Category Archives: First World Problems

This is the most blatant media ripoff of all time.

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This is not Genshin Impact.

Yesterday, I finally got around to playing Wuthering Waves. After everything that I’ve been hearing about it, I was expecting my socks to be blown clear into the next county, and to have been lost in the chocolatey deeps of the most engaging gameplay to have ever been developed by the molecular gastronomists of interactive entertainment.

What I got instead was a Genshin Impact ROM hack.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad game. But if you think Wuthering Waves (WW) is a good game, you might have the same opinion of Genshin Impact. They’re basically the same game.

The controls, the HUD, the basic mechanics, they’re all lifted 1:1 from Genshin Impact. You’re wandering an open world in the same way, you’re switching between characters in the same way, and there’s a similar system to that of elemental skills and elemental bursts.

Even the gliding is the same. But at this point, are you really surprised? There are even monoliths similar in color to Genshin’s teleport points, for how much Kuro Games cares about having its own voice.

Supposedly, at some point, you get to double jump or run up walls. Okay? And this is supposed to make WW any less of a blatant ripoff?

Imagine if I were to take the classic Super Mario Bros., change the appearance of the assets, change the level layout, and then gave the plumber a double jump. Would I really be able to proclaim that I’ve made the better game, as though my achievement in game design would be one in which I could take true pride?

Also, the “Traveler” in WW is called “Rover”. Thankfully, “Drifter” wasn’t already taken, so some other enterprising Asian game developers can make their own Genshin ROM hack.

It occurs to me now that I was way too hard on Digimon for its similarities to Pokémon. While it’s true that Digimon bears similarities to Pokémon, at least Digimon tried to be different enough to be distinct. Wuthering Waves is so similar to Genshin Impact that I wouldn’t be surprised to find Genshin assets after datamining Wuthering Waves.

Also, the characters in WW don’t have any personality from what I’ve seen so far. Remember Amber and Kaeya from Genshin? They practically oozed personality. Even the Traveler had a personality. And voice acting that was actually emotive.

If you’ve played WW, don’t tell me to play more. Instead, tell me about a character you like, and why they were interesting. Convince me to care, or at least do a better job than WW. I want to care. But I don’t. I don’t care what the Rover’s deal is. The woman who held her hand at the beginning just didn’t inspire warmth, though the game seemed to try. The women who found him at the outset were as uncanny as the nymphs from Hylas and the Nymphs, attractive without question, but uncanny in the same way.

But you know what? Maybe WW just doesn’t suit my tastes. Maybe I prefer that anime-style characters be colorful and expressive. If you’re the kind of guy who has been spending the last couple decades trying to convince Nintendo fans that great graphics means that a game’s full color palette is gradients of grey and brown with intermittent laser-pointer red and gun muzzle flare, and that you have more fun playing the same first person shooter every year, then perhaps we’ve reached an impasse, and WW might just be dreary enough for you.

I know that it seems like I’m not giving WW a chance, but I gave it a try. When I see that WW has as many fans as it does, it occurs to me that perhaps I’m a little strange because I give a care whether the game I’m playing is a product of creativity or a blatant ripoff of someone else’s work.

But if you’ve plagiarized your way through college, I have a game recommendation for you.

Another Opinion About the UHC CEO Assassination

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When I heard that the CEO of United Healthcare was assassinated, it was easy to guess what motivated the killer.

Because I, like many others, have endured the hell of having the same claim repeatedly denied which was explicitly covered under a health insurance company’s policy, it was easy to imagine that something like this would happen. And it did.

My opinion is going to be a safe one. While it’s tragic that a life was lost, I don’t feel strong pity for the victim. Also, Luigi Mangione is a fulminating fuck belch.

Basic observations aside, I want to point out the amusing effect that Luigi’s “manifesto” has had on political commentators: they’re playing hot potato with him. The right is focusing down on his leftist-sounding language to try to make him out to be a disgruntled left-winger, while those who look at the long lines of Canadian clinics with throbbing chubbies are trying to make him out to be a right-winger.

Both sides are playing directly into his hands. It’s obvious that Mangione’s missive was carefully crafted to keep him and his cause in the conversation. It’s infuriating to contemplate, but this demonstrates just how intelligent the guy really was.

Just not intelligent enough to avoid what’s awaiting him. Prison is a terrible place to be famous. If Luigi thinks his back hurts now, he’s really going to be in for it when he gets punched right in the back by the other prisoners.

A person’s actions play a significant role in determining their outcome.

I’ve read Mangione’s so-called manifesto, which reads as a justification for his actions. While his thinking may be flawed, I can point out that, if he’s forthcoming about the experiences he expressed, it’s little wonder he went insane. Those kinds of experiences could drive even a stoic mind to madness.

And it’s quite evident that he is insane. People mistakenly believe that an intelligent person cannot be insane. But they can be. Another example is Ted Kaczynski, whom Mangione looked up to. When an intelligent person goes insane, their own substantial intelligence becomes weaponized against their own mind.

I held off on writing about Mangione after seeing his auto-post on YouTube, which posted after he was arrested. YouTube has the option to schedule a video post, which was how Mangione’s YouTube channel posted an update after his arrest. It was like a kind of “dead-man’s hand”, with Luigi likely having the plan of pushing the date for his post back until he could no longer access his account.

His video hinted that something would be revealed on Wednesday, but that day came and went with no apparent reveal, perhaps because his channel was taken down.

As for what will happen to Mangione in the future, I don’t know. Putting aside other prisoners punching him in the back, he’s probably going to have a voyeur at all times.

As for the health insurance industry, I can suggest this to improve the situation: that a health insurance company gets a fine each time they deny a claim that is covered by their policy, with the fine proportional to the claim’s monetary value, with repeated denials of the same claim resulting in cumulative fines.

It’s a start, right? But any such bill would probably be lobbied out of existence by the healthcare industry. So, I don’t have much expectation that health insurance will change for the better anytime soon.

But Mangione’s trial is probably going to be entertaining.

A bit of advice to Niantic about Pokémon Go

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From Serebii on X

Niantic has just announced a rewards roadmap for Pokémon Go. Just hearing the name Reward Road, you might get the idea that it’s a new way to reward participation in the game.

Nope. It’s just a way to encourage whaling.

Basically, the more players spend in the shop, the more points that players get. And, to make it clear, it’s not enough to spend the in-game currency of PokéCoins in the shop, the Reward Road feature rewards spending real-life money in the shop, for in-game assets like PokéCoins.

I don’t claim to know the particulars of how Pokémon Go is monetized outside of its in-game shop, but I would have guessed that Niantic had ways of profiting just from the fact that FTP players played the game. But if they’re trying to goad people into spending more money with something as blatant as Reward Road, then things are probably not going well.

I don’t expect Niantic to take my advice, considering that I’m just a guy who doesn’t have a deep understanding of how mobile games profit, and especially considering how obvious it is that Niantic hates the people who played their games. But assuming that they give a shit, then this is something that they may benefit from having gotten out there: People might want to spend money in Pokémon Go if Pokémon Go was actually fun to play.

And the fastest way to achieve this would be to make Pokémon Go a quality experience.

I honestly have no idea what Niantic’s philosophy is when it comes to making mobile games. But at this point, it’s apparent that it involves continually making poorly implemented features that sometimes don’t even work properly, and ignoring all player feedback as they move on to the next poorly implemented feature. And if anything gets rapidly corrected, it’s usually an oversight which has the potential to actually benefit the players who take advantage of them.

Even now, years into the game, players get falsely-accused of driving while playing, with the only way to dismiss the prompt being to tap “I’m a passenger”, despite merely sitting in their living room. Why is this even still a thing? Niantic should have figured out that GPS drift occurs, even when a person is standing still.

And while I’m complaining about Niantic, we can talk about the obvious honeypot events that are designed to catch cheaters, but can result in bans for players who somehow find a way to participate in line with the rules. Like with the recent Gigantamax raids, which can only be participated in in-person, but required something to the tune of three dozen players with optimized teams to even stand a chance of successfully completing.

How is that in any way reasonable?

And among the players who somehow got a raid train together to complete some of these raids, some of them have gotten their accounts banned. And for what? Getting a few dozen other players together to get the raids to actually work out? What a blatant disrespect of the real-life efforts of some of the most dedicated players!

And that’s just what grinds my gears. This isn’t just some game that players are sitting down and playing while completely stationary, Pokémon Go encourages players to “get up and Go!”. If a player goes outside and participates in a raid for an opportunity to catch a Raichu, it would be infuriating if the same player was banned after immediately going outside and walking a mile to get to the raid before it expires.

If Niantic can’t respect the time and real-life efforts of its players, then they’re not the company that should be running a game like Pokémon Go.

I really don’t have much expectation that Niantic is going to change for the better anytime soon, even under duress. It’s because of this that I think it would be better if The Pokémon Company were to somehow reclaim its IP, so that Niantic couldn’t further use it.

When it comes down to it, Niantic never learned to make a decent mobile game, they just benefited from getting their hands on an absurdly popular IP.

The McDonald’s collaboration with Genshin was a huge failure.

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Hospital food has more personality.

I had just started playing Genshin Impact months ago. And upon finding out that there was a collaboration event involving McDonald’s, I was psyched.

Sure, McDonald’s is well outside of my typical menu. I care about my health, to the point that people are telling me that I could be a little heavier. But when I found out that I could get a special glider for my Genshin account, as well as a special in-game recipe, I was ready to remedy a problem that most people would be happy to have.

But, you saw the title. You know how it went.

The deal is, you download the McDonald’s app, and place an order for a couple Genshin-themed items on the menu. Then, you get a code to copy and paste that grants in-game items, and you could pick up your Genshin-themed meal and/or apple pie, and, if you’re lucky, you meet other fanatics who play this game, and fire it off over your favorite character, and why Sigewinne is totally underrated and you don’t have to be a psychopath to like her.

That was the deal. And it fell through.

First, and most catastrophically, I didn’t get a code. I checked my email, where I expected it to arrive, and then the spam folder. Nothing. I checked again after I picked up the meal, but still, nothing.

Before continuing, I’ll point out that rising fast food prices aren’t just bluster that you see on social media. Twelve dollars for a medium chicken sandwich meal that includes an apple pie? I heard that the overhead costs of keeping a business running (including energy, property taxes, and wages) are going up, but I wasn’t aware just how badly this impacted the cost of fast food. Just a few meals at McDonald’s, and you’ll have spent enough that you could have instead guaranteed a 5* on a limited banner.

But then there’s the meal. There was nothing Genshin-themed about it. The apple pie box was supposed to feature Kazuha, with his normally-soft features in battle-ready stern determination. Nope. Just the ordinary box.

As it turns out, you had to have emails enabled from the app to get the code. Which I didn’t. I was being punished for my own smart practices when using cell phone apps.

Because I figured this out in the dining area, I toggled on the switch for emails, then placed an order for just the Genshin apple pie. Minutes later, I got another apple pie, also in a regular non-Genshin box. Still no code.

And, to top it off, I didn’t even get my soda.

Having subjected the dubious calorie sources in the meal to my metabolic processes, I began to have a crisis. What was I even doing with my life? I decided to buy fast food, which I seldom do, because I wanted digital assets that don’t really exist for some cell phone game, and didn’t even get them. This game, enjoyed by millions, isn’t something a soulless fast food chain cares enough about to amuse you with a code and printed cardboard.

When I got home and checked Reddit, I discovered that I’m not the only one who had this experience. Many other players out there placed their orders, doing everything right, but still didn’t get their codes. Some players did, but for some reason, many of us didn’t.

From what I could glean, McDonald’s was actually manually sending the emails with the codes. If that’s the case, what’s up with that? I’d have imagined that it would have been an automated process: just place the order, and the code would be automatically sent to your inbox. Makes sense, right?

But no, instead it sounds like it’s more like place an order, and some untrained, unskilled worker at a data center (who probably hates Genshin Impact by this point) has to copy and paste an unused code into an otherwise manually generated email, on top of the many that he’s been swamped with in the few hours since the promotion began.

I can believe that the incompetence is McDonald’s fault. It stands entirely to reason. Mihoyo made a mobile game that’s relatively high production value, and played by millions of players, with frequent promotions that usually go off without a hitch. They’re software programmers and engineers, which are usually in the ballpark of SD+1, at least. While a bright person could end up working at McDonald’s for one circumstance or another, that’s usually the place where a person ends up if they can’t get hired anywhere else. (I spent a few months there. It was my first job, at the time, no one else would hire me.)

So, that’s it. I didn’t even get a Happy Meal toy. You know, a little something to set on my desk and sometimes look at before it eventually takes its place at a landfill, like so many other pieces of merchandise that are real enough to do so.

Maybe I’m making a big deal out of what is really just a mundane disappointment, like I can really expect McDonald’s to give a shit about those of us who enjoy things that aren’t McDonald’s.

To put things into perspective, a bunch of Hezbollah goons had their nuts blown off when their pagers exploded, so it’s not like I’m the saddest boy in the world, today.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Maybe I’m the asshole. Not the worst one, but it might actually be that McDonald’s is not to blame.

I decided to check eBay, and this is what I found:

See the second listing, where it says “116 sold”? That kind of seller is why people like me who want the wings and the apple pie recipe for our Genshin accounts can’t get them, because the system is swamped by scalpers who are buying $12 meals by the dozens, then selling the codes off for a hefty profit each. Genshin almost had a pretty cool promotion, but then a bunch of shitheads ruined it.

We might be missing out on codes, but at least a bunch of scalpers could afford to do the line, tonight. We might be pissed, but they don’t care, because they’re getting high.

Looks like Mihoyo might have to do something other than redemption codes for similar promotions.

They’re late to the party.

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It’s becoming increasingly evident that DEI is coming for anime, and it’s coming at a time when voice actors in anime-style games like Genshin Impact are threatening boycotts and meaningless online petitions (but I repeat myself), and manga localizers are crying foul because they could be replaced with AI.

Okay then, I’ll throw my opinion out there. DEI is really late to the party. I mean, really, really late. The party’s already over, everyone has already thrown up, and no one would have been interested in the Bud Light that DEI brought with them, anyway.

The anime boom is over. It has been, for a long time. Prior to it, it was the nineties, anime was really hard to get ahold of for cheap, because it had to cross an ocean to get to us, and translating it to your native language was not easy. Then the internet happened, and at that point, decades of anime started flooding over, and a person could easily go to Suncoast (remember Suncoast?) and pick up volumes of Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, Bleach, and lots of less mainstream stuff that’s been in Japan for decades.

That was the west’s anime boom. But then, releases of new anime slowed to the point of what was new to Japan. And, as it so happens, anime is something of a fringe hobby in Japan. So, in the west, anime is starting to settle down as a niche entertainment option, though not as niche as it was in the eighties.

I get that DEI might be going for anime to spite people like me who has long considered it an alternative to the polluted bullshit that western entertainment like Disney has become. I understand just how fun it can be to put a disproportionate amount of resources into what is basically just spite. It can be a fun sport. But oftentimes, it’s just a cynic’s quest. And in this case, the party is pretty much already over.

And what’s more, alternatives will pretty much always exist, and people will always tend more towards entertainment options that will take them away from the world’s problems, rather than remind them of those who are only making things worse.

At this point, there’s pretty much just one manga and one anime that I have much interest in. And if a bunch of astroturfed localizers set out to ruin it, then I’ll just seek out fan translations and perhaps even the Japanese versions, as they’ll be much closer to what the author originally intended when they wrote their story.

Even though I’m not Japanese, I understand that it’s the tendency of Japanese audiences to care more about the author’s original intent, than the agenda of a committee with creative control over the IP. And when you understand that, it will make intuitive sense to you why DEI is going to fail miserably to gain a foothold in Japan. When it comes down to it, while an American audience might not give much thought to the person or people who wrote The Powerpuff Girls, those who read Naruto are likely to care whether it’s the Naruto that Masashi Kishimoto wrote. Just the same, if creative control of Made In Abyss were taken away from Akihito Tsukushi, it’s easy to imagine that most of its fans would be done with it.

If the DEI investors were aware of this, and they’re probably not, then it’s hard to imagine that there’s anything behind their willingness to go after anime and manga than an attempt to destroy it.

But at this point, it’s too late for that. The best manga that has been made over the course of decades has already been localized, most of it about two decades ago. The boom is pretty much over, and the main stuff to go after would be new stuff that trickles out of what was a fringe industry in its home country.

Alternatives will always exist, and they will always be simple for people to find. And it will be because of the connected nature of today’s world, which was what caused the anime boom, to begin with.

When it comes down to it, the general population has a trait that the ideological dead-enders of DEI lack, and that’s the adaptability of mind that enables us to thrive in changing circumstances. The world is changing, fads come and go, and that’s exactly why DEI will eventually be a byword of times gone by.

The candy crusaders need to take it easy.

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It seems like some people were upset that a popular candy had its name changed from “Easter Eggs” to “Gesture Eggs”. This is the impression that one would get from this headline from Not The Bee:

Stores pull Cadbury “Gesture Eggs” promo after some genius removed the word “Easter” and caused public outcry

I think we can appreciate how ridiculous “Gesture Eggs” sounds, since that conjures up the image of a person innocently cracking open one of those Kinder Eggs or whatever, and finding a plastic hand giving the middle finger.

Let’s see what Not The Bee has to say about it in their opening paragraph:

Back in 2022, chocolate giant Cadbury was embroiled in a scandal involving reports of shocking child labor abuses in their supply chain.

The last time a well has been so thoroughly poisoned, a village died.

If one were to go just on the tone of Not The Bee’s article, one would think that a candy company is making a deliberate attempt to distance itself from Christianity by removing references to a pagan holiday that’s been thinly coated with Biblical-sounding names and concepts. And people are peeved, because they like that holiday that was the reason they got candy as kids.

The reality of the matter is far more mundane.

The signage was limited to just a few locations in a chain, which was independent of the will of corporate headquarters, which quickly reversed the decision. It’s true that Not The Bee stated as much in their article, but by placing such important modifying information late in their article, they’re more likely to farm rage-clicks from angry Christians who are more upset about signage used to refer to some candy than a bunch of African Christians who are being killed by a bunch of Muslims who hate that any religion besides their own exists.

Here’s the marketing, as shared by The Daily Mail, tell me whether you notice anything about it:

No, not that the candy has become ridiculously expensive. To help you out, here’s a pic of another product from the same line:

Still don’t see it? Neither do I. That’s because the product isn’t called an “Easter Egg”, that’s a Cadbury Creme Egg. The word “Easter” doesn’t even appear on the packaging. The closest that the candy comes to having anything to do with Easter is that Easter is used to market it. Which pretty much any candy can be.

Saying that Cadbury Creme Eggs have anything to do with Easter because Easter is used to market it is like saying that PlayStation has something to do with Christmas because Christmas is used to market PlayStation.

People threw a hissy fit because “Easter” didn’t appear in marketing for a product that doesn’t even acknowledge the observance by name, like the hypothetical box of Matzah that doesn’t mention Passover.

Did you know that in the religious world, there are problems that actually matter? For example, that Muslims are clashing with Christians. Or that sexual abuse is still a scandal in religious denominations. Or that Muslims are clashing with Jews. Or that Scientology is a predatory cult. Or that Muslims are clashing with Hindus. Or that the current Pope is compromising Catholicism with his left-wing stances. Or that Muslims… let’s just say that they don’t play well with others.

But throwing a hissy-fit over signage displayed with candy? Is this how one inspires confidence in their religion?

Firing Off On Palworld

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Earlier this month, Palworld dropped on Steam, and since then, it’s raised some eyebrows with its resemblance to Pokémon.

I haven’t yet played Palworld, and maybe I’ll give it a try later on. It does look intriguing. This article is little more than my own opinion about the drama surrounding it, not my impression on the game.

In the Pokémon community, this game has stirred up some strong feelings, with many taking a side between supporting the game or not.

As I see it, Pokémon could use a bit of competition to stir them to improve. There have been issues surrounding Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, largely concerning performance issues, with some complaints being petty, and some being well-founded.

One of the matters concerning Palworld that has caught player’s attentions is that some of the pal characters bear a strong resemblance to Pokémon. As I see it, games like Digimon and Monster Rancher have done a lot more to ape Pokemon’s style, yet those games aren’t something that The Pokémon Company has had any issue with.

But there’s evidently something about Palworld that got their attention, as indicated by the following statement:

While one may interpret this as meaning that Pokémon is going to go after Palworld, what it comes down to is that it’s caught their attention, and they’re looking into it. Their statement that they didn’t grant the use of Pokémon assets is not a definitive statement that that Pokémon assets were used. It’s something that they intend to look into, and as the last sentence indicates, they intend to defend their copyright, if necessary.

And it might not come to that, because even though comparisons can be made between certain Pokémon and Palworld’s pals, they may be sufficiently different that no action would be needed to protect GameFreak’s copyright.

Remember that if a company doesn’t defend its copyright, they risk losing that copyright, hence Nintendo’s interest in defending Pokémon, which is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history.

Based on what I’ve seen, Palworld doesn’t infringe on GameFreak’s copyright, it merely imitates it, which wasn’t an issue when it came to similar games like Yokai Watch.

There have been comparisons made between the Pokémon characters and Pal World pals, and you may have seen some. Some of those comparisons may have been misleading, as one source of some more popular comparisons has admitted to scaling some Pal World models to make them more closely resemble Pokémon.

Having said that, I’m aware that there is something about Palworld that stirs up strong feelings among Pokémon fans, one way or another, particularly among those employed at Nintendo. There’s something about arming little critters with guns and sometimes eating them that goes against the established tone of the Pokémon franchise, and most games that plainly took inspiration from Pokémon. But that difference in tone can possibly be used to make the case that Palworld is sufficiently transformative to avoid legal trouble.

Another point of contention that has come up is that the developer of Palworld, Pocket Pair, has developed assets using AI. As I see it, this isn’t a big deal, as this is the direction that game development has been going in. In fact, as I see it, people in the future will be able to make their own games at home for personal use, by simple use of prompts. Imagine arriving home from work after a hard day, and asking your computer, “I’d like a dungeon-crawler JRPG.” Or, instead: “I liked yesterday’s game. I’d like to pick up where I left off.”

AI is already changing the way games are made, and the way things are looking, there’s more change to come. At some point, game design will become so trivial that you could just do it yourself.

While there has been many amusing takes on Palworld, you haven’t read the worst one unless you’ve seen PETA’s take:

However the situation develops, it’s already clear who the biggest losers are.

I could hardly focus.

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Forgoing a decent attempt at an intro, here’s the madness:

Honestly, I struggled to keep focus. When someone starts spouting metaphysical pseudo-spiritual psycho-babble in the same way that Chris Chan has been lately, I have a hard time staying engaged. At that point, I just assume that they don’t have anything of value to say, and my mind drifts to something I’d rather be doing. Such as playing a video game, or modifying a recipe, or even something as normally dull as watching some soap opera that my mom liked, which goes to show how long the list of things I’d rather be doing can get when I’m stretching what politeness that I have to wait for them to just finish talking so I can say, “Hey, that was something. Thanks for sharing that. Bye.”

At some point, I caught that she didn’t quite understand how to explain the gender she felt like, which sounds like she’s under-qualified to do as much as exercise simple metacognition. Because of this, I wonder whether she was really successfully stringing her sentences together, or my mind was somehow filling in the blanks in a hallucinatory manner, similar to how holes in a wall can disappear when they are covered by a blind spot.

Now, here I am pondering whether this wonder of a person can so much as operate a microwave unsupervised, or whether this task is delegated to a handler in an institution. In either case, it’s clear that she’s not wanting for something to eat.

What I did get out of the video is that some woman out there doesn’t know how to explain a gender that’s a product of her own imagination, but she’s so cocksure that she’ll assert that she still knows it better than you.

Whatever drugs she’s taking to make her happy, they seem to be working a treat.

Goofball Finds Support For Israel In Fast Food Wrapper

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You’re not ready for this. You’re about to laugh the hardest you have laughed in a long time.

You sitting down? Here we go:

As much as I’d like to believe that this was all some act, I know that people like this actually exist. When you’ve had a job in which you have to interact with the public, you see many different kinds.

But this is truly special. Here’s the kind of person who listens to a televangelist, and thinks that the sermon had some kind of special, hidden message that was intended specifically for them. The kind of person who makes financial decisions based on horoscopes, and names their kids after the first name they hear after turning on the radio, because fuck any chance they could have at living normal.

“Wow. What does that resemble?” Could it be the McDonald’s logo? A helpful reminder of where you just spent your money? The icon to blame for making you fat?

The moment you heard the woman say, “This is in support of Israel.”, you couldn’t see the guy’s face, but you could hear it drop. I know that wage slaves are under enormous pressure to maintain a veneer of professionalism, but I can’t imagine any manager out there would fault him for saying, “Are you serious?”

But you heard her tone, she was as totes cereal as a sack of processed grains at the supermarket.

What are the odds that two basic colors used on fast food packaging could coincidentally resemble the colors of Israel’s flag? So low that, according to the people who put watermelons in their X posts because the colors are similar to the colors of the Palestinian flag, it couldn’t be a coincidence, and must necessarily indicate support for the state of Israel.

I get the fact that stupid people believe in synchronicities to help them cope with the fact that they’re going to die someday, and that there is nothing special about them, but it’s time to keep it real: belief in synchronicities can destroy your mind. And the above video has shown us a great example.

Dude No Longer Has Free Wi-Fi, Complains To Neighbor

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Sometimes, a guy with a screw loose will come right up to you, and surprise you with what they say. This is one of those times.

A man visited his neighbor complaining that he put a password on his wi-fi, so he can no longer use it for free. And the exchange was caught on video:

I can say first of all that, depending on where you live, it may be illegal to access your neighbors wi-fi without their permission, even if it’s not password-protected.

Second, while it’s great that the man learned well enough to put a password on his wi-fi, he’s probably got some double-digit IQ datasec practices if it took him two years to figure out that that it’s a good idea, and only arrived at that determination after hearing advice. Wi-fi has been widespread for about two decades, and its best practices have been pretty well-established. I can imagine that he’s still yet to use a VPN or ad-blocking software.

Now, let’s get to the heart of the issue at hand. A man has been using another man’s wi-fi for free, without permission. And he’s been doing it for so long and justifying it with his own flawed reasoning that when he suddenly had to do without, he feels slighted.

So, what does he do? He goes up to his neighbor and complains about it, and two worlds collide.

I can only imagine what the guy has been doing with his neighbor’s wi-fi that caused it to slow down to the point that it’s become noticeable. Perhaps he’s been downloading the latest Final Fantasy games in a handful of European languages, not because he has any intention of actually playing them, but because if he’s going to do something so illegal, he may as well go for the gusto.

Of course, we can appreciate just how goofy a guy is that he doesn’t seem to understand how wi-fi works. He knows well enough how to hook up to an unsecured network, but seems to think it’s location based, as though one device on a network can’t tax bandwidth if it’s used outside of one’s personal property. I get the idea that the guy may have had some help connecting.

While the guy suggests a couple solutions to his new lack of access to wi-fi, I have a better one: stop being so cheap and get your own ISP.