Category: Essays & Bad Ideas

Things you might want to know, for May 12, 2023:

• ‘Madonna x Meisel – The SEX Photographs’ Auction Coming to Christie’s — I bought an aluminum-bound, foil-wrapped copy of the book in 1992 for $100. That… was not one of my best investments.
• Supernatural Prequel The Winchesters Is Canceled at The CW — I didn’t even know a Supernatural spin-off existed, and now it’s gone. Has a prequel to Dark Angel been running on the CW all this time and I just didn’t notice?
• Jacklyn Zeman, Veteran General Hospital Star, Dead at 70 — Holy hell, Bobbie Spencer has left the building. I spent every summer of the early-to-mid-1980s watching General Hospital, so this one packs a punch.
• The Return of Nineties Style: This New ‘Seinfeld’-Inspired Collection Is As Iconic As the Hit Sitcom — I… I kind of want some of this shit. I’m not proud of it, but I do.
• Diving into the anti-sunscreen movement — …or just sit back and play Count The Melanomas as the years roll by.

• Natalie Mordovtseva Threatens to Remarry Mike: We Only Broke Up Because of 90 Day Fiance! — Bitch, the show had very little to do with it… you broke up because you’re a crazy-eyed loon who for some reason feels compelled to argue incessantly with Mike’s thumb-like mother-lump.
• What is American Exceptionalism, anyway?
• Doug Rushkoff Is Ready to Renounce the Digital Revolution
• Etsy launches its own wedding registry service — I’m a little surprised this didn’t already exist.
• Microsoft will take nearly a year to finish patching new 0-day Secure Boot bug — Yeah, this is… wow. Super ugly. Yeesh.

• Beetlejuice 2, with Jenna Ortega and Michael Keaton, confirmed for 2024 — So first Batman’s back, now Beetlejuice. What’s next? Johnny Dangerously 2: Johnny Dangerouser? Is Joe Piscopo still alive?
• Why Are These Techies So Afraid of the Word ‘Sex’? — Because their friends are all bankers and girls are scary.
• Brad Garrett Talks All About Having Sex With Pete Davidson
• Robert De Niro welcomes seventh child at 79 — I aspire to Bobby’s level of don’t-give-a-fuckery.
• Hulu content to be added to Disney+ for ‘one-app experience,’ CEO Bob Iger says

• Gen Z says 3-hour ‘everything showers’ are ‘better than sex’ — Can I interest you gullible little fucks in twenty minute naps every two hours? A bladder system for oil tankers? Reverse peepholes? A pizza place where you bake your own pie?
• How to Reclaim Your Online Privacy
• Good Omens season 2 hits Prime Video in July — I love the book, Tennant, and Sheen, but I’ve never made it past the first ep of season 1… as good as The Sandman turned out to be, I find Good Omens to be far closer to American Gods’ level of quality. And to be clear, that’s not a compliment. (Sorry, Neil.)
• Twitter’s Encrypted DMs Are Deeply Inferior to Signal and WhatsApp
• Canon’s PowerShot V10 is a vlogging-centric callback to old Flip Video cams — I’m linking this solely because I forgot the Flip Video cameras existed, despite owning one myself.

Things you might want to know, for May 10, 2023:

• MTV News Is Shutting Down — I would be heartsick, were it not for the fact that “my” MTV has been gone for at least a decade, and this is simply one of the last bits of the corpse realizing it’s already dead.
• Nintendo says no new Switch hardware coming this year — but maybe in 2024 — I was hesitant to buy a Switch because I feared the imminent arrival of a Switch Pro. That was 2021. I’m glad I didn’t wait.
• Starfield Won’t Show Sex, But Will Talk About How Kinky It Was — Mass Effect was merely okay-ish in its depictions of sexuality, while The Witcher 3 was hilariously bad. There’s no reason to believe Bethesda would be the studio to buck the trend, so it’s best they didn’t try.
• Nintendo’s New Zelda Trailer Is A Very Sad Movie
• How To Delete Your Data From ChatGPT — Getting ourselves out of LLMs may become a technological rite of passage in our lives.

• “90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days” Returns Next Month with Seven New Couples & One Returning Pair: Watch the Trailer & Meet the Season 6 Cast
• Dolly Parton earns rock-star status with ‘Rockstar’ album — If Loretta Lynn can pull of a Jack White collaboration —and she did— then Dolly can do this.
• Don’t Be Scared. Play a Roguelike. — I strongly recommend Slay the Spire.
• When Sir David Attenborough had to catch a HUGE python 🐍 | David Attenborough’s Zoo Quest in Colour
• Apple brings Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro to iPad — The problem here is that I never use my iPad at a desk, and to make any real use of Final Cut, I’ll need to have an SSD hanging off my USB-C port… as with DaVinci Resolve on iPadOS, the storage demands are problematic.

• Right, Down + Circle is a new book about the classic video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater — With the possible exception of Tekken 2 or Road Rash, I don’t think I played a PS1 game more than THPS.
• Trump liable for battery, defamation in E. Jean Carroll suit — Duh.

Things you might want to know, for May 6, 2023:

• Legendary magician Teller explains how he helped design Mrs. Davis’ magic tricks — If you measure entertainers in terms of sustained effectiveness across decades, Penn & Teller are up there with George Carlin and Martin Scorsese. And Mrs. Davis seems interesting.
• Worried About Getting Throat Cancer From Oral Sex? We Have Very Good News
• Fortnite is now officially an Olympic (e)sport — Sort of.
• Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day — And by “tomorrow”, they mean “today”. (I’m slow.)
• Experts Agree That Memories Of Rare Music Can Persist For Many Years — Oh my yes. I had a particular song locked in my head for twenty years, unable to hear it anywhere… until Pinky found one of 500 copies of the self-released album on eBay, and gave it to me for Valentine’s. There’s a strange satisfaction in hearing it again, and realizing how accurate the echo in your brain has been this whole time.

• The ego-driven clash bringing Yellowstone to an end — Taylor Sheridan made Hell or High Water, and Kevin Costner made Waterworld. I know what side I’m on, and I’ve never watched Yellowstone.
• The Long Covid Mystery Has a New Suspect
• Scientists say they have found more moons with oceans in the Solar System — To this day, Warren Ellis’s Ocean —about the oceans of Europa— still has one of the best first-five-pages I’ve ever read in a graphic novel.
• The Internet Isn’t Meant To Be So Small — It really isn’t. That’s why ActivityPub matters.
• Former SimCity developers launched a new city builder today—but sadly it’s not on PC — So iOS/iPadOS has received two well-done, microtransaction-free city builders recently… we’re deep into “embarrassment of riches” territory.
• Andor Season 2 Will Cover the ‘Three Days Before Rogue One’ In Its Final Episodes

• Snoop Dogg on AI risk: “Sh–, what the f—?” — …and his commentary was only slightly less useful than that of experts in the field.
• Remains unearthed of one of America’s first colonists, a teenage boy
• Minimalist news site powered by AI — I’m watching this closely, but I’m thus far unimpressed.
• Build-A-Bear replaced a 4-year-old girl’s bear that had a recording of her dead mother’s heartbeat inside it after it was accidentally donated to charity — I’m not crying, you’re crying. [slap across face] See, I told you.

Things you might want to know, for May 4, 2023:

• Iggy Azalea releases raunchy sex tape after joining OnlyFans — Until proven otherwise, I’m assuming this is just a blank tape with “SEX TAPE” scrawled on the label.
• Am I Doomed to a Life of Painful Sex?
• Sex in the Dark: will this be a new low for reality TV? — Oh, I most certainly hope so.
• The best sci-fi and fantasy books of 2023, so far — Look at all the things I’ll never get around to reading.
• What to watch and remember before Guardians of the Galaxy 3 — I don’t remember anything about GotG 2 past the opening credits… it was an un-movie, and a reason that I’m not super-confident about everything James Gunn is doing for the Distinguished Competition.

• “Our greatest living cartoonist”: An appreciation of Sergio Aragonés — Sergio’s sense of humor is… dated, to be kind. But then, so am I.
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s Reported Runtime Would Break an Animation Record
• Billie Lourd Explains Why She Didn’t Invite Carrie Fisher’s Siblings to Walk of Fame Ceremony — “They know why.” Oof.
• Twitter Rival Bluesky Has a Nudes Problem — Sounds like a feature, not a bug.
• Double Dragon is coming back this summer with a new co-op brawl

• Rachel Bilson Reveals She Likes to Be ‘Manhandled’ in the Bedroom and Dishes On the Position She Tends to Veto — True story: I never managed to watch one entire episode of The OC. I saw a few minutes here and there, but never made it from beginning to end. Same for One Tree Hill, by the way.
• Discord is growing up, so everyone needs to pick a new username
• Where’s the director’s commentary on streaming? — A good question.
• ‘Babylon 5’ will return as an animated movie from its original creator
• Jim Lee adds “President” to his list of DC titles

Things you might want to know, for May 3, 2023:

• The World Wide Web was released to the public 30 years ago. Feel old yet? — Why yes. Yes I do.
• Woman charged with selling 20 boxes of human body parts to owner of “Oddities” private Facebook group
• Sex Magic: Flick Your Bean and Achieve Your Deepest Desires

• I Never Thought Rough Sex Could Lead to Love, Until It Did
• Reality Check: There’s Almost Certainly No Serial Killer in Austin
• The Secrets of Aging Are Hidden in Your Ovaries

• Meet Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new pig, Schnelly
• Divers find underwater hospital, cemetery off coast of Key West
• Pornhub shocks Utah by restricting access over age-verification law

Things you might want to know, for May 2, 2023:

• Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom Reveals Post-Launch Content Roadmap — I haven’t charged the Quest 2 in ages, but it this is actually any good, I’ll consider it.
• Priced Out of API Access: Jetpack and WordPress.com Discontinue Support for Twitter Auto-Sharing — Can we please start calling his purchase of Twiitter “Elongate”? Thanks.
• Are we about to see more men in tights? — Merciful Zeus, I hope not. But then, the world can always use more men to mock.
• Hollywood strike: Screenwriters will walk out for first time in 15 years — I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a last-minute change of course, but I don’t think it’ll happen. I hope everyone likes reality TV, ‘cause we’re about to be swamped by it.

• King of the Hill Actor Confirms Revival Will Feature a Time Jump — I’m glad to see Stephen Root confirming that he’s back —some reports left him out of the announcement— but I’m just slightly concerned with the idea of aging-up Bobby. Much like the Problem With Dale —who is now indistinguishable from the average Fox News viewer— a high school aged Bobby could easily start to look like an incel-in-the-making if they’re not careful.
• Stop. Closing. Forums. For. Discord. — Discord is bad at chat and streaming, but it’s a particularly wretched way to provide tech support. I won’t use any software that depends on Discord to help me solve my problems.
• It’s getting easier to make an account on Mastodon — Well, yeah… it’s definitely easier to default to creating an account on mastodon.social, ‘cause humans don’t do well with choices. But it also undermines the whole concept of federation, so it’s not a clear win.
• DC Comics just hit the reset button on Shazam, courtesy of Wonder Woman’s mom

• R.I.P. Gordon Lightfoot, folk music legend — Elaine: “I love Edmund Fitzegerald’s voice!” Jerry: “No, Gordon Lightfoot was the singer. Edmund Fitzgerald was the ship.” Elaine: “I think Gordon Lightfoot was the boat.” Jerry: “Yeah, and it was rammed by the Cat Stevens.”
• Meet the Racket Sport Taking Over America (and the Businessman Trying to Make It Happen)
• Apple uses iOS and macOS Rapid Security Response feature for the first time

Things you might want to know, for May 1, 2023:

• Listen to Russell T Davies talk about why he came back to Doctor Who — Please please please let this be a return to form. I don’t care who’s playing The Doctor, as long as the fucking show feels like Doctor Who.
• NASA extends Voyager 2’s space mission by basically putting it into power-saver mode — A couple hundred years from now, Kirk and Spock are going to have a lot of trouble because of this decision.
• Ooh la la! Man glues himself to TV debate podium
• Amazon is making over 100 Prime Video originals available for free — You’re worth more as a target for advertising than as a customer. Think about that.
• Middle-school Satanists club can’t be banned, rules judge — I fully support this decision, but seriously…? I can’t think of a more annoying, self-satisfied group of nerds than a middle school Satanists club.

• Inside The Big Battle To Save One Small TV Show — I hope it works out, but I doubt it will. S&B is good, but it’s not particularly distinctive.
• Those scary warnings of juice jacking in airports and hotels? They’re nonsense — I wouldn’t say “nonsense”, but the threat is overblown, yes.
• The Forgotten Drug Trips of the Nineteenth Century
• Dick Amnesia Is a Real Thing — It’s easy to forget a cock, I guess. No one wants to stare it in the eye.
• Man finds ‘sex dungeon’ under his 120-year-old house filled with ‘creepy books’

• Chloe Burrows says dad cut contact after she had sex on Love Island — I’d cut off contact simply because she’s Chloe… who needs that in their life?
• How Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities
• The best part of FAST TV is the choice it takes away — Oh, let me tell ya, it is HILARIOUS watching Millennials rediscover “watching whatever is on”. Welcome to the past, little time travelers… we’ve been waiting for you.
• What Are People Actually Subscribing To On OnlyFans? 8 20-Somethings Weigh In
• The soothing survival sleeping sounds of sneezing seal’s non-stick lungs

• ‘The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning’ Is Your New Reality-TV Addiction — I watched the pilot, and while it’s a lot like other decluttering shows, there is a different tone. I mean, there’s the obvious, pervasive mentions of death. But also, it isn’t really a “here’s how to clean your house” show… it’s a “here’s how to think about your future and ultimate mortality” show.

Things you might want to know, for Apr 29, 2023:

• Marvel’s Agatha: Coven of Chaos Appears to Be a Musical — Good, ‘cause the music was the only part of WandaVision that was worth watching.
• Man caught performing sex act with a seagull in alleyway — And we wonder why gulls are such assholes…
• Twitch Streamer Immediately Denied From Bank After After Accidentally Applying As An ‘Adult Entertainer’ — Financial institutions are more prudish than your local clergy. And less sympathetic.
• IDW “goes dark” on the NYSE, lays off 39% of their staff
• iTunes Music Store Turns 20 Today: ‘Just 99 Cents Per Song’ — I remember thinking “wow, that’s a bit steep” because I’d been buying my MP3s from allofmp3, which relied on incredibly porous Russian copyright laws to sell music by the byte… the average song was about 10 cents. In the end, it didn’t matter since music ownership itself was rapidly dying.

• After 25 Years, Sigourney Weaver Says She’s Done With Alien — There are few movies in my life that I’ve loved longer and more deeply than Aliens, but I feel no such affection for all the other entries in the series. So if Sigourney wants to walk away for good, I wish her well. It’s time for someone else to learn that they mostly come at night… mostly.
• The Hunger Games prequel film gets its first trailer — NOPE.
• Xylø Says She Has ‘Newfound Confidence’ After Starting an OnlyFans to Fund Her Music — Confidence is attractive. Particularly when big and bouncy and naked.
• Texas man excuses himself mid-date to murder parking lot scam artist

• Dodgeball Sequel in Development With Vince Vaughn Returning to Star — Without Rip Torn, what’s the point?
• Bluesky Facts and Opinions — A helpful rundown of known facts about the currently invite-only competitor to Tumblr and Mastodon. (TL;DR: Right now, it’s not that interesting. Maybe someday.)
• People Aren’t Buying McDonald’s Fries Because The Economy Sucks — Also, their fries have sucked for years now.
• Roots of Pacha just became my favorite Stardew Valley-alike