Cav's Place

March 12 edit: After today’s clarifications, I’m tentatively suspending this call.

March 11 edit: Please check out their recent announcement. My initial reaction after it, with just a couple of minor edits for clarity, was:

At a quick read, tempted to say hi again, and thank you, and hope we’ll all be putting all the mess behind us.

But trust’s hard to rebuild, so let’s see how the details will work out in time. I mean, first point would be to make sure that no other games, at least not except the three mentioned, will carry regional pricing, yet the article says you’ll try to have flat prices but will make up for it if it won’t work out, and I thought the point is to fight the practice, not to make you take losses so the publishers will still be able to carry on as usual.

Awesome if the different currencies for the rest of the catalog will be optional though. (Assuming I understood it right and it won’t be another kind of regional pricing, worried about that “or the equivalent in USD” bit. Does that mean the regular USD price or that’ll remain only for those from there and everyone else will get the direct current conversion of the set EUR/AUD/etc. price to USD? If first, awesome. If second, that’s regional pricing and we’re back to square one.)

The original post follows below:

As you may already be aware, coated in “good news”, GOG.com recently announced giving up on one of their two clear, specific core principles, namely the flat price worldwide. As such, I’m switching from being a very strong supporter, even somewhat of a GOG evangelist you may say, advertising them and trying to persuade others to sign up and make their purchases from there if they’re interested in any game included in their catalog, to boycotting them and calling everyone else to do the same. Considering the length of the post, if you’re in a hurry I guess you can skip straight to the call itself.

Before moving on, I would also like to add a link to a part of a presentation made by them only last summer, where they even named two publishers they gave up on specifically because they demanded regional pricing and, to quote them: “If there is a backbone of your business and you change it, you are destroying your business. It will come in time, maybe today you will make a fast dollar, but afterwards you will deeply regret it. That’s how we see that.” And later in that same talk: “The moment we will betray our values, the whole GOG will explode and that’s the end of it.” In addition, don’t forget the commercial they made dealing specifically with the unfairness of regional pricing, which they had briefly removed after the announcement, before probably realizing that doing so only made matters worse. And there’s also the last part of yet another commercial, mentioning fair prices for newer games as well. “But of course“, eh?

Considering all of that, I do believe it can’t be said that I’m overreacting and being entirely unreasonable. However, since some are doing just that, I’m going to include what I posted there yesterday, after getting past the stage during which I admittedly didn’t even care to be reasonable. It’s a long comment and I’m copying it exactly as I wrote it, including the words in bold, the only changes being adding a word that I had “eaten” in the original post and correcting a typo.

All right, was saying I just moved you straight from the strong support list to the boycott list and won’t bother with anything else, but let’s try a somewhat more reasonable message after just letting off a bit of steam Friday. This is darn difficult, mind you.

Regional pricing for on-line sales is wrong. There’s absolutely no excuse or justification for it. For physical sales there are varying taxes, transportation costs, the shares taken by the various shops themselves and wildly varying bills, rent and wages those stores have to pay. On-line, nobody can argue that it costs 0.01 USD to send a certain number of bits to the US and 5.46 EUR to send it to the EU for a 19.99 USD / 19.99 EUR game (even 0.46 EUR would still be entirely unreasonable, if it’d be 19.99 USD / 14.99 EUR), and let’s not even mention the even more outrageous situation for Australia / New Zealand. Hence, publishers merely do it because they can get away with it, there’s absolutely nothing that can be said to justify it or your choice to give in to this.

When you gave in for The Witcher 2, it was as a result of a court order, after a lengthy court battle that you lost, and you tried to make up for it with some store credit and even “broke” the geo-IP for a while to allow people to pick their location when buying that as well, which incidentally was an even greater plus for those same Aussies who had even worse problems than pricing to worry about. In that case, you fought for us, the customers, and alongside us, and even though you lost one battle, you did what you could to make it so we won’t lose it as well. And it was just one battle in a war, it happens, moving on.

Now, however, with this announcement, you did not lose a battle, you simply surrendered in the war, and contrary to what you said, you are pissing on our heads and telling us it’s raining. As that video people have been sharing proves, only last summer you were saying this will never happen, that if you ever allow for any dent in your values that’s the end of GOG, and just two months ago someone from support told me regional pricing will never happen, and now… There is nothing you can say to justify this or make it tolerable. Nothing! You had two clear, specific, core values, DRM-free and flat price worldwide. You gave up on one of them. It’s not a question of slippery slope, of potential consequences to the no-DRM stance in the future as well or anything else, not right now and not specifically at least. It’s a question of betraying one of your two core principles, and therefore betraying us. And hiding it in a so-called positive announcement, hiding your traces by making that video private, trying to justify it in who knows what way now is not making it any better, but worse.

As I saw someone else put it at some point on here, people like sales, coupons, free stuff, etc. everywhere, but people loved GOG. You were the good guys, you fought for us and we fought for you. Some people bought dozens or even hundreds of games on here (even if on big sales) just to support you, not because they absolutely wanted them, and definitely not because they needed to get them legally anywhere. Others shared your news, your offers, your announcements, supported you in other ways, persuaded friends and acquaintances to join GOG, make purchases as well, spread the word even further. It wasn’t a client – store business relationship, it was an emotional attachment because it truly felt as if we were in this fight against the other, evil, businesses in this industry together. And you now proved that not to be the case. That’s a betrayal, and the reaction to this, the rejection, will be just as emotional and vehement and steadfast as the support used to be, and possibly even more so.

If you were so desperate to get publishers too rotten to allow for fair prices for some of their games in one shop among several, just to count the major ones, you could, at the very worst, make an entirely separate site, without any visible connection to GOG, run by an entirely different team, that would sell just those games, and leave GOG as it was. That’d have still been a blow, but it’d at least have been something else, wouldn’t have soiled GOG directly.

If you truly believe you’ll get many games like this, you could still do that. Once you get, say, 50 or so under those terms, new, DRM-free but not fair priced, make another site, selling just those games, without negatively affecting GOG. Guarantee that GOG will maintain its principles, so including the fair flat price one, and still get at least 150 new releases per year (100 from the old two games at least three years old per week rule, rounding down to give a week off during the summer sale and one during the winter sale, and 50 more to justify the fact that you decided to stop focusing just on those “older” games some time ago – which incidentally started the slippery slope that led to this, mind you), and put the others on said other site, with the rule that they may not stay there with non-flat prices more than two years after being included in the catalog or more than three years after launch, whichever comes first. Then, once you can get a publisher to accept flat pricing for one of those games, move it to GOG too, but if you can’t get such an agreement before the game is on that other site for two years or three years have passed since it was first released, whichever comes first, it will be removed from that other site and forgotten about, since the point wouldn’t be to cater to rotten unreasonable publisher demands forever, but just to provide a gradual way in for them towards a fair model. And either way name and shame, spell out precisely which publisher made this rotten demand and what they said to your attempts to persuade them otherwise.

Again, this other site idea would still be a blow, would still be a betrayal, but not as much of one and at least it’d be a betrayal by CD Projekt (which won’t exactly be a first if you recall the going after Witcher 2 “pirates” bit or the fact that they just signed a distribution deal for Witcher 3 with the same rotten <bleep> who forced you into the regional pricing for Witcher 2), not by GOG.

Sorry for the length, but… I guess that’s as reasonable as I can get. Adding any game on GOG with regional pricing, or of course adding region locks or other such things that may follow, is not tolerable under any circumstances. Period.

With that out of the way, here’s another message, this one posted by me last night and explaining why a boycott is exactly what needs to happen, and why it needs to happen now. It was a reply to somebody else saying that there’s nothing we can really do.

Continuing to support them after this is the reason why the prices will increase. Need a united front against it, those of us who do see these things and care, here of all places, otherwise of course the silent mindless apathetic zombie crowd will always win out. And that’s what “they” (not necessarily GOG now, but those publishers) count on. Those who’re either easily fooled or just don’t think they can achieve anything by going against the stream will always be far more, so those of us who aren’t in that category (though I’m sorry to say you seem to be, at least in this second one if not the first) need to make enough of a ruckus to cover their silence. Sometimes it may even work. If it doesn’t, at least we tried, and at least we didn’t soil ourselves by going along with something that’s wrong.

Sure, this tends to apply to more important things than a games shop, but ideals are ideals, can’t claim to stand for the bigger ones if you wave away the smaller ones. (Which should go for GOG as well, with this.)

From that I’ll move on to a reply posted today on a thread against a boycott.

Judging from what I see in this post, seems that if GOG decided to pull down their pants and bend over in front of certain publishers, many of you are more than willing to follow suit. That’s what not boycotting now means, no matter how you justify it. You either fight this with the best weapon you have as a customer and are fully in that fight, regardless of whether we may win or not, or you don’t and the message sent is that they can get away with anything. Which is of course the very reason why this happens.

And finally, here’s yet another message I posted, this time in reply to those who claimed that such a course of action signified overreacting and that so far we can only speculate about precisely how the regional pricing will be implemented, and also asking people to at least wait until we’ll see which games will be added to the catalog thanks to this change.

What’s speculation? Why would what the new games are matter? They had two clear, firm principles. They announced deciding to give up on one of them. That’s the end of the story. It doesn’t matter what sort of shiny bribe they did it for, be it in terms of new games added or anything else, and it doesn’t, at this point, matter whether it will be a slippery slope or not (though I’ll remind you that TET admitted it may lead to region locks and existing games regionally priced in the future as well, when they’ll come up for renegotiation). It’s the fact itself that’s more than enough.

Now I believe I have already explained my stance in those messages, and I also believe that the first one showed that I can be reasonable about this and am even willing to offer solutions that will go a long way towards bridging this gap between the major publishers and the consumers without destroying what GOG is and what it has stood for all this time, so there’s no need to say much more in this post… Not much more except to apologize for allowing myself to be fooled into supporting them and perhaps persuading others to do the same all these years, at least.
There is nothing to negotiate or discuss here, or should I say that I have already stated how far I’m willing to negotiate, put my best “offer” on the table in that long message. As such, the call I want to make is very simple and very clear: As of now, until and unless they will renounce this change and once again enforce flat worldwide prices as one of their values, do not make any purchases from GOG.com anymore, do not purchase any games published by the companies that have pushed for this change, the first one announced being Triumph Studios, from anywhere, and persuade everyone you know to do the same. In addition, make it perfectly clear why you are taking part in this boycott by posting firm, though preferably thoughtful and reasonably polite, messages stating your stance on their forums and social media pages, and by sending such messages directly to them. And you may want to add a vote to the wishlist item as well, for what it’s worth.

For those interested, here’s also an incomplete list of reactions to the initial announcement found elsewhere on the Internet:
News pieces with comment threads containing over ten comments: IGN, Polygon, Joystiq, Kotaku Australia, Lazygamer, Ausgamers, Game Debate.
Forum threads with polls: The Escapist, CD Projekt, Neowin.
Forum threads without polls: reddit, Steam, GameSpot, Quarter to Three, Gameplanet, HEXUS, SEGA, Linus Tech Tips.

Edit: The announced letter explaining their plans for the future was finally posted as well, and in short it spells out that things will be even worse, with regional pricing applied to all games, which I’m sure implies tracking by IP everywhere too. Yes, the rates are far better than those usually used, but regional pricing is regional pricing, it still implies betraying their principles, and somebody’ll get screwed, even if less than in other places. Not to mention that exchange rates vary, so prices being set at one point in time instead of dynamically determined according to each day’s exchange rate will only make matters worse.
Honestly, I’m shocked right now. Didn’t think a business I respected and supported so much could stoop so low, so quickly. I mean, I know it was my mistake to allow myself to believe in them, to believe that a corporation may avoid being evil, but… It’s still shocking…

Second edit, copying something else I just posted: I do want to make it perfectly clear that boycotting them, and asking for others to do the same, does in no way imply wanting to see them bankrupt or otherwise gone. Quite the contrary, it’s just because I don’t want to see GOG gone, I don’t want to see them weak and defeated… Yet in one major way it already is gone, and they have admitted defeat, and therefore weakness.

I don’t know. Comments (and votes) say that many don’t think this is the right response, but after thinking about it for these past days I disagree with that and think it is. I think it is a way to send a strong message and remind them that some of us are fighting those practices and those publishers as well, and that if we will continue this fight even without them, even against them if need be, then it’s all the more clear that we will continue it alongside them, if they’ll decide to return to their previous stance, to their principles.

At the same time, the timing of the Humble Store change as well makes me have this nagging feeling that there’s something bigger at play here, something they’re still not saying. Maybe It’s “only” a coalition of publishers and retail stores making a push, complete with ultimatums, but may it also be some other court action, some high-level EU directive, or have something to do with the proposed European internet, forcing retailers to move away from transactions in USD as well, or quite the contrary, with the Trans-Pacific Partnership… Just speculation, of course, but it is odd…

The events taking place during this period were largely centered around a proposed change to a law that will allow construction on 85% of the surface of retroceded areas that are currently listed as green spaces. Admittedly, there may have been a problem of wording somewhere along the way, seeing as the amendment states that such areas may be built on if the owner will arrange another plot of land of equal size, offered by the authorities, as a green space or preserve 15% of the area they own as a green space. Change that “or” to “and” and things change significantly, though of course still not enough to make such a proposal acceptable, seeing as, for example, planting some new trees in or around the forest at the outskirts of the city doesn’t under any circumstances make up for clearing 85% of that number of fully grown, large trees in the crowded center.

The first public event related to this issue took place on February 14, starting at 11:30 AM, when representatives of a coalition of NGOs organized a press conference in Izvor Park, during which they also called people to gather around the University Square statues two days later, starting at 4 PM. Somewhat strangely, some activists then created their own event, completely overlapping the one created by this coalition’s page, and while there I even heard some discussions about who the organizers can be said to be and the fact that the United We Save movement “doesn’t recognize” the coalition’s representatives.
Even without the confusion, things were looking terrible until around 4:20 PM, when only around 15 people were present. 15 or 20 minutes later, however, the numbers had grown to around 70, and my highest count at the peak was 105. That’s still very low, but not exactly an embarrassment anymore, especially since hardly anything that would serve to attract or keep people there actually took place. In fact, there was almost nothing to look at except the signs which, as you can also see in my pictures, were placed on the pedestal of one of the statues, and the loudspeakers were only used for a series of speeches even though it’s known that this makes people quickly lose interest, shouts and chants being what may bring them closer and hold them together.
Under those circumstances, and as sad as this sounds, even though by then most had been scattered in small groups and simply chatting for some time, I was rather pleased to see that our numbers had only dropped to around 90 by 5:45 PM, when the event ended with a reminder that the proposed change was to be voted on in the relevant committee on February 18, people being asked to gather in Izvor Park that day at noon. That reminder was also followed by a suggestion to head for a nearby bar, which I found particularly odd, especially since a debate that was also part of the previously-mentioned exhibition dedicated to the fight against fracking was starting at 6 PM and this suggestion came from an activist whose main cause is just this battle.
But to return to the matter at hand, I should also mention that a total of 27 people attended the February 18 event, including the few who only arrived around 1 PM, after a few others had already left and the rest of us were about to do the same, so the maximum number present at any one moment was 24. Particularly unusual was that, while several obvious plainclothes agents never moved more than a few meters away from us, not a single uniformed gendarme was in sight. Admittedly, we quickly learned that the proposal had been moved to another committee, one created only the week before, where it will be voted on at a later date, so we didn’t do anything other than chat with each other while waiting for an official confirmation of this.

The only other event I believe I should mention took place during this period is the fact that one of the anti-fracking groups supporting the hunger strikers obtained the required approvals and a tent was placed in University Square, near the Coltea hospital, where it is set to remain until at least March 9. The first calls for volunteers to man the tent, handing out fliers and informing people about the dangers of fracking, were posted on February 14 and 15, but even without following the developments at all after that point I still saw some urgent messages asking for someone to rush there to cover certain hours.
While I fully support the cause, being one of mine as well, I am somewhat concerned about the end result of this effort. I know what those fliers contain and have some doubts about the relevance and trustworthiness of some of the information presented, particularly from the point of view of the average person, and the occasionally desperate calls, not to mention something that actually happened to me while walking past said tent, make me wonder how knowledgeable the volunteers who end up there are and how appropriate their attitude is.

What was announced as the first major street protest of 2014, having the same list of demands as those included in the proclamation read in front of the Government on December 21, took place on February 8, when people were asked to gather in front of the Bucharest National Theater from 4 PM. Of course, being a rather “artificial” protest, announced by activists not because the authorities had given us something else to react to but largely because the lull was making some people restless and there was a risk of them taking matters into their own hands in ways which would have harmed the movement as a whole, expectations shouldn’t have been high, yet many people seemed terribly disappointed by the turnout and the way the evening played out. As far as I’m concerned, that’s their problem, of course.
I saw activists estimating that 300 people attended, but that may be the total number, including those who left too early or arrived too late to be there at the same time, because I’ll say we were only around 200 at the peak. Admittedly, we separated when we started marching and found a fair number waiting for us when we returned, which makes a total of 300 somewhat more plausible, but plenty had already left by then as well, so I’m sure we never even got close to that number in any one place. As a result, we weren’t able to do much, but I’ll say that, if the purpose was largely to remind people, and perhaps also to remind ourselves, that we still exist, that we still have these grievances, it still worked out well enough.
If we’d have stayed in one place, or if we’d have continued waiting for our numbers to increase further, as some were suggesting despite the fact that people were already leaving by then, the evening would have died out quite disappointingly even for me, but thankfully at 6:25 PM we started marching, the stated destination being the Government. A small group had already left at 6 PM, possibly with the intent of staging a small protest elsewhere, but I heard nothing else about them, so I’m going to assume that our march and what a small number of us did later were the evening’s main events, despite the fact that we never did reach the Government or any other institution. After all, probably around 120 of us left when the call to start marching was made and I rather doubt we even reached 150 on the way, so we were too few to have any real reason to do so.
What actually happened was that we walked to Romana Square, spent around 15 minutes in that area and then returned, crossing the road several times after the gendarmes quickly stopped an initial attempt to actually walk on it. Once they even blocked us from crossing on a green light, holding us back for a few minutes, but the rest of the time the head of the column usually started to cross while the light was green and all the rest of us would follow, even if the light turned red well before everyone reached the other side. Admittedly, this was certain to annoy some motorists and after a while it was starting to feel rather silly, but it was an efficient method of gaining some visibility despite our numbers.
After we returned in front of the Theater, around 7:40 PM, rejoining those who had either stayed behind or arrived too late, it seemed that the evening was about to end. However, the call made some 15 minutes later, to move to the underground passage because there was something else to do before scattering, proved that not to be the case. Of course, for some it wouldn’t have been the case either way, as they remained outside in an attempt to simply continue the protest in that location for a while longer, alongside the hunger strikers, but some of the rest of us charged into the metro station at 8:15 PM, after finally being made aware of what was actually meant by doing something different to take our message directly to the people.
Since some simply jumped over the turnstiles, police quickly approached us, asking to see proof that we had paid the fare, which resulted in some shouting and may have caused a worse incident if a train wouldn’t have arrived. Admittedly, we meant to go to Unirii Square and that first train was coming from that direction, but we could always switch later, so a few protesters ran towards it just as the doors were closing, to hold a few of them open just long enough for the rest of us to join them, leaving the police behind.
Once inside, we briefly debated whether we should get off at Victoriei Square, but decided we’d probably be expected there and therefore switched trains at the very next stop, which is Romana Square, making use of the time we spent waiting to display our signs and banners while Alex made something of a speech, apologizing for any inconvenience before briefly explaining our causes and the reasons why we felt it was necessary to carry out such an act of civil disobedience, protests being forbidden inside metro stations, not to mention inside the trains themselves. This led to police once again approaching us, but only after a few minutes and just before the train we wanted arrived, so we agreed to stay quiet when we were asked to do so and then slipped away, continuing the protest inside the train itself, on our way to Unirii Square.
Somewhat to our surprise, we didn’t seem to be expected there, though police did approach us as we stopped in the passage between Unirii Square 1 and Unirii Square 2. They seemed to only want to make sure we won’t be blocking the way, however, so they didn’t follow after we got moving again, even though we ended up positioning ourselves in the station itself, spreading out to properly display all the banners while Alex was standing on the stairs and once again delivering the speech through the loudspeaker. In fact, close to ten minutes passed before we saw another police uniform, and even then its wearer was only looking our way from above, not seeming too convinced that he should step in. Even so, spotting him was the cue for the others to get on the next train and leave again, but by then I had taken the last few pictures and was planning to leave anyway, so I waited for the other train instead and did so. It was 8:45 PM.

To finally move on to what happened over the following five days, if I’m to only list what’s specifically taking place in Bucharest I should probably start by mentioning two more events that were part of the exhibition dedicated to the fight against fracking, which I wrote about in the previous protest report as well. The first was a viewing of Gasland, starting at 5 PM on February 9, while the second was a debate about the accessible water supply and the water cycle from the perspective of a horticulturist, the purpose obviously being to stress the negative influence fracking has on growing plants. This latter event took place on February 12, starting at 6 PM.
Otherwise, a large number of urgent messages, posted by many known activists and pages, called people to gather across the road from the Chamber of Deputies entrance of the Parliament from 1 PM on February 11, when the final vote on the law that it all started from was apparently scheduled. This call seemed completely pointless to me, as this law was already rejected by the Senate and the relevant committees and many of its key elements are now being gradually included in others, in order to make the process harder for us to track, so it’s largely redundant and this final rejection should be a mere formality. In addition, politicians know that turning around and approving it will make people take to the streets in large numbers once again and they have absolutely no reason to risk such a thing when elections are looming and they see that protests have largely died out without their “help”. As such, I wasn’t surprised when I saw messages stating that few people attended, around 30 according to one report, and even they quickly scattered, after learning that the vote was delayed. At the time I’m writing this, on February 22, it’s still far down the order.
The next day, from 5 PM, probably around 20 people gathered in front of the Ukrainian embassy, to show solidarity with the Ukrainian protesters. The event was apparently authorized and the ambassador came outside to talk to them, but this is all I know.
Also on February 12, a call asking for the banners, signs and anything else people created and displayed during the protests for Rosia Montana was posted. The donated items will be displayed and then auctioned during an exhibition which is to take place next month, all proceeds being used to fund the campaign. In addition, a different fundraising exhibition actually did open the next day and will remain open until March 5, 50% of the amount paid for each work of art being donated to a cause chosen by the customer. This was also promoted by activists because one of the four choices is the “Adopt a House at Rosia Montana” campaign, and it may also be noted that another is a small independent media group that has supported the protesters all along. And while I’m at it, I’ll also mention that a message that was also posted on February 13 announced that the photographic exhibition reflecting the cultural patrimony of Rosia Montana, which opened on February 6, will remain open until February 25.

When I saw last night’s truce announcement, I definitely didn’t think it’ll be worth much, but have to say I was almost as surprised to hear of today’s events as I was on Tuesday, when this started. This is following the pattern of the Arab uprisings, albeit with a stronger backing from an existing political opposition and certain visible interest groups, so it’s not exactly the sort of thing you expect to see happening in Europe!

What will happen next, I don’t know, but what’s obvious is that the current Ukrainian regime needs to go… As does the Russian one and its influence on the world, but that’s nothing new and, either way, a slightly different matter. If the world truly wanted to do something about that, Georgia offered them a great chance, five and a half years ago, but nobody made any use of it. So now we’re in this situation and Ukrainian people happen to be the ones paying the price today, with their blood, sweat and tears.

Of course, on the protesters’ side, alongside those who truly believe the European Union will bring them a better life and want the country to join it as a result and those who are closer to the ideals of the recent movements seen in other parts of the world as well and are therefore fighting for an entirely different system, you also have the political opposition with their own selfish interests, the right wing extremists, anarchists, some who’re just there for the fighting and possibly various other smaller groups as well. All of them can and do unite against a common enemy as long as they’ll at least somewhat agree on the general direction they’re going in, but ask them what they want to happen once they’ll overthrow the current regime and they’ll be at each other’s throats immediately.
Unfortunately, that’s always the case, but I guess there’s little to do about it but take things one step at a time. Support the fighters, commemorate the dead, comfort the injured and those losing friends and loved ones, and help the people of Ukraine break free of their current rulers, their current oppressors. Once that first goal is achieved, the support will clearly need to largely focus on those who’ll be struggling to create an entirely new system, knowing it’ll be a long and terrible fight, against current allies and old enemies alike.

Finally created a separate category for the protest reports and moved them, as well as the post written before the September 1 protest, to it. Been thinking of doing this for a long time, but kept meaning to make a category for posts about protests taking place here in general, as there have been some before this series as well, and was never sure how to name it or exactly what should be included in it, seeing as not all of those older posts were only about the protests, not to mention that some were largely personal posts, and filed as such, only describing what I did and how I felt while attending. Now that I decided to give up on that idea and simply focus on this more recent, and ongoing, series, it was simple to name the category after the movement and move what until a few moments ago were the most recent 27 posts filed under “Society” to it.

Speaking of protest reports, the current plan is to try writing the next one next Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean much, so the only thing I know for sure is that I won’t write it before that. Until then, I’ll try to attend tomorrow’s protest, but the recent events and my current state of mind mean that any need to interact with others is even more likely than usual to chase me away, so whether or not I’ll actually stick around depends on the number of people and on how it’ll all play out.

Otherwise, since I mentioned books in the previous post, I should also say that I’m quite sure I’ll give up on the purchase I planned to make this month, unless the prices will suddenly go down. I still have a few I’m planning to purchase during the book fair that takes place during the summer, depending on the discounts, but the three I meant to order this month aren’t among them, so I may simply give up on them, especially since I’ll consider it a good thing if I’ll even read the others by the end of the year, assuming I’ll buy them as currently planned.

As for what I ended the previous post with, no, I’m not going to give details. All I can say is that, as far as I’m aware, what I did had no result yet and the chances of that happening are probably decreasing with each passing day, though suddenly noticing something weeks from now is definitely not impossible. That means I was slightly less worried about it today, but at the same time no less worried about the reason why I did it in the first place, so I wouldn’t say my state of mind has improved that much.

But I probably wasted too much of your time with this, in case anyone reads it, so I’ll leave it at this and go shave for tomorrow. Consider it just something thrown here to make sure I’ll have two posts this week as well and little else.