doesn’t have many variations, & Ellie’s shooting ability is just a weaker version o’ Squitter’s, since it requires you to stop & suck up water for fuel, which doesn’t add much to gameplay other than slowing you down.

A few o’ the variations:

In addition to shooting forward, upward @ an angle, & jumping & shooting upward @ an angle, @ 1 point you need to shoot a Booty Bird to drop a TNT barrel onto a Zinger to unblock a bonus barrel.

Suck up a steel barrel & shoot it thru a rather narrow hole to hit Koin.

Jump up beetles to fall onto a lake o’ water with greater force & go deeper down to reach a bonus barrel lower down. ( Note: if this is too tricky to find, you can go back with the Kongs after losing Ellie & pair-throw someone up the 1 cliff in the way & then just swim down to the bonus barrel ).

The bonus challenges are all right: the 1st is just a basic challenge dropping barrels into the water to cross to the bonus coin, which I guess is mo’ challenging ’cause you have a time limit, but still feels a bit redundant gainst the level itself. The 2nd challenge requires you to cross barrels o’er water while collecting ornaments, which are laid out in an arc, which is not a huge challenge, but does feel mo’ different from what the main level offers while still fitting the level’s theme & does offer something o’ a challenge, specially for a rather early level, in that you have to make sure you grab the ornaments.

Krack-Shot Kroc

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

This level finds the best balance DKC3 e’er has ’tween a gimmick that feels fresh, but doesn’t feel like it puts you into a different game, but with less polished controls ( like, say, “Rocket Rush” ). On the surface, this is just a normal, somewhat repetitve level where you play as Squitter & use web platforms to cross o’er boiling pots o’… ¿Pepto-Bismol? while dodging Zingers & Re-Koils. Howe’er, thruout this level there is a reticle chasing you, which stops every few seconds to charge up & shot & then shoots 1 o’ the fireballs that the owls in “Fire-Ball Frenzy” shoot where its reticle has stopped. These shots are so telegraphed, with such a delay after they stop to shoot, that it’s easy to dodge the shots, but the player will still likely want to stay ’head o’ the reticle, giving the player something o’ an urgency to keep moving forward, which thankfully, for once, DKC3 obliged with a level layout that ne’er forces the player to wait. Also, this isn’t an autoscroller, so there’s ne’er a time when you’re forced to wait round.

This level’s shape is similar to a lot o’ other levels’ in that it snakes in 1 direction, with only 1 small branch where there’s a bonus barrel. Howe’er, this being a level that encourages you the keep going, making you explore branching paths would only slow you down & be annoying while constantly dodging shots fired @ you, so it works better here than in other, mo’ slow-paced levels. Also, while this level is as long as most levels, the fact that you’ll be usually trying to keep moving makes it feel like it goes by faster than most, the reverse o’ the problem e’en DKC2 levels had ( “Castle Crush” being a prime offender ) o’ having levels feel too long ’cause they were slow & didn’t have their length readjusted. Since DKC levels tend to be on the long side, anyway, here it feels like a +.

That bonuses are ’bove average, too. The 1st bonus barrel is in a surprisingly hard to find thin niche in the ceiling o’ some seemingly random part in the middle o’ the level. But while it’s hard to find, it’s perfectly fair, without resorting to using move-thru walls, which DKC3’s otherwise superior predecessor succumbed to, including in 1 o’ its strongest levels, “Bramble Scramble”. The 2nd bonus barrel isn’t nearly as well hidden, but it does require somewhat tricky maneuvering round a red Zinger while still dodging the reticle’s bullets.

The 1st barrel’s challenge is all right: you have to collect appearing & disappearing presents using Squitter & use Squitter’s web platforms the reach the higher presents — tho a clever player will realize they can just put a web in the middle o’ the area & always be able to reach a present no matter where it appears. Part o’ me’s kind o’ disappointed they didn’t have you collect presents while dodging the reticle’s shots, like they did with the owl shots in “Fire-Ball Frenzy”, which would’ve been mo’ challenging than just using Squitter’s web, but it also would’ve been mo’ predictable, & maybe it’s good to give the reticle gimmick a break.

But the 2nd bonus’s challenge is the best challenge in the entire game: in an entirely new mechanic, you control the reticle & shoot fireballs @ enemies, desroying them all to reveal the bonus coin, which you also have to shoot a fireball @ to collect. In a game where bonuses fall into either extreme o’ having a bonus that has no relevance to the level or is just the predictable level’s gimmick, but also collecting presents or ornaments, this twist on the gimmick both feels like it fits this level perfectly & feels fresh.

That said, Koin’s placement & “puzzle” is lame: he’s right in plain sight, just on the other side o’ the Squitter end sign, & he has a wall right ’hind him. The only “challenge” is that you only get 1 steel keg, so if you somehow mess it up, you have to replay the whole level, which is mo’ an annoyance than an interesting challenge. This is specially disappointing as there’s an obvious better puzzle: make Koin die to fireballs & make it so you have to lead the reticle to aim @ Koin & shoot him.

The other quibble I have with this level is that it is a bit too repetitive & generic, what with all the verticle sections with Zingers, horizontal sections with Re-Koils & Bristles, & the multiple vats o’ boiling bubble gum you have to cross, with a red Zinger here or there to block your way — specially when most o’ the time they weren’t blocking your way, allowing you to just create platforms way ’bove them & cross without any true danger. I’m sure they could’ve come up with a few mo’ variations, such as having Re-Koils o’er the vat sections. I don’t know if they couldn’t handle having mo’ enemy types than these, but it seems like other levels have a greater variety o’ enemies. If ’twas technically feasible, it would’ve been interesting to see how this level’s gimmick might play while battling gainst, say, Bazukas, or, hell, have you dodge fireballs from the reticle while also dodging fireballs from the owls.

Also, if it wasn’t clear ’nough yet, I like this level’s weird palette. While the previous 2 factory levels have predictable vats o’ red lava & green acid, I love seeing vats o’ mysterious pink substances in this level, bordered by purple walls, which hopefully does some work toward rehabilitating that color after Quawks & “Poisonous Pipeline” has made it look so bad.

I Can Go with the Flow

Here’s a level I’ve been working on for a while. It’s actually a level I apparently wanted so much ’twas the primary inspiration to add the rather recent “swamp” theme to this game ( well, that & my desire to use this level’s music ). This level’s main gimmick is also 1 o’ the many I ripped off from the Wario Land games, but with this game’s oxygen mechanic & the need to aim for bubbles to keep Autumn from drowning as an extra challenge.

The reason this level took so long to finish that 2 other swamp levels were finished before it was simply that I had many 2nd thoughts ’bout this level. ¿Is it truly fun or just annoying? The current mechanic doesn’t work as well with Boskeopolis Land’s Mario-style swimming as Wario Land’s, where you’re actually swimming without gravity constantly dragging you downward, rather than constantly bopping upward in water, as in this game. I also wasn’t sure if the direction the currents are going are easy ’nough to see & whether the path to the end isn’t too obscure. As a developer it’s always important to keep in mind that actually playing a map, where the camera is only showing narrow pieces o’ the map round you @ a time rather than showing the whole map in its entirety before you, is harder than navigating in a map program. While playing the level I was surprised by how much I myself got lost in the maze.

On the other hand, the level is easygoing, with no enemies in the river itself to worry ’bout. I debated adding enemies, but figured the player doesn’t have ’nough control in the currents to make that fair & figured ’twas better to err on being a bit too easy & fair being preferable to frustrating cheap deaths. As a compromise & a way to give the level mo’ variety, I added sections @ the beginning & end with the hopping frog enemies from the 1st swamp level. Anyway, this is only a 2nd-cycle level, so it shouldn’t be that hard, anyway, & I think the threat o’ drowning is ’nough. I also added a small loop o’ currents going down & up ( but ultimately still linear ) round an otherwise unpassable wall @ the top as a tiny unspoken tutorial before immediately throwing the player into the big maze. This expanded the level a bit without making it too long: if one doesn’t make any wrong turns in the main maze, it’ll take the player ’bout 20 seconds. This is ’cause the big maze isn’t all that big, which I consider a +, since a gimmick like this with the risk o’ becoming annoying should err on the side o’ not o’erstaying its welcome.

’Cause the current physics are somewhat janky, I made the time & gem scores somewhat lenient. The time score offers plenty o’ time so long as you don’t take any wrong turns @ all, which is a fair challenge in itself. While the gem score is 1 o’ the highest score requirements in the game so far, @ 40,000₧, there are gems all ’long the current tunnels ( which I just now realized has the advantage o’ showing players paths they’d already taken ). I avoided having hidden tunnels in walls with gems & kept collectibles, like the collectible card, to some branching paths near the bottom middle o’ the level, which are tricky to get to, or in side cliffs in the out-o’-water sections, as expecting players to just ram gainst every wall while struggling thru currents would just be annoying, neither challenging nor fun.

As an arguably irrelevant addendum, to help me create the o’erworld events shown when beating this level ( as well as the previous level’s event, so the level isn’t just floating on water & inaccessible ), since ’twas getting tedious @ this point, I crapped together a quick JavaScript script to generate the event files from specially made Tiled map files. This will be specially useful, since I plan to heavily redesign the o’erworld map ( which means all o’ the events I’ve already made will have to be remade ), not the least ’cause I’ve thought o’ yet ’nother new theme I may add…

This video almost kept in a serious graphical error, like almost all my previous videos, in which 1 o’ the currents was missing most o’ the moving current tile graphics. Howe’er, this was so jarring & this video was relatively quick to record that this time I went thru the whole trouble o’ rerecording & reuploading to YouTube ( yes, it took that long to find, e’en tho I watched the video before uploading ). Howe’er, there is still ’nother bug shown in the video that I still haven’t fixed: you can clearly see the toad enemies hop thru the player from ’neath, hurting them rather than getting bonked. I think this only happens during a high hop, caused presumably by them moving so quickly upward that they pass the bonk collision threshold within a single frame, causing the player to get hurt ’stead.

Learn mo’ ’bout Boskeopolis Land @ https://www.boskeopolis-land.com/.

Read this code as tortuous as this level’s currents.

Poisonous Pipeline

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

Not only is this the worst level in the game, it’s the worst level in the whole trilogy — & the bitterest sting is that this is the final level o’ the main game. While the original DKC gave you some o’ the trickiest platform jumps that game had to offer & DKC2 offered the ultimate challenge for Squawks, ¿what does this game offer? Water that reverses your controls when you’re in it. This is neither interesting, nor challenging, making this a breather level — & the last level is perhaps the worst level to have as a breather level. The hardest part o’ this gimmick is that jumping out o’ water is trickier ’cause you have to adjust what direction you’re holding right after leaving water.

& yes, just to make it e’en easier, they give you Enguarde, as they do for just ’bout every water level, for ⅓ the level if you find the 1st bonus or the Enguarde barrel just after the 1st bonus, allowing you to just plow thru nearly everything. ¿Why is a level with the slightest difference from a world-3 level @ the end o’ the game?

As for the level layout, it’s just a winding maze full o’ the same Kocos & Lurchins you dodged in every water level. The developers didn’t e’en try to add variety to their arrangements: get ready to weave thru Lurchins going up & down in alternating directions & dodge Kocos going right & left ’tween 2 Lurchins ’bove & below 4 or 5 times — but the last time they totally switch things up & add a 2nd Koco. Shit.

The bonus barrels aren’t e’en well-hidden: they’re both just @ the end o’ halls that telegraph you to make a turn & the “puzzle” is to ignore those signs & not turn yet. But if you’re looking for bonuses, obviously you’re going to search every path, ¿so why would you not explore the extent o’ every hall?

The challenges themselves are middleground: you just defeat all the enemies & collect all the ornaments. They’re far from new challenges @ this point o’ the game, but they do require a bit mo’ precision with the reversed controls than the main level.

As for the hero-coin-holding Koin, he’s just to the left o’ a fork just before the end & the way to defeat them is to just bounce the barrel off the wall right next to him.

The only positive things I can say ’bout this level is that it a’least tries to hide how linear it is by making it twist around space like a snake & that I like the color purple. Some people don’t like the gloomy visuals & music, but I don’t know why they single out DKC3 for this, when the original DKC had just-as-barren aesthetics, specially in its last world. I think it fits the mood o’ the end o’ the game fine as well as this game’s nature vs. technology theme; I just wish its gameplay fit as well.

Low-G Labyrinth

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

After reversing controls underwater, making your character slow & have high jumps is the next lamest gimmick in this game, made e’en mo’ laughable by the way they just ditch the gimmick halfway thru the level so you can have yet ’nother Quawks section where you dodge moving Zinger formations. & slowly grab barrels & try hitting Zingers with them, which is just a worse version o’ being able to just spit nuts @ them with the superior Squawks — not the least o’ which since the Kongs can already throw barrels themselves, making Quawks feel e’en mo’ redundant. You know “Poisonous Pipeline” & Quawks suck when they make me hate purple things. The slightest difference they give to this o’erused mechnaic is that you move mo’ slowly, which is s’posed to be harder, but just feels less fun. You should ne’er create difficulty by handicapping the player; it’s cheap & not fun.

Some parts o’ this level are cheap, too. The vertical sections oft lead to blind hits if you’re playing as Kiddy or not using Dixie’s helicopter twirl ’cause the camera was clearly not programmed with downward movement in mind, oft leaving you @ the bottom o’ the screen with li’l space to see Zingers coming as you slowly drift down vertical shafts.

& getting past the 2 red Zingers after the midway point is ridiculous: the space is so small that your character’s graphics absolutely cannot fit ’tween it; you have to rely on you & the Zingers’ generous hit boxes to just squeeze thru — which means you have to know Squawks & the Zingers’ inner hit box, despite not being able to see them ( ’cause they don’t line up with their graphics ). It’s good game design to make your character & enemies’s hurt hit boxes smaller than their graphics to leave leeway for the player; but that’s s’posed to be leeway; it is a sin — a no-Reeces-ghost ( since Twinkies are gross ) offense — to make players play based on this invisible hit box. The player should always be able to squeeze their whole graphic thru a danger, not just the smaller invisible hit box.

In this level’s defense, it does try to implement meaningful branching in the latter half o’ the level. The bonus positions are somewhat clever, too: 1 challenges you to go back after getting Squawks to go up the suspicious banana trail ’bove the line o’ Zingers, which you couldn’t reach before, while the other is in a fork hidden under a Zinger, rather than just out in the open like in “Poisonous Pipeline”.

Tho the bonus challenges themselves are lame: yet ’nother bonus wherein you destroy a bunch o’ Zingers with Squawks & a bonus where you have to collect ornaments without any impediments — it’s just a rectangular room full o’ ornaments. Yeah, you move mo’ slowly, but you still have plenty o’ time to spare. This is halfway thru the game & yet this feels like the easiest bonus in the game.

On the other hand, there’s a few alcoves that serve li’l purpose, such as an alcove with bananas that are not worth dodging the Zingers to get or the invincibility barrel on the far top-left. You might think the latter sounds useful, but you have to do some rather precise maneuvers — either getting the steel keg o’er the gap with the 2 moving Zingers to throw it @ the line o’ Zingers in your way to the left, & still probably have to jump o’er the last 1, since your character accelerates so slowly that the barrel will despawn before you get to that last Zingers, or just jump o’er the 3 Zingers. & ’cause you move so slowly, the invincibility will run off before you get to the actually challenging part @ the end with the red Zingers clumped together. You’d be better off not bothering.

Treue schwören, keine Flagge,

Gottnation, gottverdammt;

der Teufel tanzt mit den Verachteten,

und wie das Feuer uns warm hält.

—Septuplum ultio dabitur de Cain de Lamech vero septuagies septies…

It’s that time o’ the year. ¿Will the Democrats after years o’ humiliating failure finally snatch victory from the US’s 2nd least competent president¹? Stay tuned to find out… Or, you know, just pay attention to real news.

For instance, votes have already been counted in the tiny community o’ Dixville Notch, NH — all 5 votes ( that’s popular votes, not electoral votes ) for Sleepy Joe, which is proof that people are taking seriously the need to exorcise the Hairpiece, as the kind o’ people hipster ’nough to count votes @ 12:00 AM are the kind o’ people mo’ likely to vote for a 3rd party, like 1 o’ the 4 alternate Republican parties I saw on my primary ballot last August.

As a laugh, I decided to watch the 1st the presidential debate after The Guardian alerted me to how so-bad-it’s-good ’twas, &, yeah, ’twas bizarre. I don’t know what I like best: journalist whose boring white name I recognize, but I know nothing ’bout, trying & failing to take some control as moderator as Hairpiece rambles & Sleepy Joe grumbles; Sleepy Joe’s straight not giving a shit attitude, which is refreshing from the typical false sincerity o’ Democrats; or Hairpiece seeming to care mo’ ’bout getting sweet jabs on Sleepy Joe than whether or not these jabs were actually politically potent, such as when he claimed that Sleepy Joe would lose the “far-left” for claiming he didn’t support “socialist” health care ( the kind o’ nationalized health care that pretty much all civilized countries have & has led e’en poor countries like Cuba to have better health care than the US ), which goes gainst Hairpiece’s attempt to portray Sleepy Joe as a far-left antifa Soros whate’er. I mean, I do that, but I’m a satirist, not a president. Maybe Hairpiece should be debating Colbert ’stead.

Actually, I think my favorite part was when Hairpiece claimed that he would make insulin as cheap as water thru magical trade agreements ( which from what vague info he gave, sounded like a scheme to get cheaper-made medicine from seedier places by butchering health regulations… which would not make people healthier ), which e’en the moderator couldn’t stop laughing @. Nobody asked the obvious question: ¿why hadn’t Hairpiece enacted this brilliant plan o’ his in the 4 years he had?

It always amazes me when I watch debates & see how li’l substance is ’hind either candidates arguments — high school students in debate class could do better. I’m sitting here thinking ’bout all the ways e’en someone as simple as I could deconstruct Hairpiece’s complaint ’bout “socialist” health care — ¿what is his definition o’ “socialist”? If it is government control or use o’ government taxes, ¿how is that different from the use o’ tax $ to fund police, which is ironically something that only the “far-left” supports? — or thinking ’bout all the statistics that show the US’s inferior health care performance compared to e’en poor countries like Cuba, including life expectancy, infant mortality, & death by cancer. Hell, I myself could make a better shot gainst the Democrats than Hairpiece by pointing out how lucrative government-funded health care is for private insurance companies, who get their money either way ( & lobbied for it, from both the Republicans, who were the ones who actually created Obamacare ). Sleepy Joe just babbles on some nonsense ’bout how Obamacare on 1 hand barely changed anything — it s’posedly just gives health care to people already eligible for medicaid ( which he accidentally called “medicare” once ), ’cept those whose governors tell them, “fuck you, you can’t have it, either” — but on the other s’posedly does a lot mo’ than just regular medicaid for helping people get insurance ( ’cept for the people in red states, who would still be fucked o’er ). Meanwhile, I’m just sitting here wondering why I should care so much ’bout keeping my private insurance, anyway — ¿Who cares ’bout their particular insurance provider? & indeed, I looked it up & found out that it’s not just the “far-left” who prefer “socialist” health care, but the majority o’ Americans, as well, making the whole debate subject a farce. So we have a ludicrous situation where both candidates are arguing o’er whether 1 o’ them is a socialist when the majority’s saying, “Actually, we want a socialist, please”.

Then ’gain, these debates are aimed @ the same type o’ people who voted for the rambling Hairpiece, anyway, so maybe research & critical thinking would be less palatable than Sleepy Joe dodging questions on expanding the supreme court ( rather than point out all the ways Republicans have been cheaply sabotaging Democrats from appointing judges when Obama was president, like a competent candidate, or be so audacious as to point out that having judges be appointed for life rather than elected for limited terms is stupid & antidemocratic ) or eliminating filibuster ( rather than, ’gain, pointing out that everyone knows it’s a stupid loophole & should have been eliminated decades ago ) by urging people watching to vote, which, presumable they’re going to do if they’re wasting their time watching a debate.

Still, with how nonchalant & passive-aggressive the debate is, it’s hard not to see it as as the elites sober-minded ’nough to know that the US’s government is a joke & now everyone has been let in on it by & are just going thru the motions in the waning years before the country is devoured by rioters & brownshirts.

As a refresher to moderate liberal Redditors fantasizing ’bout things the Democrats definitely won’t do if they win, such as prosecuting Hairpiece or fixing the mess that is the US’s electoral system, I checked in on my favorite faux-rural leftist hipsters @ Naked Capitalism & saw that Yves Smith is still somewhat o’ a crank. For instance, in her article, “One Trump Voter Explains Why Trump Will Win”, which quotes some anonymous hipster Trump voter named Zelda, she links to an o’erly-long thinkpiece that points out the shocking revelation that Democrats like Clinton ( who is still enemy #1 o’ hipster leftists, who is, as Eric Idle would say, an uppity rich bitch, & a’least she isn’t male, so fuck you all so very much ) are rich airheads who only exploit the troubles o’ minorities for their get-rich schemes & then later in her own article calls medicine “a medieval art”, as opposed to random online person’s thinkpieces, which are as hard a science as natural sciences.

FiveThirtyEight has frozen their election forecasts & are currently predicting that Sleepy Joe has a 9/10 chance of o’erthrowing Hairpiece & Democrats have a 3/4 chance o’ retaking the Senate. Howe’er, they were wrong in 2016, so we can ignore what they say & make armchair theories ’bout the psychology o’ the “average American” that I’ve ne’er met, ’cause I only know rich white people like me.

But in FiveThirtyEight’s defense, they do now have cute fox cartoons on their site, so that should absolve them o’ their sins o’ being know-it-alls who are sometimes wrong.

Daily Kos has an interesting spreadsheet listing important referendums and measures on the local state level, including an attempt by Republicans to repeal Colorado’s inclusion in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which, if ’nough states sign up to it, would make presidential elections based on popular vote ( genuine democracy ) rather than the silly electoral college the US’s drunk slave-holding founding fathers conjured up, — since it’s already well established that Republicans are opposed to democracy — as well as many other electoral reform measures. If there is 1 good thing from the great 2016 mistake it’s that mo’ normies are realizing how botched the US electoral system is & starting to actually reconsider it & consider ways to fix it, rather than just obsessing o’er whether candidates are civil ’nough or whether they come from “Starbucks” or “Chick-fil-a” America, or whate’er bullshit. This Cookie Monster man named Stephen Wolf e’en says that there’s a possibility the National Popular Vote could pass by 2024, which genuinely excites my cold, stony heart.

Hilariously, there is a website called “American Interregnum” that provides a table listing various social media’s policies regarding posts calling election results early. Only the US would form brands round the US’s crumbling electoral system.

The /r/politics ne’er mind, I somehow ended up on the /r/neoliberal subreddit, — don’t know why I would e’er want to go there — which I mentioned earlier in this very post already planning for what the Democrats would s’posedly do when they won ( which they most definitely would not do ) are now in despair mode ’cause they feel the polls were off ’gain, tho I feel like that’s just ’cause it’s not a blowout as they wanted, e’en tho that’s not what the polls promised. Anyway, I don’t see how anyone could have any idea o’ whose on top yet, considering how partial the results we have now seem to be. I particularly love the story 1 person told o’ smacking chicken nuggets their mother made for them out o’ their mother’s hand ’cause o’ how stressed they are. Good job making us look like adult-children, buddy. ¡Ha! ¡Ha! ¡I always knew neoliberals were secretly 30-year-ol’s still mooching off their mommies’ chicken nuggets! I’m glad that 1 person yelled @ them to apologize to their mother, tho.

Everyone knows it’s not o’er till Daily Kos starts despairing, & they’re still as calm as e’er.

Thanks to stumbling into the wrong neighborhood o’ /r/neoliberal, I did find this exciting livestream o’ 2 boring white people noodling o’er FiveThirtyEight’s stats all day. I thought neoliberals liked to pretend they were smart ’nough to read.

There’s a few fun electoral hijinx stories, like UPSP ignoring federal court orders to actually count all votes, a poll manager being late to work ’cause they just needed a few hours o’ extra sleep, & Facebook sabotaging liberals’ ability to get noticed. The fact that Facebook’s spokesman’s last name is literally Bourgeois just makes it all the funnier.

¡Ha! ¡Ha! ¡Look @ these Fox News polls showing what socialist atheists the majority o’ Americans are! I can’t wait for Republicans to still win the election, tho, ’cause polls don’t matter, since the US isn’t a democracy.

Everyone’s dour, but I don’t think that’s ’cause they necessary assume Sleepy Joe’s going to lose but just ’cause they for some reason expected a landslide & were hoping that all the Americans in the middle wilderness would come to their senses on Hairpiece. Considering the shitshow W. Bush was, I take for granted that Republicans are incapable o’ coming to their senses & that this was wishful thinking for people in the blue bubble. I have to say tho that I am a bit salty toward people who say things like “I can’t believe so many Americans are this racist, fascist” ( ¿Why didn’t Hairpiece’s original win convince them? ¿Were his sentiments subtle then? ). I’ve been aware o’ this before Hairpiece, but you don’t see me begging for pity.

Washington D.C. elects to turn themselves into the Mushroom Kingdom by legalizing hallucinogenic shrooms. We now have objective proof that the US’s politicos are all on shrooms.

The New York Times embarrassed themselves as they always do by claiming that declaring the winner o’ the election “falls to the news media” ( which only includes rich, connected papers like them, not newbie websites ) to determine election results.

Politico “news”: “We don’t like Hairpiece voters”. I can think o’ a few reasons that’s not exactly news, specially the fact that everyone knew this long before this election.

A great snapshot o’ both Hairpiece’s diehard fanatics’ disdain for e’en the weak form o’ democracy that the US has & their strategical brilliance: they chant “Stop the Vote” in front o’ a vote-counting building e’en tho voting has already stopped — they’re counting now — & @ the current count Sleepy Joe is ’head.

( Laughs ). Thank you for this, Zimbabwe: United States Risks Sanctions From Zimbabwe If Elections Are Not Free And Fair. Obviously, this isn’t truly important, politically, but it is a nice “Fuck You” jab.

I’m also amused @ this comment chain o’ Canadians expressing concerns o’ US people immigrating to Canada & the pros & cons.

( Laughs ). Vanity Fair: “Donald Trump, Colossal Asshole, Says Doctors Get Extra Cash If People Die of COVID-19”. I think you may be editorializing just a tiny bit in that headline, Mr. Lamestream Media. ’Sides, it’s needlessly wordy: “Colossal Asshole” is absolutely redundant before “Says Doctors Get Extra Cash If People Die of COVID-19”.

That article led me to a Twitter stream ( Fun fact: I don’t think I’ve read a single thing Hairpiece — or any politican — has said on Twitter for the entire 4 years o’ his presidency, & I can’t say I missed out much ) that I’d be better off not reading, & I found this bizarre tweet in response to some irrelevant bitching gainst General Motors that Hairpiece was doing for unknown reasons that I can’t tell if it’s ironic or genuine:

President Trump is an amazing man. Because He does everything he can, with his big strong hands, and even bigger plans. Although He is a billionaire, he understands the demands of the working poor, His biggest fans. United We Stand, for only Donald can Make America Great Again!🇺🇸

— Anthony Cornrod (@TWIT_ANTHONY) March 27, 2020

It’s too bad Hairpiece’s hands weren’t big & strong ’nough to win this election. ( Hopefully tomorrow doesn’t prove me as wrong on that as I was mo’ than 5 years ago. If that happens, this paragraph may have to mysteriously disappear like Trotsky did from Stalin’s selfies ).

Ne’er mind: I just found out he outright says he loves Hairpiece “*Sometimes sarcastically*” ( ¿What do asterisks mean in this context? This foreign Twitter culture is strange to someone as backward as me, who still thinks o’ the internet as the place for Geocities-like fan sites ’bout Super Mario 64, where I can learn such intriguing facts as “friendly Bob-ombs” & “70 stars to beat game, or come back to levels for all 120 stars” ).

I must admit, it’s surreal to see a milquetoast left-centrist like Paul Krugman echo the very same “extreme” critiques o’ the US electoral system & warnings ( well, in my case jokes ) ’bout the US becoming a failed state I’ve been making for years. & then we have milquetoast motherfuckers like Bloomberg offered this comprehensive deconstruction o’ all the problems o’ the US electoral system, which includes admitting that the US is the least democratic o’ all countries that aren’t blatantly nondemocratic — tho I would insist that it’s still inaccurate to call the US a democracy for both defacto & historical reasons ( the US was ne’er founded on democracy &, in fact, many o’ its most important designers, like James Madison, were very hostile to democracy, as anyone will learn from The Federalist Papers ).

I must say this election has completely fucked up my yearly tradition — that’s a far greater crime than COVID or the security dangers o’ vote-counters threatened by wingnuts ( ¿why does nobody use this term anymo’? It’s a beautiful word ). What was usually a recap o’ news sources commenting on a finished election has devolved into a muddled stream-o’-consciousness collage o’ random bullshit I found on Reddit. ¿Does it make sense to try talking ’bout how Daily Kos has reacted to Sleepy Joe’s victory when they’ve been talking ’bout it for days?

Well, fuck you, I’m going to do so, anyway. Here they are, showing off Sleepy Joe & Rando VP in their sinister anarchist black face masks, presumably ready to smash every small business window in the universe & cut socialist spending on police like the rabid laissez-faire-lovers they are.

I love this line, by the way:

There are still potential state wins on the table, but he does not need them.

Fuck you, Georgia & Arizona — Get outta here. Nobody needs you anymo’.

( O, shit, we still have 2 senate elections in George — ¡No, wait, come back! ).

I thought everyone’s favorite economist troll, Noah Smith, stopped updating his blog, but then I found out half a year ago he wrote an article ’bout keeping rabbits as pets. It is probably the only article he’s written that I 100% agree with — I am radically pro-rabbit, which is why I voted for Bugs Bunny for president this year, actually, which is why I feel absolutely no sympathy for Hairpiece & his whining o’ so-called sabotage. Bugs was the true victim here.

Lord Keynes, who I also haven’t been reading for years, still makes blog posts every blue moon, but he’s been quiet on any topic regarding Hairpiece or the alt-right — or alt-left, I guess — for the past few years, presumably after Hairpiece’s major tax cuts completely shattered any delusions o’ him being a Keynesian socialist whate’er. I can’t fault this decision o’ his.

Speaking o’ Reddit, I couldn’t get it to load to see what those idiots say, so I’m just going to assume Hairpiece shut it down in his beginning bid to silence all opposition. ¡Soon obscure blogs like mine will be the only 1s left & we will get our chance to shine!

The Nation responded with a seemingly backward schmaltzy article ’bout how, despite Sleepy Joe being a nothing centrist, they should still be appreciated for their “decency” ’cause he was 1 o’ the few people in the world to have family members who have died. ( I’ve had family members die, too, & no sane person would call me decent. ) I thought The Nation was a bit less coddling to centrists. On the other hand, The Intercept had no problem gleefully pointing out all the ways moderate Democrats were hypocritically attacking their base, not ’cause their ideas are bad ( like maybe some o’ Hairpiece’s mo’-rabid fanbase’s racism, sexism, etc. ), but ’cause it might make Democrats look bad. No wonder there are still many who prefer voting Republican: apparently Republicans still allow their voters to have independent ideas & try to attune their policies to their voters’ whims, rather than the opposite, trying to tell voters what they should believe & say. It’s shocking voters are so ambivalent toward a party that treats them as if they should be their servants, not the other way round.

’Course, I say that moderate liberals are only slightly better than utter failures, since as almost every major newspaper has been admitting ( thanks to Hairpiece breaking the moral horizon so much that e’en mainstream media can no longer delude themselves with the ol’ “both sides” bullshit ), the fact that Hairpiece received mo’ votes than he received last election & that this election was so close is still a deep embarrassment. Also, the Senate will probably stay red, — those fucking commie reds — so I look forward to 4 years where nothing happens & the embittered poor turn back to the right wing for ’nother zany heiler. Apparently the real-life version o’ Thursday O’Beefe is a top contender for 2024.

CounterPunch, a news site I have definitely not read in years, came out with an article called “Why Capitalism Was Destined to Come Out on Top in the 2020 Election”. The answer is obviously: “’Cause Capitalism Always Comes Out on Top”. This is as opposed to the 2016 election, when communism was so close to sweeping up the US & giving us all sweet Lenin-brand Po’ Boy hats. This article is legit so generic & transparently phoned-in that it could be applied to just ’bout every election. ¿Why e’en bother writing a new article? If anything, this election could’ve threatened to pull us much farther backward, which should a’least alarm or excite e’en noncompromising communists.

The only interesting thing they note is @ the end:

But those signs also reveal a huge remaining problem: disorganization on the left.

The problem is that CounterPunch doesn’t realize the obvious reason why: intellectual people tend to try avoiding conformity. CounterPunch should understand this, as their founder was praised for s’posedly being gainst the grain, which included his controversial climate-change denialism. The idea that everyone sympathetic to the left will zombie-like become urban labor unionists with the same fervor as Republicans fall into step is delusional.

Democracy Now! makes fun o’ spoiled white people for blaming Latin Americans for not stepping in line to the Democrats, when those honkeys are too busy playing The Last of Us to get off their ass & vote themselves, failing to realize that many Latin Americans are whitebread motherfuckers themselves, like a lot o’ Florida Cubans who couldn’t give a fuck ’bout Mexicans, they just want their tax cuts, bro.

FiveThirtyEight argues that the election was not as close as people thought ’twas this whole time, thanks to making judgments before all the votes were counted ( which is what we’re still doing now, as Sleepy Joe’s victory is still technically a projection ). Honestly, I agree with a lot o’ people, including Naked Capitalism, who expressed skepticism toward a huge landslide. Most pundits, many o’ whom still want to cling to the “both sides” idea, e’en if it’s been debunked, just wanted to believe that most US citizens weren’t low ’nough to support the kind o’ person who outright expressed tyrannical aspirations, a delusion that could be fed only by only associating with their kind o’ enlightened upper-class kind.

Anyway, let us end this week-long voyage thru the strange waters o’ the US’s 300-year-ol’ election system with these words o’ wisdom from our ex-president:

I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

These might be as good as such words o’ wisdom as “IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE”, “IF ALL ELSE FAILS USE FIRE”, & “I FEEL ASLEEP!!”.

&, truly, ¿didn’t we all win this election, by a lot, metaphorically?

Well, ’cept Republicans — but those fuckers wouldn’t be reading this now, so fuck them. We can whisper secrets ’hind their backs & there’s nothing they can do ’bout it.