I’m still trying to wrap my head around this:
With all the post-game analysis, and all the pearl-clutching about the future, it boils down to a simple fact: Americans are fucking stupid children.
Category Archives: Rant
Ground News
I’ve been able to almost entirely eliminate commercials and advertising from my day-to-day. One vexing source remains: YouTube. Vexing because, not just commercials between videos, but commercial interruptions (often abruptly timed), and now content providers are promoting products during their videos.
Several of the YouTubers I follow and regard have been promoting Ground News, a different kind of news feed that features bias indicators for each article. It sounded interesting, and I thought I’d give it a try.
Unfortunately, I found it disappointing. And kind of lame.
The Harris-Trump Debate
Last night’s debate between Vice-President Kamala Harris and The Convicted Felon was a world apart from the first one with President Joe Biden. It was a clear victory for Harris and just as clear a loss for the Mango Mussolini. He’s never seemed more incoherent or filled with lies than last night.
Those nasty immigrants eating people’s pets in Peoria. Or wherever. It matters not what city it supposedly was — it’s an utter, complete, racist lie. On the sick theory that repeating a lie often enough, no matter how outrageous, can make it believed.
I found Harris’s opponent so hard to listen to that I started beering myself. After the debate, I (drunkenly) expressed myself on the Substack Notes feed. I had a good time venting and thought to share my “tweets” here. WARNING: Language! This is me unfiltered and off-the-cuff.
Apple: Strike Three
Sour Apples!
Also, Fridays: Strike three! You’re out! I can only hope this Friday doesn’t bring another dark storm cloud. That would be four in a row, and the only hope would be to skip Fridays going forward. I’m retired (ten years this June), so it’s not like Fridays really mean that much anymore.
Realistically, of course, skipping Fridays is impossible (without a time machine), and at this point it would be almost as impossible to skip Apple Corporation — I’m too invested in my iPad and my iPhone (and my iPod). But most tech companies make me angry and depressed. Especially Apple tech support.
Warning: This is a rant, but I’ll throw in some winter wonderland pictures from our recent major snowstorm to lighten things up.
George Carlin
Last time I described how my feelings changed about what was once my favorite TV series, NCIS. In this post, I’ll describe how something similar has happened with my feelings about George Carlin (1937-2008), who was once, by far, my favorite standup comedian.
In both cases, I have a sense that my dying affection involves a combination of prolonged exposure magnifying perceived flaws, evolution on my part, and changes on their part. With Carlin, the way he changed in the late 1990s is the lion’s share of my disenchantment. I still revere early George, still rank him among the greatest.
But I never liked “angry George” and his writing from that era is disappointing.
Grandpa Came to Play!
Somewhen in 2020 I decided, for my own peace of mind, to eliminate news and especially politics from my life. The former has become utterly vapid and useless (extra especially any form of TV news), and the latter has become disgustingly polarized and pointless. I genuinely haven’t missed either, not one iota.
But two things combined to make me seek out a stream of President Biden’s State of the Union address this past Tuesday. Firstly, this post of mine from 2016, about President Obama’s last SOTU address, got a bunch of hits. Secondly, there were accounts that it was pretty awesome.
And, in more ways than one, indeed it was.
The Sandman (poster)
One of the main posters for the Netflix adaptation of the Neil Gaiman graphic novel The Sandman seems to encapsulate and illustrate an approach by Hollywood that many, myself included, find problematic. This post continues a series of posts pondering the issue of actor swapping in film and TV roles.
I spent two posts (one and two) on The Sandman adaptation because of its examples of actor swapping in key roles. These stand out because they apply to especially well-defined characters. Similar, say, to the characters on Futurama.
I hadn’t intended a third post, but the poster caught my eye. It’s the one in the lede of the two posts (and this one). Its layout out intrigues me.
The Sandman (notes)
The last post expressed some key disappointments (and a few things I liked) about the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman (1989-1996), a widely respected, much loved, graphic novel series from writer Neil Gaiman (and numerous artists). Once I started writing that post, 2000 words came easy, but I never got to most of the notes I had.
I have three pages of said notes, so I figured I needed a follow-up post. I’m not bothering with any plot synopsis, so if you aren’t already familiar with the story and the adaptation, neither of these posts — especially this one — will make much sense.
Suffice to say, the show has its fans, but I’m not among them.
The Sandman
This past week I watched the eleven episodes of the first (and possibly only) season of the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman (2022), which is based on the famous Neil Gaiman comic series, The Sandman (1989-1996), considered by many to be one of the greatest graphic novels ever.
I think live-action adaptations of comics and animated shows are very hard to get right. And Netflix seems to have a bad history when it comes to adaptations, even of live shows (they’ve had a number of notable fails along those lines). On the other hand, Gaiman was attached to, and involved in, the production, which seemed hopeful.
But to say I was disappointed by the series is putting it mildly.
Friday Notes (Jun 10, 2022)
I’m really enjoying summer so far. Temperatures have mostly been moderate and the nights deliciously cool (“great sleeping weather” as they say). After a long winter, it’s wonderful to have open windows again and the ability to just walk out the door without gearing up in winter gear.
But my least favorite day of the year approaches. Summer Solstice — the death of the light. Thermal inertia makes July and August uncomfortably warm, but, alas, the days get shorter and shorter.
Meanwhile, here in June, it’s time for another edition of Friday Notes.
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