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Description

For this years photo-op, I decided a shot of our lady mascots from each of us for this lucky pick. The boys can have their turn next year.

Cast, from left to right:

Veruka the Infernape (C)

Aura the Lucario (C)

Lin the Linoone (C)

Briar the Roserade (C)

Eleanor the Gardevoir (C)

Shadow the Sneasel (C)

Serah the Lopunny (C)

---

Art (C)

OCs (C) Random Doom Fanclub Admins
Pokemon (C) Nintendo

---

To those of us who may find this post years in the future, let me give you a history of what happened in 2020. In the words of British prime ministerial candidate, "Lord Buckethead": "It [was] a sh*tshow." (Seriously, look him up, that guy does exist and he's allowed to run for Britain's head office, similar to like they do in America).

Well, compared to world wars or massive nuclear disasters, the events that has happened this year hasn't topped such events as of writing this post but in terms of scale and human impact, it's up there. Primarily speaking, 2020 is the year the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) turned into a global pandemic. It started out in 2019 as a minor thing before blooming to the wider world due to some monumental screw-ups by governments all over the world. Technically speaking, the virus itself isn't the most deadliest disease in the world but the lack of warning/preparations, life support equipment and pre-existing health conditions is what makes this virus so deadly. So much so that 12 months on, the whole world is still in some state of lockdown with a vaccine only just recently made available to the public, yet officials say that it'll probably take the end of 2021 till everyone is vaccinated against this disease. Until then, social distancing and surgical masks is the new norm for us all.

Here is Australia it's hardly much better than some parts of the world, initially being an island nation we had no cases so we just stood by and watched while news of Europe and China were preparing tent hospitals and mass graves. The only incidents we had then was panic buying with one case of a fist fight over toilet paper making the news.

Then the first case arrived by plane, shockingly early but expected so we sent them to the hospital.

Then more sick people arrived by boat. Off to the hospital they go and life returned to normal.

Then one day our first local infection was reported. Again, expected so hospital and officials do little because at that point, covid is not yet declared an international crisis. At the same time, all Australian internationals are locked down in their current countries and many will stay there for the rest of the year.

Cases continue to rise and responses were slow. Things didn't become serious until one day, a cruise ship accidentally unloaded more than 1000+ people into Sydney without proper testing. Needless to say, many of them were infected and everyone lost their minds. Australia experienced it's first real wave of the virus and the whole country began enforcing semi-strict quarantine rules. Small businesses went broke due to restrictions and paranoia starts to set in because anybody could be a potential infected. The latter part wasn't unreasonable as cases began popping up everywhere, even a few people I knew got infected which included my workplace. Had to shut down for a few weeks and get tested myself because of it.

Our problems were further compounded by the lack of medical supplies coming in because most of it came from China, and because of our pact with America plus our already deteriorating trade relationship with the East reaching a high point, our first few months were plagued with the usual lack of ventilators, masks and testing swabs so we had to start jerry-rigging our own.

Things started to calm down approaching the middle of the year but that's when the 2nd wave happen. This time, it was a bungle up from the private security in charge of the quarantine hotels in the city. Long story short, they got infected, spread it to other people, and they in turn went to other places. Got bad enough that everybody made a fuss about shutting down the borders and calling in the reserve army to help enforce security, not sure how effective they were but according to a friend at border control, they can't do much since they're not trained for this kind of job.

Things began to look up again with only minor hiccups like a recent travel loophole for New Zealanders. Unfortunately the reprieve didn't last as just a week before Christmas a new hotspot appeared in Sydney, forcing the borders to close down again and everyone had to cancel their Christmas parties. Soon afterwards they made the decision to ban gatherings at this New Years Eve celebration fireworks down at the harbour so that's that. All in all, the virus down here in Australia has mainly been messing up everyone's life but it wasn't as bad as people are saying in America or Southern Europe where the news is saying that thousands are dead every day from it.

On other news, the following happened as well from what I recalled:

January

- Australia New Years Eve bushfire.

- Trump's Senate impeachment trial starts.

- Prince Harry leaves the royal family.

- Kobe Bryant dies in a heli crash.

- UK leaves the EU (Brexit finally happened, minus the trade deal).

February

- Holden shuts down.

- Thai mall shooting.

March

- Countries began closing their borders due to Covid-19.

- Panic buying incidents starts occurring.

- Half of infection cases in Australia are in New South Wales. Total shutdown soon followed.

April

- Oil prices drops below negative.

May

- SpaceX successfully launched a manned rocket. Around the same time they successfully launched a "grain silo" into the air with their new, bigger rocket.

- USA mass protests due to the death of George Floyde. Some make note of its similarities between this year's and LA 92's incident but much bigger in scale with gatherings happening all across America and violent responses in some areas making mainstream news.

June

- Australia and other countries experienced mass hackings from abroad.

July

- China's extradition bill is passed. Protests in Hong Kong is reduced due to the virus.

- US unmarked federal police began arresting protesters.

- Australia's border is completely locked down.

August

- Beirut explosion.

September

- USA California bushfires.

- Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan-Armenian) conflict.

November

- Biden win the US general elections.

December

- Gatherings for the Sydney Harbour Bridge fireworks is banned.

- Covid-19 vaccines begins being distributed to emergency workers around the world.

- Biden is the confirmed winner of the US electoral college election. Trump refuses to admit defeat.

Well, that's all folks, stay safe and have a happy new year.

Description

For this years photo-op, I decided a shot of our lady mascots from each of us for this lucky pick. The boys can have their turn next year.

Cast, from left to right:

Veruka the Infernape (C)

Aura the Lucario (C)

Lin the Linoone (C)

Briar the Roserade (C)

Eleanor the Gardevoir (C)

Shadow the Sneasel (C)

Serah the Lopunny (C)

---

Art (C)

OCs (C) Random Doom Fanclub Admins
Pokemon (C) Nintendo

---

To those of us who may find this post years in the future, let me give you a history of what happened in 2020. In the words of British prime ministerial candidate, "Lord Buckethead": "It [was] a sh*tshow." (Seriously, look him up, that guy does exist and he's allowed to run for Britain's head office, similar to like they do in America).

Well, compared to world wars or massive nuclear disasters, the events that has happened this year hasn't topped such events as of writing this post but in terms of scale and human impact, it's up there. Primarily speaking, 2020 is the year the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) turned into a global pandemic. It started out in 2019 as a minor thing before blooming to the wider world due to some monumental screw-ups by governments all over the world. Technically speaking, the virus itself isn't the most deadliest disease in the world but the lack of warning/preparations, life support equipment and pre-existing health conditions is what makes this virus so deadly. So much so that 12 months on, the whole world is still in some state of lockdown with a vaccine only just recently made available to the public, yet officials say that it'll probably take the end of 2021 till everyone is vaccinated against this disease. Until then, social distancing and surgical masks is the new norm for us all.

Here is Australia it's hardly much better than some parts of the world, initially being an island nation we had no cases so we just stood by and watched while news of Europe and China were preparing tent hospitals and mass graves. The only incidents we had then was panic buying with one case of a fist fight over toilet paper making the news.

Then the first case arrived by plane, shockingly early but expected so we sent them to the hospital.

Then more sick people arrived by boat. Off to the hospital they go and life returned to normal.

Then one day our first local infection was reported. Again, expected so hospital and officials do little because at that point, covid is not yet declared an international crisis. At the same time, all Australian internationals are locked down in their current countries and many will stay there for the rest of the year.

Cases continue to rise and responses were slow. Things didn't become serious until one day, a cruise ship accidentally unloaded more than 1000+ people into Sydney without proper testing. Needless to say, many of them were infected and everyone lost their minds. Australia experienced it's first real wave of the virus and the whole country began enforcing semi-strict quarantine rules. Small businesses went broke due to restrictions and paranoia starts to set in because anybody could be a potential infected. The latter part wasn't unreasonable as cases began popping up everywhere, even a few people I knew got infected which included my workplace. Had to shut down for a few weeks and get tested myself because of it.

Our problems were further compounded by the lack of medical supplies coming in because most of it came from China, and because of our pact with America plus our already deteriorating trade relationship with the East reaching a high point, our first few months were plagued with the usual lack of ventilators, masks and testing swabs so we had to start jerry-rigging our own.

Things started to calm down approaching the middle of the year but that's when the 2nd wave happen. This time, it was a bungle up from the private security in charge of the quarantine hotels in the city. Long story short, they got infected, spread it to other people, and they in turn went to other places. Got bad enough that everybody made a fuss about shutting down the borders and calling in the reserve army to help enforce security, not sure how effective they were but according to a friend at border control, they can't do much since they're not trained for this kind of job.

Things began to look up again with only minor hiccups like a recent travel loophole for New Zealanders. Unfortunately the reprieve didn't last as just a week before Christmas a new hotspot appeared in Sydney, forcing the borders to close down again and everyone had to cancel their Christmas parties. Soon afterwards they made the decision to ban gatherings at this New Years Eve celebration fireworks down at the harbour so that's that. All in all, the virus down here in Australia has mainly been messing up everyone's life but it wasn't as bad as people are saying in America or Southern Europe where the news is saying that thousands are dead every day from it.

On other news, the following happened as well from what I recalled:

January

- Australia New Years Eve bushfire.

- Trump's Senate impeachment trial starts.

- Prince Harry leaves the royal family.

- Kobe Bryant dies in a heli crash.

- UK leaves the EU (Brexit finally happened, minus the trade deal).

February

- Holden shuts down.

- Thai mall shooting.

March

- Countries began closing their borders due to Covid-19.

- Panic buying incidents starts occurring.

- Half of infection cases in Australia are in New South Wales. Total shutdown soon followed.

April

- Oil prices drops below negative.

May

- SpaceX successfully launched a manned rocket. Around the same time they successfully launched a "grain silo" into the air with their new, bigger rocket.

- USA mass protests due to the death of George Floyde. Some make note of its similarities between this year's and LA 92's incident but much bigger in scale with gatherings happening all across America and violent responses in some areas making mainstream news.

June

- Australia and other countries experienced mass hackings from abroad.

July

- China's extradition bill is passed. Protests in Hong Kong is reduced due to the virus.

- US unmarked federal police began arresting protesters.

- Australia's border is completely locked down.

August

- Beirut explosion.

September

- USA California bushfires.

- Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan-Armenian) conflict.

November

- Biden win the US general elections.

December

- Gatherings for the Sydney Harbour Bridge fireworks is banned.

- Covid-19 vaccines begins being distributed to emergency workers around the world.

- Biden is the confirmed winner of the US electoral college election. Trump refuses to admit defeat.

Well, that's all folks, stay safe and have a happy new year.