Category: Media

pollen so bad

My eyes are not actually dry but they are very gummy. My nasopharyngeal parts are gummy too. I’m not coughing but my chest feels tight. (AQI good pollen counts moderate)

Tried Fatburger yesterday. White Spot is superior in virtually all ways, and not that much more expensive.

I miss my grandsons. Spoke to Keith yesterday. No word on whether Janice has left.

Watched John Wick Chapter 4. The clunkiness of the script poses a bit of a challenge but the fight scenes were exactly the way I like them and Donnie Yen was fucking perfect as always. (I mean how do you get typecast as a blind martial artist??? by being fucking good at it.) IT’S A COMMITMENT it’s like 3 hours long. All action movies should be ninety minutes or so. It is a law. Unobserved, sadly.

I am continuing to practice la la la on the ukulele. My brain appears to work okay today.

I am continuing to wrestle with edits on TB. The last pass was to make sure that every word of every line of dialogue in the first part is a) to the education level b) in character c) germane d) unmagical (ie there is a plausible way the character could know it to say it). I suppose editing dialogue without cementing the plot bunnies in place is useless & pointless (deck chairs, Titanic, Augean stables, etc.) but still I endeavour to persevere in the worst way possible – which was standing up in a hammock last time I checked.

Elon Musk is going to turn Ron DeKrampus loose on twitter in an effort to help him get elected.

I don’t get these people, but I guess I don’t have to.

For the first time, Russian nationals fighting for Ukraine have made incursions and captured enemy weapons and tanks inside the Russian border. What impact that will have to escalate the war is anyone’s guess.

 

 

quietly productive

I emptied and ran the dishwasher, wiped down the hellhole surfaces in the kitchen closest to the compost buckets and got most of the rain of tomato out of the microwave, trained the cat, made and thoroughly enjoyed a coffee, possibly wrote a song, did my wordle and lumosity training, clipped Buster’s claws, made ‘meat and potatoes’ for lunch, sent a thousand words to mOm, figured out what my next couple of scenes are (although I’m not putting pressure on myself to write) and I generally luxuriated in the life of a retired person. I took my meds at the right time. I stayed hydrated. I put in eyedrops before I went to bed.

That’s what I’m supposed to do, right?

Watched the Netflix film the Pale Blue Eye. Harry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe was wonderful. Harry Melling’s grandad was the second Doctor Who, who knew. Gillian Anderson’s bizarre mom to a bizarre family was …. bizarre and hypercreepy.  Christian Bale as the haunted detective was quite effective. I really enjoyed the script. Unlike many scripts (many, many; hear me whine) set in historical times, it neither gracelessly dropped modern slang like horseshit into a griddle nor overdid the ceremony and style of days of speech in days of yore. I didn’t hear a single anachronism. Do you have any idea how pleasant that is for a writer? I mean there were many constructions that would likely not have happened in the 1830s, but nothing so far from contemporary usage that it was repellent. For that alone, huit sur dix.

Jeff Bezos, may the intertwined Fates of a thousand cultures give him his reward, has, through Amazon, bought an Indian publishing house called Westland Publishing. It is one of the few publishing houses in India that has the wit and courage to publish ANYTHING that challenges Hindutva. (Spoiler alert, I think that all countries are idiotic, but once you have a settled state that calls itself a democracy, you should perhaps not support a political ideology that FIGHTS LIKE HELL AGAINST PLURALISTIC DEMOCRACY BECAUSE HINDUS ARE JUST BETTER, KK? Plus the caste system is groovy, men own women’s bodies, marital rape is super cool, cops can kill women who report rapes after raping them again, and Muslims are arson targets) OKAY maybe I’m being a racist asshole, oh look, I’m not. I really don’t think that China and India holding hands over kicking the shit out of Muslims is a good look for either country; people are dying in riots pogroms and political reeducation camps in both countries. Anyway, Bezos is literally supporting global fascism by doing that and we already knew he was a cruel billionaire, but HONESTLY can’t he just fucking stop.

Anyway, the closure of the publishing house means that hundreds of titles are no longer available. Absolutely no word on how and when they could be available elsewhere. There’s more than one way to be fash. Having the money to buy good things that support democracy and discourse, and destroy them (huLLLLLO Elongated Greaserat) is fascist.

a six year old is in custody for shooting his teacher. The cops didn’t arrest the person responsible for leaving a loaded pistol out. Everything you need to know about gun culture in the US in one story. (from CNN website, 6-year-old in custody after shooting teacher in Virginia, police chief says By Amanda Musa and Jennifer Feldman, CNN
Updated 7:19 AM EST, Sat January 7, 2023)

 

roundup of non-news

Jim’s death has been publicly announced.

I have errands I simply must run today and no desire to leave the house.

Ordered Chinese food, not too much. It was quite tasty and I’m looking forward to having it for breakfast.

Brittney Griner has been freed from Russian imprisonment in an unknown location via prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, an arms dealer of very poor reputation.  Nothing about this prisoner swap is normal and candidly if someone told me that Russia would get such a high value prisoner (who will probably resume his killing ways) back I’d not have believed it. Terrell Jermaine Starr says this:

The lesson we need to take from Brittney Griner’s imprisonment and release is that the WNBA’s low pay puts their players at risk of being used for political gain by rogue states. Poor WNBA pay created a national security issue that didn’t need to be.

Watched a couple of football games yesterday. There were some really hard hits and even with the new concussion protocols I fear for the beans of the players.

No writing, not even a smidge. I feel upended and emptied and brain broken.

And yet I guess I had a good year on Reddit:

Graphic of a reddit snoo showing "You're in the top 1% of karma earners this year.

This just means I spent a lot of time on reddit, trying to be helpful, mostly to people younger than me.

Here’s my avatar but you can’t have my user name on reddit because it’s the one place on the internet I’m a real fucking asshole sometimes. (I got kicked off AITA for exactly that reason.)

 

Taiwan’s little EU problem and other things

  1. So the EU ambassador to China, a Spaniard, has announced that the Spanish government’s position on Taiwan (peaceful reunification for 1 China) is actually the EU position. It’s not. Horror across the internet this morning at this blatant contradiction of the majority stakeholder view across the EU.
  2. I’m so itchy I’m having trouble sleeping. My tear ducts seem to be blocked up too, and my eyes are sticking shut.
  3. Started working on Part II – 73 words so far.
  4. Three shootings in Toronto last night, one dead, two gravely injured, shooter or shooters still at large.
  5. Words cannot describe how much I’m hoping – and I’m an abolitionist – that Steve Bannon goes to jail in the same country where someone said that the economy would fall apart if jails didn’t contain almost free labour.
  6. Putin says Russia’s high tech sector is facing ‘colossal’ problems due to sanctions.
  7. They’re emptying the jails and putting the dregs of Russian society at the front, according to sources inside Russia.
  8. 110 degrees F in Fort Worth TX today that’s 43 degrees C. The grid in TX is teetering thanks to Repulsigan policies and chronic underspending by ERCOT on maintenance. Bad things are going to happen, it’s like sunshine and gravity.
  9. Wonderful Nova program about the JWST and the first pictures. I knew it was a hellaciously complex and overbudget project, but just HOW complex and HOW overbudget was kind of heartstopping, so thank science it worked. Ain’t nobody going to fix it if it quits.
  10. CBC is reporting lightheartedly that repeated COVID infections will be the norm and don’t pose a problem and this is directly counter to every reputable clinician and epidemiologist that I follow stating loudly and clearly that every repeat infection raises the spectre of disability from Long Covid. Fuck them for saying that.
  11. With Jeff’s kind assistance, I have taken Otto to the krankenhaus. I will receive word on Thursday.
  12. Keith reports that Jim is doing much better.
  13. I have finally seen “The Trouble With Harry”. Damn but John Forsythe was hotter than August in his prime, and what a freaking voice.
  14. 40 degree C weather in Britain. Monuments and bridges are at risk of cracking, damage and failure. Brits don’t take heat seriously so the betting is it will be super hard on the disabled and elderly. Australians and Americans on twitter are trying to help with inexpensive advice. From today’s twitter: In more “country totally prepared for hot weather” news: Blackpool Victoria Hospital (note, in the UK) has propped its doors open to keep the building cool, but now the hospital is full of seagulls  AND HERE’S ANOTHER ONE “SKY NEWS REPORTER, CITING MILITARY SOURCE: UK ROYAL AIR FORCE HAS HALTED FLIGHTS IN AND OUT OF ITS LARGEST AIR BASE IN THE UK BECAUSE THE “RUNWAY HAS MELTED” IN THE HOT WEATHER and ANOTHER:

    UK airport suspends all flights as heatwave melts runway tarmac

    A spokesperson for Luton Airport said: “Following today’s high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the runway.”

  15. My dad does not like seagulls. Not in his aircraft engines and definitely not in his hospitals. NO WORD ON HOW HE FEELS ABOUT MELTY TARMAC
  16. The ERs at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater and South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver are on diversion due to staff shortages.
  17. let’s talk about everything that’s wrong with this article. First off, fuck that family for booking a Disney cruise in Alaska during a pandemic. Second, Air Canada SAID it was going to be cancelling flights left and right at the end of June. Did they not get the memo? What did they think was going to happen. THIRD their daughter HAD COVID BEFORE THEY STARTED TRAVELLING or she wouldn’t have popped symptoms on the fourth day…..they would have ended up on a boat with a sick child anyway. How the fuck is that a vacation? fourth they got treated terribly by Air Canada and had to sleep in airports and it’s like HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NEWS? EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM CITED IN THIS ARTICLE has been part of the nightly news since the travel season started. There’s NO ROOM in the current Air Canada schedule for aircraft going mechanical.
  18. Maybe Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is a more important figure and musician than the Weeknd and Drake but why the fuck would he say so in public? I’ll tell you why!! HE DIDN’T GET REVIEWED IN THE MAJOR PAPERS! Oh, you poor poor man.  that’s get off my lawn style crankiness and RACISM. PS I hold no brief for either of them and Drake’s a creepy asshole who macks on minors and makes for great memes but HE’S A HOMETOWN CHILD IN TORONTO so of course it was a big deal. Not understanding the local politics doesn’t make you a likeable figure dude.
  19. Time to back up your computers, earth’s about to get smacked hard by a coronal mass ejection.  Radio and GPS disruption expected, low latitudes aurorae, first thing tomorrow. Chances of being an x event is 10% but we’ll get something for sure….
  20. WHO confirms a Marburg outbreak in Ghana.
  21. Zelenskyy remains pissed at Trudeau, line forms on the left pal.
  22. July 2022 heat dome temperature gradient europa
  23. Above is the atmospheric ‘ pot lid’ on Europa.
  24. NASA’s ‘climate spiral’ video.
  25. SO ITCHY

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Dorothy Sayers 80 years ago

Allegra Sloman made this. Font is Bangla MN.

oh this next item made me so mad. A list of words you can’t use as an amazon employee on amazon work chat

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these are words you can’t use in Amazon Chat. JFC (WHICH STANDS FOR JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.)

My replacement words  (you get the idea, also the above is truncated so some words are missing)

I nate

Scallion

Thermal event

Sleeps with Ahnold

Condensation

Play phrase

Bullriding

‘mint’

donut

Sandstorm By Da

Consarn it

this is foolish

this is foolish

The Big Rock Candy Mountain

Red Alert

Petticoat

Beef stew

Poutine

optimal staffing

Nicomachean or Eudemian

Flairness

accessibility – antarctica

Vaccine – Jolene

Junior mints

Living wage  pin money

Representation – mouthpiece

Unfair – more mints, or too many mints

 

 

 

 

Conrad Black in the NP

The Nazi Post is once again hosting Conrad Black, a man who stopped being a racist in public while he was in jail in the US because he would have been shivved in the shower, and who promptly went back to his racist ways the instant he was released.

This is the first paragraph of his latest pixellated excretion.

Seven months into the Biden regime, the truism that dare not speak its name is now almost too obvious to bear stating. It was a catastrophic error to evict Donald Trump. No one, and certainly not I, would try to whitewash the stylistic infelicities of Donald Trump. He said many things that were toe-curlingly embarrassing coming from the holder of so great an office. But he proved in government as he had in the private sector that he was capable and forceful, and although he had the terrible handicap of personalizing everything and escalating all disagreements, he had a clear conception of domestic and foreign national interests and pursued them very successfully.

I was thinking that Donald Trump did everything possible to show that he was forceful AND incapable, but …. my opinion aside …. can you imagine shilling for Trump like this?

Shrub got the US into Afghanistan, when any sane military person would have said AW HELL NAW! The Afghans, who have hosted the best and worst of Islam (by which I mean Rumi and blowing up other people’s cultural treasures) over their history, have been happy to put empires on the ground, with a combination of local militias, intertribal arrangements, brutal geography, opium, and a really strong opposition to having foreign overlords using Afghanistan as a testing ground for military technology.

The fact that Conrad Black NOWHERE MENTIONS that Donald Trump’s lackeys handed the Taliban an enormous (and candidly treasonous) package of information, including the names and addresses of everyone who ever worked for the US, shows very clearly that this entire article is a narcissistic, aged capitalist wanting another even MORE narcissistic, aged capitalist to run the most dangerous country in the world. Nowhere does Mr. Butter Pat mention that they did this on Trump’s orders once he lost the election, so that the situation in Afghanistan would be IMPOSSIBLE for Joe Biden’s team to manage when the end came… an end Trump’s team precipitated. 

Such is the truly fellatial tone of this mangy screed, it’s hard not to wonder what the hell Trump has on Black. But it’s enough that he was powerful, I guess, and Black admires tyrants.

I close this rant with my assessment of this deranged fondness for Trump, as expressed by Dorothy Lamour’s quote, regarding Bing Crosby and Bob Hope: “There’s always a click when two heels meet.”

Ow ow wow

This is Rachel Maddow really enjoying the ruling regarding the referral for sanctions and disbarment for the 9 Trump lawyers who tried to get the Michigan presidential vote overturned and Trump restored to power. This was among the most pleasant news items I have encountered recently and it’s worth watching, for the sheer glorious untrammelled schadenfreude it will unleash in you.

later that day, around 6 pm, I add this link – Capitol Police Sue Trump

F*** around and find out!!!! I am enjoying this part.

democracy at the Capitol

So despite preparing for the mob, the mayor of DC, Muriel Bowser, and the Chief of Police, had a victory over the mob taken away because the Capital Police let the mob into the White House, and then the federal prosecutor refused to prosecute anyone, on 45’s orders. (This according to Racine, whom I heard interviewed.)

I’m going to keep the news turned off, this is some bullshit.

Destiel round up (pretend this is a Private post)

sane people, pls leave – this is in response to Despair ep 18 of the last season of Supernatural.

Original creator of the show Eric Kripke (at least I think that’s who it is) with a rainbow flag and the word COPE:

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backstory for the above, fans who only like the relationship between the two Winchester brothers are called bibros. Having Cas (canonically his name is CASS but that’s not what we do in fandom, ha ha) an actual life partner – potentially or otherwise – is making them lose their cheese.

 

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Jesus Christ this above noted post made me laugh so fucking hard

the below-noted post IS IMMEDIATELY WHERE MY MIND WENT AFTER THE SHOW WAS OVER

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Yeah NO SHIT, love this callback, although Dean didn’t actually get enough time to say anything

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no, I really haven’t, because that’s the kind of love it is, and always has been represented that way, and fuck the haters

 

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now in the fandom they’re saying destiel is what makes Putin resign, which when you consider HOW MANY RUSSIAN FANS THERE ARE is quite possibly the funniest thing about this tempest in a teacup

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above is shown the catholic reaction….

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LOLOLOL this was the Friday after the show/election

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SPN fandom above is memeified in the Avengers universe. Cas disappears during the scene, but he’s already been resurrected three times, so…

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I think @solarbirdy’s comments on the above noted complete lack of reaction are best, but she’s a filker so I won’t reproduce her speech without permission

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In other words, this represents such an upgrade to the notion of queerbaiting they’ll have to throw out their previous thesis. Also, Tumblr as a social media platform was dying and the extra hits they got as a consequence of Supernatural 15/18 were substantial

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Destiel fans often refer to themselves as clowns.

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the above-noted isn’t exactly what happened either

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nope, not this either and anyone who DOES expect skin should probably give their good ol’ head a shake. I want A HUG FOR THE BOYS that means a little more than the ones they’ve given each other so far.

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EVERY G.D. WORD O’ THIS ABOVENOTED POST

palate cleanser

LOOK UPON THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD, now we have to survive the next two months OH PS SHE’S OUT ABOUT BEING A SUPERNATURAL FAN but we do not know how she feels about destiel and I would very much like to think that she STANS.

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WELL I THOUGHT THAT WAS IT, BUT THERE’S ANOTHER CHASER FOR THAT SHOT

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JESUS CHRIST, THIS FANDOM

 

 

scratch track

the distortion is part of the charm – it’s a natural feature of whacking the guitar this hard at a harmonic point with a rubber mallet – yes this is a hammered guitar

It’s the hottest part of the summer and I’m treating myself to beer. God I love this song. Anyway, it sounds MUCH BETTER on headphones, I’m hearing stuff I didn’t hear the first time. It’s just got depth, you know, and then this sort of pounding howl of a chorus, so much pent up jealousy and rage and then back to… I do this, I do this, I do this, life has a rhythm, and then I JUST GET SO MAD. I LOVE IT so there