Extra Evil - Crom's Not Watching

Today’s Fortune: You'll only face assassination once.

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Newsreel

The White House defied Titanic critics.

Gaza diplomats remade Groundhog Day.

Iran left spiraling rightward to rivals.

Rishi Sunak wasn’t the rebirth of the Tories.

Samsung investors achieved Nirvana.

Giant predatory salamander fossils saved action figures.

Today's Mood

Note for outside children: this pose precedes catastrophe.

War Journal

As face tattoos infiltrate the mainstream, add fashion to Snow Crash’s best predictions. Personally, I’m ready for direct, subtext-free corporate fiefdoms. Hybrid rule’s cumbersome, and I’d love my CostCo benefits to extend to lobbying.

The trick is picking a neighborhood. As a rule, I’m avoiding any neighborhood run by a food company. You know how chocolate producers operate. And modern slaughterhouses are serial killer canvases. I’m eight more seconds of footage or introspection from vegetarian cookbooks.

Little Free Libraries make me feel better about people. Which sucks for work. Accurate or not, there’s a direct funnel from misanthropic acrimony to quality punchlines. Postive humorists exist, but their ways are a mystery to me. I digress.

They also have me thinking about my eavesdropping habit. I indulge as often as anyone that writes decent dialogue. You need to have a little Michael Estrin in you, or you’re essentially making a strawman of the species.

But aren’t conversations another community library? While I’ve taken a lot of insane quotes lately, I’ve slacked on leaving them for others. So I’ll be a little more audibly insane this week. I’ll let election year madness overtake me like Borg nanites. I’ll tell Saturday night stories on Monday morning train rides. If I don’t draw at least one look of harsh and fair recrimination, I’ll consider it a personal failure.

Join in! Add some color to the End Times.

Bumbling’s historical role is underrated. How much of Charlemagne or Ei Sei’s rise was just other people screwing up? Guns, Germs, and Steel is a neat book. But I’d pay more for Guns, Germs, and Incompetents.

I wonder what it’s like to live through that. History shaped by sheer, forceful, godlike ineptitude. That’d be wild.

Unrelatedly, I’m thinking about the best pH for the War Journal. In this case, systemic decay is acid, and Thundercats jokes are the base.

The other sections and posts are guided by topic, so there’s nothing to quibble over. But the balance here feels like an active choice. One end reads like a bathroom wall’s op-ed section. The other ducks the obvious. Neither’s my goal for a weekly check-in, though I’d rather risk the former. It’s not See Occasional Evil.

It’s probably moot. I tend to run with the first three jokes that don’t annoy me.

The Present

Asking me for donations is…unwise. [1900HOTDOG]

I'd say Rickey and I could do this forever, but he's almost out of shit. [1900HOTDOG]

You've got a friend in you. [Exclusive Evil]

Go directly to jail, do not collect $200. [1900HOTDOG]

Everything Abridged flies true. [My Book]

The Past

Want to learn way too much about cereal mascots?

The Future

That first guest appearance? Sunday, over with Meg. On Wednesday, I’ll cover sadder but less hideous trash.

Not Brought to You By

Villainizing rivals is a default move. No judgement there: it’s as vital to ads as stimulants or air. The only question’s how literal you go.

Chili’s, like many before it, noticed games let you go very literal. Like slightly fewer of it’s rivals, it noticed the wealth of classic games sleeping peacefully, waiting for franchise resurrection. Brand necromancy is always in. And when it goes out, we can resurrect it.

Anyway, Chili’s has a BurgerTime reskin.

Beloved Burgertime! For you, I assume. I missed that train.

The hook’s simple enough: burger chains are jacking their prices, and you’re defending the original overpriced burger. Compete with players around the web to win you’re not gonna win. An army of lifetime obsessives and young cheaters lurks ahead. The only winners are Chili’s, BurgersRLife1975, and a bored white hat hacker.

The cynicism above doesn’t make this a bad idea—stunts like this are more about the coverage, and the public smirking at the concept. And there’s something to the joke, for the type that can watch morning shows without a headache. Some of them buy burgers.

Creativity: B-
Persuasion: C-
Sanity: C

One Sentence Reviews

Wayfarer - American Gothic: The gimmick’s too fun to ignore. (3.5/5)

Conan the Barbarian: Another mandatory periodic rewatch. (5/5)

The Good, The Bad, and the Weird: Always has another trick. (4/5)

Opeth - In Cauda Venenum: I finally get accepting what is over what could be. (4/5)

The White Boy Shuffle: The family tree is an all-timer. (5/5)

Open Question

Signing off

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