Netfoot

Powerful symbolism as the people wait and watch for the opening of the door: the W on the hatch rotates into an M. Just wish I knew what it meant. Gigantic as the carriages of the Train are in comparison to a regular train's carriages, the carriages of the Supply Train are even bigger. Taller and wider. Layton really is a self-important dick.

Melanie: "I surrender to the mob!" Layton: "My first act will be to create a 'People's Garden'. Because that worked so well elsewhere." Exactly. Where does the Supply Train get all it's supplies? Because if it had them from the start, why not simply couple on to the train itself, (1,041 cars long!) and be done with it? Frankly, this was a pretty disappointing finale. I suppose I will watch S2, but who knows?

That assumes that Wilford was serious about preserving humankind. We are now hearing that he was just out for one helluva hedonistic End-of-the-World party that lasted as long as it lasted, and then kaput! Also, it assumes that he had the resources to fund his train without having to make promises to the Folgers and their ilk. If it were me, I'd be looking for young, strong, genetically diverse, healthy, fertile people who were highly intelligent and productive in a wide range of skills. But young people are not generally that wealthy. So perhaps Wilford was forced to take the Folgers, etc. Or perhaps they are just who he preferred to invite to his rolling End-of-Days party.

My position is that everyone on the train, no matter how they got there, should be treated as an extremely rare and valuable resource. These are (supposedly) the last remenants of mankind. Some studies claim a MVP for humans to be between 3577 and 5129. Others claim much lower numbers, but either exclude certain risk factors, or require strict manipulation of societal norms. (Eugenics programmes, etc.) Your guess is as good as mine, but what is obvious is that the more people, the better. So, obviously, the people in the tail should be "normalized" (don't know what would be the ideal word) into train society. People who consume at a high rate must reduced consumption to allow for the unexpected consumption of the unexpected passengers. How to make that happen is a question I can't answer, but sticking a gun (or a ballista) in the faces of 1st class isn't the answer. The 1st classers aren't doing anything wrong, they are simply expecting what they paid for. Now, are there sufficient resources on the train to support the unexpected influx of tailies? I doubt there are enough empty 3rd class berths to accommodate them. How many cars do they currently occupy? Enough to be converted into decent berths? Should the farms and fisheries cars be converted into housing for tailies, so they can comfortably starve with the rest of the train? These are questions that we the viewers can't answer because we don't have enough data. But I still think some sort of accommodation should be made. Less Kobe beef for LJ and her cronies and more hamburger for Layton and his. Obviously. And the process should have started as early as possible.

Three captures from the Brothel Menu. I will follow @AnimeMania and spoiler-tag them. In response to @HotSauceAndMoire I will say that I do agree the images look somewhat juvenile. Don't know if this is intentional or the result of limited artistic skills. These figures are not drawn particularly well, after all. The lefthand practitioner in the second photo for instance, is quite unusual in the shape if of the chest.

Quick recap of S01E01 and the only glimpse of the diploma I could find was a partial: It's not really possible to make much of this. It's a diploma in his name, but you can't see who issued it or what the fine print says. Is there a better shot of it than this? I couldn't find it. Not in the 1st episode, anyway. The "brothel menu" (Heh! Like that idea.) looked like 16th century Japanese Shunga (erotic art), but tamed down somewhat. Can't say I noticed anything particularly childlike in the imagery, but I didn't really look that carefully. I'll see if I can grab a screenshot or two later.

They are dumb. Obviously, if they... anybody... eliminate the one person who knows how everything works, the result will inevitably be bad.

A premise I categorically reject. Because it's bullshit. It isn't only rich people who exploit the natural resources of the planet and pollute the environment. It isn't only rich people that drive gas-guzzlers, and pour used engine oil into the drains. It isn't rich people who routinely devastate the forests of the world with slash'n'burn agriculture. It isn't rich people who dump trash and toxic chemicals into the ocean. The whole ill-gotten gains vs. the somehow wholesome unwashed idea is crap. First classers paid for the train, in exchange for their place on it. The tailies are illicit stowaways, who have contributed virtually nothing, and now want to run the show. They don't propose a scheme to integrate all trainies. They want to kill anyone that stands between them and the engine, which they don't know how to run.

Yes, and because the tailies are an irreplaceable resource that should not be squandered in an otherwise sterile world. But the idea that 1st should be stripped of their earned (yes, earned) privileges and possibly discarded in the name of utility so that the rabble in the tail can be handed the keys to the kingdom? No. You say 7 years have passed, but frankly some sort of integration plan should have begun immediately. The question is how, on day one, to convince the people at the front to agree, rather than stage their own coup and simply disconnect the tail and let them all go to hell. Maybe Mr. W had the presence to persuade, but remember, he was absent, and Melanie was limited to what she could do without precipitating a demand for Mr. W to appear personally.

"The would never have caught him, if it weren't for the mayonnaise !" It's been 14 years since the Great War. Perry has had plenty of time to have already gone to law school. There are people who have gone to law school who choose not to practice for one reason or another. Right? Radiation? I'd have guessed leeches.

XXX If they have all the guns, why didn't they use ONE of them? It was laughable. A good 12 Ga. and I could have stopped the entire taily "army" by myself. Instead, the tailys had bows and arrows... they even had a ballista, FFS! Where were the rifles, shotguns and pistols of the defenders? Where were the flamethrowers? Where were the hoses squirting super-chilled air from outside? The entire battle was about as realistic as some SJW's wet dream, and about as effective. She needs to have her ass thrown off the train. But give her a nice, warm coat first, so she can suffer for longer, before she crystallizes. "it was announced that the series would [...] air on TNT's sister network TBS [...] and that it had already been renewed for a second season." -- Wikipedia "Not one tail; one train! Now let's go kill a buncha ourselves!" What bullshit. What this writing says to me is that fundamentally, the tailies are as worthless/useless as they have been made out to be. Otherwise, by now I would at least know who someone (other than Layton) actually is! 100%. Well, I'm watching next week's double-finale, but I don't hold out much hope for a believable conclusion, far less a satisfactory one!

You forgot to mention Bigfoot's role!

I believe it gave a reason for his dishonourable discharge: he killed his own men, albeit to save them from suffering in the face of an on-coming mustard gas attack. Could have sworn he was going to get killed at the end. I thought the eyes were sewn open! I don't know that it makes much difference, but... One thing that struck me as strange: The coffin of the little child. Where I come from, virtually all children's coffins are white. Virtually without exception. Of course, I have to be careful saying this.....

They could rename it to the Classless Habitat in Absolute Zero and see how long it lasts.

<¡sigh!> It never stops. Buddy and I went shopping, and coming back from PriceSmart, on the way down Rendezvous Hill, the car died. Everything went black. Instruments, radio, engine, power brakes, power steering, everything. While rolling down the hill, I tried to restart, but no dice. Into neutral and kept rolling down the slope. Got to the supermarket with some speed up, and mercifully, for justb that moment, there wasn't a car in sight, so I was able to pull right across, through the entrance, and roll to a perfect stop in a supermarket parking space. Almost a mile, through traffic, with no engine. "Now what?" I thought. "Meat defrosting in the back, a doggie in the front... how am I going to get us all home from here?" Quick check and no obvious faults, so I tried the key, and... it starts! But the hi-fi remains dead as a stone and that doubles as my reversing camera. I can reverse fine without it (the van has five mirrors, and I prefer to turn and look back over my shoulder anyway) but still, this has to be rectified if possible. Tried to look up the number of the car shop I bought the hi-fi from, but the phone won't connect to the net. The same phone that was set up for me by the phone company only last week. Well, as it happens, there is a telephone company outlet very close to the car shop, which happens to be only yards from the optician I was already planning to visit, hoping to buy a pair of reading glasses. My tri-focals are still in horrible shape, but can't handle a new pair just yet. Stand outside the telephone company in the blistering sun for 40 minutes to get my phone properly set up the way it should have been last week. Then down to the car shop to get directions to their technician Sherwin to have him look at the hi-fi. (He installed it in the first place.) I get directions, and they say I have to go now because otherwise he's leaving home. "But I have to buy spectacles!" Never mind, the one day I go to the optician they have a sign up marked "Closed For Stocktaking." So, I speed around to Sherwin the technician, and when I get there nobody comes out to see me. I call, and Sherwin answers to say "I don't do dogs!" LOL So, Buddy and I had to sit on a piece of coral stone in the blistering sun for another 40 minutes while Sherwin did his thing. And he done good. Tracked the problem down to a cheap charger that I had plugged into my cigarette lighter. Even though the charger fell apart weeks ago, apparently it left some small bits up in the lighter socket which was playing havoc with breakers, fuses, etc. Anyway, $50 later Buddy and I came home with working hi-fi, reversing camera, and a load of groceries, not to mention some nice, spicy steroids, warfarin, etc, and at 3:30PM, I was able to take my 2:00PM medicine and eat and drink something for the first time today. That first, iced, soda-water sizzled going down! So, curried vegetables with some chicken breast meat, left over from last night. That Guyanese curry powder again. Not too bad this time. Used a different method. Still no heat, but flavour was OK. Oh, and I found a coffee mug to buy, and some Horlicks to put in it. Not a proper 20 oz (English pint) mug like my daddy used to drink his tea from six times a day. It's only 12 oz. But it will have to do for now...

Yeah, they just have to find out where the wide-screen TVs are stored. I'm pretty much with you on this. Frankly, I don't see how a satisfactory conclusion can come about without some extreme plot contortions.

I watched some of the original Raymond Burr episodes when they first came out. Sitting in my mom's lap, or beside her on the sofa. She loved that show. This not my mom's Perry Mason! OK, so the character has been displaced in time, and otherwise re-imagined. Where does it say that scruffy, P.I. Perry will transmogrify into suave, lawyer Perry? The character has been re-imagined. Instead of being about a lawyer who works with a P.I., it is instead about a P.I. who works with a lawyer. John Lithgow plays the lawyer part of that dynamic duo, and Matthew Rhys plays the P.I. Many posters have suggested that Perry will clean up his act and become a force to be reckoned with in court. While this is always possible, I see nothing so far to indicate that's where this must be going. Am I missing something? Or is it just a general opinion that Matthew Rhys must become Raymond Burr for the show to be legitimate?

Depending on your point of view, so are my parents. Or at least they were. (They are no longer with us.) Soft because they were elderly. Lazy because they had worked their entire lives up to retirement, and didn't feel like working any more. Selfish, because they believed that what they had earned for themselves in the past should not be denied them in the present. and entirely useless because they were no longer productive, and no longer contributed to the tax base. But I don't see reason enough to eliminate them, or deny them the fruits of their labours in retirement.

I'm a better frame of mind than I was a few days ago. So that is good. I haven't been able to find a decent coffee mug to replace the one I broke a while ago. Found a replacement plate, but no cup/mug. Found some tomatoes to buy last week. Roadside vendor took $19 off me, but it was a large bag and I've been enjoying them ever since. I still don't have good water pressure. It's literally been months since I had a proper shower. The sponge/flannel bath is better than nothing, but I want a downpour shower, damnit! On a couple of occasions, the water has dried up completely, making it difficult in the kitchen, and also in the bathroom. Tomorrow is pharmacy day, with 7 meds running out. Stupidly, I scheduled my next PT/INR the following Tuesday, so I have to break lockdown twice instead on once. But maybe I will be able to go collect my insurance and license the vehicle the same day. I hope so, because the license/insurance expire this Saturday, so next Tuesday would be none too soon. Speaking of lockdown, today is day #100 for Budweiser and I. The country has been opened up a bit more in various little ways, but probably the biggest is that "Social Distancing" now calls for only one meter separation! You still have to wear masks, tho. And the Sahara dust levels were back to normal yesterday. And (coincidentally?) I don't feel like I'm suffocating. Some of the guys went to the cliff gliding, and sent back pictures of clear, blue skies. Would have loved to have gone with them, but didn't think it was fair to expose my friends to Typhoid Buddy. Poor little beggar has been stuck in the house for 56 days. I just know if I take him out to see the guys he will run over ahd give hugs and kisses and Buddy-snuggles, to each person, one after the other. Poor boy. At least I get to go to the shops as needed. Sure, I take him with me for the drive, but he has to stay in the van and doesn't get out again until we are back home. It's just occurred to me, that even though I won't need to visit the supermarket & pharmacy next week, the Ark second hand book tent will be operating in the supermarket parking lot. So, instead of coming straight home from seeing Dr. K., I could go down there. The ladies love it when I drive up next to the tent and let Bud stick his head out the window. They come and fuss with him and cuddle him up and he really enjoys the attention. We usually drop a couple bucks on a few books and also make a small donation, but I still have 13 books unread, and money is tight, what with the vehicle insurance on top of everything else. But we can still go by so bud can say hello! One good piece of news. Active COVID-19 cases: Zero! Zip. Zilch. Nada. Diddly. Nix. And it's held at zero for the last three days. In the future, new cases are bound to pop up, especially since they are phasing in schedules airline flights over the weeks ahead. I am very glad to see the curve which shot up so quickly in the last two weeks in March, has finally returned to zero. The decent appeared to be asymptotic for a while, but finally. Finally! Of course, I don't really know what that means for me. I'll ask Dr. Kristi where I stand next time I see her. But it looks like I'm never going to be 100% safe again, ever. There is always going to be something that's just waiting to cry "Gotcha!" For instance, I just learned that if your immune system is impaired, it is dangerous to eat egg & soldiers. I'm like "What?!??"

Well, I note that

If I rise from my chair and start to walk, I will feel wobbly. How wobbly varies. Generally, when the feeling comes over me, I grab on to something and wait a short while for it to pass. But sometimes I get up, the feeling isn't too bad, so I just keep going, hanging on to this and that as I go, to prevent a fall. That strategy works fairly well, but not always. If the wobbles are bad, I may start bumping into things, and if they are very bad I might actually fall down! I have not fallen very often, but bumping into things is fairly common. Injuring myself in the process is not the norm. I regret to say that since one of my meds is Lasix, there are times when waiting for the wobblies to pass is not an option. Ongoing joys: Tuesday afternoon my lovely (and expen$ive) phone died. The battery had swollen up and split it apart like a peapod. I tried to fix it, but no luck. It took me a couple of days to transfer the number and my gmail, WhatsApp, etc from that (dead) phone to a cheap piece of crap I had laying about. When I took that apart to transfer the SIM card... the other phone battery could be seen to be swelling up as well. A new phone is a bit of a stretch right now, and due to CV19 there is nobody coming this way to bring it and save me the 41% excise duty. So POS phone will have to serve until things ease up a bit. I just hope it doesn't die as well and force me to buy a new POS phone..... Got the roadworthy done today, and mailed it with cheque to my insurance broker. Funny. The guy took a photo of my insurance so he could get the engine and chassis numbers. He walked away and returned with the form all filled out. They didn't check one damned thing on the van! I'm not concerned because I know I keep the van in good shape. But who knows what other bone-shaking death traps got successfully roadworthied today? Hope good sunsets are all you have from Sahara. I've been having difficulty breathing for several days. Felt like I was suffocating. It was bad Tuesday night. I even considered that maybe I was +ve for Covid and would have contacted Dr. Kristi... but didn't have a working phone. I've been going to bed these last few days with the door unlocked. So they don't have to bust it down to get me out when I'm dead. It's a little better this afternoon and evening. Also on Tuesday my steroids got dropped from 15mg to 12½mg. Another step towards eliminating nasty drugs from my daily diet. (I started at 40mg, and believe me, that was bad!) This stepwise reduction has been going on for a while, and the hope is they can be eliminated completely. But there is always a possibility the MG will kick in after a reduction. And difficulty breathing is one of the hallmarks of MG. So, I even considered the possibility the MG was back. But then I realized that mechanically, I was breathing fine so it couldn't be MG, since it affects the breathing muscles. Diaphragm, etc. If it isn't Sahara dust it is those damned clots in the lungs which don't seem to want to go away. Two friends and I bought ourselves Ahi gliders. I bought and paid for all of them and brought them in; then they paid me exact costs so I am not out of pocket. And while I was at it, I bought a fourth one. That's for when I smash up mine, or if someone I like comes along begging and pleading and offers to pay me Big Bux for it. Ours are not put together yet (waiting on servos from overseas) but here are a couple short videos from YT of the Ahi in the air. I like the one in the mountains... A second shorter one at the beach, but beaches are, like, so boring, right? Then I hear today, that one of the guys has told his friend that I have a spare one and will sell it to him at cost! Really? I wasn't planning to part with it, and certainly not for cost! My $1800 was tied up for months, with the real possibility I'd never see the planes, thanks to CV19 and general malarky from the customs department! Some people just like to take it upon themselves. Paused while out today and brought home a giant roti for lunch. Boneless chicken and channa. Only instead, I got Channa and boneless chicken, the crooks! Never mind, it still tasted good! First roti in quite a while. Good thing I bought two. I had the second one for dinner! Budweiser naturally insisted on helping me with both rotis.....

Sky still a little bit hazy, and my breathing has suffered as a result, but only a little, because I do my best to protect myself. Got up from my desk yesterday, got a little wobbly (not unusual) and crashed into the bookcase. Nasty scrape on my leg which bled lots. Went to bed and let Budweiser minister to it. (Dog spit is antibiotic, right?) This morning, very cleverly managed to wobble into the same bookcase and gouged the very same scrape. The blood wouldn't stop flowing. Styptic pencil applied three times but blood still poured down my leg and puddled on the floor. Buddy and I finally got it to stop and applied a large gauze bandage to my leg. I am really sick of this warfarin therapy, especially since it doesn't seem to be working. Phoned up Friday and made an appointment (10:15 today) to have my van roadworthied, because license and insurance is due by next week. Went in... and they have no record of my appointment. <¡grrrr!> So, new appointment for Thursday. Guy took offense when I said "Show me in your book, where you wrote it down." Now I'm home again, and discovered that I forgot to defrost something to eat for lunch.

I don't think it's to do with the train failing. It's to do with preventing failure. If a calamity sweeps the train, like Legionnaires' disease or Bat Soup sickness (or some other threat), people in the drawers are supposedly safe. Once the threat has passed, those remaining have a genetically diverse pool to draw from to keep the depleted train going. And a diverse set of skills too. Yes, it would appear that the Drawers are being used as a punitive measure, But there are supposedly 12 cars of drawers, equaling 400 'berths', so we are told that punishment is not their primary purpose.

Not terribly impressed by this episode. The seized brakes/failed hydraulic nail-biter was OK, despite the certain knowledge that the train would be saved in the end. But there seemed to be little advance made to the overall plot. I read a sci-fi novel where a time traveler was "doing the business" with a beauty from the past. While on the job, he observed a small millipede-like creature crawl out from behind her ear, run over her forehead and vanish into her hairline. It didn't put him off his stroke.... Once, crossing the channel (Dieppe/Newhaven) in a storm, I observed a lad trying to pick up a girl standing at the rail. He had a good line of chat, begging for kisses, etc, and I think he must have been successful in the end. But I didn't stick around to see how he fared. Because every so often this girl would hold up a finger to interrupt her swain while she vomited profusely over the side. He didn't seem to mind.... I guess if you're horny enough, you ignore, uh, trivialities.

They are carrying an entire tail full of excess baggage. Finding labour would not be a problem. I assume since they still have gardens and farms that the pollination problem has been solved, whether or not they conscripted tailies to help, or made do with their existing labour force.