Drove for the first time in 3 years today and I got tailgaited, brights-flashed, followed, and cussed at by a strange man in a stupid sports car after doing literally Nothing wrong

House of Mouse: The Stolen Cartoons Review (Patreon Review)

Hello all you happy people! It’s Patreon Review Time. Since my 5 dollar or higherr patreons get 1 review a month, Kevin my 10 dollar patreon is using one of his to celebrate the 20th anniversary of House of Mouse by having me review a random episode a month. And for this month we’re going all the way back to the start with The Stolen Cartoons!

I already introed house of mouse back when I reviewed “The Three Cablleros” episode but for a refresher: House of Mouse is a 2001 cartoon about Mickey and Co running a club. Mickey is host, Minnie plans the show and runs the books, Donald tends to the VIP”s and co owns the club with Mickey, Goofy is head waiter,  Daisy runs guest services, Horace is technical support, Clarabelle is a gossip monger with no clear actual job, and Max is Valet. The show was used to repackage shorts from the short lived show Mickey mouseworks, using the club setting as a wraparound and said club was attentend by all the various characters from the disney canon. It’s as awesome as it sounds. 

The voice cast, which I didn’t intro thorughly last time, was equally awesome with all the actors for the characters at the time, all legends in the industry. Wayne Allwine as Mickey,who played the character from the late 70′s to his death, Russi Taylor as Minnie and the Triplets, who did the same and was also married to wayne, Tony Anselmo, who should be thorughly familiar to readers of this blog and donald duck fans as his voice since Ducktales, Voice Actress Tress Macneile as Daisy, likewise,  Jason Marsden as Max and Voice Acting Legend Jim Cummings as Pete. All except Allweine i’ve profieled before on this blog in various other series, but Wayne, outisde of a very minor role in black cauldron, only voiced Mickey, and to me is the defntiive voice for the guy, though Chris is getting close. 

The other notable members of the cast i havent’ covered are April Winchell, who while tremendous, I will save for an episode Clarabelle is actually in more, and Bill Farmer. I have a great amount of Love for Bill and like everyone here, he was a vertran of the industry by the time he showed up in this series. His defining roll far and away is goofy, who was, to my delighted surprise his FIRST voice audition, having studided PInto Colving’s voice well to the point you can barely tell the difference between the two, and having inherited the roll around the same time as Russi and Tony. He’s the voice of Goofy I and most kids from the 80′s onward have grown up with and is the best at the roll by far, having chances for depth and nuance Pinto wasn’t allowed with the Goofy Movies and other works. IN general he’s just THE goofy to me. He’s also the voice of horace and pluto, and currently voices Hop Pop in Amphibia which is super noteworthy as looking at his filmography like a lot of the sensational 6′s va’s he’s only voiced goofy or Pluto for most of his career. But hey like Tony, if you only do one charcter might as well be the fucking best at it. He also has a show on Disney Plus with him and dogs I need to watch yesterday. 

So with our cast out of the way, and not much history to go into, join me after the cut and we’ll see how House of Mouse got it’s start and if it was a good one. 

Breaking from my usual format for House of Mouse and doing the shorts as they come up int he main story for two reasons: The first is that the shorts are integral to the plot and the second is that there’s way more main story this time around than usual, likely to properly set things up. 

So we open at the House of Mouse with Mickey Adressing the club and showing off the general premise of this being a club for all of the various heroes and villains of disney to hang out and what not. He also presents the house rules which are no smoking (Fair and should’ve always been a thing), no villianous schemes and no eating the other guests, all helpfully demonstrated as he says them. We also get to see the others in action: Minnie handling the schedule and the crew, Donald welcoming the guests, and Daisy running the desk and getitng brainwashed by Jafar into giving him a table. Max also is providing his job as Valet which surprised me because I genuinely thought he didn’t join the cast till season 2.. despite the fact he’s right there in the credits.. which are the same for ALL THREE SEASONS. 

So things are going well.. so naturally that’s when Pete shows up to try and ruin things. Look he’s having a hard time after the divorce.. several years ago. Okay maybe he’s always just been a dick and that’s why he’s divorced in the first place. Point is he naturally wants to shut the club down, boot them out, and wreck up the place like any natural cartoon villian or real estate scum bag landlord. Pete just happens to be both because he can multitask. .and because it’s basically the same thing you just have to be animated for one of them.  Thankfully whoever the previous Landlord was, i’m going with Shere Kahn given the setting, his roll in tailspin and the fact the obvious candidate, scrooge, would make no sense here given a later episode where he guest stars, wrote into the contract that as long as the show goes on, they can stay in business. Pete stews over this and naturally plans to stop the show while Minnie, in a cute bit, comforts a nervous mickey and just tells him to play some cartoons. So...

Pluto Gets the Paper: Wet Cement and Donald’s Dynamite: Magic Act I”m covering both of these at once. But as I said the animated shorts this time are one big sized one and two of the shorter ones to make more room for the story. Which is fair: this is the first episode, and thus needs to set up the premise. The series isn’t story driven but your first episode should still feel like one, ease you into the world and get you situated and THEN can do the normal format. It’s also in the episode’s favor as the heavier story focus meant a BETTER story than most season 1 episodes, on par with the two season 3 episodes i’ve covered so far. 

The shorts themselves are fine. So far this is the only Pluto Short i’ve liked as it has a neat enough gaga: Pluto has to get the paper in wet cement. Why did the paperboy throw it in wet cement instead of in the driveway, I dunno but given this short is well.. short and just meant to deliver on some quick gags, I’m not going to question it. It’s the first Pluto short i’ve covered without any dog sexual harassment, i’m not looking a gift dog in the mouth. 

The other short short played right after is part of a series where Donald ends up trying to get rid of a round bomb that shows up wherever he is....

It’s pretty damn funny, though being a huge Donald fan i’m obviously biased, but even removing my donald duck brand sunglasses, I will concede this was objectively fun.

But the cartoons stop as, true to the title, they’ve gone missing! Horace is found tied up, the cartoons are gone and Pete is obviously responsible. and hilariously so as the rope has his name on it and he says “I don’t know horace horsecollar” There are a LOT of good gags in this one, i’m leaving a lot out for time’s sake. 

So Mickey and Minnie come up with a plan: Mickey sends the.. Quackstreet Boys.... to stall. Now it may shock you but I actually LIKE the backstreet boys. Not to an extreme amount but I did grow up with them, and even now find their music pretty damn good. No my issue is this parody is weak, mostly running entirely on the title pun. The most I can give them credit for is using the outfits from their second album cover. No I wasn’t kidding I did grow up with them. You saw that everywhere so even if I didn’t enjoy their music then and now, i’d know it. But it just feels really weak, like they had no idea what to DO with the boys and instead just slapped them in a lame parody. It dosen’t help i’m not a fan of the classic version of the boys outside of the comics, as I feel later productions should’ve had them actually be distinct, and it took until 2017 to pull that off with the reboot, something I fear may be undone in future productions. Please.. don’t.. you can have Cristina Vee voice them all, I don’t care about the voice I just want to be able to tell them a apart. So yeah I don’t like it but it dosen’t drag the episode down. Just something I wanted to have a moan about. 

So they split up: Mickey, Minnie and Goofy go to shoot a cartoon while Donald runs the club. Naturally he rebrands.. but what really is telling is everyone boos him when he tries to mc.. just for not being Mickey. While Donald does have a massive inferiority complex here, desperately wanting to one up mickey.. with moments like this it’s hard not to see why> He’s JUST as big a star, just as talented , maybe not as nice but just as likeable. He even co-owns the club. But ironically only Mickey Himself, and Daisy of Course, treat him like an equal. To everyone else it’s Mickey’s world and he’s just the sidekick. It’s no wonder he spend sthe entire show desperately trying to outdo mickey: he doesn’t hate the guy, even if he wouldn’t admit it.. but he just wants to be loved too. Sure it’s part ego.

Mickey does return though with the new cartoon. And our only sizeable one so. 

Hickory Dickory Mickey: This is a REALLY good one with a simple enough premise; Goofy wants Mickey to take him to the airport at 6am tomorrow.. which Mickey balks at. 

Seriously i’ve woken up at 3-4am to go to the airport or on road trips. Waking up at 5:30 is pretty standard. Goofy also has good reason to ask as he once BROKE MICKEY OUT OF JAIL. And as seen up top the flashback is done in black and white AND with their old models. I just.. love everything about this and it had to have taken extra effort to make new models for the old models and thus extra money for a quick joke. So kudos best part of the episode. But with his hands tied Mickey is forced to take him and Goofy leaves him his clock which won’t stop ticking. So we get just.. nonstop good gags as Mickey tries to sleep with standouts being his trying to drown it out only to get the tick station, the tock station on the radio and the clock channel on the tv. He also tries to mail it and naturally it comes back thanks to a kangaroo when he ships it to Australia..a nd then get’s progressively batshit as he mails it to HADES (comes back in a puff of smoke) and to the 1920′s (It comes back in black and white with arms and legs). It’s just.. really damn good and I suggest seeking it out. I have liked other shorts better but this was a good one. 

Pete still gloats as they’ll need more cartoons.. only for one to fall out of his jacket and Mickey to shake the rest out. We then get a fun chase between the two, SO many good jokes, my favorite being him dressing up as a dalmation only for Cruella to take measurements, before being cornered by the three and the elephant from tarzan who throws him out.. right next to pepper-ann and her mom “Don’t touch the villian dear”. Good crossover.. and another show that like House of Mouse is not on disney plus don’t ask me why. 

So our heroes win, we get our usual sponsorship and unusually we see the guests leave, a nice bit I wish they did more. All’s well that ends well. 

Final Thoughts: This episode was fantastic. It introduces the cast well, sets up our villian, our basic premise and while only having one major cartoon, uses that as a plot point and it’s a damn good one. A fantastic start to the series and frankly the best place to start if your curious about the show. I’d like to thank Kev for sponsoring this review. If you’d like your own review you can look at comissoin details on my blog or get one guaranteed every month by becoming a 5 dollar patreon. You get one guaranteed review a month, acess to my discord server for my patreons, and to pick a short when I do birthday specials. And contributing to my patreon gets me closer to my stretch goals, even one dollar helps. Next goal not only gets reviews of the super ducktales mini series, but also a darkwing duck episode EVERY MONTH. And with the plug done, i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

         ... claws my way up from hell once more and vomits onto the dash.... hello. its nora. i used to write rory bergstrom, but if u were here before that u might remember me as greta or alma putnam or..... som1 else.... an endless carousel of trash children..... this is finn, who i actually wrote for an early version of this rp abt 5yrs back now...... grits teeth..... so forgive me if im rusty i havent written him in a long time but seein honey boy gave me a lotta finn muse n im keen to get Back On The Horse yeehaww...

DYLAN O’BRIEN / CIS-MALE — don’t look now, but is that finn o’callaghan i see? the 25 year old criminology and forensic studies student is in their graduate year of study year and he is a rochester alum. i hear they can be judicious, adroit, morose and cynical, so maybe keep that in mind. i bet he will make a name for themselves living off-campus. ( nora. 24. gmt. she/her )

shakes my tin can a humble pinterest, ma’am....

finn has a bio pasted at the bottom (n written in like.... 2015.... gross) but it’s long  so if u don’t wanna read it here’s the sparknotes summary..... anyway this was written years ago n a lot of it seems really cliche and lame now but..... we accept the trash we think we deserve

grumpy, ugly sweater wearing, tech-savvy grandpa

very dry sense of humour and embraces nihilism. 

if ron swanson and april ludgate had a baby it would be finn

he was raised in derry, just south of dublin.

from a big family. elder sister called sinead. he also has a younger sister (aoife), a younger brother (colm), and a collie named lassie because his father lovs cliches (finn hates cliches but loves his dog). 

his father was a pub landlord and his mother worked at the market sellin fruit n veg when they met but got a job as a medical receptionist when she had kids cos it meant she cld be there with them in the day and work nights.

his parents met when they were p young and fiesty and rushed into marriage cos they were catholic n just wanted to have sex. his family were literally dirt-poor, but they had a lot of love i guess

hmmmmm his relationship w his father wasn’t the best cos i can’t write character who have healthy relationships w their parents throws up a peace sign. yh, had a pretty emotionally distant, alcoholic violent father n so gets a lot of his bad habits i.e. drinking as a coping mechanism and poor anger management from him BUT anyway

as a kid he was never very motivated in class, he always had a nervous itch to be off somewhere doing something else. struggled under government austerity bcso there just wasn’t the resources to support low income families where the kids had learning difficulties n needed support. fuck the tories am i right 

his mum suggested he try sports to help w his restless energy but he was never any good at football so he took up boxing and tap dance instead. he took to tap dancing like a fish to fuckin water. as adhd n found this as a really good way to use his excess energy in a creative way

had a few run ins with the police in his early teens for spray painting and graffiti, but he straightened himself out n now actually considering becoming a detective inspector??? cops are pigs.

he had a youtube channel where he posted videos of him tapdancing and breakdancing as a kid, basically would be a tiktok boy nowadays, n had like... a small fanbase in his early teens. attended several open auditions unsuccessfully, until he was finally cast in billy eliot when he was fifteen.

during billy eliot he began dating an italian dancer called nina. they became dance partners soon after and toured across the republic with various different shows (inc riverdance lol the classic irish stereotype). their relationship was p toxic tbh, they were both very hot tempered people and just used to argue and fight all the time.

he went semi-pro at tap dancing, and nina couldn’t stand being second best so she moved back to italy with her family. ignored his texts, phone calls, etc, eventually he was driven to the point where he used his savings to buy a plane ticket, showed up at her house and she was like wtf?? freaked out and filed a restraining order accusing him of stalking.

he was fined for harassment and then returned home to derry, but after the incident with nina he quit dancing for good and finished his leaving cert before heading to university in the US to get as far away from nina and his past life as poss. and basically since he quit dancing to study forensics (death kink. finn cant get enough of that morgue. just walks around sayin beat u) he’s become a massive grump and jsut doesn’t see the good in people any more.

u’ll find finn in an old man bar drinking whiskey bc he is in fact an old man at heart or sat on his roof smoking a joint, drawing wolves and lions and skeletons and shit, playing call of duty or getting blazed or at the corner of the room in a house party ignoring everyone and scrolling through twitter. is a massive e-boy. always up-to-date on memes and internet slang. has reddit as an app on his phone

not very good at communication. rather than solve his issues by talking, he’d prefer to just solve them through fighting or running away from his problems hence why he has come halfway across the world to get away from an issue which probs cld have been solved w a few apology emails.

takes a lot to phase him, but when his beserk button gets pressed he can become a bit pugnacious like an angry lil rottweiler. in his undergrad he was in a few fist fights but doesn’t really do tht any more as he doesn’t condone violence.

 in the previous version of this rp he was hospitalised like 5 times. pls, give my son a break. stop tryin to kill him. he literaly got a bottle smashed over his head and bled out all over his favourite angora rug that was the only light of his life

works at the campus coffee shop n always whines about how he’s a slave to capitalism. always smells of coffee

lives off campus with an elderly woman named Marianne, and basically gets reduced rent bcos he makes her dinner / keeps her company. they have a great bond

fan of karl marx. v big on socialism

insomniac with chronic nosebleeds

cynical about everything. too much of a fight club character 4 his own good n has his head up tyler durden’s sphincter

always confused or annoyed

statistics

basic information

full name: finnegan seamus o'callaghan nickname(s): finn age: 25 astrological sign: aries hometown: derry, ireland occupation: phd student / former street entertainer fatal flaw: cynicism positives: self-reliant, street smart, relaxed, intelligent, spontaneous, brave, independent, reliable, trustworthy, loyal. negatives: hostile, impulsive, stubborn, brooding, pugnacious, untrusting, cynical, enigmatic, reserved.

physical

colouring: medium hair colour: dark brown, almost black eye colour: brown height: 5’9” weight: 69kg build: tall, athletic voice: subtle irish accent, low, smooth. dominant hand: left scar(s): one on the left side of his ribs from a knife wound that he doesn’t remember getting cos he was drunk distinguishing marks: freckles, tattoo of a wolf howling at a moon allergies: pollen and the full spectrum of human emotion alcohol tolerance: high drunken behaviour: he becomes friendlier, far more conversational than when sober, flirtier, and generally more self-confident.

psychological

dreams/goals: self-fulfilment, travel the globe, experience life in its most alive and technicoloured version, make documentary films, help the vulnerable in society, grow as a human being.

skills: jack-of-all-trades, very fast runner, good at thieving things, talented tap dancer, good in crisis situations, dab-hand at mechanics, musically-intelligent, can throw a mean right hook and very capable of defending himself, can roll a cigarette, memorises quotes and passages of literature with ease, can light a match with his teeth.

likes: the smell of the earth after rain, poetry, cigarettes, shakespeare, whiskey, tattoos, travelling, ac/dc, deep conversations, leather jackets, open spaces, the smell of petrol, early noughties ‘emo phase’ anthems.

dislikes:  the government, parties, rules, donald trump, children, apple products, weddings, people in general, small talk, dependency, loneliness, pop music, public transport, justin timberlake, uncertainty.fears: fear itself, drowning alignment: true neutral mbti: istp – “while their mechanical tendencies can make them appear simple at a glance, istps are actually quite enigmatic. friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, istp personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. istps can seem very loyal and steady for a while, but they tend to build up a store of impulsive energy that explodes without warning, taking their interests in bold new directions.” (via 16personalities.com)

full bio (lame as fuck written years ago..... pleathe...)

tw homophobia

born in quigley’s pub on the backstreets of sunny dublin, young finnegan o'callaghan was thrown kicking and screaming into the rowdy suburbs of irish drinking culture. the son of a landlord and a fishwife, he never had much in the way of earnings, but there was never a dull moment in his lively estate, where asbo’s thrived, but community spirit conquered. at school, finn was pegged as lazy and unmotivated, though truly his dyslexia made it hard for the boy to learn in the same environment of his peers and only made him more closed-off in class. struggling with anger management, finn moved from school to school, unable to fit the cookie-cutter mould that school enforced on him, though whilst academic studies were of little interest to the boy, he soon found his true passions lay in recreational activities. immersed into the joys of sport from as young as four, finn was an ardent munster fan and anticipated nothing more than the day he could finally fit into his brother’s old pair of rugby boots.

his calling finally came unexpectedly, not in the form of rugger, but through dance. to learn to express himself in a non-academic way, he began tap dancing, finding therapy in the beat of his soles against the cracked kitchen tiles (much to his mother’s disgrace). it wasn’t a conscious choice, finn just realised one day that dance was something that made him feel. a king of the streets, finn made his fortune on those cobbled pavements – dancing and drawing to earn his keep. by default, finn became a street artist, each penny he earned from his chalk drawings saved in a jam jar towards buying his first pair of tap shoes. though many of his less-than-amiable neighbours called him a nancy and a gaybo, finn refused to quit at his somewhat ‘unconventional’ hobby, for the young scrapper found energy, life, and released anger through the rhythm of tap. soon he branched out into street dance, hip hop, break dancing, lyrical, his days spent smacking his scuffed feet against the broken patio into the night.

when he was thirteen he took up boxing, and as expected, his newfound ‘macho’ pastime conflicted with his dancing. the boxers called him ‘soft’; the dancers called him ‘inelegant’. he felt like two different people; having to choose between interests was like being handed a knife and asked to which half of himself he wished to cut away. he couldn’t afford professional training in dance, with most schools based in england and limited scholarships available. instead, he made the street his studio, racking up a small fanbase on youtube. when he was fifteen he made his debut in billy eliot at the olympia theatre in dublin. enter nina de souza, talented, beautiful and italian; ballet dancer, operatic singer, genius whiz kid, and spoiled brat. she was selfish, conceited, hell bent on getting her own way, and every director’s nightmare. finn fell for her like a house of cards. he’d always had a soft spot for girls who meant trouble. and so their hellish courtship began.

by the time they were seventeen, the two young swans had danced in every playhouse across the republic. they were known in theatres across the country for their tempestuous personalities, their raging arguments with one another, their tendency to drop out of shows altogether without any notice, yet the money kept rolling in and the audiences continued to grow. for three years, their families continued to put up with their hysterical fights followed by passionate reconciliations. he was too possessive, and she was too wild. their carcrash of a relationship finally came to a catastrophic halt when nina broke off the whole affair and returned to italy with her family. for months finn tried to contact her, yet his phone calls, texts, facebook messages were always ignored, until finally he was driven to drastic measures and used his savings to get a plane to her home town. when finn turned up uninvited at nina’s house she freaked out – and rightly so – she contacted her agent, accused him of stalking her, and had a restraining order placed against him. finn was arrested, held in a station overnight, and charged with harassment before he was allowed to return to dublin.

after the incident with nina, finn lost the fight in his eyes. he became far more hostile, far less likely to retaliate with his own fists, and picked fights not for the thrill of feeling his own fists pummel another into a wall, but for the sensation of his own brittle bones cracking. he dropped his tap shoes in a dumpster, stopped talking to his friends, followed his father’s advice and went back to school to complete his leaving certificate. a few short months later, and finn was packing his bags, saying his bittersweet goodbyes, and travelling half-way across the globe to be as far away as possible from his past self, his mess of a life, and most of all nina. it seemed somehow ironic that the boy who had been cautioned by the garda so much during his youth for spray painting, busking without a liscence, and raucous parties would become the grumpy, aloof overseas student studying a degree in criminology; that his once reckless spirit could be crushed so easily. 

of all things that finn could be called, straightforward would never be one of them. ever since his first days in atticus, the boy was pegged as hostile, hot-headed, cynical, rude. he seemed to spend more time in his thoughts than engaging in conversation. like a ticking time-bomb, finn’s anger was of the calm kind, liable to explode without a moment’s noticed. his unpredictable personality make him something of an enigma to those who aren’t amiable with the lad, though hostile as he may appear, he harvests a good heart. loyalty lies at the centre of his affections, and whilst his friends are few in number, he makes a lifelong partner. somewhere within finn, there’s still some fight left, but mostly he has recognised that his hedonistic lifestyle did little to leave him fulfilled – mostly, it just emptied him out – and over his three years at university has resigned himself to a nihilistic predicament.

        if u wanna plot with me pls pls pls im me or like this post!! i am always game for plots i love em so excited to write with you all here r some ideas

study buddies. finn is now a phd student so has to start takin shit seriously. he gon be in the library every day doing that independent study. if he had ppl who were also regular library goers n they get each other coffees to save time.... tht wld be sweet

ppl who love techno dj sets and going super hard on the weekends!!! fuck yea

friends with benefits. exes on bad terms. ppl he tried to date but couldnt because he’s always emotionally hung up on someone else. spicy hook up plots

ppl he met touring?? maybe ppl who were also in the entertainment industry..... anyone got a character who is ex circus hit me up

does anyone else study criminology / forensics / criminal psych / law? phd students sometimes lecture so he cld be an assistant lecturer / tutor if ur character is in a younger year

gamers !!! social recluses !!! hermits !!

finn goes to the skatepark and all the young boys there think he’s a gradnpa which he is! 

You wanted me to quit the meds because even though I'm still not on the right ones that make me normal and im finally not as suicidal or as much of an insomniac, some bananas, a daily walk, some meditation and hypnotherapy, are supposed to keep the serotonin flying in my head?

You made a party when i said i quit the meds(simply because ur not letting me take them properly and i give up, i completely give up) because apparently im still doing well without them, im not, like ive always done for most of my life, im unconsciously acting and smiling and i do it so effortlessly you believe that im not depressed and u never knew how suicidal i really am, how messed up i can really get and how psychotic i sometimes feel i am.

My therapist was trying SO HARD to not be out of words in trying to make me fear death and want to live and, he couldnt, multiple times he was driven speechless by how calmly and matter-of-factly i talked about it, i dont care that im going to hell i accept it (even if i dont want it) , im not afraid to die, i also accept that, and its such an innate feeling inside me to feel like death, like dying right now, like jumping out the window or getting hit by a train, its so good. I am not better, i never was, i dont even know what normal feels like, i do not know how people can feel normal or how they think and it boggles my mind how they dont feel like death without a trigger, how they can get up in the morning and do shit, how they can JUST DO THINGS like doing homework or cleaning a dish without it feeling like the hardest thing on the face of the earth, how they get bad grades because they didnt study enough and not because their anxiety makes them runaway from it all and then they cant do anything but nervously listen to music they love.

I havent been able to even be half the artist with a quarter of the drive to get better that i used to have, my creativity diminished and sometimes i cant draw or write the simplest things i used to do with ease and helped me cope, now i cant cope i tried everything, it wont work, meditation, exercise, diet, and even a fake it til u make it attitude nothing worked it made things worse and now i have all kinds of anxiety from it.

It was never ur fault, but for the future, i wish if you would just accept that my feelings are valid and dont have to have a causative, shit just happens, depression just fucking happens and so does anxiety, there isnt always a trigger and its not always your fault, get more educated about mental illnesses its not the same information we had 15 years ago, shit changes and gets better, people used to paint their damn faces with radioactive material to look pretty but now they changed into making their skin actually healthy and beautiful, thats how things work. There are meds for this shit because sometimes the happy healthy lifestyle doesnt work and needs a push, sometimes forcing such a lifestyle makes things 10 times worse. So i hope youre happy now, i quit my long-awaited-and-planned-for-for-years therapy and i gave up on life without being able to die. Im fucked up and you'll never know, because now i have to pretend im still doing well for the rest of my life while wanting to die and jump in front of every opportunity.

MAULDIN: This Time Will Be Different

For almost 40 years, we’ve lived in an era of low rates and easy money. It let governments and businesses worldwide run up piles of debt.

Global debt could easily reach $500 trillion in a few years. And yet everyone acts like that is normal and can continue.

Just like subprime mortgage debt triggered the last recession, corporate debt will trigger the next one. This will start a liquidity crisis and create havoc in all sorts of “unrelated” markets.

Investors will learn once again that all asset classes globally are correlated in a crisis. There will be few places to hide.

But then, as all recessions do, this recession will end. And recovery will begin, because that is what happens after recessions.

Except it will be different this time.

The Rise of the Far Left

Recovery from the Great Recession was the slowest on record. The next recovery will be even slower.

Debt is future consumption brought forward. We are now enjoying consumption and growth that won’t happen in the future.

Debt is a drag on future growth. And the amount of debt the world now has will be a monster drag on future growth.

Recessions always bring higher unemployment, on top of technology-driven job losses. This will worsen the current political tensions.

Humans want scapegoats. Many will blame markets and capitalism, when we have neither free markets or true capitalism.

The progressive left’s siren song will begin to play everywhere. They’ll promise guaranteed basic income, free college, free everything, etc.

If you haven’t already heard of the economic insanity called Modern Monetary Theory or MMT, you will.

It says we don’t need to worry about government debt. We should simply monetize it. Create and spend whatever we need for the common good.

They produce fancy equations and rationales, but monetization is the bottom line. It’s essentially what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others in her world espouse.

They talk about raising taxes on the rich. But there’s simply not enough money to do what they propose—even if you take everything the rich have.

The arithmetic doesn’t add up. So they will add more debt and eventually monetize it. Which is exactly what Japan has done, and seemingly succeeded.

Politics Will Drive Everything

US government debt will easily reach $30 trillion within three years after the next recession.

Once we begin the next economic experiment, another recession will come shortly. Markets will be even more distresses. And the debt will soar to $40 trillion.

Pensions and government deficits will be completely upside down. And then the real fun will begin… quantitative easing on a scale that makes the Bernanke years look like an elementary school picnic. We will simply have no choice.

Now, the world will not come to an end.

Markets and most businesses will figure out how to survive. New businesses will keep launching. New technologies will thrive.

We will continue to need food, shelter, transportation, communication, and all the things we think of as normal today.

This will all happen while technology “eats” jobs faster than it creates them. It was all well and good when we went from 80% of the workforce on farms to 1% today. But that happened over several generations and centuries.

We are going to see that kind of upheaval in many industries in half a generation. Can you blame frustrated workers? People wishing that they can have their jobs protected? Wanting the government to do something?

In the coming decade, I think politics will be more important to markets than ever before. That is not to say investors can’t figure it out.

But if you are looking at past historical performance to guide your portfolio, you will be disappointed.

We are about to enter an era unlike anything in our own experience or in our history books. Analogies? Surely. History, and economic and political history, will be ever more important.

How should then we invest? One thing I can tell is that the coming decade will bring a lot of volatility. Buy and hold investing will be dangerous. Active management is once again going to be key.

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Sharp macroeconomic analysis, big market calls, and shrewd predictions are all in a week’s work for visionary thinker and acclaimed financial expert John Mauldin. Since 2001, investors have turned to his Thoughts from the Frontline to be informed about what’s really going on in the economy. Join hundreds of thousands of readers, and get it free in your inbox every week.

India IV

India Part 4, have finally arrived and i should close this off with my already most elaborated trip ever experienced in my whole life on 24th Sept 2018. I actually went on this trip somewhere late June and i am still yapping about it until september. that is exactly 3 months later, well but dont the best trip of life runs for eternity? heheh. 

well anyway, my next year bucket list is full of places i have yet to visit, except for korea but im going back for jeju and i havent been there so im already crazy excited for that. my other trips includes, nepal, trans-siberian trip and hopefully a europe tour? well this europe bit is unconfirmed but i would still love to go. that would means i will need to leave this job. 

If i ever do quit, i will let you guys know again. By guys i mean me, myself and i in this tumblr page of mine. ha ha ha. but if theres anybody out there who actually bothers to read my page secretly, please please please do hit me up so we can be friends, or at least just talk. i would love to find out what inspires you to stay so thanks. 

anyway lets get back on with it. i will probably only be posting more pictures in another post as i am typing with laptop and not by my phone. i remember vividly after we managed to score a trip to nubra valley and panggong tso (which N kept bargaining for price) and even the salesperson was like usually the girls are the one doing all the haggling but this time N did most of the work while F and me are just too tired and we agreed with almost everything haha. Anyway the jeep that picked us up was driven by 21 years old Mehboob. At this stage, we didnt know the drive would end up with a broken window with only a plastic sheet to shield me from the furious winds and snowy colds. I am absolutely being very serious that we travelled more than 1000km in the mountaineous region with a broken window and me, being the sacrificial sitting next to the window throughout the whole entire trip. It was not pleasant when the winds kept on hitting against the plastic, making that dreadful slaps again and again interrupting your sleep. I pardon Mehboob too as he is just at an innocent age of 21 and probably havent had that much driving experience like Ali or Bilal, but the next time you wanted a driver for this kind of road trips, it would be best to know who are your driver first perhaps. Yessss~

The car with broken window at the back. Yup thats my seat for 2 days.

Anyway, after the awful drive of 5 hours (with in between of cries and sobbing and vomitting) we have finally arrived at nubra valley. it was realllllly not what i expected. we wanted a cheap accomodation, and we were obviously sharing with a rich/middle class family in the same jeep but they stayed at a resort for 5000 rupees per night? and we didnt have that kind of money to burn so we settled for 1600 rupees per night at an okay 2 star house guest? well cant complain what you paid for right? i even saw toilet bowl full of shit on the next morning but what i did? i held my nauseousness and went on to the other empty clean room and pissed in the toilet instead, voila. i cant believe i managed to do that. wonder what would my mom do? LOL.

I dont even know if i wanted to elaborate on the valley, but truthfully it was really nothing much. i mean of course the views, the climate, the people is something you dont get often coming from singapore but i was very much disappointed i would say. it was such a letdown.

*continuing on hp on 25th sept* anyway, the valley had overworked and underweight camels, ferrying people after people for rides and i honestly felt really bad for the camels, its almost like the tigers and elephants case in thailand. Please stop abusing animals for tourism purpose, they are so precious and should be saved from these kind of abuses. #stopanimalabuse

Almost felt like a campaign wasnt it? Haha. Anyway, the second journey bit was more interesting should i say? But first i have to talk about our lunch pitstop cos it had maggi! And i downed a bowl of tomato soup with hot tea ahhh alhamdullillah subhanallah. I think i got the hang of enduring my motion sickness already, maybe, sort of. Haha but i definitely need to eat, cant leave an empty tummy for a bumpy journey and especially not when im travelling in the mountaineous region.

Opps, not hot tea but just hot water i guess. It was more than enough because the trick here is not to overeat or undereat but just filled?

So we went on for about 2 hours plus and we finally reached Panggong Tso! This place was frigging cold, legit and i was giddy af when i got off. I needed to breathe on my own and simply catch my breath, or mostly to pee actually. So i seek alone for a grandmother to get a key cos the toilet was locked and owned by the shop owner's grandmother. Ha ha ha. Off i went to one of the camp calling 'Dadimaaaaa...'. I think i have a knack for calling people on friendly terms without feeling embarrassed. Lol. Enough toilet talks, heres Panggong Tso....

Just look at the difference in color of the lake and right opposite of the lake is already China! MasyaAllah. I think i cried for abit here, but mostly i was cold. It was definitely mindblowing, i would definitely have stayed longer if it wasnt too cold :')

From this point onwards, we were just heading back to Leh. Nothing much happened here, we had dinner and some last minute shopping. It was this time too that i received news of Hairil's passing. Hairil was my dikir barat instructor, he had only recently got married and just had a daughter. But he was gone too soon. I hope and sincerely pray that Hairil will be at ease, may Allah SWT forgive Hairil and may his good deeds on earth be accepted, may Hairil also be happier in the hereafter than he was in dunya. May we see each other again Hairil, and thank you for your knowledge which you have shared with us. Ameen allahumma ameen.

One of the book i read in the plane cos my phone was dead. Ha ha ha

So the greatest trip of my life thus far, ended with me reaching Singapore fetched by my parents and my youngest sister. I still remember having mcspicy the moment i touched down. Alhamdullillah, i can never thank You enough for allowing me to travel so much and to do as much as i can ya Allah. Thank you 😢😞😭

"We travel not to escape life, but we travel so that life does not escape from us."

Till next time in my other travel blogs, insyaAllah.

♥️

[Official] - TotalBiscuits future This is posted on behalf of TotalBiscuit by the subreddits moderation team. TB does not participate in Reddit anymore (we havent managed to keep him off /r/rarepuppers yet thats a work in progress) since he doesn't think that health related speculation is good for his mindset. Well-wishes can be sent to [email protected] where they'll be sent on by his PR guy.When I went into hospital a week or so ago, it was accompanied by the news that conventional chemotherapys effectiveness had been exhausted. My body has become resistant to all forms of it according to my oncologist. 46 chemo treatments, 138 days plugged into a pump. Let nobody ever say I wasn't stubborn. Unfortunately this was followed up a couple of days later with some more bad news. My liver is failing and its effectiveness has lowered past the point where the clinical trials I had been offered would take me on. Yes apparently there are things that are too dangerous for even the terminal. Obviously we're going to keep looking for other trials but I'm currently coming to terms with the fact that I don't have long left and right now at any rate, there is literally nothing I can do about it other than try to manage the pain as best as possible and stay as hydrated as possible to ease the pressure on the liver. There are quite a few pain management options left to try and the ones that I am using can be increased in dosage quite significantly if need be. The majority of the pain is being caused by pressure on the spine from hardened nodules in the liver and lung as well as fluid. We haven't fully explored the options for dealing with all of that, but its high priority so that my quality-of-life can improve.That's what it comes down to now, getting my quality-of-life to as good a standard as possible. Even though you don't really have any treatments to fight with any more, I firmly believe that the will to live is a very strong asset and that is much easier to maintain when you're not in crippling pain all the time.That will most likely be my last health update, unless some miracle happens or we do indeed find a trial that can do something despite the damage to my liver. I'd ask people not to speculate about how long I might have left. I've deliberately left out some details to try and reduce the behavior, though it might very well have the opposite effect. All I do know is that kind of thing is upsetting to some of my viewers that read it and I'd rather not encourage it. I've already exceeded the "usual" lifespan of someone with my condition so whatever numbers people come up with are just that.Its now a case of "what do I do with the time I have left?" Why am I telling you? Because if you're a viewer of my content, its relevant to you.Retirement, sort ofFirstly, I am retiring as a games critic. I can't do the job anymore. I'm under the influence of too much medication to think clearly and my schedule too unreliable to get coverage out in a timely manner. I've found it very stressful over the last year to try and keep up, knowing that I'm failing and watching my work (rightly) fall out of favour because there isn't enough of it, its not on time or its not of good quality. It doesn't make any sense to continue to try to do that job in my state and while it used to bring me a lot of satisfaction, now it's just the opposite.Does that mean I'm done with Youtube and Twitch? Nope, blokes gotta make a living. I have a family to consider and there's no such thing as "too much" when it comes to what I leave them when I go out kicking and screaming. I want to spend the rest of my time with the two things I love the most, my family and my work. I'm transitioning my Youtube and Twitch work over to gameplay with my wife. There's a bunch of co-op stuff I never really got around to playing and I have the perfect gameplay partner right beside me. When I'm having a good idea, I'll be doing gameplay streams and Youtube videos with Genna. If you want to know what to expect from that, well we've done it before, just not recently, there's some rather popular videos of it over on Her channelThis is something that will make me happy, spending time with my family but also getting job satisfaction. That's something all too easily overlooked by some, I'm a very work-driven person and one of hardest things of the past couple of years has been dealing with not being able to reliable do my work. It's brought on depression, uncertainty, anger, you name it. I hate it.The PodcastWhat about Co-optional? Well that's sticking around. The show must go on after all. We will be moving forward with our proposal to shorten the show to 2 hours per episode however. This is for health reasons but also because lately I've felt like 3 hours drags on too much, we find ourselves having to rely on way too much filler and its not been as enjoyable to do. Some might be disappointed by this though we found in a recent poll that quite a few people, more than those who said they'd be disappointed, actually wanted this change. There are only so many hours in a week. I'd rather have 2 hours of good, fresh content than 3 hours of discussion spread too thin, which the shows as of late have often been. As for weeks in which I simply cannot do the show (which hopefully wont happen but you can never be sure), Genna is going to be trained in production and will take on a host role, with the usual guests. Genna will be filling in for Dodger while she takes maternity leave anyway so, get used to hearing her voice.SupportWe've had A LOT of questions about donations, how people can help etc. That's always humbling to see. Some suggested a GofundMe. I'm not comfortable with taking donations when I'm still able to work and have income from several different sources. I dont begrudge anyone for using donations as a form of income, its just always seemed inappropriate for us when we have several other ways to making money that result in both parties getting something. If you would like to help, do the things you've always done. Watch our videos without adblock or with Youtube Red (yes Red helps, a lot, much more than watching an ad).Support our podcast sponsors, Squarespace and [Audible at [(https://ift.tt/2HDqc2a] - they've both been very good to us over the past couple of years and let us pay Dodger and Jesse a salary for doing the show rather than just "exposure" (though they got a lot of damn exposure, let's not sell ourselves short here").Watch our streams and consider subscribing. There'll be more content coming on Twitch than there has been for a while with streams with Genna. Our subscription is a service, giving you instant access to VoDs rather than having to wait for them to hit Youtube (in the case of Cooptional, thats 48 hours afterwards), no Twitch ads, 50 chat emotes, access to the subscriber only chat and a 10% discount on our t-shirts and hoodies. We've done our best to make subscribing a service model, not a donation model and we're going to try and keep it that way, including more features and discounts if we can.Speaking of merchandise, yes the purchase of a shirt is very helpful. Margins on t-shirts are ridiculous, that's why everyone and their mother wants to sell them to you. [https://ift.tt/2zKjDqA] is where we sell ours.We have a games retail partner in [http://chrono.gg/tb] that sells a different game every day at a big discount. We get a cut of each sale, so if you see something on there you like and pick it up under our link, that helps.We do have another partnership in the works as well, with a company you should be quite familiar with.Lastly, I'll be taking the occasional brand deal here and there. Even though I'm not a critic anymore, I still fully believe in disclosure, honesty with the audience and only taking deals for games you actually like. People can see right through the fake bullshit anyway, so why waste your time and I'd quite like however many videos I've got left in me to be fun. I'm not playing your crappy game, no matter how much money you try to slip me, so you can take me off those mobile mailing lists please.These are all better than asking for donations. We're still running a business and I want to keep acting like it. All that said, if something goes horribly wrong, if my insurance stops paying out for whatever reason or if faced between draining all savings and leaving my family with nothing but our physical assets and asking for help, you better believe I'll be asking for help. The family comes first.What we leave behindIt goes further than that though. When I leave this world I want to leave something my family can use to help them earn. Not only would I be ok with Genna taking over my channels and assets once I'm gone, I'd be delighted if she did. I've been encouraging her for years to create more content for Youtube, hopefully as we make a bunch of fun videos together over the next however-long, that confidence will grow. I fully expect The Co-optional Podcast to go on and I love the thought that once I'm gone, the channels will go on in my absence, hosted by the person who knows me best and has been with me for the better part of my adult life.If this is all a bit brutally honest... well, it is me. I want you to see where I'm coming from, I always have and I really believe that's what made me an effective and useful critic. It's been a privilege, thank you all for letting me into your life and do something so important as to have an impact on how you spend your hard-earned money. Thankfully Youtube is thriving with great review and critical content now, there's plenty of awesome choices and considering most of my critical content has been reserved for the podcast over the last year, many of you have most likely found the places you can rely on.TL:DR - Conventional treatments ineffective, liver too damage for clinical trials that we know of. I'm retiring as a critic to spend whats left of my life sharing my love of gaming with my wife and all of you via co-op videos and streams. The podcast will continue every week, with a streamlined 2-hour format. We have no plans to launch any kind of donation campaign and suggest above a list of ways to support us if you would like to.Thank you for reading, watching or listening and I will see you soon, along with Genna, on a stream or YT channel near you.

[Official] - TotalBiscuits future This is posted on behalf of TotalBiscuit by the subreddits moderation team. TB does not participate in Reddit anymore (we havent managed to keep him off /r/rarepuppers yet thats a work in progress) since he doesn't think that health related speculation is good for his mindset. Well-wishes can be sent to [email protected] where they'll be sent on by his PR guy.When I went into hospital a week or so ago, it was accompanied by the news that conventional chemotherapys effectiveness had been exhausted. My body has become resistant to all forms of it according to my oncologist. 46 chemo treatments, 138 days plugged into a pump. Let nobody ever say I wasn't stubborn. Unfortunately this was followed up a couple of days later with some more bad news. My liver is failing and its effectiveness has lowered past the point where the clinical trials I had been offered would take me on. Yes apparently there are things that are too dangerous for even the terminal. Obviously we're going to keep looking for other trials but I'm currently coming to terms with the fact that I don't have long left and right now at any rate, there is literally nothing I can do about it other than try to manage the pain as best as possible and stay as hydrated as possible to ease the pressure on the liver. There are quite a few pain management options left to try and the ones that I am using can be increased in dosage quite significantly if need be. The majority of the pain is being caused by pressure on the spine from hardened nodules in the liver and lung as well as fluid. We haven't fully explored the options for dealing with all of that, but its high priority so that my quality-of-life can improve.That's what it comes down to now, getting my quality-of-life to as good a standard as possible. Even though you don't really have any treatments to fight with any more, I firmly believe that the will to live is a very strong asset and that is much easier to maintain when you're not in crippling pain all the time.That will most likely be my last health update, unless some miracle happens or we do indeed find a trial that can do something despite the damage to my liver. I'd ask people not to speculate about how long I might have left. I've deliberately left out some details to try and reduce the behavior, though it might very well have the opposite effect. All I do know is that kind of thing is upsetting to some of my viewers that read it and I'd rather not encourage it. I've already exceeded the "usual" lifespan of someone with my condition so whatever numbers people come up with are just that.Its now a case of "what do I do with the time I have left?" Why am I telling you? Because if you're a viewer of my content, its relevant to you.Retirement, sort ofFirstly, I am retiring as a games critic. I can't do the job anymore. I'm under the influence of too much medication to think clearly and my schedule too unreliable to get coverage out in a timely manner. I've found it very stressful over the last year to try and keep up, knowing that I'm failing and watching my work (rightly) fall out of favour because there isn't enough of it, its not on time or its not of good quality. It doesn't make any sense to continue to try to do that job in my state and while it used to bring me a lot of satisfaction, now it's just the opposite.Does that mean I'm done with Youtube and Twitch? Nope, blokes gotta make a living. I have a family to consider and there's no such thing as "too much" when it comes to what I leave them when I go out kicking and screaming. I want to spend the rest of my time with the two things I love the most, my family and my work. I'm transitioning my Youtube and Twitch work over to gameplay with my wife. There's a bunch of co-op stuff I never really got around to playing and I have the perfect gameplay partner right beside me. When I'm having a good idea, I'll be doing gameplay streams and Youtube videos with Genna. If you want to know what to expect from that, well we've done it before, just not recently, there's some rather popular videos of it over on Her channelThis is something that will make me happy, spending time with my family but also getting job satisfaction. That's something all too easily overlooked by some, I'm a very work-driven person and one of hardest things of the past couple of years has been dealing with not being able to reliable do my work. It's brought on depression, uncertainty, anger, you name it. I hate it.The PodcastWhat about Co-optional? Well that's sticking around. The show must go on after all. We will be moving forward with our proposal to shorten the show to 2 hours per episode however. This is for health reasons but also because lately I've felt like 3 hours drags on too much, we find ourselves having to rely on way too much filler and its not been as enjoyable to do. Some might be disappointed by this though we found in a recent poll that quite a few people, more than those who said they'd be disappointed, actually wanted this change. There are only so many hours in a week. I'd rather have 2 hours of good, fresh content than 3 hours of discussion spread too thin, which the shows as of late have often been. As for weeks in which I simply cannot do the show (which hopefully wont happen but you can never be sure), Genna is going to be trained in production and will take on a host role, with the usual guests. Genna will be filling in for Dodger while she takes maternity leave anyway so, get used to hearing her voice.SupportWe've had A LOT of questions about donations, how people can help etc. That's always humbling to see. Some suggested a GofundMe. I'm not comfortable with taking donations when I'm still able to work and have income from several different sources. I dont begrudge anyone for using donations as a form of income, its just always seemed inappropriate for us when we have several other ways to making money that result in both parties getting something. If you would like to help, do the things you've always done. Watch our videos without adblock or with Youtube Red (yes Red helps, a lot, much more than watching an ad).Support our podcast sponsors, Squarespace and [Audible at [(https://ift.tt/2HDqc2a] - they've both been very good to us over the past couple of years and let us pay Dodger and Jesse a salary for doing the show rather than just "exposure" (though they got a lot of damn exposure, let's not sell ourselves short here").Watch our streams and consider subscribing. There'll be more content coming on Twitch than there has been for a while with streams with Genna. Our subscription is a service, giving you instant access to VoDs rather than having to wait for them to hit Youtube (in the case of Cooptional, thats 48 hours afterwards), no Twitch ads, 50 chat emotes, access to the subscriber only chat and a 10% discount on our t-shirts and hoodies. We've done our best to make subscribing a service model, not a donation model and we're going to try and keep it that way, including more features and discounts if we can.Speaking of merchandise, yes the purchase of a shirt is very helpful. Margins on t-shirts are ridiculous, that's why everyone and their mother wants to sell them to you. [https://ift.tt/2zKjDqA] is where we sell ours.We have a games retail partner in [http://chrono.gg/tb] that sells a different game every day at a big discount. We get a cut of each sale, so if you see something on there you like and pick it up under our link, that helps.We do have another partnership in the works as well, with a company you should be quite familiar with.Lastly, I'll be taking the occasional brand deal here and there. Even though I'm not a critic anymore, I still fully believe in disclosure, honesty with the audience and only taking deals for games you actually like. People can see right through the fake bullshit anyway, so why waste your time and I'd quite like however many videos I've got left in me to be fun. I'm not playing your crappy game, no matter how much money you try to slip me, so you can take me off those mobile mailing lists please.These are all better than asking for donations. We're still running a business and I want to keep acting like it. All that said, if something goes horribly wrong, if my insurance stops paying out for whatever reason or if faced between draining all savings and leaving my family with nothing but our physical assets and asking for help, you better believe I'll be asking for help. The family comes first.What we leave behindIt goes further than that though. When I leave this world I want to leave something my family can use to help them earn. Not only would I be ok with Genna taking over my channels and assets once I'm gone, I'd be delighted if she did. I've been encouraging her for years to create more content for Youtube, hopefully as we make a bunch of fun videos together over the next however-long, that confidence will grow. I fully expect The Co-optional Podcast to go on and I love the thought that once I'm gone, the channels will go on in my absence, hosted by the person who knows me best and has been with me for the better part of my adult life.If this is all a bit brutally honest... well, it is me. I want you to see where I'm coming from, I always have and I really believe that's what made me an effective and useful critic. It's been a privilege, thank you all for letting me into your life and do something so important as to have an impact on how you spend your hard-earned money. Thankfully Youtube is thriving with great review and critical content now, there's plenty of awesome choices and considering most of my critical content has been reserved for the podcast over the last year, many of you have most likely found the places you can rely on.TL:DR - Conventional treatments ineffective, liver too damage for clinical trials that we know of. I'm retiring as a critic to spend whats left of my life sharing my love of gaming with my wife and all of you via co-op videos and streams. The podcast will continue every week, with a streamlined 2-hour format. We have no plans to launch any kind of donation campaign and suggest above a list of ways to support us if you would like to.Thank you for reading, watching or listening and I will see you soon, along with Genna, on a stream or YT channel near you.