The Time Is Now:

I look at the clock beside my bed, it’s 6:15am. Shit. I woke up early again, I normally set my phone alarm at 7:00am because that’s the time that I need to wake up when I am heading into the office; to take a shower, get dressed and do my morning routine. Against my better judgement I go to the washroom and relieve myself earlier than usual and go back to bed. When my alarm rings at the desired time, I had already resumed a state of deep sleep and the 45 minutes or so had felt like only a couple of minutes. Time is relative after all. Knowing what I have to do, I slowly get up and head to the washroom again to complete the full ritual. As I finish making my k-cup doughnut coffee, the time is already 7:38am. I don’t know if I’m going to make it in time for the ‘easy’ bus that comes into my condo community at like 7:45am. I exit the building and I rush to the bus stop but I am too late, the bus had already left. Man, guess I have to walk a bit more to the further street stop after all, at least it’s warm today, too warm in fact for a late November morning; I guess you can accredit that to global warming. When the bus finally comes it’s packed, I have to stand as the bus is fully occupied with people, mainly brown people no less, I mean, this is Scarborough after all and with the immense wave of immigration this past year, I shouldn’t be surprised. When I finally get to Kennedy station, it’s like 8:40am, shit, there’s no way I’m going to make it into the office by 9am for the daily standup meeting with the dev team, ah-well, shit happens. When I finally get to the office and connect all my monitors and gear, it’s almost 9:30am and I have another meeting to attend, or rather, join in on the call; because you see; there is actually no one in my team that is located in Toronto; I come all the way here just to do calls online, something that I could have done at home. Before I know it it’s lunch time and I head out to get something to eat. I head to the Toronto sign in Nathan Phillips Square to get the best deal in town, hot dog and fries for $5 from the blue food truck. Fuck yea, this is the shit. In a world where inflation has increased the price of all food, especially fast food, it’s a blessing to have such a deal remain intact from the pre pandemic days. As I finish up my lunch, the Zamboni just finishes it’s sweep of the ice rink in front of the Toronto sign and I make my way back to the office. The rest of the day I spend in absolute silence talking to no one, there are no meetings in the afternoon so I can actually begin to do some work. By around 4:30pm I notice that everyone in my office area has already left, and the lights begin to automatically turn off in the hallways as there is no activity or movement, so I begin to pack up. By the time I get outside it’s already dark. I remember next week there is going to be a ‘holiday party’ officially so that’s great news, that’s something to look forward to I guess. When I get home I take a shower immediately, to wash away all the filth and dust of the subway air, of other humans; it needs to be purged from my body. I take a look into the fridge to see what I have to eat; looks like I have some leftover penne pasta that I made on Monday and put some in the microwave to reheat. To be fancy, I brought real Parmesan cheese and grate some over my reheated pasta and take a bite. Shit’s still good. I put on some Italian cooking show on my TV via youtube chromecast to match my current dining experience. Throughout the entire day I had no idea what was going on in the world, I was just living in my own little bubble, which is kinda nice in a way. While washing dishes I look around my living space and am reminded of the great items and souvenirs that I had obtained earlier this year on my trip to Japan and just a few weeks prior, to New York and reminisce of how fun it was; to travel and get away from it all, the mundane bullshit of the everyday post-pandemic world. As I begin to put away the dishes I see my collectable blue Haniwa mug in the kitchen cabinet, the one that I got in Osaka at the shinkansen station that was once a vessel for pudding. It seems to be speaking to me, saying “hello old friend, nice to see you again.”

I lie down on my sofa and hold my giant Sumikko Gurashi Tonkatsu Ebi-fry plush, the one that I won from a crane game in Akihabara and think to myself, “well, that was quite a year wasn’t it? So then, what’s next?”

—

I have no idea.

—

Where do I go from here?

A time of great uncertainty and instability:

As I look back and reflect upon this year as a whole, it feels like I have lived and done more things in 2023 than the past three year combined. It’s hard to believe that it’s been basically four years already since the world got turned upside down by the covid-19 pandemic and everything that we thought was normal, was forced to change; some things for the good, some others, not so much. While I personally have enjoyed a reasonable level of stability in my day to day life and have enjoyed a considerable amount of travel and fun things over this past year, I know that the state of the world in general is not looking so good and people are struggling to survive. Despite everything pointing to a great recovery both economically, politically and socially with the immediate threat of another pandemic behind us for now; I feel that bad times are still brewing both domestically in Canada/US and especially the world and can only get worse from here. With that said, let’s go over some of the bad things that have happened this past year, in a raw-train of thought manner in no particular order:

Bad things that have happened:

Hamas launches a terror raid/attack in early October 7 from the Gaza strip into Israel killing hundreds of innocent Jewish people, committing acts of atrocity such as kidnapping, murder, rape and other such crimes. The terror attacks are celebrated in the the streets of the Gaza strip and the West Bank as the terrorists are lauded as heroes by Palestinians. Israeli authorities are completely blindsided by the attack and finger pointing begins on how this could have happened, major failure of Isreali Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu and security/defense. It is the worst terrorist attack in Israeli history. The Hamas attacks are celebrated in western countries such as London, New York and even in Toronto by native Palestinians ex-pats, raising deep concern domestically of terrorism and rise of antisemitism in western cities with large Muslim populations. In response to Hamas attacks, Israel responds heavy handily, launching a massive aerial bombardment of the Gaza strip and eventually begins a full ground assault operation to destroy Hamas. Half of the Gaza strip is now under full control of IDF forces and the battle to weed out Hamas continues with heavy fighting daily. The mass migration of people fleeing the northern region of the Gaza strip into the South causes a huge humanitarian crisis. The world and various fractions are at a stalemate in how to handle the war in Gaza with different countries taking sides, largely aligning to Muslim countries vs the rest of the western world. The geopolitical situation is extremely complex between all sides, no Muslim country wants to accept Palestinian refugees because they have a reputation of being extremists and terrorists, causing trouble and unrest in any host country that accepts them as refugees, but at the same time, they are still Muslim but everyone hates them and does not want them fucking up their own countries. Palestinians ex-pats do not help this reputation by chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during protests which is essentially a call for the destruction of Israel and the genocide Jews in that region. Due to the Hamas war and Israel’s response, increased antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiments around the world. America sends two carrier task force fleets into the region to support Israel in case Iran, Jordon, Lebanon or other Hamas supporters join in on the war as a deterrent, to prevent starting a larger conflict in the region. Another conflict in the middle east does not help the War in Ukraine as Russia continues to throw troops into the grinder and solidify defenses as the war becomes a war of attrition which does not benefit Ukraine forces. Because of the war with Hamas, public attention on Ukraine has diminished considerably, leaving many western countries to question and re-evaluate their commitment to aiding Ukraine in the war, which is very bad as the country needs as much help as it can get to fight. Ukraine president Zelensky visits Ottawa to muster support for Ukraine in Canada but the entire visit becomes a PR disaster as a former Ukrainian Nazi is saluted in the house of Commons as a guest as he fought ‘Russians’ during WWII, meaning that he was aligned with Germany and the Nazis, since Russia at the time was with the Allies. The huge history blunder makes world news and Canada becomes an embarrassment to the world and western allies, which results in the speaker of the house resigning in disgrace and shame as it was his responsibility to review and vet all guests and speakers in the house. The blunder provides propaganda fuel to Putin and Russia giving credence that the war is about de-nazifying Ukraine. Amidst the chaos and war in Ukraine and in Israel, China and the CCP watch closely how things unfold as their desire to invade Taiwan becomes essentially common knowledge to the world, as if it wasn’t already and takes notes on how to world reacts to conflicts elsewhere. The threat of a invasion of Taiwan continually persists as Xi Xingping continues to promote hardline Chinese Nationalism and stricter rules in everyday Chinese people lives. Rumors that the invasion of Taiwan may even be planned for as early as 2027 continually pop up in discussions regarding security of the pacific region although those claims are unsubstantiated. CCP policies continue to drive away foreign investment and business into China as the once mighty Chinese economy falls further and further into disarray as the money begins to dry up and endless real estate and big infrastructure projects remain unfinished and left to rot. While not a phenomenon limited to China, the movement to ‘Lie Flat’ and to ‘Let it rot’ from Chinese youth reflect the hard times we are living in, having no motivation to work or find a job because it it hopeless to get ahead and because simply there just isn’t any jobs anymore in China as every country in the world reassesses their economic relationship and dependency with China and moves production/manufacturing elsewhere. Due to the vast demographic and cultural shifts between males and females in China, with the general sentiment of youth to not get married and have lots of kids, the CCP internally projects China’s population to shrink to 500 million in the worse case scenario by the end of the century (2100), a massive decrease from the 1.4 billion Chinese people in China today, a demographic catastrophe. The past few years of international relations with China and the CCP continue to erode as multiple Chinese spy balloons are discovered floating across North America and other areas of the world, causing a uproar by many countries including the US/Canada which promptly sends a F-22 Raptor fighter jet to shoot the balloon down in a show of force. The recent findings that the spy balloons used the local mobile networks of the areas that it was surveying for communication back to it’s host is somewhat concerning as it begs the question how deep western security and infrastructure could be potentially compromised by foreign agents. As tensions rise in the pacific, North Korea continues to test missiles in the sea of Japan with further threats to attack the South. North Korea is reported said to supply weapons and arms to Russia in support of Putin and invasion of Ukraine. A report is released from the Canadian intelligence agency saying that they have proof/damming evidence that the Indian government was the ones responsible for the killing of a Sikh leader in BC that promoted the Khalistan movement, Sikh separatism from India in the Punjab region and the establishment of an independent Sikh state. The claims cause an uproar in the Indian government and they respond by halting any visa or immigration services in Canada for several weeks/months in protest, causing huge delays and problems for people traveling to India for some time. The relations between Canada and India are strained as more news and similar stories of deep Indian government corruption continue to be raised. The Canadian intelligence agency also reports of possible election interference by China and the CCP in recent Canadian elections, causing more controversy, in particular for Federal Liberals where several members have been accused of taking bribes and taking unilateral action and consultation against Canadian interests. In particular, MP Han Dong resigns from the Liberal caucus, which is accused of advising China to delay the Two Michael’s’ release several years earlier and other behind the scenes dealings. Other investigations into elections by Canadian authorizes find that the CCP had invested heavily into candidates from all parties that were friendly to China and policies that supported CCP interests, raising further concern of spying, foreign infiltration and corruption at all levels of the Canada government. Canada’s plan for massive immigration for the past few years and particularly this year in 2023, put a strain on all aspects of Canadian daily life, from healthcare, jobs, infrastructure, housing that accelerates and amplifying the problems that has been festering for years, perhaps decades even left unaddressed. The vast majority of immigrants that came to Canada this year are by far all from India, bringing into question why no country limits were set, like how the United States does to prevent a over concentration of immigration from a single country/region and hence decreased lack of cultural diversity in Canadian society/culture. The influx of cheap Indian labor ruins all prospects for Canadian youth and the unemployed to obtain a job with a livable wage; businesses will hire cheap Indian workers that will work minimum wage to fill the mcdonalds, starbucks and walmart jobs when no one else wants those entry-level jobs, keeping wages low. The increased immigration this year also means the real estate market remains hot with no signs of a drastic decline anytime soon as rent and houses are too expensive still. Many Canadians continue to struggle and are priced out of their own homes and rentals because they simply cannot afford it, wages and earnings have not kept up to both inflation and the cost of housing, resulting in more people unable to buy a house/move out and live on their own and in some extreme cases; become homeless since they simply cannot afford a roof over their head. The increase in homelessness has become even more noticeable as simply walking to any retail environment you will see them wandering about and causing a ruckus everywhere they go, for recent immigrants, this causes them to question even coming to Canada in the first place as the overall quality of life in Canada continues to decrease year over year and perhaps leave for elsewhere to settle down. The Delta hotel in my condo community remains a homeless shelter as the city tries to make a case to extend the contract lease with the Delta for another 5 years, continuing to degrade the general community with hooliganism as homeless residents further take residence in the hotel. The Canadian political climate on the Federal government is not good, with the Liberals at their lowest approval rating in many years due to numerous scandals building up over the years regarding PM Trudeau and others within the party unable to do anything to address the housing crisis, cost of living, inflation and the decrease in quality of life caused directly and or indirectly by Liberal policies such as mass immigration and no real long term solutions, just bandages. The Federal Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre as leader of the opposition is now the clear front-runner in winning a future Federal Canadian election which offers also no new solutions or ideas to fix the growing problems in Canada but gains support simply by being anti-Trudeau at any chance he gets. The rise in the Conservatives is concerning as they also try to double down on social conservatism via being Republican light, denying climate change and an active pursuit to make abortion illegal in Canada and restrict the rights of trans and LGBTQ people is worrying for all. NDP is just gonna NDP with Jagmeet Singh doing a whole lot of nothing and simply agrees with the Liberals most of the time in a de facto-but not really Liberal-NDP faux coalition; Singh himself has attracted more criticism due to his wealth from this legal firm business that has put him at odds with some of the messaging of his own party. On the Provincial Level, Doug Ford continues to bumble about and engages in open corruption with the PCs, many a scandal has popped up over the past year such as the proposed change to Ontario Place being sold out to a Spa company and other private dealings unknown. The sudden plan to move the Ontario Science Center to Ontario place has not gone without many an eyebrow raised. The recent opening up of the greenbelt to building development was short lived as in a matter of months, investigation about inside dealings to developer friends of Doug Ford and improper process with dealing with the land has forced Ford to walk back those greenbelt changes, resulting in a big nothing burger for better or worse. John Tory suddenly resigns as Toronto Mayor after a news report is made about him having an affair with someone from his office, triggering another city election, an election in which he won by a landslide; despite his honorable move to resign and focus on his family issues, many within the city have no desire to vote again and urge him to stay on as Mayor, but he refuses. Extended family/friends having health issues as they suffer from unemployment and poor economic opportunities due to lack of jobs and opportunities in the workplace, a common struggle many are facing in Canada and abroad. Due to the economic and geopolitical issues of our time and despite having passed the covid-19 pandemic, inflation increases still with food costs and just about everything increasing in price. A Popeyes Tuesday special for 2 pieces of chicken is now $4.99. A big mac from McDonalds is now like $5 dollars. A ‘whopper wednesday’ deal, which years ago used to be 2 whoppers for $5, is now $11 for 2 whoppers. Nestle Pure Life bottled water used to be just over a dollar, it is now almost $4 dollars. Tropicana orange juice jug was once $3 or so years ago, it is now over $5. All meat, especially beef has increased by at least 50-100% compared to a few years ago. Green onion used to cost like .89 cents, it now cost $1.69. Shit costs too much man. Shrinkflation also increases, most apparent is in brands of chips and snacks, where Lays bags a year ago used to be $4; today they are the same price but have 30% less than they had before. Cans of chunky soup cost more but the shape of cans are taller instead of wider, giving illusion they are bigger when they are actually giving you less soup. I get flyers from Pizza Pizza about fixed-rate pizza, playing on people’s troubles with mortgage rate increases that have happened over the past year. Interest rates have increased trying to cool inflation but are putting more pressure and strain on people with mortgages and or rate renewal, forcing them to make difficult choices on money and lifestyle. The rise of tipping for everything is a horrible development in the western world, from tipping fast food workers, to tipping cash registers and other point of sale, uber/uber eats food delivery people, it is too much and is annoying as hell. The continued struggle of businesses that can’t survive, even during a post pandemic era, especially food places. The TTC is so shit, I can’t believe it. Scarborough RT died in the summer and instead of repairing it which would be a waste of money since it was to be decommissioned anyway in like Nov, there is no fast way getting from STC to Kennedy and the only solution is a permanent shuttle buses until the Line 2 subway extension gets built to STC, which will take at least 2030 to be completed, AT BEST, so more like 2033-2034 considering that the Eglington LRT was supposed to open in 2020 and it is now 2024 with no clear confirmed open date still. Toronto just so bad at building infrastructure it’s crazy. Pacific Mall is a shadow of it’s former self, it is a mall with nothing but crane games, cell phone cases, glasses frames and bubble tea shops with a sprinkle of cell phone vendors and traditional herb stores and antiques. Market Village was blown up years ago but in that space is an empty flat land that has been filled up with dirt, there is no signs of any active construction anymore. What the hell? Is the Remington center project dead? That shit was no joke 15 or so years in planning, what a complete waste of destroying Market Village if nothing else is to be built in that location. Downtown Toronto has way too many construction and road projects, making even walking to places difficult, the pathway from Queen Street East to Eaton center is ruined for construction for many years. Amazon shopping has become more shittier as the number of items sold decrease significantly and more Chinese junk is sold on the platform for double or triple it’s cost. Shipping costs from Japan to Canada are still very expensive. The CAD to USD exchange rate is very bad, something like every 1 CAD is only like 0.75 cents USD. The price of anime figures has reached it’s highest cost in recent memory and are at a breaking point, can people still afford this hobby as each 1/7 scale figure costs like $230 before shipping and duty? The cost for high quality 1/7 scale a few years ago was like $120 and 1/4 scale used to be like $230, damn. I am running out of space for figures so I have to make the choice when I open new figures whether if I have room for it or if I have to retire older ones from display and box them in storage. After acquiring Twitter for a vastly overpriced cost of 44billion, Elon Musk renames Twitter to “X”, because he likes the letter in a act of pure autism and ego driven insanity. The entire value of Twitter was it’s brand because it had become a household name over the years in popular culture and he threw all of it away for nothing; despite the rename, the website URL is still twitter and the app as well. Business experts estimate that Twitter has loss approximately 70% of it’s actual worth since Musk acquired it. People and the media still refer to the social media platform as Twitter but the media now goes by “X, formerly Twitter” which is sure to spite Elon. Twitter itself has further gone to shit, driving away sponsors and advertisers from it’s platform due to it’s new policy of “free speech absolutism”, welcoming racism, bigotry and trolling to a new level, as Musk actively tries to censor users and outlets on the platform that criticizes him or his businesses such as Tesla. The increased blue check mark pay to verify policy and introduction of post limits for free accounts puts many organizations, governments and businesses at odds that rely on the platform to communicate. SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded four minutes into its first full flight test, waste. The FDA gave Elon Musk the go-ahead to trial his Neuralink brain implants on humans, oh noe. Facebook/Meta Mark Zuckerberg tries to capitalize on the failures of X, formerly Twitter and launches Threads, a Twitter clone that becomes the hottest app for a couple of days, until everyone realizes that it’s shit and super basic still far from being a working platform, waste of time/opportunity and then everyone abandons it. Despite massive stock losses due to the failure of Zuckerbergs Metaverse, Meta regains all of it’s stock value and then some, forcing everyone to concede that there is no good alternative to Facebook/Instagram, that we are all trapped. Reddit has made massive changes to access it’s API and data/posts, forcing developers and businesses to pay very high costs that will put most people out of reach; the resulting change effectively kills almost all third party reddit apps as they cannot afford the cost causing a outcry in the Reddit community. In protest, sub-reddits stage large scale blackouts, prevent new posts and locking activity for some time, some subs also suspend rules, allowing people to post NSFW content and porn as reddit mods are unpaid volunteers. The resulting backlash works to get media attention but ultimately the reddit CEO will not back down on API changes and wins, all third-party reddit apps are dead, forcing people to use the official shitty reddit app or approved alternative due to accessibility features. With nowhere else quite like reddit online, users are once again trapped and cannot leave the platform for elsewhere. Tik Tok continues to be a detriment to youths, spawning low effort garbage content and videos that infect reddit with re-posts with even dumber short form content, not to mention continued collection of private data for China/CCP owners. Youtube continues even further to become even more shit with endless ads that unless skipped, could take over 90 seconds or more if unlucky. The appearance of live ads, even in live streams becomes even more annoying terrible with with no other video/streaming options, people are trapped. Google makes considerable changes to Chrome’s UI and tabs, making everyone question why and starts an aggressive campaign to stop add-blockers from being installed on the browser as that interferes with it’s core advertising business and profit. Everyone and their mom goes insane about generative AI at the start of the year in Feb, resulting in massive shifts in company focus and the tech industry, including my own, which dropped everything and tried to do everything that it can to get AI into our products and solutions with little clear direction or planning, the very definition of throwing stuff at a wall and seeing if anything sticks. The rapid rise and attention of ChatGPT and generative AI leads everyone to become scared that AI will replace them in their jobs, leading many in white collar office jobs in particular to fear of being obsolete. After the massive growth in the tech sector and mad hiring sprees done in 2021-2022 hoping for a post pandemic rebound boom, many companies over-hired and overextended their resources, forcing them to lay off thousands and thousands of tech jobs in order to slim down across the board, from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Netflix, Salesforce, Meta, Apple and even my own company have had lay offs early in the year. The resulting lay offs at my company left a bad taste for morale as most of those cut were long tenured employees here for over 4-10 years. At work, a functional project that we were pushing/working on on as a side project was formally shut down/ordered to die by upper management because of perceived conflict/competition with another product/tool that was being built, waste of effort/time. Children in school are still very much ruined due to the pandemic isolation and can’t socialize or operate in a public setting like in a classroom, the quality of education has degraded to a point of teachers becoming almost just babysitters with incompetent parents taking no responsibility for raising their kids or teaching them work ethics and good habits. Due to experiments in education in elementary days, children are unable to read and have basic reading comprehension, leading to a increase in failures of high school literacy testing and general lack of knowledge. The younger the kids the worst they have become with technology, media literacy and computers that are not called a Iphone or Ipad, they do not know how desktop computers work or windows operating systems or how to navigate a folder file path structure as they have used dedicated apps for everything for their entire lives and those concepts/systems are foreign to them. Some kids do not know how to use a physical keyboard or what the Caps lock Key does and are confused when pressing it when all their typing is in caps (true story). This brings major concerns to the future of youth and computer literacy and them being unable to fill the jobs of the future as their tech knowledge has actually regressed compared to older generations. With AI, students continue to cheat using ChatGPT and other AI tools. There was a lot of natural disasters in 2023 for instance the wild fires in Hawaii that destroyed the entire town of Lahaina in which many lost their lives, many wildfires in the west and in California, earthquake in Turkey and Syria killing thousands. Climate change is getting worse and even more noticeable, several scientists predict that at our current rates, it’s maybe/probably too late to reverse fix anything and that we are doomed and ruined already. Weird weather all around this year and in the world, especially in Europe where they have had their hottest summers ever, similar trends worldwide. In Canada and lots of other places they have banned plastic straws and containers for take out and fast food in exchange for paper and cardboard, but those solutions might even be worse for the environment as they are coated in a wax and plastic coating to prevent the materials from breaking down from moisture, bringing into question if that is really better than before. Most stores and grocery stores do not even have options for plastic bags anymore, which while good for the environment, is a big inconvenience if you don’t have a bag with you at that time which is very annoying. Raptors are still shit even with the new white boy when trying to rebuild and trade away OG for younger blood, hope this pays off in the long term. Leafs are shit per usual, hope for the best but always expect failure. Jays are shit, tried to get super star Shohei Ohtani as free agent but got nothing but tears, as expected. TFC are lol. Some football player has a heart attack during a NFL game and everyone is scared. Hawkeye, aka Jeremy Renner almost dies due to a snow ploy accident. Prince Harry continues to talk shit about the royal family in his memoirs. King Charles has his coronation and everyone misses the Queen because alot of people don’t like Charles because of Diana. US Republicans win the house but take 15 voting rounds to get a guy chosen to be speaker because they are all assholes and full of shit with internal divisions within the Republican party. Said guy that took 15 rounds of voting to be the speaker, gets voted out in like 8 months, couldn’t even last a year and is replaced with an even more hard right Christian fundamentalist which is far worse than him. Ocean Gate’s Titan sub implodes on itself killing everyone inside when trying to visit the Titanic in the deep sea, compressing them into the size of a tin can or something; everyone is sad and shocked but not surprised as the owner and captain of the vessel ignored safety rules and regulations and had it coming. Snow crab legs are off the menu at most restaurants and buffets because of global warming killing them all and they are still hard to come by these days, another season of no snow crabs on the menu is eminent. A report is released regarding ‘ghost fishing fleets’ that estimates that some 70% of global fishing economy/trade is illegal, unregulated and unsanctioned that ignores territorial waters and countries fishing rights with the biggest offenders being China, India and others Asian countries. Las Vegas creates a giant sphere that is a big circular screen but it’s immediately used to display ads and becomes an eyesore to visitors and locals alike. Johnathan Majors, Marvel’s chosen star and new big bad of the Marvel universe as Kang the Conqueror turns out to be a real bad guy and is convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Disney fires him the day of the trial verdict, putting the future and direction of Marvel movies into question. Most if not all Marvel movies in 2023 were bombs such as the new Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantum Mania and the last Guardians of the Galaxy, a slow year indeed for Marvel and is still trying to figure out what to do long term. Star Wars still has no new movies ever since the Rise of Skywalker in 2019, instead massively double downing on TV streaming shows, still trying to figure out what to do for movies since the sequel trilogy was so shit and are terrified of more movie failures. DC is failing hard with Flash movie cause Erza Miller is a creep and it’s just shit, so was Aquaman 2 apparently. Harrison Ford returned in Indiana Jones 5 and the Dial of Destiny but was kind of bad as the plot was not well refined with a very wild and questionable ending and questionable acting by other cast, such as the leading women. Hogwarts Legacy video game came out, causing controversy simply because it is Harry Potter and people trying to cancel due to JK Rowlings association and her stance on trans women as freaks. The resulting fallout from the game causes many streamers and vtubers to get cancelled due to playing the game on social media and online due to backlash, in some extreme cases, the game may have indirectly caused the retirement/graduation of well known vtuber Pikamee and others. Twitch shuts down in South Korea, effectively leaving Korean streamers/vtubers left to die and or change platform due to strict new laws in South Korea regarding hosting and server bandwidth traffic costs which host company Amazon, is unwilling to pay for. Trump continues to be Trump in US politics as the world braces for the 2024 election campaign year and the Republican nomination as despite all his best efforts to appeal to the anti-woke Trump crowd, Ron Desantis has failed spectacularly at gaining traction and has made a fool of himself trying to fight a culture war and start a ‘anti-woke’ crusade against Disney but failing spectacularly in his home state of Flordia. It is highly likely that Trump will be the Republican nominee again for 2024 and face off against Joe Biden again, despite being an insurrectionist that tried to overthrow the government of the united states in Jan 6, 2021. The insanity of possibly having Trump become the president again in 2024 after all the corruption and stolen/lost secret documents sold to foreign agents is incredible and does not sit well for the America, democracy or the western world in general for that matter. Many banks in the US failed such as Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Susse in Germany, causing fear that the system might collapse. Crypto/NFTs and Bitcoin have largely fallen off the mindset of most people due to last year’s FTX and Sam Bankmanfried collapse/ruin, things are not good in crypto as the new big thing is AI and everyone tries to do something to profit off of LLMs and generative AI. The onset of AI has lead to increased problems with AI generated artworks both ethical and legal as most generated AI art uses stolen artwork or sources that are not used without permission/license; questions about AI generated porn and NSFW works also bring into question topics that most people or governments have no legal or prior precedent and will take many years to sort and figure out. In Japan youth are ruined as ‘sushi terrorism’ happens with dumb youth licking sushi as they come off the conveyor belt, forcing sushi chains to stop that kind of service and only do per order service. Sega no longer directly in the arcade business so all of the arcades in Akihabara are renamed GiGO or some shit, sad to see the iconic blue Sega signs gone. More foreigners visit Japan as the country finally opens up to mass tourism but some foreign youtubers are pure hooligans and act like dicks trying to make content, getting arrested and giving a bad name for all travelers. The Hollywood writers strike caused many movies that were scheduled to be released in 2023 to be paused or delayed to next year, most notable Dune 2. In the world of vtubers, Hololive Myth, the first generation in general has slowed down considerably in content due to burnout and other reasons, most notably Gura who basically maybe streams once every 2-3 months which is a shame as she is the most subbed vtuber with over 4millions subs, basically semi-retired or suffering personal issues and or burnout that prevent her from streaming. Being in the post-pandemic world now, the explosive growth of vtubers has now stabilized with a more steady rate of gain in general for all areas of the industry. Holostars EN members Magni and Vesper quit without fanfare or any graduation ceremony or farewell stream after a long period of hiatus most likely caused due to disagreements on creative freedom/rules/operation of Cover and contract renewal, essentially ruining the first gen of Hololive EN Tempus. Hololive Tempus II debut earlier in the year but questions remain whether they will renew their contract come time or leave in the same way much like Magni and Vesper, most notably Bettel. The entire format as being Tempus II was poorly received as many believed they should have been a completely different gen. A next wave of Holostars EN talents is released but within the same world/theme as Tempus, once again bringing into question why they are still holding onto the lore/theme instead of making a new one. Hololive JP release a new division called hololive dev_is and a new gen of girls called ReGloss, there is much confusion if these girls are considered the much anticipated JP Gen 7, but after much confusion, management sets the record that they are not Gen 7. They hint that they are more music/dance 3d production focused but as the months have passed since their debut, they have done nothing different to distinguish themselves from any other regular Hololive member, leaving fans to greatly question the move as their sub growth is much slower than normal because of not being in the main branch. Nijisanji EN vtubers are in mass ruined due to poor management and internal conflict within the company, resulting in many to quit and leak sensitive information about the organization and it’s practices, solidifying it’s reputation in the vtuber industry as a Black Company to be avoided at all costs. Terminated former Hololive vtuber Rushia that joined vshojo last year with kson in JP as Nazuna begins to have more activity on her original old indie account, Mikeneko and commissions a new model from the same illustrator/artist that designed Rushia. Her new model looks almost exactly the same as Rushia and many question and criticize her move as a way to try and recapture her former glory when she was in Hololive, which is very sad. On December, 31, 2023, Nazuna announces her graduation from vshojo even before the planned merch and Nenderoid figures of her model are even completed and released. Despite being released mid 2022 for Guilty Gear Strive in season 2, Bridget continues to be a topic of hot online discussion and argument as many cannot come to gripes that she now identifies as a trans girl, something that series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari has publicly clarified many times as being correct. Going back to the office is retarded and makes even less sense when no one in your team is even located in Toronto, what a waste of time. The fear remains of being laid off at my company has been a constant reminder since it happened in January of last year without warning which powers the desire to go into the office twice a week because I know that they record and track it. My Ipad Mini is kind of shitty and I tried to reinstall FGO to help improve performance, only for it to crash and get myself locked out of my own account, although I recovered my account, I lost my login bonus and had to switch my game to Samsung Galaxy S6 Lite, which in my opinion is not good at running the game as the game is not optimized for it and the sprites look bad on it and it’s heavy to hold in my hands compared to the Ipad Mini. FGO Tunguska happened and it was kind of a disappointment being a timed limited raid event, I did not do any raids because by the time I got to one it was already dead due to reading the story. The story behind Koyanskaya is honestly kind of weak and rushed, could have been much better as she deserved a better origin story since she was there since the beginning of the Lostbelt story arc. I did not play any new video games on my PS4 or otherwise which is sad since I still buy games but end up don’t playing them, I just play Guilty Gear Strive on PS4 for this entire year basically. My entire trip to Japan could have been completely ruined on the first day of arrival as the hotel did not have our booking information, putting into question if all the other hotels that we booked on Expedia were also broken, but luckily it was resolved. Could have died stranded or forced to go back home. I got sick during the early start of the second half of my trip in Japan, in Osaka, resulting in me not being my best health and having to slow down on pace and do less things because I was dying. During our trip to Japan, we still had to wear masks at all times because their culture and society are still very much in covid-lockdown mode still. The FBI publicly confirmed that they believed COVID-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, bringing into question if covid was a research experiment gone wrong or something more sinister as bio weapons development. I finally got Covid a few weeks after coming back from my trip to Japan and it sucks as it really does attack and effect the heart I could tell. Long covid is still a thing and people report still feeling symptoms of illness weeks and even years after getting covid. The following notable people have died this year, for better or worse: Matthew Perry (friends), Suzanne Somers (name heard before), Jimmy Buffett (margaritaville), Bob Barker (price is wrong, bitch), Paul Reubens (pee-wee herman), Tony Bennett (old singer man), Tina Turner (mad max return to thunderdome actor), Gordon Lightfoot (canadian man that sang alot of songs), Jerry Springer (that bitch), Lance Reddick (black hotel guy from first john wick movie), Burt Bacharach (made alot of songs), Lisa Marie Presley (elvis’s only daughter), Rosalynn Carter (former presidents wife), Henry Kissinger (asshole war crimes god), Pat Robertson (asshole christian televangelist), Coco Lee (famous chinese actor), Michael Gambon (Dumbledore II), John Goodenough (a last name that is godly), Bobby Hull (hockey guy). Apple trying to push for their VR headset but no one really cares as it’s something like 3k, waste just a proof of concept. Microsoft acquisition of Blizzard Activision deal finally goes through legal review and is approved, ushering in new era of video game monopoly as Microsoft buys the gaming company for 69 billion, nice. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum came out and was deemed one of the worst games in modern times with terrible graphics, gameplay and premise a waste of the IP. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Remake came out and deemed one of the most lazy FPS efforts in modern times using recycled assets and basically reusing whole multiplayer maps for the single player campaign. Overwatch 2 continues it’s decline as a worse version of the original game which is no longer accessible. Will Smith continues to be ruined and Jada says they haven’t been married for like years, sadge. Taylor Swift’s power becomes too strong as the ultimate blonde white women celebrity that is attractive and all women love her, her music and her concerts, mothers, daughters etc which shouldn’t be allowed. Grandma slowly continues to lose her mind. Some repairs were needed underneath my sink next to the washing/dryer room in my condo because the original building plans fucked it up, causing people needing to come into my unit at least like 4-5 times to access and fix the shit so that he grease pipe/drain can be cleared, waste of time and intrusive. General increase of hooliganism in my community due to the increased population of the homeless and also while riding the TTC.

And yea, that’s all I can think of at the top of my head. I know it’s not a lot but you get the idea. Last year I said that 2022 was the start of the seed sprouting that begins the future of ruin, I believe 2023 as illustrated proves my point as there has been quite a lot of terrible bad things to have happened within the year, the worst most likely being the Hamas attacks on Israel and ensuing War and the continuation of War in Ukraine. Well then, aside from the wholesale continued ruin of our times, what good things happened this year?

Good things that have happened:

Despite the massive amount of bad things that have happened in 2023, I personally have enjoyed lots of good things, or at the very least, not very many bad things happening to me or keeping the status quo. Over the course of the year I have finally begun to feel confident about doing my job as the work shifted to other projects as the mad dash to do AI stuff take priority. I have built relationships with the product and technology teams and my peers to be deemed a person of respect and worthy of hearing advice and feedback from. At the start of the year, I received a great performance review and hence got a pretty nice bonus as well as a minor quality of living pay increase, I think maybe 2.5%? I can’t remember but it was good to hear from my boss that I was doing a good job even though I wasn’t necessarily sure I was doing that. While the start of the year in terms of work was kind of rocky and undefined, it has now settled down considerably although still not the best as I still essentially have to self manage, no one is going to give me work so I have to find it myself and take the initiative to do something to assist various projects. I can’t just wait for things to come to me, as much as I want to do that. I have to continually prove and show my worth or else I could be destroyed; the fear of lay offs cannot go away but I managed to make it this far in my new job as a ‘Senior UX Engineer’, so I am happy about that. Despite my complaints of going into the office, I am still very glad that it is only two days a week and the rest of the days still working at home remotely which many people in the post-pandemic times have lost that privilege. The new office is very nice and has nice water but it still sucks that no one in my team is in Toronto, it wouldn’t be so bad if at least one person came but there is not, except for one and he is too far away to come anyways as he is in London. The new office is right beside Pai, a great and popular Thai restaurant which I have since gone to like 2 other times with co-workers when they do come into the office which is great. Going downtown has the benefits of me having lunch time and trying out new food and restaurants downtown, seeing what’s up with the Toronto sign is cool because they always have stuff going on there. At work they have implemented unlimited vacation days, which you can technically take as much vacation time as you want when you want it granted your team and manager approves of it, which is crazy good. In light of this policy in mind, I went on a trip to Japan with my sister for about two weeks; fulfilling the almost 3 year long trip delay as we were originally planned to go in April 2020. I did not know if I was going to Japan this year because of my sister’s work but due to circumstances, we were able to go at the end of March-April, in good weather. As a somewhat last minute trip, I didn’t know if we were going to go until mid February but once my sister gave the go ahead to plan, we worked in haste to get things done ready. What could have been a complete ruin of our trip when the first hotel we booked didn’t have our reservations on file, my sister went online and got in contact with an Expedia online chat rep and resolved the issue. That was a first class hero move and saved the day in which the hotel just so happened to have a spare room just in case, lucky. Visiting Japan again was amazing after haven’t been there for a decade and for my sister it was a great first visit to Japan as well. We had a plan in place for each day but it was quite flexible which was especially useful when I got sick upon going to Osaka and had to shift our plans a bit due to me dying. My sister saved the day again by seeking out diarrhea medicine late at night in Osaka in order to help me and my bowels stop the flow, enabling better movement and less stops for me to visit the washroom. I had a blast exploring Akihabara especially and playing crane games and buying gachapons as-well as visiting some of the same places that I had visited back in 2014, seeing how things changed and how other things didn’t. I finally visited Tokyo Skytree and it was great as well as Enoshima, a trip while very difficult, I don’t regret it as it challenged me mentally and physically going to that island. Brought tons of shit from Japan, from prize figures, plushies and lots of other nick knack stuff that I love that are bait souvenir stuff. Ate lots of great food in Japan and had a well rounded food experience. All in all, it was a great trip to Japan, one that I would easily say would do again minus the hotel problems at the start and getting sick midway. I attended alot of Anime conventions this year, from Anime North in May, Anime Toronto in September and finally Anime NYC in New York in Novemeber. While Anime North was mid as expected, Anime Toronto was good but very poorly planned and just too small in scale, the only reason why it was decently good is because they got Hololive to come as guests, making it an unofficial Hololive convention along with a few other Japanese voice actor guests. Anime NYC was my excuse to visit New York and my first solo travel experience, I always wanted to challenge myself and see if I could survive and do solo travel and I had a blast. The convention itself was really good, not as big as AX in LA but still way larger in scope and with industry presence than anything that we have in Canada, it was a great convention. I picked up tons of shirts, merchs, art and other stuff at AnimeNYC, good shit. I visited the MoMa in NYC and saw bait ass modern art paintings, I visited a WWII carrier turned museum and brought not-lego kits of it and a fighter jet, I went to the Empire State Building, I went to Times Square, I ate lots of Pizza and witnessed real New York street behavior by hooligans. Aside from my big trip to Japan and solo journey to NYC, I also went to a few other street food festivals like Lucky Lion Street Festival, Taste of Danforth. I went to the CNE and experienced all the standard bait shit that I usually do which is tradition and ate nice junk food. I got alot of new figures, my interest and energy for the hobby of figure collecting is still alive as well as purchasing other anime related merch and Hololive merch, which I still enjoy. While I don’t play them yet, I don’t regret buying those games that I don’t play because they are things which I think deserve appreciation as they are collectibles. I still play Guilty Gear Strive, going into the third year but nowhere near as much as I used to, maybe once in awhile when new characters are added. Asuka R Kreuz “That Man” was finally added to Guilty Gear, my boi Johnny was added, Bedman is nice, Elphelt was added and had a major design change/upgrade which I like alot, she is fun to play. I don’t see my interest in Guilty Gear slowing down anytime soon, buy all the merch. I had a pretty good year of FGO pulls, I got all of the servants that I wanted, including super meta ones like Koyanskaya, Oberon, Morgan, Mélusine, summer Kama. Most of the events in FGO I enjoyed and Lost Belt 6 I think was the best story thus far in the Lost Belt story arc, it’s definitely my favorites due to the story pacing, characters and scale, excellent. I am still doing well in Azurlane and will support my boat waifu game till the day it dies/shuts down. I haven’t picked up any new mobile games which is good I guess but who knows, it’s been this way for like 3-4 years now so yea, we’ll see. In terms of wider entertainment, it has been an excellent year for the movies, with mega blockbusters like Oppenheimer and Barbie filling theaters in the summer and reviving the theater industry. Godzilla Minus One was a great homage and simple but good Godzilla movie, far better than what I expected, would watch again. Wonka was a pretty good musical movie fun for the whole family and those of the original movie. Oppenheimer was incredible and really showcases Christoper Nolans talents as a filmmaker, would watch again. From Star Wars, Mandolorian S3 aired it was pretty good but a bit rushed in my opinion and could have simmered for an episode or two more, Ahsoka was good and interesting but it requires some knowledge of the Clone Wars animated series and Star Wars Rebels animated series to fully appreciate as it’s basically a sequel to those shows, still worth a watch however. Still need to finish Andor but it’s been interesting to say the least. In terms of anime, there was a ton of really amazing shows that have very strong cultural impact such as Oshi no Ko with it’s incredible opening song, Demon Slayers S3?, Gundam Witch from Mercury, Frieren, Mushoku Tensei S2 and many other popular sequels. Spiritual successor to Initial D, MF Ghost finally airs ushering in a new glorious age of anime car racing and eurobeats. I finally went to Fishman Lobster Clubhouse for my birthday meal after so many years of not trying, it was worth it, at least to say that I have been and the food was pretty good. In terms of immediate family, no one died or got injuries this year, which is great compared to last year that’s for sure. While grandma is slowly losing her mind, at least she still remembers who I am. Several of my sister’s friends got married/remarried after suffering relationship trauma/drama in the past (I raised that boy?). My sister is a full time teacher now, kind of, sorta, something yea. The Bros are still alive and surviving. I have not died yet and I am doing alright. The explosive growth of generative AI using tools such as ChatGTP and Microsoft Co-Pilot to assist programming and coding is fantastic, instead of people fearing AI might replace their jobs, they sought to instead adapt and learn to use them and become better, embrace the change and innovation or be left in the dust unemployed. While there is no jobs for entry level retail or food service due to massive immigration, at least there are brown people serving me at burger king and McDonald now to make my food quick. Covid is basically an afterthought at this point and it is good to see that most people just living their lives now, getting covid is no big deal as for most people they will be fine after a few days. No new diseases that will cause another pandemic so far which is good. In terms of Hololive and vtubers, the industry is still growing although slower, no Hololive EN girls or any JPs have had graduations or terminations this year which is great. Hololive EN Gen 3 Advent debuted this year and they are all great talents with lots of potential for growth, continue to look forward to them, I personally watch Koseki Bijou daily as she streams daily. My favorite is still Irys and am glad she is still active, although not as much as before due to other non-streaming activities. Hololive Gen 2 Council was merged with Project Hope to form a new unit, Hololive Promise to make things official and to still honor Sana as a member of Council. Hololive itself opens a massive 3d motion caption studio, illustrating their commitment to investing in the growth of the company and expanding into other forms of entertainment and tech. Haachama returns to regular streaming after a 8 month hiatus to much fanfare and relief, with her return stream having over 127k live viewers watching, possibly a new record. Regloss girls are great themselves and should get more attention, they have lots of potential and room to grow on the JP side. Hololive EN had their first overseas 3d concert in LA to much success, Hololive is also making alot of effort to appear at conventions and other events around the world to much success and joy to fans. Many 3d lives and concerts were held over the past year for all talents. Pekora and Marine becomes the top two streamers of Hololive JP, with Pekora being number one after solo concerts, albums and a host of other collabs/sponsorship streams elevate her profile to an almost household name. When I visited Japan, Hololive was everywhere in stores which is very pleasing to me. While I do not play it, Genshin Impact and Honkai Starail are the hottest mobile games these days which I do not mind because their art is pretty good and they produce a decent amount of figures/merch. Holostars is having a rough year with 2 members leaving but the latest batch of talents is promising. Nijisanji is dying with talents leaving monthly which further solidifies Hololive as the best vtuber company with no rival. Vshojo picks up former talent known as Pikamee and debuts as Henya the genius to much happiness to all with a much better model. Kson does more varied streams and moves from being a vtuber to more general streamer, for better or worse as she is cast in the latest Yakuza game Like a Dragon as one of the hostess girls using live action video acting. Vtuber/illustrator Shigure Ui releases an animated MV for her original song “Shukusei!! Loli Kami Requiem” and it becomes a massive viral meme hit online because the song, dance and animation are so good. Lots of nice meme anime dance/music songs such as the recorder wind flute blowing song covered by many vtubers and streamers in general. Youth online meme culture seems to be slowly returning and it is dumber and more obscure than ever, for better or worse regarding new slang youth terms like ‘rizz’ and ‘gyatt’ spreading like wildfire. In terms of good things in the political landscape, Toronto elected Olivia Chow as Mayor to replace John Tory, while aligned to NDP values she has so far made some decent deals to offload the funding and maintenance of the Gardiner to the province and Doug Ford in exchange for not further pushing back on Ontario Place development plans that the province has. Chow has already proven herself to be a dealmaker and willing to compromise, giving hope that she can improve some of the ills of the city, with some recent polls at the beginning of 2024 show her having a 70% approval rating. On the provincial level, deals have been made for healthcare worker raises as well as some other government workers. Mayor of Mississauga Bonnie Crombie becomes the leader of the provincial Liberals and aspires to defeat Doug Ford and the PCs in the next provincial election. On the federal level, steps are being made for improved drug/dentistry/eye care plans for some Canadian although plans are still work in progress. The federal government has finally acknowledged Canada’s problems with affordability and especially the housing crisis and is slowly trying to do something about it. Lots of good science stuff is going on in the health and medicine areas, lots of new research and drugs are being developed based on the same methods of mRNA vaccines that instead target certain types of cancer, alzheimers and other diseases that have plagued humans for so long. Progress is being made in more renewable energy and less dependence on fossil fuels, which is always good. Because of the past few years of covid and general less human activity, wildlife and nature in general has had a great return with many species of animals having a great comeback; some animals once deemed almost extinct, are found to be still around and recovering. Former US President Donald Trump was formally accused of mishandling classified documents. Despite the threat of Trump in 2024, the democrats have made decent gains simply by not being the Republicans as the craziness and infighting continue as Biden does a solid job of being president. Despite the prolonged war continuing in Ukraine, Canada and the US stand firm on it’s commitment to win the war as doing so otherwise and allowing Putin to win would be disastrous for the world. Despite the doom and gloom of a recession at the start of 2023 and late 2022, the world in general has done very well in trying to do what they call a ‘soft landing’, preventing mass job losses and a shrinking of businesses and industry; in fact, 2023 has been a good year on the stock market defying all predictions, people made money and people are still being hired for jobs, although the tech industry has suffered considerable losses. Going to Japan and buying things like food made me feel like a king because inflation has not really hit them as hard as the rest of the world and things are still cheap, paired with the favorable CAD to Yen exchange rate almost at parity, made out buying shit like bandits, good times. Canada reached a milestone in reaching a population of 40 million, which is fueled by the millions of immigrants coming into Canada over the past few years, which is good for the growth of the economy and GDP. Housing and real estate value has maintained fairly steady, if not maybe even declining a bit which gives hope that things might get better in the future. There has been a significant resurgence in Vinyl records sales and for the first time since 1987, surpassed CD sales as the younger generation seeks out retro items as being cool and for physical material goods to collect and appreciate their favorite artist or music band in a world where digital music and spotify leave little or nothing to collect for fans. NASA announced the crew of the Artemis 2, the first mission to the moon in 50 years which is great. India became the fourth nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon, oh shit browns in space when. Finland officially joined NATO, becoming the 31st member of the security alliance due to to Russia and the war in Ukraine due to fears of Putin’s ambitions. Sweden also soon hopes to join the alliance as well in the near future for the same reasons as Finland. Pepsi changed it’s logo back to the classic one, which looks far better than the shit they were doing trying to look hip and cool. Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Taylor Swift was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, solidifying her title as the most successful blonde white women celebrity to have ever walked the earth in modern times and have obtained near god status among fans and the media. I changed my phone plan and now get like 50gigs of data per month on my mobile phone, far more than what I would ever need but it’s a good backup if my home internet goes down because of Rogers. I tried using Tide pods for the first time and they are cool and work. I learned about these jelly pellet ball things that are the size of rice but if you put them in water they grow into little balls, they are cool. While I did not partake in them, there was a lot of very good video games that came out this year such as Street Fighter 6, Baldur’s Gate 3, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Armored Core 6, new fighting games and indie games such as Lethal Company, Final Fantasy XVI, Lies of P. Suika game released and was a massive hit for vtubers streaming it, letting everyone know that everyone just wants to see fruits and shit join to make different bigger fruits to memorable loopable music. So yea, I think that’s about it from what I can remember from 2023 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 few years has been about the same, pretty terrible and based on the simple length of what has been written in this post, 2023 does not break that change; it was for all intensive purposes, a pretty bad year. However, I actually don’t think 2023 was as bad as 2022, based purely on the fact that we are still alive and most of the world is living in relative peace still despite all the problems and are struggling. While 2023 brought upon us a new conflict in the middle east via Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the resulting war to destroy Hamas that followed, I do not personally think it is as bad as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 because the stakes of that conflict are more far reaching in the global geopolitical landscape compared to what is happening in the Gaza strip now. There has always been conflict in the middle east in the region of where Israel exists today so from my perspective it’s just a returning to a somewhat normal state of affairs as bad as it sounds, with no clear or clean solutions. In comparison, if Russia is allowed to win and take over Ukraine, you are basically starting WWIII. This has become increasingly more evident over the past year that western democracies cannot allow Ukraine to fall as it risks far too much as China, North Korea, India, Russia seek out to change the status quo of global power and influence around the world. The lines between fractions and who will be allies or enemies increasingly become more clear as even Finland joins NATO and Sweden seeks it. An invasion of Taiwan may become the next firestorm event that might make everything collapse and fall into global ruin but for now it seems like all the domestic problems in China are keeping the CCP and Xi Xinping occupied. Aside from geopolitical theory crafting, 2023 has been a year of great personal economic/job stability and leisure/enjoyment for me, having visited Japan, New York and having attended many conventions and fun events throughout the year. Perhaps it may be bias because of my personal experiences, but I think as a whole, 2023 was great for me; but bad for the world in general, just not as bad as 2022.

Make no mistake, the cracks and problems that formed in previous years still exist and continue to deepen such as social, economic and political instability, especially with increases in far right radicalism, rise in fascism and anti-democratic tendencies in the US, Republican hooliganism/Trump-ism and will only continue to be heightened as the 2024 US presidential election approaches and things get more heated. In 2022 we as a society have gone backwards in civility and tolerance, and 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; 2023 is a continuation of that trend although it doesn’t feel any different, most likely because we have become de-desensitized towards it and most people assume things will get worse, not better, which is a stark and sad state of affairs. Most youth and millennials do not believe things will get better, only worse as the time for future prosperity is over, unlike their parents and prior generations, those of working age today only know of decay and ruin in all aspects of our society and life. With all things considered, I don’t see anything in our immediate future that will make people look towards the future with optimism.

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But do you know what?

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I think that’s OK, because in 2023 I found myself for a lack of a better word ‘partying’ hard, as if the world might end. Going on vacation to Japan, New York, buying tons of shit, eating tons of shit, cause damn, the world’s not getting any better anytime soon and I ain’t getting any younger.

The way I see it, better to see the world and have fun now before everything goes to shit because tomorrow you never know if you are going to lose your job, get sick or a new war will start, new pandemic, economic collapse or when climate disaster might come at your doorstep. It’s not that I won’t stop investing in the future such as buying stocks/equities, continuing to learn and do self-improvement and hopefully end up with a comfortable retirement path one day; I’m just not sure that day will ever come given the direction of the world is heading. Who knows what 2024 will have in store for us, but at least for me, it’s probably gonna involve spending money, more travel, more eating and more buying things cause damn:

The Time Is Now.

Reckless Abandon.