| Christmas Jaunt '09: "Dad dropped salad on his balls." |
[27 Dec 2009|11:40pm] |
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Animaniacs - Episode 48 |
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-Uneventful flight. Upon landing we did an inordinate amount of last-minute shopping for slackers (LET'S GET HIM A CLAPPER why does it have a remote) and my mom attacked us with food and bread and hugs and food and cookies and food. The Japanese place in Montclair is pretty bleedin' good, they gave me more chicken katsu than even I could finish. That's saying something.
( Usual recap )
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| Beat Tablesaw's Family Again! |
[27 Dec 2009|05:29pm] |
Woo. It's been a busy few days, and it still is. Shopping and parties and work work work—I won't really get a chance to relax until Tuesday, when my New Year's break starts (five-day weekend!).
The executive summary of gifts received is: lots of nice clothes, two fantastick backpacks, and an Xbox 360 for ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) ojouchan and I from my nuclear family.
As I mentioned earlier, I ran a trivia game based on Wits and Wagers. If you've never played it, I describe it as a combination of Balderdash, The Price Is Right, and Vegas betting. Everyone gets asked a trivia question with a number for an answer. Your goal is to be the closest without going over. Everybody turns in their answers, and they're lined up in order on the betting board. Odds are assigned according to the order of guesses, and you get to bet on which one was the closest without going over.
So, in the poll below, I've reproduced the questions, my family's guesses, and the odds that were assigned to them. Your job is to see if you can be better bettors than they were.
For each question you can pick either one or two guesses. If you check two boxes, you'll split your bet, placing one "chip" on each, and receiving the basic return if that bet is right (if the odds say 3:1, you'll get 3 points). If you check only one box, you double your bet on one option, and the rewards are doubled as well if you're right (if the odds say 3:1, you'll get 6 points).
Obviously, no internet research is allowed. Also, the poll is set to display everyone's guesses once you've entered yours, but try not to let it effect your responses.
When my family played, the best team got 28 points from betting. Can you do better?
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| Tife and Limes: Summer in the City (Dirty, Gritty) |
[23 Dec 2009|10:52am] |
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KISS - Goin' Blind |
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-Xmas shopping was completed without much ado. Doing last minute shopping isn't bad anytime before noon. There are a million cars on the street but the stores aren't saturated. I'm glad the season is almost over because I'm sick of seeing twice the volume of full unhappy families dragging their brood around in public. I'm also going to dropkick a festive cheese kiosk if I hear Jingle Bell Rock one more god damned time.
-Hate packing. Ever-present sensation that I'm forgetting something. Not going home for long, wouldn't have anything to do up there but freeze if I lingered. Better to be down here (doing nothing, but marginally warmer). After I get back I am hell bent on cranking out some art. It's been a few months. I want to have another great prolonged burst much like the last great binge in August. Also going up sans internet, it's actually a relief to not impulsively check the same dozen websites every two minutes.
-FUCK IT'S COLD. Wait. FUCK it's cold and WINDY.
-I've always loved posters. Decided to poster the fuck out of my place, only primarily keeping it to inspirational figures- dancers, musicians, martial artists. The collage days are way over. Been buying frames like mad at Aaron Bros, they have consistent 40% coupons and have 50% off or Buy 1/Get 1 during this season. Man, everything looks better framed. Took me ages but I finally found a suitable Eleanor Powell repro (Born to Dance movie poster). It's been really difficult finding good posters of musical stars from the 30's-50's, 95% of the best images are no bigger than 8" x 10" photos. I'll settle for anything 11" x 17" or bigger. Also I am completely disgusted that there are no Lois Greenfield posters, just books and calendars. Are you kidding? Are you kidding?? Argh!
-Happy general & non-denomination-specific holiday wishes, y'all. Back inna flash.
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| Not a frequent user, but felt this might need some attention. |
[22 Dec 2009|12:52pm] |
www.nintendopower.com/npawards
Cave Story's been nominated in the Nintendo Power Awards for Best WiiWare Game, and subsequently, Best Overall Game. Overall is probably a stretch, but there's not too many competitors in the WiiWare category. Just thought I'd bring it up, and it only takes a minute to vote.
And yeah, I'm aware that NP is hardly the epitome of gaming journalism, but hey, some more exposure for Cave Story would be nice, no?
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| Bestestestestestes |
[21 Dec 2009|05:25pm] |
I've only got two more days to finish family trivia game. This year, I think I'm going to model it on Wits and Wagers, using differently colored post-it notes and a piece of posterboard. Luckily, this means I only need a few questions. But on the other hand, I'm getting really hard on the questions I've got, trying to have a nice variety. I may be posting some locked posts with polls about which questions are better.
But today's poll, I feel like doing some "best of 2009" or "best of the decade" things, but I don't really know what to do. So, suggest some things, and I will tell you the best of the year and the best of the decade for those things.
This journal has moved to Dreamwidth. Entry originally posted at http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/435685.html.
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| Tife and Limes: DBL/KMWA |
[20 Dec 2009|02:26pm] |
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Rick James - Throwdown |
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-Phwugh. After two consecutive late-as-all-hell night shoots my body didn't really know what to do with itself after I got home from work yesterday. Around 4 p.m. I blinked, then I pretty much knocked out until 3 a.m. today. Eh. Been good, just did four loads of laundry and played four hours of Tekken (learned Wang & Lee, Baek or Marduk next). Nice day. Working out like a madman today, posting borderline obscene status updates on FB, eat my weight in angel hair later. I need a haircut.
Edit:
[17:17] Esco> I need to write a book
[17:17] Esco> "Body by Pepsi"
[17:17] Esco> it would be a million seller and wouldn't work for anybody but me
[17:18] dub> Step 1. Eat pizza
[17:18] dub> Step 2. Eat pasta
[17:18] dub> Step 3. Play Tekken
[17:18] dub> Step 4. Cthulhu Lats
[17:20] Esco> diet: cookies for breakfast, skip lunch, half box of pasta for dinner, scramble five eggs, drink three pepsis during the day
[17:20] Esco> get six pack abs
[17:21] p_d> i kinda hate you right now
[17:21] Esco> the last page will be like every ridiculous difficult as all hell one-arm/one-leg bodyweight exercise
[17:21] Esco> in the finest print
[17:21] p_d> HA
[17:21] p_d> do it!
[17:22] Esco> back page all "lol"
[17:23] Esco> they'll stock it in the humor section at borders
-Man I am NOT excited about Christmas shopping this year. Doing it at the last minute is not the issue (I always do that) and I don't mind spending money but I'm just so friggin' bored with the process. I'm a practical gift giver, I don't like giving people stuff that may just end up as clutter, but doing the giftcard rotation isn't a fun idea. I make an ugly face just thinking about it. I just don't know, man. I might bug out tomorrow and get everyone a big sack of canned goods and a llama or something. Edit: I just realized I can't because I'd have to check all that shit when I fly home.
-I bought a new garment bag and Amazon sent it in the largest possible box. The dang bag was only 3" thick. Look at this box. It's ridiculous.
-A few days ago I bought the I'm Rick James DVD. The more I listen to Rick James the more I love his music. I just keep discovering these incredibly bomb jams. His style of funk was so unique, it had a more upbeat party vibe but never sounded like disco. Shame people only pretty much know him for about three songs (Give It To Me Baby, Super Freak, Mary Jane). I have his Super Freak Live concert DVD which is a not particularly good show with badly recorded sound but it introduced me to several of my current favorite Rick James songs (Big Time, Love Gun, Fire It Up).
The Realness
I'm Rick James is a compilation of TV appearances & music videos from the late 70's/early 80's with a few interviews. It's kind of funny to watch stuff from the pre-MTV era, they have to lip sync their songs in front of a live audience as best they can. It's awkward when the track fades out at the end. But Rick exudes character at every moment and his entire band is a hoot. They're just the most hilarious & glittery bunch you ever saw. The keyboard player is also the worst lip syncer in the world, but I still love that guy. Even during a music video Rick will often perform so hard he'll be a hot mess with sweat flinging off of his braids in every direction. Dude was a hell of a performer. Thanks to this disc I now have Throwdown, Hard To Get and Come Into My Life in my current song rotation.
-Speaking of music video discs I re-bought Aerosmith's You Gotta Move and got Michael Jackson Live in Bucharest. I did a mini-review of You Gotta Move a million years ago and my opinion hasn't changed but the performances of Rats In The Cellar and Last Child (with the Sing a Simple Song riff) were just so hot I had to have them again. MJ Live in Bucharest is on sale at Amazon & Best Buy for eight bucks until mid-January (HIStory I & II, The One, Dangerous and Number Ones as well). The concert is heavily concentrated on the fanwank, WAY too many shots of the crowd freaking out and passing out and ripping out their hair etc., but it's still MJ and it's a great piece of history to have. He PUNISHES the stage during Billie Jean. It's especially worth getting at the current sale price.
-This Is It comes out Jan 26th on Blu Ray. All over it. Best Buy has a lame steelbook case pre-order, doesn't seem that any other place has a pre-order offer. Anyway, if you love MJ but missed This Is It in the theater then you are bad and you should feel bad. Come over next month and watch it.
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| Further Gifts |
[19 Dec 2009|04:47pm] |
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 grateful |
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We're already in a countdown to Christmas. Various things like ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ojouchan's new job and some annoyingness with banks have meant we got a really late start. And it was only yesterday that I fully realized that I wasn't going to have any more free days before Christmas Eve. (Thursday and Friday are my days off, so my last pre-Christmas weekend just finished.)
But yesterday, Ojou and I cleared up some of the bank stuff, then we went with twilightsyren to Downtown Burbank. I got a lot of stuff done; I've pared down my budget this year, and I'm doing pretty good with it. I think I can get everything else done pretty quickly; my biggest regret is that I'm not likely to get to my regular used bookstore unless they've got expanded hours, or I make a rush to get there on the 23rd.
Still, since I've been thinking more about it, I thought I'd expand the Holiday/Birthday lists: - Puzzle Books.I mentioned Mutant Sudoku last time, but there's a lot of other good stuff out there.
- Nikoli Books. A few years ago, cramerica got me Penpa Mixes 1-3, which were loads of fun. They were especially useful once I dropped my nikoli.com membership. I still really love the puzzles, but having them in book form means I can forget about them easily. I'd love to see Penpa, Fillomino, Slitherlink, Masyu, Nurikabe, and Heyawake. (Obviously, they won't get here in time for Christmas, but whatever.
- Nikoli by Sterling. Sterling Publishing puts out some real quality stuff, and recently they've been publishing Nikoli puzzles in books mixed with Sudoku. I've already got Slitherlink (which I've finished), Masyu, and Nurikabe, but I'd still like to get my hands on the other varieties listed above.
- Crosswords. Also from Sterling, Frank Longo's Vowelless Crosswords looks good, as do Patrick Berry's Crossword masterpieces.
- Tea. Specifically looseleaf tea, not bagged/packaged. Our tea reserves are dreadfully low, and we haven't had time to restock. I like most kinds, black, green, white, oolong, herbal infusions, etc. I'd avoid Teavana and Lupicia because they're overpriced. We usually shop at specialteas.com or dragonwater.com online, and when we want something in person, we go to Wing Hop Fung in Chinatown, which stocks birdpick.com. (It looks like they have a store in Pasadena too.)
- One-Time Maid Service. Ojou and I are way behind on cleaning, and a burst of professional help would go a long way, especially now that we rarely have a full day off together.
- New Year's Eve Plans. I'm working most of the Christmas weekend, and as a result, I've got a nice five-day weekend from December 29 to January 2. Ojou's got a sexy, sexy Foxy Brown outfit to wear . . . and a lot of our friends are going to be out of town. We need something to do, something big. Scrabble with Ellen isn't going to cut it this year.
And that's the end of my proactive gift list.
This journal has moved to Dreamwidth. Entry originally posted at http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/435294.html.
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| Rhythm game madness and Persona 4 |
[18 Dec 2009|04:13pm] |
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mood |
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 awake |
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So, I recently picked up Guitar Hero: Smash Hits for the 360. This was that GH game that took 40 songs from 3-4 previous Guitar Hero games and made them compatible with drums and voice along with bass. And... it's alright, I guess.
Although the development for it was handled by Beenox Studios. Usually these guys are the ones who handle porting jobs to PC, but this was their first unique project. And it feels like they should've taken a few more pointers from Neversoft on how to chart the songs.
It feels like once you get to the fourth set at London, the difficulty tends to spike a bit, and even playing the fifth tier was a nightmare, making me barely 3-star almost every song.
I will admit that I'm not a rhythm game pro, I still play on Hard for chrissakes, but I feel like the difficulty spikes too quickly and relies waaaaaaay too heavily on doing stuff like G-BO-G-BO-G-RY-G-BO, sometimes doing quick double-note switches like GR-BO-YB-GR, or throwing in loads of hammer-on/pull-off segments of G-R-Y-B-R-Y-B or O-B-Y-G-B-Y-G. Still haven't gotten those down pat.
(For those confused: The letters are to signify the colors of the fretboard on screen. If you know how GH or Rock Band works, you'll know what I mean).
One thing I really love is that it has a good chunk of character customization. I made a playable female character, which is either creepy or awesome, depending on who you talk to. (One day, I will write "My feminine gaming side," a blog on how I like to play as female characters, and trying to find out why.)
But yeah, I paid $15 for it, $20 originally but used a gift card, so it wasn't like I paid $60 for it. And I think this might be worth a shot at the $10-15 range.
Now on the other side of the spectrum, I've actually been dabbling in Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. It's a PS2 game, wow, and it's weird to play a SD game on an HDTV. So much blur and scanlines!
I don't play Japanese RPGs much. I think my experience can be limited to Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts, and two Pokemon games. And I was worried at first that the game would kick my ass at first. Actually I haven't had any difficult problems, a few near-death scenarios but I got through them okay.
I'm not too far in the first dungeon of the game, and there are two things I like about this game: It ignores about 80% of JRPG conventions (Spiky-haired emo androgynous prettyboys, large ships, steampunk designs, random battles, chicks in provocative outfits and large breasts). However, it still has the menu-driven system, which I wish Japanese developers would get away from, it feels we haven't evolved since Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy back in 1986. Really? The same mechanics for over two decades?
I hope to get through a good chunk of it before the holidays end, because I don't know if I'll have time once classes start back up. I heard it's a long game, and I decided to start it now when I don't have classwork to worry about.
Right, I'm gonna wrap this up now. I'm bear-y exhausted and I'm a little hungry. :)
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[18 Dec 2009|11:59pm] |
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Today was a snow day.
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| Tife and Limes: Gary Hashimoto |
[17 Dec 2009|02:32pm] |
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Rick James - Hard to Get |
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Last 18 episodes part 6:
Heyo cop bonanza
-Speaking of, playing an NYPD officer today. Gonna be a night shoot, packing hella layers. Taking tomorrow off for sure, had to go til 2 a.m. yesterday. All the major network shows go on break after the 18th and don't resume until like the 2nd or something. Even still, I've had the busiest month ever since I started doing this. Pretty nuts considering most of my b.g. friends say they've had the worst/slowest year ever.
Been getting a rather surprising amount of overtime and miscellaneous bumps considering how productions have been cracking down on such things. 3/4 of my work this month has been straight 8's or less but with a lot more smoke/auto/wardrobe/mpv's and so on. Feels good man.
edit: Holy Jesus it went from 4:30 pm to 5:40 am. And I got recalled to do the same Friday night. Did you know it is goddamned freezing at 3 a.m.?
-Got the 100-page hardcover Tekken 6 artbook (normally packaged with the LE Stick bundle) on eBay for a dollar. ONE DOLLAR. Some dude put up like thirty listings of them at once on 3-day auctions and nobody bid. A steal. I've noticed that you can really get some excellent deals on ebay moreso than ever, just needs takes some scouring and some diligence. I make way less money using it to sell than I did even six months ago. It's oversaturated with Buy It Now sellers asking for incredibly illegal shipping costs to make up for low item prices (usually no better than what you can get on Amazon).
edit: looks like the same seller still has some up for auction ending mid-afternoon on Friday so jump on this shit if you want the book
-SF20: The Art of Street Fighter is seriously the best artbook I've owned for anything ever. 320 pages, goddamn huge and heavy (you could club someone unconscious with it), translated artist notes, character models from the animated movie, dedicated sections for Akiman/CRMK/Shinkiro etc, also ONLY $26.39 WITH FREE MOTHERFUCKING SHIPPING on Amazon. The best thing is that there are only 2 pages of Udon art, some of the CFE endings. So it's 99.4% Japanese art. I can't recommend it enough. I have the Capcom Illustrations Gamest Mook and Capcom Design Works and SF20 makes both of them obsolete in terms of SF content.
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| Because I Had Alcohol |
[16 Dec 2009|07:00pm] |
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Blue Foundation, "Eyes on Fire" |
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Title Context
My firm has a thing. On Fridays, around closing time, they invite everyone up to the dining room and serve appetizers and drinks, including an open bar.
I've never really gone to one, because I've never been working at a time anywhere near Friday afternoons. While on the graveyard shift, it would have meant waking up god-awful early. And now, it means going in on my day off.
So, no office party.
Now, this used to be a weekly thing. But as the economy tanked, it shrank down to biweekly. It might even be every three or four weeks now. Like I said, I don't much pay attention because of the Friday thing.
But also along with the economy, the holiday party has shrunk. Two years ago, they hired Berlin to play at the House of Blues. Now, they've got new hires doing a skit before they fire up a karaoke machine in the dining room. Also, it's on a Wednesday.
Now, ojouchan and I were already planning to go out tonight (Princess and the Frog at the Arclight), and we weren't entirely inspired by the office party idea, so we were mostly going to skip it.
But today was a rough day. Really rough. I barely scraped out a lunch, and two horrible things happened during it that I then had to deal with.
My plan, then, was to make a quick stop into the party on my way out. I would say hi to the one person that I really like, then head home. And since I'm going home on the subway, I can get a drink too.
Dear reader, my overlords have many flaws, but they are generous with the booze.
I didn't do anything at the party except go to the bar (where my friend already was, which tells you something) and get a drink. I ordered a rum and coke and said something that I'd only ever heard said: "Make it a double."
This seemed appropriate. Normally, I prefer strong mixers, but I'd be leaving forthwith; no time for a second glass.
The bartender looked at the bottle of Bacardi and decided that the best thing to do was just dump everything into a plastic cup. The result was something of a triple and a half.
Hooray for not driving to work.
On the ride home, because I am a true geek, I took out a large easy crossword and recklessly speedsolved it.
But now I really see why the firm does it; why they probably wish they could still do it weekly. I had a really crappy day. Normally, I'd be home fuming. But instead, they paid for an artificial state of happiness. And lord help me, I am feeling really good about the place I work because of it. My instinct now is to think, "Well, it all balanced out."
It doesn't balance out. It was still a crappy day; I had to deal with impossible requests with impossible deadlines. The stress left me angry and unable to focus during my lunch break. And an employer shouldn't rely on mood-altering substances to make its employees feel better.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't goddamn work to some degree. I can imagine what it would be like if this happened after the end of every hard week of work. It'd probably work most of the time.
But now I'm off to eat Peruvian food and watch a movie with the woman that I love. A large glass of decent alcohol can do nothing but blanch at the thought of being compared to that.
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 Comment(s)
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| A call for composers, arrangers, and orchestrators! |
[16 Dec 2009|03:03am] |
Hai folks,
I am looking for musicians, remixers or composers who know their way around arranging and orchestrating music. This is for a secret little Cave-Story-related project I hope to get going over the next month.
Shoot me an email (germanseabass@gmail.com) or say hi on aim (germn_seabass) if you're interested and we'll chat.
-Sebastian
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| That Can't Be Good |
[14 Dec 2009|10:32pm] |
I'm still grappling with gender issues that do not conform to a male/female or masculine/feminine binary. I have a lot of cisgender privilege. No, that's an understatement. For all the reading and thinking I've done on ths subject, when dealing with transgender people in non-virtual situations, I am actively fighting transphobic thoughts. It's easier for me online, but knowing how little practice I have usually makes me doubt my critical thinking when it comes to these issues.
Still, in the wake of transphobia in a fandom-related dustup (link addresses the transphobia issues; if you don't know what the underlying wank is, it's not worth it to find out), I had these things in my mind today when I started watching the new episode of The Closer.
The plot features a retired detective who returns to give testimony after an old case is overturned on an unrelated issue. But upon his return to Los Angeles, it is revealed that although the detective had been known to collegues as a man, she is now living as a woman, to the naked disgust of her former partner.
Now, I know that a lot of people can't watch cringe television, like Arrested Development or The Office, but I can, and I often enjoy it. But even still, the casual abuse heaped onto Georgette from all corners, often ostensibly for humor, really sickened me. I had to turn it off before the end of act 2. There's probably a very valuable lesson at the end, but I doubt it will be worth it.
And then I come back to find some disturbing things about LiveJournal. synecdochic has been reading the upcoming changes to LiveJournal's code. The result of these changes (which, as of writing, are committed to go live the next time LiveJournal updates) is:- Gender will be a mandatory field at account creation,
and it will be able to appear public on one's profile. (I can't tell if people with existing gender specification will be defaulted to "nobody can see it" or "everybody can see it".) (Subsequent changelog reading indicates that the public specificity has since been removed. It is unknown whether this is to require public specificity in the future or if it will remain private.) - >LiveJournal is removing the Unspecified option for the gender field. That's right: you get to be male or female. Period. That's it. (Source.)
(Full post.) If this is something that matters to you, you may want to set your gender to unspecified now. It appears that LJ will preserve current settings as unspecified, but it's not clear whether it'll ever be possible to unselect a gender if you don't do it now. (Source). synecdochic also suggests, "go to http://www.livejournal.com/contact/?dept=feedback and politely register your displeasure."
Update: LJ has rolled back the code, and will not be making the change. Synecdochic's entry has details and a response from LiveJournal's general manager in the United States. The response that the LJ Response Team has sent out int response to inquiries is reproduced in the comments here.
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