Am I the only one who feels like we went from a world of balance to a world of ruin in the past month?

I'm not sure how much balance the world was in before but yeah it has been a big change. Hope everyone is hanging in there despite the social isolation and what not. And staying healthy, most importantly.

Good time to catch up on some music at least.

I hope everyone is safe and healthy in this time of unease and uncertainty. It's really strange to think that a couple of months ago things were normal and now we're all living in some kind of "World of Ruin". None of us have seen anything like this in our lifetimes, so it's definitely a big change. Hopefully things will quiet down over the next few months.

What has everyone been up to while this is all going on? I wrapped up my first proper VGM arrangement, have been spending time with my folks, and generally just trying to slow down and take care of myself. Music-wise I've been listening to all of Michael Giacchino's LOST soundtrack CDs, which has been a lot of fun picking apart as there are many themes that all reference one another throughout all six seasons.

I also decided to grow a mustache. Not sure if this is my Final Form or not, but I dig it.

I haven't heard the OST to compare (it's next on my cue to listen to now) but that's a nicely done piece of music dude. Good on you for having something lasting to show for this down time we're going through.

Being in NJ I'm in the center of all this and I can safely say it's like the wild west outside. On the plus side, I am still gainfully employed and have my health, but on the minus side everything I enjoy doing is being impacted by this. Concerts and events are postponed indefinitely or outright canceled. I've had 14 concerts either canceled or postponed and I imagine the rest of the ones I have scheduled for 2020 will suffer the same consequence. Physical media is having significant production delays, such that they aren't printing or the manufacturers are not accepting orders (see: Trials of Mana soundtrack indefinite delay, regular bands via services like MerchNow are temporarily shut down, etc.). Additionally, shipping is now being impacted as International shipping centers like New York's JFK are suspending or temporarily not accepting shipments from other countries.

It's going to be a long time before things get back to any sort of normalcy and that normalcy won't look like anything we knew before.

Gonna echo what Adam said - I also am unfamiliar with the source material, but that was a really enjoyable listen regardless.  Nice job!

As for me, I am pretty lucky to be in about the best scenario - having a job that switched over to work-from-home and not having a whole lot to worry about other than missing seeing people.  I typically do pretty well on my own, though, and I have adjusted to the isolation pretty solidly.  I also am VERY thankful that this sort of thing is happening in an age where digital communication is as robust as it is - being able to say, play a game of Jackbox with friends over Discord whenever we want almost feels like cheating.

I have also learned that when given ENORMOUS amounts of free time, I'm not necessarily better at getting through a backlog or anything than during normal times.  I'm currently in the midst of FAR too many games and not close to done with any of them (well, "done" is a relative thing with things like AC).

Currently trying to balance Animal Crossing, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, Golf Story, FF7 Remake, and Tengai Makyou II for the PC Engine Mini (first fantasy rpg just playing through in Japanese on my own - woo!).

Thank you for listening, guys!

Happy to hear that Joe and JB's jobs are intact. My job has transitioned to remote work too, so I'm glad for that.

You're probably right about that. I think things will eventually have a more stable baseline but I don't see how social distancing and all of the other precautions are going to just disappear when the powers that be decide it's OK for concerts to happen again, for all stores and schools to reopen, etc. The rest of this year will be an interesting one, that's for sure.

they're not,, until there is a vaccine

I wonder if people will be allowed to congregate if they test positive for antibodies, since at that point they are not producing the virus as much as just potentially coming into contact with it on surfaces.

It just means a lot of change. At my job, we cancelled anything not critical, including meetings and quality controls. Some of our competitors shut down and our hours increased significantly, despite eliminating several activities. We weren't allowed to use Paid Time Off, or take vacations, unless provably sick or injured.

PTO has now been reinstated, and it's a huge relief to be able to get some rest. Some of us were working 7 days a week for many weeks straight. There has been some exploitation of policies and hints of attrition are appearing.

Exploitation: when an employee falsely reports a high temperature in order to get two weeks off.
Attrition: when a near impossible situation is artificially created in order to inspire a specific person to quit, or to shake things up and see who doesn't quit. (Higher ranking people in companies seem to prefer using attrition rather than direct communication.)

Outside of work, I am finding driving to be more dangerous than usual. My concerns are not related to COVID-19, but to the behavior of others.