Extra Evil - The Remedial Chamber of Shaolin

Today’s Fortune: Train later, not harder.

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Newsreel

A 737 landed.

Storms hit states with vowels.

Bottled water’s more bottle than water.

An Ecuador news studio became the headline.

Russia opened a path to citizenship for foreign corpses.

My fellow Americans…we’ve beaten Tetris.

Today's Mood

War Journal

I flipped through some old work. Evidently I’m completely insane. Good to know. Try to keep me from anything sharp.

My year-end list? I don’t have the memory for that. I don’t even remember what I wrote last month. Something about beetles? Mass death filtered through cardio? Or maybe via cardio? I hope I get a Wikipedia entry someday, so I can read my own recap.

Apple’s pitching a $3500 Mixed Reality headset. We’ll see a few more Virtual Boy retreads before companies remember that price vs. demand chart from middle school. Until then, enjoy the spectacle.

Still, progress limps ahead. As we connect our digital wasteland to our solid hellscape, I hope engineers remember civility. Specifically, the role of fistfights.

Digital civility demands digital knuckles. For all the methods of indirectly ruining someone’s day, you still can’t punch through the screen. Making comments what they are. Right jabs keep a variety of real-life lunatics on track.

The startup that brings instant fistfights to living rooms will prosper. Even after the lawsuits.

I understand most stock jokes. Airlines suck, politicians kick truth to death, and my walk is simply cooler than Burbank’s.

I don’t get whinging about new slang. Shouldn’t American brains produce something new? Each medium’s soaked in recycled ideas. The day kids sound like you did, we’re officially cooked as a culture. Done. Finished.

Time rolls on. Besides, you don’t sound like your parents. If you did, you’d get fired.

The Present

I cover repression and dice colliding, like trucks.

Protect your likeness, or PETA will find a use for it.

Start the New Year the right way. Ours.

Gojira forever. Monster and band.

Everything Abridged will always be there for you.

The Past

Looks like the Reunions piece is the newsletter’s most popular riff. Wild for something half-paywalled.

The Future

The next column touches on very, very different dice.

Cleaning the corners of the book. Turns out I can’t spell.

Not Brought to You By

Like turtles? I’m indifferent. Ninja Turtles, on the other hand, are my jam.

Their Northampton birthplace now has commemorative sewer lids. Via Covid relief funds. Instead of ranting about that, I’ll talk about the fun version in New York. We used to have a few of these kicking around:

Inspired. You don’t see the topic’s quirks tapped this well very often. And the stunt ended in the most ninja way possible: the lids were all stolen.

Think about it: pop history, unguarded, outside, in a portable format. In New York.

Agencies are strong. The shadows are stronger.

Creativity: A
Persuasion: B+
Sanity: C

One Sentence Reviews

Dexter’s Laboratory (Season 1): Much more freewheeling than my memory claimed. (4.5/5)

East of West Vol. 6: Has a pro-wrestling addiction to declaring moments. (3.5/5)

Meatball Machine: Turns out I wanted a toku Ichi the Killer. (4/5)

HealthFirst: The enemy of man. (1/5)

Open Question

Signing off

Thanks for reading Extra Evil, the newsletter mastering the fist. Share it to parry.

-DD