Yellow Guy

Public Health Emergency

Well… it’s official. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar declared a public health emergency about the new coronavirus today. I saw plenty of other bloggers post about it last week, so that should have been a sign this was coming. I was hoping it would not escalate further, but here we are anyway.

U.S. government officials are going to start quarantining any flight passenger for 14 days who has been in the Hubei province in China in the past 14 days. Major airports will also be screening anyone who has been in mainland China for evidence of symptoms of the virus. The Trump administration has also announced a ban on foreign national travel for those who have been within China in the last 14 days. The reason for this constant 14 day number is that the coronavirus can take possibly between 2 to 14 days to actually show symptoms after a person catches the disease.

The last time the Center for Disease Control had issued something like this was in the 1960s to evaluate smallpox. It is worrying that the virus spread has reached a level like this, since our society has not been tested against a threat like this in a long time. We definitely have many countermeasures in place, but we can never really be sure if it is enough. The virus is definitely very contagious, but does not seem to be too deadly. It still will, however, take scientists at least a year to develop a vaccine, making this a scary situation. Hopefully, though, these measures can prevent the coronavirus from entering the United States.

On the other hand, I wonder what is being done to prevent the virus from spreading into third world countries that have high population density and bad sanitary conditions. The virus will definitely have an easier time spreading through areas like that.

At the time of writing, there are 9,856 confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, and 213 deaths. The virus has infected 26 different countries, though it should be noted that all 213 deaths occurred in mainland China. There have been 7 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S., with the latest one being quite close to my home in Santa Clara County, California. The man had traveled to China and luckily quarantined himself. Knowing my luck with everything going on in my life, I will be the one infected next. You can get updates here: https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-01-31-20-intl-hnk/index.html

With every new piece of news I read, it feels like the world is just getting closer to ending. It is always this natural disaster or that economic crisis. People need to stop destroying our planet, because clearly our planet is not having it. If everyone knew how hard it was to live like me with my skin disorder, maybe they would be a little more grateful from time to time.

Nintendo is Not Being Very Nice

Hi Guy who plays games! I enjoyed reading your post about Nintendo disallowing their customers to cancel digital preorders. It seems to be a regular theme of companies screwing over their customers, since I wrote my first blog post about Apple’s refusal to change their charging points. In that case, however, the EU was able to force Apple into signing an agreement that they will switch their charging to USB-C or micro usb cables due to the environmental impacts of thrown away wires.
I wonder why the court ruled in favor of Nintendo. If it is indeed against the EU’s Consumer Rights Directive, I do not see how Nintendo could have protected its stance on preorder returns. I would love to see more information about your source and how the case played out, because this makes no sense to me.
I agree with you that preordering games is rarely a good idea. Even established game franchises commonly come out with games that do not meet their own standard of quality, and receives outrage from the communities of players. I hope the common Nintendo consumer becomes aware of this policy, or they end up in disappointing situations with no way to get their money back.
A good policy that could help consumers would be required open betas for any game with preorders, so that players can get a feel for the game before placing their preorders. Of course, the real version of the game could unexpectedly be plagued with technical issues that could still ruin the experience for players.
At the end of the day, Nintendo’s policy is very predatory on consumers and players should stop preordering games until a change is made. I applaud the Consumer Authorities of Germany and Norway who were suing Nintendo, and hope they can find success soon.
It is really starting to feel like nobody cares about their customers anyway, and think the consumers will simply keep buying their products regardless. Looking at Apple’s success and now this, I am confused how these companies are not being punished by the consumers for the decisions they are making.

A Blog From a Guy Who Plays Games

I was reading an article about Nintendo, specifically their return policy. Apparently Nintendo doesn’t allow customers to cancel digital preorders. For those that don’t know, a preodering is when you purchase something before it’s actually released. It usually has some benefit, like being slightly cheaper, or giving special bonuses, like special ingame items that can only be obtained by preordering. Consumer authorities of Germany and Norway were suing Nintendo, as it was against the EU’s Consumer Rights Directive, which says that you must be able to cancel online purchases to receive a refund. The case went to court, and the court ruled in favor of Nintendo, meaning that their policy of no online refunds stands.

A lot of people dislike the idea of preordering, as it is basically giving the company money and hoping that they keep their promises. It’s sort of the same as the crowdfunded companies- you give…

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“Take Her Out”

If not about a date, “Take her/him out” is a pretty ominous phrase spoken by gangsters in movies before someone gets murdered.

Well, our president was heard saying this about then-United States ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch before she was— you guessed it — fired from her job.

But hearing someone got fired on President Trump’s administration, at this point, isn’t exactly noteworthy. The interesting part was that he was saying this at a dinner including “Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York on charges including campaign finance fraud.” The best part is, Trump had previously claimed “he doesn’t know Parnas and instead support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days that Trump demanded Yovanovitch’s termination.”

Our president really seems to lie more than he tells the truth. Speaking of his lies, he has now said 5276 false things as United States president. If you ever want to check the count, look here: https://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/

But back to the point, this is just icing on the cake of all the shady moves Trump has made. He is being impeached right now for getting help from Ukraine in the election. On top of that, he’s been using his power to benefit his own offshore investments, and does not care about the American people. It literally does not even matter too, since he’s going through an impeachment trial that he can’t lose because of the Republican majority. Maybe more evidence can come up to take him down but, its not looking good. Today is the last day of argument in the Senate impeachment trial, so we will see.

Trump needs to think about people like me. People who did not have access to a small loan of a million dollars growing up, but instead had to deal with health issues like my skin disorder. I feel that my skin being yellow helps me sympathize with all of the unfair issues dealt with by Americans everywhere. Maybe I should run for president…

A Cutting Story

Hi madforfire. I found your post titled “A Cutting Story” very interesting. The prospect of a man in a custody battle asking for trial by combat is, I agree, quite ridiculous.
To be completely honest, I can’t believe David Ostrom is serious in this request. I have heard of attorneys bringing up ridiculous things in court in an attempt to highlight how ridiculous a situation is, and this may be the case here. You do mention that Mr. Ostrom’s hope is to meet “Mr. Hudson’s absurdity with [his] own absurdity,” so I would like to read more details into the case to see what absurdity Mr. Hudson displayed to make Mr. Ostrom retaliate in such a manner. It could be a tactic to gain more time in the trial too. The article stated, “He asked the Iowa District Court in Shelby County to give him 12 weeks ‘lead time’ in order to source or forge katana and wakizashi swords.” Even if the judge doesn’t allow this 12 weeks, he has given his team time by even bringing this ridiculous request up.
It is crazy to consider that Mr. Ostrom was able to find a loophole like this in the legal system, which was used “as recently as 1818 in British Court.” Another possibility is Mr. Ostrom was just fed up with the situation and out of answers. In a professional setting, making ridiculous arguments makes you look like you are admitting defeat.
As a response to the argument of the duel possibly ending in death, Mr. Orstrom said that trial by combat was ended by one party yielding to the other. The article also mentioned that “he wants to proceed with a ‘blunted practice style’ of sword play.” It seems to me that Mr. Orstrom has more of a sense of humor than we are giving him credit for.
I wish I could sue for a trial by combat to whoever gave me my condition.

Koi Lovers Paradise

Good afternoon everybody, I’m glad to see that the page has been found by a few fellow ponders. Just a warning today’s post is gonna be less pond oriented for once. I found this bizarre new story and I thought I’d just throw it out into the pond for you all to feed on.

Earlier this week David Ostrom, a 40 year old man from Paola, Kansas requested to the Shelby County Iowa District Court in Harlan, Iowa to “grant his motion for trial by combat” (USA Today). He is currently in a custody battle after separation from his ex-wife, Bridgette Ostrom, 38, of Harlan, that through combat he hopes to settle. He wishes to meet Mrs. Ostrom and her attorney Matthew Hudson “on the field of battle where [he] will rend their souls from their corporeal bodies”. His wish however has rightfully been fought by Mr. Hudson due to…

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Apple’s Monopoly on Everything

Apple annoys me for a lot of reasons. Seems like I’m not the only one. Recently, members of the EU have been pushing to force tech companies to adopt a single universal charging method.

Now this makes a lot of sense. First of all, obsolete cables generate an estimated 51,000 tons of waste per year, so this would help reduce that significantly if cables can be reused. Secondly, Apple has been abusing its own consumers by making them buy different charging wires for their laptops, phones, and other devices. It’s the biggest rip off I’ve seen in a while, and it’s not like they can’t make it a single charging wire either. They simply choose not to and jack up the price to squeeze every dollar out of us as they can. And for some reason, we don’t stop buying.

I would’ve thought nobody would buy an iPhone after they literally admitted to slowing their phones down through software updates. Or after they got rid of the headphone jack and everyone had to buy a dongle or airpods. We’re all sheep, playing into their hand every time and allowing them to screw us with every move.

This, however, is quite the development. I applaud the lawmakers heading this movement, as they would at least slightly stop Apple from using its shady tactics. I don’t have too much faith though, since Apple has done this before and still found a way out. Apparently, in 2009, many tech companies signed a memorandum of understanding in 2009 to provide micro-USB compatible chargers for consumers. Apple, however, ended up using a loophole that they can continue to use their chargers if they also provide an adapter. Hopefully, no such loophole can be found this time and Apple can be forced to do some good.

I’ve always hated how large companies prioritize their profits over the common man, like myself. It’s a story much older than me, but has no solution in sight. Whenever people get into power, regardless of how good their intentions were, get corrupted easily by the thought of their success over that of the people around them. Everyone always thinks they can hold their own needs above everyone else’s because they’re special. Let me be the first to tell them that they are not, especially with my experience in being special. Just because you went to a good school and have found success does not make you any better than anyone else who is still working on it — just like my skin being yellow does not make me different from anyone else. My skin color didn’t give me any special treatment growing up, and I still deal with it every day of my life. It seems like a lot of adults today are dealing with issues I had to work through as a child because of my condition. If only they had experienced what I had to…

Introducing Myself

Hi there. I’m the yellow guy. I was born over 40 years ago now, and the last thing my mom expected to see after I was born was me, a yellow baby. Some genetic mutation gave me yellow skin, but the doctors didn’t care since I was healthy.

Ever since then, my life has been about one thing. Nobody ever gave me a normal look without a double take or face of disgust. I had a few good friends in high school and college, but I never felt like I was really one of them. The only thing I ever wanted to be was a normal guy.

All these years later, I don’t know what to make of my life. The people that were around me have all gone to achieve great things. Everyone always thought I was special, but the only thing special about me made no difference.