#how am i gonna get flagged 2 days after being restored

[clits-and-clips]

My christmas present to you all <3

[dailyaudiobible]

07/11/2020 DAB Transcript

1 Chronicles 11:1-12:18, Acts 28:1-31, Psalms 9:1-12, Proverbs 19:1-3

Today is the 11th day of July welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we bring another of our weeks to a close. We’re also going to be bringing one of our books to a close today, the book of Acts, which means as we conclude today we will achieve another one of our badges, this one for the New Testament history badge, which is the book of Acts. But we can talk about that in a little bit because we have not achieved it yet. So, let's dive in. First from the Old Testament's first Chronicles chapter 11 verse 1 through 12 verse 18. And we are reading from the English Standard Version this week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us another week, day by day step-by-step, which is how it is every day, always. No matter what day, week, month, year it is we have established a relationship with Your word and we have established a rhythm and come together in community and we thank You because as we end every week we look back and see Your faithfulness to us. Even if it's been a difficult week, we see that You are guiding us and that You are present. And, so, as we end this week, as it becomes a part of history we look forward to all You will do in the coming week and we are here right here, right now, worshiping You and thanking You for Your mercy and Your kindness and Your patience, we’re worshiping You for who You are, the most-high God. We can't even begin to get our minds around it - the most-high God. We worship You because You are our Father and we love You. And, so, we release this week into our history and invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth as we move forward. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website and home base and where you find out what’s going on around here.

I mentioned at the beginning so we concluded the book of Acts and so those of us who are using the Daily Audio Bible app and kind of checking off the days, that will lead us to the achievement of the New Testament history, which is the book of Acts. And that…that badge shows up in our…in our app and that shows up in the in the Achievements section. You just push the little Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and see achievements and we can kind of see where we are as we move through the different sections of the Bible. And it should also just pop up and show us we’ve accomplished this. So, well done. We continue to be on our way and tomorrow we will get to know this apostle Paul that we've…we’ve gotten to know him by his travels, like his itinerary and some of the history, some of the things that happened, some the places that he went to, some of the things that he had to say, but we’re gonna get in-depth into his letters as we move forward in these weeks ahead of us. So, excited about that for sure.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link. It lives on the homepage. Thank you profoundly for your partnership as we continue to move through these summer months. Thank you. There’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow

Community Prayer and Praise:

I just want to say thank you Daily audible Bible you’ve been a real blessing to me for at least eight years. This is only my second time of calling and. I’m Brenda from Michigan. I have a niece that deals with OI for short - osteogenesis imperfecta - where her bones are brittle, and they break. She’s 29 years old now and she’s having a lot of difficulty breathing, severe difficulty. And I am praying and asking the Lord to do a supernatural miracle in her life. We just give you many thanks and thank you for all the faithful’s. I love being a part of this. Thank you, Brian and family very much. Good night.

Good evening DAB family this is Marinotha from Georgia and this message is for All the Grace and He shines. I’m a few weeks behind. I was just listening to June 22nd and you called in and sang a beautiful song and it just lifted my heart and we’ve had it really hard. We’ve…my son on July 4th fell into a fire pit and has 2nd degree burns on his leg. We came home from the hospital today and he’s going to be okay, but we’ve got a long road. So, just thank you for making me smile for the first time in a few days. And please be with our family and be with my son Corban as he heals from these horrific burns. Thank you DAB family for being here for me. Thank you all. Good night.

Hi family this is Biola from Maryland I hope you’re all doing well. Brian and Jill God bless you. Jill, happy birthday again. Family I want to pray for my brother from Sudan, Donald. God bless you. You’re my Nigerian brother as well as my brother in the Lord. I pray that God will comfort you and…and jut wrap His arms around you over the murder of your brother in Nigeria. Family I called in that one time to ask for prayers for our missionaries to Nigeria. They’ve been terribly persecuted by militant Muslims especially in the north and you can see what happened to our brother Donald’s brother…younger brother even though he’s a medical doctor helping them. Missionaries in northern Nigeria have been persecuted. I know of a family that the militants broke into…into their compound and shot the father, the mother, the children. But, you know, I want to give God praise that the bullets that went into them to not go into vital areas. So, the doctors were able to fish out the bullets. And then I know of pastors who were beheaded…beheaded in Nigeria. You know, please pray for missionaries both in Nigeria and around the world. My prayer in the name of Jesus is that the devil would cease and desist. You know, using this people in the name of Jesus that they will come to their knees and they will come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And if they don’t cease-and-desist I pray that the Lord will deal with them in the name of Jesus. Sister I heard your prayer, the sister that has been separated for several years. I pray that the Lord will bring a restoration in your marriage in the name of Jesus. God bless you family. Biola from Maryland.

Good morning this is Running Desperately to Jesus last time I called I know I spoke of having my grandson with me but today I’m asking for prayer. The flesh has caused me to sin against the temple of God. It has even impacted my relationship and faithfulness to God. I have not walked away from God and I made a promise I never would no matter how low of my behavior became. Met a guy, red flags all over, but because I got tired of being lonely, fell into justification of the reason why he treated me. Well yesterday I went by his house shows me how much or how little I think of myself, basically put me out, stood me up didn’t give any type of reason why put me out. I say all of that DABbers to let you know I need prayer. I think very little of myself. I let this person treat me and speak to me any way just so that I could get the moment of affection be it just holding me, saying all the right things. And now I feel like trash. Running Desperately to Jesus. I’m just asking…

Good morning DAB family Abby here from Maryland. Today is July 7th and I am out on my walk and I just want to thank God for all that He’s been doing in each and every of our lives. I want to give God the glory and thank Him for this day for the opportunity to be still in His presence. Thank you, Brian, thank you the entire Hardin family. May God continue to keep you. Brian I was really moved by your exultation this morning on today’s reading of July 7th, especially in the book of Proverbs where someone who’s offended can be like a castle or city gates. It’s hard to please the person or appease the person. And I’m praying that may we extend grace when we have been offended and may we ask for mercy when we have been the one who has offended someone, grace to humble ourselves always under the mighty hands of God. So, you guys have been amazing, you’ve been awesome in my life. I lift each and every one of you into God’s hands. May He keep you. May He watch over you. May He lift His face of continence upon you and give you peace. And as we go into the next half of this year my prayer is that God’s grace covers us, God’s mercy keeps us. May He watch over us. May He be our King of Kings and Lord of lords. You all have a good day. Abby here.

Hey Daily Audio Bible family this is Melody from Canada and this is probably the most personal prayer request I have. It’s July 7th and after hearing Brian talk about offense and this __ I just realized that I’m offended by God. I…because of things I’ve gone through - being raped, by a little brother dying - just other…other really hard things it’s hard for me to trust God. It’s hard for me not to be offended by Him. And the whole theology of end day judgment, I believe in it, I believe in accountability. But because I’ve been rejected and traumatized, the idea of God, the lover of my soul rejecting anyone and subjecting them to eternal torment is just…it’s so…it just makes me so angry and I don’t understand how…anyway I know this…there’s like all different views but I…I want to know the truth and I want to be able to be at peace with God and love Him and trust Him and know that I’m chosen by Him and just be at peace with how He runs the universe. And, so, I’m hoping to talk about that with Him on my long walk today. So, if you could pray for me as always feels like this tug-of-war of not being able to completely trust. And just this…I guess the original lie of God is holding onto power…somehow, He’s actually not good. So, yeah, I really want breakthrough on that, and I pray for all of us today on our long walk. I pray that we’ll all be able to do it and really meet with God, really engage with Him and hear from Him for the rest of our year. Love you guys.

[rennyji]

July 21st Morning Tweets...

July 21st Morning Tweets...

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So in the third mentioning of some of the epic Indian Mohanlal movies is the movie:“Yodha”-  not Star Wars yodha or is that Yoda?!- I feel YodHa is a movie ahead of its time, and am surprised that for that time period, the creators had the imagination and budget. It’s a movie about a man who travels to Nepal and rescues one of those Enlightened bald Buddha like kids from something evil, as he is destined to be a protector. The boy is referred to as “Rimpochay” but is nicknamed “Unni  Kutta” based on how his bald head reminds the main character of an egg. One of the advice passed onto Rimpochay, while they’re on the run, is, always be and look ur best. Mohanlal’s words, I believe, are to “look smart”. I think all Indians at one time or another,  before America were about ironing their clothes, shaving, looking their best. I think the Brits still have this idea. To be at the risk of being conceited, when my balding fat self goes places, it’d be nice if the superficial orchestrators stopped using my cultural practices for entertainment. Whatever I am, however I am, I’m just a regular guy, minding his own business.

---

After a decade of nonsense and degrading cr*p, using some things I wanted to pass on, after literally having my senses restored from removing myself from some things, the secondary orchestrators (different from the primary) may try to sum up the entirety of their phenomena as something spiritual and magical from whats passed on a decade later. In the Bible, it’s projected that we shouldn’t judge others. Why? Because what you see in an instant of time is the amalgamation of several preceding past incidents, emotions, memories, thought process, personal interactions, and so much more…without any of that, who the h*ll are any of us to judge another…But that doesn’t apply to the phenomena…you actually “know” it’s happening vs me, that too from the beginning, middle, and end. Don’t insult words and actions that stand out in the world or our minds, by comparing a disgusting scenario as something that also stands out, based on some interesting incidents in passing. To the orchestrators, how low will you go with evading personal space for entertainment? Will you even intrude in a prayer to Almighty God for your ends? I mean what do you say to that?

---

So I admire the gentleness in most women and the femininity to their voices...but I've also come to admire strength. A decade, a decade and a half ago, with the my same appreciation for nice things, beauty, and in that spirit: beautiful women, I think, when it came to looking towards serious things like a future, I would've settled on any pretty face. After a decade and a half in h*ll, where I face off against America, their sadistic government, law enforcement, military (who like to watch you bleed before taking ur life in whatever advanced means at their disposal), the America who mislead the entire world, being against me, I have one additional criteria to nice smiles in my life partner...

I need a strong woman like in the first clip...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tH1FzD1YY8

-I need a woman who I can face off armies with, figurative and maybe even literal (as who knows what America will do with mind reading/mind control, and then combining it with my perspectives on religion to result in crowds being sedated rather than acting on/living the perspective).

-Note the second clip. I mean white, black, brown, East Asian translucent to yellowish tan, whatever...ultimately, I need a woman who's insightful and will able to exercise her anger and powers of communication. I need a woman of strength. 

-From 300, Check out Leonidas's wife amidst the Spartan council/her speech, and how she doesn't cry when humiliated by the man towards the end, but acts accordingly to a traitor of her nation for that time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15pCcwtCS

I need a woman whose gentle and fierce/a fighter. Gentle as a breeze but fierce as a storm. Also someone who will give me peace of mind.

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So knowing the orchestrators will provoke me more if I say it, I’m gonna say I’m gonna stop with talk related to the following cr*p anyway (I.e. trying to get me to think things):

So, call me crazy, “but I detect a pattern of movement” that comes along as “what is this really about?/or is that what it is?/ as a matter of fact this/that…” in speech/conversation. 

There are “other patterns of human behavior,” but this is what caught my interest.

You wanna know the truth? For the last decade and a half, I have been talking about the very thing steering you, getting you to talk, as it evolved through the years in the things it involves or it’s various complexities. I mean, list it out in terms of what all this increasingly involves…what does it for the primary (v.s. the Secondary)orchestrators when they’re horny, is to get me to go on for years about a girl… I think they try to make all of this about a girl, a stray group of kids…and hey, maybe the party school may not have been as bad as pictured-when they could’ve been managing something with the cards dealt to them (rather carelessly), from someone more authoritative… Now, for the sake of argument, I moved to another country and lived there for a year, when the orchestrators, randomly, abruptly, had family members, remove me from that country for bizarre reasons at the time.  I’m back in America and the rest is history. I was being in another country like India, while being named first in programming training camps, 5 times in a row, when I, a computer science graduate from a state school, was studying/competing, among electrical, chemical or whatever engineers…what is the relevance of a girl or stray kids for that context/time period? A decade and a half later, what is its relevance? If any of you really share the sentiment of “hey bro, what is this really about?” This is about ur American government trying to complete a secret project with everyone’s help, hiding in plain sight, while what comes off as a party school in behavior in sounds, distracts everyone with sweet/wonderful things, to sedate your true reactions to an abomination, while numbing me with ECT procedures for talking about the reality that is actually transpiring, or to get you the audience to take it lightly when ur police make me walk without shoes without talking to me, or years later, gather round me again through 4 suvs… Not even Hitler and the Nazis were this cunning when they experimented on the Jews for eye color and things…and how long was World War II?according to Google, it was 6 years long, from September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945 . 6 years for the Jews and more for me, because they don’t look as Middle Eastern as me, maybe? how long was the individual experiments on the Jews in Nazi Germany? Did it involve the world, or even that part of Europe, in its entirety? Ive learned through this decade plus of war/experimentation on an individual-that too shamefully to me i.e. one of your American citizens-“you can never trust an American. “ They’re all instruction based acts as a people. Your actions speak louder than words. Americans will stab you in the back, in their relentless actions, be it getting family members to betray you, doctors to shock ur brain, or having the police come at you in 4 vehicles. 

-At this time, I’m asking the American pagan gods to leave me be…out of my mind, out of my life. Know I spit on your flags in front of my house daily and if I could uproot it from the front of my house, I’d wipe my a*s with it, for a decade of senseless torture.--…a devil worse than Hitler shouldn’t even get that much nourishment through my spit on its symbol of hatred and lack of freedom…man it’s the craziest thing…right after writing this, it felt like my mom nodded in approval. So happy she magically knew and agree. -Punish my family and me more oh esteemed (but not really esteemed) nation of nations, oh America…I’d bow before you but ummm I have sour knees…

I mean there’s that, and of course free will - I only bow before The God, capital "G".

---

In an old 300 page elaboration of a complaint, upon realizing there’s a reaction to my writing from the cars below the hill my studio apartment house that it rested on, I said “darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to lasting light.” In broad daylight, a great evil is happening. Because of modern times, American corniness to things, seeing me in the ways I’m seen, you don’t take those words with the same seriousness.  Darkness thrives in the void means in broad daylight, something, by very nature against the legal system l and free will, is happening. Be warned. I even said “time immemorial with the that sentence mentioned. The flaws of human behavior date at least as far back as 2000 years, in the days of Christ. Human nature, in its flaws, continues…

My perception towards all this is through a Psalm, a priest from my old Church directed my way: Psalm 3…

It goes:

1

Lord, how many are my foes!

   How many rise up against me!

(Literally the world is one team of conviction and practice towards me, at least through instruction following in place of what’s in the heart. In this regard, a foe, an enemy, are those who don’t heed my words and talk to me, but instead obey the instructions from the false American gods about how I allegedly want my reality, my world, to be.

2

Many are saying of me,

   “God will not deliver him.(B)”[b]

(The primary orchestrators wants me to ponder,through a spiteful tone, in the spirit of the pagans of old: “where is your God?”)

3

But you, Lord, are a shield(C) around me,

   my glory, the One who lifts my head high.(D)

(If I “appear ‘in forms’ of my head high”, (and don’t want ur pity in this”) know that I ur neighbor( in the spirit of the Golden Rule) am the product of a decade plus abuse. Inside is fire.

4

I call out to the Lord,(E)

   and he answers me from his holy mountain.(F)

(The Lord directs me with seemingly ridiculous answers in places and purchases and words and actions, so that I may endure)

5

I lie down and sleep;(G)

   I wake again,(H) because the Lord sustains me.

(Self explanatory)

-6 

I will not fear(I) though tens of thousands

    assail me on every side.(J)

(I.e. the world, that America’s deception and trickery,  misled against me. I will not bow to the law enforcement or military or the false American gods 

-or their undeserved technology - probably given to them in the same way the Greek god, Ares, screws humankind by giving them weapons ahead of their time, in the movie, Wonder Woman, so that theyll destroy each other...)

7

Arise,(K) Lord!

   Deliver me,(L) my God!

Strike(M) all my enemies on the jaw;

   break the teeth(N) of the wicked.

(After a decade plus of invisible torture, while publicly portrayed in a different, probably pleasant, light, be sure justice and vengeance are a deep desire of mine.

With some people, they truly are destined for h*ll itself. A decade plus of showing the other cheek, using words-this verse from Psalm 3 shows, from the Old Testament, that even vengeance in place of forgiveness, will be with God’s backing, in extraordinary circumstances.

In Matthew 13:41-42, our preacher of love and forgiveness, but who also speaks of bringing the sword, says:

41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Not even Christ will act on the weeping and gnashing of teeth of those thrown into the fire to be burned, after great evils…as I said before, if we are the Body Of Christ, those responsible for my situation are like tumors/cancers that will be removed from the Body of Christ.

Christians, at least, from whom I’ve run into, are thinking religion is a wishy washy thing where your minds get into some drunken high.

Christianity “is” “about” peace, but also about being vigilant, alert, focused, through pursuits of the mental Kingdom of God.)

From the Lord comes deliverance.(O)

   May your blessing(P) be on your people.

(The evil Americans, after a decade of realization on my part and indigestible evil from theirs, (from my Indian dialect vs the overall language: “gray-hic-an pat-Atha maha vir-thee-aid-a/do-shum…”), the Americans will not stop, despite actual cries for help from me for 10+ years - and that’s when their delusion based thinking, thinks that God will pity their cries in the eternal fire.

It is said by Christ,

In Matthew 25:40,

It is said,

And the King shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.’

In these hard times, all I needed was a witness to tell me my conclusions on what’s transpiring are true or confirming that something is in fact, transpiring. I could’ve used that to end a decade plus of suffering and abuse. But you chose and followed the false gods, in the primary orchestrators

It is said:

In Matthew 25:35-40,

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,(A) 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me,(B) I was sick and you looked after me,(C) I was in prison and you came to visit me.’(D)

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

You inflicted this 10 year nonsense on God Himself, through the third person of the Christian Trinity: the Holy Spirit, which resides in every human and walks with them from Baptism. For the Hindus and others, I think this relates to the belief of “Atman”…

I pray that at the designated time for the end of my problem, before this world and the orchestrators and their timeline, that God will bless me with divine deliverance, with or without His true people.

---

Always bear in mind that World War II lasted 6 years, where 6 million Jews were murdered & some experimented on with things like eye color...that was by European Hitler...- -today theAmerican false gods, inMoreThan aDecade of mindExperiments,usingHumanity as itsRightHand, torment anIndian, or MiddleEastern lookingMan... Even World War II-a 6 yearSituation where @ least those Jews had privilege of humanCompany - does it compare 2 what theAmericans do, where they leave me with no one to even talk to for a decade plus, and have humanity on one side in belief/practice vs me?

---

[lady-la-las-eso-tips]

Lady LaLa’s Tank Killer (Warden Buffer/Debuffer)

Welcome to another Build Thursday :) And may I just say that with PAX approaching, I am psyched cuz I got tickets <3 Zenimax had a good showing last year, talking about One Tamriel, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that they’ll be showing some Horns of the Reach content.

Buuut, onto today’s build; a combination of buffer and debuffer with a healthy side of tankiness thrown in for good measure. I gravitated to a healer when I tried out the Warden (of course, what else is new, LaLa?) and I absolutely loved how tanky you can make yourself while still keeping everyone around you on their feet. Throw in their heal reduction AOE and I figured you could make a good debuffer, too. Add a couple skills from the Destro staff line, and you have a good combination to bring down all but the best tanks with a good team at your back.

ESO Skill Factory Skill Calculator 

Picture this: You wouldn’t say that your tank is bad at what he does, he can usually soak up damage without much problem, and your healer can usually power heal after that... Except today, you don’t know why they both keep going down, and your self heals don’t seem to be doing much either. What in Cyrodiil could the problem be? Meanwhile, your enemies are laughing.

Boon: The Apprentice, extra spell damage is life

Weapons: One bar, you’ll want a resto staff for the buffs, the other will be a destro staff. Our 5 piece set is going to be Healing Mage (AOE heals reduce your enemies’ weapon damage) and our 4 piece set is Mother’s Sorrow, make sure both your staves are from the same set and make sure both have the Powered trait.

Jewelry: All three pieces should be from the Mother’s Sorrow set.

Armor: We’ll want 5 pieces of light armor, with 2 pieces of heavy armor for the minor bonuses. If your staff is Mother’s Sorrow, all 5 can be from Healing Mage, if not, throw in that extra piece from Mother’s Sorrow. Our monster set is gonna be Sentinel of Rkugamz, both heavy

Overall Equipment: For Mother’s Sorrow, I like the unique jewelry pieces for their health bonuses which you can get from world bosses in Deshaan (necklace is at Short-Tusk's Hillock, ring is at Caravan Crest). I personally also like Mother’s Sorrow for our weapon, since it’s easier to grind delve bosses to find exactly what you want. Healing Mage can be found in the Aetherian Archive, so you’ll want to make some friends who know what they’re doing. Guilds, I’m telling you, are the best resource for this, just let them know what you’re doing and you can usually find a group to help you. Mother’s Sorrow gives us big bonuses to spell crit (crits make the world go round) so super useful, while Healing Mage adds Magicka, Magicka Recovery and a flat 2% bonus to heals. Sentinel can be found in Darkshade Cavern I, but is worth it for the additional 2% heal bonus, plus our only real way to restore our allies stamina.

Attribute Points: 44 magicka and 20 health, with the changes to the way attribute points work, we can afford to throw some bonuses into our health, thus making it so much easier to stay up in a pitched battle.

Race: So I made this with Breton in mind, but of course, an Altmer could be used. You could substitute a Dunmer or Argonian, but those are the least optimal (and c’mon, this is a frost mage, can you really see this as a Dunmer? lol)

Skill Bars “Just an Innocent Healer... Right?”

Frost Cloak->Ice Fortress. This one is a nice one, a lbuff to your and your allies’ Physical and Spell Resistance, with the morph giving you a flat bonus to damage resistance. It’s very hard to go down with this up, and it’s one of the first skills you get in the Winter’s Embrace tree, so you have plenty of time to get the morph.

Necrotic Orb->Energy Orb. If your allies are on top of their synergies, this one is fun. It starts as a damage ability, but evolves into a fun little skill that heals and restores magicka.

Fungal Growth->Enchanted Growth. An AOE heal cast in front of you, with the morph adding additional stamina and magicka regeneration to everyone it hits. It’s another one you get at the very beginning of the skill tree, so it’s one you’ll get used to using often

Nature’s Grasp->Natures Embrace. Spot an ally getting ganked, but running would take too long? Just swing in like Tarzan, and start laying down the buffs. It’s a good one to use, whether for travel, being a Big Damn Hero, or just goofing off.

Regeneration->Mutagen. I really can’t enough about how much I love this skill. A HOT that gives an “Oh Shit!” insurance if someone drops too low in health while it’s on them. It can keep you up just long enough to cast the rest of your heals and buffs

War Horn->Sturdy Horn. At least one person in every group should be running War Horn or one of its morphs, but this one is my favorite. It gives you and your allies even more Resistance while boosting your health, magicka and stamina for 36 seconds, plenty of time to get through a fight.

“Not so Much, Watch for Circles”

Arctic Wind->Arctic Blast. Heals you for 10% of your health, plus heals you by 2% of your health every 2 seconds and damages your enemies with the morph. It’s pretty awesome

Weakness to Elements->Elemental Susceptibility. Something good: Making your enemies weaker to spell damage, when most people use spell damage anyway. Something even better: It’s 21 seconds long, enough for most fights to be long over, and with the morph, refreshes every time you damage them. It’s awesome

Impulse->Pulsar. So Impulse is kinda blah, if we’re honest. It’s an AOE, but there’s so many better AOEs. Pulsar, though, is pretty unique, lowering anyone’s max health if they’re hit by the attack by 10%.

Healing Seed->Corrupting Pollen. We’ve got heals, we’ve got heals for DAYS, this is more than just another heal. Major Defile is a pain in the ass to other healers, and sucks for tanks and DPS, too. 

Purge->Cleanse. Inevitably, you’re gonna get notice, and who knows, you might even run into another debuffer. This will help; it removes negative effects, and the morph heals for 15% of the target’s health if it removes even one.

Secluded Grove->Healing Thicket. We could go damage, but I really love this one. Say me and my group is taking a keep; I can usually drop this 3-4 times from the time we break down the front door to the time the flags flip, because it’s so cheap, and yet can be the difference between getting wiped on a flag and chasing off defenders.

I like this one, I like this one a lot. Lots of self buffs, lots of group buffs, plus a little extra to make your enemies hurt even more when you hit them. DPS here is minimal, but even at low levels, following this build has let me hold off 2 gankers from Bruma to Dragon Claw, right into my group. This has led to chuckles from my comrades, since it’s pretty funny to have them chase me for miles, only to have them squashed like bugs once I rejoin my group.

[woundvest7-blog]

Links 10/27/18

Change in singing behavior of humpback whales caused by shipping noise PLOS One

U.S. Stocks Slump on Tech Worries WSJ

US economic growth tops forecasts FT

FBI investigating whether Tesla misstated Model 3 production numbers Autoblog (EM).

Why Private Equity Is Furious Over a Paper in a Dermatology Journal NYT

The regime change for global markets is just beginning FT

Janet Yellen on Trump, Fed politics and nurturing recovery FT. “Nurturing.”

China?

The Chinese century is well under way Economist

Abe’s foreign-worker plan spurs protests in Japan’s ruling party Nikkei Asian Review

Trudeau’s Human Stimulus Helps Canada Match Trump’s Tax Cuts Bloomberg

Syraqistan

Khashoggi killing: as Saudi turns to China, for MbS it’s business as usual South China Morning Post

New Cold War

What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Mueller Report LawFare

* * *

Mr. Putin Goes to Washington? The American Conservative

U.S. Withdrawal from the INF Treaty: The Facts and the Law Lawfare

What Russia Will Be The National Interest

Foreign Policy for the Twenty-First Century Boston Review

Trump Transition

Will Trump Really Cut Defense Spending by 5%? It’s Way Too Early To Say Defense One

About 10 percent of flag officer positions can be replaced by lower grades, study says Federal News Network

Senate’s Out? Nobody’s Around? Perfect Time To Advance Trump’s Court Picks, Says GOP. HuffPo

Trump’s NLRB Just Quietly Ruled to Make Union Pickets Illegal In These Times

Florida suspect lived in his van and built his bombs there too, authorities say McClatchy. A good wrap-up with lots of detail.

Democrats in Disarray

Bernie Sanders rallies striking hotel workers in downtown San Diego San Diego Union Tribune. Great to see the party big-wigs backing him up on this. Oh, wait….

What a Rural Maine House Race Can Teach the Left The Nation. Maine District 88 is a “pivot county,” about half-way between Boothbay and Augusta.

Hadley: Slotkin puts country before party Detroit News. The Bush administration’s Stephen Hadley on Democrat CIA candidate Slotkin. Hadley’s the guy who allowed the “sixteen words” on Niger yellowcake uranium — forged documents supporting claims of Iraqi WMDs — into Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech. Of course, the Iraq War debacle is ancient history, now; everybody is rehabilitated, including Bush, who gave Michelle candy [squeeeeee!].

The Experts and Question One MassPoliticsProfs (KC). This is the ballot initiative where powerful Democrat consulting firm Dewey Cheatem & Howe Square Group (“No”) is working against nurses unions (“Yes”) on the question of minimum staffing ratios.

Health Care

Administration Moves To Incentivize Health Reimbursement Arrangements Health Affairs

No More Health Care Half-Fixes Jacobin. Examines Jayapal’s H. R. 6097.

Brexit

Brexit: ‘Several’ WTO members block Britain’s attempt to fast track deal The Independent

The Democratic Unionist Party Isn’t Bluffing on Brexit. It’s Being ‘Thran.’ Foreign Policy. Word of the day: Thran.

Meet Theresa May’s Top Lawyer, the Latest Hurdle to a Brexit Deal Bloomberg

Centrist Sensibility Review 31

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

Google’s smart city dream is turning into a privacy nightmare Engadget

They look like cops, but they’re not. And they’re all over Michigan. Detroit Free Press

Imperial Collapse Watch

Post-Cold War U.S. Foreign Policy Has Been a Near Total Failure. Two New Books Look at Why. The Intercept

Why today’s troops fear a new war is coming soon Military Times

American Defense Contractor Accused of Enslaving U.S. Citizen Linguists Daily Beast

The Crash: Ten Years After

10 years later: How the financial crisis reverberated into municipal bonds The Bond Buyer

New Deadline For Merrimack Valley Gas Restoration Is Now December 2-16 CBS Boston. Gonna be chilly….

Class Warfare

Uber‑Inequality Gartner L2. “In today’s economy, innovation means elegant theft: robbery of your data, privacy, health insurance, or minimum-wage protection.”

World’s billionaires became 20% richer in 2017, report reveals Guardian. From UBS.

The White House is worried about wages, not socialism FT Alphaville. The CEA report on socialism: “Even by the somewhat compromised standards of any CEA, the report is particularly sophomoric. That is, it both engages in sophistry and appears to have been composed by a college sophomore.”

Unfair Advantage The Sun. How Amazon undermines local economies.

Warehouse World Latino USA

Let’s vote, party and celebrate American democracy on a new holiday called Citizen Day USA Today. Good idea! We can count our paper ballots first.

Use these adventure skills to survive the zombie apocalypse National Geographic. News you can use!

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

Retired man builds train to take rescued stray dogs on adventures pic.twitter.com/x657mYjSX3

— viral viral (@xxlfunny1) October 21, 2018

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on October 27, 2018 by Lambert Strether.

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/links-10-27-18.html

[shiredwarf]

alright, so mea impressions

there’s a lot of rambling behind the cut but have a quick tl;dr

is mea as good as the original mass effect series: nope did that in any way impact my enjoyment of or love for it: NOPE!

there might be very slight spoilers behind the cut, nothing major though (especially main plot wise), just general stuff and a few screenshots but i blurred the spoilery stuff!

gonna start off with

Stuff I didn’t like: - i think my main complaint is that it could have been so much better. i love it quite a lot already but i feel like there was so much potential that was wasted - ah the bugs. so i didn’t experience anything major apart from one side quest flag malfunctioning and suddenly people were shooting at me and i was like ‘BUT I HELPED YOU’ and they were like ‘i don’t know her’. and there are just a few tiny things that don’t really matter that much in gameplay but just started to annoy me quite a lot as time went on. Like broken *new* notifications in my inventory that wouldn’t go away. Or broken sound flags that made you hear those horrible animal growling noises even though you were inside a cave and the thing was on the other side of the mountain. oh and SAM’s constant “this area can be mined for resources” or “pathfinder the environmental conditions have changed” YES I KNOW YOU’VE TOLD ME EVRY SINGLE TIME I’VE MOVED AWAY FROM THE LAMPLIGHT WHICH HAS HAPPENED ABOUT 20 TIMES IN THE LAST MINUTE SO SHUT UP. now that’s not a bug but you would have thought someone testing the game would have told them to turn that off after the first few times because omg it is annoying - now this wasn’t really an issue it was more something that disappointed me: detail and lack of diversity on the planets. Don’t get me wrong, the individual planets with their own specific environments were great but like if you look at DAI and the scenery programming, MEA is lacking in that regard. the thing is though, i’m not sure if it was maybe done on purpose. now at the end of the game i can totally see why the same animal life was present on every planet  because it does make sense story wise. But it was never mentioned in-game so i don’t know if that’s just a happy coincidence and i’m reading too much into it or not^^

and moving on to the stuff i did like:

Storyline:

so listen i was hyped from the moment i heard we’d go explore a new galaxy! That’s exactly my thing! Exploring, science, curiosity, that human need to push beyond known boundaries and of course lots and lots of drama. In short: mass effect^^ It’s starts of really great as well and while it does take a while for more complex issues to reveal themselves I enjoyed the storyline a lot. I know there were a lot of concerns about the whole ‘colonization’ thing before the release and I can fully understand that. there were a few moments during the game when I was like ‘right… but…. Maybe ask the indigenous species first???’ turns out they DO ask them but you only know that if you read the codex/post-mission emails so maybe that should have been more carefully addressed. I like that not all questions are answered, that it’s pretty clear at the end of the game that this will continue but I’m glad they answered one of my burning “BUT WHERE ARE THE ***” questions in the epilogue. And without going too much into details I love the throwbacks and connections to the original series and I want mea2 rn to find out what was really going on! (that being said I’m still destroyed over the recording of *** talking about my two fave space dumbs from the original series after the last unlocked memory :3) additionally I loved how dark it got sometimes, darker than the original trilogy and I’m so so, so happy everyone got to swear as much as they wanted :’)  so storyline 8/10 cause some stuff was a bit rushed and I wish they’d given some races (like the turians) more spotlight (though I’m happy the krogan are so prominently featured, they deserve that!)

Gameplay mechanics:

I LOVED THE GAMEPLAY MECHANICS! LOVED THEM SO MUCH! You can run without gasping for breath after five steps, JETPACKS!, tactical cloaks, and building your own character specification without having to decide on a class at the very beginning! (now to be fair, unlike da I’m mostly going for the soldier specs in mass effect cause I love to snipe everything from far, far away. So for most of the game the only powers I used were one biotic close combat one for when enemies got too close, the tactical cloak and grenades against the big stuff^^) I also loved the new morality system! I can finally throw some sarcasm and “renegade” options into my mostly paragon gameplay without having to worry about impacting my ability to, at some point, convince someone not to make a horrible mistake like jumping off a cliff :)))))) surprisingly, I even started to like the nomad and driving around H-074c was so calming! So yeah, gameplay 10/10

Companions:

Loved the new team! Not as much as in the original series but I think it’s unfair to compare the crews seeing as I spent god knows how many hours with the original and only one playthrough with the new one. The loyalty missions were great and the journey from acquaintances to friends was very smooth and natural and I appreciate that most of them have relationships outside the Tempest crew too. Makes them seem much more alive and real. Before finishing this off just a few of my faves: Jaal: I think the reason I love him so much is because he’s got by far the most believable and profound emotional reactions to what’s going on. Also, he’s blue and sad and weird looking and we all know I apparently have a thing for weird, sad, blue aliens. Anyway, his character development is great, his personal journey too and it’s great to see a very non-stereotypical portrayal of the rough and though male resistance fighter. (I chose him as romance option during this playthrough and I’m not regretting it. Though I feel like my ryder will spend the rest of her life going “OMG JAAL YOU CAN’T JUST SAY STUFF LIKE THAT IN FRONT OF PEOPLE!” while blushing^^) Peebee: Defiantly my romance choice for my next playthrough! She’s just so lovely and deserves someone to stay with her and care about her. (I still regret not stopping the flirting soon enough so in the end she did the whole propositioning thing and I had to turn her down and that was horrible :(  ) Vetra: VETRA IS AWESOME! so awesome! Also my favourite away-team-member cause she’s like… invincible??? I think out of the crew she might have had one of the bigger personal character arcs in terms of personal growth and letting people in and her relationship with her ***. and surprisingly my absolute fave is: Drack:  So shepard got to adopt a dozen krogan babies with garrus, ryder gets adopted by a krogan grandad and is 100% fine with it. Apart from being tied for 2nd place (with jaal) in my away-team-member preference list he’s just such a sweetheart while still remaining a true krogan at heart. He also completely blindsided me with one of the most profound lines in any mass effect game and I’m still reeling. (He also kind of adopted Vetra but don’t tell her, she’ll get embaressed!). so yeah, love my krogan grandad :3 companions: 9/10 because there is no way cora is straight and I didn’t get to punch jill in the face and scott wasn’t around nearly enough^^ i goes without saying that i love my awkward ryder twin right?????

in conclusion:

I was a bit disappointed at first and I understand why others might be disappointed by mea as well especially since people were badmouthing it even before it got released latching onto every flaw. But honestly mass effect was so good and set the standard so high, there was very little chance mea would be able to live up to the enormous hype, the expectations and the excitement that has been developing over the past years. So I feel like it’s being judged unfairly by constantly being compared to the original instead of treating it as a standalone game which it really is. It is set in the mass effect universe and you’ve got all those familiar and well-loved elements and races but there are surprisingly little references to the original trilogy which should give you an idea about what they were trying to do with mea. This was not supposed to be a sequel. This is supposed to set off a new storyline in this universe and while the basics are the same it is different in many aspects. so instead of asking whether it was as good or better than mass effect (and the answer to that was always going to be no because mass effect is THE game for me. nothing will ever compare) what i should be asking is: is it an enjoyable game worth the time and money i spent on it. And personally, I’d say abso-fucking-lutely! It fun, it’s entertaining, it’s huge, it’s got a new array of lovable and diverse characters, it’s got some really profound stuff in there and most importantly it restores your faith in humanity a tiny bit and makes you dream of faraway stars and all those discoveries still waiting for us the way mass effect games tend to do :)

And just to round this off, have a few of my favourite bits:

[when you gotta clone yourself to properly express just how done you are]

[when your Krogan grandad is about to fuck someone up and the poor bloke doesn’t even know it yet!]

[Drack being Drack]

AND THE DA REFERENCES IN THE POST MAIN GAME THANK-YOU-MESSAGES!!!!

i identify a lot with the ryder plant. I too am not viable.

And finally this beautiful quote and shot:

“We turned our backs upon a dwindling star, to chase a dawn beyond our childhood’s end.”

[filmnovelizations]

Rocky IV

Rocky was impervious to it all. He and Drago were toe-to-toe, silently assaulting each other with psychological weapons. If looks could kill...

This book is bad. I’ve never been terribly familiar with the Rocky movies. I watched Rocky IV for the first time right before I started reading this masterpiece. The film is a somewhat baffling mess, and some of that mess is weirdly fixed by this book. There are so many minor and major differences between the book and film, it’s hard to believe Sylvester Stallone wrote them both. On the other hand, I haven’t found evidence of a ghost writer, so why not?

So, having finally watched the film, the first thing I wanted from the book was any small attempt to make sense of the fucking robot. There is none.

A robot walked through the door. It was about five feet tall and rolled on wheels. In its outstretched arms it held the flaming birthday cake. A perpetual “Have a nice day” smile was painted around the microphone box on its face. A pink ribbon was tied decoratively around its square head.

So, the description is a little different from the actual robot, but that’s the least of my concerns. They give the pathetic, lonely, alcoholic Paulie a robot as a joke because he doesn’t have any friends. At first he’s annoyed, then he uses the skills he must have learned at the slaughterhouse to reprogram the robot to talk with a breathy female voice while on a constant mission to supply him beer. In Las Vegas, he’s sad he didn’t bring the robot. After he loses all his money on slot machines and blackjack, he talks to a prostitute but laments losing all his money gambling, and he’s sad he didn’t bring the fucking robot. You can just go ahead and assume he’s jamming his dick into some part of that robot. 

While Paulie is losing all his prostitute money gambling, Stallone supplies a perfect example of the kind of bad writing that loads up this short book.

A chair opened up at the table. Paulie decided that a change of games would help his luck. He sat down and bought twenty dollars’ worth of chips. If you’re gonna do it, might as well splurge. He put a two-dollar chip in front of him. The dealer drew the cards out of the shoe. Paulie got a ten and a king.

What table? Yes, I suppose a change of games would at least make a more interesting time than cheap slot machines. Is twenty dollars splurging? How broke is Paulie? Wait, how does he make money? If you’re gonna do it, you might as well cliche. A two dollar bet is not a splurge. Oh, it’s a blackjack game. You could have called it a blackjack table in the first sentence instead of “the table.” This is a major casino in Las Vegas, not an illegal casino in the basement of a bar.

And so Sylvester Stallone’s writing is filled with paragraphs like this. Sometimes pronouns are not clearly defined, because they’ll switch who they refer to or they just won’t clearly refer to anyone. There are so many cliches I should have kept count.

A few hookers loitered in front of the bar, but Rocky didn’t recognize any of them.

So, after the robot nonsense, the next most obvious thing I wanted from this book was the book version of the montage. This film is notorious for its use of montage. I timed the montages. There are four montages in the film. After fighting with Adrian, Rocky has a driving montage. There are two separate montages when Rocky is training in Russia. And then there’s the montage to skip twelve rounds of boxing in the Rocky-Drago fight. I think people might think of the James Brown music video in their estimation that this movie is overloaded with montage, but it’s really not a montage. It’s a music video.

Anyway, the four official montages amount to fifteen minutes and seventeen seconds. The end credits roll at eighty-four minutes. If you take out or just severely reduce the length of the montages, the movie is just less than seventy minutes long. If you want to argue that the James Brown music video counts because it is unnecessarily inflating the film’s runtime the same as the montages, go ahead and cut off another two minutes and forty seconds. Either way, this film is short enough without discarding fifteen-eighteen minutes. In the book, James Brown is absent. Apollo Creed’s entrance is a normal paragraph.

Suddenly the band started playing again. It was a lively, raucous tune. A side door to the ballroom opened and a troupe of scantily dressed chorus girls holding small American flags entered. They were followed by Apollo with Rocky at his side. Behind them were Duke and Paulie. Apollo was dressed as Uncle Sam in a red, white, and blue suit complete with a top hat. The ballroom thundered with applause. Well-wishers tried to swamp the group as they made their way to the ring, but the polite, yet firm security men kept them at bay. Their job was made harder by Apollo. He kept reaching out to shake hands. When he reached the bandstand he jumped up and down in time to the music. The applause became so loud that the band itself was drowned out. Rocky shook his head in wonder. Who says you can’t go home again? Apollo was doing it.

After that, the driving montage is completely replaced with actual story. Rocky doesn’t drive around thinking about the shit that happened in the first three films. He tries to convince the United Boxing Federation to allow him to fight Drago, and forfeits his title when they refuse. Paulie wrecks Rocky’s car. The mayor of Philadelphia pays to restores Goldmill’s Gym so Rocky can train somewhere familiar. Two officials from the State Department try to convince Rocky to cancel the fight. They have statistics that prove he can’t win. Shitty Paulie tries to convince Rocky to hit Adrian regularly so she’ll learn some respect. It’s not all good story, but it’s so much better than the driving montage.

The only montage that really makes it into the book in a way that feels like a montage is the training-in-Russia montage. The film breaks it into two by having a short scene when Adrian joins him. The montage just eats up most of the penultimate chapter and it looks like this:

This is the book version of a montage. Even with Stallone’s basic writing, it works.

Rocky turned into the camera’s glare. “Get that light off him!” Duke grabbed the man by the belt and jerked him away from Rocky and Apollo. Rocky cradled Apollo’s head in his arms. “Hold on. You can do it. I know you can. Just hold on.” But Apollo let loose and flowed into legend.

I am still so very confused by some of the differences between the film and the novel. The first thing I need to address is a bit tricky. In the film, which as I said rolls credits at about 84 minutes, Apollo Creed dies at about 32 minutes. The novel is 156 pages long, and Apollo dies on page 101. This means that 2/3 of the story in the novel is contained in the first 1/3 of the film. This would almost explain the abundance of montage in the remainder of the film if it weren’t for all the story Stallone left out of the film but still put in that part of the novel. The novel tells a far more even story and I would sincerely like to know what went wrong when Stallone filmed the damn thing. He clearly thought about the gaps in the story and filled them in with the novel. Even accounting for the montages after Apollo’s death, how did he get more runtime out of the last 1/3 of the novel with objectively less story?

Would you like to know more about Ivan Drago? It’s in the book. Read up on his background and how he started boxing. However, there’s also something in the book that would probably have him in jail. In the film, Apollo’s death doesn’t look like deliberate murder. When the fight is technically over, Drago stops punching and starts reciting the English he’s been told to recite. It’s sort of chaos. The book, however...

Rocky grabbed the towel and quickly threw it in the ring. Drago was still punching. Apollo rocked savagely with each blow. It was amazing that he could still stand. “The ex-champion is out on his feet. He’s being pounded without mercy. Balboa has just thrown in the towel!” White yelled gratefully. As soon as he saw the towel the referee stepped in and tried to separate the fighters. Drago paused again to look at his corner. Rimsky nodded grimly. Drago pushed the referee aside and delivered a final blow that could be heard over the din of the crowd.

Murderer. The fight is over and he pauses to look at his handler before punching Apollo one last time. It would be hard to argue that Drago wasn’t ordered to kill Apollo, what with all the cameras around. The rest of the story would be quite different then.

I want to address one last thing that I think gets lost in the James Brown and montages and Ivan Drago, and that is Rocky Jr. Unlike Die Hard, no one thinks of this film as a Christmas movie. You should add it to your Christmas viewing, honestly. The final fight takes place on Christmas Day. That’s enough. But what about Rocky Jr.? Think about the story from his perspective. For his entire life, Apollo was Rocky’s best friend. He probably called him Uncle. He watched Uncle Apollo get murdered. Then his dad is going to Russia to train to fight the same person that murdered Uncle Apollo. And that fight is going to happen on Christmas Day. Then his mom left to join his dad in Russia. Who’s taking care of him? It’s the housekeeper you barely see in the movie, not that either film or novel mentions it. Stallone didn’t think to address the fact that Rocky and Adrian abandon Rocky Jr. at Christmas. In the film, you see a few shots of him watching the fight with a couple friends and Paulie’s robot. The novel at least has the housekeeper instead of the robot. This is, by far, my favorite Christmas story now. Who are the friends that watch the fight with Rocky Jr.? How did that get set up? “Hey, I know it’s Christmas and your parents probably want to spend it with you but do you want to come over and maybe watch my dad get murdered by a 7 foot tall Russian?” In the novel, Rocky doesn’t even say “merry Christmas” to Rocky Jr. at the end of his speech.

Rocky Junior couldn’t take his eyes off the television set. Was this really happening to his dad? Was this what boxing was about? It was horrible. He wanted it to end. He wanted his mother and father home. “Your dad’s getting smashed,” a friend said quietly. Rocky Junior blinked, but the picture didn’t go away. It was real, not a nightmare.

Yeah. This book is bad and you should absolutely read it.

Also, Adrian is pregnant in the book, and Rocky tells Paulie this right after Paulie tells him to hit her to teach her respect. Her pregnancy is entirely forgotten after that though, and it is not an issue when she travels to Russia to watch her husband possibly get murdered. It just isn’t mentioned again. Just something to think about. What a Christmas story. Buy paintings so I can buy more paint to paint more paintings