I went to the first night of the family reunion last week with some of my cousins. I felt bad missing the bigger second day, but it was Dionysis and I really didn't want to miss out.

I saw two of the three cousins that used to live with my family for about 4 summers. It's insane how much of an impact we had on each other. I can barely imagine how we fit 4 additional people in our house for that long. But we were basically inseparable. I haven't seen them since 2010.




We used to be really into making stupid home movies, especially my oldest cousin Andy. Sadly they are all still on mini8 cassettes. How have they not been digitized yet?

After a crazy Square night with (e:mike) and (e:dave), (e:paul) and I went with Mike and Rachelle.We brought the poutine, she brought the entertainment.

is the best anime I ever watched. I just wrapped up the first season with (e:terry).

If you ever want to see a show about a boob and candy loving anthropomorphic octopus, who has one year to teach middle school students to assasinate him before he blows up the earth (after he already destroyed half the moon) - this is it.

The first season covers a year where he teaches his "E" class students to become the best students in the school by beating the "A" class. He also trains them to become master assassins. Also every episode wraps up with him giving a 5 minute speech to his students on education, and how much he cares for his students.

I can't really summarize the weird Japan-ness this show embodies so here's a picture of the cute octopus, Koro Sensei.

Ever since last week, when the NYS wage board recommended increasing the fast food minimum wage to $15 by the end of 2018, everyone online has been flipping out.t I've seen so much complaining on Facebook and Reddit that low skill jobs don't deserve to be paid that much, especially from other people who are in other low paying jobs (skilled and unskilled). Personally I think it's a step in the right direction but:

Seeing this reception makes me question why this wasn't across the board minimum wage hike. The conspiracy theorist in me would say it was aimed at rallying most workers against the idea of any hike (the thought process going "why should a Tim Horton's worker get $15 an hour, when I'm still going to make $10 as a trained paramedic paramedic?") The optimist hopes that it will keep drawing more people's attention to wage inequality - like how for anyone outside the top 20% (of household income), wages have not kept up with productivity and inflation since the 70's!

I've noticed a similar attitude with unions, even from normally liberal people. Those not protected by a union want to know why union workers should be compensated more than a non-union worker, when they also work over 40 hour weeks for no additional benefit. The real question they should be asking is why are they willing to do more for less?
At some point in time, it looks like every worker ended up in a bizarre race to the bottom, where the winner gets to brag about who works the most while getting paid the least.

We continued our bike exploration of Buffalo with a trip down Route 5 to Woodlawn beach. They were having a karaoke night - (e:Terry) was cringing to the JLo tributes going on.

The tiki bar area was pretty nice. I never stuck around for it when I worked next door.