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courage-a-word-of-justice · 4 years ago

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After much watching...I cut it down to 5 anime and 1 short.

Suppose a Kid… 1

I am not writing out that full title every time! Anyways, here’s the first “real” debut of winter 2021.

For some reason…this series reminds me of Pokemon. Probably how at the start, Ash tries to get along with Pikachu by doing all sorts of things like what Lloyd is doing here. (<- learnt protag’s name through synopses)

The name “Shouma” rang a bell and I was right – Shouma is voiced by Souma…Saito.

The Japanese title has “monogatari” on the end there…so it probably doesn’t fully translate into the English title.

These orange flecks in Lloyd’s eyes are kinda distracting…

Isn’t Kunlun in China, though…?

If this is just going to be Marie yelling…I don’t see why I should stay. (<- turned volume on for everything so far)

*facepalms* Lloyd is so dense…

That fight scene’s not very good…

…oh great. Selen’s fallen in love with Lloyd already…*sigh*

The missing princess is certainly going to be a plot point later.

Wow, that tiger looks impressive! If only they could’ve done that for the fight scene…

…oh great, Selen is a low-key yandere…

Didn’t Lloyd say he sucked at combat…? Anyways, I’m not keeping this. The designs are colourful and the tiger was good, but it’s meant to be a comedy and it’s not funny.

Hortensia Saga 1

Here for Ume! He’s voicing a guy called Defloitte Danois.

I-Is that CGI? So early on into the anime???

*a dude gets bitten into by the werewolf*…welp, at least this series isn’t afraid of its own gore.

I had a sinking feeling our real protag was Alfred…and I was right, according to the OP.

Huh? The song goes silent for a second near the end…what the heck?

The book appears to use English, albeit English so faintly inked in you can’t quite tell what language it is.

Alfred, governing Albert…? Isn’t that a bit redundant?

I swear all the female voices in this anime are squeaky as all get out…

All these high fantasy anime – or heck, any high fantasy series full stop – ever justify why the country is worth fighting for. It’s why I find war stories pointless and senseless.

You can tell from the voice and short stature “Marius” is Mariel…but she uses boku, which is why Alfred can’t really tell the difference. (Also, he wasn’t privy to the fact Mariel cut her hair.)

This almost smacks of a game tutorial. The CGI is still there…it’s not as bad as other examples I’ve seen, but you can tell it’s CGI when you look at it.

Roy’s kind of pretty, in a generic way.

A close-range archer! Ho, you’re kinda impressive yourself, Roy. (The feeling of a game tutorial has disappeared by this point.)

Hortense…of Hortensia…how confusing.

The scruffy guy you keep seeing with the dark hair is Defloitte. Keep an eye out for him for me, would you?

The ED seems to consist mostly of…anguished pop screams. *cringes slightly*

Anyways, this anime isn’t bad. It’s quite average though and its CGI could easily get worse.

Kumo Desu ga 1

…you know I don’t like 1st person cam, yeah?

…this is just Kumoko (as I’ve heard her being called) yelling so far…plus there’s quite a bit of CGI.

I like how the ED has an English overlay and the style they’ve used for it. The music, though…? Nah.

Wait a second? Millepensee? Shin Itagaki? That would explain the CGI!

“…a spider that just happens to have my memories.” – A butterfly dream, huh?

…well, at least this anime is well aware of the genre space it inhabits. Maybe you could say…it’s an isekai light novel, so what? *groans from the audience*

…well, you didn’t really “bring” your “brother’s” (?) corpse in case of an emergency, now, did you?

…welp, to have guts, you must eat guts. I guess that’s how it goes.

What’s a “skanda”?

This anime’s quite monologue-y (as expected of an LN). I can live with it, but I don’t know if it can carry the entire thing through the season.

…humans? Haven’t seen them almost all episode. What are they up to?

These designs sort of look like SAO’s. They’re not a dealbreaker yet, but they could be down the line…

This ED seems to take cues from Cop Craft’s OP (same studio). It also has some…“Aggretsuko rage”, I guess you could call it.

2.43 1

…Another confusing title, I see. I normally don’t do sports anime, but I’m here for Ume.

*sees the colour of the volleyball* - Basically anything volleyball has to collaborate with volleyball maker Mikasa, doesn’t it?

This anime seems to like putting characters’ thoughts on the screen for dramatic impact. The CGI is sort of visible, but not a dealbreaker.

I’d thought I’d heard of this OP artist before, but it turns out I haven’t.

This series has a nice sense of force. You see those moments where the ball squishes, or when Yuni presses against the wall without thinking? Those.

LOL, way to burn Yuni, Chika…

These transitions are a bit hard to detect. I think I like Akudama’s more overt ones more.

LOL, Dr Popper (sic).

The serves are nothing special. Haikyuu does the same thing from the episode I saw of it. (You know I don’t like Haikyuu, yeah? Dropped it after 1 episode because everything I heard the fans talking about caused me to connect the dots.)

The way Yuni blushes…it’s more than someone usually would, even if it is out of embarrassment. It may just be the entertainment I consume, but I could swear that’s going somewhere in more of a BL manner.

I get the feeling Chika has a bit of Virgo or Taurus in him somewhere. The sort of guy who nags at everyone to do stuff his way is probably like that.

Pocari Sweat (unaltered).

I gave myself dimples by puffing up my cheeks and poking them until they became permanent. I guess you can do the same thing with ambidexterity…?

For some reason, I can detect Chika’s jealousy when he discusses blocks and natural talent.

…wow, this anime is pretty serious for a volleyball anime.

The ED scene where the face is replaced with flowers is pretty creepy. Like Jigokuraku or something.

Cells at Work!! 1

What are these blob creatures you see in the OP, anyway…?

I think I remember reading something that the numbers assigned to the cells aren’t arbitrary – they’re hexadecimal colors, e.g. RBCs get shades of red as their numbers.

D’aww, Platelets warm the heart. They really do.

Platelets have a master…? I thought they were all just lil’ kids.

“What the cell’s going on?!” – Oh, I remember seeing a tweet about this. I love that pun! Kudos to whoever was responsible for that.

LOL, no. 4989 dancing in the background.

Hmm…those nets look like CGI.

…uh, I did not need that shot of the Megakaryocyte’s camel toe…that’s distubring.

Wait, Backward Cap is a she?!

Aw, lookit WBC being a dad. That’s cute.

Backward Cap = Ushiromae-chan.

Is that…a construction worker holding a giant pudding?!

Cells at Work Code Black 1

This anime is called “black” due to black companies. It’s Code Black to avoid being racist, I guess. I’m looking forward to it because it’s undoubtedly going to show a dark side to the main series…

…and there it is, the RBC complaining.

I assume OJT = on the job training.

I knew “pespin” (sic) was a typo. It’s pepsin.

Now that I’ve been working at customer service for two years (give or take COVID), I can see where the senpai RBC is smoothing over the relations.

…that also means I know where to suppress my emotions. I’m not a person who opens up to people easily without getting used to them, so people never see me as suitable for customer service anyway, but it’s the only experience I have so *shrugs*.

…oh gosh. I haven’t seen these words since…the time I was still learning biology.

…*sigh* Rookie RBC is worried about boobs.

The fact Senpai lost his iconic hat…is kinda sad, actually.

“Don’t let his resolve be for nothing.”

Hmm…does the male WBC from the main series wear black fingerless gloves?

I thought I’d heard of this artist before…but turns out I just can’t distinguish really autotuned artists from each other…(lel)

…and stuff goes ka-blam. It’s the spiritual successor to HypMic, even if I wasn’t asking for it. (LOL)

Back Arrow 1

…I heard you said “hot guys”? (Yes, I am predictable as all get out.)

What’s with that episode title…?

Stereotypes, eh? I kind of expected as much from the promo, but where’s the title character…?

…was that yuri fanservice? I can’t quite tell because it was the aftermath of an action scene, but I can see the shippers gearing up in my head.

…after a bit of waiting, there he is. Back Arrow himself. He kind looks like Takuto (Star Driver).

“I’m not trying to hide anything!” – Well, that’s…true.

…*sigh* Why do girls always have more feminine-looking mechs? (Plus this one has boobs…*sighhhhhhhhhhhh*)

So it seems mechs in this anime are the form of one’s conviction and they have skills along those lines, eh? An interesting concept.

…you do realise I abandoned an entire anime based on a joke about lucky underwear? However, this anime is so absurd and just keeps running with the joke that I just can’t say no to it. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from volunteering at a charity store, it’s that when it comes to selling stuff, you can’t say no to a lot of stuff…including selling potentially used underwear, so long as it’s not dirty or stinky.

Whoa! Those things break?!

Why does the title card mention the wall...?

Anyways, I…like it, surprisingly enough. Let’s keep going.

Back Arrow 2

…eh? Didn’t expect inflatable clothing, LOL.

I suspect Shu Bi is scheming something.

What’s the long thing…?

“…tomorrow might not come.” – A good reminder to have in these times of COVID.

Peath = Peace. (Heh. What a stupid name…*thinks about the name “Quattro Bajeena” suddenly* Okay, “Peath” pales in comparison to that.)

What is that creature that circles in the sky…?

I know this is meant to be a serious fight, but…that attacking guy’s hat seriously looks like a bamboo stalk and so I keep seeing it and trying not to laugh.

I only just now realised there’s CGI. CGI these days is getting much better than it used to be.

Tomozaki 1

LOL, Yontendo. It’s clearly Smash Bros + Nintendo Switch and the character designer was also around for Iroduku, so that’s why this style looks familiar.

…lemme guess, since this is a romance, it’s likely NONAME is Aoi. Or some other girl.

I would pay for a romance where it’s the girl building the guy up to be presentable, instead of a girl building other girls up to be presentable a la Ageha 100%.

Didn’t the anime show us Tomozaki reflecting to himself, though…?

“…rules working in combination.” - Well, there’s social norms (e.g. knock before entering a room), laws, contracts, societal standards (e.g. in Japanese society, you bow to others as a greeting or apology)…(continues to blabber on for a bit)

I think Aoi said something like “onitadaku”, but I’m not sure what the joke is there. Oni is in there, sure, but what’s the original phrase she’s playing off?

…LOL, it’s a good time to remind people to wear a mask.

LOL, Krout.

Anyways, this seems decent. I like how it’s going the way I want it to.

Tomozaki 2

“…make sure I’m nearby…” – Okay, that’s just being pushy, Aoi.

Minami and Hinami…so confusing…

*Minami chomps on Natsubayashi’s ear* - …okay, that’s not a thing girls do in real life unless they’re lesbians. This is likely trying to take the fanservice route.

They didn’t even show why the “kiss” was broken up…meaning they were doing it to make potential girl-on-girl look hot. Just great.

*Aoi touches Tomozaki’s butt* - Dude, that’s groping…

I didn’t think we’d get the story on Aoi’s “hexactly” so soon.

…well, that episode just made me feel mildly bitter. I’m dropping it here.

Praeter 1

…aw s***. Only a few seconds in and this looks like a terrible game…

It’s like someone barfed paint across Durarara…

The only time the background buildings look any good are when there’s a fight scene…

These Seals (or whatever those designs are called) seem to act like mini shields. Update: They’re called tattoos.

That transition was a bit fast for my liking…

Seems like the series is mildly peppered with Greek terms.

“To Infinity and Beyond” by…some author I can’t really read the name of.

Suddenly, they throw in more characters…?

Where does Eiji keep those bullet cases of his…? In his jacket?

Having a guy die in the 1st episode is cheap. I mean, we don’t quite care for him yet – it’s too early in the anime for that.

Now there’s Norse terms on top of the Greek ones…

Even more characters? You kidding me?

Lemme guess, Eiji gave up his tattoo because Yamato inspired him and now he’s a goner.

Welp, the weight of the world is in your hands, Yamato. Including that dead dude on your back. (<- sarcastic)

Sk8 1

I’ve been hearing good things about this anime! Let’s go! (<- about a week late to the debut)

That politician is probably relevant…probably someone’s dad, if HypMic taught me anything.

LOL, a beef. They call this stuff “beef”? Where’s the chicken? (<- joke from HypMic)

Haemanthus…apparently a flowering plant from S. Africa.

That’s rare, you don’t see Canadians in anime all that much. I was just thinking as I came home from volunteering how you know British people all have fancy names like William and Australians are Johnno, Danno etc., but Canadians? No clue. Update: Apparently you’d call one Arnold or something just as generic…?

Why are all foreigners in anime half-Japanese with the mother being the Japanese side, anyway?...Because people can make their character speak Japanese while looking foreign. Right. Moving right along.

Ahh…I understand your plight all too well, Reki.

…Hmm. It seems Reki’s surname is written kiya, but read “Kyan”. His name literally translates to “history (calendar/age) of bravery (military might)” Update: Turns out his surname is 3 characters (read “kiyan”, although I’ve never seen that final character ever being read as “n”) and his first name is one, so his first name is just “history (calendar/age)”.

Even I suck at balancing on bikes and stuff (…yeah, I still can’t ride a bike even though I’ve done so many other things in my life) and I know you have to support yourself with one foot on the ground before you do things like trick flips. I may not have observed Tony Hawk all that much, but he was on the periphery of my knowledge.

“What’s your hourly wage?” – Ouch, I feel ya, Langa.

Koko ni netete actually means “Lie down here”, but…okay.

These eyecatches are cute.

That’s a cute fox.

Yikes! 60 mph = approx. 97 km/h!!!

Random umeboshi, LOL.

Aghhhhhhhhhhh! Cherry Blossom’s so pretty~! I love him already!

Thank you, based Bones!

Something that can be enjoyed, even without sound: this is why I enjoy both action and comedy anime!

Okinawa? We’re in Okinawa?

Well, that was cool! I didn’t even ask where the location was until the end. Update: Why is this anime sometimes called Sk8 the Infinity anyway…?

Horimiya 1

Horimiya…I’ve been aware of this series for a while. There’s even a Chinese volume of it at a library close to me, although due to contact tracing I haven’t bothered to check it out.

Oh, I bet Hori is the otaku!

Ooh, Marketing Script!

Because I’ve been behind on the premieres, I’ve seen enough to know this boy with the chain is Miyamura.

…argh! Miyamura is cute! Y’all were right!!! (<- likes blushing bois)

I bet there’s going to be an emergency meeting!

“Sorry, it’s egg time!” – Oh, I’m laughing so hard! So that’s the context behind the Wonder Egg Priority meme!

“…see these?!” – Well, it’s not like you have a tattoo or some-*Miyamura shows his tattoos* Never mind…

Oh, I just realised they even animate the minute movements of the eyes Miyamura does…cool.

Notice how Miyamura is blocked from the other guy due to the window.

Miyamura goes “Ishikawa-kun” but “Hori-san”…hmm. No wonder he’s letting Ishikawa get Hori.

The problem I find with romance series is that they’re generally tied to heteronormativity. Hori is coded with red silhouettes and Miyamura with blue…*sigh* Whatever happened to gender ambiguity?

Good heavens, what is up with this ED?! It looks like Pocoyo! (…Does anyone else know that cartoon…?) Aside from that quibble, this anime is great though.

Mushoku Tensei 1

Apparently this is the grandad of all isekai. Why it took so long for an anime of this…who knows?

…and of course this guy’s a loser virgin. Go figure.

*sighhhhhhhhh* He’s just ogling this woman’s boobs…

…oh, sorry. I was so distracted by the man candy, I didn’t care about Rudy.

I-It’s actually quite refreshing to not have an OP protagonist from the get-go for once. (Or maybe I’ve developed such a disdain for isekai since SAO rolled around that everything here suddenly feels fresh.)

You can see the birthplace of isekai without having watched any of the others right here, it looks like.

“…what’s the point of incantations?” – To make it easier for you to cast spells, I gue-spoke too soon.

…wow, they shamelessly showed off Rudy’s privates. I know he’s still young at this stage, but that reminds me of how I dropped Dragon Ball around the time Goku was shown the same way (which is…very early on, by my own admission).

I believe, based on the name of the spinoff I see in the 7 Seas emails, the magic tutor is called Roxy.

You’re thinking about marriage?! At your (reincarnated) age?!

Oh no! The tree again!

LOL, Rudy’s acting like a kid who’s been in COVID lockdown for a while.

I think what most of the isekai that spun off from here missed is that the loser is job age. Losers at life at job age are relatable and high school geniuses are relatable (albeit sometimes insufferable), but losers who become NEETs for no reason whatsoever and then get banged up by Truck-kun are not.

Anyways, this was good, but a risky kind of good, since it seems like this male gaze will continue to be around as Rudy gets older.

Update: Dropped after learning Rudy was a paedophile in his past life.

Update 2: Apparently the anime toned down this paedophilic tendency of Rudy’s, so...now the verdict is that I move on while I let other people tell me if this is true of the anime or not.

Kemono Jihen 1

“Kemono Jihen” means something like “creature incidents”. I wonder why Funimation didn’t change the name…?

Kabane means “summer wing”.

Kanoko Villa, I’d assume, is named after the deer (the name means “deer’s child”).

My experience with Sho Aimoto (creator of this manga) is reading a bit of Hokenshitsu no Shinigami. (That, by the way, reminds me of Nube, but it’s nothing spectacular.) However, Hokenshitsu no Shinigami has a very detailed artstyle…That’s why I’m pretty shocked Kemono Jihen has such a scratchy one…

Ooh, edamame!

Oh, I see…this is like Furuba or a werewolf story, huh? Rather than a Natsume Yuujincho sort of thing.

…I thought Inugami and Dorotabo had seen everything of each other because of bathing together…I guess not, then.

…is Yataro going to die?

It seems the “immortal demons” are oni, so…why subtitle them as “immortal demons” and not just “demons”?

Ohhhhhhhh…this shite’s good. It seems to have a throwback feeling to it, moreso than even Yashahime or a lot of the sequels I’ve seen recently.

Cells at Work!! 2

I was going to move right along to Wonder Egg Priority because I’m really behind on the debuts right now, but I accidentally opened this up while I was cleaning up so I might as well watch another episode or two before setting it aside.

He’s dead, Jim. (<-joking)

…gosh, these walls look like Hover all over again and that’s from 1995…

LOL, these background cells don’t even have any details. They’re basically stick figures with fat bodies…

I think that phrase that appeared, “Take good care of B Cell!”, may be a pun on Give My Regards to Black Jack (written with similar Japanese, “B Cell wo Yoroshiku!” vs. “Black Jack ni Yoroshiku!”).

LOL, “you sure have the guts”…while they’re in the guts.

The certificate says something about it being presented to someone in the face of bravery, I think (<- just looked at it briefly).

“You have a good head on your shoulders,” says the T cell as WBC struggles with the disguise…stuck on his head.

Wonder Egg Priority 1

I’ve been hearing this series is surreal, but no more surreal than Flip Flappers. So…I don’t know if I’ll like it or not.

What’s this K?(?96…?

There’s a sunflower on her raincoat…so that’s why I saw a post called “You’re the sunflower”. Personally, that just reminds me of Post Malone.

Those Seeno Evils…they’re CGI, aren’t they?

As Boueibu once said (but I may be paraphrasing here), “nothing is more scary than free”.

…to be honest with you, I haven’t had a best friend for at least 2 years now. I only really feel close to people who are like me and who I have sustained contact with over many years, so I end up cutting contact with people after we part ways and never trying to fix it.

I always find it slightly absurd when anime girls get a little pudgy and go, “I’m so fat!” (See, for instance, the Dumbbell series.) Or, in this case, Ai’s going, “I’m so ugly!” when there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s only a bit different from everyone else due to her heterochromia - she doesn't have any physical or mental difficulties.

IChu 1

Here for Ume and, of course, dem bois. Bring it!

I seem to remember one of the magazines called an “Ichu” “an idol egg” (i.e. a fledgling idol)…More egg puns for me, then.

I found him! Ume! He’s Akira Mitsurugi! Update: Turns out that’s Toshiyuki Toyonaga…Oops. (Ume is actually Lucas from I*B.)

Huh? For a second, I imagined Akira with a dubbed voice. Of course, I could only be dreaming, because idol anime normally don’t get dubs, but…it was interesting to think about.

LOL, “Onsta”.

This Akio-type character is popular lately. The sort who’s timid but has an outstanding talent they themselves might not see.

…uh, but Kocho means “Principal”…?

An idol bear?!

Torahiko is crazy…(Note the tigers. Tora = tiger.)

Specifically, that’s black coffee with no sugar.

As much as I want to keep watching this, I’ll hit pause on it here. There’s much better offerings this season.

YuruCamp s2 1

…grandpa’s writing is so…neat.

*glares at CGI car…*

This OP just doesn’t compare to Shiny Days, y’know…?

OOPArts.

Talking pine cones! They’re back!

Curry rice! Literally had some of the Japanese-style stuff the other day. It was great.

All this talk about jobs…I personally don’t like jobs because I like to work at my own pace (hence one reason why I’m working on being a translator), but…money…I’m jealous, girls.

I’m trying not to rely on the subs for those texts that appear on the screen so that I can keep my reading skills up…I kept up with them for the most part…but then I got distracted by the croquette sign at one point…

“…buy you some local food?” – That’s omiyage, normally translated “souvenirs”. “Local food” actually does make more sense in that gap, though.

…man, I’m jealous that the girls all got jobs suitable for their personalities and everything. Lil’ ol’ antisocial me sucks at retail, even after 2 years.

Design-bu 1

LOL, that man and his bunny. Update: That’s Unabara-san.

…geez, these utaite are everywhere now. I’ve seen 96neko, USSS, Eve and more being more central to anime song creation…

Thise characters in the OP seal (<-the stamp, not the animal) are saiyou, meaning “recruited”, or in this case, “accepted”.

OEM = original equipment manufacturer.

Hrm…you can tell it’s a giraffe by description, but…that “base everything on the horse” is interesting as you could count several things as horse derivatives. Also, the angels’ names are all standard Japanese names with natural components to them (Ueda = upright rice field, Shimoda = frost rice field etc).

Is this pink-themed guy…a guy? Or a crossdresser? Update: That’s Kanamori-san.

I like how the suits have little wing-like flaps. Also the wings on Shimoda’s back.

…I never thought an anime episode would make me so concerned about giraffes.

That guy in the green I remember from the Wave x Tendebu (Heaven’s Design Team) collab, his name is Kimura.

Oh, so there is a bird like that!

The random wiggling the chibis do in these short segments…it’s a bit disorienting. (<-Just a small quibble of mine.)

Oh! Galapagos effect!

Agonistic: “polemical; combative.” I thought they meant “antagonistic”.

Oh man, that punch line was great! It took me a while to get into the spirit of it, but this anime is great!

Update: Oh, that’s where those nature names come from! They’re actually meant to be gods! (Or…named after gods…?) Also, Ueda vs. Shimoda (the “shimo” could be the kanji for “below”).

Ex-Arm 1

I’ve heard this anime looks bad…even well before its debut. How bad? Let’s find out.

*stifles laughter* From the first pan, I know this anime is doomed on my list. Even Praeter was better than this!

*stifles laughter again* This OP really does look as bad as the stuff I was seeing prior to winter 2021! Like a game I shouldn’t take out of my archives! (It’s not as bad as Hover’s graphics, but still…that’s from 1995. Cut it some slack.)

That’s the 2nd Kimura this season…

Yugg is just…ugly. Never try to render elaborate eyelashes in CGI again, people.

Dimension High School was better than this because at least that had puzzles. This is even jankier than that!

Wait, why is Akira 3D when his dad is 2D? It’s not that obvious, but I notice these things. Update: That’s not his dad…but close enough. (That’s his brother.)

…and here comes Truck-kun! (LOL)

This would be good…if it weren’t rendered in the jankiest CGI known to man…

Alma’s gun strike doesn’t have a lot of force to it.

The fire is rendered so terribly…*stifles laughter*

This part with a disembodied Akira is what I assume I got up at 6 am for…but I can’t hear it, due to background noise. Remind me to confirm this later. (Minami’s mouth is rendered so terribly…augh.)

No force to any of these recent motions, either.

LOL, this censorship.

Wave 1

Ever since this project was announced, I’ve been watching developments unfold on Anime News Network. I knew it would get an anime or something similar I could follow…and now here I am. I mentioned in the Sk8 comments I have basically zero knowledge of surfing, so…this is very unexpected, in one sense.

Was that a drone…?

“Wizard of the Waifu Board”?! Are you kidding me?! (LOL)

There seem to be shots where I can see the CGI here, but…anything’s better than Ex-Arm. Let’s say that.

Actually…yappe is a derivative of yabai, meaning “cool” or “crap” (in an ironic sense). So it would probably be better to translate it as “Surfing’s the greatest!” or “Surfing’s the coolest!” Anyways, what I was thinking before I was going to say this was that the waves are so enticingly animated, it feels like a summer anime. Basically the only other anime I’ve ever said that for is Grand Blue.

If I’m understanding where Isokichi’s name comes from right, “iso” is the character for seashore or a rocky beach (磯).

LOL, the teacher just wrote “Show must go on.”

Hayama, Kanagawa. Kanagawa’s capital is Yokohama, so it’s not quite Tokyo, but somewhat close.

“Murphy”? I have zero clue what that means.

Oh, I see. The title is translated that way due to context. Now that I can accept.

I just burst out into laughter when I realised Nalu hasn’t dropped or put down his ukulele once.

BSD Wan! 1

Here comes my past to haunt me…aside from me being a fan of BSD, I’m here because I influenced this series. How so? Once upon a time in the now-distant year of 2016, I was a scanlator for a brief period. Most of the work I’ve done hasn’t influenced the world at large, but this is the most influential manga I had a hand in working on.

Oh no! They’re starting with the dog AU?! (That comes from pretty far into the manga, IIRC. Further than my work was on it, at least.)

It’s Rashomon, but Rashoken (that last bit means “dog”). Hence Ruffshomon.

Basically, they just insert dog-related words everywhere…don’t make me explain every one!

Ouch, I can only imagine how much pain it was to translate Inu Shikkaku. Literally, it’s “No Longer a Dog”, but how would anyone make it in line with the other puns…?

I wasn’t fully aware of how the dog AU was connected to the main Wan series because I haven’t really looked at it after I quit due to aggregators, but…that was a nice fakeout. Also, I was concerned as to whether this was going to be a full-length ep or a short…seems like it’s a 10 minute short, so I have more chances of taking it.

…oh gosh, that pose! I remember it! I worked on this one! (Now that I know it’s a TV short, I won’t cover future episodes, but I want to at least finish this one because I started it.)

I think they added a bit there. I remember Kunikida’s and Yosano’s were in the manga, but not the other members or Fukuzawa going “the wind is smiling” + Kenji working on the roof at the start.

Oh yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh, I remember Rampo. I think I had to approximate how he would say stuff with Pocky in his mouth, but Slug (current scanlator) went the extra mile and stuck food in his mouth to do the same panel.

It seems to make a short ep., they strung a bunch of the chapters together. Also, I don’t think we ever found out what Yosano’s puddle was and that was…probably for the better.

Oh yeah…I think I remember this one.

Now I remember it! I remember having fun explaining what a youkan was.

Whoa, Higuchi scrapped the SFX! That wasn’t in the original…

The ED seems to be an Atsushi cover of Namae wo Yobu yo.

Oh noooooooooooo! The flower gazing episode! That’s the one I remember most, because I was trying to figure out how to translate 移動 while making it smooth-sounding English…(I remember the final result was something like, “Move! Move~!”

Dr Stone: Stone Wars 1

Final debut! Let’s go~!

The last time this series was on the air was about 1 year ago. I can remember that far back…

I like how that recap is framed as Gen talking to the kids.

Senku overcomes every problem with science.

…not much to comment on here.

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archaeopter-ace · 4 years ago

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1-3, 13, 16? (ps I will get back to ur message soon)

1. How long ago did you start reading fanfiction? Writing fanfiction?

I technically read my first fanfic when I was in middle school, I think – on Mugglenet, and then a little bit on Neopets, but I didn’t know it was called fanfiction and I didn’t pursue it further. I discovered fanfiction.net and had my fanfiction awakening in college, in 2008 (and then I lurked for like, a year, before making an account). I started putting effort into writing fanfiction in 2014, when The Flash fandom was just getting off the ground.

2. How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

I skew very heavily towards being a fanfic reader. On average I read maybe 100k a week? Reading fanfic is probably how I spend most of my leisure time, if I ever measured it out

3. Are there any fics that inspired you to write what you do?

I would definitely have to cite Vathara’s works as an influence. I saw how she kept a very close POV and adjusted not only dialogue but also prose to reflect that character’s background, and how a person’s professional experience can be imprinted into situations and how they make sense of things. Also, one of the first authors I encountered who Showed Their Work when it comes to citing sources and incorporating research into fic.

13. Do you outline your fics? How much of a headache would someone get if they just looked at an outline of yours without reading the fic?

If it’s going to be multi-chaptered, I’ll make an outline as a way of getting my thoughts in order. Nothing so sophisticated as ‘rising action’, ‘climax’, etc., mapping the story structure, though some writing resources I’ve seen make some very compelling points for trying it that way. I structure my outlines a lot like I structure my essays, with a ‘thesis’ of a chapter arc and then topic sentence ‘scenes’ supporting that thesis.

What I find is that sometimes I’ll make a note that’s like ‘expand/flesh out this section,’ but then be unable to think of how that scene could be extended – and then I realize that the reason that I can’t think of a way to expand it is because I actually don’t have much to say about it. Maybe it isn’t as interesting as I thought it ought to be, or maybe it really is just transition to get from A to B. So then I demote it from a Scene to a transitional paragraph, maybe a time skip. So in this way I find outlines most useful for figuring out what to cut out ;D

In my current as-yet-unnamed WIP (the working title is Apoptosis, but I expect that will be too confusingly similar to Autoeponym to actually use, since both are unfamiliar polysyllabic words beginning with A), my most ambitious plot to date, I’m trying something new. This time I’ve got color-coded index cards and a huge board to pin them to. I’ve also got a whole bunch of post-it note sized squares of paper, where I wrote ‘things to include/keep track of’ waaaay back when I first conceived this fic last year. So now I’m sorting those out onto the index cards: orange is a story arc (I’ve got five of those), Lavender is a scene, Green is a plot point, Yellow is continuity note, and pink is a scene that could go one of two ways without changing the rest of the story.

So the difference between a plot point and scene: a plot point is like, the bits of conflict that make up the story, whereas scenes are the How. A plot point I have is ‘Claire finds out about NotEnrique,’ and this is resolved over multiple scenes.

Continuity notes are where I keep track of the passing of time. So like, ‘Jim’s Vespa is completed.’ I probably won’t write a scene with him completing his Vespa, but I find it useful to know whether it would be available to use at any given time.

I have yet to finish my outline with this method and move on to drafting, so it remains to be seen how useful it will be. Already it’s helped a lot with resolving certain plot points that I wasn’t sure what to do with.

16. Do you research for your fics? If so, how deep of a rabbit hole have you gone down by accident when researching?

Hooo boy, do I ever go down rabbit holes. My search history, I can’t even. Probably one of the worst offenders was when I was writing a Merlin x Flash crossover oneshot, and needed to research ‘interesting yet overlooked history things from the past 900 years,’ with an emphasis on jazz history and scientific invention. Oh, or the time I was writing a ghost story au (also for The Flash) and learned all sorts of interesting things about: Christina queen of Sweden, what kinds of records are public domain and how to access them – special focus on inquests and service records (and then trying to figure out whether the fictional files in question would have been lost in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center), how to do a walk-around of a B-25 bomber (WWII training videos are public domain!), how to operate a reel-to-reel player, and more!

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever not fallen down a research rabbit-hole, even when I am deliberately challenging myself to writing without looking things up. We live in such an information age, I am constantly surprised by the specificity of information available. Like that time I found the wikipedia pages for when which syndicated shows were airing on TVLand or Nick at Nite, to determine what old show could conceivably be on tv in 2005 at 11:00 at night - and then I had to go and find episodes of the potential candidates to see which one would suit the characters.

Research is how I roll *pushes up sunglasses*

Fanfic Writer Ask Game

#ask reply #rebelliouswhirlpool #my writing #fanfiction

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kyluxtrashpit · 6 years ago

Note

For the writing game, I couldn't decide which, all the colors please? They're so interesting!

Omg I was so excited when I saw this! You’re so sweet to enable my rambling

Red: What type of writer’s block do you experience the most?

I guess the most common one is I get stuck in transitions. Like I know how this scene goes and I know how the next scene goes, but I don’t know exactly how to get from A to B and it’s one of those cases where I can’t just put a line and jump to it. Scene transitions are one of the hardest things for me for some reason. The second most common for me is probably when my brain is being a shit and won’t let me be productive due to some sort of emotional crisis lmao

White: Are you a supporter/lover of fanfiction?

I mean, kind of obvious lmao, but absolutely. I think it’s great that there are people who are creating things solely out of love for something, and that’s really what fanfiction is, at it’s deepest core. It’s a community of people being so enthusiastic about and loving something so hard that they work their asses of and dedicate time to just… making more of it. For no real external benefit other than some social validation, if they’re lucky. Love and passion are the true motivators and idk that’s just really beautiful to me

Black: Would you want to live in one of the fictional worlds you’vecreated?

I don’t really do a lot of worldbuilding because I find it incredibly boring and I’m terrible at it lmao, but since I always write either canon-verse or modern au, I’m going to treat this as ‘do I want to live in the Star Wars universe?’. And the answer to that would honestly be no. As much as there’s cool stuff, like advanced technology and aliens and maybe I’d be lucky enough to be able to move shit with my mind, there’s also a lot of bad things. A lot of fascism, a lot of wars, and every once in a while some asshole builds a planet-destroying superweapon and blows up a planet (or 5) and like… I could live on one of those, you know

That said, if I didn’t die because the planet I was living on exploded, I would probably survive alright. I mean, my background is in science, so tbh I might have better opportunities there than I do here. While that could mean making chemical weapons or something if the Empire was in power, that’s at least more interesting than customer service at a chemical company lmao. I still wouldn’t choose to live there, but I think I’d manage okay if I had to

[More beneath the cut - my sincerest apologies to those on mobile]

Blue: What’s more important to you: characters or plot?

I mean, they both definitely matter, but if I have to choose? Interesting characters can save a dry plot, but the best plot ever written will still be mediocre at best if the characters aren’t compelling. Personally, I love character-driven stories more than anything. Event-driven plots can still be fun, but I prefer the focus to be on how the characters are dealing with said events, as opposed to them just being passively driven along by them. The best is when it’s the characters themselves driving the events of the plot, but that’s more difficult to execute than it sounds. Regardless, it’s the characters that usually draw me into a story in the first place and that keep me interested. And from the perspective of my own writing, I go character-driven, all the way. Sure, some event might happen that drives the plot sometimes, but I’m far more interested in how the characters react to that event than anything else

Yellow: What’s a common writing tip that you mostly ignore?

In terms of writing advice, nothing makes my blood boil more than those posts that say ‘get rid of this entire class of words’ or ‘if it’s not absolutely strictly necessary to the plot, cut it’. Fuck that shit. If you want your writing to look like Hemingway, sure, go for it, but a) Hemingway is overrated, and b) that’s not the only way to write well. Especially as someone who tends to focus on characters, passages that aren’t necessary to the plot may be necessary to establish characterization. Or they may add some emotion to the story that gets the reader invested. Same with wording choices; more or less words can drastically change the tone or mood of the scene. Are there times when you need to cut words and keep things concise? Absolutely, but any writing tip that says ‘remove every instance of [word] in your document’ is fucking bullshit and you should never listen to it

Grey: What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

Tbh I think every writing tip you see should always be taken with a grain of salt, especially if it’s a ‘never do x’ because there is almost always a situation where doing x is the right thing to do, it’s just a matter of knowing how to do it correctly (looking at you, ‘never use the passive voice’). So really, there are very few I always follow, but I’ll give one that was foundationally helpful for me

Edit in a different format than you write. That can be changing the text size, or the font, or printing it out physically, or whatever. For me, I usually pop it into AO3′s preview function and take notes of things that need changing as I go. It forces your brain to notice things it’s been overlooking for the entire writing period. I only do my final edit this way, generally speaking, but I’ve found it to be incredibly helpful for catching typos and general weirdness in the writing

Orange: How many projects do you usually have going at once?

Because my fics are usually short, I tend to only have 1, but I think I’ve had up to 3-4 before. That’s basically me just popping between documents everytime I get stuck on one until one is finished lmao. But more than 2 gets to be a lot to handle

Currently, I’m really only working on my Big Bang fic, though I do have at least one one-shot I’m planning to write when I need a short break from it

Pink: Which of your characters would become your best friend?

This is so hard because like, I don’t get along with a lot of people generally speaking. I’m also going to treat this as the entire SW cast even though I only write Kylo and Hux, for the most part. And I’m not sure I’d be good friends with either of them. While Kylo would make an excellent self-destruction buddy, I think we’re too similar for the most part to get along. And while I also have an element of Hux in me that’s my anal retentiveness when it comes to organization (not to be confused with cleanliness; I’m talking more about my colour-coded work email and my nested folder system on my computer), I’m also very emotional, messy, and I’m not really equipped to verbally spar with him. I think I would actually do okay with Hux as a boss, not a friend, but with Kylo, I think we’d get along really well until we really didn’t. And then I would be dead lmao

Aaaand none of that was an actual answer. But like, I honestly don’t know? Most of the other characters I really like (e.g. Rey, Rae Sloane, Ventress), it’s because I would have a big huge crush on them which would manifest as my hovering in their vicinity a lot but never actually starting a conversation and then waxing poetic while crying about my unrequited love when I continue to go unnoticed lmao. Which is, well, still not friendship

Maybe Finn… I might get along really well with Finn. He’s one of my favourites as well and I think he’d be really interesting to talk to. Has a lot of interesting views on things, likely a good listener. Hm. I’m still not 100% solid on it, but after far too many words, that’s my answer lmao

Purple: Which of your characters would become your sworn enemy?

Okay, hear me out on this one because the reason isn’t what you think lmao. I’m also treating this less as ‘sworn enemy’ and more ‘person I’d least get along with’ and that’s actually Poe. And the reason is that highly extroverted, extremely friendly people who others call charismatic tend to rub me the wrong way. Like there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re perfectly nice, but they’re just too friendly and my socially-inept, introverted brain always responds to that with DANGER DANGER. And I think he would definitely fall into that category for me haha

Green: Pencil, typewriter, or computer?

Computer. I have written fic by hand before (I also sometimes do planning by hand, just because it can be a bit more visual; Fractured was planned largely by hand when I used to work evenings at a gym and had access to unlimited spare paper), but that’s usually only when I have nothing else to work with. I wrote most of a fic in the Halifax airport on a layover, once. I’ve also done it on my phone, but that’s too fucking annoying lmao. Typerwriters are super fun to use but also very impractical for me; my typing accuracy isn’t good enough

Brown: Do you have a set writing space? Or do you write everywhere?

Mostly I’m at home on my couch, but that’s really cause I have nowhere else to write. I do write at work sometimes (not smut though lmao), but only when it’s slow enough that I can get away with it. And there’s nowhere else I really go where I’m sitting with a computer for long periods of time

Silver: Are you comfortable writing in public places?

I am, yeah. I don’t know why I wouldn’t be tbh. Work is a public place and the only reason I don’t write smut there is because I don’t want to get fired lmao (slacking off is one thing, porn is another). I don’t really ever write in public, but that’s more because I don’t spend a lot of time sitting in public places by myself

Gold: Do your stories usually contain lessons or morals?

Not really… I can’t think of any at least. They always have some sort of closure, though, because I fucking hate open-ended stuff where everything isn’t worked out in the end lmao (or is at least on it’s way there). I’m too fragile for that shit haha

Clear: Do your characters control where the story goes or do youmaintain control?

I tend to write more like an rper than an actual author, based on conversations I’ve had with others, so my characters have a lot of control. That said, if you’ve got your plot and all the major points of it planned out and then you get halfway through and find it doesn’t work because of the characters, then that’s a failure in planning, not the characters taking control. Sometimes things do change and are reworked as you go, that’s the nature of writing, but that still means your plan needed some adjusting, you just didn’t know it at the time. I intentionally leave a lot of room in my plans for the characters (e.g. ‘and then they talk about [blank]. Hux says something mean and Kylo gets angry’ might be my only note for an entire scene), but if you’ve planned enough to actually start writing, your characters and plot should already work together. Characters control the minor details of the story, not the major plot

Tan: Are you open to co-writing a story?

I might be. I’ve never done it before and the Big Bang I’m doing now is the most collaborative thing I’ve ever done writing-wise. If someone approached me and was really interested in it, I might be willing to give it a shot. I’m not really sure how it works, though. I tend to envision it as basically an rp except it’s planned out beforehand and then edited afterwards, but in all honesty, I have no idea how it actually goes

#this was so fun thank you so much #also you're the only one who sent in an ask so it worked out really well lmao #I think it got a little incoherent halfway through but meh that's just how I work most of the time haha #I love to ramble and thank you again for giving me the opportunity to do so <3 #squire reblogs #ask tag #things I am tagged in #sort of but not really #long post #for the folks on mobile #my fic #because I can

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kathydsalters31 · 4 years ago

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The Best Fresh Dog Food Delivery Brands of 2020: Tested by Dogs

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Updated September 16, 2020 | Caring for Your Dog

This post contains affiliate links. Read more here.

Table of Contents

Fresh dog food delivery is a hot new trend. Think of it as Blue Apron for dogs—only the cooking is already done for you. If you’ve ever considered homemade dog food, or wish your dog could eat whole, fresh foods more often, then these solutions might be a fit. And if those puppy dog eyes are any indication, your dogs wouldn’t mind, either. Homemade dog food delivery doesn’t come cheap, but it’s very convenient. There are now several companies that deliver fresh, prepared foods to your door for your pet. We tested a number of top options to give you the scoop on each.

How fresh are these dog meal kits? Well, they basically smell like your leftovers, and they look like a hearty stew, minus all the liquid. Packaging varies, from tear-off pouches to yogurt-like containers; some are frozen, others stored in the fridge. Read on for the full details, including price ranges. Get links to exclusive discounts for Rover readers, too!

Why Fresh Food for Dogs?

Alternative foods are gaining popularity among pet owners. Disenchantment with large pet food brands, concern over the quality of ingredients, and an increased focus on how food affects a pet’s health have led owners to consider a range of options from grain-free to raw food diets or making their own meals at home.

Fresh dog food delivery services take the place of making your pet’s food from scratch. They start with fresh, whole ingredients like lean proteins, veggies, and whole grains, package them up, and ship them to your door. They also make sure their recipes meet AAFCO standards for pet food, which means the foods include the vitamins and minerals needed to make a food nutritionally complete for your dog.

Many owners who’ve made the switch to fresh food say the diet has improved their pet’s coat, energy levels, and other health conditions. We weren’t able to test the long-term effects on our taste-tester dogs, but we can verify that they enjoyed each and every meal from this review.

You can feed these meals to your dogs as mixer add-ons to their current food, as a kind of dietary supplement, or feed them fresh food exclusively. If you’re using these meal kits as a supplement, the cost is lower. Whatever you decide, there’s likely to be a transition period where you’ll slowly introduce the fresh food to your pet so as to avoid any tummy upsets.

The Top Fresh Dog Food Delivery Brands Reviewed

Note: We were sent complimentary trial subscriptions of these dog food brands to test on our pups, but all opinions are unbiased and based on our observations of our dogs’ experience with the food.

Convenient, Customized, Consistent: Ollie

Price: Starts at $2 a day, depending on plan, recipe, and dog size. General averages range from $9 to $42 per week.

Get your first order at 60% off, plus a free bag of treats, using the link below.

Shop at Ollie

Our experience: My dog was a big fan of Ollie’s fresh food and wiggled with excitement every time he saw the container come out of my fridge. The feeding instructions were very detailed and easy to understand, and I appreciated the booklet with a schedule for easing my dog from his current kibble to an Ollie diet to avoid digestive issues. The brand is definitely very focused on education: the booklet also included tips for keeping the food fresh, guidelines for feeding (with tips for picky eaters), and expected results from switching to Ollie (increased energy, less allergies, weight management, etc).

I like that they provide a cute orange scoop and reusable container to keep the daily portions in my fridge between meal times. The food is easy to store, though two week’s worth took up quite a bit of space in my freezer. Even though it was wet, fresh food, it didn’t gross me out like other wet foods have, probably because it more closely resembles “human” food (i.e. I could see the peas, carrots, etc) and smelled pleasant. The ingredient list (I tried the Chicken recipe with my dog) was also high quality and seemed more straightforward compared to other premium dog foods I’ve encountered.

The whole experience, from initial sign-up to packaging and portion size, feels very customized.

What sets them apart:

The packaging was super thorough and attractive. The first shipment included dry ice so the food was still very frozen, plus a welcome packet with information I didn’t even know I needed, and a cute reusable scoop and container (they call it a “puptainer,” and it also doubles as a dog bowl).

The subscription seems very customized to my dog and Ollie asks quite a few questions ahead of time to recommend a food and portion size (they even get as specific as how many calories my dog should intake per day). They seem very cognizant of activity level, allergies, and other sensitivities when setting up the plan.

I received an email a couple days ahead of when my next order would ship out, which was nice because it allowed me to make changes to the frequency, ship date, or recipe ahead of time (or add on some treats).

The foods are “minimally processed” to preserve their nutrients and recipes are formulated by a veterinary nutritionist.

Available recipes: Heed the Cattle Call (Beef), Get Your Gobble On (Turkey), Dare to Cross the Road (Chicken), Get Some Sheep Thrills (Lamb)

Shop at Ollie

Most Variety: Nom Nom

Price: $30 to $120 per week.

Use the link below to get 20% off your first order.

Shop at Nom Nom

Our experience: Their system was the easiest to use: Small, space-saving packaging, portioned out by meal (two meals a day), so all I had to do was open a bag and pour it into the bowl. Their food also looked the freshest and most naturally colorful of all the brands.

What sets them apart:

Small, space-saving vacuum-sealed plastic bags with easy-tear tops

Each serving is individually packaged (two servings per day per dog)

The package has the name of the food and all the ingredients in it

These had the most vibrant colors of the brands we tried

My dogs seemed most excited to eat this one

They also offer meals for cats

Available recipes: Chicken Chow Wow (I could see individual sweet potato bites in this), Heartland Beef Mash, Tasty Turkey Fare, Porkalicious Potluck, Egg & Veggie Medley

Shop at Nom Nom

Price: Depending on age, breed, and size of dog, meal plans start at $2 a day.

Use the link below to get 50% off your first two weeks of food.

Shop at The Farmer’s Dog

Our experience: My dog, Whiskey, is a nearly 8-year-old Boxer-Cocker Spaniel mix. He’s very active, has a short coat, and is one of the world’s pickiest eaters. He’s not motivated by food and will go on hunger strike if he’s feeling upset about something. He’s the kind of dog who will leave some of his regular dry food in his bowl after a meal. We’ve tried several types of dry dog food over the years—grain-free, different types of protein, etc.—and nothing really gets him excited. His favorite treat is unseasoned cooked wild salmon. Did I mention he’s spoiled?

Buying dog food has never been fun. It’s like banking—something on the chore list to check off. Farmer’s Dog has somehow made feeding your dog joyful. The online quiz was simple and I really liked the variety of proteins to try that were customized for Whiskey’s dietary needs and behavior we wanted to address.

What sets them apart:

Packaging! As someone who gets a package delivered multiple times a week, it was a pleasant surprise to find the packaging is eco-friendly. Melting away the cornstarch wrap in the sink was cathartic. Had I not been so excited to get to the food, I would have made an activity out of it for my toddler as a sensory experience. And again, there was joy for the human: “Watch it melt away like your heart when snuggling puppies.” I love a brand with some personality!

The instructions: Easy to follow and it was reassuring to see Whiskey’s name on the individual food packs so I knew it was really customized for him.

What matters most? Whiskey loved it. We started Whiskey on the Turkey recipe at breakfast, and per the instructions, mixed it with his regular dry food. It was like he was eating a full Thanksgiving dinner! He quickly ate his whole breakfast, leaving nothing behind. At dinner, he was prancing by his mat and bowl, eagerly awaiting his next fresh meal. Wow!

Other noteworthy information: As expected and explained by Farmer’s Dog, Whiskey had a few tummy issues adjusting to the new food. We tried the the pork recipe next, which was a was a little too rich for him and gave him some bad gas and mushier poops, but he still gobbled it up.

My initial impression of the box when it arrived was that it felt a little daunting. Keep in mind my point of comparison is dry dog food with a scoop and literally my toddler can (and does!) do it.

Refrigerating, then scooping and fluffing the food, then using the fridge container was a little extra. My husband complained about it, and neither one of us could remember which package to use as we had been taking turns feeding Whiskey.

The used bags got a little stinky in the trash, which was easily remedied by taking out the trash more frequently. I appreciated the simplified instructions for transitioning the food, but would have liked something I could keep with the food (ie: magnet, laminated card, etc.) so it would stand out as extra important. We also realized that the dog bowl we used needed to be washed more frequently, which was another extra thing to keep it sanitary.

Available recipes: Turkey, Beef, Pork

Shop at The Farmer’s Dog

Price: $69 for two bags (a total 6 patties at 1-pound each).

Get 30% off your first delivery with code FRESH30 when you subscribe using the link below.

Shop at GroceryPup

Our experience: Our dogs could not get enough of Grocery Pup. They soon learned just what it meant when one of the packages came out of the fridge, and they gobbled it up—all three flavors were equally loved. Unlike other brands, Grocery Pup cooks their fresh dog food sous vide. This cooking method, popularized in high-end restaurants, is purported to help food retain more taste and nutrients. Grocery Pup puts their AAFCO-balanced foods into BPA-free vacuum-sealed bags and cooks them in a 180-degree water bath. While my dogs don’t know about sous vide, they did seem to notice the extra flavor.

Like the other brands, this healthy dog food comes in frozen packages to your front door. It’s easy to thaw in the fridge overnight and serve the next day, though I found that sometimes I needed to add a little hot water to the food to warm it up. It’s well-frozen!

A medium-sized dog, from 20-40 lbs, receives a single one-pound patty per day. For comparison, a 60-80 lb. dog would receive 2 patties per day.

What sets them apart:

Sous vide method

BPA-free packaging

Easy serving: each bag contains individual one-pound patties

USDA-inspected “human-grade” kitchen and ingredients

Available recipes: Texas Beef Stew (Beef), Turkey Pawella (Turkey), Porky’s Luau (Pork)

Shop at GroceryPup

Price: Based on my 12lb. dog, it costs about $3.10 per day, which is about $95 a month.

Shop at Just Food for Dogs

Our experience: Right off the bat, I was impressed with what I could see through the package. Large chunks of sweet potato, green beans, and russet potatoes, it reminded me of a stew I’d make for a cool fall night.

When the food arrived at my house, it was packaged very well, with the frozen food in a thermal bag and on ice. I also received their Pumpkin Treats, Salmon Bark, Supplements and a can of their DIY Nutrient Blend.

Inside the bags were informational pamphlets, a customized “Transition Guide” for moving from kibble to fresh, and there was also an adorable card with my dog drawn on the inside. The information included was easy to read, informative, and didn’t make me feel overwhelmed about the process or anything.

I thawed the first package and put it in the provided containers, and while my formula was fish, which is primarily cod, there was no fishy odor.

When I first gave Olive a small amount mixed in with her kibble, she seemed a little hesitant, like she knew it was out of the ordinary, and gave me almost a “what did I do to deserve this?!” look. She gave it a few licks, and then ended up eating the fresh food, and spitting the kibble out to be eaten last. I think that was a good sign! Ever since we’ve switched, she’s all in at meal time.

During the transition process, I had a question about my dog’s feeding amount suggestion that they provided. They were quick to respond, and even sent my question to a veterinarian to verify.

I didn’t experience any digestion issues with Olive. With squishy faced dogs, their digestive system can be temperamental, and most people know those breeds can be a bit stinky from gas. Olive didn’t have any gas, and her stool was nice and firm.

What sets them apart:

The veterinary consultation! This is an incredible service offered by the company to fine-tune the optimal diet for your dog. I originally planned to use it for our 17-year-old Dachshund; our Internal Medicine doctor had recommended Just Food for Dogs as an option for her IBS. But, after they reviewed all of our Dachshund’s vet records, ultimately, her medical issues made switching to a non-veterinarian prescribed food difficult, so we decided to have Olive, my Boston Terrier, be the official tester as her diet was less restrictive.

I appreciate that the staff at Just Food For Dogs is willing to work with people whose dogs have specific needs, and you can tell they try their absolute best to help you choose the food that will benefit your dog the most.

I truly felt that the staff was working with me to find a solution that was best for my dog. I never felt they were trying to push me to purchase or trial a subscription. They seemed to have my dog’s happiness and health in mind.

I’ve had dogs for over 10 years and have always fed kibble. I’ve been targeted for all of the ads for fresh food services, but I really appreciated that Just Food For Dogs has a full team of veterinarians, dermatologists, and nutritionists that I didn’t see with any of the other brands. This put me at ease as my dogs have medical concerns, and the brand was specifically recommended to us by our senior Dachshund’s Internal Medicine doctor.

Available recipes: Chicken & White Rice, Beef & Russet Potato, Turkey & Whole Wheat Macaroni, Fish & Sweet Potato, Venison & Squash, Lamb & Brown Rice

Shop at Just Food for Dogs

Odor-Free and Freezer-Friendly: Spot and Tango

Price: Meals start at $7 a week.

Use code ROVER for 50% off your first order using the link below.

Shop at Spot and Tango

Our experience: The sleeves of dog food arrived completely frozen as promised, and their slim packaging made it easy to fit them in my otherwise crowded freezer. The single-serving packaging made it so I never wondered how much to feed my dog Big Boy—the portion was created just for him (for reference he tested the Turkey & Red Quinoa and Beef & Millet recipes).

Spot & Tango uses whole ingredients in its fresh dog food like turkey, red quinoa, spinach, carrots, peas and apples, among other things. I saw whole peas and pieces of quinoa throughout both recipes.

Having never fed Big Boy fresh dog food before, I wasn’t sure how he’d like it. At first, he was hesitant, giving me side eye about the soft mixture in his bowl. It took a couple packages, but eventually he approached meal time with his typical enthusiasm and did not leave a single stray pea behind.

What sets them apart:

The fresh food was surprisingly not stinky at all

Spot & Tango sends a clip in case you don’t use the whole package

Slim packaging made it easy to fit in the freezer

Cooked in small batches for maximum nutrition

Other noteworthy information: When it comes to fresh dog food delivery, Spot & Tango is a solid option. As someone who typically shops for high-quality kibble, I would perhaps prefer their dry food to the fresh recipes. I am not in the habit of pulling packages out to defrost and prefer to not microwave plastic. The easy-peel packaging wasn’t flawless, and I ended up using scissors to get it open. Spot & Tango said their new packaging solves for this.

Big Boy is now used to the fresh variety, but initially he would leave the whole peas behind. He also manages to get quinoa everywhere, which is now dried to the floor and wall behind his bowl—not ideal. I wonder if he is not digesting it well, too, as his poops contained the full peas. For many reasons, whole peas are the star of this review.

Available recipes: Turkey & Red Quinoa, Beef & Millet, Lamb & Brown Rice

Shop at Spot and Tango

Recyclable Packaging: Pet Plate

Price: $23 to $90 per week.

Follow the link below and use code ROVER50 at checkout to receive 50% off your first box.

Shop at PetPlate

Our experience: Packaging was, again, the key here. Being able to easily place a lid back on the fresh dog food when I didn’t need the whole bowl was convenient but didn’t take up an obnoxious amount of space. I also loved that the insulating liner was made with recycled bottles. They lost points because it was a little challenging to understand exactly how much food to give my pets, even with the feeding guidelines printed on the label.

What sets them apart:

Food comes in compact yogurt-container type bowls with resealable lids—which made it easy to save the rest for later

Feeding guidelines are printed on the label

The insulation was made with recycled bottles and, depending on where you live, was recyclable

Available recipes: Braised Lamb (I could see quinoa in it!), Oven Roasted Turkey (hearty chunks of vegetables), Harvest Chicken, Farmhouse Beef

Shop at PetPlate

Awesome for Allergies: Evermore

Price: $14 to $300 per week.

Evermore subscriptions come in a variety of sizes so that you can choose to feed it exclusively, or use as a meal supplement. Learn more through the link below.

Shop at Evermore

Our experience: The packaging was compact and had serving sizes on the back of the boxes, and I liked that they used organic ingredients, but it was a bit of a hassle to find a ziplock bag when I didn’t need to use a full portion for a single meal and then try to stuff it back into the cardboard so I didn’t get the meals confused between dogs. Because they focus on organic ingredients, grass-fed meat, and avoid most problematic starches (even potato!) they’re our top choice for dogs with sensitive systems or food allergies.

What sets them apart:

Compact packaging (slim cardboard boxes on the outside, vacuum-sealed plastic on the inside)

Serving size is on the back of the box for convenient referencing

Evermore avoids corn, soy, wheat, potatoes, white rice, and pasta (more of a limited-ingredient option than the others)

They focus on grass-fed meats, organic pasture-raised eggs, organic vegetables, and all-USA ingredients

Woman-owned small business

Available recipes: Lamb, Chicken, Turkey, Beef

Shop at Evermore

Other Dog Food Subscription Services to Try

These subscription dog foods are not fresh dog meal kits but more like traditional kibble. The difference is that these companies offer customized meal plans, custom kibble, nutritional toppings, mix-ins, supplements and more, designed in consultation with dog nutritionists and veterinarians, that offer enough quality and variety we felt they were worth highlighting, too. Both of the brands below have never been recalled.

Infinitely Customizable: Hungry Bark

Price: From $13.59 for single bags of protein mix-ins to $199.22 for a four-week trial subscription.

Shop at Hungry Bark

Our experience: There’s a lot to like about Hungry Bark. Signing up for a subscription is easy and takes less than five minutes: Just share some information about your pet—dietary needs, sensitivities, lifestyle, etc.—and a subscription box will be recommended for you. This is great if you’re on the fence about how to start or which box to choose. The two-week taste test ($88.54, includes meal, supplement, and mix-in; 20% off the per-product price) is a simple way to safely gauge whether some version of this subscription is for you.

When my box was delivered and I cracked it open, the ingredients looked fresh and the packaging was appealingly clean. The mix-ins in particular were fragrant but not too stinky. Perhaps most importantly, according to Oso (my Border Collie/Husky taste-tester) who started salivating as soon as I opened the bag, it all was apparently delicious.

Oso preferred the Chicken Mix-In to the Beef Mix-In, and preferred the taste of the Move + Groove Hip + Joint Health Supplement to the Whole Health Multivitamin, but he wound up scarfing everything down. No complaints here.

The packaging is easy to seal and keeps your mix-ins and dry dog food fresh. Mix-in bags are resealable, and supplements are carefully packaged to avoid any contamination.

Only time will tell if the supplements are truly benefiting his overall health. But I can say he’s been perky with no digestive troubles since trialing his Healthy Bark goodies.

What sets them apart:

I dote on my dog, but I’m not likely to hand-prepare a fancy meal for him (unless it’s his birthday). This subscription service struck a nice middle ground between a healthy pet store kibble and the more deluxe gourmet subscription services out there. My dog went wild for the mix-ins and supplements and it didn’t require any preparation on my end.

Unlike other fresh food deliveries, you don’t need to make space in your fridge or freezer. The food and packaging is shelf-stable so you can store it wherever it’s convenient for you.

Ultimately, it costs less that $7 per day for the entire subscription box, and that’s for mix-ins plus kibble plus a supplement to feed your dog this healthy fare. This is a great fit for someone who wants a lightly-personalized and high-quality subscription for their dog, but isn’t ready to sign up for the DIY, super-bespoke, fix-it-on-the-stovetop type meal delivery services.

Available recipes: The “Superfoods” meal formulas include Chicken, Turkey + Brown Rice; Turkey + Duck (Grain-Free); Lamb + Turkey (Grain-Free); and Salmon (Grain-Free). Additional add ons include a variety of supplements and meal mix-ins.

Shop at Hungry Bark

Reliable Quality: Jinx

Price: Bag sizes of 4, 10, and 20 pounds (at $22.50, $40.50, and $67.50 respectively). You can set your subscription to deliver every 3-8 weeks. You can also order the bags of kibble individually, but you save 10% for subscribing.

Shop at Jinx

Our experience: The kibble was packaged in a standard bag and is shelf-stable. I loved opening the box it was delivered in, it had silly phrases like “If only dogs could create unboxing videos,” and the bag of food itself is packaged really well.

The ingredients are very clearly listed on the back, and the side panels contain nutritional information and transitioning guidelines.

The sign-up process was straightforward and quick, though I would have preferred more customization and guidance. The feeding guidelines provided are pretty standard compared to other kibble brands—e.g. your dog weighs 40 pounds so they should have 2.5 cups per day—and I was unsure how this translated into knowing what subscription cadence and size bag to order, or which recipe was best for my dog.

It’s difficult to tell if the food is made from the ingredients claimed (unlike the fresh frozen foods where you can see carrots, quinoa, etc) since it looks like normal kibble, but it seemed fresh and my dog scarfed down the Jinx food with no hesitation, and was excited when he heard the slightest bag crinkle. He didn’t seem to have any digestion issues.

What sets them apart:

Jinx’s food is in a dry kibble form, and looks very similar to my dog’s current food (Taste of the Wild). I personally like this because it makes for much easier storage when I don’t have to worry about keeping it cool.

I like the transparency into Jinx’s development process for their foods on their site, including their manufacturing standards, and how the recipes were formulated with scientists, veterinarians, and canine nutritionists.

Jinx also provided two different treat flavors for Enzo to try, two chicken variations, one with sweet potato and one with mango. They seemed very high quality (my partner commented that they looked “fancy”) and my dog loved them. The mango version is a little smaller, on the site they say great for small dogs, but I liked them as training treats. The sweet potato version is about the size of a fig newton. Full disclosure: I tried both out of curiosity because none of the ingredients freaked me out, and they weren’t bad!

Available recipes: Salmon, Brown Rice and Sweet Potato; Chicken, Sweet Potato and Egg; Chicken, Brown Rice and Avocado

Shop at Jinx

Dog vs Human Reviews

As all of the services reviewed here are human grade, we gave them the ultimate test: dogs and their humans trying each option out. Check out our video to see the reactions.

[embedded content]

The Review Process

How we tested Spot & Tango, Jinx, Just Food for Dogs, and Hungry Bark

Since originally publishing this article in August of 2018, a handful of new fresh dog food delivery and dog food subscription services came to market. These companies—Spot & Tango, Jinx, Just Food for Dogs, and Hungry Bark—were tested by various (and might we add, eager) Rover dogs in August 2020, as indicated in the individual reviews.

How we tested Ollie and The Farmer’s Dog

We tested Ollie and The Farmer’s Dog twice; first in 2018, when former The Dog People blog editor Irene Keliher tested the first batch of foods on her dogs (both to positive reviews) and again in 2020, on two different Rover dogs. The reviews here reflect the updated 2020 reviews.

How we tested Nom Nom, PetPlate, Grocery Pup, and Evermore

Former The Dog People blog editor Irene Keliher tested these foods on her two dogs, and shares the details below.

I have two dogs—one is 55 pounds and the other is 75 pounds. Both are mixed-breed rescues who have spent their whole lives eating natural brands of dry food. They’ve been on the same brand for the last three years or so, mostly because I’ve been too lazy to update our online subscription.

I recently had my pups try six different brands of fresh dog food and all the recipes they had to offer. Yes, my dogs were in heaven. Every brand had pros and cons, though my dogs had zero complaints about any of them, leaving me to do the hard work of choosing the top contenders.

In order to assess them, I kept notes on the brand’s packaging (everything from how easy it was to store to whether it was friendly to the planet), recipe choices, and the ease of the whole process. Because the brands were generous—and I’d signed up for them all at once—I was surprised at just how quickly my refrigerator and freezer filled up with dog food. I ended up pawning off some of the extras to my neighbors and Rover headquarters so that I could squeeze a couple of meals worth of my own human food in the fridge, too.

I also intended to keep track of which fresh dog food my dogs preferred, but they all seemed pretty equal in the eyes of my little piggies. Instead, you’ll see I made note of when the food seemed especially fresh or had interesting ingredients. PetPlate, for example, had a ton of quinoa in one of their recipes.

Since I was reviewing so many brands—and doing it over the course of just a couple of weeks—I didn’t try to track any changes in my dogs’ health, or test the nutrition claims some of the brands make. I can tell you that my dogs had some very healthy poops.

A Note on Pricing

You’re probably thinking, “sounds good, but how much does this cost?” The answer is: it varies.

The price ranges here were provided by the companies, but you can get your own personalized price by filling in your dog’s information on their sites. Costs vary based on your dog’s caloric needs (a four-pound dog eats a lot less than my 75 pound dog, obviously) and recipe selection. It also depends on whether you feed entirely fresh food or use these recipes to supplement your pet’s diet.

With some digging, we found that for a 15-lb. dog of normal activity level, average prices for a full fresh food diet ranged from $25/week to $33/week. For a 25-lb. dog of normal activity level, prices jump to anywhere from $34/week to $42/week. Again, it will vary based on your individual dog and preferences, so it’s worth going through a quick online quote to find out whether this fits in your budget.

Before Trying Fresh Dog Food

These super-healthy foods are better than most commercial pet foods, but any time you change your dog’s diet, it’s a good idea to go slowly. Transition them to the new food a little at a time. Be sure to talk to your vet, who can help guide you on any special needs your pet might have on a new diet.

A couple of other important considerations:

Fresh dog food usually needs refrigeration—make sure you have adequate space to hold a week’s worth of food in your fridge or freezer.

Consider whether you’re intending to feed your dog an entirely fresh-food diet, or just supplement their traditional food, which will determine what plan you sign up for and how frequently you need food delivered.

Further Reading

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The Dog People Newsletter

source http://www.luckydogsolutions.com/the-best-fresh-dog-food-delivery-brands-of-2020-tested-by-dogs/ from Lucky Dog Solutions https://luckydogsolutions.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-best-fresh-dog-food-delivery-brands.html

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Puppy sleepovers, paisley-patterned botanic garden: News from around our 50 states

Alabama

Mobile: Researchers from the University of South Alabama are working on a study to learn more about deadly West Nile virus. Genetic material from infected mosquitoes will be sent to Yale University, according to a statement from South Alabama. Workers at Yale’s public health school will sequence DNA to help understand how the virus and spread over the past two decades in the United States. “They are looking at how the virus has evolved over time by sequencing genomes,” says Jonathan Rayner, who works in infectious diseases at the South Alabama medical school, which says it is the first school in the state to join in the project. West Nile virus killed nearly 170 people nationwide last year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 2,647 cases of West Nile virus were reported last year, 550 more cases than in 2017.

Alaska

Soldotna: Project Homeless Connect 2020 has just about everything it needs to be a success, but it’s missing volunteers. The annual event provides a one-stop shop for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness. During the event, community members can come in for a free meal, blankets, clothes, diapers, shower and laundry vouchers, haircuts and a number of other services all provided at no cost. Similar events occur in other parts of Alaska, including Anchorage and Juneau, and this year events will be taking place in Homer and Seward to cover the entire peninsula. Project Homeless Connect will take place Jan. 29 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex. Those who wish to volunteer can contact Stuart at 907-283-3125.

Arizona

Phoenix: A lawmaker has proposed ending the state’s practice of hiring private companies to provide health care for its 34,000 prison inmates and instead turning that duty back to the state. Democratic Rep. Diego Rodriguez of Phoenix says his bill to end privatized health services at Arizona’s 10 state-run prisons was inspired by numerous accounts about inmates with minor ailments later facing serious health problems because the privatized system responded slowly or inadequately. “It’s broken, and people are dying because of this,” says Rodriguez, who disputes the claim that privatization has saved the state money. But Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican from Fountain Hills who opposes the bill, says ending privatization would lead to high costs for the state, including higher pension costs. “It’s a lot cheaper having a private company do that,” Kavanagh says.

Arkansas

Little Rock: Holiday Island, a lakeside community, has received enough signatures from voters to try once again to become an incorporated city after a failed effort in 2017. State laws regarding incorporation were changed this year, making it easier for Holiday Island to incorporate this time around, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. The changes include exemptions in population limits, allowing Holiday Island to incorporate should voters approve a ballot initiative. As an incorporated city, Holiday Island will be able to enforce its own codes and receive state money from taxes to maintain streets and roads. A spokesman for Holiday Island Citizens for Incorporation, Dan Kees, says the petition drive to get the incorporation on the 2020 general election ballot received 557 signatures from voters; only 498 were needed.

California

San Francisco: The commercial Dungeness crab fishing season in the San Francisco Bay Area has begun after a monthlong delay, allowing fishermen to start hauling in the wiggly crustaceans in time for the holiday season. Fishing boats began returning through the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday with bins packed with crabs and headed to wholesalers at Pier 45, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife pushed back the season to lower the risk of whales getting entangled in fishing lines. The recreational crab season began Nov. 2 as scheduled. Boat captains said they saw no whales and faced rough waters on the first day of crab fishing. The commercial Dungeness crab industry in California takes in $40 million to $95 million a year. In recent years, the season has also been cut by elevated levels of the neurotoxin domoic acid found in some crabs.

Colorado

Denver: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has downgraded the air quality rating of the state’s biggest population center. The EPA finalized the move Monday, lowering the ozone status of Denver and eight other northern Colorado counties from “moderate” to “serious.” That will force the state to work harder to reduce harmful pollution but also bring tougher and costly regulations for businesses. Gov. Jared Polis took the unusual step of inviting the EPA to downgrade the rating, saying in March that Colorado would no longer ask for an exemption from standards by claiming some of the pollution was drifting into the state from elsewhere. He said in August that it was time to stop “sugar-coating” Colorado’s air problems. The reclassification requires the state to revise its plan to reduce ozone-forming emissions, which can aggravate asthma and contribute to early deaths from respiratory disease.

Connecticut

Hartford: A new base is being raised in a key battleground of the state’s opioid epidemic: the bustling Park Street corridor where drug deaths in Hartford are most concentrated. The harm reduction center opens in January in a former law office on Grand Street, its ammunition a combination of director Mark Jenkins’ straight talk and belly laugh and his large stocks of clean syringes and heroin cookers, fentanyl test strips, condoms and candy, the Hartford Courant reports. Jenkins supplies them to drug-dependent people and sex workers to alleviate the dangers they face and ultimately draw them in to recovery. His organization, the 5-year-old Greater Hartford Harm Reduction Coalition, has operated a drop-in resource center on Albany Avenue since last summer, but it’s essentially an outpost in the epidemic, serving a population with far lower rates of fatal overdoses than the neighborhoods around Park Street.

Delaware

Wilmington: A bright-eyed puppy just might be what you need to get in the holiday spirit. Families can host a shelter pet from the Brandywine Valley SPCA for a short stay over the holiday season, as part of the organization’s holiday sleepovers program. BVSPCA says the program gives pets a “much needed” break from life in the shelter while giving families a fun guest during the holidays. “Sleepovers have been shown to reduce stress for shelter animals, and we also learn more about the pet’s personality in a more natural environment,” Walt Fenstermacher of BVSPCA said in a statement. There are two sleepover options: the “Santa Sleepover,” for pickup Dec. 20-23 and return Dec. 26-30, and “Winter Break,” with pickup Dec. 20-23 and return Jan. 2-5. This is BVSPCA’s second year offering holiday sleepovers. Last year, more than 30 pets spent the holidays with a family.

District of Columbia

Washington: Public safety advocates say the Metro put riders of a crippled Red Line train in danger, possibly breaking a federal guideline and its own policy, by sending a train full of people toward tracks that were seen sparking moments earlier, WUSA-TV reports. “There was a moment of panic,” says Joe Twinem, who took video of the incident in a tunnel near Tenleytown Metro. It was the first of three such arcing track insulator incidents that snarled morning and evening rushes last week. Twinem says a smoky haze filled his train car. Firefighter Dave Statter, a former WUSA9 reporter, calls the incident similar to the 2015 tunnel fire that killed a woman. The National Transportation Safety Board subsequently told Metro to stop using trains carrying passengers to investigate track problems. Metro is investigating the incident.

Florida

Orlando: Universal Parks and Resorts on Monday pledged 20 acres of land for affordable housing in the state, a day before the company asked county officials for millions of dollars for road construction that will allow it to build a third theme park, Epic Universe. The theme park company said the land for affordable housing will accommodate 1,000 mixed-use housing units in Orlando. The metro area is in the middle of an affordable housing crisis for its hospitality-driven workforce. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings has made affordable housing a top priority and had recommended working with corporate partners to come up with solutions to the metro area’s housing needs. Universal also said it would make another 3 acres available for mass transit.

Georgia

Atlanta: The mayor ordered city courts Monday to soon begin restricting public access to records involving people cited for minor marijuana offenses. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued an administrative order that Atlanta’s Municipal Court by Feb. 1 must make court records for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana accessible only to law enforcement. Bottoms said in a statement that racial disparities in criminal cases involving small amounts of pot justified the change. “The fact remains that communities of color are disproportionately affected by the lingering stigma of victimless, minor offenses – even long after the accused have paid their debts,” Bottoms said. “This outmoded practice deprives our communities and workforce of brilliant and promising minds, all because of an unfair justice system that can and will be course-corrected.” The American Civil Liberties Union applauded the move.

Hawaii

Hilo: Hawaii County has proceeded with efforts to restore access to public roads inundated by lava following the opening of a Big Island highway last month. About 13 miles of public roads were covered by lava from the 2018 Kilauea volcanic eruption affecting portions of Highway 137, Highway 132, Pohoiki Road and others, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports. Temporary access was established to Highway 137 a year ago, and Highway 132 was restored last month, officials said. However, multiple other affected roads have remained closed throughout southeast Hawaii Island. Highway 132 was fully covered by the Federal Highways Administration, but reimbursement for other affected roads would need to come through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, officials said.

Idaho

Boise: A portion of a lawsuit brought by an Idaho family against the U.S. government after a boy and his dog tripped a cyanide-spraying, predator-killing trap near their home has been dismissed. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill dismissed all personal injury claims Friday related to cyanide exposure to Mark and Theresa Mansfield and their son. Canyon Mansfield was playing with his dog in March 2017 near his home when the then-14-year-old triggered the trap that the U.S. Department of Agriculture placed to kill coyotes. The dog named Casey died. Winmill agreed with U.S. Department of Justice attorney Michele Greif that the Mansfields didn’t prove they experienced ill effects from cyanide exposure or will experience them in the future. The devices, called M-44s, are embedded in the ground and look like lawn sprinklers.

Illinois

Chicago: City agencies are telling people to stop feeding the raccoons that populate the city’s northern lakefront. People are hand-feeding kitchen scraps to the dozens of raccoons living in the area, which the agencies say is dangerous, WBBM-TV reports. “We ask that visitors not feed wildlife in parks or along the lakefront for their own safety and the health and wellness of the animals,” Chicago Park District spokeswoman Irene Tostado said in a statement. Chicago Animal Care and Control said it has not received any raccoon-related service requests from the area. Raccoons are rabies carriers and can transfer other diseases and pests such as roundworm, the Humane Society advises.

Indiana

Vincennes: A preservation group that saved an ornate church from demolition has found a buyer who plans to turn it into a rural retreat. Indiana Landmarks spent seven years trying to find a buyer for the former Palmyra Cumberland Presbyterian Church, located just outside Vincennes in southwestern Indiana. That perseverance recently paid off when the nonprofit found a private, out-of-state buyer for the Gothic-Revival church, which dates back to 1892. The new owner plans to restore the building and use it as a rural retreat. The church, designed by local architect J.W. Gaddis, retains many of its original, ornate features, including limestone accents and decorative metal finials. The steeple even houses the church’s original bell. Tommy Kleckner, director of Indiana Landmarks’ Western Regional Landmarks Office, says the group took a loss on the sale – at less than $30,000 – because staff felt the building was well worth saving.

Iowa

Centerville: A Nativity scene removed from a county courthouse lawn in southern Iowa won’t be returning. The scene was erected Nov. 18 outside the Appanoose County Courthouse in Centerville, but some residents complained that a religious display should not be placed on government property. City Administrator Jason Fraser had approved the display’s location but told organizers it needed to be moved before Thanksgiving. It took until Dec. 9 before enough volunteers could be gathered to move the display off the lawn and to a new spot about two blocks south. The county owns the building and the land underneath; the city owns the lawn. The Daily Iowegian reports that at Monday’s City Council meeting, several speakers sharply criticized the scene’s removal and asked that it be moved back.

Kansas

Overland Park: A 13-year-old girl who was arrested for making her fingers into the shape of a gun and pointing at classmates has been placed on a juvenile diversion program. The Overland Park girl, who was originally charged with felony threatening, was set to go before a judge Tuesday, but the Johnson County Juvenile Court hearing was canceled. A spokeswoman for the Johnson County district attorney confirmed she is on diversion but provided no details, The Kansas City Star reports. Under diversion, a charge can be dismissed if a juvenile successfully meets certain conditions set by authorities. The girl’s mother told The Star previously that a boy asked her daughter who she would kill if she could kill five classmates. The girl reportedly made the shape of a gun with her fingers and pointed at four students, then herself.

Kentucky

Hodgenville: The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park is offering a new book club, and the first book selection will be about the former president’s wife. The first Parks and Pages Book Club discussion will be held Jan. 24 on the book “Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave,” according to a statement from the National Park Service. People can attend at the Kentucky park or join a virtual discussion on the park’s Facebook page using the “Facebook Live” feature. The park service says all books during the club’s first year will be on the same theme: presidential first ladies. The book for January can be purchased in the park’s bookstore, and a couple of copies are available in the park’s library. More book titles will be announced throughout 2020.

Louisiana

Denham Springs: The city has created a housing board that will address the issue of properties that are still dilapidated three years after a flood destroyed most of the area. The 2016 flood devastated much of the Livingston Parish area. Officials in Denham Springs said they’ve been lenient and patient with residents whose homes were damaged by the flood. However, Mayor Gerard Landry told The Advocate that now is the time to focus on the community and neighbors who are living near potentially hazardous homes. “We’ve kind of had a hands-off approach for the last few years out of compassion, but at some point in time I have to have more compassion for the people next door,” Landry said. The Housing Appeals Board, made up of city officials, will meet monthly to discuss the 70 homes in the city that are vacant and deteriorating.

Maine

Portland: Someone spray-painted graffiti about the treatment of the homeless on the sidewalk outside City Hall, police said Monday. The graffiti states, “No one deserves to be out in the cold,” and “No cap on the new shelter.” Advocates for the homeless have been lobbying city officials to make sure everyone who needs shelter is afforded it at a new facility 5 miles from the old one. The city said in a statement that it “respects all opinions regarding policy matters, but we do not tolerate criminal acts, and defacing city property is not the right way to share your message.” Officials said the city plans to press charges if the person or people who made the graffiti are located. Meanwhile, the graffiti is being removed from the plaza outside City Hall.

Maryland

Baltimore: The city is renaming a courthouse after the late Congressman Elijah Cummings. The Baltimore Sun reports the City Council voted to make the change Monday. Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young had asked the council to push the legislation forward. He intends to sign the bill and formally unveil the new name for Courthouse East in the near future. Cummings was chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. He was also a powerful advocate for Baltimore and civil rights. He died in October. Young said in a statement that the courthouse will “stand in perpetuity as a monument to Cummings’ service to the common man, the rule of law in our society, and his commitment to economic justice for all.”

Massachusetts

Boston: The city’s Museum of Fine Arts is hosting a holiday celebration with music and free tours of its collection of Jewish art. Wednesday afternoon’s event will mark the sixth year the museum has hosted a Hanukkah observance. It’s being presented in partnership with the Jewish Arts Collaborative and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies organization. Participants will hear traditional songs performed in Yiddish and Hebrew, and events for children include dancing, storytelling and arts and crafts. Organizers say it’s the largest community Hanukkah gathering in Boston. A centerpiece of the celebration is “Brighter Beyond,” a collaborative, interactive blacklight experience that invites visitors to add their light to a glowing installation led by artist Tova Speter. The museum will offer tours of its Judaica collection and four 15-minute talks. It will also offer Hannukah treats such as latkes.

Michigan

Marquette: A snowstorm that swept across parts of the Midwest and dumped as much as 2 feet of snow in the state last month formed ideal conditions for skiing and snowmobile riding in the Upper Peninsula, but crews are still busy clearing fallen trees blocking trails. Though many trails remain open, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources cautioned that some may be impassable and said riders must be extra alert for logs, rocks or stumps that could be obscured by the snow. “The number of downed trees and limbs is astonishing,” said Rob Katona, central Upper Peninsula trails specialist with the DNR’s Parks and Recreation Division. “We haven’t seen conditions like this in recent history.” The heavy snow weighed down young birches, oaks and other small trees, leaving them arched to the ground across trails, sometimes entirely buried under the snow, the Iron Mountain Daily News reports.

Minnesota

St. Paul: The state’s Board of Pardons has approved a request that could lead to a posthumous pardon for a man convicted of sexually assaulting a Duluth woman in 1920. Max Mason was among a group of black circus workers accused in the assault. Three were lynched from a light pole by an angry mob of local residents. Two others went to trial, and Mason was the only one convicted. His supporters believe he was falsely accused and say a pardon would restore justice in a “horrific and shameful episode in Minnesota history.” The board’s vote could open the door for another review of Mason’s original pardon request, which was denied in 1924. Mason was convicted on what some thought was weak evidence. Supporters noted a lack of evidence corroborating the woman’s allegation and a physician’s exam that appeared to contradict her claim, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.

Mississippi

Jackson: The state’s Small Business Administration is now offering low-interest loans to homeowners, businesses and nonprofit organizations who suffered losses when torrential rain caused widespread flooding last spring. The National Weather Service estimates some south Mississippi areas received up to 15 inches of rain in a span of days in May 2019, washing out train tracks, flooding rivers and prompting water rescues, news outlets report. To help in the recovery, Gov. Phil Bryant wrote to the administration last month requesting assistance for eight heavily affected counties, The Biloxi Sun-Herald reports. The Small Business Administration approved business disaster loans, economic injury loans for nonprofits and home disaster loans for citizens last week.

Missouri

Kansas City: Elected officials in Jackson County are adding plaques to statues of the Kansas City area county’s namesake noting that the nation’s seventh president was a slave owner and forced thousands of Native Americans off their lands. The plaques that will be added to statues of Andrew Jackson outside courthouses in downtown Kansas City and in nearby Independence will note: “Almost two centuries later, we hold a broader, more inclusive view of our nation,” KMBC-TV reports. Jackson began his term as president in 1829, almost three years after the Missouri State Legislature named the county after him because he was a hero of the War of 1812. “This statue of Jackson reminds us we are on a path that, in the immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., bends toward justice. In turn, we must acknowledge the past injustices to help us create a greater nation built upon humane policies to light our way and the way of humanity everywhere,” the plaques will read.

Montana

Kalispell: One of Glacier National Park’s most infamous thoroughfares is scheduled for a much-needed face lift next year. Many Glacier Road, which provides access to the popular Many Glacier Hotel and some of the park’s most well trafficked hikes, will be closed to vehicles from April 1 to May 17 and again from Sept. 21 to Dec. 16. During the intervening months, construction projects on the road are anticipated to cause delays of at least 40 minutes and as long as three hours each way from the nearby town of Babb to the Many Glacier Hotel. The construction project is expected to continue in 2021, the Flathead Beacon reports. For years, travel on Many Glacier Road has been an unpleasant adventure for park visitors. The road runs along the Sherburne Reservoir, and the waters of the artificial reservoir have contributed to instability underneath the roadway, causing massive potholes and dramatic undulations.

Nebraska

Scottsbluff: The City Council has reduced its funding commitment to the local zoo, a commitment that includes a contingency clause for further cuts if city sales tax revenue were to drop. The agreement approved Monday night runs for five years at $300,000 a year, a drop of $50,000 yearly from the 10-year commitment that ends in September next year. The $350,000 a year was becoming unsustainable because of lower sales tax revenue and city spending increases, city officials have said. Riverside director Anthony Mason said fundraisers and private donations could make up the funding difference. Any further reduction of funding would have to be approved by a three-fourths vote of the City Council. Scottsbluff City Manager Nathan Johnson says the hope is that by investing in the zoo, the returning tourism dollars will stimulate city’s sales tax revenue.

Nevada

Carson City: With costs falling for hepatitis C treatment, state prisons are launching a program to test all inmates for the blood-borne virus. The Department of Corrections has budgeted about $6.8 million and plans to hire contract staff to screen all inmates in coming months, including those just entering the system, Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. Nevada has about 13,000 men and women at seven correctional centers, nine conservation camps and two transitional housing facilities, corrections department spokesman Scott Kelley said. In a report Friday to the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee, deputy prisons chief John Borrowman called curing chronic hepatitis C before releasing inmates “an invaluable step toward (virus) elimination and successful community reintegration.”

New Hampshire

Franconia: A shelter located inside a 19th-century barn is planned to undergo an ambitious reconstruction. The Bancroft House has planned demolition and reconstruction of its Franconia property after decades of struggling financially, the Caledonian Record reports. The barn currently offers free room and board to residents, allowing them to save up the rent and deposits required for securing housing when they leave. “Currently the barn’s floor has collapsed, and critters have easy access to the interior, preventing us from accepting linens, towels, and anything with fabric or stuffing, which rodents will quickly use as nesting material,” says Kevin Johnson, a member of the shelter’s board of directors. The organization has spent the past few years trying to improve the nonprofit’s financial health, and demolition has proven to be the most cost-effective way to address the deteriorating structure.

New Jersey

Trenton: Wildlife officials are extending the second phase of the state’s black bear hunt because the harvest objectives for the year have not been met. The six-day hunt had concluded Saturday. But it will now resume Wednesday and continue through Saturday. Officials say 265 bears were harvested during the first phase of the hunt in October. Another 37 were culled last week, meaning 302 bruins were killed overall. New Jersey’s bear management policy mandates that the hunting season be extended by four days if less than 20% of tagged bears are killed. The harvest rate for this season stands at 14.7%. That harvest rate is deemed necessary to provide better ecological balance to the bear population and reduce the potential for bear-human encounters.

New Mexico

Las Cruces: New Mexico State University has been awarded a grant that will go toward building the only botanic garden within 100 miles of the southern New Mexico campus. The garden will be used to grow and study plants native to New Mexico and the Chihuahuan Desert that might attract bees and other pollinators. In addition to the research side, officials are aiming to create a garden that will be welcoming for visitors. The plan incorporates paths throughout the garden and a large gazebo for shade and outdoor events. Rather than straight rows of plants, it will be designed using a paisley pattern made up of four repetitions with the same plants in each plot. Officials say it will likely take several years for the garden to be completed.

New York

New York: Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed new legislation Tuesday that would close a loophole in state law that often prevents prosecutors from bringing rape charges when victims become drunk of their own volition. The governor wants to amend the state’s definition of who cannot legally consent to sexual activity. That currently does not include someone who remains conscious – but is too drunk to consent – after becoming voluntarily intoxicated. “While New York has some of the most aggressive laws in the nation when it comes to combating this insidious disease, a loophole in current law allows rapists to walk free and vacate their heinous crimes based on a legal technicality,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Our laws must protect the people of this state – not condone rape as a punishment for consuming alcohol.”

North Carolina

Monroe: An item found in the state in 1973 may be thousands of years old, according to the state’s office of archaeology. The 7-inch carved artifact found by a Monroe landowner is suspected to be a grooved adz, a tool used for smoothing or trimming wood, The Charlotte Observer reports. It could have been used to carve bowls, dugout canoes or other objects, according to a North Carolina Office of State Archaeology statement. The item’s age is unclear, but it may have been made about the time when many grooved axes were being made and used, according to the office’s 3D model and description of the item. That means it likely dates to the Late Archaic period between 3,000 and 1,000 B.C. Indigenous groups in the area over the years include the Catawba Nation and the Lumbee Tribe, according to the Observer.

North Dakota

Bismarck: A group seeking to legalize recreational marijuana in the state can begin circulating petitions to try to bring the issue to voters. Secretary of State Al Jaeger approved the format of the petition Monday. LegalizeND would need to gather and submit nearly 13,500 signatures by July 6 to get a proposed measure on November ballot. The proposed measure would allow any person over the age of 21 to use, possess and transport up to 2 ounces of prepared marijuana, but it would ban home growing of the plant. The group gathered enough signatures to put a legalization measure on the ballot in 2018, but that effort failed 41% to 59%.

Ohio

Columbus: The state unveiled its new Ohio School Safety Center on Tuesday as a panel that will advise that office begins its work. The new office under Ohio Homeland Security is intended to help educators and police prevent and address violence involving schools and students. It began its work months ago with a staff that included intelligence analysts scanning social media and websites for threats. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has said the center also will review school safety plans, help train school threat-assessment teams and share best practices. It will get input from a new working group whose 40-plus members were announced Monday. Among them are representatives of schools and school employees who work with students in crisis, as well as emergency responders, other state offices and organizations that promote children’s wellness.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: Gov. Kevin Stitt said Tuesday that he’s taking over gambling negotiations with Native American tribes from the attorney general and plans to hire his own out-of-state legal team. Stitt also announced at a news conference that he intends to offer tribes an extension that would allow casino gambling to continue after Jan. 1, when Stitt maintains the current compacts expire. “The language in this extension will allow each side who signs on to the extension to retain their legal positions,” Stitt said. “I want business to continue as usual while we resolve this dispute.” Attorney General Mike Hunter took over several months ago as the state’s lead negotiator with the tribes, but Stitt said Tuesday that he felt it was best to have “one unified voice.” He said his office is working on finalizing a contract with an out-of-state law firm to assist his office in negotiating with the tribes.

Oregon

Salem: Members of a homeless encampment are planning to stage a protest at the Capitol, possibly this week, after a citywide camping ban went into effect Monday. The plan was announced as city officials prepared to give the homeless 24 hours’ notice Tuesday to depart the camp at The ARCHES Project, a downtown social services provider. Those who refuse to leave could face civil citations. “We have nowhere to go now,” said Anthony Stevens, the camp’s unofficial spokesman. “We can’t go back to the parks, we can’t go to where we can hide, because they’re just going to come in, mow everything over and send us on our way.” The ban, passed at the start of December with a two-week delay, was aimed at clearing city sidewalks and other public property of homeless camps. City councilors OK’d the ban but aborted a proposal to prohibit sitting and lying on sidewalks.

Pennsylvania

Harrisburg: Policymakers announced a task force Monday that will take a broad look at the state’s juvenile justice system in hopes of improving the results it produces. Legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf announced formation of the group at a Capitol news conference, giving it nearly a year to issue recommendations about how to make people safer, improve accountability and save tax dollars. Its members will be appointed by Wolf, the court system and the Legislature. House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, said the concept is to use data and research to reconfigure the juvenile justice system to improve results. “I’d like to say there is no such thing as a bad kid,” said Sen. Mike Regan, R-York. “However, we all know kids do bad things.” Wolf said the project will build on clean slate legislation, reductions in the state prison inmate population, an end to automatic driver’s license suspensions and other adult justice reform changes in recent years.

Rhode Island

Providence: Critics of a state campaign finance law say it violates the First Amendment. The law requires the disclosure of the top five donors behind any campaign communication during state election cycles. In addition, it requires groups producing the communications to file public reports of any donor who gave more than $1,000. The law is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by conservative advocacy groups, though it also has critics on the left, The Boston Globe reports. Critics of the bill have argued that identifying donors encourages them not to participate in the democratic process. Supporters of the bill have argued that it will enlighten voters as to who is trying to influence their decision at the ballot.

South Carolina

Greenville: A prosecutor said he will decide by January how to handle convicted and sentenced to a year in prison for using his power and office to push a personal assistant to have sex with him. The other charges against ex-Greenville County Sheriff Will Lewis cover a range of additional misconduct including lying about conducting a background check on a deputy, giving someone a badge who was not qualified and intimidating his employees to try to keep them from cooperating with investigators. The evidence, including recorded phone calls, made the affair case the strongest to get a conviction, so prosecutors decided to try Lewis on two counts of misconduct in office first, Solicitor Kevin Brackett says.

South Dakota

Rapid City: A little boy who always dreamed of getting a train for Christmas finds himself on a magical adventure – with a distinctly Black Hills twist – in a new book starring the 1880 Train. “Marlon McDoogle’s Magical Night” introduces readers to 12-year-old Marlon, who’s waiting for a Christmas surprise his grandfather promised him. However, Marlon could never predict what would happen when his grandfather arrives on Christmas Eve and tells the boy, “We have lots of work to do!” The pair drives off in Grandpa McDoogle’s old truck for an unforgettable encounter with visitors from the North Pole and a wild ride aboard the 1880 Train. The book is the latest project from Sean Covel of Deadwood, the producer of films including “Napoleon Dynamite” and the author of “Porter the Hoarder” books that were recently distributed in elementary schools throughout South Dakota, the Rapid City Journal reports.

Tennessee

Memphis: A nonprofit group has handed over statues of Confederate leaders Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, two years after they were removed from public parks in the city, officials said Tuesday. City of Memphis legal officer Bruce McMullen said the statues of Forrest and Davis have been given to Forrest’s descendants and the Sons of Confederate Veterans “to display them as they wish.” The statues’ location was not disclosed, but they could be re-erected at some point. Memphis and the Confederate veterans’ group have battled in court over the statues’ removal from two city parks. Forrest’s equestrian statue, which stood over the grave of the Confederate general and his wife, and the monument of Davis, the Confederate president, were removed from the parks under the cover of night Dec. 20, 2017.

Texas

Houston: A 19-year-old man has been arrested after mercury was found spilled in the city, leading dozens of people to be decontaminated as a precaution, FBI said Monday. The agency’s Houston office said on Twitter that Christopher Lee Melder has been charged with burglary and unlawful disposal of hazardous material. He is also charged on an outstanding felony drug possession warrant. It wasn’t immediately known whether he had a lawyer, and authorities didn’t immediately say if the spills were intentional. City officials said, according to the FBI, that he broke into a lab at an undisclosed location and took the mercury. Someone called 911 about 11:15 a.m. Sunday to report a white liquid on the ground, Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena has said. Officials later determined less than a pint of mercury was spilled outside a Walmart, a Sonic Drive-In and gas station.

Utah

Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defended Tuesday how it uses and invests member donations after a former church employee charged in a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service that the faith had improperly built a $100 billion investment portfolio using member donations that are supposed to go to charitable causes. The vast majority of member donations are used to fund church operations, temples, missions, education and humanitarian needs, while another portion is “methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future,” church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement. The IRS complaint from a former church investment manager alleges the Utah-based faith sets aside about $1 billion a year from the $7 billion it receives annually in member donations, the Washington Post reports.

Vermont

Burlington: Voters in the city will have a say in March 2020 on whether legal noncitizens can vote in city elections. The City Council passed a resolution Monday to go to voters. The charter change would have to approved by the Legislature, WCAX-TV reports. Independent Burlington City Councilor Adam Roof had pushed the proposal, saying that all Burlington residents are affected by decisions made by the local government, regardless of their citizenship status, so they should be allowed to vote. A similar charter change in Montpelier stalled in the Senate during the last legislative session, after it was approved in the House.

Virginia

Arlington: A redevelopment plan for Amazon’s second headquarters has been unanimously approved by a county board, clearing the way for the company to transform 6.2 acres into twin 22-story buildings. The Arlington County Board voted 5-0 on Saturday to give Amazon final approval to began building the headquarters known as HQ2, news outlets report. HQ2 will be an approximately 2 million-square-foot mixed-use set of buildings that will house a day care facility for employees and other residents, ground-level retail shops, an underground parking garage and an indoor event space for county-sanctioned events. Amazon promised the county a $20 million commitment for affordable housing because the site was once zoned for residential use and because the company is adding 590,000 square feet of density to the area.

Washington

Spokane: The Spokane Tribe of Indians will finally be compensated after some of their ancestral homelands were flooded by the giant Grand Coulee Dam seven decades ago. The U.S. House on Monday approved and sent to President Donald Trump a bill that sets up yearly payments to the tribe based on a similar system for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, who also lost land when the dam and its reservoir were created. The Spokesman-Review reports the Spokane Tribe will receive $6 million a year for 10 years and $8 million a year after that. The money will come from revenues of the Bonneville Power Administration, which sells electricity generated by Grand Coulee and other federal dams in the Northwest. Trump is expected to sign the bill, the newspaper reports.

West Virginia

Point Pleasant: The site of a bridge that collapsed 52 years ago and killed dozens of people has been recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ recognition for Silver Bridge was announced Sunday during a ceremony where the suspension bridge once stood, news outlets report. The bridge named for the color of its aluminum paint crossed the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, and first opened to traffic in 1928. It collapsed Dec. 15, 1967. Eyewitnesses reported it took seconds for the bridge to fold like a deck of cards, sending dozens of cars and people into the water below. The National Transportation Safety Board later determined the collapse was caused by an eyebar that fractured due to stress corrosion and corrosion fatigue.

Wisconsin

Madison: The new leader of the state’s jobs agency is pledging to refuse to award state tax credits to technology manufacturing giant Foxconn for employees who don’t work in Wisconsin – but a new state audit shows the agency’s procedures leave the door open. For the second time in as many years, the nonpartisan Legislature Audit Bureau is warning the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to change its procedures to ensure taxpayers don’t end up paying for work that doesn’t benefit the state economy. Foxconn struck a deal in 2017 with state lawmakers to build a $10 billion LCD panel manufacturing facility in southeastern Wisconsin in exchange for $3 billion in state incentives. The project – once hailed by President Donald Trump as the “eighth wonder of world” – has since been scaled back, but the state’s contract with the company hasn’t changed.

Wyoming

Casper: The state Republican Party has passed a resolution opposing the addition of another vaccine to the requirements for children in school. The Department of Health is considering changes to vaccine rules that will be sent to Republican Gov. Mark Gordon for approval, The Casper Star-Tribune reports. The department added meningococcal vaccine to the required list of school inoculations. The disease can cause meningitis, a life-threatening illness that attacks the central nervous system. The GOP resolution said the party opposes adding the meningococcal vaccine to the required list due to statements from U.S. Supreme Court justices about a vaccine “regulatory void.” The resolution also referred to money paid by a national program to compensate those injured by vaccines and a Johns Hopkins University study saying medical or hospital error is a leading cause of U.S. deaths.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

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ashwinkumar1989 · 7 years ago

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I was hugely lucky to benefit from the 15-day leave policy of my company; which I made full use of – to plan a week-long trip to Chennai in order to meet my maternal grandparents, relatives and friends. As the title suggests, I took the legendary 09 Down Mail (now 11027 Mumbai Chennai Mail); a supercrawler which takes nearly 28 hours to cover the 1284 km from Mumbai, with a whopping 50 stops along the way. Since it departs Mumbai CSMT as late as 23 45, I had enough time for a full day of work; after which I could return home and have dinner as well.

On the day of the journey (17th Nov), I was in a festive mood – obviously because of a long train journey ahead; and also because it was the last working day of the week. After dinner, I left my home at 21 45 and took an auto to Vikhroli; wherein I boarded a local to CSMT, reaching by 22 55. After walking up to Platform 14 (where my train would be berthed), I had to wait for half an hour for the rake to arrive from the yard. My coach B1 was 5th from the engine, and was a 2013 make with plug points (for charging mobile phones and laptops) in all bays; and bio-toilets at one end. I had a trackside emergency window seat LB. From the adjacent PF 15, 11057 Mumbai Amritsar express departed. My ticket was checked (I was just asked to show my photo ID) before we departed at 23 53 (8 mins late). BTW: For all technical terms, abbreviations and station codes; refer the legend at the bottom – I haven’t covered ALL though!

As we slowly cleared the points, I observed KYN WDP4D 40277 adjacent to the rake of Tejas express. There was also UBL WDP4B 40015 on a siding and a train with a WCAM loco was pulling in – probably an almost 4 hours late running 11302 SBC CSMT Udyan express (as announcements had been made for it to arrive at 23 15!) . Nearby was Ajni WAP7 30296. We crossed a daytime CR train with an ALCO. A lot of people got in our (till then) almost empty coach at Dadar. Here I saw GOC WDP4B 40067 – probably the loco of 12052 Madgaon Dadar Jan Shatabdi. I soon went to sleep. I woke up a few times in between. The customary loco change (from electric to diesel) would have happened at Pune, and I guessed that we were now being hauled by an EMD; going by the pull, absence of the transition jerk (that happens at around 40 kmph in ALCOs) and LT horn. When I finally got out of my berth, it was 07 55; and we were stationary at a small station.

From the Side bay window, I observed a CR daytime train (probably 12158 Solapur Pune Hutatma express) come and make its stop. Then a CR train hauled by an EMD overtook us; after which Hutatma left. I brushed my teeth and then got out to have a look at our surroundings – we were at Kem, a scheduled stop but in a remote location with a thoroughly nondescript platform on the other side(where Hutatma was halted)!

The signal on the main line (in the middle) then turned green – our 2nd overtake! It was 12025 Pune Secunderabad Shatabdi with continuous and pure EMD honking from its GY WDP4D 40314 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PBWrlgPwqw . The MPS at this station is 80 kmph, hence even the Shatabdi had to be a bit restrained here. So two overtakes at a ghost town which is a scheduled stop – see the fate a 100+ years old train has to endure! As expected, our loco was an EMD (to note: it has a unique LT horn, that only an EMD loco can have – this was used mostly while running. Also, it has two HT horns – the one which was most frequently used for departures sounded rather like a traditional ALCO horn (baaam) ! ). We finally departed at 08 36, after a more than 40 mins long stop!

On the right, I observed doubling work in progress – there was a line next to us for a while. I could also see sleepers and ballast till Kurduwadi. There was a TSR of 80 kmph on the line to Pandharpur. We pulled into Kurduwadi at 08 55, 55 mins late. Here another train hauled by an EMD crossed us. We departed after 5 mins with a jerk. The EMD which was hauling us didn’t give a very smooth feel, in spite of the absence of transition jerk of the ALCO as mentioned earlier. Whenever we accelerated, decelerated, started or stopped; there was always a jerk. There was again a line next to us (indicating the doubling progress) till Wadsinge, where we crossed a WDG4D with a tanker train. At Madha, a train crossed us as we started leaving – a rare occurrence in a single line section.

I was hungry; so finished off the pack of Nachos (with Salsa) that I had purchased the previous night. I also had Bread cutlet from the pantry, as well as a cup of tea. There was more freight action, as we crossed a BCNA rake headed by an odd combination of an EMD and an ALCO at Vakav; and a triple ALCO headed tanker train at Angar. There was the usual scenery in the form of maize fields, few corn fields, meadows, bushes and shrubs; as well as cows grazing. We crossed the mostly dry (except for a few patches of stagnant water) Seena river. Then there was a pond and few coconut trees. The UP track was on a higher level before Bale, where we crossed a DEMU marked Pune-Baramati. What was it doing there? :O

A lot of residential buildings as well as slums marked the arrival of Solapur. We were stopped at the home signal for 8 mins, as 11014 CBE-LTT express (with 6 AC coaches) crossed us led by KJM WDP4D 40237. We finally pulled into the station at 10 25, 55 mins late. Here I saw Pune WDM3D 11357 and GOC WDG4 12784 with a BCNA freight. On the adjacent platform, 57659 Solapur Falaknuma passenger was headed by Pune WDM3D 11368 (this one interestingly has a horn similar to the ones found on most GTL ALCOs). Meanwhile, I managed to have a look at our power – to my surprise, it was a KYN WDP4D 40312. There was a huge crowd at the station, especially for the passenger.

Also, there was a lot of activity going on around our RMS coach. There was a moss-covered lake (where some people were bathing – looks like they didn’t have a choice! :O) and a lot of residential buildings till Tikekarwadi. We also crossed 57650 Wadi Solapur passenger with Pune WDM3A 18951R. Then there was some rural scenery till Hotgi, where I observed GTL WDM3D 11120 coupled to it’s shed-mate WDM3A 16701R – both were in the standard shed livery of orange and yellow. Then there was a factory in the distant right.

I also saw an old shepherd leading goats and an another leading cows. At Tilati, there was a man driving a Suzuki Access125 on the platform! :O I also observed IR markers instead of the usual CR ones. Then there was an unmetalled road parallel to us. I saw a salt pan somewhere in the distant right, along with usual scenery in the form of bushes and shrubs, and neem trees. At Akkalkot Road, there was a Plasser machine with a camping coach on which clothes were hung out to dry! :O On the other platform, there were a lot of schoolchildren loaded with their bags, On our platform, there was a lot of crowd; and many people deboarded.

There was a lot of construction work (probably doubling) going on at Nagansur – I saw L&T Tomatsu machines, excavators and bulldozers scooping up ballast. Then there was a lot of stone waste. Some slums, cottages and goats grazing signalled the arrival of Dudhani, where there was a BCNA rake led by twin GY WDM3Ds (rear 11123) – both were in the standard blue-white 3D livery. Just as we departed, the freight also departed at the same time in the opposite direction. I then dozed off for a while; the AC making me drowsy. At Gulbarga, I saw 57660 Falaknuma Gulbarga passenger with new Pune WDP4D 40447. The station has an MPS of 70 kmph.

The section between Gulbarga and Wadi is wired, which is a sad news for us diesel fans. Electrics are rapidly invading predominantly diesel bastions all over IR. Anyway, the UP and DOWN tracks in this section are separated by a huge distance and the UP track is on a higher level . There were a lot of eucalyptus trees, and I saw gangmen with characteristic orange shirts on the UP track. We pulled into Wadi at 13 15, now only 25 mins late thanks to the slack; which is present for all trains as they move over from CR to SCR territory and vice-versa here. Our EMD beast was detached; having put in a sterling effort. Time for the electric to assume the reins till Chennai.

By now, I have made a habit of splitting my blog posts into two parts – this one will be no different. Though it may result in you all having to wait for the second part, I am sure that the blog on the whole will be less boring thanks to my partition! 😀 Happy reading so far 😉

Technical Terms and Abbreviations

ALCO – American Locomotive Company (and a class of diesel engines of the 1960s)

EMD – Electromotive Diesel (and a modern class of diesel engines)

LT – Low Tone

HT – High Tone

MPS – Maximum Permissible Speed

DEMU – Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (or just diesel local train :P)

RMS – Railway Mail Service

TSR – Temporary Speed Restriction

Station Codes

CSMT – Chatrapathi Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (Earlier without the ‘Maharaj’ :P)

KYN – Kalyan

UBL – Hubli

SBC – Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Bengaluru (or just Bangalore City :P)

GOC – Golden Rock (Ponmalai)

GY – Gooty

CBE – Coimbatore

LTT – Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (Kurla Terminus)

KJM – Krishnarajapuram (KR Puram)

GTL – Guntakal

A Two Night Sojourn to Chennai – Part 1 I was hugely lucky to benefit from the 15-day leave policy of my company; which I made full use of - to plan a week-long trip to Chennai in order to meet my maternal grandparents, relatives and friends.

#11027 #Indian Railways #IRFCA #Mumbai Chennai Mail #railfanning #WDP4D

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