Reject modernity, embrace ruin:

I look at the clock, the time says 4:44pm on this seemingly mundane Wednesday, it’s almost time to pack up for today’s work; not that it means much these days. Despite my complaints and concerns it seems like the project that I had been working on for over a year now will probably be paused indefinitely because of more important matters. What a waste. What the hell have I been doing for all this time then? I sigh and shut down my laptop for the rest of the night, it has been quite a tiring day indeed. I just had my one on one meeting with my manager for our yearly performance review, you know, the meeting to determine if you get more money or not; I guess you can say that I got a mini-raise, hardly worth anything considering the price of everything has skyrocketed over the past few months due to inflation. I stand up and head to the fridge to heat up my leftover Japanese curry that I had made earlier in the week. As I wait for my curry in the microwave, I look at my TV and get the low-down of what’s happening around the world and the local news on my favorite channel, CP24. It’s Wednesday, February 25; still in the middle of winter I suppose but it’s been surprisingly manageable, not too cold at all compared to previous years I suppose. The news says that they are finally cleaning up and making arrests for that three week long anti-vaccine, anti-Trudeau circus in Ottawa known as the “Freedom Convoy” protests or whatever the hell they call it. What a shit show and embarrassment to the world, I can’t believe that it made headlines internationally. Sad. It’s hard to believe that just five days ago the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics just wrapped up already, I honestly didn’t give a shit at all and everyone at work I spoke to didn’t give a shit either. It just seemed way to soon especially since the make up 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics was just held like 6-7 months ago. The hot topic at the moment at work however was this thing that was going on at the border between Ukraine and Belarus; apparently Russia was amassing a huge amount of troops on the border of Belarus-Ukraine conducting some military drills or something. The US and Biden made a statement a few days ago saying that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine; I don’t know a whole lot about the situation in that part of the world but my Ukrainian and Belarusian co-workers assured me that it’s just games and political posturing; Russia and Putin always do this kind of thing, saber-rattling and such I suppose. Yea, that’s probably just that, the world has been in turmoil for over two years already with Covid turning everything upside down, we don’t need any more world shaping events in my lifetime. I hear that my leftover curry is done, I take it out and stir it a bit, to ensure that everything is reheated properly. I pour it on my freshly made steamed rice from my rice cooker and sit down to consume it in front of my television. Still tastes good, better in fact; I guess they are right in saying that curry tastes better a few days old. As I polish off the remainder of my meal, I see on the news that Chris Rock will be hosting the Oscars next month, hmm, I didn’t even know he was alive doing stuff, I’m sure it’ll just be another boring Oscars without anything noteworthy. There’s also another story about some shit happening again with Harry and Meaghan with the Royal family; honestly I don’t give a shit about them either; as long as the Queen is still around, everything will be fine. Everyone loves the Queen, she’s been that symbol of stability and enduring modernity over the past 70 years, a symbol in that no matter what happens, things will be alright. Yes, that’s exactly what we need in today’s ruinous world more than ever, stability and a hope for the future.

Yes, things will be alright, I’m sure of it.

—

On Thursday February 26, 2022 – Russian troops cross the Belarusian border and invade Ukraine.

._.

oh no…

—

2022 was supposed to be the year where things got better, where the world would emerge out of the covid19 pandemic with renewed vigor and vitality, a better tomorrow; but atlas, sadly this has largely not happened. In fact, things have only gotten much worst, both from a societal, political and economic perspective. While things on the pandemic side of things have indeed gotten much better, the aftermath of the seeds of ruin that were planted in the past two years are continuing to bloom and flourish. What then has changed for the better? What has gotten worse? Let’s reflect upon this past year in a raw train of thought manner as per usual in no particular order.

Bad things that have happened:

In the morning of Thursday, February 26, 2022 – Russian troops cross the Belarusian border and invade Ukraine, defying all economic, political, strategic and diplomatic common sense, triggering the first major military land conflict in Europe since the end of WWII, shattering the over 77 years of relative peace on the European continent overnight. Putin aims to annex Ukraine as the world did nothing when Russia did the same thing in 2014 with Crimea as he and the oligarchs/Russian people largely do not believe that Ukraine as a nation should even exist. While the initial invasion failed to the surprise of the world the continuous fighting and loss of life has been incredible, on the Russian side, some 100k or so troops have been killed in the meat grinder, who knows how many Ukrainian soldiers and innocent civilians were killed as the fighting continues. Russian troops performing war crimes against innocent Ukrainian civilians, women, children, elderly; tortured, raped and murdered in mass for being Ukrainian, genocide levels maybe. Mass graves found in recaptured Ukrainian cities, provide proof of the horrors of war and war crimes. The war causes a chain reaction in the world as the EU and it’s allies sanction and put a stop to the movement of Russian finances and it’s wealthy oligarch elite. The sanctions cause supply chain issues for gas and energy and other shortages, including grain and vegetable oil; one of Ukraine’s main exports. The war in Ukraine leaves Russia virtually isolated economically from the rest of the world, leading them down the path of world pariah terrorist state in the same vein as North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan. Due to the laughably poor Russian military performance in the war, Putin feels threatened that he will lose as nothing has gone as planned, leading him and Russia to threaten the world with using nuclear weapons in the face of defeat. This nuclear arms rattling by Russia is the only thing that prevents NATO and allies in the EU from straight up steamrolling Russia’s military using far superior sea/air forces via the US. The fact that Russia has nuclear weapons and that has largely prevented NATO from intervening directly in the war proves to the entire world that nuclear de-armament and deterrence is bullshit and a lie; having nuclear weapons absolutely provides protection for the nation that has them. This validation of our reality is even more stark considering Ukraine used to have nuclear weapons before, and it was Russia who convinced them in the past to get rid of their nuclear arsenal in exchange for protection from Russia. If Ukraine still had nuclear weapons, Russia would never have invaded, that is the sentiment that unstable nations like North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan are thinking and only encourage them to resume development of their own nuclear arms and intercontinental ballistic missile programs. The renewed interested in nuclear weapons and acquiring them have lead to a world that is much more volatile and dangerous for MAD than ever before, slowly approaching Cold War levels of instability and paranoia. The war that is supposed to be a ‘special military operation’ according to Putin goes so badly that he issues a partial mobilization of the Russian population mid year so that poor and disenfranchised people within Russia are to be drafted into the army to boost numbers as cannon fodder with WWII equipment and minimal training. Putin continues to employ his private mercenary wing, the Wagner group to fill out the ranks of the Russian army that are filled with murderers, criminals and professional soldiers to prevent mobilized troops from running away in battle. The Russian ruble becomes worthless due to the war but Putin pegs the currency artificially. Russian companies and foreign assets are seized in the Russian stock market, western and foreign investment dries up and exit the Russian economy, essentially ruining any chance of a recovery for at least a generation. Russia is economically fucked no matter what happens, invading was a pure lose lose situation and will not recover any time soon. Millions of Ukrainian refugees flee to the EU, causing it’s own problems for host countries. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has caught the attention of China/CCP and their ambitions/plans to potentially invade Taiwan in the not so distant future. While China has largely taken moderate disinterest in taking sides, only caring for itself and money, it has every interest in the war if Russia is defeated and or the Russian Federation collapses and or becomes fragmented, leaving a huge power vacuum that China would only want to take advantage of, potentially making Russia a slave puppet state to China. No one wants that, and it’s not good for the world in any sense of the matter. The invasion of Ukraine and Taiwan are very similar and there is no doubt that the CCP is taking notes on what is happening to Russia with it being cut off from the world, probably accelerating or modifying their approach with Taiwan. Several high profile US politicians visited Taiwan this year, such as Nancy Pelosi to discuss no doubt security and other matters, angering China and the CCP. Xi Jinping solidifies his stranglehold power in China as he is granted an unprecedented third term as president, becoming the most powerful and longest ruler of China since Mao Zedong. All opposition and challenging voices against Xi within the CCP have been purged and silenced, killing any chance of reform and renewal within the CCP highly unlikely, with Xi more likely than not to continue his aggressive heavy handed and nationalist approach towards international relations and diplomacy. China still has extreme Covid lock-downs in much of the cities and population for almost three years now and the Chinese population has finally had enough, triggering rare protests and acts of defiance. The protests actually worked and forced Xi and the CCP to begin removing lock-down and restrictions, even travel. The rapid lifting of lock downs in China has resulted in a huge increase of Covid cases, many millions of Chinese people are expected to travel in the next coming weeks and months, leading to fears of another new outbreak of Covid or new variant spreading unchecked. Countries around the world put travel restrictions on China because of this to the anger of the CCP. Whether or not this will help or limit the spread remains to be seen, as going into 2023 will be interesting. Some 30%-50% of travelers coming to Italy from China have been reported to have Covid in recent days, so this is not good. The discovery and existence of overseas unofficial “Chinese Police Stations” in western countries like the UK, Canada and the US become concerning as they seek to chase down enemies of the CCP and wealthy/criminals that flee the mainland, meaning that no Chinese people are safe, even in another country as Xi and the CCP consider all Chinese people, even those not even in China are fair game to CCP’s watchful eye and governance, super bad. The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics were held in February and no one gave a shit at all, it’s so irrelevant in the grand scheme of events that happened this year, I almost forgot that it happened. Canada probably won some shit but then again no one cares since it was only 6-7 months after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were held in 2021. Just like the Tokyo Olympics, Bejing was a mediocre performance due to covid protocols and limitations. Canada mens lost hockey, womens won Gold, whatever. Mahsa Amini, an Iranian women is killed during police custody for wearing her hejab incorrectly or not satisfactory enough for Islamic law, killed for no reason. The resulting backlash and outcry lead to public unrest and protest in Iran against the regime. Afghanistan under the Taliban rule bans women from all education stating that it is against Islamic law for women to be educated and have knowledge. The 2022 Fifa World Cup is held in Qatar, a small but rich Islamic country based on oil that is known for it’s labor and human rights violations employing slave labor and indentured servitude for the construction of it’s stadiums for the world cup, resulting in hundreds, maybe thousands of people being killed over the years to build the world cup facilities. Dress code is implemented in Qatar during the world cup, women in skimpy clothing becomes an offensive act, women discouraged in general to attend the games. LGBTQ and other gay pride symbols are banned as well as the rainbow. Alcohol and beer is banned inside the stadium just days before the games are supposed to begin, a complete about face to what was agreed upon years ago with sponsors and Fifa. Fifa as a whole displays it’s absolute corrupt nature by turning a blind eye and bending the knee to whatever Qatar asks for while other countries in the past, bend the knee to Fifa conversely. Canada appears at the world cup for the first time in many years but are clobbered by everyone, winning no games. Former Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe is assassinated by a man that has a grudge against his cult connections and underground dealings with the Unification Church. While the assassination is unprecedented and shocking to the Japanese public, the assassins goal of exposing Abe’s ties with the Korean based Unification Church cult actually succeeds and public sentiment turns around, forcing the current ruling party to do an internal investigations on the governments ties to the cult, exposing even further the corruption and deep ties that the party has with the Unification Church. The vast majority of travel to Japan for most of the year was not allowed to tourists up until late fall, prior, only escorted and guided tours were allowed entry which is shit. Up until recently, EMS and Surface parcel were not allowed from Japan to Canada, with the super expensive DHL shipping as the only option. The right wing US Supreme court overturns hallmark abortion rights ruling Roe vs Wade, undoing over 50 years of precedent for women’s rights for abortion instantly on a federal level and instead leaves that decision up to each individual state rights. As each state varies in political alignment, a inconsistent patchwork of rules surrounding abortion, contraception and other reproductive rights is created, a complete shit show where for example abortion is illegal in some states while in others it is allowed. This supreme court ruling literally sets women’s right in the US decades back in time. There is a large increase of violent shootings in the United States, most notably in Texas, Uvalde, the grocery store in Buffalo in a black neighborhood and many others targeting various people and groups. In Toronto, there has been an increase of violent attacks and behavior in the city. In many parts of the world there have been large droughts that have caused supply shortages of crops and other food items, resulting in increased prices for what was once seemingly common cheap produce and foods ($5 for a head of iceberg lettuce, wtf). Due to tight covid restrictions for much of the year, the manufacturing power of China continues to falter, leading many to believe that the economy is on the verge of collapse as indicated by the real estate market bubble that has become apparently unsustainable with many investors and home buyers without their properties left unfinished and left to rot in limbo. Due to the instability and CCP iron grip in China, many foreign company’s such as Apple and Samsung continue to move production to elsewhere in the world such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam; exacerbating China’s economic woes. Will Smith slaps Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars due to a joke regarding Will Smith’s wife Jada and her hair condition resulting in her shaving her head bald. The slap between two black men that was heard across the world was not planned and displayed the unhinged and rather toxic nature of Smith’s relationship with his family and wife, that is, Jada and his kids are crazy bitches and Will is just trying to keep things together. In trying to “defend” his bitch wife’s “honor” Will is banned from all other academy events and programs, in person or virtually, for 10 years. Harry and Megan leave the Royal family officially and are stripped of their titles, leaving them as just rich bitches that used to be the Prince of Wales or something to fend for their own, apparently due to racism and or racist/comments towards their mixed race black/white baby from some members of the Royal family. No one gives a shit and they make a few books/documentaries about their experiences that most people don’t care about. Brexit brainchild Boris Johnson steps down as Prime Minster of the UK and Elizabeth Truss becomes the next PM. UK tabloids bet that a head of iceberg lettuce will outlast Truss as PM, and to everyone’s surprise, this prophecy comes true. In the first couple of weeks, Truss moves into action very unpopular economic measures and policy that sends shock-waves and fears within the economy, tanking the British Pound and bringing it to near parity with the USD within days. Truss is then ousted by parliament just 45 days in office, a new record for shortest serving PM in UK’s history. The lettuce literally had outlived her. Having just met Liz Truss weeks prior, Queen Elizabeth II dies. At a ripe old age of 96 years old, she has served as head of the British monarchy for over 70 years, entire generations of people have never known anything else but “The Queen” at the top. Great sadness and remembrance was held for Queen Elizabeth II, as this is the first head monarchy death in 70 years, no one for sure what was the procedure for the transfer of authority and or ritual involved, had to read some books to figure it out. Prince Charles finally became King Charles III, he himself already 74 years old; with many people having difficulty coming to terms that they now have a King after having a Queen for so long. Some people don’t like King Charles due to his divorce with Diana and such, whatever. Our Canadian coins and money will all eventually have King Charles on it, get used to this bitch. Some Quebec politicians refuse to pledge allegiance to the King because they are Quebec and no one really cares except Quebec. Pierre Poilievre becomes the official leader of the Federal Conservative party in Canada to much of everyone’s groans except for far right Albertan and anti-Trudeau followers, likely crushing any hope of a Conservative win federally anytime soon in the next election. The election of Pierre Poilievre as conservative leader ends any chance that the Conservative party will ever become more progressive and more appealing to the general voting population, perpetuating a wishful cycle that hopes Trudeau will fuck up bad enough that people will vote conservative, instead of trying new ideas and making the party more appealing to non-hardcore right wingers. In January-February, a Canada wide “Truck Convoy” or “Freedom Rally” is held in various cities protesting vaccine mandates and Trudeau in general. Said protest ended up in Ottawa and the protesters camped there for 3 weeks, with camping gear and preparations; disrupting the capital and other border infrastructure/bridges with the US. The police at both the local and provincial levels do nothing meaningful to clear and remove the protesters and a shit storm develops. Trudeau is basically forced to step in and enact the Emergencies Act, which provides powerful federal policing power and suspends civilian rights in the name of civil order; only then are the truckers and protesters are cleared. Freedom convey makes world news and becomes a laughing stock, Canada looks bad. The opposition blame Trudeau and say he is overreaching his powers, a investigation is done to see if the Act was necessary. The investigation concludes that it was justified and necessary, and no one gives a shit anymore, waste of time and resources. Doug Ford gets re-elected in a landslide victory as Ontario Premier, a sad state of affairs as all of the opposition parties were shit with shit leaders. The liberals were still destroyed since the last election and Del Duca proves to be a terrible limp noodle leader. Andrea Horvarth was herself and did what was expected of her as NDP leader, that is lose. The Green party exploded itself as expected. Doug Ford gave so many freebies and tax breaks/credits leading up to the election, he more or less basically brought his re-election, with one of the lowest turnouts in recent memory at that. Local MP Cynthia Lai dies just a few days before election, sad, you see her signs around a lot, no more. Doug Ford plays hardball with unions and school board education workers, wanting to force contracts onto unions and use the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, basically a nuclear option that means he can ignore everything at his discretion. The outrage caused by this abuse of power force the Ontario government back to the table and a tentative settlement is reached to much contention on both sides. Ford breaks his promise to develop the Green Belt in Ontario in order to try and address the housing crisis in Ontario but most think he’s just doing this for his own personal gain and kickback to his developer friends, which is most likely the reason, openly corrupt. Both NDP and Liberal leaders quit and end up becoming mayors in both Oshawa and Vaughn respectively, which is kind of jokes; and if you include Patrick Brown, all former provincial party leaders became mayors. The reddit antiwork movement gets humiliated as one of the mods goes onto Fox News against sub sentiment and makes a fool of himself, making everyone in that sub/movement look like a lazy slob and discredits their message. The price of goods have increased considerably month over month over this past year with food costs being the most painful because of inflation and a shaky global economy. A case of Nestle Pure Life water used to cost like $1.50 sometimes less than that a couple of years ago; today it’s like $3.50, insane. A head of iceberg lettuce used to be like a few cents under a dollar, today’s they are around $5 each, what the hell. Burger King used to have coupons for 2 Whoppers for 5-6 dollars, today that same coupon is 2 Whoppers for $9, whoa. The price for “Tuesday” 2 piece special fried chicken at Popeyes used to be around $2.30ish, today that shit is like $4, man. Inflation and shrinkflation are real. Lays potato chips cost $4 dollars a bag and are smaller than they have ever been. Because of global warning the wild populations of snow crabs have decreased by 90%, resulting in literally no more supply of snow crabs this year in restaurants; the reality tv show show deadliest catch, aka ‘how to catch a crab’ is in shambles. Take out is too expensive, raw food items are too expensive, if you aren’t getting a raise, your effectively getting a pay decrease. The stock market in 2022 has been brutal this year, many large blue chip companies have had their value slashed in half, if not more. Amazon, Google, Netflix, Disney, Meta, Tesla have all been brutalized and many others within the growth and tech industry. Netflix has massive layoffs and it’s stock reduces -50%. Meta and Mark Zuckerburg admit that they fucked up and invested way too much money into his pet project, the Metaverse and as a result is down -62% from last year. The Metaverse is rightfully memed and joked upon as it looks terrible and has no functional or realistic use case for it to exist. Amazon down -50% from last year. Disney down -42% from last year. Google down -38% from last year. Tesla and Elon Musk are pummeled as the electric car company has an astounding -72% stock price decrease over last year as Musk increasingly over the year becomes more and more unhinged and the illusion that he is a real life Tony Stark/Iron Man billionaire trying to do good is almost completely washed away. Musk doesn’t care anymore and his mask of progress and good will vanish, revealing a rich asshole narcissist billionaire similar to Donald Trump as he stokes far right sentiment and favor in the likes of Fox News and extremist circles. Musk has found personal entertainment in trying to troll and trigger people on Twitter and floats the idea that he should buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, the symbolic day and number of international weed day, April 20 or rather “April 420′ blaze it’ day. He pushes this joke to the extreme and ends up signing a contract to actually buy Twitter. Elon Musk reluctantly ends up buying Twitter for 44 billion dollars, grossly overpaying for the social media platform that has never made a profit and at best was valuated at 9 or 10 billion. Elon takes direct control of Twitter and promptly lays off/fires over 70-80% of it’s employees in the weeks/days as a ‘cost cutting’ measure that impacts the daily operation of the company. Twitter is basically run into the ground as he unbans toxic and extremist accounts such as Donald Trump, Kanye West and other far right personalities such as Andrew Tate and other conspiracy nuts etc. As a result of his unhinged and erratic behavior such as buying Twitter, investors do an about face and sell Telsa and other Musk related company stock, Musk personally loses 200 billion dollars of net worth and is no longer the richest person on earth. At it’s high in 2021, Tesla was valued more than ALL car manufacturers – combined, grossly over-valuated because Musk convinced everyone into thinking Tesla was Stark Industries and not just a EV company. Because Tesla has been the poster child of electric cars, the general opinion of EV has decreased because of Musk and Tesla, setting back EV adoption around the world as poor build quality and software flaws in self driving slowly come to light. My stocks and investments are way down from last year, as with everyone’s probably as well. r/wallstreetbets is pure loss porn now and is in shambles, while diamond hands still exist, they are now more like broken hands. sadge. Kayne West goes insane and full conspiracy antisemitism nazi mode. The rapper makes comments about ‘the jews’ and is eventually dropped by Adidas and his very successful Yeezy line of shoes and clothing is discontinued, worth many millions of dollars. Kayne is then kicked out of Sketchers when he shows up at their HQ. Kanye then appears on far right talk shows and says that he likes Hitler and makes further comments about ‘the jews’ and world conspiracy. Kanye posts a few more antisemitic images on his recently re-instated Twitter and Elon Musk is forced to ban him again, despite being a ‘free speech absolutest’  and is mocked online for this hypocrisy. FTX cryptocurrency exchange collapses as a result of CEO’s Sam Bankmanfried’s corruption, gross mismanagement and theft of users and investors funds. The fall of the FTX exchange deals a huge blow to the progress and reputation of cryptocurrency as a whole and all coins are massively down. Bitcoin is down -60% from last year hovering around 16k USD, a far descent from it’s all time high of 64k in 2021. The rise of NFT scams further hinder the reputation of cryptocurrency to the masses such as Donald Trump’s NFT trading cards which sell out within hours on the Etherum network, furthering the downward spiral and reputation of crypto for many years more. My phone number was sim card swap hacked due to an internal breech at Koodo and as a result I did not have a phone number for a day and a half, resulting in me missing important shipment UPS calls which ultimately resulted in my packages being sent back to Japan, fuck and causing more headache to contact and resend, meaning I had to pay double for shipping. Tic Tok is declared as literal Chinese CCP spyware and yet the youth of today do not give a shit and use it regardless for the memes and shit, various government levels both in the US and Canada want to ban the platform but that has yet to come to fruition. The US midterms elections are held and the House flips to Republican, with various Republicans vowing to open investigations on Hunter Bidens Laptop and try to impeach Biden because they are so butthurt and bitter still from Trump loosing in 2020. This continued rise in right wing radicalism has seen the attacking of various power substations in the united states causing blackouts and power grid/shortages problems for some states and yet is not declared as domestic terrorism. Pearson International airport is a shit show in the opening days of post covid travel as it cannot handle the volume of visitors and horrendous lines and wait times in the summer leading to in excess of 4-5 hour long waits just to get to the terminal. Similarly, luggage is commonly lost or left at destinations making it more problematic for Canadian travelers. Rogers continues it’s bid to purchase Shaw, making the Canadian telecommunications landscape even more of a monopoly and shit for customers. Rogers internet outage for 1.5 days across Ontario/Toronto shuts down industry, commerce and work, completely disrupting peoples lives and communications, terrible infrastructure. Microsoft seeks to buy Activision Blizzard, which while may be a good prospect for Blizzard and future Starcraft/Warcraft games, it’s not good for the gaming industry as more and more companies consolidate and the industry continues to shrink and get more monopolistic. Played no real new games this year despite a lot of interesting and highly rated titles being released such as Elden Ring. Pile of games purchased but did not play continues to grow over the years. New pokemon games are released but they are not up to the quality of years past and most fans continue to be disappointed with Nintendo’s 3d pokemon offerings. The newest pokemon game graphically looks like a slightly better ps2 game but runs worst performance wise and with less content/story postgame content than ever before. New Sonic game is mediocre as hell but because the bar is so low for Sonic games, is praised by fans as being the best ever shit in years, sad. Brave Frontier global/jp is officially shut down in April with no future plans or preview of what the IP has in store, as far as most people are concerned, it is a dead IP and franchise, sad. Tera Online all servers are shut down in June with no future in sight for the IP or world at this time. The price of anime figures has seen a sharp increase of costs due to supply and probably manufacturing issues/materials in china. Yen to USD exchange rate in shambles and the Yen to CAD is almost parity, for better or worse. Amazon in general becomes shitter to buy stuff off from as the selection of goods is noticeable reduced and the minimum amount needed for free shipping further increases. Uber Eats and other food deliver services have become way too expensive for one person so I have maybe used them in 2022 just once or twice. Fahmee Bakery, home of Toronto’s best Jamaican beef Patties closes after a fire in the Scarborough location which served patties at Warden and Bathhurst station, there is no suitable replacement for Fahmee patties at this time of similar quality and is so sad. More Jamaican beef patty places close such as Randy’s and Patty Stop which are more sad cause of covid times and costs of raw materials due to inflation and supply. While society slowly begins it’s way back from a harsh covid world, many small businesses still simply cannot keep up with the cost of inflation and cost of labor and close their doors. Gas in the summer reached over $2.15 a liter for a time which is probably the highest it’s ever been. The Raptors still rebuilding so still suck due to many injuries and not living up to expectations. The Leafs are kinda good but no one believes that they can win in the playoffs as the previous year’s dramatic meltdown choke failure in the first round to the habs still linger. Argos won but no one cares. TFC are shit. Blue Jays still shit. The continued degradation of youth in a recovering covid-world has left youth disenfranchised and lost in school, career and in society, for 3 years their world has been disrupted and the end result is a generation of youth more apathetic, depressed and without hope for the future than ever before. As a result of such cultural regression, increased crime in cities and mob attacks such as the mob random stabbing of a homeless man by a bunch of young teenage girls who first met online; stabbings at schools and more incidents of random violence in the public. While the real estate market is finally cooling due to interest rate hikes, many people cannot keep their head above water and cannot afford their own mortgages and the house that they live in due to the decrease in their properties value and the cooling of the market, this will result in more poverty and homelessness for all in Canada in urban and sub-urban centers. No significant raises after working for 3 years at my workplace, the project that I was working on was halted for other priorities and my time and effort felt like a big waste of time. No promotion, no title change as the once great culture of the organization when downhill when deadlines and crunch time set in. No Christmas party at my current workplace which feels sad and excessively cheap for an organization that is so large and global. Dad had a fall from a ladder and broke his leg and dislocated his shoulder. He was out of commission for like 3-4 months in a wheelchair and unable to drive and provide support in my family’s household during that time and look after my Grandma which was very difficult for my Sister and my Mom. Had to drive and provide grocery/transportation support since my Dad was busted. He might have died if he landed poorly, like on his head or broke his back/spine. One of my Uncles was diagnosed with a form of blood/bone cancer after a long period of him feeling weak and him having blood in his urine and other stool. Undergoing chemo treatment now, super bad and sad. One of my cousins broke her thumb/finger, can’t work until it is healed. One of my Uncle’s, sister-in-law died after a long battle with cancer this year. Grandma is gradually losing her mind and sense of time/space/memory, increasingly frail and weak. While the situation of elevators being broken in my building have now been resolved in 2022, the maintenance costs of the condo are steadily increasing and things are beginning to degrade and break, for instance the underground car garage door is broken and has been open for the past week or so. Incidents of break in to lockers are still occurring. My building implemented a package size policy for very large deliveries because they don’t want people ordering tvs, furniture and stuff that the staff cannot move, they are weak. The hotel in my community is still a homeless shelter so hooliganville continues for now. In terms of streaming services, I rarely watch anything on Netflix anymore which brings to question if I should continue subscribing since they are apparently going to crack down on password sharing in 2023 so I don’t know. Book of Boba Fett was alright and entertaining but some of it, mostly the first half is very questionable quality and storytelling and the show resulted in becoming basically Mandolorian season 2.5, and in some ways undoing much of the story progress that was made in season 2. Obi-wan was alright but I felt it was a lost opportunity to tell a better story for Obi-wan and could have been much grander, but with the story that was told, it was stretching it for far too long and it’s episode count could have been halved and it would probably have been better. Thor 4 came out and no one really cared, didn’t see it either. Dr Strange 2 came out and it was alright but was more a movie about the girl “America” than Strange himself which kinda detracted from the entire point of having a movie about Dr. Strange. Morbius was released and no one cared but then it became a meme and then everyone was fooled into watching it, including myself. I will never get the time back that I wasted on this shit. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was released and no one cared or watched it, the franchise is ruined already from the second movie and with JK Rowlings online drama. The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard shit show defamation/drama abuse case happened this year and no one came out looking better than before, all loosers but Johnny at least wasn’t a wife beater and Amber was proven to be a crazy manipulative bitch. Ezra Miller continues his bad man creeper arc continually getting arrested and essentially grooming various young girls to be his partner and other unhinged degenerate behavior like waving a gun at people for fun. Henry Cavill is outed from his roles in the Witcher tv series and Superman as DC moves into rebooting everything again since they fucked everything up to begin with. The Batman was alright but still nowhere near the masterpiece that the Nolan Batman movies hold, Twilight Batman was ok but leaves much to be desired in my opinion. Lightyear, the Buzz Lightyear Toy Story spinoff movie happened and got controversy because of some gay kiss scene that was whatever which resulted in the movie being banned in China and some other countries because they got triggered. Black Panther 2 came out and it was alright but served more as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman than a real deal sequel and could have been better. The Marvel MCU is not as strong as it once was at it’s height with Endgame and it’s hard to keep up since the direction that they are going is somewhat everywhere. Avatar 2 came out and I don’t care but apparently enough people still care about blue people that it’s almost reached 1 billion in revenue, sad. Rushia from Hololive was terminated due to a breech in her contraction conditions.This incident spiraled out of control and resulted in Rushia going to third party gossip click bait youtubers to help prove her non-relationship to fans by showing pictures of her bedroom and potentially other information about other hololive members. When Cover Corp found out about this breech and leak, they terminated Rushia. Sana of Hololive EN branch graduated/retired as a result of a back injury and could no longer stream anymore to the level in which she wanted. Sana’s extremely slow and stunted growth are also contributing factors to her leaving as well as her having easily the ugliest character design of the second generation EN members; not to mention the only dark skinned design, which did not help her growth prospects. Sana did not stream very often and when she did would only stream Pokemon for 8 hours at a time, hardly attracting any new viewers. While her departure is indeed sad and bad, the writing was on the wall for months for her own resignation and comes as no surprise. Hololive EN Ina also experienced health issues and has been on break for 3 months now, leaving many to wonder when she will return. Throughout this year, many Hololive talents experienced health or covid illness, resulting in many being out of commission for some time. Irys, my favorite Hololive vtuber, still did not get a new costume/clothes after being active for over a year, which is not normal. No new female hololive branches or generations debuted this year which is sad. Love Live as a franchise and IP has deteriorated significantly over the past year as too many anime series were made that break the tried and true formula. My car had some braking issues or at least I felt it did, brought it to Canadian Tire for a checkout, ended up with a $600 bill for only minor improvements and brake fluid flush and tire rotation, shit man car maintenance is expensive. The following notable people died this year: Bob Saget (funny man full house), Meat Loaf (bat out of hell), Mike Bossy (good hockey player), Guy Lafleur (Quebec hockey god), Vangelis (Bladerunner music), Kazuki Takahashi (creator of yu-gi-oh), Ivana Trump (Trumps ex-wife), Nichelle Nichols (og star streak Lieutenant Uhura), Olivia Newton-John (Grease), Mikhail S. Gorbachev (former soviet union PM), Coolio (rapper), Angela Lansbury (mrs tea pot), Mehran Karimi Nasseri (Iranian refugee who inspired “The Terminal”), Jiang Zemin (former CCP ruler), Gaylord Perry (baseball player with a godly name), Pelé (Brazillian soccer god), Barbara Walters (women news anchor that lived too long), Benedict XVI (pope that gave up and resigned, first time in 600 years), Kanye West’s career and reputation, Elon Musk’s public image and reputation. Shinzo Abe’s public image and reputation. Trump goes unpunished still for the Jan 6 insurrection and the FBI raid his Mar-a-Lago resort, discovering tons of boxes filled with top secret documents that he took illegally from the white house, may of them still missing and or probably sold to the highest foreign bidder, traitor. Congress releases Trump’s tax returns, he paid no taxes for many years and the paper trail is very suspect. Had some minor side effects after taking my fourth covid booster shot, felt that my heart was moving faster or had an erratic beat for a few days/weeks, bit scary. Global warming and climiate change is getting worse, shit was so hot this summer and there have been many hurricanes/storms and other natural disasters happen around the world. Anime North returned and it was a shit show of new levels, huge lineups on first days and people getting in after 12pm or worse, too hot in July, lack of sellers/merch industry presence, the usual. I did not attend Fan Expo, even though it returned full force for the first time in a couple of years since covid. Long covid has become a thing and covid is not going away anytime soon. Youtube adding in a fuckton more ads before almost every video live or even archived, and most starting ones are now un-skippable. Chrome eventually going to be making some changes so that all adblockers will not work. PS5 is kinda around now but no reason to buy it, at least to my knowledge. Improvement in AI technology are impressive this year as AI art and AI generated text/essays become a thing and also a problem in itself for better or worse. No real innovation or movement with Apple or Samsung phones, still low stock due to chip shortages. No internet popular culture development. Youth are ruined. Didn’t get to see the bros as much despite covid slowing down for the most part but other illness like RSV and flu taking it’s toll as well. Bros got sick with covid and other illness. FGO Voyager event being the worst tedious annoying event in FGO history.

And yea, that’s all I can think of at the top of my head. I know it’s not alot but you get the idea. I think this year we really begin to see the fruits of ruin that have been seeded for many years; we may not realize it or even comprehend it, but we are probably living at the start of one of the most difficult periods in human history in the modern era. Well then, aside from the wholesale continued ruin of our times, what good things happened this year?

Good things that have happened:

After feeling unfulfilled and underappreciated for some time at my current workplace and not getting any significant pay raises and having my main project being shelved, I decided to look for a new job in May and got an offer without trying that hard. I honestly had like 3 different interviews, all remote calls and from one of them, spawned a series of other follow-up interviews, something like 3 or 4 interviews that had led me to a new role as a Senior UX Engineer, a title that I had never heard or known about before. After much consideration and hesitation, I resigned from my old workplace and started my new job in June. My current workplace is much larger than before and is an international organization that has people all around the world; a big change for me having calls from people from the US, India, UK, Switzerland etc. While they say that I should go into the office twice a week, like my old workplace, in reality that’s bullshit, as almost no one in Toronto goes into the office since it’s more of a business outpost for the CEO and other big shots, not actual employees who do work. For the 6 months that I have been employed at my new workplace, I have only went into the office like 4-5 times, which is great. My new workplace issues Mac Books so learning how to use Macs is a great new experience as well as learning the ropes of my new role. Aside from getting the title of a ‘Senior’ the pay increase from my previous job is considerable, over 30% increase in salary which is fantastic. I honestly wasn’t trying very hard in the interviews as I originally was applying for a role as Senior UX/UI Designer but somehow ended up as a Senior UX Engineer since my current boss/final interviewer said that I could do it. I didn’t think that they would actually match what I requested for salary as I was really just shopping around and potentially using any offers as a bargaining chip at my old workplace for pay raises. I learned something very valuable while interviewing for my current job; the key to success in getting a new job is to not care that you might not get the role you are interviewing for; to be confident in your proficiency at your current job and to be not desperate at all; employers can sense desperation a mile away if you are currently unemployed so the best way to fight this mindset and behavior is to always casually be looking for a new job, even if you are content and happy with your current one. If you don’t get the job you are interviewing for, that’s ok, your current job is still good and decent, no biggie. Employers and bosses love this mindset as it shows that you are eager to challenge yourself and get outside of your comfort zone of contentment from the status quo, to change things up and learn new things to not be stagnate. And the funnest thing is that, as I progress in my career, I find myself doing less and less actual ‘work’ either it be code or design work, and more consultation and reviewing of others work; telling others how to fix problems and providing solutions other than doing them myself as that is largely more valuable to the team/organization as opposed to being a single individual contributor. I suppose that is what it means to be a ‘Senior’ in a role? Nevertheless, the new job is not all bells and whistles, as due to the harsh economic reality of our times, there is always a very real possibility that I could be laid off due to cost cutting and restructuring. My new company has been hiring like crazy over the past year, which seem kinda crazy since all other tech and companies have been laying off and cutting down their workforce and honestly, my skills, knowledge and abilities have not been fully utilized at all in my new team as they themselves are still trying to figure things out. There is so many talented and skilled people on my team and they are not being used to the fullest extent, which as a whole is worrisome so the fear of layoffs comes only naturally. However, I think I should be OK as most of my peers have given me good reviews/feedback and have proven myself to be a good communicator and co-worker. We’ll see what happens in the rest of January as the company does formal performance reviews and my manager has a one on one meeting with me and the usual, we’ll see if I get any raise increases or if I get laid off. We’ll see. As aforementioned, working at home is still excellent, even more so because now I don’t even have to go into the office at all, only during maybe social meetings and gatherings, which are far and in-between at my current workplace. Good shit. This year I went to my first real vacation/trip in four years, going to LA for AX2022 in July and it was a great experience. The last time I had been to LA was in 2018 and four years later, again but with my sister for her first visit to AX. It was good shit. Brought tons of merch and saw lots of good shit at the convention, ate a lot of pretty good food. Fulfilled all the ‘misisons’ that me and my sister set before the start of AX such as getting autographs from the Trash Taste boys and getting autographs from ShindoL and buying a Fakku Skateboard. Lots of great Guilty Gear Strive merch. Hololive was there lots of hololive merch in artists alley. Yostar/azurlane/arknights was there with merch. Genshin Impact was there. Decent panels attended that were limited gacha were had. Good shit. You would think that the first big anime convention back from covid times would be packed? It was but it was fine by me, as mask mandates were still in effect for the convention, for better or worse I suppose. I had a great time at AX and buying shit and would do it again. Outside of AX, other conventions returned in full force such as Anime North and Fan Expo, although not without it’s own problems, especially for Anime North with it’s line and management problems (corruption/rules), I am still happy that it happened because it’s a good thing to remind ourselves how much Toronto needs a new Anime convention every year and I love ruin. The CNE returned after two years due to covid and it was good, same old same old but minus, just as we all expected due to covid but it was great attending it again as per tradition (the show was shit tho lol). While I have not picked up any new mobile games again this year, which is good news in my eyes, I have however decided to finally play Disgaea 5 on my PS4, a game that I had been sitting on for literally 7 years since I brought it so long ago in 2015. Disgaea 5 is great and probably the best 2d sprite version of the game ever but it’s a bit different from past entries, which is cool; as the last 2d sprite Disgaea, it’s probably the best title as 6 and 7 are both 3d models moving forward. 6 was considered shit so if I ever get around to continuing this series, i’ll pass it, and move to 7 which comes out later this year, we’ll see. I have continued to play casually Guilty Gear Strive and consider myself at my skill level, decent to good or better than most/average but nowhere near the best of the best among the gods, which is fine, play more still, the game that keeps on giving, good investment. Testament, Baiken and Bridget were released with the Season 2 pass for the game and it’s great. Testament now has a female voice in JP and becomes pokemon team rocket James in English, he be trans/non-binary yo. Bridget finally shakes off the femboy iconic trap status as Bridget is now considered a trans girl, according to official ArcSystem Works info and in-game trans journey story. Noice, although this has triggered many online understandably. It’s good news in my eyes. Ash’s pokemon story was announced to be coming to an end in 2023 in one last farewell anime season that reunites Ash with Misty and Brock, finally, after 20+ years of being 10 years old, Ash will finally be done and a new story with new main characters can be told. Gud shit. Teaser trailers for the next installment of the FF7 remake games were shown and it is very interesting and hype, very interested what different story approach they take. Despite the huge shock to the world of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, it has been an incredible success story for the Ukrainian defenders and president Zelensky. Everyone thought that Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine would be taken within days and it has been revealed, that was exactly Putin’s plan but due to the sheer incompetent and poor logistics of the Russian command and the strong conviction and defense from the Ukrainian people, that did not come to pass and Russia failed in it’s initial plan. Having a chance to flee Ukraine, the US and allies offer president Zelensky a flight out of the country to safety but with balls of steel, decides to stay in Kyiv as the capital is assaulted by Russian missile strikes and armed invaders seeking his head, famously uttering the now immortalized statement in the history books: “I need ammunition, not a ride”. Had Zelensky decided to flee, Ukraine may very well be under Russian occupation as of this writing, but because he decided to stay, became a worldwide inspiration and icon, a symbol for freedom, democracy and for standing up for what’s right, standing your ground in the face of terror. Inspired by Zelensky’s bravery and Ukrainian balls of steel, the western world suddenly became united and less divisive/fractured, NATO, once thought of by some as a obsolete relic of the cold war era, became immediately relevant again with a united and strong message to Russia: You can’t do shit like this. The EU and the UK, with constant issues with each other and with other members of the EU had unanimous support for helping Ukraine. All western democratic nations applied severe economic sanctions on Russia, sanctions that caught Putin and his oligarchs completely by surprise, they didn’t think the West would actually do anything and underestimated how bad it would be. The sanctions on Russia pose to ruin them economically for generations to come as no one will trust investing in Russia for decades. NATO, US and EU, UK don’t provide troops to Ukraine but enormous amounts of modern weapons and equipment, helping modernize their army and give them the advantage over Russia’s poorly equipped and poorly trained soldiers. The illusion of Russia being a military powerhouse vanishes in the days and weeks as the war rages on and Russia’s advances continue to falter. The return on investment of the US giving Ukraine it’s ‘older’ gear has the effect of showing the world America’s true technological superiority in modern warfare and make Russian weapons and equipment a laughing stock. Despite having no Navy, Ukraine sinks Russian’s Black Sea Fleet capital ship, the Moscova, further illustrating the weakness and poor state of the Russian military complex. Drone use in war is the new meta and reeks havoc on Russian troops, ushering in a new age of warfare that no one had predicted. Tanks become useless in the face of personal anti-armor weapons and systems. HiMars long distance mobile rocket systems given to Ukraine from the US, change the face of the battlefield and the flow of the war, with Ukraine holding it’s defense and make huge gains in the summer to retake large regions back annexed by Russia earlier in the year. With enormous tactical support from the US and NATO allies, Ukraine is on track to push back Russia in due time as the war drags on. The shocking invasion of Ukraine, change the political landscape and sentiment of NATO on the European continent, countries such as Finland and Sweden which have traditionally been neutral, all of a sudden want to join NATO for their own protection, now that Russia can no longer be a sane neighbor. In trying to gain more influence in Europe, Putin has ironically brought the West closer together than ever before, jokes. The federal NDP and Liberal party of Canada form a coalition to agree on most things in order to prevent another snap election until 2025, which is good for democracy and cooperation between the two left leaning parties. In terms of movies this year, most were pretty good but Top Gun: Maverick by far was the best movie that I saw in 2022. Withheld from release during the past 2 years of covid, Tom Cruise wanted his movie to debut on the big screen and after watching it, I can totally understand why. With amazing flight scenes, simple but solid story, homages to the original and fan service where it matter such as music and interactions, Top Gun Mavrick was the most enjoyable and entertaining movie I’ve seen in a theater in awhile, highly recommended. In terms of my FGO fate gacha life, it was extremely good for me this year: I got all of the servants I wanted, Beni-Enma, Yang Gufei, Ereshkigal, Mordred, Kijo Koyo, Castoria, Summer Kiara, Summer Bryhind, Summer Murasaki, Summer Abby, Dioscuri, Himiko, Van Gogh, Ibuki Douji and so much more extra. The events in FGO this year were overall pretty good, although the Voyager event was probably the worst event ever, I greatly enjoyed most others, especially the Nimo event that had a great story and the battlefront strategy event, which was really fun and had interesting new game play like a strategy board. Shit’s pretty good and I have accumulated tons of gems over this year too, I never went all in or put in any money for FGO this year and am fully ready for 2023 heavy pulls like Morgan, Tamamo Vitch etc. Yea boi. I finished all of the Lostbelt stories and am currently going through Kintoki’s mini-singularity and the story is making progress for sure although it will take many more years for the conclusion of the current story arc. Gud shit. In china boats Azurlane I have maintained getting all the boats and completing all of the story events, the game is still fresh with usual improvements and just recently, new spins on older boats to keep things interesting, good shit. While no new female hololive branches or generations were introduced this year, Hololive continues it’s growth in popularity as a mainstay of anime culture with vtubers in general, it’s immense popularity was clearly felt at AX. Cover corp started it’s first male english vtuber branch, Holostars EN and they are off to a good start considering that they are dudes, not bad at all and have been largely welcomed into the larger vtuber community. Irys gets a base redesign refresh that is great as her original design was far too complex and did not blend well with the other members, offering hope for the future that she will get more costumes/clothes later that she had been deprived of, good shit. As Japan has opened up, lots of Hololive ID and EN members are currently visiting Japan and meeting up for the first time IRL meeting with JP members as well, aside from briefly meeting in LA during AX unofficially, gud shit. Kson announced at AX that she has joined another vtuber company Vshojo, the same one that has Ironmouse and several others, which is good to see that she is doing well. Terminated Hololive member Rushia goes independent for a few months and ends up joining Vshojo and is reborn as Nazuna, most likely because of Kson’s influence. Together they start a JP branch of Vshojo, which is kinda funny since hololive is the reverse, good to see that they are still doing their thing. Scientists make a breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy that result in a net gain of energy generation, the first of it’s kind. The fusion breakthrough hopes to pave the way for clean nuclear fusion to be commercialized but that is likely at least decades away to coming into fruition. Doctor Octopuses mini fusion sun becomes real. The James Webb Telescope took photos of deep space galaxies at a level of quality and detail never seen before. Nasa’s Dart project proved that we can protect earth from asteroids if that ever happens. Awareness of mental health has improved in society and the stigma of it has slightly reduced. Improvement in AI technology are impressive this year as AI art and AI generated text/essays become a thing and also a problem in itself for better or worse. Despite the fearmongering, most large company’s continue remote work as employees continue to experience the benefits of not commuting into the office. Progress in Covid drugs, vaccines and treatment have made great strides in targeting Omicron variant and sub variants, vastly improving the survival rate of covid although the after effects of long covid are still unknown. People have generally learned to accept that covid is not going away anytime soon and that we will have to live with it for many more years probably but despite that society and some semblance of normalcy has returned for most of the world. The anti work and labor movement picked up speed in 2022 with more people being more self aware that the current status quo is not good and that as a culture and society we can do better to improve wages and working conditions, many Starbucks and store workers have tried/started unions. Despite assaults on democracy in 2021 with the Jan 6 Trump insurrection in DC, democracy seems to be safe, for now at least as America is slowly beginning to turn against Trumpism, or at least getting tired of him. The massive divisions in the Republican party are apparent and show a party that can no longer contain itself from far right extremism, resulting in a far better than expected result for Democrats and Biden at the midterm election, providing hope that at least most of America has some common sense. As Liz Truss is ousted after 45 days, the UK parliament appoints it’s first ever Brown/Indian PM in it’s history, Rishi Sunak. There have been medical advances for both Cancer and Alzheimer’s treatment which is great. Japan opened up to tourism and visitors in the Fall which is great, many people will be going to Japan in the following months and in 2023 (hopefully myself included). EMS and Surface parcel shipping returned to Canada from Japan after 2 years of DHL shipping hell. Argentina won the World Cup and soccer star Lionel Messi finally got his championship, he can retire peacefully now knowing that he finally did it. The Argos won. Canada made it’s first appearance at the world cup in a long time, they scored a couple of goals, nice. Controversial misogynist influencer Andrew Tate got arrested by Romanian police for human trafficking and rape after showing in a video rant a local pizza place’s boxes in response to a trigger tweet by Greta Thunberg about the size of his dick, ultimate self own, jokes. DC creative director head is now James Gunn, the same guy that did Guardian of the Galaxy movies for Marvel so hope that DC can get it’s shit together after restarting it’s universe. Marvel movies are consistent, solid. Alot of good anime shows watched and consumed in 2022, Demon Slayer Yaiba Entertainment Arc was pretty damn good with amazing animation and fighting, Spy Family, Chainsaw Man and many other new IPs and sequels throughout the year were great. Will summarize my thoughts in my yearly anime recap later. Brought more nice anime figures although in terms of space I am quickly running out of easy places to put them, gotta be more creative I suppose. Yen to USD exchange rate in shambles and the Yen to CAD is almost parity, for better or worse. My Dad didn’t die when he had a fall from a ladder, glad it wasn’t permanent injury and he’s made a full recovery. Grandma is still alive. Went to Dragon Pearl Buffet for the first time in 3 years, good shit. Getting covid is not a huge deal anymore because almost everyone has gotten it by now and it’s largely ok thanks to the vaccines and boosters over the past 2 years. I have miraculously have not gotten covid yet, after 3 years of living in the pandemic world, even after facing the crowds at AX, CNE, malls and everyday living and going to places, even the TTC/Subway, wow. I must be immortal or truly No Longer Human. Discovered a few more good food places near me, realized that the Chinese/Asian grocery store near me actually recently renovated/expanded and now has hot food, which is great. So yea, I think that’s about it from what I can remember from 2022 in terms of good things, which honestly is not a whole lot, better than nothing I suppose.

So then, it probably goes without saying that the current trend for the past 3 years is about the same, every year since 2020 has been worst than the next and 2022 is no different; 2022 has been a terrible year overall with continued covid aftermath effects on the world and increased insanity and a general cultural regression into madness. But it is obvious that the most devastating and shocking event to have happened is no doubt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting chain of events which have told a story destined for the history books. Queen Elizabeth II’s death after 70 years on the throne is a fitting parallel to this moment in history; a change in monarchy, a change for the rest of the world; we are at a major crossroads for cultural, social and geopolitical change in the world, shit is going to happen soon for better or worse but in all honestly, probably for the worst. Nuclear war? WWIII? Collapse of Western civilization? Decay of modernity? Cultural regression? Deterioration of democracy? Climate change and global warming? Global economic collapse? Who knows. I have tried my best to think of the positives that have happened this year, and much like the past three years as well, are largely personal and career/hobby related which is all good and dandy, but fail in comparison to the vast amount of terrible and bad things that have happened throughout 2022 for the world and society at large. The cracks and problems that we want to forget are beginning to become ever more so evident as inequality both socially, economically and politically are seen in the open, far right radicalism, inflation, recession bound, the list goes on. Prior to the covid pandemic, the world was at relative peace, each country had it’s plans but kept them secret behind closed doors. In 2022 and today, it seems like everyone is yelling and screaming at each other openly in what they want: China wants Taiwan, Russia wants Ukraine, Republicans in the US want Fascism, Iran and Afghanistan want to suppress women and so forth. Everyone is saying the quiet part out loud, it’s like no one cares to be discrete anymore and the saddest part is that even in plain sight, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to take action or be shocked at such madness and insanity as it has become normalized by social media and willful ignorance. As a society we have gone backwards in civility and tolerance, we have regressed to a simpler and more primal state of mind where we don’t care about anything that is outside of our own little world and bubble.

In early December I was on my way into the office downtown for my new company’s unofficial holiday gathering.

I witnessed first hand the absolute ignorance of humans when I was riding the TTC when I saw a black women asking two Ukrainian men talking and asking them if they were speaking Italian; then even after clarification from the men that they were speaking Ukrainian; dismiss their response and continue to label them as Russian and ask them if they can teach her how to say “I love you” in Russian; blissfully unaware of the invasion of Ukraine earlier in the year…how could this be… Upon witnessing this event, the sheer display of ignorance and complete lack of awareness to the general news and events of our time from this women, I sadly came to a bleak personal conclusion:

I could no longer believe that humanity had the mental capacity and self awareness to do the right thing anymore, and that most people only live for today, the now, the present; with no prospects for the future or a better tomorrow, isolated in their own little world; as if they were wild beasts embracing their own selfish primal state of being.

Reject modernity, embrace ruin.

Primal Regression.