Category Archives: Rant
Westworld: Yeah, But!
The more I reflect on the second season of HBO’s Westworld, the more I have some very serious questions about key aspects of the story. In the first season, I had serious questions about The Maze, which was central to the story. This season’s serious questions, equally story central, seem even more serious.
Primarily, there is the matter of the Peter Abernathy encryption key, which spans both seasons. Secondarily, there are the related matters of The Door and The Flood. And, finally, there is the matter of Ford’s Final Game for William.
I really can’t seem to find the logic behind any of them! They all give me a bad case of the Yeah, Buts!
NCIS: NoMo Orleans
In a coincidental bit of symmetry, the last post I wrote (“NCIS: Spin-off Spin-out”) before writing 14 Westworld posts in a row, was about my disappointment with NCIS: New Orleans and how it was getting really hard to enjoy anymore.
Here now is a bookend post making the breakup official. The show has turned into something (or maybe it always was) that I don’t find any value in watching anymore. The fourth season has ended and, with it, so has my viewership. This is the second NCIS spin-off I see as a fail, which is sad when I’ve loved the original for so many years (15 of them, in fact).
It was the spectacularly stupid season finale that was the final straw (I mean, seriously, who writes this crap).
NCIS: Spin-off Spin-out
Some of you may know that NCIS (the one with Mark Harmon) is one of my favorite TV shows. And, absent the occasional clunker, they still are turning out very good episodes in their 15th season. It’s quite an accomplishment to remain a top, and high quality, show for 347 episodes.
Some of you may also know that I forsook the first spin-off, NCIS: Los Angeles, because it is — in my view — a silly-ass, lame-ass, stupid show (with too much gun play). I haven’t watched it in quite some time, and I haven’t missed it one iota.
And now it looks like I’m going to forsake their second spin-off, NCIS: New Orleans, because it also has gotten too stupid for me to enjoy anymore.
A Sense of History
I considered naming this post Moar Roar, because it continues the last post’s rage rant against Republican Politicians, the increasingly ironically named “Right” (ha! as if!), and — in general — anyone who still supports that foul toad illegally squatting in the oblong office.
The problem with the last post is that it started off kinda tongue-in-cheek. I’m not really mad at my local grocery store or my streaming video apps or even AARP, for that matter. A bit frustrated at times — even irritated at times — but most of them don’t come close to boiling my blood.
The current political scene, however, absolutely does.
Dear [insert name]…
I will admit: There are times when it would be nice to have a Twitter account just so that I could fire off tiny missive missiles about things that annoy me (or, flip side, delight me, but that happens all too rarely these days).
And by “annoy” I mean: Really. Piss. Me. Off. Another sign of the times is that mere annoyance barely registers anymore. What with that evil orange toad illegally squatting in the Oblong Office, I live mostly in a state of constant rage.
So, a brief angry pause from streaming video for some spleen venting…
The Penis Election
What a sad and pathetic group of ape-descendants we turned out to be. After the Dark Ages, the human race had high and lofty aspirations. We saw ourselves so vastly evolved from our animal origins. We had the power of nuanced communicative language, of higher thought and rationality, of powerful evocative art, music, and literature.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the human experiment is a failure. The answer to the Fermi Paradox is that “intelligent” species actually aren’t intelligent enough. All our technical toys turn out to be exactly like giving an ape dynamite and a lighter.
And after several thousand years thinking we’re better than animals, we prove we’re not by making this election cycle about penises.
Final Straws
When you elect for the highest office in the land a feces-flinging “damned dirty ape” (as Charlton Heston famously said), you really can’t be all that surprised when he shits all over your political process. What did you expect would happen?
What depresses, nauseates, and outrages me is what it seems to have taken (and who knows if even this is enough). As final straws go, the business of the Orange Goblin claiming (and, indeed, very possibly truthfully) that he cops feels and steals kisses with impunity pales in comparison to the sheer evil he embodies.
Once again we demonstrate that the big picture is beyond us; it’s the little things that capture our attention.
Weltschmerz
When the world hits your eye like a nasty pigsty… that’s not amore, that’s Weltschmerz (best English translation: “world pain”). It’s a term I’ve been meaning to post about for years, since it — or rather what it defines — lies at the heart of most of my Rant posts. (Yeah, this is another Drafts post I’m finally setting free.)
Fundamentally, it speaks to a disconnect or gulf between what one feels ought to be true in the world compared to what actually is true. Implicit in the term is a moral bias regarding the ought; it doesn’t, for example, apply to the gap between wishing you were rich while being poor.
It seems to me very much a word for our times.
Popular Posts
Jump into the Stream
Caveat Lector
My Programming Blog
Posts pertaining to programming!
-
Click for supplement page to the diagrams in Tina's book.
Logos con carne 