Extra Evil - Authentically Inauthentic
Today's Fortune: You should get a cat.
Newsreel
Shootings might need their own newsreel.
Mike Johnson's having a heart attack sooner rather than later.
If nothing else, public memory still retains boats exploding.
Tariffs raised consent manufacturing costs.
If you can't make double parricide about you, you're not a leader.
Firefox gave up.
You Need This
Meditate on last week's while I chase a deadline.
A Photo
War Journal
"What's Columbia have on you, Dennard?"
A print quota. I batter that thing every semester. Half of my shorts and columns only exist because I can prod a dead idea to life in red ink. I can write on anything, but paper has editing in a headlock lately.
I will now, as a non-participant, present my annual defense of SantaCon.
When else does this happen? Where else does this happen? A tidal wave of giggling drunks, moving through a district live a Svedka tidal wave? And then, just as quickly, gone? It's a miracle. I laugh every time. Shocks of entropy remind you that you're not a pull-string doll, or a hamster on a wheel. Everything's possible, including deeply stupid, deeply pointless things.
I commuted to my dullest job from Rutherford, New Jersey. The ride to Manhattan's was often a grey experience. The kind that makes even reading or prodding at a Switch dry. Then, once a year (twice if you count other alcoholic holidays), the drunks came charging in. Like the Ghosts of Alcoholics Past.
I'm bad with dates, so I always forgot SantaCon was even coming. But man, the morning fraternity alumni belted "Deck the Halls" in nothing even resembling human meter (tune never had a chance), I lit up. Santa's gift to me was passing out after a shouting match with another Santa that liked the Yankees. When he came to, Mrs. Claus had shots. May God Bless Us Every One.
I suppose I still like a party. Even from the bleachers.
Hitting Helldivers 2 and Hades 2 has dialed my lunatic gamer twitchiness back up to 11. I feel like the critic from Ratatouille, but for eternal loops of life and death. I should really stop burying that chunk of my brain every time work gets hectic, it's not good for my Dictator Resistance.
One riff that always pops back into my head: Chris Rock saying you meet someone's representative when you date them. I won't belabor the point, because he's made it better, funnier, and at length. It's just amusing to learn that it extends far beyond the world of romantic train wrecks. You don't really know what your coworkers are like for six months, and learning is often inconvenient. You're with your friends' representatives until they're sure you won't freak out. Many parents are representative-only until you can vote, and some go to the grave that way.
Since it's a somewhat universal tradition, perhaps we should play with the margins. See if we can get more out of it. Why's your representative need the same name? Most social orbits already have a soft version of that, what with the first/middle/last name distinction. But I'd like separate set of legal documents entirely for my representative. D. Tyler Dayle doesn't need his important work weighed down with D-Day's shenanigans.
Of course, everyone needs some time off. So representatives should have some spaces set aside, just for them. Authenticity-free third spaces. Likely sober, since alcohol has a cruel way of pushing representatives out of the conversation. It's only fair. I think churches filled this slot, before becoming outlets for suppressed cruelty. American Christians are, in this sense, living their truest lives.
As for voting, I'm a bit biased. Plenty of people walk one way, and burn crosses another. As a lobbyist for sanity, I'd love to give representatives their own votes respecting human dignity. But I respect that it borders on ballot-box stuffing.
Anyway, I grew up with a lot of Chris Rock. He's a fun narrator to carry around in your head.
My memory slides back, now and again, to finding an ex's review of Everything Abridged. It was unabashedly positive, which makes me wish I'd subjected them to less babbling about 40k primarchs. That should have cost me at least a star, there's a whole Warhammer-riff story in there.
A Screenshot
The Present
- The powers that be say you need my book. Heed them. [How to Dodge a Cannonball]
- Zak and I have a re-rematch. [1900HOTDOG]
- This season's hottest gift. [Exclusive Evil]
- You will always need this. [You Need This]
- Love my collection before it's a classic. [Everything Abridged]
The Past
I might write another collection just to get this in a book.
The Future
Catch-up week, honestly. Along with the finishing touches of a story you'll see a loooong ways from now.
Dead Sun Theory
Have the first request loaded, the powers that be are just on me about getting a solid 4 hours a night. Whatever.
Not Brought to You By
Trailers draw enough natural interest, and are often done artfully enough (spoiler hell aside) that they distract from their inbred little brother: pre-trailer product ads. These aren't the bottom of advertising, because pharmaceutical and campaign ads exist. That said, it's a bit like how arson isn't the most unspeakable crime.
Capitol One had a bit of holiday arson before Predator: Badlands. A movie I dug a lot (spoiler jokes incoming, per tradition), as a general fan of space and stabbing. Rebel Moon had to work to earn my high-grade disdain. In Badlands, the long-term punchline of actively rooting for the Predator wiping human (sorry, "synth") commandos in wonderful. This ad, less so.
The concept: not really extant. But the lights and sounds are Santa and his servants doing a Grease song-and-dance number about Christmas. And Capital One. Note the hot rod. And client-requested Capital One logo, haunting each shot like the ghost of ad spend past.
I don't know which specific genre of bully this makes me, but the stock Grease tunes are much more annoying than the Santa element. All the gingerbread's declined into an ambient static I barely perceive. Which leads to my main thought on most North Pole riffs. My first thought when I see something this expensive-looking in this lane.
Isn't elf-spam crowded turf? That's a problem when you want me to open a...what was this again? Dave & Buster's? You're not going to sell many birthday parties that way. Step it up, Dave. Get it together, Buster. The people want a sequel to Skee-Ball.
Creativity: F+ | Persuasion: D- | Sanity: C
One Sentence Reviews
Predator - Badlands: Fatalities are magic. (4/5)
Rebel Moon: At what point does an experience not exist? (0.5/5)
Baby Assassins Everyday!, Episodes 7-10: Incredibly targeted toward my madness. (4.5/5)
A Question
Signing off
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