Gimpy Folks

I went on my way to the optometrist clinic for an eye exam, and decided to get to the food court
inside a building to eat something first. Some shoeshine guy started acting up before I sat at a table, screaming at me saying to leave his damn table alone, and that it was reserved. He was just shouting like an incoherent homeless person (which he looked the part, I might add,) waving his hand in front of me to get me away. Well, I didn't backed down on that, in fact, I stood on his face angrily stating that he can't talk to people like that, no matter who it is. The fact that table was supposedly reserved for him wasn't the issue, it was him acting like an asshole about it. I simply had to put my foot down about that.

Hours before that nonsense, while I was waiting for the bus, there were some people arguing nearby, with an old, white guy ending up kicking a younger person in the ass. That forced a laugh out of me, especially since the old guy did deliver on wanting to kick his ass while fuming at the other person.

I guess some people just love being aggressive and incoherent.

As I resumed to my destination, a young black man approached me asking of he could have a sip of my Big Gulp™ I was drinking from. I gave him the entire cup, telling him it was fine for him to drink from.

And yet there was another guy who wanted me to buy him something from the fried chicken establishment I stopped by. I refused. Sorry, I can only be a nice guy in the same day. That, and I was broke anyway.

The eye exam went pretty well. My eyesight is still deteriorating and now I'll have to start wearing bifocals, but the Nurse and Doctor were nice. The doctor in particular recognized me from the last time she did my last eye exam, which was a total of 9 years ago.

Wow.

The nurse stated liking my accent, which was nice of her. Another thing I'm also happy for was the fact they no longer use that annoying puff of air straight to your eyes to start the dilation process. Nowadays is a pen-like scanner that they gently go over them.

Of course I had to wear their shades for over 6 hours while my eyes were fully dilated, but the time passed fast and I didn't mind not using this phone during that time.

Back home, I played some Samurai Shodown III using Ukyo for PlayStation. While the loading times are atrocious on that console version, I was able to defeat 7 opponents in a single round, plus the hidden character who challenges you when you don't lose a round on the first 5 matches or so. He morphed into a Ukyo clone for a mirror match, even when the previous match WAS a mirror match against Ukyo. It was a good run.

My therapist gave me some cookies last week on the final session for the year. It was truly nice of her.

So it was a mixed bag of a day like I said. I still resent that shoeshine asshole, but hopefully I also gave him something to think about.

The Unsettling Maturity Imbalance in Housepets!: A Critique of Peanut and Tarot’s Relationship

The recent developments regarding Peanut and Tarot’s relationship in Rick Griffin’s Housepets!—specifically the revelation of Tarot's pregnancy—have been met with hesitation from this reader. While the creation of new families is a common narrative device, the context of this pairing raises significant questions about character consistency and relational responsibility.

The Core Conflict: Adult vs. Perpetual Child

The central issue is the stark disparity in emotional and mental maturity between the two characters. Other central Housepets! couples, such as King and Bailey or Kitsune and Kix, are consistently portrayed as mature adults who navigate their relationships with mutual understanding and responsibility.

Peanut, however, remains a character locked in a state of perpetual childishness. He is the naive, easily bewildered, and highly dependent protagonist, often relying on Grape for guidance in even trivial matters. In contrast, Tarot is depicted as a reliable, mature, and adult figure. The fact that a character like Peanut, who acts by all available context as a child, is now set to father a child with a grounded adult like Tarot feels profoundly dissonant.

Sentience, Responsibility, and Consent

It is understood that these characters are animals, but within the comic's context, they are fully sentient individuals whose actions are guided by conscious choice, not mere instinct (as demonstrated by King and Bailey’s intentional, responsible relationship). The human-level sentience establishes a clear expectation of adult responsibility in sexual relationships.

This brings us to the most troubling aspect: Tarot's apparent unquestioning acceptance of Peanut’s advances. Given Peanut’s consistent, child-like demeanor, it is questionable why a mature character like Tarot would repeatedly engage in sexual activity with him without considering the implications, or ensuring he fully understood them. This dynamic introduces the unsettling possibility that Tarot may have capitalized on Peanut’s innocence, persuading him to continue an act he engages in simply because "it felt good," without grasping the life-changing consequences. Tarot's later uncertainty regarding the pregnancy only reinforces the idea that this was not a planned, mature decision.

Narrative Intent and Uncomfortable Tropes

The creator’s history of producing NSFW art featuring these characters, including explicit sexual acts, does not alleviate the discomfort; instead, it underscores the maturity gap being exploited in the relationship.
My speculation is that Griffin may intend to use the resulting family dynamic as a running joke, with Tarot taking on the sole responsibility of parenting and perpetually protecting the offspring from Peanut's inherent lack of accountability. Unlike the lighthearted comedy generated by the other couples, a narrative built on an adult exploiting a partner’s immaturity and then shouldering all the consequences alone would feel neither funny nor lighthearted.

So what is the problem? Well, the problem is Tarot. As a character who consistently demonstrates relational maturity and emotional intelligence similar to Bailey, she appears to have repeatedly engaged with Peanut, whose demeanor reflects a state of arrested emotional development. This introduces a difficult question: why did Tarot not exercise foresight regarding Peanut, given his pervasive innocence and likely ignorance concerning the consequences of sex? This concern is heightened by the unsettling possibility that Tarot may have capitalized on Peanut's naïveté, persuading him to continue an act he engages in simply because "it felt good," without fully comprehending the life-altering outcome.

In short, Peanut operates as the emotional and mental equivalent of a child, and Tarot, in all senses of the word, is an adult. Their pairing, and especially its reproductive culmination, appears to be an uncomfortable portrayal of an adult leveraging a partner’s inherent innocence under the superficial banner of mutual affection. While the creator may intend a meaningful resolution, the current dynamic threatens to undermine the foundational standard of responsible, consensual relationships established elsewhere in the comic. I maintain my reservations, finding this development, despite any attempts at humor, fundamentally unsettling due to its stark imbalance of relational power and maturity.

Had a couple episodes where my brain loves to recall shitty past events of my life, such as when slaving 4 years of my youth in High School in exchange for being treated like crap, by students and faculty alike, using things like verbal and physical abuse, racial discrimination, and making me feel like questioning my life at early age. Today, I spent the next couple hours arguing with AI about how after years of seeing how incredibly horrible people can be, in real life and online, you just don't feel like talking to any strangers you meet later on, much less trust them.

All that with the implications of keeping it inside once you learn that whenever you open up to anyone, tey use such things against you in the long run.

Like all the times it happens, I just let it run its course so I can get on with my life.

The only difference is that I am still seeing that therapist bi-weekly so I can have an outlet and not waste time I could use in a productive manner.

I just love it whenever I tried talking to a "kind" person about anything like this, the only thing they kept telling me was that I was a "grown-ass man," or to "man-up."

Keep in mind most of these jackholes write paragraph-long entries about how sad they feel for petty things like not having money to buy latest Anime/My Little Pony figurine, or how much they love the attention they get from their "friends" following them on social media, somehow making them think they are above anyone else.

On a different subject, I've been going through the second disc of Parasite, hoping to finish it before this year ends, and watched Digimon Tamers: Battle of Adventurers, which was leagues better than the botched up mess shown in theaters years ago, incorporating three different OAVs into said "movie."

I also am catching up on Street Fighter II V episodes, last one watched where Ryu faces off against Sagat for the first time in a thailandese prison.