Rundown (7/13/2025) Data Storage Wars

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Data Storage Wars
• Microsoft is Worse Than I Thought… (These Layoffs Get Worse and Worse!)
• Natalie Talks About Politics – July 2025 Ver. (I Had to Research the Big ‘Beautiful’ Bill for Work)
• Natalie Tried Umamusume (To See What the Hubbub Is!)
• The Subnautica 2 Situation is Exploitative Bonkers (Krafton Refuses to Follow Contract and Issue $250 Million Payout)
• The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is Getting DLC (Kodaka Wants The Game to Last 10 Years!)
• Progress Report 2025-07-13

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Data Storage Wars

I have been running into a problem over the past few years, and that problem is data storage. As I have alluded to many times before, I have a mighty collection of games, ROMs, images, and comics that I have amassed systematically for a good decade at this point. If I read a comic I like, I download it. If I see a drawing from an artist I like, I download it. See an older game or hack that I think is neat or interesting? Downloaded. All my music? Downloaded. All the software I regularly use outside of work? You know I’m gonna download it and not rely on the damn cloud. I am not crazy enough to save videos or articles, but I am a digital hoarder.

I probably wind up eating something crazy like one gigabyte a week with all the stuff I store, and anybody who has a hard drive to manage will tell you that is not really sustainable without a shitload of storage. Currently, my drive set up is this. A 500 GB main NVMe drive that my OS and software are installed on. A 1 TB SATA drive that I store all my music and images on. And a 4 TB NVMe drive that I use to store videos, games, and miscellaneous stuff. These are my three main drives.

This is a lopsided, arbitrary, set-up that was the result of me buying a PC at a less than stellar time (September 2021) and getting a discounted ‘good enough’ pre-built machine. The 4 TB NVMe was a 2023 addition, and while I thought it would last me for years, I am gradually realizing that my data hoarder tendencies and lust for efficiency are interfering with that goal. In part because I not only want access to fast, local, PC storage, but I also want to make a backup of everything.

I have delved into so many niches that some of the stuff I have on my computer literally cannot be found elsewhere on the internet, and if I lost it, it would be gone forever. So I have been using a 4 TB external HDD that I use as a backup drive, copying over most of my contents from my main drives. Just not particularly large ones that can be readily redownloaded. Like Steam games or ROMs.

Now, I have two solutions here. Earlier this year, I built a small NAS with two 4 TB NVMe drives, one of which is for redundancy. And I bought an 8 TB mechanical hard disc drive for even more storage. Since acquiring these two doodads, mostly out of tariff-based FOMO and panic buying, I have refrained from using them much. The 8 TB HDD is only ever meant to be a backup. But seeing as how I already have a backup of all of my main data, I don’t really need it yet, and I am letting the hard drive sit idly with barely anything in it.

I originally planned on using the NAS for a main form of storage, as it has 3.6 TB of RAID 1 mirrored storage. It made sense when I was trying to set up the NAS, but I did not expect it to be so slow. Connecting it directly to my modem/router hybrid thing with gigabit ethernet cables leaves me with a maximum read speed of about 70 MB/s, and that number is far less when transferring a lot of small files. And I have nearly 3 million files on my system. If I were just archiving older stuff, such as that Dragalia Lost data manifest I downloaded three years ago, that would not be a problem. But it is when I have a library of over 9,000 songs and like 340,000 images.

However, even if my server was lightning fast, I would still have an access issue. You see, I have long-since given up on Windows Search and began using a third-party bit of tech called Everything, which indexes all my file names and lets me immediately search them. It is so much better than navigating a web of hierarchies, and while I am pretty organized, with 3 million files, it’s easier to just yell the name or a thing and have it appear before me. Or just help me see if I have it. Did I store this manga under the artist, under manga, under erotica, or leave it in my MANGDADUMP folder?

Furthermore, I think I need to come up with a new way to back up my data. I have been using the built-in Windows 7 backup legacy feature— which Microsoft is trying to replace with a cloud backup. However, I am becoming less than trustful of all things Microsoft, and would rather save my data in a less compressed, less efficient, manner if it makes it easier to access. I’m sure there are third-party utilities out there, but I would need to find a good one.

…And I also want to come up with a solution that would work if I need to leave my PC behind when fleeing the country and can readily use on a laptop with a mere 1 TB of internal storage. Saying ‘oh, use your external drive’ sounds smart, but if I am using my backup as my main drive, then I need a new backup. There always needs to be redundancy! Saying ‘bring my server with me’ makes sense. I’d just need to get a USB-C or Thunderbolt hub with an ethernet port. Except everything would be slower and harder to search.

Cloud storage is an option— it’s something my mother and boss keep assuming I use, despite repeatedly telling them I don’t. However, do I trust any big tech organization to respect my privacy and not look at my files— because I have some fucked up shit on my drives? Hell no! You can’t even keep tax returns in Google Drive these days, because their stupid AI will try reading them. I know Grok, or to use her Christian name, MechaHitler, has everybody’s social security number at this point, but fuck off with that. I don’t want to say ‘not my hardware, not my data’ like a crypto bro would say ‘not your wallet, not your Bitcoin.’ But I agree with the sentiment in this instance.

(Should I explain the MechaHitler thing for future historians? …Nah. Figure it out, hosers!)

So, how do I address this problem? Well, one solution is to use the three backup methods I have access to facilitate three backups. Which is excessive, if not stupid, but not a terrible idea either. However, continuing to update the backups will be a chore, as it’s also a chore just maintaining all of my files. Bluesky, Patreon, DeviantArt, and Pixiv are just streams of artwork that need to be downloaded and filed away, saved and maintained because you never know when something is going to be erased and lost forever. And I have already lost too much artwork by not saving it!

It’s not hard by any means, but the quantity and repetition of the work has really been eating into me as of late, as it feels like I am just saving things for the sake of saving them. Because I am. I would like to find a way to automate this, to organize things procedurally and to arrange things in a way that didn’t require manual filing, but there really isn’t a good way to do that. The best I came up with is just storing files in a big SORTME folder and using explorer search to group them together and move them in bulk.

This is better than manually filing them every dang time, but it also involves slight amounts of existential dread as I realize how big my files are. How sloppy, wet, and unorganized specific folders are, and how deep the hierarchies and names go. Hundreds of images pile up in folders, and while they should be filed away into subdirectories, that just introduces a new bucket to account for, and file path character limit issues. Because some file names, especially from works I download via Pixiv, are LONG!

How do I fix this? I don’t know!

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Microsoft is Worse Than I Thought…
(These Layoffs Get Worse and Worse!)

Last week, I went off on Microsoft for their callous, sudden, and downright cruel firing of over 9,000 workers. For demolishing any confidence one could have in a 25-year-old project that was created by thousands of truly skilled and passionate individuals. However, because this news was so abrupt, key details weren’t made clear until a few days after the news broke and journalists were able to inquire into things.

The recent wave of layoffs, including the 6,000 layoffs of non-gaming staff in May, were apparently part of a move to free up capital so they could invest more in AI infrastructure. With the quoted figure being to the tune of $80 billion! Meaning these layoffs were not done out of concern for profitability, they were done because Microsoft so fiercely believes in AI that they just have to put all their eggs into the AI basket. …When you know nothing good will come from that. Microsoft has been trying to shove Copilot into people’s faces for years at this point, but they have routinely underdelivered in that respect. All I wanted was something that would automatically run formulas and do some basic formatting, but noooooo! That is just too hard for this artificial intelligence.

The layoffs have also hurt people far more than I imagined, due to how Microsoft handles bonuses. Rather than just give their employees cash or stock like a respectable company, they gave people unvested stock. Which is a promise to give employees stock if they meet certain performance thresholds or wait a long enough time.

As someone with a Master’s in Accounting, as an Enrolled Agent for IRS, I thought that even if the stock was unvested, it would become vested eventually. But I guess companies can just FIRE people to avoid having to pay them their bonuses! WHAT A GREAT LOOPHOLE! But we can go even further beyond! Why don’t they just lay off everybody before the holiday party so they don’t need to give people raises and bonuses at year-end? Then they can hire them back at a 5% haircut and erase their unvested stock! That means mo’ money for the C-Suite face-fuckers, and isn’t that the POINT of major corporations? To make the rich richer? Business school told me otherwise, but life tells me YES!

John “Master of Doom” Romero’s studio, Romero Games, was almost certainly developing a game with the backing of Microsoft. There were initially claims about the studio being closed as their agreement ended, and I certainly believed them. But Romero Games has claimed they’re still alive, and that they are in discussions with multiple publishers. As they should be, as John Romero has been jerked around for years, and if he wants to make a modern FPS targeting consoles, you let him do that.

But Forza Motorsport is apparently done. Turn 10 lost half of their staff, development on the platform that was Forza Motorsport (2023) will cease or stagger into dribs and drabs. And the quintessential Microsoft racing game IP of Forza Motorsport is done for. Forza Horizon, however, will continue, with Turn 10 assisting the main developers at Playground Games. This makes some sense, as Forza 2023 was a mess from what I heard, just bogged down with its monetization and live service elements, rather than be a game where you make the pretty car go vroom. Still… this is Forza. An Xbox staple for twenty years— or at least since Project Gotham Racing died off. If Forza Horizon 6 or Gears of War E-Day or Halo NEXT don’t do well, are these IP and their studios destined to undergo the same fate? I don’t know!

And despite all of this, Phil Spencer has the audacity to say that Xbox has “never looked stronger.” It’s amazing how people with control over thousands of people’s lives are allowed to just lie like this.

…Fuckin’ hell.

I’m not going to be one of those people saying that you must switch to Linux today, burn your Xbox, never touch Minecraft again, immediately abandon industry standard software. Nor will I say that these are requirements to be a peg higher on the seiso totem pole than a fascist maggot who masturbates to the Alligator Auschwitz ‘dog rape room’ live cam. But this all really makes me want to avoid using anything Microsoft going forward. I cannot make that switch now, as I am stuck in a Microsoft environment and do not want to teach my senile boss new tricks. But I should… yeah, that would make for good #content. I’ll delve into the ways I could conceivably leave Windows behind… next week! Because I need to be more responsible with these Rundowns.

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Natalie Talks About Politics – July 2025 Ver.
(I Had to Research the Big ‘Beautiful’ Bill for Work)

…I say that and then I spent an evening working on whatever this is. So, the big political news at the moment, at least for people who don’t want to think about the Big Beautiful Bill passed on July 4, 2025, was Zohran Mamdani. Though, he’s kind of been the political IT Factor for the past month and change. For the rock-dwellers in the audience (Hi Cassie~!) Mamdani is the Democratic nominee for the mayoral race in New York City, set to take place on November 4, 2025. Despite that being four months away, people have been positioning him as the leader of a new wave in American political discourse. Partially because of how he stood in opposition to Andrew Cuomo, his main competitor in the primaries.

Zohran Mamdani is a 33-year-old Indian man, an immigrant, lower level politician as of 2021, and a Democratic Socialist who has radical ideas. Like free public transit, rent freezes, affordable housing city-owned grocery stores, public child care, and a minimum wage that’s actually aligned with the cost of living. Y’know, Eurasian shit! Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo— whose name I keep mistyping as Cumno, because he looks like this is a 67-year-old White man, typical career politician Democrat with pro-business neoliberal ideals. He also has enough controversies that I would not trust him to do anything more than mop the floor.

In a sane world, Mamdani would win by a landslide— I guess 12 points is a landslide, so maybe the America is healing— and this preliminary victory has caused some extreme reactions on #BothSides. Self-described leftists have been espousing him as an avatar for the future. While the Capitalism-is-My-Christ and miscellaneous bougie fucks have been acting as if he is Dr. Satan himself, and not just because he’s Brown. It was even enough to get America’s Hitler™ to throw multiple hissy fits over him, when he hasn’t even been elected yet.

This all struck me as very… strange, as I viewed being a mayor as a relatively minor political position that did not really matter. He can’t vote on bills on a national level. He can’t pass Federal legislation, and it will be a cold day in Hell when I go to New York City. Though, I almost had to there for work-related reasons involving a crypto scammer whose ‘work’ was featured on Coffeezilla. (That might seem highly specific, but it really isn’t.) (Also, I didn’t do anything wrong! Those fuckers LIED to me!)

However, it was recently explained to me that, allegedly, the country looks at New York City for inspiration, for influence. In short, if Mamdani gets elected, and implements these policies, it will put pressure on existing politicians. It is a nice theory, but I do not think that socialist policies would have the same trickle down effects that some people are hoping they would. New York City is the cultural capital of America, but capitals do not represent the broader nation, period. If you polled the country at any point in history, I’m sure that at least 30% of the population would say they have a negative opinion of NYC.

Plus, NYC is a unique animal, being the largest city in the country, and having its own income tax. Though, the mayor cannot just pass new income tax law. They need to work with a bunch of other people. So Mamdani could not just apply a Massachusetts-like tax on capital gains. (Massachusetts has a capital gain tax that can reach 12% in some instances, when state taxes are generally 3% to 7% across the US.) Though, if such a measure were to go through, that would snag a good chunk of cash from the Wall Street types. Cash that is needed for the city to make public transit free, run grocery stores, and offer public child care.

In order for a city, or state, to offer nice, humane, things to its residents, they need money. Either from the Federal government, or from tax revenue. Property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, or other miscellaneous revenues that come from monetizing state-run business-like activities. Taxation can, and should, be designed to siphon money from the wealthy to fund state sponsored programs that help everybody. Unfortunately, rich people run most areas of the US government, and they are determined to make their tax rates as low as possible. And you don’t need a better example of this than the Big Beautiful Bill that passed last week which, as a tax accountant, just annoys me.

Now, the ramifications of the BBB are complicated and many of the figures quoted or shown that display a transfer of wealth are taking into account things like the gutting of Medicaid for lower income folks. It is giving the US a new military wing for assaulting and torturing its own citizens. But there are enough people talking about that, and I have a professional responsibility to view it as a piece of tax legislation, first and foremost. Generally speaking through, the Big Bullshit Bill is largely just a continuation of everything in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) from 2017, which changed how taxes worked considerably, allowing billionaires to become super billionaires, while doing precious little for working class folks, if not make things worse.

And since I just sorta drifted into tax talk, I may as well give my hot takes on the BBB’s changes to the tax code. For the record, I am mostly referencing this Journal of Accountancy article while digging through the horribly formatted text of the bill for more information. Like a true professional! Though, I may be getting some things wrong, as this is a complex piece of legislation, and certain information I came across seemed incomplete or contradictory. If I get anything wrong, it’s because someone else messed up!

Also, this is NOT TAX ADVICE! You gotta pay me for any real advice! Email me at natalie at natalie.tf and I’ll do your taxes for a reasonable price!

Let me start with the basic stuff first:

• Tax rates, standard deductions, and the zero Federal exemptions from TCJA are now permanent. For most people with basic returns, this means your tax returns should be about the same compared to prior years, unlike the shift from 2017 to 2018.
• There will be a $6,000 senior deduction present from 2025 to 2028, helping out seniors who make under $75,000 or $150,000 married filing jointly (MFJ). (With a massive phaseout.) Which… okay, sure, I live in a building with a lot of seniors, and they have been complaining about price hikes over the past year. It will help my grandmother, which is good.
• The $500 other dependent credit, which I was FUMING about in 2017, is still an egregious $500, when it should have always been a $1,000, index-adjusted, nonrefundable credit.
• The Child Tax Credit will be indexed for inflation and raised to $2,200, still benefitting everybody making under $200,000 or $400,000 MFJ. The Child Tax Credit is a wonderful thing, and while I think it should be bigger, this is still an increase.
• Estate and gift tax lifetime limits are still disgustingly high, set to reach $15 million in 2026, where it will be indexed for inflation. Meaning America will still have a generational wealth problem.
• Miscellaneous itemized deductions are still suspended and virtually meaningless to 99% of taxpayers.
• Gambling losses can still only be offset by gambling winnings, when they probably should be an itemized deduction, thanks to the rise in sports betting. Or, at leas they would, except sports betting has only hurt states in the long-run. Who could’ve seen it coming? (Me!)
• Dependent care assistance programs, something coveted amongst family people with 6-figure salaries, and generally offered by employers, is being increased from $5,000 to $7,500.
• Child and dependent care credits, basically tax credits for daycares, camps, and the like, are going to have a wider phaseout and be deductible at a maximum rate of 50%, rather than the previous 35%.

That’s all fairly self-explanatory stuff that I expected, and don’t feel the need to elaborate upon. However, there are six things that I want to discuss further. This section is going to be super nerdy, but I’ll try to put it into terms that a layperson without tax knowhow can understand.

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Big Bullshit Bill: Itemized Deductions!

Itemized deductions are a way for US tax-filers to offset their taxable income with certain expenses. Certain medical expenses, real estate taxes, state taxes, mortgage interest, investment interest, charitable contributions, and losses from certain disasters. People can choose to either deduct the amount of their itemized deductions, or use a standard deduction, which ranges from an inflation index-adjusted $15,000 to $33,200, depending on your filing status and age. Previously, it was very difficult for most people to itemize because the standard deduction is so high. You basically needed a big mortgage, to be a saint when it comes to charity, or be a single homeowner (like me).

This was partially due to how itemized deductions featured a cap on how much one can deduct for their state, local, property, and personal property taxes, dubbed the SALT cap. For both single and married people, this cap was $10,000, which meant anybody paying property taxes near a major metropolitan area, or paid five digits in state taxes, was getting hit by the cap. The BBB increased this cap to $40,000, and will increase it by 1% each year, until it reverts to $10,000 in 2030 (it won’t, the law will be amended before then.) This is an enormous boon for anybody who pays a lot in state taxes, or owns multiple homes. Someone with a home and a summer home can now deduct taxes for both of them and probably not run into the $40k SALT cap. If someone has a $500,000 mortgage with a 7% interest rate, and lives in a state without state tax, then they can deduct all of their interest, representing a massive tax savings.

However, these benefits are mostly exclusive to homeowners. If you rent, you are getting fucked over with this change, and your landlord is reaping in even more savings. Because they really need a fourth car and fifth apartment complex they can pretend to manage.

Oh, and for business owners who are part of a partnership, C-Corp, or S-Corp (like me), this is also great, in that they still get to take advantage of a lovely little thing called Pass-Through Entity Tax, or PTE Tax. PTE tax allows a business entity to pay the taxes of individuals and deduct the expenses at a business level. It allows businesses to deduct more state taxes at a Federal level, and avoid state taxes as well. Most states in the US adopted PTE taxes in response to TCJA, and while PTE taxes were expected to be disallowed in the final version BBB, they ultimately weren’t. Meaning that businesses will be able to pay for individuals’ state income taxes, and they will also be able to actually deduct them on the Federal level. It’s double dipping for business owners!

…At least they kept the $750,000 mortgage debt limit, preventing people from deducting all of their interest on a million-dollar home. So that’s something, I guess?

Actually, no there is a very good tidbit here that will help people itemize more, and that is the “no tax on car loan interest.” Which really means that personal use auto loan interest is now an itemized deduction, at least for 2025 to 2028. This means that if someone has a car loan, they can deduct it. Previously, the only way to deduct auto loan interest was to use the auto for a Sch C business, or on a K-1, but now people who don’t use their car for work can reap some benefits!

…What’s the catch? Well, auto loan interest is capped at $10,000, and one’s income. The phaseout begins at $100,000 ($200,000 MFJ), meaning this is a boon only for the non-wealthy!

Edit 7/14/2025: Oops! I thought the auto loan interest was a Sch A itemized deduction, but it is apparently a deduction that can be taken regardless if someone is itemizing. BUT it only applies to certain US-made automobiles. So, that kinda sucks.

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Big Bullshit Bill: No Tax on Tips!

One of the more talked about aspects is the ‘no tax on tips’ provision. Up to $25,000 in qualified tips can be deducted from one’s income if they are making under $150,000, or $300,000 MFJ. (Well, actually, it’s more like $165,000 and $330,000 because of the 10-to-1 phaseout.)

So, what are qualified tips? Well, it basically means cash tips in an industry where tips were customary as of 2023, but we won’t have a proper list of what industries qualify for a while. To prove an estimated list, they would be restaurant workers, hotel staff, taxi/rideshare drivers, artists/entertainers, delivery drivers, beauty salon staff, maybe even baristas if people actually tip them. Generally, entry level service industry jobs. The official Department of Labor guidance is that you are a tipped employee if you receive $30 or more in tips per month, but that doesn’t mean IRS will adopt the same definition.

Now, I do not do a lot of returns for people who receive a significant amount of tip compensation, so this is far from my area of expertise. However, I do want to clarify that the rules for tipping and minimum wage in this country are busted. In short, if it is expected the customers will tip, then the ‘minimum cash wage’ the employer is obligated to pay them is a fraction of the actual minimum wage. Federally, and in a LOT of states, it’s $2.13, or less than a third of the $7.25 minimum wage. There are provisions where tipped employees need to be paid at least minimum wage when combining cash wages and tip wages. Though, I would not be surprised if labor laws are being constantly broken given how often tipped employees are exploited.

That being said, do I think not taxing tips is a good thing? Well, I’m more mixed on it. You see, employers in the US have learned to loathe maintaining payroll, keeping employees, and look for opportunities to treat people as independent contractors whenever possible. Because it saves them money. Independent contractors receive no benefits, no healthcare, no retirement, and can generally be fired at will, no questions asked. For employers, this is great, as they do not need to run payroll, they can just write a check and pay $6 on Yearli to file a 1099-NEC in January.

It’s a lot cheaper than paying Gusto $100 to $1,000 a month to process payroll, filing quarterly Federal and state tax returns, filing annual unemployment tax returns, and paying 7.65% of the worker’s wages in Social Security and Medicare taxes. Payroll is a time-consuming and costly process, and employers want to eliminate it, because they view it as a big stupid expense. If they could, they would end employment all-together and just make everybody a contractor. It would save SO MUCH admin work and make their line erect!

…The problem is that doing this is not how things are supposed to work. If someone is working regular hours, at a fixed location, for several months, and has tasks assigned to them, they should be treated as an employee. I don’t know the exact laws on this, but… those laws might not be around for too long. If SCOTUS hears a case about this, they would 100% support the side saying that Microsoft can make all of their employees contractors and lay off their payroll department. Except for the CEOs of course. They don’t wanna pay additional Medicare tax!

Okay, okay, going back to the no tax on tips thing. This seems like a big boon to workers who make money off of tips, but here’s the thing about people who make very little money in a year. They don’t owe much in terms of taxes anyway, and if they did, it would be self-employment taxes. It would be taxes that, in theory, go to fund their Social Security when they retire and put them on Medicare when they turn 65. So, would these tips be excluded from self-employment taxes? …I don’t think so. Meaning that this will not benefit a lot of low-paid service workers. They will need to keep paying into a system that, quite frankly, they might not want to be part of, and that they may never see any benefit from.

Which sucks, because I was going to recommend that artists and content creators take any sort of PayPal or Ko-Fi contributions they receive and consider them tips. But not Patreon or ad revenue. Subscriptions can’t be tips.

So… who is the winner here? Well, I have a question for you: What would prevent a boss, a restaurant owner, from collecting their employees’ tips and paying them minimum wage? That way, the (ideally married) restaurant owner could reap the tax benefit of tip wages, while making more than four times as much as any of their employees. The exact guidance on what is and is not permitted will not be out for about three months, but knowing this administration, I’m expecting to see a lot more business owners reporting tips, claiming it’s industry-standard.

Also, this change will take effect in 2025 and will only last until 2028.

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Big Bullshit Bill: No Tax on Overtime!

Similar to No Tax on Tips, BBB introduced a $12,500 ($25,000 MFJ) deduction on qualified overtime pay for individuals making less than $150,000 ($300,000 MFJ). With the 10-to-1 phaseout though, the actual limits are at $165,000 and $330,000 MFJ. This is a stranger animal, as a lot of people work overtime, but I’m not sure how many would realistically qualify, as there are three major instances where this new rule will not apply.

• This only applies to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, where people make 1.5x their usual wages. So if employers want to break the law— and they do— then I think they could make wages ineligible for this deduction, while screwing them out of money.
• If someone works two jobs, working over 40 hours a week, they would not receive any overtime pay, because the overtime rules are specific to employer.
• Overtime wages need to be reported on their own W-2 or 1099. If overtime is not separated, then it is also not eligible as part of this deduction. Because the government want the employer to apportion it, to do the work.

This means most gig workers and independent contractors will not be able to make use of this credit, even as they put in 50 hour weeks. Same with people who work overtime, but are paid salaries and year-end bonuses that approximate some of the work they put in throughout the year. With that in mind, I have to wonder who this is really for. Employers would still need to pay for social security taxes even with overtime, but I’m sure there are some industries— like banking— where this will be a boon for lower and middle level workers. Still, I genuinely do not know how many jobs that represents in the modern landscape.

This would have been a great boon for a family in the 1950s to 1990s where the father worked a lot at a steady job from 9:00 to 19:00, with occasional Saturdays. But we don’t live in that world anymore. Hell, we are so far removed from that world that I get angry whenever I see someone casually mention their pension. Screw you and your pension! I don’t have a pension! I will never have a pension!

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Big Bullshit Bill: ‘Trump’ Accounts!

‘Trump’ Accounts are… something that desperately needs a new name, and represent the latest in the long line of ways for parents to pass down and set aside money for their children. This is something that most Americans don’t have the luxury to think about, but the US tax code actually gives people a bunch of ways to initiate generation-to-generation wealth transfers.

The most sophisticated one I see amongst wealthier clients is establishing trusts for newborn children. The parents set aside money in the trusts, have it grow over time, and either pay taxes at the trust level, or distribute it at the risk of triggering kiddie tax. All until the ownership of the trust transfers at some specified age. 18, 21, 30, whatever. The far simpler one is when relatives and parents pass down their wealth in tax-free $17,000 gifts to their younger relatives, cleaning up their estates while filling up an account with a crazy amount of cash over time. $17,000 over 18 years is over $300,000!

The far more working class way to transfer wealth is with a Section 529 Plan, a way for parents to put aside money for their child’s education. Though, they are state-run programs, each with their own rules, making them a trickier thing to balance and manage.

And the old school way of giving your child a bunch of wealth is to just gift them stocks and bonds. Hell, my parents bought a bunch of Series EE bonds for me and my sister when we were little kids, and we cashed them in when we were 30. In retrospect, it was not a very good investment.

I like these programs in theory, but we are living in a climate where the majority of Americans don’t have $1,000 stored away for an emergency. So savings opportunities and investment opportunities like this are seen as something for well-off people, even if they are still, ultimately, working class. How can you worry about 30 years from now when you don’t know if you’ll have enough for groceries?

I’m getting distracted. Reviewing the text of the bill itself, and this Kiplinger write-up, Trump Accounts are a form of Independent Retirement Account (IRA) for minors, but with their own set of restrictions. Contributions are capped at $5,000 a year and indexed for inflation starting in 2027. These contributions can be made by governments, charitable organizations, and employers. Which sure sounds like a way to write them off as an employee benefit program. Funds can only be placed into specified mutual funds and qualified ETFs, basically meaning larger US-oriented funds rather than individual stocks. You can invest in the S&P 500 or American Balanced Fund, but not anything industry-specific. Contributions can only be made in the calendar years before one turns 18. After the beneficiary turns 18, then they can take distributions from this account, but only for specific purposes.

• At age 18, the beneficiary will be able to distribute up to 50% of the account’s value to fund higher education, training programs, small business loans, or home purchase.
• At age 25, the beneficiary will be able to distribute up to 100% of the account’s value to fund higher education, training programs, small business loans, or home purchase.
• At age 30, the beneficiary can do whatever with these funds.

If funds are distributed for the specified purposes, they are taxed as long-term capital gains. If they are taken out for other purposes, they are treated as regular income. …Which is not how IRAs are supposed to work!

Per a contribution pilot program, parents who set up Trump accounts for children born in 2025 to 2028 will be eligible for a $1,000 in seed money, though the government seems to think only 410,000 people will take advantage of this? I mean, they only put aside $410 million for this program, so I guess it’s first come, first served?

It’s an interesting idea, and something that I am probably going to discuss with clients. Yet, I cannot view this as anything other than another way for the wealthy to leave their grandkids with $500,000 by the time they turn 18.

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Big Bullshit Bill: Charitable Contribution Deduction

Charitable contributions were remixed to resemble the form they took in 2021, where individuals were able to deduct $300 in charitable contributions, $600 in MFJ, without itemizing. Except now the limits were increased to a static $1,000 for individuals, $2,000 for MFJ, and I love this change. It encourages more people to give to 501(c)(3) organizations, help their community, or help people far away as they face disaster. Because FEMA’s going to be gone in like 8 months at this rate.

…But this bill simultaneously disincentivizes people who itemize from making charitable contributions by introducing an itemized 0.5% floor for charitable contributions. What does that mean? Let me give you an example. If someone makes $80,000 a year, then their 0.5% floor is $400. Meaning, if they itemize, the first $400 they give in charitable contributions are nondeductible. Every dollar above the 0.5% floor is deductible, but not the $400. Oh, and for corporations, they have a floor of 1%, so if they want to give 1% of their taxable income, they will receive no tax benefit.

This is so dumb, and the only explanation I can think of is that they want to disincentivize some people from making charitable contributions, but not others. When… fucking pick one, dude! This gives decently well off married people with a paid-off home all the incentive to send $2,000 to a charity of their choice each year. But not people with a mortgage and car payment?

Now, this is kind of offset by the increase in the SALT cap. I know that I’m going to be able to deduct an extra $3,000 from that, so losing out on $400 won’t be a big deal. This likely only affects a small subset of people on an individual level. But the very idea a 0.5% itemized floor for charitable contributions is incorrigible. I don’t care if it means that wealthy people will pay more taxes in some scenarios. You give to charity to AVOID taxation!

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Big Bullshit Bill: The Business End of Things

I know that I don’t have a lot of business owners reading this, so I’ll keep this focused to areas that matter to my practice.

Bonus depreciation was a major game-changer with the TCJA, allowing business owners to deduct 100% of depreciable items in the year they were bought. There were a few key exceptions, like real estate, but this meant that you could deduct a $3,000 computer in one year, rather than spreading it out over five years. It was a great incentive to buy stuff, and business owners love it! So, I knew it wasn’t going to actually go away. Going from 100% depreciation in year one to 5% in year one is a bit… hard for some people to get used to. I just like it because it makes tax planning way easier.

Similarly, research and development costs can be immediately deducted if they are domestic. Which is meant to incentivize people to keep R&D in the US, but the Federal government has been shitting blood on the art of science for the past few months by cutting research funding. I guess the idea is that they want more private sector R&D, but why would US firms do that when the salaries and build-out expenses would need to be so high? International R&D needs to be amortized over 15 years, but that’s really not a big deal.

Clean energy credits for business are being cut across the board, because the US is controlled by oil barons who would rather see the skies become alit with flames than divest their portfolio. It’s crap, and I hate it. No further elaboration needed.

With all the hubbub around this being designed for the 1%, I was expecting more cuts to businesses, but the TCJA provisions were already so good that I don’t think any further cuts could be justified for businesses. Or perhaps I’m just not seeing how they could be abused and exploited. Which is, admittedly, not my strong suit as an accountant. I like to do things as they should be done, and tend to shy away from loopholes. So I truly do not understand how the ultra-wealthy cheat their way to a 3% rate.

…Anyway, that’s all I was able to glean by spending an evening pouring over this bill. I’ll probably talk about it in the future, but I’ll need to chat about it with my boss and take some CPE before I understand the finer details.

Back to video games!

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Natalie Tried Umamusume
(To See What the Hubbub Is!)

Yeah, I’m two weeks late to the party on this, but I played a couple hours of Umamusume this week because this game has been doing crazy numbers. After playing the game for a few hours back in 2021, I could tell why it would resonate so much with an Asian audience. Being a game about talking to girls, helping them achieve their dreams, and watching them perform stellar feats in stylish clothes, celebrating their victories with some singing and dancing. It is Japanese idol culture X horse racing. An idea so simple it’s a wonder that nobody beat Cygames to the punch.

I understood that its lite simulation game elements, fixation on runs, and persistent progression mechanics would make the game appeal to a fierce yet tiny niche, and I was not surprised to see it garner some traction. Miss Milph had been talking about the series for years, and I wasn’t surprised to see my buddy gammaflux give the game a whirl back in June. However, I was not expecting it to appeal to a wide audience. I just didn’t expect people in Draft Kings’ America to be drawn to horse racing.

…But then I realized that the horse element is a clear secondary allure. It’s merely a way to assign the characters some unifying design elements and justify their mutual love of running. The actual appeal to Umamusume is the fact that it is a sports idol simulation game molded after the rousing success of The idolM@ster.

Cripes, where to begin? Well, may as well go aaallll the way back! Throughout the 1990s, there was a nascent genre of character raising games that garnered popularity in Japan. Princess Maker (1991), Tokimeki Memorial (1994), Anegelique (1994), and oodles of lesser known examples that I could dig to find out, like Graduation (1994) and True Love ’95, but the genre has faced a long-standing problem in the western world. Most of these games are heavily text-based, and they were rarely localized for western audiences.

If they were localized, they were hyper-niche limited releases that might not be available in your county, as shelf spaces was limited and stores only received maybe two copies of a niche release! Otherwise, you would need to learn about them via a magazine or BBS or IRC or Usenet. Then you would need to buy them. But not with a credit card, at least rarely with a credit card. You would need to write a cheque, write down what it was for in your chequebook, put it in an envelope along with a voucher, stamp it, drop it in the mailbox, then wait three to six weeks for processing. Oh, and if the check bounced, or got lost in the mail, you would never get it! It sucked! It sucked so damn hard!

With barriers like… that, the Japanese simulation game genre remained a niche amongst niches for several years. Social simulation games were made— The Sims was hugely popular before EA decided to exploit its passionate fanbase. But they were not quite the same sweaty maths-driven time-limited raising experiences that Japanese simulation games were. (Also, for clarity’s sake, Japanese does not mean made in Japan. It is a genre that originated and grew in Japan in a way unique to the western world. Like with a JRPG, you can make a JSIM anywhere in the world, and people have.)

The Japanese simulation genre thrived throughout the 90s, but the entire simulation genre underwent a slight tumble following the genuinely awful Tokimeki Memorial 3 (2021), and underwent a mutation during the latter half of the 2000s. This was the era where the genre was given a shot in the arm with games like Love Plus (2009)— the DS game that some dude married. But what really changed the genre was The iDolM@ster.

The iDolM@ster is a popular and persistent IP by Bandai Namco that originated with a 2005 arcade title. A game that blended arcade rhythm games with character-driven simulation elements. You are in charge of raising a group of idols, making them shine, making scheduling decisions, and help them out in mini-games by hitting buttons at the right time. It was a hugely successful game— probably did wonders for Xbox 360 sales in Japan— and launched a multimedia franchise. The iDolM@ster has been prolific in the world of anime, being a mainstay for nearly 15 years, garnering fans all around the world, and it has also spanned across at least 16 video games. None of which have been released in English-speaking markets. At least, as far as I can tell.

Why have none of the games ever been brought over? Because the risks of localizing a game are far higher than licensing out an anime to Sony, and Bandai Namco clearly did not think it would be worth the investment. Back in 2007, that made sense. Idol culture was still niche amongst anime dorks back then, and it has only semi-recently grew in popularity. This can be attributed to licensed idol anime being a thing for a decade, laying a foundation. K-Pop and Asian Pop generally growing in popularity. Popular VTubers just being idols in many respects.

Nowadays, it makes very little sense why Bandai Namco has refused to bring this series… but I’ve gotten off track, haven’t I? No, no, I can recover this, because the missing link is right… here!

In 2011, a small mobage developer by the name of Cygames was contracted by Bandai Namco to create the first mobile spin-off of The iDolM@ster, subtitled Cinderella Girls. It featured its own case of characters, own talent agency separate from the main series, and was a huge hit, lasting until 2023 despite being positively ancient compared to other games on the market. Cygames saw how successful this game was, and decided to make their own idol raising IP, Umamusume. They spent over half a decade on the game, refining, rebooting, and revising it as manga and anime continued to creep out. All until the game launched in early 2021, and was a massive success across Japan.

By the end of 2021, the game had amassed a billion dollars in revenue in Japan alone, and by March 2024, roughly it’s third anniversary, it surpassed $2.4 billion. It was a damn hit, but Cygames refrained from releasing it internationally. …And I think they were right. Just look at what happened to Princess Connect! Re:Dive (2018). They let Crunchyroll games handle it, and they only kept things in operation for two years before calling it quits. So, after four years, Cygames self-published Umamusume, hoping that the game would resonate with a broader audience as a simulation game rather than just another gacha game with cute girls and… they were right to take that gamble.

Umamusume is a hit in the west. Oodles of weebs are talking about it, and after playing it, I can see why. Because everything about this game is literally engineered to keep people coming back.

Structurally, the game is designed as a… roguelike simulation live service. The game has a cluster of things to do and side modes, but the main career mode is just a simulation game. You play as a trainer of horse girls, or Umamusume, at a prestigious Umamusume school and must help your selected Umamusume achieve her dreams of being the best Umamusume by the end of three years. This is eaten up by training the girls in various attributes, having them rest to avoid injury, and letting them indulge in recreation to bolster their mood. During this, the player will encounter dozens of story and random events where characters show up, skits play out, minor choices are made, and stat bonuses are received, all leading up to the races.

Races are non-playable in-game cutscenes where you watch your trainee horse girl run against the competition, and you get to opt in to whatever level of investment you want. If you want to see a mile-long race, you can just watch it as commentators talk over each other, or themselves, to give a sense of tension, you can do that. You can jump ahead to the climatic finale. Or you can be fussy and jump to the results. If your Umamusume places high enough, the career continues. If not, the dream is dead, and the girl’s essence/memory is crystallized into a version that can be used in other modes and as a buff for the career of the next Umamusume.

These buffs include higher yields from training, more frequent events that boost stats, and starting bonuses to give your Umamusume the edge. …But from what I have been able to tell, it will take a lot of farming, grinding, and repeating in the career mode if you want to get to the end. Because Umamusume is a gacha game with a gacha-style progression system. There are character cards that need to be leveled up, need to be unbound, and come with a laundry list of effects. Characters have potential levels and rarities that can be improved to get better results in career mode. And a scattering of things to do between dailies, events, and the like.

Umamusume is a game designed around prolonged investment if you want to so much as see a career mode to its end, let alone get consistent results. It wants you to go through the career mode several times a day, and while I can see the logic behind that, the career mode is also… not the most replay friendly. Umamusume’s career mode is more story than anything else. The main scenario of the horse girls being raised up, the skits that appear based on the character cards you equipped, and character-specific scenes. All presented with partial voice acting— mostly barks, some abysmally slow text I wish could be displayed instantly, some shockingly small text, and a lot of character-establishing scenes.

Something that annoyed me about Tokimeki Memorial was how stock and robotic interactions were. How rare it was to encounter characters doing interesting or novel things. Umamusume, by virtue of 27 years of genre development, addresses this in droves. These micro-scenes endear the player to their main trainee, the characters she interacts with, and gives the player more reason to want to see their horse girl succeed. …But there is a slight problem with this approach. The problem is that these scenes repeat.

While you can opt in for ‘quick’ versions of certain scenes, or trigger a blisteringly fast skip mode, the game does a bad job of letting you specifically skip scenes you have already seen once before. It’s a curious decision, and one that goes against everything else Umamusume has going for itself. It makes runs take far longer, adds friction and skipping to what should be a more laid back experience, and… just does not feel good to do when the game wants you to do several career runs a day.

Aside from that, the core elements of Umamusume are very well-balanced. Mechanically, the gameplay is casual friendly enough to appeal to a litany of people, but there is so much chance, probability, and math I’m sure there are plenty of Umamusume calculators out in the wild. Or at least character-specific horse raising guides. Presentationally, I think that Umamusume is a cute throwback to a now seemingly bygone era of gacha games made specifically for phones. Though, that means the PC client for Umamusume looks like it’s being emulated somehow. The character models are great, animations are brimming with personality, and I find the use of 2D backgrounds to be a cute optimization and wise use of resource.

Conceptually, the game is just brilliant. It takes the well-established appeal of teenage idols attending a school for performers, but makes it weirder. Everybody has their own unique and flashy outfit, their own distinct hairstyle and accessories, and their own oddball personality. But no matter the character, they are all determined, all want to give it their best, and have devoted their lives to the art of racing. Which, itself, is another inspired choice.

While horse races and may be a regional fixation, the decision to have the characters compete in running is kind of perfect. Running is a sport that everybody knows, everybody does from time to time, and a sport where one does not need to rely on a team. It’s not remotely violent. It can be done anywhere, you don’t even need a ball or a field. It is great exercise. And it gives people a skill they can and do use in their daily life. Running is also very egalitarian, being one where men, women, and people of a wide variety of ages can all compete on an even playing field. Some may even call it the only good sport. With some here meaning me. I would say that running is the only good sport.

The game also understands that, beyond people racing, beyond automobile racing, beyond horse racing, there is a deep appeal in watching a bunch of things rush to a destination and picking one of them. Whether they be horses, wooden cars, or marbles. There is something innately appealing of being given a bunch of options, told to pick one, and watch them run, roll, or otherwise travel to their destination. And this appeal if even more pronounced when you are the one who build up or customized the thing. I’m not saying that the developers of Umamusume looked at Jelle’s Marble Runs and said we need to do that, but with horse waifus. …But I think that, to an extent, watching marble runs, pinewood derbies, horse races, and roulette are basically all the same thing.

So, yes. I can understand the rousing success and appeal of Umamusume, and frankly, I’m glad the game has taken off, as I think it will open up a new appetite for Japanese simulation games in the Anglosphere. …But after playing it for seven hours, I’m good! I need to spend my free time doing other stuff.

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The Subnautica 2 Situation is Exploitative Bonkers
(Krafton Refuses to Follow Contract and Issue $250 Million Payout)

GOLDARN IT GAMINDUSTRI! And America! And HORSE GAME! I just wanted to get out a quick breezy Rundown, so I could gab off about Girl in My Dream! But nooooo!

Subnautica is a popular open-ended underwater survival game that has managed to carve out a deep niche since its early access debut in 2014. It’s not a title I personally know all that much about. But if an independent game manages to sell 6 million units, and maintains a substantial playerbase even in the eleventh year of its life, it must be doing something very, very right. So right that the developer, Unknown Worlds Entertainment, was eventually bought by Krafton: The PUBG Company in October 2021.

Unknown Worlds continued to operate ‘independently’ for the following few years, working away at Subnautica 2, and making it the second most wishlisted game on Steam, while targeting a 2025 release. Things were going well by all accounts… but then Krafton fired the studio heads Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire, replacing them with some dude who worked on The Callisto Protocol (2022). This was a concerning move, especially so close to the game’s release, and the following days, it became clear why Krafton was doing this. They wanted to fuck over the entire team of developers at Unknown Worlds.

Per a Bloomberg article, the public learned that Krafton entered into an agreement with Unknown Worlds that they would receive a $250 million payout if they meet certain revenue targets by the end of 2025. A not uncommon arrangement, except for the shockingly high figure. After realizing that Unknown Worlds was going to make their deadline, Krafton decided to delay the game, fire the executives, who would probably be paid the most, and save themselves a cool quarter billion. We don’t have a full breakdown of who this would go to, but there seems to be a minimum distribution of six to seven figures per employee, which is… a lot. That’s at least $100,000— a life-changing amount of money for a human being. (If it isn’t for you, are you even human, bro?)

Without the release of Subnautica 2, Unknown Worlds is unlikely to meet the needed revenue targets and, according to the developers, the game’s ready to be released in early access. It’s not done-done, but that’s not how early access works. Krafton claims that the game is not ready for early access, but who’s a better judge of a game? Some manager who wants to get a bonus for saving the company a quarter-billion dollars or someone who actually made the game? In a situation like this, nothing the publisher is saying can be taken on face value. They have too great of an incentive to manipulate and ignore a contract that they agreed to. While the developers have, almost certainly, been working their asses to the bone to get the game done.

And, hot take, but contract law is a foundational element of the modern world, and those who ignore it to devastate the lives of laborers and improve their financials should be sent to the bottom of the fucking ocean. Even if what Krafton said is true, that 90% of the $250 million payout was allocated to the three senior people, I don’t give a shit! That still leaves $25 million to be allocated amongst 100-ish other people. And I’d rather these three founders be hundo-millionaires than have that money stay with a gamer whaling company. (Huh, that term might actually work. Calling companies who have exploitative practices whaling companies. Most sane people think whaling is bad, or at least worse than gambling.)

Now, you might think that I am being a bit flippant by calling Krafton liars and thieves. But I truly cannot even fathom a scenario where they are in the right. Even if Subnautica 2 is a buggy half-finished piece of crap, Unknown Worlds has a good track record with early access releases, so most would trust them to polish the game over time. And I’m sure they would. Hell, Krafton have even added a pop-up on their official website that’s designed to present them as the good guys and the studio founders as the bad guys. If they were in the right, they would not use provocative language like “Inevitable Leadership Change Driven by Project Abandonment–Despite Holding 90% of Earnout for Themselves.” Their argument holds no water, contradicts itself, and assumes that studio heads who were going to get generational wealth somehow sabotaged a project with their absence. Either the three founders are money-burning idiots or a billion-dollar corporation wants to hoard more money.

This is going to be a messy affair, and I can only imagine the animosity felt by the people working at Unknown Worlds. If I were at that studio, I would do things that would mad crimes, just so my friends got their paper.

Akumako: “Crimes involving some bourbon and matches?”

No. Involving a gun, you dumbass!

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The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is Getting DLC
(Kodaka Wants The Game to Last 10 Years!)

Well, this was something I wasn’t expecting to see when reading an article from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (2025). I thought it was just going to be a nice little piece about how Hundred Line was a success despite a lack of widespread press and the lack of a PS4/PS5 release. Instead, during a discussion with Schreier, game director Kazutaka Kodaka mentioned that he wants “this game to be like Cyberpunk 2077 or Grand Theft Auto Online,” and that he wants Hundred Line “to be the open world of ‘scenario’ games.” Or, to put it in more damning terms, he wants to continue Hundred Line for the next 10 years.

As someone who is still— three months after the fact— working through the 200+ hour trek that is Hundred Line, I honestly don’t know how to feel about this notion. It is clear that Hundred Line was a game forged with immense quantities of blood, sweat, and soul from its writers and developers. And I can tell, just from playing it, that Media.Vision built the game smartly for iteration and expansion. However, I also need to ask what more Kodaka wants to do with this game, its world, and its characters.

Hundred Line is a (roughly) 3 million English word epic. It blows away the like of Umineko and Rance X: Showdown with its sheer volume of story. You could put Student Transfer (base game of course) and Umineko together, and they still would not be as big as Hundred Line! For more context, I have written roughly 5 million words on Natalie.TF since its inception. But my fiction writing has only spanned a bit over 1.7 million words, since I started in 2012.

While Kodaka was far from the only writer on Hundred Line— I’d guess that he wrote roughly half of it— what’s there is so long, so comprehensive, that I cannot imagine wanting to go back in for seconds, especially so soon. However, if this is what he wants, and Hundred Line will truly become the never-ending visual novel tactical RPG… then sure, why the hell not!

It’s already my… Dragalia Lost (2,500 hours), Pokémon X (310 hours), Skyrim (320 hours), Student Transfer (500-ish hours)— fifth most played game of all time. And part of my top 25 favorite games of all time— right next to Nier Automata (2017). I’m ready to make this another forever game! So of course I’m glad to hear that it has a future, and as always, I’m hoping for the best.

…Okay, now I can finally do what I wanted to dedicate this week to. Stupid freaking Rundowns eating up 20 hours of my life!

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Progress Report 2025-07-13

Something of a pet peeve of mine as of late is whenever I see someone reference American suburbia as if it is a monolithic entity and every suburb in the United States is the same thing. When… it really isn’t.

They always like to show off that one Canon textbook-mandatory image of a clustered highway full of gas stations and fast food places. Or a cluster of houses that all look the same and are home to approximately zero trees. Now, I have Google Maps’d enough to know there are places like this. (My boss likes to check where our clients live.) But I know from plenty of personal experience that there are walkable suburbs. They are just in the clear minority, and there are more places that are just anti-walkability. In fact, I went on outing to one of them this past week. An area in Niles, IL that is zoned for retail, filled with big box stores galore and a bunch of office parks. All of which does on for over a square kilometer, just this wasteland of concrete and parking lots.

On the flip side, I’m in the suburbs, but I have access to pretty much all the amenities of a city within walking distance. Grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants, a dope library, farmer’s market, public transit, an outdoor public pool, nature center— Hell, cities don’t even have those last two! Mind you, there are still some very iffy parts of it. Like the five lane stroad you need to cross to get to the halfway across town. Or the way the Edens carves through it into the western edge of town with a high school that’s… not very friendly to students who want to walk to school. But as someone who has been to Chicago a couple hundred times… city traffic is way worse.

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2025-07-06: Wrote 1,800 words for the Hundred Line review, watched Higurashi with my friends and finished chapter 6— the best arc! Went on a brief outing with my mother. Played more Hundred Line, finishing off another route.

2025-07-07: Today, I decided I NEEDED to start on TSF Showcase 2024-09… but I didn’t actually have anything in the pipeline, and had a terrible backlog of titles to sift through and a spreadsheet to update. And reading through these comics, examining my list, downloading them, dealing with inefficient transfer rates— it took me pretty much all evening and a good chunk of my afternoon. …And in the end, I decided to just do Girl in My Dream. Because the children need to know about the dope!

2025-07-08: Wrote 800 word Microsoft follow-up. Wrote 4,400 word bit on the Big Beautiful Bill and its income tax ramifications. Played Umamusume until 3:30 in the morning, like a virgin!

2025-07-09: Wrote 2,300 words for the Umamusume bit and played another two hours of it. Started playing Hello Girl before deciding I wanted to sleep..

2025-07-10: Wrote the 800 word Subnautica 2 bit. Wrapped up Hello Girl. Wrote a 1,000 word review on the game that will go up on Tuesday. Made some header images. I would have done more, but I got jump scared by two hours of surprise work in the evening, after working a full American work day. That’s always FUN!

2025-07-11: Edited this 11,000 word crapbasker, or crabpasket. What’s a pasket? FIGURE IT OUT!

2025-07-12: GOOD DAY! Re-read Girl In My Dream, which is still DOPE! Wrote 3,200 words for next week’s Rundown (first two segments). Got the Hello Girl ret-2-go, and did my chores. Yay~! I also wrote a couple hundred words for the GIMD showcase, but I didn’t feel like writing it today. I like to give my brain a day of breathing room, based on prior experience.

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Also, here are several looks into what I have in my hard drives. Is this incriminating? I dunno! I don’t really care at this point!