Highly embarrassed

Sunday, 20 November 2022

Haven’t been back to this site in well over a year. I remember HATING the “block” system, and no one reads anymore, video has triumphed.

After a few minutes I recall why I hate(d) the block system. When it comes to tech no one can leave anything well enough alone.

I’m highly embarrassed at the quality of output here but more so at all the time I’ve wasted elsewhere, even in the face of imminent catastrophe(s).

Unlike most “artists” I hope I’m forgotten, and my wish will be granted.

My cats are double-digit aged. They are all I love. When they die I’ll reassess whether to go on living.

They’re okay for now. I’ve been better.

Wuck Fordpress

Sunday, 19 September 2021

In the old days, I could type text into Wordpad, cut-n-paste it to the body of a post here, highlight it, embolden it or otherwise edit as needed and post.

Now there’s this fucking block system which makes what I just described doing impossible.

Whomever came up with this: fuck you and fuck off. You took something simple which worked and made it overly complicated to justify your paycheck. It’s all coming back to me why I hate this site.

Snake Eyes 2021 (film review)

Sunday, 19 September 2021

TL;DR Standard action thriller, only not thrilling and overly long. Grade: D

Snake Eyes IS G.I.Joe. Among fans he’s the first character they associcate with the franchise. He’s a badass ninja (commando) steeped in mystery (never speaks, is possibly hideously scarred.) His enemy/blood brother Storm Shadow is also a ninja working for EEBIL Cobra, but so popular they had him become a good guy for a time.

On to the movie: I appreciate they tried to tell a story with few gimmicks, aimed at the 80s audience, but it fails, mainly because the story’s internal logic is skewed. Also, you feel every minute of its two hour length, not good.

The guy playing Snake Eyes is just OK. Not the actor’s fault, but the movie ‘s Snake Eyes is one-dimensional and lacks the mystery and tragedy of the character, who deserved way better. Even worse, this Snake Eyes isn’t a hero and his stupid actions triggered tragedies which got a lot of people needlessly killed. By the end you feel bad for Storm Shadow, who gets fucked over.

They should’ve made the movie about Storm Shadow, since then we’d have some idea what the hell is the point of a modern ninja clan in present day Japan. Their existence is never explained. They seem pretty damned wealthy. What do they do for money? Do they work for the highest bidder? Who else knows they exist? How often do they recruit outsiders? The clan appears to be aware of Cobra’s existence as well as G.I. Joe’s, but doesn’t fight Cobra as a clan. They (have to) have a loose-leaf affiliation with the Joes for story reasons. (Scarlett is in this movie as a desexualized unstoppable Dollar Store version of Black Widow. Cobra’s Baroness also makes an appearance and is sort-of sexy, for a “terrorist.”)

One of the minor points and characters pissed me off the most. The ninja clan is led by an old Japanese woman we’ll call Granny Ninja (Granninja?) When the ninja clan’s castle is attacked, I assumed Granny would be killed and this would be the turning point of the movie. NOPE! In my foolish hopes for a good story, I forgot that all women in movies are now indestructable Mary Sues. Granny doesn’t die, but instead kicks ass. Because she survives, she’s around to screw Storm Shadow out of his inherited birthright to lead the clan over what can be construed as a technicality, one which would’ve saved many lives Granny’s in-place defense plans couldn’t.

Overall the action in Snake Eyes 2021 is ‘meh’ and never decides if it’s shooting for semi-realism or full-blown 80s ninja magic. For the story it told it didn’t have to be two hours long; there are other interesting characters whose backstories are never explored despite this long-ass run time.

I never expected Snake Eyes 2021 to be a masterpiece, but wasn’t expecting an incompetent, badly-written first draft of a film which made the hero an asshole. Fuck it.

I already said it

Thursday, 29 April 2021

No idea WTF turdpress is trying to accomplish with “blocks.” What I do know is getting rid of the blocks removes your text and you can’t CTRL-Z it back.

Programmers have to keep making shit up to keep their gigs, I guess.

Fucking blocks FUCK. YOU.

I have to type everything out in Notepad and hope it transfers. (It does, but with the fucking blocks.) So now I have to waste time selecting B for Bold one line at a time.

None of this is the thing I already said from the title.

What I’d already said I said last year: turdpress is spamming the hell out of my email to get me to buy my domain name. Why would I when the page can be shut down over any post some cockbiter finds offensive?

Would you buy a car that could be remotely shut down for the same reason? Or do business with a bank that freezes your accounts for insulting a senile election-stealing dictator?

Not today, turdpress. Probably not ever.

You won’t know until you die…

Wednesday, 7 October 2020

…how often you were shown mercy by the gods.

Swimming in the complex’s pool without another human around my thoughts settled on the girls of my high school. Most of the day in most of the classes there was at least one that set my heart ablaze.

Most of them never knew.

It was probably better that nothing ever happened, since your fucking brain shuts down around the object of your desire.

K, the girl in drama was tight, with the 80s ziggurat of brown hair, perfect nose, sparkling eyes, milk-white skin. Cheerleader. Good actor. But I rembered something today, the time a roach was captured in the auditorium and she picked it up by its antennae, laughing as it struggled. As repulsive and expendable as roaches are, the sight of this cruelty sickened me. What kind of person–let alone a girl–does that? In a hotel room I told her I loved her and I’m glad she thought it was a joke.

M was the other drama class girl. Brown hair sometimes scorched a painful-looking bleach blonde, alluring eyes, tight body. I wasn’t trying to get with her as I did not believe on a conscious level such a thing was possible, but there came a day she said, “When I want to die I want to die sexy.” For some reason she had dressed conservatively that day, in a knee-length pink business skirt. She had her back to a post and raised her foot, sliding it up the post until her thigh was showing. Then she said, “I know you love me.” I wasn’t trying, and so smiled sheepishly and walked away. I was friendly with her after that but never her ‘friend’ (never “friends” with any girl) and I still didn’t try. She was a HS freshmen that year and I was a sophomore, and this pussy senior who thought I was with her suddenly seemed very happy to learn the truth and the two of them hooked up on a school dramafag trip. I was sitting on the hotel bed in a fellow dude’s room when he said, “You might not want to sit there, that’s where M’s and Ray’s fuck juices were.”

When I was a senior and M a junior, she did not show up the last day of school. I didn’t think this had anything to do with me but I was disappointed. I’d never gotten her number and would never see her again, until years later, by raw chance I passed her in a public library. I was on my way out and she on the way in and I’d passed her so fast I had no idea if she’d known it was me. I was in line to check out when I turned around and 30 feet away there she was, looking at me. I can’t imagine the look on my face but it was unkind. Over my remaining two years I’d heard awful sexual things about her to the point that liking her in any capacity made me feel like a fucking rube even though nothing ever happened between us. She registered my sour anger, turned and disappeared around the corner. She never appeared on farcebook or anywhere else online, for which I’m grateful. There’s a marriage license for her on file in the city records.

There were minor crushes too. S was a sexy blonde with tanned legs and a ziggurat of blonde 80s hair. She liked me but again, when you don’t believe something is possible you don’t act on it. I wrote stories for my entertainment about fingering her in the back of the class. (No one but me ever read them.) I saw S years later while working a humiliating (to me) job. I felt she recognized me but neither of us said anything. Had she not been wearing a wedding band I wouldn’t have said or done anything differently.

T was a big-legged girl with huge anime eyes and long, striking brown hair. Once or twice I left a poem on her desk before Psych class (her desk was all the way across the room.) She looked over at me one day after reading an ‘anonymous’ poem and smiled in a “You’re Sweet” way, certainly not an invite. I was too fucking scared to talk to her but she did seem a tad vapid and empty-headed. Through the grapevine I heard another girl had seen the poem and asked who wrote it. T answered, “I think it’s that guy who wears all-black.”

Back to the major crushes. H was the absolute worst. During my senior year she appeared as a transfer student. She had an 80s ziggurat of frizzy hair brindled tawny and gray and enormous breasts, probably 44Ds. I was greatly relieved when high school ended because she’d mentioned moving to New York, so while I was sad I felt better knowing I’d never see her again, except I saw her one day at junior kollij. I don’t even want to talk about this one, I made every possible mistake there was to make when dealing with wammen. I found her on facebook. She married some taller dude and now her 20-something daughter has the amazing breasts, albeit not as ginormous.

Looking back as I floated in the too-cold pool today I offered up a non-denominational Thank You to the universe for what amounts to an act of mercy: any one of these girls would’ve destroyed me. My severe (but normal for any teen) mental illness which felt like a spear pointing at my throat was really a shield. What I thought was frightened loneliness was really solid, fearless aloneness.

I have never, ever needed a woman to feel whole, only to feel hole.

One more for the road. For a high school dramafag, there was always the miniscule chance some girl might like you, even though you’re appearing on stage as someone else. I did get a taste of what it must be like for hot girls who feel stalked. There was this little thing, an almost midget-sized girl named TS, who when she saw me acted like I was the star in a boy band. She would’ve been a solid option, and very likely easy to bed, even for me, but I wasn’t impressed with her, I was horrified by her (undeserved) enthusiasm and fangirl excitement. Thankfully I had very little contact with her as she was two years behind.

I sometimes wonder what happened to TS, her last name was rather common and if she married, that would’ve been that. I haven’t been on classmates.com (under a fake name) in 10 years, probably never again.

I’m grateful these events all took place years before intarwebs and cellphones. I’m grateful there are no electronic records of these interactions (except for this.) I’m happy to be the only human who remembers they ever happened.

Man I hate this

Saturday, 3 October 2020

I used to think writing was the one thing that I could never be paid not to do.

What a joke.

I would be quite content being paid even 50K a year to never write again.

There ain’t nothin’ to say to nobody, nohow.

Sometimes writing can find something inside but most of the time your thoughts are flashes of light off a tinfoil brain.

Words are tedious but it’s all we have that’s cheap and easy, except they’re neither.

What I’ve learned is the cure for how shitty you’re feeling now is making it another 5 years. You look back–provided you made it through OK–and realize everything you felt someone already felt before and it was nothing special. You think, ‘Okay at twenty everyone is, confused, awkward, vulgar, punished by biology, ignorant of the wider plot and lacking societal importance and gravitas. At 30 you’re supposed to be at the pinnacle of youth and health, some make it and some don’t. At 40 you’re probably supposed to have children half your age; unless you have the trappings of wealth or continuing good (enough) looks society is through with you.

At 50 they really leave you alone. You can die undisturbed.

I’ve got 5 novels and a dozen stories up on blocks. Seeing the totality of these labors I feel like a dipshit trying to drain an ocean with a shot glass.

There are plenty of souls with worse fates than mine but fuck them. I envy those with better fates: comfortable money, visible abs, a gift of gab rather than dick jokes.

You can beg God to alleviate your pain or wash away your sins but if you ask Him to kill your procrastination, He procrastinates.

Now I gotta shit, shower, climb into bed and watch youtube vids until the hammer of sleep drops. After fancifully complaining I feel slightly better. NSA computers and the tech giants read all of our websites. You’re never alone.

You know what you need to do but you’re not doing it

Friday, 2 October 2020

You know what you need to do.

Not the necessary, everyday shit.

The shit you want to do, the shit you were born for.

The shit you think will make you happy. Feel alive.

It might, but you don’t do it.

Hell, you’re reading some blog you found, a blog post with no tags.

(Still, you found it.)

Paraphrase of Tolkien: A job never started takes the longest to finish.

The worst part of this hell is you have no idea why you won’t take action.

The hardest part is always getting started…the few times you did start you realized the process was enjoyable for however long you did it.

But then you stopped, which means having to start again.

You’re old enough to know better and still lack discipline, but let’s not pretend the opposing forces are easy to beat.

The intarwebs is aptly named. It is a spider’s web and your attention is the fly. The web’s spectacle is limitless. It ‘thinks’ faster than you. It is always ready for whatever mood you’re in with a recipe, song, poem, quote, video, cat pic, games, porn…and connecting with others online.

It’s an addiction, the worst of them all, because it’s kustom-made for you by you.

Time doesn’t care. You’re older and will be older still.

You just don’t want to do what will make you feel accomplished–what you really love—if you could just…get…started.

You don’t understand why you won’t, except to say you almost never feel like starting doing the thing you feel you were born to do.

You are always putting off your destiny until tomorrow.

Can any hell be worse?

The intnerntnet is over

Thursday, 1 October 2020

Turdpress keeps pushing, via email, to buy a domain, but the intnerntnet is no longer a place for free speech, and hasn’t been for years. Why spend time and money building a website when it can be dry-erased in minutes by the Hate Police? They want you to put all your cyber-eggs in one basket, linking your tweeter, farcebook, youtube, etc. This will make it very easy for them to unperson you in one fell swoop.

I come back here after many wise months away to find Turdpress has shifted the formatting and everything else around again, adding new features, etc. But there is no guarantee your work will be here the next time you log on. They take your money and if they don’t like your politics or POV you’re out on your ass, No Refunds.

I don’t trust this site or any others anymore. Commit what they consider wrongthink and you’re erased. It’s like this everywhere and worsening. Most major news sites have eliminated comment sections; the remaining few are heavily monitored for “hate speech.” In increasingly common cases, crowdfunding sites will shut down campaigns and now banks and credit card companies are joining the act, unpersoning whoever they deem unpopular.

It all just fucking sucks so much.

People ruin everything. Why would the net escape the same fate?

Jeopardy!—We’re All Stars Now, in the GOAT Show

Saturday, 18 January 2020

The Jeopardy! folks fucked up.  Why in the hell would they run the GOAT show on another channel?  I had no idea it was on and missed all but the last 10 minutes of the first episode.  Caught the middle ep but not the last (final?) one, now saved on the box and waiting for Sunday.  I have my suspicions about who won.  You could be a dick and spoil it in the comments but there’d no payoff for you as I don’t care. 

I happened to be an avid watcher during Ken Jennings’ 2004 run.  Everyone was amazed and thrilled with the winning streak, less so, I think, with Ken himself.  A friend told me he saw an interview where Jennings referred to himself as a “genius,” and that was the end of Jennings for me.  (There are two things in life you cannot seriously call yourself, a genius and an old soul.)

Nothing much happened Jeopardy!wise until Holzhauer.  He, too, was thrilling.  At first.  Soon I became a ‘Holzhauer hater,’ not of him in real life but as his game show “character,” starting with his dubious claim of a career in sports betting.  I didn’t care for that weird non-smile of his either. 

As Holzhauer’s wins grew I suspected he was cheating, damned if I knew how.  It would be extremely unlikely but not impossible.  Maybe he makes it on his own for a week when a disgruntled clue writer makes him an offer: “Give me half your winnings and I’ll give you the categories/answers in advance.”  Maybe two of the buzzers aka signaling devices are rigged to misfire every 3 clicks.  Absurd?  Stranger things have happened.   

What is Jeopardy! really?  A memory recall game of factual data based on speed. Finally I admitted “Jeopardy James” (I hate that title) wasn’t cheating and was what he appeared to be: well-studied and able to accurately recall information faster than his opponents.  He seemed to have mastered the signaling device early on and his strategy of huge bets and sweeping the bottom row obviously worked.  He also got another advantage that had nothing to do with skill.  I could be imagining this, but didn’t regular shows have a long-assed pause for Teen Week or something?  That may have broken Holzhauer’s rhythm but given him plenty more time to study. Towards the end of his run I savored every answer he missed, especially the few he missed but I got.

Gradually I began to hate Holzhauer’s opponents almost as much as him. Even after the long Teen break, new contestants still seemed oblivious to whom they were going up against.  Their only hope was to rob His Smirkness of the Daily Doubles.  It was an evening of cathartic joy when that very thing happened and he was finally taken out by a one-hit-wonder woman, same as Jennings had.

I underestimated Holzahauer’s effect on the game itself, I thought he’d changed it forever, like the Fosbury flop changed the high jump.  But no, bozos still waste time reading the entire titles of categories instead of one key word.  They still don’t sweep the bottom row, even in categories they might be strong; rarely do they go big on bets except in dire straits.

I haven’t much to say about Rutter as I never heard of him or saw him compete before last year’s Tournament of Champions Group Orgy or whatever TF it was called.  Rutter won the most Jeopardy! money ever you say? Ha. That wasn’t going to save him during the GOAT show, and from what little I saw it did not. Still, I found myself rooting for Rutter, because he was the least unlikable.  Probably he’s  as arrogant as the other two, just able to hide it better. Being the least nerdy/most handsome of the GOATS I understand he parlayed his winnings into a career in Hollowood but have never seen him in anything else. Of the one and one-eighth shows I watched he was losing badly.

So did Jennings win? Last I saw he’d won two games to Holzy’s one and Rutter’s none.

I would be a smidge happier if Jennings won.  But not really.  

 

 

..

Saturday, 18 January 2020