I have also come to the sad realization that we would be lucky to have President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho. This is a politician who identified the greatest problem affecting his nation, found the most qualified person to solve it, and risked his reputation and position defending and enacting his findings despite opposition from the public and large corporate interests.
–Fallen13 someplace on Twitter
I just read a post with 166 comments at one of the sites [1] with better comments [2] that talked about how drinking and fighting and drugs were the ground on which the era happened, and the article and comments both remark on how kids today don’t seem to do that anymore. Control-F ‘lead’, and not a single instance of that word. Doesn’t anyone think that perhaps the cultural differences might be due to not lowering everyones IQ by 14 points, and poisoning their brain with lead?
I guess I could make that post, but [3]…
[1] Defector.com, and I don’t even watch sports anymore, aside from D2S.
[2] I know, never read the comments.
[3] Never post.
I had to buy the new $60 AppleTV remote, because Logitech has stopped supporting their Harmony remotes [1], and the volume and mute button no longer work, and HBOMax has adopted the (former) Netflix strategy of being as obnoxious as fuck. Of course I want to hear the tag music from whatever show they’re pushing this week that I scrolled past because I didn’t want to watch and am searching through the Criterion Channel to find something good to watch!
Of course it was stupid that the first AppleTV remote, which was otherwise fine, didn’t have a mute button. It’s also stupid that the AppleTV, which claims it can learn a different remote, actually can’t.
[1] Seriously, fuck Logitech, and their horrible Apple support.
After yet another road bike crash, one of my friends keeps telling me that I should take up gravel biking or mountain biking.
Yes, there’s less chance of getting hit by a car (except driving over to the place where I’ll be gravel/mountain-biking, I suppose). Or trying to park at one of these places on a weekend, which seems pretty aggro to me when I make the mistake of driving by.
But ‘gravel biking’ is what I did as a kid on the roads around the ranch, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. I was pretty psyched to move someplace where you could actually bike on a paved road without getting hit by a truck. Seemed like a positive change.
And all my mountain biking friends have the broken collarbones to prove it. I guess there’s something fun about it? Yet another sport with an expensive buy-in.
In either case, all the gravel/mountain bikers I meet as a regular dog-walker, on the trails that formerly had zero gravel/mountain bikers, and which used to be overgrown ‘single-track’ (except that no one was biking down them before the current craze), and which are now four-lane highways because these jerks can’t stay off of them after a rain, are assholes. So I’m not sure why my friend is suggesting I start doing something that turns regular people into assholes with almost 100% reliability.
Say what you will about road-biking (or climbing), the act of doing it doesn’t seem to turn its adherents fundamentally into assholes without exception.
If you think I’m exaggerating, ask yourself when the last time a gravel/mountain biker yielded to you and your dog, and you didn’t have to pay attention and get the heck out of the way of someone going way too fast on a mixed use trail. That’s right, never.
Probably room for a whole essay here about the how too many people using a limited resource which they have to share with other users turns people (by which I mean white dudes) into territorial assholes.
See also surfing.
Why is it that in the year of our Covid March 723, 2020, that I still have to peel off that impossible stupid fucking sticker to open the CD that I paid for and didn’t download off Pirate Bay? The adhesive of which will still be sticky in March 1420, 2020.
Why do I still have to watch the unskippable FBI warning on a Blu Ray that I legally purchased, and not any of the ones on bittorrent?
Somehow I don’t think the pirates are as annoyed by their illegal goods as I am by my legal ones. I suppose I should ask when inconveniencing your legal customers became better than not, but then I’ve been paying Ticketmaster service fees most of my life.
Yes, I still buy physical media [1] because I like to a) support artists, and b), have backups that I own [2]. But a) just seems like it’s going into some VPs or VCs pocket.
[1] I also buy ephemeral media, for convenience, or when there are no other options. Looking at you Columbia. Why can’t I buy the BR 4k UHD version of Lawrence of Arabia except at part of limited edition out-of-print six BR package that includes Jerry Maguire, for gods sake.
[2] Still can’t get a copy of Strange Days streaming or hardcopy anywhere. And the Gunbunnies are largely absent from any streaming service anywhere.
Conservation of noise
Now that half the cars are going to kill me because I can’t hear them [1], the other half have gotten even noisier [2]. We’ve gone from a gaussian distribution to bi-modal, and it’s not good. As though the leaf blowers got quieter by setting off small dynamite explosions. In between, it’s really quiet. Then a Camaro, Challenger, Mustang, or out-of-compliance fartcan, rips down the residential street at 60 mph (not exaggerating), and it’s like a bomb went off.
Conservation laws imply symmetry; I’m failing to see what’s symmetry is being expressed by this.
On the upside, the loud-ass paper delivery people driving their old badly-maintained cars around, delivering papers to old people, have largely disappeared.
[1] And they can’t hear anything, because all new cars are way too soundproof.
[2] Also going to kill me, but with malice, instead of distraction.