Less Worse is a great way to put it.

I got that term from my college social studies teacher way back in 1979, and I've been using it ever since. I'm surprised it's never caught on.

People tend to favor positive outlooks and focus on negative bias externally, it's a weird contradiction of the human mind.

I'll start using it myself.

Old Man 2020 to Baby New Year 2021: "Well, that was a total dumpster fire. It's up to you now, kid."

2021 to 2020: "Hold my beer..."

"Hold my beer..."

Thanks for the chuckle, had to wipe my eyes when I was through ...

And yeah, the crazy and the stupid ain't over yet, not by a long shot.

Its just getting started. Was listening to someone at a state office Monday ranting about how the vaccine will alter everyone's dna. I was so tempted to say "Well then I want some enhancements, repairs along with fur and a tail

https://www.deviantart.com/reptangl.....2021-866387977

Oh wow! I used to collect some of those Windstone figurines. I always wanted to sculpt my miniatures with such accuracy in detail and kept them around for inspiration. Good to see they're still in production.

I plan on rebuilding my unicorn collection. Remember when they use to sell at the Victorville mall at the Wicks n' Sticks?

Ah gee! That goes way back. I used to live not too far from the Victorville Mall too. I most likely was in B. Dalton or Toys R Us while you were there.

Yes, I was either there or at Highlands buying cigars. Yes I know shame on me lol. I really did not notice a Toys “R” Us in the mall, or I would’ve spent a lot more time there too

Wonder if the local post office is still selling Toys "R" Us gift cards?

Heh! It'd be a good excuse to visit the Victorville Post Office. When I visited a small postal service store in Upland around 2016, they were still selling postcards featuring The Spruce Goose and the Skydome in Long Beach CA, as if it was a New thing.

Nah.

2019: "Man, I sucked."
2020: "Hold mah beer."
2021: "Dilettantes."

Hold my beer... great line for a laugh..

Yeah. Also kind of fun to ponder just what exactly 2021 has in store for us as he hands his Beer over to 2020 to hold onto.

Yep as 2020 drinks is when 2021's back is turned.

2020. (Guzzles beer from the can with Relish.)
2021: Snatches beer can back while shouting, "GIMMEE DAT!"
2021 wiggles fingers menacingly at 2020, and adds, "Knock it off... Yah CRAA-ZEE!"

Hehe

"Cheer up! Maybe things will get worse slower!"

I believe that if one finds themselves at the bottom of the pit of Despair, the only way to go is Up.

Maybe I'll just go watch The Life of Brian, instead. "Always look on the bright side of life..."

Good advice. That song, and "The Galaxy Song" always makes me chuckle, and of course it also pins me right to my spot in this "Amazing and Expanding Universe"

Truth.

Well said.

https://youtu.be/aXt9X_1NWvI

Bachman Turner Overdrive...

Let's just fast-forward to 2022 and deal with this stuff then. Either things will have gotten better and we don't have to deal with it or things got worse and there was nothing we could do anyway.

Fast-foward to 2022, suddenly there are rooster people attacking Russians, there's a random fish plague, and the government is on lockdown for coyotes running for office and WINNING.

Heh! I am intrigued with the idea that all of us alive now might wake up tomorrow and discover a whole year had passed without no recall of the passing time. Kinda like that movie, Dark City but if one goes to sleep, say as a Dentist, they wake up still a Dentist. I like the idea of the Coyotes running for Offices in the Government as in some instances, they could do a better job. It could get a bit messy though.

So much carrion! :D

Or, how about that movie Yesterday. Where, for reasons unexplainable, many just slip through a reality glitch into an alternative dimension. One where a majority of things still happened that we know of. But, other things didn't. Like where kids grew up on the Berenstein Bear books. Covid never found a Human host. And America is a three party system at the voting booths.

I never got to see "Yesterday" in the theaters, but I was intrigued with the concept.

It's a good, light hearted movie. Worth an on-line rental on a calm, eventless evening.

The Coyotes keep leaving political messages in my yard, have to shovel them up. I do have that Quang(e) guy as my state rep now.
I think I''ll be busy with my work the way things are going - more armed gigs guarding state offices. Did a self portrait on Hero Forge https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40108672/ I'd probably scare poor Mr Foxyy looking like that

Heh heh! There was an episode I scripted up in my Steamfox stories where Foxy and Millie got mistaken for "Invaders from Outer Space." https://www.furaffinity.net/view/18107735/

Read the whole thing, funny and cute

Look at it this way.
Let's get all this crap out of the way in January and have a great year from then on. *^^*

Hear Hear! (Pounds the desk with the flat of his palm with enthusiasm.)

And fan-art of "The Depths" is very therapeutic.

Find the new magic that is starting to popup here and there :)

Agreed. I might even end up writing about my new discoveries and experiences in future journals.

Here's a thought.

2021 isn't going to be great.

We're going to MAKE it great.

i... don't trust in "we"...

Maybe you can stand safely on the sidelines and watch the action.

i think i've been doing that for too long...

Then you're ready to get into the action?

i already take actions by my pacifism, but that ain't leading others...
and frankly i'd be in over my head.
survival of the fittest, if we go instinct then in a way we'll have done at least one thing right.
i don't even know what i'm on about anymore...

You're all right. Those last two lines reflect a deep and intelligent mind.

as my father often said; and idiot walking will go further than two intellects sitting
if i am intelligent by my thinking, then i am an idiot by my actions
not always, but too often.

pardon my attitude, but it is tiresome to be encouraged as it just makes me feel like i fail expectations...

Ol' friend, mine ye if I take a slightly different outlook? I don't suppose most of the world has no idea just how close to something terrible we came. I'm many things... as a writer I am very much a student of history. Some day, if you feel like a real good scare, look up the history of Germany. Start quite a few years before Hitler when he was nothing but a paperhanger post WWI. At that time, Germany was a Democracy... like ours. Things started getting out of control... economy bad... ect, ect, ect. Those in power were looking for ways to gain control... and Hilter was one they saw as a pawn they could use. But the pawn soon became a king and we all know what happened after that. Trump was >< this close to overthrowing a Democracy. Ours. No matter what tomorrow brings, I know how close all of this came to being far worse than it is today. So I see 2021 as something beautiful for what we managed to avoid... and cannot wait to see what we are to become next. Nobody will want it... everybody will complain... but we'll all be damn glad we have it. So I'll chuckle and enjoy this year even with Covid and all the stupid things that'll come. At least they'll come in a land of the free and the home of the brave.

Very true and sobering words to read first thing in the morning. There's a show I enjoy listening to on the radio during the weekend, hosted by a fellow who served as a Captain in the US Army during the Desert campaigns and when the COVID 19 virus was predicted to be going into a "Pandemic" in late November of 2019, he warned of things happening so fast that there would have been bodies piling up in the streets, and the National Guard and Police would be on the corner of every major intersection of the city with weapons evident. So in a way, I agree that we here in the US were very lucky to avoid such a scenario. There was even a Quarantine center set up in the Rose Bowl parking lot consisting of dozens of FIMA supplied camper-trailers intended to isolate the poor and homeless affected with the disease. These trailers were hardly used though, but it was good to know that they were there and precautions were taken just in case the city's systems started breaking down. So yes. We really lucked out, and I understand how close we came to a breakdown in society.

I have seen on the Internet of how the Pandemic has affected other countries too, and I feel that despite the losses, I believe the Nation has "Dodged a bullet" and avoided a complete breakdown in Society. I now feel that I can look forward to a year of "Healing" and re-adjustment. I look at the boarded up and vacant stores downtown with the hopes that they will be opened again soon, as the Economy improves. Who knows? Maybe there will be use for this old "Retired" Janitor who is good at fixing things? Only Time will tell.

Waves from ther gun free, covid free, crazy-free, peaceful little place i live in!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FjFHu7ijFg

How delightful! It's fascinating to watch the Quakka's reacting to the motions of objects being juggled, and I get the impression that the one "Boomer" was moving his little front paws in imitation of the juggler's motions. There was a little mind there, and it was sharp enough to try and understand what it was seeing. I'm always amazed and delighted to watch videos that show that these "Simple Creatures" might be smarter than we believe they are.

Quokkas are a delight. I want to go and sponge on their main island again for a little while

Oh those are cute little critters. Love how the one was trying the arm and hand motions - very aware of what was going on.

Could it be he might have been like an Albert Einstein amongst Quakka kind? It's not too difficult to imagine several million years ago our proto-ancestors might have been like that.

Probably some alien juggled in front of a hominid and started the whole mess....

I do believe that if we had an Elon Musk of the internet world, we'd probably already be well on our way towards a Ready Player One reality. And, to be honest, that's not such a good thing. Sure. They had virtual reality to be distracted in. Which meant great internet. And most likely virtual cons and virtual socializing. Plus virtual jobs. But, it was escaping from some kind of really terrible reality. One where quite possibly the economy had a super collapse. One where people paid rent on recycled mobile homes, piled on top of one another. Food was more then likely harvested, handled and delivered via automated means. One where life as we know it was only on life support...in VR. And even though that movie was all so hyped about nostalgia and potentials in a virtual plane, it's real world was definitely on life support and seemed to be all but arrested in most other regards. Like some kind of upper class, third world society.

So, I do hope that your notion of things getting better really does come true. The pandemic has a heroic cure on the horizon. That political nonsense is struggling it's last to a new day and a new way. Let's all hope that 2021 is the year that 2020...can be won in. Where everything becomes better.

I feel you might have been alluding more towards "The Matrix" series of movies where humans were kept in a state of suspended animation to serve as energy sources for complex and fantastic Alien machines that made the humans within believe they were living what they thought was a "Normal Life". Now I haven't seen all of Ready Player One, but I've been told that the feature is astounding with it's concept of people playing video games who really get to play the roles of the game characters they choose. I hope I'll get to watch that feature in it's entirety before I get to see "Ready Player 2" supposedly coming out later in the Year.

But anyway, I'd like to see the upcoming year as one of healing and adapting.

Not really. Matrix is a really tied in notion where nobody is aware they are inside a simulation. I was reflecting more on how we are currently growing on the idea of placing heavy monitors over our heads and interacting inside a virtual world, completely aware that we can return to reality at a moment's notice. And that this VR interaction would be a replacement to work and money and socialization amidst a reality that had somehow gone really terribly wrong. One that's somehow gone even further then what we currently have. One where people are almost afraid to live in reality...for reasons that seem beyond the scope of the movie. Granted, if it was fear of a super virus that could spread if people actually left a five mile square radius and had chosen to live, work, chat, play...basically exist inside VR to avoid making reality a 'thing', again. It doesn't sound so far fetched in a current world where people are advised not to travel beyond necessities. Where stimulus checks from the government are a reality. Where you are given the recommendation to order your food from home and have touchless delivery to your door step. It's like we're living in a half way point between the freedoms of 'yesterday' where going for a long drive didn't require facial coverings and a potential tomorrow where fear has gripped society so badly that the internet has almost replaced everything deemed as being normal life. Where throwing on a VR helmet to make a living and talk with neighbors in a safe environment, get your nightly entertainment or education, to avoid starring at the walls of your 'not quite' personal jail cell is considered normal. After all, I can already envision how a new layer of protection might come around where you use VR to remotely control a robotic avatar to do all your activities. The steps of things that could be, become quicker paced with the passage of time.

And I hope we never get so deep into a virtual world that we need to just hibernate our bodies inside a high tech coffin...kind of like how the Matrix envisioned things. Even if it is fun to theorize that we've always been locked down inside a simulation.

2021 will be great for some... and crappy for others. Those of us on the outside... make the best of what we have to work with.

That's a good way to look at the current situation. I have noticed a separation of sorts among the "Classes" emerging too.

How else can you look at it? You can whine, it get's you nowhere and tends to piss normal people off. So make do with what you can.

I will go with Less Worse...

=^.,.^=

I'm sticking with that idea anyway.

"less worse" is a good start, really.

We seem to be off to a decent start in believing things are getting less worse. Sooner or later our misfortunes should go in reverse.

two times minus makes plus, yes?

Sorry, no refunds, you're going down with the rest of us.

So can I go in walking or do I have to ride in a Hand Basket?

I'm riding a hang glider!

I Like how you think.