I was just telling my mom the other day, that I suspect we're going to continue to see this weird descent in the country into a third-world nation. Here I'm reading that American corporations, the Federal government, and human traffickers are all cooperating to provide cheap labor for factories. With the untold millions of illegal aliens who have poured over the border, how long until entire sections of towns have been taken over by violent gang wars, with gun-platform helicopters flying overhead raining bullets, like I've seen in videos from Mexico?

I'm in the Twin Cities visiting family, and I wound up having a three hour conversation with a couple of guys at GameStop. It's fun discussing the hobby with other passionate people. I exchanged contact info with one of them. I'd been assuming that GameStop was about four hours away from shuttering completely-- but the store manager was telling us that they actually turned a small profit this past quarter, that they are basically a debt-free company, and that the current CEO seems like he's trying to help the company survive long-term, and that he's not just using it as a quick cash grab.

I've always rooted for them, back to the Funcoland era. I really like having a brick and mortar option for the hobby. The one in the town near me closed a few years ago, so it's now an over hour-long drive to the closest GameStop-- but when I visit the Twin Cities I like to stop in.

It's been tough to break away, even for a couple of days. Yesterday I got a call asking if I could sub in as Sacristan on Sunday-- then got another call asking if I could cover a funeral today at 13:00. I would have said "yes" to both things if I were even in the area! I like the fact that I'm getting so intertwined in things there, it's been such a blessing to be involved in something other than my career, from which I've never felt any sense of fulfillment. My absolute dream would be if they hired for a "Director of IT"-style position at my "ACC"-- I would be willing to have a significant pay cut even, to accept a job like that.

In any event, today is a "down" day for me to work on my game music a little. I've also gotten back into Smash Bros. on Switch a bit, and I had a copy of "Super Mario Bros. Wonder" show up, so I'll probably start that today as well.